no boys allowed in the room!!!!

BUT PETRI FISHES!

http://www.msc.org/where-to-buy/product-finder/cfpsproduct-6ACC1156-50C2-4752-945B-87662F1814DD/productImage_productpage

Sorry, gurls, I have to be serious again for a second.

Job interview today for an organisation I have a huge amount of respect for, working in a field I feel deeply, deeply, personally passionate about because: reasons, because: everything I believe in and hold dear, because: justice, equality and feminism.

BUT. But, but, but. It involves working every single day with deeply distressing, upsetting, and occasionally truly triggering shit. Good news: Do! Something! About! Said! Shit! Make a difference! Change lives! Change society! Put my ideals into action! But deep, deep worries about having the emotional strength and resilience to handle dealing with that stuff, every day, and having the boundary separation to leave it at work (I mean, I would not want to. I would want to live it and do something about it every second of every day. Which is impossible.) I worry about having the emotional distance from the topic to work in it.

I mean, I don't even know if I have a shot at the job, I don't know what they made of me and my interview and my chequered background.

But, but, but.

Damn, I have HAD. IT. with men who feel the need to tell me how I should feel and about what things. I have deeply, truly had it. I don't even have words any more to express how offensive I find that kind of thing, and how not-OK it is.

The next man who feels the need to inform me that I am 'angry' (because I am talking about gender issues or whatever), I am going to smile sweetly, assure him I'm not angry at all, and then calmly and cheerfully, preferably while singing jauntily, cut off his head with a plastic spork.

I think that should get the point across, right?

I am being SO REASONABLE AND CALM in discussions about street harassment on the internet today, I barely even recognize myself, but I fully support the spork project.

It's far, far easier for men to say things like "your anger is misplaced" than it is to say something like "your criticism is invalid" (when actually, your criticism is not invalid at all, they just don't like how they might be implicated in it). If you can reframe "criticism" (which is rational, and comes with the option that it may be applicable to them) as "anger" then it is much easier to evade, discredit and generally handwave away.

It's also tied up with another thing I've been thinking about - in terms of intent. The same people who insist things like "But I didn't meeeeaaaaaan to be ~offensive~" (therefore no harm could possibly have been done) and insist that their *intent* is sacroscant in their own statements - are often the very same people who project all kinds of emotions and intents onto the communications of women, e.g. the form of 'you're so angry!' (projecting anger as intention) instead of the (intended) message of 'you have criticism (that I do not like feeling implicated in).'

The intent of the speaker is of huge importance for them when speaking, especially when speaking to a marginalised person; but ~not so much~ when they are listening, especially when listening to a marginalised person. Like, which way is it, guys? Who gets to define 'intent'; speaker or listener? And why is it that the answer is so often 'the person on the up side of the privilege gradient' or, 'me'?

(This is not something I'm excepting myself from. This is something I have noticed in other people, but I am also examining in myself. I just find it interesting, and noteworthy.)

i just finished making my halloween costume!

i got on the elevator the other day after work and this guy looks at me and says "i don't think those shoes go with that suit"

i suppose he was trying to get my attention

i smiled and said "i know! they're so ugly!" and walked away

i was wearing nikes as commuter shoes, with slim trousers and a buttondown shirt and a blazer. it wasn't actually a proper suit.. and i looked quite well put together actually. the first thing he goes for is the put down. wtf!

"thanks! think yr face really goes with wall" [smashes his head into wall]

rude

Also I have just started saying 'rude' when people are rude to me

totally. i mean, i know how to dress. is it a gendered thing or am i crazy? people not even consciously realizing that they're doing it, but always acting like girls/women should be corrected in some way, told how to act, how to dress, how to do things, how to conform, etc. i'm quite certain he was trying to be friendly but if the first thing that pops into your head to say to me is a put down, nope, sorry. gotta go

i def have relatives who have a habit of trying to show friendliness through these mild teasing put downs and i just don't think it's actually me that's the problem for not appreciating being on the receiving end

I rarely get these types of comments from men, from anyone really. Not that I am "perfect" or that I believe my experience is "the norm" and yours isn't ... I just don't know.

Wearing trainers with work clothes seems to be something that particularly bothers some men: http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2007/jul/16/fashion.askhadley

lets all just let each other dress how we want to dress & fuck right off

Agreed. The person who criticizes my clothing gets a big NO stamp in my mental notebook.

I posted my first Craigslist ad (in the musicians section) today, surely not my last!

Good luck with the musical search, LL! Hope you find someone compatible & good to work with.

On the rest, jeez, wow! I can't even imagine how rude a stranger would have to be to comment on yr clothes like that, daria! Totally out of line! (even relatives who make those 'funny' negging comments, it's so unpleasant. I tell them they're being hurtful & ask them to stop.)

Today the weirdest thing happened - someone paid me a compliment! And it was casual and in passing but at the same time made me realise just how long it had been since the last time anyone did. I successfully resisted the urge to interrogate their motives or accuse them of lying and just said thanks and accepted it as a pleasant gesture from a friend. But compliments are still hard.

You deserve compliments!!

I played some basketball today and it felt pretty good! I was playing with a nice friend who didn't say anything mean and gave a lot of good tips. I got 4 shots in a row once and in my mind I was like 'should I start watching the WNBA?' Anyway, it was some cool low stakes fun! I am way fucked up about sports and fitness and I think I need to find more ways to leave that baggage behind.

I also did standup comedy for the first time at open mic! I had scoped other ppl doing it for a long time. Their sets were mostly about dating, social media, and drving – things people do a lot of. So I wrote a couple sets that were about different things, and I think I really stood out. That and I was one of 2 women, and the other was a woman STILL doing Lorena Bobbit jokes!

You did stand-up? Holy shit, Crabbits! That's terrifying! And amazing! Like, I have no fear of public speaking, but I can't imagine getting up and telling jokes for 10 minutes. That's got to take a lot of courage. What was it like to do? Did people laugh? Was it awkward? Awesome? I mean, I know you're really funny, but the whole set-up of stand-up is super intimidating to me. (On either side, TBH.)

Yeah my set was about a new blood alcohol testing system employing bats. It took people a while to warm up to it, but I had them lolling hard by the end. It felt good! The emcee just said, "That was strange," after my set. Fine by me.

I feel like some of the stage presence came from my day job of teaching, but not total xfer. People are not choosing to be at school; they are choosing to be at a comedy club. I think the hardest my kids ever laughed was at they way I pronounce the word "calculator" (not intentional NB)...that's just not gonna fly in a different context.

that's awesome crabbits! i can totally see how the skill set would transfer a little, but not entirely. wtg!!

yeah that is awesome

That does sound great!

Like, I often have trouble with kind of stand-up or situational comedy, but surreal humour is what makes me laugh like a drain. So bats-blood-alcohol-detectors sounds right up my street!

Are you gonna do it again, or was it a 'just to prove you could do it' thing?

Aw yeah, I'm gonna do it again! A lot of folks there said they got the most laughs the first time, and they've been "chasing the dragon" since. OTOH I sat in on this open mic a couple weeks before doing it and I would say it is 80% regulars doing the same jokes for the same 80% of people who heard them weeks on end before. Kinda weird! It seems like a good venue to practice ideas, tho.

I think my favorite other person was a guy who had brought a Bible and was making up fake scriptures from it. I told him I liked his set and he said, "I don' know how to talk to girls."

Ahahaha!

is there sthg wrong with the bookmarking on this thread?

I think a BOY posted (nothing horrible) and it got removed

I'm so tired of the bullshit condescension yall

With you, sister.

I actually had a serious discussion about this with my co-worker, who is in her late 60s. She has two teenage daughters, and was very adamant that they should stand up for themselves and not let sexism get in the way of doing what they want in life, whereas, for her, it was a much tougher battle. She was brought up with the "you go to college to get a husband" dictum. But she also said that professionally you need to choose your battles and look at the big picture. Don't argue or challenge every single time a man is condescending or assumes you are just a "glorified secretary," which is something I have trouble with.

If I argued or challenged every time a man did this I would literally not even have time to feed myself

Roxy, my friend, this is for you, to lookit when the sense of frustration and fatigue gets too much:

http://33.media.tumblr.com/319a182f29672062e57296db33364de3/tumblr_ne1axzdkKy1qeapd2o1_1280.jpg

You might want to be careful where you open it, though. It has quite strong, um... medicinal powers. (Also shirtlessness.)

Hahaha I love u

Who are those children?

Babby Blur!

(who were all older than I was when that pic was taken)

i feel better already

(who were all older than I was when that pic was taken)

Ha, me, too, and I was... 19? They seriously look like middle schoolers to me.

i recently rewatched starshaped and i was shocked to find i was no longer attracted to any of them in it because they now look 12 to me in that era, sigh

I dunno. Am I weird, because I experience this weird trick of memory, that when I look at photos that I remember from when I first saw them my brain, like, autocorrects to make observer-me feel like I am the same age as would be appropriate for my first viewing of that photo? It happens mostly with family photos, obviously. Like, I look at photos of myself, my brother and my cousins taken when we were all about 20, and my brain readjusts and recognises - we are all about the same age there. There's this double memory of me looking at us, going "wow, we looked so young" from the viewpoint of a 40-something looking at those photos. But I don't feel significantly older in a weird or awkward way from those people in that photo, they still feel like me and my cousins. (If anything, recent photos of my cousins as 40-somethings, with children, look weird as hell, because I have not seen them for over a decade and the ageing is suddenly apparent in a way that it is not, with people I have seen every day for ten years.)

I think because I saw Blur - or at least photographic representations of them - so frequently during that same period of my life (I'm not exaggerating that I saw photos of Blur every day between about 1992 and 1996 - I followed the music press exhaustively, I had posters of them on my wall etc etc etc) my brain does the same readjusting trick that it does with photos of my cousins. Observer me is the same age as the person that originally looked at those photos. So they don't look like children. In fact, Blur, *now*, as middle aged men, looking like potatoes, look shockingly wrong.

But it doesn't work with all bands - I was looking at photos of Duran Duran, for example, and I was 12 when I first started listening to them, and OMG, they were such grown ups in a grown up world. But I look at early photos of Duran Duran now, and holy shit, those are kids! How did my 13 year old self see them as adults and not as the adolescents they clearly were?

And I certainly look at bands who are in their early 20s now, and think "ugh, children, do not want". But 12 year old Blur? Bring 'em on.

one of the ads on my fb feed for some cloud-based payroll has an image of a woman doing "THE CLUTCH!"

the double clutch?

this is the vibe in all areas of my life right now

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Uj3zitETs4

so I wanna share some things I like to daydream when I am stressed

I like to daydream that I deliver fanciful flowers and other objects to Elton John in the 1970s
I daydream that I am having fun conversations about stuff I know a lot about or want to know a lot about
I remember the barn my neighbors had where I would climb into the attic and write stories and poems and comics all alone
I think about animals like otters, gibbons, parrots, enjoying one another
I try to remember every detail I can from a book I just read

how about you???

oh also I sometimes wickedly daydream about REALLY TELLING SOMEONE

I fantasize about having a lot of money and what I'd spend it on

I have less wholesome daydreams too

I have so many daydreams and I'm not sure I want to share them but man oh man do I have them. All the time!

"Day dream" is one of my favorite eerie/tender Strayhorn tunes <3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pSwmU13Reo

i used to daydream little fictions all the time, like ALL THE TIME, but when i started taking antidepressants the urge dropped off significantly. these days i miss the deep emotional resonance of a really good daydream, even though i recognize it was starting to become an avoidant behavior.

also <3 you telling people off, Crabbits!

i daydream a lot, like habitually I do it when I go to bed because it's sort of like telling myself a bedtime story & I just make up something that I want to do or think about a place I want to visit and start coloring it all in til I fall asleep

i sometimes dream about unexpectedly meeting [insert adored celeb crush] and having a long conversation with them
def daydream about REALLY TELLING SOMEONE
daydream about how I would decorate my Brady-Bunch-esque ranch home

and other things :D

man my mom just bought a 1970s style ranch house in North Dakota – it's got gold veined mirrors and red shag carpet on the den walls and everything
a wall with wooden shingles
she's going to redecorate of course >:C

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f86/igotabeefpastry/Untitled.jpg

freaking look at this

well, except, don't look at the ceiling

Omg
Dying