no boys allowed in the room!!!!

you to, carl! But I need addresses but not via ilx webmail why because mine goes to some long-dead e-mail addy. FB or other means of contact? Just get me your addy and I'm on it.

we all know mutual ppls somehow so should be workable

My ilx mail should still work.

mine should work too

I can be reached at carl agatha party at gmail.

carl I sent 2 u

you 2, sarahell

Awwwww <3

Tokyo as well! I don't want to overpromise, but it would be fun to send you each at least one lil thing because I've been meaning to a snail-mail effort for a while now!

i like mail and i like all of you a lot
sorry if that sounded unwelcoming upthread
my penpalship started as soon as i could write and carried on strong through my entire life -- i'm still a diligent email correspondent
maybe this is why i am tired -- the majority of my friendship life has been carried out in the written word
that's why i am tired of typing and writing and just want to talk

it's kind of sad really

xp quincie - sent you fb friend req so I can message you

I got your email quincie but send me your email address!

yknow what? not that anyone asked but i know that part of it is me. i am really stubbornly unwilling to let people get to know me, and i always have been.
these days, if you don't let people know who you are in a very public fashion, you are at a rather severe disadvantage in terms of friend-making. that has always been the case, but the stage feels so big now and i am so wary. i'm working on it and getting better, but it's not natural or easy for me.

anyway, thank you to anyone who has corresponded with me -- i'm not saying the correspondence was a chore, just that it feels so inadequate for my current level of need. i'm working on it.

No pressure girl but you're great and you should tell more people imo.

Just say, "I'm great! Let's be friends."

i wish it were that easy

but thank you!

You're great! Let's eat pho.

http://cdn.themetapicture.com/media/cool-shark-underwater-face.jpg

LL for YEARS I have admired and benefitted from your presence in my life "from a distance"; from a distance has been great and however else it manifests I am grateful for! /emo

^^^ this

Ll whenever i think of you i automatically hear luke perry saying "but buffy you're not like other girls" and i mean that in the raddest way possible

you inspire me constantly to mine my own individuality <3

from yr hands across the water 'friend'

thank you friends. it's generous of you to share that with me. honestly i pretty much feel fine about myself in isolation; it's the sharing of myself with others that i find difficult.
only child hates sharing, news at 11 lol :)

in other news, yesterday there was a full-faculty takedown of a machista comment one of my coworkers made and it was made clear by me and others that "all women like to ______" jokes are inappropriate in the classroom (and elsewhere, but we were talking about the classroom specifically)
felt good

awesome

http://consumerist.com/2010/08/30/summers-eve-to-ladies-if-you-want-a-raise-youd-better-douche-first/

omg that is for real?

i would love to be able to hear the meeting that released this advertisement into the world

Hi girls. Next time when I say "this scares me and seems like a really bad idea" don't encourage me; tell me to listen to that little voice, it's called my intuition and it's telling me things I need to hear.

do you feel like at least it takes less time to realize that little voice is right than when you were younger?

I don't know. I think I have got better at not "LOGIC!"-ing myself out of listening to it.

I have definitely got better at communicating "this isn't working for me". And realising that "I feel like this is not working for me" is a complete reason in itself, and does not need to be justified or over-explained or spiralled out into a giant emotion-ball of ~reasons~.

I would like to thank Captain Awkward and The Gift Of Fear, both of which were things that the people on this thread encouraged me to read, so thank you for that, beautiful thread!

I have definitely got better at communicating "this isn't working for me". And realising that "I feel like this is not working for me" is a complete reason in itself, and does not need to be justified or over-explained or spiralled out into a giant emotion-ball of ~reasons~.

Yes!!!! High five!

imo the most effective phrase is good old Bartleby's: "I would prefer not to." It confounds people & ends the conversation, just like in the story.

I love everything I've read from Captain Awkward and if I remembered to read it when not linked to from ILX and actually think about and work on the advice for all the many correspondents who remind me of myself, even or especially the tough love sections, I might be a better person.

(Not familiar with the Gift of Fear, shall check it out after I have descended down the Captain Awkward spiral for a little while.)

Sorry things did not work out for you BB but hooray for recognising it promptly and acting on that recognition.

It struck me today, with such force, while looking at the cover of the Guardian Magazine (I know, I know, it serves me right for reading that trash) and yet another pronouncement about what "Feminism" does or doesn't have to mean...

"Feminism" itself has become just one more impossible-to-attain ideal against which women are measured, found wanting, and castigated for failing to measure up to.

(I'm sure there's probably a Roxanne Gay essay that could have taught me this lesson far more succinctly.)

god, that hits hard :(

laksdjl;kajdkdkdkddddd Ivy is "day weaned" which means she only nurses in the morning and at night, and I have stopped pumping, and that little sneak peak of a period I had before was NOTHING and it is now back and Screaming for Vengeance and it is awful.

Is "I'm so done with this shit" enough of a reason to get a hysterectomy? Is 42 too old to go on that birth control where you don't get your period?

oh man ca I am sorry you are having period hell. I would totally donate my uterus like one would donate a kidney if that was a thing. But no one would want my uterus because it is stuffed with fibroids, which means periods sans BCP are sucky in the bleeding department. Like, soak-through-supers-overnight heavy. But only for about 24 hours and then it is not so bad, and the estrogen-drop migraines I had on the pill seem to have gone away, thankfully. But srsly if you can find a surgeon who would do 2-for-1 hysterectomies, sign me up.

If I had fibroids (or any medical reason) I'd be on the table for a hysterectomy before you could say "diva cup."

is the mirena IUD an option for you? it's def thinned out my period, and for a lot of women it eventually stops altogether or becomes just spotting.

off topic, but i really need to rage about something somewhere relatively safe: david pajo's suicide note to his ex wife that he blasted out on his blog, twitter and instagram is making me sick to my stomach with anger, ever since i read it last night. it's one of the most emotionally abusive, manipulative, calculating things i've ever read. idk what happened in their relationship, but no one deserves that kind of abuse (and he even admits to hitting her, in his letter).

Oh yeah, Mirena! I had one before and it stopped my period, which I didn't like (because I was young and stupid), but maybe that's the way to go now.

That's a great idea. I need to see the gyn anyway and now I have actual motivation to make an appointment.

Oof I just read (skimmed, because that's the best I could do) that note and just1n3 OTmfM.

David Pajo, men's rights hero. jesus.

I don't know that guy from adam but read the letter and dude is clearly a trainwreck and I'm sorry his wife and kids are sucked into said trainwreck.

i love(d) pajo and previously apologized for even reading the note, and i do feel bad that i did. but once you read it how can those things go unsaid? esp as someone who is a survivor of that kind of abuse, including suicidal threats and actions aimed at fucking up your lover's mind, i felt really compelled to comment on that, and am def being lambasted for it. lot of conflicting feelings.

same ^^ only i haven't commented
it happened to me twice

I would not feel bad about reading the note that he published on his public blog, other than to feel bad because I felt like I was caught up in his manipulations as well.

I like(d) pajo but I have so little patience for that kind of shit, even as I'm also incredibly sympathetic to people who are suicidal. Like I'm not one of those people who get angry at how "selfish" suicidal people are or whatever. I just get sad that the person was living in such pain. But there's a point where you're intentional inflicting that pain on people you love and that I have no sympathy for.

so yeah, conflicted, only less so.

I'm sorry you're catching shit for your opinions, rox. They are totally valid, and your experience is totally valid.

Whoah. I didn't know there was a thing that was going on (I hid ILM from sna). Just checked it out and I have no sympathy particles in my sympathy waist pouch at all.

There are times I wish it was possible to do, like, a mediated review of someone's terribleness and then give their victims permission to just stop caring about them. Go with God, my child--you are absolved. Guilt-free. Go be happy.

thanks guys, i'm glad i vented here.