no boys allowed in the room!!!!

sounds ok but invasive if doctors aren't already in there doing something else (like pulling out a baby)? safer, quicker, and easier for yr dude to just get a vasectomy

Way way way true. It's an out-patient procedure and MUCH safer than the female options, and I know bcp is a lot better than it was 30 yrs ago, say, but messing with hormones that affect a person's whole body and brain over DECADES is still a bigger deal than one stupid little physical change.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/119090/30-rock-james-franco-on-30-rock#s-p1-sr-i1

your hand feels like a pillow that's been in the microwave.

try to look like you just got drilled. you know the deal.

ok has anyone ever read this? is it stupid and self-helpy or is it good?
http://www.phantasmaphile.com/images/2007/04/08/034540987601_sclzzzzzzz_ss500_.jpg

what i want: interesting myths
what i don't want: finding your inner alpha female

Ha, I just said this on the Chicago thread, but I owned it for a long time and never read it. I think it is inner alpha female, like Starhawk type shit.

i think my mom tried to buy it for me when it came out, when i was in high school. i think i probably needed it more then than i would now.

I read it in college, Amanda, but a LOT of it made no sense to me then. Recollection is hazy but I suspect Jenny is right about inner blah blah blah.

I read it when it first came out - I remember enjoying the Jungian archtype myth parts of it somewhat, but my lingering impression after almost 20 years is that it was over the top and irritatingly new-agey in other parts.

Hi, btw - I've been reading this thread off and on but hadn't jumped in before.

Hi!

Hello, friend!

The psychics at the hotline where I used to work were all pretty into that book, too, if that helps any.

I think WWRWTW was my first foray into er wimmen's issues/feminist anything so it was like picking the wrong software package to learn a new language (since that book was pretty much off the deep end). Did not comprehend.

Got that as a gift from a family friend when it first came out but never read it. It just seemed too new agey to me, I think.

The psychics at the hotline where I used to work were all pretty into that book, too, if that helps any.

― she is writing about love (Jenny)

omg i want to hear more about this!

yeah, that's what i thought too. i just wondered if maybe i had been wrong all these years and it was just an exploration of women in myth, etc.

i guess my initial suspicion that if that were so, it wouldn't have been such a bestseller is probably accurate. sorry to underestimate the general book buying public, but...i didn't even trust them when i was in high school.

i also thought that clarissa pinkola testes would be a stoopid punny username :-/
i call this my weird al problem.

oh yeah jenny, storytime

In 1996, I lived in Boulder, CO (natch) and got a job as a customer service representative at a small, independently owned psychic hotline. I was eventually promoted to customer service manager. They did a reading on me to determine whether I was a good fit for the position. I worked there a little more than a year, and quit when I moved back to DE to get away from The Worst Boyfriend Ever. Shortly after I left, then sold out to a bigtime 900 line.

what kind of customer service issues arise when dealing with psychics? how do you diffuse an angry customer whose reading had not come true? or was it mostly billing?

Well, as a self-proclaimed "ethical psychic line," matching the customer up with an appropriate reader was very important. We had 12 or maybe 16 readers working for us, but they worked regular shifts. They specialized in different areas, too. So while everybody was adept at relationships, we had a couple who were good with pets, some who were good with careers, one who was good with real estate. Plus they had different reading styles - some were very sweet, some were no-nonsense, some were practical, etc. etc. They used different tools, too (Tarot, scrying, runes, just being psychic). So how it worked is a customer would call a toll-free number and the CSR would tell the customer who was on duty and what their specialties/styles/methods were. We could recommend a particular reader or patch the customer through to the reader of his or her choice. If the customer bought 20 minutes or more of phone time, they had five no-cost minutes to figure out if they didn't like the reader and then they'd come back to the CSR and we'd try again or just refund the money.

We also kept a database of regular customers and tracked who they read with and how much money they spent. We had spending caps! And time limits on 900 line calls! I mean, the spending caps were high enough to get somebody into some trouble, but not high enough to put somebody into bankruptcy.

I don't think I ever had to deal with a customer whose reading did not come true, but I did have to put a woman through to a suicide hotline when one of our readers told her that her cat was going to die and she called back in a bad way saying that she was going to kill herself. Eeeeeeeee. She got put on the "No Calls" list, meaning that we would not accept her business anymore. This was for the protection of the psychics, who could be psychically harmed by a particular kind of crazy.

Which isn't to say that people's readings always came true, just that most people were placated by the personal attention and money back deal that they didn't make a fuss if a reader was inaccurate. Also, it is easy enough to explain that away by saying that there just wasn't a good connection, or that the customer knowing what was going to happen changed the outcome, etc. etc.

Oh as a CSR, I got free readings from all of the staff psychics so I could better explain to customers how they worked.

that sounds infinitely more awesome than when i worked in a call center :(

did you ever learn anything awesome from one of your readings?

Sometimes it was awesome. Sometimes it was ridiculous, such as when the psychics attempted to solve a computer problem by sending sexual energy into the computers. Sometimes it was kind of awful, like when one of the Head Psychics cornered a friend and coworker and told her all the ways that she was ruining her own life through her negativity and bringing sickness onto herself. Blech.

I also got to take free Tarot reading classes, so between that and waiting tables, I always have a career to fall back on.

There's one thing that one of my favorite readers told me once that I always liked, which is that my luck rolls out in front of me like a red carpet, wherever I go.

no thanks i don't like ranking things

i liked Fat Girl (Catherine Breillat, 2001)

did not like Maria Full of Grace (Joshua Marston, 2004, Colombia/USA)

hope this helps

no offense omar little i really like you but i don't see a point in doing that :-/

i haven't seen enough of them
(i liked Fat Girl too. breillat is so interesting & sometimes really awful, i have the impression she is basically a philosopher and just decided to do film instead of writing essays.)

haven't seen enough of them either. my viewing has really slowed down the past few years and even before then most of what i watched was pre-2000 ˘\(o_º)/˘

no one over there is voting for claire denis? wtf is wrong with you guys (ok i guess in the 00s i've only seen 'trouble everyday' O_O and 'vendredi soir' which was pretty minor)

breillat its like.. if she just wrote essays would seem to me totally within normal boundaries of french theory world, but on film can get really out-there (watched one not long ago just because i like asia argento, even though she sort of stomps through every role the same way whether it is set in the 18th century or not). i kind of admire that she is not afraid to do what she wants, even when it is very very ridiculous. also i know there are all these asian horror takashi miike fanboys out there & i think it would be LOL to get them all to watch some breillat. hey guys, here is some extreme cinema for u! enjoy yourself!

i think fat girl is the only breillat i have seen

Witnesses, The

^ this one sucked btw

loved La Ciénaga (Lucrecia Martel, 2001, Argentina)

ha ok i actually tried. without voting for every one i've seen (some were bad and some i remember nothing about) i only got to 18. sorry, omar.

Hey, I think it's really great that you are recruiting more ILX women to vote in your movie poll. I will vote if I can think of 40 recent movies that I saw in the last ten years, much less liked.

(I don't even know who Claire Denis is, so maybe I am not qualified to vote in this, however.)

gtfo, dudes

i don't want to struggle to think of 40 recent movies i have seen and actually enjoyed and would be willing to rep for. instead i have this picture of a badass himalayan goat

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_b8FcJhoI1to/R8JlcPMimrI/AAAAAAAAAAs/JgCw6eozJqE/s320/asiaMarkhor.jpg

that goat is amazing.

he is called the markhor, and only 2000-4000 of them still exist! here's a fact sheet
http://www.ultimateungulate.com/Artiodactyla/Capra_falconeri.html

what a fucking awesome goat

Breillat's first movie reminds of a John Waters movie without the sense of humor. And Mort Shuman wrote the songs!! And Shirley Stoler's in it!

harbl, you should watch 36 Fillette because in the beginning of the movie, the girl is knitting on circulars and complaining about her project.

omg that goat!!

i should see 36 fillette. i need to get netflix again.

reposted from ILS dresses thread:

women be shoppin sale alert: 70% off sale at modcloth, i got 4 pretty nice dresses for work for $60 total. lots of sizes available.

― figgy pudding (La Lechera), Wednesday, January 20, 2010 10:00 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

thank you! i bought a cute red/white plaid summer dress for $15

i saw that one! i had to control myself and only get stuff i could wear to work. ok that's a lie, i got ONE cute summer dress (the b/w polka dots sheath dress)

it's really hard to control myself when so many cute dresses are $15.

i know, i wanted to go crazy - there were a bunch of dresses AND coats/jackets i would have bought. but having just spent close to $300 on a wedding dress, i wasn't really feeling good about spending more money on clothes :/

fwiw that is a very reasonable amt to spend on a wedding dress! (although i realize that empirically it is a lot of money for one one-day garment)

yeah i guess, but it ~feels~ extravagant! but it's the kind of dress that i can hem and dye and get a ton of wear out of, so i try to remind myself of that every time i start getting that sick feeling.

http://clutchmagonline.com/newsgossipinfo/11-things-your-man-does-not-need-to-know/