no boys allowed in the room!!!!

Ha, Eddie Redmayne is one my mother's top crushes.

Also, you might appreciate that he used to model Rowan knitting patterns.

Hmm. He's not for me but A++ King of Jupiter at such a young age, clearly a rising star.

Also, you might appreciate that he used to model Rowan knitting patterns.

― tokyo rosemary, Wednesday, February 18, 2015 1:43 PM (14 minutes ago)

VERY MUCH YES
LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS GIS AS AN AFTER-WORK TREAT

Don't fancy him much, but I like his clothes and I especially like his RINGS; I seem to be going through a phase of being attracted to excessive rings.

I'm trying to draw the annoying, horrible, bannable Mr D upthread, but I think I have well overdone it with his kiss-curl and especially his mascara. Like, I know he wears a lot of mascara, but I've drawn him wearing too too tooooo much mascara (runs in the dark).

But really, decadent space king is really the way forward, I think.

Where did I go wrong with my life that I am not currently, at this very moment, a Decadent Space King? Boo.

Yes to "we are all capable of bad things, immersed as we are in a culture which makes some bad things seem natural and/or not immediately obviously bad, but we are all also capable of examining ourselves and trying not to do bad things" rather than "doing bad things is for Bad People and I am not a Bad Person therefore I couldn't possibly have done a bad thing and (you/entire section of society) are being mean and possibly Bad Person if you suggest I might have" also. And yes, I need to get better at this too.

I think I noted on ILX before that, even though I blame myself for a lot of things which are realistically nothing to do with me, if I do something bad or if random-inconvenience happens to me my brain does immediately go into stampy-feet wasn't-me that-other-person-did-something mode (e.g. not "I walked into a puddle and got wet feet because I wasn't looking where I was going" but "I walked into a puddle and I wouldn't have if that bike hadn't gone past me thirty seconds ago and made me move across slightly! cyclist is very bad person how dare cyclists even exist!!1" etc). This is just one facet of that but I should do less of it in general.

(I am getting further and further from the point.)

No mine does that too, it's really bad. I've worked on it a lot and consider it part of my having (finally) started becoming an adult (by my own measure).

I blame myself for a lot of things which are realistically nothing to do with me

It helps to stop accepting any responsibility for the things in the above category, I think? Frees you up to take resp for actual puddles.

I'm glad it's not just me!

Hmm, maybe you're right. I hadn't really looked at it that way round. Worth a try...

Working for someone who/in an environment that treated us like children was also encouraging me to behave like one emotionally, I discovered. I believed in theory that you should be able to be straightforward and honest about your mistakes, but in practice when you might get blamed for 100 other things it was too painful to add the ones you really meant.

in orbit, I'm really feeling that at school. There are lots of things there that are no-one's responsibility and sometimes people disagree about who should do something, and therefore who should be blamed for it not getting done. That doesn't help.

I find it really hard to deal with people who do admit a mistake but don't bother apologizing, even more so than if they hadn't admitted responsibility in the first place (lol Brit) and am trying to let that go. Sometimes I even practice doing that myself. Feels weird. 'Yeah, I forgot to do that'. *tumbleweeds in place of apology*

I've been reading this Big Book Of Stoic Philosophy the past week or two, and though I was hoping (from my memories of reading Seneca and Marcus Aurelius in high school Latin) it would be all EMOTIONS ARE BAD AND HERE'S HOW NOT TO HAVE THEM EVER AGAIN it wasn't like that at all.

It's more like dividing the world up into "things which are under your direct control and for which you are responsible" and "things that are out of your control" and cultivating different attitudes towards the latter.

And they're very big on the concept of "Indifference" and how things that are not under your control are indifferent to you. To which I was feeling very "but wait, no, some of the things that are not under your control I am most definitely NOT indifferent to, they are annoying or a nuisance or outright terrible" but then it was like, OK, wait, no, but the *events* are indifferent to me. The puddle is not splashing *at* me. It's a puddle; it's indifferent to humans. It splashes, that's what it does. I can take steps to avoid stepping in the puddle; or I can step in the puddle and accept that I'm wet, and it does not mean that puddles or cyclist or the universe hates me and are out to get me, because all of those things are indifferent to me, nor does it mean that I have to apologise for being an idiot and stepping in puddles. Puddles are just a thing that happen, not an obstacle the gods have placed in my path to try me or prove my idiocy.

I still think that apologising after one has really screwed up is still a good idea. But that really depends on intentionality. Like, if the mistake was under your control, apologise for it, and resolve to try harder not to do it next time. But if it really as just a random glitch that you are not responsible for, there's really no point in apologising for machine error or system error. (Though it's a mark of respect to apologise to people. You can choose who you show respect to, and why.)

But we're probably talking about a dozen different things all at once here.

This is a sign of how much I have internalised bullshit: that no matter how jokingly or how lightly I talk about philosophy of any kind on ILX, or y'know, life in general, I cringe in expectation of A Man jumping out of the woodwork and shouting at me how I'm RONG about some thing or other in it.

I really wish I could un-internalise that jumping shouting man.

Yeah, I'll apologise 99% of the time and it's nearly always the right thing to do. But today, for instance, someone pointed out that I forgot to schedule someone for some work. Well, 1. the reason I forgot is that our current scheduling system is ridiculously complicated and the person who reminded me today is the very person who insisted upon that, and 2. somehow I have evolved into the general lab HR person, which was never supposed to be the deal. So I'm treating my own forgetfulness a bit like 'system error'.

OK so this is embarrassing to even admit but I don't know what else to do. One of my oldest friends is pregnant and I'm feeling all sorts of very strange feelings about it! I am, of course, ridiculously happy for her. There's also a huge element of surprise. She's been dating this person for less than a year and is already four months pregnant. They won't live together until a month before the baby is due. She's thrilled and I know this is something that she's always wanted so I really am pleased for her but I can't stop thinking about it and it's also making me very very sad, a little bit angry, and a bit like a loser. I know it shouldn't make me feel any of these things but it is and I hate it and I want it to stop. The thing is, I do want kids and I do hope to have them (or at least one) some day. I don't know. I'm just sad about a lot of things and this news is making me feel so many emotions and I wish it wasn't because I feel like a complete asshole.

Also, the whole things is even stranger for me because I have very few close friends who have kids so I still can't get over the OMG there's a baby inside you part and I think that's a bit strange for her because she's always been around kids (she's a teacher) and has tons of friends who have multiple kids. Then I think about those people (who I know but not well) and think about the fact that they have like six and seven year olds which seems so responsible and adult and different from my reality and it makes me feel even worse. Yes, I know this is all dumb and I hate so much that I'm feeling this way.

Oh I feel bad about posting that. Life is complicated and I live in a frozen hellscape and now have a two hour commute so I'm feeling all the feelings etc. blergh.

jealousy is a perfectly normal emotion. you can care about your friend and still be envious of her

No, I know it is but it still doesn't feel great.

Weirdly enough I think I'm more jealous that her family is being supportive then of the actual having a baby thing. like I said, complicated.

jealousy never feels great.

well, no, it doesn't

I needed a lot of therapy support when I was trying unsuccessfully to get pregnant (and even before we were trying and I just wanted to get started) and people I knew got pregnant. Because yeah, it felt terrible and I wanted to be happy for my friends! I don't remember what specifically worked. Maybe just talking about it in a safe place? But mostly just sarahell OTM, and I have been there, and you're not a bad person for feeling that way.

i don't mean to be flippant -- i've just been there a lot of times -- most recently, someone who i used to be really good friends with but who moved away about 5 years ago, messaged me and asked about one of my bff's music and raved about how awesome she was (he had never met her), and part of me was glad that my bff was getting appreciated for something that she works really hard at, but part of me was jealous that he wasn't messaging me about how awesome my band is

in situations like this, it helps me to remind myself that what i am feeling is totally normal, and that i am not a monster

Yeah, I talked to my therapist about it a little bit last week and will again tonight. I honestly wouldn't have expected it to have this much of a negative impact on me. I think some of that has to do with how I'm feeling in general right now (not great!) and the circumstances etc. Thanks though, it does help to know that others have felt this way. I actually spoke to another friend last night who also does not have any kids yet but might like to in the future and she told me that when she found out her little sister was pregnant she dealt with profound sadness. I think I'll try to call her again tomorrow.

when she found out her little sister was pregnant she dealt with profound sadness.

Been there.

aw, Erica, i'm sorry things have been not great for you lately! i don't have any really good advice but i have definitely been in the place where i have been sad/jealous/other negative emotion about a friend's good fortune, and i agree with carl and sarahell. you have to just feel it--at least you're also capable of being happy for her! recently a person i went to graduate school with got an amazing academic job and posted about it on facebook and i don't even want an academic job anymore, but it stung a little. it's human.

this is not at all dumb. it's totally understandable & valid to feel that way, much as it sucks.

i get super complicated feelings about similar stuff--my life feels stuck. when others have big life events, the contrast freaks me out at times. when found out my sis was pregnant, i acted happy for her, hung up the phone, and sobbed....lost. my. shit.

I don't even want kids! but i can feel like such a fuckup sometimes next to others' responsible and adult(ish) lives.

>jealous that her family is being supportive

omfg so v relatable, that.

xps i'm slow. it's human--otm

awww thanks so much guys this is helpful! I have to run but will write more later.

HS - hi, you! Thank you but it's not anything very serious. It's just the middle of winter and everything is grey and cold and there is TOO MUCH SNOW and none of our trains work and I'm pretty sure winter is making most people here feel terrible right now.

your winter is totally crazy this year; that would be reason enough all by itself! <3 <3 <3 someday May will come!

oh E, I have had those feelings, and I'm past the age when I'm going to have kids of my own. Recently someone in the lab had a baby, and, in contrast to your situation, it was someone I very much disliked. I couldn't even be happy for her to balance things out. I also feel very sad recently that my parents' grandkids aren't my kids, they're my stepsister's, and that draws them much closer to her than to me. (I did admittedly choose to move to Canada...)

amen
may will come!!

feeling this but sarahell's right -- we're not monsters Weirdly enough I think I'm more jealous that her family is being supportive

cosigning that it's not dumb, be kind to yourself and let yourself feel those feelings

I was never really sure if I wanted kids but during my epic meltdown-over-ILX breakup I totally burst into tears on my walk home through a park seeing all the kids and parents around the play area and getting all "that will (probably) never be me"

I caught up with some old friends that I mostly lost touch with recently and some of them brought babies/toddlers along. I expected to be totally sad about how much they'd all moved on omg kids and careers, but actually I was more hit in the gut by how everyone was exactly the same except a little balder and older-faced and almost like 15 years hadn't even happened. the kids mostly just reminded me that I don't get how to be around kids, they make me uneasy (also everyone who was there got sick the next week and all the kid-free attendees blamed the kids, ha)

but despite acknowledging that unease I still get the pangs sometimes and I don't know if it's "I really want(ed) kids" or "feels like a milestone I missed and I should at least have some other life plan but I don't" or "never actually wanted but internalised every time my mother told me my aunt and uncle didn't have kids because they were weird/selfish/socially inept/too self-important in their careers as academic geniuses* to waste time on humans etc"

* which I certainly am not, university dropout here, an extra level of angst to catching up with former university friends

also everyone who was there got sick the next week and all the kid-free attendees blamed the kids

I'm generally the first to jump to the defense of children but in this case? It was TOTALLY the kids. Adorable little germ bombs, they are.

i don't get pangs or anything about kids, but marriage/weddings ... my weakness.

ehh it's bad enough you have to deal with the shitty complicated envy feelings, don't do yourself more damage by beating yourself up over it. you'll get used to the idea of your friends pregnancy and the feelings will sting a lot less very soon.

i get those pangs too, even though i know having kids isn't right for me; i always wanted a very idealized family of my own, to make up for what i lacked growing up. i realized that that was not a good reason to have kids, and that the reality of having children just isn't something i'm capable of dealing with.

so yeah, there's still a sting of negativity when i see my friends' happy family pics.

eh Branwell going way back but you mentioned the stoics
I liked this book as a general overview of that kind of worldview, modern & old, western & non
The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking
dumb self helpy title but I liked it as an overview & a breezy light read

feeling envious of other people's babies, lives, etc is ok
all feelings are ok 2 feel
i cried for a couple days after both my younger sibs had babies
jealousy, confused for not fitting into their perfect role
I don't want to be in their place & I'm happy where I am
it was like barfing after bad food, though, just some reaction that happened
holding it in would've made me explode

my goal lately is talk before or when I get to 80% explodey
so I never totally explode

I don't want to be in their place & I'm happy where I am
it was like barfing after bad food, though, just some reaction that happened

very accurate even though i don't have siblings
any barf-related metaphor is one i'm likely to understand because i will puke at the slightest provocation

But it's really thinking about the various ways that men perform 'anti-sexism' or 'feminism' and how eye-rolly it can be. But this idea of evaluating people who say they're 'allies' not on what they say, but on what they do. Evaluating them not on what they say or perform about Women and Feminist Topics, but on how they treat actual women, especially ones who disagree with them. This will tell you a million times more than all the posturing on all the threads saying all the Things.

I've been trying to move beyond the endless cycle of outrage and rage - because it's so wearing and exhausting - and accomplishes little. But one aspect of that is noticing how many men use "lookit that terrible sexist over there! that man is bad!" as a way of distancing themselves from Sexism. That (bad man) is sexist. Not "we all exist in a constant background tide of sexism, in which I am myself complicit and carried along by." The actions of the Bad Man can be a convenient stand-in for repositories of bad feelings and exorcising them, rather than a call to action to examine how they may be swimming in the same current without realising it.

― Branwell with an N, Wednesday, February 18, 2015 4:24 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i am very very very much feeling this today. an activist dude in my circle who seems to be constantly attempting to sow discontent among women, who uses women's labor and steals credit, etc. i want to confront him with what i've noticed about him, challenge him to reflect and change if he really believes what he gives lip service to.

is there something stopping you from laying out the facts about his counterproductive behavior and asking him to make xyz changes? (not a flippant question, just wondering)

I'm not going to speak for Roxy but I think many of us have had encounters with the Right-On Dude and the seemingly inevitable shitstorm when you suggest that his actions might be somewhere beneath his lofty conception of himself as "A Good Guy." Like, it's true, you are in a way fundamentally undermining his preconception of himself. (With the resulting shitstorm of "how dare you impugn my credentials" and "stop being divisive" and "you're the real problem here")

Does anyone have a method that actually works? Because I sure as hell keep doing the wrong thing.

Crabbit, is that book by Oliver Burkeman? I liked his Guardian column but I'm not sure I could take a whole book of him. But that is the thing: I mean, you know my beef with mindless positivism.

But that's what I like about the Stoics: they fully admit, lots of shitty things happen. Accepting that and sometimes trying to think about the outcomes of shitty things and how you would handle them better is a good exercise

I'm also kind of relieved about letting go of the idea of being "A Good Person" - like, there is no such thing as a good person. (A relief because I have been a terrible person fairly often.) One can choose to act in accordance with "virtue" (I am going to end up learning Greek to understand these terms better.) If one doesn't, one learns from the mistake.

I guess that's a way to think about the Right-On Dudes who talk a feminist talk but act in ways that are harmful to individual women? I have no idea how to express it to them without that "how dare you, a mere, simple woman CALL OUT me, the Great Feminist Man!" But you can usually tell actual feminist men from the way they handle that.

like, there is no such thing as a good person.

I disagree ... not that I believe my definition of "a good person" is universal or that there should be a universal definition ... but having that idea to aspire to is important to me existentially.

Well there are people who act well, and people whose actions are good, and people whose intentions are good? But "good people"? People are inherently ambivalent, capable of both good and evil. It is the actions that matter. No one just sits in their room being holy all day.

Thinking more on my above post: a think a proper Stoic response would be to say nothing. You cannot change other people, you can only change your views of them and your responses to them. You can certainly withdraw your assent of your agreement from their behaviour. But if they choose to privilege their belief in themselves as "A Good Feminist" over actually treating women like human beings, that's their bag. I'm obviously not a good Stoic as I have trouble not putting my 2 cents in.

On that note, I will shut up, as cavilling does nothing.

Well there are people who act well, and people whose actions are good, and people whose intentions are good? But "good people"? People are inherently ambivalent, capable of both good and evil. It is the actions that matter. No one just sits in their room being holy all day.

i think that is what makes a good person, good, to act well even though they are ambivalent and capable of acting badly. And few people act "good" all the time. Anyway, this is more of a morals and religion discussion that is odd having here

Ugh, I typed out a reply and lost wifi connection.

Yeah I think that we're talking at cross purposes?

Perhaps this is a holdover from Protestantism: the idea that there are Inherently Good people, which, holds within it the idea that there must also be Inherently Bad people. Letting go of the idea of (Inherently) Good People means that I can also let go of the idea of Inherently Bad people. This is twofold: first, letting go of the terror that *I* might just be "A Bad Person". (I often think I use ILX as an instrument of self harm in this way: a whole selection of people very vocal and willing to tell me to my face what a Terrible Person I am! Thus confirming that view.) But also it might lead to me trying to learn more compassion towards other people? They're not "Bad People" either, just consistently making choices that seem right to them, but are deleterious to me or others?

I don't want to go too far down the "Choices" road because Structure always affects the choices that are *available* but it's a new way of thinking for me.

Apologies if this is an inappropriate place to have had this conversation. Apologies if this is something that everyone else learned in Sixth Form and I'm a simpleton for not thinking about it that way. I guess I was absent that day.

I was really looking forward to being off the pill because I dunno seemed like it would be nice or at least no much more of a bother. RONG.

Apparently, off the pill my period will kick in oh say every two weeks? Which is particularly inconvenient when you are on overseas vacation thinking you are so fine, you have a big cushion of time until next period, and then WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK and it is so crazy heavy to boot (thanks a lot, fucking fibroids!). But what has brought me to tears (along with having a terrible cold with fever and chills and tubercular cough) is I am in TURKEY and JUST YOU TRY AND FIND A TAMPON IN TURKEY. YOU CANNOT. So poor spouse trekked in snow and ice (yeah, weather didn't work out so great for this part of the vacation) to the only shop he could find open. He asked "what do I look for" and I'm like "the heaviest ones!!!" So he brought back a selection, all of which have the max number of droplet symbols (five) filled in and something that looks kind of like "max" in turkish, in contrast to three droplets and something that looks like "normal" in turkish, and goddamn if the max are oh just above long pantyliner duty.

TURKISH WOMEN: WHAT IS YOUR SECRET TO HAIR, MENSTRUATION?

Anyway thanking u for rant space and also any ideas about what I should do about this sitch other than see my GYN, which I will. I have a feeling she'll be like options are a) deal with it, b) back on pill (I'm forty one years old! Started on the pill in my 20s! Give me a break), or c) some sort of interventional approach like fibroid shaving.

Just fucking take the thing out already. All of it. Please. Has been of no use to me since day one, only causes me troubles.

I'll shop around for that BOGO deal we discussed earlier.

I'm sorry you're dealing with that. It sounds fucking brutal. :(

thank you, carl.

Actually I am wrong that no good has come of being *off* the pill--I used to get really awful hormonally-triggered migraines when the estrogen went bye-bye. But my GYN helped me get that under control by taking a wee bit of premarin on days 24-28.

I'm sure she'll help me with this too. My two cents for anyone looking for a GYN is that it is helpful to have someone who does *only* GYN, not OB. The frees him/her up to be really focused on not preggos and their periods and menopause and such.

I have just been delivered hot soup and a xanax from my favorite person in the universe, so all will be better shortly :)