If you wish the relationship was still going on, and it isn't, because your happiness is dependent on the wishes of one other person, who doesn't want you to be happy - that's pretty depressing. The alternative is to be glad the relationship is no longer going on.
I found that going through a period of intense hatred for my ex was a necessary step in moving on. I'm not much given to hating people I know (abstract theoretical people are easy to hate), so it took some time to get there but it was totally worth it. Now I'm back to respectful mild hostility, which is where things will likely stay for a while.
There's that folk-wisdom or whatever about depression being anger directed inward. So it seems only healthy to direct it outward instead.
Also, I was just cogitating about a recent depression and the struggle to to forgive an ex-friend (or the non-romantic sort) when this headline popped up on my screen. It's as if God himself were trying to guide me on a better path.
Speaking only for myself, I've not found hatred to be a necessary ingredient (I suspect that would only have complicated the co-parenting situation). However, it's certainly easier to be angry than depressed because at least you get some energy from it.
If people were good parents partners there would be no breakups.
3
I was just cogitating about a recent depression and the struggle to to forgive an ex-friend (or the non-romantic sort) when this headline popped up on my screen. It's as if God himself were trying to guide me on a better path.
Or Heebie.
Yes, yes, yes, though I think Apo's caveat is the right one to make.
I really needed a good therapeutic whupping in order to take my own side in that particular argument. Not that I'm a doormat so much as I'm a pathological optimist -- I try to keep it out of my politics, but I have a pretty strong will not to judge other people and not to think that anything happening to me is all that bad. It's helpful on a day-to-day basis but left me pretty unmoored when my first marriage crumbled. Accepting that my ex was being a dick to me and getting angry about it was really helpful. Thrilling, even.
A friend and I recently had a "Boy, people sure are funny!" conversation about the tendency to puff oneself up in the presence of an ex-. "Oh me? I'm happier and more successful than ever!" And how that behavior looks so ridiculous to a third-party observer, but we all do it. (Or, at least, he and I have both done it.)
I find this research unconvincing, or at least the conclusion is much stronger than the data warrants.
People that hate their exes may have had particularly hateful exes. They may be less likely to be depressed because getting out a relationship with a hateful person isn't so bad -- they may feel that their life has improved without this hateful person in it.
People that don't hate their exes may have had exes that were decent, pleasant people. Breaking up with a nice person may make your life seem worse.
I just got the reference in the post's title* and now I can't get the song out of my head.
*And I will not make the obvious point about my mental acuity for fear of burdening you all.
11.2: Don't worry about us; we'll survive.
7: Ah. Whoops. Clearly I'm just displaying my carelessness for all Unfogged to see. (And I've done that before.) I'll try to watch that.
Dammit, now I'm being too self-deprecating!
Huh. I just clicked through on the link itself and was reminded of a study I participated in as an undergrad. Students in Psych 101 had to participate in something like ten hours of being research volunteers (fodder for grad students, basically). One appealing study was a Dating Study, which offered a lush six hours of credit for simply responding to one weekly e-mail regarding (1) whether you were still in the relationship and (2) how things were going.
It all seemed really weird, but as chance would have it, the psych student (a complete stranger at the time) who did my initial intake interview and approved me for the study later ended up marrying my best friend. She later explained to me that the whole point of the Dating Study was a sham. What they really wanted was a Break-up Study, but you can't exactly advertise for that, so they cultivated a pool of undergrads involved in relationships, all the while just waiting for those relationships to end, so they could start the real study.
I vaguely remember declining the post-break-up invitation to participate in the Break-up Study, but learning the full story left me feeling pretty grumpy about the whole thing for some reason.
Isn't the structure of basically every psych study, especially the ones done on undergrads (so basically every), that you tell the participants you're studying one thing while you're actually studying something else?
19: I think so. I think what burned me a bit, was not being de-briefed which I understood to be a standard ethical practice. One of the other ones I did ostensibly had me reacting to color images on a screen before moving on to the real study, which was my supposed debriefing by a minority of the opposite sex. What they were really on about was measuring how far I pushed back the seat during the interview (a little bit!), and they subsequently explained the whole thing, which was fine.
18: Even worse, since they had everybody's e-mails, they sent incriminating messages to everybody in the study.
Reverse causality - maybe people who are more depressive to begin with are less likely to get angry at their exes.
22: Stanley? Milgram? Coincidence? Oh-ho-ho!
Yes, yes, yes to 10.
Going through this now. Replacing good memories of nice people that you miss with bittersweet feelings and the knowledge that they don't like you too much right now is not real pleasant. Anger would be nice, but not possible.
I once did a study where we told undergraduates we were testing their reaction to colored images on a screen. The undergrads were debriefed by minorities of the opposite sex who thought that we were testing how far the undergrads pushed back their seats. The debriefers were hired by a lab manager who thought she we were testing how squicked-off minority members got when we hired them in a study like this. The lab manager supervised the research coordinator and thought we were testing how uncomfortable the research coordinator was when trying to explain the study to the debriefers. The principal investigator thought we were testing how quickly the research coordinator would turn sadistic by sending only Black Panther affiliates for job interviews with the lab manager.
(Of course, the real purpose of the study was to see just how weird things had to get before the IRB used the phrase "mind-fuck" in an official document.)
I'll add a fourth "yes" to 10.
There's a big difference between (i) feeling anger (but being unaware of it) (ii) feeling anger (and being aware of it) and (iii) expressing anger to the world at large. I'd say that (ii) is good, generally. I'd also say that, generally, (i) and (iii) are bad. The combination of (i) and (iii) together is especially lethal.
On the question of anger being positive, I'm a bit turned off on the idea, but I've been inundated with news about the Huguely/Love case of late.
The purpose of the Sol 3 study is to see how humans act in the presence of other humans.
19: Seems like it would have to be, or else you would have a slate full of subjects trying really hard not to think about elephants, or what have you.
Makes a fellow wonder about experiment design and how much of it must be flawed, since even at best, from the moment you agree to participate in a psych study, your behavior is probably influenced by the awareness that notes are being taken. Even if you're not completely sure what about. Such doubts are one reason I'm not especially interested in experimental psych, come to think of it.
It's backwards. If you hate your ex, then breaking up was probably your ex's fault, or else you wouldn't be so mad. Conversely then, if you don't hate your ex then breaking up must have been your own fault, in which case there's clearly something wrong with you. Now if there's something wrong with you then you're more likely to be depressed than if not.
Reverse causality - maybe people who are more depressive to begin with are less likely to get angry at their exes.
Definitely true for me. I'm such an expert at turning anger against myself I can't hold a grudge against anyone I've been involved with.
29 -- Stanley's link is great, and contains this amazing email from a purported lacrosse teamate of Huguely:
My Mom asked me the same thing. I told her I did not get it. There is tons of Hoo Pumpers everywhere, especially this season. I never saw him without some chick, so I don't get that part. He was a big clamper I heard though, if he didn't have something cookin. It was not like he could not **** anyone he wanted. He was always like .. Give and Go Bro, everytime I saw him and I had a date. Tell me if you don't know the lingo but I think you might. I heard ya got skills.
I really wish I knew that nobody knew what was going on with him. We woulda pulled that scared straight shit on him. Like his version, shop at target instead of Abercrombie for the rest of his life no beach houses. That mighta been harsh of me to say before now. We just hate what he did to his girl, and our last year. I worked my ass off, we all did, and it should have been our thing to remember. Instead, it is fu***** lockdown.
I, for one, am 100% willing to believe that this email comes from a real UVA lacrosse player.
Also, this:
We are all obsessed about our last year in the game. Everyone parties like rock stars because half of us have more money than rock stars. Well, our parents do.
What was the name of that DC message board? Late Night Shots or something? Wanna bet that kid is posting there in a year or two?
36: Presumably, he's already an active poster here.
Perhaps I am too bourgeois sexist privilieged racist classist gullible immature, but I don't think it is very healthy for a man to hate a woman, though I cannot speak to the health or not of the reverse.
I saw an ex-girlfriend this past weekend, and the experience was at once very pleasant and enormously painful, perhaps most sharply captured when she finished one of my sentences.
Wow, the dialect in 34 is just barely and partially comprehensible for me.
40: Me, too.
We woulda pulled that scared straight shit on him. Like his version, shop at target instead of Abercrombie for the rest of his life no beach houses.
Is this how he imagines prison life or am I misunderstanding?
40: Same here. "Clamper"? "Give and go, Bro"?
39: I feel as if I should take issue with the gendered aspect of this -- it's what I do around here -- but I'm not sure what to do with it.
I get over breakups by imagining a really bad novel written about the relationship until the badness of this non-existent novel cheers me enough to be glad the relationship is over. The hate doesn't come for years.
42.2: Flippanter notes he is only speaking to what he has experienced directly, so it is only gendered in the sense that it allows that the female experience of a heterosexual relationship may be different from the male experience of it.
44: He's speaking about what's healthy for men generally. Given that he's not 'men generally' any more than any other individual person is, he's not speaking solely about what he's experienced directly.
Still, not hating people is probably a good thing, so I'm not really carping about anything except the generalization, and the added implication that it's healthy for men to hate men.
45: I was really hoping for a set-up that would work with "that's what she said."
There's a setup that doesn't work with "that's what she said"?
44: True, but I do think there's something there, gender-wise. It's perhaps more acceptable for a woman to hold contempt for an ex-boyfriend than vice versa, which itself sounds suspiciously patriarchical. "Men can't hate women; women are fragile! Women, on the other hand? They're so emotional! Can anyone blame them for their inability to rein in their unbridled contempt for the men they've dated?!"
I get over breakups by imagining a really bad novel written about the relationship until the badness of this non-existent novel cheers me enough to be glad the relationship is over
It cheers you up because you are glad not to be in such a bad novel anymore? Or does it cheer you up that such a bad novel doesn't actually exist?
44, 45: Can I really be the only one who has heard enough "Man, I hate that bitch" talk to last me until the end of time?
I see where flippanter is coming from. Ingrained misogyny is a bigger problem in our culture than general hatred of people.
Also, if you want to cure yourself of hating on an ex-wife, check out the douchebags in men's rights groups, and try to be as unlike them as possible.
50: Sometimes, the bitch really did set him up.
There's a setup that doesn't work with "that's what she said"?
That's what she said.
I guess that makes at least one.
50: That's exactly what I was thinking about. There's a certain class of guy who brings all their misogyny to their bitter divorce and custody battle and then carries that forward into a lifelong complaint against how easy women have it in family court. It is really ugly.
But you don't have to tell people you hate her. You could hate her quietly. For years.
50, 51, 55: I get what you're saying now, and it's perfectly reasonable and decent. I'm still driven to quibble at the phrasing: if you accept that it's ever right for anyone to hate anyone, sometimes those circumstances are going to apply to a man hating a woman.
57: Sweat lodges are more uncomfortable than ugly, really.
Further to 58: Like, say, when they keep on nitpicking every goddamn blog comment you leave.
if you accept that it's ever right for anyone to hate anyone, sometimes those circumstances are going to apply to a man hating a woman.
For example, I hate Michele Bachmann.
59: I had a brief fling with a backpacker passing through Samoa who informed me that "The Red Hot Chili Peppers are shamans, man!" and that he'd figured this out in a Cherokee sweat lodge in Honolulu. I wanted to ask what the Cherokee sweat lodge was doing in Honolulu, but didn't.
58: For the record, I am in favor of universal love and beneficence, following the examples of Christ, the Buddha and the Superman.
62: The ones Andrew Jackson was really mad at.
Comments 15-17 are more or less fair. They should really do a follow up study of people who are more naturally inclined toward depression than anger and the therapeutic benefits of a community willing to direct anger against the ex on the sad saps behalf.
Still, anger is IME much more pleasant than depression.
Further to 65: Or those Jackson wasn't so mad at. It depends on whether you consider the distance traveled or the niceness of the destination.
Sometimes, the bitch really did set him up the bomb.
68: All your bitch are belong to us.
Pretty good obscure indie about a divorced man working through misogyny and hatred of his child, with Anthony Hopkins giving a courageously repellent performance. Directed by Mike Newell. Broadbent, Callow, Whalley, Fry supporting.
I HATE...not you.
Uh-oh. Megan's here. My relentless amazingness won't allow me to admit that I am still in love with every wonderful woman who dumped me, and most of those who didn't know I existed.
In my-ay-ay-yyyyyy life.....
10 is probably basically true. But you can salvage this by saying all things being equal, it's probably easier if you can get angry at your ex rather than pine after them
There's a pretty good tradition of blues music lamenting the particulars of broken love which manage to by and large avoid politics or general misogyny or misandry.
I Asked for Water is a good one, Howlin Wolf explaining what's wrong with some gal. Billie Holliday's Don't Explain goes the other direction. Arguably, Buddy Guy's "When my Left Eye Jumps" is a bad response to a bad situation, but it's pretty vague. Leadbelly famously explained to a bunch of college kids that it was wrong to kill women.
Not blues, but "You keep me hangin on" is a lament about that could be about cruelty or about indifference, we never find out.
check out the douchebags in men's rights groups, and try to be as unlike them as possible.
Certainly, men's rights groups do not have a stranglehold on aholeness in the arena of custody dispute issues. There are also numerous aholes in the "women should always get custody" movements. Both groups are incredibly boneheaded.
49: Composing it in my head lets me think back through all the things I enjoyed about the relationship, and what I'll miss, but it inevitably leads to the point of the novel where it should have been clear that the relationship was doomed, which any reader would have known. And instead of feeling bad about how stupid I was to have stayed, and how angry I am about the turn events took, I can go, man this book is shitty, and get bored thinking about it.
78: It's about achieving detachment, right?
I do that kind of thing too, but I guess some people think it isn't healthy to be that detached from yourself.
77: This one seems even more appropriate.
[A]ll things being equal, it's probably easier if you can get angry at your ex rather than pine after them....
But then where would your country music come from?
A problematic little kernel of modern life hides in this exchange: to wit, if one followed the advice about lost love propounded by the popular arts (movies, television, other things that educated people talk about because they cannot be confident that even other educated people have read any particular book, much less retain anything about it) and the various improving social efforts (anti-racism, anti-sexism, anti-classism, Star Trek, etc., etc., etc.), one would never produce an awful lot of very valuable art. And trash, of course.
I suppose there is a larger irony that could be pointed out, arguing that the egalitarian movements have done more to shape the average citizen to brute, imbecilic labor unto death than centuries of oppressive feudalism, in the name of liberating the worker from the gossamer shackles of obsolete desire.
79.2: Yeah, I'm in therapy. But hatred is really stressful for me.
81.last: Flip, your expectations really are bit high if you hope for a girlfriend to finish a sentence like that for you.
Brute imbeciles unite! You have nothing to lose but your gossamer shackles!
I see that emdash beat me to the appropriate SMBC, and that others have picked up the xkcd torch.
For me, it's more like watching some movie that turns out to be awful and realizing there was something good on another channel that I totally missed.
But, yeah, sustained hatred is too exhausting.
84: [Adds to list of "Things to pine for futilely."]
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BTW, weren't there some "Lebron is obviously a better player than Kobe" people around here?
BWAHAHAHAHA.
>
OT: Hey, the blog's streak continues! I have cancer. Small, harmless skin cancer, but cancer nonetheless. Surprisingly weird hearing that.
I sense still more sunscreen and big dumb looking hats in my future.
Oooh. I don't like to hear that. I like to hear the part about harmless, but I don't like the part about cancer. Get that fixed soonest, OK?
If Unfogged is anywhere near the top of your list of places to troll about LeBron James having a bad game, you're doing it wrong.
Harmless, like "we'll just zap that with a laser and it will be like it was never there" harmless? [/hopeful voice]
I don't comment anywhere but here anymore, and what's the fun of trolling strangers? Although maybe I could find SCMT over at Yglesias.
My grandmother used to get those little skin cancers (carcinomas). They just zap them or whatever. Not a big deal. Nothing like a melanoma.
I'm not sure what the plan is -- I suspect the dermo goes after it with a melon baller. I had a funny looking mole looked at, got a sharp intake of breath and "That is a funny looking mole" from the dermo, she sliced it off and sent to the lab, and now she wants me back in the office for further action. But it's basal cell, which is the no big deal type of cancer.
And I'm just as happy to have that mole gone -- while I have a whole lot of them, which mostly don't bother me, this one was annoying.
There's a pretty good tradition of blues music lamenting the particulars of broken love which manage to by and large avoid politics or general misogyny or misandry.
Best breakup song: "Give me back my wig, honey, let your head go bald..."
Glad to hear they're lopping it off (have lopped it off?). My mother routinely has bits of things frozen off her face. I recently had some rosacea on my cheek. To all of this I say -- fucking Irish!
Also, Teo? Responding to a medical situation mentioned by a woman of a certain age with "That used to happen to my grandmother all the time"? Cold, dude. Cold.
Yikes, LB! I know those are not a big deal as such things go, but scary! I'm glad you noticed it.
88, put to music:
I ain't sayin' you treated me unkind
You coulda done better but I don't mind
You just kinda wasted my precious time
But don't think twice, it's all right
On refresh: Oh no, LB. Hope the treatment is fast and easy.
Responding to a medical situation mentioned by a woman of a certain age with "That used to happen to my grandmother all the time"?
Well, I mean, it did.
101: Yeah, this really isn't a functioning skin tone anyplace with less than 320 days a year of cloud cover. Thank heavens Buck tans, and both of the kids got some melanin from him.
My mom had a melanoma when she was about LB's age. Now that was a big deal.
LB, you havent joined Apo, oudemia, and my group yet. So you are not of a certain age yet. Sorry oudemia.
This is, of course, really no big deal. I just wanted to say "I have cancer" someplace where I didn't have to worry about RL people freaking out too hard.
109: It's ok. You've been telling everyone I'm 40 since I was 38. I'm used to it.
110: As long as you still have most of your major organs....
But yuck anyway, and very glad it was the no big deal kind.
Sorry about that, LB, but glad to hear it's the harmless kind.
Piling on hopes for speedy recovery, LB. eekbeat's mom had a pretty serious skin cancer thing on her nose (they removed, uh, part of nose and replaced it with part of the ear, which, to me, sounded pretty intense). She's doing quite well now.
I echo the fast-and-easy-treatment wishes. Sorry to hear that, LB.
Get better, dude. Glad to hear that it's harmless.
107: That's my skin tone also. Get better. (And I'll take this as a reminder to get my physical. Doc checked all my moles last time.)
May all go well. Also, the melon baller crack was funny.
My grandmother (sorry!) used to joke that she had so many sking bits taken off that the result was a mild facelift every year. She lived in Colombia and Texas and Saudi Arabia, though.
I'm guessing the doc said "IT'S MOLE!" upon diagnosis.
Damn, LB. Glad to hear they caught it at the harmless & removable stage.
You probably should have waited a little longer to tell us it was harmless, though--at least until after you'd been to the French Laundry. But since you let the cat out of the bag, I'd say you're looking at maybe some Applebee's coupons, tops.
We could take up a collection to send you to a nice restaurant.
123: Making French Laundry jokes? Perhaps they are a *very* quick study.
Yeah, MAE goes way back. Upon his recent return, he received the standard "MAE!" from a few of us, and he'll be happy with that much, darn it.
(On preview: pwnofilo.)
I go back at least this far. But you can never have too many fruit baskets.
I think everybody should chip in to buy LB new bike pedals.
Doesn't MAE go back way far in the blogosphere in general?
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I am about to download Portal to my macintosh, here. Goodbye, unfogged.
|>
LB, I hope it's a quick and straightforward procedure.
This:
I had a funny looking mole looked at
I've begun to wonder what counts as "funny looking."
130: What does this mean? Is it a space/time portal?! Have you left Blume a note??
134: You can have it. I'm calling dibs on their well-appointed liquor cabinet.
I am about to download Portal to my macintosh, here. Goodbye, unfogged.
Good to know that somebody is getting out of the Matrix. As for me, I'm going to continue enjoying eating my imaginary steak.
131: I think the rule of thumb is irregular border/shape or color.
Tweety gets to be Steve Jobs for 15 minutes and then is dropped alongside the 128 beltway.
137: I thought there was also something about it changing shape. I get more and more of these things as time goes on -- I think we all do. Hrm, well, I should probably ask my doc next time I see her, rather than guessing.
I've begun to wonder what counts as "funny looking."
Know your ABCs!
Asymmetry
Borders (irregular)
Color (varied)
Diameter (bigger than pencil eraser)
Enlargement
Is h-g really talking about a mole?
Sorry, LB. I got something on the back of my hand, an open sore that won't heal. but it is smaller than an eraser. Probably a bite that I keep picking.
(Continued) good luck, elbee.
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Because I know she has admirers around here, I wanted to report that one of my daughters got a thank-you note from Ursula Le Guin today, responding to a fan letter she'd written (and which, ahem, daddy hand-delivered last week). She's a lovely person with lovely handwriting, and she closed, "Your Friend,..." Your Friend! From Ursula Le Guin! So great.
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142: it might be stigmata! Check with a priest right away.
Back to the OP: since everyone was agreeing with 10 upthread, I figured I'd look at the actual linked post.
The study looked at "65 undergraduates who had recently broken up with someone whom they had been dating for more than four months"? This is a very specific demographic, it seems to me. Why is four months chosen as a marker? Four months is, like, nothing. These seem like young daters to me, not particularly serious-relationship participants whose responses generalize in any meaningful manner. As peep more or less said in 10, though for different reasons.
It's actually kind of easy to 'hate' someone you've only been dating for 6 months.
Clearly I'm just catching up to the thoughts expressed in the thread -- but I was working today!
142: Bob, if you really have something that won't heal, you should really have it looked at. A cancer's a cancer no matter how small.
143.last: Yeah, I hear LeGuin is wonderful. Your daughter must be thrilled. That's really cool.
Have a thorough recovery, LB!
Hope it's nothing nasty, Bob!
146: A cancer's a cancer no matter how small.
This should totally be a children's book!
Little Basal C Carcinoma gets bullied by big mean Glio Blastoma, but beats the odds and metastasizes, against all expectations! A real feel-good story.
big mean Glio Blastoma
Let me guess, he wears a wife-beater with stains from spaghetti sauce? You sicken me.
As another (fucking!) Irish person, I get regular skin checks from the dermatologist. I'm pretty sure the sheer number of blistering sunburns I got as a child makes it only a matter of time before the melon baller comes out, but so far, so good.
Also, I wrote a fan letter to Madeleine L'Engle in fourth grade or so, and getting the note she wrote back was just about the most exciting thing I could have imagined at the time. Encourage this kind of letter-writing, parents!
And Cockney Marty Mole--the 'Armless Cancer--starts out scary but ends up as your friend.
149: So it turns out that if you're bored and considering cranking out a sample of that children's book for the hell of it, and so you Google "a person's a person no matter how small" to get some more of the text, you get a lot of anti-abortion links along with the expected Seussiana. Perhaps unsurprising.
I had stripped myself bare, in the skin doctor's chair
I had placed my pale skin and its moles in her care
She was looking for cancer, and dangerous spots,
She was checking my moles, and my freckles and dots.
She was looking for omas, both carcin and mela,
And she said as she looked, "You're a fine-lookin fella --
Why don't you take care of this derma of yours?
If you don't, you'll have wrinkles, and crinkles, and worse.
Your face will look just like a raisin or prune.
You'll be lucky to get a date once a blue moon."
And then - what she found! what she found! what she found!
What she found made my head spin around and around!
She said, "This is cancer! We have to act quick!"
And oh but those words made me feel sick, sick, sick.
But she said "Don't you worry, don't have any fear,
I can do it with this melon baller right here.
I'll fix you up quickly, no trouble at all,
And the hole that I leave in your face will be small."
So she fixed me right up, and I left right as rain,
But I surely don't want to go through that again.
Also, I wrote a fan letter to Madeleine L'Engle in fourth grade or so
Hey, me too!
At first I was afraid. I was petrified. Heh. I find it hard to joke about teh cancer.
155: I look forward to the 'every sperm is sacred' version of Oh, the Places You'll Go!.
156: Nice.
159: (excerpt from the real one)
You won't lag behind, because you'll have the speed.
You'll pass the whole gang and you'll soon take the lead.
Wherever you fly, you'll be best of the best.
Wherever you go, you will top all the rest.
You've got no need to bow, you've got no need to beg,
And you'll beat all the worst to be first to the egg.
You're so strong and so fast and so smart and so sweet --
That's just part of what makes you the greatest gamete.
You're the star of all stars! You're a huge supernova!
You're the best of the sperm and the master of ova!
Mr. Blandings appears to be made of win.
Good luck with ending your surprise cancerous relationship there, LB!
m, gonna wash that cancer right outta yer hair
She was looking for omas, both carcin and mela,
More like nomas both carci and mela amirite
amirite
You are indeed, spoilsport.
noma noma (doot doo dee doo doo) noma noma (doot doo deet doo)
neb is town editor, that's all, in case anyone has publishing aspirations.
Mr. Blandings in fact was in error to write "carcin",
But thank God that the sharp-eyed Ben Snrub was parsin'.
And of course it's his job to say "No! Should be 'carci'."
As we all know from Standpipe's blog. Oh, or from Parsi.
Couldn't that just convert to the reversed actual name, which would still scan?
The first and fourth lines don't scan; why should the third?
I think I'm good except for "error" requiring elision, but I couldn't bring myself to write it as "err'r". Or do you say standPIPE?
Errr!
That Blandings! A capital fellow
Declaims his poesy with a bellow
But neb, being mean
Abrupt and quite lean
Would rather it blander, like Jell-o.
I vote that Blandings has to go to all the old poetry threads that are still unarchived and contribute. Or else.
There once was a poster named Stanley,
Who loved poems (but still was quite manly!)
Mr. Blandings said "Fine,
I will write a few lines,
And use 'Snrub' here on purpose to scan (see?)."
"snrub" is only one syllable, but it's extra long.
Snrub has always struck me as adequate and appropriate.
Late, but LB, glad you got checked out and glad that it's the NBD sort of cancer.
Mr. Blandings is clearly a genius and should not have kept his talent hidden for so long.
get better soon, LB, sorry to hear you had to have any form of cancer. and mr. blandings is, indeed, made of win.
Get well soon, LB. Concentrate on anything else, don't dwell on this.
Bob, get down to the doctor today. Your dogs expect it of you.
i'd concentrate on it. its not often you get to kick the ass of something as scary as cancer.
Oooh, now I want to see Mr. Blandings up against Natilop in an impromptu verse-off. It'd be Lion v. Orca all over again.
M/tch should be thrown in the ring with those two, as well. Showdown!
Good luck, LB! I hope all will be well.
I almost didn't recognize MAE, since he dropped his full name of My Alter Ego. Good to see you, and btw, you're totally right that there are people who don't care about one's family when making romantic decisions.
82: Is your new therapist okay?