I've never seen a woman's hair

??

It made me laugh.

ME

Lots of Orthodox women there.

I thought this term emerged in an era when women washed and set their hair only every few days, in a manner that involved significant pinning, curling, and whatnot. That would imply that allocating the heart of an evening to one's coiffure could be believable, if still a weak and transparent excuse in the context of a a proposed date.

I'm very sorry for you. Not seeing a woman's hair, and all. From my experience, it smells like flowers, generally.

He didn't say he'd never smelled it.

Anyway, I think 5 gets it right about the origins of the excuse.

7
Touche.

Better to say, from my experience, it looks like it smells like flowers. Because that's simpler.

Always with the important questions.

Next, someone will ask if practicing with a banana is cheating.

I like the "I'd rather fuck a three legged donkey" approach better, myself. Though I suppose the consequences would be worse if he somehow managaed to misinterpret that one.

nosflow: it's very like a man's hair, but finer, and more thickly set, and gleaming, and composed of innumerable flame-like demons too small to be picked out, who rend men's souls with a terrible dull pain of lust and regret--even if they see the face behind that curtain of cold black flames only once, palely, with solemn eyes that are looking down at something that has fallen on the sidewalk. you should see it sometime, women's hair. it comes in all kinds of colors now, like blue even. yep, it's really something.

Umm... speaking as one often compared in my time unfavorably with three legged donkeys, "I'm really busy these days" sort of communicates the sad truth to unsuited suitors. And if that's not sufficient, "I'm seeing somebody else" really ought to do the job.

Let me suggest that a direct, unambiguous "I don't want to see you again," is actually the kindest approach. You can soften it with "You're a great guy, but" disclaimers. But being clear and leaving no room for confusion is the way to go.

"Sorry, I have to fuck my three-legged donkey that night. It is an elaborate ritual involving pinning and curling and so on, and I can only manage it every few days."

"I'm really busy at work lately" is the modern equivalent of "I have to wash my hair."

Woops, pwned by 14.

"I'd love to, but I'm way behind on my Unfogged reading."

I'm sorry, I'm really behind on fucking my boyfriend right now. It is an elaborate ritual involving pinning and curling and so on, and I can only manage it every few days.

Wait, how is 20 not 16? What kind of relationship with the three-legged donkey were you assuming? Some sordid, non-consensual animal sex slavery?

Oh or you thought I meant a girl donkey.

(I must presumed pawned round here)

Have Mercy on the Donkeys!

...and fear a Republican Congress!

And A New Justice with An Original Intent!

He's worked enough. He's old. He's all I have.
Besides, he's a saint.

"I'm very busy these days" is an oft-used but IMO potentially counterproductive tactic, because there actually are people who are (1) very busy, (2) flaky about getting to other people, especially if they're still working out how they feel about them and (3) nevertheless wanting interested parties to keep suggesting outings until they decide to drop everything and have a go some night. You really do need to communicate something like "this isn't working for me" or "sorry but I'm not feeling any chemistry here" if you want someone to stop asking you out, particularly if you've had a few dates and especially if there's been any physical goings-on.

I know this has been disapproved of here before, but I really think that if it's just one date in, it's not that bad to just fall off the face of the earth with no explanation.

Giving an explanation sucks for both sides. Radio silence still sucks for the rejected side, but not that much worse than receiving the pat lies that pass for an explanation. The most important thing is not to lead the other person on if nothing is going to happen, and radio silence accomplishes that.

Amber's 5 is correct.

Also, the answer is "I have to study for a blood test."

I think 5 is only somewhat correct. I think it was always slightly facetious, insofar as everybody knows that a girl would damn well shuffle things around if she were really into the suitor.

everybody knows that a girl would damn well shuffle things around if she were really into the suitor

Everyone should know. But the would-be suitors convince themselves not.

Di is correct in 15. Just say it straight. Why should s/he have to believe that s/he is a liar?

27: Oh, right. It became the stereotypical bad excuse very quickly, but a night dedicated to hairwashing was a real thing.

Those would-be suitors. Always not getting the message. Stinkers.

I think that a man who asks a woman out, at least for a second date, is thereby suiting her, even is she does not think that he suits her.

Birthday-suiting her, IYKWIM.

"Pin the tail on the three-legged donkey".

I'm very sorry for you. Not seeing a woman's hair, and all. From my experience, it smells like flowers, generally.

I'm blind, you ass.

Said the ass: "Neb, that's not really my third leg."

"sorry but I'm not feeling any chemistry here"

IMX on the receiving end, this phrase is a good mix of politeness and honesty.

Anal bleaching was the hair washing of 2007.

Yes, Di is right in 15. Where did all those strong women with minds of their own, able to deal with the universe on their own terms go? Did they only exist in blog posts and comments? Did the DeLorean take us all back to 1952?

Dude Marty McFly dating his 16 year old Mom was creepy enough. You want him to date her at 13??

"sorry but I'm not feeling any chemistry here"

OK, I understand. Your opinion is valuable to me. Could I ask you to take a few minutes to fill this out?

I'd offer you my eyeballs but who knows what you and that donkey would do with them.

24 is right.

25 is wrong. it's not that bad to just fall off the face of the earth with no explanation.

It's just really rude; it communicates disrespect. The person on the receiving end of the dump (the dumpee) is not an idiot or an asshole ... at least, we'll assume so ... and leaving the dumpee hanging is just rude. It actually twists the knife (that is, if the dumpee cares much in the first place, which s/he may not).

But we have indeed had this conversation before.

I've been on the receiving end of both versions: "I'm just not feeling chemistry" and radio silence. I'm pretty sure what I didn't like was the rejection.

Again, I'm not saying radio silence is okay if you've been actually dating the person for a month.

Seriously, 15 and 36.

Let's just say that I hope Heebie is right about this.

I am on record as being 100% against wordless flaking out. Yes, it is a tiny tiny bit more difficult to write a one-line email saying you're not interested, and, in my case, this has occasionally resulted in receiving 15 text messages in a row expressing increasing levels of psychotic distance from reality (after one bad date!), but the only sane rejection I ever got, of the "This is not what I'm looking for, but I wish you luck" kind was such a relief.

Is 34 on the level? I've never picked up on that. It's inconceivable to me that you keep up with the comments and hack Haskell using a screen reader.

Radio silence is fine if the other person doesn't call you back either. No one can fairly complain that you didn't call/text/email if they didn't either. But if the other person calls/texts/emails to say they'd like to see you again, radio silence is jerky.

34 is lies.

nosflow can see, of course, but in his melancholy his eyes are perpetually downcast, so only unusually long locks or exposed pubic hair enter his field of view.

And obviously saying "no thanks, buddy. Gotta groom my pubes" sends a complicated message.

the only sane rejection I ever got, of the "This is not what I'm looking for, but I wish you luck" kind was such a relief.

Right. I gather heebie's experience differs, and she'd just rather not hear the actual words, although in my own experience, I can't really manage that level of denial. What do you tell yourself? "Oh, since he's not answering at all, I'm sure it's just that he got really busy in some way, maybe his mom died, or his ex is quarreling with him about their cat, or his house suddenly needs to be flea-bombed so he's staying in a motel with no internet, or he's truly fallen off the face of the earth, like his boat capsized, but he's not actually rejecting me."

I can't make that work, myself, but mileage obviously varies.

Yeah, that's one of the problems with radio silence: the period before you realize "hasn't responded yet" is really "not going to respond." Hmmm... He must be having a rough day at work... Maybe his cellphone battery died... I hope nothing bad happened... Oh. He just holds me in such regard he couldn't be troubled to just say "no thanks."

I fear that 52 came across as overly sarcastic; it really was just humor.

The thing is, silence is the worst sort of diss.

I mean silence when one has been directly addressed.

The best way to end things is a simple, "I can't see you again. It turns out my wife's coma was really just a nap."

"I can never see you again. I've gone blind. Also, you're terrible."

"I'm leaving you because your hair smells bad."

I can't see you any more because I work for a personal care products company and my contract precludes me from dating anyone who uses a competitor's product.

"I got really painful gas on our first date. That was the restaurant's fault, not yours, but now whenever I see your face I feel pain that won't leave me until I fart."

Yes, I am not whatsoever on the same wavelength here as Di and P. I mean:

Hmmm... He must be having a rough day at work... Maybe his cellphone battery died... I hope nothing bad happened...

after one date? I think the miscommunication is that I'm picturing literally one coffee date. Or even a follow up date. Where you aren't thinking that thoroughly about their day at work, or anything. Have not made out on their couch.

If you're texting throughout the day, and then radio silence, that's rude. But texting throughout the day is way more intimate than 1-2 coffee dates.

"I can't justify bringing children into a world with so much pain. Especially not children who have good odds of having ears as big as those."

I can't see you any more because I work for a personal care products company and my contract precludes me from dating anyone who uses a competitor's product.

But I can chaaange.

I went out on a first date recently with someone who was cute and easy to talk to and we were having the "so how has online dating been treating you" conversation and agreeing that like, it sucks, but what else is there, and you know it can be kind of fun to talk to new people on demand, and he added "I actually kind of like how there's no expectation that you ever have to follow up with the person again -- I've done it to people, it's been done to me, you know, it's fine."

So then, of course, neither of us contacted the other ever again, and too bad because I was actually kinda into him, but I've raised my bar to "he has to be into me enough to seek me out using a mode of communication," and so maybe it's for the best, or maybe we had an ironic deadlock. I guess if I'm raising my bar maybe it'd be a good idea to lay that out on the first date, too, but whatever. I might not ever date again in this town anyway!

I've totally been on the giving end of the radio silence thing, which was pretty terrible I guess. OTOH they should have known that if you play with the fire, you might get burned.

silence is the worst sort of diss

Well, after murder anyhow.

I've totally been on the giving end of the radio silence thing,

Oh, me too. I assumed this was transparent.

after one date? I think the miscommunication is that I'm picturing literally one coffee date. Or even a follow up date. Where you aren't thinking that thoroughly about their day at work, or anything.

Some of us just care more than you, I guess, heebs. That's ok.

66: Depending on what you say and who too, communication is worse than silence.

But is communication ever worse than murder?

To be honest, the collective voice of Unfogged gets under my skin like the naggiest nudge chorus in North America, and so I can't even recline my freaking seat on an airplane for the love of you guys. So I'm sure if I were currently on the dating scene, I'd reluctantly email off one of your stupid lines. BUT I'D RESENT IT. Fortunately* my dating life did not intersect with my Unfogged life.

*Actually, much more often I wish they had overlapped, because I would have loved to ATM the fuck out of this place, and I would have ended a lot of stupid situations a lot sooner.

I assumed this was transparent.

Maybe if it was wet?

I guess if the other person literally never communicates with you after your one or two dates, you can reciprocate by also never communicating, but I can't imagine a situation where radio silence would be appropriate when the other person does try to stay in touch.

after one date? I think the miscommunication is that I'm picturing literally one coffee date. Or even a follow up date. Where you aren't thinking that thoroughly about their day at work, or anything. Have not made out on their couch.

One date that I thought went well enough that I've sent some form of communication saying, "I want to see you again." (Which, let's be honest, if there wasn't some making out it probably didn't go well enough for me to want to see him again. But hypothetical here.) It's just rude, dating or not dating. Just say no.

61: I get the difference between one coffee date or one real date, and dating for a month, and it's an important distinction, but my point with 52 was that you seemed to say a couple of times upthread that you felt less rejected in the radio silence scenario than if he just tells you that he's not that into you. I myself don't experience it that way. (In 52 I was just trying to imagine what you tell yourself such that it feels less like a rejection.)

Oh, and the thinking about the day at work. I didn't mean literally thinking in depth about the person's work day. I meant trying to think of reasons why I still haven't gotten a response. (My knee-jerk internal dialogue is "because you suck and he hates you," so I actually put effort sometimes into trying not to jump to that conclusion.)

Wait, I hope we're clear here that the radio silence vs. explanation scenario comes up when the other person has contacted you for another date. I'm not saying that if, after one date, you're not into the person, you're supposed to contact them to explain that. God no.

and so I can't even recline my freaking seat on an airplane for the love of you guys

Sweet victory!

Anal bleaching was the hair washing of 2007.

I really feel that this comment hasn't gotten enough appreciation. Imagining someone actually saying, "I'm sorry, I can't; I have to bleach my anus that night" is up there with that one from the job interview thread ("My greatest weakness? 12-year-old girls. Haha, just kidding; 12-year-old boys") in my mind.

that you seemed to say a couple of times upthread that you felt less rejected in the radio silence scenario than if he just tells you that he's not that into you.

Pretty sure I never said anything close to this. What I said is that it's the rejection that stings, not the method of delivery.

Is it ideally polite to respond to a follow up email with a "Sorry, no chemistry" email? Sure.

In reality, you get a wishy-washy email which hedges and your response would take 5-10 minutes to compose, and you have an urge to flee the situation, and before you know it five days have passed, in which case it seems too neurotic to email back apologizing plus rejecting, plus you still don't feel like dealing with it.

So it's a slight, but this isn't your friend or co-worker or anyone that you share anything with besides humanity, and it's not a big deal to be a slight jerk in discontinuing a non-starter romance.

In reality, you get a wishy-washy email which hedges and your response would take 5-10 minutes to compose, and you have an urge to flee the situation, and before you know it five days have passed, in which case it seems too neurotic to email back apologizing plus rejecting, plus you still don't feel like dealing with it.

Yes, it's true that if, through weakness, you make a bad situation worse for yourself, then it will be harder to do the right thing, but, you know, you sleep in the bed you make.

Most days, I don't bother to make the bed.

Sweet victory!

But at what cost? At what cost?

Sometimes, you can sleep in someone else's bed!

Ya gotta sleep with the bed that brang ya.

In Stanley's case I think the alternative would be someone else's stall. I doubt it would be very comfortable.

80: Ah. I think I misread 43's I've been on the receiving end of both versions: "I'm just not feeling chemistry" and radio silence. I'm pretty sure what I didn't like was the rejection.

I'd read that as saying that the "I'm just not feeling chemistry" verbal explanation was the rejection, which you didn't like.

Okay. Sorry for the misread.

I have never been invited to a first date that was just coffee. The kind of first date I'm talking about, after which I was surprised to get blown off, is the kind at which one gets dinner, goes somewhere else for drinks, ends up watching a late-night concert, walks around the city for hours, watches the sun rise, spends most of the time talking about things you want to do together. Then, when you email a follow-up, s/he just doesn't respond because, like, who gives a shit about you?

After coffee, or after an obviously bad date, fine. I have blown off a couple of dates who I felt I'd been very clear to during the date that I didn't want to see again. But blowing off seems to happen even after dates that must have been really excellent. (In my case, of course, blowing off happens also after a few months or years of dating too, so YMMV.)

By "very clear" I mean saying "thank you, but I want to leave, by myself," after one drink, or "please take your hands off me; I'm leaving." Very clear.

89.1: Probably too much walking.

82: Neb, in May of 2011 anyway, you were funny (so whatever point of comparison you're using to say, from time to time, that you used to be funnier must be a high bar).

The most intense blow-off follow-up was after a really interesting first date with a semi-famous bass player with whom I had a great time, and then he didn't respond to my invitation to do something else a week later. I waited a while, and then--I was new to dating--I emailed again a few weeks after that to say, "just checking, but you're not interested, right?" He responded to say that he'd been on tour when I emailed, and when he got home, his apartment had caught fire with his beloved little dog in it, and the dog had died, and he'd gone into an emotional tailspin that drove him back into the arms of his emotionally abusive ex. It was pretty clearly bullshit, but I didn't ever try to contact him again, so that worked I guess.

A similar blow-off came earlier that year when a guy I'd seen a few times emailed me to say that he'd had such an amazing time with me that it inspired him to take up again with his emotionally abusive ex and try to get that working again--thank you for the inspiration, etc. We ran into each other six years later and hung out one evening, and he explained that, yes, it was really horrible, and she tried to kill him and everything, but it had seemed worth giving it a shot.

the kind at which one gets dinner, goes somewhere else for drinks, ends up watching a late-night concert, walks around the city for hours, watches the sun rise, spends most of the time talking about things you want to do together.

I am so not programmed for this kind of quick connection. I'm pretty sure I never stayed up all night talking to someone I just met. I have friends who have first dates like this, so this is definitely not unheard of, but I am deficient in that deep-quick-click quality.

I think it's the same trait that keeps acquaintances from unloading all their problems to me, the way other people get accosted sometimes. I project that I am not a good person for sympathy.

It was pretty clearly bullshit

Now now, you don't know that. !! It's actually pretty hilarious. Seriously, though, sometimes people do go on tour and their dog dies and they get back together with their ex.

I sort of love tall tales that are this close to plausible.

94: That makes sense! I am the opposite--a certain kind of person meets me and gets intensely interested right away, sharing all kinds of insanely personal things, and then later has no interest in seeing again. As I've gotten older, I think I can sniff these people out a bit better, but they really are in the majority among people who like me. It's very rare to meet someone who isn't in a big rush to have our whole relationship in a matter of hours.

and she tried to kill him and everything

I'm sure she had her reasons.

I might not ever date again in this town anyway!

Wait, just saw this, why?

I've tried to be more explicit with people -- probably because I took to heart a previous thread here -- but it hasn't actually worked out all that well. I recently told someone that I didn't want to see him again -- this was at the end of our third date, and I said, it's been nice getting to know you, but it's not happening for me, best of luck. This resulted in a series of e-mails from him, detailing how fun his life is, and how I'm totally missing out, and culminating in an e-mail where he advised me to read an attached article, saying that the article would help me to understand "the feelings of confusion and anxiety" that he was believed I was feeling when I met him. The article was entitled, "Your Amyg//da//a Doesn't Want You To Fall In Love," and was about how women are really insecure and so they freak out when they meet someone they could really fall for.

I didn't respond to the e-mails. Then he called and proceeded to argue that I was wrong when I claimed I wasn't interested, because he could tell I was really into him. After that I saved his number so I would know not to answer his calls. All in all, I might have been better served by giving him radio silence in the first place.

I'm sad that there's not more talk of hair-washing here. I'm getting all bitter and burned out about managing haircare for two girls, but not enough to start taking them to a salon. I'd have to wash and detangle before that anyhow, which is a few hours plus a good chance of a Mara panic attack. Bah.

jms, that guy was going to be a pain in the ass either way.

I get over the top emails from multiple people to this day!

The article was entitled, "Your Amyg//da//a Doesn't Want You To Fall In Love," and was about how women are really insecure and so they freak out when they meet someone they could really fall for.

Oh. Gee.

99 is the perfect point. Rejection is just not the venue for perfectly delivered etiquette.

Or I mean, sure, be gracious and polite. Or, be a jerk and don't feel too bad about it.

Or, be a jerk and don't feel too bad about it.

Honestly, though, is there a situation where this isn't good advice?

When you're talking to me.

More importantly, however: why oh why did you not tell us all about this in real time? We would have been so helpful!

107:

98: Actually I would love some advice, I am thinking of taking a puppy-like job offer in a college town a number of hours away. It has no crossfit gym and is gorges. My best friends (a couple) live there. Real estate costs $1. I don't know if there are any single dudes there, but if there are I sort of bet they are nice? I do like snow. I don't need a club scene. I may need a change? A lot of people complain about this town but they probably have needs I don't have? I do like puppies.

Remember, if it's a real college town people will pee on your lawn.

Actually I am immensely curious how somebody in your approximate line of work would find a puppy in a college town; I think of them as being almost exclusively near to cities.

We seem a little thin in the best river towns. People should consider moving.

My vast experience from like the last five months has been that elaborate euphemism works best for all parties. Maybe telling someone that you're not into them is too hurtful, and causes people to tailspin into defensive nonsense like in 99. On occasions when I haven't been explicit, but instead have said that, oh, I really really like you, but the thing is unfortunately I've suddenly learned I'm going to be busy every evening for the rest of both of our mortal lives, everyone has understood, and have been able to move on with their egos basically intact.

In other words, deep conditioning your hair really does take a whole evening, and sometimes an entire weekend day.

Is 108 to me? Because I totally thought about it, and then for some reason worried it would be mean to post about it online. Obviously I've lost some scruples since then.

In other words, deep conditioning your hair really does take a whole evening, and sometimes an entire weekend day.

So neb was right all along? Astonishing.

Speaking of our great dating advice, has Flippanter become too happy to comment or something?

Everyone has puppies, Sifu! It's the 90s!

I mean, maybe it's more like a teacup Yorkie that you have to take to dog shows, but the shows are located in the middle of a beautiful wildlife sanctuary? I mean. This metaphor is kind of tough. It seems like an awesome job but I would have to work hard and not get paid that much so in certain ways it is not exactly a puppy. But that's ok.

111, 112 cont'd: anyhow, I dunno? I wouldn't move to a college town, but I'm a city kid, really, and don't make friends terribly quickly. I would be worried it would take me ages and then I'd end up hanging out with people I actually didn't much like.

113: I would like to kayak! That's cool, thanks.

Couldn't you get a great job that is very different from your current job, and which does not have much in the way of job security, but which pays you a shitload? That is probably the direction I would go? But I don't know. When faced with that choice I went back to college, so I'm clearly not a reliable source.

110: I believe we have several people here who are familiar with that town (assuming I'm reading the hints correctly as to which it is) and could provide some advice if you have specific questions about it.

Kayaking rules. I have done a lot of kayaking this summer, and it has mostly led me to believe I should be doing a lot more. That's sea kayaking, though, not that tricky river business.

I moved to a small college town with a great river. But not as isolated and I didn't have any other job which made the choice easy.

I did some kayaking this summer when my mom and sister were visiting. It was a lot of fun and I'd like to do more of it, and may.

I think the kayaking in Gorgesville would mostly be sea kayaking on the lake. It's really not a river town in any meaningful sense, despite being on that list for some reason.

It'd be nice to go in the winter, but, as they say, you can't have your kayak and heat it too.

Oh, that college town. It's a shithole in the middle of nowhere, from what I hear. I was thinking of a much closer college town.

You just paddle faster, Stan.

123: I'm sure you are. Yeah I don't know if I have questions more specific than "should I change my whole life?" I don't really know what benefit I'm getting from living in the city except that I do like 5 spice pork belly tacos and cocktails with rhubarb bitters, etc., but maybe I should just make those myself out of my own pigs and rhubarbs??? I guess I go to the grocery store at 9:30pm sometimes, too, which would not fly there. Also it would be harder to visit my family.

We're here for you 24-7, Ursy.

Maybe you should go out for cocktails with rhubarb bitters more often?

Is this a cry for help from other unfogged commenters?

I love shitholes in the middle of nowhere! Some of my fondest memories are from Siberian boarding school!

131: Aww thanks!

132: Dude I will totally cry for help if that gets us a meetup before I MAYBE LEAVE FOREVER, OR NOT!

I'm enjoying my serial puppies in college towns, but yes, the opportunities to have sexual intercourse are nonexistent. It is possible there is like maybe one person here at my second puppy whom I could imagine fucking without it ruining my life, but it would probably end up ruining my life in some way I can't imagine right now. You'd think a long long long period of celibacy would give you a clearer outlook, but sometimes it doesn't.

I've lived in a college town for twelve years, and I think it's great. But I have no idea if that experience is in anyway generalizable to ursyne.

130: I should also add that I turned down a TT job in the megacity where everyone I love is to take this one-year puppy in a tiny town in the dead center of a super-rural state, and I couldn't be happier that I made this decision.

I guess I go to the grocery store at 9:30pm sometimes, too, which would not fly there.

That's probably not true. I live in a non-city town now and the bigger chain grocery stores are open 24/7. They're already stocking shelves and they've got lights on at that time - they might as well let customers in.

130: I, um, think you might be under some mistaken impressions about this town. For one thing, there is definitely at least one 24-hour grocery store.

but maybe I should just make those myself out of my own pigs and rhubarbs?

If you are the type who likes making things, then sure. It is very satisfying. However, it can become not-so-satisfying if you're only making those things for yourself. It is (I'm told!) easier to find affine electors in cities. I guess this also depends on how willing you are to be the self-appointed educator of your new friends in Gorge Town.

...but I also know people here who are TT who grind their teeth to bits every night in a rage that they didn't get a job in My Favorite Megacity with "real intellectual culture" and, you know, better tacos and stuff. I really think it's a temperament thing, mixed with the fact that you can do anything for a year and it makes it much more lovable.

I don't know about pork belly tacos and rhubarb bitters, though. They would probably not be easy to find.

AWB had a TT offer?!

We have 24-hour grocery in our tiny rural hamlet. I do find that the food here is wretched and I have to cook anything good to eat, but it is inspirational. I've done one very exciting multi-course dinner for eight, and am planning others.

142: It was not an acceptable offer. Not in my field, terrible (badly run, abusive) school, condescending interview, twice the workload and much less pay.

133.last: how do you know we haven't invited you to dozens of meetups via that email address you never check?

Ah, say no more.

138: Oh shit you're right! I was looking at the store pharmacy hours! OK so my evenings would be taken care of after all.

Anyway, Gorge Town is not a bad place to live for a while if you're okay with the isolation and the cold. It's quite cosmopolitan for a town of its size, though obviously much less so than an actual city. Lots of people hate it for various reasons, but there are also lots of people who like it.

Rhubarb bitters is exactly the sort of thing you can get a friend to send you, isn't it. Or maybe get online? Even as a metaphor -- it's not like the big city is going to evaporate just because you don't live there any more: you can visit and the the things will be all the sweeter for your absence.

Having done it at 19, 29, and 50, I'm very firmly on Team Move Somewhere Cool and Start a New Life.

It's also fantastic for outdoor recreation, and just generally a beautiful setting.

the the things = all the things

145: It forwards now. See how savvy I am!

136,143: I'm super glad you are enjoying your rural puppy and your dinner for 8 sounds amazing!

Rhubarb bitters is exactly the sort of thing you can get a friend to send you, isn't it.

Doesn't the post office frown on that kind of thing? Actually, how do interstate shipments of booze work? Do you have to use UPS or FedEx or the like, I wonder.

153: Bitters don't count as booze for most regulatory purposes, right?

In general I think rules on shipping booze vary depending on which states are involved.

154 is I think right. I remember reading about the people behind [ some fancy bitters or other ] sweating the classification as bitters because otherwise everything is way more complicated.

149: but moving coupled vs moving uncoupled involves very different considerations.

Went to ex's wedding last night and manfully resisted the temptation to even joke about doing this.

153: Bitters don't count as booze for most regulatory purposes, right?

Yes, they are claimed to be non-potable. I was unsure if that would apply to shipping-related purposes, though.

157 is right. The biggest difference between my two puppy experiences has been that one school was 99% straight married faculty who do not associate with single people outside of work, and the other is about 50% straight married faculty, and even those are totally cool with making friends with loosies.

157 -- Yeah, I was thinking about that. I think, though, that either of the latter moves I made would have gone fine uncoupled. (First move was decoupled.)

THIS IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE
but it seems to me that the postal service would only know the package contained rhubarb bitters if you told them. I don't think they have specially trained dogs looking for this.

EIN RHUBARBERHUND

Anyhow I support moving around, but I have only moved around to cities.

It looks like booze is generally nonmailable, but the definition includes the word "drinkable" and therefore probably excludes bitters.

All those recipes in my hipster cocktail book with 2 ounces of bitters I think we need to just ignore.

166: Probably a good idea.

For sexual recreation in gorges ville I'd say you are in awesome shape -- basically, as decent odds as the big city -- if you're under 21 or over about 33, but substantially worse in the 21-33 range. But it has good city-like restaurants and is generally a very pretty pleasant place to live, and you can use my kayak in the 5 months it's possible to kayak, if you want.

119 I would be worried it would take me ages and then I'd end up hanging out with people I actually didn't much like.

This sounds not unlike my years in what, if I'm reading correctly, is the very town in question.

But it has good city-like restaurants

Two of them! Maybe even three!

Sorry, I'm being obnoxious. But god, was I ever not happy in that place.

Also there was a crossfit gym but it closed, and there's a crossfit club at town-dominant U.

I'd say at least 5.

How much of something do you have to drink for it to be drinkable?

Rhubarberhund is pretty great.

160: Yeah I didn't manage to ask during my interview if people would be willing to hang out with me. But I think groups of people get together to do nerdy outdoorsy things so maybe!

Mo/osewo/od: not nearly as good as you might suspect based on its fame.

Oh, that place is so awful. I'd happily burn it to the ground, exile its staff to a Siberian gulag, and salt the earth around it.

168: That is heartening, I'm totes over 33. Thank you for the kayak offer!

All those recipes in my hipster cocktail book with 2 ounces of bitters I think we need to just ignore.

No, I think we need to prepare them for me!

Wait, I'm turning 33 this week. Does that mean I re-enter the sexually-available pool somehow?

Titties, hooray!

Titties, hooray!

Oops.

It's a beautiful town and the people who are happy there seem really, really happy to be there. The tapas place on the Commons is good if you can stand the long wait. There's at least one really, surprisingly good Thai restaurant. I don't know a good cocktail-oriented bar there. The bartender at Pi/xel was a good friend of a college friend of mine, and they were both way too impressed with her favorite creation, which involved chocolate and was godawful. She considered it an improvement on the Old Fashioned.

There are decent Japanese restaurants if you can stand to eat in the presence of undergrads ordering sake bombs and getting sloppy drunk.

But mostly the trouble wasn't the culture or the restaurants, it was the crushing loneliness and sense of isolation, which was probably all my own fault.

181: They come paired, usually.

F/elicia's is a pretty OK cocktail bar I went to this summer. And you can get your CSA pickup there, which really tells you all you need to know. Personally I'd just hang out at the P/iggery with a bottle of Jack Daniels, but that's just me.

I think north of 33 works in gorge town because dating sucks everywhere and people are heavily dyadically paired everywhere at that age, so the difference from big city matters less. You've got a relatively good stream of single and unattached smart 33+ people moving to town who might be easier to meet in the small town than the big city. But this is all based on vicarious experience; I live in a gigantic city.

The biggest problem with the small-college-town dating situation is that you can't really fuck your colleagues and everyone else in town kind of resents you.

Surely you can fuck those of your colleagues who aren't in your department.

It may be less of a problem in Gorge Town because the college in question is substantially more substantial than those I've been at the past few years. If someone is fucking someone here, it's kind of a big deal, and you will run into them 10 times a day no matter how it ends up.

Gorge faculty is well over 10 times the size of ours. Ursyne can probably get around fairly well there.

Wait, I'm turning 33 this week.

Huh, I must not have noticed you mention your birthday before, because I hadn't know that our birthdays are the same week.

HBD!

But mostly the trouble wasn't the culture or the restaurants, it was the crushing loneliness and sense of isolation, which was probably all my own fault.

Yeah, I was not actually very happy for most of my time there (as chronicled in excruciating detail in the archives of this very blog!), but that didn't really have anything to do with the town, which I enjoyed quite a lot.

Gorge faculty is well over 10 times the size of ours. Ursyne can probably get around fairly well there.

The town itself is also about 3 times the size of your current town, and there's less town-gown animosity than in many other college towns, so there would be some potential there as well.

I gotta hit the hay but thank you everyone for your thoughts! Tonight I will likely dream about the torrent of sexual conquest I will let loose upon the Gorge U faculty/staff/townies.

Happy birthdays AWB and NickS!

the sexually-available pool

For the hundredth time, it's called a grotto.

Reading this thread, I realize that I probably have no idea what ursyne's job is or would be, but at least I know what town is being discussed, even though I've never been there. I'm heading towards applying to some jobs in cold, isolated places (but not that one), but I don't know if I'll actually get an offer to one. Every time I read the job descriptions they sound pretty good and then I read about the town(s) and it becomes more difficult to apply. Late spring, summer, and fall always sound good; it's the other 9 months of the year that worry me.

66. "When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite." - Winston Churchill.

Happy birthdays, NickS&AWB.

The town itself is also about 3 times the size of your current town

Unless the town borders on a couple of other major towns, this comparison doesn't mean much.

These veiled references to towns are fucking impossible to decode, btw.

but at least I know what town is being discussed, even though I've never been there.

It's one of the minor pleasures of reading this site, that apart from the people who have explicitly stated where they live - perhaps half the commentariat - I have absolutely no idea where anybody is. I picture you all living in an imaginary landscape, possibly the one in Moorcock's Dancers at the End of Time sequence¹, which has occasional but unreliable interfaces with planet Earth. Thus you communicate with the blog and your earthbound fellow commenters whenever a portal opens, but otherwise exist in a universe where, for all I know, even fundamental physics is subtly different.

¹Not Narnia, anyway, since that is known to be elsewhere.

201 also to 200, which I didn't see till I posted it.

200

These veiled references to towns are fucking impossible to decode, btw.

I believe most of them are to Ithica NY , home of Cornell University.

Comment 174 gives the location away. Type it into google and a map will appear to the right.

But if you try 174 and you still can't figure it out, consult 203.

What? No. I was talking about Xalapa, Mexico.

U.S.-culture explanation for the Brits: Ursyne's first comment had all the relevant info, given widespread familiarity with this t-shirt.

Also, in googling an image of that shirt, I found a bunch of examples of it with 'has' instead of 'is'. Is that a meta-joke?

I'd still prefer not to have known that. (see 201).

U.S.-culture explanation for the Brits

Racist?

It's Xalapa, chris. Think Xalapa.

Remember, chris? You've been getting all those emails from that nice lady in Xalapa?

Bizarrely enough I got gorge town straight away.

Anyway, Gorge Town is not a bad place to live for a while if you're okay with the isolation and the cold. It's quite cosmopolitan for a town of its size, though obviously much less so than an actual city. Lots of people hate it for various reasons, but there are also lots of people who like it.

Ithaca gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you would not have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaca won't have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
You will have understood by then what these Ithacas mean.

FWIW, I don't get the east coast references either.

And agreed with Heebie, both this time and on her previous mentions. After a one-time date, it is fine (and sometimes quite a relief) for non-response to convey the rejection.

Ithaca is several hundred miles from the ocean and due south of Lake Ontario. I'm not terribly sure it counts as "east coast".

Of course Ithaca is east coast.

The East Coast/Western NY hip hop rivalry produced some great music, but way too many deaths. Was it worth it?

218: why of course? Is Phoenix west coast?

This map seems about right for marking what counts as "East Coast."

For example, I don't think Buffalo and Pittsburgh are properly East Coast cities. Ithaca is borderline.

And Miami is not an "East Coast" city except to pedants. It's just a weird ass mess.

Or that coastal city in Texas, Dallas.

Because Ithaca is in New York. Because people there are going to assume everybody is super familiar with NYC and Boston. Because people there are going to have a funny accent. Because people there are going to look like me*.

*which was actually my impression of Tufts when I visited there, during my senior year of high school.

pedants

(points thumbs inward) this guy!

Because people there are going to have a funny accent.

Possibly, but not a recognizably east coast-y one.

Because people there are going to have a funny accent

Not an East Coast accent, though. The Western NY accent, which is closer to the Pittsburgh or Chicago accents.

Having never been there, I'm assuming most people in Ithaca are transplants from more obvious east coast cities. That's coloring my statement.

Because people there are going to have a funny accent.

I could have sworn the janitor for the building I worked in had a Kentucky accent, but apparently he grew up just outside town.

U of M was sort of split, 2/3 midwestern and 1/3 Long Island. I think I'm just extrapolating that therefore Ithaca must be 2/3 Long Island and 1/3 midwestern, to use Long Island as shorthand for all things east coast, which everybody probably embraces as unproblematic.

228: most people at the school, possibly. But no, there are indigenous western New Yorkers with their own culture and traditions and wings dipped in hot sauce.

It does occupy a funny place. Kind of on the fringe of Appalachia, also on the fringe of the Great Lakes, and tenuously connected to NYC by a constant stream of undergrads going back and forth.

Sounds good. I'm ready to back-pedal away from my assertion and point fingers at the backwards yokels in that hicksville.

Anyway, I have to go host a Quiz Bowl which I totally resent. TTFN.

230: The folks who went to U of M from my high school were (all? certainly all I can think of?) Nice Jewish Girls.

host a Quiz Bowl

This seems ungrammatical to me.

Unless it's, like, a physical bowl that asks you questions.

Western NY accent. Definitely not the traditional NY accent, though not far from a Baltimore accent.

237: ANSWER THE BOWL.

The bowl is mole

Halford wants us to stare at a man's crotch.

What's the grammatical way to say it? I had to plagiarize a bunch of trivia questions off the internet and figure out how to use the stupid classroom clickers and everything.

"I have to go host Mr. Quiz Bowl"

A quiz bowl game? A quiz bowl tournament? I dunno. It sounds to me like "I have to go host a soccer" or something like that.

I have to have a poops.

You need one of those ridiculous buzzer systems. Like this one we used to use back in the day. Trying to go through airport security with a box full of wires labeled 'THE JUDGE' was pretty awesome, let me tell you.

"hide the ding dong in mama's silk purse"

221.1: I refuse to allow King George to dictate what we do or do not consider to be the East Coast.

(But I would probably just say that Ithaca is in "the east".)

I bet it changed post-9/11, but back in the day, flying with THE JUDGE was often alarmingly easy. We got about one freak-out for every three or four "Eh, what could possibly be threatening about this box of wires?" responses.

Everyone loves THE JUDGE. Essear, I wonder if you were at your undergrad school's tournament the year I was. Ah, college.

I adore reading for HS quizbowl tournaments.

Everyone loves THE JUDGE.

I really loved this unbelievably bad TV show as a latchkey kid.* "I pray each day that God will give me the wisdom to temper justice with mercy." It did not prepare me well for QuizBowl.

*melding the threads.

re: things that are threatening to airport security, husband x and I were flying out of LAX the day that guy shot and killed someone at the el al counter (which we all had to forget because bush defeated domestic terrrism um anthrax!). then-toddler girl x was wearing stephen sprouse for target american flag shorts, and a white t-shirt with a flag on it in sequins. really, though. and they separated us and wanded her, making her put her chubby arms above her head while they veeerry carefully checked she wasn't made of plastique. no, a metal ignition mechanism. of course I wanted to take a photo but that is the least allowed thing of all time but I thought, that's it, the war on terror is over and we lost. it was the stupidest thing I have ever seen.

Halford? Please go do this?

253: And we'll brook no kid-based excuses:

daycare for heavy metal offspring

U of M was sort of split, 2/3 midwestern and 1/3 Long Island. I think I'm just extrapolating that therefore Ithaca must be 2/3 Long Island and 1/3 midwestern, to use Long Island as shorthand for all things east coast, which everybody probably embraces as unproblematic.

This is more or less right, except that "Long Island" in this context just means Long Island.

There's even a t-shirt.

I have a first cousin in Gorges! Rutabaga curling champ, beautiful scansion, and last I heard, Internet-dating a woman in Spain, though he didn't want to move. Maybe it didn't work out. Or he could introduce you to friends.

253 -- I totally want to go.

I actually had a work-related offer for a free music cruise (non metal) that I could have taken up but holy crap did those bands suck. IIRC we had a thread a while back about music theme cruises, and I offered Witt a free trip if she would go on the Lynyrd Skynyrd cruise, unless she would enjoy it.

258: Metal karaoke! Bars that never close! Mingling with Die Apokalyptischen Reiter! Go! Go! Go!

Huh I don't know how well the Dragonforce crowd would play with the others.

Or, rather, how the others would play with the Dragonforce crowd.

+F.

It does occupy a funny place. Kind of on the fringe of Appalachia, also on the fringe of the Great Lakes, and tenuously connected to NYC by a constant stream of undergrads going back and forth.

This is pretty much correct. Ithaca is in what's called Central New York, which is sort of transitional between the Hudson Valley (clearly part of the East Coast) and Western New York (clearly part of the Great Lakes region) and which is also pretty firmly within Northern Appalachia. CNY as a whole has a mix of characteristics from these other regions, but Ithaca itself has more of an East Coast influence than other nearby towns due to the university and its strong connections to the NYC area.

I had no idea that Appalachia went north of Pennsylvania, but Wikipedia says you're right so I won't argue.

Guys I kind of seriously am thinking about doing this.

Check out this liveblog of last year's cruise.

Also, probably, if you're a single lady with not very discriminating taste this thing is a bonanza.

Probably also true for central New York.

265: Dude, you have to. And live blog.

||

The trouble with peer review: I've spent upwards of twelve hours going over details of a paper I wasn't very interested in to begin with, and I'm still confused about whether it's right or not. (Leaning toward "not," but I could be making a mistake.) This after I already wrote a pretty length response once and the authors revised their paper accordingly, but without clearing up the point I suspect to be wrong. Ordinarily if I was trying to figure this out, I would just call up one of the authors, who I know moderately well, and talk it over for a while until one of us convinced the other he was wrong. But no, I'm supposed to be anonymous and only communicate through the journal editors. What a giant waste of time.

|>

If they didn't clear up the point on which you suspect they may be wrong, maybe you should assume the wordy worst.

I should be less wordy.

Trying to go through airport security with a box full of wires labeled 'THE JUDGE' was pretty awesome, let me tell you.

Laurie Anderon has a similar story.

Anderon Anderson

lady with not very discriminating taste

This would be a paradox.

273: Are you suggesting one can't be a proper lady without discriminating taste?

Nothing prevents refereees from signing the reports that the editors forward to authors. I usually do.

The editors want to see all the communications, though.

Regarding THE JUDGE, I once went through Wichita airport security with my band, and the two guitarists both brought their pedals as carry-on luggage:

-Lead Guitarist - brought a poor-man's pedal board, which was basically a basically a piece of a wood to which he'd screwed all his pedals, which he then carefully (like with zip ties) wired together.

-Rythm Guitarist - brought a plastic grocery bag with a rats nest of guitar cables, AC adapters, and the pedals themselves.

Lots of questions for both guys, as you might guess.

268

... This after I already wrote a pretty length response once and the authors revised their paper accordingly, but without clearing up the point I suspect to be wrong. ...

Seems like an easy review, just say the authors have not adequately addressed this point which I highlighted (you did make it clear that addressing this was crucial right?) in the first review.

I don't want to reject their paper if it's correct, just because I haven't fully understood the argument.

But if you can't understand the argument, doesn't that suggest that it's not a very good paper, regardless of whether the argument is correct?

There's no ambiguity in science!

278

I don't want to reject their paper if it's correct, just because I haven't fully understood the argument.

It's not really up to you to fill in any major gaps in their argument, it is enough to point them out.

And you are not really rejecting the paper you are accepting it (assuming it is otherwise ok) subject to their providing a convincing argument for the unclear point.

277 nails it. I've got no problem giving a harsh review to a paper that isn't clearly written. Do you think the average journal reader is going to spend twelve hours trying to tease apart an argument?

I only read the methods section and look at the tables.

Yeah, okay. I've never been involved in one of these things that took longer than "referee makes comments" --> "authors revise" --> "referee says okay and the paper gets published". I feel like responding to the revision with more complaints is violating some kind of unspoken rule about how these things work. But, I guess it is a little excessive for me to spend further time on this, so responding with more complaints is what I'll do....

I know I've seen two revisions requested on a couple of papers. I don't think I've ever seen three. This would be as an author, not a reviewer. I switched fields so nobody has noticed me enough to assign a review.

Oh, there actually is a journal policy:

In practi/cal terms, this means that a decision on the accep/tability or othe/rwise of a paper can n/ormally be expected after no mo/re than two rounds of rev/iewing. Additional rev/iewing or initi/ation of the appeals process sho/uld be reserved only for exceptional situat/ions. Extended anon/ymous review cannot be u/sed as a veh/icle to deve/lop an otherwise una/cceptable paper into an acc/eptable one.

Hmm.

Tell them to send it to one of those open-access journals instead.

I really think open access web-only journals are a great idea, but somebody needs to figure out a way they can solicit articles that is fuctionally different from spam.

284

... I feel like responding to the revision with more complaints is violating some kind of unspoken rule about how these things work. ...

Well these shouldn't really be new complaints (that you could have made the first time) but repeating a previous complaint doesn't seem like more to me.

I really think open access web-only journals are a great bad idea

We don't even have an Arvis or whatever it is you guys have.

I like journals, or at least prefer them to any of the alternatives I've seen suggested.

OT, but I just noticed that it's 9/11 and, for the first time, the usual spectacle of conservatives treating it like Christmas, New Years Eve and the 4th of July all rolled into one doesn't seem to be in evidence.

Am I just ignoring all the right media outlets, or has this particular trend actually died down?

288. Being the editor of an issue or several issues of an open-access jpurnal (that is, the solicitor of articles, maybe even suggesting a shared theme) could become a clearly delineated responsibility which could be placed on a CV. Looking at how clearly conference organizing responsibilities are indicated and rewarded doesn't make me all that optimistic.

Instead, at the bottom end, one can choose between this for open access or this from the most profitable commercial publisher.

I don't think the usual people want to make a big deal of it because it might help Obama in the election.

@295

That makes sense.

My cousin, who already is uber-annoying with the email forwards, lost a cousin in 9/11 in one of the planes, and they don't actually seem to have been BFFs, although I don't want to trivialize her loss.

Anyway, every 9/11 we get inundated with all this 9/11 crap, and she always tacks on how she lost her cousin that day and blah blah blah, and at some point I want to say IT'S BEEN OVER A DECADE. Everyone has had terrible losses since your terrible loss. SHUT UP.

Also, she lives in Houston. It's not like she was in New York and walked across the Brooklyn Bridge or something.

294: You could probably draft an editor through some combination of appeals to civic duty and making it a plus for getting grants. The problem I see is the need to pay staff to manage the submission and reviewing and the circular nature* of status in publication.

* You need to be a high impact journal to get the best articles but you can't get the best articles unless you are a high impact journal.

298: My brother was in New York on business. I never even knew he was there until he called me later in the week.

I enjoyed the NYTimes 9-11 commemorative.

I mean, it's a little late and doesn't make up for their behavior around the 2004 election, but still.

300: My brothers were there but I knew they lived there.

Because you have BroJack.

Everyone should read the piece linked in 301.

305 is right. Not that it's surprising, but just to remember what titanic assholes they really were.

((((I'm not sure how to write this so it's not totally awkward, but I often get mopey in early September because this is also the day I was raped at 17 and had a total emotional breakdown and whatnot and it always takes me a while to remember that this is why I'm feeling fragile in the back-to-school season. But even though that was 15 rather than 11 years ago, it makes me feel like I'm sort of being one of the maudlin people who went to grade school with me who are flooding FB with memories of where in the heartland they were.... I don't know. This year wasn't very bad for me and I think at 15 I'd be fine, but I thought that at 10 and then the following was hard. I think it's harder in some ways now that I have kids and I have to think about their histories and futures too. I don't know. This is just on my mind and this place seemed like the only one where I could say something.)))

From the link in 301: ...neoconservative leaders who had recently assumed power at the Pentagon were warning the White House that the C.I.A. had been fooled; according to this theory, Bin Laden was merely pretending to be planning an attack to distract the administration from Saddam Hussein, whom the neoconservatives saw as a greater threat.

Sweet Jesus those people are fucking morons. This is Romney's foreign policy team. It drives me nuts that the general public is so detached from what is going on that the malign idiocy of the neocons isn't widely known. In a sane world having those people on your team would guarantee annihilation in the elections.

(((hug))), Thorn.

307: Your friends are with you, Thorn.

What Flip said.

310 says it all.

Again I repeat my request for a donation button linked to the Buy Thorn Vast Amounts of Chocolates Fund. I would be clicking it like a rat with an electrode in its head right about now.

Thanks thanks thanks, all. And I really don't need a lot of comments reassuring me. I'm doing well, other than that other time when I came here and whined and ajay proposed the chocolate and gin fund (and I went out and bought gin and a box of shortbread since if I buy it I can hide it but if I bake I have to share) and then a day or so after that said, "Oh, right, September" and then pretty much bounced back.

It's just really hard sometimes to parent kids who've been abused. I try not to talk about it in detail online, but Mara has some shit in her past and Nia has a scar on her face that her parent gave her and she worries so much about how she wishes it could go away and would Justin Bieber think she's ugly because of it and it just breaks my heart sometimes.

September is a kinda melancholy month anyway, what with the light turning yellow and going away earlier. I get a little sad anyway, and terrible things didn't happen to me in September. I'm not surprised you feel mopey, and hope you can console yourself, maybe with all those things that people who like Fall get nostalgic about.

Stay strong, Thorn.

309 and 310 get it right.

Prince William also worries that Justin Bieber thinks he's ugly.

Prince William needs to record an album so people can talk about the Prince William sound.

317 gets it correct.

I'm skeptical about 318.

Comments in the 100s (I am still reading) are reminding me that I've been having conversations lately about what I need from a town, and then having to ask myself "wait, really?" about some highly specialized items like "Russian baths" and "movie house that shows old movies" and "bar that makes weird cocktails." Once you start thinking about leaving a place that has everything, you walk around thinking "but where will I find a Balkan place with cheap takeout if I leave?"

Prince William also worries that Justin Bieber thinks he's ugly.

Prince William isn't actually ugly, but he falls into the uncanny valley because his head's much too small for his body.

Endorsing 317.

307: Just keep putting one foot in front of the other, Thorn, you've got lots of good stuff to do yet. This is the mopey season for me too, I fully sympathize.

And here is the missing ")" you need to make the parens balance.

322 and 306 are correct.

but where will I find a Balkan place with cheap takeout if I leave?

Chicago or St Louis

What 324 said. Barring the bits about Prince William, who I wouldn't recognize if he walked into the room.

(And then I realized the thread had dramatically moved on and become rather serious and melancholic.)

Unfogged is all about the wildly jarring mix of comments. And the upside of having an incredibly specific list of requirements for a place to live is that once you find the small southern town with a Russian bath, good Balkan takeout, and a well-respected opera company you'll recognize it as the place you were looking for.

I don't know, I could imagine a t-shirt reading "Ith/aca is serious and melancholic" selling pretty well.

September is a kinda melancholy month anyway, what with the light turning yellow and going away earlier.

For me, September is the most infuriating fucking month because I'm sick of the heat and now wearing nice work clothes. When the weather finally turns it makes me overcome with joy.

I'm not weathering the heat as well as I used to. That does not make me happy about the next rest of my life.

Hugs to Thorn, though.

Prince William, who I wouldn't recognize if he walked into the room.

He's quite easy to recognise - he's the guy in the RAF uniform, accompanied by Brunette Barbie, who everybody is pointing at and saying, "Why has that guy got such a small head?"

Let me be the first to endorse comments 309 through 313, 315 through 317, 320, 322.last through 324, and 326.

What am I, chopped 330s?

330.last: When my dad got to 80, he started to get really cold all the time. You'd be set then.

334: I can just tell you're not sincere.

re: 332

Heh. Said 'Brunette Barbie' has phoned my wife a couple of times [and occasionally comes to her shop], and on the phone at least refers to herself by her title.*

* although that may be less an affectation on her part, and more a rule that has been insisted on by her handlers.

318: I can never tell when y'all are just pretending or whether you folks really don't keep up on celebrity gossip, but just in case some of you are sincerely ignorant, 318 was prompted by this story --http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/justin-bieber-slams-prince-williams-thinning-hair-201278

338: I had no idea about that.

338 is hilarious and definitely news to me! Now that I know the Biebz is a hair guy, I can reassure Nia that hers is luxurious and has grown noticeably in her two months with us. She's mad that I won't let her get her hair straightened and cut in a Bieber style, though, so maybe I shouldn't bring that up.

Smearcase, essear's hometown had some cheap Balkan food available a decade ago and I don't see why it wouldn't now. You'd think my town would somewhere, but the elderly Serbian women at the Greek Orthodox Festival are the only way I can get a cevapcici fix.

Biohazard, sympathy to you too. I really appreciate how clear and open you (and Martin W, whom I haven't seen here much recently) have been about living through grief. I've learned a lot, though apparently not enough about counting parentheses.

cevapcici

So that's how you spell that word! Friends came back from a vacation talking about that food, and I have wondered off and on in the years since then how it might be spelled. (Though obviously the question was not burning enough for me to have actively followed up on it.)

I suppose it's really spelled ćevapčići, but I'm lazy about accents if I'm writing on a Windows computer. My favorite thing about learning Bosnian was the tse-chuh-tchih part of the alphabet. Also awesome was that each letter had one sound and you pronounced every letter, so I can read (but certainly not comprehend) anything.

Once you start thinking about leaving a place that has everything, you walk around thinking "but where will I find a Balkan place with cheap takeout if I leave?"

Smear, as a veteran of a few of these moves I will tell you the only way to make it is to give up on all those old necessities and find new ones. A small town will have little corners of cool or funk, but they're guaranteed not to be the favorites from your old place. I think the transition is mostly about grieving and giving up on those old loves so you can look for new ones.

so I can read (but certainly not comprehend) anything.

You can get the same effect with Infinite Jest if you use my attention span.

Ćevapčići. (ć is like č but more palatal!)

You know what? I miss having a lot of food choices. I can't get a goddamn bagel in this town, let alone sushi or Balkan food. There's one place that serves hummus but it tastes like an ashtray.

You can make your own hummus with garbonzo beans or kidney beans and some oil.

My favorite thing about learning Bosnian was the tse-chuh-tchih part of the alphabet. Also awesome was that each letter had one sound and you pronounced every letter, so I can read (but certainly not comprehend) anything.

As a result of keeping up with the news in the mid-1990s I am now really good at pronouncing Bosnian words. War may teach Americans geography, but it taught me phonetics.

I'm just using it to represent the sadness of my food options. I can buy hummus at the grocery store if it will just get me to quit bitching.

I can buy hummus at the grocery store if it will just get me to quit bitching.

I'm thinking that won't work.

323.1 has it, Thorn. Good luck.

Heebs, is your body's thermoregulation up to par these days? Obviously where you live is just hot, but maybe extrapolating from your experience of it this fall is misguided.

Czech has the same distinctions, I suppose.

C c - cé - /ts/
Č č - čé - /tʃ/
Ch ch - chá - /x/

A friend of mine returned from a tour in Iraq and spent the next three months obsessively making hummus. He's calmed down a bit now though.

Oh, and I suppose, 't' and 'Ť' or 'ť' are in the same basic space.

Heebs, is your body's thermoregulation up to par these days?

I'm not sure? But until a few days ago, we were still having daily highs of 102-103°.

(Now we're down to highs in the 90s, which is totally a relief, and I can actually handle that. But see 350.)

That's just unreasonably hot for September. Bitching is right.

There's a Balkan restaurant just up the street from us that does a lovely brunch, and every time we're there (we're recognized regulars now, which is fun) we're the only people who show up before noon, and only a few trickle in after that. This surprises me mostly because there's a more standard breakfast joint a block away with an hour-long wait most weekends; why don't more people walk forty yards for fabulous biscuits with apricot butter and fig jam and eggs with lamb hash? I mean, it's certainly convenient that it's not crowded, but it puzzles me.

That's just unreasonably hot for September.

357. The clue is in your words, "more standard". People have incredibly constrained comfort zones on things like breakfast. I expect that if most of the clientele up the road found themselves in Dubrovnik, they'd need Rice Krispies for breakfast to feel comfortable.

352, not the same distinction really. Both č and ć are affricates. Just with subtly different places of articulation.

Oh wait, except I think I didn't read you right.

Pick whichever reading makes me seem cleverest/most right. It's that one. Honest. Ahem.

I hereby endorse 333 but not 336.

I hate hummus so much I no longer feel guilty about the implicit racism.

How can you possibly feel that strongly about hummus? It's a completely neutral foodstuff.

Hummus is delicious. Poi is a completely neutral foodstuff.

I don't believe poi is neutral because I haven't seen its birth certificate.

I believe I have invented a truly neutral foodstuff.

All I know is my gut says maybe.

"whenever a bowl of poi was uncovered at the family dinner table, it was believed that the spirit of Hāloa, the ancestor of the Hawaiian people, was present. "

The Hawaiians believe that they are descended from a very boring legendary figure.

The Hawaiians Punch?

371: They do if you're insincere.

So I'd watch out if I were you.

Driving around Oahu, I once spotted the intriguingly political bumper sticker proclaiming: "No rice, only poi" . Seemed like it was a couple of centuries too late.

370: He'd be less boring if people would uncover a bowl of poi at a kegger every now and then.

Could anyone with these big blue eyes possibly be insincere?

365: Flipp's dirtyhippiometer is just that finely calibrated.

Jokes about lying about your eye color probably pass undetected on the internet.

I just looked up what poi is. Wow, I always thought it was some sort of fish dish.

You're thinking of hoi poi.

Or coi.

Or tunai.

And the upside of having an incredibly specific list of requirements for a place to live is that once you find the small southern town with a Russian bath, good Balkan takeout, and a well-respected opera company you'll recognize it as the place you were looking for.

This is, in essence, why Fleur married me. She prayed for someone with an incredibly specific set of characteristics. We met literally moments later. She quickly ascertained that I had those traits, and she was like, "Him? Really, God? Naaahh, you're shitting me, right? Well, OK, if you say so."

And she never found the bugs you placed in her house.

Never have you been so grateful to your Boy Scout troop, your first girlfriend, and that freak accident with the lawnmower when you were twelve.

"Dear God, all I've ever wanted is the only person in the entire world who parks in that parking spot over there, next."

Ack, school bus.

HOW YOU DOIN?

Forget Ithaca. Try Geneva! The professors there complain about not being in cosmopolitan Ithaca and many choose to commute. I hate Geneva, but I think it would be better for the town if more of the professors chose to live there and were actively involved in the schools and local cultural life. I think it was more tolerable in the 50's and 60's culturally than it is now. In the 19th century there were some pretty cool people like Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

Otto is our minivan.

389: How's he doin?

Right now, Jammies is driving Otto for his commute, since it gets much better gas mileage on the highway than his truck.

357: Nathan, Can you tell me the name--either here or in e-mail? I really like the weekend breakfast at the Mexican place in my town and would love to try a Balkan breakfast.

I just googled Balkan+restaurant+[square Nathan lives near] and am pretty sure I found the restaurant.

If Otto is your minivan, who is your co-pilot?

393: You misspelled "Here, let me google that for you".

Also, Thorn. Hugs.

I used to love September, because it was back to school time, but now I'm acutely aware of the fact that the days are going to get shorter and I'll have to be conscientious about using my dawn simulator. When I was a kid, I actually liked winter darkness, because I felt more grown-up being awake after dark.

I'm moving my parents in 2 weeks (just before my birthday). I still have to get them set up with doctors who know the assisted living place they're going to--even though we want to get them on to a specialized geriatric team in a month or two.

And my younger sister is doing fuck all. She may have done something which will fuck up the Medicaid application and cost thousands of dollars. I'm praying it doesn't.

Sorry to have rambled on about my own stuff. Thorn, pass the chocolate if you have any. I'm not a gin person, but I'll split my sidecar with you, if you want some. I love rum in summer. Brandy is a good winter substitute.

That reminds me: there was a quite good computer game called "Imperialism" back in the day, where you played a fictional 19th Century European imperial power and had to manage your trade, production, relations with other powers, military, etc. It had an often tedious subgame to resolve land battles. You could skip this by pushing a button marked "Ottoplay".

I googled the wrong square in Nathan's city and may have found it. I feel pretty stupid.

331, 333, and likely several other comments to 396, substituting "BG" for "Thorn".

There appears to be only one Google-able Balkan restaurant in both the state and region Nathan lives in, so you've got a little leeway in which Square you choose.

Cheers, BG! That sounds really unpleasant. I'd be honored to share some chocolate and a cocktail and hear you rant for a while.

396, 401: Chocolate is good. I'm on a Dove and Haagen Dazs bar Rx. IMX, contrast is good self-therapy too. Watch an episode or two of "Go On"

http://www.nbc.com/go-on/about/

and realize you're in better intellectual and emotional shape than anyone, limo drivers included, who had anything to do with this TV show.

Oh. Dawn Simulator. That's one of those things I think about and then don't end up getting. They're strangely expensive.

This last winter wasn't as bad as the several before it, which I don't know whether to attribute to

-Vitamin E
-having a window in my office
-it not being much of a winter at all

Probably every little bit helps. And then the bit where I occasionally do a calorie's worth of exercise would help more but let's not get crazy.

I guess "Dawn Simulator" didn't need two caps unless it's my new drag name, which it isn't.

It can be hard to work up the will to exercise during the winter. Throwing snowballs at cars really does help motivate a run.

I continue to be impressed at everything you're doing, Thorn. Mara and Nia and Lee are so lucky to have you in their lives, and we're lucky to have you here!

404 through 406 all deserve commendation and endorsement, each in their own separate ways.

I disagree with 407. I commend and endorse Smearcase's using Dawn Simulator as a drag name. I suppose he only said it's not a NEW one. 406 makes me wiggly and uncomfortable, but I'm trying to get better at accepting compliments, so thanks!

Sorry to say, Thorn, but I'd say 406 is a very widely shared sentiment. I certainly agree 100%.

So widely shared, that you can get this or these

4 to 400.

409.1 gets it right. Thorn, you have more strength and courage than I.

I'm pleased to report that my rather small burg has a Balkan place (that's apparently good and also hosts rock shows occasionally), a movie theater that shows old movies, and opera (from time to time over at the university). No Russian baths, though.

Your Russians must be filthy.

Are you suggesting they're B.O.lsheviks?

Huh, it appears there are no Russian baths or Balkan restaurants up here in Russian America. I guess that's not actually that surprising.

414: The Germans sealed the train for a reason.

I hope Halford will be able to turn on ESPN2 soon; they've got the CrossGit Games on.

416: dag

nabbit?

I couldn't figure out how to transliterate my reaction. "Whuuuuuhhhahahadjaahahahawhooooooaaddaaaahahahahaaaaag", maybe?

The Germans sent Lenin into Russia on a sealed train.

I learned something today!

I couldn't figure out how to transliterate my reaction

"Bothallchoractorschumminaroundgansumuminarumdrumstrumtruminahumptadumpwaultopoofoolooderamaunsturnup" is a good 'un.

I made bad joke in response to a bad pun in response to a worse joke and inspired learning. Take that pedagogical experts.

Do you think a pun-based charter school could get approved?

Check with the UK commenters; they'd be enrolling in the Isles.

Well, at least the bad joke was in response to a worse joke. Maybe someone will follow up with a barely acceptable joke soon enough.

Over here, neb.

That's not inspiring learning.

The trick must be to stick to bad jokes.

Or to always have a pun with the joke.

Or bribes.

They say all you need to get a charter school approved is to fill an unmet educational need, so I'll try puns first. Then bribes.

Demonstrating that there's an unmet need for puns may be difficult.

Puns make the Flip-Pater inordinately happy, but I doubt that's a mission to which government funds can be devoted in this fallen world.

There are many puns, but most are shoddy.

Mr. Pater, the very real problem is one of money. Last year, the Government spent less on the Ministry of Puns than it did on National Defence!

Smearcase, do you mean vitamin D or is vitamin E really helping you?