This never occurred to us to discuss because we're all perfect partners.
Yes, perfect. [Looks around pigsty guiltily.]
OT: Nerf is making a line of pinkified weapons for girls: "Heartbreaker," "Guardian," "Sweet Revenge" and "Pink Crush." Where is your God now, feminists?
Speaking of the filth, have I posted this before?
It's The Most Wonderful Time of The Year
I think working out expected standards of cleanliness pre-living together is an excellent idea. I do agree with Grose et al. there's a level of basic cleanliness which takes more effort than it might appear to maintain, and that men are often blind to the work that goes into reversing entropy. OTOH, I also agree with Marche that past a certain point cleaning does become a hobby. I've been on the "male" side of the equation, with a partner who wanted a completely spotless house cleaned a particular way and wanted all housework to be split exactly 50/50. We had days-long fights over how I did the dishes or wiped off the counter wrong (yes, there were other problems with this relationship as well). I was quite resentful that I was supposed to spend hours doing chores I deemed completely unnecessary, like bleaching the kitchen sink on a regular basis. It got to the point that I stopped willingly doing any cooking or cleaning, because I knew that even if I did try I would be criticized. Basically, I think both partners should work equally (which doesn't always mean 50/50) to keep the house in a reasonable state of cleanliness and orderliness, but if one of them has OCD, then they should be responsible for all cleaning above and beyond the standard. I also think that if you want someone else to do chores, you have to abdicate control over how they're done and accept that it may not be done precisely to your liking.*
*This is leaving aside passive aggressively purposely doing a terrible job so that you won't be asked to do it again.
The whole "the house has to be clean for guests to be allowed inside" thing drives me batty.
The counterpoint is pretty weak. What it should have said is that a) non-early modern levels of filth is still bad for your health b) a lot of people just can't stand filth and clutter and it's probably genetic or at least not something you can easily change.
I easily "tune out" filth, but in the last few years I've found that I get more things done and feel better when my apartment is (verging on) tidy, even though I'm not consciously bothered by the mess.
I don't do enough. My BF's parents place is immaculate, and they are boring people.
One of my aunt's cleans a lot when she is stressed out, because it is therapeutic for her. her husband does less non-yard-work, though he's not a slouch.
My BF does the laundry, because i am not careful enough. I do dishes. The bathroom does not get cleaned enough, partly, because he is always nervous about chemicals and insists on running the shower for about 20 minutes to rinse it out. Huge production. At times I try to put denture tablets in the toilet overnight to maintain it, but I get lazy.
I would like to have a neater house, but my visual skills are pretty crummy. I need someone to tell me where everything belongs, and then I can put it back.
What I really hate is vacuuming. Dusting can be kind of satisfying. But I should vacuum more. Too much dust, and I sneeze.
I don't do enough. I do a lot more than I would if I were the cleaner person, though. I am at the point where generally, I'm not willing to do any more. Over the summer and when I'm on break, I do a lot more. During the school year, Jammies prefers to do more than me, over letting the house slip a bit.
The problem that I see is that he acquires more and more tasks to do as though it's not a problem. These dishes aren't dishwasher safe? No problem, I'll do them by hand. The past few months of photos need to have faces tagged on flickr? I'll do it tonight. These clothes need stains scrubbed out rather than letting them acquire permanent stains? Will do. I see that as a problem, sort of, because he's acting as though he exists in a vacuum where he can handle infinite work, and that's not true. He gets stressed out and I try to cover the gap, and I'd prefer we minimize our workload from the outset.
Isn't it more about tradeoffs than basic cleanliness standards? I imagine most slobs who get to the level of means where housecleaning is not an appreciable expense will quickly raise their standards.
I imagine most slobs who get to the level of means where housecleaning is not an appreciable expense will quickly raise their standards.
This has certainly been the case for me.
So, just to be clear, the post title is Ogged's way of bragging about his attractiveness, correct?
(I haven't followed the links)
Also, I have an awful tendency towards clutter. And, like David in 7, I am aware that I do feel calmer when things are clean, but that isn't enough incentive to actually straighten.
The problem that I see is that he acquires more and more tasks to do as though it's not a problem. These dishes aren't dishwasher safe? No problem, I'll do them by hand. The past few months of photos need to have faces tagged on flickr? I'll do it tonight. These clothes need stains scrubbed out rather than letting them acquire permanent stains? Will do. I see that as a problem, sort of, because he's acting as though he exists in a vacuum where he can handle infinite work, and that's not true. He gets stressed out and I try to cover the gap, and I'd prefer we minimize our workload from the outset.
We've got a bit of that sort of thing going on. Buck, as I've always said, does a lot more domestically than I do. He's under more pressure at work, though, and he's dropped some of the stuff he used to do. And it's driving me nuts, a bit, because some of the tasks he's dropped are things that are logistically really hard for me to pick up (specifically, getting dinner started sometime before I get home between seven thirty and nine), and I'd be much happier if he dropped something else and kept that.
OTOH, I haven't got a leg to stand on in terms of complaining about domestic tasks not getting done, so mostly I don't complain.
But sometimes you still do.
Life's been good to you so far.
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Have I trolled lately? This is a production thread, right?
Reading Anitra Nelson's Marx's Concept of Money:God of Commodities which is pretty tough stuff and she seems so critical of Marx that I thought at one point she might be a rightie although God knows righties don't go this deep into Marx. But no, she is a very radical lefty in a direction slantwise from Marxians.
Anyway, Varoufakis helped a bit on the transformation problem by explaining that the Inherent Errors of bourgeois economics (complexity and time, clear one or other) are attempting to reconcile human activity (which is absolutely unquantifiable without reification) and commodities/production/circulation. Calculated Wages and profits always have to ignore a residual (human creativity and freedom not contracted for as labour-power) that is the real source of socialized production, growth, and surplus value.
Anyway, also, because this is just the start, the foundation for what I want to do, here's:
Nancy Fraser:
Can Societies Be Commodities All the Way Down via Yves Smith. I, and I think tiqqun, say fuck yeah, already there. And it is a good thing, means something is in the air cause revolution's here. Accelerationism. But I haven't had the time or bandwidth to hear Fraser's answer
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Two posts in a row? At this rate he'll be hosting the next Unfoggidycon.
These dishes aren't dishwasher safe? No problem, I'll do them by hand. put them in anyway and they probably won't melt or anything really bad.
Nelson seems to run into the contradiction (Hegel, duh?) between money as a specific commodity containing labour-power and money as the universal...mediation...among all other commodities.
Kinda like language, signs and symbols...and subjectivity.
She has too much bourgeois economics messing her brain, like, of course exchange-value precedes price but that does make money kinda complicated.
Besides the dirty meaning, I keep looking for "filf" with some meaning relating to fantasy or elves or sumpin.
We haven't had guests for 15 years. There are corners that are shovel-ready. The books o god those fucking books.
The lady had it instantly.
Filk!!!
I'm with 18. Dr. Skull keeps buying precious, precious kitchen shit that can't go in the dishwasher. But then he won't wash it by hand himself -- it piles up on the counter for literally days. So I've taken to just putting it in the dishwasher anyway. So far so good.
By which I mean, of course, that he hasn't divorced me YET.
Marriage has been good to you so far.
When I was freaking out that I was going to be the worst housemate ever (not having lived with a non-cat entity in over a dozen years and really the cat was no-one's idea of a good homemaker) AWB gave me a useful tip while reassuring me, which was people living together should establish the one chore they hate most and if it's not the same chore, the other person/cat takes that one.
I think we're kind of doing fine, not descending into a malestrom (heh heh) of filth. Occasionally I realize I need to de-colonize the living room of my scattered effects. Right now I could stand to clean the bathroom.
25: Aw. He did know how to walk across the sand in the sexiest way imaginable.
On the housecleaning front, I've established a new regime: I will do one project-like task, aside from basic maintenance like dishwashing, on each of my days off. Most of this is correction of past slothfulness. It's working a wonder! I feel so much better with each project accomplished: I can *see* the results. Mind, the size of the project is irrelevant: it can be as small as throwing out too-old jars of stuff in the fridge (like I'm ever going to use that pork-flavored barbecue sauce, don't even know why it's here) or as large as vacuuming *behind* the couch and between the couch cushions.
I think our marriage owes a lot to our housekeeper.
24: I tried to do that this time around, but the failed completely. I do think it's a good idea, though.
Right now I could stand to clean the bathroom.
I just did that. I'm very suggestible, I guess.
heebie has a housekeeper? This confuses me.
I just did that. I'm very suggestible, I guess.
Come on over to our house!
25:Going through the threads at IMDB The Lion in Winter seems the overwhelming favorite. Smart, funny, sad, epic, with two geniuses feeding off each other.
Most Oscar-robbed actor ever.
30: sometimes people hire other people to clean their homes. It is a thing that happens.
5: That's my way of ensuring I clean the house well. We're having friends over! We must de-clutter!
To what ogged said I'd add that it's important also to anticipate what chores need to be done. We had a lot of arguments that went along the lines of "Whatever you need me to do, I'll do!"/"I want not to have to make a special announcement that the dishes are dirty/the lawn is overgrown/the clothes need cleaning in order to get you to do housework." before we figured out that making lists of regular chores meant that neither of us had an excuse for not knowing what needed to be done.
We have one too. Two people each away from the house for 9-10 hours a day, plus baby, = getting a housekeeper.
Actually, we have a house cleaner. This woman also does housekeeping for some people, which is cleaning plus laundry and dishes.
36: I want one but I'd feel compelled to tidy up before the housekeeper showed up. Also, I'm cheap.
By the by, the new issue of Harper's magazine has a lengthy piece by one John Davidson on the art of domestic service. That's paywalled beyond its opening paragraphs.
I haven't yet finished reading the piece, but it does contain this interesting factoid:
The postwar economic boom further diverted both jobs and workers from private service, and by 1950 only one in forty-two families had full-time servants, as compared with one in fifteen in 1900.
One in 42 by 1950 still seems strikingly high to me. But that's why one reads these things: to become informed.
33: Astonishing! I wonder what other strange folkways exist, unbeknownst to most of us.
30: Yeah? I posted about it when we first hired her. We love her a lot.
If someone was cleaning my place I would worry they would disturb my carefully arranged piles of papers that I intend to one day get around to reading. Then I would remember that all of these piles are destined for the recycling bin next time I get around to doing a thorough cleaning.
39: Sorry, I think I missed it, or forgot about it. It would be great to have a housekeeper (or cleaner), but it's just not something that's ever been on my radar.
I seriously feel like having a housekeeper come (now twice a week) is what makes shared domestic life possible for me and I am so thankful for it. It's one of the absolutely last expenses I'd cut, it just makes life so much better.
I want one but I'd feel compelled to tidy up before the housekeeper showed up.
We absolutely do this, and it is a pain. But it's silly to pay someone to clean and then not allow that person to be able to get to the surfaces needing cleaning, so we do it. So the whole thing at least ensures that we put things away (kinda sorta, anyway) at least once every two weeks.
I was at a party several years ago with the boyfriend's coworkers and ended up chatting with the wives about chores. I'd mentioned that I do the cooking and he does the cleaning. They were all so surprised, some shocked. "How did you get him to do that?" they asked. I explained that when we moved in together, we divided up routine chores (same as everybody, right?). One poor woman told me that in addition to working more hours and making more money than her husband, she did ALL the cooking, housework and yardwork, plus all the auto maintenance. She said she just wished her husband would mow the lawn sometimes when she asked. I felt bad for her, but then I realized that she's the one who married him - what could she have been expecting? It was very eye-opening that all these couples, most of whom had married right after college, hadn't even thought to discuss household operations.
The boyfriend's and my chore talk was short and sweet. I told him to assign me half the chores that needed to be done and let me know exactly what he expected me to do at what frequency ("clean the bathroom" not being sufficiently descriptive). He rolled his eyes and said he'd just take care of it. And he has. Pretty neat.
having a housekeeper come (now twice a week)
Oh heavens! That sounds kind of glorious. Does it feature full on housekeeping -- laundry, etc.?
Jammies does not want the housekeeper to do the laundry because he has a system. Hawaii demands to fold/hang/put away her clothes because she has a system. Weirdos.
shiv and I both hate doing laundry. Maybe we could hire Hawaii.
The Lion in Winter is an old favorite that I haven't seen in decades, time for another viewing. I'd really like to see Lawrence on a big screen once more too.
Anyone who wishes to launder and put away my clothes should have at it, system be damned.
OT: Nothing to do with FILFs, but I have to pass along the glory of Ross Douthat explaining that those parents who have daughters are quite likely to become conservatives because ... liberal men are too emo, or something, and you wouldn't want your daughter dating one of those.
(I did not read the original Douthat column, just the DKos coverage of it.)
This year I stopped watering or fertilizing the lawn, which means I didn't have to mow it either. Double efficiency!
I did not read the original Douthat column, just the DKos coverage of it.
Well, that's progress. Hopefully you can eventually reach the point of ignoring these people entirely.
Hawaii demands to fold/hang/put away her clothes because she has a system.
I love these Hawaii stories so much.
Exam time is great (and by great I mean terrible), because I break out the procrastination/distraction deep cuts: things that I've been putting off all semester, like scrubbing the shower and dealing with that pile of papers that's been on the table forever.
This strikes me as one of the sillier sets of articles in the whole genre of 'transparently outrageous clickbait concerning sexual/domestic habits'. My experience is that once you have kids there is substantial work to do just staving off outright squalor. Am I the only one who will admit that my house doesn't meet *either* of our cleanliness standards, but there is still some subtle domestic tension over who will do the cleaning because neither of us wants to do the work that both of us admit is necessary?
This does sometimes express itself as conflict over how often we should get cleaners over.
Twice a month=not enough, in my view.
Thought it was early to switch to kvetching about sex, but ok.
Which of you reprobates killed Peter O'Toole?
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FUCK someone published the existing-hypothesis-and-iffy-computer-model that I got rejected for lack of new data and is getting *great press* from it. NPR, the Economist, I am getting pinged about it from all over my network. No fucking new data! No new hypothesis! I have the data, but am still wrestling it! I SUCK as an academic!
And I worry that his paper is better than I think, but there are really explicit `of course this part isn't proved' bits.
And he doesn't mention my arXiv paper -- fair enough, but sss sss sss.
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And he doesn't mention my arXiv paper -- fair enough
In an all-arXiv culture, this would occasion sending an email complaining, and he would add the reference before getting published.
I don't know if there's a remedy once the publication is out.
But if you had published on arXiv earlier, surely you've established priority anyway?
This would be a no-arXiv culture *except* that we're both bringing the new light of computer modeling to a hands-on field (snort). And actually I know he's seen my work because someone told me they thought he was trying to copy it after a poster session; hence the arXiv paper. But it kills me that I got turned down for lack of data.
Also, I really have been slow, though some of that was from the fieldwork.
I'm not an academic, clew, but that sounds crummy. I'm sorry you got "scooped" even though you weren't really.
However, essears' comment has very usefully reminded me to ask my PI for advice -- and he's originally a physicist, so may have different arXiv thoughts.
...If not advice, at least get ahead of the news.
Man.
Perhaps this is the thread to mention that my first paper has been -- contrary to what everybody, unfogged, colleagues, everybody told me to expect -- sailing through the review process, obvious (to us) problems and totally-out-of-left-field My Fair Lady reference left intact. Also it seems like we're not going to get scooped, even though it seems like it's really damned obvious. Academia... doesn't really make sense, does it?
All of which is to say that I think you should add a My Fair Lady reference and resubmit without citing the oher guy, clew.
Blume points out that there is a (very obvious, in retrospect) interpretation of 69 where I was being a damned jerk. Uh, sorry! I was not intentionally being a damned jerk?
Are you going to let us know every time you are being a jerk whether you are doing it intentionally or not? Because that could get old eventually.
I'm sure I'll continue to fail to notice most times.
65: Maybe you could also email the journal that previously rejected you? Competition among journals can work in your favor sometimes.
(I.e., that journal may be more interested in your paper now, and may be able to fast-track it to publication.)
69 contrary to what everybody, unfogged, colleagues, everybody told me to expect -- sailing through the review process
Did I ever tell you to expect otherwise? My experience is that three out of four times things sail through, and the rest of the time some referee has a completely irrational fit about something and holds it up. Substantive and correct criticism almost never happens, in my experience. (Though I guess I feel differently when I'm the one writing the report.)
Who are all the heretics who hate laundry and vacuuming? Those are two of my favorite chores, although I prefer vastly laundry when there's an in-unit washer & dryer. I hate washing dishes and taking out the trash. I also don't mind removing hair from drains, which is really worth a lot in the chore exchange market. I currently do maybe 60% of the housework in my current relationship, but since I don't do dishes, take out the trash, or clean the toilet, I am happy as a clam. My partner is also willing to do whatever I ask of him with no complaining, and I find the knowledge of this makes me much more willing to do more of the cleaning without feeling taken advantage of. Cooking is split fairly equally, with me maybe doing slightly more dinners, but him doing more complicated, time intensive, tasty dinners.
79.1: I hate laundry, and I think it's typical for parents to hate laundry. I should do at least a load a day to stay on top of it, but that means getting everything put away in the right bedroom before the person in that bedroom goes to bed and folding and sorting it at a time and in a place where the baby can't knock it over, and all just so the girls can drop the newly clean stuff on the floor and forget it was clean and put it back in the dirty laundry bin or whatever. And I chose vacuuming as the task I hated most, but then I bought a new vacuum and it's not so bad. In the six-plus years we've lived together, I don't think Lee has used a vacuum, though we have a little handheld one she uses for messes and she would say counts. So passing that off to her didn't work, and having me do all the dishes in return doesn't work as well as she'd like.
I should do at least a load a day to stay on top of it, but that means getting everything put away in the right bedroom before the person in that bedroom goes to bed and folding and sorting it at a time and in a place where the baby can't knock it over, and all just so the girls can drop the newly clean stuff on the floor and forget it was clean and put it back in the dirty laundry bin or whatever.
All of our family's supposedly clean laundry is always in a giant pile in the middle of the floor upstairs. Which makes it a pain to find matching socks in the morning, let me tell you. (So my kids almost never wear matching socks.) My clothes are sometimes put away in my drawers because I sometimes sort through the giant pile to put them away in drawers myself, because I hate having to dig through a giant unsorted pile to find clothes to wear, including especially matching socks, and unlike the kids I feel like I have to wear matching socks. I've long since given up on putting away anyone else's clothes. I can't do it often enough to make a difference--there are additions to the pile almost every day as new loads are laundered--and anyway no one else in the house seems to mind digging through a giant unsorted pile of clothes in the floor.
My least favorite chore is cleaning the mass of vomited chicken from the boy, his pajamas, and every piece of cloth on his bedframe. Though that was kind of an "all hands on deck" thing and there was no way to say, "I'll get the dishes, you get this."
79.1: It's mostly that we suck at it, so that days later clean laundry is either unfolded, or folded, but not replaced in drawers, etc. Or shiv feels guilty that I've started a load, and offers to take over, and then hours later I have to remind him to put the load in the dryer.
62: Ouch! It's not unheard-of for references to be added after an ASAP comes out. I think when you discuss it with your advisor, you should suggest sending a polite note to the corresponding author and cc the journal editor saying that they've omitted the reference to your paper, which is understandable since it wasn't in a traditional journal (just for politeness' sake). You might check the submission date - it's very common in my field for new papers to come out between manuscript submission and acceptance/publishing, so references get added before official publication or sometimes added as errata. It would make the whole thing easier if the dates work, since you can treat it as a totally understandable omission. That really sucks, though, especially the poster thing. Hopefully everyone in your field knows your stuff is better.
Having many non-identical pairs of socks is a dangerous eccentricity.
86: This was a disgusting evening a Chez Hick.
We're dealing with my least favorite gross-kid issue, Mobes, and I feel your pain. In theory, Lee and I can each opt out of our individual top gross-out options, but I just seem to deal with it for both of us. And I'm grateful for her that I can and that I've gotten to deal with my hangup better than I'd have expected, but still it's hardly fun.
It's not a good smell but less unsanitary than shit.
83 is reason 1,000,000 I'm never having a kid. Barf makes me feel faint.
Which of you reprobates killed Peter O'Toole?
Did Olivia de Havilland have anything against him?
93.1: It's not that bad. Plus, adults barf, if less often.
That's how I felt about it and then, like the most pathetic fucking cliche, I found that PARENTING CHANGED ME and it was confusingly okay. I once even told her to go ahead and throw up in my hair what why who on earth even am I.
Right, the puke really isn't so bad. Not having a choice can make things a lot easier. Stalin understood this.
Elementary school taught me that the way to deal with vomit is to put some equally smelly, pencil-shaving-looking stuff on top of it.
Stalin made people puke? Non-metaphorically.
Adults try to barf privately. Kids pretty much demand your participation in their barfing process. They're all hey can I get a hand with the barfing I am doing?
Cannot stop laughing about the last sentence of 95.
There's probably a version of the story about Stalin and the chicken in which Stalin vomits on the chicken.
Thanks, ydnew, helpful. I am of course bleached with shame at not having gotten out fast enough.
I have no good barf stories, but for laundry with kids -- why doesn't it work to have a Clean and a Dirty basket for each kid? And wash loads that go right into their Clean baskets and if they want to Hawaii it away they can?
(Clearly one gives up the Coloreds and the Whites, but does kid laundry last long enough to dinge?)
I meant, wash loads entirely from one person, but was not clear.
obvious (to us) problems and totally-out-of-left-field My Fair Lady reference left intact.
Sifu has discovered a very elegant proof that there is exactly one nightingale in the heart of town.
103: Doesn't work here because Other Parent starts walking around the house ranting about how I'm going to raise them to be hoarders if they don't put their laundry away. I would prefer to live and put away clothes like that (well, for myself I also have a gently-used basket for things I can rewear) but I don't quite because of the hostility. It's also hard with at least my multiple kids to get them to actually put their own clothes in their own baskets.
More importantly, I'm sorry to hear about sneaky guy and his sudden prominence and I'm thrilled that people have actual advice on how to thwart him a bit, because I didn't.
ike I'm ever going to use that pork-flavored barbecue sauce,
The thing about barbecue is it just doesn't taste porky enough.
re: housework
I've had relationships with varying divisions of domestic labour that has traditional been considered 'women's' work. In one, I did by far the most.* In one, it was about even. In my current relationship, my wife does more of the housework than I do. Not massively disproportionately more, but certainly more than half [60/40, maybe], and this was the case even when we were working similar hours.***
On the other hand, there have been certain constants. I do basically all of the cooking, and most/all of the grocery shopping. I do all traditional 'man' stuff: anything DIY/Garden/Car/electrical related. Somehow equality in domestic division of labour never quite extends to those things.
* although, infuriatingly, she still had some odd poorly informed quasi-feminist notion that she was somehow hard done by on this score.**
** the reasoning was something like, 'historically, and actually, because teh patriarchy, women tend to do far more domestic work than men, and this has continued even when women regularly worked as many hours as men. I am a woman. Therefore, I am a a victim of teh patriatrchy, in _exactly_ this way.' Such reasoning not responsive to actual facts about the balance of work in our specific relationship.
*** unless you count cooking and grocery shopping. In which I've never been in a relationship where I didn't spend the most hours on domestic work.
I count cooking and grocery shopping, maybe because I do the bulk of both. Our household is a little short on help from the patriarchy, though, so it doesn't change the calculus on that front.
Not having a choice can make things a lot easier.
I don't think that I feel this way when dealing with my parents. Of course, I have some choice about that even if I often don't feel like it.
re: 109
I'm completely OK with the general complaint about the division of domestic labour between the sexes being massively unfair because [in part] teh patriarchy. It was just that in this one particular relationship that was absolutely not the case, and yet, that didn't seem to make any difference to the perception.
There is no need to do any housework at all. After the first four years the dirt doesn't get any worse.
I enjoy laundry but hate vacuuming. Fortunately, I'm forbidden to vacuum these days because Mrs y is afraid I'll drop it down the stairs. She may well be right. We have a cleaner who is much safer with it. And yes, we do tidy up before she comes. It's good for the soul and gives her time to do more important stuff.
Most of the mess in our house tends to be piles of paper which need to be sorted into smaller piles and either dealt with, filed or recycled. Now that is soul destroying work. But the amount of complete garbage that gets delivered every day never ceases to amaze me.
Laundry is fine. Ironing, on the other hand...
112: Oh, I know! I was just joking about being in an all-female household, though actually it's a sad clown situation where I still don't like how gendered patterns get replicated, blah blah blah. But I bought a push lawnmower I can use with the baby on my back, and so that will be my job now!
I used to find ironing really pleasant and meditative, but I don't wear anything that needs to be ironed. I don't even iron my fabric before sewing with it, which is just sad.
Our household is a little short on help from the patriarchy, though,
See, ladies, you'd miss us if we weren't around.
I don't wear anything that needs to be ironed.
This. It would be more effort to buy stuff that needed ironing than not. I doubt if I iron a shirt once a month. Protip: cheap white shirts don't just look terrible...
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So, I realize this is not a thing one says, but sometimes I wonder if it would be possible to actually not take bomb threats seriously if they are 1. delivered right before final exams are supposed to start, 2. target only buildings where lots of final exams take place and 3. are delivered via twitter?
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3. Seems easy to determine who made the threat.
I kind of love vacuuming because I consider it the magic wand that makes rooms look loads better even if you didn't realize looking at them before that the trouble was that they needed to be vacuumed. But I also have a very luxe vacuum, which helps a great deal. Dusting is probably the same in terms of magic, but I loathe it because there is no helpful tool and it makes my arms tired and requires lots more active attention. Thus dusting seldom happens, unless you count wiping down large flat surfaces below my eye level -- tables and kitchen counters -- which does happen pretty regularly.
Ironing we do never, never, ever. Washing windows, almost ditto. Mowing we hire out. Laundry and odd errands are both almost all Snark, cooking and washing up are almost all me. Bathrooms are a shared effort that we should both be better about doing.
I think it works out about right, though I do find myself wishing that more things would get magically tidied while my back is turned. We are both much tidier and more resigned to having to spend time on it every day than we were when we were younger, though we could still stand to be even more so, and also the effect is of course somewhat offset by the chaos demon who lives with us now.
119: During my undergrad years, there was a string of finals-related bomb threats. The university countered by encouraging professors to establish a back-up location (usually outside) for exam distribution, and then the students would take the exam at home or at the library. I can't remember if we ever actually used a back-up location, but I was amused that the designated spot for a political theory class was under a large tree. Also, IIRC this back-up scheme was effective at stopping the threats.
117: Aww, I do miss you, ajay!
This isn't really housework, but I do all the hair except Lee's now and that's several hours a week. I'm very proud because I just gave myself a french braid for the first time ever, which is pitiful in certain respects but an accomplishment nonetheless. I spent last night's hour visit at the hospital installing yarn extensions, and I'm pretty sure the hospital should have hair stylists rather than therapists, because I got more insight out of her while not looking at her face than in any of our other visits or family therapy sessions. It was a good reminder that it's important time for bonding and the like even though it's logistically challenging nowadays.
the designated spot for a political theory class was under a large tree
Halfway through the exam, everyone achieved enlightenment.
I'm pretty sure the hospital should have hair stylists rather than therapists
This actually sounds like a really good idea; being groomed is terribly soothing and calming, and it would be an easy way to cheer patients up, which helps recovery.
nightingale
lilac tree!
Sorry, Smearcase. I was thinking of Berkeley Square.
When I was an undergrad, it was fire alarms.
We are having issues with cleaning, but since we're both conflict-avoidant , we just sit there stewing and letting the house go to hell.
There are definitely fire alarms in the heart of town.
And now I'm at an Irish-themed pub, drinking beer and grading.
There are four men sitting at a table near me. I think they're all physics profs.
Someone pulled a fire alarm during a math final of mine. I was failing the class and the exam, and was pretty content to hand in my bad test during the evacuation for the alarm and get out of there. Over the break, the professor wrote to all of us, saying that we'd have to come back to re-take the test. I ignored that, and eventually got an email to go meet with him. I did, and he offered me a re-test and said he'd have to fail me if I didn't take it. I'd somehow squeaked out a D or something. I asked him if he thought I cheated on the final for my D. He said no, but we still ended the conversation with me not taking the test and getting the F.
127: Well, as it happens I just woke up, so it couldn't have been me, but I can grudgingly satisfy the requirement of "person most likely to correct a musical theater reference" by correcting the person correcting the reference. Ahem. The song asks whether there are lilac trees in the heart of town, yes, but there is also a bird whose ability to be heard in any other (obvious rhyme! sing it with me!) part of town is rhetorically brought into question, and that bird is a lark, and then none of it matters because it turns out that both lilac trees and larks exist, at least for the purpose of symbolizing happiness, love, and enchantment pouring out of every door, only on the street where the absent addressee of the song lives. Baritone high G with a fermata, exit Freddy Eynsford-Hill.
Having more fully lived my stereotype, I'm going to put on pants.
I think I am going to just keep rereading 134 and smiling for the rest of my life.
Having more fully lived my stereotype, I'm going to put on pants.
People stop and stare, they don't bother him...
Putting on pants now and forevermore the mic drop of internet musical theater pedantry.
Smearcase, how is this a correction? There's no nightingale in the song. A lark is not a nightingale. The mistaken reference was obviously to the "lilac tree" line.
And I have been wearing pants for over four hours.
138.2: You should call your doctor.
I...am I about to defend my correction of a reference to a musical theater line to a masked internet presence who was mistaken for me?
Lilac tree. Lark. The existence of both, as avatars of emotional contentment, in specific locations to be characterized by the absence of the song's subject's dwelling's thoroughfare, is proposed and dismissed.
The mistaken reference could be either, one supposes. But let us think for a moment about ajay. What do we know about him? Is he an ornithologist? No. A dendrologist? We think not. We don't actually know.
Still, we find it likely that he would substitute bird for bird and tree for tree. So, for instance, he might have said "Sifu has discovered a very elegant proof that there is exactly one gingko tree in the heart of town" if, for a moment, he had been thinking of the lovely, only superficially vomit-like stench of the gingko tree as a thing one might metonymize to stand in for thought of carnal love with Audrey Hepburn (dubbed, in musical passages, by the versatile Marnie Nixon) for the more obvious choice of a lilac tree. Both are metrically apt.
Or, certainly, he might have evoked Lerner and Loewe's representation of suspiciously class-contingent ardor, which is to say the slight dumbing down of Shaw's representation of same, with a...what's a bird with three syllables....well, let's say a ptarmigan. Oh, but here's the rub. While ajay is clearly thinking of the bird reference, he also has in his head the metre of the tree passage. Because it can't have been "can you hear a ptarmigan in any other part of town?"
So really either one is possible, because while he wouldn't have substituted a bird for a tree...well, I've lost quite where I was going with this, but I stand corrected.
I still have not put on pants because there is no point in my leaving the house and entering human society, and clearly never was.
The best case for FILF is that it's a new century, and why should MILFs be getting all the action. And guys, if it takes a little housework to get over that hump, well, surely that's worth it.
At least not the sort of human society closed-minded enough to require pants.
140.last: If you put on pants I'll buy you coffee.
Weirdest prostitution pick up line ever.
Josh reveals his close--mindedness.
I blame that extra dash slipping through on my having to concentrate very hard on not writing "clothes".
Surely the Unfoggetariat can muster some kind of subsidy for Smearcase so he can do nothing but sit about pantsless composing comments like 134 and 140.
I am inexplicably delighted by the contrast between Smearcase's absolute knowledge that ajay is not an ornithologist, but allowance for the possibility that he might be a dendrologist.
I couldn't have come up with the word 'dendrologist' offhanded if you paid me, much less have formed an opinion about who among us might possibly be one.
Ortolan. Butcherbird. Gnatcatcher. I could spend the rest of the morning thinking of three-syllable bird names. Thanks for the procrastination device, Smearcase.
I am now on a bus going to run errands. Am I wearing pants? I'm not telling!
If there were ortolans in the heart of town everyone would be bumping into one another on account of the napkins over their heads.
152: Are you a naked Castro old dude already?!
Cooper's hawk. Sharpshinned hawk. Cockatoo. Mynah bird.
Parakeet! Lorikeet! Omnikeet! Blastokeet!
One of these things is not like the others.
I am really curious what accent results in "Secretarybird" and "Crested grackle" having three syllables each.
I think it would be funny if someday I posted a prompt which just said "List all the three syllable words you can think of."
Make it seven syllable so nosflow can play.
neb could just apply oulipo-style rules to his seven-syllable words to bring them down to three.
Having thought of "albatross", I'm now unable to stop mashing up "On the Street Where You Live" with "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (some of the lines fit the tune nicely). Brain, please stop.
A remarkable bird is the pelican.
I am really curious what accent results in "Secretarybird" and "Crested grackle" having three syllables each.
Well in the biz' of course, we call 'em the Sectrybird and Ol' CresGrack.
184: I am rather fond of
When the dog bites
When the bee stings
When MacHeath is back in town
I simply remember my favorite things
And let my cement bag drop down
But I'm not sure I could amalgamate more of either song into the other, much as I desire do.
I also recently thought that part of Univers Zero's "Toujours plus à l'est" might fit will with one of the earlier of the Time Curve Preludes, but I think I might need to fiddle around in Audacity to verify that.
I am inexplicably delighted by the contrast between Smearcase's absolute knowledge that ajay is not an ornithologist, but allowance for the possibility that he might be a dendrologist.
Yes, I caught that too.
Are there ptarmigans in the heart of town?
Can you hear an auk in any other part of town?
Do flamingos pour
Out of every door?
I don't know, I'm just a dendrologist. Ask me about the foliage.
So what kind of flair does one have to wear on a dendrologist costume?
I know I was picturing plenty of Spanish moss.
So what kind of flair does one have to wear on a dendrologist costume?
Oak leaf clusters.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oak_leaf_cluster