I feel your pain.
It's hard to say "I see a kid being a jerk" in a neutral, equilibrium-reaffirming way. Also, "I see a kid overreacting to crotchety dad's completely negligible grouchiness" does not play as well as I would have thought.
It's probably insanely annoying, but I do an older-kid nonverbal version of this with my kids: staring intently at whatever it is they just did wrong/failed to do. Kid is about to walk away from a set of dirty dishes on the table, looks at me, thinks, "Why is Mom staring at something with her head cocked on one side like the RCA Victor terrier? Oh," rolls their eyes, and puts the dishes in the dishwasher. I have no real idea why I think this is preferable to just giving orders, but I seem to.
2: Does the same technique work with people at the office?
They usually don't screw up quite so concretely. I have marked up documents by indicating a passage or a citation or something and saying "Fix" without further explanation, which works sometimes and is kind of a written equivalent.
I don't see anything wrong with this approach, but I honestly don't remember ever doing, hearing or thinking it.
It's fine as long as the problem isn't you.
You could try, "I see a mother who is failing to deal constructively with her children." Or semi-seriously, "I see a mother who is very tired and busy right now."
4: Could you draw a cartoon face glaring at the appropriate passage?
"I see a child who does not understand the problem with wire hangers."
It's fine as long as the problem isn't you
"I see a child who doesn't love her father enough."
"I see a child who does not understand the problem with wire hangers."
I get pretty frustrated with my kids sometimes but I never suggest to them that back alley abortion was an option.
I have marked up documents by indicating a passage or a citation or something and saying "Fix" without further explanation
In CGI, the term is "MNS" which, when appended to a bit of animation, means "Make Not Suck".
I do also tell my children "Do [whatever] or I'll have you killed," fairly frequently. I think this is both probably bad parenting, and part of the reason I find myself in so many poorly advised wrestling matches with the kids.
"Poorly advised wrestling matches with the kids."
We just can't get away from the Woody Allen stuff.
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Pretending not to get the reference is a standard joke ATM, as I've been remembering the last few days, and I also recall how often I've been credited with this when in fact I didn't get the reference.
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Heh. I do occasionally worry that anyone who dates either of them is in for a surprising amount of pouncing/wrestling/sneak attacks as what they've learned to expect as normal levels of familial intimacy. Particularly, anyone who gets near a body of water with Sally should either be a strong swimmer, or very wary.
We started a swearing/hitting jar this weekend. Hitting or throwing things at people is 50 cents, "shut up" "stupid" and "moron" are a quarter. (Those are all the "swears" they know.)
What if you throw the swear jar at somebody and they curse at you?
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My daughter, whose adventures I've sometimes reported on before atm, has just been accepted to the graduate program she wanted, allowing me to say, as long-planned: "What a Maroon!"
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Aha! It's a virtual swear jar, just like their allowance is virtual, we just record the numbers in a spreadsheet which lives in the cloud so there's nothing physical to throw. The computer is too heavy.
We just can't get away from the Woody Allen stuff.
One of the science-news twitter feeds wrote something like "Astronomers announce discovery of oldest, most iron-poor star ever observed", and all I could think was "Enough of these stories about Woody Allen!"
18: As long as it's neither law nor economics, congratulations!
(Those are all the "swears" they know.)
Aww.
Our kids are the opposite - we just tell them all swear words are private, and not to say them in public or at the dinner table. It's worked to some degree.
My favorite part of that is that when Hawaii says Goddamn! or Shit! in public, I get to admonish "Hey, that's a private word!" which passive-aggressively communicates to everyone within earshot that yes, she's allowed to say it elsewhere and I think your rules are arbitrary and I am only barely cooperating.
just like their allowance is virtual
This is what we had, growing up. Just a sad spiral notebook.
As long as it's neither law nor economics
fear not: urban teaching.
I sort of meant to also post Why Mom's Time is Different from Dad's Time:
Funny: I once sat on a panel with Adam Mansbach, the author of the best-selling parody "Go the F-- to Sleep." At one point in the discussion, he conceded that his partner put his child to bed most nights. He may have written a book about the tyranny of toddlers at bedtime, but in his house, it was mainly Mom's problem.
I cannot broach this topic without the disclaimer that Jammies does more than I do around the house, though.
Woohoo! Disconcertingly faux-Gothic architecture FTW!
25: Oh, there was an irritating article in the NYT this weekend on related lines -- "Men: Sure, you could do housework, but be warned that your wife will never have sex with you again if you do. If you want to get laid, keep it manly and don't touch that vacuum."
Here, for anyone who wants to be annoyed.
27,28: I saw that this weekend.
Social Science as advanced trolling.
It's true, I do all the housework and I never get laid.
Maybe I can up my chances if I stop doing the dishes.
Ladies, if you are infuriated by the blatant trolling and shoddy science of the NYT article, the best thing you can do about it is to shag Eggplant.
Are you kidding? He admits to doing housework. Cooties.
I can't have many cooties; I barely clean at all, laydeez.
Laydeez, he doesn't even shower them off himself.
Thanks all!
I feel lucky in this, as I don't believe it's been a factor in our marriage. I do hear a lot about it anecdotally though, and shoddy science or not, there's something there causing some heartache.
I can remember a discussion here that touched on these issues 'bout 6 years ago. It was carried on here and at locale-de-Tedre, and it was there I think that I expressed perplexity with the desire reflected in this article for role reversal in the bedroom, a desire that might be the stronger the more assertive the woman was outside. Our hostess observed that she guessed I was a lot more assertive than I thought of myself as being, and I've come to believe that very insightful.
I think there's something that resonates about that article - that differences are what spark sexual frisson. It doesn't necessarily need to be pegged (OH YEAH) to differences in who does what kind of chores. But there are plenty of men that I'm compatible with who are similar enough that I'd have a dismissive-you're-my-sibling lack of chemistry.
If you want to get laid, keep it manly and don't touch that vacuum.
Seriously. "Erotic stimulation by the use of vacuum cleaners or electric brooms appears to be a common form of masturbation. Unfortunately, and contrary to apparent public appreciation, injury due to this form of autostimulation may not be unusual. Five cases of significant penile trauma resulting from this form of masturbation are presented, with a spectrum of severe injuries, including loss of the glans penis."
40: Once again, I feel undiscriminating. I can't think of having had a "You're too much like me to be attractive" reaction to anyone, although men who are less surly and withdrawn than I am are certainly easier to get close to.
That article is really all over the place. What struck me is just that it's hard to shake off lots of cultural norms about the roles of men and women, and that can create a lot of stress.
I'm currently the sole breadwinner; shiv is the stay-at-home-dad/full-time college student. It's not too bad, but a lot of the stress clearly results from subconsciously falling into gendered patterns of behavior/roles.
full-time college student.
He's leaving his prior career in construction/blowing shit up? Because giving up blowing shit up has got to hurt: gender roles, schmender roles, explosions are fun.
blowing shit up has got to hurt
And is deeply Canadian, vis Dan George's character on The Red Green Show
Ka-Boom!
42: Actually, come to think, what's going on there is that I tend to believe that no one who isn't quite a bit like me would want to stay in the same room with me for any extended period of time. If I was ruling out men for being too much like me, that'd neatly rule out everyone.
My guess is that manipulatively doing the dishes to get your wife to sex you is a turnoff, whereas doing the dishes because you are a decent human being and just feel like you ought to is not. That's certainly my hope, anyway, since I wouldn't feel right if I stopped doing dishes.
God, all we want is to be listened to and understood, isn't it. That and enough sleep.
I frequently also want a burrito.
. . . I tend to believe that no one who isn't quite a bit like me would want to stay in the same room with me for any extended period of time
The phrase that I have picked up is, "compatible neuroses." It's important that one's particular bits of crazy make sense to the other person.
44: He realized that while playing with dynamite in the wilds of the frozen North is fun and reasonably lucrative, most of the men he worked with were divorced and never saw their children. So, career change.
The link in 25 is interesting and makes a lot of sense.
What feels trollish to me is that this is the "Nice Guy" trope inside marriage.
When these issues were raised in a more circumspect and better-written op-ed in the NYT a couple of months ago, there was a Don Draper anecdote. Apparently there's an episode of Mad Men where DD pulls his shirt off at a dinner party to fix a stuck-drain, to the sexual admiration of the assembled women, and he and his wife go on to have sex in their car on the drive home.
I laughed about this with some friends, including a very close friend who called me for help a few years ago with a whole-house stuck toilet drain. I was at a low ebb psychologically just then, and helping her was wonderfully restorative, one of the happiest days I'd had for a long time. I reminded her of this and the Draper scenario a few weeks ago, and asked if there'd been any sexual frisson. "You were covered in shit!" she answered conclusively.
I'm a regular Stanley Kowalski when it comes to masculine chores, and have come to think that this notion of sexiness in it is a projection by guys who've never done any of those things and wouldn't know how.
48: For the most part, I do the dishes and fold the laundry because otherwise the dishwasher gets loaded and the clothes get folded in ways that are HORRIBLY WRONG. I have not examined the relationship of this to overall panky frequency.
I'm a regular Stanley Kowalski when it comes to masculine chores, and have come to think that this notion of sexiness in it is a projection by guys who've never done any of those things and wouldn't know how.
Are you wearing a ribbed sleeveless undershirt at all relevant times? Because that's a key part of the vibe. Also, grease stains yes, shit no. </objectification>
"You were covered in shit!" she answered conclusively.
That's not actually answering the question.
I was hoping that the explanation was just "men who tend to overreport how much housework they do also tend to underreport how much sex they're having." But it seems that the numbers used include the data of how much work the woman says the man is doing, so that doesn't seem to be it.
To be a tiny bit serious about the masculine chores being sexy, you do have to account for contrasting low skill tasks with high skill tasks. That is, washing the dishes is marked as feminine, I suppose, but it's also pretty skill-free. You could do it badly, but there's no way to show off by washing the dishes.
A lot of what spring to mind as masculine tasks, on the other hand, do allow for showing off skill or knowledge -- emergency plumbing/car repair and that sort of thing. If there's skill or knowledge involved, it's certainly possible to parlay that into looking sexy.
Tarkovsky's sexy lead in Solaris, mesh undershit.
He disdains fixing something early in the movie.
57: Well, it's perfectly possible that it's not a reproducible result at all (and as reported, the effect is pretty small. 1.5 times a month more or less should be a fairly minor part of the amount of sex people are having, right?)
60: Buck may just have been showing off when he installed it.
The article doesn't really explain how significant it is. 1.5 times fewer per month? Out of an average of two, ten, or twenty?
Contrariwise IDP's anecdote, there was the twitterpated admiration shiv received from a friend by helping to demolish the tile in her bathroom, which included him surveying the scene in a manly way, walking up to the soap dish, and manfully yanking it off the wall.
A friend cited that article about housework and sex as an excuse for why she's sleeping with her married boss. I made skeptical noises.
Obviously, she should have her boss come and clean her house instead of fucking him.
You have to admit, the married boss is probably doing none of the housework at her place. Possibly her husband should have P.I.s following the boss trying to get pictures of him scrubbing the bathtub at his own home.
Conversely, if she sat her husband down and explained that she'd be perfectly happy to cleave unto him only so long as he'd stop doing the damn laundry, it seems perfectly possible that he'd go along with that. I mean, it's a lot to give up, but it might be worth it.
Obviously having sex with coworkers is a potential problem, but if you sleep with your supervisor, at least you know you've gotten permission.
63:
I know it's real, I've heard stories about more than admiration myself. I have no idea how I'd react if I ever received a serious sexual vibe in those circumstances, but I've never been aware of it.
Which might be my motto. My clan badge now is "Manu Forte" with a hand holding a dagger. My new clan badge will be a hand holding a wrench, with "I've never been aware" arranged around it.
I may not remember the employee handbook very well.
Let me cite the 1990s NHSLS study for frequency of sex. 43% of married couples are in the >8x month buckets; correspondingly, 57% are less than that. So 1.5 times per month is a noticable chunk (20+%) for more than half.
(Elided: personal anecdotes about how much 1.5x/month would be.)
Heh. I do occasionally worry that anyone who dates either of them is in for a surprising amount of pouncing/wrestling/sneak attacks as what they've learned to expect as normal levels of familial intimacy. Particularly, anyone who gets near a body of water with Sally should either be a strong swimmer, or very wary.
Yes, it turns out, surprisingly, that not everyone likes that sort of thing, or interprets it as an expression of affection. I threw my unsuspecting wife in the ocean once, before she was my wife, and she was really very mad at me.
We were on vacation at the beach at the time, so it seemed okay. Turns out, no, not okay.
I was drunk, also.
It's a long way down from the deck of the QE II.
I take out the trash, but just to show off. By punching it.
61, 71.2: This is going to start to resemble the "how much do you earn" thread in just a bit.
Recycling I sweep the leg. Or, if it doesn't have legs, I sweep the floor.
I did some super manly chores this weekend, like picking up a piece of broken glass and putting it down in a different place and also hitting a roof with a broom.
Oh, and I cut a piece of wood, with a saw! A hand saw!
not everyone likes that sort of thing, or interprets it as an expression of affection
Building your own house is the manliest action of all. Especially if you use cob techniques to build your own house out of the ground your house is sitting on.
Hmm. I don't really do any manly chores. On the other hand, I pay people to do chores so I can do manly things like swing sledgehammers into tires, so therefore I get the most sex of all.
Especially if you use cob techniques to build your own house out of the ground your house is sitting on.
Although you may lose manliness points if your newly built cob house collapses into the pit you dug for building materials.
83: what? No. You might lose, I dunno, your house, family members, and pets, but having something you built collapse in epic fashion is the manliest of all.
Leon's tenure as Master of Epinions was brief but majestic.
Leon's tenure as Master of Epinions was brief but majestic.
As his two most important influences, he cites spiritual leader Purple Glenn Nelson and well-known orator Og Mandino. You can find Leon's reviews in the Sports, Outdoors and Travel sections of epinions.com.
I haven't read the NYT article, but personally, I try harder to take the initiative about housework when I know I've been spending a lot of time in front of my computer or on other antisocial hobbies. So maybe the housework isn't compensating for it enough.
Back to the OP, I deliberately don't make blank comments like that because I'm pushing the girls not to ask for things passive-aggressively since that drives me crazy. So if you want a cookie, say "May I have a cookie?" and not just "I'm hungry." But sort of narrating the situation is a good idea. I should probably try that.
I read that NYT article (I'd say "against my better judgment," but who am I kidding - I always read the articles I know will annoy me), and it wasn't even well enough written for me to get up any self-satisfied outrage. Her examples just don't show what she claims they do.
I thought the article linked in 25 was really great.
You know what increases the frequency of sex much more than whether or not the man does the dishes and laundry? Weaning.
Yes, it turns out, surprisingly, that not everyone likes that sort of thing, or interprets it as an expression of affection. I threw my unsuspecting wife in the ocean once, before she was my wife, and she was really very mad at me.
This would also be my reaction.
OT: 27 Weird And Creepy Vintage Valentines Day Cards. Weirder and creepier than I was expecting.
I'm no fun.
"You're no fun" is exactly what I said to my wife! It turns out, when a person is mad at you for throwing them into the ocean, this is not in any way a helpful response.
94,95: My reaction would be murderous rage. Unfortunately I have acquaintances and family who think it the height of entertainment to do things like that. I have yet to kill anyone over it but really it's just a matter of time before there's bloodshed.
The "I'm hungry" thing used to drive me crazy. "Ok, I'll write that in my little book of facts." They stopped eventually. I'm trying to work out whether Heebie's approach would also drive me mental. I tend to be more like LB I think.
Their expensive cell phones are protecting my baby siblings from getting pushed in the pool. There is no end to the reasons to hate cell phones.
I agree with everything that's been said about the NYT piece being all over the place and over claiming.
Nonetheless, I thought it was full of interesting observations and speculations; if one in five were true that's still be something.
I thought her take on the longing behind the MILF phenomenon interesting in itself.
99: The next time they say "I'm hungry", throw them in the ocean.
If they complain, that just proves that they're no fun.
I'm about as far from the ocean as you can get in this country. Throw them in floodwater! (Topical!)
I was chatting this weekend with an acquaintance who is toilet training her son. I suddenly recalled with intense clarity the moment years ago when I realized that it had been months since my kid had given me a simultaneous report on how things were going in the toilet. Knowledge I was, and am, very happy to forego.
I told her she had this to look forward to but she's still too far list in the trenches to really appreciate it. She said the furthest ahead she could fantasize about was him being able to deal with his own clothing removal/reassembly.
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I'm doing a program review this year, for the administrative thing I do. Program reviews are the worst.
Before it goes to the external site reviewers, I've been told that I need to expand on our vision for 5 years out and 10 years out.
I...I have no vision. I honestly can't see why we would bother doing more than tweaking this program for the next 5 or 10 years. And I don't know how to bullshit a vision for the future. Peacocks and fountains? Cherubs and honey?
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Wait, swinging sledgehammers into tires is a real workout? I saw that on Arrow and thought they were making up fake superhero workouts by combining random masculine signifiers.
Or curing, cancer, and ending racism.
ending curing
The end of charcuterie? That's not a vision for the future that will get her far in TX.
A lot of what spring to mind as masculine tasks, on the other hand, do allow for showing off skill or knowledge -- emergency plumbing/car repair and that sort of thing. If there's skill or knowledge involved, it's certainly possible to parlay that into looking sexy.
God, I wish that were true in our household. I'm reasonably handy, in a sort of non-expert 'can follow instructions and not cut off own thumb' sort of way, around the house with basic DIY type stuff. But as far as my wife's concerned I'm still a pathetic incompetent in that area, or at least not deserving of admiration.
This is probably partly a combination of the fact that her Dad is the kind of guy who literally built his own tractor (and used to teach building skills to builders) and near total ignorance on her part about how difficult or labour intensive something might be.
You all always know just what to say to make me feel better.
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Is anyone here proficient in Drupal and seeking a little freelance work? I have a client with a terrible website, and their developer doesn't seem very responsive. I'd love to be able to offer them an alternative, but I don't know anybody.
My email's in the pseud. Thanks. Spike was on here complaining about Drupal recently but his email wasn't linked.
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116 to ?
if to 115, how would that make you feel better?
116 to all the feedback to 106. And I wasn't kidding.
She's always enjoyed seeing the Scots discomfited. Goes back to being frightened by a tam o'shanter as a child.
She's always enjoyed seeing the Scots discomfited. Goes back to being frightened by a tam o'shanter as a child
That I would get; frighten me too.
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Dean Baker has another atrocity from NPR this afternoon.
The banks should have been allowed to fail in 2008, and NPR to die in 1995.
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Sorry, K-Sky, I'm pretty much consumed by the current Drupal project at my day job these days. I don't really have any good leads to share either.
Re: drupal
I might know someone. UK guy who now lives in the US. Will ask him in another place.
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It turns out there's a bus that runs essentially directly from my house to lord hobo. What!
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I see a commenter who is doing much better at staying on top of real life but laments missing out on bunches of great threads until after the moment has passed.
I would, if I knew anything about Drupal! But I do not. Maybe I should learn!
And as mentioned elsewhere, they're opening Backbar 2 in the lobby of my building. I don't even have to go outside to get a drink involving gin, bitters, and herbs.
I should clarify that's the building where I work, not the building where I live.
Maybe I should learn!
Oh dear god no. Not that it's not useful but it also has the potential to lock you in a career ghetto.
Oh dear god no. Not that it's not useful but it also has the potential to lock you in a career ghetto.
This. Even if you were going to lock yourself into a web framework - and that is one way to get decent job security - there are so many less painful options out there.
That bus turns out to stop super early. But it'll get me to the bar, that's the important part.
That's an important part, sure, but then you have to get back at some point.
Eh, it's a short enough walk when you've had n > x beers where x is the number of beers where the walk seems short enough.
Unlike in Alaska, getting back from a bar here never requires taking a seaplane.
I guess even climbing that annoying hill isn't so bad when drunk enough.
It wasn't mine. But maybe that was because it reminded me of Ithaca.
Hey now, the hills are the least depressing thing about Ithaca.
Even when getting home every day requires trudging wearily up one, through the bone-chilling cold, reflecting on how miserable you are?
I'm visiting Ithaca in May. Hopefully it will seem pleasant now that some years have elapsed.
Still the least depressing part of that scenario.
I haven't been back to Ithaca since I graduated. I have no intention of doing so any time soon.
Trudging up a snowy hill in the bone-chilling cold beats trying to drive up a snowy hill in the bone-chilling cold.
I have a co-worker whose daughter is at Cornell. Last week she asked me if I had enjoyed my time there. I paused a second and answered no. Turns out her daughter isn't enjoying it much either. It's not a happy place.
For some people it is. I guess most of the people I knew there were married and raising young kids, and for them it seemed great.
Yeah, some people do seem to enjoy it. I think I encountered more who didn't, though.
Eh, speak for yourself. Some of us had lots of fun.
RWM and her friends seem to have had a great time in college there.
Fair enough. Many of the reasons I didn't enjoy it myself had nothing to do with the school or the location, of course.
Many of the reasons I didn't enjoy it myself had nothing to do with the school or the location, of course.
Yeah, I have trouble knowing how to respond when asked about Chicago. "Well, I was very unhappy, but then, I'm an unhappy person"?
I mean, I was mostly blind drunk or studying. I'm only barely exaggerating. But I think I had fun, to the extent I can remember. One morning I woke up with no clothes in a strange room holding a dagger.
That was actually going to be a somewhat better anecdote, but then I got bored/scared of telling it.
Well you can't just say that and not tell the whole story now.
There wasn't sex involved, at least I don't think so. I guess the short version is that my roommate beat up a (seemingly kindly) Dutch graduate student and threatened him with a dagger, for no very reason (he mistakenly thought the Dutch graduate student had stolen his coat). We chased him out of his own house. Then we kept drinking his alcohol, and I woke up in the Dutch guy's bed naked, but holding a different dagger. I don't really know why there were so many daggers involved. I think the Dutch guy might have had to sleep in the snow. College was fun. I think I could have come up with a telling where that was slightly more interesting, but what are you going to do.
That doesn't sound like it was very fun for the kindly Dutch graduate student.
Well, he wasn't in college. Anyhow, vote for me for alumni trustee.
I'll consider it, unless your roommate is also running.
Not everything in life is like banging meth whores, Teo. Sometimes there has to be a loser.
Speaking of meth, that shit continues to be bad for you. I wasn't in on the chase but got called out to the scene because stolen car. That dude was in no condition to be interviewed. All in all pretty awesome except for the part where I was wondering if I was going to get murdered by falling power lines while trying to verify the VIN on that SUV.
I feel like running off down the street barefoot in Alaska in February kind of is losing, actually.
And I sure didn't feel like much of a winner myself afterward either.
Her people have probably been running around barefoot up there since the Pleistocene. It only looks impressive to you because you're a delicate hot climate Hebrew.
Wait, Zombeavers is a real movie? I don't know that I'm drunk enough tonight for that but on my days off who knows what might happen.
Her people have probably been running around barefoot up there since the Pleistocene.
You, uh, don't know much about Eskimos, do you?
They're a bigger fan of shoes than I realize? Or if you mean the timeline? Aren't some of the Siberian sites upwards of 10K years old?
Which, granted, might be kind of an expansive interpretation of "up there".
171: Both, actually. Mukluks (from Yup'ik maklak "bearded seal") are a key part of traditional Eskimo clothing, which is famously well-adapted to the harsh environment. And there are many very old archaeological sites on both sides of the Bering Strait, but sites that are generally considered ancestral to the modern Eskimos only appear in the past 5000 years or so.
Damn Eskimos don't even know what a beard is. Come on, those clearly should be called mustached seals.
Well, they're not the most bearded people themselves.
And we're actually the ones who call them "bearded seals." That's not the literal meaning of maklak.
Teo you ignorant slut, how am I supposed to learn any Yup'ik if you're going to pull these bait and switches.
LB: A lot of what spring to mind as masculine tasks, on the other hand, do allow for showing off skill or knowledge -- emergency plumbing/car repair and that sort of thing. If there's skill or knowledge involved, it's certainly possible to parlay that into looking sexy.
My petit-point embroidery brings ALL the girls to the yard.
Isn't the guy barefoot in the big chase scene in Atanarjuat?
http://old.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/images/issue/420/atanarjuat_420.jpg
Would anyone like to join me in hating United Airlines today? They decided before I checked in that I was going to miss my next connection, and will have to spend the night in DC en route. Yes, I thought it was a little tight, and argued as much with the clerk at United when I booked it (rather than an alternative). No, she assured me, it's no problem at all (unless there's a big weather event or something mechanical -- neither of which seems to apply at the moment). So, they won't check my (large awkward) bag through to Msla, so I have to schlep everything around at IAD.
Would anyone like to join me in hating United Airlines today?
Always already.
183 was roughly my train of thought on hearing the news just now too.
IAD != DC, don't propagate the lies of the airline industry.
Although I guess it's better than when they also call BWI "DC area"
180: Petit point is for wimps. Call me when you've picked up a tatting shuttle.
Do you actually do tatting, LB? I know you do crocheted lace. I've bought a tatting shuttle but haven't done anything with it yet.
I suppose the gendered equivalent of this stuff for men would be setting up a Jacquard loom in the basement.
I've bought a tatting shuttle but haven't done anything with it yet.
...ladies.
On a slightly more serious note, the idea here might be that it's demonstrable male competence that's considered hott, and practical things like plumbing and so on are easier to demonstrate competence in (does it leak, does it explode, does it lean to the left in high winds) than other more white-collar tasks?
With this duct tape and these drywall screws, I can demonstrate apparent competence until the next hard rain.
191: I'd say you're close, but it's demonstrable dexterity/strength/physical skill more than just smarts.
Richard Fariña with the exception that proves the rule.
(does it leak, does it explode, does it lean to the left in high winds)
Or, in the case of urple's plumbing, all three?
For whatever it's worth, many straight knitting women seem to go absolutely crazy falling all over the (gay) guys who design knits even when they're the worst knitting patterns ever. I'm not sure if embroidery would work the same way, but don't see why not.
True story: I know a guy with an engineering-type mind who was unfamiliar with the basics of how American houses are constructed. Apparently also unfamiliar with the idea that you can ask the guys at Home Depot very vague questions and still get useful answers if you keep at it.
By a process of pure reason, he created a frame to hold pieces of wood so that he could cut the angle he wanted accurately. He wasn't entirely thrilled when I told him that he could have had the same thing for $10 if he asked for a "miter box."
I feel bad asking people at Home Depot questions since talking to a friend who used to work there and finding out that they all have a full day's worth of restocking and other work assigned and any time spent talking to people basically means they have to figure out how to do the rest of their job (again, designed to fill the entire day) more quickly.
196: I think that just falls under the Alameida Rule, tbh.
Also, I want a miter box. I gues I should just get one, it's not like they're expensive.
miter box
Whoa... I'd never seen one of those before. That is genius. I've always just used a protractor and a pencil.
201: I dunno, I know where they are at Home Depot. If I used the automated checkout I wouldn't have to talk to anybody at all.
Did you hear about the constipated geometer?
He worked it out with a protractor and a pencil.
I tried tatting, but gave it up after a couple of months as too hard -- backing up to fix an error is pretty much impossible unless you cut the thread and make a knot -- and I wasn't crazy about the finished product. Pretty, but much much more delicate and easily destroyed than crocheted lace.
And 193 sounds about right.
OT: My old office was right by this.
I tried tatting, but gave it up after a couple of months as too hard
Guess you just weren't man enough, huh.
(So it turns out they just flat gave my seat away, even though, in the event, I would have made my connection.)
Demand the whatever they give you for being bumped money. Or does that not work anymore?
Since I've been fretting over it all day, I'd like to just mention that I still feel very uncomfortable about the incident that gswift mentioned in 163 and the way the subsequent conversation here went. I recently reread part of that thread and was glad to see that people seemed to have stopped being seriously upset with me fairly quickly, but I still worry that it's hurt some cherished friendships here and that makes me sad. I feel like I've come to terms with it to some degree over the past year, but I still don't like to think about it. I don't want to ask people to never mention it at all, but I'd like to at least request that people not bring it up quite as casually as gswift did in this thread.
Shit, I'm sorry. I recall not thinking it was a big deal and didn't realize it bothered you. I won't do it again.
Your feelings are your feelings, teo, but I read gswift's comment as an indication that he thought that incident was water under the bridge. Again, that's not to say you're not entitled to feel hurt or anxious about the whole thing -- and I know my reaction at the time upset you; I'm not trying to duck that -- so much as I think it's worth considering that having someone tease you about the episode, given the semiotics of teasing here, seemed like a positive turn of events to me.
I'll show you the semiotics of teasing!
I wondered about that phrasing. But then, because I'm a man of action, I hit post. "Damn the consequences!" I said to myself.
he thought that incident was water under the bridge
I do but I don't want anyone here spending the day thinking about one of my offhand alcohol fueled comments unless it's ogged worrying about being a huge gaylord.
However, that part about Teo being a delicate tropical Hebrew I will defend to the death.
211: Don't worry about it. Your reaction from the beginning was that it wasn't a big deal, so it's totally understandable that you still feel that way.
212: That's a reasonable interpretation (and in light of 211 clearly accurate). I'm also sorry for lashing out at you specifically at the time; there were reasons that your comments bothered me more than others, but they weren't actually the most hurtful comments in the thread.
I guess I just feel like I was able to address the overall reaction to everyone's apparent satisfaction, but the way I did that meant I passed up the opportunity to address a lot of the specific reactions that bothered me most, and that has continued to bother me from time to time when I think of it. It's not actually a problem if no one continues to hold it against me, which as far as I know is this case and I have no reason to think otherwise. I just tend to worry about things.
Dude don't even sweat it. I'm here with Woody Allen and like three Eskimo methheads right now.
Well yeah, but alameida's hot on your tail.
218: And we all know old WA digs the Asian look.
I didn't even catch that 163 was supposed to be a reference to a real incident (which I remember now but had competely forgotten). I thought that 163 was just gswift pontificating life wisdom.
209 -- Bumped me before I showed up to check in. I've never had this happen when I actually had an assigned seat. I did manage to find a couple of United employees at IAD who were genuinely embarrassed by the thing, and went above and beyond in hacking their computer system to get me at least to Denver (and my large bag checked through, even though I'm more than 12 hours in Denver.)
Way, way, back in the thread, talking about the housework/sex article, there was some question about how significant 1.5 times per month was. I looked at the actual article has a mean of 5.2x/month (reported by men) and 5.6x/month (reported by women), with a variance of about 4, and N around 4200.
"Hardly ever, maybe 5 times a month."
"Constantly, I'd say 5 times a month."
