Actually, how racist of me. There are beautiful labrador puppy people of all fur colors there.
I don't understand these animal metaphors. Maybe rewrite the post to describe everyone in terms of academic job and institution types?
Athletic young people really are lovely. I spend half my commute smiling wistfully at scantily dressed joggers as I ride past.
(Well, I try to keep the wistful smiling reasonably undirected looking, so as not to be tacky about it.)
So you're saying your tongue doesn't unfurl like a red carpet and little steam whistles don't pop out of your ears?
I have attached a horn to my bike that goes Ahooga when I pass an attractive jogger, admittedly. They seem to appreciate it as complimentary.
Your bike is wearing the horns because are seeing a unicycle on the side.
Perhaps a speaker playing Yakkity Sax would help cut down weight.
This thread is making me hum Mel McDaniel's "Baby's Got Her Blue Jeans On". I'd link but I'm on my phone.
On my last placement there were lots of junior doctors - it was like working with baby otters. And one alarmingly handsome registrar, like a young Joaquin Phoenix except better. Current placement just has old (i.e. my age) consultants, which are no good for perving on.
That Boulderites are a fit lot is hardly news*, but I was certainly struck when I was there last week by just how many good looking people use the Boulder Creek Trail. I mean, sure, crusty punks and aging hippies as well, but many, many huskies**.
*although IME that of Denverites is vastly overstated. My sister used to live there, and so I visited a number of times, for as much as a week at a time, but it just never struck me as being that big an outlier. Coming from my milieu, I expected a starker difference, which is indeed what you get in Boulder.
**I despise labs of all colors. Drooly spazzes.
Speaking of perving, I've found that, while the term MILF is of course deprecated, I do find myself checking out mothers with children, mostly because that (usually) puts a floor on their age and ensures that I'm not checking out someone who could be my daughter's classmate*.
It's been awhile since I've found HS-age girls as attractive as their 20something equivalents, and I have no problem finding women in their 30s and 40s attractive, but it's all too easy to notice a nice body and only after a moment realize that she's basically a child. Strollers reduce the likelihood of that.
*OK, not literally - she's 11 - but far too close for comfort
Is this a random enough thread that I can say that today in mediation we hashed out a parenting time schedule for the next two months that is exactly what I wanted and will give me some actual alone time. And then we told the girls that we are separating and they're disappointed we won't have a wedding but decided a new home is just as good and are super excited and positive about it for now. And the mediator told Lee she needs to leave our bed tonight and get out if he house ASAP even if that means living with friends rather than an apartment, both of which seem a bit optimistic though they'd be great, and I think we're on a good path. Huge, huge, huge relief.
Good news. Apparently, when you're ready to start dating, you only need go jogging and wait for the honking.
No part of 16.2 is going to happen, Mobes, but thanks.
It just sounded like less bother than medical school.
Really, all the bordering-on-creepy affirmations I Newgate in the nipple selfie stats. JRoth doesn't need to weigh in!
I only perv on Unfogged commenters with prior written consent.
Lookin' good, Apo.
Hold on, I think I got this:
-N +n -w +ed +I -a +e -e
It sure is. "Need" for "Newgate" and I don't know what possessed my autocorrect.
I was thinking of the storied English prison and trying to make the connection.
Newgate is the new orange is the new black.
14 is good news. I hope she moves out pronto as agreed. If she doesn't, I hope that is taken into consideration when the mediator makes other statements.
6: I have attached a horn to my bike that goes Ahooga when I pass an attractive jogger, admittedly.
And a bumper* sticker that says, "I love my husband but O U kid!"
*Whatever.
Let me be the first to congratulate you, Thorn! Great news!
After hanging out with some Welsh rugby players, I learned that while they found the MILF acronym distasteful, they approved of the concept and simply referred to them as "yummy mummies."
I think that when one is old, all young people seem better-looking than they did when one was oneself young. Or possibly the millenials are just handsomer due to some change in diet or hormonal mix or whatever. But mostly I think it's because I'm not as frantically insecure and self-absorbed as I was in my twenties, so not only do I not project as much onto them, I have forgotten that when I was younger and had perfect skin I was actually miserable.
On being the troll hobbit:
I was at a Pride event (naturally, the transgressive, radical, "gay shame" esque one, as much as we have those around here - no mere regular queer person who just wanders around and chats idly, me) and ran into various friends, and I realized that while I was there with the short and/or chubby and/or nerdy people, my tall and ethereal blond friend who recently started to transition had already found a cohort of supernaturally beautiful tall, thin elf-looking queer people, none of whom I had ever met. It really is a self-sequestering system - if you're a short, fat person, you associate with short fat people and never even meet most of the tall elf-people. I mean, luckily, I find certain among my short hobbit-like acquaintances dazzlingly attractive, but I recognize that we're not going to be winning any beauty contests.
And at the gym, well! If I stuck to the ellipticals, I would merely be in the bottom 25% for fitness and general allure; because I do weights and stretchy calisthenics stuff, I'm probably quite literally the least attractive person in my part of the gym. Sometimes I am genuinely shocked at how I look - sort of "19th century circus strongman run to seed, plus sweaty with floppy hair" - compared to all the twenty-something ultra-fit people. (And there's a question - I sweat a lot when I work out; no one else seems to. Is that possibly true?) I tell myself that for a naturally fat, weak-cored person of forty I'm doing quite well, and I even think that's accurate.
Oh, hey, congratulations, Thorn! I've often thought about stuff you've posted here and have hoped so much that you would get this all resolved. (Inasmuch as a total stranger's thoughts are worth much on this kind of thing.)
Sweating when you work out is a good sign, health-wise.
And there's a question - I sweat a lot when I work out; no one else seems to. Is that possibly true?
Perhaps the beautiful others at your gym actually are dogs.
I don't know how attractive I am compared to people at a gym because I never go to one. I mostly norm against people riding the rush hour buses.
Going to the grocery store during the middle of the day is another good reference group. Everybody else is over 70.
I have a residual holdover from growing up where I adamantly refuse to exercise in anything gendered-female. My basic uniform is a men's v-neck shirt or undershirt-style tanktop*, basketball shorts (ok, women's - they don't come down to my knees), and converse sneakers. I think it just appears androgynous but it is definitely not the norm.
*you know, the kind with the terrible name
44: you don't wear knee socks? I thought you were issued a pair on your first day of CrossFit.
And sorry, heebie, this means I'm not likely to try Crossfit, since that plan was based on being able to leave the house while the kids are still asleep. Having the house to myself while the kids are asleep is totally worth any residual flabbiness. When I get my time off, I can walk and stuff.
46: I do have a pair! I keep them in my car in case we're climbing rope, which we hardly ever do since the old rope was fraying and making a giant mess, and they haven't put the new rope up yet.
48: I understand. You'll have to go to a lunchtime class.
Can't you just to CrossFit workout videos? Or does that not work because somebody alone won't push themselves hard enough to get rhabdomyolysis?
I just don't feel good about Thorn exercising without an entourage of young adults cheering her on.
Oh, I'm happy to not exercise and to stay away from young adults! Really, this is not the right time for me to take up any hobbies that cost money, but I'll be fine.
It feels like a party everyday, hey Thorny! Hey Thorny!
Jogging is free. The only costs I've had are shoes and co-payments to treat chronic ankle pain.
I sweat a lot when I work out; no one else seems to.
You are my companion in being very, very sweaty.
58: I thought this would go away as I got fitter, but all that's happened is that I go faster/lift more while sweating just as much. I am actually thinking of cutting my hair really, really short instead of long-on-top-shaved-sides so that I don't distress myself in the gym mirror quite as much - I really look like a loon after thirty minutes of lifting.
I'm drenched in sweat 5 minutes into my workout. I could literally wring probably half a cup or more out of my shirt by the end of the session. On the one hand I hate it, but on the other it does make it look like I'm really pushing it even when I'm not.
I am also in the sweaty-to-drenched crew.
Sweat doesn't usually bother me so much, so I guess I'm further down on the spectrum. But I've been only slowly and carefully stepping up my jogging intervals; sweat recently got a lot more noticeable when I moved up from 4 minutes brisk walk / 4 minutes run (treadmill) to 3/5.
If sweat bothers you, let me suggest not wearing cotton.
Congratulations Thorn for the good news about mediation/splitting up.
Sometimes I am genuinely shocked at how I look - sort of "19th century circus strongman run to seed, plus sweaty with floppy hair" - compared to all the twenty-something ultra-fit people.
You're making me feel better about my gym. I often feel this way about it but, realistically, it's probably 30% young slim attractive people, 30% older stockier weightlifters, and 40% standard adults.
Also, I have overheard at least a couple of people in the first group say that maintaining their appearance is their job (a guy who described himself as a model, and a young woman who had some job in which her main income was tips -- I've already told the second story somewhere in the archives, but can't find it at the moment).
14: I'm glad that they settled on a good plan. It sounds like you're in for a busy transition; I'm glad the kids are looking forward with excitement instead of dread.
I also sweat a lot and usually go very red in the face with exercise.
Next week I am going on a sailing holiday with 7 people, two of whom I know somewhat, another of whom I've met but the rest are strangers. (That part doesn't worry me because they will all be people who like that sort of thing.) I think I will be towards the younger end of the group age range but I have resigned myself to being the fat one.
I'm with the schvitzers. Thin or fat never seemed to matter.
Totally drenched within about five minutes of starting exercise; it's an adaptation that occurs when you're very fit -- body works extra hard to cool down.
I had a out-of-the-blue memory the other day of being 18 and spending the summer in London with three friends. (It was awful for assorted reasons.) We took a weekend trip to Scotland and rented bikes, and I was epically more out-of-shape than everyone else, despite the fact that we had identical lifestyles. (In hindsight, they did some annoying things, like wait for me and then take off when I caught up, when I desperately needed a rest too, which exacerbated the whole situation. I mean, I just took the damn rest and ended up walking the bike up lots of hills and finishing an hour later than they did. At the time I was mostly just incredibly embarrassed.)
Conclusion: I am actually genetically less able in-shape than the norm. There's lots of other evidence for this. I really like to exercise as hard as I can, and my performance will always be sort of shitty. Ah well.
Working out at our university gym made used me feel attractive* (I am average height and slender, so neither short and hobbity nor tall and elven). It still does, mostly, except they've changed the sort of undergrad they admit, and I would guess about 50% of the undergrad women in the gym have anorexia. I'm old and secure enough in my own self to not feel bad about how I look in comparison, but it does make me feel pretty awful for the girls with eating disorders.
*I went to a summer yoga class feeling bad that I'd not done yoga in 4 months and lost all my flexibility and would totally suck, but then I noticed all the other students were emeritus professors. Since my flexibility is on par with a 70 year old man's, I wasn't obviously the worst student in the room.
69: But you're scrappy.
To your scooby.
Scrappy is the worst. Try to be Shaggy.
Walking home last night around 930, there was a crowdlet outside the doughnut shop all with yoga mats strapped to their backs/slung on their shoulders. Obnoxious or hilarious? Both?
74: "It wasn't me." How'd I do?
64: There is at least one guy who works out at the gym who has to be some kind of model or other person whose face is his fortune - I don't think I've ever seen such a...hm, I guess like-photoshopped-but-real person in my life, and it's funny to watch everyone who is at all attracted to men subtly turn their heads as he walks by.
Then there's the young slim queer women weightlifters, whose eyes I avoid as I'm rather letting down the side by not being slim or even especially young. And then really fit muscley straight guys in their twenties, and really fit muscley gay guys of all ages. And a few young straight women who do a little bit of lifting. And a few older women who are all slim who do some moderate weights. And me, looking like I'm going to fall into my flabby component parts in a pool of sweat.
(There's a definite disadvantage to this being the most queer-friendly gym in town - higher levels of fashion and body maintenance abound. )
Today is a weights day - two days of elliptical and squats and pushups every week, two days of weights and squats. Plus bike commuting on the side. Maybe I'll devote my lunch hour to internet shopping for more attractive gym shoes.
Since I stopped kickboxing,* I haven't really changed shape at all. Maybe a tiny bit more schlubby. But I feel like I am in the middle of terminal decline. I used to, I think, protest a bit too much about being both fit, fat, and flexible. But there was a reasonable core of truth in that. It only takes a few months to feel neither fit, nor flexible. I don't think I could bring myself to train/spar/exercise-in-public without some months of private fitness improvement, even though, visually, I don't look much different.
I notice younger people's bodies a fair bit, which may be a sign of descending into lecherous middle age. I notice it more when I'm away somewhere else for work. I think just being around different norms of appearance really makes you concentrate on the visual more than normal.
Palo Alto, last year, a lot of really athletic looking young people compared to the UK. Not necessarily slimmer, or taller, or anything. Just ... shinier, more labrador-like (to use Heebie's simile). Attractive young British people are a bit more dissolute looking.
Similarly, in DC, Christ, people are groomed to within an inch of their lives. Students, ffs, with perfectly matching shoes and bags, leg-waxed, and manicured like spokesmodels/air-hostesses.
* nothing dramatic, just lack of time around childcare and work commitments.
But I feel like I am in the middle of terminal decline.
If you're around 40, you basically are.
79.4: I hear you! I am way below average by DC grooming standards. I am clean. And dressed. That's a win in my book.
This reminds me. I should have a midlife crisis.
79/82: There are benefits to being in Middle America. Here, there's an uptick in grooming and style Downtown and around the universities but it's still much easier to fit in while being barely kempt.
I have bits of lunch on my shirt. I have trouble with noodles and chopsticks.
79 re: It only takes a few months to feel neither fit, nor flexible.
That's what I notice as the main mark of age, fitness-wise. When I'm warmed up I'm probably as fit as I've been since I was 18 (when I was thinner and biked all the time), but I lose ground really easily. I'm much more flexible in general since I started working out again, but compared to my late twenties (when last I went to the gym regularly) I stiffen up much more after a workout.
I've definitely been having a midlife crisis lately - a lot of regret for things I should have done but didn't when I was younger and a lot of regret for the feeling that I had my life ahead of me. I try to remind myself of how intensely miserable I actually was most of the time back then, and how my life is objectively better now. Also I try to remind myself that I really haven't greyed yet, unlike most of my contemporaries.
There's that bit in The Book of the New Sun where it's something like "a middle aged man who is still strong is like an apple rotting from the inside out" or something, and I keep expecting catastrophic bodily failure to hit any moment.
How long to I have to wait before making a name-based eugenics joke?
The joke is so tempting, only the thought of the poor kid's family is stopping me from logging into Facebook to leave it.
That and that he might have kids, so the joke wouldn't work.
but I lose ground really easily
La la la, I can't hear you (I was feeling mildly guilty when you mentioned your workout schedule above because my goal would be to generally go to the gym 3 times a week and occasionally 4 but I have settled into a pattern in which I generally go twice a week and only rarely 3 times).
I've definitely been having a midlife crisis lately - a lot of regret for things I should have done but didn't when I was younger and a lot of regret for the feeling that I had my life ahead of me. I try to remind myself of how intensely miserable I actually was most of the time back then, and how my life is objectively better now.
There's a Dykes To Watch Out For strip which I think of from time to time in which Mo is complaining about her life for the first two panels, pauses, and then says something like, "at least I'm not in my twenties anymore, thank god." I found that very comforting and a good attitude to have towards one's thirties.
On the other hand, I feel like I'm aging out of the range in which that particular reference is reassuring. I'm not having a crisis (yet?), but I have started thinking of myself as middle aged, and am not quite sure what to make of that.
Just promise me you're not mentally pronouncing babushka with the stress on the "u."
90: Funnily, when I was last at my parents' I was referring to myself as middle-aged, and my dad was all "you're not middle aged yet!"...but I'm forty. If that's not middle aged, I'm not sure what is. (I think this was a combination of his own reluctance to admit that he's old enough to have middle aged children and the fact that I've definitely taken the slow, winding path toward conventional adulthood and thus don't really have the gravitas, career, hairstyle, bank account etc that one would expect. I feel like I'd make a really awesome 27-year-old, but I'm rather mediocre at being 40.)
I feel like I'm doing everything very late, perhaps too late. One doesn't want to be all orphan-of-the-storm, but in retrospect I think that my childhood and young adulthood were fairly damaging and pushed me into stasis through my mid-thirties. Even now it's difficult not to default to my childhood mode of living from day to day because the future seemed so unlikely to be any good.
If you've read Peter Beagle's excellent comic novel The Last Unicorn, perhaps you remember that Schmendrick the magician is under a spell that stops him aging - when he was being trained, he was so inept at magic, so absolutely backwards, that his teacher told him that he must have some kind of strange, blocked skill and that the teacher would enchant him so that he'd never age until he figured out how to use his powers. So he wanders around being incompetent and pettish and incomplete, basically. Whenever I look in the mirror and remember that people routinely take me for just another one of the late twenties-ish activists in my social circle, I feel a bit like that - I have this slightly freakish youth of face and manner, but it's because I haven't been able to grow as a person.
Admittedly, if you must be immature, I suppose it's better to have the face to match.
92: Isn't forty-five typically supposed to be middle-aged?
Not that it matters to me. I'm 39 and 15.5 months. I figure I'll keep counting that way for the forseeable future.
Since you guys can use the Metric system, you can probably get away with that.
Nothing makes me feel middleaged like being signficantly shorter than my children.
Ask for a reanalysis. Maybe the height difference won't be statistically significant after errors are corrected for.
And being about to turn 44, but mostly the apartment full of large young healthy people.
I've been 44 for most of a month now. It's not that bad. Of course, my kid is still shorter than me.
I'm 52. Maybe I should make a "It gets better" video for all you 40-somethings.
Does my ankle really start to hurt less?
I will turn 47 at the end of November. However, I am not balding and still have never lived in a house with a basement.
100: You just notice it less thanks to the increased pain in your knees.
I'm not balding either and not graying much. Only my soul is aging.
Just promise me you're not mentally pronouncing babushka with the stress on the "u"
I say it with a proper Texas twang.
Fifty is the new thirty. That's my story and I'm sticking with it.
My ankle is still pretty swollen, so hiking up to the overlook a couple weeks ago was overtaxing, as was driving home from Sun Valley last week. I'll mountain bike a couple miles tonight, I think, though -- which seems not to bother it as much.
apo: are the various Unfunkked mixes still available somewhere? I only have the first two and I'm hungry.
TWYRCL is very disappointed that I'm not very enthusiastic about being photographed (i.e., hugely passive-aggressively obstructionist, to the point of stepping out of frame if I suspect that I will be in the background of a stranger's picture at a restaurant or something).
OT: A friend (really) has (1) a child with serious autism, 4 years old, and (2) a step-son, 20 years old or thereabouts, unemployed and not in school of any kind. The step-son's drug enthusiasms have recently put him in a hospital with a psychotic episode brought on by, according to tests, MDMA and some weeks later with a grand mal seizure linked to synthetic THC. He steals from my friend and others, forges checks on my friend's account, threatens my friend in his dipshit addict rages, smokes in his basement room, gets drug dealers to pick him up at the house, etc., etc., etc.
My friend's wife, the biological mother, has not been willing to make her son attend school, go to rehab, work with a therapist, stick to a medication regimen or anything similar. She has most recently indicated an intention to bring him along on the scheduled family vacation, even in the wake of the seizure hospitalization and several recent thefts and all-night-outers.
I told my friend that this is a very bad, dangerous and selfish position for his wife to take: indeed, a position so bad as to cast the mother's long history of denying her son's drug and alcohol problems and refusing to enforce agreements to attend rehab in an even worse light. I.e., she seemed to have been in ordinary denial, but now she seems to be committed to allocating all the risk and consequences of the child's actions to others, chiefly my friend, who is getting bills for the child's hospital stays etc.
Q1: How wrong was this advice, on a scale from Mr. Rogers to Dick Cheney?
I have previously told my friend to (i) get a therapist and (ii) get a divorce lawyer, but he continues to refuse to do either, on the stated grounds that he does not want to separate his daughter from her mother.
Q2: How wrong is this advice, on the same scale?
Q3: What other advice, if any, can I provide? I am terribly worried about my friend and his young daughter. (The wife and stepson are lost causes, in my opinion, but I am willing to hear arguments against.)
Dick Cheney. But 70s Dick Cheney. 20 years olds grow up, and none of that other stuff works unless/until the kid wants them to work. If the mom can stand it, then the step-dad should as well.
I think you left the suggested advice out of question 2.
On question 1, maybe it's not what Mr. Rogers would say, but it's good advice.
If the mom can stand it, then the step-dad should as well.
Seriously? Theft, forgery, threats? What is there that the step-dad isn't required to tolerate?
Q2's suggested advice was therapist/divorce.
Oh, I didn't register the paragraph before Q1 as advice, more as evaluation.
Um, apply my prior comment to Q2 -- therapy and divorce sound like a good idea. On the paragraph before Q1, I certainly can't tell from here, and I'm a little skeptical about whether you can tell from there about the difference between ordinary denial and anything worse. Ordinary denial gets you pretty far.
He either stays married to her and works towards a solution with the boy -- which is going to involve a lot of tolerance of the intolerable -- or he's going to leave at let her sort it out. If leaving is ruled out, then he has to plow forward, presumably without myths about the efficacy of Buford Pusser, toughlove, final confrontations, etc in mind.
Sure, if he's staying in the situation, harm minimization is probably going to look like tolerating a lot of things. But I'd think he was fully justified in extricating himself. And certainly in getting therapy. Couples counseling maybe?
113: I guess now what seemed ordinary denial is taking on something like the color of moral hazard: to wit, my friend's wife not doing anything about her son because she doesn't have to so long as my friend is there to pay the mortgage and hospital bills.
Also, she refuses to go to therapy herself.
Focusing on who's paying the hospital bills seems misplaced, unless the scale of the bills is important compared to their income. I don't get what the mortgage is doing in that sentence at all.
108:
Q1: Not very wrong, particularly if phrased in a supportive, "I can't believe they're putting you through this..." which seems to be the case, since he's not budging.
Q2: (i) is Mr. Rogers, (ii) is Geogre Bush Sr.-esque (i.e., middling)
Q3: Continue supporting the friend and confirming that putting up with kid's threats is sainthood, not anything wife and son should take for granted. Suggest that he open a dialogue with wife about internal security: do we need to lock our bedroom doors, prevent his access to the rest of the house, etc? Discuss requiring him to never get drugs at the house (for young daughter's protection, if nothing else), on penalty of changed locks?
116 You know her well enough to infer that kind of motive? I would think that the more ordinary reason for not doing anything would be feeling overwhelmed and lacking faith that any particular strategy is going to work.
But, ok, toughlove with the wife. That'll surely make the situation better.
: Continue supporting the friend and confirming that putting up with kid's threats is sainthood, not anything wife and son should take for granted. Suggest that he open a dialogue with wife about internal security: do we need to lock our bedroom doors, prevent his access to the rest of the house, etc? Discuss requiring him to never get drugs at the house (for young daughter's protection, if nothing else), on penalty of changed locks?
I like all of this but the last sentence, which seems like the sort of thing that would inflame the situation but be unlikely to stick. (Like, communicating an expectation that he not use illegal drugs in the house is reasonable, keeping him out after a violation of that expectation would require cooperation from his mother which probably isn't coming.)
118: He mentions the hospital bills regularly but vaguely. I have inferred that they are large enough to make my friend quietly angry and worried but not enough (yet) to ask me about bankruptcy.
120: I'm not sure about her motives. I may be attributing to bad faith various manifestations of stupidity, denial and fear, but I feel lately that I have given her the benefit of the doubt for too long. My friend reported that when he informed his wife of the son's most recent check-forging and theft-and-pawning of his wedding ring, she accused him of having a grudge against the son.
That certainly sounds like denial.
How long have they been married?
Married about 8 years, together for 10 or so.
Married about 8 years, together for 10 or so.
Why is the automatic result of a divorce that their daughter would be separated from her mother? Couldn't they share? Maybe he's worried how much harder it would be for them both to care for the daughter if they had to share custody sequentially.
At 36, most of what I notice with respect to fitness is that I need to warm up more carefully than I used to, and that if I don't eat well, I don't recover well. And that now when I'm lean my face gets gaunt. I think the baby redistributed my fat stores.
Hard to know when check kiting and filching small valuables plus making oneself known to various local dope dealers trips over the line into materially increasing the likelihood that desperate people with bad judgment and loaded firearms will be in the house. Also I'd be worried about drug use in the house involving open flames. All this on top of violent episodes. At what point is it asking too much of the small child to be in this volatile situation?
I completely agree with CC that time & tides most likely to precipitate change in the 20 year old, but that doesn't mean 20 year old gets to live in the house.
127: the dreaded face/ass conundrum.
The tenacity with which many of my fellow regulars at iconic SF gym in the Castro stick with a look adopted severs decades ago is usually very charming. Display reaches its apogee each year in June with lots of super fit guys in their 50s and 60s in outfits that were I am sure the acme of hip 20-40 years ago. Generally they still look pretty good!
Need to set a clear choice, theft or forgery. Even a criminal needs to specialize.
I'm curious as to what the consensus will be here. I have an acquaintance from high school who (via FB and my inclination to accept friend requests) seems to have drug-induced epilepsy and a serious addiction problem (as well as being a complete fabulist). Some people don't outgrow that stage.
I think your friend could use a therapist and possibly something like Al-Anon (although I have no idea whether that'd be helpful, really)? I think that your advice wasn't cruel, just probably several steps ahead of what he is ready to hear. Does he want advice? Or sympathy? It sounds like maybe, in addition to 119.3, he might want to try to protect himself/his daughter financially. Maybe start (if he doesn't have) a trust for the kid and some sort of separate account for himself in case things become truly awful? (Not to try to hide assets from the wife, to be sure that when the kid steals check/credit cards/whatever that this doesn't create an emergency.)
Sucks to watch a friend go through. Sorry.
Sorry, trust for the daughter, not the stepson! Poor use of antecedents.
I really liked Al-Anon despite my reservations about general 12steppiness. I don't know what to set about all of this, though I'm thinking, but I'd be glad to talk with you off-blog, Flip, since I have several points of intersection with a story like that. I'd have a lot of questions about the little girl's care schedule and stability now, because I suspect a lot will glow from that.
Yes, catching up on the thread I was going to suggest your friend and/or his wife might consider dropping in on a few al-anon meetings, or maybe open AA meetings? They won't get much in the way of advice, but (in my experience anyway) getting the perspective and learning the experiences of lots of other people who are dealing with/have dealt with precisely what they're dealing with can be pretty clarifying. Can cut through the denial bullshit in a way that even the best-intentioned advice is unlikely to do.
Re: fashion and fitness in DC, it depends greatly on what part of town you're in.
Sympathies, Flippanter.It sounds from your description as if your friend isn't really asking for advice or at the stage where he'd be willing to listen to it but at least he knows how the situation looks to someone on the outside and where to turn to once he starts looking for a viable solution.
apo: are the various Unfunkked mixes still available somewhere?
I suppose they weren't. Here you go, but grab 'em while they're warm. They take up most of my dropbox allowance, so I'll pull them back down in a week or so. Also, I'm not entirely sure I have the permissions settings right, so let me know whether 12 .zip files are visible in the directory.
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/02sgkrngardreet/AAC1Swau8glo1N4pXl3vMjqda?dl=0
Who do I need to blow to get a new music thread posted.its been like several years i need some new music to listen to
(138 not intending to be sexist but I already asked Heebie and she was non responsive and lb doesn't even music and neither alameida or becks post much anymore so
In another thread a few days ago, k-sky posted two links to compilations. Maybe a post will get it more prominence.
Urple, I'll try to get something up this weekend (though "try" is the operative term there; free time is hard to come by these days), but if you haven't heard Surf by Chance the Rapper and Donnie Trumpet, it's excellent and free on iTunes.
http://m.pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/20664-surf/
Thanks, apo! All visible, and I've moved them all to my Dropbox for later download.
137 Awesome. Do you still have any of the old album art?
Yes, all of the album art should be encoded in the files themselves, but let me know if any are missing and I'll slap up jpegs.
Unless you mean the original album art from the actual source albums, which yes, but that's not as easily accessed.
On (the current) topic: Heard an interesting piece last night about the new book that contends online music piracy is traceable to 3 people. (Old news for some of you, no doubt.)
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/04/27/the-man-who-broke-the-music-business
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/16/books/review-in-how-music-got-free-stephen-witt-details-an-industry-sea-change.html
I mean the art you did. I just downloaded the first two albums and don't see any jpgs in the folders. Imported them into iTunes and don't see any album art.
Hmm. That's odd. When I get home tonight, I'll go digging.
Off topic:
a) I'm feeling a bit self satisfied right now because I'm writing a thank you letter to the print shop staff at my office who are wildly underappreciated. They do amazing work on ridiculous deadlines and have to put with all manner of jerks.
b) In addition to the letter, I want to send them a big basket of ... something. I need help on the something. (Doesn't actually have to be a basket, just a physical gift.)
There are 6 people, all in their 30's and, mostly, 40's, been working at the union forever. We have at most chatting relationships. (I say "in my office" but they're actually in D.C.)
If I knew they all drank, I was thinking about a good bottle of whiskey for each, but for all I know they go to AA together.
Ideas?
148: Could you ask one of the one's with whom you are chattiest if they are (all) drinkers, or would that ruin the surprise to say you were planning on sending a gift?
For non-alcohol drink options, what about nice dark chocolate, like from Chocosphere?
Morning delivery of doughnuts/pastry?
Fancy coffee? I'm not sure if e.g. Tonx does gift baskets, but you could probably do just as well at a local roaster.
https://www.ediblearrangements.com/fruit-gifts/star-big-arrangement-hd-dp-da-db-3394?t=1438273279591
This has been a hit with the new commenters.
"A donation has been made in your name to the Human Fund."
It's true -- you can't go wrong with a giant dildo.
I knew what 149 was going to be without even clicking on it.
Good suggestions. Thanks.
150: I do want it to be a surprise, but better to get something they'd actually like than to gratify my impulse. Though come to think of it, there is one person in the building who's a potential spy. I'll try her first.
Jonathan Pollard hasn't been released yet.
This makes me think of a friend who worked at another union and at Xmas time everyone got to pick something from this weird catalog. (I never saw it, but I picture it as Skymall for union-made products.)
There wasn't much my friend was interested in, so he picked a food dehydrater, which he came to absolutely love. He would get totally delighted by making dried fruit. (He's now married to Sar/ah Koe/nig, but I swear I wasn't thinking about that when I started typing.)
148: I have had great success sending chocolate-covered strawberries or a similar treat from Harry & David. The company is constantly having huge sales (they're still trying to emerge from bankruptcy) so if you order, make sure to get a coupon code.
I sent Harry & David stuff to an uncle I couldn't figure out what else to get. The only disadvantage is they send you an email every day for the rest of your life.
I used to think the NYT was emotionally needy, but Harry & David took the cake.
Ha, true! I had to make a special filter in Gmail to bracket out their nine zillion coupons, and I only open that folder when I need to order something and want a coupon.
Do you still have any of the old album art?
Internet Archive Wayback Machine to the rescue.
https://web.archive.org/web/20120404115900/http://www.apostropher.com/blog/archives/004405.html
All of those are actually full-sized images shrunk down to display evenly, so right-click and save for anything that's missing.
Since this thread is still alive, Lee found an apartment yesterday. It's big and nice and the bathroom and bedroom for the girls are sort of set off from the rest of it, so she can close that off when they're not around and not have her friends traipsing through their space or whatever. It's not quite ready for occupancy but in a week or two at the most we should have liftoff and I will be the happiest girl in the world.
That's most welcome news, Thorn.
Head, shoulders, knees, and toes, hooray.
There's really no obligation for people to cheer at every little step I take, but I also really appreciate it all. I have such wonderful friends here and it's so nice to be able to share good news for a change.
We'd cheer other things if anybody else of us was accomplishing anything.
Seriously, though, great news, Thorn.
I was able to sleep with the AC off for the first time in a few days, if anyone wants to cheer that.
Not unless you somehow caused the weather to get better.
Not such a little step, either. I'm so glad for you.
168: There's nothing on the TV news to cheer about, yours will have to do. Don't begrudge us.
Fortunately, football starts in a month.
Why yes, I am ready for some football.
I think we're all concerned about whether or not firing Bo Pelini was the right thing.
I just learned that he's now coaching Youngstown State, which plays Pitt at home over Labor Day weekend. I might go, even though there's no beer except in the club level.
If I go, I promise to feel vaguely uneasy because concussions and exploited players.
Also because of concerns about the potential break-up of the Big 12.
Which can be traced to people in Texas, I think.
But we can still cheer for Thorn for a month, right?
I'm certainly not going to pay much attention to baseball until September either.
Messed up my tags in the joke and now it looks rude instead of joking about being rude.
That's hilarious! What was it really supposed to say?
It was supposed to be:
</social obligation>*
*just kidding
I will check off your participation on my Acceptable Friends spreadsheet now. Seriously, here and in the flesh world people are being so incredibly kind. I've gotten unexpected compliments and all sorts of support. I knew people cared, of course, but I'm feeling very tender and grateful about it all.