Since fashion has been basically constant since the 90s, I don't see how I can avoid having all my clothing being basically identical (except in the number and locations of the places where I have spilled food).
Next you'll be saying that meat and potatoes haven't changed since 1995.
Potatoes have changed. The THC content is much higher than when we were kids.
I don't think "carbon copy" means what I think you think it means.
Straight or gay, everyone can agree that proving your mother right is horrible.
Apparently I dress like a lesbian, because it turns out dressing like a native Portlander = dressing like a lesbian in the rest of the US. Also, it turns out "dress Tevas" aren't really a thing.
This post is only relevant to losers like you who don't have valets and personal shoppers.
Since fashion has been basically constant since the 90s....
You mean the 1890s, surely. [Adjusts waistcoat.]
Carbon paper hasn't changed since 2006.
I'm lurkiing on this thread because I'm too sick to type.
It's an overused cliche, but 6 actually made me throw up in my mouth a little. Also, it's very cruel and homophobic towards lesbians, many of whom are decent people.
6: One of my very dear friends has the opposite problem. She's a very femme Jews-don't-camp New Yorker who now lives in Portland and says it's impossible for her to date women there.
11.last: Not all of us, thank goodness!
11
There is nothing wrong with wearing smart wool socks with performance sandals, you monster.
12
Yeah. It's hard to send off lesbian vibes if you're wearing makeup and shaving stuff in a place where "straight femme" means" maybe shaving your armpits before formal events"
The sort of person who might have believed in the existence of dress Tevas (ugh) might be interested in White's semi-dress boots.
Oh huh there's a straight up dress sans phrase option too.
Yeah. It's hard to send off lesbian vibes if you're wearing makeup and shaving stuff in a place where "straight femme" means" maybe shaving your armpits before formal events"
This runs decidedly counter to my view of Portland as the land of suicide girls and whatnot.
15
Ooh those are beautiful, and almost exactly the shoe I've been looking for. Unfortunately, out of my price range.
You can find them on ebay for like a quarter of that. I got a pair of secondhand loggers (for which I am sure I will draw ajay's scorn, just as much as if I were a non-cowboy wearing cowboy boots) and they're great.
Huh it seems like mostly the semi-dresses currently on offer are actually not so cheap. But look, only $77 and very, very unlikely to fit you.
16
Yeah, those are the hipsters who moved there. Natives can be spotted by wearing outdoor performance wear and clogs/hiking boots/trail runners everywhere.* If a woman is in a flannel shirt, baggy jeans, danskos, a fleece vest, and a gortex raincoat, she's a native. If she's in modcloth or anthropologie, she moved from Williamsburg.
*I mean everywhere. Camping, work, weddings, charity galas, etc.
I have hiking sandals that I wear with smart wool socks. In theory. I'm not going to wear them until I'm well away from town.
19
Yeah, too big for me. In HS/college I used to wear boys Doc Martens as my everyday "goes with anything" shoe. I thought about getting another pair, but they're not great for slick surfaces and I've heard quality has gone downhill.
oh neb never change! made me laugh.
I have recently mused I might perhaps have almost enough dresses but quickly rejected this crazy idea.
I thought the point of Doc Martens (originally) was that they were good on slick surfaces.
Best not be laughing at my boots, woman
I have recently mused I might perhaps have almost enough dresses but quickly rejected this crazy idea.
As part of the insane indulgence in clothes-purchasing that I wrote of here previously (and which is sadly somewhat still ongoing though to a much lesser extent, thank god) I managed to increase the total number of articles of footwear I own to something like 28 pairs, which is objectively insane, BUT there are so many desirable articles of footwear in the world!
Oh, thanks to the last clothing thread here that I can recall I bought a dove gray bra/underwear set just to prove it doesn't have to look bad. No photos in the pool, though, so presumably you'll just say I don't understand what gray is dove gray and you'll be right.
Mourning doves come in different colors but the grey ones have about the same shade as a rock pigeon.
28: I've heard there are 50 shades of dove gray.
Which used to be called a rock dove anyway.
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I have my own office now! Trivers is moving up in the world.
>
Now I am reminded to be vexed afresh about the fact that Wacoal doesn't offer the full range of colors of my favorite bra in my size. IT'S VEXING.
32 -- nice. Time to get a pigeon bra.
I have an office in a shitty building, but there is a constant threat that we will get moved to a nice new building, in which case I will be relegated back to a cube. Shitty office beats nice cube any day of the week.
Well, except for the bit about seismic risk....
35: They don't actually make those pigeon masks as a bra, do they? Now that would be tempting.
24
Doc Martens are fine for rain but bad for snow/ice. Chicago requires more footwear than PDX, because I need decent shoes that handle snow/ice/very low temperatures, and shoes that handle rain, but don't look terrible for teaching. For awhile I did the blazer/jeans/hiking boot look, but I want to upgrade. I did upgrade my snowboot situation (la canadienne knee high boots on clearance), but now it's warmer and even if they're water resistant they're not really designed for rain and I want to keep them looking nice. I have brown oxfords I wear when it's not raining, but again, I don't really want to ruin them in the rain.
33
What color bra do you want?
Unless you're trying to hit on your students, I wouldn't worry about it.
19
These shoes might not be your style or size and are still kind of expensive, but also awesome:
I feel like one wears one's dove gray underwear with a pigeon mask and nothing else. At least that's what I do before sex, generally with the theme from "Mangnum PI" blaring.
Instead of "trading spaces," unfogged should do "trading outfits," where commenters have to be dressed by a different commenter for the day.
Cool idea. I designate 42 for Buttercup.
Or Bob McManus. I don't want to make it weird.
42: For "Mangnum PI" I immediately thought of "Sphagnum Peat Moss," which does not blare.
45
It depends on the shade of dove gray. I like the color in theory but wrong shade and it washes me out.
I was going to recommend khaki shorts with a long sleeve flannel shirt tucked in, wool hiking socks and tevas for you, but that seemed like low hanging fruit.
41: Yeah those are far too small for me, but I had noticed them.
Moby or Flip, tonsorial accessory mandatory:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/martijn-konijn/460034327/in/faves-22404523@N00/player/
These are also attractive boots. I love the vintage hiking/ski boot style:
http://gearpatrol.com/2016/01/15/vintage-inspired-hiking-boots/
I can't grow a beard that long. I tried.
I don't think "carbon copy" means what I think you think it means.
Oh damn. I was thinking of the copy where all the colors are inverted.
51 is aces. It looks like there might be a second mini-pouch below the main pocket since there's no other reason for that to be in stockinette stitch when everything else is reverse stockinette. I would make that for anyone who would wear it, definitely.
Carbon copy SEEMED wrong but I couldn't put my finger on why.
55
I think you should make one and hold a competition of your choosing (poetry? horseshoes?) to see who you should give it to.
54, 56 Photographic negative? I guess that works for black and white...
Speaking of fashion, I think the newly Beyonce-supported word "athleisure" will, merely by existing, shape the world more to my liking.
55. Are you kidding ? How much currency do you want?
E. Messily cooks the way I get dressed
This is also how I treat art projects.
58: Thank you, that IS what I was thinking of.
36:
No, I'm not special enough for a window yet. Still gonna be nice to have some quiet and privacy when I need it, though. And a nice big fancy desk.
The PNW is already too Germanic, but we do not, repeat DO NOT, want socks and sandals to become a thing.
Another thing you have in common, neither Portland nor Germany fluoridates their water.
lw, I'd do it for free for the good of humanity, unless you too make marmalade. I'd absolutely do this. Do you want that color scheme or something more (or less, no judging) hideous?
No marmalade, but a shitload of glass, if you'd prefer something other than money.
Are you serious? This looks like months of work and requires yarn. But OK, yes, the multicolored flecks are a bit much, maybe just one color of those, not red. Aslo, this is a vest that we're talking about, which the beard-combed dude is wearing over a separate earth-toned sweater, right?
Not that I can talk about yarn or even meat and potatoes, but I will say that this article is very timely - I just conducted a giant purge of almost all of what I think of as "girl clothes" and have replaced them almost entirely with clothes intended for men. (And I cannot even tell you, women, how much better even cheap men's clothes are than women's clothes at a comparable price-point. It is truly criminal.)
I was going to wear girl clothes home to visit family, but I tried them on and they felt uncomfortable and looked weird, so I just wore the most gender-neutral of my other clothes. (Band collar button fronts, jeans.) You don't realize how flimsy, clingy, small and revealing a woman's button-front shirt is until you compare it to a similar man's shirt.
I am trying to get some sweaters and things together just in case I have a work situation where I can't wear very obviously men's clothes, but I sure hope I never have to go back to women's clothes.
But yes, I totally get how one's clothes can seem "too heterosexual". It's not that no self-respecting queer person could wear an emerald green sundress; it's that those particular clothes in combination with one's particular body and affect don't look right.
I am saving a few pieces of women's clothes in case I have to go to a job interview or to court or something.
Actually, the whole thing has made me really angry a lot of the time, because I know that I am limited in what jobs I can be hired for if I choose to wear men's clothes and not go on testosterone. I know that people look at me like I'm a giant weirdo. I know that if I want to interview for a job I have to buy a women's suit and put on make-up or no one will hire me. (Suit for interviews, yes - but why can't I get a dapper, neatly tailored man's suit?) And it just fucking infuriates me that I have to wear clothes that give me a big feeling of gender-wrong in a lot of situations for no reason except people's dumb-ass homophobic and transphobic ideas. It's not as though wearing a shirt with the buttons on the left somehow makes me a better secretary or something.
Hiking in socks and sandals, like cob houses, is something restricted to far less soggy climates than the one I am in. And those look like decent boots, neb, I am not scorning you in the slightest.
On the OP, this is surely where male privilege is most visible. Having drawers full of identical things and just grabbing one of each is how I live. Why else do you think men are so keen on the uniformed professions (soldier, fireman, investment banker, clown, surgeon, etc)? It's one less thing to worry about!
Sandals and socks is for wet areas, assuming it's above freezing. The idea is that you don't worry about dry feet while walking. When you stop, the sandals will dry and you change socks.
You don't realize how flimsy, clingy, small and revealing a woman's button-front shirt is until you compare it to a similar man's shirt.
I figured it out one day in study hall.
Frowner, I'm sorry that what clearly works for you is so hard for others to accept or appreciate.
66: If you're not hardcore enough to manage the more hideous part of the ensemble, which is clearly one ungodly ugly sweater, it wouldn't take me more than a couple of weeks if that to make a bulky tweed boucle vest with a giant pocket. I knit while I work and I have way too much yarn, plus this would be a nice complement to the little fiddly cardigan I'm making myself, which I strongly suspect will come out goofy as hell. I'll seriously do it if you give me your general size and then not be offended at all if you never ever wear it.
Wait, how is the vest the less hideous part of that?
From a knitting perspective, everything about the pullover is just dreadful, but I take your aesthetic point.
http://liartownusa.tumblr.com/image/141055991960
Hmmmm. The 2 guys I live with are distinctly pickier about their clothes than I. Cannot relate to most of this convo.
66, 71
I'm not sure you can separate that sweater from the vest and get the same effect. They have to go together, like peanut butter and mayonnaise.
But also, lets not forget he's wearing a pink striped button up and a black(?) turtleneck(?) underneath it.
Yeah, this is definitely a one-piece. You can see where the neckline stitches are picked up.
You can see where the neckline stitches are picked up.
That's a particularly hideous part.
Word, 81, though where the ribbed v-neck awkwardly becomes a floppy collar gives it a run for its money.
39: Mine are fine for snow and ice. Recommend getting the "Made in UK" version. I mentioned to a friend I'd lusted after them as a high schooler, and she sent me a Christmas gift of noney with the note, "Go get your Docs."
67: I don't know your field, but I really wouldn't think twice about hiring a woman who showed up in masculine clothes. Then again, scientists are pretty much always poorly dressed (me included), and I wear scrubs at work, so my opinion probably means nothing.
If you don't mind explaining, how do you make men's clothes fit? I'd never be able to wear men's trousers without major tailoring, and I don't have what I think of as a super feminine physique.
Oh, and I cook like E. Messily. Maybe slightly less ambitious, but I spend a chunk of time on the weekend planning food for the week, looking at new recipes to try, etc. The boyfriend gets confused when I explain that we HAVE to make the soup on Monday so we can have leftovers on a busy Thursday. Or when I cook parts of a meal in advance.
You could always just go to Arby's on Thursday.
I just read the article linked in the OP and it is good. I appreciate that it doesn't try to draw too many conclusions, it's just a reflection on her experience.
That object is reminding of my super hard core great aunt who produced endless numbers of macramé hanging plant holders notwithstanding the heroic quantities of booze she packed in.
That would make more sense to me if "notwithstanding" was replaced with "because of".
Her 8th husband's answer to breakfast was a tall glass with a moderate amount of milk and an immoderate amount of bourbon, egg supplement if he was nutrition-minded that day.
Eight seems like an immoderate amount of husbands.
Is this the Zsa Zsa Gabor thread?
She tried to claim only 7 because she remarried one, post- and pre- divorce, but none of her sisters were having any of it. They were a tough bunch.
Grover Cleveland counts twice or Obama would only be the 43rd president.
Anyway, I could see how the whole "triumph of hope over experience" thing might work seven or eight times with spouses, but I don't understand how anybody gets to a second macramé hanging plant holder.
Look if your whole life success plan is basically be born very beautiful & just this side she-must-be-Indian, survive childhood malnutrition on the reservation, get yourself to the "big city" aka Fresno and then relentlessly marry your way to the right side of the tracks then some marriage vows are going to be broken on the way.
The most successful of the sisters kept it to 3 or 4.
I think you can skip everything except "relentlessly marry your way [anywhere]" to reach that conclusion.
97 reminds me that I learned that Gregg Allman is still touring.
Having spent time with all but one of them* I'd say the background was important for follow through and repetition.
*this one was so horrid all contact was cut off. My grandmother was the angelic exception per universal consensus, but she died when I was very small so I have no memories of her.
71.
"Not hardcore enough" is a phrase I have not heard in several decades.
But uuhhh, if that's a one-piece, then it's a joke, maybe would be good with rave pants. I haven't given much serious thought to fanciful knitwear. I'd like and possibly wear a vest hoodie in the nubbly outer pattern. Are we joking aropund? I ate truly excellent jerk pork and may not be completely sober.
Really, a multitextured one-piece like that? Does not seem practical, which now that I look at the unfocused eyes of the wearer, is not all that surprising.
You mean you thought it was practical before?
Basically. Nice sweater with a kind of goofy vest that has some personality. But if the sleeves and especially the collar are attached, holy shit. Maybe the guy from the seventies in the photo was not exercising the best judgement.
For comparison, here is an ad that someone paid to run after review by other people paid to show up at the office and exercise judgement in the seventies: http://www.scotchandcigarettes.com/lee-leens-slacks-ad/
Maybe I should add, purely parenthetically, I basically avoid mirrors, pretty well always. I take my cues from expressions of horror from a very small number of people in my life.
What?
You should give mirrors another shot. They're way more practical than that sweater.
Doubling down, the neutral colored sweater as a standalone would be nice. The vest is unusual, but leaving aside that I put on a vest once when I was about 26 and not since, seems like it could work well, for vest wearer instances of well. Especially when you add a hood.
They reliably make me uneasy, no thanks.
The idea is that you don't worry about dry feet while walking. When you stop, the sandals will dry and you change socks.
Oh, I see. My ancestors used to work on the same principle with what are now called ghillie brogues - you just resign yourself to not being able to keep your feet dry and wear shoes with holes in the tops so that the water can at least get squeezed out of the shoe again fairly easily. It's the same principle that some jungle boots work on too - they have a one-way valve that allows the water to get pumped out by the action of walking.
re: 67 and 83
Ditto to ydnew's comment.
I'd have absolutely no issue with a woman coming for a job interview in a masculine suit. I'm not even sure it would really be noticed. Admittedly, I work in a library, but right up to very senior management levels there's a pretty wide range of dress, and I'd guess clothing that wasn't particularly heavily gendered would be the norm among female staff, rather than the exception.
In fact, if you look at our page with photos of our executive (4 people), you'd see one of our exec members with a short haircut and masculine clothing that I think, would be exactly the sort of thing described in 67..
The only constraint is that they have to wear thick-framed unflattering glasses, in order to be able to do a Sexy Librarian Reveal in the second act.
Which used to be called a rock dove anyway.
Is it not still? Nobody copied me the memo.
Mrs y usually wears men's jeans and casual shoes because she's tall enough that it's easier to get men's stuff to fit. Also, cheaper.
If this is the clothes thread, I recently managed to get one of these on EBay:
Artie Shaw married 8 different women. Only the final one lasted more than 4 years, most of them ran about 18 months. He told an interviewer that you had to get married a lot back then, because you weren't allowed to shack up.
I see that he managed to date but not marry Judy Garland. That might have been a first for both of them.
83: I make men's clothes fit thuswise:
Partly though an accident of genetics, since I have fairly wide shoulders and my hips are pretty flat for a basically fattish person. When I started weightlifting, I filled out in the shoulders more, too, and while from a sheer cup-size standpoint I don't have a small chest, from a "compared to my giant battle-robot shoulders" standpoint, I sure do.
Partly though being okay with clothes that make me look as big as I am. Women's clothes are designed to make you look smaller, or, if they are oversized, designed to make you look shapeless and fade into the background so that you do not offend the eyes of men.
Partly through experiments with fit. Trendy men's pants tend to have some stretch, so I can wear the smaller of two sorta-fitting sizes and not get tangled up in excess material just to get something that fits my hips. For me, I wear traditional-fit men's shirts because those fit my chest and shoulders; someone smaller/slimmer could wear trendier men's shirts as those run a lot slimmer and often have stretch. I also tuck in my shirts and belt my pants unless I'm wearing a slimmer-cut contemporary shirt.
Also, knits - contemporary, slimmer and more structured knits fit just fine. As a fattish person, I take the Very Largest Size in knits at Everlane, for instance, but because their overall cut is narrower it works.
Also, I have extremely large feet, so I wear men's shoes.
I think men's clothes would probably work for anyone who wasn't too curvy, particularly if one wore more sweaters and tees than button-fronts.
Traditional-fit men's shirts are cut without regard to height. I think they must be supposed to fit everybody from 5' up to 6'6" tall. I'm not much below average and l tuck in more fabric than remains in the exposed part of the shirt.
I finally switched to the trendier cuts on shirts because now that pleated pants are not as common, there's not enough room to tuck in that much fabric.
Pleats are the worst. Might as tie a couple of balloons to my beltm
I miss pleats. I could get so much more stuff in my pockets.
Now I can barely carry two Poké Balls and I look very conspicuous doing so.
Certainly women can (and have) wore masculine clothes to interviews here (and been offered jobs). (Not suits, it's a math department.) But as with ttaM I'm not saying that generalizes to all jobs. It might not even generalize to all jobs within the department, the support staff are locals and probably much more conservative.
I'm guessing that requiring suits at an interview correlates very highly with requiring wearing clothing traditional to your gender.
I'm with Messily on the clothes thing. I have a bunch of identical shirts and jeans that I wear without attention to anything other than staying warm and keeping my naughty bits concealed. I'm slowly seguing into a two-wardrobe lifestyle where I have a bunch of identical button-down shirts in addition to the identical t-shirts so I can look a little more dressed up if needed. What I really want is a butler who can take care of all of this crap for me.
Not that I think either requirement is likely to be explicitly stated.
a bunch of identical button-down shirts
I think the button-less collar is more common now. Or maybe I'm just 10 years behind again.
Certainly women can (and have) wore masculine clothes to interviews here (and been offered jobs).
And almost certainly many more than men who interviewed in traditionally feminine clothes were offered jobs. Just saying.
I think it's actually much simpler for a woman interviewing for a math job to just wear slightly dressed up men's clothes, because it's less clear what is appropriately dressy and feminine.
Depend. Because of the trend for tighter pants and shirts, I'd bet lots of men are interviewing while wearing Spanx.
129: The thing is, I have a pink collar job (and am unlikely to ever have a non-pink collar job. I've watched other admin staff retrain and conspicuously fail to get hired in a new field. There's a huge stigma to having been a secretary.) Part of having a pink collar job is being deferential, especially to men. If you don't dress in a feminine manner, you're perceived as having ideas above your station, plus it puts off conservative senior men. I cannot overstress how important it is, in pink collar work, to maintain either a maternal or a attractive to men demeanor, preferably a bit of both.
I get away with my present appearance because I've been here forever and a day and I also work mostly with scientists, and even the scientists who sort of care about gender norms don't really care that much. It would be hard to find another job without growing out my hair and changing my wardrobe, though. I could get a job working the more intelligence-requiring kind of customer service somewhere, probably, but only by taking a very substantial pay cut.
Most people can handle GLBTQ folks so long as we are straight-passing - that's what I've learned living in what is, after all, one of the most liberal cities in regards to gender and sexuality.
And this isn't about how "staff" are "conservative"; it's about gender, perceptions and deference. Gender-non-conforming people are perceived as discipline cases, basically.
Thank you for taking the time to provide us with your valuable information. We strive to provide our candidates with excellent care and we take your comments to heart.As always, we appreciate your confidence and trust in us.
137: It's an interesting thing that while of course there are many women lawyers in the law firm where I work and there's even a woman managing partner, there are no male secretaries. Recently they hired a guy who is doing a lot of the same stuff as secretaries, but he has a different title. Are there any male secretaries in the world?
There are a few around here. Also, more male nurses than I've seen anywhere else.
I suppose I should note there's even a male librarian, but no one has any idea what he does.
140: A better title, I assume? That's what I've observed.
I have to say, if I could go back ten years when I was glad to just get offered a job with insurance, I would tell myself to tough it out longer and not get locked into pink collar work. It's not even the work - it's the fact that most people assume that you're stupid. I am the nerdiest, most bookish person imaginable (giant pile of books for the class I run on my desk, exceedingly geeky manner) , for instance, and yet someone I have worked closely with for the past ten years (and who has often expressed great satisfaction with the various financial stuff that I do) was absolutely gobsmacked to discover that I have a college degree. Nothing I actually do overrides the bedrock assumption that secretaries are stupid and uneducated.
Are there any male secretaries in the world
James Hacker: Who else is in this department?
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Well, briefly, sir, I am the Permanent Under Secretary of State, known as the Permanent Secretary. Woolley here is your Principal Private Secretary. I too have a Principal Private Secretary and he is the Principal Private Secretary to the Permanent Secretary. Directly responsible to me are ten Deputy Secretaries, eighty-seven Under Secretaries and two hundred and nineteen Assistant Secretaries. Directly responsible to the Principal Private Secretaries are plain Private Secretaries. The Prime Minister will be appointing two Parliamentary Under-Secretaries and you will be appointing your own Parliamentary Private Secretary.
James Hacker: Do they all type?
Sir Humphrey Appleby: None of us can type, Minister. Mrs. McKay types. She is your secretary.
James Hacker: Pity. We could have opened a bureau.
140 I think they're called administrative assistants.
144.1: Not really better, just less gendered. No idea how his pay compares -- everything's top-secret here.
either a maternal or a attractive to men demeanor, preferably a bit of both
Which clothing store is best known for MILF fashion?
Good question. I would say DKNY.
My secretary is a dude. There are a number in our office, also dudes among the word processors.
"Dudes Among The Word Processors" should be a novel.
And if you want to have an intelligent conversation about books you pretty much have to seek out this one secretary.
"Dude-bros Among the Word Processors" is probably a murder mystery.
re: 142
Heheh. That's something of a sore point for me.
Are there any male secretaries in the world?
My first secretary at a law firm was a guy -- absolutely useless. Spent all day managing his Beanie Baby investment empire. Also surprisingly disconcerting when Secretaries' Day rolled around -- the firm had a strong culture of getting your secretary flowers or candy or something, and that felt very strange. (I womaned up and showed up with a jar of jellybeans.)
(Being absolutely useless probably wasn't gender-related. At the firms I worked at, a couple of lawyers shared one secretary, and it was traditional for the secretaries to disdain doing anything for the junior associates they were assigned to. He was maybe out on the far end of the spectrum of uselessness, but not that unusual.)
You should have gone with the traditional yoga pants for a gift.
yet someone I have worked closely with for the past ten years (and who has often expressed great satisfaction with the various financial stuff that I do) was absolutely gobsmacked to discover that I have a college degree.
Undergrad degrees are required for so many jobs these days that I would be quite surprised to learn that any given departmental assistant I encountered didn't have a college degree. This is, of course, no less problematic, just in a different direction.
I have and do buy my male as well as female secretaries flowers. I'm on secretary number 4, thus far 2 women and 2 men. I give flowers, chocolates, wine even to the religious maniac, she wisely was not teetotal.
I've never bought flowers at work, unless you count for somebody's funeral.
And I've never bought Wehrmacht memorabilia after that first time.
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NMM2 the population of St Kilda.
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Oh and I was wrong about the dove gray. The conversation was about pearl gray, but I think I'm safer claiming that color anyhow. It's a lighter gray with blue undertones, whereas dove gray would be darker. Or something.
165: Well, pearl gray! That's a bra of a completely different color!
Flesh-toned bra. Very common.
163: True story: When I was relocating to Lincoln Nebraska back in 2000, I did some poking around the web to see what was there. Lincoln didn't have much of an online presence at the time, and the only local business that had a website (at least a website that was listed in the Yahoo directory) was a place advertising Nazi memorabilia. Made a great first impression...
There was some guy there who was distributing Nazi literature. The Germans kept trying to shut him down.
I've heard there are 50 shades of dove gray
"'My tastes are very...singular,' he said, producing from his desk drawer a high-end pair of Leupold binoculars and a copy of Sibley."
None of the firms I've worked at had a single male secretary. OTOH the need for a legal secretary has declined dramatically just since I've been practicing, and I also don't think we've had any secretaries under 35.
I did work a lot with a male paralegal for a while, who actually had a law degree but decided that paralegal was more his thing. He was in to making his own homemade sausage (good!) but was also a WWII reenactor who always played on the German side (ummmm).
If you buy the stuff in America (or Russia), you aren't really helping the Nazi cause. You're funding the nursing home or kids' inheritance for somebody who beat them.
In the U.K. you never know, because Mosley.
the need for a legal secretary has declined dramatically just since I've been practicing, and I also don't think we've had any secretaries under 35
Or, as they are known, "barely legal secretaries".
175.1: well, true everywhere really. It's not as though there are still Nazis somewhere manufacturing this stuff.
We still have a fair number of dictaters around here, hence secretaries & word processors. I've realized it is a sign of mentoring good intentions when certain partners very earnestly tell me I should make myself dictate the first draft of arguments for briefs. The idea is it prepares you for oral argument. But I can type so fast and have been scarred just being around when tapes go missing or are inadvertently erased etc so hop not going to take up dictating regularly. Also if you share a secretary with a major dyed in the wool dictater (and I do) it would be a hugely dick move to add to the transcribing burden.
137: Yes, that assistant performing femininity does seem required in engineering offices.
And 158 is right that guys in very similar roles have a different style of presentation and often title. We had two people side by side logging in, routing, and delivering plans. The man got more of the delivery assignments, while the woman sometimes fulfills the same role on remote assignment in cities, though the guy never did. Most cities have largely, if not exclusively, female permit staff.
One of my office mates uses voice recognition software for dictation, and it's surprisingly good.
We just hired a 28 year old woman as a secretary. She seems so far to be running rings around the 3 old men she reports to.
I don't think I've ever seen anyone do dictation in the flesh. It's just been a tale from the olden times.
I've seen my brother do it. But now that he's in private practice, I sort of doubt he pays somebody.
And growing up, my dad did lots of it, nearly all before he got an Apple ][.
I was issued a dictaphone on day one! And I do use it occasionally just not very regularly or much.
I don't think my wife has ever used one. I don't know what my sister does.
I knew a secretary who claimed to be fluent in some crazy shorthand specific to patent claims. She was/is completely nuts but also the best copy editor I've ever worked with. Dreamy.
My dad did have a stenographer. The stenographer was also the mayor. Did I mention this was a small town?
172.2 He could always get a job with Mossack Fonseca.
I was practicing during the 80s, when lawyers using PCs was just beginning to be a recognized option. I dictated letters, and filled in forms with note fields for things like wills and closing documents. Lawyers were forbidden to touch typewriter keyboards.
But the results were terrible; we had a succession of underpaid and undertrained young women during the day, and one highly-skilled part-timer at night, who did more than half of the office's clerical work in maybe two hours. A letter from one of the day secretaries was hopeless as a rule, requiring incredible amounts of editing.
If I'd had a pc I'd have been able to circumvent all this, with the blessing of management.
Weird time.
...and one highly-skilled part-timer at night, who did more than half of the office's clerical work in maybe two hours.
I thought that only worked for cobblers.
191: That was a tailor and it was the mice that did all the work.
"Alex, what is the favorite dessert of trolls?"
Is using your own comments as straight lines worse or better than using others' comments? It seems less sane.
I don't think we have any attorneys that don't touch a computer left. One that retired a few years ago was having her secretary print out all her email until her last day.
195: As someone who responds frequently to his own comments, I can say with confidence that it's definitely less sane.
197: But then, you're not exactly a trustworthy source.
The head of the office at the first job I ever had kept a file with all her correspondence organized by day and by topic. This took up a great deal of room. I think she printed the emails for this file because keeping that file is what you did if you ran an office.
(Kasich killed the whole office.)
I don't think I've ever seen anyone do dictation in the flesh. It's just been a tale from the olden times.
I used to sit in my dad's office/lab (at a hospital) while he dictated stuff regarding the slides he was peering at, later to be transcribed.
It wasn't a joke. Just my best guess.
I worked as a secretary for 3 months in the early 2000s and took dictation. Or at least transcribed recordings. It was for a house inspector so not even law.
That job also served me well wrt formatting in Word. Which has been very useful as an academic (mostly when formatting theses).
My dad paid me to do typing for him one summer when I was in high school. It served me well in learning to format using Apple Works.
One of my doctors was experimenting with a medical transcriber the last time I was in. I liked it. He faced me instead of his computer and I enjoyed hearing his train of thought, which he was speaking aloud for the transcriber. If it is also convenient for him, that's a double win.
I suppose it might have sucked if there had been bad news in his train of thought that he hadn't prepared me for.
As in 200, but with corpses rather than slides, my mom used to use a dictaphone at work, and sometimes I would witness that.
Your Mom picked up where neb's Dad fucked up
My mom picked up where a lot of people fucked up.
I did a lot of temping in college, and used to occasionally do audio typing. Mostly from tape, but occasionally dictated. I'm not sure that places always knew what to do with me because at the time I was a leather jacket* wearing long-haired guy with ear-rings.
I did sometimes have to bite my tongue a bit. I worked for a few weeks for some hospital managers (all senior nurses) who were writing a truly awful buzzword laden pile of shite, and while they were dictating to me and telling how they wanted it to look* it was very hard not to laugh or look scornful.
* although graduated from biker jacket to leather sports coat, like a bargain basement Serpico, or Oldman in 'State of Grace'.
** in that case I was doing DTP for them, too.
Wasn't Serpico a bargain basement Serpico?
If Heat was good, then Serpico must be at least passable.
Re finding masculine clothes that fit women: you can find lots of brand recommendations on queer fashion blogs. As someone assigned female at birth who is on the skinny side, the biggest problem is that many brands don't go to small enough sizes for my upper body. The ones that have worked for me are Topman and Uniqlo.
There are also specialty online stores that cater to masculine-presenting people who have female-like bodies. But these tend to be expensive. I have a men's style suit from Saint Harridan that I could afford only because my friends chipped in to buy a voucher for me.
Shoes-wise I can do men's 7 which can be hard to find in physical stores but not too hard online. Anything less than 7 is difficult though.
I looked to see what Uniqlo was and now I'm being followed by ads for shirts for people with 32" chests. That's less useful than the pigeon mask ads.
Mmm. I'm also a men's seven, and would wear a lot more men's shoes (wide feet, hatred of heels) if they were easier to find in person. I also don't like buying shoes online, though.
213
Have you tried H&M? They have very narrow cuts for men and women, I've found, and often go smaller than American brands. I have broadish shoulders and a narrow ribcage (+boobs), and miraculously I find H&M women's button ups fit me perfectly. Without boobs, I think the mens stuff would fit an androgynous person pretty well, and it might read as less overtly masculine.
213,215
Also, boys shoes are good options for women with woman-sized feet who want masculine shoes, and they're also often significantly cheaper than adult shoes for similar quality.
My father used to do a decent amount of cross dressing/outfitting for amateur drag, and he always cursed the lack of heels in men's sizes available at thrift stores.
Topman helpfully skinny skinny skinny for the boy but still usually too short. Was an interesting experience buying him an emergency pair of black pants for a performance last December, on the day of the damn performance, traipsing from store to store and the when we found anything potentially suitable having to clear a wide swathe of holiday shoppers while he did various kicks and leaps to confirm (or not) adequate range of motion. One thing you can say for ballet over Bollywood - tights.
There was a male secretary around here who worked for a temp agency. He was really good, but he wanted flexibility and didnt want a steady job. You know how men can be.
When I was in law school, the women were faster typists than the men. Mostly as a result of middle school and high school prejudices that girls took home economics and typing, and the boys took industrial arts.
My high school made all freshmen take typing. We had Selectrics.
We all benefit from your fast typing everyday, Moby.
Most cities have largely, if not exclusively, female permit staff.
A rarity here. In fact, in 10+ years of practice, I can think of 3, one at the city, 2 for private, third-party reviewers.
If we stretch the definition to everyone involved in permitting (e.g. the Zoning counter) the ratio goes up, but still below half. By contrast, City Planning has I believe always (IME, dating back almost 20 years) been majority female staff.
[Rev.] Mackenzie left in 1844, and although he had achieved a great deal, the weakness of the St Kildans' dependence on external authority was exposed in 1865 with the arrival of Rev. John Mackay. Despite their fondness for Mackenzie, who stayed in the Church of Scotland, the St Kildans "came out" in favour of the new Free Church during the Disruption. Mackay, the new Free Church minister, placed an uncommon emphasis on religious observance. He introduced a routine of three two-to-three-hour services on Sunday at which attendance was effectively compulsory. One visitor noted in 1875 that: "The Sabbath was a day of intolerable gloom. At the clink of the bell the whole flock hurry to Church with sorrowful looks and eyes bent upon the ground. It is considered sinful to look to the right or to the left."Christ, what an asshole. What a miserable 24 years.Time spent in religious gatherings interfered seriously with the practical routines of the island. Old ladies and children who made noise in church were lectured at length and warned of dire punishments in the afterworld. During a period of food shortages on the island, a relief vessel arrived on a Saturday, but the minister said that the islanders had to spend the day preparing for church on the Sabbath, and it was Monday before supplies were landed. Children were forbidden to play games and required to carry a Bible wherever they went. Mackay remained minister on St Kilda for 24 years.
Oh, and a few paragraphs later, we get this:
Improved midwifery skills, denied to the island by Reverend Mackay, reduced the problems of childhood tetanus.Christ, what an asshole who makes me wish for a hell.
The Kirk at its worst was verging on the Saudi in those isolated communities. Fortunately it did not also have the right of pit and gallows, as its modern counterparts do. And at its best it was a tremendous force for good - much of Scotland's left-wing past was due to the alliance between the Kirk and the labour movement, as Gordon Brown's biography of Maxton illustrated very well.
223, 224: Jesus H. Christ. Somebody should have gone all Friar Tuck on that wanker's punk ass.
226 He would have been a good one for the Wicker Man.
I too learned Word formatting doing odd-job typing, which benefits me still, as, I discover, Word keyboard shortcuts still work when Word is in Chinese. Being born Anglophone is such a massive lottery win it's ridiculous.
[Writing from our favorite hot springs resort, having just come back from the pool. Maybe 50 people, ages running 25-60, women maybe 60%. The sheer amount of variation in the human form makes the idea that anything can be standardized truly astounding.
Except, it appears that most women under 35 got a memo pointing them to black swimwear.
I, of course, am wearing the same thing I wore here in 1985.
Your fashion sense is as behind the times as your parentheses .
Sitting in the Middle East's self-billed greatest airport for a quick weekend trip to see Chani. GCC privilege is no one seems to care about unattended baggage.
And don't get me started about Word. Because I use an American English (Dvorak) keyboard well as a French and an Arabic one whenever word detects a French name in a document I'm writing up it defaults automatically to French no matter that the rest of the words are English, they'll all be underlined in red. Infuriating.
Can't you set the language in autocorrect settings?
Yes but it reverts constantly and with no warning. I suppose I could get rid of the French keyboard but then it woul be more of a PITA to type various accented letters.
reverts constantly and with
no warning
Word in a nutshell.
The head of a department at my institution is on my flight.
No. IT. We don't exactly get along (professionally, personally is fine).
In other news I stupidly chose the smelly ass toilet seat on this packed flight.
God I hope no one takes a smelly dump.
What the hell kind of planes do they use over there?
Boeing 777-300. My back is to the crapper.
GCC privilege is no one seems to care about unattended baggage.
Terrorism is exported but not consumed locally.
At least you're alive after that egg experiment!
True to both 244 and 245.
If that egg experiment had gone wrong I's have had to wallow in it afterwards.
And at its best it was a tremendous force for good
Right; that asshole's predecessor got gov't funds for village improvements, introduced actually-helpful modern farming techniques, etc. A pastor in the best sense.
It occurs to me that the most useful function a church (or other organized religious body) can serve is to welcome pastors and drive off the autocrats, but the trouble is that it is, by definition, the autocrat types who will tend to rise in the hierarchy and define who's welcome. It's a similar problem with cops--the position inherently appeals to helpful types and to bullies--but I don't think the bullies have an inherent advantage in police administration, they just tend to dominate by sheer numbers*. You can create a non-bullying police force, but it needs to be a conscious intention.
*for reasons that are pretty simple, I think: someone who is physically brave and wants to be helpful can be a fireman, a paramedic, &c., but a bully's best options are policing and the military (which, in contrast to the church, seems to do a good enough job [these days] promoting anti-bullies that the bullies rarely dominate)
If that egg experiment had gone wrong I's have had to wallow in it afterwards.
Ew, dude.
Or worn brown trousers like asilon's dad.
248: The thing is that in theory Presbyterian churches should be less vulnerable to this kind of thing because they're bottom-up organised rather than top-down; each congregation has a council of elders who appoint (or at least approve) the minister. He doesn't just get imposed by a bishop or something.
By that logic Baptist and Pentecostal churches should be least vulnerable of all. But you don't get much more autocratic than the pastors in some of the megachurches associated with those denominations.
Plus, the rumors of Scottish national character are terrible and cruel, but honey most of them are true.
I must like to live dangerously because I just ate another cracked egg.
Fremen values rubbing of on you: "Hell on my left, Heaven on my right, and the Cracked Eggs of Death in my hands."