I have so much that I should be doing right now that I'm procrastinating on multiple things simultaneously. . .
No, I am procrastinating on dissertation writing ATM.
Before, I was procrastinating on job and postdoc applications, but then a bunch of deadlines happened so I had to actually do work. Now I'm procrastinating on the second round due in about 10 days.
I am also procrastinating on email writing, finding a goodwill donation dropbox, exercising regularly, and cleaning my bathtub.
Use whatever you were going to put in the Goodwill box to clean your tub.
No, I am procrastinating on dissertation writing ATM.
"I am procrastinating on dissertation writing ass-to-mouth."
I'm also long-term procrastinating on this sociolinguistics experiment I designed, to the point I had to come up with a completely different project to meet the deadline for my joint degree. I still plan on finishing the experiment though.
A shitload of stuff at work, and a talk proposal for a conference in the summer which is due in a couple of weeks. Help.
In order of least-to-most agressively avoided: bunch of non-urgent drafting, planning a slumber party, starting to look for my next job.
Also procrastinating, now actually waiting for a bug to show up again so that I can maybe fix it.
I enjoyed this paper a lot. Looks at which species of mammal tend to kill each other, many more than I knew about. Most live in groups, and infanticide is included.
That link I sent you was, in my mind, highly relevant to procrastination, which has to be intimately tied up with all those addictive pathways.
Procrastination is just life for me now. I don't even get much of a rush from overcoming it. OTOH lourdes complained that he's so tired of checking things off the list of goals and objectives every day, and my response was "yeah, I don't think achievement and productivity have gotten old for me yet." I have begun to procrastinate pleasurable activities like music practice and reading, for fear that once I start I'll be unable to stop.
Actually, is it a dick move to donate worn out clothes? I remember reading something about textile recycling, but I don't remember exactly what. Throwing out holey/ruined clothes seems wasteful, but the fabric doesn't make good rags.
4
I was going to write a snarky retort but then it was too uncomfortably obscene even for this blog.
I'd hate to have to pay extra for it.
I mean, on any particular deadline. I am with regard to achieving long-term life/career/happiness.
13
So do I just throw them out? But there's so much otherwise fine fabric! It violates my Portland hippie programming.
I had a horrible night because I was telling boyf about a very unproductive day and his response was "...wow," like "wow, that IS really unproductive, how do you function." The appropriate response is, of course, "whatever! Sounds normal!" or at worst "you must just make up for it with innate intelligence." So I had to explain to him for like 2 hours how our jobs and brains are different. Are they? Idk.
I was going to write a snarky retort but then it was too uncomfortably obscene even for this blog.
Not possible. Proceed.
15: Donate the clothes, and never listen to Moby, unless he's serious, which is impossible to tell.
15: If you want the productivity loss to extend through the week, you can look around the endless crafty interwebs for creative reuse ideas for old clothing. There's the canonical t-shirt quilt. There's probably some vaguely fashionable seam-patching strategy for worn pants. You could segment jeans with knee-holes and replace the knee gap with fabric embroidered with your retort to comment 4, ideally translated into Chinese.
I have two weeks left before I'm done with this job, and I am never getting out of here respectably. This would be fine, except I'll still be in the same organization where they can find me. I am completely panicked.
4,10 I'm rewatching Weeds with a friend who hasn't ssen it. JK is great in season 1, but it devolves into a soap opera.
Anyway, in the same episode there are two instances of full frontal nudity. First, on the set of a porn film, which for comedy gets modified to include a deeply gross variation of sex (that's the connection with 4), described but not directly shown, presumably as commentary on incentives to create porn that's bizarre and atttention grabbing but not exciting. Second, a character who has recovered from breast cancer and has had reconstruction with scars disrobes as she looks at herself in the mirror. Part of the show's plot is her love life. I thought it was a nice juxtaposition, kind of subtle.
There was a nice New Yorker piece recently about porn-- at the risk of oversimplifying, the author's judgement is that it's become ubiquitous, unprofitable, and unsatisfying as it has radically decentralized.
re 20 I am still kind of amazed my last job hasn't like, asked for my salary back, based on the deranged transition memo I left.
15: You should at least check to see if the local Goodwill wants unsellable clothing. I don't think most of them do anymore, but I guess on varies by location.
You must have made up for it with your innate intelligence.
They're probably puzzling over it like the Voynich manuscript.
I'm not really procrastinating on anything. Tomorrow I have to take my stupid unwell body to a checkup and then empty the house of whatever I can, but I certainly can't do that while working at home with a sick child today. Similarly the laundry will always be with us, and these boxes aren't going to pack themselves but it's hardly putting it off to say oh hell no not today. Hmm. Surely something! All the pleasurable things, for instance.
15 meet 16, Stabs has innate intelligence and will reason a path forward.
Buttercup, do you know that there's a whole profitable industry devoted to sorting through other people's purchased detritus? Your personal failure to reuse less than a kilo of nylon and rhinestones with holes is totally OK.
Everyone here postponing joy, raise your hand. Nothing more joyless than raising your hand.
I find it more joy-neutral, actually.
In order of least-to-most agressively avoided: bunch of non-urgent drafting, planning a slumber party, starting to look for my next job.
I missed the result of your last search. Did you stay in the lawyering business?
Our firm is splintering so I am procrastinating by reading about all the new fangled systems lawyers are using.
15
Do you have St. Vincent de Paul? The ones in my area take past-wearable clothing and bulk fabric scraps and turn it into pet beds, I think. They even take single shoes (for use by amputees, etc.)
(1) I think this is my pseud now, LB willing, because the other one has a lot of letters and really I like my stabbiness to be more implicit.
(2) If you have any impulse to just throw something out, you should do it. Becoming an aggro out-thrower is the best thing I have ever done. I have thrown out things that would almost certainly horrify you as a not-out-thrower*, but come over to this side, it's great.
*liiiike some serious vintage Sonia Rykel
I am avoiding trying to print a large color picture on my very own printer. Something always goes wrong and I end up screaming at it. One of these days I will be found half-eaten by my cats, slumped over the fucking thing after the stroke kills me.
30 yes, still lawyering, in a phenomenal but time-limited gig right now. I love it, and I love being a lawyer again, so next steps will be in that direction, not ballerina archeologist or whatever.
Home color printers are only slightly more efficient than just painting the thing in watercolors yourself.
23, 32
Thanks, I will check on both!
27
Do people who do that kind of recyclying sort through dumpsters? If so I'm ok dumping it then. I live right by an alley with a bunch of dumpsters, so I'm tempted to put my stuff out in a giant box that says free, because at night I hear homeless people out there, but it also seems like the easy way out and not the best choice for most of stuff, which has limited use to homeless people (salt & pepper shaker, working toaster).
19
I did that with unmatched socks, but then I procrastinated on actually doing any of the crafts, and my boyfriend got grumpy that I was hoarding piles of unmatched socks for months on end. My mending basket is equally full of stuff that has been waiting for months years.
33.2: I will fight you if you take it to extremes. Guess who used to live with me and THREW OUT the ladder to the bunk bed when I had it disassembled into single beds? NOT HELPFUL.
Throwing out tons and tons of stuff is super satisfying, though. I'm looking forward to that and the sweeping tomorrow.
I'm not really procrastinating on anything.
I have no way to understand this.
42: I'll bet Marie Kondo could afford to pay um never mind.
Becoming an aggro out-thrower is the best thing I have ever done.
For some of us, there are only two options: be aggro out-throwers, or be hoarders. It's the lesser of two evils.
Yeah 95% of my relationship fights are around me not throwing things out. Clutter does stress me out and most of what I keep is probably never going to be helpful, but then every once in awhile something like 39 happens and I feel vindicated in being a pack rat. I live in a 300 sq ft studio, so I really do need to cultivate minimalism.
Recently I've been coping with not throwing things out by not buying things, which is working so far. Also, it means I save more money or have it to spend on food/entertainment, instead of stuff.
44 exactly. I mean look how Smaug turned out.
Damn it, part of my brain is making me frantically click to refresh this thread now. "Self-help? Self-help? Self-help? Life advice? Help?" Learned helplessness indeed.
Consciously not buying things is quite a bit more rewarding than throwing things out IME.
Just have a cleansing fire now and then. Once started you can't procrastinate on that!
But I did take a car-load of cardboard to the recylatory yesterday and it was satisfying as all get out.
Once started you can't procrastinate on that!
The Getting Things Done school of arson.
That might not be workable if you're renting.
I compulsively save leftovers I'm not going to eat and then throw them out when they're moldy. My boyfriend was like, "since you're throwing it out anyways, why don't you throw them out BEFORE they're moldy so you don't have to deal with moldy food?" and I was like, "YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND THAT IS WASTEFUL" and he is like, "It's the same goddamn thing, except one is less pleasant!" and I am like, "YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND I AM PROTESTANT! LIFE IS ABOUT THRIFT AND SUFFERING" and then he is like, "JFC thank god I am Italian."
I am objectively the difficult one, but I make for it by being relatively competent.
48 would make a fine variation on my teenage self-portrait (with my hands suspended over a steering wheel, petrified staring face, and the caption "Any Day Now"): a little fire in a Melancholia-like cluttered room with a gasoline can held at chest level, just... not... quite... tipped over.
I don't buy that much stuff, but I still find a lot of things to throw out. It's partly about paring down, but it's partly about, when that paring happens, electing to throw things out rather than get rid of them in another way--gifting, donating, repurposing. Nope, it all goes in a box on the street.
Procrastinating on work. Turns out that something I thought was behind schedule, and I'd have to explain apologetically to multiple people and own up to, was actually done last week while I was out and no one told me. Lucky me. But at the same time as I got that news, I found out that something else (already approved and ready to go, we thought) had to be pushed back a week, so I have to redo a good chunk of the paperwork on it.
But I finally got that done, because today I can leave by 4 p.m. no matter what. Oops, I already missed that. Never mind.
54
Yeah, part of the problem is I have to dispose of it in the most ideal way possible, that maximizes thrift and environmental conservation and charity. Which of course is all work and then I procrastinate on it and have piles of stuff waiting to be disposed of for months.
I'm frugal with normal dollars, but I am even more frugal with feelings-dollars. Throwing out costs very few feelings-dollars.
"Feelings Dollars" sounds like the house currency at a disreputable strip club.
I should go deal with my shit, but I am curious before leaving: do the rest of you identify with the procrastination model where you're unable to picture your future self benefiting from your present actions? That was very striking for me (AIMHM). I have almost no ability to imagine a future self and, if I do try, no ability at all to identify with the future self. Whatever version of me is around tomorrow, that's someone else, who unfortunately keeps getting this hoarder's box of pathologies left on top of the to-do pile.
59 does that include an inability to imagine a future self who's like "thank fucking god I finished that, that's a relief"?
59: That's what dissertation write became for me. So I just got a real job.
Digital distraction at work has become something of a problem for me. I found a book on the subject at Powell's a few months ago, and now I'm procrastinating on reading it.
Does your all's procrastination have identifiable consequences other than feeling shitty about procrastinating & fuleing feelings of worthlessness? This is a puzzle piece for me.
Just have a cleansing fire now and then.
Im just going to throw out another plug for divorce as a way to get rid of stuff (weight, assets, junk, kids....)
38.2 It's not recycling but rather a glorified cleaning service. I think most are paid to auction obviously valuable objects, after being paid by the hour to sort through stuff.
Maybe this is a possible line of work for you, you could combine your ethical impulses with the ability to help others who are less enlightened and also turn a profit.
Divorce/arson doesn't have to be either/or.
Being able to put trash out and have someone take it is nice at removing bad feelings. The day we ran into Mara's siblings the next town over I ended up walking by someone selling things out of a garage and he had what was definitely the push lawnmower I'd put in the trash that morning, also definitely not fixed. I'm a job-creator!
It does after you first file with a court. Unless you're really, really good at arson.
63: holy shit, if you're even asking that question you've got it under much better control than I do.
63: I do worse work than I would if I wasn't procrastinating -- like, I'm dealing with things now that I'm embarrassed to hand off because they're a mess. But overall, it doesn't catch up with me significantly.
69 why? I mean, mine has very obvious consequences in some ways, but then when I look at them close up might not be consequences? Like, because of procrastinating, I have less time to do things I want to do, but actually would I do those things anyway? (No). I can imagine some alternative more successful, social self who had never procrastinated, but then I think other traits would have gotten in the way, actually? I don't know, this is really a mystery to me.
A few years back I never got around to writing a paper that someone asked me to write, clearest example of negative consequence. My house is less fabulous than the one a more diligent version of me could manage-- I've bought a replacement mirror for the ugly cracked one on my car and have not replaced it yet, so I look more shambolic than I should.
I imagine that all my personality defects are visible blemishes, so there's a sense of relative failure to optimal behavior that can creep in to every day and indeed also into social interactions. On the other hand, I do a fair amount of useful work and have done OK so far by my kid. Complacency against ambition is a balancing act, I think for everyone.
63: Rarely are there real-world consequences, mostly just self-hate.
64: Not all necessarily apply, but yeah.
What's the consequence in 72.1, just not writing the paper? Can you not talk to that person, or work with their publication again?
I have certainly improved my life by shedding shelving units, CDs, dead plants, novelty toilet paper (it was a gift, so not Buck's fault initially. Wanting it on display on a shelf? His fault.) broken lamps, hideous ornaments, etc.
I should maybe not go into the litany of all the things I've fucked up and dollar amounts attached and so on. It has been incredibly devastating and is at this point the shape and structure of my life, i.e. tall impressive new failures beside more modest failures in an older style, all ringed by the failure highway and traversed by the deplorably silted failure river etc etc etc.
A burned bridge basically unfortunately. I liked working with her for the most part but she's unlikely to suggest me again.
In fairness, a collaborator's opinion of the technique was optimistic, and writing it would likely have raised issues with my management, so it would be work that led to possibly resolvable conflict. Also would have had to be done on my time.
77 got it, I've definitely taken on side projects and flaked on them and felt weird about it and avoided people as a result, but at the same time I'm not convinced I'd be better off with people who expected side projects of me in my life.
That sounds very Elizabeth Bishop of you.
I recently learned that that was written not about Lota but in the midst of a temporary breakup that was repaired. Which is super comforting! It is. Thanks for reminding me.
I'm still hampered by things I've fucked up way way way in the past, but I guess keeping expectations about me and what I can actually manage small has helped. I'm still flailing and failing in certain respects. I can't find a way to clean the kitchen floor that doesn't hurt my ankle, for instance. I'll stop now before I upset myself.
I can't find a way to clean the kitchen floor that doesn't hurt my ankle, for instance.
You may not like it, but I have a solution for this. I've been using it for years, and no ankle pain.
She's not the kind to kidnap strangers at gunpoint.
My ankle pain is slowly being replaced by hip pain. I'm not sure if it is an improvement or not.
I suppose procrastination as a habit is just so intractable and baffling that I stopped trying barrel through it at some point, and now try to treat it as information about what I want, which I am typically terrible about articulating to myself. I make plans and commitments based on who I think I am or should be, but follow through on them--or don't--as who I actually am, and I get to see where I was wrong about myself in the gap in between those things.
82: Yeah but Selah dropped a popsicle on the floor weeks ago now and it dried to this crust of doom and it's chocolate, so I can't even just put the dog on it. Sigh.
Oh wait, LB, you just got a new kitchen! 8 then hiring someone to clean is more likely here. I feel like I shouldn't do it with boxes everywhere but maybe I need to just give in.
85 is to say I may be obliviously living in the same landscape of failure described in 76, I don't know, I've certainly made expensive mistakes; I am just incapable of attributing my circumstances to past choices, whether that means regret or crediting myself.
Also academia is a big force multiplier for a tendency to procrastinate and fail -- although it's all relative, because to hear most academics talk procrastination is ubiquitous, plus overachievers fail. But it is set up to delay punishment (and reward) for yeeeeeears.
I have to dispose of it in the most ideal way possible, that maximizes thrift and environmental conservation and charity. Which of course is all work and then I procrastinate on it and have piles of stuff waiting to be disposed of for months.
EXACTLY.
OPINIONATED ME
89 sounds like you imagine neither a past nor a future self. Pleasantly symmetrical.
I fucking hate that Elizabeth Bishop poem.
89 makes me sound like a total psychopath incapable of taking responsibility, which I am not--I can certainly think "oh shit, doing thing X hurt someone, and I will try to avoid repeating it." I just can't form a convincing vision of a counterfactual present in which I had never done thing X.
95: As Popeye put it so eloquently, "I yam what I yam and tha's all what I yam".
Right, neb, but you would actually like an earnest effort at the kind of poem it's mocking, which conversely would leave me totally unmoved.
I may be trolling. I also hated the poem for a long time.
I am incurably middlebrow, and like it.
(That is, I like the poem. I accept being incurably middlebrow.)
I like being incurably middlebrow but dislike the poem, though my grasp of poetry tends to fall off rather rapidly the further we I from the man from Nantucket.
97: But did you discover in it after all a place for the genuine?
I love it, but as I read it the voice is pretty distinct: black as pitch, baby-talking all the bullshit, too disgusted by sentiment and its hollowness to keep the pen hand moving at the end. Dripping with acid all the way through.
There's something artificial and bemused about her lyrical clumsiness; no one else can imitate it. I'm by no means a huge fan, but I respect it. More manic, winking poet-gamesters drive me crazy much faster.
-- which just proves that I don't belong here.
I will belong here soon enough.
I'm procrastinating on sending out job applications and learning Ruby on Rails. But there is another wild card game on tonight, so probably there will be no progress.
You could try being a Pirate fan. Lots of free time in October.
33 et al.: I am procrastinating on getting rid of stuff because I think I could sell it (sometimes for YUGE! profits) but I don't have the time and interest so I don't work at it, except not-so-deep-inside I want to keep it all, ALL, my precious!
Also changing jobs which has me totally nuts even though it is a better job with a (marginally better) commute. "Totally nuts" includes thinking about "why am I not getting rid of that stuff" instead of the new job.
108: My team already lost last night, so I was thinking I'd take some time off. But my son's team is the Mets, so I have a responsibility here.
ESPN's live strike zone graphic is dreadful.
Sad trombone for Pirates fans! But Syndergaard v. Bumgarner should be an awesome Scandinavian/Teutonic Wild Card matchup tonight.
LET'S GO METS for this one night. Now I've cursed them with the post-season pseud-change against-the-Giants poison. I'm actually secretly kinda OK with a Giants win because it would be still more satisfying to see them lose to either the Dodgers, Cubs or Nationals in a later round, but I am NOT taking chances. Oh hey Giants a bloop-a-doop infield easy out gets by the shortstop and turns into three runs for you and all your players play 80x better than in the regular season even with Bumgardner starting like 4 days in a row. Why not, that's what you do.
Is this the most metal wild card game? Probably.
I'm actually secretly kinda OK with a Giants win because it would be still more satisfying to see them lose to either the Dodgers, Cubs or Nationals in a later round.....
Don't be so sure. A one-and-done loss in the wildcard is deeply frustrating to the recipient.
MadBum is not metal. He's some kind of angry hillbilly whose favorite band is probably Georgia-Florida Line. Now Thor, if your nickname is Thor you are definitionally metal.
Whoa. Mets fans should be putting umlauts over the Ks.
I have two broken lamps, a broken suitcase, and an unused printer that I cannot bring myself to throw away. The thrift store won't take them. The Freecycle won't take them. The county's Electronics Recycling day doesn't take printers.
I keep fantasizing that I will actually find someone who can fix the lamps. I would pay for that to happen.
The suitcase is going in the trash next week and I'm just going to resign myself to the feelings of deep, deep environmental guilt. Boo landfills.
I haven't watched the NL in a while. Do the teams in that league ever, you know, score runs?
I'm procrastinating on class prep for tomorrow, and a ton of housework.
I've actually been procrastinating a lot less lately than usual (but still a lot, of course). Turns out taking a week off helps a lot to counteract burnout and lack of motivation at work.
Oh my God. The Mets are going to blow it even after that performance, due to some classic bloop-a-doop Giants good luck. It's going to happen.
They brought their pitch-hoard. Still metal.
They've been incredibly bad for the second half of the season, but they somehow magically won't be bad tonight.
I guess their not eager to yank the starter then. Also because he seems to be having a great game.
I leave the room to scarf chocolate for two minutes, and I come back, three runs have scored?
That was completely fucking predictable. So long Cubs, get ready for the force of bloop-a-doop and ridiculous good luck.
Cubs better step up. I've been promised a Wrigley meet-up in the case of a Sox-Cubs series.
Checking my phone just now it occurred to me that I did my worst procrastinating earlier in the summer when I used to get data usage warnings on my phone a day or two before my weekly plan renewed from looking at too many blogs and twitter at work (because I'm using mobile data and no way am I going to sign on to the wifi network at work). That hasn't happened for a few weeks now so maybe I'm procrastinating less.
Whelp, I'm 0-2 for my teams in wild card games.
Cubs are fucked. It's some kind of devil magic. The Giants this year are really not a very good team but it doesn't matter at all.
Although really this is good. I'll be much more productive if I don't have to watch a bunch of baseball.
Checking my phone just now it occurred to me that I did my worst procrastinating earlier in the summer when I used to get data usage warnings on my phone a day or two before my weekly plan renewed from looking at too many blogs and twitter at work (because I'm using mobile data and no way am I going to sign on to the wifi network at work). That hasn't happened for a few weeks now so maybe I'm procrastinating less.
Ha, me too, exactly (except that my plan is monthly).
138 OTOH I've become much more assiduous in switching to the wifi when I get home to avoid running out of data so maybe I'm still just as bad (tho I don't use the phone nearly as much at home).
I just pay for the overages. I should probably switch to a different plan with more data.
Further to 119: teaching about genocide is super depressing.
Mine works out to about $5.50 a week. The monthly plan here doesn't make much sense and I almost never stream video or audio. It's mostly Unfogged and Twitter (and NYRB, some other usual suspect blogs, etc).
Mine works out to about $5.50 a week.
Whoa. I pay 3 or 4 times that even without the overages.
And checking just now it appears that I do have an overage for this billing period too. I really haven't been using it as much as I was for a while, though.
Mine is about $2.80 a week. I've no idea how much of that I actually use, since I've never run out. Don't use the phone for video or audio though.
Some things about America really do suck, but I hadn't realized that cell phone bills were among them to such an extent.
That's for 750 mb. There's also a $28/week package for roaming on other networks when traveling abroad which is very handy*.
*Going to Dubrovnik next week for a conference. Anyone been?
That's for 750 mb. There's also a $28/week package for roaming on other networks when traveling abroad which is very handy*.
*Going to Dubrovnik next week for a conference. Anyone been?
This is why I don't have a data plan. Too fucking expensive.
Mind you, I pay $13 for voice and text every three months...
So per Gb:
Arrakis $6.87
Roc Island $5.62
Mossheimat $10.0
Calypsonia "too fucking expensive"
I used to pay $20 for 12 or 15 gig,good until I used it, in China. The cost of coverage and unlimited local calls was nominal, like maybe $2/month. Low enough that I didn't notice.
148: No, but I watched a lot of Fan over some guy's shoulder on Air Singapore last week, and if that rooftop chase scene is anything to go by, you're going to have a hell of a time.
I mean Singapore Airlines. That wrong name is really jammed in my head.
148: Went there as a teenager, over a decade ago. It's very beautiful. In terms of practical advice: there was an awesome nightclub in an ancient colonnaded courtyard just south of the city centre, where you could watch the sun rise over the sea while dancing. And if you're hitchhiking, don't take a lift with a guy in a cool van who has just dropped his kids at the airport on their way back to their mother in the States, who has custody of them. He's really drunk, and what with the cliffs and everything it's a pretty alarming journey.
I think around the same age as you? Early 30s
I thought so too. I turned 32 last week.
Happy birthday!
I've been 32 for a while. I'm thinking of not celebrating my next birthday, and instead having a highly optimistic "third of a century" party four months later.
Thanks! I'm mostly just interested because I feel like I still have a reputation here as a youngster, but we seem to be gradually gaining a few commenters my age or younger. I don't expect we'll end up with that many, since blogs are dead these days, but still.
I thought the blog was growing new commenters, but for whatever reason people seem to comment less in the first few years after having children. Priorities!
The blog will be fine, as soon as twitter goes bankrupt.
Or when pseudonymity gains new cachet under the Trump administration. Whichever comes first.
I always figured this blog endured because none of the regulars wanted to grow up to be journalists.
I thought the blog was growing new commenters, but for whatever reason people seem to comment less in the first few years after having children. Priorities!
It is growing new commenters, but very slowly. We may now have a few who are younger than L., who has been commenting off and on since she was in high school more than 10 years ago, but not many. The young people are on Instagram and/or Snapchat, not blogs.
167: Thanks! It is an underwhelming age.
168 All those dick pics on Snapchat have spoiled their appetite for our cock jokes.
76 is also me. I've got a pretty great life now, thanks to privilege and luck, especially w.r.t. finding Iberian Fury, but it remains true that my professional life is 100% failure and wasted potential. There was a nice line in, I think, Dept. Of Speculation, about the protagonist envying the women she sees who shed ambition so easily, like a jacket that doesn't fit anymore, or something. It resonated!
And yeah the US is so bad for cell phone rates. Here: €10/mo for 3gb data, 1000 mins, 1000 texts, including taxes. Love it.
Hey, I can remember when there were 6 mobile networks in Austria.
Shredding. And a small amount of consequent filing. I leave it until I can't shut the bureau and piles of paper are all over the living room chairs. Which means I need to stop procrastinating soon.
166. Me too.
On the other hand we have at least one journalist who was a journalist before he delurked. So.
To answer the procrastination question: a best man's speech. Which is unfortunate, as I'm delivering it in a couple of days and don't see any opportunity to write it between now and then. I might just get btock and wing it
Just make a joke about long wedding speeches and wrap it up. Easy.
If you get btock don't forget to tell an embarrassing story about the groom and make a pass at the bride. Everyone really loves that and it makes for a memorable speech.
176: simple. Joke about long wedding speeches, mention how you know the groom, tell a slightly embarrassing story about the groom's hapless or reckless youth [DO NOT MENTION FORMER GIRLFRIENDS], mention how happy you were to hear he'd got engaged, compliment the bride, finish on a vaguely sentimental note (mention your own wife here if you're married) and propose the health of the bride and groom. Five minutes tops. Then sit the hell down, start drinking, and be prepared to chat politely to either the bride's mother, the officiant, or (if you're lucky) the bridesmaids.
No one is ever going to leave a wedding thinking that the speeches were too short.
compliment the bride
"Great big tracts of land" is the standard.
In Russia, Dave, Deacon and Ravan have a choice to make: take the Ekranoplan and run for their lives, or evolve into something terrifying. Meanwhile, Courtney's game-changing revelation stuns the other "140" exiles. Can Akira's peace compound live up to its name? Or is there a terrible price to pay if one wants to truly become a social media messiah?
http://www.horrortalk.com/news/6807-unfollow-12-exclusive-preview.html
Ekranoplans? Social media? Tontines?
I am pretty sure this must have been written by a lurker.
McMegan has a piece on procrastination in The Atlantic. I'll read it later, after I finish this paper.
Returning to the topic: don't overstress these things. This isn't a stage performance where you have to do your absolute best or the audience will walk out. You are playing a minor part in a ritual that is familiar to everyone, and all you have to do to win is not cock it up.
Right. Just cut the foreskin and leave.
Remind me never to get married in Pennsylvania.
183 A lurker or perhaps the 10,000 monkeys typing in a room have finally produced an Unfogged thread.
One of the UKIP MEPs has just thumped another, who has collapsed with what sounds like a brain haemorrage.
176 You could ve sensible and take the sound advice ajay proffered in 179 or you could choose to make a memorable speech. The choice is all yours. I know which one I'd pick.
Thumped like "assault".
Topic of conversation in the office: you get plenty of scuffles in legislatures around the world, but how often has one legislator actually murdered another? I can't think it's happened that often.
A proto-Confederate senator beat on older, northern senator badly enough that the old guy was unable to work for many months.
What procrastination has cost me:
I applied for a fifth-year-extra-study program in college and probably would have got in if I hadn't done my application at literally the last minute. 10+ years later, I'm probably not worse off for not having done it, but that could have been fairly big somehow.
I often do a mediocre job at work because of procrastination. I can't be sure that matters, maybe it's a Dunning-Kruger thing or maybe my current performance is good enough and procrastination is just keeping me from being the best of the best, but I'm new enough at my current job that worrying seems rational.
There are a lot of tasks around the house that I really should do. Some of them - for example, selling or giving away an old computer - would save me time in the long run, because not getting rid of it means I have to keep moving it back and forth when it's in the way. Procrastinating on this isn't the worst thing in the world, but it's a practical problem.
I'm procrastinating on organizing my financial stuff. 401(k), IRA, whatever. This might be harmless, but again, I think it's reasonable to worry. We actually met with a professional financial planner like six months ago and we think he was a big help, and then four months ago I started a new job with a new retirement account and all that.
182: No wonder my mother looked at me funny at my sister's wedding last weekend.
194: Preston someone-or-other, right? I knew about that one. And some parliaments have scuffles virtually weekly (Taiwan and Korea seem particularly bad for this). And of course there have been duels (Canning-Castlereagh, for example). But I don't think there have been any actual legislator-on-legislator murders in the parliament building before. And these two were even from the same party!
Topic of conversation in the office: you get plenty of scuffles in legislatures around the world, but how often has one legislator actually murdered another? I can't think it's happened that often
Was Stalin a member of the Supreme Soviet?
195.5: I think procrastination on IRA-related tasks (after setting one up) has saved me more money than any thing I've ever done.
Where Did Our Love Go (To The Gulag)
You Keep Me Hanging On (This Gallows)
You Can't Hurry Five Year Plans
196: Right. I had thought it was senator-on-senator violence during a session, but Preston was just a member of the House who walked over after a session.
Stalin, like Saffron, never actually murdered too many people, but he sure put them in positions where they'd die easy.
Sumner outlived Preston by quite a bit, because in the 1850s, germs were more dangerous than brain damage.
202: Republica has never been called to account for its crimes.
Mike Hookem, the puncher, has apparently driven off in his car pursued by the French police. Ex-131 (Independent) Commando Engineer Sqn RE apparently.
If we started finding fault with British leaders from running from French people, we've had to right off huge numbers from William to Wellington.
"right" s/b "write". I blame French-based Normans for fucking up the language.
I don't want to spread any unfounded rumors, but I'm pretty sure Hookem was wearing a clown mask at the time of the incident.
It's not beyond the realm of possibility.
So, 208 has been independently confirmed. Anybody reading this who is a British journalist is now duty bound to report it.
199 - "I know I need to kill this member of the British Royal Family, but it's OK of I watch just one more episode of this Say Yes To The Dress marathon first, right?"
Looks as if it won't be murder, and that Woolfe had invited the ex commando outside to continue an earlier discussion before coming off worse. Both these details make me very happy.
So fail to perish all macho politicians
Now I am procrastinating on??? just plain avoiding?? hassling my ex to revise our divorce agreement/write a fucking will so that any future children he has with his (lovely) fianc‎ée CAN'T GET MORE MONEY THAN MY KID. We've all been getting along and I am wondering if any increase in tension is worth it.
fwiw this is on top of yesterday's procrastination, it's not like I did the things from yesterday and then moved on to this.
My new boss expects me to work over the weekend to produce a report for him on Sunday (Sundays being Mondays here). I initially balked, asked for Sunday midday and ended up taking my computer home anyway.
My Fremen cow orkers are organizing a going away dinner with gift from our section on Monday. They asked if $220 was too much. This should give some idea of the differing pay scales. I lowered it to about $130 because I would have kicked in $100 for a combined dinner/gift (as I write that I think, not true, more like $50) but kicked myself later for not saying half their number.
215.1 I almost never take home my computer.
215.2 this dinner and gift being for the outgoing boss.
I think the most I've ever kicked in for somebody leaving was $20.
Ok but what's the most you'd kick in for your stepchild's college savings.
219 Is the stepchild red-headed?
Inspired by this post I cleaned my bathtub and organized my books, which I hadn't done since I moved. About 2/3 of the way through, one of the book cases fell apart, because it's a shitty ikea book case that barely survived 4+ moves. I went to bed with stacks of books everywhere and a partially broken bookshelves. Then this morning I (re)nailed the shelves together and put the books on them, and so far (knock on birch veneer) the shelves haven't fallen out.
221 is encouraging. A bookcase of mine broke yesterday (because of quantum entaglement with yours clearly). Now there is a broken bookcase on the curb outside my building.
Aegi is a talented and manic builder so it's sort of like I throw crummy shelves out and come home to find beautiful new built-ins have taken their place which would delight anyone else but I'm just trying to lose the fucking shelves.
Topic of conversation in the office: you get plenty of scuffles in legislatures around the world, but how often has one legislator actually murdered another? I can't think it's happened that often
Did the IRA hunger strikers count as "legislators"?
For parliamentary shenanigans it's hard to beat Ian Paisley, after disrupting the European Parliament by bellowing at visiting Pope JPII that he was the Antichrist, being manhandled out by a bunch of MEPs prominent among whom was Otto von Habsburg, last Crown Prince of Austria-Hungary.
222
Ha! I thought about throwing it out, but throwing it out + buying and assembling a new one was way more work than getting out a hammer and nails.
Also, my boyfriend left a box with a jute rug in it that he said belonged to his former roommate, and we've been storing it for the 2 years she was abroad. Now she's back and it turns out it's not her rug, but my old roommate's, who doesn't want it back. I put it on my floor but it hurts my feet. Trying to decide how best to get rid of it. My old roommate suggested selling on the university version of craigslist, but that seems like a lot of work for something that's probably not going to sell for more than $10 maybe $20. Maybe I will try to donate it with my toaster. Or maybe if I move it under my table I have the benefit of a jute rug without actually having to walk on it.
Oh, also, you guys inspired me to put my boyfriend's old track pants with a shot elastic waist into the trash.
221 Is it a Billy? I have one here.
226 last warms my heart to incandescence
226.last He'll be looking for them within the week.
227
Yep!
229
I'll tell him the shot-elastic waist fairy took them and replaced them with a shiny nickel.
bellowing at visiting Pope JPII that he was the Antichrist
A few weeks ago across the street from the baseball stadium as people were heading in I saw a guy holding up a big "The Pope is the Anitchrist" sign. I remember thinking that he was the kind of old school nutty protester you don't see much these days.
224: I don't think the hunger strikers had actually murdered any MPs? Mountbatten and Neave were murdered by the INLA, not the IRA. Even if they had, they wouldn't have murdered anyone while they were MPs, because only one of them was elected as an MP and that was shortly before he committed suicide (Bobby Sands; and he never actually committed any murders as far as we know, though he tried).
The IRA killed quite a few MPs while Gerry Adams was an MP himself, but he never actually pulled the trigger on any of them.
inspired me to put my boyfriend's old track pants with a shot elastic waist into the trash.
He now has totally legit grounds for a breakup.
The pants are obviously a warmup for tossing the boyfriend too.
Buttercup, it's not too late. The trash hasn't been picked up yet. Drop everything, go home, get the track pants out of the trash, and you can still save your relationship.
But, maybe, you just don't care........
Get rid of the boyfriend but keep the pants as a trophy.
You know I'm sure the elastic waistband can be repaired. It's not too late.
He can't leave me because I gave him a lesbian haircut. Now the only women who find him hot categorically aren't into men.
Wait, didn't you set up some kind of open relationship for the boyfriend? So (a) you ugly him up (b) "here is your freedom, now fail with it!"
Plus cut up and trash the dude's track pants. It's like next-level open sadism over there
"Oh, she didn't respond to your message? [cackle]. Why might that be, KD Lang." "Would you like some pants? Yes? Oh my God it thinks it's actually going to be able to wear pants."
I'll bet those track pants were so nice and soft after having gone through the wash so many times. You couldn't buy a new pair that felt so nice and soft and comfy like that. It's not too late Buttercup!
Think of all the good times that he's had in those track pants. And you are throwing them all away.
You know, just the other day the wife was telling me to get rid of one of my favorite t-shirts just because it has giant holes in it. I don't understand how the people we love can be so callous.
Becoming an aggro out-thrower is a process, and sometimes you have to practice on other people's stuff before you can throw out your own. Buttercup's boyfriend will cheerfully accept this reasoning.
Do Italians wear anything but track pants? Or is that just Italian Americans in New York?
My boyfriend has a stretched, yellow-y holey white t-shirt with a bad pun on it, and he won't let me throw it out. On second thought, he might have taken it to Prague with him just to prevent me from throwing it out. Clearly he didn't love his track pants that much.
246
He's really sub par in the dressing thing. A perpetual major fight we have every year is over his unwillingness to wear a speedo to the beach. I feel like if he won't wear a speedo or carry a man purse, what's the point of his being Italian?
This thread has become a Phil Collins song.
Oh god this is reminding me that Aegi keeps prudly giving me his oldest, holiest t-shirts like they are game he has slain for me, including a Natty Boh tshirt that is older than I am and shredded in ways that render it unwearable even if I were inclined to wear. I can't give them back (I tried) and I can't throw them out (I tried) so I just fucking short circuit every time I think about them.
Vintage, distressed Natty Boh shirt sounds sweet.
Clearly he didn't love his track pants that much.
Or he's testing you. Don't let him down, Buttercup.
I am opening a google doc and starting a running list of frequent triggers for fights between Buttercup and her boyfriend. Currently I have:
(1)her not throwing out mold
(2)him not wearing speedos
250 """distressed""" = literally exposes nipples. You want it?
Men only have metaphorical nipples.
254 At least you've got your sexy Halloween costume sorted.
Yeah, trust me, this blog is plenty into that sort of thing.
When I was younger, we didn't have Natty Boh or visible nipples. We did have "Natural Light", which we called "Natty Light". But it was just horrible, even by underage-drinking standards.
This thread has become a Phil Collins song.
I have zero ideas what this means but which one? "It's no fun being an illegal alie-un"?
256 are you suggesting I go as Sexy Mr. Boh, or as a high school sophmore, because that is the latest anyone should accept gifts of old tshirts believing them to be the height of romance?
259: "Throwing it all away" but I had hoped it spoke to a deeper collective of Phil Collins songs.
I don't think I've ever heard the illegal alien song before. That is some seriously tacky shit there.
"Nippy Boh" is tacky, but that doesn't mean it isn't great.
Unless not being tacky is part of your definition of greatness.
249,254 He wants you to wear them to bed. I'd bet they are very comfortable.
That is some seriously tacky shit there.
What's absolutely outrageous is for a song with lyrics that dumb to be so catchy. One of your more evil earworms, that one.
I have a fondness for "You're taking it all too hard" from that album that I won't apologize for, however.
"""distressed""" = literally exposes nipples. You want it?
I'm going to need to see some pictures.
266 I think Roger has it right.
I'm not an actual idiot you guys, I know straight men like girls wearing their shirts, and nipples. I'm not confused by the ratty gifts, just over them.
Oh my god I think I've just had old tshirts mansplained to me. Is that what happened?
You've just had exposed nipples mansplained to you.
Its true that exposed nipple old Natty Boh shirts are way sexier than any lingerie you could by.
Well, almost any lingerie. Again, I'd need pictures to judge.
I'm not actually a huge prevert. Mostly I have a deep fondness for Natty Boh. Its the Baltimore in me.
225. Paisley proudly claiming to be b the Antichrist, sure why not.
I never much liked people who treat their girlfriends as dress up dolls.
249. Is "accidentally" burning them an option. For extra points say you did it while ironing them.
Aegi's strategy for keeping his old t shirts is brilliant. He just doesnt want them thrown out. He cant say that directly bc he will lose that battle.
I have t shirts from swim meets that are older that teo. I just cant throw them out.
276. Uh oh. Are these OK, or problematic? GF likes them, or at least says she does.
226. Is "accidentally" burning it an option? For extra points say you did that while vacuuming it, in a freak accident involving worn-out clothes.
by "say" do you mean "grunts" and by "GF" do you mean "Kodiak Bear"
I don't even know what thread this goes in anymore, but I've been a half-assed sad clown every year for the past idk how many years. I refuse to go out until the last minute and then finally rally and just put red lipstick on the end of my nose and smudge my mascara--that's the clown part. Then I get to whatever and get overwhelmed and regret going out, and just go smoke cigarettes on the roof the whole time, which is the sad part.
280
Good point! I did vacuum today so I'll tell him his pants were a casualty. He won't find out for a year anyways, so maybe he won't even notice.
253
That sums up a good 80% of our relationship conflict. We also fight over what items of outerwear can be classed as a sweater. I bought him a knit waffle long sleeve henley from Eddie Bauer once, and he wore it over a button up shirt, and then said, "thanks for the sweater, but it makes me feel like a dad when I wear it." I told him that it wasn't a sweater, and now it's sparked a 4+ year fight over the definition of sweater. I blame the Y chromosome. (He also calls it red, even though it is clearly burgundy.)
Burgundy is:
a) red wine
b) white wine
c) all sorts of grapes are grown in Bourgogne and so you get red, white, rose, and so on, although typically the color is meant to allude to the red wine
d) brown or purple or brownish-purple or something but NOT RED
e) boundlessly arrogant, thank you Huizinga; also "as dark with power as with wine"
I think you can agree on e) as a description of the garment. For real, do you call it a Henley? "Your burgundy shirt"? How many words is a shirt worth?
271- I thought it only counted as mansplaining if you were wrong?
287: Well, actually, no. I know this is hard so let me break it down for you. It's also mansplaining if you're explaining something simple that anyone in context would be expected to know, but the male involved is so certain of both his own knowledge and the woman's undoubtable ignorance. It's okay, you'll figure it out some day, sweetheart. I know you're working at it but trying too hard isn't really attractive, y'know?
I just bought what LL Bean calls a "waterfowl sweater." It's to go with my wool hunting trousers. Now that white Protestants don't run everything, it's cultural appropriation to dress like one, not social climbing.
287: She's not sure. Maybe you can elucidate further.
Everyone has seen "Where does a mansplainer get his drinking water?"
Of wool, for waterfowl. Or maybe for people killing waterfowl.
288- Nice!
I'm never going to give up pointing out the obvious though. I've had lots of people of both sexes be grateful even though most of the time it is unnecessary.
292, continued: "From a well, actually."
294: As a fellow mansplainer I recognize my kind. (And to be faithful, I made sure not to even scroll up and see what yous were talking about. Assuming is the way of our people, our shitty, shitty people. Plus bonus negs.)
286 is excellent. I'm not a clumsy drunk, I'm Homeric. Will be sure to steal that the next time it's appropriate.
I snorted at 292-5.
FWIW if you had asked me at noon today I would have said "'mansplain' is a too-coy neologism, overused to the point of meaninglessness."
I do like that "Burgundy" as a political or geographic entity can apply to almost anywhere in eastern France or Benelux, but never all such places at once.
I like burgundy (the color). That is all.
I just started to tell 295 to my roommate and she was able to guess the punchline.
I'm not as smart as your roommate.
I should have added f) ask lourdes, who will probably reply that "it's green" or some shit. His color intuitions are not standard, which can cause confusion: like, there will be a shirt I'd regard as plausibly either green or gray (there are lots of these tones), and I'll guess that he'd see it as gray and refer to it accordingly, but after a brief dispute he'll come out with "oh yeah, that yellow sweater." Yellow? "I mean, I guess it's more brown maybe."
Is it possible he's color blind? Because that happens and plenty of people have lived in denial about it before being tested.
While I am stating the obvious, Mike Pence not only is a piece of shit he knows he is a piece of shit: http://www.bodylanguagesuccess.com/2016/10/nonverbal-communication-analysis-no_6.html
It's also possible I'm color blind. I have no real basis to claim non-standard intuitions.
Self-awareness is very much overrated as a component of self-improvement.
307: It's very strongly a male condition.
There's an online test from a company selling color-shifting glasses if you'd like to give it a try.
Ha! I deleted the part of the comment that said "I know it's more common in men, but I have a lot of defects that are more common in men, like a refusal to do my share of emotional labor." So here I am now laboring that out for you.
Emotional labor is indeed the worst.
Test says I'm normal. For once. It was very slightly fun.
But at least we get a long weekend for Emotional Labor Day.
Did you guys find Body Language Success from the James Fallow's piece? Because I'm the one who pointed the site out to him and now I feel like a huge influencer.
316- Probably, I don't remember for sure where I got the link from first.
279: Bear feet are classic. She'd be a fool to disagree!
And should I be hurt that the current unfogged strategic nipple reserve is deemed insufficient?
And should I be hurt that the current unfogged strategic nipple reserve is deemed insufficient?
Nah, you've done your part. If there's a need for more it's on the rest of us.
So, Clytie, should I buy these? (I'm not going to buy them, no matter what anyone says.)
Get them so Buttercup can use them to practice throwing things out.
That seems like possibly even more of a waste of money than buying them for any other reason.
Now I'm being followed around the internet by a heavily tattooed guy in high-water leather pants.
Under no circumstances should anybody buy those or anything else from that company, so that it goes suddenly bankrupt, ruins all its shareholders, and its directors are forced to live under bridges until they freeze to death in winter.
(That was the soft version. I deleted the hard version.)
If people want me to throw things out for them, I'm now offering a service. $5/item for normal stuff, $20/item if it's of sentimental value to you, $30/item if it was a gift from a dead relative, $50/item if it's of sentimental value to your SO, $100/item if my throwing it out leads to break up divorce.
I just witnessed a mansplaining masterclass. We had a workshop where one of the faculty sponsor's former students who is now a famous professor in his own right presenting. The presenter answered any and all questions with a mansplanation of why the question was dumb, irrelevant, and revealed a misunderstanding of the presenter's work, including those by his former advisor and from our new hotshot junior faculty. It was amazing to watch mansplainers being mansplained to in the most mansplainiest way possible.
327
What's wrong with that company?
tbqh I like a fair number of the Ann Demeulemeester clothings I've seen. Not those pants, though.
All those 90s belgians are making a ready-to-wear comeback, which is excellent news for everyone.
Ann herself has retired, apparently. I am digging the not-particularly-90s Belgian Stephan Schneider, though.
I'm coveting this hard for Mean Old Dance Teacher: The Winter Soldier so if anyone is interested in bribing you have a lot of leverage right now.
I'm disappointed that the weird hitch on the left side of that coat turns out to be an image artifact and not a feature of the actual garment.
Yeah plus the collar doesn't detach. I've moved on to capes, am I too dorky to live?
I think a cape definitely fits in the remit of a Mean Old Dance Teacher.
Well I own that one now, I give it 3 days before some teens on the subway laugh at me.
a) I need a nice coat
b) might continue to work tonight while intoxicated, sorry all in advance if I psost
Yes, glorious coats for all! Inconveniently for this project, I seem to have been blowing all my spare cash on band t-shirts and synth devices, so fantastic conversation-stopping outerwear may be out of reach for me this season. Also a visiting scholar yesterday told me that he could envision me as a (literal) sock puppet (in an amusing video I showed my linguistics students for educational purposes) so I'm thinking my stylish gravitas may not be at an all-time high this month.
Too bad it's so farging hot/humid. I guess I can wear it when I visit my sister.
One of those coats with like twenty buckles, collar up to nose, ample device concealment. Not smartphones.
It's really super nice, though. Damn.
Oh for crying out loud, nosflow, you can just admit you're moving cross-country out of peer pressure. You don't have to buy a coat and create an elaborate narrative about how the coat can only be happy on some other coast. We get it!
He could just be heading north along the same coast.
I'm not sure the tinder pool where you are is deep enough for the both of ya.
You don't have to buy a coat and create an elaborate narrative about how the coat can only be happy on some other coast.
The coat was actually a preorder placed in like February? Retail therapy or something? It came, more swankily than I expected, with a literal lookbook from the designer. Like, a hardback book.
350: It most certainly is not. But I like my odds.
Pics are great and all but could we have some coat erotica? Boiled wool? It looks like a good balance of structured and pliable.
And by "it" I of course mean the coat. Forecast low for tonight is 36 degrees, which is actually up from the past couple months. A hat would be helpful too.
Months? I mean nights. The past couple months have been much warmer.
Boiled wool?
Wool but not boiled, I don't know what the deal is actually with the fabric. It feels very similar to a wool shirt I have from the same dude, actually. Very soft and thick.
I realize that knowing it's similar to something else I have doesn't really convey a lot.
You're not wrong. It does look rather felted to me, which should mean extra warm. I'll still be wearing the same jacket I've had for six or seven years.
The coat in 338 is awesome. Wear it with joy.
Hey neb, I almost hit you* as you were crossing MLK to the market (?). That's my way of saying hello!
I was on the way back from my kid's ballet class. Waiting for the class to end I overheard what appeared to be the canonical conversation about moving to Portland, between two ballet dads. The problem was, said the white dad to the racially ambiguous dad, the place was so white, he only saw like three black people. Yeah, nodded the other dad, it's true, and Seattle's like that too, the diversity of the Bay Area is one of its great features. Yeah and that's why the Berkeley schools are so great -- I mean people say they're disadvantaged kids who bring down the test scores, but on the other hand you're preparing kids for a global workforce -- and if my daughter is going to be a leader of, of all these people, as I hope she will be, it's good for her to, you know, get to know the people she's going to be leading.
I didn't hear any more because I grabbed my child and hauled her off to the woods where we both became ninjas, shortly after narrowly missing a collision with neb. He won't see us next time either.
*I did not almost hit you.
Hey neb, I almost hit you* as you were crossing MLK to the market (?).
Was it just now or around 10:30? (10:30 went to the market, just now other errands.) If not just now then someone else almost-almost hit me just now, because I did tempt fate on the crosswalk.
364 Maybe reconsider buying those leather floods? They'll help prevent road rash next time lurid takes another run at you on the road.
Around 10:30. I'm sorry you're so menaced.
363
See, these people will move to Portland, thus ruining it even more. Ten years more of people like that moving and reproducing in Portland and we're going to have to burn the place down and salt the ground.
Last statistics I saw, Berkeley (public) schools have fewer, as a percentage, black students than they did twenty years ago. But a much higher percentage of kids reporting two or more races.
I don't know how anyone could maintain civility after overhearing a conversation like the one reported in 363.
I would have forgiven her had I known the whole story.
369: I wasn't about to self-righteously get in the face of strangers after eavesdropping, but if I had been formally included in this conversation I probably would have snapped something about the white man's burden before restraining myself. It made me take a quick inventory of tooly things I've said. I'm not sure there's a "good look" version of the self-justifying how-I-live-my-life speech, period. I might be running a profound earnestness deficit, however.
Hey thanks all for the advice on the speech, particularly ajay's 179. I kept it short, fairly funny (to me at least, and it got some laughs) and with an equal balance of intentionally teasing the groom and saying all the sloppy sentimental stuff that I do happen to think about the couple. The whole thing was translated by the bride as I did it, which could have been highly awkward but thankfully wasnt, and meant that I didn't have to rely on my own atrocious comic timing, as I could leave a pause for translation before the lines which were supposed to be amusing. Plus I was doing it without notes, so it gave me time to remember what I had planned to say next.
I've been thinking about what I wanted to say in vague terms for ages, but in terms of procrastination - I actually wrote the thing between 2.30 and 3.30 am on the morning of the wedding.
Procrastinating this week has turned out to be pretty effective at getting me to do some other work, including reading I've been meaning to do, but I pretty much have to have a good faith effort draft of something by mid-day tomorrow. It's like I'm a student again.
