Here is what I would suggest: a good therapist. You need to work through this stuff - where do your feelings of ugliness come from? Why do you hang out with such fucking jackasses? (That "and they are disgusted by my sex life" thing -... [
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4 months ago
It occurs to me that Christmas is rather fraught - a lot of weight placed on gifts, a lot of gifts to buy, a lot of stress. While it would have been awesome if he'd gotten you the perfect presents - and I argue that in some ways gifts early in a... [
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4 months ago
I mean, really they weren't "swinging sixties" - they were student radicals. But they were pretty swinging compared to dear, dear Teddy. [
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4 months ago
Here is a thing: I've learned that when I am the privileged person in an interaction, it is very difficult for me to
viscerally grasp how painful casual injustice is to the marginalized person. It's very easy for me to feel that a casual... [
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4 months ago
I actually have some related knowledge (and I too am at a large midwestern research institution, know what a P01 is, etc etc). Our senior person is a member of NCURA; someone else who is up-and-coming is a member of SRA.
I would suggest joining,... [
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4 months ago
Here is the thing: you are insecure about your ability to be an adult, because you are still getting used to being successful at it. (And good job, by the way - I struggle with some of the same type of things in terms of upbringing and lack of... [
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4 months ago
This is actually how it worked in the early days of flight. Then the airlines realized that they'd get more customers if they didn't force people to confront their weight every time they flew.
This is one of those ideas that appeals to a... [
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4 months ago
I make vegetable puree soups without broth - using a heavy pot with a tight-fitting lid, start with garlic, shallots, onions and/or herbs cooked in butter (well, really I use Earth Balance Buttery Spread TM and olive oil, but you'll probably want... [
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4 months ago
Book of the New Sun is all about a Chosen One
and it's pretty misogynist (like all Gene Wolfe, really). And yet it is absolutely worth reading. It is one of very, very few books where I am both willing to tune out the misogyny... [
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4 months ago
It's called the workhouse, and to be honest it's better to have them working and contributing to society than sitting on welfare/charity doing nothing.
LOL! Have you actually read the history of workhouses? Or any statistics about how a... [
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4 months ago
What if this same kid spent ten hours a week volunteering to help families get fresh produce and meats and cook good food? Is he more ethical because he is contributing, or still unethical because he is not EARNING?
Indeed. Folks... [
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4 months ago
1. Best friend and good friend - she is in her late thirties, he is in his late twenties. They have been together for several years, live together and seem likely to stay together - it's a serious relationship in which both seem very happy. She... [
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4 months ago
I am a queer woman who has been known to date men. The ones who were attractive to me were the ones who
could be read as gay by some people - by which I mean, dudes who were not super-repressed or super macho, dudes who were able to gesture... [
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4 months ago
: "I feel like maybe you have a problem with gay people, do you?" When they start backpedaling you can wish them luck on their journal of personal discovery
This is truly excellent advice.... [
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4 months ago
You will never find a perfect girl, but you'll probably find a girl whose imperfections are appealing to you. That's the key. Relationships are like apartments - there is no perfect apartment, but for some people lack of closet space (so to speak)... [
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4 months ago
Have I got a recipe for you!
I just made this sweet potato gratin and it was incredibly delicious - all who partook praised it.
It says to use a mandoline - I just slice the potatoes as thin as I could.
I would sub in half and half for... [
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5 months ago
As a general issue, I tend to care more about fiction being good than it being inclusive, and can see over-anxious inclusiveness as something that can mar quality (not that I'm calling QC over-anxious)
I do think that seeing yourself in... [
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5 months ago
There's also Transgender Health Services Network of Central New York, which seems to offer general medical services, albeit in Syracuse. You might try giving them a call too - they might have recommendations closer to you.
And I totally feel... [
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5 months ago
No, actually, the key factor is that no one actually wants to redistribute money and resources. The government keeps trying to substitute knowledge and hectoring for actual resources*, because nobody wants to trust the poors with actual money or... [
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5 months ago
it also came from a long history of feminist discourses which basically said that every expression of male heterosexual desire is directly complicit in some form of sexual violence against women.
And thinking that through carefully is your... [
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5 months ago
I'd say that no marriage/long-term partnership really looks happy from the outside - at least I've never seen one. And yet I've talked to a couple of friends very frankly about their relationships and they value and want to preserve them, despite... [
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5 months ago
Asking about the rules is good.
I will say that my late great aunt had a wonderful, selfless carer for the last year of her life - a genuinely nice woman who really brought her whole self to the task. We were all incredibly thankful that my great... [
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5 months ago
Although I know absolutely zip about European modernist churches, I do know that if you're passing near Columbus IN it's worthwhile to check out North Christian Church. You might need to take the architecture tour (which is worth it) to get to go in.... [
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5 months ago
I will be interested to see how all this stuff works into the popular culture discourse of "women are naturally sexually fluid and men are naturally not, so basically straight chicks can totally get into making out with each other or having... [
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5 months ago
The trouble with dress boots is that they're such an odd item that there just aren't a lot of makers, and they don't even turn up used very often. Most men who wear suits don't wear boots with them; most men who want a pair of boots for wear with a... [
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5 months ago
Dapper butch woman here. I too would break up with you over this, and I wouldn't look back - in fact, I'd be astonished that someone who wants to date a femme woman had wasted my time and led me on.
Look, you sound like you could stand to do some... [
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5 months ago
I add that needing to use a friend's address seems to me to be a pretty common and noncontroversial working class/poor person thing that many middle class people view as
incredibly sketch. There are a lot of things like that.... [
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5 months ago
You're fine, but lord, don't get married.
Of course you want to date other people - that's totally reasonable, and your average late teens relationship lasts for a few months or a couple of years and then ends. It's a slightly tricky thing to... [
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5 months ago
Ask him why he needs it. It could be some kind of jurisdictional thing with food stamps, for instance - a friend of ours lost her food stamps for a couple of months when she moved counties because of the address change, for instance. It could be... [
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5 months ago
When Camper moved their operation to China, they claimed that it wasn't for the cheap labour, but because the quality of the workmanship was better. Fluevog made the same decision for some of its shoes. Take that with as much salt as you like,... [
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5 months ago
The first thing I'd do is take them to a shoe guy and get a topy/sole cover put on - maybe a more textured/winter boot one. Rich fellows like to talk about how leather feels best and sole covers ruin it, but leather wears through if you walk long... [
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5 months ago
When I am successful at eating appropriately at work (which is not always!) I bring about 1 C of baby carrots, a small apple and a red bell pepper chopped into 1" pieces. These things are all sweet, crunchy and take a while to eat. The minute I... [
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5 months ago
I know a lot of newish parents right now, many of them pretty far from typical in terms of jobs, transportation options, money, gender presentation, sexuality, politics and social habits.
What strikes me (as someone who has never, ever wanted to... [
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5 months ago
Also, if you are the new person - are you, like, a junior scientist or some such classification? - please trust me when I say that you have not been hired on the assumption that you already have eighty million kinds of lab skills. You've been hired... [
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5 months ago
Also, do you have someone to check in with? I helped a friend who was in the throes of depression once by having a "debrief and planning" meeting with them every night (we lived in the same house, but you could do this by email). For a... [
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5 months ago
I add that La Roux's Bulletproof goes over best with my crowd, and Santigold's Go rather than Disparate Youth. And Janelle Monae's Tightrope or Dance or Die -
I like to dance to Tightrope and am baffled about why it's not the album's dance hit.... [
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5 months ago
they're just folks who are quite similar to me but who have sex with people of the same sex.
Ok, the sarc answer is "well, that's because you're straight, duh, and the queerer folks are ( the less likely they are to be... [
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5 months ago
Wait, what?
How are "love" and "want" differentiated?
I guess "men don't worry about being 'wanted' because they assume that they are desirable because patriarchy, whereas women constantly feel inadequate because... [
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5 months ago
O hey, I hear you!
I am not in IT, but I share a lot of your stresses.
I hope you are actively working on getting a therapist. I mean, when I decided to find a therapist, it took perhaps three weeks from getting recommendations to sitting on... [
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5 months ago
SF writing, like all genre writing, aims first to satisfy the conventions of the genre, second to be actually good writing. One of these conventions is having some interesting ideas. If your story has those, SF fans will excuse your bad writing,... [
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5 months ago
Some people like to engineer psychodramas to reenact certain situations that are important to them. There are parts that have to be cast. The bully who creates your victim status (and who is, if you're choosing the cast, not going to be somebody... [
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5 months ago
Is there an immigrants' association for people from your parents' background? Maybe they could help you navigate these visits?
I have been to the ER a
lot, some time ago due to an ongoing health issue and more recently due to a ridiculous... [
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5 months ago
Honestly, I think all of this "I hate the ironic hipsters" business is motivated by fear - fear that someone might "see through" your own pretenses; fear that someone is having a better time than you; fear that you have invested... [
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5 months ago
This is one that stood out to me given that one of those increases was the CEO's salary going up to $2.55 million from around $750,000. (Another link if the WSJ one doesn't work.)
That sounds to me like looting - as if they knew that the... [
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5 months ago
Leaving aside how I eat a chopped up bell pepper every weekday, here are some things I find helpful:
1. Bagged baby carrots. At my grocery store, a 2 pound bag runs about $2.50. They're made from the less beautiful carrots that would otherwise... [
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5 months ago
I mean, at least two of the "bullies" clearly used sexist words themselves. "white fairy vagina" (wtf?) and "transphobic cunt" (really?) That sure as fuck doesn't sound like language of an "ally"... Meh.... [
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5 months ago
Also regarding Tumblr (and with apologies for multiposting), see these three excellent comments from Frowner.
Thanks, er, oops, er...those comments said pretty much everything I said in the comment I actually made in this thread...except... [
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5 months ago
