I had a baby at the beginning of March, had low milk supply, and he lost too much weight the first few days. He’s been primarily on formula since then, is growing like a champ, and this morning (1 month) weighs over 10 pounds! Nicole, your Toast essay and tweets on the subject were instrumental in getting me through those first weeks. Thank you, thank you, thank you ❤️
modern formula is a life-saving invention and we should have a damn parade for it (not for Nestle et all, they are ghouls preying on vulnerable communities)
I was born in the early 60s, my mom was given this formula -- evaporated milk, water and Karo syrup. I lived in a cinderblock house until I was 4 with an outhouse. How my mom managed to make this without running water, I don't know. Thank God for modern formula.
Nicole is a hero in this respect. I felt so bad about my supply and so much anxiety all the time, and the day we brought formula home (so I knew baby would have enough to eat while I was at work), it was like the clouds parted and I could breathe again. Congrats on your baby!
If I could go back and have my kids be babies again, the one thing I would change is going to formula earlier to end their suffering and mine. You are dong a great job taking care of your baby!
We must've had our babies around the same time! Congratulations, and I'm so glad the formula is working. (I have low milk supply too, and I'm so grateful for formula, gosh.)
If you're looking for more reading recommendations, you might like Emily Oster's book Cribsheet. She looks at the research we have on various aspects of childrearing, and lays out what we know in a way that helps parents make decisions without all the angst and guilt. The general mood is "you're not going to fuck up your kid, either decision is fine, here are some things to think about to help figure out what works best for your family."
Congratulations! My six month old is purely formula fed and in the 90th percentile for weight! Formula is so good and mentally it was a life saver for me. I had a good supply and she latched like a champ. I HATED it. It was one more thing that was all on me and I just didn't feel like it was good for me. You have done a great thing ( all moms feeding babies however have ) so feel proud!
I have six month old twin girls who were preemies and I knew there was NO way I was going to be able to produce enough to get them to gain weight quickly (especially while recovering from a painful c-section) so formula has been a godsend. Congrats to you and everyone raising babies in this crazy time!
No one reaches out to me unless I reach out to them first. Even my family. Like hi yes I know I always take on the burden of keeping my relationships going but it's particularly noteworthy when everyone else is overwhelmed with zoom calls from literally every friend they've ever had. Phew, petty complaint filed. That's one accomplishment for the day!
I realized I was usually the one who started the convo in a group text with two of my best friends, so as an experiment, I stopped...................Heartbreaking
Ugh, yes, I feel this. If I didn't initiate calls with my immediate family, we would literally never speak to each other. It takes a lot of social energy to figure out when people are able to chat, check in, and keep the conversations going.
You have company. I hate how "reaching out" enforces social hierarchies rather than breaking them down. I'm not on those Zoom call invite lists either. This community and a few others, as well as 12 step mtgs, are my social contacts. Believe it or not I'm doing ok... no pressure to mask!
100% same. I always see those "relationships are a two way street! you have to reach out!" things and I'm like... ok but if they are then why am I the only one who ever does?? I have my core main group of good friends that I talk to in a group chat daily and I love them and they're the best but... seeing old coworkers I thought I was friends with post all their hangouts with each other that I wasn't invited to just weeks after I was like "we should chat more!" I gotta say it stings
Clearly you aren't alone! But it can feel so lonely. I've recently moved someone into the category of "not a friend" for never sufficiently holding up their end of expressing care, affection, presence, concern, etc. It's actually been VERY freeing, though of course still painful (especially when I accidentally got trapped in a Houseparty call with them without warning??). It's been helpful to me and might be helpful to you to read "Attached," which posits that anxiously attached are basically big suckers for avoidantly attached people since they wouldn't have enough glue to hold the relationship together otherwise (i.e. when someone doesn't care enough for their relationships they find and rely on those who pick up the slack).
Yep. Not petty. I have to reach out, and it’s never genuine or deep relationships. If they do call it’s set up like I must answer right away on their terms, then they control the topic and length of call. I’m just low key vibing back bc otherwise it ruins me and I can’t afford that thinking of why anymore.
only very recently have I been able to walk away from the "why" thought spiral. Looking forward to getting a foster pet for a real loving relationship.
omg yes! Just this week a group of friends scheduled an impromptu video call and by the time I checked my phone and saw the messages it was already over. I like your choice of low key vibing back lol will heed this advice!
Oh, that is really hard. It sounds as if everyone leans on you to keep them connected, without thinking about the burden it places on you. It is clear that you are a kind and devoted friend, and I’m sorry. ❤️
One of my coworkers told me this week that I was as essential as toilet paper and I think that's the most hilarious and wonderful complement I've ever received.
My rapist ex texted me for the first time in 4 years to say he hoped I was safe and healthy... v upsetting. When I related this to my therapist she asked why I hadn’t blocked him yet. which was a GREAT POINT so now he’s blocked and the texts are gone. (I think I had hung onto the texts because I wanted some kind of “proof” that the relationship was as bad as I remembered.) That was only my 3rd session with this therapist and she’s a gem.
I so understand wanting the "proof" that the relationship was as bad as you thought. I do that with my previous marriage. Let's reassure each other - our relationships were as bad as we thought. love and light to you
I am so glad you are no longer in that relationship. Blocking bastards feels good, and I hope you feel a release after purging his communication with you.
I'm pregnant with my first child. While I absolutely understand all of the restrictions in place as a result of COVID-19, it means this experience is not at all what I dreamed it would be and I'm an emotional wreck over it. My spouse can no longer come to appointments with me to hear baby's heartbeat. Gone are my hopes for a baby shower, or even decorating baby's room (state restrictions make getting paint, accessories a faraway hope). Gone is the little glee I might have gotten from showing people my growing baby bump. It's really sucking the joy from this whole experience.
I’m also pregnant and I really feel this. Last weekend my husband wasn’t allowed to come to the 20-week ultrasound. I know we are lucky in so many ways but also it feels like such an irreparable loss that he wasn’t there to see our baby with me.
Big hugs to you. I’m also pregnant, but it’s my second, so at least I’ve done all the normal pregnancy stuff once before. But I’m also starting to feel anxiety about the baby that I never had in my first pregnancy. I’m terrified of going to my 20 week ultrasound and them discovering something wrong and me being all alone. Our county just announced that this may not end until November. I’m due in mid Sept. The idea that my parents wouldn’t be able to come help and meet the baby and that our friends wouldn’t be able to be physically present to support us (and that my 3 year old might not be in preschool) is completely gutting. Obviously it’s too soon to tell, so I’m trying not to let myself go there, but it’s all starting to weigh on me. Awkward pregnant hugs to all of you ❤️
I keep thinking about how hard this must be for pregnant people/ people who have had babies recently. It is hard enough in normal times, without all those things to look forward to being suddenly taken away. I have no advice, just want to express solidarity with everyone in this situation and hope you find some positives.
If it's at all helpful, my experience has been that the hurt of things that didn't go the way I hoped or expected in pregnancy and childbirth have felt smaller as I've been a parent for longer and longer. My first daughter's birth was especially Not According To Plan (but okay in the grand scheme), and that felt huge and weighty in the early days when that was my central experience of being a mom. But as more experiences and memories accumulated, it became one important day among many important days, and it's not painful anymore. I hope that the same is true for you.
I'm so sorry, and I hope you have folks in your life who can help you grieve the losses of these experiences. Just so you know, you look radiant, your bump is cute AF, and you're doing amazing. <3
I am so sorry. I'm really grateful that I had my baby in January before all this started...it's been sucky enough to have all the restrictions come down right when I was finally feeling like getting out more and the baby got her first vaccines. I'm thinking of you and all the other pregnant people right now.
I had to cancel my upcoming wedding due to the virus, and sent out an email to everyone who was invited (save the dates had already been sent, but not formal invitations) just to let everyone know it was called off. My father’s response to this was a bulleted list of all of the grammatical errors I made in the email. People who make situations worse for no reason at all are such a drag!
To heap insult upon injury in that way is just uniquely thoughtless, I'm so sorry. We had to cancel our April 18 wedding as well, and I can't imagine how on earth I would have responded to that. Not kindly or with any measure of perspective, that's for damn certain.
Same to you! Here's hoping that all of your vendors can realign down the road and deposits can shift as well. Remember when the biggest thing to worry about was if it was going to rain? Wow.
Aw, I'm so sorry. That's a massive FAIL at humaning. I'm one of those people whose brain notices grammar/spelling errors but the only time to point that out is if I'm actually asked to proofread something. (Well, and to make fun of public signs with unnecessary apostrophes/in need of apostrophes.) I hope your rescheduled wedding is fantastic. Hang in there!
The funny thing is, I'm an editor and like to think I have an above-average grasp of the English language. His "corrections" were all in reference to my misplaced commas and style choices. Nit-fucking-picky and absolutely no one asked for it.
I am SO FUCKING SORRY, that is not at all an even moderately cool response, that is bad dad-ing for that experience. Just - read the goddamn room (in this case a pandemic that's causing huge amounts of suffering generally, and huge disappointment to you, personally, for being a champ and a responsible person and cancelling, even though that must hurt like hell to do. NOT THE TIME, edit man.) You are wonderful, and his response was - NOT.
I had to take a job in a grocery store after getting laid off due to the virus. I'm glad I'm old enough now I don't care when people are weird, I tell you what.
So...things that are funny:
When people bitch at ME about the price of eggs or whatnot. (bish, you think if I had the power to do anything about that, I'd be on my fucking feet wearing an ugly tee behind this register, and not quarantining?)
People who smack against the plexiglass shield like a bug on a windshield.
Things that are not funny: People STILL outchea declaring precautions don't matter, they'll get sick if they get sick. WALK INTO TRAFFIC TYPHOID MARY, GET AWAY FROM ME.
I'm so glad you have plexiglass! Haven't seen anything like that in London unfortunately. I don't envy you the assholes, but hopefully you'll start to get regulars - they kept me going during my grocery till days <3
Yeah, another funny thing is, this is a budget grocery in a poor neighborhood...and the customers are mostly nicer BY FAR than the customers I dealt with when I worked at a fancy grocery in a very expensive neighborhood.
Homeless people have better manners than rich people, on the whole.
And one of my coworkers does drag, so I'm on a campaign to get in his good graces so we can be FB friends and I can find out where the fun stuff happens in this city...some day when fun stuff happens again.
And yeah, I've been just trying to be charming and biding my time so it's not weird when I ask if he's on Facebook or Twitter. He's funny and smart too, and only the second genuinely non-mainstream person I've met in this hell city since I moved here, so I'm trying not to be TOO obviously desperate in my desire to make the connection, haha.
LOW STAKES gripe: my 80-year-old mom would really prefer for me to put on more makeup and jewelry while we shelter in place. She keeps telling me things like: "I had a dream - and you were in FULL MAKEUP."
WITAF? I was going to declare it an accomplishment today that I dried my hair, put on earrings, and put on a shirt that isn't a sweatshirt. Makeup? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
when i was a teen, my mum would say 'you would look so beautiful if only you would X' and usually X would be, like, let her pluck my brows (my mother has tattooed brows circa the 80s and i am SO GLAD i held out)
Back in the late 80s, my mom kept suggesting I get a perm or body wave, like every other girl in 7th grade. Mom! Stop trying to make this perm happen! It's not gonna happen!
I damn near wore a cotton kaftan out of the house today to do a 'no contact' book pick up from my local bookseller, and didn't actually go out to do it until after noon, because I had to gird my goddamn loins to change into the jean cut-offs and bra and tee I wore instead. Please regale your mother with the horror stories of how slovenly many if not most of us have become in this sheltered in place time, even when we do venture out, and let her be grateful for you, a loving child who did not throw a powder puff at her mother in response to her nagging.
I had a board meeting via Zoom yesterday and the one coworker who constantly tries to undermine me and blame things on me if they can get away with it got the MOST sour look in their face when the whole board thanked me for doing such a good job during the pandemic 😏. Extremely petty, extremely satisfying.
My pettiest annoyance is how on EARTH do we make so many dirty dishes every day?? I feel like every single dish in the house is dirty at all times and I'm being buried under a mountain of dirty dishes despite washing them every day.
Truth. I am so glad that a few months ago we bought some additional silverware because the twenty-five year old set we had was gradually diminishing. Kid home from college and a high school student in the house all day = so. many. dishes.
I think dishes multiply by spontaneous generation. I'm in a household of three, and we're all expressing care and coping with existential fear by establishing order in the kitchen. AND THERE ARE STILL SO MANY DISHES. WHY?
I have a rant. I've been getting increasingly short-tempered with the internet at large. I know living the social isolation life is hard, but I'm housebound and have to live it year-round. Every "day 23 of quarantine" meme when I'm so many days in that I couldn't possibly count them just makes me feel like the world refuses to acknowledge people like me exist, even when that world has taken up residence in our house.
To add to it, my partner, on top of going to school to try to get education to make enough money to keep me alive, works in health care, so I'm either home alone or my partner is home but so snowed in by studying that I may as well be alone. I normally just keep up social connections online, but online is peppered by people complaining about having to spend a bunch of time with their partner and having to resort to watching stupid movies or playing old card games or shit to pass the time. I would kill for a couple hours where my partner can be a partner and we could have a nice date, instead of them being a 24 hour nurse having to help me manage medications and injections and basic necessities. (Though they say we might be able to have a date near the end of the month after their exams are over, so I'm hoping for that.)
And the one place that I normally have that is safe to go on rants to vent about things isn't safe right now, because if I complain about this, they react as though my being used to living this way all the time due to disability is, like, some sort of privilege(?) or something, and act like I'm some man in the high tower mocking the lowly surfs who don't live this way normally? Like its somehow better to have gone years without the sun or the feeling of a nice breeze and instead have the constant worry that my existence will drag anyone I love down into poverty?
I don't even know. It just can feel like the world has no place for me, but at least here I don't know anyone so I can't really be rejected.
As an aside, I have been, by necessity, cutting my hair at home for years, and it still looks as great as ever. Recently made it into a shoulder-length bob but not sure how long I'll keep it. So at least I have better hair that a significant portion of the world right now, even if my partner is the only one who will ever see it.
My situation can't totally align, but that notion that the disabled or housebound or whatever are privileged right now is so frustrating and such horseshit. Society is structured just as profoundly now to fuck us as ever. (Read every article about how would get preference in treatment should we get sick, etc.) I am also the "Dependent" partner, and everything about that structure fucking sucks at a time like this.
Normally I can handle how much society excludes us, but right now it really is turning into a special sort of fucked up. And normally I can stay a bit grounded by hearing the voices of other disabled people facing similar things or things that stem from the same source, but with the internet being so loud right now those voices are drowned out, so it just feels so much more lonely. But all of the likes, along with these comments, are doing a lot to make me feel a bit better <3.
I just want to say I hear you. I have noted a lot of homebound folks (under diverse circumstances) on my socials sharing similar stories. I've been a Work from Homer for ages, so while I have a different context, I also have been (...with compassion that ppl have different lived experiences...) struggling a bit w how many seem to be oMG LOSING IT1?! after a couple weeks at home when we may have a VERY long time of isolation to contend with. Anyway. Let me say thank you for expressing your experience, and may it help others gain some perspective and greater understanding.
I paid off my grad school student loans!! I did not get to have the fun party that I was planning to mark the occasion.
My eyebrows look like fuzzy angry caterpillars. I miss getting them waxed. My fingernails are a mess (I can't cut them nicely to save my life). I miss manicures. I thought that maybe my skin would clear up if I stopped wearing make-up. Turns out the acne is a feature, not a bug. My hair is falling out from stress. My bathroom looks like Chewbacca has taken up residence. My cleaning team can't come for the foreseeable future. I want to go swim laps, damnit!!
I HAD A NIGHTMARE ABOUT TARGET, and not being able to find bleach or toilet paper, which is like the ultimate indignity.
Last night we had a virtual Zoom seder, and after the requisite multiple glasses of wine, I cleaned up and went to bed. This morning, I couldn't find my laptop ANYWHERE, finally grabbed it seconds before my meeting, and joined my team's weekly leadership mtg. with a background of the Rugrats Passover clip when Tommy parts the red sea.
I have a special needs kid (mostly nonverbal, intellectual disability) and the idea we might be on lockdown and he might not be able to go back to school for a year has me up nights. He benefits SO MUCH from his therapists and teachers, and taking it away from him feels cruel. (It’s also borderline impossible to work from home and watch him, but that’s a side point. I could put up with some difficult parenting if I felt like being out of school wasn’t hurting him, but it is.) Online education is great but he doesn’t have the capabilities/attention span to get a lot out of it.
And then I feel like a whiny bitch for complaining about this because of COURSE I don’t want people to die so my snookums can go to school. But it’s just so very hard.
I have a few students with intellectual disabilities and I am really worried about them! They need one on one help and none of their families have laptops for them to use even if online classes might work :(
I am in a similar boat - solidarity all the way! Our shitstain of a governor actually made the call to keep schools closed through the end of the semester yesterday and I was devastated. My son gets SO MUCH out of his early childhood special ed program and I worry about him returning to school in the fall with a completely new set of teachers.
It's all so hard -- and I remember the preschool years being even more difficult than elementary school, which is where I am now. We shut down for the rest of the school year last month, so I've just about processed that, but now I'm seeing projections that schools won't be able to reopen for good until there's a vaccine and that terrifies me.
I have been buying things from small, women-owned, online businesses I like and writing the proprietors emails telling them how much I like their stuff and to hang in there.
If you like romance books at all, The Ripped Bodice in LA is amazing (they ship) and you can ether order whatever you want or they will send you a surprise quarantine care package. I may have to get a second one.
YES but can we do that here? Nicole, please delete if this is bad! Look up Neva Opet in Atlanta, the gal there makes fantastic leather bags and has an adorable Boston Terrier named Millie she features on her instagram. Another small bag biz is The Transience in NYC (these are nylon and sportier)--they're having a 30% off sale now! The company Pretty Frank makes the ONLY natural deodorant that has ever worked for me and they have lots of fragrances (I like the Rose one). Treat Beauty has a lip balm and lip scrub that smell exactly like grocery store birthday cake and if that is your jam (it is mine). I hope all these ladies can stay in business!
Salt and Sundry (shopsaltandsundry.com) and Shop Made in DC (shopmadeindc.com) are both women-owned businesses in the DC area that I've been trying to support! Both are doing care packages, which I've sent to a few friends and gotten EXCELLENT responses to. It was a nice way to send a surprise to brighten up someone's day :).
Also, East Fork Pottery (eastfork.com) has been doing a "buy a mug for a healthcare worker" program and donating to other groups doing important work in the Asheville, NC area, so they could be good to check out too.
Thank you so much for sharing these! These care packages are such a cute way to support a local business and let friends/family know I'm thinking of them. Plus, gift-giving always makes me feel better too.
Ah that's so great -- what a small world! I'm really pulling for them and trying to support however I can. Their retail spaces are so calming (and dog-friendly, big win on my end).
Umami Interiors (https://www.shopumamiinteriors.com/) is Bay Area-based, she does care packages and vintage finds and art prints and fair trade baskets and candles etc to brighten time at home.
This is not petty necessarily, but: my cat died. My sweet, affectionate, handsome boy who was my best friend for 18 years. And my husband and I are stuck at home with all the reminders of him and no pets to cuddle and it just sucks. It sucks a big one.
So so sorry. So glad you had your handsome baby for 18 years. Hope you are consoled in grief and have a new kitten one day soon to continue the great love. Til then, happy trails sweet kitty.
My dear, dear husband bought a 50 pound bag of flour yesterday and has yet to explain to me exactly where he thinks he is going to store it. Currently it is sitting in our living room.
When we first moved to America my dad discovered Costco (it was Price Club at the time) and went insane. I think my parents just finished off the 5 gallon container of mustard from 1984 last week.
Oh, my best friend's bf joined Price Club and all of them (about 5 roommates) had to keep eating from the 7lb can of tuna fish. Even the cat was sick of it towards the end.
You just reminded me of one of my favorite memories of my Baba. When my sisters were in their teens, my mom, dad, sisters (and maybe my brother as a wee babe?) visited my Dede and Baba (dad's parents).
My mom had asked my sisters if they'd packed shampoo and conditioner. They said they had. The family arrives in Indiana. My sisters have no shampoo. No conditioner.
So, they go into my mom's toiletries to get hers. My mom finds out and is *pissed.* She was practicing boundaries/wanted to teach consequences of actions/etc.
My Baba gets wind of this and thinks that my mom is the most selfish woman in the history of the world.
Shortly after they return from the trip, a package arrives from my Baba. Gallon-sized shampoo and conditioner. The jugs were in our bathroom until I was at least 8 (the package was sent prior to my birth).
Well played game of passive aggressiva, Baba. Well played.
yes, big grocery stores are awful for me. Sensory overload for ALLL THE SENSES EVEN THE 6TH. idk if your area has a 24-hour store, but I used to specifically go shopping at very obscure hours to cut down on the people and noise. 6am on Sunday morning, for example. Or in a college town after 2am when it's not legal to sell alcohol anymore the stores really clear out.
I am slooooooooowly trying to wean my partner off buying everything at Costco for this exact reason. There are two of living in a place with minimal storage where in the world are we going to put anything???
Nicole I adore you. If I was rich I’d ask nicely if I could be your second spouse.
Having said that, a huge fuck you to my ex-husband. I really hate separation and divorce and this whole heartbreaking process. He’s cheated on me for years, starting two weeks after I paid our entire house deposit. And now he wants most of that money for himself. Because apparently if I hadn’t had kids, he’d have lots more money, so I owe him extra. Divorce is weird. I married this guy, had kids with him. And now it turns out he’s some monster who forgets to call his kids or cheaps out on child support.
Anyway I’m isolating 14 hours away from home, in my parents spare room, because on top of all this there’s a pandemic. And I’m tired and whingy and stealing the cheap gin from my dad again. So here’s my whinge!
HOW do husbands turn from someone we married and had kids with into complete monsters once we separate???? Mine is the same, and worse, he has the kids! I haven't seen them in nearly a month. I hate this entire process.
I did not get to consume my fill of Shamrock Shakes due to *gestures wildly* and I am annoyed because of it! I also miss popping in to places on my way home.
I went and ought some easter candy online that will arrive after easter, but heck it I need jelly beans. (A lot of stuff is sold out but I bought mine at a boutique chocolatier, so you might be able to find peanut butter eggs but not Reese's?)
if my neighbors in my apartment building start smoking so much weed at 8 a.m. that I can smell it coming through my own vents when the heat kicks on and yelling at each other ONE MORE TIME, while I am trying to pay attention to MY LAW SCHOOL CLASSES, there is going to be so much yelling
also I live alone and it is Good Friday and nearly Easter and I have absolutely nobody to spend this holy time with and it makes me incredibly sad
I hope you can find an online service or something so you can spend it “with” someone, even if only virtually. I acutely remember the stresses of law school and cannot imagine what they would be like right now. I’ll be praying for you, if I may!
Oh my goodness 1L!?!? That makes things so much worse. I hope you are at least pass/fail, and that you can take advantage of that and let yourself go easier with the schoolwork. This is such a hard time for us all, and you are facing it in an already really tough year! I wish I could give you a hug.
I realized one of my neighbors was smoking inside (we’re a non-smoking, historic apartment) while I was doing yoga. The smell was hovering righty around my floor.
I had to redo a bunch of slides for work this morning because my coworker uploaded the wrong older templates to the new team drive and I didn't realize until after I had made everything and I am very very annoyed. I have the right ones!! I have been using the right ones for months now!! But she always thinks she knows best and while I appreciate a lot of her efforts a lot of the time this is now the 2nd time on this project where the new templates I created back in like October disappeared in favor of older shittier templates from the last person who was not good at making templates. Sorry if none of this makes sense I'm just very annoyed and need to vent.
I'm juggling being the primary caregiver for my dying mother, helping raise my 4 year old niece, and working a part time job. I'm so tired all the time and I wish I could just run away.
Love and flowers and virtual hugs to you. This is a lot to deal with even without a pandemic running rampant. Hope you able to squeeze in even the tiniest bit of self care.
You're an angel. Not many people could or would do any of this (I'm on a discussion list of caretakers) but you stepped up. Can you talk your niece into having a joint naptime so you can get some rest. (I'd understand if you did stuff while she was asleep so you can get it done.) Lots of virtual hugs to you.
The live reading I was supposed to give at the Center for Fiction is officially going to be a zoom thing. I'm not surprised, but still sad. I have a sexy red jumpsuit and I was going to look fucking amazing in person. win over those stodgy old literary folks *jenna maroney voice* with my SEXUALITY !
I am MUCH better at regularly doing my dishes than I have been the last 2.5 years of living alone. As part of an evening post-work TV/dinner/dishes/sleep routine that has been really helpful.
((And it's not so tiny, but weirdly the whole external stress ball has helped me drink (i.e. self-medicate) less. Which I've also been working for the last few years, but putting it in the context with of 'surviving a pandemic less miserably' seems to have changed things, and I hope I can keep it up.))
Same here. The days aren't blurring together over here -- the texture has simply changed. I'm fortunate to be able to stay in with my family (including our one-year-old son) and I'm honestly just trying to immerse myself in the joy of getting to see him grow way more than I would have if I'd been at the office as planned.
Me, too! It's kind of amazing? The dishwasher gets emptied in a timely fashion, I'm not getting dressed by shopping the drying rack in the garage, the bed gets made nicely every day... it like I'm Ma Ingalls... or a functional adult... or something!
On this day a year ago, I was stumbling around Aalborg, eating smørrebrød and getting lost and having a glorious time. One year ago tomorrow, I visited my great grandfather's home town and took the train to Skagen, a town at the tippy top of Denmark, for a week of art and long walks and sticking my toes in two seas at once.
This year I'm stuck at home, my husband is dead, and I have to keep shipping my daughter off to Grandma's house because I can't work and parent at the same time -- especially since work keeps dumping extra little projects on because they want to make sure we're really working throughout all of this.
Fuck this shit. Bring back 2019. I wanna go back to the sea.
My work is in domestic violence issues. We are trying to implement actions for women confined at home with their abuser, ways for them to call the police and get help. We're opening stalls in malls (the only thing, with pharmacies, still open in France). I am FURIOUS with our government We have to find masks by ourselves, nothing has been planned for and we are left to our devices. And that's just a small part of the picture. I can't even start to think about the situation in the hospitals or I just shut down. I'm trying my best, I know I do good work in these circumstances but I feel so useless, I feel abandoned by the State that was supposed to protect us. My thoughts are with those in all these countries where it's even worse (Macron is still far from Trump). Love to all.
I work in domestic violence in Tennessee, it feels similarly bleak here. We can keep providing services but it doesn’t mean much when the systems designed to protect still will not do so. With you in spirit and solidarity!
On the good news front, we adopted a second cat this week! I follow a local shelter on IG (same place we got the first cat in my user pic) and we kept seeing his pic on there and discussed getting him, but then he stopped showing up and wasn't on their website so we figured he had been adopted. But then on Tuesday they posted that he was the last adoptable cat left in the shelter and my roommate and I were like, WE NEED TO GET HIM!!!! so we walked a mile there (took a very empty bus back) and snatched him up.
They warned us he might be shy and not people friendly (which is likely why he was there for so long) but that he would probably be happy with another cat. But he has been the absolute sweetest boy - he didn't hide at all when we let him out, he just walked around purring and rubbing his face on everything including us. I'm sure it was just the shelter environment that was stressing him out. He and our first cat seem very happy to be brothers and I am glad we were able to give him a happy home.
congratulations! A street kitty just tried to adopt me the other day, but I'm in a short-term rental and can't care for a critter at the moment. Very much looking forward to being able to foster after this is over with.
My 6-week-old is sleeping for stretches of 4-5 hours at night. Praise be.
She has also gained 2lbs in the last 2 weeks, bumping her up to nearly 12lbs, making my poor carpal tunnel wrists hurt like nothing else on heaven and Earth. (Why did no one tell me pregnancy carpal tunnel was a thing. Why is it still a thing for me, 6 weeks after giving birth.)
I need to vent. I tried to do the right thing last month and go to the doctor for the first time in 6 years and now I got saddled with a big bill because I have shitty insurance and I have to call them about it and honestly the whole healthcare system in this country makes me SO MAD and I'm a healthy person with major conditions. I can't imagine the stress someone who is sick and needs multiple appointments, procedures, and prescriptions.
I feel this! I went to my doctor to get migraine medicine in March of 2019 and got charged $300. I didn't get it all cleared up with insurance until December. Just keep being annoying and stubborn but also polite, you can do it, and - light at the end of the tunnel - you get the sweetest relief when it's all over.
my biggest worry regarding my job cut backs right now is that I will lose my insurance and have to pay to jump on my husband's far inferior one. It is an absolute travesty.
My boss sent a little local business care package to all his direct reports - coffee, some honey, cookies. And it was just super simple and thoughtful. It made me smile and I have new good coffee for the weekend! I am also trying to control my impulses to use retail therapy to make me feel better. I can’t go anywhere and so buying comfy clothing and new face cream is just so appealing!
I totally got back into ballet (at home) and then I also realised I need to remember all my pre pointe feet exercises and also that maybe I was not in fact terrible at it even if my brain told me so.
I think ballet dancers tend to be perfectionists who judge their own dancing more harshly than anything else, but maybe some distance from ballet is letting you see your dancing with clearer eyes!
Petty gripe: I’m disabled and can’t go to the store but it’s nearly impossible to get groceries delivered because everyone is doing it now. I wish there were special time slots set aside for disabled people just like they have the parking spaces. It wouldn’t be that hard to do
Not petty at all! It's a real logistical challenge to have so many abled users suddenly overwhelming the services that disabled users normally rely on. I'm very sorry that your food security is that much more precarious now.
Not at all petty! So many people using the services you need and food is important! A friend lives in Hawaii where the mayor is talking about requiring people to only leave the house one person at a time and she's wondering how she's supposed to go to the doctor when she can't drive because seizures?
I’m sheltering in place with a family member who is 100% committed to diet culture and I had to fight for pasta (I am poor and they are in charge of buying food) and I just want carbs by gd
It just snowed 10 inches here in Bangor, Maine, on Friday, April 10th in this year of our Lord 2020, and I’m so out of fucks to give I woke up and had jalapeño ranch potato chips and mint Oreos for breakfast at 7am because it feels like the glitch in the Matrix has become so all-encompassing, nothing has meaning anymore.
On a more positive note: I’ve been trying to walk/hike 3 miles a day, and it looks like I’m going to get to break out my snowshoes for the first time this year for today’s excursion.
We had the lightest powder-sugar dusting when I got up this morning and I was furious about *that*. I would've lost my mind at 10 inches. Chips would have been angrily devoured for sure.
I usually spare myself from it by never having them in the house, but my sister came to shelter-in-place with me and brought them, so it would be a distinct possibility!
I was living in Lebanon + bumped my move up a week so I could make it back to the US before coronavirus containment shut the world’s borders + my dog’s airline ticket was cancelled + now I’m waiting for my friend to send him + every three days we come up with a new solution but then another airport closes or an airline doesn’t let dogs as cargo anymore so I’m healthy + safe but without my best friend
I haven't even started. I can sew, I own a sewing machine, and I have some fabric (okay, it's Christmas fabric, but...) so I feel like I sort of have to make my own, but...I just am not motivated.
I'm really resentful that on top of working full time at a new job, so lots of mental burn, coordinating groceries for 4 including two asshole Boomers who refuse to eat chicken more than twice a week, and, you know, the other vicissitudes of life I somehow also am responsible for making multiple makes for us all. And so I have started a new sweater instead.
These are strange and difficult times, and I would say you don't have to make your own if you don't feel motivated. It's ok! You are already dealing with so much right now!
I'm a burlesque dancer and sew all kinds of stuff, especially my undies, so I've got the skills and supplies. I just don't really want to. But apparently I'm going to have to.
I am definitely all about buying masks if you have the means and are just not feeling it. But also I am now imagining just really fabulous burlesque masks.
I used one from Sarah Maker because I have no bias tape and didn't want to attempt the folding necessary for fabric ties. I really am not great at sewing, I had to rip things out a couple of times. >.<
My partner is working later and later every night, and I feel like this this didn’t happen pre-virus? It’s hard because I now depend on him so much for fun times and I’m just so disappointed when I learn he has late calls. Also, his “office” is our bedroom and he just woke me up taking an 8 AM.
Thank you so much for posting this, because I just realized that I'm behaving exactly like your partner...and its not cool. I'm totally taking calls in the bedroom/working hella late for kind of no reason. I hope you can both have that conversation, because I'll be apologizing asap.
We had a good talk about this morning, and he apologized. I'm glad I could help! I know we're all coping in our own ways, and a lot of us are turning to work, if we can.
Thank you for this validation! I know he doesn’t want to work all the time and his work has been very busy and stressful so I don’t feel super comfortable complaining about it but... dude. This is not great.
Advice from a pharmacist that worked for us: douse your head in cheap hair conditioner, which slows the lice down, and comb through with a lice comb carefully and systematically. Wipe the comb on paper towelling (very satisfying if the paper towel is white because you can see the little fuckers) and rinse your hair when you're done. Leave the lice on the paper towel to smother. Or put it in bright sunshine. Or squish them with your thumbnail. Whatever's going be most satisfying, really. Repeat at least one more time a few days later so that you catch the ones that hadn't hatched the first time around. And wash everything, etc.
I am working on a community volunteer project (yay) and we are updating the instructions so more people can help (yay) and I am in the throes of "edit by committee" and I have 8 pages of edits on a two page document and I am losing.my.shit. Most of their edits are unnecessary/borderline useless but my friend wants to be inclusive and what should have taken 1 day is taking all week. Thank you for letting me bitch here! It's my safe space.
I'm translating articles for a Marxist periodical once or twice a wee, and my irritation at run-on sentences and unnecessary wordiness is going through the roof. And then I make a rookie translation mistake, ensuring that I share my irritation with others :facepalm:
Last Saturday was my birthday, which was predictably a bit depressing. But then to top it off, my five year old punched me in the forehead in a pique of anger (because I was telling her she could not go around spitting in people's faces, we live in a society!) and gave me a concussion. No one believes I had a concussion because a) she's just a child and b) no one takes women's pain seriously. After three days if solid headache I had a virtual visit with a (male) neurologist who confirmed the dx so now my husband takes it seriously 😑. I'm the sole breadwinner at this point and my hours have just been reduced 30% and I'm stuck in a 1bedroom NYC apartment with two kids. And now I have a MTBI and I'm just so tired.
NOOOooooO. I feel like the only consolation in that scenario is that you'll totally be able to hold that over her head when she's an adult (in a loving way, obv)
Please communicate with the dingbats at large that my friend got a serious concussion because she...tripped? It's not like it has to be a piano from the sky for your brain to get hurt. Ah, children, what joy they bring. Sending love.
For real! It does not need to be a severe blow! My husband was like "I got hit plenty of times in the head as a kid and *I* never got a concussion!" Except, my dude, you probably did! You don't need to lose consciousness to hurt your brain!
I got a concussion from an accidental elbow to the forehead and a minor brain bleed. It has taken two months for me to feel mostly ok again. I hope you feel better.
😱 how did you have the brain bleed diagnosed? I don't want to go to a hospital for obvious reasons... Today is the first day I haven't felt the need to nap like a baby. But in a short zoom call with a colleague i had a really hard time finishing sentences 😔. I guess in some weird way I'm glad to have a reason to be taking it really easy. But it's not easy having another complication with no clear terminus.
CT scan. No one believed it was as serious as that, including me, until the doctor was like, ummmmm.... They also told me not to concentrate very hard on things for 3-4 weeks. I had a lot of fatigue and confusion. I do not remember it happening or the first week after when I was put on bed rest. I did not pass out, but involuntary tears came down when I got hit. You have to be careful right now, limit screen time as much as you can.
As a longtime sourdough baker, I am super enjoying seeing tons of people try my favorite homey soothing hobby for the first time. One of us! One of us! I hope you are baking lots of delicious bread!
I split off some of my starter for a woman on nextdoor who was asking and she's texted me questions and a picture of her first loaf! I am thrilled for her! (Plus I could tell she was a good egg when I recommended a sourdough cookbook and she immediately said she was going to order it from the local indie bookstore)
Thank you for being the opposite of a hobby gatekeeper! I am not to the baking bread part yet but I am loving the routine of checking on my lil starter and being patient with the process.
I also love tending mine! Once they're established, they're like extremely hard-to-kill houseplants, but the kind you can make delicious bread from. (And pancakes, and waffles and muffins, etc. etc. etc.)
SAME SAME my brother-in-law was bitching about "the newbies buying up all the bread flour" and it feels very much like people who complain about new gym goers at the new year!
I was a big baker back in the day, and I have no desire to do so now, so it's cute to see ppl actually care (I have been making banana bread but that hardly counts)
I was scheduled to get a tattoo this week. My first! No sense of when anything will re-open so no idea when I might be able to reschedule. I know this is a small disappointment, but I'm really bummed out about it.
Yay first tattoo (which will happen eventually- though I think the tattoo parlors will be as busy as the beauty shops and barbers)! Where were you going to get it? From experience of my first, I would recommend not the shoulder blade. :P (I'd been planning to get my 35th birthday tattoo this month (a magpie) to go with the ones I got at 25 and 30.)
On my shoulder! But the outside of my arm, not the blade. It's going to be a branch with three little birds aka my kiddos. I've been waiting 40 years to get my first and I don't want to wait any longer lol
After literally decades of indecision and dentaphobia, I finally made the decision earlier this year to get orthodonture. I had found an orthodontist I felt really comfortable with and was actually excited about it for the first time in my life. The kickoff appointment was supposed to be next week. :(
been 3 weeks since i've seen my partner and i miss the d and cuddles. and his stupid axe body spray. wedding planning is just *shrugs* rn bc who even knows what's in store for next year. i had 1 amazing driving lesson b4 pandemic caution started where i'm at and i'm real mad. i actually felt comfortable in a car and could imagine myself driving? on the road? with other cars? i've been more consistent about going out for a walkjog and i finished a 500 piece puzzle! rainbow color buttons! next up is a 750 piece fantasy angel puzzle!
I just filed my FBAR (it's a US-citizen-living-abroad thing), with my morning made extra exciting because I've spent the past few days vomiting for no particular reason. (Stress? A can gone bad? Chronic-illness-who-tf-knows?)
Pesach sameach if that's your jam, happy Easter if that's your jam, an early Ramadan mubarak is that's _your_ jam, and for those of you with other flavours of jam (including non-jam like nutella, peanut butter, passion fruit curd), good wishes of your choice upon you.
Thanks for reminding me. The FBAR is the easy bit: I’ve been thinking I should “use this time” to also do my 2019 tax return 🤮 which is MY LAST ONE EVER since I renounced last Oct. But I also have to do this evil exit report and am scared of doing something wrong and being hounded by the IRS for the rest of my life.
Unless your taxes are super-de-duper complicated, it is hard to totally screw it up! ALSO - when you renounced was it like renouncing Satan during a Catholic baptism? Or that Steve Martin bit about break-ups? "I break with thee, I break with thee, I throw dog poopy on your shoes"
Well, yes, but: in almost 30 years of living abroad, I was "pardoned" by the IRS (amnesty) twice already after being strung up for minor errors. (this was like: ok, 10 OuFathers and 25 HailMarys and I promise to be good and file every year correctly.) Renunciation itself was strangely anticlimatic after all the paperwork: def more Steve Martin than RC, though.
Well, yesterday I found out I’m officially graduating from grad school. Not sure when I’ll be job hunting in my new field but I’m happy (and a little sad) to be done. Took 3.5 years.
I just really miss The Toast today. I saw a twitter thread about miserable-looking women in old paintings and have been rereading Danny's Western Art History pieces as a result. They bring me a lot of joy, but I'll always miss my daily visit to the site and the community. I understand why it had to end, but... I just really miss The Toast.
A. My rural internet is not strong enough to support video visitation with my in-custody clients. We can see each other but not hear each other
B. My LGD Great Pyrenees-mix is going through her teenage stage and is driving me nuts. Yesterday I caught her "playing" with one of my six week old pullets in her mouth. The bird was okay but who knows if I hadn't caught her in the act?
C. My coworker/rottweiler emits toxic farts all. day. long.
D. My husband is retired and therefore was social distancing before it was a thing. For the most part we have enough space not to get on each others nerves but he wants to go with me every time I leave the house and I just want to listen to my Bravo podcasts in peace!
E. I miss the Eucharist and my above-mentioned rural internet is not really good enough to stream the services my church has been putting online.
The kids went to their dad's house last weekend and he called to say he has the virus. I do not think he did this on purpose of course, but I have been VIGILANT and he has been careless. So now the kids are with me and I am nervously watching and waiting.
Also I have a teen with anxiety who is hard to get out of the house during normal times, and now she does not even want to go out in the yard. Worry is exhausting and pervasive.
I should correct this, and be a lil more petty- He did not call me, he called his mother. I heard about it from his sister, who called to see how we were dealing with it. NOT OKAY.
I have been writing a lot lately, and happy about it. I wrote a school closures FAQ for Ask A Teacher on Slate that I was proud of, and have been putting a lot of energy into my newsletter. It feels positive and productive.
I have been vigilant about my skincare and it is paying off. I am DEWY, baby. Radiant!
(TW: conception issues, I suppose? I'm new to this dimension of tagging)
Minor complaint: my husband and I have been trying for a baby - casually - for the last few months. It seemed like this time, it was happening - nausea (almost near constant), running hot (no fever), the whole shebang. Period was even 4 days late, but all the tests came back negative. Today, I started - I guess global pandemic counts as a stressful event but I've never been late. I didn't realize how disappointed I actually was until this morning. I know there's an entire world of grief and anxiety but I was really, really hoping...I guess now we move forward in earnest. thought I wouldn't care either way. I know I'm more anxious about things like the fact that my parents are over 70 and I desperately want them to meet a grandchild (and it's not my baggage to bear, I know, I know) but didn't realize how badly I wanted to see a +. My heart goes out to every person who has struggled with fertility, I realize as far as I know that what I'm feeling isn't comparable.
Good news: I'm installing a native plant pollinator garden tomorrow. Locus of control, etc.
I'm so sorry, this sounds like a whole lot to be processing all at once.
For what it's worth, it took us several months to conceive our first baby and I started to get very worried about it, and then we tried Pre-Seed (available at drugstores and Target and many places!) and that was the month I got pregnant--and the only thing we did differently was the Pre-Seed. When we decided to try for our second baby, we used Pre-Seed again from the jump and conceived her in our very first, uh, game without a goalie. I'm not saying it was that product that did it, but I always make sure to mention it to friends and family (without diagnosed clinical fertility concerns) who tell me they're having a frustrating time getting pregnant, just in case.
I just accepted a job offer- and will be getting 16 weeks of paid parental leave instead of 2 weeks at 75%. I'm absolutely thrilled and in disbelief.
Ahhhhh that's so amazing! Congratulations!!!
CONGRATULATIONS !!!
I had a baby at the beginning of March, had low milk supply, and he lost too much weight the first few days. He’s been primarily on formula since then, is growing like a champ, and this morning (1 month) weighs over 10 pounds! Nicole, your Toast essay and tweets on the subject were instrumental in getting me through those first weeks. Thank you, thank you, thank you ❤️
modern formula is a life-saving invention and we should have a damn parade for it (not for Nestle et all, they are ghouls preying on vulnerable communities)
and CONGRATULATIONS
I was born in the early 60s, my mom was given this formula -- evaporated milk, water and Karo syrup. I lived in a cinderblock house until I was 4 with an outhouse. How my mom managed to make this without running water, I don't know. Thank God for modern formula.
My November baby thanks you.
Nicole is a hero in this respect. I felt so bad about my supply and so much anxiety all the time, and the day we brought formula home (so I knew baby would have enough to eat while I was at work), it was like the clouds parted and I could breathe again. Congrats on your baby!
If I could go back and have my kids be babies again, the one thing I would change is going to formula earlier to end their suffering and mine. You are dong a great job taking care of your baby!
We must've had our babies around the same time! Congratulations, and I'm so glad the formula is working. (I have low milk supply too, and I'm so grateful for formula, gosh.)
Congrats on the new baby! Formula is a miracle.
If you're looking for more reading recommendations, you might like Emily Oster's book Cribsheet. She looks at the research we have on various aspects of childrearing, and lays out what we know in a way that helps parents make decisions without all the angst and guilt. The general mood is "you're not going to fuck up your kid, either decision is fine, here are some things to think about to help figure out what works best for your family."
I’ve read it and agree, it’s awesome! Thank you
Congratulations! My six month old is purely formula fed and in the 90th percentile for weight! Formula is so good and mentally it was a life saver for me. I had a good supply and she latched like a champ. I HATED it. It was one more thing that was all on me and I just didn't feel like it was good for me. You have done a great thing ( all moms feeding babies however have ) so feel proud!
I have six month old twin girls who were preemies and I knew there was NO way I was going to be able to produce enough to get them to gain weight quickly (especially while recovering from a painful c-section) so formula has been a godsend. Congrats to you and everyone raising babies in this crazy time!
Congratulations on your new and growing human!
No one reaches out to me unless I reach out to them first. Even my family. Like hi yes I know I always take on the burden of keeping my relationships going but it's particularly noteworthy when everyone else is overwhelmed with zoom calls from literally every friend they've ever had. Phew, petty complaint filed. That's one accomplishment for the day!
I realized I was usually the one who started the convo in a group text with two of my best friends, so as an experiment, I stopped...................Heartbreaking
I feel this so deep in my bones. So, so sorry
Ugh, yes, I feel this. If I didn't initiate calls with my immediate family, we would literally never speak to each other. It takes a lot of social energy to figure out when people are able to chat, check in, and keep the conversations going.
You have company. I hate how "reaching out" enforces social hierarchies rather than breaking them down. I'm not on those Zoom call invite lists either. This community and a few others, as well as 12 step mtgs, are my social contacts. Believe it or not I'm doing ok... no pressure to mask!
100% same. I always see those "relationships are a two way street! you have to reach out!" things and I'm like... ok but if they are then why am I the only one who ever does?? I have my core main group of good friends that I talk to in a group chat daily and I love them and they're the best but... seeing old coworkers I thought I was friends with post all their hangouts with each other that I wasn't invited to just weeks after I was like "we should chat more!" I gotta say it stings
I feel this in my bones. Also probably means you are very kind, so at least you’ve got that going for you ♥️
HARD SAME. It has been that way for years, but it is so much more evident now.
Very relatable. Not at all petty. I feel you hard.
Not petty at all. I totally get it.
Ugh, this is me all the time too.
I feel your pain. xoxoxo
Clearly you aren't alone! But it can feel so lonely. I've recently moved someone into the category of "not a friend" for never sufficiently holding up their end of expressing care, affection, presence, concern, etc. It's actually been VERY freeing, though of course still painful (especially when I accidentally got trapped in a Houseparty call with them without warning??). It's been helpful to me and might be helpful to you to read "Attached," which posits that anxiously attached are basically big suckers for avoidantly attached people since they wouldn't have enough glue to hold the relationship together otherwise (i.e. when someone doesn't care enough for their relationships they find and rely on those who pick up the slack).
All my empathy to everyone else in this situation. It helps knowing we're not alone even if it super sucks that it's happening. <3
Ooof. I feel this in my bones.
Yep. Not petty. I have to reach out, and it’s never genuine or deep relationships. If they do call it’s set up like I must answer right away on their terms, then they control the topic and length of call. I’m just low key vibing back bc otherwise it ruins me and I can’t afford that thinking of why anymore.
only very recently have I been able to walk away from the "why" thought spiral. Looking forward to getting a foster pet for a real loving relationship.
omg yes! Just this week a group of friends scheduled an impromptu video call and by the time I checked my phone and saw the messages it was already over. I like your choice of low key vibing back lol will heed this advice!
Oh, that is really hard. It sounds as if everyone leans on you to keep them connected, without thinking about the burden it places on you. It is clear that you are a kind and devoted friend, and I’m sorry. ❤️
Feel this deeply.
One of my coworkers told me this week that I was as essential as toilet paper and I think that's the most hilarious and wonderful complement I've ever received.
I wish my clients thought I was as essential as toilet paper :(
My rapist ex texted me for the first time in 4 years to say he hoped I was safe and healthy... v upsetting. When I related this to my therapist she asked why I hadn’t blocked him yet. which was a GREAT POINT so now he’s blocked and the texts are gone. (I think I had hung onto the texts because I wanted some kind of “proof” that the relationship was as bad as I remembered.) That was only my 3rd session with this therapist and she’s a gem.
I so understand wanting the "proof" that the relationship was as bad as you thought. I do that with my previous marriage. Let's reassure each other - our relationships were as bad as we thought. love and light to you
Our experiences were real and valid ❤️
WELL DONE! That's a massive achievement!
Thank you 😊
I am so glad you are no longer in that relationship. Blocking bastards feels good, and I hope you feel a release after purging his communication with you.
I'm pregnant with my first child. While I absolutely understand all of the restrictions in place as a result of COVID-19, it means this experience is not at all what I dreamed it would be and I'm an emotional wreck over it. My spouse can no longer come to appointments with me to hear baby's heartbeat. Gone are my hopes for a baby shower, or even decorating baby's room (state restrictions make getting paint, accessories a faraway hope). Gone is the little glee I might have gotten from showing people my growing baby bump. It's really sucking the joy from this whole experience.
I’m also pregnant and I really feel this. Last weekend my husband wasn’t allowed to come to the 20-week ultrasound. I know we are lucky in so many ways but also it feels like such an irreparable loss that he wasn’t there to see our baby with me.
I feel so awful for all of you. That anatomy scan is particularly special, and I'm sorry he wasn't able to be there.
I'm also pregnant, and I feel this so much. I'm hoping my spouse can come to my next ultrasound. Otherwise, maybe we can zoom during it?
What I do know is we're throwing a party when this is done! Maybe it'll be a shower, or maybe it'll be a chance to meet the baby.
I video chatted spouse through my 20 week ultrasound, and the tech was super cool about it-- waited til I got him on the line, etc.
Big hugs to you. I’m also pregnant, but it’s my second, so at least I’ve done all the normal pregnancy stuff once before. But I’m also starting to feel anxiety about the baby that I never had in my first pregnancy. I’m terrified of going to my 20 week ultrasound and them discovering something wrong and me being all alone. Our county just announced that this may not end until November. I’m due in mid Sept. The idea that my parents wouldn’t be able to come help and meet the baby and that our friends wouldn’t be able to be physically present to support us (and that my 3 year old might not be in preschool) is completely gutting. Obviously it’s too soon to tell, so I’m trying not to let myself go there, but it’s all starting to weigh on me. Awkward pregnant hugs to all of you ❤️
I keep thinking about how hard this must be for pregnant people/ people who have had babies recently. It is hard enough in normal times, without all those things to look forward to being suddenly taken away. I have no advice, just want to express solidarity with everyone in this situation and hope you find some positives.
I'm so sorry for what you're going through.
If it's at all helpful, my experience has been that the hurt of things that didn't go the way I hoped or expected in pregnancy and childbirth have felt smaller as I've been a parent for longer and longer. My first daughter's birth was especially Not According To Plan (but okay in the grand scheme), and that felt huge and weighty in the early days when that was my central experience of being a mom. But as more experiences and memories accumulated, it became one important day among many important days, and it's not painful anymore. I hope that the same is true for you.
This is so true and such an important point!
I'm so sorry. What a difficult, frustrating, sad experience -- and something to grieve. ♥️♥️
I'm so sorry, and I hope you have folks in your life who can help you grieve the losses of these experiences. Just so you know, you look radiant, your bump is cute AF, and you're doing amazing. <3
I am so sorry. I'm really grateful that I had my baby in January before all this started...it's been sucky enough to have all the restrictions come down right when I was finally feeling like getting out more and the baby got her first vaccines. I'm thinking of you and all the other pregnant people right now.
I'm sorry. My boss just told me she's pregnant and I'm happy for her (and you!) but am thinking how weird it will be for her.
I’m soooo sorry. I would be grieving too.
I'm so sorry.
I'm so sorry.
I had to cancel my upcoming wedding due to the virus, and sent out an email to everyone who was invited (save the dates had already been sent, but not formal invitations) just to let everyone know it was called off. My father’s response to this was a bulleted list of all of the grammatical errors I made in the email. People who make situations worse for no reason at all are such a drag!
what the fuck
Can you send him a bulleted list of the ways he's been an ass to you? Maybe you can cc everyone else too. What a crappy thing to do. I'm sorry
The support in this thread has made me feel so much better honestly, thank you :)
What a pointlessly unkind thing to do!
I’m sorry about your wedding, I hope you will be able to reschedule it soon
Thank you! ♥️
To heap insult upon injury in that way is just uniquely thoughtless, I'm so sorry. We had to cancel our April 18 wedding as well, and I can't imagine how on earth I would have responded to that. Not kindly or with any measure of perspective, that's for damn certain.
I'm so sorry for you as well! I hope you can reschedule it in some way.
Same to you! Here's hoping that all of your vendors can realign down the road and deposits can shift as well. Remember when the biggest thing to worry about was if it was going to rain? Wow.
the next "error" you should make is to leave him off the email that advises people of the new date
Aw, I'm so sorry. That's a massive FAIL at humaning. I'm one of those people whose brain notices grammar/spelling errors but the only time to point that out is if I'm actually asked to proofread something. (Well, and to make fun of public signs with unnecessary apostrophes/in need of apostrophes.) I hope your rescheduled wedding is fantastic. Hang in there!
The funny thing is, I'm an editor and like to think I have an above-average grasp of the English language. His "corrections" were all in reference to my misplaced commas and style choices. Nit-fucking-picky and absolutely no one asked for it.
Ugh. FAIL, FAIL, FAIL.
Kara, I am offering right here and now to beat up your dad for you if you like
you’re a good man
I am SO FUCKING SORRY, that is not at all an even moderately cool response, that is bad dad-ing for that experience. Just - read the goddamn room (in this case a pandemic that's causing huge amounts of suffering generally, and huge disappointment to you, personally, for being a champ and a responsible person and cancelling, even though that must hurt like hell to do. NOT THE TIME, edit man.) You are wonderful, and his response was - NOT.
Oh my god, I’m so sorry. That is utter bullshit, and you deserve compassion and support. What a cruel thing to do.
I actually gasped. What a wretch. I am so dreadfully sorry.
Ugh that sucks so much! I hope your rescheduled wedding is AMAZING
ummmmmmmmm dick move daddio. Sorry you have to postpone your big life event and are being thusly needled when you're already on the back foot!
I am SO sorry. My sister is going through the same thing, and it's so devastating without THAT on top.
I had to take a job in a grocery store after getting laid off due to the virus. I'm glad I'm old enough now I don't care when people are weird, I tell you what.
So...things that are funny:
When people bitch at ME about the price of eggs or whatnot. (bish, you think if I had the power to do anything about that, I'd be on my fucking feet wearing an ugly tee behind this register, and not quarantining?)
People who smack against the plexiglass shield like a bug on a windshield.
Things that are not funny: People STILL outchea declaring precautions don't matter, they'll get sick if they get sick. WALK INTO TRAFFIC TYPHOID MARY, GET AWAY FROM ME.
I'm so glad you have plexiglass! Haven't seen anything like that in London unfortunately. I don't envy you the assholes, but hopefully you'll start to get regulars - they kept me going during my grocery till days <3
Yeah, another funny thing is, this is a budget grocery in a poor neighborhood...and the customers are mostly nicer BY FAR than the customers I dealt with when I worked at a fancy grocery in a very expensive neighborhood.
Homeless people have better manners than rich people, on the whole.
And one of my coworkers does drag, so I'm on a campaign to get in his good graces so we can be FB friends and I can find out where the fun stuff happens in this city...some day when fun stuff happens again.
oooh get that Drag Friend! Stay safe out there. <3
I'm trying my best, thank you!
And yeah, I've been just trying to be charming and biding my time so it's not weird when I ask if he's on Facebook or Twitter. He's funny and smart too, and only the second genuinely non-mainstream person I've met in this hell city since I moved here, so I'm trying not to be TOO obviously desperate in my desire to make the connection, haha.
LOW STAKES gripe: my 80-year-old mom would really prefer for me to put on more makeup and jewelry while we shelter in place. She keeps telling me things like: "I had a dream - and you were in FULL MAKEUP."
LMAO the amazing absurdity of this
At one point as a teenager, my mom was fussing over the fact I dont wear make up. "WHY DO YOU HIDE YOURSELF LIKE THIS?"
I'm still confused.
My mom: "Remember when you used to wear more blush? You looked GOOD."
This sounds like my mom. One time she said to me “What happened to all the pretty clothes you *used* to own?” Moms 🤷🏻♀️
😂😂😂
WITAF? I was going to declare it an accomplishment today that I dried my hair, put on earrings, and put on a shirt that isn't a sweatshirt. Makeup? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
EARRINGS? now you're just showing the rest of us up.
That is so very my seventysomething mother, you don't even know. She'd tell me to put on makeup to go get the mail!
lol moms
when i was a teen, my mum would say 'you would look so beautiful if only you would X' and usually X would be, like, let her pluck my brows (my mother has tattooed brows circa the 80s and i am SO GLAD i held out)
Back in the late 80s, my mom kept suggesting I get a perm or body wave, like every other girl in 7th grade. Mom! Stop trying to make this perm happen! It's not gonna happen!
Today was the day I completely gave up on my hair and wrapped a scarf around my head. Short haircuts do not hold up without frequent trims!
As an Asian, I'm just going full on Sadako at this point.
I damn near wore a cotton kaftan out of the house today to do a 'no contact' book pick up from my local bookseller, and didn't actually go out to do it until after noon, because I had to gird my goddamn loins to change into the jean cut-offs and bra and tee I wore instead. Please regale your mother with the horror stories of how slovenly many if not most of us have become in this sheltered in place time, even when we do venture out, and let her be grateful for you, a loving child who did not throw a powder puff at her mother in response to her nagging.
Today is the day that I understand The Powerpuff girls and Powder Puff football. Thank you, kind human, for bestowing this knowledge unto me.
I *wish* I owned a caftan!
Got them years ago from the J. Peterman catalog on sale, and boy, do I love them.
Please immediately watch the Maria Bamford show on YouTube where she sends up her mom for this, it is very funny
I had a board meeting via Zoom yesterday and the one coworker who constantly tries to undermine me and blame things on me if they can get away with it got the MOST sour look in their face when the whole board thanked me for doing such a good job during the pandemic 😏. Extremely petty, extremely satisfying.
My pettiest annoyance is how on EARTH do we make so many dirty dishes every day?? I feel like every single dish in the house is dirty at all times and I'm being buried under a mountain of dirty dishes despite washing them every day.
Same! My husband and I were just lamenting that you cannot take even a one-day “fuck it, I’m too tired” break or the entire kitchen explodes.
Truth. I am so glad that a few months ago we bought some additional silverware because the twenty-five year old set we had was gradually diminishing. Kid home from college and a high school student in the house all day = so. many. dishes.
Agreed! I escaped to a house of six instead of my normal apartment of two and every time I think the dishes are finished...they pile up again. Wild
Congrats on getting recognized for your good work!
I think dishes multiply by spontaneous generation. I'm in a household of three, and we're all expressing care and coping with existential fear by establishing order in the kitchen. AND THERE ARE STILL SO MANY DISHES. WHY?
The schadenfreude for your awful coworker is just delicious!
And I FEEL YOU on the dishes. My dishwasher is broken (and filling with water every other day, somehow), and I hate washing dishes!
I am CHEERING your work victory. Muwahaahahahha.
I bought a countertop dishwasher about a month ago, and it has improved my quality of life (and the cleanliness of my dishes) 100x.
I am a dishdoing maniac for the past month. I try not to focus on husband kitchen neglect. He's great otherwise.
I have a rant. I've been getting increasingly short-tempered with the internet at large. I know living the social isolation life is hard, but I'm housebound and have to live it year-round. Every "day 23 of quarantine" meme when I'm so many days in that I couldn't possibly count them just makes me feel like the world refuses to acknowledge people like me exist, even when that world has taken up residence in our house.
To add to it, my partner, on top of going to school to try to get education to make enough money to keep me alive, works in health care, so I'm either home alone or my partner is home but so snowed in by studying that I may as well be alone. I normally just keep up social connections online, but online is peppered by people complaining about having to spend a bunch of time with their partner and having to resort to watching stupid movies or playing old card games or shit to pass the time. I would kill for a couple hours where my partner can be a partner and we could have a nice date, instead of them being a 24 hour nurse having to help me manage medications and injections and basic necessities. (Though they say we might be able to have a date near the end of the month after their exams are over, so I'm hoping for that.)
And the one place that I normally have that is safe to go on rants to vent about things isn't safe right now, because if I complain about this, they react as though my being used to living this way all the time due to disability is, like, some sort of privilege(?) or something, and act like I'm some man in the high tower mocking the lowly surfs who don't live this way normally? Like its somehow better to have gone years without the sun or the feeling of a nice breeze and instead have the constant worry that my existence will drag anyone I love down into poverty?
I don't even know. It just can feel like the world has no place for me, but at least here I don't know anyone so I can't really be rejected.
As an aside, I have been, by necessity, cutting my hair at home for years, and it still looks as great as ever. Recently made it into a shoulder-length bob but not sure how long I'll keep it. So at least I have better hair that a significant portion of the world right now, even if my partner is the only one who will ever see it.
My situation can't totally align, but that notion that the disabled or housebound or whatever are privileged right now is so frustrating and such horseshit. Society is structured just as profoundly now to fuck us as ever. (Read every article about how would get preference in treatment should we get sick, etc.) I am also the "Dependent" partner, and everything about that structure fucking sucks at a time like this.
It sucks and we don't deserve this bullshit.
Normally I can handle how much society excludes us, but right now it really is turning into a special sort of fucked up. And normally I can stay a bit grounded by hearing the voices of other disabled people facing similar things or things that stem from the same source, but with the internet being so loud right now those voices are drowned out, so it just feels so much more lonely. But all of the likes, along with these comments, are doing a lot to make me feel a bit better <3.
disabled person here and I agree with everything you're saying.
I just want to say I hear you. I have noted a lot of homebound folks (under diverse circumstances) on my socials sharing similar stories. I've been a Work from Homer for ages, so while I have a different context, I also have been (...with compassion that ppl have different lived experiences...) struggling a bit w how many seem to be oMG LOSING IT1?! after a couple weeks at home when we may have a VERY long time of isolation to contend with. Anyway. Let me say thank you for expressing your experience, and may it help others gain some perspective and greater understanding.
Rage screaming into the void on your behalf. I'm so fucking sorry.
That sounds tooth-grindingly frustrating, yeah.
I have a few complaints/accomplishments.
I paid off my grad school student loans!! I did not get to have the fun party that I was planning to mark the occasion.
My eyebrows look like fuzzy angry caterpillars. I miss getting them waxed. My fingernails are a mess (I can't cut them nicely to save my life). I miss manicures. I thought that maybe my skin would clear up if I stopped wearing make-up. Turns out the acne is a feature, not a bug. My hair is falling out from stress. My bathroom looks like Chewbacca has taken up residence. My cleaning team can't come for the foreseeable future. I want to go swim laps, damnit!!
I HAD A NIGHTMARE ABOUT TARGET, and not being able to find bleach or toilet paper, which is like the ultimate indignity.
YOUR LOANS! You are a star!!!
Congratulations on the loans!
YOU PAID OFF YOUR LOANS YOU QUEEN!!!
LOAN CONGRATS!!!!!!
Last night we had a virtual Zoom seder, and after the requisite multiple glasses of wine, I cleaned up and went to bed. This morning, I couldn't find my laptop ANYWHERE, finally grabbed it seconds before my meeting, and joined my team's weekly leadership mtg. with a background of the Rugrats Passover clip when Tommy parts the red sea.
I have a special needs kid (mostly nonverbal, intellectual disability) and the idea we might be on lockdown and he might not be able to go back to school for a year has me up nights. He benefits SO MUCH from his therapists and teachers, and taking it away from him feels cruel. (It’s also borderline impossible to work from home and watch him, but that’s a side point. I could put up with some difficult parenting if I felt like being out of school wasn’t hurting him, but it is.) Online education is great but he doesn’t have the capabilities/attention span to get a lot out of it.
And then I feel like a whiny bitch for complaining about this because of COURSE I don’t want people to die so my snookums can go to school. But it’s just so very hard.
I'm a special ed teacher, and this is my big worry about my students at home
I have a few students with intellectual disabilities and I am really worried about them! They need one on one help and none of their families have laptops for them to use even if online classes might work :(
It's so hard.
So not a whiny bitch! School is vital for him in a way it isn't for other kids. I'm sorry.
I am in a similar boat - solidarity all the way! Our shitstain of a governor actually made the call to keep schools closed through the end of the semester yesterday and I was devastated. My son gets SO MUCH out of his early childhood special ed program and I worry about him returning to school in the fall with a completely new set of teachers.
It's all so hard -- and I remember the preschool years being even more difficult than elementary school, which is where I am now. We shut down for the rest of the school year last month, so I've just about processed that, but now I'm seeing projections that schools won't be able to reopen for good until there's a vaccine and that terrifies me.
I have been buying things from small, women-owned, online businesses I like and writing the proprietors emails telling them how much I like their stuff and to hang in there.
Any recommendations of businesses to check out?
If you like romance books at all, The Ripped Bodice in LA is amazing (they ship) and you can ether order whatever you want or they will send you a surprise quarantine care package. I may have to get a second one.
Thank you for bringing this to my attention!
YES but can we do that here? Nicole, please delete if this is bad! Look up Neva Opet in Atlanta, the gal there makes fantastic leather bags and has an adorable Boston Terrier named Millie she features on her instagram. Another small bag biz is The Transience in NYC (these are nylon and sportier)--they're having a 30% off sale now! The company Pretty Frank makes the ONLY natural deodorant that has ever worked for me and they have lots of fragrances (I like the Rose one). Treat Beauty has a lip balm and lip scrub that smell exactly like grocery store birthday cake and if that is your jam (it is mine). I hope all these ladies can stay in business!
Salt and Sundry (shopsaltandsundry.com) and Shop Made in DC (shopmadeindc.com) are both women-owned businesses in the DC area that I've been trying to support! Both are doing care packages, which I've sent to a few friends and gotten EXCELLENT responses to. It was a nice way to send a surprise to brighten up someone's day :).
Also, East Fork Pottery (eastfork.com) has been doing a "buy a mug for a healthcare worker" program and donating to other groups doing important work in the Asheville, NC area, so they could be good to check out too.
Thank you so much for sharing these! These care packages are such a cute way to support a local business and let friends/family know I'm thinking of them. Plus, gift-giving always makes me feel better too.
My daughter works at Salt & Sundry and I can confirm! They have such lovely stuff. The owner is working really hard to keep things together.
Ah that's so great -- what a small world! I'm really pulling for them and trying to support however I can. Their retail spaces are so calming (and dog-friendly, big win on my end).
I just received a Shop Made in DC care package from a friend and it is SO lovely and great!
Full disclosure that Karen is my irl friend, but also her weavings are great: https://www.etsy.com/shop/telavision
Umami Interiors (https://www.shopumamiinteriors.com/) is Bay Area-based, she does care packages and vintage finds and art prints and fair trade baskets and candles etc to brighten time at home.
Oh and Catherine Graffam’s art (https://www.catherinegraffam.com/, and she also has a Patreon) is always a joy.
Tuesday Bassen! Cute as hell clothes, xxs-6x https://www.instagram.com/tuesdaybassenla/
My friends ceramics business brings me so much joy and I love an excuse to plug it for her!! https://www.sogoodhandmade.com/
This is not petty necessarily, but: my cat died. My sweet, affectionate, handsome boy who was my best friend for 18 years. And my husband and I are stuck at home with all the reminders of him and no pets to cuddle and it just sucks. It sucks a big one.
Oh, I am so sad to see this. Eighteen years...I bet he had a wonderful life with you. Take care.
I am so sorry.
I am so sorry for your loss. Many virtual hugs to you.
Genuine and profound sympathy to you. That's just - terrible.
So so sorry. So glad you had your handsome baby for 18 years. Hope you are consoled in grief and have a new kitten one day soon to continue the great love. Til then, happy trails sweet kitty.
This is so awful and hard. I hope you find comfort in how much he loved you- and obviously you him- for 18 glorious years! Sending my love to you.
My dear, dear husband bought a 50 pound bag of flour yesterday and has yet to explain to me exactly where he thinks he is going to store it. Currently it is sitting in our living room.
My partner keeps doing this with bottles of wine and large scale LEGO kits. Like... sir, we live in an apartment there is only so much room
Ugh, my partner does stuff like this all the time. He always buys at least double the amount specifically listed on the grocery list.
When we first moved to America my dad discovered Costco (it was Price Club at the time) and went insane. I think my parents just finished off the 5 gallon container of mustard from 1984 last week.
Oh, my best friend's bf joined Price Club and all of them (about 5 roommates) had to keep eating from the 7lb can of tuna fish. Even the cat was sick of it towards the end.
I don't know why but I audibly chuckled at "the cat was sick of it." Thanks for that.
You just reminded me of one of my favorite memories of my Baba. When my sisters were in their teens, my mom, dad, sisters (and maybe my brother as a wee babe?) visited my Dede and Baba (dad's parents).
My mom had asked my sisters if they'd packed shampoo and conditioner. They said they had. The family arrives in Indiana. My sisters have no shampoo. No conditioner.
So, they go into my mom's toiletries to get hers. My mom finds out and is *pissed.* She was practicing boundaries/wanted to teach consequences of actions/etc.
My Baba gets wind of this and thinks that my mom is the most selfish woman in the history of the world.
Shortly after they return from the trip, a package arrives from my Baba. Gallon-sized shampoo and conditioner. The jugs were in our bathroom until I was at least 8 (the package was sent prior to my birth).
Well played game of passive aggressiva, Baba. Well played.
omg Price Club for the OGs - my BFF's dad kept all the teens in the house in taquitos
Mine gets so frustrated trying to find things that he just barely gets any of it. It's a weird inversion.
I do this. I find shopping very anxiety-inducing, especially now.
yes, big grocery stores are awful for me. Sensory overload for ALLL THE SENSES EVEN THE 6TH. idk if your area has a 24-hour store, but I used to specifically go shopping at very obscure hours to cut down on the people and noise. 6am on Sunday morning, for example. Or in a college town after 2am when it's not legal to sell alcohol anymore the stores really clear out.
I used to do this , but now we have a curfew.
L O L living room flour is killing me
I am slooooooooowly trying to wean my partner off buying everything at Costco for this exact reason. There are two of living in a place with minimal storage where in the world are we going to put anything???
Nicole I adore you. If I was rich I’d ask nicely if I could be your second spouse.
Having said that, a huge fuck you to my ex-husband. I really hate separation and divorce and this whole heartbreaking process. He’s cheated on me for years, starting two weeks after I paid our entire house deposit. And now he wants most of that money for himself. Because apparently if I hadn’t had kids, he’d have lots more money, so I owe him extra. Divorce is weird. I married this guy, had kids with him. And now it turns out he’s some monster who forgets to call his kids or cheaps out on child support.
Anyway I’m isolating 14 hours away from home, in my parents spare room, because on top of all this there’s a pandemic. And I’m tired and whingy and stealing the cheap gin from my dad again. So here’s my whinge!
HOW do husbands turn from someone we married and had kids with into complete monsters once we separate???? Mine is the same, and worse, he has the kids! I haven't seen them in nearly a month. I hate this entire process.
I did not get to consume my fill of Shamrock Shakes due to *gestures wildly* and I am annoyed because of it! I also miss popping in to places on my way home.
Same, only with Reese's peanut butter eggs, which are normally their own food group for me this time of year!
I got some delivered from Target... just saying... it’s not too late!
I managed to order 2 of the 6 packs in an early online order and they are carefully hidden to be rationed for as long as possible
I went and ought some easter candy online that will arrive after easter, but heck it I need jelly beans. (A lot of stuff is sold out but I bought mine at a boutique chocolatier, so you might be able to find peanut butter eggs but not Reese's?)
*shakes fist at sky*
if my neighbors in my apartment building start smoking so much weed at 8 a.m. that I can smell it coming through my own vents when the heat kicks on and yelling at each other ONE MORE TIME, while I am trying to pay attention to MY LAW SCHOOL CLASSES, there is going to be so much yelling
also I live alone and it is Good Friday and nearly Easter and I have absolutely nobody to spend this holy time with and it makes me incredibly sad
I hope you can find an online service or something so you can spend it “with” someone, even if only virtually. I acutely remember the stresses of law school and cannot imagine what they would be like right now. I’ll be praying for you, if I may!
Thank you! Your prayers are very much welcomed, this brought a smile to my face! I am a 1L and law school is SUPER bizarre right now
Oh my goodness 1L!?!? That makes things so much worse. I hope you are at least pass/fail, and that you can take advantage of that and let yourself go easier with the schoolwork. This is such a hard time for us all, and you are facing it in an already really tough year! I wish I could give you a hug.
I am so sorry you will be alone - I will be thinking of you this weekend. I hope you find a meaningful way to mark the holidays!
Thank you <3
I realized one of my neighbors was smoking inside (we’re a non-smoking, historic apartment) while I was doing yoga. The smell was hovering righty around my floor.
I’m currently composing a letter to my neighbors who alternate cigs and weed. Open a window.
I had to redo a bunch of slides for work this morning because my coworker uploaded the wrong older templates to the new team drive and I didn't realize until after I had made everything and I am very very annoyed. I have the right ones!! I have been using the right ones for months now!! But she always thinks she knows best and while I appreciate a lot of her efforts a lot of the time this is now the 2nd time on this project where the new templates I created back in like October disappeared in favor of older shittier templates from the last person who was not good at making templates. Sorry if none of this makes sense I'm just very annoyed and need to vent.
you are speaking straight to my heart
I'm juggling being the primary caregiver for my dying mother, helping raise my 4 year old niece, and working a part time job. I'm so tired all the time and I wish I could just run away.
Love and flowers and virtual hugs to you. This is a lot to deal with even without a pandemic running rampant. Hope you able to squeeze in even the tiniest bit of self care.
You are alive? I am amazed. I am impressed. Wishing you running shoes and a nap at the end of the road (maybe a fancy hammock, too).
You're an angel. Not many people could or would do any of this (I'm on a discussion list of caretakers) but you stepped up. Can you talk your niece into having a joint naptime so you can get some rest. (I'd understand if you did stuff while she was asleep so you can get it done.) Lots of virtual hugs to you.
The live reading I was supposed to give at the Center for Fiction is officially going to be a zoom thing. I'm not surprised, but still sad. I have a sexy red jumpsuit and I was going to look fucking amazing in person. win over those stodgy old literary folks *jenna maroney voice* with my SEXUALITY !
Please still wear the sexy red jumpsuit!! I think it's good to seize excuses to dress up.
I agree with Alyssa! You’ll have to be sexy *Jenna Maroney voice* on CAM a rah. Unless it’s just audio, which would suck.
I am MUCH better at regularly doing my dishes than I have been the last 2.5 years of living alone. As part of an evening post-work TV/dinner/dishes/sleep routine that has been really helpful.
((And it's not so tiny, but weirdly the whole external stress ball has helped me drink (i.e. self-medicate) less. Which I've also been working for the last few years, but putting it in the context with of 'surviving a pandemic less miserably' seems to have changed things, and I hope I can keep it up.))
I think there's a minority of us who respond well to drastic life simplification... I'm one of them.
Same here. The days aren't blurring together over here -- the texture has simply changed. I'm fortunate to be able to stay in with my family (including our one-year-old son) and I'm honestly just trying to immerse myself in the joy of getting to see him grow way more than I would have if I'd been at the office as planned.
I have been actually putting my laundry away within 24 hours of finishing it...which is not my usual.
Me, too! It's kind of amazing? The dishwasher gets emptied in a timely fashion, I'm not getting dressed by shopping the drying rack in the garage, the bed gets made nicely every day... it like I'm Ma Ingalls... or a functional adult... or something!
On this day a year ago, I was stumbling around Aalborg, eating smørrebrød and getting lost and having a glorious time. One year ago tomorrow, I visited my great grandfather's home town and took the train to Skagen, a town at the tippy top of Denmark, for a week of art and long walks and sticking my toes in two seas at once.
This year I'm stuck at home, my husband is dead, and I have to keep shipping my daughter off to Grandma's house because I can't work and parent at the same time -- especially since work keeps dumping extra little projects on because they want to make sure we're really working throughout all of this.
Fuck this shit. Bring back 2019. I wanna go back to the sea.
My condolences on the loss of your husband. I hope your job is less dickish soon
I am so sorry for your loss. I hope you can go back to the sea with your daughter someday.
I'm so sorry.
My work is in domestic violence issues. We are trying to implement actions for women confined at home with their abuser, ways for them to call the police and get help. We're opening stalls in malls (the only thing, with pharmacies, still open in France). I am FURIOUS with our government We have to find masks by ourselves, nothing has been planned for and we are left to our devices. And that's just a small part of the picture. I can't even start to think about the situation in the hospitals or I just shut down. I'm trying my best, I know I do good work in these circumstances but I feel so useless, I feel abandoned by the State that was supposed to protect us. My thoughts are with those in all these countries where it's even worse (Macron is still far from Trump). Love to all.
I work in domestic violence in Tennessee, it feels similarly bleak here. We can keep providing services but it doesn’t mean much when the systems designed to protect still will not do so. With you in spirit and solidarity!
Thank you and all my spirit and solidarity to you too! We'll manage. As best as we can...
Thank you so much for what you're doing!
Thank you <3
Thank you for doing this vital work. Where in France are you?
Thank you very much... I'm in the Bordeaux area. Have you ever been?
sadly no... Paris and the south of France so far
On the good news front, we adopted a second cat this week! I follow a local shelter on IG (same place we got the first cat in my user pic) and we kept seeing his pic on there and discussed getting him, but then he stopped showing up and wasn't on their website so we figured he had been adopted. But then on Tuesday they posted that he was the last adoptable cat left in the shelter and my roommate and I were like, WE NEED TO GET HIM!!!! so we walked a mile there (took a very empty bus back) and snatched him up.
They warned us he might be shy and not people friendly (which is likely why he was there for so long) but that he would probably be happy with another cat. But he has been the absolute sweetest boy - he didn't hide at all when we let him out, he just walked around purring and rubbing his face on everything including us. I'm sure it was just the shelter environment that was stressing him out. He and our first cat seem very happy to be brothers and I am glad we were able to give him a happy home.
congratulations! A street kitty just tried to adopt me the other day, but I'm in a short-term rental and can't care for a critter at the moment. Very much looking forward to being able to foster after this is over with.
My 6-week-old is sleeping for stretches of 4-5 hours at night. Praise be.
She has also gained 2lbs in the last 2 weeks, bumping her up to nearly 12lbs, making my poor carpal tunnel wrists hurt like nothing else on heaven and Earth. (Why did no one tell me pregnancy carpal tunnel was a thing. Why is it still a thing for me, 6 weeks after giving birth.)
Congratulations!
I need to vent. I tried to do the right thing last month and go to the doctor for the first time in 6 years and now I got saddled with a big bill because I have shitty insurance and I have to call them about it and honestly the whole healthcare system in this country makes me SO MAD and I'm a healthy person with major conditions. I can't imagine the stress someone who is sick and needs multiple appointments, procedures, and prescriptions.
I feel this! I went to my doctor to get migraine medicine in March of 2019 and got charged $300. I didn't get it all cleared up with insurance until December. Just keep being annoying and stubborn but also polite, you can do it, and - light at the end of the tunnel - you get the sweetest relief when it's all over.
my biggest worry regarding my job cut backs right now is that I will lose my insurance and have to pay to jump on my husband's far inferior one. It is an absolute travesty.
I am very lucky to be healthy during this very scary time, and I'm sending love out to you who have health issues through all of this.
My boss sent a little local business care package to all his direct reports - coffee, some honey, cookies. And it was just super simple and thoughtful. It made me smile and I have new good coffee for the weekend! I am also trying to control my impulses to use retail therapy to make me feel better. I can’t go anywhere and so buying comfy clothing and new face cream is just so appealing!
What a lovely thing to do.
I totally got back into ballet (at home) and then I also realised I need to remember all my pre pointe feet exercises and also that maybe I was not in fact terrible at it even if my brain told me so.
I think ballet dancers tend to be perfectionists who judge their own dancing more harshly than anything else, but maybe some distance from ballet is letting you see your dancing with clearer eyes!
Petty gripe: I’m disabled and can’t go to the store but it’s nearly impossible to get groceries delivered because everyone is doing it now. I wish there were special time slots set aside for disabled people just like they have the parking spaces. It wouldn’t be that hard to do
Not petty at all! It's a real logistical challenge to have so many abled users suddenly overwhelming the services that disabled users normally rely on. I'm very sorry that your food security is that much more precarious now.
Not at all petty! So many people using the services you need and food is important! A friend lives in Hawaii where the mayor is talking about requiring people to only leave the house one person at a time and she's wondering how she's supposed to go to the doctor when she can't drive because seizures?
I’m sheltering in place with a family member who is 100% committed to diet culture and I had to fight for pasta (I am poor and they are in charge of buying food) and I just want carbs by gd
Send us your address and we will mail you all the carbs!
OH MY GOD NO
NOOO
Not acceptable!
This is awful I am so sorry
It just snowed 10 inches here in Bangor, Maine, on Friday, April 10th in this year of our Lord 2020, and I’m so out of fucks to give I woke up and had jalapeño ranch potato chips and mint Oreos for breakfast at 7am because it feels like the glitch in the Matrix has become so all-encompassing, nothing has meaning anymore.
On a more positive note: I’ve been trying to walk/hike 3 miles a day, and it looks like I’m going to get to break out my snowshoes for the first time this year for today’s excursion.
Snowed in upstate NY today too!
We had the lightest powder-sugar dusting when I got up this morning and I was furious about *that*. I would've lost my mind at 10 inches. Chips would have been angrily devoured for sure.
Glad to know I’m not the only person inclined to rage-eat potato chips in response to things I can’t control 😂
I usually spare myself from it by never having them in the house, but my sister came to shelter-in-place with me and brought them, so it would be a distinct possibility!
I was living in Lebanon + bumped my move up a week so I could make it back to the US before coronavirus containment shut the world’s borders + my dog’s airline ticket was cancelled + now I’m waiting for my friend to send him + every three days we come up with a new solution but then another airport closes or an airline doesn’t let dogs as cargo anymore so I’m healthy + safe but without my best friend
OMG that is terrible. Glad you made it back in time, but how upsetting about your doggy. Hugs.
awww thank you -- i know it is small in comparison but our animals really lift our spirits. hopefully will get him to the US soon
I know someone else in the same spot. Hugs to you.
awww thank you! it truly feels small compared to all the other things going on but i miss my puppy!
I made 4 masks. It took 4 hours. I'm a terrible seamstress.
I haven't even started. I can sew, I own a sewing machine, and I have some fabric (okay, it's Christmas fabric, but...) so I feel like I sort of have to make my own, but...I just am not motivated.
I'm really resentful that on top of working full time at a new job, so lots of mental burn, coordinating groceries for 4 including two asshole Boomers who refuse to eat chicken more than twice a week, and, you know, the other vicissitudes of life I somehow also am responsible for making multiple makes for us all. And so I have started a new sweater instead.
These are strange and difficult times, and I would say you don't have to make your own if you don't feel motivated. It's ok! You are already dealing with so much right now!
I finally made one for myself after a week or more of watching my fellow sewists churn them out online. Feeling like a slacker/terrible person.
I'm a burlesque dancer and sew all kinds of stuff, especially my undies, so I've got the skills and supplies. I just don't really want to. But apparently I'm going to have to.
I am definitely all about buying masks if you have the means and are just not feeling it. But also I am now imagining just really fabulous burlesque masks.
I gave up and sent for some. Like, from Etsy.
What pattern are you using? I found the one from Missouri Quilt Co. to be the easiest.
I used one from Sarah Maker because I have no bias tape and didn't want to attempt the folding necessary for fabric ties. I really am not great at sewing, I had to rip things out a couple of times. >.<
Ugh...yeah ironing the strips is a huge PITA. I picked this pattern because I didn't want to sew curves. 🤪
My partner is working later and later every night, and I feel like this this didn’t happen pre-virus? It’s hard because I now depend on him so much for fun times and I’m just so disappointed when I learn he has late calls. Also, his “office” is our bedroom and he just woke me up taking an 8 AM.
Thank you so much for posting this, because I just realized that I'm behaving exactly like your partner...and its not cool. I'm totally taking calls in the bedroom/working hella late for kind of no reason. I hope you can both have that conversation, because I'll be apologizing asap.
We had a good talk about this morning, and he apologized. I'm glad I could help! I know we're all coping in our own ways, and a lot of us are turning to work, if we can.
that is NOT petty. that sucks.
Thank you for this validation! I know he doesn’t want to work all the time and his work has been very busy and stressful so I don’t feel super comfortable complaining about it but... dude. This is not great.
I just found lice in my hair FML
NIGHTMARE SCENARIO! Wishing you a strong spirit and stronger chemicals.
Advice from a pharmacist that worked for us: douse your head in cheap hair conditioner, which slows the lice down, and comb through with a lice comb carefully and systematically. Wipe the comb on paper towelling (very satisfying if the paper towel is white because you can see the little fuckers) and rinse your hair when you're done. Leave the lice on the paper towel to smother. Or put it in bright sunshine. Or squish them with your thumbnail. Whatever's going be most satisfying, really. Repeat at least one more time a few days later so that you catch the ones that hadn't hatched the first time around. And wash everything, etc.
I am working on a community volunteer project (yay) and we are updating the instructions so more people can help (yay) and I am in the throes of "edit by committee" and I have 8 pages of edits on a two page document and I am losing.my.shit. Most of their edits are unnecessary/borderline useless but my friend wants to be inclusive and what should have taken 1 day is taking all week. Thank you for letting me bitch here! It's my safe space.
I'm translating articles for a Marxist periodical once or twice a wee, and my irritation at run-on sentences and unnecessary wordiness is going through the roof. And then I make a rookie translation mistake, ensuring that I share my irritation with others :facepalm:
Last Saturday was my birthday, which was predictably a bit depressing. But then to top it off, my five year old punched me in the forehead in a pique of anger (because I was telling her she could not go around spitting in people's faces, we live in a society!) and gave me a concussion. No one believes I had a concussion because a) she's just a child and b) no one takes women's pain seriously. After three days if solid headache I had a virtual visit with a (male) neurologist who confirmed the dx so now my husband takes it seriously 😑. I'm the sole breadwinner at this point and my hours have just been reduced 30% and I'm stuck in a 1bedroom NYC apartment with two kids. And now I have a MTBI and I'm just so tired.
NOOOooooO. I feel like the only consolation in that scenario is that you'll totally be able to hold that over her head when she's an adult (in a loving way, obv)
Please communicate with the dingbats at large that my friend got a serious concussion because she...tripped? It's not like it has to be a piano from the sky for your brain to get hurt. Ah, children, what joy they bring. Sending love.
For real! It does not need to be a severe blow! My husband was like "I got hit plenty of times in the head as a kid and *I* never got a concussion!" Except, my dude, you probably did! You don't need to lose consciousness to hurt your brain!
I got a concussion from an accidental elbow to the forehead and a minor brain bleed. It has taken two months for me to feel mostly ok again. I hope you feel better.
😱 how did you have the brain bleed diagnosed? I don't want to go to a hospital for obvious reasons... Today is the first day I haven't felt the need to nap like a baby. But in a short zoom call with a colleague i had a really hard time finishing sentences 😔. I guess in some weird way I'm glad to have a reason to be taking it really easy. But it's not easy having another complication with no clear terminus.
CT scan. No one believed it was as serious as that, including me, until the doctor was like, ummmmm.... They also told me not to concentrate very hard on things for 3-4 weeks. I had a lot of fatigue and confusion. I do not remember it happening or the first week after when I was put on bed rest. I did not pass out, but involuntary tears came down when I got hit. You have to be careful right now, limit screen time as much as you can.
Ugh all the “I was baking before it was corona-cool” people now that more and more folks have taken up sourdough. Let people liiiiiiiiiiiive
Aka me 🙃
As a longtime sourdough baker, I am super enjoying seeing tons of people try my favorite homey soothing hobby for the first time. One of us! One of us! I hope you are baking lots of delicious bread!
I split off some of my starter for a woman on nextdoor who was asking and she's texted me questions and a picture of her first loaf! I am thrilled for her! (Plus I could tell she was a good egg when I recommended a sourdough cookbook and she immediately said she was going to order it from the local indie bookstore)
What sourdough cookbook did you recommend? I'm always on the lookout for interesting new ones.
I've had really good luck with "Classic Sourdoughs" by Ed and Jean Wood
I'm not baking a lot of bread yet, but I'm baking a TON with the discard from my starter. The waffles turned out fantastic!
Thank you for being the opposite of a hobby gatekeeper! I am not to the baking bread part yet but I am loving the routine of checking on my lil starter and being patient with the process.
I also love tending mine! Once they're established, they're like extremely hard-to-kill houseplants, but the kind you can make delicious bread from. (And pancakes, and waffles and muffins, etc. etc. etc.)
SAME SAME my brother-in-law was bitching about "the newbies buying up all the bread flour" and it feels very much like people who complain about new gym goers at the new year!
It's so dumb! Make your dough, plant a garden, you're doing so great!
❤️ yes! More of this energy
I was a big baker back in the day, and I have no desire to do so now, so it's cute to see ppl actually care (I have been making banana bread but that hardly counts)
I was scheduled to get a tattoo this week. My first! No sense of when anything will re-open so no idea when I might be able to reschedule. I know this is a small disappointment, but I'm really bummed out about it.
I can’t WAIT to get another tattoo once we’re out of this
That is a bummer! That will make it even better when you finally get it, though. What are you getting?
I have been covering myself in temporary tattoos like an oversugared first grader at a birthday party the past few weeks.
You know, I think I have some temporary tattoos laying around... I should dig into those!
Yay first tattoo (which will happen eventually- though I think the tattoo parlors will be as busy as the beauty shops and barbers)! Where were you going to get it? From experience of my first, I would recommend not the shoulder blade. :P (I'd been planning to get my 35th birthday tattoo this month (a magpie) to go with the ones I got at 25 and 30.)
On my shoulder! But the outside of my arm, not the blade. It's going to be a branch with three little birds aka my kiddos. I've been waiting 40 years to get my first and I don't want to wait any longer lol
CUTE! And the top of the arm is a good place, that's where my second one is; more fatty tissue/insulation/scar tissue from years of inoculations.
After literally decades of indecision and dentaphobia, I finally made the decision earlier this year to get orthodonture. I had found an orthodontist I felt really comfortable with and was actually excited about it for the first time in my life. The kickoff appointment was supposed to be next week. :(
been 3 weeks since i've seen my partner and i miss the d and cuddles. and his stupid axe body spray. wedding planning is just *shrugs* rn bc who even knows what's in store for next year. i had 1 amazing driving lesson b4 pandemic caution started where i'm at and i'm real mad. i actually felt comfortable in a car and could imagine myself driving? on the road? with other cars? i've been more consistent about going out for a walkjog and i finished a 500 piece puzzle! rainbow color buttons! next up is a 750 piece fantasy angel puzzle!
I just filed my FBAR (it's a US-citizen-living-abroad thing), with my morning made extra exciting because I've spent the past few days vomiting for no particular reason. (Stress? A can gone bad? Chronic-illness-who-tf-knows?)
Pesach sameach if that's your jam, happy Easter if that's your jam, an early Ramadan mubarak is that's _your_ jam, and for those of you with other flavours of jam (including non-jam like nutella, peanut butter, passion fruit curd), good wishes of your choice upon you.
Thanks for reminding me. The FBAR is the easy bit: I’ve been thinking I should “use this time” to also do my 2019 tax return 🤮 which is MY LAST ONE EVER since I renounced last Oct. But I also have to do this evil exit report and am scared of doing something wrong and being hounded by the IRS for the rest of my life.
Unless your taxes are super-de-duper complicated, it is hard to totally screw it up! ALSO - when you renounced was it like renouncing Satan during a Catholic baptism? Or that Steve Martin bit about break-ups? "I break with thee, I break with thee, I throw dog poopy on your shoes"
Well, yes, but: in almost 30 years of living abroad, I was "pardoned" by the IRS (amnesty) twice already after being strung up for minor errors. (this was like: ok, 10 OuFathers and 25 HailMarys and I promise to be good and file every year correctly.) Renunciation itself was strangely anticlimatic after all the paperwork: def more Steve Martin than RC, though.
Well, yesterday I found out I’m officially graduating from grad school. Not sure when I’ll be job hunting in my new field but I’m happy (and a little sad) to be done. Took 3.5 years.
Congrats!!
Congratulations! This is an amazing accomplishment!
Thank you!!
I just really miss The Toast today. I saw a twitter thread about miserable-looking women in old paintings and have been rereading Danny's Western Art History pieces as a result. They bring me a lot of joy, but I'll always miss my daily visit to the site and the community. I understand why it had to end, but... I just really miss The Toast.
Western Art History pieces on the Toast were and still are my jam, I adored them all, and I miss there being new ones. Yes.
Grievances of the week:
A. My rural internet is not strong enough to support video visitation with my in-custody clients. We can see each other but not hear each other
B. My LGD Great Pyrenees-mix is going through her teenage stage and is driving me nuts. Yesterday I caught her "playing" with one of my six week old pullets in her mouth. The bird was okay but who knows if I hadn't caught her in the act?
C. My coworker/rottweiler emits toxic farts all. day. long.
D. My husband is retired and therefore was social distancing before it was a thing. For the most part we have enough space not to get on each others nerves but he wants to go with me every time I leave the house and I just want to listen to my Bravo podcasts in peace!
E. I miss the Eucharist and my above-mentioned rural internet is not really good enough to stream the services my church has been putting online.
WORD on missing the Eucharist (pun kinda intended, sorrysorrysorry!)
Me too. Holy Week and Easter with no Eucharist is really rough, even with a good internet connection.
C. LOL
D. Awww. I strongly support you letting him know you need Podcast Me time, even if it's only 50% of the time you leave the house. <3
The kids went to their dad's house last weekend and he called to say he has the virus. I do not think he did this on purpose of course, but I have been VIGILANT and he has been careless. So now the kids are with me and I am nervously watching and waiting.
Also I have a teen with anxiety who is hard to get out of the house during normal times, and now she does not even want to go out in the yard. Worry is exhausting and pervasive.
I should correct this, and be a lil more petty- He did not call me, he called his mother. I heard about it from his sister, who called to see how we were dealing with it. NOT OKAY.
I am here for the petty upgrade. And not here for the ex
I count my blessings each time I think of being quarantined with him.
What the HELL though.
dafuqqqqqqq
I really feel for all the coparents who have to manage custody arrangements right now.
I have two small accomplishments!
I have been writing a lot lately, and happy about it. I wrote a school closures FAQ for Ask A Teacher on Slate that I was proud of, and have been putting a lot of energy into my newsletter. It feels positive and productive.
I have been vigilant about my skincare and it is paying off. I am DEWY, baby. Radiant!
(TW: conception issues, I suppose? I'm new to this dimension of tagging)
Minor complaint: my husband and I have been trying for a baby - casually - for the last few months. It seemed like this time, it was happening - nausea (almost near constant), running hot (no fever), the whole shebang. Period was even 4 days late, but all the tests came back negative. Today, I started - I guess global pandemic counts as a stressful event but I've never been late. I didn't realize how disappointed I actually was until this morning. I know there's an entire world of grief and anxiety but I was really, really hoping...I guess now we move forward in earnest. thought I wouldn't care either way. I know I'm more anxious about things like the fact that my parents are over 70 and I desperately want them to meet a grandchild (and it's not my baggage to bear, I know, I know) but didn't realize how badly I wanted to see a +. My heart goes out to every person who has struggled with fertility, I realize as far as I know that what I'm feeling isn't comparable.
Good news: I'm installing a native plant pollinator garden tomorrow. Locus of control, etc.
I'm so sorry, this sounds like a whole lot to be processing all at once.
For what it's worth, it took us several months to conceive our first baby and I started to get very worried about it, and then we tried Pre-Seed (available at drugstores and Target and many places!) and that was the month I got pregnant--and the only thing we did differently was the Pre-Seed. When we decided to try for our second baby, we used Pre-Seed again from the jump and conceived her in our very first, uh, game without a goalie. I'm not saying it was that product that did it, but I always make sure to mention it to friends and family (without diagnosed clinical fertility concerns) who tell me they're having a frustrating time getting pregnant, just in case.
Good luck to you and your husband!