More comments saved, this time from LJ and Making Light (crossposting to DW):
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ozarque, who was talking about eldering, eating less, and not wanting to waste food:
I've noticed something similar myself: my appetite is significantly less than it was a year or so ago. (This may be connected to the gall bladder surgery: but I have the energy for everything I want to do, which is more or less the same list as pre-surgery.)
It doesn't feel like a sudden change, but I just spent the weekend withrysmiel, who I hadn't seen long enough to sit down over a meal with since December. I mentioned early in the weekend that I had less appetite (we were choosing sushi for dinner). After finishing my sushi, poutine, and pho at different times, rysmiel mentioned that yes, I certainly was eating less.
The most frustrating bit, in some ways, is the places near work where I sometimes get a mixed-to-order salad. Unlike a usual salad bar, these come in distinct sizes, and the smaller of the two is now sometimes too much food for me. And we don't have much storage space here, and salads don't keep all that well once prepared and tossed with even oil and vinegar. So, to reduce waste, I'm getting less variety: two or three vegetables instead of four or five.
In a discussion of men being embarrassed to buy menstrual supplies for their partners,elissaann said she hadn't wanted everyone in the store to know when she was menstruating:
I don't assume everyone in the store will know I'm menstruating, because I may not be. I buy tampons or pads at any point in my cycle, if I notice the supply is low and/or the store is having a sale that week. Since we tend to think people are like us, I don't assume that another woman buying tampons is menstruating either. They might be for her two weeks from now. Or they might be for her daughter, roommate, or girlfriend.
coyotegoth asked "What does home mean to you?" My answer, without taking much time to analyze:
It means safety and familiarity and the things I need. Knowing what bed I'll sleep in, and having suitable things to eat and read.
This was my way of saying "hey cool" about somethingtamiroff posted:
Sometimes life gives you lemons, and a pitcher and the sugar to go with them.
In an open thread on Making Light, the subject turned to shoes. I asked for pointers to both shoes that might fit me, and shoe stores that would let me try them on instead of enforcing ideas of gender. I got some actual answers and several URLs. I said:
The thing about all those nice online stores is that I know, experientially, that I am not good at returning things that don't fit. So I'd really rather shop in a store, where I can try things on, at least the first time.
And it's not about "do they carry them," it's about "if I tell a salesman I want the boy's 6.5, will he go get them for me?" since most shoestores don't have every size just there to try on (and I have found no satisfaction at PayLess, which does use that model). I have, in fact, been told (almost in so many words) to go away, that doesn't come in a women's size, by shoe salesmen who saw me browsing. While I don't believe most of the paeans to capitalism or the market, I'm willing to give this a try: offer the merchants the chance to make money by selling what I want to buy, despite evidence that many would rather reinforce their gender bias and/or ideas of my and their gender identity.
A friend was wondering aloud about whether to try to take the (few but not clear how few) courses she would need to get a college degree, and about what if any social difference it would make. (Jobs aren't an issue in this case.) And I wrote :
I don't even know whether many of my friends have degrees. In some specific cases I know, either because they're doing work for which I know that a specific degree is a qualification (doctor, research biologist, my cousin the lawyer), or conversely because they mentioned that they didn't need a degree for a specific career path, or because we've talked about our pasts and the matter has come up, one way or another. It doesn't affect my opinion of their intelligence, knowledge outside specific narrow fields, or character.
It occurs to me that while I don't think any of my grandparents had college degrees, I don't actually know for sure. My family valued learning, and knew that the pieces of paper could be valuable in a variety of ways, but we also knew that they weren't the same thing.
You aren't looking for the sort of job where a degree is relevant. From what you posted here, you aren't looking at graduate or professional school. I guess it comes down to whether you'll feel better, worse, or neither for having checked the appropriate boxes for the shape of your education. (If neither, sure, look around and see if the set of classes you could take for this includes things you'd actually enjoy.) I occasionally think that if I could afford not to work, I might take some more college classes: not for paper qualifications, but because some interesting things are taught there.
I had far rather hang out with interesting people who know and want to talk about things—like you—that with someone who, in an online argument about conrunning, waves around his GRE score.
Tofastfwd, in response to a comment about her mother’s idea that the one helping has the upper hand and gets all the power:
That's a tangle of helping and decision-making: especially when what the person being helped wants isn't possible, it can feel to them as though they're being pushed into doing what the helper wants. Meanwhile, what the helper wants is something unrelated: to have back the healthy, better balanced relative, to just go to the beach or a tea shop together for a few hours, not to have to do all this work, nor be told that nothing they do is ever enough.
I find it easier to ask for, and accept, help from people who I also help. Not in the same moment, but in the same relationship "now", not just long ago or in a vague and hypothetical future. (That "now" can be years ago if the relationship has been continuous, I think.) It doesn't sound as though anything like that is possible for your mother right now, unfortunately.
This was to
ozarque, who was talking about eldering, eating less, and not wanting to waste food:I've noticed something similar myself: my appetite is significantly less than it was a year or so ago. (This may be connected to the gall bladder surgery: but I have the energy for everything I want to do, which is more or less the same list as pre-surgery.)
It doesn't feel like a sudden change, but I just spent the weekend with
rysmiel, who I hadn't seen long enough to sit down over a meal with since December. I mentioned early in the weekend that I had less appetite (we were choosing sushi for dinner). After finishing my sushi, poutine, and pho at different times, rysmiel mentioned that yes, I certainly was eating less. The most frustrating bit, in some ways, is the places near work where I sometimes get a mixed-to-order salad. Unlike a usual salad bar, these come in distinct sizes, and the smaller of the two is now sometimes too much food for me. And we don't have much storage space here, and salads don't keep all that well once prepared and tossed with even oil and vinegar. So, to reduce waste, I'm getting less variety: two or three vegetables instead of four or five.
In a discussion of men being embarrassed to buy menstrual supplies for their partners,
elissaann said she hadn't wanted everyone in the store to know when she was menstruating:I don't assume everyone in the store will know I'm menstruating, because I may not be. I buy tampons or pads at any point in my cycle, if I notice the supply is low and/or the store is having a sale that week. Since we tend to think people are like us, I don't assume that another woman buying tampons is menstruating either. They might be for her two weeks from now. Or they might be for her daughter, roommate, or girlfriend.
coyotegoth asked "What does home mean to you?" My answer, without taking much time to analyze:It means safety and familiarity and the things I need. Knowing what bed I'll sleep in, and having suitable things to eat and read.
This was my way of saying "hey cool" about something
tamiroff posted:Sometimes life gives you lemons, and a pitcher and the sugar to go with them.
In an open thread on Making Light, the subject turned to shoes. I asked for pointers to both shoes that might fit me, and shoe stores that would let me try them on instead of enforcing ideas of gender. I got some actual answers and several URLs. I said:
The thing about all those nice online stores is that I know, experientially, that I am not good at returning things that don't fit. So I'd really rather shop in a store, where I can try things on, at least the first time.
And it's not about "do they carry them," it's about "if I tell a salesman I want the boy's 6.5, will he go get them for me?" since most shoestores don't have every size just there to try on (and I have found no satisfaction at PayLess, which does use that model). I have, in fact, been told (almost in so many words) to go away, that doesn't come in a women's size, by shoe salesmen who saw me browsing. While I don't believe most of the paeans to capitalism or the market, I'm willing to give this a try: offer the merchants the chance to make money by selling what I want to buy, despite evidence that many would rather reinforce their gender bias and/or ideas of my and their gender identity.
A friend was wondering aloud about whether to try to take the (few but not clear how few) courses she would need to get a college degree, and about what if any social difference it would make. (Jobs aren't an issue in this case.) And I wrote :
I don't even know whether many of my friends have degrees. In some specific cases I know, either because they're doing work for which I know that a specific degree is a qualification (doctor, research biologist, my cousin the lawyer), or conversely because they mentioned that they didn't need a degree for a specific career path, or because we've talked about our pasts and the matter has come up, one way or another. It doesn't affect my opinion of their intelligence, knowledge outside specific narrow fields, or character.
It occurs to me that while I don't think any of my grandparents had college degrees, I don't actually know for sure. My family valued learning, and knew that the pieces of paper could be valuable in a variety of ways, but we also knew that they weren't the same thing.
You aren't looking for the sort of job where a degree is relevant. From what you posted here, you aren't looking at graduate or professional school. I guess it comes down to whether you'll feel better, worse, or neither for having checked the appropriate boxes for the shape of your education. (If neither, sure, look around and see if the set of classes you could take for this includes things you'd actually enjoy.) I occasionally think that if I could afford not to work, I might take some more college classes: not for paper qualifications, but because some interesting things are taught there.
I had far rather hang out with interesting people who know and want to talk about things—like you—that with someone who, in an online argument about conrunning, waves around his GRE score.
To
fastfwd, in response to a comment about her mother’s idea that the one helping has the upper hand and gets all the power:That's a tangle of helping and decision-making: especially when what the person being helped wants isn't possible, it can feel to them as though they're being pushed into doing what the helper wants. Meanwhile, what the helper wants is something unrelated: to have back the healthy, better balanced relative, to just go to the beach or a tea shop together for a few hours, not to have to do all this work, nor be told that nothing they do is ever enough.
I find it easier to ask for, and accept, help from people who I also help. Not in the same moment, but in the same relationship "now", not just long ago or in a vague and hypothetical future. (That "now" can be years ago if the relationship has been continuous, I think.) It doesn't sound as though anything like that is possible for your mother right now, unfortunately.
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