Fucking Fuck IX March 12, 2018 6:57 PM   Subscribe

The venting thread is dead, long live the venting thread.

House Republicans on the Intelligence committee announced today that "We have found no evidence of collusion, coordination, or conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russians.” So we've got that going for us, which is nice.

Please feel free to howl in anguish or share pictures of puppies eating ice cream as is appropriate for your current mental health needs.
posted by murphy slaw to MetaFilter-Related at 6:57 PM (365 comments total) 14 users marked this as a favorite

personally i'm trying real hard now not to concoct an escalating spiral of chained worst-case-scenarios about the Intelligence Committee report. if you have any optimism to spare, i could use a cup.
posted by murphy slaw at 6:59 PM on March 12, 2018 [3 favorites]


This is fine.
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 7:01 PM on March 12, 2018 [7 favorites]


Fucking FUCK!
posted by Windopaene at 7:03 PM on March 12, 2018 [2 favorites]


I'm starting to feel like I felt after election day in 2016. I'm looking at people suspiciously, wondering if they really know what's going on. This is not a good place to be at.
posted by mollweide at 7:04 PM on March 12, 2018 [4 favorites]


Fucking fucking fuck, I cannot get over that my father is dead and that corrupt bloviating asshole is still the President.

I need to yell at a priest.
posted by Archelaus at 7:06 PM on March 12, 2018 [10 favorites]


I received a "Trump Agenda Survey" in the mail from the RNC today (probably because I'm in a red state and have been mailing my representatives). This survey document informs me that it is "registered" specifically to me, and that it "must be accounted for during tabulation", and instructs me to "sign and return" even if I choose not to fill it out.

In addition, it's marked in giant red letters "OFFICIAL REPUBLICAN PARTY DOCUMENT - DO NOT DESTROY".

Unless I can solicit better ideas, I plan to cut out the "DO NOT DESTROY" part, shred the rest of the document, and mail it back to the fuckers.

Fuck.
posted by Room 101 at 7:06 PM on March 12, 2018 [16 favorites]


ajit pai’s sweaty nutsack
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 7:08 PM on March 12, 2018 [3 favorites]


I'm fucking hitting peak fat here. I'm fucking 5'4" and fatting out at 160. None of my pants fucking fit and I'm about to get into double fucking digit sizes. This is 35 fucking pounds heavier than I was 3 fucking years ago*. Am I doing anything the fuck about it? No. Cause I'm fucking lazy and I'm fucking smoking a bowl and watching fucking hockey because I love fucking hockey. At least I have a head of fucking cauliflower for when I get the fucking munchies later. I'm nearing fucking 42 and am fucking terrified of being one of those people who let herself fucking go. Oh, who the fuck am I kidding. I fucking did already.

*Fucking 20lbs of this showed the fuck up after I lost 2 dogs to fucking cancer withing 6 fucking weeks of each other last fucking fall.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 7:10 PM on March 12, 2018 [36 favorites]


I received a "Trump Agenda Survey" in the mail from the RNC today

Me too! I was wondering what to do with it, like is it even worth screaming into the void?
posted by corb at 7:10 PM on March 12, 2018 [2 favorites]


Mod note: One deleted - actual politics stuff can go in the politics thread, wailing and gnashing of teeth in here
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 7:14 PM on March 12, 2018 [8 favorites]


Fluttering hellfire, I am so fucking sorry.
posted by Space Kitty at 7:19 PM on March 12, 2018 [8 favorites]




I will say that this actually a good fucking hockey game we've been playing fucking halfway through the fucking first. Blues went off a fucking cliff midseason, but they seem to be doing pretty fucking well this game. We're fucking shooting and skating instead of fucking marshmallowing around on the ice.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 7:23 PM on March 12, 2018 [3 favorites]


[One deleted - actual politics stuff can go in the politics thread, wailing and gnashing of teeth in here]

Oh fucking fuck Fuck Thread where have you been all my life?!?! Fuck!

Anyway, fuck those idiots who currently are running the government into the fuckin ground.
posted by tivalasvegas at 7:24 PM on March 12, 2018 [4 favorites]


I'm starting to feel like I felt after election day in 2016. I'm looking at people suspiciously, wondering if they really know what's going on. This is not a good place to be at.

shortly after the election I remember getting off a commuter train at a town near my undisclosed location and pushing my way through the crowd of people and wondering if a year later whether we'd all be in uniforms and whether we'd all be shooting at each other, whether this commuter rail hub was going to be tactically valuable in a civil war.

During the airport protests I remember being near the front of a huge mass of chanting marching protestors, in the terrifying dead space of an American airport, a space where deliberate mass disruption felt far more threatening and real than the standard mass disruptions in the streets ever feel. And I remember a moment where it seemed like there was a chance we were about to become a human wave shoving our way past security and into the international terminal to liberate the folks sequestered inside, a chance we were about to use the sharpened sticks holding our signs as weapons against the police and ICE, a chance the shooting was about to start, and I quite distinctly remember thinking just:

ok.

Ok. this is how it starts. The times are here and the enemy is there and I'm ready. It's not how I pictured it, but let's go. Allons-y, y'all.

We didn't push past security — the people in front of me were less susceptible to mob-madness than I am — and the shooting didn't start, and people brought us pizzas and we sang and danced until 4:00 in the morning and eventually the folks held by the ICE fuckers were let out.

I do not feel that way now. Maybe if the orange shit, that great idiotic 21st century Paul von Hindenburg, dies of a ragestroke or otherwise kacks it and some more competent Hitler takes the reins, that's when I'll start feeling that way again.

Right now though, even as someone who's professionally paranoid, I don't feel anything but a mass sense of social tiredness. We're sick of it, we're scared of it, everyone's sick and scared of it, but I don't think we're going to start all killing each other wholesale this week or next week.

Which means that by the standards of our times, we're doing well.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 7:25 PM on March 12, 2018 [27 favorites]


It's all certainly much less epic and much more mundanely stupid than one expected a new fascism to be.

I suppose the old fascisms were similarly draining, we just looked at them with sepia tones before.
posted by tivalasvegas at 7:29 PM on March 12, 2018 [9 favorites]


(Was that a hopeful comment? It was trying real fucking hard to be a hopeful comment.)
posted by tivalasvegas at 7:31 PM on March 12, 2018 [4 favorites]


I hope so, RNTP, but in my darker times the relaxation of fear feels like normalization.
posted by mollweide at 7:34 PM on March 12, 2018 [1 favorite]


Oh wow, fuck this fucking quarter I just bought is fucking good.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 7:37 PM on March 12, 2018 [19 favorites]


God, I hope more than anything that this time in history becomes a wet fart nothing in the history of the US and the world. I hope the people in 2132 look at this period in time the same way that most people now look at the 1870's: "Wow, people sure did seem to be mad, the rulers were impressively corrupt, a couple small things happened but however bad that things seemed they were going to get, they eventually got better as rulership got gradually more and more liberalized due to pitchforks and consciousness-raising media. Things weren't fine and dandy, but there wasn't too much mass genocide and devastation."

Let the pendulum swing left and get caught.
posted by Philipschall at 7:39 PM on March 12, 2018 [18 favorites]


My ten year old son, when Trump is mentioned or shows up on TV or whatever, never fails to mention that Trump is a "bad guy". I never correct or redirect him. I mean, he should eventually move beyond the whole good guy / bad guy thing, but on the other hand, bad is as bad does. Our school district is very diverse, and I want him to know that if students start having to leave the country or face xenophobia, it's Trump's fucking fault and we're not going to put up with it.
posted by vverse23 at 7:44 PM on March 12, 2018 [9 favorites]


Fucking fuckity fucking fucksticks. Fuck. Fuuuuuuuuck!
posted by nubs at 7:51 PM on March 12, 2018


Let's get these motherfucking motherfuckers out of the motherfucking government NOW, motherfuckers!!!!
posted by Mental Wimp at 8:02 PM on March 12, 2018 [1 favorite]


fluttering hellfire, I'm also at peak fat after losing a beloved cat last summer and watching my grandma die slowly after a fall at home in December. She died a week ago today and most of the time I don't even really feel that sad about it because for one thing, at least she's not getting all bewildered by the daily news onslaught anymore, you know? And I'm not spending hours in the car or at her bedside every day, which means I'm not eating drive-through food every day, but I still have weed and carb-heavy snacks in my home so peak fat's probably here to stay for a while. Fuckity fuck, how the fuck am I supposed to give up bagels and cream cheese now, when I most need to eat my feelings?
posted by palomar at 8:12 PM on March 12, 2018 [11 favorites]


i just ate three different desserts and i'm not sorry
posted by murphy slaw at 8:14 PM on March 12, 2018 [14 favorites]


I, too, am fat as fuck!
posted by Don Pepino at 8:17 PM on March 12, 2018 [7 favorites]


fuck it, i'm putting on my dad slippers and going to motherfucking taco time
posted by palomar at 8:25 PM on March 12, 2018 [12 favorites]


Ontario what the fuckkkkkkkkkkkk
posted by quaking fajita at 8:31 PM on March 12, 2018 [6 favorites]


I am fucking frustrated as hell, but my little neighborhood action team knocked over 1000 doors this weekend, primarily in minority neighborhoods, and called another 500. We found a bunch more potential volunteers, and hopefully the next weekend will be bigger. We have a Supreme Court election here in Wisconsin in a few weeks, and it would be pretty sweet to get a statewide progressive win, with a 10 year term. This would make the court 4-3 instead of 5-2, and there is another election in 2019.

We are also learning how to do this stuff well so that we can really rock in October and November, and flip this fucking state.
posted by rockindata at 8:42 PM on March 12, 2018 [11 favorites]


ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff

i can't even. i actually just had a lovely week off and a very successful day with my Indivisible chapter and I still can't even.
posted by crush at 8:43 PM on March 12, 2018 [1 favorite]


I remember when my civilizational-collapse-paranoia lived in my head as a personal illness and had not yet suffused the world outside it. It's not rational but a small part of me feels responsible, as if by indulging my neuroses I had nurtured them until they grew too large for the damp darkness of my amygdala and escaped in the dead of night out my nose or ears as I ground my teeth through another anxiety dream. It's still in my head too, though, because I'm still grinding 'em, and worse than ever: my incisors are visibly smaller than they were 2 years ago.

I don't like how it's literally wearing pieces of my body away, how my white hairs are proliferating faster. I don't like how my grandmother died after all those months of staying alive for the express purpose of getting to see him kicked out of office. I don't like the voice-in-head that made me an insufferable crank who couldn't shut up about storms on the horizon and Nazis coming out of the woodwork and how we need to be thinking and planning and worrying hard about what to do in case he wins.

I don't like that the same voice is now telling me to be an even crankier insufferable crank, one who tells people to read Klemperer and Snyder and to watch arctic temperature anomalies and to either join urban resistance movements and prepare for some real shit or move to the woods and grow fucking beans. I think it's still mental illness and I hope that last time it was correct entirely by chance. I want it to be wrong and I want it to stay in my head. If it doesn't, I'm sorry.
posted by Rust Moranis at 8:43 PM on March 12, 2018 [18 favorites]


Ontario what the fuckkkkkkkkkkkk

Yeah, the PCs were very "hold my labatt's" about the Trump situation on your southern border
posted by tivalasvegas at 8:44 PM on March 12, 2018 [3 favorites]


(For those not keeping score on Ontario provincial politics, the conservatives just nominated Doug Ford, infamous brother of proto-Trumpist and onetime Mayor of Toronto Rob "Crackhead" Ford, as their leader.)

Fortunately he's facing a fairly competent and experienced centre-left female leader, Premier Kathleen Wynne, so don't worry everyone
posted by tivalasvegas at 8:47 PM on March 12, 2018 [6 favorites]


my fucks are not coherent, but they are here.
posted by corb at 8:52 PM on March 12, 2018 [3 favorites]


Mod note: Sorry, one deleted... Fully understandable where it's coming from but still, violent fantasies are sometimes not great for other people's mental health, and it's better to omit them in the name of looking out for each other.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 9:23 PM on March 12, 2018 [10 favorites]


6 firetrucks/ambulances/police cars just rushed down my street in rapid succession and I have no idea what has happened and can't get any news about it and I feel like that is how everything else has been as of late with everything else in the world
posted by Hermione Granger at 10:32 PM on March 12, 2018 [8 favorites]


This whole thing (Trump etc) freaks me out so much that I no longer follow US politics. I was so naive that I didn't believe this was possible anymore - I thought 2000+ years of implementing systems to ensure due process etc was enough. Now I know any fucking dystopian sci fi future is possible, and I have no clue why people in power are okay with this. It is so (globally) scary and I have no clue what anyone can do to deal with this madness, because truth, facts, reality, ethics, logic - none of them work. Writing letters, blog posts, documentaries, grass roots organisations - nope, nothing. My kids are on track to not reproduce and I am relieved. Sorry if this isn't the right type of freak out. I have chronic anxiety and I'm having a flare-up (unrelated to politics).
posted by b33j at 10:41 PM on March 12, 2018 [6 favorites]


I fucking lost it most recently when a relative on Facebook shared a link to some fuckin' PBS "are you living in a bubble" quiz. That's bad enough, but what tipped it over is how the article just breezily brings in and links with Charles Murray as an expert. Tra la la, here's Charles Murray to gently scold you, silly liberal!

I was having so many stupid arguments about The Bell Curve awhile ago that I went back to reread it and I am so goddamn fucking mad when people give that bag of shit a podium.
posted by fleacircus at 3:27 AM on March 13, 2018 [7 favorites]


vo-fucking-te
posted by chavenet at 3:43 AM on March 13, 2018 [1 favorite]


I too can't stop eating my feelings!

My kid (5) also never lets a mention of Trump go by without noting that he's a bad guy, so at least we're bringing the younglings up correctly. Soren Jr. is really obsessed right now with the Fluxx card games and likes to make his own versions. He was making a Fluxx based on people in his life and we had to tell him that it's not nice to say that people you know are Creepers (cards that prevent you from winning--in media tie-in versions they are represented by villains), and we forbade that. So he made a Donald Trump creeper card and we were like....yeah, that's legit.

I imagine tonight I'll do my usual election night (PA18, just across the river from me) freaking out, refreshing all the usual web pages and having flashbacks to 2016.

Fuck.
posted by soren_lorensen at 4:00 AM on March 13, 2018 [3 favorites]


I'm on fucking strike for the fourth fucking week and I want to go the fuck back to work. It's also fucking amazing how people have mobilised and stuck their necks way the fuck out in some cases. I'm fucking supportive of what we're doing and doing my best, but the whole fucking business is fraught and socially fucking weird in exactly the sort of ways that are a headfuck for me, and like even our friendly picket-line stuff is far the fuck away from my interpersonal comfort zone (which is fucking small). The whole unpleasantness seemed to be fucking worth it, until last fucking night our negotiators brought back from our fucking employers a deal that is shit in a variety of fucking ways and that could make all our fucking exhaustion worth less than fucking nothing and cause a repeat of this clusterfuck in a few years. (The union could still ultimately reject it, though, today, fucking hopefully.) I know this is small fucking potatoes compared to way more massive fucking bullshit in the world, but it is a big fucking deal for higher education in the UK and also for me, in being-able-to-stand-certain-aspects-of-my-otherwise-awesome-fucking-job terms.

Also fucking sleep-deprived and upper-respiratory-tract-infected.
posted by busted_crayons at 4:19 AM on March 13, 2018 [17 favorites]


Fuck, we're all revanchists now.
posted by klarck at 4:37 AM on March 13, 2018 [1 favorite]


I’m here now so the fuckpile just got ten fucks fuckier.
posted by um at 5:18 AM on March 13, 2018 [4 favorites]


(For those not keeping score on Ontario provincial politics, the conservatives just nominated Doug Ford, infamous brother of proto-Trumpist and onetime Mayor of Toronto Rob "Crackhead" Ford, as their leader.)

Anecdotally, I bump into tons of people in Southern/South-western Ontario (sigh, some of them are in-laws even), who think both the "Ford's" and Trump are great... even now.... (maybe some of the trade embargo crap will change their minds)

I mean, how can you trust Doug Ford when he outright lied about his brother's addiction(s) - so much so that Rob probably died because he wasn't getting timely medical/mental-health help...

(oh - and fuck fuck fuckity fuck fuck...)
posted by jkaczor at 6:39 AM on March 13, 2018 [4 favorites]


jointhedance, reporting for despair
posted by jointhedance at 6:41 AM on March 13, 2018 [9 favorites]


I've been playing lots of video games and reading lots of fantasy in the last 1.5 years.

I keep telling myself it's self-care but I'm also starting to feel as if my self-care is becoming a coping mechanism and that it's not healthy. That I'm using these distractions as a form of self-deception and distraction, because it's easier to play Mario Kart and live inside of a Lois McMaster Bujold novel than it is to pay attention to the news.

The only social media I now use on a regular basis is MetaFilter and Mastodon and I'm trying to just focus on things that interest me and to connect with other humans.

Politics can get fucked. Also, politics is fucking us. Fuckity fuck fuck fuck.
posted by Fizz at 6:46 AM on March 13, 2018 [7 favorites]


Hi. I'm on a 24 hour happiness binge because this morning I got the good news that George, the large angiomiolipoma that took out my left kidney, was fully benign. I'll return to full-on despair at the state of the world tomorrow morning.

Here is a puppy eating ice cream for all of you to replay over and over again as needed. Love you MeFites.
posted by romakimmy at 6:58 AM on March 13, 2018 [49 favorites]


I'm glad to hear that you're healthy romakimmy. That's such great news!! Rejoice and may you have all the puppies and ice-cream in the world videos. :D
posted by Fizz at 7:31 AM on March 13, 2018 [1 favorite]


I just learned from a comment by peeedro in the main US politics thread that we once had a secretary of state named Lawrence Eagleburger. So that's a positive.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 7:38 AM on March 13, 2018 [4 favorites]


Everybody in my social group has been so traumatized by the last couple years, it seems like maintaining friendships is getting harder and harder, and that I have a whole social group full of people with mental health issues who are just breaking down. There was one big meltdown in the past few weeks, but there's been other smaller ones, and nobody's managing the big one very well--the person who had the big one came back and wanted back into the group but has not apologized or spoken about the incident since, and is now treating everybody BUT me normally so they're hanging out with her again, but she still refuses to speak to me at all and everybody else is just treating this like it's fine. Which--they're still mostly spending more time with me than her, so I'm not feeling neglected or anything, I just feel like my whole social life is wired to a really unstable bomb. And I'm supposed to be the token functional person, they aren't supposed to need to worry about if I'm okay.

All of this comes at a time when I've been wanting to ask someone in this group out, and now I'm afraid that this whole social dynamic is too fragile to possibly consider introducing some new social instability to by actually saying something. So, apparently now I'm just the person who lays in bed staring at my phone until 1am trying to figure out the deeper meaning of emoji and refusing to use mouth words to solve problems.

I am not being helped by the fact that my physical activity level has now dropped to basically-nothing, because I messed up my foot and I'm now in a boot for the next few weeks, so my old coping skill of "just go spend awhile on the bike" is no longer an option. I've also had to cut my caffeine consumption way back, which I was using for my ADD, so I'm a scattered mess. Just a few more weeks, at least.
posted by Sequence at 7:40 AM on March 13, 2018 [5 favorites]


Right about now my dad is looking down from purgatory and shouting "GIRLS! GIRLS! WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON DOWN THERE? WHY DO ALL OF THESE RUSSIAN DISSIDENTS KEEP ARRIVING? I CAN'T SEE ANYTHING AND I HAVE NO BARS!"

Going to go eat my feelings in the form of a scone with jam (alas, no clotted cream DAMMIT) and do some deep breathing exercises or something.
posted by Soliloquy at 7:42 AM on March 13, 2018 [3 favorites]


Just saw the news about Tillerson getting the axe: Fucking fuck! What the hell! Making vow to myself now to ignore the news cycle for a bit and get back to doing something creative in my spare time.

romakitty, that is awesome news.
posted by nubs at 7:44 AM on March 13, 2018 [2 favorites]


Hello from England, where our Prime Minister has given Russia until midnight to explain how one of their retired agents and his daughter were the subject of an assassination attempt in an English city, the results of which are them and a policeman seriously ill in hospital, and several hundred people who used the same restaurant and pub told to wash/clean whatever clothes and possessions they had. If they can figure out the best Tide Pod or equivalent and washing temperature to get nerve agent out of their clothes.

Russia's response so far has been.

So, in the extremely likely scenario that Russia do not admit and say "Oops, sorry", Theresa has boxed herself in to start what will probably be an escalating tit-for-tat series of measures, and who knows where that will lead.

Also, Brexit. But yeah; a restaurant I was in some time back was contaminated with nerve agent.

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU...
posted by Wordshore at 7:55 AM on March 13, 2018 [13 favorites]


The Tillerson thing is just another example of how our collective ideas about basic continuity and professionalism in government have been completely obliterated and it no longer matters to many Americans whether we have an intact, working government.

Basically what I am saying is: invest in whiskey. Do so by buying stocks in distilleries if you can afford it. Do so by buying bottles and chugging them like Snuffy Smith on a fucking bender if you cannot.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:56 AM on March 13, 2018 [4 favorites]


Vodka, surely
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 8:11 AM on March 13, 2018 [2 favorites]


And I'm supposed to be the token functional person, they aren't supposed to need to worry about if I'm okay.

I hear you. I so hear you. But it's okay not to be okay.
posted by joycehealy at 8:16 AM on March 13, 2018 [3 favorites]


Everybody in my social group has been so traumatized by the last couple years

Yeah, this. I’m noticing this among my friend group as well - everything is falling apart and I’m trying to hold it together but give in to despair sometimes.
posted by corb at 8:17 AM on March 13, 2018 [4 favorites]


I'm curious: how many of you have gained weight since Trump was elected? Mine (40lbs) is a mixture of cortisol from the ongoing crises of him even existing and croissants (preferred comfort food). I now have high cholesterol. My doctor is 75% ok with me blaming it on the current administration.
posted by Hermione Granger at 8:17 AM on March 13, 2018 [12 favorites]


One reason I am fat and getting fatter is, I have some kind of foul lung ailment, and I discovered that a comforting thing to do is stop reading about Trump and take a brandy snifter and throw pisco in the bottom of it and eat a piece of durian hard candy while sipping pisco in front of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.
posted by Don Pepino at 8:24 AM on March 13, 2018 [1 favorite]


i have for sure discovered that my previous regimen of psychiatric meds was insufficient for the new world order. i'm on two meds instead of one and i'm taking twice as much of the old one and i'm still just barely holding it together.

it does not help that i got sober during election season 2016, i can tell you. there have been many days when i have had to talk myself down from running to the store for a fifth of jameson.

fortunately, i work from home and going to the store would involve putting real pants on.
posted by murphy slaw at 8:32 AM on March 13, 2018 [8 favorites]


I have, due to depression, not working, and psych meds. But I'm sure the stress and cortisol isn't helping either. I'm about 40 lbs (not as much as it sounds, I'm currently a 16 and my clothes are 12s) away from most of my clothes fitting, which is utterly distressing. I know it's vain and silly but I feel so much better about myself when I can wear my pretty clothes and look nice. And at least half of these pounds are due to Trump.
posted by elsietheeel at 8:33 AM on March 13, 2018 [4 favorites]


yesterday was Herbert's birthday. he is pretty concerned about the state of the world (also he would like some ice cream too)
posted by supermedusa at 8:33 AM on March 13, 2018


The people I'm most pissed off at this week are Jeff Flake and John McCain. If one of them, just one of them, had listened to their constituents' pleas and voted "no" on Betsy DeVos, she'd be far away on a compound in Holland ordering the servants around instead of inflicting horrors on the nation's school children. Fuck them all sideways.

And yeah, I've gained probably 10 pounds since 45 was elected.
posted by holborne at 8:34 AM on March 13, 2018 [3 favorites]


TFW when you have to go to a work event with the worst human beings alive.

Context for non-sportsballers: that is AL MVP Jose Altuve visiting the White house with the Astros as part of their 2017 World Series victory lap. He does not seem to be on board the Trump train. Not even a little.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:41 AM on March 13, 2018 [6 favorites]


Yeah, I'm up about 30lbs total and some days I'm really not okay with that but I'm also at risk for an ED relapse so--what's a middle ground, anyway? The part that bugs me more than the weight itself is that my restaurant budget is running about $500/mo now that I should be spending on other things, but if I don't pay other people to feed me, I don't eat.

Also, man, stopping the painkillers after my foot injury was one of the hardest things I've ever done, because those few days on Tramadol were the happiest I've been in months, though obviously for all the wrong reasons. Also, holy fuck is that a nice/scary thing to be taking when you're spending a lot of time hanging out online watching TV with the person you like but have not yet told you like. Felt amazing, but all one-sided amazing. I think at least I was funny. But now I'm back to having to plod through my days sober.
posted by Sequence at 8:42 AM on March 13, 2018 [5 favorites]


So, in the extremely likely scenario that Russia do not admit and say "Oops, sorry", Theresa has boxed herself in to start what will probably be an escalating tit-for-tat series of measures, and who knows where that will lead.

Nowhere good; at the same time, you can't let things happen without a response of some kind. Whither NATO?

I can't believe that I've gone from worrying about a war on the Korean peninsula to worrying about rising tensions in Europe in the space of like 3 weeks.
posted by nubs at 8:47 AM on March 13, 2018 [1 favorite]


i don't have anything to stress-eat, and i'm too busy to go and get anything to stress-eat because i haven't even started my work for the day because i'm too stressed out
you'd think i'd know better by now and would have started just toting a sackful of carbs around with me at all times
posted by halation at 9:06 AM on March 13, 2018 [1 favorite]


Has someone already linked to this NYT piece about a man who has made it his mission to learn nothing about the US after election day 2016? Even his sister points out in the article, "That’s a privilege. We all would like to construct our dream worlds. Erik is just more able to do it than others."
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:14 AM on March 13, 2018 [4 favorites]


That should be an FPP, DOT.
posted by mochapickle at 9:16 AM on March 13, 2018


It was already.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 9:17 AM on March 13, 2018 [4 favorites]


I’m in my cold dark bed in Sydney. It’s three thirty in the morning and because it’s only just stopped sweltering I have no electric blanket or doona. I am in bed. Under a Mefi quilt and frozen. Which means I now need to do a wee again and I’m tired and cold and fucking fuckery fuck sticks fuckoffistan I want to pee in bed because Russia. And an old cold fucking bladder.

Fuck everything and the ureter they rode in on. Fuckers.
posted by taff at 9:28 AM on March 13, 2018 [1 favorite]


I lost weight after the election. Muscle. Depressed inactivity.

This winter somebody tipped me with a Cuban cigar. No! Smell it. I enjoyed it then started smoking in earnest again and put those pounds back on. People started telling me I looked well. I started drinking with them and now I can once again rip a rotten fence post out of the ground. Back at fighting weight.

The kids started going deep again with their conversation topics. That is the best indicator that I am my best self and if it takes some self-destruction, so it goes.

YMMV, but I am what I am. Fuck. At least we eat healthy and well and the kids say Fuck appropriately. And they've much to say Fuck about.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 9:37 AM on March 13, 2018 [5 favorites]


I'm curious: how many of you have gained weight since Trump was elected?

I gained about 12 lbs, not a super significant amount but enough that I noticed because my weight had been the same for several years. I've started to make some better food choices and to not use food as my go to crutch when I'm overwhelmed. But I get it, it's hard and comfort foods are called comfort foods for a reason.
posted by Fizz at 9:41 AM on March 13, 2018 [1 favorite]


are there any theoretical physicists in the house who can speculate on what happens when the news cycle gets shorter than the Planck Time

how is it only tuesday
posted by murphy slaw at 9:49 AM on March 13, 2018 [5 favorites]


Been way too busy to break down recently. I now own a crowbar. We no longer have a bathroom floor (it was laminate). Floorboards still need to come up (buying some more tools tomorrow), and then just gotta hope the busted pipe is under there and accessible. Otherwise we've got to clear the attic bedroom - where all the things got put when the leak happened - and take the floor up there as well. Which would give us precisely zero rooms with a dry bed (or space for one) and nowhere with floors except the kitchen. Oh, and all the rooms in the house except the attic bedroom have huge dehumidifiers and fans running 24/7 right now, so it'd be back to couch surfing, which I absolutely hate, and we're running out of hospitality to lean on.

At least I'm learning a load of DIY. :|
posted by Dysk at 10:42 AM on March 13, 2018 [6 favorites]


Me, an hour ago: Well, the one thing about Tillerson being ousted is that maybe he'll be replaced by someone who is less of a pustulant shit weasel and more of a middling bureaucrat, some toothless also-ran who's taking the job because they're shocked to be offered it at all, not because they have pressing plans to try to fuck up some critical aspect of the nation...

News: Pompey to replace Tillerson...

Me: Pustulant shit weasel it is.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:48 AM on March 13, 2018 [2 favorites]


This administration is going to be the literal actual end of me because it's only a matter of time until they find out how much I am costing Medicare and start to defund my care.

I'm especially super mad about this because instead of a well deserved rest in peace, I'll have to revenge myself by spending the rest of eternity haunting the Trump Tower bathrooms like Moaning Mochapickle, suspended for all time in a whirl of flushing noises and gaudy brass.
posted by mochapickle at 11:12 AM on March 13, 2018 [10 favorites]


Oh RedMaggie @ NYT you will learn that leopards eat Trump whisperer faces.
posted by jointhedance at 11:23 AM on March 13, 2018


Hi, I've never participated in a Fucking Fuck thread before, but seriously, I have work to do and what the FUCK is going on around here I can't FUCKING CONCENTRATE with all this INSANE NEWS AAAARGG
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 12:08 PM on March 13, 2018 [4 favorites]


It is bizarre, like I should be way more worried about my blown gasket and whether or not I will have the money to repair it, but instead I'm just worrying about our upcoming world wars yep this is normal totally normal.
posted by corb at 12:29 PM on March 13, 2018 [4 favorites]


THIS FUCKING MONTH SO FAR.
Mom had a heart attack (and continued grocery shopping during it) 2 weeks ago which was rough but she's ok and very very lucky it wasn't worse. While we were en route to the hospital my son phoned us in a panic because the dog got sprayed by a skunk in the backyard and he didn't know what to do (liquid Dawn soap, hydrogen peroxide & baking soda, FYI.) Earlier the same day a bottle of water opened in my wife's purse and drenched her phone so we were dealing with everything on mine.

Turns out the excruciating pain I get from moving my arm a certain way is the fun-sounding adhesive capsulitis or "frozen shoulder," and week 2 of physiotherapy has had zero results so far; the un-encouraging consensus from non-physiotherapists seems to be that it's something that eventually "just goes away on its own."

Today is day 9 of not drinking beer so that fucking sucks.

I have to do a thing on stage in a week which I'm terrified of but I'm forcing myself so that's a thing.

Why do I keep logging on to Twitter every morning when it instantly ruins my day and makes me sad.
posted by chococat at 12:35 PM on March 13, 2018 [4 favorites]


chococat I had pre-frozen shoulder one time and I went to a deep tissue massage for a bunch of very intense sessions. it worked the problem out and I've never had a twinge since then. you want someone who can really dig in under your shoulder blade. its exquisitely painful :)
posted by supermedusa at 1:00 PM on March 13, 2018 [1 favorite]


I'd like Tillerson to be replaced by Ellen Pompeo, except that would be mean to Ellen Pompeo.
posted by ZeusHumms at 1:01 PM on March 13, 2018 [2 favorites]


I’ve shifted my volunteer efforts from things that help the world to things that might put me in the path of people who could immediately hire me. I am simultaneously demoralized and reinvigorated.

I also committed to reading more fiction this year and posted an NYC IRL suggestion for a book group, because reading and talking about reading helps the world. So I can keep building in person connections to people and not feel totally self serving every time I reach escape velocity from my bed.

Which reminds me. I have an hour and a half to shower, dress, and get to the venue for tonight’s volunteer thing. I will not be getting to the laundry mat today after all.

As for politics...fucking fuck. I have been avoiding the politics thread for a few days. I think I will avoid it for a few more days.
posted by bilabial at 1:10 PM on March 13, 2018 [4 favorites]

corb: “[…]I'm just worrying about our upcoming world wars[…][.]”
Same, but with the added dread of hearing the locals ride around on their four-wheelers shooting up the woods on the next piece over and wondering if they're just having some backwoods fun or are practicing for a massacre of people deemed not sufficiently "American" which likely includes me and mine.
posted by ob1quixote at 1:20 PM on March 13, 2018 [3 favorites]


My friend's arm lift surgery went well, but her resultant immobility means I've been doing nearly everything for her for the last couple of weeks and I am fuckin' tired. Another friend shared that her husband wants to be a gun owner again; they live in a big city, work in the public school system, and have teen kids at home. My mom's scan revealed a gallstone issue and a nodule on an adrenal gland, so she will need surgery and will be hurt if I don't offer to travel and nurse her after. (Note: I am not a nurse, nor do I play one on TV.) My own scheduled scan, in two days, will likely show a fresh crop of fucking uterine growths. Though they've all been benign thus far, this will trigger yet another delightful hysterectomy debate with the docs.

My fucking insomnia may have met its doom: nightly mirtazapine.

Single pro -- Sometimes five hours of sleep! In a row! Effect kicked in six weeks after starting it, and the novelty has not worn off.

Cons -- Frequent dystopian nightmares, lots of running and hiding. Last night I was fighting a state-mandated vaccine, because no one would say what it was for beyond 'citizen safety.' (IRL I am pro-vaccination, so dream-me was pretty agitated.) Eventually I'm in the designated medical facility, and the room slowly filled with famous people, each holding a syringe. Someone got close enough and I hooked my fingers into a gap near their eye, prising off their mask and revealing a horror show. Someone else laughed and said, It's doesn't matter what we call ourselves, we're always doing the same thing. Woke up in a sweaty, full-body clench.

-- Mirtazapine is an older tetracyclic antidepressant, known for causing weight gain even at its lowest therapeutic dose (15mg). At half that, I've gained 15lbs in four months.

-- Can't tell if mirtazapine is causing a flattening affect, as I experienced years ago with other antidepressants, or if it's just par for this hellish course.
posted by Iris Gambol at 1:27 PM on March 13, 2018 [1 favorite]


On reread - my friend's husband says he wants the gun for hunting. He's an avid fisherman, but the only "hunting" he's done is a weekend jaunt to the place where you select your pig and then your selection is set loose in some tiny landscape where you can't miss your shot. And those types of outfits are happy to rent you a gun.
posted by Iris Gambol at 1:35 PM on March 13, 2018


Aside from the shitty scary politics, I've had a terrible year.

I found out my dad was in very bad shape, health-wise, last Spring. I felt guilty for avoiding him during the election year because of his politics. Then spent several months dealing with his health issues, before he died in August. Right when he died, we found out my BIL's cancer had spread and he had a brain tumor, he died Halloween. Then a dear friend died unexpectedly in December. She had cancer, but died of another health issue.

Mr Sunny is executor of his brothers estate, and so is dealing with all of that, plus mourning. I feel like he needs more support from me, but being busy has helped him cope somewhat.

Fuckity fuckstockings! Or to quote my late dad, "I'm so mad I could eat a banana!", which always cheers me up a bit.
posted by annsunny at 1:51 PM on March 13, 2018 [7 favorites]


(For those not keeping score on Ontario provincial politics, the conservatives just nominated Doug Ford, infamous brother of proto-Trumpist and onetime Mayor of Toronto Rob "Crackhead" Ford, as their leader.)

For those lucky enough to be unfamiliar with DoFo, here is a John Oliver primer (from when Rob ducked out of his 2014 reelection bid and Doug tagged in).

I briefly pondered an FPP when Ford won the leadership of the Tory party last weekend. I have more than once alluded to Rob as the prototype Trump, but Doug won the election over Christine Elliott, a far more experienced and intelligent woman with over a decade's worth of political experience. DoFo came in second in the popular vote and also won fewer ridings than Elliott did, but won on "points" -- the Progressive Conservative Party's "electoral college" if you will. Strangely familiar, that.

In this June's general election, Ford will presumably face incumbent premier Kathleen Wynne. Wynne leads the Liberal Party, which is dogged by scandal and lagging in the polls, but she was in this situation in the last election, which boosted the Liberals from a minority government to a majority one.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 2:36 PM on March 13, 2018 [4 favorites]


okay what in the actual fuck i step out briefly to get a packet of overpriced pretzels and in the time i am gone we suddenly announce... Space Force?

SPACE FORCE.

i'm done
posted by halation at 2:40 PM on March 13, 2018 [9 favorites]


Okay! I took one look at the SPACE FORCE thing and I'm back in this thread for the second time today. I guess it's a good thing that a ventilator is doing my breathing for me because otherwise I would be hyperventilating right now at the SHEER MIND NUMBING STUPIDITY of it all.

I wonder what enemy we're fighting up there? Which planets are we training our laser beams on? Maybe NASA could develop me an exoskeleton with a brain interface so I could fulfill the coming Medicaid work requirements by joining the SPACE FORCE?
posted by Soliloquy at 3:11 PM on March 13, 2018 [2 favorites]


We're totally fudged. Everything is fudged up. The fudging fudgers have us where they want us and they're totally going to fudge us royally. Fortunately, I really like chocolate. They fudged with the wrong motherfudger. I believe I can eat our way out of this, and I have the broken bathroom scale to prove it.
posted by Stanczyk at 3:20 PM on March 13, 2018 [4 favorites]


I'm trying to support my mother after the loss of her husband to cancer in January (eight months after diagnosis). She's having a very difficult time. The Christmas tree is still up because they had a tradition of exchanging (quirky) ornaments each year and decorating the tree, and she can't bear to put those reminders away. She has much financial paperwork to do, and the combination of age and grief have made her forgetful and uncertain. She's been irritable and we've bickered, which I feel terrible about afterward. There's only so much I can do, and it's not enough.

I had a kidney stone a month ago. That was a whole lot of fun.

It's fucking ridiculous, but true, that I'm going out of town to a wedding later this month and there is no one I can ask to feed my cat. So it's feeding her and flying out one day, dry food and water left for the following day, and returning home the next.

I need to smash bottles with a hammer or something. Primal scream, maybe.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 3:35 PM on March 13, 2018 [1 favorite]


this close to running around my neighborhood in bare feet and pajamas, grabbing people by the shoulders and yelling “have you heard the GOOD NEWS about SPACE FORCE”
posted by murphy slaw at 3:49 PM on March 13, 2018 [9 favorites]


Both my wife and I are stressed out about scientific research (and we don't need to be! We have funding! We're in labs that value our work! We have plenty of publications as postdocs and more in the pipeline!) and about life in general, but it's been impacting our sleep and work/life balance... but we're happy and coping. We got through grad school, we can get through this.

We're currently both home for a snow day, so I decided to do a shitload of cooking and baking. Which may have resulted in an attempted pie crust getting thrown on the kitchen floor in the midst of a fusillade of cursing when it didn't want to come off the parchment, but I dug up some premade puff pastry and made a pie with that, so it's all good in the end.

But yeah, fucking fuck.
posted by Making You Bored For Science at 4:07 PM on March 13, 2018 [4 favorites]


Vodka, surely
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94


Fucking right. Actually right fucking now. A dirty martini is medicinal, two are marvelous.

And don't call me Shirley.
posted by Splunge at 4:12 PM on March 13, 2018


I really hope there's some Steve fucking Kornacki on MSNBC tonight. He's a bucket of fucking fun.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 4:19 PM on March 13, 2018


So is this where we follow the results from Penn in realtime? And make jokes and drink? I WANNA FUZE WITH HIVEMIND
posted by vrakatar at 4:28 PM on March 13, 2018


We can all go to chat!
posted by fluttering hellfire at 4:31 PM on March 13, 2018 [1 favorite]


I'm with cheap pretzels (from PA) and Scotch.
Awaiting results from my first texting
posted by MtDewd at 5:14 PM on March 13, 2018


I'm really fucking angry and resentful and bitter about a job situation that I've been stuck in for 9 months. I had two long conversations today with coworkers which were kind of nice because they validated all the reasons why I'm angry and resentful about it, except they also validated all the reasons why I'm angry and resentful and that's making it harder for me to suppress those feelings and keep working. So fuck all this shit.
posted by gingerbeer at 6:48 PM on March 13, 2018 [4 favorites]


chococat: I have to do a thing on stage in a week which I'm terrified of but I'm forcing myself so that's a thing.

Just know that you'll have some people there who enjoy and appreciate your music. Looking forward to it and you'll be great!
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:41 PM on March 13, 2018 [1 favorite]


Guys. Space Force. What. The. Fuck. I want to just lay down for a bit and have someone wake me when it’s all over.
posted by PorcineWithMe at 7:44 PM on March 13, 2018 [5 favorites]


Would it be too much to ask that, in a thread that is supposed to allow us all to come in and have, as Ivan Fyodorovich put it, a primal scream in order to release some of the ridiculous hell-poison we're all living with every day-- is it too much to ask that we not be met with people comparing how much weight they've gained and how much they hate that oh no they used to be 5'9" and 110 pounds but now they're 120 pounds and their lives are RUINED I SAY RUINED I WILL COLLAPSE FROM MY OWN MORTIFICATION which is just a giant, body-shaming slap in the face to people who have had ongoing weight issues? Because thanks very much for making me feel like total piece of shit in a thread where the goal is the opposite of that. Oh no, you've gained two sizes? BE GODDAMNED GRATEFUL THAT YOU CAN FIND CLOTHES IN YOUR NEW SIZE. AND IN REGULAR STORES, TOO, SO YOU DON'T HAVE TO SHOP WITH US DISGUSTING FAT PEOPLE.

FUCK.
posted by tzikeh at 9:26 PM on March 13, 2018 [11 favorites]


Stephen Hawking passed away today :-(.

Fuck Space Force - it’s such a small minded view on what we can do in the Universe and it makes me sad that my children may grow up with the militarization of space
posted by inflatablekiwi at 9:38 PM on March 13, 2018


SPACE FORCE ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME FUCKING HAWKING RADIATION FROM HIS SPINNING CORPSE FRAME DRAGGING ALL THE WAY TO THE FUCKING GRAVE WHAT THE SHITFUCKING HELLSHITS IS THIS UNRELENTING CRAP!?

ARGH. WHAT? FUCK? FUCK. FUCKITY FUCKING FUCKERY FUCKSTICKS.

Oh, well, I know I'm doing something right when I'm looking forward to seeing my therapist to show her how good I'm doing, we have a nice chat about how swell everything basically is with what I'm doing right now, and it seems like I left her in a better mood than I found her.
posted by loquacious at 9:48 PM on March 13, 2018 [1 favorite]


whoa why did it get really mean in here in the past 30 minutes?

I'm doing fine, but I just learned about this space force horsehockey in this thread and it's so remarkably dumb and senile even for our current toddler in chief that I just needed to do a bit of swearing. I think the combination of this incredible dumbness combined with Hawking passing is just, well, making a lot of folks want to throw up and/or maybe skip lunch.

Idiocracy just isn't funny any more.
posted by loquacious at 10:23 PM on March 13, 2018


Question: is it better to flag your own comment or email the mods directly when you think you've overreacted and you want to say, "Hey, if you delete that comment I won't be offended"?

May Stephen Hawking's curse remain upon the Trump Space Force both now and forever more.
posted by Salieri at 10:25 PM on March 13, 2018 [1 favorite]


I’ve flagged myself before when I’ve said something awful and the mods mercifully deleted it.
posted by mochapickle at 10:34 PM on March 13, 2018


I usually only flag myself in private.
posted by loquacious at 11:13 PM on March 13, 2018 [5 favorites]


More seriously, I use the contact link at the bottom, include my email address, then link to what I want deleted. This is usually the fastest, clearest way for getting one of your own wayward comments deleted.
posted by loquacious at 11:14 PM on March 13, 2018 [1 favorite]


About 14 hours ago in this thread:

are there any theoretical physicists in the house who can speculate on what happens when the news cycle gets shorter than the Planck Time

Well, there's one fewer now.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 11:49 PM on March 13, 2018 [3 favorites]


You people think you're fat? I'm at 345 and it sucks.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 11:49 PM on March 13, 2018 [1 favorite]


Both my wife and I are stressed out about scientific research (and we don't need to be! We have funding! We're in labs that value our work! We have plenty of publications as postdocs and more in the pipeline!)

Oh that reminds me, I am stressed the fuck out about my fucking scientific research because I am going on the fucking market this coming cycle and I don't have plenty of fucking publications and I have been in a postdoc for four and a half fucking years.

Also I have a fucking cold and I have to fucking present tomorrow and I want to stay in fucking bed forever.

(Not trying to out-misery you, sorry, just venting!)
posted by en forme de poire at 11:57 PM on March 13, 2018 [3 favorites]


Fuck, fuck, FUCK!

The last two years have been shitty beyond belief. A, not small, part of it to do with the madness in US politics. Watching and experiencing the divisiveness and hate-driven ideologies take hold over the last twenty years (experienced on multiple trips back for work and family), resulting in this shit stain of a Federal administration.

Australia politics is little better these days. Dealing with PTSD-like emotions from my teen and early adult life, while the Marriage Equality rightwing hate-fest, postal survey was going on. Australia's horrible human rights abuses against refugees from non-white countries. And now this from our resident racist fuckwit minister, Peter Dutton, declaring white South African farmers deserve special protection and immigration protections.

Then there's been my health. My chronic condition has been in a, pretty much, constant flare for the last 15 months. I don't doubt that the externalities noted above have contributed. Stress is not a good thing for good physical well being. But that's resulted in navigating a complex process within Australia's single-payer system, staying on a biologic while trying to transfer to another that had been more effective in the past. All the while dealing with raging systemic inflammation and a whole bunch of other stuff. And, pneumonia, two months of pneumonia. Did I mention I'm also depressed?

So a shit ton of corticoid-steroids and opiates over the last 7-9 months to manage basic functioning and try to get ahead of my condition. I don't want to fat-shame. I've been on low dose steroids for many years and avoided most of the side effects. But this time, I'm sure in combination with the socio-political climate, it's hit me really hard. I've picked up 30-50kgs in the last 9 months. I don't know exactly because I haven't weighed myself. I've also lost control of my autonomic sweat reaction. I'll soak myself within minutes after very limited activity. It's been developing for many years, but it's now full bore. So social interactions are almost completely off the table, with a few excepts. I still cook for the family, but will go through several T-shirts and dish towels to manage the sweat.

For convenience's sake, I'll blame Trump and Turnbull/Abbott for all of this. If only because if their respective governments and parties are struck from history, I'd feel somewhat better. On a positive note, my two Maine Coon kittens are growing into themselves and beginning to train me nicely.

I miss Obama. I miss my old self. It was a huge thing when I lost my health eight years ago. This is bigger, much bigger.

Fuck this timeline.
posted by michswiss at 5:39 AM on March 14, 2018 [3 favorites]


Maine Coons are the best, michswiss. Mine passed away like ten years ago and, to my delight, still visits me in my dreams now and then. Hug yours for me.
posted by CheesesOfBrazil at 6:03 AM on March 14, 2018 [1 favorite]


i am in a generally bad place and i need somebody to talk me out of eating an entire pie for dinner for pi day thanks in advance
posted by entropicamericana at 7:59 AM on March 14, 2018


i wish i could help you but now i'm going to eat an entire pie for dinner for pi day, thanks for the idea
posted by murphy slaw at 8:05 AM on March 14, 2018 [9 favorites]


I ate pie for breakfast, and will probably eat pie after dinner.

If you want to cut out the intermediate meals, do so with my blessing, for lo, it is Pi Day and we eat Pie in celebration! Everyone who wants should eat some fucking pie, because it helps with this fucking world.
posted by Making You Bored For Science at 8:33 AM on March 14, 2018 [2 favorites]


okay so:

dutch apple?
double cream blueberry?
pepperoni pizza?
all of the above?
posted by entropicamericana at 9:52 AM on March 14, 2018 [1 favorite]


i mean if you're going to make us choose for you i vote dutch apple but D) is clearly the best of the options
posted by halation at 10:25 AM on March 14, 2018


PSA: Cheesecake is technically a pie, so you are well within your rights to eat cheesecake on pi day, should you so desire.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 10:27 AM on March 14, 2018 [2 favorites]


i... i love you.
posted by entropicamericana at 10:36 AM on March 14, 2018 [4 favorites]


Turns out there's no treatment for my hand tremors. The good news is they MIGHT not get worse.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 10:40 AM on March 14, 2018 [1 favorite]


Dutch Apple
posted by fluttering hellfire at 12:05 PM on March 14, 2018


My mother (consumes only Fox News [2+ hours a day of the opinion shows], Daily Mail Online, and alt-right fake news accounts on Instagram; no brain-eating occurred, she's just always been this way) has just informed me that:

- the students doing the walk-out report that they were forced by their schools into doing it
- "they say it's about the victims" but all they talk about is gun control, they're not talking about those poor kids who died, and if you look at their social media, they never actually do
- "they're arresting any students with NRA shirts"

A couple weeks ago, Sunday family dinner featured my parents talking about how selfish the Parkland students were, calling for boycotts and not thinking of the people who work for those companies who might lose their jobs, and how the students don't care about the victims, they only care about themselves and gun control.

I feel like I've lost track of what "selfish" means.

I despair so much that there's no bridging this disconnect. And since the election, I made the commitment to focus my efforts not on attempts at conversion (I stand no chance against hours of daily consumption of media that tells their audience they're smart and free-thinking for hating who they hate, that anyone to the left of Paul Ryan wants to spitefully destroy all they hold dear) but on positive and progressive work. But sometimes I have to vent, because some of my loved ones are living in some impenetrable hellscape that is fighting to colonize reality for the rest of us. (Okay, all that I hold dear.)

Hence this comment.

Fucking fuck FUCK.
posted by mixedmetaphors at 1:54 PM on March 14, 2018 [13 favorites]


Today, despite rationally knowing it was completely false, got so stuck with the intrusive thought that I'd left the stove on this morning that I had to leave work early, and I drove the whole way home unable to get the thought out of my head that I'd killed my cats. It was just playing on repeat, so loud I couldn't think anything else, no matter how many times I reminded myself that I'd definitely been done eating by 7:30 and I didn't leave until 8:15 and if I'd left the oatmeal pan on the burner I would have noticed before I left. I knew it wasn't happening, but I couldn't do anything else until I'd seen it with my eyes, and of course I live half an hour from work so I couldn't just quick swing home.

The cats are fine. This is probably PMS. I hope. If it lasts more than a couple days I'm going to make a psych appointment. But my god, brain, have we not been through enough already, do I need this now. I promptly drowned myself in sugar, and now, feeling slightly improved, I'm going to go lay down and hope my head behaves after a nap.
posted by Sequence at 5:04 PM on March 14, 2018 [4 favorites]


I've been stuck in an anxiety loop for the past few days, which happens when I get stuck in bed, which happened because of a storm-induced migraine. The timing of this anxiety loop is especially bad because my dog goes in for surgery tomorrow. So in between arguing with people on the internet today, I've randomly started crying because I start thinking that my dog is going to die in surgery, and let me tell you, that does not help my head at all. Neither do the idiots on the internet for that matter. I've taken a mg of Klonopin to try to help me relax so I can go to bed because I have to be up at ass o'clock in the morning to drive the dog to Walpole before I go to work, but it hasn't seemed to have kicked in yet. Also today, I realized that I have to host seder and that's two weeks away. The mister is spending half that time away on business AND there's rumors of another damn snow storm next week and what the fuck the sump pump hasn't even managed to break a minute between cycles in the past two weeks, fuck.
posted by Ruki at 6:52 PM on March 14, 2018 [2 favorites]


I've taken a mg of Klonopin to try to help me relax

I read that as "a mug of Klonopin" and looked at the time stamp on your comment and got VERY WORRIED for about a second until I figured it out.

Good thoughts for your dog and your seder.
posted by tzikeh at 6:56 AM on March 15, 2018 [6 favorites]


nothing like a steaming mug of klonopin to start off another day in this hellish pressure cooker we call america
posted by murphy slaw at 8:07 AM on March 15, 2018 [11 favorites]


I think I was six years old before I got the whole mug/milligram thing sorted out in my head! When I took children's antibiotics, they were in liquid form so a mug didn't seem that weird. But I always wondered how they got those mugs of tar into Mom's and Dad's cigarettes!
posted by The Underpants Monster at 8:45 AM on March 15, 2018 [2 favorites]


It's fucking ridiculous, but true, that I'm going out of town to a wedding later this month and there is no one I can ask to feed my cat. So it's feeding her and flying out one day, dry food and water left for the following day, and returning home the next.

Maybe we're bad cat parents but we've left ours alone for long weekends many times with just big bowls of food and water. If we leave for a week, we'll have someone replenish the stocks halfway through the week but no one really watches them. Cats are pretty self-sufficient.
posted by octothorpe at 10:00 AM on March 15, 2018 [3 favorites]


Not all cats can be left alone with a bowl of dry food. Maybe they only eat wet food or have a medical need for it, or they gorge if left alone with an unlimited supply. And I wouldn't trust one of those robotic feeders, either. I have an automated litter box that gets stuck about once a week, so if I have to leave town I am lucky enough that I can leave a big bowl of food and water, but I have to buy a couple disposable litter boxes and can only be gone as long as the boxes will hold out.
posted by elsietheeel at 11:19 AM on March 15, 2018 [1 favorite]


my cat would crack open the automated feeder's skull and feast on the goo kibble inside in like a minute flat after i shut the door behind me
posted by entropicamericana at 11:25 AM on March 15, 2018 [3 favorites]


I just got back from a dental appointment that delivered some upsetting news about the state of erosion in my mouth due to weak enamel and ongoing dry mouth (and a youth of poor hygeine choices). I have no clue what happens next, except that every option is going to cost a large sum of money I don't have. I feel fucked.
posted by nubs at 11:45 AM on March 15, 2018 [1 favorite]


I'm so sorry nubs. I had that appointment back in December and it was rough.
posted by elsietheeel at 11:47 AM on March 15, 2018


entropicamericana, perhaps this story will give you some hope?
posted by hanov3r at 11:53 AM on March 15, 2018


I'm so sorry nubs. I had that appointment back in December and it was rough.

Thanks elisetheheeel. I'm really mad at myself for not doing some things I know I should've been doing, and also sad because I know I have very limited options now. I'm going back for a "consult" in a couple of weeks to see what the options are, but the answer is likely "what's the cheapest?" from my side. Which I guess simplifies things.
posted by nubs at 12:05 PM on March 15, 2018


SO I'M HAVING PANIC ATTACKS ON THE REGULAR NOW, SO I'VE GOT THAT GOING FOR ME.

DID SOMEBODY SAY KLONOPIN?

*BURSTS INTO TEARS*
posted by Space Kitty at 3:17 PM on March 15, 2018 [5 favorites]


*hugs Space Kitty*
posted by tzikeh at 3:26 PM on March 15, 2018 [2 favorites]


GUESS WHO HAS A COLONOSCOPY TOMORROW BECAUSE "IT MIGHT BE NOTHING BUT IT MIGHT BE CANCER?"

And I was "very lucky" to get the appointment so quickly.

This "prep" drink is AWFUL.
posted by tzikeh at 3:27 PM on March 15, 2018 [4 favorites]


In more fucking fuck news from Australia: the revolting racist fuckwit Peter Dutton also wants to give the gun lobby "a seat at the table" to advise the government on firearms policy.

This is fucking crazy. There is no reason to do this. Australia's firearm policy works; farmers and hunters can get guns appropriate to what they want to do with them, but semi-automatics are not allowed. We have had no mass shootings since the national firearms agreement. Deaths from firearms went down, including suicides and accidents as well as murders. There is no reason to change anything other than that a few people like playing with guns, and a few people connected to the right-wing parties and the government want to get rich. We don't manufacture guns in Australia so they can't even claim that it's about promoting industry. It's fucked.
posted by andraste at 3:32 PM on March 15, 2018 [3 favorites]


Good luck, tzikeh, I’ve been there.
In my case, it was nothing but may have turned into cancer, so it’s really good to go.
And yes that drink is the worst part of it. Try to get it as cold as you can before you drink it.
posted by chococat at 4:00 PM on March 15, 2018 [1 favorite]


NOBODY ELSE I CARE ABOUT IS ALLOWED TO HAVE ANYTHING BAD HAPPEN TO THEM. I THOUGHT WE WENT OVER THIS.
posted by Space Kitty at 4:07 PM on March 15, 2018 [5 favorites]


tzikeh, sending you waves of goodness. Be okay please.
posted by mochapickle at 4:58 PM on March 15, 2018 [1 favorite]


Yesterday the university campus I work at went on lockdown due to a gun threat.

I hate that this is the new normal. I hate that when our lab manager and my undergraduate research assistant ran into the room panicked about the text alert that said, plainly, "a man with a gun has been reported on campus," I could cooly tell them to stay in our office while I checked to ensure the lab doors were locked and the lights off. I hate that this is not the first or second or third time I have been sitting in my office in my so called cushy job at a so called ivory tower and gotten a message about a potentially lethal killer. I hate that the shock is wearing off, turning faster into a simmering anger.

Details trickled in. Text messages, robotic calls. The call came from a guy who claimed he shot his girlfriend in the grad dorm, far from where we are physically but troubling for our grad student colleagues and friends. The cops kept the grad dorm on lockdown. Fully investigated the place, found no evidence of shots or shooter or victim. Total fucking hoax. A sum of thousands of hours of some of the best brainpower in the country, disrupted because we live in a day and age where we have to take this shit seriously.

Seriously, fuck it. I am here to do cutting edge research and educate America's brightest students. None of us has the time to deal with this gun bullshit.

Fuck toxic masculinity and the gun it rode in on.
posted by nicodine at 5:03 PM on March 15, 2018 [6 favorites]


chococat: And yes that drink is the worst part of it. Try to get it as cold as you can before you drink it.

It tastes like lemon-lime sweat. It's VILE. And I have to drink one cup every 15 minutes tonight until I've drunk two liters, which is sixteen cups. SIXTEEN CUPS OF LEMON-LIME SWEAT. Followed by sixteen cups of regular ice water to "hydrate," like I'm not hydrated enough? And I haven't been allowed any food at all. So I'm overstuffed and starving at the same time.

I'm gonna be 49 this year. It seems that the brain just parks itself around your late 20's, though, so when you start encountering these things that "come with age," they never fail to befuddle. "Cancer? In my colon? But I'm only twenty-fiiii no I'm forty-eight. Right. I forgot."

I'm going to assume it's not cancer, because there are other, much much more likely causes for The Current Unpleasantness, but again, what with being Not-Twenty-Eight, it's better to check. And it's only two years before my doc would have sent me for one anyway.

The only positive thing that comes with all of this slow breaking down of the body and further understanding of our own mortality, at least as far as I have found, is the complete lack of embarrassment about anything. "Well, I'm burping and farting and drinking really egregious amounts of lemon-lime sweat for two hours straight no stopping, while sitting on the toilet because I do not have time to get to the toilet from anyplace else during this experience, with the laptop resting on top of the cat's litter box, while I've got my period, and I'm wiping my ass with baby wipes and throwing all the blood and shit-stained refuse into a giant garbage bag that will get taken out at some point. Okay, that's my Thursday, I guess."
posted by tzikeh at 5:35 PM on March 15, 2018 [7 favorites]


Also - nicodine - my roommate is an MFA student at your campus, and I'm an alumna. (Do we still use "alumna," or has "alumnus" become unisex?)
posted by tzikeh at 5:37 PM on March 15, 2018


tzikeh - nerds unite! I've only been here 6 months, and you may actually be the first alum (?) I have met.

I don't envy you your SIXTEEN CUPS HOLY SHIT of lemon-lime sweat, would you like a mug of klonopin as a chaser?
posted by nicodine at 5:52 PM on March 15, 2018 [2 favorites]


I don't envy you your SIXTEEN CUPS HOLY SHIT of lemon-lime sweat, would you like a mug of klonopin as a chaser?

Yeah so it turns out that laughing increases output which isn't a surprise in general but was in particular just now
posted by tzikeh at 6:09 PM on March 15, 2018 [4 favorites]


and then there's laughing at the fact that you're laughing
posted by tzikeh at 6:11 PM on March 15, 2018


Mail to agent finding me a rental

My main requirements are:

1) A main bedroom, a guest bedroom, and somewhere I can use as an office.
2) Relative quiet.
3) The plumbing works. I’ve lived with flaky electrical, but never again will I deal with unreliable plumbing.

After I move in I discover the street is a through route used by trucks and buses, and needless to say I had to make a small repair to the water heater and the plumber will be out tomorrow morning about the leaky toilet.

1 out of 3 actually *is* bad, you know?
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 7:14 PM on March 15, 2018 [1 favorite]


I went to a hockey game with my fwb and had sexytimes after and holy fuck what on earth happened with the election thread when i was out for a few hours. I can't even step the fuck away and have a normal life on a thursday night.

Our foreplay involved relitigating the 2016 primaries while drinking in my kitchen. No joke.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 10:50 PM on March 15, 2018


Not great, Bob!
Not great, Bob! forever.
posted by Going To Maine at 11:51 PM on March 15, 2018 [3 favorites]


Everything is fucked. On a personal level as well as a national and international scale. It has been an extra fucked up week and a fucked up month which was, in retrospect, a prelude to what is going to be at least 6 weeks of what, if I believed in higher or greater powers that somehow were interested in the lives of humans, is going to be my own personal hell.
posted by monopas at 2:46 AM on March 16, 2018 [1 favorite]


I wore an Everytown for Gun Safety sweatshirt. I was told to take it off at the school where I work.

Everything is fucked. On a personal level as well as a national and international scale. It has been an extra fucked up week and a fucked up month which was, in retrospect, a prelude to what is going to be at least 6 weeks of what, if I believed in higher or greater powers that somehow were interested in the lives of humans, is going to be my own personal hell.

It's not just you. I've been especially raw over kids NOT being allowed to walkout (as in the district where I work and where I've been forced to resign). There's been a lot of press (and yay for that) over kids being unfairly penalized for walking out, but the media isn't noting kids whose schools leaned on them to NOT walkout.

I've been just beyond wildly horrified, as in I really can no longer muster words any more for how disgusted I am--that the POTUS openly announces that he LIES to world leaders.

He just lies. About deficits and all sorts of shit. And that in a million fucking years, THIS IS CONSIDERED OKAY.

We have a lunatic at the helm and even a full year into this, we cannot get rid of him. Our government really can't stop a president who openly confesses to representing US interests by LYING??

And then I wanted to scream bloody murder that ONE GODDAMNED DOG DIED IN AN AIRPLANE and within 24 hours, Congress was passing a law to protect dogs but apparently American students and teachers can be slaughtered and then called Nazi lesbians by politicians and their chances of getting murdered actually get increased because funding to arm teachers has been approved. (And that's right after a teacher fucking shot a kid in school.)

I definitely feel like I need to take a bit of a vacation.
posted by yes I said yes I will Yes at 3:07 AM on March 16, 2018 [9 favorites]


It is taking a lot of effort not to make an H.R. Puffed & Stuffed crack in the main thread.
posted by snuffleupagus at 5:22 AM on March 16, 2018 [2 favorites]


Oh, and Amazon Mexico has a habit of showing an estimated delivery date on the purchase page and then immediately erasing it on the awaiting delivery entry. If there was one fucking chair in this fucking house I can sit on without destroying my fucking back in five minutes I would be okay with that, but the chair that was supposed to come Sunday may arrive... some day?

They need a "I am a goddamn gringo" button that charges 20% more but actually delivers things on or near the estimated day. I am far too spoiled for this mañana crap.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:36 AM on March 16, 2018


Also, my mother is fucking freaking out about me living in Mexico like it's a goddamn foreign country or something.

You know what? There are no fucking foreign countries. People love their children and are trying to raise them. People hold down jobs to feed themselves and their families. 90% of people are nice but sometimes too busy to show it; 10% of people are out to screw everyone. Cities are built by people for people to support basic human needs and it shows. Everyone disobeys the traffic laws when the cops aren't looking. Cops swear they don't have quotas but the ticket count surges at the end of the month. Taxi drivers are by and large insane.

There's good food and bad food(*). Little girls look studiously intent and little boys run around shooting each other with imaginary guns. Tourists are tolerated but made fun of. The taxes are too high and the country just isn't what it used to be. There are a few rich people and a lot of poor people and the rich people live in constant fear that the poor will catch on. There are movies and sports and art and used furniture stores and telephones and restaurants and all of those things that come from humans being fucking humans.

Yes, there are different languages and currency and customs but there is absolutely nothing that people of good faith can't get past. Nothing. Absolutely fucking nothing. Person to person, kindness abounds. And that's the fucking world we live in so just finally shut the fuck up about how deep and dark and different everything is.

Thank you.


(*) Except for Japan. Japan has no bad food.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 9:00 AM on March 16, 2018 [16 favorites]


The dog’s surgery went well and I pick her up in an hour.

But I sure could use a mug of klonopin right now because Kid Ruki had half a day of school today, during which they spent THE ENTIRE TIME practicing active shooter scenarios.

She sent me a text saying she died twice.

EFUCKINGNOUGH. This is not normal. This is not okay. It wasn’t okay twenty years ago and the solution sure as fuck isn’t to make active shooter training part of our children’s regular education.
posted by Ruki at 9:07 AM on March 16, 2018 [23 favorites]


Well tell me no lies, your are not in Kansas any more (What city or state are you in if you don't mind telling?).

Here in Mexico local labor is cheap, shipping is slow and expensive.

We just got a dinning room table and chairs custom made by a local carpenter in 3 weeks, good craftsmanship in solid parota wood, for less that the cost of one store bought chair.

And those Acapulco chairs that sell for $500 USD at furniture stores in California? Just bought two, $30 USD each. The guy welds and weaves them by the road.

I keep forgetting about how easy and cheap it is to get custom made stuff here. $4 USD to get my shirts tailored. $150 to get a custom laser cut and hand finished hardwood desk.

So unless you need some very specific high tech furniture, I'd suggest you talk to the locals and ask about a good carpintero.

And in the spirit of FUCK the good news is that we are hiring really good engineers down here from countries in Trumps shit list. I just helped a really good young Egyptian engineer get a promotion and a good raise. The bad news is that they wont be able to celebrate with family because the US denied their transit visas, and traveling between Mexico and Egypt without going through the US is stupidly expensive.
posted by Index Librorum Prohibitorum at 10:01 AM on March 16, 2018


So unless you need some very specific high tech furniture, I'd suggest you talk to the locals and ask about a good carpintero.

Alas, I expect the equivalent of an Aeron chair is beyond the ability of any carpenter anywhere. It took me years to find a type of chair that works and I’m unwilling to give it up.

I also got a crap desk, but that’s because I’m still designing a wooden sit/stand desk from scratch. I’m planning to have local carpenters do the wood work on that. If I decide to stay in Mexico I’m looking forward to designing all of my furniture.

Right now though I just need a chair I can sit in for ten minutes without rueing it the rest of the day.

I’m in Mérida, Yucatá by the way.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 10:19 AM on March 16, 2018


Oh, and bitching on Metafilter appears to work as today, for the first time in my life anywhere, the plumber showed up exactly on time and did a fairly routine job with no complications.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 10:24 AM on March 16, 2018 [3 favorites]


Mérida, Yucatá
Er... Mérida, Yucatán that is.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 10:49 AM on March 16, 2018


I do not have ass cancer!

One good thing down... *checks list* oh, goddammit.
posted by tzikeh at 10:59 AM on March 16, 2018 [23 favorites]


I've had some great times in and around Merida.

Do you have a hammock? Do you enjoy hammocks? If you don't enjoy hammocks, do you know about the 30 degree hang and the flat lay? It can change your life.

If you are living in a proper house in Merida it MUST have hammock hanging hardware in every room. If it does not, talk to the landlord.

My father in law just brought me a high quality hammock from there. Magenta and green on the edges, black polka dots in the center. Just like a pitaya (dragonfruit?). For once they listened to me and brought one of the tightly woven large hammocks that actually work, not one of the crappy touristy ones.

It is so nice to lay on, even for a purux with a fat pirix like myself. Weights 10 times more than my high-tech camping hammocks, but it is so fresh and soft. I can spend hours there contemplating the lint in my tuch, enjoying the flechero coming through the miriñaques.
posted by Index Librorum Prohibitorum at 11:06 AM on March 16, 2018 [4 favorites]


My local facebook group is eating itself alive over the Dem congressional primary this coming Tuesday in IL. The district went for Clinton by 7, but reelected the Republican congressman by 18 in 2016. There's so much work to be done, and people are having hissy fits and vowing to not vote for the Dem if their preferred candidate doesn't win the primary. Fuck this shit, this is why we got Trump.
posted by little king trashmouth at 11:24 AM on March 16, 2018


Amazon Mexico has a habit of showing an estimated delivery date on the purchase page and then immediately erasing it on the awaiting delivery entry

Yeahhhh Amazon does this in the US too. Amazon does whatever it wants wherever it wants whenever it wants.
posted by elsietheeel at 11:41 AM on March 16, 2018


tzikeh, I'm really happy to hear it's not ass cancer.

I just turned 51, and my doctor was Very Angry about the fact that I haven't gotten a colonoscopy yet and told me, in No Uncertain Terms, that that was a thing that would be happening this year. So, I'm... uh... "looking forward to" gallons of lemon-lime sweat?

Is it worse that Gatorade?
posted by hanov3r at 12:02 PM on March 16, 2018 [1 favorite]


tzikeh, that is great news.
posted by nubs at 12:08 PM on March 16, 2018 [1 favorite]


Is it worse that Gatorade?

It is so. much. worse. than Gatorade. It is deeply unpleasant. Gatorade is Champagne compared to colonoscopy prep.

You just sort of have to accept that your life is gonna suck for about 24 hours, 22 of which will be spent drinking a foul concoction while sitting on the toilet. I encourage you to invest in baby wipes.

However, I promise you this: you could bear far worse things than colonoscopy prep for 24 hours and make it through unbowed.

And now I'm home, cuddling with my cats, gorging myself on rigatoni bolognese and Ben & Jerry's, and binge-watching How to Get Away With Murder while scrolling madly through my Twitter feed, trying to catch up on who got fired/indicted/divorced while I was undergoing a short outpatient procedure that is free under the ACA because it is a preventative screening.

You can do it, hanov3r. I believe in you.
posted by tzikeh at 12:46 PM on March 16, 2018 [6 favorites]


*hugs the stuffing out of Space Kitty*

Hey, I've always loved your words and presence here. You are good peoples.
posted by loquacious at 2:10 PM on March 16, 2018 [2 favorites]


TrivialProblemsIBroughtUponMyselfFilter: i stress-ate too many crunchy snacks and set off my TMJ and now the right half of my face is killing me ~*~and~*~ said crunchy snacks were salty and i accidentally bit my lip at one point and so now i have a mouth ulcer bothering the left side of my face and i'm not any less stressed-out somehow at the end of all this
posted by halation at 2:52 PM on March 16, 2018


I did something similar in prep for my hysterectomy.

I recommend a good book for your time on the loo.
posted by spinifex23 at 3:11 PM on March 16, 2018


My hematologist said, rather diffidently, "I don't suppose you'd be willing to have a colonoscopy?"

I said: "No."
posted by jamjam at 3:24 PM on March 16, 2018


One good thing to come out of this thread -- I think "mug of Klonopin" is gonna stick around on the site for a while.

And jamjam -- I don't know if you're quoting something I don't recognize, in which case excuse my literalness, but. If a medical professional suggests that perhaps you should get checked for ass cancer, I say maybe it's the right thing to do.

Yes, it's a full day of awful, but it beats one possible alternative hands down.
posted by tzikeh at 3:37 PM on March 16, 2018 [2 favorites]


I would like to order a mug (a hug!) of klonopin as well yes please

I was in a weird relationship thing for about 18 months and on Saturday on the way out to a very nice cafe date we just started in on each other and I swear I would have been less of a dick and not yelled if I wasn't constantly worrying about my stupid job where it feels like nobody gives a fuck any more about learning Ethics because the stupid country is falling apart and also I have paid rent crazy late too many times in a row so I got the scary letter and have paid late fees I obv can't afford because FUCK GUYS I AM POOR I would hella pay you on fucking time if I wasn't fucking poor and anyway he looked me in the fucking eyes and dramatically pronounced that I will never speak to him again after clawing through my bookshelf to find the fucking books he lent me and now I finally fucking took a shower this morning for the first time since and fuck I have so much work to do but I just want to lay down forever.

I ate some fucking food at least THANK YOU EVERYONE who helped me in ask the other day but I can see his fucking phone on fucking Google maps because we share a fucking account and his ex girlfriend is driving him to fucking fancy restaurants while I'm forcing myself to drink fucking invalid juice and crying over the cake we made on Friday night. this is a fucking pattern in my fucking life but I don't have the fucks to fix it, not when I don't even know when anything around me on the macro or micro level will ever be stable again.

FUCK can't I just sleep until everything is nice again. at least I'm finally doing some fucking laundry, which I can't afford really but I ran out of fucking underwear.
posted by zinful at 6:49 PM on March 16, 2018 [1 favorite]


also I just spoiled the hugs going around the room in here sorry :(
posted by zinful at 6:54 PM on March 16, 2018


I hope the phrase mug of Klonopin does become a thing.

Speaking of things and mugs of klonopin, as Kid Ruki was telling me about the active shooter scenarios, I discovered that she has a gift of leadership that I never realized. We had a talk, I sent an email to a contact from the Women's Caucus, and now there might be a Youth Caucus in the works.
posted by Ruki at 6:57 PM on March 16, 2018 [3 favorites]


*gives zinful a mug of klonopin and a hug if wanted*
posted by Ruki at 7:01 PM on March 16, 2018 [2 favorites]


zinful, you didn't spoil anything.

I'm sorry you're going through all of that, and I imagine the whole fucking world feels super overwhelming right now. But celebrate the small victories - you got up and did laundry. You're putting nourishment in, even if it's not fabulous. You're still here.

If you need hugs, we got plenty. If you need to talk to someone, MeMail me.
posted by hanov3r at 7:20 PM on March 16, 2018 [1 favorite]


Dental insurance just denied a bunch of stuff because I'm over the age of mumblemumble, but there's an appeals process so we'll see.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 9:47 PM on March 16, 2018


Jesus fucking christ. When does this end?

The fucker fires McCabe out of spite. There's gonna be a lawsuit that Trump, Sessions, et. al. will eventually have to give testimony in.

Whatever is brewing with Stormy Daniels is going to come out on March 25th. The dipshit fucking admitted the affair. There are probably dozens more. The payments are all illegal, under multiple states' laws. The contract is probably illegal, unsigned, etc.

How in the fuck can this continue? What in the everloving fuck do the Russians have on the Republicans? Have the Republicans literally rigged the votes? Are the voting machines giving out false numbers? Is that it?

Are they all being funded by Russia? Is that what it is? They are being funded by Russia to take out the EU or NATO?

I ask because it's motherfucking absurd that these pieces of shit that run Congress don't see right through this. He's clearly a crook, but how many of them are, as well?

This continues to be unreal. What the fuck, America?
posted by Mister Fabulous at 12:11 AM on March 17, 2018 [6 favorites]


And how the fuck is corporal punishment still legal anywhere? There's no place for it. It's fucking child abuse and assault. I've read stories today about how principals will drill holes in the paddle "for aerodynamics". Bullshit. The holes create welts when it hits, so the pain lasts for days. That's totally and completely fucked up. I can only think that the cultures that think this is positive are simply backwards. You have to lack critical thinking and basic human empathy to think it's somehow good that children can be beat by the school administration. fucking hell.
posted by Mister Fabulous at 12:15 AM on March 17, 2018 [4 favorites]


oh dang zinful as an adjunct professor with zero stability and a charge to somehow stagger through lecture after lecture on media ethics of all fucking things in our current fucking media-slash-ethical hellscape i have all of the empathy and hugs for you and i'd totally feed you brunch and/or dinner if it were geographically feasible.
posted by halation at 5:58 AM on March 17, 2018 [3 favorites]

Mister Fabulous: “I can only think that the cultures that think this is positive are simply backwards.”
Our degraded culture is doing lasting damage to our children and I'm fucking sick about it.

This morning it was rainy, so we lounged a little, indulging in some domestic bliss. The 4-year-old wants to play, and Mommy says okay. So my little angelic some-kind-of-niece spends a minute playing with the Lego, then brings her creation over to Mommy. "Here. Take this, Mommy." It's vaguely 'L' shaped.

"What's this?" Mommy asks.

Sweetly and innocently, with mirth in her voice, the child says, "Pull the trigger!"

We don't watch television. This child never sees commercials. The most violent thing she ever sees is sumo wrestling. She obviously got the idea from a playmate, but what am I supposed to do about that?

They play 'superheroes' and talk about killing the bad guys and it hurts my heart. I try to explain that killing is always wrong and get told, "Sometimes you have to." They talk about war and I explain that war is never good. "What about when its necessary?" the pre-schoolers say. My explanation that even when it's necessary war is bad is met with skepticism by children raised in this fucking shitty failed state.

I am at least thankful that I got to introduce her to music and poetry before she learned about guns, but it's a bitter pill to swallow that they aren't as cool.
posted by ob1quixote at 10:44 AM on March 17, 2018 [5 favorites]


My parents and all my friends' parents refused to buy us guns as children because it was the 1970s. (Okay, we could have squirtguns, but that was because it was the 70s and there weren't "super soakers;" all for-fun spritzers marketed as toys were gunshaped. They would have confiscated them and melted them down had we busted them out in the winter and run around pretending to kill each other with no water in the guns.) I not only didn't watch TV, I wasn't allowed to watch unsupervised in other people's houses--and all I ever got to watch was Jane Goodall--and my parents wouldn't get one, so we didn't have one in the house. So we picked up, cocked and fired sticks. This is because cowboys and indians is fun, and it's really fun if the parents get creeped out by it and you have to engage in clandestine stickplay. This was during the Nixon administration. I also favored the most horrifying jingoistic songs in the Girl Scout Handbook. ("We Are Marching to Pretoria.) In short, I was a horrible little nazi until I got to be around eight or nine years old. But guns don't stay cool, don't worry. I think all guns should be banned forever, and I won a poetry contest in high school and went on to major in English.
posted by Don Pepino at 11:02 AM on March 17, 2018 [3 favorites]


Per the mods, putting my "pedantic" [in fact, professional and jurisprudential, but whatever I guess....] insistence that popular meanings are precisely not "literal definitions" and things that can never be charged as treason should not be misleadingly, insistently and recurring labeled as treason in the main threads, here.

I guess I'll wait for Ari Melber to say it instead.
posted by snuffleupagus at 4:06 PM on March 17, 2018


And, no, this is not a stupid or immaterial distinction, even beyond inviting GOP 'gotchas' -- once describing these conspiracies as treason without any qualification please tell me how you distinguish conspiracies with agents of more neutral governments. Or for that matter, industrial espionage that touches some sensitive element of the military-industrial complex (during peacetime). Please tell me when it becomes "serious" or "political" enough to become "treason" in the absence of a war.

Should Snowden be executed for treason?

My hunch is that the answer people have in mind is "tampering with the election of government" -- because its an attempt to undermine national sovereignty -- and I'm sympathetic but we have sedition and espionage to fall back on.

The flavor of treason is "fighting against the US in an open war in which our soldiers are dying" and that's why it carries the death penalty.

I fucking hate Trump too, but lets not let his awfulness led us to employ the very hyperbole of fascists and hypernationalists in contravention of what our laws and the names for them really mean.
posted by snuffleupagus at 4:26 PM on March 17, 2018


Don't mind me, just popping in with one of my occasional panics about being massively in debt and needing to pay $400 per month in student loan payments starting in May. I bet there's all kinds of fun stuff $400 per month could get you, like food and rent. No worries, my interest rate is only 13%.

Well, my life sucks.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 3:38 AM on March 18, 2018 [3 favorites]


I've had two interactions this week with people who still support Trump that have made it abundantly clear that "deplorables" was far too good a word for them: one who came on a thread about Stephen Hawking to tell everyone he went to hell, and one who came on a thread explaining that "globalism" is a dog whistle to say that anti-Semitism isn't a real problem anymore and by the way Muslims are evil and deserve hate. My Jewish spouse continues to feel unsafe a lot of the time and have Nazi nightmares. The capitalists running the state university system have decided that it's important to make my job more difficult so that they can make more money.

My big health change since the election: high blood pressure.
posted by hydropsyche at 4:24 AM on March 18, 2018 [5 favorites]


hi this is a placeholder comment! assume that i make this comment every time the president tweets from now on! this will save me time and not clog up this thread or the thread on the blue!

JESUS HE IS SO DUMB AND OBLIVIOUS AND BAD AT POLITICS AND BAD AT CRIMES AND BAD AT MANIPULATING THE PERCEPTION OF EVENTS AND YET HE HAS LASTED THIS LONG AND THERE’S NO END IN SIGHT. FUCK! GODDAMN IT! A POX ON HIM AND ALL THAT ENABLE HIM!

thank you for your indulgence. hopefully this placeholder comment will make the process of me losing my shit more efficient going forward.
posted by murphy slaw at 6:52 AM on March 18, 2018 [6 favorites]


I'm working, so I don't have to look at it. Which is part of why I work, tbh. (God, I hope we don't go down in May. I thought I could be satisfied with May, but nope. I want November.) Same as it was for me in '16, though: doing the work makes me feel better. Maybe that's a selfish reason to do it, but fuck it, if it gets results. I've become one of those insufferable people that doesn't really have a life past the job. I'm okay with that, I think.
posted by dogheart at 7:30 AM on March 18, 2018


I went canvassing today for the first time since 2016 (for a state house primary coming up in May) and I can confirm that canvassing is still the worst. By which I mean, everyone should do it, yay participation and engaging your neighbors in political discourse and also ugghhhhh talking to people.
posted by soren_lorensen at 12:00 PM on March 18, 2018 [4 favorites]


Um hi and thank you all for fucking. I am glad people don't have ass cancer, I'm sorry debt & death suck.

I'm currently freaking out because i have no $ to pay probably a ridiculous amount of taxes because I was a 1099 last year and too fucking poor to just eat, keep the lights on, keep the interweb on since I work remotely, and try like fuck to get the house ready to sell.

Speaking of I painted a room yesterday that has 11' ceilings. Which meant dragging a really heavy 10' ladder around the room AND going up & down said letter countless times. Then I cleaned the newly laid tile in the bathroom because I was worried the streaky marks would be permanent if someone didn't get them up quickly & I know nothing about tile & the contractors had already left after cleaning it twice.

So today I'm sore & took a 4 hour nap instead of continuing to make progress painting. Mrs yoga says I'm allowed to take a day off.

But I love all you guys
posted by yoga at 3:31 PM on March 18, 2018 [3 favorites]


I have my last dentist appointment on Tuesday. I'm getting three crowns glued and 10+ cavities filled. I think they're also doing the a fine scaling as the last part of my dental cleaning that started back in January. So far I've had two extractions and eight root canals and a rough scaling. The extraction was the worst part, followed by the scaling, but the part I'm dreading the most is the cavity filling fiesta planned for Tuesday. It'll be under conscious IV sedation, but that doesn't help with the intense distress I get from the high-pitched noise of the drill (MISOPHONIA IS REAL OKAY) and I'm tired of people suggesting I use headphones -- headphones can't cover up a noise emanating from inside my fricking TEETH. Ugh, I'm working myself up into a panic just thinking about it.

The worst part of it all is that this appointment will either cost more money than I have, or will take pretty much the very last of my savings. And so far, there's no job in sight. I'm lucky in that my mom is paying for my rent, water, and electricity, but not my internet or phone or food or gas or anything else. I have Medicaid, so I probably qualify for SNAP? I don't know. But I've got to find SOME source of income ASAP and I don't know how to do that while still fighting mental illness and trying to balance getting better while moving forward and trying to take care of myself. I have no workable references at the moment and no education. I can edit and transcribe and type 100wpm and I know 10-key and can do data entry and all of that stuff, but I have no clue how to get into any of that on a work-from-home basis, since I live in the middle of damn nowhere.

Anyone have a spare mug of klonopin? This cup of Xanax isn't cutting it.

(Positive news: I'm smoking a corned beef and a chicken tomorrow. And I drove in the snow for the first time on Friday and I didn't panic or crash into anything. Also I saw three great blue heron hunkered down in a pasture in the snow, and the day before I saw two golden eagles flying overhead nearby. I do like it up here, it's just tough going sometimes.)
posted by elsietheeel at 3:49 PM on March 18, 2018 [5 favorites]


A lot of my friends are starting to speculate Trump's gonna fire Mueller in the next few weeks which has me on edge.

I'm going to Chicago soon for a conference soon, and staying down the block from the Trump hotel. I look forward to adding another picture to my collection of "in which I flip off Trump buildings"

I've been a lifelong news junkie and it's really disconcerting to feel like I can no longer keep up with the news because there's just SO MUCH, and it's ALL THE TIME. It's unsettling.
posted by mostly vowels at 4:35 PM on March 18, 2018 [3 favorites]

Is it worse that Gatorade?

It is so. much. worse. than Gatorade. It is deeply unpleasant. Gatorade is Champagne compared to colonoscopy prep.

You just sort of have to accept that your life is gonna suck for about 24 hours, 22 of which will be spent drinking a foul concoction while sitting on the toilet. I encourage you to invest in baby wipes.

posted by tzikeh
I used to walk by a clinic that specialized in pediatric colonoscopy. That gave me pause then, and still does today.
posted by ZeusHumms at 5:10 PM on March 18, 2018


I'm going to Chicago soon for a conference soon, and staying down the block from the Trump hotel. I look forward to adding another picture to my collection of "in which I flip off Trump buildings"

Lol I did the same thing last summer. I think I may have been on DuSable bridge.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 5:12 PM on March 18, 2018 [1 favorite]


I sent this Tumblr-anecdote to a couple of old friends, whom I've been e-mailing constantly, ineffectively about Trump (it's what I do instead of keeping the kind of journal that Amy Siskind does):
Had a dream where I was sitting in a dark office and reality felt really altered and strange and there was just a fishtank illuminating the room and then this fuckin fish looked at me and grinned with human teeth and in this super deep voice said “you’ve been here awhile, better wake up before you forget how to” and I fuckin woke up in a cold sweat
I didn't think I was being too subtle about this as a metaphor for living in the Trump Era, but as with all the news, they refused to acknowledge the obvious message.

P.S. A fish with human teeth does in fact exist: the Archosargus probatocephalus, or Sheepshead fish, named for its one-time habitat, Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. Its stubby, human-like teeth help it feed on oysters, clams, barnacles, crabs, and other shelled marine life. It looks creepy as hell.
posted by Doktor Zed at 6:44 AM on March 19, 2018 [3 favorites]


It looks creepy as hell.

♪ "Take me to the river! Drop me in the water!" ♫
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:20 AM on March 19, 2018 [3 favorites]


intense distress I get from the high-pitched noise of the drill (MISOPHONIA IS REAL OKAY) and I'm tired of people suggesting I use headphones -- headphones can't cover up a noise emanating from inside my fricking TEETH.

I get that; I've been there. Noise-cancelling headphones won't do it, because they cancel noise from outside your head. Bring something to listen to - a podcast, an audio book, music, whatever - it's not going to drown it out, but giving yourself something to listen to can help pull your focus/attention away from the horrid sounds rather than just trying to block them. At least it sometimes works for me.

Best of luck. Stay strong. You can do this.

Hugs for all.
posted by nubs at 9:26 AM on March 19, 2018 [1 favorite]


I know they're expensive, but I wonder if bone-conduction headphones like these would help reduce the drill sound.
posted by hanov3r at 9:33 AM on March 19, 2018


If you are living in a proper house in Merida it MUST have hammock hanging hardware in every room. If it does not, talk to the landlord.

You know, when I was touring houses I was wondering about the lack of hardware for Mérida's fabled hammock culture. Spurred by your comment I investigated my current home and low and behold I discovered why so many of the wall decorations were hats.

I'm afraid of the interaction between a hammock and my back problems. I'm sure they're comfortable to lay in, but the mount and dismount look problematic.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 10:46 AM on March 19, 2018 [2 favorites]


And as this thread is winding down I'm going to add one last small annoyance, which is that training at your basic math tables in Spanish with a fluent maid cleaning the house is just embarrassing. Not that she hasn't been encouraging, and in fact her helpful correction of my accent has been a bonus. But still, I'm drilling things a third-grader knows cold.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 10:53 AM on March 19, 2018


nubs: thank you. I get so sick of people in the office offering me headphones when I know they won't help. The distraction of the music sometimes works a little, but it probably wouldn't make a difference with IV sedation now. Also I don't like not being able to hear what the dentist is saying.

hanov3r: I had no idea such a thing existed and now that I do I want them. That's so flipping cool.

Also I saw three great blue heron hunkered down in a pasture in the snow,

Correction: today I saw them moving and when they weren't just still grey shapes with long beaks I realized that they weren't great blue herons, they're sandhill cranes!!! <3
posted by elsietheeel at 12:12 PM on March 19, 2018 [1 favorite]


elsietheeel: two types of people I know of use those headphones - runners and bikers. Bone conduction headphones leave your ears free, so less real world sound gets blocked and you can still hear what's going on around you.

That MAY mean that you'll still hear the drill, but it might be more the mechanics of the drill and not the incessant vibration against your head. I *really* hope they help, and you find a way to reduce that anxiety and stress a little.
posted by hanov3r at 12:40 PM on March 19, 2018 [1 favorite]


This made my day yesterday: John Oliver hijacks homophobe Mike Pence's bunny book with a better one in A Day In The Life Of Marlon Bundo - A.V. Club. Proceeds from John Oliver's book benefit The Trevor Project and AIDS United.
posted by ZeusHumms at 12:48 PM on March 19, 2018 [1 favorite]


And I am glum because I want to back off Facebook and can not figure out how to pick an instance on Mastodon. I have an underlying erroneous premise somewhere . . .
posted by jointhedance at 1:51 PM on March 19, 2018


omg i need to take a news break but shit has been dropping so fast today that my limbic system is utterly convinced that if i step away from the internet for thirty seconds donald trump will go on national TV in a Marylin Monroe dress and sing "Happy Birthday, Mr. President" to Vladimir Putin and then declare martial law
posted by murphy slaw at 2:36 PM on March 19, 2018 [9 favorites]


Yes, it's working, so don't give up yet.

Some recent sage advice I wish I could attribute properly:
"It's not about winning or losing the battle. It's about what you gained or lost in the battle."

Is a victory that cost you everything better than a defeat that connected you to a world of allies?
posted by Johann Georg Faust at 3:23 PM on March 19, 2018


all due credit to antifa, but the mom-fucking sure didn’t help.
posted by murphy slaw at 3:25 PM on March 19, 2018 [1 favorite]


Are you still here tell me no lies?

I don't know about your back problems, and a hammock could be the worst thing for you.

But.

A hammock is hung just high enough that one can comfortably sit down and stand up.

To lay on the hammock one stands facing away. One grsbs fistfuls of the far edge of the hammock and spreads one's arms. That hammock is wings spread wide. One places butt in the center of the hammock and sits down. With feet firmly on the ground one leans back into the hammock until back support is achieved. One is now sitting in a hammock. At this point one lifts feet into hammock. One is now laying in a hammock. Grabing fitsfuls of hammock for leverage one adjusts one's angle until flat lay is achieved. Flat lay is the opposite of banana lay, which is the tourist's preferred lay.

It is good to have some small pillows for neck and head support, and a large soft pillow in case of calf ridge or knee hypertension issues with a particular hammock hang.
posted by Index Librorum Prohibitorum at 7:34 PM on March 19, 2018


I'd love for this to be the end of Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg. I hope he's done something felonious.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 7:52 PM on March 19, 2018 [3 favorites]


Thanks for the instructions Index Librorum Prohibitorum. I need to find a hung hammock somewhere and give it a shot.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:45 PM on March 19, 2018


omg i need to take a news break but shit has been dropping so fast today that my limbic system is utterly convinced that if i step away from the internet for thirty seconds donald trump will go on national TV in a Marylin Monroe dress and sing "Happy Birthday, Mr. President" to Vladimir Putin and then declare martial law


I was thinking about this yesterday, and I've come to a theory:

This universe we are in is the cinematic universe for an alternate timeline. Except, instead of them doing an endless series of superhero movies, they are doing an endless series of inter-connected political/espionage thrillers. That's why the shit flies so thick and fast at times.
posted by nubs at 7:30 AM on March 20, 2018 [6 favorites]


Katie Roiphe-assed fucking Harper's sent me their "I think you forgot something!" dunning letter last week. Haaha, nice try, fuck-Os! I gave their money to The Guardian.
posted by Don Pepino at 9:14 AM on March 20, 2018 [2 favorites]


is it infrastructure week yet
posted by murphy slaw at 12:12 PM on March 20, 2018 [4 favorites]


trick question: every week is infrastructure week
posted by halation at 3:06 PM on March 20, 2018 [3 favorites]


Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck
posted by crush at 8:25 PM on March 20, 2018


I don't know if this is the kind of thing it's okay to vent about on these threads (my sincere apologies if it isn't). I have spent the entirety of today having vivid flashbacks to an almost 20 year old rape, apparently for no reason whatsoever, and I have been crying for the last 5 hours straight. I want to get drunk or go back to bed but I have to pick up the kids soon and be a responsible adult, so I can't do either one.
posted by saltbush and olive at 9:38 PM on March 20, 2018 [6 favorites]


This is an okay place to vent and given the circumstances you should be pretty goddamn proud of yourself for opting to be a responsible adult. Not everybody does.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 6:31 AM on March 21, 2018


this thread is for equal-opportunity venting. no primal scream too petty or too serious.
posted by murphy slaw at 7:55 AM on March 21, 2018


Working for a large corporation that is doing well, yet reading the news and realizing one's political disposition keeps drifting further and further to the left makes for some fantastic cognitive dissonance. "Yay job security!" wars in the head with "The world is burning while you C-level assholes celebrate, why don't you fuck off already." Recommended.

Somewhat related, my latent anxiety issues are no longer so latent. My general zen and easygoing nature usually acts as a safety cover over all the buttons and triggers, but lately it seems a lot of those safety covers have broken or snapped off. I get exhausted by the end of the day, and a good deal of it is maintaining self-control while trying to cross a river of shit. So yeah, I'm going to start getting counseling again.

Can I put on the oxygen mask one-handed so the other one is free to raise a middle finger to the assholes that depressurized this cabin?

P.S. To tzikeh and others - had a colonoscopy last year (and a root canal) so here's to lemon lime poison solidarity. (The resulting medical bills were as much of a slog as the prep but we won't get into that today)
posted by pianoblack at 9:27 AM on March 21, 2018 [2 favorites]


Me to the dentist: I've spent my entire savings on my teeth.
Dentist: Hmm...this tooth needs a crown, not a filling.
Me: I SPENT EVERY LAST CENT I HAVE TODAY.
Dentist: Uhhh...we'll figure something out.

Later the hygienists were like, "Damn, you really told Doc was up." and I was like, "I seriously spent every last penny on my teeth and also you guys gave me midazolam and nitrous. Hashbrown no filter."

So now I have to come up with an extra $600 I don't have, in addition to caring for myself. Fun!
posted by elsietheeel at 12:26 PM on March 21, 2018


Actually I misunderstood after my appointment yesterday; it was an extra $1,300 that I needed to come up with, but his office just called and they said that they're going to cover the IV sedation and a couple of other things so I only have to find $580 and my mom is going to pay for that so I take back my fucking fuck and also note that the meanie dentist turned out to be a nice guy in the end.
posted by elsietheeel at 1:32 PM on March 21, 2018 [10 favorites]


elsietheeel, I'm glad you came through it all ok! I was thinking about you yesterday.
posted by nubs at 2:10 PM on March 21, 2018 [2 favorites]


Yeah, that thing that nubs said. Glad to hear it went much smoother.

Also, I may have laughed A Lot at "hashbrown no filter", so, thank you for that.
posted by hanov3r at 2:20 PM on March 21, 2018 [4 favorites]


Have "Alexander Hamilton" stuck in my head. Not really, but I can't see or hear "Cambridge Analytica" without using the metre from the song "Alexander Hamilton", because their metres are disturbingly similar.
posted by ZeusHumms at 8:16 PM on March 21, 2018 [2 favorites]


John Bolton eh? It's been a good run guys, see you on the other side.

NARRATOR: It was not a good run.
posted by Justinian at 3:37 PM on March 22, 2018 [11 favorites]


I've managed to stay clear of these threads so far, but Bolton?

Well, fuck.
posted by Inkslinger at 3:38 PM on March 22, 2018 [1 favorite]


Watching Dr. Strangelove and drinking tonight. Who's with me?
posted by Justinian at 3:42 PM on March 22, 2018 [4 favorites]


/me pours himself a tall glass of rainwater and grain alcohol. Cheers!
posted by octothorpe at 3:45 PM on March 22, 2018 [3 favorites]


Bolton. We're all fucked. I hope this gets the Special Counsel's ass in gear and something happens with the investigation before the first bombs drop.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 3:47 PM on March 22, 2018 [3 favorites]


On the plus side, this is how we will finally have proof of the existence or nonexistence of a wise, just and loving God.

I don't really care which God it is. Zeus would be fine. But let's get those lightning bolts IN THE MOTHERFUCKING AIR ALREADY.
posted by delfin at 3:47 PM on March 22, 2018 [4 favorites]


Bolton is legit scary just in his own right. But Bolton + Trump putting their fucking hostile arrogant not-one-molecule-of-impulse-control-or-tact heads together into an echo chamber of belligerent dick-waving idiocy is FUCKING TERRIFYING.
posted by FelliniBlank at 3:50 PM on March 22, 2018 [6 favorites]


I'm starting to think sobriety is overrated in this day and age.

Not really. But jesus fucking christ, how many people are being driven (back) to substance (ab)use because of this bullshit?
posted by elsietheeel at 3:51 PM on March 22, 2018 [6 favorites]


I legitimately just took a break at work because I am facing crippling nausea at seeing Bolton back.
posted by corb at 3:52 PM on March 22, 2018 [10 favorites]


I feel like I need to rethink any long term plans I had. Do I need to hold off on selling my house and buying another next year? Should I wait to adopt another dog? Should finish my basement renovation to store some sort of prepper stockpile? I feel like there is a genuine, looming threat of war now and I just want to live my fucking life.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 3:54 PM on March 22, 2018 [5 favorites]


lol we're all gonna die ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
posted by dis_integration at 3:55 PM on March 22, 2018 [2 favorites]


The Bolton thing is something I've found completely inevitable and also bad in a way my brain cringes to really contemplate.
posted by emjaybee at 3:58 PM on March 22, 2018 [4 favorites]


Corb - you and me both, that ended my work day rather abruptly.

This feels tangibly, gut-wrenchingly bad in a way that surpasses many of the past appointments, and that is really really saying something.
posted by MysticMCJ at 4:00 PM on March 22, 2018 [7 favorites]


I've been in kind of a hole with this lately. I've become super obsessed with mundane tasks like going to Aldi or walking the dog or watching hockey at a bar because I've convinced myself that in the future all these mundane tasks will be obliterated in some way and won't be accessible anymore. I'm forcing myself to remember every little thing I can because I think it will be gone. This has been super unhealthy for me.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 4:02 PM on March 22, 2018 [5 favorites]


I usually check in on Jeet Heer's Twitter account when news of international moment comes through. His initial reaction was to retweet the lyrics to "We'll Meet Again." Feels about right.

I wish I hadn't drunk coffee earlier. I feel like my bones are going to vibrate out of my skin.
posted by Iridic at 4:04 PM on March 22, 2018 [2 favorites]


this is news that only an enormous amount of house-made pastrami can even begin to mitigate. bbiab
posted by murphy slaw at 4:06 PM on March 22, 2018 [1 favorite]


I'm grabbing a beer and walking the dog.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 4:07 PM on March 22, 2018


I tried making pastrami on Monday and it turned out super tough and I don't know how to fix it.

SOMEHOW THIS IS ALSO TRUMP AND BOLTON'S FAULT.
posted by elsietheeel at 4:14 PM on March 22, 2018 [3 favorites]


Today and tomorrow, I'm going to hug my kid, and pay my bills, and seek some peace in any way I can.

On Saturday I've got:
AM: March for Our Lives
Afternoon: Democratic Party Senate District Convention
Evening: fundraiser for Girls Rock.

On Sunday, I'll go to church and seek peace some more.

On Monday, there's new Steven Universe episodes coming out on the Cartoon Network app.

I'm going to think about all those things. I'm not going to assume the worst will happen, because it does me no good and prevents nothing.
posted by emjaybee at 4:16 PM on March 22, 2018 [5 favorites]


*endless, endless screaming*
posted by Space Kitty at 4:18 PM on March 22, 2018 [2 favorites]


(But really, how do I fix my tough pastrami? I smoked it for five hours but I don't think it was hot enough. Would a trip through the Instant Pot help?)
posted by elsietheeel at 4:18 PM on March 22, 2018


six hours is probably not long enough. you don't want it hotter, you want to cook it low and slow. you might try it in the instant pot in slow cooker mode?
posted by murphy slaw at 4:20 PM on March 22, 2018 [3 favorites]


It was more like five (sorry, edited) but they were pretty small so I guess the internet lied to me. I will recook! Thanks!
posted by elsietheeel at 4:22 PM on March 22, 2018


elsietheeel, did you boil/simmer/steam it after smoking it? This is allegedly how Katz's preps theirs but steaming/simmering is a very common way to finish pastrami for tenderness. Also make sure you're slicing perpendicular to the grain.
posted by halation at 4:22 PM on March 22, 2018 [2 favorites]


also

FUUUUUUUUCK
posted by murphy slaw at 4:23 PM on March 22, 2018 [4 favorites]


I didn't, but I've had Katz's pastrami so I'm happy to take that article as gospel and keep going.

Hopefully I can say fucking fuck with a mouthful of pastrami reuben.
posted by elsietheeel at 4:25 PM on March 22, 2018 [1 favorite]


You know what's really fucking with me? The total inability to gauge what the immediate future will be like. Like, obviously, life can always change with horrible rapidity, but generally, it's easy enough to live day by day knowing that, say, you could get hit by a car or a loved one could die suddenly, or that maybe the Big One will hit. That's within the normal paradigm of Shit Happens, and you can take some measures to prepare for some of that. But our current clusterfuck? I don't really know how to handle it. It's instability and uncertainty on a too-large scale. I've burned out my emotional fear responses. I exist in a constant state of ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and the "this is fine" dog.
posted by yasaman at 4:35 PM on March 22, 2018 [15 favorites]


FUCK i can't even order a pizza because the pizza place i have always ordered from somehow... changed their online menu so you can't put toppings on a pizza? you can i guess only order a fucking cheese pizza?
like
am i going to have to actually telephone a human to order a food
i can't handle this rn
posted by halation at 4:37 PM on March 22, 2018 [3 favorites]


*gulp*
posted by tingting at 4:39 PM on March 22, 2018


The total inability to gauge what the immediate future will be like.
Right?!? How can anybody deal with this? I have no idea why the market has held on so long. WTF can people be thinking? If I had any damn money at all I'd've yanked it on election day and spent it all on that shit Pat Robertson is selling. Is it Pat Robertson? No, that's not right. Which of the freaks is the one who makes the troughs of yellow prepper glue? OMG, the cortisol is flowing so freely I can no longer distinguish between wackjob televangelists. Anyway, if I had any money in the market, I wouldn't have any money in the market because that creepy little shit would have all of it.
posted by Don Pepino at 4:49 PM on March 22, 2018 [1 favorite]


🚨 The drinking has commenced. 🚨
posted by Justinian at 4:49 PM on March 22, 2018 [7 favorites]


it’s jim bakker

the pastrami is helping, recommended
posted by murphy slaw at 4:49 PM on March 22, 2018 [2 favorites]




Twitter QFT: "I'd rather have Ramsay Bolton than John Bolton."
posted by FelliniBlank at 4:54 PM on March 22, 2018 [5 favorites]


at least when he’s inevitably fired the headlines will be

BOLTON FOR THE EXITS
posted by murphy slaw at 5:01 PM on March 22, 2018 [2 favorites]


ugh i shouldn't even have ordered a pizza, i am broke, i have no idea whether or at what level i will be employed in the months to come, but fuck if it seems like it matters terribly much at this here particular point in time
i mean
i will probably wish i had this money back when trying to flee to canada
but
posted by halation at 5:11 PM on March 22, 2018 [2 favorites]


YOLO, I'm going across the street in the rain to get a pastrami sandwich, thanks fucking fuck thread.
posted by yasaman at 5:13 PM on March 22, 2018 [2 favorites]


I have just stress ate a pound of fake crab and have no regrets. I am going to drive home and proceed to kill my liver, in that order. I just fucking can’t, like a bunch of my friends and umpteen civilians died and fucking Bolton is in the White House and FUCK FUCK FUCK.
posted by corb at 5:13 PM on March 22, 2018 [7 favorites]


at times like this, pizza is medicine, not an indulgence, full stop.
posted by murphy slaw at 5:15 PM on March 22, 2018 [6 favorites]


just caught myself thinking "you know, Flynn may have been paranoid, an inveterate grifter and a Russian asset, but at least he wasn't going to plunge us immediately into a land war in asia"

how far we've come
posted by murphy slaw at 6:21 PM on March 22, 2018 [4 favorites]


fuck
posted by Yowser at 6:27 PM on March 22, 2018 [1 favorite]


Thinking more about bucket list items than I have in a long time, and about a desire to do them sooner rather than later.
posted by Going To Maine at 7:12 PM on March 22, 2018 [1 favorite]


The Art Institute was open late tonight, so I went there to get my head right. If you ever have the need and the chance together, I recommend communing with their collection of French pre-Impressionists—Courbet, Corot, Manet, Rousseau, Moreau, Fantin-Latour, etc. There are so many fine things out in the world, and there's an especially high concentration in galleries 222-225 at the Art Institute of Chicago.
posted by Iridic at 8:07 PM on March 22, 2018 [9 favorites]


My knockoff Roomba just ran over dog poop. What do you say we damn this day forever?
posted by corb at 8:38 PM on March 22, 2018 [4 favorites]


Protip 161, 163-179 are the worst galleries of the Art Institute. Early American gives me hives.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 8:43 PM on March 22, 2018 [1 favorite]


i've never understood preppers until now
posted by localhuman at 8:56 PM on March 22, 2018 [7 favorites]


Would that mean that you miss out on any paintings by Edward Hicks? Because fuck that.
posted by elsietheeel at 8:56 PM on March 22, 2018 [1 favorite]


This is not the place to trash talk *any* part of the Art Institute (except maybe the past 10 years of them not being on the donation system)
posted by dis_integration at 9:22 PM on March 22, 2018 [1 favorite]


Fucking John Fucking Bolton. Fuck this shit.
posted by vverse23 at 9:57 PM on March 22, 2018 [2 favorites]


This presser that tries to shift the conversation to Iran, along with Bolton's recussitated cadaver, are giving me the heebie jeebies. This looks awful awful awful.
posted by stonepharisee at 8:40 AM on March 23, 2018


A few weeks ago I almost jumped into an argument between some coworkers on Facebook but opted not to, for my mental health. One commented something to the extent of "kids are so worried about guns these days, in my day we had to hide under our desk because of nuclear fears and I turned out fine."

As if kids today don't have nuclear fears. Sigh.

Can we just ban any form of the phrase "back in my day"? What you remember happening in a completely different situation has no bearing on what's actually happening now, just drop it.
posted by tofu_crouton at 8:49 AM on March 23, 2018 [1 favorite]


I keep telling my liver to just hang in there until better times come.
posted by tofu_crouton at 8:50 AM on March 23, 2018 [4 favorites]


"in my day we had to hide under our desk because of nuclear fears and I turned out fine."

Sure they did. Suuuuuuure they did.
posted by elsietheeel at 8:55 AM on March 23, 2018 [4 favorites]


Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.
posted by biogeo at 9:03 AM on March 23, 2018 [2 favorites]


Another great Infrastructure week, everybody! *sobs*
posted by nubs at 9:11 AM on March 23, 2018 [1 favorite]


Responding with tangential thoughts from the current long politics thread:

mrjohnmuller: I've been struggling with how to conceptualize all these events. A dumpster fire is insufficiently complex and bewildering, a house of cards resolves too quickly.

But now I understand. It's a house of dumpster fires. All stacked in an insane pyriamid inferno.


I'm responding to this here because I recently went to the William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Museum in Little Rock, Arkansas, where I was reminded of how much good came about under Bill Clinton. There's plenty to be really angry about him, but also so much to be proud and happy. The presents sent to him when he was president, including drawings from kids. A section on his dedication to education, with his charismatic, honest (looking) smile while talking with a diverse group of kids.

And then I realized Trump is going to get a museum, likely within his lifetime. Fuck. What the fuck will you even commemorate there? How the fuck will this shit-show be spun into a celebration of anything? Are there any pictures of him where he doesn't look smug as hell, or like he's trying to concentrate and look serious, but it just looks like he's trying to poop? Fuck. I can see Pickle's letter being next to the racist border wall proposal (which will be "culturally significant, a powerful architectural statement of the determination of the American people to defend their nation and its Anglo-Saxon heritage, western culture, and English language" -- except they claim that "the classic design is meant to evoke the great walls of history such as Hadrian's wall and the Great Wall of China"). Oh, and the man behind this particular wall pitch lived in Mexico to keep his ex-wife from taking custody of his kids, but he came back to the US, where he was convicted of child abduction and he's now a convicted felon, even though he didn't spend any time in jail. Yeah, his video will be in Trump's museum.

And there'll be people who work there, from security guards to docents to museum directors. Maybe Trump will have less trouble finding people to work in his hagiographic monument than he has finding people to staff his administration.

And co-workers are talking outside my office about arming everyone, because Switzerland requires everyone to own a gun, and look at their crime rates! ... But they don't require everyone to own guns - and they have a quarter of the guns per capita of the US, which is still enough that "guns are ubiquitous in this neutral nation, with sharpshooting considered a fun and wholesome recreational activity for people of all ages.
Unlike some other heavily armed nations, Switzerland’s gun ownership is deeply rooted in a sense of patriotic duty and national identity. Weapons are kept at home because of the long-held belief that enemies could invade tiny Switzerland quickly, so every soldier had to be able to fight his way to his regiment’s assembly point. (Switzerland was at risk of being invaded by Germany during World War II but was spared, historians say, because every Swiss man was armed and trained to shoot.)

But the “gun in every closet” tradition was challenged in 2001, after a disgruntled citizen opened fire with his army rifle inside a regional parliament, killing 14 and injuring 14 others — the only mass shooting in Switzerland’s recent history. The subsequent opposition to widespread gun ownership spearheaded a push for stricter arms legislation. The government and pro-gun groups argued, however, that the country’s existing laws regulating the sale, ownership and licensing of private guns, which includes a ban on carrying concealed weapons, are stringent enough. The law allows citizens or legal residents over the age of 18, who have obtained a permit from the government and who have no criminal record or history of mental illness, to buy up to three weapons from an authorized dealer, with the exception of automatic firearms and selective fire weapons, which are banned. Semiautomatics, which have caused havoc in the U.S., can be legally purchased.
Fuck, even "gun-happy Switzerland" has strict limits on guns, in combination with more training than the US.

Fuck.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:12 AM on March 23, 2018 [2 favorites]


And then I realized Trump is going to get a museum, likely within his lifetime. Fuck. What the fuck will you even commemorate there?

fortunately, clearer heads in the government have already worked up some prototypes
posted by murphy slaw at 9:33 AM on March 23, 2018 [3 favorites]


trump doesn't merit a Landscape of Thorns and frankly his building in midtown basically IS 'an arrangement of gigantic, black, “forbidding blocks” which are too close together and too hot to provide shelter'

basically we need a version of the Nuclear Priesthood strategy, to manipulate the folklore and ensure the legend of this terrible human is retained for generations to come

i wouldn't say no to some ray-cats tho
posted by halation at 10:44 AM on March 23, 2018 [1 favorite]


Duck and Cover was always propaganda bs. You would still be vaporized, only in a crouching position. My solution, should there be armageddon on the way, is to drag a lawn chair and a cooler of beer up on the roof and wait for the show. It should be spectacular, albeit brief. Why in hell would you want to survive?
posted by jim in austin at 9:05 PM on March 23, 2018 [2 favorites]


Fuck this! This is fucking bullshit. Whatever.
posted by petebest at 9:22 PM on March 23, 2018 [1 favorite]


Yep. Treat it like tornado season in the midwest. When the sirens go off, that's when it's time to grab a beer and watch from the back porch.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 9:23 PM on March 23, 2018


I swear I've cycled through Kubler-Ross 10x since last night.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 9:24 PM on March 23, 2018 [1 favorite]


As is so often the case since Election Night 2016, I'm drunk and listening to "Gimme Shelter" on endless loop.

I spent Election Night 2016 with some friends, people I really like, and we haven't seen each other since. I can't speak for them, but I think I'm afraid of the feels that would come out of the whole "last time I saw you" thing. We really thought it would be a triumphant night.
posted by kirkaracha at 10:51 PM on March 23, 2018 [1 favorite]


My colleague was 8 when John Bolton last terrorized the globe, so she didn't know why I reacted like I did at reading his name, cringing and cussing. She told me she tuned out of current events a little and I said fair enough, just tell your family that you love them when you get a chance. She turned to her computer and started reading the news.

This fuck, this evil fuck, this pumpkin headed beady eyed mustache fuck gaaarrrrrhhhhhgggggg how can John fucking Bolton's garbage ass be the world's problem again, what in the actual fuck?

The only world we have, in peril because evil fucks want to feed it to their tedious, bottomless insecurity and ignorance, goddamn goddamn motherfuck goddamn it makes me feel an anger that makes me wish I had some gamma radiation in my system.

The morning after the election I took a bunch of pictures of rainwater beaded on the back of fallen leaves on my walk to work, the first of many fragile things I knew to be doomed in the months ahead. On my walk home, the bushes between the park tables and the tennis courts looked like someone crouching in the fog. My hands were almost fists before I realized there were only shrubs to punch for now. Okay. Okay, this is life now, okay. Okay okay ok.
posted by EatTheWeek at 11:10 PM on March 23, 2018 [2 favorites]


I am so so goddamned sad over the trans military report which is basically like “people treat trans people like shit and it makes their mental health worse, also affects everyone getting along when people don’t like them!” Bleh bleh argh bleh.
posted by corb at 11:26 PM on March 23, 2018


i grew up in constant terror of nuclear annihilation and it almost ruined me. i can’t do it again. letting apocalyptic fear take you over is living your life entirely in an imagined future and robbing yourself of the things that are right in front of you in this moment.

the world could end at any moment but that has always been true, bolton or no. each of us is a fragile thing and our lives can end arbitrarily. apocalypse feels bigger than death but each of us can only die once and for an individual the difference between the end of life and the end of the world is academic.

live your life like the world might end tomorow, because that’s always true. feel your fear and your anger and your mourning but don’t live there.

this sermon is for me, too
posted by murphy slaw at 2:48 AM on March 24, 2018 [3 favorites]


Its my birthday today and I feel as bleak as the grey still goddamn winter here in HEL weather outside the window.
posted by infini at 4:50 AM on March 24, 2018 [2 favorites]


And then I realized Trump is going to get a museum, likely within his lifetime.

Ok, this was fun to imagine. A rusty corrugated steel-shed behind a cactus in the desert where a car a month stops. Dilapidated pot-shot marked hand-painted sign: "Trump Museum". Inside the shed: some moth-eaten red baseball caps on a display table, a crumpled photo of a Scottish golf resort tacked to the wall, and a display of plastic toy guns on a shelf. Also a 1:144 scale model of Airforce 1 and a random helicoper in 1:72, badly decorated, decals peeling. Three hubcaps of a presidential car (insiders would know they were nicked from Obama's vehicle, but no insiders ever come here); a stuffed tweety bird, sprayed blue.
Sean Spicer, behind the checkout counter, chewing. Trump is on Elba.

I dunno. I tried. *sigh*
posted by Namlit at 5:15 AM on March 24, 2018 [6 favorites]


I'm in Pittsburgh's Market Square listening to a seventeen year old student address a crowd of thousands of and she's the best speaker so far. Seeing so many people out and listening to so many articulate young folks has cheered me up hugely.
posted by octothorpe at 10:10 AM on March 24, 2018 [5 favorites]


I watched some of the March for Our Lives from DC via live streaming whatever and I wept because how could I not? I am inspired, I truly am inspired by these fierce, determined, young people. So many reasons to despair but there were roughly 500,000 reasons not to in DC today along with all those other reasons at all those other rallies. Trump et. al. these youngsters are coming for you! I loved the young black woman in DC who talked about us being the United States of America, hammering on that theme several times. Yes, please. Bring us a United States of America, a more democratic, safer, saner nation.
posted by Bella Donna at 1:25 PM on March 24, 2018


Oh, the Trump "Presidential" Museum is going to be ridiculous. So much NOT winning. So much lying. A memorial graveyard out in the front yard for all his staff and all the dead Russians. Nothing but MAGA hats in the store. Photoshopped inauguration pics. Sean Spicer's bunny outfit. Marlon Bundo. Gaudy ornaments. Sad Melania. No Tiffany. Nothing to actually brag about. Quotes from the "president" about how much he hates being president. A replica of his insta-Coke button.
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:56 PM on March 24, 2018


If there is a Trump Presidential Museum I will commit now to paying the bail money for someone to burn it down.
posted by corb at 9:02 PM on March 24, 2018 [1 favorite]


Was talking to my most conservative friend today, she said, "I just don't know what reality I'm living in". Word!
posted by bq at 9:17 PM on March 24, 2018 [1 favorite]


Oh, the Trump "Presidential" Museum is going to be ridiculous.

Worse than Disney's Hall of Vice-Presidents.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 9:38 PM on March 24, 2018


If there is a Trump Presidential Museum I will commit now to paying the bail money for someone to burn it down.

For better or worse it will probably be in Manhattan and hard to burn down without burning something else down that doesn't deserve injury.

I vote for semi-daily stink bombing.
posted by dis_integration at 9:39 PM on March 24, 2018 [1 favorite]


I did something hopeful today: I pruned a tree. I mean, the situation looks bleak indeed, but it's still spring. So I put a stake in the ground and declared that I have to believe there will be another spring by cutting back some unruly branches on the mulberry tree. I can't just give up when I've got a little one depending on me.
posted by ob1quixote at 11:40 PM on March 24, 2018 [3 favorites]


Semi-daily means twice a day, right?
posted by Namlit at 11:22 AM on March 25, 2018 [1 favorite]


may i recommend the humble chicken-and-milk bomb as the weapon of choice
posted by murphy slaw at 11:45 AM on March 25, 2018 [1 favorite]


Flaming bags of dog poop, available in the gift shop.
posted by petebest at 2:58 PM on March 25, 2018 [2 favorites]


Re: Stormy Daniels on 60 Minutes

I grew up watching Morley Safer and Ed Bradley with my parents in the 90s every Sunday night and if you would have told me 20 years later that on another Sunday night my Mom and I would watch a porn star talk about a mafioso threatening her daughter because of a lawsuit with the current president.... Even growing up on the Lewinsky scandal I still probably could not have foreseen this one.
posted by mostly vowels at 5:20 PM on March 25, 2018 [4 favorites]


Re: Stormy Daniels on 60 Minutes

@ashleyfeinberg: Really strong grandma take
posted by Going To Maine at 7:17 PM on March 25, 2018 [2 favorites]


This song has been going through my head for days, and I've found that it makes an appropriate soundtrack to the entire universe at this point in time, so I thought I'd share.

The Decemberists - Everything Is Awful
posted by MrVisible at 8:07 PM on March 25, 2018 [1 favorite]


Semi-daily means twice a day, right?

That, or a cross between a former Chicago mayor and a Mack truck.
posted by Mental Wimp at 11:38 AM on March 26, 2018


My "pet issue" is internet security/privacy/etc. Turns out this past budget bill was full of internet censorship provisions, and no one noticed or cared. I've just been too busy with work and family issues to call my representatives lately, and I feel like it's my fault somehow, even if calling my reps is preaching to the choir and they are just two individuals in a sea of highly suspect "representatives". Meanwhile, ostensibly we could have reversed the Net Neutrality ruling if we could just get enough people on board to be in favor of it. For the first time (you're probably wondering what took me so long), I feel powerless. WE are not powerless. But I am. And I'm disgusted. I don't know what to do anymore.
posted by koucha at 6:52 AM on March 28, 2018 [1 favorite]


i have cancelled like six comments, unposted, in the politics thread today because the only thing i can think to say about a member of the administration is "christ, what an asshole"
posted by murphy slaw at 2:32 PM on March 28, 2018 [6 favorites]


My pet issue is Interior. I'm cramming as much time as I can on federal lands before they're gone.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 5:09 PM on March 28, 2018 [1 favorite]


This is a really petty complaint compared to pretty much everything else in this thread, but:

I've been taking an online web dev course to bring my skills into a reasonable approximation of the 21st century, and it's been okay so far--I've been learning some CSS and some front-end Javascript stuff, and it's all made perfect sense so far.

Now, though, we've gotten to Node.js, where everything is asynchronous. In a sane, rational framework/language/world, if you assign a value to a variable and then attempt to use that variable, you can be guaranteed that those things will happen in that order, because causality. Not so in Node.js, where I spent an hour yesterday trying to figure out why the variable I was setting with the result from a database query kept coming back as "undefined" every single time.

It turns out that Node.js will essentially do everything you tell it to all at once, and apparently the only way you can force things to happen sequentially is to wrap everything in layers upon layers of callback functions and promises and async/await calls and for all I goddamned know, several flaky layers of filo dough sprinkled with nuts.

I'm going to keep pushing through the course a while longer because I paid for the thing, but at the moment I'm this close to going back to learning Django. It's kind of monolithic and slower and not quite as fashionably web-scale as all the currently-popular Javascript stuff, but at least they fucking know how time works.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 1:57 AM on March 29, 2018 [5 favorites]


Yeah, that's all considered normal in the Javascript world.
posted by octothorpe at 4:52 AM on March 29, 2018 [2 favorites]


The secret to node.js and asynchronicity is just to embrace the insanity and delegate everything to gleeful little bot subroutines that run around wildly going "wheeeeee!" when they have a metaphorical finger stuck up their arse.

I mean you do have to cultivate them and give them rules about how to interact. But it's a lot more fun than Django where everything was just "BRING ME PHOTOS OF SPIDERMAN NOW OR MY MUSTACHE WILL EXPLODE!"

Hang on, where am I?

Also why?

This does seem familiar.
posted by Buntix at 9:11 AM on March 29, 2018 [2 favorites]


TIL John Bolton was coded in Django
posted by snuffleupagus at 1:00 PM on March 29, 2018 [3 favorites]


Most frightning thing I’ve heard recently is that with all those JavaScript programmers out there it makes sense to dump the other scripting languages and write the server side code in JavaScript as well.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 4:46 PM on March 29, 2018


Hey! Javascript is a fine language these ES6+ days. Add in some TypeScript and you're really cooking. I enjoy my JS hacking day to day, and hey! my student loan consolidation finally went through so although FUCKING FUCK I'm going to be paying it until 2048, at least my monthly payment is lower now, and that has reduced a lot of my fucks. Maybe when the war with North Korea escalates into all-out war with China I can hack some Javascript for the War Effort and they'll forgive my loans or something.
posted by dis_integration at 8:23 PM on March 29, 2018


We do all our backend work in either Rails or Java/Springboot and leave the horror that is JS for the front end crap.
posted by octothorpe at 8:31 PM on March 29, 2018 [1 favorite]


A person at work has been missing for two weeks and not responding to phone calls, emails, or texts and I am really worried about them.
posted by corb at 8:34 PM on March 29, 2018 [1 favorite]


I'm sorry to hear that, corb.
posted by fluffy battle kitten at 9:17 PM on March 29, 2018


Corb — That is scary.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 7:06 AM on March 30, 2018 [1 favorite]


I have a very big lump in my chest.
posted by bq at 11:05 AM on March 30, 2018


Me reading the news these days.

Fuck this and fuck that and fuck this thing and especially fuck that thing…
posted by Doktor Zed at 4:31 AM on April 3, 2018


Sitting in a room with the CTO of Trump's HHS and trying not to yell at him.
posted by octothorpe at 8:21 AM on April 3, 2018 [1 favorite]


please yell at him

Er, I mean, take diligent notes and godspeed.
posted by soren_lorensen at 8:23 AM on April 3, 2018 [6 favorites]


He was invited by the director of my lab and I'd like to stay employed so yeah.

Mostly it's blah blah innovation, blah blah streamlining, blah blah efficiency.
posted by octothorpe at 8:35 AM on April 3, 2018


corb, has there been any progress on finding your coworker?
posted by ZeusHumms at 2:01 PM on April 3, 2018 [1 favorite]


No there has not, and it’s really concerning honestly. We have called, emailed, left messages saying “Please just tell us if you are alive” and nothing.
posted by corb at 2:51 PM on April 3, 2018 [1 favorite]


corb, it might be worth asking your local police to do a "check on welfare" for your coworker. Its something I've done beforef for a staff member, and they were really helpful about the situation (which I didn't expect). Mine had a happy outcome, I hope yours does too.
posted by nubs at 4:41 PM on April 3, 2018 [3 favorites]


Need something like this for political threads.
posted by ZeusHumms at 10:20 AM on April 5, 2018


While I certainly don't want to know the details, I do like the idea that Trump might be required to submit to an intrusive examination in order to establish the veracity of Stormy Daniel's descriptions of the Presidential Junk.
posted by JohnFromGR at 10:21 AM on April 5, 2018 [1 favorite]


"When the president's genitalia are in the news you may discuss the news about his penis"

O, TEMPORA
O, MORES
posted by snuffleupagus at 10:34 AM on April 5, 2018 [4 favorites]


Fuck me, I just finished assembling my first POTUS45 FPP, and I'm already second-guessing my choices of headlines, to say nothing of how mentally exhausting its composition was. Kudos to all the FPP-creating veterans of those megathreads—I don't know how you've managed.
posted by Doktor Zed at 10:46 AM on April 5, 2018 [3 favorites]


Coworker was apparently deathly sick for a while and since he had no call no showed for a while, he went out and got another job, so everything is okay with him!
posted by corb at 4:01 PM on April 5, 2018 [11 favorites]


Huzzah, corb. Glad to hear it.
posted by nubs at 7:00 PM on April 5, 2018


That’s great to hear, other than the deathly sick part.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 9:54 PM on April 5, 2018



[When the president's genitalia are in the news you may discuss the news about his penis, but let's try to keep the jokes and riffing out of it, surely we've all heard every possible penis joke already.]
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 12:31 on April 5 [27 favorites +] [!]


I've got to throw a flag here. You can't tempt folk with a challenge like that buried in a comment asking for joke-filter restraint in a mega-thread.

And to make this vaguely topical, fuck me for being in a place where presidential penis jokes are a thing I need to concern myself with. Not even in the darkest moments of the Clinton, William Jefferson era was I as compelled to make dick jokes like I am in the present.
posted by Fezboy! at 8:20 AM on April 6, 2018


CHRIST ALMIGHTY, don't wander into a thread all 'hay guise what is the what on $thing_we've_already_hashed_to_death i've never heard of it pz halp'

Ctrl-F is two fucking keystrokes. Do your own homework.

Also, my queendom for a preview window that validates whether a link you are posting has already been posted before*

*does not apply to zachliption and lalex
posted by fluttering hellfire at 9:52 AM on April 6, 2018 [2 favorites]


HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA THAT DICKHOLE FARENTHOLD RESIGNED HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. FUCK YOU FARENTHOLD
posted by photoslob at 5:05 PM on April 6, 2018 [5 favorites]


Fuck the Hawks. LET'S GO BLUES.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 5:21 PM on April 6, 2018


The only thing that I can’t figure out about Farenthold is whether he’s literally the worst person to ever sit in the House, or only one of the three or so worst.

Actually, come to think of it, I guess Joe Walsh is the worst.
posted by holborne at 6:39 PM on April 6, 2018 [1 favorite]


We could have brackets to judge these sorts of things...
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:33 PM on April 6, 2018 [1 favorite]


After reading years of Metafilter (for free!) I thought I had some interesting insight into a recent occurrence in the politics thread! By the time PayPal accepted my money and I found my username in the acceptance email the entire topic was verboten.

The only reason I'm here is I've been able to read this site for so long without becoming completely enraged, and this is all due to the hard work of the moderators here.

I wish there were a third option, beyond post/preview, a "posit" button where if you know what you're about to post isn't going to be accepted well you could still get some personalized feedback on your thoughts. (They'd have to pay the mods much better to deal with everyone's thoughts)
posted by I paid money to offer this... insight? at 12:44 AM on April 7, 2018 [1 favorite]


in a thread like this I would like a "prosit" button and free beers.
posted by Namlit at 6:00 AM on April 7, 2018 [2 favorites]


How would that work, though? If anyone sees the offensive thought they're going to go insane and pick fights, regardless.
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:45 AM on April 7, 2018


Oh, I thought "posit" would just be a way for me to send a potentially ragey deraily freakout post directly to lobstermitten and either it would be posted to the thread or I'd get a personal "one deleted--try to calm down," instead of making lobstermitten delete it and five or six responses to it and sending the "a few deleted--try to calm down" to the whole thread. But I paid money to offer this... insight? is right: everybody would start positing like mad and make a pile of work, so there'd have to be like 20 more mods.
posted by Don Pepino at 9:23 AM on April 7, 2018 [1 favorite]


Damn, offloading emotional labor of figuring out if you're being unhinged onto the mods? LOL NO. Posit yourself. Walk away, make some tea, smoke a bowl, listen to some Zero 7 and come back to your draft before posting.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 9:44 AM on April 8, 2018 [2 favorites]


Also, fuck, the Blues are out of the postseason.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 9:45 AM on April 8, 2018


I must concur with fluttering hellfire: the mods have enough work to do and it doesn't seem fair to them to float a trial balloon of "is this bad?" (I *think* that is what you were going for?) on top of everything else.

If you have any doubts at all if what you're going to say is going to offend someone, IT WILL OFFEND TONS OF FOLKS. It will. If you have the slightest doubt, don't post it. Bad enough when you offend everyone when you had no idea you were going to, but if you had an inkling it might be bad? Dooooon't. You'll regret it. Any time you tick anyone off will follow you around for the rest of your life these days.

If you have doubts and need someone to check for you, find someone IRL who can sensitivity read for you or warn you not to post it...but pretty much if you might offend, you will offend.
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:25 AM on April 8, 2018 [1 favorite]


ugh, i didn't read the news for four days, and as soon as i came out of my blackout, Cohen got raided and Trump responded.

I was telling my shrink the other day that half of my anxiety these days is that everything horrible in the world is creeping up incrementally and nothing will resolve. The part of my brain that wants to find narrative keeps getting prodded but there's no catharsis. It's like watching the endgame of Jenga and people keep pulling blocks from the bottom of the tower that should make it collapse BUT IT KEEPS STANDING and then they put it on top in a configuration that shouldn't stand AND IT KEEPS STANDING.

It feels like being slowly asphyxiated.
posted by murphy slaw at 4:33 PM on April 9, 2018 [6 favorites]


Wondering which movies the cosmic scriptwriters should borrow liberally from when plotting out the current act of the Trump presidency. "Awakenings" and a Scooby Doo movie come to mind.
posted by ZeusHumms at 7:16 AM on April 10, 2018


i watched All The President's Men too many times growing up and I keep waiting for the moment when everything cuts to a montage of teletype news releases and everything resolves itself before the credits
posted by murphy slaw at 7:34 AM on April 10, 2018 [5 favorites]


Har! "Jenga. The movie."
posted by Don Pepino at 7:37 AM on April 10, 2018


Is there a countdown timer that measures time in Scaramucci's?
posted by ZeusHumms at 10:13 AM on April 10, 2018


do you know how long it's been since i've heard any canadian political news? everything happening here is being drowned out by the ruckus down south. could you buddies, like... keep it down or something? thanks.
posted by LegallyBread at 11:37 AM on April 11, 2018 [1 favorite]


lowest of complaints in the fuck thread: today is my birthday and it has been a WILD one in politics but I don't want to mention it on the blue because mods are begging us to avoid chitchat. but i've been looking forward to this ever since mefites started claiming credit for political happenings on their birthday!

(genuinely sorry to all the mefites in here dealing with actual hardships. I looked, but there was no "darning darn it" thread for me to post this in)
posted by jermsplan at 1:03 PM on April 11, 2018 [5 favorites]


jermsplan, my neighbor's house burned down Sunday because of a fire that started in the attic. I'm thinking it was rats nibbling the wiring. I have attic rats, myself, and my house was built the same year his was. Plus now all his rats will move to my house to get more of that sweet, sweet wirenibbling action. I mean, right? Where else would they go? Nevertheless, I thank you for the update. I am made glad by the idea that today is somebody's birthday. What a day! You have a so much to celebrate!
posted by Don Pepino at 1:28 PM on April 11, 2018


Don, I am very sorry for you and your neighbor, and karma has acted swiftly. Moments after posting I was called to the backyard by my screaming wife who was being chased out of our yard by bees along with our two year old, our neighbor, and her 1 year old. My wife is epi-pen level allergic. So I'm pretty sure that was the universe saying "cool your jets, bud, or we'll give you something to say fuck about".
posted by jermsplan at 2:21 PM on April 11, 2018


yikes, what happened re. the bees? Is everybody okay? My neighbor is fine and the entire town is throwing money into his gofundme.

I read back over my thing and it reads snarky, but I meant it straight up: I liked the birthday claim and the cake-eating trope from the oldstyle politics thread.

I hope you had a lovely day despite bees.
posted by Don Pepino at 6:25 AM on April 12, 2018 [1 favorite]


BEADS?
posted by entropicamericana at 9:28 AM on April 12, 2018 [1 favorite]


I live in the Bay Area. My daily commute takes me from east San Jose to Sunnyvale, and a chunk of that is along 101. For months I have been "chuckling"[1] at the juxtaposition, right at the 101/880 interchange, of a "TRUMP 2020" poster one building over from a sign saying, if my mangled memory is correct, "se empleo ofricido" (Literally "I was employed"; I'm assuming it's a notice that there are Spanish-speaking jobs available with the company next door).

In the last few days, there's been a new addition - a double-sided video billboard, within the fenced-in private property, complaining that the Association of Bay Area Governments is an unelected, "soviet council"[2] operating as a local shadow government.

I don't know how much more crazy I can take.

[1] Not really chuckling. Shaking my head ruefully, perhaps
[2] "soviet council" is redundant - a "soviet" IS a council.

posted by hanov3r at 11:33 AM on April 12, 2018 [1 favorite]


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