Suit of the Week: Boss

38 Comments

1. I kind of love the cargo pants suit…

   1. I bought similar pants from Ulla Johnson last year with a matching top and it is surprisingly workable in real life. Especially when you style is already veers artsy-exec. Not gonna lie that I’m considering the cargo pants suit…

      1. Banana or Banana Factory has something similar in concept.

   2. I wear real cargo pants/5.11s to work, so I kind of love this!

   3. I would 100% wear the cargo suit (higher ed adjacent). Cargos are so useful, I won’t fly without them anymore!

2. I need a new toilet ASAP. Is there a real difference between the American Standards at Lowe’s vs Ferguson? The models are different and ones at one place are twice as much as the other (ditto for Kohler).

   1. Yes there is a difference. TBH I don’t actually remember what but my brother is a plumber and we had a whole conversation about it at Christmas and my take away was ‘buy the fancy toilet’. He explained things about intake, pipe volume, and smoothness, but the details escape me.

      1. Fancy as in Toto? Or just the most expensive AS or Kohler? I don’t need a bidet, I just need it not to be a lemon (and the one that broke was a Ferguson AS model back in 2019; it’s siblings are fine but this one has always had issues).

         1. Fancy as in more expensive AS or Koehler. He does not like the electronic ones.

         2. I would always go with the Toto. Toto 4 life!!!!

            1. Omg I am also on team Toto for Life!

   2. Yes, there is a difference between a name brand toilet (or faucet, or sink) from Lowe’s/HD vs. the same brand from a plumbing supply house. Always get from the plumbing supply house.

      1. Is Ferguson even a plumbing supply house? Where I live, they are fancy showrooms for PE finance bros on their new builds. It doesn’t seem oriented to the trade at all.

         1. I’m not super familiar with Ferguson, but I think they maintain supply houses in addition to their showrooms. I don’t think they’re necessarily the best supply houses, though.

         2. Ferguson is. They just started having fancy show rooms recently.

            1. They’ve had fancy showrooms since the 1980s here.

      2. Oh, and I was skeptical, but we let our plumber talk us into getting pressure-assisted toilets and they are fantastic. I thought they’d be unreliable and expensive to fix, but no problems even after several years.

3. One of the posts yesterday got me thinking. Do you enjoy having a variety of people and relationships in your life, or are you more content to have a couple close relationships?

   I am definitely the former. I have close friendships, but I really thrive when my social life is active and diverse. I enjoy lots of different types of friends and activities, and the variety gives me energy and makes me feel alive. I really noticed this during the pandemic—I was grateful to still be able to nurture close relationships, but I missed the “loose ties” of the workspace, cafe, social engagements, workout classes, etc. that add interest and spice to life.

   I also need plenty of downtime and alone time. All of this means that I am sometimes less available than some people would like me to be. Of course, there are some in my life I’d love to see more but they like even more variety/downtime/busyness than me!

   What about you?

   1. I normally prefer a couple of close friendships but right now, I find myself in a friendship drought, especially for certain hobbies or “stage of life.” Between moving, the pandemic, and general social trends, I just haven’t made any permanent new friends in years. I don’t have any other women to ski with, for one, and would love to find at least one! I’m also really trying to make some local mom friends. It’s been a bit challenging to meet moms despite a plethora of organized moms groups in the area because 99.5% of their meet-ups are geared towards SAHM schedules, which don’t apply to me. Constant battle over here.

   2. Definitely the former as well. I love a loose tie.

      I WFH, which has not been good for this, and recently joined a coworking space that some coworkers come to too. It’s been fantastic. However I’ve noticed that I don’t get the full benefit when I go by myself, even though plenty of people use the coworking space as just a desk outside their house. For me whether or not there are other coworkers there makes a big difference.

      One part of the coworking space you have to be completely silent in. In another section, you can have normal conversations. The completely silent one doesn’t work for me either – and neither did the quiet floors of the library in college.

   3. I like collecting acquaintances as I go, and some of them become close friends over time. Some of my closest friends are former coworkers.

      I have a few deeply close longtime friends, but they in other cities. We text and visit each other when we can. We are raising children, so the visits are less frequent but all the more meaningful.

   4. I’m also the former, but like you, I also love my alone time.

      I also do a lot of activities, which keeps me happily busy!

   5. I’ve kinda given up on long-term close friendships, tbh. All the people I thought would be long-term friends have ended up drifting as we move or get married or have kids. I had a period of mourning for having fewer deeper relationships, but now I appreciate the variety and adaptability that comes from being more opportunistic in my friendships. It makes friendship much less stressful too – I don’t have as many expectations and can just take it for what it is instead of stressing about whether they’re as committed/invested in the relationship as I am and getting most of my social needs met by a small subset of people. I do still really like the idea of a few close friends (making friends is such hard work!), it just seems mythical/unattainable.

      1. I identify with this response so much, but for me, I also feel incapable of creating deeper friendships rather than surface-level acquaintances.

   6. I prefer having a couple of close friends but I’ve basically given up on that. I’ve been hurt too much by too many BFFs. The last BFF break up broke something in me. I was pregnant with my first/only at the time and having her betray me at such a vulnerable moment was worse than any romantic breakup I’ve been through.

      I have a ton of casual friends, though, and they’ve collectively shown up for me and LO in wonderful ways. I’m focusing on building community. Or possibly multiple communities. I think perhaps that’s healthier than dumping so much of yourself into one or two people. And I think it’ll be good for LO to have lots of different people in his life.

   7. This is an interesting question and I had to think about it!

      I have a wide range of friends (I have six group chats pinned on my phone) who also range in closeness. I find that I need different friends for different things, so having a wide range works best for me. These friendships range from 20+ years to a year or less, even within the various groups, I am closer to some than others. I met some through shared hobbies who became close, several through work, some through dates that didn’t work out romantically, others through friends already in the group, and some who I brought to the group.

      As I type that out, I recognize how fortunate I am to have this wide range and amazing collection of friends, but I also am giving myself some credit for being able to help sustain all these relationships.

      I too need downtime and alone time, and while I have these many groups of friends, my most enjoyable times are with one other person or with a friend and a couple that we know (a pseudo double date of sorts).

      That’s a long winded way of saying I seem to really like a lot of variety, but I enjoy being in small groups when in person.

4. Have any of you watched the new documentary, Death of a Pastor’s Wife?

   I grew up in an evangelical church and definitely heard versions of the “wife must meet her husband’s needs”, but never as explicitly or as often as preached at Solid Rock church.

   I also experienced some of the general “creepy vibes” from older men, but it was usually more in the context of insisting that I should marry their son, I’d make a great wife for some nice young man someday, telling my dad he needs to watch out for the boys as I get older, etc.

   I was ruminating on one particular comment from my teenage days, and trying to figure out whether it’s truly inappropriate, colored by all the stuff I know now as an adult, or actually fine. I have no trauma about it or anything, it just sticks out when I see and hear some of the evangelical abuse coming out as an adult.

   The situation was a third-hand comment to me about an older guy saying I was cute. I don’t remember the exact age gap, but it was something like he was a senior and I was a freshman in high school, so potentially 17-18yo commenting on 14-15yo. Our parents were friends, so we hung out as kids, and I actually had a bit of a crush on this guy. He never talked to me, never hit on me, never tried to sit next to me or make any kind of move, so there was absolutely nothing inappropriate. He dated among his peers and married a woman his own age, so again, nothing to indicate that he was a predator or in any way a danger to a minor.

   Now that I’m an adult, I would find it weird for an 18yo to find a 14yo attractive, but a 2-year ago gap doesn’t seem unreasonable to me. I think it starts getting weird when it’s an 18yo with a 2-year age gap, because 18 is usually late high school and in a different mindset about the future. But where is that line, and how much does it matter if someone never acts on it in any way, other than making a comment to someone who passes it along, etc.?

   The pastor was 15 years older and in a position of authority, so that’s a massive red flag and huge power imbalance. But living in my own purity culture, evangelical upbringing and deconstructing as an adult has me thinking about some of the lines and my own experiences as a teenager.

   1. Doesn’t seem inappropriate to me. I could see it being something like the mom said, “Junior, don’t you think Anon Amous is a pretty girl?” “Sure, she’s fine,” and that makes it all the way to the grapevine to you.

      1. OP here – yes, I don’t remember the specifics, but I think his dad mentioned it to my mom, who passed it along to me because she knew I thought he was cute.

         This was another one where both sets of parents had a silly fantasy that we’d get married someday, so my mom knowing I had a little crush, and his dad hearing any confirmation that his son noticed me as a teenager was music to their ears!

         Again, I think it actually says something deeper that our parents were in any way making comments about any of us getting married when we were all in high school.

         One dad was particularly insistent that I would marry his son, despite me and his son actually disliking each other and running in completely different circles within the youth group. But every Sunday, he’d seek me out to ask how his “future daughter-in-law” is, when I would start dating his son, if I thought his son was cute, etc., so that was way more inappropriate than whatever comment this other high school guy might’ve made.

   2. I think you can trust your own gut here – saying this as someone who had a similar background. You didn’t feel like there were any boundaries crossed, any that’s ok. Also, it can be a gray area when you have 14-18 year olds all in school/classes together, and they all develop at different rates, and may find different people attractive. Sounds like all acted appropriately in this scenario.
      It’s been interesting for me as well, analyzing past experiences – you’re not alone!

      1. I tend to agree with this. There’s a lot to unpack here, but I think societal standards for what is an acceptable age difference are generally much different now than they were 20 or 30 years ago.

         In high school, it’s really hard to draw that line. I did not grow up Evangelical, but I was raised in a more religious community. I knew several girls who started dating their future spouses around age 14/15, and some of the guys were 17/18 at the time. All are still married, so I dunno. It didn’t seem that creepy back then. I might feel differently now, but I agree that high school is a really gray area. I wouldn’t feel great about a college freshman dating a H.S. sophomore, for example.

         1. Agreed, there’s a huge push toward early marriage and celebration of every aspect of that–attraction, dating, engagement, marriage, honeymoon stage and after, eventually pregnancy, children, grandchildren, greatgrandchildren….on an on, in very proscribed gender roles especially for the females.

            So, I don’t see this as odd for 14-15 year-olds, but maybe from outside the culture it would be? We were told we couldn’t ‘date’ until we were 16, but there was lots of opportunities for group socializing and pairing off (with adult supervision) before then. That was encouraged.

            As to whether it’s healthy or not? YMMV.

            Also, are there sometimes problematic age differences, yes, maybe. Is this always predatory? No, not always.

            (I believe the age gap in marriages is a factor across cultures, religions and eras, but I’m not citing anything. You can google if you’re interested.)

      2. This sounds right.

   3. I feel like y’all would be scandalized by my completely consensual highschool shenanigans.

   4. I’m a GenX who grew up in a similar church. If that had been said about me, I would have found that slightly creepy (if we’d never talked) *and* slightly flattering. Then again, I was a Charlotte in a sea of Elle Woodses and had zero self-esteem, so I was surprised when anyone close to my age said I was pretty. I was too flat-chested and too brunette to be pretty in my suburb.

5. Anyone had any recs for a (first) trip to Taiwan? DH and I are planning our first (very short: 5 days only) vacation there and I can use some recs. If it is relevant, we have done other Asian countries (including China, Japan, Thailand etc) in the region.

   1. My family is from Taiwan, so admittedly we don’t do a lot other than visit Family when we are there, but a few suggestions:
      Taiwan is all about the food. Go to a night market. Go to more than one. If you find that overwhelming, you can find a food tour and have someone take you.
      Where are you going to be?
      If you are near Taipei, Beitou is nice for the hot springs and you can get there via public transportation.
      Toroko Gorge or Sun Moon Lake are beautiful.
      In Tainan, visit Temples, The Museum of Taiwan History, Anping Tree House.
      Further to the south, Kenting has some beautiful beaches and an aquarium.
      One thing I want to do but haven’t yet is take a bike tour of the island. My uncle and his family did it and loved it.
      But above all, eat all the food- stinky tofu, dumplings, juice, bao, noodles, boba, tang hulu, tea eggs, fruit (wax apples, mangos, guava, lychees- Taiwan has amazing fruit).

6. I like the cargo version, but it is too artsy for my real life. I have cargoes I wear at home where no one can see them.

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