Splurge Monday’s Workwear Report: Demiara Sheath Dress

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1. Seeking perspective from wise hive on something that’s been bugging me:

   My boyfriend has a habit of asking questions like “What is this?” “What is that?” “When does it close?” etc. especially when we travel to foreign places, but also in everyday life. I, of course, usually have no way of knowing any more than he does, except by googling. I am getting more and more annoyed that he seems to be putting the burden on me to look things up, or tell him to google it, or tell him that I don’t know. I feel irritated that I have to answer every question with “I don’t know”, like I’m ignorant of something where the question was posed as that something is a thing I should know.

   I’ve raised the issue with him a few times, including asking him to ask me instead “do you know what this is?” instead of assuming that I should know something — to me there is a difference of being considerate between asking me “what is this” and “do you know what this is”. He insists that he’s not assuming I should know the answer even when he asks “what is this?”, and asks me why I feel like I should know something just because it is asked one way rather than the other.

   Wise ‘rettes, am I being unreasonably crabby or sensitive here? How do I explain this better to him (and/or is it more a me issue and do I need therapy)? Suggestions for scripts welcome — so far I’m resorting to “I don’t know” ad nauseum, ignoring his questions unless he directs them to me with “do you know what this is?”, or turning the question back to him with “are you asking me?” / “do you think I know?” which I feel borders on hostitle territory (because I am pissed). Side note that my boyfriend is French (English being his second language), if it makes any difference. Thanks in advance!

   1. “Babe, I don’t know any better than you do.” Then leave it at that.

      1. I might come up with a neutral shorthand to use every single time so that it feels more automatic for you. (Bonus if he ever recognizes the pattern as a result of how often you use this shorthand.) How about “I wonder.” As in, “what time do they open?” “I wonder.”

         1. “Why don’t you find out?”

      2. “Beats me!”

   2. I don’t understand why you are annoyed about this. At all. “What is this?” “I don’t know!”

      How is that a problem? He’s not implying you should know, or that you are ignorant for not knowing, or that you should figure it out. He’s just asking a question. Because he is your boyfriend and it is normal that he carry on a conversation with you.

      If you can’t stand him, break up with him! But don’t delude yourself into thinking he’s doing some horrible objectively wrong thing.

      1. On the other hand, I understand all too well. Maybe not “what is this?” – but “what time does…” –this is 100% a precursor to the behavior my husband exhibits: relying on me to maintain a mental calendar and up to date shopping list at all times. This boyfriend is literally treating his girlfriend like Alexa/Siri. OP – maybe if you put it in those terms he’ll get it?

         1. Exactly. I would be so very annoyed by this behavior. I wouldn’t like it, either. (In fact, I’d be tempted to snap back at him, “Why don’t you ask Siri?” Might get the point across.)

         2. This! I find this annoying and have posted here about very similar stuff. Full disclosure: although I think it’s a legitimate reason to be annoyed, mentally letting it go is a big part of the solution.

         3. +1 Once I explained how annoying this was to my husband, he got it and now tries to phrase as “do you know…” and looks it up if I say no.

         4. Yes, this is exactly what i was thinking when i read the original post. It seems like the boyfriend is treating the girlfriend like his assistant, which would bother me. also, i feel like this describes many of the relationships that i (and my friends) have had over the years. i prove my worth (or prove how much i love my boyfriend) by “taking care of things” for him, just like a secretary/assistant would do. The more i am able to read his mind, and the better i am at anticipating his needs, the better i am at my “job” of girlfriend.
            Hopefully, I have grown out of this pattern, but i definitely can identify it when I think back on past relationships.

            1. This! If it bothers the OP, it is something that the boyfriend needs to fix. But he won’t b/c he wants her to do all of his dirty work. It is simple enough to look things up, but he just wants to blurt something out and have her find the answer. My ex was like this. All he wanted was to eat and drink, have s-x, and then just do what he wanted and have me do whatever he needed to get done. FOOEY on that! All I got was a lazy drunk who stained my cotton sheets, ruined my duvet down comforter, stunk up my toilet and vomited on my white shag rugs. That I can do without! I urge the HIVE to take stock of what you are doing and are asked to be done by your boyfreinds and ask yourself: “Is it worth it?” If the answer is yes, then keep doing it. Otherwise, do what my Dad had me do. That is: D.T.M.F.A. ASAP!

               https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=DTMFA

               I did, and I never looked back! YAY!!

      2. OMG, see, this would drive me absolutely crazy! OP, I don’t think you’re necessarily wrong to feel annoyed, but I do think this is probably just a tic your bf has and it’s part of the price of admission of being with him.

   3. Language isn’t just about translation, it’s also about a way of speaking. French tends to be more direct than English.

      It does seem like you’re being overly sensitive about this. I’d just say ‘ I don’t know’ and leave it at that. Maybe switch to French when you want to signal that he’s annoying you with asking a lot? ‘J’ai aucune idee’/Je ne sais pas.

      1. Qu’est-ce que c’est? is pretty literally “What is this?” (or more accurately, it is “what is it that this is?” I think you’re being overly sensitive, esp when he is not a native English speaker.

   4. Oh, I feel you. Husband is always asking me these things, like “is it going to rain today?” I don’t know, I’m barely out of bed and you’ve been up for an hour on your phone anyway…

      But my husband is like this, to the point that his college friends have a running joke about nodding and smiling and saying, “Gee I don’t know, [husband’s name], that’s a good question.” (While smirking at each other/me as we all wait for him to notice.) The catchphrase makes them all giggle, and then they move on. I get you. It’s annoying as heck. But gently, it’s not worth it. Find yourself an autopilot response and don’t think about it anymore.

   5. The language difference between “what is that?” and “do you know what that is?” seems small, especially if English is not his first language. I can see using the phase “what is that?” not because I expect the other person to know, but because I’m wondering what that is. This strikes me as nitpicking, and is somehow reminding me of people who respond to the question of “can you do X?” with a literal answer of whether they can do the thing, not whether they will do the thing.

      So, it makes me wonder if this is more an issue that you are mad that he is putting the burden on you to look stuff up instead of doing any work himself. You mentioned that he also asks questions like “when does it close?” Are you equally frustrated at that question? If so, maybe consider whether this is more an issue of him making these issues your burden, instead of how he phases the question. If so, I agree that would piss me off and make me concerned that he is not going to be an equal partner.

   6. You’re nitpicking, especially with an ESL person, but the bigger problem is your boyfriend annoys you.

   7. My husband does something similar – asks me questions that he could Google the answer to himself. “Where is that?” “What time do they open?” “What time do they close?” “How do we get there?” “What’s on the menu there?” etc. “Gee, babe, I don’t know” is a great answer to things like this. He’s gotten better about it over time, to the point that now, if we talk about going to, say, a new restaurant, later he will come back and say “I looked it up and they serve X and Y, and they open at X time, and we get there by taking this route.” The “expecting me to be Google” thing is one of his quirks; I live with it like he’s learned to live with mine. Like I never, ever remember to put the trash out on trash day but he always remembers. He knows how to fix the garbage disposal when it jams; I don’t have a clue on how to do that. Marriage/relationships are about give and take. There is no such thing as a relationship of two perfect people who do everything perfectly all the time and never do anything nonsensical, annoying or illogical. If people are holding out for someone who has no irritating behaviors whatsoever, they will be holding out for the rest of their lives.

      1. +1

         Mine always asks me what time it is while he is browsing on his phone. It used to annoy the heck out of me, but once I started turning it back on him (gee babe, if only there were a connected device within your reach upon which you could check the time for yourself!) it became a running joke between us. He still asks me, but only after he’s looked up whatever it was himself and mostly just to get an eye roll from me.

         1. Oh that’s a good one! “If ONLY there were a DEVICE” was a running joke in my family. I should start saying that again.

            1. I really had to check my snark level the first time I said it. I know he wasn’t intentionally doing this to bug me and he really had no idea how much I would seethe over it. But finally finding a way to tell him without blowing up at him made this into a funny quirk that brings us closer together rather than driving us apart.

            2. I do that. “Oh, if only there were a DEVICE that could store the totality of human knowledge, and if only such DEVICE were small enough to fit in the palm of one’s hand!!”

         2. This is a great response. I have been way snarkier “Honey, you got waitlisted at HYPS, I’m sure you can figure this one out.”

      2. Exactly this

   8. I don’t have any suggestions for you, but I wanted to say that this kind of thing drives me crazy as well. I grin and bear it with friends; I would not be able to date someone who did this.

   9. IDK. My ex was the exact same way (and it wasn’t due to a language barrier). It’s not why we split up, but it did get on my nerves. It felt like one more way in which I was being asked to do the emotional labor of figuring *everything* out. If he had been more proactive in doing some of the decision-making on his own, then I probably would have been more willing to see the repeated “what’s that” question as a way to engage with me rather than asking me to have all the answers.

      1. +100 on the emotional labor front. My ex would also ask me questions like “what/where is XYZ?” and I would often reply out of annoyance “how should I know?” Definitely no language barrier, it was just… why did he expect me to know everything, and he could just look it up on his phone anyway!

   10. So my husband is German, and we have this same issue. I’ve taken to replying “how would I know?”. Not polite, but it gets my point across. We are 18 years in – over the years we’ve adapted our speaking styles to each other A LOT. It has taken a lot of time and patience… I’ve had to learn to let a lot of these little things slide, and he’s learned to stop rolling his eyes at my requests for a softer speaking style. At this point I may actually be more direct than he is.

   11. My husband has a job where he scrutinizes tiny details at work, and it’s hard for him to turn that off when he’s home. He’ll notice when the car in front of us has an expired registration. He notices when I move a book from the bookcase to the coffee table, or if I leave a glass out on the counter. It used to drive me crazy when he’d ask me, “What’s this doing here?” Clearly it’s there because I put it it there! What’s worked for me is to ask him to limit his question asking and also to make more assumptions. He used to ask me about every towel/piece of clothing on the floor (is it dirty? does it need to be drycleaned? why is this there?) especially around bedtime. I told him he’s smart enough to determine if something is dirty and not to ask me. Or to just hang it up. Likewise for the kitchen, either decide to leave it or move it. Limiting that at home has made me more patient when it comes to him noticing things when we’re out and about. And I try not to take it personally like he’s critiquing me. What makes him very skilled at his job is something that I can’t really fault him for personally. I have skills that make me excellent at my job, but not the best to live with, too.

   12. Thanks for the responses so far! I’m an ESL person too but due to being in passive aggressive biglaw (corporate) for several years, I feel like my nitpicking sensors have become way too sensitive. Or, my father does this and it drives mom and me crazy so it might be a family thing. Either way, it’s helpful to hear others’ take on this!

       1. OMG if your dad does this, then allow me to gently suggest that you have chosen him for this very quality! (Because it may drive you nuts but gosh — doesn’t it feel familiar?)

   13. My DH does this during movies/shows and it drives me insane. “Who is he?” “why did he say that?” – babe, we’re watching the same movie and I can’t see into the future, so I know as much as you do at this point. I think he’s just kind of voicing his own mental inquiries but I told him it really bugged me and when he forgets, I just kindly but firmly remind him I don’t know any more than he does.
       I think “I don’t know, could you look it up?” is a good option.

   14. This is typical male behavior. They know we are smarter than they are and that we actually bother to remember things. They need to be trained out of it.

   15. I mean… I think I might do this. I sometimes ask questions more in a thinking-out-loud or conversation-making sense than actually looking for a response. Not sure if that’s what’s going on in your situation, but might be worth thinking about.

       Rather than getting mad and assuming he’s trying to get you to keep a mental calendar when he asks “When is Ken’s birthday?” you could say “not sure, why do you ask?” and maybe you’ll find out he was thinking about this time last year when you all went to Ken’s party and just happened to want to talk about it.

       1. +1 – it could be just a verbalization of mental process. In which case, I would ignore the question and not assume he’s asking me. (Or, I would try). The problem is that it can be hard to determine when he IS asking for your input.

   16. If you want to stop being his research assistant, stop looking things up for him. Either he’s wondering aloud and doesn’t actually expect you to help him find the answer, or he’s gotten used to you doing all the info retrieval work yourself, and you can put a stop to that. Say “I don’t know” or “hmm, I wonder,” let him stare at you expectantly, and when if he finally says “aren’t you going to look it up?” you can say “you’re the one who’s curious, why don’t you find out?”
       If the constant questions are really bugging you, you could tell him, but frame it as a you-problem (“I don’t know why, but it’s really bugging me, could you try to stop?”) rather than an objectively bad or rude behavior that you’re judging him for.

   17. My husband is the same way. I’m convinced he doesn’t know how to use google. For the most part I’ve gotten over it because he takes on a lot of other burdens/tasks that overwhelm me, I feel like it evens out somewhat that I take on information finding, since it clearly seems to overwhelm him. But that’s specific to my marriage and YMMV

   18. I think if you are a natural leader sometimes the people around you do this.

       I remember a story from when I was a teenager. My mom sat with me and my two younger siblings (I’m the oldest sibling) to watch a movie on TV. The entire time my sibs were asking me “who is that? Why did she go there? Is that the guy from before?” And I was answering and not even noticing it until my mom pointed it out. It was just my pattern with my siblings.

       The same happens now that I’m married with teenaged kids. Everyone asks me everything. I often tell my kids to google it, that’s why they have phones. But they don’t and honestly I usually know the answer to their questions. I noticed it recently because we were on a long road trip together and every question was, “mom, what is…” and not directed at their dad. I also noticed he asked me a lot of questions too.

       I think it becomes a default to ask someone questions when they reliably answer them or when they tend to take the lead in situations. And I know I do both. Do you?

       1. Yes, I actually think this is a hallmark or people with older siblings.

   19. I don’t have a helpful suggestion but this annoys me so much, its not just you!

   20. I do this and it is to make conversation. Otherwise we would all just be staring at our phones all the time. I’d rather see if my husband knows something first before I google it.

       1. Yeah I hate people googling stuff in conversation. So rude.

          1. Are you 90 years old?

   21. My mother does this and it drives me absolutely insane. I think what bothers me most about it is the feigned helplessness of it. YOU are a grown adult and not a child, and YOU have a question, therefore YOU should find the answer. What do you do when I’m not around? You call the restaurant and ask for their specials or you look it up online or you get out a map and find your way there.

       “Why are you asking me? / why do you expect me to know this?” “Well, I just thought you’d know.” This answer drives me insane as well because it implies an imbalance of power. My mother assumes I’m so smart and know so much more than she does, when, hello, we’re both adults here and neither of us has been to this [restaurant] before. It’s the implied inequality that gets me – the questions themselves are inherently deferential. It’s as if she’s saying, “I’m deferring to you to be the grown-up, the lead, even though I’m an adult who is equally capable of [reading a map/phoning the restaurant].” I want an equal, not someone who defers to me.

       For me (and I’ve spent a lot of time trying to analyze my mother), either the person doing it just isn’t smart enough to look it up on their own (which, barring a diagnosed condition, is powerfully bothersome) OR they are smart enough to look it up on their own, but aren’t smart enough to remember that it drives you BSC and keep asking you. Either way, it’s a behavior I have no time for.

       1. My mother also does this and I’d lose my mind if my husband did.

   22. I love “Let me google that for you” for this exact situation.

       1. It is a website that creates an animation of a google search and the results that you can send to someone. It is a lighthearted and sarcastic way to make the point, particularly if it happens repeatedly.

   23. As I think the responses show, you are not alone in being annoyed by this. It’s one thing for him to ask you something that he has reason to think you would know, like your own sibling’s birthday, or what day the playdate you scheduled is on. But when it’s something of general knowledge like when a store closes or what a restaurant serves, it does come off as him asking you to be his personal assistant and find/curate information he needs when he needs it. My husband does this too.

       The response that I’ve found works best is a VERY light-toned, “Hmmm, yeah, I don’t know.” Like, the tone behind it is, “Hmm, I understand why you’d be interested in knowing that, I’m actually interested in knowing it too, but unfortunately, I just don’t!” It helps it feel less confrontational in that it’s basically shooting down the implicit request that I figure it out.

   24. No answers for you but SAME GIRL. My husband does this all. the. time.

   25. You are not alone. DH does this regularly with easy-to-find information (“what’s the weather supposed to be today?”; “What time does x open/close?”; “How far away is x?”). It drives me nuts, but I have tried to recognize that there are things I could do myself that I rely on him for, as well. I have taken the position that if it doesn’t require me to go out of my way to find this info (ie I’m ready on my laptop and he isn’t), I will provide it, but if it would be just as inconvenient for either of us, he can find it himself if he wants to know right now or he can wait until I get around to finding the answer (could be hours or days). Not a perfect solution. Commiseration.

   26. My husband does this, too, and it drives me crazy. I have learned to say “I don’t know” and “google/alexa/siri will know the answer to that. Repeat over and over again.

       I have no idea why so many men do this. Are we their personal search service??? But don’t feed the beast, and try to inject humor as noted in these replies and hope that the questions diminish. At some point, you may have to discuss this with him–I don’t know how serious this is for you or how serious you are with him. I am not sure it is an ESL thing–I think it is more likely to be a sex roles thing.

       I wonder what would happen if you did the same to him? Would he get it?

       Personally, I cannot imagine asking my husband “what time does xyz restaurant open?” I would look it up! They like to depend on us as assistants, I swear.

       Good luck!

2. Any advice for conducting an out-of-state job search? I don’t know if it’s just a myth that employers are more likely to hire local first. So far I have just been saying that I am planning to relocate in my cover letters, but should I be saying anything else?

   1. It’s not a myth. Given a choice between two equal candidates, one of whom is local, the out of towner comes with a lot more questions.

   2. I just did this and it wasn’t that bad.

      Get used to lots of phone calls and Skype calls, make sure you have somewhere to take them and are comfortable to them.

      Organically bring up ties to the area during initial “chats” with the recruiter and other small talk – I was applying to jobs in a few west coast cities from the Midwest, one of them being where my sister lives and I mentioned that a lot. It definitely put people to ease when they realized I was familiar with the are. I also used to go to one of the cities for work a bunch so I mentioned that.

   3. Of course it’s not a myth. You are going to be at a disadvantage, but that’s just the way it is.

      Are you planning on moving no matter what and do you have a firm date? If so, I’d be very explicit in your cover letter: “I will be relocating to [City] on [X date]” and if you want to make yourself that much more attractive, say you won’t need relocation help.

   4. Can you get a GoogleVoice number in your desired local area code? Of course then you have to be ready for be on the time zone and maybe interview on shorter notice.

3. So I could use some assistance. I will be starting as a first time Director at a Big 4 firm in their advisory/consulting arm. I’ve been in the consulting realm for 5 years and have a total of 10+ yrs experience, so I have a pretty good idea about what to expect.

   But! It’s been so long since I’ve started at a new firm and I would love to hear everyone’s experience/advice on what I can do to really start off on the right foot. Thanks in advance.

   1. Build strong relationships with the partners – especially the most important ones.

   2. Find a solid senior associate who can help you learn engagement acceptance, billing, timekeeping, etc. Learn the support staff and what they do, especially get to know your partners’ EAs. Like the above, build strong relationships with the partners, especially your group’s managing partners and your formal mentors. Go out of your way to introduce yourself to staff/seniors and managers, you’ll be more familiar with your bench and how to staff projects.

   3. The First 90 Days by Michael Watkins is a good resource for such transitions. It’s a quick read and has good tips for your situation.

4. Parents of high-school students: Any recommendations for SAT prep programs that actually improve reading comprehension and math problem-solving skills, as opposed to only teaching test-taking strategies? I taught for Kaplan a zillion years ago and it was all very basic test-taking strategies and didn’t seem super effective. I looked at a bunch of books, both SAT-focused and more general, at Barnes and Noble and they were all lacking. My kid hates the Khan Academy math videos and is opposed to trying their SAT materials. Magoosh looks a bit more promising. The Mathnasium program (math only) also sounds interesting, although scheduling would be a challenge. Any opinions or suggestions would be welcome. Low-cost options are especially attractive, as I don’t want to invest $$$ in something my kid hates and won’t actually use.

   1. No. SAT prep is about test prep. It’s boring and horrible. Does your kid need this?

      1. +1. SAT prep is unrelated (IMHO) to actual math skills development. Is there a particular area your child is weak in because they don’t have the fundamentals? That I can see focusing on, but otherwise, yeah, the SAT/ACT prep is 100% about ‘teaching for the test’. It is horrible and boring but it is what it is.

      2. +1 – Has your child already taken a prep test? Is the score consistent with his or her academic performance?

      3. +1 OP, what you’re asking for is not actually SAT prep, it’s general reading and math education.

      4. Agree, I taught for TPR for many years. People with high test scores know how to take the test, everything else is a waste of time if that is your goal.

   2. I did a SAT prep math program at Huntington Learning Center. It was fine, they do go over actual math skills not just test taking strategies. Kid has to be willing to do the homework.

   3. I did self-directed test prep as a young-un and then taught ACT and SAT test prep as a fancy private tutor, albeit a while back.

      IMO, buy the best-reviewed test-prep book, buy some extra practice tests directly from the testmaker, and tell the kiddo to have at it. If a kid is not motivated enough to self-learn with the book, they also won’t be motivated enough to benefit from a class or tutoring.

      As a tutor, it was obvious which kids cared about getting better and those that didn’t, and the results were as expected.

      1. I’d say this is kid specific. I was never motivated by test books or classes but I always did really well with a one on one tutor because it’s harder to BS one on one and I’d end up actually getting engaged. So in my case Kaplan was a waste of money but private tutoring was well worth the money (& at least for me was cheaper than Kaplan).

   4. Perhaps this question is too cynical, but is your goal for the kid to get better at math/reading comp, or to get a better SAT score? Because while there is some correlation between the two, probably, the latter does not simply measure the former. I am *old* now, but I remember that I was studying for the SATs (voluntarily – nerd4lyfe) and how I learned about how they throw out questions that don’t track with general trends, like if all the kids getting high scores get a particular question wrong, they decide that question must be messed up. The example given was something like: cow : low :: sheep : ____. So kids with experience on farms knew the answer, but the highly prepped city kids didn’t, so they assumed the question was flawed. That example stuck with me (clearly) and it underscored to me that if you want to get a good score on the test, you should study for the test itself, and not expect it to test ~knowledge~ as we generally know it.

      1. So what’s the answer to that one?

         1. I’m stumped

         2. Bleat?

            1. Yeah, cows low, sheep bleat. (Maybe only calves low and lambs bleat? I don’t know exactly, this was [mumbledy] years ago.)

            2. Cows…what? I thought cows mooo-ed.

      2. Uh, wait, so what’s the answer to that one?

         1. Well you have to know the offered answers were:
            A) Vroooooom
            2) honk honk
            c. ambulance sounds
            IV) typing
            e) all of the above
            F. none of the above

      3. Sheep: Bleat?

         Away in a Manager: “The cattle are lowing (mooing?), the baby awakes”. I don’t know of any farm kids that would use the term “low” instead of “moo” or “being loud”

         But if we’re going for the actual name for the animal sound, instead of just the sound itself, that would be my answer.

         1. So honestly this seems more of a Christian/non-christian (or familiarity with Christmas Carols at least), than Farm/Urban kid thing.

         2. I’m a reformed farm kid who studied SAT English for fun, and I squinted for a second and went with “baa.”

            1. Same. I raised sheep for the FFA as a kid and I said Baa.

         3. Sorry, Mpls, I know it was a typo, but Away in a Manager has me rolling.

            1. *facepalm* I’ve also been reading Ask a Manager this morning.

      4. Ah, I was going withe the word structure and would have answered cow:low sheep:sleep

      5. For what it’s worth, I did not study for the test and got an almost perfect score.

         But: I studied voraciously. I studied extra math for fun. I made it my job to learn every single vocabulary word that I read in a book.

   5. I would just get a private tutor who can work with your kid on the particular area they need help in, provide test taking strategies, and assign additional tasks as needed and skip the corporate test prep.

5. I am soooo tempted by this dress. Gorgeous.

6. A light thread for Monday: what books, fiction or non-fiction, have you read that made travel more interesting for you, or piqued your interest in a destination?

   Mine would be Alison Weir’s biographies of the queen who lived in the castles I went to in England. But they are a slog to read, IMHO. So, bonus points if the book is a page-turner.

   1. Before we went to Italy, I read Jonathan Jones’s The Lost Battles, about the competition between Michelangelo and Leonardo Da Vinci. It definitely enhanced my time in Florence. For English historical fiction, why not Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall?

      1. For Florence I read A Room With A View… and Hannibal… in kind of close succession. Very different books, different times, but both set in Florence.

   2. Before I went to Russia I read the Catherine the Great biography and it was amazing. The biography itself reads like fiction (a minor German princess becomes Empress of Russia! Has many, much younger lovers!) and it was great gateway into Russian history, of which I knew very little.

      1. Currently planning a trip to Russia, so thanks for the recommendation!!

      2. +1 to LLBMBA’s Catherine the Great bio. It’s so good!

      3. I’m sorry, could you elaborate? Which author is “LLBMBA?”Google, Amazon, and my library are coming up with plenty of Catherine the Great biographies but I can’t for the life of me figure out what type of designation that stands for.

   3. It’s old, but I believe I read Passions of the Mind by Irving Stone on the plane on the way to study abroad in Vienna. I ended up living down the street from Freud’s office on Berggasse, so it was relevant. I also read James Michener’s Poland at some point during that time, which was very helpful in starting to understand the Austro-Hungarian empire and the ethnicities that developed. I took a class on Ethnic Groups in Eastern Europe in Vienna, so a lot came together in my head. I would also highly recommend Women in Sunlight for anyone traveling to Italy. Frances Mayes’ new book is much more of a travelogue. I can read it in small bites, but I’ve enjoyed what I’ve read so far.

   4. Paul Theroux grand railway bizaar.

   5. “Wine and War” by Donald Kladstrup is a great book to read before visiting the Champagne-producing area of France, particularly the caves in which Champagne is stored. It’s a riveting account of how World War II affected the winemakers and their families. Here’s a summary from an online seller:
      “In the vineyards, wine caves, and cellars of France as war and occupation came to the country winemakers acted heroically not only to save the best wines but to defend their way of life.”

   6. Graham Greene’s Brighton Rock.

   7. Travels in a Thin Country by Sara Wheeler
      In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin

   8. When I was in South Africa on our honeymoon, I read Nelson Mandela’s autobiography. Coming from the US and not knowing a lot about SA history, I felt the book was almost more thriller or page-turner than just history or memoir because I really *did not* know what would happen next. It was thrilling.
      The Power of One was also great about South Africa, a novel.

   9. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil prompted an interest for me in visiting Savannah, Georgia.

      1. This doesn’t answer the question really, but I’ve wanted to go to Iceland since I read in princess diaries when I was like 12 that it has one of the highest literacy rates in the world…

   10. The agony and the ecstasy….Florence

7. Oooof, the waiting is killing me. SO and I put an offer in on a house (our first! ahhh!) this weekend in a hot housing market – Toronto – and now I have all day to sit and wait to hear back. I’m equal parts terrified that they will accept and won’t accept. I feel like I can’t talk about this with anyone IRL because a lot of friends aren’t at the house-buying stage yet and I don’t want to come off as insensitive.

   So – for people who have been through the gauntlet – any wisdom or advice on the house hunting game? Not getting too invested in particular places is hard. The only thing that helps is that the houses we are looking for don’t typically attract the multi-multi-party bidding wars, but still.

   Today is not going to be very productive…

   1. Don’t get invested until you are in contract and your conditions have been lifted. We went into contract twice before finding a home we could close on. There was a legal challenge to the bidding on one, the next had undisclosed unsuccessful attempts to level the floors, etc.

      1. Yeah, even if they accept the offer, there are a lot more steps. The house is a fixer-upper, so I know there are lots of very expensive things that will be found in the inspection report. I’m worried that they will find some sort of deal breaker though…

   2. Having bought a house in Toronto, I feel you, OP. Best of luck and keep us posted!
      I am naturally curious as to where you are buying that does not attract bidding wars…

      1. It’s a mid-century fixer-upper in Scarborough on a massive lot with great bones, near lots of green space in a quiet mid-century neighborhood with similar houses, but almost no updating since when it was built. They didn’t do anything to make it show well, so you need to have vision (and a deep pocketbook for the renos.) But, it’s priced accordingly and I want it sooooo bad..

         My real real dream is to renovate a century farm house on 2 acres within a 30 minute commute of downtown, but since I don’t live in fantasy land, this was the compromise.

         1. That sounds great. One of my friends bought a place near the bluffs – huge with great bones but still needs a ton of work and I love going there…it feels like a trip to the country.

   3. We just bought a house in Toronto a few weeks ago (I posted here asking for advice), so I feel your pain! It’s so hard to concentrate on anything but that while you’re waiting to hear back. Chances are you’ll be fine since you’re avoiding bidding war drama, but I will say that my SO and I didn’t get the first house we put an offer in on and then two weeks later, found a bigger house that was going to cost us less money overall, so don’t worry if for some reason you don’t get this one. There are lots of great places in TO. Good luck!

8. I could use advice from anyone with an alcoholic/addicted parent.
   My mom was in AA a few years ago, which I celebrated as she has been what I would term a “problem drinker” for years. (In addition to drinking too much, she is also bipolar and won’t stay on her medication because she can’t take it and drink the way she does.) She went to meetings for a couple of years, then decided she didn’t need the meetings any more. For the last two years, her drinking has returned to being as bad as it ever was, to the point that my dad finally told me not to call her after 5 p.m. because she is generally drunk by that point. (My dad being an enabler is a whole other post.) Anything you say to her when she’s drunk doesn’t get remembered and so we end up repeating conversations over and over; she also gets verbally abusive when she drinks.
   We went away for the weekend and so I didn’t call her on Saturday morning as I usually do (I had told her this would be the case the previous weekend; I wouldn’t be calling her as usual because of the trip). Yesterday evening I started getting text messages about “hope you are okay” “why haven’t you called me” etc. I called her, with the sole intention of just telling her where we were and that we were fine. She was drunk and started screaming at me on the phone about how insensitive I am, how I don’t love her, etc. I hung up, and then sent her a text message that as I’ve said previously, I don’t want to speak to her when she’s intoxicated and that I feel like it would be good to have a conversation about her going to rehab or at least back to AA. I got back a string of abusive text messages in reply.
   I feel like I am so done with this. Telling the whole story of my life with my mom would be a pages-long post but suffice to say, I have been dealing with her drinking and her crazy behavior for a long time and I just don’t have the energy for it anymore. My husband and I both have high-responsibility jobs; we have teenage kids and their activities to deal with, not to mention our volunteer activities, maintaining the household, etc. Our lives are busy and now that I realize I cannot fix my mom or make her better, I don’t know what the point of engaging with her is? She never offers any help or support for us; when I call her I just get long rundown of all the ways her life is difficult and disappointing. She was emotionally and physically abusive to my brother and myself as children. She doesn’t live in my city. Is this a situation where I should go low- or no-contact? Any suggestions are helpful as I seriously don’t know what to do with this anymore.

   1. I would absolutely create some distance. I’m a firm believer that you have to earn relationships, even family ones.

      1. This. Completely. Detachment for your sanity.
         And gently, AlAnon or ACOA (google)
         for your feelings around this matter.
         Best to you.

         1. I definitely recommend the ACOA books if you haven’t already read them.

            I went no contact with my actively alcoholic father years ago and while it has been sad at times, I don’t regret it. He also has some pretty horrible mental illnesses that he refused to get treatment for and was/is definitely self-medicating with alcohol.

         2. AlAnon is exceptionally good at dealing with this type of situation. Everyone in the meetings will know how you feel without you having to explain it. It’s uncomfortable at first, but it is truly the most loving, supportive hour of my week. It has helped not only in my dealing with the alcoholic(s) in my life, but with my relationships in general.

   2. I’d get some therapy and explore where your boundaries need to be. It’s not necessarily a situation of 0% or 100% contact.

      My mom drank in the evenings and talking to her much after 8pm was useless, so I stopped. But I didn’t go no contact. I ended up texting her during the day. And mostly I sent her memes of kittens and puppies, which I knew she was crazy about, to cheer her up. We adjusted to the new pattern just find. And now she is dead and every time I see a pic of cute kittens I wish she were here to send it to.

      But my mom wasn’t abusive to me, she was just a drunk, so those were my particular boundaries. Really a professional can help you so much with this.

   3. You don’t talk much about the relationship with Dad. If it is OK, I’d focus on protecting that. And seek out Al-Anon. They can give some advice about setting healthy boundaries that will be useful to you (and perhaps someday him as you learn ways to navigate while keeping him in the fold).

   4. My late father was an alcoholic. My brother is an addict in recovery. My mom is a (self-described) textbook codependent. This is tough.
      In my experience, drawing boundaries, something you are already doing, is supremely helpful. Think about ways you can reinforce them–repeating them to her, to your dad, to your partner, to other people who can hold you accountable is one good way to do that.
      Also, what if instead of approaching the situation as going low- or no-contact, where the affirmative step is toward ending the relationship and you’re doing the work of, your approach was to stop trying to make a relationship that isn’t work for you work? Captain Awkward had a great statement of this idea in today’s column, actually. “If a relationship sucks and makes you feel bad all the time, what if you stopped trying so hard to fix it? Not, what if you ended it forever or made a dramatic pronouncement or big decision about it or had one more big serious talk, or found a way to try a little harder, just, what if you stopped working on it.” Mentally, I think that shifts some of the responsibility for what’s happening here from you to your mom, where the responsibility belongs. And then when your mom is drunk and mad, you can just repeat that you’re happy to have whatever conversation with her, but you’ll only do it on your terms (she’s sober, she doesn’t make herself a martyr, etc.). Wash, rinse, repeat, until she’s ready to abide by those boundaries. The greatest leverage you have as an adult in your relationship with your parents is your presence.
      Also, when/if your mom is ready to work on reframing her relationship with alcohol, there are places to start that aren’t 12-step, abstinence only programs. The science on 12-step programs is actually pretty terrible, and I think AA’s message of powerlessness has a tendency to be especially demoralizing for women. To be clear, I am not knocking it for people for whom it works, but there is more than one path in recovery. There are some great online resources for this–Tempest, f/k/a Hip Sobriety, too many Instagrams to count, many great podcasts (Home, Editing Our Drinking and Our Lives, Spiritualish)–and they’re not to the exclusive of a 12-step, abstinence-only approach. If AA isn’t doing it for her, or if she wants something to supplement working the steps, those resources might be worth exploring. I am not sober, and I still follow/read/listen to a lot of these people because it encourages me to be thoughtful about my own use of and relationship with alcohol. They might even be helpful for you in thinking about how you move forward with your mom.
      Last, this is super hard, and so be gentle with yourself. Happy to talk with you more about this offline if you want to leave a burner address.

   5. My mother was an alcoholic. You could not have a coherent conversation with her after 11am. After noon she was would be mean. So I had all my conversations with her at 9 am. Every day a daily call. She died of alcoholism eventually and I am so glad for those 9 am conversations now that I look back. If I had cut her off 100% and then heard that she had died I would have been full of regret. Assume she will never change, take care of yourself, and work in a relationship that you can live with.

      1. Yes, this. My mom was always in crisis due to her alcoholism and I was constantly struggling with how much to engage/disengage. In the end, my decision was “whatever allows me to sleep at night.” My story is a bit different than OPs in that my mom was a doting, loving mother. In the end I took care of her as she died from alcohol related complications. I am able to look back with no regrets. OP, you get to decide what that looks like for you. Wishing you peace.

   6. Of course you can go no contact if that’s what feels right to you. “The way you’ve been treating me is very hurtful and I need to stop contact with you for now.” Full stop. Or add more if you want. Agree with others that Al Anon is great. Some people are turned off by the use of the word God but I’m basically an atheist and it works for me (I’ve got no problem admitting that a power greater than myself is responsible for most of what happens in life – and I don’t think you have to be a theist to believe that).

9. 1. Several e-mails from kids’ school: pick up report cards in the office starting on Date A.
   2. Call school to confirm they are open and I can pick up report cards (they are very loosy-goosy re summer hours)
   3. Show up at school; report cards are not ready to be picked up
   4. Principal says I can come back some time b/w 9 and 4 some other day (it’s the summer — kids are at camp halfway across our city and I have a job in the opposite direction of that AND I travel work work; discussion ensues).
   5. Finally it appears that perhaps they can mail the report cards, perhaps, but perhaps might need to look in to that and they need a contact # for me (and my last name is different from my kids, so who knows if any of this will work).
   6. Suspect that I can pay next week’s camp pickup sitter to maybe drive by school (they are only open until 3:30 next week and not at all on Fridays) to get the report cards, but that will be another 1.5 hours on the payroll, which means that those may be overtime hours and we pay on the books.

   WHY ARE EASY THINGS SO HARD???

   1. Do you really need to pick up the report cards, or can you just see the grades and comments in the on-line system?

      1. Oddly, once the grades are put on paper for the school year, the online system resets completely. So, yes, I do need the actual paper report card.

         1. Can they scan it and email it to you?

            1. Lordy, who knows if schools have scanners? Or scan-to-e-mail capability?

               Maybe they could take a picture and text it to you? But if it is blurry or cuts off comments, good luck getting that fixed.

            2. Doesn’t every photocopier have scan to email capacity? How else to they photocopy stuff for kids?

   2. That’s the worst! We missed the last week of school last year for vacation and the report card was automatically mailed to our home address. How is that not the simplest solution for the school as well vs trying to coordinate office pick up by various parents.

   3. OMG I do not know but can truly identify. My daughter is 16 now but when faced with shockingly similar situations, I always felt like the world was designed for bored people without JOBS. My personal favorite was the public elementary school scheduling three half days of school (after care not available!) each nine weeks to support parent/teacher conferences. Are you kidding me?! Except for once a year, conferences were not even scheduled when there was a need or request.

      1. My school system closed (technically “optional teacher workday”) so that teachers could go protest in our state’s capital. WITH NO AFTERCARE (so those folks, who were desperately needed by working parents, were not getting paid b/c they are hourly employees without benefits and also not getting any protested-for wage increases b/c those are only for teachers in classrooms), which defaults to full-day care for teacher workdays but not optional teacher workdays. [And most of the parents in my district are poor, so while I don’t lose rent money by working from home, many working parents would.]

         So stabby still over that.

         I am philosophically a pro-public school person but a bit more of this nonsense and I am done. So done.

         1. Yeah that day was a cluster f%^*. I’m also in CA.

         2. You seem to think that it’s very important that working parents can rely on a school system that takes care of their kids. Agreed. But then you say you are nearly done with public schools? You can’t have it either way.

            1. IDK — my friends with kids in one private school in my city says that the recognize that significant % of their moms work, send out items well in advance so you can plan around things if you choose, and don’t randomly close (my biggest beef with our schools, other than having to significantly supplement their instruction in math, which is a perpetual weakness based on what I also see as a volunteer tutor).

               I guess I’m getting what I pay for, so I’m ready to pay for sanity (or at least predictability).

      2. Yeah, I think a lot of systems are designed with the assumption that every household has someone at home during the day who can run errands or be present for this or that between 9 and 5 (or at the very least, they assume one partner’s job is flexible enough that they can do these things during the day). The reality is, most households have two working adults, and that’s been the reality for at least a decade, probably two decades at this point, so stuff like this need to change accordingly. My school mailed the report cards, seems silly to expect a parent to pick them up during the day.

      3. I mean, do you think teachers should meet without outside their working hours without being offered flex time? Or overtime? Because that’s ridiculous. I’m sure you don’t complain that your dentist won’t open up after hours just for you.

         I think that schools are really badly arranged for families whose parents work, but a lot of that is because the expectations for teachers are so unreasonable to begin with. There’s kind of a larger problem here, right? We have precious few affordable childcare options. We poorly fund our public schools, and we don’t pay our teachers very well. We don’t have a system of wages that allows most families to get by easily on one parents’ income even if they want to. Complaining about bad customer service or whatever is not going to fix any of the larger systematic problems that underpin this.

         1. I think this wasn’t about a meeting, it was why do working parents have to present themselves at school in a window that doesn’t work for working parents to get pieces of paper that could be mailed?

            And them some other nonsense examples (mine: day before last day of school: Please come to school b/w 10:30 and 11:30 for a party for the class outside; next day: is raining, nevermind). Lady: surely you know that some of us work and we don’t get to make unilateral changes with no notice (plus, we may have other kids with school parties that day or kids at other schools with other schedules).

            1. Why would the school even want all those parents showing up in person? It would be less work to mail them than to hand them out one at a time.

            2. Oh, right. I’m responding to the poster above complaining about school cancellations for parent conferences.

         2. The week after my school system ends is a contractual working time for all staff, teachers etc.
            M-TH, 8:30-3:30
            Next week, 12-month staff is there 9-4, only 4 days a week.
            Then, some other schedule.
            And some other schedule
            Except for the week they are off.

            You only know the schedule if you go to the door and take a picture of it b/c it is posted there and nowhere else.

         3. I would never expect teachers to work overtime for conferences but the three half days for parent/teacher conferences did not match up to task at hand. Except for the first nine weeks when 15 minute conferences were scheduled for all, we received emails from the teacher saying, “It has been such a great year. Remember our half day schedule for next Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Aftercare will NOT be in session. I do not need to meet with anyone, but if you should want to schedule a conference, let me know.”

            Full days off from school are far more convenient for working parents.

         4. Actually, I do believe that. Growing up, my urban schools always had two parent-teacher conferences nights a year, one a few weeks after we started the school year and one after the holidays. I think expecting any professional to spend two evenings a year at work for meetings is pretty standard in this day and age, and it solves the problem that many parents can’t take time off during the school day. If additional parent-teacher conferences are needed for a particular student, I can’t image those can be planned ahead of time/neatly fit in to the pre-scheduled times. Either a right before or right after school meeting makes sense for those one-off, urgent meetings.

            1. I mean, if teaching is a profession instead of an hourly job, yes. I work outside of my usual working areas for some key events to our organization and that is part of my job. If you are hourly, maybe budget to pay the hourly people. Maybe make back-to-school night occur at a time working parents can attend (b/c it is not “night” if it starts at 4:30 and I have to pick up my daycare kid first so it doesn’t close on me and social services gets called).

               I get that a lot of work jobs don’t account for working parents, but schools see lots of working parents (my mother and sister are teachers) and I can’t believe how the plan as if people were regularly free from 3 onward each day.

               It’s like the song “9 to 5” never existed.

   4. That is stupid and asinine.

      Can you send them a SASE for them to mail the report card to you?

      1. This is actually a good idea. A big envelope, in case your kid got other certificates or whatever, and too much postage, just in case.

10. I wrenched my neck this morning, instinctively jerking my shoulders and arm trying to catch a falling bottle of shampoo in the shower. Now I can’t turn my head sideways. This is the third time in two months that I’ve injured my neck doing something innocuous.

    Is there such a thing as neck strength training? Do I need PT? I don’t have any old injuries that could be flaring up, and I’d like to think I’m not old enough to be turning into glass quite yet (early 40s).

    1. Yes absolutely! PT can help with this.

    2. Yes, PT or any expert body-worker can help with this. But in my very similar experiences, when I start hurting my neck in day to day life, I need more flexibility, not more strength. YMMV considerably.

    3. Ouch. This is the kind of thing for which I find chiropractic care very helpful.

    4. It could be flexibility more than strength. Anecedotally, your chest and shoulders could be super tight from slouching ever so slightly all day while driving and or at your desk. I’m only 28 and I have this problem – after about 3 weeks or so my neck will hurt super easily but it’s more like I should stretch my chest and lats out more than anything.

11. I recently got a glass desktop dry-erase board and a nice set of coasters for my office and they are making me so happy! What are your favorite gadgets/knick knacks that make your office life easier and/or more enjoyable?

    1. I love these types of threads. I also got a dry erase board (a large one mounted on my wall). A second monitor, everyone at my firm uses a single monitor and it is mind boggling. I purchased a bunch of plants (fiddle leaf fig, snake plant, devil’s ivy) but I haven’t brought them in yet, looking forward to having them.

       1. I am never going back to one monitor. Ever.

       2. I have seen others use 2 monitors. I must be missing something. Why would I want 2 monitors?

    2. Pens and highlighters in all the colors of the rainbow!

    3. I’ve been eyeing a mouserug. Can anyone review whether they feel nice under a light plastic mouse?

       1. Oooo! I love this idea. This might be next on my list

    4. Mine are:
       – Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic keyboard and mouse
       – Headset for taking calls (office walls are thin and can’t really use speaker phones)
       – Plants that don’t need sunlight or wind
       – Monitor stand U-Boards
       – Desk Pads (smaller version doubles as large mouse pad)
       – Dry erase board on wall
       – Fun mugs
       – Nespresso machine (caveat that some people will help themselves to my capsules uninvited)
       – Fun painting / world map / travel photos pinned on walls
       – Reclining sofa and soft blanket

       1. What headset do you recommend? My department gave me one but it is cheap and easily disconnects. Also not super comfortable.

    5. Very realistic fake succulents in cute little woodgrain containers. My building is a dark pit in which no real plant will survive. Even knowing they aren’t real, they still bring me joy.

    6. My boss recently ordered me a whiteboard, which I am SO psyched about. I also need to get some decor hanging up in this new office. I’m thinking the transit map of a town I used to live in (it’s done in rainbow colors and is super pretty), and maybe a nice photo or two.

    7. Leather mousepad. It looks and feels nice and works extremely well.

    8. A new bromeliad with fancy striped leaves and impressive “flower”
       Gel pens in all colors

    9. A glassybaby as my pen holder. I got it for law school graduation and it’s in my school’s colors.

    10. Silent (non-ticking) dial wall clock, rollermouse, plants, silly mugs and a wrist rest for my keypad.

12. How do you communicate to your SO that your hormones are probably going to drive you mental for the next 7 days and you are going to nitpick, feel sad and hurt by smaller things than usual, and that SO needs to give you a wide berth, without jeopardizing your credibility (i.e.,” are you hormonal?” for any time you have legitimate concerns)?

    Better yet, what are your tips for minimizing the fallout from PMS / ovulation / Aunt Flo? For some reason I am a beast during all three periods and it is So. Much. Fun.

    TIA!

    1. I track my period on Clue and gave my SO access to it. We had a discussion about how I experience extreme hormonal changes during my cycle (and honestly, he had already figured this out…) and that was that. He can check the app without me having to point things out.

       He also allows me to back down from positions I take in the heat of the moment with vague statements of “I’m not feeling good today, sorry, that wasn’t a reasonable response” or something to that effect and doesn’t push it further.

       1. Giving your husband access to your cycle info reminds me of this old joke

          My husband, not happy with my mood swings, bought me a mood ring the other day so he would be able to monitor my moods.

          When I’m in a good mood it turns green. When I’m in a bad mood it leaves a big red mark on his forehead.

          Maybe next time he’ll buy me a diamond.

          1. LOL

    2. I literally set a recurring calendar reminder on my SO’s Google calendar, based on the estimates from my tracking app. It is labeled “THE DARK TIMES COMMENCE” and it is set for a little over a week away from my period starting. (The PMS is the tough part for me, once things actually start, I am fine.)

       1. I love this!

       2. Hahaha this had me laughing out loud. Such a great idea (and accurate description)!

       3. LOL, I love this. I also have wicked PMS and my DH has learned to use a tracker of his own.

    3. That sounds really unpleasant. Not just for your SO, but for you. It’s not fun to be out of control and fragile for what sounds like at least half the month?

       Have you tried working on this in a way other than telling your SO to deal with it? I really liked the book “the cow in the parking lot” for dealing with my anger when I was going through some hormonal issues. I also switched my birth control, which really really helped.

       1. Thanks for the rec! I had to go off hormonal BC because it was making me downright depressed and anxious ALL THE TIME. I’m upping my B, C, D, omega 3, zinc, magnesium and selen intakes at my functional medicine doc’s recommendations — according to trace elemement analysis, apparently I have chronic fatigue-related symtoms that vastly exacerbates this (among other fun symptoms).

          1. I don’t have any expertise to opine on the other vitamins you are taking but since you mentioned fatigue, for me, peri0d = loss of iron = fatigue = accompanying symptoms when you are tired like crabbiness, hunger, etc. It’s one simple addition that helps immensely.

    4. You need to visit with your OB/GYN. We’ve been conditioned to believe that PMS is normal and darkly hilarious and all that, but severe PMS symptoms are often indicative of hormone problems. Real Life RD (she’s also a nurse practitioner specializing in women’s health) has some blog posts about this.

    5. I would make sure you don’t sound like you’re using your PMS as an excuse, and instead letting him know that these issues tend to creep up during your time of the month, and you plan on doing your best to keep things under control but you appreciate him being a little extra patient with you during that week or so.

    6. It helps me a lot when I exercise consistently throughout my cycle. Extra sleep and a good diet help a lot, too.

       When the usual suspects aren’t enough to help, talk to your doctor about alternatives. It might happen to a lot of women and it might be your normal, but it’s not healthy and there probably are options for reducing the hormonal swings.

    7. I had an issue last week where my boyfriend sprayed what to me smelled like an obscene amount of Axe body spray, but it was probably just a normal amount. I went nuts. Had to open all the windows so it would dissipate and I got mad at him for it.
       It was the day before my period was to start. The reaction and heightened sense of smell were caused by PMS. After the smell went away and I calmed down, I tried to explain that to him, but he said something like “aren’t women not supposed to blame stuff on PMS anymore?” and I’m like, well it’s still a thing even. I can blame stuff on hormones and tell you whats going on, but obviously I wouldn’t have this kind of reaction at work and blame it on PMS.

       1. There is no acceptable amount of Axe body spray. Ever.

          1. +1 Why is a grown-a$$ man using Axe? That seems like a perfectly legit response tbh.

    8. You use your words? Say exactly what you just wrote here?

       1. That plus go to the doctor. Severe PMS to the point where you need to block off your calendar and warn your husband about impending doom isn’t normal. Your doctors might brush you off but keep trying until you find someone who listens to your symptoms.

    9. ha ha.

       I once told my husband in my twenties, “I am REALLY mad at you.”
       His reply: “You will like me better tomorrow.”
       Me: “Why?”
       H: “Because tomorrow is the first day of the calendar month. You never like anything the last two days of the month.”

       Kind of embarrassing since I super regularly started my period on the first day of the calendar month. PMS is real.

    10. I have the same problem and a few months ago started taking the HUM Moody Bird supplement for 7 days before and after (I’m susceptible to post-period PMS). It has really helped my mental anguish, physical symptoms and passive-aggressive hostility.

    11. I have suffered from really bad ppd for decades. When my husband and I got serious, I told him it was an issue for me and he’s always been great about giving me leeway and being really forgiving when I go off the deep-end. When it’s really bad several months in a row he is also good at reminding me that medication is an option for getting me out do the slump (I take Prozac for a week before my period and it works great for me).

13. I am in charge of making dinner one night for a girls’ weekend. One friend is vegetarian. So far I am planning on couscous with raisins, hummus, and cauliflower steaks. Anyone have a grilled chicken recipe to go with this menu?

    1. I haven’t tried a recipe for it, but I’d do a grilled chicken shawarma with that: https://www.skinnytaste.com/shawarma-spiced-grilled-chicken-with-garlic-yogurt/

    2. I would probably grill salmon with that but basically for chicken, if you’re on a gas grill, crisp the skin side or get grill marks on skinless chicken over high heat, then stranger to indirect heat and monitor until internal temperature is 165-170

       Chicken is always better it you pre-salt a few hours in advance (or a day in advance for a while chicken). Salt chicken parts and put back in fridge. Take out of fridge and leave on counter for around 30 minutes before grilling to take the chill off.

14. I posted here a few months ago about having tons of office supplies and wondering if a local teacher or school (New York City) could use them. It’s paper, folders, pens and pencils, clips, some other stuff.) Someone had suggested that just before the school year started would have been the best time to offer, so I thought I’d re-post and see if anyone knows anyone while school’s still in session so we could try to plan for early August hand-off.

15. Now that I have a big-time managing job, I need some ideas for gifts for members of my team to celebrate big life events. When I got married, my boss’s boss sent us a gift from our registry even though she wasn’t invited and that struck me as the epitome of class and grace! I’d like to do the same for my team to celebrate big life events and while wedding registries are easy to find, not everyone has baby registries or the registry items are limited to items you don’t want to get from your boss like milk storage bags. One member is due in September and another one’s wife just had a baby this weekend, so ideas are welcome! Budget is flexible, maybe up to $150?

    1. Gift cards to the stores where they registered or for places that offer meal delivery in their neighborhood.

    2. Gift card and a nice, soft toy.

    3. Love this. My boss got us a wubbanub, cute outfit, and a couple book sets. That felt more personal than a gift card, which I appreciated. How about one of those books you can personalize with the kids name? We have gotten those from work contacts and again it felt nicely personal.

    4. My go to baby gift (which is more in the $40 range, so I guess you could add a gift card with it) is a jellycat bunny with the baby’s name embroidered on the ear. I get them on etsy.

    5. My boss’s boss got us Burp Cloths with my son’s named embroidered on them and decorated with ribbon – ordered from Etsy. Adorable, still useful, and something I absolutely never would have splurged on myself. Turns out I loved having a couple ‘pretty’ burp clothes for when we were out.

    6. Blanket lady has gorgeous baby blankets. But also plus a million on giftcards (amazon is so easy!). You are a wonderful and thoughtful person. My team didn’t do sh*t (not even a text!) for my newborn 10 weeks ago and it really hurt my feelings to the point that I’m going to invest less going fwd. I’ve always done stuff for their life events and was super hurt at the lack of reciprocation.

16. I’m running for mayor of my northeastern city, and my team and I are door knocking to meet voters. This involves going door to door in 80-90 degree weather for 5-6 hours. What should I wear? It is far too hot for a dress with those thin under shorts to prevent chub rub.

    This past Sat., I wore linen cropped pants and a light colored short sleeve shirt with sandals (mistake as my feet were burning from lack of support). Pants were quite hot. On Sun., I wore hiking type quick dry capris with a branded campaign t-shirt and sneakers (1000 times better footwear choice). This was more comfortable, but I worroed it was too casual. Then again, many voters were out working in their yards or washing cars.

    I thought about a branded sport polo and regular capris? Any other suggestions?

    1. This may be just a me thing. It I wouldn’t wear obviously branded clothes/logos when talking to voters. Personally I don’t like them anyway but I especially don’t like the idea of voting for someone who is (to me) choosing to be a walking advertisement. You could rub someone the wrong way. Not saying it would be the sole factor in deciding my vote but I would notice it and find it off putting.

       1. She doesn’t mean brands like UnderArmor or whatever, she means branded as in her campaign logo/name.

       2. LOL no, this is terrible advice. Just because you don’t like somebody who self promotes (do you even know what campaigning is?) doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea.

       3. I think she meant branded with her stuff: Corporette for Mayor. Not branded as in a clothing brand. I like this idea.

       4. I took that to mean branded for the campaign, like the stuff that presidential candidates sell on their websites. Personally, I’ve never seen the candidate, as opposed to their staffers, wear the branded campaign shirts. I’m not saying a candidate can’t, but I would probably do something a little step above that. Capris and a nice top seems ideal.

       5. Like all those people who voted against the guy wearing his own red MAGA hat?
          Sad trombone music.

    2. Maybe a tank-style or button-up sleeveless sundress (with bike shorts or something underneath to prevent chub rub, as you called it). I think Boden has some cute jersey sundresses with neutral colors and patterns. Sandals (try ecco brand for comfort). Campaign button.

    3. I would go for a dress (so much cooler) with bandale t t e s (instead of shorts) – they are basically thigh bands to prevent thigh rub and do not keep you nearly as hot as shorts.

    4. I think sneakers, shorts (not too short, obvs), and your campaign t-shirt is just fine. You don’t need to be dressed up for door knocking; people will know how hot it is outside.

       1. I like this. You want to be relatable and approachable. You can look put together in shorts and a tee. And how foolish would you look if you were dressed up and dying of the heat? And I have seen candidates wearing their own shirts.

          1. Right, I think you want to *look* like you are prepared to go door knocking in the heat! It will be much more appealing to voters than being overdressed, despite what people are saying here.

    5. I’m team men’s cotton boxer briefs under dresses/skirts. (I’d buy cotton boxer briefs made for women if I ever saw some that were long enough to prevent chub rub).

       1. I always wear cotton bike shorts.

    6. Option: get some body glide at a running store (there’s probably a Marathon Sports near you) and use that to eliminate chub rub.

       1. or megababe! the chafe stick is great.

17. How do you keep up on developments in your field? Specifically for lawyers, how do you keep up on case law changes in your field? I do not litigate, but I need to stay apprised of my state and federal cases. The State appeals and supreme courts publish decisions on certain days of the week, but I haven’t figured out how to keep up with all those plus the federal decisions.

    I flip through industry publications every couple weeks to generally stay updated, but I am open to feedback on that, too!

    1. Through the ACC I am on a mailing list that sends out a sort of daily digest of law blogs based on the interest categories I selected. If there’s a big ruling on one of my topics, it’s likely that a few of the big firms in that area will have blogged about it, and if the headlines indicate it’s important enough, I can read through — otherwise just skimming the headlines can be enough to just give me an idea of what’s going on out there.

    2. Are there any blogs that cover your area of the law? I’m a litigator and there are a few for my field, but I’m not sure how many there are that cover non-litigation areas of the law. I follow those blogs and get Law369 newsletters. Law360 also has a lot of daily newsletters for many areas – I largely just read the headline, but will click through for a few articles.

       1. Also, fwiw, I don’t follow the Supreme Court. If a case is relevant to my area of the law, it will be covered in the blogs or newsletter. But the vast, vast majority of Supreme Court cases just are not relevant to me.

    3. Speaking as the person who ghostwrites weekly/monthly/quarterly newsletters for a half dozen industry associations, I’d start by signing up for as many of those for your field as you can tolerate. Also check to see if the important law firms in your field have newsletters or alerts you can sign up for.

    4. I registered for updates from my specialty bar association on Supreme Court cases in my area, plus the federal appeals cases in the two circuits where I practice the most. I also read three blogs in my area regularly and am on a couple listservs (one national, one state specific) for my area. That’s about all I can manage on a regular basis (and yes, they do sometimes pile up during a busy week; I often catch up while The Kid does sports practice).

       I also find that CLEs are great for this. I go to the “Annual Update on [Subject Matter Area]” for my primary districts each year and that generally gets me up to date (and also gets me over halfway through my annual CLE requirements, but YMMV).

    5. Law firm client alerts & CLEs. If you’re not on those lists, check out lexology – you can sign up for your practice area.

18. One last time because I’m not sure I got the email address right – paging the commenter who asked about Salt Lake City recommendations. I sent you an email. Let me know if you didn’t get it.

    1. Related to that conversation last week, do you know anything about the light rail system in SLC? I’m assuming you’re local and I’m wondering if the system is actually decent – i.e., clean, runs on time, convenient, etc.? It seems rare to find a light rail system in the mountain states and I’m curious if it’s actually good.

       1. It’s … fine. Relatively clean, mostly on time from what I can tell but I don’t use it much because unless your destination happens to be really close to one of the stops, it’s not very convenient. If you just need to get around downtown or up to the University it’s okay. There are basically two main lines – one that runs north and south and another that runs east and west, but that leaves a ton of geography uncovered in a city that isn’t especially walking friendly. It is pretty great for getting out to the airport though.

          1. Hmm, good to know. Thanks!!

    2. !! That was me and oh my god I didn’t respond to your email until just now.

19. I’m miserable and mentally checked out at my job. I do the work (and pull the long hours), but I’m hard-pressed to point to anything I still like in my daily routine. The problem is that I’ve been with this company for 6.5 years (with multiple promotions in that time, btw, so it’s not that I’m stagnating in my position) and I literally have no idea what I’d prefer doing, just that I fantasize every day about quitting.

    Any tips or success stories from those who’ve been in the same position?

    1. I’m in the same boat. Commiserating with you. I don’t know the solution.

    2. Could it be that you’re burnt out from the long hours? No success story here, but I would get a full phyical — including tests specifically for chronic fatigue / adrenal function — as a starting point to rule out health issues that may be affecting how you feel.

       1. The long hours are definitely part of it, but more in the sense of “I wish I had more time/energy to do other things in my life” — I never wanted my life to revolve solely around work, and yet here I am. Still, it’s a good idea to rule any other possible medical issues out.

    3. I am RIGHT THERE WITH YOU. I have no answers, other than to Google “existential career crisis.” There are some decent articles on HBR on dealing with burnout and career crises.

    4. Me three, with the difference that I’m not really pulling the long hours because I just can’t bring myself to care about the work that much anymore. No success story here because I’m in the midst of it but commiseration all day…

    5. My husband was in the same boat until recently (6 years, same company, promotions but the corporate environment was such that no matter your title you have no power to actually do anything). He was probably clinically depressed. I don’t know how much work he really did at work by the end of it. He got it together to start looking for another job about a year ago. After many, many iterations of his resume being sent into the void with no response, he had three interviews with different companies, each about 6 weeks apart. The first two were soul crushing rejections (with periods of acute depression in between). The third landed him a contract gig in an industry he is passionate about. We are lucky that my job is stable and we are OK with a contract gig. So far so good, the work seems interesting and he is engaged. Now he is working hard to get to full time status (though I honestly think it’s a bad idea for his personality, he is the kind of person that thrives on instability – in fact that person who wrote in about her husband wanting to move homes every few years reminded me of us).

    6. Me four, or five, except I’m not pulling long hours either because I can’t bring myself to care, and have only been at this place a year but the turnover is approaching 75%.

20. My short (chin length) hair has gone from wavy to curly over the last few months. I used to straighten it every day and now it looks flat and blah when straight. When I wear it curly (mousse, air dry), everyone comments on the curls, but I am so used to straight hair, I don’t always feel professional. Do I need to curl it with an iron? Find a different product to straighten it? Can anyone find a real or TV power woman with a curly bob for me to aspire to?

    1. Are you looking for advice on how to have less flat more voluminous hair when straightened, or are you looking for advice on how to accept your hair curly?

       For the latter w w w . naturallycurly . com is the best place to start.

    2. I have a curly bob. Everyone LOVES my hair and goes nuts over it, but it gets an eh from me. I used to blow it out for years, but my husband really loves it curly (and I’ll certainly save the 25 minutes every morning), so I’ve transitioned to full-time curls in the last year or so. But after getting a too-short haircut that necessitated blowing it out every day for weeks (because Little Orphan Annie really isn’t a good look), I’m back to curls all the time and I just don’t love it. I feel kinda frumpy. It’s cute and fun on the weekends, but it doesn’t “go” for work. Idk. Anyways, if you search curly bob on google images, you get some nice looking photos. I’ve sort of chalked it up to it being about how I feel, not how the hair actually looks, ya know? I look professional and fine. I also think growing my hair out longer than I think it needs helps me feel a bit more put together, so I completely avoid any Annie resemblance. And my go-to product has the cheesiest packaging known to man, but it’s wonderful for my hair: https://www.target.com/p/marc-anthony-strictly-curls-curl-envy-perfect-curl-cream-6-fl-oz/-/A-51516721

    3. You might need a different haircut to make your curls sit better. The same layers, etc don’t work for straight hair like they do for true curls.

       I’d go to a hair stylist that specializes in this sort of thing.

       Also, curly hair is beautiful and completely professional!

       1. This…..curly hair is beautiful and completely professional. Don’t buy into the blowout/straight hair is better club

21. Did anyone read the article “Smash the Wellness Industry” in the NYT over the weekend? I thought it was really good. I’ve been getting so tired of diets (especially Whole30) getting packaged as wellness movements and the article outlined many of the issues I have with it more clearly than I could.

    1. Yes, and I thought it was spot-on. I swear, “wellness” (put in quotes for emphasis) has become a religion for a certain group of women in their 20s and 30s. I am thoroughly over it and wish we could talk about something, anything, else.

    2. I found this article really spoke to me, in an uncomfortable way. I’m 31, smart, feminist and yet I fall for this every time. Part of it is because I really want to look a certain way and losing weight is so difficult for me. So I fall for every fad diet, exercise plan, supplement etc. and I know logically it’s not helpful or constructive but I just can’t help it.

    3. Yes, I thought it was a great piece. In my world people rarely talk about dietary restrictions (apart from confirming restrictions, which are typically limited to medical and vegetarian, when inviting someone for dinner). No one talks about being “good” or diets.

       After a childhood of hearing so much of this stuff, it’s glorious.

       1. +1. At this point in my life, I don’t have any friends or even really coworkers who talk about this stuff. It’s awesome. My mom and sister do it a little bit, but since I have nothing to add it usually passes quickly in our conversation.

          At 37, I can say that I no longer restrict my eating in any way. I feel great, and I am the healthiest (mentally and physically) and in the best shape of my life. I am also larger than I was when I used to restrict–though my size does not fluctuate at all; it’s been exactly the same for 4+ years. It’s 100% worth it to quit diet culture.

    4. Ohh man, just read it. Love. This part really spoke to me:

       “Most days, I feel good in my skin. That said, I am probably never going to love my body, and that’s O.K. I think loving our bodies is not only an unrealistic goal in our appearance-obsessed society but also a limiting one. No one is telling men that they need to love their bodies to live full and meaningful lives. We don’t need to love our bodies to respect them.”

       The idea of letting go the need to “love” the way I looked was a key concept when I was getting over my eating disorder. I aimed for “neutral” with a side of “respecting the cool things that my body can do, like running/riding horses/lifting heavy things/crazy dance parties.”

       1. OP here and same. That was key for me. I can do a lot of great things, but I can appreciate those activities for what they are and not ruminate over what it means for my body/whether I love myself enough/etc. It’s nice to get out there and DO something and not spend time in front of the mirror trying to convince myself that I “love” cellulite. No, I don’t love it – but it just IS, and it’s fine.

       2. I LOVE this. Thank you for this perspective.

       3. Yes, that same paragraph is what stuck out to me, too!

    5. Highly recommend the Food Psych Podcast with Christy Harrison for anyone who read the article and would like more info about “wellness” diets and diet culture. The host is so kind and empathetic, and sensitive about not triggering listeners in recovery from eating disorders (e.g., bleeping references to lbs or certain “good/bad” foods). She interviews someone in the field each episode—anti-diet dietitians, academics, psychologists, health at every size coaches, authors, comedians. I love listening as I plan my grocery list and meal prep for the week. Not to gush too much, but it helps me feel so much less guilty about the choices I make to nourish myself.

    6. Thank you for posting, I needed to read this. A colleague of mine, whom is already Very Thin, recently posted on SM that she lost over 30 pounds due to Whole30 and it made me feel so less than, because I am not Very Thin but could not do Whole30 if my life depended on it (not literally, but you get it)

    7. I didn’t love it. It reads very “cool girl who’s above dieting but don’t worry I’m still thin.” As an overweight person, I already feel shamed for not dieting well enough. Now I guess I get shamed for trying? Like no I don’t want to just accept this bigger size because it is not healthy for me. And frankly I find it empowering to be able to talk about my struggles with other womxn – not to shred ourselves like the author’s friends but for support and commiseration. But I guess I’m not cool for talking about this issue because omg can’t we just be like men? No I don’t want to be like a man! Men don’t have real friends because they can’t be vulnerable with each other (I think we just talked about this here?). I’m not sure why every discussion about how women handle X has to refer to the way men do things like they’re setting the gold standard.

       1. I think the thing about friends is this:
          I’m a larger woman (like 200#) and I go on a girls trip with my girlfriend’s every year. It KILLS me inside that these amazing, ambitious, and not that it matters, but also gorgeous and thin women, spend so much time starving themselves or working out to exhaustion, and $$$ in order to reach a body type in their head that doesn’t exist in the real world.
          I have a 4yo daughter and I consciously don’t talk about my body in any way but a neutral way and I’m so glad that the younger generations seem to be moving twds more body acceptance for women.

22. Hi! I would appreciate the advice of anyone who has worked or is working in higher education. I live close to a small private college that is known to be a great employer. Someone recently retired from a support position (similar to a writing lab), and I’m very interested in that type of role. I’ve been watching the school’s job board like a crazy person, but nothing has been posted. An employee (and friend), who knows the dean that oversees this department, suggested that I reach to the dean for an informational interview. Is this a good idea? If so, how do I begin the e-mail? Do I name-drop the friend? I’m comfortable describing my skills that I think would fit the role, but I haven’t seen an official job description. Thank you for any advice that you can offer!

    1. i work in higher ed. i would reach out. it can take weeks/months for people to get their act together in higher ed to post a job. how long ago did this person leave?

       1. This is especially true in the summer. I would definitely reach out, and I would name drop.

    2. They may be waiting to hire until after the new fiscal year begins. It’s easier that way. Probably July 1st.

    3. I agree that it probably wouldn’t hurt at all to reach out- the worst the Dean could say is to watch for the job ad being posted soon. I would mention the name of your friend who recommended you contact the Dean, as personal connections always help.

       However, there’s a possibility that this position has already been filled. Since colleges work on academic year cycles, if this person made it known in advance that they were retiring at the end of this academic year, the school may have already advertised the position and filled it with someone who is contracted to start next fall. I’m not sure how far in advance job ads for support roles like the one you are talking about get posted, but most faculty jobs get posted the previous winter and filled by the spring to start the next fall. I am assuming your insider friend knows for a fact that this job hasn’t been filled (since she encouraged you to contact the dean), but you may want to ask her to double check to make sure the job hasn’t already been filled before you reach out. Good luck!!

23. An in-house role has opened up in a large company, and my DH is the perfect fit for it. He has applied for the position via the public job posting. He also knows the GC personally, but does not want to reach out to the GC directly – thinks this could look desperate and that circumventing the official recruitment process could irk the GC. I am concerned that his application, although a strong one, could get lost in the pile of CVs (more than a hundred people have applied for this position). Thoughts? Should he reach out to the GC?

    1. Yes obviously. But you can’t make him.

    2. Yes. That would be a huge waste not to. I’d say “Hey ___, I wanted to let you know I applied for ___. It would be great to chat sometime so I could learn more about ___!”

    3. Yes, of course he should reach out! Although, if this GC is so opposed to how things work in the business world (who you know is king), I would rethink wanting to work for this person!

       His contact doesn’t have to be some over the top email. Just a simple, hey, what’s new, blah blah, wanted to let you know I threw my hat in the right for the position you have open – looks really interesting, or whatever.

       I’ve reached out or used networking to get my foot in the door for every job I have had since law school (private, gov, in-house).

    4. YES 100% he should. Anyone else who has a connection to the company will be using it, and if I was the GC and found out later he applied and didn’t reach out to me, I would wonder why.

    5. Yes – he should at least tell the GC he applied. He doesn’t have to ask the GC to do anything special with the application, but should at least say “Hey, I applied”. If GC wants to do something with that information, it’s up to them.

    6. Yes. Just a quick, “I’ve applied to this position, just want to let you know!” email is sufficient.

    7. Great, thanks a lot everyone.

24. Well, today blows. A key staffer on my team announced his resignation this morning. Other team member is on maternity leave. On a team of 3, that leaves … me. I am already so effing burned out and am desperate to leave my job, and I don’t know how I’m going to dig even deeper to cover the extra work, find a new staffer and train them. I don’t know how I’m going to manage it when our senior leadership team seems to keep piling on the work as it is. I need to have a conversation with my boss about how to handle these vacancies, but my God, part of me just wants to hand in my resignation letter and tell her that I’m out, too, because I can’t handle this job anymore. She is part of the problem and has proven over and over that she is too incompetent to be part of the solution. I don’t even know what to do about this.

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