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Our daily workwear reports suggest one piece of work-appropriate attire in a range of prices.
Boss does it again with another gorgeous long-sleeve dress! This cut is fantastic, and the pool blue is such a pretty, summery color. For summer, I would wear this with a long necklace and a white blazer. In fall/winter, I’d probably pair this with a navy blazer, or perhaps black tights and booties.
The dress is $163, marked down from $545. It comes in sizes 0–18. Diwoma Long-Sleeve Stretch Wool Dress
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Sales of note for 9.30.24
- Nordstrom – Beauty deals through September
- Ann Taylor – Extra 30% off sale
- Banana Republic Factory – 50% off everything + extra 20% off
- Boden – 15% off new styles
- Eloquii – Extra 50% off sale
- J.Crew – 50% off select styles
- J.Crew Factory – Up to 60% off everything + 50% off sale with code
- Lo & Sons – Warehouse sale, up to 70% off
- M.M.LaFleur – Save 25% sitewide
- Neiman Marcus – Friends & Family 25% off
- Rag & Bone – Friends & Family 25% off sitewide
- Spanx – Lots of workwear on sale, some up to 70% off
- Talbots – Fall Cyber Monday sale, 40% off sitewide and $5 shipping
- Target – Car-seat trade-in event through 9/28 — bring in an old car seat to get a 20% discount on other baby/toddler stuff.
- White House Black Market – 40% off select styles
And some of our latest threadjacks here at Corporette (reader questions and commentary) — see more here!
Some of our latest threadjacks include:
- What to say to friends and family who threaten to not vote?
- What boots do you expect to wear this fall and winter?
- What beauty treatments do you do on a regular basis to look polished?
- Can I skip the annual family event my workplace holds, even if I'm a manager?
- What small steps can I take today to get myself a little more “together” and not feel so frazzled all of the time?
- The oldest daughter is America's social safety net — change my mind…
- What have you lost your taste for as you've aged?
- Tell me about your favorite adventure travels…
Anon
That dress is gorgeous.
Nylon girl
Fabulous pick!
Just me
Agree, beautiful
Anon
Have any pears lost weight from their butt/thighs/hips? I know you can’t spot train, but would love to hear examples of how others were able to slim down their lower half
Anonymous
I am a pear, and I have lost weight. But I’ve never lost weight specifically from my butt/thighs/hips. I just lose if from my body, and it comes off everywhere. The weight loss appears to come off these “pear” areas last, because there is more weight to start with there.
That answer is specifically about losing weight; I’m wondering if you’re asking instead about toning or building muscle.
Clementine
Not a pear, but similar response. Part of it is also just how your body is distributed – I lose weight in my waist first and my upper arms and thighs last.
Building muscle can change your shape, losing fat overall can reduce your body mass/adipose tissue.
OP
Yes! I’m hoping to both lose weight and tone those areas.
Anon
After my pregnancies my weight redistributed and my butt is almost flat, while my waist is larger.
Anonymous
You might try the book Escape Your Shape, it has exercise suggestions, etc. I find swimming and ballet (real ballet, not that weird gym “ballet”) help.
Two Cents
+ 100
Fantastic book with concrete suggestions on how to keep your pear shape more in balance. The short answer is heavy upper body weights, low weight or no weight resistance work on lower body, and lots of jump roping. Stay away from running, rowing, stair climber, all these things bulk up the lower body on pears.
I have personally found this advice to be spot on. When I used to run (many years ago), my jeans would become extremely tight a few days after.
I have found a lot of success in doing upper body strength training, and pilates and walking for the core/lower body.
anon
Running has worked well for me. Mind you, I am always going to have a curvy lower half, but at least it’s a toned lower half?
OP
Yeah I’m totally fine with being curvy, that’s just how my body is.
I just need to rein it in a bit, since the size difference between my waist and my hips makes it hard to find well fitting clothing.
In general, I’d like to lose 20 lbs AND tone my lower half
Anonymous
I’m with you. I was fine as a pear with a 1 size differential and am aiming to get back there. Solid pear = what’s how nature built me. Squishy lumpy pear = that’s lockdown stress eating and some bad habits creeping in.
Daffodil
“Solid pear = what’s how nature built me. Squishy lumpy pear = that’s lockdown stress eating and some bad habits creeping in.”
SAME.
Allie
Swimming and actually yoga have been very effective for me for that. I’m not if I necessarily lost weight but those areas all appeared more toned and I fit better into clothes
Monday
+1. I went from a thin pear to a muscular hourglass, so that’s another approach: build upper body strength/muscle to match your glute and thigh muscle. I gained weight in this process, and am far more healthy and no longer deal with weight fluctuation.
anon
There’s a fascinating part of Portia DeRossi’s book where she talks about her eating disorder. She says that basically the shape of her body stayed the same, whether she was 75 pounds or 180 pounds. It’s just the scale of it that was different. So even when she was so, so sick, her thighs on her 75 pound body were bigger in comparison to other body parts. I try to think about this when I obsess over my stomach. To some degree, we are built the way we are built. Not to say exercise and healthy diet isn’t important, but you’ll never be able to totally reshape your frame. All of us have a parts that we don’t like and other parts that are small that we don’t even think about. Whereas another person is obsessing about the part that is small on your body being bigger on theirs. It’s a struggle for everyone.
OP
Oh I totally understand that I’ll always be pear shaped, no matter how skinny I am I’ll always have to wear curvy fit pants, etc. I’m not trying to change my physical structure.
However, when my waist is a size small and my hips are a size large, it’s hard to find clothes that fit. I’d like to lose some weight overall and tone my lower body so that I can wear more styles of clothing.
Anon
I get it. I have a round tummy and no ass. If the pants can be buttoned, they sag in the back. I Order and return hundreds of items because clothes are designed for a body that literally no one has.
anonshmanon
Part of that difficulty finding clothing is of course the fact that mass production only targets a narrow set of shapes.
Monday
Ding ding ding.Clothes are failing to fit us, not the other way around!
I used to work clothing retail, and I swear every single female customer, of ANY shape or size, told me that she had a hard time finding clothes that fit well. That really clued me in. Tailors have also said that standardized sizes really don’t work all that well for women because our bodies have so much more proportional variation than men’s do.
Anon
I lived in a country where going to the local tailor to get clothing made was the norm, and it was a revelation. Women in general just didn’t have the same dissatisfaction about looking good in their clothing because of fit. And I was always comfortable!
Anon
I get what you’re saying. When I gain weight, it disproportionately goes to my hips and thighs, so my lower half is like two sizes bigger than my upper half.
Ellen
I have a lot of weight in my tuchus that I need to loose. Is there anyone in the hive who can teach me spot reduction?
Jess
It’s just $15 to have a pair of pants taken in at the waist.
Anon
And sometimes, even with pants unbuttoned and unzippered, it’s hard to get pants over my thighs/butt. If something fits my waist, it’s probably really hard to get on
Anon
Yeah, I alter my way around this issue. I spend a lot on alterations, but it’s worth it.
Anon
I think I know what you are asking. I am also very pear shaped. Running tends to thin my thighs out some– I am still pear shaped but clothes tend to look better. Spinning tends to bulk up my thighs more than normal, which is not really a goal of mine. I have been doing more weight training over quarantine and my lower half has gotten bulkier (with muscle) but so has my entire body (and I feel better), so it hasn’t been a negative outcome in the same way that spinning was for me.
Carrie
I’m also an extreme pear. XS on top, 8-10 on the bottom. High waisted.
Not a single pair of pants will ever fit me well off the rack. Almost no dresses. And that is true for many women’s bodies. We are all different, and ideally you tailor everything to your body. Sad, but true.
Otherwise, if you must buy off the rack, you buy lots of stretchy pants with elastic waists and sometimes risk looking too risque for work. And for dresses, you look for all A-line or shift and still need to tailor most things on top to look your best.
I tone my lower body with simple squats/lunges/stairs, and eat a well rounded healthy diet. I never was a breakfast eater (just coffee), so I guess I have intermittent fasted all my life and my weight hasn’t been too hard to manage. But I have never had kids, so I have it easier. But if I try to lose weight I become even more of a bone-y skeleton on top (not attractive) and my face looks unhealthy and wrinkly….. and I still have full (of cellulite…) thighs and a big jiggly butt.
You will never be able to find clothes that fit your body well. Ideally, you tailor everything. That’s what the situation is for us.
Political differences
Do you think you could be with someone long-term if you’re pretty liberal and they voted for Trump (and will vote for Trump in the upcoming elections)? If their positions on many social issues are more conservative compared to yours? As an example, I felt compelled to go to Black Lives Matters protests and learn about racism, and he would not actively do those things. Some of my friends say it’s a dealbreaker. My parents say it’s more important that you can talk about issues respectfully and about the person’s character. I really like him and am enjoying getting to know him, but am very torn because I feel strongly about some of these social and political issues. I know people will probably have different opinions and it’s something to figure out for myself and I’m struggling with it…. am interested in hearing your perspective.
Anon
Is it true that you can discuss issues respectfully? People can definitely change their political attitudes – in most cases, it’s not an inborn personality trait. But you would also need to be sure you could live with him if he never changed his positions.
It’s certainly easier to start out in agreement about important beliefs. However, even if you got into an LTR or marriage with someone who you agreed with politically, he or she could still change (to be different from you). I’m thinking more of friends in which one spouse turned away from religion after marriage, when both were religious to start. They are still married, but it took some work. In a similar case, the couple divorced because one spouse could not accept the other spouse losing religion.
Country Biscuits
I stopped reading after the first sentence. Not really, but I knew the answer. Absolutely not.
Ellen
It is not a black and white issue. I am very liberal and my ex was not. He did not vote at all in the election’s but he was for the 2nd amendment and I was not. He also thought that women should not have opinion’s if they were differnent from their boyfreinds. With all of these issues, I still had s-x with him! In retrospect, I wonder if it was b/c he completed me (or at least I thought so at the time). But haveing grown up, I would never repeat the mistakes I did with him with another guy.
Anon
Personally, I think a second vote for Trump based on social issues at this point would be an absolute non starter for me. Not going to a rally is one thing, but actually voting for Trump again at this point is making their beliefs clear IMO. And quite honestly, I think it could be telling about this person’s character. I’m sorry, and I’m sure it may be hard to think about ending it with someone you like with the way dating is looking right now. But some of these issues come down to you both having fundamentally different ideas of the way people are treated/characterized/allowed to control their own autonomy (if it’s as different as I think you’re making it seem). Personally, for example, could not date someone who was pro life or did not defended the BLM or LGBTQ movements within their social circle.
Anonymous
I’ll play, even though I am 99 percent sure this post is engineered to spark conflict. Political differences that are truly just political can be accommodated in a relationship (see, e.g., Matalin and Carville). But if the political differences are the result of a fundamental disagreement on moral values, there is no foundation for a relationship.
CountC
+1
Cb
Pre-2016, sure, post-2016, I’m less clear. I know and love Republicans, I have friends who voted Brexit. So I don’t think a different political viewpoint disqualifies people. But Trump specifically gives me pause. I think I would worry that someone who was able to support a political candidate who was so openly sexist, racist, and frankly incompetent, wouldn’t make good decisions in other areas of their lives. If they are doing so on the basis of economic self-interest (like our favorite stock market devotee), I’d question their empathy. I’d also be frankly a bit embarrassed in my liberal circles.
Anon
Dealbreaker. To me, it signals that he either lacks empathy or he lacks the ability to think critically and question what he was taught growing up.
anon a mouse
Also that even if he is not a racist, he is comfortable voting for someone who is and who hires racists.
Kendra
Ding ding ding. This applies to anyone who votes for Trump. Maybe they’re not racist, but to them, blatant racism isn’t a dealbreaker. At that point, what’s the difference?
ELS
For me, stance on larger social issues (i.e. is racism still a problem in America?) DO speak to character, and that’s why it would be a deal breaker to me.
The guy I’m seeing agrees with me largely on political matters (i.e. we both lean left of center) and have a general agreement about social issues. We obviously don’t agree about everything, and I agree with your parents that it’s important to be able to discuss things respectfully.
For me it just comes down to a difference in values. Someone who plans to vote for Trump and who doesn’t care about the social issues that I do doesn’t share my values, and therefore I don’t want to spend time getting attached to someone who I wouldn’t really want to share a life with because of that.
The line is different for everyone. I have dated people with different voting histories than me (I don’t think voting history always betrays what your beliefs are) but not someone with wildly different fundamental political values.
anon
I could be with someone who was a Romney-esque republican but anyone who actively supports someone so horribly racist, xenophobic, and misogynist as Trump would be a hard no from me.
Anonymous
I couldn’t. I think people who support Trump are bad people with bad values. I can and certainly am pleasant when required to interact with them but I could never commit to a relationship with someone I don’t respect and I don’t respect any Trump voter
PNW
Agreed. Thank you for stating it so clearly. There was a time when I could believe that people were misled, or uninformed, or just had different priorities and outlook than I do but were still fundamentally good people who I had trouble relating to. But that line was crossed some time ago.
anon
No, because at this point, I think anyone who supports Trump is either malicious or extremely unintelligent, with rare exception.
Senior Attorney
Pretty much this. At this point it should be clear to any decent/halfway intelligent person that Trump is a monster.
AIMS
Conservative generally, quite possibly. Trump supporter, not a chance. But I find Trump to be an existential threat to this country and anyone supporting him for a second term, having seen what he has done, for ‘practical’ reasons like low taxes or the stock market is just an a**hole to me that I wouldn’t want to be involved with. FWIW, I was very anti-Bush but wouldn’t have said the same in 2004.
Anon
Same.
My BF and I are both progressive — but we still disagree on lots of things politically. I do not require someone to agree with on all things all the time — but a Trump vote in 2016 would be a deal breaker for me, and a Trump vote in 2020… I can’t even fathom.
Is it Friday yet?
Yeah, this is about where I fall. The incredible mishandling of the pandemic alone should be enough to push anyone sane away from Trump. Not to mention the overt racism, giving his donors cabinet positions, the dementia, the fact that he’s a malignant narcissist who doesn’t care about anyone other than himself, etc. This goes so far beyond a difference of viewpoints.
Cat
A 2016 vote for Trump? Not great but not a dealbreaker. A 2020 vote for Trump? Hard no.
Anon
+1
As the lone liberal in my family, I am totally fine with never Trump Republicans. I don’t agree with them but it would never be a deal breaker. I’d truly have no problem being with someone who liked McCain, Romney, etc.
I wouldn’t have been happy if my SO voted for Trump in 2016, but I could have looked past it.
In 2020, a vote for Trump is inexcusable and I could not look past that. He’s a bigot, a traitor and is intent on destroying our civil liberties.
Anonymous
Same. And my husband was a Republican when we met. There’s a wide difference between normal, pre-2016 Republican supporter and 2020 Trump supporter.
Veronica Mars
I think so. There’s a difference between someone who’s conservative (or liberal) whose views are based in misogyny, racism, ableism, etc and someone who has a different view of how governments should run, or how best to govern a country. I read in a memoir that the author grew more conservative as he got older, because when he was younger he viewed government as more competent and a stronger agent of change, and as he got older and saw the waste in spending, inefficiency of programs, backfiring of seemingly good policies, that he no longer believed those things to be true, and started to favor a smaller government approach, and became more entrenched in other viewpoints. I would also caution one to avoid putting people in political boxes and saying, “Well all conservatives are like this, and they’re not my kind of people.” However, in a romantic relationship, the bar for compatibility is higher than in a friendship, or in any other kind of relationship, so only you can explore how it’ll impact you both.
Anonymous
Nah there isnt
anon
Do you not know who Trump is? I agree with your points on political differences in general but OP’s boyfriend is not a garden variety conservative.
Anonymous
The problem is that there will (likely) be two people on the ballot: Trump and a liberal. Most folks who vote for Trump are garden variety conservatives voting for the republican.
Anonymous
I agree with this. I doubt there really a lot of pro-Trump people. But like last time, there are a lot of “anti-the-other-candidate” people (maybe less now) and “anti-other-candidate’s-party” people (probably more now — things are way too polarized to overlook party and ultimately this is to our detriment and prevents cross-over voting). People didn’t vote in Trump, is how I read the narrative; they refused to vote in HRC.
Anonymous
Yup. Bad people
anonymous
I think the kind of conservative you’re describing — who truly just doesn’t think that the government is very efficient and doesn’t harbor any other awful values-based ideas — is an extremely rare breed these days. Trump certainly isn’t that person.
Anon
Nah there’s still plenty of conservative people like that. There’s just very few conservative politicians like that.
anonymous
A conservative person who is like that who votes for someone who wants to take away human rights from others because they get bad fee fees about “big government” isn’t a good person. These people, wherever they are, are supporting (at the very best, overlooking) politicians with awful values. Not okay.
Anon
I don’t agree with it, but I know a lot of republicans like that who don’t vote or voted for 3rd party candidates, and a few who begrudgingly vote dem. They truly feel as if they have no good candidates for them.
Anon
I do have one friend who is like this — she votes Democrat because as a woman and an immigrant, she cannot support the social policies of the Republicans. She strongly disagrees with the liberal approach to economic issues, but feels like it’s the lesser of two evils.
Trixie
For me, this would be a deal breaker. It suggests not valuing character sufficiently in making choices, and voting by Republican reflex rather than with thought and analysis. What about when your children have friends of color, or other creeds, or abilities? Can you ask him what he thinks about the confederate flags or statues and see analytical thinking about the problem? This President is so abhorrent to me that anyone who would vote for him offends me deeply: the President is dishonest, incompetent, driven by emotion, racist, sexist–need I say more? I am sorry, because it is hard to find someone special, but put your thinking cap on and talk more with him.
Anonymous
Is he voting Trump based on social issues or for another reason? I have friends I suspect will again vote for Trump bc they care most about fiscal policy.
Anonymous
Yeah those people I think are bad people.
anon
+1
Anonymous
This, sort of.
Trump carried my very liberal city’s primary after the main likeable candidates had dropped out. I suspect that no one likes him personally and I never saw more than 2 yard sighs (different story in the outlying counties) for him. His overall support that got him elected suggests that when there is an unlikeable Democrat (and maybe Biden suffers from being very meh), people will just vote against them even if they don’t personally like their party’s nominee.
FWIW, my spouse is a registered D and won’t vote for many D’s because he sees them as wasteful spenders. I, OTOH, am a registered republican, and think that on the whole, our city’s leaders (always Ds) are fairly pro-business (and that includes not letting city taxes get too high and making sure that the schools stay good enough to encourage business formation here and not in the neighboring less expensive areas) and not generally prone to nonsense.
anon
I think a lot of people voted against Hillary in 2016, not knowing who Trump really was and hoping for the best. Now that we’ve seen who he is, I don’t think people will vote against the Dem as easily as they did last time. Or at least that’s what I’m hoping.
Anonymous
And by fiscal policy, I assume they mean tax cuts (mostly for corporations/upper income individuals), because god knows nothing else that man has supported even remotely resembles traditional Republican fiscal policy. Remember when Republicans were concerned about the deficit? I’m sure they’ll be deeply concerned again next time we have a Democratic president.
lol
“Fiscal policy”- this is such a joke, Trump doesn’t know what fiscal policy is
Anonymous
+1. His trade war? Sad attempt to intimidate those who will laugh (at him) all the way to the bank as they punish the US for his BS. Very sad.
Anonymous
I am a liberal, and I fully support what the current administration is doing on trade. You will see in today’s paper that the telecommunications risk is very real, and more countries are following the US.
anon
I would try to separate actions vs. beliefs. For example, not everyone — even progressive-minded folks — wants to protest or expresses their beliefs in that fashion. And, I think that’s OK; there are other ways to be active and engaged. That would not be a dealbreaker.
More conservative social beliefs in general? That’s harder to say and is way more nuanced than it appears on the surface. But I completely agree with the above posters that if someone is still supporting Trump, that would absolutely be a dealbreaker for me because that goes sooooo far beyond general politics. He is a menace to our country and is destroying the fabric of our society. He spouts hate at every group that doesn’t include him. He doesn’t know when to keep his mouth shut and is making us a laughingstock on the international stage. I seriously question the judgment of ANYONE who supports that mess, no matter how conservative you may be politically!
Anon
This would be a deal breaker for me. DH and I match very closely on the political spectrum, but we (used to) differ on other ethical positions and that was a pretty big hurdle in our marriage. I would constantly ask probing questions, like “How do you reconcile fast fashion’s use of slave labor when you strongly support worker rights in our own country?” He eventually realized the hypocrisy of his ways and changed to live a lifestyle in line with his greater values but even that was hard. I can not imagine living with someone who didn’t share any of my core beliefs.
Anonymous
I can’t imagine living with someone like you.
Anon
Yep, so unethical for me to not want my clothes to be made by Chinese prisoners! It’s so crazy and radical to support human rights!
anon
Aww still grouchy from yesterday? I think it’s lovely that Anon and her husband can challenge one another like that instead of walking on eggshells around each other. And in any case, it’s their marriage not yours.
Anonymous
you’re nasty anon at 10:03. you prob have the shirt and everything.
anon
Lol yep grouchiness confirmed! Have a snack or find some time to meditate — it’ll do you loads of good.
Anon
@10:12 I am not @10:03 but thanks for the reminder that I should find my Nasty Woman tank top.
Anonymous
@anon You seem to get some sort of perverse pleasure out of flagging grumpy people. Proper online etiquette is to ignore posters you don’t like, as anything else is a waste of time. If this “eat a muffin” business feels important to you, you have a problem.
Anon
@11:19 r/selfawarewolves. You’re so close!
Anon
Yeah, it’s really weird that you’ve decided to be the grouch police. Just let it go!
Anon
@11:19 – I’m not familiar with your version of online etiquette, which seems like a surefire way to build an echo chamber. Sites like this wouldn’t exist if we didn’t engage with comments we didn’t like. By your own logic, you shouldn’t have engaged with anon. That said, I think it’s weird that some of you are fine with the commenter who made a pointlessly rude remark about someone else’s marriage and are instead taking issue with the commenter who called it out + also provided a reasonable defense.
Anon
I agree with you, @12:27. @9:54 was totally rude, saying that out loud is a problem?
Anon
I wouldn’t phrase it like this, even though I agree entirely with the point in the example.
I dated someone who phrased things like that, or “I just don’t understand how you can…” and we broke up in a large part because we fought about politics so much. I agreed with his underlying points 90% of the time, but he was a huge asshole about judging me for using tea bags instead of loose tea because its wasteful. After we broke up, I bought 2 boxes of tea bags (the kind with strings!!!) just to spite him, even though I both prefer loose tea and agree that tea bags are unnecessarily wasteful when you are making tea at home (I keep some in my desk drawer in the office).
Anon
Yeah the conversation is probably good but that phrasing is very hostile
anon
Something for you to consider: You may be able to overlook his “not actively doing those things” now because this is a new relationship and possibly honeymoonish. He may also be acting more polite about your interest now due to this being a new relationship. Is his disinterest something you are willing to accept long term though? I think, I hope, that the country has opportunity to engage in a lot of social justice work over the next ________ (years, decade?) and you may want to keep being involved in that. Being with someone who does not share or support your social justice leanings seems very self sabotaging to me.
Wouldn’t it be better to find someone who would participate in these ventures together and who has a similar view point?
It sounds like he doesn’t have an issue with you doing what you feel compelled to do (and rightfully so imo, go you), but are there any expectations on his part that you will, overtime, fall into line with his world view and not do these things? Make sure you are not setting yourself up for having to compromise on all your beliefs as time goes by in order to make your relationship work.
Finally, anyone who is still planning on voting for Trump in 2020, after the president* has shown his true colors again and again and again, would be a BIG red flag for me and a deal breaker. To your parents point: I would question the person’s character if they are still adamant about voting for Trump in 2020. Please proceed carefully with this relationship and stay true to yourself.
Anonymous
[removed by management]
Anon
God I wish Kat hadn’t taken the report button away.
Cat
There is a temporary reporting workaround described at the bottom of the page — re: the 11:30 comment, post the acronym for Please Look Into This Kat.
Anonymous
They encourage Ellens
Anon
Sure, this doesn’t add anything to the conversation but it seems silly to report it.
Anon
The reason people called for the report button was to improve the overall quality of civility here, though. Pointlessly rude comments like “omg you’re insane” and “go eat a muffin” were specifically mentioned in the list of things that regular readers were finding off-putting. It drags everybody down.
Anon
Really? Yesterday somebody asked for advice and our resident Oscar the Grouch jumped all over her for not providing enough information and how could she possibly come here and ask this question and be so stupid and calling out that rudeness is the problem? Y’all are crazy.
Anon
I agree on the Trump point, but fundamentally disagree that a relationship can’t work between an activist and a non-activist. I know many people who fully support progressive ideals, but are unwilling to protest. Some have very valid reasons (here illegal and fear being deported, will lose their job if arrested) and some are just uncomfortable with it or it’s not their personality. That’s not a sign that a relationship won’t work. This like any other interest that only one of the people has, they will find other friends to do those activities with.
Anonymous
2020 Trump voter? That is a deal breaker. I might have had a more softened position about ideological differences in the past, but my current SO and I are extremely well aligned on politics and social issues and it has been an awakening for me. It is so much easier for me to be with someone whose positions inform and bolster mine. I don’t mean we are in an echo chamber, or that we don’t challenge each other or ourselves. We both read a lot of varied news and supplemental information. But I have really enjoyed finally having a partner who I never have to “educate” about anything and who will land in the same circle of views based on shared values of all kinds.
anon
No, it would be a total deal breaker for me. The only exception would be if he demonstrated –quickly– that he was willing to learn and grow. However, people are not improvement projects, and I would still find it unattractive that someone would be disinclined to learn about systemic racism. Bottom line, most of what conservatives/moderates characterize (or dismiss) as “social issues” are actually issues of human rights and a person’s position on these issues speaks to their values. I can’t make a life with someone who doesn’t think that women/ BIPOC/ LGBTQ people are entitled to a full set of human rights and truly equal treatment in society. Re: Trump in particular, I can’t make a life with someone who actually though he was better than Hillary for this country, or who didn’t think that his abject bigotry was a deal breaker.
Anonymous
Honestly, Biden’s crime bill history is not one I can easily overlook. His policies were devastating to the black community and children growing up without fathers. He was so into that and the time and I don’t think he regrets it now (heck, I don’t think he remembers it). Now, people’s warming up to him says that no one cares, he’s just not Trump. I cannot believe that he is the candidate that emerged from that field. I am so disappointed with the world. I wept when he won SC. I remember when we joked that he was Joe Biden (D., MBNA), and that was about the nicest thing we could say about him. It will be interesting who he picks for VP. I see him as such a weak candidate that if he wins, it’s only because he is not Trump.
Anonymous
Seriously? Trump is making a disaster of this pandemic and basically gassing up white nationalists on BLM issues and you’re worried about Biden’s crime bill from two decades ago?
Like, 2020 is not about ideal, it’s about less people dying because of horrible leadership.
Anon
I know. I seriously couldn’t give less of a sh*t what Biden did on that crime bill now that it’s 2020 and Trump is an even bigger moron than I previously believed and this pandemic is raging. I really, really couldn’t.
Anonymous
Ok? This is entirely besides the point of this thread.
Anon
This is how I feel. Voting is one thing; we have to vote for the better candidate. But genuinely supporting either of these candidates, regarding them as good people, or defending their “flaws” feels like a deal breaker for me just in terms of moral values.
Anon
Just to play devil’s advocate, I think one thing that’s lost sometimes in how to think about people that vote for Trump….unfortunately, it is a system with only two choices. And while I lean liberal, voted for Hillary, and will vote for Biden….I think sometimes in the circles me and my friends frequent it’s easy to forget there are quite a lot of people that REALLY dislike the Clintons. And in that case, their hands were then kind of forced to vote Trump in a way? I’m not looking to get into a debate about that, obviously I do not think that way, but if someone really disliked Hillary, or is really scared of Biden’s mental status (I know, I know, Trumps mental status is way more terrifying in MY viewpoint, but not everyone’s), it’s not like they then have a handful of other options to choose from, they have one. Kind of along those lines, while like I said I lean liberal, there are some potential policies on the far left side that many view to be problematic. I don’t mean equal rights for all or things that any decent human should agree on, but I live in the Bay Area and have seen how some extreme left policies play out and it’s not always pretty. So if someone I know feels really strongly against some of those policies, and therefore only has the one alternative, again…it helps me at least understand where they might be coming from.
Now, if they are full MAGA hat pro-Trump (who I abhor by the way) regardless of what decent person is on the other side, or in lieu of other good Republicans, then hard no.
For this poster’s specific question though, I could see in the beginning of a relationship when it’s all new and shiny overlooking the Trump voting or imagining you can maybe have these great intellectual debates over time and agree to disagree. But I think 5, 10 years down the line when the beginning relationship magic has worn off and life sets in as it does, these value viewpoints will really slowly become something that grates at you more and more about the person, in addition to everything else that eventually will but on a bigger level than the other minor things. Sorry.
Anonymous
are you really okay with someone who was so unbothered by Trump’s s.a. history in 2016 that it outweight dislike of HRC or even just not voting in 2016? I hate how people act like we didn’t know Trump was a monster in 2016.
Didn’t vote in 2016 vs voted for Trump in 2016 vs voting for Trump in 2020 are three totally different scenarios I think.
Anon
I have a few life long friends who I know voted for Trump that I am not going to write out of my life, and the above thought process helps me come to peace with it.
As outlined in my last paragraph, I do not think this poster should continue dating this dude, however, based on this.
Anonymous
Trump won so obviously the devil doesn’t need your help.
Anon
But the seemingly overwhelming majority on here do hate Trump (myself included) so in this particular context on this particular forum, I view it as being a Devil’s advocate.
I am just trying to illustrate how I come to peace with SOME Trump supporters, even though that is not my view. As noted, I also think a long term romantic relationship is a different story.
Anon
Everyone hates a devil’s advocate.
Anon
Amen. But it’s nice to know I can stop reading immediately when I see that.
Anon
In response to your first paragraph, I know there’s a lot of discourse about what do moderate republicans do because they’re republican but Trump and other far right politicians dont support what they stand for.
I think this is starting to happen on the left. I was a big Buttigieg supporter and concerns about senility aside, I like Biden a lot. I could never imagine Bernie being my party’s candidate, much like Bernie supporters could never imagine Buttigieg as their candidate.
Both parties are being coopted by the more extreme sides, and there isn’t much room for moderates right now.
Anon
+1 I’m a moderate conservative. I won’t vote for Trump and didn’t vote for him in 2020 but I really don’t feel like there’s room for moderates at the moment. I also think we sometimes ignore the fact that you have to have blinders on with any candidate. It’s not like Biden isn’t without flaws or issues. I fully agree that his shortcomings are less alarming than Trumps, but they are still there. When there are bad choices on both sides, some people put blinders on with respect to different issues.
Anon
I would consider dating an intellectual Republican. I would not consider dating someone who is for Trump 2020 in a million years. That shows callousness and fascism-worship I can’t abide.
Anon
I, personally, do not think it’s a big issue: if you are both respectful about it and learn where the other person is coming from, you can have a relationship and grow in understanding.
However, the responses here make me say no. Unless most of your friends are conservative or much, much more open-minded than the women here, you’re going to get so much garbage from your friends that it will harm your relationship.
Never too many shoes...
I don’t think that works for some issues. I could never be with someone who thinks that a foetus should have equal rights to a fully grown woman. No matter where they are coming from, the paternalistic arrogance that underlies that view would make them a poor choice of life partner for me. Not only on that issue, but because that attitude likely informs their other views as well.
Anon
Paternalism? Maybe check out the Gallup polls on who self-identifies as pro-life and pro-choice by gender.
anonymous
Cute. New vocab word for you: internalized misogyny.
Do you really think that women can never enforce patriarchy?
Anon
Internalized misogyny is a thing.
Anon
Non-falsifiable propositions are logical fallacies, Anon at 10:56.
anon
I’m super pro choice but I also know many many woman (and men) who are and really became pro life after having kids. That said, these are people who are actually pro life and not just pro birth (they advocate for adoption program funding, prenatal care for all, maternity/paternity leave on par with the rest of the world, early education programs, healthcare for all, are anti-death penalty, etc). I disagree with their views but we can have respectful conversations about it. Not all pro lifers are the same. Same with all trump supporters or voters. But I fear we are going down the path of calling trump supporters a basket of deplorables again. It didn’t work so well last time. I’m very worried the not woke enough test is going to turn voters away from Biden or away from the polls and we are going to end up with four more years of this BS because we aren’t willing to listen to another viewpoint.
pugsnbourbon
Counterpoint anecdata – I know women who became strongly pro-choice after having a child. Including my younger sister, who up to then had been on the fence. She said the thought of someone forced to go through a pregnancy they didn’t want horrified her.
And to your second point, sure, Trump supporters aren’t a monolith. Some of them might work in soup kitchens, some of them might be preschool teachers. But at this point, someone who supports Trump, for whatever reason, also supports his racism, misogyny, and homophobia.
anon
“Not all pro lifers are the same.”
Maybe, but if they’re advocating for the criminalization of abortion they are all anti-woman’s rights and all harmful. I just cannot respect a person who believes that women should have fewer rights than corpses. I’ve listened to this viewpoint over and over again. You won’t find many people more familiar with the anti-choice movement (outside of those who actually work in the reproductive rights arena) than I am. I know what motivates them and for the vast, vast majority, it’s not pretty.
Also, why exactly is calling someone “deplorable” a deep, unforgivable, campaign ending offense if a liberal does it but conservatives can say everything under the sun but some how that doesn’t do them in? I’ve been asking for a logical explanation for that since 2016 and still haven’t gotten one. It’s not worse to call someone deplorable than it is for that person to try to force me to have a child against my will.
Anon
I’m pro choice, but I cannot kid myself that a fetus magically becomes a baby/human life only when wanted; if someone was pro choice only because of “bundle of cells” type rhetoric, I can see how they’d become pro life with more experience.
Anonymous
Interesting – everyone I know who has had kids actually became more pro-choice. The reality of difficult high risk pregnancies and difficult choices made them (and me) more supportive of the notion that I cannot and don’t want to judge or limit what is right for anyone else.
Adoption doesn’t fix fatal fetal abnormalities.
Anon
Exactly what anon at 12:21 said, that’s where most of these people came out. And pugsnbourbon FWIW, I’m with your sister. I had a really terrible pregnancy that almost killed me, which pushed me more pro choice. But I also get how plenty of people who were previously pro choice other than “late term” abortions had their minds change when going through a pregnancy and seeing on an ultrasound how very much that fetus looks just like a baby even at like 10 weeks. My whole point was that not everyone that is pro life is of the same ilk.
Also I understand how saying someone who votes for Trump supports his racism, misogyny and homophobia but then you also have to take the stance that anyone who supports Biden supports weird inappropriate touching or s.a. if you believe allegation (obviously the former is worse than the latter) but I don’t think it’s fair to say that voting for one candidate means you support the worst things about them. Trump is a monster, I agree, but I strongly disagree with the notion that if you vote for someone you support everything about them. As an example on point re: abortion, Biden previously voted for the Hyde Amendment
Anon
Ok anon at 12:02, even accepting that you know more than any of us about the anti-choice movement (ok?), that doesn’t change the fact that a ton of Americans identify as pro-life. You are talking about a specific subset of people who identify as pro-life. That’s like saying any gun owner supports the most extreme policies of the NRA.
I’m not saying calling someone deplorable is worse than anything that came out of Trump’s mouth. Just pointing out the reality that a lot of Americans who vote don’t respond well to what they perceive as liberal elites looking down on them. You can’t have a meaningful conversation with someone or hope to change their mind if you start from the standpoint that they are fundamentally a terrible person because of their views. I’m not saying you have to engage with these people but the only way to win in 2020 is to change minds or get more people to vote. You are welcome to cut out people from your life who you don’t want to engage with, that’s your prerogative. I prefer to keep the Trump supporters in my life so I can continue to engage and hopefully change their minds over time. It’s not easy and takes a lot of time and frustration but I don’t think people are defined by their worst political views and those can change over time. I’ve seen relatives who used to protest outside planned parenthood now consider themselves pro choice. I have an uncle who I vividly remember saying when I was a child that he couldnt’ imagine a more disappointing thing in life than having a gay son who actually voted to legalize gay marriage. People can change. I’m not saying you need to keep people in your life whose viewpoints you find disgusting, but if everyone in their life does that, they end up in their own echo chamber and there’s no hope for change.
anon
Why should I be open minded about bigotry?
Anon
If you want to assume that good-faith opposition does not exist, that particular brand of narrow-mindedness is on you, not me or anyone else.
anon
Good faith opposition (to what specifically, you don’t say) surely exists, but a person who supports Trump right now– which is the topic we’re on, because you seem to need reminding– is not good faith opposition. That’s the point.
The original Scarlett
I cannot even imagine this relationship working.
Anon
I couldn’t be someone who voted for Trump in 2016, let alone 2020. It’s not like his racism, ignorance, and stoking of culture wars to score points with his base could have come as a surprise after his 2016 campaign. He showed us who he was then.
Anon
You think Trump stoked the culture wars?
HAHAHAHAHAHA.
Anon
No.
Aunt Jamesina
I think there is a huge difference between dating someone who is a traditional Republican and someone who is STILL willing to vote for Trump. I’m quite political and am not sure I could date someone whose views weren’t at least in the same general area as mine, but voting for Trump even in 2016 would have been a dealbreaker. Being okay with voting for him again in 2020 is a “run away screaming” scenario in my mind.
Anon
I can be arms distance acquaintances with someone like that but not close friends. I don’t respect their values, I think they are selfish and racist, and those are not qualities that make me want to be friends with someone.
Anon
“Some of my friends say it’s a dealbreaker. My parents say it’s more important that you can talk about issues respectfully and about the person’s character.”
Here’s a question: are your parents married to each other and happy? Are these friends who say it’s a dealbreaker on their first marriage and find that marriage to be happy?
anonymous
Here’s the actual question: to OP, what do you think that supporting Trump right now says about your SO’s character?
Anon
I would have to say that these distinctions are too great. My husband was raised Republican, voted for McCain and Romney in ’08 and ’12, but had been drifting away from the Republican party as it drifted to the right/crazy (Tea Party, Freedom Caucus etc.) when we met in 2014. He was solidly to the left on social issues already, was more republican on national security policy and fiscal/big government. By 2015 or so he began to self identify as a Democrat, and by 2016 he actively campaigned for Hilary and debated publicly/wrote articles online against Trump. Even this scenario was truly difficult for me in the early years of our relationship, and I was very nervous about whether we’d be okay dating with our differences in political party allegiance. At this point, we are closer politically than ever, but there are STILL things that we argue about that I really struggle with. On the other hand, I really appreciate that through him I know many current and former Republicans, as my whole life before meeting him I basically only knew other liberals. Most of those Republicans are never-Trumpers, but some of his family continue to support Trump, and while that is VERY difficult for me to accept I think it is important for me to understand what it is like to have people that you “have to love” even though you hate their politics.
All that to say: agreement that Trump is a horrible person and president, and that he stands for active hatred and bigotry in this country feels like the very baseline for being in a relationship in 2020. I think you already know this isn’t going to work, and that’s why you asked.
Anon
I was married to someone way more conservative than me. It didn’t work out- we found it hard to discuss deeper issues so the relationship became very surface level. My new relationship is much more politically aligned and feels more deep and fulfilled.
I think it depends on what you want out of a relationship- if you love to discuss political and social issues then someone opposite of you in those beliefs might be frustrating. But plenty of people out there mesh in other ways. It just depends on what is important to you.
A.
I’m a progressive liberal and my husband has always been a Republican. I knew this when we got married. We mostly agree on values and he’s become more socially liberal over time. That said, he voted for Trump in 2016 and it nearly destroyed our marriage (we also live in a swing state). Over time, I know he has come to see that Trump is a terrible person and leader — but I’m still scared of what this fall will bring.
My husband was raised in a small town in a very white community, and he’s the purest example of privilege (which he now knows) I’ve ever seen. I am multiracial and had an extremely different upbringing, and I know that being with me has exposed him to a LOT of people, places, and ideas that he hadn’t previously encountered. It has been REALLY hard in parts of our marriage, but we’re also in a good spot now and he’s open minded and learning (we both are — I’ve learned a lot too). I’m hopeful we will vote the same in 2020.
LaurenB
I couldn’t. This is an entirely different situation from any previous election – I voted for Obama in 2012 and my spouse for Romney and that was fine. Then again, if Romney had won in 2012 I would have been bummed for a day, but would have felt assured that my country wasn’t in the grip of a madman. Trump is a whole other level of evil that goes well beyond typical political differences.
anonymouse
For anyone who needs to hear this today. I ran across this yesterday and it hit home hard.
Being ‘on’ all the time is not a strength. There is no busiest person award. Rest does not equal laziness. Rest if brave because it requires boundaries, overcoming guild, and rest often forces us to reckon with what is going on in our conscious and subconscious. Too often we used being busy as a way to avoid what is in our heads.
So if you are choosing to rest your mind and body today be proud of yourself! – Dr. Caroline Leaf
anon
+1. I feel like this is the biggest lesson I’ve had to learn during my mid- to late-30s. Running myself ragged serves no one, especially me. My mom is in her sixties and has yet to learn this lesson. Yes, she has Energizer bunny levels of energy, but she also uses busyness as an avoidance tool. It honestly is hard to watch sometimes.
Cb
Yes, definitely, it took me a long time to realize that I was struggling with a fairly severe case of the blues because I was busy, busy, busy (I work long hours! I go to yoga 3x a week! I am a super parent!) and depressed people can’t get out of bed. But I was using my busy-ness as an excuse to disengage from relationships and almost to punish myself for not feeling okay.
I felt better within a day of going on anti-anxiety meds, not because the meds were immediately effective, but because it was a strong signal to myself and my family that all was not well.
Airplane.
Yes, thank you! In 2020 I’m leaning in to more rest. I’m a culture vulture and I feel like I’m constantly consuming media – my eyes and ears are just always running. So even when I’ve “turned off” work I’m still listening to a podcast, reading, following a workout on my phone. I really want to spend more of this decade resting and spending quality time with people I love.
Anon
As an extreme extrovert who has a demanding job, a full social life, several hobbies, etc I’m frequently go-go-go, But it’s all things that I enjoy.
Pre-covid, I frequently had plans 6-7 nights a week. I worked out 4-6 times a week. I’d stay late at work often, etc.
What helped me a lot was every week I’d choose one night where I did nothing. I could come home on time, skip the gym, and just relax. I felt overwhelmed if I had plans every night, but just one night with nothing to do was perfect.
Anonymous
Yeah, listening to humblebrags on level of busy is not helpful. Your point is what—one day is all it takes for you to recharge? So you want to compete on recharge time…??
Anon
No, I was saying that even as someone who enjoys being out and about I’ve found it really helpful to have one day to intentionally recharge.
Kat in VA
Anonymous at 11:32AM, that was unnecessarily nasty. They are saying that even as someone who thrives on being busy and sociable, downtime is important. There’s no humblebragging or competition contained therein.
Anon
Man, it’s so wild how different introverts and extroverts can be. Plans 6-7 nights per week sounds like my actual nightmare.
Cat
no kidding! My ideal week is the total opposite — 1 night with after work plans, max.
Anon
I’m the commenter above and the vast majority of my friends are introverts and it’s tough!
I end up doing several one off get togethers so no introvert does too much socializing and I get to see people regularly.
anon
Mine too!
anon
same, one of the few silver linings about covid is that there are no social obligations for me to feel bad about turning down. previously 1-2x/month was about what I could handle.
Anon
This is interesting. I am older than most of you, and I spent 30 years of my career being go-go-go and definitely on all the time.
Now I am laid off, working from home as a part time consultant, and newly diagnosed with an autoimmune disease which, among other things like shortening my life expectancy, makes me tired all the time.
However, I’m really appreciating that I got to go outside this summer. I love summer weather and gardening (literal gardening) and I spent so many summers in air conditioned buildings looking out at the nice weather during useless meetings that everyone, including me, thought were so important. It all seems like such a waste now.
I’m not sure I have a point here. I guess – live your life. And your work is not your life.
Anon
I’m sorry to hear about your job and the disease. Glad you’re getting to make the most of summer!
Anon
Yesterday I attended the funeral of a 40-something former coworker who died of Covid complications. We weren’t even close friends, but it was emotionally wrenching. The idea that we can reopen the economy and workers will remain productive in the face of in the face of ongoing death seems like a joke.
anon
I am so sorry for your loss. :( And you’re absolutely right that life cannot — will not — proceed as normal for a very long time.
Anon
All our predications that a second lockdown would be necessary are coming true. This is one “I told you so” where there’s not even a hint of satisfaction, just pain and fatigue.
Anon
Also, I’m never spending a GD dime in Florida.
Anon
Same. My spouse and I are DINKS and I have a long list of states, cities, counties I will never visit. Will never spend a dime as a tourist in those places.
Anonymous
Really? It’s horrible that, for some people, the cost of a poor political choice is death. I am so sad and afraid for some of my fellow Americans. But surely, focusing on not spending future tourist dollars in Florida is an equally empathetic response.
Anon
I don’t even know what you’re trying to say here, but surely you’re not equating voting with your dollar to ignoring the pandemic/refusing to wear a mask/putting everyone at risk?
Anonymous
the predictions have been wildly off the whole time. enjoy your forever lockdown.
Anon
When lockdown ends, I’ll be free, but you’ll still be…you. Sorry.
anon
For real, this lowercase Anonymous is beyond insufferable. I bet her colleagues would love for her to remain locked down forever.
Anonymous
@anon. Just what? Grow up.
Anon
Exactly.
Anon
I actually am thoroughly enjoying lock down, thanks. I’m not the person you were originally responding to though. I recognize not everyone is as lucky as me to be enjoying it but I will shed no tears if it goes on longer to protect people. It’s hardly a sacrifice for me.
Anonymous
You might as well say “enjoy your healthy lifestyle.” Yes, yes I will, thanks.
AnonMPH
Why would you come in here to state this, on the day after the us reported more than 67000 new infections? Its not a question of predictions anymore, states are already rolling back reopenings and locking things down because they have no choice. Besides stirring the pot what does denying the reality of the catastrophe that is happening to REAL PEOPLE that we all know and love do for you on the internet this morning?
Never too many shoes...
I am so sorry for your loss. And so angry at the cavalier attitude and total lack of leadership that so many of the awesome people here are being forced to live with.
Anon
This was all preventable and it’s heartbreaking
Anon
How? I am genuinely curious as to how you would have prevented this.
Anon
Not this person, but look at literally any other rich country (besides Sweden). It’s called testing, contact tracing, evidence-based shutdowns, and penalties for non-compliance.
Anonymous
Umm, the same way the rest of the western world is managing this?
Do you really not understand that the situation is way way worse in the US than in Canada, Europe or Australia? Like of course these places have covid too but the level of spread is nowhere the same ballpark and things are moving slowly back to a new normal.
Anonymous
What kinds of questions do you ask your interviewers at a job interview when they would be your peers? I already interviewed with the boss which I think went well, now I’m meeting a couple people on his team who he spoke highly of, and who I’d work with closely.
Anon
Questions about how processes work, overall strategy, funding, where work comes from, how budget is flowed to the work, and so on to get the lay of the land.
The original Scarlett
I may be an anomaly but I take the opportunity to try to get as much insight into the group as possible. I don’t shy away from questions about boss’ style, group dynamics, culture, etc – those are the things that matter to me in taking a new job and I don’t think it’s a problem to ask about them. If they have reservations or hesitations or your spidey sense goes off, that’s great information.
Anon
This would be my suggestion, too. A good employee can adapt to whatever operational structure is in place, but you cannot adapt to dysfunction and toxicity.
SSJD
Ask questions such as: What do you like best about working here? What would you change if you were in charge? How has your role changed over the last 2 years (or over your tenure at the company)? How do you onboard new employees? How does the company/division celebrate successes? What’s the culture of the workplace? Is this a family friendly environment?
Anon
Does anybody have any experience as an American buying a second home/apartment in Europe? Particularly looking at Italy in the Tuscany region. Do you have any resources or insights? Ideally would like to rent it out when we aren’t there, but rental income is not a factor.
Anon for this
Not in Europe but we have a second home locally we used to rent out as a vacation home (no longer) and unless you have a lot of extra money, I can’t imagine trying to do this. First, things go wrong in homes. Pipes burst, leaks happen, trees fall, there’s always something to deal with. If you can’t be there all the time to deal with it, you need someone else who is. You can hire someone, but that’s usually in conjunction with renting it out (which causes an incredible amount of wear and tear – our vacation home needed 5x the maintenance of our regular home) or trying to find someone locally. In the US this is hard when you aren’t a full time resident bc the locals don’t like you for not living there or renting it out. Renting barely makes any profit once you pay for the property manager and repairs. We could afford it so we took our place off the vacation rental market and we live close enough to deal with the place now and have a network for issues. I’d absolutely buy something local again but I cannot imagine trying to pull it off in another US city that required a flight, let alone a foreign country absent some reason like getting citizenship or something.
Cat
+1, my parents had an investment vacation home-slash-rental. They ultimately sold because it was more of a PITA than it was worth… and that was a 3 hour drive away. For Tuscany, I get the dream… but logic says this really only makes sense if you are able to behave like the Clooneys and spend 3-4 months at a time in each of your homes around the world.
Italy
I don’t know much about Italy specifically, but in the Schengen zone (which includes Italy), you can’t stay longer than 90 days out of a 180 day period without a visa. I know that in many European countries, the home buying process is more stringent and complicated than it is in the US.
Italy
One more thing I remembered from a friend who lives and owns an apartment in Rome: Italians tend to pass down property, which means that there is less available on the market and it can make it harder to sell, particularly in the countryside. If you’re buying, you’ll want to make sure you’re buying for the very long-term.
Anonymous
Not direct experience but based on experiences of friends I would only do it at a resort that takes care of the rentals and maintenance for you like Martinhal in Portugal.
Anonymous
My parents purchased a second home/investment in London. They used a realtor who did a lot of sales to U.S. residents. (This was “a thing” about 20 years ago where they bought.) I would look for that. They can then walk you through the process and/or hook you up with legal counsel familiar with cross-border tax and ownership issues.
Remote schools
Someone asked last week if parents expected teachers to teach remotely something like 9-2 or 3. I don’t. But what I expect is what our schools promised us at the beginning of lockdown this spring: 2 hours a day of meaningful work. We never, ever got that. Zero live instruction. One weekly purely social 40 minute zoom. What I would like to have seen:
40 minute math zoom
40 minute reading / language arts zoom
40 minutes of alternating science / social studies zooms; maybe Spanish-art-gym zoom the final day
Maybe assign a book or allow weekly books to be picked up from the library (we just spent 100s of dollars on new books; will rotate libraries with friends or donate; this is too many books)
Maybe a printable math sheet or just a few problems daily to copy and work through; reviewing the next day
This isn’t a lot to ask for from full-time school employees. Private schools in my area are doing much more than this for people with 20K+/kid/year to devote to learning. High school juniors and seniors can take actual remote classes through our community college for transferrable college credits and high school grades. But there are no good options for younger students.
Even if I got half of my above wish list, actual live instruction is key. Don’t just send my kid links to Khan Academy. They so easily goof off on the internet when they don’t understand things or are bored. They need a live person (and I’ve taught via zoom before — the prep time is generally 1:1 but if you are just teaching 40 minutes a day (or less), I think this is do-able.
Anonymous
gotta get rid of the teachers unions or send your kids to private schools.
Anon
Yeah, obviously the teachers unions are the problem here.
teacher
Actually, the unions probably are.
Anon
+1
My mom is a teacher at a private school and they do about 5 hours of live instruction a day. They still had tests and projects and grades. With making a few tweaks to account for distance learning, she was more or less able to complete her syllabus as planned.
It clearly can be done. It doesn’t have to be perfect (duh, we’re in the middle of a pandemic), but the kids (and parents) need something.
Anon
It’s really not too much to ask. I know people who have taught very young students English through video chat, and it seems to have worked just fine (they’ve worked with the same students for years and seen their English improve).
I’ve only ever taught older students in text-based chat environments that require good literacy and decent typing, but this works too (and is so much more engaging for everyone than “correspondence school” style homework).
Anonymous
Do the children keep time and log in/out by themselves? Who’s responsible if they wander off to play with matches? Who troubleshoots technical difficulties?
Anon
Parents taking ten minutes here or there to assist with technical difficulties is a lot less disruptive than parents having to actually teach their children. Besides, so many children are tech savvy enough to troubleshoot.
Most children over the age of idk 8? are able to sit through an online class and not run off and play with matches.
Online school isn’t ideal for several reasons, but it’s better than teachers just providing worksheets and the parents having to step in and supervise or teach
Anonymous
Not matches, maybe, but… my spouse thought private school middle school via zoom this spring and a ton of kids just put it on mute, goofed off, put up a photo and left the room, etc. classroom management was way harder. I mean, you can mute someone who is being loud (which you can’t do in person) but you also can’t compel them to participate.
Anon
(I wouldn’t imagine that teachers are the obstacle here though; the teachers I know wanted to do this but were blocked by admin.)
Anon
I’m getting pretty sick of the anti-teacher attitude around here.
Anonymous
+1. I think the OPs proposal is fine, but I can see how it would be difficult to enact without a lot of parental support & administrative support & social support … and even then some children would fall through the cracks. But it is better than in-person instruction & there is no perfect answer.
Anonymous
Yes. I have nothing but sympathy for teachers who tried to make any kind of learning happen this spring at all, and same for the next school year. It seems like a lot of people here are not in school districts with 125,000 kids of varying abilities, languages, technological capabilities, schedules, and home situations (to say nothing of their exposure to Covid as a disease!). It simply isn’t fair to compare a one-off private school with school systems of that kind.
More broadly, I think people forget that this is a period of time that’s going to be remembered in our country’s history like the Civil War or WW2 – a period of tremendous societal upheaval and loss. Things simply aren’t going to run like normal just because we want them to or have gotten used to that.
Anon
Oh it’s 100% a systemic issue not a teacher issue.
But there is no reason that school should be khan academy and worksheets.
Educator
YES. I know that in Illinois, the state mandated that a student’s grade couldn’t drop below whatever it was when we left school in March and formal grades couldn’t be taken, which meant that many of our high school students wouldn’t take their work seriously since it wouldn’t hurt their grade if they did next to nothing. The administration in our district also wouldn’t allow teachers to require live classes, as internet access was spotty for some families, and because it put some teachers with their own children at home in a bind (I have three single mother friends who teach. How should they go about live instruction without help?).
Anon
For high schoolers who should be reading and writing all right, I wish they would give text based platforms more of a try; it’s a lot easier to accommodate spotty internet on a synchronous/asynchronous platform (I’ve been on Slack all day every day for my job).
Educator
We do use them (as does virtually every district I know of in the Chicago area, and many, many other districts in other parts of the country). Schoololgy is our school’s learning management system (others many districts use include Google Classroom, Edmodo, Canvas, Blackboard, Moodle, etc), and it’s where teachers post can assignments and presentations, and link to resources. Students can also post to discussion boards. We’ve been using an online LMS of some sort for about a decade, so this isn’t at all new. That can never fully take the place of synchronous classes, though.
Anon
I was thinking specifically of platforms like Slack which are synchronous but also preserve a log so people can chime in later. Maybe Canvas, etc. do that too though!
Educator
Our LMS do have that capability already, though. We’re already doing that.
DoesntBelongHere
Private school teacher here. I don’t know what the public school situation is, but the lack of instruction may be rooted in a lack of administrative resources. When we went virtual, we literally had a team of administrators guiding us through technical stuff, best teaching practices, schedules, etc, including weekly follow-up on these topics. We met weekly in our respective departments, where department heads would help us figure out issues related to our subject matter. Our tech support staff made helpful videos and held meetings about using tech in our virtual classroom. We were regularly surveyed about what was/wasn’t working, asked what resources we needed, etc. We absolutely needed all of this to do our jobs in this environment; it is not the same as in-person teaching. My guess is that public schools have fewer resources to give this kind of support and teachers’ unions will not allow their teachers to flounder alone.
Educator
I think private schools are also (reasonably) very worried about losing students and tuition money if they don’t offer live classes. Public schools deal with more diverse populations, which means more students who lack internet access or stability at home to be able to log in at specific times.
Anon
How did your support staff get faculty to actually engage with those resources?
I work in higher ed and that’s been a huge challenge for us – we produce the documentation, the videos, offer help, publicize it and then *crickets* from the faculty until they can’t figure out a basic task and go yelling to a dean about how there is no training available. Wash, rinse, repeat.
We do get positive feedback that our guides/videos/documentation are useful from the few proactive people who do use them, so I don’t think it’s a problem with the materials themselves.
It’s definitely one of the greatest frustrations of my job so I’d love to learn how you got engagement and buy-in to use the resources provided.
Anonymous
This is one of the many reasons I quit higher ed IT.
anon
I’m not in IT, but I’m in a higher ed department that also does a lot of training — and yeah, you hit the nail on the head. The resources (in person! online! video!) are there, people. But you have to actually engage with it!
Anon
I wonder if it is lack of technological resources and money to buy it? I agree that money/tech aside, it shouldn’t be difficult for a teacher to teach their pre-determined curriculum over Zoom instead of the classroom in real time. They should be able to send all of the kids text books home to them for the semester. Worksheets could be mailed for kids that don’t have printers or they could just be completed via the web. This might not work for the youngest kids but should work for middle schoolers. I agree that it seems nuts that every other business has learned how to adapt – from small companies to huge companies and schools are just throwing up their hands.
This doesn’t of course address the very real issue of needing parents home with kids, internet access, and a laptop for every child if they are going to have real time learning. The internet access and laptop for every child should be doable though with a shift in financial priorities. Where I live, Comcast offered any family who couldn’t afford it internet for free throughout remote learning. I think Google donated a bunch of Chromebooks too.
Anon
One of the problems with doing real-time learning is that in homes with more than one child, the real-time learning overlaps. That might mean they have to wear headphones (doable), but would disturb each other if they asked questions. It also presumes that they each have their own laptop.
Anon
I live in a very, very poor city. Between the school district and an anonymous donor, every single child in the school district was given a chromebook fir at home learning. I know ensuring students had internet access was a struggle, but I believe they got through that too.
I can’t see a sibling asking a question being so distracting that it prevents at home real time learning
Anon
I might be old school, but kids are resilient and they’ll figure most things out.
Yeah, it might be a bumpy road (were in the middle of a pandemic). But we shouldn’t let perfect be the enemy of good when it comes to education. I can’t imagine that real time education is worse than worksheets and other busywork.
Kids get distracted by classmates in in-person school. They’ll figure out how to deal with a sibling asking a question. We can’t erase all obstacles for the kids, they’ll make it work. But something is absolutely better than nothing.
Jeffiner
Cities at least have the infrastructure to get everyone Internet access. My mother is a teacher in rural Virginia and most homes don’t have Internet access or cell signal. My boss’ daughter is a teacher in rural west Texas. My boss offered to buy all her students tablets, but the students don’t have Internet access. A lot of communities just don’t have cable, fiber, or high-speed Internet.
A few years ago my husband and I were thinking of buying a couple of acres just outside our city limits, and building a home on it. We didn’t buy the land because there was no high-speed Internet. The lot was 20 miles from downtown of a major city.
Anon
Jeffiner – those are legitimate reasons for those towns to not go real time remote. It doesn’t mean other places shouldn’t do it.
Anonymous
Would parents really be able/willing to set their kids up for these live Zoom meetings 3x a day? How will the teacher keep kids from wandering off or accidentally logging off? Or will parents sit with their children? I get the impression many parents don’t want to homeschool because they don’t have the time to devote to this, so I don’t foresee them spending time here.
Anon
If parents don’t have time to set up zoom calls, how do they have time to teach their children, monitor worksheet completion and Supervise their children all day?
I’d think that real time distance learning gives parents a bit of a break while kids are “in school”
Yikes
There are just so many assumptions here. Most school boards don’t even issue their teachers work laptops. Public schools are so chronically under funded that the teachers didn’t start at ‘zero’ they were already behind before it even started.
Anon
I think that’s what a lot of us are saying. Lets reallocate some funds to education where it belongs.
Anon
+1
Anon
I totally agree with you but that is not what a lot of people here are saying. They’re blaming teachers.
Anonymous
+1. And also there are privacy/security issues with Zoom. Schools simply can’t expose students to those & would need to develop or buy technology.
Anonymous
Here’s an example of why schools can’t use Zoom: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/zoom-bombing-calls-hacked-racial-slurs-pornography/
Anon
States are getting around that with immunities. NH waived a lot of the privacy requirements during the state of emergency so schools could use technology that otherwise didn’t meet standards.
Anon
That’s because they failed to set passwords. It’s easily fixable.
Anonymous
In my district, issues with live instruction include:
(1) equity – particularly if families have multiple children and limited devices, they can’t do multiple live feeds simultaneously. If parents are working they may also not be available to help young children access live instruction at the right time;
(2) privacy – my husband is a high school teacher. He does not want to be interacting with his students in their bedrooms via video. He does pre-recorded videos and live audio chat.
(3) childcare – many teachers have children like everyone else, and like everyone else, they are trying to manage working without childcare or school for school age kids. So they are having to manage their kids remote live instruction at the same time they are providing it for your kids.
Anon
I totally get that zoom classes are not ideal. They’re better than extremely limited education though!
Anon
Backgrounds can be blurred on zoom.
Anonymous
Backgrounds can be blurred, but that won’t stop some kids from behaving inappropriately … for example, touching themselves … this is a thing that happens with raging hormones/lack of awareness/I don’t know what but teachers can confirm.
Jeffiner
That sounds great for older kids…if they had Internet access and laptops and either the self-control to pay attention or a parent to make sure they don’t wander off. But how do we handle younger elementary kids? My daughter is a rising Kindergartner. She’s had some zoom playdates, and they end up with some kids just staring at the screen like its a TV, and others talking nonstop and not listening to anyone else. This would be 2 hours a day I would have to sit with her to get her to do the lessons, when I could not WFH (or cook, or fold laundry, etc). Also, I’m not a teacher. We’re going through her summer math-prep list, and it is like pulling teeth to get her to do any of the activities, and when we do them I can tell she does not understand my explanations at all. Her real Pre-K teacher said she’s a very good listener and does great work in class.
Anon
I guess I don’t understand why parents would have to sit with their kid the whole time. The kids sit at a desk all day at school. Why can’t they sit at their desk at home? If they have a question, they ask the teacher? Likewise, the teacher keeps the class quiet in person, I don’t see why it is that unreasonable to think they can keep the class quiet over Zoom. Mute all the kids except the teacher when the teacher is talking. Unmute when kids can participate.
Ribena
Have you met 6-year-olds?
Anon
Because teachers scan the room constantly, assessing body language, and are able to tell students to pay attention. It’s much harder to do that via Zoom.
KP
Where are these robot children/youth located. I never saw any in
30 plus years of teaching!
anon
While DH and I were getting dressed this morning, our 5-year-old son, a rising kindergartner, sat at the kitchen table eating his oatmeal and watching his iPad. In those 5-10 minutes, he broke 2 shards of wood off the bottom of the kitchen table and then repeatedly stuck them in the cracks between the table leaves. He missed the cracks a few times and scratched the varnish on the table (it needs refinishing anyways, but we’ll get around to that when he’s like 15). Kids that age don’t just quietly sit and pay attention.
And kids in kindergarten don’t just sit in desks all day.
Anon
I get why it doesn’t work for young kids, but I guess I fail to see why it can’t work for 3rd grade and older?
Anon
Really???
Administrator
It’s still hard, even with older students (and the older they get, the more defiant and emboldened some get). As a former high school teacher, here are some of the strategies I would use on a disruptive student so you can see how “classroom management” becomes an entirely different beast when the class is virtual: proximity (stand near student in question, say nothing, but maybe give a glance to acknowledge I see the inappropriate behavior); relocating student to somewhere they’ll be less distracted; changing the pace or plans for the lesson (maybe we were going to do an activity as a small group, now it’ll instead be in pairs or individually); saying the student’s name and looking at them; calling on that student to do a task like assisting with setup, answering a question, or asking them to summarize another student’s ideas; having them step outside for a moment to cool off; sending them to the dean’s office (this is the nuclear option, I used it very, very rarely); calling or emailing home.
Most of these don’t work virtually, and students can feel off the hook to either tune out (hey, I have a hard time in Zoom meetings even as an adult!) or engage in disruptive behavior because it feels less consequential online than in person when the classroom culture and camaraderie has faded.
Anonymous
The proper response to kids’ poor behavior is not to refuse to teach anyone, it is to discipline or exclude those who are disruptive. If kids are hooligans during live virtual instruction, send them to the existing on-line alternative school for kids who get kicked out of regular school.
Administrator
Anon at 12:24, you can’t legally kick a kid out of class indefinitely or send them to an alternative school without a WHOLE lot of legal issues. Least restrictive environment is a thing for a reason. I outlined in my comment above why disciplinary measures don’t work very well virtually, and I’ve not heard of anyone who is “refusing to teach”.
Anonymous
I would think the “Bookmobile” idea from the 80s would be making a comeback. It was a school or public library on a bus. This has to be a thing if schools are shutting, right?
Aunt Jamesina
My community has maintained one all this time. It’s great, except that it’s hard to enforce social distancing in such a cramped space and it only makes the rounds in any given area once every couple of weeks since they have a lot of ground to cover.
Anon
My public school also did wifi buses that they deployed to neighborhoods with internet access issues. They were very well received by the community. They also did the free lunch program via bus route. Both were win-win in that they kept some of the bus drivers employed and met community needs.
Interview Questions
For the first time in my career, I am participating in interviews for candidates in my role. I have no clue what to ask or where to start! I work in data, and much of the role compatibility is on how do you think and problem solve.
Anyone in a similar role have go-to questions they ask?
Cultural fit is super important too. We are fulltime wfh for a small company- can you self-manage and get stuff done without a ton of oversight and bureaucracy?
Anon
Ask for actual examples of how they solved a problem in any previous job or school situation. Ask for examples of success (or failure) in working with a team, what lessons they learned, how they would keep a project moving forward. Actual experience, even in a different role, is what you want to find out about, rather than nebulous speculation.
Anon
Focusing on “cultural fit” is a good way to ensure you never hire anybody who doesn’t look/sound/come from the same background/etc as everyone else.
Anon
Which is to say, ask specific questions about those things you mention and how people handle them, not vague questions where you have to try to figure out how they’d fit in.
pugsnbourbon
I agree with you that hiring on cultural fit isn’t great, but what OP calls cultural fit seems more like the mechanics of working at the company. It’s not a matter of “we’re all family” or “we do happy hours every Thursday and if you don’t drink, it’s gonna be weird.” It’s a matter of “you might go a couple days without hearing from your team or manager, how would you handle that?”
OP
Thanks. That’s the perfect way of expressing it. It is not uncommon that your manager gets busy, and you essentially have to figure it out on your own. Some people are ok with that, some people need more hand holding.
I mean we do a lot of “we are family, everyone has a voice” type stuff too, but that’s less critical. Some people in our org are more meek or keep their opinions to themselves and they do just fine because their work gets done.
pugsnbourbon
In that case, you can have them tell you about a time they solved a problem with minimal guidance, and ask follow up questions from there.
Anonymous
I know this isn’t what OP is doing but honestly I say please if you are a small company where you’re all family and drink together every Thursday night and your spouses come join you too and are besties and it’s gonna be weird to have a non drinker there whose single and not looking to start drinking or to marry a coworker’s wife’s brother to keep it all in the family, please do me a favor and let that be known in the interview. Chances are you will be happy with someone who looks/acts like you and I’ll be happy working somewhere more diverse.
Nesprin
So ask them to problem solve. Ask them to talk about something they’ve built/developed, what the challenges were, what success metrics they used and how they’d redo it if given an infinite budget today. I usually ask about a successful project and an unsuccessful project. Also great- think up toy problems and ask for a walkthru of how they’d address.
Anonia
I’m looking for some nice silky tees that won’t break the bank. I want a looser fit, but not boxy and not cropped. I looked at Eileen Fisher, but they were expensive and quite boxy. Size 16ish. Preferably thick enough to wear alone sometimes, but maybe this doesn’t exist anymore?
curlsallday
I really like daily ritual tees from amazon. The fabric is amazing (but may not be exactly what you are looking for).
Anon
I have a black silk tee from cuyana that I adore. I only wear black, otherwise I would have multiples of these. I wear a XS and found them to run large, but I’m happy with the looser fit — I’m not sure how the sizes on the other end of the spectrum run.
Anon
Try Caslon from Nordstrom
Anonymous
If you know your size, there’s a lot of Eileen Fisher on Poshmark and Ebay. I have a hard time with the retail price but have picked up a lot of EF secondhand for much less.
Anonymous
Boden’s ravello top, mentioned frequently here, is great for me. It is a silk blend and comes in a few colors. It has some ruching near the neck that makes it fall skimming your upper body rather than cling to the lumpy bits. Downside is that you need to hang dry and iron, or dry clean – I still throw it in the washer (not dryer) but to be safe it’s probably better to handwash.
Anon
I’m not normally a fan of Ross Douthat, but his article on what cancel culture actually is and isn’t is pretty good. My copy paste isn’t working, but it’s in today’s NYT under “10 Theses About Cancel Culture.” There’s been a lot of confusion here and elsewhere about what it is and I thought I’d post.
Anon
Here’s the link: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/opinion/cancel-culture-.html
Cute Sneakers
If life is WFH for the foreseeable future and I’ll need to make a concerted effort to get more passive activity that would have been accomplished my before-times walk to work and bopping around the office, it’s time for some cute sneakers. Do you have some you love (or hate)?
Cb
I love my Merrell Trail Runners. They aren’t trendy but they come in fun colours and stand up to all sorts of abuse. I also think you can’t go wrong with low-top Converse, they are classic for a reason.
Cat
Cole Haan Grandpros are my favorite for casual walking around town. Super lightweight. There’s usually a pair or two included in the NAS if you can wait a few weeks.
Anon
I like my Nike Zoom Winflos so much that I bought an extra pair for when the current ones wear out. I have the version 5 but I’m eyeing the 6 because they have great color combos. I have a wide foot which is often a problem with Nikes for me but these are super comfortable.
Anon
I like the Nike Zoom Winflos, too! I can also recommend the Nike Tanjuns. I keep one clean pair for indoor-only workouts (this started at the beginning of the pandemic) and another for outdoor runs, and when the outdoor pair wears out, I start wearing the indoor pair outside and buy a new pair for indoors. They are reasonable (like $50ish) and very comfortable!
Anon
Ha, I do that too with all my indoor weightlifting shoes — they “graduate” to my occasional outside walking shoes. I’ll have to look at the Tanjuns. Athletic shoe companies change their models so fast that they have turned me into a shoe hoarder— my power walking shoes are Mizuno Wave Inspires but they changed the width in the new version so I panic bought an extra pair in the older version before they disappear.
Anon
When do you read? For how long? How often?
I’ve recently started reading regularly again for the first time in years, but I haven’t figured out how to fit in into my schedule?
anon
I read for about an hour before bed each night.
Saguaro
+1, Every night.
Cb
I read for 30-90 minutes before bed, and will often read while my son has an hour of screentime on the weekends. Put your book on top of your remote so you have to touch your book before flipping the tv on. Find something engrossing – don’t force yourself to slog through books that you aren’t enjoying.
I’ve also enjoyed reading for 20-30 minutes on weekend AMs. It sets such a nice tone for the day, versus looking at the phone and confirming that yes, everything is still terrible.
Jo March
Just recently got back into reading as well. I would second Cb’s point about not forcing yourself to finish books you aren’t enjoying. It’s supposed to be fun/relaxing! And if it feels like a chore, it might be a sign to change up the reading material.
Three other tips:
1. Audiobooks. You can easily get them from most public libraries so you don’t need an Audible subscription or anything. Personally, I have found that nonfiction is most enjoyable for me out loud – it feels like attending an interesting talk or event (some audiobooks I’ve enjoyed recently: Doing Justice, Evicted, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Bad Blood). Easy to put on while folding laundry, making dinner, taking a walk, etc.
2. I unintentionally created a sense of anticipation for myself by wanting to read a few books that had waiting lists at my local library. Having to wait a bit to read a book that I was interested in made me even more excited to find out what was in it when my turn finally came.
3. I read e-books on my iPad. That keeps me from being distracted by other things because I have no social media apps on that device. On my phone, I’m more likely to get distracted by notifications from social media or texts. If you want to take it a step further, you could also turn off wi-fi after downloading the e-book, but I haven’t felt the need to do that yet.
Candidly, I thought the first book or two after I decided that I wanted to read more did feel like a bit like a slog. But after reading a few more, I realized that it didn’t feel like a slog so much as it took a few books/weeks for my brain to adjust to the experience of reading something longer than a few paragraphs and focusing on something for a while without interruptions.
Happy reading!
Anonymous
In the morning at night all day on weekebds
Anon
+1
I have a kid who is with me part time. When she’s not here, I wake in the morning, make coffee then read in bed or on my balcony for a while. Then I get ready for WFH. After I’m done working for the day, I have dinner then read on the couch or balcony. On the weekends, that get extended for hours. Pre-pandemic, I read on my commute. When my kid is here, I read after her bedtime, and on the weekends when she’s having TV time.
Anon
When I’m commuting, I read on public transit on my phone (Kindle app) for 3 hours each day. When I’m not commuting, I read before bed and sometimes right after work if I’m done on the early side. I’d like to read with coffee in the morning on weekdays but the mornings are too rushed with feeding the cat, dishwasher, etc etc and I don’t want to get up earlier.
CHL
I love to read above most other activities in life, so this may or may not be helpful but I get up early and have about 45 minutes in the morning where I drink my coffee and read the paper and a book (usually non fiction). I then also read for about 30 minutes before I go to bed, usually more of a novel. Then I’m sneaking in 10- 15 minute at various points along the day where I’m watching the kids at the park or taking a short break from work. I have a kindle so I always have multiple books available to me and I have queue with the library app that means that I’m always looking forward to this. It doesn’t sound like you really like to read? Why do you feel like you need to fit it into your schedule?
Carmen Sandiego
I have a kindle, so it’s with me all the time (and I squeeze in reading anytime that I have to wait for anything), but I get chunks of reading in the morning when I’m blow drying my hair and again at night before bed.
Vicky Austin
Audiobooks during work or (driving) commute.
Otherwise, before bed for a few minutes, instead of scrolling anytime I can make myself, and once a week or so I’ll take a bath instead of a shower and read for a while.
anon
– I read when I wake up. I have a hard time getting out of bed, and I mostly replaced reading news and social media with reading a book. I especially love reading on weekend mornings before my husband and kid wake up because the house is so quiet, and I’m warm and snuggly.
– I read before bed. Some days, depending on my day and the book I’m reading, it’s often too hard to focus for long. Other days, I’m up until 2 am reading.
– Once a week or so, I get home to a husband who’s happily cooking dinner and a kid who’s happily playing. I’ll grab my book and read for half an hour to an hour.
– Most weekends, I’ll claim a few hours to myself here and there and read.
– I read about one book per week. I try to read around 10% of a book in my first sitting. Otherwise, it’s too hard to get into the book. Also, it takes me 4-5 days to read the first half of a book, and 1-2 days to read the second half of the book. Once I’m within the last 100 pages, I usually finish the book in one sitting. So, like once a week, I stay up half the night finishing a book.
Just me
Usually for one hour before sleep- relaxes me. Most every night. Now when I need a break form my “office”, maybe for 45 minutes a day.
NOLA
I used to read while I worked out on a machine at the gym, then I would continue reading while I ate dinner. Now, I read while I eat dinner (when I’m alone) and sometimes just to relax in the evenings. On Saturday mornings, while the dude is sleeping (still) and I’m having coffee, I usually read on the Kindle app. Sadly, I’m just not reading as much as I normally do. During lockdown, I was having trouble finding a book that interested me, so I reread an old favorite. It took me forever! Now I’m reading a new novel by a favorite author and it feels a bit better but I still am not reading as much.
Anon
You should check out this article by Paul Constant when he used to work for The Stranger: https://www.thestranger.com/seattle/paul-constants-guide-to-reading-books/Content?oid=10045881
Don’t read books you don’t like was my main take away and that was really freeing for me.
OP
Life is too short to read a book you don’t like. Do people do that?
Anon
Well, I’ve definitely tried to slog through books before because I felt like I *should* read them, so yeah, I’d say people do that?
No Problem
I feel like half of high school English was reading books I didn’t like. And I say that as someone who loves reading. Whyyyy do they make 16 year olds read Crime and Punishment or anything by Ernest Hemingway?
Anonymous
I’m looking for a good place to park cash for my emergency fund. It would be nice if it could earn a bit of interest while it sits there. What do you all do with yours?
Anon
Interest rates have tanked again so don’t bother doing too much research (what a fun treat for those of us who graduated in the Great Recession and have never, ever seen good interest rates on savings accounts as adults). Ally Bank is fine.
Anon
I use Capital One 360 but this reminded me of something I was meaning to ask. Since we are anonymous, I don’t mind using real numbers. I had about $50,000 in Vanguard Index Funds and $10,000 in my savings account/emergency fund a year or two ago. We were dealing with a family contingency where we may have to spend $50k with very little notice so I moved out of the Index Fund into savings. (I realize how privileged I am to be able to even do this without having to take out a HELOC or something – though I may have done so if it came to be.) Anyway, that issue is over now and we didn’t have to spend the money. Do I put the $50k back in Vanguard Index Funds in the midst of a pandemic? But for the potential immediate need, I wouldn’t have taken the money out so it seems to make sense to put it back but given the pandemic I wonder if I need more in my emergency fund.
We both have stable jobs with easy WFH ability and make about $180,000 combined. Mortgage is $2000 for reference. No debt except for very low interest car loans and low interest mortgage. Thoughts?
anon
I would have an emergency fund of 3-6 months living expenses, enough to cover you in a healthcare emergency and a job loss/FMLA leave. A serious case of Covid could mean hospital bills + inability to return to work within 2 weeks. How much you need also depends on your health insurance, employer’s leave policies, and whether you have short-term and long-term disability insurance that would pay out if you were sick for a while (and how soon it would pay out).
anon
Threading fail.
Anon
I’d do some disaster planning. What numbers give you peace of mind? Anon here, so I’ll use real numbers. My expenses are about 30k per year or 2500/month. I could tighten that a little but not much if I had to. If I lost my job, I have about 10 weeks of banked leave. If I became seriously ill, between sick leave, leave pool and annual leave, I could keep a paycheck coming for approximately a year. I live alone and have no dependents. I also don’t have any family who could/would support me, so my decisions reflect that and may be a bit more conservative than others. That’s the point of this exercise – figure out what is appropriate for your situation!
On top of banked leave, I currently have 10,000USD in a savings account and approximately 10,000USD in a 457(b) that I could access without any tax penalties if I lost my job, but would prefer it stayed earmarked for retirement. I keep a month’s expenses worth in my checking account. At this point, additional savings go into a brokerage account, or stay in checking to be used for near-term projects.
The big variable if I lost my job, since I’m in the USA, is health insurance. My MAGI is low enough that I would qualify for subsidies as the ACA stands now, but who knows what the health insurance landscape will look like in the future. I’m debating whether to pad my emergency savings to account for insurance premiums in the event I lost my job (or just a bit of extra f-u money if my job started getting miserable).
My goal is to keep my tax advantaged savings safely untouched until I’m at least 59.5.
DCR
I keep 9 months of expenses in a savings account (could probably decrease that to 6 months cause I have a very secure job). I put everything else in index funds.
Ideally, you should have a large enough emergency fund to cover routine types of emergencies, so that you don’t have to withdraw funds from an index fund. At a HHI of 180k, 10k doesn’t seem like a big enough emergency fund. That’s what, two months of expenses? I would keep some in savings and move some back to index funds
MoccaMastervsAeroPress
Paging the poster from a while ago who was looking for a coffee maker. Curious what you chose and how you like it.
Anon
That may have been another poster, but I was looking for an espresso machine and I ended up with the Breville Bambino Plus (at 20% off to boot, yay!). I love it. Having daily lattes has been such a treat during these stressful times.
Anon
Random follow up post. Hopefully for some positivity!
I asked for Spotify station recommendations the other week. Shout out to the poster that recommended Harry Styles’ new album, I love it and would have NEVER found that on my own (I am way too old to have been a One Direction fan). Canyon Moon is my song of the Summer!
Never too many shoes...
Harry’s first album is also excellent with a real 70s throwback vibe. If you have not watched videos of him singing with Stevie Nicks, do so immediately.
Anon
I love Harry’s album, too! So good. Just nice, breezy, summery, 70-ish glam rock vibes.
The new HAIM album is also great.
Anon
A family member recently informed me that she just can’t bring herself to vote for Trump OR Biden…. despite alllll thiisss [gesters broadly]. Like how do you even respond to that. Oh, you think Biden would also ignore his top public health experts, demand states open up prematurely, make PPE and testing supplies impossible to obtain, leave states to fend for themselves, while baiting a race war and pardoning his criminal buddies? Really?
Anonymous
I would tell that relative I find her choice personally hurtful and deeply disappointing. And then I would not speak of politics to that relative again.
Anon
I hate that idiotic attitude so much. If you would rather stay home than vote for a moderate, boring Democrat instead of a lying, twisted, demented, racist, sex offending con man with fascist impulses, then you should stay home FOREVER and do the rest of us a favor.
Anonymous
Kanye 2020!
Walnut
Just snorted my water. I’m not represented by either the democrat or republican party but the “Birthday Party” wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.
Ellen
These days that guy will get more votes then you think! He has a cute wife who would make a great first lady, and she makes alot of money so he can’t cheat on her the way other President’s have done when their wives had no independent source of income.
Anon
Trump didn’t pardon his criminal buddies. Understand that when there’s no underlying crime, there are massive problems with ‘obstruction’ type crimes. If you want pardoning of criminal buddies, let’s talk the Clintons.
We have a dual system of state and federal control. States have police power and both the right and duty to handle pandemics. After four years of being called a dictator, Trump rightly left states to handle their own issues while doing the constitutionally permissible actions of shutting down international travel, invoking the DPA, putting together a pandemic response team, working with businesses, and de-regulating everything from vaccine regulations to transportation to aid in the response.
(If you don’t know that he did any of that or why he did what he did, get better news or take a civics class.)
It isn’t the right “baiting a race war.” That’s the new talking point that literally started like last week when the Left figured out that their race war is turning off swing state voters.
Anon
Hard Disagree with all of this BS. If there was no crime, then why was Stone tried and convicted? “Let’s talk about the Clintons”? I’m sorry who has Hilary Clinton pardoned? If Bill Clinton pardoned someone that was prosecuted for covering up his crimes, please enlighten me. Also, no one was talking about the Clintons. This is about Biden vs. Trump.
I’m a lawyer, you can’t educate me on federalism. Reminder that states procured their own supplies from foreign suppliers, and then the federal government seized them, gave them to private companies with suspicious personal ties to Trump, and then auctioned them off to the highest bidder. This is not only the LEAST efficient way to distribute desperately needed pandemic supplies, but is NOT HOW FEDERALISM WORKS.
Trumps “there are good people on both sides”, “when the looting starts the shooting starts”, etc is speech that empowers white nationalists and to pretend otherwise is willfully ignorant.
Anonymous
Killary doesn’t pardon people she offs them.
Anonymous
You forgot the Q in front of your name.
Anon
Objectively tru
Anon
OMG “let’s talk about the Clintons” is such a terrible strawman. Which Clinton is in power right now? Which Clinton is running for president this year? Just how long will you be bringing up the Clintons? 10 more years? 20? Long after they’re dead?
Anonymous
Oh honey your ignorance is showing. Take a look outside your precious Trump built walls at literally any other federal country on earth. In many of them (Canada, Australia, Germany as just three example), the states have just as much power as here yet the federal government has also exercised strong leadership and national coordination. Their Covid rates are dramatically lower. The US has developing country levels of spread.
DH and I were discussing yesterday when the US will start to count as a developing country instead of a developed one. I’m thinking 2023 if Trump gets elected again.
Anonymous
+1
HW
I tell friends/family members “if you don’t vote, then you don’t get to complain about what happens.”
anon
+1
Never too many shoes...
I am sorry you have to go this. My cousin, in Ohio no less, an immigrant to the US and always a Democrat, chose not to vote in 2016 because Secretary Clinton “did not seem warm”. He is still part of my family but I will always view him differently than I did before…
Monday
Yeah, that’s a classic sexist complaint about Hillary Clinton. I did have some success with my mom talking about this–when I asked her why she didn’t like Clinton, she gave a list of classic traits in a politician. I pointed that out, and said we’re just not used to appreciating those traits in women. She didn’t disagree, but she made similar complaints about Warren during the primaries. She then voted for…Warren.
Anon for this
Does she live in a swing state? I am a never-Trump republican and live in one of the bluest states in the country so my vote for a 3rd party candidate is purely a protest vote. If I lived in one of the handful of swing states that actually decide the elections (not getting into the politics of that right now…), my decision would likely be different as at least Biden isn’t actually a sociopath. Basically what I’m saying is if her vote doesn’t matter, just drop it. Not worth your friendship.
Anonymous
You may want to evaluate your outrage. Where is this family member located? If they are in Idaho or California or New York, it doesn’t matter. Those outcomes are pretty much known at this point. If it’s in Ohio/ Michigan/ Florida–well you might want to have a discussion. I think your family member is also making a much larger valid point about the nominees and two party system in general that might be worth considering.
Anon
Maybe it’s more about the party than the candidate. I think it’s possible for some red states to turn purple and eventually blue, but the Democratic party has to adjust from far left. It will be hard for me to vote for a Democrat even with Trump on the other side, even though I will (for the second time because I didn’t vote for him the first time either).
I consider myself a conservative moderate, so the Democratic party has gotten very far away from my views.
anon
I personally find radical liberals (thinking of Warren or AOC) a necessary counterweight to the right-wing shift in the republican party (the Tea party used to be a fringe movement not very long ago). In the end, compromises prevail and I wish Congress would get more bipartisan change done, but the Democrats shifting right to get closer to the Republicans who have already shifted right is not a good approach.
Educator
The Democratic party isn’t far left at all.
Anon
It has dawned on me recently that I may have ADHD. I was reading about how ADHD presents differently in women, and a lot of it was me to a T (tee?). I’m 30, a lawyer, big law litigator. I’ve obviously coped alright to have gotten to where I am but my deficits I think have become more obvious with age (perhaps simply compared to my peers), and extremely more-so during the pandemic. Anyone been in my shoes before? Did getting a formal diagnosis help? Also if anyone has recommendations of who I should see in Chicago re: this, please let me know. I am totally lost.
Notinstafamous
No advice just yet but I’m in the exact same boat. I stumbled across an article about ADHD / ADD in women last month and realized I fit 18 of the 20 signs perfectly. And it would explain a lot in my life. I have an appointment in 2 weeks with a specialist and we’ll see what they say? I’m really hoping they have suggestions and maybe medication because COVID and work from home is really throwing off my coping mechanisms. Also in Biglaw so *wave*
Anon
We probably read the same article haha….while procrastinating obviously
notinstafamous
Haha probably! I’ve read a couple useful books – my favourite to date is “Overcoming Distractions” by David Greenwood. Have also had several recommendations for Daniel Amen’s books. If you want to drop a burner email I’m happy to make a new Internet friend :)
Anon
I got extensive neuropsychological testing and was surprised at how objective some of the tests were. (I don’t know how specific they are for ADHD, but it absolutely astonished me to learn that many people do and can achieve some of the same objective tasks five times faster and with better accuracy than I do!)
I couldn’t tolerate any of the meds, so that was disappointing, but one of them worked well enough that I could experience something of what not having ADHD must be like. (The side effect I couldn’t tolerate was insomnia, which was counterproductive.) I have learned that baseline health really matters for keeping my symptoms in check (healthy food, exercise, and for me certain vitamins), so that has been generally beneficial. They are always working on new theories (for example, they are starting to distinguish dopamine, from norepinephrine, from acetylcholine related presentations, which I’ve mentioned here before), which can suggest new and different interventions.
Ribena
I’m in a similar situation (although had that realisation 4ish years ago after listening to the ADHD episode of Stuff Mom Never Told You) and haven’t managed to get a diagnosis (because… executive dysfunction and also moving health systems in that time period). I have used the knowledge I have about myself, having had that realisation, to develop a series of coping strategies. None of them are ground breaking, all the kind of things that come up if you search ‘executive dysfunction’ or ‘junebugging’ on Twitter).
Anon
Our boutique firm, in a generous gesture in light of the times, extended offers to our summers before they started working with us based solely on their credentials. The summer I’m working with is from a Very Good School with an Impressive Resume and…has totally bombed on every assignment I’ve given. Summer has indicated a serious interest in Topic and has had previous internships in Topic Field and…seemingly knows nothing about Topic (like not even a rudimentary understanding after having a previous internship directly on point). I’ve worked with interns for years and never have I worked with someone who seemed to know so little or care so little, even undergrad interns. (My favorite were the interns when I worked in government and they were all shiny and new and passionate about making a difference, before political realities beat them down – warm fuzzies right there.) Maybe Summer has no intention of accepting our offer and is just taking the paycheck? Because Summer is not winning any friends here.
Is anyone else running into this or are your summers busting their tails in light of the economy?
Anon
Is your question about how hard interns are working, or are you asking what you should do about an intern who needs a reality check?
Anon
Why would you extrapolate from your one crappy intern that all interns are behaving that way? Seems like a real stretch to me.
Monday
Her final question sounds like she’s not extrapolating at all. She assumes interns would be working especially hard this year, if anything, and is asking if anyone else has also gotten a slacker.
Anonymous
My biglaw firm did the same thing re: offers. I was also on maternity leave last summer during interviews, so I don’t know who any of these people are. I’m in a small office of a larger biglaw firm, so in normal times, you do get a chance to know the summers and you will see them in the future, so it’s (to me, IMO), nice to know them at least a tiny bit. In my time at my firm, we’ve had a number of summers that were fine to okay*, got offers, started, and didn’t make through the first year or have moved firms and practice groups completely. They aren’t associates in my practice group (we don’t hire first years for some reason, but that’s another story), and I don’t blame them for not wanting to be in that area of law or work for a few of those partners. So, if they’re not great now, there’s likely very little that would change. If I felt that someone was really having the troubles you’re seeing, I’d note it in their summer review. They’ll either take the feedback to heart and figure it out, or they’ll not make it thru their first year.
*I don’t consider these to be compliments
Anon
Lol you’re the reason people hate working in big law. A law student or newly minted lawyer performing okay work with no guidance can easily be an amazing attorney with the training they are supposed to get from you. I’m not saying new lawyers producing bad work should remain in their jobs, but your refusal to do YOUR job and train or set appropriate expectations and guidance is really the failure here. Also, it’s not their job to be your friend or for you to “know their personality well” for you to work with them. The rest of us do just fine and get good work from colleagues we don’t know well or don’t love their personality and you need to suck it up too.
Anon
+1. I was not that great of an associate. But I was lucky to end up in a large in house department where there was good management and people cared enough about me to guide my development. I’m a GC now. And a good one.
I have no doubt that if I had started in big law, I wouldn’t even be practicing right now.
Anon
That’s a very inappropriate response. Not the Anonymous in question, but it’s not clear that someone doing “okay [not a compliment]” work can “easily be an amazing attorney,” and that the reason these particular people flamed out is lack of training.
Anonymous’ firm retained other attorneys who performed better as summer associates and far better as attorneys. I’m not sure why you leapt to the idea that she is a horrible person who refuses to train talented young attorneys.
Aspiring Baker
I’m looking for a baking cookbook that’s full of “classics”. I’m a competent but very amateur baker with sights set on making harder bakes. I’ve been using King Arthur Flour recipes (highly recommended), but I want more (ie, they only have vanilla creme brulee, I want to branch out into flavored, etc). Leaning toward desserts – tarts? choux pastry creations? Croissants? Anything that could be featured on the Great British Baking Show, really, I would love to try. Something beyond cookies and cakes. Any ideas?
ArenKay
Rose Levy Berenbaum is terrific–really explicit with measurements and instructions so if you follow her instructions precisely it reliably turns out well. She writes focused cookbooks (one on cake, one on pie), but her The Baking Bible has a good variety of bakes in it. Dorie Greenspan’s Baking with Dorie is also terrific.
Aspiring Baker
The Baking Bible is available at my library and the photo on the front sells me (I’m very much an “eat with your eyes first” kind of person, ha!)
Thank you!
RW
Well, if you like Great British Baking show, Mary Berry has a variety of cookbooks. If you are already using a scale, I find them easy enough to follow (mainly just have to convert oven temperature). I haven’t tried one of Paul Hollywoods though. I highly recommend the Tartine cookbooks and Bravetart.
On my wishlist is Joanne Chang’s Pastry Love.
One tip for cookbooks… some people aren’t aware that many library systems have digital cookbooks available for checkout via overdrive/Libby. I love borrowing cookbooks and trying a couple recipes before I decide to buy.
Aspiring Baker
Thanks! It appears that either I’m bad at searching my library’s database or they have very limited baking cookbooks on overdrive. However! They do have Pastry Love as a hard copy- so on it goes to my holds list! Our library is doing “no contact holds pickup” which has been amazing.
Aunt Jamesina
I like Dorie Greenspan’s cookbooks and her blog, she was a pastry chef for Pierre Hermé. I’d also check out recipes from Stella Parks on Serious Eats and NYT’s recipes (they cover a wide range of skill levels, but there are some great ones in there). Mary Berry also has recipes on her website, though I haven’t tried any yet.
In terms of branching out on classics, I often just try out different flavor combinations on standard recipes. For your crème brûlée example, try mixing different extracts or spices into the custard, or use a different sugar. Like I might try steeping the milk from the custard mixture with chai spices, for example. Once you gain confidence in what works, the variations are almost endless.
Aspiring Baker
Thanks – chai creme brulee sounds amazing, frankly. Part of me just doesn’t know how “much” (I guess I could taste the heated milk and adjust to add more), but experimentation is scary!
And with a second for Dorie Greenspan, it’s also going into my library holds list!
Ribena
I have recently bought Nigella’s The Domestic Goddess and also Ravneet Gill’s The Pastry Chef and have been very impressed with both.
Anonymous
When you travel alone do you get pictures of yourself? I’m not a social media person at all so it’s not about showing off where I’ve gone but looking back at pics of trips from the last 10 years, I feel like I have pics of places and maybe 2-3 pics of me from each trip; it’ll either be an awkward selfie (I don’t do it often so angles are bad) or asking someone to take a pic but I’m always weary about handing a phone to a stranger esp traveling in cities with high petty crime, so often when I ask someone to take a pic it’s a hotel/restaurant employee so I may get a nice pic in a pretty hotel lobby but not the same as something outside in the city center.
Has anyone ever “hired” anyone to follow them around for 30 min and take a 10-15 pics — like give a hotel employee a few $$ to do it after work or ask if they know someone who’d do it? Or is that something you’d hire a photographer for? It isn’t my style because I’m not looking for a glammed up photo shoot or anything, literally it’d be jeans and tshirt pics with hair looking however it looks — just wanting to have a few more pictures of myself so when I look back at a trip, I can say– oh yeah that’s how I looked in 2021-22 (obv this is a future travel question – not traveling now).
Anon
I also wish I had more pictures of myself, so no real answers but commiseration. I have set up my camera in ways to do it with the timer, which isn’t always feasible and I do feel awkward when people walk by, ha ha.
Anon
I ask people to take pictures. Yeah, there’s a risk, but one I’m willing to take. And/or get a tripod for your phone.
Cat
Airbnb Experiences has stuff like this — thanks to the rise of the ‘gram, people will offer to take tourists to photogenic locations for pictures.
Anonymous
It sounds like money isn’t an object, so I’d say if you’re willing to pay, stay in a luxury type hotel and ask a hotel concierge. I feel like at nicer hotels they really bend over backwards to get people theater tickets or that business suit they need last minute because the airline lost the luggage, I really don’t think they’d be put off by a request for pictures. You don’t need to go into your whole story about being single and having no pics — literally just say — hey this is my first time in London (or wherever) and I’m by myself on this trip and would love a few pics of myself that aren’t selfies, I don’t need formal pictures, just want to be able to hand my phone to someone that isn’t a stranger on the street who’d run off with it; is there any chance you have an employee or know someone who’d like to make $50 taking a few pictures of me around the city for 45 minutes?
Concierges always know people — it’s a relationship business. They may even recommend a cheap photographer who’d be willing to take some casual pics without an entire photo shoot with makeup and outfit changes. Or they may know who on their staff is a budding social media star and would love to go out on company time to take pics. Or they may know who on their staff is eager to make easy money for 30 min of work. It doesn’t much matter who they recommend since you aren’t looking for once in a lifetime perfect pictures — but chances are you’ll just get a trustworthy person who won’t run away with your phone because they got this “job” through their employer/concierge contact. At the nicer hotels I feel like they NEVER want to say to a guest they can’t do something — though sometimes they do have to say no when they just can’t find tix to that sold out concert — but this is just such an easy ask that it’s an easy way for them to gain a loyal guest who’ll stay again.
Pink
My friend who is a professional photographer once advised me that when she travels, she scans the crowd for the person with the fanciest camera or who is taking the greatest care to set up his/her shot. She then asks that person to take a photo of her (with her phone or camera).
Anon
People always approach my husband for some reason, maybe because they see him taking care to set up a shot like you mention, but he is a TERRRRIBLE photographer so I always feel bad lol. Maybe he just looks trustworthy.
Pink
LOL sorry but I find that really funny. Do you tip them off or just smile politely and feel sorry for them? OP, maybe you should ignore my advice.
Anon
I just smile politely :)
AnonATL
There’s a service called flytographer that does this with professional photographers.
In ye olden days (pre corona) when my husband I would travel, other tourists were always kind about snapping a few photos of us. I usually targeted the young well-dressed ones that I figured had some experience with taking quality I phone photos for the gram… My husband hates selfies and pictures with us in them, so we don’t have many, but I force him to take some every trip.
Anonymous
OP didn’t say where she wanted to go — but in big cities, definitely check AirBnB experience. I looked into it in London and then ran out of time – but will do it next time – but there are definitely photographers on there that you can book who’ll take you around the city usually for an hour and take pictures. There are a few that marketed themselves to solo travelers — as in you don’t just want to leave London with selfies, do you. The prices weren’t bad as I recall — last year it ranged from $50-85 and you got digital pictures taken with a real photographer camera, not your iphone. I think it’s something photographers do more regularly now because there is a demand for IG pictures and frankly it fills up their time because who is really booking a photoshoot on a random Tuesday morning in October.
No Problem
I have a colleague who is a photographer in her spare time and does a lot of photos of tourists on vacation in our city. It’s definitely a market, and there are definitely photographers who do it.
Anonymous
I just ask people. Ideally, I look for a couple who is also awkwardly trying to take a selfie, and offer to take their picture if they’ll take your’s. I just tend to trust a couple not to run off with my camera more than a random individual. The downside, of course, if I have found people are… not great at taking pictures (like you’re in front of a tourist attraction and they somehow manage to take a picture at the perfect angle to block said attraction).
Also, yes, selfie sticks are ridiculous and annoying and I wouldn’t use them unless I was in a not crowded space, but this is the problem they solve.
Ribena
Yes, I do this – I will offer to take pictures for a couple.
My other tactic is to look for young women about my own age who appear to be taking pictures of each other (with newer looking phones than mine, usually!), and ask them.
Anonymous
Just ask someone. We get asked all the time when we travel in Europe but maybe that’s because with three small kids people figure we have better things to do than try and nick their phones while juggling three kids? I’ll usually ask someone to take our picture as well a couple times so we get whole family shots.
Anon
At a tourist site, I just ask another tourist. Yes there’s a risk involved. But in over 100 times doing this, nothings gone wrong. I then offer to take a picture of their group, because even if traveling with someone you still need that independent person to get a picture of your group. or, in the cases in which I get approached first because I am a white female who looks trustworthy I guess, I then ask them to take a picture.
Also, if you ever do a day tour or anything like that, the guides are very, very used to being asked to take pictures.
Ymanon
In addition to the other advice – practice taking selfies! :)
You’re not doomed to awkward selfies (most likely).
One small tip that lots of non-selfie-takers do not know: use the timer function on your phone. If you use the timer you don’t have to push the button, and you can hold your phone differently. With 3 or 10 seconds to adjust angle, you’ll have an easier time getting a nicer picture.
And take lots. Don’t take one selfie, take 10 and delete 8. :)
Anon
Talk to me about protein shakes. I’ve been exercising and lost about 30 lbs from diet and exercise. My weight loss has plateaued. I’m often tired after exercising in the morning and don’t want to eat. Would a protein shake be a good option here? I want to avoid sugary ones due to a family history of diabetes (also a major reason for weight loss). Any recommendations?
anon
I currently have GD and also a strong family history of diabetes, and I drink the premier protein shakes a few times a week. They are super low carb, no yucky aftertaste, and high protein. They have some good flavors (my fave is caramel) and are available at Costco as well. Give them a try, I drink them often as a meal replacement for breakfast and my blood sugars look great after.
Anonymous
I use unsweetened, unflavored whey protein and unsweetened coconut milk and coconut water as a base for protein shakes. Then I make them taste good using real fruit and sometimes some ginger. I also sometimes add plain yogurt (Greek, Icelandic, or other high protein versions). I generally do not like any sweet things other than fruit and fruit juice, though. There are lots of versions that are artificially sweetened, so sugar free.
But I am curious what you mean by “don’t want to eat.” Are you not hungry or are you trying to avoid gaining weight by skipping solid food in the morning? I am on what sounds like a similar journey. Personally, I was never a fan of breakfast but I do try to get in some protein right after a workout, whether through a protein shake, eggs, or protein-laden overnight oats. I am pretty convinced by the advice that your body is ready to use protein to build muscle right after a workout. I do primarily resistance training. I have also found that when I don’t eat (or drink!) too much at night, I wake up a little hungry. That did not used to be the case.
Anonymous
3 ice cubes, 1 frozen banana, 1 serving (~5-6 ounces) plain or vanilla yogurt, 2 heaping tablespoons PB2 peanut butter powder, 1 cup milk. Blend until smooth.
Carrie
This is a delicious smoothie, but a lot of calories and the OP seems to be keeping it lean.
I also recommend the Premier Protein shakes from Costco. Great high protein bang for your buck, with low calories.
Senior Attorney
The internet is full of rabbit holes and somehow I have segued from it’s-not-a-pickle-it’s-cake videos to this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNJdJIwCF_Y
So fab!
Aunt Jamesina
Woah, that’s crazy!
I HATE cakes masquerading as other food, it’s so off-putting to me. I can appreciate the artistry that goes into making them look so convincing, but ick. Reminds me of the horrifying kitty litter cake that made the rounds on the internet years ago.