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Our daily workwear reports suggest one piece of work-appropriate attire in a range of prices.
I’ve been seeing a lot of double-breasted blazers around these days, and I’m really into this look. If the cut is too boxy, it can look a little dated, but from this photo, I think the proportions of this one will work.
(An unintended consequence of 2020 — no photos of models wearing a lot of these clothes!)
I would wear this over a sheath dress or with a pencil skirt. In more casual setting, it would also look very cool with a pair of skinny jeans. Double-Breasted Blazer in Triple Dobby
The blazer is $228 at J.Crew and available in sizes 00–16 in the pictured “neon flamingo” as well as ivory.
A lower-priced alternative is from SUISTUDIO — it's marked down from $379 to $149 — and Gibson has a plus-size option for $98. Both are available at Nordstrom.
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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…
Anone
My frail elderly dad went for a haircut yesterday. I couldn’t talk him out of it, because he is a bugler for the VFW and is performing at a fellow veteran’s funeral today. He absolutely refused to show up in his dress blues looking shabby. I’m proud and terrified and angry, all at the same time.
Anon
I completely understand why you’re feeling all of those emotions.
Thank your dad for his (continued) service!
anon
+1,000. This is so poignant; I can so relate to that mix of emotions. Good luck, may he be safe.
Anonymous
The WSJ had an article many, many years back about how hard it is to find buglers. To the point where someone had designed a “bugle” where you pushed a button and it played Taps. Tell your dad, we thank him for his continued service (and to be well).
Anone
In case anyone needs the info (I hope not), my dad is a member of Bugles Across America. You can request a bugler for your loved one’s services, and the requests are filled so fast that my dad often can’t “get” the assignment.
You can also audition for the group over the phone, in these Covid times.
Eek
Those emotions are all completely understandable. Fwiw, the case study of the Missouri hair salon (should be google-able) gave me hope that hair cuts may not be so bad if all parties wear masks.
rosie
These times create some truly heartbreaking scenarios, hugs to you and your dad. Hopefully he will be fine. If it’s any help, there was an article recently about a hair cutting place where several people tested positive, but none of the people who were exposed who agreed to testing were positive (the salon was using masks and social distancing to the extent possible).
Anon
Why are you proud of him? He’s basically the demographic that we all stayed home for. And apparently he can’t even be bothered to take care of himself. My elderly father is just the same, but I’m not proud of him.
Anon
This is rude, and really inappropriate. Anon at 11:05, are you proud of yourself for posting this? If we sent this post to your friends and family with your real name attached, would they be proud of you?
Anonymous
Wow.
Anon
Not OP – but can you not? She’s proud of him because he’s a stand up guy! Anybody with half a lick of sense can understand why she is proud of him.
Anone
This is appalling. You should be ashamed of yourself. I wish this site allowed me to express what I really want to type, but Kat would rightfully delete it and probably block me forever.
I loathe you.
Cat
Totally uncalled for.
Haircuts where both parties are wearing masks have been shown to be relatively safe. Two actually Covid-positive stylists in MO exposed about 140 people… none caught it.
OP, your dad sounds amazing.
rosie
FWIW I posted about this above, I think only a third agreed to testing. Still very promising though.
Walnut
I can replay in my mind every detail, smell, emotion of my grandfather’s burial thanks to the haunting sounds of the bugler. I had held it together through the funeral, but there wasn’t a dry eye to be found once Taps started. Military service was an important part of my grandfather’s identity and the ceremonial send off by our local VFW really honored his memory.
Thank you to your father for his service.
Anon
Did they both wear masks and take other precautions?
Senior Attorney
Let’s assume they did, shall we?
Anon
Why would you assume that? This is the “land of the free” and masks are a communist ploy, right? Even if you don’t go that far, just walk around and see how many people are not wearing them.
Hildy
I prefer to assume good intentions. Life is too exhausting as it is to be outraged by things that may not have even happened.
Senior Attorney
What Hildy said.
Anon
Where did anyone express outrage?
Hildy
Anon at 12:27 sounds pretty outraged to me
Anon
Hildy, life’s too short to be outraged by things that may not have even happened.
Anon
Do you really care about OP’s father or are you just looking for a place to express your self-righteousness?
Anon
I care because she said she’s “terrified.” If they wore masks, then maybe there isn’t a good reason to be and she can relax and just feel proud. I hope you got your daily snark out of your system though.
Anon
You’re the one snarking here, my dear. We can all see through your faux-concern.
anonchicago
My mom and aunts (all over 65) went to visit my 100 year old grandmother, who lives in a nursing home. It was sooo unfair that she couldn’t have visitors and had to wear a mask the past 2 months.
In the pictures that were sent to me, none of them were wearing masks and there was lots of hugging. I can’t anymore, some people just don’t get it and don’t seem to care.
Walnut
Perhaps life is too short for them to never see their mother again.
Anonymous
If they weren’t wearing masks when they visited, the likelihood of that is greater.
Anon
+1. Go ahead and visit elderly family, but wear the damn mask.
Anonymous
Perhaps their lives just got even shorter :(
Anon
Aw. Your dad sounds a lot like my late grandfather. Hoping all goes well with his bugling duties.
Ellen
My Mom gave my Dad haircuts during the Corona lockdown, and now he will continue to use her, b/c she learned how to do this when they were overseas and Dad did not know any Barber’s behind the Iron Curtan. I told my ex to get a haircut when his greazy hair stained my satin pillowcase and I had to give it to Goodwill, b/c with short hair, the greaze is cleaned up better in the shower.
Tax procrastinator
does anyone have a recommendation for an accountant who can do my taxes? I am in NYC, fwiw, though would not anticipate meeting them in person. I’m a straightforward filer and just don’t have time this year, and for various reasons would rather not use TurboTax If possible. I realize it’s three weeks before the already extended tax deadline and i know it will be hard to get anyone to take me now (and trust me I feel pretty stupid for leaving it this long) but just asking for any suggestions!
Anonymous
No idea if he is available but I worked with Lewis Holman about 10 years ago and liked him. He’s in NYC.
Carmen Sandiego
I don’t have any recs for you, but you might be surprised at the availability. We waited to do ours pretty late, and when I called, our guy had availability on the very next day. I think the extension actually helped spread it out and it made it easier to get in, so do not beat yourself up about waiting!!
Anon
Abby at choice-tax.com is great.
Anon
The sandals on the mom’s page are also bright pink. I’m really liking the colours on what is a very dreary day.
Unfortunately, it reminds me that my summer wardrobe is perpetually blah.
anne-on
Can you pick one bright color you know works well for your coloring? I find kelly green and this kind of pink really easy to match with yellows/blues/ivory’s and wear it a lot in shorts/shoes. Bright orange also suits my pale dark haired self well and also pairs nicely with navy blue, army greens, and black. Boden makes a ton of ‘fun’ colored bottoms as does Jcrew factory and they really do perk me up on gross days.
Cb
Yes, I did this last year. It’s not the most flattering colour on me (mustard yellow) but I find it really cheerful for summer so it’s worth it.
Anon
That’s a good idea.
cold brew
My wardrobe tends to be mostly black and white, so I like bright accessories, especially in the summer. I have a kelly green purse that I’m carrying now!
emeralds
I like dresses for bright colors in the summer, since you can just do one bright thing + neutral accessories and call it a day.
Anonymous
Haha I’m wearing my bright pink suit today (for no reason as I sit in my office by myself with the door closed)!
Anon
Honestly I don’t wear bright colors as a rule but I make an exception for linen tops in bright or vivid colors. My favorite is hot pink.
I know we talked about linen on here a while ago but honestly I found the best linen at Tj Maxx on a work trip to south Florida, which I guess makes sense. My favorites are tunic style (so nothing clingy!) made by Ellen Tracy, and I have bought more colors on eBay.
Autism Anon
Have any of you sought a late in life autism diagnosis and did it notably benefit your life? I’m a very successful woman but life is sort of secretly hard always. I’m really grappling with the idea of willingly othering myself, aside from my husband I don’t think anyone I know would call me different.
Anonymous
This seems like a great question to explore in therapy. Why would this be meaningful to you? What help would it give you? How would it change you? I can see pros and cons for sure!
Autism Anon
It would be meaningful because I can officially point to a “why” for a lot of painful moments in my life. Professionally it would probably help in that my particular employer has a system which priorities hiring those with disabilities and I could get budget for accommodation. It wouldn’t change me per se, I would still not tell anyone, and unfortunately as a woman I will still be required to mask in most social situations. I think I’d be more willing to get the diagnosis if there was some sort of a cure or medication versus therapies which are already quite similar to the coping techniques I’ve developed over the years.
Anonymous
How would you use a diagnosis? Would it give you access to any resources that would improve your life?
Anonymous
Not your situation, but one child of mine was diagnosed upon entering middle school after passing all prior autism screenings (she was verbal! she engaged in imaginary play! she was hitting other milestones!). Still, we just felt that something important about her was not quite captured and people often dismissed her for being very rude (not looking at people in conversation, saying random things, a lot of social fine-tuning that gets you shunned socially). Right now, we are debating telling her because now that we have a diagnoses, we feel that we need to be truthful about it on camp forms (so that people know that she isn’t trying to be rude and why she sometimes needs to just run for a while to decompress) but we also don’t want her to be in a room where everyone knows something important about her but her. I think I’d be stingy about sharing it otherwise since I feel that people can be cruel or limit her possibilities and only share where it might make a positive difference (or in the case of something like an overnight camp, where they do need to know about the kids in their care). I feel that there was little appetite for helping high-functioning kids (her public school said they only offered services for boys; they couldn’t offer anything for girls b/c it would just be for her), especially high-functioning girls (they aren’t really disruptive, their grades are good; time and attention goes to others). As an employed and married grownup, you are my light at the end of the tunnel, that (some, at least) kids can grow up and figure things out and they have fulfilling lives.
Anonymous
If your school actually said that, sue them.
Anon
Yeah, that is very illegal in the US. If you have a local special needs parent group they can probably connect you with lawyers.
Anonymous
The school didn’t say that, the counselor, a person charged with knowing this stuff and delivering services to children said that. Later in the year, she took my ASD kid into a room and yelled at her for what she saw as oversharing in her class that she had gotten her period (socially, I wouldn’t have done this, but if you know kiddo struggles with stuff like this, it isn’t an occasion to yell at a kid). You can bet that both of my kids are now going elsewhere should schools reopen.
TL;DR: school counselors are in a bigger position to mess with your kid than you are to mess with them; so it is easier to just leave and seek services outside of the school to get what you need and avoid what is toxic.
Anonymous
Yeah what? Your school counselor IS your school. If they say that, you can sue.
Administrator
As a school administrator, PLEASE tell someone higher up that the counselor did those things. We would 100% address this situation.
pugsnbourbon
Oh my god that counselor is a monster.
I totally understand if you don’t want to, but reporting her actions to school administration might prevent her from doing something similar to another kid. There may also be a school counselor association in your state or certifying group.
Anon
The counselor is a school employee. You could certainly escalate this to administration and beyond to legal intervention to ensure your daughter is provided the services to which she is entitled. I just wanted to mention so you do not feel your only option is to go through the burden of changing schools.
Anon
She’s a representative of the school and you totally don’t need to put up with her incompetence. That’s appalling.
Coachh Laura
Mom, in this case, counselor = school, in that the counselor is truly an agent of the district. Taking your kids out is a solution, but I’d be tempted to complain and or see an attorney to change the behavior and protect other students from unacceptable behavior.
Anonymous
As a counterpoint, if this is how the counselor is to your child *before* you sue her, how to you think she will treat your child after? And do you really want to worry about that? No one takes a disabled kid’s word against a counselor. Sadly. A person who has abused your child and refused to treat them is not to be trusted to stop. And why subject your kid to that same person who has made it clear that they won’t treat them well?
Autism Anon
I have a great life! I own a home, earned a degree from a highly prestegious school, have a super important job, have a lovely husband, and adopted many pets. There are challenges though I am almost always focusing on hiding all my compulsions and it takes a lot of energy to maintain ‘normal’ facial expressions and I have to practice like crazy for interviews or anything else socially important, plus I have to fake interest in almost all conversation that doesn’t fall within my passions. I think my situation is helped immensely by being conventionally attractive and having a high IQ though. I hope your daughter gets to achieve everything she dreams of.
Anon
If her issues are that “mild” (sorry if that’s not the right term) I really would not worry about her being a functioning adult and holding down a job, etc. I don’t think I’m actually on the spectrum, but I think I would have been diagnosed as ASD if I were a kid/teen today because I tend to be pretty social awkward and am not great at eye contact. (I was also an incredibly verbal and imaginative kid, like your daughter). I’ve consulted some experts about this, and their view is that being socially awkward is not synonymous with ASD and you need more than just social awkwardness and lack of eye contact to make an ASD diagnosis, but many people who work with kids seem to equate them. Anyway, I have a phenomenal career, got married relatively young (25) to a wonderful man, we have a great kid and a beautiful home, etc. I’ve never been a social butterfly who makes friends easily but I have a few close friends from high school and college. My life is overall really happy and fulfilling.
River
I hope this also helps: I’m autistic and a college student, living (until Covid) independently from my parents, studying to be an engineer. I’ve successfully held down jobs and made friends. No marriage yet, but I’m working on getting into a relationship. With recent changes in diagnostic criteria and tools, more people who are basically able to function in society, who would previously just have been called “weird and socially awkward”, are now being diagnosed as autistic. The people I interact with think I’m kind of weird, they think I’m bad with people, but that’s all. There’s a lot of folks out there who are kind of weird and bad with people.
Your kid actually sounds very much like me. I talked early, I spent much of my playtime making up stories about talking animals, my only milestone issues were with motor skills. And then, about a year and a half ago, my therapist told me she thought I was autistic, and a lot of things snapped into place.
Probably more relevant for you than your kid at this stage, but look up the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network if you need more reassurance that autistic kids can grow up to be adults capable of getting by in society. They have lawyers, doctors, former members of the President’s Council on Disability, and a whole lot of other jobs.
Nesprin
Yeah, as another high functioning, double label, non-disruptive girl, I was always the lowest priority for services. They did what was necessary by policy, but no one was going above the absolute minimum required by law for me.
Vicky Austin
A dear friend was diagnosed a week after graduating from college. I think the main way it’s helped her is that now she knows to seek therapists who are trained in working with autistic people, who can help her manage her anxiety and (I think) OCD in ways that work much better for her than the traditional therapy and management she was doing before.
Anon
This is a good point. Therapists very commonly misinterpret and even misdiagnose ASD if they don’t recognize it, and the effective therapies are often different.
Anon
I was diagnosed with a spectrum disorder mostly unexpectedly when referred for neuropsychological testing that I thought was more for ADHD. It was difficult to come to grips with, but I feel it did help me stop blaming myself for certain things and stop putting myself in situations where I’m more likely to struggle vs. leaning into my strengths. It has also helped me over time (i.e., years) to think critically about relevant controversies (about “neurodiversity,” the social model of disability vs. the medical model, the ethics of behavioral therapy, critiques of psychology as a discipline, etc.) and also about cultures and societies that are now or have historically been better or worse at accommodating difference by default, even if some of those questions are still open questions for me. It also helped me reassess some misunderstandings and generally learn more about NT thinking and perspectives. So while it was hard/painful for a while, I feel I’ve broadly benefited.
I’m not sure if I would have gotten to where I am now without the Dx, but maybe self Dx would have been the same if it had been more on my radar.
Anonymous
Could you elaborate on all of this? I feel that with my neurotypical kid, she’d be OK almost anywhere she landed. With my ASD-1 kid, I really worry about fit with schools now — student body, teaching ability of teachers, being able to get the best our of kids who are hardwired differently, etc. I wish I had a roadmap (but one counselor said, if you’ve met one kid with ASD-1, you’ve met one kid with ASD-1). I feel that as a parent I don’t have a lot of good sources of info (and our local Autism Speaks is struggling to help kids with more significant social/learning problems).
Anon
I agree that fit matters much more with a spectrum disorder! My Dx which overlaps with ASD-1 was NLD, which is what they Dx when verbal IQ is much, much higher than nonverbal.
For me personally, I do not believe there is much a school could have done that would have made school a good fit because of the mix of advanced and delayed development. I was reading and writing at the 12th grade level in 4th grade, but they weren’t going to bring in a high school teacher to accommodate that. I was behind in math and behind socially, but not behind enough to get services, even if I’d been Dxd at the time. I was never bullied and had friends (even if they were sort of “mom friends”), but I was perpetually exhausted by the need to process so many discrete social interactions, since I cannot fully process nonverbal communication in real time as it is happening (I also can’t just “skip” the processing). I also had sensory defensiveness, so the florescent lights and the smells of cleaning products were quality of life issues for me in a way that’s hard to describe to someone who doesn’t experience the same thing. It’s like having a constant headache or like someone is poking you with a needle over and over again for hours.
So partly I just needed to spend less time at school. I also took classes with other students who had special interests or areas of strength. These included art classes; literature classes from a teacher with a literature PhD, not just an education degree; going to local lectures by professors or grad students who were clearly passionate about their areas of study (this was helpful even when I didn’t share their area of interest).
I didn’t learn social norms by osmosis or exposure, and I noticed a lot of things people don’t really talk about. So it helped me to read widely so I could use my verbal strengths to grasp things that were otherwise mysterious, like code switching, the simultaneous existence of different social expectations depending on social class or where a person falls in a hierarchy, why there are rules that people don’t actually follow, and what the “real rules” are vs. the stated ones, and things like that. (Yes, I ended up here because I didn’t know what to wear.)
I think what I needed and did not get was speech therapy (especially speech pragmatics). I think learning some social skills more analytically would have helped me too and just understanding that other people think and are motivated differently, might be lying, might be pretending to care about what I’m talking about (ouch) because they are polite, and things like that. But some of that may have been needing to catch up developmentally. I also needed to give myself permission not to go along to get along when there’s no reward in something for me. If the reward of enduring one evening bowling is making some new friends, then great. But if the reward of enduring bowling is mainly going to be… more bowling, then maybe I just need to admit to myself that it’s too loud and unpleasant for me, and I don’t have to enjoy things that other people enjoy. I had gone years sort of pretending to enjoy things without understanding that the majority of people around me were truly having a good time and not just also pretending (I realize how silly this sounds).
Anon
I should have been explicit that accelerated learning doesn’t confer much advantage as an adult when everyone is caught up. I wasn’t a savant; I was a special needs child with delays and accelerations who needed supports and challenges that school wasn’t providing. I think a lot of the high achievers here were just ahead in school and are still ahead now, which I think is different? But I am happy with my life and career.
Anon
If your question was more about neurodiversity, social models of disability, history of psychology, etc., I think the self advocacy network someone else mentioned could be a good place to start. In general, it’s easy to come across highly polarized opinions, so it’s an area where it can help to read/listen to a variety of perspectives to get a sense of where the strong disagreements are coming from. My outlook has changed a lot over time, despite still not seeing completely eye-to-eye with any one advocate or voice.
Anon
By the way, my Dx technically wasn’t ASD but another spectrum disorder that’s not yet in the DSM, but was obvious from my test results and is a better fit. So one outcome of being evaluated could be another possibility that you haven’t considered.
amberwitch
as part of a neurological diagnosis (in essence prickling sensations in hands and feet) I got referred to a psychiatrist, who thought I would qualify for an autism diagnosis. We held of on actually putting it in my journal because I couldn’t see any upside to getting a diagnosis (and it didn’t solve the prickling issue anyways).
Anon
If you are still getting the prickling, B12 injections fixed this for me even though my B12 labs looked normal (and there’s a lot of overlap between neuropsychological symptoms and B12 deficiency symptoms generally).
Anonymous
Hi, I have been wondering this about myself as well. I’m an attorney in my early 30’s and by all objective measures successful, but for the past two years or so have wondered if I am on the ASD spectrum. I would have never thought this in a million years growing up but the more I learn about how women and girls present differently and are overlooked the more I wonder.
Autism Anon
I also never would have thought I was on the spectrum when I was younger, but a few months ago I was in a boardroom for like 7 hours and I wasn’t able to employ a lot of my usual practices and by the end of the meeting I was so fried I couldn’t string together a sentence. This made me realize I was probably on the spectrum and spurred a talk to my doctor about everything, not just that particular day, my doctor agreed I was probably also on the spectrum, and offered me the referral.
IF
Has anyone here done intermittent fasting? I sort of do it but not 100% correctly (basically I have a couple coffees at 9 AM but otherwise only eat between noon and 10 PM for the most part). I am wondering if it’s worth it to have my coffees black and shorten my eating window to 1-9 PM instead. I am looking to lose the last 5 lbs.
Anon
I did 12-7 for about 3 months and lost a lot of weight really easily. I also had milk in my morning coffee though; that’s non-negotiable.
Anonymous
DH and I have been doing this for years. We have an eight hour eating window a day. Outside that window, we only have water, green tea, black tea, and cofee. We both lost and maintain our weight on it, but we have stayed on it because we both sleep better and feel better. We both put lemon in our water outside our eating window, so I wouldn’t stress the milk.
Anone
I do 16:8 IF for reflux, and really love it.
A general rule many people follow is that less than 50 calories does not break the fast. I do drink coffee with almond milk in the morning, but at ~40 calories it meets that guideline.
AFT
I do IF – currently 16/8 with (non black) coffee in the morning – pre pandemic I was doing more like 18/6 without the coffee because that approach was much easier when I didn’t have access to my kitchen and coffee maker 24/7. If you’re just looking at losing 5#s, I think the easiest path would be either (1) shortening your window (typically 18/6 or shorter is recommended if you’re doing a true “eat whatever you want during your window” approach); or (2) lock down what you’re eating during your window – I personally don’t think the coffee in the morning has slowed me down, but I’m also eating low carb/high protein during my window. At the same time, 5 pounds really is “margin of error” for me – my weight regularly shifts 4 pounds based on water weight/etc. – so I’d pick the easiest option for you and see what happens after a few weeks.
Anon
Do people consider it IF if you eat dinner at 5:30 pm and don’t eat breakfast until 7:00 or later? This is what I do, although I have never considered it “fasting” so much as “sleeping and eating when I want.” I can often go up to 14-16 hours without food and without effort.
anon
I have been trying something very similar for the past 1.5 weeks – eat a last meal by 6:30 (I prefer earlier dinners) and then nothing but coffee and some milk till 10 or later. I cannot consistently go 14-16 hours without getting HANGRY, so I do what I can on the window. Sounds like you are just fine.
Anon
I have done pretty strict 16:8 fasting (nothing in the fasting window except water) for about 6 months now, and I haven’t lost any weight, but it has made it very easy for me to maintain. If I stop IF I start gaining pretty rapidly, like a pound a week. (I have thyroid issues and my endocrinologist won’t adjust my meds – I don’t think steadily gaining weight in the absence of IF is normal).
anon
It’s not normal — can you get a new endo? I experienced something similar after several years on Synthroid and mine switched me to Armour, which has been life-changing.
Anon
I’m hyper, not hypo, so the meds I take are to suppress thyroid function. My numbers are in the normal range, but as I’m sure you know the “normal range” is huge and I’m pretty sure I used to be at the other end of it. I would like a new endo but I live in a pretty small town and don’t have a lot of options. Before the pandemic I was going to try reducing my dose very gradually on my own, but given that autoimmune disease technically makes me high Covid risk, this didn’t seem like the time to mess with my treatment plan. After the pandemic I hope I can find a new doctor.
anon
Interesting — I started out hyper (Graves disease) but was told I couldn’t safely stay that way so I did radioiodine ablation about 2 years after diagnosis. I was worried about becoming hypo but have found it perfectly manageable with the right meds. Good luck to you on getting it under control!
Anon
Thanks! Yeah, I have Graves’ too and you definitely have to get it under control if you’re hyper because it’s dangerous to stay that way long term. I take anti-thyroid drugs and am now at the hypo end of the normal range. I’m not officially hypothyroid (since my numbers are normal and I have no symptoms except the weight gain), it’s just that my normal baseline (pre-Graves’ onset) was probably at the other end of the normal range, so it was much easier to keep weight off. I took being “naturally thin” for granted for a long time :/
Senior Attorney
I do it. I don’t think there’s any magic to it but I skip breakfast (just black coffee until lunch) because I just don’t have any room in my calorie budget for it. Those last 5 pounds are just HARD, though. You may find you have to cut back your food more than is comfortable to get them gone.
AnonMom
Can anyone speak to me about how jury duty is working during the pandemic? I have served before, but just got a summons and there is zero information about any health protocol plans or protections in place. I am torn between wanting to do my civic duty and absolute frustration, anger, and fear, since my household has been successfully isolating for 14 weeks now in order to protect a higher risk individual.
anon
Wow even my county courthouse in Georgia has been closed since March. I can’t imagine sitting in a room full of people waiting to be picked. I wonder if you can postpone it for health reasons. Can you contact the courthouse to ask about their safety measures?
Anonymous
Where?
AnonMom
Michigan.
Anonymous
State or federal court? The federal court site has a General Order about COVID that will tell you what the court is doing to protect visitors and jurors.
Anonymous
Does the court’s website have any info? usually they have info on the regular process, has it not been updated post covid?
Our jurisdiction is looking at resuming jury trials but the courtroom will be closed to the public (can attend via videoconference), so there is lots of room for the jurors to sit spaced out enough from each other and the other participants.
Anonymous
Our court is still sending out summons but we are calling any jurors in yet. The summons process takes months, so we did not stop sending summons because we are not sure when we will be able to resume. When people call in the day before, they are told they do not need to appear.
With that said, our court has enacted many measures for when jury service resumes, including making sure all seating is at least 6 feet apart, mask mandate for all in the courtroom, gloves and hand sanitizer readily available, daily temperature checks for all involved, etc. We have gone as far as one jury trial at a time per floor to reduce the potential foot traffic and interaction. It is clear they have put a lot of thought into how to make jury service as safe as possible. None of this is on the summons, which is produced from a stock program that costs thousands of dollars for each change to the summons. I suggest that you call the jury office. They will definitely be able to tell you what measures are being taken. Because if this is what our court is doing, I imagine others are at least this much.
Anonymous
It’s terribly inconsiderate to wait until they call the day before to tell them. They need notification so they can determine if they feel safe coming in or so they have time to decide to decline & learn what those consequences are, etc.
AnonMom
Ha, it’s definitely inconsiderate and even in pre-pandemic times this court system gives zero f*cks about that. They are very clear that declining to appear for all but a very small number of pre-determined reasons (to which there make no exceptions, and heavy documentation that those reasons apply to you is 100% required in order for them to even be considered) is a path to an arrest warrant.
Anonymous
Not without knowing where you are. It’s a local issue.
Anon
I am set to have a jury trial in mid-July– I would absolutely call the jury office. I know our area has a lot of precautions in place, and if you are unable to come due to exposure to a high-risk individual, I would imagine you can get out of it. In our area, they were going to try to resume trials in May but were unable to do so because jurors were unable and unwilling to come for jury duty.
NOLA
Good question! Our courthouse is seriously gross (and I have gotten sick after jury duty) under the best of circumstances. I deferred jury duty to July of this year from last August, due to my teaching schedule, but haven’t received anything for July, so I’m hoping it’s deferred again. The only issue will be is if they reopen during the school year and suddenly want me to come in during the fall semester (which I can’t do). The folks at criminal court here were wonderful to work with, but I know they will only let you defer so many times. FWIW, now that I’m in their system, I get called every two years.
Carmen Sandiego
“Seriously gross” is the understatement of the century. I’m half-convinced that anyone who has spent time in the Orleans Parish courthouse (either one of them) is probably immune to any type of disease for all eternity. (Literally, a part of the ceiling fell into a jury box during a trial in civil court once.)
For what it’s worth, as of now jury trials in Orleans are only cancelled through the end of this month, and my firm has a jury trial scheduled for August. I’m not sure how yesterday’s order extending the “Phase 2” is going to affect any of that.
NOLA
Good to know! I can’t go in August, which is why I deferred to July in the first place. I could do June or July and have even made February work, but August is a no-go because of the start of school and my teaching schedule. The jury room in my last jury trial experience was pretty gross. Downstairs isn’t awful but the courtrooms and jury rooms are just so dirty and gross. And I have always had criminal court jury duty. I think, once you get in the system for one or the other, you always get summoned for the same one.
AnonMom
Our facilities are in decent shape but last time I went it was REALLY crowded and involved hours spent waiting in a tight room with no airflow and lots of shared elevator use.
Our local numbers are quite good compared to the rest of the country so if I have to do it, now is the time, but I’m also feeling very frustrated that all of the changes and sacrifices my household has made to protect our sensitive individual may be moot due to this.
The website gives no information at all on any measures being taken surrounding COVID. The phone bank has a wait time a mile long and I haven’t had a block of time available yet to sit in the queue for an answer, but maybe later this week I can get through to a person.
Mrs. Jones
Call the jury management office and ask.
mclawyer
I am in RI where there are no jury trials until at least September, but I have been apart of many webinars about court operations and it seems to me like MI has itself together very well and it taking social distancing and jury safety seriously. I know there have been talks about holding jury trials in a non-traditional larger setting (auditorium, theater, etc.), mask mandate, temperature checks, hand sanitizer, streaming to the public so that no one else is in the courtroom. Whoever the jury commissioner should be helpful in answering your questions. They definitely do have a plan though!
mclawyer
wow, so many typos on my post! Apologies!
Anonymous
A couple counties in my state have resumed jury trials. They have closed the courtroom to visitors and live-stream the trial on youtube. So that way the space typically used for visitors is used for the jury instead. Everyone is wearing a mask (well some jurors have refused…), and people are kept 6 feet apart for the most part.
Book Club
For those interested, today was scheduled to be the 1st of 2 chats about our book club pick, Evicted. There is no expectation you’ll be finished with it (I haven’t), but neither do I expect people to protect us from spoilers.
A couple questions I thought might get us started:
•Did any facts presented in the book particularly surprise you?
•Did you feel empathy and compassion for any particular person in the book?
Anonymous
Wasn’t Kat going to add a separate post for this?
Eek
The story about the apartment fire absolutely gutted me. I cannot stop thinking about it.
Edna Mazur
Same. And the landlord’s reaction to it. At least I might get a fat insurance check.
Edna Mazur
I’ve been listening to this book on tape- great pick! It has been pretty eye opening for me.
A part that really surprised/resonated with me was a bit that I just heard last night. I don’t recall which person they were discussing but the narrator said something along the lines of, if this person made major sacrifices in a year they might be able to save up the equivalent of one month’s rent. I stopped and thought and if my husband and I really cut back on nearly everything, we could save at least one month’s mortgage payment in a month. Heck, I’m putting a little bit more of the equivalent of a mortgage payment in my 401k and HSA savings every month. I suppose I had in the back of my mind that better financial management would make a huge difference and, while that is still correct in some situations, if you are subsisting at that level of poverty, it really might not make that much of a difference.
Also, when they were talking about the difference in price not being that much between “nice” places and these barely habitable places was shocking. It really made me check my privilege of being a white person from the middle class. I got the nice places in a similar metro area really easy, and I had parents that were willing and able to co-sign. I assumed, since I was paying the rent and expenses, I did it all by myself, but truly, not the case.
Anon Probate Atty
A few facts surprised me. I did not know that landlords can make the most money on the worst buildings. I did not know how much many there is to be made on inner-city rentals, and I had no idea how much “slumlords” made in profits from these rentals.
Even though she did commit a crime (I won’t spoil it entirely), I had a great deal of sympathy for Venetta (not sure if this is the correct spelling; I listened to the audiobook rather than reading the text). I thought she was vastly oversentenced. I cried when she was taken away by the deputies as her son watched.
Anon Probate Atty
I was also (perhaps naively) surprised at how much easier it was for a white family (Pam et. al.) to get a new apartment after being evicted multiple times with multiple felonies on both husband’s and wife’s records than it was for any of the black families.
Jo March
It reminded me of Devah Pager’s research that showed resumes with black vs. white names had different callback rates for interview. IIRC, her research found that white people with criminal records still had a better shot than Black people with clean/no records.
Eek
Yes yes yes. Venetta broke my heart.
anon
The fact that terrible housing costs a similar amount to decent housing really resonates with my personal experience, but my experience has been with the privilege to carefully pick and choose the best among the crap rentals I could afford. The book really made it clear what happens to the people who can’t.
Anon
Vanetta’s sentencing and her struggles broke my heart. I can’t stop thinking about it.
Monday
I read Evicted maybe a year ago and thought it was incredible.
One line that stuck with me is that among the people he studied, pregnancy is “always good news.” Despite their severe poverty and lack of stable housing and stable relationships, and even if the mother is a minor, babies are associated with hope and renewal. This matches my experience working with poor people and I think is often very counter-intuitive to more affluent folks, who tend to think “this life is so chaotic and deprived, how could you want a(nother) child?” or “how could this 15-year-old’s mother be excited she’s pregnant?” He also discussed how fathers and men are not really considered part of the equation. It’s understood that all the stable figures in a child’s life are going to be women. This factor probably has to do with mass incarceration.
I have also read in a different study that “parent” is sometimes the only positive identity/role available within a community, so it’s not surprising if people want this identity, and often want it early in life.
Anon
This is absolutely not applicable to all families, but some families that receive public assistance perceive there to be a financial benefit from having more kids because the amount of the public assistance increases. My husband is a former foster care youth and he reported this being a common theme among the families he associated with and that some families signed up to foster a lot of kids specifically to receive more money per kid. My best friend is a social worker and says that there are some families she serves that are loathe to lose custody for financial purposes (there have been some sad cases she’s dealt with where the parents’ greatest concern was losing the check, not the child, mostly in cases of severe drug abuse). It’s complex and reflective of the survival strategies needed to overcome immense poverty as well as the extremely damaging nature of parental drug use.
Anonymous
I don’t know that you’ve gotten more $ per kid for a while now (Clinton-era welfare change), but for SSDI, I think a lot of families do rely on that, which is a different entitlement system.
Anon
You get more food stamps and access to Medicaid and more child support (if it gets paid)
Jo March
But then don’t you also have more mouths to feed? So how you do actually pocket anymore more?
Anon
When I was a teenager I worked at a coop that ordered a lot of bulk food supplies for people living in a rural area. I noticed that a lot of the customers ordering bulk flour, etc. were families that seemed to draw a big distinction between their own kids and their many foster kids. I was uncomfortable with what I saw.
Erica
I found some loose similarities with another great book – Hillbilly Elegy – in that the jobs left previously productive industrial areas and with that left opportunity and quality of life.
Sherrena’s entrepreneurial character made an impression on me – her deciding to “…specialize in renting to the black poor.”
Lamar seems like a nice character, supportive of youth.
Anonymous
I have a rental property that is $$$ (but costs a lot on my end, so not a lot of net $). A person I know from college has a rental property that is rented to people with serious financial and other problems (and, from the part of the country they live in, those people are probably all white). Renting a $$$ place is a hard way to make a little $. Renting a $ place seems like you just get to take $ from people b/c they don’t have better options (like late fees on late rent, etc., etc.). I’ve had tenants who were late on rent b/c they were on travel for work and neither of us would ever imagine having a late fee (good tenant, don’t need to p*ss them off). It seems to be night and day — I thought renting was a service business where you need to provide good service and a good property in a good location until I saw the side of it where people DGAF b/c their tenants have no better options. Like I just replaced a toilet b/c I didn’t think it was good enough and the other person would just not bother b/c it’s not broken and cuts into their margins.
ArenKay
I read it last week and found it heartbreaking. What most surprised me was in how many respects our rules and policies around rentals and evictions are utterly irrational; they seem designed to drive socially destructive results. One small example of that for me was the rules around “nuisance” 911 calls, especially when it comes to domestic violence. That whole section left me really enraged. The state I’m in has just announced that evictions can start next month, so I’m worried about how much of this social chaos will be ramping up for reasons that people really cannot control.
Senior Attorney
I am not very far along in the book, but it has got me wondering what a better system for low-income housing would look like? Because plainly the system we have is broken.
Also, I have been saying for a very long time that the Criminal Industrial Complex of the cops, DAs, PDs, prisons, etc, needs to be dismantled, and one place to put a lot of that excess legal capacity would be in providing court-appointed counsel for defendants in unlawful detainer actions. Housing should be a fundamental right and people who face losing it should have counsel to defend that right, IMO. (Ditto custody matters, BTW.)
Anonymous
One thing to consider is that a lot of landlords are mom and pop outfits who probably need counsel themselves (“don’t do X; X is illegal”; “if you don’t address nuisance Y then tenant Z has recourse against you”). Also, these landlords are most likely to lose the rental property if the tenant doesn’t pay — mom and pops don’t have reserves or access to capital and may just let the bank deal with the problem. It’s true for houses and small apartment buildings and trailer parks. There isn’t a good answer for private landlords. Housing authorities are often no better so IDK what the answer is.
In the Army, maintaining basic housing was such a thing (that isn’t adaptable to civilian life), but they provide housing according to family size and don’t tolerate nonsense (and the nonsense is what ruins QOL for many low-income housing residents).
Senior Attorney
Counsel for everybody, says I! We should do it like we do the public defender now — if either the landlord or the tenant can’t afford it, they get appointed counsel!
Anon
I hear what you are saying, but that ties up the landlord for a very long time in court proceedings and they might lose the property.
Lana Del Raygun
How would a landlord lose a building simply because their tenant had legal representation, and how could that possibly be an argument against tenants’ having representation? That boils down to just allowing landlords to violate tenants’ rights with impunity.
Sloan Sabbith
I remember reading this and, despite the fact that I work in legal aid, being absolutely shocked that the HUD payments are so low for Section 8, etc. It explained so much about why all my clients with vouchers live in the lowest cost suburbs, in the worst housing, outside Seattle. Even most of the absolutely terrible housing in Seattle proper is unaffordable, unless it’s buildings that cater to section 8 (which suck 99% of the time).
Anon
I used to do custody cases, and in cases of child abuse and neglect, the parents are already entitled to court appointed counsel if they are losing custody or having their parental rights terminated.
However, I don’t think that people should be entitled to a court appointed counsel for endless custody battles when both parents are fit. That is not good for the child.
No tick alarm clock?
Recommendations for a silent (non ticking) bedside alarm clock? Using my phone is no longer working because I end up scrolling too much before bedtime.
Cb
We have a Lumie light, which doesn’t make any noise and gently wakes you with light (and then sound). I really find it makes a difference.
Carmen Sandiego
+1 – I have the Phillips wake-up light version, and I love it. Even more than the wake up feature, I love the sunset feature for nighttime, which gradually dims – it can help with mindless scrolling or reading too late – as the light dims, I find myself naturally getting drowsy.
Anonymous
I swear someone on this board recommended foreign TV shows on Netflix, but 200 searches later, I can’t find the recommendations! Was it Korean TV shows? I think they were a little lighter, like rom-com stuff, but maybe a little less backwards than “girl meets boy, girl gives up career, show ends when they get married and the lights fade.” Someone jog my memory, or teach me how to search this site better?
Anon
No help on the shows, but commiseration on the searching. I can’t even find some of my old posts with even the best searching strategies (Thing I’m Searching for site:ThisSite.com)
Junior Associate
Yes it was Korean TV shows! I usually google search some key words I remember (in this case, “crash landing on you” because I’m hooked too haha) with “corporette” on google. Maybe these are the ones you are looking for?
https://corporette.com/printed-silk-top/#comment-4034420
https://corporette.com/tweed-jacket-with-trim-detail/#comment-3988559
Anon
I recall seeing a rec on here for the Kdrama “Crash Landing on You” on Netflix, which I absolutely second.
kdrama anon
It was me, it was Korean TV, I am still obsessed. I couldn’t find the original thread with the search either. I have many recommendations and I am happy to repeat them! I mentioned in my original comment that the rom-com or melodrama Korean shows I’ve been watching remind me a lot of really good romance novels, and that I’ve loved a lot of dramas that originally didn’t sound that interesting to me from a two-sentence synopsis. I feel this is important to mention if you’re about to quickly look up all these recs. Most of them are very popular and highly-rated generally among fans, this isn’t a list of hidden gems or anything.
On US Netflix, my absolute favorites: I originally recommended Crash Landing on You and Because This Is My First Life. I would now also recommend Itaewon Class, My Mister (not romance-focused) and It’s Okay To Not Be Okay (which just started dropping twice-weekly episodes). Someone else recommended Prison Playbook and Reply 1988, which are on my to-watch list.
There are a bunch more available on a (legal) streaming site called Viki. I previously recommended What’s Wrong With Secretary Kim, Fight My Way, and Healer, and will now add Goblin aka Guardian and Just Between Lovers. The person who recommended my whole to-watch list would add Queen In-hyun’s Man here.
Kdrama fan
Just finished Reply 1988. It took me a few episodes to get into it but it was so worth it. The episodes are long and there are 20 of them, but it may be the best one I have watched so far.
Junior Associate
I have a longer reply in m0d but you can search ‘ Korean Netflix Crash Landing On You “Corporette” ‘ on g oo g le to search old threads!
Anon
I remember I recommended Heavy Sweetness, Ash-like Frost (though it takes a long time to come into its own; it starts off very goofy, but does not stay that way) and Coffee Prince (though I think I watched that on Viki, not Netflix).
OP
Thank you all!! I couldn’t remember the names of the shows so that definitely hampered my searching.
Anon
Recommend the show Stranger on Netflix! Korean crime drama, amazing cast.
FFS
Is anyone else permanently changing their food shopping/storage once the pandemic is over? For our family of five, we always had enough “extra” food for a couple weeks anyway, but I’m trying to be more conscious about keeping an actual, stable supply. I appreciated all the posters back in February/March who shared their stock-up tips. I discovered a blogger called Six Figures Under during the early shutdown. She has a family of 8 and they belong to the LDS church, which I never realized is a big proponent of long-term food storage. I find it both crazy and fascinating. She was normally a monthly shopper anyway, and had done their last “normal” trip right before things closed. They decided to live off their food storage and didn’t go to a grocery store for three months (though she did have a few small delivery orders). It’s definitely way, way beyond anything I would ever do, but it’s really interesting to read. Before I had kids I wouldn’t have been concerned about spending a couple weeks eating from my pantry or freezer, but I’m trying to be more thoughtful about what we keep in stock now.
Anon
I have a large family. I live in what was one of the earliest covid hotspots. We never stopped grocery shopping, though we did stock our freezer a little more at the beginning. We wore masks and limited our trips to weekly rather than whenever we wanted an extra ingredient. No one in our household is high risk, for what it’s worth. The idea of stocking up for a month or longer at a time is absolutely exhausting to me and I wouldn’t do it willingly.
anon a mouse
My husband always made fun of me for overshopping — look who’s laughing now! We haven’t been to Costco since early March and I estimate we still have 2-3 weeks worth of meals possible from the freezer and pantry. We have fresh vegetables and fruits delivered every 2 weeks but that’s it.
Anonymous
I wish! My grocery shopping self is the sort of village girl who can run by the market twice a day sometimes. To get to even weekly has been a challenge. OTOH, I live where the power goes out regularly, so without a whole house generator, I try to keep only non-perishables stocked. Meat / dairy aren’t worth stockpiling and I like to buy my fruit/veggies close to when I eat them. So, so surprised that my ancestors were farmers who farmed and put up everything (including slaughtered animals) before there was electricity and when you had just well water.
Sloan Sabbith
This is also my grocery store self, and I live across from a grocery store.
Anonymous
No because I had absolutely no trouble getting what I needed/wanted during my local shelter-in-place period. I shop weekly and have no kids so YMMV.
anon
Same here.
Cat
Same here. Other than the 2 weeks in mid-March where everyone was panic buying, we have had no issues with weekly shopping at all.
Anon100
I might consider stocking up on more canned or frozen food during the winter months, but in summer and early fall months I’m not changing my weekly shopping habits. I prefer to buy and eat fresh produce from my local farmers market when it’s available.
Hildy
Same here. Our area also never really had any meaningful shortages (sometimes first or second choice wasn’t’ available but no real issues with finding something in the ballpark of what we were looking for).
Anone
We definitely have changed habits to minimize grocery trips, though in general we still try to mostly eat whole, fresh foods. I’ve switch to frozen berries and will no longer buy them from the produce aisle (the quality was abysmal anyway). I’ve also started buying larger amounts of meat and cheese, and freezing them in week-long portions.
We did have some failures, though. Turns out that thawed almond milk has a gritty texture that’s absolutely revolting, even after running it through a blender.
anonshmanon
ugh, I hear you! I usually freeze regular milk without issues. But it doesn’t work at all for heavy cream!
Anon
I grew up around Mormons (although my family is not Mormon) and so had picked up elements of the food-storage thing from being in their houses and around their families. I am one of the posters who stocked up in early March based on what I was seeing in the news; as a result we didn’t have to go grocery shopping until mid-April. We already had a standing freezer and ample pantry space; we’re a family of 3 so “stocking up” meant going to Costco and buying a few more things than normal. I filled the pantry and the freezer and we were good. We’re just now needing to restock on things like rice and pasta and I still have frozen meat in the freezer. When we went out between March and mid-May, it was usually for fresh fruits and vegetables. We’re mostly back to normal now, although I will probably do larger shops moving forward so we don’t end up at the store every few days; I realize now that was a pain in the butt.
For me, it’s not so much a permanent change in how we shop as looking at, what staples would really hurt us if we ran out of them and couldn’t get more? We couldn’t get toilet paper in our area for weeks. So now when we go to the store I buy two big packages instead of one smaller one; we work through the two packages and then I buy two more, rather than buying just one at a time. The food we feed our dogs went into short supply temporarily so we buy more than one bag of dog food at a time, which is working out well. We aren’t hoarding or stockpiling but just being more conscious of buying enough of something to get us through an interruption in supply that might last a few weeks. Also I’ve become more aware of food prices reported in the news; I frankly never paid that much attention before.
Anon
I’m going to work on keeping a better emergency supply since we live in an area with significant natural disaster risks. I’ll probably aim to have spares of regular pantry staples as well thanks to the difficulty getting things like flour during the pandemic, but I don’t see myself stocking up for the long haul.
Cb
We’ve shifted to using our local health food / farm food shop almost exclusively and while it’s a bit more expensive, we’re planning on keeping it up. We’ve developed a friendship with the guys who run the place, they special order the oat milk yoghurt my son and I eat and will order things if we mention that we’ve had to go elsewhere for them. They’ve also got great safety procedures in place and treat their staff properly. We have also been using a delivery service run out of a local restaurant for more essentials plus amazing fresh oven meals, and they are planning on continuing as things reopen. Feel much better that 90% of our grocery money is going to local businesses.
We meal plan, shop every Sunday, and have a midweek delivery. If we need something specific during the week, I can bike over and do a top-up.
Walnut
We purchased a chest freezer and then sourced a 1/4 beef and 1/2 hog from a local farmer. Working on finding local salmon and maybe chicken also.
NOLA
Yes, it will, and partly because of the time it was taking for me. I was going to Whole Foods (for produce and some other things), my regular grocery store, and Target every single week. I absolutely couldn’t maintain that during lockdown and didn’t want to. I have started a running list for Target when I start running low on things that I can usually only get there and I go much less often. I still get groceries weekly because I don’t have a lot of freezer space and I want fresh produce, but that’s at my regular grocery and I go early on Friday mornings. I stopped going to Whole Foods regularly because the store near me was kind of a mess for a while. The store in the ‘burbs was handling distancing and masks a whole lot better and I went there to buy a vitamin that I couldn’t get elsewhere. I’ve been ordering some things from Amazon rather than trying various grocery stores for a specific ingredient and I will piggyback on a friend’s trip to Trader Joe’s rather than going myself just for a few items. What this has done, for me, is allow me fewer trips to fewer stores, and gives me my Saturdays back for leisure and rest. The dude and I sleep in and either cook breakfast or go someplace to get lunch or brunch and sometimes walk around the Quarter. This Saturday, we spent the entire day buying and installing an enormous window unit downstairs in my house. Not fun, but we wouldn’t have had the time otherwise.
Anon
One thing I’ll be changing is shopping at Whole Foods way less. I was not happy with how poorly they maintained social distancing protocols in the store and was even more unhappy with how whisteblower workers were treated. I’m over Amazon.
Anon
Here in the South, Whole Foods is the only one that complies with the requirements so I feel safer there. However, they never have any stock so it’s hard to get what I need.
The Lone Ranger
Definitely.
I used to be a dedicated meal planner and careful shopper, but a few years as empty nesters put an end to that, and we were running into the grocery store a few times a week. However, we are both high risk by age alone, and I’m high risk due to a chronic lung disease, so we’ve gone back to careful once every 10 day shopping and meal planning. We’ve been taking advantage of the stores that have elderly hours, but that’s probably ending soon. Since we are in an area with low mask compliance, it most likely means I won’t be shopping at all and just giving lists to dh to shop. Which means no spontaneous shopping and very regimented planning.
A little sad, because one of my hobbies is baking, and lack of being about to run to a store or source ingredients really cuts into that.
Anonymous
I am maintaining a 2-week supply of shelf-stable foods that is separate from my other food, and a longer supply of cleaning supplies and paper goods, plus a little Covid kit. This will be a stagnant supply that perhaps I will use and replace annually but not more often. I am prone to overbuying anyway and found the pandemic to serve as an excuse to keep buying and buying things when I really did not need to. This way I just know I have a supply and can otherwise purchase as usual until there is another problem. Also, I never had a real issue getting any foodstuffs, only paper and cleaning products, and I always freeze stores of my favorite seasonal produce (strawberries, peas, peaches, etc.). In fact, I am doing things backwards and now consciously trying to get through pantry and freezer items.
anon8
I struggle with how to stock up on food. It’s just me and my husband and the cats and I have the cats covered. But I usually grocery shop once a week and buy a lot of fresh produce. People talk about stocking up on pantry staples, but is that just cans of soup and pasta?
It doesn’t help that I don’t really enjoy cooking. I have a list of tried and true (easy) recipes that are part of my weekly meal plan, but I don’t know how to convert that to long term food storage. Do I just by ingredients to make multiples of those meals? But then it goes back to buying fresh produce.
I feel like this should be easy, but it’s something I struggle with. So guess the answer is that no my habits haven’t really changed. They probably should but I don’t know how to get started. At least the cats will be well fed.
Anon
Yes, to an extent. We initially stocked up with a ton of frozen stuff – salmon, veggies – most of which has gone untouched. Rather than getting into baking or elaborate recipes we went the opposite way, enjoying guilty, easy staples like Ramen, which in “normal” times we don’t touch, typically preferring to make a nice meal. And we used to go to the store nearly every day – now once or twice a week. It does make you plan meals.
We also enjoy Sunbasket.
It is a good idea – be more mindful, deliberate, spend less on gas, deal less with the occasional inconvenience of going to the store.
anon8
I could easily subsist on pasta, frozen pizza and frozen meals like Amy’s but I know it’s not healthy to eat that stuff all the time. I guess it would be good to stock up on stuff like that if there comes a time that I’m not able to go to the store. For now, I guess I”ll just continue doing my shopping as normal which is about once a week or week and a half. I guess it just took a moment to think it through. Thanks!
anonshmanon
I have expanded my produce selection to include more things that keep. So in the days after shopping, we’ll use up mushrooms, berries, asparagus and salad, and in the second week, we have things like melon, pineapple, banana, cole slaw or shredded cabbage, and carrots.
I used to shop weekly. In March/April, I stretched shopping trips to every three weeks with a produce delivery. Now I am back to a trip every 10 days, and I finally unsubscribed from the produce box. I had been unhappy with their quality for a while and this was the last nudge I needed. Other people maybe need delivery more than us, since we’re low-risk and working from home indefinitely.
Lana Del Raygun
We’ve shifted to getting more pantry staples, and for us that means mostly beans, like a lot of beans! We live right by a Latino grocery so we have access to a much better variety than at the more white-oriented store across town, and my husband has learned a lot more ways to cook them. We also tend to eat mostly frozen vegetables anyway.
Pink
I don’t think you should feel guilty if you have a system that works for you, particularly if you were fine during quarantine. We did stock up prior to quarantine, but we live in a hurricane area too, so it needed to be done. Yep – we bought a bunch of canned goods that we don’t normally eat, and won’t unless it’s an emergency. We also started eating grass fed beef so we ordered a freezer full. But that was more of a coincidence than a result of covid.
Aunt Jamesina
We cook mostly from scratch, so our pantry staples include things like pasta, rice, and other grains, dried beans, oils, canned fish, canned tomatoes, nuts, dried fruit, flour, sugar, etc. Not much in the way of premade stuff like canned soup here. NYT has an article titles “How to Stock a Modern Pantry” that’s a good a guideline of what to stock.
anon8
Thanks! I’ll check out that article.
Anonymous
Yes, if you want to do this, think beyond pasta and soup. I do have soup in my emergency basket, because I love soup as a meal, but I don’t even eat pasta. Consider what you would be okay to eat if you couldn’t get out for a couple of weeks. I have canned fruit and canned greens (I live on green veggies and this is basically the only canned vegetable I like), plus plenty of tinned fish and some canned beans. In addition, I have cans of coffee, shelf-stable milk, water, soda, and yes, booze and mixers. And then I bought some items that are like gourmet MREs — packets of prepared Indian dal and Thai curry and the like. They are actually quite good and I keep them at work for days I forget my lunch, too. Add some rice and instant mashed potatoes. I also always have a lot of dried beans in the house and I froze some mirepoix for cooking them plus some tortillas.
Anonymous
I have continued to grocery shop once a week. I have enough pantry staples and frozen food that I could probably use for quite a while. We always stock up at costco on cleaning supplies, beans, rice, oatmeal, frozen fruit, eggs, chicken, fish. So we have enough of those things for a while.
Paging phds
I’m looking for advice from those who have done a PhD – starting a program (social sciences) this fall. Any suggestions welcome! I’m especially interested to hear things I can do before starting and in my first year to get things kicked off in the right direction. Would love to hear things you learned!
Cb
I have a PhD in political science, albeit in the UK rather than the US, so YMMV. Big existential questions – What do you want to do with this PhD? Is it fully funded for all five years (or whatever length of time PhDs typically take in the US?).
Practical advice – find a reference manager software and start using it now. Do not deviate even if some other software looks cooler. Find a note taking system that works for you, and use it consistently.
Pre-PhD, read all the novels. I’m a big reader and even I couldn’t read the same volume the first two years of my PhD. Figure out your schedule – I treated my PhD like a job and found I coped better than my colleagues who acted like it was an extension of undergrad, with late nights etc.
anon a mouse
Definitely read a ton for pleasure! Reading felt like such a chore, even when I liked the subject material in graduate school. It was several years before I returned to reading books for fun.
Monday
During my first year, I was too intimidated to speak in classes with more advanced students. I am not intimidated easily and usually can hold my own just about anywhere, but I just felt paralyzed. I was giving faculty the impression that I wasn’t engaged and wasn’t doing the reading, which was not at all the case. My advice would be to make yourself speak early on so that it doesn’t become a thing.
Paging phds OP
A bit more context – PhD is fully funded and I will also be a fellow at a university institute, so I will have sole obligations outside of my own research. I’m based in Europe so it is 3-5 years, a tighter timeline than the US. I hold a masters and have already been working for about 10 years in the same field. I have a draft proposal already that I thought through with my supervisor earlier this year, so coming into the fall with an idea & approach in mind (subject to change).
Cb
Ah, super! Honestly I think the European research institutes are great at supporting PhDs, especially if you have a proper role within the department. In retrospect I would have liked to apply for EUI or one of the German/Austrian programmes. I did a visiting post at a uni in Belgium and those were the happiest PhD students I’ve ever met, compared with the grim state of UK academia.
Junior Asociate
Start reading The Professor is In (the blog). I didn’t do a PhD but considered it, bit all my friends who did PhDs in the US reckmmened it.
Junior Asociate
*but *recommended. Ugh.
PolyD
If you want to go into academia, network network network! Try to go to meetings, try to get your name on posters or publications. The more visible you are, the more you will be asked to collaborate on projects, which is important. Also, if your mentor applies for grants, see if s/he will let you help prepare them. If you are ever going to apply for your own, working on them beforehand is probably the best way to learn.
My PhD is in a hard science and fortunately I found a good path outside of academia, but I seriously underestimated the need to network and get my name out there.
anon
try your best to find a peer group. I did my PhD in STEM, so I was automatically part of a lab group. I am not sure how it works in social science. But having a few fellow students in a similar phase and supporting each other is extremely important.
Paging phds OP
Thanks for the input & ideas!
Evodia
I have a PhD in health psychology. These are all great recommendations — the point about reading for pleasure now really resonates with me. It wasn’t until I was in my post-doc that I was able to start reading again for pleasure. Another tip I would offer is to try to make your effort “count” as much as possible. For example, if you’re writing a final paper for a course, try to pick something that feeds into your specific research area so that it can serve as background for a potential publication or your dissertation. Seek out and apply for any funding applications that you can — as the job market gets tighter, faculty positions are really putting a high premium on having (or having evidence of past) research funding. Hold onto to teaching evaluations for any courses you may assist with to enhance your future job applications, too (even if you aren’t sure right now if you want to have teaching as a part of your career). Also remember it’s a marathon not a sprint — you have to make time for self-care and be gentle with yourself because it’s a tough road. Having hobbies you enjoy can help you roll with disappointing research results, burnout, and anxiety. Good luck!!
Anonymous
I’m feeling pretty down this morning. Had a much-anticipated evening with a friend last night. I really like him and I’d like to be close friends, but we aren’t now…we’ve sort faded in and out of touch over the past couple years. I hadn’t seen him in over a year (we don’t live close together). I was even thinking and semi-hoping this evening could be a starting off point for turning into more than friendship, even while I know he has been a serial dater and has not dated for real in years.
The evening itself was fun and had good conversation, then when it got late he was like “well, thanks, this was great, I gotta go home.” No talk about doing this again, staying in touch better, no touching or real flirtiness either.
I’m not quite sure why I’m so deflated. In some ways it’s probably a good thing he didn’t just rip my clothes off meaninglessly–I’d be happy to have a stronger platonic friendship, too, but I just had the feeling when he was leaving “I’ll never see him again.” He’s the first person I’ve seen since the pandemic (he has antibodies so I felt safe) and I was so sad when he left.
Anon
One of the things I’ve learned is that if you want something, you need to go for it. I spent years waiting for someone to make the first move, but it didn’t really materialize and I’m now married to someone I asked out. It’s scary, but if you’re interested in someone why not pursue it? Anyone who is interested will be flattered and if he’s not interested oh well, it’s not like you saw him that often anyway.
Anon
I am of the opinion that we can’t be friends with a guy we’d be interested in having more with. It always ends up being painful.
Monday
I admire the OP for acknowledging that this is the situation. So often people deny their feelings, which makes it a lot harder to move on from a dead-end dynamic with a “friend.”
Anonymous
I do this too. Spin fantasies of relationships that aren’t there. It’s a hard habit to break because it feels good and exciting! But in reality nothing happens and it is sad and I’ve invested too much time and energy into too many men this way.
OP
Yep, it does feel really good until…it doesn’t materialize.
Anonymous
I think it helps not to get too invested in someone like this if you feel you have other options. I know there’s a lot of limitations to dating right now, but maybe you can find a way to socialize (probably online) more.
OP
Thanks, I agree and have been trying, but yes the dating is super hard!
Anon
Has anyone else been following the rise in “Black @ [insert prep school]” Instagram accounts? They’re fascinating and depressing. The same themes keep coming up over and over at multiple schools and over a variety of years. Why is it apparently so hard for white people to stop touching black people’s hair and to stop blaming affirmative action for every college acceptance? I recommend checking out the accounts if you want to get some more insight into the day-to-day lives of bright young students who are not at all immune from racism just because they have access to a great education.
Anonymous
It’s so facsinating to me to think that white people don’t believe this stuff happens all the time. I am not a BIPOC, but I’ve never been under any illusions that these things happen. Obviously, this is the flip of living in my own bubble, right? Not having to think about people who don’t realize this $hit isn’t happening all the time and in all scenarios.
anon @ 11:18
That these things *do not* happen. I always have believed that they do.
Anonymous
There is a difference between not knowing and not believing. It would never occur to most people to engage in this kind of behavior themselves, so they don’t spontaneously imagine that other people are doing it. Unless you read about it or hear about it or witness it yourself, how are you supposed to know it’s going on? I grew up in a diverse area where any racist whites who existed were very circumspect and did not reveal themselves in front of other white people. The hair-touching thing blew my mind when I learned about it. I had never seen anyone do it, and it would never even occur to me to touch a stranger. My mind was similarly blown when I moved to the south and had multiple home repair contractors make racist remarks to me, evidently assuming that I shared their views.
Anon
The blaming affirmative action for every accomplishment is SUCH a thing — I saw it in law school and in my legal career, too. It really upsets me.
Anon
i know that many many people will probably disagree with me, but this is one of the reasons i am more in favor of class based affirmative action rather than race based. studies have shown that given the many years of limiting opportunities for minority populations, it would actually achieve the same, if not greater level of diversity than the way affirmative action currently works.
Anon
My husband very much agrees with this, fwiw. (I don’t have a definitive opinion).
Anon
The same thing happens to women in STEM too. I went to a tech school for undergrad, and have been told countless times that I only got in because I was a woman and even that I had taken the place of a more deserving man. I went on to law school and when I was an associate one of my then-firm’s summer associates, upon learning where I went to undergrad, made a comment that I must have only gotten into that school because I was a woman. My firm gave him an offer and I was furious.
Anon
This makes me especially angry in STEM fields where more deserving women (and immigrants, and POC) have historically been replaced by barely credentialed men when the job gained prestige or popularity.
Anon
This also happened to me (woman in engineering). I just put on a really contrite face and very sincerely told them that I would give up my seat to any man who had gotten higher test scores than I did, but seeing as no one had yet to come forward with an 810 or greater on the math SAT, I would continue to study electrical engineering.
Yeah, I’m a jerk, but I’m a jerk who is amazing at math and doesn’t take people’s misogynistic garbage laying down.
blueberries
I love your response, about higher test scores.
Hildy
+1 I find it pretty rampant in law and it’s deeply upsetting. I’m not good about doing it 100% of the time but I try to remember to call it out when I hear it. I’m trying to be better about correcting in the moment instead of just being upset and flustered and letting the moment pass.
anon for this
Yes, I follow the one for my alma mater even though I graduated several decades ago. I’m also in governance at another small private school that is working on diversity and inclusion initiatives so it is eye-opening to see what happens at bigger schools that are presumably better at this.
Anonymous
It’s racist to say “white people.” ALL white people don’t do this nor do ALL white people do anything else. If someone on this site posted “Why is it apparently so hard for black people to stop….” everyone would be all kinds of upset.
Anonymous
well aren’t you a special snowflake. Triggered much? You forgot to add #notallmen
Your white fragility must be so hard for you to deal with. *hugs* and wishing your strength in overcoming that weakness.
Bless your heart.
Anonymous
Wow, you are a really nasty person, and your response just demonstrates that you are racist.
Anonymous
Okay. Sure, Karen. Did you need to speak to the manager about your white fragility rage?
Anonymous
Nah, it’s not. There is no such thing as reverse racism. Prejudicial? Sure, but not racist.
Anon
This is false. Racism is discrimination based on race.
Anon
There is more to this than most people will acknowledge. The dominant thinking today is that “racism is prejudice plus power,” but I think that muddles the definition to an unacceptable degree and downplays bigotry between groups that are not institutionally empowered (e.g., anti-blackness among Chinese immigrants, anti-Muslim sentiments among black conservatives). My personal preference is to define racism as discrimination based on race and to differentiate that from white supremacy, which is what I would call the structure/system we have here in the U.S.
Anon
Anon at 2:16, you’re using a playbook to bait people into arguments about race that any of us who have been on the Internet for awhile recognize. Your approach and your tactics are tired; your rhetoric is going to be predictable and easy to pick apart; and honestly, your attempts at challenging people and trying to “have a dialogue about race” are going to be a waste of everyone’s time because you’re just here to push a racist agenda; you’re not here to have a genuine exchange with anyone. Again, this playbook is very familiar and your tactics have been recognizable for years. Maybe just stop and go back to Reddit or 8chan or wherever it is you came in from?
pugsnbourbon
You’re probably a troll, but it’s not racist to say “white people.” That’s not what racism is.
On the off chance that you’re not a troll and you’ve just been … asleep for the last two months (or 400 years), here are some things for you to read:
http://www.aclrc.com/myth-of-reverse-racism
https://www.forbes.com/sites/janicegassam/2020/06/11/merriam-webster-is-changing-the-definition-of-racism-to-reflect-systemic-oppression/#7b7bf1b5400f
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/06/09/magazine/what-too-many-white-people-still-dont-understand-about-racism/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/danabrownlee/2020/06/16/dear-white-people-here-are-5-uncomfortable-truths-black-colleagues-need-you-to-know/#3c49b8ef624e
Sloan Sabbith
Racism against white people is not a thing in the US. Prejudice, maybe, although that’s dodgy. But as the article I’ll link in a reply says, “Racism and prejudice aren’t quite the same thing. Racism, rather, is best known as a system in which a racial majority is able to enforce its power and privilege over another race through political, economic and institutional means. Therefore racism can be described as “prejudice plus power,” as the two work together to create the system of inequality.”
Racism is systemic. There is no systemic injustice against white people. Not all white people are racist (although there are arguments to be made that you’re either racist or anti-racist) but all white people have benefitted from this systemic power and privilege.
Read White Fragility. Read Me and White Supremacy.
Sloan Sabbith
http://mic.com/articles/140882/what-is-reverse-racism-here-s-why-it-doesn-t-actually-exist-in-the-united-states
Anonymous
Clearly you have never attended majority-minority schools with racial quotas as a white person.
Anon
I did that once and it was the worst experience in my life. They all spoke Cantonese to purposely exclude me (these were all first gen students, not immigrant’s, they spoke perfect English from childhood), then I was made out to be the bad person. Plus one of my white teachers had a super problematic Asian f*tish. It was all around a bad time.
Anon
Amazing, you’re just reading whatever your white-nationalist friends have told you to say in discussions like this and entering the responses verbatim into the reply box. Do you have any original thoughts to share, Anonymous at 1:57?
Anonymous
Uh, no, I actually was a white child who attended majority-minority public schools with a limit of 30% white students, then attended a public university with a substantial minority population. Throughout all of it, I was openly bullied for being white. Freshman year, I had minority roommates whose parents were doctors. My EFC was $0 and my mother’s house did not have potable running water. Guess which of us got free tutoring provided by the university?
Anon
a group of Black students at my alma mater ( a top 20 school which is about 8-10% Black, which is not that many people since the undergrad population isn’t that big) came up with a list of things for the administration they would like to see changed – one of which is to allow students to select a Black roommate. I highly doubt this will be adopted as I would think it would then open a whole can of worms, but would something like this even be legal?
CountC
Not this exact scenario, but Hidden Brain did a podcast on a similar thing and, not surprisingly (to me), it was shown that black Americans get better treatment by black doctors than white doctors. There was also a discussion about how education for black Americans was/is better when they were/are being taught by black teachers. Also not surprising to me. It’s the May 25th episode if anyone is interested.
Anon
My first thought is that that is a bad idea and probably not legal. I do think schools should ensure that the dorms are diverse, but allowing students to select roommates based on skin color, even in the context of Black students having extremely valid concerns about feeling supported and safe at school, is not a good precedent. I’ll mull this one over though.
Anon
I agree – it simply seems going to the opposite extreme – making skin color a thing – when really it shouldn’t be a consideration for anything – everyone should be equal. It just seems like the whole point is that skin color shouldn’t be an issue. Not to glance over the atrocities of the past hundreds of years…maybe it’s necessary to swing to the extreme of choosing people based on skin color, but I would like to think not.
Anonymous
No. This is just so wrong. Like major major wrong.
Anonymous
+1 We live in reality where skin color IS an issue and everyone is absolutely NOT treated equally. There are studies that show that black people get better health care from black doctors, better education from black teachers, etc.
anon
I agree that everyone should be equal, but saying skin color is not a consideration for anything essentially dismisses or minimizes the experiences that people have based on their skin color (namely racism). As a white person, I do not want to put my desire for diversity above a BIPOC’s desire to feel more comfortable in their own space however they would pursue that.
I just finished reading Make Your Home Among Strangers and have been mulling over how privileged white students, particularly those who have many college graduates in their family, do better in these scenarios. Good book — definitely recommend it.
Sloan Sabbith
I think you’re coming at this from the right place, but I’d encourage you to learn more about why being “color blind” isn’t enough.
Anon
There are definitely ways around this like having dorm “interest floors” where people can opt into an African American interest group. We had tons of things like this where I went to school, spanned a pretty wide range including other subjects like international student house, floors related to certain majors, etc.
Anon
Regardless of legality, it will open up a massive can of worms.
You could have a very similar result by designating certain floors for, e.g., racial awareness or discussions of race. By living on that floor, you agree to read these four books and discuss them at a floor meeting, all books are by people of colour. Yes, some black students would have non-black (white, Asian, Hispanic) roommates, but the floor overall would probably have a very different makeup than the university as a whole.
Hildy
This is an interesting idea
Anon
I think this is odd. The white students that would “select” a black roommate are the type of people that would expect the black person to spend the year educating them. The black students that would select “black roommate” would further segregate black students from the rest of the student body.
Anon
i should clarify – the way this is written is for Black students to get to choose Black roommates – not for anyone else to get to specify the race or ethnicity of their roommate. the students have some other good points in their list, but i feel like including this one kind of weakened their argument
Anon
OK but we allow students to specify roommates by gender? So we are already regularly doing one thing for student comfort. Better still, with the $%$ of money colleges have, why not change the process so students have some say in who they will be living with for a year – maybe a limited pool and then ranked choices.
Anonymous
This would just be for freshman, yes? I am thinking that upperclass students pick their roommates or to live solo. By then, you can pick your AKA/DST sorors to live with (or not) and often people would have or pick dorm rooms to also live near friends. Or be in a sorority/fraternity house or athletic dorm (athletes often room together as freshmen; they often start earlier than other students, too). But for freshmen, I think that there is something to be said for random pics. There are affinity groups once you get to school and 3 years to self-select your groups and housing (e.g., living in “International Studies house” where you are loosely interested in either international studies or living in one of the few dorms with A/C).
I went to State U, where this might open a can of worms.
Anonymous
After freshman year, don’t students get to room with whomever they choose?
OP
yes, this is meant for freshman. for freshman Black students to be able to select to live with another Black student
Senior Attorney
I feel like it would be so self-evidently beneficial for Black students to be able to have Black roommates freshman year (if they so request) that the pearl-clutching kind of blows my mind.
Anon
Would you also let Asian students pick Asian roommates? Hispanic students to pick Hispanic roommates? How about the big one, white students picking white roommates? This is legitimately a case where you’d have the school wading into sketchy legal and moral territory and perpetuating de facto segregation.
Anon
I’m pretty sure no campus in the US has a “white cultural center” but Black cultural centers and other affinity groups for Black (and other minority) students are very common and completely legal. If we don’t fall down a slippery slope with those, I’m not sure why this would be any different.
Anon
Also, unless the school is randomly assigning roommates to all students, you’re already going to have a lot of cultural and racial segregation. Many of my close friends from college are Asian-American and their parents networked with other parents of admitted students to find them a roommate from the same cultural background (my school – and many others – allows you to choose your roommate freshman year if you mutually request each other). The white kids who requested roommates almost uniformly chose other white kids. Not because they’re terrible people who hate Black people, but just because they requested people they knew and they mostly knew white people. So it definitely happens, whether or not it’s sanctioned by the school.
Anonymous
IANAL, but couldn’t this be a housing discrimination problem?
Senior Attorney
If you can’t see the difference between white students specifying white roommates, and Black students specifying Black roommates, particularly in a predominately white college, then I don’t even know what to tell you.
Anon
There is obviously a difference, but if you’re not able to have an actual discussion about the pros and cons, why even engage? Just because you’re a “senior attorney” doesn’t mean that your short posts are automatically wise and true.
Anon
“There is obviously a difference, but if you’re not able to have an actual discussion about the pros and cons, why even engage? Just because you’re a “senior attorney” doesn’t mean that your short posts are automatically wise and true.”
She’s not engaging because it’s not her job to educate you about this. Go do some research (hint – you can use Google searching to learn about things!) and come back with some real questions and then maybe Senior Attorney, and the rest of us, can help you. P.S., salty is never a good look. On anyone.
Anon
The potential pitfalls of this type of scenario are so self-evidently bad that it kind of blows my mind that a an attorney with thirty years of experience can’t see the problem.
Anon
I agree that there are a lot of potential pitfalls, not the least of which is that it will encourage self-segregation at a time when unity and healing is so vital. I’d be fine with optional affinity dorms and things like that, but specifically requesting roommates by skin color, even for a good reason, feels different and detrimental to a well-rounded college experience.
Ellen
When I was a Freshman, I was assigned to a room with a person that I did not get a long with. She was from California and we had different ideas about what we should do when we dated guys. I got very tired of coming back to my dorm b/c she always brought her dates back to our room every time, and she did stuff with them in the room with them w/o telling me, so when I walked in, I saw stuff that made me feel awkward. I told the RA, and she said she should put a sock on the doorknob so that I would know she was doing stuff so that I would not walk in. It did not help b/c the sock was on the doorknob at least 4 days a week. I told the RA that I did not have access to my OWN room, so the RA and my roommy agreed she would only have s-x in the room no more then 2 days a week. That did not work out b/c she did it anyway, so I had to get a singel room. BTW, she was not of any protected group.
Flats Only
I thought picking your own roommate was a thing now. (vs. decades ago when I went to college, and was assigned one). Cube Neighbor’s kid spent the spring networking and corresponding with potential roommates until he had a match – it seemed like it was set up like internet dating. In that scenario I assume that Black students could easily choose a Black roommate if they wanted one, and anyone could filter for any factor they wanted. TBH I thought that the option to choose eliminated a character a building opportunity and chance to get to know someone you might not have naturally gravitated to, but since character building is out of fashion now in case anyone feels uncomfortable, I suppose it makes sense.
Anon
Why *wouldn’t* it be legal? IANAL so I’m truly asking. They put roommates together based on lots of other characteristics and preferences. If you had two people who self-selected in, what’s the issue?
Anon
I don’t think it would be illegal – many schools have a women’s dorm or a Black students dorm that students can opt into, this doesn’t really sound that different?
My school had a dorm “rush” (sort of like what Greek houses do, but for dorms) a week after move in. It’s kind of weird because you move in, live somewhere for a week and then might move again (not everyone moves though), and you can request a specific roommate through that process if you’ve met someone in the first week.. I opted for and got a single, so I’m not sure how it really plays out in practice and I can see how it could lead to hurt feelings if you don’t immediately “click” with someone on campus. But it is one way to give students more say in who they live with without making it explicitly race-based.
Anon
I don’t think there is too much legally wrong with the proposition but I do think it might have some negative unintended consequences. A roommate is typically a freshman’s closest confidant so if you have two people from the same background they may have difficulties navigating certain sociocultural norms within academic institutions that they aren’t aware of. Having a room mate with different lived experiences is a really great way to learn.
Senior Attorney
Or we could challenge those sociocultural norms within academic institutions.
Anon
“A roommate is typically a freshman’s closest confidant”
No way is that universal. I think you’re bending over backwards to find problems with this and ignoring the obvious benefits of living with somebody who has shared experiences with you.
Anon
I have no skin in the game, this is just based on my first hand experiences from undergrad. However this also cuts both ways, a particular room I remember in school was occupied by two UMC white boys and they could not do any basic life tasks and as a result they basically broke every social norm humanly possible, it was truly cringe to watch.
Anon
Counterpoint, the only thing I learned from my freshman year roommate was how much I hate cleaning someone else’s vomit off of a floor (because she got wasted almost every night and would throw up all over the bathroom) and how annoying it is when your roommate keeps drunkenly bringing guys home and having sex with them in the next bed over. I would have loved to have been able to pick my roommate as I would have picked someone who was at least marginally interested in getting an education instead of just partying all the time. The much-vaunted idea that “you learn so much from living with someone you don’t know” is way overblown, in my opinion. I don’t believe that having kids live with people they have never met before and would maybe never even voluntarily choose to talk to is a critical formative experience. All I learned from having roommates I didn’t choose was that I wanted to get to the stage of life where I could pick my own roommates as soon as possible. And in fact, after my sophomore year I worked multiple jobs so I could afford first a single room, and then an apartment by myself, for my last two years of college.
Anonymous
Agree with all of this, but choosing an individual roommate is not the same as selecting only by race.
Anonymous
When I was in college, the prevailing belief among students was that Residential Life purposely tried to pair freshman roommates who were as different as possible from one another, for the sake of “learning from differences.” As in, matching people who said they went to bed at 10:00 with people who said they stayed up all night.
Anon
I remember hearing about this too, which explained why by the end of the first semester of my freshman year, nearly everyone changed rooms – they either got new roommates, moved to a completely different dorm, or moved off-campus. This is a kind of social engineering that I find pretty off-putting. I don’t think it works and I think the philosophy probably a throwback to an older, paternalistic/colonialist mindset.
Anon
My alma mater seemed to match people of very different backgrounds (putting legacies with immigrants, for example), but was VERY strict about putting night owls with night owls, hard workers with hard workers, quiet workers with people who like quiet.
Anon
My daughter started college Fall 2019 and there was an entire housing community for people of color (optional, obviously.)
People also requested and were granted specific roommates. They all found each other using #CollegeYear type hashatags on Instagram. My daughter had long text conversations with several girls before she clicked with one girl and they requested each other as roommates…. and were an absolutely awful match, but that’s another story.
Anon
Yeah, I feel like 18 year olds choose roommates based on who they want to be BFFs with. But having similar habits and house rules is way more important for a successful roommate relationship than being close friends. Back in the day, you filled out surveys about your living habits and were matched based on that. It seems smarter, even if your freshman year roommate was less likely to be a lifelong friend.
Anon
The problem is that no one is going to say “I’m a slob and I will expect my roommate to clean up after me, including 3 week old takeout Chinese food I leave under my desk.”
Anonymous
No but people can respond always/usually/sometimes/rarely to statements like:
– put my dishes in the sink when I am done
– wash my dishes before going to bed
– go to bed by 11pm
– wake up by 6:30am
– vacuum daily/weekly
Anon
My best friend is Hispanic and went to Dartmouth in 1999. At the time, students who identified as a minority had the option of living in a minority dorm. My friend opted out of it and I remember my parents discussing whether the option should have even existed or not.
Anonymous
I’m fairly confident that my alma mater (Davidson College) allowed students to do this… it might have been a broader choice in that those who were considered “minority students” got to select whether their freshman roommate was also a minority student. I have no idea if this is true (and I don’t know how a minority roommate was defined other than racial minorities), but I seem to recall someone telling me this (and stating it as a fact.) and in thinking back two decades ago to my freshman year, I know that two of the black girls on my hall were roommates, but the third girl did not. I have zero idea if this is true or just a coincidence. I’m not recalling what other roommate parings were like, so my sample size is very, very tiny. Like a poster says below – with the two girls who were roomates, I think it created a great deal of intra-hall division. For the one girl that had a white roommate, I knew her much, much better.
Anon
I’m in desperate need of a nice ergonomic chair, but always get sticker shock when I see how much they seem to cost. I’ve seen posts about chairs on here before, but they never get many comments. Does anyone actually own the really expensive ones – Herman Miller (especially the Aeron), Steelcase, Humanscale? Do you think they are worth the price?
River
Depending on local restrictions, maybe check your closest office supply store’s clearance area. The ones near me are selling off tons of stuff from companies that had to liquidate, including really expensive chairs. (I have two family members who are unexpectedly on WFH, and they ended up looking there to get something good.)
Gail the Goldfish
My chair at work is Steelcase. It’s nice, but not so much nicer than the $150 chair I bought (the one Kat posted a while back) that I would spend what they cost if I was paying for it. I miss my adjustable height desk much more than I miss my chair working at home.
Anon
Herman miller is absolutely worth the price IMO. I bought mine second hand off. It was still hundreds of dollars but worth every penny.
Anon
You can buy Herman Miller Aeron refurbs if you’re looking for a better price. I have a fully adjustable Aeron chair and it’s great. I sit in it for like 10 hours a day so the $$$$ was worth it.
Anon
If you have ergonomic issues, I think it’s worth it. The small sized Aeron is the only chair I’ve ever been even sort of comfortable in, since I’m 5’3″ and small overall. I’ve never been able to use the arm rests on any other chair I’ve tried and, at least when I was last looking, no other chair came in a small enough size to correctly fit me (and could be purchased by my employer’s purchasing system). If you can fit in more chairs and aren’t in pain all the time, you probably have more options, but if you need something specific, you might be stuck. It’s really frustrating that almost nobody makes chairs that fit most women!
Anonymous
I also love that the Aeron comes in sizes. I am 5’6″ but have short legs for my height, and the seats on most chairs are so deep that I can’t sit against the back of the chair without cutting off the circulation in my legs. I miss the size small Aeron in my office, and I’m worried someone will swap it out for a large while I’m WFH (has happened before).
Anon
OP update – I’ve looked around for used Herman Millers with no luck. I really liked the Aeron, but it’s such a high price point for me. Additionally, it’s not able to ship for 8 weeks. Steelcase had similar shipping time frames. I went with the Branch Elevate chair for $349 (down from $479). I’ll report back on it if anyone is interested.
Anon
I recently ordered a Steelcase Leap v2 for my petite (adult) daughter, based on a recommendation received here. It should arrive in the next few days. If it works out, I plan to spring for a second one for myself. I will report back.
Ses
I have the Herman Miller Celle. I got it from a second hand office furniture place five years ago and it has definitely been worth it. I find it very comfortable and adjustable, and notice the difference in how much better my home desk setup is now that I’m using it full time.
anonshmanon
Kat, ever since the report function came in, my name and email don’t stick. I check the box, but when I open the page again later in the day, I have to fill it out all over again.
cookie
Same, it’s annoying.
Cat
Same here. It works if I don’t leave the page, but doesn’t save like it used to.
Anon Probate Atty
Same.
Anon
Same.
Vicky Austin
Also still having this problem (I have to re-enter each time I comment despite clicking the checkbox).
Never too many shoes...
Me too!
Lana Del Raygun
Same!
Hildy
Same!
NYCer
Me too. Here and moms page.
Senior Attorney
I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess it’s everybody or mostly everybody.
Kate
Sorry about this! We’ll check into it!
Kat G
What browsers are you guys using? I can’t recreate the problem and I’ve tried like 4 browsers… I know someone else was saying Safari/iPad was the problem but I couldn’t do it.
Horse Crazy
Happens to me every time in Chrome
Hvhgv
Chrome and safari both.
Anon Probate Atty
Safari
Kat G
Can you guys test again? We removed the two possibly problematic plugins… thank you!
MagicUnicorn
Well, other than now being stuck in moderation, that seemed to fix it for me.
MagicUnicorn
Thanks for looking into it, BTW.
Anon
Same, and I’m in mod all the time when I didn’t use to be!
Investment property q's
Any recs for an estate planning attorney and CPA in Philadelphia? I’m buying my first investment property and I want to make sure that I have a will/ trust in place and that my taxes are done right. Any other professionals I should be thinking about?
Philly Estate Planning Attorney
Not sure on the CPA, for for a fantastic estate planning attorney check out Steve Zellinger. https://www.stevenzelinger.com/
Anon
Any recommendations for pimple spot treatment? I don’t have acne per se, and I have dry skin so I don’t want an all over treatment. I haven’t dealt with pimples since I was a teenager, but all of a sudden I am breaking out all over my jawline, chin, and mouth area. I suspect mask wearing is to blame.
anon
Anything with salicylic acid should help. Benzoyl peroxide is great for preventing breakouts but won’t do anything to heal existing ones (and it will stain/bleach fabrics). You can also try the CoxRx pimple patches if you have spots with pus in them. I use Retin-A nightly for anti-aging purposes and I suspect that is the reason why my skin isn’t going to sh*t from masks.
anon
Whoops, that should be CosRx!
Anon
The Burt’s Bees acne stick. That thing is lifechanging.
Carmen Sandiego
Differin. I put it only on spots if I can feel something might be happening under the surface, and it stops them from developing. (It does dry your skin in that area, though, so I don’t put it all over.)
Anon Poster
If dry skin, apply Differin all over at night, let it dry (only takes few seconds) then moisturizer over it. First couple months if using nightly you may have flaky skin which can be removed with rougher washcloth. Inexpensive at Walgreens with coupons and/or their buy 2, get one free.
Aunt Jamesina
I love the Alba pimple patches, I wear them overnight.
anon
I am a die-hard fan of the clean & clear salicylic acid toner in the pink bottle. It isn’t fancy, or fun, but literally fixes everything on a q tip.
Zits
Zitsticka. Expensive but worth it if you’re addressing deeper cystic zits.
Anon
Hydrocolloid bandages. They sell them cut into little rounds just for pimples but you can also just cut up a regular one as you see fit.
Also, longer term, tretinoin. I like Curology.
Thyroid med
Based on a comment in the IF thread above, for those of you who have thyroid issues, do you take synthroid or Armour? Looking for more anecdata on synthetic v natural thyroid treatments. I’m currently on synthroid.
Anon
I take Naturethroid. I think the general idea is that it’s hard to get enough T4 for the whole body without stressing the heart. So that’s the big issue with T4 only. The big issue with combined is that T3 works instantly and it would be better to get a little over the course of the day (like from an extended release preparation), but no one has successfully invented this yet.
I did find it interesting when I did consumer genetic testing that I had some genes associated with improved response to combined meds vs. T4 only, but I don’t know how legit that is.
anon
I’m the poster from the IF thread who suggested Armour. I was on Synthroid for more than a decade but over time I noticed I was feeling kind of blah despite my numbers being in range — low energy, weight gain despite huge effort to lose/maintain, brain fog, etc. My endocrinologist agreed to let me try Armour after confirming that Vit D and B12 were normal — I noticed a huge improvement almost immediately.
Anon
Armour. My doctor is adamant that there is a difference. It kills me every time I need to refill, as my copay is many times what the generics would cost, but I guess it’s still an inexpensive drug.
Anon
Synthroid. I felt much better on T4+T3, but I moved out of state and now can’t find a doctor anywhere in my midsize midwestern city who will prescribe it. They all act like Armour and/or T3 combination treatment is a huge myth. It’s frustrating and I finally gave up.
BlueAlma
I was on Synthroid for years, and it didn’t improve my energy levels. NatureThroid, Armour and a compounded thyroid medication tailor made for me all work much better at making me feel like I can get out of bed and make it through the day.
Clothes
I had to put on work clothes today for the first time since COVID. It made me realize that a look that I thought was perfectly acceptable was NOT a good look…anyone else reassessing their style upon returning to work clothing?
Anonymous
I am. I usually wore dress trousers ( think Express Columnist ), a colorful blouse, 2″ -ish pumps and a cardigan if needed due to AC. Now that stuff look frumpy to me with a capital F. So far from my natural style. What are other people’s go to’s?
Anonymous
Rather than key off other people’s go-to’s for dressing, it might be helpful to look at what your natural style is and see if you can dress more closely to that. Can you wear what you’d normally wear, just in dressier fabrics or a more structured version that makes it suitable for an office? So, for example, pullover sweaters rather than sweatshirts, or silk t-shirts rather than knit t-shirts. Oxfords or loafers instead of sneakers. Eileen Fisher pants instead of joggers from Gap.
Aunt Jamesina
I know I feel more polished in blazers over cardigans, and I’ve almost completely ditched heels for loafers and oxfords. It feels more current and my feet are happier.
Anonymous
I’m going to dress like Katniss
Ses
lol
MagicUnicorn
I’m here for this.