Are you an RN? I don’t know where you live, but my mom’s an RN and after she retired, she kept working for several years because basically she could and they needed her. Maybe because they hired so many LPNs and NACs? (I have massive respect for all nurses, but the devaluing of the RN degree devalues all nurses,…

President Cruz is literally my nightmare. Like, as in I keep having dreams about him and Trump the last week or so. They are not good walks through a beautiful wonderland of flowers, no.

I have to do a work checkpoint that will take an hour tops and I have about a thousand words left of section 2 of my novel; those are the big motivating procrastinations, anyway. I also have about a dozen tabs open with jobs to apply for, but wow is that not motivating. :)

Aw, poor baby, and I love that name! Mine is Apollo, or Lord Merp of Derp, of the New Hampshire Derps, if you’re feeling fancy. He does have the little white hairs, and it cracks me up. Like, what’s up with that, you got one pink hair cell right there and it grew a white hair? I will wind up shaving my cat.

Yeah, definitely. I mean, I’d love to be one of those successful people who just gets head-hunted and offered amazing salaries and all that, but in order to get to that point I would have to stop doing everything else I love and do my profession basically 24/7 and become a “thought-leader” and publish white papers,…

They do, more so than a lot of tuxedos I’ve seen. Though if mine had been posing then, you might see that Granny was an applehead Siamese; he doesn’t look at all like a Siamese but my god his head is shaped like one, and he also has a kink in his tail like they do. But it looks like yours has the same little chin…

I remember reading a thing a couple weeks ago, probably on Jez, about a woman who’s developed an app for women to make friends because she found so many women were trying to use dating sites for that (as she was). So I feel like it must be common, but it’s super dickish to not be up front about it! I’m sorry that…

Ah. I was hoping there was just some lack of understanding of how to manage, not of how to be an effective worker. In that case I’m not sure what I would do, unless going over her head would be useful, in a kind of “I’m interested in this but I feel like I’m not doing as much as I could, can you help” kind of a way.

I just posted a picture of my kitty in the thread this week about dieting because so many people had never seen a cat with mismatched eyebrows, and now here you are. FINE. We can both have tuxedo kitties with mismatched eyebrows, I GUESS. MINE has lapels and EXTRA THUMBS.

Can you talk to your manager about how you would like to be managed, and basically try to coach her into having a management style? Like, not aggressively or anything, do it respectfully, but would that help at all for your peace of mind?

Mine did, but they should have divorced when I was 12, so I may not be the best to talk to. Honestly, what I found was that I was so busy with my stuff theirs barely intruded, but they also got divorced about five minutes after I finally moved to college, so I had a lot on my plate. But what I can say is that you…

AUGH. I couldn’t imagine what they needed an e-newsletter for, and that is my nightmare.

Aw, my kicky-monster always bites the inside of my wrist. It doesn’t break the skin but it huuuuuuurts omg.

Then maybe the thing to do is to split the difference and pay a little more now and save a little more too? I don’t know what your final date is for your loan, but I feel you about the if a single thing goes wrong, especially with Emily. Who, by the way, I am glad to see IS NOT DEAD, despite that fucking vet from your…

I started someone with Feminism is For Everybody by bell hooks; if I recall correctly it gets a bit into intersectionality, which might be a good place for your husband to hook into how feminism is another form of social justice. It’s definitely a bit “older” in terms of when hooks entered the movement, but I can…

Okay, so from what you’re saying, I have two thoughts. One is that you are an adult even if you live with your parents and are on their insurance plan, and you don’t have to tell them squat if you don’t want to. I can’t phrase that any way other than to sound like I’m lecturing you, so I don’t mean to; it just sounds…

...does that belly suddenly sprout pointy, pointy things that grab you and try to kick the shit out of you if you try to pet it?

You make a compelling argument. I mean, I DO like myself, and I DO have plans for oh the next few decades, and none of them, curiously, end with “die in a snowdrift because you cheaped out.” :) Also, I wonder if there’s any kind of emergency-travel thing that I could work out with any of the airlines, because this…

Portland is an awesome city, and I’m a bit familiar with it (I’m north of there) but I’m not sure I’m familiar enough to make specific suggestions. Hm. Have you looked at meetups to see if there’s anything to help you on the path to having friends with specific interests in the area? Not sure how long you’ve been…

I was at Oxford doing a degree in social anthropology. It was wildly fun and enjoyable, and I loved the parts of England I got to see. Oddly, I didn’t make it to the southwest, and I do regret not spending ANY time in London other than once when I needed to extend my Visa (not that Croydon is London). But I traveled a…