That’s not selfish at all. My assault was a very long time ago, and I’m rapidly approaching middle age. This election season has left me basically not wanting to do anything beyond curling up with my knitting and my kitties and watching cartoons. The world needs you, so do whatever you have to in order to make it…

All the stars for you!

Wow. Just, wow. I have a VERY pregnant colleague (E) and we were all doing cake for someone’s birthday a few days ago. Another co-worker (T, a woman, with two children), made some comment about how E couldn’t just “plan” to have an epidural, she needed to try labor without one first, otherwise, it wasn’t really labor.…

I’m always amazed at the cognitive dissonance required to be a woman who travels around the country telling other women they should stay at home with their families.

Woah. That’s damn impressive.

Audiobooks are your friends for this. I usually have one fairly mindless TV project, and one more complicated project that I have to watch what I’m doing. I love audiobooks for when I need to actually look at what I’m knitting.

I’ve got cables and lace down (although, I’m a painfully slow knitter), but I haven’t gotten up the courage to try stranded colorwork yet. I’m impressed. My current project it attempting to conquer short rows while learning to make socks. Knock wood, so far, so good. =)

Yeah, the south rim trail is kind of freaky in places. There’s the stairway down to the river (I’ve forgotten the name, it’s named after a person) gave me the wiggins. The views were incredible, but most of it is essentially ladders, and, between the exertion and the elevation I was starting to see stars in a couple…

I’m not sure when that was, but the paintpots were open in Sept 2014 (at least the paths going around the edge were open).

I’m 1980, I’ve heard the small segment born between about 1978 and 1983 or so referred to as the “Oregon Trial Generation”, but that’s far from universal.

You and your wife are awesome. My mum didn’t shame me, but she clearly didn’t like talking about periods. I knew where the pads were kept in the bathroom, and I don’t think I told her until 2 or 3 days after my first period started. She didn’t like tampons, so I was on my own for buying them and figuring them out.…

Do they involve the words “black”, “athlete”, and “woman”?

THE FUCK?! Oh, that dude is begging for a dickpunch. I’ll settle for making a formal complaint to NBC, though.

You beat me to the reference. I mentioned upthread that the description of company towns and housing always brings to mind “16 Tons”.

Aaand, now I have “16 Tons” stuck in my head. (Somehow, that song was my childhood introduction to the concept of ‘Company Towns”.)

I’m a biochemist, so I don’t have to deal with field work gear, but I’ve learned that the fastest way to get completely talked over and discounted in a meeting or while giving a talk is to look overtly feminine, and like I’ve put thought and effort into my appearance. I actually find it frustrating since I have to…

She wasn’t part of the decision making process on that one (I wind up doing the hiring on this front, because no one else in the lab wants to). I was only talking to her about it because I was trying to be polite/ sociable with lab chat, and I was thinking out loud and wanted someone to bounce ideas off of. She was…

Last fall, I was hiring a student lab assistant for the lab I work in. I had it down to two candidates, one black guy, one white. I mentioned to my co-worker that the black guy was a Posse Foundation scholar, and I was thinking that would probably be the final mark in his favor (it’s NOT an easy program to get…

Me too. I’m starting to get back into the dating game at 35, and between the actual guys I’ve met lately, and these kind of stories, crazy cat lady spinsterhood is looking better and better.

I remember a friend of mine telling me, when she was pregnant with her second child, that she half expected to walk into the Dr’s office next time with a second head growing out of her shoulder and have the Dr respond “You’re pregnant. That’s normal”.