I was an English major, but one of my male teachers was in love only with himself, the other with Herman Melville. I may have been oppressively crushing on one of the junior professors, who was happily married but just the kind of tall skinny bearded Shakespeare-loving type I craved. He avoided my longing glances, to his credit. I will always cherish making him laugh hysterically when I and some friends did a scene from Merchant of Venice in the style of Salt n' Pepa, though.
I once got an obscene phone call when I was about 13, but the guy was muttering so low (and I was so clueless) I kept going WHAT? HUH? WHAT DID YOU SAY?? and it wasn't till he hung up in disgust that I realized what he'd been saying.
My grandmother kept a little box of Bible verses printed on slips of paper next to her phone. When she got an obscene caller (fairly often for some reason) she would just start reading random verses until he hung up. (the box was shaped like a loaf of bread and called Our Daily Bread, I remember it so clearly because it puzzled me for the longest time).
I once had some dudes get Very Offended when I complained on a bra thread that I would just like to be able to take my boobs off occasionally (like in summer, so sweaty!) and that dudes don't understand that they're heavy and bulky and kind of a pain in the ass. "But they're so beautiful, I loooove them! Women have much nicer bodies than men!" WHO ASKED YOU dude, seriously. Nobody cares about your boner.
Yes, this is exactly what it's like, yes. Thank you.
What's nice about getting a little bit older is that young dudes get a little bit intimidated by you. So when they do say something, I can usually just raise my eyebrows at them and wait, silently, expectantly, for them to realize they have Stepped in the Shit. They start to stammer and blush. I may or may not smile when I graciously let them off the hook as they apologize.
Older dudes remain oblivious, and don't like me as much as when I was a sweet young thing. That's annoying in a different way. But they don't ask me to fetch and carry for them either.
It was well-known (but unwritten) at my employer that you got a doctor's note mandating that you needed however many weeks of sick leave you had saved up; that got us into "medical necessity" and was called "medical leave", but it was all part of the cludge of maternity non-leave that went along with it. It was odd how every single mom at my work had to get x weeks of medical leave after birth!
That had a lot to do with us only having one child. Even though I changed employers, the whole ordeal, on top of the normal stress of having a kid, was more than we could go through again. It's brutal.
Ladies; if you want kids, or want your kids to have kids, without going broke and insane, get your asses out and vote. Nothing changes if we do nothing.
"Wow, mom, thanks for lending me your robe, it's really warm."
"It's yours. Take it."
"But.."
"TAKE IT."
Does everyone know about the Shirley Temple version of [The] Little Princess? Dad doesn't die in that one either. It's also very bizarre.Also all the online versions have that crappy colorization.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyCzOTRbPug
Ugh, Dickon, so sanctimonious. Ugh, Colin you entitled twit. Forget them both, Mary. Go see the world, hold on to your skepticism, enjoy being a rich old spinster, and when people ask you about your parents tell them "They were assholes who died of their own stupidity and nearly took me with them."
I once tore the corner of a 1500s-era manuscript I had, for some reason, been told to scan. I didn't tell anyone. I still feel bad about it. But they really should NOT have just let our department slap that thing on the scanner, so I also blame the archivist who loaned it to us.
![[Avatar]](/images/avatar26.png){kind=avatar}
Company