gdp's Comments

The Toast : Link Roundup!

Tue, 14 Apr 2015 15:33:02 +0000

I'm in training to become a mortician, but I'm planning to donate my body to the UTK Body Farm (my sister is studying with them right now). There are so many diverse and fascinating ways to personalize funerals and what's done with remains, if you can imagine it, you can pretty much do it. It's really exciting.

The Toast : Link Roundup!

Tue, 14 Apr 2015 15:26:26 +0000

There are several companies that make biodegradable cremation urns filled with seeds, so ashes go in, the urn is buried, and a tree grows from the urn. Insta-tree!

The Toast : Friday Open Thread

Fri, 16 Jan 2015 17:53:28 +0000

My husband is waiting on his decisions and keeps turning to me in the dark and whispering, "What do I do when I don't get in anywhere?"

The Toast : Friday Open Thread

Fri, 16 Jan 2015 17:51:57 +0000

My opinion is that of only one person, but as an art historian, I would say that the valuation of art is a collective delusion, forgery/connoisseurship is a lost art, and I would totally save some money and do a reproduction myself. It's not even illegal as long as you don't try to sell it. Further reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_A._Landis

The Toast : Other Astrological Signs, Illustrated

Thu, 11 Dec 2014 14:13:22 +0000

Evan, this is fantastic. I'm totally a Stapler, but I WISH I were a Skull.

The Toast : Other Astrological Signs, Illustrated

Thu, 11 Dec 2014 14:12:42 +0000

That sounds fantastic, but there are many roads to misandry. My alma mater was all-male for 100 years until they became co-ed during the 1960s, and though the ratio is pretty even now, I've heard several very old, very white, very male professors there say, "I've been her since before women were allowed in, and from the very first year they have destroyed the men and left them in their intellectual dust, and so I entreat you, men, to step up your game if you wish to compete, for the women are your superiors." Hand to God, I've heard this multiple times. So the point is: everywhere can be a misandrist paradise if we all work together and disdain (unworthy) men.

The Toast : Friday Open Thread

Fri, 5 Dec 2014 21:32:50 +0000

That's another thing, re: doctors and scientific-based reassurance. I'm going to be moving in the next year and getting a new job and thus new insurance, so I'm hoping I can get to a point where I'm financially/coverage-wise able to see a specialist and more importantly, FIND a good one. I freaked out about this same issue in high school because of some arm weakness, and I went to our local Big City World-Renowned Hospital, and they were completely unhelpful. I was shuffled around to people who didn't know anything about the condition until this Doogie Howser type totally dismissed me, saying it was a recessive gene-linked deal and there was statistically no way I'd have it. That would be great news except he was totally wrong, because my dad's specific case was a genetic mutation that could go either recessive or dominant. This doc hadn't even done due diligence on the case file. So I'm scared of running into ignorance and unhelpfulness (I have extraordinarily bad luck with finding good doctors, mostly due to where I live), but I'm older and wiser now and infinitely more knowledgeable and ready to kick ass until I get some answers. But first I have to pay for it. (Addendum: Big City Hospital is now apparently has a whole dept. dedicated to this disease? That definitely wasn't the case 10 years ago. Feeling hopeful.)

The Toast : Friday Open Thread

Fri, 5 Dec 2014 21:27:56 +0000

Thank you!

The Toast : Friday Open Thread

Fri, 5 Dec 2014 21:27:20 +0000

Do you have any running shoe recommendations, or do I just have to go to the fancy store and trust them?

The Toast : Friday Open Thread

Fri, 5 Dec 2014 21:26:15 +0000

I guess here's the part where I ask for running shoe recommendations.

The Toast : Friday Open Thread

Fri, 5 Dec 2014 21:00:52 +0000

This may be too late and get lost in the OT shuffle, but I was in a meeting and missed the OT launch...I've been really bummed lately about something kind of heavy, which is nonetheless totally outside my control and futile to worry about. My dad died from complications of a rare genetic disease when he was 31. He started showing symptoms and was diagnosed when he was 27. I turn 27 next year, so it's been on my mind a lot lately. There's no guarantee I have it (25% probability of being symptomatic, possibly higher chance of being a carrier), and genetic testing costs more than my wedding. There's no real point in knowing; I don't plan on having kids, and I feel confident in my ability to manage the disease to the best of my ability, should I have it (so, not worrying too much while remaining vigilant--for example, there are procedures that could have saved his life had his doctors been aware of them, like installing a pacemaker. If I'm in that situation, I will become Iron Man). However, in the past several months I've started experiencing totally innocuous things that may be but probably aren't related to his symptoms, namely really horrible leg and foot cramps (it's a musculoskeletal disorder). All I know about his pathology is what I've heard from family and read in his medical records, but I do know he had debilitating leg cramps in the years leading up to his death. Are leg cramps a normal thing a lot of people experience? Of course. Were they possibly not related to his disease at all? Very possible. Have I been trying to up my running schedule, and do I have cheap running shoes that are probably making it worse? Yes. Do they scare the crap out of me anyway and reduce me to a gibbering mess of insecurity? DING DING DING. The real kicker is that this particular disease doesn't follow a set pathology, so two individuals with the exact same mutation can exhibit totally different symptoms, so me sharing the same symptoms he did really might be meaningless. Even if I do have it, my version could express itself in a different part of the body or ten or twenty years later than his did. It's the guessing game that lasts a lifetime! I don't know if I'm really asking for advice so much as blind reassurance...I find it difficult to discuss this with people in person because they find it really disturbing as opposed to something they've been facing their whole life and find a natural if anxiety-producing annoyance. When I say I'm going to throw a barn-burning, last days of Rome-style 32nd birthday party for myself, people clam up. So I just wanted a space to express my fears, groundless though they may be, and say that I'm dealing with this. Thanks for listening.

The Toast : Link Roundup!

Fri, 21 Nov 2014 15:53:52 +0000

He knows a lot of veterinarians who are okay with it and counseled him on the possibility of horse STIs! WHO ARE THESE VETERINARIANS

The Toast : Link Roundup!

Fri, 21 Nov 2014 15:52:37 +0000

I read that last night, and I got so angry, I went to bed angry, and I woke up angry. I've decided to start a group of itinerant nuns wandering the countryside intoning, "That is not consent, you keep using that word, I don't think it means what you think it means" because people, horse dude and people in general, clearly do not understand.

The Toast : Terrifying Screenshots From Unassisted Childbirth Forums

Tue, 4 Nov 2014 21:00:46 +0000

I have a job and get paid money and have health insurance, which I use to cover my husband as well, who temporarily does not have a job or get paid money, and I discovered yesterday that our insurance costs for next year are going up 100%, and that's for the cheapest plan we're being offered. So next year I will have the terrible insurance I hate having now but with the added privilege of paying twice as much for it. (I do however have the option to get vision coverage this year so I came home and told my husband to get ready for new glasses, as I am going to force him to get the most expensive ones covered.) The point of this was that of the three plans we were offered, there was the terrible one I have, which I'm calling The Ayn Rand Plan (due to language explaining that by not covering anything, the plan encouraged consumers to make wiser medical decisions and shop around for treatment), a middle option that was ooookaaaaay but not much better, and then a Fancy Option that included, among other things, no deductible, tiny copays, and FREE AMBULANCES. I fantasized for a little bit about the next time I have an anaphylactic reaction to All Food being able to snap my fingers and gurgle, "Hither, Ambulance Boy." Unfortunately, that plan would have cost a significant percentage of our income.

The Toast : Link Roundup!

Fri, 31 Oct 2014 14:45:09 +0000

I understood it as the mom saying the ghost strangled the woman, not the boyfriend. The one titled "BFM" really got me. REALLY GOT ME.

The Toast : Link Roundup!

Fri, 31 Oct 2014 14:01:00 +0000

Possibly funny story: my husband used to work for A Prestigious Literary Magazine, and the editor told him about going to A Fancy Dinner Party For Authors (in D.C. or NYC one, can't remember), and he was seated at dinner next to Joyce Carol Oates. He said she was hands-down the worst dinner companion ever. She had a little notebook out and was eating with one hand and scribbling constantly, almost automatically with the other. She never stopped, and she answered all his polite questions with monosyllables. He said he couldn't decide if she were a really dedicated writer or just someone incapable of functioning in society. I think we know now.

The Toast : Aunt Acid: Advice for the Holiday Season

Wed, 29 Oct 2014 19:08:11 +0000

Omg, my in-laws are the sweeeeeetest people in the world, and I will always adopt them as my own family and appreciate their non-awfulness forever. But I may cry though.

The Toast : Aunt Acid: Advice for the Holiday Season

Wed, 29 Oct 2014 18:54:12 +0000

Cosigning the cold shoulder in response to bad behavior. This year my mom chose to send me a passive-aggressive text message about my wedding pictures, which she did not pay for, at 8 AM, with no "good morning" or anything before it--on my birthday. I ignored her until she sent me a birthday greeting. That being said, I'm reading all the above advice and comments wondering if my family is particularly awful or if it's just me, because I am all about the NO. Mom finally decided to get her act together and schedule that horrible holiday dinner with her family? I have plans. I'm not coming. Sorry not sorry, since there wouldn't have anything I can eat there anyway. I know I would have loved to experience a repeat of the "Of course there's nothing you're allergic to in that, oh wait there's cheese in it, why are you being so melodramatic with the vomiting, why are you always so difficult" dinners or the Ruining My Engagement fiascos of the past. Are holidays really important? What if I just...didn't go and spent my one and precious life with people who appreciate me?

The Toast : Link Roundup!

Fri, 24 Oct 2014 14:10:16 +0000

I have no words for how amazing that Luvvie article is, or at least no words better than the original commenters, so I'm going to borrow some from commentor gemsmom and say: "*waving my funeral home church fan at everything you said"

The Toast : Cocktail Hour: Open Thread

Fri, 17 Oct 2014 16:02:22 +0000

I'm starting my internship toniiiiiiiiiiiiight I'm so nerrrrvoussssssssssssss even though I'm probably just going to be standing there smiling sympathetically at people but ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Thanks for all the love and support last week, Toasties!