Coffee Rings and Scribbled Lines

After graduating with a BA in English, I transplanted from the cold shores of the Upper Peninsula to Boulder, Colorado. Now, I'm working on a PhD in Wisconsin, so you can expect a healthy dose of lit theory, Anglo-Saxon and Shakespeare geekery, feminist ramblings, and...

[or-even-cured]

Ok, I just need to write this all down and look at it because it feels like this can’t possibly be the story, but here’s a shit event per month for the last year:

Feb ‘19: Had a grant denied by an asshole during a hearing, started to spiral out from burnout/unacknowledged mental health issues as a result.

March ‘19: Actually, I think this was fine. Well, at least, I don’t remember anything happening, other than constant anxiety/fear/depression/fucking up a conference I was organizing for no good reason.

April ‘19: Found out Mike died.

May ‘19: Found out Andrew died.

June ‘19: Got in my first car crash and totaled the rental. Still fighting about the bill to this day. 

July ‘19: Got physically assaulted by a total stranger on the street for the first time.

August ‘19: Almost screwed up grad school (and my paychecks) because I’m still burnt out and can’t student right. 

September ‘19: Got stranded on a broken bus to Chicago for a couple hours (that wasn’t too bad, in the long run). 

October ‘19: Had a miscarriage for the first time.

November ‘19: Partner of 8.5 years forgot my birthday. He uses my miscarriage as an excuse.

December ‘19: Ended relationship with partner. 

January ‘20: Living alone for the first time ever, which has actually been great. But, I had to cut off all contact with now-ex-partner at the end of the month because I no longer felt safe with him having access to my place.

February ‘20: Got sexually assaulted (not for the first time). Secondary partner (on and off for a decade, friend for more than half my life) alternates between blaming me and gaslighting me. I have to cut off contact to avoid the constantly triggering behavior and denial of my agency. I’m constantly being reminded, lately, that I still have to see a guy who actually raped me a few years ago. No, I never reported that. Yes, I have reported this assault. And everything fucking sucks. 

Is the world just cursed?

[or-even-cured]

Jesus fucking christ, I’m sorry, I feel like this pandemic is my fault now because of *course* that’s what happened in March 2020, of course that’s what happened when I finally let myself think “this has to stop now, right?”

[or-even-cured]

Ok, I just need to write this all down and look at it because it feels like this can’t possibly be the story, but here’s a shit event per month for the last year:

Feb ‘19: Had a grant denied by an asshole during a hearing, started to spiral out from burnout/unacknowledged mental health issues as a result.

March ‘19: Actually, I think this was fine. Well, at least, I don’t remember anything happening, other than constant anxiety/fear/depression/fucking up a conference I was organizing for no good reason.

April ‘19: Found out Mike died.

May ‘19: Found out Andrew died.

June ‘19: Got in my first car crash and totaled the rental. Still fighting about the bill to this day. 

July ‘19: Got physically assaulted by a total stranger on the street for the first time.

August ‘19: Almost screwed up grad school (and my paychecks) because I’m still burnt out and can’t student right. 

September ‘19: Got stranded on a broken bus to Chicago for a couple hours (that wasn’t too bad, in the long run). 

October ‘19: Had a miscarriage for the first time.

November ‘19: Partner of 8.5 years forgot my birthday. He uses my miscarriage as an excuse.

December ‘19: Ended relationship with partner. 

January ‘20: Living alone for the first time ever, which has actually been great. But, I had to cut off all contact with now-ex-partner at the end of the month because I no longer felt safe with him having access to my place.

February ‘20: Got sexually assaulted (not for the first time). Secondary partner (on and off for a decade, friend for more than half my life) alternates between blaming me and gaslighting me. I have to cut off contact to avoid the constantly triggering behavior and denial of my agency. I’m constantly being reminded, lately, that I still have to see a guy who actually raped me a few years ago. No, I never reported that. Yes, I have reported this assault. And everything fucking sucks. 

Is the world just cursed?

[or-even-cured]

Ugh, fuck this.

Fuck being broken up with, again, by someone you were explicitly keeping in a minimalistic, no-breakup-necessary relationship.

Fuck falling into the same old traps again when you thought you knew better.

Fuck Cancers.

Fuck gaslighters and victim-blamers.

Fuck giving any of those privileged assholes any credit/leeway ever again.

You're almost 30, you know better by now.

And fuck sexual assault. Fuck it so hard. Fuck its ability to steal your power and ruin a good thing, just by existing. Fuck men who abuse women.

Fuck this society. I welcome the new queer poly overlords. Take me now.

[or-even-cured]

I was up most of the night, and definitely woke up too early this morning, but I can't stop thinking about the news from last night. I can't stop crying when I think about how abruptly and artificially our friendship ended, about how many times in the intervening years I wished we still talked.

So, I started a scrolling through messenger, all the way back to February 2011, to try to relive those conversations. And then I broke down all over again when I realized this was the last message I sent to you, the last time I tried to reach out:

"[...]So there's that, and the fact that I just lost two dear friends. And I hate myself for not talking to them as much as I could have. So, in a moment of you-could-be-gone-any-minute-itis, I want to say thanks. I know that our friendship was brief and bizarre, but talking to you gave me hope again. You reminded me of what I loved about life, and made me realize that I can find that in someone who doesn't have lofty PhD goals or the fingers of a guitar god. So, in case we never speak directly again, thank you, and I miss you, and I'll always care about you.

Auf Wiedersehen."

[or-even-cured]

“The water in the photo looked so black and dismal, but the foliage on both sides looked serene and beautiful. I see death as a river that we cross.”

I've lost dear friends tragically and suddenly, I've lost dear friends that I hadn't seen in years, but I hadn't lost someone to suicide, until now. Now you're all three forms of tragedy rolled into one. We were only friends briefly and it seems a lifetime ago, but I still think about you and our conversations from time to time. I think I always held out hope that we'd reconnect some day. But now all that remains are words already said, and damn you for writing these particular words as you left the world.

[polyadvice]

I'm in a polyamorous relationship where I get less sexual attention than I'd prefer. Is it wrong to pursue that elsewhere?

I’m a cis-man in a long term committed polycule with a man and a woman (10+ years). I don’t know enough about the lifestyle to explain what we are but predominately he and I are a couple, and he and she are a couple. He has never really identified as bisexual but essentially identifies as demisexual just with me. He has admitted in the past that he is less sexually attracted to me and it definitely shows. Emotionally I am very happy with our family (we all live together with 2 kids) but sexually I need more. I’ve recently asked to open the relationship which he is fine with, but is it bad to just want an outside relationship predominately for sexual gratification? I require emotional connection to be intimate with anyone, but I’m not looking for a long term relationship I don’t think. Am I wrong for wanting or looking for this?

You are vastly overthinking this, my friend! Your partner is okay with it, and it’s something you want - you should pursue it. Our culture has a lot of weird moralizing baggage around seeking “sexual gratification,” but there’s nothing wrong with pursuing that kind of fun, pleasurable experience. Your partner has another person he has sex with; if it’s possible for him to have sex outside his relationship with you in a healthy and consensual way, it’s clearly possible for you. You would not be hurting anyone. Go for it!

Be careful about setting arbitrary or prescriptive limits on whether you plan for it to be an emotionally committed or long term relationship. Often, those are promises we can’t keep, whether we make them to ourselves or our other partners. Be up front with the people you meet that you’re primarily looking for an emotional and sexual connection that can stay ‘casual’ indefinitely. And make sure you check in with your partner and metamour about what measures everyone needs to take to stay safe, since you’ve been a closed triad and now will be exposing everyone to a new set of sexual health risks.

I also want to say something about the line in your letter that you’re not familiar enough with “the lifestyle” to give a specific term to what you’re doing. Friend, you’ve been living together as a happy, functional family for ten years, and you’re raising kids together! You’re a subject matter expert! This is one reason that I really don’t like the tendency in the polyam crowd to want to come up with a specific term for every little thing - it implies that there’s some sort of esoteric knowledge that makes your polyamory more “real.” This isn’t black magic, and it’s not a secret club. You are living “the lifestyle” more fully and successfully than many, many people! You did a great job explaining and defining what you three are, and do, and have. There’s nothing missing from your language or expression!

[or-even-cured]

This response is so beautiful.

[or-even-cured]

Thrifty grad-student things:

Splurging on a turkey for friendsgiving (thereby feeding a hoard of people and enjoying lots of free alcohol)

Making a fuckton of stock out of said turkey carcass after rescuing it from said drunken people

Skimming the fat off of the cooled turkey-jelly and using it as schmaltz for cooking to avoid buying a new bottle of olive oil for a little longer

Spending 5 minutes emptying the absurdly large number of red pepper packets the pizza guy dropped off (when the partner ordered delivery) into the almost-empty crushed red pepper jar in the spice cabinet

These are things I’ve done every year since I started grad school (though rarely in the same week), and I love it. That red pepper jar is from undergrad for fuck’s sake. 

[or-even-cured]

The bittersweet joy and pain of seeing old friends while being reminded that others are no longer here.

[batmanisagatewaydrug-deactivate]

highlights from the medieval scholars that took over my workplace today

so my campus is currently hosting an ENORMOUS conference of scholars who study medieval history. they’ve been completely flooding the tiny cafe where I work and drinking our coffee faster than we can make it, but the good news is that they provide some PRIME people watching, including: 

the fact that all of their name tags include pronouns so that I won’t feel bad assuming anyone’s gender in this post

the woman RANTING about one of her colleagues on the following grounds: “he thinks he understands it from some class he took in 1996! FUCK OFF, TOM.”

the man who was loudly and earnestly discussing the “influence of the Harry Potter fandom on our modern political discourse” while he got a soda 

before he was out the door he’d switched topics to his preferred methods for teaching students about elves 

the two nice extremely polite young British lads who I could not tell apart to save my life. their name tags indicated that they were apparently not twins, but cloning does not seem impossible.

the sheer number of people graciously volunteering to buy lunch for people they’ve just met 

an unexpected number of very handsome soft butch women involved in medieval studies. I am bisexual and weak.

the guy in the flannel shirt who had the coldest, softest, most feminine hands I’ve ever encountered. I fell in love with him for a good 60 seconds. I am bisexual and weak.

people who aren’t from America being cheerfully confused by our money, including my favorite, a Canadian woman who told me “I’m slow with American money because it’s all the same color.”

I’ve learned that people who aren’t going to be in the country for more than a few days don’t give a SHIT about their change and will toss all of it in the take a penny/leave a penny jar. I collected so many quarters, y’all.

also a nice British woman called it the penny pot, which is the cutest shit I’ve ever heard and absolutely its new name.

just in general the EXTREMELY good grace and patience with which everyone accepted that we only have 2 cashiers and that it takes about seven minutes to make more coffee.

SEVERAL times after I apologized for the coffee wait (because this is customer service and minor inconveniences mean we have to grovel) the response was ‘lmao no worries this just means I get a fresh pot’

a woman approached me to day with a fucking enamel pin of that old illustration of a nun gathering dicks from a tree (you know the one) and I said immediately “oh my god, is that a pin of the penis tree?” and she looked stoked and said “yes it is the penis tree! you’re only the second person to recognize it!” what kind of boring ass medieval scholars has she been hanging with???? she was probably so fucking excited to finally have company where she could wear that pin and nobody said anything??? rude.

you know, this one

[batmanisagatewaydrug-deactivate]

I have more:

every single person who said “cheers” when I gave them their change.

the painfully hip young man who was dressed entirely in standard academic business casual EXCEPT FOR his shiny silver doc martens. 

me: “you boots are amazing.”

him: “!!!! thank you!”

the man who walked in, spotted the selection of high octane energy drinks, and nearly cried with relief. when he came to the register to pay for what was probably enough caffeine to kill a horse he looked me dead in the eye and said cheerfully “thanks, I’m jet lagged as shit and I can’t be expected to function right now.”

the dude who overheard my friend Austin listening to Florence and the Machine, started chatting with him about it, and asked him out on a date

I sold a hot dog to An Actual Nun

[or-even-cured]

Grad student problems: when you rent a car to stay in Michigan for a week after the conference, but you wind up spending (probably, it looks like now) the first half of the week holed up in someone else's apartment because you didn't get enough writing/grading done before you left.

I should have just taken the train and not rented a car until Wednesday or Thursday...

[or-even-cured]

Do you live in Chicago now?

Uhm, no? I do drive through it sometimes to get from Wisconsin to Michigan, though.

[bedcorpse]

reasons to love harrison ford

1. hates donald trump 2. got his ear pierced at claires because why not 3. legit asks people to beat him up in action scenes EVEN NOW AS AN OLD MAN 4. is arguably one of the most iconic star wars characters yet couldnt give less of a crap abt star wars 5. the universe tried to kill him (or at least permanently incapacitate him) twice in 2015 and it only mildly inconvenienced him 6. flies helicopters in search and rescue missions 7. was in his 40s for the majority of the indiana jones series which is insane when you think about all the stunts involved 8. quote “the director yells cut and harrison cracks open a beer and then builds a fucking shed” 9. arguably sexy 10. points angrily and its super effective

[fiyhi]

11. is just a really sweet person 12. no really my dad worked with him on firewall as the tech advisor and he was just a really swell guy 13. got my mom’s birth date from my dad and sent her flowers 14. he sent my mom flowers for her birthday 15. he didn’t even know her he just wanted to be sweet

[bedcorpse]

this was a beautiful and necessary edition to this post thank you oh my god

[thecarrisonfiles]

Awwwww

[where-are-your-source-citations]

Originally posted by yourreactiongifs

[madlori]

When he was asked to be in Jimmy Kimmel’s “I’m Fucking Ben Affleck” video, in which he pulled up alongside them in a car and gave Jimmy a little wink and an air-kiss, when he showed up at the set he looked kind of put out. Kimmel was afraid he wasn’t down with what they were asking. But he just said, “I don’t know, this wardrobe…don’t you have anything mesh that I could wear?”

[losethehours]

When he was filming “Witness” he rented a small farm from a friend of mine. At the end of the filming my friend went and checked out the property as usual. He noticed the barn door had been leveled so it no longer would swing open on it’s own. Went into the house and saw the closets had been redone, in the kitchen the cabinets had been replaced and all the drawers now opened really well. Turns out that there were thousands of dollars of work and materials put into fixing up everything at the place.

My friend called Ford and asked him how much he was asking for the work. Ford told him doing that kind of thing helped him relax and stay sane when he was filming. Would not take a dime. Plus he paid for a new water heater and got the sewage system cleaned out.

And he paid rent to live there the entire time.

[angremlin-deactivated20250312]

Local Carpenter Stumbles Into Stardom, Worries This May Interfere With His Carpentry

[grenade-maid]

My step sister was driving through Wyoming once, near Ford’s ranch. She stops for gas, and as she’s filling up, this huge motorcycle roars in behind her, scared the pants off her. The rider, dressed in all black steps off, and she yells at him “who do you think you are blasting in here like that, you Darth Vader looking motherfucker?”. He takes off the helmet, and it’s Harrison Ford, and without missing a beat he says

“Hey! I’m not Darth Vader, I’m Luke Skywalker”

[estebanwaseaten]

From the co-production designer on The Force Awakens, Darren Gilford:

“The Millennium Falcon was the first thing we were actually building. I had been in London and I came home back to L.A. for Christmas. So I go to Sports Chalet to do some last-minute shopping; I get there early, run to the back of the store, get what I need. I’m coming back through the store, and I just happen to pass this person holding up a pair of ski pants, and it’s Harrison Ford. I look at him, he looks at me and puts his head right down. I can tell he doesn’t want to be bothered; I’m sure from the look on my face he knew I knew who he was. 

So I walk past him, and after about 10 feet I think, ‘If there’s ever a time to say hello to Harrison Ford, I’m building the Millennium Falcon!’ So I turn around very hesitantly and go, ‘Harrison, I’m sorry to bother you. I’m co-production designer on the new Star Wars, I’m just back from London, and I’ve been building the Falcon.’ A big smile came across his face, he put his hand out, and we had such a great conversation — he couldn’t have been sweeter. 

As I’m walking away, he goes, ‘Darren!’ and calls me back. He goes, ‘The toggle switches.’ I go, ‘Toggle switches.’ He goes, ‘The toggle switches on the Falcon. When they built it the first time, they bought cheap toggle switches without any springs in them. Every time I threw a toggle switch, it fell back; it wouldn’t hold. It drove me crazy. Please, make sure the toggle switches are fixed this time.’ I go, ‘No problem! I’ll take care of it!’ 

So months go by, I’m back in London, we’re getting close [to principal photography], and I get a phone call saying J.J.’s headed down to check out the cockpit, and Harrison’s with him. I run down there and I see J.J. in the passenger seat and Harrison in the pilot seat. They’re just giddy; they’re having so much fun. And then I see Harrison look up, and he just starts throwing all the toggle switches: boom, boom, boom, boom. [Laughs.] And I remember thinking, ‘Phew, minor victory. Take solace in that and move on. Next task.’ That’s my favorite story.”

HARRISON FORD SMILES WHEN MEETING CREW MEMBERS AND IS A NERD FOR FUNCTIONING PRODUCTION DESIGN

[livebloggingmydescentintomadness]

Don’t forget about his Halloween costumes

[trans-goblins]

Harrison ford is a chaotic-good-aligned cryptid, confirmed

[or-even-cured]

The theme of this week seems to be "at least the comments from men on State Street are... New?"

Yesterday, a man told me "I like your stomach." Definitely hadn't heard that one before.

Today, a man said to the guy selling newspapers "Oh, she did *not* look like a smoker" as I was fishing one out of my pack.

What does that even mean? Is my semi-professional academic aesthetic too clean for a smoker? What. Does. That. Mean.

Also, notice that he referred to me in the third person even though he clearly intended it for my ears. Ugh.

[or-even-cured]

Having a damn existential crisis over here.

I'm on Youtube, and there's video on the sidebar titled "New $24,000 Singapore Airlines First-Class Suite."

That's more than I make in a year, just to fly somewhere.

Like, just, what is this world, how did we get here?

Uggggh.

[or-even-cured]

Prof mentions that she’s inviting some other grad students to join the seminar in a couple weeks. 

Describes the group of grad students, and you realize that That Asshole(TM) fits the description. 

Decide to address it (privately) and ask if she’s invited That Asshole(TM).  “No, but I should reach out!” Stare awkwardly into the middle distance. “Why? Is he critical of (scholar who is coming to that seminar)?” Take a deep breath. “No, It’s... um... it’s just, it’d be easier for me if he wasn’t here.” “Oh, Ok, uhm, well, there will be a lot of people, but I’ll let you know.” Sigh. 

[just-shower-thoughts]

A werewolf film written by a woman wouldn’t be as interesting because they know how unrealistic it is to be caught by surprise by something that happens regularly every damn month.

[uswe]

#run right into queue#no no no no no the exact opposite#by this standard a werewolf film written by a woman would be much more interesting because it would be more /varied/#some werewolves who are prepared not only for their own shift but also for those of six of their closest packmates#some werewolves who wake up already covered in fur and look at their ruined clothes and think ‘oh /shit/ that was yesterday’#some werewolves who can’t be assed to figure out what day it is and therefore have an alert set in their phone#so that once a month they wake up not to a blinking ‘wake up’ message but to ‘wake up and Be Prepared’ and dramatic hyena music#(and then inevitably lose/break/forget to charge their phone the day before and spend hours humming uncomfortably#before suddenly remembering at the least convenient moment possible and rushing off stripping as they go)#not to mention the one werewolf who only transforms one night a month and then has to refrain from gloating#while they help their one packmate who’s been shifted for an entire goddamned week and has started dreaming of murder (via @ereborne)

[squirrelstone]

And then there’s that werewolf who goes three full moons without transforming, then transforms one night during a waxing crescent moon.

[fangirltothefullest]

Now I’m imagining some on the werewolf form of the pill and having to regularly keep up their schedule and one werewolf telling another that they used to have such irregular changes but the pill now makes things so much easier and the other werewolves being like oh man I should talk to my doctor about this.

[awellboiledicicle]

All i imagined is some poor fucker that’s like “you think you have it bad. I got my first change at 9 and change sporadically every 4 months or so. For 2 weeks. Sometimes it happens randomly so i just gave up.”

[nannyoggskitchen]

   #for days before the change you’re extra growly and constantly want to go for walkies  

[pedeka]

@writernotwaiting

[malicemismanager]

Why. Is this not a thing already. Why.

[angstriddentrashhuman]

Wake up pissed and agitated with a headache and slam some aspirin with no real thought to the matter because it must just be a shit day. Halfway through the day they just “…oh shit that explains so much fuck fuck fuck”

[i-let-the-wine-go-to-my-head]

I’d watch this. I’d watch this so hard.

[annagetsthefabulousbabes]

GingerSnaps.

[averagefairy]

old people really need to learn how to text accurately to the mood they’re trying to represent like my boss texted me wondering when my semester is over so she can start scheduling me more hours and i was like my finals are done the 15th! And she texts back “Yay for you….” how the fuck am i supposed to interpret that besides passive aggressive

[runawaymarbles]

Someone needs to do a linguistic study on people over 50 and how they use the ellipsis. It’s FASCINATING. I never know the mood they’re trying to convey.

[feynites]

I actually thought for a long time that texting just made my mother cranky. But then I watched my sister send her a funny text, and my mother was laughing her ass off. But her actual texted response?

“Ha… right.”

Like, she had actual goddamn tears in her eyes, and that was what she considered an appropriate reply to the joke.I just marvelled for a minute like ‘what the actual hell?’ and eventually asked my mom a few questions. I didn’t want to make her feel defensive or self-conscious or anything, it just kind of blew my mind, and I wanted to know what she was thinking.

Turns out that she’s using the ellipsis the same way I would use a dash, and also to create ‘more space between words’ because it ‘just looks better to her’. Also, that I tend to perceive an ellipsis as an innate ‘downswing’, sort of like the opposite of the upswing you get when you ask a question, but she doesn’t. And that she never uses exclamation marks, because all her teachers basically drilled it into her that exclamation marks were horrible things that made you sound stupid and/or aggressive.

So whereas I might sent a response that looked something like:

“Yay! That sounds great - where are we meeting?”

My mother, whilst meaning the exact same thing, would go:

‘Yay. That sounds great… where are we meeting?”

And when I look at both of those texts, mine reads like ‘happy/approval’ to my eye, whereas my mother’s looks flat. Positive phrasing delivered in a completely flat tone of voice is almost always sarcastic when spoken aloud, so written down, it looks sarcastic or passive-aggressive.

On the reverse, my mother thinks my texts look, in her words, ‘ditzy’ and ‘loud’. She actually expressed confusion, because she knows I write and she thinks that I write well when I’m constructing prose, and she, apparently, could never understand why I ‘wrote like an airhead who never learned proper English’ in all my texts. It led to an interesting discussion on conversational text. Texting and text-based chatting are, relatively, still pretty new, and my mother’s generation by and large didn’t grow up writing things down in real-time conversations. The closest equivalent would be passing notes in class, and that almost never went on for as long as a text conversation might. But letters had been largely supplanted by telephones at that point, so ‘conversational writing’ was not a thing she had to master. 

So whereas people around my age or younger tend to text like we’re scripting our own dialogue and need to convey the right intonations, my mom writes her texts like she’s expecting her Eighth grade English teacher to come and mark them in red pen. She has learned that proper punctuation and mistakes are more acceptable, but when she considers putting effort into how she’s writing, it’s always the lines of making it more formal or technically correct, and not along the lines of ‘how would this sound if you said it out loud?’

[allthingslinguistic]

Reblogging for reference because I’m working on this exact question for the book right now.