FRIDAY OPEN THREAD: I’m Reading A Newspaper As We Speak, Even Though It Might Be Frowned Upon

Hey there, rocket men / women / people! When are you gonna come down? I hope it’s soon, because it’s time for the Friday Open Thread, every Friday’s legendary girl-on-girl Internet party. It’s BYOB, but, like, that is totally balanced out by the scene, y’know? We have a Friday Open Thread every week, most likely because a lot of us would rather sit at the computer than embark on journeys out-of-doors (is it just me?) but also because you’re all so cute that I just wanna pinch your cheeks and I can’t imagine myself doing that without first creating a safe space in which you can post photos of those cute faces as well as your pets. Especially your pets.

This is my pet. His name is Eli, and I’ll post a photo of him every time you comment on this very post with a picture of your fuzzy or not-fuzzy friends who aren’t human. Feel free to post other photos, too — like of dinner, or your girlfriend. Or to post videos! Or links! OR JUST WORDS. Whatever makes you happy sets me free.

2014-04-26 11.24.52

In the three weeks since I last gathered y’all up for some semi-forced socialization, not much has happened in my own life — aside from the crippling occasional feelings of self-doubt, some really shitty rain, and me getting sunburn from literally going outside (a good sign that summer is here). But I did actually manage to accomplish one of my life-long goals in those three weeks: I established a morning routine.

Yes, I confess — it has only been two weeks and I have already fucked it up three times – but this shit is kind of amazing. I wake up, I drink coffee out of a real coffee pot (I mean, I put it in a mug first) that brews for me every morning at 7:30 with toast on the side, I watch Weeds (if I’m wearing heels) or Arrested Development (if I oversleep) or listen to NPR (if I’m being nerdy), get my shit together, cuddle with my dog, and then grab a paper on the Metro and head to work — and when I finally arrive, relatively close to on time and pretty darn perky, I feel like I’ve already accomplished something.

The thing about having a morning routine is that you can only do these things in the morning, and I know this because I’ve tried it at night. Compulsively cleaning while listening to talk radio at 10PM? Not cute. Reading a paper on the train home at 6PM? Extremely weird and incredibly isolating. Nope, night time is for Netflix, eating fried goods after I’ve already eaten dinner, and falling asleep right as I’m intending to set my alarm for the next day.

Carmen Rios, 11:30 PM, roughly every night of the week.

Carmen Rios, 11:30 PM, roughly every night of the week.

So, here’s my set of questions vaguely directed at you, dear reader. What’d you do when you woke up like this? Did you read a paper, crack open a beer, or hit “snooze” like, a billion times? Either way, I’m enthralled. When you grab the newspaper for the train, do you recycle it after or keep it in your bag by accident most of the time? I sympathize. Are you a morning person? Luckily, none of this matters if you aren’t — because I’d also like to know where you’re going tonight, young lady, and also how you’re feeling and how exams are going and when your next date is and how sweet the moon looks in her eyes and how your pet’s vet visit went and did I mention PETS, that if you post a PET photo, it ends with more PET photos? Maybe you don’t have a PET, in which case you should take a picture of the kale or edamame or sugar snap peas you’re munching on right now and show those to me, too. Hell, send along your fucking Mother’s Day plans and ask me where I bought my mom’s flowers in exchange for 30 airline miles to each dollar. I don’t care what you share so long as you GET IN THERE! I want to know every single thing about you – right down to how you take your coffee. Leave a comment and tell me whatever you damn well please! Doesn’t matter what you say, because true love is unconditional. And remember: Comment on other people’s comments, too! It’s an open thread, not an open Facebook wall. Keep it interesting.

Bring it on, blaring alarms of humanity which compel me to start anew each day. I’m ready for you.

How To Post a Photo In The Comments:

1. Find a photo! This is the easy part. Find a photo on the web, right click (on a Mac, control+click), hit “Copy Image URL,” and then…

2. Code it in to your comment! Use the following code:

<img src=”http://imageurlgoeshere”>

If you need to upload the photo you love from your computer, try using imgur.

*How To Post a Video In The Comments, Too:

1. Find a video on YouTube or Vimeo or WHATEVER and click “embed.” Copy that code, but first make sure it’s for 640px wide or less. If your player is too large, it will not display properly.

2. Copy the code and paste it directly into your comment.

3. Go forth and jam.

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Carmen

Carmen spent six years at Autostraddle, ultimately serving as Straddleverse Director, Feminism Editor and Social Media Co-Director. She is now the Consulting Digital Editor at Ms. and writes regularly for DAME, the Women’s Media Center, the National Women’s History Museum and other prominent feminist platforms; her work has also been published in print and online by outlets like BuzzFeed, Bitch, Bust, CityLab, ElixHER, Feministing, Feminist Formations, GirlBoss, GrokNation, MEL, Mic and SIGNS, and she is a co-founder of Argot Magazine. You can find Carmen on Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr or in the drive-thru line at the nearest In-N-Out.

Carmen has written 919 articles for us.

130 Comments

  1. my morning routine depends on if I have to go to work or just go to uni…
    If it’s work day it means I need to wake up too early so I’ve got the fastest get-out-the-door routine: wake up, shower, get dressed, pack laptop, eat breakfast while making lunch, pack lunch, leave the house! Usually takes me 30min but I wake up 45min before I need to to give me wiggle time.
    If it’s uni day, I’ve got no routine :P

    Congrats on nailing your morning routine!

    • See, for those of us who are unemployed uni student, uni *is* my routine. Otherwise I never wake up! I role out of bed ten minutes before I have to leave the house. I envy your commitment to consciousness!

  2. My morning routine: Wake up about fifteen minutes before I need to head out the door. Frantically run around apartment trying to find clean pants. Brush teeth, grab makeup bag, feed hungry cat, head out door. Do makeup in car while driving (safe). Get to work/class with one minute to spare swearing that tomorrow I’ll actually wake up early.

    IT NEVER WORKS.

  3. I accidentally came out to my father like 20 minutes ago. He saw me roaming the mall with m’lady. His opinions/feelings on anything that I do doesn’t mean a thing to me but it felt liberating in a way. He didn’t raise me but he has the title and being g able to say that I’m out to one of my parents feels pretty damn good. Leta just hope he doesn’t pick now to get back in touch with my mother.

    Also, I went halfsies on a feeldoe with my new girlfriend. So that’s exciting.

  4. Yesterday I was in Copenhagen surrounded by literally shiny, super excited humans and today I am home in London half-heartedly planning a dissertation/revision game plan for the next month. On 9 June I will finally be at the end of this undergraduate degree, which is cool, but I don’t understand why I’m not just always at Eurovision. Everything is the worst.

    Also this is me and the cat I live with, neither of whom are proficient at selfies:

      • But there’s the eurovision final tmrw to look forward to. I hear you on deadlines/uni push on push on, we can all make it to June! Wish I was finished this year.

    • you and your cat are adorable

      eli and i are bad at selfies, too, but i took this sort-of-selfie of him once:

  5. Today’s morning routine consisted of wishing there was milk for my tea and then avoiding doing any MA work (even though I have deadlines :'( ) by binge watching rookie blue until Peck got kissed by a girl…
    Most days my routine is read queer theory/art theory with a cuppa and write my reflective logs whilst taking long exposure pinhole photographs and watching netflix. MULTITASKING!

      • i feel like i use netflix as a sub for talk radio by playing it so often in the background, which is even more appropriate when it’s frasier.

    • Reading queer and art history. One knows the ultimate workforce in life. I could study both constantly. Love the fact that most artists are of the queer type or have radical leanings. Good for you. Fun reading. Alex

  6. I’m going to get a little dirty, but my morning routine consist of me getting up and going to the bathroom and read the news(including Autostraddle). After that a shower & imagination time how adorable I will be once I have enough to start HRT and get breasts. I get sad that my hair isn’t this flowing beauty, but instead of an expensive rug(something is has been compared too). Maybe HRT will help there. Eeeep

  7. I don’t work in a typical way that would warrant a usual morning routine. BUT I do aspire to get back into my ideal Summer Routine which is:
    1. Get up (eeeeeeeearly)
    2. Go for a run/walk (before the sun comes up)
    3. Shower
    4. Breakfast
    5. Get on with the rest of the day feeling powerful.
    Like, those are great goals to aspire to, right? I’m 98% sure I can accomplish them too, so thanks Carmen for helping me set a goal! Also, this week has been a healthy mix of ehh and yay, the ehh being the slings and arrows of great familial loss/friend problems and the yays having to do with A-Camp related emails, and solidifying plans for my wonderful sister to come into town! Here is a picture of said wonderful sister with our family dog, Grace

  8. My usual morning routine is hitting snooze for an hour+ on my “wake up and do the work/exercise you were too tired to do last night” alarm. Then I wake up when my second, more reasonably timed alarm goes off. I probably should stop doing this, but on the up – waking up without snoozing at my standard time means that I’ve actually started having breakfast at home, rather than rushing to see what I can salvage at work. So… small victories.

    As for this w/e… I’ve spent too much time this week burning the candle at both ends (probably a sign I should quit the above) and I’m downing tea and vit C in bed. But whatever, I may let the cold take me, because if I get it now, I’ll be clear by A-Camp, say whuut.

    • YES. i used to hit my snooze button for 1 – 1.5 hours, and eventually decided my roommates hated me behind my back but were too nice to say it and kicked myself in the ass about it. did you know that when you hit snooze you get groggier? IT’S SCIENCE.

      also omg caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamp!

  9. I am having a really bad day. Normally I feel like I should keep those to myself, but I am heartbroken and no one in my life has been able to say anything comforting at all. My great aunt is dying.

    She is the only family member who completely supported me when I came out. She was a feminist before World War Two. She joined the Army instead of having kids and supported herself as an officer in the Army nurse corps for twenty four years. Then she retired and worked as a national director at the Red Cross for another fifteen years. She took me to Italy when I turned sixteen and she gave me the money for my first tattoo. She was mostly straight, but when I told her I was gay she smiled and said “I had a gay affair back in the seventies. It was lovely.”

    She moved in with my grandparents a few years back…so she could help support them financially and they could take care of her while her health was poor. My grandfather, a staunch Baptist preacher, would not allow her to have her two friends over, a gay couple my aunt had served with in the Vietnam War, because he wasn’t going to allow two faggots under his roof.

    Now she is dying. Her body is rejecting all food and she is under hospice care. She is slowly starving to death and in almost constant pain. And all I can think about is the fact that I didn’t visit her enough. I want her to die as quickly as possible so her pain ends. But she is still here. And I am heartbroken, and angry, and sad, and my Friday is awful.

    I know this post is full if misery, but I just don’t want to be the only person carrying this weight today.

    • Heather,
      Your aunt is an INCREDIBLE woman and I’m so sorry she is in so much pain and you are experiencing such a great loss. These things are never easy to deal with, but I commend you for sharing the weight of this with us, because your aunt sounds like someone we all would have loved to know. My thoughts and prayers are with you and her as you go through this difficult time and beyond.

    • I’m so sorry. Your great aunt sounds like an amazing person. I know I can’t say anything to make this any less of an incredibly difficult and painful time, but I wish you strength through it.

    • So sorry to hear about what you’re going through… and you shouldn’t feel like you need to keep it to yourself (unless of course that’s what you’re normally comfortable with).

      Ideally everyone would have at least one person in their life like her – she sounds completely outstanding. I can’t even imagine what you must be feeling… but just know that best wishes are being sent to both you and her.

  10. Heather,

    I’m sorry to hear about your aunt. I totally understand feelings of guilt.. My aunt died suddenly, at least suddenly for me, considering I didn’t even know she was terminally ill with cancer and I immediately broke down in the cab, because I was sad I didn’t even get to say good bye, but instead of just going down that path, and what’s the word? i can’t think of the word.. oh yeah, wallowing in the pain, I wrote her a letter and I also went to her funeral and shared some nice sentiments about how grateful I was that she let me stay in her apartment and how she loved books and makeup and it was really touching.. it was a small funeral. Anyways, the reason I’m sharing this with you, is because I just want you to see that you don’t have to feel guilty, she’s still around, for you to tell her that you love her and that you care for her and that you’re grateful for, I had to do it after she passed, because of family drama I didn’t even know she was sick,

    I am sending you lots of good thoughts!

  11. my day..
    starting studying for finals. it’s the day before my (our) birthday. I’m a twin :)..

    started really good but got a bit tired.. going to cuddly with our puppies and maybe see spiderman with my gf. I missed her so. she was away for a week and half visiting family abroad. so I’m so happy she’s back..

  12. I’m so NOT a morning person and I’m totally incapable of waking up at a decent time when I’m on vacation, but, when I manage to wake up earlier than usual,I really enjoy it! Doing things in the morning is, I don’t know, different? I think it makes me feel better about myself.. but sadly, my bed beats my conscience 90% of the time.

    Tonight I think I’m staying in because I really have to study and today I. DID. NOTHING. I mean, the only productive thing I did was buying tickets for a St.Vincent concert (that counts, right?)

    Also, I don’t know if someone here can relate to this, but as an addicted to tv series, right now I’m really really sad about Community being cancelled. (#sixseasonandamovie!)

  13. Guys, I need hugs, my cat has been in the hospital for 3 days, and I didn’t even want a cat and then this one came into my house while I was bringing in groceries like “Whattup this is my house human” and who was I to argue with that?

    The vet says he’s going to be ok, but my bank account is another matter. Pets are expensive, but you can’t just put down an animal that might otherwise have a normal life if you just do this one thing, right?

    Anyway, here’s my lovely boy.

    • this is so sweet but also heartbreaking. amazing that your kitty will be okay! if you need funds, totally consider a gofundme for this sort of thing – everyone loves a fuzzy friend.

      eli sends his love from our stoop:

  14. Hold her in your heart Heather she will always be there with you.

    As for morning routines usually mine goes smoothly but today was more like Alana’s – it’s Saturday here and already this weekends work is turning into a farce. Ah we’ll it’s my weekend on Monday.

  15. Let’s start by saying I work at 12pm three days week. I am not in any way a morning person. Plus, I take some substantial psych meds which means I am groggy for about two hours after waking.

    Fun part is when someone calls,usually a professional, and I just woke up not even a minute. I try to sound all together, but most times people know I just woke. Gets interesting when your trying to explain something and the person says,I can’t understand you. For me, I’m thinking, why???

    Why do I pick up the stupid call when I know I can call them.

    Great thing today. My appointment with the gender/sexuality adjunct therapist went awesome!!!! She does art expressive therapies, so very excited cause maybe my art, writing etc will enhance the therapy.

    Pets, well I am a fish killer. I had two neat looking goldfish fanatics,one silver and one red. Didn’t clean the five gallon tank for over a month. Then it officially happened. No more fish.Fish funeral toilet bowl style.

    I think I might have any pets for a while.

    One day maybe a cat again. Who knows. A partner or friend would be better.

    That’s my chaotic contribution.

    • when i was a little girl, my brother and i bought two fish – one each. mine died because she wasn’t fast or tough enough to steal food from willie, who ended up living for years. i can’t remember exactly how many now but i swear, it was like eight or so years. ultimately, he yearned to be free – all my pets have – and would bang his head against the bowl and jump out and was just this wiley old man. when he passed, it was a fucking AFFAIR – a funeral for a god.

      it’s ok not to have pets – i think friends are probably better. you’ve got so many friends right here!! including me and eli, both. don’t worry – i’ll give him the baths.

      • Thanks for the friends comment, really needed it tonight. Feeling lonely and also being alone. Tough day recognizing I have to start admitting to myself my trans male gendered/queer issues, including sexual orientation which scares the check out of me.

        Have fun with the baths. I could relate to your fish story. The fish died in the night, so when I woke, had to go to work quickly. Felt guilty flushing them. But it’s all water.

        Can’t stop thinking about labels. Which I know there is no real truth but mine. But I have a variety of identifications tmale genderqueer or just queer sounds right. But how do I describe it when telling others, especially coming out???

        Elsewhere by Sarah McLachlan suits me now.

  16. I have a math exam tomorrow morning, and instead of studying for it I am procrastinating the fuck out of everything. That’s right – I’m procrastinating so hard, it’s transitive.

    • I wish I was a math geek just as much as I wish I was a crack of dawn six mile runner. I have to study just to take the graduation standards math test. I didn’t use it and I lost it. Grrr…

      • Oh my god, I failed the basic math test when I got into college and I had to take TWO, NOT ONE BUT TWO, pre-college math classes. THAT STILL COST THE SAME AS COLLEGE CLASSES BUT DIDN’T COUNT FOR SHIT. RAGE. ALL I FEEL IS RAGE.
        Anyway. Yeah. Math. It sucks.

  17. Usually I start my mornings with raisin and cinnamon toast (amazing!!!) and 2 coffees by 9am but I am on holidays at the moment!!! So I eat, drink tea and spend the morning with autostraddle or my scrapbook :-)

    • TWO COFFEES? that just sounds like a chest pain waiting to happen. i made this raisin and cream cheese dip but i have a weird thing with creamy products so today i passed it up for butter. plain ol’ bread, plain ol’ butter. WHATEVER.

      • Whhaaa? 2 coffees is too much? And here I was congratulating myself on weaning down my coffee addiction to just 2 in the morning… >_>;; Both of your bread products sound delicious though. :D

  18. So I’m having a pretty perfect Friday. Wine, puppies, best friend on FaceTime, and cookies from scratch. Wish I could share them all with you!

  19. This week I finally REGISTERED! Hurray! I applied for a summer job I probably won’t get and don’t actually want. I made three new friends, two of whom are my first queer RL friends. The other isn’t and I’m honestly a bit worried about her beliefs in that regard but we’ll see. One of these people I managed to talk to today without being all social anxiety ridden and making a total ass of myself and then she FB friended me. I know this is like business as usual for most of you but all of this for my hermit self is awesome!

    I am NOT a morning person. I am only capable of grunts before I have a large pot of tea and plenty of adjustment time, which involves reading new posts on autostraddle, bitchmedia and facebook. I have great admiration for those of you who get up at the crack of dawn to go for a six mile run in the rain/snow/sleet. I have always desperately wanted to be one of you, but alas, I’m not.

    I actually love staying in on a Friday night because I’m usually really tired out from the week. I just wish I had a cuddle friend to fall asleep with in front of the TV. :(

    • oh my god i wanna be your sofa friend. do you know how many people want me to go out tonight? it’s ludicrous. OF COURSE I’M STAYING IN AND WATCHING FRASIER, DUH. WHO DO YOU THINK I AM.

      • I hope you’re up to my super power couch potatoe style! Thanks for reminding me of Frasier! Was looking for something to watch.

    • Hey, I’ll be both yours and Carmen’s cuddle friend! I’m watching the entire first season of OITNB tonight all by myself…

  20. Downside to my Friday: I have killer cramps that seemingly no amount of ibuprofen can get rid of, and just want to lay down and die

    Upside: I am going to my first queer dance party tonight!!!! A girl from my class told me about it, and I’m nervous but also excited and I figure it will be good ‘practice’ for a-camp haha ;)

  21. I got this fortune cookie message today:

    “May the rainbow always touch your shoulder.”

    yeah, I squee’d.

  22. I have an extremely specific weekday morning routine and it throws off my whole day if I’m interrupted or otherwise prevented from carrying it out normally.

    My alarm goes off at 5:55am so I’m actually awake and in the shower by 6am. I get out of the shower and turn on the kettle for tea. I go back to my bedroom (a whopping eight feet from the stove, I live in a tiny place, so I’ll definitely hear it whistle but I try not to let it do that so it doesn’t wake my roomie) and get dressed, hopefully in clothes I chose and set out last night.

    I go into the kitchen and cook up breakfast: cheese on eggs on toast and a slice of toast with jam, and a glass of vegetable and fruit juice because I hate vegetables in real life. I make my tea and set it in the fridge so it’s a drinkable temperature before I have to leave for work.

    I go back into my bedroom (tiny place – no kitchen table, and certainly no dining or living room, who are you kidding?) and set aside breakfast to cool off while I do my morning pages (which thanks to your new tarot column, now includes a daily tarot card). I write in OmmWriter instead of by hand.

    After I finish that, I go get my tea from the fridge, and usually I have to scarf down my toast and tea and juice while I check Twitter and make sure nothing was on fire last night (because of where I live, I’m several time zones ahead of many of my friends and most of the news I follow). If I have time, I’ll read an article here, but I don’t usually have time because I have a train to catch: the 7:05am from here, so I can take the 7:19am from where I transfer (and yes, they almost always run exactly on time) and get to work half an hour early (7:30am).

    I clock in, check my inbox (the physical kind), and head upstairs to my library. I use the early morning time before work starts to add to my “morning stories,” some writing I keep at work as something to look forward to in the morning. I love my job, but who likes mornings? (I like mornings, because I have a morning routine.) I use a really different structure for writing my “morning stories” than my other writing, so it’s fun and I start the day feeling productive.

    When work actually starts (8am), I write a to-do list and go downstairs to make some tea.

    … that is probably way more detail than you wanted, but I have a lot of feelings about my morning routine.

    • i am so deeply inspired. i think i might print this out and frame it on my wall. this is exactly what i want in my life.

      i think once i can actually do 7:30, every day, i am bumping it up to 7 so that i can either write a thing (like, a thing for this website!) in the mornings instead of writing things at night like i normally do, or so i can go to work, grab three newspapers on the way, and read them all by my office window before anyone has a chance to ask me how to connect to our printer one more time.

  23. My morning routine consists of me setting my alarm twenty minutes before I know I’ll get up so I can hit snooze twice, reluctantly dragging myself out of bed twenty minutes before I know I have to leave the house, and generally not being a person until I’ve had a cup of black coffee and a cigarette. And inevitably, being late to school.

    This week, I decided to attempt going vegetarian! I’ve been thinking about it for a while and the girl I’m dating is a vegan and has acted as a catalyst for me to actually do it – I’m only four days strong, but I think I can actually keep this up. (And honestly, I didn’t know vegetables could be so tasty/filling. Really.)

    My exams start next week and I’ve been in hermit mode to study, but I’m having a Eurovision Party tomorrow and I cannot wait! Any other Eurovision fans here? (I know the opinion is very divided – but I love it for its kitschy ridiculousness and how gay it is every year.)

    Autostraddle, please have a Eurovision open thread tomorrow. Please.

    • vegetables are amazing. seriously. i’ve been a vegetarian since the 7th grade (how fucking far long back was that, idek) and i sometimes literally want to eat a bowl of vegetables for dinner – no sauce, no nothin’, just some THINGS THAT GROW FROM EARTH.

      also – a bonus to being vegetarian is the limited menu selection when you go out. it forces you to eat out of your comfort zone, or it just makes things easier. either way – it’s a total win until you go to a steakhouse.

  24. My partner and I are at the end of a 10-day trip home to our respective home cities on the east coast to meet each other’s families.

    Her dad hit on me yesterday when he found me alone in the kitchen, and she had to sit him down for a stern talking-to this morning because I was afraid to go back downstairs by myself.

    (I love the shit out of her FOREVS, you guys.)

    My mother didn’t exactly win her over, either, so it’s been a stressful as FUCK trip.

    WE ARE GOING HOME TOMORROW THANK GOODNESS.

    HOWEVER, for the first time in 2 years, I got to see my 3 sisters, my little brother, my grandparents (who found out I was bringing home a female human only 2 hours before we arrived, and were SO CHILL ABOUT IT, to the point where they later countered my sass with a threat to send me away and keep my girlfriend instead), and I got to snuggle hard with my nephew, the only boy I will ever love (aside from Taylor Hanson, obviously), sooooo basically all the shitty, shitty bullshit was worth it for that.

  25. I wake up on work days at 520am. On my days off I wake up at 6am to go to the gym. Horray for the extra 30 minutes of sleep!!!

    Also, like I promised:

  26. My morning routine has turned in cereal and coffee in the afternoon,I’m bored waiting to start a new job. :)

      • I have cereal for dinner almost every night because I get off work at 10pm and aint’ nobody got time to make a meal that late at night with class in the morning. I absolutely agree that cereal tastes better at night.

  27. With everyday that passes I feel like I am spending more time daydreaming, and even dreaming in my sleep, about A Camp. I am super duper excited! I want to be on the mountain with a bunch of lovely folks already!

  28. I’m kind of a morning person? I mean this in the way that I can wake up easily but not in the way that I am capable of being polite company until I’m completely dressed.

    My day was spent doing laundry and cleaning my room because I have an online test tomorrow with a proctor who gets to watch you while you take it so you don’t cheat. It freaks me out but it’s required. After this invasion of my privacy, I will most likely wind up binge watching Venice to make me feel better/get angry and cry again because Ani and Gina are not together.

  29. I’m such a morning person so I’m either watching politics or getting ready for my morning run. My girlfriend really hates it because she is not a morning person.

  30. I’m glad Autostraddle is a place where I can bond with other weirdos who are hanging out at home on Friday nights. I’m crampy and headachey so I’m just lying in an awkward position on my couch singing along to Britney Spears songs and eating pizza. PARTY.

    • i am like, extremely tempted every day for some reason now to do two things:

      1. buy a milkshake
      2. order a pizza

      i resist these things, and normally never crave them, so it’s been super weird. what’s a girl to do?

      RACHEL RICE DON’T TEMPT ME

      • Um, yes! Anything good tasting is my enemy! If I eat anything other than vegetables I gain weight, like, for reals!

  31. I got a haircut today which looks badass and made me feel amazing, but then my good mood got deflated a bit when I got hit on at the bus stop by a weird 60 year old man. He told me my (visible forearm) tattoo and my haircut were “very jazzy for an older lady” and asked me to go sailing.

    • if it makes you feel any better, i also feel your haircut is jazzy and would like to take you sailing. in a platonic way, though.

    • Ewwww! I hate how creepy people can totally ruin one’s day! I’ve had things like that happen and I always feel like I really need a cerebral enema to get the after taste out of my brain! I totall mixed metaphors there but whateves.

      Congrats on the hair though!

    • when i have tired days, i buy iced mocha coffee at 7/eleven. this sounds like rewarding myself for bad behavior, but it isn’t, because two of the male employees there hit on me every time i go in and sometimes audibly fight over who gets to ring me up, or otherwise audibly compliment my, um, body. to be honest, though, the coffee and croissants are too cheap – and arguably mid-quality – to turn down either way.

  33. This week has been kind of stressful for me. Work stuff, estranged family members stuff and just physically feeling tired all the time. My way of coping has been to throw myself into a new book series. Eventually I will have to actually deal with my own complex feelings and try to make the best choices I can, but tonight is all about the escapism.

  34. In less than five weeks I am moving out of the state I was born and raised in (Idaho) to a place I have never been to for longer than a week before (Washington). I am insanely excited and also scared because I haven’t found a job yet and am just now getting a place to live together. I’m going there because I want to attend Evergreen State College, I’ve planned to major in Post Feminist literature with a focus on Human Sexuality! Who needs money if I have soul right? I’ll be leaving my family, my pets, and my honey quite permanently and thinking about it makes my heart ache, but there are so many possibilities where I am going and for the first time ever I’ll be somewhere with a queer community that is larger than 200 people. I literally cannot even.

  35. This morning I woke up late and spent some time unpacking my stuff at my parents house where I’m staying until I move to Chicago in the fall.

    On that note, if anyone in Ohio wants to welcome me into your friend group for the summer, that would be super amazing. I love my family, but I can’t socialize with only them for three months.

  36. My day- in an effort to be more “adult,” I’ve become more of a morning person. I roll over and immediately read something (like autostraddle!)so that I can wake up my brain. I feel super groggy if I don’t do that. Then I do yoga which jolts my body awake and gives me flexibility that I hope to impress someone with one day. I just noticed as I was typing this that I was doing a mind, body, and soul kind of thing, but I’m not a religious person so I don’t know what the heck to do to “wake up” my soul.
    Probably because after that comes the hard part of my day– the worry about earning enough money to get out of my hometown that I’ve been back in for four months, the ignoring of “failure feels” since I have to live with my mom (again), and the constant effort to not be so negative because of it. It’s constant ya’ll.
    So I don’t know, my week has been okay? I bought 4 new books to read! Five if you count the one I bought my mom for mother’s day that I’m definitely going to swipe from her. Looking on the bright side. I’m kind of sad though. I just want to stop feeling like a ghost all of the time. You know how you just go numb to deal with everything? Yeah. That’s where I am right now. I think I need a hug. And some friends. It’s hard to make friends in a city I hate. :(

    • Hey Arika,

      I can relate to how you feel and why you feel. Give yourself some credit for keeping things together and looking after yourself as well as you have. Here’s a hug from me to tide you over ((((((()))))))

  37. It’s 3am in Germany and I just got home about a half hour ago from the funnest night abroad so far! Went to a friend’s birthday party, where there was plenty food and she painted my face with finger paints, then I put on some psychedelic cat leggings and went to an electro swing dance night at a jazz club with some friends from the U.S. and Britain! I danced for like 3 hours straight and then got a falafel Döner box with french fries and if you don’t know what a Döner is you should probs look it up cause it is MAGIC and comes in vegetarian options!
    The best part about all of this is that I was sober the whole night through (just started some anti-depressants this week) and having this much fun while sober is so much more satisfying than while drunk!
    ALSO I JUST HAD LIKE A 45 MINUTE HEART TO HEART WITH THE FRATIEST FRAT BOY AND I AM JUST FEELING REALLY POSITIVE ABOUT COMMON HUMANITY/THE HUMAN RACE AND I’M NOT YELLING JUST FEELING REALLY EXCITED TO BE ALIVE WHICH IS AN ENORMOUS THING FOR ME! :)

  38. Five minutes ago I was really comfortable, messaging my girlfriend and happily Autostraddling and then my almost-perfect dog let out a terrifyingly horrible fart and so I fled the room, but I left my really spectacular sandwich inside. I survived but I fear it may be too late for the food; it has probably been contaminated.

    My almost-perfect dog: (I hope that worked)

    My week started out crazy because I was getting done with finals. More specifically, on Monday I had to finish and turn in two essays and finish packing before noon to catch a flight home and due to some incredibly terrible planning I was still throwing stuff into suitcases and into the trash 30 minutes before my shuttle left. Luckily, I have the best girlfriend in the world and she finished cleaning for me and even took some of the stuff I forgot to pack. It was so stressful I had a bad dream about it again last night. So happy that’s all over!

    But yesterday I found out that my girlfriend, who lives 1000 miles away, is coming to visit me for two weeks in 17 days! I mean, we are in college together and we left on Monday but I already miss her probably more than I should, so knowing that I’ll see her in 17 days instead of the 60 days we had originally been planning on is really rocking my world.

  39. On the days when I go in for my program, I get up by 6:15, shower, get dressed, get my sister up if she’s going with me, (from this point on music is in the background) make tea, take an asthma treatment and other meds, get to the bus stop by 7:15, hug the lady who gets off at our stop, hope no one gets mad at me as we find seats, and then ride in to the train station, wait for my stop, and go to the program and usually walk to Giant to get cliff bars so I don’t pass out during the day. Then I read stuff on my feedly (usually Autostraddle and various writing blogs)and mentally prepare/obsess over what I want to say/do during the day as I wait for someone to come open the office door so I can finally pee.

    But as I start my step down, I don’t really have a routine and so I’m either waking up really late and doing nothing most of the day or waking up really early and doing nothing most of the day, both having tons of sads up in there. So when I stop going to the program I don’t really know what I’ll do.

    My week was really good then really bad? Like Monday was fantastic and then the rest was blegh and yesterday I was (extra) suicidal so. But things are better now, I think.

    I plan on writing all weekend. And reading all the comics I bought Thursday cause I was super triggered and trying not to hurt myself. So excitement for Adventure Time! And I also finally got Lumberjanes! So even though I’m kind of always sad, it’s nowhere near as bad as it’s been, so that’s good.

    Also family stuff which I’m happy for some but not really excited for the rest.

    Anyways, I hope everyone has a lovely weekend!

    (and thanks for reading/listening it helps lots)

  40. My morning routine is to wake up, check Autostraddle, make coffee, read comments from yesterday’s Autostraddle articles, make some breakfast, read Autostraddle some more, then get dressed and read Autostraddle on the bus to work.

  41. Carmen! I read a newspaper too! And it’s v. v. important that it be a paper newspaper, because I spend most of my time on the computer working!

  42. This is my wife’s and mine. I have yet to meet her..she’s barely a month old and LOVES her bottle. Baby kitty. Jessy Meowington aka ‘ming-ming’ Also, one of my cabinmates has graciously named her LIL BABY SHERBET SWIRL. SO.

  43. My morning routine is all out of wack since I am currently looking for a job, but I have a job interview on Tuesday so maybe I’ll have to come up with a routine soon! When I do get up it usually involves tea, toast, and netflix.

  44. I SURVIVED MY FIRST YEAR OF MY PHD PROGRAM. AND I PASSED THE CLASS I THOUGHT I FAILED (part 2 of a 2 semester sequence that I failed the first half of). And then I went to a cookout where I ate free food and drank free beer! It was the best day in awhile.

  45. That’s my type of day. Although, wish you are working. Sometimes I find myself eating breakfast at 1pm. Good days to relax but rather be making money. Hope you start a job soon.

  46. My ideal morning routine is to get up when or before my alarm gets me up after 8 hours of sleep, mozy down to the kitchen, get my parents to make me eggs (or make them myself :( ), and read whatever section of The New York Times is out. Then, I get change and make my to-do list for the day and start cracking on that.

    What usually happens:
    If I’m at home, I’ve overslept and feel like shit. I fool around on my laptop or phone, I have an unsatisfying breakfast, fool around some more, maybe attempt to be productive, realize how late in the day it is and feel like shit.

    At school, I oversleep my alarm and either don’t go to class, or get there late/just barely on time. I eat breakfast after class. I say I’m going to get stuff done but I end up goofing on in my room.

    I would upload a picture of my dog but not sure how to do that and I don’t want to scroll to the top of the thread.

    For Mother’s Day, I got to be with my mom this year. Yippee! I made her a nice card, we went for a walk with my brother, and we got ice cream. It was a pretty good day although the ice cream was disappointing.

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