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This Weekend Open Thread is a Giant .gif Party

It’s Friday night! Kick off your work shoes, grab a snack, put your feet up and get your adorable hineys in this open thread for some socializing and old school animation. 

Also, a video, because it’s not an OT without a dance party.

By [E] Selena MacIntosh*

Selena MacIntosh is the owner and editor of Persephone Magazine. She also fixes it when it breaks. She is fueled by Diet Coke, coffee with a lot of cream in it, and cat hair.

267 replies on “This Weekend Open Thread is a Giant .gif Party”

May be of interest to USians: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/04/doctors-holding-birth-control-hostage

 there’s a growing body of evidence that the entire annual ob-gyn exam, with the mandatory and miserable pelvic exam where doctors poke around one’s uterus and ovaries with their fingers, is largely obsolete.

This is not news to those of us in Europe, I think: since my first GP visit for the pill nearly 10 years ago, not one GP has ever told me I ‘needed’ a pelvic exam to get it.

Ha ha! This!

I have a friend (more like a friend of a friend) who told me he didn’t want “his tax money” paying for women’s birth control pills or abortions. Not coincidentally, he is a 55-year-old white male Republican who lives off a trust fund. I told him that most of the birth control pills I’d ever taken had been paid for out of my pocket, and every woman I’d ever known who’d had an abortion had paid for it herself. I didn’t add “including me”, but I wanted to.

You know how sometimes in retrospect your life is full of bad decisions?  Yeah, tell that to my head.  If you get drunk in heels and slip and hit your head on a bookcase you will cut your head and wonder if you are concussed or just really drunk.  And you will also probably have unprotected sex at a party, which, while you are on the pill you are also on antibiotics and were not thinking.  The next two weeks are going to be incredibly stressful and the last 24 hours have been incredibly painful.
Sorry, everyone.  I’m feeling anxious about my life right now.

Oh my God, this makes me feel so much better.  I’ve been kicking myself for 48 hours.  Thank you so much!  it also probably helps that the swelling in my head has gone down so I’m able to cope with this stuff now.  Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Thanks to everyone, actually.  Sometimes you just want to tell the usual suspects that you feel like crap for a typical reason, but you KNOW they’d just give you the ol’ side eye.  You are all beautiful glittering rainbows and if I could, I would bake you the fanciest of all cakes.

http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/team-nchick/nostalgia-chick/35050-lindsays-top-ten-guilty-pleasures

Ok, ok, so I’m a Nostalgia Chick junky (anyone else?). But PMag seems like the place to inquire: guilty pleasures? Be it in television/movie form, or in music or books? C’mon. I’m sure people have some great recommendations stuff I can laugh at in a purely judgmental fashion.

I’ll co-sign the love for “Independence Day”. I now really want to see “Om Shanti Om.” And I will add to the list “Repo: The Genetic Opera” even though it failed to take advantage of its fucking awesome concept. ‘Cuz the acting/casting was fucking brilliant. In terms of music: if it’s from the ’90s, I have no shame. In terms of books: I keep buying urban fantasy novels even though it’s starting to look like the romance sections. IDGAF.

C’mon. It’s another two hours until GoTs…

 

 

My introduction to Hines was his excellent blogging habits and, in particular, his taking the piss out of urban fantasy covers: who in the bloody hell poses this way?! I picked up one of his books, and was underwhelmed by his abilities as a writer. Personal tastes, maybe? Seriously: adore as a person, not impressed as a writer. But this can be incredibly idiosyncratic, so: check him out for yourself!

(Which breaks my heart at multiple levels: a funny-fantasy/scifi-dude plus he’s a dead-ringer for Tobias Never-Nude Funke. I do swoon.)

Oh deary me. I just discovered Nutella about two weeks ago and I haven’t been able to say no to anything hazelnut flavored and am on my second jar now. I even had my lovely baristas make me a Nutella latte. NUTELLA PLUS GIF? DONE. (The Ood is fab too of course!)

Also we need to do more GIF parties. This weekends thread has been SO AMAZING. My desktop is scattered with so many GIFs for future use. WELL DONE. Maru approves.

This made me almost blow snot in my coffee:

Over our dessert of lemon syllabub, Mia regales us with her exploits in Paris, lapsing at one point into fluent French. We all stare at her, and she stares back puzzled, until Christian tells her in equally fluent French what she’s done, whereupon she bursts into a fit of giggles. She has a very infectious laugh and soon we’re all in stitches.
Fifty Shades of Grey, p. 250.
that’s a really great anecdote. i wish i was there to see that. i would have laughed so hard and then murdered everyone.

Picking up a spear of asparagus, I gaze at him and bite my lip. Then very slowly put the tip of my cold asparagus in my mouth and suck it.

Fifty Shades of Grey, p. 164.

oh yeah- suck that asparagus dick! this book is so hot.*

*no it’s not.

Asparagus! I die!

( and @flyingfox too)

This sounds like the best experiment ever! It can only be a win-win. Option 1) he cracks up and hilarity ensues. 2) he ends up finding it arousing, and sexy-times ensues.

And if your relationship is anything like mine, the hilarity might also end up instigating sexytimes.

So, I guess the moral of the story is: fellate asparagus. Get sex.

Actually, this was a very bad moral, come to think of it.

Also this:

“Christian squirts baby oil into his hand and then rubs my behind with careful tenderness – from makeup remover to soothing balm for a spanked ass, who would have thought it was such a versatile liquid.”

Fifty Shades of Grey, p. 202.

“50 shades of grey is sponsored by johnson & johnson.”

Again, I am here lol-ing.

Shortly put it started out as Twilight fanfiction, Edward/Bella in a BDSM story. Then the author changed the names, tried to get it off the internet and now it’s selling like crazy, menopausal ladies love it and there is a film-option. Or ..why the heck bother with originality and good writing.

Okay, I went to find the “instant rim shot” sound website to add to the end of my hilarious joke about the fact that I can’t be bothered to have sex more than once a year, and I found this awesome sound on the site. I have been laughing maniacally at it, playing it over and over.

…which is why I never have sex. See also: I sing songs to/about my cats.

You know, I quit reading the Anita Blake series precisely because even people getting shot/eaten by weres wasn’t enough to distract from the repeated and banal sex scenes. Without even that, you can be assured I will have far better things to with my time. Like fart around on the internet.

I also love all the uses of this one particular Batman picture.

Christian being mad when he finds out she’s a virgin.

Christian saying he’s going to fuck her hard.

Christian having an orgasm.

I bet no one told him, when he was a kid, that if he kept making that face, it was going to freeze like that.

I track my cycle with monthlyinfo.com–very easy and free. I had my no-baby-making tubes tied eight years ago. My period likes to play games with me and come any time between 26 and 36 days even though I’ve had it since I was 11. My “average” is 31 days, and monthlyinfo.com allows you to email or text yourself a “reminder” that Aunt Flo is due in X days. I have it sent three days before the average, I think. She foiled me this time, though the few days of nagging cramps clued me in that it was time. I’m seriously ready for this to be over.

And now everyone knows a whole, whole lot about my cycle. You are all so welcome.

I don’t want to be rude, so if this is please tell me to fuck off, but where are you reproductively? I’ve heard plenty of horror stories about docs being unwilling/reluctant to provide permanent b.c. (and sometimes, even IUDS) to women who haven’t had kids yet, haven’t had X number of kids, aren’t a certain age, aren’t married, etc. Even exploring one’s options seems futile sometimes when one realizes “oh, they won’t let me do what I want with my body anyway!”

Also: dreamed for years of having my tubes tied, until I learned that that would not kill the evil period. I now adore my depo shot, ‘cuz it at least cuts down on it.

Naw, I’m an open book behind the anonymity of the internet. ;) I feel like I tell this boring story over and over, though!

My period is a bitch and it pretty much always has been since I started a bazillion years ago. I was on the pill intermittently in college and my 20s, and Aunt Flo was friendlier then. I have crampiness when I ovulate, but I don’t have any issues that the gyno has seen. I’ve had the lovely intravaginal sonogram to make sure all my lady parts were all right. My younger sister has easy, breezy periods, and has had a child. I have hemorrhaged since I was 11 and have had no kids. Life is unfair.

I was completely sure I didn’t want children. I “helped raise” my two younger sisters and I’d never wanted kids beyond the “playing house” that you do as young kids. I’d always “repelled” children from about my teenage years on, while I attracted cats. Har. I do have six nieces, aged four to 19. I love them all, but I am also glad when I get to leave them. My good friend has a two-year-old son and while he is hilarious, I am also quite glad when he goes to sleep and/or I get to go home. I just don’t have the energy for all of that.

Besides the lack of desire, a million reasons compelled me to not have children, among them a genetic disposition for mental illness (and something I currently struggle with and have my entire life), my desire to end the century-plus cycle of single motherhood in my family (alas, my youngest sister has repeated it), my strong ecological sensibility, etc.

I had my tubes tied (severed? clipped? cauterized? I don’t know, and now I wish I’d asked.) at the unmarried age of 29, about eight years ago. I’d talked to my (woman) gynecologist for about five years about my desire to have the procedure, partly because I wasn’t ready (just scared of the rather easy outpatient operation–but it requires general anesthesia) and partly because I felt I had to convince my gyno doc. I believe that having a female doctor helps, even though I know my doctor has children. She never really fought me on my desire, while she did say something along the lines of “I still think you are young, but it’s your decision.”

At the time, I was in a long(ish)-term relationship with a guy who also didn’t want children. That has been hands-down the hardest thing for me, post-operation. I’ve never for one millisecond regretted my decision to close up the baby shop, but I’ve had guys I’ve dated or considered dating think that’s a possible deal-breaker, which blows my mind. My mother was a single mother for 12 years (from my ages 5 to 17) and most men ran for the hills when they found out she had kids. Men now apparently think kids are awesome!!!, or something. (Sweeping generalization just made.) I’ve had to put it on the table very early on (as in, in my former but never again online dating profile ::shudders::) that kids are out of the question. I haven’t dated in a year, and I’m not interested in it for as far in the future as I can see.

Secret time: I got pregnant when I was 20 and dating a guy who was 29 and a complete piece of shit loser drug addict. I had an abortion and swore I would never, ever, ever allow myself to be in that situation again. When I was with the man I was dating at the time I had the surgery, I knew that if I got pregnant then (though I was on birth control), I could not have had an abortion. At the time, I also was not a student (unlike at age 20), had a good job, home, and was with someone that would have been supportive, but it would not have been a child I wanted. That pretty much sealed the deal for me.

My life is in utter shambles now. I’ve been out of work for almost 2.5 years. I’m awaiting a hearing for Social Security Disability for mental health issues, and I often think to myself how much worse it would be if I had a child living in this situation. I’m on food stamps and a little bit of community and state medical assistance. Over and over, I know I made the right choices for my reproductive health.

I know this rambled and had a lot of impertinent information, and I apologize. I tried to go back and make it less rambling, and I couldn’t do it. And I didn’t really answer your question. Healthcare in America sucks giant donkey balls. My only advice is to keep fighting and find a doctor who will listen to you. There are one or two out there.

I know precisely the one you’re talking about, and I love it, too!

I’m super-happy to have partially figured out this .gif thing, but there’s a size limit for uploading them here, so a couple of the funny ones I’ve found are worthless. Any more internet-savvy folks have valuable info to share? I promise not to use my powers for good.

It’s my weekend off and all of my close friends ditched me for significant others last night, even after making tentative plans. So instead of going out last night, I watched the last 6 episodes of season 5 of Supernatural. And sobbed. SOBBED. Like gross crying, squeezing my cats to feel better, sobbing. This show wrecks me. And I love it.

 

I’m a Sam girl myself, but I know EXACTLY what you’re talking about. In the finale, the parts that I cried the hardest at were when they  showed flashbacks to previous seasons and how happy Dean and Same were. I would just sob thinking about how they used to be. And then I reminded myself they are fictional characters and I don’t get anywhere near this upset when things are bad in my own life lol

 

Oh no. I don’t want to cry! That’s about where I am with the series. Episode 11/12 of season 5, I think? I burned out awhile back and have only watched a few episodes and now I’m dreading it! (In a good way.) I think I just saw the first Mark Sheppard episode (Badger! <3) so I’ve got to keep watching now!

A night in watching Supernatural sounds faaaaabulous to me! I watched some Doc Martin with my dad after a day of home improvement projects! Saturday night awesomeness!

Yep, you’re right around the point that every episode made me either choke up or full on sob. Be prepared for major sads. When I was waiting for the season finale to load, all I  could think was “holy hell, I’m not ready. I’m not ready, I’m not ready”. Annnnd I wasn’t.

On the upside, Mark Sheppard makes another handful of appearances by the end of that season and is absolutely fantastic every time he’s on screen!

 

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