I have a refurbished Kitchenaid, bought from Amazon I think, and it has been fine with weekly use over the past 5 or so years. It's a little noisy, especially with bread dough, but I am not sure if they are all like that or not.

Which all leads me to a new question: Did they put her photo on the cover to show that she's conventionally attractive to further qualify that "there's nothing wrong with her"?

I suspect that's one of the reasons, yeah.

I tried to read some of the comments: EW.

Lots of sirens in downtown today. And I will definitely be leaving the office early.

I have just double-checked my time off, and in addition to the days I was planning to take at Christmas, I have to take seven days off before the end of the year. I don't know when I have time to do that AND do my job. ARgh.

We're talking about writing with a million qualifiers, excuses, rationalizations.

I dunno, they didn't read as qualifiers or rationalizations to me. They read like she expects readers to nod and think, "I can relate!"

And I dunno, maybe they do. I don't know who the Atlantic's typical subscriber is. Maybe it's Elizabeth Gilbert.

I dunno, they didn't read as qualifiers or rationalizations to me.

I have to qualify this by saying I only read the first page, but to me it simply came off as setup. The thing about many previous relationships seemed like a way to explain why she assumed she would have one again, after she broke up with whoever, for instance. And that seemed logical to me; I probably would have assumed the same in her place.

It's all a matter of perspective to me, the grass is always greener thing. I can envy her chances to travel widely and have this fantastic career, but maybe she would look at me and say, "Pfft. You have a husband and three kids."

I need to step away from facebook. Someone I'm friends with -- like, actual friends, not just facebook friends, we've known each other since first grade -- posted something relatively innocuous that just happened to hit a bunch of things that were already bothering me from other sources today, and I responded fairly non-confrontationally, but I know that I'm going to get more annoyed if I keep thinking about it, so I need to just stop responding to that post altogether.

Why not fly and rent a car down there, Tommy?

I have to say I was pretty stoked to be able to register for some wedding gifts. We didn't register for a ton of stuff but I did ask for a KitchenAid mixer, something I've always wanted and never could justify buying myself. And my crazy, awesome aunts got it for me as well as a bunch of accessories (like a pasta maker!) that I hadn't asked for. It was kind of mind blowing. I felt completely spoiled. And my mixer is gorgeous!

[link]

I was really grumpy because my bus was late and I missed the line-up (in Rochester they all line up every hour in the middle of the city and everyone changes buses at once). I decided to go to Family Dollar, which is the only business open after 5 in our ghosttown of a downtown. And I found super cheap wall art for my office at work! Like 5 - 10 dollars. It isn't the best or anything, but it will do for work!

Why not fly and rent a car down there, Tommy?

It's fairly expensive. For the same amount of money I can take a train to Jackson, MS and have a sleeper car on the way down. (I'm doing an experiment to see if I can sleep in coach on the way back, arrive in Chicago 9:00 AM, walk two blocks and catch a train to work.)

On the one hand, I love the growing up Goth article. On the other hand, I'm having to rein in my reaction of "obvious news IS OBVIOUS!"

But still, external validation is nice.