I never had a garbage disposal before moving in here. I hate throwing food waste into the garbage, though, and I don't think I make enough of it to employ a composter, so... if I bow to the common wisdom and not use the disposal anymore, what to do with it? Feed it to the raccoons? (Note that I'm not actually against feeding it to the raccoons. I cannot however deal with the worms.) We have once-a-week trash pickup but I have my own outside bin, so I can take the trash out as needed; odor isn't a problem. We also have single-stream trash/recycling, which I think is great; they claim to recycle 96% of the waste, but I do wonder about how they do that and if I could make it easier for them to recycle mine.

Our pub quiz team name tonight is “7 Minutes of Terror”.

Excellent.

The white people I know who had been down that stressful hair-straightening path were all non-Jews.

I (white non-Jewish woman) have curly hair (spiral curls) and it tends to frizz and does what it wants to do. It frustrates me, but it doesn't feel like "me" when I straighten it. If I were part of a culture that insisted I must keep my hair straight, I would be absolutely miserable.

I do wish I could find someone who knows how to cut and care for non-black non-Jewish Irish-ancestors-type curly hair.

Here it is! Taxidermied bullfrog playing bass.

GREAT GOOGLY MOOGLY. I would have named him Jeremiah.

From the outside, it really doesn't seem like narrative.

Not to me either. I've never gotten sports. It seems like an awful lot of importance and meaning placed upon how well dude/girl can throw/run/jump/whatever at this particular given moment. In the women's gymnastics in the Olympics (spoiler fonting just in case) everyone was all McKayla is the BEST! and she was fantastic - except then she fell flat on her butt. Sometimes it's just luck, bad or good. Even the best can have a bad run; even the worst can have a real good day. Bascially, I can't place that much weight on everything rides on this one moment. Because that seems nuts to me. McKayla is a fantastic gymnast; she's clearly one of the best in the world. Why do we have to have a BEST OF ALL? I don't get it.

How is his brewery coming, Teppy?

Sorry, I went to bed before you posted this.

I may have only posted this in Bitches, but he quit the brewery in May due to his extreme alcoholism, for which he ended up in the hospital for a week to detox. (It was -- well to say it was a *shock* is to imply we didn't know he was a big drinker, but we all did. And it had been concerning for quite a while. But we didn't know the extent of the Big Drinking until he called us that morning in May to tell us he was an alcoholic and needed help and was going to the hospital. I believe that the bourbon industry had an economic crisis after he quit drinking.) He decided that working at a brewery might not be the best place to work.

I too, do not see the narrative. Except in 70's tennis, but that was about John McEnroe and whether or not he would yell. Also, I just like saying Bjorn Borg.

My mother is completely unsports-like, and my grandpa and uncles seemed to like things like tennis, and track, and golf, and skiing.

One really funny thing is that the family I think might be my father's family is SUPER into sports. Like, one brother is a highly thought of high school coach, other brothers coach other things, and it was mentioned in my possible father's obit AND on his gravestone what a good and dedicated sportsman he was. Imagine my mother's surprise when it took YEARS to teach me how to bounce a ball or ride a bike. I didn't learn to ride a bike until I was 13 or 14, because I have no sense of balance. I also have little hand eye coordination and I am crooked.

I may have only posted this in Bitches, but he quit the brewery in May due to his extreme alcoholism, for which he ended up in the hospital for a week to detox.

How is he doing? (If this isn't too nosy). Has he found other work (he is a cook, right?)

How is whether or not McEnroe would yell even a question?

"Watching" dressage by following the chat at the Chronicle.

I wish I could see it.

Also, I just like saying Bjorn Borg

Well that's just common sense.

Tep, sorry to hear about your brother, but good on him for getting out of an enabling environment.

There's a chance my baby brother and/or his girlfriend will be popping up here today. They are both awesome and nerdy so hopefully they'll register and start posting. (And when I say "baby" I mean "grown-up and a foot taller than me." But you can't expect me to think of him that way.)

I like competency in stuff, and I am not a super-physical person, so I can appreciate sports, though it's rare I will watch it. I grew up with the TV on college and pro football all season, so I understand competetive sports; I just don't get into them.

I find gymnastics, swimming, diving and figure skating the most compelling. I will happily watch many individual sports for at least fifteen minutes; I mean, wow, that's a lot of work! Go you!

But team sports or going to a game mostly leaves me eh. It's like calculus; I understand and appreciate it, theoretically, but to do? NO.

Re: hair. I saw Gabby's performances but not the news-hairmageddon, but I am not surprised. I had a grad research assistantship in the mid 90's for Dr. Noliwe Rooks [link] while she was at UMKC, and among other things, I pulled a bunch of research for her book on AA hair culture. It was like, hi, white girl, open yer eyes!

And that was really useful for when I worked with a lot of AA women in AmeriCorps and then as a teacher, and I would be a Becky that, well, knew what a Becky was, and mostly GOT that Hair Was An Issue. No, Really.

I let one of my students put my hair in rows and tiny puffs during a lock-in, and it was the first time a lot of the girls had had white hair to play with, and it was a really good topic starter for conversations on race. And a real empathy-builder; it took like, 2.5 hours and my hair is dead straight and fine. And then taking it out of all those teeny rubber bands two days later...OW OW OW OW OW.

I have to say that between FNL and being around my friend Sandy's dad and nephew while watching football gave me a better understanding that for those who know what they're seeing it's alot about strategy etc like chess played with giants.

How is he doing? (If this isn't too nosy).

He's doing pretty well. He isn't going to AA or any other rehab-y thing, and he hasn't found a therapist (which he had initially talked about doing even before all the shit hit the fan and he went to the hospital [we had talked one night about being our parents' children and therefore IMMENSELY fucked up, and I told him that therapy helped me to deal with my crazy, and it could help him, too, if that's what he wanted]). But he's doing well, and at this point (which is still early days; it's really only been a little under 3 months) he's adamant about not drinking, because he associates it with being physically ill, as well as the stress it apparently put on his marriage.

I know it's easy to start out with the best of intentions, and just as easy to start drinking again; my entire family is full of alcoholics. (I don't like my odds.) But there's a fine line for me as his sister between constantly bugging him about going to therapy, is he still clean, how does he feel, etc., etc. versus my genuine concern and wanting to know that he's okay. Plus I *know* my parents are bugging him too much, so I don't want to add to it.

But for right now, he seems good. At the age of (almost) 36, for the first time in his LIFE, his hair is curly. When I remarked on it the other night, he said, "Yeah, it's amazing what happens when you destroy your insides!" He has a good sense of humor about it, which is good, but he also knows what he almost lost (the doctor in the hospital said he was about 1 year away from developing cirrhosis [yeah, at the age of 35, and don't think that didn't freak my shit out HARD]).

Has he found other work (he is a cook, right?)

He is currently cooking lunch at a restaurant in Montpelier, but it's not really what he wants to do in the long term. He's actually not sure what's next, but says this is a decent job while he figures it out.

That is good to hear about your brother. I completely understand not wanting to do AA, although I have to tell you that for my BFF's husband, it provides a great social outlet with a bunch of people who don't drink more than something that seems "preachy", if that is what your brother is afraid of. (Your brother might not be in the same position BFF's husband is- an extremely extroverted, social person, married to an introverted geeky person with an introverted geeky family, who has moved away from his home and the friends he grew up with. So this really helped him meet people.)