Fashion Board 1-08-04 through 02-03-04

[Did you just call me Coltrane?]

Originally posted by NotFromHere
I know you don't really believe this. Everyone thinks that not having to work would rock. But unless you're 60, who would you hang out with? It's not like summer break when you can hang out with your buddies. Your buddies will be working and you'll be at home with your X-Box, which would be fun for awhile, but still it would end up sucking.

Aside from that, never having a job makes for an incomplete personality.

That said, husband says he would love to retire, make me the sole breadwinner and he promised to clean the house, shop and cook everyday - as well as do lunch and pilates. Then, one day home sick and he's climbing the walls - when are you coming home? I'm bored. Blah blah blah.

So it boils down to...you're a liar.

I'd travel. I haven't seen much of Asia, Australia, Africa, Eastern Europe, parts of S. America, Alaska, Iceland, parts of Central America, Antarctica, much of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans or Lake Titicaca. I've got a few trustafarian friends. One is a 28 junior (undergrad). Everyone I know is jealous of him. He would come with. Each continent could take me well over a year to fully appreciate.

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
My reaction to the original post is that the poster doesn't really seem to have a handle on what's going on with the spouse. Negativity strikes me as a symptom of something else.

Concur in large part, though some personalities are just naturally "dark" and the negativity isn't a symptom of anything else --- or, at least, anything acute. I have friends who are vastly intuitive and creative, but entirely self-absorbed and depressive, and petrified of being ordinary. They are like this every day.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
Yeh, I want a woman with breeding hips so we can have a bus full of kids so I'll never retire early. I'd sooner play Russian Roulette with two bullets in the revolver.

Men are interested in smart hot normal chicks. Yes, its entirely that simple. If you're smart and hot and normal, you'll get any man you want.

Bullshit. Christopher on Sopranos hears his fiancee, Adrainna, probably can't have kids. It gives him pause to reconsider. I know it would have caused me to rethink. Are you saying it wouldn't have caused you to rethink?

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by evenodds
The OM is back on wellbutrin to kick his smoking habit (again) and it works without destroying his sex drive.

We thank you for sharing. Care to elaborate on the manifestations of his unmitigated sex drive?

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally posted by NotFromHere
I know you don't really believe this. Everyone thinks that not having to work would rock. But unless you're 60, who would you hang out with? It's not like summer break when you can hang out with your buddies. Your buddies will be working and you'll be at home with your X-Box, which would be fun for awhile, but still it would end up sucking.

Aside from that, never having a job makes for an incomplete personality.

That said, husband says he would love to retire, make me the sole breadwinner and he promised to clean the house, shop and cook everyday - as well as do lunch and pilates. Then, one day home sick and he's climbing the walls - when are you coming home? I'm bored. Blah blah blah.

So it boils down to...you're a liar.

I know quite a few women who are empty nesters and were full time moms before that. They don't have jobs per se, but they are very busy. Some of them help run family businesses, some of them serve on the boards of a variety of not-for-profit organizations, including very large health care facilities. Many volunteer. Some of them write, or travel, or read a great deal, or spent a lot of time working in their gardens. There are quite a few of them out there, so finding other people to hang out with isn't that much of a big deal. They're educated, interesting women, and I could easily see falling into their ranks. I agree with gwinky. The lottery winner job is not a terrible one at all.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
I married a smart, hot, normal chick.

Does this prove or disprove your point?

it calls into question at least one of your evaluations. no offense.

[bold_n_brazen]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield


b. Bullshit that men are intimidated by a chick smarter than they are. You think I want to talk nonsense with a personal trainer all night? If you're street smart AND book smart, I'm really digging your shit. Nothing's better than a chick with a little cynicism/wisdom about things.

Bullshit on your bullshit. Most men who want a chick to be smart still don't want her to be smarter than they are.

I'm not suggesting that most men want to talk to a paralegal over cocktails, but most men don't want to feel like they're intellectually inferior to the woman they're with.

If I'm street smart and book smart, you're really digging my shit... so long as I'm not street smarter or book smarter than you. If we're trying to figure out what your take is on a big PI case you took on contingency, you don't want me doing the math in my head faster than you can.

Cynicism/wisdom has almost nothing to do with smarts, book or otherwise. I was cynical in utero. I am still not wise.

[Aloha Mr. Learned Hand]

Originally posted by Did you just call me Coltrane?
I've got a few trustafarian friends.

I like Bob Marley as much as the next guy, but unlike your friends I could never pull off the dreds...

[NotFromHere]

Originally posted by evenodds
Clearly, you've never not worked. It's glorious and you would be amazed at the number of things you can do that do not involve picking up a paycheck.

Aside from the abilty to hit both pilates and the gym, have lunch at the club and meet friends for cocktails, you have more than enough time to work on that book or screenplay you've always wanted to write or volunteer for the charity you've always just written checks to. I loved writing press releases for foundations because I felt like it and flying home to spend weeks with my family (okay, I still do that). I liked planning parties and fundraisers . . . all things I could not do, or as easily, if I were working fifty or sixty hours a week.

Trust me, if I could have stayed retired, I would still be the happiest woman in the world.

No. I have been out of work a couple of times. But every time involved debt and having to spend my days looking for work. Way too much stress. If I could retire with lots of money I would.

My point to Coltrane is that if you NEVER worked that's different.
Think of the friends you've made from the various jobs you had that you never would have made. Think of how deeper appreciation you have for people in those lines of work. If you've never worked, you don't have these things.

Originally posted by baltassoc
Ditto for me, except substitute "very familiar" for "somewhat familiar." You may be my doppelganger, or married to my ex-wife, or both.

I'm sorry to hear that. Did you and your wife try counseling? What about medication?

[Anne Elk]

Originally posted by bold_n_brazen
I totally disagree. If you're smart and hot and normal, you'll scare away the guys that aren't smarter than you, ...

Late to the party once again.

Scroll then post.

[Bad_Rich_Chic]

Originally posted by NotFromHere
I know you don't really believe this. Everyone thinks that not having to work would rock.

I know I do. I believe it, too. With all my heart.

But unless you're 60, who would you hang out with? It's not like summer break when you can hang out with your buddies. Your buddies will be working and you'll be at home with your X-Box, which would be fun for awhile, but still it would end up sucking.

I think you confuse working with having something to do. Sitting on your ass with the PS2 and Montel all day would indeed suck. Why would you do that just because you didn't have to have a job to pay the bills? Aside from the obvious "retiree" activities (hobbies, classes, etc.), there are lots of things in the world that need doing and are fun and satisfying to do, and not enough people with enough time left after their "day jobs" to do them. Find one. Some of them might even be characterized as - gasp - jobs! Many activities usually classed as "jobs" can actually be really fun without the performance pressure of making mortgage payments. Law, even, maybe.

Aside from that, never having a job makes for an incomplete personality.

Bullshit. Take a deep breath and overcome your middle-class work-ethic programming.

That said, husband says he would love to retire, make me the sole breadwinner and he promised to clean the house, shop and cook everyday - as well as do lunch and pilates. Then, one day home sick and he's climbing the walls - when are you coming home? I'm bored. Blah blah blah.

It is easier to schedule the Pilates on something other than a "I'm sick today, can I have a walk-in?" Not to say that he wouldn't be bored stiff retired, but a temporary hiatus is a totally different thing.

So it boils down to...you're a liar.

Ppppbbbttt.

Quite honestly, I think, from observation and thought on the matter, that one can accomplish quite a lot more with one's life if one is freed from the day to day drag of having to make ends meet and earn. The freedom to do what you do as you think appropriate, and to devote yourself to it for its own sake rather than as a commercial activity mired down in the grubby reality of a paycheck - how wonderful would that be? Even as a cog in an organization - with the knowledge that you can always leave you can deal with your superiors/coworkers in a way you see as beneficial to the organization rather than in a way to maximize your personal benefit or minimize your risk.

[Pretty Little Flower]

Originally posted by bold_n_brazen
Bullshit on your bullshit. Most men who want a chick to be smart still don't want her to be smarter than they are.

Bullshit on your bullshit of his bullshit. The idea of a woman who is smarter than I am is incredibly hot. I wouldn't feel inadequate or any of the other things men supposedly feel in this situation. Of couse, I suppose it is easy for me to say this given that it is an entirely hypothetical situation in my case . . . .

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
it calls into question at least one of your evaluations. no offense.

Way more normal than me. Yeh, go figure. I haven't figured it out.

If its any of the other evaluations, insert usual invectives.

On BnB: Yes, most men are idiots. Opens opportunities for the rest of us. I know way too many smart, hot, intelligent women who are unconnected.

[Not Bob]

Originally posted by paigowprincess
This post thing wouldnt happen bc there are a finite number of folks who post here and we all kinda know who is married wtih kids, married without kids and not married so we could do the math and you would know that if you were for real, and you wouldnt post.

Whoa, in a keanu-like way. So are you suggesting that when I finally screw up enough courage to anonymously post my "I'm a married guy in love with a gal who makes me feel like I am the Frank Sinatra to her Mia Farrow, or the Gene Rayburn to her Joanne Worley," I should pretend to not have kids? Or am I classified as married without kids because all y'all are convinced that the Not Bobette is a literary device?

And RotAF, kid or no kid, the counseling advice given by ncs is still valid.