podga

The plot thickens with more unexpected twists and unanswered questions!

Bee, this is an employer-employee relationship, not a friendship or a marriage. Either side has a right to disolve it at any point and not feel guilty about it, and nobody is irreplaceable. As long as you are giving your boss enough notice, I'm sure he'll manage to find someone, just like he found you. That being said, why don't you try writing a letter of resignation, letting him know that you need to quit, your last day will be x, and, if you want, give him a reason (though you don't have to, it might be nice) and thank him for the experience. At best, if you're holding it you might find the words easier to say and worse comes to worst, if he doesn't have the time or you dry up again, you can at least hand the letter to him and tell him you need him to read it.

Cassie, is it possible to tell your boss about your feelings and see if there are any ways you could decrease the stress and make the job fun again? I don't know what the specific issues you're facing are, but it sounds like your co-worker's move has, at the very least, put you into a stronger negotiating position. And even if there's no love lost between the two of you, it's still to every manager's benefit to explore ways of making a good team-member happy again, rather than let him or her walk away and then have to find a new person, invest in their training, wait for them to come up to speed, etc. etc. I've been in this position a number of times, and it's very rare that we couldn't find ways to alleviate the stress they faced once we pinpointed what contributed to it. Even if you only managed to figure out a short-term solution, it could still give each of you some breathing room to continue exploring other options.

Men's gymnastics on right now

Well, speaking as someone in a relationship with extended families on both sides, I figured out a long long time ago that one thing you do not do is try to get between your partner/husband/SO and their siblings. They might know that you're 100% right in you say, they might even agree with you, but ultimately they will never be impartial and they obviously have strong emotional reasons for what they're doing (in this case, I guess it's your husband wanting to see his nieces and nephews) and so, even though you're trying to lighten their burden, you invariably add to it, by making them feel they must choose or by knowing that in satisfying the one, they dissatisfy the other. My unsolicited advice to you is to just accept it, and perhaps at a time where she isn't directly asking for something, try to have a calm discussion with him about how this makes you feel, if it's taking something away from you or from your relationship with your husband. With any luck your husband will come to his own conclusions once he doesn't feel he has to defend himself or somehow prove he loves you more or just as much as his sister.

Loved the concept of young athletes lighting the Olympic flame! With all the professional athletes competing in the Olympics today, with all the commercialization and the corporate sponsorships and the scandals and only promoting events (& athletes) that look good on TV, it was an excellent reminder of what the Olympics should be about. Also the little film of the Olympic torch crossing the UK, showing the enthusiasm, the crowds, the joy brought a tear to my eye.

Drivers that use the shoulder or emergency lane in order to cut in front of the line at tolls booths or traffic lights.

But if we take this away from the context of mother/child relationships (pretty hard to know, I know ), haven't many of us been subject to the same type of 'judgement' by others, even of our own community? Our sexuality is assumed to be the primary parameter determining our personality, our personal philosophies, our taste in clothes and music, even our life, family and work environments. And perhaps to a degree that's true, but the choices we make, e.g. to come out or not, or to tell our parents about our boy/girlfriends, or to buy every single Barbra Streisand CD we can lay our hands on, generally have little to do with where we score on the Kinsey scale.

Happy Birthday, Jammi

And look, one little picture with naked men and suddenly nobody's responding to Celethiel's question. Bad boys! Bad! Summer: Nothing or, if the a/c is on, boxers and a T-shirt. Winter: Old sweatpants and long-sleeved shirt, 'cause the SO always steals the covers and we set the thermostat low at night.

Finally managed to catch up and this chapter, with its cliffhanger, is a fine example of why I don't normally do WIPs, you evil author A lot of balls in the air right now! On an aside, this chapter and the previous one are suffering a bit for the need of an editor. Bovian Image is often written without capitals, which isn't consistent with previous chapters, and there are other small issues here and there. Yes, we're anxious, but don't let us pressure you into positing sooner than you're ready!!

Salt and pepper hair, chocolatey brown eyes

What's disappointing is that Amazon didn't block book sales until the situation is cleared up. I'm no techie either, so the part about typing in vs. copying search is an excellent tip. Thanks!

You should stay at a hotel like Holiday Inn next time, they have a pillow menu, and they'll even help you choose. Just be careful not to tell your cuddle-pillow back home, or you might get shoved out of your bed when you're back home

Absolutely, Rocky. And back in the olden days, with no tubes, downloads etc. you had to make sure you were home for the series, otherwise you'd be sure to hear about it around the water cooler the next day. I never missed ER (the early seasons), St. Elsewhere's (same) and, breaking the theme of hot guys in white coats, I remember the whole office being crazy about 30something, because most of us were around there ourselves.

...everybody wants a little romance...

And then there's the person that seems unable to figure out that when I'm working from home, I'm working, and therefore not at her beck and call to run every errand for her, pop by to have lunch with her, drive her to meet her friends, etc. But let's not start talking about mothers, because that just triggers a whole new subset of pet peeves for me.

I agree if by "that Azz" you mean sex appeal, because it's an important part in a potential love interest, which was the question.. But sex appeal is in the eye of the beholder, and it's made up of more than simply a flawless body or perfect Azz. Not that sex appeal and a perfect Azz are mutually exclusive, of course!

Heh. Never realized how many pet peeves I had until I read this thread. Mine is people who hijack an interesting story to say "Oh, I know! The exact same thing happened to me and..." and then proceed to tell you a story that's nowhere near as interesting as the one you were listening to in the first place.

I'm a little puzzled as to why Jiro's boss is letting them all live, yet hounding them from place to place. You'd think that he'd be more able to blackmail them into silence if he allowed them to settle. Or is that what he's trying to accomplish, and it's they that are resisting? Despite the slight suspension of disbelief (which is perfectly allowable, even required sometimes for a good story! ) I'm continuing to enjoy this! I like your lively descriptions, and the way you;ve managed to fit the back story into the current events, without breaking the rhythm or resorting to tiresome expositions. One question - you mention this is five years later, yet later mention that SarEr isn't the boy he used to be three years ago. Not a biggie, but it made me stop and wonder if there's another significant event that occurred in between, because I think his point of comparison would be a significant event.

Oh, my god, Spanish language films (not sure they're all Spanish) have raised suggestive creepiness to a high art form. There was Orphanage, and Thesis, and Atrocious and Rec. But the first movie that came to my mind, before Yettie mentioned Orphanage, was Audition. Cree.Pee.

Other than having one friend, who suffers from depression, I know nothing of the subject and I don't want to presume, but what strikes me most about this forum (and him) is how hard you all seem to be on yourselves and how high your expectations seem to be of yourselves. My generation's parents worked hard to create opportunities for my generation. It seems as if what my generation passed to our kids is that they MUST take advantage of the opportunities and now it seems as if they're tellingTHEIR kids not only that they must take advantage but that they MUST come in first. Every single show on TV, from cooking to logging to ice-trucking is about competition, coming in first and eliminating the weakest, often in humiliating ways. It's like TV and the media our trying to turn our lives into a video game, where only the top 3 or 5 or 10 scores matter, as if there's not room enough for all of us. Real life isn't that though. Even pushing 50, I don't really know what it's about, but I know it's not an endless series of races and competitions. Mostly it's okay to simply be good enough, not perfect, and to let other people carry you, when necessary, just as you would carry them, when you can. It's about taking care of yourself, and giving yourself permission to opt out of certain things, if they're too difficult, or, at the very least, to demand help, if you can't opt out completely. It's about trying not to let other people's judgements affect you, because in many cases they're not actually trying to get you to jump over the bar, but to psych you out of trying to jump at all and that's really their problem, not yours. It's about cherishing your friends, but only those that cherish you, as well. It's making mistakes, some of which you might never recover from, and many from which you will, and there's no telling beforehand which are which. A lot of times it's about luck, good or bad, whether you deserve it or not. I see a lot of talented individuals here, and from what you write, many of you carry pretty heavy burdens even aside the depression. And I wouldn't presume to tell you how to feel better and I hope I'm not coming off that way (and if I am, I apologize). Just, if you can, don't add to the burden by thinking you need to accomplish or be more than you already are.

If it's alien, how can it be Russian??

What Krista said, and I'll add that how we perceive beauty can be pretty subjective and influenced by our feelings for a person. I'm convinced my friends are all better-looking than average, when statistically that just can't be true (given that I don't live in Hollywood) and that my SO is the best-looking guy on this earth. Some people might call it overlooking the "flaws" but that would imply that I see them and choose not to, so it's not quite that. It's more that you look at the whole, both inside and out, and it's all part of someone you love, so it's all good.