The emotional labour aspect of self-care

I've been reading this glorious MetaFilter thread about Emotional Labour, and I have many many thoughts about it. I should probably start with my general braindump, but first, a small realization that occurred to me while reading this particular story:

My paradigmatic example of emotional labor was, earlier this year we went to a family wedding out of town, with two day of travel each way and where I was in the wedding so my husband was going to have the 3- and 5-year-old kids for basically three straight days, in a strange city, in a hotel, while attending a panoply of family events all over the city.

So I spent quite a bit of time putting together an actual itinerary (which I don't usually do), which turned out to be six pages long, with all the hotels and event locations and times, and travel distances and times, and likely lunch locations, and parks to stop at in the middle of long driving days so the kids could run around; and then for the in-the-city days, which museums were close enough to walk to, were most likely of interest, opened when, and cost what; where the nearest McDonald's or similar was to each in case the kids refused to eat other food; what parks were nearby in case they were up at 6 a.m. and raising hell; which family members were available during various times in case he needed backup and their phone numbers; what public transit to take where; backup plans and alternatives ... on and on. I made a google map of the locations and loaded it into his phone, printed out the itinerary with maps and also sent it to his e-mail so he could direct-click on museum links.

My husband's looking at the hard copy, paging through, and said, "This is ... thorough."

I burst out, "This is what it's like inside my head ALL THE TIME."

Obviously, taking care of myself is nowhere remotely near as much work or as complex as taking care of two small children in a strange city. But reading this story made me realize that working from home is saving me the equivalent labour of my own self-care.

When I worked in the office, I had to think about what time I needed to get up in time to do yoga in time to drink coffee in time to have a bowel movement in time to have a shower in time to eat breakfast in time to put on makeup in time to make sure my hair is dry in time to get dressed in time to get out the door in time to get onto the subway in time to get to work.  Working at home, I just have to think about waking up in time to turn on my computer at the start of my scheduled workday.

When I worked in the office, I had to think about clothes that were warm enough for the cold morning walk to the subway but wouldn't make me get too sweaty in the subway even if I didn't take my coat off, and would work in my chilly cubicle but also in the overheated mall if I went for errands at lunch but also could work if I went outdoors at lunch, and would also serve me well on the way home for whatever the weather was expected to be in the evening.  Working at home, the vast majority of days I just have to come up with something that will serve me well outdoors for no more than half an hour while I run a single errand. And if it isn't optimal, I'm just a few minutes away from home.

When I worked in the office, I had to anticipate how much of my makeup would disintegrate during the day and carry the necessary touch-up supplies in my purse. I had to anticipate whether my healing eczema would get itchy during the day and, if so, put my hydrocortisone cream in my purse. I had to anticipate whether today's combination of weather and shoes and how much I would have to walk would result in blisters and, if so, put the necessary supplies in my purse. I had to anticipate if my thighs would chafe and, if so, put the necessary supplies in my purse.  (And, in response to the question of why I didn't just keep them in my desk, they keep discontinuing the products that work best for me so I often don't have the option of owning two copies.)  Working at home, I have literally everything I own right here waiting for me whenever I need it.
When I worked in the office, I had to think about which errands needed to be done, if they were best done near the office or near home, and if they were best done at lunch or after work. I had to think about how much I could comfortably carry and whether stuff needed to be refrigerated and what the operating hours of different stores are and what my priorities are if various limitations made it impossible to do everything I needed to do today. Working at home, I can quite easily take multiple trips if necessary or step out for 10 minutes in the middle of my work day if I run out of something. Most often the only planning I need to do is make sure I remember to go to the market on market day.

When I worked in the office, I had to eat something for breakfast that would keep me comfortable and focused until it was time to eat something for lunch that would keep me comfortable and focused until it was time to eat something for dinner. Working at home, I eat whatever I want whenever I feel the need.


Some people reading this are thinking "So what? Most people do this all the time every single day."  Yes, I know. I did it every single day for 10 years. It was basically an extra hour of work I had to put in just to go to work. And now that I don't have to do it, I find life is much easier and I have much more mental energy to focus both on my work and on other aspsects of life.

Things They Should UNinvent: any policy that requires you to have a support person

From a recent Carolyn Hax chat:

Hi, Carolyn. Love your weekly chats! Thanks for all you do! I have to have a (non-emergency but necessary) medical procedure (think a colonoscopy). The facility will not admit me for the procedure unless I am accompanied by someone who will be there for the duration of the procedure and drive me home. I cannot take a cab home, and I cannot arrange for someone to pick me up when I'm ready to go. I'm not married, I don't have kids or other family that could take me, and although I have good friends, none that I feel comfortable asking to take a day off work to sit in an office waiting room with me. So I've repeatedly had to delay the appointment. What do people like me do in this situation? I have a chronic medical condition, and I'm suddenly very depressed about the fact that I have to go through life wondering who is doing to take me to my various appointments. I realize that this is a silly logistical question, but it's really triggered some profound feelings of loneliness and fear, and I'd be interested in your thoughts. Thanks!

This is actually a serious procedural problem in the medical system. The job of the medical system is to take care of you, so it's simply not appropriate for them to require you to bring someone to take care of you. 

You arrive at the doctor's office capable of getting home yourself, so they should release you in a condition where you are capable of getting home yourself.   Maybe they can achieve this by letting you rest in the recover room for longer, maybe by providing you with food and drink or additional medication - they're the medical professionals, they'd know how. To do anything else is simply a failure to care properly for patients. Policies like this should be prohibited.

***

And you know what? Let's be bold and extend this rule beyond simple medical care.  All aspects of life should be achievable by anyone without a support person, and if they aren't the relevant organizations should change their policies and practices.  Driving schools should organize their standard courses so people can get fully licenced without having to find their own accompanying driver to practice with. Dresses should be designed so the wearer can put them on and do them up completely without help. The school system should be set up so students can be just as successful even if they don't have a supportive parent.

People who, for whatever reason, don't have a someone who is a fully competent adult who speaks the predominant local language and is able to drop everything to help them when needed are already at a disadvantage. Society and its institutions should be set up to mitigate this disadvantage, not reinforce it.

New Rules: Natural Consequences Edition X

15. Men who catcall people who don't want to be catcalled are sentenced to losing the ability to get an erection for as long as their target remembers or is negatively affected by the catcall.  The impotence to which they are sentenced is so great that it cannot be overcome by viagra or any other medical technology. Sentences will be served consecutively.

(I'm open to adding a natural consequence for women who catcall people who don't want to be catcalled, but I can't think of one that's equivalent. The obvious choice - losing the ability to become sexually aroused or to perform sexually - doesn't seem like it would have an equivalent emotional/psychological impact.)

Things Microsoft Word Should Invent (multilingual spellchecking edition)

1. Display all spelling and grammar errors, no matter how much it slows down the program

If your Word document has too many of the red squiggles indicating spelling errors as detected by the spellchecker, it gives you a warning saying there are too many spelling and grammar errors to continue displaying them.  Then all the red squiggles go away and, if you want to spellcheck, you have to select the spellcheck function from the menu and let the spellcheck program crawl the document rather than correcting red squiggles as you go.

The red squiggles are important to my translation process, and not just for spellchecking purposes.  They show me at a glance where I have and haven't translated, as the text in one language is going to be full of red squiggles when the spellchecker is set to the other language.  This is particularly relevant in very long documents (which I don't always translate linearly) and for bilingual documents - which are also the two kinds of documents that are most likely to involve a phase of the translation process where there are too many red squiggles regardless of whether the proofing language is set to the source language or the target language.

So I want a "Show spelling and grammar errors, no matter what, no matter how many there are, no matter how much it slows down the program" option. Just give me my red squiggles - I'll wait! And if I find it is in fact too slow, I can turn them off, and then turn them back on when I particularly need them.

(Yes, I know you're supposed to be able to mark different sections of the document as different languages or tell Word not to spellcheck a certain section, but in practice I find those functions are hit and miss.  Sometimes I tell it over and over again that the left column is English and the right column is French, or that I don't want it to spellcheck the first six pages, but it just doesn't take.  Same with turning the red squiggles back on after I've translated the whole document - sometimes it just says there are too many spelling and grammar errors without even recounting.  I suppose another option would be to make these functions work reliably.)

2. Add phrases to the spellcheck dictionary

In some circumstances, for certain combinations of genre, context and audience, I have to leave official names in the source language rather than translating them into English. Of course, this means they show up as errors in my spellchecking, even though they're not.

I want to be able to add these official names to the spellcheck dictionary, so it doesn't give them red squiggles and corrects them if I make a typo.  However, I don't want to add the individual words to the dictionary, because taken individually they would still be untranslated words and/or typos. I just want spellcheck to recognize the phrase. For example, I want it to recognize that "Ministère des Affaires municipales et de l'Occupation du territoire" is supposed to be there, but the individual words "ministère" and "affaires" and "municipales" and "territoire", when they don't appear in that exact phrase, are not supposed to be there.   

Computers can do this. Search functions have "whole words only" or "exact phrase only" options. And the error detection aspect of spellchecking is basically a search function (i.e. find all the words on this list, then put red squiggles under all the other words). So they should be able to create this option and thereby help reduce the risk of making typos when some words are in another language that hasn't lived in the user's fingers for as long.

How to end ticket scalping with two simple rules

1. All venues must allow purchasers to return tickets for a full refund.
2. All venues must maintain a waiting list of people who would like to buy any tickets might get returned.

So if you're a regular person who finds yourself unable to attend the event you bought a ticket for, you can get your money back no problem. And if you're a regular person who was signed in with the fan presale code and pressing refresh right at 10:00 but still didn't get through, you will be automatically put in line for any tickets that might become available.

This creates a situation where there is no legitimate resale market, since anyone who has experienced a perfectly innocent change of plans can simply return their tickets to the venue for a full refund.

It also creates, at a minimum, a strong disincentive to buy from resellers at inflated prices until very shortly before the event.  If you aren't able to get through for the presale and instead get waitlisted, you aren't going to go running straight to stubhub. You're going to wait at least a few weeks and see if you get tickets through the waitlist.  People might still want to buy from resellers if they haven't gotten waitlist tickets and the event is just days or hours away, but resellers might also be incentivized to return their unsold tickets to the box office for a refund so they don't have to eat the cost.

They could just introduce these rules and see what happens, or they could get more proactive and add a rule that selling tickets by any means other than through the venue is prohibited.  (They could also write an exception saying that a person who is attending the event can sell the other tickets they purchased in the same block at face value, to permit situations where each member of a group pays for their own tickets, but one person makes the actual purchase so everyone can sit together).

But, regardless of the enforcement details, these two simple rules - both of which could be executed automatically by a computer program - would create a situation where legitimate ticketholders have no reason to resell and where it's far easier for legitimate customers to carry out the scalper boycott that those in the know seem to agree is necessary to once again make it feasible for people who actually want to see the show to be able to buy tickets.

Books read in May 2016

New:

1. The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison
2. Downton Abbey: Rules for Household Staff by "Mr. Carson"
3. King Maybe by Timothy Hallihan

Reread:

1. Fantasy in Death
2. Indulgence in Death
3. Possession in Death
4. Treachery in Death

How to improve assisted dying legislation with one simple rule

I've been reading about the various flaws in the current assisted dying legislation, and my shower gave me an idea of a simple way to improve it, or any other assisted dying legislation really.

I propose that, in addition to whatever categories of patients legislators deem acceptable candidates for assisted dying, any patient who has tried everything and still wants to die is permitted access to assisted death.

I don't think this is anywhere near a whole solution, but I do think it's a (relatively) easy rule that is unobjectionable to as many people as possible and achieves a number of things:

1. It catches the patients that legislators didn't think of. People generally want to impose restrictions on access to physician-assisted dying because they have various "What if?" scenarios in mind that they want to prevent, and they try to write restrictions that address those scenarios.  But, apart from people who don't want anyone to die at all ever, I doubt any of the scenarios people are thinking of preventing include cases where absolutely everything has been tried and the patient still can't bear to go on living.

2. It could create an additional path to help patients access treatments they haven't been offered yet. Sometimes you hear about situations where doctors simply rule out the possibility of certain potential treatments on grounds that the patient might not agree with (e.g. to protect the patient's fertility). But if applying for physician-assisted dying triggers a review of what has been tried so far and a protocol for trying everything else, when they say "We can't offer you death without first trying to remove your ovaries to see if it helps," you can say "Great, let's do that!"

3. It provides hope for all patients.  Even if you don't qualify for assisted dying right this second, you can get there just by following the standard protocol of trying, ruling out and refining treatments.  It will take time and difficulty, but you can get there. Every unsuccessful treatment you attempt is a step towards being put out of your misery.

4. It provides a built-in waiting period. Many people who are opposed to death at will cite first-hand or third-hand experiences of wanting to die but then, after some time passes, not wanting to die any more. Their concern that the desire to die might go away with time would be addressed by all the time it takes to proceed through all the treatments, which makes them less likely to oppose this rule.

***

At this point, you're probably wondering about the definition of "everything". Does that mean you have to try every single medication in existence, or just a representative sample? Do you have to try alternative medicine? What if it's unproven? Do you have to participate in clinical trials?

And what if you can't afford the prescriptions or alternative medicine treatment? What if you can't get into the clinical trials?

First of all, I think the Try Everything rule could be implemented immediately before these points are addressed, with the understanding that we will take the time to examine the nuances and refine the definition of "everything".  This will provide immediate  access for a (admittedly very small) number of people who may have otherwise slipped through the cracks but whose death by choice is as unobjectionable as possible, because they already have tried everything and have documented evidence of this.

Then, the process of working on refining the definition of "everything" could leverage the Anti-Death No Matter What lobby to improve access to medical care in general. Currently, they seem to be limited to saying "No death! Death is Bad!"  But this would give them positive things to lobby for that would serve as obstacles to death, but also help everyone in the meantime.  For example, it's not reasonable to expect people to try every prescription medication if the cost is prohibitive. So now the anti-death lobby is incentivized to lobby for pharmacare.  It's not reasonable to demand that people try alternative medicine that's unproven and not covered by OHIP, so now the anti-death lobby is incentivized to lobby for alternative medicine to undergo clinical testing, and for treatments that turn out to be proven by clinical testing to get covered by OHIP.

***

Of course, this comes nowhere near addressing all the problems with assisted dying legislation.  Notably, it does nothing about the lack of ability to provide an advance directive. But, nevertheless, expanding assisted death availability to include patients who have tried everything would fill in some gaps while being consistent with the spirit and intent of the legislation.

Teach me how non-employer-specific unions work

I recently received an email telling me that the drywallers' union is on strike, and this might cause  delay to my condo. (Which isn't a problem - I'm perfectly comfortable in my apartment in the interim and I sincerely hope the people working so hard to build my home get a generous settlement that helps them be comfortable too.)

Googling around the idea, I get the impression that unions in the trades work like I recently learned unions in show business do - the union isn't specific to an employer, all workers who belong to a certain category are members of the union, and the different employers pay them according to the collective agreement for reasons I don't wholly understand but nevertheless am glad work.

Since they're going on strike, I assume they're in negotiations for a new collective agreement and the negotiations have stalled.  (At least, this is the only situation I'm aware of that leads to a strike).  Which raises a question I never thought about before: who's on the other side of the negotiating table?

The unions with which I'm personally familiar are all for the employees of a single employer.  You work for that one employer, you're part of that union. You switch to another employer, you're no longer part of that union. So in collective agreement negotiations, the union is negotiating with/against the employer.

But since the drywallers and others like them (and the show business unions too) seem to represent everyone doing the same job for all different employers, who are they negotiating with/against? Is there someone who represents all the employers? A union of employers of unions?

Or is there a word for this kind of union where the workers work for many different employers, so I can google it better?  (Non-employer-specific union was fruitless, and googling around the idea of multi-employer union kept getting interference from US health insurance plans.  Also, I think Google's auto-complete feature is anti-union. But doing the same searches with DuckDuckGo just gives me even fewer Canadian results on the first page.)

Books read in April 2016

New:

1. Moonlight Over Paris by Jennifer Robson
2. Fun Home by Alison Bechdel
3. Step Aside, Pops: A Hark! A Vagrant Collection by Kate Beaton
4. Purity by Jonathan Franzen

Reread:

1. Salvation in Death
2. Ritual in Death
3. Promises in Death
4. Kindred in Death
5. Missing in Death

Downton AU fanfiction bunny, free for the taking (Salt of Sorrel is Eaten, Everyone Dies)

In the very first episode of Downton Abbey, there's a scene in which Daisy almost sends a dish of poisonous cleaning product (which the internet tells me is salt of sorrel) up to the dinner table instead of a dish of garnish (which the internet tells me is chopped egg).  Disaster is averted at the last minute ("I'll never do anything simple again, I swear it, not till I die!"), but what if it wasn't?

It would be interesting to see an AU where the salt of sorrel goes up onto the dining table, and some or all of the Crawleys are poisoned and die, depending on feasibility (How lethal is it? How fast-acting is it? Given that people are served food in a certain order, is it plausible for everyone to ingest the poison or would the last people to be served notice something is amiss?) and plot requirements.  (Yes, one or more of the servants would probably be charged with murder and sentenced to death and I don't mean to minimize the seriousness of that for them, but what happens afterwards is where the potential for an interesting story lies.)

For example, suppose all the Crawleys die. Matthew then inherits an empty manor house with a full complement of servants.  What does he do with it?  How does he do right by all the people who depend on the house for their livelihood?

Or suppose only Robert dies.  Matthew inherits a manor house that is currently home to four women he's never met.  He might be inclined to leave it alone and just let them live out their lives while he goes back to lawyering in Manchester. Is that feasible or would he have to be at Downton? Of course, Mary would probably still be highly incentivized to try to marry him. How would that play out? How would he feel about the attentions of a woman who's completely at his mercy for her livelihood?

Suppose only Robert lives. He's in mourning, of course. But he no longer has to worry about securing his daughters' future by marrying one of them to his heir. Would he be incentivized to remarry, even in his grief, so he could have a chance of having a son?  Until such time (if any) as he has a son, what would his relationship with Matthew be like? 

Suppose only Sybil lives. She's still a minor (i.e. not "out") at the beginning of the series. Can she stay at Downton? Would she have to go to America and live with her grandparents there? Or live in London with Lady Rosamund? (Or was Lady Rosamund at this dinner?) The internet suggests that during that era, someone her age could get married with parental consent. I don't know what happens if they don't have parents. I also don't know if Sybil would have it in her to try to win Matthew's affections just because he now owns her home, but desperation leads people to do strange things.  Or would she just run off with the chauffeur?

Suppose only Edith and Sybil live. Edith is a legal adult, she may well be able to have custody of Sybil. What kind of person will she grow into without her glorious war of sisterly rivalry?  She may want to try to marry Matthew to secure her and her sister's livelihood, or, if not, to marry someone else. One thing I noticed throughout the series is that, prior to being left at the altar by Sir Anthony, Edith was actually quite diligent at (what would have been in that setting and era) her job of finding a suitable husband. She took all the right steps, put herself out there, offered and accepted invitations to appropriate activities with appropriate people - she just never ended up getting married.  It would have been the Edwardian equivalent of a newly orphaned young adult diligently trying to find a job to support herself and her minor sibling so they don't have to be separated.

Things They Should Make Far Easier For Me To Find: humorous children's books from other languages and cultures

My fairy goddaughter (currently 4 years old) has a fantastic sense of humour! When she was 1.5 years old, she glommed right onto Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs, and it's only gotten better from there.

She recently announced that she wants to learn French, so I was looking for age-appropriate French reading material, ideally with some element of humour.  However, what kept falling into my hands most readily was French translations of Dr. Seuss or Robert Munsch - French translations of humorous stories originally written in English. Surely comparable humorous children's stories have been written in French, but the arrangement of brick-and-mortar and online bookstores is such that it's not as easy for me to find them.  (I think I found one, but after further googling I'm beginning to suspect that the French name featured prominently on the cover of the book was that of the illustrator, and the book was really written originally in English.)

During previous book shopping trips for my fairy goddaughter and my baby cousins, I've noticed displays featuring stories from other cultures. (I didn't bother to check if they were translations of existing stories from other cultures, or stories written in English that are set in other cultures.)  I gravitated towards these displays because I like the idea of introducing other cultures and to the notion that there's an unimaginably massive range of people and ways of life in the world, but I was disappointed to find that all the multicultural stories were serious.  They were stories with A Moral, or they were so focused on portraying the beauty and dignity of the culture that they were verging on the Noble Savage archetype. Serious stories have their place, of course, but the current combination of personalities, relationships and developmental stages puts us more in the market for fun and humour at the moment, and I don't see why that should be incompatible with exposing the younglings to the fact of other cultures.

Other languages and other cultures must have their own humorous children's stories. I wish the curation of bookstores made these fall into my hands as easily as humorous English-language children's stories.

Books read in March 2016

New:

1. Did You Ever Have a Family by Bill Clegg
2. Thing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple Words by Randall Monroe
3. Building Art: The Life and Work of Frank Gehry by Paul Goldberger
4. Underground in Berlin by Marie Jalowicz Simon, translated by Anthea Bell 
5. Dexter is Dead by Jeff Lindsay 
6. Downton Abbey: A Celebration by Jessica Fellowes 

Reread:

1. Innocent in Death
2. Eternity in Death
3. Creation in Death
4. Strangers in Death

Journalism Wanted: who are the people who write publishable letters to the editor without knowing they'll be googleable?

Recently, the Toronto Star's public editor wrote about people who want their letters to the editor unpublished because they're googleable.

My question: who are these people?  This is really a unique convergence of factors. They are people to whom it occurs to write a letter to the editor, they are savvy enough to write a letter to the editor that gets selected for publication, they are completely unaware of the fact that a letter to the editor would become googleable, and they are affected by the fact that their letter (and the opinions contained therein) are googleable.

How do all these factors manage to converge? The combination of inclination to write a letter to the editor and unawareness of how googleability works makes me think of people who are very old and technologically illiterate, but would these people be affected by the googleability of their letter?  I mean, my own parents are senior citizens and they know how googleability works, so those who are unaware of it would be, like, octogenarians and above, most of whom aren't in the workforce or any other situation where the googleability of their opinions would have any impact.

Also, they don't print truly extremist positions in letters to the editor. If someone wrote in with hate speech or something, it wouldn't get printed.  But one of the reasons cited for requesting a letter to be unpublished is professional repercussions for the political views expressed.  Jobs where people would suffer repercussions for political views sufficiently benign to be printed in a letter to the editor are generally the sort of job that requires some degree of savvy and nuance - the sort of thing where you'd think people would need to know how googleability works in order to function properly at their job.  So how did they get there?

I really want the newspaper to interview these people (even if anonymously) and tell us their stories.  How did all these factors converge?

Where have all the anti-chafing gels gone?

I recently had my very first experience with thigh chafing. I have no idea why it happened now or why it has never happened before, but it made every step I took an ordeal and preoccupied every aspect of my life.

I tried every solution I could think of or google up (baby powder, vaseline, moisturizer, diaper cream, antiperspirant, personal lubricant, Body Glide), and none of them provided the frictionless experience I needed to get through the day.

The remaining option I hadn't tried but had seen praised all over the internet is Monistat Chafing Relief Powder-Gel. I was reluctant to use this because it seemed to be silicone-based, and it turned out that many of my hair problems had been caused by silicones (or, at least, had been solved by eliminating silicones) so I was wary of it as an ingredient.  But, having tried everything else and not been happy with the results, I figured it was time to risk it. So I waddled over to Shoppers Drug Mart...and couldn't find it on the shelf.  I asked the pharmacist, and she said they didn't sell it.  She added that they did used to have a similar product from Lanacane, but they didn't have it any more.

So I waddled over to Rexall, and they also didn't have the Monistat either.  They did have the Lanacane Anti-Chafing Gel...but it was on clearance, suggesting that it's been discontinued!  Which is tragic, because it turns out it's the best of all the products at creating a frictionless situation between my thighs!

Monistat's Canadian website doesn't even have the Chafing Relief Gel, and the price of the product is greatly inflated on amazon.ca. Lanacane still has the Anti-Chafing Gel on its website, but it doesn't have a separate Canadian website and its availability online seems to be petering out.  Googleable evidence suggests that they're both still readily available in the US market.

And I haven't seen any other silicone-based anti-chafing gels on the drugstore shelves.

Why is this whole category of products apparently disappeared from major chain drugstore shelves, and perhaps even have gone so far as to be discontinued?  Other products just aren't comparable!


(If you googled your way here looking for a solution for thigh chafing, the real hero turned out to be ice packs. They brought immediate relief to the physical discomfort, and a diligent icing regime promoted healing far faster than I thought humanly possible.  I went from "OMG, I'm going to have to go to the doctor" to "I wouldn't even have anything to show the doctor" in 48 hours. However, people can't always have an ice pack between their legs every single moment of every single day, and people want the option of prevent the chafing before it happens, so we need anti-chafing gels too.)

Rimmel Scandaleyes Precision Micro Eyeliner is none of the above

My default eyeliner is Rimmel Glam'Eyes liquid liner, which I appreciate in particular for its very thin brush, which allows a fine and precise line even with the dark liquid black I prefer.  My only qualm is that it isn't waterproof, and therefore needs to be touched up throughout the day.

On my last shopping trip, I noticed a new Rimmel product: ScandalEyes Precision Micro Eyeliner.  The packaging touted its fine tip and waterproof formula, so I thought this was just what I need!

Unfortunately, it doesn't do the job at all.

When I attempted to line my eyes using the tip of the pen, only a sporadic, sheer grey line came out. In frustration I scribbed with it on the back of my hand like it was a dead sharpie, and a darker line came out if I pressed down hard and used the side of the pen.  But that line wasn't narrow, and required pressing too hard to duplicate on my eyelids.  And even then, it wasn't consistently as dark as the liquid liner.

So, in short, this alleged precision micro eyeliner is not capable of providing a "precision" or "micro" line when used on the eyes.

The only part of its name that is accurate is the "scandal" part: it's a scandal that Rimmel would make a new product that's so inferior in every way to their old product. 

Dear Rimme: all you have to do is put a waterproof liquid liner in the same packaging with the same brush as the Glam'Eyes liquid.

If you haven't sponsored Eddie Izzard yet, now's the time!

Tomorrow is the last day of Eddie Izzard 27 marathons in 27 day challenge.

So far, he has completed 25 marathons in 26 days, after losing a day to a medical emergency.  So he decided he's going to make it up by running two marathons (84 km) tomorrow, even though he's never done a double marathon before.  And, because apparently that's not challenging enough, he then decided to up his last day's run to 90 km, in honour of South Africa's Comrades Marathon.

Eddie is scheduled to start his double marathon at 5 a.m. South African time (which is about 2 hours after I click Publish on this post), and to end 12 hour later. 

I ardently wish him all the good luck in the known universe, and sincerely hope that enough money is raised that everyone involved feels fully satisfied that this increasingly herculean undertaking was completely worthwhile.

You can follow Eddie's adventure live on BBC, Twitter, and Periscope, and donate via Sport Relief.

Downton Abbey thoughts (full spoilers)

- Much like I was disappointed about not seeing Tom and Sybil's life in Ireland, I was disapopinted about not seeing Tom and Sybbie's life in Boston.  Where did they live? What was the childcare situation? How did Sybbie adjust to living somewhere smaller? After growing up in a manor house, did she have any 5-year-old equivalents of a "What is a weekend?" moment?

- I'm glad they cast child actors who are capable of delivering the odd punchline!

- At one point, Mary tells the guy she ends up marrying that George inherits Robert's title "For reasons too complicated to bore you with."  That's 8 words and 12 syllables.  But "My late husband was my father's heir" is 7 words and 9 syllables!  It would be shorter to explain it!

- (Also the guy Mary ends up marrying and the guy Edith ends up marrying look too similar and I find their names psychologically interchangeable.  I kept getting them mixed up throughout the entire series. Couldn't they get more distinctive actors with more distinctive names?)

- At another point Robert bemoans the fact that Mary decides not to marry Tony on the grounds that "she isn't thinking about her future" or something similar (I can't find the exact quote). But she is exactly thinking about her future, and, more importantly, her son's future.  If she married Tony, she'd be mistress of his estate and wouldn't be able to care for Downton for George.  And if she has a son with Tony, she'd have another heir of another estate who also needs her attention just as much. To do right by George, she needed to marry someone who doesn't have an estate.

- At one point, it's mentioned that Edith doesn't use a lady's maid. I really want to know how she does her awesome hair without a maid's help! They could totally have showed it in passing in a dressing scene that serves as a background for plot-forwarding dialogue.

- Since Mary cut her hair, I thought the scenes of Anna brushing Mary's hair looked ridiculous. The brush was too big and Anna's brush strokes looked too gentle and ineffective.  But I later realized that this was a demonstration of the statement often repeated throughout the season that lady's maids were less necessary in these modern times! Anna's not doing anything with Mary's hair that Mary couldn't do herself just as easily (if not more so). 

- You know how there are political astroturfers who make twitter accounts with egg avatars, follow hashtags, and chime into other people's conversations hurling abuse against their employer's opponent? (Ubhmeathán!) Turns out they have those in the Downton Abbey twitter community! There are random eggs spreading anti-Edith and pro-Mary propaganda!

- But it does occur to me that Lady Mary wouldn't be above hiring an astroturfer. So that's an excellent role-play by that random twitter egg!

- This series jossed parts of my WWII Downton sequel idea, but I think we're still ripe for a WWII sequel:

•  The kids will all be an appropriate age for military service or nursing or war work or whatever the plot needs them to do.
•  Marigold could learn that her biological father was killed by Nazis and join some elite intelligence unit to help avenge his death.
• George's military service (when he's probably too young to have married or produced a heir of his own) could create another succession crisis if they want to mirror that plotline.  
• I was hoping the Bates baby could be a girl so George could marry her or want to marry her or cause a scandal about marrying her, but since he's a boy he could be George's batman, mirroring the relationship between Robert and Bates.
• (Sybbie will marry that random little boy who wandered into Robert's room during the open house, because of course she will.) 
• I had the idea of Lady Rose reuniting with her jazz singer in WWII London, but now that she's in the US she could reunite with him whenever the plot requires. Surely having a Jewish husband could inspire her into some social justice cause during WWII, and then this could be leveraged to make her eventuallybecome a US Civil Rights activist!
• I'm glad that Thomas is now the butler, because I always liked the idea of the next generation of Downton having this scheming evil butler who's completely loyal to the new heir.  That would certainly be an interesting dynamic to play with.  Thomas may have had a last-minute heel-face turn, but I'm sure he's still capable of a good scheme, and we know he's loyal to George and to Sybbie, so the plot potential is there. Thomas was also a medic and helped run the convalescent home in WWI so an excuse could be found to drop him into any war-related plotline.
• I also recently read that the real house used to film Downton was used to house evacuee children during WWII, which would be an interesting plotline!

We can't assume we'll have fewer expenses in retirement

Conventional retirement planning wisdom is that you'll have fewer expenses in retirement, citing the absence of expenses such as parenting, commuting, office clothes, etc.

I don't think this is a safe assumption because of telecommunications trends in recent decades.

For my entire lifetime, the trend has been towards new technologies that require a monthly subscription. Telephones developed touch tone and voicemail and call display.  TV moved from antenna to cable, with more and more channels and more complicated and expensive packages.  The internet became common in people's homes, requiring a monthly subscription. Cell phones became common, requiring another monthly fee, and then smartphones with significantly higher fees. There even seems to be an trend away from mp3s and towards music streaming services with monthly fees (which baffles me - that's like not listening to your albums any more and instead listening to radio exclusively, and paying for the privilege).

If you retired in 1995 at the age of 65, your budget may well not have included internet, cell or data. In 2015, you'd be 85.  There's a good chance you'd still be alive, there's a fairly decent chance you'd still have a reasonable amount of cognition and live independently, but internet, cellphones and data plans would all have become part of normal household telecommunications.  You may well not have even thought of these things in your budget when you retired in 1995, but you'd be increasingly deprived without them as you enter old age.

I see no reason why we can assume this trend would reverse, so when budgeting for the expenses of future decades, we have to assume additional, unforeseen telecommunications needs.

At this point, some people are thinking "surely we have enough telecommunications now - future telecommunications would be luxuries, not necessities."  (Some people also probably think the same thing about internet access, but I suspect they aren't reading my blog.)  But there's three things to keep in mind about this:

1. As new telecommunications technologies become more common, they become more part of the baseline. Think about how many of your income tax forms you have to download from the internet now compared with 1995. (Was it even an option in 1995?) Think about how many things you can't do without an email address.  You need a touchtone phone to access almost any business.  Already we have some services that can only be accessed with an app on a smartphone -  you can't order an Uber using a computer, for example.  So if you deprive yourself of future technology, you're making it increasingly difficult for yourself to fully participate in society.

2.  What we think of as nifty online services become increasingly valuable as a person begins to decline.  Grocery Gateway would be a saviour for someone who isn't mobile enough to get to the grocery store themselves!  Imagine if a person who is beginning to develop dementia could say "Siri, where am I supposed to be?" and Siri would know the answer and give them directions?  Or perhaps even do so pre-emptively to keep them from getting lost in the first place?  Or, on a 20th-century level, think of how with Call Display you can tell your grandmother "Don't answer if you don't recognize the caller" to protect her from scammers, and voicemail will make sure that she doesn't actually miss any important calls she might miss with aggressive use of Call Display.

3. Even if future telecommunications do end up being luxuries, your own retirement planning is not about some hypothetical senior citizen who isn't into technology or who you have unilaterally declared can do without luxuries. It's about you. Do you want to deprive yourself of self-driving cars or holodecks or playing games with your grandchildren via 4D Facetime or whatever the future holds?  Do you want budgetary considerations to put your 90-year-old self in the position of a person who today can't get to the grocery store themselves but also buy their groceries online?

Unfortunately, I have no idea how to anticipate what future telecommunications expenses will end up being.

What's the name for the way parts of my firefox interface are disappearing?

For the past couple of days, my Firefox has been occasionally having this weird graphics problem, where parts of the interface at the top disappear and occasionally black boxes appear over the browser window. Screenshot below, click to embiggen:

Does anyone know what this phenomenon is called so I can google it effectively?

If you have troubleshooting ideas, so far I've tried disabling hardware acceleration, updating my graphics driver, disabling Classic Theme Restorer (which was being used in the screenshot), and disabling transparency in the Windows interface. Each step except disabling transparency helped a little, but none completely eliminated the problem.

The problem can usually be made to go away by changing the browser window size (i.e. clicking the "restore" button on the top right), but that's never permanent. Sometimes, however, I have to close the browser completely.

There weren't any updates or changes that correlated with the arrival of the problem, at least not that I can dig out. A java update appeared in my tray shortly before the problem started, but I didn't actually install the update until after the problem started.

In any case, my real question is the name/term/standard description for this weird way various things are randomly becoming invisible, so I can google it and/or file bug reports.

Anyone know?

Update: Switching to 64-bit Firefox (to go with my 64-bit Windows 7 install) removes the problems of the blank areas, but 64-bit Firefox eats up memory like crazy.  At one point I left the computer alone for 2 hours with only 1 tab open (the weather network), and when I got back it was using 5 gigs of RAM. I'm currently working on the Firefox memory problem and have some avenues, but if I can't make it work I'll do a system restore.

Second update: It turns out the memory leak on 64-bit Firefox is specific to to the combination of The Weather Network website and the Adblock Plus add-on. It doesn't happen on any sites other than The Weather Network, and it doesn't happen on The Weather Network if I disable Adblock Plus.  So I've filed a bug report with ABP to see if they can fix it. They've proven responsive in the past, so hopefully there will be a solution eventually.

As for the random blank graphics, I still don't know what they're called or why they were happening. They don't correspond with specific objects or elements, and move or grow or disappear when I resize the window.  When I try to take an about:memory log while they're happening Firefox crashes (so there are some relevant crash logs wherever it is crash logs get sent to). And they aren't related to The Weather Network or Adblock Plus because they occurred on other sites and even when I had all my add-ons disabled. But the 64-bit Firefox seemed to solve that problem, whatever it was.

With thanks to @hermit8888 , @bwinton, @mike_conley and @gijskruitbosch for pointing me in useful troubleshooting directions via Twitter.