The perfect closet organizing business model

 A kind, compassionate, trustworthy, non-judgemental person with excellent EQ comes to your home with a measuring tape, a dressmaker's mannequin, and a box.

They measure your body, perhaps even without telling you what the measurements are, and set the dressmaker's mannequin to match your measurements.

Then they go through your closet and try every single item of clothing on the dressmaker's mannequin. You don't have to be in the room while they do this.

Every item of clothing that is too small for your body goes into the box, which they close and seal.

Then, when they're done, you have more closet space and 100% of the clothes in your closet fit your body.

You don't have to see which of your favourite clothes are too small for you, or go through the upsetting experience of trying on favourite clothes that ended up being too small.

They can take away the box of too-small clothes and donate them appropriately, or they can leave it with you, closed and sealed, for you to either revisit when you can cope with it or completely disregard.

Updated with a bonus round:

The closet organizer is paired up with a personal shopper, to whom they provide your measurements and the quantity and characteristics of the clothing that was removed from your closet, and the personal shopper finds suitable replacements that fit your current body.

Those lovely blouses in jewel tones that you bought years ago are now too small? Here's a selection of flattering blouses in jewel tones! 

You have to give up your twirly sundress? Here are a few twirly sundress options!

Books read in August 2023

New: 

 

1. Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube: Chasing Fear and Finding Home in the Great White North by Blair Braverman

 

Reread:

 

1. Echoes in Death

2. Secrets in Death

Translating Good Omens subtitles: "Bildad the Shuhite! Need any shoes?"

This post contains exactly one (1) line from Good Omens Season 2, which technically makes it a spoiler that should be tagged under the fandom's robust spoiler tagging policy.

 

At one point in Episode 2, Crowley introduces himself as "Bildad the Shuhite," then adds "Need any shoes?"

A pun, with half the pun unchangeable! (Bildad the Shuhite being the name of a specific biblical character who would already have an established name in the target language.) How do you translate this?

I've recorded the content of the subtitles here but haven't drilled down into them yet. Additions, analysis, commentary, and transcriptions of the languages I can't do myself are more than welcome!

 

Languages I know:

French (both Canada and France): souliers. This is a direct translation and doesn't really work as a pun.

German: Schuhe (direct translation, works as a pun)

Spain Spanish: suéteres (sweaters, works as a pun)

Latin American Spanish: jesuita (Jesuit. Works as a pun with "el suhita")

Polish: buty (direct translation, doesn't work as a pun)

 

Languages I don't know: (I'm just transcribing them from now, might dabble in looking them up later)

Bahasa Melayu: "Perlukan kasut?"

Catalan: xulla

Dansk: sko

Euskara:  "Surik nahi?"

Filipino: Sapatos

Indonesia: Bildad, orag Suah. Butah Sepatu?

Italian: Servano scarpe?

Nederlands: schoenen

Norsk Bokmal (Norwegian): sko

Brazil Portuguese: suar

Portugual Portuguese:  suínos

Romanian: cizme 

Suomi (Finnish): "Onko kengän tarve?"

Swedish: Schack

Turkish: "Ayakkabi lazim mi?"

Cestina (Czech): Buty

Russian (my transliteration): "Savany sh'yu"

Ukrainian (my transliteration): shurupi

Greek, Arabic and Hebrew are also available, but I'm not able to translate or transliterate them.

Books read in July 2023

 New:

 1. The Body under the Piano by Marthe Jocelyn

Reread:

1. Apprentice in Death

Good Omens subtitle translations: "They are toast: T-O-S-T...E!"

This post contains exactly one (1) line from Good Omens Season 2, which technically makes it a spoiler that should be tagged under the fandom's robust spoiler tagging policy.

 

At one point in the second season of Good Omens, the demon Shax, who is already established as a poor speller, says "They are TOAST! T-O-S-T-...E!"

Naturally, I started thinking about how you might translate that.

Fortunately, there are subtitles in 29 different languages, so I decided to write them down.

(I originally braindumped this on Twitter, but given that it's no longer reliable or googleable, I'm also putting it here.)

Additions, analysis, commentary, and transcriptions of the languages I can't do myself are more than welcome! 

Languages I know:

Canadian French: "fichus: F-I-S-H-U" 

France French: "cuits: C-U-I-S" 

German: "töte: T-Ö-H-T-E" 

Latin American Spanish: "fritos: F-R-I-T-O-S" (no error ) 

Spain Spanish: "muertos: M-U-R-T-O...S" 

Polish: "po nich: P-O N-I-C-H" (no error)

 

Languages I don't know:

Bahasa Melayu (Malay): "mati: M-A-T-E" (I think - I'm not certain about the morphology) 

Catalan: "Fregits: F-R-E-J-I-T-S" 

Dansk (Danish): "kaput: K-A-P-U-D"

Euskara (Basque)): "akabatu: A-Q-A-B-A-T-U" 

Filipino has her spell out "P-A-T-A...I", but I don't see that combination of letters in the preceding sentences. I don't know enough about the language to provide more info.

Indonesia: "celaka: C-E-L-A-G-A" 

Italian: "fritti: F-R-I-T-T..I: 

Magyar (Hungarian): "kampec: K-A-N-P-E-C...Z" 

Nederlands (Dutch): "klos: C-L-O-S" 

Norsk Bokmal (Norwegian): "ferdige: F-R-E-D-I-G...E"

Brazilian Portuguese: "fritos: F-R-I-T-O...Z" 

Portugal Portuguese: "ares: A-R-E-S...E" (the whole segment is "vão todos pelos ares" - I have a hunch "ares" might not contain all the meaning) 

Romanian: "praf: F-R-A-P"

Suomi (Finnish): "mennyttä: M-E-N-Y-T-A" 

Swedish: "döda: D-Ö-D-D-A" 

Turkish: "kizartirium: K-I-Z-A-T-T" (the letters I've transcribed as "i" are actually the dotless Turkish I, but I don't know how to type that)

Cestina (Czech): "napadrt: N-A-P-A-T-R-T" (There's a diacritic on the T that I don't know how to make) 

Greek is available, but I don't know how to transcribe or transliterate it. 

Russian (my transliteration): "kayuk: K-O-YU-G"

Ukrainian: the word is (my transliteration) "kinets" with a soft sign at the end, and she spells it out as (my transliteration "K-I-N-E-TS" without the soft sign at the end. 

There are also Hebrew and Arabic subtitles, but I can't read, transcribe or transliterate them.

Books read in June 2023

New: 

1. Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots

Reread: 

1. Brotherhood in Death 

New Twitter personal best

NBD, NBD, just Neil Gaiman taking a moment out of his busy day to personally reply to my tweet so I can make safe and informed media consumption decisions




Only in the Title credits.

— Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) June 2, 2023

And, on further reflection, for a little bit in Episode 4. Avert your eyes when Furfur uses the clicker.

— Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) June 2, 2023

Things I Don't Understand: people who value health labour but don't value COVID protections

I blogged before about the labour of health.

Some people value health labour. They value doing it themselves, and/or they value being seen to do it, and/or they believe other people should do it.

A baffling phenomenon I've observed is people who value health labour, but don't value (and sometimes outright object to) COVID protections!

I grew up surrounded by people who value health labour (that's why I'm inclined to push back against it myself), so I'm familiar with many different motivations for valuing, engaging in or advocating for health labour. And COVID protections align with every single one of the motivations I can think of.

Some people value and engage in health labour because they themselves want to be healthy. They want to live longer, or have quality of life for longer, or simply avoid the unpleasantness and inconvenience of poor health. And COVID protections help achieve all this.

Some people value and engage in health labour because they believe sufficient diligence will save them from distressing outcomes. And COVID protections are a form of diligence that reduces the likelihood of distressing outcomes.

 

Some people value, engage in, and advocate for health labour because they believe people have the responsibility to their fellow taxpayers to reduce the healthcare they need and therefore the healthcare costs they incur. And COVID protections will reduce the amount of healthcare people need and the healthcare costs people incur. 

Some people value and engage in health labour because they want to be seen to be A Healthy Person, walking around with a yoga mat and instagramming their smoothies. And this can also be done with COVID protections, walking around in an N95 and instagramming your efforts to build a Corsi-Rosenthal box.

Some people engage in or advocate for health labour out of a sense of smug superiority. Doing this labour makes them feel like they're better than other people who aren't doing it, or calling out other people's failure to do this labour lets them position those people as Less Than. And many COVID protections are also things you can do, or call out other people for not doing, for both your individual health and for general public health.

 

Some people value, engage in and advocate for health labour because they value individualism and personal responsibility. They value making personal efforts to take care of yourself and your loved ones without any expectation that the systems and structure of society will do so. And individual COVID protections like masking and vaxxing and providing good indoor air quality everywhere you can align with this. It really seems like the people who vociferously tout individualism in other aspects of health labour should be the ones lugging a Corsi-Rosenthal box everywhere they go!

Some people advocate for health labour because they're profiting from it. They sell nutritional supplements and fitness programs and such. And this can also be done with COVID protections, selling masks and air purifiers. You could get an additional revenue stream while also keeping your clients healthy enough to continue working and earning enough to keep buying your regular products!

I've heard some people say that this comes from a place of eugenics - people thinking that you'll only be affected by COVID if you have inferior genetics, and having superior genetics means you'll be safe from COVID. 

What I don't get about that is why people who believe in eugenics would also value health labour so much. (I'm aware of the historical precedent, but I don't understand it.) If your genes were so superior, why would you need health labour at all? Surely superior genetics wouldn't need carefully balanced fitness and nutrition, and instead could handle whatever the natural course of modern life throws at them!

There are all kinds of reasons why people are into health labour, and they all align with prioritizing COVID protection. And yet, a surprising number of people who are into health labour seem to be disregarding, or even disdaining, COVID protection. 

I just don't understand.

Books read in April 2023

New:

 

1. Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity by Kim Scott

2. A World of Curiosities by Louise Penny

Reread:

1. Devoted in Death

2. Wonderment in Death

Advice for the Ask A Manager letter writer who found scales in the break room

 A while back, Ask A Manager ran a letter where someone had placed scales in the break room next to the vending machines (#4 at the link).

 

There was a lot of discussion of this in the comment thread and in other parts of the internet. Some people thought that it was clearly judgmental passive-aggression about people's weight. Other people thought that weight loss is important and if you think there's something wrong with encouraging people to lose weight you have Issues. And other people thought that, regardless of who put the scales there or why, they must be someone's personal property so it would be wrong to mess with them.

My shower recently gave me an approach that would address all these possibilities and more.

 

If your office has a culture of people leaving stuff in the break room for anyone who wants it to take (for example, if someone baked cookies or got a free sample they don't need), you could ask "Are these scales here free to take?"

 

(In fact, you might even be able to ask this if you don't have a "freebies in the break room" culture.)

If the answer is yes, you can take the scales away away and they won't be there any more. Or leave them there, knowing that they're just an innocent giveaway.

And if they're there for some other reason, this creates an opening for the person who put them there to explain.

And if no one speaks up and says "I put them there for this very specific reason," then there's no reason not to get rid of them, since apparently they don't belong to anyone.

As an added bonus, this approach would also avoid making you come across as someone who has Issues About Weight Loss, which sometimes is detrimental to your credibility when you're surrounded by people who think Weight Loss Is Important. In fact, it might even make the Weight Loss Is Important people think you're one of them, because you come across as wanting a free scale. (Should you have to appease the Weight Loss Is Important people? Of course not! But sometimes it's a better decision not to throw away capital when you don't have to, even if the basis is silly.)

I suppose it's possible that someone might have put them there for a reason and not speak up when prompted to do so and subsequently complain when you take the scales away, but that seems vanishingly likely.

Books read in March 2023

 Reread:

1. Obsession in death

Saving for a down payment is not the only barrier to housing affordability

Discourse about homebuying affordability often focuses on saving up for a down payment - which, of course, is a major, time-consuming endeavour. (It took me 10 years, and I was buying at 2012 preconstruction prices!)

 

But another important consideration is how much mortgage you quality for based on your income. A 20% down payment is insufficient if the mortgage you qualify for is less than 80% of the purchase price.

 

An example of this fallacy is this recent Toronto Star article about "starter home" affordability.

Toronto in 2021

Time to save for down payment: 20+ years

What is Toronto’s starter home of this decade? In short, it’s further from the core, harder to attain and requires decades’ worth of savings.

Looking at properties that fell around 20 per cent below the average cost in 2021, there were still some bungalows in the mix, such as a raised bungalow that hit the market in the Scarborough neighbourhood of Birchcliffe-Cliffside. A property listing describes the house’s interiors as “well maintained but dated.”

It was offered in as-is, where-is condition, meaning the seller wouldn’t be making any repairs for the new buyer. “Buy to renovate or rebuild,” it suggested.

Like so many properties across Toronto last year, it sold for well above its listing price. Four days after records show it was listed for $699,900, it went for nearly $200,000 more, with a sale price of $875,000.

To reach a 20 per cent down payment, an individual or family would be tasked with tucking away a whopping $175,000. The median household income across the city last year was $84,000 — meaning this “starter” home would take more than 20 years of savings.

This is all true, but let's also look at the mortgage situation.

Median household income last year was $84,000.

Using Tangerine's "How much can I borrow?" calculator (because that's the one I find most user-friendly), with an income of $84,000, the $175,000 down payment calculated above, and all the other settings left to default, we get a total mortgage of $432,946.

 

$432,946 mortgage + $175,000 down payment = $607,946

$875,000 sale price - $607,946 = $267,054

$267,054 / $8,400 annual savings rate = 31.7921428571

 

So it would take an additional almost 32 years, on top of the 20 years calculated by the Star article, to save up enough of a down payment to fill in the gap between mortgage eligibility and sale price. That is a total of 52 years of saving up to buy your first home!

 

Alternatively, to qualify for a mortgage that would fill the $607,946 gap between the $175,000 down payment and the $875,000 sale price, you'd need an annual household income of $116,080 - 38% higher than the median. (I arrived at this number by fiddling with the inputs in the mortgage calculator. If you know a link to a calculator that determines the income needed to qualify for a given size of mortgage - or if you know the formula for calculating this - drop it in the comments so everyone can run the numbers themselves!)

 

So yes, saving up for a 20% down payment in an over-inflated housing market is a major challenge!

 

But it is not the entirety of the challenge. The average household would still be nowhere near able to afford a "starter home" with just a 20% down payment.

 

Discourse surrounding the challenges of the housing market needs to make it clear that a 20% down payment is not the only barrier to affordability.

Books read in February 2023

New:

 

1. Maus by Art Spiegelman

2. The Neil Gaiman Reader by Neil Gaiman

 

Reread:

 

1. Festive in Death

The need for workplace accommodations is a failure of the workplace

In a recent Globe and Mail article:

Researchers estimate that approximately one in eight Canadian women are likely suffering from an unrecognized brain injury related to domestic violence. 

I have an undiagnosed brain injury (not resulting from domestic violence, so you don't need to worry about that on my behalf) and I have to adjust all kinds of aspects of life to adapt to it. I have systems and backup plans for if I can't cope with my usual lightbulbs, or I wake up and my eyes won't open, or any one of the countless irritants of post-head-injury life.

And, essentially, the reason why I'm able to do this is that I work from home.

It occurred to me recently that if I still worked in the office, every one of these little adjustments to post-head-injury life would need to be a formal accommodation. 

Even just the light thing - I'd need to get a doctor's note, perhaps specifying what kinds of lights bother my eyes and what kinds I need instead. This would require a testing rabbit-hole, because I don't actually know the answer! I can point to certain places where the lights bother me all the time and other places where the lights bother me some of the time, but I haven't figured out exactly what types of lights do what. 

This is exacerbated by the fact that employees of businesses and other spaces where I'm not in charge of the lights often don't know what kinds of lights they have either. One example is actually my doctor's office: the lights used to bother me, now they don't. I asked the doctor if they'd changed the lights, and he said that the landlord had changed the lights, but he has no idea what kinds were used before or are used now.

This is also exacerbated by the fact that I didn't meet the diagnostic criteria for a concussion. Because the medical profession told me I'm fine, I didn't immediately seek the help of the medical profession when I realized I wasn't fine. So I'd be seeking a note confirming a problem where the only thing on my file is that I don't have that problem, and I never followed up further. Not the best for my credibility - especially when it requires a bunch of paperwork from my doctor!

Then, if I did manage to get a doctor's note, I'd need to get it approved by management, who may or may not send it back for more information. Then they'd have to figure out what adjustments can be made to the lights in the office, and send facilities people in to make the adjustments. (I've seen this done for others - they have to send a guy up a ladder to make adjustments to the lighting fixtures high on the ceiling.)

In contract, when I'm at home, I just flick a lightswitch. If it gets really hardcore, I change a lightbulb. 

This has me thinking about how many people need to jump through hoops just to function at work as a result of domestic violence.

And also has me thinking that if employees need to seek formal accommodations in a workplace, that means that the workplace is flawed.

Employees should be able to navigate and operate their workplace without having to ask permission or go through red tape for every little thing.

If you're an employer - especially if you're an employer who's worried about losing employees to work-from-home jobs - think about how your employees can and can't navigate and operate their workplace independently, without asking for permission or approval, and how that would compare with working from home.

If you can close that gap, you'll build a better workplace.

Advice for "Worried" in a recent Carolyn Hax column

 From a recent Carolyn Hax:

Dear Carolyn: My girlfriend loves her dog and takes extremely good care of it. I mean extremely. The dog has a schedule, including breakfast, walks, naps, playtime, dinner and bedtime. She cooks for the dog. The dog gets filtered (not tap) water. The dog has more toys and sweaters than your average toddler. The dog goes to day care on the days my girlfriend has to work on-site. My girlfriend spends a lot of money on the dog.

The dog is cute. I like the dog. But we are thinking of marrying, and I worry that the way she treats this dog will set a precedent for how she might treat our children. I think as much as she loves the dog, if she treated a child this way, it would be too much. Too much hovering, too much spending, too much controlling.

She is a great girl in every other way. Even in this way, even if that sounds weird, because boy is that dog loved. But I still worry because I am less hands-on with my pets. They are fed, walked and cuddled, but they are not treated like royalty. Would it be a mistake to marry this wonderful girl?

— Worried

You do need to tell her specifically that you think the way she loves and cares for her dog is too much and you're concerned that she might love and care for children in a similar way, because you might have a fundamental parenting incompatibility here, and you both need to be aware of it to decide whether the relationship should proceed.

You mention that you yourself have pets, and you love and care for them in a way you feel is appropriate.

How would you feel if your girlfriend looked at how you take care of your pets and said it's too much and you're spoiling them? What about your potential future children? Would you want your children to be in the care of and dependent on someone who thinks they should receive less love and care than you think is appropriate?

Or would you want to protect them from someone who's trying to create a situation where they receive less love and care than you think is appropriate?

Your girlfriend would also want to protect her potential future children from situations where they receive less love and care than she thinks is appropriate, and that may well mean protecting them from having you as a parent.

This is a critical impasse you're at, and not to disclose it to her would be deception.

Books read in January 2023

New: 

1. Minique by Anna Maxymiw

 

Reread:

 

1. Taken in Death

2. Concealed in Death

Cascade Complete from the grocery store is better than Cascade Complete from Amazon

I previously tried Cascade Complete, and found it subpar and ineffective.

However, I recently ran out of dishwasher detergent, and Cascade Complete was the only one I could find in store. So I bought it, thinking it's better than nothing until I can get something else.

My first surprise is that the detergent was a different colour. My previous Cascade Complete (which I bought on Amazon) was a kind of dull greyish blue. The new one from the grocery store was a bright greenish blue.

 

My second surprise was that it worked! No food left on pans, no stained teacups, my dishes were clean!

I've been using it for some time, and it's on par with the lemon Cascade I was using before!

So maybe the Cascade I bought from Amazon was a bad batch?

So far I've only tried one bottle of Cascade from Amazon and one from the grocery store so I don't know how widespread the problem is, but I'm glad to know that the most common liquid dishwasher detergent actually works when I buy it in store!

And if I ever again get a bottle of Cascade that's dull greyish blue, I'm returning it right away.

Romance novels vs. fanfiction

I recently saw someone on book twitter say that it's a convention of the genre that romance novels have to have a happy ending.

That surprised me, because when I do read romance, I'm usually metaphorically peeking between my fingers, feeling like this is all going to end in heartbreak.

Often it's not worry about whether the couple ends up together, but rather worrying that they're not right for each other. Especially in cishet romance, I'm fearing that the male lead is unsafe for the female lead. (After all, we all know that handsome and charming does not necessarily equal safe!)

Even in the In Death books, which I have been reading and enjoying for OMG 15 years now, I read the whole first book and didn't feel that Roarke was a safe partner for Eve. I only even started the second book because it had already arrived from the library and it eventually won me over. 

The problem with early In Death, which I think is also the problem with many romance novels, is the author is writing from the assumption that the couple belongs together. But as a reader, I just got here. I have no emotional attachment to the pairing, I have no reason to believe they belong together, and I'm not motivated to suspend disbelief. The author would have to win me over and actually demonstrate that they belong together, which authors don't always do.

Because of this, I don't read that much romance. 

However, I just realized this is why romantic fanfiction does work for me. In fanfiction, I already know the characters and I already agree that the couple belongs together - that's why I'm reading that pairing! So the author doesn't have to win me or the rest of the audience over. Everyone already agrees that the couple belongs together, and we can just enjoy the ride. For example, I recently read an AU where one main character (who was in a position of greater power) accidentally kidnapped the other (who was in a more vulnerable position). In original fiction, that would be appalling! But, because I already agree with the author that the couple belongs together, I'm like "Oh, that scamp, how's he going to get out of this mess?"

Writing this out, I realized that I more often start shipping characters from movies or TV shows rather than books. Something about seeing the relationship played out visually is more convincing to me. Other than In Death, I can't think of a pairing I've started shipping after reading them in a book. But nevertheless, once the shipping is established, text continued to be my preferred medium for fanfiction.

"He's an asshole but I don't remember why": a post-head-injury phenomenon

Since my head injury, my brain behaves as though it's trying to save disk space, by deleting information it believes is no longer needed.

One such category of information is information that was used to make a decision that has been finalized and shouldn't need to be revisited.

One example of these decisions was choosing my condo finishes. I chose my kitchen counters on the basis that they were the least worst of the available options, but my brain has deleted what the problem was with the other ones. I couldn't explain to you what was wrong with them or why my current one was better.

Another example of these decisions was setting up my mortgage. I remember various questions I asked when deciding on the specifics of the mortgage and I remember that I was satisfied with the answers, but I don't remember what the answers were. I couldn't explain to you why this particular kind of mortgage meets my needs best, even though I'm confident that itdoes.

 

Another example of these decisions is deciding that someone I don't have to deal with in real life (a writer, a public figure, etc.) is untrustworthy or should be disregarded. 

 

For example, maybe people I trust on a particular topic don't trust this individual. Maybe this individual's politics are problematic. Maybe I learn that this individual is racist (as I've mentioned before, I'm bad at detecting racism myself, so I can't always tell until someone else mentions it).

 

So I decide to disregard them. I don't pay attention to the untrustworthy things they say, and instead spend my time and energy on trustworthy people. I don't read them for fear that I might unknowingly internalize their racism, and instead opt to read the people who first recognized that the problematic individual is racist.

Decision made, my brain deletes the information I used to arrive at that decision.

Then, sometime later, this individual comes up in conversation. I recognize the name as someone I've made a deliberate, informed decision to distrust for very good reasons. My interlocutor, being a decent human being, would want to know about this.

 

But all that's left in my brain is "He's an asshole . . . but I don't remember why."

***

What's super interesting is how people react to this!

 

When I can't remember or articulate why he's an asshole, people's visceral reaction is "You have no proof, therefore your allegation is non-credible!"

 

And then, they quite frequently go from "Your allegation is non-credible" to "Therefore, the person you are making allegations against is trustworthy!"

 

 

I haven't figured out what to do with this. If I were in my interlocutor's position, I'd want to know that he's an asshole. Based on what I know of my interlocutor, I also think they'd want to know.

But when I present what I know, minus what my post-head-injury brain has deleted, it often comes across as giving the asshole additional credibility.

I don't know what to do with this.