Fun fact! Not only is Anne Haney the judge in this episode, she played a judge in an episode of Northern Exposure that contains this EXACT same plot, but centered around Chris the radio DJ instead of a symbiont-hosting alien. I have no idea why this plot was reused (with the same judge!) in two very different shows, but I find it hilarious.

Love this, thanks! I'm poly and have been doing a lot of thinking in the last couple years of how I want to structure and pursue relationships; while I don't quite identify that way, a LOT of what I've seen solo poly folks say resonates with me. And honestly I'm always happy to see good discussion about polyamory because it just doesn't come up that often. Thanks for sharing. :)

I saw Gaymous at a NYE cabaret show this past year and hoo boy are they a treat live. I was particularly impressed by their sexy slow jam about fisting.

You may be interested in this delightful fanfic about Mary and Kitty: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6329312/1/The-Miss-B...
(also by the same author, taking place slightly before that one, is a fic about Lady Catherine's daughter: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5375087/1/Miss-de-Bo...

I would definitely suggest that folks look up local rape crisis centers to see if any are nearby - I don't want to downplay RAINN but a lot of what they do is connect people with local resources and I feel like local centers often use their money in ways that don't involve paying their president close to $300k per year and downplaying rape culture: http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2014/03/18/r...
Local rape crisis centers probably need your money and support more than RAINN does, if you're looking at donating, and if you need help they will be the best places to connect you with support in your particular area.

I'm also angry still because I had someone come to the live chat support at Scarleteen, describe a CLEAR instance of rape, and say "I got in touch with RAINN and when I told them this story, the person there said this wasn't rape." Which is never ok to say to someone who's just described their experience, but ESPECIALLY NOT when you are a fucking rape crisis volunteer.

I have gone through the crisis line volunteer training at the Orange County Rape Crisis Center (of North Carolina, not California) and even though I've moved away I still donate because that is a really well-run center. Ocrcc.org

For teens/young adults, Scarleteen provides support for sexual assault and rape; there's a list of our direct services here: http://www.scarleteen.com/need_help_now_a_guide_t...

I don't have direct experience with Pandora's Project but I've heard good things about this as a community of survivors providing support to each other: http://www.pandys.org/

I don't specifically know what your local org needs, but plenty of rape crisis centers could use help with clerical work, setting up/taking down chairs etc. for support groups, and other types of help that don't involve the super-tough emotional work. And they definitely can always use financial support!
You can probably look up organizations in your area and get in touch to see what sort of help they need.

Oh no! I had something similar, although there was no alarm. Early on at a retail job, I would come in at 10 on Saturdays for the early shift; the store owner would be there too to open up, and another employee + the manager came in at noon and worked until closing (when the manager would lock up). My boss was moving one Saturday, but he FORGOT that he hadn't given me keys to the store. I assumed he was going to open up and then start moving, but he did not - so I had to sit outside the store for nearly TWO hours hoping for a miracle, while a parade of customers came by and were disappointed.

Most people were pretty understanding, but this super-rich guy Gordon (so rich he had one of those titanium AmEx black cards) was SO pissed and kept saying "this is NO WAY to run a business" at me. Thanks dude, but I had nothing to do with my boss being a flake.

This was before I had a cell phone, and while a few other people offered to let me use their phones to call my boss, I hadn't been working there long enough to have memorized his number. Finally a former employee (who had left w/a lot of bad feelings towards my boss) happened to come by and she knew his number, so I was able to call and tell him to get his ass over to open it up. He kind of freaked out, but at least he realized that it had been his fault.

The upside was that he said "you're doing such a good job here I just assumed I'd given you keys already" and this was my first step towards becoming a manager and being hella competent there, but it was a pretty terrible morning.

My first job out of college was an admin assistant/resident coordinator at my university hospital's dermatology department, and it was miserable because there was really only a part-time job's worth of work for most of the year. During match season it was busy, but when I started there was very little to do (and I wasn't allowed to read at my desk for some reason). So I was happily taking on whatever projects my supervisor could give me.
She put me on updating the departmental directory, which meant I was emailing everyone in this fairly large department for weeks to remind them about sending their information in to me, then using a very clunky editing program to smoosh all the data in. It was the kind where inserting someone into the alphabetical list didn't automatically shift all other entries smoothly down, but messed up the formatting, so there was endless cut/pasting going on.
I managed to get it all put together only a little later than desired, figure out the confusing university printer's ordering system on their website, and submit my First Big Project, only to have my DIRECT supervisor, who was so patient with me even though I probably radiated anger at that shitty job, come into my cubicle and say "why am I not listed in the directory?"
Somehow, out of dozens of employees in the department, the only one missing was her. Sorry, Libby. :(

More embarrassing than terrible: I was managing a pet supply store that focused a lot on nutrition so we had close relationships with a lot of pet food manufacturers. One was sponsoring a tour of their plant for store owners to show off their dedication to quality control, high quality ingredients, etc. This was about a four-hour drive away, in South Carolina, so it would take all day and I wouldn't be in the store at all. I drove down, blasting awesome music all the way, showed up at the plant... and when no one was there to meet me, I called into the store and the other manager and I realized that the tour was the NEXT Wednesday.
My boss was a good sport and actually paid me for half the day even though I didn't do shit, and when I went down the next week the sales rep made a joke about someone being "so enthusiastic" they came down a week early, but happily she didn't name names.

Oof, so much of this is familiar territory. It never ceases to amaze me how entitled many people feel to comment on the gender presentation of other people.

My mom is mostly great, except for not consistently using the right pronouns for me 9+ years after I asked her to make that change. But she also bought me awesome beard-grooming toiletries for my birthday last week, so I can't really figure her out on this.

Thanks so much for sharing. <3

Oh shit dude, I've gotten a bunch of those too! Politeness goes out the window for many people when they're talking to trans folks. Ugh.