IntenseDebate - Elsa is Emily

8 years ago @ The Toast - Dear Businesslady: Adv... · 1 reply · +27 points

Goddamnit, The Businesslady, I am not scheduled to cry yet today. But here we are.

8 years ago @ The Toast - "I saw writing from pe... · 0 replies · +27 points

I've been too busy (and let's be honest: too much in denial) to craft an appropriate ode to The Toast since the announcement.

But The Toast — and specifically Nicole Cliffe — helped me get that busy in the first place, and if I didn't take time to say thanks one more time in the site's last days, I'd regret it. So here we go.

The Toast published my first paid writing. As much as it thrilled me to have my first piece accepted, its editorial reception was even better. Nicole's unstinting enthusiasm was a gift to a fledgling writer. I'm grateful for so much about this site, but her generosity of spirit, her willingness to be excited about my writing, gave me confidence… and encouraged me to earn that confidence, and that praise.

I've backed away from commenting over the past year or so, in part because I suddenly found myself working (sometimes too hard, and that's a gift, too) as a freelance writer. But I'm going to miss this community, where voices that too often get shouted down and drowned out are lifted up, listened to, and celebrated.

I love it here, and I mourn the passing of The Toast — but even more, I revel in its existence at all, and at being a small part of it.

8 years ago @ The Toast - Link Roundup! · 0 replies · +2 points

awwww yeah I have a liter of black cherry in my fridge RIGHT NOW, here I go to git it

8 years ago @ The Toast - Why Everyone Is Attrac... · 0 replies · +161 points

Me and my favorite-ever staff member from my favorite-ever video store, so yeeeeeah but with Shakespearean adaptations and horror movies.

READER, I MARRIED HIM.

The store closed last year, but I've still got the husband. Every Valentine's day, we snuggle down and watch a half-dozen horror movies.

8 years ago @ The Toast - Link Roundup! · 19 replies · +45 points

I 100% ID myself to my mother by saying, "Hi, Mom, it's Emily," because I am the youngest of five and I have spent enough of my life listening to my parents start and falter over names until they hit the right one.

My father more than once started a phone call with "Hello, Emily, this is your father, [first name, last name]."

8 years ago @ The Toast - We Are Closing The Toa... · 0 replies · +22 points

[deep breath]

I am determined to focus on gratitude first.

Thank you for everything you've done, for showing us what a joyous, smart, silly, thoughtfully moderated feminist haven of a site can look like.

Thank you for publishing me — my first paid writing! Without The Toast, I might still be a full-time freelancer, but I wouldn't have had the encouragement of those generous editorial compliments to cheer me on. I wouldn't trade those early emails for anything.

Thank you for making it clear that this is a considered, ultimately welcome choice for you both, and that we shouldn't scramble around trying to think up a solution. I suspect we know that, but it's still kindest to rip the BandAid of hope off fast.

Thank you for this community, which will live on after you stop publishing. I'm sure in this long list of comments, someone's put up the Twitter spreadsheet, and I'll go looking for it later today, but for now: I'm @emilyorelse, and I'd love to see all-a-y'all on Twitter.

For now — for now — I'm not going to be sad to see the site go; I'm going to be grateful for what you gave us.

8 years ago @ The Toast - How to Help Your Frien... · 1 reply · +3 points

It's obvious to viewers (and to Philip) that loneliness was Martha's leverage point. It wasn't obvious to Stan until, and maybe even after, the time of that conversation, and that's part of what (I think) he's saying: they're all presumed to be more or less open books — if not to each other, at least to the agency that vetted them all for their higher clearance ratings — but each of them is a secret after all, an unknown quantity, a mystery.

I don't have a particular interest in defending Stan as a person; I'm just saying there's more nuance to this remark than pearl-clutching over a broken law.

8 years ago @ The Toast - How to Help Your Frien... · 3 replies · +4 points

I think Stan's salient point there is not that OH NO LAWBREAKER but that, like anything illegal, Martha's then-illegal abortion offers possible leverage for pressure or blackmail — something that in bureau employees and others in security-clearance positions can offer a point of vulnerability.

8 years ago @ The Toast - On Race, Good Intentio... · 1 reply · +130 points

Wouldn’t it be better if you just assumed that most people have genuinely good intentions?

Wouldn’t it be better

WOULDN'T IT BE BETTER

That depends what better is, and that question presupposes that it's BETTER

A. for a person who says racist things not to have to confront their own unexamined racism;
B. for POC to carry the extra burden not just of dealing with racism, but of tutoring unwilling audiences about it.

Sooooooo that's better for racism and racists, intentional or otherwise, yeah, but not for, y'know, anyone or anything else.

8 years ago @ The Toast - Tough Choices · 0 replies · +45 points

(It happened to me once, is what I keep thinking.)

What I find myself thinking is usually "It happened to me, and no one believed me, either." Or no one thought it was worth believing, which is different: No one wanted to HAVE to believe, because it would get ugly — as if that cold cost-benefit analysis of social behavior and the value of believing a woman's word weren't already ugly.

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