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Home News Growing Up Fast: A Young Woman Survives Her Mother's Mental Illness and Addictions
Growing Up Fast: A Young Woman Survives Her Mother's Mental Illness and Addictions
How the daughter of a schizophrenic, crack-addicted stripper turned out funny, hopeful, and smart.
by Jeannette Cooperman
Photography by Matt Marcinkowski
It's perilous, trying to understand somebody's life in a few sittings. You need clues: bits of cloth and paper, snatches of song, fragments of memory. Making do, I ask Amanda Williamson to bring old photos the next time we meet.
She walks into the coffee shop with her mother's album in her arms, and we find a deserted corner where we can talk without being overheard. She pulls out a shot of herself as a baby to show me her mom's handwriting on the back: "Amanda, 8 weeks. Angela, 22 years. 4/23/88. First picture together." Then she slowly flips the pages.
There's a photo of tiny Amanda standing by the little pallet on the floor where she slept. Another of her at age 3 or so, holding somebody's beer can. Another in which she's surrounded by empty Pepsi cans and pizza boxes. She's nearly always in the same pink top.
A few pages later, she's maybe 5, and she and her mother are together in a twin bed. Angela's arm is flung up, covering her face, and there's an ashtray on her chest. Amanda is snuggled as close to her mother's body as she can get.
Here's a photo of one of Angela's boyfriends: "She didn't love him. They were just familiar to each other." Another: "This guy supposedly could be my dad. He'd be a good dad. He's a coach in Arnold. I've never met him."
Here's her grandma in a bustier, a birthday present from Angela. "That's what you get when you have a stripper for a daughter," Amanda says dryly.
At the next page, she frowns. The photo shows her mother sprawled on a sofa, a pager clipped to her jeans, a strip of midriff bare, and Amanda sitting upright next to her, looking miserable. "We were in this biker house. There were naked pictures everywhere."
Finally, a happy shot, children at a holiday celebration. "My cousins," she explains. "They always had nice stuff, and they looked nice, and they were clean."I look at the young woman sitting across from me. She, too, looks nice, and freshly scrubbed, and her hair's fragrant. By now, I know what she's been through. What I don't know is how she emerged from it so whole.
Courtesy of Amanda Williamson
Learning to fight: Angela beat the boys at a karate championship at age 12.
When Amanda was 7, she and her mother lived for a while, in secret, on the top floor of a derelict old building near the corner of Chippewa and Grand. Angela worked at the strip club in the building's dark, low-ceilinged basement. Amanda used to stand by the pinball machine, waiting for her mom to go onstage. People standing at the bar would give her chips, and she'd gobble them; sometimes all she'd eaten that day was ketchup squeezed from packets. Once her mom's music started, though, she forgot everything but watching. When the others stripped, it was gross, nasty. Her mom was beautiful, like a real dancer.
She'd been the first woman to compete against men in martial arts, she told Amanda. There was a yellowed news clipping (see below) to prove it: "Angie Williamson, 12, won the peewee title in karate." They'd written comic strips about her, she said. Later, she modeled—soon after Amanda was born, she'd gone to Florida and gotten "discovered." There was a picture of Angela lying on the beach in a bikini, bright parrots perched on the curve of her hip. Amanda loved to look at it.
Angela in Florida during her short-lived modeling career.
Otherwise, there wasn't much to do. Her mom slept all day, and Amanda waited for her to wake up. There weren't any kids to play with, because she didn't go to school, because they didn't have a legal address. One extra-lonely day, it hit her: They'd lived here another time, when she was 4, and she'd left her My Little Pony set. Could it still be there? Only one other guy lived in the building…
She opened the door quietly, exhaled against the hallway's blast of cat-pee ammonia and mold, and crept down the forbidden stairs. The air was hot and bright, shimmering with adventure. She found the rooms where they'd lived and—the ponies were there! Two My Little Ponies and half of a My Little Pony house! She raced back up the stairs, made herself some ramen noodles, and played with her ponies all afternoon. That was a good day.
From the strip club building, they moved. Alabama, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Nebraska, Michigan—they lived on just about every state street, at least for a minute. Amanda could go to school now, and she worked hard and asked a bunch of questions, not even caring what the other kids thought. School was a way out; that's what her teachers said.
One time in second grade, when everybody was torturing her because she was poor, her mom came up to school to do something about it. One of the mean boys called her mom a bitch. Angela picked him up in his desk and slammed it down.
After that, the other kids tortured Amanda even more, so she never told her mother again. Later, she'd name the lesson: Negative attracts negative.
To make her mom feel better, she drew pictures—prancing unicorns, and the details of people's faces. She watched her mother's face all the time: the electric blue eyes, the high cheekbones. Whatever emotion her mom felt, she felt it too, half a second later.
The way her mother showed her love was by wrestling with her, punching her. Then she'd laugh at how much Amanda loved it. "You're so weird!" Angela teased. But it was the emotions that hurt. Punches felt reassuring—real and warm and connected, like affection.
Sometimes, without warning, Angela would say, "You're not living with me anymore" and take Amanda to her grandma's, and she'd wait there for weeks. She was always waiting for her mom—to come home, to come back, to wake up from being high on crack cocaine or come out of a crazy rage. Seroquel and diazepam were the names on her pill bottles, and Seroquel was the scariest, because the doctor had given her the highest dosage, and she'd get high and then take seven of the pills to try to come down.
The good year was when they lived on Adkins, not far from the big Bevo windmill. Her mother was with a nice guy that year, and his mom used to pick Amanda up from school and take her to buy clothes. It felt like a little glimpse of normal.
When Amanda was 10, her mother had a baby. Amanda got to name him, so she chose Marcus, a warrior's name.
The doctor at the hospital said her mom had "schizophrenia," which, to Amanda, was just a word, something to call the demons. When they came, her mom's cool, laidback voice would go deeper, louder, angrier. Demanding. You wanted to be on your toes if you heard that voice. Her pupils got really black, and her blue eyes looked dark green, like grass in deep shade.
The crazy times could go on for hours. Then, all of a sudden, she'd come back, and she wouldn't know what happened. Amanda could never talk to her about it, because that would trigger her, and the demon might come back.
Instead, she learned a quiet tact and took care of both of them. One winter night, she scrubbed her shirt and jeans with shampoo in the bathroom sink, because she didn't want to get tortured at school for smelling bad. The next morning, the jeans were frozen and, under the slick of ice, still soaking wet. Her brain raced—no dryer, nothing else to wear, she couldn't miss school…
She ironed them dry.
At Carr Lane Visual and Performing Arts Middle School, she found a refuge. There were other kids like her, creative and eager. (The flip side of the earlier lesson: Like attracts like). Doing theater taught her to never be embarrassed. So what if she had to roll up toilet paper because tampons cost too much? Other people had problems, too. With a sigh of relief, she settled into belonging.
But the system was watching them; Marcus had been born with cocaine in his bloodstream. Angela left him with a relative, pulled Amanda out of school, and took her across the river to Cahokia, Illinois, so the state couldn't take her away.
Heartsick at leaving Carr Lane VPA, Amanda flunked her classes in Cahokia. Then they moved to Dupo, where at least there was a marching band. She decided to make the best of it and learn to play the drums. Remembering what she'd learned in theater, she relaxed and started being herself.
Her first friend was a boy who'd been so badly beaten, he had a speech impediment. Nobody would hang around long enough for him to get words out. "Let's dance," Amanda urged him, and they sang and danced and acted goofy, and his words began to flow.
She made more friends, and her drumming improved. At one of the band recitals, her mom actually showed up—which would have been great, except she came with this guy who looked like Quasimodo on crack, not that that mattered, looks or anything like that. It was just the fact that they came high.
Her mom was high a lot in Dupo, and she kept getting into fights. One night she was so strung out, screaming and waving a machete, that their neighbor Patty called the police. Angela tried to tell the arresting officer that the crack pipe in her pocket belonged to Patty—who was pregnant, and not about to be framed. "I'm no crackhead," she said to Amanda. "Tell them the truth."
Amanda did. And from the back of the police car, kicking and screaming (they must've Tased her 10 times), her mother yelled at her, "This is your fault!"
People will do anything to avoid saying, "I f—ked up," Amanda thought. It's always somebody else's fault.
She tucked away the observation and spent the night figuring out how to get enough money to bail her mom out. She was just 15, too young to cash her mother's disability check, so she gave it to an elderly neighbor in exchange for cash.
The drama was beginning to wear thin, but Amanda still didn't want to be anywhere but with her mother. She lived for the calm days. She'd call home to check her mother's voice, see what she was in for. Good or bad, it was a penny toss. If her mom sounded like herself, affectionate and mellow, they'd curl up together and watch Highlander, and for a few hours the world would be perfect.
Her mother's voice was clear and warm and happy the day Amanda's new friend April suggested coming over to do homework together. She could spend the night, right? "OK, sure!" Amanda said, with an unaccustomed little tingle of anticipation.
They were giggling and groaning their way through the last bit of homework when Angela announced that she was going over to the bar for a quick drink.
"Just stay home," Amanda begged.
"I won't be gone long," Angela said breezily.
A few hours later, the girls were listening to music. A woman's screams drowned the chords. "April, stay here!" Amanda ordered, sick with dread. She opened the door and saw her mom on the ground, trying to crawl up the trailer steps, bloody from head to toe and yelling, "They beat me up with two-by-fours! I gotta get my shotgun!"
"Mom! Oh my God! I have a friend here! Oh my God. Mom, calm down. What happened? Should we call the police?"
"I'm gonna f—king kill them!" Angela blazed, hoisting herself over the metal threshold.
Amanda ran back to check on April, who was still in Amanda's room, eyes wide. "I know, it sounds scary from back here," Amanda told her, "but it's going to be OK." She ran to the front of the trailer and got her mom up onto the couch. Then two women from the bar came over to check on Angela—who proceeded to hold them hostage with her shotgun.
"I am so sorry," Amanda whispered to them. "Just let me get her calmed down, and as soon as I say leave, leave."
She got the women out and raced to her room to give April some headphones so she didn't have to hear any more. April put the headphones on and burst into sobs. She thinks it's the last day of her life, Amanda realized. "You don't ever have to come over here ever, ever again," she promised. "We'll be at school soon, and everything will be OK. Please, just don't tell anybody it's like this."
The next morning, Angela's father came over and took her to the hospital, where a doctor announced that if a horse had consumed that much alcohol, the horse would be dead.
April never did tell anyone. "She knew it wasn't my fault," Amanda says now, "but she never really talked to me after that." She shrugs. "I didn't blame her. It was realistic to me."
As she grew older, Amanda became adroit at revealing only as much as she thought that a friend could take. But when she dared bring her friend Samantha on a camping trip, her mother's worst demon came out.
Angela had named all her demons, and this one was Angelica: green-eyed, with a devilish mean voice. She'd kill you without a thought to the consequences.
Desperate to keep Samantha from seeing the worst, Amanda stayed inside the cabin with her. Out by the campfire, her mom was flat-out drunk and busy punching her boyfriend's buddy in the nose. When she slapped his glasses off him, there was nothing to do but rescue her.
Amanda brought her bikini-clad mother inside. "I'm going to do a flip," Angela announced, and she climbed up to the loft, grabbed the base of the railing, flipped over, and landed on her feet, then fell and burst out laughing. "O-kay," Amanda thought. "At least the anger's turned into something goofy."
Turning to Samantha, she said, "I'm so sorry." Samantha shot her a grin: "Are you kidding? My dad's an alcoholic. I go through this stuff all the time."
From that day on, they were so close, you couldn't see light between them.
Early on, Amanda was told she had a learning disability—probably because she'd missed whole months of school and changed schools so often, and she was always struggling to catch up. Later she was labeled bipolar, because she couldn't explain to anybody why she was so sad, for fear they'd take her away from her mother and put her in the system. She'd already lost her brother. And she was pretty sure she was the only thing keeping her mother alive.
Two separate times, she went with her mom to rehab at the Queen of Peace Center. She tried to help by doing everything they told her mom to do, like exercise and eat right and keep to a routine.
In sixth grade, she had to go alone to a residential program for girls. She was the only virgin. It was dark and smelled like a dungeon, and when the counselors asked about her life, she didn't tell them anything, because she was afraid they'd take her away from her mom. Instead, she had a tantrum and called one of the ladies names. She was afraid she'd never see her mom again, and she thought they were the reason why.
It took a lot of what she called "rationalizing" to get through those weeks. She didn't mean justifying; she meant thinking things through, paying attention, finding deeper meanings. It was the beginning of The Observation.
There were positive people, and there were people who lived in chaos. Amanda made it a project to scrutinize both kinds, trying to see how they did things differently. Soon she was able to pick out, with a sharpshooter's accuracy, the people she could trust to help her.
Her mom's best friend, Jennifer Manor, was one of her saviors, because Jennifer would put Angela on speaker for, like, 24 hours. "Uh-huh… Yeah… I hear it, Ange." If you didn't feed into what Angela believed, things'd get worse—you'd be a traitor—and Jennifer caught on to that right away. Sometimes, when things were really bad, she'd call and say, "Hey, Ange? I need some help. Can I take Amanda off your hands for a while?" Angela would agree, then call when they were halfway back to Jennifer's house and yell, "Come home right now, or your stuff's outside."
After a few rounds of this, Amanda just phoned the man she called her father figure, a security guard from the strip club who'd continued to watch out for her. "Can you make sure my stuff's not outside?" she asked. "Mom's going crazy."
It took a minute to understand reality in Angela's world, because some things were true but a lot wasn't. She'd say that her father sold their souls, and that she was cursed. That, Amanda believed.
We're all born pure. That's what they said at every church she went to—and she'd been to a whole lot of churches, because they always had food, and she was a hungry kid. She ate, and she listened. Slowly, she was putting together a theory, a narrative that would explain her mother's wild swings. Anytime you sinned, it was like opening a door to evil spirits. The sin tainted you a little bit, but you could learn from that guilt and shut the door. Except that once those doors opened, some people thought they couldn't be shut, and one sin opened another door and another and another, and the demons came in and took over somebody's whole mind and body.
She'd watched it happen.
Two months into life, Amanda in her mother's arms.
Early in the fall of 2006, Angela went through her third drug treatment program. She'd just had another baby, a girl, and lost custody. "It was god's will for my baby to be gone for a moment," she wrote in a red spiral notebook. "So I can work on me being good."
Later, Amanda would read her notes:
"How drugs have took away from
"My daughter Amanda. She is the oldest child I have she is very nervous sometimes. She feels she has to take care of everything because I fall short of my life."
"She will take care of me if necessary. Even clean house, remind me of bills."
"I resent you dad for not loving me the right way… I resent you dad for raping me when I was twelve years old."
"Friday phone call. Ask for cigs, money and a jacket…See if Amanda and David are coming to see me if not have Danny bring Amanda. Write down what time I was released from court. Instant coffee. Baby powder."
"I would think I wasn't doing to [sic] much wrong but I was so wrong."
"Insane. Repeat same thing over and over getting same results. Turn life over to: good. Orderly. Direction."
There were lists of good parenting traits, and tiny, sad confessions: "My son Marcus is real confused. He didn't even know I was his mother at first."
There was even a letter she'd written to Marcus and never sent:
"Hi son. There are some things I would like to talk to you about. I am going to be in life more…I am working on this now son, no more putting this off. I am here for you heart body and soul. Things have changed for the better. I am taking care of myself so I can be their [sic] for Amanda, you, and [her new baby girl]. We have a lot to look forward to."
Her "Recovery Plan" sheet is indented; she was pressing hard. "I am ready to be happy," she wrote at the bottom. Only 41, she had plenty of time to make up for what she'd lost.
She made it to the end of the 30-day program, which was the best she'd ever done—she usually quit around day 20. Amanda was elated.
But it was almost as if getting clean made her mom worse.
In December, a few months after her mother finished the treatment program, Amanda and her boyfriend were driving home from the Dairy Queen on Hampton. Her cell rang.
She grabbed for it—she'd been worried about her mom since the day before, calling on and off just to hear (and assess) her voice. They were apart for the first time: Evicted after spending all her rent money, Angela had moved to North City, and Amanda had refused to go. She was 18 and, after enduring those years at Cahokia and Dupo, happily enrolled at Central Visual and Performing Arts High School. She didn't want to leave in her senior year. She had promised her mom she'd earn enough for a security deposit on another apartment.
The caller was her uncle's wife, which was random—she never called. "Sweetie," she said, "sit down."
"I'm in a car," Amanda said automatically. Fear had already dug the outline of this news, but it dropped hard.
Her boyfriend drove her to North City, and she pushed past the police to see her mom's body. She crumpled next to the bed where Angela lay. "I wasn't ready," she sobbed—still talking to her mom, because what else was she going to do?
That spring, it was hard to find a purpose, because Amanda was so used to taking care of somebody. Keep to a routine. Angela had bought Pepsi, so she bought Pepsi. She exercised. She learned how to avoid dwelling, how to pick up and go to the gym when she felt like crap instead of lying there listening to those thoughts.
When she graduated from VPA, her aunt and uncle came to the ceremony, and so did Jennifer Manor. Amanda found a job, and because nobody had ever taught her how to drive, she moved to an apartment across the street from her workplace. She became a certified massage therapist and graduated with honors from cosmetology school, having not missed a single class. She dated carefully.
"I remember looking grown early, and my aunts assuming that I was fast," she says, "but I wasn't. I understood ethics at a young age, because of my mom. I remember thinking, God, this is wrong. How can you just do this, take advantage of people's emotions? Maybe because mine were so sensitive."
Head tilted, she considers: "My mom wasn't a whore so much as a big hustler. She acted like a man, got what she wanted when she wanted it. If you can make these things happen, I'd think, why can't you make good things happen?"
Impatiently Amanda brushes back her hair, wavy auburn artfully streaked with pink. "I knew she wasn't capable. But when I got a little older, I thought, Why not? Why can't we all shut those doors? If people would just sit and think about what's good. I mean, you're the right temperature—you're not too hot or too cold, which, God!—I remember just being so hot. We would jump in the cold shower with our clothes on and sleep wet. If people would focus on what's good, it would flip that switch. But it's hard for them to overcome the emotion. It takes rationalizing. Sit there and focus on what's good, and you will get what's good."
"The stats were, I was supposed to be a stripper, a drug addict, a whore," Amanda says ruefully.
Her mother had a hellish childhood, and it took a toll.
Amanda had a hellish childhood, and
it didn't.
I start reading, calling experts. Deanna Barch, chair of psychological and brain sciences at Washington University, reminds me that schizophrenia isn't one of those single-gene diseases that run through families like wildfire. The likelihood of a child's inheriting the entire string of genes involved in schizophrenia is only about 15 percent.
As for the drug use, mental illness and substance abuse are a common, destructive pairing, Barch points out. People try to self-medicate, not realizing that "some of the substances they abuse will actually make the symptoms worse." Does cocaine? She sighs. "Cocaine is like the devil in a red dress. It has a big effect on the dopamine system, and there's evidence that dopamine is involved in psychosis and schizophrenia. It will make paranoia worse, but it will also make [people] feel like their cognitive system is better, their memory sharper." So they crave more, and the effects grow harsher.
How does a kid make sense of that? "Early on, it's hard for kids even to understand that people have good and bad sides," says Barch. "It's particularly hard when the person is supposed to be your caretaker and is loving you at other times. The resilience lies is finding a way to explain that to yourself." Early on, Amanda created a narrative for herself that explained how a loving—if not quite functional—mother could turn into a stranger consumed by bizarre fears and a fiery rage. "It was probably really helpful that she developed a way to think that the good mother was her mom and the bad person was this other personality," Barch says.
Many of us, subjected to a parent's worst side, end up reproducing that behavior ourselves; fear becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. But Amanda never once thought she'd turn out like her mother, because she knew she could close the doors. She observed, and she thought about what she saw. She found ways to protect herself, to pull back from the chaos.
Basically, Amanda reacted to trauma with intelligence. "The genes associated with resilience," Barch says, "include genes associated with higher IQ and better cognitive function."
Finally, Amanda had her mother's bubbly, outgoing personality and a stranded kid's shamelessness in reaching out for help. With strangers, she gave as few details as possible ("You don't want them to judge you"). People close enough to see everything—her posse of girlfriends, her mom's best friend, her father figure—bailed her out of crises regularly, and she repaid them with a fierce love.
So is all that enough to make the difference?
Resilience is tough to unpack, says Craig Smith, director of Saint Louis University's Medical Family Therapy Program. "There's a spirit, an inner strength, if you will. And they have rescue supports, and they're outgoing enough to reach out to those supports for help. "A more closed-in child would just pull into themselves and wither away."
He asks a few questions about Amanda. "I kind of suspect there might have been some strong attachment in her very early years," he says. "We are starting to understand the importance of that. In those formative years, the attachment allows us, paradoxically, to be more independent. People say, 'Oh, they're over-attached'—that's an anxiety response, the clingy, needy child. Real attachment gives confidence. And I would suspect that there was someone early in her life that she was able to form that with."
Her mother, I think, whenever the demons were quiet.
I repeat aloud what her friend Samantha used to say: "Even though your mom's crazy, she loves you. I love the way she stares at you."
Smith nods. "Kids can take unpredictability," he says, "if they also know that they are loved."
Angela and Amanda on the couch when they stayed at the place Amanda calls "the biker house."
Amanda drives me around in her new-old car, a Martian-green Chevy Spark named Marvin, to see a few of the places she's lived. We cruise along the state streets and South Grand, across the river to Cahokia and Dupo, back over to Chippewa and Grand, where the strip club was torn down years ago.
Dupo, Amanda says, was the worst. "That was sophomore year. My mom beat up every neighbor that moved into the trailer next to us. One of them's proud of it. Some people worshiped her. She was charming, beautiful, funny—very much an alpha."
Yet she was so plagued by fear, she'd make Amanda sit in the corner of the trailer, next to the refrigerator, for most of the day. "She always thought somebody was coming in the house. I couldn't be by any windows. I couldn't breathe too loud, or we were going to die. If I didn't listen to what she said, I was a traitor. And I never wanted to be a traitor to her.
"I sat there for hours. She would sit on the couch, high, moving her tongue [Amanda mimes the contorted
grimaces] and if I moved, she'd scream, 'You are going to get us f—king killed!' She'd grab her shotgun and talk as if people could hear her: 'I got you on my camera. I got you on Angie's candid camera.' And I'd sit there thinking, There is nobody out there. I just want to lie down so bad."
Turning down McBride Avenue, she points to mobile homes she used to visit. "Whoever was willing to let me over for dinner, I was coming over." She nods toward a neat little brick house. "I'd walk here for help with homework." Glancing at a trailer on the other side of the street, she says, "My mom told everybody my brother needed surgery and scrounged money for drugs. I went over to that lady's house, and she said, 'Is your brother OK?' and I said, 'Yeah?'"
Amanda told her the truth. "I can't believe she'd do that," the woman said.
"Oh, I can," Amanda said with a sigh.
The trailer Angela rented is still there, its blue siding faded to gray, weeds miring the wheels. Amanda barely slows the car. "There were holes in the floor," she says. "In the winter you were freezing. The furniture was anything we found in the trash, just raggedy trash furniture. We got our mattresses from the trash. I know, right? I don't know how I never got scabies. It smelled like mold and shit, because she'd get afraid to let the dogs outside, and one was an English mastiff. There was a spot where they'd pee, and we'd put this carpet stuff on, so you got a wave of ammonia and potpourri when you walked in."
Without warning, she rolls down Marvin's windows and, waving like crazy, yells at the top of her lungs, "Pat-ty!"
"Man-dy!" the woman yells back, a big smile on her face.
"Love you!" Amanda yells, and then drives on.
"Falling Springs Bar," she says, nodding to her left. "My mom hung out there a lot. She actually wanted me to drop her ashes there."
She talked about that?
"Yeah. She prepared me for everything. She said if I didn't get rid of her ashes completely, not keep one single drop, she'd haunt me."
A woman in a truck honks, and Amanda honks back. "That's Ruby." At the end of the street, she says, "That's Faye's place. I lived with her for a while."
"For somebody who moved so often," I say, "you've made a lot of friends."
She nods. "I tied with everyone. I felt like that was the universe's way of creating family for me."
Amanda is 28 now, newly married to a man she describes as "big and soft and sweet and country." He just got a promotion, so she's quit her second job. They want children. And someday she wants to live in an apartment complex with everybody she loves—her brother, her sister, her girlfriends—around her.
"If you lack, the universe will balance out," she says. "The universe, if you let it, will balance everything."
She gives me a quick nod of assurance, then a wide smile. There's something Dolly Parton about her: grit and ambition; an easy, self-deprecating humor; a generosity of spirit. When she's cutting hair, her clients pour out their troubles. "I can break down somebody's insecurities in five minutes," she says with a grin.
Much of what she learned so early—how to pay bills, cook ramen noodles, read people—has made being a grownup a lot easier. "I credit my mom for that," she says. "Her priorities were a little skewed, but…" There were layers to that selfishness: schizophrenia, addiction, and a hustler's self-preservation.
When I ask Amanda how much of what she feels about her mother is anger or resentment, she says, "None of it. Just love and gratitude." A second later, she amends that: She is angry for her brother and sister. She was the one Angela fought to keep. They were jettisoned, cargo thrown from a sinking ship. And that wasn't fair.
They're with Amanda every other week now. Marcus just graduated from high school. His baby sister's dad is "a calm, straightforward guy, so simple people don't know how to read him. He works really hard, and he takes good care of her. I go to pick her up, and he's making brownies. He's like a regular Betty Crocker."
When I tell Amanda she seems remarkably unscathed, she shrugs: "You think you are a hero sometimes. I learned young that I'm not. That takes a lot of weight off your shoulders."
There's one more thing she wants me to see. She pulls up her favorite music video, Sia's "Elastic Heart," and we huddle over her phone's tiny screen.
Drained of color, stark and haunting, the video shows a 12-year-old girl with white-blonde hair taunting a bearded man inside a cage, spinning him by the arm, punching him, jumping on his back.
"She's on his back a lot," Amanda says, pausing the video. "We're a burden to them."
Pressing Play again, she adds, "The cage is the schizophrenia."
The man (played by Shia LaBeouf) is trapped inside that cage; the girl, lithe and small, moves in and out of the bars. Their relationship shifts by the second: After her kicks and punches, he turns ferocious, then sorrowful and tender. She is skittish, wary, then playful, tugging at his ears, his cheeks.
"She's trying to readjust his face," Amanda murmurs.
Next the girl frantically tries to pull him through the iron bars so they can both be free. Instead, he slumps against the cage wall, pale and defeated.
"He's dying," Amanda says. "He can't. And she's fighting, but she can't."
Sia explained the video as "warring self-states"; the young dancer, Maddie Ziegler, told reporters she was playing a werewolf. But for Amanda, the meaning of this video is obvious and incontrovertible: It's about being the daughter of a parent with schizophrenia.
You won't see me fall apart
'Cause I've got an elastic heart….
I know that I can survive
I'll walk through fire to save my life.
December 2016 Longform
Jeannette Cooperman
St. Louis Magazine's staff writer, Cooperman is intrigued by people's lives, ideas, relationships, and struggles.
Read more by Jeannette Cooperman


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If you are struggling to find high-quality multilingual candidates for your job positions, feel free to contact us and we can help you.


text:
🌞 Deep end – June 08 2022
Happy Wednesday. Burger King Austria celebrates Pride Month by offering the "Pride Whopper," featuring "two equal buns." So… either two tops or two bottoms. It is unclear if they are donating any profits to LGBTQIA+ organizations.
credit: burger king
🚨 Gas prices hit a new record high across all 50 U.S. states on Tuesday.
⚰ New York is close to green-lighting the composting of human bodies, which is very good news for the Earth.
🔌 The European Union is uniting everyone under one universal cord! Officials agreed to a new rule requiring a universal charging cord for all small- and medium-sized electronic devices, starting fall 2024. Plenty of time to stock up on USB Type-C cable, because that is ALL E.U. CONSUMERS WILL NEED!
🏛 The U.S. Justice Department charged the leader of the Proud Boys and four associates with seditious conspiracy for their roles in the January 6 attack.
Coronavirus Update: 😷
Beijing started slowly opening back up Monday, lifting restrictions on restaurants and offices.
Cities in China are offering free vaccine insurance to seniors in an attempt to overcome doubters and raise vaccination numbers.
*Stock data as of market close, cryptocurrency data as of 5:00am ET.
The Lead: Must-See TV For Some
credit: getty
Tomorrow night, live on Primetime: the January 6 hearings!
That's right. The House committee investigating the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol is going public Thursday night. The committee even hired, with your tax dollars, a former ABC 'Good Morning America' producer to "produce" the show and "make it more interesting." Will you be there?
The Hearings
The six televised hearings scheduled in June will feature the findings the committee reached during its year of investigating former President Trump's role in the attempted coup. During that year, the committee combed through loads of evidence, including 125,000 documents, depositions and interviews with more than 1,000 people, tons of text messages, and tips from the tip line.
The first hearing is scheduled for 8 p.m. ET Thursday on most networks. The second will be Monday, June 13 at 10 a.m. ET.
The Audience
It is unclear how many people will tune in to these hearings. As we all know, this is an entirely different world from the 1973 Watergate sessions world. The three TV channels that existed back then cut regular scheduling to broadcast the deliberations live during the day. And then they ran them again at night, because millions were watching.
Aside from the fact that most people will get the highlights solely from memes and TikTok, there is also much more spin these days. People getting their news from one source will hear a largely different story than those who use a different source. Fox is going one step further, choosing not to air the hearing live on Thursday at all. That means Tucker Carlson's opening monologue will go up against the hearing on most other networks.
Oh, for the Watergate days when, as The Guardian says, "TV anchors responded to Nixon's jibes that they were peddlers of 'elitist gossip'—a foreshadow of Trump's 'fake news'—by keeping their commentary to a bare minimum."
The television factor was once a way to capture attention, to make something matter to the country. Will it work again?
Defense Production Act for Solar
President Biden is taking the U.S.'s sunglasses off.
On Monday, the president announced a two-year pause on solar tariffs for goods imported from Southeast Asia. He also invoked the Defense Production Act (DPA) so the U.S. can build up its own solar system in order to eventually make those imports a thing of the past.
The imports issue is a problem that has recently led to a huge setback for the U.S. and its climate goals. The Department of Commerce is investigating China for trying to work around tariffs by sending solar parts through Southeast Asia. This slowed the U.S. solar industry WAY down, because there is the possibility of retroactive tariffs of up to 250% on the contested goods. A huge $$$ risk. The Solar Energy Industries Association predicted the slowdown could cut solar installations in the U.S. by nearly half through 2023.
This two-year pause addresses that fear, and the focus on a "Made in America" solar system has the potential to erase it forever. There is a super long way to go, though. In 2020, only 3% of solar panels shipped around the world came from the U.S. The DPA should speed things up.
Pushback came quickly, with GOP Senator Pat Toomey saying Biden was "abusing the Defense Production Act." This use of it to increase energy independence seems more in line with what the DPA was meant for than when Biden invoked it to help increase production of baby formula in the country. I don't remember hearing many complaints then.
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The Shallow End of the Pool
credit: wsj
The labor shortage in the U.S. is spreading to pools.
High school and college kids who usually spend summers life-guarding are apparently doing other things, leading to a lifeguard shortage in the country. Perhaps they are working in a field that might apply to their future careers instead. Or caring for loved ones. Or maybe they just need a summer break.
Due to the shortage, about one-third of pools across the U.S. will stay closed for the summer. This also means a whole bunch of swim classes will be canceled, which is worrisome in a country where almost 900 children die of drowning each year.
The Wall Street Journal reports that cities like Austin, Texas, are trying to entice lifeguards with incentives. Austin is offering bonuses of up to $1,250 and pay from $16 to $19 an hour.
Wait. That's not what they were already getting? Lifeguards save lives! That is literally their whole job! And the average base hourly pay is, APPARENTLY, $10.33. For a frame of reference, I was paid $10.75 an hour as a lifeguard back in 1994.
I think we may have found the problem.
D is for Displaced
credit: sesame workshop
Sesame Street is saving the world, one muppet at a time.
The beloved children's series is known for offering kids and their families love, acceptance, and "nurturing care." And here they are again, with new multilingual content and resources geared toward Afghan and Ukrainian refugees. The new material is an update to the existing Welcome Sesame program, focused on helping kids and their families through major crises.
According to the Sesame Workshop website, "More than 400 million children live in areas currently affected by violent conflict, and 35 million children around the world have been forcibly displaced. Many have lost homes and loved ones and endured experiences that can create devastating long-term effects on their learning and wellbeing. But children are remarkably resilient, and we know that if they have access to quality early childhood development support, they can overcome adversity and build a brighter future."
Displaced children from Afghanistan and Ukraine might not know how to get many places in their new homes, but many can tell you how to get to Sesame Street. Hopefully this content will lead to some sunny days ahead.
News By The Numbers
Nearly 4,000. That is how many people lost power in Minnesota Sunday because of a squirrel, whose fate is unknown.
1,019. That is how many cases of monkeypox existed in the world as of Monday, causing the CDC to raise its alert to Level 2. They want travelers to put those face masks back on.
3,300. That is how many workers in the U.K. will participate in the world's largest four-day work week trial. Participants will receive 100% of their pay while working 80% of their typical week during the six-month pilot.
credit: epa
Matthew McConaughey is trending because he made a passionate speech at the White House press briefing and met with lawmakers Tuesday urging gun control. The U.S. actor grew up in Uvalde, Texas.
Boris Johnson is trending because, while the British Prime Minister survived the no-confidence vote Monday, 40% of his own party voted him out. This means his time may be limited.
Prince is trending. Yesterday would have been the U.S. musician's 64th birthday.
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Among the 340 species of birds present in the Rhone delta, the Greater Flamingo is the bird emblem of the Camargue. These gregarious birds live in groups in wetlands. This large web-footed birds are fond of water bodies identified, shallow salt or brackish marshes and ponds, which explains its strong presence in the Camargue. These areas allow them to find their food mainly consists of crustaceans and algae. Their beaks, which includes a comb, allowing them to filter water to retain nutrients (shrimp Artemia).
Young flamingos are not colored, the color of the flamingo comes from their food rich in beta carotene. The flamingos have black flight feathers on each wing.
Flamingo usually flies in groups, sometimes very important, His flight silhouette is typical, very elongated neck and legs. It has a direct and energetic flight allowing it to reach 60 km/h.
The Camargue region is the only nesting flamingos in France, they nest in the pond Fangassier. Females lay 1 or 2 eggs in a nest made of mud, the incubation lasts 28 to 30 days, it is assured by the two partners. Young flamingos are faintly colored, at birth the chick beak and pink legs, it is covered with a white down in a few days, it takes a brown-gray color, the beak and legs turn black. Then gradually he shade of pink to take his adult adornment around the age of four year.
The Flamingos are very numerous in the summer, most migrate to Africa in winter, but in the Camargue, a large number is present throughout the year. This bird is very social expressive: a real hubbub reigns in the colonies!
Greater Flamingo enjoys full protection on French territory since the Ministerial Decree of 17 April 1981 relating to protected birds throughout the territory.


If the page says not available, it's because there's no stock for that model currently. You may have to wait until they addd more server, or someone stops renewing one. You may also choose another model.
I've been waiting for a E3-SSD-3 hosted in FR for a couple of days now to no avail. They do show up as available in Canada every now and then but i need FR location.
I'd really appreciate it if a mod can manually create an invoice for three (3) E3-SSD-3s in FR.


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Everybody's Chattin + Casting News w/ Idris Elba, Jessica Chastain & Jake Gyllenhaal
On July 28, 2016 By ruthIn Everybody's Chattin', Film/TV Casting
Happy Thursday, everyone! The nice thing about going to a work conference on Monday & Tuesday is the week feels shorter than it is, so tomorrow is Friday already, yay!
I got to see Jason Bourne press screening last Tuesday. I enjoyed it quite a bit though I think it falls short of the excellent trilogy. I'll review it next week but I'm still a bit giddy for THIS scene in Vegas, whoah!
Ok how about those links!
I'll be seeing Suicide Squad next Tuesday, and Harley Quinn is likely going to steal every scene. Check out Margaret's tribute for Margot Robbie's character.
Jordan reviewed a new Aussie Western Goldstone
Boy I had no idea this movie even existed! Allie talks about Star Wars Holiday Special as part of Christmas-In-July blogathon
Mark and Getter's reviewed Independence Day: Resurgence. Not surprisingly, neither was impressed with this movie though I was surprised to learn Getter actually think Liam Hemsworth was good in it
Having just seen Jason Bourne, I totally agree with Nick that the Bourne movies are equally defined by the obligatory government antagonist. Check out the five actors he'd like to see in the role.
Steven reviewed Richard Linklater's latest Everybody Want Some!
Let's top it off with two awesome list posts! Alex posted his top 10 films of 2016 so far, whilst Dan posted his picks of 10 favorite French rom-coms of the 21st century.
Life must be good to be Jessica Chastain. I love her, she's gorgeous, talented and a bit underrated. Glad to see her continue getting roles and man does she have the best male co-stars or what! Tom Hardy, Tom Hiddleston, James McAvoy, Oscar Isaac… just to name a few, and now Idris!!! [yes clearly I'm green w/ envy] I'd LOVE to see her co-star with my crush du jour Sam Riley one day 😛
Per The Playlist, screenwriter Aaron Sorkin is going to have his directorial debut and he'll also write the screenplay. His film is titled Molly's Game and Jessica Chastain and Idris Elba have been cast as the leads!
Molly's Game is the true story of Molly Bloom (Chastain), a beautiful, young, Olympic-class skier who ran the world's most exclusive high-stakes poker game for a decade before being arrested in the middle of the night by 17 FBI agents wielding automatic weapons. Her players included Hollywood royalty, sports stars, business titans and finally, unbeknownst to her, the Russian mob. Her only ally is her criminal defense lawyer (Elba), who learns that there's much more to Molly than the tabloids lead us to believe.
I really like the sound of this! Chastain and Elba such talented actors and it's a role that would suit them both. No talks of romance between the two but that's actually refreshing! Though the idea of a love scene between the two sounds pretty scorching 😉 I just hope they won't ever hide that gorgeous face of his under a ton of makeup like they did in Thor or Star Trek Beyond.
Now this one doesn't seem exciting on paper as I don't really care for video game movies. But with this cast it just could be watchable. Per Variety, Jake Gyllenhaal is producing a video game adaptation based on Ubisoft's The Division.
Set in a dystopian New York City in the aftermath of a smallpox pandemic, the player is an agent of the Strategic Homeland Division. That agent is tasked with helping to rebuild the Division's operations in Manhattan, investigating the nature of the outbreak and combating criminal activity in its wake.
Not sure which roles Jessica Chastain will be playing. Of course it'd be neat if Jessica is the agent and Jake plays her ally, or villain? Speaking of video game movies, we have Assassin's Creed starring Michael Fassbender out in December and Tom Hardy's Splinter Cell out next year. It remains to be seen if any of those would actually be worth watching.
What are your thoughts about the projects and/or casting news?
Aaron SorkinAssassin's Creedcasting newsEverybody's chattin'Idris ElbaIdris Elba Jessica ChastainJake GyllenhaalJason Bourne movieJessica ChastainMolly's GameSuicide SquadThe Division movieTom Hardy Splinter Cellvideo game movies
FlixChatter Double Reviews: Star Trek Beyond (2016)
FlixChatter Review – Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie (2016)
32 thoughts on "Everybody's Chattin + Casting News w/ Idris Elba, Jessica Chastain & Jake Gyllenhaal"
I'll probably go see Jason Bourne sometime this weekend but I'm bit concern about the not so good ratings on Rottentomatoes. Hopefully it won't be anything like The Bourne Legacy.
I'm into poker so I've heard stories about Molly Bloom, let's see what kind of movie Sorkin can make out of her life story. Ruth you know it's taboo to even think of seeing a non-white actor having a sex scene with a white actress on the big screen, the studio heads would never let that happen! Lol!
I don't even remember the last time I saw a good movie based on video game, maybe Mortal Kombat was the last one. I have no interest in seeing Assassin's Creed, it looks too much like well a video game instead of film.
I don't always trust Rotten Tomatoes, I mean the way they aggregate the reviews are not accurate. I like it more than Star Trek Beyond, even though the hand-held camera work is a bit excessive. But man, Greengrass sure knows how to shoot action/chase scenes, I was giddy watching that whole Vegas scene!
Ahah, it's sad isn't it how racist Hollywood still is. Yep, that's why we hardly see Elba in a biracial romance, which is just stupid as surely it'd be extremely popular. I mean LOOK AT THE GUY! 😉
Yep, video game movies rarely (read: never) work well as movies. But of course Hollywood will keep on trying!
I don't really listen to the critics most of the time but in the last couple of years, I tend to be in agreement with the ratings on Rottentomatoes, especially The Bourne Legacy. I thought for sure most of the critics didn't like it because it didn't have Greengrass and Damon, but boy I regret paying to see it. I'm so looking forward to the chase scene in the Vegas strip, I've been in that city so many times, it feels like home to me.
Well not just Hollywood that's racist, some people out there who still can't get past seeing interracial couples in real life, so they would never want to see it on the big screen. I remember in The Pelican Brief, Denzel's character was supposed to be a love interest to Julia Roberts' character but they rewrote his character to be more of a brother figure when he's cast. In the book, they're lovers.
Well Bourne Legacy sucks because Renner is no Damon. I think it'd have been a decent thriller if it didn't try to be a Bourne flick. I think in terms of chase scene, the one in the 2nd movie w/ Karl Urban is still my fave but this Vegas one certainly is thrilling. There's also a mano-a-mano after that which I think you'd like.
Wow, I didn't know that about Pelican Brief. You're right a lot of moviegoers still can't quite accept biracial romances. Even in a white and black person romance, the black person is almost always half-white.
That scene in Bourne looks insane.
But…you think Chastain is underrated? Err…where have you been? She's possibly the most overrated actress working right now. LOL…I'm so over her.
HEHE…BUT, I'm all about Elba in more movies, so amen to that!
Well if Chastain isn't underrated, I certainly don't think she's overrated. I'd think someone like oh I dunno, Margot Robbie is getting to be overrated now. I love the idea of her and Idris, but yeah Idris in anything is always a great idea.
Thanks for the link! OMG YOU'RE SEEING IT TUESDAY!? Tweet me as soon as you see it and tell me what you thought! i really hope it will be great!
That Elba/Chastain movie seems pretty good!
Yeah next Tuesday, I think it opens the following Friday here in the US. I hope it'll be great too, the hype has been insane so I hope it'll at least live up to it.
Thanks for the link-love. It's good to be Jessica Chastain as seeing her with Idris Elba in my opinion is…. $$$$$$$$$$$$$
Amen Steven! I think this is a fabulous pairing.
I'm looking forward to Jason Bourne, it looks like good fun. I'm all for that Elba/Chastain casting too!
I enjoyed it too, but of course the critics hate it. But then again I don't always trust major critics anyway. That Elba/Chastain movie needs to happen soon! I like the premise of that, too.
Missed my shot at seeing Jason Bourne this week so it will probably be Tuesday. Anxious to see it despite the mediocre reviews it has been getting.
Really like both bits of casting news. Chastain and Elba in a Sorkin directorial debut? Yep, I'm in!
Also really interested to see if The Division works. It is a game that seems perfect for a big screen adaptation. I guess we'll see if that translates into a good movie.
I enjoyed Jason Bourne though I admit it's not as good as the trilogy. But hey, Damon is still bad ass!
Yeah, what a cast Sorkin has assembled for his directorial debut! So I presume you've played The Division? I have yet to see a great video game film, so we'll see but I do like the Jake/Jessica pairing as well, though the Idris one still won by a long margin!
Alex Withrow (@shiftingPersona)
Hey Ruth! Thanks so much for the link, I really appreciate it! I LOVED that Vegas chase scene in Jason Bourne. That SWAT vehicle stuff was insane!
My pleasure Alex! Glad to hear you enjoyed that scene in Jason Bourne, I thought the action throughout was pretty thrilling.
A little disappointed to hear Jason Bourne isn't as great as the trilogy. That Vegas car scene gets me excited though.
I'm really iffy on more video game movies. Maybe Assassin's Creed will surprise but I'm not holding my breath. Molly's Game sound more interesting to me, it could be a good project for Chastain.
Hi Eddie! If you're a big fan of the franchise I think it's still well worth a watch. I still enjoyed it, way more than than Bourne Legacy that's for sure and the various chase scenes still thrilled me.
Yep, I'm not all that excited about Assassin's Creed either, but that 'Molly's Game' sounds promising on the director AND casting front.
I love Chastain. I think she's very talented. Certain directors bring out the best in her. I've never been disappointed! Elba–another solid actor. I'm looking forward to Molly's Game. Probably will wait to rent Bourne.
Glad you love Chastain too, yes I think she's very talented and has that touch of Old Hollywood about her, too. Elba is just gorgeous and immensely charming, I'm always glad to see him cast in ANYTHING. Are you a fan of the Bourne trilogy? I love them, perhaps my fave Matt Damon role ever, so even if this new one is just ok, I still enjoyed it quite a bit.
I watched the first three and while I liked them, I didn't LOVE them. Not like the Mission Impossible franchise.
Yeah the Mission franchise is slightly more enjoyable for me as well, as it's more of a team instead of just one guy.
Saw Jason Bourne this week too, and yeah that scene was pretty fun. Will be posting my review soon aswell.
Not sure about The Division, it is a video-game adaptation which is an immediate red flag but with Gyllenhaal and Chastain, who knows? could be good.
Hi Khalid, I'll be writing my review of Jason Bourne tomorrow, but generally I enjoyed it. Seems that the critics aren't loving it but then again I don't always agree w/ them.
Yeah, video game movies are rarely good, but who knows though, maybe one of these days someone could break the *curse* somehow.
Looking forward to it. And had similar thoughts to yours but I think the movie had some flaws that held it back
Watched Bourne yesterday and felt slightly disappointed (especially by the Las Vegas chase, which felt like it belonged in another film), review will be up later today
Hi Nostra! Oh really? Bourne films are known for the car chases so I think it very much belonged in the movie. Sounds like we might be in disagreement about Jason Bourne, but hey that's ok.
Yeah, car chases are part of it, but they are supposed to be realistic and that chase simply wasn't. That SWAT car was like a tank…
Three Rows Back
Thanks as always for the free publicity! That Bourne gif has me excited to see it!
Pleasure Mark! Got my Jason Bourne review done to post later tonight 😉
Great to see the French rom-com top 10 proving to be a hit. Thanks Ruth!
That was a great list, Dan! I love French comedies, I only wish my French crush Stanley Weber had been in one of these. Interestingly enough, I discovered him in a Scottish rom-com!
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text:
Argue this
Posted on February 21, 2005 by tom
Avril Dell vents accordingly
I just spent way too much billable time looking for ARGUABLY on your Banned for Life list — and it ain't there! Kindly add ARGUABLY, for those who believe it means conclusively. It don't. An issue only remains arguable when there are enough legitimate differences to prevent conclusion. That's what makes something arguable, ya gomers! Where did the arguable blitherers get the idea they could point to one side of an argument as its conclusion?
I think what they mean to say is that they hope or believe their readers or
listeners agree with their conclusion; or that they're asserting a fact in
a wussy way, so they can withdraw it if someone objects. Something like that.
but the "arguable" habit is just too goofy. Slippery and illogical.
Runners up:
METEORIC RISE. Huh? As in "blaze briefly on the way down"?
NOT UN-whatever. I find this one not unstupid.
GOING FORWARD. Used by homo corporatus everywhere, to mean "next"
or "in the future" or "from now on". It can always be lopped off the statement,
with no change in meaning. "This is what we'll be doing, going forward" can
become "This is what we'll be doing"– as the statement has "future" built
into it. When did anything ever occur "going backward"?
ADDRESS THE ISSUE .Ttell ya what: just deal with it, ok? Just
do it, fix it, trash it, move it, buy it, sell it, fire it, change it, TAKE
THE ACTION. don't bother addressing the issue; say what you're going to do
and then do it. Period.
TOUCH BASE. Do NOT touch my base, EVER. I'm serious.
10 thoughts on "Argue this"
Terry Rodgers on March 18, 2005 at 8:16 am said:
Forward has specific meaning in a battle plan, which is where a lot of corporate lingo comes from. In this context, "going forward" is used to refer implicitely to the fact that the action being taken is in accordance with a plan that has been made. Leaving the terms out of the statement gives rise to the question of whether the plan has been changed. It IS MOST SPECIFICALLY NOT a useless phrase. However, people who are not used to setting goals and making plans probably do find that it gets their hackles up because it is a reminder that OTHER PEOPLE DO.
rick on March 19, 2005 at 7:57 am said:
is used to refer implicitely to the fact that == implies
Bradley Bleck on March 30, 2005 at 8:07 pm said:
My journalism professor, the late William F. Johnston of U of Washington, always told us never use the 50-cent word when the nickel job will do. My pet peeve as an English teacher: utilize. Give me "use" anyday! I like to tell my students that English is predominantly (probably mis-spelled that) an Anglo-Saxon language, and that means words of few syllables–one, two, three or maybe four–close to grunts. Keeping it simple helps writers stay away from sounding stupid by falling into jargon, jingoism or just plain slop. Corporate speak falls into the just plain slop for me, even when I'm setting goals and achieving them.
Byf on April 7, 2005 at 6:39 pm said:
But there's also a place for eloquent writing and personal style. The trick is to decide whether the writer is saying "elongated yellow fruit" instead of "banana" for emphasis or style or is just a bad writer. I wouldn't reflexively change it.
charley hardman on April 18, 2005 at 5:57 pm said:
i agree, or at least sympathize, with most of the entries at this site. not this one though.
i don't recall ever hearing "arguably" used to mean conclusively. "arguably" is a good word for allowing that there may be worthy counter arguments to what's posited by the speaker.
"meteoric rise"? who says meteors go down — einstein? and who cares if they do? it's the speed and brilliance that are borrowed. language isn't math when used expressively. requiring 100% literal transfer for expressions is silly.
"not un-[whatever]", while often pompous, can indicate gradients. for example, if i say someone's "not undisciplined", it's different from saying "he's disciplined" — useful and correct as an intentional blah modifier.
"going forward" is often stated to indicate change, implying, "i don't care what was done previously; here is our new policy." overused maybe, but that's not necessarily grounds for striking.
"address the issue" is not the same as any of the suggested replacements. it connotes assessment more than any following action.
"touch base" is overdone as well, but it's efficient and meaningful.
a better subject is why these hack examples are at the top of anybody's list. "billable time"? there's a real contradiction.
Jenny Brunk on February 20, 2006 at 1:58 pm said:
Ah, perhaps you out to check the definition of jingoism. From m-w.com, jingoism is defined as: "extreme chauvinism or nationalism marked especially by a belligerent foreign policy". I don't think that is what you meant.
I must say I absolutely despise "touch base". After working in retail and having a manager who constantly claimed that she would "touch base" with me at a later time, I can't stand the phrase. Why isn't "catch up with" or "speak to" good enough?
Michael Tott on September 27, 2006 at 3:53 am said:
To be precise "use" and "utilize" have different meanings.
To utilize something, is to use it for something that it was not specifically designed to do.
You may 'use' a hammer to knock in a nail, but you could 'utilize' a hammer as a crow bar.
You may 'use' a keyboard to input data into a PC, or you could 'utilze' a keyboard to bash someone around the face and head for their unintentional ironic use of the word 'jiingoism'
Judy on April 25, 2008 at 11:43 am said:
Thank you for mentioning "going forward." It emerged sometime within the last year and has spread like a disease. I hate this expression and cringe every time I hear it! Don't people who make a living as public speakers ever listen to themselves? Another thing I can't stand, more in the grammar mode, is the improper use of "lay" and "lie." And, of course, the perennial "you knows."
Her Again on April 28, 2011 at 6:14 pm said:
hey–just found all these comments for the first time and now they're 5 yrs old.
guess i didn't go back to this site ever after posting the original up top.
hoo hah great feedback. all useful.
or utilizable.
aw, charley hardman.
[were you having cramps?]
going forward, you may address me as Your Hackness.
arguably, one of us is right. michael tott, you speak the truth about "utilize", but it's still banned because of the urge of homo corporatus to graft suffixes for sport and a corner office.
and i do now understand that 'address the issue' can waft like a spritz of aerosol abstraction and protect us all from anything descriptive or accountable.
and if you lot can find the word "arguably" used without its sidekick "the best" in a sentence, i'm holding my breath. arguably is so goofy as it usually prefaces a superlative i.e. a conclusion. it's either followed by "the best" or "the only" or some similar claim of unarguability. it's irridiculous.
aren't werdz the bestest? just look all this touching base that's happening not-unspontaneously.


Trulia is an online real estate site that makes finding a home easy and enjoyable by providing home buyers, renters, and sellers the insights they need to make informed decisions about where to live.
Trulia Experience Language (TXL) is a CSS style guide which promotes code reusability, rapid development, and maintainability.
For this project, I was responsible for designing the UI components in our design language. I partnered with our brand design and two engineers to modernize the UI, refactor code for higher efficiency, and add new components to the design language.
We started by auditing the current design language and identified components that were widely used across the site. We then focused on a a one-to-one conversion of all of the design components (type, color, buttons, icons, etc.) and mocked up the main user flows with restyled UI.
We iterated on various different component designs and posted mocks to make sure each of the components worked together and fit our new brand tenants (clean, authentic, fluid, delightful, etc.).
Here are a few examples of the Trulia Experience Language (TXL) design documentation. This was maintained in a shared Sketch document for designers to simply pull UI elements into their files.
Through out our research we found that new design increased the user's perception of Trulia.
The TXL 2.0 refresh represented an overhaul in the look-and-feel of our product. The refactoring of our code and the refresh of our visual design lead to improved site speed and boosted our over NPS by 10 points.
35% increase in lead submits for rental business.
The Trulia UI was button-heavy in areas. We made strict button rules, in an effort to bring more clarity to our users; there should never be more than one primary (orange) button on the page—this was a departure from how they were previously used.
We tested this on Trulia's Rentals Search Results Page (SRP) was one of the first pages on which we tested these changes and saw a 35% increase in leads sent to property managers.


Spiritual teacher Eiman Al Zaabi shares how the practice of inquiry can both calm the mind and help you find meaning.
In my twenties, I suffered from anxiety and depression. My days were a living nightmare; I had one panic attack after another. I would reach for a bottle of Bach Flower Remedies to calm myself down. I took antidepressants. Yet nothing ever truly helped. I felt disconnected, like a zombie—until I discovered that I could choose my own mental state and the aim of my mind's activity.
The turning point on my spiritual journey was discovering that I could use my mind to find meaning through inquiry, rather than simply listening helplessly to my fearful thoughts. Inquiry helped me reengage in life. It helped me ask bold questions about God, about pain and suffering, life and death. As I followed the trail of my soul, it led me back to myself. I found a friend and companion, a wise teacher and loving mother—all within me. For the first time, I clearly recognized why I existed, and I felt a new sense of peace.
Often, we wish we could switch off our mind's chatter. Some new-age interpretations of spirituality validate this impulse by portraying the mind as unruly and problematic. We are told that it is the speaking mind that causes our suffering, and we are instructed to tame it.
But it's not necessary or desirable to silence the mind. Your brain and mind have a spiritual purpose, which is to seek the truth and a spiritual connection. To realize our full potential, we must listen to the mind as it helps us make meaning of our experience.
The problem arises when the speaking mind gets stuck in mundane concerns, and we forget our need for spiritual connection. Life is dominated by trivial commentary that distracts us from our purpose. It's as if the radio is tuned between stations, and we just listen to the static rather than changing the station.
The solution is to tune your mind to a channel that is meaningful. When you find yourself worrying or ruminating, choose instead to practice inquiry. Ask questions and invite the Divine to answer. Start by investigating the day-to-day needs of the self: "Why am I in this state? How can I get better?" Then expand the range of inquiry to cover life's biggest questions.
Allow your awareness to settle in your heart. Take 7 deep breaths in through your nose and out through your mouth. Notice your body becoming peaceful and receptive to the truth.
This can be as simple as "May I come to know the truth." With a clear intention, your mind is less likely to wander.
4. Sincerely seek the truth.
Release your ego; strive to understand rather than to feel wise. The energy of your interest will be returned to you in the form of answers.
5. Pay attention to the signs.
The universe will send you experiences and intuitions that match your needs.
Your heart carries the blueprint of truth. When you think you have received an answer, notice whether your heart responds with a welcoming vibration or with a sense of dissonance.
With practice, inquiry will become second nature. Your mind will learn to ask questions without any conscious effort from you, and you will learn to let go of the need to find the answers right away. The cycle of asking and receiving answers will flow naturally.
Without telling my sister what was on my mind, I let go and went to bed. The next day, my sister called to tell me she'd dreamed that we bought a small amount of food and placed it on a carpeted floor to be offered to the poor. The food multiplied until it filled the entire space. I teared up, knowing I had received my answer: simply do what you can, and the effects will multiply. I no longer felt worried or inadequate; I was ready to act.
Your mind is designed to bring good into your life. It can become your greatest spiritual ally if you simply harness your innate curiosity. If you let your mind wander toward the negative and the meaningless, you distract yourself from living a meaningful life. But when you channel your mind's energy with intention, you can overcome the mental chaos and illuminate your spiritual life.
Eiman Al Zaabi is a personal transformation coach, spiritual teacher, and author of The Art of Surrender: A Practical Guide to Enlightened Happiness and Well-Being. In addition to her private practice, she works at New York University, Abu Dhabi campus, and lives in the United Arab Emirates with her husband and children. Find her at eimanalzaabi.com or on Facebook.


Deposition Author(s): Desai, K.K., Bingman, C.A., Phillips Jr., G.N., Raines, R.T.
Structures of the Noncanonical RNA Ligase RtcB Reveal the Mechanism of Histidine Guanylylation.
Desai, K.K., Bingman, C.A., Phillips, G.N., Raines, R.T.
RtcB is an atypical RNA ligase that joins either 2',3'-cyclic phosphate or 3'-phosphate termini to 5'-hydroxyl termini. In contrast to typical RNA ligases, which rely on ATP and Mg(II), catalysis by RtcB is dependent on GTP and Mn(II) with ligation proceeding through a covalent RtcB-histidine-GMP intermediate. Here, we present three structures of Pyrococcus horikoshii RtcB complexes that capture snapshots along the entire guanylylation pathway. These structures show that prior to binding GTP, a single manganese ion (Mn1) is bound to RtcB. To capture the step immediately preceding RtcB guanylylation, we determined a structure of RtcB in complex with Mn(II) and the unreactive GTP analogue guanosine 5'-(α-thio)triphosphate (GTPαS). This structure shows that Mn1 is poised to stabilize the pentavalent transition state of guanylylation while a second manganese ion (Mn2) is coordinated to a nonbridging oxygen of the γ-phosphoryl group. The pyrophosphate leaving group of GTPαS is oriented apically to His404 with the ε-nitrogen poised for in-line attack on the α-phosphorus atom. The structure of RtcB in complex with GTPαS also reveals the network of hydrogen bonds that recognize GTP and illuminates the significant conformational changes that accompany the binding of this cofactor. Finally, a structure of the enzymic histidine-GMP intermediate depicts the end of the guanylylation pathway. The ensuing molecular description of the RtcB guanylylation pathway shows that RtcB and classical ATP- and Mg(II)-dependent nucleic acid ligases have converged upon a similar two-metal mechanism for formation of the nucleotidylated enzyme intermediate.
Department of Biochemistry, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Madison, Wisconsin 53706, USA.


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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Q: Neater way of checking adding/removing a CSS class using 'hasClass' in jQuery? Overview
From time to time in jQuery I want to check a condition of some kind, and then based on the result add/remove a cssClass to an element.
Before calling add(remove)Class, I always check to see if that class isn't (or is) applied already.
In code, this translates to
var myElement = $('#something'),
    someClass = 'coolClass';

if (someCondition) {

   // addClass, but only if that class isn't already on this element
   if (!myElement.hasClass(someClass)) { myElement.addClass(someClass); }

} else {

   // otherwise, removeClass, but only if it's already on this element
   if (myElement.hasClass(someClass)) { myElement.removeClass(someClass); }

}

Is there a neater way of writing the above?
I'm sure there must be a nicer way of doing this, as the nested if statements smell to me.
Clarity on toggling
Just a clarifying note (added after the answers below). It is important to note here than toggleClass(className) will not suffice as I explicitally want to remove or add based on a condition check - and need to account for the 'toggle' going out of sync. (Adam gives an example in a comment on Rob's answer below).

A: var myElement = $('#something'),
someClass = 'coolClass';
myElement.toggleClass(someClass, someCondition);

toggleClass does your check for you essentially.  If you do a toggleClass('class', true) it'll only actually put that class on there if it's not already, and will never add more than one class of the same name.

A: Use the toggleClass method, which removes a class if it exists, and adds it if it does not.
var myElement = $('#something'),
    someClass = 'coolClass';

myElement.toggleClass(someClass, someCondition);

Reviewing your current code, I add that there's no need to use hasClass. jQuery automatically deals correctly with the request: A class name is only added once, so using $("<a>").addClass("xxx").addClass("xxx").attr("class") will return x, instead of xxx xxx.

A: .addClass() will only add a class if it doesn't already exist and .removeClass() only removes an existing class so the following should work:
if (someCondition) {
  myElement.addClass(someClass);
} else {
  myElement.removeClass(someClass);
}

A: Since jQuery 1.4 there is a neater way of doing this using toggleClass function. See details here.

A: this should do it as well
if (someCondition) {
    $(myElement+":not(.someClass)").addClass(someClass);
}else{
    $(myElement+":has(.someClass)").removeClass(someClass);
}

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