Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with drama

Deposit for old rental I don't live at.

wcfields — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 22:32:28 -0800

I moved into a house with some friends in Los Angeles California, we all split the deposit (shared was $700 each), things got weird and I moved out with the person moving into my room agreeing to pay my share of the deposit. That was a year ago and promises of "in the fall" have now gone silent. What do I do now? Long story short: Roommate started dating ex-boyfriend of my girlfriend and he basically moved in within a week of them dating, so I moved in with my girlfriend and out of the house. The person who moved into my old room said they would pay me my share of the deposit in the fall. In June my girlfriend and I moved to Oregon and now that I've asked a few times with no response what should I do?

I will be visiting LA in a few weeks, should I file a small claims? Am I legally entitled to the person moving in and agreeing (written in email) to pay my share of the deposit (but hasn't) to do so? Legally am I entitled to it from the lease holder or do I need to wait for them to move from that property? The original lease was signed over a year ago in May 2007 and by now has probably reverted to month to month. I was never on the lease.

How to entertain parents you don't get along with?

thegreatcokeolympics — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 10:29:58 -0800

Activities to do in San Francisco for mellow people... My parents and I will be visiting SF for christmas and staying a few days after. This is the first time in a while we are spending time together due to the inevitable drama and negativity that comes when we get together. I really want this trip to go well! I need some suggestions for activities that will keep us preoccupied (so we don't have the chance to argue or complain), but not annoy us, and by us, I mean my mother. This means nothing too loud or that has that "young person" vibe. I'm 28 and my parents are in their mid 50s, so I'm aiming for something age neutral.

I ask for suggestions because I seem to either find young person hot spots or family oriented spots (which inevitably means directed at kids), but nothing in between. Please point me in the right direction!

Also, nothing too expensive.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Yes, another gift question. Sorry.

Mavri — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 11:31:22 -0800

What would be a good TV show to give to a person with Alzheimer's? A family member has Alzheimer's. I've always given him books for gifts, but he can't really follow them anymore. (He's a history buff, especially WWII and military history.) His wife says he likes NCIS and the CSI's. She also says she doesn't think he could follow a show with complex, season-long plots, like Lost or the Wire.

I would kind of like to avoid getting him DVD's of a show that's on TV all the damn time, like NCIS and the CSI's. Any suggestions for hour-long dramas that are both engrossing and stand-alone? It doesn't necessarily have to be an American show, but something with thick accents might be hard to follow for him.

Any other suggestions related to the military history and WWII aspects are welcome too--good documentaries, for example.

Getting space from a high-drama friend

Anonymous — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 10:00:32 -0800

I've decided to distance myself from a high-drama friend. How can I transition from close friends to distant friends, with a minimum of unhappiness for both of us? I met "Joanna" last year through a shared circle of friends. She's fun and has a uniquely magnetic personality. We became pretty close girlfriends.

The thing is, friendship with her contains a lot of drama. She's prone to flakiness, rapidly shifting moods, and dark thoughts. When we make plans, I don't know if she'll bail. When we talk, sometimes her bouts of deep depression will drain me. When she tells me things, I'm not sure whether if it'll be thrown out the window when her mood changes in a few hours. I've made my frustration known to her after individual incidents in the past.

She's gone through terrible things in her life, and is working with a therapist now. I care for her, but have decided to cut down on the frequency of our interactions, for my own peace of mind. I need help with a couple situations:

1. If she probes for why, or drops hints about not being invited to something, what do I say? I don't want to go into the reasons, because it'll be hard to avoid making her feel rejected. Is there a way to get out of answering?

2. In situations where it'd be an obvious omission to leave her off the invite list (e.g. I've invited five of our common friends), should I go ahead and invite her anyway? It feels bad to be overtly rude / excluding, but the current situation feels bad too.

(Btw we are both in our 30s, in case this matters.)

How can I salvage a friendship when I can't be around her boyfriend?

Anonymous — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 17:09:48 -0800

How do I salvage a friendship in an awkward situation? I live in a house with many people. One of our former housemates, my friend, let's call her P, came back to visit with her boyfriend, who she now lives with in another country.

While they were here, P's boyfriend did something that really upset another person living here, call her M. Without going into too many details, M has some mental health struggles that have made her difficult to live with. The boyfriend, while drunk, confronted M about how she has been really difficult, and he really violated her boundaries. Because M is struggling with issues from past trauma, she freaked out.

M's reaction might not be how another person would have reacted, but the boyfriend acknowledged that he crossed the line. He has done other things to make people uncomfortable in the past, always while drunk.

Because of this, mostly at my urging because I feared that I could not trust P's boyfriend when he drinks, which is often, we decided that P's boyfriend should not be allowed in our house again. M no longer lives here, she is elsewhere sorting herself out.

We communicated to P's boyfriend in an email that I did not write. I meant to write to P at the same time and tell her that this isn't about her and I still value her friendship. But because my work was so hectic this week I forgot to do that.

Now P has written an email to all of us in the house, and it's clear she's upset. I feel bad because I don't think I did a good job as her friend communicating with her.

So what do I do now to make amends and try to salvage my friendship with P, especially given that if they ever come to visit again, her boyfriend can't stay here? Even if it's not possible for her to want to be my friend in this situation, I want to do my best to be kind to her and make her feel welcome.

let's NOT do goldilocks, for once.

acidic — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 06:26:11 -0800

Help me, a teacher, help my energetic, funny and amazing 10-year-old EFL students write and direct a pair of plays. I've been put in charge of a drama club at my school in Korea. We've got 4 weeks to brainstorm, write, rehearse, and film two plays. I have six students, and while they will each act in both plays, they will be written by groups of three. We did some brainstorming and we came up with the following ideas:
1) A crew of superheroes and magical people who have lost their powers-- a comedy
2) A normal school populated by a group of scary people (zombies, ghosts, etc)
but these aren't set in stone. They're a VERY, VERY active group of kids-- at any given moment usually four of them are jumping on their desks. They wanted to do a fighting play (with fake guns?) but I wasn't sure if that was appropriate.

Their English is not strong, so I'm planning to write a plot and help them develop it into a simple script. Trouble is, I know next to nothing about creative writing (especially for children), and I have never really been involved in anything dramatic. How do I develop these ideas into storylines that use all 6 students equally? How long should the script be if we're to tackle it in a month? We have fifteen 40-minute sessions, and the kids are quite hard to control.

(I'm not NECESSARILY asking for you to come up with a brief storyline, but if anything cool comes to mind......)

Probably-needlessly-complicated-family-drama-filter.

Tha Race Card — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:37:54 -0800

So my grandfather is really sick and I haven't seen him in four years. Up until I turned eleven or twelve, our relationship was great. After that, not so much. Long, sorry. My family is split into two, distinct groups. There is my mother's side, that includes my sister and myself and my mom, obviously. We are a fucked little unit with a long and violent history of abuse (perpetrated by mom). The other side is everyone else, basically. My grandfather is sort of a prolific manwhore. He was no less than 14 children, the youngest of whom is 6, many by different mothers, and all of these people make up my family. His "main bitch," a woman named Bea, is his second wife. The children she had with him are the relatives I'm closest too. Complicated. In any case, the two sides of my family have never really mixed. My mother resents my grandfather's second wife and Bea has never really accepted my mother as a real part of her family. This is partly because my grandfather's first wife, my mother's mother, is crazy. My grandfather's first marriage was crazy abusive, unfaithful, and codependent and ended when my grandmother literally tried to kill him. So Bea doesn't really like my mom.

Part of my mother's abuse, aside from the hitting and emotional stuff, was a sort of intense forced isolation. No visits from friends, no after school activities of any kind, no playing outside, and only select visits from a few members of my extended family: my Aunt Julia, my Uncle Oscar, and my grandfather. The days when they would visit are the few from my childhood that I remember with any sort of fondness. My mother seemed happier, certainly less angry when they were around. Distracted.

Around age twelve, my sister and I began to realize how horrible our home life was and we began reaching out for help. This meant, for me, opening up for the first time to close friends and teachers and to the extended family I was closest too: Oscar and my grandfather. For my sister, this meant burning down our house. My sister's tactic worked better than mine. While my mom isolating us had worked to some extent to hide the abuse, my sister burning down the house pretty much put it all up in everyone's faces. My uncle and my grandfather and social workers could dismiss the things I told them as tough love, but they couldn't dismiss the absolute rage it would take for a 14 year-old girl to burn every single one of her earthly possessions.

My sister was taken away and put in a group home for "troubled girls" which against all odds worked spectacularly for her. It was a safe and supportive place and now she's a kick ass lady. I, however, was left behind alone with my mom, and while the physical abuse stopped once I gained a few inches on her, the emotional stuff never did. It was pretty obvious that something wasn't right and my cries for help became more and more desperate and self-destructive. My uncle believed me but encouraged me to try to work it out with my mother. My grandfather stopped coming over pretty much as soon as I started growing tits. I've always suspected he doesn't really understand the "point" of women he can't, for whatever reason, sleep with.

The years of abuse finally ended with my mother selling our house and moving back to Honduras the year I turned 18, leaving me alone in Boston with no money and no place to go. After 18 years of shit and then a very abrupt abandonment, I was scared and depressed and crazy. Oscar convinced Bea to let me stay for the summer in the apartment she shared with my grandfather. When she came back to the country with him, two months later, she told me I had to go. My grandfather had no opinion on the matter. The only relative I had left to turn to was my crazy ass grandmother. The one who tried to kill him. I lived with her for a year. The worst year of my life. For that entire year I never heard from anyone in my family but Oscar and my sister. My mom wouldn't talk to me, Bea didn't give a fuck, and neither did my grandfather. It took me four years to recover from all of that. I'm 23 now with friends who care about me and an awesome boyfriend and an apartment that I can pay for and that no one can make me leave and a job and school and I feel like I'm getting to be whole again.

So now my grandfather's sick. Really sick. He's had two strokes and apparently isn't breathing on his own. My uncle has asked me to go see him and I'm scared. And angry. I asked my grandfather to help me when I couldn't help myself and he turned away from me. I don't know that he's asked to see me or if he's even capable of doing so. There's a part of me that feels that I have to go in case "this is it," that I owe him that. I feel like not wanting to see him makes me a bad person. I'm afraid that if I don't go my relationship with my uncle would be ruined. I'm afraid that I'll go and I'll be surrounded by all of these people who don't consider me actual family and someone will say some shit and I'll feel scared, and lonely, and depressed all over again. Or I'll just freak out and their suspicions about me and my side of the family will be confirmed. I think I have to go but I can't make myself do it. I don't know how to deal with this and I'm don't even know what the right thing to do is. Advice from people with similarly fucked families would be nice. Thanks, metafilter.

I can't afford my family's Christmas expectations, how to handle this appropriately?

Anonymous — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 12:04:41 -0800

My husband lost his job, we're not sure how we're going to pay the rent in January, and my family is being assholes about Christmas gifts. This is a little complicated so I'm going to try and break it down.

My family:
1. my mother and stepfather (no kids)
2. my dad and stepmom
3. stepsister A + husband + 1 small kid
4. stepsister B + husband + 1 small kid + 1 teenager

Mom and stepdad don't want us to buy them anything. They have been extremely generous. Dad and stepmom see Christmas unfolding as usual; we buy gifts for them (2 adults) the kids (3) and we each pick one name amongst siblings (so, 2 adults per family)

On his side, there are 6 adults and 5 small children. There's no expectation to get the adults anything on his side, and we're all universally broke anyway.

So, in total we're expected to buy for 8 kids and 4 adults. This is money we Do Not Have - it will go on credit cards. I have no qualms about buying stuff for kids, they're not resposnsible for our poor decision making. I would hope the adults would be more understanding, but when I suggested that we not draw names for the adults this year, I got the dirtiest look. Both of my stepsisters and their husbands are working; my stepsisters have well paying jobs. They know my husband lost his job, they know my job doesn't pay well. Appearances may be deceiving because we bought nice cars when we were both working. We made some bad decisions, I won't lie and we are working hard to rectify this. But it infuriates me that I am expected to spend $150 on adults that don't need anything, when we're already going to spend ~$200 on the kids.

Religious appeals won't work, Christmas is pretty much a secular thing. My stepmom is all OMG tradition and her daughters have inherited this attitude.

Also, we have exhausted my mother's and father-in-laws generosity, so we may have to ask my dad & stepmom for a loan if my husband doesn't find a job in December. My husband is really and truly embarrassed about taking their help, he doesn't want my dad to think less of him (my dad is old school) and he'd rather put the gifts on credit cards than make this an issue. Me, I'm just plain pissed off that they'd rather get a f--kin sweater vest than help us buy groceries. If you haven't guessed, we're not close to begin with, but there's not been any open animosity either.

how to get over this friendship/relationship/whatever that was

Anonymous — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 05:25:44 -0800

how to get over this friendship/relationship/whatever that was so. i have a strange story to tell, but i'm going to try to strip out all the crazy parts and leave in just the parts that make it the run of the mill boy-girl story.

i made a really good friend a few years back in another country, and we fell out of touch. he moved back to his home country, and I never got his new number. I recently went to that country. After buying the ticket and making all my plans, I knew I would be really sad if I didn't find a way to be in touch with him, so I had a friend living in that country (where we had met) go to a place where I knew people would know how to contact him, and voila, I had his number.

I called him- and he was really excited that I was coming, and took off a week to travel with me (actually two weeks, because his job only let him take 2 weeks at a time), I was there for longer than that one week so we had a couple of weeks to reacquaint ourselves before we started to travel together within the country. I didn't stay with him during this time, and I was doing other stuff that had nothing to do with him for most of the time, but still spent a few hours with him maybe every other day.

anyway, he expressed romantic interest in me, and everything fell apart. I kind of turned down his interest, but then said that I would get to know him...and then we talked serious. Like much too seriously, about everything. And we talked about how each of us didn't want to live in each other's countries, and since the long-term seemed to be what was on the table this meant we weren't going to be together.

But I was still thinking about it a lot...and started developing stronger feelings....and while finally traveling with him basically found out that his mother had supposedly just arranged his marriage (during my visit the the country, after his proposal). yea.

the rest was rather awful. we talked about staying friends, but to be entirely honest- I don't think he ever viewed me as just a friend although I had viewed him this way until he said anything. So I really want to stay his friend, because I feel like he's such a good friend and that he means a lot to me in this way, and although he said he wanted to stay friends, his actions or lack thereof since have spoken volumes otherwise.

and also, he told me this time that the first time we 'lost touch,' was because he had decided to forget me, since he had feelings for me and didn't think I felt the same way. So I feel like he's doing this again. I.E.- not keeping in touch, at all.

I'm really sad. I've been trying to get over it for sometime, with some progress, but I just really wish that I didn't feel I just wasted a month in another country spending a lot of time with someone whose friendship is now completely gone. It makes it hard to look back at my vacation there and cherish it.

Why can't we be friends? When I talk to him he tells me we'll stay friends, he sounds genuine and like he really misses me, but then makes absolutely no move to stay in touch although I've made it clear that I'd like him to.

I guess the reason is because he doesn't want to, but I wanted to know if there was another perspective on this. For what it's worth, he did not get married like he said he was going to, at least not within the timeframe he had indicated (whether or not the arrangement was a lie, I think it was true that his mother was insistent that he marry within his ethnicity and was in general trying to arrange his marriage over the past several years), so guilt about feelings while being with another girl may not be the obvious answer.

Oh yea, him 'expressing his feelings' for me, is another way to say he asked me to marry him.

This was 2.5 months ago.

tell me how to get over all of this, and most importantly, his friendship and clear indication that he will on an absolute basis not be in touch (he would be ok and warm if i call him, but would never reciprocate and so it's not a good idea for me to indulge in this demoralizing option).

this is stripping out the crazy details.

hi amy. i'm sure you'll read this and recognize me:)

Am I the dick in this situation?

Venadium — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:33:52 -0800

A friend of mine is currently pretty pissed at me because I'm about to hang out with a girl that's friends with his ex's sister. In his mind it's only a matter of time before I'm hanging out with his ex too. Is he being an irrational dick, or will continuing to hang out with this girl only result in me getting a taste of my own dick medicine? I can understand where he's coming from as I was less than thrilled when my friends were hanging out with my ex, but that isn't exactly the case here.

How to deal with his friendship with a former lover?

Anonymous — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 21:04:40 -0800

(RelationshipFilter) My now boyfriend used to sleep with a good friend of his, while he was dating me. How do I deal with my feelings about him hanging out with her? Before we became exclusive (in the early stages of our dating relationship, but continuing after we started saying "I love you"), my now boyfriend was sleeping with a very close friend of his. I knew about it at the time and I hated it. She would sleep over at his place once a week and I knew what was going on, and it tortured me. After a few months we became exclusive (after I told him I wanted to) and he stopped sleeping with her. I never asked him to stop being friends with her or hanging out with her, but I asked him not to share details with me as it really bothers me when he sees her. I don't think he has feelings for her, nor do I suspect that anything is "going on" between them. A few weeks ago she came to an event that he and I attend regularly, and I had to leave because I felt so uncomfortable and angry. Today I found out that he went to a place that is very special to me, that we have been talking about going to together, with her, from a friend who told me he saw him there. I feel like he lied to me about it and was sneaking around, but he says he didn't tell me because I asked him not to talk to me about her. I don't know how we resolve this. I don't feel like it would be okay for me to say "stop being friends with her", but I'm tired of this being an issue and feeling betrayed and angry. I'm angry at him because I feel like he created this situation, but at the same time he wasn't doing anything technically wrong at the time: he wasn't lying to me or cheating on me. When I try to reverse the situation, I know that I wouldn't be hanging out with someone I was sleeping with at the same time as I was seeing him--actually, I wouldn't have been sleeping with a close friend, nor would I have been with someone else when I was saying "I love you" to him.
Does anyone have any ideas about how to deal with this? How do I stop feeling so angry and hurt? Am I totally in the wrong? We have a good relationship and good communication but things just go nowhere with this issue.

Taking high schoolers to Broadway?

airguitar2 — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:52:46 -0800

How can I bring my low-income high school students to an off-Broadway show? I teach creative writing at a public high school in NYC where most/all of the students are low-income. We're studying drama in creative writing, and I'd like to find a way to bring them to a real play-- maybe Our Town, or Broke-ology, or A Boy And His Soul. I'm wondering: are there programs for which my students would qualify? We obviously can't afford to pay full price for tickets. Do any shows have rehearsals we might simply be able to sit in on? Are there shows that allow students to attend special performances?

Does anyone have experience doing this? Thanks!

If Ibsen sauce is good for the goose...

mykescipark — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:16:11 -0800

Molière's Don Juan, Alan Ayckbourn's Norman Dewars, Shaw's Leonard Charteris. I am clearly missing some greats, but who are theatre's other great philandering characters, male or female? (Theatre only, please, no films or television.)

Best friend's girlfriend hates me

cheesecake — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 22:59:44 -0800

My best friend's new girlfriend hates me for no reason. I'm a woman with a male best friend "Mike". We were college friends, and then worked at the same company for ten years. We confide in each other, and have supported each other through ups and downs. There's no romantic history. He's like a brother to me.

Mike started dating a new woman six months ago. They have a very passionate relationship.

Everything was fine until Mike, his girlfriend, a few mutual friends, and I went on a week-long trip together. By the second day, Mike's girlfriend became very rude to me. Throughout the rest of the trip, she spoke and acted rudely to me. Later I found out that she spent a long time every day badmouthing me to Mike in private, arguing and crying for hours. At one point, she had a realization that she was being unfair to me by projecting bad traits onto me. Unfortunately, this didn't change her behavior, and she continued to blow up unpredictably over imagined insults.

Mike apologized to me afterwards for her behavior. As we talked, he seemed sensitive about discussions of his relationship. He became agitated when he spoke about potentially breaking up with her. I thought he needed external encouragement, but that just made him defensive. Since then, Mike and I talk less than we used to. He avoids any mention of his girlfriend, and we instead talk about work and hobbies.

I'm wondering if this is a sustainable status quo. Mike and I both value our friendship. Should I tell him that I am happy to listen to him talk about his girlfriend? Should I back off and "wait out" the duration of their relationship? Should I try to reach out and invite both of them to events?

ISO: Cake Pan in shape of Comedy/Drama Masks

He Is Only The Imposter — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 06:49:29 -0800

I'm looking for a cake pan/mold in the shape of the traditional theater comedy/drama masks. This is for a gift, so I need an actual pan, not a workaround for making the cakes. Googling got me cookie cutters but no cake molds. Thanks!

Explaining Dysfunction and Estrangment to the Mayberry Set.

Anonymous — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 07:52:35 -0800

How to explain family estrangement to in-laws and other folks? I am the oldest child in a family scarred by poverty, mental illness, alcoholism and psychological abuse. My mother has borderline personality disorder and is convinced that I am the "bad seed" in the family and has waged a slander campaign against me to other family members telling them that I am a drug user and of loose moral fiber. In reality, I am a woman in my late 30s who smoked a lot of pot and experimented with drugs in my early 20s. I also had an abortion and a miscarriage (out of wedlock) and came out as bisexual around the same period of my life and foolishly confided all these things to either my sister or my mother, who have held them against me (in a BIG way) ever since. My family is conservative blue collar Midwestern Pentecostal Christian. I grew up to be an activist, liberal, atheist, feminist without children. I am the first woman in my family to go to college. I paid my way through undergrad and then went on to grad school, winning honors in my program and getting a plum job offer before I even graduated. I married a similarly successful man from a close-knit family and we are incredibly happy in our house with our books and our pets and friends and creative projects.

All of the women in my family have lived lives of poverty and have had 3 or more kids before they were my age. It is not like I want kudos or pats on the back, but the more successful I get, the more hateful my immediate family has become. Until recently, I gamely attended family holidays and put up with little jabs about my past or snide comments about my spouse's sexual orientation. One of my siblings refuses to let me see her children and does not invite me to their birthday parties or school events. I get it, I make my parents and this particular sibling uncomfortable. I've tried hard to fit in and have hosted holidays and family dinners at my home.

I've been in therapy on and off for years. A few months ago, after a series of hostile emails from my mother basically telling me that I 'have a new family now,' and not being invited to a niece's birthday party; I decided that I am totally fed up and tired of being treated like this by my family. For the time being, I've cut them off. I feel comfortable doing this. My close friends have wondered why I didn't do this a long time ago. I am relieved at the thought of not having to host Thanksgiving or Christmas to family members who will criticize and analyze my every move and gesture and make mean comments about my home, my cooking or weight.

The challenge I am running into is this: How do I explain this to other people? I'm currently running into complications with the husband's very Mayberry normal family. They cannot wrap their minds around what my family situation is like and think I'm being mean for not wanting to spend holidays with them. They are the type of very nice folks who associate mental illness with "snake pit" type imagery and since they've met my parents and my parents weren't frothing at the mouth or verbally attacking me in front of them; they think I am exaggerating.

I'm also at a loss for explaining the situation to friends not within my immediate social circle and co-workers. What is a good way to explain estrangement without making people uncomfortable or over-sharing?

How do I re-start/maintain a relationship with my father while my mother is cheating on him and he doesn't know?

Anonymous — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 13:36:47 -0800

How do I re-start/maintain a relationship with my father while my mother is cheating on him and he doesn't know? My mother and my father's relationship has been on rocky ground from some years, but they have not made any real moves towards divorce. At the same time, I've never been close to my dad and at times this bothers me. Quite often my mom has done the work of getting the family together. My dad is a good person, but we used to have arguments quite often when I was a teenager (which is normal) and he's quite a bit more right wing than I am, and very much a workaholic (his job takes him away from home for up to 2 weeks at a time). As I left for university, my conversations with my father rarely got to deeper subjects than the weather or farming. On the other hand, he's fairly supportive of my sister's and my choices and, as I said, not a mean or bad person. I also worry that my dad is depressed and that his aversion to seeking medical help generally means that he won't deal with it. So I want to have more contact with him, in order to be more aware of how he's doing mentally and possibly intervene/help him before his depression gets out of hand.

My mom has always been close to me, but I've found it stressful talking with her lately, because she spends most of her conversations complaining about my dad being distant and unloving. Several months ago, I advised her to "figure out what she wants in her life" and make that happen rather than letting things happen to her and complaing about it. She's using those words to justify this affair, which actually infuriates me, because I meant them more as a "decide to divorce or not once and for all" and not "have an illicit affair". Furthermore, she's told everyone in the family about this affair now, and I'm angry that she's put all of us in the position of being secret-keepers and/or secret-spillers. I don't approve of her doing this and have told her that I think she should either tell dad, or formally seperate from him so it doesn't matter. She says she wants to avoid divorce because of all the legal and financial stress of it. I also worry that he's going to eventually find out (my parents live in a very small, rural community rife with malicious gossip, so it's going to come out), and I think my dad will be doubly hurt that everyone knew about this before him. I think he deserves to be left by my mom, but not to be humiliated by her. OTOH, I don't want to tell him myself because I feel that it's my mom's responsibility and I think she's on a subconscious level wanting to be 'caught' and hoping that someone will do the difficult work of telling dad so she doesn't have to. (My mom has always been very conflict-averse and neurotic.)

So, basically, to sum up: I'm anticipating a major blow-up and I've decided that it's important I keep a healthy relationship with both of my parents, and I know that I'll need to put in some effort to do that with my dad. I don't want to accidently or purposely tell him about the affair. Nor, do I want my attempts to re-establish more contact with my dad to be intepreted by my mom as some conspiracy against her. An example of how I'm considered trying to get closer with my dad is asking him to (re)teach me how to fish as it's something he knows and likes, and that I'm interested in getting into. I also have a particularly good memory of a fishing trip with him when I was 5 years old.

Other possibly relavant details: I'm an independent adult (approaching 30), own my own home and live several hours away. I ended a 9 year common law marriage last year when my former partner was unfaithful to me, and while I'm trying really hard to project some of that onto my parents' situation, I realize it's a risk. My sister (late 20s) is also independent from my parents, married with kids, and lives closer. My sister's husband talks regularly with my dad and is probably most affected by knowing. Both my parents (early 60s) have good jobs/pensions and healthy savings balances, property, etc, and neither will be devastated financially by a divorce.

How can I listen to Number 10?

JMB1138 — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 09:44:24 -0800

Is there any way in the world that I can listen to BBC Radio 4's audio drama series Number 10? It seems like the perfect combination of my love for shows like The West Wing and my curiosity about British politics. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like this has been or is going to be made available anywhere. Is it truly impossible for me to listen to it?

Short BBC dramas

IanMorr — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 06:58:26 -0800

What great <10 episode British dramas, such as State of Play, have I missed in the last 10 years? I just finished watching the 6 part series State of Play, which reminded me how much I used to enjoy that format. I left the UK 10 years ago, so I'm hoping that I've missed lots of other great short drama series that I can now catch up on.

There are some excellent suggestions here, but most of them have too many episodes for my current limited TV watching time.

I'm not looking for procedural types where there's a new problem to solve every hour. I also prefer dramas set in the present day. State of Play was ideal and is exactly what I'm looking for more of: a great story that unfolds over 6 hours, 2 DVD's, 2 weekend evenings at home while the kid's asleep.

Fill my brain with mindless stories!

cgg — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 09:42:19 -0800

7 days poolside... I need books! Tell me what to buy! We're off to an all-inclusive in Cabo next month, and my plan is rest and relaxation. I'm going all-out tourist and am planning to spend my days tipsy and by the pool, reading and lounging about. Trouble is, I need books!

When I read, I read for mindless escapism -- I don't want to have to think. Funny is good, but not necessary. Previous authors I've enjoyed and exhausted include everything from Janet Evanovich, Marian Keyes, Iris Johansen, Carl Hiaasen, and even John Grisham, for what it is (or isn't) worth. The geek in me is currently working through Douglas Coupland's books, but I'm finding them hit-and-miss (loved JPod and Microserfs, the rest I'm kinda meh about so far). I also like biographies of funny people/comedians, although I've probably read most of who I'd be interested in.

I'm guess I'm usually drawn to the lighter mystery or drama type books, or even a legal thriller. I *do not* like fantasy or sci-fi; I prefer things that are at least vaguely plausible in my mind. I'm definitely not a girly-girl, so I'm not sure about the whole shopoholic series, but I might give it a go for lack of better options. Like I said -- I don't plan on thinking all that much :)

So, awesome people of the metafilter universe, what else should I add to my reading library? Bonus points if it's readily available in paperback at Chapters (the Canadian equivalent of a Barnes&Noble).

Let's not go get drunk.

Anonymous — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 07:09:08 -0800

How can I get my mind off of this girl? Looking for healthy suggestions. There's this girl. She is one of my two roommates. I'm cannot flirt with her, or show her any sign that I like her, because she would reject me, and then I would have to move out, which I absolutely do not want to do. That being said, I hurts me a lot when she brings guys over, and I can hear them through the walls. Or when stays out all night with my best friend, for example. Needless to say, this is causing me emotional distress. I feel like getting drunk.

But I don't think that is the right reaction. I want to get my mind off of her. I want to move on. This much drama is not healthy for me. She's not worth it. I realize this may not be a very well-posed question, but any comments or suggestions you could provide to assist with that goal would be appreciated. Thanks.

Make a sword safer?

grabbingsand — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 11:45:41 -0800

Stage Combat Question. Is it possible to take a bladed weapon and render it safe for use on-stage (without damaging the weapon itself)? I seem to recall from my days as a DragonCon volunteer that cosplayer's swords had to be taped* and/or bated (or else the sword had to be peace-tied so as to prevent its leaving a scabbard), but I can't find a description of the safety-making process. * - "Taped" might not be the right word at all, but it involved covering the edge in a way that left it wide and blunt, effectively.

Surviving the weekend with my cranky right-wing grandparents.

desjardins — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 08:14:31 -0800

My elderly grandparents live 45 minutes south of Orlando. My husband and I are visiting them next weekend. What do we do while we're there to minimize drama and maybe have a bit of fun? First of all, I am not close to them at all, and am really only visiting them because my grandfather is seriously ill and this may be the last opportunity to see him. I honestly do not enjoy spending time with them. Their political and religious views are 180 degrees from mine and 145 degrees from my husband's, so those are topics to avoid. They're extremely racist, and while I've learned to keep my mouth shut (given that it won't change anything), my (white) husband reacts strongly to racial slurs. Neither of them understand our (technical) career fields, so we can't talk about that. They don't have hobbies besides watching TV so nothing to talk about there. There is all kinds of family drama that my grandmother just loves to bring up, and I don't want to discuss that, especially since their treatment of my cousin before his suicide is an extremely sore point with me.

The drama has started before we're even there - they're insisting on picking us up at the airport (orlando) even though they're extremely dangerous drivers and I've already booked a rental car. They want me to cancel the rental car - at this point I'd be eating the fee since it's through Priceline and there's no-cancellation policy. My mother has written me emails on how to tiptoe around their preferences and eccentricities.

My husband and I are extremely stressed by a recent move and job/economic insecurity, and this trip just feels like a burden at this point. Yet I want to make it somewhat enjoyable if at all possible. My grandfather can barely leave the house, not only because he's physically ill but because he's bipolar and frequently severely depressed. My grandmother likes to go shopping, etc., but tires very quickly. What the heck can we do for 4 days? I don't mind driving to Orlando or Tampa or points in between.

Aside: I would really prefer air-conditioned activities as I get heatstroke easily (and I can't imagine the heat would be good for 80-somethings either).

Dealing with in-laws during separation?

Anonymous — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 08:23:23 -0800

We are recently separated (with lots of drama), and our families and friends don't know. How do I deal with my brother in law asking to stay with “us” for a while, since he suddenly got a job in our town? Little over a month ago, my husband of 15 years quit his job and walked out on me, leaving me a letter to sort-of try to explain why. I don't know where he is exactly right now, and he has been basically incommunicado since he left (with the exception of three short messages to let me know he's alive and OK). I haven't told anyone, as I'm trying to keep it private until I at least get a chance to talk to him face to face. I thought I would have some time to sort out my own feelings about this mess while he figures out what he wants, but now things are getting more complicated.

My brother in law sent me a message to say that he unexpectedly got a fantastic job offer in our town, and he will be starting next Monday. He asked if he could stay with “us” for a little while, until he finds an apartment. It's a perfectly reasonable request - one that I would have been thrilled to grant two months ago, since we normally get along great. But now, I just don't know what to do. If I could ask my husband to get in touch with his brother to tell him what's up, I would. But like I said - incommunicado...

I can see a few options:
1 - I can tell him the truth. I like telling the truth, but I really don't want be the one to break this news to my husband's family (I love them all dearly, yet they are his family nonetheless).
2 - I can come up with an excuse for my husband not being around, then fake normalcy. My husband used to travel a lot for his job, so it wouldn't be hard. And I already do that at work and with out-of-town family (including my parents) and friends. But I am still really shocked and weepy, and it's already a strain to fake it at work. Plus I would have to lie some more, even if it's only by omission, and I hate lying.
3 - I can tell him no. While I wouldn't have to directly come out with the truth if I said no, it would still be so out of character for us that my brother in law would know right away that something is wrong.
4 - I can just ignore his message. But that is also way out of character for me, and would be really suspicious and weird. Plus it would put my brother in law in a really bad situation.
5 - I can let him borrow our apartment and go stay at a hotel, pretending that I'm out of town. But that just seems kind of silly, it's still a lie, and I would still have to come back eventually...

So my question is, basically, how do you think I should best handle this situation? Any options I haven't thought of? Also, given that I tend to err on the side of truth, the second part is “how did you tell your family/friends about your separation?”

If you have advice you want to give privately: vvu571dciu1ycan@jetable.com . Thanks.

Baby, someone is crazy and it's you

Anonymous — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 07:10:13 -0800

Personal Drama Filter: One of my best friends doesn't understand why all his friends keep leaving him. I do. Long, dramatic explanation after the jump. So a friend of mine, who we will call Roland, is causing huge amounts of drama in our social circle. Roland is a nice guy who's helped me through a bit of my personal drama (shoulder to cry on during breakup, etc), and I want to be there for him when he has his own problems. However, a few months ago, he started relying on me as his only source of emotional support. I didn't have the energy to be his entire emotional support network-- I've been struggling with my own depression, and dealing with his anxiety attacks and depressive outburts were way too much for me to handle, so I backed away as much as I can. There were a few days where I was completely unavailable (my girlfriend was leaving for summer and I was spending as much time with her as I could), and he thought I was getting in too deep with her too fast-- which I'm sure was more because I was suddenly unavailable to him than because he was actually worried about me.

More recently, he's started dating someone (we'll call him Rich) who's hurt him pretty badly and caused a fair amount of drama (this was about 9 months ago). He's adopted Rich's friends group more than the little group of us that he usually hung out with. We're okay with this-- our attempts to include him when we hang out lately have been very tense.

Additionally, his roommate has become so tired of his demands about quiet and passive-aggressive behavior that he decided to move out. They're in the process of packing up the apartment at the moment.

He's making a lot less emotional demands on me now than he has in the past, but I'm worried about being his emotional support network when the other shoe drops with Rich. I also feel caught between him and our other friends-- including his roommate-- who I have been spending far more time with than I've been spending with him lately.

The last details: Roland is transgendered (FtM). He appears *very* feminine and most people assume he is female on first glance (he has undergone no surgery and no hormone therapy). He has anxiety (he has been diagnosed) and, I believe, depression (my best guess, probably caused by the anxiety). He blames most of his problems on being transgendered. He refuses to take medication for anxiety because of bad experiences with ADD meds in youth.

It seems as if he is unwilling to make the changes he needs to in order to make himself happier (going out and meeting more people, getting on antianxiety medications, learning to drive so he does not have to rely on friends for rides, etc.).

I don't know if I should tell him what exactly he's been doing wrong I don't know if I should continue trying to be his friend at all, since he's been a consistant source of stress for me (though less now that he's been dating Rich). Do I just let us continue to drift apart, as we already have been doing, and just be his video game and roleplaying buddy? Do I tell him what it is that he does that drives his friends away?

(Other potential essential details: We're around 20, as are all our other friends, and in college. I'm female. Anon because it would be possible to find out who Roland is from the info provided if I posted under my own name, and he's not out as transgendered)