kissing monsters: so here is the thing about ariel, is that she always dreams of being...
so here is the thing about ariel, is that she always dreams of being on land with feet, is explicitly canonically unhappy with her body & choices way before meeting prince eric. ariel wants to read and learn and dance and stand for herself. she has this extensive meticulous collection of all the…
Oddly sage love advice, via The Bachelor
Last night, I caught up on my favorite episode of every season of The Bachelor, “The Women Tell All.” Today, I can’t stop thinking about a comment made by Nicki Sterling, the 26-year-old divorcee from Texas who was the most recent inexplicable Ben Flajnik devotee (seriously, ladies, him?!) to be booted off.
I should go back and dig up the exact quote, but essentially, Chris Harrison asked Nicki if she’d gotten the answers she needed from Ben to figure out what went wrong. Nicki responded something like this: “I didn’t need to ask any questions about why things didn’t work out—I was totally myself, and I’m great, so I know I didn’t do anything wrong.”
We don’t always need a “why.” We just don’t always realize that, either. Good on Nicki for being able to.
I was looking over someone’s shoulder this morning on the subway while they were reading the sports section of… the Post? AM New York? Metro? Regardless, there was an action shot from a football game, and I couldn’t help noticing that there was a ton of pink behind the players. I looked more closely, and it turned out to be a huge breast cancer awareness ad inside the stadium — I think it may even have been about self-exams. Kind of crazy how far we’ve come: I was just reading in The Emperor of All Maladies (Siddhartha Mukherjee’s ridiculously compelling “biography” of cancer) that in the early 1950s, the New York Times refused to publish the words “breast” or “cancer” in its pages (thus making it impossible for a survivor to place the announcement she wanted to run about a support group); today, advertisements push the importance of early BREAST (gasp!) CANCER (gasp!) detection in the background of a professional football game, that stronghold of masculinity and wholesome American values. Progress!
Whatever sense of professional competence we feel in adult life is less the sum of accomplishment than the absence of impossibility: it’s really our relief at no longer having to do things we were never any good at doing in the first place—relief at never again having to dissect a frog or memorize the periodic table.
Adam Gopnik, “Life Studies,” The New Yorker (June 27, 2011 issue)
The indignity of industrial tomatoes
I’m not sure why I’m so behind on this — or why I’m suddenly posting things to Tumblr again — but it nearly made me cry and definitely made me want to move somewhere where I can have a giant garden and never buy grocery-store produce again, so.
Email exchange between me and the guy who moved into my old apartment (who owes me money)
-
Me: I'm not totally clear on how PayPal works, but I do have an account, so if you know what to do then please proceed!
-
Him: I think a small gerbil delivers the check through the internet, which is really just a series of tubes. I'm not sure. But we'll figure it out.
-
Me: In that case, I'm guessing I'll need to take the DVD out of my computer's drive. That's where the cash comes out, right?
-
Him: Definitely take the DVD out, so the PayPal Gerbil can put the check in and then the computer can print all the money. If you need help setting up the money printer, just ask the Gerbil. He doubles as a GeekSquad guy on the weekends.
-
Me: Damn it, the internet is incredible!
-
Him: SCIENCE!
supergalaxy quest: in defense of liz lemon
i’ve heard some guys grumbling about how women all too frequently compare themselves to liz lemon.
maybe if i put it in guy terms, it’ll make more sense: liz is like that person you look up to in field of dreams. or the kobe of unathleticism. she probably has some parallel quality to that …
The Doree Chronicles: The Time I Visited Martha Stewart Living
So a couple weeks ago I got a Tumblr message, the gist of which was, “Hey I work at Martha Stewart, I noticed that you’ve been writing about making some of her slow-cooker recipes, would you be interested in coming by the office and checking out her test kitchens, which are sort of like seeing the…
Doree S.’s account of her visit to the MSL offices is delightful in every way. I want a prop closet!
College senior wins $1.5 million Manhattan condo in HGTV giveaway - NYPOST.com
Speaking as someone who entered this contest TWICE A DAY for the entire duration (seriously, I set a daily calendar reminder) and actually LIVE IN NYC and have USE for a nice apartment, I am mad. This kid stinks.
