I am extra-freaking-out about the New York Times story about how all the gas lines in NYC are decaying, because I have a friend who works for ConEd who has been telling us this for ages and we’ve been all “riiiiiiiighht, like the whole city is just gonna explode and no one’s doing anything about it?” but clearly we owe her an apology.
Oh, God, I judge exotic pet owners so hard, but then they seem so sad and fragile and kindly when interviewed:
Harrison feels empathy for wild animal owners, whose affection he so well understands. He loved his animals. He believed, as most owners do, that his animals loved him. He believed that having a thriving menagerie made him special. “But I was deluded,” he says. “I used to believe there was no animal I could not tame, no animal I was unable to train, and that any animal living under my roof was receiving the best of care.” The delusion, rooted in a deep desire to commune with wild animals, has lingered long after the beasts were gone. Every time he participates in a rescue he has to stop himself from taking the animal home. “I try to keep my contact with the animals I rescue to a minimum,” Harrison explains, “because my addiction can come back at a moment’s notice.”
My houseguest and I had this intense, near-spiritual bonding session over our mutual love for Laurie Anderson’s “Strange Angels” album, can we talk about “Strange Angels” for a while?
I love Jolie, as do we all, but this is actual sorcery and should be stopped. My mom does it, too. BURN HER.
Apparently, some epic shit went down on The Good Wife last night? I don’t watch it, but I hate missing out on popular things. What happened?
I’m currently working on my masterpiece, A Scholarly Monograph on Two Prominent Mystrade Fics, which will forever change how you feel about Mystrade fic and will also talk about the tendency to write Mycroft-the-Boyfriend as a non-vampiric Edward Cullen, but so that you have time to do the background reading, here is the first one, and here is the second one. The second one is gender-switched (Lestrade is a woman) but is also practically a real novel, and Rainbow Rowell and I have had serious, high-quality conversations about it, and she is a LEGIT PERSON.
The author never finished the first one (as you know from my List of Demands), so definitely know that before you emotionally commit to it? I have contacted her via her defunct Tumblr and offered to pay her cash money to finish it; if you know her IRL please ask her to email me, there is no upper limit to what I will pay her in order to receive closure. If you are the author of the gender-switched second fic, this offer is also good for you (wedding? honeymoon? moar crime-solving?) I will host it on The Toast and pay for it with my own money, not The Toast-money, because Mystrade fic is my Ronbledore, and I will never be silenced.
where is the plane
I adore The Morning News, but we have VERY different ideas about what one should panic over:
Michelle Dean, who I think is pretty damn great, has been writing at Gawker for a ‘lil bit now, and you should read her stuff there.
Everything is a nightmare:
Leena Chitnis, a former Fulbright scholar, finished an MBA program at Syracuse University last year and, while she looks for work, set up eight gigs on Fiverr to keep her going. So far, she’s completed a total of 27 orders and made $176. “I have $90,000 in school loans,” she says, “so when people say, can you edit my business plan for five bucks, I’m like, people charge $10,000 to write your business plan, and here I am editing it for four bucks [Fiverr takes 20% of every $5 fee]. I’ve seen panhandlers get more money outside of the 7-11.”
