Dear Businesslady,I work in a small office (like we-don't-have-any-HR-department small). My co-worker, who is my age (30), is an alcoholic. He used to be a really intense one -- like fucking-up-all-the-time, mystery-sick-days, smelling-like-a-distillery, positively-purple-and-about-to-pass-out-in-meetings kind of intense. Then he was sent on a mandatory leave of absence by the management, for detox. He came back sober, but flash forward a year and he's back to drinking at work on the regular. He's not as extreme…
I know, I know. So many incredible things to read, so little time. And the internet rolls by so fast it’s impossible to keep up. Especially when there’s the Drake/Meek Mill beef and ‘great’ white hunters poaching the lion king. So what did you miss at The Butter this week?
Roxane Gay talks real talk about serial rapist, Bill Cosby: “The faith I once had in Cosby angers and shames me.”
Exactly twenty years ago, while I was on a 72-hour hold in a psych ward in San Francisco, a plump old hippie in all white asked me if I tried to kill myself. I laughed at him because I thought I had died. He smiled back and fondled his sandalwood beads. “No,” I said. I didn’t remember wanting to die as much as wanting to kill the feeling. I’d been tweaking for weeks and the…
In my panty drawer you will find my father’s ID, his social security card, and a photograph of a cat I’ve never met. The cat is fat, with Goosebumps-green eyes, sprawled out like a starfish. Stuck to a screen door, only her own claws keep her from falling to the concrete below. The back of the photo reads, “This is Gracie. She is meaner than hell, but I like her. Sorry about the toothpaste –…
Milo Scanlon's previous work for The Toast can be found here.
"[Against Me's "Paralytic States"] is about a transgender person dealing with addiction and dysphoria and killing themselves in a hotel bathtub. Obviously I'm not dead in a hotel bathtub, but all the experiences of existing that way, being in that hotel room, are very much real to me, that's a life that I've lived."--Laura Jane Grace
Adrienne Celt's previous work for The Butter can be found here. The first time, you nearly died on Easter, at home in the greenlands of Washington. I was sitting outside at a restaurant in Arizona, having skipped a hike with friends so I could relax and hang out with the dog. The waitress brought me a pear and Brie sandwich, which sweated in the heat. I didn’t have the spirit for a hike I…
On a Saturday morning in September, 2010, my younger brother Austin took out a handgun I hadn't known he owned, told his wife to call the police, and gave her a special password with which to identify him. "They're coming for me," he said, "but I'll keep you safe." At least, that's the story his wife told us at the time. From there, details get a bit hazy, but the facts are these: my brother…
