Go read the first letter in this Dear Prudie column and then come back and discuss. No, hang on, we can discuss any of the letters, this is AMERICA. Or these!
*
The actor who portrayed a certain recently-deceased character on Scandal has written about it for Buzzfeed, and it’s GLORIOUS:
I soon moved into BARGAINING…with a series of emails to Shonda and the writers: “What if [redacted] was just injured? Kidnapped by aliens and dropped in the woods, left to gnaw on his restraints and drink his own urine till he claws his way back to the White House on hands and knees? Too much? Oh! [redacted] could have a twin! Yes?? Hello?”
*
A reader pointed me towards a cool trans* chestfeeding blog, Milk Junkies.
*
O, frabjous day!
*
Laurie Colwin ALWAYS, Laurie Colwin FOREVER:
Acolytes like Ms. Stein and Ms. Gould don’t merely read Laurie Colwin. They revisit her passages over and over again, and develop a guardian-angel-style attachment to her. When Ms. Reichl arrived at Gourmet as editor in chief, in 1999, she discovered in her office a cache of about 400 letters from mourning fans who had written to the magazine after Ms. Colwin’s death. Ms. Reichl’s “very first act” as editor, she said, was to have the letters messengered over to Colwin’s husband, Juris Jurjevics, a founder of the Soho Press publishing company who lives these days in Park Slope, Brooklyn.
*
Mallory and I are wondering what the absolute apex of Young Leonardo DiCaprio’s beauty was. Please insert images into the comments to support your claims. If you are selecting a picture of him after the age of 23, you are wrong. He was like an orchid that lives only for a day.
*
Jamilah Lemieux herself, on #IStandWithJamilah.
*
Sady Doyle has things to say about the HIMYM finale (I didn’t see it, but I think it would be an honor and a privilege to die and give my husband to Cobie Smulders):
The ideal role for a woman, according to How I Met Your Mother, is as a wife, a mother, a corpse, an anonymous conquest who provides babies, an infant who can’t talk back when an avowed misogynist makes her the latest woman responsible for “changing him forever,” or— most importantly—an ultimately passive goal for some guy to win.
*
Anne Helen Petersen on the visibility of celebrity labor:
Recent and historical examples suggest that the most successful celebrities fall on one of two opposing ends of the labor spectrum: they either make their labor incredibly visible, effectively inviting us to respect it and the celebrity apparatus more broadly, or else they efface it entirely, thereby contributing to the illusion of charisma as a natural, God-given trait. One extreme emphasizes the ways in which stars are “just like us” (working, tired, hustling); the other suggests they’re nothing like us at all (naturally blessed).
*
Did you miss Mallory’s post about her book? Read it either way.
*
*
TA-NEHISI COATES, people:
I think now, four years after watching that video, and having read A History of White People, that I am a writer. And that is not a hustle. And this is not my “in” to get on Meet The Press, to become an activist, to get my life-coach game on. I don’t need anymore platforms. I am here to see things as clearly as I can, and then name them. Sometimes what I see is gorgeous. And then sometimes what I see is ugly. And sometimes my sight fails me. But what I write can never be dictated by anyone’s need to feel warm and fuzzy inside.
*
Tags: feminism, link roundup, the internet
1. I read all those letters yesterday and decided to believe they were all April Fools’ jokes.
2. Eff HIMYM. For a show that I do truly think has some amusing parts, it has one of the worst main characters and icky storylines of ever.
3. Love the chest-feeding link!
4. Gotta give it to c. 2000 Leo. FROSTED TIPS!
yeah, if it’s not an elaborate april fools, I have to believe there is a couple of twins out there whor eally DO act like twins in a terrible romantic comedy.
NO, you’re going too late. Without a shadow of a doubt it was Romeo+Juliet Leo. Dirtbaaaaaaaaaag. Also, expect Claire Danes on an imaginary girlfriend list coming soon to a blog near you. I have no idea how to post photos tho this could go wrong:
DEFINITELY R+J Leo, how is this even a debate??
IN THE ARMOR. WITH THE FLOPPY HAIR. HE WAS ALL THAT IS PERFECTION.
Now he is so seedy and it makes me sad but also aware of the ravages of time that will come for us all.
Yes but Kate Winslet still loves him and so should we all.
I’ve never seen a whole episode of HIMYM, but the things I’ve heard about it (mostly from male acquaintances who think it’s the greatest show ever) made it sound pretty awful. I once spent a whole dinner yelling at a dude who insisted that getting naked randomly in the house of a woman you just met was hilarious – he couldn’t see why that was actually sexual assault and horrible, even as a “joke.” Maybe I got a little too worked up about that, but honestly, if that’s the “best” character on a show (even if he is played by one of my favorite actors)…ick. Just ick.
I think Sady Doyle’s piece is charitable to this show in just the right way — at its best, it is quite charming, and its episodes often play with structure in a really interesting way. When it’s working, it works really well. Like she said, it’s perfect for sick days and hangovers and when you just can’t watch anything difficult at all.
Unfortunately, the Barney character, and the general quiet through-line of casual misogyny, starts to wear after awhile — and the biggest problem is that these are the show’s most-marketed aspects, so to a casual viewer (or non-viewer) they seem like the most important parts. And obviously a frightening segment of the audience agrees.
This is exactly how I feel about the show. Thank you for putting it so well.
I think that the writers never clued in that a) women watched the show and b) women liked Lily and Robin and their plotlines.
Best representation of this: Lily and Robin’s mothers get about 1.5 episodes between the two of them. How much time did we spend on all the Dads?
I recently tried to explain the show’s run to my mother through comparing it to Friends. Do we all remember how Ross went from amusingly awkward and bumbling to utterly unwatchable as the clever writing gave way to over-exaggeration? Yeah, that happens to both Ted and Barney. And Barney only starts out on the “amusing” side of the line in the first two seasons because of NPH’s extreme charm.
I’m also going to stick a quick plug in for Don’t Trust the B- in Apt 23 as HIMYM-recovery-watching. Mostly, because the “B-” character is essentially a gender-swapped Barney Stinson, and I would love to have a discussion with someone about why that makes her so much more fun to watch than even early-season Barney.
“Gender-swapped Barney Stinson” is definitely under-selling how awesome Cloe was.
Also, unlike Barney, who could not have a real woman friend, Cloe and JVDB were great friends.
But a lot of her awesome did come from her being a woman. In Barney Stinson form, a character who does what he wants, succeeds at business without really trying, arranges for as much casual sex as is wanted and shrugs off the world’s expectations is a horrifying incarnation of the patriarchy, slightly disguised by NPH adorableness (and I’m talking early season Barney). When Chloe does all the same things, my response is ‘awesome’.
I think the attempts to give Chloe slightly more emotional depth (the heart of gold behind the bravado) were more successful than with Barney. And I’d really celebrate the sense that the friendships between her, June and JVDB were the show’s most important part, rather than the writers focusing on taking your pack of leads and partnering them off (and on and off) in torrid love affairs. As Sara said about the tropes.
But what other awesomeness do you see in Chloe that Barney lacked?
(Squee, this is the first time I’ve found people to talk about this with!)
Vibrators EVERYWHERE.
“Vitamin C for careless.”
This is a few days old, but I just came across it– the Dept. of Education has a new database that lets you look up racial statistics regarding course enrollment, punishments, etc. in public schools. http://ocrdata.ed.gov/DistrictSchoolSearch#school…
Also, I stopped watching HIMYM, but I was kind of hoping they’d retract the finale as an absurd April Fool’s joke or something, blegh.
Ooo, thanks.
Re: the first dear Prudie letter: it’s a faaaake!
it has to be, right?
Another outstanding AHP article. I would have reads PAGES and PAGES about that.
yes! I want more.
Also, I think I’ve always felt this way about Kim Kardashian, but AHP is so much more eloquent:
“No one would dare apply the term “artist” to Kardashian, despite the artistry clearly required to so carefully fashion her image.”
I’ve only occasionally watched HIMYM but my sister is a big fan and was really upset with the finale. I had to console her after HIMYM and she had to console me after last week’s Bomb Girls movie (SIGH!)
Definitely think the Prudie letter is a fake.
Bomb Girls movie?!?! How did I miss this? Where can I see it?
It aired in Canada last week – officially doesn’t air in the US till May. There are ways to find it online (cough/torrent/cough). Then I recommend going to Autostraddle to read their recap/process feelings. Bring yr Kleenex!
I’M STILL REALLY UPSET ABOUT BOMB GIRLS!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Me too! I cried! I’m not going to say what about, but you know what…how could the Bomb Girls writers do that, what were they thinking?!
I just want to read some fanfic that ends the story the way it should have ended.
I’m so disappointed. Like, almost nothing at all that happened was good or satisfactory or even made sense.
Also, now that I’ve looked at the IMDB page? Neither of the credited writers for the actual movie worked on the show, it looks like. And one of them is known for such gems as “The Craigslist Killer.” EXPLAINS A LOT.
Ooh, that explains it…it didn’t feel like they knew or appreciated the characters and their relationships at all. A certain Thing That Happened was done so cheaply and for unnecessary drama.
The actors did as excellent a job as ever but there’s only so much they can do with such awful writing 🙁
PS I will still love Betty for ever and ever and she deserved so much better! Ali Liebert conveys intense emotion so beautifully, if her storyline had been given the treatment it deserved it would have been so amazing!
I only just found out about Bomb Girls over the weekend and now I see it everywhere! I can’t figure out how to watch it in the States without torrents though :/
I think the first season at least is on Netlfix, but yeah, torrents are the only way to watch the movie right now.
Ok apex of Leo Di beauty was Romeo + Juliet I am not budging on this point.
one final point to my argument:
As a teen when this film came out I was always dead set against the whole hearthrob Leo thing, but dear lord teen me, you were a FOOL, an utter fool.
Guuuys how do we post images??
So you find the URL of the image you want to post and then do your regular html embed image code, which is you can read about here: http://www.w3schools.com/tags/att_img_src.asp
I remember seeing this in theaters (with my mom!) and as the camera panned up when he first appeared on screen in his blue hawaiian shirt, every teen girl in the theater SCREAMED. it was incredible. (and I totally agreed.)
more information:
HIS LIPS LOOK LIKE THEY ARE MADE OF FLUFFY BUNNY’S DREAMS OF FROLICKING IN THE CLOUDS
he’s got just the right amount of gross going on with his hair
You are the wisest and the most correct.
agree.
YES, no argument here.
Honestly, he and Claire Danes both were like ~beautiful angels~ in that movie.
I wholeheartedly support this position and will brook no arguments. I like Adult Leo as well though, he’s matured into an excellent actor.
Yes, but gone is the perfect flower of his youth </3
Agreed. I never found myself actually attracted to Leo (it was more like “aww, so pretty”) until about the Departed era. Am I a weirdo?
No OMG the bedroom scene in The Departed.
YES YES YESSSS.
If I could ‘thumbs up’ this a million more times, I would.
LITERAL ANGEL
The kissing in the elevator scene or the swimming pool scene and just all my memories from 1997.
I think 23-25 is just a beautiful time for men.
So say we all.
That bathroom/fish tank scene was everything…
<img src=”&rdquo ;http://staticmass.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/dvd_rom.jpg” title=”leo forever!” width=380 /”/>
Agreed. I am in no way attracted him (at any point in our lives thus far… I just don’t like blondes I guess?) but he was incandescently beautiful in this movie. Both of them. It’s just an objective fact.
Well, I know what I’m (re-)watching when I get home from work tonight.
my exact thoughts tho
YOU ARE CORRECT.
I used to watch HIMYM and absolutely loved it, then stopped around sophomore year, which – in an honest and true coincidence – was also when I was starting to learn more about feminism and the patriarchy and all the bullshit in the world. I’m not sure if I could go back and watch it now. But I’m also not 100% sure if I agree that women are such secondary characters. I mean, women generally are secondary characters in HIMYM, but I think the two women at the center of the story are given fairly rich backstories and personalities.
Buuut I could just be hearkening back to the time when I really enjoyed the show, and maybe they are actually all horrible!
Yes, the women in the story have been given wonderful backstories that they continued right up until the finale. Where every bit of character development of Lily and Robin became meaningless.
[Spoilers]
Lily’s career plot, a major plot point of season 8 and 9, became forgotten. Robin, who had spent three years falling in love with Barney and 9 years focusing on her career, ends up being lonely and miserable, waiting for Ted to rescue her. And she’s also somehow in love with Ted out of nowhere? It was bizarre.
I gave up this season when Marshal told Lily her career was a hobby then punched her boss because he decided she had slept with him and didn’t bother talking to her about it.
Yep — and Robin was sidelined even earlier. The second she got engaged to Barney, she completely stopped having her own plot lines that weren’t “I’m planning a wedding!!!!” Infuriating.
Aw, no, that sucks. I wouldn’t have expected a ton more, I guess, given all the chatter about how shitty this season has been, but they were so much more real when I was watching 4-5 years ago.
Actually, Season 8 and 9 they got better at giving Robin and Lily “real” storylines than they had in Seasons 1-3. (Robin’s career storyline really started to take off in Seasion 4 and beyond). But the finale just .. destroyed the pretense that the show had any real interest in any of it.
If you have any desire to re-watch at all, go back and watch the beginning of season 7, or maybe only “Symphony of Illumination.” It’s all about Robin, and it’s really great – prob one of HIMYM’s best, especially of later seasons. It does rely a little on the heterosexual marriage-and-children standard, but only as a benchmark to consider and move beyond.
But then don’t watch the finale, because basically everything about it is erased there! >:(
I agree with forgetting Lily’s career. But I didn’t get that impression about Robin at all. When was it implied that she was lonely and miserable? I thought she was happy because she had her dogs back! The last time we heard from her about her feelings, she did say she probably should have married Ted instead, so I don’t think it’s out of character for her to be happy about a grand romantic gesture from him. Maybe I saw what I wanted to see…
oh, i really want that seven sisters style book.
I am so right there with Hazel in today’s GWS.
[HIMYM spoilers]
Biggest misstep of the HIMYM finale: they showed Robin having dogs again at the very end. Which reminded every sensible person of the episode where Ted was such an insecure douche that he made her get rid of her dogs. Way to make the Ted – Robin of it all feel fuzzy.
Oh man, I had forgotten about that! TED IS THE WORST.
And then remember in season 6 and they lived together, and she wanted to get a dog and Ted said she wasn’t responsible?
SHE HAD FIVE DOGS. That was the season the writers forgot who their own characters were.
UGH YOU’RE RIGHT
UGHHH
Ugghh, I’ve been putting the show on Netflix when I have to do menial stuff, so that episode is fresh in my mind. SERIOUSLY SHOW, Ted is the worst. I was appalled to hear that they ever get back together, much less that she’s his Ultimate True Wuv or whatever.
I like to think that after Ted held up the blue french horn, all the dogs puked on him, Robin slammed the window and went back to her obviously fabulous life.
Picturing this DOES make me feel marginally better about that total train wreck of an ending.
And obviously the dogs are gifts from her fabulous string of worthy lovers.
Getting rid of the dogs is my go-to “I HATE TED FOREVER” moment. Ted made Robin give up her dogs, your pro-Ted argument is invalid.
If there was one upside to the finale, it’s that it gave me a righteous glow of feeling justified in my hatred of Ted. The man just spent a very, very long time telling his kids a story positioning some other chick as the love of his life INSTEAD OF TELLING THEM ABOUT THEIR DEAD MOTHER, as a prelude to pursuing said chick again.
If my father ever did that I would not so much be encouraging him to go for it as packing a bag to go live with my Aunt Lily & Uncle Marshall forever, and/or planning his murder. But my dad wouldn’t. Because he is not a terrible nightmare garbage person.
Yeah, I was thinking this too. Like, cute frame story bro, but if my mom ever died and my dad told me a long story about how they met that just ended up being an excuse to chase an old flame, we would not be speaking for some time.
I know I’m taking this way too seriously, but it’s also not just any old ex-girlfriend — it’s a woman they trusted, grew up with, called their Aunt Robin…it seems like such a deep betrayal to suggest to them that, whoops, loved your mom but THIS is the woman who I really want to be with. How could they ever believe that their mom had been anything more to him than a consolation prize? How could they even really trust that he hadn’t been involved with “Aunt Robin” all along?
Robin having five dogs in a NY apartment was ridiculous.
Ted is also a super insecure douchebag.
My anger at Andrew Sullivan’s patronizing nonsense toward Coates knows no bounds. TNC shuts it down far, far better than I ever could, but I am just SEETHING at the implication that anyone who isn’t fundamentally hopeful about the state of the world must be a sloppy thinker.
Of course, that line of attack mostly seems like a reflex against sadness and despair, because we really flinch at the idea that maybe there isn’t a moral arc bending the universe toward justice. I can understand that, even though I don’t think it’s a valid criticism.
But then to insinuate, as Sullivan & commenters-he-highlights do, that TNC’s perception of the world makes him a bad father… I want to scream at them until their eardrums burst.
I think that learning history should demolish a lot of the ideas we have about progress and justice and narratives in human development. And it should replace them with more subtle and useful ideas, if you’re doing it right. Coates is one of the few popular history writers who’s really showing that and it’s sad that so many people are resistant to it.
Wait, I was going to say something about how if only people understood more about historical thought they would come around and then I remembered that he writes about race so lol they never will
omg how do you expect people to take his writing about genocide and white supremacy seriously when he seems so aaaaaaangry? it’s like he gets sad or something when he thinks deeply and critically about millions of people being raped and tortured and murdered why can’t he see that the world is beautiful and full of hope??
When I first read that Andrew Sullivan editorial (before TNC responded to it), I head to re-read it to see if I had missed something. Because *surely* I had missed some kind of tip-off that he was being facetious? No one could really be that dense, condescending, and dismissive of the really wonderful writing that Coates has been doing recently, right?
But…alas.
GAHGAHGHAGHAGHAGHAGHAGHAGHAGHAGHAGHGH.
Sullivan and those commenters are of a piece, that piece being shit. Fuck that fucking guy and fuck his fucking readers and especially fuck the fuckers who give money to that unapologetic peddler of white supremacy.
Normal human beings who were not asleep the days they taught empathy and social skills generally realize that there are certain lines in human relations/conversations to be crossed with trepidation, lines that should never be crossed, and lines that are light years beyond which any semi-functioning human being would ever even go near. To call TNC the same as Charles Murray is among the worst things I could think of to say to that particular human being. And to think Sullivan was stupid enough to consider him a friend (I’ve seen video interactions of them together and it is…one-sidedly awkward.)
If people didn’t yet realize what a despicable human being Sullivan is, they should now.
I can almost here him asking: “y u mad bro?”
Laurie Colwin is the BEST. I have a signed copy of Home Cooking that I use all the time. It’s as if it were blessed by the Pope, only better
Which page does it fall open to? My More Home Cooking falls open to the flourless chocolate cake page, which you could also find by the smear of chocolate along the bottom edge.
My copy of More Home Cooking falls open to Nantucket Cranberry Pie (which is not an actual pie but a glorious cake/pie/confection of heavenliness) I make it with cherries and peaches and apples when cranberries are not available. Every human I have served it to begs for the recipe.
Fried Chicken done her way is the best. Also the Black bean soup. Also t.he Pear Chutney
Every single chocolate cake in the chocolate cake chapter is awesome.
Oh my goodness, you beautiful genius, it never once occurred to me that I could make it with anything other than cranberries. (I don’t know why not. I can’t imagine why not.) I will have to make it immediately. I even have a bag of summertime backyard blackberries I just unearthed in the freezer.
Blackberries would be great. The almond extract adds a lot, but I have used grated lemon zest at times when I have run out of amond extract. This is a perfect recipe.
I just peeked at the cranberry pie recipe again and realized it’s very much like the Fannie Farmer cottage pudding recipe I use all the time but in which I sub ground almonds for some of the flour – and, yes, add almond extract and often some lemon zest and often mix in some berries or add an upside-down layer of fruit and sugar and butter.
Colwin’s “pie” is eggier and sweeter and uses walnuts, but it’s not hugely different. I’ll definitely make it soon.
I wrote about the Sour Cherry version here http://littlehuntingcreek.blogspot.com/2009/07/so…
There are pictures
That looks so, so good. Do you unmold it like a pineapple upside-down cake or do you serve it with the fruit on the bottom?
I also make cherry upside-down cake, using the almond base I described above, and it’s fantastic. I think I prefer it to pineapple.
Reading the cranberry pie recipe more carefully, I see it’s not as much like cottage pudding as I thought. For one thing, there’s no leavening in it. With that and two eggs and a cup of sugar, I’m guessing this is denser and chewier and moister than any cake. Is that right? Or should I just make it myself and remove all doubt?
It is dense and moist and awesome and I think I need to make it ASAP with some frozen berries and slivered almonds (because that’s what I have handy). Also delicious with creme anglais, but what isn’t?
The black cake. Has anyone cooked the black cake with good results?
I have never had occasion to, nor quite dared to. But at least one food blogger I sporadically read makes it every holiday.
edit: no amount of editing makes that link read right, so here it is in all its naked glory: http://anapestic.blogspot.com/search?q=“blac…
Nope, still won’t paste in right FOR NO EARTHLY REASON JEEPERS. Just go to the blog and search for “black cake.”
Oooo, thank you. Laurie Colwin says either 4oz of burned sugar extract or a pound of burned sugar, and when I read that I looked at my pounds of carefully macerated and marinated fruit and gave up. I will try again with the bits I haven’t put on ice cream.
Also that first letter to Prudie must be fake. I guess he couldn’t get published in the letters to Penthouse.
The Seven Sisters Style book looks great! I love this picture description: “Dressed in a baggy white shirt with sleeves rolled up, billowing plus-four type bloomers and sturdy lace-ups, she looks strong, determined and about to do some real damage with that ball.”
I went to a women’s college, and while we didn’t make an contributions to the fashion world (we preferred sweatpants and t-shirts), I love women’s colleges for their ability to nurture strong, smart, independent women who aren’t afraid to make waves and challenge norms.
Today, at noon EST, there will be a new installment of my Benedict Cumberbatch fan fiction.
I have a LOT of feelings about HIMYM, and they are mostly not happy ones concerning the finale. We had SO many seasons of Show telling us that Ted and Robin are NOT meant to be together. And despite the fact that he is in love with her, sometimes that just doesn’t mean you end up together. And Ted was sort of realizing that, and that’s when he was ready to meet the mother. You know, after the completely ridiculous scene when Robin FLOATED AWAY.
I liked the Mother! I wanted more of her! “Oh, then she got sick and now she’s dead!” She just became a plot device so Ted got to have kids with her, she dies, and HOORAY he gets to be with Robin. GRAR SHOW I HATE YOU.
Don’t even get me started on the Barney subplot in the finale. It was gross and weird.
NPH brings a weird level of irony to the role that makes it passable for me. You have to admit, though, Barney going from a misogynistic player to a doting father who shows his newfound ‘respect’ for women by slut-shaming them is the most convincing scenario of all of the finale’s weird retconning.
I’m willing to let Barney get away with a lot for the same reason, but yeah, that finale. Also his daughter changes the way he thinks about women, but he still calls her mother Number 31. Ok, Carter & Bays! Whatever you say!
It’s based on the dating lives of Carter and Bayes, right? Mrs. Bayes better watch her back. Mr. Bayes’ ex better MOVE TO ANOTHER CONTINENT and leave no forwarding address.
Ahahahaha she died of plot-diverticulitis, which is very very sad and inevitably fatal.
The only way the finale is OK is if you assume continuity with the 30 Rock Universe where the Mother plays Abby Flynn, a comedian putting on a sexy baby act to prevent her abusive ex husband from murdering her. (She calls him Troy, but it could be Ted!)
The episode is “TGS Hates Women” and Cristin Milioti is just the best in it, and HIMYM, and everything else.
So weird that they had him revert. Three seasons of character development, and then full on reversion. Weird. Weird. Weird.
“Yes, this ostensibly perfect woman I have changed my life for is suddenly not enough for me to actually change, but OH WAIT this infant child is.”
UGH UGH UGH
The thing I feel the most strongly about is that I want us, as a culture, to stop writing narratives that tell people that it is ever ok to refuse to take no for an answer. (Lloyd Dobler, much as I love you, I’m giving you the side-eye here too.) It’s not romantic people, it’s stalking.
I mean, to reward Ted’s decades-long conviction that he knows what’s best for Robin better than she does herself by confirming that – yes the silly little woman didn’t know her own heart? I don’t even know what to do with that.
YES to Seven Sisters Style, it reminds me of my grandma who went to Smith in the forties and was devoted to LL Bean. Also I only briefly glanced at the second photo and was convinced the subjects were doing shots…turns out they are blowing bubbles.
That Dear Prudie letter is terrifying on so many levels. Twin1 giving out false info to a one nightstand AND giving out their siblings contact info. Twin2 responding to ONS and not coming clear on Twin1s awfulness. This continued deceit from Twins1&2. Twin2 thinking this relationship could possibly have long term possibilities.
It feels so deceitful and cruel. I can’t imagine how horrible ONS would/will feel hearing the truth. Reading it gave me a case of the creeps but that happens every time I read Dear Prudie.
Yeeeah, assuming that letter is true, how is that not rape-by-deception on the second twin’s part? Having sex with someone by willfully, intentionally perpetuating the belief that you are the person they’ve established a sexual relationship with previously is obviously immoral, quite possibly illegal, and definitely emotionally repulsive of him.
This is why I don’t read DP, and why I only reluctantly clicked through at Nicole’s instruction because she is my lovely queen and I abide by her ruling, but why I will probably never give Prudie another click foreverandeveramen: because she characterizes this as “a long-running farce” instead of “a crime” or “a monstrous betrayal.”
I remember thinking that Leo was soooo cute when he was on Growing Pains. I just google image searched pictures of him from that show and…yeah. What was I thinking? He looks so goofy and had the worst haircut.
I don’t know why but the idea that the Lactation Lounge has a long line annoys me. Are the women not sharing? Certainly they are in the same boat, pump-wise, they should be able to understand and all share the room. Is there a rule against pumping at the same time? Is it just too small to share? Are there so many lactating women that it gets too crowded? Why not a second lounge? A lounge indicates usage space for a few people, right?
I don’t know, I probably wouldn’t feel all the comfortable pumping in front of co-workers. I imagine they want their privacy.
They have a room at my wife’s work, but they don’t share. My wife would pump or breast feed around family/friends at home or when visiting, but at least one of her coworkers who was pumping at the same time is an unrepentant gossip and I’m sure she’d happily blab everything my wife was or wasn’t doing, how she looked or didn’t look. I don’t imagine there would be a thing lascivious enough that she wouldn’t broadcast to coworkers. Listening to my wife talk, it was a visceral reaction against being in the same room with the woman under such vulnerable circumstances. (And I can’t say that I blame her in the least.)
The “Mother’s Room” where I teach is very evidently a former closet, and has exactly two chairs and two outlets where you could plug in your pump – I could easily envision one with even less space. That said, this woman has an office that she shares with one other person, and I really hope she’s able to make that work. As long as she’s not pumping while the colleague is meeting with somebody in that space or over the phone, the noise won’t be disruptive, and a nursing cover works fine with pumps so she wouldn’t be showing anything.
I had to google that actor’s name (Buzzfeed will only load plain-text, not photos, at work) and SHONDA KILLED HIM?!?!?!? Now I really have no reason to ever go back to Scandal :/
Here’s another reason to not get back together with Shonda – what the writers are doing with Huckleberry Quinn. VOMIT!
HUCK/QUINN IS THE WORST. THE ABSOLUTE WORST.
I never want to see either of their tongues again.
There’s no way the second Dear Prudie letter is real either, right? A transatlantic cruise???
I KNOW its literally nothing I had ever considered before but *might* be really old-timey romantic? Maybe I’m just thinking of Titanic w the Leo post. O wait, the Titanic sank. Ok, yeah, not a great idea.
My idea of Hell on Earth (or in this case, water) would be a cruise with my in-laws.
Laurie Colwin is what I read when I’m sad, but not quite Wodehouse sad.
This is probably incredibly petty of me, but I never could get into HIMYM after a character made a crack about being as hairy as a Turkish lesbian. I also caught another show where they made a joke about Turkish prisons. I rarely see the other half of my heritage mentioned on TV, so two cheap jokes (and one incredibly homophobic) made me go NOPE forever.
My friend just sent me a link about books being bound in human skin with the commentary ANNE OF GREEN GABLES IS PEOPLE and I laaaaaaaaaaaaughed.
WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAT. This is my new go-to reference for the next time anyone talks about how violent/horrible/blahblahblah things are in this day and age. HUMAN SKIN BOOKS.
Thank you so, so much for posting this.
Titanic Leo, OBVS. Prolonged noncontact foreplay via nude sketching + sweaty hand print on old time-y car on the lower decks anyone???
I’m afraid I find myself unable to with Leonardo DiCaprio. I have, more than once, described him as “a pad-faced ninny.”
Thank you. I am the same age as Leo and I have never understood the appeal.
On the upside, more Leo for everyone else?
The exact time in Leonardo DiCaprio’s life at which he achieved Maximum Attractiveness is, in fact, at this point in Titanic.
Disheveled tux, beer swilling, making the rich girl throw her shoes off and have a fucking good time. Plus loud, raucous Irish music. There is no point at which he has ever been more attractive.
So. You wanna go to a real party?
YOU PREACH THE GOSPEL OF TRUTH. Thank you for correctly identifying this moment. It was a perfect time.
I would like to take this opportunity to remind everyone that Titanic is now on Netflix Insant and you could be watching it RIGHT NOW.
edit: This moment is at or about 1:08:08, and I would highly suggest that everyone go check it out immediately.
I’m so glad there’s a link roundup today because I have to share this:
Harvard finds books bound in human flesh in its library.
I picked up a free library-culled copy of “Happy All The Time,” then put it out in my first pre-move yard sale, then came here and had to go through all my boxes to discover it hadn’t sold yet and I’m so pleased to have it to look forward to. I used to think I was well-read before hanging out here. *scoffs at delusions of smartybrainitude*
I picked up a free library-culled copy of "Happy All The Time," then put it out in my first pre-move yard sale, then came here and had to go through all my boxes to discover it hadn't sold yet and I'm so pleased to have it to look forward to. I used to think I was well-read before hanging out here. *scoffs at delusions of smartybrainitude*
Okay I realize he’s practically jailbait here, but this is my favorite Leo pic ever. http://imgur.com/L7xN5aP
R+J came out my freshman year of high school and I was obsessed with both Leo and Shakespeare.
Laurie Colwin is a God, and peak Leonardo was River Phoenix.