I don’t care what you want to talk about, I want to talk about JIAN GHOMESHI, the newest master of the dubious Facebook outpouring. By the time I wake up, I hope that Jesse Brown’s promised months-in-the-making investigative piece has dropped, so please link if it does! I personally do not think the CBC would be dumb enough to actually axe him for having Weird Sex, so I’m interested to see how this all shakes out. OH, there it is!
Look at all these brainy people coming on-board at The Guardian!
What Canadian artist Robert Genn did with the last year of his life.
On the experience of going to smoking rehab, and addiction in general:
A decade ago, I realized I was drinking too much—more than a bottle of wine a night—and tottered off to Alcoholics Anonymous. There, we called them drunkalogs—tales of humiliating things done while under the influence of booze. At the exotic end of the spectrum were exploits like attempting to steal a plane or losing a rental car; more common were heartbreaking accounts of domestic upheaval, workplace flame-outs, sordid affairs. In smokers’ rehab, our versions are more quotidian. Illicit puffs in airport washrooms figure prominently, with a couple of the guys trading stories about their favourite spots at Chicago O’Hare. An entertainment entrepreneur spins a hilarious story about smoking up a hotel room and simply leaving the several-hundred-dollar fine in cash when he checked out. The parents of younger children describe John le Carré–level diversionary tactics to prevent their kids from learning their secret. I recount having missed a plane in Dublin a few years ago because I was indulging my addiction rather than lining up for the security check, a dumb-ass move that cost me $500 in rebooking fees; it’s too painful to confess to the group that I missed the moment of my mother’s death because I’d nipped out for a hit. None of these anecdotes addresses the matter of compromised health, but they don’t really have to, since one of us, a fellow in his late fifties, has barely finished chemo for lung cancer.
I have been laughing hysterically and in DISBELIEF at Deadspin’s collection of stories about getting caught masturbating, which is, as Jaya pointed out on Twitter, inextricably linked with the fact that dudes seem really reliant on Visual Stimulation in order to reach orgasm, which seems super inconvenient to me! Just think sexy thoughts, jeez. ANYWAY, please enjoy, and if you have your own stories, let’s hear them:
I was beating off in my in-laws’ bathroom late at night. Just as I’m reaching climax, my wife flies through the door like Seal Team Six, demanding, “What are you doing!?!?” At the first sound of the door I jumped up, somehow kicking off my shorts to completely cover up the iPad as she gets past that wall. I then turn away from my intruder as I ejaculate into the now-convenient toilet paper, looking back over my shoulder to proclaim an angry, bewildered, and guilt-stricken “I’M TRYING TO TAKE A SHIT!!!” while expelling my soiled toilet paper into the bowl.
As fast as she came, she went, scurrying back to bed, seemingly embarrassed and sorry for the intrusion. I regain my composure and confidence. I clean up, and head back to bed. Instead of the typical slither back into the room, I’m walking tall, proud of my quick thinking and quicker reactions. My adrenaline is racing like I just out ran the cops. As I laid my head on my pillow, heart racing from adrenaline, my wife quietly but sternly says, “Please don’t jerk off in my parents’ house.” In the saddest, most pathetic voice, I quivered, “OK.”
This is so interesting and complex and HOPEFUL:
We began oral immunotherapy when Kieran was 2. The first doses — made from the protein of the allergens — are so small they look like sprinkles of cinnamon. Kieran, for example, began at 1.2 milligrams of each of his allergens: 1/7000 of an egg; 1/200 of a peanut, 1/200 of a hazelnut, 1/250 of an almond and 1/300 of a cashew. Every two weeks or so, he would return to the hospital for an “updose” in which he would try to eat a slightly larger amount. Every day at the same time, he would eat a dose at home and then we would anxiously monitor him for reactions for two hours. Like almost all the patients, he had reactions: He got hives on his face, his eyes became itchy, his tongue became swollen or he vomited. If he reacted, we would stay on that dose an extra few weeks until his body adjusted to it. (Reactions severe enough to use an EpiPen are rare; out of 309 patients, only 15 had a reaction in which an EpiPen was used.)
“Does Modern Photography Incite Women to Brutality?” (Winifred Sweet Black Bonfils, 1897.) pic.twitter.com/I9PLt1RK6A
— Choire (@Choire) October 25, 2014
