election didn’t go great (no link provided, you know what happened)
Choire Sicha’s old post about The Last Photograph of Cat drifted across Twitter via Emily Gould yesterday, and I have not forgiven her:
In the East Village, Cat lived comfortably for some time with another fine cat, who took ill fairly early in life and then died prematurely. While she was slowly dying, Cat showed no visible mercy or concern and would steal food intended for her. As well he rarely liked any other cats and despite his fairly warm if dignified behavior with all people (though of course he had a very few people that he understood well and to whom he was devoted), the very existence of other cats sometimes sent him into a rage.
Yes, I heard the news about the engagement. I am glad he took my advice about creating a life for himself that wasn’t just waiting for me to become free. These things are hard, but I know he will do his very best to be a good husband to her, like when Seth Bullock married Anna Gunn on Deadwood even though his heart could never truly be hers. I have returned his letters. May their union be a fruitful one.
On an utterly unrelated note, my Zen teacher is coming to me this morning, almost as though I might find driving to her home challenging and overwhelming today! How funny. How droll.
My dad, the serial killer:
After we set off, my brother opened the glove compartment and found a pack of cigarettes. He was really shocked because smoking was a big no-no for my dad – that had always been something he wanted to instil in us. And he said, “Oh those are for my friends, for women that I pick up.” My brother pulled a face like he didn’t really believe him, as if to say: “Dad, are you hiding something from us? Maybe you’re a closet smoker.”
As we were turning the corner by my high school, a big roll of duct tape rolled out of the sleeping compartment, which struck me as pretty strange too. I thought, “Why does my dad have duct tape by his pillow?” But I kind of brushed it off, thinking, “Well, everything’s probably in weird places because there’s not a lot of space in here.”
Lindy West on being a fat bride:
There are long, manic messageboard threads devoted to comparing photos of me with photos of my fiance’s thin, conventionally pretty ex-wife, and dissecting what personality disorder could possibly have caused him to downgrade so egregiously (two conclusions are possible here: I have pissed off a lot of misogynists, and misogynists are the most bored people on the planet). I can’t tell you how many women hit on him right in front of me – and how many late-night Facebook messages he gets – as though they could just “have” him and he would say, “Oh, thank God you finally showed up,” and some dire cosmic imbalance would be corrected. It’s nothing personal, it’s just that they “match”. They can talk about hot-people problems together – like “too many clothing options” and “haters”. I wouldn’t understand.
On the legacy of “Clarissa Explains It All”:
I’m always interested in people who are better than the game. Muhammad Ali was better at boxing at one point. John McEnroe was better than tennis at one point. There are these people in the culture who, every once in a while, get better and stronger than the culture itself. My idea was to create a 14-year-old girl who was in this pocket of awareness about her life and was better than the game of being a tweenager.
I texted my mother the same question. “How often do you feel like a woman of color?” She wasn’t sure what I meant.
“Like, am I discriminated against?”
“Maybe. Or just: how often are you aware of being Latina/not-white?”
In retrospect, I’m a little self-conscious about the way I phrased the question. Of course she is aware that she is Peruvian, even if, at some point in her life — probably years ago, now — she went from thinking in Spanish to thinking in English. That doesn’t make her any less Peruvian. And every morning, she has to yell at my all-but-deaf grandfather who lives with us:Quieres pan? Dormiste bien? No olivides las pastillas!
I guess what I meant was: How often do people remind her that she’s Latina? How often is she reminded that she is different?
Nick came to visit me and I dragged him to the gym and pounded him into the ground like a tent peg and it felt awesome but also he’s lovely.
The 21 best Def Jam releases of all time.
okay, this one DEF talked to Mallory:
This fucking Richard Brittain guy needs to be locked up.
