Carmella is a work of art.
I have been off social media for about 48 hours, and I’m already like:
…MOSTLY because I want to Tweet excitedly about THIS FUCKIN’ AWESOME JAYA MANEUVER WE PULLED.
No, it’s good, I am leaving my house and having LUNCH with human people while sitting firmly upright in chairs and reading books in garrets like a LM Montgomery heroine and it’s very good for me. All is goodness. Don’t miss Twitter at all. Sure you’re not having fun there without me. Are you talking about me? Do you miss me?
Rahm needs to go, too. Between this and Homan Square and [eighty different documented instances of state-sponsored police violence], the people of Chicago deserve so much better.
the CEO profile is OFF THE HOOK
Jasmine Guillory, a true friend, emailed me the Vulture story about Channing, because she knows I did not see it on Twitter, and obviously the story only makes me like Channing more! Does Pettyfer really think this reflects WELL on himself?
Because Hollywood’s such a small bubble, after filming, Pettyfer ended up renting an apartment in New York through Tatum’s friend. He left after four months due to an allergic reaction, but says he forgot to pay rent when his cousin died unexpectedly. That’s when he felt the wrath of Tatum: “I all of a sudden got a very negative email from Channing, rightfully so, saying, ‘Don’t fuck my friends. You owe money. Pay the fucking money. Don’t be a clown,'” probably in all caps. Pettyfer didn’t take it well and, out of spite, refused to pay the rent: “By the end of it, I just basically said, ‘Fuck them. What is money when life is so much more?’ and, ‘I’m not dealing with this, and I’m not paying.’”
You can’t go around stiffing Channing’s friends and then being SELF-RIGHTEOUS about it! He is a loyal dog of a man!
On the history of “Fifty Nifty United States”:
I learned “Fifty Nifty United States” in my fifth-grade music class in Austin, Texas. around 1997. Eighteen years later, I can barely remember what happened during the Battle of Lexington and Concord, or which constitutional amendment says what, but I can still sing the name of every state without having to think about it. The same is true for most other adults I’ve talked to who learned “Fifty Nifty United States” in childhood. And this appears to be a truly national phenomenon: I have heard from people who learned the song from sea to shining sea, in California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Virginia. (No doubt it’s been taught in many of the other 37 nifty states as well.) Lin-Manuel Miranda, the MacArthur genius and writer and star of the singularly acclaimed Broadway musical Hamilton, called it “my favorite song from elementary-school chorus” before a performance in September (and then sang the state roll call flawlessly).
On Chicago’s first LGBT retirement center (if you want to donate, or live in the area and want to hang with some old queer people, which, I MEAN, obviously you do, you can get more info here):
Before moving to Town Hall, she lived only a few miles north in the Uptown neighborhood in a single-room occupancy (SRO) building where she says she felt unsafe. “Living at an SRO is tricky for anyone,” Skye said. “But if you’re trans-queer … it’s real tricky.”
Skye remembers her old building as “cold” and “dark”, recalling the rude remarks about her gender presentation that were thrown at her. Town Hall, in contrast, is flooded with natural light – and she refers to the residents as her “rainbow family”.
“If I was attacked here, people would come to my aid,” Skye said, her eyes growing teary.
Accidental discrimination, and when access needs are in conflict:
A year or so ago, the National Council on Disability held an event in Atlanta on the school-to-prison pipeline and disability issues, focused on the issues impacting minority students of color with disabilities. The event was well attended and featured a wide variety of interesting and informative discussion on an issue that too often goes overlooked.
There was just one problem: the sound system was slowly killing me.
I don’t know if it was crappy microphones, feedback on the speakers, or demonic possession of the venue but every other person who spoke was accompanied by the dulcet tones of a horrific high-pitched screech. To make matters worse, what was head-splitting agony for me was only a mild annoyance to the other, almost exclusively non-autistic, people in the room. After an hour of the administrative staff trying and failing to fix the feedback, I asked if we might consider turning off the microphones altogether.
“We can’t – the CART transcription is being done remotely, and if we turn off the microphones the Deaf and hard of hearing Council Members and attendees won’t be able to follow the event.”
Meeting my access needs would result in a lack of access for someone else.
Speaking of accommodation, this Ask a Manager update (and the original post) beautifully demonstrates just how badly a company can cock up their responsibilities to an employee.
The time Europe dumped a lot of vaccine-laced chicken heads to take out rabid foxes:
In 17 October, 1978, Steck deployed the baits in a real field trial—the first of its kind. At the time, the rabies epidemic was spreading along the east shore of Lake Geneva, so Steck’s team created a grisly firebreak of 4,050 chicken heads.
The heads also contained a chemical marker—tetracycline—that could later be found in the teeth and bones of foxes that were shot by hunters. When it became clear that the foxes were actually taking the bait, the initiative garnered more interest, money, and effort. The team dispersed more baited heads, mostly by flinging them onto roadsides and paths. For more remote areas, they used helicopters. From 1979 to 1984, chicken heads would rain down on the countryside.
A friend of mine was talking about this Marge Piercy poem, and Marge Piercy always reminds me of my mom’s bookshelf in the 1980s, and there’s nothing wrong with that, the woman has A+++ bookshelves.
How my college friend (and excellent writer) Maggie Shipstead tweeted one thing and set off an international manhunt:
I hadn’t hashtagged Taylor, but I also hadn’t taken into account the people who continuously scour Twitter for her name and certainly not the small subset of that group who are hoping against hope she will someday be mentioned in the same sentence as New Zealand. When I failed to respond (being on an airplane and all) they began to confer among themselves, crowdsourcing the Taylorverse to see if anyone knew anything about where she was.
When you get a question in Learned League and your opponent doesn’t know you’re Canadian and you KNOW he’s assigning you at least two points for a correct answer:
Sansa comes on Saturday morning. She is already my best friend. I think about her during my every waking minute. I have a little harness so she can ride safely in the car. I have bowls. I have food. I have safe chew toys. I have a puppy playpen for each floor of my house so that she or my son can gambol in safety when I need to use the bathroom or make a risotto. I have a drag leash for training, and a normal leash. I have a vet to give her all the vaccines and spay her (PARVO IS A NIGHTMARE DO NOT FUCK WITH PARVO.) I have numerous books about puppies. I have researched and selected a dog trainer to work with; he is a large bald man who reminds me of Hank from Breaking Bad. I have imported my mother from Canada to watch my old, now-tiresome human children for the first two weeks of Sansa’s time with us. I have told the cat.
(breathes deeply)
Her butt is so fluffinz.
EXCUSE YOU, do some FUCKING GOOGLING, the Schuyler sisters TRANSCEND AND DEFEAT WHITENESS, also you obviously mean Eliza and she is a proud Asian-American woman, which is a quotation from a John Mulaney bit:
