My favorite thing we published this week was Emily Brooks’s GRAND SLAM of an interview with Steve Silberman, author of NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity. Read their conversation, like all 4,000+ words of it, and then get yourselves the book and read that too.
oh gosh
I honestly wish that I could
but I
cannot
cross
running water
I thought that was witches
yes
that
I’m that thing
I’m witches, I’m too witches to come, sorry
Kayla Whaley on her relationship with swimming and walking, and dealing with the expectations of others:
Nothing much changed when I did stop walking. Nothing I noticed right away. I’d always used a wheelchair part-time, so now I’d be using it full-time. That’s all. At six years old, I was still tiny enough to be carried up and down stairs, or pushed in a stroller when my chair was inconvenient. I didn’t miss walking, and I was oblivious to the fact that other people thought I should.
That blessed lack of awareness didn’t—couldn’t—last, though. Here, too, there was no one event that triggered it, that taught me walking was better than not. No one said, “Kayla, you’d be a more complete person if you could hop out of that chair,” but they didn’t have to. Sometimes a half-concealed stare, a hastily hushed room, a careless phrase, a subtle implication is more than heavy enough to get the job done.
A lot of you certainly had a great many opinions about your favorite spices and the beacon of light that is the Penzeys Spices catalog! I confess I have acquired something called “Mural of Flavor” from them and am unsure what to do with it, but then my husband does most of the cooking around here.
Hey, our dear friend Sarah Miller unearthed yet another sestina penned by David Brooks, WHAT WERE THE ODDS
Maddie Howard makes me smile.
Do you need some inspiration?
Finally, it’s not a Toast piece, but obviously I have to link to my essay about Kristi Yamaguchi. (The illustrations — GIFS! by Thoka Maer — alone are worth the click; they are just perfect. The NYT has GIFed my childhood!) Kristi meant everything to me when I was growing up, and I definitely teared up when she tweeted my piece yesterday. Her Olympic costume designer also read it and emailed me last night! I mean, WHAT is this life?? Thank you to everyone who’s reached out or said nice things about this essay; it means the world to me.
I have had an awesome week at the Toast.
Exhibit A: I’m too witches to come
Exhibit B: The inspiration article just slayed me
Exhibit C: I am inordinately proud of and excited for Nikki, even though she is a woman whom I have never met and do not know. Such is the power of the Toast.
See you all next week.
Re: C, thank you so much! fwiw, I think if you read The Toast you know an awful lot about me. Possibly more than you’d like.
You make an excellent point 🙂
The Toast is the only good thing about today. April Fools Day needs to jump in a fire and die.
Which is my way of saying, thank you for posting this list of actual good things, and for lowering my blood pressure.
sorry you’re having a tough day! are people pranking you?
No, no, I just loathe all the unfunny and hurtful pranks I inevitably run across. My April Fools rage is nearly as big as my misandry rage.
Can I interest you in some delightful, not-cruel April 1 silliness?
The Detroit Symphony Orchestra made this wonderful video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IBBCIkBiSA
And my local news station reported that the police department is adding a cat to their K-9 team! http://www.kgw.com/news/local/animal/ahem-wash-co…
I hope your tomorrow is less rage-fueled!
That was glorious!
I would be SO on board with concert attire that has pockets! I mean I need my tuner and my reed case and possibly my other reed case and my reed water and a swab and cigarette paper and maybe a plaque and a knife if my reeds are unreliable.
Oboes are small but they require a LOT of accessories (and that’s assuming I’m *not* doubling on the English horn in this particular concert)!
Nicole, we are just so so so so happy for you!!! What an amazing feeling to have such a positive connection with your childhhod idol.
Thank you!! I am honestly overwhelmed. She is a wonderful human being.
Nikki, I loved the piece! I’m so glad Nicole put that tweet in the Link Roundup this morning because I somehow missed it yesterday. You have been killing it lately!!
thank you very much!
I missed it yesterday, too, and I’m so glad I read it today. Brava, Nikki!
Same – Nikki, it’s such a great piece. You write with such eloquence & emotion. And the gifs rock. Way to go. I think you’ve become for others the marker of success and visibility that KY was for you.
this is such a lovely thing to say, thank you!!
Genuine thought: oh, right, it’s an ice-skate. At first I thought it was GLaDOS from Portal.
I don’t know about Toast points, but toaster points? My toaster is losing them for how poorly it’s working on my Eggos this week.
I love penzey’s mural of flavor and I put it on lots of stuff–roasted potatoes and other assorted root vegetables, under the skin of chicken pieces, on pork roast, etc. etc. etc.
It reminds me of things my cuban-Italian family cooked when I was a girl, but I can’t put my finger on what, precisely.
I legit teared up in the airport when I saw Kristi’s tweet. IT WAS ALL SO LOVELY.
I legit teared up in the airport when I saw Kristi's tweet. IT WAS ALL SO LOVELY.
this is such a lovely thing to say, thank you!!
I think this week at The Toast may have been TOO good, considering the weekend is half over and I’m still catching up. Nikki, your piece was beautiful (and perfectly complemented by those illustrations, jeez), but it startled me as well–I vividly remember Kristi Yamaguchi (and holy cats, Midori Ito! I remember her pulling a spin so fierce she overshot into the area where you’re supposed to step off the ice and a big chunk of wood was chopped loose! Human power tool!), but would never have thought she was skating during the Tonya/Nancy era. I guess my dirtbag family and I were a little too closely focused on all their drama, but it’s fitting that they had to play duelling second fiddles when it came time to portion out the medals.
I had forgotten that Ito crash until you mentioned it! Midori was so fun to watch. I mean, I didn’t want her to win the gold over Kristi, but I was super happy she finally landed that triple axel and got the silver. And Frank Deford owes her an APOLOGY for that Newsweek article.
Nancy and Tonya were contemporaries of Kristi, and Tonya actually beat her once at Nationals with her triple axel, but I don’t think either of them ever placed ahead of her in international competition. Their “era” was more 1993/94, and all the drama played out before/during the Lillehammer Games in ’94. I found it all super boring after Kristi. She was really something special — which I found myself thinking, yet again, while watching the 2016 Worlds last night.
also Nancy Kerrigan would never have written such a nice tweet to me.
Kristi Yamaguchi lives around here and occasionally comes into the library where I work. She comes with her kids to do normal person homework stuff with them and I’m happy to report that she is VERY NICE in person.
hi hello please strike up a conversation next time she comes in and then maybe casually mention that you know someone who would LOVE to write her authorized biography (IT MEEEE)
I had forgotten that Ito crash until you mentioned it! Midori was so fun to watch. I mean, I didn't want her to win the gold over Kristi, but I was super happy she finally landed that triple axel and got the silver. And Frank Deford owes her an APOLOGY for that Newsweek article.
Nancy and Tonya were contemporaries of Kristi, and Tonya actually beat her once at Nationals with her triple axel, but I don't think either of them ever placed ahead of her in international competition. Their "era" was more 1993/94, and all the drama played out before/during the Lillehammer Games in '94. I found it all super boring after Kristi. She was really something special — which I found myself thinking, yet again, while watching the 2016 Worlds last night.
also Nancy Kerrigan would never have written such a nice tweet to me.
hi hello please strike up a conversation next time she comes in and then maybe casually mention that you know someone who would LOVE to write her authorized biography (IT MEEEE)