(hears crowd whispering featured PET featured PET featured PET)
Please meet Luna. Her human companion KC reports: “She’s a ridiculous wiggle monster who looks like she should be big in photos but is actually 25 lbs of personality. She’s either running full speed or passed out on the couch and she’ll give instant love and adoration to anyone she meets. Despite her small stature she’s figured out how to take up my entire queen sized bed every night and I don’t know what I’d do without her. “
“This is a very rare sleepy blep.”
“Here she is knowing her light.”
“A smol girl who loves adventure.”
Thank you, Luna. Thank you, KC. May we all work our angles and lighting with this kind of flair.
Today’s horror recommendation is another non-fiction book! They usually make kids in Newfoundland read it, it’s called Death on the Ice: The Great Newfoundland Sealing Disaster of 1914, and it’s about how an unbelievable series of fuck-ups killed a tremendous number of extremely poor men trying to support their families. It’s one of the scariest books I have ever read, and not a killer clown to be seen.
From the publisher:
Each year, for generations, poor, ill-clad Newfoundland fisherman sailed out 'to the ice' to hunt seals in the hope of a few pennies in wages from the prosperous merchants of St. John's. The year 1914 witnessed the worst in the long line of tragedies that were part of their harsh way of life.
For two long, freezing days and nights a party of seal hunters--one hundred thirty-two men--were left stranded on an icefield floating in the North Atlantic in winter. They were thinly dressed, with almost no food, and with no hope of shelter on the ice against the snow or the constant, bitter winds. To survive they had to keep moving, always moving. Those who lay down to rest died.
Heroes emerged--one man froze his lips badly, biting off the icicles that were blinding his comrades. Other men froze in their tracks, or went mad with pain and walked off the edge of the icefield. All the while, ships steamed about nearby, unnoticing. And by the time help arrived, two thirds of the men were dead.
This is an incredible story of bungling and greed, of suffering and heroism. The disaster is carefully traced, step by step. With the aid of compelling, contemporary photographs the book paints an unforgettable portrait of the bloody trade of seal hunting among the icefields when ships--and men--were expendable.
IMMEDIATE tone-shift into learning how Mariska Hargitay and Peter Hermann’s marriage remains so good (I think bc one of them is MARISKA, but I am open to other answers):
Sitting down exclusively with PEOPLE in this week’s issue, on stands Friday, the New York City-based couple reveals the key to their 18 years together, 15 of which they’ve spent as husband and wife: the laughter that flows freely between them and their family. (The two are parents to sons August, 12, and Andrew, 7, and daughter Amaya, 8.)
“I never thought I would have this much laughter in my life,” says Hermann, 51, who has reached a new level of stardom in the TV Land hit Younger, playing dashing publishing mogul Charles.
“Not just actual laughter,” he adds. “But also the way that Mariska is just the embodiment of laughter — of joy.”
(So, basically, they SAY it’s laughter, but it’s Mariska.)
As previously established, I only link to vendors that I truly believe in, and Sara Crump’s gorgeous coasters and magnets ARE THE REAL DEAL. She undercharges, she over-creates:
She has all your fav shows, all your fav dogs, all your IRL hero(ines), and if you have some extra scratch, buy some and also give them as gifts. Tell her if you want coasters instead, they’re more money (NOWHERE near enough money!
An absolute unit:
I could never click more quickly on a Reddit post than one titled “I am in love with a rockstar and I don’t want to be”:
I have been romantically involved with this person for the past 4 years, known him for 6.
A bit of background - I’ve been a fan of his band since middle school and met him when we ran into each other outside of the venue he was playing at. I was attending the concert and was 22 at this point in time. He asked me if I wanted to catch dinner with him and his friends that night - I accepted his invitation. After that, we stayed in touch and became close friends and would make a point to get together any time he came through my area while on tour (we are based in different states).
After 2 years of casual meet ups like this, he made a move on me during one of our meet ups. I was not surprised by this, and was open to it as we were very flirty and upfront about being attracted to one another. We didn’t sleep together this night but connected sexually/intimately for the first time.
For the last 3 years, we have maintained a romantic and intimate relationship. We were very much a booty call for each other when one of us needed some intimate attention. I have traveled to many different states, at his request, to see him. He foots the bill. Our time spent together is unforgettable. He matches my energy, my drive, and my passion. I have never had a lover with whom I have felt so in sync. With him, I have reached new heights of sexual and self acceptance. We have been there for each other through quite trying times - he challenges me to be my best self and supports my every endeavor.
But there’s a catch.
We have been and still do operate under the notion that we are not working on or towards a relationship - and I am perfectly okay with that. He lives a thousand miles away, is constantly touring the country. What’s more is he has a child and lives with the mother - they co-parent but are not together sexually (not that him having a child is an issue for me). I don’t reach out to him much while he’s home out of respect for the family atmosphere he’s trying to maintain. We lead very different lives and a relationship is not realistic - we’ve both known that from the very beginning.
Our arrangement was fine until one night a few years ago - we were sleeping together and he suddenly blurts out the L word. I responded with “what?” and he said “do you love me?” I said yes. Since then, feelings have been heavily involved.
We’ve been together many times since then, with the L word never reappearing. When we part, I cry. For weeks after I see him, I miss him so immensely that my heart aches and I find myself in a depressive mindset. All I can seem to do is daydream and ponder on our times spent together. I feel empty, I feel lower than low. But all of that goes away when I‘m with him.
I have met and slept with other people during this time, but I’ve recently come to the realization that I self-sabotage other connections because I’m holding on to my feelings for this man. No one else I attempt to connect with seems to measure up to him.
I face the classic battle of head vs heart. My head tells me I need to let this relationship go - that the emotional up and down aren’t worth it when there is going to be nothing in the end. But my heart tells me that I love him, and really have nothing holding me back from continuing our relationship in its current state - that if I just toughen up mentally and check my feelings I can still indulge in the bliss we create together.
I try to establish distance - at times we go for weeks with out speaking. But it’s always the same, he always finds his way back in - and I am so weak for him. I don’t stand a chance.
I don’t know what to do anymore, made obvious by the fact that I’m taking to reddit for advice. But sometimes neutral parties offer the most profound enlightenment. So, I here I am asking, what should I do?
GIRL. No-contact. Delete, block, mute, throw your phone into the Hudson.
Mychal Denzel Smith is a genius, and a Virginian, and more:
If Virginia didn’t matter outside of Virginia, it did, however, matter to the Virginia Beach City Public Schools. In the fourth grade, history class centered on Virginia history, and toward the end of the year my class took a field trip to Jamestown. In fifth grade, we went to Colonial Williamsburg. I learned that four of the United States’ first five presidents were from Virginia (though I’ll admit that I had to look that up before setting it down here). Even as a child I didn’t find this fact worth remembering, at least not as some decontextualized data point. But I realize now what Virginia public school students were expected to internalize: that Virginia is mighty, powerful, and important, a place crucial to the development of the United States of America, the most mighty, powerful, and important nation on earth.
And it’s true—many important historical events took place in Virginia, not least of which was the founding of the first permanent English colony, in Jamestown, circa 1607. Even if schoolchildren elsewhere didn’t have to commit our presidential tally to memory, they couldn’t learn American history without learning this, and perhaps not without also learning that the first Africans brought to our country to be enslaved came through the same area in 1619 (though many historians say that they arrived in the Americas at least a century earlier). There was also Bacon’s Rebellion in 1676, the first popular uprising in the American colonies, which served as precursor to the Revolutionary War. It was a multiracial effort on the part of indentured Europeans and enslaved Africans, fighting against the tyranny of the ruling class, which, along with other factors, eventually led to the establishment of the Virginia Slave Codes in 1705, an attempt to ensure these two groups would never again join forces. It also had its roots in targeting and scapegoating Native Americans for issues of unfair trading practices and exorbitant taxation. By the mid-1700s, the Susquehannock people were nearly entirely killed off.
There is more. Later, in Richmond, Patrick Henry spoke his famous words in the lead up to the Revolutionary War: “Give me liberty, or give me death.” (Today, he is honored by having a mall named after him in Newport News.) The last major battle of the Revolutionary War took place in Yorktown, where General Charles Cornwallis surrendered in 1781. The Virginia Plan, credited to James Madison, helped to determine the structure of our national government, giving us the two houses of Congress, as well as the idea of determining representation in the House based on population (Virginia was the most populous state at the time). This led to the three-fifths clause, which held that enslaved people were to be counted as three-fifths of a person for purposes of determining population size.
So yes: Virginia liked to brag about its history, which made sense. Virginia was a major player in the founding of this nation. But it’s telling which aspects Virginia chose to brag about to schoolchildren.
How you tell a story, and what parts you tell, matters.
This, from Entropy, is a gut-wrench (the author told me “it’s about medical complexity, adoption, and what makes life worth living,” and it sure was:
On a bright Wednesday morning in March, we leave for daycare and work because that is what we do, even when we’ve spent the evening in Trauma One of Children’s Hospital because WD, my two-year-old, had a longer-than-usual seizure. We were home by midnight; everything seemed under control. Why wouldn’t we go about our day?
We’re only a few blocks from home when WD, strapped in his car seat, starts making a sound that’s somewhere between a gasp and if someone punched you in the gut. His face turns red and his lips smack. Bubbles form around his mouth and his eyes stick to one side. I set the stopwatch on my phone and say reassuring things and try not to crash the car as I watch him in the rearview mirror. We drive a mile past daycare to Children’s, where I park illegally and they put us back into Trauma One.
I watch them; I watch WD. Though WD is sturdy, his veins are whisper-thin and roll away to protect themselves. A heating pack helps as does a small, bright light held against his skin to show the way. Intramuscular Versed, a benzodiazepine similar to Valium, buys time.
They inject Versed into his thigh. They work for an IV. They administer Ativan through that IV and then a second-line med. Eventually—forty-five minutes since it started? an hour?—the seizing stops and WD sleeps.
Upstairs, on the unit, the admitting nurse goes through the usual questions: who lives at home?Just the two of us. I have this name for your emergency contact? That was our caseworker, but I adopted WD last summer. What therapies does he receive? Occupational, physical, vision, hearing, and developmental through Early Intervention and daycare. And then a new one: does he have an advanced directive?
Oh.
It has not occurred to me that a toddler, even a medically fragile/complex one, might have an advanced directive.
No, I say, and she moves on to the list of his daily medications, which I answer by rote while the rest of my brain stalls, working this new idea. The nurse’s question collides into the questions I have been asking and worrying about for two years, ever since WD came into my life. Questions that other people ask me, too. What is WD’s prognosis? What does “medically fragile” actually mean? And the one I’ve never been able to ask, though it hangs in the air every quiet morning in the moment before I open his door: If I do everything absolutely right, can I still lose him?
Darth made this photoshop of my daughter holding a Tony:
Via a reader (normally I would just link the thread but I want our reader’s fervor to come through):
Dear Nicole — I promise I will never ask you for anything else, but I just spent a very long time making a twitter thread that I would be eternally grateful if you would retweet to your audience of compassionate and faith-loving followers.
I am part of No More Deaths in Arizona, where our volunteer Scott Warren is currently facing 20 years of felony charges for giving food, water, and beds to two undocumented men. This morning faith leaders from across the country spoke at the courthouse in support of his actions.
Here's the thread, featuring some beautiful photos of them as well as quotes from their sermons. We are working on getting full sermons up soon!
Because today is Thorsday, I wanted to highlight how good Chris Hemsworth is on SNL, bc a) not everyone is, and b) mainly bc he let them lean into how his beauty is overwhelming and that’s something I like, when actors are like “obviously I am gorgeous”:
This makes me laugh so I hard I cry each time:
And then, you know, when he’s Thor:
(I have bisexual tickets to the new bisexual Men In Black movie for Saturday.)
Just one or two music videos, k? some of these may be reprints for us but that’s bc I’ll listen to the same song a million times, it’s organic
tragically hip
my personal fav Alanis
W A G O N W H E E L
brokenhearted by karmin is not good but it does get me goin’
haim
kenny rogers
she don’t like my kind of music (great jam)
Love you the MOST! Especially you.
xoxoxoxox
n
Not only is Sara fantastic, she'll also do custom magnets and coasters! I now have one for my first dog, Mojo, and my current one, Izzy, both dogs who I have loved more than I thought possible. The magnets look JUST LIKE THEM. Of course, I also got a few of my favorite BraverMountain pups too because why wouldn't I.
Nicole, are you trying to get Chris Hemsworth to put on a dress and have brunch with you?