Well, one of my clients is affected both professionally and personally by the FTX fiasco, so I can spill a lot of tea at the table over that. Have also been listening to the Every Single Album podcast series on Taylor Swift albums and have Thoughts. I guess I am the guest no one wants to poke.

You mean your cawr.

They may even deliver a priceless diamond from the necklace of a contessa to your doorstep, setting up a mystery that can only be solved Hercules Poirot, Belgium’s greatest detective.

That’s a common joke in the evangelical South.

Driscoll leaned so hard on that “look at the good we’re doing/how much we’re growing” bit to excuse his shitty behavior as if to say, “it’s successful so God must approve of my methods, right?”

I’m sorry for what you went through.

Ezinne, have you listened to the podcast series The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill? Mark Driscoll got away with being (still is) a massive bullying a-hole and no one wanted to call him out on it because the church was successful.

Exactly, though a very tough concept for a teen/young adult to grasp unless they have a good team around them.

Models are in a particularly bad place re beauty/body image because even if they are perfect, they still get rejected on a regular basis for not having the right “look” or are told by agents, peers, photo editors, etc. that they need to lose some weight. Keep in mind that she worked in an era when shooting a non-white…

Gabi’s parents are a horror show. I’m not surprised she doesn’t speak up much because who could get a word in edgewise?

Fucking ridiculous. What on earth were they thinking when they signed her? I’m glad she peaced out.

Thank you for referencing two of my all-time faves, A Very Merry Mix-up and A Very Nutty Christmas (similarity in titles goes with the territory). I caught most of Lifetime’s Every Day is Christmas the other day with Toni Braxton as a workaholic financial manager who finally figures out that her driver is the love of…

With every square inch decorated in garlands, lights, wreaths and pricey Balsam Hill fake trees, no less. One movie I watched last year had garlands across the kitchen cabinets and drawers, ffs.

Blown Away is great, and I’m glad to have caved and subscribed to HBO Max so I can continue watching The Great Pottery Throw Down. Love watching people who are really good at something creating that thing.

Reportedly some of the characters in Killing Mr. Griffin were based on real people. Lois Duncan was a staple of my tween years ( loved Summer of Fear and the movie adaptation with Linda Blair) and in most of her books she is very concerned with the consequences of the characters’ actions.

The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher (aka Ursula Vernon) is awesome as well. She writes a good “cozy horror.”

It will not surprise you that I have cats (just one at the moment), read books every day, and text friends constantly if I can’t see them in person.

I remember being flabbergasted as a tween when the Equal Rights Amendment was defeated but in the many years since I’ve come to recognize that there are a lot of people—male, female, other—who are terrified at the idea of possibly needing to take care of themselves, so finding a partner who will…

Good for you for taking on that responsibility. I honestly considered it back in my late 30's-early 40's but then my career tanked and now I am just too tired.

Thankfully somebody told me “bunnies die” early on so I avoided that book like the plague and you can’t pay me enough to read it. I was scarred enough by the Redwall books I read as an adult.