Yep. Just show up when I need you to clean some toilets and mow a lawn and bus my table but then please just vanish off to wherever I don’t have to think about you until I snap my fingers again.

Fun fact: Rock of Love and Below Deck were both created by Mark Cronin, the older brother of a good college friend of mine. His degree in chemical engineering was not wasted. 

Even Captain Lee rolled his eyes at Trevor Senior Deckhand!

Below Deck is fantastic. I’m usually more of a competition-style reality fan (Top Chef, Project Runway) but caught an episode a few years ago and was instantly hooked. Now my mom and friends are obsessed as well and we pepper our conversations with a broad assortment of Below Deck-related inside jokes: “June June…

Goddammit, take your star.

This is one of my favorite workout videos ever and one of the only step routines my uncoordinated klutzy self can actually do. Not Keli Roberts’ best cueing efforts, but the ab section is fantastic.

I am obsessed with the Firebox Stove guy’s YouTube videos in which he heads out into pristine wilderness with his dogs and goats and sometimes family to catch fish and cook stuff while providing minimal commentary in a quiet, soothing voice. When we were having the safety power shutoffs here in NorCal last year, I…

What a lovely voice. Was not surprised to see Linda Ronstadt’s name appear near the end. She has that early 70's country-pop vibe of singers like LR, Rita Coolidge, Olivia Newton-John... the albums my parents played all the time when I was little.

And find a Brian Keith lookalike to share it with me!

Or the folks who walk into the grocery store wearing their mask because the poor kid at the door is checking, but then take them off when inside. Rebels!

I’m so sorry you’re having to deal with this. Distance hugs.

As another Gen Xer, I say, Bring on the Guillotine!

I spent much of elementary school in Southeast Asia and had a good friend with a Vietnamese mom and American dad. Her first name was Phuc, but none of us kids knew the word “fuck” yet so we didn’t think anything of it. I often wonder how difficult it was for her to move to the US.

I covet a midcentury home so I can decorate its interior with all of these!

My library just reopened for people to pick up holds and I am ecstatic.

Bryant Terry is a god.

While I get that they wanted their approach to vegan food to stand apart from the glowy pastel smoothies-and-yoga-pants aesthetic that was so prevalent at the time, they should have apologized and dropped the shtick the minute it became known they were a couple of white people. It’s a shame too because their recipes…

Possibly just to get in the door. I worked at Ziff Davis in the 90s when the Internet was just beginning to make traditional print magazines very, very nervous, and editorial staffs were paid very poorly even then compared to people who worked in the industries we covered, especially tech. While I was there, ZD made a…

When taking an entry level position at a prestigious publishing company, there is no “negotiating” of job titles (unless some kind of amazing connection got you there in the first place).

So many Republicans I know are like this. When their friends or neighbors get laid off, lose insurance or suffer other severe economic hardship, they’re the first in line to help, but “those lazy people” on assistance or without insurance just need to “get off their ass and get a job.”