According to the internet, right now kids are setting fire to themselves on purpose. The Fire Challenge sounds (and is) incredibly stupid, but when I was a kid we did the eraser game (erasing the skin on our hands to see who could get the worst scar) and the fainting game (hyperventilating and getting choked in the bathroom until you pass out) and we even did the Chubby Bunny challenge (packing marshmallows into your mouth and saying “Chubby Bunny”) until some girl suffocated from it. Then you’re suddenly confronted with the fact that you’re mortal. I mean, death by marshmallows? Nothing was safe. So then we stopped doing stupid, dangerous things until we turned into teenagers and began doing different stupid, dangerous things.
But here’s the thing… Am I supposed to tell my nine-year-old child not to set herself on fire, or is it just a given that I respect her intelligence enough to know that she’ll instinctively know not to set herself on fire. Or will mentioning setting herself on fire just put the idea into her head? They never cover this shit in the parenting books. I mean, setting yourself on fire seems pretty up-front in the “DON’T DO THIS, YOU IDIOT” category, but then again, intentionally peeling off layers of your own skin and letting people strangle you for fun isn’t exactly “normal” in hindsight, so maybe it wouldn’t hurt to mention it.
“Hey, sweet girl,” I whisper to Hailey as she drifts off to sleep. “Sweet dreams. Sleep tight. Don’t set yourself on fire.”
This past Friday, 13-year-old Mo'Ne Davis became the first female Little League player to pitch a shutout in the World Series. She only allowed two hits, which I understand is very few hits, and struck out eight other players. It was her second shutout in a row, as she performed the same feat to qualify her team for the World Series.
Clearly Davis is a star, and an incredibly cool new role model for little girls, who have mostly been lacking in the baseball hero department. She also might be pretty damn inspirational for any former little girl who watched The Sandlot obsessively before being cut from her middle school softball team and realizing that movies don't actually hone athletic ability. Not only is Davis very good at throwing fast balls, she is wonderful in the public eye. Davis has appeared in the media as collected and level-headed, but still wonderfully excited about the sport she loves. And possibly coolest of all?
When Davis was asked by ESPN post game how she dealt with excess media fascination, she had a perfect answer.
I requested the bag on Thursday, July 31st and it arrived Monday August, 4. I also placed an order for several items July 31st, received a tracking number Saturday, August 2 with delivery a week later.
With the postage already paid on the donation bag, I was able to fill the bag up with all the waiting clothes and had it gone by lunchtime by simply leaving it out for my mail lady to pick up. No special trips to the post office, no planned trips to a thrift store and most of all a very clean closet and the warm fuzzy feeling from knowing my donation helped fund a music program for kids. (To give you an idea of the size of the donation bag, you could fit a king size quilt inside with room to spare.)
Shopping for clothes was easy, you can narrow your selections by age, gender, color, size, style, or even brand. Each item has a description on the quality and wear of the garment as well as any other important information (fabric, flaws, etc.)
I found myself wishing there were a way to search for either ‘animal print’ or ‘cats’ as Addie insisted on scrolling through every shirt to make sure no spot or feline was overlooked. In the end we agreed on some pretty awesome and versatile pieces from stores she loves at really good prices. You also get to see just how much of your purchase is going to which school:
Addie went straight for all things blue from Justice, we found a like-new blue flouncy skirt from Justice in her size for $11. Since its arrival on Saturday she hasn’t taken it off.
This post is brought to you by Schoola, the best place to buy discounted kids clothes all while give back to schools in need. Click here to learn more about Schoola. Click here to see what people are saying. (My unique tracking links to the Schoola site are helping KIPP Academy (my chosen school) with each click. VIOLINS FOR EVERYONE!)
Yesterday, the anger in Ferguson spiked after the police chief came forward with his continued refusal to release the name of the officer who shot Mike Brown. "The officer required protection after numerous death threats had been made," he said; in the meantime the nightmarishly militarized police force keeps their heavy firearms trained Most Dangerous Game-closely on the demonstrators who more than anything just want someone to be held accountable for killing an unarmed kid.
From the New Yorker, about those tanks and that body armor: "In many instances, the receipt of these military-grade weapons is contingent on their use within a calendar year." Adam Serwer writes at MSNBC, "It is possible that, since 9/11, police militarization has massacred more American schoolchildren than any al-Qaida terrorist." People in Gaza, recognizing the same tear gas canisters in pictures, have tweeted their advice.
Always make sure to run against the wind /to keep calm when you're teargassed, the pain will pass, don't rub your eyes! #Ferguson Solidarity — مريم البرغوثي (@MariamBarghouti) August 14, 2014
From the New York Times: "On Wednesday, the St. Louis County medical examiner’s office said it would take two to three weeks to complete the autopsy of Mr. Brown, including a toxicology report, which is standard procedure in such deaths."
A casual two to three weeks to find out how many times the officer shot him! The police department also has recourse to continue withholding the name of the officer, requiring the ACLU and National Bar Association (who have filed information requests) to sue.
Here's a Pew study on racial perceptions of fair treatment: 70% of black people say that black people are treated less fairly by the police; 37% of white people agree. From Serwer's MSNBC piece: "Nerves fray when policing comes up precisely because that image of racial innocence is hard to maintain in the face of stark disparities. White men walk into department stores carrying real guns and walk out unmolested, while a black man with a toy gun is shot dead."
The police in this case seem to be deploying a sort of equal-opportunity unfairness, anyway.
Ferguson is nearly 70% black and is a low income town. NO. HOMICIDES. ALL. YEAR. UNTIL #MikeBrown — #JusticeForMikeBrown (@ImJustCeej) August 14, 2014
Oh, and of course, the reporters arrested for using their computers inside McDonalds and processed very leave-no-traces illegally and then let go. “The chief thought he was doing you two a favor,” quotes Wesley Lowery.
Lots of white St. Louisans asking me how they could help end this. They think i'm joking, but answer is obvious. Join the protests en masse. — Jeff Smith (@JeffSmithMO) August 14, 2014
I'm still right here on it. No one would riot for less. I think that people are basically the same everywhere; I think that everyone is doing what I'd be doing given certain disproportionate allocations of power. And that power and that accountability and that comfort and that victimization determines everything. Either you believe the black community in Ferguson is kin to you or you don't.
The news out of Ferguson, Mo. is dizzying this morning. The FBI has taken over the investigation into the death of Mike Brown; the police story ("Brown pushed the officer back into the car, then entered the vehicle as the two men struggled over the officer’s gun") continues to sound one type of way, while the eyewitness account ("the officer slammed his brakes and threw his truck in reverse, nearly hitting them… Johnson says the officer attempted to thrust his door open but the door slammed into Brown and bounced closed. Johnson says the officer, with his left hand, grabbed Brown by the neck") sounds another, more "unarmed black teenager in community of white police officers" type of way.
All witnesses say Brown had his hands up at time of shooting; the as-yet-unnamed police officer, who is still getting paid, has claimed the teenager was assaulting him. The chief of the St. Louis County Police Force "ask[s] the public to be reasonable" in this difficult time. The police, in the meantime, are dealing with looting and considerable unrest, but all accounts point to them not being reasonable. Some images from reporters on Twitter, before they were asked to leave the scene:
Not many 13-year-olds can throw a fastball at 70 miles per hour, but Mo'Ne Davis makes it look easy
Davis helped bring her Philadelphia team, the Taney Dragons, to an 8-0 victory on Sunday in the Mid-Atlantic Regional Championship against Delaware. Davis struck out six batters in the six-inning game, advancing her team to the Little League Baseball World Series.
Davis will be joined by another female player during the series, Emma March of the Canada Region Champions from South Vancouver, making it only the third time that two girls will play in the Little League World Series at the same time Read more...
I know what you’re thinking: not another wedding! I’m probably like the billionth one of your friends to get engaged this year and clutter your Facebook newsfeed with our big announcement (we only posted it there for our families – so obnoxious!) So thanks again for agreeing to be a part of our “special day.” Ew!
First of all, just want to say I’m so excited to have you all as my bridesmaids, which, yuck, is totally the worst word ever. You aren’t my “maids”; you’re my best friends and also adult women whom I admire deeply! It’s just another aspect of the wedding-industrial complex that Brayden and I were hoping to avoid by simply eloping, but our parents would have killed us! Rest assured, if it were up to me, we wouldn’t even have a wedding seeing as they’re nothing more than a patriarchal charade designed to drain one’s life savings. We’re basically just doing it because our families would be SO crushed if we didn’t. Plus they’re paying for it so we really have no choice
So we’re going to suck it up and have a wedding, but we’re doing it our way: untraditional to say the least! Don’t think of yourselves as my bridesmaids, think of yourselves as my friends who are attending my wedding, or attendants!
First and foremost: there will be no ugly bridesmaids dresses! Making you all wear the same dress is just not my thing. So just pick out a knee-length chiffon dress in any shade on the salmon to coral color spectrum. And yes, rose, peach, blush, and rosé do fall within that spectrum. Just no PINK please!! I’m trying to keep our wedding from being too gender normative. Remember, have fun with it! Make it your own!
Next thing: the bouquets. I know, I know: could they be a thinner metaphor for the fact that I’m now eligible to lose my virginity according to society’s double standards for women? I might as well have all of us walk down the aisle carrying photos of vaginas! But I mean if we’re gonna do it, let’s do it right, you know? That’s why I’m having orchids imported from Africa!! (Thing is, they only ship to the East Coast because they have to be transported by boat!!!! Allie you could probably pick them up? They also need to be driven across the country to our venue [a golf club in Santa Monica, but like, a cool golf club] but that can totally be on your own schedule! I know you just had a baby so let me know what works, it just has to be like 1-2 days before the wedding so anywhere within that window is perfecto!)
Also: speeches! This should be the fun part of the night, a chance to really leave your personal, unique stamp on our crazy little “wedding”–if you can even call it that! Katie, as my best friend and MOH the speech is totally on you, girlfriend! Let’s hope your childhood stutter doesn’t resurface! Haha JK JK don’t stress it. But in case it does come back I have Brayden’s cousin on standby to do a speech because she’s the current Poet Laureate, so that should help take the pressure off of you. You’re going to do so great! Anything goes, just really have fun with it! And make sure to send a copy to me a week beforehand so I can make sure it fits in with the theme of the night, which is definitely laid back, low-key, off the cuff.
And I know most other brides demand a lot of their bridesmaids: throw me a shower! Come to all my wedding dress fittings! Now throw me a bachelorette party! That’s so not me! I don’t even want a shower, to be honest. They’re weird and outdated! Instead of a shower let’s just get together and have a cute little brunch, sip some champagne, play some fun hokey wedding-themed games, eat some cake, open some presents, and just hang out us gals! Just let me know who wants to host this informal gathering!
Thank you so much you guys! I know this wedding stuff is so stupid but hopefully I’ll be the most laid back bride you’ve ever been a maid to LOL!
Oh and if you could, can you guys be sure to post and share our proposal video? Brayden spent a lot of money on that flash mob so we’re hoping to get to at least 100,000 views. So stupid, I know, but it’s the least you could do.
Xoxoxo,
Future Mrs. Brayden Duvet
Laura is a writer/actress/improviser living in New York City. She performs weekly at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater and has appeared on MTV's Hey Girl, Comedy Central's Inside Amy Schumer, and has written for Girl Code, Cosmopolitan, The Date Report, and Nerve. She does all her tweeting via @Laura_Willcox on Twitter.com
I find it very triggering to talk about a humorist who has lost his battle with mental illness so I’m not going to write about this. I’m practicing self-care by making an appointment with my therapist and avoiding triggers and watching bad tv. I was, however, asked by a lot of people if I would share the post I once wrote about how the full moon makes me feel unbalanced and more willing to believe the lies that depression tells, and considering we’re dealing with a super-moon right now then maybe reading it will help if you’re feeling vulnerable yourself. So it’s here if you want.
Tonight we recognize the battle so many of us fight within our own minds. Tonight we remember those who’ve lost that battle, and we celebrate and salute those who continue fight and win. (And if you are reading this, you are winning even if it doesn’t always feel like it.) And tomorrow we will go back to face life with laughter and joy and ridiculousness because that’s what he would want. And because that’s what we need. And because I said so.
I’m closing comments because tonight I need to not check my phone or computer because I’ll get too tangled up in this, but comments are open on the older post if you need to share or talk.
“You’re only given a little spark of madness. You mustn’t lose it. ~ Robin Williams
Hold on to your spark, sweet friends. Don’t let it go. It lights the way, and those glimmers in the distance remind us that we’re not alone.
When police in Texas City, Texas, arrived at a suburban apartment on August 7, they found an eight-year-old boy who was seriously injured. He had been shot in the face, and the shooter was still in the home. His seven-year-old cousin pulled the trigger.
A helicopter swept the victim 40 miles north to a Houston hospital, where he was taken into emergency surgery in critical condition. He is alive, and poised to elude a place among the 3,000 U.S. children who will die this year as a result of gunshot wounds. In 2009, 114 kids died as a result of unintentional gunshots—almost all of them in their own homes, and most commonly shot by other children.
In recent years a mantle to prevent these shootings has been taken up by physicians. Most professional governing bodies now recommend that doctors ask patients some variation on “Is there a gun in your home?” If the answer is yes, the physician is meant to ask about it being properly secured.
The American Academy of Pediatrics likens counseling on gun safety to counseling on lead paint avoidance or seat belt use. Pediatricians, the group’s recent policy statement reads, are “urged to counsel parents about the dangers of allowing children and adolescents to have access to guns inside and outside the home.” Doctors are encouraged to promote trigger locks, lock boxes, and gun safes. Some distribute cable locks. The American College of Physicians is similarly proactive, calling gun violence a public health issue "requiring immediate attention." The group, of which most practicing internal-medicine doctors are members, declared in its recent position statement: "Physicians must become more active in counseling patients about firearm safety." The college implores doctors to open that conversation by asking patients (with and without children in their homes) about gun ownership.
As of two weeks ago, that is no longer legal in Florida. In a 2-1 vote, a U.S. Court of Appeals upheld a law called the Florida Privacy of Firearm Owners Act, ruling that doctors asking patients about firearms violates patients' right to privacy.
“The act simply codifies that good medical care does not require inquiry or record-keeping regarding firearms when unnecessary to a patient’s care,” Judge Gerald Tjoflat wrote in the court's majority opinion.
Legislation Restricting Physician Counseling on Firearm Safety; Blue = Introduced, Yellow = Adopted (American Academy of Pediatrics)
The American Medical Association calls gun violence a horrific epidemic. In 2011, the group issued a call for doctors to counsel patients on gun safety. In response, Florida Governor Rick Scott, backed by the National Rifle Association, signed the Privacy of Firearm Owners Act that June. Florida physicians objected immediately. A federal judge in Miami issued an injunction on grounds that the law violated First Amendment rights of physicians, and for three years it sat neutralized. As Robert McNamara and Paul Sherman, attorneys at the Institute of Justice, put it in a New York Times editorial just after the July 25 injunction overturning by the appeals court, “Everything a doctor says to a patient is 'treatment,' not speech, and the government has broad authority to prohibit doctors from asking questions on particular topics without any First Amendment scrutiny at all.”
Dr. Bart Kummer, a gastroenterologist at New York University Medical Center, says he always asks his patients about guns.
“It's part of reducing risks, and taking a view of the patient as not just a GI tract that ambles in on two feet," Kummer told me. "So I ask about seat belts, helmets, safe sex, the standard questions about alcohol, tobacco, caffeine, hours slept, hobbies—some people work with molten metal—and what the American College of Physicians has asked us to ask our patients: whether there's a gun in their house.”
If the answer is yes, he asks what kind of gun. "Is it a hand gun, a long gun, a rifle, a shotgun? You can lock them up differently, but all of them can have trigger locks, and all of them can have ammunition stored separately." Independent of the gun question, Kummer asks, "Who's in your home?"
"People think they can hide things from their children," Kummer said. "Those of us who are parents know that children will find anything in your house. You cannot hide a gun from a child. It has to be in a locked safe."
People are also more likely to kill themselves in a moment of despondency if they have a gun handy, Kummer noted. "When we're screening for depression, gun ownership is worth knowing."
Sometimes the questions come on waiting-room paperwork, and sometimes a nurse or physician assistant might do the asking. In any case, lifestyle questions do make many patients nervous, Kummer said, "often because they’re not used to doctors taking an interest in their social setting." Some patients get downright angry by screening questions. “But the gun question is the one that upsets people the most. And the people who get upset are usually the people who own guns—they get really, really offended by my asking that question."
"I think they often feel that they're beleaguered," Kummer said, "that they're going to be demonized as being crazy because they have a gun. Or that I'm some liberal nut who's going to tell them that they should throw it in the river. Or they're afraid I'm going to denounce them to the police and the FBI, and the black helicopters are going to come napalm their house."
Dissenting judge Charles Wilson called the law "a gag order that prevents doctors from even asking the first question in a conversation about firearms.” He hit on Kummer's observation of partisan overtones in writing that the law is “designed to stop a perceived political agenda, and it is difficult to conceive of any law designed for that purpose that could withstand First Amendment scrutiny.”
The American Medical Association and American College of Physicians have taken clear stances in the realm of gun politics, with the former outspoken in its support of a ban on assault weapons and the latter imploring physicians to become "more involved in community efforts to restrict ownership and sale of handguns.”
Still, Wilson toldChristian Science Monitor, “Regardless of whether we agree with the message conveyed by doctors to patients about firearms, I think it is perfectly clear that doctors have a First Amendment right to convey that message.”
The court addressed that objection in the majority opinion: “We find that the Act is a valid regulation of professional conduct that has only incidental effect on physicians’ speech. As such, the Act does not facially violate the First Amendment.”
Bronx preventive and family medicine physician Dr. William Jordan, president-elect of the National Physician’s Alliance, protested the ruling in another New York Times editorial on Thursday: “I see patients who lost a loved one to gun violence or who have post-traumatic stress from witnessing or being a victim of gun violence. Some judges say that asking a question about gun safety is a form of treatment. As a doctor, I believe that asking this question is part of my sworn duty."
"Many of my patients wish that a doctor had asked them sooner about gun safety,” Jordan wrote.
Jordan's predecessor in presidency of the National Physician’s Alliance, Dr. Cheryl Bettigole, likened firearm counseling to car-seat counseling for parents. From 2000 to 2009, the number of vehicle miles traveled increased by 8.5 percent, she noted in the introduction to a recent policy statement. Yet the rate of travel-related death went down. “Sadly, during the same years,” Bettigole wrote on behalf of the alliance, “we did not see parallel implementation of safety efforts to reduce the number of deaths from gun violence. Instead, due to pressure from National Rifle Association leaders and lobbyists, we saw Congress muzzle public health research related to gun violence and its prevention. We saw academic paralysis on one of this country’s major public health crises. The cost of our inaction has been astounding.”
A less politicized reason why people are apprehensive about answering screening questions, Kummer has noticed, has arisen since the Snowden leaks. Patients are altogether reluctant to share information. Electronic medical records will save inordinate time and money for the healthcare system, but assenting to have private information included in a searchable database is, for many people, not immediately enticing.
And as in any discussion of gun regulation, arguments turn to slippery slopes of rights infringement. Only this time, it's gun-safety advocates brandishing the Constitution.
Judge Wilson called his court's decision unprecedented, essentially holding that licensed professionals have no First Amendment rights when they are speaking to clients or patients in private. “This in turn says that patients have no First Amendment right to receive information from licensed professionals–a frightening prospect.”
Physicians are concerned that, in addition to its public health implications, this decision opens the door to state interference in the patient-doctor relationship.
"It shouldn't be allowed to happen,” Kummer said. He believes anything that has to do with the health of his patients is his business.
“Am I not allowed to ask if you wear a helmet when you ride your bicycle? Am I not allowed to ask if you smoke cigarettes? Am I not allowed to ask about your sexual orientation? It's not a value judgment, it's a health-related judgment. You can't let the state interfere with that."
Kummer recalls an instance of gun-safety screening that, he says, probably saved a life. When he asked about guns in the home, one patient said, “I don't have a gun, but my mother has a loaded gun in her bedside stand.”
“You seem concerned about that,” he said.
The patient went on to explain that her father had been a police officer, and he kept an off-duty revolver in his nightstand. When he died, that gun was never removed, and her mother was becoming increasingly demented. "And I'm thinking," Kummer said, "That's really a no-brainer."
“In general, dementia and guns are not a good combination," Kummer said. "As some people get older, they get paranoid. They think people are coming in to rob them, etc. I could see someone like her daughter coming into the bedroom, and her mother pulling the gun and shooting her. Or someone breaks into their home and steals the gun. So that was probably a good intervention."
In the immediate term, the hole in the law is this: It threatens doctors with professional discipline if they ask patients about gun ownership when doing so is not “relevant” to said patient’s medical care. But the statute does not define relevant.
A Better Queue lets you filter Netflix’s instantly streaming movies by Rotten Tomatoes’ Tomatometer, number of reviews, years, and genres. It also lets you add movies straight to your queue. Awesome!
I’m pretty much a pizza addict. I want it all the time. Thin pizza, thick pizza, frozen pizza, artisan pizza, I want it all. I love exploring the pizza frontier, which is why I decided to test out this No Knead Pan Pizza technique. I’ve seen the technique quite a few places around the web, but this post from Serious Eats has a really excellent tutorial with photos.
The idea is simple. Make a basic batch of no knead bread dough (I used my awesome Focaccia Roll dough), plop it into a well oiled cast iron skillet, top it with your favorite goodies, then bake at a really high heat. The outer crust gets nice and crispy from all the oil, the inside dough is thick and bubbly, and the whole thing is just divine. Plus, as always, it’s super cheap! Hooray pizza night!
As mentioned before, I used the Focaccia Roll dough (halved to fit my skillet, plus a little olive oil), I had some left over sauce and cheese in my fridge, and I stopped by the salad bar at the grocery store to get a handful of vegetables for toppings (my salad bar pizza method). This recipe is great for using up leftovers, so keep this trick tucked up your sleeve. You can use leftover BBQ sauce as a base instead of red sauce, use up extra beans, cheese, veggies, or meat, whatever you have on hand. Just keep in mind that the dough needs at least 12 hours to do it’s thing, so you have to plan it out at least one day ahead.
The day before, combine the flour, salt, and yeast in a bowl. Stir until they’re very well combined. Add 1 Tbsp of olive oil and ¾ cups water. Stir until the dough forms a ball. If there is still dry flour on the bottom of the bowl or the dough doesn’t form a single, cohesive ball of dough, add more water, 1 Tbsp at a time until the dough comes together. The dough should be slightly sticky and shaggy in appearance.
Loosely cover the dough in the bowl and allow it to ferment for 12-16 hours at room temperature. This develops the gluten, making kneading unnecessary.
When it’s time to make the pizza, begin preheating the oven to 450 degrees. Oil a cast iron skillet with another tablespoon of olive oil. Use the excess oil from the skillet (there will be a lot) to oil your hands and the dough in the bowl. Pull the dough out of the bowl and place it in the oiled skillet. Press it down into the skillet until it covers the entire bottom of the skillet (it will be very loose and soft).
Top the pizza with sauce, cheese, and your desired toppings. Cover the pizza edge to edge with the sauce, cheese, and toppings. The dough will be very thick, so there is no need for a dry edge or crust around the outside.
Bake the pizza in the fully preheated oven for 18-22 minutes, or until the top is golden brown and the cheese is bubbly.
Notes
I used a 10 inch cast iron skillet, although this recipe would easily work with a 12 inch skillet as well.
3.2.2708
Step by Step Photos
Begin the dough the day before so that it has time to “ferment” for at least 12 hours. In a bowl, stir together 2 cups all purpose flour, 1/8 tsp instant or bread machine yeast, and 1 tsp salt. Once those are well combined, add 1 Tbsp olive oil and 3/4 cups water. Stir until the dough forms one cohesive ball. See how there is no dry flour left in the bowl and the dough is all in one piece? If needed, add more water 1Tbsp at a time until it forms this sticky ball of dough.
Loosely cover the dough and let it ferment at room temperature for at least 12 hours. During that time, it puffs up and becomes light and airy. It’s still very sticky, though…
Begin to preheat your oven to 450 degrees. It needs to be FULLY heated before you put the pizza in there. Add 1 Tbsp olive oil to a 10 or 12 inch cast iron skillet and spread it around. There will be a LOT of oil, but that’s what gives pan pizza that awesome crispy crust.
Use some of that excess oil to coat your hands and that sticky ball of dough, then transfer it from the bowl to the skillet. Press it out until it covers the bottom of the pan. The dough will be VERY loose and should be easily manipulated.
Instead of buying a bunch of things to add to the top of this pizza, I stopped by the salad bar and got a small scoop of black olives, bell peppers, mushrooms, and red onion. The small bowl of toppings was only 84 cents! Much better than buying a whole package or item of each then trying to figure out how to use up the leftovers.
Top the pizza with sauce, cheese, and your veggies (I used leftover sauce and cheese from my fridge).
Go ahead and spread the sauce, cheese, and toppings ALL the way out to the edge. The dough will be thick once baked, so you need all those toppings to go to the edge to balance all the bread and keep things moist. By this time the oven should have finished preheating, so go ahead and pop the pizza in the oven. Bake it for about 18-22 minutes (depends on your pizza, toppings, skillet, and oven), or until the edges are browned and the cheese is bubbly all over.
Like this! Yummm… smells like a real pizzeria in here. (take my word for it)
Hey, where’d that piece go?
IN MY BELLY.
Crispy on the outside, soft and fluffy inside, all around moist and delicious.
Copywriter/funnyperson Claire Wyckoff's single topic Tumblr is dedicated to running routes that look... strangely familiar for some reason. Not sure what it is, but the general shape of them just reminds me of something. Can't put my finger on it though. Oh well!
I was at a party for Bastille Day in Paris a few years back, and we were leaning over the balcony to watch the fireworks. A cute French girl sat next to me, but after a few flirty glances the moment was entirely ruined with the most basic of interactions: “What’s your name?” she asked in French. “Cody,” I said.
That was it. We were done. “Co-zee?” she said, sounding out the entirely foreign name, looking more disgruntled with each try. “Col-bee?” “Cot-ee?”
I tried a quick correction, but I probably should’ve just lied, said my name was Thomas or Pierre like I did whenever I ordered take-away or made restaurant reservations. Not being able to pronounce a name spells a death sentence for relationships. That’s because the ability to pronounce someone’s name is directly related to how close you feel to that person. Our brains tend to believe that if something is difficult to understand, it must also be high-risk.
In fact, companies with names that are simple and easy to pronounce see significantly higher investments than more complexly named stocks, especially just after their initial public offerings when information on the stock’s fundamentals are most scarce. People with easier to pronounce names are also judged more positively and tend to be hired and promoted more often than their more obscurely named peers.
There are more variables at play than just pronunciation, though. In competitive fields that have classically been dominated by men, such as law and engineering, women with sexually ambiguous names tend to be more successful. This effect is known as the Portia Hypothesis (named for the heroine of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice who disguises herself as a lawyer’s apprentice and takes on the name Balthazar to save the titular merchant, Antonio). A study found that female lawyers with more masculine names—such as Barney, Dale, Leslie, Jan, and Rudell—tend to have better chances of winning judgeships than their more effeminately named female peers. All else being equal, changing a candidate’s name from Sue to Cameron tripled a candidate’s likelihood of becoming a judge; a change from Sue to Bruce quintupled it.
Names work hard: They can affect who gets into elite schools, what jobs we apply for, and who gets hired. Our names can even influence what cities we live in, who we befriend, and what products we buy since, we’re attracted to things and places that share similarities to our names.
A name is, after all, perhaps the most important identifier of a person. Most decisions are made in about three to four seconds of meeting someone, and this “thin-slicing” is surprisingly accurate. Something as packed full of clues as a name tends to lead to all sorts of assumptions and expectations about a person, often before any face-to-face interaction has taken place. A first name can imply race, age, socioeconomic status, and sometimes religion, so it’s an easy—or lazy—way to judge someone’s background, character, and intelligence.
These judgments can start as early as primary school. Teachers tend to hold lower expectations for students with typically black-sounding names while they set high expectations for students with typically white- and Asian-sounding names. And this early assessment of students’ abilities could influence students’ expectations for themselves.
On this year’s French baccalaureate, an exam that determines university placement for high school students, test-takers named Thomas (for boys) and Marie (for girls) tended to score highest. These are, you will note, typically white, French, middle- or upper-class names. One could imagine these students were given the advantage of high expectations and self-perception, whether or not they had the money and support that comes with the socioeconomic background associated with those names.
People change their names for different reasons. Angelina Voight became Jolie to estrange herself from her father and Natalie Hershlag became Portman to maintain her family’s privacy. The inclusion of a middle initial in formal correspondence is a strong identifier of intelligence (even though the New York Times claims it’s a dying trend). But what if parents from disadvantaged circumstances gave their children “advantaged” names? Could just a name really have that great of an effect on a person’s career and future?
A 2004 study showed that all else being equal, employers selected candidates with names like Emily Walsh and Greg Baker for callbacks almost 50 percent more often than candidates with names like Lakisha Washington and Jamal Jones. Work experience was controlled and the candidates never met face-to-face with the employer so all that was being tested was the effect of the candidate’s name. The researchers concluded that there was a great advantage to having a white-sounding name, so much so that having a white-sounding name is worth about eight years of work experience. “Jamal” would have to work in an industry for eight years longer than “Greg” for them to have equal chances of being hired, even if Jamal came from a privileged background and Greg from an underprivileged one. (Perhaps that’s why mega-celebrities can get away with giving their children peculiar names. A résumé with the name North West probably wouldn’t do as well as James Williamson—unless Papa Kanye called up the boss.)
After the girl at the party had so much trouble saying my name, I asked what her name was. “Edwige,” she said. It’s a lovely name, very French, but it is also pronounced the exact same way as “Hedwige,” which just so happens to be the French version of Hedwig, the owl in Harry Potter. “Don’t make fun,” she said, and I didn’t. But neither did we talk very much for the rest of the night. But still, I wonder what would’ve happened if I had been a Pierre and she a Marion. Perhaps we would’ve gotten along quite well that night, perhaps we would’ve quickly trusted each other. Perhaps I’d have a date this weekend.
Chris Pratt reveals yet another hidden talent that, at this point, will not surprise you. You will, however, be entertained.
WARNING: Beware of the adult lyrics...it is Eminem, after all.
Eight years ago when I started taking antidepressants, having a baby was the furthest thing from my mind. I was 25, and desperately unhappy for reasons I had trouble explaining.
It wasn’t the first time I had felt this way—I’d experienced bouts of intense anxiety and depression since I was 19. It would always start with a nagging unwanted thought that would morph into a cyclical internal monologue that grew into a tornado of negativity inside me. I would wake up crying. Sometimes I couldn’t work.
I had difficulty identifying whether I was anxious about real events in my life, or whether I was legitimately ill and my brain wasn’t functioning as it should.
This confusion provoked agony. If I passed a hospital I would find myself wishing I had a disease more universally acknowledged as a physical ailment, so I could be treated and either get better or die.
Over the years, numerous doctors and psychologists suggested I try antidepressants. I resisted. To me, drugs were a cop-out, a Band-Aid solution for those too weak to recognize the source of their problems and tackle them head on. But this valiant and judgmental attitude gradually withered as my tactics failed to defeat my mental anguish. Finally, I faced an unwanted possibility: What if my problem was biological, buried deep in the dendrites and synapses of my brain? What if tackling my problems meant taking the antidepressants I had so readily dismissed?
My family doctor assured me the drugs were safe and non-habit-forming, and that for a lot of people, they helped. I left with a prescription for Effexor, and have been taking the drug ever since.
Now I’m 33, and life looks a lot different than when I gulped down the first of the roughly 2,800 peach colored pills I’ve since ingested. Something new is swirling inside my mind: the idea of a child.
So it was with a special kind of horror that, during an afternoon of aimless internet meandering, I happened upon the world of “Effexor Babies.” Typing in this search term reveals link after link to news reports, blogs, and forum discussions detailing a range of negative outcomes in the pregnancies of women on Effexor. Many studies reveal an increase in the risk of a range of birth defects, some of them potentially deadly. I was terrified—and shocked that no one had warned me of these outcomes when I started the drug.
In the U.S., lawsuits over these infants are common enough that there are lawyers who dedicate their practices to trying Effexor lawsuits. In 2011, the drug made Canadian headlines when two babies from British Columbia died mysteriously shortly after birth, both born to mothers who were taking high doses of the drug.
And it’s not just Effexor. In fact my drug, better known as Venlafaxine, belongs to a class of drug called SNRIs, which make up only a small proportion of antidepressants prescribed to women annually. The vast majority are prescribed SSRIs, which you may recognize by their brand names: Paxil, Prozac, Zoloft, Lexapro, and Celexa.
When it comes to these drugs and pregnancy, the data is abundant and conflicting. It seems that for every study finding SSRIs will endanger the unborn child, there is another concluding they will have no negative effect at all.
Perhaps the most comprehensive review of current research in the field to date was published in the journal Frontiers in Cell Neuroscience in May of 2013. After examining 181 studies of SSRI use during pregnancy, scientists found a small increase in the risk of congenital malformations like heart defects and in problems with infant neurodevelopment. Still, its frustratingly ambiguous final summary stated only that more research is needed before anything definitive can be said about the risks and benefits of SSRI exposure to unborn babies.
Further obfuscating this issue is the plentiful evidence that suggests depression left untreated could have as grave an impact on a pregnant woman’s child as antidepressants.
To me, a woman taking one of these drugs and already prone to mental distress, the data presented an agonizing conundrum. How was I to know which would be worse for my unborn child: a mother on antidepressants, or a potentially anxious and depressed mother?
More concerning still is how common this predicament is poised to become. Today, SSRIs make up the class of drug most prescribed to pregnant women for chronic disease. According to the American Pregnancy Association, some 13 per cent of pregnant American women are taking them.
* * *
One reason we don’t know more about the effects of SSRI use during pregnancy is because, for ethical reasons, we don’t allow pregnant women in clinical trials. This means that women using SSRIs during pregnancy must do so off-label. Hedging their liabilities, most drug companies advise would-be moms to carefully consider the “risks and benefits” of treatment during pregnancy.
“I was told the benefits far outweighed the risks,” Nicole Rawkins told me over the phone from her home in Kamloops, British Columbia. The mother of two explained that both her doctor and pharmacist told her it was safe to take 450 mg of Effexor—twice the general limit recommended by the drug’s makers—during her second pregnancy, so she did.
Her son Grayson was born on January 24, 2011 and had to spend five days in the hospital before he could be taken home because he was suffering breathing problems. Grayson weighed less than her first child and slept a lot, but Rawkins just thought he was a good baby. Then one night when he was two months old, Grayson went to sleep and never woke up. The official coroner’s report stated the cause of death only as Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, but an autopsy report notes that the Effexor Rawkins was taking was a risk factor in the death.
“Nothing is more devastating than losing a baby, and nine months of being depressed is better than that,” says Rawkins. When she became pregnant again in 2012, she went against her doctor’s advice and stopped taking her medication completely.
“I felt one hundred percent better than when I was pregnant with Grayson,” says Rawkins. Her daughter was born healthy. “Women should understand that even if it is small, that risk is there.”
Some studies show a very moderately elevated risk; others show no elevation at all.
Some of these outcomes have the potential to be fatal. I learned that heart defects are a serious concern, though studies in this area again conflict. At least one drug, Paxil, now carries a warning that states use during pregnancy may elevate the risk of certain birth defects, particularly heart malformations. The warning is based on studies that found women who took Paxil during the first three months of pregnancy had a 1.5 to 2 percent risk of having a child with a heart defect compared to 1 percent in the general population—an elevation, but a small one.
Another potentially deadly outcome is persistent newborn pulmonary hypertension (PPHN), a condition that occurs when a newborn’s cardiac system fails to transition normally after birth. Numerous studies have shown that SSRI use late in pregnancy increases the risk of PPHN, some by as much as fivefold. In 2006, the FDA issued a public health advisory based on a study that found six times the risk of PPHN, but then five years later issued a retraction of sorts after subsequent studies did not find an elevated risk.
Even in the face of such muddy conclusions, to me the choice initially seemed obvious: Stop taking the meds and tough it out for the sake of the child. My reasoning was straightforward: There seemed to be a consensus, however foggy, that the drugs increased the risks of certain negative outcomes, if only very slightly.
I was also weighing the benefits. If I was going to take a drug during pregnancy that posed any risk at all, I wanted to be sure that it was doing something. I hadn’t been deeply depressed for a long time. Was it possible that I’d been on these drugs for years while experiencing little or no beneficial effect? And if so, why was I still on them?
The efficacy of antidepressants has certainly been questioned in recent years. The drugs were initially approved based on tests showing they were more effective than a placebo, but in many of those trials, the margins were very, very small. In 2008, a high-profile study by Harvard University’s Dr. Irving Kirsch looked at these studies, and found the efficacy of antidepressants to be “clinically insignificant” over a sugar pill, particularly for people with mild to moderate depression. After reexamining existing studies, Kirsch found that the drugs had a clinically significant effect only in people with very extreme cases of depression.
Some potential risk; low potential benefit. My conclusion? Taking these drugs during pregnancy simply didn’t make sense. But it’s very easy to say you can live without antidepressants while you’re still on them.
“Many people see psychiatric treatment and psychiatric drugs as optional,” says Dr. Simone Vigod. “But as you know, it sure doesn’t feel optional.”
As a psychiatrist at University of Toronto’s Women’s College Hospital and a scientist at its Women’s College Research Institute, Vigod acknowledges that it appears the drugs may moderately elevate the risks of certain negative outcomes. However, she is more concerned that the current state of alarm around SSRIs and pregnancy may discourage women who genuinely need these drugs from using them.
Vigod also echoes what might be the only consensus in the field: Every case needs to be considered individually. She gives the example of a woman who went on antidepressants a decade ago for a mild to moderate depression and only continued treatment because there was never a clear reason to stop.
“This is a low-risk scenario,” says Vigod. Here, stopping treatment before pregnancy might make sense.
At the other end of the spectrum would be a woman with severe panic disorder whose previous attempt to stop treatment resulted in a relapse that required a year of recovery.
“Just suffering through it is not good for you, or your child,” says Vigod.
For Kate Alderson, going off her daily dose of 150 mg of Zoloft never felt like an option.
“I don't think I would be here today if I hadn't found effective drug therapy,” says the 34-year-old of the crippling depression and anxiety she endured. “Not because I wanted to die, but because I couldn't live day after day with so much pain and suffering.”
The mother of two continued to take her medication through both pregnancies.
“I knew in my heart that I didn't have a choice,” says Alderson. “I genuinely don't believe that I could go off the medication for the duration of a pregnancy and survive. If I didn't feel like taking antidepressants was an absolute necessity, I might feel differently about it.”
Though she used to be open about her depression and anxiety, Alderson says she’s learned it’s easier to keep it private.
“There is a double whammy of shame when you take antidepressants when pregnant,” says Alderson. “First, there is the ‘You have mental health issues and you are taking an antidepressant’ judgment, and then there is the ‘How dare you risk your fetus’ judgment.”
It’s easy to see why some would-be moms might feel incredible societal pressure to go off their medication for the sake of the baby, yet many experts say this can do more harm to the child than good.
Why? Because there is plenty of evidence suggesting that untreated depression during pregnancy can also be harmful to the child. Most of this evidence suggests a secondary connection—it’s not the depression itself that will hurt the infant, but rather the fact that a depressed mom is less likely to stay healthy and take good care of herself during pregnancy and more likely to engage in negative behaviors like drinking and smoking. And in the severely depressed, there’s also the possibility that the mother may not survive the pregnancy.
It was this knowledge that convinced Vancouver mom Zoe Le Good to continue taking medication through both her pregnancies—first Prozac and then Zoloft.
“I felt that the drugs were the safer way to go,” says Le Good of her decision. After consulting with a psychiatrist at Vancouver Women’s Hospital’s Reproductive Mental Health Clinic, Le Good decided that being severely depressed during and after pregnancy would be more risky for her children than staying on her medication. Her pregnancies were both easy and her children are healthy and happy, yet she can’t help but worry.
“I was nervous during my pregnancies, and I still am,” says Le Good. “Any sort of behaviour difficulty my children have—even if it’s probably normal—will make me wonder: ‘Is it because I took antidepressants while I was pregnant?’”
There’s no one-size-fits-all answer, and so the trick then becomes teasing out what makes sense for each individual.
Several months ago, after a painful tapering-off process accompanied by awful withdrawal symptoms, I took the last few grains of a drug I never fully understood. Even if the risk of harm the drug posed to my future children was relatively small, for me, it felt like an unnecessary risk, and I was convinced the drugs weren’t doing much anyways.
At first I was fine, but as the weeks turned into months, I experienced a downward slide unlike anything that had come before. I was constantly anxious, obsessively worrying about the future, cyclically pondering the worst possible outcome of every situation until I was greeting every day with uncontrollable tears, practically bedridden. My agony was immeasurable.
When it got to the point where I could no longer work or do the things I loved, I went back on Effexor. It was in those moments that I learned the truth in Visgod’s words: Sometimes ending treatment is simply not an option.
This choice is so far from simple. I will never judge a woman for putting her own mental health first, and I would never presume to question the decisions of others who share my conundrum but not my specific circumstances. Ultimately, it boils down to a difficult individual choice—hopefully well-informed, hopefully carefully considered—and above all, hopefully optimizing the health of both mother and child. My plan is to seek other forms of treatment like talk and cognitive behavioral therapy and attempt to taper off again, but I’ve also accepted that ending drug treatment completely may simply not be an option for me.
You look like someone appreciates a font with a full character set and kerning pairs. Interlocks probably get your blood boiling, you dirty typographer you.
For designers and those looking to impress their loved ones with their expansive font collection, look no further than the 100+ fonts for sale over at Mighty Deals. The whole pack is 80%-off and they are free to use for personal or commercial purposes.
Pick up the whole pack for $19 for the next 48 hours! That’s less than the cost of a $20 bill!
We rarely stop and think about the science of tattoos. In fact, some people don't even stop and think before getting tattooed.
We kind of know the reason they last forever ... because the ink goes so deep into your skin that it can never wash off ... or something?
It's not that simple. As this fascinating video from TED explains, tattoos are actually a complicated inflammatory process—a delicate balancing act between your body and the dye that's invading it.
It turns out your ethereal watercolored bird is kind of like an infection—and the reason it's permanent is because your body keeps on fighting it forever.
Tattoo needles punch through the epidermis, the outer layer of skin, and drive the ink into the dermis, the deeper layer that's mottled with nerves and blood vessels.
"Every time the needle penetrates, it causes a wound that alerts the body to begin the inflammatory process," the video explains. That signal sends immune system cells racing to the site of the wound (or multiple wounds, in the case of the five-inch dragon breathing fire across your chest).
Special cells called macrophages come to the rescue, eating up the dye in an attempt to "clean up" the inflammation it's causing. The rest of the dye gets soaked up by skin cells called fibroblasts. The fibroblasts, along with many of the macrophages, stay suspended in the dermis in perpetuity.
The dye in the bellies of the trapped macrophages and fibroblasts shows through the skin, projecting your Chinese word for "love" or constellation of tiny blue stars to the outside world.
And in case you accidentally got "Only God can fudge me" written on the nape of your neck, the video also explains how you can, um, get that fixed. No fudgment.
People have asked me if I have any particular thoughts on Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited subscription plan, and whether my own work will be on it (and one presumes, on other similar subscription services, like Oyster and Scribd). So, some thoughts:
While one should never say never, I don’t anticipate any of my novels being on subscription services in the immediate future, no. One, Macmillan, who has published all my novels to date, hasn’t started working with any of the subscription services. Speaking with no direct knowledge whatsoever of their corporate thinking on the matter, it seems unlikely to me that they will, unless there’s a clear economic benefit to them in doing so. Two, even if Macmillan decides to opt in, contractually they’ll probably have to ask my permission first — at which point I have to decide whether there is a clear economic benefit in doing so.
Part of that hesitation is based on the experience of musicians with their own streaming services, such as Spotify or Rhapsody — many musicians earn substantially less from streaming than from sales, and unlike musicians, most writers can’t really try to make money from touring (some could. Not many). Now, to be clear, early reports say that the subscription services credit a full sale after someone reads 10% or so of a work (although how much a “full sale” counts for seems to be contingent on several factors, including whether one is “traditionally published” or not — again, see the link above).
That’s not bad. But I’m less than entirely convinced that there won’t be near-immediate pressure to push that compensation downward; say, by trying to cut into the money credited for a “full sale,” or by pushing back the percentage of a book read before a “full sale” to 25% or 33%, or by any other number of ways which I can’t now think of off the top of my head but which the subscription model will in some way enable. For me the question is not if such a push will happen, because it will. The question is when.
So the question becomes: Why would I want to do that?
(Note: This question is asked not in the “why would I want to do something that stupid?” sense but in the “so, what’s in it for me?” sense. As is the next question –)
Why would I, as a writer and a businessperson, want to enable a model that introduces another layer of opportunity for others to drive down the amount I can make from my work? The uninformed may fulminate about how publishers are parasitic middlemen, but in point of fact my publisher does a lot of work for me: Editing, copy-editing, art and design, marketing and publicity and distribution. I argue with my publisher on what my cut of the takings should be (these are called negotiations) but there is an exchange of services. So what is the exchange of service a subscription model would offer me? Does it offer enough to compensate for another potential slice to be taken out of my income? Does it offer enough to replace or at least augment the distrubtion model which already exists, and from which I benefit?
If it does — and it might! — then that’s great. Let’s get to it. If it doesn’t, however, then we have a problem.
(This line of inquiry does not consider at all whether a subscription service might be good for readers. It may or may not; I suspect the answer will entirely depend on how many books one actually reads a month. Be aware that buffets make money because they charge you more for the food you eat than you the amount of food you can on average consume, and that this is a buffet, with books instead of crab rangoon. Also be aware, in the case of Amazon in particular, that the long term plan is to make it so you never ever have to go anywhere else to buy anything, ever, and that running Kindle Unlimited at a loss for a while would be fine if it serves that long-term goal. Neither of these things are particularly good or evil in themselves — once again Amazon (and other subscription services) is acting in its own self-interest, as businesses do.
However, none of that conversation is of interest to me when I have my “working writer” hat on. My immediate focus is my own interest — whether a subscription service is good for me, and my business, and my ability to make a living. And you may see this as immaterial or even selfish, especially if you like the idea of drinking from the book subscription firehose. But I gotta tell you, if the amount I can make writing fiction falls through the floor, so will the amount of fiction that I write, as my time will have to be spent doing things that pay my mortgage. We do not live in a glorious socialist paradise here in the US; I have to make money. So do other writers.)
The flip side of this is that every new distribution model offers opportunities tuned to that particular model of distribution — the question is whether one is smart enough to figure out what the strengths of any distribution model are, and then saavy (and lucky) enough to capitalize on them. For example, I think a subscription model might be a very fine way to make money from shorter works: short stories, novellas, less-than-book length short fiction and so on. That’s something I could definitely see pursuing aggressively, while (if necessary) keeping longer-length work in distribution channels that are more profitable for it.
The key is not seeing any distribution model as a threat, even as you’re looking at it critically, but in finding the way it can work for you, and how you can take advantage of it. Right now, I’m in the “still looking at how it can work for me” phase of things. We’ll see how it goes from here.
1. Line a pan with the bacon. You can use a glass baking pan, a steel or aluminum baking sheet, or even a cast iron pan.
2. Put the pan into a cold, unheated oven. Use the middle rack.
3. Set the oven to bake at 400°F (204°C).
4. Set the timer for 20 minutes. It may take a bit more or less time, depending on your oven.
5. Remove the pan from the oven. Place the bacon on a plate (or a plate lined with a paper towel if you’re grease averse).
6. Enjoy the best, crispiest, most delicious bacon you’ve ever had.
Thanks Bacon Method for teaching me to put the bacon in a COLD oven. Ah!
(via)
I just had an unexpectedly harrowing experience on the internet.
While I like to think that I’m immune to clickbait, occasionally I leave the high road and tumble gracelessly down into the muddy ditch where I roll around with all the giddy enthusiasm of a dog who’s just found a particularly feculent turd.
(Pat pauses for a moment, looking up at the sentence he just wrote, and thinks that sometimes, just maybe, he should dial the vividity of his phraseologer down from 11.)
Anyway, I stumbled onto the following webpage the other day. I can’t even remember how.
So I think, Okay, sure. I’ll vote in your little poll. I am wise in the ways of the geek. I have opinions.
The thing is set up as a series of X vs. Y pairings, and you have to vote for one or the other.
The first couple were easy. Obviously Felicia Day beats Peter Jackson. Obviously Johnathan Coulton beats out JJ Abrams. Tina Fey trumps Shatner.
You also have the option to skip voting on a particular pairing. This was first useful when I was given two people I’d never heard of before, a cosplayer and a voice actor. Rather than vote blind, you’re able to just shrug and get a completely new random pairing.
But I didn’t realize how essential the skip button was until this happened:
I saw this, and a gear slipped in my brain. How could I possibly pick? The author of the second comic I’d ever read as an adult (Watchmen). The guy who Promethia. Top Ten. Tom Strong. V for Vendetta. Someone whose work has honesty changed my perception of comic art if not storytelling as a whole. Plus, y’know, wizard.
On the other hand we have Wil: creator of Tabletop, which is a force for good in the world. Co-founder of Wootstock, a source of persistent joy in my life. The actor that played Westley Crusher, a character that made my life suck a little less as a kid. Someone who regularly speaks truth to power, and a damn fine author in his own right….
It was a flabbergasting choice. It’s not like comparing apples and oranges. It’s like comparing sex and videogames. I had to skip that matchup.
Then this happened:
When I saw this, my soul made the sound of ultimate suffering. I think I actually shouted at the screen. “Don’t make me choose!”
As the poll continues, it winnows out the people you don’t know pretty quickly. Then it gets rid of the people you don’t care for. With a little more difficulty you leave behind geek celebs you are merely fond of.
Then it starts to become excruciating. You are forced to make choices no sane person would ever willingly make.
Still the grindstone turns until you are finally confronted with something like this.
Don’t. Just don’t.
So. If you want to plumb the depths of your own personal geeky faith, go ahead and check it out. I think the voting ends today.
pat
Edit: Monday July 21st. I just googled “Sophie’s Choice” because while I knew what it meant, I didn’t know the actual etymology of the phrase.
I don’t think I would have used it as the title of this post if I’d known the original referent.
That tweet has since been deleted and Kwasman apologized profusely to reporters for his error... but not before everything was caught awkwardly on camera. Check out the video coverage courtesy of the Huffington Post:
White Sea is M83's Morgan Kibby, and the first three chords of the chorus in her rumbling Lorde remix are a miniature dose of delirious, orchestral, princess-and-castle ecstasy. [Via Stereogum.]
The agency clarified several policies, including one that spells out when businesses may have to provide pregnant workers light duty and another that bans employers from forcing a pregnant worker to take leave even in cases when she's able to continue on the job.
The policy also clarifies that lactation is a pregnancy-related medical condition and so has all the protections of the law, including requirements for schedule flexibility and a private place to express milk.
On the subject of caregivers, the EEOC stated that employers who allow parental leave must provide it to men and women equally.
The talented and delightful Gael Towey recently started a short film series called Portraits in Creativity in which she documents artists and their inspirations, revealing the courage and curiosity that propel the creative act.
Last night she launched her latest short film on illustrator Maira Kalman. It’s a deep yet humorous glimpse into Maira’s world, a woman I hugely admire. Watch it.
Yesterday I was lying in bed as I thought how much easier it would be if I just took all the pills in my medicine cabinet and ceased to exist.
It’s been a long time since I’ve had those thoughts.
So long in fact I thought it was a joke. Surely I can’t be back here? I’ve been good for over five years. Sure, I had a slip up here and there, but I’m good! See! Functioning! SO GOOD.
Cody sat by my last week and said “You haven’t been well since November.”
When I asked those closest to me what they thought, they agreed. And not just one person, but many.
This caused me to give up me resolve to keep faking it.
I fell apart yesterday.
Big heaving ugly cries into the bedspread and an emergency trip to my doctor.
Today I have an emotional hangover and one of the worst cry headaches I’ve had in over three years.
Once I stopped listening for the other shoe to drop I began to believe there wasn’t another shoe, that I would be okay as long as I kept taking my little white pill every night before bed.
While there are a lot of people who continue to advocate and talk about depression and mental health even when they are well, I was so tired of suffering and fearing the betrayal my brain was capable of I fell into denial. “Depression? Sure, it’s something I’ve dealt with but I’m not dealing with it now! Let’s talk about cake and shoes!” I desperately wanted to believe I had found a cure. A fix. The end. Let’s talk about happy stuff, okay?
Here’s the truth I posted on Instagram this morning when I couldn’t sleep because depression is a bitch that wakes you up at 3 am and says “Sleep? Pfft. You should think about how worthless you are instead.”
I find myself wishing I had some sort of disease or disorder that would show up on an x-ray or in a blood test. Something that could be casted, cauterized or cut out of me. Some outward sign that although I look whole, I’m dying inside. My depression is the worst it’s been in years and it has been a slow and painful build to this moment where everything hurts and nothing is making it better.
Here’s the thing.
I’m ticked.
I hate that this is my trial. I hate that I’m dealing with it again despite doing everything I’m supposed to be doing. I hate that there is still a stigma around depression that it isn’t real. I hate that my brain betrayed me and tried to convince me I’d be better off dead. I hate that I listened to it. I’m pissed off.
Unlike my battles with depression before, I refuse to let it win this time. I honestly don’t remember what happy feels like at this moment, but I know it’s out there, I know it’s worth pursuing. Maybe my anger will make it worse this time, or maybe my refusal to give in will work in my favor. “Oh, you think you want to kill yourself? LET ME SHOW YOU HOW IT’S DONE, SON.”
I don’t know.
I want to hit things. I want to smash things. I want to punch the people who have hurt me and hug the people who are just starting out on this painful journey.
I am not me right now, but enough of who I really am learned how to fight for herself over the last five years and is doing everything she can to come back.
There are things I hate right now, I don’t hate much — but the hate is actually helping me fight harder. The things I hate won’t win this time.
I’m done pretending. I’m done faking it.
I am wrecked and there’s only one way out of wrecked – up.
Kissing frogs really have nothing to do with any of this, but they’re adorable so they get to bookend this entry.
Hello esteemed women in my life!
Begin the dough the day before so that it has time to “ferment” for at least 12 hours. In a bowl, stir together 2 cups all purpose flour, 1/8 tsp instant or bread machine yeast, and 1 tsp salt. Once those are well combined, add 1 Tbsp olive oil and 3/4 cups water. Stir until the dough forms one cohesive ball. See how there is no dry flour left in the bowl and the dough is all in one piece? If needed, add more water 1Tbsp at a time until it forms this sticky ball of dough.
Loosely cover the dough and let it ferment at room temperature for at least 12 hours. During that time, it puffs up and becomes light and airy. It’s still very sticky, though…
Begin to preheat your oven to 450 degrees. It needs to be FULLY heated before you put the pizza in there. Add 1 Tbsp olive oil to a 10 or 12 inch cast iron skillet and spread it around. There will be a LOT of oil, but that’s what gives pan pizza that awesome crispy crust.
Use some of that excess oil to coat your hands and that sticky ball of dough, then transfer it from the bowl to the skillet. Press it out until it covers the bottom of the pan. The dough will be VERY loose and should be easily manipulated.
Instead of buying a bunch of things to add to the top of this pizza, I stopped by the salad bar and got a small scoop of black olives, bell peppers, mushrooms, and red onion. The small bowl of toppings was only 84 cents! Much better than buying a whole package or item of each then trying to figure out how to use up the leftovers.
Top the pizza with sauce, cheese, and your veggies (I used leftover sauce and cheese from my fridge).
Go ahead and spread the sauce, cheese, and toppings ALL the way out to the edge. The dough will be thick once baked, so you need all those toppings to go to the edge to balance all the bread and keep things moist. By this time the oven should have finished preheating, so go ahead and pop the pizza in the oven. Bake it for about 18-22 minutes (depends on your pizza, toppings, skillet, and oven), or until the edges are browned and the cheese is bubbly all over.
Like this! Yummm… smells like a real pizzeria in here. (take my word for it)
Hey, where’d that piece go?
Crispy on the outside, soft and fluffy inside, all around moist and delicious.
When I saw this, my soul made the sound of ultimate suffering. I think I actually shouted at the screen. “Don’t make me choose!”
