In a bind for Halloween? You should dolphinitely go as the Rich Dicks. If you already have shneef, you’re halfway there. Tag your pics with #KrollShow for a chance to be featured.
it’s cool if you take our identities for the night because we’re gonna be dressing up in costumes from the motion picture Dick Tracy
Halloween’s almost here, but this is your final reminder that nothing is safe from the clutches of Sexy Halloween For Women. Not even a word game whose play involves memorizing thousands of useless letter combinations like JO, ZA, and AE.
If you need something less cerebral than this plastic dress that says BOO and SPOOKY, let me suggest Sexy Checkers.
And if that doesn’t invite enough people to grab your bathing-suit area, there’s Sexy Tetris, where you hold a handful of Tetris tiles and let people stick them to your tiny dress.
Halloween reads on Better Book Titles!
Jill VI'm excited for Chuck Todd. David Gregory is an unfrozen caveman.
Quit saying I look like Chuck Todd, dammit.
If you equate “edge” with a “coffeehouse conversation,” you are apparently NBC News president Deborah Turness. Those are the two things she says Meet the Press needs when Chuck Todd takes over next month.
“The show needs more edge,” she said. “It needs to be consequential. I think the show had become a talking shop that raked over the cold embers of what had gone on the previous week. The one-on-one conversation belongs to a decade ago. We need more of a coffeehouse conversation.”
What coffeehouses is she hanging out in? Dude, I put lavender and nutmeg in my chai tea latte, I am so fucking edgy.
The only connection between “edgy” and coffeehouse is that’s how the douchebags that hang out there describe their screenplays.
So what are we talking about here… a McLaughlin Group with F-bombs? An all-politics version of The View? A dude with tattoos telling us what the Twitter says? I suppose we’ll find out when we see the set. How many monitors, how many coffee tables. These things will give away what NBC thinks “edge” means.
Of course, the biggest problem with Meet the Press got $4 million to go away quietly. David Gregory is gone. The problem was never the “one-on-one conversation;” it was the canned monologues. A Sunday morning host has to do more than just ask how one side responds to the other’s talking points.
Making a guest look simple-minded and foolish if they can’t do anything but regurgitate the party line is the first step to getting someone to go off-script. But the real trick is to do it without looking like an asshole. Can Chuck Todd pull it off? I have no idea, but I hope they give him a chance without drowning the whole show in faux-edgy gimmickry first.
Coming up next, we’ll ask John McCain what he thinks.
The post Meet the Press: Now with more edge! appeared first on Happy Nice Time People.
Jill Vso great
Troop Beverly Hills turns 25 this year, which is probably a quarter of the number of times I watched it as a child (exceeded only by the original Parent Trap, which is in my DNA now). So, naturally—in honor of this august occasion and because I've gone at least a decade without any Nefler the Muffler Man in my life—it was time for a re-watch!
You were right, Gary. Taking off my huge necklace did make it easier to rip the covers off these books - I finished the whole bowl!
Jill VFYI
It appears that Guy Fieri, Clown Prince of Flavortown, is in the breakfast game now, and he's taken to it like a duck wearing backwards sunglasses riding a skateboard through a lake of flames. The menu at Guy Fieri's Vegas Kitchen & Grill includes "Dragon's Breath Chili Cornbread Benedict," "Chicken Fried Bacon Biscuits & Gravy," and a "Shortbread Pancake & Berry 'Pot Pie'"—all of which, I can only assume, have been TONGUE-BLASTED WITH DONKEY SAUCE FOR MAXIMUM KILLERNESS.
If you’re an interneting person, if you are “jacked in” — as they say — then there is a good chance you know that today is the day that commentors on the Web Site Reddit have decided to mob baseball stadiums across the nation, bearing signs that say, simply, I Enjoy Baseball:
I’m telling you this so that you will know it. So that when your spouse says, Hah, that’s a fine sign!, you can glance over your newspaper and mutter, Harumph! I know all about this — for behold: My mammoth knowledge!
Because: Why else would we watch baseball with a spouse in the room, if not to impress said spouse?
This series of children’s books, produced around 1911, includes classic stories such as “Little Boy Blue” and “Mistress Mary.” The series is housed in a paper mache dog inspired by Buster Brown’s beloved pet in the classic comic strip.
Read Out Loud Books. Dodd & Mead, 1911. Special Collections, University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware.
cute! but maybe also a little creepy.
Kellie at And I Get Dressed (if you’re not reading her blog, you should, she’s fabulous!) shared a fall preview of ASOS Curve and I love the collection on many levels. But my favorite part is that the collection isn’t obsessed with making the model look thin.
There’s nothing wrong with not being thin, and I’m getting really tired of every brand and fashion expert focusing on this. While more and more brands are offering plus sized fashion and more experts recognizing that women in double digit dress sizes enjoy fashion and desire style, the focus seems to be on how to make our curvy bodies look leaner instead of how to wear fun, fashionable and event-appropriate quality clothing.
No matter what direction the stripes or the length of our skirt, we’re moving, living women who deserve to have as much fun with the contents of our closet as our slimmer sisters. We shouldn’t be restricted to “figure flattering” styles when fashion, especially this year, is just so much fun. Cool silhouettes, references to past decades, use of drape and texture… we deserve to enjoy whatever trend we like!
There’s nothing wrong with choosing fashion that slims the figure, but it’s nice to have options to choose what you want to wear, not what society thinks you should. So kudos to you ASOS Curve for showing on-trend fashion that focuses on style instead of just trying to whittle a waist or lengthen a line (or give up on us and put us in cheap polyester prints). I think I’ll be picking up a few pieces from your line to add fun to my wardrobe!
The post Kudos to ASOS Curve! appeared first on Wardrobe Oxygen.
Getty Image
Today in jokes that write themselves, James Cameron says that if it weren’t for James Cameron, a producer would’ve cast OJ Simpson in James Cameron’s 1984 classic ‘The Terminator.’ A role he didn’t end up playing until 1994. (Look, I only said it so no one else would).
In EW’s oral history of the 1984 sci-fi classic, director James Cameron recalls his reaction when Orion Pictures proposed the retired NFL superstar as the lethal killing machine from the future. “[Orion chief Mike] Medavoy came to me and [producer Gale Anne Hurd] and he said, ‘Are you sitting down? You must sit down. I want O.J. Simpson for the Terminator. Gale and I just looked at each other and thought, ‘You’ve got to be f- - -ing kidding me. How do we get out of this?”
“That did come out of my mouth,” Medavoy says. “At the time, O.J. Simpson had one of those commercials for Hertz where he jumped over a counter and ran to get a rental car. It was all of that athletic stuff, which I thought the Terminator should have.”
Medavoy was so serious about the idea that he actually approached Arnold Schwarzenegger about possibly playing Reese instead. And as if the jokes weren’t already writing themselves, here’s why Cameron said he objected:
Interestingly, it was Simpson’s pleasant persona that turned off Cameron. “This was when everybody loved him, and ironically that was part of the problem—he was this likable, goofy, kind of innocent guy. Plus, frankly, I wasn’t interested in an African-American man chasing around a white girl with a knife.” [EW]
Cameron later added (*rimshot*) , then slipped on a banana peel and got hit in the crotch with a pie.
Hey, say what you will, OJ was great in ‘Naked Gun’.
Jill VLove it
May your Sperrys give you blisters, may your son be uninterested in inheriting your Patek Phillipe.
May your housekeeper be an American citizen; may she have an up-to-date OSHA regulations handbook in her purse at all times.
May you forget to update your summer residence information in time to make it into the Social Register’s Dilatory Domiciles this year.
May you develop carpal tunnel your first year of Princeton crew; may you be invited only to the dinner clubs founded after 1950.
May your summer internship be affected by your Gentleman’s C.
May your first divorce remove you from the rolls of the St. Cecilia’s Society; may your ex-wife be named next year’s Social Chair.
May the board vote no.
May your middle name be misspelled when your country retreat is featured in Architectural Digest.
May your second wedding be absent from the Marriages section of the Sunday Times; may your first wife’s remarriage receive two fat columns and a 400×500.
May your invitation to the Bohemian Club be lost in the mail; may you be forced to visit your wife’s relatives in Pasadena this year.
May the bridge named after your great-grandfather collapse, killing fourteen.
May all of your private jets disappear in the fog over Martha’s Vineyard.
May your daughter remain waitlisted even after your generous donation to Harvard.
May your mistress and your wife buy the same model of yacht, so that you can never be sure if you’re keeping the bills separate.
May your stroke never improve, may your Tom Collins always be watered down at the nineteenth hole, may the links be always affected by ongoing club construction.
May your son’s fraternity be visited by scandal and defeats in both polo and lacrosse.
May all your employees demand comprehensive health insurance; may the hospital wing named after your father fail to develop any interesting cures this year.
May your ex-husband marry Wendi Deng and change the terms of your children’s trusts in her favor.
May something terrible happen to The Markets.
May your Fraxel session leave you reddened for an extra three days; may all of your tennis bracelets have to get resized.
May all of your sons become DJs, may all of your daughters design handbags.
Read more Rich People Curses at The Toast.
Hobby Lobby doesn't want its health plans to provide contraception to its employees, and the Supreme Court says that's fine. So where is a conscientious shopper supposed to go now? Some recommendations.
Plush monkey magnet with very long arms
Try BigZoo!
German Hanomag SDKFZ 251/1 model kit
Try Amazon!
Sock shaper
Maybe try letting your socks be themselves.
Zero birthday candle
Are you zero? You don't need a candle because you do not exist. Are you ten? Just get ten normal candles. Are you twenty or older? You're too old for candles.
"This shirt is illegal" shirt
Draw a cross on a normal shirt. OR: Take off your pants and go outside, which is illegal in even more countries. Happy shopping!
The post Six Essential Hobby Lobby Products (And Where To Buy Them Now) appeared first on The Awl.
Jill Vagreed
I’m not sure I want to have kids. I look at parenthood like I look at skydiving: I admire those who do it, but I’m not sure it’s for me. That said, I love other people’s baby photos! And if you don’t, you are a multi-tentacled slime monster from the pit of Schmogendor, the Land of Fire.
Okay! I recognize that some people post too many baby photos. Everyone has his or her own idea of what “too many” means. I am guilty of posting too many puppy photos, like this one I am posting right here of Morley Safer (she is a girl but she looks like Morley Safer) BASKING PEACEFULLY IN THE SUNSHINE OH MY GOD I LOVE HER:
But baby photos are great! Now listen, I don’t think anyone deserves a medal for letting some guy throw it up inside her, or that any guy deserves a medal for throwing it up inside a lady, or for engaging in fertility treatments. People who adopt DO deserve medals, as do people who foster kids (I am talking about good people here who do a good job with both of these amazing tasks, not weirdoes). But anyway, my interest in baby photos is not about the adults posting them. My interest is in the babies.
Good Lord, are babies fun to look at! They have chubby cheeks and silly eyes and they make noises and they are goofy as all hell. Babies don’t give a fuuuuuuck because they don’t know they are supposed to give a fuck (yet). Babies are hilarious and wonderful and I understand that they make life a living hell sometimes, but that’s not my problem because as we have already addressed, I ain’t got no babies! I am therefore free to enjoy looking at babies and shrieking over how cute their widdle faces are.
I will “like” any baby photo you put on Facebook or Instagram. I seriously will. I don’t give a fuck; I’m wild.
And as for mothers in particular who post lots of baby photos, well gosh, if they make you mad, I mean, do you know how hard it is to have a kid? I mean actually have one, like have it in your house. It’s beyond a full-time job. Kids always need things, and they will die SUPER quick if you don’t give them the things they need, like food and medicine and water and other important things I don’t know about because, again, I ain’t got no babbbbbies. But they are precious and amazing to gaze at, with their lovely eyelashes and their lovely lips and their cute little feetses, squee! Aww, babies! They should be documented.
Baby photos don’t make me WANT babies. They don’t make me covetous. They make me APPRECIATE babies and the hard work and sacrifice that goes into having them, especially for people who can’t afford round-the-clock nannies. I say this knowing full well that it’s hard as hell even WITH round-the-clock nannies!
Do you know how hard it is to make a baby? I don’t mean the fuckening. I mean the ripening, the growing within the wom-buh. Did you know that making a baby inside you means that you have to pee more? Do you know that sometimes when you have the baby the lady’s body RIPS APART between the vaginal opening and the anal opening? DID YOU FUCKING KNOW THAT THIS IS COMPLETELY NORMAL AND EXPECTED? DID YOU?!?!
And if you don’t have the baby out your vagina, you can have it out your tummy, which means that a doctor cuts you open and then TAKES OUT YOUR INTERNAL ORGANS and then takes out a baby and then PUTS THE INTERNAL ORGANS BACK IN and sews you up. Maybe, just maybe, you’ve earned your right to take a few cute photos of the creature that made your body into a TEMPORARY ARCHAEOLOGICAL DIG?!
Okay, I know some parents can be awful. I know that. I know that. I know that. I know they can be braggy and sanctimonious and — this is the worst part — very judgmental about OTHER parents. That seems so unfair to me when everyone is just trying his or her best to do the best, right? I’ve heard it called “mompetition” but I bet there is “dadpetition” too.
And fellow child-free people, I know some people treat us like we are less-than just because we don’t have kids. I feel bad for those people, because what their judgment tells me is that they have nothing interesting in their lives besides kids. But that isn’t the fault of the kids! So I don’t hate their kids simply because Mom and Dad or Mom and Mom or Dad and Dad or Genderqueer Individual and Genderqueer Individual might think I’m lame for not having kids.
Anyway, parents can be awful but babies are always awesome. So when we say “Ugh, I HATE looking at baby photos” what we are really saying is “Ugh, I HATE when parents are annoying and snobby.” And this is why sites like STFU, Parents exist. It is a funny site that has nothing to do with hating babies and everything to do with hating people who act like babies are trophies or fancy accessories.
Babies are not trophies or fancy accessories. Babies are Hard Work and they are Hella Cute and should be photographed often, doing adorable things.
In short: more baby photos! More baby photos everywhere! More baby photos all of the time, until the end of time!
The post If You Don’t Like Baby Photos, You Are An Actual Human-Shaped Monster appeared first on Happy Nice Time People.
Children ask why the sky is blue, and there usually isn't anybody around to provide a satisfying answer. The sky is blue because… the atmosphere? And gases. The sky is blue because of the air and the Sun. The sky is blue because the sky is blue, and it's time to go to school. Maybe they'll tell you there.
But what kind of child would look at the sky today, when there's so much going on down here? The sky suggests infinity but the little screen on dad's phone seems to supply it. What is the answer, then, when a child asks: Why is the internet blue?
The blue at the top of this post is a Google blue. It's not the only Google blue, just the Google blue you see the most. How was it chosen? Another blue, a slightly different Google blue, the story goes, was selected by a designer who liked how it looked. But this designer was told by a manager that this blue was the wrong blue: Another blue, testing revealed, had resulted in more clicking. Their boss intervened. 41 blues, between the nice blue and the powerful blue, were tested for efficacy. One prevailed.
Twitter blue is known in Twitter's official branding guidelines as Twitter Blue. Some birds are blue and Twitter's logo is a bird. Twitter's logo wasn't a bird until someone pointed out that it should be, because Twitter's name is Twitter, and Twitter agreed. But birds are also red, and brown, and black.
A designer for Tumblr says Tumblr is blue, and "dark," because nobody notices blue. "Everything’s blue," he says. "Posts are bright on that blue background and lifted up with shadows." Blue is for the parts you "don’t need immediately." You can make your Tumblr any color you want; it will appear that way to you, and to people to come directly to your page on their own. Your Tumblr doesn't have to be blue until it shares space with others.
On the dashboard, everyone is trying to be noticed, but everyone is blue.
This is Instagram blue.
This is Instagram blue after treatment with the "Hudson" filter, which is itself tinted blue.
It takes time for languages to accommodate the full spectrum of visible color. Words for black and white usually appear first, because they are nearly synonymous with light and dark. Maybe then red and green, then blue. Is this because blue objects are rare in nature? But water, and the sky. Homer described both, but never called them blue:
Rather than being ignorant of color, it seems that the Greeks were less interested in and attentive to hue, or tint, than they were to light. As late as the fourth century BC, Plato named the four primary colors as white, black, red, and bright.
Color connotes time, and LinkedIn blue connotes the 90s, when job hunting was a lot more fun. Maybe LinkedIn users are less interested in and attentive to hue, too. The sea is winelike; LinkedIn is joblike.
Microsoft blue, a new blue, is the loudest blue, because who would ever wonder why Microsoft is blue? Microsoft blue is Weezer blue.
In an interview a few years ago, Mark Zuckerberg explained why Facebook is blue:
Colors don’t matter much to Zuckerberg; a few years ago, he took an online test and realized that he was red-green color-blind. Blue is Facebook’s dominant color, because, as he said, 'blue is the richest color for me—I can see all of blue."
His version of the internet is profoundly blue, bluer than any internet before, for a reason he didn't realize was personal until long after the decision was made. It had been fortunate for him, a young citizen of the internet, that links, traditionally, are blue. But why are links blue? Did he ever ask?
The man who invented links was writing them to a grayscale screen. The first popular browser, Mosaic, later turned links blue because it was the darkest color available at the time that wasn't black; they needed to stand out, but only just. Blue was the best alternative. Blue always survives the focus group. Blue wins the a/b test. Which is convenient, because blue is usually already there.
Why is the internet blue? The internet is blue because… the atmosphere? And gases. The internet is blue because of its air and its Sun. The internet is blue because the internet is blue, and it's time to go to school. Maybe they'll tell you there.
22 CommentsThe post Internet, Why So Blue? appeared first on The Awl.
Jill VI love reading anything Heather Havrilesky writes. Do you see yourselves in this description:
"I liked sharp teeth and snide remarks and also the occasional high five. Not total dicks, mind you—I do have deathly accurate dick-dar. But I have always had a weakness for a good rollicking gaggle of funny, emotionally withholding escapists and addicts and also just basic dudes who like deconstructing mindless blockbusters. Those who are allergic to talk of feelings. Condescenders. And also gushing enthusiasts. How do they find each other? They do, and when they do, they high-five over having found each other."
Hi Polly,
One of the goals I have set for myself this year is to be a kinder person: more supportive and forgiving of my friends, more friendly and open to people I've just met, more approachable and compassionate with strangers. The problem is that this is a huge struggle because I am not naturally compassionate with people I don't already like.
I have two reasons for wanting to be kinder: to ~make the world a better place~ in an abstract karmic kind of way, and also (this one is selfish) to fight against my depression, defensiveness, and general negative attitude toward life by opening myself up to more experiences. The first one is all well and good, but it's not such an immediate motivating force, and the second one has its own built-in issues. When you're already sensitive to the thought that people won't like you, any small "no" and any negative aspect to a person makes you shrink away and turn your back preemptively.
Both my parents have very negative personalities and apparently deal with it in one of two ways: by sinking into a nasty, angry depression-pit or by maintaining iron control of everyone and denying that anything is wrong while things melt down around them. They had an acrimonious divorce about 10 years ago, when I was in middle school, and things are still raw. Being seven years older than my younger sister, I became her advocate and protector, and also tried to smooth things over between my parents wherever I could. I have definitely learned a lot of criticism from them, both of myself and of everyone else.
I've been working really hard to be less judgmental and the constant negative mental narration is much better, but I still catch myself evaluating new people that I meet for their quality as a friend, and if I don't feel that they meet up to all these expectations I have of intelligence, being interesting, being accepting, etc., I don't spend any time or effort getting to know them better. I find a lot of people tiresome, boring, annoying, etc., and then make no effort to disguise my annoyance with them. It's really asshole-y. Even with my friends, I'm not as gentle as I would like to be. I snap at them if I'm in a bad mood, I'm not as forgiving of their imperfections as they are of mine, and I'm told that I'm an intense conversationalist, I strongly defend my opinions, and that I have a lot of them.
Plus, I'm hungry for a relationship with emotional intimacy, but when I begin to get close to someone that I feel safe with and attracted to, they don't feel the same way. Either that or they are attracted to me "too much" or whatever, or want things to be too serious, and then I leap away myself. It's fucked up!!! (This is complicated by my bisexuality, because sometimes I will get intensely emotionally close with a girl, feel sparks flying, try to make a move, and she will tell me she loves me but only as a friend.)
The best and most beloved friends that I have are so generous with their emotional energy, their compassion, their interest in someone else's life, and it looks as natural to them as breathing. I try to open up to everything life has, and be kind and compassionate, and let things happen to me, and I'm burned out and even snappier and more defensive than ever after two measly weeks. Self-compassion is an important part of this (right?) and I've really been improving with negative self-talk, body image, blah blah, but I can't seem to shake the outward-directed nastiness.
I guess the dilemma here is: How do you continue opening yourself to the world when you've been burned (or thought you've been burned, or burned someone yourself) so many times? How do you take your shriveled up angry sad heart and rehydrate it?
Thanks P.
Nasty Girl
Dear Nasty Girl,
As a former/occasional Nasty Girl, I take great satisfaction in thinking that Ask Polly might serve as a beacon unto the nasty, a place of refuge for those sharp of tongue and intense of conversation, who are gently and not-so-gently corrected by others, over and over again, like naughty little dogs on choke chains who will never, ever learn. Some of the greatest and most talented writers and artists were nasty motherfuckers who could never, ever learn—but this world we live in has maybe the lowest tolerance for nastiness ever. We, perhaps unfairly or perhaps logically, associate nastiness with prejudice and hate crimes and running over poor children in your Hummer and kicking poor kittens with your $4000 Hobnailed Prada Platform Ankle Boots. Nastiness is treated as a byproduct of religious fervor or racism or ignorance or misogyny or extreme privilege.
But what about nastiness that's a byproduct of the soul's gentle bleatings, from deep within, over the supreme stupidity and obvious terribleness of what passes for pleasant conversation today? What about nastiness that rises in one's throat when one observes the popular dipshits of the world, raking in millions with their mediocre flailings, while thoughtful eccentrics wallow and languish in obscurity? What about the nastiness that bubbles up when one realizes that some of one's closest compadres are content to blather endlessly about the same old tired shit, repeating tropes they've heard on TV and in strident but gutless Op-Ed columns and in bland, repetitive nonfiction bestsellers in which one single stupid idea (Work Less! Be More French! Psychopaths Are Fascinating!) is belabored in sloppy sentences that tangle together in terrible stultifying piles?
Please understand I'm not arguing against bad taste so much as laziness. I'm certainly not taking a stand against, say, watching the Stanley Cup finals and high-fiving over fried cheese and watery beers, which sounds awesome. I'm not even talking about thoughtlessness, because a lack of neuroticism can be refreshing, as long as it's not accompanied by shitty judgment and the dull, humorless, rigid nothingness that today passes for an acceptable personality, as long as it's sugared over in today's appropriate flavors of Yes Man affability.
So let's just acknowledge that today's world may abhor grumpy assholes, but many grumpy assholes are thoughtful and open-hearted, and many open-hearted-seeming types are inwardly rigid and ignorant and blind in ways that fuck the semi-aware, fuck the planet and everything on it, and fuck the small and the oppressed who are struggling mightily to get a foothold in a cruel world.
Another tough thing is that, when you're young, you can really screw up your entire worldview if you lazily persist in hanging around people who don't make the least bit of sense to you. For example, I was once drawn to those who drank the most and smoked the most pot without getting sloppy or weirdly sentimental. I liked sharp teeth and snide remarks and also the occasional high five. Not total dicks, mind you—I do have deathly accurate dick-dar. But I have always had a weakness for a good rollicking gaggle of funny, emotionally withholding escapists and addicts and also just basic dudes who like deconstructing mindless blockbusters. Those who are allergic to talk of feelings. Condescenders. And also gushing enthusiasts. How do they find each other? They do, and when they do, they high-five over having found each other.
Even as I write this, I long for that swaggery douchebag scene a little, because there was a lot of bluster and self-confidence in the mix. But here's the thing: As a nasty intense woman without the proper disguises in place, it's very difficult to let your glorious freak flag fly among conformist high-fivers. They don't know they're conformists, of course, since they're all smart and weird in their own high-fiving way. They make observations, they have senses of humor. But when you throw out your own loose, nutty shit, they kick it away and snort and you are agreed to be Not Quite Right. Some conformists will only embrace ideas that come out of crappy repetitive nonfiction bestsellers and sportscasters' mouths.
Conformists need a strong leader to tell them who to like and who not to like, whether that leader is on the TV or in fully sanctioned and embraced books. If you're not a leader and you're young and not that strong, they are going to tell you everything original and flawed and brilliant about you is fucking queer and stupid. SO FUCK THEM. Sometimes you feel unkind around people like that because you know that they'll never make space for you. Noticing this is not nasty, it's adaptive.
At age 21, surrounding yourself with people who reflect your own self-hatred back at you is a fucking catastrophe. By the same token, if you're running around with tons of self-hatred on board, most social relations are going to get pretty catastrophic.
Case in point: Let's talk about truly open-hearted women who support exactly who you are. I had friends like that in high school, somewhat miraculously. Because I was angry and was so used to being rejected by my own undeniably loving but confused Little Brute Family, I didn't realize it. I assumed my high school lady friends were faking it, that they didn't really love me the way they pretended to. I felt this way because I didn't understand how to love them for who they were yet. And when one friend tried to hook up with MY hook up (not even a boyfriend), I was ENRAGED. That proved she didn't really love me – it proved that NONE OF THEM loved me. I thought I was the only one with Real Feelings and everyone else was cavalier – they simply knew how to ACT like they cared. I thought they were masters of illusion.
So that's when I chased after the swaggery douchebags described above, in college and maybe beyond.
It took so much time and distance to make sense of all this. I had to write a memoir about my confusion, just to make sense of it. My book is all about beating back your own nastiness and fear and confusion after growing up in a Little Brute Family.
There are obviously a million abstractions and conflicts to explore here, but let's get concrete. You want to be a kinder person. Quieting those self-hating sounds in your head, as you've been trying to do, is definitely the first step. When a voice in your head says, "You are such a fucking asshole. You are so impatient and fault-finding, just like your mother," you have to notice. Just noticing is sometimes enough, because over time you'll say, "Jesus, every single tiny thing I do is a major mistake, according to this voice." And the voice will get quieter and less relentless, slowly but surely.
Remember that everyone with a conscience and a tough past eats themselves alive if they don't work hard not to. You are who you are and you are trying hard to improve yourself. You're working at acceptance. And maybe you need to accept that life is not endless communing with smart, hilarious, like-minded geniuses. Everyone is flawed. Everyone can sound boring at some point. People often—OFTEN!—sound much more trivial and shallow than they actually are. That's how we're taught to sound, in our culture. Trivial and shallow win the day.
So accept your flawed, moody self and accept the flawed, moody, annoying world around you. Shallowness is sometimes a retreat from darkness. High-fiving is a way of celebrating small shit, as a means of not feeling contemptuous or sullen about bigger shit. When you're young, you don't know that almost everyone around you struggles with their own judgments and nastiness and moods. People are usually more complicated than they appear.
The better you get at allowing yourself space to be flawed, the better you'll be at not lashing out at other people's flaws. And the better you'll be at turning your back on people who basically don't like you. People who do love you are almost always worth keeping, even if they themselves are very different from you. If they support your weirdness, and allow you space, then you should work to support them, too. When you really lean into differences, explore them, take an interest in them instead of feeling threatened by them, then it's possible to celebrate them. It's possible to be that kind person you want to be without making a Herculean effort to do so. Taking a real interest, asking questions, shutting off your bad shriveled brain and exploring in a new land, is much more substantive and rewarding than simply TRYING TO BE NICER.
Writing down what you've learned and observed about your friends and other people can help. Sometimes you won't like what you observe. But other times you'll let your friends and acquaintances blossom and show their weird selves and you'll be able to appreciate them. Writing down what you're grateful for every night also helps to cultivate gratitude, and open-heartedness. Any writing you do that allows your feelings to flood in, even if it's all anger and sadness some days, is going to help you.
But you also have to know your own limits and respect them. If you start compulsively giving and giving and giving, that won't do shit for you. It will only make you dislike everyone, and dislike yourself for not being someone who can give endlessly. Give what you can, but don't overachieve. Let yourself be a fucking person. This is one of the big lessons of motherhood: when you give much more than you can naturally tolerate giving, it just makes you grumpy. Your kids don't need that. An hour of total focus and enthusiasm, offered after you exercise and get a little work done, feels much healthier and happier for everyone involved than several long hours of half-assed trying to "bond" while feeling pissy because you've been pulling ugly outfits onto Barbies for too long.
So that's what I'd say: Embrace who you are. Give yourself space. Shut down the "fuck you" voice in your head. Respect your own limits. Do what you can but don't do what you can't. Don't punish yourself for being you. And don't spend time with people who aren't equipped to embrace you or appreciate you, who will tell you you're rotten simply because they hate difference.
Nasty Girls can be open-hearted, if they embrace their own flaws, if they embrace their softness, if they embrace the inherent contradictions therein, if they embrace the inherent contradictions in everyone else and in everything else. People who righteously point out contradictions all the time are usually people who are too rigid and dumb to recognize that each and every one of us is in conflict constantly. The most serene Buddhist in the universe recognizes that contradiction lives at the center of everything. People who claim moral high ground or even total consistency are not to be trusted for a second.
Right now you're trying hard to be nicer and more open-hearted, but you're bludgeoning yourself for it. "BE KINDER, ASSHOLE! BE NICER, YOU SORRY OVERLY CRITICAL PIECE OF SHIT!" The soul rebels from that. It will make you even meaner if you don't respect its wishes. When I say to myself, "WRITE FASTER! BE MORE BRILLIANT, YOU SLUGGISH FUCK!" the fairy godmother in my soul says, "Bibbedy bobbity boo! You will now be devoid of original creative thoughts for days on end!"
You are becoming kinder, and sometimes you feel really angry and mean. That's OK. Give yourself credit for small efforts, and give yourself credit for WANTING to be kinder, which proves that you aren't the total dick you think you are. Give yourself credit for having a sharp mind that likes to slice and dice. Give yourself credit for having friends who do care, who love flinty, frustrating you, in spite of everything.
Give yourself credit for being a Nasty Girl. Dave Chappelle and Lorde and Joan Didion and Kanye West and Tori Amos and Jonathan Ames and Elaine Dundy and Adrienne Rich are all nasty girls. John Updike and Cynthia Heimel and Sofia Coppola and David Chase and Stevie Nicks and David Sedaris and Jennifer Egan and Kim Gordon and Iris Owens are nasty girls, too. It's ok to be bored and annoyed and sick inside. Put it somewhere. Write something freakishly mean and scathing and gloriously self-aware and self-abnegating and grandiose and sad. Create something soaring and melancholy and frustrating. You are full of so many charged, combustible thoughts and feelings. You are full and rich and alive and you deserve to feel what you feel and be who you are. Celebrate the nasty. Lean in, Nasty Girl. Lean the fuck in and be nasty. Not callous. Not withdrawn. Not punishing. Not escaping. Not self-destructing. Engaged and furious and generous and heartbroken and glorious and nasty, nasty, nasty.
Polly
Do you want to wash away all of your nastiness and replace it with a healthy golden glow without chemicals that have been tested on animals? Write to Polly and discuss!
Heather Havrilesky (aka Polly Esther) is The Awl's existential advice columnist. She's also a regular contributor to The New York Times Magazine, and is the author of the memoir Disaster Preparedness (Riverhead 2011). She blogs here about scratchy pants, personality disorders, and aged cheeses.
Photo by Alias
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We close pollinator week with this animated tribute to the bees, bugs, birds, bats, and others who make life a little sweeter.
Original from Maria Sibylla Merian’s Raupen wunderbare Verwandelung und sonderbare Blumennahrung , 1730
BRAS. Victoria’s Secret bras are designed to perfectly cup and support the breasts.* While the ideal Victoria’s Secret customer is a B- or C-cup, we do cater to those less fortunate. For small-chested women, we have a range of bras enhanced with six inches of foam padding or one liter of gel filling in order to achieve a presentable appearance. The busty woman can occasionally find a bra of her size in mustard yellow or neon giraffe-print in one of our bargain bins. Any customer, however, who requests an uncommon size, such as 30AA or 40G, should be answered with a pitying stare and a vigorous shake of the head.
*Of a mannequin.
PANTIES. Victoria’s Secret panties also come in a range of sizes and styles. A size XS was modeled on the derriere of a capuchin monkey; they go up from there. Though the amount of material varies wildly among styles and sizes – an XS V-String is basically a rubber band and a fabric Dorito, while an XL Brief could double as a baby sling – the prices are the same across the board. Each style of panties should be separated into four categories: normal solids (black, white, gray), normal prints (polka dots, stripes, hearts), neon solids, and “Slutty Lisa Frank.”
ART. Art is integral to the Victoria’s Secret customer experience. In every store, hundreds of retouched, airbrushed, black & white, candlelit photographs of Victoria’s Secret “Angels” are mounted at eye-level. Once ushered into a fitting room, the customer will encounter a 16×20, framed print of supermodel Adriana Lima’s flawless posterior, directly to the left of the mirror. Studies have found that 35% of customers will bypass the fitting process and head directly to the cashier to avoid the paralyzing indignity of direct comparison to Adriana Lima.
LIGHTING. Similarly, the lighting in Victoria’s Secret fitting rooms is of the utmost importance. It must be dim enough to conceal any dust bunnies, wads of hair, or questionable stains on the carpet, yet strategically angled to illuminate the stomach, buttocks and thighs in a way that spotlights every mole, dimple, stretch mark, and spider vein. When a customer turns to check her behind in a rhinestone-encrusted Cheekini, it is imperative that she nearly pull a hamstring trying to figure out if that’s a previously undiscovered birthmark or just a shadow. It is no coincidence that as she flees the fitting room, she will run straight into our beauty section, where we have a perennial sale on our various bronzers, self-tanners, and shimmer lotions designed to conceal human skin.
SALESPERSONS. In the average store visit, no less than 18 employees should interact with the customer, a strategy known as “Angel Ambush,” the end goal of which is to commit her to a Victoria’s Secret Angel Credit Card. When a customer first enters the store, she is to be greeted and then eyed up by a hulking male doorman/bouncer. In an attempt to avoid the scrutiny of the bouncer as she peruses and selects undergarments, the customer will move deeper into the store, at which point her path is to be blocked by a salesperson. This salesperson will offer to sign her up for the credit card. If the customer refuses, eight more salespersons are to confront her within the next five minutes. Employees are encouraged to use increasingly condescending and/or vaguely threatening tones with each additional offer.
CASHIERS. Once at the cash register, if the salespersons have failed to acquire the customer’s Social Security Number, the cashier should casually request her e-mail address and zip code. If asked for a reason, the cashier should mutter something unintelligible, inserting words like “receipt,” “standard procedure” and/or “free birthday thong” among the gibberish. Under no circumstances should the cashier inform the customer they will receive 12 e-mails a day and 35 catalogs a month for the rest of their life. Once the transaction is complete, the cashier should hand over the customer’s purchase in the largest available iconic blood-red-and-hot-pink Victoria’s Secret bag. Don’t forget to include the free matching duffle bag where applicable!
Read more Excerpts From the Victoria’s Secret Employee Handbook at The Toast.
Jill V"Natural" repellents might be worse for you than DEET.
Hooray, you guys! It's outdoor sunshine BBQ lake lounging tiki torch season! But you know what that means: It's also gross bugs eating you alive and feasting on your blood and giving you disfiguring welts and deadly diseases season. Bogus.
