Sometimes you have to don the catsuit and remind people who they’re dealing with... 🐈⬛
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Sometimes you have to don the catsuit and remind people who they’re dealing with... 🐈⬛
“You look like a big pickleball guy,” I said. We were not off to a good start. 😂
Hello, Lovelies, How the hell are you?
I want to start by sending love as I am very mindful this week that many of you will be reeling from grief and sorrow. From a personal perspective, because of my family being the Royal Tennenbaums-UN of Mideast relations that it was, the war has rekindled complex memories I can’t yet share, but which have shaped me to this day. Someday I will. Like many, I feel helpless and wonder how we can best show up for each other and hold space while everything is still so raw and uncertain.
A couple of updates… my next book, This is Going to Be Hard for You is going to be partly serialized here on gotham girl. (I got the yes.) Because it’s a dark comedy with such graphic references to salty language, decadent violence, and bad sex, I’m keeping it behind the paywall. That said, if you’re someone who would like to be a beta reader on the project and not in a position to subscribe (so many of us are just eking by due to the various strikes), or if you’re a student, email me or let me know in the comments and I’m happy to oblige.
The second big, fun news this that author Jo Piazza managed to get a great 1:1 with our Trad Wife from last week! You can judge for yourself, but I find her remarkably un-nefarious and relatable. She reminds me of the times when I had it in me to be my best parent self.
The third thing I learned this week… is that my new toxic trait is that I am prone to ideate wildly while on hold for hours with the IRS and that highly detailed PowerPoints may ensue.
Doofus(es) of the Week
Now, for our regularly scheduled programming! This week is meh, compared to the world’s travesties.
Doofus #1: This spot was reserved for that dumbass Aaron Rodgers (see Lyz’s story about that ass clown), but no… New York City Mayor Eric Adams wins again.
Eric, my dude, stop letting people get gravely injured on the freakin’ subway. Another woman in critical condition from getting pushed into an oncoming train, and another man with a severely broken jaw. DO something about it. Install protective gates like the rest of the world. Get your citywide mental health game plan ON. Oldsters like me should not have to know Krav Maga just to go to the bookstore. And no, the solution is not an army of those robots that look like “air purifiers with faces.” I don't need another machine in my life peer pressuring me into engagement. What? Gaaaaaagh… I already have AI stealing my books, my dad shouting at Alexa to “play Kenny G everywhere, forEVER,” and hello? I do enough self-crimination on my own. Get your subway shit together, Eric, and hurry the f*ck up.
Doofus #2: Scholastic Books. Yes, the beloved institution where I got my first copy of the now-banned A Wrinkle in Time, The Scholastic Book Fair has fallen prey to book bans in the most insidious way possible. Their new segregated displays include, “30 books, ranging from The ABCs of Black History to biographies of Rep. John Lewis, Ruby Bridges, and Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.” EXCUSE ME? “There are picture books and graphic novels by poet Amanda Gorman, civil rights activist and football player Colin Kaepernick, and Jojo Siwa, a dancer and internet personality who came out as gay in 2021. A book based on the PBS animated show Alma's Way features a Puerto Rican family hunting for a kid's missing tooth.” WTAF, Scholastic? You can read more about it here.
Doofus #3: The person responsible for this. Really people? It was in The Daily Beast but could it please not be real? If it is, that guy is so fired and should be made to watch and then teach Alain Resnais’s Night and Fog as community service everywhere, all the time, forever.
Hate crimes are on an unprecedented rise and someone needs to cue the Calm app on a global level STAT (no, they did not sponsor this post). We seem to be in a “must-give our hot take” cultural moment no matter how absurd. Yet, most of us have zero experience when it comes to actual international diplomacy. We couldn't even be interns making Starbucks runs. To join the diplomatic corps is crazy-difficult. The test itself takes up to a year to prep for and has a ~30% pass rate. It helps to have a political science degree. Even then, the placement rate for a position is only about 1 to 2%. It's not an easy job to make peace for an actual living. There are ambassadors appointed to plum Shangri-La posts in return for campaign donations, other strategic backing, or long-term service, who are also often ill-equipped for the real job of diplomacy. It's not a mission to take lightly is all I'm saying. So, maybe the armchair experts should give it a rest.
OK, As you well know, there’s no shortage of doofuses, but I have such quality marvels and a follow-up to last week…
That’s Marvelous!
A new-ish segment luxuriating in the good things.
First, a follow-up to our story last week about Trad Wife Troll Alexia Delarosa. It is with great glee that I inform you that she IS FERAL ON PURPOSE but in her own authentic way.
It turns out… she’s just fun and when trolled, she trolls back—gently.
Now, when our kids were little and had birthdays… or there was a holiday, we went all out. You see, I love to celebrate. So, for our one daughter’s birthday, she was all about Cinderella, which means I got the full official costume from Disney. I didn’t really have big enough hair for the required bouffant (I realize now I needed Aquanet—this was my fail), and my then-husband, who was so awesome, would dress up in his tux as Prince Charming and chase me around the house with a glass slipper (an old shoe), i.e., “Have you seen Cinderella?” to the kids. And we would have this clue-based scavenger hunt to find the stolen crown jewels, which was basically a fancy pillowcase full of ring pops from the dollar store. The cake was beautiful, but beyond simple, red velvet layers slapped hastily together with thick whipped cream, gum drops, and sparkler candles. Every little girl invited had her own tulle princess skirt (quick aprons I’d sewn together with silk ribbon) paper crowns, and a wand made of spray-painted chopsticks, foil stars, and glitter. Then, as a parting gift, we would sign princess & prince autograph books and take polaroids with the littles, plus dole out silly treat bags. All of this made being a parent so much fun. It was like “Once Upon a Party…” and it gave the kids and us so much joy because this was all before Party City existed and the secret planning was wicked fun… so I grok this Mom, Lex Delarosa, for wanting to mix things up. And if someone wants to troll her for it, and she trolls them right back, which is sort of what I gather is happening, I say, good on her.
I just know I would have spent my whole life doing absurd Cinderella and Flower Fairie parties for our family because I loved seeing my girls that happy. In fact, we should have invited more people, like our extended family and friends because—I don’t think we realized it at the time, but we were so much fun. All families should have the joy we had.
But here’s Lex Delarosa in her own words with Jo Piazza.
A model for my artsy oldster Mom’une: Feytopia.
You are going to just die when you see this place… it is a group-owned castle in France that’s economically self-sustaining and where the friends can live out their days doing their art… Seeing as how no one can afford to retire in the US—this is my crazy plan:
A sweet marvel: Moonlighting
A friend texted me this week that she was rewatching Moonlighting and so I did too… and I have to tell you, my insomniac self had the best dreams. It was so nice to return to the gentler world of Agnes Depesto’s landline couplets, protective shoulder pads, and less vitriolic banter.
A final marvel: TueNight, oh my heart…
As reported earlier this week… it’s bittersweet, but I understand and am so grateful I got to know them before they took their bow. “At the end of this year, the TueNight chapter will be coming to a close.” Yes, after a decade of writing about her own experience of midlife, and publishing the voices of other women on their’s, Margit Detweiler will cease publishing TueNight.
The fun news: on Tuesday, November 21, TueNight will celebrate its “10 Years of Gen X Storytelling” with a big birthday bash at Caveat on the Lower East Side, hosted by Ophira Eisenberg, and featuring storytellers Abbe Aronson, Girls They Write Songs About author Carlene Bauer, Julia Khvasechko, Ebele Onyema, Penny Wrenn, and Carla Zanoni. I am trying to get my act together to fly back and attend… we shall see. Much depends on the family.
And this, just in from the Hinge pickleball set… Perhaps the next Gerry the Golden Bachelor? (Lol, how are THESE the choices out there for women… Where’s my whip?)
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Meanwhile, as a girl who worships midlife treasure, Hannah Waddingham, who was just named Woman of the Year this week by Glamour Magazine, I will be here watching the below on a loop until she tapes her next holiday special on November 12th. Lordy, does this lady have the pipes… (Yes, I know it’s not even Halloween yet, but forgive me, I’m a sap.)
Stay rad, Lovelies, and know that I’m thinking of you always – xoxo, gotham girl
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Sometimes you have to don the catsuit and remind people who they’re dealing with... 🐈⬛
Congrats on officially getting the nod to serialize your book. Where do I sign up? I’m in. ❤️❤️
GOD I needed that Moonlighting clip! Is it just me or does that classic song kinda sum up women's midlife experience of the men in our lives?? Anyway, I'm down for a women's late-life commune situation, but I beg you, no castles! Something modern, air-conditioned and grocery-store adjacent would suit me fine :)