Welcome to Love Actually Season! 😂 ❤️

It's a movie, it's a mantra, but above all... it's a much-needed moment.

Live footage of my dad getting ready for heart surgery.

Hello, Lovelies, How the hell are you?

I know for a lot of people going home for the holidays can be complicated… and a bit like Beau is Afraid, which I feel is one of Ari Aster's finer works, even though people got really peeved that it wasn't technically a horror movie. I don't know about you, but for me, waking up with an ankle monitor at your parent’s house on a weekend visit home evokes utterly terrifying Final Girl montage scenes. I might as well be trapped in a f*cking Scream marathon. Not that I don’t love my family…

I’m worried about us all being home for Thanksgiving this year because my dad's having heart surgery again, and I'm so afraid of accidentally killing him with my sparkling personality…

Or by bickering over politics with my brother, which is pretty much guaranteed given the current Polycrisis and his insistence on always talking over me, which ultimately results in us having to write up grievance lists like some oddball Seinfeldian Festivus.

You see, as a Sagittarian who is true to her sign, I have trouble not having fun.

For example, last year my brother tried to cancel Christmas with no presents, no tree, or Christmas Eve dinner, and I said, "Nothing doing, you joyless miscreant!" So, here was Christmas:

See? Now, isn’t THIS better? Credit: Love Audrey (Actually) from The Six Bells.

Because WHO doesn’t love

Audrey Gelman

from The Six Bells? She’s a kickass Worldbuilder whenever you need an authentic Christmas on the fly. Then, I even rewrote Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas and released it on the Internet for Needy, our bereft little chicken who follows us around the house like a dog because she survived a craven attack where all of her chicken siblings were made into lunch meat by a ravenous bear. It was just like that scene from The Revenant. A veritable Leo DiCaprio sandwich!

This year, of course, Trader Joe's has the jump on all of us—long before Mariah Carey takes to the airwaves for her eight-week loop of All I Want For Christmas Is You.

Yes, they have managed to create these terrifically DIABOLICAL Thanksgiving Stuffing Potato Chips that are straight out of Willy Wonka's Factory, which, if you like stuffing, you will Love Actually.

These chips are MAGIC!

I’m telling you, they TRULY belong in the That's Marvelous section because they are a feat, nay a holy marvel, of food engineering rivaling Black Mirror-level science fiction... and anything that those people at Impossible Foods and Engineered Meats could come up with (ok, that sounds a bit scary, doesn't it?). Anyway, remember that scene from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory where Violet Beauregarde snatches the Three Course Dinner Chewing Gum from Willy’s hands?

For those needing a refresher, this was the proprietary chewing gum invented by Wonka that feeds a person almost like they are really eating a fantastic dinner, starting with tomato soup, roast beef, and baked potato before concluding with blueberry pie and ice cream. So, Violet chews it, despite Willy’s warning NOT to do so, because the gum still has some quality control issues. Consequently, she turns into a giant blueberry, and the Oompa Loompas have to roll her away to juice her to get her back to a person-sized person, although we are not sure how they are going to un-blue her. It goes without saying that Violet traumatized a whole generation of kids.

Thankfully, this did NOT happen to yours truly!

Still, these Thanksgiving stuffing chips come with all the glory of that Wonka dinner gum! They are like Chef Alison Roman’s classic stuffing recipe but with NONE of the gruesome side effects, barring a few extra calories. Last I checked, I neither resemble a stock of celery nor a baguette! 

However, in one SINGLE chip, you will experience vivid and distinct notes of turkey, celery, sage, onion, carrot, and a bit of gravy... yes, ALL on a chip! It even had a kind of bready undertone to it. It was so hard to keep from eating the whole bag. It was like a full-on Thanksgiving dinner on a chip, except without the cranberry sauce or the candied yams. If only I’d had the cranberry sauce, I probably would have dipped into it—and gone, "Good God, this is delicious.... disgusting, but WOW, delicious!"

So, I am afraid these chips have outdone both Mariah Carey and Willy Wonka.

All I want for Christmas is MORE of them, AND to never ever have to move again, along with a partner who doesn't yell at me so much, who wants to travel, go out to dinner, dance at the odd gala, attend book readings, the theater, and who will read aloud to me while I Therapy Bake new pie recipes and throw themed dinner parties now and then. Is that too much to ask? I also need someone with perfect grammar, Jack Smith-level integrity, and a sense of proportion about the world’s problems. Just put a bow on this person and send them care of gotham girl.

Now onto the doofuses, this week’s a doozy.

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Doofus(es) of the Week

Now, for our regularly scheduled programming!

Doofus #1: Marc Andreessen. Et tu, BrutAI? I’m afraid

lyz

covered this one so gorgeously, I’d just be repeating her word-for-word:

Dingus of the week: Marc Andreessen

Doofus #2: Jim Spanfeller who just shuttered Jezebel, “the site that launched a thousand bitches, including me.”

Doofus #3: Joe Effing Jonas AGAIN. I can’t remember where this came from, possibly The Spread, but “Joe Jonas again has spoken, anonymously, and it is to say this, per the Daily Mail: ‘[T]he singer feels it is 'too soon' for his spouse to be passionately kissing another man in public, according to insiders, who claim he has no interest in playing games.’ YOU ARE THE ONE WHO STARTED THE GAMES, JOSEPH, and this kind of sh*t with the Mail is just as much a play as anything else. Also, she’s only your spouse in technical terms,” so kindly f*ck off to the nearest black hole, you little assclown.

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That’s Marvelous!

It was Joni Mitchell’s 80th Birthday this week!

No doubt many of you have seen this… but her little smile at the end is the best. Just such a prolific genius.

More marvels: “She sounds like she’s reading Faulkner. And it’s not Faulkner.”

No wonder it’s SO compelling We LOVE Ada AND Michelle!

This just in from The Spread, but further updates on The Woman in Me mystery writer beat: “Last week Jacob Bernstein did a little digging and apparently found that friend-of-The Empress author Ada Calhoun penned the earliest draft—a task that saw her holed up with Brit Brit in Maui.” Nice work if you can get it, girl!

A charming, marvelous thing…

Cute Frenchies with the BEST Christmas ornaments ever…

marinmontagut

A post shared by @marinmontagut

Not to toot my own horn, but if you really need some laughs, I wrote this piece about fancy people farting in yoga…

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Before we part, you need the 20th-anniversary trailer to get you in the spirit… along with those magnificent chips.

Ok, our time on this earth is so brief. We might as well be brave. Stay safe, Lovelies, and know that I’m thinking of you always – xoxo, gotham girl

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