PicoBlog

Many years ago, a version of the following story appeared in the Reader’s Digest. Mother had read it and told it at my table one holiday. Three men die together in an accident and go to heaven. When they reach the pearly gates, Peter says, “We only have on rule here in heaven: don’t step on the ducks!” So they enter heaven and there are ducks wall to wall. It is practically impossible not to step on a duck, and although they try their best to avoid them, almost immediately one of the men accidentally steps on one.

A law professor at Georgetown Law School, Sandra Sellers, has been fired because she is racist. She revealed her racism in a Zoom conversation with her colleague David Batson who nodded along to what she said. Batson is now on leave. Racism is everywhere, it’s our job to stamp it out, and Sellers’ racism was smoked out. She’s out. Social justice has been done. Sandra Sellers is a racist because she said this:

A few years ago, I read somewhere—maybe on a self-help blog, maybe on some r/AskReddit thread, who knows—about a young adult who had graduated from college and realized one day, this is my life. This isn’t me preparing for my life—this is my life. Seems like an obvious insight, perhaps, but for a teenager who had spent her entire life in school—in preparation for her life—this felt revelatory. One day, all the “obvious” stepping stones would be gone, and it would be up to me to find my own path forward.

I was struggling to think of a recipe or a hot kitchen tip to share with you this week and then I remembered that, for better or worse, I don’t have an editor here and I can write about whatever I want. So this week, I’d like to tell you about our bird. If you’re sad this week’s newsletter isn’t about food, I have included my recipe for pineapple upside down cake at the bottom of this newsletter for paid subscribers!

"So, what do you do for fun?” I asked a new friend a month or so ago in a cafe in Lisbon. We’d not known each other for very long, but we had very similar energies (in the way that anyone who spent their formative years on Tumblr does) and she looked at me over her Americano and said, “honestly, my main hobby is probably consuming media.” I practically yelled ‘SAME’ and told her that when I realised that consuming media was one of my hobbies it changed my life.

Seven days from tonight, Bear and I will be camping somewhere near Campos, California. Seven days. The night before D-Day, when we invade the trail. So many people ask me why we are doing this that I finally decided I needed a consistent answer, so instead of replying with something poetic such as “because it’s there,” or something lame such as “I want to find myself,” I find it easier to simply admit that I’m an imbecile.

i could see that happening! in that cliffhanger scene she definitely says yes. i mean she has to, right? you cant break up with someone at an empty amusement park! i think a fight will happen off camera, as someone else predicted in this comments, a la natalie and shayne, that ends it all. i'm not sure chelsea can see that their relationship is going nowhere. in that last fight they had, jimmy showed that he's at least living in reality.

The thing about Irish whiskey is that it’s cheap, delicious, and reliable. It also makes for a great Old Fashioned. Happy St. Patrick’s Day, folks. This week’s newsletter is arriving just a little bit early. When I go to divey hangout bars where fancy-shmancy cocktails aren’t the point — a category of bars, that, to be clear, I quite enjoy — I almost always order one of two things:  A beer

Hoo boy, the internet has a way of bringing me the craziest articles. Recently, I saw a name in the headlines that I haven’t seen in a minute: Lauren Southern.  For those not in the know, Lauren Southern was a darling of the alt-right. More specifically, she was a fairly open white nationalist who also espoused tradwife values. During her heyday, she was on FOX, had a bunch of films, and was a rather popular social media darling.