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Winter List Revisited

I'm always shocked when winter ends. Everyone complains about it so much that I think it'll never end because we all can't shut up about it, but here we are! Here's how my many things I actually did off of my winter list from December.

1. Drink a white Russian.

• Didn't do it. Damnit! Every time I'd try to get myself psyched up to do it, I'd remember, "Ugh. All that cream, who needs it." Maybe some day!

2. Play board games with the family at Christmas.

• Did it! And it was great.

3. Finally eat at Raclette in NYC.

• Didn't do it. Excuse? You really need someone who's equally passionate about cheese to go to this place with.

4. Visit the new Oscar Wilde inspired bar.

• Yikes, didn't do this one either. What's wrong with me? I need to make more attainable goals. And if you're sitting there thinking, "Jesus Liz, if one of your "goals" is to go to a fucking bar and you can't even do that, YIKES. Ya suck!" then, well, kindly please leave. 

5. Build a snowman.

• Okay, so I didn't do this but I did witness it being done. I'm taking a half point.

6. Finally try whipped cream vodka in a hot chocolate.

• Did it! It was just okay.

7. Successfully make a souffle for the first time.

• Totally did it! With Marla! And it was magical as hell! Maybe the most impressive dessert I've ever made. It tasted as though a cake had a baby with a mousse and out came a souffle - and I'm not sure if that's what it was supposed to taste like, but it was pretty good to me. I also made a creme caramel for the first time, so maybe I should have more food based goals. 

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8. Take at least five bubble baths.

• Yes! I think I may have even taken six, so suck on that! (Why is this attitude happening? Not sure.)

9. Literally just sit and watch the snow fall.

• Yes, of course. These are the types of activities that need to make appearances on all my lists, the easy ones that require little to no effort and give me an abnormal amount of pleasure.

10. Mail out holiday cards.

• You bet your ass.

6.5 out of 10, whoa! That's better than I thought I'd do. Look at that! Spring list coming tomorrow!

You can see more posts like this on my latest newsletter.

Girl Walks Into A Bar... By Rachel Dratch - A Review

Are you noticing how I am killing it with my book resolution? ARE YOU SEEING THIS? Spring just started and I'm already finished the book for this season! I don't want to blow your mind, but I may already be reading SPRING BOOK NUMBER TWO, watch out.

I've always liked Rachel Dratch, but I've never really known much about her. This book was great, she's super likable, and here were my favourite parts:

• <When talking about the SNL after parties> "Outsiders picture the parties as these debauched crazy affairs with comedians hanging off the chandeliers. That may have been true in the old days, but in my time, looking around the room, you might think the drug of choice was calamari." - It's not crazy funny or anything, but that line really made me laugh.

• <When she talks about this one time that her pants split on stage> "It all started with the sound of RRRIIIP, the loud sound of tearing fabric. I knew that sound could be only one thing... 'twas my pants splitting, and as luck would have it, this was the one night of my life that I wasn't wearing underwear." - I lost my mind at the word "'twas."

• <And then later in that same paragraph> "At this point in the show, I was sitting on the floor onstage - that's when my pants had split, when I went to sit on the floor. How bad was it? I looked down again. I saw my own humanity." - Hahahahahah, "humanity" is so genius of a word there, I want to scream.

• <When talking about Tina Fey> "I imagine we would both sign off on the statement that in dealing with feelings, she and I have different styles: I am a classic Pisces, prone to sensitivity and emotions, and she is German." - Hahah, love this line.

• Her speaking this way about her childhood dog makes me really love this woman: "She has been gone for more than twenty years now and I still miss her and have dreams about her."

• <When she went to a dog show> "A poodle with its fur in several hair ties and topknots walked endlessly in a circle, obviously insane." - Hahahahahah, "obviously insane"? Again, so funny, so perfect.

• <When at a crib store, talking to a salesperson> "I peered into a high-end crib that had cute padding around all the sides. "Now," said David, "some people are against this padding that goes around the sides, because the baby can roll over and get their face pressed up against it and they can..." He trailed off and made a face of "and you know what happens next." I filled in the blank for him. "She dead."" - Hahahahahahah, this woman is hysterical.

• <When thinking of what to name her baby> "I started to really like the name Hercules. Like for real. There were a few problems with the name, though. One: if I told my mom I was naming the baby Hercules, her head would fall off." - Hahahahah, I mean, am I alone in thinking this woman is the funniest person in the world right now? MAN.

• <When she's started to go into labour and her boyfriend is helping her pack for the hospital> "Umm, pajamas, some baby clothes to bring him home in, uh, an iPod. John said, "Do you want to bring a book?" "No." I continued my frantic packing. Toothbrush! Phone charger! "You want to bring a book!?" "No." Underwear! Camera! Slippers? "Now you're sure you don't want a book." "I don't know how to make this any clearer--I DON'T READ."" - Hahahahahahah, oh man, this woman. Love love love love.

Those are the absolute best parts of the book, in my opinion. And man she seems like such a great person, read this book!

You can see more posts like this on my latest newsletter.

Go inside minds of the world's most renowned pastry chefs, and discover the sweeter side of the Emmy-nominated series Chef's Table. Chef's Table: Pastry. Streaming only on Netflix, April 13. Dessert is served.

So pumped for this.

Shrill by Lindy West - A Review

Do you remember ages ago when I posted a quote from Lindy West on here? Well, I still think of those few paragraphs a lot and wondered why I'd never looked up to see what else she'd written. So here we are! I just finished her book and it was phenomenal. Maybe the best thing I've read in the past five years or so. So many favourite parts ahead.

• "America's monomanical fixation on female thinness isn't a distant abstraction, something to be pulled apart by academics in women's studies classrooms or leveraged for traffic in shallow "body-positive" listicles - it is a constant, pervasive taint that warps every single woman's life."

• "Women matter. Women are half of us. When you raise every woman to believe that we are insignificant, we are broken, that we are sick, that the only cure is starvation and restraint and smallness, when you pit women against one another, keep us shackled by shame and hunger, obsessing over our flaws rather than our power and potential; when you leverage all of that to sap our money and our time - that moves the rudder of the world. It steers humanity towards conservatism and walls and the narrow interests of men, and it keeps us adrift in water where women's safety and humanity are secondary to men's pleasure and convenience."

• "The active ingredient in period stigma is misogyny."

• "Maybe periods wouldn't be so frightening if we didn't refer to them as "red tide" or "shark week" or any other euphemism that evokes neurotoxicity or dismemberment. Maybe if we didn't perpetuate the idea that vaginas are disgusting garbage dumps, government officials wouldn't think of vagina care as literally throwing money away. Maybe if girls felt free to talk about their periods in shouts instead of whispers, as loudly in mixed company as in libraries full of moms, boys wouldn't grow up thinking that vaginas are disgusting and mysterious either. Maybe those parts would seem like things worth taking care of. Maybe women would go to the doctor more. Maybe fewer women would die of cervical cancer and uterine cancer. Maybe everyone would have better sex. Maybe women would finally be considered fully formed human beings, instead of off-brand men with defective genitals."

• "The truth is, my discomfort with my period didn't have anything to do with the thing itself - it was just part of the lifelong, pervasive alienation from my body that every woman absorbs to some extent. Your body is never yours. Your body is your enemy. Your body is gross. Your body is wrong. Your body is broken. Your body isn't what men like. Your body is less important than a fetus. Your body should be "perfect" or it should be hidden."

• "Solidarity with other women is one of my drugs of choice." 

• "Loving yourself is not antithetical to health. It is intrinsic to health. You can't take good care of a thing you hate."

• "My dad had four wives; my mom was the last. You could frame that as irresponsibility or womanizing or a fear of being alone, but to me it was a distillation of his unsinkable optimism. He always saw the best in everyone - I imagine, likewise, he stood at the beginning of every romance and saw it unspooling in front of him like a grand adventure, all fun and no pain. The idea that a relationship is a "failure" simply because it ends is a pessimist's construct anyway."

• "Without my mom, would I have the grit to keep going? Without my dad, would I have the idealism to bother?" - Such a nice way to sum up your own parents.

• "Feminists don't single out rape jokes because rape is "worse" than other crimes - we single them out because we live in a culture that actively strives to shrink the definition of sexual assault that casts stalking behaviors as romance; blames victims for wearing the wrong clothes, walking through the wrong neighborhood, or flirting with the wrong person; bends over backwards to excuse boys-will-be-boys misogyny; makes the emotional and social costs of reporting a rape prohibitively high; pretends that false accusations are a more dire problem than actual assaults; elect officials who tell rape victims that their sexual violation was "god's plan"; and convicts in less than 5 percent of rape cases that go to trial. Comedians regularly retort that no one complains when they joke about murder or other crimes in their acts, citing that as a double standard. Well, fortunately, there is no cultural narrative casting doubt on the existence and prevalence of murder and pressuring people not to report it. Maybe we'll start treating rape like other crimes when the justice system does."

• "I am a shy person at heart, and a grieving acquaintance is a shy person's nightmare. The pressure to know the "right" thing to say. Seeing a person without their shell." - Good god, I love the description of a person who's mourning someone else being "without their shell" it's so well put.

• "Other people's grief is not about you; letting self-consciousness supersede empathy is barbaric."

• Part of her husband's vows to her when they got married: "And all those times that I tried so hard to get you to hang out with me, and I just wanted to be around you so much, I've never been more right about anything in my life. The only way I can think to say it is that you are better than I thought people could be." - I mean, my god. I love hearing vows.

Is it clear how much I enjoyed reading this book? I'm pretty sure she's writing another one and I. Cannot. Wait. 

What an incredible woman. Read this damn book now.

You can see more posts like this on my latest newsletter.

Like on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RBGmovie/ At the age of 84, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has developed a breathtaking legal legacy while becoming an unexpected pop culture icon. But without a definitive Ginsburg biography, the unique personal journey of this diminutive, quiet warrior's rise to the nation's highest court has been largely unknown, even to some of her biggest fans - until now.

Yes.

https://tumblylols.tumblr.com/post/167146249995/pandamiglio-my-dog-destroys-things-then-acts

The West Wing

Great Moments in ''The West Wing'': The ending to Episode 5 of Season 1 of "The West Wing," The Crackpots and These Women. Bartlet gives a speech about Big Block of Cheese Day, UFOs, and a time when our eyes looked towards the heavens, and, with outstretched fingers, we touched the face of God.

It usually takes me about a decade to get into a good show, and I’m excited to finally be onto The West Wing.

“It’s probably too big a statement to say it’s made us smarter, but The Simpsons doesn’t ever promise to do anything more than make you laugh. There’s social satire in it, social commentary, deeper themes in it, but what’s great about The Simpsons is it says upfront, “All we’re gonna do is make you laugh.” That’s a purely noble cause, I think. It somehow doesn’t make you totally dumber by doing that. Most things that promise just to make you laugh don’t have any other redeeming qualities, and The Simpsons seems to.”

— Matt Stone

I Can Barely Take Care Of Myself By Jen Kirkman - A Review

Ten days into 2018 and I've finished my first book of the year. Is your envy seething?

After reading Jen Kirkman's latest book a few months ago, I really wanted to read her first book. They were both really good, but this one focuses way more on the fact that she doesn't want children (something that I love reading about). Here are some of my favourite parts, written out ahead.

• "I don't know why that happens - that when you're hanging out with someone you know you're going to fall in love with, you just don't know where to begin and you start picking up pieces of your life as though they're old photos randomly gathered in a box and handing them over to a virtual stranger for safekeeping. It's like saying, "Here. I'm excited and hopeful and I don't know where to begin but I think one day we'll eventually have enough time to unpack this thing and make some sense of it all.""

• "It's a weird thing society puts on us women. They tell us that we can have careers (well, after they told us we could vote - they sort of said it would be okay if we wanted to have a career, as long as we agree to get paid less than a man for the same job), and then they tell us that we aren't real women if we have careers but no babies, and if we dare pick a career over a baby... we better at least talk about that career like it's a baby in order to blend in and not call attention to the fact that we're selfish women who are not carrying on the human race."

• "I wasn't sure that Matt was the One. But I took a leap of faith. Romantic love is not parental, instinctual, unconditional love - it's complex. And what if I change my mind about having kids and I decide to have one and then I change my mind again? As gut-wrenching (and expensive) as it is to change your mind about who you love, it's a hell of a lot easier to get divorced than it is to toss a kid back into the sea and tell them that they'll meet someone else someday who will really love them."

• "Parents talk a lot about how much strength and dedication it takes to raise a child. It does. It also takes a lot of strength and dedication to carve out a life that doesn't seem normal to anyone else."

So much love for this woman.

You can see more posts like this on my latest newsletter.