CAKE FOR BREAKFAST: i'm still 29
Since turning 29, my life has been very cool and interesting. For example, my upper back hurts from—say it with me—sleeping wrong! Also, Riley and I had a really wild weekend where I asked him, "Do you think the noise from the car blinker comes from the light or something else?" Please, for the love of god, do not reply to this with any actual explanation for the blinker noise. I am so weary from so much bad sleeping.
SOMETHING I ATE WITH MY MOUTH
While I've never been big about celebrating my birthday—not for any real reason other than maybe laziness and the performative pressure of Having Fun—I have become extremely big on having desserts every day because "it was recently my birthday." I had fancy ice cream because "my birthday was two days ago." I got a lemon cupcake because "my birthday was last week and I didn't have anything cake-like." I am contemplating getting a donut when I leave this coffee shop as a reward for actually writing and to celebrate "being 29 for eleven whole days."
The need to justify anything I put in my body (winky winky) is more complicated that a cutesy "hehe can me eat the cupcake or no?" Diet culture has instilled some nasty things in all of us and internalized fatphobia is something we, myself included, still very much need to actively combat. I also recognize my voice isn't the one that needs to be elevated in this conversation. How I feel about my body and how the world sees my body, while linked, are not one and the same. If you want to start reframing how you think about your body and bodies as a whole, read this interview with Samantha Irby where she talks about writing for Hulu's Shrill. Read this piece by Monica Heisey on Spin Class, the idea of the "hot ex-wife," and being seen. Maybe ask yourself if you assume the words "good" and "thin" are synonymous and why.
Okay, yeah, I'm gonna have the donut.
SOMETHING I ATE WITH MY EYES
I watched Tall Girl on Netflix because not being part of the zeitgeist is physically painful to me. The premise is that there is a high school girl who is, can you believe it, tall. That's it. That's the whole premise. It's great if you want to watch something kind of terrible, which is exactly what I always want to watch.. Some stray thoughts:
The titular Tall Girl is 6'1". This is tall but not like...tall tall. Discuss.
The hunky teen love interest is a foreign exchange student from Sweden. Tall Girl's name is "Jodi." This means that hunky teen Swede exclusively pronounces her name as "Yo-dee." Discuss x 2.
Sam from American Vandal is the movie's Short King du jour. He is small and charming and carries around a milk crate so that he may one day kiss Tall Girl. This isn't revealed until the end but I don't know if a universe exists in which I actually can spoil this movie. It is preserved in so many layers of sugary, predictable teen drama that it will never spoil. It is like a Twinkie in this way.
There is a brief exchange between Tall Girl and her Token Black Friend that is definitely only in there because the writers were like "oops yikies! we forgot to give the token black friend any discernable character traits!!!" So, Tall Girl references a time when she helped Token Black Friend tell her (TBF's) parents she wants to study fashion? We never see this scene between TBF and her family. I love cinema.
Steve Zahn is Dad!
The main antagonist is a Mean Girl who delivers this actual line to hunky swede, who's name is Stig: "Stig-y baby, can you go get mama a Diet Slice before class?" I! Love! Cinema!!!
Also, we know Mean Girl is Mean because she does prank calls and one time, in a flashback, she mocks Tall Girl for saying she wants to be like Taylor Swift when she grows up. "More like TALL-er Swift!" Mean Girl says, meanly. Taylor Swift is famously, like, 6'5".
SOME THINGS I ATE WITH MY EARS Anderson .Paak covered "Old Town Road" for BBC's Live Lounge and the result is so delicious I wanna barf. His voice is very yummy, and he is so stupid talented it, too, makes me wanna barf. He drums! While!! Singing!!! For context, I often have to stop walking to take even one (1) sip of water. Also, in this video, he does a British accent and his fit does, in fact, go crazy.
The latest episode of Catherine Cohen and Pat Regan's Seek Treatment, "We R Thoreau," made me GIGGLE and SNORT and be like "hah i do that." I loved it so much I started listening to it again immediately after I finished it. Is that healthy and good?
SOME THINGS I ATE WITH MY BIG, BIG GALAXY BRAIN Oh, baby, the internet was on ~several~ this week. Here are three things I ate up from the comfort of my bed instead of getting up at a normal, acceptable hour:
This profile of Lauren Duca by Scaachi Koul. It is as good as everyone is saying it is.
This good plum content from very good girl Kate Herzlin
Also, yes, duh, I read the Natalie/Caroline Calloway piece in The Cut. In lieu of any collected thoughts on the matter, please imagine an Instagram boomerang of my head doin a 360 spin around my neck.
SOME THINGS I MADE FOR YOU TO EAT
I co-write this piece on Literal Writing Exercises for The New Yorker's Daily Shouts with fellow comedy beefcake Irving Ruan. Please remember to stretch before reading.
In case you missed it, I wrote a piece on The Parent Trap for The Cut. *cue Bad to the Bone*
Stay hungry 🔪
Mia
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