It’s The Freaking (Long) Weekend*, Baby I’m About To Buy Me Some Dog Anti-Anxiety Meds
Our furry friends do not like that humans like to blow stuff up to celebrate.
Happy (? Lol) Eve of the 4th, y’all, what a year to be celebrating the birth of this nation. In addition to our current political and legal maelstrom, we’re in a heat dome over here in California, so if the below is a bit all over the place, I apologize, I just ran around my apartment opening up the windows to get air in before I have to close it up like a tomb in an hour to keep it cool. Here’s the stuff I plan to read to Orca as we enjoy our yearly “omg, I wish I had San Francisco had A/C” week.
READING LIST, AHOY!
Joe Hagan, ‘RFK Jr.’s Family Doesn’t Want Him to Run. Even They May Not Know His Darkest Secrets.’ (Vanity Fair) — In the most 2024 thing ever, we’re now talking about how a candidate for president (allegedly) sexually assaulted a babysitter AND sent a photo of a BBQed dog carcass to someone — and those are only two of the batshit things revealed in this piece!
Michael Daly, ‘I Turned In My Insurrectionist Dad — How Can Trump Be Immune?’ (The Daily Beast) — I mean, that’s a good question! A very, very good question!
Claire Cohen, ‘A man has declared Taylor Swift a bad role model. Why? Because she’s unmarried and childless’ (The Standard) — No, I’m not linking to the Newsweek piece this Standard opinion piece does such a masterful job excoriating. But I am going to scream about the fact that we are in such a toxic political environment that a formerly-reputable publication considers it good for ad dollars to use 1950s logic to tell all us ladies to get barefoot and pregnant already. I’d laugh if it wasn’t for the RNC leaders who want to imprison women for abortions, because those are the people who’ll be running the government in Trump 2.
Reeves Wiedeman, ‘Hush-Hush Affair: How the NDA became the defining legal document of our time.’ (The Cut) — Look, I’ve joked about telling stuff to my girlfriend group chat because they’re all covered by a FrieNDA but I’m of two minds on NDAs in practicality. On one hand, they are so ubiquitous at this point I sign without reading closely (eeeek, sorry my legal eagle readers) and I’ve worked on projects that needed them more myriad reasons. But on the other hand, as the piece says, NDAs are often used “to keep the public from learning about bad things” so it seems extra suspicious when encountered in a personal setting (Was I asked, towards the end of negotiating a settlement, to sign an NDA related to a highly personal legal matter? Yes. Did I laugh at that request, then start email yelling so much about how dare they ask me to limit my rights to speech that they dropped the request but my lawyer told me to please not respond and let her do her job? Also yes. But have I ever dated anyone infamous enough to require an NDA? No — but a girl can dream?). I do, however, think that dealing with the difficult emotions that come with putting a legal document on to a relationship can be a helpful and grown up thing to do (GET THAT PRENUP, MY DOVES — might I suggest ‘Prenups Are For Lovers’ as background reading?) And unrelated: this is a weird thing to highlight for this article, but I really like what NYMag did with highlighted footnotes within the structure of the story, it’s a fun lil design feature.
Jenni Hodges-Bakane, ‘Becoming the top rejected harpist in Las Vegas’ (Medium) — I love this as a concept, it’s like the start of a short story and I want to watch this limited series.
Maya Phillips, ‘Andrew Scott Is Always Captivating. Here’s How He Does It.’ (NYT) — I will watch / listen to any Andrew Scott performance you put in front of me (you gotta listen to Audible’s take on 1984), so my inner theater nerds loves this breakdown of his performances (my favorite of which is, of course, Hot Priest, and I choose to believe that the real ending of Fleabag is the two of them going to the Eras tour and living happily ever after).
So stay cool, y’all. DRINK THAT WATER (no seriously, drink that water and get those electrolytes), stay inside and shaded if it keeps you safe from overheating, and be kind to each other.
xoxo Amy
*Fun fact! The judge in the R. Kelly case ordered him and Universal Music Group to pay “more than $500,000 in fines and restitution to his victims”, so I feel slightly less bad about quoting the song that is forever etched in my elder millennial brain after countless parties where it was on loop.
