Hi It’s a Plague

Here’s some reading material

Are Our Prisons and Jails Ready for Covid-19? (ACLU)
(The answer is no)

Trump is Ensuring the Worst Possible Outcome (The Atlantic)
(Don’t worry, it’s okay to blame Trump for our nation’s response to the coronavirus because he fired the entire national pandemic response team in 2018)

Young and Unafraid of the Coronavirus? Good for You. Now Stop Killing People.(Newsweek)
(Murderers.)

Free Movies Online: 100 Fresh Movies to Watch Online For Free (Rotten Tomatoes)
(For your isolated pleasure.)

Links 6/4

Due to a weekend-trip hiatus (NYC was great, thanks), this links post is a bit later than usual.  Coincidentally, many of these links seem to have a bit of an LGBTQ theme.
Happy Pride!

Let’s get the smell stuff out of the way first:

• Auklets are a bird species in which males demonstrate fitness not only by very fancy and sexy crests, but seemingly also by emitting a strong tangerine scent, research finds.
• Study finds that activation of a certain smell receptor speeds the progression of prostate cancer, suggesting new treatment methods via blocking of the receptor.
• Department stores reevaluate traditional beauty and fragrance marketing techniques as the beauty industry changes.

All the feels:

• One of the best things about the cultural shift toward acceptance of LGBTQ lifestyles (beyond thousands of people being able to live their truth) is the uptick in adorable stories like this.
• This animated short made me cry.
• If babies wrote travel reviews, too funny.

Film thoughts:

• You may have hard of the Post-Western- are we living in the age of the Post-Hero?
• DC vs Marvel action scenes (and why Marvel’s are so much better). Despite not being a fan of either company, I thought this was a very interesting analysis.
• The Power of the Vampire Myth
• Why Solo isn’t doing as well as previous Star Wars films.

Current events:

• A comedy bit about Mamoudou Gassama, France’s immigrant hero (but mostly about the French).
• Meghan Markle, Prince Harry, and my own interracial relationship.

Odds and Ends:

• The ‘twink’ controversy: Why can’t black men be twinks? and Can men be objectified? A response to the ‘twink’ controversy.
• Mental health is a journey: five lessons learned from treatment.
• How to get ride of clutter
• Two lovely children’s books: Prince and Knight and Julian is a Mermaid.
• Oh no.

Links 4/29

It’s been in some ways an absolutely awful day but I’m still pretty content.  To explain the first part of that, I was fueled by food poisoning sometime around 2 am last night and my stomach is still feeling pretty tender.  On top of that, I wasn’t able to find the perfect plantings for my garden urns.  I’m thinking maybe nasturtiums.
To explain the latter part, it’s the birthday of one of my best friends and I got to see her for the first time in what feels like forever.  And in spite of my relative nausea, hanging out and catching up was lovely.

I’m enjoying Middlemarch, A Quiet Place was fantastic, and seeing the Art in Bloom exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts yesterday was beautiful and completely brought out my inner elderly white lady.  But what can I say, I love flower shows and I won’t deny it.

I have a scarcity of links this week, and you can decide if that’s good or bad!

• Allure on women in the fragrance industry.  Like fashion, its a business led by men that caters largely to women.
• Certain scents are found to reduce dogs’ stress levels in animal shelters.
• A list of things that intimidate me. Oddly relatable. What would be on your list?
• Self-discovery comes in all shapes and sizes.
• Scientists discover an enzyme that can break down PET plastic.

Truly, that’s all I have. It’s pretty shameful.

BUT

The yoga retreat has been picked!
*drumroll*
RADIANCE SUTRAS FLOW
Man am I ready for some ecstatic dance

I mean, not right now, because I have food poisoning, but in general.

Links 2/26

Happy Friday Monday!

I haven’t been posting much/at all this past week because I’m traveling and on break and in Spain (and tomorrow I’ll be meeting my parents in Malta).  But this evening I’m being antisocial and hanging out in my basement room, and I have a few links to dispense with.

• A few exciting trailers:
  On Chesil Beach, with Saoirse Ronan, based on the novel by Ian McEwan. I’m kind of excited because 1) Saoirse and 2) Ian McEwan. But I tried to read On Chesil Beach and had to put it aside. I just wasn’t interested, but that’s been my experience with every McEwan novel that wasn’t Atonement.
  MFing PANDAS
  More films to get excited about (Thanks, Bob!). I’m so here for a Lizzie Borden biopic. And Ocean’s Eight. And Incredibles II (as I’ve said 50+ times). And Padmaavat (which I haven’t talked about yet). And Jamie Lee Curtis returning for Halloween. Gasp.
• All I do is think about movies. Here’s a spicy biopic. Weirdly inspiring and heartwarming story, actually.
• Speaking of biopics- Lupita Nyong’o is going to play Trevor Noah’s mother and it’s perfect.
• On breaking the stigma around vaginal health and getting familiar with your vulva. Are we such strangers because of a prudish and anti feminine culture of because it’s located at such a weird and difficult to see place on our bodies? I don’t know.
• What it feels like to slide downhill at 90 mph.
• A review of one of my favorite films of all time.  The dubbing never bothered me anyway.
• The new choir teacher.
• An Olympics streaker in tutu and monkey penis pouch. You do you.
• I love Livia Marin’s Nomad Patterns series.
• Adorable and hilarious illustrated guide to dog breeds.  Check out the creator’s tumblr here.
• A lovely personal article about the promise of gay Olympians like figure skater Adam Rippon.

Daily Practices (That I Do and Don’t Practice)

Annually, this is the time of year that I find myself making resolutions.  Despite being completely not on board with New Year’s lifestyle changes, there’s something about late spring/early summer that makes setting personal goals a lot more natural.

Looking to the future just happens a lot more organically when the weather is beautiful and the anxiety of university has dissipated.

So in the spirit of a lifestyle adjustment, I’ve been thinking about this idea of daily practices.
Specifically, practices I wish I had, practices I’m glad I do have, and practices that I would like to let go.

Friday Links 5/19

Hey my graduation is this weekend! (Except not really because I’m not going!).
Did you go to your graduation? Almost everyone I’ve talked to has been some combination of stunned or outraged to hear that I’m skipping it- which is a reaction that’s quite taken me by surprise.
Neither of my parents went to their graduations, so I think I just kind of grew up not thinking it was a big deal. My cousin Sean went to his graduation but sat with his family in the audience.  And I went to my high school one (but I was valedictorian *pats on back* so I kind of had to).  But there are so many things I’d rather do!
Namely: anything. Sitting around in a big group of people and listening to speeches just isn’t my thing and I know that makes me sound terribly unsentimental, except I’m also such a nostalgic person that I know that can’t be it.

Lions and Tigers and… March?

What happened, it’s March? You know how last time I did a list post it was February and I used my new desktop background as the graphic? Same thing this month, I have these fierce kitties tiled and every time I open my computer it’s like a little feline firework.

What’s going on in my life? My Music History midterm went pretty excellently and I’m going home this weekend to check on and take care of my parents… since Dad just got his leg amputated and Mom’s coming down with a sick. And I’m bringing snacks and my indefatigable self.

So links!