Links Actually on Friday 12/15

TEN DAYS UNTIL CHRISTMAS!!!!!!

I’m so ready.

Here’s what’s happening:

• Some shit-talking about the Golden Globes and their (sometimes absurd) nominations. Get Out is a comedy? Rly?
• How to sell cruise tickets? Carnival thinks tropical scents in a can might work. Aruba, Jamaica, oooh I wanna take ya.
• If John Boyega wasn’t already the cutest, here’s proof he’s also a family boy. Does he have a dog too?
• An odd but amusing card game.
• And given my love of hot seat, this seems totally up my alley.
• A computer-generated Harry Potter chapter? I mean, I miss new books being released that I’ll take whatever I can get.
• The New Yorker article “Cat Person” is taking the internet by storm. It’s really relatable.
• Here’s why.
• Polish and French Nature Word names. Some are out there, but I would totally name a cat Coquille.
• I’ve fallen in love with Raymond Peyote’s illustrations (even with the obsession with boobage), see the example above.

Friday Links 10/13

I have a lot of links and not a lot of time to think about more interesting and profound posts. So here’s what’s happening on my laptop!

• SNL’s youtube doesn’t upload videos that are watchable in this country (I cry) but I did find Woke Levis.
• Courtesy of Cut Video: I love this couple.
• Ballet and geometry combined. So beautiful.
• Stinky cheese, the science of disgust, and “getting past the smell”.
• A Joan Didion documentary is coming and I’m so excited.
• Expectations vs Reality of perfume hunting: adcopy vs consumer experience.
• What a wonderful world: Blue Planet II.
• There’s a new Last Jedi trailer and I’m so pumped.
• I knew there was a reason I like Eminem.
• On Sexual Harassment.

Much love!

Flower Boys

We give girls flower names all the time but boys are really rarely named after botanical things- particular botanical things as frilly and fecund as flowers.  Even though when you get down to it, flowers have both lady-parts and man-parts.

Not that I’m advocating naming your young boy something like Candytuft. Don’t name a girl Candytuft either.  Or Ranunculus.

Candytuft and Ranunculus aside, I think there are profound unplumbed depths in flower names. Especially for boys and especially in English, because I don’t know about where you are, but America is very annoyingly anti-feminine.
Flower names can be both sensitive and strong, so in the interest of equal opportunity naming, here are some of my favorites that I think would suit little boys (and eventually men and granddads) to a tee.

Laughter and Iridescence

I was on a yoga retreat a few years ago when the leader of the program I was participating in argued strongly in favor of both laughing and crying at least once a day.

Now, emotional release is excellent and I never sleep so well as after I cry (how is it that crying wipes you out more than aerobics and cardio combined?) but making laughter and tears part of a daily to do list seems to me to be a bit too regimented (and this from someone who lives off lists).

And that’s only the lesser problem.  The real struggle is that, while I can make myself cry on a dime (there’s just so much to cry about, you know?) I have never been able to make myself laugh.
Until now.

Granted, I have found only two methods that have given me any success, and even then my laughs are only moderate (a 4 out of 10 on the laugh scale). And so that makes this a very short list (and regarding these techniques, your mileage may vary). If you happen to be reading this and can make yourself laugh with the same level of talent that I can make myself cry, please advise!