feature photo by Amy Troost for Playboy
One day I think I’d like to host an open thread on breakfast porridges and the memories you have associated with any/all of them. And like, did your grandmother put butter in your oatmeal and cream of wheat? I’ve yet to find a single other person whose grandmother blessed their porridge bowls with butter.
Hey happy Friday! May all your breakfasts be delicious!
You Should Go or Do or Give
+ Definitely don’t miss Must Love Books: Literary Speed Dating for Queer Ladies at Strand bookstore on February 15! Hosted by Emma Willmann, y’all.
+ Help Fund a New Documentary About Pioneering Author Ursula K. Le Guin.
+ Youth in Motion is a grant-funded project that sends DVDs of LGBTQ films to K-12 Gay Straight Alliances for free, along with curriculum for classrooms and action guides for after school activities. Get involved, donate, and spread the good word!
Queer as in F*ck You
+ It’s Robin Roemer! Talking about working with Hannah Hart, Grace Helbig, and female comedians, and how amazing her wife Carly is, and putting value on yourself and your work!
+ Hey, how many Rachel Maddow interviews can you handle in one day? Two? Is two your limit? Here’s The Lenny Interview and here’s The Playboy Interview.
+ Meet the Woman Responsible for the Greatest Gifs on the Internet.
“Literally everyone assumes I am a straight white man,” she said. That’s why Cat started posting pictures of herself along with the Animated Text gifs in recent months, to “prove I am female, that I am black, that I am gay,” and not that unholy trinity of falsely presumed neutrality: straight, white, and male.
+ Kristin Russo has some stellar fucking words to share with you about the label of bisexuality and other things! “Is it okay to call myself gay when I am bisexual?”
+ Janese Talton-Jackson’s Murder Reminds Me How Strangers Feel Entitled to My Body by Kari Mugo. A good and beautiful and sad and enraging piece.
+ Harlem LGBT Youth Group Crowdfunds Campaign to Buy Notoriously Anti-Gay Church.
+ Anna Pulley is back with Everything Lesbians Fight About in Haiku.
+ Ellen Page Reflects on Her Coming Out Speech: “I felt guilty for not being a visible person in the community.”
Doll Parts
+ This is handy and horrible: A User’s Guide to This Year’s Transphobic Legislation.
Here’s the disgusting Genital Check Bill in Washington that was just passed by the Law & Justice Committee. Not to be outdone, Virginia’s House Sub-Committee went ahead and passed a bill criminalizing transgender bathroom use. Way to spend your life, assholes! Very great work here on earth. Top fucking notch.
+ I know you’ve seen this already but just wowwwwww WOW. The CDCs Incredibly Condescending Warning to Young Women.
+ Zing Tsjeng interviews Chelsea Manning about life in prison.
+ American Girl Programming Coming to Amazon. I will probably make time in my life to watch this.
+ When Leaving Is the Only Option: “In fiction and in life, the archetype of the woman who quits her job over sexism at work is all too common.”
+ Good news, Scientists Have Discovered the Source of Your Resting Bitch Face.
+ Tamerra Griffin invites you to Meet The Badass Fencer Representing The U.S. At The Olympics In Hijab, Ibtihaj Muhammad.
+ Wanna hear The Establishment’s new podcast on sex and politics, Unscrewed? Heck yeah you do!
+ Here are 185 Black Women in Tech to Follow on Twitter. That is a lot!
+ This Little Red Book Confronts Sexism in the Chinese Language.
+ How Has Transgender Activism Changed in the Past Decade?
+ The Woman Fighting to Make Sustainability Part of the American Diet, Dr. Miriam Nelson.
+ Film Portrays A ‘Perfect Storm’ That Led To Unwanted Sterilizations For Many Latinas.
+ The Three-Letter Word Missing from the Zika Virus Warnings.
Saw This, Thought of You
+ Fighting Whitewashed History with MIT’s Diversity Hackers by Cara Giaimo. Oh damn this is amazing.
+ Unpublished Black History. “Images from black history, drawn from old negatives, have long been buried in the yellowed envelopes and crowded bins of the New York Times archives. None of them were published by The Times – until now.”
+ When White People Admit White Privilege, They’re Really Just Congratulating Themselves.
+ The Sad Truth About Seltzer. NOOOOOoooooooooo!
La Croix Fangirl Tee by Culture Flock
+ Ultimate Simpsons Search Engine Pairs Quotes with Stills. This is what you’ll be doing all weekend.
+ Hahahahahahaaa this is what I’ll never be doing ever: Horror ASMR Will Give You Tingles and Chills no thank yououououuuu!
Horror ASMR sounds TERRIFYING. Maybe I’ll just turn on every light in my house and then take a peek…
OH GOD NO WHY ARE THEY DOING THIS TO ME PLEASE NO NOT NOW NOT TODAY NOT EVER PLEASE FUUUUUUUUCK NOOOOO
(re: seltzer)
Is this the article that links seltzer to tooth decay? I don’t know because I REFUSE to read it. Please science, just let me have this one thing that isn’t destroying my body.
pepper, i urge you to look the other way. ignorance, in this instance, is actually bliss.
I have found a way to convince myself that this is all part of a nefarious smear campaign implemented by the still water lobby to bring down their far superior sparkling counterparts. i will not participate in their narrative of deceit.
#STILLWATERLOBBY
OK guys, so the main concern with unflavoured soda/seltzer water is not tooth decay but tooth erosion, which is slow dissolving and loss of the enamel surface. the one Very Important Thing not mentioned in that article is that with any carbonated beverage or acidic beverage (esp wine) that one should NOT brush their teeth immediately afterwards in an effort to ‘clean’ the acid off. brushing after acid has softened the tooth surface makes erosion wear worse. so just rinse with plain water.
soft drinks/sodas with flavourings and sugar increase the risk of tooth decay, mostly because of the sugar. diet sodas have no sugar but are still acidic.
consider that your free dental consult for the day
UGH THIS IS SO INFORMATIVE THANK YOU <3
I thought it was a little extreme for the CDC to come out and recommend that any sexually active young woman not using contraception should avoid drinking. First of all, it’s pretty heteronormative. Second of all, a lot of hormonal birth control makes it harder for women to metabolize alcohol and puts us at a higher risk of alcohol poisoning, so to suggest that we shouldn’t drink unless we’re taking birth control because of a potential fetus without also adding warnings about how birth control lowers alcohol tolerance is pretty telling of their overall priorities concerning women’s health. A lot about the content of that warning rubbed me the wrong way.
Also, both of those Rachel interviews were fabulous. She really is everywhere these days.
I have so many tabs open right now! Laneia, you’ve been crushing the Also. Also. Also. recently.
9 tabs and counting!
thanks y’all!
My cap for Rachel Maddow content? The limit does not exist. THE LIMIT DOES NOT EXIST.
same, yes.
The PlayBoy interview is outstanding. Also, more Rachel.
Please and thank you.
Agreed. I could never get tired of Rachel Maddow.
Butter on oatmeal, cream of wheat, malt o’ meal, cream of rice, et al. was my absolute fave. <3
(Also also also) Laneia, I have always wondered how you pronounce your name?
YESSSSS i’m so happy right now! i’ve seriously never met anyone else, and people are like “…butter…?” and i have to be like “YES do you not love yourself??!”
i pronounce it la-NEE-ah, but it comes from your name! my mom just heard it wrong on the TV show she was watching and thought they were saying it this way, so that’s my name. then the internet happened and i looked it up and realized that there’s a linnaea flower and everything!
for a while i tried pronouncing it the way you probably pronounce yours, but then i realized that this version of it was in my mom’s heart before she even saw me, so i’m sticking with her southern interpretation, bless it.
yes to all of this, especially wheat germ in oatmeal! i don’t know what the deal is there, but the combination is so satisfying.
That’s so sweet!!! <3 I'm la-NAY-uh but ppl always pronounce it like your name on their first try! Um do you happen to know what tv show your mom was watching?? Linnea/Laneia/Linnaeas are so rare- I always wanted to find characters and actual ppl w/ my name when I was little!. (The closest I got was those "Linnea in Monet's Garden" books LOL)
(it rhymes with princess leia)
SELTZER, MY ONE TRUE LOVE.
Though I’m not one to defend the government, but in the object of fairness…
Exhibit A for the defense of the CDC.
http://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/fact-sheets/mens-health.htm
Marketers for the government and other organizations see some sort of benefit (I don’t know what) in making separate statements to men and women, even if they pretty much say the same things.
They could have made a general announcement for all people and then made a separate one for pregnant women.
Sadly, this is information that some people don’t actually know. It’s not really condescending, it’s a testament to our shitty unequal school systems.
The way the infographic puts it, tho, it’s really couched in the terms of sexually active women not doing what they want with their own bodies because their primary role is seen as mother-incubator. It reminds me of a great article I can’t find now, about a woman who, a week after her due date, still waiting for her baby to arrive, went into a pub and ordered a single half pint of beer, and the reactions she got. The ways in which we police pregnant women’s bodies to such an extreme. I even caught myself doing it, having to bite my tongue when a friend chose to eat sushi during her first trimester. It was so hard to bite my tongue because I have been conditioned by a culture which often robs women of their bodily autonomy once pregnant. States pass laws all the time criminalizing addiction and substance abuse in pregnant women, for instance. Anyway I’m going off into a whole different area, but the point is, women’s bodies are their own, full stop. The idea that a woman who isn’t even trying to get pregnant should stop drinking completely on the off chance that she conceives is completely ridiculous.
I took another look and it did seem that the men’s link was more informative, statistical. The women’s was more prescriptive. BUT, the women’s info was geared toward health professionals; guiding them in how they should interact with patients. So looking at it as advice given to health care workers…it’s pretty fair. If I was pregnant and my doctor advised me not to drink, I wouldn’t be mad at ’em.
So this info wasn’t geared towards women or the average person to read.
Oddly enough, my nurse practitioner did something like this to me (I wasn’t pregnant). I told the previous nurse that I might (emphasis on ‘might’) have one drink everyday; and I limit myself to two drinks in one night. There was a miscommunication (I average about 6 drinks a week, she thought I meant 8). The NP told me I should watch my drinking and gave me this condescending look when I told her the nurse didn’t quite get what I was telling her. I had to restrain myself…
I never liked oatmeal as a kid, but I feel like, if I had, my grandma definitely would have put butter on it. I mean, she and my mom put butter on my poptarts, so.
BUTTER. ON. POPTARTS.
my entire childhood! summed up in three words.
And here I thought we were the only butter on poptarts family!
I feel like this means we understand each other on some fundamental level.
Butter on poptarts and dusted with powdered sugar.
I just had buttered pop tarts for the first time last summer while camping! They were toasted over the fire. Win.
i want to scoop every one of you up into a giant buttery hug! i’ll be reading this entire thread to my mother when she calls me tonight. (she calls me every night.)
Also, not super thrilled about the fact that I live in Virginia right now.
It didn’t pass-pass yet, did it? Anyone know what happens to it now?
Maybe getting a bunch of trans activists, specifically trans men activist to hang around & in women’s bathrooms in the capital building if the law passes. If they don’t want men in the women’s bathrooms, then maybe showing them examples of men in women’s bathrooms, who just happen to be following a shit law will make a greater point?
This way of thinking/protesting is actually counterproductive because these laws exist to be used against women who don’t pass as cis. Having people with features that read as masculine show up and make people uncomfortable will not help against a law that is meant to harm women with features that read as masculine.
Okay so I know it’s scary but here is the thing. It’s not law yet. It just made it out of one committee which means it still has to go through another committee and both houses (there may be enough senate votes to kill it) and finally the governor’s desk. McAuliffe will likely veto it. He says he will veto any anti-LGBT bills. Secondly it is only enforceable in schools and government buildings which is gross and terrible and still highly transphobic but everywhere else it’s pee where you please. Third it’s a just a $50 dollar fine and no jail time. Yes that sucks for poor people but other states we are fined thousands and can be jailed just for peeing. It’s shitty for sure but not as bad as it could be and it’s not over yet. It sucks that it even on the table but I don’t see it passing into law.
So now that the sad stuff is over. We’re neighbors! I’m in Fredericksburg Va! *sings it’s a small world*
That does make me feel a little bit better. I didn’t have time to do more than skim the article when I saw it earlier so I thought it meant it had actually passed into law.
And hello, neighbor! I’m in Danville, which I think is a little over 3 hours away.
I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone who didn’t put butter in their oatmeal unless they happened to be vegan. Is that the thing? I can’t fathom any sort of porridge without butter, jeez.
thank you i feel so validated
My grandmother didn’t put butter in my cream of wheat, but my mom definitely did. It was delicious!
That Playboy interview was SO SO good! I was worried that, because it was Playboy, there would be a bunch of totally personal, inappropriate, cringe-inducing questions, so I kept waiting for it to get awkward, and then the questions came, and Rachel handled them like a champ! “Oh right, this is Playboy [laughs] It’s none of your business!” SWOON. There is no such thing as too much Rachel Maddow!
And now I will go watch clips from the Dem Debate last night, just to see my imaginary girlfriend being totally boss.
That Horror ASMR read was fascinating! I found one I love, which involves no ghosts, ghouls, blood or zombies:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_L2LKtOXHY
Not a fan of oatmeal. Unpopular opinion, I know.
Gonna go read Dr Maddows interviews now.
Not an unpopular opinion – most of the time, I feel oatmeal is glorified wallpaper paste.
We definitely always put butter on our grits, but never our oatmeal! Grits: savory. Oatmeal/cream of wheat: sweet. Toppings-wise.
(This is not a rule. Just how I’ve always though of it, until I realized some people butter their oatmeal and sweeten their grits.)
Butter is good with sweet though. If you want oatmeal that tastes like a cinnamon roll, put butter, brown sugar, cinnamon and like a drop of vanilla. It’s so good.
I read the Playboy interview in small chunks over the course of the day, and all i can say is ???? SWOON LOVE SWOON.
Rachel Maddow is so babely. Her brain is the most attractive thing on planet earth ever and ever and ever.
Dr Maddow is most definitely on my five
AMEN.
Not even my grandma but my mom always but butter on my oatmeal as a kid…
I love that Kristin Russo post!
My grandma never made me oatmeal. She made waffles when we would stay out at the farm, though. *swoon* She always ate McCann’s steel-cut Irish oatmeal, because that’s what my great-grandpa made for breakfast. (I come from a long line of Irish men and women.) I think if I made it in the slow cooker, it would be okay.
Also? I love Rachel’s description of depression in the Playboy article. That’s how I feel most of the time.