Lululemon Skorts + Mystery Seeds + suitcases
May I recommend
Skorts, and in particular, Lululemon skorts.
Buckle up people, we’re going there and the “there” we’re going to is my thighs.
Since I hit puberty my thighs rub together. There is no possibility of a thigh gap for me, partly because I am a well-fed person but mostly because that’s the way I’m built. My legs need to be close together to support my particular brand of stomp walking. This is a wonderful thing and I am proud of this 45 year old bag of flesh that has hauled me around, born a baby, tasted ice cream, swam some pool lengths, produced vaccine-induced antibodies, done some wobbly warriors and gone on long (stomp) walks. Yay for my sweet, strong, trying-its-best body!
However, there is a real and painful reality that is inherent to living in this body, and that is that in the summer, when pants are abandoned and the heat cranks up, my thighs cannot touch each other for even a single moment without a bright red rash erupting. When this happens, does it feel like someone has taken a cheese grater and lemons to my near nether-regions? Yes, yes it does.
For many many (too many) years I was bewildered and befuddled by this turn of events. For a long time I ignored it and I would march out into the swampy heat of an Eastern Townships summer, knowing that I would come back walking like rodeo rider who had managed to stay on a bucking bronco for a full 45 seconds. At that time, my only relief was to scramble for the talcum powder (which we now know is basically Anthrax.) Eventually, perhaps in my mid-twenties, I discovered bike shorts, and then my quest became to find skirts and dresses long enough to hide the fact that despite the humidity and stickiness, I was wearing two layers of clothing.
Of COURSE I tried the usual things - the special roll-on anti-chafe lotions and powders, the magical underwear, these things… Some of it has worked, some of it hasn’t. What I have finally discovered after a long long quest is that the most reliable summer solution, the one that will last all day and that I can count on for all my stomp walking needs, is a skort.
Now, in case you aren’t familiar, a skort is a a pair of lightweight biker shorts that are sewn into a skirt and match the colour of the aforementioned skirt. When you wear a skort you do not have to worry about anyone accidentally seeing the biker shorts you’ve got on under there, because the shorts part of a skirt is designed to be seen. It’s okay!
The skort gives you the freedom and summery adorability of a skirt, with the comforting protection of two solid tubes of fabric encasing those thighs and protecting them, like valiant members of the Night Watch rebuffing the Wildlings and White Walkers, only this time their enemy is your other thigh.
Other skorts are fine (Reitmans does a good one) but for my money (and it’s a lot - that shizzle is pricey) good ole Lululemon is where it’s at. They have a variety of styles, (including a fun twirly one I just bought) in different colours and lengths. Most importantly, the short part of the skort stays put. There is nothing worse than thinking you are good to go in your new skort, and then 15 minutes into your day you feel the slow, unstoppable roll up of the shorts element. Sour bile fills your mouth as you realise that your sweet, delicate thigh is about to touch its colleague and that a red blister the size and consistency of a grape is three seconds away from bursting out from your tender flesh.
Here’s me last summer in one.
Tell me about your thighs in the comments below!
Remember this story from last summer?
The Truth Behind the Amazon mystery seeds
Last spring people in the States kept receiving mysterious seeds from China. There were all kinds of conspiracy theories about what was going on.
Here, for instance, are some of the explanations that I saw floated, for the most part not at the rabidly conspiratorial fringes of the internet, but on gardening-group and state-agriculture-department Facebook pages: that the seeds were Chinese bioweapons, laced with viruses or poisons, or that they were engineered through genetic manipulation or nanotechnology (threads picked up in a Tucker Carlson Tonight segment with the chyron could mysterious seeds be biological attack?); that they were part of a “deep state” strategy to control our gardens, or a false-flag operation to discredit China; that they were a Chinese cure for COVID-19 suppressed by Big Pharma; and that they would grow to feed swarms of invasive murder hornets.
This reporter investigated and nearly concluded that it was “brushing” - a common Internet scam, until he did a BIT more digging and found something truly weird. Read the whole article. Totally fascinating!
Sexist suitcases!
Mystery of the wheelie suitcase: How gender stereotypes held back the history of invention
The patriarchy sullies everything, even credit for wheelie suitcases.
The woman in the fur coat and the Leicestershire woman on the bus are the vital clues to this mystery. Suitcases with wheels existed decades before they were “invented” in 1972, but were considered niche products for women. And that a product for women could make life easier for men or completely disrupt the whole global luggage industry was not an idea the market was then ready to entertain.
If you need another excuse
Take more walks: neuroscientists say it’s good for your brain
Feed your brain with that sweet sweet promenading!
“Our results show that our brain structure and mood improve when we spend time outdoors. This most likely also affects concentration, working memory, and the psyche as a whole,” says lead author Simone Kühn, a psychologist and neuroscientist at the institute. The benefit remains even when controlling for variables like sunshine, exercise, and fluid intake.
TikTok
I’m pretty sure I could have easily pulled this off too
The slow rise of the background music
Shut up, Phil
My 11-yo confirmed this was SPOT on
It helps
His wife, though
Don’t go in the hole