May I recommend
Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion.
We watched this one the other night and it is a 10 out 10. It is funny. The clothes are unbelievable. The dance sequence is perfection. Revisiting the young Lisa Kudrow and Mia Sorvino is DELIGHTFUL. The movie is about female friendship, valuing yourself and HAVING FUN.
Now, does it have some weight/fat jokes that are actually SHOCKING to hear in this day and age? Yes, yes it does. Did I immediately take the opportunity to tell my thirteen year old daughter that the crash diets and snide comments were harmful and problematic? Yes, yes I did. Did she in turn tell me that she KNOWS and I’m so ANNOYING and she gets it, god! Yes, yes she did.
Here is the place where I was actually a little cheered up though. The casually cruel (TM Taylor Swift) comments about weight and fatness were legitimately shocking and icky. They were noticeable and off-putting (not off-pudding, though I suspect Romy and Michele are indeed off pudding). Those comments slid right past me back in 1997 whereas now they were these little sour notes in a perfect confection. I am pleased that we as a society have rejected those kind of attitudes (or at least made them a little bit problematic so that they’re noticeable in something like this). I take that as progress and I thank R and M for highlighting those (admittedly small) steps forward.
In other news, the movie also has Alan Cumming, that Nineties Queen, Janeane Garofalo and a tiny performance from a baby Justin Theroux (is this where he met Jen Anniston? Did Romy and Michele contribute to that brief marriage of those two hotties? I assume so — there is nothing those two blonde BFFs can’t do!).
Old Midwifery Manuals are Intense
Learning is Better than House or Land: on the audiences and authors of midwifery manuals
Did you think that you needed to read about midwifery drawings on a Sunday morning? No, but guess what, this is super interesting! It is honestly amazing that any of us made it out alive.
We will begin with a seventeenth-century lying-in chamber in a reasonably wealthy household. We know certain likely features of such a room: that it would be dark and warm, with the windows shuttered and a fire burning. We know it would be filled with women—relatives and neighbors—and well provisioned with linens, medicines, and various foods and drinks for the mother and her gossips. In it, the woman would labor on her feet, on a chair, on her bed, or on the special mattress set up near the fire for the delivery itself.
I Knew It!
No One Can Explain How Planes Stay in the Air
I had a pilot friend once “explain” this to me and it still seemed very mysterious. This article (where admittedly, I might have missed a few nuances…) confirms my suspicion that at a basic level everyone has just been shrugging their shoulders and saying, “Eh, it works.”
What Anderson said, however, is that there is actually no agreement on what generates the aerodynamic force known as lift. “There is no simple one-liner answer to this,” he told the Times. People give different answers to the question, some with “religious fervor.” More than 15 years after that pronouncement, there are still different accounts of what generates lift, each with its own substantial rank of zealous defenders. At this point in the history of flight, this situation is slightly puzzling.
Be nice instead of being shy
Small Acts of Kindness Matter More than You Think
I have definitely pysched myself out of doing nice things for people in the past because I thought they might be weirdly received… The message is - just do the nice thing. Everyone will be happier.
“I think people felt like there was an obligation,” says Gillian Sandstrom, a senior lecturer in the psychology of kindness at the University of Sussex, who is currently studying people’s reluctance to reach out to friends with whom they’d lost touch. “There is no commitment. I can just have a one-off thing, walk away. There’s something really beautiful about that.”
Research suggests, across multiple studies, that people have overwhelmingly similar impulses to not do the nice thing: They underestimate how much other people value the reach-out, the random act of kindness. These seemingly minor deeds are appreciated, though. Turning down the naysaying voice in your head allows for more opportunities to show warmth to those around you.
Book Stuff
Book Signings!
Saturday, April 29 — 1pm-3pm - The Spaniel’s Tale Ottawa. It’s in my neighbourhood! It’s Independent Bookseller’s Day! I love it! Come on out!
Literary Festivals
Sunday, April 30 Time 9am — Online — Newburyport Literary Festival. An amazing lineup of excellent writers, and I’ll be in conversation with one of my fave podcasts, Strong Sense of Place. Huzzah! This is an online event, meaning ANYONE can join, so register and come and listen! Seriously, Strong Sense of Place is a great podcast, and I can’t wait to be chatting with those smart interviewers!
Thursday, May 4th, 3:45 pm. — Arnprior, Ontario — Little Branches Rural Roots. I’ve been invited to this wonderful small-libraries conference to be in conversation with fabulous writer and historian, Suzanne Evans.
Book Clubs
I do ‘em and am happy to show up or Zoom in to talk about any of my three books with your book club. I usually like to allot about an hour and normally I like to show up about 45 minutes into the book club meeting so that everyone can get caught up on the gossip and have a good chat before I arrive. It’s fun. I have lots of things to talk about if you are shy. Send me an email if you want to set something up!
Buy my books!
TikTok
Worth it for an A+ Dad Joke
Worst person opening presents
Me too, kid.
Fraternal twins
The fierceness of the kick
European American Tribal Wedding
Ah, no thank you
What it’s like to talk to an idiot
What if I get 12 blisters
Art Teacher in a fire drill
Dang dog
How to eat an orange
I might be in love with this man
The sunburn
Paris may be burning, but these ducklings are gonna be okay
Greatest payoff of all time
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Thirteen year olds!