How To Write Insults

Hamilton Nolan’s newsletter this week is a masterclass in insults. Of course, it’s easy when the target is ICE “I’d rather destroy the lives of entire families than have the fellas make fun of me” agents, aka “twitchy, puffed up, goofy ass cops.”

Please, enjoy:

It can be difficult to laugh at riot cops. But we should all try. Because they’re so fucking ridiculous. Hey, nice huge helmet and body armor and fake ass gun and shield to oppose a bunch of skater kids waving around flags. You all are the most terrified group of human beings in the United States of America. You all are the types of people who open carry handguns to go to Buffalo Wild Wings. You all need to stop getting your news from idiots on idiot websites. You all need to read some fucking books and gain a minimal sense of perspective. You all need to embrace the crushing realization that for your whole lives you have been afraid and confused and have embraced a misguided set of macho enticements that have seduced you into believing that manhood depends on looking like some sort of cartoon action figure when in fact it is this look that reveals to the world the deep inadequacy that haunts you every day.

 

As he concludes, “Fuck off, losers.”

 

 

Wednesday Poem

Well this is appropriate. Because I had to look it up: “dios del chisme,” the god of gossip.

 

poem where no one is deported
by José Olivarez

now i like to imagine la migra running
into the sock factory where my mom
& her friends worked. it was all women

who worked there. women who braided
each other’s hair during breaks.
women who wore rosaries, & never

had a hair out of place. women who were ready
for cameras or for God, who ended all their sentences
with si dios quiere. as in: the day before

the immigration raid when the rumor
of a raid was passed around like bread
& the women made plans, si dios quiere.

so when the immigration officers arrived
they found boxes of socks & all the women absent.
safe at home. those officers thought

no one was working. they were wrong.
the women would say it was god working.
& it was god, but the god

my mom taught us to fear
was vengeful. he might have wet his thumb
& wiped la migra out of this world like a smudge

on a mirror. this god was the god that woke me up
at 7am every day for school to let me know
there was food in the fridge for me & my brothers.

i never asked my mom where the food came from,
but she told me anyway: gracias a dios.
gracias a dios del chisme, who heard all la migra’s plans

& whispered them into the right ears
to keep our families safe.

Sewing Progress Report

What I’ve been sewing:

  • A pair of gym tights that’s too small (in the good fabric, too; I am so mad).
  • A pair of gym tights that’s too big (tried a new pattern but at least it wasn’t in the other cut of the good Liberty).

What I need to be sewing:

  • The quilt top, which has been arranged on the design wall in the basement since 2024 and which I refuse to move in its unfinished state, so I guess I’d better get sewing.
  • Anything using fabric from my stash??? (Can you tell I’ve been looking at everything in the house that would have to get moved?)

What I want to be sewing:

  • These exact white canvas trousers, because if I sew them I will look cool and collected and neither sweaty nor covered in mosquito bites because they’re somehow getting in and biting my arms and neck all night, and instead my life will take place in sidewalk cafes or maybe by the ocean and my trousers will remain blindingly white:

So Green!

Very specific fact: The most intense green in the world is fresh leaves on trees on a mountainside at the beginning of summer, before everything gets dry and dusty.

Moods Lately

I haven’t done a dedicated post for it yet but we started *really* looking for a new, non-HOA house last month: We met with a realtor, talked to a finance person, even applied for a loan yesterday. So yeah, the anxiety is a little ramped up lately. Contemplating a (voluntary) major life change will do that.

 

 


But at least I haven’t made it to Box 9 yet.

 

I probably just need to work out:

 

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My Favorite Silly Little Outfits

I ended up with about a 60% participation rate for “Me Made May But Make It Weird” but I had SUCH a good time when I did. Having a reason to really get dressed and having a theme to dress to was really inspiring–I pulled out different combos and old makes and remembered why I sew (because FASHUN is fun!).

Here are my favorite combos of outfit and prompts, featuring a new (!) tiger print dress for the last day.

 

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The “dress over pants” silhouette made another appearance:

 

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I don’t think I ever posted or even photographed this whole set because it felt a little loud–but it was perfect for the prompt and I kind of love it now?

 

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And finally, my favorite prompt by far:

 

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Happy Birthday, Toby

Toby is EIGHTEEN this month and oof, the senior pet feelings are really something: He’s been the constant of my life, before Doc or even before the house, but this year the days are feeling a little less like a given and more like a bonus.

But he’s doing pretty well for The World’s Oldest Cat–still alert, still bossing us around, plus he cured his own diabetes. He’s an old boy but he’s a good boy. He’s our boy.

Summer Sunday

We had a mini heat wave over the weekend and it was 96 degrees on Sunday. I wanted to Get In The Water but we ended up at the pool, because the streams are still high and cold but the pool has a zero-depth entry that had already warmed up and is great for lolling around in like a seal.

The no-frills pool locker room also had a surprisingly lovely play of leaf shadows over the skylight? It just seemed atmospheric so I took a picture.

Friday Links

1. I hadn’t even heard of Jan Todd before this! Jan Todd May Be the Reason You’re Lifting Weights

2. This column from a Harvard student to Secretary of Education Linda McMahon is withering and amazing, down to the title (“Come At Me, Bro“):

Maybe it’s because I didn’t get married at 17, or because I’ve never witnessed my husband get his head shaved by Donald Trump on national television, or because my pedagogical experience leans more front-of-classroom, rather than distributing-bookmarks-featuring-scantily-clad-lady-wrestlers. Some way or another, I’ve never been quite able to figure out how you think.

Until now.

Secretary, you spent nearly three decades as a WWE executive, where you orchestrated such spectacles as “The Undertaker vs. Kane: WrestleMania XIV” and “WWF Badd Blood: In Your House.” Suffice to say, you respect a good fight. And thus I say: Come at me, bro.

 

3. Nothing like a little Ram Dass to remind me to stop spiraling about the near future of my job or buying a new house: