1. These are just hilarious: Love Poems For Married People

You look up, and perhaps because of the expression on my face
you say, “What?”
It would be impossible for me to explain
if you don’t already understand.

2. It’s Bob Ross season again at our house: Doc is working more later shifts, everyone is stressed out, and sometimes you just need to watch something soothing by the glow of the twinkle lights–and receive life advice at the same time. 

(Not my capture–via Respectful Memes on Twitter, which I love unironically.)

I’ve got that December feeling where the days seem so long (and you’re ready to go to bed at 8:30 because it’s been dark for hours) but then you realize that Christmas is in two weeks and some change and you’re turning 39 in under a month and there’s still so much left TO DO, both for the holiday and your life!

So let’s distract ourselves from the unstoppable march of time with the internet:

1. There’s an Anni Albers exhibit at the Tate Modern in London, which would be amazing to see.

2. Also in “weaving” and “escapism,” this BBC feature on the last velvet merchant of Venice is worth the click.

“The company still uses the same ancient looms that Luigi Bevilacqua salvaged from the city’s abandoned silk guild decades after Napoleon conquered Venice and closed its mills in 1806.”

1. Everything is mental health now! Even Peanuts! But seriously, this was a nice Twitter thread appreciating how open the comic was about poor Charlie Brown’s depression.

2. Kimberly Harrington has a magnificent satire up on McSweeney’s (in response to Jerry Seinfeld’s interview about Louis C.K. and “tense times in comedy,” linked in her piece). It’s written as a Seinfeld episode and not only is the voicing spot on, there are some sick burns in there, too. Seinfeld Ep 181: “The Grovel”

ELAINE
By the way, what was he even doing at the club
last night? I heard he spends all his time riding
around in his friend’s fancy car, drinking coffee.

JERRY
He dropped in for a surprise set.

ELAINE
So he’s still taking himself out in front of people,
even when no one asked him to.

KRAMER
Good one.

Let’s call it the weekend already, shall we? Maybe, while we give thanks and our inboxes explode with Black Friday offers, we can also remember those who need some help (this broke my heart; you can help her specifically here, and other Camp Fire victims here). And if the holidays are hard for you, here are some tips:

(by People I’ve Loved)

OK! On to the links.

1. This long essay (on MTV.com of all places) includes deserts, aliens, owls as aliens, the Western spirit, John Donne…and a Spotify playlist. I didn’t know where it would take me next and I loved it:  Aliens, Archaeology, and the Atomic Bomb: A Road Trip Through the American West

2. This piece from the New Yorker–about how Greek and Roman sculptures were often painted, and why people just ignored that fact until recently–was fascinating: The Myth of Whiteness in Classical Sculpture

1. Austin Kleon’s newsletter pointed to a quote and an old blog post about textile artist Anni Albers, who I’ve thought about a lot this year (after realizing fabric things can be art, too):

“In my case it was threads that caught me, really against my will. To work with threads seemed sissy to me. I wanted something to be conquered. But circumstances held me to threads and they won me over. I learned to listen to them and to speak their language. I learned the process of handling them.”

2. I didn’t know this happened, but it’s perfect: In the early 90s, the New York Times heard that a record label employee had the scoop on a “lexicon” of slang used in the grunge scene. The employee did not, but she MADE ONE UP on the spot and the Times printed it. Harsh realm, man.

1. I went into the archives of The Toast this week (to dig up this, because these things come up in conversation) and I found another gem:

Literary Quotes That Double As Excellent Mantras During A Final Set (Or: Things I Have Whispered Quietly To Myself At The Gym)

2. (Very) long term readers will know that I was thinking about adopting a dog before I found Toby in 2008. When I bought the house and The Future seemed really terrifying, I told myself, “Toby and I can always get a dog when I turn 40.” Well, I’m going to be 39 in a few months and look at what I saw yesterday:

Greyhound racing was banned in Florida yesterday. Regardless of your views on racing, this means about 8000 hounds will be looking for homes in the coming months. They are wonderful, kind, sweet, and sleepy dogs, and in the wake of this please consider opening your home to one. pic.twitter.com/5ZwaAJRA1h

— Tracy 🦖 is @ Acadecon! (@tracysaur) November 7, 2018

HMMM…..

1. I just found the Instagram of the US Consumer Product Safety Commission and it is the BEST. (Really.) It’s like there’s one traditional employee posting tips about firework safety and then some weird intern with Photoshop going off and creating stuff like this:

2. The headline sums it up pretty well here:  See how grotesque Jeff Bezos’ fortune is in this choose-your-own-adventure game

1. Nebraska has a new tourism campaign and it’s pretty great (and reminds me of this):

2. My hair’s long enough to pull back without pieces falling out of it, but to do that my ponytail has to sit low on the back of my head. I read this and laughed out loud, because IT ME:

(via)

I’m headed out of town for a few days (Doc is holding down the fort), so here’s some early weekend links.

1. Via Girls of a Certain Age, these song titles in the style of pulp novel covers are great. (I need the Maggie’s Farm one!)

2. Good to remember: You don’t owe anyone an interaction (via Swiss Miss)

1. Fear not, it’s never too late in the week to work up a righteous head of steam about the state of our culture. From a few weeks ago, A Man explains What so many men are missing about #MeToo

If you take women seriously as full and equal human beings, and you contemplate the hundreds of thousands of victims of abuse who will never be heard or receive any recompense, and you contemplate the untold thousands of abusive acts and relationships ongoing in the US as we speak, and you contemplate the hostility and skepticism with which victims are still met when they come forward, and you contemplate the thuggish misogyny of the current administration and the real damage it is doing to American women, it just becomes really difficult to gin up a lot of sympathy for, oh, Al Franken.

2. Related (for real; here’s a history of pockets*), a survey of jeans pockets to proves that yes, women’s pockets are tiny and useless. “…Like so many things on the internet, we could find complaints and anecdotes galore but little data illustrating just how inferior women’s pockets really are to men’s. So, we went there.”

*”Women’s pockets were private spaces they carried into the public with increasing freedom, and during a revolutionary time, this freedom was very, very frightening. The less women could carry, the less freedom they had. Take away pockets happily hidden under garments, and you limit women’s ability to navigate public spaces, to carry seditious (or merely amorous) writing, or to travel unaccompanied.”