Selected Things #4

Friends For Life

FREEBIE TIME! Hey friends, this is the list ‘o’ the good stuff that I send out to my paid subscribers every two weeks. I’m giving you all a taste today, drug kingpin style, to entice you to join us behind the velvet rope…

BOOKS

I’m Glad My Mom Died

Nickelodean Nickleby?

I’m glad Jennette McCurdy just released her first novel, because it reminded me that I never listened to her bestselling memoir. Whoo boy is it dark, like Dickensian-level child exploitation, but she is a smart witty heroine to root for.

From Here to the Great Unknown

TLDR; Priscilla is the Jeffrey Epstein of moms

Sticking to the theme of famous kids damaged by fucked-up parents, here’s the Lisa Marie Presley memoir, finished posthumously by her daughter Riley Keough. If you like dark tales of excess, this is a feast, but be warned: The druggy Hollywood rot is intense and the sadness of it all hard to bear. Riley is the heroine here. She found a way to complete this book after her mom died and—more impressively—emerge from the wreckage of her cursed family.

JOURNALISM

John Irving’s Olympic Grandkids

No, not wrestlers

How nutty is this? I love the Olympics, and these sorts of odd little trivial stories are partly why. Imagine if John Irving was your grandpa and would send you cards like the one in this article.

Jane Fonda on ON with Kara Swisher

Wiser than all of us

Consider this the perfect sequel to Fonda’s epic interview with Julia Louis-Dreyfus on “Wiser Than Me.” This 88-year-old dynamo is working so hard to turn this country in the right direction (i.e., away from fascism and utter climate collapse). I dare you to not be motivated after listening. LFG. ¹

SURFING

Friendships after 50

Let’s hear it for the sister-wives!

Stumbled upon this at work, and thought it was worth sharing (but sparing you their alarmist clickbait headline here). It’s easy to lose contact with people who you relied upon to get you through those chaotic years of life with little kids. Turns out friends are like strength training–only good if you keep doing it. Keep lifting weights, and keep making friends. But don’t make friends at the gym; that’s creepy.

I Trained With the U.S. Green Berets Prepping for War With Russia

Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes…

On my midnight peregrinations around the digital corridors of distraction, sometimes I’m pulled in by makeup tutorials, sometimes it’s gorgeous leather handbags, and sometimes it’s headlines like this one. You don’t need to watch the whole 13 minutes, but whatever you do catch will kind of freak you out. Winter is Coming.

STUFF

Red Cabbage with Walnuts and Feta

We need more purple food

So, speaking of friends, how about that gal in your life who is very outer circle to you, like maybe you don’t even know her last name, but it’s a delight to run into her every time? One of mine is a former chef/food tv producer. We saw each other in the bleachers of an ultimate frisbee game a while back, and she suggested this recipe. Oh my goodness. Might be the ideal winter salad.

Drawing Eye Brow

Makeup for cheapskates

Amazingly, I’ve never plucked, waxed or threaded my eyebrows, and certainly never used pencil. A few years back, however, the makeup industrial complex wore me down and I waded into the eyebrow pencil waters. Now I won’t even walk the dog without it. I’ve bought the pricey ones sold by the exiled Russian czarina, and I’m telling you this is just as great, for only $6. Plus, it’s goofily called “Drawing Eye Brow.”

SKIP IT

Delta Airlines

Blame it on the robots

Greedy and deliberately confusing shitbag airline Delta has a feature that gives you the option to pay an additional $40 to “buy your seat assignment now,” or get your seats at the gate. You have just paid several hundred dollars for the ticket. It doesn’t mention that if you don’t opt to buy your seat assignment, you won’t be guaranteed a seat. When you confirm your flight the night prior, it doesn’t caution you that you are in fact flying standby. We found this out the hard way. Save yourself. Fly a different airline. (Might I suggest their affiliate carrier, AeroMexico, who blamed our problem on “the robots” and even though I was a barely-contained banshee at the counter, figured out how to get us on the plane. ¡Viva Mexico!)

1. On a lark, some friends and I did the old Jane Fonda Workout one Sunday morning. Sure it was a hoot, but all that pulsing and ‘feeling the burn’ did in fact kick our ass. And she is still kicking ass.