If an angry bear was treated the way rape is

Okay this is not bad, not bad at all.

“You talk too damn much and too damn much of it is about you.”

― Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye

Not obsessed or anything...

... but this is my playlist today:

(Carry On fan art via Leela)

Questions from my husband that make me happy:

"Is it okay if I make nutella pancakes for dinner?"

Worth the bed sores

I'm on the record as being a big Rainbow Rowell fan. I'm also a sucker for fantasy novels and romance. These are three reasons why Rowell's new novel, Carry On, feels like it has been written specifically for me. Unlike, say, Lev Grossman's The Magician's, it's not necessarily a novel I'd recommend for everyone, even if I do think it's been heavily influenced by the Grossman series. Without wanting to do spoilers there are some elements of it some people might not be into and the central mystery could probably be more mysterious or convoluted if that was what the book was about which, well, it's kind of not.However, I would urge anyone who likes fantasy of the Harry Potter type and/or likes Rowell's other novels to give this one a red hot crack because I loved it. I read 90 per cent of it in one sitting and it was worth the bed sores.

Husband Number Two Should Andy Perish In A Tragic House Fire And After I Have Waited An Appropriate Length Of TIme

Come on. Come ooooon: doesn't this guy (photo via The Sartorialist) seem like the best? Just look at him. Look at that smile. Look at that hair. I want to mess up that hair so badly right now I have an actual ache in my bathing suit area. I also really want to borrow that cute little shrunken jacket that seems like it might be, I don't know, velvet? Corduroy? Either way I'm into it. In my mind the first couple of times I borrowed it he'd be charmed because we were madly in love and I'd look adorable even though it didn't really technically button up over my boobs and was kind of too tight on my chubby arms. Then after we moved in together and made that shit official he'd start finding the jacket put away in my cupboard and get a bit pissy with me. After so many years I'd claim the jacket had always been mine and he'd borrowed it off me. Then he'd show me this photo - taken years before we met - to show me what a liar I was and I'd be sad because a) he was right and I was wrong and also a big exposed liar and b) this photo would remind me of how cute and lovely and charming he was once when he was just a smile and a cute haircut and what a dick he's since become and how much I want a divorce.

Favourite Things I Have Done in Thailand This Week

1. Sat on my balcony listening to this.

2. Not set my alarm clock.

3. Breakfasted alone. For, like, 2 hours with my book.

4. Snorkelled in really deep water and not thought about sharks the whole time. To clarify: I thought about sharks most of the time so I didn't really enjoy this while I was doing it, per se, but I did feel chuffed with myself for not being a total pussy and staying on the boat.

5. Ate a LOT of really good food. Last night's six course meal (seven if you count the little swinging chocolates at the end) was a real highlight, even if I was in danger of having to roll out of the restaurant.

6. Demonstrated iron will power by not drinking every wine or cocktail put in front of me... which was a lot.

7. Encountered charming Aussies running hotels or restaurants or both over here. Once of them grew up a street away from me.

8. Had two of the best massages I've ever had. I still feel a bit like I was beaten up but in the best possible way.

9. Fell asleep in the sun.

My Proustian madeleine

"How to date a brown girl (black girl, white girl, or halfie)"

by Junot Diaz

Wait for your brother and your mother to leave the apartment. You've already told them that you're feeling too sick to go to Union City to visit that tia who likes to squeeze your nuts. (He's gotten big, she'll say.) And even though your moms knows you ain't sick you stuck to your story until finally she said, Go ahead and stay, malcriado.
Clear the government cheese from the refrigerator. If the girl's from the Terrace stack the boxes behind the milk. If she's from the Park or Society Hill hide the cheese in the cabinet above the oven, way up where she'll never see. Leave yourself a reminder to get it out before morning or your moms will kick your ass. Take down any embarrassing photos of your family in the campo, especially the one with the halfnaked kids dragging a goat on a rope leash. The kids are your cousins and by now they're old enough to understand why you're doing what you're doing. Hide the pictures of yourself with an Afro. Make sure the bathroom is presentable. Put the basket with all the crapped-on toilet paper under the sink. Spray the bucket with Lysol, then close the cabinet.
Shower, comb, dress. Sit on the couch and watch TV. If she's an outsider her father will be bringing her, maybe her mother. Neither of them want her seeing any boys from the Terrace-people get stabbed in the Terrace-but she's strong-headed and this time will get her way. If she's a whitegirl you know you'll at least get a hand job. 

If you've never read any Junot Diaz before or if the above made you chuckle you can and should read the whole thing (it's not long) here.

How not to make Nigella Lawson's nutella cheesecake

1. Don't start making it until you're really hungry.
2. Make slightly too much for the tart tray so you have a big blob of the filling left in the bowl.
3. Eat the blob.
4. Eat the leftover chocolate ripple biscuits.
5. Definitely eat the leftover nutella.
6. Lie quietly in bed and look out the window, clutching your too-full tummy.

"It's not that I love myself, I just don't want company."

(Joan Armatrading, "Me Myself & I")

Nachman!

I feel like I've been posting a lot of links to short stories on here lately. That's probably because I've been reading a lot of them or, to be more accurate, listening to a lot of them thanks to the New Yorker's terrific short fiction podcast. If you like short stories and podcasts: get onto this, it's terrific.

Since I started listening to this podcast a month or so ago it's not only introduced me to some great new stories, it's also helped me rediscover two short stories, totally unconnected from each other, that I read years ago and which I had failed repeatedly to find time and time again. First it was Joshua Ferris' "The Dinner Party". Now it's "Cryptology" by Leonard Michaels. Oh Lord if you knew how many times I had Google searched for this bad boy, of which I had such fond memories. I can't remember when or where I read it years ago and I couldn't remember much about it except for the super awkward interaction (soooo good/bad) at its heart. I couldn't remember the author or the main characters name, nor even what city it was set in.

The funny thing is that this story didn't appear on the podcast at all - another short story by the same author and about the same main character did. The moment I heard that name, Nachman, it came back to me: that was the guy from the other story that one time. One Google search later and here we are.

All of which is a long way of saying this is a fun story you should read:

Nachman had arrived in New York the previous evening, and was walking along Fifth Avenue when she came up behind him, calling, “Nachman, Nachman, is that you?” He looked back and saw a woman shining with a happiness for which he, apparently, was responsible. His mere existence had turned on her lights. Nachman kissed her on both cheeks, and then they stood chatting at the corner of Forty-second Street, the millions passing with the minutes. When Nachman parted from her, he was holding her business card and the key to her apartment in Chelsea, having promised to join her and her husband for dinner that evening.

Things I did this week

Sent this clip to my boss, who was having a bad day too. Cheered us both right up. Fuck you can really tell we're exactly the same age.

5 Stars

Maybe I'm getting super mellow in my dotage but this little bit of 2 Star trickery made me laugh and laugh and laugh. 5 stars, guys.

Hee. “Oculus Thrift”. I see what you did there.

In March 2014, Zuckerberg announced that he would buy Oculus VR for more than $2 billion, and suddenly the question of what is possible now was not so hard to predict. The top two manufacturers of video-game consoles—Sony and Microsoft—are both preparing to release their own headsets in the next year. And just months after the Oculus acquisition was announced, Facebook’s chief competitor, Google, unveiled a virtual-reality-on-the-cheap offering, Google Cardboard, which involves slipping a smartphone into a headset made of a few dollars’ worth of corrugated paper. The press called it “Oculus Thrift.”

Over at Vanity Fair there is a long but interesting read on how Facebook's deal on Oculus Rift was done for nerds who are interested in such things. As someone who knows sweet fuck all about these things I cannot see it NOT being, as they point out in the yarn, an intermediate technology but shit if I had a spare $1500* I would get one.

* Or a secret benefactor. Guys? Guys? Call me. We'll talk about it.

The paw

(These cats are why I sometimes want a pal for Mr Whiskerley so bad.)

Johnlock

S: John… John… John…

J: What

S: Look, John

(So good. Via Destination Toast)

Thanks, internet

For the timely reminder that I really used to love Murder, She Wrote and should probably do a massive rewatch some time soon.

(Also, if you secretly think J.Fletch is kinda stylin' you should get on this)