I Think I Recall We All Enjoy Samantha Bee’s Talent-

laughter brings endorphins. She blends humor and current events the same as she’s always done, excellently! (And just look at that salad- )

Hold On, Hold On by Samantha Bee

Marathon conditioning with humor, salads, and Neko Case Read on Substack

Happy New Year, One 👏 Week 👏 Into 👏 The 👏 Trump 👏Administration 👏 And 👏 I 👏 Am 👏 Trying 👏 So 👏 Hard 👏 Not 👏 To 👏 Lose 👏 My 👏 Cool.

Here is the Serenity Prayer, as a quick refresh.

Wait, that’s the wrong one.

Anyway, you get the picture.

Oh believe me I could easily spend every moment of every day flaming the Trump administration for every single catastrophe they lob into the public sphere like tossing a grenade into a cellar full of Bubble Guppies.

Just not sure I’m ready for it, and it’s kind of twisting me up inside a bit.

Anyway, gonna go liquidate all my assets and I guess pour it into $Melania crypto tokens? Do I have this right? We just grift in full view now and that is just what we do? Instagram and Meta are blocking people’s access to healthcare information and it is NBD. This diva fired this woman DURING THE INAUGURAL BALL and a Fox News host runs the DOD now.

I guess…pace yourself? Don’t blow all your outrage in the first week out of…hundreds of weeks?

We must find humor where we can.

I, for example, was talking to my dad the other day about his arthritic hip, and I was like “what about just an aspirin every morning and some stretching and activity?” And he was like “Don’t be ridiculous, I think I’m going to go down a more natural path?”

Meaning?

“My friend has a naturopath and he got a prescription and he is going to give some of the pills to me.” (Which is not, to my understanding, naturopathy? In any case.)

“Well, what is in the pills? Are they unregulated supplements?”

“WHY ARE YOU SUCH A SKEPTIC.”

“I just don’t think it’s advisable to take other people’s medicati–”

*sound of father struggling with reading glasses and fiddling with another man’s bottle of pills*

“Here you go smart guy. It’s something called mi-…miso—…misoprostol??”

Yes, that is correct. MISOPROSTOL.

One man gave another man some Misoprostol, which can be used for ulcers I think, but is also used to procure a medication abortion.

My dad was like “do NOT write about this” and I said “unfortunately that is not possible.”

The elders are giving each other abortion pills for their hip pain. Everything is upside down. GIVE THEM TO ME, we need to stockpile those.

Speaking of open access to abortion pills for all – and not just my Dad, I must plug my most recent Choice Words with Amanda Skinner, who is the President and CEO of Planned Parenthood Southern New England. We have a fascinating conversation about the many misconceptions surrounding Planned Parenthood’s mission and the breadth of healthcare services they actually provide for a variety of patients. Please check it out wherever get your podcasts.

We must nourish our bodies. For example I made Andy Baraghani’s citrus and caramelized date salad from his amazing book, and I swear to God I think about it ten times a day. I gave myself so many high fives for this dish even though I didn’t invent it, and merely followed his highly entertaining instructions. Uncrate the sun!

And we must nourish our minds, or at least distract them a bit.

For example–I am hosting a book event for Neko Case tonight in New York City and friends, I am here to tell you that if you read ONE book in the next ten years, please make it this one. I feel blessed that she asked me to participate in this event, and tbh I pray that I can get through it without crying that she is also writing the music for the Broadway adaptation of Thelma and Louise. Nope. Already misting over like a g-d baby.

I also highly recommend the distraction of rewatching Downton Abbey, which I am embarrassed to tell you I thought was DownTOWN Abbey for three FULL ASS seasons, since I didn’t watch it and never listened to anybody talk about it ever.

Anyway now I’m watching it, and it’s great of course–and gives me that uncomfortable squirmy feeling I used to get as a child from all the awkward misapprehensions of Three’s Company.

Somehow in a time of turmoil, watching people brutally misunderstand each other and demonstrate extreme emotional constipation is just the ticket to relax and unwind my brain! Agonizing!

And something I would like to remind everybody, as we venture forth into semi-uncharted waters: cleanse yourself of social media as much as you are able.

I have put myself on a strict diet of zero brain rot social media time. Sure, I miss all the videos of cats launching themselves into Christmas trees, but this is a price I am willing to pay.

Only for business, only when I have something to say, only when necessary. Watching all of those tech bro Dobby’s on the dais boot licking Trump was brain Ozempic for me; I lost my appetite to carry their water and give them my eyeballs and personal data.

Happy to keep the lights on for the socials and post occasionally on a few platforms, but a better use of all those precious brain cells is to put them toward Neko Case’s new book and rest up for the marathon we are already running.

Love to all.

Xo, Sam

(snip)

It happened again. Trigger warning for child physical and sexual abuse.

Last night I had gone to bed earlier than Ron, my husband as is normal. I slept on my side of the bed and Tupac slept on Ron’s side against Ron’s pillows. We have two small car type pillows and we normally put one down against Ron’s pillows with a towel over them for Tupac to lay on. He sometimes has incontinence of his bladder and at the end of the time length of his drops he tends to get drips from his anus. We are not sure if he just gets into something outside that causes it or it is his drops preventing it as Ron is not great at keeping track of the drops or his spotting.

So when Ron came to bed he started to pull back his blanket and sheets only to realize Tupac had urinated a lot. Again not his fault, he does this when deep asleep sometimes. He is old and badly injured on his lower back end. We think he got hit by a golf cart because he is terrified by them. So Ron and I changed the bed at 10 pm last night.

Ron has gone out to visit with a nurse he worked with and I started washing the sheet and blankets from last night. As I lifted the bedding up to put it in the washer the smell and sight of a pee soaked circle right in my face triggered first one and then more memories. I lost track of time, I was that boy having been peed on while on my mat in the hallway, I was the boy so proud of his first bed to be forced to beg to drink a teen male’s urine rather than have it on my first bed at age 8 … only to have them do it to me anyway. To have to kneel or stand as the males peed on my pants or in them knowing I would be given public punishment by the adopting parents for peeing myself. Forced to accept them doing to me something I had no way to stop, too small and too weak to stop to do anything, and then suffering the public punishment in front of them as they laughed and mocked me with the approval of the adopting parents.

I went to the bathroom next to the washer / dryer and threw up in the toilet. Once done with that I just sat there on the floor and cried. A damned 62 year old man, once a decorated enlisted military man who served in two branches of the service, sitting on the bathroom floor with my back to the sink cabinet sobbing for remembered past pains, hurts, and emotions I can never seem to make stay away but resurface again and again and again into eternity. They tear at me, destroy me it seems like every time.

Finally I was able to calm down. Ron was gone so I had to deal with no support. Yes I could have called Randy but I did not have my phone and even the thought to find it was something I couldn’t manage. Damn even as I try to type this I keep breaking out in tears. I sometimes wonder if the living abusers ever feel bad over what they did to me? But I know not, they were too well schooled and inducted into hate by their parents. So I finished putting stuff in the laundry, kept drying my eyes and blowing my nose.

When I got back to my Pink Palace office … which I will be leaving soon for a grand better brighter room, I took the dry up nasal spray and sat down to write this. I struggled as always … should I burden my friends with it … Well they did not do this it is not their fault. Hey they are really good people I shouldn’t throw this dirt on them and soil them with my own past it is not their fault!

These people don’t deserve to have these thoughts in their head like you do, give them a fuck break from your whining you piece of damaged shit the voice of my adoptive father screams in my head! It rings so loud along with the other names called me. The worst were when he was angry or during the abuse. But his general feeling about me he beat into me. Now I am so tired. I want to quit. I want it all to end. I want to give up.

But there is joy in my life I force myself to remember. I have my wonderful husband of nearly 35 year. I have a home, and enough income to survive. I have good things in my life. But they only cover the screams of the abused child I was, even raped after I came home from the military by them until I was able to escape to my own home and then to the safety of Ron’s protection from them.

Thank you for letting me write this. As always it is a horrible fight to do it, it is like being abused all over again to describe it. But the process of doing that, of voicing the hurt makes is so much less, drives it back into the holes it hides into. I need to write to get it out of me. I am so grateful there are people who understand this and willing to listen as I do, taking unto themselves their own memories my writing may trigger. I am so sorry I might do that to others, to hurt them. But it is the only way I know to get some relief myself. So I thank you all greatly. Hugs.

Reblog of a reblog; a very strong read-go see!

Thank you Yenn

Hopeful SFF Literature

Five Hopeful SFF Stories About Believing in Humanity

Snippet:

Though I’ve spent a large part of my early adulthood overthinking and despairing about the state of the world, a part of me continues to remain stubbornly hopeful. Over and over, I’ve looked for evidence that people are inherently good, that we have solved problems in the past and that we will keep doing so (just as we keep creating those problems in the first place). And I believe this because I believe in people; to not do so would be to give in to helplessness, to surrender my life to the whims of the universe, which I simply refuse to do. Part of this capacity for optimism and hope comes from reading the kind of SFF stories that are essentially thought experiments in how things could turn out well. Consider the following examples…

You Are Fabulous!

I just now learned that today is International Compliment Day, and you know I’m here for that-I love giving compliments! Stay As Wonderful As You Are! (Also enjoy this toon, which is funny, but unfortunately on topic. YOU Are Still AWESOME!)

Last Kiss by John Lustig for January 24, 2025

Last Kiss Comic Strip for January 24, 2025

https://www.gocomics.com/lastkiss/2025/01/24

And As Soon As I Stop Posting, There’s Another!

View Post

Scary Gary by Mark Buford for January 23, 2025

Scary Gary Comic Strip for January 23, 2025

https://www.gocomics.com/scarygary/2025/01/23

Wallace the Brave by Will Henry for January 23, 2025

Wallace the Brave Comic Strip for January 23, 2025

Wallace the Brave by Will Henry for January 22, 2025

Wallace the Brave Comic Strip for January 22, 2025

https://www.gocomics.com/wallace-the-brave/2025/01/22

WuMo by Wulff & Morgenthaler for January 23, 2025

https://www.gocomics.com/wumo/2025/01/23

Because They Made Me and Ollie Laugh-

Close to Home by John McPherson for January 23, 2025

Close to Home Comic Strip for January 23, 2025

https://www.gocomics.com/closetohome/2025/01/23

Dark Side of the Horse by Samson for January 23, 2025

Dark Side of the Horse Comic Strip for January 23, 2025

https://www.gocomics.com/darksideofthehorse/2025/01/23

Get Fuzzy by Darby Conley for January 23, 2025

Get Fuzzy Comic Strip for January 23, 2025

https://www.gocomics.com/getfuzzy/2025/01/23

Jim Benton Cartoons by Jim Benton for January 23, 2025

Jim Benton Cartoons Comic Strip for January 23, 2025

https://www.gocomics.com/jim-benton-cartoons/2025/01/23

(Not as funny, but good, so here it is:)
Brian McFadden for January 20, 2025

Brian McFadden Comic Strip for January 20, 2025

https://www.gocomics.com/brian-mcfadden/2025/01/2

Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for January 22, 2025

Pearls Before Swine Comic Strip for January 22, 2025

Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for January 23, 2025

Pearls Before Swine Comic Strip for January 23, 2025

https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2025/01/23

AM Nature Science

I saw this title in a couple of places first thing, and thought it’s a great way to get started! Enjoy. -A

Sunfish that got sick after aquarium closed has recovered — thanks to human cutouts

By MARI YAMAGUCHI Updated 8:27 AM CST, January 22, 2025

TOKYO (AP) — A solitary sunfish at an aquarium in southwestern Japan lost its appetite, began banging into the side of the fishtank and appeared unwell days after the facility closed last month for renovations. As a last-ditch measure to save the popular fish, its keepers hung their uniforms and set up human cutouts outside the tank.

The next morning, the sunfish ate for the first time in about a week and has been steadily recovering, said Moe Miyazawa, an aquarist at the Kaikyokan aquarium in Shimonoseki.

The large sunfish arrived at the aquarium in February 2024 from the southern coast of Kochi in the Pacific Ocean. The sunfish, a member of the blowfish family known for its unique shape and big eyes, became one of the most popular attractions at the facility.

When the sunfish began looking unwell days after the aquarium closed on Dec. 1 for a six-month renovation, its keepers suspected digestive problems, gave it less food and visited the fish tank to comfort the sunfish when there was construction noise, but to no avail.

Then at a staff meeting, one person suggested that the sunfish might have been affected by the sudden absence of an audience.

“We were skeptical but decided to do anything we could,” Miyazawa said. They hung their uniforms and placed human-shaped cutouts with photos of smiling faces outside the tank to cheer on the fish, Miyazawa said.

“I knew (the sunfish) was looking at us when we were placing them, but I never thought it would start eating the next day,” Miyazawa said, beaming. The staff now visit more often and wave at the sunfish.

The aquarium keepers say they hope many fans will return to see the sunfish when the aquarium reopens in the summer.

#actuallyautistic voices

Autistic Pride Is NOT Just about the Good Parts of Being NeuroDivergent

I am not autistic. But many of us here read Barry’s blog to learn, and to be more effective allies. The next 2 entries on his blog are informative, as well.

This could be a resource, or you could be or know of a resource

Either way, I thought I’d paste it in here, and whoever needs it, wants it, or knows something about it can do their thing. The title leans in one particular direction, but there is more info within, and I pasted it all here.

Seeking trans-friendly employers who sponsor visas

Nobody should have to move to another country to be themselves.

However, I’ve spoken to multiple people who feel they need to move away from the US in order to avoid harms caused by the new administration’s executive orders that target trans people. Exactly how to do this is sometimes opaque and feels difficult.

If you are actively hiring for positions in a company that is friendly to transgender people, in a country that is safe for transgender people, and you are willing to sponsor visas for people seeking to emigrate for these positions, I would like to hear from you.

If this is you, please enter your details here, and I’ll make them available on a public, open source website soon.

If you’re unsure which countries are considered to be safe for transgender people, and if your country is one, Rainbow Relocation has a reasonable list, and others are available.

To be clear: I want trans people to feel safe here in the United States, and I want them to be here. But I also understand peoples’ need to feel safe in the current moment. I am not urging people to move, but I would like to make life easier for people who want to. I’m making this request in the spirit of assistance, because I’ve already been asked.

I am also probably not the right person to put this together! But I didn’t see anyone else doing it. If you are from a reputable organization that supports transgender safety in a professional way, and you would like to take ownership of this list or collaborate, or if you are already doing something like this and I missed it, please email me at ben@benwerd.com.

I’m writing about the intersection of the internet, media, and society. Sign up to my newsletter to receive every post and a weekly digest of the most important stories from around the web.