Emily O’Donnell

It’s been negative degrees in Pittsburgh for two long. Happy to escape to California for a couple of weeks where the temperature is civilized.

I do not want America to be Great.
I do not want Venezuela, Greenland, Alberta in particular, or Canada in general.
I do not want anyone deported (no, not even the worst of the worst).
I do not want a golden White House, a spacious ballroom, or a concrete Rose Garden.

I want America to be better.

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Travel Photography: Porto, Portugal

Porto was the city I visited in Portugal over the summer, and had ample opportunity to explore the surrounding area for photos. Some of my favorites from the trip are in here, including a…

https://emilyophoto.com/2026/01/23/travel-photography-porto-portugal/

Excuse me I can’t believe I just bi-erased both Ilya Rozanov and Antoni Porowski I’m so sorry.

Going directly from a Heated Rivalry rewatch into the final season of Queer Eye because all of the gay men on television are currently keeping me mentally stable.

wdym the heated rivalry dudes are gonna be olympic torchbearers holy shit live laugh lgbtq

I also truly hope this makes hockey gayer in the real world. Gayer than it already is even.

Anyway I finished my second reheat and it was even more satisfying than the first. It’s just so well done and there are so many little details executed beautifully.

I have a long running bit about how I stopped watching hockey because they recast all of my favorite characters except for the two male leads. But I know (hope) that this show will never do that to me.

Honestly it is no surprise I’m a fangirl for Heated Rivalry as a longtime fan of gay romance and a brief stint as a hockey fan for the team that includes one of the players the story draws inspiration from.

This is my way of saying of course I’ve been to the cottage. I live there now.

Why do I find Scott Hunter intensely monologuing so soothing.

Now I’m worried about what the AI made up about me that’s going in my medical record.

Yesterday my doctor asked if I minded her using their AI assistant to take notes during our virtual meeting and I was like WHYYYY

How many times is too many for my crown to pop out of my mouth when I’m just eating toast? Because I just had shoved back in my jaw for like the fifth time in a year.

It’s high time for Dorothy to get her due.

Dorothy and Ozma kissing in an illustration from The Road to Oz.

This is a canonical photo of Dorothy and Ozma from The Road to Oz published in 1909. We had this as an option all along. I’m just saying.

But this might be a me problem as I know too much about all of this and should really just write the sapphic Oz book I’ve always wanted to see (Dorothy/Ozma OTP).

There is a tonal battle between the absurd whimsy of the original Oz books, the unsettling technicolor fantasy of the Judy Garland film, and the grimdark perversion of the Maguire books that I’m not sure ever quite gelled in the stage musical and that is even more obvious onscreen.

But I keep thinking about the trees that threw apples at Dorothy and her friends and why aren’t they in this movie? They have been in that forest so many times. And they should have special masks to get through the poppy fields. But that’s book lore I think.

Whenever they say “wait a tick of the clock” I think of the weird dragon clock circus cult from the Maguire books (my favorite bit they def could included in the musical as a framing device). But I also think about the Tik-Tok Man? A canonical Oz book character who is kind of a robot?

Honestly watching Wicked (part 2) whilst trying to remember the source material of the Maguire books, the actual Oz canon I know, AND the Judy Garland movie that is somehow still also canon is kind of mind numbing.

Oh maybe!

Should I post my thoughts about Wicked as a lifelong Oz book fan who has read the Maguire books but never actually seen the whole musical onstage?

This was also completely unintentional.

Sitting down to watch Wicked with a golden monkey in hand and thinking about how Victory really missed out on some flying monkey beer crossover.

Fancy bidet.

I heartily agree with this, anything to get people off FB messenger.

We have a laundry chute which is great but I often wish for a dumbwaiter to carry the laundry back up.