Shaun Strohmer 🎼💜🍲💻

I suppose this could go without saying, but the only way you could think she was a good writer is if you were sympathetic to her worldview, because as a prose stylist she is dull and repetitive, she is bad at creating characters, and she's antagonistic to empathy.

Like, what?!

Ask anyone with a humanities PhD if they would describe everyone on their dissertation committee as "benevolent."

Two headlines from the digital New York Times, one right on top of the other. On top, "When Everybody Has Airport Lounge Access, Nobody Does," and beneath, "They Saw Their Neighbors Take Away by ICE. Then They Made a Plan."

This is exactly what the roller coaster of life feels like right now.

If you see this post a castle.

(Culzean Castle in southwest Scotland. If you've seen the original Wicker Man it may look familiar).

We need a Steve Miller for the left.

Someone who’ll turn the Democratic Party into a big ol’ jetliner that’ll fly like an eagle, take the money and run. Abracadabra, just like that.

This is what posting feels like

Not a Hamas fan, but turn your territory over to Trump? Jesus, what a choice.

Exactly. The audience is men who are angry at women, not men who generally like women.

Not too unlike how the reams of "get a man advice" was for women who didn't like themselves, in part because the men whose favor they depended on for a home or safety seemed to generally dislike women.

There's a Funk Zone in Santa Barbara? I'm in!

Speaking of Dramedy, let me again say that Dying of Sex is one of the best things I've watched in forever.

Clearly a very narrow definition of comedy—I'd put Larry Sanders, Garry Shandling Show, Curb, animated sitcoms, dramadies (god, Fleabag!), in different categories.

Also I'm a comedy person:

Mary Tyler Moore
Dick Van Dyke
I Love Lucy
30 Rock
What We Do in the Shadows

Only watched some of these shows and I probably won't go back to the others because no matter how great they were, in 2025 I'm exhausted by the story of the great male antihero.

Loved Breaking Bad, but loved that Better Call Saul started to seriously undermine that narrative—Kim Wexler forever!

It is not possible for me to watch 30 Rock too many times. Easily the best network sitcom of this century.

"You can just think of them as little sandpapers and you inhale them and they are just in your lungs kind of irritating, irritating, irritating," Jessie Carr, an environmental epidemiology supervisor for the Minnesota Department of Health

Tiny Smoke Particles (a poem)

An all timer, on a par with those others.

Nah, that's a complete sentence.

OMG I am not a sportsball person but there was a lot of salty talk about this at my gym yesterday! People are MAD! And no one can find the logic.

If it helps, I complained about it again to my husband today on the way home from the gym. Reminders of melisma are everywhere.

Lady Gaga is a very un-melismatic singer. (See the NYT on this.) Melisma refers to singing multiple notes on a syllable of a WORD. It connotes rapidity and fluidity as well, especially when talking about pop music. Not just singing a series of notes on an OOH or AHH.

Mariah Carey would like a word

I mean, their own publication says she is a prime example of music moving away from that style. WTF?

BTW Steve and I discussed this again in the car today while listening to Stevie Wonder, who is a prodigious user of melisma. Or I discussed and he made fun of me.

Do you like gnocchi? Is it the barrel-like shape of these foods?

Ugh. That is a lot to contemplate. I'm not moving to Alaska or Wyoming. But wildfires have been hard on this area. Maybe we just have to give up and move to Grand Marais?

This makes me curious. While we're all hiding from the actual air—what're your must-have fair foods?

I'd say
🌽 Roasted corn
🍨 Ice cream: Dairy Barn malt or Honey Ice Cream at the Ag-Hort building
🐭 Yes, a cheese curd
🫐 Grain Belt Blu w/ slushy top—only time I have beer for breakfast (or fruit beer)

Oof! I hadn't thought of that but yeah.

I do like cheese curds but I can only eat a couple now. I am age-ed!

Exactly. I was going to walk to run errands yesterday, but I have had enough trouble in the last year that I stayed in. Somewhat ironically, the AQI makes me take my car and contribute to the AQI.

Dislike!

The fatigue I am getting from this as a person with asthma. It's the air quality, but it's also the staying indoors during peak summer weather.

It's all third spaces, baby. Used to go bowling, used to cover Skynyrd in the garage, used to have a car club. Now we've got Theo Von on in the F-350 on the way home from your 11-hour workday.