We are neither red states nor blue states but the United States of normal goddamn people who like dogs
Soon we the American people will be able to welcome two very good boys to the White House after four long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long dog-ass years. I’m speaking of course of the Bidens’ German Shepherds, Major and Champ. …
Look, I’m not a fan of racism, ableism, or classism but it’s not like I invented them. What I did invent is this app for applying to our learning pod!
Hello school community!
I hope this email finds you well (lol)! As summer turns to fall and fall turns into the darkest winter in modern history, we’re excited to extend an invitation to your precious child(ren) to join our learning pod! A learning pod is like a tiny little exclusive private school or a miniature country club where your children can spend lots of time with children just like themselves but for righteous and theoretically community health-based reasons. …
Before you even start with me, let me be very clear that until Marriage Story, the only thing I knew about Adam Driver was that some internet cats looked like him. And Star Wars something something I don’t know. I stopped watching Star Wars back when there was exactly one Star Wars movie and it was called Star Wars. Net net: I am not carrying water for Adam Driver. Fine, I loved Marriage Story and I will argue with you about that at another time.
But to the task at hand: I watched the Fresh Air, “Adam Driver storms out…” debacle explode across Twitter and I did what every Twitter scrolling idiot does, I clicked. And I clicked and I clickety-clicked. I felt outrage! That’s what we do on The Twitter! I! Am! Very! Somehow! Outraged! About this thing! That has existed! In my awareness! For seven whole seconds! How dare a famous, rich, handsome (?) person of the arts behave like a spoiled child? Especially to, of all people, the appropriately-bespectacled (quirky, not too flashy) Terry Gross? What kind of monster, etc. etc. …
Illustration by Bene Rohlmann
When you’re heading out on a road trip with adolescents, don’t forget to bring everything, including a little emotional baggage! Here is a sanity-saving checklist to get you through long drives with teens.
We (those of us in charge of industry, government, and the courts) understand these are dynamic times. And we know we don’t always get things right. Or even just a handful of things right. We get almost nothing right.
But we want you to know we’ve heard you. We’ve heard your feedback and your many, many requests and we are innovating the least bad ways to solve modern problems. We also thought about this stuff a lot during an expensive retreat where we performatively starved ourselves. Look, we know we’re not perfect but we’re trying. …
Parenting humor sites don’t die, they just abandon you for their friends
Dear people,
We all knew this time would come and come it has. We have decided to bring RAZED’s Terrorizing and Highly Inconsistent Reign of Terror™ to a close. But first! Here is our valentine to you:
Okay everyone settle down, settle down. Let’s get started, it’s getting hot up here. It’s hot everywhere! It’s Hell, you guys. Hey Hitler, watch my tail there, buddy.
That’s right, it’s that time of the month again — and I know a little something about times of the month, don’t I ladies — when we recognize someone who has truly gone below and backwards in their duties. A person who has taken that whole false prophet thing and really run with it. And a person who is so repulsive that he only gets votes because people hate immigrants more than they hate him. You gotta love that logic! Jesus was an immigrant you guys but okay. …
Jodi Kantor, The New York Times reporter who, along with Megan Twohey, broke the Harvey Weinstein story, spoke here in Vermont back in February. Of all the ground she covered, one anecdote in particular snagged my attention. She remarked that doing something as simple as watching an old movie with her eldest daughter now meant having to constantly press pause in order to provide context for what was unfolding, and why it was problematic.
Would that have happened 10 years ago? Or even two?
These are our homes, our marriages; this is our mothering now. Mothers and wives are at the forefront of reshaping, recontextualizing, reminding, and not a small amount of revisionist history. As with gun violence, everyone seems all too ready to put their faith in the next generation to fix it, adding a whole new level of labor to the sandwich generation we already are : one whiplashed between the gender dynamics of our mothers’ Mad Men reality and our daughters’ March For Our Lives urgency. …
Hellacious
Isthmus
Lull
Lolly
Accrual
Rash
Yawp
.
Wangle
Oligarchy
Nougat
.
Thwart
Hagiography
Emperor
.
Particularly
Overlord
Perish
Uvula
Loutishness
Anemone
Rural
.
Vaginismus
Oaf
Tertiary
Ether
Kimberly Harrington is a regular contributor to McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, the co-founder and editor of parenting humor site RAZED, and a copywriter and creative director. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Timothy McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, and on Medium. Her first book, AMATEUR HOUR: MOTHERHOOD IN ESSAYS AND SWEAR WORDS is out May 1st from Harper Perennial.
I joined Medium back in the Olden Tymes (2015). It’s where I posted my first personal essays, my first opinion pieces, my first viral humor thingamabob. Medium, along with McSweeney’s, have everything to do with how I built a career separate from my advertising work. These two writerly places that exist in air are where I became a writer-writer, tricked an agent into signing me, and ended up writing a book.
During those first couple of months, I had maybe seven followers. It felt exciting to be a part of a community that loved writing but weren’t a bunch of snobby-snobs about it. You could write a thing, put that thing up, then obsessively check your stats because maybe it sucked! Maybe it was good! We cheered each other on. …
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