Heyyyy + Honey Updates + "First Born Daughter" Podcast Episode + What I'm Re-Watching + Timberlake's DUI + Boeing Astronauts + Olympics Moratorium + Political Sabbatical?

I’m back. Truthfully I wasn’t planning on this sabbatical actually lasting this long.

The plan was for my June of Leisure to end on a high note, freely sauntering around NYC without a care, deliverable, deadline, or dog under my watch. I got to enjoy about four Honey-free days in the city before having to unexpectedly fly back to LA to pick up my little monster early from her doggy hotel because she was tweaking.

Narrator: She was, in fact, not having fun with all of her friends.

Now, I don’t really know what she was up to. Legend has it she was growling and wouldn’t let anyone sweep out her doggy room. Honey is an anxious dog, kind of a nut, and more scared than she’ll ever be aggressive. But at the end of the day, she’s still a dog — buttlicker and all. This is a rant now….. but do not call me while I’m on vacation to tell me this 27-pound maniac “won’t let you” sweep out her room. Just yell “sit” at her 30000 times and scream “whyyyyyy” as loud as you can until she listens. If that doesn’t work, just beg and plead for her to “be a good girl” like I do. It’s really that easy.

Anyway, within literal hours of landing and picking up Honey, my mouth blew up as detailed here, and so began not a month of fun content and writing, but a month of pure dental hell.

The good news is that I got to spend most of this month in an opiate haze, the bad news that I literally was still dying in pain as shards of excess bone graft glitter (?) squeezed their way out of my gums. I also destroyed my carefully curated #guthealth with two rounds of antibiotics and a Z-Pak.

Anyway, I’ve got one less tooth and feeling much better now. Mostly because I can finally drink again. Let’s quickly catch up on what I’ve been up to.

What I’m Re-Watching

There is absolutely no good TV (with the exception of Love is Blind). I’m really at the point of just cancelling every subscription and going back to regular, degular analog cable. Give me PBS + 20 channels and zero decisions, please.

• Great British Bakeoff

• Workaholics

• Beckham

• Antiques Roadshow

• Unsolved Mysteries (Technically, new)

  • Let’s discuss the skimp happening here. The new season has only half of the episodes previous seasons had. Netflix is next on my cancel list. Max and Hulu are already long one.

What I’m Re-Reading:

The First 90 Days by Michael D. Watkins. I’m manifesting the most insufferable version of myself.

I need to reset, re-learn, re-charge, and generally speaking, step my mf pussy up.

What I’m Listening To:

Me, duh. Earlier this spring, I had the absolutely pleasure of sitting down with editor and publisher Adenike Olanrewaju for her new podcast, First Born Daughter. Though I’m technically not a first born anything (I’m very obviously an underloved middle child), I somehow ended up alongside Lindsay Peoples (TheCut), author Emma Dabiri, writer/director Felicia Pride (Queen Sugar and Grey’s Anatomy), and other iconic black women on this season.

Explore more of Adenike’s work here.

I can kind of see the rom-com vision.

• Boeing Astronauts Still Stuck In Space…51 Days and Counting (Defector)

• Pink Panthers Cancel Tour (Billboard)

• The Queen of Christmas is Back (Essence)

• No Britney Biopic!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Variety)

• Fred Segal Finally Dies (LA Times)

• Justin Timberlake Goes To Court (ABC)

When DWI news first broke, I verrrrrry curiously wondered just exactly which of Justin Timberlake’s painfully forced personas would be making an appearance in the court dates to follow. The swaggered up banjee boy that pop-locked his way onto R&B playlists only reserved for Jon B? The rustic, Built Ford Tough blue collar frontiersman he cosplayed as during his Man of the Woods era? Or, the matter of fact, Saville Row gentleman cosplaying Wall Street by day, cash-under-the-table Mob cabaret crooner by night for Suit & Tie. Color me absolutely gagged, but I was wrong across the board. The Justin we got during this week’s hearing was a dead eyed, miserable fuck seemingly rage-stewing at the inconvenience of consequence. The Justin I always knew was in there.

License? Suspended. Lawyer? One peep away from getting slapped with a gag order. This? It’s going to ruin the tour.

“🦗” - Kamala Harris’ statement on literal Nazis flying swastika flags in Nashville.

But lots to be said about Americans protesting her favorite sugar baby’s arrival in America. Imagine a world where the word Hamas is more antisemetic than a Nazi waving a swastika flag.

I might need to rethink how politics shows up in the newsletter over the next few months, if it even shows up at all. The circus is circus-ing. Not in the overstimulated, psychedelic world of whimsy and magic kind of way, but in the, like, very 1890s devastating big top fire where hundreds of people and animals burn to death under a tarp because a donkey kicked over a lantern kind of way. There’s Trump and that ear, Joe, Kamala, the memes, the arguments, the usually silent and passive masses who surface only during election years to show off their their political personality disorders, as that MAGA & Blue MAGA snake oil seeps into their bloodstreams faster than cobra venom.

There’s also the pandering to maximum cringe capacity, which turns all of my internet, podcast, hot girl, and social media safe spaces into campaign platforms. While, of course, no one ever actually outlines the exact causes they're campaigning for.

I also thought about maybe bumping up some Olympics commentary, but it also technically falls under political theatre, right?

BRB busy blocking and reporting every #dem_panic text and email I get…

• Gavin Newsom’s Encampment Ban Lets L.A. Prep For 2028 Olympics, Purge Style

• Reminder: The Olympics Will Destroy Los Angeles

• …it’s a city not prepared

• …in a state too corrupt to care.

• Six years since the LAPD murdered Mely Corado at Silverlake’s Trader Joes

Back to our regularly scheduled programming this week. Thank you all for 7,000 subscribers!