Midweek Bits & Bobs + What I'm Reading re: Kamala
Usually Thursdays are for Garden Study, but I’m overwhelmed and overcommitted and felt like sending a Bit & Bobs instead.
If you need to use extra zucchini (or just like zucchini, generally) this Ali Slagle recipe for Orzo Salad + Lentils is tops. It calls to just use raw zucchini, but roasting/grilling makes it IMO. I used basil, parsley, and walnuts and YUM.
Earlier this week I had an amazing interview with a woman named Iris in the Pioneer Valley of Western Mass about a group, Redefining Connection, that started two years ago to bring women together to just, well, hang out. If you’re in the area and want to be a part of low-pressure intergenerational hangs with other people who want to do the same, email redefineconnection@gmail.com to get on their mailing list.
US Women’s Rugby Olympian Ilona Maher is my favorite TikTok follow for the next few weeks
Speaking of good summer Toks:
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I’m writing about Glen Powell next week so I selfishly want all of you to watch Hit Man (streaming on Netflix) in anticipation (yes, that ending is fucking weird). I’m going to see Twisters in the theater tomorrow, don’t worry. Also, if you have any Glen Powell interviews, Toks, etc. you found particularly illuminating, send them my way.
If you haven’t listened to this week’s podcast ep with Sam Sanders and Zach Stafford re: the Beautiful Cult of the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders, it’s a doozy (and remember that all newsletter subscribers get 35% off)
And Here’s What I’m Reading on Kamala Harris:
A really excellent piece from Kate Manne: “And there is no question that Harris’s candidacy will open up a torrent of misogynoir, a term coined by Moya Bailey and Trudy for the intersection of misogyny and racism (particularly anti-Black racism, although Harris is also of course South Asian). It’s our job to fight it in our circles and even ourselves. Here are some of the forms, some of them subtle, it is going to take over the next one hundred and six days." (Trust me, you want to read more about the forms)
And here’s Jenn Romilini: “The more I think about it, I truly want a Gen X lady president (she’s technically two months shy of Gen X, still I am claiming her!). I’m sick to death of these men. I want a woman who gets the experience of being female in a country that secretly and not-so-secretly reviles females. I want a leader who’s been navigating this bullshit world (built by white male boomers!) as long as the rest of us, who understands issues about race and class in ways they never could. As a woman having a hot flash as I write this, who just shelled out $1,000 (with insurance!) for a breast MRI, I selfishly want a leader with a uterus who at the very least understands the word menopause and what a “dense breast” is. I know Kamala’s 2020 campaign was all over the place. I DO NOT GIVE A FUCK. It’s true she was a tough-on-crime prosecutor-cop. TRULY, AT THIS POINT, WHO THE HELL CARES. I am aware she’s had some missteps around trans rights. As the mother of a trans child, I will tell you now: the alternative is 40 ZILLION TIMES worse. We are up against monsters, political villains evil enough for sci-fi. We do not have time to waste splitting hairs.”
And here’s the great Tressie McMillan Cottom on Trevor Noah’s podcast
Finally, my favorite new Instagram follow is Dust-to-Digital, which collects/curates different types of sounds, broadly conceived, from across the globe. They only post every few weeks and every single time it’s filled with marvels. You can find the most recent posts here and here (the organ in that second one!!!)
Re: Harris. I’m an elder millennial midwestern left-leaning white woman living in a red state. I have had my moments over the years where the subconscious pull of white nationalism feels a little safe. (I’ve consciously fought this feeling numerous times, but I can recognize it and admit it when it comes up!) So, I think it’s safe to say I have a fair amount of unconscious bias I must always be aware of and keep in check.
What struck me this week was… I opened the NYT and there was a photo of Harris behind a podium and my first visceral reaction to that photo was “That looks like a president.”
My takeaway from that reaction was “REPRESENTATION MATTERS!!” Because I know in my heart of hearts I would not have seen a photo of a black woman in the year 2006 or even 2010(?) and thought “presidential.” But since then our culture has DONE SOME WORK so that now, my little white-programmed brain can be reprogrammed to see things more fairly and more accurately! I was very excited. Not because my bias seems to have faded, but because if my bias is fading, so are many many others’ biases.
So this is a shoutout to all the people who have done this work - whether it be in the media, in hiring decisions, on social media, in fiction - to reset the image of what a leader looks like. Because Kamala Harris looks like a damn good president!
Sure, sure, write about Glen Powell, who will forever to me be the arrogant and misunderstanding boyfriend in The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, but I am ready to be convinced. (Although "Anyone But You" was truly awful and trite, IMO.)
But also, please consider writing a bit about the 'Childless Cat Ladies' thing and the whole EXTRA misogyny lobbed at VP Harris regarding her lack of biological children -- and even the whole riposte to it, which is oooh, but she's a stepmom! That's awesome that she's Momala, but if she wasn't, is she somehow lesser than? Somehow unfit to govern? Can these people google Angela Merkel and get a clue?
Vance and others are saying the quiet thing loud - which is there's a special sort of misogyny reserved for women who, by choice or circumstance, have no children. Or should I say that there's a brief hall pass given to women who succeed at becoming mothers. They are celebrated while at the same time they are being undermined in so many ways and judged for how they raise their kids and work and do anything else. But let's face it: there's no hate like the hate for the women who don't have kids, especially by conservative men (and maybe also the #tradwife movement). I love that our Queen, Jennifer Aniston has risen up in these last few days with her truth bombs about the challenges women face on this issue. Like Aniston, I don't like revealing to everyone my husband's and my terrible and tragic journey with multiple pregnancy losses and the enduring pain of not having children, however, I would like a double helping of STFU served to all the weasels who judge any woman's choice or circumstance around motherhood (or anything else). There's a real and pervasive judgement about women without children that is everywhere from who pick up the slack at work to the signifiers in our politics (Families! Working Parents!).... and we need to talk about it.