Sparkle Straights, Philly Elmo, and Handsome Fred
Walking the Christmas to New Year's Tightrope in Tanya McQuoid's Heels
Philadelphia Tweedom
Happy New Year to all the porn bots I fruitlessly block after they <3 all my Instagram Stories. Shine bright like a scammy diamond!
So…. The holiday romcom I’m writing quickly dropped the rom, much like CDs did back in the ‘90s. It’s fast-paced and Philly-based with a soupçon of raunchiness. SEPTA, Amtrak, Philly Elmo, the Schuylkill River, edibles, and the Action News theme all make appearances. And on January 1st, as if they heard me cackling at my keyboard, The Philadelphia Inquirer published 10 Weird Stories from 2022 that Made People Ask: ‘Is Philadelphia Real?’
It’s real, and it’s spectacular. Sometimes.
Peacock Posse
Last week I discovered the term sparkle straights via this perfect Twitter thread kicked off by hereisbosco and it was like Christmas all over again.
Right Said Fred(erick)
After taming my podcast queue last fall, I vowed to watch more documentaries this year and even make a couple, both short and comedic mini-mock. Today HBOMax helpfully reminded me that a most excellent doc—Frederick Douglass: In Five Speeches—has been patiently loitering in my queue for months.
But all I could think of was The Former Dolt’s 2017 remark that the famed abolitionist who’s been dead since 1895 “is an example of somebody who's done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more, I notice.” And the elementary school substitute teacher who kept pausing our American history lessons one week to remark that Douglass was “a handsome man, am I right or am I right?”
We immediately began speculating about her dating life.
I watched The Janes, a timely doc about how, in pre-Roe v. Wade America, female activists calling themselves 'Jane' built an underground network for women with unwanted pregnancies, instead. But yes, Douglass was both amazing (sometimes) and handsome.
Smell Ya Later
(Jersey Shore Mike via GIPHY)
Sometimes, often lately, a man will walk by me on the street and a scent trail that evokes every aftershave commercial I’ve ever seen will linger in his wake. It doesn’t matter that to a man, I always think, “Brother, it’s not quite right for your body chemistry, but it’s niiiice!” Or, alternately, “Okay, Axe Body Spray!” City life means being roughed up by an assortment of odors on the regular, so I appreciate them sharing their olfactory glow ups.
I love a good perfume, but don’t wear any because I like them like I like my men and my colors—solid. I’d forgotten solid perfumes exist, mostly because I long to be the kind of woman who spritzes the air with a scent French fashion designer Coco Chanel would have uncapped before heading to her atelier or a date with Nazi officer Hans Günther von Dincklage, then walks through the fragrant mist, letting the droplets perfume my clothes and my mood.
But the day after Christmas I ordered a sampler of 10 French garden-themed solid perfumes that arrived on New Year’s Eve and…no. Non. Jamais. Amboise, Chantily, Chambord, Versailles. By any name, each sample smells like the perfect lozenge for a raspy throat or as if someone set some wet eucalyptus on fire for lolz. Not bad or even unwelcome, but absolutely not something I want lingering in anyone’s Proustian nasal passages after I stroll by in my Sorels.
Oh, The Body Shop still exists? Mango Body Butter it is!
Now Tweeding
I’m (finally, after trying and inexplicably failing all of 2022) reading Jeff ‘Wilco’ Tweedy’s excellent little tome, How to Write One Song with great pleasure, and just got to the first exercise. It involves coming up with “ten verbs that are associated with, say, a physician, and write them down on a page.”
I looked at Tweedy’s list after I wrote mine and you can parse my feelings about the American healthcare system by the fact that I started laughing when I saw that heal and listen made his list, but definitely not mine. Who are his doctors and are they taking new patients?
When the Scale Says I Gained 5 Lbs in 2 Days….
Christmas Party Food GIF By Holly Logan via GIPHY