What are you up to this weekend? Our family is listening to Aretha Franklin, who was such a legend. We’re also heading up to Maine tonight. I’ve only been once, for a rainy weekend, many years ago, so I’m looking forward to exploring. We’ll be in Portland and Camden, and if you have any tips, I would love to hear. Have a wonderful weekend, and here are a few links from around the web…
Issa Rae’s best advice: “Don’t be afraid to be a b*tch.”
Damn, Bon Appetit is always so good at titling. (And cooking shrimp.)
Those Swiss mountains.
This essay is intense, and some parts I didn’t agree with, but these lines hit home: “I had not been alone because I am a mother, and a mother is never alone. When she is washing, sleeping, raging, she is not alone. For a mother, this is the state of things. Children hang from your clothing. They pummel you with questions. Like a gunfight, like the most consuming love, like an apocalypse: they take up all of the available space.”
Laughed out loud at the Hulu documentary Too Funny to Fail. Baby Steve Carell!
Wow, this wallpaper.
Wishlisting this pretty dress.
What it’s like playing poker as a woman.
I just finished The Terrible, and it was beautiful and honest.
A great, important Twitter thread about race. Worth reading, rereading and sharing.
Plus, two reader comments:
Says SGC on single woman seeks role model: “There’s a scene in ‘Parks and Recreation’ where Leslie Knope is showing all the framed pictures of her heroes that she keeps in her office, which includes a picture of herself. ‘I am big enough to admit that I am often inspired by myself,’ she says to the camera. Personally, I’m climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro in December and every time I share the news with a friend, my heart swells with pride. WAY TO GO, ME.”
Says Jo on letting your kids walk around alone: “What I’m really taking away from it all is that parenting is just a never-ending slew of decision making. Every day, you’re trying to create a life full of joy, wonder and humility for these new little people. Sometimes in the morning I find myself thinking, ‘I’ve probably made 45 decisions already and it’s only 8 a.m.’ Maybe one day I’d let my sweet six-year-old walk to the deli and the next day I wouldn’t. I just hope he grows up knowing how much I cared, over and over and over.”
(Photo of the wonderful Aretha Franklin. Twitter thread via Erin.)