Childless cat lady summer 💚 & a review of Twister (1996)

Hello my darlings!

How are you?? I hope you’re doing well! I am bad and good! Stressed and blessed! Falling apart and putting myself back together again!

Thank you for allowing me to take a break from newslettering last week. The thing about writing about my own life and pop culture obsessions is that sometimes I am just boring. I have been watching a lot of Melrose Place and as much as I want to spend every newsletter going on about the wig snatches and pool fights and boat explosions (!!) that happen on that show, I fear that would bore most of you to death. Plus, Bitchslap does a better job of recapping that show, anyway.

Here are some things I’ve been up to lately:

• Going to parties and drinking a lot of rosé and talking to people. At a birthday party at the Hermosillo last Saturday night, I spent a long time talking to a guy who was super passionate about women’s soccer. He was saying that the live games are super fun because the fans are mostly women and members of the LGBTQ+ community, so the vibe is way better, and they don’t get drunk and get into stupid fights like fans at the men’s games. By the end of the night I was ready to sign up for season tickets! I love conversations like that!

  
  

• Partially losing my mind because something in my building’s garage has been beeping approximately once every 90 seconds for the past 24 hours??? This is way worse than the time a chicken got trapped in there! That chicken was quiet, and kind of cute!
  
  

• Working on my book proposal for my book of humorous essays! This is a Project with a capital P that I wish I could knock out over a weekend but, alas, I just don’t write that quickly. But hey, it’s my first book proposal. Maybe my next one will be easier!
  

  

  Working on my book proposal with only two beverages

• Planning a trip to San Francisco next month! I’ve been there several times before, but I am always looking for new things to do. If you have any suggestions for off-the-beaten-path things to do or places to eat, please let me know, wontcha?

  
  

• Making a “childless cat lady” t-shirt to raise money for reproductive rights campaigns and abortion providers! Honestly, I wanted a t-shirt like this, so I made one, and I figured if other people want to buy one, too, we can make it a positive thing. The design is available in sizes XS-5XL depending on the cut and color availability. It’s even in brat summer neon green! (Please note, this is from a quickie print on demand service so I don’t have much control over stock or availability, sorry!)

Obviously, childless cat ladies are the backbone of society. (Although, I prefer the term “childfree” when referring to myself, because I feel no sense of loss over not having children, just freedom.) People who make fun of cat owners always seem to forget that cats are the #1 most popular pet in America. Also, cats are low maintenance and independent. Childless cat ladies are not tied down by dependents and domestic responsibilities, is what I’m saying, and that makes them dangerous to Republicans.

Should I get my tubes tied before 2025? I know I never want children, and everyone says my husband should get snipped, which, yeah, he should, but also, that doesn’t fully protect me in a world where r*pe exists. Then again, maybe my fertility will be useful currency in our dystopian, Handmaid’s Tale future. Fuuuuuck, dude. I’m going dark again.

For anyone reading this who is not American, I wish I could explain to you what’s been going on in the United States. I am at a loss. I feel a sense of loss. For a while now, I have been harboring this horrible feeling that we’re in a situation that we can’t vote our way out of, and yet, that is the only solution the Democrats ever propose. The great comedian Eddie Pepitone once said, “We’re all going to be sitting in camps with ‘I Voted’ stickers on.” I think about that all the time.

I went for a hike on Monday–or, well, I went on a very L.A. version of a hike, which was just walking on flat paved ground around a reservoir. I haven’t been to Lake Hollywood in years, but I love how empty it always is there, plus, you get killer views of the Hollywood sign. Technically, that hike is a 3.5 mile loop, but I usually just walk to the bridge and walk back the same way I came in. The second half of the loop is a lot of walking on the side of a road with cars driving past you, and it’s not very scenic. That’s my pro tip.

The only thing I don’t like about Lake Hollywood is that to get there, you have to drive through the Hollywood Hills, and I HATE driving there. It’s all these tiny, windy little streets that should really be one-way, because two cars can’t really fit driving past each other in opposite directions. The locals who live up there and know the streets whip around those tight corners and ride your ass if you don’t drive like that, another reason I hate driving up there. Even if I were rich, I would never want to live there because the driving stresses me out so much! Fuck a view!

I went for a hike because of Ty Segall. Yep, Ty Segall, the psychedelic garage rocker. I remembered interviewing him for BUST a few days after the 2016 election, both of us still reeling from the results. We commiserated about having both thrown up on election night. When we said goodbye at the end of our call, he told me to have a good day and added, “Go for a walk or something, you know?” And I did, and it made me feel more sane. Reading about politics has been making me feel crazy lately, so up to Lake Hollywood I went. And I felt the breeze and saw the butterflies and smelled the earth baking in the sun, and I felt more human afterwards. So thanks, Ty Segall!

And yet… on Tuesday, I still felt insane, so I went to the Fern Dell area in Griffith Park and hiked up toward the Observatory (but not all the way up, I’m not in shape enough to do that final big incline). I used to live in that area, but since we moved to Highland Park, I haven’t done that hike in at least three years. It’s pretty challenging! Personally, I prefer to go left where the trail splits at the beginning. Yes, it has all those steep switchbacks, but then there’s a long part that is pretty flat. The other way is just a continuous climb, plus it’s always more crowded, and I don’t need to see how many other adults, children, and dogs are in better shape than I am. I’ve had English bulldogs outpace me on that trail. Those dogs have like two pin holes for nostrils, and they’re breathing less heavily than I am! Humiliating! I saw a guy dressed in a black t-shirt and jeans pushing a stroller up the hill. Are you fucking kidding me, man? It’s 84 degrees out with no tree cover and the sun beating down! I was sweating just looking at him! (OK, let’s be real, I was sweating already anyway.)

Let’s get into some things:

- I’m so glad that so many of you took my recommendation in my last newsletter and have also been sucked into the Trashley saga (start here)! The text chains this has set off continue to impress me! I also love that we’ve contributed to the dismantling of capitalism with all the loss of productivity this series has caused. I just want to add one disclaimer here: I recently learned that Trashley’s author, Lauren, is actually acquainted with a number of friends of mine and Ross’s. I don’t want to give up their privacy, so let’s just say they all used to do the same hobby together at the same place. I did not know this when I recommended her Substack, and it’s not something that would change my recommendation, but I feel like I have to be transparent about that connection, however loose. It also does not surprise me at all? For such a large city, L.A. can be weirdly small sometimes.

- Vidiots movie theater (Los Angeles, CA). Vidiots is an indie theater in my neighborhood, Highland Park, which I somehow hadn’t been to until the Fourth of July, when my husband and I went with our most shark-fearing friend to see Jaws. It was perfect! I’ll be totally honest, when I heard about this theater, I was picturing folding chairs and a cooler full of tallboys at “concessions,” but uhhhh nope! This is like a legit, real theater! I highly, highly recommend checking them out if you live nearby, they have fantastic programming, and the popcorn is really good.

Things I’ve Been Watching That Aren’t Like Super New

- Bridgerton, season three (Netflix). I thought it was smart for them to focus on Penelope and Colin’s story this season, even though that is not the order of the books. It just made sense to combine that romance with all the Lady Whistledown stuff they’d been building. I really liked watching Penelope’s transformation over the course of the season. I think this season had some of the most stunning looks of the entire show so far. Those iridescent gowns the Featherington sisters wore at the final ball?? To die for! 

That said… and SPOILERS here, but I thought the ending was a bit of a letdown! They made the Whistledown stuff such a big deal and then, all of a sudden, no one cared about it? WTF? It all felt a little too easy and clean for me.

At any rate, I’m excited for next season, with Benedict’s story. I read the book, and there’s an interesting angle there they haven’t yet explored in a romance on the show.

- Hacks, season three (Max). Oh, I adore this show. It is the current series I would most want to write for. It also has the distinction of being the show I’ve most discussed in therapy to date! Fun! I think this season was fantastic, and I think Hannah Einbinder’s acting has really grown to that next level.

SPOILERS here, but I thought the way they showed some of the negative consequences of success was brilliant. When they show Deborah going on stage and the audience laughing at literally everything she says no matter what–only someone who has been to a lot of comedy shows would clock that dark phenomenon. Ross said that scene reminded him of that time we went to see Louis C.K. perform IN 2012, WAY BEFORE WE KNEW HE’S A PREDATOR, OKAY, when he was having a moment and the audience would have laughed if he’d stopped talking and tied his shoes on stage for forty-five minutes. That kind of audience goodwill is honestly rather creepy, and that scene rang very true to me.

Another scene I loved was in the very last episode of the season, when Ava confronts Deborah about not choosing her as the head writer for her new late night show. Wonderful acting by Einbinder there, but great writing, too. I loved how this scene showed the divide between different generations of women and their ways of asserting themselves. When Deborah tells Ava to stop crying, you can hear all this baggage that Boomer women have had to carry around about not showing emotion in the workplace. Deborah is still trying to play by a man’s rules in a man’s world. But it’s not the same world it was forty years ago.

Oh, and I absolutely LOVED Helen Hunt on this show! What a fantastic character for her, so against type! More more more roles like this for her, please!

- Twister (1996) (Max). Speaking of Helen Hunt: I recently revisited her breakout film role in this action movie from the ‘90s where the villain is weather, and it was so much fun! I had totally forgotten that Philip Seymour Hoffman was in it, and it broke my heart open all over again to realize how much better PSH makes every single movie he’s in, and how devastating it is that we’re never going to get another PSH performance. But anyway, this movie is ridiculous, and it has so many character actors in it that will make you go, “Ohhh, there’s that guy! He used to be in everything in the ‘90s! What happened to him?” Also:

• Bill Paxton’s fiancé is a sex therapist, and the movie treats that like we’re supposed to think it’s this totally frivolous, idiotic job??? She has a doctorate! Come to think of it, people really used to dunk on therapists in TV & film back in the day. Remember 2003’s Freaky Friday, and how we were supposed to think all of Jamie Lee Curtis’s clients were whiny dumb-dumbs who didn’t have any real problems? Boy, the media’s opinion of therapy sure has changed over the years! I credit The Sopranos.
  
  

• Why did they take the therapist-fiancé with them when they went tornado-chasing?? Like, couldn’t they have dropped her off at a hotel or something? That poor woman.

• I said the villain of this movie was weather, but actually, the other villain is Cary Elwes (swoon) and his group of scientists who Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt’s group of scientists sneer at because… they accepted corporate sponsorship money and actually have decent gear?? Like WHAT?! You’re doing scientific research, you’re SUPPOSED to accept money for it! You’re not a garage rock band, you shouldn’t be worrying about selling out! Jesus Christ.

At any rate, Twister is a super fun watch, and I’m excited for the sequel!

- Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (Max). I had never seen a Friday the 13th movie before, can you believe it? This one was very stupid, about Jason coming back to life because lightning strikes his coffin (of course, very scientifically sound). It had some great kills and was a lot of fun for a Friday Night Pizza and a Movie Night at my house! I recommend it if you’re looking for fun, dumb horror. (And I recommend Town if you’re looking for good pizza in Highland Park.)

Aaand that’s it from me for now!

If you have a second, I’d love it if you’d like or comment on this post–just click this link to go to the post page. This post is public, so feel free to share it on social media, or forward it to a friend.

Until next time—childless cat ladies 4 ever!

Love,

Liz

XOXO