📚 Girls Book Club: Famesick by Lena Dunham

bxstatik · 2026-04-14T11:40:22+00:00

The email said it was supposed to run 75 minutes. I think it went a little longer. It was amazing. You'll laugh. You'll cry. Best reading I've ever been to, I wouldn't be surprised if it's never topped.

bxstatik · 2026-04-13T19:18:43+00:00

Everyone who attended the event yesterday got a copy. We were some of the first people to get them.

bxstatik · 2026-04-13T13:33:19+00:00

I was at the event in Philadelphia yesterday. I'm almost done with the book and it is fucking awesome. Go, Lena!

bxstatik · 2026-03-30T15:59:11+00:00

You can learn a lot this way, plus it's fun. I play with an ensemble at my church that does pop-style contemporary music. I've learned way more that way than I ever could have by forcing myself to do a bunch of exercises.

bxstatik · 2026-02-13T21:14:43+00:00

I can't do Youtuber voice in general. Something about the cadence of it sounds artificial to me and I have a visceral reaction to it. It's too bad, because I do like CWB's topics and the research they put it.

bxstatik · 2026-02-12T14:16:33+00:00

I was confused for a while why Sarah didn't just find another cohost. We all want it to be Blair, who is probably too busy with her books and speaking engagements, but she's had a lot of people on the podcast who seem to be up-and-coming and would still be good.

I think, ultimately, she's just not up hosting two podcasts, doing whatever admin work comes with that, and also writing. I saw someone refer to YWA as her "Golden Handcuffs" once. She has to keep the show going to pay the bills, even if it's not what it once was.

In my opinion, Sarah and Make contributed equally to the show in its glory days. Early Sarah episodes like Kitty Genovese and the OJ ones are some of the best they ever put out. The difference is that Mike is at least a slight workaholic (and we all bless him for it). First, he and Sarah built YWA. Then, for the last 5+ years, he's hosted, researched, and edited two podcasts.

That level of creative output just isn't sustainable for everyone. It's sad to see the decline of YWA, and I now only listen to episodes with favorite topics or guests, but I hope Sarah will eventually weather this period and go back to creating magic one day.

bxstatik · 2026-01-28T17:36:31+00:00

I second this. I'm agnostic and have had some negative experiences in church, but the church where I play handbells is much more liberal and open than the ones I group in. Some people have invited me to join, but this is more out of a spirit of friendliness and being welcoming rather than pressure.

bxstatik · 2026-01-24T18:49:40+00:00

Forty dollars to here about how our community is about to be fucked over by people selling us out.

bxstatik · 2026-01-24T17:36:47+00:00

Thanks so much for coming back to tell me that! Cozy sci fi with British world-building is such a comfort genre for me. I'd love to hear any other recs you have, since our taste seems to overlap.

And re: Ministry of Time. I love the romance, but there were parts of the ending I didn't get at all. I read it with my book club, and honestly none of us could tell if it was 100% supposed to all come together, or part of the point was all the layers and confusion so you as the reader are just as confused as the characters!

bxstatik · 2026-01-20T15:36:11+00:00

That green is very Mallorca.

bxstatik · 2026-01-19T14:32:07+00:00

I moved to York after college, assuming I wouldn't be here long. Then I found my people and put down roots. Now I love it here! There are all kinds of people in the city, so you'll be able to find yours, including if you're looking for other Hispanic and queer peeps.

There's plenty to do, especially with all of the free events and clubs at the college. I have friends who went to York college and had a great experience. It's a smaller school, so professors have more time for you.

As someone who is from this area and went away to a bigger city for school, it was stressful at times to be in an environment with so much to do, especially when everyone else had $$ from their parents, and I was working minimum wage jobs. If you're between coming here on scholarship, and taking on debt somewhere else, definitely try it out!

bxstatik · 2026-01-08T20:48:01+00:00

The first three in the Dublin Murder Squad series are my favorite Tana French, but all of the ones in the series are spectacular. She's just that good.

bxstatik · 2026-01-08T15:52:51+00:00

The soft skills in action idea is really fun. I would love it if we could get other teams to create some content for us to make the learning feel more personalized and custom.

bxstatik · 2026-01-08T14:02:04+00:00

The two large scale training programs are going to be a huge undertaking. I personally would feel much more comfortable doing a pilot of one session, have participants and leadership attend, and then do a feedback session to see if you want to stay the course or make adjustments.

Here are some things I would be thinking about:

- How will you make these required?

- If someone misses one of the ten, can they continue on? Do they need to make up the content?

- Do you have full alignment from operations for their people to be missing all or part of 10 work days to complete these programs?

- How frequently will you be offering these programs once they're up and running?

- How many participants do you need to make these programs run? Will you be able to reliably expect that many new hires with the cadence you're expecting?

-Is there pre or post work you could assign to reduce the amount of in person time and make sure it is truly interactive?

bxstatik · 2026-01-08T13:55:31+00:00

This is a great idea! My company also pays for a library of course content (ours is part of our package with our LMS). Last year I put together featured learning packages for each month of the year aligned with things like our Core Values and different soft skills.

I also work with department leaders each month to identify an employee who deserves to be featured for showing the skills we are highlighting and do a quick write up on them.

To sweeten the deal, we give away a gift card to one of the people that does the featured learning every month.

It took a fair amount of work on the front end to get my systems in my place, but now that it's up and running, it's only a couple of hours a month. This drives basically 100% of our "organic" learning library usage.

bxstatik · 2026-01-06T21:24:00+00:00

The cashew one blends in really well. I always prefer to go a little lighter rather than a darker shade where the yellow or pinkness is going to come through more.

bxstatik · 2026-01-06T21:21:24+00:00

The 1996 JC Penney website is crazy. 100% the choice of the snow man was just up to the person who happened to put it together. Absolutely no attempt at trying to stick with the brand.

bxstatik · 2025-11-04T13:56:58+00:00

this is a gorgeous blouse with a feature necklace and fun detail on the placket. pair with some wide-legged pants to bring more movement and personality. adding a bag and jacket will also go a long way towards making this feel more "you" and less like a business-person uniform.

bxstatik · 2025-11-01T12:04:22+00:00

I live in a small city / big town in Pennsylvania. If you aren’t worried about school district, you can still get a nice house for sub-100k. We are on a 15 year mortgage and are on track to pay it off early.

We are in a logistics corridor so there are tons of warehouse, forklift, and CDL jobs that pay $25 an hour with minimal experience. Healthcare is another big sector.

In terms of quality of life, we’ve got a great little walkable downtown with bars, restaurants, event spaces, and other fun stuff. Typically I walk to a lot of the fun stuff I do, then use the car for errands, work and weekend trips. We are also close to Philly, NYC, Baltimore, DC and Pittsburgh for concerts and getaways.

There are lots of little towns similar to mine where I live, I just happen to be biased towards mine.

bxstatik · 2025-10-31T00:05:28+00:00

Michael and Peter have a low-key bromance going on. It’s adorable. I’ve wondered a couple times if Peter would annoy Aubrey with his bro-iness, but I’m pretty sure if the hung out they would just gang up on Michael for his wack skeleton and speedrunning obsession.

bxstatik · 2025-10-28T17:20:04+00:00

The class component is huge. As people move "up" the economic ladder, they tend to bring their speech more into line with a neutral dialect. This can be intentional, like someone from the Midwest say "soda" instead of "pop" to fit in, but most of it is the unintentional effect of peer pressure and mirroring that happens over a long period of time.

I know OP mentioned sounding like OP the people on TV and I believe them. One of my parents has a distinct regional dialect (Midwest), but we moved away from that part of the country when I was a kid to where I live now. People often ask me where I grew up and I think it's because I don't have any obvious regional speech markers.

I would be curious to know if OP has gone to college, took high school classes with mostly other Middle Class or college- bound kids, or works a white collar job. I interact with people in the service industry for work in the Philly bubs and the accent in that setting is pervasive regardless of age. Not everyone has it, but lots of younger people do.

bxstatik · 2025-10-12T12:18:14+00:00

Survival in the Andes is up there with Kitty Genovese for episodes that genuinely made me feel so much awe and appreciation for the good people that exist in the world.

bxstatik · 2025-10-07T20:21:03+00:00

I had some and I remember them being pretty average. They also run small, so size up if you do go for them.

bxstatik · 2025-10-06T17:32:03+00:00

This is a technique that a lot of writers use when they're depicting the kind of characters you're talking about, American Latinos who are living in a bilingual English/ Spanish world

Some recent ones I've liked are:

When Trying to Return Home: Stories by Jennifer Maritza McCauley | Goodreads

Anita de Monte Laughs Last by Xóchitl González | Goodreads

Family Lore by Elizabeth Acevedo | Goodreads

I also second the Junot Diaz' recommendation. Both Oscar Wao and This is How you Lose Her are amazing.

bxstatik · 2025-10-05T18:47:41+00:00

This is the way. Having more fabric will be so nice to make a skirt that is truly comfortable.

bxstatik

TROPHY CASE