block people and pretend they died.

dearly beloved: we are gathered here today to mourn the loss of that irritating girl you vaguely remember from the art class your mom made you take junior year of high school so your course list would look good to potential colleges. she earnestly shared a lot of FAKE NEWS and poorly designed inspirational infographics, and every time you posted about a tv show you liked she hastily chimed in with "i don't watch that show, but i heard--" oh yeah? you have a casual opinion on a television program i faithfully invested seven actual years of my life into? just shut the fuck up and scroll past. or maybe she's the first person to reply "sorry i don't use [frivolous consumer item you'd trust the internet to suggest]!" to your tweet "hey guys, which is the best [frivolous consumer item you'd trust the internet to suggest]?" maybe she posted the nutritional information for those unicorn frappuccinos trying to food shame people who knew they weren't buying health food in the first place? come on you snotty asshole, let people enjoy their purple calories! or maybe you just remembered that time in third grade she said your pound puppies shirt was ugly. YOU LOVED THAT POUND PUPPIES SHIRT. one time i blocked a dude because every day he would post the grossest looking actual food he was eating, two seconds after another who was always trying to sell me his mixtape in the year of our lord 2017 wow sir no fucking thank you! i could go on and on about her adding you to various lularoe legging groups or spamming your instagram with links for "free iphones!" but listen, you know who i'm talking about. and you shouldn't feel bad for even a second for blocking that hoe and throwing her a funeral in your heart.


every time someone's internet presence feels like a personal attack on my life i first try to have compassionate thoughts like "what if something terrible is happening in her life?" because even though we know it isn't there's still a very slim chance hell is real and i'd like to have a plausible defense of my actions on earth should there be some sort of way to argue my way out of damnation. but then i think, "well if she were actually suffering there's no way she'd be spamming me links to all these pyramid schemes" and my guilt evaporates just long enough for me to click that block button so i can move on with my day. i'm a patient person and hesitant to alienate anyone who might have fifteen dollars lying around to buy my books, but it dawned on me the other day that for me, the internet has to be a meticulously curated digital space in which your uncle's vaguely racist tweets have no place.

i hate fighting. i'm sensitive and no good at it and if the consequence of bickering online means i gotta spend the afternoon feeling bad because a kid i don't remember from high school called me a fatass kelly price over a reductress article please murder me. and if i get on your goddamn nerves: BLOCK ME FIRST. kill me with your powerful brain! there are too many places in real life where blocking is not a viable option to tolerate someone ruining your many secret lives online. you can't block the coworker who won't stop fucking talking while hovering nearby as you're just trying to put half and half in your breakroom coffee, but you can block that friend of a friend who says shit like "i'm not prejudiced, i don't care if a person is purple or green or blue." lol blue people SHUT THE FUCK UP. you can't delete the neighbor whose eyesore of a car is parked on his front lawn whose cat keeps shitting on your deck, but you can delete your cousin who earnestly believes that rap music is reverse racism and vehemently comments as much on every kendrick lamar video you share. no mute button for the woman at the grocery store who won't stop asking where the shampoo is even though you're pushing your own cart while wearing both sunglasses and a coat, but you know who you can mute? everyone you hate on the internet!

PROTECT YOURSELVES. YOU DON'T NEED THIS SHIT. and to prove i'm not the only piece of garbage scrolling through instagram unfollowing people whose gorgeously filtered lives make mine look like trash, i crowdsourced a bunch of actual experiences from my interface friends of their smallest, pettiest, aint-shittiest reasons for hitting a bitch with the mutombo block online:
-checked in at golden corral
-remembered that he told me i looked bad in the sixth grade
-blocked a guy who agreed with me because i didn't like his tone
-my grandmother has been sitting in my requests for three years. (which is a genius method of preemptive blocking that often comes in handy)
-tagged me in pajama christmas dinner picture even tho i said don't tag me in pajama christmas dinner picture
-any post starting with "89% of facebook users wont repost this" gets a HOTTTT block.
-blocked my ex-wife cos she found jesus.
-all their posts have no periods yet all their texts have periods? nah. blocked. way too positive, you love your life that much B, then get off facebook. blocked.
-unfriended and blocked every bitch trying to sell me ugly leggings or fat wraps or supplements.
-made a status saying we should "lead with love" and "try to find what unites us instead of divides."

-COMPLAINING ABOUT CAPS/ASKING "WHY ARE YOU YELLING."
-motherfuckers who bang on about how blessed they are. the more you gush about how great everything is, the more i hope you fall into an open sewer and die.
-i blocked someone who said they liked french toast more than waffles.
-blocked a relative for always posting pics of dead people in their caskets.
-talked shit about eddie vedder.
-for liking "sam's club" not "costco."

-IF I DUMPED YA, YA BLOCKED.

-overuse of "just sayin'."
-i don't like my friend's husband's haircut and their dog is honestly the ugliest thing on planet earth.
-blocked a local lady for creating a fb group dedicated to pictures of her child's lunches.

-one of those facebook game invites. no i don't want to play candy crush but i do want to crush your soul.

-BECAUSE I JUST GOT TIRED OF LOOKING AT HER FACE.

so yeah, even if people are relatively harmless it doesn't mean you have to, like, be assaulted by their terrible memes. you don't owe them shit! they're not your mom! and if they are, you are not obligated to deal with her either! if my mom was alive and on facebook, SHE WOULD BE BLOCKED. i can only imagine how hilarious her timeline would be: her profile picture? definitely a blurry photo-of-a-photo of her circa-1989 face; multiple daily shares of every "iyanla fix my life" clip posted on oprah's fan page; quotes from steve harvey's books, posted in earnest and definitely mentioning how "handsome" he is; blackamericaweb articles about celebrity news she heard about on the tom joyner morning show; and public posts in which she tags me asking how to dvr "the bodyguard" on BET or saying something like I Need @Samantha Irby To Go To Target And Get Some Tide Detergent It's Buy One Get One Half Off Until Tomorrow!! THANKS BABY!!!!!!!!! Love, Mom. how do you expect me to live my carefree, profanity-laced online life with that terrorism happening every day!? i would get one of those kid divorces in a heartbeat.

the most effective strategy i've found for dealing with most relationships that have successfully ground themselves to a halt is to continue living my life as if that other person has died. that way, i can honor the memory of what we had without stressing myself sick over whether or not she's taking someone new to my old favorite bar. and, rather than delicately scrolling through her feed on my phone trying not to accidentally like any of her life achievements while seething in anger over what we used to have, i can instead just not do anything BECAUSE THAT ASSHOLE IS DEAD. anyway sometimes you just gotta help people make their way to the graveyard of your life. especially since he already knows you unfollowed him because you never ever comment on his posts. and you should never ever ever feel bad about it. because even if their rotting corpse rolls the digital stone away and you just happen to run into that twitter zombie at the coffee shop then just signal to the barista that you're gonna need to take that americano to go and give that guy a nod that says "dude, sorry not sorry but i really hated all those buzzfeed tasty videos."

click here for a handy primer on living your best social media life.

bitches gotta read: a good idea.

birds are chirping, flowers are blooming, and sleeping with the windows open at night means i've got a 2 benadryl 1 zyrtec 3 blasts of flonase a day habit right now: HALLELUJAH, SPRING HAS SPRUNG. fuck winter for real. i used to love the cold but i'm sick of it being dark all the time and the wet chill in the air makes my joints ache and remember when we were young and thought we'd never be the type of people to consider moving to a sanitized bedroom community in new mexico to avoid leaving our brittle bones to chance skating across the grocery store parking lot on sheets of february ice? i do, too. but i get it now. winter is :( and i'm already :( enough on my own without adding cooking dinner in the pitch-dark to the mix, so thank goodness for this sun hanging around at least until survivor comes on to reignite my will to live.

a brief rundown of some good shit i've read recently that doesn't technically qualify for our club because it's not YA:
"startup" by doree shafrir: super fast and engrossing soapy novel about NYC tech people that was insanely compelling considering that you really should hate these people?
"all grown up" by jami attenberg: hilarious vignettes about a 39-year-old named andrea who is kind of terrible and fucks terrible people but seriously there are some of the best sentences i have ever read in this book, omg.
"marlena" by julie buntin: okay so i read this because it's one of those books that's on every single goddamn list and i hate being late on the zeitgeist, and it took me a little while to get into it. but i liked it, i think. i really wanted to like it. actually, i need someone else to read it and talk to me so i can decide if i did.
"the dry" by jane harper: i'm a sucker for mystery books but also deeply filled with shame about it because a lot of them aren't ~literary~ and smart people make fun of me for reading them. but this one is good and juicy and literary, but it's set in australia and i don't have a good mental grasp on australian accents so trying to hear it in my head drove me a little nuts. i just imagined the dude from the fosters commercial narrating it for me.

the rules
1 we are never going to meet in real life. that would require a bra and zippered pants and probably an expensive uber and no one is doing that. you don't have to worry about megan's dairy allergy or that vanessa doesn't like champagne. no cleaning the cat box or vacuuming the drapes or hiding the dirty laundry in the oven so your company doesn't realize what a huge slob you are. just you in your house glasses and gravy pants sobbing into your six pack of beer, the way rainbow rowell intended. getting together with people you don't live next door to is hella stressful. plus, a bunch of old bitches sitting around talking about fictional teenage romance is lame. OR IS IT THO.
2 we are never going to discuss this, ever. i mean seriously. i'm going to derive pleasure from knowing that people i might possibly enjoy spending time with if i ever could bring myself to meet new people and i are falling asleep and drooling on the same book we'll probably never finish. maybe we'll talk about it on twitter or something. but even thinking about organizing that is a daunting task and i'm already exhausted. mariyam suggested making a facebook group, but is that dumb? the internet is so hard sometimes. (ETA: there is a group! it's called bitches gotta read! and it is full of hilarious mostly-women people who aren't irritating! come find us!!) i also have a bunch of friends on goodreads but lesbihonest: i'm not, like, putting all these john grishams i read on there because i don't need you guys clowning me in public.
3 we are never going to shame each other about not reading the fucking book. this is the beauty of never having to meet or talk about it: i ain't gotta come up with "thoughtful questions" and you ain't gotta pretend to remember what happened at the end of chapter seven while a bunch of wine-drunk bitches you don't even like that much wait expectantly for your answer. i'll read the books for sure, but that's only in case i run into one of you at the co-op and you decide to ask how shocked i was by the twist no one saw coming at the end.

brief internet synopsis

Finley and Betty’s close friendship survived Fin’s ninth-grade move from their coastal Maine town to Manhattan. Calls, letters, and summer visits continued to bind them together, and in the fall of their senior year, they both applied to NYU, planning to reunite for good as roommates. Then Betty disappears. Her ex-boyfriend Calder admits to drowning her, but his confession is thrown out, and soon the entire town believes he was coerced and Betty has simply run away. Fin knows the truth, and she returns to Williston for one final summer, determined to get justice for her friend, even if it means putting her loved ones—and herself—at risk. But Williston is a town full of secrets, where a delicate framework holds everything together, and Fin is not the only one with an agenda. How much is she willing to damage to get her revenge and learn the truth about Betty’s disappearance, which is more complicated than she ever imagined—and infinitely more devastating?

i'm embarrassingly passionate about mysteries and thrillers so this one better be good. i should probably be more ashamed than to admit this but i've spent more money on those $5.99 pocket murder novels than is healthy and i 100% got a kindle just so i can hide how much totally predictable and unchallenging garbage i like to read on public transportation. and sure, i read lofty literary works that make me look like an interesting person who cares about smart things (i hope) but i'm also a person who once spent an entire weekend in a denver hotel reading james patterson books because the altitude made me sick and i didn't want to go outside. i contain multitudes.

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practical uses for drake's new record.

i don't think i'm supposed to publicly admit that i like drake. right? i mean, i'm not sure who's buying the millions of records he's selling because no one i know will admit to their willingness to spend actual money on his music but i love him, like, unabashedly love him. he hits all of my major marks for non-garbagehuman consideration:
-sensitive
-funny
-handsome
-doesn't take himself too seriously
-sculpted facial hair
-maker of mid-tempo jams
-dances kind of weird
i know it's not cool to like him or whatever but you're just gonna have to work with me here. i hope he never stops making adult contemporary raps that are the perfect accompaniment for the kind of activities people of a certain age (37 and 1 month, for example) are into: performing at home "anti-aging" spa treatments; reassuring the directv online specialist who insisted that you communicate over text that, in fact, you have already tried going outside to clear nature's debris from your satellite dish; replaying your many shortcomings and failures while waiting for the occupants of the yukon idling in front of you with the don't tread on me sticker on the back windshield to finish ordering their many complicated drinks at the starbucks drive-thru. and also:

1 filling up your daily pill box.
recommended soundtrack: "passionfruit"
i'm not kidding i wasn't even paying attention to the first two tracks and then this came on and i was like HOLD ON BITCH WE'RE GOING HOME. goddamn, this is a smooth jam. i remember being a kid and rolling my eyes when my mom put betty wright on the record player and swaying in the middle of the living room, eyes closed, cigarette burning between her lips. i only wanted to listen to music that was fast and aggressive, shit that mirrored my internal pre-teen torment. but now that i'm dead i like songs that sound like a nap. okay fine i'll take some bass every now and then but i like jams that feel like putting a sweater on your ears. this is good early morning music, that fuzzy yellow time of day when you've just woken up but haven't yet remembered all the reasons you wish you hadn't. the kind of soothing record that makes the metamucil go down easy.

2 organizing snacks for game night. 
recommended soundtrack: "portland"
cards, checkers, travis scott, tic-tac-toe, 20 questions, a looped recorder, trivia, charades, jenga, quavo. now that i live in a space big enough to hold two couches i enjoy having people over all the time. which is to say that i am uncomfortable outside of my crib and i'd rather slice the tip of my finger off making an instagram-ready charcuterie plate that might fool a normal person into thinking i care enough about them to buy imported salami than dig a pair of shoes that don't slip on out of the back of my closet and go somewhere loud. so instead i tell people to swing by the cottage and before they get here all the chipmunks and birds and dwarves and i throw portland on the hi-fi while we tidy up and make snacks. as soon as i heard that recorder on the track i lost my fucking mind. and i know, his fake patois bothers people, but i like to pretend that maybe he's me after i first heard "flex" and "murder she wrote" and spent all of eighth grade walking around my quaint little suburb pretending i was patra. also how could you hate a song where a dude says "toot" at the beginning what are you a monster.


3 zumba gold.
recommended track: "get it together"
i've dated more DJs than any sane person ever should and i know a goddamn deep house track when i hear one. i had to check my computer to make sure i hadn't accidentally slid a ron trent record into the rotation when this came on. i turned it up and was transported to the darkest, stickiest corner of smart bar on a hot night in 2005, the only person sitting on a folding chair in the middle of a disco, waiting for my boyfriend dj jazzhouse or whatever his professional name was to finish his set so i could drive him and his battered crate of everything but the girl remixes home. i have a shoebox full of mixtapes with titles like "beats 4 my sweets" scribbled on them featuring a bunch of miguel migs tracks and every conceivable remix of "golden." I KNOW A GOSPEL TRACK WITH A HOUSE BEAT WHEN I HEAR ONE.

4 "lovemaking."
recommended soundtrack: "nothings into somethings"
i love a slow cut. i especially love these tracks that sound all hazy and dreamy and listen, if this dude is gonna sing all the time that's fine by me. he has a good voice and, frankly, sung lyrics are just easier to understand than rapped ones. ugh except the lyrics to this one chap my ass because as much as i love relaxing and popping a top i just can't abide by the whole "girl why didn't you wait for me?" narrative, no matter how much i enjoy drake's upper register. because what was she waiting for, young man, for you to fuck people until your dick got tired and you came crawling back to her while she was busy going to college and thriving in other meaningful ways? i'm projecting here, but motherfuckers always wanna hit you with the WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU GOT A WIFE NOW when your last conversation three years ago was about how they wouldn't leave theirs. but anyway um just fuck your new boyfriend to this. *paints fingernails*

5 going to a restaurant in the mid-afternoon when it is not busy and sitting there for three hours.
recommended soundtrack: "sacrifices"
laugh if you want but two in the afternoon is the best time to go to a restaurant. first of all, it's nice to get a buzz on while the sun is still out. being drunk at night makes me feel like i'm about to die. but having a drink with the sun streaming through the brewery windows is exhilarating. no kids to fight with over the one intact connect four on the game shelf, no having to watch boozed-up singles sloppily paw at one another, no just leaving your credit card behind because the bar is too fucking crowded to close your tab and you have to pee and your uber is waiting out front. if you feel awkward doing this by yourself, i like to take a book that i can stare at until the words pleasantly start swimming before my eyes. but i also wear headphones so no one gets the wrong idea and thinks i want to make conversation. my preference for real life is always super-emotional jump off a building music (aimee mann, ry x, sharon van etten, beirut) or surf rock slash dream pop but i also love a downtempo stoner jam and this fits neatly between all the kid cudi and mac miller downloaded on my phone. i know it's cool to shiver in the doorway of the hot new restaurant that can't seat you for two hours, but it's also pretty awesome to watch the receptionist from your dentist's office down an entire beer flight by herself after the lunch rush on a wednesday. i'll save you a seat if you promise not to talk to me.

6 posting CAPS CAPS CAPS nonsensical comments on news articles you don't understand on the internet.
recommended soundtrack: "fake love"
i mean, fake news fake love what's the fucking difference.

7 cooking healthy recipes that use cauliflower instead of rice as if that could ever be an acceptable substitute.
recommended soundtrack: "madiba riddim"
i don't know exactly what it is about turning into a corpse that makes me consider shit like "pretending cauliflower is rice" but lol here we are. my favorite vaguely-mexican version:
1 large head shredded cauliflower
1/2 white onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp olive oil
4 tbsp tomato paste
1 jalapeño or serrano chile, diced
1 tsp salt

1 pulse cauliflower, onion, and garlic in a food processor using the s-blade until finely ground into pieces slightly larger than cooked rice. openly weep at the mere suggestion of a rice-shaped food, and to mourn the loss of your youth.
2 heat a large sauté pan or skillet over medium heat and stir in the tomato paste, chiles, and salt, then cook for a minute or so.
3 increase the heat to high then add the cauliflower, onion, and garlic. stop to wonder if whatever you were hoping to accomplish by eating this way is actually worth it.
4 cook for 6-8 minutes, stirring often, until the moisture is evaporated and the cauliflower is light and fluffy.

8 painting flower still lifes with the girls at one of those wine and painting mom classes.
recommended soundtrack: "blem"
"no one wants that painting of a generic night skyline, judy. but margaret thinks it'll be a fun way for you to get out of the house since you've kind of been in a funk since you and tim got divorced. she and kathy have been meaning to talk to you about how worried they are that you haven't come to silver sneakers cardiofit in weeks, so they thought getting a few of the book club regulars together for happy hour to sloppily write their names on ceramic bowls sounded like fun! you don't have to get dressed up, just put on that shift dress that you got at ann taylor. you know, the blue one you wore to the junior league luncheon last week. we're just going to drink a couple bottles of rosé and gossip about how phyllis can't keep her rose bushes looking nice even though roberta walked in on her feeling up the gardener. let's plan ladies' trip to jamaica this summer. we haven't traveled as a group since pat broke her ankle dancing on the bar in cancun three years ago, and now that tim and his boyfriend moved across town and opened their bed and breakfast maybe it's time for you to get your groove back? just like in that movie! i love the islands, the people are so lively and musical! anyway, we can probably get a good deal on one of those apple vacation packages if we book it soon! anyway, instead of listening to this blem song all day (is that what he's saying?) while crying as you scroll through tim's linkedin you can listen to some actual reggae music in the caribbean on a hot beach with a bottle of rum and maybe try to bang a sexy young porter at the resort. okay hon, i gotta go get through my tennis lesson while trying not to drool too much over bradley's abs. see you tonight, bring percocets!"
good morning, good afternoon, goodnight.

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