Quitting cannabis, so far, is absolutely 10,000% easier than nicotine. At least on day one. Day one quitting nic was like an itchy haze of random sobbing and shouting at people and tearing my hair out. So far, I’ve just kept remembering that I can’t vape and getting a little bummed because I miss being fucked up. But it’s okay, I don’t have to be fucked up. It’s a lot easier to switch between tasks and Do More Things and that is worth giving up the peace of vaping through my day.

…well, BREATHING is worth giving it up, and the other stuff could be worse.

Again: I have been at this for eight years, and before that (with overlap), I was an alcoholic. I don’t really know what a Sober Sara is like. Certainly not a Sober Sara who has been a grown ass adult for so long. I was quite a young adult when I was last Chronically Sober and not just California Sober. A lot of people keep telling me that I might not change much at all from this. Will I be the same as I was last week? Last month? Is there a different Sara who’s been snoozing under the weight of our happy green flower friend, waiting to perk up and blossom?

It’s just so hard to imagine because I’m also really productive and full of interests when I’m stoned. Like, all the amazing things I’ve done in the last eight years, I did stoned. Being stoned didn’t let me do it, obviously. But it suppressed my energy (a desirable side effect for me, frankly) so I’m like…if that’s how awesome I am when I’m smothered by THC, how much more awesome am I gonna be the next few years when the fog is clear? Can I control the frenetic human-scribble energy of my psyche unconstrained by the sensory numbing of weed? Guess we’ll find out.

~

NPR has an article about the medical applications of a ketogenic diet. I spent years on a ketogenic diet. I did experience a lot of benefits. But I also found it was incredibly punishing on my digestive system, isolated me from my family because I ate so differently, and fed into my neuroses around “clean” food.

I think the conversation around ketogenic diets misses that it really should just be a medical diet. I really think the average person should not be on keto. If you are dealing with seizures that need a ketogenic diet – or schizo-affective disorder – then obviously the costs of medicalized eating are absolutely worth it. But eating shouldn’t be medical or even functional for most people. It *should* be cultural, emotional, and a source of relief. (Not talking about binge eating. I’m talking about just eating normal meals with people you love and enjoying food that tastes good.)

The hormonal effects on women are not well understood, but there is reason to believe ketosis is not good for women (source: apocrypha). Also, ketosis is a stressful survival state. Your body will be more stressed, all the time. They call this “eustress” to mean that the stress is good for you…but think about how many other sources of stress are in your life, and ask if you need to be systemically stressed out *further*.

This article is fine because it’s urging medical applications, but I can’t see “keto” pass my feed without panicking a little because the scientific/medical appeal of it really, really appeals to orthorexia, and I don’t know many women who aren’t worried about eating clean in some way.

~

I knew that 23andme had gotten hacked. I didn’t know they were going explicitly for accounts with genetic data associated with Ashkenazi and Chinese ancestry. (Engadget) Of course it has to be racist evil, it can’t just be more general bad behavior.

~

I didn’t realize Cracked was still around, but they published an essay from Penn Jillette, famously libertarian, explaining why he is no longer a libertarian.

~

Jessica Valenti reports that multiple states are trying to make it “trafficking” to take minors to states where they can legally get abortions.

On the other hand, Washington State is trying to enable pharmacists to prescribe and issue abortion pills.

~

Al Jazeera English has a roundup of national reactions to the ICJ interim ruling in regards to the Gaza conflict.

~

John Oliver says that it’s really exciting to see Jon Stewart back on late night for an election year, but also, he thinks Amber Ruffin and Roy Wood Jr should maybe have the desk. I agree. (Variety)

~

AJE’s article about Panama’s “Little Hiroshima” was a sobering lesson in recent American history.

~

Sierra Space is experimenting with inflatable habitats for humans in space. (Ars Technica)

~

Variety’s interview with Suzy Bemba, a French actress in Poor Things, was a really interesting glimpse at the state of working in French cinema.

~

ElevenLabs was identified as the creator of the Biden robo-phonecall discouraging Democrats from voting in the primaries, and they banned the account behind it. Okay, have fun with whackamole, guys. Pandora’s AI box is wide open. Are we going to pretend that things like fake political phone calls aren’t the main reason this crap exists?

~

JD Barker, who came up in publishing because of a (distant) working relationship with Stephen King, was not protected by his faint friendships when he decided to ask for nudes from underage people on TikTok. He has been dropped by his agent. (Publisher’s Weekly)

Genres outside romance aren’t always good about moderating bad behavior so I was glad to see the hammer fall swiftly on this one.

~

Britney Spears fans are NOT having it with JTimberlake’s new nonsense. (Variety)

is gen z aging faster than millennials? I hadn’t thought so, but… (link to X with my apologies.)

i just thought they looked mature to me bc it’s fashionable to wear clothes/makeup that code older to my generation, while millennials dress young. i see so many gen z looking very well groomed with very mature makeup routines. gen z made Coastal Grandma a fashion. of course they code more mature, while a lotta millennials never aged out of jeans and a tee.

it feels to me like Gen Z had to be more mature because Millennials just kind of rolled over and culturally infantilized ourselves as a response to the structure/judgment of our parents. it was regressive for us to be sloppy; it’s regressive against us for gen z to be groomed.

also: gen z’s more cultivated appearance comes from a cultural era where their adolescences have been entirely online, as a brand, performing for other humans. their appearances may be cultivated for internet entertainment regardless of greater context. there’s upsides and downsides. i don’t think Gen Z got to be kids. that’s such a downside. but the upside is they’re actual grownups at grownup ages and they can probably run circles around millennials on almost everything except maybe navigating DOS. lol

that said, i think gen z actually is older than we actually give anyone credit. i often think of my 13yo as Gen Z but a lotta places list them as the first of Gen Alpha, which means that Gen Z is all older teens and adults having families now…

so gen z, if you’re tired of people talking about you, it’s almost over. millennials caught shit until a couple years ago and then they switched to you but they’ll switch to your little brothers next, don’t worry. duuuuust in the wiiiiind

(As evidenced by the creative punctuation and caps, the above commentary was also originally an X thread I posted. A reply pointed out that Gen Z started vaping young and suffered a lotta stress, so that could be a cause, and I can’t argue.)

~

I guess Katt Williams got under Dave Chappelle’s skin. (Variety) It’s telling that Chappelle’s reaction is to complain about the criticism broadly rather than engaging with the reason Williams chose to criticize him specifically.

I’m sure Chappelle is right that his story is very sympathetic; nothing that has happened to him justifies spreading hatred.

“Hurt people hurt people, but I am a hurt person that never hurt people, and he does it all the time: ‘Fuck this one, and fuck that one, and fuck this one,’” Chappelle said, impersonating Williams.

Yeah so basically we can’t expect Chappelle to change any time soon. He’s never hurt anyone in his life.

~

Mean Girls has “only” earned 50 million in theaters, but its budget was 36 million, so everyone is happy. (Variety) Are studios realizing we want mid-budget stuff in theaters again? That this was a long-time sustainable business model for good reason?

~

Since I’ve been doing some game design stuff, I found this Balloon Juice article on puzzle design really interesting.

~

Now this is quite a read. From Ars Technica: Convicted murderer, filesystem creator writes of regrets to Linux list

~

Netanyahu keeps saying exactly what he plans to do: He wants the Palestinian state to no longer exist. (NPR)

~

I’m disappointed that Comedy Central won’t be picking a new host for The Daily Show, mostly because Roy Wood Jr left the show for this reason. If Uncle Roy doesn’t like it, then I think it’s a terrible idea and they’re making the wrong choice.

~

A former NASA administrator is not impressed with contemporary commercial spaceflight standards. Hear hear. (Ars Technica)

~

Determined to ensure Indiana Jones continues being harvested for capital, we will be getting an Indiana Jones video game. (Engadget) Honestly, the game might be fine; I’m just two movies past wanting more from the franchise and sorta annoyed they keep going on with this.

I’ve been married to my husband for fifteen years now (well, in a week) and I still get all like “omg!!!!” when I get to see him naked. I’m like. omg. He’s so hot. omg. He’s not wearing clothes. omg. play it cool. PLAY IT COOL.

~

It still surprises me when I try to pay attention to how many “productive” hours I have in a day. It’s never as much as I expect.

Mind that when I’m being productive in a focused hour, a lot happens in that hour! My maximum writing rate in an hour is about 3,000 words, which means if I wrote one of those little Harlequin romances at that speed, it would take less than a forty hour work week (theoretically) to finish it. Those lil dudes are around 40-60,000 words. So we’re talking maybe 20 hours to draft.

Yet those 20 hours have almost never in my life happened all at once; the fastest I think I ever got out a good book from start to finish (outlining and editing inclusive) was a month, or four weeks. And that was absurd.

So much of my time isn’t spent productively, even though it always feels like I’m pregnant with my current creative projects. It’s hard to think about aught else. But a lot of that thinking happens when I’m clicking around my news feed, reading articles. Or when I’m walking somewhere. I think and plan frequently. Yet I think the main reason it feels like I work *so much* (at my peak) and can’t find more time is because it’s just really Mentally Intensive. I feel every minute so the hours seem longer than hours spent curled up in my chair with yarn. And I just can’t do that very much! It’s been hard for me to do that more than an hour at a time, these days. (I’m rebuilding stamina.)

What this is circling toward is saying I haven’t been posting feed commentary much because I bumped another hour or two of weekly productivity toward fiction. I am really determined to just *finish* all these outstanding projects I’ve got on my docket. Egregious is an ongoing passion project that I don’t mind letting sleep for weeks or months at a time. I’ve done it before.

Just kinda funny to see how an hour taken away from Egregious means, like, three fewer posts here, but only another  chunk of chapter on the book.

~

I have a problem with misophonia. This interesting Psyche article connects it to interoception problems, which makes so much sense. There is a lot of brain activity when “bad sounds” are bothering you. It’s very real!

It also seems like it may be connected to (or alleviated by) mirroring.

Kumar surveyed hundreds of people with misophonia and found evidence that those with more severe symptoms were more likely to say that they imitate the actions and sounds made by people producing triggering noises. Many of the participants said they often feel compelled to mimic whatever action is triggering them and that doing so brings relief, whether that’s chewing loudly or tapping their feet.

~

The Southeast Asian Anarchist Library has a thought-provoking post about the colonialism of “gay pride” and queer identity labels currently being used. It’s a dense read, but the insights gave me a lot of perspective on how some of this movement has mixed impact abroad.

It seems the language of queer liberation is being applied in a way that still mostly serves to export American capitalism, and that is a *deeply* disappointing but helpful perspective to gain.

~

Tor dot Com has informed me that we are getting a Highlander reboot, which I am DEFINITELY ready for. Henry Cavill feels like the inevitable casting. Is Adrian Paul still around? Oh heck a quick search says he’s only 64. We put 64-year-old men in action movies all the time. Can we have Adrian Paul?

~

Ars Technica has an article talking about how fewer pollinators means that plants produce less pollen. Is it weird my first thought was like “omg it’s the way my hair produces fewer oils if I don’t use shampoo regularly.”

~

I really loved Niecy Nash-Betts’s acceptance speech at the Emmy’s. (Variety) Also, on a very shallow level, holy crap she is murdering me in that dress. She looks incredible.

~

Lil Nas X shouldn’t apologize for anything in regards to his J Christ track. (Variety) His expression of the Biblical stories is very pro-Jesus and anti-Satan. Like, there’s really nothing to complain about unless you don’t like a femme Black gay man being the one who is so good at Bibling.

~

Balloon Juice talked to NYT Pitchbot, who is a Balloon Juice alumnus. Most of the interview is on Substack (so I didn’t read it) but I think you can get a decent sense of character and thought process from the excerpt.

~

The New Yorker has my favorite article of the week: The Abortion Provider Who Became the Most Hated Woman in New York.

Restell was no mere opportunist; she genuinely believed in abortion. This much is clear from “To Married Women,” an essay-advertisement that functioned as a manifesto for her practice. “Is it not but too well known that the families of the married often increase beyond the happiness of those who give them birth would dictate?” Restell asked in one version, published in 1840. “In how many instances does the hardworking father, and more especially the mother, of a poor family remain slaves throughout their lives?” Abortion and birth control, she reasoned, were not sins but ways to cultivate health and human thriving. “Much of the suffering, misery, wretchedness, and vice existing around us can be attributable to our ignorance of the capacity granted to us for a wise end to control, in no small degree, our own destinies,” she wrote.