Heyyyy you,
I am feeling sooooo happy! Hope that’s alright. Not too much else to say. I saw a TikTok recently that said you shouldn’t tell people when your life is going well, because they might hex you. Please don’t hex me. I am a sweet girl and if you’re interested in bringing me down a peg, I promise you that life will take care of it eventually. So pinky promise — no hexing. Mmk?
Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way…
💅 SWEETIE RATES 💅
Everyone is Beautiful and No One is Horny
After reading this little cracker about militarism in everyday life (not being sarcastic) and watching the strangely conservative discourse about sex scenes in movies evolve, I have re-visited Everyone is Beautiful and No One is Horny by RS Benedict for Blood Knife. Published a couple of years ago, not only does it hold up, it unfortunately becomes increasingly relevant as time marches onwards, our body standards slouch toward the uncanny valley and our culture continues to curl at the edges.
Musing on impossible beauty and hard bodies, Benedict seamlessly links the ever-changing expectations put upon our appearances with turnings of the tide — 9/11, the real estate market and the cult of self-improvement. A read that will have you nodding along like a drinking bird.
The Four Drink Rule
Ready for a #lifehack that will change your life, my good friend? As both a Capricorn and someone with no self control, I love rules. That’s why I’d like for you to meet the Four Drink Rule (FDR).
It’s pretty self-explanatory — to achieve an optimal level of joy every day you must have four different kinds of drinks. Here is how I break it down:
Water, of course, is number one and cannot be omitted from the equation, you literally need water, even if you’re a sicko like my friend Mia. Sorry Mia.
For me, a coffee is beverage number two because I love spending money and waiting anxiously for a takeaway latte and trying not to look up when they call out someone else’s name even though they came in after you. I’m pretending I’m listening to something on my Airpods. I am not.
Tea comes third, because the London weather is still cold and tea is hot and I am desperate for even a crumb of approval from British people. Peppermint tea or camomile.
The fourth drink is the wildcard option. You NEED a fun drink every day. It can be a smoothie, a juice, a Dr Pepper, a G&T or, if you’re me, you have to have your precious ‘concoction.’ I did not invent it at all as it is basically a hot toddy without any alcohol — hot water, lemon, ginger, honey and cinnamon. I am addicted to it.
When you follow the Four Drink Rule you will find yourself giddy at the prospect of waking up and enjoying the usually very novel prospect of hydration. The Four Drink Rule will infuse your life with joy. The Four Drink Rule will make you better looking! If that’s even possible 🙂
Now, things do get complicated when we get to either side of four drinks per day. I can’t guarantee that either three or five drinks will have the same effect. Three is too little. Five denotes excessive alcohol ingestion. The data simply doesn’t back up anything except the perfect number — four. And why mess with perfection?
Dinosaur Pictures
No, I do not mean pictures of dinosaurs — well, except maybe this one — I’m talking www.dinosaurpictures.com.
This website lets you see what different areas of the earth looked like up until 750 million years ago, with sexy, specific details about ecological changes. Though I do believe this is a website for literal children, I’m absolutely tearing it up on there. I’m learning so many fun things! Did you know that dinosaurs ruled the earth for 165 million years? I didn’t, because I spent all my time at school staring out the window. Dinosaurs are going to have lived an inconceivably longer time than humans ever will, probably because they did not have an industrial revolution.
It’s amazing that 50 years ago women couldn’t open a bank account by themselves, and now I can get out my phone and explore the history of Pangea whenever I want. That’s feminism, baby.
💀 SWEETIE HATES 💀
~Quiet luxury~
Here are some headlines from the past few weeks about quiet luxury, the latest parlance of choice to make my eyes roll back into my skull:
The 0.1 per cent have moved on from the ‘quiet luxury’ look – and we should too
Sorry TikTok, quiet luxury is the last fashion trend we need right now
‘Quiet Luxury’ Is Extending Beyond the Runways—And Into Your Home
Oh my God shut up. Literally shut the fuck up. What is anyone even talking about anymore? It feels like we can’t go a couple of months without agonising over subtle signifiers of wealth and then agonising over the subsequent meaning of the agonising.
“Sofia Richie’s Wedding is quiet luxury.” No it’s not! She rented out the Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc on the French Riviera with a multi-day wedding celebration, wearing a custom Chanel dress. It was meticulously documented on social media, with seemingly no detail spared. That’s loud luxury if I have ever conceived of it. In fact, I’d hazard to say that while it’s beautiful and, of course, all love and light to her — in a nutshell, the whole thing is gauche as hell.
Extremely rich people are absconding from wearing overt symbols of wealth because they don’t want to be either pilloried or robbed. That’s it. It’s recession-core, repackaged. You can wear a slicked bun, a fresh white t-shirt with a plain Jane handbag and make TikToks singing the praises of The Row and they’re still not gonna let you fly on the PJ.
Eva Green wins court battle
Mean Green WINS court case — which means I am eating crow. I am sorry for doubting you Eva. In her defence, who among us has never written self-righteous screeds like a raging asshole? I do it every week!
I have been bested by a Bond Girl. It may not be the last time, I still have a lot of life left I HOPE, but I have to hand it to her for now. I’ll take any woman winning in court as a positive development considering… You know. Actually, wait a second 🤨
Thicc Italian mermaid
Getting the people who made this monstrosity a one-way ticket to horny jail, where they will be facing a life sentence. This mermaid, made by students at the Luigi Rosso art school in Italy, just came off of Dr Miami’s table, not from the depths of the Mariana Trench. You can’t even be a damn mermaid now without being pressured to look like a BBL prototype. How does she swim with that absolute wagon, those silicone sacks? Girlie is getting mauled by Jaws post-haste.
Luckily, Adolfo Marciano, the headteacher of the Luigi Rosso who oversaw the project, doesn’t have anything problematic to say about women’s bodies while he defends his students’ work:
“You see adverts on television with models who are very thin, but the mermaid is like a tribute to the great majority of women who are curvy, especially in our country. It would have been very bad if we had represented a woman who was extremely skinny.”
Ah, so close.
I’m all for controversial art having its place, I’m not a prudish book-burner, but can the art in question at least be… Good? Or does it have to look like a decaying sex doll?
Ciao!