Obsessions This Week: May 4–10, 2025

That viral Jurgen Klopp clip, lemon drop martinis, and prepping for LA.

📺 Mulaney doing fanfic, maybe

If you saw that Andy Samberg/John Mulaney fanfic bit on TV this week and thought of me, let me just say:

This reads a lot like real fic, but I think it was scripted. And it’s kinda mean!

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⛪ A Chicago pope

@saggiesplintersAmen

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Don’t embarrass us, Leo! Everything dope about America comes from Chicago, as we say here.

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🎬 “Friendship”

Seemingly every comedy nerd is talking about how funny this movie is. I have yet to see it, but my body is ready. I find the horror movie music perplexing, so maybe it’s meant for straight men.

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⌚ Best Substack I read this week

Yet again, it’s

Angelica Jade Bastién

’s, which is a must-read. While I would like to think of myself as outside of the paradigm she’s describing—because I haven’t gotten Botox and tell anyone who asks my age—I have fallen prey to much of this behavior, and often around this time of year, when my birthday approaches. I love Bastien connecting the performance of white women in our thirties to the onscreen trends of middle-aged white women roles.

The continuing trend of middle-aged white women in cinema being punished for staying alive long enough to be considered old, or finding sexual fulfillment with exceedingly young men while still feeling downtrodden for being their age, is in fact white women unraveling at no longer being placed on the pedestal that their youth and conventional beauty once afforded them […]

When I see a woman I find attractive and cool reveal a pit of despair on her Instagram stories over the fact she doesn’t look like her 28-year-old self now that she’s in her mid-thirties, I wince. When I witness a young woman who just turned thirty write a preening Instagram caption about being brave in the face of aging, I start to wonder what the fuck is going on with women and why they default to believing what the social forces that seek to keep them powerless dish out. When I witness women in my age group eager to be seen as cool by Gen Z and those coming up behind them, I wonder when exactly they lost their own sense of self—if they had one in the first place. When I hear a woman degrade another for the mere fact of being old, or crowing about their lack of collagen in public discussions, online comments, and pithy posts, it is evident that the performance of vulnerability is its own currency in the modern age. Yet, I am left to wonder, who and what does such public self-flagellation benefit?

Emphasis is mine; you can read the full piece here.

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🌶️ New favorite video

He’s just being honest! Forgive me, I was not familiar with Jurgen Klopp’s game (literal or figurative). I would like more information about this translator, plzkthnx.

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💗 Happy Mother’s Day!

I am supporting the Midwest Access Coalition and Bail Out Black Mamas this Mothers’ Day, as I do every year. People with uteruses have the right to use them or not, and be supported in either choice! It’s that simple! Fight someone else about it or better yet, call your mother.

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📺 News You Can Use

This is the cyberpunk future my childhood self expected of the year 2025. More of this, please.

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🍸 Lemon drop martinis

My go-to drink of the summer has been this essentially boozy lemonade you can call a martini, if you’re fancy: 2 oz vodka, 1 oz triple sec, 1 oz homemade simple syrup, and 2 oz lemon juice. Shake with ice, serve in a sexy glass, and viola! My roommate seriously improved on this recipe by using a dry (and not blue) curacao instead of triple sec, for what it’s worth.

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🌇 See you soon, LA

Yes, I have professional and personal obligations there, of course, but wouldn’t it be nice if I were one of those people who just jetted off for the sunshine and heat? Hit me up if you’re in the area, or just catch me at some of my favorite places.

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✒️ “Invasive Species” by Leah Silvieus

Something terrible happened today, I say

and my husband rushes to me, searching

for signs of harm. I do not want to tell him

the rest: how I found a tree frog in the door well

of our car, gazing up with what I then imagined

was hope, how I coaxed him into a paper sack

that I carried to a tree with plenty of shade

at the lot's far end, nudged the bag gently,

and waited. How when I returned,

he stared up at me, his leg now askew

from where I had broken it in my hurry.

His gaze was still the same, full not

with hope as I had once imagined but

something else. I was just trying to help, I say.

I knew that did not matter.