by Karen Karbo
COVER DESIGN BY ROBIN BILARDELLO
COVER PHOTOGRAPH © MAXIM TARASYUGIN/DREAMSTIME.COM
FIRST EDITION
Digital Edition MAY 2020 ISBN: 978-0-06-294556-3
Version 03252020
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-294554-9
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* All this said, KeVita’s Lemon Ginger Sparkling Probiotic Drink is delish.
* To play Dead Hand: the first moment the dog noses your hand in the morning, you give her the best, deepest caress in your dog-petting arsenal. You scratch behind her ears, you rub her chest, you begin to pet her all the way down her back. Just when the dog closes her eyes in bliss, you “fall back asleep” and your hand goes dead. The dog waits for a moment, then starts nosing your hand a little, then, if she’s Rita, flings it into the air. Then you burst out laughing, and start petting her again, just until her eyes close with bliss, etc., etc.
* Within this sentence some shitty grammatical syntax as well.
* Not to mention male porn stars, gay and straight alike.
* That this blockbuster ad campaign also inspired young women to blacken their young pink lungs with tar and nicotine was something no one seemed to care about.
* This was in a time before tips had been rebranded as the sexier-sounding hacks.
* I wish I were an Oscar Mayer Wiener / that is what I’d truly like to be / ’cause if I were an Oscar Mayer Wiener / everyone would be in love with me.
* Since I began writing this book the tide seems to have turned against influencers. Too many seem to have been caught purchasing fake followers and retweets, and advertisers began to get suspicious when their most followed influencer was only able to sell fourteen tubs of detoxing protein powder.
* Bashing goop has become a small but mighty subgenre of digital culture reporting. Some of the pieces are so laugh-your-ass-off hilarious that reading them has got to be good for your health. New York magazine’s The Cut opened a story about the supposed benefits of coffee enemas with “Have you ever looked at a freshly brewed pot of coffee and thought, ‘That should go in my butt’? No? Well, according to goop, you’re missing out.”
* My mom had no opinion about Mitchell’s obvious musical genius, which breaks my heart a little.
* Video-game speak for when a skilled player annihilates an inexperienced player or newbie, also known as “noob.” The skilled player, temporarily deranged by his awesomeness and eager to brag about his prowess, often mistypes own as pwn—p being next to o on the keyboard.
* I vote for a new term, the ultraricharchy.
* A recent frantic 2:00 a.m. text: “I can’t open my email!!!!”
* As if women haven’t been doing that since the dawn of time.
* Not related to laundry, “softeners” are used to ask-without-asking, and were employed with great success by thoroughbred Sheryl Sandberg to squeeze a raise from her boss, archdweeb Mark Zuckerberg.
* Woodrow was found later inside the pantry, perched on a mound of kibble inside a forty-pound bag of dog food, chowing down. At least he was being his best dog self.
* The poem was overlooked when it was published in England in 1854 but gained popularity in the United States at the end of the century. Further evidence that the United States falls far behind the rest of the developed world in its ability to tell a good poem from a bad one.
* In 1911, an ad campaign for Woodbury facial soap ran an ad featuring the tagline: “A skin you love to touch.” In addition to the creepy, disembodied, Silence of the Lambs–ish phrasing, the illustration accompanying the ad shows a delicate blond beauty in a peach-and–pale green dress sitting in an armchair. Behind her, a handsome rogue in a black suit is kissing her neck, as she looks off into the distance with an expression that can only be described as deep resignation. Presumably she is a willing participant in this Woodbury soap–fueled seduction, but her inscrutable expression tells us she would rather be home doing the 1911 version of bingeing Netflix. At first glance the bodice, which exposes her flawless décolletage, appears strangely avant-garde. Random tufts of peach-and–pale green fabric sprout from the neckline. There is one daring off-the-shoulder sleeve—then, with a jolt, you realize that the handsome rogue is in the process of ripping off the dress. The Wikipedia entry on the History of Advertising declares this to be one of the first uses of “sexual contact” to sell a product; it was one of the most popular ad campaigns in history. The campaign was selling not soap, of course, but the power to control a man, to force him to lose control and ravish you. Which you then would pretend wasn’t happening, because it was also an era when women weren’t permitted to enjoy being ravished, even as they purchased products to inspire it.
* Ultimately, I forgave her because she also invented the first sewage treatment plant. Think of life without that.
* True. The fungi and bacteria in a single mote of dust cohabit with all of us. Aside from provoking allergies, our household microbes are largely friendly.
* Thanks, sister. For fuck’s sake.
* Rheingold’s nutty notion was not widely accepted; still, it did nothing to damage his career.
* In her memoir, Life So Far, Friedan apologized, sort of: “But then I got carried away, and wrote the one chapter in The Feminine Mystique I now regret, ‘The Comfortable Concentration Camp.’”
* A terrible title. It sounds like a diet where you only eat burgers made of mice.
* Listen, I’ve kept a journal since I was ten, and I can tell you it’s just one long rant about people who are pissing me off.
* Thanks for the loan, Ann, Connie, Scott, Ed, and any other friends who’ve lent me money and whose names I’ve forgotten. Pay you back as soon as I can manifest some cash.
* Actually, I am. You know my complicated feelings about expensive candles. In the movies, the broke girl who barely makes ends meet is nevertheless always able to take a bath in her roach-infested apartment surrounded by several hundred dollars’ worth of candles.
* To save you from googling: an inclusion rider is a clause that any actor can ask to be included in their movie contract, demanding a certain level of diversity in the hiring of cast and crew.
* Actually, if that’s not a thing it should be.
* You can also have a big ass, as large booties are also in vogue. Thanks to the Kardashians, silicone butt implants are the fastest-growing plastic surgery procedure in the United States.
* When I took them on walks people asked whether we named them after the devoted lovers Penny Widmore and Desmond Hume in Lost. We most certainly did not. On the show Penny and Desmond are long-lost lovers; our Penny is Desmond’s mother. They were named after the Beatles songs “Penny Lane” and “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da,” featuring Desmond Jones.
* Oh my God, who the fuck is this boring woman?
* Said Katharine Hepburn: “If you’re given a choice between money and sex appeal, take the money. As you get older, the money will become your sex appeal.”
* Excellent movie premise, however.
* No woman on earth has said, “As soon as I can feel my thighs rub together, I’m going swimsuit shopping.”
* Why is this even a thing? Every winter, right about the time eggnog lattes return to the Starbucks menu board, we are treated to glossy photos online and in magazines of hot women wandering around in a sweater with no pants.
