A Doll's Clout
Special Sunday edition because this week tried to kill me. 🎀
Hi friends!
Did you think of me on Wednesday, when the alien news broke, because I thought of you, thinking of me, and it was beautiful. What a nice little treat that was, seeing that trio testify about alien bodies knowing that this situation will only evolve and entertain from there. Speaking of alien bodies, this has opened up a whole new dating pool and intergalactic romance is going to be huge. Earth is so hot right now, but not in the right way, and with the human race on its way out, an alien husband sounds ideal. Beam me up and show me that physics defying technology, love.
I’m writing this on a plane to Toronto that was supposed to leave Friday morning and that was two hours delayed on Saturday when — with everyone on board all buckled up and ready to go — the smell of jet fuel filled the cabin. We were told to leave our bags behind and rushed back into the terminal. Turns out whoever was fueling this aircraft overfilled the gas tank. God, do I have to do everything myself?
After three hours of staring at the LAX fire department throwing what looked like high-tech sawdust onto the tarmac, three hours during which I simply yearned to be reunited with my carry-on luggage so I could go back to my apartment and never attempt to go anywhere ever again, we got back on the plane and left. Air Canada really needs to get their shit together but at least they gave us free plane booze.
I’m excited to go home to Canada for a minute to see if the planet is melting a bit slower up there and I will obviously report back. I’m not too optimistic, knowing that this is a global boiling we’re in, dramatic new name courtesy of the UN secretary general who nailed the mood of the week. If the era of global boiling has officially arrived, I say we all get to pick which traditionally boiled creature we want to be, and I am every crustacean Bethenny Frankel was maniacally eating whilst vlogging in her hotel room.
More than a week after it hit theaters, we don’t need any more takes on Barbie. We live in a circle of hell where all of our opinions are the chorus and sometimes it’s nice to just enjoy things as we boil.
When I was a little girl, I lived to play with my Barbies, spending hours at a time styling their outfits, making sets out of bedroom bric-a-brac, and creating a kind of improvised theater of the absurd with a pink Corvette and a Donny Wahlberg doll. I didn’t have a Ken, I had a Donny, complete with a rat tail that fell out at some point and left an empty hole in the back of his head. Those were the days and you better believe that whether we were reenacting the week’s episode of Melrose Place or dismembering one of the lower status dolls then giving her a haircut, a fabulous time was had by all.
Barbie, in her purest form, is a blank plastic slate for the imagination of whoever is playing with her, an unapologetically girly conduit to creativity and fun. Watching Barbie felt like the most decadent expression of that — a group of extremely talented people playing and creating with a gigantic budget and the world’s supply of fluorescent pink paint.
Most of us are not represented by Barbie or Ken — I personally identify as an America Ferrera — but for a moment we all got to don our pink dresses and celebrate the problematic nature of “womanhood.” Don’t get it twisted, being a woman is potent, majestic, a sublime experience of the divine, but being “a woman” is a fucking nightmare. And yes, it would be cool if under the next full moon, us gals could take to the woods en masse and bleed unto the earth, but this is 2023, so a Mattel-sanctioned existential comedy that gives us the space to talk about our lived experiences while exposing many millions of young women to the basic tenets of feminism and patriarchal ideology will suffice for now. There are so few places for women to gather that aren’t a boutique fitness studio, let us eat our $150 million girl dinner in peace.
Before I go, in honor of us entering the dog days of summer and Mitch McConnell having a neurological episode live on camera this week, a reminder that you can get your Old Man Summer™️ hats right here at this beautiful link.
Stay cool, stay hydrated, and take care of yourself today!
Less Lessons More Blessin’s™️
Liz