Travis Kelce Hasn't Abandoned His 'Type' Afterall
Plus "You look healthy" (derogatory), and the Black Industry debate tearing up Twitter
Welcome back to Highly Recommended!
I am happy to report that I have made a full recovery from my illness and I only mysteriously hack in the very early morning and right before bed. Progress! I still think I need to wait a little bit before getting my flu and covid shots which I should have just done in October when my doctor said.
It’s been a pretty quiet week for me here in Milwaukee. Ryan is away in Canada and I am fighting for my life against seasonal depression. It has snowed every other day since Thanksgiving here and it is starting to wear on me. I am still refusing anti-depressants because I am in the middle of a draft for my next novel and I am concerned that an SSRI will knock out my mounting anxiety, sure, but also dull my passion and ability to create. I literally have no idea if this is a good decision or not. I have been so busy the last few weeks which is also a tactic that I am using to stave off depression but as things start winding down for the holidays, I find myself becoming increasingly more anxious and depressed. It doesn’t help that I am a natural extrovert and the weather makes me want to stay inside. I detest being on my phone/texting more than I already have to so I default to not reaching out to anyone or making plans and then experience a debilitating loneliness that makes me want to be near my friends and family. You see why this is a cycle, yes? Hoping that I am able to overcome soon.
Yesterday I got to feel like James Cameron as I filmed a boat trying to navigate the frozen river. I have no idea why they were doing this. They also disrupted the nice serene surface and really messed up my view. For no apparent reason. They made it maybe like ¾ of a mile? As in Cameron’s film, the ice won. Please humor me, as you can see…life in this “city” is bleak.
A huge highlight from this week included being in the Tanya Time Book Club because they read The Rules of Fortune for their book club pick. It was an amazing event so thank you if you attended! It was really restorative to connect with readers and hear your thoughtful questions! I am so grateful to Tanya and her book biz partner Jeanell for having me. Tanya will be putting the video on YouTube so when I get that link, I will share.
I haven’t really been going anywhere so I haven’t really been getting dressed, something that will have to change because I have my Marie Claire column December deadline approaching. Here’s what I’ve managed to cobble together over the last week:
Honorable mention to the HORSE SPORT sweatshirt and Live The Process leggings. Not to be that girl, but when I was at war with my fibroids, my dietitian informed me about endocrine disrupting chemicals and the risk of exposure to them. Guess what, a lot of them are in leggings! I am not a full on purist, (it’s almost impossible to be these days) but I am doing what I can to wear natural fibers when possible. Horse Sport is 100% cotton as is Live The Process. I decided to see what the hype was about and I bought this red 100% cashmere cardigan on Quince. It’s ok. I like it, I don’t love it. I think I would have been happier with vintage but that would require me to actually shop…out there…so you see as to why I just pressed *Submit Order* from the comfort of my couch instead.
When Ryan comes back, we will be going away to Kohler, Wisconsin for our 2 year anniversary. 2 years! Can you believe it? I can’t! I prob will have something really sappy to say when we get back but in the meantime, I have to plug the book that got me into this relationship, Calling In The One. Read it!
There’s lots to talk about. Onto this week’s recommendations.
Highly Recommend:
Well, well, well. Chocolate’s a helluva drug, innit?: Looks like Travis Kelce has been caught slipping and I don’t just mean because he dropped the ball in a game this week. (Are you impressed that I know that?) I mean because parasocial internet super-sleuths have discovered the accounts that he follows on Instagram. And what do you know? There are a lot of Black hotties in there. Very much giving Megan Thee Stallion–a you know, savage–and not–hm what does she call herself?–‘English teacher’ Taylor Swift. I am not really surprised by this because we already knew that he had A Type for fucking and A Type for marrying but I do think the timing of this is delicious. Plus, a lot of the women have small accounts so they are either real people he knows or he’s really just a fan of the “content”. It comes off the heels of Travis confessing that he and Taylor have “never argued” LOL. Yes, because what is there to fight about for them? They are undoubtedly aligned on everything. I believe he is probably, rightfully, afraid of her and CTE does a number on cognitive abilities anyway so I don’t believe he’s arguing with anyone. Interestingly enough, Rolling Stone, who is most definitely THE OPS pressed publish on a story that said that the online conversation around Taylor Swift being a Nazi apologist was in fact only a bot/AI psyop and not in anyway reflective of any reality. Conveniently, Swift is releasing a documentary on Disney plus of her tour. Not that it would stop a single Swiftie from tuning in but it’s things that make you go hm that this dropped at the same time. TBD on if Travis went ahead and unfollowed those girlies.
Industry is back, baby!: I can’t wait to watch my favorite snaggletoothed analyst’s shenanigans. Something has sparked due to this article from The New Yorker. The big conversation happening right now about Industry is that the guy who plays Gus revealed like that like his character, he does not want to be “grouped in with the collective” as in Black people. He wants to be seen as an individual. There’s a lot of nuance that is missing here about the wider diaspora, culture and class in the way that people are responding to this but I’m willing to plug my ears says “la la la la la” and press play as soon as my mom tells me the code so that the HBO streaming does not ask me if I am “still traveling”.
There’s Dom on Quince: Not to talk about Quince again but they are selling Dom! I don’t think it is the fabled variety that Mary M. Cosby has been evangelizing for the last four years on RHOSLC but I do think it is such an interesting thing that they sell everything from luggage, to bedding, to panties to champagne. I made the grave mistake of telling my Midwestern boyfriend about it and now he wants to Quince-fy our existence. Don’t worry, despite the fact that I have talked about them twice now, that is not going to happen.
What kinds of drugs are these?: The Planatir (eeeyuuuckkkk) CEO, Alex Karp and Timothee Chalamet both had, shall we call it, spirited on stage appearances last week. Alex Karp was at a NYT summit and frankly could not sit still. There was also the uncombed hair, the ill-fitting suit and generally unsettling disposition. Oh please, don’t feel bad for him. It is high time we point out when men look terrible, especially in a professional setting. He needs to have some respect. He fidgeted, spoke with unusual inflections, and looked disheveled while doing so. It was incredibly bizarre. Less so, Timothee Chalamet went to Brazil to promote his upcoming film, Marty Supreme and he did the Crank That Solider Boy on stage followed by several other unpredictable but only moderately strange things. Our friend at Planatir was moving like I’ve only ever seen Jesse Pinkman move but afterwards the company released a statement about neurodivergence and even established a fellowship for neurodivergent people in business. That was quick and strange. Timothee said nothing but people seem to think this is just consistent with how he always acts. Amazing, if true! I would love to be as naturally energetic as he seems. I would need drugs.
Wow, this is so ghetto!": One of my new favorite content genres involves a Black person uno reversing microaggressions on white people. These are all innocuous and minimally bothersome instances so don’t get all excited. For example, a Black creator will approach two white women shopping in a shoe department and ask them to get his size. The white women will then have to explain that they don’t work there. Or a creator will say “wow, your English is so good. Where did you grow up?” stuff like that. In the interest of preserving this bit for a little longer, let’s talk about the very ghetto incident that happened at the annual Nantucket Christmas Stroll this past weekend. There was a brawl! I’m exaggerating. It was kind of a fight but I went to school in Boston and I know drunk people in Massachusetts love to throw hands. Only one person even ended up on the ground but I am still going to use it as an excuse to say: my god, what are we going to do about all this white on white crime? Do they have no respect for their own communities? When did Nantucket get so bad? You can hear one of the girls who recorded the video asking “where are the police?” well before the first punch was even thrown.
Danity Kane’s back on stage: I haven’t watched the Diddy doc and I’m not sure I am going to. I don’t need to know just how guilty he is but one of the first bands that he “made” is back! Now not too much on my girls! They been through a lot. D. Woods, Aundrea and Aubrey have reunited and are hitting the stage. Weirdly, Dawn and Shannon are not standing with their sisters even though each of them have performed with some combo of Danity Kane over the years. There’s always next tour!
Do Not Recommend:
The Housemaid Team Made Sydney Sweeney Apologize: Someone smart said, your MAGA ass isn’t tanking this fucking thriller and so Sydney had to look contrite as she typed “make me look sorry but do not alienate me from my base” into Chat GPT. The result? This very vague shit about how she is “against hate”. Notice how she’s not against Trump or eugenics or being labeled Nazi barbie. I cannot get behind this at all. It is so obviously a PR move and though I love Amanda Seyfried and an unhinged the help gone wrong story, I cannot support anything that involves Sweeney, especially after that GQ interview where she could have just cleared it up but didn’t.
New Sleep Paralysis Demon Takes Form: My nightmare blunt rotation all sitting together in a box. Taylor Swift brought Selena Gomez and Lena Dunham to watch Travis drop the ball on Sunday. Eeeeyuckkkk. This really is my nightmare blunt rotation. The absolute worst vibes ever. No thank you.
“You Look Healthy (Derogatory)”: Trigger warning!!! Kimora Lee Simmons and fam are back on television with a reboot of her mid-augts reality tv classic: Life In The Fab Lane. The new iteration is called BACK In The Fab Lane and we get to see, her now adult daughters navigate life alongside her. In a particularly baffling choice for promotion, E! Released a clip where younger daughter Aoki Lee returns from Bali and agrees to do a swim photoshoot. When Aoki walks into the room, her older sister Ming looks at her her and says, “You look good. You look healthy,” which Aoki takes as an insult, saying to her sister, “you know in this house ‘healthy’ means ‘fat’.” Some other very benign melee ensues, which is typical sister stuff but this whole exchange really bothered me. It bothered me because both Aoki and Ming are very skinny girls. It also just felt so jarring to hear. It was like being teleported back to 2005 where this kind of thing dominated how girls related to one another. I am all for the nostalgia of bringing back Kimora but I think it is important that we leave some stuff behind, like for example, this very toxic body image and projection. Being called healthy should never be an insult. We should all be so lucky to look outwardly healthy and we would be equally as lucky if the insides matched that. You really never know what someone is struggling with. Aoki has posted something alluding to the fact that she is recovering from an eating disorder. Hopefully her healthy insides will match her outsides soon.
This Ex-Bachelor Constant Has a Humiliation Kink: Sorry, by that I mean she says that she is enjoying being a “submissive wife”. Maddie Prewett confessed, in a very wtf no one asked moment that she “struggled to learn to submit”. This girl who was on Colton’s season of the Bachelor (a task that I can only imagine was extremely traumatic) is now married to someone else (unclear if he is gay too or not) and said to People mag that she loves being a submissive wife. I do not understand who this performance benefits but ok girlie, submit away.
Lauren Sanchez’s Female Bodyguard: Ok I can only imagine that this is some sort of “statement” on female empowerment like her pointless mission to space but Lauren Sanchez Bezos has a female bodyguard who accompanied her in NYC last week. She’s very jacked and looks kind of German (complimentary). I am afraid of her which is probably a good thing for a bodyguard. Confusingly, Sanchez Bezos is always waving to people as she enters and exits buildings. I guess she has officially adopted the mannerisms of royalty? I can’t imagine who is waving toward her? And like…why? Like is she some people’s favorite astronaut? I don’t get it.
High thoughts of the week: (very Kardash/Jenner/Bravo heavy. Sorry. This is my mind)
Where is Kendall Jenner’s “mountain house”?
Why wasn’t Kierana on this week’s ep of RHOP? What the hell is Greg looking at a $2M ring for?
I wonder if Kim knows that Craig Conover passed the bar and she can’t?
It must be very believable that Robert Pattison would date a light skinned Black woman because those are always his costars.
I am sad I will never get to watch that Jessica Chastain show now.
I feel like Josh Safdie has dreams about kissing Timothee. Idk.
Be back next week with the report from the American Club!
xD
I know it’s a tale as old as time so maybe there’s not much more to say, but man, I’d love a post from you just about that Travis kelce uncovering