The Friday Dispatch: May 30, 2025

Great news for snake lovers! (snakes included)

Hello all! Happy Friday! What’s up??? I am so sleepy today, because Myles and I stayed up way too late talking about the 1844 Democratic National Convention and the Olivia Rodrigo album Guts.

• Bad Idea, Right? reflects on the weird sexual tension between the too-young US and their ex (the British empire) during the Patriot War

• Get Him Back! is about the Mexican-American war, and specifically the annexation of Texas

• Vampire is from the perspective of Martin Van Buren, watching helplessly as James K. Polk took the presidential nomination

• All-American Bitch is about SARAH POLK!!!!!!!!!!!¹

Olivia, please call me!!!!!! I have some ideas for an album about the Solidarity movement in Poland during the late 1970s!!!

Recently I was looking for a new place to eat in my neighborhood and this is what I found:

:) nice! :)

Today we will finish the cake I made on Monday afternoon, a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. Instead of the 1/2 cup of oil the box mix called for, I used a 1/2 cup of melted, salted butter. And instead of the cup of water, I used a cup of espresso.

I was right about this!

There is no such thing as natural beauty

When my mom was here a couple weeks ago, we watched approximately 6 hours’ worth of makeup reviews and beauty tutorials. Believe it or not, I don’t watch a ton of beauty content online! Mostly, I like reading. I don’t have great auditory processing capabilities. I am too impatient to watch Beauty YouTube without turning it to 2x speed and still getting annoyed by the longwinded tangents when I just want to know if an eyeliner is good or bad. Recipe blogs have nary a thing on beauty YouTubers’ long-ass non-sequiturs.

THAT SAID. It was super fun watching these videos with my mom, because it emphasized that, while we like makeup, and think makeup is fun to play with, and own a lot of it, we don’t necessarily wear a lot of it. At least, not all at once. So, we agreed that on the weekend after my bridal shower, when she was back in MO and I got home from my haircut in Brooklyn, we would each do a “full face” of makeup and send each other tutorials.

None of you² are allowed to see the 40-minute tutorial I filmed exclusively for my mom. Sorry!!!! But I will show you this: an unedited, filter-free image of my scary real housewife face:

Okay. Even though I’m not a major makeup-er. I think I look pretty good there, at a distance! In direct lighting! My face looks “snatched” and I look “lifted,” two words I heard Tati Westbrook³ say 44 times in the course of an 8-minute video. However, if you look closer, you will see that unfortunately I do have pores and skin:

My BEST selfie is one I took as I was preparing to wash my nasty itchy crusty concealed/bronzed/blushed/brushed face. I DID use the “mix blue concealer into your foundation product so it’ll be less orange” trick, and guess what, still pretty orange!

A particularly joyous moment, though, was introducing my mom AND Myles to the wonder of Sailor J, the only “beauty YouTuber” whose videos I could quote from memory. Introducing ANYONE to this video is a delight. I hope you can either revisit this with glee, or better yet, that I am inaugurating you into a cult of personality and also eyeliner. First things first: Check your flesh!

Also! As of *checks notes* uh, two weeks ago, when I showed my mom and Myles the above video(?! timing!!!), Sailor J is back (to some degree) with This Sort Of Stuff, so keep your eyes peeled and your nostrils closed.

If you are stinky and sore, read this

If you are not stinky and you are not sore, well, GOOD FOR YOU!!!

For the rest of us: Hello my beautiful smelly brethren. It is summer (allegedly). It is the time when you Stink More and Chafe Extra. Unless…you spend $11 on two easy things you may keep in your shower!

• I picked up a new bottle of The Ordinary’s glycolic acid toner ($9 for a travel size, which lasts me alllll summer). Did you know? Using this stuff on your armpits, right after you shower, will kill the Pit Bacteria until they are dead. This keeps you from having B.O. Wow! My go-to move is, right after the shower, before I towel off, I splat a thimbleworth of this toner into my hands and then pat it under my arms. Once it dries, I put on deodorant. And then I never stink again!⁴

  SIDE NOTE: You could also use pretty much any acne product with glycolic or salicylic acid in it. Those acne pads work GREAT. So does a good face scrub! When I get in the shower, I like to put a big blob of Noxzema under each arm and let it “cook” for a while as I shampoo/condition before I wash my body with soap.

• I have espoused the virtue of the humble cocoa butter stick in this column before. A three-pack from the brand Cococare is often $1.25 at your local Dollar Tree or similar. I always keep one in the shower, because it makes it very easy to apply to rough spots (especially elbows/knees/heels). The heat from the shower melts it down a little, so it’s easy to rub in.
  And! In the summer, when I switch from Hattie Jean Hayes to Hattie Jean Shorts Hayes, I make sure to FOCUS that cocoa butter stick on my thighs, because then I do not experience the dreaded thigh chafe. For some reason, if I do this IMMEDIATELY after I shower, the benefits seem to last days.

I hope these hacks empower you to run everywhere all summer like Sonic the Hedgehog, or perhaps Naruto.

Will I see you on Sunday?

This Sunday I am BACK IN ACTION on We Stan Together! I am doing a little parody song! The theme of this show is INFLUENCERS, and boy, is this edition of my newsletter weirdly on-theme! Hope to see you Sunday at 7PM. Or! If you are not in New York! I hope you text me Sunday night and say “Hey I livestreamed your show for ten dollars and it was the best ten dollars I ever spent in my life. I love you. Bye”

I NEVER want to watch a vertical video, EVER!

Related to above beauty-tutorial stuff: I never, ever, ever want to watch a vertical video. EVER!!!!

(With one exception. More in a second.)

My early-career days in the NYC magazine space were spent hearing the ominous and stupid phrase “pivoting to video” as our print/copy teams circled the media drain at an ever-faster pace. It’s important to note, I think, that the whole “people like video way moreeee!” thing was made up and video viewership numbers were overinflated, but God forbid publishers make choices⁵ based on what their audiences want.

The only good vertical video platform, ever, was Vine, because it limited videos to 7 seconds, which is the exact attention span I have when looking at a 4.5-by-6.5-inch screen. Then Vine died and TikTok existed and Instagram/Facebook/YouTube all decided they were also TikTok. And, in conclusion: the pivot to video became stupider than ever.

Look, I’m frustrated because all I want to do is log on to YouTube dot com on my COMPUTER, which lives at my DESK and DOES NOT MOVE. I want to type in the words “easy liquid eyeliner look multichrome” and then watch a video that is big enough that I can SEE what is HAPPENING. The default on YouTube now is shorts! Which are tiny enough on my phone but appear extra-tiny and extra-worthless on my DESK TOP COMPUTER. The vertical videos are also never, ever focused on the content I’m searching for. Type “multichrome eyeliner tutorial,” and you get a 40-second clip of a woman swatching sixteen eyeliners on her hand, as quickly as she can, without naming any of the brands or shades. You can click the YouTube search settings to show “videos only,” which will exclude Shorts; why this is not the default is beyond me.

This is truly just a 30-year-old-yells-at-clouds moment, No, it’s the children who are wrong, OK Grandma Let’s Get You Back to Bed. I’m sorry for that!

I only want to see ONE person post vertical videos. That would be Instagram user tbonepearson, the (person? entity?) behind Spellfury Castle. Spellfury Castle does have a YouTube page, and a show with a plot. Somewhat ironically, I have never watched this and have no interest in it. I care about the Spellfury Castle live videos, where this blonde princess lady and a bunch of puppets do covers of songs. Then they post some as Reels on Instagram. Every single song they do is the best version of that song.

tbonepearson

A post shared by @tbonepearson

It IS Friday and I AM in love!!!

Meanwhile, despite all my whining and moaning above, my YouTube algorithm has perfectly attuned itself to my interests. Exhibit A:

If you liked that video…well, let’s just say…there is more where that came from. And by “more,” I mean “snakes.” And by “where that came from,” I mean “a door.”

WIDNBTW

Thanks to the magic of coupons and Reddit, I bought an Hourglass concealer for the cost of shipping earlier this week. I will report back when I receive it. Also, I got a case for my Nintendo Switch; I’ve had this device for close to 8 years but have simply been carrying it around in a small waterproof purse that also housed my Nintendo DS for a long time. Upgrading!!!

In the meantime, here’s what I did NOT buy this week:

• This expensive tiny pink tweed dress

• This expensive long tiered sparkly dress

• The tomato collection from Bath and Body Works…YET.
  So, I had the B&BW tomato candle years ago and loved it, used it all up. Their sister brand White Barn also had a very good carrot candle! But now, B&BW has a full body and home COLLECTION, called Off the Vine, which is, allegedly, tomato-scented. I have plans to go sniff it in person this evening, and if the spirit moves me, slather myself in tomato-goo.
  I am curious to see how I like tomato as a downmarket fragrance note! Byredo has a fantastic fragrance called Pulp, which is meant to evoke a fruit basket but smells awfully similar to the tomato-note candles I've loved over the years. However, Pulp has a bit of a spicy kick to it, too—think a too-soft bell pepper, one that got overripe in the sun. I would be VERY HAPPY if the B&BW scent were similar.

• This bird whistle—I only wound up on this page because I read a hilarious review of some safety pins. I clicked on the author’s Amazon buyer page, and read all of her reviews, which included a one-star review of these "disgusting," "rust-covered" whistles that made her gag and throw up. Wow!

• In related bird news, this kingfisher soy sauce dispenser or its bird-themed compatriots (my friend Emily once again tossing me down a wormhole of cute kitchenry)

• This rainbow cactus jumpsuit, which reminds me of skate rink carpet and appears to have been manufactured exclusively for my friend Amy

• This embellished Americana bodysuit (considering for 4th of July!!!) or this embellished cat-themed catsuit (much more practical for everyday wear)

• Any of these earrings:

  

• These incredible clown heels!

• This bouquet shaped like a cat or this bouquet shaped like a fairy cat or this mermaid cat bouquet or this bouquet (both a cat and a doctor!) or a Hello Kitty and Dear Daniel bouquet…I love them all…………

Okay, I have to go now. Dottie is sitting on my planner and crying. A fat tear just landed on my to-do list. I am being a bad, neglectful cat mom and therefore I must away. So long! Please come to my show Sunday! Thank you! Here is Dottie asleep on fresh laundry!

1. All of the bonus tracks from Guts (spilled) are about James Buchanan.

2. My dad and brother can watch, if they want to, but I cannot imagine a world in which they find my concealer application strategy 40 minutes of interesting.

3. Two weeks ago I didn’t know who Tati Westbrook was. Now, I have watched a handful of her videos, learned about her fallout with fellow YouTuber James Charles (idc about this!), learned about her apparent Goopification/tumble down the “we should ONLY be eating meat” rabbit hole, and finally I realized I could just scroll the comments of her videos to find out A) which products she was reviewing and B) whether she liked them.

4. Until winter when I cook and stew in my own horrific fermentation

5. Incidentally, I have never consumed video content here on Substack and I do not plan to :)