How do books work?! Do apartments exist?! Which mascot will haunt you?!

Hey friends,

Hope you’re all hanging in there. I’m trying to wrap up the Fast & Furious zine this weekend but it turns out that a book has so many pages! What goes on the copyright page? What is the title page for? What do we put on the back cover?? I frantically texted my friend yesterday like “Do we need an ISBN????” I suddenly have no concept of how books work. (OK, but seriously, what do we put on the back cover?) 

Meanwhile, Ozzy and I are getting ready to record the first batch of interviews for our upcoming eleventh season. We’ve got three scheduled for next week(!), which is very exciting — maybe we’ll be ready for Pride after all!? Still no spoilers for y’all tho :) :)

But none of this matters because what I’m really focusing on is refreshing StreetEasy fifty times a day to try to get an apartment. I’m sure you’ve heard people complain about New York apartments a million times, so I’ll skip the classic “it’s expensive and impossible” parts (although it is!!! There are three decent apartments that each cost one billion dollars and then a lot of dark caves that cost a half-billion dollars) and go straight to what we should be talking more about: it’s wild that we all have to send our drivers licenses, bank statements, tax returns, social security numbers, and general life history to various realtors’ unsecured email addresses!!!!! I’m gonna get identity theft’d before I get a room in Brooklyn I s2g.

I could go on, but I’ll spare you. It’s time for Links & Stuff:

• I might have mentioned this project previously (autistic kids doing train announcements) but now there are audio clips and they rule! One of my favorite lines is “As a result, it is not unusual for a[n autistic] child in New York City to have, as [their] first full sentence, something like ‘Stand clear of the closing doors, please.’”
• I also mentioned Boygenius previously but I’m losing my mind at the GENDER in this interview. (By the way, does anyone want to buy my Boygenius Forest Hills ticket? LMK lol.)
• Harron’s review of Sissy is four years old, but a friend just sent it to me and I screamed.
• CW: alcoholism, but I really appreciated this essay about relapse by Clancy Martin
• I also appreciated JP Brammer’s latest column about friendship loss (and other loss)
• If you’ve been wondering what we’re doing on Bluesky, it’s mostly butt stuff. (Shout out to Sarah Jeong, who wrote this article and who also got me on the app.)

In conclusion, lmk which one of these mascots haunts your dreams tonight.

That’s it for this week. Here’s your weekly Rhubarb.

Photo: Ruby curled up into a shrimp shape and yawning/screaming. 

Xo,

Yr resident gender detective