Edith Surreal! Duo the owl aiding and abetting my depression!

Hey friends,

Hope you’re hanging in there. Most of my friends are still in quarantine so I let myself get sucked into a Duolingo diamond tournament (iykyk) and frankly I think everyone involved needs to do less Duolingo. 10K XP in a week is not healthy! Everyone stop learning languages and let me win please!

Speaking of winning. I have decided to once again get emotionally invested in the Seattle Mariners, and they have rewarded me by winning 11 games in a row, which is their second-highest win streak in the history of the team. (This is a reflection of both how hard it is to win 11 games in a row, and how bad the Mariners have historically always been.) So, sorry in advance for the continuing baseball coverage in this newsletter — please blame River for telling me that it’s a good year to get back into the Mariners.

Anyway, this week’s episode features the ephemeral queen, Edith Surreal, teaching me what the hell pro wrestling is. In lieu of describing the episode, let’s just look at some extremely cool photos of Edith, shall we?

Photo ID, top to bottom: 1) Edith holding another wrestler in a headlock; they are both completely in midair 2) Edith in midair, 5-6 feet off the ground, about to kick another wrestler who is standing upright, 3) Edith posing in front of a hot pink backdrop wearing a two-piece wrestling costume and fishnet tights. She's wearing a matching mask with her eyes exposed.

No new episode next week — Ozzy’s been traveling abroad and I’ve been whipping up a new episode of Life Kit that’s been described by my editors as having “good jokes.” (The Life Kit team is paying two of my dear NPR pals to be guest editors so that I wouldn’t be the only trans person working on my little trans-focused episode, which is very nice. And it’s also very nice that Life Kit is paying us all to make a resource that’s specifically for trans people!) It’s coming out in a couple weeks, and I’m excited for y’all to hear it.

We’ve still got July merch running in the store, and people seem particularly excited about this new sticker. Look, I get it.

Photo ID: A sticker of that meme image of Elmo in front of flames, with the words "Trans Wrath" above Elmo in blue-white-and-pink text. 

Okay, time for Links & Stuff.

• My roommate and I have been watching the Brazilian season of the Circle and I have somehow become extremely invested in this very queer show that consists entirely of people typing in a language that I do not speak.
  
• Apparently this trans woman in the White House is responsible for a bunch of the good stuff we’ve mentioned on This Week in Gender lately. Thank you to her!
  
• This tortoise is friends with a cat(!!!!) and ate a strawberry(!!!!)

Photo ID: A turtle eating a strawberry and looking psyched about it.

• Gender Reveal listener(!!!!) Wryn was interviewed by NPR’s Ayesha Rascoe about their Tiny Desk Concert entry. #GenderDetectiveRepresentation**
  
• Thanks to Maddy Court for sharing this little post about Strong Brain, aka trying to have thoughts.
  
• Here are four doctors in Connecticut talking about how the pandemic exists and maybe we should take some precautions idk maybe.
  
• It is essential that you watch this video about the five hottest birds.

**One thing about The Circle is that they all use the absolute worst and cheesiest hashtags and they do it constantly and it’s gotten into my brain please help.

That’s it for this week. Here’s your Weekly Rhubarb reflecting this week's mood.

Photo ID: Ruby passed out in front of a screen door with her head on the doorsill. 

Xoxo,
Yr resident gender detective

PS: No but like literally this is too much.

Photo ID: A screenshot showing that Tuck has 7377 XP but is still in 16th place of a Duolingo tournament, and the top 15 places win, so they are just barely losing and it's annoying.