Erin Bee @erinbee@gorgon.city

My photo app reminded me I went to a beer and coffee tasting festival at the end of last February, with reusable glasses rinsed between drinks. At one point I said to the people I was with, "The servers are handling things that people have had against their mouths, seems kind of sketchy with that coronavirus going around. Maybe I should head out?" And they were like, "Haha, Erin, you fuckin' germphobe." Who's the fuckin' germphobe now?!? (Spoiler: most of us)

Surprisingly, it's taken this long in the pandemic to have seen someone wearing a face mask with the Silence of the Lambs death's-head moth on it. (A while back I saw someone wearing a mask with Hannibal Lecter on it, which was weird. Not printed to look like his muzzle, just straight up Anthony Hopkins' face.)

A rare dusting of snow outside on the same day the snow finally disappeared for the year in Animal Crossing.

Semi-related, whatever happened to that planned gritty Clueless reboot that was cringingly described as a bisexually lit Adderall-fueled story about Dionne trying to solve the mystery behind Cher's disappearance?

Netflix's upcoming Wednesday Addams teen detective show already has "Tim Burton's Riverdale" written all over it

Short Skirt/Long Jacket came out in 2001?? My mind always holds an earlier spot for it because it's so...Gen X-y. As a millennial adult, I'm like, "A girl with uninterrupted prosperity? A short skirt AND a long jacket? In this economy?"

(And before anyone says "This is the Cake guy's fantasy", yes. But. Millennials don't even really fuck with that business-y stereotype.)

(Honorable mention to stories set in 1912 where a character has a premonition or dream about a boat sinking, yet the story has nothing to do with the Titanic and it's never mentioned again.)

Good way to let the reader know the story is set in 1911:

- Have a character mention the theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre

Bad way:

- Have a character think about their plans for the next few years, and by golly are they glad wars don't happen any more

The local game store has a $170 oversized Pikachu Funko in their window, and it truly is the stuff Reddit /relationships posts are made of

Joni Mitchell wrote "Both Sides, Now" in 1966 and other singers recorded versions before she did for her own album Clouds, in 1969. This includes Leonard Nimoy's 1968 version:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Byp0Bf6G9VA

1974, Joni Mitchell stops in the middle of performing "Both Sides Now" to talk about Star Trek:

"Did you ever used to watch that show called Star Trek? (cheers from crowd) Oh... I just had a flash of this show, that I saw while I was singing this tune. It was the only show where Dr. Spock ever got any emotion, right? You remember that one? It was really great because... " (https://jonimitchell.com/music/song.cfm?id=83, she goes on to talk about Spock and clouds, just amazing)

Anyway, Catherine Howard (Henry VIII's fifth wife) got beheaded because she was a 17 year old who married a 50 year old manchild (he even pulled the "you're so mature" line on her), and 3 of her fuckboy exes threw her under the bus while her drama loving family did a combination of "I do not see it" and shocked Pikachu face.

Cracking open a 1200 page biography and anticipating a really long read, getting suspicious of the pacing about halfway through, completely forgetting that the last 300 pages are going to be footnotes, citations, and bibliography.

I assumed the "fragrance" listed in the coconut oil Epsom salts ingredients would be coconut, but no. The scent didn't really activate until I poured it in hot water and it's a lot like an assortment of packages of unburnt incense so I'm going to end up coming out of the tub smelling like I run a new age bookstore.

(Also, my bad: Byzantine music notation is still occasionally used in Orthodox churches that include pre-19th century chant hymns in their worship. But going out on a branch here, there's probably a similar or larger user base for Voynich and hoaxology researchers.)

Yes, it does contain possibly ambiguous characters; but if there's room for multiocular O, Ogham, Byzantine music symbols, and the as-yet undeciphered Phaistos Disc, there's room and reason to put the Voynich manuscript in Unicode.