I bought my tote on Friday morning but just now noticed that my Paypal payment went to Manderley LLC and I'm torn between cackling and starting to cry? Very on brand for The Toast. <3
I live in DC! I moved here almost two years ago and I love it. DC is definitely Politics Place but there also a lot of cool hipster areas too! It's a really fun place to be a young person (assuming you are a young person) because there are a lot of young people here - lots of bars and clubs and restaurants. I have always wanted to live here though, for history nerd reasons, so I could be biased. Maybe you should visit before you decide to move? It would be an easy weekend trip on BoltBus or Amtrak.
"live on nothing but cold water and ill-temper" --- it me
I have similar issues with my boyfriend. He falls asleep immediately and sleeps through anything but constantly wakes me up with his tossing and turning. Someone advised me to get separate sheets and duvets - two twin sheets instead of one queen, so we would each get our own. I'm still trying to convince my boyfriend because he thinks it's not ~romantic~ but maybe it would be a solution for you!
I had this same kind of option paralysis around cooking a few years ago and I really got stuck in a rut. So I started learning how to make recipes that I liked to eat in restaurants, which usually helped save money on eating out and also helped me get better at cooking while still eating foods that I knew I liked. Then I started making one new recipe a week as a treat yoself thing on Sunday afternoons because it was basically the only kind of self-care I could afford while in grad school, and I've kept it up for the last two years. I love cooking blogs and cookbooks and Pinterest, but now I divide new recipes into categories, like special occasion meals, weeknight meals, stuff to make in a Crock Pot. That way it's easier to find something to fit the bill when I'm meal planning on Saturday mornings or when I need to come up with an idea for a birthday dinner or Valentine's Day.
I'm really interested in how other people cook. When I was younger I wanted to be a nutritional anthropologist like Deb on Alton Brown's Good Eats.
I'm a year late but I just started Station Eleven. I have heard that the hype around it was overplayed and many people found it lackluster, but I'm 100 pages in and loving it. Although I will read literally anything set in a dystopian post-apocalyptic future, or with a plot driven by coincidental connections between characters, and this book hits both those marks.
I also just started reading The Magician's Book! I'm only about 50 pages in but am enjoying it so far. I reread all the Narnia books when I was around 20 and my eyes nearly rolled out of my head at some parts, but Laura Miller is right - the first books you love never leave you.
This was a great interview. I work for an organization with a focus on international orphanages, specifically for kids with disabilities, so this topic is something I think about every day. I'm really interested in what Arissa has to say about what international adoption says about Americans. Through my work I've come to realize that the concept of "orphan" is almost a myth, or at least not nearly as simplistic as we imagine. I can't wait to read this book - thanks for this interview, Nicole!
I once came home from work to find all my roommates standing on the stairs, holding shovels and hammers and kitchen knives, because there was a raccoon in the bathroom.
In that same house, cockroaches fell from the ceiling onto my face while I was sleeping. I still have nightmares about that!