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Hello Crush,
“That was the most perilous walk I have ever been on.*”
*My nephew, coming in from walking Koko around my block in South Florida a few nights ago. He is a 6’2” 29 year-old male who lifts weights and, until a hot minute ago, lived on a sketchy block in Hell’s Kitchen, NYC.
He was referring to the dangerous bufo toad situation in my neighborhood and, presumably, by ’perilous‘ he meant to Koko.
So I guess I need to update you.
But first off, relax, Koko is safe.
You’ll probably recall that I reported last month that my neighborhood seemed to be overrun with bufo toads, which are prevalent in Southern Florida. Bufo toads secrete toxins when threatened (by the presence of pets) that are poisonous and potentially lethal to pets.
Alarmed, people in the neighborhood (not me, I’m lazy!) brought the issue up at a recent pot luck. (Yes, we have neighborhood pot lucks, this is the South. No, I didn’t attend, I had a date, thank god!). Our neighborhood representative on the HOA (I don’t know what that stands for), Victor, said that he would look into it. But in the meantime he said we should take “common sense measures” to keep our pets away from the dangerous bufo toads. Measures like walking with a flashlight at night (bufo toads come out only at night and don’t like light). And like not letting our pets run around in our yards. (It might be common sense, but what? That’s a drag.)
Next thing you know, Victor being a get-it-done kinda guy, we were taking a survey on whether we’d agree to a special bufo toad eradication assessment in order to hire a specialized bufo toad eradication company (let’s call them the “bufo snatchers”). The bufo toads, according to the bufo toad snatchers, have infested our ponds, where they are multiplying like rabbits.
The cost is $49 per household and would involve the bufo snatchers wading into the dangerous, alligator-ridden ponds in our neighborhood 28x a year (why 28, they didn’t say) to collect and then ‘safely and humanely re-home‘ the bufo toads.
I voted yes. Immediately. For Koko. And also on behalf of Charlemagne, my neighbors‘ cairn terrier and Koko’s bff. But not because of Foxy, my other neighbors’ Pekingese, who barks incessantly and growls at Koko. I can’t stand Foxy.
Though, honestly, I am a bit concerned about where — meaning whose neighborhoods — those bufo toads are going to be ‘safely and humanely re-homed‘ into? I apologize for this if you’re Catholic and this offends, but it feels to me as if this might be (very remotely) akin to the situation where dangerous priests were passed to yet another innocent church, and I don’t want to be the unknowing perpetrator of any such thing. So I voted yes, but then wrote a comment in that said “Where are you re-homing the dangerous bufo toads? Nobody else, presumably, wants them in their neighborhood around their precious pets either.”
I’ll keep you posted on all this but I’m on pins and needles, needless to say.
In This Letter. +Don’t Watch It for the Sex, Though the Sex Is Kinky & Intimate. By Dish Stanley. Watch Dying for Sex Because It Nails What It’s Like to Care for Somebody Who Is Terminally Ill. +Overheard at Palm Beach International Airport By Dish Stanley Honey, you don’t have to keep apologizing for the rest of our lives, but what I need to tell you is that during our separation things changed. +Up Next: Dish's Spring Reading List +dishing. +Social Media I Loved This Week. +Our Song of the Week My money’s on you
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Don’t Watch It for the Sex, Though the Sex Is Kinky & Intimate. By Dish Stanley
Watch Dying for Sex Because It Nails What It’s Like to Care for Somebody Who Is Terminally Ill
It’s really a story about the power of friendship and the honor it is to love and care for somebody right up to the end.
If you didn’t listen to the podcast, Dying for Sex, (though I recommended it to you when it came out :-)) or you haven’t otherwise caught up on Molly and Nikki’s story, here is a synopsis: Molly Kochan is a 44 year old married woman living in LA who learns that she has terminal cancer, leaves a controlling husband and — because she has never had an orgasm — begins having wide-ranging sexual escapades. Her best friend, Nikki Boyer, who is Molly’s primary caretaker through her illness and also a podcast producer, starts a podcast in ‘real time’ to share Molly’s story. Molly is funny, introspective, empathetic, creative, unguarded, curious, unnervingly honest and absolutely enchanting.
The podcast was both funny and incredibly moving, and not surprisingly, won a well-deserved Ambie for Best Podcast of the Year in 2021.
The podcast has now been made into a series on Hulu, and Michelle Williams is pitch perfect as Molly. The title ‘Dying for Sex’ is on the nose in one sense, which is that Molly (in search of her first orgasm) is always "looking" (as they'd say on Grindr). With death staring her down, she is eager for all of the experiences, including just about anyone else's kinks. The podcast gave us an intimate look at Molly's sexcapades, which the television series waters down some but does not shy away from, and it includes some fetish play, some BDSM, and a lot of frank and humorous talk about sex.
One thing that makes the sexual carnival smore relatable is where the encounters take place. Not in the sex clubs, dungeons and play rooms of the world of erotic fantasy, but in the ordinary spots in Molly's life - a neighbor’s apartment, the back seat of a Toyota Corolla, a bed in an ICU. I’ll admit that perhaps because the series includes the visual whereas the podcast is obviously just aural, some of the scenes on screen felt too raw for me, even though I was prepared for them. I fast forwarded through those. (It’s a little embarrassing for me to admit what a ninny I am, but I strive for complete honesty here in The Crush Letter, otherwise why bother?)
As you get into her story you begin to see that Molly's sex trek is how she becomes whole, and you understand why she needs to, which makes the sex very much not gratuitous, but rather, integral to her reclaiming her life in the face of death. Her sexual encounters, we realize, are the stage on which Molly has chosen to express her creativity, the stage where she finally finds true intimacy with men, discovers and communicates her boundaries, and ultimately transcends from mere actor to playwright in the story of her life.
So, it’s a story about sex, yes. Yet somehow, for me, the story was not mostly about sex. What it is mostly about, and what makes it powerful and transcendent, is that it is a story about love. In this case, it is about love (in the form of friendship) between Molly and Nikki. It is a love story as animating as any romance.
Continue reading here
Overheard at Palm Beach International Airport By Dish Stanley
Sitting at crowded Gate C12 before boarding my flight to LaGuardia this week, the mild-mannered looking woman next to me gave Koko a pat and then sighed. “I used to have a Cavalier,” she said, longingly. Then her phone rang, she sat up, put the phone to her right ear and sidled into a conversation with her (I assume) husband. Here is the one-side of the poignant conversation that I (and everyone else around me) overheard.
“Hi honey, I am sitting here next to about 70 people outside my gate at PBI."
[short pause while she listened]
"Yes, honey, there was something I wanted to talk to you about."
[very brief pause while she listened]
"It’s this. While we were separated I returned to, or picked up, a few things to occupy my time. To get me through the loneliness and the hurt and just, well, all the endless hours. My needlepoint, my gardening, my book club, just reading more fiction, seeing my girlfriends more often. I started doing all of these things that I really hadn’t done, or hadn’t done much, for the 30 years we were married. Then you came back, and we decided to figure out whether we could enjoy each other again.”
[she took a deep breath]
"I miss those things now that we’re together again. When you left me I was bereft. You wanted to explore. I needed to cope. That’s how I coped.”
[lengthy pause while she listened to him, shaking her head]
"Yes, yes, I know. We’ve gone through it. Honey, you don’t have to keep apologizing for the rest of our lives, but what I need to tell you is that I changed. While you were exploring, I did what I guess was my own version of that and I don’t want to give up the things I did to cope after you left me. I want them in my life now in an intentional way. I don’t want to go back to exactly what it was like before you left. In fact, I can’t. I realized that I didn’t have enough of my own life, my own interests before. I didn’t nourish friendships. I nourished you, and then you and our kids, and then just you again. I got short bits of time for myself but it was like filler — I realize now that I treated my friendships like filler. Like they were there to fill in when you didn’t need me or require my attention. That’s not fair to my girlfriends, or to me. And I just like myself so much more now that I have more in my life. I am more interesting, for one thing. I have a bigger heart and more people fit into it.“
[lengthy pause while she listened]
"Well, honey, the truth is you require quite a bit of attention and care-taking. You are exhausting. Things have always revolved around you. And I enjoy taking care of you. I do! But I had to adapt when you left and now, what I have to tell you is that you will have to adapt. You have to get used to me having more in my life. You have to share me. I’m sorry, I know that will be hard for you.”
[lengthy pause while she listened]
"No, that’s it. That’s what I needed to tell you. Oh, and I’m going to go to Paris for a few days in May with my girlfriends."
[short pause]
"No (chuckling), we won’t be bringing our needlepoint! I mean maybe on the plane, but then we’ll be in Paris.“
[short pause]
“What I know is that you’ve been saying that you wanted to go to Paris with me. You said it for many, many years. But whenever I wanted to make the actual plan to go you couldn’t fit it in. So now I’m going with my girlfriends. Please try to understand.”
[short pause]
“Okay, okay. Thank you for listening. That’s what I needed to say. It will be fine. We’ll work through it together. I love you.”
Up Next: Dish's Spring Reading List (Part 1)
(Pssst, you can get them in the PrimeCrush Bookshop)
Here is the start of my Spring reading list, which I am unusually excited about. More to come next Saturday. (We earn a nominal fee for purchases from the PrimeCrush Bookshop, which we are very grateful to you for, as it is currently our only source of income.) Thank you.
I Regret Almost Everything. A Memoir by Keith McNally
I’ve written multiple times about what a big fan I am of McNally’s sometimes offensive, very often pugilistic and always interesting instagram feed. He went from the working class East End of London to the height of cool as a Manhattan restaurateur in the 80’s. Along the way there were stints acting and writing, escapades, sexual and otherwise. From his instagram feed alone it is clear that he is superb at telling raucous stories, including all the details and gory bits, and excellent at getting his opinions across. He has pushed the publication date out multiple times but the latest (according to Amazon, where I pre-ordered it) is that it is “Now arriving Tuesday (May 6th), previously expected May 1.” I am putting aside the evening of May 6th and all of May 7th to bite into it lasciviously, like I do my favorite dish at his best restaurant, the Balthazar Burger.
And if you prefer listening to your books, there’s last week‘s exciting news that British actor Richard Grant will be reading the audiobook version, which is just perfect. McNally let us know, fittingly, through his Instagram account.
Broken Country (fiction) by Claire Lesley Hall
“A straight up BANGER,” is how one friend described this book. It seems as if all my friends either just finished it, are reading it or about to. It is a love story, but has elements of a thriller in it and it is set in a small farming village in the English countryside. Can’t wait.
Jesus Wept (non-fiction) by Philip Shenon
I can’t think of a more relevant book to read in this moment. Controversial and acclaimed, it is a detailed, critical examination by a journalist of each of the popes since World War II and their leadership, assessed against the Church’s stated values and role in society. There are many who believe that the Catholic church is the most powerful and influential institution historically, and remains so today. I read recently that no U.S. President has ever been elected who did not get the ‘Catholic vote.’
When the Going Was Good. A Memoir by Graydon Carter
As a fan of the snarky, highly entertaining (now defunct) Spy magazine, I can’t pass on the memoir by its founder. I love the sweep in the life stories of those who come from nowhere (in Carter’s case, rural Canada) and nothing to attain grandeur and success in the epicenter of their craft (be that magazines, as with Carter, or restaurants for McNally or sports (too many to name, but Venus and Serena leap to mind). Graydon Carter reads it on Audible himself, so I’ll probably listen to it rather than read it.
dishing.
things that are getting me off these days.
While we’re on the topic of reading, did everybody else already know that Sarah Jessica Parker is a newly appointed Booker Prize judge? It’s a role that requires her to read 200 books a year, which translates to her often reading six to ten hours per day. I learned it when I came across this video of SJP being interviewed by BUSTLE for their One Nightstand column. That’s a column where they interview celebrities on their favorite books. I feel petty admitting it, but I have often found SJP annoying. Overly crafted, if you will. But less so here. I loved her book selections, and I really loved how she talked about them. Also: you know who I never find annoying and who was featured in another One Nightstand? Sharon Horgan, whose interview is wonderful.
Is anybody else as finicky about their stamps as I am? (In my defense, I still write physical letters and send cards, especially to my Mother.) If you are too, then you might be as delighted as I am over these baby wild skunk stamps that the USPS just released. I can’t wait to get mine.
A show for us middle-agers! Four Seasons, if you haven’t heard yet, is a Tina Fey production about couples in their fifties and has everything you’d expect from the genre: marital ennui, feeling boxed in by your choices (marital/professional/otherwise), age-related medical issues, a ‘trade up (?)’ to a younger girlfriend, long-term friendships. It’s good/pretty good, not great, but enjoyable almost entirely for being so very on point. Here’s the trailer.
In this In Depth interview with Graham Bensinger, Jay Leno talks about caring for his wife who has advanced stage dementia (starting at 1:45:13). As you know, my sister’s husband just passed away (at 61) and had advanced stage dementia, so I found this interesting.
I’m giddy over all the marital bitterness that Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Coleman show for each other in the trailer for The Roses, an update of The War of the Roses. But damn, I’ll have to wait for August for its release.
And then there’s Bonjour Tristesse. The remake of this coming of age story is shot on the French seaside in summer and the stars include Chloe Sevigny. I keep seeing the phrase ”complicated female relationships“ in descriptions of the film. It’s enough to add up to me trying to fit it into my already packed upcoming week end. Only playing in super indie flicks at the moment, making it that much harder to fit in.
Social Media I Loved This Week
Song of the Week
Winning Streak by Glen Hansard
XO,
Dish
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The Crush Letter is a weekly newsletter from Dish Stanley curating articles & intelligence on everything love & connection - friendship, romance, self-love, sex. If you’d like to take a look at some of our best stories go to Read Us. Want the Dish?
