Hey! For you and for me I try to keep this newsletter a mostly Happy Place but it felt weird not to mention at the top of this email that things are incredibly bad in America right now. If you're working to make them better, thank you; if you need to take a break, please take a break; if you are looking for ways to help, immigrant advocacy organizations, state legislature races, and your local Indivisible group are places where your volunteer hours or dollars will make a big impact. 

And now, here are some lovely and/or meaningful things for you:
 

1. A Blair Braverman thread about sled dogs and how differently beautiful their bodies are that should become a children's book about self-acceptance immediately.
    
2. The preface for the above could be this quote from Lizzo: "I don't think that loving yourself is a choice. I think that it's a decision that has to be made for survival; it was in my case. Loving myself was the result of answering two things: Do you want to live? 'Cause this is who you're gonna be for the rest of your life. Or are you gonna just have a life of emptiness, self-hatred and self-loathing? And I chose to live."
    
3. Bob Ross painted over 1,000 landscapes on his beloved television show. So where are the paintings? 
    
4. Pop-up trombone and opera singers dubbed with dial-up modems.
    
5. "What's the dumbest idea you have that you nevertheless believe will, if implemented, make the world a better place?" Answers range from "Illegalize private schools" to "Normalize the wear of basketball shorts for men and women alike in formal and business contexts."
    
6. Artwork excavated from archived Geocities pages, "a tribute to the lost days of unrefined self-expression on the Internet."
    
7. When Harry Met Sally turns 30.
    
8. @PresidentMovies tweets the historical record of what movies American presidents watched and when.
    
9. May this summer be your redemption arc.
    
10. A Small Needful Fact
    
    Is that Eric Garner worked
    for some time for the Parks and Rec.
    Horticultural Department, which means,
    perhaps, that with his very large hands,
    perhaps, in all likelihood,
    he put gently into the earth
    some plants which, most likely,
    some of them, in all likelihood,
    continue to grow, continue
    to do what such plants do, like house
    and feed small and necessary creatures,
    like being pleasant to touch and smell,
    like converting sunlight
    into food, like making it easier
    for us to breathe. 
    
    —Ross Gay 

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Bye,

Laura