I Can See Russia From My House
"psss are we going to war 🙄😜 ???" - Britney Spears
Hi haters!
Can you imagine my surprise when I sat down on my couch at 7 pm, ready to rewatch last week’s episode of RHONJ in preparation for this week’s episode just to find out today is Wednesday, not Tuesday?! It was incredibly disorienting, but as someone who has given up the concept of time, it’s not completely surprising.
I really hate to say this again, but I am SO excited about this. I might be more excited about “things I hate that I want you to hate so we can talk about them,” than “things I like that I want you to like so we can talk about them.” On Sundays I feel like I’m screaming positive nothings into the void, but on Wednesdays I feel like we’re getting more real. We’re sitting at a lil bar, drinking our lil martinis and gossiping. TIH is a lil more secretive and a lil more exclusive (as all things should be).
But really. Thank you for supporting me. I really appreciate it. I hope you have fun! And please feel free to bully anyone into getting a paid subscription, so I don’t have to work in advertising anymore <3
I am an extremely visual person. So visual that whenever I see TikToks about how there are people who can’t visualize an apple I get lightheaded, because I can’t imagine NOT visualizing an apple. What is your brain like? What do you see? What is happening? How are humans this different? Cue spiral.
But fortunately, we’re not going to talk about that particular spiral today. We’re going to talk about one of my many nemeses. Something that really gets under my skin and kicked off the original breaking of my brain.
Maps.
You’re probably thinking maps? Ok. I thought this was about WAR! Or at the very least Britney (she’s a TIL, never a TIH). Well, it is about war (definitely a TIH). Kinda. But mostly about maps. So, come along with me on a journey that starts in a pre 9/11 world. Picture it, in the year 2000, we were using LimeWire to pirate music, and none of us had died in y2k. I was 9, moved a lot, and didn’t have many friends, which left me with a lot of time on my hands. So not that this is cool or interesting, but that year I memorized a map of the US. It was one of the first times I remember feeling smart (awe, sentimental). Then I got to high school and opted to take all geography classes instead of history (Colorado public schools are wild y’all). I memorized all of Europe and all of Africa, but never all of South America because, for some reason it is still so hard for me. I even went as far as to tell a guy I had a crush on that I wanted to be a mapmaker (this is so embarrassing, oh my god, I can’t believe I typed that out), and now HE IS A MAPMAKER. I’m not making this up. But we can talk about my high school boyfriends in another TIH. And when I got to college is where it all went wrong. I studied abroad. Yea. This is a study abroad story. I’m one of those people.
The year is 2012, and the Mayans had predicted this would be the end of the world, but Beyonce birthed Blue Ivy in January, saving us all from that cruel fate. So thanks to Blue Ivy, I’m sitting in my Italian 101 class in Florence, Italy looking at a map on the classroom wall. It was different from every other map I had seen before, but I couldn’t figure out why. Everything looked off. I learned that most of the maps we come into contact with in America are distorted, making the US appear so much larger when in reality, it’s much smaller than Africa, Russia, Canada, Greenland, etc. And that’s when, for the very first time, my brain cracked like an egg and all the things that had always made sense oozed out.
That was a long way of telling you I no longer trust maps and that twice a year I see the same picture on twitter.com that sends me into a spiral.
I get it. You’re probably done with this story. You didn’t want to hear about how I have nerd-ish tendencies! You wanted Britney. You wanted war. You wanted action. You wanted me to use ***’s security clearance to give you the inside scoop. And fine. Let’s talk about Russia.
It’s simple. As a country, we keep forgetting that Russia is so much bigger and closer than we remember (unclear how people have forgotten Sarah Palin so easily). And I find this annoying because I never forgot. Now the internet is like, “oh no, all the Russians are gonna pack up their lil knapsacks and fur hats and get in their lil boats and row as fast as they can to the banks of Alaska, and then we’re fucked.” But. We aren’t. Because I saw this map comparison for the first time last week and (surprise, surprise) spiraled.
Me, spiraling: ALASKA IS SO BIG. Why is Alaska so big. Has it always been that big? Omg, why is it so big? No one even lives in Alaska! Should we even be worried about Russians making it to the desolate outer banks of Alaska when they’d have to walk the equivalent of the Great Plains to get to Canada??? I think not.
But then, things got worse. I opened the replies and saw this:
I’m just gonna let you sit with this. Enjoy. I don’t think the Russians could successfully walk from the outer banks of Alaska to Washington State. There’s nothing else for me to say. Everything is a lie. The world would make so much more sense if it were flat.
People Who Should Be Drafted (in order)
Gamers. What have you been training for? What’s the point of the thousands of hours you’ve spent playing Halo or Call of Duty? Leave The Sims streamers alone pls, but take the rest and let them keep their sponsorships/streaming deals instead of any benefits.
Jamie Lynn Spears. You know in Revolutionary War times when there would be two lines of men, one would be kneeling with a rifle and the other would be standing behind? Put her on the front lines. Make her kneel!
Every straight man who has super liked me on tinder. I’m genuinely so embarrassed for you. Please leave the country.
Lauren Boebert and the guy running against her.
Anyone with a podcast. This is a great creative opportunity to reinvent M*A*S*H.
Bachelor Producers. Their job is far scarier than war. Everyone will be home before hometowns.
Fitfluencers. Similar to the gamers. What have you been training for???
People who are unnaturally obsessed with the show The Americans. You know who you are.
Anyone who has ever tried out for American Idol but failed. I think it’d be funny.
Whoever decided to make DW a cop in the Arthur series finale. Fuck off.
Things I Can’t Stop Thinking About
That part in Selling Sunset Season 4 when Mary gets SO mad that Christine is coming to her dog’s birthday party, and she says something like, “why can’t we just leave the drama at the office where it belongs.” So true Mary.
Well. Putin just did his thing. Great. Um. Hope you guys had fun. ilysm<3