This newsletter is a weekly (sometimes) list of people I am mad at. This is the list for May 21, 2021.

For some reason, this week in particular, I have been unable to think about anything other than how white people pronounce “namaste.” I guess they needed the word. They use it for yoga studios and yoga mats and tea and wine and socks and candles and water bottles and watches and day planners and phone cases and bras and bracelets and t-shirts and gluten-free flour and dishes and signs and greeting cards and robes and clocks and pillows and essential oils and mugs and leggings and hats and Crocs and skincare and succulent gift boxes and coasters and paperweights and mason jars and face masks and whatever the fuck this $74 mouse-in-tree-pose figurine is supposed to be. Fine. I have largely accepted that they’ve taken the term over for whatever reason, whatever is lacking in their lives, they required this word that means hello. But I’m not sure I can survive one more day tolerating the way white people say it, the emphasis on all the wrong syllables, the agonizing droning of “namastaaaaaaaaaay” at the end of every fucking savasana, which jerks me out of the pose and back into a reality where none of you can do one piss shit cock fucking Google to learn how to say it properly, ideally from an actual brown person and not a robotic disembodied dictionary voice, as if it’s important enough to co-opt the term but not important enough to learn it correctly, as if it’s not enough to take the word for your own — like you did turmeric and curries and cashmere and refusing to go to therapy when your children ask — and splash it on cheap textiles for your cat and mouse pads upon which to spill chai tea, things that no brown person ever owns, the absurdity of filling your home with blankets that say “HEY” or “GREETINGS” or “HI THERE,” as if it’s not enough to gobble the word up but to say it so wrong for so long that it starts to warp in the public consciousness, saying it incorrectly repeatedly, daily, in the laziest way, with zeal. You really gotta give it to white people: They might insist on doing it wrong, but they’ll do it wrong for a century, loudly, despite an endless trough of available, free, correct information.
Not big on hangnails.
Periodically I think about how my parents almost gave me a different name: Phonetic, four letters, no silent letters or added vowels. It makes me want to drink.
I had a bob for two years and not one of my friends — including the people I am still “friends” “with” — told me the truth, that I looked like Lord Farquaad.
I spelled Farquaad from memory on the first try. I have no recourse but to die.
I’m profoundly afraid that everything will go back to normal post-COVID except for the elbow bumping. I would rather wear a mask for the rest of my life than touch elbows with strangers like we’re longhorn beetles rubbing antennae together to determine who’s gonna get fucked here.
Ben Affleck doesn’t deserve to caress a single square inch of Jennifer Lopez’s olive oiled up (and allegedly nothing else, yeah, sure, Jan) skin. I hope she drives him into the woods of Montana, tells him she wants him to take a photo of the sunset, and while he’s taking it (probably with an iPad), she fuckin’ floors it outta there.
I wrote this entire list last Friday night, an hour after I sent last week’s list. This bespells ruin.

This week, I wrote about how much that one Olivia Rodrigo song fucking slaps.

There are also still a lot of people in India who could use your financial help, for everything from food insecurity, to shelters for trans people, to oxygen tanks.

A List Of People I Am Mad At

A List Of People I Am Mad At, 5/21/21