LOVE:

New Keyless Lock:

I’ve been meaning to repaint my front door for about a decade now. If I’m feeling up to it on Sunday, I think I’ll have to give up that battle with procrastination and get it done. A first impression is so important!

Ever since I rented a beautiful apartment in Washington DC with a keyless door, I have been obsessed with the idea of having one of my own. Then, when I was in Los Angeles this summer, my beloved apartment there had upgraded to this futuristic lock. I was more determined than ever to be a part of this revolution. Who wants a key anyway? You might lose it, and they’re easily picked. I mean, if a robber really wants in, no lock is going to stop them. But still, it might as well be fun for you to enter your own house and feel smug at the futuristic technology that has kept your cats safe all day! The lock on my house has been acting up, so I found this reasonably priced one on Amazon. It came the next day. Beysus bless Amazon Prime! It took me a couple days to install it because my drill’s battery was dead. (I bet that’s a sentence you never expected me to say.) After that and a bit of filing, it was easy to install the lock and set up my code. I’m absolutely thrilled. It works like a dream, and I feel as if I live in the future. I recommend you get one of your own, reader! It’s fabulous if you have a delivery or a guest or a repairperson coming. You can set up a code for them to use while you’re at work and then delete it after they leave! It’s magic.

Dunkin’ Donuts Original Blend Coffee:

I’m much more of an espresso person. Living in France will do that to you. In Europe, it’s not normal to drink a cup of coffee the size of a newborn baby. In fact, anything bigger than a small cappuccino is regarded as a stranger aberration. So, I drink mainly espresso, but since I am an American, sometimes I crave a nice big cup of black coffee. I have tried about ten brands in my Keurig machine that is in my office at home, but I’ve failed to find one that I really enjoy. Until now that is! The other day, I was at the grocery store and saw some pods by Dunkin’ Donuts. I was intrigued because I remembered going to Branson with my grandparents and squealing with delight when that most unlikely of shops sold espresso in tiny little to-go cups. Think of that: espresso in Missouri in the early 2010s! It was delicious and I was so pleased. I wondered if a cup of coffee would be equally as good, and I am thrilled to discover that it’s quite nice. It’s not as good as French pressed coffee imported from Italy, but it works wonders without any work. I’ll always prefer a flat white or a well pulled espresso, but it’s a relief to know that I can find good coffee with relative ease.

New York Times No-Knead Bread:

This isn’t my loaf, but mine looks identical.

I think bread is the most important food in the world. It has been since ancient times, and things don’t change all that much as centuries and millennia zip by. When I first started baking bread, I tried this recipe I heard about in the New York Times for bread that you didn’t have to knead. I was deeply dubious. Intensely suspicious. Actively annoyed. How could you make bread without kneading? I was coming from a world that kneaded the shit out of bread. I was constantly baking amateurish baguettes at the time, and you have to knead them a lot. So I doubted the recipe and wasn’t impressed with the result. I didn’t have the right supplies, which could have been the reason, but I was justified in my hated opinion. After spending so much time of my life in France, I was craving much more flavorful bread. If you let bread dough rest for a long time, the yeast really gets to work and greatly enhances the taste. So, I decided to give the New York Times another try with my Le Creuset Dutch oven, and I loved it. I make it several times a week now. It’s crusty and moist and delicious and I can’t recommend this recipe enough! Bake, readers. It takes literally no work.

“Crimson Peak”:

I can’t recall now when my simmering obsession with Guillermo del Toro’s latest film began. It probably had to do with an article in Entertainment Weekly, one of my favorite magazines. I’m one of their favorites, too; they’ve published my quotes twice. TWICE, READER. That means that my name has been printed around 3,600,000 times as a comfortable estimate. Le sigh…fame is exhausting. Anyway, I have been enchanted by the idea of this movie. Mainly by the set, if I’m honest. Let’s watch the trailer:

Crimson Peak is set in a crumbling English manor in a desolate part of the country, and it’s stuffed to bursting with ghouls. I have a great fondness for ghouls and ghosts, and we don’t get good tales about them anymore. The last was almost assuredly The Others, which was released fourteen years ago. It’s absurd that horror films these days rely on chainsaws, machetes, serial killers, and escaped convicts. That’s indeed frightening, but it’s scraping at the bottom of the barrel, if you want my opinion. (And since you’re here, you surely do.) Crimson Peak deals with ghosts in a way that I love and the humans can be a bit frightening, too, so the characterization feels all the more natural. And the house is a masterpiece of design. I’d live there in a heartbeat. Jessica and I were enamored when we saw it in theaters the other night. I shan’t give too much away, because the entire film is riveting from the first moment. I will just say that the first half hour, which takes in Buffalo, New York, is so gorgeous and it restored my faith in horror cinema. You needn’t rush right into the macabre; you have to let the story and the atmosphere sweep you up. It’s a phenomenal film. A sensation! I don’t care what the critics say. Get to the theater immediately, and if you can’t, pick up a copy the second it is released. I know I will.

HATE:

Rainbow Bondage Bear:

Yes, you read that correctly. And yes, I do think I’ve lost my mind. I want my freedom back. I suppose this is one that I have to start at the beginning with. Buckle up, reader. Back in the summer of 2014, a fan threw a rainbow teddy bear onto the stage of a One Direction concert. It should have ended then, but my misery dawned that day. You see, the bear started showing up at the following concerts. At first it wasn’t a big deal, it was cute, the bear suddenly had a Freddy Mercury mustache and a crown. The fans loved it because it was cute, and we lose our minds any time there’s anything hinting at gay pride. (The romance between Harry and Louis is real. Look it up. Actually, don’t if you ever want to find happiness again in your own life. I’m serious. That’s a true warning for your own sanity.) As time went on, it became clear that the bear was a representation of those two, and then another smaller bear showed up. They had stickers on their feet expressing their moods, and then they started to get little sets. I saw the Rainbow Bondage Bear with my own eyes in Santa Clara. I didn’t realize that day how insane that stuffed animal would make me. The outfits and themes that the Bears are presenting has escalated quickly. It’s gone from simply a bear in bondage gear, to a bear in bondage gear on a revolving Hello Kitty couch with a crown surrounded by framed photos of drag queens and literature about closeted celebrities. The clues are so obvious! And then the damned bears started a Twitter account and started a countdown. BUT TO WHAT? The Internet lost its shit. It completely lost it. I lost my mind. I lost sleep waiting for that bear to tweet. I, a grown ass adult, turned on Twitter notification for unclear clues from a gay stuffed animal. What will future generations think? Larry needs to come out so that I can have my life back. I never wanted this misery.