Hi everyone, have you enjoyed the last month without me barking up your inbox?
I can hear your resounding “nos” across the country and one brave, faint voice saying, “Yes. I love the concept of so many blogs and Substacks but they’ve become difficult and overwhelming to keep up with— rendering my inbox a source of far more stress than joy in reading what interests me online.”
To you brave reader, I say…
me too. In fact, things far beyond my inbox have felt stressful. I last left you with my first music review (which I’ve since deemed a huge success, btw) shortly after I was whisked away to the the emergency room and then the operating room for an unexpected surgery. Don’t worry, I’m totally fine now and boy do I have an amazing and not at all mortifying story of how my parents and now-boyfriend met for the first time.
Anyway!
Before my unexpected outage I was working on a list of Items, most of which are still very pressing and relevant. As they always are.
Before we get there, I wanted to share a snapshot of what I’ve been working on for you. Think of it less as an exciting anticipation-building tease and more of a way to chronicle my to-do list in a public, but also anticipation-building tease way.
01 a follow up to Third Space? You Can’t Handle a Third Space.
The conversation around this has continued to evolve in a crazy way. TLDR; I have thoughts (the role of shame for example) and need to also hear yours.
02 The New Brand of Loser
Which, believe it or not, is actually heavily tied to 01…
03 AI Talking Shit on You, and Your Brand, and Everything Else
I almost hate to give AI any airtime at all, which feels like my small act of defiance. Worse, it feels like this:
And last but not least, I haven’t forgotten:
04 Pete Wentz as the US Poet Laureate
Yeah, that one is closer to the top of the list than you’d think.
Okay, onto the hard stuff!
This was originally started on September 12th, 2025 oops! 😬
Coming out of the gate hot with something I can’t get off my mind and once you see it, you may feel the same. And that my friends, is
Red Lobster’s Hot (and Smart!) CEO
I want you to understand how wild this is: he is 36 now, he’s been Red Lobster’s CEO for about a year, and before that he was CEO of P.F. Changs. (No worries, that means I have about 6 years left to become the CEO of defunct-ish Frisch’s Big Boy and I feel confident I can swing it.)
If you’re as online as I, you saw Damola Adamolekun all over TikTok last year. Everyone was rightfully gagged at the then 35 year old’s appearance, sure but also his big plans to Save The Lob.
What could possibly be so interesting about chain restaurant food drama? Lots, kitten.
Adamolekun, 36, took over as CEO of Red Lobster in September, as the seafood chain was crawling from the ashes of bankruptcy. He has a three-pillar roadmap for reviving Red Lobster, particularly in the aftermath of its endless-shrimp debacle.
Okay, so I’m kind of lying… but “the aftermath of its endless-shrimp debacle” sounds insane. Adamolekun’s leadership is still new, but it might be shaping up to be a masterclass in how small changes and open communication can make massive strides when care-flighting a drowning business out of it’s endless shrimp sea.
Biggest changes as of today are shifts in dining music, sea food boils (TikTok of course, went nuts for this), the return of hush puppies and popcorn shrimp, and $5 happy hour drinks, adding market prices of lobster to menus,
and… no more endless-shrimp. Some users are making an interesting correlation that the success of Adamolekun’s changes are a direct reflection of why it’s important for Boomers to step down and “let Millennials take over finally.” 👀
Adamolekun even described one his major keys to success in the Red Lobster effort is, you guessed it, reading the comments. Catch it here.
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I talked about Red Lobster more than I thought I would, next!
New Niche Web-Term Alert! Shrekking.
I think we could get a meeting of the minds together and come to the conclusion that these terms cycle through algorithms so quickly it’s hard to believe they’re used for anything other than people like me sharing them a la listicle round up.
That said, this one made me giggle. 🤪
What I used to love about these terms is that they made larger socio-cultural shifts and attitudes more tangible and digestible to the general public.
Take the phenomena that was “quiet-quitting” a few years ago. Or Gen Z “Embracing Career Minimalism” today. Catchy name, but ultimately better contextualized in that lots and lots of people were no longer exceeding the expectations of their roles and simply just… wanted to work as listed by their job description. It reflected broader sentiments around post-Covid employment, changing generational attitudes among employees and employers, and economic stressors across the globe. And now… we have Shrekking.
I could add my piece on how we “hate-date” the same way we “hate-watch” badly written television to the pile of modern dating think pieces, but that’s a conversation for a different time. (I’ll add it to the above pre-list.)
What Happened to Leggings?
No truly, I never see people wearing them anymore. At least not out in public as their athleisure of choice, they’ve been wholly replaced by swishy, 90’s track pants (me as I type this) and vibrant sweat suits. Now, if we could just get in 4XL t-shirts and Soffee shorts from 7th grade back into gym attire rotation.
That said, memes like the below lead me to believe they’re another scarlet “M” like skinny jeans and side parts, letting the world know that you were born before 1997. It’s interesting to me that in what feels like the most body-checking time there ever was, that we’ve moved away from the skin tight stuff and into amorphous sweats and barrel jeans… but the pendulum does tend to swing.
The Phenomena of the Shower Lamp
Our culture’s fascination with mood lighting should be studied. The addition of a sunset lamp in my living room I can confidently say has added years to my life and holds hands with my therapist in a tie for most impactful to my mental health. Now, like everywhere these days there are the extremists. The #nobiglight heads approach the topic of ambient lighting with such vigor I feel safe assuming they’ve assigned moral value to the topic. Virtue signaling in soft, atmospheric tones.
The draw of the mood lamp has slipped under the crack in the door and into your bathroom. To be real, aside from bedrooms the bathroom truly feels like the next-best place for a sensory-softening tool. Enter: the shower lamp.
This video answering questions has millions of views. It does something to my spirit that the top asked question is “is it waterproof?” 🫤
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If this made you think, “wow we sure do love buying things!” You are not alone. Next!
Ballerina Farm Protein (And 10/15 Update: Lead in Your Protein Powder! 🤩)
We’ve already hit peak protein, but with Ballerina Farm’s addition to the category we’ve officially feminized and aestheticized it. I don’t know the amount of servings per package, but at $67 it should muscle you up to God. See you in Valhalla brother.
…but the protein bubble was bound to burst.
As of yesterday, it’s official: Protein Powders and Shakes Contain High Levels of Lead
“Protein powders still carry troubling levels of toxic heavy metals, according to a new Consumer Reports investigation. Our latest tests of 23 protein powders and ready-to-drink shakes from popular brands found that heavy metal contamination has become even more common among protein products, raising concerns that the risks are growing right alongside the industry itself.”
You know how Gen Z often gets called “Zoomers” because of their sometimes troubling adjacencies to Baby Boomers? Oh, and the now-iconic “lead paint stare” attributed to those Boomers and their exposure to lead paint and gasoline? I would take that thought somewhere but alas, I fear the wraith of a angry Internet users.
Vera Bradley Has Kind of Been Kicking Ass
Have you noticed? Between the Urban Outfitters and Gilmore Girls Collaborations the brand is firmly planting themselves back in the zeitgeist using the powers of pure, unbridled nostalgia. Hell, I even fell victim to some of their new product this year and get compliments every time I use it.
But their 2025 magnum opus in my opinion? This commercial.
We live in a nostalgia marketing hellscape, but Vera Bradley’s take on this is earnest and real. Making it less irritating and far more endearing than your average ‘remember when?’ ploy.
Here’s everything you need to know:
“In 2002, at age 15, a young, Vera Bradley-clad Kristen Mulrooney wrote fanfiction about falling in love with y2k heartthrob Devon Sawa. Twenty-three years later, we turned her story into a film–starring a now 40-year-old Kristen and 46-year-old Devon as their teenage selves. Dreams really do come true.”
Last and certainly not least, an October 15 Update… Kim Kardashian’s Merkins
I’m appalled and grateful that many of you reached out to me stating that the release of Skims “Ultimate Bush” thongs made you think of me. Between the nipple bras, ‘shapewear for your face’ and now these… Kim Kardashian is up to something.
As a woman who’s been consistently chided for her faux-appearance and body modifications (for better or worse) it’s interesting to me that she’s now bringing modifications-lite to the masses beyond shapewear. Some are calling it an open attempt at virality, others a cultural shift. I’m not here to police your pubes. There’s likely much, much more to say and I look forward to the inevitable think pieces!
How its starting to feel,
Three things, and I’ll try to keep them brief because I don’t want to be That Guy:
1. Hope you’re recovering well from your mysterious and sudden ailment. I’ve had one emergency surgery in my life (it was to remove a whole-ass human from my body after I literally crashed out), so I hope your experience wasn’t nearly as traumatic as all that 😅
2. Cooter has entered my child’s lexicon (we finally had to explain that it’s more than just a cute, funny word). Not long after you posted yours, I bought a fuzzy ring at an antique mall and he promptly anointed it Cooter. I’d add a picture but Substack is… nonsensical.
3. I’ve had bathroom mood lighting on a potential gift list for my husband for the longest. (He’s a real whore for a bubble bath.) But honestly, he just turns off the bathroom lights, leaves the door open, and turns on the hall light, and that does the job 🤷♀️ We as a society have paid so much for convenience.
Can’t wait to see what you cook up with these ideas!
Emergency surgery? Say it isn’t so! I hope all is well as well can be. You were missed!