Fuggaliciousness For All, Pt. 1: Jessica!
Greetings, Dames Nation! We are Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan, and we are your guest hosts this week — and we desperately wish we could bring you some cocktail specials in person right now. You might know us from our website, Go Fug Yourself, where we have been complaining about the questionable trousers of celebrities for over sixteen years — yes, our business can now legally drive — or from our novels, The Royal We (which is very loosely based on the courtship of Prince William and Kate Middleton) and its sequel, The Heir Affair, which just came out on July 7th. We are also the authors of two young adult novels, Spoiled and Messy. Fun fact: 75% of these books contain a plot line that later came to pass in the real world, so we are frankly concerned that we might have some powers that we need to learn to control better.
We know, we know: with a great cauldron comes great responsibility
So, let’s get real: 2020 is a blistering shitshow. We gauge the success of each day by whether or not we ran screaming into an abyss, because that’s the only way we can bat a thousand (FOR NOW). Thus, this week, we’re going to share with you the few items and diversions which have, so far, kept us out of said abyss, in the hopes that they may also help you white-knuckle your way through.
Jessica Is Up First!
who isn’t feeling this gif at least a l’il these days???????
Friends, let me be real: I am depressed! And maybe you are too. It’s okay. We’re all just trying our best right now. I personally have three main coping mechanisms: redecorating, baseball, and fussing over my plants. (This is normally where I would joke that I’m also drinking but I’m actually not drinking that much. Having said that, I did just have the best Sauvignon Blanc of my life, courtesy of Brown Estates’ Betelgeuse. WOW it is good.)
So, Heather and I are in Los Angeles County, California, where the Covid-19 numbers are...very bad. We basically cannot socialize with people outside of our households very much — and definitely always outside, wearing a mask, and more than six feet away from each other. It’s a bummer! But it is necessary, for purposes of literal life-saving. So it stands to reason that, because I am home alone all the time, I have started noodling around with my apartment. If I have to stare at these walls for... indefinitely... I might as well make them pleasant to mine eyes. This project has taken two forms: First, I’ve totally revamped my outside spaces (which I am incredibly lucky to have) with fake grass rugs, to give the feeling that I am in a yard or at a park. There have been HUGE developments in Fake Grass Rug Technology since the last time I encountered it, and the Fake Grass Rugs I purchased truly feel soft and pleasant and grassy under my feet. (The brand I bought is called Nance.) Is this a perhaps ridiculous purchase? Yes, but it has brought me great joy. One of the other things I’m doing to cope with... everything... is writing postcards to voters in swing states, encouraging them to do a variety of things, like register for vote-by-mail, or letting them know about down-ballot candidates of interest, and it’s pleasant to knock a bunch of those out while sprawled on my tiny patch of faux nature.
My second form of redecorating has been more theoretical: I spend literally hours now scrolling through Chairish, looking for old posters and paintings to hang on my walls. I don’t necessarily buy them, but I do aggressively favorite them. What if I end up needing a portrait of an elegant and skeptical older woman? Or one of a border collie? Or one of an irritated-looking woman smoking? I’m an irritated woman and by the time this whole thing is over, for all I know, I will be smoking! Anyway, there is no great way to while away several hours sitting on my fake grass than scrolling Chairish for neat old stuff I probably won’t buy — and it’s for sure more soothing than Twitter.
Said portrait-scrolling is also a great diversion while I have baseball on in the background...for as long as that is possible. If you haven’t been paying attention, Major League Baseball kicked off its season this past week and as of the time of this writing (on Wednesday), a whole passel of Marlins have tested positive for coronavirus and frankly, the entire season feels like a house of cards that is about to collapse, and probably should, for the health and well-being of the teams and MLB employees. I am a massive life-long Dodgers fan — my Dad and I bought cardboard cut-outs of ourselves to sit at Dodger Stadium this year, and everything! And I would be lying if I said I wasn’t also considering buying a cut-out of the cat, because that’s also something teams are currently allowing! Having baseball on in the background is one of the few things that has made this endless awful summer feel vaguely normal. But while I’m emotionally making do with the current, weird fan-less season, I also think it seems like a really bad idea to try to have baseball this year. This is, yes, a total bummer — but also it seems like a bad idea to literally kill your team off? Look, maybe America doesn’t deserve baseball right now, even if we want it, which we do! (Meanwhile, the NHL just up and moved everyone to Canada, with great success to date). Maybe I will get really into hockey!) It’s totally possible that by the time you read this, the whole thing will have been shelved and I’ll have to move on to the only other other thing keeping me hanging on this summer...
...my on-going obsession with my plants. Yes, I am one of those women who now spends hours every day staring at her (a) succulents, (b) extremely persnickety potted gardenia, and (c) the vines she is trying to coax up her balcony railings. It is very soothing to be outside staring at plants. (Plus, you can wear a giant sun hat while you do it, which is fun.) I also have taken to reading a lot of Plant Content. We linked to this piece on our own website recently, also, but Elle recently had a very good piece about Black women and plants, which was a thoughtful and moving read, and which also linked to a ton of great plant Instagrammers — Plantstagrammers? — who have taught me many, many many things, like how to split and repot my snake plant, which is currently sort of out of control. I’m also very into this website called Joy Us Garden, wherein a woman (not named Joy) talks about plants at length. She has written a book with the very direct title Keep Your Houseplants Alive, and she has, in fact, helped me keep several of my houseplants alive. Save a houseplant, save yourself!
Ahhh, that’s lovely
Golden Opportunity: Win The Heir Affair!
Honestly making a woman get “photo ready” this shortly after giving birth-- it should be outlawed in the Geneva Convention!!!
If you, like Dames Margaret and Sophie, found The Royal We to be an utterly delightful and enthralling read, today is your lucky day: fill out this handy dandy Google form, and you might be one of the lucky readers who wins a copy of the equally glorious sequel -- The Heir Affair, released earlier this month. It was such a treat to spend more time with Nick, Bex, and — of course — Freddie.
Two Bossy Dames is brought to you by:
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Spending our feelings even though we’re trying to save money
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