Hi Toasties, we had another great week together! Before we relive it in all its splendor, please indulge me in just a smidgen of business talk.
(If you are not a past or aspiring Toast writer, this may not be of interest; feel free to scroll or just take a moment to fantasize about the celebrity girl/boyfriend of your choice.)
We’re changing the way freelance payments are processed here at The Toast. I will be handling them from now on. We have also done away with the invoicing requirement (which many people did not do anyway! YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE and I promise, it’s fine). So all you need to do from this point forward is submit your excellent work to us, fill out the requisite paperwork, revel in publication and ensuing praise, and then watch for payment the Friday or Monday after your piece runs.
If you are owed for past work, please email me at [email protected] and I will be only too glad to open our coffers and fling cash your way. (I am known far and wide for my unflinching commitment to inbox maintenance; you can rest assured I will be prompt.)
So, we made it through another week. I hope you guys have some fun weekend plans lined up? Tomorrow I’m taking a bunch of Daisy Scouts to the ballet. Let’s all take a moment to join hands and focus our powerful minds on the idea of me waking up tomorrow a better person, a more sophisticated person, the kind of person who can chaperone many small children with a bottomless well of patience and zero anxiety and stay awake for the entire ballet, not just the first fifteen minutes. I really, really want to be that person.
This week at The Toast, Nicole wrote a hilarious, not-at-all-exaggerated, 100% accurate Comment Section For Every Article Ever Written About Breastfeeding. That was a fun day for comment moderation.
You also learned how to tell if you are in a Shakespearean comedy.
Mallory rewrote another fairy tale – The Little Mermaid – and the ending is perfection.
Three adults discussed A Wind in the Door and gave us this bit of TRUTH for the ages:
JULIA: Are farandolae not real??
JOHANNAH: :(( They’re real in my heart.
Anna Cabe introduced us to her favorite childhood folk tale and reflected on the nature of heroines.
We got a glimpse into the glorious future: It’s 2050 and Feminism Has Finally Won.
Felix Kent wrote about friendship, strength, vulnerability, and the book Our Hearts Were Young and Gay.
Elyse Martin’s delightful writeup of her literary pilgrimage to Victor Hugo’s bizarrely decorated home on Guernsey made me feel so much better about the multicolored patterned area rug I bought 3 years ago and now fear is Too Much for my humble living room.
Susan Sontag wrote some notes home from camp.
Ailsa Joy told us strange but true tales about her job performing Shakespeare on a Transatlantic crossing. (Would read many, many more cruise ship acting stories tbh.)
Kendra Fortmeyer (yes, she of end-times mermaid fame) wrote another short story, The Vesuvius Infant, this time for The Butter.
There was a new DAD MAG, too!
So, you know that friend you have who is part big sister, part best friend? For me that’s my dear friend Angie, who Facebook thinks is me even though we look nothing alike. She brought me tea and dumplings and cough drops when I was sick, stayed up late to watch crucial postseason college basketball games even when we both had midterms to study for, and just generally helped me keep my life and everything else in perspective during our overlapping years in college. (Also, her hair always looked perfect even though she never did anything to it at all.) On Sunday I will get to see her and hug her again, and meet her beautiful baby girl, and it is going to be lovely. I hope this weekend includes many lovely moments for you, too. See you next week!
