Weekend Reads for July 12, 2025

Weekend Reads

On July 4, the Guadalupe ripped our home from its pillars, pulling my family into its waters and into the night. Then morning came. (Texas Monthly)

For decades, Dick and Tweety Eastland presided over Camp Mystic with a kind of magisterial benevolence that alumni well past childhood still describe with awe. (New York Times – gift link)

A pocketknife and Bible songs: How a family of 9 escaped the Texas floodwaters. (Wall Street Journal – gift link)

Abbott says megafloods are “just part of nature.” The fossil fuel industry disagrees. (Heated via Substack)

I donated to World Central Kitchen, which had boots on the ground in Texas before many other organizations, and continues to help across the globe to ensure everyone has access to hot meals. I sound like Sally Struthers, but for the price of a cup of coffee, you can change a person's life. If not WCK, there are many other organizations out there helping the flood victims in Texas and other individuals facing tragedy in our country and beyond.

How Christianity conquered the Hot 100. (Vox)

These are what you want under your linen pants.

For my 70th birthday I hired an escort. (Oldster via Substack)

As a GenXer, let's talk about the contents of Carrie's medicine cabinet on AJLT. (Pie Thoughts via Substack)

Nantucket's workers are living on the margins. (New York Times – gift link)

The FDA is about to hold its “Expert Panel on Menopause and Hormone Replacement Therapy for Women.” The more of us who show up on the YouTube livestream July 17, the better. (LadyParts via Substack)

Another woman arrested for her pregnancy loss. (Abortion, Every Day via Substack)

How The Grateful Dead nearly solved the problem with live music. (The Atlantic – gift link)

The Saks Designer Sale is going on. While the prices are still not in my orbit, if you've had your eye on something, pices are up to 50% off.

Marc Maron ends iconic podcast after 16 years: ‘We're burnt out.' (NPR)

I witnessed the masculinity crisis at the Trump rally. (Men Yell At Me via Substack)

Is ‘And Just Like That…' written by ChatGPT? (Pajiba)

Mr. Big is alive and well and living in Vermont. (New York Times – gift link)

And I found this pretty cool – M.M.LaFleur created a collection of pieces based on customer feedback. Check out the story behind it which includes the line being modeled by customers. (The M Dash via Substack)

• I am being sent the Glenda Fancy T-Shirt Dress and will be sure to share my thoughts on Instagram if not also here.
• I got a dress from M.M.LaFleur early this year that I almost loved, but wish had a different skirt to it. This top and this matching skirt essentially create that dream dress and in a really pretty print.

See/Hear/Read

I can see clearly now Xfinity is gone… we made the switch this week to Verizon Fios for our TV and internet and I didn't realize how subpar everything had been.

When we moved in our home in 2001, we chose Comcast for our internet and cable TV because it was 2001, and that's what was available in our neck of the woods. Phone was a copper wire landline through our local phone company and when they stopped supporting the copper wires, we just added cable-based phone service to our plan.

Comcast changed to Xfinity, and Xfinity got some competition, but we didn't think there was any need to go through everything to make the switch. But in 2020, we started questioning our two-decade relationship.

Our internet couldn't keep up with three of us home on our devices. Tech support said it wasn't their issue, we needed to upgrade our service. And so we did, and we saw improvement for a bit. When speed went down, they said we needed a new box/gateway and so we got one. When rainy days made our TV unusable and our internet molasses, they sold us the “Storm Ready” device. And when we had a storm and the lights stayed on but the internet went out, they did some fiddlng around on their end and surprise, everything worked again.

Until the past couple of weeks, when our service was so inconsistent, wifi would go in and out three times on a 30-minute row on my Hydrow. Set up an appointment with a tech, he didn't show up. Set up another, again a no-show. I was OH-VAH Xfinity and hit up Verizon. They arrived two days later, on time, prepared, slipping shoe covers on to protect our floors. And two hours later our minds were blown.

Internet so fast, and TV so clear. OMG, we watched the wedding episode of The Bear and we could see clogged pores and nosehairs and had me looking up the IRL brows of Molly Gordon and Sarah Paulson and Tiffany's mismatched earrings.

Oh, and the internet also went out at my office space. So watching stuff was low on the priority list this week. We watched some episodes of The Bear (hence looking at eyebrows and mismatched earrings) and we finished up Nine Perfect Strangers (great acting from the guests but the storyline and ending left us underwhelmed).

I also went online and adjusted our streaming bundles to save some money. We had the Disney Bundle (how could we not as I was one of their original spokespeople) but was psyched to find we could switch it from ESPN+ to HBO Max for the trio, same price. Also went with a cheaper Netflix plan and got rid of some other stuff we don't watch. Doing all of this was a pain, but not as big of a pain as I expected, and in total with the services and switching to Fios, I am now saving $160/month.

This isn't an ad, but a suggestion to those who have been just thinking what they have gets the job done to spend an afternoon looking at what plans you have for streaming, internet, phones, etc. and see if maybe there is a cheaper solution. I was able to do all this without making a single phone call and it motivated me to start looking at other subscriptions I've let sit (goodbye WaPo). Sharing to hopefully motivate at least one of you to do the same!

For Your Entertainment

I opened YouTube earlier this week and was instantly fed a new Fergie video. Fergie? I mean, I know Y2K is back, but this just felt hella weird, especially since it was for a song she released in 2006. And why was Netflix branding in the upper right corner of the video? I did some digging.

Lena Dunham is also back, and has a new series on Netflix called Too Much, where, just like with her series Girls, she not only created but also stars in. Not exactly, Dunham is in the Netflix series Too Much, but the star is Megan Stalter (Hacks), and Dunham plays her sister. Stalter is Jessica, a New York workaholic who takes a new job in London after a bad breakup. And Fergie's song, “London Bridge,” is the opener for the series.

Netflix's idea to create a remix video for “London Bridge” starring both Fergie and Stalter is pretty brilliant, because I had no idea this series existed. I have seen a lot more Dunham on social media, guesting on podcasts, and being mentioned than in years, but I didn't know it was because she had this show.

The video is entertaining, but it goes on a bit too long without much happening. Based on the preliminary reviews I read for Too Much during this deep dive, it appears to have a lot in common. Have you watched the series or plan to?