Do you expect me to talk?

Michael Lee - “The Pill”

“The pill, a small moon or bomb which kills no one quickly, dissolves the way a moment does. Over time and never completely.”

Read Tarfia Faizullah ’s poem in response to a 19th Century possible Shamanic Mask in the Rubin Museum of Art’s Becoming Another: The Power of Mask Exhibition and come to the event on October 7th. I COME TO YOU IN THIS MASK

By the time the sun asked, I was already someone else. My left eye, smaller than the right, and blinding are the gravel paths

to your collarbone, Lord. My tribe’s children, who can’t stop bleeding the grievances of ghosts,

are now asleep. I come to you bare, wearing only this mask. You lift my oblong chin

towards mountains with your lies and whisper into the tuft of gray hair I cut from my father’s beard. You did not teach me to save him,

but at the ceremony, you kissed the bronze strip fastened to my forehead so I never forgot his rage. Lord,

I was feeding your leopard when you took my fingers. I’m already someone else, and I turn her face

away from me to gaze at yours. Why are you? I dream until you ask me to sing through the spikes of your mouth.

Grant: “Hey, here’s someone who may be able to convince you. Hello, Mrs. Obama!”

Michelle: “Hey Grant! How you doing?” [Leslie gasps]

Grant: “Doing good. This is Leslie Knope, she is considering a job with us running the new Midwest bureau in Chicago.”

Michelle: “Well, you know how I feel about Chicago.”

Leslie: [shouting] “YOU ARE FROM CHICAGO SO YOU LIKE IT!”

Michelle: “That’s right. And we need passionate people like you in our national parks. You know they get hundreds of millions of visitors each year. Are you nodding because you agree with me?”

Leslie: “Yes. I agree with you. I agree with you on all things. Throughout history and through the end of time. Forever. You and Grant work together?”

Michelle: “Yeah! We work together a lot. He helped me integrate the Let’s Move program into our parks. You know, getting kids outside, rock climbing, hiking.”

Leslie: [loudly] “Wow! That’s really, really incredible! Great work! I’m sorry I’m talking so loud! And I’m getting louder now, and I can’t stop! My apologies! Just- “[sighs] Can I just- I don’t know. Can I high five you?”

Michelle: “Yeah. Well, I hope you take the job. Change happens one person at a time. Good to meet you. ”

Grant: [sighs; to Leslie] “Again, think it over.”

This is pretty much the most infuriating process in the world and I’m so sorry. Here’s what I always did to find pieces (Usually all of these things) but it is really a process of trial and error. If you have questions about cutting too feel free to ask!  

1.) The first thing that I always do is take a long look at my book shelf. Almost everything I’ve done has been something I’ve read and loved. 

2.) Look into authors you like and see what else they’ve done. 

3.) Go to the library. I know it sounds silly, but for DI especially, look at both fiction and biographies/autobiographies for anything that stands out.

4.) If there is a type of character you think you’d play well, google it. Look into people/books/events with a lot of dramatic content from your ethnic background, from illnesses you would be willing to try playing, etc. 

5.) If there is an event that interests you, try to find books from people who were there. (From social events to natural disasters to tragedies, this can be really effective, and can help you specify and avoid overly done subjects.) 

6.) If you want a dramatic duo, while looking for DIs see what has good character dynamics. You’ll likely be looking at fiction more than biographies though.

7.) If you want any duo, revisit step 1, and consider children’s books! I’m serious. You don’t have to cut anything, and there are some with really great stories. I took third at State with Chloe and the Lion so I know it’s possible to make it really fun.

8.) BOOKS YOU READ IN MIDDLE SCHOOL CAN BE SURPRISINGLY USEFUL. I’ve used Whales on Stilts, A Crooked Kind of Perfect, The Girl Who Could Fly, and others that I read in 6th-8th grades and they can be really fun to work with. Fairly funny and with easy cutting.

- “Jesus your pronouns are so much cooler than mine”

- “I’m not kidding, if you combine North Korea and Israel you get a perfect utopian communist society.”

- “You’re ignoring the fascist rhetoric in that song though”

- “Malcom X was a Muslim, bitch”

- “You don’t know the bird’s gender”

- “I think that’s theirs” “Who’s?” “Whitney’s” “? And who else? You said theirs” “No… like” “Oh oh yeah this is theirs then, I’ll give it to them”

- Guy: “So you’re saying white males are privileged?” Everyone: “Y E S!” Guy: “Well” Guy: “Not all white males”

- America…………money.

- “Is he a /dayyumm/ or a /yeyusss/” “He’s a / d a y u m y e y u s s s /”

- Swag can only be used as a valid arguement if you develop it in the proper format

- Thats what Stalin said you communist

- Your moms a social construct

- *dude’s friend is leaving early* Dude: *kisses friend’s cheek* Dude & Friend: *fistbump*

- It was an independent act of love, not prostitution

- AS LONG AS I DONT HAVE TO BE THE PROSTITUTE, YES

- I am the best prostitute ever, you slut-shaming fuck

BONUS: COUNSELOR QUOTES

- I’m just saying… don’t be Aiman

- Babe did it! And Babe was a pig!

- [I’d call my gang] My Friend’s Party. Then I’d say to people, ‘hey, wanna come to my friend’s party?’ and they’d say ‘yeah!’ Boom. They’re in my gang.

- They’re probably gonna give you some fun topic like ‘animals do more harm than good.’

Transition Signals:

Transitions are words and phrases that connect ideas and show how they are related.

To repeat and ideas just stated:

In other words,

That is,

To repeat,

Again,

To illustrate an idea:

For example,

For instance,

In particular,

To illustrate,

In this manner,

Thus,

To announce a contrast, a change in direction:

Yet,

However,

Still,

Nevertheless,

On the other hand,

In contrast,

Instead of,

On the contrary,

Conversely,

Notwithstanding,

In spite of this,

Time:

At once,

In the interim,

At length,

Immediately,

At last,

Meanwhile,

In the meantime,

Presently,

At the same time,

Shortly,

In the end,

Temporarily,

Thereafter,

To restate an idea more precisely:

To be exact,

To be specific,

To be precise,

More specifically,

More precisely,

To mark a new idea as an addition to what has been said:

Similarly,

Also,

Too,

Besides,

Furthermore,

Further,

Moreover,

In addition,

To show cause and effect:

As a result,

For this reason,

Thereafter,

Hence,

Consequently,

Accordingly,

Conclusion:

In short,

To conclude,

In brief,

On the whole,

In summary,

So I decided to even things up and do a recs list of ten short stories featuring only two male authors and eight authors of other genders.

This was not hard! There’s lots of great short stories written by people who aren’t dudes, available to read online for free. The only hard part was narrowing my list down. (Also writing descriptions of each. I’m really bad at pithy enticing nonspoilery descriptions. My apologies for the below. I did my best.)

Here you go:

1. Never the Same, by Polenth Blake Set on another planet on a colony that isn’t thriving, exploring the family stuff of the main character at the same time as exploring the reason for the colony’s difficulties. It’s complicated and unsettling in the best kind of ways, and has a wonderfully interesting main character.

2. The Perseverance of Angela’s Past Life, by Zen Cho I figure at this point I have recced my favourite Zen Cho story (The House of Aunts!) often enough that it’s time to take a break and recommend other Zen Cho stories because she has SO MANY good stories because she’s a brilliant writer; her stories are never a disappointment. This one is about dealing with an overly-literal past version of yourself who you thought you’d left behind, and it is lovely.

3. The Cage, by A.M. Dellamonica Look it’s the canadian lesbian activist community werewolf baby story of my heart. IT’S BASICALLY THE BEST.

4. The Tempting: A Love Story, by James Alan Gardner Definitely one of the weirder stories on this list, and I love it for that. I haven’t reread it in a while and I don’t actually remember the plot? Haha like I ever read for plot anyways. AT ANY RATE this is a deeply interesting story and I recommend it! or it wouldn’t be on this list, obviously.

5. The Bride In Furs, by Layla Lawlor An excellent fairy-tale-ish story, with a good fairy tale feel, that is all about ladies, aww yeah. INTO IT.

6. The Lady Astronaut of Mars, by Mary Robinette Kowal It’s about an aging famous astronaut who’s been wanting another opportunity to venture into space for years. What a good everything. I cried and it was amazing.

7. Burning Girls, by Veronica Schanoes Let me go with the official description because it’s better than what I could come up with: This story “is a fascinating dark fantasy novella about a Jewish girl educated by her grandmother as a healer and witch growing up in an increasingly hostile environment in Poland in the late nineteenth century. In addition to the natural danger of destruction by Cossacks, she must deal with a demon plaguing her family.” YEAH. And it’s REALLY GOOD.

8. Sauerkraut Station, by Ferrett Steinmetz Little House on the Prairie in space, is more or less its hook, and it IS that but it is also a million times better than that makes it sound. I had a lot of feelings.

9. Jackalope Wives, by Ursula Vernon Ursula Vernon won a Nebula for this! And with good reason, holy crap. I mean I love every word Ursula Vernon ever puts down on page or screen but this is definitely a particularly good piece of Ursula Vernon’s words. It’s… I don’t know, it’s a fairy-tale-ish story with a strong sense of character and of place, and about identity and about making hard decisions. And stuff. I’m bad at one-sentence plot teasers!

Ladies or nonbinary-female presenting individuals - Heels aren’t required in any rulebook (probably, if they are wtf is that sexism) so if you don’t want to wear them, don’t! If you do, heres some tips from someone that despises yet loves heels.

Bring flats. I suggest those little ballet flats that roll up that are easy to stick in a purse, bag, or leave at a group table. Wear these when not running from round to round (ie: while eating, while you don’t have an event that bracket).

An overabundance of medicated lotion for tournaments. Before heels. After heels. Waking up. Going to bed. Way more than you normally would.

Smaller heels still make that clicking noise that makes us feel powerful and still gives you a bit of a height boost while not being so horrible on your ankles and balls of your feet. If you can’t handle bigger heels (my pain tolerance is low for instance) then wear the smaller ones. You’ll still look like you can kill a man with just your shoes.

Being in pain during a round just makes that round more difficult for you so, really, if heels are hurting you, switch to the flats. At the end of the day all that matters is how you perform and not everyone can ignore pain. I know women aren’t told this enough.

Ladies or nonbinary-female presenting individuals - Heels aren’t required in any rulebook (probably, if they are wtf is that sexism) so if you don’t want to wear them, don’t! If you do, heres some tips from someone that despises yet loves heels.

Bring flats. I suggest those little ballet flats that roll up that are easy to stick in a purse, bag, or leave at a group table. Wear these when not running from round to round (ie: while eating, while you don’t have an event that bracket).

An overabundance of medicated lotion for tournaments. Before heels. After heels. Waking up. Going to bed. Way more than you normally would.

Smaller heels still make that clicking noise that makes us feel powerful and still gives you a bit of a height boost while not being so horrible on your ankles and balls of your feet. If you can’t handle bigger heels (my pain tolerance is low for instance) then wear the smaller ones. You’ll still look like you can kill a man with just your shoes.

Being in pain during a round just makes that round more difficult for you so, really, if heels are hurting you, switch to the flats. At the end of the day all that matters is how you perform and not everyone can ignore pain. I know women aren’t told this enough.