tell me i'm okay, patrick

Hedgehog-shaped jar, Neolithic period (3500-3000 BCE)

The Barefoot Contessa (1954) is the life story of a poor Spanish woman who rises up to become one of the most famous actresses in the world. The movie does not bother to give her character traits beyond that she loves to have sex and also that she loves to run around barefoot (the fetishistic connotations are inescapable). She falls in love with a count and ultimately marries him. The big twist at the end of the movie is that her new husband had his dick blown off in the war and so they can't have sex (because, tragically, he never learned how to do hand stuff). Then he murders her for having an affair.

In 1978, Ina Garten bought a specialty food store that, for some unfathomable reason, someone had already named The Barefoot Contessa after this movie, which in 1999 became the title of her bestselling cookbook, which was then followed by a popular Food Network show. Now all of us need to deal with there being a TV cooking show called The Barefoot Contessa as part of the background radiation of our lives.

stop buying into the idea that nonviolent activism is useless, rather than (by far) the most effective form of protest

stop falsely claiming that BLM accomplished nothing and that most citizens “don’t care” when people are murdered by the state

start understanding that most of your neighbors care about your rights, and their own

1. We're the home of A Klingon Christmas Carol, a.k.a The Christmas Carol "in the original Klingon." Actors in Klingon make-up, speaking Klingon, tell the story of a cowardly Klingon who is visited by three spirits and regains his honor.

2. People's Pride in Powerhorn Park, an escape from the corporate Pride downtown, with free food, free clothing exchange, and amazing local artists.

3. If the sidewalk in front of your house in St. Paul cracks, you can get it replaced with one with a poem stamped into it. Any resident of the city can submit a short poem in English or another language to a contest to be added to the bank of poems used.

4. The beautiful murals and mosaics down Lake Street, illustrating the different groups that have immigrated to the area over the years and the amazing artists they brought with them.

5. The Smallest Museum in Saint Paul, a defunct fire hose cabinet outside of Workhorse Coffee that features ever-changing small but beautiful, thought-provoking, and wonderful exhibits.

6. The cat tour where you walk through the Wedge neighborhood taking pictures of cats.

7. The secret art gallery in the alley behind the Mississippi Market co-op where someone has painted words onto shards of mirror.

8. A 20 foot pencil that gets annually sharpened.

9. Going to the closest Native American coffee shop every October and stocking up on bear grease for my aching back.

10. 2nd highest number of theatre seats in the country after New York, baybeeeeee!

11. I can't just list theatres or we'll be here all day, but the May Day Parade put on by Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre with the most amazing and evocative puppets and masks.

12. When you're marching in a pro-immigrant rally down Lake Street and everyone is cheering and whooping and honking their horn and the Somali community members run out of their businesses with cold drinks in the summer and hot sambusas in the winter

13. The Aztec dancers

14. That moment when all the cottonwoods shed their fluffy white seeds in spring and it looks like we've been covered in snow again

15. That other moment in spring when the lilacs are blooming and you can't walk five feet without smelling a lilac

16. And then it rains and all the cherry trees bloom and the entire city smells like candy

17. All of the art on the Green Line stations tying directly into the history and culture of each neighborhood

18. Midtown Global Market, where you can get delicious Lebanese cheese, bubble tea, tacos, camel burgers, Scandinavian sandwiches, Alaskan Native hot sauce, and more, all under one roof

19. The Hmong farmer's market near my library, the most reliable place to get the vegetables I want that I can't find anywhere else and also a place I could buy an entire bushel basket of hot peppers if I wanted

20. Whoever is drawing fat chickens all over town

21. Whoever is drawing pubic hair on lamp posts

22. Fireweed Community Workshops, a masks-required woodworking workshop dedicated to making woodworking welcoming and accessible to people who aren't straight white men

23. Naomi Kritzer's incredibly specific local election guides every year, and the way she uses it to raise money for local classrooms

24. The little faucet at the back of the Saint Paul Cathedral with the sign that says 'free holy water'

25. The Ecuadorian women selling mango with tajin on the street corners when work lets out

25. The trails by the river where you can make a turn onto the beach and have an equal chance of coming across a beaver or a live college production of "Dune"

26. The U of M experimental garden where they've found a cactus that can survive Minnesota winters (it's from the mountains of Peru)

27. The way I have seen lost keys and ID badges get hung up on branches of trees and left there for the person to return and find, untouched, for months

28. Urban foraging wild grapes, serviceberries, and mulberries

29. That morning I walked into downtown St. Paul, frozen, silent, still, empty but for the pervasive and delicious smell of bacon, a mystery until I came upon a whole pig being slowly roasted over the coals in front of a fancy French restaurant

30. The roving bands of wild turkeys