What Is Your Toaster in the Basement?
And other, less philosophical questions about Taylor's upcoming wedding.
My friend, the author Liza Palmer, died recently and I’ve been thinking about her a lot lately, as you might imagine. Liza was funny and warm and delightful and, as you’d expect from a writer, a whiz with words. She had so many phrases that snuck into my own parlance. One, “RIBS,” was a variation and expansion on our old friend, “It’s a text, not a tweet.” RIBS is an acronym for Run It By Somebody and applies to so much more than tweeting out something unhinged, although it also often applied in that scenario. About to drunkenly text your troublesome ex? RIBS it. Considering telling your boss to jump off a bridge? RIBS it. Thinking about painting your primary bathroom black? RIBS it!! One of the many times we used it in text was during a conversation about Justin Timberlake announcing he would be apologizing to “absolutely fucking nobody” before singing “Cry Me a River” shortly after Britney published her memoir. He absolutely needed to run that by somebody.
“RIBS it” are words to live by. But the phrase I use most often is one that I think originated with Liza’s family: Toasters in the Basement. As Liza explained it to me many years ago: Imagine you have a toaster and it stops working. You think, “I shouldn’t throw this out. I bet I can get this toaster fixed.” But you don’t want to have a broken toaster on your countertop, so you stick it down in the basement to deal with later, and then you promptly forget it, until you have to go down into the basement for something else and see it. “Ugh, I have to deal with that toaster!” you think on the way back upstairs. “I’ll do it later.” Rinse and repeat. A Toaster in the Basement, as I understand it, is something you do really have to take care of but which doesn’t strictly have a deadline, or does have one but that deadline is so far in the future that you can keep kicking that can down the road. (Like, say, the smog check for my car, which starts as a toaster in the basement because the DMV gives you so much time to deal with it, and then transforms into an actual race against the clock for me every single time. Mine is due July 20, so I will certainly put that off for two more weeks.) Cleaning out your attic crawl space is a Toaster in the Basement. Scheduling your bone density scan is a Toaster in the Basement. Taking that bag of donations to the Goodwill or having those pants hemmed is a Toaster in the Basement. Getting your Real ID is a total Toaster in the Basement. I use this phrase all the time; it’s so useful as a way to explain this exact phenomenon. It’s so satisfying to get rid of a Toaster in Your Basement, also! I honestly should do it more often. And yet…
So I’m interested in two things: (a) does your family or friend group have any terms or phrases that are unique to you? What are they? And (b) what’s your current Toaster in the Basement? Mine is a long story but it involves organizing a relative’s cremains being released from a plane. I have got to deal with this.
— Jessica
World Cup Open Post
Now that the World Cup is getting intense, we’re seeing there’s some interest in open threads for watching the games. We’re going to send out a live chat/open thread Wednesday morning as our two primary rooting interests — England (Heather) and USA (Jessica) — are both playing that day, beginning at 9 a.m. P.T./noon E.T. If y’all are into it, we can send out fresh ones, or just keep that one cooking for the rest of the Round of 32 and then start fresh, re-evaluate, etc. Paid subscribers, watch your inboxes!
Also, I don’t know what the hell this GIF is, but:
So happy for our friends up north! They won in L.A. on Sunday, and from what I hear the vibes at SoFi were immaculate afterwards. Well played to the first team ever to win a Round of 32 game at a World Cup, and the deepest run Canada has ever enjoyed.
— Heather
Fantasy Wedding Draft
I totally misread a Taylor Swift headline last week as it being a fantasy preview of her wedding, as if there is a league somewhere in which folks are choosing teams of projected celebrity attendees and amassing points for accuracy. Then I decided that would be an amusing thing to do as parody, but I couldn’t figure out an actual system. Do you get points simply for being right? Do you weight your selections? Are there different classifications that make certain riskier selections worth more? How big is your roster? Do you count the Haims as one person, because how does anyone rank the Haims, including Taylor? How do you fairly and accurately score this made-up nonsense thing that no one, including me, is actually doing?!?
Except I am totally going to do it. I’ve been avoiding guest-list coverage this week, so I’ll give myself a point for everything I get right, minus one for whatever is wrong, half a point if I’m partially right, three points if any of my bonus predictions come true, and 100 points if my soap opera predictions do.
Bridesmaids/Groomsmen: Childhood friend Abigail, all three Haims, Selena Gomez, and they will not be in matching dresses. Travis’s people will be Jason Kelce, Patrick Mahomes, Taylor’s brother Austin, and that best friend whom all the Gaylors think is secretly Travis’s lover.
Bonus prediction: Kylie Kelce will NOT be a bridesmaid because several of her girls will walk up the aisle as ring-bearers or otherwise adorable moppets in flower crowns or whatever, and she’ll have to wrangle them because Jason WILL be a groomsman and also because she probably does most of the actual labor in that house.
Soap opera prediction: Said friend of Travis’s will object to the wedding at the appointed time, and then pretend it was a joke before spending the rest of the evening sobbing in a coat closet.
Musical guests: Stevie Nicks, Sabrina Carpenter, Gracie Abrams (with Paul Mescal), Ed Sheeran, Florence Welch, Jack Antonoff (and Margaret Qualley), Aaron Dessner, Ice Spice, Phoebe Bridgers, Hayley Williams from Paramore, Sombr.
Bonus prediction: Beyonce will have gotten an invitation but won’t attend; Kendrick Lamar will, and will perform at the reception. Madonna will show up and sing her song with Sabrina Carpenter. Stevie Nicks will perform whatever they dance to first.
Soap opera prediction: Florence Welch sings an emo “So High School” as Taylor walks up the aisle, prompting Aristotle to rise from the grave and request some receipts. Olivia Rodrigo performs a mash-up of “Cruel Summer” and “Deja Vu,” the song she had to add Taylor’s credit to because the bridge was ruled too similar. Then Charli XCX comes out and does “Actually Romantic” with a guest riff from Matty Healy, whom she smuggled in Mr. Bundles-style in a laundry basket. Kanye tries to attend but is thrown out by security and carted away yelling that this is a great wedding venue and everything but Beyonce really deserved it.
Sports guests: I like to think T and T got drunk at Tight End University and invited all of those people. Like, George Kittle for sure, right? Possibly also Kyle Juszczyk. I also am sure most of the better-known Chiefs and Andy Reid at least got invited.
Bonus prediction: I specifically think Harrison Butker, the homophobic and misogynistic Chiefs kicker whose memorable commencement speech included telling women they should be more excited to marry and have children than to pursue a career, will be present (Travis publicly wore a Butker jersey after that whole thing, so he probably doesn’t care anyway).
Soap opera prediction: Andy Reid officiates. Brittany Mahomes shows up in the same color as the bridesmaids in the hopes of confusing people into thinking she is in fact one of them. Ilona Maher attends, which is not soapy at all; I just think it would be rad because I love her.
Celebrity guests: Gigi Hadid and Bradley Cooper, Lena Dunham, Mariska Hargitay, Emma Stone, Cara Delevingne, Taylor Lautner and his wife Taylor Lautner (making him the only ex in attendance), Sophie Turner, the Eras Tour dancers, Jodie Turner-Smith and the other “Opalite” celebs from the Graham Norton couch, and Norton himself.
Bonus prediction: Blake Lively will be there, but they won’t be photographed together. Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Fallon will be there. So will Ellen Pompeo, because Taylor decided she couldn’t play favorites and had to invite BOTH women after whom her cats are named. Karlie Kloss will not be present. Bowen Yang will go just because it feels like he gets invited to everything. Joe Alwyn and Sarah Pidgeon will continue their streak of being “randomly” papped in various cities for the next week or so. (I get a THOUSAND points if they go on a double date July 3 with Scooter Braun and Sydney Sweeney.)
Soap opera prediction: Blake Lively will NOT be invited, but I only get points if she and Karlie Kloss post a joint family vacation photo to Instagram. Lorde will attend and she and Lena Dunham will take a group pic with Jack Antonoff and caption it, “Real-life Power Point.” Zoe Kravitz will not be there, ostensibly because she’s supporting fiancé Harry Styles during his eternal Wembley run, but really because she and Taylor had a torrid affair once while they were in their Covid bubble and it’s never been the same. Harry will cover a Taylor song on-stage sometime that weekend. Jake Gyllenhaal films himself singing “All Too Well” at home with a red scarf in his lap and a FUCK THE PATRIARCHY tattoo on his shoulder, which will turn out to be temporary.
Other bonus and/or soap opera predictions: At least one wedding dress by Vivienne Westwood, and at least three different outfits, one of which will be very leggy. Travis is clean-shaven. Taylor wears the exact same hair she does every single time she goes out. Jason Kelce gets VERY drunk and his shirt comes off. Taylor does throw a bouquet. One of the Haims catches it and then writes a song about it for their next album. Stevie Nicks officiates, and brings Lindsey Buckingham, but in true SNL tradition they run out of time for him to say anything.
— Heather
ICYMI
Last Call
— I am DELIGHTED to see that John Oliver has been cast in both Days of Our Lives and General Hospital. Per that linked piece in USA Today, “Oliver said he only had a few conditions for taking on a soap opera role: He wanted to play a fictional character with a ‘ridiculous’ name, as opposed to appearing as himself, and he wanted to do something ‘juicy.’” The PR photo from GH does involve what looks like the SWAT team, so hopefully he’s playing a hostage negotiator named, like, Trott von Nordstrom. — J
— Supergirl bombed. It didn’t look great, but I still want to see it because I don’t want any bad-faith execs using this as an argument for why we shouldn’t bother with woman-led superhero or blockbuster movies. Why can’t we get GOOD ones??? — H
— There’s also a whole rash of think pieces about how if you didn’t like Disclosure Day, it’s because you’re dead inside or you simply didn’t understand what it was saying about human nature. Hear me out: Maybe, just maybe, it’s because the movie isn’t that good, although of course I still partially blame Emily Blunt’s accent. — H
— It’s been a while since I had to sit down at the DWB Taylor Sheridan Newsdesk, but I’m pleased to inform everyone that he still comes across like a total asshole who is lucky his shows print money because he seems impossible to deal with! He was on a tear on Bill Simmons’s podcast recently, complaining about network executives noting everything to death, and saying things like, “The critics and me… I don’t care what they think and it annoys the shit out of them that I don’t care. I’ll be the first to tell you that there are things that I do that rage bait them a bit, and this is one of them. Fuck ‘em, honestly,” and “The only way you’re getting me back to Los Angeles is if it secedes from the union and I’m drafted into the Army to take it back. It’s the only way.” OKAY TAYLOR.1 Insert Jennifer Lawrence thumbs up gif here!! I don’t even disagree with him that a lot of network execs have no idea what they’re doing and just give notes to justify having a job, but he comes across as so unbearable. He is the only man who has ever made me say the words, “I think Kevin Costner has a point.” — J
He ALSO complained about Covid protocols, saying it’s “the only disease in history that doesn’t spread during protests,” in the context of being annoyed they cancelled his daughter’s youth soccer games. I hate this guy. -H
Our family plus extended family used to vacation every summer in Lake Tahoe. (We still do.). One year about ten of us cousins were playing cards with our Uncle Zou who was visiting from Milan. We taught him how to play Crazy Eights, but with two decks of cards. Anyhow, we were playing and then things did get crazy and whoever was leading ending up losing big time (I don’t remember exactly). But he was astounded and said so seriously “Well anything can happen when you’re playing Crazy Eights.” 30+ years later and I swear we still say this when crazy life shit happens.
One of our dogs had to have emergency surgery last week because he swallowed a Himalayan stick - $11,500. I told my husband to cross fingers and hope to get $$ back from doggie insurance and my hubs said “Well anything can happen when you’re playing Crazy Eights.”
My husband and I, early in our relationship, came up with a term - Brandanowitz (yes, named after that guy in the first season of Parks and Rec) - that basically means: "I need some alone time, I am not mad at you, unless it's an emergency please don't call/text, I'll be back at a reasonable hour." It can't be used during an argument or in anger. It's just a way to give ourselves some me time without further explanation (unless we feel like elaborating). So when my husband wants to Brandanowitz, he usually heads up to his attic office to tinker on something, while my Brandanowitzing takes the form of vegging out at the local sports bar, idly watching random sports and taking my mind off things. It's very handy!