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Do people doubt your driving abilities?
A. Yes, I’m still earning trust as a new mode of transportation.
B. Yes, I’m still up against long-held stereotypes and tired stand-up routines.

Do strangers ever gawk at you or comment on your appearance?
A. Yes, usually in response to my spinning parts and empty driver’s seat.
B. Yes, but I’m told I should feel flattered and that I’ll miss the attention when I’m older.

Does Google own you?
A. No, their parent company, Alphabet, owns me.
B. No, they just track my every move, know my innermost desires, and can manipulate my behavior with alarming precision to increase profits.

Are you trained to let others cut you off?
A. Yes, to avoid collisions.
B. Yes, in any conversation with a man.

Have you ever suspected a mechanic was trying to rip you off?
A. No, I receive routine maintenance from a certified team of experts.
B. Yes, when I was charged extra for “premium” tire air.

The expression “punch-drunk,” Google informs me, means “stupefied by or as if by a series of heavy blows to the head.” Google’s Oxford Language entry then offers a not-terribly-illuminating example of the term’s use: “I feel a little punch-drunk today.” Right now, a better one might be something like: “After November 5, 2024, a lot of people have been feeling more than a little punch-drunk.” Learning on the night of November 5th that Donald Trump had probably been reelected president certainly left me feeling stupefied, with a sense that I’d somehow sustained a number of heavy blows to the head. The experience was undoubtedly amplified by the fact that I’d spent the previous three months in Reno, Nevada, as part... Read more

Source: Finding Hope appeared first on TomDispatch.com.

One of the many pleasures of Carol Moldaw’s seventh collection, Go Figure, is its fidelity to description. “Bulbous ropes of kelp,” begins the poem “Northern California.” “Sandstone sea-break cliffs” and “A bluff of salt-pocked Monterey cypresses / twisted in the same configuration, like ’50s teens, / the boys, with windblown ducktail flattops.” But that description is never quite an end in and of itself. More often it sets us up for the devastation of the psychological—for the emotion that lasts—as in the ending in this poem, six tercets, descending like Dante’s Inferno: “No sooner had I finally let on to myself / that this was my psyche’s landscape / than it burst into hellish, unquenchable flames.”

I know the first trimester sucks, but don’t worry—it gets better. You should really look forward to the second trimester.

In the second trimester, the nausea lifts. You won’t hate the smell of your husband’s breath. You’ll be able to enjoy all the foods you couldn’t in your first trimester, like wet spinach. In fact, it just might become your favorite food.

In the second trimester, you’re simply overcome with relaxing hormones. It’s like being on opioids, but it’s not the Sacklers’ fault. You no longer have sciatica, and you forgive all your exes. It’s bliss.

I know the mood swings are intense right now, but don’t worry—they go away in the second trimester. You’ll stop getting upset about every tiny thing and return to only getting upset about the normal stuff, like the cost of living, the lack of good TV these days, the government, the environment, and the patriarchy. So nice.

Morning sickness is soooo much better in the second trimester. For example, you may get it only in the morning.

- by Bridget Ritz & Brandon Vaidyanathan

Read at Aeon

- by Caitlin Rajan

Read at Psyche