Notices by Catherynne M. Valente (catvalente@wandering.shop), page 3

Stop calling it a hush money case, you craven complicit media ghouls.

It’s an election interference case.

My dad just endearingly dadded up & wants me to be safe in #Denmark.

I replied with the following image.

Too bad about that one singular crime knocking Denmark down a spot.

Probably mermaid or open-faced sandwich-related.

Or both. Very grim with that smørrebrød menu, Denmark. Very grim.

So my iPhone won’t email photos anymore and hasn’t for a good minute. Can airdrop fine, nothing wrong with phone or account.

Any idea how to fix this, kindly internet helpers?

Good GOD just stumbled on Pine Tree Seafood & Produce in Scarborough and you know I don’t do a lot of influencer business promo shit but if you have access to Maine…WOW.

Everything smoked in house, creative, delicious, super local. We had arctic char pate, wasabi ginger mussels, crackers, & German beer WE JUST DEVOURED IN THE CAR & it was unbelievably perfect. Give them business!

https://pinetreeseafood.com

Turns out the kicker who told graduating women to go back to the kitchen, Harrison Butker, was raised in affluence by his physicist mother who specializes in gamma knife surgery, went to Smith, & hyphenates her name

Actually not a lot to unpack there. Basic af, really

But…

I didn’t know what a Gamma Knife was? But it sounded UNBELIEVABLY badass & sinister & also 💯 the title of a a bestselling dystopian SF YA series whose protagonist is named Soliloquy

THEN I LOOKED IT UP AND REALITY AGREES

No big deal, I just filled a weird novelty claw machine that says BEAR MEAT on the front with original handwritten fortunes/mini-stories for guests to play with & was so pleased with the results I wrote a whole thing about it & made it public (fortunes, too) on Patreon for all to raise several eyebrows at...https://www.patreon.com/posts/magical-future-104310092

My five year old came home begging to watch Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. Obviously I put on the ‘71 version because I’m not a MONSTER.

Just finished the scary boat ride that made me cry as a kid.

B: “WOW. That was really INCREDIBLE. That was my MOST favorite part so far!!"

How it started: “Mama, I don’t want to be afraid of dogs anymore. I really want to work on getting over my fear.” -One and a half years ago

How it’s going:

I just had a realization.

It was (and is) always so confusing when The Bad Straights claimed “gay people getting married will ruin the institution for everyone.”

But I think they always meant that if two men or two women can get married, then marriage must not be defined by a man obtaining a woman as servant/property & securing exclusive rights to her labor, identity, & body.

And without that, they can’t even imagine what purpose marriage could ever serve.

Some mornings you just wake up and choose violence.

If Rey is a Mary Sue, Paul Atreides is and always has been the Mary Sue Messiah.
Hardly anyone has ever been much bothered.

The only conceivable argument otherwise is just “I don’t like girls” with extra steps.

Child asked to watch #StarWars this morning, throwing me a bone “you like that thing and I want to do something you like!”

After many pew-pew noises, Darth Vader enters for the first time.

Bastian: “Mama, is that the King of Pews? Is he going to take that lady to the Pewing Room?”

Me: *crying with laughter* I MEAN KIND OF!

Child makes a face at Darth Vader post-Alderaan

“But why is he like that? I want the bad man to turn into a good man.”

Me: *slams pause* baby darling please believe me when I tell you that is exactly what these 3 movies are about

B: 3?

Me: YEP. There’s just 3. 3 #starwars movies.

I got my kid a rock tumbler for their 5th birthday.

I explained what is was and how it worked, what was going to happen to turn the dull rocks into shiny jewels.

Bastian stared at the rocks for a long time. Very intently.

Then quietly said:

“When they’re shiny I’m gonna trade these jewels to a raven for friendship.”

I have a BRAND NEW short story out today!

An unsettling fable about identity and capitalism and the history of television advertisements…

Can You Hear Me Now? At Uncanny Magazine:

https://www.uncannymagazine.com/article/can-you-hear-me-now/

I’ll be honest, this may be one of my finest paragraphs.

https://catvalente.substack.com/p/it-may-not-be-praxis-but-we-need

Musk is 100% removing headlines from news article links because he likes seeing his photo over & over but hates seeing the thousand permutations of “Turns Out This Guy Is an Enormous Evil Dingus Who Is Bad at Business, Will Never Be Tony Stark⬆️” underneath his gormless nip/tuck face.

I don’t know how to explain to these throwback slime molds that if they manage to take away women’s reproductive rights, bodily autonomy, birth control, and no-fault divorce, the result won’t be some kind of heteronormative propaganda poster new world order, especially since pulling women out of the workforce now would just faceplant the whole economy into the asphalt.

A lot of women will just stop having straight sex or getting married at all.

The sad, ridiculous fact is: Nazis fucking can’t STAND each other. Every time they manage to harass all the decent people out of a community they get morose & bored & wander off, because they only like going after normal goddamned people, shrieking insanity at kind, caring hearts, & drinking our horror like blood. Licking their fingers.

Left to their own folk at every turn, nothing but agreement & support for their bile, they recoil & go hunting for us again.

There’s a universe in which Dark City is a direct far future sequel to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

I’m showing Anchorman to my nieces & trying to explain that in the 70s the men people thought were hot looked exactly like that, exhibit: Burt Reynolds

Nieces: ok but that’s just Pedro Pascal everyone loves Pedro Pascal?

Me: WHAT THE FUCK IT IS I WAS NOT PREPARED FOR THIS EXISTENTIAL REVELATION TONIGHT