 My Aging Husband I have a man in my house, and he's been aging for a long time now—I want to say 50-odd years. In my understanding, this aging process was supposed to refine all of his flavors, making him more robust yet more patient, more tenacious yet more caring. And while I have observed a notable uptick in tenderness and affection, I was under the impression, based on the novels I've read and the movies I've seen, that he'd become increasingly independent and bold and courageous over time.
This has not been my experience with the man in my house. While I enjoy and treasure this man very much, lately he's seemed to dislike rapid changes in temperature. He has a minor foot injury that he updates me on daily instead of, say, boarding a nuclear submarine in search of spies. The man in my house is losing his hair, but he says the Rogaine he bought is "too sticky." To be fair, this man looks good with or without hair. But when I mention the countless painful treatments I've used to maintain my girlish good looks, my man no comprende—a verb he would understand if he learned Spanish as he's been threatening to do for more than a decade.
I don't mean to suggest that this man is lazy. Quite the opposite! He just has so many goals. Sometimes I think the goals themselves are the problem. He's trying to do too much! It's as if years of adult responsibilities have finally caught up to him, and now, instead of feeling daunted by, say, a battalion of assassins, he's undone by a teenager with too much homework.   Ben Stiller Sees the World Differently Now Ben Stiller had achieved all the success a person could want, and more. He got a dream job at twenty-four writing for Saturday Night Live only to leave it after four episodes, co-created The Ben Stiller Show, directed Reality Bites, starred in There's Something About Mary and became Gaylord Focker and Derek Zoolander and the Dodgeball guy, stole his scenes in a seminal Wes Anderson film, cowrote and directed and starred in Tropic Thunder… It was a pretty amazing run. And there was a clarity to it all. He worked hard, pursued satisfying projects, and repeated the things that worked. He made Ben Stiller movies. He was always ascending. Then, starting with cancer, he got the crap pounded out of him for a few years. His career, his marriage, his parents, his own mortality—the underpinnings of his whole life cracked, and nothing seemed clear at all anymore. And what does a person do then?
 The Best Nonfiction Books of 2022 (So Far) It seems a cruel paradox that in this age of information overload, the world can feel harder to understand than ever before. Amid a dissonance of news sources, podcasts, commentators, and armchair experts, where should you turn to make sense of the world? More than movies, TV, or just other reading material, we stand behind nonfiction books as some of the best windows on the world, and luckily for you, we've curated some of the year's standout releases. Our favorite nonfiction books of the year, several of them just the very best books of the year, touch on some of the most pressing topics of our time, from autocracy to conspiracy to healthcare reform. They vary in form, from reported nonfiction to memoir to a comic guidebook to supervillainy. Whether you're looking to learn, laugh, or lose yourself in a great story, there's something here for every kind of reader.  It's True. Elden Ring is a Masterpiece. I am 50 hours into Elden Ring. While I was writing this review, all I wanted to do was play more Elden Ring. By now, you've already heard that FromSoftware's ultra-anticipated, open-world fantasy epic—with a story by Game of Thrones scribe George R. R. Martin, no less—is a masterpiece. And it is. Mark my words: Elden Ring will join games such as Smash Bros., Breath of the Wild, Grand Theft Auto, and Dark Souls as points of comparison for every one of its imitators over the next decade. But you wont understand just how stunning Elden Ring is until you play it. So if you're still reading this (instead of going to play the game by whatever means necessary), read on for a spoiler-free review of Elden Ring. Just know every moment you waste reading my silly little review is a moment you could be memorizing spells, or finding treasure, or getting your ass handed to you by one of the most horrific monstrosities you'll ever see.
 The Best Movies of 2022 (So Far) Right now, while all eyes are focused on the holdover movies from 2021 that are in the running for this year's Oscars, the Hollywood Industrial Complex hasn't shut down completely. Even in the usually slow, early months of 2022, there's still been a handful of new releases that are well worth checking out, like After Yang, a capital A piece of art from director Kogonada, or Jackass Forever, which is certainly the best version of whatever you'll call it. Check back each month as we update this list of the best and brightest new titles worth your time and attention.  Her Name Was Shirley Shirley Blackwell's death was completely ordinary. She died on the day after Christmas 2020, at the age of 70, after long term kidney and lung issues. The event was reported in the local paper in Alliance, Ohio, dispassionately listing the usual things that are printed when a beloved member of a community dies: where she worked, who she is survived by, and details about where the celebration of her life would be held. Nothing was mentioned about the infamous pictures that she appeared in as part of a series for Life magazine, an event that would alter the course of her family forever. Nothing was said about the struggle she had faced for years trying to find money for college. And nothing certainly was mentioned about the time her mother's dreams were put on hold after being fired from her job for participating in the magazine spread. Instead, niceties appeared in her small hometown paper and the death of the little girl in her Sunday best standing alongside her aunt outside of a "Colored Only" entrance in 1956 was ignored by the national media.
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Sunday, February 27, 2022
Inside My Complicated Marriage
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