good morning bitches: remember me?
Woof.
It’s been almost a year since I’ve dropped into your inbox, and almost five years since this newsletter came to exist at all. I’ll get to the #content in a second, but I want to take a second for an honest and somewhat embarrassing reflection on why I’ve been MIA from a project that truly does mean so much to me.
A brief history of GMB: this newsletter started as a way to kill time while I worked overnights as an intern at a TV station. The first “edition” was a bullet point list of random things on my mind (including the article that turned Anna Delvey into a national sensation and my five-year-late discovery of Orange is the New Black) and looked like this:
It was easy to find time as an intern at 2am to comb the internet for nuggets of entertainment. But as good morning bitches grew, so did my career. That internship opened the door for me to become a news-turned-commercial producer, on top of freelance work on the side. And instead of writing candidly to 3 close friends, my readership grew to be a mix of a couple thousand best friends, good friends, old friends, friends of friends, family members, coworkers, my dad’s coworkers, and complete strangers. My self-imposed need to appeal to everyone was overwhelming (and impossible!)
You have no idea how many times I have started and abandoned a GMB draft, terrified of potential criticism even though all of you have been nothing but kind of supportive. Still, I told myself every reason under the sun why I shouldn’t send it (everyone probably already watched that movie and read that book and saw that meme, no one cares about the Frasier reboot, the world doesn’t need another white woman writing about internet culture, that SOB Walmart yodel kid is going to sue you for defamation, etc., etc.)
In short, I was overthinking it. Constantly. Irrationally!! Over the past year, whenever I saw anything GMB-worthy (Elon’s Twitter takeover, anyone?) I would get a pit in my stomach, knowing that I should just get over myself and send the stupid email. So…here I am!
Before we get to my attempt to memorialize the last 11 months, it’s worth noting that email servers typically cut good morning bitches off about halfway through, so I recommend clicking that button below to read this in your browser :)
frasier reboot update:
shockingly still happening
🚨 episodes have been shot in front of a live audience 🚨
no hope for any Niles appearances, but at least we’ll get Lilith
novel that far exceeded expectations after its predecessor, The Silent Patient, was lowkey one of the worst books I’ve ever read:
It takes a lot to impress me with an eleventh-hour plot twist and believe me when I say this one delivered. In The Maidens, brutal murders keep popping up on Cambridge’s campus, AND there’s a charming professor with a Greek mythology obsession + a cult-like following of impossibly beautiful college girls. How could these things possibly be connected?! 🕵️♀️ 🕵️♀️🕵️♀️
this kinda depressing, kinda heartwarming data about who we spend our time with as we age:
(Data shared by fellow Substacker )
The Cut’s controversial etiquette article:
In 1922, Emily Post published Etiquette: The Blue Book on Social Usage, a guidebook on what to eat at high tea, when gentlemen should and should not visit boxes at the opera, and whether an engaged couple still needs a chaperone on dates before the wedding. 101 years later, The Cut’s 194-point guide strikes a slightly different tone, featuring definitive rules on going barefoot at the office, standing in the aisle when the plane lands, whether you should make an RIP post when a celebrity dies, and one I didn’t know the world needed: “don’t talk shit about your baby.”
The list quickly became A Thing™ on Twitter, and rightfully got roasted — specifically the one about how your food allergies are not your dinner host’s problem 🤔 This thread takes you through the worst of it:
My personal favorite batshit one is 38, because……..what?
Anyway 😉 moving on… 😉
brief intermission for a shameless self-promotion:
My sporadic condo renovations landed me my first freelance writing byline! It only took 2 years, 5 couches, 4 rugs, and 1 controversial paint job to transform the most difficult room in my house into a space I am finally proud to call a product of sweat equity. Here’s a sneak peek at the before & after featured in the article.
okay, give me ONE more self indulgence:
In December, my boyfriend and my father had the once-in-a-lifetime privilege of witnessing me lose not one but TWO Emmy awards!!
(It really was, as they say, ✨ an honor just being nominated ✨ alongside my former CW26 coworkers for our Black History and Chicago Sky specials)
escapism podcast perfect for long walks and short attention spans:
If you’ve ever become invested in a story about your coworker’s brother-in-law’s ex-wife’s cousin's breakup drama, THIS is the podcast for you. Each week, host Kelsey McKinney reads an anonymized version of reader-submitted gossip sagas about everything from a Texas orchid scammer to a nightmare One Direction concert weekend in the big city.
Highly recommend cueing up my all-time favorite, Season 1 Episode 8 Spot the Scammer, about an East Asian girls trip gone horrifically wrong.
tv shows I really did not want to watch, then immediately became evangelical about:
I would like to shout from the proverbial rooftops that I am the last person to ever watch anything sci-fi or sci-fi-adjacent, so if you have not hopped on either of these bandwagons, trust me when I say that you must. For those unfamiliar:
Severance depicts a world in which employees can agree to a controversial "severance" program that surgically alters their brain to separate non-work memories from work memories. Spoiler alert: it’s fucked up! (Apple TV+)
The Last of Us is the television adaptation of a 2013 video game about the only two people who have a chance at saving the world from itself after two decades of a fungal pandemic that spawned bloodthirsty zombies-not-zombies (HBO)
The Severance finale and episode 3 of The Last of Us are two of the best hours of television I have ever watched. Severance had me clutching my chest with my jaw on the ground, and TLOU turned me into a blubbering baby over an apocalyptic love story. Listen to your nerd friends and watch these shows!!!
this meme that was supposed to be in a halloween gmb I never sent:
tweets of the week eleven months:
on a melancholy note…
Today would have been my mom’s 60th birthday. The two of us should be celebrating in Italy right now, or confirming details for a big party this weekend, or at the very least, planning our next Botox appointment. Instead, I’ll be eating our guilty pleasure dinner (Portillo’s) and remembering fondly the time that she used the submission form on GMB’s old website to submit the following:
Happy birthday, mama.
Thank you for reading and supporting this newsletter, it means the world to me. Now hug your mom and tell her to get a colonoscopy 🖤
xoxo,
Lily
Thanks for pressing send and bringing GMB back into our lives. Made my month!
I have been thinking about your sweet mama all morning and remembering her beautiful soul. Sending hugs to you and your brother on this day (and always). Love the Rhonbon forever.