Tornado Warnings, Pepperoni Pizzas & Castles (THE USUAL) | NOTE: short, mostly links + one travel anecdote

BIG. NEWS. COMING.

(Sort of like a tornado warning, except I'm not as graceful.)

I'll be making a biiiiig announcement next week. 🗓

This is going to be an all-new era for you, for me, and for The Middle Finger Project as a whole. NOT TO HAM IT UP OR ANYTHING, but...it's a big deal.

I can't wait to show you where we're going. (And what we're not bringing, ahem.)

In the meantime, me and this Pepto Bismol header of mine will be down in the ol' workshop, giving ourselves paper cuts & getting it all ready. Don't miss me too much while we flip the schedule about!

The new Downton Abbey movie is on-demand TODAY, BABY. Here is a (mostly?!) PG-13 photo of me when I visited in 2016. (Yes, that is the visual equivalent of my personality—beware the hug.)

I absolutely went to see the fucking castle like a total and complete tourist and YOU SHOULD, TOO. We stayed across the street at the cutest little high-end country pub with rooms called The Yew Tree Inn, and it was the greatest laugh because when we booked the room from Central America, the person on the other end of the line said, “Great, see you then!” and we were like “You don’t need a credit card to hold the reservation?” and they were like, “Nope!” and we hung up and we were absolutely like, “Yup, definitely not gonna have a room.” Alas, when we showed up, we were shocked, honestly—and wildly relieved—that we did, in fact, have a room. It was so quaint, that place. So very "English country." I wish they didn’t sell. However, if you’re in the mood for the English countryside—and to be clear, I’m always in the mood for the English countryside—then you can literally go anywhere and you will suddenly have the urge to pick daisies in a meadow while contemplating your future career as a royal gardener for the Queen before sniffing someone’s white cotton sheets hanging on the line and then heading back on a walking path over to the closest pub to buy 30 people 7 pizzas because the kitchen's closed on Sundays.

At least, that was my experience.

(Oh, yes: I have discovered THE KEY to making friends. You do not need to be interesting. You don’t need to know the Pope. You don’t even need to smell good. All you need? Is a cheeky smile, a momentary lapse of sanity, and a bunch of pepperoni. And then you run and hide in the bathroom, because you realize that what you have done is SO unforgivably American—and everybody knows it.)

Hope that last tip helps.

Have a great weekend, dahling!

XOXO,

Ash