GETTING SO CLOSE!
I’m honored to announce that I was one of the six lucky people that got selected to run the New York City Marathon as a charity partner with World Animal Protection International—a cause near and dear to my heart, and I need your help.
Any donation at all that you can spare is greatly appreciated in getting me to my goal of $3000. Plus, it’s going to a great cause. Here’s the link to my fundraising page. Thank you all so much for your support in advance—it means the world.
https://fundraisers.nyrr.org/kelly-lansing
Ten years ago this month I joined the ranks of millions of other cliche Californians’ and bought my silver Toyota Prius. (Florals for spring, groundbreaking.)
To say the world was vastly different back then would be an understatement, but let’s not dwell on that for too long or else we’ll find ourselves in a Kleenex shortage.
The point is, I vividly remember on that lukewarm June day, after embarrassingly ringing that stupid bell at the Toyota Dealership on Lankershim (you know the one) that while my current life was far from perfect, the future looked big and bright. By the time I get my next car, around 2025, I thought, I’ll be married, living in a spacious house in Pasadena (that, who am I kidding, I’ll still be renting), will have a high powered VP title at some entertainment conglomerate (that I won’t really have any power or say in but hey, at least on paper my job will look bright and shiny!) and I’ll have precisely one kid with possibly another on the way.
Wait, this car doesn’t have satellite radio like that slimy salesman said it did even though I was pretty sure it didn’t?! I need to listen to Edward Sharpe for the 423rd time today on Alt Nation!
TURN THIS F**KING CAR AROUND, STAT.
Fast forward precisely one decade later (!!!) and…well…1/4 of those things I saw for myself by now is…something?
I think we all know that the Boomer lifestyle of the acceptable mainstream-life-milestone-timeline is not a thing anymore. I feel like a broken record in saying that life in the year of 2025 has never been worse so I won’t say it again (you literally just did, Kelly) but despite the negative tone of this FGF up until now, the point I’m getting at is that the cliche quote that John Lennon actually stole from writer Allen Saunders “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans,” has never been truer….
…and that’s perfectly ok. (?!)
No, I’m half asking you, dear reader, and half telling myself. Because while we all know and dole this easily palatable cliche out to down-and-out friends and family as appropriate, it’s been pretty hard to come to terms with, especially at this (self-imposed high pressure) stage of my life, myself. It’s as if I’m in between video game levels in some sort of purgatory waiting room and the final boss I have to defeat to be accepted as high-functioning-successful-adult-who-won-at-life? A kid (or two) and some (ever-more elusive) fancy / cool high-paying job.
Says who, Kelly? You’re failing to forget one little thing—NO ONE ACTUALLY GIVES A SHIT! This linear timeline is COMPLETELY ARBITRARY!
And you know what? That’s the comforting thought that takes me immediately out of my spiral.
So dear readers, thanks for going on this quick pep talk with me and consider this Substack me trying that whole acceptance part out, here, by writing said acceptance of my ten year plan going fully awry down into the digital void that is Substack.
Join me, won’t you?
Alright that’s it. Happy Pride month, all. Have a great weekend!
THE SHALLOW STUFF
Ready to laugh?
This is an oldie but goodie that graced my timeline this week. Join me in watching til the end, laughing uncontrollably and then immediately feeling TERRIBLE.
PSA as we head into summer. Friends DO NOT let friends be THAT GUY.
Oof. Too true.
Ready to smile?
Ready to dance?
Sabrina Carpenter’s Manchild video is out as you’re reading this but now as I write this omg.
THE DEEP STUFF
Ready to cry?
This video never gets old 😭😭😭😭 Happy Pride month, all.
Ready to be inspired?
A man who visited Mount Everest Base Camp to install a defibrillator as part of his advocacy work has revealed the device saved a woman’s life just three weeks after he left Nepal.
David Sullivan is the founder of Code Blue CPR, an organization that trains defibrillator use and CPR skills at home and around the world.
Earlier this year, the 62-year-old from Surrey ventured to the Himalayas where he installed what he says is the world’s highest defibrillator. Climbers die on Everest all the time—not always of cardiac arrest—but certainly sometimes, and the use of a defibrillator within the first 3 minutes of a heart attack can improve survival rates from 8% to over 50%.
Climbing to an altitude of 22,000 feet to test the defibrillator, Sullivan then descended to one of the villages near Everest Base Camp, at just over 16,500 feet, to install the device for use.
He returned from Everest on April 30th and, just three weeks later, learned that it saved a young climber’s life after her heart stopped.
“It was the proudest moment of my life when I learned what had happened,” Sullivan told the Southwest News Service. “It was last Friday (May 23rd), at around 3:45 a.m. I have kids traveling the world so I initially thought, ‘oh my God, something’s happened.'”
“But it was a sherpa who told me the defibrillator had been activated and had saved a 30-year-old French woman’s life. I hope it will help people realize how important it is to have access to defibrillators.”
Now that he’s back in the UK, Sullivan is preparing to present a training program to the government which would see 1.2 million children across London trained in CPR.
“We want every school to have a new defibrillator and every person in the school— students, teachers, staff—to have all the training necessary to save someone’s life,” he told SWNS. “I performed nine minutes of CPR for a young lad and used a defibrillator just three months after I had been shown how to.”
“While I was doing this, around 30 people just watched and didn’t help because they didn’t know how,” he remembered. “When the lad’s mum called me the next day to say he was alive, it changed my life forever.”
Also…let’s all be like Rocket.
Ready for your do-good action item of the week?
I was one of the six very lucky people that got selected to run the New York City Marathon as a charity partner with World Animal Protection International. Every little bit helps and is greatly appreciated in going to this truly great cause and getting me to my goal of $3000. Here is my fundraising page. Thanks so much for your support in advance!
https://fundraisers.nyrr.org/kelly-lansing
AND NOW…. A RANDOM QUOTE
AND TWO RECOMMENDATIONS!
BOOK REC: The Wedding People: A Novel by Alison Espach
Logline: A propulsive and uncommonly wise novel about one unexpected wedding guest and the surprising people who help her start anew.
DOCUMENTARY REC: Pee-Wee as Himself on HBO Max
Logline: The definitive story of the artist and performer Paul Reubens and his indelible alter ego Pee-wee Herman.
