Darlings! I hope your sleep was restful, your coffee is hot, and all your cake mixes are individually-sized.

Thank you Friend of the Missive Alex R-M for sharing this to the Odd Salon Something Weird group: The Squirrel Census Answers a Question You Weren’t Asking. Yea, but did the rats-with-better-haircuts answer a citizenship question? Ugh, that was such a lazy joke, I'm not proud of myself, I feel bad about that now.

• I regret to inform you that the study I shared about smartphones giving us horns was written by a Chiropractor selling posture pillows. Don’t worry, my writers’ room has now lost their snack privileges for that EGREGIOUS source research oversight.

• This headline is 100: Breast Milk Is Only Free if We Think Women’s Time Is Worthless. And terrifying stat I learned from this Slate piece: “Today in the U.S., one-quarter of mothers return to work less than 2 weeks after giving birth.”

• Per usual, we should be listening to Catherine Rampell at the Washington Post: “We should be laser-focused on newly discovered private emails between a high-ranking census official and a GOP operative, and what they reveal about a long-term Republican conspiracy to rip political representation and financial resources from Democrats and people of color.”

• OK, this NYC Airbnb slumlord story is genuinely scary (and part of why I gravitate towards hotels when it is just me on the road…): “The inspectors smelled gas and called the fire department, which found a gas leak … The illegally constructed extra rooms lacked required exits, sprinklers, and fire alarms, “rendering apartment unsafe to occupy,” the documents say.”

Y’all are lovely. Be kind to each other, mmmkay?

Xoxo Amy