I Hate Everyone But You

Allison Raskin and Gaby Dunn (comedy duo with YouTube channel Just Between Us) write/create/star in funny video sketches, and vlogging(?)/advice snippets, and also have now written a book!

The book is called i hate everyone but you, and it is a modern epistolary novel --- it consists of text messages and emails sent between two friends (parallelling the real-life friendship and characters of the authors). The book contains some pop culture references, some timely culture references (the issues of today!), and lots of feelings between best friends attending college on opposite sides of the continent. In two completely different ways, they manage to have "usual" college first-year experiences, with the added update (from my now out-of-date memories) that everyone has a smartphone all the time, which makes documenting and contacting anyone instantaneously available.

I liked it. The book was cute (it's marketed as YA, so it's a little outside my usual reading zone) and funny. In an amusing meta-twist, one character suggested to the other, "Maybe start a YouTube channel! Those things can blow up!" (p. 109), and later links to the Just Between Us channel and says "You're such an Allison" (p. 282) to the obviously-an-Allison-analogue character. 

I also appreciated the overwrought, highly-dramatic versions of their lives that the characters wrote in emails; there are certainly emails in my own "sent" folder that are as ridiculous, condensed, and silly. In the midst of juggling a description of many people attending a party, we have this snippet (p. 158):

Cassidy preferred to join a grating conversation about the semicolon. He could later be heard quoting Oscar Wilde from the other room. The night proceeded without further incident until...

Possibly it's not as funny without the context, but I'm unwilling to type in pages of text and besides, you should read it for yourself! It's a quick, fun read.

This post's theme word is tarnal, "damned." The comments section is full of the tarnal dregs of the internet.

What is your favorite color?

Welcome back! Today we celebrated labor in the traditional manner: by laboring!

'Twas the first day of classes. I took attendance by asking students a question. Here at the beginning, while I'm getting to know them and they are getting to know me, I try to ease them in to the practice of answering a question.

Usually, of course, these questions are rather open-ended and have no correct answer. I ask them for the sake of amusement, and a chance to make a silly joke, and a way to occasionally learn something new about my students. However, this question has a correct answer.

What is your favorite color?

Among the wrong answers, "blue" was again a clear crowd favorite, with purple and gold far behind, and everything else isolated singletons. "All in the spectrum of ocean blues" covered most of this swath, plus added poetry to the otherwise terse answers.

Two outliers liked "beige" and "gray", respectively, which seems like it might hint at a hipster trend in preference for blandness? I'm old, what do I know, these millennials, am I right? Last year someone liked "light tan", so maybe I should collect these students and help them form some sort of special interest group.

Several students correctly answered "green", though they might have outside knowledge that informed this answer.

The One-Quirked-Eyebrow Prize goes to the student who, following their heart, answered "heron."


This post's theme word is handsel or hansel, which is either a noun, "a gift for good luck given at the beginning of a new venture," or "a first payment or installment", or a transitive verb, "to inaugurate or do something for the first time." Declaring "green" is a good hansel, but I will expect much more from you in the future.