“People who are depressed or have anxiety don’t overrate themselves, [psychologist Mark Horswill] said. The more severe the depression, the more likely they are to underrate themselves. That suggests the illusion of superiority may actually be a protective mechanism that shields our self-esteem, he added.”

From Chart-Topping Highs To Unthinkable Lows: The 20 Best Lines Of Narration From “Behind The Music: TLC”

by Bobby Finger and Lindsey Weber

20. “Millions of dollars were pouring in, but in the middle of 1995 the girls shocked their fans by filing for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy.”

19. “But although she agreed work on the new album, Lisa continued to look beyond music for her own personal salvation.”

18. “Consumed by turmoil, trials and tragedy, was the music. Not a single new note was heard from TLC for nearly 5 years.”

17. “On the way to the studio, Lisa saw a rainbow. It was a vision that inspired her to add a deeply personal touch to the song, ‘Waterfalls.’”

This list is part of a series about our favorite TV shows past.

Previously: You, Me And “Star Trek: The Next Generation”

16. “Miraculously, Lisa accepted.”

15. “Next, TLC’s boom goes bust.”

14. “Later, Fanmail flies with fanfare and friction.”

13. “Do T-Boz and Chilli believe the band would’ve stayed together if Lisa had survived?”

12. “But what is happening is the fans keep coming to see duo, with their departed sister singing along on the screen behind them — however emotional that may be for the two survivors.”

11. “So had they found a new third member for the band?”

10. “Back in Honduras, where ever since 1998, she had sought spiritual refuge at the remote Usha Village, a sprawl of humble huts on the edge of a dense Central American jungle.”

9. “With a sophisticated video system projecting Lisa’s image on stage, T-Boz and Chilli delivered TLC’s hallmark to 60,000 mourning fans.”

8. “The band would survive bankruptcy and near terminal in-fighting only to have to face the tragic death of one of their musical sisters.”

7. “TLC was nearly swept away by crushing waves of heartbreak and and illness.”

6. “Lisa and Chilli stayed in Nebraska.”

5. “That’s the addition. Now here’s the subtraction.”

4. “But first, TLC burns up the charts and Lisa burns down the house.”

3. “In December 2005, Tiffany “Oh So Crispy” Baker was declared the winner.

2. “Later, the girls go broke.”

1. “Back at the house she stumbled upon 20 boxes of tennis shoes. Convinced he hadn’t ordered any for her, she snapped.”

(Reminder: You can watch this “Behind The Music” here.)

Previously in series: You, Me And “Star Trek: The Next Generation”

Bobby Finger and Lindsey Weber want you to turn on channel 5 because Lisa burned the house down.

“The online stranger is the great boogeyman of the information age; in the mid-2000s, media reports might have had you believe that MySpace was essentially an easily-searchable catalogue of fresh victims for serial killers, rapists, cyberstalkers, and Tila Tequila…. [But] Internet friendship yields a connection that is selfconsciously pointless and pointed at the same time: Out of all of the millions of bullshitters on the World Wide Web, we somehow found each other, liked each other enough to bullshit together, and built our own Fortress of Bullshit. The majority of my interactions with online friends is perpetuating some injoke so arcane that nobody remembers how it started or what it actually means. Perhaps that proves the op-ed writers’ point, but this has been the pattern of my friendships since long before I first logged onto AOL, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Unless he is actually the Terminator, alleged maniacal killer and ex-LAPD cop Christopher Dorner died yesterday in a burning vacation cabin near the Southern California mountain resort town of Big Bear. And for the first time in probably forever, Big Bear is at the top of the news. As often happens when little-known places make the headlines, cable news hosts struggled to understand the mysterious place — did it have access to television or the Internet? — and people on Twitter mocked the confusion of the cable news hosts, while Big Bear residents used Twitter to say things like, “I was literally looking at the house Chris Dorner was at from the top of the mtn.” (And then the cops tried to shut down Twitter.)

So what is Big Bear? Are there bears? Do they have the Internet and the teevee, so far away from Los Angeles? Here is all you need to know:

What other famous things happened in and around Big Bear Lake?

If you’ve ever enjoyed the Sid and Marty Krofft freakout kids’ show “H.R. Pufnstuf,” you’ve seen the forested mountain landscape around Big Bear Lake. It’s where “Jimmy,” played by a hard-drinking child actor, dances around with a talking flute, before a witch lures him onto a living boat that takes him to an island filled with monsters.

The bizarre Clint Eastwood/Lee Marvin musical western, Paint Your Wagon, was also filmed at Big Bear Lake. Like most scenic natural areas within a few hours drive of Los Angeles, Big Bear also served as the location for many period shows of the 1950s and 1960s, including “Old Yeller” and “Bonanza.” And it’s where the brilliant computer scientist who prevents World War III is found in seclusion, in the important Cold War drama War Games.

Are there bears?

The majestic California Grizzly — the golden bear on the state flag — was hunted to extinction in the area by 1908. Black bears were reintroduced to the transverse mountain ranges of Southern California in the 1930s, and these animals are occasionally seen digging through garbage dumpsters for discarded hamburger and burrito remains.

Do famous Hollywood people go to Big Bear?

No. Like the other once-glamorous getaways within driving distance of the Hollywood entertainment industry, it was fashionable 70 years ago. Today, it’s all very middle-class and down-market and worn out the way old resort towns tend to get after a century of abuse by real-estate developers and other hucksters. Famous people do not go where the working people go, so you’ll mostly see weekenders from Southern California. There’s a sad little zoo, and a lot of chain restaurants. Because the town was primarily developed in the 1950s, there are few sidewalks. Traffic jams are common on three-day weekends, as people go back and forth between restaurants and vacation cabins on the one main road that curves along the lake’s south shore.

Nothing but chain restaurants? Really?

The best restaurant in town, as of now, is a tiny Italian place tucked into the back of the bowling alley building. It’s called Sweet Basil Bistro, and it’s always busy on weekends. Make a reservation. It is decent and tasty food, but the Yelp reviews note that this isn’t something you’d be excited about in Los Feliz or Venice.

Otherwise, there are some family-owned mountain-themed diners. The best of these is the Teddy Bear Restaurant (the bear theme is persistent up here), with the “grilled cheese bar” of interest to vegetarians and the breakfasts all pretty good. But there are big lines on Saturday and Sunday mornings, so just get there by 9 a.m. or so, and you won’t have a wait. Everyone in line will have a terrible hangover, which is also why they can’t get out the door for breakfast before 9:30 a.m. (There is not a lot to do in Big Bear at night beyond “drink in your cabin.”)

Due south of town, there is a beautiful and remote wilderness around San Gorgonio, the 11,499-foot monster mountain that towers over Southern California. You need a permit to hike up here, but they can often be picked up in person from the Barton Flats ranger station. You’ll also need a “Forest Adventure Pass” or the combination National Parks/Federal Lands pass to hang on your rearview when parking at the trailheads. This is wild country, nearly as spectacular as the Sierra Nevada, especially in springtime when the alpine meadows are in bloom and the creeks are flowing.

What is there to do, besides being a crazy murderer playing Rambo with the LAPD and sheriff’s deputies?

In wintertime, there is cheap snow skiing. It’s a fine place to learn how to ski. I learned to ski here as a kid in the 1980s and it was awesome, especially because I’d never seen a “real” ski destination at that point. The rest of the year, you can hike in the beautiful pine forests. There’s a lot of aspen and oaks in the lower elevations, for Fall color.

The lake is fairly gross, although it’s pretty from a distance. It’s full of motorboats and all the related garbage and smell and trashy people (goatees, “rap rock”) who come with the weekend motorboat scene. Remember, too, that Big Bear Lake is in San Bernardino County, near the bankrupt Inland Empire slum of San Bernardino and the vast foreclosure sprawl of the Inland Empire.

What did Raymond Chandler have to say about this place?

Like many Hollywood people, Chandler used to come up to Big Bear for the cooler weather in the summertime. He and his wife Cissy often stayed in a rental cabin here to escape L.A. heat waves. (The Chandlers wintered in nearby Palm Springs.) And it is Big Bear Lake that appears, barely disguised, in his novel The Lady in the Lake. Chandler was cynical about the place, but he also loved it enough to return seasonally for many decades.

And here, in a few paragraphs from that 1944 novel, we get a wonderful picture of World War II-era Big Bear Lake, which seems not very different from the Big Bear of today:

The road skimmed along a high granite outcrop and dropped to meadows of coarse grass in which grew what was left of the wild irises and white and purple lupine and bugle flowers and’ columbine and penny-royal and desert paintbrush. Tall yellow pines probed at the clear blue sky. The road dropped again to lake level and the landscape began to be full of girls in gaudy slacks and snoods and peasant handkerchiefs and rat rolls and fat-soled sandals and fat white thighs. People on bicycles wobbled cautiously over the highway and now and then an anxious-looking bird thumped past on a power scooter.

A mile from the village the highway was joined by another lesser road which curved back into the mountains. A rough wooden sign under the highway sign said: Little Fawn Lake 1 3/4 miles. I took it. Scattered cabins were perched along the slopes for the first mile and then nothing. Presently another very narrow road debouched from this one and another rough wooden sign said: Little Fawn Lake. Private Road. No Trespassing.

I turned the Chrysler into this and crawled carefully around huge bare granite rocks and past a little waterfall and through a maze of black oak trees and ironwood and manzanita and silence. A bluejay squawked on a branch and a squirrel scolded at me and beat one paw angrily on the pine cone it was holding. A scarlet-topped woodpecker stopped probing in the dark long enough to look at me with one beady eye and then dodge behind the tree trunk to look at me with the other one. I came to a five-barred gate and another sign.

Across the lake the long way by the road and the short way by the top of the dam a large redwood cabin overhung the water and farther along, each well separated from the others, were two others cabins. All three were shut up and quiet, with drawn curtains.

Raymond Chandler, everybody. This is how to write. It is also the best description you’ll read of the end-of-the-line cabin where Christopher Dorner barbecued himself yesterday, probably after putting a bullet through his brain. (A pro puts the barrel in his mouth, so there’s no way for the weapon to slip when the trigger is awkwardly pulled from the wrong direction.)

Dorner died — again, if he’s really dead and not Wolverine or something — in a little vacation cabin like the ones where Chandler used to stay, like the ones where hundreds of thousands of SoCal families and couples have escaped for a weekend out of the smog, protected by the tall pines from the Santa Ana winds making everybody crazier down in the city, in the sprawl of the L.A. basin.

Ken Layne is a frequent visitor to the San Bernardino Mountains, and lives 20 miles east of Barton Flats in the High Desert. Photo by his wife.

“Over 4,000 ‘Harlem Shake’ Videos Are Uploaded to YouTube Every Day”

Appearing here Wednesdays, Turning The Screw provides existential crisis counseling for the faint of heart. “Because bitterness becomes you!”

Dear Polly,

As Neil Gaiman astutely pointed out, you often don’t realize you have a migraine until it’s way too late. I have now been with my husband for more than half of my life, and a couple of years ago I realized that I don’t actually love him. Or even really like him very much.

Our relationship has never been easy, but for years I had blamed it on Things That Could Be Fixed — lingering distrust from long-ago infidelities, the typical working family’s imbalance of housework, a mismatch in communication styles. However, multiple attempts at couples’ therapy have never brought more than a modest thaw. It’s ,starting to hit me that there is something deeper going on.

We first got together when he was 17 and I was 15, going through my rebellious phase. We were inseparable: cutting classes to smoke weed and screw in his rad Buick Skyhawk. He was a too-cool-for-school stoner and I was a smart girl trying to fit in with everyone and no one. Inseparable soon turned into codependent. In retrospect, I was so terrified of being alone that I was blind to some serious problems: a complete and total mismatch in Life Goals and Ambitions, for one thing. (I have big ideas and I work my ass off to make them happen, while he seems content drifting along.) A pretty big gap in sexual desire, for another. (He has it, I have less. Or maybe I’m just not attracted to him. Hard to say.) I was thoroughly convinced that I enjoyed his company and all the things we did together.

However, 15 years later I’m discovering that I’m a terrible judge of my own desires: I can’t trust my own judgment between what I actually enjoy and what I think I should be enjoying. For example, I used to smoke tons of weed, then I quit, then I tried it again and realized I really hated how it made me feel. Then I realized that I had never actually liked how I felt when I was stoned, but I really liked the idea of myself as someone who smoked lots of weed. If that makes any sense whatsoever.

The tipping point (in my relationship with weed and with my husband, funnily enough) was the arrival of our baby. At some point it dawned on me that I felt very different saying “I love you” to my daughter versus saying “I love you” to my husband. With my husband, I always, always had this little doubting voice saying, “Are you sure? Is this what love feels like? I really do love him, right? Things are fine, right?” I remember having these thoughts even when I was reciting my actual wedding vows, which should have been a bright fucking scarlet flag but somehow was not. With my daughter, those nagging doubts became conspicuous by their absence.

So, fast-forward to the present. We have this terrific, beloved child. We own a beautiful house. I dearly love his family, and my family loves him. (The other night we had his mom, my parents, and a few of our neighbors over for dinner; it was a lovely time.) On a day-to-day basis, we function fairly well together: the bills mostly get paid on time, dinner gets made, the kid gets picked up from daycare, we accommodate each other’s recreational schedules. He holds down his job, he’s smart, we agree on politics most of the time; in short, he’s a really decent guy. On the other hand, there is little affection between us, little sex, a lot of tiptoeing around. There is also a fair amount of resentful and passive-aggressive mutual shaming, much of which revolves around the fact that we do not share tastes in music, food, friends, books, movies, standards of household cleanliness or personal grooming. (The short list of things we can agree on: good beer, macaroni and cheese, Stephen Colbert.)

If it were a hundred years ago, I would count myself among the luckiest women on earth; instead, I’m eaten up with resentment and self-flagellation and the fear of being alone and the fear of never being alone again.

A couple of years ago after a particularly vicious fight, I made a vow to myself that I would never again threaten to leave him unless I was really ready to do it. Since then I’ve just been keeping my head down and trying to cohabitate more or less peacefully. It sucks. Living as awful loveless roommates-with-baggage is unfair to him and to me, and it feels fundamentally dishonest.

The dilemma is whether to commit myself to making this work, somehow, or to move on. Logistically, splitting up would be pretty fucking tough: with two incomes (well, one and a half — I’m getting a degree this spring and working part-time till then) we’re barely staying afloat financially as one household. Even assuming my income increases after I graduate, becoming two households would entail actual poverty. The house we own is on land partly owned by his family, so splitting our assets would be pretty messy. And obviously, I don’t want to ruin my daughter’s life.

So as I mentioned, I don’t trust my own judgment at all. I’m at least 50% sure that I owe it to everyone involved to end it as quickly and amicably as possible, but I’m also at least 75% sure that splitting up would be a terrible mistake. I’ve been treading water for too long, and I’m sick of being a stone-cold bitch and hating myself for it. What the fuck do I do?

Torn

Dear Torn,

You met your husband when you were 15 years old, and now you’re 30, and you’ve never lost this haunting feeling that you don’t love him enough. It doesn’t really sound like your relationship is besieged by big problems (addiction, unemployment, parenting trouble). You just feel stuck.

Before I go any further, though, let me just say that I don’t think it’s fair to compare your love for your daughter with your love for your husband. We’re animals who are wired to love our children and feed them and keep them safe. They are innocent little rabbits with giant eyes and adorable high voices. (Or at least that’s how they look to us. To other people, they’re loud, grubby stinkbombs.) Our love for them is uncluttered and largely unconditional (at least until they’re teenagers and they start digging shitty bands and pointing out how lame we are every few seconds). Not only that, but there’s a period right after you have a baby when your partner just seems superfluous and clumsy, like “Stop getting in the way of my gorgeous baby, you gigantic, hairy idiot.” You still have to be careful to yield some control, let the hairy idiot into the picture, and form a family bond. If you feel that you allowed something precious between you two to sever in the wake of the baby, you should probably go back to couples’ therapy (I know) and talk about that. Even if that’s not the case, just keep in mind that love for different people (youngest kid vs. oldest kid, spouse vs. ex, mom vs. dad) isn’t comparable, and all comparisons are destined to yield guilt, confusion, and the drawing of unjust conclusions.

If the kid came between you somehow, that’s something to consider. But I’m not really hearing from you that you’re shut down and just need to warm up to him or forgive him for some bad behavior in the past, or that you’re waiting for him to show you more love or to finally understand something fundamental about your experience. Instead, it sounds like there’s a generalized contempt in your relationship, the contempt that comes from two people who feel trapped by their circumstances.

If this were the 70s, you’d be halfway to Venice Beach right now. But these days, many (most?) couples in your situation stick together until they just can’t take it anymore. That usually happens when they hit middle-age, and they start thinking about whether or not they want to spend the balance of their days on earth with someone who condescends, has a saggy ass, and can’t admit she’s wrong. (Or, who picks fights, has bad breath, and always thinks he’s right.) It’s all about attitude, of course; these insults describe pretty much anyone in their 40s. Sometimes I wake up in the morning and even after I primp and prune and paint on a better face on top of the bad one, I still look like an angry caveman who just got molested by Fancy Nancy, then run over by Big Gay Al’s Big Gay Boat Ride. That’s when I feel really fucking sorry for my husband. (Also because I stink and I hog the guacamole and I talk to the dogs like they’re people [important executive-type people] and I have back fat [fuck me!] and I am only going to get uglier and uglier until I get sick and die some day.) He’s seven years older than me, but because he’s a man and we’re all soaking in this wretched sexist tween-girl-loving American fucktwat culture, to me he still looks youngish and sexy and I look like somebody’s overweight, cross-dressing uncle.

But you know what’s nice? He thinks I look great. When I look in the mirror, I see flatulent sea monster, but he sees juicy slice of ass steak. (Objectification, snowflakes. It Keeps A Marriage Strong.) He thinks that he’s a creaky old sad sack with bad knees (And he is kind of whiny shit about his stupid knees. You think we’re all not in constant pain? Shut up about it already). He thinks he’s gross but I see him and I wonder, “What is this super-hot guy doing in my hairy house with me, a wizened, hormonally-addled ogre?”

And THAT, my friends, is exactly what you want to be asking yourself as you get older and uglier and even older and soooo much uglier, uglier, uglier until you fucking die a painful death in your wonderful spouse’s exhausted arms. As you grow old, you want to be standing next to some witty, spicy-hot man who can’t tell that you’re transforming into a horsey, weathered demon with circular thoughts and ass trouble before his eyes. I know that sounds super fucking romantic, and you know what? It IS. My husband and I bicker occasionally, but we really like and love each other, and when you feel that way (and you try to be as honest and as generous in spirit as possible, about every fucking stupid thing), you tend to enjoy each other more and more as the years go by.

I’m telling you this not because I love to gloat (although, I do) but because I’ve been in Pretty Good and Just OK and Pretty Bad relationships, and in the Pretty Bad ones, I knew the whole time it sucked but “working on things” was our little way of punishing ourselves, like trying to lose that last 5 pounds when you look better not-skinny anyway. If you believe, in your heart, that you will never, ever get there with your husband, then you should listen to your heart. (And look, I’m not talking to those of you with perfectly great husbands who need a good talking-to and then they’ll stop being dipshits about a few crucial things [not all things, of course] and maybe then you’ll have sex a little more often and everything will look brighter because, at some basic level, you really do love and care about each other, and things are generally improving, or they will if you put a little energy into it anyway.) If you feel pretty clear that this marriage is not going to improve even if you go to some amazing marriage retreat and fall back in love and have great sex again and learn to overlook books and music (because, ppfftt, who cares?), then I say take a step in a new direction. You’re so young. Maybe you’d rather be alone, and eventually date or not, and maybe someday you’ll fall in love and feel great about it, really, truly great, without nagging doubts clouding shit up every single day of your life.

By the way, it’s pretty crucial to me that you’re not talking about finding someone else. Because even though I’m saying that finding the right partner is a world apart from finding the not-quite-right partner, I don’t think it’s smart to leave a marriage in search of an upgrade. I guess it’s tough to scrape that thought from your mind sometimes, but in general, the promise of falling in love and having great sex isn’t a good enough reason to scrap 15 years and a kid and a house and intertwined families with someone who’s really great but not very exciting. That’s why cheating is so fucking obnoxious and screwy — it distorts the facts on the ground, makes it look like there’s a beautiful, verdant land waiting for you, one with nothing but laughter and hot sex and someone who LOVES YOU FOR YOU! Rarely does that particular fantasy play out according to plan, and indulging it before you extract yourself from your marriage (or even focusing on it while you extract yourself) can really end in ruin. You aren’t even talking about the prospect of another husband. You’re just saying: Maybe being alone would be better than this.

Do people regret divorcing their perfectly acceptable husbands who they maybe don’t really like anymore? I think they sometimes do. I know a woman who met her husband when she was really young, had an affair after 20 years together, dumped him, and now he’s remarried to a younger woman and she says she regrets leaving him. She hates what she put them through and misses their life together. Will you miss your life together? I’m sure you will. How much will you miss it? Do you feel strong enough to tolerate a few years of that? Is it too awful to contemplate living in a small place and supporting yourself? Cutting back on a lot of stuff? Eating potatoes a lot? You don’t strike me as someone who, over the years, wouldn’t warm to your circumstances, make the best of it, paint the walls bright colors, plant a little garden and feel happier in your own humble space. If I were you, I would construct a vision of what you might want, and a budget for that, and mull that over a little. Try to extract the fear from the picture and see if you can’t view it in a positive light.

I know that the guilt around your kid must be crushing. But I don’t see what good it is to grow up with parents who are grumpy and don’t enjoy each other’s company. I was pretty frightened and sad when I was very little, because my parent’s were really ugly to each other. After they got divorced, my life improved substantially. My parents seemed much happier, we had more fun, and day-to-day life improved dramatically.

Again, if there’s any part of you that suspects that you could revive some lost spark or enjoy each other’s company more, you should work on that first. If you’re not totally sure, you should go to couple’s therapy again and sift around a little, even if it’s painful and repetitive. Don’t picture a little house of your own without also picturing rediscovering your feelings for your husband and making more space in your current house for YOU. Try on both possibilities. Keep an open mind.

If that feels impossible or fails, you could try to broach the subject without blame. “I love you and care about you, but do we really want to live this way for the rest of our lives? Do you think this is best for our kid, and for us?” I can’t say enough how important it is that you keep your head in this conversation and avoid saying a single blaming thing, no matter how pissed off he is. Mistakes were made on both sides. Keep this thought in mind at all times: “This is my very nice, responsible husband and friend. His heart is breaking.” He is entitled to get angry, cast blame and many other varieties of hard-to-handle shit. Just be patient and see if you can’t stay as positive and kind as possible without being a robot. “Imagine that we could raise Junior separately, and be really good friends. Wouldn’t that be better? This is a horribly sad thing, but it doesn’t have to be torturous for everyone involved.”

Then expect it to be torturous. But stay positive and kind.

I don’t know you well enough to know that this is your best move. It’s just so fucking complicated, and you never know how you’ll feel once the wheels start turning and you’re broke and panicked and you hate splitting custody with your husband and his adorable new wife. Being a divorced mom most definitely sucks in an infinite variety of ways, and maybe you should look around online and read about the ins and outs of that, at the very least to avoid common pitfalls from the outset. There are so many reasons NOT to get divorced — very, very good reasons.

But I keep coming back to this: You’re young and you’ve tried hard and it’s never been that good and you have a lot of years left to paint a new picture. And I think you sound pretty solid, and pretty committed to not fucking with him or standing in the way of his chances at happiness, separate from you. You might be able to convince him of this, but only if you talk through it when you’re not angry. (Don’t talk at night, or when one of you has just messed something up, or when you feel anxious.) If you think it would be better, try to see a couples’ therapist. Stay open, but be honest about your agenda if you can. Work hard to make space for his perspective.

And try not to feel guilty for how you feel. Sometimes guilt can keep you from seeing how much you actually love a person. Sometimes it can keep you from seeing how much you want to start a new life without that person. Go to therapy alone if you can swing it, in addition to whatever you decide to do as a couple. (There are sliding-scale therapists out there, you just have to be firm about how much you can afford.)

You can love your husband and your daughter and want the best for them and want the best for you at the same time. Take the risk of imagining all of you living happily, whether you’re separate or together. It’s not impossible.

Best of luck.

Polly

Previously: Ask Polly: Why Are People Such Assholes?

Are you happier than ever, but still not nearly happy enough? Write to Polly and fix everything!

Heather Havrilesky (aka Polly Esther) is The Awl’s existential advice columnist. She’s also a regular contributor to The New York Times Magazine, and is the author of the memoir Disaster Preparedness (Riverhead 2011). She blogs here about scratchy pants, personality disorders, and aged cheeses. Photo by Stéfan.

• “Don’t you miss the time of love letters, mostly at school? The face of love was so tangible and inseparable from pen and paper. The poor chap whose heart was bleeding in love, often took his time and chose his words carefully on what was always attractive on paper.”
• “People want to go back to the day where you’re sitting at a coffee shop, make eye contact and there is this mysterious moment where you don’t know each other.”
• “I miss the days before everyone was offering their raw assholes on Grindr or whatever you’re on.”

Photo by john_worsley_uk, via Flickr

“Half of all pigs live in China — and well over half of them eat feed laced with antibiotic ‘growth promoters’. Now Chinese and US researchers have found that this practice is spawning a tide of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.”

Unrealistic beauty expectations are nothing new: Julia Pastrana was known in life as the “world’s ugliest woman,” and her husband made money from this by taking her around to circuses and theaters as a curiosity. He even bought advertising in the New York Times calling his spouse a “link between mankind and the ourang-outang.” After Julia Pastrana’s death in 1860, he carted her corpse around the world for years, so people could see why he called the “bear woman.” Her remains were eventually abandoned in Norway.

The story of her sad life and strange appearance — she was apparently born with the condition called hypertrichosis — is making the news again because what’s left of her has been re-buried in Mexico, where she was born in 1834. Yesterday, her long-abandoned remains were re-interred outside of Sinaloa, her birthplace. Why now? Because New York artist Laura Anderson Barbata began a campaign to return Pastrana to her native land. How is this not a biopic? Who will play Julia Pastrana?

“A West Yorkshire abattoir has been accused of passing off horsemeat as beef for kebabs and burgers.” RELATED: “Subscribe to Horse & Hound print magazine and save £50 over the year% — now includes iPad edition at no extra cost!”