“Sing me your tears, mockingbird, a mere 10 years, dancing on this earth, the sensitive boy, in the front row, with golden parents, flanking him, feels the emotions, of the novelist’s words, feels the actor’s hard work, behind the scenes, feels the injustice of a system that is broken. He’s the hope, he’s the vision of a new narrative, a new paradigm.”
As he read the poem, I kept Victor’s advice top of mind: “You only have five to 10 minutes.” So I asked Frank if he’d text me the poem, which he did. Then he asked me if I’d keep in touch. I was dropped off first and Frank disappeared into the night.
With congestion pricing in full effect in New York, and a limited budget for this adventure, I knew Frank was my best shot at a real rideshare date. So even though our age difference would typically be a red flag, I decided to go for it. We texted back and forth for a while, and in our exchanges I learned that he’s the kind of guy who spends his evenings writing letters by the fire and awkwardly uses emoticons. Normally I’d consider that strikes two and three, yet for the sake of my art, I still asked him out. He agreed, then ultimately ghosted, much like Nathan who by the end of the third season of Insecure got rebranded from Lyft Bae to Ghost Bae.
Overall, I have no regrets. I may have not found “the one” or even “the one for now,” but over those 11 rides I became bolder, more assertive, and better at pushing myself outside of my comfort zone. This weekend I even chatted up a Seth Cohen lookalike at a bar—and my DMs are officially open for business.
For those of you looking to find love in the backseat, I have a few final pieces of advice: As with dating in general, your odds will always be higher at night; people are more relaxed, less focused on work or their to-do list for the day. Try to find something in the car you can both bond over. Maybe it’s the music, something you pass by, or even their jacket. If you’re on the introverted side, talk to the driver first and fold your co-rider into that conversation, instead of trying to talk one-on-one.
But above all—heed Victor’s advice. A rideshare doesn’t last forever, even in midtown traffic.
Samantha Leach is an assistant culture editor at Glamour. Follow her on Twitter @_sleach.
Side effects of the implant: The implant comes with the usual list of potential side effects: namely, breast tenderness and headaches related to the hormones. You may also notice mood swings and decreased sex drive, according to the Mayo Clinic. “The most common side effect is unpredictable bleeding,” says Dr. Bryant. “Most women will overall have lighter bleeding in a month, but more days of spotting.” Some women—about a 25 percent, she says—stop having a period altogether while around 20 percent actually experience more bleeding.
How to know if it’s right for you: “This is great for women who want to avoid a pelvic exam, don’t like the idea of something in their uterus, and would like a really simple, forgettable form of birth control,” says Dr. Bryant. “It’s reversible, so if it turns out it’s not right for you, you can always have it removed and try something else.” The implant is effective for three years.
The Ring
How the ring works: Like the pill and the patch, the ring—a rubbery circle that looks a bit like a hair-tie—works by blocking ovulation with estrogen and progesterone. “The patient puts the ring in her vagina once a month and the hormones get absorbed,” says Heather Beall, M.D., a board-certified OB-GYN in Illinois.
Effectiveness of the ring: The ring is 91 percent effective, according to the CDC.
Side effects of the ring: The ring has similar side effects to the pill and other hormonal birth control methods—a little spotting or breakthrough bleeding in the first few months is common.
How to know if the ring is right for you: The ring has a lower dose of estrogen (only 15 micrograms) than most versions of the pill, so if you’re worried about hormonal birth control, the ring might be a more attractive option. Plus, it’s effective immediately: “Once the ring is in, it is working,” says Dr. Beall.
Condoms
How condoms work: “Condoms work by providing a barrier to prevent the sperm from entering the uterus, thus preventing pregnancy,” says Dr. Beall. “Some condoms also have a spermicide coating that kills the sperm and adds more pregnancy prevention.” Importantly, they’re also the only form of birth control that helps prevent STIs.
Effectiveness of condoms: Condoms leave a lot of room for user error—slippage, breakage, not using one every time. With that in mind, the CDC estimates they’re only 82 percent effective at preventing pregnancy.
Side effects of condoms: The upside? Condoms are relatively side effect-free. “They may decrease sexual pleasure for some, and can interfere with intercourse to put it on,” says Dr. Bryant. “Some people have allergies or irritation from the materials or lubricants on condoms.”
How to know when condoms are right for you: “For most young people who really don’t want to be pregnant, they should also use a second means of pregnancy prevention,” says Dr. Beall. In other words, unless you’re okay with an accident, don’t rely on condoms as your first line of defense against pregnancy.
You shouldalways use them for protection from sexually transmitted infections, however.
The “Morning After Pill”
How emergency contraception works: The “morning after pill,” which is available at most pharmacies, works by preventing or delaying ovulation. This is not an abortion pill. If an egg has already been fertilized, emergency contraception won’t do anything.
Effectiveness of emergency contraception: With that in mind, time is of the essence with emergency contraception; the sooner you use it, the more effective it, says Dr. Beall. “It can be used within 72 hours of unprotected sex or contraception failure (like a broken condom),” she says. In that window, it’s about 80 percent effective.
Meghan Markle received so much love today (January 14) about her baby on-the-way during her visit to Birkenhead, England—so much love that she spilled some tea to well-wishers. We reported this morning the Duchess of Sussex revealed exactly when her and Prince Harry’s first child is expected to arrive (end of April, early May). Now, she’s talking about the baby’s sex.
Before you get too excited: No, Markle didn’t confirm if she’s having a boy or girl. Rather, she told a fan that she and Prince Harry are opting to keep the baby’s sex a surprise until she gives birth.
This fan, a 9-year-old girl from Rock Ferry, told People magazine, “Meghan came up to me and asked me how old I was and where I went to school. I could see her bump and I asked if she was having a boy or a girl and she said, ‘We don’t know whether it’s a boy or girl, we are keeping it as a surprise.’”
PHOTO: Getty Images
Markle and Prince Harry choosing to stay in the dark about this actually follows royal protocol. “Traditionally, the royal couple does not learn the sex of the baby until the birth,” Myka Meier, founder and director of Beaumont Etiquette, tells Glamour. “Beside the people in the delivery room, it’s tradition that the queen is first to be told of the new arrival via phone call. While there are many royal baby traditions that have been broken in recent generations—such as Princess Diana being the first to birth a royal baby outside of a palace and, instead, in a hospital—saving sex reveal for the day of birth is likely one that will stay for generations to come.”
Looks like we’ll all have to wait a few months to learn anything definitive about Markle’s royal baby.
Every so often, you might find yourself in a style rut—not quite the “full closet, nothing to wear” phenomenon, but more like an inescapable feeling that your closet feels stale. The colors feel less vibrant, those “statement pieces” less exciting… Simply buying something new won’t cut it: You need a new perspective to guide you. That’s why street style and social media have become so valuable in the fashion world, providing fresh inspiration from outside your immediate surroundings. You might even start picking out your favorite faces among the crowds or feeds. Well, even those stylish people have the accounts they turn to when they’re in need of new ideas. So we asked them—the bloggers, stylists, and models that appear on your fashion mood boards—to tell us who they look to when they’re hunting for ways to invigorate their wardrobes. Ahead, they share the pages that help them bring out the best in their closets and personal style, all of which make for great follows in 2019.
This Is Us closed out the first half of season three with not one, not two, but three major cliffhangers for the beloved Pearsons.
After nearly a year of guessing, viewers found out that the “her” in question in the future is actually Rebecca, not Beth or Kate. “The reveal is one piece of the larger picture in terms of what happened with our family as we move through the rest of the series,” executive producer and co-showrunner Elizabeth Berger tells Glamour.com.
However, what wasn’t revealed was the state of Beth’s marriage to Randall or Kate’s marriage to Toby. Considering that both Randall and Toby aren’t wearing wedding rings in the future, what does that mean for the fan-favorite couples? “Everyone is going to have to see what becomes of them,” Berger teases.
And if that wasn’t enough to make viewers sweat, then the big reveal that Nicky Pearson is actually alive most certainly did. “Yes, there’s a lot going on,” executive producer and co-showrunner Isaac Aptaker says. “I can promise we’ll have some very satisfying answers in the immediate episodes when the show returns. It’s worth it.”
Until then, Aptaker and Berger do their best to explain everything that went down in tonight’s fall finale, and where the show will pick up in the new year.
PHOTO: NBC
Glamour: Nicky is alive! Who is the actor that plays him as an older man? It actually looked like it could be Milo Ventimiglia, but perhaps wearing prosthetics.
Isaac Aptaker: That’s top secret! But I promise you it’s not Milo with prosthetics. However, we’ll get the full story on older Nicky very, very soon. We’re going to be along with Kevin as he’s on this quest, with this little nugget of information he’s been given, to try and figure out what the story of his uncle was, and his whereabouts in the present day. We’re going to pick up on this right away, so fans won’t have to wait months and months. ‘All about Nicky ‘will be told by the end of the season.
Bradford, Pennsylvania (where Nicky now lives) is about a four-hour drive from Pittsburgh, so what significance does that town hold?
Elizabeth Berger: You may be seeing some version of that drive in the near future!
Aptaker: Bradford is actually a town where my mom grew up, and I’ve been there once, and it felt like exactly where I would have imagined Nicky would have settled down.
Is that how you decided on Bradford, PA then?
Aptaker: Yeah, well we knew the type of place, and I was like, ‘Actually, I’ve been somewhere that I think is perfect!’
What should viewers take away from the quick glimpse we got into Nicky’s life? Obviously we see him living a rather reclusive existence, and there is a bottle of alcohol on the table.
Berger: Obviously we’re not showing too much, but I think in the brief glimpse that we get, it’s someone that is living somewhat of a solitary existence, and like Isaac said, when we return we’ll find out the full story very quickly.
Is Nicky past the point of being able to acclimate himself into the Pearson family in the present day? Is he past the point of being saved?
Berger: That is a very good question. And knowing the type of family that the Pearsons are, you can guess that the Pearsons are probably going to want him to try and acclimate, and probably not be able to stay away once some of them learn about his existence. I think we’re going to be finding someone that has been living a very specific type of lifestyle, and there may be limitations there in terms of what he can do.
When might he meet some of the other Pearsons?
Aptaker: Kevin is pretty determined to get to the bottom of this story. He bought two tickets to Vietnam, so it’s all-consuming for him. I think it’s a matter of how long does it take to being told from a hotel clerk that your uncle is alive to actually tracking him down. I can promise that we’ll have some very satisfying answers in the immediate episodes that we come back with.
PHOTO: NBC
When did Milo first find out that Nicky was going to be alive, and what was his reaction?
Berger: We crafted our whole Vietnam arc [prior to] the beginning of the season and so as soon as we figure everything out, we let the actors in on it so they know the larger scope of what they’re playing. And I think he dug it. Milo loves the time period and he’s been having an amazing time working with Michael [Angarano, who plays Nicky].
Aptaker: He and Michael already knew each other and had worked on a project together, so they had a brother dynamic down so quickly. I went to their first day on set, which was that scene where Jack is working at the autobody shop and they are waiting to see the draft, and they felt like brothers instantly. They just had this dynamic that was so perfect.
What can you say about the Vietnamese woman? We obviously didn’t get the answers to who she is, but will we? How much emphasis should we put into who this woman is?
Aptaker: Honestly not a ton. For us, that was more a story of how, in life, you think you’re pursuing one thing, but it leads you to a much larger question that you didn’t even know you should be asking. In a little bit of a way, she was a MacGuffin [Ed note: essentially a red herring]. She was certainly important to Jack and they had that connection, but Kevin thought there was going to be this great, salacious love story with maybe an illegitimate child, and it turned out that ultimately this was more a story about brothers that he didn’t even realize.
Berger: But we will be learning a bit more about what happens with her in the past. Obviously, we still have so many questions about what happened actually during the rest of Jack and Nicky’s time together, and she obviously is involved [in their lives], so we will be getting a satisfying answer there in that time period.
Let’s move on to the question everyone has had since the season two finale: Who is “her” in the future? We finally see Beth in the future, so we know it’s not her. But when Beth says she’s going to visit Randall’s mother—thereby answering who “her” is—my first thought was that she was referring to his birth mother, and not Rebecca. Did you purposely want to make it unclear about which mother she was going to see?
Aptaker: You’re the second person that brought this up, especially because we thought, ‘Let’s just try to be really clear for once about who ‘her’ is!’ I guess we weren’t! That was not us trying to be clever. So [when Beth says she’s going to visit] Randall’s birth mother, she’s referring to Rebecca.
That makes sense,because otherwise why would older Randall call up older Toby (as he did in the season three premiere) to say “She wants you there, Toby,” if he was talking about his birth mother and not Rebecca.
Aptaker: That’s hilarious. Yes, we can answer the question that “her” is Rebecca, so that no longer has to be looming over people. And also, Beth is OK [in the future]. She has survived and is healthy and thriving in the future.
And as sad as it is knowing Rebecca is probably not doing well, at least we know that, for the most part, she has lived a long, healthy life. Is she in her eighties?
Berger: Yeah. Yes, that is true. There wasn’t some untimely death here, and this reveal is giving one piece of the larger picture, in terms of what happened with our family as we move through the rest of the series. It’s one little piece in terms of the larger plan that we’ve had in our minds since the beginning.
This must be hard for Tess, too, especially after seeing the touching scene she shared with Rebecca about her coming out.
Aptaker: Exactly. As young Tess was coming of age, Rebecca was clearly becoming such an important person in her life, and they developed a strong bond over the years and that would make it particularly painful for Tess to see Rebecca in whatever circumstance she may be in.
PHOTO: NBC
Speaking of the future, what kind of solace can you give to Beth and Randall and Katoby fans? Now we’ve seen both Randall and Toby not wearing wedding rings in the future, so either you guys have something against wedding rings or both men are not with their present-day spouses. This is very disturbing.
Aptaker, jokingly: In our future, jewelry is outlawed.
Berger: I think we can’t say too much on it. We have two incredibly strong, lovable couples that are going to be put through the pieces, and everyone is going to have to wait and see what becomes of them.
So should fans automatically not assume that Beth and Randall are divorced or separated?
Aptaker: I think you have to look at those scenes and make what assumptions and connections and guesses you want to make, because I would say we certainly haven’t shown them in any sort of affectionate, married way yet. We only know these very limited, very intentional moments that are [playing out] every so often, and it could certainly go either way.
Berger: I don’t think people should assume the best or worst. They’re just going to have to go on this journey with us a little longer.
There’s no way Beth and Randall split up over their argument involving his political future, right? They’re too strong of a couple for that.
Aptaker: I certainly don’t think they’re splitting up over that argument, but we’re over a decade into the future, so a lot can go right or wrong in the marriage in that much time.
PHOTO: NBC/Ron Batzdorff
How has Beth changed in the future? What are we meant to take away from that quick glimpse of her as the boss of a dance company?
Aptaker: Exactly. I think it’s a little bit of a head-scratcher right now for us, but it’s something that we’re going to be getting into the second half of the season. We’re doing an all-Beth episode that we’ll be starting to shoot in a week or two that will really dive into her backstory and give us a lot of answers about who Beth was before she met Randall. Once we explore that backstory, the future flash[forward] will start to make a lot more sense.
In the future, Beth’s assistant hands her a Pin the Tail on the Donkey game. Remind viewers how that played into Rebecca’s past.
Berger: It’s something that we showed in our birthday episode in season one, so the game is part of the Pearson family history.
Finally, what can you say about where we pick up in January?
Aptaker: We actually just watched the first cut of the episode and it’s a really, really cool one. We are going to pick up on election night for Randall, which is about an eight-week jump in our show. But then we’re going to go back in time. It’s one of our specially-structured episodes where we start on election night, waiting for the results to come in, and then we jump back and tell the story of those eight weeks we missed and catch up to where everybody is on election night.
This Is Us will return January 15 at 9 P.M. ET on NBC.
At Glamour’s 2018 Women of the Year Summit, Pamela Adlon, star and creator of FX’s Better Things, opened up about the art of self-acceptance. Her full speech, below.
Hi. I’m Pamela, and I have a show on FX called Better Things. One of the reasons I wanted to make a show for myself—besides wanting to have a show and making work for myself, which are both unbelievable gifts—is that I had never seen someone like me represented on television. Like…a kind of person like me. Not a pretty shiny piece of candy. Not a character out of a Kerouac novel. Just somebody like me. And my friends. The way we are. We’re a little worn in and slightly damaged.
I have always lived my life in an observational way. Make no mistake, I’m fully engaged in everything I do. I just have a tendency to stand back and look at my life with a separate lens—like an inside outsider. I’m observing. When I was younger, I used to take things very personally. I would let any kind of perceived adversity affect me in a negative way. As a kid and a teenager. As a student, school was tough for me. Jesus. I hated school. I didn’t know how to make it work for myself. As a young adult, as an actor, I tried to look a certain way—I thought about changing my name (and changing other things about myself). I worked my ass off when they would let me or when I wasn’t being fired for some of those things I just mentioned (not cute enough…no tits…).
I stopped comparing myself with others—and relaxed.
And then boom. As a mom. I would see—no, I would actually look—for the disapproving eyes or clucks of people who looked at me like, “What is that?” I was always trying to measure up as a mom. To other moms—the “robot moms,” I call them. It’s so crazy because, in my life, I was always the youngest. Which frustrated me to no end. I was the youngest and I looked so young! I couldn’t get into the clubs….And then all of a sudden, I was the oldest. I am the oldest right now. I think I’m oldest. I lied about my age to myself for so long that when I turned 50, I really didn’t know it. Until the Internet told me. (Thanks for that, by the way.)
Then something happened, which was really something quite amazing. I stopped comparing myself with others—and relaxed. Knowing that I was doing my best, as a person, as a mom, as a professional, as someone still trying to learn and educate myself. I gained muscles I never knew I could have. Never knew were in me. And when that happened, everything changed. In one word: confidence. I know that sounds like a cliche.
Now this doesn’t mean that I don’t have fear. Fear is something I never had as a younger person—well, except ultimate death. Otherwise, I was completely fearless. I was an “I don’t give a fuck” kind of no-fear person. But later…life happens. And stakes get high. And your dad dies. And babies get born. And you think, You know what? I’m not so much anymore into heights…or skiing…or roller coasters…or relationships.
PHOTO: FX Networks
Pamela Adlon on ‘Better Things’
So, boom, after years of being marginalized, well, marginalizing myself. Fired. Insecure. Being involved with a string of spectacular narcissists. Getting my body waxed.Why did I do that? Losing. Being bullied. Compartmentalized. Manipulated. Did I say fired? I found myself in a place where I had no choice but to make hard decisions. And I started to gain confidence.
It has come to my attention that people feel good and thrive when the person in charge has the ability to make decisions. And the bravery of that made the fear and paranoia go away.
Do you need a body man in life? Yes. Maybe…that would be nice. But, you really don’t. You can find that in your friends and your family and your trusted coworkers. (I mean, the ones you trust—not the ones who suck.) You ‘gotta Keep passionate and stay focused. If it feels like hard work, keep going. You’re on the right track.
When my daughters had a problem at school or in life. I taught them to advocate for themselves. Other than that, I don’t have a limit for my daughters. Except Nazi porn. That’s my one line. Also, they know they need to make their own paper. Make their own futures. Pave their own way. They want to. They’re driven to do it. I say yes to my kids. I say yes to their friends. And it’s the best, because they all want to be home. At our house. I used to fantasize about getting away from my kids and having time on my own. Now that they are all almost grown, I just look for any opportunity I can to be with them and make myself available to them.
All of us have some huge childhood burden bag of shit that we carry around. So…OK. Good. You can acknowledge it and you don’t have to be defined by it or where you came from. Or what happened to you. That shapes you, but you’re in charge of who you are. It’s called damage control. If you sit in a dark box and wait for the phone to ring, you’re waiting for your future to come to you. It doesn’t work that way anymore. You have to look for windows of opportunity and understand they are precious. And few and far between.
Get out of your comfort zone and you will grow and get stronger. The journey is the reward.
Feeling like nobody is gonna care about your story—that held me back for a while. And then I finally started to write it all down. And all of the things that plagued me my whole life got woven into my show. And I thought, ‘Well, this is my story, and people can watch and say, “I wanna see how she does it. I want to see her color and hear her sound.”
Fear and doubt will break you. If you bear down and get the hard work down you neck, it’s gonna pay off. Every single path will lead you to the place you were meant to be and, hopefully, want to be.
My dad used to say, “Shake the cocktail.” He meant it as it applied to his writing. It applies to everything. Even if it feels too hard to get out, make a shift. Change feet, shake the cocktail—it’s always worth it. Get out of your comfort zone and you will grow and get stronger. The journey is the reward. And don’t ever think that once you’ve made it, you can rest on your laurels.
There are no laurels.
My name is Pamela. I have my period, I’m going through menopause, and I have a beard. And I approve this message.
Find out more about Glamour‘s 2018 Women of the Year here.
