The depression that gets to one after reading this article — Abuse Took Years to Ignite Belgian Clergy Inquiry — is at least somewhat relieved by reading this one, Church of England Paves the Way for Women Bishops. So I recommend engaging with them in that order, and then taking deep, restorative breaths.
Or avoid thinking about how religion often makes people’s lives worse instead of better altogether by getting away from the computer. Go to PortSide in Red Hook, Brooklyn (near to which, on August 3rd, you can watch Jaws on the water.) Read a strikingly good book, or several.
Play pinochle. Eat something delicious. See Bernadette Peters & Elaine Stritch together on Broadway.
Plan a drunken Popsicle party in Prospect Park. See writer-who’ll-change-your-world David Mitchell live at BookCourt. Watch pretty, joyous people kissing or a hot, dangerous woman kick ass.
Jon Hamm is helpful, in Mad Men and in person:
W: Rebecca, in stories earlier this year about the breakup of Sam Mendes and Kate Winslet—
Hall: Oh, you’re going to do that, are you?
W: —your name was mentioned in a way that implicated you in the breakup of their marriage. Is there any accuracy to that perception?
Hall: No.
Hamm: The reality is that I broke them up.
Hall: Jon Hamm was sleeping with Sam Mendes.
W: Wow. Does a sex tape exist?
Hamm: Does it? He directed it. It’s beautiful.
Oh Jon. You can Hamm me anytime.
At any rate, that’s how I’m getting by.