Hasta La Gadget!

To be queer is to be an underdog. To be queer is to be an outsider at perpetual odds with the world and its normativity, binaries, and boxes. To be queer is to seek out comfort and validation from observing, admiring, and empathizing with individual stories of personal triumph from fiercely confident, well-known personalities because they’re a reminder that life gets better. To be queer is to hold those histories in high regard, idolizing them and making sure they never go untold. To be queer is to celebrate the underdog who became top dog but never lost touch with that original feeling.

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Williams syndrome is sometimes called the opposite of autism: people who have it tend to be extremely outgoing, socially uninhibited and driven to engage with everyone they meet. The tiny genetic deletion that causes Williams affects one in 10,000 people, or roughly 30,000 Americans. Journalist Jennifer Latson spent several years with one of them: Eli D’Angelo, whose story is chronicled in her new book, The Boy Who Loved Too Much, an excerpt of which is below. The book explores Eli’s coming-of-age and the challenges faced by his single mother, Gayle, who must strike a balance between sheltering her highly vulnerable child and giving him the freedom to make his own way in the world.

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The first time I met Eli, in the late winter of 2011, he was waiting for me at his front door. Gayle had told him to expect a visitor: a writer who wanted to observe him “in his natural habitat,” as Gayle put it. She always waited to deliver exciting news like this—a guest!—until the last possible moment, so the anticipation wouldn’t overwhelm him. Still, Eli had been restlessly awaiting my arrival for the two hours since he’d gotten home from school.

At first, all I saw were pudgy fingers wrapped around the door, which was open just a crack. I heard Gayle’s command: “Do not go out there, Eli.” An eyeball appeared in the crack between the door and its frame. It bulged wide when it saw me. Then the baby-faced boy, who had just turned twelve, flung the door open. He rubbed his palms together, beaming as if he were about to open a Christmas present. Then he waved frantically, as if I might not have noticed him and might simply turn and walk away. “Hi, Kenny!” he bellowed into the snowy parking lot of his apartment complex. Eli spoke with exclamation points: earnestly and emphatically.

His voice was deep and loud—a man’s booming baritone—but cheerful and childishly nasal.  I heard Gayle’s voice again, in a stage whisper: “Her name’s Jennie.”

He corrected himself without pausing, without embarrassment. His smile never faded. “Hi, Jennie!”

The greeting was comically hyperbolic, yet Eli radiated sincere, earnest warmth. Meeting me truly was as exciting as opening the biggest present under the tree. I reminded myself, before my ego swelled in proportion to Eli’s enthusiasm, that meeting anyone was this exciting for him.

From THE BOY WHO LOVED TOO MUCH by Jennifer Latson. Copyright © 2017 by Jennifer Latson. Reprinted by permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc. All Rights Reserved 

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Overthinking can feel terrible, leading to anxious memories, stressful hypotheticals or negative thought patterns. 

Your brain goes into complete, often irrational overdrive. Want to go to sleep? Your brain offers you an embarrassing situation to mull over instead. Your boss sends you an email asking if you can talk? You immediately start thinking of all the things you did to possibly get fired.

If this sounds totally familiar, take heart in the fact that you’re not alone. And even better, the internet is here to chuckle about it with you.

Below are a few posts overthinkers will relate to on a deep level:

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Thanks a lot, brain.

In all seriousness, if you feel like your excessive worry is getting in the way of your everyday life, it might be worth seeking a little support. Stress is inevitable but extreme rumination isn’t something you have to live with. Don’t let your mind convince you otherwise.

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On Friday, during an interview with ― shock goes here ― Fox News, President Donald Trump made some incriminating comments about the “tapes” he once hinted at prior to James Comey’s testimony.

As John Oliver pointed out on Sunday’s “Last Week Tonight,” Trump’s interview ― even if he’s acting just a step above a rambling infant in it, basically confirms Comey’s story.

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An actor and father shared a big parenting message with a very simple Facebook post. 

Justin Baldoni of “Jane the Virgin” fame posted a photo that his wife, Emily, took in Whole Foods. 

The picture shows Baldoni and his father looking down as his toddler daughter, Maiya, throws a tantrum on the floor. 

Maiya, who turns 2 on Tuesday, is the Baldonis’ first child. They are currently expecting their second.

Baldoni wrote in the caption that this Whole Foods photo is one of his favorites of him and his father. “Two men, standing together in silence, forever bonded by an unconditional love for both each other and this brand new, raw and pure soul who we would both go to the ends of the earth for,” he wrote in the caption. “I can only imagine how many times I did this when I was her age.”

Baldoni said that he thinks the photo captures the reality of “being comfortable in the uncomfortable” ― something he saw his dad do repeatedly when he was growing up.

“There are no perfect parents, but one thing my dad taught me is to not parent based on what anyone else thinks. My dad always let me feel what I needed to feel, even if it was in public and embarrassing,” he wrote, adding that he believes this was crucial to his emotional development. 

He continued:

“Our children are learning and processing so much information and they don’t know what to do with all of these new feelings that come up. I try to remember to make sure my daughter knows it’s OK that she feels deeply. It’s not embarrassing to me when she throw tantrums in the grocery store, or screams on a plane. I’m her dad…not yours. Let’s not be embarrassed for our children. It doesn’t reflect on you. In fact.. we should probably be a little more kind and patient with ourselves too. If we got out everything we were feeling and allowed ourselves to throw tantrums and cry when we felt the need to then maybe we’d could also let ourselves feel more joy and happiness. And that is something this world could definitely use a little more of.”

Baldoni’s post received over 90,000 likes, and the comments section is filled with responses from fellow parents and discussions about different approaches to raising kids.

“As parents, we often feel as though everyone is looking and judging, which makes us react instead of respond to our children,” commented one mom. “Sometimes they are, but more than often, people are too busy with their own stuff to notice what’s going on with us.”

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