Reads:

• Is PTSD Contagious?, Mac McClelland/Mother Jones

• 9-year-old Chicago activist saves school, dreams big, Meredith Clark/MSNBC; watch the quick segment from yesterday’s Melissa Harris-Perry show

• The Gay Guide to Wedded Bliss, Liza Mundy/The Atlantic

• America’s Most Colorful Congresswoman: Kyrsten Sinema, Ann Friedman/Elle

• Cleared of charges after explosion, Florida teen gets full scholarship to space academy, Jen Hayden/Daily Kos; if you weren’t following this story, read this first

Eats:

• For a cookout, I endorse these Sesame Noodles—which I made without the Szechuan peppercorns because we didn’t have them—and amarula dom pedros (or just pour amarula on vanilla ice cream).

• Also, Indian-style corn on the cob: Go to an Indian grocery store. Buy one small box of Kashmiri Mirch red chili powder and another of Chunky Chat masala. When BBQ day rolls around, grill your corn, cut up some lemons, and put out plates of salt, masala, and chili powder. Have everyone dip a piece of lemon in each of the seasonings, then rub the spicy lemon all over the corn. Feel alive at the slight burning sensation on your lips and enjoy the best sweet-salty-sour combo ever.

Similar corn (with Yum’s family years ago)

Adventures: 

• I’m seeing Beth Urech’s one-woman show ActYourAge! at Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art here in Chicago the weekend after next. Wanna come? Her tagline is “sixty minutes with a 72-year-old” so the answer is automatically yes. (Full disclosure: Beth has hired me to help promote these performances.)

• June 29, the amazing Gloria of Next Big Thing is hosting a big ol’ Chicago scavenger hunt.

• In LA? My sister is making her Los Angeles Fringe debut in the upcoming The Real Housekeepers of Studio City, “an original one-act musical guaranteed to make you tap your toes (and tap into your TV nostalgia!),” June 9-28 at Theatre Asylum.

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Have a great week! What are you reading/eating/doing that I should try, too?

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Photo: Fourth of July 2009 because I barely picked up the camera this weekend. New summer goal: take five pictures I love before Labor Day. And I can’t just love them because they include people I love.