Jeremy Bentham states that pain and pleasure are our sovereign masters. It is abundantly clear that Jeremy Bentham was not a lesbian because then he would have only focused on the pleasure part. And what pleasure is greater than witnessing two girlfriends kiss under the dappled moonlight with the caption “she makes me brave”?

We set forth our modest lesbian proposal for the establishment of Second National Girlfriend Day (2NGD). Immanuel Kant famously stated, “do unto others that you would wish upon yourself.” We must therefore imagine a world in which every woman has a girlfriend, and every girlfriend is posted twice. Would you not want your own forehead kissed with that consistency? Would you not want your girlfriend to also upload photos of you looking away from the camera while you read critical theory on a picnic blanket? A world with 2NGD is a world in which tenderness is never rationed.

First National Girlfriend Day is for declaration. The second is for proof. Day one is when you post lovely photos of your girlfriend with trite captions such as “I love you.” Day two is when you post photos of the way she makes you feel, like starlight and warm bread, like the moment between lightning and thunder, like a thrifted copy of Rebecca with her margin notes in the good parts, like moss growing quietly on the side of your life and making it beautiful.

As an 18th century thinker, Kant also probably states that women are morally inferior to men. He probably wrote that a woman’s love is about, say, half the moral worth of a man’s love. 2NGD remedies this since when two women love each other, you’re now working with a full moral unit and require an additional state-sponsored holiday to deal with the overflow.

Even libertarians, who hate taxes and women, agree. In accordance with the libertarian belief in freedom from coercion, our only masters are our hearts - and that heart says to post more pictures of our girlfriends with captions like, “Here is the shelf she built me. Here is the zine of our first text messages that I found in her coat pocket. Here is how we endured.” But truthfully, 2NGD isn’t really for lesbians. Because in this household, every day is National Girlfriend Day. We don’t need the second one. We just thought some of you might.

Jeremy Bentham states that pain and pleasure...

In Favor Of Second National Girlfriend Day

A witch cursed me at the county fair when I was three because I corrected her Latin using my brand-new encyclopedia. She said, “Enjoy your last update, nerd,” and bam—now all my knowledge is sourced from the 1993 Encyclopedia Britannica, Deluxe Print Edition, 32 volumes. Plus index.

At first, it was awesome. I knew everything. Like every single winner of the 1992 Summer Olympics. That women’s rights were finally guaranteed since Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s appointment to the Supreme Court. And a bangin’ summary of the Iran Contra affair. You think anyone else in prekindergarten knew what “detente” was? No. I ruled.

But now it’s 2025, and everything I know is still from the 1993 Encyclopedia Britannica, Deluxe Print Edition, 32 volumes. Plus index. My knowledge ends with Bush Sr. and a cautious optimism about compact discs. People ask me questions like “What’s a meme?” And I say, “Ah yes, a theoretical unit of cultural transmission proposed by Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene,” and they just stare at me.

My professors hate me because I can only cite one source, which is the 1993 Encyclopedia Britannica. My friends hate me since I never remember their birthdays because they were all born before 1993, but none of them were significant enough to make it into the Britannica. My cousin from Belgrade hates me because I keep calling him Yugoslavian. I assume it’s because they’ve probably rebranded to something sleeker, like “Neo-Slavia.”

I wish there was some sort of worldwide information superhighway that I could use to rapidly look up everything that’s happened in the last thirty-two years. Here is a list of things I know how to do: send faxes, build a trebuchet, and recite the full text of the U.S. Constitution¹. Here is a list of things I do not know how to do because my knowledge is so outdated: The list is empty, because I don’t know what I don’t know. And neither does the Britannica. That is the whole freaking point!! On an unrelated note, dating has been pretty hard. Partly because of my curse, but mostly because I’m gay and homosexual marriage is still banned in all fifty states.

Britannica

My greatest dream in life is to perfect the art of grilling. Unfortunately, I am the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, and no one ever wants me to talk about my grilling.

Did you know grilling was invented by the Arawak tribe of the Caribbean in the seventeenth century? These are the kinds of facts I would share if anyone ever asked. Instead, reporters ask me where I’d place myself in the feminist canon as confetti falls from the ceiling, which has nothing to do with grilling.

Grilling is an art that requires superhuman concentration, but I can’t grill one lousy corn cob without some passing rando asking “Hey, aren’t you Nobel laureate Kimmy Rogers? Your book changed my life! I got sober because of you.” I look up for one second, and when I look down, poof, the corn’s charred beyond recognition.

The second book I ever wrote won the Nobel. Can you believe my luck? Now I am never writing another book again. My first book was a compilation of three-hundred and fifty-seven variations on ham hock. It sold moderately well. I was proud of it. Then I went and did something stupid. I tried something new and wrote a literary epic about intergenerational trauma that won the Nobel Prize.

Now they make me stand behind polished cedar podiums, like some sick joke—wood like that belongs on a grill, not under a Nobel laureate—and pose for author photos on the press tour. I smile with all my teeth and none of my heart. I sneak out at 3 a.m. to grill flank steaks in the hotel parking lot, just to feel like myself again in between book signings.

My only real fan is Triple Baste George, who lives in Kansas. Last week, he emailed me a photo of a finished ham hock from the early days. #329. I cried tears of joy. He’s a real one, from the good old days. Life was good then. Grilling was good. It was the spring of ’98, and I had just figured out how to make the perfect mesquite. There was music in the air, and you could taste the promise of chicken thighs crisping when the skin puffs up just so—I’m going to stop writing before this wins another stupid Nobel Prize in Literature.

My greatest dream in life is to perfect the art of grilling...

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Jude Ha