Things I Learned in June
Hi Bestie!!
I started this newsletter in June (I had a joke about Gemini season), and things seemed pretty bad then, and they're not much better now. All day yesterday, I thought of the nice things I wanted to tell you and all the small ways we can show up for our friends and our communities, but…
I've forgotten most of them. I was sick last week and used a lethal amount of brain power to get through the last two weeks.
Anyway, a dribs and drabs post for you, and then in a couple of weeks, I can return to my Internet-based book reports.
But first, the Trump administration is calling birth control abortion. The GOP has done this before, but since these goons destroyed $10 million worth of pills meant for women abroad through U.S. AID, you should probably act accordingly.
Let's get on with it!
SHARK SATURDAY ON A SUNDAY
The largest known great white whale spent June swimming around North Carolina. His name is Contender, and he was tagged in January. He is thirteen feet, nine inches long. (I told someone he is thirty feet long. Sorry! CAN YOU IMAGINE?)
I thought his name was a reference to On the Waterfront, but I was wrong about that, too: "Contender's name is in honor of Contender Boats, a longtime OCEARCH partner, whose industry-leading sport fishing and pleasure boats enable our research missions. Their commitment to performance and innovation is essential to our ability to explore and protect our oceans."
It was Shark Season in America. Shark migration is driven by a need to regulate their body temperatures and a desire to eat. They follow prey. Great white sharks travel more than 2,500 miles annually. They will feed near shore, store fat (as oil in their livers, and move on to better areas with more food. The places where we're seeing sharks now (The Rockaways, the Carolinas) are more hospitable in the summer than in the winter.
Contender last pinged way off the coast of Nantucket, July 24. He’s alive though, he z-pinged Sept. 14. (A z-ping is when a tagged specimen surfaces long enough to ping, but not long enough for a location.)
I have many beige flags, and one of them is that I need Contender merch.
SNOT OTTERS
For about two or three days I was just tickled by the existence of "snot otters," the nickname for hellbender salamanders, itself a pretty cool name already! Yes, of course I learned this because this amphibian is the alternate identity for the Asheville Tourists.
ROCHESTER COUGAR!!
There might be a cougar in Rochester. I don't feel great about the man-on-the-street interview I linked to in this article (and it wasn't shown in the coverage I saw locally), but if he says he saw a cougar, and said, "RAWR!" I believe him.
You may not know this, but the people in the building across the street from the Harlem tiger knew about it before anyone else and no one believed them. We should trust the elderly, even when they are unreliable narrators.
Anyway, the cougar is likely an escaped exotic pet, according to the news. In 2011 a cougar from South Dakota made its way to the Rochester area and Connecticut. It was spotted on trail cams across the U.S. and picked up the name "The St. Croix Lion" when it was seen in Wisconsin. After its untimely, vehicular demise, genetic testing determined it was likely from the fourth worst state in the country. (The NPR story I linked to includes a picture of the dead cougar.)
Anyway, I'm hoping this cougar remains alive and was not somebody's pet. There haven't been any updates since the end of July, which were additional sightings.
NEWSLETTER SERVICES
Macaroon Shindig, my zine, turned 25 this month. I stopped writing when I moved to New York, without ceremony and reason. The domain lapsed around 2013, and I’d like my old work to be available. (Never forget that time Brokencyde said it's OK to kick dogs!) I've been mulling over the idea of having it on the web again, in spite of the dread I feel at having to read my work again. (I was 14 when I started and 24 when I moved to Crown Heights.)
Anyway, Buttondown is fine for here, but won't work for a project that should be found in a web search, and Substack has a lot of problems. Does anyone have good ideas? Let me know. Ideally, I'd send out old work to inboxes and have it online.
STILL MORE DRIBS AND DRABS
Always carry a book, bestie!
Catholic joke for anyone else with experience: taking out a single dollar bill for each drag performance Friday night reminded me of my Dad pulling out his money clip at Sunday mass, and in my case, whispering furtively, "I WANT TO PUT IT IN THE BASKET!" (I'm the youngest, and I am very cute. I always put the money in the collection basket.)
TAX THE CHURCH.
Do you remember the villain in Dumb Money? THAT GUY owns the Mets. I hate him almost as much as Dick Cheney.
I have not looked at my fantasy baseball team in weeks, but someone wanted O'Neil Cruz and I yelled at my monitor, "NO, HE’S MINE." I'm holding last place with the best players from the Orioles, the Pirates, and the Brewers, who swept the Dodgers recently and spent significantly less on player salaries. (Suck it, fascists!) The Brewers are bound for the playoffs, by the way, which doesn’t surprise me, but surprises a lot of others.
May love follow you where you go,
May all you love be protected,
Always your friend,
Katherine
"Asheville Tourists Unveil New Snot Otters Identity." MiLB.Com, 30 Apr. 2025, www.milb.com/news/snot-otters.
Bucks, Garrett. Whatever You Can Still Do, You Can Still Do, The White Pages, 18 Sept. 2025, thewhitepages.net/p/whatever-you-can-still-do-you-can.
"Let's Talk about Birth Control." RSS, Too Loud and Too Old, 19 Nov. 2024, buttondown.com/KatherineMHill/archive/lets-talk-about-birth-control/.
"Ming of Harlem: Yes, a 425-Pound Tiger Lived in an N.Y.C. Apartment." The New York Times, www.nytimes.com/2020/04/18/nyregion/ming-tiger-harlem-nyc.html. Accessed 21 Sept. 2025.
One Ocean Diving. "Why Sharks Migrate: Understanding the Movement of Apex Predators." One Ocean Diving, oneoceandiving.com/blogs/f/why-sharks-migrate-understanding-the-movement-of-apex-predators. Accessed 22 Sept. 2025.
Person. "Man Describes Face-to-Face Encounter with Mysterious Large Cat in New York: 'It Said "Rawr."'" ABC7 Chicago, 12 July 2025, abc7chicago.com/post/is-cougar-mountain-lion-rochester-new-york-man-describes-face-encounter-mysterious-large-cat/17087603/.
"Secrets of Great White Shark Migration." California Academy of Sciences, www.calacademy.org/explore-science/secrets-of-great-white-shark-migration. Accessed 22 Sept. 2025.
Tracking, Mapotic — Wildlife. "Ocearch Shark Tracker." OCEARCH, www.ocearch.org/tracker/detail/contender. Accessed 22 Sept. 2025.
Valenti, Jessica, and Kylie Cheung. "The Trump Administration Says Iuds and the Pill Are Abortions." Abortion, Every Day, Abortion, Every Day, 13 Sept. 2025, jessica.substack.com/p/trump-birth-control-abortion.
Wham. "Mountain Lion Saga Continues with New Sighting Reports." WHAM, 2 Aug. 2025, 13wham.com/newsletter-daily/rochester-mountain-lion-saga-continues-with-new-sighting-reports.
"'I Could've Been a Contender. I Could've Been Somebody' — On The Waterfront." YouTube, YouTube, www.youtube.com/watch?v=wz6YMrJt7xk&t=19s. Accessed 22 Sept. 2025.