<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" version="2.0"><channel><title><![CDATA[BG Editorial]]></title><description><![CDATA[BG Editorial]]></description><link>https://www.bgeditorial.com/blog</link><generator>RSS for Node</generator><lastBuildDate>Fri, 10 Apr 2026 22:05:44 GMT</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://www.bgeditorial.com/blog-feed.xml" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"/><item><title><![CDATA[Men in Sweaters: A Brief History of Men Who Think Knitwear Is Depth]]></title><description><![CDATA[Unless you're part of the Dead Poet's Society, you probably shouldn't wear a sweater, a tweed jacket or a turtleneck. Good god, not a turtleneck!   This is not a fashion opinion so much as a public service announcement. A civic duty. A literary safety notice posted on the corkboard of your local independent bookstore, right between the flyer for a banned books read-in and the handwritten sign that says "Please stop reshelving books incorrectly. We see you."   Somewhere along the way,...]]></description><link>https://www.bgeditorial.com/post/men-in-sweaters-a-brief-history-of-men-who-think-knitwear-is-depth</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69b32779349998d2ebc239a7</guid><pubDate>Fri, 20 Feb 2026 07:00:00 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/4d0048_e59976955e3746a0b2a1403a1e0b548f~mv2.png/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Victoria Barber Emery</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Why I Judge People By Their Tote Bags]]></title><description><![CDATA[To begin, this is not shallow. This is literary anthropology. There are two kinds of people in the world: those who carry tote bags and those who live dangerously.   The tote bag is more than a bag. It is a declaration of identity, a walking thesis statement with reinforced stitching. And yes, I absolutely judge people by theirs.   You do too. Don’t lie.   The thing about tote bags is that they always reveal something — about your politics, your emotional state, your relationship to...]]></description><link>https://www.bgeditorial.com/post/why-i-judge-people-by-their-tote-bags</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69b326fa60bf8f6bb4f07733</guid><pubDate>Mon, 26 Jan 2026 07:00:00 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/4d0048_a6c8bf52566c417c8788e8741e0f8f2a~mv2.png/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Victoria Barber Emery</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Elf on the Shelf: A Holiday Menace in Felt]]></title><description><![CDATA[There are many Christmas traditions I understand. Decorating a tree? Lovely. Baking cookies? Delicious. Buying gifts for people you like? Cheerful. Buying gifts for people you  barely  like? Well, that’s capitalism. But there is one holiday ritual I simply cannot wrap my book-loving, coffee-fueled brain around: Elf on the Shelf. For the blissfully unindoctrinated, Elf on the Shelf is a small, felt-covered doll that parents hide in different spots around the house during December. Every...]]></description><link>https://www.bgeditorial.com/post/copy-of-real-world-barbie-the-mattel-nobody-ordered</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69b324b160bf8f6bb4f0729d</guid><pubDate>Tue, 23 Dec 2025 21:46:54 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/4d0048_f16c23b05d7347ad866bac16fea6fa4a~mv2.png/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Victoria Barber Emery</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Real-World Barbie: The Mattel Nobody Ordered]]></title><description><![CDATA[Mattel has given us Astronaut Barbie, President Barbie, and even Orthopedic Surgeon Barbie. Lovely. But where, I ask, is Reality Barbie—the one who smells faintly of dry shampoo, owns three reusable grocery bags she always forgets in the car, and has a suspicious spot on her ceiling she swears isn't mold? Let's fix that. 1. Golden Years Barbie Known to friends as Retirement-Community Rita, she's traded stilettos for sensible Skechers and tinted her hair Silver Fox Frost. She comes with: • a...]]></description><link>https://www.bgeditorial.com/post/real-world-barbie-the-mattel-nobody-ordered</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69b31919d558374c818d982a</guid><pubDate>Mon, 01 Dec 2025 07:00:00 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/4d0048_40dea749c9cd45408f6361263ad8dfa8~mv2.png/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Victoria Barber Emery</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Dragons, Dog Tags And The Death Of The Oxford Comma]]></title><description><![CDATA[My hometown state university has done it. They’ve found the only person on earth less likely to teach a group of conservative military members how to write than a pacifist mime. Picture it: twenty uniformed soldiers sitting in a classroom, notebooks open, waiting to learn the sacred craft of writing. In walks their instructor—tattooed, rainbow-scarfed, wielding a coffee mug that says  Death Before Grammar Rules.  She announces she’s a bisexual, queer fantasy author who hates punctuation, and...]]></description><link>https://www.bgeditorial.com/post/dragons-dog-tags-and-the-death-of-the-oxford-comma</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69b317faa7843f58b682b6c6</guid><pubDate>Sun, 02 Nov 2025 06:00:00 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/4d0048_ecd4d5c471e74984b9912cdcd023a604~mv2.png/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Victoria Barber Emery</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[My Fast-Food Odyssey: Or, How I Paid $24 For A Cold Pickle]]></title><description><![CDATA[There are few things more humbling than ordering fast food at 3:08 p.m. on a sunny Thursday like it's a small act of self-care, and then receiving it at 4:49 p.m. like it's a humanitarian air drop. This, dear readers, was my lunch last week: a double hamburger, pickle only, and a medium fry. I forgo all condiments to ensure the integrity of my burger. That's it. That's all for my order. No drink, because I've learned the hard way that somewhere between the restaurant and my house, the driver...]]></description><link>https://www.bgeditorial.com/post/my-fast-food-odyssey-or-how-i-paid-24-for-a-cold-pickle</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69b317a9d0cd2535b526c41e</guid><pubDate>Sat, 11 Oct 2025 06:00:00 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/4d0048_cbaec7250c10467bbd8cdea2b5e4e58d~mv2.png/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Victoria Barber Emery</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[The DMV Is Kafkaesque, But With Worse Lighting]]></title><description><![CDATA[There are two places in America where hope goes to die: the return line at Walmart the week after Christmas and the Department of Motor Vehicles. I walked into the DMV recently, clutching the usual paperwork — proof of identity, proof of residence, proof of being a human who has lived on earth longer than a fruit fly. The waiting room was lit by those flickering fluorescent lights that make you question whether your vitamin D levels are dropping in real time. I took a number. It was B47. The...]]></description><link>https://www.bgeditorial.com/post/the-dmv-is-kafkaesque-but-with-worse-lighting</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69b3162e19a7028f2bc250ee</guid><pubDate>Sat, 04 Oct 2025 06:00:00 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/4d0048_47485c69867b44a586d01186717f09ab~mv2.png/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Victoria Barber Emery</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Dangerous Myth Of The Smart Girl -- Being Clever Is Cute Until It's Inconvenient]]></title><description><![CDATA[I used to think being the “smart girl” was a compliment.   You know the type — she always has a book, always has a comeback, and always knows exactly how to ruin a man’s argument with a single obscure historical fact and a facial expression she borrowed from a disappointed Victorian governess.   But here’s the thing no one tells you: the world loves a smart girl until she’s smarter than them out loud .   When you’re a smart girl, you get praised for being precocious until it becomes...]]></description><link>https://www.bgeditorial.com/post/the-dangerous-myth-of-the-smart-girl-being-clever-is-cute-until-it-s-inconvenient</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69b31311d558374c818d8adb</guid><pubDate>Mon, 29 Sep 2025 06:00:00 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/4d0048_42d45126463c4889b5a2077876d0fae6~mv2.png/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Victoria Barber Emery</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[The $10,000 Dog: A Tragicomedy in Corgi Minor]]></title><description><![CDATA[I used to be a Beagle person. Beagles are tidy little hounds with built-in brakes. They come pre-programmed with polite sniffing etiquette, a manageable poop schedule, and the kind of stoic, big-eyed wisdom that makes you think they secretly edit The New Yorker in their downtime. Then, like every tragic heroine in a nineteenth-century novel, I made a single catastrophic decision: I got a Corgi. Her name is Nala. She came home at seventeen weeks — the last of her litter, which should have been...]]></description><link>https://www.bgeditorial.com/post/the-10-000-dog-a-tragicomedy-in-corgi-minor</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69b2fa71ecfce39c49aa52ce</guid><pubDate>Sat, 20 Sep 2025 06:00:00 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/3c9853_513af1d00ea44709a218055daea2b35a~mv2.png/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Victoria Barber Emery</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Books I’ve Pretended to Read on Dates (And What That Says About Me) -- A confession in footnotes and lies]]></title><description><![CDATA[There comes a moment on every first date when someone asks:   “So… what kind of books do you like?” And every time, my brain short-circuits.   Because the truth — the real truth — is messy and weird and mostly involves obscure sardonic essays, annotated poetry collections I’ve never finished, Kurt Vonnegut, Hunter S. Thompson, and a lot of Harvard Business Review issues I pretend are for research.   But instead of telling the truth, I panic and say something like:   “Oh, you know, I love...]]></description><link>https://www.bgeditorial.com/post/books-i-ve-pretended-to-read-on-dates-and-what-that-says-about-me-a-confession-in-footnotes-and</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69a07b27aac6e7cda91421e5</guid><pubDate>Sun, 14 Sep 2025 06:00:00 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/3c9853_6d3d9bc5587f47b3b54a4985f34b4a87~mv2.png/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Victoria Barber Emery</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Bullets, Brisket and Botanicals: My First Date as a 58-Year-Old Widow]]></title><description><![CDATA[Three years ago, I lost my husband to ALS. The kind of loss that shakes your foundation, reshapes your life, and teaches you just how many casserole dishes the human heart can receive in a week. Grief is a long, lumpy road. But somewhere along the way—around year three—I looked up and thought, Well, I’m still here. And I still know how to apply lipstick. Let’s see what’s out there. Enter: my friend, the matchmaker. She said she had the perfect man for me—an attorney, no less. Smart,...]]></description><link>https://www.bgeditorial.com/post/bullets-brisket-and-botanicals-my-first-date-as-a-58-year-old-widow</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69a078b2ab2490cb67fa00bd</guid><pubDate>Thu, 04 Sep 2025 06:00:00 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/3c9853_b7a2afd2ec2549e28cbf828f3ecda892~mv2.png/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Victoria Barber Emery</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Welcome To My Shelf Life: An Introduction]]></title><description><![CDATA[I don’t remember the first book I ever threw across the room, but I do know it was probably written by a man and involved a female character described as “not like the other girls” while being exactly like the other girls, only slightly more dead inside.   Hi. I’m Bookstore Geek, and this is my new weekly series of sharp opinions, over-caffeinated insights, and lovingly judgmental commentary from the back corner of your favorite fictional bookstore. You know the one. It smells like paper,...]]></description><link>https://www.bgeditorial.com/post/welcome-to-my-shelf-life-an-introduction</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69a07835dd752dedab92120f</guid><pubDate>Wed, 27 Aug 2025 06:00:00 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/3c9853_c394064690014e9e90566f4ce7bceb5e~mv2.png/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Victoria Barber Emery</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Forever Are You]]></title><description><![CDATA[If I am forever, then forever are you, We are as forever as sun, earth, and moon. Each circles the other, as I circle you. Our orbits contain us, Our gravity touches and ties us together In ellipses that bring us so near, now so far. Between us, we spin unbreakable threads That vibrate and glow with invisible waves, Encasing the planet with our thoughts and our love. Alive or in ashes, through this particle net, I touch out to you, your love answers back.   If my soul is forever, then yours...]]></description><link>https://www.bgeditorial.com/post/forever-are-you</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69a0776aaac6e7cda91418c6</guid><pubDate>Wed, 12 Feb 2025 07:00:00 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/3c9853_31f5c4f666d5475fb51f63bdd729292e~mv2.png/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Victoria Barber Emery</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Microwave Memories]]></title><description><![CDATA[I don’t know why it took me so long to clean the microwave this time. I hate a dirty microwave, but procrastination had the best of me. At first glance, the microwave innards look like an exploded can of rainbow-sprinkled confetti. I see the back right corner is more like the remnants of a drunken projectile vomit. I take a deep breath and get ready to brave the unknown. I choose to forgo rubber gloves and go in naked. I gently remove the glass plate that spins frozen blocks of mystery into...]]></description><link>https://www.bgeditorial.com/post/microwave-memories</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69a076fdfa78e209eb88b999</guid><pubDate>Fri, 30 Aug 2024 06:00:00 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/3c9853_e76557e0c4634ed69e5aeff7f2a91af6~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Victoria Barber Emery</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Bookstore Geek]]></title><description><![CDATA[So I go to the bookstore, a place where geeks fit in. I always have my writing notebook and gold pen in case an idea hits. Normally a short, fat girl sporting red-rimmed glasses, a straight brown bob and a notebook is a flashing neon ad for geekdom. But in a bookstore, a character like me melts into the shelves of fresh ink. I’m college educated four times over. I’m well read and I write daily. I fit the part so nobody bothers me. Except for the coffee shop. You know, nowadays bookstores also...]]></description><link>https://www.bgeditorial.com/post/bookstore-geek</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69a075099d34acb7c431dda2</guid><pubDate>Sat, 03 Aug 2024 06:00:00 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/3c9853_cfda12ec36804b03b1afd3ee09f2f76e~mv2.png/v1/fit/w_708,h_702,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Victoria Barber Emery</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[For The Caregivers - You Are Warriors Too]]></title><description><![CDATA[This morning hit me in the face like a brass-knuckled bastard. I woke to the bugle call of Pat’s TV. Shit! He got himself out of bed and over to the sofa without me again. I scramble down the stairs in my sleep shirt and full bedhead to see if he is okay. I also want to survey what fresh hell awaits me. Rat-ta-tat-tat! Rat-ta-tat-tat! Slam! Thud! Medic! Medic! I reach the last step. Yep, it’s the opening scene of Hamburger Hill with the disemboweled soldier. At six-o-fucking-clock....]]></description><link>https://www.bgeditorial.com/post/for-the-caregivers-you-are-warriors-too</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69a0763e35595910ad5d03cb</guid><pubDate>Sat, 03 Aug 2024 06:00:00 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/3c9853_4a3a28bf8a284c628d170a07816f59d9~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Victoria Barber Emery</dc:creator></item></channel></rss>