I went to a hypnotherapist to get past my gag reflex.

What’s the Venn diagram between endurance sports and competitive eating? Yasir Salem and the Tour de Donut. Yes, this exists — and Yasir tells us about ultramarathons, the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest qualifier, and the gag-reflex hypnotherapy that made it all possible.

My glute rep precedes me.

Suzy Hotrod on 20 years with Gotham Girls Roller Derby — the strategy, the bruises, the early-aughts bar-worker resurgence, and the community that made her give it everything.

The croissant is my Moby Dick. Erica Fair on twenty years of chasing gluten-free baked goods that don’t taste like sad cardboard — the flours that work, the croissant she can’t crack, and why she’ll occasionally gluten herself just to remember what a cinnamon roll is supposed to taste like.

I don’t know who I am when I start talking about Tetris.

D’LOURDES on Tetris — the iconic game she fell into at a Barcade, the ridiculous international licensing saga that played out behind it (three men, one Soviet government office, no signed contracts), and why fitting blocks into place is the closest she gets to peace.

A subculture that will kick your ass and melt your cold heart. Joshua “Tex” Teixeira on emocore — how a 1985 DC hardcore offshoot nobody meant to name became a lifelong treasure hunt for impossibly rare 7-inches, hand-made packaging, and a scene built on belonging.

A bowl of ramen changed my life. Sarah Gavigan on ramen — the umami science, the post-war history, why it's a cuisine and not a recipe, and how chasing one bowl turned into an obsession (and a Nashville ramen shop).

The best television show ever made.

Danny Robinson on The Dick Van Dyke Show — why it set the template for everything that came after, and what TV lost when it stopped being made like this.