What Brought You Joy This Year?
Holigays 2022 // Header by Viv Le
Hello friends! It’s that time of year! Specifically, the end of it. I wanted to publish a New Year’s Eve Roundtable and Open Thread Situation so we can all reflect on the past 365 days together and take a deep breath before we dive into The New Year.
This year, I asked our writers to focus on the joyous, the lighthearted, the fun, the easy. Life is really hard, but we all deserve joy and sometimes we need a reminder to focus on the joyful moments we’ve experienced.
I asked the Autostraddle Team to share something that made them smile or laugh in 2022, and here’s what we came up with. I’d love you to join us in the comment section and share what made you smile or laugh in 2022, too.
We did it! We made it to the end of the year! I’m raising a glass to the things that brought us joy this year, and I’m welcoming in even more joy into our lives in 2023. Thanks for being here — we love you for forever.
Love,
Vanessa & The Autostraddle Team
It’s a Friday Open Thread, but on a Thursday!
Hi, Straddlers! If you’ve been around for a while, you’ll recall that we used to have a lot of open threads here on Autostraddle dot com. And if you’re brand new or simply never clicked on those posts, you may be wondering, what is an open thread?! Whether you’ve been here since 2009 and pine for the days we did Friday Open Threads on a weekly basis or whether you just discovered Autostraddle and joined A+ yesterday, I’m here to invite you to the giant sparkly slumber party that I hope today’s open thread will become!
An open thread is, quite simply, a place where commenters can gather together and chat about anything y’all wanna talk about! Sometimes they’re themed, sometimes they’re feelings atriums to process hard events, sometimes they’re silly, sometimes they’re sexy… but they’re always open, honest, and ideally, a lot of fun!
Over the years we’ve stopped publishing open threads as regularly as we used to for a variety of reasons (for the most part it was hard to compete with the kinds of conversations that now happen easily on social media and it was challenging for our staff to keep up with writing and hosting them) but we often hear from readers that you miss them. So today, in honor of our 13th birthday this month (!) and the extraordinary fundraiser Nicole is leading to keep us going (hopefully for 13 more years and then some!) we are hosting a rare and special open thread!
So, welcome! Hop into the comments and get chatting! Some potential topics to start us off: What’s your favorite meal you made this week? What was your favorite thing to do at sleepovers when you were 13? Are you watching Killing Eve? Which entry on this list most resonated with you? Have you gifted a friend an A+ membership yet? What do you love most about Autostraddle? What do you love most about your friends? What do you love most about yourself? I’ll try my best to pop in throughout the day but for the most part, this open thread is a place for YOU to be yourselves. Enjoy, and as always — thank you, for everything. Really truly. You’re the reason we’re all here, and we wouldn’t be without you.
That’s my favorite part of Autostraddle, for the record, always and forever: you.
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Grounding Ourselves for 2021: A NYE Round Table & Open Thread
It’s the last day of 2020.
This year was so difficult I don’t even know how to write sentences about it that get to the truth of what it means to be a person today. I’m not going to lie to you and tell you things will get better tomorrow on January 1, 2021. I don’t even know what “better” means at this point, and I certainly don’t know when that shift, whatever it looks like, will occur.
What I can provide is a space for us to be virtually together — this open thread — and also the incredibly generous, vulnerable, honest, genius words my co-workers at Autostraddle shared when I asked them to participate in our New Year’s Eve round table.
With the knowledge that we cannot rely on much, this year I asked the Autostraddle team: In a chaotic world, how will you show up for yourself and provide yourself with the consistency you need in 2021? Here’s what they had to say.
I’d love to hear what you have to say about this in the comments, too. Wishing you health, love, and happiness, sincerely sincerely sincerely, today, tonight, tomorrow, and every day.
Tale As Old As Time: Here Is Your Christmakwanzakah Open Thread!
Wow, okay, it’s here! It’s Christmas Eve! Sure, time lost all meaning in April-ish of this year, but the fact remains: today is Christmas Eve and tomorrow is Christmas! Hanukkah is over, Winter Solstice is over, the Great Conjunction occurred, and Kwanzaa starts on Saturday! I’m a Jew and my birthday is December 21 so my personal holiday season is over, but I know this time of year — “the winter holidays” — can be fraught at the best of times, and hey, 2020 was not really the best of times, huh?! So maybe today feels fraught for you, or maybe you’re actually feeling happy and joyful (which is okay! In fact if you can find those emotions it’s encouraged!), or maybe you’re just tired, or maybe it’s a combination of everything. Whatever you’re feeling, whatever you’re doing, however you’re managing or celebrating or coping or falling apart, we want to make space at Autostraddle for you to connect with other queer humans who may be feeling the same and who definitely care about you and your well being. So we make this open thread every Christmas Eve, and we gather to chat about whatever the heck you wanna chat about. Tale as old as time!
Even for those of us who don’t celebrate Christmas, this holiday season probably looks and feels a little different than usual. As queers, many of us are well practiced at not going home for the holigays, but we usually have the option of gathering with chosen family or strangers at a bar if we want to. Some of us do enjoy going home and it hurts that we can’t spend this time of year with our families of origin. I know from the comment sections on many Autostraddle articles this year that all our readers are doing their bests when it comes to managing the pandemic and also that this year has been really, really difficult for all of us. I hope that however you decide to spend today you can grant yourself some grace and kindness — and I hope this open thread can deliver some of that to you, too.
If you haven’t already, check out Home Alone for the Holigays, the fun series Shelli Nicole created for us about, well, staying home alone for the holigays (this year and also any year). If you’re an A+ member I hope you’ve been enjoying our 13 days of A+ content that Nicole has worked so hard to put together — if you’re not an A+ member, I gotta say, now is the time to jump on that! Consider it a holigay gift to your future self; you deserve it.
Before I sign off and let y’all get to chatting, I just want to say sincerely that I am sending each and every one of you my very best wishes today and every day. This year has been so hard, and everyone is trying their best, even when our bests do not feel very good at all. I am wishing you some warmth and some ease today, tomorrow, and every day forward.
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OPEN THREAD: What Are You Doing Today, Are You Okay?
Hi, what’s up! What are you doing today? Are you okay?
I’m going to be honest, I can’t believe we didn’t collectively cancel Thanksgiving 2020. I can’t believe we continue to not cancel… everything during This Pandemic Year? I am not the biggest fan of Thanksgiving as a holiday (who can possibly be a fan of a “holiday” based on genocide, lies, and the continued oppression of Native people?) but I have always spent the time off work and school with family or friends. Sometimes that was nice, sometimes it was decidedly not nice, but at least I was attempting something that felt like community building, like community care.
In 2020, community care means staying away from everyone you love. The simplest solution to me seems like canceling Thanksgiving. And yet I know that for many of us, it’s more complicated. You have family members who begged you to come home. You co-parent kids and their other parent(s) wanted to do something. You work at a grocery store and you’ve had to hand out turkey after turkey this week. You actually don’t usually celebrate this day and always spend it luxuriously alone, but somehow that feels different during a year of epic loneliness. This year has been soaked in grief and honestly it does not look to be letting up anytime soon. I feel like almost everyone I know is experiencing some deep personal grief these days, and we are, collectively, experiencing so much loss it is hard to actually fathom. Whatever you are or are not doing today, I think it promises to be kind of a challenge. And the year will probably continue to be challenging, and honestly next year will be too.
I don’t know, I have been trying to write this post for a few hours and I just really don’t know what else to say! But I want to make this space exist, where we can all feel our feelings together.
So. How are you? How’s your heart? How’s your brain? How’s your spirit? Are you by yourself today? With a pod? Grateful to avoid family? Missing home? Did you make anything delicious? Did you drop anything off at your local free fridge resource? (Do other cities have these or is it just Portland?) Are you angry? Sad? Miraculously somewhat happy? Let’s be here together, apart — the safest way to show community care this year.
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US Election 2020 Open Thread: Hoo Boy, Here We Go!
Today is the day! Whether you’ve been dreading it or wishing desperately for an end to election cycle news and wanting to get it over with, we’re all in the same boat now, and that boat is this open thread. We aren’t liveblogging this election, both because doing so in 2016 took a regrettable personal toll on the livebloggers (me and Yvonne) and because there are plenty of other resources that can provide you minute-by-minute updates better than we can. We’re here to provide a communal space to feel less alone and to help process a bit among friends, and because it’s so confusing to even know what to do on this day, one which will be filled with anxiety for most of us but which won’t contain anything concrete until late evening at the earliest, more likely the next day (or several). Not sure what to do with your tired brain and nervous energy? You can put it here!
Do you have voting experiences or frustrations to share? Local races you’re keeping an eye on? Questions about candidates or election law you’re curious to hear thoughts on? Need to scream into the void? Not in the US and want to ask someone what the fuck is going on over here? This is the spot! What’s going on for you?
What’s Stuck In Your Mind: An Open Thread for BIPOC Folks
It’s been 12 days since George Floyd’s murder. The past few weeks have been unbelievable. There have been BIG thought discussions everywhere about what the uprisings mean this time, on what ways we’re not going back (whether that will ever be true?), and at what cost to whom. As someone not Black, I take seriously my role to hold tightly to hope and expectation for change and transformation, but it’s not lost on me that the birth of every new world we enter, that every piece of progress that we gain from protests is at the cost of Black lives — and that even in fighting to dismantle white supremacy, we’re building off of Black pain, grief and beautiful lost lives.
I know a lot of people are exhausted. I know a lot of people are dealing with microaggressions, in addition to the macroaggressions led by the police and the National Guard.
There are also plenty of things to talk about that are not big things: the meetings you’re invited to where white people waste everyone’s time expressing their false helplessness; the people from your high school that you know are 100% invested in white supremacy and OF COURSE posted a black square on Tuesday to pretend otherwise; the kinds and scents of candles that are bringing you the most peace right now; the big maternity pillow that you bought for quarantine that offers a sense of relief. These might sound like small things, but they’re important too!
So this is a thread where you can share whatever is stuck in your mind. I want want open up this space for the intense grief, mourning, PTSD, trauma, and all the other wounds that the most recent murders have opened up in the Black community, if you need room for that. Please bring your personal gems and gripes or your big-picture questions and feelings to the comments, everything is welcome — as long as you’re Black, Indigenous, or otherwise POC, and know that this is a Black-centered discussion.
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What Are You Doing
Just genuinely wondering!
Note the hollow eyes, yes, but also the hard pants and what’s that? A bra? It is.
Lmk.
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Ask Us Anything: What To Watch While Social Distancing, From Noted Queer Experts
So, you are inside (or at least, we really hope you are inside unless required for work, we really cannot overstate the importance of social distancing). At some point you’ll probably run out of things to watch on TV. Except you only think that you’ll run out of things to watch because, our friends, that’s when we step in!
We are Autostraddle’s TV Team, a rag-tag group of queer women tv/film watchers, lovers, and critics. Not to toot our own horns, but we think we’ve gotten pretty good at this whole sitting on a couch and watching your screen-go-by thing. We’d love smash our heads together for your benefit!
This idea actually came together from a couple of tweets. First, Autostraddle TV Team writer Drew Gregory offered her services to her many followers:
If you’re bored and don’t know what to watch tell me three movies you like and I’ll recommend something
— Drew Burnett Gregory (@draw_gregory) March 13, 2020
Then Autostraddle Managing Editor Rachel Kincaid provided this gem:
https://twitter.com/danascullyirl/status/1240039389310455808
Need some background noise while you work from home? A movie for a virtual hang with your queer fam? Something that lasts for 150 hours and you’ll get so obsessively immersed in that you can eat Cheez-Its and forget about the news for days on end? We’ve got a plan for that!
Here Are Some of the Things We’re Good At:
Carmen: family sitcoms that are almost too corny to bear, Shondaland and Shondaland-style dramas, that specific genre of television that I can only describe as “rich women wear chunky sweaters and plot murder while drinking a bottle of wine,” romantic comedies, girl gang comedies, SNL, and anything that starred a black or Latinx person in the last 30 years.
Valerie: Campy sci-fi with a female lead where everyone is a little bit gay, complicated sci-fi that surely has a gay in the mix somewhere, sci-fi that is coded gay but never quite committed to it, and also anything about murder.
Drew: Every lesbian movie ever with a special focus in coming-of-age stories where teen girls have a quiet emotional journey – also every Hollywood and arthouse classic that isn’t quite lesbian but does involve misandry or stubborn women or just Katharine Hepburn wearing pants.
Riese: The L Word, ’90s/early ’00s indie films about teenage girls / women in their early 20s often involving a badass best friend from the wrong side of the tracks, high-brow drama / dramedy, pretty much anything with a butch in it, high school melodrama, the first two seasons of popular dramas that eventually go off the rails, post-1980 mainstream movies with lesbian characters, shows that are mostly just smart people telling jokes to each other in a form that vaguely comes together to loosely resemble a plot.
Kayla: “Everything everyone else said, plus I got the Bravo dykes and reality TV fans covered.”
Heather: All gay TV that’s not bloody, scary, or procedural-y, especially fantasy and sci-fi and comedies. (Carmen: Heather you forgot Cartoons!) (Heather: OMG MY MAIN THING!!)
Natalie: Shondaland, daytime soaps, procedurals, The West Wing, shows that feature POC and underrepresented communities (or created by those same people), and can really research the hell out of anything you ask.
Tell us three of your favorites, and we will pick something new. Tell us a ~vibe and we’ll help you get there. Please share your favorite comfort movies with each other! Heck, if you just want someone to scream about a plot you love or you’ve always had a burning desire to ask TV Editor Heather Hogan which three cartoon characters she’d most want to invite over for an afternoon tea (or to survive the zombie apocalypse) now is your time.
If you have a question for a specific person, feel free to include our name in your comment since we will be ctlr+f-ing ourselves. But feel free to ask general questions for the group! Even if you have a question about something that isn’t mentioned here! We’re popping popcorn! Let’s go!
Right now, Autostraddle needs your support as much as ever. We are seeing our role expand as the world moves online in search of community, and we’re working to be here for you. If you donate or join A+, you will help us keep doing our work building queer community and getting queer, BIPOC, and trans writers paid. We know there are many worthy causes, but if you can, please consider donating or joining A+ because your gift will help support our writers and staff, as well as our efforts to provide resources, entertainment, and community to our family of readers like you, always and especially during this time. Thank you for anything you can give!
Join A+!
Ask Us Anything About Cooking While Social Distancing
feature image by Matthew McBrayer on Unsplash
Hello! It is a very confusing and scary time, and while there is much discussion about the benefits of social distancing—which cannot be overstated—during the COVID-19 pandemic, there’s less talk about what self-quarantining and isolation means on a lived, day-to-day level for most people. Social distancing affects all parts of daily life, including mental health, finances, and food. I, along with several members of the Autostraddle team, want to help you out with that last one!
Not everyone is used to cooking for themselves every day. Lack of access to certain ingredients, the ripple effects of panic buying, and limited ability to be outside of the home add even more strains even for experienced cooks. We are here to help! Ask us anything at all about cooking, food, meal prep, etc. right here in the comments of this post, and we will answer to the best of our ability.
Need help figuring out what to prioritize buying at the grocery store? Want to know what to make with what you already have? Wanna make pasta sauce from scratch with mostly/entirely shelf-stable ingredients? Want to know the best way to still eat fruits and vegetables during self-quarantine? Need ideas for what to do with all the random shit in your freezer? How about alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages that you can make for happy hour at home? How to stock your pantry on a budget? Pickling—what’s that about? I’ve got you on all of these and more! Be as specific or general as you want!
Here are some more of the other topics our team members can offer advice on:
Himani: vegan cooking; what to do with random produce/non-meat foods when that’s all you can find in the supermarket
Al(aina): baking; quick meals using mostly canned shit; SOUP; stock making; and the joy of setting your table
Kamala: making a dish with whatever you have in your fridge/pantry; elevating your pre-prepared meal (frozen or bagged or instant noodles etc); how to make different sauces to put on the same base food; I can do variations on a theme (like 5 ways to eat your frozen broccoli)
Sally: what to do with a lot of flour; how to make things taste better by adding lots of sherry
Vanessa: baking; making fun meals for kids; alison roman; general “i have these things in my fridge/pantry what should i make” vibes
If you have a question for a specific person, feel free to include our name in your comment since we will be ctlr+f-ing ourselves. But feel free to ask general questions for the group! Even if you have a question about something that isn’t mentioned here! We collectively have a lot of kitchen knowledge, tips, and tricks to share!
Right now, Autostraddle needs your support as much as ever. We are seeing our role expand as the world moves online in search of community, and we’re working to be here for you. If you donate or join A+, you will help us keep doing our work building queer community and getting queer, BIPOC, and trans writers paid. We know there are many worthy causes, but if you can, please consider donating or joining A+ because your gift will help support our writers and staff, as well as our efforts to provide resources, entertainment, and community to our family of readers like you, always and especially during this time. Thank you for anything you can give!
Join A+!
We’re Ready For Ya, 2020: A NYE Round Table & Open Thread
Hi sparklers, welcome to the last day of 2019. We know that in some ways time is just a construct, but for a lot of us, today holds some kind of meaning, even if we can’t quite articulate why. Rhythms, rituals, tradition, social obligation. Can I handle the seasons of my life, etc. Tonight is New Year’s Eve, tomorrow is New Year’s Day. Even if it’s not real, the constructed beginning of a brand new year feels auspicious, does it not?
A few years ago I vowed never to ask anyone about “new year’s resolutions” ever again, so I’ve tried to approach January 1 of each new year since with a slightly different perspective. Small shifts, deep reckonings, sweet aspirations, kind acknowledgements of all we have accomplished over the past 365 days. This year, I find myself with one burning question in my heart: WHAT IS THE BOTTOM LINE?
When I posed this to Team Autostraddle more than a few people asked me what the heck I was talking about, which is fair. I’ll be addressing this new ethos more deeply in an article next month, but for now I’ll be brief: I wanna figure out what I need, and then I wanna work out the action items I have to take to really bring that need into reality. I want every single one of us to do that. It really feels that for a variety of reasons, we no longer have time to fuck around. We need to get honest, dream big, and make major moves (even if those actual moves are minor, they will have major consequences, ya know what I mean?). Anyway I told everyone they could follow their hearts or straight up ignore my question if it was inconvenient for them, and we landed on the gorgeous smorgasbord of 2020 energy you will find below. Please enjoy this vulnerable roundtable as a final 2019 gift from Team Autostraddle to you, dear Autostraddle Community. And of course, please take to the comments to let us know about your bottom line.
We’re ready for ya, 2020. Come on in.
Abeni, Contributing Writer
In 2020 my bottom line is $0. ZERO DOLLARS! That’s how much debt I’ll have on my credit card. About three years ago, I essentially hit rock bottom, almost died, made a lot of mistakes, and incurred a LOT of credit card debt. Like, a LOT. I had more credit card debt than money I made that a whole year. About 18 months ago I finally got mentally stable, got a decent full-time job, and have also been hustling – I’ve been working 7-day, 60+ hour weeks – and I’ve paid off more than half of that debt! And soon it’ll all be gone, and then I can stop having that hanging over my head and stressing me out, and I won’t have to pay like $200-300 just in INTEREST every month. I’m envisioning it and manifesting it and it will happen!
Drew, Contributing Writer
Having an end of year birthday this year – that included a break-up, a move across country, dating as a queer person and a woman for the first time, getting staffed at this website, writing two pilots, meeting so many of my closest friends and favorite people, and a lot of other personal and professional achievements and struggles – was chaotic in a way that was consistently surprising. As I’ve reflected on all of this I’ve come to the conclusion that not only was this the craziest year of my life, but it was also the best year of my life. When I look towards 2020 it simply makes this season carry double the reflection. Since the mid-way point I felt comfortable calling 2019 the craziest year of my life. Anytime I said that people looked at me like – wasn’t there a year where you literally switched genders? And while that’s true, the year I came out was chaotic in a way that was sort of cliché. It wasn’t easy but there was a guidebook. I want to continue on this path I’ve started on. I want to keep working hard, keep making mistakes (different ones hopefully), keep listening and learning from the people around me, and keep moving towards a place where who I truly am and who I appear to be is more the same. And if we’re talking specific goals, I’d like to be staffed in a TV writers room by the end of the year.
Heather Hogan, Managing Editor
Last year in this very roundtable I said the thing I wanted to manifest in 2019 was a clear-eyed understanding of everything and everyone in my life, including myself. For some reason, no one I love slapped my laptop out of my hand and yelled at me about “What kind of Edgar Allen Poe hex are you casting on yourself right now!” I’m not saying I regret it, but I am saying this year was a reckoning. It wasn’t all bad. Or rather, there was profound goodness juxtaposed with what was bad. There was this one night at 3am where everything was excruciating; because I had a pinched nerve in my neck caused by a now discovered, severely degenerative spine situation; and as I paced around my bedroom like a caged animal in the most intense and relentless pain I’ve ever experienced, I looked over at Stacy, my partner of nine years, and the absolute white-hot devotion on her face pierced me so deeply in my spirit I sat down on the floor — and, for a few fleeting moments, I didn’t feel anything but keenly and singularly adored. I’ve never known something so clearly in all my life.
My physical therapist follows me around these days and says: “Heather, breathe.” And: “Heather, relax.” She does this six to twelve times a week. It’s become my accidental mantra. I whisper it to myself, bark it at myself, glare it at myself in the mirror. Heather, breathe. Heather, relax. Sometimes it even helps!
That’s my bottom line in 2020. I am so proud of the woman I’ve become, and I wouldn’t be that woman without the hard hard hard stuff, but merciful goddess: I have got to learn to breathe and relax!
Kamala Puligandla, Deputy Editor
I’ve been gearing up for my very own Kamala 2020 for a little while now. The real Kamala 2020, as I’ve been known to say. I’m excited for my book to come out, and I’ll be facilitating this project on mixed identities, called Hybrid Vigor, that I’m thrilled about (and also excited to get into this new realm of mixing writing, art and workshops) and I’m working at Autostraddle now!
My astrology apps have been telling me that this year is the time to “mature” and “get serious” and either say goodbye to things in my life that are proving difficult or commit to them more fully, and figure them out. I think they might just be reading my texts, but that’s exactly what I’m in the thick of doing. So I’m prepared to invest deeply in myself and learn new things about my emotional self. I want 2020 to be the year that I embrace and get comfortable with the full extent of my power as a leader, a writer and also a friend and lover.
Malic White, Contributing Writer
2019 was a year of making calculated changes to help me inch closer to my goals, followed by a whole lot of floundering. To create more space for writing and stand up, I left my theater company of seven years and started living alone for the first time, assuming that the extra time and solitude would make a more prolific writer. Well, kids, it turns out that removing all existing structure from your life without putting a new structure in place is like ripping the tablecloth out from under a bunch of fine china when you’re a really, really bad magician. Important stuff breaks.
In 2020, I’m giving myself the gift of structure. I’m committing to a consistent writing practice. I’m writing in new genres and in new places (my “bed office” no longer serves me). I’m getting back to that “let’s try this and see what happens” mindset of my early 20s, when I was making performance art that involved a lot of fake blood and smashed eggs and usually some kind of obstacle course. If I create more work and create more consistently, I’ll be making a living (no more side hustles) as a writer and comedian by the end of 2020.
Laneia, Executive Editor
Trusting that I’ll be ok, that’s all I can do in 2020. Just trust that I’ve done the work and that I’m ready for whatever’s coming. I can’t control all of it, but I can trust myself.
Vanessa, Community Editor
In 2020 I am going to sell my book. A few years ago I said I was going to get serious about my writing work, and then I applied to grad school, got into grad school, broke up with my girlfriend, left Portland, moved to New York, and got down to it! 2020 is the year I graduate from my MFA program and I am proud of the work I have done in school but I want to commit to continuing that work when I am no longer in a program that fosters my creativity and hands me deadlines I must meet. I have finally successfully broken the habit of putting air quotes around the word WRITER when people ask me what I do, and I strongly believe that taking myself seriously has allowed others to take me seriously, too. There’s no point in hemming and hawing about what I truly want out of life; we are marching toward death every day and if I don’t believe in myself, who the fuck is going to? I am a writer, I have been working very hard on a book for (more than) two years, and in 2020, I am going to sell the damn thing. Cheers!
Meg, Contributing Writer & Photographer
In 2019, my focus was on expansion and trying new things. I wanted to put myself out there, write and create every day, embrace a spirit of ambition and experimentation – and I honestly can’t believe how many of my dreams turned into reality. 2019 was a challenging year in so many ways, with unexpected losses and major shifts, but it’s also the year I started publishing my writing, shared personal essays for the first time, and developed creative work that is setting the foundation for the future I want to build.
For 2020, I want to keep expanding my ideas of what’s possible. I tend to limit myself, shut down dreams before they get too magical, keep my heart locked up tight so I won’t get hurt or disappointed. But I know how incredible things can be when I try anyway, when I smother those doubts and take a chance and go after what I want. So this year, I plan to draft and pitch a tarot book. I hope to share more personal writings, with new audiences, in new places. I dream of finding my place and purpose, of inspiring others, of creating beautiful things.
I want to step fully into my magic and power in 2020 – it’s a big goal, but I don’t think it’s an impossible one.
Rachel, Managing Editor
If at Christmas you tell the truth (lol) then at NYE you get to sound dramatic, so: for 2020 I want to make sure I make everything that happened in 2019 worth it, somehow. It’s been a harrowing year for so many of us, and myself and so many people I love feel like we’re just sort of barely limping over the finish line; I want to promise myself that there will have been a point to all of it! What can I use this for? What can it show me? How can this be an opportunity to show up for myself and people I love? I feel sometimes like we spent all of 2019 talking about how terrible everything is; in 2020 I wanna talk about how to make it all worth it anyway.
Valerie Anne, Contributing Writer
In 2020, I just want to get better. I want to finally find a damn therapist, actually start making smarter choices re: what I put in my body, reassess relationships in my life that are doing me more harm than good. I spent most of the years between 1987 and 2019 prioritizing other people, and I still want to do that whenever I can, but I don’t want to do it at the expense of my own health and happiness anymore. For a slew of reasons I won’t get into, I’ve spent the past two years or so just sinking. Unable to find as much joy as I used to, unwilling to keep trying. Knowing the steps I should take to get out of the muck but just lying there instead. But the end of this year has felt like the start of a shift. I feel like Mary Poppins at the end of the movie; I can feel the winds starting to change and I’m ready to fly off on my umbrella and start something new. So I guess my bottom line, hard goals for 2020 are: get a therapist, find a new day job, write more, try harder. Get out of the muck. Get better.
Bailey, Contributing Writer
Last year, I moved back to the UK and worked hard to build a new life in an all-too-familiar place. It meant figuring out who I was in that context and where I ultimately wanted/didn’t want to be. This year, I definitely tried to put myself first, but still managed to get caught up in trying to please other people. Some of my achievements took longer than they should have because I allowed other things/people to come first.
In 2020 I want to continue to trust my instincts, maintain my autonomy and always remember my worth. I want to practice these things so that I can: finish the MA I just started after ten years out of school, keep writing about queerness, travel to see friends across the world, deliver workshops and perform my work in front of crowds again. 2020 is the year of rediscovering my confidence and what feels good for me.
Natalie, Contributing Writer
I feel like I should say something really introspective in this space…something that reveals a shortcoming in my personal or professional life that I want to remedy in the new year. But no matter how long I sit with this prompt, my bottom line remains unchanged: I just want a new fuckin’ president in 2020.
I can’t get discouraged.
I can’t let my cynicism about [insert eventual Democratic nominee’s name here] change my focus.
I can’t let good be the enemy of great.
Kids are in cages. Our climate’s in crisis. Our community’s in danger.
We need a new fuckin’ president and shame on me if I don’t spend 2020 doing whatever I can to make that happen.
Carmen, Associate Editor
My bottom line for 2020 is probably the same as Natalie’s, to be honest? If we are talking about “bottom, basement, absolute truth, line drawn in the sand” — then the most important thing in 2020 for me is this upcoming election and the fight for whatever’s left of this country’s democracy. So that is #1.
However, since Natalie already outlined the importance of that task with much more fire and elegance than I could bring here, I will also say that in 2020 I’m looking to work HARD. I have a lot of personal and professional goals that are finally just at the grasps of my fingertips, and in 2019 I put a lot of puzzle pieces in place to make them a reality. This year I want to see it over the finish line. I want to keep fighting for a better country, but also fight for a better Autostraddle. I want to see our website’s readership base diversify, I want our writers — especially our writes and editors of color — to feel supported and that they have the tools to flourish. I want to be doing those things while also continuing to be patient and kind with my body. I’d like to keep fighting to make time for my family and set up healthy, strong work/life boundaries that allow for that to happen.
Honestly, I’m very bad at New Year’s Resolutions type things, so what I’ve written is probably not as inspirational to you, our readers, as I’d hope it would be. I wish I had some nugget of advice that you could write on a Post-It and put it on your desk to carry you in to the new year. Instead I hope you’ll take comfort in this: There’s a whole team of us out here fighting for you. You are not now, nor are you ever, alone in this world. And we got your back, so you can go on and do whatever is your dream to accomplish or be.
OPEN THREAD: Listen I Just Like The Word Christmakwanzakah Okay?
HELLO SNOW FLAKES AND SUN BEAMS, WELCOME TO YOUR 2019 CHRISTMAKWANZAKAH / CHRISTMAS EVE / MIDDLE OF HANUKKAH / ALMOST KWANZAA / JUST PAST SOLSTICE HOMO HOLIGAY SEASON OPEN THREAD! IT IS SO NICE TO SEE YOU HERE!
Every year since the day Autostraddle got born, we make space on this very queer website to hang out and celebrate and commiserate the ~seasonal holidays~ together in December! This year is no different! We have retired Friday Open Threads (although y’all are still very chatty on Fridays in our weekly Pizza Party and in the comment section of the Comment Awards and I fucking love it) for a variety of reasons, not least of which is that a lot of conversation that used to take place in The Comment Section Of Many Websites Including Our Very Own Website now take place on Twitter, not to mention that Many Of Those Other Websites Are Now Dead, And Digital Media As We Know It Is Changing All The Time And It Is Hard To Keep Up And Not Panic! I know I keep saying it but the world in 2019 media is very confusing and destabilizing! The world in 2019 in general is very confusing and destabilizing! But one thing I do know for sure, my pals:
You will have a better time hanging out in this Autostraddle open thread than you will hanging out on Twitter today, I promise. It’s science!
Whether you’ve gone back to your hometown and your family of origin for a week of vacation, whether you’re spending tonight and tomorrow with chosen family, whether you ignore the calendar and treat the entirety of December like a regular ol’ month, whether you’re on a beach vacation with your sweetheart escaping the cold and societal pressure, whether you’ve made latkes the past three days, whether you’re already planning the menu for your Kwanzaa celebration, whether you did your Solstice ritual last week and are enjoying this week off work with no religious obligations whatsoever…you should come chat in this open thread. We don’t have to talk about the holidays although we sure can! We can talk about whatever you want. To be totally honest with you I am A. Jewish and B. currently on vacation with my parents and my little brother, so I am not doing Christmas-Eve-Celebrations tonight and I will also probably not be very vocal in the comments because the WiFi here is not great! But I did make you a beautiful (?) extremely DIY feature image collage of Michelle Pfeiffer’s character Stephanie Zinone dressed up as a Christmas tree in Grease 2 for this joyous occasion, because I care about you and also because Michelle Pfeiffer in Grease 2 is my root, which we discussed on this very website in 2013. Time! It just keeps marching on, huh? The more things change the more they stay the same etc etc okay!
Okay I objectively know this is a ridiculous feature image for this post, but it’s Christmas Eve and no one is in the office to tell me no, and I feel like it does capture something really special, like we’re going back to our DIY zine roots and also my literal root? Humor me, my birthday was 3 days ago!!!
So! Wanna talk about Michelle Pfeiffer? Wanna talk about your roots? Wanna talk about a holiday that isn’t happening this month? Wanna talk about your perfect / horrifying / supportive / insufferable family? Wanna gush about your pals or your crush or your partner or your pet? Wanna tell me what cute items you purchased off one of our holigay gift guides for your loved ones and/or yourself?? You’re in charge, friends. Grab a beverage, put on your coziest pajamas, and let’s hang out in the comments.
Whatever you’re celebrating this month – even if it’s “nothing” or simply “the end of this horrifying year” – please remember that everyone here at Autostraddle is rooting for you. That will remain true for forever, I promise.
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OPEN THREAD: Can We Make Today Extremely Gay?
Okay hello, good morning, good afternoon, can I just say – how is it the end of November…again? Does anyone else feel like we literally just did this? What is time? Why does every week feel like a full year? Has anyone gotten 8 hours of sleep recently? What is that like? Did you take a nap yesterday? Are you gonna take one today? How are you doing? No really, how are you doing?
So here we are, weirdos. Another year, another open thread on the day that some people celebrate Thanksgiving. The internet is so different now than it was when we started Autostraddle and started hosting open threads; honestly, the whole world is so different now! I’ve been thinking a lot about what an open thread is for, what we are all doing here together, what the point of it is, how to make this space feel like home while acknowledging that we’re too big a publication to really be a tiny clubhouse anymore, challenging myself to figure out how to entice you to hang with each other here instead of on Twitter all day… I’m not sure I know the answers. Do you have thoughts about that? What draws you here, to a space owned and operated and populated by queers, rather than Twitter or other social media, spaces owned and operated by a variety of wealthy cis white men and populated by some lovely humans and some literal nazis? (See what I did there?) But sincerely – what are we doing here together, these days? What moves you? What are you searching for? What are you offering? What happens next? How can we hold each other, no matter what the future looks like?
It’s November again, the earth keeps turning (for now), and I think we are all just doing our best, mostly. What are you up to today? Are you with chosen family? Bio family? Are you sleeping in your childhood bedroom this week (I am)? Does it feel weird and bad or weird and good or a confusing mixture of both? Do you spend the full weekend at your parents’ house or do you show up for dinner and leave? Did you make a pie? Did you make tofurkey? Is tofurkey good? Is turkey good? (No.) Have you opted out of Thanksgiving festivities entirely? Do you watch the parade? Are you having the necessary hard talks with your family? Are you acknowledging that this holiday is really a memorial and celebration of genocide and ongoing violence? Are you supporting native people with your actions and your money (today, but also every day?)
Whether you’re spending the day with friends, family, strangers, or by yourself, I have one major request: Can we please make today extremely gay together, right here, right now? I’ll start with three gay posts from Autostraddle dot com:
1. A Heather Hogan Holigay Special
https://autostraddle-develop.go-vip.net/theres-no-right-or-wrong-way-to-go-home-for-the-holidays/
2. An REI Option For You Tomorrow
https://autostraddle-develop.go-vip.net/join-autostraddle-and-rei-for-an-optoutside-gathering-in-nyc-on-black-friday/
3. Autostraddle’s Ultimate Holigay Toolkit
https://autostraddle-develop.go-vip.net/autostraddles-ultimate-holigay-toolkit-401715/
Okay, now it’s your turn. What makes today extremely gay for you? Hint: being here in this open thread counts!
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FRIDAY OPEN THREAD: One Cereal to Rule Them All
In last week’s FRIDAY OPEN THREAD, I made many enemies by using my authority as the First Lunchables Child to rank cheeses. It wasn’t all bad, though. The next day, my Dungeons & Dragons pals came over and we descended into The Sunless Citadel to find this warlock who was making apple tree people out of apples and while we were doing that, we ate about ten thousand cheeses to test out my ranking! (I was wrong about manchego, but I was right about string cheese — I’m sorry). My partner, Stacy, and I were talking about my cheese ranking this week and she was shaking her head at me and then she said, “Please never rank cereals; you will get murdered.”
I’ve never met anyone in my life who loves cereals as much as Stacy. She could eat cereal for every meal of the day if there was any nutritional value whatsoever in a Fruit Loop. And boi, does she have opinions. Golden Crisp are infinitely better than Honey Smacks, for example, even though they are the same cereal. She loves Frosted Flakes and she also loves Lucky Charms, but she thinks the co-cereal, Lucky Charms Frosted Flakes, is an abomination. She doesn’t love chocolate cereals — Cocoa Puffs, Cocoa Pebbles, Cocoa Krispies — except for Count Chocula, which is one of her all-time favorites.
Me? I only really like one cereal: Plain Cheerios. I think it is the best cereal ever created. It’s not sugary-tasting so you can eat some fruit or have some juice with it. But also it’s kind of sweet, so you can also complement a bowl of Cheerios with something savory. It tastes good in every kind of milk, including cow, almond, and oat. The box has a heart on it, so you know it loves you. And I swear Cheerios don’t get soggy as fast as other cereals do so you don’t gotta gobble it down like a cartoon wolf!
However, I know that not everyone shares my correct opinions. And so, today, I invite you to make the case for why your favorite cereal is the best cereal. You may include the cereal’s mascot’s excellence for bonus points. For example, Caticorn seems like it would taste horrifying, but the mascot is worth one million points.
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FRIDAY OPEN THREAD: Cheeses, Ranked — Fight Me!
Did you know I was the first kid in America to eat a Lunchable? No, it’s true! Listen to me, it’s true! Lunchables came to whole U.S. in 1989, but actually they existed in Washington state in 1988, but even before that — all the way back in 1985 — Oscar Meyer was figuring out how to make Lunchables a thing. My grandpa was like the President of Meat at some giant meat company and so he brought home the earliest Lunchables to test out on me and my sister.
This was obviously way before you could get Capri-Suns or Kool-Aids in Lunchables, and before people started worrying about feeding kids balanced meals at lunchtime, and it was just one little sandwich meat stack and one little cheese stack and one little cracker stack. I don’t like sandwich meats really and never have, but I’ll tell you what I do like and that’s cheese. I forkin’ love cheese. And as an expert in the field — by which I mean: a person who eats a lot of cheese, goes often to an establishment literally called Bier and Cheese, and was, as I have stated, the Original Lunchables Child — I feel it is my duty to rank cheeses and fight you about it.
And that is how we shall spend our Friday afternoon.
Cheeses, ranked
33. String
32. American
31. Cottage
30. Cream
29. Limburger
28. Manchego
27. Ricotta
26. Stilton
25. Swiss
24. Provolone
23. Mozzarella
22. Camembert
21. Wensleydale
20. Edam
19. Gorgonzola
18. Monterey Jack
17. Reblochon
16. Feta
15. Nacho
14. Goat
13. Havarti
12. Mascarpone
11. Buratta
10. Gouda
9. Roquefort
8. Parmasean
7. Halloumi
6. Gruyére
5. Pecorino Romano
4. Fontina
3. Asiago
2. Brie
1. Cheddar
Now then, let me make a sandwich and I will meet you back here to argue about cheese.
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FRIDAY OPEN THREAD: What Are Your Back To School Impulse Buys?
Hello and welcome to this weekly forum where we talk about whatever you want, but with a prompt in case you’re shy.
This week, I just finished my first Monday-Friday week of school and man, am I tired. Even though I’m only in class on Tuesday and Wednesday, something about knowing there were classes everyday this week made me feel more tired. I. Am. Beat.
But we are NOT here to talk about being tired, because one of my Daily Shine texts was like “don’t focus on what makes you stressed” and I was like “okay….?” But I’m giving it a try. What we are here to talk about is this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwcYbo7pjto
Any of my 90s babies remember this commercial??? From kindergarten through my first year of grad school I was 100% giving off that dad energy. My back to school shopping energy is a little more subdued now, but I still go overboard. I have literally stopped using notebooks (iPad life) and I still buy at least three new ones each school year! I love VERY specific pens and buy them in bulk. I also love planners. Yes, very on brand for an Autostraddle writer and a Virgo rising, I know. But y’all I have no less than 3 planners at once. Why? Why not!
When I was young, I think I loved new school supplies because everything felt new at the start of a school year. The air was colder, the natural life around me was changing, and I felt like I got to become whoever I wanted to be at the start of every school year. Now, it feels a bit more hedonistic, a bit more “it’s still 98º everyday, the world is ending, I can’t believe I’m expected to write a dissertation, the least I can do is buy a new supplies.” It be like that sometimes, as the kids say.
So, what are your impulse buys when there’s a new school year/start of something new? What hedonistic pursuits make you feel alive in ways you sometimes think you maybe forgot to do as an adult?
Alternatively: tell me about your week, your puppies and kitties, your housing co-op, your new hobbies, that radio show you love, or literally anything else that you want. I want to hear from you! Also, I think you’re great/hope you feel loved/love your cool sense of style. Okay let’s go! Happy weekend!
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FRIDAY OPEN THREAD: A Virtual Grease Bats Book Party and Community Love Fest
Hello precious kittens, it is I, your roaming transgender novelist, come back here for two shakes of a stick to have a book party with you. A book party, you ask? For whom? For what? For Archie, I exclaim back! For our own Archie Bongiovanni, and for this here comic we have on Autostraddle dot com called Grease Bats!
If you haven’t been reading Grease Bats, well go do that first and come back — it’s a comic about a fictional group of queer friends who ride their fictional bicycles around a fictional Minneapolis and who love each other fiercely, nothing fictional about that sweet community love. A full disclosure: I wrote the introduction to the book, so I, of course, unabashedly love it. (You can read the Autostraddle review of the book here.) And I am here to squee with you. Because this has Big Dykes (to watch out for) Energy. Let’s throw a book party for Archie Bongiovanni! Let’s all forum-role-play standing around, drinking champagne and ginger ale at a tiny queer book store packed in, shoulder to shoulder, complementing each other’s green hair, matte lipstick, leather suspenders, spike heels. Whenever Archie figuratively walks by, we will raise our glasses to their triumph, their triumph being, in this specific case, rendering us on the page. All of us. Because that is the magic of Grease Bats: the deft portrayal of a vibrant, messy, human queer community, body and soul, right there in a bound book for us to hold, caress, give to friends and put on our bookshelves. And for this virtual book party, we shall play my favorite Grease Bats related game: Character Sun/Moon/Rising.
drawn and provided by Archie Bongiovanni
Now based on that image (and your reading of Grease Bats), let’s use this to process our sometimes difficult personalities while sipping imaginary drinks and smelling that good good musty book smell. If you’ve not engaged in astrology before, sun signs are like your core identity, moon signs are like your subconscious and emotional state, and rising sign is the mask you present to the world. (Yes, astrologers, I know I’ve reduced it, but we’re two fictional champagne flutes in and this is fun.) Now, which characters represent your Sun, Moon and Rising signs? For me, personally, I’m a Scout sun because of the amount of anxiety I feel and also my deep love for burritos. I’m a Gwen moon, I think, because I am the kind of person who can just walk up to a person and ask them out, and I do like to shout about my sexuality in public places and also in my own head; all of those things are straight-up emotional reactions for me. And I carry that kind of Gwen-personal-parade around in my heart always. And I’m a Taylor rising because I love academia and donuts and I think if you asked most people who know me in physical space, they perceive me as a strange academic golem creature who can talk for two hours about pedagogy and can probably tell you that my favorite donut is the Boston Cream from Stan’s in Chicago because I have definitely on more than one occasion presented my list of favorite donuts, ranked.
Also tell me about your week, because we don’t just talk about books at a book party. We talk about us too. What’s going on with you? What else are you excited to be reading? Watching on TV? What’s the weirdest thing that’s happened to you since we last talked? Are you excited for Fall?
And the last thing we do at a book party is buy the book if we can afford it — check out Grease Bats on Indiebound to find it at a bookstore near you. If you’re not in a position to spend money on books right now, there are so many ways to support an author at the end of their book party! Doing things like rating Grease Bats on Amazon and Goodreads is so helpful, as is requesting Grease Bats at your local library. And who knows! If you run into Archie Bongiovanni in physical space at an actual bookstore in a building sometime, you might be able to get them to sign it.
Three cheers for Archie! Three cheers for Grease Bats! Three cheers for the Friday Open Thread!
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FRIDAY OPEN THREAD: Let’s Get Messy
Hi, friends! It’s Friday and I’ve been kind of attempting to clean up our house day-by-day all this week. We have family coming to visit for Remi’s birthday this weekend and we have a list of things we want to do before then and we’re making very slow progress, TBH. I start teaching my one fall class on Thursday and Remi starts pre-k for the first time next week and then there’s the fact that we live in one big toddler-fueled romper room that used to be our home. Oh, and Waffle and I both work full-time, opposite hours.
Life. Is. Messy.
http://www.instagram.com/p/B1re39MhmNb/
Literally and figuratively, we are just getting through the mess day-by-day. I wish that I could KonMari my life sometimes and I certainly do feel satisfaction and peace when my house is closer to clean (though it’s never really orderly). However, I think maybe I’m just a messy person. And maybe it’s OK to be messy, a big ol’ beautiful mess.
I always have slightly too much going on. I can’t remember the last time I was only working one job. I’m always doing two or three or more jobs at once, usually a full-time job plus a few side jobs. However, that ability to work multiple jobs at once let me test out a lot of possible futures and gain skills I couldn’t get in my day jobs. I love being an adjunct professor of LGBTQ history. I loved traveling around the U.S. delivering sexuality programs as a public speaker. I love writing for Autostraddle. It’s always been worth the messiness of balancing multiple jobs. In KonMari terms, my side jobs spark joy.
At home and at work, I’m not a streamlined, everything-in-its-place person. I’m what you might call a “horizontal filer” meaning my papers and things just end up in piles and it’s very easy for me to let a surface like a desk or a table evolve into clutter madness. That said, 85% of the time I have a rough visual memory of what I put where, so there truly is some level of method to the seeming lack of order.
The one area where I’m not messy is my emotions because I’m a stoic Capricorn who keeps my real feelings pressed into my fists and tucked under my hairline. That is a type of messiness that scares me, personally, and I find myself being a little jealous of people who can let their emotional mess out without shame or fear.
After all, who decided it was bad to be “a mess”? Was is the same person who decided women were hysterical? Because it feels like that, like messiness is sometimes code for “can’t keep it together, can’t cut it,” when the work of cleaning up messiness is very much feminized across most cultures. What if disrupting capitalism and sexism and cutting through heteronormative noise is also wrapped up in celebrating messiness, reclaiming messy space? Like the amorphous and multi-dimensional planes of sexuality and gender, perhaps messy is a naturally queer state of being.
If that’s true or if it can be, maybe we are allowed to celebrate the job that comes with unswept floors and bold emotional displays and packed schedules and chaotic energy. Maybe we’re allowed to be too much and take up too much space and let our messiness be a part of our choice to claim power.
Or maybe I just want to believe that! Either way, I know I’m going to get the most cleaning done in the final hour before my family arrives at our house and, quite frankly, that’s probably more than enough.
How about you? What’s messy in your life? Or do you keep things tidy because that’s what works for you? Are you a KonMari devotee or do you think it’s nonsense to talk to your old tank tops? What’s your relationship to mess?
Also, feel free to just tell me all about what’s going on with you and your delicious life! What’s new? What’s old news? How are your kids and furkids? What is your current Netflix binge? Tell me! I wanna know about you! I’ll be here all day, so come as you are and maybe I’ll make some progress on my to-do list while we hang out!
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FRIDAY OPEN THREAD: Let’s Talk About The Pros of Queer Cons
Hello, it’s me, Valerie Anne the Tired, back from two weekends in a row of being at conventions comprised either mostly or entirely of queer people, and I’m here to tell you that the exhaustion is worth it.
I’ve been going to cons for about five years now; I started with New York Comic Con, because I’m a dive-into-the-deep-end kind of person, and it was overwhelming, but very fun. And also very, very straight. One con (pun intended) of writing professionally about queer TV is that sometimes you forget that straight people watch TV too, and are fans of it, and are plentiful. So I’ll admit it was my own fault, but I was surprised when Orphan Black cosplay was few and far between, for example. And while there was some really cool gender bending going on, a lot of the shows my friends and I loved the most felt underrepresented. Granted, it made for a fun scavenger hunt (finding a Cosima amongst the Negans that first year was a DELIGHT, let me tell you), especially while walking the vendor hall, and after my initial slap from reality, it felt just like any other day. These might be mostly straight nerds, but they’re still nerds, so they’re still my people.
Cut to a few years later when I discover FlameCon. It was a pocket-sized NYCC but only for queer people! Queer nerds everywhere! It was my heaven. The vendor hall was full of the ships I shipped, all was well. This year’s FlameCon was no different, and it had no shortage of Anne Lister and She-Ra/Catra cosplayers. And the weekend before I was at EH Con, a Wynonna Earp convention, where there was an entire panel dedicated to the two queer couples on the show, and the room was filled to the brim.
So I want to hear about your queer con experiences. (Spoiler alert: You being queer and at any con counts, it doesn’t have to be a queer con.) Tell me about the queerest coolest cosplay you’ve ever done or seen, tell me about a time you thought you were in a panel for a show you assumed would be super straight and you got some bonus gay (for me it was Legacies), tell me about how you carved out a queer corner for yourselves in a not-explicitly-queer con (I find traveling in packs helps with this). Basically I want to talk about cons with you because I’m a big nerd and these two cons I went to were only cons 4 and 5 of the year, I’ll have hit 7 by the time the year’s out. OR if you really want to go to a con but have questions or concerns, throw them out there and we’ll help each other the best we can!
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FRIDAY OPEN THREAD: Let’s Talk About Sleep, Because It Can Be Really Hard!
I have an embarrassing confession: every time I’m single I have insomnia.
Falling asleep has never been easy for me, but when I’m single it’s so much worse. Instead of being able to focus on the person lying next to me, I’m left alone with my thoughts.
For a lot of us, bedtime is when our minds decide to remind us of every worry, every task, every mistake. As someone with anxiety and OCD, I especially dread these hours.
Four years ago my insomnia was at its worst. I found a therapist who gave me several tools I still use to this day. Instead of lying in bed for hours trying to sleep, she encouraged me to get up and do an activity. So much of my late night anxiety was secondary anxiety, anxiety about the anxiety. I was anxious that my anxious brain would make sleep impossible. Placing less importance on the act of falling asleep allowed it to actually happen.
I also started meditating.
My sleeping improved. I still had to listen to music, but it improved. And then I met my ex and it really improved. After a few months I started needing music again, but throughout most of our relationship I slept pretty well.
This summer I realized that my insomnia had returned with intensity. I was waking up multiple times throughout the night and usually around 5 or 6 in the morning I’d give up trying to go back to sleep and just start my day.
By the afternoon I felt exhausted.
The last few weeks I’ve been really trying to create better habits around sleep. I know the actual magic cure would be if I started meditating again but I’m struggling to get back into that. For now, I’ve set new rules around my sleep enemy number one: my phone.
When I’m getting close to going to sleep I queue up whatever music I’m going to listen to and then plug my phone in away from my bed. Then I’ll spend some time writing or reading. Right before turning off my light I’ll click play on the music but try not to glance at any notifications.
And then when I wake up, I resist the temptation to go over to my phone. In fact, even when I’m actually waking up to start my day I’ve tried to make my first activity reading a book even if it’s only for ten minutes.
I can already feel my sleep improving tremendously. Turns out a phone filled with the nightmares of the world, not to mention interpersonal stresses, is not great at reducing anxiety and inducing sleep.
I’d love to get to a place where I don’t need music to sleep when I’m alone. But until then here are the artists I turn to most: King Princess, Solange, Adult Mom, Vivek Shraya, Lady Lamb, Wafia, and a playlist I made that’s Mitski’s “Two Slow Dancers” repeated ten times.
What about you?? Do you struggle with insomnia? How do you work through it? Or, just generally, do you have a routine around sleep? What are the last things you do before going to sleep and the first things you do upon waking up?
Also if you have suggestions for good sleep music please share!
How To Post A Photo In The Comments:
Find a photo on the web, right click (on a Mac, control+click), hit “Copy Image URL” and then…
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If you need to upload the photo you love from your computer, try using imgur. To learn more about posting photos, check out A.E.’s step-by-step guide.
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Find a video on YouTube, copy the URL, and paste the link on its own separate line in your comment. You no longer need to use the “embed” code!