Also.Also.Also: The Perfect Pandemic Playlist, for Your Perfect Queer Fingertips

Hey there, it’s been a while since we properly talked. I’m making nachos for dinner and right now I can’t decide if I should make frozen margaritas to go with them, or keep it simple with a beer? (I don’t usually have these options, but my bar is currently Corona-stocked). One is definitely more work, but also would be a new and different treat? The other is so much easier, and always satisfying. Who’s to say where this journey will lead.

If you’re wondering, after baking two (2!!) loaves of banana bread in two (2!!) weeks, this week I switched to banana bread blondies — and they are, in fact, heaven.

Ok, here is some news.

Queer as in F*ck You

In writing YA, I am able to imagine what I might have done if I were 16 or 17 again, knowing what I know now. I am able to put a little of myself in my characters, but instead of doing what I did, I can make them take the risk, or break the rule. I am able to imagine what it would have done for me to be around queer people and influences sooner — just to know they existed, to know there wasn’t only one way to be.

Writing for Teens Is a Do-Over, a first person essay by Katie Heaney that you DEFINITELY will want to read today and is going to give you a lot of melancholy nostalgia if you were a shy teen nerd who didn’t come out in high school (or maybe that’s just me?).

Sort of on the subject? The Gay History of America’s Classic Children’s Books, which was actually published last year from The New York Times but got re-upped again in honor of Tomie dePaola’s recent passing.

Samantha Irby’s Perfect Pandemic Playlist

How Trans And Nonbinary People Are Coping Right Now

Each day there are new bursts of color in the yard. There is no more traffic. The 405, a freeway normally packed with cars crawling along, is hauntingly empty. The smog is gone and the sky is crystal clear. During the day, I hear birds singing sweet songs. At night I see the stars, impossibly bright and shining. Dystopias always imagine the end of the world as dark and desolate. We should have had bigger imaginations.

Roxane Gay on power in a pandemic.

Saw This, Thought of You

😉

Here’s the link: The Health Benefits of Masturbation

Keep the Parks Open.

“It seems extra cruel to make time slow down when all we want to do is get through this time faster, but trust me: that we will get through this very slowly is only thing of which I’m certain.” Chronic Uncertainty: Lessons for a Global Pandemic, From a Permanently Sick Person by Esmé Weijun Wang

Migrants Are the Unsung Heroes of the Pandemic — From Hospitals to Farmlands

Domestic Abuse Rises Worldwide During Covid-19

How to Protect Your Zoom Calls Against “Zoombombing”

Helping Your Dog Survive During a Quarantine and Managing Boredom When You Can’t Leave Your House

Political Snacks

Despite Coronavirus Lockdown, Wisconsin Republicans Insist on an Election That Will Disenfranchise Thousands “There’s nothing fair about this election.”

And WOW THIS IS VERY MUCH RELATED: How to Fix Our Voting Rules Before November

There’s still time, maybe we won’t be f*cked.

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Carmen Phillips

Carmen Phillips is Autostraddle's former editor in chief. She began at Autostraddle in 2017 as a freelance team writer and worked her way up through the company, eventually becoming the EIC from 2021-2024. A Black Puerto Rican feminist writer with a PhD in American Studies from New York University, Carmen specializes in writing about Blackness, race, queerness, politics, culture, and the many ways we find community and connection with each other.  During her time at Autostraddle, Carmen focused on pop culture, TV and film reviews, criticism, interviews, and news analysis. She claims many past homes, but left the largest parts of her heart in Detroit, Brooklyn, and Buffalo, NY. And there were several years in her early 20s when she earnestly slept with a copy of James Baldwin’s “Fire Next Time” under her pillow. To reach out, you can find Carmen on Twitter, Instagram, or her website.

Carmen has written 716 articles for us.

6 Comments

  2. I will always be rooting for frozen margaritas but if you feel like keeping it simple just keep it simple

    Us chronic illness folks do have unique perspective on how to mentally cope with the isolation and uncertainty but we also have unique perspective of cracks in societal structures that put us in danger and how thoughtlessly eugenicist average people can be.

  3. That’s just purse violence in Wisconsin, the government is pretty much saying you have to vote on this date, you have to physical distance & oh we made it harder to vote with fewer polling places. That’s a form of the government actively wanting to hurt their citizens. Fuck that.

  4. Omg! That children’s book article was fascinating. And I had no idea Tomie DePaola was gay, and that he had so recently passed away. He was always one of my favorites! ❤️

  5. Samantha Irby is a gem — her new book is a welcome, hilarious reprieve from Everything Going On, as are all her books. What a gd babe. I will be perusing her playlist!

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