FRIDAY OPEN THREAD: Blame It On The Eclipse

Ryan Yates
Aug 18, 2017
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Hi hello and welcome to this week’s Friday Open Thread! You know when you show up somewhere that feels familiar even if you’ve never been there before and you immediately run into three people you really wanted to talk to and someone hands you the thing to drink or eat that you were in exactly the right mood for and then your favorite song comes on? This is like that. What’s new with you?

I moved to Los Angeles exactly two years ago today, and today I’m suddenly moving again, with wild and fragile hopes and dreams deep in my heart and soothing grey surfaces under foot and large, low-to-the-floor windows I am convinced my dog (or, if I’m being honest, I) will fall out of while chasing a toy dinosaur or something.

A dog in front of moving boxes looking sad (I'm projecting). Still-full bookshelves behind the boxes.
old apartment. same.

Mostly I’ve been dealing with this move by asking myself the deep, important questions about who I am and what I want out of life and what the future looks like and do I really want this $100 iridescent shower curtain (answer: kinda? but aspiring to be able to throw money away does not mean I actually can throw money away, sorry people in my life to whom I keep talking about this one shower curtain) and which particle board bookcase really speaks to me and will also fit in that space between the windows and will I hate my life if I put my workspace inside the only closet or is that secretly genius?, because it’s easier to think about logistics than feelings, always.

My new apartment could also more or less fit neatly into the living room of my old apartment, which should be… interesting. The last time I moved I had three boxes and a duffel bag, and even though I’m no longer the ruthless proponent of minimalism-as-a-way-to-avoid-feelings that I used to be, I’m also staring at my boxes like where did all this stuff come from? And also, where am I going to put it? I hate the idea of getting new things to neatly store old things (except for bookshelves obviously), but I haven’t moved from somewhere so big to somewhere so small and actually cared about how everything would fit and is this why “storage furniture” is a thing and do you see what I did there? Feelings, what? Let me know if you have any small-space solutions! Or advice about how to keep my dog from peeing everywhere or barking constantly until she realizes this is where she lives now?

Anywayyyyyy what’s new with you? Are you okay? We can do this. I mean we can probably do this. I mean this is happening regardless so we might as well do this and see.

Look, [redacted feelings about ceiling plants]!

How are you this month, this week, this moment? Got any weekend plans? What snack are you obsessed with right now? Have you moved recently, and how did it go? Have you lived in the same place for ages, and how do you feel about that? How’s your cat? How’s your lizard? How’s your job? How are your partners? What are you here to escape from? How’s your eclipse season going? How are your dreams?


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Ryan Yates

Ryan Yates was the NSFW Editor (2013–2018) and Literary Editor for Autostraddle.com, with bylines in Nylon, Refinery29, The Toast, Bitch, The Daily Beast, Jezebel, and elsewhere. They live in Los Angeles and also on twitter and instagram.

Ryan Yates has written 1142 articles for us.