FRIDAY OPEN THREAD: Were We Ever So Young

Hi cats and kittens! Welcome to the Friday Open Thread, the hottest pajama party/pancake bar/midnight woodland coven around. Pull up an inflatable armchair (remember those?) and tell us all about your week, your new haircut, the last of your garden tomatoes, the dream you had about your ex’s dog! I want it all!

This summer has been, uh, a lot, huh? I feel like everyone I know is Going Through It, whatever that looks like for them. One thing that can sometimes be comforting in times like these is some fond nostalgia — I just caught the last third of The Princess Bride on TV and was reminded through Fezzik and Inigo’s bromance that true love is real. I’ve also been visiting my mom back in my hometown and realized she still has my beat-up copy of A Wrinkle in Time on the bookshelf; I’m really excited to reread it before the movie comes out (can’t wait!). I also can’t stop indulging in the timeless classic “Untouched” — remember this??? Why is it still so good??

What blasts from the past do you find comforting to revisit? Video games or TV shows you loved from a different time in your life? What’s your Peak Nostalgia Era? Show me a youtube video! Tell me about it!

Or tell me about your new sewing project, or that thing your boss is doing that’s driving you crazy. What’s your good news and your bad? Get in here and let’s talk about it.

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…
code it in to your comment like so:

If you need to upload the photo you love from your computer, try using imgur. To learn more about posting photos, check out Ali’s step-by-step guide.

How To Post A Video In The Comments, Too:

Find a video on YouTube or Vimeo or WHATEVER and click “embed.” Copy that code, paste it, you’re good to go!

Before you go! Autostraddle runs on the reader support of our AF+ Members. If this article meant something to you today — if it informed you or made you smile or feel seen, will you consider joining AF and supporting the people who make this queer media site possible?

Join AF+!
Related:

Rachel

Originally from Boston, MA, Rachel now lives in the Midwest. Topics dear to her heart include bisexuality, The X-Files and tacos. Her favorite Ciara video is probably "Ride," but if you're only going to watch one, she recommends "Like A Boy." You can follow her on twitter and instagram.

Rachel has written 1141 articles for us.

92 Comments

  1. Untouched reminds me of when I went to the homecoming dance with Milo and then Alonso, Vanessa, Milo and I went to Denny’s afterwards and sang this song at the top of our lungs on the way there. 3/4ths of the people in the car were queer at the time and hadn’t come out yet. I’ll give you a hint: Vanessa was the only straight one. <3

    • Omg this is so cute and also v relatable! Why is going to Denny’s after prom or homecoming SUCH a thing? Did straight people also do that? I went with my girl prom date and I think ordered applesauce? Why did I do that?

    • Denny’s plays a lot of Disney songs. Anyone else ever notice that? Maybe it’s all the sticky fingered kiddos? Anyway, this cute waitress caught me singing along, and we ended up doing a duet to “I just can’t wait to be king!!!!”

  2. My favourite blasts from the past are all music related. I’m the kind of person who listens to music for sympathetic company, so listening to old favourites is a bit like meeting up with a friend I haven’t seen in a long time. A loud metalhead friend who is forever stuck in the 1980’s.

    This week has been crazy hectic, disappointing and stressful so I’m just going to talk about my cat. She’s so cute. The other week I talked about my concerns about her extremely high prey tally, after the hay harvest, but it has since gone down to a single zoonose haemorraghic fever-carrying vole in a week. Instead she started bringing home pine cones. Pine cones!!

    • Dido is straight 90s nostalgia for me. I grew up watching Roswell, Buffy, and Charmed so all those old 90s bands bring me back to childhood.

      • Having a cat has been really educational. I learn so much zoology. Like which super cute hamster/gerbil-looking creatures in the yard carry diseases that kill humans. ?☠

          • Miss Kitty Fantastico (now temporarily renamed Countess Cathory for her savagery) actually left us little animal surprises even before she started going outside, but at least then it was semi-positive the way she could slaughter a whole family of mice in two days, when it would’ve taken us humans two weeks to get them all.

  4. Hello beauties!

    I am absolutely a nostalgic person but only for very specific things- like I was messing with our box of gift wrap things to make them more effectively packed ( this is zero percent my typical jam by the way, but in the pursuit of making our house baby-ready I found out exactly how many satin ribbons we have in our house. answer: 6, I think) and I remembered how when I was little I had a can full of fancy ribbons I had gotten on gift and I would hoard them in my tiny can of femme wonders.

    I had a thing for fabric scraps that were shiny or soft or felt “fancy” in any way. My mom is and was a prolific sewer and I would pick up all her remnants like a little magpie and hide them away. And if I brought stuff in for show and tell and it was delicate in any way I would wrap it up in my nicest fabric scraps, which I thought of as really nice, but I don’t know how it looked to anybody else.

    So like, I’m nostalgic for stuff like that, partially because my parents didn’t really buy us stuff like tomagatchis, and because kids are weird.

    I wrote a thing! http://www.seattlefeministtherapy.com/2017/09/08/get-mad-parents/

    It’s been smokey and crummy this week in Seattle and I’m noodling around in a coffeeshop before therapy, and the place I’m at makes these everything croissants and they’re so FUCKING GOOD.

    Otherwise, I dunno, my week has been slammed with work (blah blah) but I’ve been feeling pretty anxious lately in a body-based way, but it’s gotten to the point where I really need to take better care of it, but I’ve been doing that in a few different ways, and it’s kinda nice to be like, okay self, we have to re-focus and not just muscle through, that’s not working for you.

    Hope yall have a nice weekend!

    • Ooo, noodling around coffee shops sound fun. The area I am in has pretty cool coffee shops if you are willing to travel.

    • i’m sorry to hear you’ve been feeling anxious but i’m impressed that you’ve been taking care of yourself and your body! a role model for all of us!

  5. I’m trying to learn to not allow other people’s problems to bother me. An 18 year old in the meditation circle is having problems, making poor choices, and wants the people around her to agree with her. She blames another girl for the guy she was sleeping with not wanting to be with her, among other things. My biggest pet peeve is one of the adults is enabling her. I’m trying to learn to let go and not be bothered. I’m going to cut it there because it is not my problem.

    I signed up for Time Out Youth and I officially signed up for ORIENTATION! I almost missed the email because I didn’t know where it came from. By chance I looked at it a week after I got it.

    I am putting together a lesbian meditation meetup in the park. I will most def be submitting a meetup soon. I just want to get the wording right.
    Smudging, guided meditation, tarot, and a discussing being lesbian and a witch, starseed, empath, and general weirdo. I don’t get enough queer love/understanding in the spiritual community. So I am going to have to do this on my own!

    I bought an african violet today and I am in love. Love me some plants. Maybe I’ll post some pictures later. I have a bench I am filling with plants pushed up against my windowsill.
    The blast from the past I am interested in is Charmed. I am 100% in love again! It inspires me to write. Also it is perfect for fall. I love me some witchcraft.

    Celebrated my dog’s birthday by buying him a box of toys from chewy. They were all on sale it was almost too good to be true. They come in today.

    Back to homework and smelling the beautiful autumn air drifting in from my open windows.

    • oh I love african violets! i wish i could buy more plants right now and am living vicariously through everyone who can. please post pics!

  6. This is so on point today, I am the oldest of the millennials in our office and I remember some of the terrible Canadian drug PSAs that used to plan in the 90s, so I was showing them to some of my coworkers who have never seen them before. Let me tell you some of them were kind of terrifying if you were a child seeing them for the first time.

    Here’s a couple for you viewing pleasure:

  7. There’s a chance that I’m dating a coworker, and by chance I mean I am until someone knocks some sense into me. In my defense, we don’t actually work together – our departments have nothing to do with each other- in the year we’ve both been working here, neither of us have had any professional contact. And we work like 10 floors away from each other. Plus office romance is actually really common here and oddly encouraged. But we still work in the same building, for the same organization.

    • oh wow! that’s so much! how is it encouraged?? i hope everything is going great with this person and that it’s fun and exciting!

      • It’s a Jewish organization, and Jews are supposed to meet other Jews for marriage and procreation. One of my coworkers married and has 3 children with a man she met here. The irony about the whole thing is that the girl in question isn’t even Jewish.

        • That make so much sense. A friend over the weekend told she went to an LGBTQ speed dating event and they had person from a Jewish adoption agency there talking about the importance of adopting and marrying Jewish.

  8. I impulsively drove out to the Oregon coast yesterday cause after so long of only seeing ash and smoke in the sky I needed to see some clouds, fog, blue sky (it’s still there). It felt good while I was out there. I am also feeling very lonely cause I don’t have any friends nearby yet and I just feel so unsure of myself and I spend a lot of time alone. I know with time it’ll be easier and I’ll know more people and know people more closely. But i just want to go back like two months when I was spending so much time with my favorite people and knew what who I was and what I was dping.

    • this is such a beautiful comment jay; it’s a weird summer to feel lonely during, i know, especially with ash falling from the sky. i have faith that you’ll have more people more present in your life when you need it, and you always have us here <3

    • This looks interesting! I just hope she doesn’t get punished somehow for being a lesbian? That’s kind of the vibe I’m getting from the trailer.

      • From the trailer and the synopsis I think that her parents are trying to suppress/repress/oppress her sapphic tendencies, and strange phenomena start to ensue.

  10. I think for me the whole 90s was peak nostalgia and there is a part of me that is stuck there(I was in 1-8th grade in the 90s so yeah). Like I still listen to 90s Defotnes, Sleater Kinney, 2pac, and other talent that came out of the 90s. For me peak nostalgia is around 1996 around the time things changed, and legends passed away(Biggie and Pac). 1996 is also when my favorite comedy tracks came out, George Carlin’s Pro-Lifers and Abortion, from his Back in Town HBO Special. It’s a little crude,& vulgar, yet it’s true & funny commentary that still sadly applies to the current political climate. It makes me nostalgic for an era I didn’t know better & was blissfully ignorant. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvF1Q3UidWM

    How is everyone’s week going? I like the shorter week as I spent my Monday at home drinking cold tea, with my friend Mary Jane watching Broad City all day; it was great. On Sunday I hosted another LGBTQ potluck/bbq beach day and it was very good. It started off a little slow, as in I was the only one there until 1pm, until a lovely gal showed up. The party didn’t really start until 6pm and it was mostly if not all people who weren’t cis gbq men. It was nice, cause it more focused about the rest of LGBTQ people. No gay snacks this time around, but people had just as much fun, so much so I am probably going to make this a monthly event, though have in the park for Fall and Winter seasons.

    • Oops jumped the gun on the post a little. If mods can add this image to my first post please that would be cool.

      Here is the clouds and sun shinning from Sunday.

      Thank you for viewing and reading my post. Have a positive weekend!

    • I don’t remember much from my childhood. But 1996 will live on forever as a great year for gaming! Rushing home after school for Sailor Moon. LAN parties with too much Red Alert, and even more Mountain Dew. Falling in love with Laura Croft, Diablo on school nights until “Stay a while and listen” – and then you do until morning. And of course, my favorite adventure game of all time, and the little known gem, Lighthouse:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSCfAqy2hno

      • I don’t remember Lighthouse for some reason. I do remember Sailor Moon, but I never really watched it for some reason. I was more of a Nickelodeon kid, you know the classics, like Doug, and Rugrats. Seriously Rugrats was sooo amazing and diverse it normalized a lot of things for me, like a single father, powerful, working women, and of course all the Jewish holiday stories other shows rarely or never even talked about. Related this came out like in 1995, and was sung by late & solid Kris Kross
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Aj-7THwPYo

      • I didn’t even like playing video games, but I still had Tomb Raider for ‘some reason’.

      • I listen to them frequently, mostly because they are still excellent, but also because they had the live album come out this year and No Cities to Love come out in 2015.

  12. Comforting blasts from the past for me are music related. If I am having a bad day or feeling stuck in a weird mood I play some 90s pop. Give me some Ace of Base and I am a happy person again (or at least less likely to burst into tears because I’m crabby). 90s pop reminds me of dancing around my room with the classic hairbrush-as-microphone with my friends and deciding who was who from the Spice Girls. Note that in my group of friends the only one who could even somewhat like girls was Ginger Spice. No idea why, but it was a rule, and I always was stuck playing Baby Spice (but I’m a brunette tomboy Meghan, why do you make the rules? And why wasn’t Sporty Spice the one we assumed was a lesbian? Hm..). But it takes me back to that simpler time when I loved Sailor Moon (ding ding, you’re a baby gay) and climbing trees and learning how to ride my bike with no hands.
    Some good news is that I’ve begun to reconnect with the tarot deck I received last winter, and I am enjoying it very much right now! Also my tiny Emma-cat is letting me pet her more and is finally climbing on my lap sometimes (she is 4 now, and has been standoffish with me since I left my ex 2 years ago; cat had a grudge maybe?). Some bad news is that I still work in an office cubicle and I wish I had noise cancelling headphones ;)

    • I recently switched tips(the plastic/rubber or foam things on headphones that go in ear) and while I am getting slightly better sound, due to better sealing, it’s also blocking out more outside noise. If you do have/use in ear headphones it could be an affordable options as most headphones come with different tips included in the packaging. Usually 3 different sizes, but some of the pricier/nicer ones can include 5+ different sizes and shapes.

  13. The 61st anniversary of Star Trek has me nostalgic! I first got into the fandom in 2009 with the JJ Abrams reboot and have since watched TOS, The Animated Series, TNG, DS9, and have barely started Voyager. I am SUPER PUMPED for the new series, Discovery!

    I have finally gotten back on my very low-key skin care routine! My face is getting incrementally clearer every day. In the mornings I use the trader joe’s tea tree oil face cleansing pads and then put on their face moisturizer. Before bed I use the cleansing pads again and put on my acne medication. When showering I use the basic orange looking neutrogena face cleanser. I’ve learned through that morning ritual series that ya’ll have some really intense skincare routines that scare the shit outta me. But until mine stops working I’m going to stick with it.

    I’ve gotten more into comic books/graphic novels lately, as I remembered libraries exist and have graphic novels available for checkout! A few weeks ago I read the first 3 volumes of “Rat Queens” which I loved a lot, and this week I started Y: The Last Man and am on volume 6. What are ya’lls queer feminist opinions about this series? I’d love to hear them. Yorick is a pain in the ass but I like him a lot, even if he is a basic yt dude.

    Mental health wise I’ve been doing a lot better than I had been. I’m really happy about being happier but also terrified because I know when the depression trips me up again the fall is going to be long and hard. But!!! Fall is coming! Eventually! And I can wear my favorite fall clothes and comfy sweaters and read books while listening to the rain! I’m so pumped!

    I’m preparing an event with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention on suicide prevention, with a focus on the LGBT community. This is the first event I’ve ever spearheaded so I am REALLY excited for that but also nervous about everything going well!

    • That’s so awesome about the Suicide Prevention. I did something similar this week and signed up to be a Trans Lifeline volunteer!

  14. The good news: I still have a job, and it looks like it will be stable for a while. We finally got the official word that the big corporate acquisition of our little company (the acquisition that has been the subject of the rumor mill for like 4 months or more) went through, and from what we’ve heard so far, it looks like it will be a good move for me and the people I work with. I’ve been anxious about this for months, and now it feels like a huge weight has lifted.

    The EEO/AA statement of my new employer even includes gender identity and expression and sexual orientation as explicitly protected categories — BONUS!

    The nostalgia: this past month, my mind has kept going back to 1992, which was the year I moved halfway across the country and into a completely different academic discipline. I honestly didn’t expect to be in the same city 25 years later, but here I am. (I also didn’t anticipate that, 25 years later, I would have a 20 year-old child, or that I would figure out that I was trans and eventually decide to transition. It’s been … an interesting ride.)

    • That is awesome that your job is inclusive of all genders and that you will still be working there! Hopefully, it also means that there is more opportunity for you to get a raise!

      • I don’t know about a raise, but I think that over time there will be opportunities to expand the range of what I do for them. That will be nice.

  15. 99% of things make me nostalgic. I’m nostalgic since I’m 5 years old. However, tomorrow, what made me nostalgic was organizing word documents and reading things I wrote (or I wrote with friends) in 2012/2013. Not gonna enter into the details but how I miss these people and these characters ! Also what makes me nostalgic : listening to any song I have sung with my choir.

    Anyway, so I’m in Ireland. We visited a little bit – it’s so beautiful and people are so friendly ! We saw the city I’m going to live in.
    Some happy thoughts : french teachers are happy to have an assistant, everybody wants to help me to settle (give me a ride, etc). My room is big and comfy. Ireland is beautifull and God is good.
    Some less happy thoughts : I’m at the first floor wich means my legs are going to hurt. There’s no public transports in the city and I don’t have my power wheelchair so i’ll walk or ride my bike. I don’t have my friends here, and, oh, still in love with someone I can’t have.

    Also :
    *Wrote the chapter two of my YA novel. I don’t hate myself everytime I write anymore.
    *I don’t want to leave my parents until my father opens his mouth and then I can’t wait to leave them (sorry mom. love you always)
    * I KIND OF CAME OUT TO MY BROTHER ???? Not close AT ALL to him. First time I come out to anybody in my family. Still heart racing because of that.

  16. I listened to Potential Breakup Song by Aly and AJ today- that is still a jam.

    I trekked all the way from Astoria to Flatbush to see the good good boys of My Brother My Brother and Me tonight with my best friend who is currently in the lincoln tunnel up from Philly. Pray for her soul.

  17. Video games are a pretty big nostalgia trigger for me, especially Wind Waker. I’ve played (and loved) the shit out of the older Mario games, but WW was what really introduced me to the potential of video games. I have the official LoZ soundtrack that came out… entirely too long ago, and whenever I hear the first few notes of the WW theme it always brings me right back.

    Also, in semi-related news, I’ve picked up Skyrim again and actually figured out basic modding. The game’s been out for 6 years, so it kinda counts as “retro” in the video game world? Anyway, I was prompted to get into modding because I learned that there’s a Granny Weatherwax mod that gives you a flying broom, a cottage, and “sensible” clothes. Anyone know of any other Discworld mods?

    Oh, and while video games are usually a bigger cause of nostalgia, I did get to see the Backstreet Boys in concert this summer. I listened to their songs/watched their videos for like 2 weeks beforehand, too, and WOW some of their music videos have not aged well. I’m too lazy to link, but definitely check out the “I Want it That Way” video for some hilariously bad early 2000s editing. The concert itself was just as much a blast from the past, and let me tell you, hearing a few thousand drunk French people singing “As Long As You Love Me” is an Experience.

    • THE BACKSTREET BOYS IN CONCERT? i’m so happy for you! singing along with ‘as long as you love me’ sounds truly unforgettable

  18. Last week I was feeling nostalgic while depressed about being unemployed sooooo I played Spyro 2 on PlayStation 1 and watched Buffy and that made me feel better!

    Alsooooo really noticed how different TV was in the 90s – I’ve watched like 10 episodes of Willow and Tara being together ace they still haven’t kissed on screen aaarrrrggghhhh!

    Anyway hope you all have a great weekend straddlers!

  19. Rocky Horror Punk Show, the Migraine’s version of “I’m Going Home” and Ruth’s Hat’s version of “Superheros” still make me weep.

  20. Nostalgia is my default emotion.

    Mine is 1998-2002 which seems to be rather cliché around these parts lol. And yeah I had a bright blue inflatable chair from ’99. I experience nostalgia in TV (esp kids stuff like nickelodeon), movies and music (esp pop, the more bubblegum the better) predominantly as well as going back to my home town (where I am right now).

    I was born in ’88 but before that, seems to be a lot more specific. As much as I’ll get nostalgic about Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Kenan and Kel and even Rugrats I can’t put myself very easily into the head of the kid who liked to watch Brum and Play Days. I do still get nostalgic over Gladiators and Crystal Maze though.

    There was also my local radio which always seemed/seems to play the same music. It was great coming back to home county and hearing it again. I think most of that is late 80s-early 90s. I’m not sure its genre but a lot of it used to freak me out a lot as a kid. One about Toy Soldiers for eg, these people were all toy soldiers and it starts out really jolly and then they all die. And one with someone whispering ‘be quiet big boys don’t cry’. Not really sure what those songs were but they spooked me out a bit as a kid but fascinated me too. And there were two ads: one was ‘join the army’ and the other was ‘don’t smoke or you’ll die’…

    My nostalgia stops in 2004 which is when we moved house and I became a lot more closeted in everything not just gender/sexuality but everything that made me unique, due to bullying and being in a totally alien environment :( I’m just rediscovering old me now.

    My mum is redecorating my room which is really nice of her but I’m aspie and she’s putting things in the wrong place which is really hard for me. I told her to leave it and she won’t. I find nice people hard to deal with sometimes.

    I’m at my granddad’s house. This is the one place that never changes and when it does, does it at a rather slow rate which is lovely. It has loads of stuff still in use that came from the 60s and 70s.

    Been spending most of my free time this week playing nation states. Wrote 3k all but 1 day. I figured out for milwordy that I need to have 2800 words + a day.

    • That toy soldiers sounds really familiar, I did a google search and I think the song you are looking for is Toy Soldiers by Martika, though Eminem did in the early-mid 2000’s sample the song, even using the same name.

      • Thanks, yeah it will be the Martika one cos I grew up with it all through the 90s.
        It’s funny, with those songs especially the radio ones they’re so much integral to my childhood that I forget that they had bands. It’s like with books, I’m a writer now but it took me til I was 7 to figure out that books had authors and til I was 9 to realise that all books did, not just Roald Dahl and Enid Blyton ones.

  21. I literally just walked out of a movie about Berlin in the eighties and its underground music scene, that was screened in an old warehouse with a spectacularly bad communal kitchen meal beforehand.
    I grew up ten years later, but miss my town so much, despite never having moved away.
    It used to be dingy bars in old musty cellars,and random conversations over terrible beer and dirt cheap food and nothing cost much or anything, which was a good thing, because no one had any money whatsoever.
    It was easy to get lost because there was no standard for anything and it was full of lost people with a harshness about them, but big hearts and tragic, full stories.
    Now, however, there has been this influx of well to do artsy kids who are here to party and do drugs and fuck as much and anything they can, and when they’re done, “having found themselves” they leave the town broken and bruised and dirty.
    Rents have tripled in the past few years, no end in sight and all of the secret, special places have been sold out and closed down.
    The special people moved out into the periphery, mostly into poverty.
    And everyone speaks English now, not bothering with German, founding some bullshit start up or other, because “Why bother?” or “The Grammar is too hard.” when every damn mechanic from Syria can’t find a fucking job unless they’re absolutely fluent in German.
    The screening today was introduced in English for all of the present hipsters, while two hours before I met with my new mentee from Iraq to help with his German.
    It’s beyond frustrating.
    Sorry, for ranting, but yeah, I’m nostalgic;-)

  22. I went all philosophical/deep with “past revist” and “comforting”
    It was like
    1) Rage was (and still is) comforting because it made me feel strong not sad and therefore weak
    2) My past is like bucket of apples rolled down a flight of stairs
    3) So many comforting things are closely linked with or come at the heels of/from hurt and loss…holy shit is this I have a Creation and Destruction two sides of the same coin complex isn’t?
    4) I stopped living in the present in 2005

    https://youtu.be/tGmgEg8nL7s?t=53 (to skip intro)

    Okay so this is from the early days of youtube and it is someone using Vampire Hunter D and Judas Priest’s Nightcrawler as like Vampire: The Masquerade tribute or fan video.
    It’s the timing of the music and the action that makes me love it.

    In case you don’t know those 2 things have NOTHING at all to do with each other
    VTM is a role playing game and Vampire Hunter D is a manga with two films Bloodlust(2000) and the main character is a vampiric hybrid living in a post-apocalyptic reconstructed world with a rotting oligarchy of vampires.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPDahFDchDw

    This is a tribute to all the great vampire anime films and Hellsing of the late 90’s early 00’s with Mitternacht by E Nomine.
    It’s so much fun, I bop along to the song every time I hear it.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eukpM2YeEcU

    From Dusk Til Dawn, the dance of Satánico Pandemonium
    I watched this movie(in the wee hours of the morning) without knowing anything about it or having any way to look it up and learn what it was about and lemme tell ya it was a wonderful surprise for young queer me to watch alone. Salma Hayek and Tito Tarantula *dreamy sigh*
    I fucking love that After Dark song it always makes me feel goooood.

    …..Okay so I thought it through and I think my Peak Nostalgia is basically vampire media from the 90’s to the early 00’s, horror themed music and late night tv.

  23. My mom turned 40 yesterday; the celebration included making a playlist of songs from 1977, reminiscing about mine and my sister’s childhoods, and preparing to hunker down for Hurricane Irma.

  24. So I wasn’t alive back then, but why did nobody tell me that when Courtney Cox got brought up on stage with Bruce Springsteen, she was totally soft butch??? This was ESSENTIAL information!

    • WHAT ON EARTH HOW DID I NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS?

      She has a bit of a Mallory Ortberg vibe in this picture and it works really well. She should get a Wintour/Didion wig and see where it takes her.

    • Because she was so unspeakably cute no one could get it together to tell you :P

      All smoal, soft and steal-able looking…I’m never not going to squee at those photos of her.

  25. I tried applying for Obamacare through open enrollment (because I quit my job) and even tho I qualified I found that all plans are super expensive and don’t cover any of my doctors. Which is important because I’m a survivor of cancer (find it important to say that phrase in that order). Anyway I also started freaking out because I’ve had really bad back pains so I made an appointment with my oncologist with no insurance lol lol. It also seems like the world is ending (on my back.) But maybe it’s been ending for years and we are now just noticing?

    On happier news, I applied for an artist position for a día de los muertos project and at cost-co, since Trader Joe’s is stalling on hiring the best cashier in the world– me.

  26. Nostalgia… I revisited my love for Weezer this week. Pinkerton album, primarily. Reminded of how great the line “if everyone’s a little queer/why can’t she be a little straight?” 1996! I remember playing rocking out a little harder to that song when my high school band played Weezer covers in the mid 2000s.

    Also, mid-late 2000s music is still my go to…anyone else?

  27. The cafe I was working in today was all 90s nostalgia. Kiss Me, Torn, Don’t Speak, Under the Bridge, Smells Like Teen Spirit one after another.

    In other news, dissertation writing still sucks.

  28. OH MAN Story time guys. This week I finished my second and last week of training with T-Mobile and became fast friends with a girl I’ll call Daria. Daria was having a really terrible week, and I was trying to help her out as best as I could so we ended up doing a lot together. Today 20 minutes before I was about to drop her off at her second job she confessed that she had been lying when she said that she had a boyfriend, she had a girlfriend instead. I then told her I had been lying too and that I had a girlfriend as well. We both were in excited laughing joy about how 20 minutes before I dropped her off, after two weeks of hanging out be both never confessed we were bi. It was a great 20 minutes and we plan to hangout again but it was wild how we both were like “gay vibes? Nah couldn’t be” for two weeks! Anyone else had a similar experience?
    Anyway in other news I kicked ass in my written and verbal sales exam and I’m actually excited for the job! I think I’ll be pretty good at it. Now its time for Beer, bath and cat cuddles. Hope you guys have a great weekend!

    • I have a kid and fell into a neighborhood play group with some other families with kids the same age. All the moms are partnered to cis guys (including me; I am going through a really gay feeling phase and I’m trying to ride it out in my marriage somehow but that’s another story). I have been talking with my friends about my struggles with being pretty far on the Kinsey scale to be married to a guy and through it found out that all but one of the five moms have had long term relationships with women? Except for one woman who is an old friend, so I know her history, it was a big surprise. Also things can get complicated and messy when you’re old :-/

  29. It’s probably way too obvious, but the ’90s, maybe forever. I have the My So-Called Life, Ren & Stimpy, and Pete & Pete boxsets/full series. Daria was also everything. My fiancé shares the same nostalgia. As corny as it is, thinking about us watching those shows (separately but at the same time) makes me bummed that we didn’t meet sooner–like when we were kids. Is that weird? I just wish I knew her always.

    • The other month I was listening to the theme song to Pete and Pete(it’s called Hey Sandy from Polaris for those interested) for like a whole day. Do you have all the seasons on DVD? I also recently found out that Kate from the B-52, was guest stars on the show(played a teacher?), & Mr. Tastee was Micheal Stipe of R.E.M. I doubt kid’s show these days would get stars like that. Also, I think it was MTV, but they have like Seasons 3 of Daria on demand when I saw it few months ago. I

  30. It must be that nostalgic time of year again. I wrote this the other day and thought I’d share:

    On cool autumn evenings, I pull a random CD from that old leather binder that lives underneath the driver’s seat. Yeah, you know the one that 16 year old you spilled 82 cent Maverik lemonade on and never bothered to clean, because that you buried your dog that day by the river. In that binder is your entire childhood on cover art, organized and displayed in plastic paper.

    Songs have a way of finding us when we need them most. This one is no different. Please not this song – not today. On that lonely highway, wind playing in my hair, somehow my mouth remembers each word from 15 years ago.

    You held his paw, stroking his soft velvet ears. Look, you even brought his favorite stick. You think he smiles, but, he is no longer breathing, and you start to wonder if you did enough.

    I push the hair from my eyes, sip my lemonade, and take the next off-ramp. Almost there – hang on. Without realizing, you begin to sing again. This is the road you took that day. You couldn’t decide. Torn between wanting to help her, but scared of not knowing how. When you arrive, you immediately hear the machines. You follow the tubes and wires to your little sister’s face. You can’t cry – not now. Instead, you hold her hand. She opens her eyes and smiles. And you still wonder, have I done enough?

    The engine stops. I leave the car, but the music lingers long after. Finally, I manage to unbury my hands from my face, pushing myself up from the wet hospital lawn. Can I do enough? I’m not ready, but she needs me. So I fake strength, breathe, and open that door.

    She lay there, eyes gently closed, her beautiful golden hair seemingly delicately placed across her perfect body. But it doesn’t matter what I think. I know that all too well.

    There are get-well cards on the table, and I feel empty handed. I was worried she cut herself. It’s worse than I thought. My fingers touch my neck, seeming to remember darker times. A reminder of a past life. Why are you still here? When will you leave me in peace? No, not now. That’s not why I’m here.

    What could I do for her? The only thing I know how. I kneel, and take her hand in mine.

    How much time passes?
    Why won’t she smile?
    Why isn’t she smiling?
    Am I doing enough?

    I want to shout – to shake her and ask who is responsible, but I already know. As a fellow trans woman, I fight the same fight each day. Now, I fight the tears instead. Why her? She’s just a kid. Come for me instead – I can take it.

    How can protect my trans sisters from this hate? I feel so powerless.
    If only they could see what I see.
    If only I could see what they see.
    Reflecting each other’s inner light so the world can finally see what we see.

    At last, the music finds our moment, and I can’t hold back the tears any longer. Your touch was enough, I tell you. So why not now? Why won’t she smile? Is it because I’ve changed? Through the tears, I glance my hand and see you there. Despite what they say – through the lies of the world, I see your same warmth. Your same humanity and love.

    I smile. The door closes quietly, and I am on that familiar road again. If the music is loud enough, and the wind cold enough, the sky and highway become one. On those nights, I pull one more nostalgic CD from my binder, and begin to sing words from a different life. Your strength guided me here, so that our smile can shine light and love on others.

  31. This is perfect because last night as I was getting ready a song popped up on my daily mix that came out over a decade ago. It’s a song by an Indonesian duo, Ratu. The title is Lelaki Buaya Darat. When it came out in high school I would’ve said I hated this song, but I found myself giddily singing along when it started playing yesterday. Most of you probably won’t even know of the song, but I just wanted to share. Current me is very different from high school me.

  33. Food for thought: isn’t “Kiss the Girl” from “The Little Mermaid” one of the best coming out songs ever? “Yes, you want her – Look at her, you know you do”. Well…

  34. Have you been listening to the playlist I’ve been working on all week? (Unlikely: It’s a fanfic soundtrack.) I added an unplugged version of “Untouched” :D

    I’ve also been working on my application to a ten day musical theatre intensive, and part of that is listening to different versions of the songs I’m auditioning with. One version of “I’m Not Afraid of Anything” from Songs for a New World had one of the weirder lyrical “no homo”s this side of Michael Bublé’s cover of “Santa Baby” – “David” and “he’s” got changed to “you” and “you’re”??

    Lately I’ve been considering growing my hair out a bit from to but it’s been so long since I’ve had hair long enough to do anything with and I live in a windy city, so I am unsure :O

    Last but not least, the te reo Māori dub of Moana comes out next week and it’s free for Māori Language Week, so I’m trying to find someone to go with!

    • Oh you lucky ducky you’re in New Zealand aren’t you?
      I’d love to go with you, but I’m not even in the same hemisphere. Also I’d probably be extra blubbery
      Moana pushes 3 of my water works buttons already and hearing it in a Polynesian language would like double click one of those buttons.

      How well do barrettes to wind in your experience? That might help keep your hair outta your face. Bangs too.
      But in my experience of pier walking back when a hurricane was in the Gulf several states away wide cloth head bands are boss.
      Nothing get pass them.

      • Yup, I’m in New Zealand/Aotearoa! I have a feeling I will be too enthralled attempting to keep up with the translation to cry too much – my te reo is juuust good enough to tell when the subs for a standard format introduction aren’t keeping up with the vocal, haha.

        Back when I had long hair, at most I used barrettes as decoration for something with hair ties, so I can’t really speak to their efficacy against the wind. Anyone else tried them in wind?

        I do own some ribbon things I use as headbands/belts ?

  35. Well. It has certainly been a summer. I’m going to see Cher this weekend so I’m listening to, “If I Could Turn Back Time.” So, that’s what I’ve got for nostalgia.

  36. I am having a sad because yesterday was the feast day of Our Lady of Charity, the Patroness of Cuba and today Irma struck.
    I know people suffer and die everyday and the weather gives zero shits about special days and occasions because it lacks sentience.
    But ow.

  37. I’m just hugely relieved right now – someone I know was in Key West and planning to stay put, and the last we’d heard from them was on Thursday, before the forecasts shifted to put them right in the heart of the maelstrom. Thankfully, they’ve been heard from, and are in comparative safety on the mainland now. \^\_\^;

    Weirdly, I’m not really all that nostalgic a sort – I always feel myself pulled forward, wanting to see what can come of what’s yet to be, rather than indulging in dalliances with the past. There’s always a place for memories, of course, but I’m a Bunny of the Future™ (insert dramatic action shot here) (outfits sold separately).

    Still, if pushed.. I’ll admit to having bought Spice World: The Movie on DVD as a new release at full price, and didn’t regret it for one second as I watched it in the bath. And I had (have, I think!) the Soda trainer boots to match, with fabulously chunky platforms, all in white.

Comments are closed.