Eight Important Excerpts From Editorial Conversations

Anya: it’s a warm but strangely cloudy day in brooklyn today
Kayla: love a weather report
We’re currently driving down alligator alley
Laneia: of course
Kayla: Have not seen a gator yet this time but it’s cloudy so they’re probably hiding
Laneia: “what do you think kayla and kristen are doing at ~noon on friday?”
“alligator alley”
Kayla: hahahaahaha
Laneia: why do they hide when it’s cloudy !
my weather report is what it will be until october which is: full sun, 100+ degrees, lots of pigeons
Kayla: Haha by hide I mostly just meant swimming in the swamps
They don’t really like to lay out in less theres sun for them to soak up
Which is relatable

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Kayla: Love stopping at rest areas in FL because there are a million signs warning about poisonous snakes
And then at least one spider somewhere the size of a hand
Anya: florida is just so bizarre
Kayla: Made the mistake of finally reading about sinkholes the other day
Riese: and now are you in a sinkhole
Anya: sinkholes are one of those things that i can’t believe is physically real because it just seems so metaphorical
like that’s actually real??
it feels like a literary device
not a real thing
a hole that appears out of nowhere that things can vanish into?? that’s a story not a phenomenon

---

Kayla: I feel like I should write something funny and gay about the “coastal grandma” trend
Nicole: you have me googling coastal grandma
it kind of seems like straight people have, at last, discovered ‘mommi’ or ‘beach mommi’
but i don’t wanna erase any queer coastal grannies either, you know?
Kayla: Yeah I do wanna be like I tried to tell y’all about this
Four years ago
https://develop.autostraddle.com/nancy-meyers-but-make-it-gay-wearing-a-chunky-beach-sweater-when-your-life-is-falling-apart-438292/
Riese: Yes once again the straights are late to the plate
Nicole: right???
four years late
Straights Discover Beach Mommi Four Years After We Screamed About Cableknit, Call It ‘Coastal Grandma’
i feel like if anyone has a right to talk about this, it’s you Kayla
and also Christina lol

---

Sa’iyda: after seeing her beautiful meals on IG, i half-jokingly suggested to Vanessa that we should start a “real housewives of autostraddle” series. but like, actual housewife shit, not that weird, fake Bravo style drama.
Shelli: omigosh the way i want to find a happy medium of becoming a housewife but then a total working mom hottie babe
Sa’iyda: i’m not a hottie (literally sitting here in sweats, wrapped in a blanket) but i can do the rest!
Lily Alvarado: Shelli that is my every day struggle!
Kaelyn: Noooooo. “having it all” is a lie. I’m so sorry, ya’ll
Shelli: I am lounging around in a lavender mid length silky slip, matching rollers in my hair and fuzzy houseshoes….. all i am missing is a champagne flute of orange juice
Vanessa: shelli you are perfect
Niko: dream life
Vanessa: i don’t want it all i truly do just want a baby strapped to my hip and like, a life like one of those “off the grid” women on instagram where they spend all day making dinner from scratch but how do they finance it all?!?!?!
i’m being rhetorical i know they just have rich husbands but ugh
Niko: well, to be fair, some of them also have rich parents

---

Kayla: what — and i cannot stress this enough — is happening in this photo
Nicole: Me explaining something about tech to my older girlfriend
Kayla: LMAOOOOOOO
i also do tech support for my older girlfriend
Nicole: I know and I love this for us
Anya: they’re reading carmen maria machado’s essay in IT CAME FROM THE CLOSET: QUEER REFLECTIONS ON HORROR FILM

---

Laneia: VIV YOUR FRIENDS LOOK VERY COOL OKAY
Nicole: where are Viv’s cool friends at?
Laneia: https://develop.autostraddle.com/get-25-off-everything-in-autostraddles-pre-pride-sale/
Nicole: oooooooh!
Laneia: they sit at the cool table but also they said you could sit with them if you wanted
they have extra seltzer you can have one
they’ll tell you where the cool thing is happening this weekend!! no gatekeeping here okay they want you to have a nice time!
Nicole: they would tell me where they got that Caligula Inn shirt
Laneia: absolutely they would
Nicole: no gatekeeping, as you said
Carmen: Viv, i hope you tell your friends that we would like to be their friends!

[the next day]

Viv: that’s hilarious, they are the young people I choose to live in the co-op I staffed in college
because they were cool or something
I was the gatekeeper, literally

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Natalie: ‘True Detective’: Jodie Foster To Star In Season 4 Of HBO Anthology Series, Marks First Major Adult TV Role
Drew: My brain just went on a real roller coaster as it went from “that show is still on?” to “it’s on its fourth season?” to “of course we’re getting another lesbian cop” to “wait has Jodie ever even played an explicitly lesbian character?” to “wait Barry Jenkins is involved????”
Carmen: I’d like to stop at questions #4 and #5 please

---

Laneia: (“ikjhkj” was me putting a chip in my mouth and typing “wait” with one hand)
Carmen: lol I thought you were gen z laughing
Laneia: !!!
carmen omg
Carmen: you know how gen z laughs like this sjdfsjsfkdfjskfsfjas
i was like, “look at laneia, she’s keeping up with the trends! good for her”
Laneia: nope just a mom eating bean dip, the saddest thing i’ve ever typed out loud
Carmen: aldfkaldjafaj
(i also did that wrong 😞 and i’m not even a mom eating dip, i’m just a very hot woman sitting in her underwear wondering what was even the point of air conditioning 😞)
Laneia: [responds with a 🚨 emoji]
Carmen: laneia not hot in the 🚨 way
hot in the “i’m gonna die like this” way
Laneia: hot two ways
like potatoes two ways but gay

What We’ve Been Reading

This Year’s Met Ball: Let Them Eat Cake 2k22

Carmen: Hellllllooo @channel (we almost never @/channel in vapid fluff! but!) — TONIGHT IS THE MET BALL!! And yall know the deal, if you see a gay on the red carpet, post at least their name here/ a photo/ a funny commentary/ any and all of the above. I’m doing a roundup for tomorrow (if there are enough gays to round up) and any help would be great!
Drew: Is this also a safe space to bully the straight people who are boring
Carmen: thee safest place to bully straight people
I should probably look up the theme for tonight? Because I just opened up my feed and Cynthia Erivo is also wearing white what’s going on (I love her look, just wondering if anyone… wore a color)
Oh we’re doing generic “American Fashion” part 2? DIDN’T WE DO THIS AT THE FAKE MET IN SEPTEMBER AND IT WAS BAD THEN
Drew: Of all the themes that needed a part 2………
Drew: Apparently the dress code was specifically “Gilded Glamour”
Carmen: no. I vote no.
shea: I do not know if I’m hip enough to understand the Met Gala outfits because I usually just think “oh cute cute” or “what is…that?”
Drew: Oh yeah I know nothing about fashion beyond vibes
shea: i don’t like any of these vibes
is the vibe “basic chaos?”
Carmen: oh yeah met gala night at autostraddle is just a spectrum of “gays looking hot,” “step on me tessa” (that’s me), and “oh hunny no”
shea: “‘Gilded’ means to show how wealth and glamour were used to conceal the social unrest and turmoil of the era”…….oh okay.
Drew: Right !!!!!!
shea: they could’ve just worn bedazzled “live, laugh, love” shirts.
Carmen: sorry i’m late coming back BUT WHY THIS THEME OMG
This year’s Met Ball: Let Them Eat Cake 2k22
Analyssa: Chloe Grace Moretz (probably queer) also in mostly white lmao

Slowing things down with Chloë Grace Moretz #MetGala pic.twitter.com/Q1CHWgdxOj

— The Cut (@TheCut) May 2, 2022

Drew: I love this masc moment for Chloe
But I will say
None of these even feel on the bad theme
If I was at the Met Gala I would go as dead Lily Bart from The House of Mirth
Carmen: Is Chloe gay ok wait Analyssa helped
Analyssa: Rumored!!!
shea: is this a singer or a Nickelodeon child star?
Drew: Child star, unsure if she was ever on Nickelodeon haha
Carmen: WHERE!! IS!! TESSA!!
Sorry I know the big stars aren’t there yet, this is a slow rollout
But Zendaya isn’t coming and Rihanna isn’t coming, so I’m feeling very nervous
Riese: wait i really thought chloe was out
anna wintour smiling in these photos like she is the only one who thought this theme was a cute idea
Sa’iyda: i knew these people were gonna fumble the bag on assignment
there’s a whole show called the gilded age and yet, THIS is what we’re getting?
Drew: I just feel like there WAS a way to do the theme and comment on the theme the way people did the Catholic year
Carmen: Was the Catholic year the last great Met?
Drew: Camp was great because it was so bad which in a sense made it camp ??
But yeah Catholic was a special year
Carmen: Fun fact is the Catholic year was also the first year we started covering the Met! Because Lena’s cape
(I just stopped myself from typing out something very mean about Ana Wintour because this is a workspace, but just know I hate her and I’m very much in my Andre Leon Talley feelings about it)
Riese: i have read about the theme and it’s a real journey
Em: idk if it’s just me but seeing Anna Wintour’s outfit is giving me major Moira Rose vibe
Riese: items and concepts cited incllude: The House of Mirth, Mark Twain, The new York Times building, “Thomas Edison’s light bulb”, the “new-money Vanderbilts”, the Emma Lazarus poem on the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, the invention of the telephone, the impracticality of wearing light colors while walking the streets of new york
which i would argue remains true to this day as someone who did wear white pants in new york one time and suffered dearly for my mistake
Carmen: I suppose I’m not surprised Serena van der Woodsen understood the assignment, this theme is very Gossip Girl
Riese: well bustles were big
Carmen: hmmhmm they were
Analyssa: And she’s a chair of the gala!
Em: It’s Thomas Edison’s lightbulb for me
Riese: personally i would go as Thomas Edison

What We’ve Been Watching

Naturally the AS team is getting their fill of bicon, Angelina Jolie.

PR Emails That Lost Their Way

More often than we’d like, people email us about things that demonstrate they might be missing the point.

Nicolodeon

This is just a doodle from Nicole’s notebook :) They hope it brightens your day!

KKU Lookbook

Hello, I’m back to tell you about my looks this month! The theme of this month? CHAOS. It was the last month of my twenties, which is not the main reason it has been a chaotic month, but it still feels like a relevant fact. Most of the photos for this Lookbook were taken before I was actually finished putting together a look. I was very go-go-go this month, and I was also simply in a bathing suit a lot!!!! (Florida Brag) The two recurring throughlines in my outfits for May were: the color pink and cutoff shorts.

Look 1: So here is an example of me not quite being done with a look —my hair is still wet! She’s a gal on the go! This is an oversized linen blend blazer from H&M ($50), and it’s currently out of stock (but I’m linking the actual blazer in case it comes back!). I found some lookalikes at the Gap (on sale for $86), Banana Republic ($230 and available in several colors), and J.Crew (on sale for $118) —this last one is available in sizes 00 to 24 and comes in multiple colors. Honestly, if you do go with white like mine, I find it sometimes difficult to style this in a way that makes it not look like a lab coat lol, but the hack seems to be to wear it with shorts, a miniskirt, or leggings. With jeans/slacks/etc, it looks like a lab coat! Here, I’m wearing it with my new favorite cropped brown cami tank, which was from Marshall’s, but here’s a close match from UO for $25. The white shorts are from the Gap (on sale for $25). For accessories, I’m wearing an opal necklace ($38), a gold cuff ($15), and Madewell heels that used to be my gf’s before she embraced her butchness (I am very thankful for her femme castoffs!!!! I practically got a whole new wardrobe out of it!). They’re from several years ago, and I couldn’t find a close match from Madewell, so here are some close ones from Nine West for $108.

Look 2: Enjoy my messy Airbnb room!!!!!!! My gf and I took a trip to Saint Petersburg during May for a book event she did with the lovely folks of Tombolo Books. If you’re ever in the area, check them out! I wore this outfit for one of our date nights while there ($1 oysters!). My ultra-versatile chunky heeled black mules ($45) make yet another appearance along with my $80 “petal pants,” easily some of the most comfortable pants I own. The shirt is Marshall’s, and wow do I love wearing a bustier crop top! I need more! Here’s one for $40 at ASOS. Here, I am styled with my retro dolphin bracelet, which inspired a roundup of Beach Mommi/retro dolphin jewelry and a necklace I stole from my mother forever ago. It looks kind of like this one I found on Etsy ($36). I’m also wearing one of the rings from this $8 mix-pack.

Look 3: I truly wore cut-off shorts SO often this month!!!! And I foresee that continuing into next month. These are the Gap from several seasons ago, and the closest match I could find are these Levi’s for $69. The shirt is ASOS (on sale for $9). The pink heeled slides were an extremely splurgey 30th birthday gift from my gf, who spoils me 😇. They’re Gucci, but Steve Madden makes extremely close dupes for $50! Also wearing a turquoise bar necklace ($30+). And tiny purse ($30) makes another appearance, along with special guest Lola the french bulldog.

Meet A New Contributor!

Get to know some of our newest faces.

A.Tony Jerome, Writer

Social Media:
Instagram: @lexplayagame
Twitter: @ATonyJerome1

What’s something you’ve been really proud of lately?
Being like very intentional in remaining present. Trying to be still and open. That shit be hurting but I dig my fingers in the earth and miracle of miracles I’m still here.

If you could only use one emoji for the rest of your life, what would it be?
🙌🏾

If you could invite four famous people (dead or alive) to dinner, who would you choose and why?
Toni Morrison, Janelle Monae, Dr. Eve L. Ewing, Hanif Abdurraqib.

I’m trying to be a sponge, I just want them all to talk and for me to revel in the . I call Toni Morrison Mama Toni in my head and her work both on and off the page have been instrumental to me getting free. Janelle Monae is who I listened to in high school, who was one of the first people to remind me to dream Afrofuturistaclly and not weighed by white colonialist expectations and also I obviously have a crush on her. Dr. Eve L. Ewing is great at marrying the past, present, and future both in Electric Arches which I put along with Janelle Monae in my imaginings of black people as inherently free and taking care of one another in a way that demands us free. Hanif Abdurraqib is a poet I love to read, hear, and just be in company with. He’s great at exploring the nuance of humanity, like the possibility that tenderness is necessary for rage, sadness in deep seated joy, and his music taste expands me exponentially. Being in the presence of all of them, I just think would allow me to grow in the direction I can’t see but know I need to reach for.

Who was your first woman celebrity crush?
in a movie: Ms. Honey
celebrity everything else: Alicia Keys

Failure Is An Art Form

We are here to normalize trying, failing, trying, and failing again!

“I don’t have a lot of kitchen failures, but when I do, they are spectacular. My parents came to visit my girlfriend and I in Miami, and my mother wanted to have one of my famous “seafood trays.” I make them every time I have out-of-town guests (unless someone doesn’t eat seafood). It’s a tray full of goodies: crab legs, lobster tails, scallops, littleneck clams, shrimp, hot sausage, corn on the cob, chunks of red onion, golden potatoes. Not everything can go on the tray at the same time, so it takes time and precision to get the tray right. But then I present it all on the tray at once, and it’s a gorgeous display. So after 4+ hours in the kitchen, I went to assemble my tray and foolishly tried to lift it with one hand while holding something else in my other hand. My wrist gave out, and the tray dipped, and it was too late. Everything I’d just worked so hard to season, cut, clean, cook sloshed out onto the kitchen floor. We salvaged what we could, still ate ALL the seafood and most of the veggies, pretending my kitchen floor is cleaner than it actually is. We were so hungry, and I’d worked so hard. No one made me feel bad about the screw-up, but it put me in a bad mood for the rest of the night, because I’m very hard on myself!!!!!” — Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya

“I forgot to put out the garbage last week and you know what I had a lovely, uninterrupted evening. It was beautiful, the forgetting.” — Nicole

“I’ve been living out of three suitcases for two weeks because I cannot unpack. It’s too hard.” — Carmen

Whose Team Do You Play For?

So Many Scorpions

Ro: Ok I don’t have pets and I’m truly just lurking in this channel and enjoying all of your animals, but if wild animals are accepted here, I have content to share! Yesterday I encountered two young coyotes napping in the sun and I’m obsessed. I had to take the pic from far away, but hopefully, you can see them.

Darcy: FLUFFY FORBIDDEN CANINES
100% accepted
Sa’iyda: i will never say no to baby animal content, even if they could kill me
Ro: The coyotes around here are only interested in rats and rabbits, so I think you’re safe.
Heather: baby coyotes are basically just puppies!
Nicole: is this accurate though
i feeeel like they still might be dangerous but who knows what do i know
Heather: you know maybe i should look this up, i am realizing my source here is barbara kinsolver’s prodigal summer, a brilliant piece of fiction, and this one short story i heard on npr one time about a little boy dancing with some coyote puppies. standby for facts.
2 minutes later
Heather: okay i googled “will a baby coyote eat you” and google said: no, but leave them alone!
one time in 1980 a coyote kidnapped a child!
a coyote can take down a BISON? wow okay i have really been underestimating these puppers.
What Do Coyotes Eat
Ro: City coyotes are very used to being around people, so sometimes they can get close and that freaks people out! But they’re definitely not dangerous unless you mess with them or try to feed them. I walk in Chicago cemeteries pretty much every day and always see them. I’ve even given them all names. Can you tell I desperately need a dog?
Nicole: Heather I only just returned to this list of scary coyote facts.
Also! I had no idea about these coyotes in chicago cemeteries! That’s fascinating.
Ro: Oh yeah! There’s actually a local group studying them.
Nicole: So cool!
Vanessa: Heatheri realize you are not exactly someone who needs more on their plate but i do think people would 100% read an article titled “facts about baby coyote’s i learned today on google by heather hogan”
if you don’t want to write that i volunteer to write “facts i learned about baby coyotes when heather hogan googled them”
Darcy: reading Julie of the Wolves as a tiny child really made me ready to go out there and befriend any wild canine I met
sadly, I haven’t met any
Laneia: darcy if you’d like to come to the suburban foothills and take a stroll at around 11pm, you’ll have your chance
Nicole: do you have wolves laneia??
Laneia: well coyotes! and then the scorpions
Darcy: SCORPIONS i cannot
Laneia: still a wild canine, not as mysterious
Nicole: scorpions!!
do you have to check your shoes?
Darcy: little murder lobsters!
Laneia: omg y’all there are so many scorpions
especially in the foothills
i had to check shoes when i lived there — actually i checked everything
one time there was one on a clean cutting board that was on the drying rack
bathtubs! they loved those. ANYWAY YEAH come get a scorpion!
Darcy: gonna OPT OUT on the scorpions
Nicole: oh wow
Darcy: scorpions, like quicksand, were things i thought i would encounter as an adult far more than i have, because of Lassie and Flipper reruns on Nickelodeon
Nicole: Omg quicksand is such a trip. But yeah, far more rare than on TV…
Darcy: nicole have you encountered quicksand???
Nicole: Just twice! In Wyoming
Darcy: JUST twice!!!
Nicole: the spookiest part was the way it looked like dried out dirt on top, but then it rippled
Laneia: JUST TWICE
NI. COLE.
shea: Coyotes, scorpions, and quicksand? I am obviously not living as adventurous of a life as I once thought
21 minutes later
Laneia: shea i’m still absolutely losing my goddamn mind over “just twice!”
Nicole: lol
i did not talk about my decision to lean over it in order to fish out the cow skull i found in itbut now i am but i feel like it is somehow a violation of this channel
because it is for alive animals
Laneia: nicole i need to lie down
DID YOU GET THE SKULL
Nicole: oh yes
Laneia: thank god
Nicole: I still have it. She lives with me now.
Laneia: i want — and i mean i need this actually — nothing more than to walk around your home as you point out things like “and this is the cow skull i fished out of a quicksand pit in wyoming”
shea: WHAT IS HAPPENING? WHO ARE YOU?! DO YOU HAVE YOUR OWN SHOW ON NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, Nicole?!
Nicole: absolutely not i had no idea what i was doing
shea: allegedly
Vanessa: nicole i want you to write a post titled “things i said in #animalstraddle that made laneia need to lie down” forA+
don’t mind me just assigning everyone in this channel articles i personally want to read today
there’s a coyote that lives on the golf course that our townhouse backs up onto and my gf saw it recently and was like “holy shit we can never let zucchini out there without a leash for real!!!” (our HOA forbids animals to be outside without a leash but we sometimes break the rule and sometimes get in trouble about it) but then a few days ago i couldn’t remember the word for coyote so i was like “BABE BE CAREFUL ZUCCHINI IS OUTSIDE WITHOUT A LEASH, KEEP AN EYE OUT FOR THE… JACKAL?????”
and i do not recall my gf laughing so hard at me ever in our lives

XOXO

Team Autostraddle