feature image via Jasika Nicole
You made it to this day! You did it! I’m so excited for what you’re gonna do now that you’re here. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes! I woke up to the most soothing and wonderful dream about Mister Rogers singing to me in my grandparents’ backyard, right where the rose bushes used to be — a convergence of so many of my happiest things, I almost can’t believe it happened, even in my subconscious. In honor of that dream, here’s a thing I wrote a few years ago: This Is A Mister Rogers Post!
You Should Go or Do or Give
+ The Black Lesbian DIY Fest is happening in NY on October 3!
Queer as in F*ck You
+ Ugh ok I’m so sorry, brace yourself. Just get ready. It’s not going to be easy, but you’re about to see a home tour that you’ll never recover from. Jasika Nicole, who can do no wrong and is a perfect angel, and her equally brilliant and angelic wife, Claire Savage, have their home up on Design Sponge and you just can’t even. You cannot even. You’ll never even again. Sorry! An Actor and An Analyst’s LA Craftsman.
photo by Jasika Nicole
“Is that a portrait of Dolly Parton in the basement??!” Yes, reader, yes it is.
+ Defining Your Gender as a Black Queer Femme is Revolutionary, Don’t Take That Away by Sydnee Thompson on BGD.
+ Hot Lesbians Defined by Actual Lesbian by Deborah Goldstein. Oh wow you’re gonna love this opening story so much!
You see, when that straight man I’ve just met tells me that I’m the hottest lesbian he knows–A) it’s clear he doesn’t get out much, and B) what he really means is, “You’re a girlie girl who can hang with the boys, and I am totally going to picture you naked licking pussy while I beat one off tonight.”
+ New Documentary on the Indian Queer Movement Will Make You Feel Warm and Fuzzy by Reina Gattuso.
Doll Parts
+ Girl, Send Me a Frext by Alana Hope Levinson. Riese and I have never sent pictures of our butts to each other, but maybe we should start?
+ A response to Mary Mitchell’s god awful piece about raping sex workers: Rape Culture Rears Its Head in the Sun-Times.
+ Women Living With Fibromyalgia by Gabby Bess.
+ Haley Mlotek‘s response to that personal essay industrial complex post that we had a lot of feelings about: The Economics of the Personal Essay. Additionally! The Personal Essay Economy Offers Fewer Rewards for Black Women by Stacia L. Brown.
+ Rookie’s got a new column by Lola Pellegrino called Body Talk and it’s probably going to be rad.
+ Charlotte Shane with Calling My Work What It Is.
+ Great Moments in Menstrual History with Maggie Mertens.
Saw This, Thought of You
+ I Gave A Speech About Race To The Publishing Industry And No One Heard Me by Mira Jacob.
+ This article is a fucking roller coaster. Barbie Wants to Get to Know Your Child.
+ Taco Bell Will Offer Beer and Wine, apparently in an effort to attract millennials, which, what? Taco Bell is where you go after you’re drunk. Taco Bell it’s like you don’t understand people at all.
+ Here’s How Much It Costs To Have A Family Member In Prison by Bryce Covert.
+ What We Lose When a Neighborhood School Goes Away.
+ This is fascinating and difficult: What Happens When a Parent’s Grief Goes Viral by Alex Ronan.
+ Rejected American Horror Story Seasons.
+ Here’s Ryan Adams’ finished product. I was expecting more, to be honest.
This is the best post to finish the work week <3.
I have Fibromyalgia and thank you for posting that
HI FIBRO FRIEND! I wrote a thing about fibro on this website too that you should also read if you haven’t already. SOLIDARITY.
Hmm, Ryan Adams. Hmm.
Come on, Ry. Come on.
I do enjoy the Bad Blood cover.
Okay so I had a hard time reading that piece Reise posted (the write-up that other site did about Autostraddle) because it really oversimplified the scope of what AS actually does, and Also.Also.Also is a really great example of this.
Like that girl they quoted who basically said “AS is for people who identify first as gay, and secondly as everything else:” That was bullshit, IMHO. Also Also Also is just one example of how AS provides the feminist queer-centric antidote for the male-dominated heteronormative world we grow up steeped in and poisoned by.
I don’t mean to sound all radical, but with the current clickbait state of the internet, and with content so cheap it often reads on other sites like essays we’re critiquing for a first-year English class, it is SO. IMPORTANT. that sites like AS are here to inspire us, help us connect with other smart amazing people in the queer world, and keep our heads above water as we deal with the absurdity of our news cycle and our culture.
I dunno, I guess consider this my little love letter to AS for stuff like Lez Liberty Lit, Rebel Girls, A.A.A, the fact that trans content is actually covered by trans writers, everything ever written by Heather Hogan, and just the fact that many of you guys do this all without making a living at it, and you do it fucking WELL.
That is all ;-)
I forgot Daily Fix but that is also super important :-)
THANK YOU KIND FRIEND
THANK YOU FOR THIS ?
I APPRECIATE YOU.
AMEN to all this.
I’m late to the party, but this is just the best. <3
I do not have fibro, but I do have chronic pain/mobility issues that plague my life and have not been able to find a diagnosis. It is so hard to get a doctor to acknowledge your pain when they can’t see anything wrong with you and they just don’t understand how much your daily life is affected. I am actually struggling with my doctor right now trying to find some answers and am feeling very discouraged. That article felt very familiar in many ways.
The talking Barbie!? I have so many thoughts.
First, her modules include “fashion, careers, animals and more”? My six year old and I rarely talk about fashion (unless it’s about her mismatched socks), careers (unless it’s making potions as a chemist) or animals (unless they are bugs). I don’t think Barbie will be programmed to talk about chemistry or bugs…
Second, NEVER has a conversation gone according to any kind of map I could’ve imagined in advance. And those teaching moments pop up unexpectedly and NEVER when I aim for them.
Third, if the conversation is being sent by wifi to get Barbie’s replies do we now have major security and privacy concerns?
Enjoyed the hot lesbian article right up until this point: “What about the time I emceed our friends’ wedding and brought the house down with the punch line —herpes. I mean, you can’t go wrong with herpes.” It would be really nice if we could stop making jokes about an extremely common condition that causes deep shame and social isolation to people for no damn good reason. I know someone who almost took their life because of it. Something that is no worse than the chicken pox virus. This needs to stop. Also given that 1 in 5 people have it there were probably at least a dozen people at that wedding that pretended to laugh but actually felt a knife go through their guts. Real nice. Not to mention the slut shaming aspect.
Hey AS it’s actually really not cool how you threw the word pr*stitute so casually into the description of this article. I was happy to see that the actual link you were referring to was talking about sex worker rights, but pr*stitute is actually a slur with a lot of stigma that is actively used in the criminalization of sex workers, which was the exact injustice you were trying to point to in the first place. I expected better from you.
Did you read the entire article? The article was about a sex worker reclaiming the word prostitute for herself and fighting about this stigma.
omg Laneia I’m only 4 photos into the house tour and I already can’t even. Also the frexting article is super fun but also v. heteronormative maybe? hm.