Hello, blueberry muffins and cheese danishes! Welcome to this week’s Friday Open Thread, wherein we devour a box of hazelnut chocolate truffles and then drink an entire glass of milk. JK! Only monsters drink glasses of milk as adults, Brittani told me so. We’re here to make friends and talk shit, duh! And also because I love you and your hair looks great, so.
I’m embarking on a cross-country trip today, which means I’m about to begin a week-or-more-long expedition of storytelling. I’m always rattling on in the car about this one time when we xyz and oh my gosh, y’know, I once did abc. What if I run out, though? What if after two or three days I’ve already reminisced as much as is humanly possible, and I’ve got nothing left to work with?
And thus, I am here asking you to tell me a story. I want to hear all about your experiences as members of the wild Autostraddle communities of your hometowns. Today, I wanna hear your meet-up stories.
I was going to come here today and ask you to tell me the greatest distance you’ve ever travelled to be at an Autostraddle meet-up, but then I realized what I really wanted was one step back from that. I just wanna hear all about your meet-up experiences, period! I want tales of friendship, love, and karaoke. I want to feel the thrill of you facing your fears and showing up on time to queer brunch, or doing one better and stepping up to host one yourself. We’ve been hosting Autostraddle meet-ups for years, and now I want you to report back on the good, the best, and the warm and fuzzy. Feel free to tell me the greatest distance you’ve ever travelled to be at an Autostraddle meet-up, though, too. That sounds badass of you.
If you’ve never been to a meet-up or just don’t wanna tell stories for me on demand, feel free as usual to stop in to today’s open thread and tell me all about the rest of your life. Show me photos of your dog! Tell me all about the progress you’re making at work. Get emotional about your family and how much you love and will miss them while you’re on the open road. Oh, wait, that just might be me. Either way! TELL ME EVERYTHING. And anything. And then a little something.
Okay, curly fries! Here we go! Oh, and also, I love you and your hair looks great. Did I say that already? Well, I’M SAYING IT AGAIN.
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Hello, and happy Friday!
I have never been to a meet-up, as I haven’t really found a real-life Straddler community where I live (Norwegians and Colombians, shout out?), but I’m very keen!
In other news I have moved back to Colombia to be with my partner! No more LDR! Damn! It feels pretty good. And emotional. I cry and laugh a lot. And, I also finally got my website up, yay! I wrote a piece on Norwegian and Swedish female artists that might interest you Straddlers (my assumption is based on the feedback some Beatrice Eli article received back in the days, am I right?), so, shameless self-promotion here goes: http://www.nomadslandjohart.com/who-run-the-world/
As goes for the distance I would be willing to travel for an AS meet-up: Scandinavia if in Norway, and basically all over Colombia when here. Guys, seriously, if in Bogota we can even hang out in my place. I’d cook! Ya me emocioné.
Adios, have a nice weekend!
About 4 years ago (maybe 3? I don’t remember), I hosted a brunch. I met an awesome girl, and then I met her girlfriend at my Chanukah party a few months later, who ended up getting me a job, which led to my current job. It’s all because of Autostraddle and meet-ups!
In other news, I was just accepted to a musical theatre writing workshop. Yay! I had my audition yesterday morning and was accepted last night. I’m super excited to continue my training as a lyricist.
In other other news, if you came to or heard about Beth Malone: So Far, please like and follow LezCab on Facebook & Twitter, and join our mailing list! We have something awesome in the works. Hooray!
Oh my goodness, where do I even begin?!
I have been an active member of the Twin Cities Autostraddlers for about 10 months and have gone to SOO MANY meetups. I have also made many friends, which was very much needed at that time of my life.
Of the many I’ve been to, some stick out:
Anna B’s Tator-Tot/Hanson-Drag Holigay Festivus!
Whitney’s I just wanna be a kid day (complete with pogs, fruit snacks, coloring books, catch, ninja turtle costumes)
Plenty of Gayme nights (both board/card and video games)
Queeraoke nights!!
And a few I’ve even hosted myself including:
A trip to the theme park!
A quarry/cliff diving swimming/hiking day
And an upcoming Apple-Picking day at a huge orchard!!
@whiskeyghost‘s Tator-tot/hanson-drag holigay festivus was and probably always be the best holiday party I have ever been to.
Wish I could join you for the apple-picking day! Have fun TC ‘Straddlers!
Hello everyone! Honestly I’ve never been to a meet up, but today I had a nice snapchat conversation with my ex who I’m still good friends with.
We dated back in highschool, freshmen year. She’s going into theatre and drama in college and I’m going toward the health care career.
I managed to visit my eldest sister when I moved into my college dorm, I haven’t seen her in three years? I got to enjoy tea and a not so crisp apple crisp thing. Her partner also gave me access to their netflix account so that’s really rad.
Being in the city still feels incredibly surreal. I’m away from people who’ve hurt me and my siblings, and a really close friend of mine is also here. We’ve given each other shells and cool rocks we’ve found. She let me borrow her shirt and told me to keep it for a while, since it helps me with my anxiety.
I’ve gotten better at speaking up, I suppose. I told my chem lab instructor about my hand tremors and how they make it harder for me to hold things, and she told me that since we’ll be working with partners in the lab, that they’ll be able to help me with holding things. I think that’s really nice. Sometimes my hands are so shaky I have a harder time writing or eating.
Uh uh oh man I had a pretty good vegetable pot pie the other night? I dunno. I have class in a bit welp
Glad I’m not the only one who has a good relationship with an ex.
I’m not sure how many active Autostraddlers there are here (Louisville, KY), but I’m not aware of any meet-ups that have happened here. Truth be told, I’m pretty damned shy about going to social things unless I already know a lot of the people there. This is def something I’m working on, though.
Yesterday was my birthday. My parents and my kid went to dinner with me at the restaurant that has become our traditional birthday joint. There was a little of our usual tenseness, but mostly it was nice.
Tonight, though — that’s going to be my real celebration. Nothing elaborate, just a dozen or so folks having casual drinks and munchies at a place a couple of blocks from home — but this is like the first time in my life that I’ve (a) had that many friends I wanted to spend time with and (b) had the gumption to go ahead and arrange a party for myself. (The genetic Lutheran in me just read the phrase “arrange a party for myself” and quietly screamed. FYI.) So I’m going to dress up in some new clothes and go out and be a happy Willow tonight!
happy birthday! I hope your night out with friends is awesome. A+ for organizing something fun for yourself.
Eyyyyyy Louisville! Good for you, Willow, and Cincinnati has a Straddler posse waiting for you if you ever are visiting up here :)
Have an incredible happy birthday!
Oh, it was so awesome and incredible and amazing! And people told me I was “glowing” and gave me cute cards and chocolate! Best birthday party since at least age 12, probably best EVER.
Aw, I’m glad to hear that. Happy birthday!
I went to the Dyke March meetup in Dolores Park during SF pride weekend this year and had a great time! People were encouraged to bring snacks to share, so I stopped by Trader Joe’s and got some strawberries and dark chocolate sea salt-dipped almonds.
I hadn’t thought through how that chocolate was definitely going to melt in the sun outdoors in an open, grassy park.
The upside is, it turns out that “Would you like to help me eat some of these chocolate almonds before they melt?” is a pretty effective opening line at a meetup.
Dolores Park was pretty crazy at Pride! Once I’d had one of those rums in a coconut, I also found “this is my first Pride, who wants to kiss me” worked pretty well as an icebreaker ;-)
helloooooooooo peach-basil straddle-tinis!
I haven’t made it to tons of meet-ups, though there used to be regular Thursday coffeedates in Seattle, which was sweet, though I haven’t seen lots of those folks in awhile, though I’m still fb friends with a few, and last summer I was working at an ice cream shop and a couple times was like COME GET FREE ICE CREAM AND MAKE FRIENDS.
no idea where most of those girls are at, but, they were nice. my favorite memory of those to date is one girl telling me about downloading vampire erotica onto a work computer at her high school job and accidentally crashing the computer, while I was drinking a Mexican mocha, bc high school kids are ridiculous and vampire erotica isn’t really my thing but I love to hear about it.
my week was hella busy! I went and got married (many feelings about that, it mostly went nicely, but our wedding was kind of old school inasmuch that it seemed to be a very important transition point for our families/communities, and every single element was something we chose very intentionally, but it was not easy/fun the way I expected it might be, mostly people were very sweet to us, and it was very surreal, and we went on a 9 day road trip along the California coast which was just right)
and I came home and had a billion things to do, so today has been the first day that I haven’t had to barrel out the front door with Things To Do! and I am working my way through a long to-do list of life-after-wedding. Holy shit, if you ever get married, be judicious about what you register for. Older folks love to buy the fuck out of some fiestaware. Gf and I are going to have a huge sit down with ALL the plates and decide what we can actually keep because what the actual fuck with all these plates.
Fall is wending it’s way to Seattle and next weekend I am having a cider-donut pumpkin donut making party, because fun, and also because I am tired of corn mazes.
xoxo.
omg congrats on your wedding!
thank you!
FRIDAYYYYYY! I hardly/rarely go to meet ups because of work. Ive taken a habit of picking up an extra day every week in the attempt to pay off my car! Also wedding things!
How is your friday though? How are your furbabies? LA is like 100 degrees right now Im dying. I have a peach bellini smirnoff to accompany me while I make a metal earth I can share later.
A few days agoI had to see the oral surgeon. Im having my 2 wisdom teeth on the upper removed. Boooo. I had the bottom ones removed years ago. NEVER DOING THAT AGAIN.
I will see u all in a few hours! <3
I am so jealous of your metal art genius. Such activity is on my to do list, but you inspire me to shuffle it to the top.
Awwww <3 i wish you luck on your metal earth endeavors!
I’ve never been to an official meet-up because I live in the middle of nowhere and they’re all far away, but I’ve met a few people in person thanks to autostraddle, including my first ever girlfriend with whom I am still friends. so. that’s pretty cool, I guess.
I’ve been trying to figure out job hunting lately, but it’s hard when you don’t know what exactly you want to do or where you want to live. all the jobs I’ve ever had kinda just landed in my lap, so this is all new. and overwhelming. can’t say I’m a fan.
Sorry to hear that! I went through a period like that. I ended up doing two things:
1.working several random part-time jobs that I wasn’t sure I’d like at all, and that I didn’t think had anything to do with my career. I ended up liking parts about them, and learning a lot that I applied to things I didn’t expect to. So when I got my full-time, future-oriented job, I was still really glad I did those.
2. I emailed every real-life professional adult I knew (including like, my parents’ friends, and people from my high school, and people I worked with at old jobs). I just had a form email where I listed some of my skills and the vague type of work I was hoping to do. Several people responded with helpful new avenues to look down. Then a guy I didn’t know asked me to come meet with him – I didn’t even know if it was an interview. A year and a half into that job…. really glad I emailed my high school English teacher who happened to be friends with my current boss.
Maybe none of that is helpful, but – good luck!!! :)
I have had really good luck with LinkedIn, if that’s something at all relevant to your field. Sometimes all you have to do is click the button and it will fill in everything for you.
Good luck with your job hunt!
I haven’t been to an Autostraddle meet-up, but recently I did start at a new university, and next week the LGBT Society is having their first meet up, so I miiight maybe work up the courage to go to that. I don’t know. We’ll see!
It’s always really awkward when you don’t know anyone beforehand and don’t drink (the event is being held in a bar, followed by a pub/club crawl) and like, can I just show up and sip water and leave??
You can do it! Sip water! Make small talk! Leave when you want! I believe in you! :)
Thank you so much for this! Probably gonna write this down because it’s an easy mantra to remember!
You can! and you should! As you get more comfortable with the group you could suggest they do some non-drinking centric activities!
What I do when I am not sure if I want to do a thing, but I also kind of want to do the thing, is to give myself an hour. If I spend an hour at the thing I can then decide to go home if it’s not my jam, or hopefully I will be happy I went.
This “give myself an hour” thing is a great idea and I’m not sure why it never occurred to me until now that I can leave when I want?
Either way, I’ll probably have a ridiculous story to tell in next week’s open thread, haha
You can also sip fun seltzer-juice-lime wedge etc combinations. I like cranberry or pineapple. Many places will make you good virgin cocktails of things that aren’t super dependent on the alcohol.
A good bartender will serve non-alcohol as gracefully and creatively as alcohol.
This is also a good point, thank you!!
Okay yeah I have to tell y’all about a couple of meetups that happened in Cincy/ Dayton OH area once upon a time…
1. We (some 7 or 8 of us) went and sang karaoke at this unlikely lesbian bar that randomly exists in a small town 25 minutes north of Cincy (why is there a lesbian bar in Monroe, OH but not in a big city like Cincy?!). It was magical, every single one of us sang, even the ones who were really nervous. A couple of us did Super Bass including perfect rendition of all Nicki’s raps… I sang Miss You by the Rolling Stones… we all danced our hearts out… the floor was literally rainbow lights. And all the older dykes at the bar were bemused and grinning at us from across the bar clearly thinking “look at these bbs”. Also that was the night I met someone who would later become one of my best friends in the group (hi Kayla!!) Thennn several of us drove to one of our member’s apartments for a sleepover where we played a weird version of Spin the Bottle because my friend C was super into it. Not much kissing ended up happening though and we all just told tons of stories and stayed up too late and it was grand.
2. A few weeks after karaoke-sleepover was my birthday party. I wanted to go dancing that year so we all did. We left the dancing bar kind of early, but not before I got in a killer lip sync and extravagant fall-to-my-knees dance rendition of “you’re the one that I want”, while wearing my leather jacket. #lifegoals. Then we all went to this bar with a huge patio and hung out there until like 2 in the morning when it closed. Somewhere in the late hours, C (person from before) decided she still really wanted to play a kissing game, and we commenced a strange version of Duck Duck Goose that would include, by the end of it, all 8-10ish of us there (consensually! of course!) kissing every other individual in the circle multiple times. Remember… this was happening in a random hipster straight-people bar patio. Literally no one was noticing the group of 10 women making out with each other while the other ones watched. I still can’t believe it happened. Then we all went back to someone else’s apartment and stayed up til five in the morning and I fell asleep on the lap of a girl I would later date for a hot second.
THESE ARE REAL LIFE THINGS THAT CAN HAPPEN TO YOU, TOO, IF YOU ATTEND AUTOSTRADDLE MEETUPS. hahahaha
Hooooooold up. I’m from Monroe and I thought that our lone gay bar closed years ago. How the hell does that thing still exist?
Hahaha! Old Street Saloon? It was such a gem! I mean I haven’t been back to it since that meet up which was over a year ago, but it seemed a lively place that night.
I also recently learned there’s a bigger Hustler store in Monroe than the one in downtown Cincinnati, though, so who knows, maybe Monroe is the real place to be? :)
I recently went to my first ever meet-up. It was for Rose and Rosie (queer, married YouTubers) in London, and I went by myself, not knowing anyone else. I couldn’t find the venue, but as I was wearing R&R merch, I quickly found someone else going to the same place, and we then ran into another group of girls headed there too! We spent the day together as a group, and had a really good time – and Rose and Rosie were lovely too! I loved it because I’d only been out to my parents for a fortnight and it was my first queer event ever. It felt like such a safe space, almost everyone was queer in some respect: eg our little lost group consisted of 5 queer girls and a bi trans guy. Everyone had the same aim and it was incredible to just be out and free in a non-judgemental environment.
It’s now only two weeks til I move away to university and I’ve been looking up the LGBTQ+ society, and am really excited to join that and find my first ever real-life queer community, as all but one of my current school friends are straight, and as much as I love them, it’ll be amazing to have people that completely understand :D
*I should say “another group of people”, because not all were girls… Oops.
Yay! Being a part of the LGBT group was the best part of my college experience. Best of luck to you in your new adventure!
Haven’t heard of any Autostraddle Meetups in Melbourne but since I only moved here 4 months ago and had few friends I started going to a new one called ‘Lesbian Coffee & Cocktails’ and it is the best ever! We’ve actually never even gone for coffee, it’s always a new bar to try with half price drinks, but the next one we are going ice-skating.
A couple of us regulars also have a FB group and are carefully curating a friend group from the girls we meet at the Meetup.
Looking forward to summer and being able to have picnics and really take advantage of rooftops bars!
There’s not a lot of meet ups here in Melbourne (Australia). But one time I did manage to get to a DC meet up cause I was on holidays in the US, so that was fun.
Big news this week is that I fractured my ankle and it requires surgery. So right now I’m dressed, packed and off to head off to hospital. Not ideal. Then I’ll be on strict bed rest for 7 days. Welp. Don’t break your ankle kids.
Get well soon! And watch all the TV and TV shows you can! Read all the fanfiction!
My favorite Twin Cities Autostraddler’s meetup is probably one of the first I attended. @whiskeyghost hosted an all night queer lock-in at a local volunteer run bookstore. I connected with many people and the founding of some truly great friendships began that day.
Now I am in Denver and haven’t been to a meetup here yet, but hopefully one will happen soon that I can attend.
That lock in was sooooo fun!
I’ve never been to a meet up, but I would be all about going to one! I’ve only ever seen ones planned in southern Ohio-someone plan one in the Cleveland area and I’ll be there to make new friends :)
I’ve been to a many meetups most of them at least 45minute drive, which I don’t mind as sometimes is a nice beach met up in Orange County(better fire pits). Plus, I have met some amazing straddlers, who are totally awesome.
How’s every ones week? As other here have said it’s too bloody hot in LA right now, even in morning. It’s making almost feel sick to a point I want to pass out. Besides that, my week has been typical, rife with misgendering and being told not to tell people not to gender me. Ugh. On the positive I spent part of Sunday and Monday with a lovely friend & straddlers in San Diego. It was nice just be with other queers.
This was take on Sunday night during a walk to some quality Mexican food. I forgot my other camera sometimes goofs up it’s settings.
![](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/81Ozrbk1q6YDfjmA64kJN7T4Hk-JW70kDhtzDfr3KWI3QT4AXJGhKVKoql_7urbQ0ipwkrXHRoiUunv6gCq0bRDgdr79kWeMN2_-j_vDtgurxo_safRvPw4f0SyOYjYz_MbKSqoxX_LOfjqj0r2KbHU4trG6TK18xpKDAaYNac92jtMv8QlVOC-famdKWkCoJQOe1EPjnJGX4nXnvBenGPpJ-lSWiic8w8_nauxh14rMM36DImlNo-ZqIfWtEm0f1jcs35HvrIOBCrXXpxeODNgp9nCx5glIHAhlZOVWQInAHaTf_JMmPJxdW2cGC3DWFIu9Nt0D0GKNoFfet1FXWS6ioVbHEzU54N3S1LqhQccSyZAg5bQd3t64Xpq1cqthRwjwJ2ZMtnYBd6FkGLksoLIiSq1nlKaeCauFTOqndqB2YnsRcoKIJL3vCTtULEdGNZopSw-fam6PL8n05oWEXw_lhXfI-MxNCu794Df9jFAb1HCFgoZUKGsPKSrq-0xWdnD0oDI21M7alWyZw5_jPHyWilOrDnbpV_6B4vtrF4g=w738-h1104-no)
Thank you for reading and viewing my post. Have a positive weekend.
I hope you have a positive weekend too :)
I went to the end-of-summer brunch last year (2014) in Boston, and it was fantastic. I met some awesome people, ate some awesome food, and it was awesome. Unfortunately I haven’t made it to any other meet ups, but next summer I’d like to host one!
I haven’t yet been to a meet up (thanks, social anxiety), but I tend to get into enough hijinks on my own. I can’t imagine what would happen if I combined my chaos-bringing powers with other people. Don’t believe me? Well this one time, about four weeks ago, I had to drive to Minnesota/Wisconsin for a wedding. I had to go through Chicago, and I knew I needed cash to pay various tolls. I left my house bright and early and stopped to get said cash. Instead of getting it, I forgot my ATM pin and promptly locked myself out of my bank account for 24 hours. I ran out of the cash I already had on hand with 2 tolls left in Illinois. Fun times.
Also, I’ve been lacking in my Watson photos/snapchats, so I have some extras this week.
HAH I really enjoyed those photos, thank you.
I definitely need more Watson in my life. How cute though?!
I’ve never been to a meetup cause I always chicken out at the last second :P
My week is going okay. I know like depression is back pretty heavy, but I’m hoping if I pretend it’s not it’ll just vanish into thin air.
Not so good things:
I said some not so nice stuff to my therapists which I know they always say that’s what that’s for but the gUILT
Family problems, like theyre kind of always there but still.
I almost got hit by a car yesterday, it stopped inches away from my calf and scared the shit outta me
Good things:
I ran into my best friend on the way to therapy yesterday and even though we talked for less than ten minutes it like made my heart grow ten sizes bigger I’m sure
At work, this woman told me that she really appreciated the salads I made and tipped me???
My mom and I went to the bookstore and spent way too much time/money in there but it was like the best day ever
Things I don’t know what to categorize as:
In art, I drew a picture and the caption was “Are you asleep?” but everyone told me it looked like “Help me” and that’s also scaring me shitless
wHY CANT I PLAY LIFE IS STRANGE ON MY CHROMEBOOK
so that’s how stuff is going. We got Netflix! Like a legit one. And my mom is real happy and it’s the weekend so everyone else can breathe and I start a class this week and might see a friend and like I feel really shitty if I let myself think for more than two minutes but other than that, I’m good!
Hope you all have a lovely weekend and a great week!
Once upon an October in one of Canada’s less exciting cities, my former roomie had an idea:
“Let’s host an Autostraddle meet-up brunch,” she said. “We’ll host it right in this very apartment,” she said.
“It can be Hallowe’en themed. No wait, I’m DJ-ing on Hallowe’en. Let’s have it be Dapper themed and have it on November 2nd. Hmm, but not all queer women like to be dapper. Let’s make the theme Dapper/Hallowe’en/Dapper-Hallowe’en, and we can have it on November 2nd.”
“What if nobody comes,” I said.
Three amazing people who were all previously complete strangers to both of us and one another showed up at 11am sharp, and we were all still having Autostraddle brunch at 6:30pm.
And yes, we were sort of dapper and we were also sort of Hallowe’en and we watched that Mary Lambert video and gave my roommate’s cat a lot of attention and everything was soft and nothing hurt.
BAAAAAAAAAAAACK!! I would’ve been back like 2 hours ago but a nap seemed so good to have and so did ice cream! Hahaha! The peach bellini was so great I had another one. I’m surprised I had enough coordination to finish my Metal Earth! LA is still hot right now and I just want to nap until it cools down.
Here’s my finished Destroyer Droid from Metal Earth. It turned out great! I thought I would have a really hard time but it actually felt a lot easier. They’re coming out with 8 more models to celebrate the newest Star Wars movie.
They also have Thor’s hammer, Iron Man, War Machine and Capt’s shield coming out later this month and I’ve already pre-ordered. Sorry Star Wars…I’ll try and have you done by the time the movie comes out though. I’ve been drooling over the Iron Man for weeks now! it’s going to be colored instead of the usual metal! <333333333
Look at this Pusheen book I bought. Yep adulting. It’s like the cutest thing ever!
Andy and Christine. He is so long now….OMG this little furson of mine was limping the other day. =( We don’t know what happened and I worried all day and night. Christine said he’s doing much better now. We think he might’ve climbed the tree and slipped? Do cats do that? Poor baby.
I’m drooling over that droid.
So much cute and yes cats can slip, cats can fall but it’s always good to look them over for bites.
Once upon a time a Butch rather impulsively attended an auto straddle meet-up in a queer feminist bookstore…. and then like a scene from the cheesiest romance movie… the clouds parted and rainbows filled the air and unicorns came galloping down…. and more improbable still, the most Lioness Rampant of all Lady Knights walked into view, and time stood still. In that moment between heartbeats, they both knew; that happily ever after had started.
And that is fantastic story, some one should make an illumination or pop up book of it.
I agree!
Everyone come to my queer brunch tomorrow! There will be waffles! And antiquing!
I’ve never been to an Autostraddle meetup, but I’ve been running a queer meetup group in St. Louis for approximately 6 weeks – and it has just been amazing! I’ve got more than 80 members, and more than 20 of them have turned out for various events including brunch, tacos & hookah, a 5K run, a gay bar crawl, burlesque, drinks, stalking Lea Delaria, drinks, and more drinks. In the next month I’m coordinating a foreign film night, queeraoke, supporting a new queer party in town (Hey, Wilde!), and a camping trip. I’ve met some of the most amazing and fascinating people, and the outpouring of love and support has been overwhelming – people are actually saying this meetup (and finding inclusive, open queer support and community) has changed their life.
Seriously, if you’re anywhere near St. Louis, come hang out!
For anyone who might be interested: http://www.meetup.com/Queer-STL/
If only I had seen this when I was visiting my parents in St. Louis and was in desperate need of some queerness/get out of the house-ness
:P
I helped instigate a meet up once and failed to instigate 2 others.
A Brunch meet-up which was at a pizza place and we sat at the round table like mythic protagonists, but I cracked nary a joke about it. Though it was like fate, for it was the sole round table in the joint and yea it were a glorious table.
I wrote flowerly summary of the whole thing once for CB, but I’m too lazy to slog through the archives for it. Or am I.
Meet-up ideas I had but lacked the leadership, logistics whatever to make happen
were Celebration in the Oaks and Snoball Social.
Celebration in the Oaks is a night time event in winter at City Park and Botanical Gardens that one buys tickets for so logistically kinda difficult without an RSVP system and we’re not much of an RSVP people down here.
Plus nighttime and winter.
Snoball Social, it was too fucking hot.
My week, um Gordita came face to face with a lil frog and to my surprise she didn’t try to eat it. She tries to eat everything, but nope she just stared at it while it stayed stiller than a possum.
My dog is recovering nicely from what ever random asshole has been shooting off a fire work or two around our designated walk time at random every week since I think July.
Who ever they are they seemed to have run out or gotten caught, I hope they got caught and big fucking fine. The US has been making new combat vets for about 14 years give or take so y’know random fireworks are pretty fucking inconsiderate for reasons other than freaked out pets.
I’ve been coming to terms with the fact I’m probably non-binary or genderfluid but don’t wanna be because my special snowflake factor is special enough and pronouns don’t seem matter to me as much as others. Don’t want to bring things down for others.
![](http://ak-hdl.buzzfed.com/static/2014-06/20/17/enhanced/webdr07/anigif_enhanced-32121-1403301256-7.gif)
The only time I really strongly feel what is likely dysphoria is when I’m wearing something on my upper body that expects or tries to make voluptous rounded feminine shape.
Something that expects that shape I feel like a failure, something that tries to make that shape I feel like a liar. A big pretender who’s gunna get caught and pilloried. Never could watch that scene in the Hunchback of Notre Dame, but I get bored watching SAW, the Walking Dead and get giddy when the assets out of containment come in contact with park visitors.
It’s Gumby y’all
So late into the day, so I am surprised this FOT isn’t as full!
I have never been to an AS meet-up, but that’s pretty understandable considering I only turned 18 in August. My goal is to attend a meet-up within 2 years. And maybe even host one over in Santa Cruz, where I’m moving to next Saturday!
ALSO I GOT A NEW LAPTOP because my old one was 7 years old and it was time for an upgrade, especially in preparation for college. I am very grateful of my dad for buying it. (It’s also touchscreen! So fancy) As I’ve said plenty of times on here, I am excited for college! I also keep on hearing that I’ll have lots of free time. (Which baffles me as a veteran AP student) I really hope that’s the case, especially since last year my AS activity was nonexistent during school sessions.
Dude, I thought you were like 25 which is older than me by a bit.
How much free time is really free tho? Because they say for every credit hour one takes one should have 3 hours of homework to work on, or some sort of out of class course supporting work.
Maybe it’s so quiet because it’s the first week of fall term for people who live where ever the hell it is school starts after Labour Day/second week of September.
What ever it is, it’s kinda creepy to me.
Touch screens, don’t eat salty finger foods and try to use them. Also proper cleaning cloth and spray are not bad things, they’re gooood.
@gunna-see-the-light Haha really? Icons can be deceiving. Most people who see me in-person say I look a couple years younger.
That’s a good point! I definitely shouldn’t give in to that illusion of free-time…
That would make sense. Yeah, it was always weird whenever I heard people starting school in September. (I used to start school in mid-August!)
Yikes, salty foods sound like The Enemy. I need to get some proper cleaning supplies, haha. Thanks for the tips.
I would have loved to see some AS meetups happening in Santa Cruz when I lived there! You should definitely host one :-D
Yesss, the more meet-ups, the better!
I haven’t been to any meet-ups yet, mostly because they’re pretty thin on the ground in my part of the UK (has there even been one?), but I’m thinking of planning one in the Redcar & Cleveland area once all I’m settled in following my next big move.
If any straddlers nearby are interested, let me know what kinds of things you’d like to do so I can plot more successfully! :Ib
My first meet-up was years ago here in Chicago: Queer Iron Chef. It was awesome, but I was a shy person then (very different from now), and femme.
THIS WEEKEND:
Today!! At my home! I’m hosting a Southside Chicago Straddlers potluck (everyone’s invited!)
Tomorrow!! I am meeting up with other MoC Chicago Straddlers for coffee!
I think I’m hosting Octber’s Chicagostraddlers Bookclub meeting (need to make sure that’s true…)
This year is the year of me ORGANIZING QUEERNESS into my life constantly.
This couldn’t wait. Made kimchi earlier this week… who knew fermenting cabbage was gonna smell this way?? It’s tasty and I’m lovin’ it!!