I wanted to spend the week before I started at Defector relaxing, reclined and pensive while reading books and watching movies that would inspire brilliant blogs I could pitch to Lauren and Brandy. I was in Southern California, where I grew up, visiting my parents before going to a wedding.
Relaxation is not what came to pass. But many other things did! Consider this blog a diary of the end of my May.
1. My parents and grandma moved out of my childhood home and into a new house, quite suddenly. I didn’t know that the last time I visited them would be the last time I saw that old house, and so I never said goodbye to it.
2. Speaking of that new house, the power went out a day or two after I arrived, so my family went to a nearby cafe to do their WFH jobs. I, as you know, was attempting to gather all my wits before starting at Defector for the summer, so I hung back.
That’s when I met Her: the snake who slithered out from under the couch where I had intended to lay and read.
Luckily, she was not a rattlesnake. Unluckily, that meant she was outside the purview of animal control, and the local group of volunteer snake wranglers informed me that no volunteer wranglers were available in my area. You know where I never had to spend 30 minutes solo-wrangling a snake, ever, in 18 years? My beautiful, charming childhood home. Anyway. Here’s one pathetic highlight from our battle.
3. I hit 500 days of alcohol sobriety! The Devil Wears Prada 2 may suck ass, but 500 Days of Sober is a redux I’m happy with.
4. My grandma, getting older and disoriented by the new house, took a nasty fall while trying to go to the bathroom at night. She’s okay, but still in the hospital. She tried to use the colored pencils they gave her to dislodge an uncomfortable IV from her hand, resulting in the hospital staff placing her in a weighted vest to prevent further mischief. I think she’ll be alright.
5. A magazine published an article I wrote about exes taking care of each other after getting transgender surgery. The parent of a childhood friend saw it on Instagram. Then, the parent came out to me (by sharing the coterie of letters in LGBTQ that apply to them) via an incredibly sweet, incredibly shocking DM.
6. I unpacked some of my old things in my parents’ new house, including a binder with an essay I wrote in high school about gender roles. The only feedback I could find was an unimpressed comment offered by my teacher in response to a sentence about "expectations based on what happens to be dangling or not dangling between an individual’s legs." So when Hemingway reflects on a dangle or its lack, we have to read The Sun Also Rises as a class. But I when I do it, it’s "prob not academic."
7. I attended the wedding of my oldest friend, who I met in the third grade. She looked so gorgeous in her Vivienne Westwood wedding gown (ask your gay nephew) that she became the celebrity of the nearby bar we ended up at after the ceremony. I may not drink anymore, but I still enjoy being a member of the right kind of posse. We talked about a lot of things, including the 19-minute-long speech her dad gave, most of which focused on the trials and tribulations of teaching her how to poo in a toilet when she was a child. (“Dad, I feel something inside me,” she apparently told him moments before she correctly two-ed and wiped herself on her own for the first time. He still had at least eight minutes to go after he shared this. It was by far the best wedding speech I’ve ever heard.)
8. I was informed that the Madison Square Garden Rosalía concert (ask your gay nephew) I bought tickets to had to be rescheduled from Tuesday, June 16 to Thursday, June 18 due to a "potential Knicks game." My friends complained about poor planning on the part of MSG, but truly no one could have seen this coming. Summer at MSG is meant for Bon Jovi, not the Knicks.
9. I heard John Martyn’s “Couldn’t Love You More” for the first time. I happen to be in love at the moment, so right now, to me, there’s no sweeter song.
That’s a little bit about my last week, and a lot about me! I’m going to write about whatever they let me write about this summer—labor and culture, trans stuff, music, politics, maybe even sports.
Nice to meet you!
