Hello! Welcome! Look at all of you, heart pieces of my digital heart! Laneia is off on what I think we will all agree is a very well earned vacation, which means two things: 1. I’M BAAAAAACK!! and 2. We are going to talk about having popsicles for breakfast.
Popsicles for breakfast, you say! Le Gasp! It can’t be. But we are tail-ending a ten-day long heat wave where I am, and I suspect where many of you are, too. On Sunday I finished the last corner of a pint of ice cream for breakfast. And while I cannot in good conscience recommend that we all eat ice cream first thing every day (though how glorious would that be?), that same night I went out and finally bought some popsicle molds. You see, if you mix your greek yogurt with a little bit of almond milk, and puree some fresh berries, you can swirl them together with a bit of honey and it’s essentially a wholesome yogurt parfait – but it’s frozen and therefore so perfect and satisfying on a hot summer morning.
I wanted you to know about this witchcraft breakfast ice cream substitute so that we can live our best summer lives. And now, here’s what else has been going on this week.
Queer as in F*ck You
The 10 Most Bisexual Things You Can Watch on Netflix Right Now. Did I mention it’s hot out? Crank the air conditioning or pull out your fan and spend some time with Tessa Thompson’s Valkyrie. I mean Tessa just came out last week, and what’s sweeter than watching a bisexual woman of color play one in a movie? Nothing, I say!
Speaking of your summer streaming needs, Heather assembled this awesome list for you in our dark times: 20 Happy Lesbian and Bisexual Romantic TV Storylines That’ll Warm Your Heart Right Up.
This makes me want to scream: We Were Rejected From Adopting Foster Children Because We Are Gay.
UK government to ban ‘gay conversion therapy’.
I didn’t know anything about this project before just now, but I am SO EXCITED! Nicole Amber Maine to star in the indie film, Bit, about a teenage transgender girl who moves to LA and gets involved with a group of intersectional feminist vampires.
How Leslie Feinberg Became the Parent I Needed During My Transition.
“Your own culture is worth a memory.” — Queering the Archive With Kate Messer.
Jordan Peele’s Monkeypaw Productions hires Black queer scholar Kamil Oshundara to ensure better representation. (Fuck Yes!!!!)
(Ugh, this is so good y’all. Perfect for sleepy, feel good, summer evenings.) Everyone Makes Out in the New Video for Meshell Ndegeocello’s ‘Sensitivity’.
Saw This, Thought of You
LongReads has been doing a deep dive into the Autostraddle archives lately. They recommended us to their readers twice in just the last week! First, our 2013 Recamp series (a play-by-play recap of A-Camp) was name checked in their Summer Camp Themed Reading List. Then, our very own Rachel’s Top 10 Ways to Survive the Summer Without Air Conditioning got a shout out in their “Summertime and the Reading Is Easy” List.
She had this to say about the breaking news:
regretfully I must admit that I have since forgotten where I came from in that I got an AC unit, but this advice stands and spiritually i'm still holding a cold la croix can against my neck https://t.co/mCJ29pmgM6
— Rachel (@danascullyirl) July 3, 2018
We just passed the official halfway mark of the year. Take a deep breath, have some water, journal about your goals. Then read this from the folks at Shondaland so that we don’t all fall into a spiral of despair. THERE IS GOOD IN THIS WORLD. I promise you. 50 Good Things That Have Happened in 2018 (So Far) .
Wanna see a kickass eight year old girl from Japan rock the hell out of the drums to Led Zeppelin? I know you do.
I will recommend the following with a confession: I was an over the top, way too dramatic, sing it to the rafters, Broadway kid in high school. If you were too, you will probably love this: 7 Days With the Most Talented Theater Teens in the Country. And even if you weren’t a theatre kid, this 20 minute mini-doc about the survivors of the Parkland shooting putting on their spring musical will likely move you to tears.
Heather Hogan loved this and she thinks it will touch your heart spaces: Great British Bake Off winner Nadiya Hussain reveals reality of living with debilitating panic attacks.
Yesterday was the Fourth of July and I have a lot of complicated feelings about that holiday. That’s true for me every year, but this year it’s especially difficult to celebrate “American Freedom”, you know? If you found yourself feeling the same way, check out the some of the following:
“After the end of the Civil War in 1865, the nation’s four million newly emancipated citizens transformed Independence Day into a celebration of black freedom.” — When the Fourth of July Was a Black Holiday.
“What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” by Fredrick Douglass. I’ve been reading this every July 4th since I was 12. Forever recommend.
A collection of How 15 Artists Have Reinterpreted the American Flag Throughout History (including Barbara Kruger and Jean-Michel Basquiat!). One of my favorites and an iconic black woman artist, Faith Ringgold, also often finds the American flag to be a potent and powerful symbol in her work.
Let Us Remember Why Protest is Patriotic.
And while we’re on that note, Meet Therese Patricia Okoumou, the heroic Black woman who climbed Statue of Liberty to protest Trump’s immigration policy.
From my friend, Kirya Traber. I couldn’t have said it better.
MOOD AF https://t.co/Q0dgFb1t7J
— don't cry for me quarantina (@Kiryatraber) July 4, 2018
Go out there and make some noise this weekend! Xoxo.
I definitely ate a popsicle for breakfast this week. And I’m currently living without A/C in Texas ☹️ Thanks for staying relevant to my interests, as usual.
I love it when we can be right on the pulse of what’s happening in your life, lol! That’s what we’re here for!
Popsicle solidarity!
It was coconut lime! So good!
The Queering the Archive article reminds me of my interest in knowing whether Autostraddle has had conversations with any archives about its materials. It’s not just for dead people or defunct organizations! A group I work with has been donating materials as we go to our local LGBT archive.
That’s a great (and important) question! I’ll forward it along to the the editors.
I’m so happy to have someone else FINALLY validating my insistence that you CAN eat ice lollies for breakfast!!
Sometimes I make them from a whole bunch of thinly sliced fruit and coconut water/apple juice/other clearish liquid and they turn out super pretty! My favs for breakfast were ginger yoghurt mixed with fresh pineapple chunks.
But one time I pureed an over-ripe mango and I added a banana for sustenance and cinnamon and vanilla an a dash of pineapple juice……and, dear reader, I walked to work eating my frozen creation with such a food-gasm face that a stranger stopped me to ask where I had bought said delight because apparently “my face was saying it was the best god damn ice cream on the planet!
Ummm I love all of this? Like can you come over to my house and make these delicacies for me? Wow. And yum.
Carmen, thank you for this. Never change.
Awwww, thank YOU! You never change, Rey! We’re all we got in this world.
As a fellow former super-over-the-top musical theater nerd from High School who was once convinced I was going to be the next Sutton Foster (there can be only one) my life is forever changed by the knowledge that the Jimmys is a thing that exists.
I both wish they had existed when I was in high school and also acknowledge that everyone who knew me is better off without me obsessing about them non stop for four years.
“I both wish they had existed when I was in high school and also acknowledge that everyone who knew me is better off without me obsessing about them non stop for four years.” ARE MY EXACT FEELINGS
So excited to meet a former “next Sutton Foster”!
Signed,
a (former) baby Audra McDonald
“Bit” had me had “trans girl” and “vampires.”
I’ve always been a firm believer in popsicles for breakfast, but too lazy to make my own. This recipe was fantastic—just enough use of stove and blender for me to count it as cooking, but also super simple. The hardest part was definitely not making a mess getting the yogurt into the popsicle mold. This morning my teenage son and I both declared these delicious (well, he said, “These aren’t that bad. Can I have one?”)
OH MY GOODNESS I AM SO EXCITED YOU MADE THEM!! You know, I think something is cool and decide to share it with you all, but I never actually think that one of you will also think it’s cool enough to try in your lives. But you did! You really did! And now I’m over here geeking out in the comments section and probably making a fool of myself. Whoops!
Anyway, I’m you found them as easy to make and delicious as I did! And that your son declared them good enough to have another — the ultimate sign of approval!