Letter From Your Editors

Hello you special wonderful creatures!

It’s fall, my favorite season! A season of crisp leaves and pumpkin bread and whiskey-cider and posts about feminist Halloween costumes! To celebrate this grand time in our lives, we have shared pictures of ourselves with pumpkins. Some of these pictures are very old and some of them are new and some are of gourds, but that’s fine.

1st row L to R: Hannah, KaeLyn, Maddie, Aja, Laura M.
2nd row L to R: Carolyn, Nikki, Mey, Riese, Yvonne
3rd row L to R: Stef, Kaitlyn, Carmen, Mari, Laneia
4th row L to R: Laura W. and Gabby, Robin, Heather, Rachel, Chelsey

This past summer was the first in recent memory that we didn’t put out a call for new writers. We usually do that in June or so, so that we’d have time to look through them when Laneia’s kids were gone for the summer AND/or when we did our annual retreat. This year, we didn’t — we had such a large backlog of other work that we doubted we’d have the time to go through applications and plus, we’ve got so many cool people already here! But we realized a few weeks ago that we are vampires who need fresh blood. Some of our regular writers just haven’t been able to contribute as often as they used to: Gabby got a grown-up job, Brittani got famous, Lizz apparently is in medical school… it’s time to shake things up. We wanna bring in some new voices, the kind of voices that when you see their name in the byline, you’ll wanna click, just ’cause it’s them. So, if you know anybody who’d be good for the job (or if that person is you!) tell them.

We hope you’ve enjoyed the fine family-friendly A+ content we’ve offered you this month! This includes two NSFW Photoessays from the kickass Molly Adams, Folsom Street Fair and a Post-Apocalyptic World at Wasteland Weekend, the A+ Bee Issues Twenty-Eight and Twenty-Nine, a REAL AS FUCK interview between Crystal and her ex she dated when they were 15 and lived in Hong Kong, a heart-wrenching essay by Rachel about living somebody else’s lie and our best A+ podcast so far, “Starting Over,” in which I interview my Mom about her coming out when I was a teenager, Brittani talks to Lauren Morelli about getting started in LA as a TV writer, Crystal talks to Carolyn about moving to the USA and getting married and Sarah Croce and Alex Vega reminisce about their road trip to Los Angeles from New York.

Also if you’re in the U.S. and just got your new credit card with that annoying chip thing, be sure to update your payment info so your membership doesn’t float away into the breeze.

Love,

Riese

co-signed by Laneia / Rachel / Yvonne / Heather

Top 10 Most Popular Posts From September

These posts were hella popular last month.

1. 12 Women They Didn’t Tell You Were Queer In History Class, by Riese Bernard
2. Stonewall Movie: 22 Hilarious Excerpts From Scathing Reviews, by Riese Bernard
3. Ellen DeGeneres’ GapKids Line Is Smart, Subversive, Will Delight Both Children and Tiny Butch Lesbians, by Laura Mandanas
4. This Is How Fox News Brainwashes Its Viewers: Our In-Depth Investigation of the Propaganda Cycle, by Heather Hogan
5. Every Current Lesbian/Bisexual TV Character, Ranked By U-Hauling Potential, by Heather Hogan
6. Gal Pal Day: Ellen Page Dating Samantha Thomas! Hannah Hart’s Dating Ingrid Nilsen!, by Stef Schwartz
7. 10 Super-Successful Lesbian, Bisexual & Queer Celebrities With Depression, by Riese Bernard
8. The Autostraddle Guide To Queer Mental Health, by Riese Bernard
9. The Grossest Tales Ever Told By Women On The Internet, by Riese Bernard
10. 100+ Queer and Trans Women to Follow on Instagram, by Heather Hogan

Nine Important Excerpts From Editorial Conversations

Stef: I mean I guess we should talk about this: “St. Vincent is waitressing at her family’s new Mexican restaurant. Grammy-winning musician is taking orders, clearing tables.”
Laneia: Yvonne do you want to do some firsthand reporting
It’s in dallas
Stef: Taco Tuesday: Annie Clark
Yvonne: Wtf? Wow
Oh shit I’ve been following this restaurant on instagram
it looks delish
Stef: Can you ask her what she and Cara Delevingne talk about when she brings you your paloma
Yvonne: Ok, I’m worried I’m not going to be the tenacious celebrity reporter you are Stef
Stef: I feel like we can’t squander this opportunity to combine all the things we’re all interested in at once
Tacos, celesbians, poor restaurant service
Yvonne: Oh man I’m adulting at the moment (about to head out to buy groceries) but maybe I’ll check it out for dinner
Stef: Godspeed

Laura: This article about Ruby Rose and Sophie Dahl’s dinner party is amazing. I am fascinated.
Lydia: ME TOO
My sister needs to open a restaurant
So I tooooo can throw queer parties
Riese: Wait Kate Moennig is there
my life will never be as meaningful as this photograph
Heather: Or as white
Riese: Oh I don’t know, you should’ve seen the founding team of Autostraddle
perhaps you have
Heather: Indeed I have!
Riese: Although we didn’t also WEAR white
so
that would’ve been overkill
do you think the internet wants Phoebe Dahl’s watermelon salad to be the feature story on the pop culture fix
Heather: I do
Stef: Kate Moennig just hangs out in parks all the time hoping garden parties will occur
Riese: “Oh, watermelon salad! what a nice surprise!”
Stef: I love a watermelon salad
Riese: See, you and shane have that in common, as well as your mutual belief that love is a lie
Stef: True. Too bad she didn’t want to be friends on the Shane Plane
or in the whole foods checkout aisle
love is a lie but fate is real
Riese: Too bad the headline to this would also sound like a lie
Ruby Rose and Sophie Dahl Have a Dinner Party With Kate Moennig
we’d be the bois who cried “muti-celesbian events in a headline”
Stef: According to no filter Kate and Camila are in santiago, djing i guess?
I dunno what they do
lean against walls
wear leather jackets

Rachel: I wish the Yoast SEO rating went all the way up to “great”
I think it would improve my self-esteem
which is maybe the most millennial thing I’ve ever said!
I’ll show myself out

Laneia: Rachel are you seeing Jasika’s instagrams about slow fashion. I wish we could have a piece on THAT
Rachel: No, Gillian Anderson just tweeted a picture of herself with Jodie Foster and Jamie Lee Curtis so I’m busy having a stroke currently
Laneia: Oh god
Rachel: Once I’m done with that stroke I will have a new one over Jasika though
“The birth of screaming queens and selfies. #tbt @jamieleecurtis #jodiefoster”

Laneia: omg
oh my god the lipsticks and the eye makeups
the scoopneck
I am dying
Rachel: I feel like maybe I could write something Laneia-esque about this in the morning
Laneia: I’m dying
Rachel: Once I regrow some brain cells
Laneia: I’m excited about this and also selfishly excited to learn what Laneia-esque means!
Rachel: What if I did a caption contest for this photo but then turned off comments on the post because trick question, it’s already perfect
Laneia: Is it all capsy? are you going to make a collage??
the title is just SCREEEEEAAAAAAMMMMINGGGGGggggggg
Rachel: The title is Please Send An Ambulance to My Apartment Right Now
and the inside of the post is just the picture and no text
Laneia: I would click on that in a hot second

Laneia: Someone here must know someone who knows Demi Lovato’s contact person and can officially invite her
if not, what has this all been for?
Mey: Don’t even tease me like this you guys
Stef: Surely someone we know knows someone
probably Brittani
B is probably out drinking a milkshake with her right now
Rachel: Demi Lovato is definitely gonna drink all my whiskey at camp without asking first and I can’t even be mad at her
Stef: Do you know how happy Marni will be in this moment as I have to even tell her who the hell Demi Lovato is
She’s gonna have such a good time with these lyrics
Got a taste for the cherry
Mey: Well, Demi says she’s sober, so i hope she doesn’t drink all your whiskey
Rachel: I will make her the finest of virgin daiquiris
Stef: She can have all the ice pops at dinner though
Mey: The ice pops will keep her cool for the summer
that’s a terrible pun and I’m sorry
Laura: No I support this.
Rachel: It would have been wrong not to make it
you did the right thing
Laura: I hope they’re not cherry flavored, because i hate the sound of people biting into popsicles.
Stef: Seriously did we not do a cool for the summer fashion post or what
well once she has a taste of the cherry she’ll just have to take a bite, right?
that’s how it works
Rachel: What we need is a follow-up homoerotic single about being cool for the fall
Stef: But usually they’re like orange or something gross
oh man
Rachel: I had just got a handle on being cool for the summer and now i’m lost
Stef: Today it feels cool for the winter and I’m not into it
Demi Lovato: Modern Vivaldi

Rachel: Can we get Molly to go to that lesbian haunted house
that is the thing I want second most in the world
outside of a lesbian billionaire philanthropist flying me out to go to the lesbian haunted house myself, which is what I want first most in the world
Laneia: I will ask her! riese are you cool with this
Rachel it really is unfair that you can’t go to this haunted house yourself
Rachel: It is yes. it is very unfair
but I got to go to house on the rock, which has fewer lesbians but is still very spooky
Riese: Yes of course i want to fulfill rachel’s dreams
I hope everybody realizes that if we ever got an actual editorial budget as big as buzzfeed’s that this is exactly what we would do with it
we would send rachel AND molly
Laneia: :sob: :moneybag:
Rachel: A dream within a dream

Gabby: I dreamed last night that I was cast as Demi Lovato’s ride or die hood love interest in a video for a new song called “What You Had.” And we shot in the Bronx like me in a white tee & basketball shorts cooking her arroz con pollo. Ruby Rose was the hot new famous love interest that Demi started seeing behind my back. And there were all these shots of me looking wistfully out of my barred window, past the fire escape, waiting for Demi to show up for out anniversary dinner but she’s out being hot and scene-y w Ruby Rose. And we’re fighting and Demi leaves and I’m crying. Ruby Rose promises Demi the world and then leaves her waiting at a helicopter launch pad. And I’m packing my things in our Bronx apartment, crying. Demi runs in the rain to our crib and it’s empty and she’s singing “You didnt cherish what you haaad” and more rain obvs.
And then I walk in the rain because I forgot something and she’s there and the rain stops and we reach for each other.
And then I woke up and it was amazing.
Mey: This is the best thing ever
Audrey: I want that dream to be real
like I want to write about that music video on autostraddle dot com
Stef: I’m so into this
Maddie: Gabby I feel like you should write this up as though it is 100% real and then the last sentence of the piece can just be “And then I woke up”
I think everyone would feel great about that
And then maybe it would inspire a real life situation
Gabby: Maddie !!
You guys I woke up and had to lift up the blankets to be sure it was Laura
‘Cause I was dumb off that dream
Mey: Gabby, you’re the best ever
Rachel: Maybe Demi will eat arroz con pollo with gabby on the same day that ellen page makes a zine about sissy spacek with laneia
and then we can all ascend
Laneia: Rachel WHY won’t she just make the zine with me?? Is she afraid of her own success??
Rachel: Maybe it’s like that one therapist told me one time and she’s afraid to be happy
Gabby: What a day for instagram magic
all of us making, eating, loving, zine-ing, tweeting
Laneia: It’s the life we deserve, Gabby, it really is

A Neat Press Release We Got This Month

This lead to an in-depth convo about that poster that was in everybody’s dorm room. Fun fact: there are pictures of those girls from the front!

Don’t say you didn’t learn anything today because obviously you did.

Meet A New Contributor!

Get to know some of our newest faces.

Molly Priddy, Contributor

Twitter: @mollypriddy

Where do you get your flannel?
I get my flannel from the usual places: the Gap, Costco (they sell men’s flannel shirts which are AMAZING and thick and great for a tall woman like myself), Eddie Bauer, and my dad’s closet. I’ve gotten worn-in shirts before from second-hand stores, but it felt wrong, like I should be the one breaking these shirts in. It was like I was wearing strangers’ memories. (I understand that I am too emotionally attached to my clothing.)

If you were at a karaoke bar and you had to pick one song to sing, what would it be?
Easy. Whitney Houston’s “I Want To Dance With Somebody,” if only to make everyone cringe to the part when I have to sing “HEAT” really high-pitched and loudly. But I might also pick Earth Wind and Fire’s “September,” if only to hear everyone else wail on the “yeaa-eee-aaaah” parts at the end.

Describe the worst date you’ve ever been on.
Well, to get this out of the way, it was the last date I ever went on with a man. I know you’re thinking, “A date with a man went poorly for you, a lesbian?” and I know, it’s shocking. I was still young and in college, not entirely sure of who I was or why I felt the way I did or what I really wanted, and I was lonely, so anyone who showed interest in getting to know me felt good.

He was a nice guy (probably still is, who knows), and he asked me out to coffee in the afternoon. I didn’t let myself register that it was a date and I showed up in sweatpants and a terrible mood. It was a bad date because I was blasé and not charming whatsoever, and that nice guy (not Nice Guy ®) was really sweet during it. It just felt like a bad date because I felt like I’d set myself up for failure, which, hello, I totally did.

What’s your favorite thing on the internet today?
Great question. I’ve been thinking about this lately, and my favorite thing on the Internet is the access I have to motivated, smart, hilarious women writers, either through websites like this or through social media, especially Twitter. I’m making connections I could never make otherwise living where I do.

What’s your morning ritual like?
5:24 a.m.: Let out the dogs because they reeeaaalllly have to pee despite me telling them the night before that they need to pee one last time so I can sleep until my alarm. But nope. Every morning, it’s the same.
7:40 a.m.: Alarm goes off, I or my wife switch it off and grumble.
8 a.m.: OK fine, get out of bed. Stumble to shower, sort of come alive enough to put on clothing.
8:30 a.m.: Drive the 1.5 miles to work (booyah, small-town livin’, and if you want to yell at me for wasting resources please do so in a whisper-yell, because I never know where I need to go during the day for my job).
8:34 a.m.: Drink coffee, go through email, update website.
10 a.m.: Have enough coffee and wake-up time to talk to other humans.
(I’m…not a morning person.)

Who was your first woman celebrity crush?
I absolutely loved April O’Neil from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Mrs. Gore, my second grade teacher. Teachers are celebrities when you are 7. As for “real” celebrities, I remember seeing Girl, Interrupted when I was 14 and thinking that Winona’s character should have tried harder to kiss Angelina Jolie some more, so there we are, I guess. Not long after, I fell head over heels for Piper Perabo, thanks to the saddest film of all time, Lost and Delirious, and one of the top cinematic achievements of our time, Coyote Ugly.

What We’ve Been Reading

Carmen: A stack of Interview magazines I didn’t end up finishing on the road.

KaeLyn: The Heart Goes Last: A Novel, by Margaret Atwood

Beth: Meaty by Samantha Irby

Aja: Light Years by James Salter

Raquel: I’ve just started rereading A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle and it’s even better than I remember.

Carolyn: Coming Out Like a Porn Star: Essays on Pornography, Protection, and Privacy by Jiz Lee, and The Sex Myth: The Gap Between Our Fantasies and Reality by Rachel Hills

Julia: The Girl in the Road by Monica Byrne

Maddie: M Train, by Patti Smith

Mey: I’m reading Luna by Julie Anne Peters for an upcoming article, and The Haunting of Hill House by Shirly Jackson for Halloween.

Laura: The Player of Games by Iaian Banks

Yvonne: I’m just now reading Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay

Audrey: I am reading The Well Of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall, like a big gay cliche.

Kaitlin: Lord Fear: A Memoir by Lucas Mann

Rachel: We Believe the Children: A Moral Panic in the 80s by Richard Beck and Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff

Heather: Between the Wold and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Hannah: Americanah by Chimamanda Ngoizi Adiche

Anna: I’m reading The Haunting of Hill House by Shirly Jackson for Halloween and the queer undertones.

Mari: I’m finally sitting down and reading all of Dykes To Watch Out For by Alison Bechdel so I can stop feeling like a bad lesbian.

Stef: About to sink my teeth into Reckless: My Life As A Pretender by Chrissie Hynde.

Laneia: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling, but to be totally honest I’m reading the iBooks version of it because it has MOVING PICTURES and footnotes, like it’s alive!

Riese: Devils on the Deep Blue Sea: The Dreams, Schemes, and Showdowns That Built America’s Cruise-Ship Empires by Kristoffer A. Garin

MINI-INTERVIEW WITH A SENIOR STAFF MEMBER: RACHEL

What do you do in your job at Autostraddle?
So many things! I generally write at least a few articles a week, edit and schedule a significant portion of what you see on the website each day, weigh in on submissions and pitches from writers, write out feedback and notes on works in progress by writers on the team and outside contributors, handle book reviews and book-related coverage, generally run point on our news & politics coverage, help develop ideas and stories from our staff, work with Chelsey and Laneia to create the monthly internal staff newsletter, write letters of reference and provide recommendations to AS staff on the job market, find and share relevant stories and links elsewhere on the internet for our team to read and maybe write about, brainstorm and plan with other senior editors about big-picture and long-term ideas, and probably a few other things that I’m forgetting.

What is your favorite part of this position?
Pretty much all of it! My favorite part is the team I get to work with, who are my favorite people on earth and who I can’t believe I get paid to make stuff with, and also the readers who are sort of also the team, let’s be honest. Also my favorite is how frequently my job is stuff like asking interns to photoshop Cara Delevigne’s face onto a tub of Trader Joe’s hummus, or trying to find someone who can answer extremely specific questions about leather harness maintenance.

What is something you dream to bring to Autostraddle?
The answer to this changes constantly, which is (I think) a great thing, but right now I’m really hung up on rich and rewarding multimedia experiences. I’m thinking a lot about how much I love physical media like zines, and how cool online projects like fvckthemedia.com are, and how it might be possible for us to bring some of the best things about physical media into the digital realm. My (current) dream is to have an experience for our readers that’s really special and unique not just in terms of the content we publish (which I think is already really special and unique) but in terms of how they experience it as well.

What’s the hardest part of your position?
It’s hard that the workday is never done (although that’s true of virtually everyone who works for Autostraddle in any position). It’s hard to feel like I can’t necessarily talk openly about my work to some family or acquaintances, because I’m afraid it will lead to a difficult conversation or uncomfortable explanations. It’s hard to wear so many different hats and do so many types of labor as part of my normal work week; it’s frustrating that I can grind away all day being really dedicated to projects A, B and C, but that still means that no progress has been made on projects D-M, so if I’m not careful it’s easy to get caught up in a feedback loop of feeling like I’m never doing enough, ever.

Favorite online writer/editor/or like your hero?
I mean, Riese and Laneia. I don’t think I’d even be the same person, let alone the same writer or editor, without having read both of them. I’m also really into Arabelle Sicardi for how dedicated, hardworking and honest she is as a writer. I really admire Fabiola Ching, editor in chief of the Coalition Zine, for doing incredible work building a great publication with very little support, and making something that many people three times her age with many more resources couldn’t pull off.

What do you wish people understood about your job?
I don’t know how to answer this without sounding bratty! I guess I mostly wish people understood that for any one thing I’m doing (or can be visibly seen doing), I am also doing five other things at the same time which may not be as obvious, and so I really appreciate patience when it seems like something is not moving as quickly or being prioritized as would be ideal. I guess more broadly I wish that people in my life outside Autostraddle understood what my job was, or that it is a job, and so I cannot run a million errands in the middle of the day or go drinking with them on weekdays or listen to all your thoughts on Selena Gomez’s discography/explain the whole plot of Twin Peaks while also editing someone’s super vulnerable personal essay. I ended up sounding bratty, didn’t I.

Favorite snack to eat while working?
Someone just gifted my household with this chocolate mole pepita brittle, and it is so fucking good it is my favorite anything to eat while doing anything at all. I finished the bag, which is probably for the best because I would have died of malnutrition.

What would be the song that a montage of you doing your job would be set to?
This is so hard because a truly sensational montage is one of my greatest joys in life. I think it would be funny to set it to “9 to 5” because the idea of keeping my workday within 9-5 hours is so absurd and impossible — it would be a great visual for the montage to include the sky darkening and my partner going to sleep and nighttime crickets chirping. But I also feel like the classic “Eye of the Tiger” is never a bad choice. Tough call!

SLACKERS

October Retro-Reading

Some posts from previous Octobers Riese thinks you might enjoy.

via Hollywood Dreams Come True: Robin and Carly as Morticia and Gomez Addams

The Overthinker: On How To Be A Human With Another Human (2012), by Brittani Nichols – “Relationships include relinquishing some amount of say in your happiness to another. And who are we kidding. You’re a control freak and that freaks your shit out.”

Yes, I Know What a Gigabyte Is (2013), by Ali Osworth – Ali gets real deep into sexism in the tech industry with her own experiences and the experiences of others and just a whole bunch of EXPERIENCE in this post.

Let’s Discuss That Straight Girl You Wanna Cuddle (2010) – Laneia, Sarah Croce, Alex, and Crystal share their experiences with straight girls and then we handed the mic to you and oh you took it, you took it and you spoke real loud on it! Laneia says we never would’ve been able to get away with publishing this these days. Is she right? I don’t know!

Girl on the Run: The Kit (2011), by Phoenix Casino – If you’re wanderlusting, traveling, having a long-distance relationship, escaping your family, or searching for something anything out there in the world or whatever, world’s first Run-a-gay has you covered.

Queer Girl Hairstory: Our Hair’s Not So Straight Either (2012), by Malaika, Fonseca, Carrie and Laura – All about the complicated relationship between a girl and the kind of hair her head wants to have. Also, real tips from real humans on curly hair products!

CEE’S BEES

Cee: I woke up to 57,000 emails reminding a user to resubscribe
(!)
fifty seven thousand emails
Riese: Woah
Cee: She also got them
Riese: Oh man
I hope she remembers to re-subscribe
Cee: I emailed her and was like uhh i have no idea what’s going on, set up a filter to auto delete sorry
yeah maybe the server really misses her
Riese: Should we email her again just to be sure she knows to re-subscribe
Cee: I just messaged her on facebook b/c her gmail was locked
we are chatting there
maybe I’ll ask her if she wants to resubscribe
Ali: I’m laughing like an idiot. I love when technology fucks up.
Carmen: I relate so deeply to this situation because once in my job at the fmf someone on my team and I set up a new unsubscribe page that, unknowingly to us, was actually configured to send 100+ trigger emails to everyone who unsubscribed at once
so people would be like “leave me alone, fuck yeah, unsubscribe” and then would receive like, every automated thank you message ever created in our system, for events and donation pages and everything
Cee: My email client won’t even open
I’m having to delete the emails on the webmail, 3k at a time
This is terrible
Also why on earth would it glitch like that it makes no sense
Carmen: I’m finding solace, Cee, in imagining that the person who got 57k emails probably doesn’t hate you as much as the old ladies who got the 102 from us, just because that’s how the world turns
what if we all logged in as you, took a different page, and deleted all the emails together
Cee: Oh that wouldn’t help – the server gets overloaded if you load more than 3k
I tried loading it in tabs and it went kaput
but thanks for the support
I’m down to 45,501 now hah
Carmen: Listing Without Commentary: 100 things Cee could have done when she was deleting 57 thousand emails
planted an entire row in a garden
made oatmeal
Stef: Made me a sandwich
Carmen: WHOA THERE
Stef: Made me Thai food
Carmen: Ridden a horse to a nearby creek
Stef: Instagrammed from the top of a scenic overlook
Carmen: Probably, knowing Cee, made an entirely new website
Stef: Learned an entire new language fluently
Carmen: Organized her entire wardrobe for the week including coordinating accessories
Stef: Taken up beekeeping, cultivated a new species of bees, solved the worldwide bee shortage
tied and untied her bowtie while staring pensively out the window
Carmen: Fed every stray cat in portland
Stef: Cee’s bees. I feel good about it
Carmen: OH MY GOD

ALUMNI NEWSLETTER

via Gabi on Insta

Gabi, Columnist for Wilder Hungers, ~1 Year

What are you doing without us?
I’m currently working at Good Housekeeping magazine (which is not as housewifey as it sounds, promise!) as an assistant food editor. I write the food features for the magazine, develop and test recipes in a sexy test kitchen, and share very valuable info on the web like How to Pimp Your Frozen Pizza.

What do you miss the most about me?
I don’t even know why I stopped writing Wilder Hungers, but it probs had something to do with a quarter-life criss that I am maybe actually probably still experiencing. In other words, I dropped off the face of the earth and I miss you guys, a lot. I miss sharing my travels with you and telling you to put sriracha in your chocolate cookies and pumpkin in your buns. Sorry I ghosted. Forgive me???

Would you invite us to your wedding, yes or no?
100% hell yes. It will probably be Labyrinth themed. Here’s what I’m thinking dress-wise.

I HOPE YOU’RE EXCITED FOR THIS!!

Five Posts Rachel Can’t Believe You Motherf*ckers Didn’t Read Last Month

1. Top 10 Plays I’d Like to See With An All-Black Cast, by Alaina

Actually, something like a lot of you commented on this piece (good job!) so I am not here to chastise you necessarily; good work knowing you should read Alaina, because she’s great. But every Insider I try to include one piece to show that I am not just the President of the Hair Club for Men, I’m also a member. (Do people younger than me still get that joke?) This is something I waited a while to read, not because I thought it wouldn’t be good but because theater isn’t really my thing; I don’t usually “get” it, and so I assumed I wouldn’t get as much out of this post as some other readers. I was wrong! This blew my mind thinking about how the nuances of plays can change radically when inscribed on different people, and how the same story isn’t the same story at all when it happens to different people, and how important it is to see “universal” stories play out in contexts that are actually “universal” and different, and not just dominant. I will be really shocked if you don’t get anything out of reading it, your relationship to theater aside.

2. Taco Tuesday, by Yvonne

I don’t think this is a thing you motherfuckers have not been reading, exactly, but I do feel like it’s something you motherfuckers are not appreciating enough, if we’re being completely honest. Here’s the thing: I had no idea, when the senior editors originally started cajoling Yvonne into writing about this, how fucking good it would be. Not because I had any lack of faith in Yvonne’s writing abilities! But y’all, this series is like 500% better than it has any right to be. It’s truly, no-bullshit some of the best food and culture writing I’ve ever read, anywhere. It should be in anthologies! It should be one of those things on Longreads where they list all the separate parts so you can read them in order! People who write about the politics of food for fancy print magazines should be looking over their shoulders, because Yvonne is doing it better than them. If you haven’t already, please, do yourself a favor and set aside an afternoon and read everything in it.

3. Hard Lacquer: Eight Best Body Oils for Radiant Glowing Skin, by Aja

Y’all, this series is SO GOOD. I read a lot of beauty writing on the internet (I know, it really doesn’t show), and the vast majority of it is fluffy, clickbait-y, obviously sponsored, and dolling up the obvious as the relevatory (it turns out that the clearly bullshit Pinterest beauty hacks are clearly bullshit!). Aja does none of this. The writing here is funny, sharp, really comprehensive, and gets at both the functional, pragmatic stuff about beauty and the interesting culture and theory. Even if you have no interest in ever wearing mascara, you’ll still enjoy Aja ruminating on it; and if you do wear mascara, what the fuck are you doing? Get in here! Read back through all of them! You are seriously gonna be blown away by what you’ve been missing.

4. Love and Resistance: Reflections of Queer Survivance this Indigenous Peoples’ Day, by Taylor

This piece is so beautiful and it’s worth reading and revisiting any day, any time of year, and the movements and lived experiences of Native people (and LGBT/two-spirit Native communities!) should be valued and prioritized all year long, not just on Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Start by reading Taylor’s essay!

5. Roundtable: What Planned Parenthood Means to LGBT Women, by the team

HEY so many people whose work and lives you care about a lot shared in here about their experiences with PP and what a difference it’s made in their lives! You should read it, and share with others who may be operating under the misconception that PP is for pregnant straight cis women and no one else!

Stef’s Pick of the Month

October is a magical time of the year, when suddenly obscure and terrible horror movies pop up on all the streaming platforms and you can spend all your idle time watching demons possessions and slasher films! I would like to take this moment to recommend this movie I found on Hulu out of nowhere, Ladies of the House. It’s cheaply made, poorly written and it falls victim to an awful lot of terrible horror cliches, but I have two words that will make it all better: lesbian cannibals. A group of retro-pinup lesbian stripper cannibals spend most of the movie systematically hunting, torturing and eating a group of terrible bros who are hiding in their house. It’s far from perfect, but at its heart Ladies of the House is the misandrist cannibal movie I never knew I always wanted.

Social Media Spotlight

We’re coming up on the one year anniversary of Heather and Carmen combining forces to level up our social media. Their tag-team has been an huge success. Not only have we gained loads followers and friends, we’ve also seen a huge increase in the number of click-throughs on our articles and exponential reach on our content being shared around the internet. We have you to thank for that. Truly, we could not get our work in front of other people’s faces if it weren’t for you liking it and favoriting it and retweeting it and resharing it. Our first phase focus has mostly been on increasing our traffic. These days, every major website on the internet is as concerned with “content delivery” as they are with creating content. We know if we’re not hustling, we’re going to fall way behind. But we have always been about so much more than page views and click-throughs; we’re about family. So now that we have a handle on Twitter and Facebook, we’re going to start focusing on something else close to our hearts: Instagram!

In the coming months, you’re going to see our Instagram transform under the guidance of our friend Abby. You’re going to see our team members out and about doing queer things in queer places. You’re going to see original photography that we’re also featuring in articles on Autostraddle dot com. You’re going to see things to make you sing and things to make you swoon.

Here’s a look at where we’re going. Make sure you’re following us to come along for the ride!

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@dapperq hung out amongst some pretty leaves in Vermont to bring you an even prettier He Said/We Said – peep the Carhartt's!

A post shared by Autostraddle (@autostraddle) on Oct 20, 2015 at 10:29am PDT

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#repost @meyrude can we get a HELL YEA! ・・・ Holding my signed and notarized affidavit of gender change! (By the way, you can buy this shirt from store.autostraddle.com)

A post shared by Autostraddle (@autostraddle) on Oct 19, 2015 at 4:02pm PDT

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when you got that weekend #freshcut, Monday doesn't look so bad – especially on @quirkyrican

A post shared by Autostraddle (@autostraddle) on Oct 19, 2015 at 5:55am PDT

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when @trackstop puts her hands up and they're playing her song it happens to be particularly relevant about her move to Chicago. welcome back, Crystal!

A post shared by Autostraddle (@autostraddle) on Oct 18, 2015 at 9:36am PDT

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straddlers hanging with JOY after the show!

A post shared by Autostraddle (@autostraddle) on Oct 17, 2015 at 9:26pm PDT

The Charlie’s Angels of Weed

Carmen: Ok wait is this not the fucking weed box nancy pitches to those investors in the later episodes of weeds ?
Robin: Omg carmen they’re based in northern california (of course they are)
Carmen: Robin let’s go undercover and work at this company
Robin: Wait I think this is, currently, just a one-woman company. Carmen we could triple size of the team. We could be the ladies who vape. we could start tagging our instagrams #startuplife
Audrey: Y’all could be the charlie’s angels of weed delivery
Carmen: IT’S TIME TO LIVE OUR DREAMS WE EARNED IT
Robin: @audrey I did not know until right now that my true life dream is to be a charlie’s angel of marijuana
Carmen: I wanna deliver things to people wearing a sea foam green jumpsuit
Robin: MY EYES ARE OPEN
Carmen: Go toward the light Robin
Laura: Did you guys listen to the most recent bitch media podcast?
It’s about how the weed industry is wide open right now, and women and POC aren’t as institutionally shut out of it as they are in all other areas of business
Carmen: Bust had such an awesome article on women in weed too recently
Laura: It’s fascinating
it makes me want to quit my job and do extensive research
for business purposes.
Carmen: I wanna be a weed mogul so bad
it just makes so much sense
it just feels like where i’m headed
Hannah: Carmen when you get that business plan drawn up I’m gonna be your first applicant
Aja: I mean, if Amoeba Music can be a pot dispensary MAYBE WE CAN BE, TOO!
Carmen: A-camp smoke shack
I VOLUNTEER AS TRIBUTE
Aja: LEZ BLOW
Wait, wrong drug. My bad!
(I just wanted Lez _____ to be a thing.)
Mey: I’d like to use this conversation to come out as a person who’s never even tried marijuana
Hannah: MEY. You have no idea what you’re missing
Or also maybe you’re one of the many people who genuinely won’t like it and that’s OK
But I do take a lot of pleasure in flipping people.
Popping their pot cherries, as it were.
Mey: Haha, maybe I’ll take you up on that when we see each other in person
Hannah: Deal
Or not. You Do You
Ali: I am a person who genuinely doesn’t like weed, mey! We exist, so if you try it and you don’t like it we can basically be a two person club
Stef: I don’t like it either
Cameron: I hallucinate after two hits, so. I’m in that club.
Stef: I can’t imagine Ali stoned tbh
Ali: To satisfy Stef’s curiosity: once I ate weed and cried for three hours because I felt like my soul had shrunk and was too small for my body and was rattling around inside my skin. another time I smoked and sat on a roof contemplating the various places we could go to eat, but wound up just sitting on the roof talking about food because I was too lazy to actually get off the roof
Stef: I’ve never enjoyed it
Maddie: I’m in the weed paralysis club
aka the no weed for me club
Stef: I’m just like ‘why are we laughing? that joke wasn’t funny. also i still don’t like phish, go to hell’
Cameron: “Pink Floyd doesn’t sync with the wizard of oz and I can’t even watch because the sounds are in the way and the room is having feelings”
Stef: The first time I ever did mushrooms was with Riese and Alex and I was the only person anything happened to and Haviland kept changing colours.

XOXO

Team Autostraddle

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