HAPPY BIRTHDAY LANEIA!

Did you know that today our Executive Editor Laneia is officially thirty-WONDERFUL years old? It’s true! She’s been alive for 31 years! In addition to being alive, she has reproduced and created two other living humans who probably have a lot of her DNA. Furthermore, she’s been RIGHT HERE with you every single day since this goddamn website ship set sail, cooks like a pioneer woman, makes good collages and will probably never truly self-actualize the truth of how fucking talented she is.

In celebration of this personality cultish holiday, Rachel and I have assembled 31 of our favorite things Laneia said during her 30th year on earth.

Who knows what she’ll say next year? I bet it’ll be funny, Lorna!

 

Our 31 Favorite Things Laneia Said This Year:

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1. “Writing and thinking is easier when the people around you are also writing and thinking. Your brain just naturally wants to fall in line with whatever’s happening around you. My brain, anyway. This is a problem when what’s happening around me is a movie marathon or a nerf gun war. I wanted the collective. We all wanted the collective. I still want it.”

 

2. “I feel like Ellen Page is a little young for Clea Duvall, on an emotional level. That’s my expert opinion.”

 

3. “And it’s the promise of new, unfucked things that keeps us going. Or our ability to unfuck the fucked things. I mean even your hair gets tangled, you know?”
– you need help: you actually like her

 

4. “You have to always always live like you could be mowed down by a bus full of sweaty evangelicals tomorrow. TOMORROW.

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5. “I feel the same way about Sex In The City as many black women feel about feminism, apparently.
Which is to say, it doesn’t speak to my life.”

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6. “Having instant nostalgia is overwhelming sometimes, but this time it was nice. Then I took this photo and thought about where life was going and whether or not anyone’s ever in control. Then I thought about what ‘control’ really meant, then I cried a little. Then I got on westbound I-24 and listened to local natives and the black keys and danced in my car.”
– tumblr

7.

SWEET POTATO SOUP
soup soup soup
you are so cold
do you still love me
could we maybe talk
soup soup soup
it’s an autumn day
and i was thinking about reheating you
so we could be together
soup soup soup
just tell me that you still need me
because otherwise
i will just make a grilled cheese

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8. “The internet is weird. It’s almost as weird as the real world.”

9. “On the surface I guess this is just another crappy pop song that I wouldn’t have liked anyway because I don’t like crappy pop songs, but when you scratch a little deeper, it’s actually an uninspired regurgitation of a handful of negative lesbian stereotypes set to the tune of a crappy pop song.”

– Open Thread: Jessica Lowndes’s “I wish I Was Gay” Song

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10. “Every time you combine butter and cheese in this post, a vegan angel loses its wings and falls into a fiery pit of sunflower oil.”
– g-chat re: Top 10 Things To Eat With Melted Cheese

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11.

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12. “Step back and evaluate the situation. Think about your life and how you arrived at this moment. Bake the casserole for maybe 15 minutes or until the cheese is melted. Serve with sour cream and extra salsa, possibly a blindfold.”

– recipe for doritos casserole via Movie Night: Dazed & Confused

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13. “Sometimes really late at night or early in the morning, when your subconscious is creeping into the periphery, you find yourself thinking, “Who the hell are these people I’m living with? They could be anyone. They’ll be old one day, with pants they paid for themselves. Jesus what is happening. How did I get here.”
– all Living with Kids posts

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14. “I want it to be an acceptable time to either start drinking or take a nap. It’s just now right between those two times.”

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15. “I think as long as you recycle, buy locally grown tomatoes and make-out with girls, it’s okay to get some clothes from Urban Outfitters every now and then.”

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16. “The point here is reality and honesty, I think. Maybe one day you’ll have an orgasm and maybe you won’t, but at the very least you should get there honestly.”
–you need help: fake orgasms and potato soup, sorta

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17. “If there are universal truths to being a queer girl, one of them must be that, at some point or another, you will want to fingerblast the hot chick at the coffee shop.”
– you need help: requisite crush on a barista

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Jess R Using Riese's laptop to Video Chat with Laneia

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18. “I wish my inbox was a room that I could walk into and make stacks. I need to sit in the middle of my inbox.”

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19. “I wanted to dive face-first into Dorothy Jane Torkelson’s hair like it was an Olympic fucking sport.”
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photo by Kenneth Von Süss

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20. “It probably is a bad idea, as most ideas are bad ideas, but if there was ever a time to make bad decisions, I feel like it’s when you’re young / autumn.”

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21. “You have to break off little chunks of your heart and like, put those chunks into their pockets and hope for the best.”
– re: how to make friends

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22. ” Who do you wanna be Lorna? Do you wanna be the girl who calls herself an idiot every fourth word, or do you want to be the girl who says BIKE SHOP and I LIKE YOUR FACE and DO YOU WANT TO GET A SANDWICH?.”
–you need help: i feel like we would like you if we met you

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sarah, laneia, riese & rachel at dinah shore 2011

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23. “Everyone knows fondue is classist bullshit.”

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24. “Oh god, when big spoons get little, don’t you just want to hold your breath? Oh god I can’t even. They get so little! I cannot even.”

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25. “The years of 1996 through 1999 represent a time in my life when I was using up lots of fossil fuels in an effort to escape my house and be free via “riding around.” Basically we drove a couple of laps around this imaginary track someone invented half a decade ago, then made our way out of town and into the country, where we rolled down the windows, turned up our music, smoked lots of cigarettes and threw empty beer bottles at road signs.”

– rapping like a white girl

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26. “You know what we can never have back? Kurt Cobain and Saturday mornings.”

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27. Garden Salad Song

salad salad salad
you are so pretty
we are best friends
i am gonna eat you
you will be delicious
salad salad salad
when can i meet your mother
we’re so good together
let’s not rush into things
i think you are special
salad salad salad
please don’t choke me again
that was scary
are we still friends
i am gonna eat you
thank you i love you too

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28. “IF ONLY WE WERE IN CHARGE OF THE WORLD, CARMEN SANDIEGO.”

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29. “I’m allergic to The Huffington Post.”

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30. “Let’s see if we can sneak it into an existing item. Like congress does.”
-g-chat (re: adding a task to somebody else’s to-do list)

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laneia (left) and riese (right)

31. “I just want to say
for the ultimate record
that every time i see rachel’s profile picture on AS
and remember that she’s wearing a TANK TOP
I am so so fucking proud to be a part of this
because really
where else
could you wear a tank top and talk about prop 8 with authority.”

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Riese

Riese is the 43-year-old Co-Founder of Autostraddle.com as well as an award-winning writer, video-maker, LGBTQ+ Marketing consultant and aspiring cyber-performance artist who grew up in Michigan, lost her mind in New York and now lives in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared in nine books, magazines including Marie Claire and Curve, and all over the web including Nylon, Queerty, Nerve, Bitch, Emily Books and Jezebel. She had a very popular personal blog once upon a time, and then she recapped The L Word, and then she had the idea to make this place, and now here we all are! In 2016, she was nominated for a GLAAD Award for Outstanding Digital Journalism. She's Jewish and has a cute dog named Carol. Follow her on twitter and instagram.

Riese has written 3267 articles for us.

82 Comments

  3. HAPPY BIRTHDAY LANEIA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    hope you have a wonderful one!!!
    also, I love all your articles and you look so pretty in your pictures!!! yay!
    HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  5. Happy birthday!!

    also I really really like that the whiskey post is categorized as “how to live with kids”. APPROPRIATE.

  6. Happy birthday, Laneia! I love your songs. You should record an album! I can play mandolin and kazoos quite fluently, just saying.

  7. Happy birthday! I often write songs about nailpolish and peanutbutter sandwiches so I feel a special connection here. Here’s to you writing lots of food related songs! Des bisous

  8. Happy birthday Laneia! You say clever things! That is something to feel good about. Also, cake. Best wishes.

  16. Happy Birthday Laneia!

    I’m locked outside my apartment. My puppy is on the other side of that door alone. Reading your advice/thoughts/feelings/words made me feel much better.

  17. “I wanted to dive face-first into Dorothy Jane Torkelson’s hair like it was an Olympic fucking sport.”

    You deserve the happiest birthday, Laneia. Thanks for being an inspiration to the queer legions of this world and me personally all the goddamn time with your wisdom/humor.

  19. Hope your birthday is better than the birthday that Hanna threw for Caleb where Lucas tries to kill her. But he was actually just trying to explain to her that he borrowed Caleb’s money for betting! But why were Mona and Noel Khan all wet? Were they really skinny dipping?

  24. i was thinking of you this morning when i saw the moon before the sun rose and it was so full and huge and bright. what serendipity.

    i’m glad that you exist on this planet and that i am – in some small way – a part of your periphery.

    happy birthday, laneia.

  25. #14 is so flipping perfect … I feel like that often. Happy Birthday to you! Hope it’s a wonderful and magical one!

  28. #11 is my favorite thing ever. (to be fair, i do have a lot of favorite things ever. and a lot of them are autostraddle-related. but this is for sure in the top 10.)

    i hope your birthday is amazing, laneia!

  30. Happy Birthday! You are so amazing. I love the way you write and think. I hope your boys made you something cute.

  31. aw how did i ever survive without you?!?!!? ps i love the soup and salad songs. like so fucking much.

  32. Happy birthday! What would I do without your writing/formspring/general amazingness. I do not know. I DO NOT WANT TO KNOW.

  37. laneia i just re-read the salad song and i legitimately almost cried tears of laughter and joy

    i love you like a good salad, which is a pretty serious thing

  38. Happy Birthday!
    i’m sorta confused with all the pictures of you in this post. the picture that accompanies “Laneia” in my brain is actually pink bonaroo sky. that’s what my brain always thought you looked like.

  39. Happy Birthday!!

    “You have to always always live like you could be mowed down by a bus full of sweaty evangelicals tomorrow. TOMORROW” = BEST QUOTE OF ALL TIME AND MY NEW LIFE MOTTO

  41. Happy Birthday :)

    24. “Oh god, when big spoons get little, don’t you just want to hold your breath? Oh god I can’t even. They get so little! I cannot even.”

    So true. Probably one of my favorite things ever.

  45. the magical appearance of the actual image in this comment is brought to you by the autostraddle community managerettes

  46. I can’t believe no one has told you your hair looks great, yet.
    your hair looks really great today.
    happy birthday!

  47. Happy Birthday, Laneia! If I knew you I’d probably say “I love you”, but I don’t, so I hope it’s not awkward that I still love you, in a “this-person-is-a-driving-force-behind-the-blog-that-helped-me-accept-and-embrace-my-queerness-and-that’s-pretty-cool-huh” kind of way.

  52. Happy birthday! You have made my life a better place, so thank you for that. Please continue being alive for many years to come. :)

  54. Well, AS won’t let me log in, but Happy Birthday Laneia! Thank you for your words of wisdom. Please keep them coming because life is very confusing. — julius

  57. laneia, you rock so much for creating concerned bear friend and making me feel like formspring isn’t the most horrible place on the internet. <333333 happy birthday!!

  63. Laneia, you are the executive ed,
    Of one of the best blogs I’ve ever read,
    The words that you say,
    Bring joy, tears and laughter to every day,

    (That you post)
    But what I do love the most,
    Is how your musings about life,
    Help us in moments of strife,

    You give us strength to speak,
    To the girls who make our knees weak,
    And your songs about soup
    Keeps the chickens in the coup,

    And also makes us laugh,
    You’ve the love of the staff,
    And straddler alike,
    Do you ride a bike?

    Cos that’ll be cute,
    Though there’s no dispute,
    That you already are,
    An effervescent star,

    A beacon of hope,
    Like a nuclear isotope,
    From a legion of gays,
    Wishing you, the happiest of birthdays!!

  68. Happppppppyyy happppy birthday! Although I could have dealt without this rude awakening: “You know what we can never have back? Kurt Cobain and Saturday mornings.” :|

  70. It breaks my heart how beautiful you are. But it makes it better that you’re a real person with great things to say. You know? Like you’re sharing.

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