LANEIA WE LOVE YOU: Happy Birthday To Our Executive Editor!

Wow! I’m so glad all of you came to this party, I know it’s a LITTLE last minute, but it took me all day to decide if I should save my avocados for next week, or if I should stay on schedule despite the fact that the guest of honour is on Internet Vacation until Tuesday February 15th.

If you hang around here too much AND LET’S BE HONEST, YOU PROBABLY DO, this face should look familiar. Here, I’ve used a photo of a computer screen so that you will feel this is happening in your natural habitat:

someone took a photo of my laptop screen, which is against the rules, but i'm sharing it with you anyhow

Anyhowwwwwwww IT’S LANEIA’S BIRTHDAY!  And I feel like you should all tell her how much you love her so that there will be evidence of this upon her return, like a “welcome back”/belated birthday party.

You might be thinking — what does Laneia want? I’ve done a quick gmail search and assembled the following list of things Laneia has said she wants recently:

1. i want to go to a museum

2. i want to ask her what liquor i should buy next and should i re-pot my fern in a white or orange pot and is it ok if i walk everywhere from now on instead of driving b/c i think my brakes are fucked and i can’t afford to fix them. i think she’d say yes

3. i want you to put the post back up please

4. i want a fort. i want a one bedroom fort. with a kitchen.

5. i want to write a story about a bird. and i want to draw the illustrations on napkins.

6. i want to lol louder but i don’t want to disturb the people who will never understand

7. i want to kick food

8. i want a vodka balsamic tonic

9. I WANT A BRANDON NOW

10. i want to ask my computer but it doesn’t know the answer

11. i want to punch people who go on dates. fuck you where did you get that money and that cute girl. PUNCH.

12. i want things to right themselves

So that’s a starter set. You could mail her a card to our PO Box that I don’t know the address of because Laneia is in charge of that.

this seemed like a funny picture to put here

In conclusion, Rachel and I are dying a slow death without Laneia and if she was not celebrating her 30th birthday today and then subsequently living all the ensuing days of her life, then we’d all be in trouble.

Here, catch up on some of Laneia’s best work to remind yourself how lovely it is when she’s here:

1. Laneia’s Team Pick: These Cashews
2. Sister Spit: The Autostraddle Interview
3. Look at That F*cking Stuff Lesbian Kittens Liked
4. It’s National Sandwich Day
5. Obama Says It Gets Better
6. I Read Tao Lin’s Richard Yates and I Liked It
7. 8 Honest Things About New York
8. Marissa Meltzer: The Autostraddle Interview
9. Trans Photographer Amos Mac: The Autostraddle Interview
10. When I Knew
11. Get Baked (all of them)

Also here’s her first post here ever JUST FOR OLD TIME’S SAKE.

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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.

90 Comments

  1. LANEIA. fuck. i fucking love you. i want to build you a tiny house inside of an avocado where everything would be your size.

    • She doesn’t want a house,silly. Read #4 and get that woman an avocado fort filled with cute womyns STAT!

  2. Happy 30th, Laneia! We really miss you… but fucking good for you for entirely ditching the internet for 2 weeks. Isn’t life better without it sometimes?

  3. laneiaaa, i spent all afternoon making a chocolate cake and cookie cake for my favorite liberal aunt who’s birthday is today also, and then i hear this, why were all awesome people born on february the eight? I LOVE YOOOU!!!

  4. Hey Laneia, Happy Birfday! I can’t say I love you, cuz I don’t know you, and we’ve never met, and that would be all KINDS of creepy. But I CAN say Happy Birfday and not sound creepy in the least. And so I have. Best to you!

  5. Awesome sauce. Happy birthday Laneia!
    Coincidentally I baked a chocolate cake today and made miso soup from the Autostraddle get baked soup edtion! I dedicate those dishes to Laneia/the AS team. They turned out great! :-3

    *\o/*

    Sidenote: I was wondering what’s happened to periodtumblr… I oddly miss it.

  8. Dear Laneia.
    I remember your last birthday. I had jury duty and was standing in a court room all day and I found a picture of whiskey in a nice glass for you.
    I hope that you’re having some nice whiskey and a nice (relaxing) internet vacation. But the truth is, I really can’t wait for you to come back.

    I miss the way your letters work together and how they feel warm, like a hug when it’s needed most. And the way your presence is just so nice.

    What I mean to say is happy birthday. I really hope that it is/was really spectacular and that everything felt perfect and full of love. And I hope that when you come back and read this post and all the comments you will know how awfully you were missed and how perfect and complete it feels to have you back.

    love,
    (the other)Rachel

  9. Happy birthday, Laneia! I love you super a lot.

    Also, here’s your PO Box, guys:
    PO Box 10495
    Tempe, Arizona
    85284

  10. Laneia! Happy birthday. I hope it is a day full of as much cuteness and awesome as you are.

    I will be baking your / Nigella Lawson’s brownies later this week (thank you for your not-so-secret link) and I will share some with a cute girl and we will eat it in your honour.

  11. hello laneia happy birthday, me and my hair are celebrating for you.

    AND COME BACK TO THE INTERNET SOON.

  12. omg that first picture is perfect.

    i love you laneia! i hope your internet vacation is going amazingly but not too amazing because i want you to still love us when you get back.

  15. Happy Happy HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I don’t KNOW know you but I know you. Like Internet Know you. AND THAT’S LIKE THE REAL THING these days. SO I’m still going to say I LOVE YOU. A lot a lot A LOT. (Quoting Andrea Gibson here) I love you like the moons love the planets they circle around.
    So come back. Because this moon misses her planet :(
    HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

  16. I havent been an AS reader as long as most of the other people have, but i have never loved any site as much as i love AS, which i check everyday of course. And although it is inappropriate to say i love you cause we don’t really know each other, I’m going to say it anyway cause my life wont be the same without you and team AS.

    I love you and happy happy birthday Laneia!!

  18. You know the pic where she’s looking very cute with a glass of beer? Well, I was sitting across the table from her that day, she said she liked my ring. I wanted to die

    Happy birthday.

  21. Happy birthday, Laneia! Much love. And thank you for all the hard internet work, it is much appreciated.

  28. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! You’re all kinds of awesome and I can’t wait until you get back. The internet just hasn’t been the same without you.

  30. Happy Birthday lady! I hope you have a good day and this upcoming year is awesome and full of positive lifey things!

  33. I’ve never commented before because it kinda makes me nervous, but HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Laneia! Hope it was all kinds of wonderful, and can’t wait until you’re back.

  35. Happy birthday Laneia! I hope the world is treating you so nicely and buying you lots of vodka and breaks.

    P.S. One time Laneia told me she loved me while I was straightening my hair and it was the best my hair ever looked.

  36. Happy B-day Laneia!

    I hope that you’re enjoying your internet vacation, even though it’s completely obvs that we all miss/love you ever so much!

    I’m currently having a Blue Moon (with orange slice) to celebrate the fact that you were born 30 years ago. *cheers!*

    xoxo,
    kells.

  37. seems i’m a bit late, but like a gazillion other folks have shared, LANEIA, I FUCKING LOVE YOU, TOO! happy 3-0!

  38. Dear Laneia,

    In honor of your birthday, I wore the necklace that you made that I bought from you a few years ago (was it that long ago? I feel like it wasn’t). I hope you had a good day, and I am very happy to hear that we share the same birthday month.

    Happy birthday and much love!
    -Ashley from Nebraska :)

  39. Laneia,

    You’re the best writer ever. I love you for that. Happy 30th. You’re a good one.

    Candice

  40. Happy birthday to you! <3 Thank you for making the internet a slice more awesome, and I hope that your vacation from said slice of awesome internet is going fabulously. And come back soon because we MISS YOU AND <3 YOU A MILLION TIMES OVER. You are to Autostraddle what tinsel cat toys are to my kitten: wanted desperately, missed when not had, and enjoyed thoroughly every second when they're there.
    Happy Birthday!

  55. Happy Birthday, Laneia!!! In fact I will soon be of your age in late Feb. So Hurrayyy for another February sister. ENJOY A TALL GLASS OF BEER SENT FROM HONG KONG!!!

  57. LANEIA. You are an excellentgreat person and I love all of the things you do. ALL THE THINGS. Have the most wondrous of birthdays because you got all kinds of born just a few years ago and now look at how successful you are.

  61. I hope by “vacation from the internet” you mean a vacation to wherever Riese is, because then she will have an awesome birthday for sure! Plus, it’s likely to result in more posts on We are all made of Kittens :)

    Happy Birthday, Laneia!

  62. Happy Birthday! Knowing that there is a person as awesome as you in this world makes me happy. You are so so awesome, and I only know a small internet portion of you. I bet the entire whole of Laneia is too much awesome for one person to know.

  66. Happy Birthday Laneia! I will pronounce all of the possible pronunciations of your name in my head in your honor.

  73. happy happy happy birtday, laneia! you and your words give me hope and happiness and a warm fuzzy feeling in my belly, like how i imagine it must feel to be a kitten. thank you so much for being so real and honest and amazing.

    much love from north carolina <3

  75. I just want to wish you a happy happy birthday and THANK YOU !!! for all your amazing writing and thanks for introducing me to Ani diFranco’s Out of Range !!!! I love it and you’re A M A Z I N G (by the way)…

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