Tell Me on a Friday #24: Aserejé (The Catch-Up Issue)

Hi-ho readers,

If you have a fun and different anagram for the letters “TMOAF,” please let me know because my commitment to Fridays has become frankly horrendous.

I am treating this version as a catch-up for June. Next week, I am manifesting sending an issue on the WHOLE MONTH of July, and then hopefully will be back on schedule.

Out and About

  • I was completing the last newsletter on the bus to New Jersey for Carmina Burana. It was our season closer, and it’s been weird to be off for the summer. Downtown Voices will hold auditions later this summer if you have ever thought about joining!
  • I went home for Father’s Day, and my mother and I purchased my dad the same card.
  • Pride happened, and I have perfected the one-two punch of Dyke March Saturday and Riis Beach Sunday. 
    • ASIDE WARNING: I’ve felt slightly unmoored – feeling too queer to bed straight men, feeling too straight to relate to other queers. I’m so culturally gay that most people who know me (in a vanilla sense) don’t even know that I have a sordid history of (gasp) dating men. What I have taken pleasure in recently is telling straight guys interested in me that their interest makes them queer, too. As I find myself saying more often, the older I get, the less of a joiner I am (hi, Matt), but the one identity I still feel comfortable in is “dyke,” regardless of how I act on any given day. It’s harsh, political, and an immediate shibboleth (much like the correct pronunciation of “Ani DiFranco”). Dyke March, in that vein, was a salve.
  • Madison and her girlfriend Rebecca took me under their wings for Dyke March AND Riis this year. Which was infinitely appreciated. Although not a parade, no one wants to go to one alone. I shouldn’t have worried. Obviously, on both days, I saw every queer person I have ever met/slept with/loved/hated. I was asking for it, being a dyke at the dyke convention. One of the best parts of Dyke March is the radical performance group Church Ladies for Choice singing “God Is a Lesbian” every year. The other best parts are seeing the oldest and youngest of us holding hands and going in the fountain at Washington Square Park, which I did for the first time this year. It was disgusting and free. 
  • I went topless to Riis for the first time. The sun on my bare chest was a new pleasure. I walked along the shoreline smiling into a green apple, abolishing tan lines and feeling safe. I had never been topless in public (in the daytime). But I used to streak a lot with friends in college. Everyone was topless!
  • My friend Jeff took me to the National High School Musical Theatre Awards®, known as the Jimmys. For the uninitiated, they are the Tonys, but for high schoolers. What an experience. Might I recommend this performance of “The Music That Makes Me Dance” by current and future 18-year-old superstar Sophie Pollono?

Stray Observations

  • Eating an ice cream sandwich can’t fix everything, but it can improve most things.
  • Some of the best gossip items can be about people you don’t know.
  • For me, YouTube TV in a studio apartment perfectly replicates the experience of having cable TV in a hotel.
  • In that vein: nothing is more luxurious than a solo hotel room.
  • The best name for a cat is “Thanksgiving” (the name of the bodega cat at SJ Market on Franklin and St. John’s).
  • The perfect amount of shrimp for a shrimp cocktail is four.
  • One of the best places to watch people is the bench in front of Olde Brooklyn Bagel Shoppe on Vanderbilt Ave. While sitting there, a woman I’d been planning a date with accidentally texted me a picture that featured MY LEGS, then came over to talk to me, and then a man I’d been planning a date with walked past us (I did not recognize him).
  • Sutton Place Park in Manhattan is an excellent place to take teletherapy al fresco.
  • I saw giant framed posters of 
  • Whoever put “Fast Car” on the Pride Classics Spotify playlist should be sent to The Hague.
  • I got my passport photo taken, and I look more like my dad in a wig every year I am alive.

Media Diet

Songs in My Heart (with playlist)

  • Carousel Ride – Rubblebucket
  • Orca – Y La Bamba
  • L.A. (Looking Alive) – Madison Cunningham
  • Spells – Jenny Hval
  • Back, Baby – Jessica Pratt
  • Les Fleurs – Minne Riperton
  • Before We Begin – Broadcast
  • Possibly Maybe – Bjork
  • No Embrace – Dirty Projectors and Bjork
  • Honey and Smoke – case/lang/veirs
  • Harbour – Cate Le Bon
  • Captain Easychord – Stereolab

Stray Observations (profound)

  • There are two ways to evolve from being a victim of cruelty: cruelty or kindness. I think I’ve chosen kindness.
  • I compared myself to Mark from Rent because I take beautiful candid pictures of my friends and family but am not photographed frequently. I want to warrant people taking my picture.²
  • I am growing more in touch with my body and mind and still struggle to determine who I am, but more specifically, how I come off and what others think of me. I have thought of some things, and I wonder if you feel the same. I am: chatty and loud; kind and honest; clever and goofy; generous and earnest. 

I wrote a poem at the beginning of June that I was nervous about sharing. It is called “Handle with Care” and is linked here. It signifies an entry into a new awareness and flavor of being in the world. I hope you like it.

See you soon,
Emily

¹ Disclaimer: I went on one (1) date with Jamie in 2018. We haven’t talked since, but I’m still a big fan of their work. If you ever read this, hi.
² “Yes, you live a lie, tell you why / You’re always preaching not to be numb / When that’s how you thrive / You pretend to create and observe / When you really detach from feeling alive.”