August 11th ✨

Twisters, I Kissed a Girl, Raygun the Australian Breakdancer

Liz is gone for the week so I’ve been jerking off, making Arnold Palmers to drink alongside my signature single gal enchiladas (a.k.a. the enchiladas I make when Liz leaves), and staying up late reading self-help books. One of the books I read and admittedly did not finish is called, It Didn’t Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle. I requested this book from Libby based on title alone—in recent months, I’ve been realizing how severe my anxiety is (I knew but I didn’t, you know?) after a lifetime of being like, “I’m fine!” and then, for one small example, refusing to drive until the age of 27 for fear of killing myself and others in an accident. I’m interested in how events in my own life, as well as alcoholism, poverty, and abuse in my recent lineage, contributes to my persistent sense of unease. But this book is extremely literal—like, there’s an anecdote about a 19-year-old man who starts feeling anxious and freezing cold seemingly out of the blue and discovers that he had an uncle who froze to death, also at the age of 19. If you’ve ever known anyone who was into past life regression—this feels a lot like that. Also, I’m new to the self-help genre and so I am really surprised by the massive health claims a lot of these books make?? The author of It Didn’t Start with You lost his vision and says that it was restored by making amends with his mother. So.

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I watched the Olympics women’s breakdancing event last night via Twitter videos and am eagerly awaiting the men’s event tonight, which I will watch on the TV with snacks and a drink. I am not a big sports guy, but I appreciate the Olympics. It’s impossible to watch Simone Biles or any of the synchronized swimming teams and not feel a sort of reverence at what some bodies can achieve with training, dedication, and electrolytes. But also, the new breaking event is great for opposite reasons!! It really humanizes the Olympics. For all the professionalized, resourced athletes who get medals, there are many more who are just here having fun with it. I was totally transfixed by Raygun, the Australian breaker who didn’t make it past the qualifiers, and her kangaroo-inspired moves?? Also much love to Nicka, the Lithuanian with the wrong-looking durag who ended up winning the silver medal.

I didn’t know I needed Olympic athletes who looked silly, or simply…not good at their sport. Not to sound like some kind of breakdance aficionado BUT growing up in Wisconsin, I went to school with many first and second generation Hmong Americans who would do these incredible school talent show and culture day performances that were sometimes just breaking, and sometimes breaking incorporated with traditional Hmong instruments and clothing. These kids would spin on their heads and balance on one hand whilst pulsing their bodies, defying gravity and using every single muscle to send the entire student body of my elementary school into hysterical screams.

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Back in July, Liz and I thought it would be fun to take the dogs to see Twisters at our local drive-in movie theater. Turns out this movie is full of metallic whooshing noises that our dogs fucking HATED. Also our fellow theater-goers kept walking past our car on their way to the concession stand, which really scared Louis. Still, it was important for me to see Twisters at a drive-in because one features so prominently in the original. I have a real soft spot for Twister. I love that Bill Paxton chooses Helen Hunt, his dykey estranged wife who’s obsessed with tornados, over Melissa, his skirt suit-wearing new fiancée. For a 90s movie, the romance plot is pretty sidelined—Helen Hunt still gets to be a woman in STEM and instead of doing a love triangle or “girl who is like the other girls vs. girl who is NOT like the other girls“ thing, Bill Paxton’s fiancée, a therapist with a loose interpretation of doctor-patient confidentiality, dumps him. I love that the crew picks up a golden retriever who lost his home in a tornado and is just like, so happy? You see Twister and then you watch Anatomy of a Fall and you realize just how naturalistic dog acting has become in the past 30 years. And lastly, when Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s character (who can even say what his whole deal is?) turns on a small TV in his van and watches music videos while he drives after a tornado…a real meatball of a movie.

Like the Twister of yore (1996), Twisters is about a ragtag crew of storm chasers going up against a more professional, moneyed team of storm chasers. Daisy Edgar-Jones plays Kate, a meteorologist with PTSD. She spends the movie languishing on the screen like damp napkin and as a feminist I never say stuff like this, but her hair is all WRONG for this role. Anthony Ramos plays Javi, an old friend of Kate’s who convinces her to join his new tornado hunting venture. And finally, Glen Powell plays a successful storm chaser and YouTuber named Truck. We initially think Truck is bad because he’s a white man who makes content for a living but in actuality, Truck is pure and good. He respects women! 100% of sales from his merch line go to mutual aid.

Truck and Daisy and idk who that dog is via Getty Images

The story arrives at its rising action when a gnarly twister hits a crowded public place where Kate and Truck just happen to be present. Even though their relationship is still contentious, they must save themselves and all the bystanders from severe weather, which the movie frequently reminds us is becoming more and more commonplace without ever using the term “climate change.” Honestly, this is a great movie to watch shut in a car with two barking dogs because every plot point is deliberately explained and enunciated. For instance: the bad guys in this movie are opportunists who show up to tornado-stricken communities and offer cash buyouts to desperate property owners. At one point, one of the bad guys points to a leveled commercial building and the crying family in front of it and exclaims, “This one is family-owned!”

There are several moments when Twisters tries to correct the factual inaccuracies of Twister i.e. a highway underpass is actually a bad place to be during a tornado. One of Glen Powell’s storm chasers is dyke-coded (Katy O’Brian from Loves Lies Bleeding!!) and her big line is instructing some innocent Oklahomans to, “Go to the lowest part of the house without windows!“ But let’s be honest: people from tornado-prone places KNOW about going to the lowest part of the house without windows. Please ask me about my midwestern childhood tornado drill trauma (lining up in the hallway in a cramped child’s pose with your hands over your neck and being bored out of your mind while also losing feeling in your lower body). There have been several tornado warnings in Vermont this summer and “go to the lowest part of the house without windows” is a safety tidbit I share often!! Most recently to my favorite post office clerk who responded, “I live in a trailer.“ So I said, “The bathtub or a closet!” I was PREPARED.

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I have been motoring through The Boyfriend on Netflix— a Japanese reality dating show where gay and bisexual men live together in a beach house, while also running a coffee truck and making do on an extremely tight budget together. It’s WHOLESOME.

I finally watched I Kissed a Girl at the recommendation of

Dyke Domesticity

and

Paging Dr. Lesbian

, two newsletters about lesbian culture and history that I really admire. Julia and Clover at Dyke Domesticity already dropped a hefty conversation on I Kissed a Girl, which you can and should read here.

I Kissed a Girl is a British reality dating show where 10 lesbian and bisexuals must live in an Italian villa (or “masseria,” a word that was entirely new to me) and successfully find a girlfriend. The contestants spend their days swimming in the pool, processing about the word “lesbian,” and awaiting instructions from Dannii Minogue, Kylie Minogue’s sister and the host of this program. Sometimes there are games like 7 minutes in heaven or a challenge where contestants select red flags that apply to their partners. Every other episode ends in a Kiss Off, in which each contestant must find someone to kiss. If a contestant does not find someone to kiss--or the person they want to kiss doesn’t want to kiss them back-- they must leave the villa. New contestants are frequently introduced to shake things up and some contestants choose to send themselves home because they don’t vibe with anyone, which is RELATABLE.

Photo via BBC/Two Four

It’s slightly similar to Are You the One?, except there’s no money on the line and nobody has sex. And unlike most American reality shows (ahem The Ultimatum: Queer Love), nobody on I Kissed a Girl is ever belligerently drunk or freaking tf out. I think there are like, three scenes where anyone is drinking, and two where there’s a fight and both are quickly resolved with sober, compassionate conversations the next day. The messiest contestant is a 22-year-old baby butch named Fiorenza. Fiorenza is a chef and a drummer from Glasgow, and her problem is that she has too many crushes. Fiorenza is not mean or a bad communicator, she’s just a baby dyke who is continually bamboozled by her own feelings. I Kissed a Girl is a villian-free zone, though there is a WILD reveal in the reunion concerning Priya, and I really appreciated that the contestants are hot by queer standards i.e. there are actual mascs and some really bold outfits.

And finally, I don’t know how music licensing works in the UK but I was shocked by the real, honest-to-God music on this show—as in, actual songs from Mariah Carey, Fleetwood Mac, LANA DEL REY, and MORE!!? It’s quite luxurious compared to U.S. reality shows where all the music sounds like this.

If you’re in the U.S., you need a VPN to watch I Kissed a Girl. You could also set your dating profiles to the UK and then have a really good reason to hop on a plane.

Thanks so much to everyone who ordered a Choose Your Own Dykeventure zine! Both volumes are still very much for sale and I’m currently donating 20% to the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fun. I would love to send you some print lesbian media via snail mail :)