#no joke i look like someone’s 14 year old cousin on break from boarding school 😂

[bigfeelingsdyke]

every year when the Fall season rolls around I am consumed with the desire to start dressing like a 1960s ivy leaguer and every year I am faced with the same dilemma: I look absolutely terrible in tailored pieces and menswear

[couldnt-think-of-a-funny-name]

I've been to Wildwood. The Jersey Shore is crazy in general but wildwood is next level. The board walk has like 200 of the same t-shirt store, feels like you're walking through the fires of hell, and is jam packed with kids on camp trips. I've only ever done the board walk there but I've seen the walk you have to take to get out to the beach, it's insane. I can only imagine what it's like with family. How old are your cousins and what are they like?

My family has literally been coming to Wildwood every year since, like, at LEAST the 1930’s, I’m not sure on anyone earlier than that, and my family is insane, so let’s dive into this.

The Main Characters In My Life On Vacation Are:

-My Grandmother, who was a child dancer star (she tapped on the radio!) who’s been coming down here her whole life- her parents used to come down the same day there would be a talent show, enter her in it, and then use her first prize reward for the money they’d spend throughout the week. Has been in the old person stage of “I’m an elder, who cares what I say or do” for the past 15 years. Has eight living kids and Too Many Descendants. Loud and refuses to admit she can’t walk half the time.

- My Mother, who gets confused very easily, overshares and breaks off into meaningless tangents in the middle of stories, snores like a literal demon, always wants to be asleep, keeps pushing for family activities, doesn’t realize all the kids think she’s lame.

- Me, who is always Extra Depressed in the summer months, and is the Sole Person In This Family My Age- everyone just stopped having babies for a few years when my mother decided to have me (Everyone is either over 25 or under 16). Because of this I’m usually confined to my room, unable to really do anything on the boardwalk because going on rides alone is depressing and my mother has heart problems. Just wants to read and write, but the children keep Screaming.

- My Aunt and Her Husband- A Very Loud Couple, she likes to control everything and he’s the only one who ever bothers to yell back at her. They always fight exactly once, every year, and every year somehow I always end up being the only other person in the apartment while its happening, so I just have to sit in awkward silence until my aunt finally huffs out “I can’t believe you’re doing this in front of my goddaughter!” and storms out to go find her kids. They make a lot of jokes and think their children are very dramatic.

- Jenna, the 14 year old cousin. Very dramatic. Mastered the art of the eye roll at a young age. Has literally looked like a mini model since she was born. Can’t be bothered to deal with anyone. We usually have one (1) tiny girl-bonding moment each vacation and then she promptly acts like she doesn’t care even though it’s clear she does. Athletic and artistic and musically/theatrically gifted. Very sarcastic. Always doing cartwheels.

- Seanie, the 12 year old cousin. Middle child syndrome. Tries to hard to be funny for attention. VERY dramatic. Will cry at the drop of a dime (I’m typing this and I literally just heard him burst into tears in the other room??). Super adorable, you can tell he’s gonna be one of those high school boys that pulls Ridiculous Shit but after one charming smile the teachers can’t bring themselves to stay mad. Very loud. Currently addicted to video game youtubers.

-Zack, the 7 year old cousin. Adorable. Loud. Lowkey a prodigy child but they can’t afford to get him into Special Schools so he’s always bored in class. Baby Of The Family syndrome. Currently in an aggressive pokemon phase. Doesn’t understand he’s literally a child, he acts like an old man half the time.

We’re all shoved into a small apartment for a week, but there are Others:

- Kathy, Grandmom’s second oldest. Literally the most bland person I have ever encountered on this planet. Very, very into trying to plan ‘fun’ family events. Thinks any conversation is a riveting conversation.

- Kathy’s husband, who is just a plain old guy who’s lowkey a hoarder and jokes around a lot, but every time someone mentions his past or his family it gets more and more confusing??? He may have a brother who was in the CIA??? He may have been homeless or he may have lived with his sister???? He may have killed a man???? I literally know nothing concrete about this man other than he’s apparently been with my aunt since they were teens but I. D. K. Every new piece of information I receive just scatters the puzzle more.

- Their eldest daughter and her husband spend most of the summer down here but always make sure to match up the schedule for when we come down. Loud, energetic couple. I have no idea what either of them do for work? They might currently be unemployed? Really into alcohol. At some point in the week every year, everyone in my apartment bonds together to diss them after we get back from the beach. Like, they’ll do something or another EVERY YEAR that sets EVERYONE off.

- The 16 year old. Tries to show everyone memes on his phone. Never really talks to people. Does NOT get along with his parents because he’s kinda an outlier in the family. I feel like he might be a stoner, but if I find out he’s got a hidden gun collection, I wouldn’t be surprised? That probably sounds awful but he’s a good kid I promise.

- Danny, 12. Adorable. Quiet. Mini golden boy. Makes jokes when you aren’t expecting them. Very resigned to the fact he has to hug me and my mother when he sees us.

- Kathy and Mystery Man’s youngest daughter, a librarian, and her stand up comedian husband, and now their three month old who is ADORABLE and everyone was surprised to learn they hadn’t named her Hermione.

Other recurring family members are prone to popping up throughout the vacation- Aunt Margie, Grandmom’s sister-in-law, who, I love her, but remember that chocolate episode of spongebob with the old woman that was essentially a stick in a wheelchair and had a chain smoker voice??? Put that in the tiniest bikini you can imagine and add a wheezing laugh and you got her. Her daughter who I could not recognize on a street if I tried. Her son Michael, who is best friends with my mom and apparently Not Gay (no one’s really convinced). A step-cousin sometimes pops by, she’s very breezy and easy-going and you can’t distinguish her Actual Talking Voice with her Talking To Little Kids Voice.

Anyway, Wildwood itself is just. Goddamn ridiculous.

The aesthetic of this place is somewhere between the 1950’s, a trailer park, and the kind of developed land you get when a moustache-twirling man wants to convince all the old people he can to retire to his buildings. Some buildings are harsh metal, and others are bright pastels, but the only thing joining them together is the fact that it looks like no one has cleaned anything here in years. EVERYTHING, even the knew stuff, looks worn and faded. Even like…the AIR is faded. It’s not just the sun being too bright, everything you’re looking at looks like it’s an old photograph. If you stay too long, you might start to fade into the landscape yourself.

I have never once seen an animal that wasn’t a seagull here. Most towns, islands, places, whatever- you usually have at least squirrels running around, maybe some variations of birds, just. ANYTHING. But it’s all seagulls all the time. You cannot exist in a spot for longer than a few moments without one of them dive bombing you. They are not mere birds. They are feathered demons that Hath No Fear Of The Foolish Mortals Of Mankind.

The song “Wildwood Days” plays on the Boardwalk every half hour. It is the only way to appease the spirits. It’s the modern, New Jersey-ian version of painting lamb blood over your door frame. As much as I’ve grown to hate the song, to twitch and clench my fist at each note, I deeply fear for the day the song doesn’t play on time and the curse is unleashed. I have a deep, sinking feeling that this moment will come within my life time.

If You Don’t Stop To Watch The Fireworks, Your Bones Shall Never Be Found.

You hear the ongoing chant of “Watch the Tram Car, Please!”, and look around, but there isn’t a Tram Car coming. The order grows louder and louder. You realize you aren’t even on the Boardwalk any more. The sound is right behind you, but you can’t find the source. “Watch the Tram Car, Please!” you realize, to your horror, the sound is now coming from inside you. You never find your true voice again.

Despite The Fact That This Place Is A Mosh Pit Of Families From All Over The World, If You Can’t Immediately Place My Accent Or Figure Out What Language I’m Speaking, I Have Legal Grounds To Kill You.

The sand simply isn’t normal. It’s ADVANCED sand. It doesn’t make sense. It never truly washes off. The more you scrub, the more appears.

Ancient gods from multiple pantheons like to chill out on the beach, have a few beers. You never know for sure who is who, but you Know they aren’t the same as you, and you know they know more about you than you’re comfortable with. For your own sake, NEVER ask them to turn their music down.

There is always at least one plane flying over with a sign reading “Jen, will you marry Sean?”. It’s been decades. Will Jen ever say yes?

Elevators Are For The Weak And We Use Them To Judge Who To Do Away With First.

The ocean goes back and forth between green and grey, and you know the color makes a significant difference but you can never quite put your finger on what.

Fish Are Fake.

All the stores sell everything you want, but nothing you need.

King Kong Is Our Fierce Protector, Loving Hero, And Just Enforcer

All the police officers and firemen and general ‘in charge’ jobs seemed to be run completely by 18 years olds

No one truly knows who pulls the shots when it comes to deciding the Boardwalks style each year. Every store sells the same Designated Style, and each year they make less and less sense. You buy a specialized hoodie anyway, and you have no idea why.

I could keep going on with that list, but the point is, Wildwood is a Strange Place and I have a Ridiculous Family, so every year is always a bit of an experience.

Like, no one in my family really has anything in common other than everyone’s always loud and everyone’s always right and everyone is always ready to loudly fight over the fact that they’re definitely right, but like. Imagine crawling through some Hillbilly Murder Showers in the garage of a condo, using all of your force to pry open a suspiciously heavy and questionably mechanized door, walking under the boardwalk and trekking over sand dunes just to find a bunch of screaming yet physically relaxed people under the flag for Montserrat. Some guy’s cracking stand up jokes while no less than three children are fighting each other, your mother is promising for the 14th year in a row that you’re gonna go on a whale watching trip and everyone knows she’s lying, some woman’s trying to hold a conversation about buying applesauce in bulk while her husband and children get drunk, there’s a skinny pale guy with horrible sunburn blasting songs from N.W.A., a girl’s cartwheeling around the site to the point you think she doesn’t know how to move any other way, a boy’s quietly drinking pickle juice, there’s a 7 year old literally trapped in a giant hole that he dug, your mother is snoring loud enough to alarm the people around you, and just when you’re starting to get a little comfortable about the feathered demons and start to relax, a tide comes in so strongly your chair literally starts getting pulled out to sea with you in in. It’s average. It's fading into the landscape with the rest of the place.

[coffee-and-kpop]

1-100

1: when you have cereal, do you have more milk than cereal or more cereal than milk?more cereal than milk. i hate when my cereal is soggy

2: do you like the feeling of cold air on your cheeks on a wintery day?omg yes so much

3: what random objects do you use to bookmark your books?the edges of notebook paper i’ve torn off, pokemon cards

4: how do you take your coffee/tea?tea: if it’s black, a little cream and sugar. if it’s green, with a little lemon juice. if it’s flavored, with some honeycoffee: anyone, honestly. sometimes black with a little sugar, sometimes heavy on the flavored creamer. i’ll drink coffee anyway

5: are you self-conscious of your smile?not of my smile, no

6: do you keep plants?i do indeed have a plant. i planted one with my great-grandmother thirteen years ago and i’ve still got it now

7: do you name your plants?i’ve just recently named her, yes. her name is Joan after my great-gma

8: what artistic medium do you use to express your feelings?hmmm, i just really love painting. i’ll paint with anything!

9: do you like singing/humming to yourself?for sure

10: do you sleep on your back, side, or stomach?side

11: what's an inner joke you have with your friends?so my friends and i used to say ‘take off the visor’ when you should just go for it and talk to your crush because there was this twin i had a crush on and his brother wore HIDEOUS visors everyday and it was just really funny

12: what's your favorite planet?mars

13: what's something that made you smile today?my nine year old sister started singing bad and boujee today at dinner

14: if you were to live with your best friend in an old flat in a big city, what would it look like?an actual mess, lol. it would be super cheap, all brick. we’d have a fuck chart of the gossip girl cast hanging in our living room where the tv should be, a totally stocked kitchen, lots of christian paraphernalia, tons of art pieces, and weird sayings we’d heard that wouldn’t make sense to anyone but us

15: go google a weird space fact and tell us what it is!all of space is completely silent

16: what's your favorite pasta dish?tortellini in marinara cream sauce

17: what color do you really want to dye your hair?blonde, but i would never

18: tell us about something dumb/funny you did that has since gone down in history between you and your friends and is always brought up.hmmm probs all my tinder escapades....

19: do you keep a journal? what do you write/draw/ in it?not really, but i carry around a notebook that i write down all my thoughts/things i need to remember in!

20: what's your favorite eye color?blue/grey/green

21: talk about your favorite bag, the one that's been to hell and back with you and that you love to pieces.lol, this is probably my bookbag. it’s not necessarily my fav, but it’s been with me for six/seven years. it’s a green north face (jester) and it’s got a huge hole in the bottom where some things fall through but it’s tough as nails

22: are you a morning person?hell no

23: what's your favorite thing to do on lazy days where you have 0 obligations?watch netflix, blog, write, eat, read

24: is there someone out there you would trust with every single one of your secrets?not anymore, nope

25: what's the weirdest place you've ever broken into?i really didn’t break into this place, but i used to work at a pool as a lifeguard and we would swim A LOT after hours there

26: what are the shoes you've had for forever and wear with every single outfit?my chacos

27: what's your favorite bubblegum flavor?spearmint

28: sunrise or sunset?sunset

29: what's something really cute that one of your friends does and is totally endearing?my roommate is an landscape architect major and she’s so tiny and cute but every time we say something shocking to her she makes this scoffing noise that we only associate with her

30: think of it: have you ever been truly scared?yes

31: what is your opinion of socks? do you like wearing weird socks? do you sleep with socks? do you confine yourself to white sock hell? really, just talk about socks.i HATE sleeping in socks, i try to wear funky socks as much as possible. i don’t own a single pair of white socks

32: tell us a story of something that happened to you after 3AM when you were with friends.my friends and i like to go see the rocky horror picture show, which starts at midnight, so we just get up to all kinds of shit in ATL late at night

33: what's your fave pastry?coffee cake

34: tell us about the stuffed animal you kept as a kid. what is it called? what does it look like? do you still keep it?OMG so fun story i had this best friend when i was in kindergarten-3rd grade and then he moved away and i was so sad but anyway for my 5th birthday he got me two stuffed horses and their names are Brownie and Blackie and i still sleep with them every night and he and i just recently got back in touch last semester omg

35: do you like stationary and pretty pens and so on? do you use them often?oh yes, i love them. i’m a huge study porn girl, although i don’t use them that much

36: which band's sound would fit your mood right now?death cab for cutie

37: do you like keeping your room messy or clean?hella messy

38: tell us about your pet peeves!MY ROOMMATE SMACKS AND I HATE IT SM

39: what color do you wear the most?black

40: think of a piece of jewelry you own: what's it's story? does it have any meaning to you?i have a gold cross necklace that was my great-grandfather’s and my nana passed it down to me the morning before i left for a trip to europe and it was super emotional

41: what's the last book you remember really, really loving?i really, truly adored redeeming love

42: do you have a favorite coffee shop? describe it!it’s called Two Story and it’s literally two stories and none of the couches match, it’s always packed and the rooms are a tight squeeze, the roof is slanted so you have to bend down, but the coffee is very unique

43: who was the last person you gazed at the stars with?i don’t know if this is the last person, but i remember vividly gazing at the stars with my cousin while we were in our bras outside

44: when was the last time you remember feeling completely serene and at peace with everything?have i ever? 

45: do you trust your instincts a lot?yes

46: tell us the worst pun you can think of.don’t trust atoms, they make up everything

47: what food do you think should be banned from the universe?twinkies god

48: what was your biggest fear as a kid? is it the same today?clowns and escalators; no it’s not

49: do you like buying CDs and records? what was the last one you bought?yes, although i have no where to play them. the last CD i bought was the weeknd’s beauty behind the madness

50: what's an odd thing you collect?candles, and i keep the empty jars after i’m finished burning them

51: think of a person. what song do you associate with them?hmmm i associate any john meyer song with my mom

52: what are your favorite memes of the year so far?honestly dark kermit will always be my favorite

53: have you ever watched the rocky horror picture show? heathers? beetlejuice? pulp fiction? what do you think of them?I LOVE ROCKY HORROR; never watched heathers; hated beetlejuice; loved pulp fiction

54: who's the last person you saw with a true look of sadness on their face?i don’t know; maybe my boss at work??

55: what's the most dramatic thing you've ever done to prove a point?idk i think i just yell A LOT

56: what are some things you find endearing in people?i love people who smile at their phones, athletes, girls who always look so cute and wear make up to class

57: go listen to bohemian rhapsody. how did it make you feel? did you dramatically reenact the lyrics?nostalgic; of course i dramatically sang the lyrics

58: who's the wine mom and who's the vodka aunt in your group of friends? why?my roommate, Syd, is the wine mom. she’s always so judgmental omg; i think i’m the vodka aunt like let’s be real; vodka is life and i’m the only one that parties

59: what's your favorite myth?i like any sort of sea monster myth

60: do you like poetry? what are some of your faves?yes, annabel lee will always be my favorite

61: what's the stupidest gift you've ever given? the stupidest one you've ever received?one time i gave my cousin the end of her charger my cat chewed up; my little sister gave me my own necklace for christmas that she got out of my jewelry box

62: do you drink juice in the morning? which kind?no

63: are you fussy about your books and music? do you keep them meticulously organized or kinda leave them be?oh, they’re all so organized that’s the only thing i can keep together in my life

64: what color is the sky where you are right now?v dark; keep of a deep blackish indigo

65: is there anyone you haven't seen in a long time who you'd love to hang out with?my best friend from high school; she’s been in peru for seven months

66: what would your ideal flower crown look like?lots of peonies and snap dragons; it would probs be pink and purple

67: how do gloomy days where the sky is dark and the world is misty make you feel?i really love days like these; they make me feel alive and awake - like i can breathe deeply

68: what's winter like where you live?weird; it’ll snow a tiny bit one week and be 70 the next week; although it only snows once here. they’re not very cold at all

69: what are your favorite board games?clue, life

70: have you ever used a ouija board?no

71: what's your favorite kind of tea?earl gray, chai tea

72: are you a person who needs to note everything down or else you'll forget it?omfg yes i forget EVERYTHING

73: what are some of your worst habits?i forget everything, i lose everything, i wait until the last minute to do anything

74: describe a good friend of yours without using their name or gendered pronouns.traditional Christianity, ballet pink, hip hop, zico, natural curls

75: tell us about your pets!ohhh ramsey; she’s currently laying in between my legs purring while i type this. she’s black and white; a tuxedo kitten. she’s been pretty hellish right now; getting into so much trouble but she makes me feel like i’ve always got someone there with me

76: is there anything you should be doing right now but aren't?my korean hw, or sleeping

77: pink or yellow lemonade?yellow

78: are you in the minion hateclub or fanclub?fanclub

79: what's one of the cutest things someone has ever done for you?@sarangkaeyon put me in her fan fic today and i cried, @lightly-ardently made me think about jungkook sending me anons, @omgbigbangtanboys in everything (esp. the jungkook anon ship:))

80: what color are your bedroom walls? did you choose that color? if so, why?they’re white; i rent so no i didn’t choose them

81: describe one of your friend's eyes using the most abstract imagery you can think of.they’re cloudy, mystic; they look like raindrops caught on the sidewalk, right after they fall from thunderclouds

82: are/were you good in school?i’m above average, i would say

83: what's some of your favorite album art?all time low’s don’t panic

84: are you planning on getting tattoos? which ones?yes, so far i’m getting flowers for my great-grandmother and a quote from her book, and a tattoo of the world marked with the countries i’ve been to

85: do you read comics? what are your faves?lol no i didn’t

86: do you like concept albums? which ones?YES ; the beatles - sgt. pepper’s lonely hearts club band

87: what are some movies you think everyone should watch at least once in their lives?cloud atlas, the notebook, courageous

88: are there any artistic movements you particularly enjoy?i love hip hop dances, i love when singer use their hands while they’re singing

89: are you close to your parents?yes

90: talk about your one of you favorite cities.it was messy, but the air of beauty surrounds you; it’s all hardlines and classic gold - a huge mixture of old and new; sleek and dull, as the clock watches you like an eye; 

91: where do you plan on traveling this year?i’m not sure that i have any travel plans this year

92: are you a person who drowns their pasta in cheese or a person who barely sprinkles a pinch?i’m a sprinkle person

93: what's the hairstyle you wear the most?a ponytail

94: who was the last person you know to have a birthday?a member of my sorority who’s one of my close friends

95: what are your plans for this weekend?NOTHING OMG

96: do you install your computer updates really quickly or do you procrastinate on them a lot?i procrastinate them a lot

97: myer briggs type, zodiac sign, and hogwarts house?intj-t, aries, gryffindor

98: when's the last time you went hiking? did you enjoy it?a couple years ago; we woke up at 4 and hiked a mountain at sunrise - it was one of the best times of my life

99: list some songs that resonate to your soul whenever you hear them.therapy - all time low, oh well - maybe parade, drops of jupiter - train

100: if you were presented with two buttons, one that allows you to go 5 years into the past, the other 5 years into the future, which one would you press? why?probably in the future, because i’d love to see who i am 5 years from now. and, 5 years ago i was in a completely different place than rn and i def don’t want to go back to sophomore year of high school

[drewkatchen]

L to R.: Family friend, my Pop and my Am circa mid-1990s.

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On the morning of January 14, 1998 in New York City at around 8 a.m., three men in ski masks carried empty duffel bags into the north tower of One World Trade Center, according to a report in the New York Times. 

Naturally, the reason for their visit wasn’t social.

The men from Brooklyn and Staten Island had a distinct plan all too obvious, a scheme which led them to a passenger elevator bound for the the 11th floor, where they then boarded a freight elevator and confronted a Brinks guard delivering money to the Bank of America corporate currency exchange center. The money was handed over, and the three men escaped the tower with $1.6 million. No one was injured.

For a brief period before their capture, these guys existed in the city, fanning out individually with a lot of money in their bags and one big secret in tow.

----

There’s no aspect of my life that overlaps with the story above really; I was not in the World Trade area at the time and you should trust me on that. On that morning many years ago, I was just a 21-year-old kid waking up in my grandmother’s central New Jersey home -- a sturdy, wooden affair from the late ‘50s -- in a lumpy bed far too small for all the college weight I was carrying around at the time. I didn’t live in her home, but my grandfather’s recent death from Parkinson’s demanded I leave school in South Carolina and board the quickest flight to EWR to be there, to say goodbye to an elder. One moment I was hanging out with my roommate in our spacious and rundown university apartment as a new semester started up, and the next I was in a crush of family -- great aunts all the way down to cousins -- all at different stages of sadness and relief. I hadn’t seen some of them in over a decade, and a few still longed to pinch my cheeks and or ruffle my curly kid locks. Like a lot of people, I didn’t know my Pop well; he began deteriorating when I was still a boy, and because I lived nowhere near him for most of my youth. Pictures show me as a chubby kid smiling in his lap, but I don’t remember much about him really. I remember his sideburns, bushy and gray and smelling of cigarette smoke. I know he had a flair for natty suits and sipping martinis during the day and that he had a full head of white hair. I know my grandmother loved him more than anything, and while she was happy he was no longer in the locked, debilitating prison of his disease, her primary reason for living had now gone away with a whimper. There’s apparently a legendary picture of him mowing the lawn in formal attire. Everyone still talks about it. And that was him, a man who left Irvington to give his wife and three kids a solid middle-class Jewish existence in the burbs.

The house in Bound Brook is now gone. Sold to a young couple.

---

I’ve been thinking a bit lately about the process of coming out. What coming out in my younger years meant to me, how the art I found at the time taught me to be fearless in the face of people waiting to strike me down, what being outed by taunting high school students meant to my emotional development, how the support from friends and the punk community buoyed me and who I told and when and why and the tension and joy and happiness and sadness that all came with this thing that some of us in the world have to do in order to break through to a new stage of living and truth. It honestly feels like a blur and then it also feels like I can call up every nanosecond, speck of dust and conversation from those times, because living through them was so arduous and exhilarating. I’m probably thinking about this now mostly because I just married and I’m old and boring now and I’m stricken with that thing people in their forties get when they maybe do too much reflecting, but it’s such a curious thing, this heavy soul-baring that has to pass your lips, and if you’re lucky this happens to you at a young age with little to no damage incurred. But it also means there’s a bold declaration you must make in order to be fully healthy, whether or not you want to make a bold declaration in order to be fully healthy. It’s not one a lot of the friends around you have to make, but it’s one you do.

I never came out to him, my Pop, and I don’t have any real feelings about it. I’m sure my Am -- a fervent and socially progressive Jewish woman until her dying breath -- holding onto his still hand as he sat in a chair in the nursing home, shared the news with my grandfather at some point before he passed.

At the time, death was still somewhat abstract to me, which is a luxury not everyone can claim, I know. Pap, the grandfather I had on my mother’s side, an irrepressible alcoholic, was mostly someone I didn’t know, and he died alone in his crumbling apartment in a nothing Pennsylvania town when I was still in high school. I got the call about that while at band practice, and I didn’t feel sad. One minute I was home, the next I was stuffed into a car with my mom, stepdad and two siblings headed to bid him goodbye. Later in 1998, I would find myself openly grieving with most of my community for Matthew Shepard, a complete stranger to me in life but who in essence was me and my friends, was any gay kid in America, really. At the time of his death he was 21 just like me, and his murder reminded me the unthinkable was still very much on the table. Yet I felt safe as an out college student in Columbia, but what did that really mean? What was I safe to do or not do? Safe from what?

---

On January 13, we buried my Pop next to his mother and father at a Jewish cemetery in Clifton, New Jersey -- the one behind the diner. My grandmother would join them all in just under ten years. I remember her in the limo ride back to her home; she was holding a relative’s hand and just staring out the window with a very small smile on her face as we drove south on the Garden State Parkway. For the moment, she wasn’t crying or saying anything. She just looked out the window as we drove past the neighborhood of her youth -- its current state of disrepair evident from the highway -- I don’t know if she ever went back to visit in her life. I wonder now what she saw looking out the window or if she could make out the day she met my grandfather as the blocks went by in a blur. I won’t ever know.

I only had a day left in Jersey before I left for home. Old friends and family were around sitting shiva and plying my grandmother and uncles with more lox, pastrami and matzo ball soup -- the usual elixirs -- than she knew what to do with. There were some things I wanted to do outside of the house, beyond the radius of sympathy flowers and bunched tissues deployed to fight the raw grief, and I set out to accomplish one of them.

There was a cafe in the West Village with my name on it; I just had to get myself there and experience it again for a few hours.

On that same night in the city as Port Authority police searched high and low for the men who made off with Bank of America’s money, the day after the funeral, I had my own little secret, one that came with me on the Manhattan-bound NJ Transit line from Bound Brook, New Jersey and into the mouth of Penn Station. Mine didn’t involve weapons or large sums of ill-gotten gains and police in hot pursuit, but it still felt like a weighty one a the time. I also had someone I wanted to share it with. Matt, who grew up down the street from my grandmother, came along, suspecting nothing more was up than a quick traipse around the city.

It’s not accurate to call Matt my best friend, whatever that means, even with three decades of a certain bond under our belts; the only times we’ve really spent together were my summer vacations and the holidays and by the time I was living in the north, he was long gone, first for a finance job in San Francisco and then permanently to Hong Kong for another finance job. Aside for the first few years of my life, we’ve never lived in the same town or close to one another. Yet I’ve known Matt since kindergarten, the longest I’ve known someone not in my blood family, and the fact that his home was just a few doors down from my grandmother and thus a refuge to a bored kid away from home helped a firm bond develop over toys and MTV. I can vividly recall us, complete first grade dweebs in short shorts, playing cards on his living room floor while Survivor’s Eye of the Tiger played on the turntable. And if Matt wasn’t my best friend, he was still someone who meant a lot to me, just because of the sheer longevity, and he deserved to know what was up with me.

He also still does matter to me even if I haven’t seen him in years.

---

For someone who enjoys getting lost in the land just beyond the tracks, an evening train ride to the city from Jersey is never as good as it could be; the blinding fluorescence inside the car at night turns the windows into mirrors. While everything outside is basic and flat, I sometimes cup my hands just to get a look at the row houses and sleepy towns. Just to see. I don’t remember anything about my ride with Matt into the city that night, but I’m sure there were nerves running through me as the towns rolled by me unnoticed.

By 21, I was just about totally out. I’d already had a boyfriend before moving on to a devastating grad school crush that about broke my heart into a million pieces. Maybe the more conservative elements in my family didn’t have confirmation but suspected it due to my lack of a girlfriend, but that wasn’t a concern of mine. Matt didn’t know either, a fact having more to do with geography and not wanting to bare my soul to him via a land line than anything else. He was a Catholic school jock though, so it could end up being not great. Had I heard him make gay jokes? Did he ever use the F word? Maybe it wouldn’t be alright, and if that ended up being true, I needed to prepare for the possibility. In the late nineties, coming out to the wrong person could still be a damning line in the sand, effectively ending relationships or familial bonds, and while I know that still applies in 2017, perhaps less frequently, I did feel the sting of rejection from a few people, people who really mattered. It was mostly temporary, but it still happened. Back then, sharing who you were even to a sympathetic ear still felt monumental. Just ask Ellen. I suspect for the person coming out now, either at 16 or at 80, it still feels that way.

--- 

The city always held an undeniable allure for all the obvious reasons: not far but seemingly unattainable and dangerous and exciting and where everything happened, from Gorilla Biscuits gigs to Keith Haring exhibits. I guess I reasoned that regardless of what happened, Matt still had to ride home with me, so he was basically stuck accepting it whether he liked it or not, and together we’d work through whatever stages of whatever he was feeling. And maybe more than that, it was perhaps a subconscious wish to connect myself to the activist community of the city, and to allow myself to be tethered to their stories and lives in the most superficial of ways, to have told someone within the confines of New York that I am out and gay, to feel the strength of the West Village at my back for a quick moment. To have a story of my own anchoring me to the fight for equality, even if mine were really small and mostly only significant to me. Back then I had no idea I would be spending most of my adult life working in and hovering around New York, so I imagined this might be the last time I would be in the area for some time.

Or maybe I just thought Matt needed a night in the gay part of town.

And if I knew what made the city famous culturally, I certainly knew nothing about getting around, and neither did Matt. At the time, the map of the city in my head looked something like “CBGB A7 ACT UP VENUS RECORDS CHRISTOPHER STREET AVENUE A BLEECKER STREET YOUTH OF TODAY RECONSTRUCTION RECORDS,” which isn’t really a map at all, or not a real one on paper. But having no working knowledge of the city then is what makes the night so memorable now, and it’s why in part I still reflect on it so much. Even now, whenever I’m in the Penn Station area, I can see Matt and me emerging from the escalator, still two dorks, and I can see the gears working in my head. I’d been to the West Village maybe twice prior to this night, but where it was on a map I didn’t know. The subway was out of the question because I’d never been on it and I didn’t know how to find it or where it went. The one thing I did know was I needed to get there, find this beacon in the night that was a cafe on Christopher Street, open my mouth a little and then somehow get back to Jersey unscathed.

The distance between Penn Station and Christopher Street isn’t really all that significant, but to a rookie kid without a map and with nothing more than a mere hunch, it may as well have been a thousand miles from one to the other. I don’t know what it’s like anymore to walk for twenty blocks wondering where the street I need is: I’ve been working in the city now for 13 years, so I know the basic lay of the land and even in the rare case now when I don’t, my phone does. All I remember of that walk is basically telling Matt every few blocks “It’s coming up soon; I promise.”

The things I remember about the night all this time later: Matt’s look of surprise when we got to the Factory Cafe and I sat him down and said what I had to say. He didn’t reject me or panic, and I’m sure it was no big surprise to his ears. But I remember he needed a minute to adjust, and he laughed a lot. Not at me, but as a response to new information.

“I remember that it really didn't matter, black, white, purple, bi, straight, gay,” Matt recalls over email. He lives in Hong Kong now, so it takes him a bit to respond. “You were already my friend and a close one at that.” 

All around us, couples were on dates and people were catching up with friends or were lost in books, and I felt plugged into something -- a confidence? a safety? -- I didn’t normally feel in South Carolina...or...anywhere else really. Maybe everyone thought we were a couple sharing coffee before heading out for the night.

There’s no big dramatic conclusion to this other than we eventually finished our coffee and ended up playing pool at Stonewall before catching the train back. I kept my friend, and I still have him. For all the unknowns, Matt rolled with it and only later admitted he was stunned at what I told him. There are a million reasons why coming out to Matt, and to anyone, mattered. This isn’t abstract to me. Like I said, he wasn’t my best or closest friend, but he was the closest thing I had to a brother my own age, someone who knew my history and his support was vital in a bigger sense.

I think about my night with Matt often as I walk past the old Factory Cafe, which is now a clothing store. When I pass those big windows, I think about a younger me (a me with a full head of hair), nervously fidgeting in his seat near the front, working up the nerve to tell my oldest friend something that was both weighty and trivial. Trivial because I was still me; I hadn’t changed. I see myself laughing once it left my mouth, and I see people next to us turning pages of their New Yorker or brushing the hair out of their spouse’s eyes. I obviously see the ghosts others all around me doing the same thing, with their declarations sometimes being met with mixed results.

It’s been a long time since I felt I had to come out to someone; I’ve been me for what feels like forever, and so has my husband. But for a kid from South Carolina, that night in the Village at Stonewall -- a place that still remains a vital gathering ground -- helps remind me I’ve always had people on my side and always will. I came out to many many people when I was young, but I only came out once in New York City, and that somehow feels important to me in a way I can’t fully quantify.

I’ll close with some further bits of Matt’s email to me, because they’re fun and illuminating and characteristic of his open jocularity: “I certainly didn't expect it, but it did clear some things up in my head. All my friends had always been into sports, girls; you never seemed bothered by that, and you never even tried to hide or fake it. Hell, I remember you drawing on your Dad's Playboys, I'm thinking ...’Is this dude nuts????? He drawing on Ms Novembers double DD's’”

I’m glad Matt’s still out there and that he’s still with me.

[ssugawarakoshii]

Random stuff no one cares about (fuck u jo)

@mysmoldarkfictionalsons told me to do this so it here it is 1: when you have cereal, do you have more milk than cereal or more cereal than milk? Milk than cereal

2: do you like the feeling of cold air on your cheeks on a wintery day? Yes

3: what random objects do you use to bookmark your books? Pages of homework, pens, tickets, earphones

4: how do you take your coffee/tea? Alone or with really little milk

5: are you self-conscious of your smile? Yup

6: do you keep plants? Two cactus

7: do you name your plants? Nope

8: what artistic medium do you use to express your feelings? Does editing count?

9: do you like singing/humming to yourself? Yes

10: do you sleep on your back, side, or stomach? All three? But I’ll say side?

11: what’s an inner joke you have with your friends? “Stitch”

12: what’s your favorite planet? Uranus

13: what’s something that made you smile today? Talking about 80s voltron with Ce

14: if you were to live with your best friend in an old flat in a big city, what would it look like? It’d be small, full of our stuff and a comfy sofa for us to cuddle

15: go google a weird space fact and tell us what it is! There is a planet that may be made entirely out of diamonds

16: what’s your favorite pasta dish? Spaghetti carbonara

17: what color do you really want to dye your hair? Rose gold/purple/blue

18: tell us about something dumb/funny you did that has since gone down in history between you and your friends and is always brought up. When they got drunk in the village party and they tried jumping to the river from the bridge and I had to take care of them all (I am the one to bring this up btw)

19: do you keep a journal? what do you write/draw/ in it? Kind of? And just random ideas and stuff (ok and also dates and shit)

20: what’s your favorite eye color? Green

21: talk about your favorite bag, the one that’s been to hell and back with you and that you love to pieces. It’s blue with starts on it and it’s completely destroyed by now, the zip doesn’t even work anymore and it’s all full of scratches rip

22: are you a morning person? Depends tbh

23: what’s your favorite thing to do on lazy days where you have 0 obligations? Watch a movie/show/anime, read or edit

24: is there someone out there you would trust with every single one of your secrets? I think yes?

25: what’s the weirdest place you’ve ever broken into? An old house… I don’t usually break into places

26: what are the shoes you’ve had for forever and wear with every single outfit? My Panama jack shoes rip

27: what’s your favorite bubblegum flavor? Berries

28: sunrise or sunset? Sunset

29: what’s something really cute that one of your friends does and is totally endearing? When she’s nervous, Eva is always trying to grab someone’s hand without realising AND IT’S SO CUTE

30: think of it: have you ever been truly scared? Yup

31: what is your opinion of socks? do you like wearing weird socks? do you sleep with socks? do you confine yourself to white sock hell? really, just talk about socks. I like socks, but not that much? In winter and all they’re great but in summer I prefer my feet to be free

32: tell us a story of something that happened to you after 3AM when you were with friends. A guy in the village party (again) kept following us around, so Angel went and asked him what happened. The guy then just turned around like half pouting and handed us his empty hand and was like “I wanted to give you cookies”. And we ran. The lesson is, kids, never drink or do drugs if you don’t want to end up like that man

33: what’s your fave pastry? Orejas de carnaval con chocolate

34: tell us about the stuffed animal you kept as a kid. what is it called? what does it look like? do you still keep it? It was called Eric and it was a white dog with brown spots and it’s somewhere in my room, im pretty sure

35: do you like stationary and pretty pens and so on? do you use them often? Yeah but in the end I always end up using the most normal stuff

36: which band’s sound would fit your mood right now? Oh wonder

37: do you like keeping your room messy or clean? Clean

38: tell us about your pet peeves! I hate it when people like crack their knuckles? Nope don’t do that in front of me I beg you. Also people that walk slow… move dammit

39: what color do you wear the most? Black

40: think of a piece of jewelry you own: what’s it’s story? does it have any meaning to you? The chain my grandmother gave me for my communion. It has an image of virgin Maria as a child and my name engraved and she told me my grandfather had always wanted to give me a chain like that one

41: what’s the last book you remember really, really loving? El laberinto de los espíritus

42: do you have a favorite coffee shop? describe it! Not really

43: who was the last person you gazed at the stars with? Silvia…

44: when was the last time you remember feeling completely serene and at peace with everything? Like a week ago? Lmao it didn’t last long

45: do you trust your instincts a lot? Yup.. doesn’t mean they work

46: tell us the worst pun you can think of. Are you a son of Poseidon? Cause you got me all wet (I’m gonna go bury myself now)

47: what food do you think should be banned from the universe? Cauliflower. Take it away

48: what was your biggest fear as a kid? is it the same today? My biggest fear was the world suddenly ending… yep…. I was weird. Maybe it isn’t the same but yoU CAN’T TELL ME THAT ISN’T SCARY

49: do you like buying CDs and records? what was the last one you bought? Yes but I usually cant buy them which leads to the part where I can’t remember which one was the last I bought

50: what’s an odd thing you collect? Do snow globes count? I have some of them and I love them

51: think of a person. what song do you associate with them? I’m not mentioning the person but photograph

52: what are your favorite memes of the year so far? The glasses one? Is that from this year or last? Ah fuck it

53: have you ever watched the rocky horror picture show? heathers? beetlejuice? pulp fiction? what do you think of them? No, yes, no, yes Weird af but strangely great

54: who’s the last person you saw with a true look of sadness on their face? Grandma

55: what’s the most dramatic thing you’ve ever done to prove a point? Breaking a pencil (the thing we were discussing was that I didn’t have enough strength to break it okay so I got all hulk mode and broke it)

56: what are some things you find endearing in people? people that do a lot of hand gestures (they remind me of myself tho)

57: go listen to bohemian rhapsody. how did it make you feel? did you dramatically reenact the lyrics? It makes me feel like a psycho murdered :’) nah kidding it makes me feel nostalgic AND WHO DOESN’T RE-ENACT THE LYRICS SMH

58: who’s the wine mom and who’s the vodka aunt in your group of friends? why? Jandro is the Vodka aunt and Jo is the wine mom (although she is Vodka but she is way more mom so fuck it)

59: what’s your favorite myth? Persephone’s myth or Icarus one

60: do you like poetry? what are some of your faves? I love it and my fave authors (cause I can’t choose poems) are Bécquer, Góngora, Rubén Darío and Pablo Neruda

61: what’s the stupidest gift you’ve ever given? the stupidest one you’ve ever received? I’ve never given really stupid gifts? My gifts are good *gasps* and my cousin gave me a clown nose once

62: do you drink juice in the morning? which kind? Sometimes I drink orange juice

63: are you fussy about your books and music? do you keep them meticulously organized or kinda leave them be? I am very fussy and it’s the one thing I’ll always have tidy af

64: what color is the sky where you are right now? Ugly grey ugh

65: is there anyone you haven’t seen in a long time who you’d love to hang out with? Do my online friends count? Maybe?

66: what would your ideal flower crown look like? It’d have blue and white that’s all I know

67: how do gloomy days where the sky is dark and the world is misty make you feel? Sleepy. That’s it.

68: what’s winter like where you live? Cold and grey but with snow tho

69: what are your favorite board games? To be honest I don’t know?

70: have you ever used a ouija board? Nah (I was going to, then backed down you see)

71: what’s your favorite kind of tea? I don’t know, I’m more of a coffee girl

72: are you a person who needs to note everything down or else you’ll forget it? Yep

73: what are some of your worst habits? Biting my cheeks/lip until it bleeds and scratching my scalp and ears until it bleeds too (que sanguinolenta por favor)

74: describe a good friend of yours without using their name or gendered pronouns. Love

75: tell us about your pets! A bird, his name is Winnie and he’s a little shit but I love him

76: is there anything you should be doing right now but aren’t? Studying history

77: pink or yellow lemonade? Yellow (I’ve never had pink lol)

78: are you in the minion hateclub or fanclub? I’m neutral ground

79: what’s one of the cutest things someone has ever done for you? Joana’s video for my birthday

80: what color are your bedroom walls? did you choose that color? if so, why? Violet and white and yes I chose it because they’re two of my faves colours there’s nothing feel about it

81: describe one of your friend’s eyes using the most abstract imagery you can think of. Beer bottle

82: are/were you good in school? I am good thanks very much

83: what’s some of your favorite album art? Idk

84: are you planning on getting tattoos? which ones? Idk

85: do you read comics? what are your faves? Yes and here’s a thing about me I cannot by the sake of my life choose favorites in anything don’t make me do it

86: do you like concept albums? which ones? Depends?

87: what are some movies you think everyone should watch at least once in their lives? Tbh I’d say the Godfather (can’t really think of any other rn rip why do you put me in such compromises?)

88: are there any artistic movements you particularly enjoy? No??

89: are you close to your parents? Meh

90: talk about your one of you favorite cities. All I have to say is it has history, culture and it’s beautiful sorry I don’t want to make this long

91: where do you plan on traveling this year? Dublin lololol

92: are you a person who drowns their pasta in cheese or a person who barely sprinkles a pinch? Drown it in cheese bitch give me all of it

93: what’s the hairstyle you wear the most? Ponytail/bun

94: who was the last person you know to have a birthday? A classmate on the 28th

95: what are your plans for this weekend? Doing my Spanish project and editing

96: do you install your computer updates really quickly or do you procrastinate on them a lot? Procrastination my dear

97: myer briggs type, zodiac sign, and hogwarts house? INFP, cancer, Ravenclaw

98: when’s the last time you went hiking? did you enjoy it? I’m not sure? Sometime in December with my father and yes

99: list some songs that resonate to your soul whenever you hear them. Light by sleeping at last100: if you were presented with two buttons, one that allows you to go 5 years into the past, the other 5 years into the future, which one would you press? why? 5 years into the future, I don’t want to relive my past thanks

I don’t have anyone to tag (my only friends are the tagger (fuck you) and the other person she tagged ( @nekolance why) So bye bye do it if you want to