When You Wake Up Feeling Old
five things i was thinking about in january - social media, babygirl, butch wicked + queerness, wilco, and chronic pain
The things I like about social media exist outside of it
As with anyone who takes a periodic break from socials, I can’t stop talking about it. I’ve not been perfect. Like a greedy little hog slipping around in its own slop, I logged back on for my birthday to see all the gorgeous, candid photos me that my friends posted on their stories in celebration. I logged back on to promote a college show I was playing. Maybe I even searched Twitter once or twice to find a meme I needed.
On the whole, though, I haven’t really missed it. Or, I have missed aspects of it.
I got into sourdough bread-making this month, and once I finished my first lumpy loaf, I found myself pouting: I wish I had Instagram right now so I could show this to my friends. And then, like Benjamin Franklin discovering lightning with his key (or whatever happened there), I realized that I could literally just text a photo to my friends directly. I am embarrassed to say that this struck me as a realization and not as something that was clearly, plainly, stupidly obvious.
I resent that social media has become the watering hole for communication. It has felt slightly weird to directly text my friends photos of my bread, or a song I was listening to, or a selfie where my skin looked good, but only because I was stepping out from behind the facade of social media — the one that avoids the desperation lurking behind every post: HEY HERE’S SOMETHING I THINK IS COOL. DO YOU LIKE THIS??!! :). When you post a song on your story it’s like… oh this? Yeah, this is just what I was listening to today…if you even care………… From a distance, the whole charade is honestly very funny.
When you text someone, you put the ball in their court. You are admitting that you are trying to elicit a response from them, specifically. It’s slightly more nerve-wracking, but a million times more rewarding.
And as for Twitter — the place to put something that’s not quite an essay — I miss her too, sometimes. But my Twitter abstinence inspired this piece, which is also not quite an essay. I wanted a place to collect my various musings that I don’t feel like developing into full arguments, but that have more legs than 140 characters will allow. Maybe one day these little monthly digests will have a name, but for now, here are a few more Things I Was Thinking About in January:
I highly recommend making your boyfriend do the dance from Babygirl
I saw Babygirl twice — both times, inexplicably, in the front row of the theater about ten inches away from the screen. I loved it, ate it up immediately and couldn’t stop thinking about it after I saw it for the first time. My boyfriend was out of town for the week and I couldn’t stop laughing to myself, thinking of my master plan.
I’m really not one for male-dom media. It’s hard to get it right and it’s usually cringe. I don’t respond to forceful men in a bashful or even bratty way — I actually get full-on disgusted and borderline violent myself, because how dare you? This is why I find it difficult to engage with the smutty media of yore, and why I did not have high hopes for this movie.
Needless to say, Babygirl strikes a different chord. Harris Dickinson is a revelation. He unlocked something in me.