We are what we eat
the stench of tween spirit, corn syrup cravings, old gays
SOMETHING TO LISTEN TO
Little Leong was a baby when I was in grad school for my M.Ed. during the era of low-rise jeans and Ed Hardy t-shirts, so naturally when it came time for my senior project, I designed a school for boys.
All I remember about it now is that I inexplicably named it OpenCity, and I included a very detailed section on the lighting—no overhead fluorescent illumination for my feminist haven for young male scholars, just as Mariah Carey would have wanted.
Luckily for students, OpenCity never saw the light of day, but someone with a much clearer vision did come along and bring a boys’ middle school to life in Seattle in 2019. That visionary is my brilliant friend, Jerome Hunter. And lucky for us, last week his 9-minute TED talk on how and why he made it all happen went live: 3 skills every middle school boy needs.
If you’ve ever dwelled in the despair of this #MeToo world and cried out to your Twitter feed WHY ARE MEN LIKE THIS, or sat in the funk of a 6th period classroom filled with tweens on a hot spring day and cried out to yourself WHY DOES IT SMELL SO BAD IN HERE, this one’s for you and your un-squashable optimism, however unlikely. Enjoy and spread the word!
SOMETHING TO READ
What does comfort food mean to you? Your mom’s spaghetti? A hot bowl of Spam and rice? How about the Mozzarella di Bufala with fried squash blossoms from Mother Wolf in L.A., as recommended by a selfie of Chrissy Teigen?
For former Rio Grande Valley local Adrian J. Rivera, it’s strawberry ice cream with a bright red ribbon of corn syrup. Or, that was one of his favorite treats before he graduated from Yale and got a job with The New York Times. Now his cravings lean more towards Waldorf salads.
In his essay for the NYT Opinion, I Am Mourning the Loss of Something I Loved: McNuggets, Rivera tackles class and the unspoken markers of us vs. them as he tracks how code switching as an undergrad while trying to fit in with his Old Money peers, turned into an actual appreciation for French pastries (and a rejection of Chicken McNuggets) as he became more comfortable in his white collar world.
It’s a moving essay from the voice of a recent grad who’s still clearly figuring out where he fits in and what he’s willing to abandon in order to do so.
But fair warning—because long after I finished reading, this nugget still left a terrible taste in my mouth—apparently, more Yale students come from the top 1% of household incomes, than from the entire bottom 60%.
SOMETHING TO HOLD ON TO
In honor of Ron DeSantis’ current crusade to expand the erasure of queers to include all K-12 classrooms in Florida, here’s a joyful photo essay from Archer Magazine on Australia’s “Coming Back Out Salon”—an annual party in Sydney celebrating LGBTQ+ elders: Safe spaces for older LGBTIQ+ people: The Coming Back Out Salon.
Pics of old gays two-stepping and lesbians gazing lovingly at each other while rocking salt-and-pepper crew cuts? Count me in. As a geriatric millennial homosexual myself, I already can’t wait to be dancing the night away (before 9:00pm) with Keri, showing off our blue hair and matching sweatsuits. Enjoy! And then get ready to vote!
😲 WE’RE ALMOST TO RPR’s 100th ISSUE! 😲
That’s a wrap on issue 98, friends. Thanks for listening, reading, holding on.
And thank you to our new paid subscribers! Your support is helping this misfit machine continue to plow forward. And thank you to everyone who’s been spreading the RPR and UMA word. It’s been so exciting to see our new subscribers roll in. I’m so glad you all are here.
See you all next week.
K.
P.S. Did you miss yesterday’s newsletter from The Unwed Mother Agenda? It’s a blast from my teacher past. Here it is: The Queen can go as far as she wants.