happy pride month - here's something about me, MUNA, Julien Baker, and more <3
I didn’t know what a “happy cry” was for a very long time. I’d heard of it, and I’d even seen it, but I didn’t believe it. It felt like magic. Maybe a trick, maybe something else. Isn’t that silly? To be so skeptical of something so human. I knew enough about sad crying, and I accepted that I simply wasn’t capable of much more.
I used to have a therapist named Stacey. She would say: You listen to sad songs to indulge in the emotion. I was like: Duh, Stacey. Why am I paying you? Instead, I would sit in her office and cry. And then I would laugh at myself on the way home.
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Years ago, Christine took me to see Julien Baker at some beautiful old theater in LA. She didn’t know she was doing it, but she was building me a little gay bridge. One that I would attach to all the ones before it, making my way to the other side of myself. Baker sings: Maybe the emptiness is just a lesson in canvases. That felt true.
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One month before the very first pandemic lockdown, I got my hormonal IUD removed. I’m still not sure how much of my self-destruction was fueled by the ravaged hormones, and how much was just an incomplete frontal lobe and juggling too much. But I’ve spent two years doing laps in the slush of water and guts held together by my skin – committing to process.
My first New Year’s after college I decided to book a last minute flight to Seattle for a 24 hour trip. Just so I could party with friends from an old life, just so I could get drunk and dance to “I Got It” by Charli XCX. I spent the party feeling jealous of the openly queer women I wasn’t close with and I left early with my best friend who wasn’t close with anyone there at all.
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The first time I watched my girlfriend sing along to “Stayaway” (MUNA), it sounded different than the first time I heard the song. Lover’s voice from the passenger seat. A girl who’s known heartbreak and still convinces me to embark on a cross-country road trip. I thought I was done building bridges–but here was another one. Still in process.
And no more white men (including the communists) telling me what art is worth it. So bored - policing myself using metrics set by the lonely, the angry, and the intellectually besotted. I was smarter at sixteen in line for a live Glee event. I’d rather keep half my brain in a jar on a shelf next to a bottle of expired niacinamide than try and contain any more of what isn’t already spilling over.
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It’s wintertime when “Silk Chiffon” (MUNA) is doing really well. At my parents’ house I scratch my head and watch as my mother’s eyes widen before literally gagging at the sight of my armpit hair. I can’t help but laugh. I tell her it isn’t some statement but rather the ghost of a bad rash and the bliss of convenience. My girlfriend adds that she loves the hair, and maman doesn’t believe me. We stayed late for chai anyway.
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I’m 26 now and happy-cry at ads for dog food, at other people’s good news, at one second too long of staring into my girlfriend’s eyes. I finally confirmed my birth time and it turns out I’m a Cancer. So, she likely doesn’t notice my eyes well up ten minutes into MUNA’s set at the Pride show. I want to laugh too, I know I’m a cliche.
...but I’m wearing my big blazer tonight and all I can think is, this must be the place.
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On “I Know A Place,” MUNA’s Katie Gavin sings: Somebody hurt me / But I’m staying alive. So, I wake up every morning and apply SPF 70. Some days, I even remember to re-apply. Some of my friends have started getting Botox, but I have vasovagal syncope so that’s not an option.