THIS WEEK
It’s on! Brandy and Monica in the next Verzuz battle. Dance it out in your best house dress. The trailer for Season 4 of The Crown (Diana!), a sequel to "Jessie’s Girl" starring Rick Springfield, and footage of Keanu auditioning for “Bill and Ted.” WTF: “Airplane!” is 40. The Suzi Quatro doc made us slap our leather pants twice. The NYPL made a list of essential feminist reads and wants your pandemic stories. What people really do in virtual meetings. We feel like crap because our surge capacity is depleted. The joy of reality TV during a pandemic. Every Laura Dern performance, ranked. Simple life hacks. Women of color are redefining what politicians look like. The best book subscription boxes. Masks for bookworms. How I learned to stop using my body as a punching bag. The first hours of MTV, remastered. New baby panda!
(Photo: Fred Lee/Walt Disney Television via Getty Images)
STORY: I'm An Insomniac. And I'm Sleeping Like a Baby During the Pandemic
By Jenny Douglas
“By day, I was quaking in my boots. And by night I was sleeping like a baby, maybe for the first time since I was a baby.Night after night, within six seconds of my head hitting the pillow, I was practically unconscious. Like I was drugged. Like a puppy could eat my hair and I’d never know it…”
(Psst: Want to write for us? Pitch us here!)
OBSESSED: Tattoo You
According to some polls, up to 40% of Gen Xers have tattoos, so we asked TueNighters to show us their ink and share their tattoo stories. Turns out many of us have tattoos — and many of us don’t — for lots of reasons. Here are just a few reactions (head on over to the Facebook thread to read more and see all the amazing photos):
“When I was 20 I went to a famed tattoo parlor in SF excited to get a tattoo. I looked through the books for about an hour and couldn’t decide what I wanted. I was advised to think about it and come back. I never could make a decision!” — Juliet K.
“I wrote a book about mine.”— Stacy P.
“I can't even commit to a hair color, never mind something that permanent.” —Liz K.
“I have a large back tattoo that spills over the front of my shoulders.” — Jill S.
“I’m proud to say I made it out of 90s ATL without one drop of tribal ink!” — Erica H.
TueNight 10: Eve Simon
(I do everything in my little home office: design, craft, podcast, Zoom with friends and especially hide from COVID/the outdoors. That’s probably why I’m so damn pale.)
Age: 50
Basic bio: A lapsed Philosophy major with an MFA in theatrical lighting design and 25 years’ experience in the web industry, Eve is the founder & chief storyteller at Eve Simon Creative in the Washington, DC area. She is also the brains and voice behind the GenX Stories podcast (new season starts August 26!) about how the so-called “lost generation” found itself at midlife.
Beyond the bio: Being diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis at age 39 changed everything for me. I stopped sweating the small stuff and it made me grateful for every second because life goes on. While turning 50 last November was a bit of a shock on paper, I’m definitely enjoying letting my freak flag fly.
What makes you a grown-ass lady? I don’t give a shit what people think of me anymore. I think that’s the biggest shift from when I was younger: trying to be what’s “expected” is really a race against yourself in the end. It’s my life and I decide how to live it.
1. On the nightstand: Several flavors of EOS lip balm (because you never know your mood!), a stack of halfway read books, fake sunflowers, melatonin, 1.0+ readers from Whole Foods, iPad, and the shiny dinosaur that was the zero-gravity indicator on SpaceX Dragon.
2. Can't stop/won't stop: It may be idealistic to always think the best in people, but I’ll never give that up. While it’s gotten me in trouble plenty of times, it’s also made me who I am – someone curious, hopeful & positive. It’s no coincidence that I choose the screenname “NaiEve” on social media!
3. Jam of the minute: Anything ‘80s (we have a Spotify GenX Stories Mixtape even) but if I had to pick one, "Lucky Star" by Madonna never gets old.
4. Things I miss: Max & Zoe, my twin Bernese Mountain Dog furry babies who passed years ago. Nothing beats the unconditional love and fuzzy snuggles from a 125-pound pup.
5. ’80s crush: The actor who played Jake Ryan in Sixteen Candles. Who is now 60. FFS.
6. Current crush: Brad Pitt, always and forever.
7. Latest fave find: Oui yogurt glass jars (and OMG ALL THE THINGS I can do with them).
8. Last thing I lost: Radishes. Seriously. They came from my CSA, I prepped them for pickling and then they were just … gone. I looked for them everywhere for days, but nothing has started to stink yet so I’m hoping that’s a good sign.
9. Best thing that happened recently: I love that my 82-year-old father has been FaceTiming me from suburban Philly every day since the pandemic started. Sometimes it’s for 2 minute, sometimes 20, but it’s so great to see his face and hear his voice. I always hang up smiling (well, when we don’t talk about politics) and saying that he’s the absolute cutest human alive. I am the only child of parents who have been together over 56 years, so this is a daily reminder of how much I love them and am lucky to have them both in my life.
10. Looking forward to: Electing someone who isn’t morally compromised, a douchebag or an idiot.
Keep on rockin', TueNighters!