The TueDo List: Double Dutch + Midlife Motorcycles + Tressie McMillan Cottom
And Gen Z has discovered Sun-In
THIS WEEK
📖 READ: Janeane Garofalo never sold out. “I’m in my 50s and will wear a bikini until I feel that I no longer want to wear one, not because some person I don’t know tells me that I’m too old.” “It looks like a disco ball!” A short, strange history of vajazzling. The return of both Sun-In and jorts. A look at Meryl Streep’s dramatic use of eyeglasses. Bringing up mother.
👀 LOOK: BRB signing up for this Double Dutch club for women over 40. Here’s a look at the one in Chicago that started it all. Behold all the 1970s stars in the CHiPs roller disco scene (unfortunately no skating Ponch). A new Getty Images archive has more than 30,000 photos of Black history and culture. Peloton + nudity = sales?
🎧 LISTEN: Lizzo’s new album, Special. Alice Bag, members of the Runaways, and more cover The Go-Go's. Heardle Decades lets you test your knowledge of ‘80s songs.
🤣 LOL: Stranger Things 5 delayed until U.S. releases strategic reserves of 1980s references. Don’t do it, Emmanuel. Lessons from going commando. My Gen-X body is a wonderland.
📺 WATCH
Now: Winona Ryder stars in sci-fi thriller Gone in the Night (theaters); Aftershock, a documentary about the Black maternal health care crisis (Hulu).
Thursday: Issa Rae’s new series, Rap Sh!t, about two estranged high school friends from Miami who reunite to form a rap group (HBO Max); Katie Holmes stars in Alone Together (theaters).
Friday: Billy Porter’s Anything's Possible, a coming-of-age story about a confident high school trans girl (Prime).
Saturday: Keke Palmer and Daniel Kaluuya star in Jordan Peele’s Nope (theaters) and spy thriller The Gray Man, mostly because Regé-Jean Page is in it (Netflix).
TUENIGHT 10: Tressie McMillan Cottom
Age: Grown.
Basic bio: Tressie is a professor, New York Times columnist & cultural critic. She does serious work without taking life too seriously. She’s writing a book on Gen-X motherhood and another on race and “mama bears.” She promises those are very different books!
Beyond the bio: A friend once told me that when she was young she could not wait to be 40 years old. It shifted my perspective. Instead of pining for youth, here was a young person pining for age. I realized that narrative fit me better than society’s ever did. I love paying my own bills, choosing the palette of my life and not wearing shapewear anymore. I love it all. The only thing I want from my youth are my abs.
What makes you a grown-ass lady? Being grown is learning how to care about people and the world without letting it consume your core identity. Separating empathy from sympathy and both of those from struggle — that’s a grown woman game-changer.
Here’s her TueNight 10:
On the nightstand: A jewelry box, fancy Kleenex, a Fitbit, several books and a journal.
Can't stop/won't stop: Singing the latest TikTok earworm.
Jam of the minute: The King’s Affirmation by indie artist Iniko.
Thing I miss: I miss feeling hopeful. Hope had to go to make room for radical empathy. But hope was nice.
'80s crush: New Edition. Ricky.
Current crush: Christa Janine.
Latest fav find: ADAY’s Something Borrowed dress is the easiest dress in the world to wear.
Last thing you lost: My spare car key! Those things are now a thousand dollars to replace.
Best thing that happened recently: I won a lovely career award from Brandeis University.
Looking forward to: My birthday season. I love autumn and I treat it like my new year event.
STORY: In Praise of the Midlife Crisis — on a Motorcycle
By Bernadette Murphy
At age 48, I fell in love with a matte black, brawny beast of a machine. I took a motorcycle safety class as research for a book I was writing and surprised myself with the depth of feeling that burbled up. My father was dying at the time and I felt entombed in a marriage that, after 25 years, had lost all its verve. I had raised three on-the-cusp-of-adulthood children, served as a professor of creative writing, and knew my place as a suburban Los Angeles homeowner.
But getting on that motorcycle turned all I thought I knew about myself on its head. Surprised amazement burst forth as I gained mastery over a machine that outweighed me four times over, that I never had an inkling I could like, much less love. The parts of my psyche that had grown brittle and dry, my sap no longer able to rise, surged again, reminding me of who I’d been when I was younger, reigniting the self I’d lost in my efforts to play it safe.
Crunchy Tales: How To Stop Comparing Yourself to Your Younger Body
Jumble & Flow: How Will Society View Women Over 40 in the Future?
Menopause Conversations (podcast): Thriving Thru Menopause in the Workplace
Mother of Reinvention (podcast): Young Widowhood & Crafting Honest Stories About Our Lives
This heat wave is no joke. Stay hydrated and think cool thoughts, TueNighters!