On our very first day of writing MC, a very wise baby girl quoted Aristotle: "Substack is reason free from passion." Well, no offense to Aristotle, but in our first year as MC, we have come to find that passion is a key ingredient to the study and practice of substack and of life. It is with passion, courage of conviction, and strong sense of self that we take our next steps into the world, remembering that first impressions are not always correct. You must always have faith in people. And most importantly, you must always have faith in yourself.
CONGRATULATIONS, CAMPERS - WE DID IT!
Our first year of writing together was way cooler than we imagined. We had no idea we would drink this much wine, share so many embarrassing stories, or grow as much as we did. Seeing how our friends support us, strangers enjoy us, and pals along the way want to write for us is the type of external validation we have been craving for decades! Our therapists thank you and so do we!
To celebrate, we’re sharing reruns of two standout pieces from our first year of MC: “Day in the Life!” and “Uber Rating.” They are from when we felt a sea change and campers began telling us we found our voice.
Anyway, enough with the mushy crap! In lieu of a cash gift, please like, share, and comment!
Thank you for getting lost with us! All ur love made our first year a success.
As always, LYLAS,
Hey, beautiful people!!
Sooo many of you have been asking me about what a day in my life looks like. Evidently, my TikTok, Twitter, Insta, Finsta, Reddit commentary, BeReal, Next Door, and the open access I gave you to my gynecologist’s patient portal didn’t suffice.
But you all are my nearest and dearest. No one was more supportive than my followers when I went through my DIY jam era and subsequent brush with botulism, so I’m more than happy to take you along for the ride. Also, a quick reminder that if you were a winner in the blueberry jam giveaway over the summer you can go ahead and DM my counsel @in_a_legal_jam with any questions.
OK, that's enough boring business! Let’s get into it:
7 AM – up and at ‘em girly!
My alarm went off at seven on the dot. Inevitably, I decided at midnight the night before I would wake up early, put my two feet on the floor, and wait for the devil to utter “OH SHIT! SHE’S UP!” or whatever it says on that Etsy coffee mug my second cousin gave me. I hit snooze though and chose to instead force myself to wake up an hour later in the middle of a REM cycle.
Honestly, I probably could have slept longer but I was having a stress dream where my hair was turning into kernels of corn.
8 AM - UP AND AT EM GIRLY!!!
When I woke up my hands were clenched in such tight little fists that my nails were digging into my palms. Stigmata is not the look I’m going for, though I do love a biblical fashion moment. I tried to recreate Victor Garber’s look in GODSPELL recently – outfit details on my IG in the DAY BY DAY story archive.
What gets me out of bed? WELLBUTRIN XL® (bupropion hydrochloride extended-release tablets) by BAUSCH HEALTH! I have to say, it’s nice that there’s a low risk of sexual side effects! No, really, I have to say it. #ad #wellbutrin #thanksbausch #dopamine
8:15 AM – morning routine and breakfast!
Now I know you’re probably wondering about my morning routine. I feel a little ashamed because, as I’m sure you’ve astutely noted, I wake up 5-6 hours later than Mark Wahlberg. I am here to tell you, though, that there is freedom in saying no to routine! As a person raised in the era of miniature kitchen TVs and Oreo O’s, I don’t thrive under the conditions of a strict Bateman philosophy.
Actually, I haven’t figured out how to recreate the only kind of morning routine that truly lights a fire under my ass. If only La Colombe could bottle a cold brew that has the same impact as hearing my working mother scream, “WE CANNOT BE FUCKING LATE” to me and “YOU’RE CUTTING THAT FUCKING HAIR” to my brother while LITTLE MISS CAN’T BE WRONG rang out from the car speakers on the way to the bus stop…
Despite it all, I do commit to the one thing I have done every day of my life since my little hippocampus started working: waking up and waiting a beat for the inexplicable dread to wash over me. Then, I begin to think of ways I can cancel any responsibilities I have for that day. Why do that when I could watch DESIGNING WOMEN (I’ve never watched DESIGNING WOMEN)?! OR maybe I could get a latch hook rug project going! There’s a partially completed Tigger latch hook rug project that looks like a yarn Rorschach test sitting around somewhere I should really pick up again.
For breakfast, it was coffee with oat milk. I am an oat milk fan because I follow the Horse Girl Diet(™). If you’re on horsegirltok then you know, but it’s a diet that only allows foods a horse would eat before 4:17 PM on weekdays. I know you’re wondering why coffee is allowed and I’m not totally sure. For what it’s worth, my grandma had a donkey named JJ in the ‘90s and he loved coffee and would come inside the house to watch CNN. Super evolved and woke before woke was awake. RIP JJ, you would have loved AG1 by Athletic Greens.
9 AM – exercise!
I was able to make it to a gentle, candlelit yoga class at 9 AM. They let everyone in the class keep their Apple watches on, so I figured it was fine to vape. A vape emits far less light than an Apple watch, but I was somehow targeted and asked to put it away.
A half hour into class the instructor asked us to “check in with our genitals” and prompted us to “get curious” about how those bits were feeling. I shouted “DRY” and it was not well received. I know when I’m not wanted so I promptly left.
10 AM – you better WORK!
Departing class early meant I logged on for work at 10 AM on the dot. It’s important for me to make my space feel both like a sanctuary and a capitalism-driven den of productivity. I keep this promise to myself by working from my bed all day on a cat hair-coated duvet propped up on four pillows and balancing my laptop on a fifth pillow. I’m not sure what happened on my computer between 10 AM and 5 PM, but my friend did send me a delightful TikTok of Furbys smoking and setting themselves on fire. I love high art.
5 PM – happy hour and unwine-d time!
After a long day of willing no one to email me and meditating on whether or not I should buy FitFlops, I logged off for a well-deserved mug of tequila and a few episodes of THE HILLS to reconnect with my inner child. Can you believe people on TV used to stick with the first draft of their faces? And that these faces moved and crinkled and crumpled? What a time!
Two episodes in, I rinsed out my mug and refilled it with a robust chilled California red. I keep my wine on tap for easy, seemingly endless access. The tap is a plastic spigot that provides a direct line to a plastic bag, neatly packaged in eco-friendly cardboard. Super innovative! “They” say the lifespan of the wine is up to 30 days but I haven’t dared to risk figuring out if that’s true or not. Hot tip! Did you know you only get the benefits of the resveratrol in the grapes if you drink six mugs per day? This advice comes straight from Doctors Phil, Oz, Drew, and Bronner. I will not argue with that panel of experts.
9ish at night time and wine now nothing but a sad empty crimson stained sack :( – bath and self care!
I submerged myself into a bath full of epsom salts and lavender and almond oil, and even canola oil. The goal is to make my exterior soft and smooth and greasy and gleaming. Ready for the demons to come and dredge my glistening skin in cornflakes like a chicken fried steak ready for the FryDaddy. Do you think FitFlops would fry up nicely? I’m pretty sure they would. Sound off in the comments, though.
What is time, really, other than a marker of the slow march to death? – bedtime plus a special midnight snack!
I got in bed and took only shallow breaths as my mind raced through all of the things in the 38 open tabs in my browser that I never got around to (the Wen hair care hair loss lawsuit, Nick Cannon children timeline, melanoma under toenail vs fungus pics?) and then I just spent some time for myself wondering (it’s so important to take time to wonder) if there is enough money in my checking account to pay my phone bill. Instead of lying there paralyzed, I opted to get up and make a snack of tortilla chips and hummus.
My hummus recipe is a fave among my pals, and it’s super simple: chickpeas, tahini, olive oil, salt, pepper, and valium. It’s so good no one even remembers their name. Tag me if (I mean when lol) you make the recipe!
Around the time erectile dysfunction infomercials start to play on cable – PM workout and impromptu meet up with new friend!
Sleep eluded me, and I opted to go for a little walk. Since my workout got cut short, it felt like a nice way to show love to my body. A brisk 15-115 minutes will typically tucker me out. The valium in the hummus kinda kicked in though and once I got near the Brooklyn Queens Expressway I decided I needed a ride. When your motor skills are waning you need a lift from a pal with the skills to operate a motor, am I right?
A nice woman in a 1994 purple Ford Taurus that smelled like Jovan White Musk offered to give me a lift. I asked if she took Venmo, but she didn’t know what that was. I could only offer her what I had on me: a teenie Beanie Baby lobster (vintage with tags!) named Pinchers, half a klonopin, and a punchcard that would get her one free Blizzard from Dairy Queen. Luckily, she was a Beanie Baby AND a prescription drug enthusiast – what are the odds?!
The day is done! Anyone know what day it is now?
There it is! My day! I think it was only one day, but it might have been anywhere between 1-4 days. I’m about to lose service because Jovan Taurus and I are in West Virginia. Fingers crossed there will be a Dairy Queen at the next exit. Fun road trip pics to come! Jovan won’t let me tag her on IG, but I suggested she at least use some of the pics to update her Plenty of Fish profile.
Thanks for spending the day with me. Can’t wait to do it all again with you guys!! The next chapter of your life is beginning whether you know it or not! Xoxox.
“Day in the Life!” by Marilyn Hayward Haines, @marilynhayward
I handed a friend of a friend a mask because the Uber I ordered was pulling up. He didn’t immediately take it because he “was fine.”
I pressed the issue. Gently because things had ended that week with his live-in girlfriend. But he had taken my last edible earlier and, minutes later, told me about the stockpile of his own he had with him. So while I enjoyed him well enough, he was not fostering much trust.
Craning backward to politely check on him, his bare face confirmed my suspicion that he wasn’t going to wear the required mask in my Uber. So I scolded him. Snapping about my Uber rating recently dropping to 4.8 and his selfishly flippant behavior while someone else’s rating was at risk.
He slouched in the shadows of the backseat where the driver would never see his bare face. I heard myself and wished a familiar wish that I could, just once, be cool about anything. He ignored me like most straight guys tend to do.
The following weekend I happened to see this straight guy again. All night he attentively made sure my wine glass never passed half empty. It was May, early wedding season, and he was, coincidentally, a cater waiter at my friend’s reception. The gig he picked up to distract himself on weekends and his first shift was exactly where anyone would want to be right after a breakup.
One of my best friends began referring to him as Armie Hammer, conjuring Hammer’s Call Me by Your Name performance to my Timothee Chalomet (like I could ever be so skinny). The comparison stemmed from the straight guy sharing a somewhat similar impenetrable stare to Hammer, a known cannibal I’d still go home with. But I, sorry to say, was not going to go home with this man; a decent seeming straight guy who I had met on a bad night.
My best friend, often described as a true Georgia peach, is always having flattering fantasies about my romantic life. I am historically inclined to indulge them.
For years, we referenced this one Labor Day weekend from our first few years of living in NYC. We were not making enough money to have plans for Provincetown or Fire Island, and I picked up a cat-sitting gig in FiDi thinking I might as well earn some spending cash.
When the owners wished me a nice “staycation” as they handed off the keys to their apartment, I understood they had no intention of paying me. I ended up over-drafting at one of the two grocery stores in the area, both carrying exclusively $16 brie and San Pellegrino.
My Georgia Peach friend sat antsy as we stared at the three-legged cat while nibbling on cheese and drinking the Grey Goose I found in the back of the otherwise empty fridge. He tried unceasing tactics to convince me to go out and when I finally succumbed to his efforts, we ended up at the new bear bar in Hell’s Kitchen.
A bald man, perhaps approaching 60, cleaned my glasses instead of buying me a drink. When he replaced them on my face, I was able to see seduction in his eyes and that my Georgia Peach had disappeared.
I needed to go home. But since I could not immediately find Peach and was inebriated, I decided best practice would be to dance by myself until he found me. I swayed with a floppy head and cricket arms on the crowded dance floor, hypnotized by the disco ball.
I had a vision. Peach leaned against the bar surrounded by hot, straight, Southern frat dudes evoking Botticelli’s Venus. He tossed his head back in bliss as the pastel oxford-adorned bros awaited what he would say next.
I loved seeing Peach like this and I wanted to enter the mirage with him. With dead eyes and sharp elbows, I forced myself through the sweat-soaked backs like the insufferable 20-something I was.
I shouted “Hi!” over the music and the vision did not dissipate.
“There she is!” Peach announced me to the Oxford Boys. They made amicable grunts.
“Do you guys know where you are?” I asked.
Frequently bear bars, such as that one, are decorated similarly to gastropubs. I worried they misunderstood the exposed brick. The Oxfords communicated comfort with the location. Why wouldn’t we be? It was their friend’s bachelor party. I accepted that they were ending their night out while visiting the big city with a progressive goof.
Peach and the tallest of the Oxfords introduced me to a friend slumped against the bar. I slopped a disdainful look at Peach; I was being put on nanny duty.
The drooping Oxford perked up in what I attributed to SEC-trained manners. Coming to his full height, he pushed his sandy-blonde hair out of his tanned face. He looked as if he could star in an early Disney Channel Original Movie about an obscure sport, like inline skating or bowling. He was the messy friend but also the hottest friend. My eyes widened in terror, and I remember sticking my hand out for a formal handshake. I have no idea how to talk to hot people.
I wished he’d ignore me like other straight guys, but he was determined to maintain the obligatory conversation and with eye contact. When he spoke, drunker than me, he had to practically lean against me. I kept trying to take sanctuary in Peach and Tall Oxford’s conversation, but I was trapped by my own Oxford’s southern hospitality.
My store of niceties exhausted, I gave into some Midwestern directness.
I yelled into Hot Oxford’s ear, “I think our friends have us babysitting each other.”
He smiled at this. A great smile. I became thankful that my glasses were presentably clean. Unable to go home, I sipped the whiskey diet he bought me and took in the view.
Moments or an hour later, Peach and Tall Oxford let us know we were leaving. The full gaggle of Oxfords led the way out. I finally got to ask Peach why these bros were at a gay bar.
“It’s a gay bachelor party.”
“But they’re in oxfords!” Like I, being a homo, didn’t own oxfords.
Peach hailed a cab but didn’t get in it with me. I rolled down the window, panicked.
“Where are you going?” I could barely afford cab fare even if we split it.
Peach explained he was going to Gramercy with Tall Oxford and I would be sharing the cab home with Hot Oxford. I assured them I could keep partying, too. I wasn’t going to now chaperone this drunk stranger back to a hotel room.
Peach kept persuading me, “You’re going to the same place.”
Weary, I rolled up the window. Hot Oxford got in the car and I stood my ground against the unnecessary touch of his manspreading legs. I resolutely informed the cab driver there would be two stops.
“FiDi and where are you going?”
A little hurt, Hot Oxford said, “You don’t want to come over?”
I didn’t respond. He said I was cute. We made out until he stopped us to pay for the cab. It really was a gay bachelor party.
We plopped onto one of those magical West Village half-streets that seemingly had not existed seconds before. A door, with red and white flaking paint, appeared in the brick between the buildings just for us to use.
He pushed it open. But this wasn’t a hotel. He was entering the door so drunken and bold.
“Do you know someone who lives here?” He looked back at me confused.
“I live here.”
It occurred to me that no one said the Oxfords were from out of town. Another of my erroneous assumptions.
He took my hand and led me through the vestibule into a large courtyard. I looked up at a fully grown tree with twinkle lights. I attempted thoughtful observations about the appearance of a large secret courtyard in the middle of the Village. Stuff like “Scottish musical” and “Dr. Who’s police box". He smiled again, made a few “uh-huhs”, and pulled me along to the stairs at the far end of the brick path.
We made out the entire way up the stairs, undoing buttons preemptively until we got to his apartment door.
We busted into the apartment and immediately fell onto his bed. I heard him make a growl and smiled against his mouth. As his lips went limp. He was snoring.
I found my smudged-again glasses, clumsily dispatched seconds earlier, so I could confirm that he was asleep. He was somehow pretty while snoring like a trucker, which annoyed me slightly more than his falling asleep.
I sighed, leaning back on my arms next to him on the bed and taking in the apartment. It was a mustard color. It made me wonder if he could be convinced to paint.
While doing quick algebra to figure out how much money he must make to afford this sizable studio with a loft space, I thought for less than a second, we’ll put the bed up there when I move in. I shot to my feet in private embarrassment. A whiskey thought, I assured myself.
I shuffled around in a circle trying to remember if there was protocol to leave this situation (God forbid I be gauche at 4:00 a.m.) but was distracted by a large collection of books stacked aside his fireplace. They were a tower of travel guides and language books. Then I saw the long window ledge full of framed pictures of him around the world.
Tiptoeing the perimeter of the apartment, I discerned that he was from California, not the South. An Ivy League graduate bringing clean water to third-world countries. He was just perfect. Better than my assumptions. But was he my boyfriend?
I froze with one foot on the ladder to his loft and thought, Time to go home, Sam.
“Hey. So sorry. You fell asleep.”
He struggled out his apologies through the depths of sleep. It took longer than comfortable to remember why I was in his home. He insisted that I should stay the night with promises of a fun morning. I futilely attempted to explain my obligations to the three-legged cat.
I had written my number on his hand. He fell back and said, “Good.”
We pecked and, only minutes after arriving, I made like Vanessa Carlton. Downtown.
I woke to Peach’s call. “Girl, we met the men of our dreams…” He sat petting the cat 20 minutes later. He, too, had a lovely night with his Oxford. “We cannot fuck this up.”
I, maybe still a little drunk, did not disagree.
We shared a few weeks of texting back and forth, fruitless attempts at a date, and mild social media engagement. Without much else, things fizzled out duly and affably. My night with the hottest Oxford was nothing more than a quintessential, novelty New York encounter.
Peach met a different young man a few years later, during the spring and summer all my close friends and roommates coincidentally met their significant others. All still together. Even Tall Oxford reportedly ended up with someone we knew vaguely in that New York way you distantly know people. I redownloaded dating apps in the fall.
Tinder profiles made my teeth itch. Like including a type of food in a bio as if it were a personality trait. Not that mine was any less trite: 5’11”, 5.0 stars on Uber
A match sent a message.
“I thought my 4.9 Uber rating was impressive”
Sitting on the sectional couch in my Harlem apartment, next to a configuration of my roommates and their boyfriends, I clicked out a response. Their presence is likely why I was wooed by flirting that included heavy Harry Potter references. But he said “lol” to my jokes, which is all it really took at that time.
“East side, dive bar, where you at?” he asked.
“What?”
“It’s a Taylor Swift song.”
So lame. It was, however, the only song of hers I liked. His favorite. This was, to my surprise, his way of asking me out. He even offered to come up to Harlem for me, but he lived in the West Village. Which I decided was the perfectly cute setting for our first date.
Not yet knowing his profession, I gave him the moniker Astronaut Guy (in homage to Liz Lemon’s Astronaut Mike Dexter) implementing the age-old technique for dampening preemptive attachment and volatile imaginations. On the train ride down from Harlem, I oscillated between deciding the seating chart for our wedding reception and which would be the most glamorous drink order when I was stood up.
As I emerged out of the 14th Street station, Astronaut Guy called me. My hand had a small adrenaline shake as I answered.
His voice surprised me; it was higher than mine. Which is notably high. He said the bar we had picked out was packed and loud. He’d prefer someplace better for having a conversation with me. Which I liked.
I told him I saw him down the block. He was skinnier than I anticipated and tan for October. After hugging his frame in greeting and feeling enormous, he told me he knew a place to go instead.
We descended into the winding streets of the West Village forest. Jogging diagonally across an intersection, we came to the entrance of somewhere I would have assumed was fictional: a chain wine bar in the West Village.
The bar was desolate inside. I looked outside at the still daylight, reassuring myself that the earliness of the fall evening was cause for the emptiness, instead of the bleakness of a sad bar the West Village rejected.
I prepared myself for a half-voiced date easily eavesdropped on by the bartender, agreeably saying, “This place is great!”
He implied he wouldn’t have chosen the bar but would suffer through it for me. I decided not to raise that he had chosen this dejected wine-McDonald’s. Thankful that Peach was on call to stage an escape.
Sidled up to the bar, he asked me about my day. I would now have to make the fatal admission of my profession: Actor. At least revealing I bore the black mark of gay Manhattan singles would effectively end the date.
I told him I had three auditions that day. He was eager with questions. So I indulged him with jokes about the fulfillment of singing “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” across a tiny room to other adults seated behind a folding table.
There were no first-date stalls and jolts to our conversation. I hoped our bartender noticed. I made him laugh loudly with stories about a bad college roommate. I even showed him her Instagram. She was a good artist, and he asked if she might be interested in doing the cover art for the book he just finished writing. I could see myself ending up with a novelist.
He was excited to take me skiing. I told him I’d gladly hang back in the lodge.
“Après, all day,” he joked. He was happy I’d be there to greet him when he came in from the slopes. We became lightly tactile; the unnecessary touching beginning. I would spend Thanksgivings with his family he said. If he was planning for our future together, I thought it considerate to resume work on the guest list for our wedding.
At Thanksgiving, he explained, I would meet his family’s psychic. At this point, I bet if he told me where to hide the bodies, I’d grab the “His and His” shovels.
The psychic once told him seeing a red bird is a sign of someone who has passed trying to connect with the living.
“I’ve heard that, too!” I exclaimed. Sharing that I went with a friend to get a tattoo of a cardinal after her grandma died.
I think the bartender gave us the last call at hour five of our date. Our laugh that “the check was fine,” was an admission that we could have stayed longer. He asked if I wanted to split the bill. He asked if I wanted to walk him home.
I walked him to his apartment, next door to a lesbian bar, The Cubby Hole. I told him every time I went there I left with a great story. He told me it was his Cheers. It could be our bar. It gave me butterflies. So did his smile. It was a great smile.
We got to his steps and said “Well, good night.”
He kissed me. The camera zoomed out on us on the West Village stoop.
He quietly asked if I wanted to go upstairs. I realized I was holding his face in my hands, becoming too aware of them for graceful removal.
I told him I better not, knowing we would have many nights of going up to his apartment, going skiing, and going to see the psychic.
I looked back to wave at him before I rounded the corner of the Cubby Hole and my phone buzzed. It was a frantic email from one of the theaters I had auditioned for that day. They had been trying to contact me but repeatedly misspelled my email address. I pulled over on the sidewalk and, very tipsily, read that they wanted me to see me at 9:00 a.m. A very soon time to be functional.
My phone began to ring in my hand. Why was Peach was calling so late?
I accepted the sudden inundated by the rest of my life and answered. I hadn't needed him to fake a hospital visit, so he assumed no news must mean good news.
I told him it was the best first date ever. Just perfect. I glanced over at those picturesque, romanticized, fabled West Village buildings. A red and white peeling door appeared before me.
“It’s the door from that Labor Day…”
The ephemeral door and courtyard had become part of our NYC lore. Had I finally found my gay little Brigadoon again? Are all Brigadoons gay? Peach wanted a picture.
“It has been here all along between the Cubby Hole and Corner Bistro! I must have walked past it a thousand times.”
I found what I was looking for. It was a sign. I trotted over to 8th Ave and got a car home.
About a year later, I saw Astronaut Guy in a West Village coffee shop. I got nervous.
Following our date together, I booked the show at the theater that had emailed me. After a week of second-date planning and suffering through being called “Cutie Claw” (because I’m a “Ravenclaw”) I texted him the news and my subsequent sabbatical from the city. I anticipated a “congratulations” from him or an urgency to go on another date.
“You’re moving?”
“Only for a few months.”
No response. None to my follow-up either. Just perfect.
I was embarrassed I hadn’t kept his interest and didn’t see a reason in saying hi at the coffee shop. Plus, I had read his goddamn book when it came out thanks to an NYPL-targeted ad. Of course, I had!
In it, he had written about that Taylor Swift song, “Après, all day,” and his psychic’s red birds. I wondered if our date was his idea of a test audience for his material. The book was good. I felt gross. I made my perineal wish that I could have been cool, just once, and not read it.
And when I remembered my now unimpressive 4.9 Uber rating I knew I shouldn’t approach him.
I had taken to checking my slowly descending rating trying to remember which innocuous 15-minute car ride with me warranted only one star. I would think I’d have to scream, threaten, or vomit on the driver to earn such ratings. Which never happened, so it felt irrational. More irrational than planning a wedding with a perfect stranger. More suspect than squeezing out some divine meaning from a neglected door. A driver with whom I've exchanged less than a dozen words should not be able to decide if I am a 5-star person or not. A guy with whom I went on a 5-hour date is not entitled to treat me worse than a one-night stand or a straight guy I barely knew.
Still, when he left the coffee shop, I started picking on myself. Is this what I say to taking chances? So what if he is a flake and a jerk? That has never stopped woman nor bottom!
I sent him a text. He didn’t remember me. I reminded him. He stopped responding. An anti-climatic end and I just hated that. But what did I expect? Believe people when they ghost you the first time.
Uber Rating by Sam Beasley, @sbeas