So, How Are We Spending Our Stimulus Checks?
House slippers, queer prints, and your new favorite fragrance.
Not gonna lie, I wanna know how y’all are spending that stimmy. Asking as a nosey Taurus who regularly snoops the Venmo transaction timeline, but also as a friend who revels in seeing their loved ones buy nice things for themselves.
Also, the memes for the $1400 check will really never get old. Some faves:
Though my better instincts are telling me to save, save, save it for the taxes I inevitably owe, unforch my omnipotent online shopping addiction has made me capitalism’s sucker. Please tell me your recommended splurges.
As a side note: Do let me know if you feel the letter gets too product-y. In its curation, I try to strike a balance between $0 recommendations, local/queer-owned businesses, and then things that are just stupid-fun. But if you feel you need a certain category more represented, I want to evolve this lil Substack as much as I can. FYI, I do respond to every email reply I get on this letter, so slide into the proverbial DMs!
Xx Fran
COMING SOON TO FRAN’S JOY DIGEST: A lingerie round-up! Also, working-from-home essentials! Keep the suggestions coming.
some things that brought me joy this week
1. As a Boy Smells apologist, I was so excited about their new line of fragrances and they did not disappoint. I fell in love with the Rose Load: a woodsy undertone with a peppery rose at the top — it might have to be my new everyday scent! I also appreciate that they market their products for all genders, against the grain of the fragrance world. Why should a scent have a gender? Make it make sense.
2. Following her once-again historic moment in eventized TV last week, I decided to relisten to Making: Oprah, a limited series podcast from 2016 that did a deep dive in her career. Jenn White is just so fucking good at what she does for this podcast, and her subsequent projects as well. The intentionality around how she tells Oprah’s story is a perfect oral history — my only complaint is that there should be 700 more episodes.
3. Though the covid relief bill wasn’t everything we wanted it to be after shirking its commitment to raise minimum wage, I feel hopeful the more I read about how it is arguable one of the most progressive pieces of legislation to pass in decades. AOC did a helpful breakdown of what’s in the bill on her IG live and I strongly recommend taking the time to see how it impacts your finances this year. (I near-wept when I found out about the COBRA benefit.)
4. adrienne maree brown got engaged, proving that love is, in fact, real.
5. Barry Lee opened up a permanent online shop and we are so blessed! His poetic affirmations and colorful style are perfect on a print, mug, or sticker.
6. Steven Yeun and Youn Yuh-jung are the first Korean actors to ever be nominated for an Oscar. I’ve recommended it before, but Minari is without a doubt my favorite film I watched from this years’ awards season (aside from maybe the snubbed Disclosure), and I’m so happy its getting its deserved recognition in the canon of American storytelling.
7. As I continue to stump for Minari, I’ll also recommend this essay by Alex Chee on his personal relationship to the film and how he’s had to piece together Korean representation in his childhood. I’ve recommended his blog before, but I’ll do it again! Subscribe!
8. I am here to tell you that the cushy Yeezy knock-off slides you keep getting targeted ads for on Instagram are... actually great. I got these as a gift and have fallen in love with them as my strictly-indoors shoe. Warning that the distributor is a little jank so it may take longer than expected to get them, but they were worth the wait!
9. As an alt EVA-style around-the-house shoe, I also acquired these comfy-as-hell Tevas in both yellow and green because I need them for my Los Feliz lesbian aesthetic. These are a little more suitable for outdoors too if you want to rock them to brunch.
10. I’m grateful for people like Tina Horn who do so much advocacy and education around sex work and kink culture. As a long-time fan and colleague, I was so excited to see her name on a first-of-its-kind collection of essays about sex work. I haven’t finished the book yet, but I did skip ahead to Ceyenne Doroshow’s contribution and can attest the book is worth it even just for that piece alone.
11. Yo-Yo Ma coming in hot once again with the cry-worthy content. While waiting in his observation period post vaccine, the cellist played his greatest hits for others getting their doses that day in Berkeley, California. Though I’m jealous, ultimately I am glad I wasn’t there because I would have screamed and fainted like a 1960s teen at a Beatles concert.
this week’s action
Wednesday, the South Dakota Senate passed HB1217, a bill that would ban trans girls from scholastic sports and require all kids participating in athletics to turn over information to the government certifying their genetics and reproductive anatomy. I don’t even need to tell you how harmful and distorted this kind of legislation is (and there are many like it sweeping through courthouses across the nation). There’s room for a veto and here are the ways you can help, provided by Chase Strangio.
1. Forward/copy-paste the below actionables to any friends, family, acquaintances, random people you have access to who might be able to help;
2. Share the below action alerts on social media including graphics and calls to contact the Governor directly;
3. Contact the Governor directly yourself via phone or e-mail and tell her to VETO HB1217. Unlike when lawmakers are voting on a bill and we want to limit contact to constituents in state, with a veto campaign, inundating a Governor’s office is helpful. Raising all the alarms and creating a national outcry can make the difference. It would also send an incredible message to other states considering these bills and to trans youth watching these painful assaults on their lives.
Most importantly, share this action alert from the ACLU of South Dakota
You can tweet about it and say things like:
“Join me in calling on @govkristinoem to #VetoHB1217. This bill cruelly targets trans kids, invites policing of all athletes in women’s and girls’ sports and forces all kids to turn over sensitive medical information to the government. Take action NOW: https://www.aclusd.org/en/veto-noem.”
Other hashtags you can use as part of the national campaign are: #LetKidsPlay and #ProtectTransKids
If you want background links on the topic there are a few useful stories that you can use on the current legislative trends attacking trans youth in sports:
Share this piece by Chase about the harms of these bills
Share the racist history of sex testing and exclusion of subsets of athletes from women’s sports
Share this Tweet thread from Kimberly Drew: (You could quote tweet the thread with a reference to the veto in South Dakota).