A Trip Down Memory Lane
Let’s take a walk down memory lane, shall we? This week, Dames Karen and Sophie bring you a selection of favorite issues from the first weeks of May in years gone by. We wish you all happy strolls of reminiscence!
Just last year, we brought you a landmark issue, Garbage Fires and Lovely Scents, which includes our abortion stories and the premiere of Drugstore Cowgirl! There’s nothing like smelling good to spite the zealots who will countenance basically anything so long as it helps them gain more control of individual human bodies!
A note from Dame Karen: Wow, this was a big week for me! Not only did I talk about my abortion for the first time in public but I started Drugstore Cowgirl! I know I’ve sorely neglected DC in recent months and it makes me sad, because I truly love writing about cheap perfume and need to carve out time to do so again.
As the beneficiary of Dame Karen’s excellent advice for DC Issue #1, I’m very happy to report that I love Lovely and am still wearing Viper Green (a spray decant from ScentSplit, tyvm!). Drugstore Cowgirl is partly to thank for my first piece for Fashionista, all about fragrance sample and decant sites.
We don’t know about you, but in 2020, crying kind of became our whole personality. Once and future Guest Editor Kamille Washington joined Dames Sophie and Margaret to talk all about how It’s All Right To Cry.
We don’t do bullet pointed round-ups to conclude each issue anymore, and these poems feel worthy of re-sharing in their entirety here:
The recently late Eavan Boland’s exquisite, devastating poem Atlantis
W.S. Merwin’s perfect, brief encapsulation of how loss feels,
Ada Limon’s wildly relatable overstuffed loveseat of a poem, which, before it came into our lives we missed it so bad (so, so bad)
Dame Karen reached back to 2019 to share Sophie’s Bossy Shouting on Season 2 of Fleabag … it was what convinced me to finally take the time out to watch it, and it remains one of my favorite seasons of television of all time. Read and hit play:
“The things that plague us and rip us to shreds are the things that are the most us: what we value, who we love, our biggest questions of identity and purpose, how we move through the world, what we invest our time in. So of course they’re recursive, they’re our habits, they make us ourselves. They’re embarrassing and messy and create problems for everyone around us. Our griefs and grievances, our giddy obsessions and terrible sadnesses, all the things we’re ashamed of and want to hide and ultimately, in the best relationships, what we lay bare in the hopes that our most important people won’t turn away when they see them. They’ll ask sincerely about what they are, and maybe lovingly mock us about them, and say ok, I see these things, I love you anyway.”
We go now to Dame Sophie’s live response to this very loving emotional terrorism
:
May seems to be Abortion Month here at Two Bossy Dames! Dame Karen notes that 2018’s celebration of Ireland repealing its 8th amendment, which banned abortion, is eerie as fuck considering where things stand in the U.S. five short years later, and is a good reminder to stay vigilant and angry. I also love the series of links on Dirty Dancing, which has come into its own as a pro-abortion classic in addition to being one of the best coming of age stories of its era (and of all time?!!) since its release THIRTY THREE years ago.
To round things out, here’s the first week of May seven whole Earth years ago, the promisingly titled Boozy Slushiewatch 2016, which among other things includes the final weekly edition of This Week In Hamilton, round-ups of travel posters, real estate links, and a concluding round-up of stuff we love. We found nearly all of that great stuff on Twitter, which is not something we find ourselves saying much anymore, alas.
Emotional terrorism indeed! And why not? That's called love & the hope of being loved in return.