The crush of self
Also: Olivia Rodrigo's Plan B reversal, sprinkling glitter on Harvard's archives, fashionable redemption narratives, and more in the weekend roundup.
After last week’s riff on The Rock, a former editor of mine reached out to tell me I really have to pitch a piece on adult crushes. I wouldn’t label The Rock a crush—it’s more like a semi-ironic fandom that’s led me to write about him many times, at great length, and even, occasionally, tweet with him like we’re old pals.
In any case, it’s a great starting point for a story idea, so I’ve been brainstorming pitches and examining different angles on adult crushes. In the process, I revisited a childhood crush, by way of a letter I wrote in the 90s to Rider Strong of Boy Meets World.
Dear Rider,
I'd really like to meet you so could you write back telling me when you will be near Berkeley, where exactly and what exact time. I know you think I'm just another fan but I'm not. I really like you from what I read in magazines. I hear you don't have a girl in your life and I think I'm the one for you.
I'm funny, love writing, love to rollerblade, like white water rafting, really enjoy windsurfing, love to cuddle by the fire, favorite food is pizza, I love to be just natural (no makeup!), love poetry. I love adventure, I'm not one of those girls who are afraid of spiders and I'm ten, please don't turn me down because I'm ten! I really am the one for you!
Please I beg you! Call me at [phone number] from four o'clock to six then from seven to nine, only on Monday, Wed and Fridays. On Tuesday and Thursday I have choir practice from four fifteen to six fifteen then eat dinner and am at home by about eight!
Thanks,
Love,
Tracy
It makes me laugh and want to cry. There’s the hilarity of my true belief that this boy from the cover of Teen Beat magazine would be so wooed by this letter that he would set a meeting (accommodating for my choir practice, of course).
Then there’s the heartbreak of the internalized misogyny of my “I’m not like other girls” posturing and overselling of activities (white water rafting?!) that I figured he would think were cool. (For the record: I did like to windsurf and that was very cool of me.) The language around “cuddling by the fire” and being “the one for you” tells me the romantic-industrial complex already had its grip on me.
I often think of crushes as tapping into—I’m searching for words that don’t feel hopelessly woo but failing—an inner life force. As I put it earlier this year, desire for a particular person often speaks to “a larger spark of passion and hunger and aliveness and obsession.” But I guess they can also be revealing of the way we sometimes suffocate that inner life force by trying to squeeze (crush?) it into a desirable package for the person we desire.
And it starts so damn early!
To the links…
We are really having a moment of fashion colliding with redemption narratives. First, Monica and Reformation. Now, Pamela Anderson with a 90s-themed collection for RE/DONE. “It’s a strange homecoming,” says Anderson. “Like redemption or something.”
on the beauty legacy of Lolita.I am just gutted and inspired by this poem on “the thread” of a life. “WHAT IS YOUR THREAD?” I want to ask everyone now.
The archive of pioneering pornographer Candida Royalle is now at Harvard. “You would take stuff out of a box and glitter would fall all over,” says historian Jane Kamensky of Royalle’s collection. “This was not the papers of Betty Friedan.”
Got a little choked up watching The Rock clearly and matter-of-factly negotiate consent before doing squats with Drew Barrymore on his back.
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