A Playlist to be Almost Proud of

It’s 2011 and it’s almost Halloween. I’m a college freshman in upstate New York and I’m sitting in the classroom where I will eventually take Intro to Psychology waiting for the show to start. The bright red "V" written in lipstick on my forehead begins to run thanks to a steady, alcohol induced perspiration. I’ve been deliberately kept in the dark about what is going to happen next.

The lights dim and a giant pair of disembodied lips is projected onto a screen at the front of the room. Dozens of half-naked students file into the lecture hall and climb on top of the long desks only inches away. Every one of them, regardless of gender, is clad in fishnets and high heels. They gyrate and sing, acting out the plot of the movie behind them. With every song I feel my face get hotter and by the end of “Touch-A, Touch-A, Touch Me” I’m sure my cheeks are as red as the letter on my forehead.

This is just two short months after I had left home equipped only with a small-town understanding of sex and the steadfast belief in the normalcy of sexual suppression. I am not prepared for the queer, liberating joy that is The Rocky Horror Picture Show. It’s a lot.

When it’s over, I declare how much I hated it to anyone who will listen and vow to never do the “Time Warp” again. I remember thanking God that the person who happened to dance in front of me that night was a boy. He'll turn out to be my TA the following semester. College is weird.

The friend that took me said she knew I wouldn’t like it, but there was no way she could have really known why. I sure didn’t.

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It’s two years later and I’m driving myself back to school for the first time. Grey’s Anatomy is set to premiere it’s 10th season in September. We’ve still got McDreamy, and Cristina, and Callie and Arizona, though they’re about to hit a rough patch.

I had just rewatched the entire series over the summer and burnt a CD of music from the show to jam out to during the three and half hour drive. It’s mostly Tegan and Sara and Brandi Carlile. (Who can forget the musical episode where Callie has an out of body experience and belts "The Story" at her own unconscious body in order to wake herself up and accept Arizona’s proposal? It’s TV gold. This is a hill I will die on.)

I pull up to my new apartment scream-singing,

Look me in the eye and tell me you don’t find me attractive, look me in the heart and tell me you won’t go!

My friends are waiting to show me around. I’m stoked to be back under the same roof as three of my favorite people in the world. I throw my bags in my room and we sit in the barely furnished living area talking until bedtime.

The next morning I unpack. The others are watching something on tv. I close my door and blast the same driving playlist while I put my clothes away. This time, I sing along to "The Story" like I have my own premature daughter waiting for me in the ICU. When I emerge the girls stare at me from the couch for a beat, then, arms outstretched, they sing “I was made for you” in unison and burst out laughing. I’m mortified.

I think the teasing was more about my singing and less about the song, but I’ll hide my fandom for years to come anyway. I never meant to tell anyone how much I liked these bands in the first place. Tegan and Sara and Brandi were out and proud lesbians and I was a little afraid people might read something into that. Still, the seed was planted.

This is not the last time Brandi shows up in my story.

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It’s winter break and I’ve stopped in Binghamton for the weekend to visit my best friend from high school. It’s super late and we’re in a tiny dorm room playing beer pong on a 4ft table. It’s the year when songs like "Wrecking Ball" and "I Love It" are massive hits at parties for drunk teenagers. My phone buzzes and I see I have a Facebook message from one of my roommates. “I have NEWS,” it reads. “What’s the news?” I type back. “I’m gay and I’m dating a person from England.” I go out in the hallway and make a phone call.

It’s an unfortunate, sloppy conversation on my end, but I get out the important stuff like how I love her and I’m happy for her. I also find out I’m the last one in the group to know. It’s because I wear my great grandmother’s gold cross around my neck and I go to the campus church on an occasional Sunday. She wasn't sure how'd I’d react.

A few days later I’m in Campus Center getting something to eat. I can hear an a cappella group rehearsing.

Honestly, I wanna see you be brave!

My roommate freaking loves Sara Bareilles. I think about our conversation and I take the necklace off and put it in my pocket. I don’t ever go back to that church.

Truthfully, up until this point I had no idea how I actually felt about gay people. Now I had my answer. There was no going back and there was no supporting halfway. I was an ally. Yeah, that felt right.

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It’s spring semester and I’m spending it in sunny Los Angeles with an internship at a literary management company and only one of my three favorite people. She comes out to me as bisexual and my circle of queer friends grows. So do I. I’m learning, I’m accepting, I’m still very, very straight?

We discover improv and live music and, most importantly, KROC-FM. We become infatuated with Tove Lo and her new song Habits. We bring the obsession home with us and when her Queen of the Clouds album comes out in the fall we indoctrinate the rest of the group. It becomes the soundtrack to our senior year.

We throw a party just before graduation and we call it “Lawn Con.” It’s a play on the phrase long con, which is what we’ve all claimed to be doing to our respective crushes. This party is where things are going to work out for all of us romantically at the same time. There are no flaws in the plan.

We write up a set of house rules on a white board and number four is “Tove Lo or die.” No one else thinks it’s funny. Surprisingly, it does work out for half of us and I go on a date with a boy that ends with some truly terrible kissing. I panic and text him that I don’t ever want to go out again. It’s kind of rude and I feel bad.

Years later he moves back to LA too. I see him at parties sometimes. How fun!

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It’s the summer after college and I’m working alone in the liquor store that my best friend’s family owns. Troye Sivan’s "Youth" is a mega bop, so I listen to Blue Neighborhood in its entirety. It’s the first time I hear anyone use same sex pronouns in a love song, even if it’s just in the title of "for him." It feels like a big deal. I point it out to my home friends and this affects no one else.

These days Halsey has been gracing the airwaves as well. I text my college roommates about her because she reminds me of Tove Lo. They like her too. Cool.

The store is incredibly slow and I mostly just wait around behind the cash register listening to this music and watching Orange is the New Black on my laptop. Completely inconspicuous behavior for a straight girl.

On New Years Eve, I meet up with a bunch of kids from high school at a mansion in the Bronx. One of them lives in the attic for some reason. We pregame and the boys talk about their celebrity crushes. They ask the us if we have girl crushes on any female celebrities and I am too quick to say Brie Larson. She hasn’t even been cast as Captain Marvel yet. I know her from Short Term 12 and the Jenny Lewis music video. Nobody else knows her at all.

The other girls take a long time and then say someone just to say someone. We all ignore it and go to a club in Manhattan. At midnight, I make out with my good friend Charlie and to this day he and I pretend it never happened.

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It’s August and I move to Los Angeles for good this time. Tove Lo and Nick Jonas collab on "Close" and my old roommates and I lose our collective goddamn minds over the video. I start going to comedy shows and I become enamored with Tig Notaro. She’s weird and brilliant and very gay. She does a bit involving a car crash and Dolly Parton’s "Two Doors Down." Look it up. It’s hilarious.

Why do all the artists I geek out over happen to be homosexuals? Couldn’t tell you; I still don’t see it.

Let’s get back to Brandi Carlile.

After years of secret cult-like adoration of this woman, her activism, and her adorable family, I finally get a friend to listen too. She becomes a fan and I convince her to go to a concert with me. We get an Airbnb near the beach in Santa Barbara and, at last, I get to see my hero perform live. It’s freaking amazing. We steal event posters off of telephone poles on the walk back to the rental. We pick up another six pack on the way.

We’re still wired, so we stay up talking. It’s the first time I say out loud that I think maybe sometimes I might be a little bit attracted to women. She says “Oh my God, me too!” I guess she meant it more because now she lives with her girlfriend of several years and runs a successful side hustle making rainbow tie-dye everything for Etsy.

Not too long after, Brandi announces the first annual Girls Just Wanna Weekend. It’s a terrible name for a four-day music festival at the Hard Rock Hotel in Mexico. All the performers are women. It’s a modern-day Lilith Fair. I’m desperate to go, but it’s expensive as hell and I don’t know anyone who’s as big a fan as me.

I’m shocked to learn my college roommate got tickets, but there is no way to add a fourth person to their reservation. She’s been a fan all along and has no memory of making fun of me in our old apartment. That hurts a little. At least I’ll get to go next year.

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It’s January 2020 and we don’t know about Covid yet. I head to Mexico with a bunch of college buddies and have quite literally the time of my life. Nearly everyone at the sold-out resort is a lesbian, or at least falls somewhere above zero on the Kinsey Scale.

I don’t know if it’s due to the absence of the male gaze or because I’m surrounded by friends, but I have never felt so safe before. I’m completely and unabashedly myself. I don’t even think about what I look like in a bathing suit or how much I have to drink. Everyone is kind and friendly and happy.

There is so much music. We hear Jade Bird and Lucius and Yola. Rachael Price of Lake Street Dive has the sexiest stage presence of any singer I’ve ever seen. Brandi and the twins perform every night. When I admit to having a little crush on Katie Herzig my friends freak out and stand in the sand with me in front of the stage for her whole set, despite not knowing a single song. The Highwomen do a full show together for the first time and sing “If She Ever Leaves Me” to the screeching elation of the audience.

On 80’s night a very drunk Brandi and Sheryl Crow grind on each other at the corner of the stage while Rita Wilson, aka Mrs. Tom Hanks, sings "Angel of the Morning." She calls them little sluts and the crowd goes wild. I’m changed.

I come home feeling like a different person and I’ve already started a countdown to GJWW3. A few weeks later I’m told to stay locked in my apartment indefinitely.

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It’s almost the 4th of July and after months of isolation I risk a flight to New York to ride out the worst of the Pandemic at my parents house. My brother moves home too and we play a lot of golf with our dad. I use “Remind me” by Emily King to get loose before a swing because it has the right rhythm.

One day on the way home, my brother tells me a story about how they were showing episodes of the L Word reboot in the bar he works at in Brooklyn. He’s describing an episode and I tell him I know the one. “Maybe I’ve seen all of them,” I say. I’m driving and I can feel his eyes on me. I know what they’re asking. “Yeah, I don’t know,” I say. “Okay,” he says. We leave it at that.

My dad hears "Kyoto" on the radio at work and can’t stop singing it. He inadvertently introduces me to Phoebe Bridgers. This sends me down a rabbit hole of cathartic devastation that only queer musicians know how to articulate. I discover boygenius and Julien Baker, LP and Joy Oladokun, Katie Pruitt and Angel Olsen. I take many long walks with them crooning in my ears. As I listen, I feel all the feelings. I have a lot of time to reflect on myself and my past; examine the evidence. I draw no concrete conclusions.

This is what I come up with.

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Music has always had a profound impact on the things I’ve allowed myself to feel. Realizations always seem to come easier when there’s a beat in my head. This playlist, these songs, make me think of the people, places, and times that I associate with the most authentic version of me. They may seem kind of random, but each one taught me something about myself. And I’m still learning.

I don't know what I am and, though I don’t think I’ve landed on prideful quite yet, I am working on it. (I have calls out to several therapists. I’m just waiting on one to call me back.)

These musicians are all impressive and talented and brave. They’re all proud. At this moment, I may not be able to say I am proud of myself, but I am proud of them. And for them. And to listen to them. Their words give me courage and hope. I won’t be on found on a parade float this June (maybe no one will), but I’ll be celebrating quietly at home for all those who, this month, feel seen. You better believe there’ll be music.

As the world opens up again, I want to too. I want to be more confident and flirt more and just see what happens. I’m lucky to have friends willing to help me sort my shit out and I want to let them. I want to be more like these singers I idolize.

I want to find my pride, whatever that may look like. It’s easier said than done. Until then, I’ll just keep dancing to MUNA with my headphones on, hoping some of theirs might rub off on me.

*****Note from the Author: Here's a link to the entire playlist with songs from every band highlighted in my story. It's called Almost. I could not get it to load as an embedded link. Please forgive my technological inadequacies. Thanks for reading!