1) my high school is the center of a Netflix documentary. It’s not good.
2) my mom was in the army and in Germany the same exact time Jeffrey Dahmer was. She was taken in and assessed where he was stationed, but she was not in his regime. my brother and i only found this out a few months ago and we told her about it. she was very distraught
3) my great uncle was in an acapella group that was sampled in Young Thug’s “I Know There’s Gonna Be”. Never met him before he passed though.
4) there is a house music singer named Barbara Tucker who i listened to as a kid. Her song “Beautiful People” got me through some times in high school. Turns out her father was in the same group as my great uncle. I contacted her last summer to ask about him and she even gave me her number (but I’m just gonna respect her privacy). She’s a lovely woman 😂
3d ago
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When my grandma's sister passed away around the time my mom was 10 (this was 1982), her husband decided to not really speak to my grandma's side of the family even though my mom and grandma had a really good relationship with their kids (my mom's cousins) and they didn't really communicate with each other as much, and two of their kids ended up becoming pretty well known (one is a chef and the other does stuff with MSNBC) so now I have famous relatives who I only met once when I was 5. They live far away from me and I'm pretty sure they have no idea who I am, and my grandma's sister's husband lives in my state like 30 mins away from me and runs a doctor's office but I have never seen him in my life for the reasons mentioned above. So yeah I have a whole side of my family I don't really know at all. It's also crazy how my mom just casually told me this.
Through that grandparent I'm also related to another bunch of well-known people who came from a town/city in Slovakia according to ancestry.com (back when it was called Austria-Hungary) who likely have no idea of my family's existence but that's a whole different story
Jul 7, 2024
here are 3 of my most exciting pieces of lore:
1) my dad was in the south tower on 9/11 and he made it out, but was still in the building when the plane hit. the plane went through his office window, but he was already evacuating and on around the 40th floor when the plane hit
2) my paternal grandfather (jewish) was born in austria but his family moved to milan in ‘33/34 when hitler came into power. in ‘44 when the nazis occupied northern italy, his family escaped into the mountains northeast of milan near bergamo (he was about 13 or 14 years old at this point). his family helped smuggle guns to the partisans since they could speak german with an austrian accent and bypass nazi checkpoints. my grandfather had to shoot a fascist at one checkpoint going wrong, and so at 14 he joined the partisans full-on and lived with them until the war ended. i have a bunch of photos from his time with the partisans (attached some). apparently the group he was specifically with was led by this kinda crazy guy who threatened the security of the whole partisan operations, so he was actually killed by other communist partisans. a few years ago i found a man who researches this exact group in bergamo, and now i have an 80 yr old italian pen-pal who published some photos of my grandfather in his book.
3) my maternal grandfather was orphaned really young in cuba and was really poor. he met my grandmother when he saw her riding her bike down the street and instantly fell in love with her (yes, just like cinema paradiso). she was really rich and her family hated him, so he would wait outside her window just to see her. eventually they get married and have my eldest uncle (because love always perseveres). this part of the story is fuzzy, but i believe he got into some gambling issues and so my grandmothers family shipped him to the US (probably with hopes of getting rid of him for good). but he began to build a life for his family there. then the revolution happened and he continued to go back and forth, but then castro put in the policy that children born in cuba had to stay, so they moved to nyc permanently. but my grandfather loved castro, as most cubans did. so my family is not part of the typical exile cuban-american demographic, which i always found fascinating.
Feb 19, 2024
My dad lived in Switzerland for a few years and my sister was there too and she was 12 and she met this girl gabby who was Jewish, and gabby’s dad was like this famous director so I went to gabby’s insane bat mitzvah in Switzerland and Paris Hilton was the DJ there. the party was crazy, there were people on stilts and I don’t even remember the food, but when Paris walked in they played this heavenly song and a spot light followed her as she took a selfie with literally every single person No matter what age. She told my step mom she liked her dress. my brother is always so mad he wasn’t there and regularly tells this story to people at bars
3d ago
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Feb 10, 2025
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As a child growing up with brothers and as the fat black kid, i never considered myself feminine. Even when i lost weight in middle school and went to an all girls high school, looking girly or being more “feminine” was just not something i thought about.
I feel like recently, i wanted to explore that more, as this pull to dress and appear more feminine has become super strong. Having a house to decorate in any way I can, actually starting to feel better about my body to wear skirts again, etc has really influenced me. But my fears are that it may portray trad wife or child’s play; I’m nervous of stares or being questioned about my views if i were to give such a strong appearance of a girly woman.
But some of my inspirations have been strolling through vintage creators and small japanese insta accounts with super pink and fluffy aesthetics.
Hopefully i will build up the courage
Jan 5, 2025
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i saw something a tad bit politically upsetting this morning through a reposted TikTok, and when i looked up the story in the news, what the TikTok said about this political issue could not be substantiated, but only implied and rumored.
I’m kinda peeved because short form media has really allowed people to become media illiterate and spread things that are either lies or unsupported claims, because they know people aren’t going to read a 3-4 paragraph article on a news site and disseminate information on their own.
Something I have learned in therapy is to kinda look at more things in life as neutral, and not go into black and white thinking before making a decision. Take time to act on something (when it’s possible) and take things at face value most days. Being in an elevated state of emotion when doing something is not usually good.
I just wish other people could do that today, because sometimes it feels like I’m the only person in my realm who can.
Jan 26, 2025