Monday, March 1, 2021

Captain's Log, Day 32: Ginny & Georgia & Taylor

 

 Date: March 1, 2021

Time of post: 9:09 PM

Quarantine Day: 341

Last Song I Listened To: “The Man" by Taylor Swift

Last Person I Communicated With: I talked to my parents at dinner

Last Thing I Ate: leftover cherry/whipped cream birthday cake

Last Thing I Read: an article about Taylor Swift

Current Mood: really peeved

One Thing I’ve Accomplished Today: I answered a lot of student emails

One Thing I Want To Accomplish Today: a ChLA abstract, because I’ve committed to that now lol

One Reason I’m Stressed Today: I need to write a letter of intent so I can keep my instructor job, and I really hate those

One Reason I’m Happy Today: tbh, my earlier happiness has been replaced by frustration


Dear Apocalypsers,

Taylor Swift.

My life keeps coming back to her these days.

I can’t help that her life and her fight and her growth mirrors so much of what I’m naturally drawn to study.

And here we go again.

Today, Taylor Swift tweeted about a line in the new Netflix show Ginny & Georgia: “Hey Ginny & Georgia, 2010 called and it wants its lazy, deeply sexist joke back. How about we stop degrading hard working women by defining this horse shit as FuNnY. Also, [Netflix] after Miss Americana this outfit doesn’t look cute on you [broken heart emoji] Happy Women’s History Month I guess.” The “lazy deeply sexist joke” Taylor’s referring to is the line, “What do you care? You go through men faster than Taylor Swift.”


Please. Am I 14 reading a Tiger Beat headline again? Talk about stale material.

So, of course, the entire Internet had to weigh in on this.

A lot of people were not happy and accused Taylor of “playing the victim.” (It was Alanna Bennett who tweeted that, and she’s since deleted that tweet.)

Emily Jashinsky and Madeline Osburn wrote an article for The Federalist about how she “needs to calm down” (a pun on her song “You Need to Calm Down”). Osburn said, “It’s very on-brand for Swift, who often plays the victim card, but especially when it comes to misogyny,” and, later, “It almost seems lazy of Swift to get those sweet fan retweets by going for the low-hanging fruit like responding to a bad joke as sexist.”

Ashley Reese wrote an article for Jezebel called “Ginny Miller isn’t real,” and that headline is the crux of her article. According to Reese, “Ginny is a character riddled with flaws and might not always say the nicest, most charitable thing” and “maybe people’s time would be better spent getting upset about a line uttered by a real person instead of a fake one.” To support her point, Reese resonded to another tweet with, “[The line] was uttered by a fictional character who, in an earlier episode, said someone wasn’t Asian enough bc their favorite food was cheeseburgers. I don’t think this character is intended to be the moral arbiter of the show.”

I specifically chose examples of articles by women for two reasons: 1) women were making up a lot of the critique on my timeline and 2) these full-fledged, written and published articles, fall into the exact narrative that she tweeted about. To Emily Jashinsky and Madeline Osburn, I have to ask, “Why do you get to tell Taylor Swift how she should feel about a comment that was made about her?” and “At what point did Taylor tell her fans to do anything?” To Ashley Reese, I ask, “So if an unreliable fictional character says something, and it’s never revisited as problematic, does that mean it’s okay and we should ignore?” Didn’t the last 4 years prove that a lot of people can’t decipher what’s true or not?

I ranted about all this to a friend who said it best: “It’s easier to blame Taylor and want her to ‘be the bigger person,’ [but] women shouldn’t have to always be ‘better.’ They should be able to express pain just as much as they are allowed to express happiness.”

I have been and probably always be self-conscious about my weight. And if society continued to make fun of that exact thing that I was most insecure about for 10 years, I, too, would be hurt and mad and call them out on it. Clearly, how society interprets her dating life is something that’s a sensitive topic for Taylor. She’s talked about it at length. And this tweet was pretty heated. If you remember the tweets she sent out about Trump, they were strongly worded, but the tone was even, her words carefully chosen. Today’s tweet had some sass and fire to it.


And, honestly, good. Twitter is a cesspool. People say stuff on there in the heat of the moment every minute of the day. There are celebs whose entire Twitter persona is being snide and bitchy. The reaction I saw to Taylor’s tweet today just proves that there are a lot of people who still want her to be America's sweetheart.

I do agree that some context would have been beneficial or some way to direct the fans' energy to something productive. The way some of the fans responded by harassing Antonia Gentry on her social media was uncalled for and rude. But there are a whole lot of other things we need to discuss about that. Like, how much responsibility to celebs need to take for their fans? On one hand, Taylor Swift does have a lot of power and should use it responsibly—you know not inciting domestic terrorism, speaking up about important social and political issues, supporting other artists—but on the other hand, she can't (and shouldn’t have to) dictate what her 80 million+ followers do. There needs to be more media literacy taught for sure, and it's certainly not Taylor Swift's job to teach it.

I obviously have a lot of thoughts on this matter, and it’s not just because I have loved Taylor Swift’s music for over a decade.


I think about my friend who teaches 6th grade. Those students are 11 or 12 now, which is right around the age I was when Fearless first came out in 2008. With Taylor re-releasing that album in April, she’s opening her music to a whole new fanbase, and they already think of her as "the girl who dates a lot of guys.” To have the same narrative from a decade ag come back around for a new generation is so awful—for Taylor and for women in general. If society can keep shaming the most successful woman in music, what does that mean they can do to any woman?

I know that a lot of this comes from deeply ingrained misogyny and a fear of successful women, but the much of the response today has been frightening. I know people are concerned for the actresses in the show who are facing backlash for something they, in reality, had very little control over. They’re screaming “context!” because Ginny said this as a mean comment to her mother, who’s, from what I’ve read, flighty and dysfunctional. But I’d also like to scream “context!” right back at them. The context that this is a real woman’s life that society has been making fun of and exaggerating for over a decade. The fact that Ginny means it as an insult makes it even worse, because it means that the line was meant to be shameful and that we are still shaming Taylor after all this time. And she should be allowed to be angry about that. She’s a human being, and we as fans or journalists or Twitter trolls don’t get to tell her how she should feel about jokes made at her expense.

As the day’s worn on, there’s been some tonal shift in my timeline. Jemima Skelley reminded us that “Taylor Swift literally didn’t report her sexual assault to the police so that it wouldn’t further this narrative of her being some kind of serial dater and victim and now in 2021 people are saying she has no right to fight back ?????????”

Another fan responded to Reese’s article, saying, “Fictional character or not but as long as people can watch that crap, it can influence people's mind. If you don't call out that show, they will think it's okay and that's called tolerating.” (And after listening to evermore’s “tolerate it,” we know that we do not tolerate that which we do not deserve!)

As one popular fan account pointed out, “taylor swift was 18 when those jokes started and she’s 31 now btw pls don’t tell her she is overreacting when she’s standing up for all female artists—those yet to come and those who face similar jokes daily.”

Another reminded us of what Taylor’s actions for equality have done in the past: “Taylor Swift got Apple to spend millions paying the entire music industry for three months because she wrote a strongly worded Tumblr post. I do not for the life of me understand why in 2021 any person, place or thing thinks they can come for her and expect to succeed.”

This situation is, frankly, ridiculous. I don’t know why it’s being blown up. Except that it’s Taylor Swift. And everything she does is scrutinized. And by writing this, I know I’m dragging out a conversation that should have ended with some “yassss queen” retweets. But I’m not so much concerned with what Taylor Swift tweeted as I am with how everyone else exploded. We want her to be better than the average person. We want her to pour her heart and soul and secrets into her music. We want to know every deal about she is or isn’t allegedly sleeping with or has slept with or might want to sleep with. But we don’t want her to react to any of that. It doesn’t make sense.

I'm not saying that Taylor Swift is infallible. I'm not saying that I don't have biases because I'm a fan. But I recognize that we're both humans and are capable of being better. And, as a human, she should be offered the space to tweet that she's mad or hurt by a comment made about her if she's angry or hurt by it. And we should let her do that. Because, I don't know if you've noticed, but when Taylor Swift tweets, the whole world listens, for better or for worse. 

And I want to point out that she, at no point, called out Antonia Gentry or even the show’s writers. She went to Netflix, the company who greenlighted the show. The things that people are bad about—that she “should have known” or “doesn’t know the context” or is “looking for attention”—all deal with assumptions about her motives and not the actual, tangible tweet. And the actual tweet is maybe the most important thing, because it’s a woman asking to be treated like a human being for once in her career.

But, hey, as long as she’s surprise-dropping albums every few months, right?

 


May the odds be ever in our favor,

Katie

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Captain's Log, Day 31: Oh, 25 Years Old / Oh How Am I to Know? (A Quarantine Birthday)

Date: March 1, 2021

Time of post: 4:15 PM

Quarantine Day: 341

Last Song I Listened To: “We Are Young” –Little Mix’scover

Last Person I Communicated With: Mikayla Sharpless

Last Thing I Ate: a coconut pecan cookie

Last Thing I Read: fanfic last night
Current Mood: I’m itching to be productive

One Thing I’ve Accomplished Today: I spent all day yesterday redoing my dad’s CV because he’s applying for an award, and I wanted his CV to look better than everyone else’s

One Thing I Want To Accomplish Today: a ChLA abstract, because I’ve committed to that now lol

One Reason I’m Stressed Today: I need to write a letter of intent so I can keep my instructor job, and I really hate those

One Reason I’m Happy Today: Mikayla organized a surprise Zoom party for me on Friday night! I thought it was going to be just us playing the Taylor Swift game I made her for her birthday, but then she surprised me with Jacque, Lexi, Dustin, Noelle, and Molly! It was so nice!




“Oh, 25 years old / Oh, how were you to know?”

 –Taylor Swift, “Dancing With Our Hands Tied”



Dear Apocalypsers,

I meant to post on my birthday, the 25th, but I got caught up in the festivities and didn’t get a post written. And I wanted it to be good. I wanted to take the time to do it right.

I turned 25 on Thursday. In undergrad, my friend Baby Katie told me that the day that you turn the same age as the date is your “Super Birthday.” So, I guess it was my Super Birthday, which is pretty cool—and it wasn’t extravagant, but it was still pretty super.

My birthday is the one day a year when I don’t mind everything being about me. Don’t get me wrong; I love attention. I loved being a theatre kid in high school. I loved writing for a column for my church newsletter in high school and for my school newspaper in undergrad. I still love performing in my own little ways—it’s probably why I enjoy teaching. But there’s always a “buffer” with performing: I’m playing a character, or I’m a reporter relaying a story, or I’m “Ms. Cline.” If I’m just Katie, I feel a little weird getting attention (which is something we can unpack later). But I’m completely okay with it on my birthday. I even expect it.


I took some birthday pictures at Germania Springs (thanks Eric!),
so please enjoy them throughout this post


So this is a fun post about my birthday, but it’s also about being 25 and getting “older” and thinking about everything that comes with that. I’ve said before that Mom used to get onto me about “wishing my life away.” I have always been future-focused, so a lot of times I feel like I’m older than I am. But because I spent a lot of “my youth” (which is objectively not over yet) thinking ahead, I also still feel like I’m trying to live out my childhood in some ways. I am simultaneously 7 and 70, and I’m honestly not sure what 25 is even “supposed to” look like. Maybe that’s for the best. I’ve always done my best when people just assume I know what to do and leave me to my own devices—like my first newspaper article, for example—because I only have to rely on how I want to do something and not on someone else’s expectations of me.

So I’ve picked 3 songs that mention being 25 and how I feel like those lyrics resonate with me now. The first is, naturally, a Taylor Swift song. And, on one hand, I know that I’ve only been 25 for 4 days, but I kind of already like the idea of looking back on this time and saying, “Wow, I had no idea how my life would change.” I also like this lyric because Taylor’s giving the “you” (in the song, she’s referencing Joe Alwyn, who was 25 when they met, but it’s also me in this case) permission to not know because they’re only 25. As you’ll see, Past Katie really hoped she’d have her life together by 25, but I’m writing this as a full-time college instructor with 2 college degrees who is sitting in her bed at her parents’ house because there’s been a pandemic raging for a full year now. So, needless to say, I don’t have it all together in the way I thought I would.

And here’s every thought I have about that.

 

“Cigarette in my left hand / Whole world in my right hand / 25 and it’s all planned”

 –Louis Tomlinson, “Just Like You”

 


25 is a funny birthday. I don’t know why, but, years ago, I chose 25 as the age that I wanted to be married with kids by. I’ve never told anyone that (because I’m inherently afraid of failure). I don’t know where I got that idea from, if it was on TV or if I just assumed that 10-15 years in the future was plenty of time without having any context of what my 20s or the general the state of the world would be like. But that was the plan. My parents were 23 when they got married. Whenever I planned the weddings of my friends and their then-significant others, I always had them “getting married” in their early 20s (and I have the Word docs to prove it, because I don’t think I’ve ever deleted anything from my jump drive). Maybe it’s a product of growing up in the South. Maybe I’m just the most impatient person in existence. Maybe I was too doe-eyed and naïve (maybe I still am). Maybe, if you want to put a positive spin on it, I had/have a lot of faith in love and want people to find that happiness as soon as possible.

I’ve made a lot of plans in my life. I like to have plans. They make me feel prepared. Before I do anything new and adulty for the first time—like going to the pharmacy or going to the eye doctor by myself—I always ask my mom about the kinds of questions they’ll ask or the paperwork they’ll need. I don’t do true spontaneity, if I’m being honest; I do enjoy “planned spontaneity,” though.



Looking at my life now, I’m definitely not married with kids, so that plan didn’t play out. Sorry, Past Katie. She’d be disappointed, and I don’t mind saying that. Past Katie cared a lot about relationships. She really loved love (I still do); she was obsessed with her parents’ story (high school sweethearts who have been married since 1981), and I think she was really scared and confused and thought that getting married was the epitome of “making it” (and, to be fair, I still think it’s pretty incredible to find someone you’re willing to spend the rest of your life with, but I don’t think it’s the only marker of success). So, 13-year-old Katie would definitely be shocked to learn that 25-year-old Katie hasn’t even kissed a boy yet.

An aside: there was a time, not-so-long ago, that I would never have admitted to never kissing someone—I still feel a little shaky about it, to be honest. But I think there’s so much stigma about when you “should” be doing things like kissing and having sex and that that may have contributed to Past Katie’s fantasy plans. Being the one who doesn’t do something always gets them ridiculed, or the situation is played for comic effect—think movies like The 40-Year-Old Virgin or characters like Emma Pillsbury in Glee. Whenever a character in a high school show/movie/book admits that they’ve never been kissed, it’s always with embarrassment and shame. And, yes, Past Katie would have been embarrassed and ashamed to admit that in high school, too, but that’s because we’re only ever told that that’s how we’re supposed to react.



Looking back on my life (from the ripe old age of 25 years and 4 days), I can see that I’ve done some things differently than my peers. It’s not that I wasn’t interested in dating in high school and even in college, but no one ever approached me about it (and, dammit, I still stand by the idea that I want to be pursued; I want someone to put the effort into me that I put into everything I do—and maybe that’s a strike against feminism, but, wow, do I want to feel wanted [and, yes, I do love that Hunter Hayes song]). The only dance I was ever asked to was my 5th grade Sock Hop. I didn’t have the elaborate Promposal of my dreams (though I did help execute a couple). My best friend in high school did get me a corsage for Senior Prom, and it was such a great surprise, but his date did drop out a week or so before Prom, so I do feel like I was robbed of an “official” date.

So, long story short, I didn’t date in high school or undergrad, but I did so much, and I’m so proud of all I accomplished. And I did it all for me because I wanted it. I will never look back on my life and have regrets because “so and so” wanted me to do or not do something. My only regrets will be that I wasn’t bold enough to try something. But, in the words of Magnus Bane, “Regret is such a pointless emotion, don’t you agree?”



 

“So we talked all night about the rest of our lives / Where we’re gonna be when we turn 25”

 –Vitamin C, “Graduation (Friends Forever)”

 


Because of COVID, I celebrated my 25th birthday in Jacksonville, which makes it seem like I never left. But I have. Leaving was an unspoken part of my life plans, even when I didn’t think about it specifically or know where I would be going. At one point, I was going to be an actress or a songwriter. I was going to move to New York with 2 separate friends at 2 separate points in my life. After 22 years of being told about “all my potential,” I was itching to leave. I know that doesn’t happen for everyone, and that’s fine, but it happened for me. I love my hometown; I cry to Taylor Swift’s “Tim McGraw” whenever I leave it (because I listen to Taylor’s entire discography whenever I drive to and from Kansas, so that’s the song that plays first).


I don’t think I ever knew exactly where I’d be when I turned 25 until I was…24 ½…My 6th grade gifted class actually performed a version of this song in a play that we wrote. We changed the lyrics to “talked all night about the rest of our lives / where we’re gonna be when we turn 16” and “keep on thinkin that it’s time to drive,” and we inserted our classmates’ names into the song: “Will little brainy [Robbie] be the stockbroker man? Can [Ashlon] find a job that won’t interfere with her tan?” Well, according to Facebook, Robbie got his industrial engineering degree with honors from Georgia Tech, and, as of last summer, Ashlon is still in the Jacksonville area. As far as other people from that gifted class go, Troy is a singer; John is working on movies and is married to one of my college roommates; Garrison is getting his master’s in business and just married his high school sweetheart; Courtney is applying for med school soon; Madison does art and travels like the free spirit she is; Alyce has a degree in criminal justice and is working as a police dispatcher in Florida—and I know I’m forgetting people; I’m writing this at 3AM after all—but my whole point is that I wonder if any of us had any inkling that we’d be where we are now when we rewrote those lyrics over a decade ago.



I feel like I’m doing really well for myself. I always want more, but, objectively, I’m doing well. I got a full scholarship to JSU where I double-majored in English and Digital Journalism; I was editor of the newspaper and vice president of the Honors Program; I presented at institutional symposiums and one regional conference. I got into grad school and moved halfway across the country. I taught for the first time; I got a school-wide teaching award; I presented at 2 major conferences (should have been 4, but COVID got in the way); I finished my Master’s Project, which I’m looking at published someday. I got a full-time teaching job. I. Published. My. First. Article. This. Year.

I’ve done so much that I couldn’t have predicted. And, in a lot of ways, I like it better than if my plans had gone, well, to plan. Because when I made those plans for my life, I was just assuming that my life would follow the archetypes that I had seen in the media—but what I’ve done has been surprising and new and exciting. It’s been scary and hard and exhausting, too, but, ultimately, I’m glad that life has taken all the turns that it has. Because Past Katie could never have dreamed up some of this.

I’m still going to make an excessive number of plans. Like I said, it gives me some peace of mind to be prepared.

Right now I’m thinking that 35 feels like a good age to be married with kids by.

I’ll let you know in 10 more years.

 

May the odds be ever in our favor,

Katie

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Wednesday, February 24, 2021

Captain's Log, Day 30: Update on the State of the World

 

 Date: February 24, 2021

Time of post: 10:01 PM

Quarantine Day: 336

Last Song I Listened To: "Shape of You (Stormzy Remix)" by Ed Sheeran

Last Person I Communicated With: Sent Meg a Facebook message

Last Thing I Ate: tacos and Diet Coke

Last Thing I Read: The Ravens by Kass Morgan & Danielle Paige

Current Mood: *excited*

One Thing I’ve Accomplished Today: graded some homework assignments, sent several tedious emails

One Thing I Want To Accomplish Today: help Mom tidy up a little

One Reason I’m Stressed Today: lots of student emails about things I've definitely already explained

One Reason I’m Happy Today: Yesterday I got accepted to the (virtual) 2021 PCA/ACA Conference! I was going to go last year, but it was cancelled due to COVID. I’ll finally be presenting my Taylor Swift driving paper.

 

Dear Apocalypsers,

This is another interlude post, just to catch us all up on everything that’s happened in 2021 so far. It’s been a year already. So, to my grandchildren, when you read this, don’t repeat some of the language you see here but please know that Grandma was on the right side of history.

On January 6, literal domestic terrorists in the form of a MAGA mob broke into the fucking Capitol building and made it to the Senate floor—while Congress was in session. Thankfully, Congress was able to evacuate before the floor was breached, and they were all safe. Personally, I think Hawley (Missouri), Tuberville (Alabama), Cruz (Texas), and the rest of the Republicans (at this point, yes, all of them, because they should have denounced their party a long-ass time ago) should have just hung out with their constituents in the hallways. Those sorry excuses for human beings broke into Nancy Pelosi’s office (she’s the Speaker of the House). They were actively looking for Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Ortez. They wanted her dead. There’s a picture of an AssHat (what I will be calling the terrorists throughout this paragraph) pictured holding zip ties, like they were going to take hostages. As many people on Twitter pointed out, we ere *this close* to seeing executions live on national television.


And what did our sorry fucking excuse for a president do??? Trump just sat there. Literally! Some outlets said he was paralyzed; others basically insinuated that he was just fascinated like he was watching a TV show.

Fuck Trump. Fuck the Republican Congresspeople who egged it on. Fuck the individuals who partook in it. It’s fucking disgusting. I hope every last one of them burns in their own personal hell.

Oh, look, AssHat with zip ties. They were going to abduct people. It was so scary. [photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images]

And why did they do this, you might be asking? Because they were opposing the ratification of Joe Biden as President—because Trump fucking told them to. There were so many tweets about them planning this goddamn raid—and no one did a damn thing about it. Some of the fucking cops just let the mob waltz in and took selfies with them. (See why we need to defund, reallocate, and restructure the entire police force?)

I’d like to say I’m surprised. But I’m not. Trump has been inciting violence for years. It makes complete sense that it boiled over to this.



I was at Jennie’s apartment when it happened. We were writing an article on Taylor Swift those few days, and we just kept refreshing Twitter and watching the news. It was so surreal—and as more and more information came out about Trump and certain Congresspeople’s involvement, it just got worse. You don’t think about how you’ll react to an attempted coup. No matter how many times you’ve read or seen The Hunger Games, you probably won’t act that way when you’re faced with it. But it did feel like I was in the Districts watching an attack on the Capitol…but, in this case, the Capitol was actually trying to fix things. So we just sat with baited breath and watched—watched as the National Guard wasn’t called in; watched as Eugene Goodman led an angry mob away from the door where Congress was meeting; watched fucking terrorists with face paint and horns and Confederate flags scale walls and parade through the Capitol building.

And then it was over.

But can a country ever come back from a Presidentially-sanctioned coup? I don’t know. I don’t think so. Not completely. I guess we’ll see.

A rioter takes the Confederate flag into the Capitol building...which didn't even happen during the Civil War. [photo by Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA/EFE]


I guess there was one positive thing worth highlighting for posterity: the kids. Once again, Gen Z has proven that they really don’t mind shutting down Trump’s fascism using social media. I may have mentioned how the K-Pop stans bought all the tickets to a Trump rally and then didn’t go, and this has the same energy. The childrenof MAGA rioters were identifying their parents from pictures and reporting them to the police and FBI. It was pretty incredible (and hilarious) to watch. And I think, years from now, we’ll realize how brave that was.

For one thing, it’s so hard to break from what you’re brought up with. Having social media and the Internet from such a young age does make it easier to be exposed to new ideas, and I’m sure that’s part of it. I also think that hatred is taught, so if these kids were seeing other stories online, it would be easier to ignore their parents’ bigotry. There’s also a lot more discourse about “just because they’re your parents doesn’t mean you owe them anything or that you have to love them”—which really flies in the face of what Boomers and Gen X were taught and then taught us (for the most part).

So all these little things definitely could have helped. But at the end of the day, these teenagers on TikTok and Twitter put themselves in risky situations to report their parents because it was the right thing to do. We don’t know what backlash they faced at home or from their extended families or from their communities. But they still did it. And that just kind of reinforces what all those dystopian YA books taught me: that young people are cool as hell, and that, given the chance, they’ll step up.

In related news (since it’s what the domestic terrorists were “protesting”), Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were sworn in as President and Vice President on January 20, 2021. I was honestly a little worried that something would happen at the Inauguration, but it seemed to have gone smoothly. They also sent a lot of National Guard to D.C., so that probably deterred some protests. Mom’s-coworker-Jill’s youngest song, Caden, was in D.C. with a few Alabama National Guard units, so that brought it all home a little. There are tons of pictures that went around showing what the Capitol Building looked like on the 6th vs. the 20th, and it was really sobering to see. But there was also a lot of hope. Like maybe things will get better under this new presidency. They have to.

The Capitol building on January 6th vs.


the Capitol building on January 20th during Biden's Inauguration


The highlight of the Inauguration, though, was Amanda Gorman. She was named the first ever National Youth Poet Laureate in 2017, and she stole the show. Which, like, I’m grateful that everyone got to see the power of literature in action on such a vulnerable day, but I was also a little surprised that people almost…weren’t seemingly aware of the magic of a good poetry reading.



 Even my dad—who has to live with me for goodness sakes!—was like, “Oh, wow, that was good!” And my cynical self can only think, “Yes, breaking news for 2021: poets are good public speakers. Shocking!” Gorman read the poem “The Hill We Climb,” and it really was incredible and poignant and the perfect balance of things we needed to hear—and I kind of expected it. I know so many incredibly talented poets by trade—Jacque, Winniebell, Mawi—and incredible hobbyist poets; I know why poetry matters. I know it can change people, and I know it can speak to people when other words fail. So I was very happy (to see Amanda Gorman, a young Black woman, have so much impact on a national scale) and very frustrated (to have it further confirmed that the Arts are not widely available and taught to students in ever field).

Insert "forever my First Lady" here
Other Inauguration highlights included Michelle Obama’s outfit, 






comparisons between Lady Gaga’s outfit and The Hunger Games (which is where this blog started, so that’s pretty apt), 

Truly  incredible. A fashion icon.











and, of course, Bernie Sanders using a meme of him to raise $1.8million for charity.

Truly, no one was safe from the Bernie memes. 
Here he is with the Golden Girls, looking cozy and
unbothered.


In other “good-but-harrowing” news—of which there is far too much these days—the whole Cline Clan has had their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. We were vaccinated on Thursday, February 11th at the Jacksonville Community Center. The actual process of getting vaccinated that day went fine. It was mostly smooth, no major problems—it was everything leading up to that point that was terrifying and terrible.

The week of February 1st, “they” (FEMA, Calhoun County, the State of Alabama???—I really don’t know, but it was circulating on Facebook) announced educators would be eligible for the next round of COVID vaccines and that Jacksonville Community Center would be added as a vaccination site one for 2 days. From what I understand—and, again, it was a mess, so information was not disseminated well—there were 1000 vaccines to give out each day…and we had to register online.

It was like the fucking Hunger Games. They used Eventbrite—yes, the same website you can buy concert tickets on—to give out “tickets.” (See side rant below.) The website went live at 7AM, and Mom, Dad, Eric, and I were each stationed at separate computers (me and Dad at home, Mom at work, and Eric at Wesley House dorm) refreshing the screen hoping that one of us would get in. (It reminded me a lot of my Sophomore year of college when Jennie, Bailey, Meg, and I all sat around to get a “good room” as soon as the housing website went up—but that seems so stupid in comparison to what was at stake here.)

Of all of us, Mom got in. And she called me. She sounded so scared, because she honestly didn’t know what to do once she got in and she was terrified that she wouldn’t be able to get us all tickets. So I tried to talk her through it without actually seeing her screen. In the meantime, though, I sat with Dad, who had managed to make it “into the queue” just in case something went wrong. (My computer, which was just in another room of our house, never did make it that far.)

The sign-up was weird. We needed to get 4 tickets, so we needed to sign up for 4 separate spots. The website would let us select up to 8 tickets at a time. At the time, Mom thought she would need to fill out the information for each ticket separately, and—this will stick with me forever—she started with Dad’s name. There were several minutes there where my mother—my big-hearted, sassy, impatient, loud, ridiculously strong and smart and giving mother—thought she was going to have to choose what order to get her family this vaccine, thinking that she might not be able to get all 4 forms filled out before all the spots were taken. And she put Dad’s name first—because he’s in his 60s, and he has diabetes, and he’s on kidney dialysis. And I like to think that anyone in my family would have done that, too, but I think it’s human nature to put your own name first when you’re under that kind of pressure. On one hand, it’s self-preservation, but, on the other, it’s a knee-jerk reaction. But Mom started with Dad. And I’ll probably cry every time I think about that for the rest of my life.

So that’s how Dad’s name ended up on all 4 of our tickets. At no point did Mom have to go back and put in different names. (Which makes sense because it’s Eventbrite. When I bought Jonas Brothers concert tickets, I bought all 5 tickets on my card, and everyone paid me back. No need to do them individually.) The whole “one name” thing did cause a bit of an issue when we went to get tickets, but the nice people running it reassured us that we weren’t the only people it happened to. It was an issue with the system (no shit).

After Dad got the confirmation email confirming “his” tickets, I was still on the phone with Mom. I remember saying “You did it, Mom. We’re in.” I remember looking at those tickets like they were gold, like I was Charlie-freaking-Bucket, and I was going to willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. And, at this point, a vaccine is about as valuable.

I cried that day. And I felt guilty. K-State is teaching online. I don’t even teach in Alabama. I couldn’t help but feel like I was “taking” a vaccine from an elementary school teacher who is teaching in-person or a grandmother who’s been teaching for 50 years and is extra vulnerable. I’ve just always put others first (which I feel weird even saying), and this is honestly why I wouldn’t do well in a zombie apocalypse scenario. But I know that I need this vaccine just as much or more so than others. I will be going back to in-person teaching, and I do have an autoimmune disease (as much as I try to deny it). So I got it…and I tried not to feel too bad about it.

 (Here’s my side rant—it’s so fucking surreal to use Eventbrite. I understand that it’s probably a useful format, but no one changed any of the language. When we were waiting to get in, they told us that we were “in the queue for a popular event.” When we got the tickets, they said, “Congratulations! You’ve got tickets!” The whole thing felt like some twisted event that the Capitol would throw. It was sickening. Like, it still gives me shivers to think that this was being treated the same way as the Jonas Brothers concert was.)


As a palette cleanser, I’ll end with all my good-good news! Thankfully, there’s been some of that!


First, I’M PUBLISHED!!! I got the email in September, and I couldn’t really say anything about it until the end of January when the issue came out. But I’m published in the inaugural issue of The Journal of Fantasy and Fan Cultures. Adrianna Gordey actually sent me a link to the CFP back late last Spring because they were doing a special Harry Potter issue! Obviously, I knew that was meant for me, so I submitted the paper I wrote for Anne Phillips’ seminar class. Of course, not 2 week later, JKR went full-on TERF, and I thought I lost everything that made me special as a scholar. That set publication back some, as did COVID, but I was really pleased to see that they went through with it. It’s a small journal specifically for graduate students, but the topic was so fitting that I knew I wanted to be part of it. And it’s just the first of many, I’m sure.

In other Potter-related good news (which there isn’t much of these days), Phil nominated my Master’s Project for the ChLA Graduate Student Essay Award!! Needless to say, I was shocked. Someone from my cohort has won that award or been an honor recipient the last 2 years—Molly Burt was awarded an Honorable Mention for it our first year, and Dustin Vann won it last year—so that’s immediately what I thought about when Phil wanted to nominate me. Now, I should be thrilled, because that means he thinks my paper’s on par with the best Children’s Lit graduate work in the country and that my paper could even win it—and, like, Phil’s a big deal. He knows Children’s Lit—but I’m actually just kind of nervous about the “legacy” of K-State. Ebony Elizabeth Thomas once called us the “Avengers of Children’s Lit!” That’s just a little bit of pressure. But I made a lot of edits to my project, and I really like the finished product, so even if it doesn’t win, I’d like to pursue publication for it. I had Jamie Bienhoff (who graduated from K-State 2 years ahead of me) look at it, and she thought it was really good and accessible and relevant, so I’m excited about its potential. Obviously, I struggle with balancing confidence and expectations, and I don’t want to get my hopes up too much, but it would feel so good (and wildly surreal) to win that. I guess we’ll see.

Finally, still academic-related but not about Harry Potter, this week I got re-accepted to the Popular Culture Association (PCA) national conference! I was supposed to present last year when it was in Philadelphia, but it got COVID cancelled. Jacque, Noelle, Molly, Dustin, Mikayla, Lexi, Katherine Dubke, and I were all going to go and share an Air BnB and take a day trip to NYC. It was slated as our “last hurrah,” and I was so, so, so excited. I will never be over the fact that I should have had that experience by now. (I was going to see the Balto statue in Central Park!!! Like, that’s my DREAM!) And we were all going to present fun papers that weren’t related to our schoolwork, because we would all be done with our defenses by then. I was going to present a paper on driving allusions in Taylor Swift songs…and that’s exactly what I’m going to do this year!




PCA is virtual this year, so I’ll 100% get to present, and I’m so excited for that. As you may have heard, she’s also dropped 2 more albums since this time last year, so I have even more material to work with! This paper started when Mikayla and I were sitting on the floor of my spare room crafting and listening to T. Swift (as we do pretty regularly), and one of us said, “She’s never the one driving in her songs.” And I think it was me who then came up with the conspiracy that “maybe she can’t drive.” And then we just started spitballing back and forth about driving and when she drives and when she doesn’t drive—and that was before Lover dropped. Mikayla said something to the effect of, “If she drives on Lover [because it will be the first album she owns outright], you know you’ll have to write about it.” And then, lo and behold, in “I Think He Knows,” she says, “Lyrical smile, indigo eyes, hand on my thigh / We can follow the sparks, I’ll drive.” And, well, a promise is a promise.

 

So those are the highlights of 2021. I’ll see you tomorrow for a special, uber reflective birthday post.

Until then, may the odds be ever in our favor,

Katie

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