Leo season — or late summer, if you’re not in the business of impressing lesbians — is usually a straightforwardly bitchin time, for me anyway. Sex, drugs, cross-country moves. 

But this year, something’s been… amiss. Askew. Off-kilter, if you will. 

Venus is retrograde, fuckers, and it’s ravaging the collective unconscious like so much mountain dew to a rat. 

WHAT’S HAPPENING TO ME??? you scream.

Shhhhh, shh shh shh, I say. For just five dollars a month on Patreon you can help us keep the mics on and keep giving you premium content. Now make sure to like, comment, hit that bell, and let’s dive in. 

I’M COMPLICIT. 

OR AT LEAST, LIKE, I WISH. I WAS ONCE

OK, so venus being retrograde is supposed to like, fuck up our shit, and give us anhedonia, and make us reflect on our fuckass patterns, and blah blah Magnet Book blah blah. But this year’s manifestation appears to be very specific and buckets of fun for the whole family: everyone and their mother is backsliding.  

Unfortunately, if my ex and I took one step outside the bounds of the Hays Code it would start with a shotgun marriage in a fast-casual Mexican joint and quickly end in murder-suicide.

(Don’t ask who’s the top and who’s the bottom, ask who’s the murder and who’s-)

And I’ve, uh, creeped up the Kinsey scale since my prior substantive flings. So I’m benched this season. 

This is a real bummer for me, partly because I love to be a part of things, and partly because backsliding is one of my favorite activities in the whole world. So since those who can’t do, write “”””cultural”””” “”””criticism,”””” I hope you’ll let me blow off my abundant steam by constructing a comprehensive explanation of the national (in-the-)mood. It’s very long. I have a lot of steam.

TLDR;

When did venus retrograde start?

I don’t fucking know, sometime. Recently. After Barbie but before we all started feeling all frisky in an unnerving way. It’s more of a feeling than a time, you see

OK, July 22. I googled it. Do you enjoy being spoon fed? 

What does it mean?

Venus = kissy kissy

Retrograde = go backward

Venus + Retrograde =

I’m not feeling anything!

WELL, BULLY FOR YOU THEN! 

How do you know this is not just you, personally, wanting to kissy kissy go backward?

So glad you asked, hater. 

EVERYBODY COOL IS DOING IT

If astrology isn’t real, then why, in the span of a week, has the G7 of hegemonic monoculture girlhood very publicly backslid?

• Taylor Swift stalked harassed ambushed by former king of her heart Karlie Kloss at the Eras Tour; caved (classic)

• Carrie Bradshaw u-hauled with surefire missionary enjoyer Aidan, her last significant ex standing, on And Just Like That

• Olivia Rodrigo continued skipping merrily to her EGOT by unleashing backslide banger to rule them all, rivaled only by “Mamma Mia” itself, “bad idea right?” accompanied by Criterion Collection bait 

These are SEISMIC BACKSLIDES. 

More on Olivia below, but in my years of compiling a comprehensive account of the songs in the great annals of backslide bop history, I have scarcely encountered a backslide joyride so formidable. Not to mention, I recently left The Industry,

where it is evidently common knowledge that Olivia Rodrigo Release Days are international bank holidays on which nothing else is to be released, lest it be ignored and lost to the sands of time, dissolving into sea foam as if it were never there a’tall. So, basically, the midsummer high holiday of music is a backslide asteroid. During venus retrograde. Mm. 

Carrie, meanwhile. This is a backslide, what, like, fucking 20 years in the making? Until AJLT, people had been debating whether Carrie should be with Aidan instead of Big for like twenty years. And then she does the most Carrie thing of all time, EMAILING this motherfucker “HEY STRANGER,” and then the show shocks us all by having it WORK and having them FUCK VORACIOUSLY and MOVE IN TOGETHER. We thought we’d get a glimpse of (kind eyes gentle giant actor name) and a catchphrase (what was primordial West Elm Caleb But Good’s catchphrase?) and be on our merry way. NO! This is a FRANCHISE CHANGING, SEASON-REVOLVING BACKSLIDE! 

Hundreds of words about a Girl Who Codes having a night out:

And Taylor. This one is close to home. This one feels like my heart put its heel on the dangerous part of the razor scooter brake. I can’t explain the whole thing. I don’t have the heart. Sitting here at this laptop alone? It’s too bleak. I couldn’t bear it. Read this definitive account by a brilliant genius. 

OK, now that you have the resources to educate yourself — now that you know Karlie seemingly abandoned Alison and their years-long album-spawning great love for dinner at the Kushners 

and Alison wrote closure about her, which you have to flee the county if someone does, and Alison also wrote two full albums full of “fictional” “fabricated” “narrative” “made-up” “stories” about mourning the loss of the love of her life who betrayed her, followed by another “deeply personal” “autobiographical” album with the exact same themes. So all of this happens. They haven’t been seen together since the Reputation tour in 2018. Those of us who accompanied them in their proselytization of the Gal Pal tradition at the highest levels of Sweetgreen Society, forever changing our lives, ruining our closest friendships, and inducing a Pavlovian sobbing response to “put your lips close to mine,” packed up, nursed our wounds, and tried to put the whole thing past us. We moved on. We grew up, got married, got bored, got buried. We even got pretty bummed when Taylor and Joe broke up! He seemed nice! She thinks he knows! Cute! 

Then all last week the Eras surprise songs had all Alison’s hits about “not wanting you like a best friend,” “looks up and says ‘you’re my best friend,’” blah blah blah. I was like, OK Alison, suspish, but whatever. It was also Karlie, noted Leo’s, birthday. So, like, sure, yeah, Alison, makes sense. Commemorate. I too tried to celebrate my ex’s birthday from afar, but then it turned out the animal shelter I wanted to donate to in her name was a kill shelter. So. Moving on. Classic Alison cool math games. Fun with dates. 

But then. On August 9, 2023. A second pearl harbor hits the kaylor community. Karlie Kloss shows up at the last show of the first U.S. leg of the Eras Tour. And not kicking it with Adam Sandler in the VIP tent. IN THE PEASANT SECTION!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JUST, EXPOSED! RIDING IN A DROP TOP FUCKING CONVERTIBLE THROUGH DALLAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I AM GENUINELY CONCERNED FOR HER SAFETY IN THAT ENVIRONMENT!!!!!!!! DID ALISON INVITE HER? DOES ALISON KNOW SHE’S THERE? IS IT INSENSITIVE OF ME TO USE NOT ONE BUT THREE CANONICAL AMERICAN TRAGEDIES TO EXPLAIN A SUPERMODEL ATTENDING A CONCERT? WHAT IS GOING ON? 

And then she moves down to VIP at some point, and she’s having a jolly time, and then after the show Alison is beaming to the point of GLOATING as she walks backstage with a glass of wine, and someone on her team is carrying a second glass of wine and what appears to be KARLIE’S PURSE?????????????????????????

I have never felt so revved up and impotent in my life. I felt like when Lightning McQueen got booted. It was jouissance, I swear to god. My entire twitter feed was flipping fucking shit. Like, aliens shit. I saw the word “aliens” on my twitter once the other week, but I retweeted probably 68 consecutive tweets about this event that night. 

And now i don’t know how to feel because I want my girl Alison to get some pu$$, obviously, but in the coming out department karlie is surely Not A Serious Person. So like, the fuck are we supposed to do with that? I don’t know, but i’m still vibrating a little bit like when cartoon characters get hit so hard their entire body is ringing afterwards.

This is a historic backslide and a violation of my human rights. 

A LINE-BY-LINE SLOBBERING OVER THE BRILLIANCE OF BAD IDEA RIGHT

Hey

The ACTING on this!!! I truly believe she just showed up out of breath at the house of someone with whom she is friendly but also uses few words. There should be Grammys for acting in music

Haven't heard from you in a couple of months

Leaving us wondering… did we break up a couple of months ago? Or are we exes who send memes and do red carpets for our metatextually nightmarish Disney show together? She’s so enigmatic 

But I'm out right now and I'm all fucked up

The way Olivia absolutely bites down on “all. fuckt. up.” To her this is merely a fact. it is as mundane and true and unchangeable as an Ikea chair. She’s all fuckt up and that’s normal for her. Oh, does it excite you to get all fukt up? loser. 

And you're callin' my phone and you're all alone

And I'm sensing some undertone

Once again she’s giving WRY she’s giving EYEBROW RAISE she’s giving

(portamento? someone who does music please spoon feed me after the show)

And I'm right here with all my friends

But you're sending me your new address

I am literally begging god for people who are not men to be this forward. There are some things men are getting right and those are whatever this hail mary shit is, and prank wars. When that rugby team got stuck in the Andes for 3 months they continued to do pranks the entire time. THE INDOMITABILITY OF THE HUMAN SPIRIT! God, the men you’ve sent to earth to do pranks in the face of great struggle are hiding their jolly nature

And I know we're done, I know we're through

But, God, when I look at you

My brain goes, "Ah"

Can't hear my thoughts (I cannot hear my thoughts)

God, I miss limerence. find me after the show if you’re trying to lime (v) 

Like blah-blah-blah (Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah)

This song is wholly indebted to one 

starting here.

Should probably not

I should probably, probably not

I should probably, probably not

But it would be so boring if she should

Seeing you tonight

It's a bad idea, right?

Seeing you tonight

It's a bad idea, right?

Seeing you tonight

It's a bad idea, right?

Seeing you tonight

Fuck it, it's fine

Does anyone have a read on her affective palette here? I’ve tried to Act out this prechorus and I feel like a goddamned chemist trying to balance the resignation, steeliness, and pre-defensiveness for when your friends yell at you in the morning. The “seeing you tonight” gets all Maria-style hopeful, but who is she asking the titular question to and what answer does she expect? 

Regardless I have always liked that olivia so ardently has a favorite swear jar word. 

Yes, I know that he's my ex

Now That’s What I Call DELIVERY! The EXACT “no fucking SHIT!” eye-roll petulance of responding to the friends’ admonitions. She said “HE’S MY *WHAT*??? WELL, MY STARS! SO I’VE HEARD! THAT IS WHAT THEY’RE SAYING IN THE TABLOIDS!”

But can't two people reconnect?

This is the single most devious line in all of music. Olivia, you little shit. 

I only see him as a friend

The biggest lie I ever said

Lying rights

Oh, yes, I know that he's my ex

But can't two people reconnect?

I only see him as a friend

I just tripped and fell into his bed

Now I'm gettin' in the car, wreckin' all my plans

I know I should stop, but I can't

And I told my friends I was asleep

But I never said where or in whose sheets

OK, let’s pause. Let’s have a gratitude moment. This is the spiritual core of this song. This song is a stone fruit and this line, nay, this WORD, is the pit.

1) I didn’t know until right now that it’s not “i never said where — in his SHEEEETS.” The actual lyric is so much fucking funnier. As if she’s sidestepping some fairytale curse using the power of semantics. As if she’s Miranda Sings saying her team never said she couldn’t SING about the situation. This line has changed my life, and probably, the course of human history.

2) The delivery on “SHEEEEEEEETS” is pure heyday Ke$ha. The purring, pointed vocal fry. Fucking delicious. Stream “cannibal” and remember “grow a pear” in which Ke$ha, it seems, is not being intentionally transphobic but rather completely and entirely forgets that trans people exist. Wild

And I pull up to your place on the second floor

And you're standing, smiling at the door

And I'm sure I've seen much hotter men

But I really can't remember when

THE ONE-TWO PUNCH OF THIS VERSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OH, IT’S BEEN A MOST BOUNTIFUL RAINY SEASON! WHAT A FEAST LIES BEFORE US! 

First the climax of 2023 with “sheeeeeeeeets” and now the best neg in recorded history. let’s Genius this business.

First, “I’m sure I’ve seen much hotter men” — fucking savage, FATALITY, diva down. 

But swiftly followed by “But I really can’t remember when.” 

It Makes Me Smile!!! On the street, in my little room. Smiling. Smiling so much it smacks me out of nowhere sometimes how MEAN IT IS! Because it’s also so SWEET! She’s so hormonally enamored of this man that he is the most beautiful man on earth to her! I have said this about every person I have dated. I MISS IT! If being seen as the most beautiful person on earth outweighs the psychic troubles demonstrated here, find me after the show.

My brain goes, "Ah"

Can't hear my thoughts (I cannot hear my thoughts)

Like blah-blah-blah (Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah)

Should probably not

I should probably, probably not

I should probably, probably not

Seeing you tonight

It's a bad idea, right?

Seeing you tonight

It's a bad idea, right?

Seeing you tonight

It's a bad idea, right?

Seeing you tonight

Fuck it, it's fine

Yes, I know that he's my ex

But can't two people reconnect?

I only see him as a friend

The biggest lie I ever said

Oh, yes, I know that he's my ex

But can't two people reconnect?

I only see him as a friend

I just tripped and fell into his bed

Oh, yes, I know that he's my ex

Can't two people reconnect?

The biggest lie I ever said

I just tripped and fell into his bed

My brain goes, "Ah"

Can't hear my thoughts

The biggest lie I ever said

My brain goes, "Ah"

Can't hear my thoughts

I just tripped and fell into his bed

Thoughts

Blah

Thoughts

Blah

Closing Ceremony:

This song came out one day ago and I have listened to it dozens of times. Giving this song to 19 yr old me would be like giving a hot cheeto to a pilgrim if pilgrims were already mainlining chester’s hot fries and giving them hot cheetos would encourage their sick little proclivities to the point of total social ostracization and probably a 5150 for sex and love addiction. Hot cheeto addiction. Whatever. Backsliding-based situationships are like Churu for 19 year olds. 

Also, TW “cultural criticism,” I love how Olivia simply fucks and that’s chill. We’re not doing the whole “she was pure and now she has a black swan debutante ceremony in which she reveals she fucks and accepts her stoning and then years later has a cooking show and goes on call her daddy” rigamarole and thank fucking god for that. She is so cool. I feel about Olivia Rodrigo the way Michelangelo felt about David. 

I CARE A LOT

Here is my thing on the joy of backsliding.

You have to earn the sex AND you know they already like your body AND you have built-in bits about the fact that you’re backsliding, AND that It’s Been A Minute special sauce is laid on thick AND did I mention it’s unexpected forbidden sex with somebody you already know how to have sex with!!!!!!!!!!!

Back in my day I used to hook up with this guy (lovely fellow) for a week or so, then scurry away before I got sentimental, then a month or so later I’d scurry back, and on and on for two years until one day he came over for morning sex and kissed me on the forehead and I had to decapitate the whole endeavor posthaste. The beauty of the thing was that I could do what I knew was emotionally right — Fleeing — and then a month later, what was the most fun in the whole world — mischievously crawling back into his bed, slick with the scrumptious chili oil of knowing I was Being Bad. Seconds after the moment of conception (pro lifer reveal) I would text my friend this awesome cover of Mamma Mia to boast of my misdeeds. 

Then during covey I made a 40-slide powerpoint partially about the topic, including an explanation of how the ecstasy of backsliding is fake-mathematically preordained. I will give you my little powerpoint, with the proper names and indeed photos of people I am talking about removed, because while I love nothing more than other people talking about my love life, I am told this is worrisome and not regular. This stuff might not be correct, per se, but it will help you understand the inexplicable 19 year old in your life. 

Plus 50% of good music is about backsliding. 

Do I have advice for you on how to healthily backslide? What? No. Obviously not. That’s not what this is. I have not figured out how to healthily lay with others in the Biblical way. No, go have fun. Ruin your life. For those of us who can’t.

AFTERCARE

What the fuck was that?

What, you’ve never read a fucking zine before? Leave me alone

The formatting felt thrown-together

You’re being epistemologically violent

Defensive much?

Famously.

Why did you think this was publishable?

I don’t know man, I moved to new york and everyone’s like, making shit here, and like, saying what they think, and I’m taking little hummingbird sips of the kool-aid. Plus I’m pretty fond of the joke about me and my ex reuniting ending in murder suicide. When words fail, jokes speak <3 

Intimate partner violence isn’t funny!

It is when it’s Mine <3

1. Turn down and/or cancel plans to stay in and write. Sunk cost fallacy biohacked. Sexy hermit speed boost unlocked.

2. Fill your Brita to fuel the long hours scribbling away by candlelight ahead of you.

3. Tell your friends, loved ones, and LinkedIn professional connects that you have shut yourself in to write. They need to brace for the big swings ahead.

4. Do your dishes.

5. Do your cleaning.

6. Refill your Brita.

7. Slip into something a little more writerly. A long cardigan with nothing under it, perhaps. Nope, that is just a narrow window into the no man’s land between your hips and or tits and then boom, no warning, genitals. An oversized button down. Okay, but is that, like, really what’s comfortable and sexy? Or is that, just, like. Did i see that in the background image of a justgirlythings post? Back in the day? NO it wasn’t justgirlythings, it was Mila Kunis in friends with benefits. No, natalie portman in friends with benefits. wait . if mila and natalie were both in borderline identical movies about friends with benefits airing at the same time then the transitive property of black swan means that one of said movies is the darksided mirror of the other; OMG, is friends with benefits no strings attached’s tether? I feel for jordan peele in that he creates brilliant insightful concepts and shares them with people who immediately bastardize them into all purpose words for anything, like “jawn” or “gaslight.” 2022 word of the year. Sweet god. And we didn’t do that. Gen z didn’t do that. Everyone wants to pin all the snowflakery on us, but we’ve been in these streets chopping it up about school shooter drills and the moral ambiguity of our desires to procreate in the face of climate change since before millennials got wise about hi-lo skirts. This gaslight shit is all them. “Gaslit” you. Bro there is already a word for LYING. There is already a word for TRYING TO CONVINCE YOU SOMETHING THAT ISN’T TRUE. bro if you are feeling “gaslit” because someone tried to tell you a lie one time and you believed it that is on YOUR reading comprehension skills. If you believed something because one person said it to you one time, something that took the OG gaslight victim NOXIOUS POISONS and CAPTIVITY to believe, that is on you and your lack of a grit mindset. Bro i got this sweater in williamsburg on the street when my friends and i were walking around and i see this gorgeous blue sweater hanging up and i express interest and the woman selling shit gets so excited and goes OH! It’s a PRICELESS sweater, an heirloom, made many years ago; totally one of a kind. There’s nothing like it. Fifteen dollars. And i say sick, that’s totally an heirloom price range, I’ll take it. But the woman really needs me to grasp how momentous a trade we’re engaging in, of this priceless heirloom never been seen before one of a kind farm to table non-GMO pre-industrial ethical-diamond single-sheep sweater. So i say thank you for my heirloom and she says you’re REALLY going to love it nobody else has anything like it, have you ever seen this color blue anywhere else (which reminds me of the time a dude trying to date me asked “does anyone understand you like i do?” unfortunately forcing me to just start listing names) and i say no i haven’t that’s why i traded my fifteen dollars in united states currency to you for it! Thank you have such a lovely day, so excited about my heirloom sweater. And i walk on and see that the sweater, obviously, has an h&m tag on it. Did this woman GASLIGHT ME? NO. she LIED TO ME. because sometimes, as people, we LIE TO EACH OTHER. Not me tho i literally cannot at all it doesn’t sit right with my honorable constitution but y’all be easy knowing your names stand for nothing. What was i saying tho? Oh, writing. Oh my god, fuck, i’m supposed to be writing. Ok ok yes no absolutely totally no back to the writing.

8. Refill the Brita.

   

9. Turn on Vanderpump Rules because you do better parallel playing. Hearing these people drinking double vodka crans at fast casual vegan breakfast restaurants and then going out to the strip mall parking lots of those fast casual vegan breakfast restaurants to fistfight will cultivate the collectively focused, highly accountable zen coffeehouse atmosphere you need.

10. Start thinking about how even though the Vanderpump Rules cast are awful people, they’ve brought you so much joy and solace these past few hard years when you’ve really needed moments of light, and are, when it really comes down to it, all god’s children. Tear up a little.

11. Mop.

12. Refill the Brita.

13. Take the enneagram test.

14. Take it again, but really mean it this time.

15. Take it again, but think about what if we include those years that you were different from how you are now.

16. Take it again, but what if you’ve been opportunistically lying to yourself and your entire memory of your childhood was wrong and that awful thing your mom said to you about you was right. What then

17. Take it but if that tattoo was like a centimeter and a half to the left like you originally wanted it and it’s like fine now like no it’s definitely grown on me, yeah, thanks for saying you like where it is, yeah no, I’m definitely super happy with it I just wanted you to know it wasn’t my original vision so my permanent, elective, always-visible body modification doesn’t represent or say anything about me or my aesthetic taste at all. Just wanted to make that clear. Yeah, my sleeve is really filling up! It’s like that Fugitive Songs lyric, “every day it’s getting harder finding room for more regret.” Like that. Do you have any? No? Oh my god you HAVE to get one, I swear to god it doesn’t even hurt that much and they’re sooooo addictive and you really don’t even notice them except for how much you LOVE THEM

18. Take it but what if you hadn’t seen that awful thing at six flags that you and your middle school bus buddy never told anyone about

19. Take it but what if you believed your therapist and loved ones

20. Take it but like just thinking about your values so it reflects the real you and isn’t muddled by your abilities, tendencies, characteristics, personality, or behaviors.

21. Send screenshots of the most damningly relatable sentences from the outcome to your oldest friend. This will be novel and captivating information for them, since they’re completely unfamiliar with your neuroses and never grow weary of your ruminations.

22. Decide to give up on the whole writing thing because the interweaving-of-highbrow-theory-and-lowbrow-feminine-culture-through-personality-and-humor thing is played out by players far better than you. Shake your fist at Rayne Fisher Quann.

23. Refill the- oh, it’s full. Look at you! A hot young professional with a roof over your head and a full Brita, in the big city!

24. Chug your water.

25. Get a stomachache from chugging your water. Remember your youth when you could chug POISON and not get a stomachache? Is it getting about time for you to settle down? Your body is clearly throwing in the towel. Your Brita is full, so you’re about ready to run a household. Last time you saw a baby at the flea market you started crying. Your mom would be thrilled.

26. Refill the brita.

27. Think about the hotties you will score at the next perfectly amber lowlit dinner party you go to, of which you, 22 and a strong candidate for voluntary scurvy, have been to myriad, where you, in your turtleneck and blazer that is not so correctly fitting that people assume you work in an OFFICE office doing, like, Enron, but is tailored enough that people get the vibe that you can get to places without using maps, are leaning against the prewar molding on a doorway and bashfully telling a woman how you write a successful substack.

28. Get pulled out of the fantasy by wondering what a successful substack is.

29. Unable to glean any idea of what accomplishment in your field would look like, go back to the fantasy, but imagine the woman being significantly meaner to you. That does it.

30. Hit the showers (refill the brita).

31. With the radical acceptance fresh in your mind that girls will only like you if you write something, get back to your careful practice of your sacred craft.

32. Come up with nothing, so

33. Sit on your back on your floor with your legs straight up against the wall like tv characters do when they’re Thinking At Home.

34. Picture yourself doing this.

35. Conclude, hey, if we look at this objectively, a sexy strapping young lass has shenaniganed around her apartment for a day doing quirky activities like refilling the brita and sitting weird. That’s MOST of new girl. In your recall, the memory of this day can be like the montage of jess when she’s home alone bored. Quirky but definitively propulsive music is playing, to show that time is passing, over images of you—there’s you refilling the Brita, there’s you sitting weird. What a day! We all had fun!

36. Realize you’ve just concluded that picturing yourself being alluringly charming, completely stripped of the psychological and affective dimensions of your experience of the day, is productive enough for you. Look at the sky and shake your first at john berger. HE CAN’T KEEP GETTING AWAY WITH IT!

37. Conclude that making memes with yourself about theorist john berger means your inner life is plenty complex and rich, thank you very much, and you have nothing to prove to anyone by sharing it.

38. Get super fucking high and realize that in vanderpump rules they never not once show anyone refilling a Brita. and god knows they need the hydration. Pour out your brita in the amazon box you haven’t taken out yet and ship it to valley village.

39. Refill the brita.