The 2017 Golden Gabe Awards
Stefon, I’m genuinely afraid to ask, but what is a human vending machine?
Out and Back
And I realized these are the first things: not medals or adventures, but the cinch of laces around a foot and reliable slide of mud and bitter perfume of sweat rising like smoke off shoulders.
The Gabe Gunnink Halloween Lookbook
It was a costume that screamed, “No! I don’t want to join my friends in the haunted house with a crawlspace entrance, thank you very much!”
Figs
Meanwhile, I am childless, jobless, and directionless. I don’t feel that I’ve wasted my time, and I don’t feel dismayed, but I’m also tired of feeling crushed under the weightlessness of potential and gawking at figs like stars I could never align.
Charli XCX and the Female Gaze
The song and video are so simply adorable that it would be tempting to brush them off as frivolous. But indulging that temptation would be dismissing a cultural commentary of Beyoncé proportions.
I’ll Make a Man Out of Me
This week, I decided to spend a day allowing society (a.k.a. the internet) to tell me exactly how I should be a man. For one day I would dress, drink, and spend my time how the cyber arbiters of masculinity determined.
Melodrama: Lorde’s Patient Pop
Lorde made a name for herself taking down pop culture, but what would she do now that the world knew her name? Now that she was pop culture?
OCD DCO OCD DCO
Sometimes, though, I wonder where my personality ends and my OCD begins. Or if they’re distinct at all.
Four Easters and a Funeral
Christmas is always the musk of dusty angel robes and glow of Christmas tree lights on the hardwood floor. Easter, however, is rarely the same twice.
Smiley Human Ban Declared Un-Henson-tutional by Yip Yip Court
SESAME STREET – Mayor Guy Smiley’s recent housing and business ban has been roundly rejected by the Yip Yip Court this morning on grounds that it unfairly discriminates against humans.
Postcards from Queer Camp
There’s nothing like bustling down the baking needs aisle with a week’s supply of Oreos yelling out for “Anthill!” to make you realize you’re not currently leading a traditional life.
La Malinche Trump
This narrative of Melania as a sly badass emerged through a series of clickable Internet conspiracy theories.
Adventures in Personal Finance
“Just for the sake of the simulation. I need to enter an end point. How long do you plan on living?”
An Ode to the Road
Never have I felt more American / than lying on my back in a middle Illinois / gas station, duct taping my car together
Principles of Something
For this reason, merely believing in “something” is not half-hearted or vague, but both mind-blowing and earth-shattering.
The Gang Causes Gabe Moral Unease
That is exactly what It’s Always Sunny manages to do; it takes the depravity we all hold in common and, with a little creativity and a lot of imagination, makes it feel oddly magical.
Friends Like These
Success, money, fame, and even romance feel laughably conceptualized when placed against the visceral reality of friends singing along the highway and filling the car with farts.
Family Portraits
In the evening we venture out into the city that she has called “the armpit of California” and find a place to procure some burritos. As we eat, Aunt Ellen tells me about her world travels.
Learning to Mourn
What I really want the smiling broadcasters to say is that there is no silver lining. This is not an opportunity or a warning call or a new beginning. It is an ending, and endings should be mourned.
A Grandmotherly Half-Truth
It frustrates me to hear people complain that they feel like they’re choosing between two evils or that they’ll just stay home on Election Day or that they’ll pack up and move to Canada if things don’t go their way.
Play
I think that we must search out new pastures for play—Scottish dancing, Settlers of Catan, scuba-diving. When we begin to lose springiness in one area, we must seek it in another.
RuPaul’s Drag Race: A Ru-View
With so many cynosural queens clawing to be the center of attention, watching Drag Race can feel like attempting to view fireworks through a kaleidoscope.
Muggles and the Moral Imperative of the Magical World
The wizarding world finds itself again divided on an issue as deep and recurring as blood: what to do about the Muggles.
Sportsthings
There is something gladiatorial about watching two players march onto the court before a roaring, royalty-studded crowd and knowing that only one will prevail
The Golden Gabe Awards
Tina: Good evening, I’m Tina Fey…
Amy: …and I’m Amy Poehler.
Tina: Welcome everyone to the 26th annual Golden Gabe awards.
Loosening My Religion
As I opened my mouth, I realized I was about to put words to a trend I’d been observing in my faith life but that until this point had dozed cozily in my subconscious: “I don’t care as much as I used to, and I’m kind of fine with it.”
Naked and Deflated
What I do think I’m saying is that we all need time to wade into the scum of life, the crude wonder of being a breathing, embodied person. We need to strip down to just ourselves and swim out from there.
The Last Year of Youth
Deep down, I know that there’s no “getting it right.” The most tragic aspect of this segue from youth to adulthood is simply realizing you can’t choose everything.
A Gunnink’s Guide to Being the Best
We lazed like turtles on a sagging log, eating a mystery soup with our 3-in-1 backpacking cutlery, while Kara described her mother’s habit of reminding Kara and her siblings to “remember who you represent.” “She says that to us every time we leave the house. It’s kind...
No Speedo, No Service
There was, however, mingled comfort and horror in knowing that if I hadn’t packed it, a Speedo vending machine was available in the lobby.
