Your Top 5
Let's do this a bit differently
Today was the first day I felt like I actually had space for genuflection. I opened up the new planner, diligently put in dates and vacations and book deadlines and colonoscopies (okay just one) for the new year, and realized I had a lot to do….and a lot to look forward to. But that I’d also done a lot, too. Played a lot, grieved a lot, written a lot, gardened a lot, ran a lot, shared a lot.
I’m finally finishing the Trans Santa gifts (it takes a lot of time to donate the $17,000+ we raised when Amazon insists you can only do one big gift order a day without setting off its fraud detector) and it’s hard to describe what it feels like to give with such freedom and abundance. I purposefully don’t read the stories that come with the gift registries, not because I don’t care, but because I don’t want any understandings of “worthiness” to kick in.
I simply look for big ticket items that are unlikely to be filled, and then I throw in a bunch of other stuff on their lists. In this way, we’ve bought “practical” stuff (mobility scooters, bassinets, e-bikes, computers, beds, dressers, lots and lots and lots of chest binders and other gender affirming basics, like boxers) AND so much fun and playful stuff (video games, crafting tools, books, e-bikes, wigs, posters). I know I’m the one doing the selection process, but I hope you can share in this feeling of giving with absolutely no strings attached — giving simply because these trans kids and young adults deserve the basics and the joy.
I’ll be posting all of my receipts (truly an accounting quagmire, but it’s worth it) soon for transparency, but in the meantime, I thought we could do something that mixes the practical and the playful as we look back at the year that was.
So tell us: What were your top five of……basically anything???
There’s the basics (top five books, top five television shows, top five movies, top five songs) and those are great but also follow the Culture Study ethos and think expansively. For instance, you could tell us about your:
Top Five Naps
Top Five Ridiculous Impulse Purchases
Top Five Walks/Hikes/Runs/Bike Rides
Top Five Dogs-You-Spent-Time-With
Top Five New-to-You Recipes
Top Five Meats
Top Five Pieces of Fresh Fruit
Top Five Drives
Top Five Unintentional Reality Binges
Top Five Socks
Top Five Familial Arguments
Top Five Spam Text Messages
Top Five Surprisingly Good TikTok Accounts
Top Five Indoor Plants
Top Five Unexpected Uses for [INSERT ITEM HERE]
Top Five Annoying Tasks You Finally Crossed Off Your To-Do List
Top Five Culture Study pieces/threads (LOL BUT ALSO THAT’S FUN!)
Top Five Top 40 Songs
Top Five Email Subject Lines That Prompted You To Immediately Unsubscribe
Top Five Very Small Things That Other People Did that Somehow Made Your Life Immeasurably Better
Top Five Gently Romantic Gestures
Top Five Ornaments on Your Tree
Top Five Precious Things Currently In Your Line of Sight
There are no real rules here — you can do a Top 3, you can do several Top 5s, you can expand the prompt in whatever ways come to mind. Personally I’m gonna go for one “traditional” media style and one weirdo, but you do you, which is to say: please be weird, esoteric, and thoughtful. If you’re a subscriber here, you know how this goes: these comments sections are valuable because we’re committed to 1) actually being in dialogue and 2) not being points-scoring performatively aggressive un-empathetic butts. This feels like the perfect New Year’s Eve conversation. I can’t wait to hear it.