to be sorted later #14
in which we're leaning into spooky season this year in a v. specific way
Her eyes were wide open and dark with knowledge. “They laughed at me. Threw things. They’ve always laughed.”
— Carrie, by Stephen King
Teenagers are terrifying. I was reminded of this last week as I read Carrie for the first time, and upon finishing the book, I rewatched the movie for the first time since seeing it at a slumber party in the 7th grade.
Okay, first of all, I do not endorse a group of 12- and 13-year-old girls watching this movie. I thought I had remembered the opening locker room scene, but it was even worse than I thought! Good fucking grief, I haven’t been that uncomfortable since the first time I tried to use a tampon.
Of course I remembered the pig’s blood at the prom and the “dirty pillows” and the bullying in general, but I did not recall how perfectly Sissy Spacek captures every teenage emotion in her facial expressions alone: the confusion, the humiliation, the betrayal, the hope, the purity, the fury. I remember watching it at that slumber party, but I don’t know if I was more scared of Carrie or of the thought of being Carrie, of being someone who got laughed at and bullied.
I remember that same year a group of us girls watched Carrie, one of my classmates walked in on another girl in the bathroom stall as she was changing her tampon, and for whatever reason that led to a rumor being spread that she was — ahem — touching herself in the locker room bathroom.
It’s actually fucking insane to me that we’d do this to another girl, right as many of us were also using tampons and having a period for the first time. I would like to suggest that I have misremembered this entirely, and instead share a sweet anecdote about two 7th graders bonding over their shared experiences and then skipping to the next class together hand-in-hand. But I am telling you with 100% certainty that this rumor happened.
What I don’t remember was if I also spread that rumor, or if I only heard it, if I knew it was a stupid mean lie, or if I wondered if there was any truth to it. I don’t remember if I stood up for that girl. I don’t remember if I was kind, or if I was silent, or if I laughed when it was repeated, because at least I wasn’t Carrie, and at least they weren’t laughing at me.
That’s the most terrifying part of it all.
What else is spooking me this late in September, I wonder?
What I’m Sorting Through, Currently …
Getting Spooked by the Sephora-Tween Phenomenon
I recently read this story about kids watching adult makeup and skincare videos on TikTok and then “mimicking the camera-tuned luxury aesthetic of semi-professionals” using products bought, often by themselves, at Sephora.
I can’t stop thinking about it. I thought about it when I was watching Carrie. I thought about it the other night while completing my own skincare routine.
I’m not sure what frightens me more: the thought of “a preteen with braces” buying an $80 face serum at Sephora, or the fact that “in 2023, almost forty-four thousand people aged nineteen or under got Botox or filler from plastic surgeons.”
Perhaps I’m particularly fascinated by this as a grown woman who was once a teenage girl who was once a tween, but I’d recommend this article to everyone. For one, Jia Tolentino wrote it, and she never fails to deliver. For another, to stay on theme, this is absolutely terrifying:
“These days, children want to look like tweens, tweens want to look like teen-agers, teen-agers want to look like grown women, and grown women—dreaming of porelessness, wearing white socks and penny loafers and hair bows—evidently want to look like ten-year-old girls.”
— “What Tweens Get from Sephora and What They Get from Us,” Jia Tolentino, The New Yorker
Rewatching Buffy the Vampire Slayer!
Not all teenage memories are bad! One of my absolute favorite things to do as a teen was to hole up in my bedroom, watching my favorite shows on my teeny purple television: Moesha, Dawson’s Creek, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, to name a few. These were the shows that were just for me, not to watch with my brother or my parents, mostly because Jay made fun of them, and also because I loved my purple TV.
Yes, I know, I know, I still need to finish season 2 of Twin Peaks, but I wanted to hang out with some TV teens I knew a little better, and so Buffy it was. I’m now on season 2, and — spoiler alert — I’m pretty sure Buffy and her vampire boyfriend Angel are about to “do it.” In fact, I know they are! I’m one episode away! Why am I even writing this and not watching more Buffy?!
In case you don’t know, Angel is a “good” vampire, cursed with a soul and a conscience (but not enough of a conscience to stop him from dating and sleeping with a teenage girl when he’s, like, 240 years old????) and he is also David Boreanaz, and he is very, very hot.
My decades-long crush on David Boreanaz makes this bit from another favorite show of mine all the more hilarious:
We’ll see if I make it through all seven seasons. After all, I still have at least eight seasons of The X-Files to get through, and I need to finish Twin Peaks, and eventually finally get around to The Sopranos. You know, if I have time.
hahahahhaa, of course I have time! I am a childless, 40-year-old cat lady with a blog!
Have a great weekend. Watch something spooky, like a makeup tutorial!
Here’s a haunted little mix I made just for you:
And here’s a haunted little moodboard, featuring some of the spookiest shit on my camera roll, with a bonus (non-spooky) pic of teenage me, my lovely Auntie Deborah, and that beloved purple TV:
previously:
to be sorted later #13
You ever spend so much time writing one section of a blog post, then realize you didn’t write an introduction, and it’s now 11pm and you’ve also rewatched “Beetlejuice” tonight and your cat is snoring with his head directly next to…