Obsessing over the digital remains of Summer 2007
while crab-walking with a vase of roses
One of the tasks I look forward to most when writing this newsletter each month is combing the archives of glitter-graphics.com—a place that still captures the world wide web of yore, when I was customizing my cursors, stacking Internet Explorer spyware toolbars, and giving my family computer viruses it would never recover from. (*MSN Messenger wilted flower emoticon*)
While deep in the “summer” tag, I kept encountering familiar square vignettes of sunsets, flip flops, and footprints in the sand blinking at me like beacons, reminding me that I had lived the summer of 2007 through them by proxy.
I was fourteen that summer, too thick and grown for Abercrombie but aligning my online identity with their Epstein-approved polka dot bikinis anyway, cosplaying that this was a season of happy-go-lucky, California-girl good times, instead of the dysphoric one I dreaded—when my depression and body dysmorphia would be at an all-time high, made plain in the daylight.
Travelling through this glitter graphics time warp, Summer 2007 flashed in tiny white fonts over and over, along with melancholic sentiments in cursive like I wish summer would never end and Take me away to paradise. Why did so much hinge on that one summer, I wonder? Why did I feel it too, and build a fortress of Orange County opposites-attract TV romances, martinis in seasonal glassware, and college crewnecks, while I was having a horrid time? Was anyone making these graphics really having a summer like that? Or were they drinking Robitussin by the train tracks and waking up to vomit on their bedroom carpets?
We may never know, but nearly 20 years later, with Summer 2026 in full swing, I welcome the warmth and the nakedness without hiding, and the virtual realities I’m escaping into and obsessing over feel a lot less dysphorically shiny and one note—dare I say I’ve grown:
Now, speaking of Obsessing…
★ YOUR JULY PROMPT! ★
In the words of 50 Cent, I got the magic stick, which is slang for a miniature willow branch conceived by Curry Barker that grants you a single wish when you snap it in half.
So, what will you do with it?
Imagine a world where one wish can be granted. Once made, this wish cannot be reversed or repeated. Write a piece of flash fiction, horror, or a poem; paint, draw, sculpt, or storyboard the repercussions; compose a song (so long as it’s a departure from Ray J’s version).
I’ll go first:
Leviathan The lonely, sweaty, bad news-bearing girl said, I wish all the species that humankind made extinct came back, and had a place to live. *CRACK* A loud howling that only carbon, peat, and oxygen can claim. The squelch of tar; stench of bog. Thunder of bones unbreaking, branches at the window; houses turned to hickory sticks. Someone screaming out there? The air seizing as every tin and lithium mine valiantly do themselves in. Claw marks on kitchen laminate. A smart fridge drowned in seawater. The full-blooded ecstasy of total absolution; wet breath.
✶ MORE INSPO… ✶
WIKIPEDIA PAGE OF THE MONTH
You may have heard the song, but have you read the plot summary? I don’t know if I’ll ever recover from the choice to name the protagonist Tookie De La Crème. More lore: a Modelland “theme park” opened in a Santa Monica mall in 2022 (11 years after the publication date). Sadly, it’s closed now, but you can still virtually experience it thanks to this YouTube diva and her all-powerful ring light.
LEND ME YOUR EARS
I was recently at a hang where the person in charge of the aux was given the parameter: only play music from the year 1994. The queue contained banger after banger, including “Thuggish Ruggish Bone” by Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer”, and “Protection” by Massive Attack, which features Tracey Thorn from Everything but the Girl on vocals. Everything but the Girl’s Amplified Heart also came out in 1994—shout out the club mix of “Missing”, my entry point to a lifelong love of dance music. “Rollercoaster” is the first track on the album, perfect for piddling around (and cycling through?) the house to, and the reason why I fell in love with Tracey’s voice (and short-cropped pixie cuts).
ONE FROM THE CAMERA ROLL
The dust is now settling on the most marvellous pride weekend of my life. My haunches are sore from biking to and fro from parties and gigs, and my self-identity has never been so affirmed and so clear. For three days, myself and my community were in a symbiotic moving throng; kissing, hugging, giggling, yapping, tearing up (🥲), and tearing up (🕺) the dance floor. I now know just how much pleasure and joy we all derive from seeing each other feel free.
ONE FROM THE SCREENSHOT VAULT
When I’m homesick or want to feel a rush of nostalgia that hits like nicotine from an unregulated vape, I cruise down Google Maps as if I’m in a convertible. Most times I’m cruising down Memory Lane, it’s somewhere in Nova Scotia. I took this screenshot of the Victorian farmhouse in rural NS that once belonged to my grandparents on a particularly desolate day in the library during university. I didn’t remember the exact address, so I dropped myself at the nearby theme park where, as a kid, I rode the rickety wooden coaster and the merry-go-round horses my Grandpa carved in his workshop. I made my way down the Old Post Road and found the yellow house with the brown trim; recalled the claw foot tub, the seahorse skeleton set in glass, my Grandma’s white chemo turban, the curls of lettuce in the garden. Silent crying in the library—give it a try.
SOMETHING GOOD & NICE™
A recent compliment from a member of my extended family, several drinks deep and late into the night after cards: You’re like a manic pixie dream girl, but smart! And not annoying. Definitely manic, definitely pixie, definitely smart, definitely annoying… ( ◡̀_◡́)ᕤ ♡
A NOTES APP POEM
This one’s from a month-long trip I took to the UK in 2024. It was at a super transitional time in my life—I was looking for signs everywhere to help make decisions. A catbird had landed in a bird bath near me the night before I left, meow-squawking loudly, and the oracle of Google web results told me to release old patterns to make way for growth. I took it as gospel and was scared. This poem is from an afternoon sitting in a massive park in Hackney, entertaining the possibility (fallacy) of leaving all my identity and relationship problems behind by uprooting my whole life and starting completely over, while a group of kids played tug of war, roaring and giddy with their own strength.
A PARTING TRINKET
These hair clips belonged to a dearly departed friend of mine, who was tragically killed in a car accident in November of last year. I have tons of these clips, thanks to their best friend and roommate who kindly sorted the earthly objects that were left behind in the space they shared together. All the ornate silver clips I’ve stored in a coupe glass, and the bobby pins, elastics, and plain barettes are in a ziplock bag with their name (all lowercase) written on blue painter’s tape.
Since their death, I’ve gotten a commemorative tattoo, attended several community celebrations of life, including a frigid letter-burning ceremony under the Full Cold Supermoon, and cathartically danced for 18 hours straight with my friend’s partner immediately following the news. The right dance floor environment is an amazing place to process grief—I felt them in every drop of condensation that fell from the ceiling and landed on my head.
The loss is both fresh and distant now that it’s been over half a year. I have a photo of them next to my incense holder, which I see every day, but seeing them in a video recently, dancing front and centre at a DJ set of mine, made my heart stop and sink, and I find myself scared to listen back to the voice notes I have saved that I guard with my life—their voice is so unique, so full of youth and life, that it feels too powerful and finite for me to handle right now.
I cherish those snippets of them speaking and know I will revisit them when it feels right, but for now to feel close to them, I sometimes write their name in the shower steam (all lowercase, in a heart, like the tattoo on my forearm) or wear their hair clips on a night out. I wore them to a renegade forest rave last month, and laid on a tarp with the person that gifted them to me, who was also wearing something of theirs. We spoke candidly about our grief and let the sunlight through the canopy of maple trees do what words cannot.
Life’s a beach, and nothing is certain. Do what makes you feel alive this July. Catch you on the flip (flop)…! Same time, same place, on the first of August.
xx, Briana ♡
manic pixie dream bob 💗 love u
I love listening to your words. Reading? Nah 💞