worth $110 million
new year's resolution is to act rich
hello loyal readers and friends!
if you’re in NYC I am teaching two creativity workshops in Jan/Feb in Bushwick! if interested please fill out this form
Adult Creativity Workshop led by Brooke Finegold at Cafe Ornithology
This workshop is aimed at getting in touch with your creativity and inner artist. In these three week courses we will be exploring your creativity through journaling prompts, poetry, collaging, crafting, drawing, inner child work, and community.
Section A: Sundays January 12, 19, and 26 2-4:30pm
Section B: Sundays February 9, 16, and 23 2-4:30pm
Cost: $115-185
i am currently on my flight back to NYC sitting next to an old high school classmate of mine. i ran into his family walking the ICONIC lafayette reservoir the day after christmas, or as my brother calls it “the superbowl for almond moms”, and here i am, on the flight next to him.
he tells me his mom loved that i referred to him and his family as “legends” and “how nice it is, to call us legends”. we used to go to the same church. he was a football player and i was a cheerleader, can i make it anymore obvious? within the first few minutes of sitting down i’d already pulled up his entire birth chart (aries, libra, capricorn). we discussed what our involvement was with the church still. i told him i didn’t go after coming out which he said was “valid” and said it “must be hard to be gay… obviously”. but in this day and age, it is refreshing to hear someone validate that it’s hard— cause it is! it’s gotten a lot better #itgetsbetter, but still. i was talking with my friend ryan at the Harvey Milk terminal at SFO (my happy place), and we were joking how for straight people, there’s plenty of fish in the sea. but for gay people …. it’s more like a lake. and some years it doesn’t rain… so it’s more like a puddle. and there aren’t that many fish (that you haven’t already fucked, or share an ex with).
in our shared exit row, we both admit to reading in public to impress girls. he is reading a book called “guns, germs, and steel” and i am reading “girl, interrupted”
i tell him, “the two genders”, holding the two next to each other, he laughs.
we come up with a dating show idea, where i sit aisle and he sits window and a bisexual girl sits middle seat and we have to fight over her.
i was watching a tiktok this morning of a lesbian’s “year in dating recap” which included 22 girls, 5 of them being “straight”. i thought about making one but it would be sooooo sad.
i had a friend tell me she went on 30 first dates before meeting her girlfriend and told me she’d been keeping track of all of them in a note in her phone with the format:
name - how they met - how many dates - where - outcome
it inspired me to also put in the work. i have been keeping a list in my phone of every date i have been on since being single (january of last year)
pretty much all of them look like
hannah - hinge - 1 date at singer’s - mutual ghost
i really need to get laid soon. my last night sleeping at my dad’s house for christmas i was having sesbian lex dreams all night. i had a dream i hooked up with my tiktok crush in her black jeep wrangler that had been turned into a hot tub. how am i single? my imagination is so sexy. i also dreamt one of my best friends confessed her love for me and we started to date. then i dreamt i hooked up with my cousin, who is a gay guy and a full grown adult my mom’s age. in my dream i was like “damn, those southern roots run deep. even if i’m gay— i’m still fucking my cousin!” a gay guy and a lesbian having sex is the gayest thing i can think of honestly. that’s my new fav sexual taboo.
my aisle mate on the flight is knee deep into highlighting guns, germs and steel and i am, as usual, listening to fleet foxes and working on my little writing. he told me that he goes to a church in manhattan where there are “lots of cute girls”, and i nudge him and say “wife material!”. we wonder who will get married next. my dad asked me and my siblings out of the 3 of us unmarried who will be next. i sit there with my siblings and laugh. we have no idea. my brother jake, is 24 and has never had a serious girlfriend, i’m almost 27 and also have never had a serious girlfriend, and my little sibling enzo is 20, never been in a relationship. hmm i wonder if my parents have had an impact on that at all. oh well! at least they have one kid on the normal love and life track. really takes the heat off us.
while home we were always trying to decide on a “Family Movie” which on christmas eve we decided was Borat. we attempted to watch Borat 2 a couple days later and were all sorely disappointed.
it was dad christmas, which is to say, the dishes were left over night ever night and everything’s stuff was getting lost left and right. we were also having a lot of “dad dinners” which is like a girl dinner but the divorced dad version where he doesn’t really have cohesive meals so you eat a cold steak, blueberries and half a red onion for dinner. my dad has 3 bathrooms in his house and only one has hand soap. and the whole house was sharing one tube of toothpaste. #dadchristmas
we called my mom on christmas and she was like: “it’s christmas and you didn’t go to church AND you watched borat?!!” say what you will about dad christmas… it’s chill. pajamas all week, no sunday’s best. i do feel sick from only eating meat for a week but i definitely relaxed.
mom christmas is more structured, more stable. like on christmas eve my dad turned to me and said “did you want anything for christmas?” he hadn’t gotten gifts for anyone. he said “what— it’s not like you got me anything!?” but i had. i wrote him a poem and framed it, and got him a cook book and a cook book stand from Williams-Sonoma ($50!!!!!!) i was cute as fuck this year. i am broke and adorable so everyone got a poem. i will put them at the end of the newsletter as my poemme section :)
it’s hard to split time with family for the holidays, but it’s so much better than watching your parents fight over the movie Elf. if you’re reading this and your family is dysfunctional— what’s it like being so damn sexy? lmk in the comments!
i bought girl, interrupted at the airport because i was too early to my flight. i’m always late everywhere because if i’m too early i’ll buy shit i dont need ($23 book, $15 hand lotion)
i literally cannot imagine what the “steel” part is of this book my friend is reading. like industrial revolution vibes? i think it’s so interesting that men love to read about history so much. maybe they’re going back to a better time, before women’s suffrage, before CEOs were being sent to the guillotine.
i spent the first couple hours of the flight writing my questions for Gaydar— my new-ish gig. which if you haven’t checked it out— please do! i’m so proud of it : ) i write all the questions and book all the guests. i love my job! please hire me to do more stuff like this!
I write interview questions about gay policy, media and culture and my research is always lots of fun.
i was on this crazy gay trivia website and found some insane questions.
i think the ads added a lot to the experience. also not “this canadian beauty”… the outdated deadnaming of elliot page was crazy. also some of the gay history questions are DEEP CUTS! hmmm what was someone in the 1600s punishment for being gay? having to watch the big bang theory? like no girl, death…
it’s such a fine line writing for a gay trivia show and having it not be sooo deeply depressing. we have to have a little fun, but also remember, we are on the run…
i love to go home to the bay area and remember the roots of my homosexuality, or as my feeld says “homoflexibility”.
i’ve said it a million times, but one of my favorite books of all time is “when we rise” by cleve jones, one of harvey milk’s mentees and the famous gay activist. it’s his memoir which tells the story of his life living through some iconique gay history. he was an activist in the gay liberation movement in SF, helped Harvey Milk get elected, led tons of protests and survived the AIDS epidemic and went on to create the AIDS memorial quilt — which now weighs over 54 tons. It has over 50,000 grave-sized quilts each representing someone who died of AIDS, including Freddie Mercury and Eazy-E. Read more about it here
This book was my first real entry into understanding the queer history in SF and just in general— it’s also an incredible read and i demolished it. I highly recommend!
Also, I’ve been doing some research on my late cousin Jay who died of AIDS in the early 2000s and tried to find his name on the online AIDS quilt database. no dice, but you may be able to find a relative or loved one on the digital quilt. you can search it here
one of the “family movie nights”, my dad recommended we watched one of his favorite movies, Basic Instinct, which I had never heard of, but as soon as my dad said there were lesbians in it i clicked WATCH faster than you can say “dyke!”
there were a lot of sex scenes, more than i perhaps wanted to watch next to my dad, but we both can agree than sharon stone in this movie is insanely hot. it follows a homicide detective who takes sharon stone (hot rich author worth $110 million after inheriting it from her family), who has a hot girlfriend named ROXY (hell yeah) then shenanagins ensue as they say….
my dad and i, like classic californians, spent a majority of the movie analyzing how insane it was that the detective kept driving from stinson beach to san francisco so casually. my dad said “you know it looks more like they’re in carmel than stinson” we looked it up and he was right. it was carmel.
it was sharon stone’s breakout role according to my dad, which shocked and impressed me because she is so self-assured and bad ass. in the scene where the detective comes to her house to question her about the murder of her boyfriend this is the interaction:
not to mention she looks like this:
sharon stone delivers an incredible performance. her character takes no shit from anyone, while she is being questioned in the police station she opens her legs to show her actual pussy (no underwear) in what i am told is an *iconic* scene by my father, of course sitting right next to me. she is such a stone cold bad ass and she walks around acting, dressing, and owning the $110 million dollars she is worth. i have taken my fair share of shit from other people and after watching basic instinct on a drizzly december evening in california i decided i too, was going to act like i was worth $110 million dollars. what’s the worst that could happen? i actually become worth $110 million dollars?
my aisle mate has now informed me that his older half sister is a lesbian who is so charismatic she’s never paid rent— she just meets a high paying girlfriend who takes her in #goals. but like my dad’s friend claudia says— i need to get my “fuck you money”, take care of myself, make sure my own shit is sorted, then i can find a wife, and as my aisle mate tells me, “always get the pre-nup”.
christmas poems :)
I also will be writing one poem/prompt for each day in 2025 on my Poetry is Gay Substack for my subscribers! check it out here: poetryisgay.substack.com
sneak peak here:
prompt: write about your NYE
and just like that
the rain washed away
what was left of 2024
we are laughing in the subaru
lightning almost strikes me dead in my tutu
i'm too early to the party
my bangs dead, drenched on my face
i open the medicine cabinet
i brush my hair
i fix my lip
i irish exit
the white boys are moshing
at coyote club
there’s a woman passing around
kazoos and glitter bowler hats
i find my muse by the pinball machine
we count down on the outskirts
as if tomorrow is an after thought
all we have is now
now
now
we’re kissing
you tell me
you love how i take up space
as i lead you through the crowd,
tutu as a forcefield
hope everyone is off to an incredible 2025! i love you all <3333
xxooxx,
brooke