Mom Gave Teenage Me A Vibrator For Christmas In Front Of My Whole Family (Yes, It Happened To Me)
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Hello Girlies (in the Best Compliment Ever Obviously To All Genders And Ages sense),
Before I get into today’s news and featured It Happened To Me, I have a question for all subscribers (and thank you first for being one!): How often do you want me to email new stories to you? As you know, it’s just me here currently (though thank God for Charlie for helping me any time I ask and always making those opening images not look like the messy crap they would if I made them - and though our Ani[!] is returning today - and patiently waiting right now for me to post this so we can meet - to do some other great work around here, as you will see). So right now I am publishing about three original stories a week. I want to know if that volume seems right for what you have time to read and how frequently you care to have me showing up in your inbox, or whether you prefer fewer or more pieces than that.
When I started this thing, I was publishing an average of five stories a day. Here is one day’s line-up, for example:
A little ditty from my phone about doing publicity to launch this project.
This one from Vanessa about the men’s grooming section in Target, which still makes me laugh.
Cat Marnell’s piece on when we worked together at xoJane, for anyone who remembers that old publication.
Charlie’s genius - in both concept and execution - initial Fat Guy Fashion 101 installment (a recurring title he has had to alter to “Fat-ish Guy Fashion” after losing something like one-third of himself - and without GLP-1s! Speaking of which, I learned yesterday that another entire group of people I’m familiar with are all taking them - the prevalence of these things still surprises me.)
A piece from Christina Kelly. (Note that I have not launched any publications without Christina immediately contributing to them - I am almost superstitious about it at this point). It follows up on a story she wrote in Jane magazine on not wanting to have kids.
This review from Feminista of the first season of The Golden Bachelorette.
And then just one more from me, complaining about circumstances at my workplace that I am still complaining about a year later. I don’t mind being a squeaky wheel even if I never get any grease - maybe it will help future generations composing their futuristic Substack pages!
But that seemed like too too much material, even for die-hards (thank you, die-hards - I love you the most). So let me know what you think about the current pacing of about three per week and whether you want more AJPT or less.
There is also the option of none at all. Remember when I told you that I look at every new subscriber notice to see how they found us (royal us)? Well, I also get alerts for and look into every single Unsubscription. It is like a minor blow every time, and particularly awkward when it’s a family member or really close friend or someone who works here and gets it for free(?!?), but I understand it too and know all the reasons I cancel subscriptions myself. (I wonder if I am the only Substack publisher who has obnoxiously written to more than one cancelled subscriber to figure out why.) Anyway, if you could tell me in the comments (or all the other ways you can reach me - including my Substack DMs, IG DMs, Jane@AnotherJanePrattThing.com, etc.) whether you want More, Less or Keep The Schedule As Is, I can cater to that! Which is my job and a job that I love, so thank you for it!
Ok, after that long-winded intro I will finally long-windedly introduce today’s featured story.
A few months ago, Amanda sent me her book, showing me that there are references in it to Sassy magazine - on pages 170, 174, 181, 187 AND 215, but you can read the whole thing. (Here is a maybe interesting aside: I understand that Sassy works as a cultural touchstone in other manuscripts, movies, etc., because it was only around for a limited period of time from the late ‘80s to the mid-’90s {DO NOT count the anti-Sassy of 1994-1996, please]. But a maybe funny thing is, I remember saying to Christina Kelly one day during year one that more than keeping Sassy safely publishing for decades, I wanted people years later to say “Remember that radical magazine that was around at that time?” It's sort of wild that that turned out to be the case. Anyway.) I'm not saying that you have to send me a book (or write about Sassy) for me to publish a piece from you here on AJPT. But in Amanda’s case, that's how it happened and I do love books and I’m not saying NOT to send them. Though I generally only read non-fiction and excel at memoirs, I have been recently won over to reading some of your fiction books because you sweetly sent them. So thank you for all of them.
Anyway again, here is a story from Amanda …
It is very very different from the way I grew up in terms of my family’s openness about sex and I want to hear how you relate or don’t too in those comments that I love so much.
I love you!
–Jane
By Amanda Uhle
Christmas morning, 1995. I was 17 and the space under the bedazzled tree in our suburban Detroit house was stuffed with gifts for the four of us: Dad, Mom, my 13 year old brother and me. The gift count was unusually high. My mom had a longstanding problem with hoarding and compulsive shopping and this was her once-annual sanctioned excuse to go nuts; there were never fewer than twenty presents apiece. The gift-opening time was unusually late. My dad was a Lutheran pastor and we had to wait for him to finish the morning service and scurry home for the family fun to begin.
In classic Mom fashion some of the gifts were lavish, some were inexpensive, and a few were just odd. She seemed way more into volume than curation. “Sick!” my brother cried out when he opened a pack of Batman Forever trading cards. My dad high-fived him and put on his reading glasses for a closer look at his recently-opened jar of supermarket marinara sauce. (With Mom, you really never knew what you might find under the tree.)
“Open this one,” she nudged me and pointed to a mug-sized gift in an overly-cheerful looking Frosty the Snowman wrapping paper. As was our tradition, everyone in the family dropped whatever was in their lap and cast their eyes on me, the opener of the moment. I peeled back the blue and silver paper and saw the words, “Pleasure for her.” And then, “three settings for maximum stimulation.” And then I might have blacked out from mortification, as it became clear that Mom had given me a vibrator as a Christmas gift, in front of my father and teenage brother. I was a high school senior who’d never had a boyfriend.
