Summertime and the Livin' Is Something

Plus I'm now in the Brat Pack?

This is going to be one of those kitchen sink-type of newsletters today where I just tell you a lot of things that maybe don’t all go together. Much like Larry King’s old newspaper column that was completely random. “Have you ever wondered why carrots are orange? Sometimes I weep at the barbershop!” But not quite that awful.

The reason why I’m a bit scattered is because it’s summer and summer always scrambles my brain a bit. It’s hot and unpleasant, everyone’s somewhere else, and we just survived my neighbor’s annual illegal fireworks palooza in our cul-de-sac. Last year the police showed up to the palooza, and my husband reported to them that he saw one of the feral teenage boys pee on our house. The kid denied it, of course, so my husband pointed to the religious cross on the kid’s necklace and said, “What would Jesus do? NOT PEE ON A HOUSE, THAT’S WHAT.”

Anyway, this year we stayed at a downtown hotel on the 4th.

Other summer highlights include my first ever scorpion sting and a colonoscopy. If I had to choose between them, I’d pick the scorpion sting because at least I could snack during my time of distress.

I did get out of town earlier in the month, and flew from Texas to Los Angeles where I went to two country music concerts with my friend Sandra. The first show was Chris Stapleton at the Hollywood Bowl, and it was great. We had perfect seats this time, after learning our lesson at Willie Nelson’s two-day 90th birthday concert in April of 2023 at the Bowl. At that one, we sat up top on the benches, not in the primo boxes in the front like my friend Molly. Throughout the show, she’d text me things like:

“It’s so lovely here. Everyone is sharing their nibbles and champagne and just enjoying the wonderful music!”

Then I would text her:

“Can’t see stage cause weed smoke clouds too big

wasted cowgirls fist fighting

If die before Willie sings May the Circle Be Unbroken, donate body to scie

OH SHIT A FRAT BRO JUST FELL DOWN THE STAIRS”

The Willie crowd in Austin is a lot more mellow, to say the least.

A couple of nights after Stapleton, Sandra took me to a Tim McGraw concert in LA. I have zero opinions on Tim McGraw, but she loves him so I was happy to be her plus one. Tim put on a good show, but I felt really out of place because thousands of people were screaming their heads off and singing along to songs I’ve never heard before in my life. And I live in Texas.

It didn’t help that everyone was wearing recently-purchased cowboy boots and I had on some super comfortable AllBirds and looked like a lost census taker. But when scrolling through my photos later, I saw that I wasn’t the only person there that felt a bit confused.

Why are there so many songs about farms? I thought I was going to see Slipknot.

The best thing I saw in LA besides a woman walk into a wall while texting was the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. It’s a must-visit for any movie fan, especially if you love The Godfather like I do. Props, scripts, sets, and even the fake horse head they used in rehearsal (they used a real one when they filmed). I loved it.

“I believe in America.”

But the biggest highlight of my summer so far is that I seem to be in a remake of Pretty In Pink. Well, not a remake exactly, but earlier this summer, we interviewed Andrew McCarthy for my It’s Pronounced Memwah podcast and discussed his smash Hulu documentary BRATS. Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

And then a couple weeks ago, I published PERI(MENOPAUSAL) IN PINK on

McSweeney's Internet Substackency

, where I updated the storyline to be Andie, Blane, and Duckie in their 50’s. They’re now doing things like:

Then Andie’s life changes when balding Blane McDonagh, pickleball team captain and Steff’s best friend, bumps into Andie at the gastroenterologist, where they’re both getting their annual colonoscopies.

“Listen, uh, do you want to go out on Friday?” he asks, nervous to talk to a middle-aged woman in public.

“Yeah, sure, assuming I don’t have any polyps,” Andie answers. She’s relieved her menopouch is flat thanks to having diarrhea for the last twenty-four hours.

And then the Duckman himself reposted it!

I had nothing to do with this photo.

Andrew + Jon = I think I’m in the Brat Pack now? All I’m missing is an invite from Molly to go thrifting for clothes we gave away in 1986. “Look, Molly! It’s my old stirrup pants from The Limited!”

Read the whole piece here and the other ones in my John Hughes trilogy Ferris Bueller’s Laid Off and Fifty Candles. (Which are also included in my book I’m Wearing Tunics Now.)

I also wrote a piece for Texas Monthly about grass. Not the kind that was prevalent at Willie’s concert, but the kind that we pay tons of money to keep green so we don’t get a nastygram from our HOA. It’s been trending on their site, mostly because people hate HOAs.

Hope your summer is going well, and if Instagram is any indication of what everyone’s doing, hope you’re enjoying Greece and/or a local lake.

Thanks for reading!

— Wendi

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