The Post Grad Gazette—Oct 1, 2023

OCTOBER 1, 2023

Hear ye! Hear ye!

Welcome Lords and Ladies (shoutout to any wenches reading) to the October issue of the Post Grad Gazette. This month, we turn our attention to the event to end all events: the Renaissance Faire. Huzzah!

Call it what you want: spooky season, the start of fall, the tragic upcoming end of Libra season, but October is upon all of us in the Post Grad Kingdom. October Represents a beautiful time of escape. This might be literal, through costumes and masks, or more intagibly, represented by the seasonal changes and promises of golden leaves and long sleeves (and less swamp ass).

Grant us the honor of taking ye, dear reader, through our own escape to the Renaissance period. Get your corsets ready as we explore our upcoming newest post grad fixation and upcoming trip: the Ren Faire. October is the Post Grad Gazette’s month of making new traditions. But it’s also a time for planning Halloween costumes and wondering what Halloween means without college parties and multiple days of parties. It’s for new Taylor Swift releases and wondering how it’s possible that we were tens years younger the first time we heard 1989. It’s for moving out and moving in and moving on. For welcoming in a whole new season: of weather, of events, of growing up. It’s for hot takes and hot tea and wondering if getting excited for fall Starbucks drinks is campy and subversive, or still tragically millennial.

So, hop on the ole’ horse and carriage with us and step into an issue with heart, humor, and giant turkey legs. Fare thee well!

— Rachel Loring

MACY KISSEL, EDITOR

Illustrations & Layout

“Fit for the Faire”

KATIE FRAILER

Katie’s Book Nook

SAVI CALDERON

“10 Things You Don’t Expect When Getting A Colonoscopy at 23”

LIZZY ZARRELLO Cover

SHITS & GIGGLES

FIVE ALTERNATIVE USES FOR YOUR REN

FAIRE TURKEY LEG

(NOT SEXUAL)

by Rachel Loring

ONE. To show chickens, thus giving them body dysmorphia

Give them something to work towards.

RACHEL LORING, EDITOR

Letter from the Editor

“Five Alternative Uses for your Ren Faire Turkey Leg” “An Ode to the Post Grad Apartment”

Crossword

JOSEPH FARRUGIA

“In Regard to Friendship”

SOPHIA VILLIERS

Meet the Artist: Crochet for Dinner

FOUR. Biodegradable Hammer

Perfect for hanging some pictures and then fertilizing your garden (in this scenario you have a garden.) Cottage core for the win.

TWO. As a fourth leg for your broken mid-century modern coffee table

The perfect height for that low to the ground thrifted table you said you’d fix up and never did.

FIVE. To reuse for your caveman Halloween costume

No more fast fashion! Take that bone and glue it to a headband and bam (bam?) it’s Flintstone time.

THREE. A month of midnight

snacks

Meal prep, if you may. Just keep on your nightstand and take a couple nibbles per day. Girl dinner who?

….fine stick it up your hole, see if I care (no image available.)

to see them , first, as human?”

KATIE’S BOOK NOOK MAD HONEY

by Katie Frailer

Told through the eyes of Olivia and Lily, the reader is brought along through varying perspectives and timelines as Asher is portrayed, in one moment, as a sweet natured boy in love, and the next, as a golden boy who might have something more sinister lurking beneath the surface. Asher’s character is both confirmed and questioned by the two women closest to him, who are navigating their own truths and trying to figure out which pieces of their history they want to stay in the past, and what they have no choice but to confront.

ful and real. Vibes are a mash up of a crime podcast and the Barbie movie told by a badass divorcee and an impressive young girl, which made for a timely and well told story that is a must read this spooky season.

Who I think will Yum this book? All of you reading this

Who I think will Yuck this book? Trump Supporters

The story that officially took my Jodi Picoult virginity, and left me begging for more

ad Honey” follows Olivia (shoutout to Liv), a beekeeper and single mother to her 18-year-old son, Asher. The two moved to Adams, New Hampshire when Asher was six and built a home in the small New England town. Flash forward 12 years, and Asher meets Lily, a seemingly shy but incredibly smart girl who’s new to town, and hits it off with her immediately. They enter into a relationship that is quintessential young love: epic, dramatic, and tumultuous. That is, until Lily is found dead and Asher is the only suspect (enter legal drama.)

“How similar does someone have to be to you before you remember

“There is no set of rules that dictates what you owe someone you love. What parts of your past should be disclosed?”

I went into this book expecting a middle-aged lady drama about a small town (probably my fault for not reading the book’s description beforehand) but what I got was an unexpectedly poignant and thought-provoking story about what it means to exist in the world and the things we choose to share with it.

“People always talk about how their love for you is unconditional. Then you reveal your most private self to them, and you find out how many conditions there are in unconditional love”

Wild Honey had shocking courtroom moments and complex characters while talking about trauma in a way that felt respect-

HONORABLE BOOK MENTIONS OF THE MONTH (WITH NO CONTEXT)

FOURTH WING

REBECCA YAROS, 2023

OCEAN

ON EARTH WE WERE BRIEFLY GORGEOUS

JODI PICOULT AND JENNIFER FINNEY BOYLAND, 2022

VUONG, 2019

Combination of Harry Potter and Divergent, but with spice and dragons.

A son’s letter to his immigrant mother who can’t read. Very prosey.

IN REGARD TO FRIENDSHIP

by Joseph Farrugia

’ve noticed over the years that good friendship is a harder luxury to find than an Hermés below retail in a somewhat acceptable condition and color that won’t clash with the entirety of your closet. People are less phony and fleeting, or few are of quality. Whether it be that they are at their limit on the people they’re willing to invest in, or if they just don’t care enough to invest what it takes to build a solid foundation, who knows? But still, there’s something to be said about the effort of attending a gathering with a bottle of wine in hand (candles, candies, or a French pastry are acceptable substitutes if your Bushwick friend is recently sober-curious after weaning off their anti-depressant). There’s a certain je ne sais quois about genuine human connection and deep, ardent friendship.

The arts of etiquette and halfway decent friendship are on death’s doorstep…or stoop. Consequences dire? We’re as sure of this as the effects of elf bars on our lungs. We know we should make a change, but what if we’re

just okay with what we’re doing, regardless of the consequences?

I’ve been lucky to find a gaggle of women who are fantastic friends. Acceptance, truth, trust – the whole nine yards within these women. That being said, I’ve spent years sifting through countless people who could genuinely care less if I dropped dead the next morning, as long as they had their weekend plans filled and an Uber they’d forget to pay back for. I once thought this was an epidemic somehow tangential to the state of Florida on account of its blistering heat. I’m now petrified it’s closer to a pandemic for people of my generation, which is something we know about all too well. My mother raised me on three strict principles: never cancel on plans you made even if Jesus himself invited you to his birthday party, always bring a gift when invited to someone’s home for a meal or a gathering that’s longer than a stop-in, and always be the friend you expect and want to have. Has social media hardened us to small acts of kindness? Has it forbidden us

from crossing the threshold of platonic love, or just simplified us to surface-level interaction with those we call “friends” who truly should be categorized under the label of “acquaintance”?

This may be a stupid rant on something absolutely insignificant to the average person. Maybe people don’t need friends anymore in an era where you can find three friends with nine swipes and multiple clicks on a keyboard. Perhaps we’ve gotten so used to impersonality during our quarantine incubation periods that we’ve self-fulfilled a Darwinian adaptation of surviving without one another. I might have just consumed too much media of the late 90’s and early aughts when friendship was solid and impromptu. I just really wish people still showed up unannounced to my door with some Chinese takeout in tow.

But, I go back to that “bridal party” of girlfriends I have. Each one not only embraces me, but emphasizes a different facet of mine. I am a multitude of people with each of these great women. I worry that this feeling, one day, will become a rarity. Such love is so fulfilling and I hope the world can feel the way I do sitting on the couch in my boxers complaining about my day with one of these women. It feels the most like “home” I’ve ever felt. I pray there will be a renaissance of platonic love and an uptick in its importance.

As I start to pack up the past year of my life, my first year spent without the protective identity of “student” to lean on, I find myself reflecting on the person I have been during it. I think of the girl who moved into her first real apartment a year ago, a girl who was a blur of jitters and hopes, a sort of vague, person-shaped thing made out of wanting.

I think about the things I wanted then and how far away most of it feels now. How badly I wanted to love everything. How I just wanted to know: that things were going to be okay, that I made the right decisions, that there was more to come. And above all else, I just wanted a place that was mine, carved out by hand, hidden from the real world where you need to have plans for the future and make hard choices and feel capable. All. The. Time.

That place became my apartment. It’s the first apartment that has my bank account linked

AN ODE TO THE POST GRAD APARTMENT

by Rachel Loring

to the automatic rent payments that are, of course, far too much. The first apartment where the couch is mine, not just because I paid for it, but because I was the one who hauled it upstairs and I was the one who spent two weeks cleaning the cigarette smell out of the cushions. The couch that I had weekend living room sleepovers on and kind of made me itchy because I think I’m allergic to the chemicals I used to clean it. It’s the first apartment that I bought rugs for, rugs that I then returned and bought all over again. My apartment with my books filling up three bookshelves and an overflow pile on the floor. My apartment with my Ikea table that essentially became a surface for collecting receipts, but they were my receipts and that matters.

I think there’s a small magic in a closet full of your own clothes, a sink filled with dishes you dirtied, and mirrors that have held your face, a whole year of your face in all its iterations, hang-

ing on the walls. It’s the magic of recognition. The magic of specificity. The magic of being in a place so much that your soul just sort of leaks out onto everything.

My apartment has watched me figure out who I am as I settle into the real world. It has mourned the losses of houseplant after houseplant with me. It has held me when there was no one else to, cocooning me in the moments of post-grad loneliness where the “one-bedroom” part of a one-bedroom apartment felt like a cruel confirmation and not a declaration of independence.

I love it. I will miss 4206. It has become my home. I love my long living room window. I love my built-in sconces on the walls. I love my kitchen, which is practically a closet. I love that my room is big enough to fit my grandma’s old vanity, the one that she sat at when she was twenty-two and dreaming up her own life. I love how when I sit in front of it, I can feel her behind my shoulder telling me I look pretty as I put on dark lipstick and big earrings, and telling me I look stupid as I cry about boys and jobs and cramps (and, at times, all three).

There’s something tragic about renting. We clog the drains with our hair and our DNA and our dreams when we know we are only guests, when we know our lease will inevitably end. We still call it ours, even when we know it is not. And isn’t that beautiful? To make something

despite knowing that it will end.

We are always starting over, especially in this gray, post-grad space. We are always putting up the gallery wall knowing that each nail hole is a chip off the ole’ security deposit. And we put it up anyway. And then we take it down, we seal the holes, we roll up the rugs and sweep the floors. We say we’re going to clean the baseboards, but let’s be honest, who actually does that. We take our entire life, our entire last year of smiles and tears and growing pains and business casual and ten-minute meals and revelations and therapy words and hopes and job applications and beaded curtains and midnight bowls of cereal and we put it into boxes. And then we say goodbye and then we do it all again.

And I hope that we still leave something there, in the old places we called home. I don’t know what I’ll leave at 4206 (besides dried contact lenses and discarded zit stickers). I hope I can leave my twenty-three year old doubts behind. I hope I close the version of myself I am right now and walk out the door knowing I am a much fuller person than the one who walked in. But I also hope I can leave behind some sliver of my shadow, some imprint of hope, so that someone else will step into it and know that I was there. That, sure, I dreamed there and cried there and felt there, but also that I just lived there. And that was enough.

CROCHET FOR DINNER

by Sophia Villiers C

rochet for Dinner? What is that, some kind of punishment MeeMaw threatens if you don’t do your chores? The opposite, actually. It’s the revolution of granny-hobbies. The modernization of the classics. A step beyond the road that has been walked by countless before. A renaissance , if you will.

Meet Sophia, creator of Crochet for Dinner, a fiberart brand that takes a tradition ally frumpy-sound ing method of clothes making and turns it into something cute, modern, and for the girls (gender-neutrally, of course).

“I’ve been an artist all my life,” Sophia says. “I have spent quali-

ty time with lead and charcoal, then went on to passionately painting canvases, and finally landed on looping yarn over hooks day after day. I can’t seem to get tired of it, as I eventually do with all my other hobbies. I just love the freedom this medium gives me to make whatever I want.”

Sophia taught herself to crochet just before the start of 2023, and since has made tens of shoulder shrugs, a few bikinis, an arm-full of bags (coming soon), a couple of hats, a wedding set for an old friend, and most recently, is spending her time making warmer-wear for the coming fall season.

Stay up to date with Sophia on Instagram @ crochetfordinner

FIT FOR THE FAIRE

by Macy Kissel

Would ye be a grand lord or lady? Those who could afford it wore a rich range of colourful silks, velvets, taffetas, tapestry, and fine wools. The gentry were not outfit repeaters, often throwing out dresses after one use. In fact, the aristocracy may have been the first fast-fashion influencers. Since there were no Urban Outfitters in the 15th century, many of the fabrics were plain and in one colour. This lead to accessorizing becoming the name of the game, prompting beautiful embroidery, applique, quilting, braiding, button work, and lace that added texture and detail to the many outfits. Under Elizabethan law, every person over the age of 13 was required to wear a hat in public; they were a sign of high class and rank.

What should thine wear to a festival of renaissance? First ye need to decide where ye belong in the social order.

young unmarried girls to wear flower garlands in their hair.

Good ‘morror to ye, good squire or dame! The Renaissance Era’s middle class was made out of merchants and tradesmen who rose high in skill and therefore had a bit more money to spend than the common folk. Their dressing textures were a mix of their surrounding classes.

Headware in this class was more of wrapped headcloths, small caps, and woven headbands. On festival days, it was common for

Greetings, patient herdsman and sulty milkmaid. Many a peasant did not have the money to afford to stay with the trends and often wore clothes passed down century after century. It was difficult to distinguish the country folk from the 1400s and 1500s, as their dressings are exactly the same. Clothing materials included hand woven wools, linens, cottons, and leathers. Dyes came from natural materials like vegetables, flowers, and minerals. Feathers were a great touch to any hat. The lower class wore plain feathers such as goose, duck, chicken, or grouse. Pheasants were considered a delicacy and any commoner caught wearing one would be labeled a ‘poacher’ and could be put to death. So much for yankee doodle.

We invite thee to peruse our fine selection of Renaissance clothing fit for any Queen, merchant, or lowly peasant. Fare thee well; we must away!

THINGS YOU DON’T EXPECT WHEN GETTING A COLONOSCOPY AT 23

bySaviCalderon

ONE. Getting a colonosco py at 23; I feel like this should be self explanatory.

TWO. Surprisingly, not being starving at the end of the whole procedure; not being hungry after not eating for 24 hours makes you question yourself.

THREE. Getting an IV and crying like a five year old; absolutely had no reason to be crying and freaking out over an IV, but totally did.

FOUR. Waking up “wet” because of the lube and thinking you peed yourself; sorry I did not mentally prepare myself for being covered in LUBE. Who was gonna tell me about that part?

FIVE. The prep being the worst part of it; chasing the laxative mix with white grape juice was my biggest mistake.

SIX. Waking up from the anesthesia and understanding why people get high for funsies; lowkey made me want to take an edible or something before bedsies.

SEVEN. Craving McDonald’s after the procedure; McDonald’s is not typically on the menu for me but I NEEDED fries and ranch to a biblical degree.

EIGHT. How good chicken and veggie broth actually taste; like why am I going to eat this as a snack now?

NINE. Sending all your friends pictures of your colon without thinking about how it’s kind of gross; at the moment it seemed funny and quirky, but after I felt guilty for subjecting my friends to the image that is my internal hemorrhoids.

TEN. The doctor calling my fiance a cheap ass because I didn’t want to pay for the unnecessary, not-insurance covered, IV for “recovery;” kind of misogynistic of my doctor to assume Andrew was funding my procedure. Also could tell my doctor was really money hungry– SORRY!

THE CRITICS

a column of recommendations

MOVIES: American Hustle

The Batman Trilogy (Christian Bale Version)

MUSIC: 1989 TV (when it comes out, duh)

Jungle (Artist)

SHOWS:

Grey’s Anatomy (Rewatch)

AHS Delicate Gilmore Girls (OFC)

LITERATURE: The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides

Luster by Raven Leilani

Anything written by Sandra Cisnernos

Big Swiss by Jen Beagin

GENERAL CONSENSUS:

Crafting after work

Publix meal prep

Quitting your job

Tarot Readings

Binge Reading

Job Interviews

Libra SZN

PUZZLES & GAMES DEPT.

THE CROSSWORD

5 What Swift’s fella over there has

6 Feud, in Swiftian

8 You, in ren speak

9

12

13

15

17

19

21

Enjoy

BY RACHEL LORING

1 Son of a _____!

2 Macy and Joey’s good side

3 Surname for 19 down

4 Great smile?

5 Divorce lawyer’s nightmare client

7 Not DiCaprio

11 Remus Lupin

14 Left on read in October

16 Alternative to trick

18 17 across; Abbr.

20 Fall, in fall

A lightly challenging puzzle. SCAN

You either love it or you hate it

Its cheekbones are carved out

Activity for men with huge rods?

Please, in ren speak

Starbies Szn

Ren era astronomy Daddy

Honey beer