Obligitory Title

https://youtu.be/9OSVeMVJDIk?t=65 this is Ride Smart It's Time To Start, the one I was shown repeatedly in school. link should skip to relevant content

WHAT

a city bike is like this, the handlebars are higher than the seat so you can sit straight up and bike casually, as opposed to a racing bike where they’re level so you’re bent over so you get less wind resistance.

you just. sit on it. and bike through the city. when a Dutch person says “bike” they’re referring to a city bike 99% of the time

like, what other song can make that claim?

The crowd cheering after the first stanza when they realize what they’re all doing

So many people audibly ‘doing the guitar parts’… like ya do

The sheer number of voices joining the rediculous falsetto (thanks, Roger)

How they all start jumping at the ramp-up “so you think you can stomp me”

There’s good reason why, nearly fifty years after the height of their career, Queen is still considered one of the best bands of all time ever.

Okay. You’re back? Welcome back. Unless you’re a trained singer, you probably can’t do it. There are too many long notes, too many key changes, and too many places where–if you’re singing all the parts–you’re just up and down the scale too damned fast. I’m saying this as a trained singer and I can’t do it. I always crack on “magnifico” and “leave me to die,” and I have a pretty decent range, but I know I sound ugly as hell on that final coda.

Okay. Now that we’ve established that, I want to talk a little about singing as a chorus. One of the things a lot of people learned during the pandemic is how hard it is to take twenty people, all in different places, and stitch them together to make a single coherent song with perfect pitch and timing. You’re all practicing on slightly your own tempo, slightly your own key, even if you’re all working from the same base track. (You can see this in a lot of the Wellerman compilations from Tiktok, where someone always says “Soon” a moment before everyone else on “soon may the Wellerman come.”) When you have a chorus comprised of many smaller choruses that are all traveling to be together, this is what dress rehearsal is for–to get all of you onto the same tempo so you’re starting and finishing at exactly the same time. This is a thing that normally only happens after at least several days of practice, and it is an important skill that must be taught. You’re not just born knowing how to do this.

I do not know how many people at that Green Day concert were trained singers. But I do know there is no way in hell all few thousand of them were a single group–they showed up a few at a time, maybe even flying solo for the night. Now go and listen to the video again. Listen to the ends of verses and the pickups. They’re fucking crisp as hell. Everyone is starting and ending at the same place. Not even a single note off. (And yes, you can hear when it’s a single note off, even in a crowd that big. A handful of people would be enough to throw it off.) And while a few in the crowd may be off-key, so many more are on-key that the cumulative effect is of the song being on-key. This isn’t even the band they’re there to see.

They don’t just know this song, this technically-difficult song, this long and complex song by a completely different band. They know it perfectly. They know it down to the fucking note. They know it so well that they did it in perfect synchrony, without a single chance to practice.

When it comes to dirty looks, it's more along the lines of how much power do they have beyond giving dirty looks. Like if I'm at a thrift store with a lot of conservative people filling the jobs then I'm less likely going to be able to shop there for clothing. If I'm at a thrift store where the people are happy to have people shop & pay the money to get to the charity then I have less trouble. I can't get specific about stores since each one is different, from the neighborhood/region, from the employees, from how the pricing interacts with inclusion/exclusion.

Before you go, you'll want to do measurements at home, with one of those tape measurers that are used for fittings. This will then inform which part of the women's section you'll use, which in turn cuts down on the amount of time you search the racks.

Trying on clothes that don't fit tend to get more dirty looks, but not just because of the gender/sex designation but because of worries about the clothing getting damaged etc. Like, when cis people look at clothes that don't fit them they too get dirty looks (granted, transphobia will compound that, but still.)

You also need to figure out your bra size. This is because the tailoring for women's clothing is done to accomodate breasts. I don't know whether you're buying bras this time, but it helps with the other clothes. I don't know where people buy bras in your locale, but in my area that's not at thrift stores.

Since you'll have your mom with you, I would have her help you outside the dressing room, either with the handing of clothes over the fitting room door or else as a sort of escort to help you & the store figure out where you need to be (some stores do gender segregation, others don't, etc).

Good Luck, Peace & Love,