I had just spent an hour in his car in the alley behind my apartment. We were breaking up. Time frozen, we untangled the mess of miscommunication that had gotten us to this point: His insistence that he didn’t want to date me, and my insistence that all of his actions proved otherwise. 

I walked up the five flights of stairs to my tiny studio apartment and flung myself onto my bed. I was exhausted, I was crying, and I had to get up at 5:30 a.m. for work. I wanted to play a song and feel my feelings and cry it out, but I didn’t want this night to be tied to any specific song. I hated the way that previous songs had been ruined by listening to them too much while crying about some stupid dude. 

What I settled on was “Audition (The Fools Who Dream)” from La La Land. 

I played this song on repeat until I had cried out all my tears. “Here’s to the hearts that break.” Yep, that’s me! “Here’s to the mess we make.” Whew, yes! The structure and composition of this song, from the slow build to the over-the-top emotional chorus, make it an absolutely perfect song to listen to when you are in the depths of post-breakup angst. When you feel simultaneously like love is a lie and also like you want it more desperately than you ever did before. 

Hello, and welcome to Gold-Plated Girls. This is Hayley and Victoria. We are friends who love pop culture and love writing and are good at writing about pop culture. 

We're also unemployed, sad, horny, mad, wistful, wise, big-hearted, and forward-thinking. But mostly unemployed. And we want to write for ourselves and for others. We want to create a newsletter that gives us both individual space to explore and shared space to talk about our favorite things. Victoria loves the Mets even when they are bad and will unfortunately never stop thinking about those famous star-crossed lovers: Jaime and Brienne. Hayley loves Legally Blonde, which is playing in the background right now. They both love yoga, astrology, the Mamma Mia! Cinematic Universe (MM!CU), the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), the fact that Stellan Skarsgaard connects the MM!CU and the MCU, and much, much more. We also want to give ourselves space to write about a breadth of things, like food and books and nail polish and why we'll never wear low rise jeans again. If you like any of these things, Victoria and/or Hayley included, we promise you will like our newsletter. 

When we were brainstorming names for this project, we thought of the Golden Girls. We're not quite there yet; that's why we're Gold-Plated. Victoria has also spent a lot of time listening to Taylor Swift's folklore, and we find these lyrics from "Mirrorball" particularly resonant: "I've never been a natural, all I do is try, try, try." We're try, try, trying.

Below the jump, you’ll find our very first essay, written by Victoria. Expect two newsletters a week: one on Tuesdays from one of us, and a joint letter on Fridays. You can also follow Gold-Plated Girls on Twitter and Instagram.

Welcome to Gold-Plated Girls by Hayley Schueneman and Victoria Edel! In twice weekly emails, we’ll talk about pop culture, food, yoga, friendship, ennui, books and everything in between.

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