Second
Thoughts
A home for personal meditations, critiques of art and literature, politics, sketches, and deconstructions that dive beneath the surface of thought. Experiment with form here, relate with current events, read and talk about a book you’ve never read or perhaps want to read, and criticize something, anything, everything.
You’ll Be Back
Upon Trump’s re-election, Hamilton’s “You’ll Be Back” has resurfaced in online political discourse, often repurposed, with many reminiscent parallels to an America defined by its instability and cultural divisions. In some cases, particularly in British commentary, the song is used to frame the United States as returning to a kind of historical pattern – echoing the language of colonial dependence and political disorder that once defined the relationship between Britain and its former colonies.
13 Going on 30? More Like 30 Going on 13
The recent talk of a reboot has brought the premise back into conversation, and with it, the cultural promise the film once rested on — that adulthood meant stepping into a world of possibility. Back then, the plotline read as charmingly impatient rather than anomalous, because adulthood was still imagined as a phase of life when things settled into place: independence, confidence, an apartment with matching furniture, a career that paid the bills, and a love that had finally sorted itself out. But now, that assumption feels a bit out of touch.
The Joke isn’t Funny Anymore
In the 21st century, loneliness is no longer defined by physical isolation, but by a constant proximity to others that never quite becomes connection. Young adults are increasingly raised in environments where social life is mediated through screens, where ‘connection’ is abundant but rarely reciprocal. The result is not just isolation, but a distortion of what it means to be valued. Emerging online figures like Clavicular are less anomalies than early indicators of what prolonged digital isolation can produce.
Bruce Springsteen’s Americana
There is something that I hold so dearly about the version of America that I can find in Springsteen's music. A world of working class struggle, an acknowledgment of the pain and suffering inflicted on the men and women of this country, but a celebration of it nonetheless. A real, true love for America and the people who put the hard work into making it run. It’s something I feel the need to protect and to guard from those who want to destroy the very thing his music holds dear.
An Age-Old Attraction
After its debut season, Netflix quickly announced it would be renewing the show, prompting the question, what is it about this show that deserves another season? Age of Attraction wants to claim that it’s a progressive experiment, testing to see if age is just a number while simultaneously empowering people to date outside of the rigid boxes of what society says is appropriate.
A (Very Polluted) River Runs Through It
While the list of dangerously polluted waterways in the U.S. is extensive, few have captured the American imagination quite like Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal. Sometimes frothy, sometimes covered in a nacreous scrim that one imagines peeling off like skin over scalded milk, the 1.8 mile canal’s infamous water is a wellspring of dark humor and incredulous facts.
Lessons Learned from Edward Crankshaw’s ‘Gestapo’
There’s a particular history lesson from school that has stuck in my mind. Imagine a 1930s Germany, still reeling from its losses during the first World War. Then imagine a political party, led by a radical politician that finally breaks through the family radio. He promises redemption for your failing country, massive economic and political gains. Finally, someone to enact real change, someone “finally able to finally do something active and bold to rehabilitate [your] shabby life.” All he needs is your vote.
Marty Supremely Annoying
It never feels like Marty is in true danger. There is always the impression that he’ll work his way out of the corner he is backed into, and in the end, that’s exactly what happens. The emotional beats of the story fall short without any real tension. Marty makes one stupid, egotistical decision after another, realizes he’s in a bad situation, then gets up and gets himself out of it. Over and over again.
What One Unmuted Call Said About Segregation in NYC
One Black eighth grader was in the middle of pleading against her school's potential closure when Allyson Friedmans’ voice, unmuted on the call, boomed through. “They’re too dumb to know they’re in a bad school,” said Friedman, an associate professor of biological sciences at CUNY Hunter College, where 11.5% of the undergraduate students are Black. “I mean, apparently Martin Luther King said it, like if you train a Black person well enough, they'll know to use the back, you don't have to tell them anymore."
Day 501: When I Realized I Was Both Tom and Summer
From time to time, someone decides to resurrect the same debate about 500 Days of Summer (2009): was Summer the villain, or was Tom simply delusional? The response to that question rarely changes. Summer is perceived as a cold, evasive witch who purposely misleads poor Tom, while Tom is defended as a romantic, perhaps naive, but well-intentioned good guy. The framing of that narrative is quite unsurprising, almost expected, because it provides the natural urge to assign fault cleanly; a way to make sense of a dramatic, romantic split by assigning one person the role of the wrongdoer and the other the role of the one wronged.
Heated Rivalry and the Heated Debate of Queerness
For many, myself included, the show feels like it saved our 2025. The show is first and foremost a romance, documenting the nearly ten-year love affair between pro hockey stars Shane Hollander and Illya Rozanov. The two main characters struggle to keep their attraction to each other a secret from the world and from each other. For hockey fans like myself, the commentary about the current state of the NHL is glaringly obvious: as of 2026, there has never been an openly queer NHL player, active or retired.
Comicorpse Book One Finale (Episode 22)
Episode 22 (Finale) of Book One — Romey Petite’s comic series, Comicorpse
This Is Why You Can’t Decide
Real commitment used to lead to milestones. A marriage, a mortgage, a job, a new city. These were all declarations, not just one-off choices or premeditated decisions. Today, permanence feels less like security and more like risk: to our identity, our autonomy, our finances, even our sense of self—especially as a woman who has been told both to settle and to have it all.
Fair warning, this essay is not nostalgic for compulsory marriage or shrinking yourself to fit into someone else’s script.
Comicorpse Book One (Episode 21)
Episode 21 of Book One — Romey Petite’s comic series, Comicorpse
The Mundanity of Apocalypse à la Centralia Pennsylvania
Last summer, I finally made the drive up from Philadelphia to Centralia. Reddit posts warn that little draw remains. Gone are the pits spewing white smoke that Bill Bryson described in A Walk in the Woods while commenting that Centralia is “the strangest, saddest town I believe I have ever seen.” The stretch of Route 61, cordoned off due to the fires and transformed by taggers into a shifting canvas affectionately named "Graffiti Highway,” was buried in 2020.
Comicorpse Book One (Episode 20)
Episode 20 of Book One — Romey Petite’s comic series, Comicorpse
J.D. Vance and the Façade of Masculinity in the Republican Party
The 2000s ushered in a progressive discussion on gender and sexual orientation and has since challenged social signifiers of what it means to be a man. It has thrown confusion into a vat of insecurity for those whose identity rests in material, surface level traits. In an effort to combat this, conservatives have reclaimed antique signifiers to masculinity; manliness has been pushed to the extreme. Any hint of emotionalism, the acceptance of women as equals, or physical weakness is considered a betrayal to the inherently ‘masculine.’
Comicorpse Book One (Episode 19)
Episode 19 of Book One — Romey Petite’s comic series, Comicorpse
How to Live A Fulfilling Life Under Tyranny
Inside a community center at Allentown, Pennsylvania, the Working Families Party (WFP) organized a watch party for the Super Bowl half time show for groups of migrant families—only one of many around the country. The air was heavy with anxieties of a possible ICE raid as people huddled around one screen to watch a great American artist perform. This is not an excerpt from Orwell’s 1984, or a 21st century fiction retelling of World War II. This was two weeks ago in the U.S.
Comicorpse Book One (Episode 18)
Episode 18 of Book One — Romey Petite’s comic series, Comicorpse