Adulting for Amateurs: Misadventures of a Geriatric Millennial - Hardcover

Gutierrez, Jess H.

 
9780593854891: Adulting for Amateurs: Misadventures of a Geriatric Millennial
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0593854896 ISBN 13: 9780593854891
Verlag: Tiny Reparations Books, 2026

Inhaltsangabe

From the author of A Product of Genetics (and Day Drinking) comes a rowdy and hilarious new collection of essays on life as an elder millennial, filled with life lessons on everything from marriage to parenting to rolling with the punches when Gen Z mocks your TikTok dances

In Adulting for Amateurs, Jess H. Gutierrez marvels at how—we can’t avoid the fact anymore—her cohort, the millennials, are approaching middle age. While 1998 seems like just yesterday, we are now grown-ups who feel like we’re still growing up. And at forty-two, Jess has quite a trove of stories to tell.

Jess is leaning into her geriatric millennial years and reflects on how growing up does not necessarily bestow one with maturity. When the dinner covers were lifted to reveal vertically posed sausages, hundreds of the fanciest wedding guests, including the mayor, were treated to a demure and refined Jess’s explosive guffaws. While Jess’s brothers now have wholesome families and responsible jobs, she can’t stop one-upping them, even if it gets her brother nearly fired by a potty-brained prank right before he scrubs into surgery. When Jess and her wife booked their first grown-up vacation, they discovered too late that their Hawaiian trip was to a Mormon resort and therefore completely alcohol free. So Jess and her wife bravely put on their big-girl panties—and slunk off in a makeshift escape from this cheerful teetotaler paradise.

Turns out, even as a responsible homeowner with a mortgage, three kids, and a yard of chickens, Jess might not have matured much beyond her twenties. She’s still the woman who in an earlier era survived queer-dating fails and aughts-era pop culture moments—ultimately discovering that an illegal rave cannot heal a broken heart and that vampire-romance franchises are terrible dating manuals for a budding trailer park lesbian.

Altogether these are the makings of delightful material for this bawdy—sometimes poignant and, dare we say, occasionally wise—new read.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Jess H. Gutierrez is the author A Product of Genetics (and Day Drinking) and a humor columnist for Paxton Media Group newspapers. She was an award-winning reporter for the Northwest Arkansas Times and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, and has written for Out magazine and Electric Literature. She lives with her wife, a fire captain, and three small kids who have already surpassed Jess in both intellect and cunning. They live in Arkansas.

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Chapter One

Same, Girl. Same.

We're the same if: You have been reading toxic shock syndrome warnings on boxes of tampons while pooping since you turned twelve. Here's the thing I've been convinced of for the last thirty years: I am certainly going to die someday from the illness begotten of leaving a tampon up there for five minutes too long-it's just a matter of when. Every single time I get chills I think, Welp then, here it is. TSS finally caught up with me. Kotex was right.

We're the same if: Under the influence of stars like Reese Witherspoon and Destiny's Child, you truly believed that baby tees and Doc Martens combat boots looked good when paired together. The hottest of our peers, including Cameron Diaz and her impossibly gorgeous posse of Charlie's Angels, were effortlessly cool in one-shoulder tops too. Add a damned plastic choker and you were ready to take on the planet, one awesome fashion choice at a time. Whether or not you went a step too far and wore a bucket hat is a secret that's yours to keep.

Also on the topic of Charlie's Angels, we're the same if: Every single time you made popcorn you thought about Drew Barrymore and her fateful movie-watching night. Drew, playing Casey Becker, the first of the Scream murderer's onscreen slasher victims, should've answered the question "Do you like scary movies?" with "Fuck no I don't," and hung up promptly. With a bit more stranger-danger awareness, our girl could have recharged her cordless phone, fluffed her white-blond bangs, and enjoyed a night with her chosen VHS instead of ending up dead on the front lawn.

And, still thinking about movies, if: After seeing Con Air for the first time in 1997, you were always on the lookout for cannibals. Fair or not, thin, pale white guys got extra suspicion points.

If: Watching Indiana Jones meant you were in the death grip of fear, each time you stepped outside your house, that there was a very good chance you would be pursued by a giant rolling boulder meant to turn you into a pancake.

If: A sip of Clearly Canadian out of one of those gorgeous glass bottles made you feel like a fancy motherfucker. Snapple was delicious. Squeezit spoke to your sugary inner child. See-through Crystal Pepsi was unnerving. But nothing, and I mean nothing, was more sophisticated than a slug of fizzing Mountain Blackberry Clearly Canadian washing over a young palate.

If: Even as a grown adult, you are still giggling hysterically at David Bowie's aggressively featured penis package during nearly every single scene of Labyrinth. Forties or not, penis humor remains a riot. That thing should not have been allowed so near all those puppets' eyes.

If: You ever got into a fight with your best friend over who should be president-elect of your two-person Baby-Sitters Club.

If: As an adolescent you fantasized about making out with a Mighty Duck.

If: As an adult you imagined, even for a second, making out with their coach (Gordon Bombay / Emilio Estevez).

If: You remember the intense relief you felt the moment you released your hair from those terrible round claw comb headbands at the end of the day.

If: You ever sat on a blow-up chair that stuck to your legs and made a screeching sound whenever you stood up while talking to your BFF on an ultra-cool see-through landline phone.

If: When you went to the grocery store with your mom and were told to pick a cereal, you gave zero shits about what the flavor was and didn't hesitate for a second to slog through the contents each morning until it was gone. The only thing that mattered in the eighties and nineties was whatever toy was in that damned box. Some parents made you eat your way to the prize. The cooler parents let you rip that bitch of a bag open and bury your arm until you grasped the coveted precious inside. Then you would inevitably get into a knock-down-drag-out with your siblings over your treasure.

If: During a baking session you smelled your own smoking knuckle hair being singed on the interior grill of an Easy-Bake Oven. Those kid-friendly convection ovens took four days to bake a cookie, which was odd because they reached approximately seventeen million degrees on your tender fingers when you tried to extract your undercooked treats.

If: You ever shouted the lyrics to Shania Twain's "Man! I Feel Like a Woman!" while overcome with the power of girlhood. When the country queen wailed that song, I was so confused by the tingling coursing through my little body (which I know now wasn't exactly heterosexual). Shania is a bit lipstick for my taste, but shit, she's Shania freaking Twain. I'd be willing to modify and widen my net if she had any interest (which is likely, as I'm sure she's searching for a forty-something-year-old married woman with three kids).

If: The sight and sound of Kermit the Frog singing "Rainbow Connection" while strumming a banjo tears your heart into a gazillion pieces and makes you want to crawl into your mom's lap. Likewise for hearing the gentle voice of the late Mr. Rogers, or listening to anything being read by LeVar Burton, king supreme of Reading Rainbow.

If: You repeatedly suffered a raw, near bloody tongue from sucking on Zotz, Atomic FireBalls, or WarHeads, or from draining one too many Giant Pixy Stix, or from taking pucker-inducing pickle juice shots between loops around the skating rink concession stand.

If: Your at-home-from-school sick days were resplendent with waiting for paternity tests and familial ass-beatings on Jerry Springer. Is he the father? Is bald-headed Steve Wilkos the father? Goddammit. Am I the father? We were always one commercial break away from knowing.

If: You let a mood ring tell you everything you needed to know about how your day would go. If I woke up feeling fantastic but slipped that ring over my finger only to see it turn amber (unhappy), I knew my Tuesday was going to be trash. I don't care if the world was full of sun shining and birds twittering, the next twenty-four hours were freaking toast if my ring deemed it so. Sorry, Santa, the black hue of my ring has foretold that this Christmas will be shit. Better luck next year. It's amazing how much control a piece of six-dollar jewelry bought from a mall kiosk had over my existence as a preteen.

If: You had a crush, no matter how brief or confusing, on Steve from Blue's Clues.

If: You knew that when a teacher rolled a TV cart into the classroom, no matter what you'd be watching, it was going to be way cooler than learning. All the better if Bill Nye was being featured in an episode where he blew stuff up for the sake of science.

If: You sometimes lay awake as a kid worried those scientists in white hazmat suits from E.T. were going to tromp into your room and cart you away for testing. If you were born in the 1980s the question wasn't whether they were coming for you. It was when. I would cower in my bed, clutching my Popple under the soft glow of a Care Bear night-light, thinking about the pasty hue of both Elliott and E.T. in the minutes before they were seized. Those images haunted my pre-sleep thoughts for years (fuck it, okay . . . DECADES).

If: You were ever drunk on the fragrantly intoxicating power of smelling like gummy bears or cotton candy thanks to a bottle of Juice Bar body spray from Walmart. The scent options were endless and so was the level of maturity you reached as soon as people caught an alluring whiff of your Lemonade Squeeze musk.

If: You prayed every single morning that maybe today was the day that some old guy would show up on your front porch with a giant Publishers Clearing House check.

If: You ever served as the veterinarian while your Puppy Surprise gave birth and then were pissed if she delivered any less than four puppies.

If: You tried to sell things on the roadside. Like other kids, my...

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Verlag
Tiny Reparations Books
Erscheinungsdatum
2026
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0593854896
ISBN 13 
9780593854891
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
304
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Verantwortliche Person
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