Hotel California — Meryl A. H. Franzos

Regardless of your feelings about The Eagles—the Big Lebowski hates the f-ing Eagles, man—their song, Hotel California, isn’t going anywhere. It haunts us. At bars. At grocery stores. In elevators . . . echoing inside your skull for weeks, maybe even years after you last heard it. People have pondered its meaning, its metaphors for decades. So much so, it has diverged from Felder’s, Frey’s, and Henley’s original intended meaning and taken on a life of its own. Hotel California is about the dark underbelly of the American Dream, and the inescapable cycle of excess and addiction.

I spent a fair amount of time mourning the results of the election. And not very much time trying to understand why it crumbled the way it did. Sure, I read in between the lines of the bulleted lists of what went wrong, skimming for something I wasn’t seeing, but I knew deep down. Damned elephants in the room. Damned elephants bulging between the lines of the articles. If there is any doubt where a woman’s place is, it is still below the most senile, hateful, morally corrupt, physically unfit, and treacherous of men. If the opposite candidate were a man and a leper, I believe even the most polished woman would still lose. That’s our country. The agony and the misogyny.

Anyway. I don’t want to rehash it. You don’t want to read a weeks late rehash. I simply want to acknowledge it happened (but not because of my vote), and document this heart-on-my-sleeve outfit. I will be civilly disobedient and empathetic. I will be kind and speak out, speak up. I will continue to vote, I will be an ally. I will do fun things with Josh and my dog, Meatball. But, I will not torture myself by doom scrolling the incoming administration’s headline cycle like last time. Because, although I can never leave, I can check out any time I like.

Outfit Details

Jacket: Hotel Partikular / Thred Up

Scarf: Unbranded / Thred Up

Bodysuit: Unbranded / Thred Up

Skirt: J. Crew / Thred Up

Socks: Amazon

Shoes: Saint Laurent / Thred Up