Permanent Retrograde

Articles

Musk’s DOGE Exit Just Made Buying Democracy Look Like a Smart Investment

6 days ago | kellyoxford.substack.com | Kelly Oxford

The world’s richest ketamine user pisses himself from ketamine and somehow this qualified him to run government efficiency. Tech Twitter is melting down because their patron saint just proved you can buy democracy with lunch money while mixing horse tranquilizer with party drugs. Here’s what happened: Musk walked around the White House with a 20-pill organizer like your diabetic uncle, except his pills included ketamine, mushrooms, and Adderall.
Writing Is The Only Way My Brain Doesn’t Sound Like Static

1 week ago | kellyoxford.substack.com | Kelly Oxford

I don't know how to describe it. My brain is a computer. I don’t recognize my body unless I’m with another person. Emotions run wildfire through the circuits, and I've learned not to engage with the sparks. Real life scenarios require a minimum 48-hour processing period before I can make sense of what happened. Television, music, books became my natural habitat early. My mother taught me to read at three because her intuition said I was ready. She was right.
Tag Your Artists: A Thank You To Tattoo Artists

2 weeks ago | kellyoxford.substack.com | Kelly Oxford

When I was fifteen, I lied with a Hostel Travellers ID Card, claimed to be eighteen, and got an OM symbol tattooed on my upper back. I was in a loft building directly across from the city’s downtown jail. With the sounds of TOOL playing in the background, I'd just barely missed getting a tramp stamp of every sound of the universe over my ass. Which is funny, because I honestly maybe fart twice a year. My second tattoo was a "Winona Forever" tattoo on my wrist. Winterstone was the artist. It was 2016.
4 Ways To Stay Sane When Reality Feels Broken

2 weeks ago | kellyoxford.substack.com | Kelly Oxford

I knew my relationship was a fraud when he went from booking a June vacation to saying work was overwhelming him. That's how these things work, men tell you they're too busy to acknowledge a text but somehow find time to like multiple Jessica Alba posts a day. So I drove to the mountains to figure out why I felt more relieved than sad about the impending end to a relationship I felt was end game.
Dear Successful Single Women: You're Not the Problem, Their Fragile Ego Is

2 weeks ago | kellyoxford.substack.com | Kelly Oxford

Dear Woman Who Makes More Than Him,Isn’t it fascinating? The higher a man climbs professionally, the wider his dating pool expands. But as a woman scales those same heights, her options mysteriously evaporate. It’s almost as if men actively reject successful women because they’re successful. What a curious evolutionary glitch to reject a possible mate because they might… outshine you? The fragility is breathtaking.
Two Stupid Things Parents Say That Make Me Want to Lose My Mind

3 weeks ago | kellyoxford.substack.com | Kelly Oxford

I don't argue with parents about parenting. Twenty-five years in this game taught me that everyone should be the protagonist of their own parenting documentary. But there are two things, just two, that make my intestines do the cha-cha on concrete. Two things that trigger a primal urge to diarrhea all over these streets. Both topics require surgical precision in dismantling, which is ironic considering one literally involves surgery.
My Series About Evil AI Was Never Greenlit. Now We're All Living In It.

3 weeks ago | kellyoxford.substack.com | Kelly Oxford

Eight years ago, I was a newly separated mother of three, ranting about how we're all SIMS being controlled by AI. I turned those rants into a four season series outline and wrote the first three episodes of a series about a divorced woman trying to break into the simulation that controls our lives. Producers loved the water cooler potential, a network bought it. The universe said not yet. The show never made it. But congratulations, motherfuckers we're all living in it now.
They Called It Anxiety Disorder. It Was Just Exhaustion From Pretending To Be Normal.

1 month ago | kellyoxford.substack.com | Kelly Oxford

As a child, I was what people called "quirky," which is how adults politely describe children they suspect might one day either run a Fortune 500 company or start a cult. I hated being touched. Sunlight felt like an assault. Grass was an enemy. The absence of a cat nearby was a genuine crisis. These weren't preferences. These were non-negotiable terms of my existence. By age three, I could read newspapers to my father like some Victorian parlour trick.
The Single Greatest Sex Move in the History of Heterosexual Relations

1 month ago | kellyoxford.substack.com | Kelly Oxford

Let's talk about something they never cover in those clinical sex education pamphlets with the cartoon vulvas. Something that doesn't make it into Cosmo's "257 Ways to Drive Him Wild" between "tickle his earlobes" and "surprise him with lingerie." Something that should honestly be in the Museum of Revolutionary Sexual Problem-Solving, if such a place existed. Which it should. Foreplay isn't just physical. It starts in the brain hours before bodies even touch. The anticipation.
Dear Customs: I Created #NotOkay And Now You May Not Let Me Back In.

1 month ago | kellyoxford.substack.com | Kelly Oxford

A note to my newsletter subscribers:Dear Readers and Algorithm Gods,For those who may not know, back in 2016, I started something called #NotOkay. After that infamous tape of Trump bragging about grabbing women was released, I invited women to share their stories of sexual assault. Within hours, I was receiving thousands of stories per minute, and millions of women ultimately participated.