Pull up a chair, queens, because this one’s got everything: migraines, gummies, hashables bumping microphones, shame lips, and a landlord who needed to be put in her place. Just another day at the Closet Disco Queen Potcast.

Queenie enlightens us about a movement in Europe called Schamtalus (the shameless movement) campaigned for years to replace it with the neutral term, eventually winning a spot in the leading Dutch dictionary. Similar campaigns happened in Germany. In Sweden, the word for hymen, which translated to “virginity membrane,” was replaced in the academic dictionary with “vaginal corona.” And in the UK, a podcaster is currently petitioning to rename hysterectomy to uterectomy because the original word traces back to hysteria — a diagnosis that was dropped in 1980. Other terms under fire: “incompetent cervix,” “hostile womb,” and framing for C-sections that implies anything other than a surgical birth is the default. TT and Queenie go there. TT recalls being told she was “too young” to use a tampon. “Not too young to bleed, but too young to use a tampon. Okay, I gotcha.” Queenie remembers the mythology that using a tampon would cost you your virginity — that only “the fast girls” used them. Her husband, who had four sisters, still can’t hear the word tampon without flinching. Words matter, they agree. The anatomy doesn’t change, but the language around it absolutely shapes what women do — whether they examine themselves, talk about changes, seek care. Shame, it turns out, is a public health issue.

TT’s shopping habits come up — she’s been on a bit of a demo/spin-the-wheel ordering spree, surprising even herself. Honey keeps finding packages at the door and getting no useful information about their contents. A welcome mat arrived that turned out to be roughly dollhouse-sized. Queenie diagnoses this correctly: it’s her online Ocean State Job Lot. TT is filling a void. A bottomless one. “This is why I can never get involved with gambling. I’m okay with weed.”

Then comes the Fuck It. Queenie has been dealing with a landlord’s representative — weeks of unanswered texts, repeated requests for information she’d already sent, general professional mediocrity — until, on the day her mother was being transferred to long-term care, this woman texted: “Can you be so kind as to respond to my emails?” Queenie responded with the full truth: her 93-year-old mother, the injury, the hospital stay, the subacute placement. Professional and factual. The woman came back the next day: “I had no idea. I am so, so very sorry. I can do laundry, I can run errands. Tell me what you need.” TT cannot stop laughing. Queenie calls herself a bitch for playing the guilt card. TT disagrees — you didn’t walk all over her, you just told her the truth and let her reckon with it. “I think what you did was tell her the truth and there’s nothing wrong with that.” Queenie’s takeaway: being direct and honest doesn’t mean being mean. They’re not mutually exclusive. It can be done. The episode closes out with TT gently nudging Queenie toward using some of those spa and massage gift certificates she’s been sitting on. Queenie’s not quite there yet, but she’s hearing it. Her mom, meanwhile, is already working on befriending her roommate — both on oxygen, sharing that particular hobby, and apparently competing to see who can get the curtain opened first.

Queenie and TT are recording this week’s episode from the actual Cape Cod shoreline — specifically Days Cottages in North Truro, Massachusetts, sitting across from each other with water views and, apparently, a front-row seat to a squid situation nobody saw coming.

Wait, What? this week delivered “calf hair harassment” — a real and apparently escalating workplace issue in Japan, where the introduction of a climate-adaptive dress code (shorts for office workers, due to soaring heat) has led some women to formally object to the sight of men’s leg hair, which they’ve characterized as visual harassment. 

It’s a vacation episode, which means the conversation is looser, warmer, and occasionally derailed by birds doing cute things out the window. The nature content is genuinely impressive. 

This one opens the way all the best CDQ episodes do: mid-ramble, mid-weather report, mid-Cape Cod. 

Queenie ran into someone she’d lost touch with — a person she used to spend a lot of time with — and instead of going into a full internal shame spiral, instead of skulking away, instead of falling over herself with explanation and apology and preemptive guilt, she just… was happy to see her. They met each other where they were. That was it. TT immediately clocks how significant this is. Old Queenie would have been sweating through the whole encounter, narrating every possible way she’d failed this person. This Queenie just showed up, present, no story. The fuck it here isn’t dramatic — it’s the fuck it to the chatter in your own head. To the little internal voice that’s always ready with a verdict before you’ve even said hello. They credit the weekly ritual of naming things, talking it out, doing the work. If you name it, you can tame it. Queenie also notes, with no small amount of practical wisdom, that she came away from the encounter not having gotten the woman’s updated phone number. Growth has its limits.

Next episode they’ll be recording together from the Cape, which has been the countdown since minute one. The week ahead includes a New Orleans-style band tonight, more puzzle progress on the record store jigsaw, and whatever the deep sea disco Provincetown parade ends up delivering in terms of mermaid costuming. The expectations are high. The bar is a lot of sequins and a fish tail. It will probably be met.

The older we get, the less we’re willing to audition for people who were never going to clap anyway. Save this for the next time you catch yourself over-explaining, people-pleasing, or trying to win someone over.
Here’s the real shift:

• Not caring less about people
• Caring more about your energy
• Saving your best self for the people who actually matter

If someone doesn’t like you, believe them and move on.
That’s not cold. That’s clarity. What are you still giving too much energy to?