This lady in this illustration from the '60s looks so relaxed and summery and like a watermelon. I want to go to there.

HELLO ROOKIES I CANNOT EVEN GREET YOU PROPERLY BECAUSE I’M SO EXCITED I HOPE I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION.

Happy freaking June! Summer is here! Time to start counting down to 7-Eleven’s Free Slurpee Day!

I’m pleased to say, however, that this summer will bring more than free chemical sugar sludge. I know, I didn’t think it could ever get better than that either, but then we put together a plan for a Rookie Road Trip, and now it feels like chemical sugar sludge times a zillion!

The Rookie Road Trip, presented by Rookie, the Ardorous, and Urban Outfitters, will start in New York City on June 25th and end in Los Angeles on July 21st. The group of odor-ridden but enthusiastic travelers will be Anaheed, Hazel, Petra, Petra’s sister, Petra’s boyfriend, and me. We will stop along the way to meet up with you guys and do stuff like get ice cream and make zines and talk about our feelings and reenact the heart-to-heart in The Breakfast Club and also brainwash you all into becoming our friends wait what? Maybe we’ll just get ice cream and make zines and talk. And get other kinds of chemical sugar sludge, and try other DIYs, and, oh gosh, between your brains and ours, the possibilities are ENDLESS. It’s really fun and special to talk about the things our brains are up to in this community online, but it’ll be more fun and special for all of the thinking and sharing to take place in person. I may even jab some of you with my finger to make sure you’re real. TEENAGE GIRLS: Now in 3D!

Here’s a handy flyer with all the dates and stops listed:

Flyer by Kelly

We would love to meet you along the way! If you live in one of these cities, or elsewhere along this route, send us a note at [email protected] with some of your favorite local places to hang out that you think would be suited for an afternoon field trip of Rookies. This means restaurants, stores, markets, parks, arcades, ice cream parlors, bowling alleys, swimming holes, forest trails, and/or other places that are safe and don’t show Two and a Half Men on a TV in the corner. There will also be some events along the way too (looking at you, Chicago, Omaha and Boise!)…more details coming soon!

Once we get to L.A., Petra and I will set up an installation and selection of artwork from Petra’s female art collective, the Ardorous, at Urban Outfitters’ Space 15 Twenty at 1520 N. Cahuenga Blvd. We’ll host a bunch of events there from July 21st to the 28th, including such fun as zine-making and other DIYs, live readings of pieces from the site by our contributors, dancepartyfuntimes, and lots of chemical sugar sludge.

If you’ll be able to make it to one of our meet-ups anywhere along our route, bring us some kind of souvenir of your teenagerhood that might be at home in a giant Rookie shrine. A journal, bracelet, photo, tape, or other weird thing so long as it is not dangerous and/or Two and a Half Men memorabilia, and so long as you are OK with never getting it back, ’cause we’ll need them for keeps. (It’s less shady than it sounds, we swear.)

Finally, we will be updating our Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram (rookiemag), the Urban Outfitters blog, The Ardorous, the Ardorous blog, and here, o’course, with news of our adventures all along the way. The hashtag is #RookieRoadTrip, as in, “Just had chemical sugar sludge with Rookie staffers and readers! #RookieRoadTrip #JustinBieber” (I imagine JB lurks his own hashtag and am hoping he will meet up with us at some point). (For more examples of quality hashtagging, please take a note from @heycoolteenz.)

June’s theme is Paradise, and it is basically a love letter to our final destination of Los Angeles. Expect lots of Beach Boys, Weetzie Bat, Joan Didion, and then a ton of writing about what happens when you realize that the whole idea of a paradise is kind of a myth, and how to construct your own paradise, since adolescence can kind of suck, and I know it gets better, but you need to make yourself happy in the meantime, you know?

And so, in the meantime, ROAD TRIP. We hope to see you there.

Love,
Tavi