Welcome to Haystack Stories!

Hello hello hello! Man, are we happy you’re here. We’re Jenna and Jayna, and we’ve been working on Haystack Stories—our site for all things nostalgic—since the 90s. Just kidding, we’ve been working on it for the past year, but it really does feel like it’s been rattling around both our brains since Jenna was reading Tiger Eyes and listening to Sublime on repeat and Jayna was chain-smoking Camel Lights with her friends in her dad’s Jeep Cherokee (sorry dad!). Simply put, we’re obsessed with the past. More complexly put: we believe that nostalgia is secretly the tie that binds us all. A good dose of nostalgia is a heady, visceral thing. It’s deeply personal, and entirely universal. It’s also a uniquely effective conversation starter. Don’t believe us? At your next dinner party, instead of asking a stranger what they do for a living, ask them what their favorite TV show was growing up.

“Nostalgia is, as we often say, the happiest way to be sad. ”

So why start a nostalgia-based blog now, in 2018? Because talking about things—that we loved and lost, or loved and still love, or loved, lost and rediscovered because they started making it again (we’re talking to you, reissued J.Crew barn jacket)—is our favorite way to escape, but it’s also our favorite way to better understand ourselves and to relate to the world around us. It is, as we often say, the happiest way to be sad.

Of course we know we’re not as interesting as we think we are (for the record, that goes for everyone except Bjork), so we’ve been reaching out to some of our favorite people, and to some complete strangers, to get their take on the past. At Haystack Stories you’ll find interviews that cover everything from a scent that evokes late 80s New York City in all its filthy glory to a collection of sports bras from the 7th grade. We ‘ll talk about the ways—both good and bad—that nostalgia continues to creep and crawl into our current lives (Winona Ryder’s comeback – good! Full House reboot without the Olsens – bad!). We’ll explore the dichotomy of it: nostalgia means something different to everyone, but it’s also our common ground. We’ll address how the past is always with us, in a slippery, ever shifting and kind of magical sort of way. Oh, and of course we want to hear about the things you’re obsessed with, from whatever decade defines the past for you.

Above all else, we want Haystack Stories to feel like a portal to another time – a comfy, cozy hole to hunker down in that makes you remember and discover and maybe makes you cry a little and definitely makes you want to text someone you haven’t thought of in 15 years. It’s gonna be fun.

Photograph by Jon Pack