stuff i liked recently

a picture of ash as a baby in a walker with their tongue hanging out and a potted pothos nearby

I don’t know what happens to me when it’s time to do these posts but it’s like I the entire slate of things I have ever read, watched, or seen in my life gets wiped completely clean by the unseen sea roaring around in the empty space in my skull and I have to reconstruct it Memento style.

Anyway!

I’ve been watching a lot of Mac Glocky videos which are both fun conceptually, but also like, shockingly well executed? Enough that I’ve been listening to his Fantasy Covers albums on Spotify also. Some favorites: “Bad Guy” and “West Coast” and “The Man Who Sold the World. I think these things work not only because he’s a pretty talented mimic, but also because he really understands both the songs he covers and the bands he’s using as inspiration, but also what arrangement really means to the final production of a song.

I haven’t been reading much which is annoying and haven’t really enjoyed what I have read which is even more annoying, but I have been slowly picking at Jeffery P. Dennis’ Queering Teen Culture which I had been trying to find for years and Crystal grabbed me on a whim while she was making a used book order and is really fun and smart. Yes, I DO read academic texts for fun.

Crystal also finally bullied me into watching Good Will Hunting which I liked alright. I don’t feel like the ~catharsis was as good as it should have been, but I was very compelled by the friendship in it and the relationship that Will and Sean develop. My only real experience with it prior to watching it is the sequel scene they’re filming in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, which tbh might actually be the perfect way to come into it as an experience.

That’s it! I guess! I didn’t even have any good snacks this month or anything… Like… I made salsa with apricots instead of mango last week because there wasn’t enough good mango left which was pretty good? We finally moved offices at work which has been exhausting, but incredible. I miss the coworker I was sharing with, but it was also nice to be able to close my door and take my shirt off to make a wardrobe adjustment the other day, so you win some you lose some.

Okay, that’s it for real. Tits in, Ash OUT.

tunesday: july 2024

a square image of a kid anywhere from age two to four tbh with short reddish hair wearing a red and white polka dot bathing suit and sitting in a yellow toy lifeguard chair under a red and white umbrella

listen on spotify

stuff i liked recently

a picture of ash as a baby in a walker with their tongue hanging out and a potted pothos nearby

In a bout of homesickness and youthful nostalgia, I got super into dousing my cut up fruit (mostly pineapple, but also cantaloupe) with chamoy (Forritos Pulpa at this time because it’s what the Mexican grocery had) and Tajin and it is sooooooooooooooooooooooooo good. A lot of the chamoy and Tajin and Lucas type candies and stuff were too spicy for baby me (though I would absolutely house one of those Lucas spaghetti things when passed to me or the watermelon suckers covered in chamoy and Tajin on occasion even tho they killed me afterward) but my college commons had the kind of classic fruit salad mix pre-condiment-ed and ready to eat so the nostalgia has been pleasant anyway. You really gotta get the ratio just right but even when it’s wrong it’s sooooooooooooooooooooooo good.

We watched Fallout on Amazon like everyone else (in line with the zeitgeist for once!) and I really liked it a lot. I don’t play video games, so my entire experience of Fallout prior to the show was guys in college hearing the old-ass music I was listening to and going, “Is this from Fallout?” and me going, “What the fuck is Fallout?” I thought the worldbuilding was really well done without like, totally infodumping everything all at once the Ghoul is EXACTLY the kind of character I love (and is so hot lmao) and I think Lucy is such a good character to follow through the story. I thought the first seven episodes were really well-paced, but I did spend the eighth screaming for them to get the fuck on with it already, so I don’t know what that’s about really, except that canon onscreen romance always A-L-W-A-Y-S slows shit down and sucks all the energy out of it, so that sucked, since both those characters had been so good and interesting and exciting up to that point. ANYWAY, I will watch season two when it comes around I think and that’s about as good as it gets recommendation wise from me.

We also watched the first three(?) episodes of Hacks which I really like but find difficult to make myself put on for some reason? The episodes are actually sitcom length, which should in fact make them very easy to put on, but here we are. We’ll get there tho, I believe.

My attention span and ability to focus are still absolutely in the toilet but I read Zan Romanoff’s Look and really and truly loved it. Maybe, emotionally, the closest I have ever felt to having my own high school experienced rendered. Great writing, an engaging narrator, and a story that just felt very real and relatable, even when it was a bit much because being a teenager is a bit much tbqh.

Okay that’s it for now! Perhaps soon my brain will step off my own neck and I’ll be able to, like, intake information again! Dream big!

tunesday: june 2024

a square image of a kid anywhere from age four to seven tbh with bangs and a black and white striped shirt mouth hanging open while sitting at a table full of play doh accoutrements

listen on spotify

stuff i liked recently

a picture of ash as a baby in a walker with their tongue hanging out and a potted pothos nearby

The only thing I want to wear right now are the Oilers sweatshirts we’ve accumulated from their collabs with 22fresh because the quality of the sweatshirts is soooooooooo good. They’re warm without being stuffy, heavy and a little oversized, and super comfortable. I’d probably order some straight up 22fresh ~merch if they believed fat people exist. At least the Oilers do for now tho! I accidentally made an OCD rule that I couldn’t wear team gear on game days so I haven’t gotten to wear them as much as I would have wanted, but come cooler weather and the new season we’re breaking that dumbass rule real quick!

four oilers sweatshirts starting with green tie dye, two black ones with pink and blue logos, and a pink and blue tiedye one

I watched Dune and liked it a lot, even though I did not think I would at all. I also watched and loved Bottoms, which reminded me of my own high school experience way more than one would imagine based on how it all plays out, lmao.

I’ve been listening to a lot of Chappell Roan like all good queers everywhere. I feel like I’ve been listening to “Pink Pony Club” for like eighty years at this point just waiting to get a full album and I wouldn’t have thought it would live up to it, but it did!

I also listened through Men I Trust’s entire discography and was not disappointed even once. I like that you almost never know what to expect from a song, jazzy Carla Bruni-esque almost jazz or low-pro garage-y chick rock and whatever it is they’re doing at any time somehow seems to work.

I, insanely, have absolutely nothing to say about any books this month. I read the first issue of Steeple which I loved, but I can’t read anymore because every library inexplicably only has the first issue and not the first volume and yes, as you can tell, I have yelled about this repeatedly.

In other things, I am hooked on Marcella Gourmet Sweet Pickled Garlic which Crystal randomly bought at Menards. Being midwestern means knowing that some of the most delicious things you can eat will be purchased at your local big box home improvement store and ain’t that grand? Also little s’more bites from Target that we demolished in like two days. I have also become a recent Scrub Daddy convert. I’m not actually big on the original sponges, but the dishwand was recommended to me by a very long time internet friend and she was right, it whips! Isn’t adulthood thrilling?!

Okay, love you, see you soon!