recently

a blurry and poorly lit photo of a group of strangers walking on a sidewalk in los angeles at night taken by ash in july 2010

January has been a mixed bag already (as they kind of always seem to be? What’s that about!) with some great success working on my resolutions etc whilst watching the only place I have ever truly thought of as home suffer through horrific fires and loss.

First, some music:

Mabe Fratti’s Sentir Que No Sabes which is kind of like a very current Rasputina that I can only a third understand.

Doechii’s Alligator Bites Never Heal which of course everyone knows is a banger and has been listening to before I got to it.

I’ve also been obsessively re-listening to International Pop Overthrow by Material Issue ever since “Very First Lie” came on shuffle a couple weeks ago. What an album.

Second, some reading:

I’ve still been enjoying The Mountain in the Sea and I am suffering through This Will Be Funny Someday by Katie Henry on audiobook which is kind of a learning exercise for me, re: learning to hear things while my hands are busy which is going better than I expected! I also read and loved Navigating With You by Jeremy Whitley.

Third, some watching:

I finally watched The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings and I had a really fun time! For reasons previously detailed I did not think this would be my thing at all, but now that I am old and have a more open heart, it turns out it was.

Finally, some other stuff:

If you’re able, some places to donate: the Anti-Recidivism Coalition – you can include ‘firefighter fund’ in the payment box to ensure it goes to the incarcerated people who are fighting fires in LA and any of these compiled GoFundMes which are specifically for Black families in Altadena and eSims for Gaza.

If you’re unable to donate more than your time, this video tells you how to report landlords who are illegally raising rent prices in the wake of the fires.

Alright, I hope you’re doing well out there! I hope you’re succeeding at the resolutions and goals that really matter and ditching the ones that don’t. Don’t do shit you don’t want to do just because you feel like you should. Life’s way too fucking short.

tunesday: january 2025

a square image of two blurry and double-exposed people with their eyes crossed out with black bars and january 2025 handwritten between them, they are crystal and kelly and the photo was taken in january 2008 in the alley behind the hotel cafe in los angeles, california

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

As a kid, instead of being normal and hanging out in the toy aisle at the grocery store while my parents shopped, I would camp out in the school/office supplies ogling all the pens and markers (and usually managing to go home with something new). As an adult, nothing has changed! Though I guess I do it mostly virtually now. I love stationery and I am always convinced that this new pen will be the perfect one, the one I’ll buy over and over again for the rest of my life. It never is, but I have a ball with the process anyway. On the eternal search for highlighters that won’t bleed through my Moleskine planner pages, I recently grabbed these Sharpie S-Note markers and I like them a lot! They work in my planner great and they’re saturated enough to write with and they’re also excellent in the one coloring book I own and use maybe once a quarter. Highly recommend.

My Spotify wrapped was atrocious so I won’t bother you with any of that (This is what happens when you fire all your people! You need human people to make things that are worth human time!) but it was nice to see that I listened to the Decemberists as much as I thought I did and I’ve been listening to my top songs for the year a lot despite the lackluster wrap-up. Anyway! Other stuff I’ve been listening to a lot: Boys Go To Jupiter’s “Virginia,” All Saints, “Never Ever,” Beach Weather, “Seth Cohen,” and a lot of Daft Punk.

I haven’t read anything I loved in fooooooooreeeeeeeeeeverrrrrrrrr which sucks, but I’m having an okay time with Ray Nayler’s The Mountain in the Sea, so fingers crossed!

Okay, that’s it! Happy holidays! I hope you have exactly as much fun as you can handle and an excellent new year. We can make it through this (and that and the next thing) together. <3

jolly jingles 2024

a picture of a kid between three and six running toward the camera in front of a christmas tree with a speech bubble saying 2024!, the left side of the image is red and says jolly jingles with doodles of holly

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

To be honest, the last month has been a little bit of a mess in ways I had not exactly expected and though I did listen to, read, and watch some stuff, my ability to retain whether or how much I enjoyed that stuff is… less than stellar.

I listened to a lot of Aurora on purpose which was a great choice. I’m particularly fond of The Gods We Can Touch but have not not enjoyed anything I’ve heard.

I read The Talented Mr. Ripley and had a pretty great time, thought it was significantly less gay than what I’ve seen/heard of the movie led me to believe. I also read and liked Kate Leth’s Mall Goth which hit me with some real good nostalgia in the midst of a good, though hard, story.

I watched Pretty Woman for the first time and had a great time! I get why so many women of a certain age are Like That about it and also seeing Jason Alexander be a gross little weasel was so unsettling to me.

In non-media things I’ve enjoyed recently: making canned cinnamon rolls by baking them in cream (The whole internet’s doing it! But this time they’re right!), our new laundry basket that was a little annoying to put together but rolls fantastically and holds a lots, putting a heating blanket just across the foot of the bed so I can tuck my feet into it when they get chilly but not get too hot to sleep, sleeping with my window open even though it’s in the 30s most nights, this little rechargeable Drew Barrymore lamp that I got for our newly renovated bathroom where after six years of living in this house we can finally shower which would also be a thing that I have enjoyed recently (and is of course to some extent) except it cost three times what we were told it would and was a shitshow from beginning to end, Abbot Mojave which does somehow remind me of home, and these little shower curtain clips that install easy and seem to hold the curtain well even if when I ~scanned the QR code to get installation instructions (They’re stickers, I thought I probably had it handled, but it never hurts to check!) it told me the company’s account had expired from non-payment.