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 Here are some things I read this month that weren’t a waste of time! Anna Borges, “I am not always very attached to being alive” Hannah Williams, “The Gay Love Stories of Moomin and the Queer Radicality of Tove Jansson” Alexis Nedd, “Why Captain America is definitely a virgin” Kyle Korver, “Privileged” Lesley Kinsel, “Fat Bias Kept Me Sick” Alex Palmer, “When Art Fought the Law and the Art Won” 
Here are a few things I read this month that weren’t a waste of time! Elizabeth O-Connell-Thompson, “Do No Harm” & “xx” Cass Marshall, “Everyone hates my big stupid horse in Red Dead Online” Alex Pareene, “Nihilist in Chief” Mia Mercado’s newsletter Cake for Breakfast is always a delight in my inbox. Ryan Mach, “Getting arrested for nunchuck possession was the best thing that ever happened to me” Sarah Gailey, “STET” Caity Weaver, “My 14-Hour Search for the End of TGI Friday’s Endless Appetizers” Yesterday as I was driving home from work, I saw a car with “EAT MY TAINT” written in the dust of its back window and could not stop thinking about it. All the way down the street to my house and into the garage. All the way through putting the car in park and closing the garage door. All the way through getting out of my garage and through the backyard and into the house. All last night and into today. Because, like, “EAT MY DICK” is one thing, a very clear direction of aggression. But “EAT MY TAINT” is so… vulnerable. There’s no way to be the recipient of that act that isn’t exposed and defenseless. You can only direct “EAT MY TAINT” at someone you trust, someone you’re willing to be open and unguarded with. That’s not graffiti, that’s a fucking proposal.
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I L-O-V-E-D The Umbrella Academy! It was really fun and engaging and a little dumb, which is generally what I’m looking for in all my media about people with superpowers. I like the characters a lot, even when I don’t — looking at you, Luther — and I thought it looked really good, bright and lively with really fun set and costume design. I liked that it never hit a point where I felt like it was taking itself too seriously, which is really important for me with most things I watch and read, but especially stuff with an inherently goofy premise. It hit some really nice emotional moments, gave me a bunch of characters to care about, and left me looking forward to the possibility of a second season!
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I really liked the third season of One Day at a Time! As a show, it really fills a hole in my heart made by 90s sitcoms that wanted me to learn and feel things and I like that I get to have that experience again, but with some issues that would have never made the cut in my youth. I love these characters very much and I like that the stories are tightly contained and solved relatively simply, but never without a pretty satisfying emotional payoff. Even the cheesy sitcom dialogue works in the show’s favor because the acting shines against the constraints of the words and helps diffuse some of the preachier bits. I’m sad it won’t be coming back, but it’ll be fun to have three solid seasons to rewatch when I’m feeling bad about the world, which is basically always.
I really, really L-O-V-E-D The Haunting of Hill House and though I know it’s like, deeply uncool now to admit that spoilers matter to you, I am so glad that I managed to go in with really only my knowledge of 1999’s The Haunting (a mostly terrible, but extremely gay movie I saw in theaters) because waiting for each new moment was really satisfying and stressful and made the tension the show was building extra delightful. I was amazed at how quickly I was really invested in the characters and also how much I liked things that I am normally bored by in media (mostly those constraintless timelines and try-hard dialogue). It’s yet another series I am left hoping will stand as-is and another where I won’t seek out anyone’s opinions about it because they’ll mostly be boring, which is a sign that I really liked the show. If the thought of an adult man in front of a cake makes me weep, well. That’s how I like it.
I didn’t listen to a lot of new music in February (instead inexplicably deciding to relive my childhood by revisiting the Beatles’ catalog? The White Album still rules tbh.) but I did manage to listen to Two Feet’s 20 Something Fuck which I think is extremely solid, if short. The algorithm served me “I Feel Like I’m Drowning” way back (I posted it as a ~jam to my Instagram story in June, I think) and I’m glad that the whole album has a similar sound and energy. This is very much summer music for me and I need that right now because BOY AM I SICK OF WINTER. I’m very into the aforementioned “I Feel Like I’m Drowning” but also love “Hurt People” and “You Say” and “Back of My Mind”.
Crystal and I finally watched Baby Driver after a like two hour fight with my dad’s DirecTV login because we are truly millennials but thankfully it was extremely worth it. I really loved the characters and the acting (Fuck Kevin Spacey, obviously.) and the CAR CHASES! Set in daylight! The sign of a good car movie is how bad I want to drive fast afterward and I have to say the people of North Dakota are lucky that I am old and scared of winter driving or I would have immediately been out there raising hell. The music was great even though it’s clear that Edgar Wright thinks his taste in music is ~extremely cool~ and I loved the sound mixing (even though the whining they put in when Baby had his headphones out was TORTURE because of my intermittent tinnitus) and ASL. Also I accidentally came out of it extremely attracted to Ansel Elgort which is mildly upsetting.
