totally top three: march 2020

Ho-ho-holy shit what a fucking month! I know there was like, absolutely no way to anticipate what 2020 would be like, but like, good god damn, what the hell, you know? Whooeee.

Here is some stuff that I managed to enjoy despite of or in fact possibly because I’m not currently leaving my house very often and don’t like, have much to do besides work and consume media, just like before except now I waste less time getting dressed and I’m always with my dog. I hope this finds you safe and healthy and as sane as you can be. <3


I had a great time plowing through Roni Simunovic’s Little Warlord which was just fast and fun and easy to read and sweet and satisfying. I said in my review that it’s like if mob movies were made for someone other than white guys and I stand behind that almost a month later. There are a lot of really likable characters in this and a lot of gentleness for a universe that could just have easily disposed of it entirely. Glad I found this when I did.


The highest compliment I can give I Am Not Okay With This is that we haven’t finished it yet, despite there being only a single season, because we like it so much and didn’t want to rush through and then just be out of it. Sophia Lillis, Wyatt Olef, and Sofia Bryant are all really great and I love the place-making and especially the set-dressing, the way everything feels a little out of date and the only difference between it being in a good way or a bad way is how the characters compose themselves around it. I love the music a lot and the dialogue is fantastic and the second highest compliment I can give it is that Crystal and I have both paused it to scream about how much it sounds like something I would write, which is narcissistic probably, but also true.


We also started watching Letterkenny, which we have also been savoring as slowly as possible and which we also pause to scream about constantly, but for entirely different reasons, the first of which is that we live in in like, American Letterkenny Lite (though the people of Letterkenny are consistently better people than I’ve ever experienced here) and the second of which is that every fucking thing about it is weird and hysterical in a perfect way. If you had told me in February that I would sometimes pause a sitcom about Canadian hicks to yell about the way they’ve staged a particular shot for Maximum Art, I would have scoffed. It’s also really funny to watch something that’s really stylized and goofy and feel weirdly represented and safe as a queer person. Everyone is so good at embodying these really weird, extreme characters and they all seem like they’re just committing every second they’re on screen. Every thing that comes out of Jared Keeso’s mouth is the funniest thing I’ve heard in my life. It’s also masterful at knowing exactly how hard to push a repetitive joke so that it always sails through the funny-too much-funny again-hysterical track every freaking time. I finally upgraded to ad-free Hulu to be able to watch this without interruption: I six-extra-dollars-a-month love it.


And three to look forward to…

grady hendrix, the southern book club's guide to slaying vampires   pokey lafarge, rock bottom rhapsody   promising young woman

totally top three: january 2020

2020 is a futuristic-ass looking year, isn’t it? Will I ever get used to it? Will I ever stop accidentally typing 2002 instead? Who knows!


Harry Styles’ Fine Line is so lovely and so artful and delicate and poppy and fun and emotive and I was so looking forward to it and so glad to not only not be disappointed, but to be deeply impressed and MOVED. I’m particularly fond of “Adore You” and “Cherry” and “To Be So Lonely” and “She,” and “Canyon Moon,” and okay, really, not going to list the entire album, but I am really into the whole thing. This is just a lovely cohesive experience that’s very repeatable.


Though I don’t consider myself a sports person, as surely I have mentioned before like the obnoxious pain in the ass I am, I’m not not-interested in sports and have often gone through phases of getting really into watching hockey and/or baseball depending on my ~mood and the season. This winter, Crystal and I have gotten pretty into hockey compilations on YouTube (I love injuries and fights. I know what this says about me. Hush.) and because of that, the algorithm served us a Bardown Quiz and we kind of fell in love. Everyone who shows up for the quizzes is a delight and we like the dumb inter-office competition and the yelling. The other Bardown videos are great too, but nothing tops the quizzes.


Orville Peck’s Pony is absolutely going to be on my top five of 2020 because I listened to it at least once every day in January. AT! LEAST! ONCE! A! DAY! FOR! A! WHOLE! MONTH! And I am not even a little tired of it yet. ORVILLE PECK SOUNDS LIKE QUEER “I LOVE YOU BECAUSE”/”I WILL BE HOME AGAIN” ELVIS MADE AN ALBUM IN TWIN PEAKS. If that doesn’t sell you… Well. This probably isn’t the album for you, I guess!

a tweet from ash which reads orville peck's kansas (remembers me now) makes me feel like i'm slowly bleeding out from a knife wound in a seedy small town honky tonk bathroom, but in a way where i've made peace with both my fate and my misdeeds and welcome the relief of the coming darkness


And three to look forward to…

nada surf, never not together   birds of prey   green day, father of all motherfuckers

totally top five 2019: stuff & things

Hey look, it’s that time of year! When a bitch shares their love! Every song you hear! Seems to say! Spend your money! May your shopping dreams! Come true!

OR!

Here’s the first of four posts about stuff I loved in 2019!

a gray, white, and black graphic saying totally top five 2019: stuff and things

  • The Vint & York glasses in Cranberry Splash Ritzy that I wore almost all year and made me feel the most like myself any pair of glasses ever have.
  • This Casemate Glitter Case for my iPhone.
  • This heated electric throw that basically kept me alive through the early months of 2019.
  • This cheap, warm, and very comfortable Amazon Basics Puffy Coat.
  • I bought this mechanical keyboard for work and this mechanical keyboard for home and now typing on any keyboard without Cherry MX Blue switches feels a little bit like torture. I came for the clicky sounds which, idiotically and inexplicably, encourage me to write more, but stayed for the reduced effort needed for typing and the corresponding reduced strain on my hands.
  • I would be remiss if I didn’t include skiley.net which lets you look at your Spotify stats any time you want instead of just when Spotify wants to send you infographics at the end of the year.
  • This countertop ice maker which is a counter hog and pretty loud, but makes really good ice very quickly and enables my Stok Chocolate cold brew habit.
  • I’ve got to extol the virtues of the NARS Powermatte Lip Pigments for the second year in a row because I really never wear anything else anymore! We added a few to the collection in 2019 — we’re up to nine now: American Woman, Don’t Stop, London Calling, Somebody to Love, Spin Me, Starwoman, Under My Thumb, Vain, Wild Night — and every single one is amazing.
  • I am not a video game person, which I am sure I have said before and will say again, because I’m not competitive, but I also just don’t care about games enough to learn how to actually play them. Thankfully, untitled goose game has a very simple set of mechanics and no stressful metrics for success, so I get to enjoy non-competitive mischief like the rest of the internet.
  • This Elizavecca Hair Treatment that makes my hair super soft, but not greasy or weighed down.
  • 1 Million and, more specifically, mixing 1 Million with Alien.
  • PODCASTS! (Okay, so, I know technically you LISTEN to podcasts and so that’s where this should go, but there was way, way, way too much good music in 2019 for me to sacrifice a spot to something I only barely tapped into, no matter how much I enjoyed it. Also, by ‘podcasts,’ I just mean My Brother, My Brother and Me so feel free to read this number as ‘The McElroy Brothers’ instead, if that makes you feel better.)
  • All the stuff that I said about live music last year was pretty true this year, too! I didn’t get to see as many people live because life is about… balance? I guess? But we did see Ludo reunite again AND My Chemical Romance’s return and when you get to see one of your favorite bands play together for the first time in seven and a half years, that’s a pretty good year.

  • Previously

    2K12 | 2K13 | 2K14 | 2K15 | 2K16 | 2K17 | 2018

totally top three: december 2019

Crystal went to Florida without me this month and in her absence I read several books, listened to a metric fuckton of music, watched a couple of movies, and some TV. I’ve never been so productive in my life.


I’ve been watching Good Mythical Morning daily for a while now and sporadically for a real, real long time before that and while I think Rhett and Link are funny (even when they aren’t retching and/or hiccuping convulsively) I genuinely had no idea what to expect from Buddy System, so while it was out from behind the YouTube Red paywall, I sat down in my bachelorhood and watched all of the first season and had a great time! I must admit to a moment of visceral bewilderment so strong that I had to pause when it moved from the GMM format opening and then had them step out from behind the desk, but it was weirdly effective. I really liked that this leaned way into the sense of weirdness I get from their humor and that it was just happily, balls-out goofy. As I am sure I’ve said before, I hate musicals with very few exceptions and I think comedy songs are mostly bad, but I had a remarkably good time with these, especially “So Dang Dark” and “Power Nap” and “Tough Decisions”. I like that they both commit so wholly to their bits and Link’s straight delivery of every absurd thing he said sent me into hysterics. I also watched and liked season two a lot, but this is long enough already, yes? (“I Like What I Like” and “Naked” are the stand-out songs this time, but “Kings of Bellevue Estates” made me actually legit laugh out loud because it was just extremely spot-on as a parody. Okay really, shutting up now!!)


Here is my first opinion: people who post on the internet about how they don’t like the things people post on the internet are the worst and shouldn’t be allowed to access the internet. My second opinion: if you can’t summon any interest in hearing about the things your friends like… why do you have friends? My third opinion: the Spotify wrapped infographics are fun and I’m glad people share them! How can I be adequately obsessed with you as a person if I don’t know what pop culture you’re obsessed with?! Also, mine rules, specifically, because I have an excellent and varied taste in music. I thought the decade thing was pretty interesting this year although mostly useless to me because I listen to Spotify at work and when people are agitating me, I listen to a playlist I have called “Soothe” on repeat and it’s just Vince Guaraldi Trio’s “Great Pumpkin Waltz” and “Thanksgiving Theme” so those have been my top two songs like, four years running and that was my artist of the decade too. Otherwise 2019 was very spot-on for the stuff I listened to and loved the most and it has me AMPED for my Totally Top Five this year.


I liked Late Night so much! Mindy Kaling is so, so charming and funny and I liked SO MUCH that even when the circumstances of the story pushed Molly into a really awkward moment that could have been played as deeply humiliating and for laughs, it instead leaned toward more regular human behavior. I like that the story didn’t demand that Molly change and become ~one of the guys~ in order to succeed or survive and that her success came directly from her personal experience, talent, and willingness to stand up for herself and her ideas. Emma Thompson was GREAT and I ended up liking the guys as the plot let them develop too, especially Tom, obviously, because I am a sucker, though I stand by my opinion that the SPOILER shoulder kiss at the end was a bad choice because of COURSE they would end up together, it didn’t need to be made TEXTUAL. Anyway, I laughed a lot AND had a nice time emotionally and I don’t really need anything else to have a good time with a movie, so I’d say it was a very solid watch.


And three to look forward to…

amy spaulding, we used to be friends   kesha, high road   gretel & hansel

totally top three: october 2019

October 2019 was, without a doubt, one of the worst months of my entire life! My mom had a heart attack, heart surgery, some accompanying strokes, was in a medically induced coma for a while, and only just got home after three weeks in the hospital. She’s doing much better, thankfully, and she’s home now, but because the hospital she was in is two hours from us, it was a much more complicated and exhausting situation than even the average medical emergency we’ve experienced and I am grateful for every possible reason that it’s over. May November be kinder? Please?


I started reading this just as before my mom’s emergency started and it was an immensely welcome distraction while dealing with hospital stuff and waiting waiting waiting and also any time my brain started to spiral into thoughts I couldn’t control. I’m sure this whole series will show up on my end of year list, so I won’t say too much, but the fact that I could get lost in this, even in the midst of some of the worst days of my life and that it could offer me some substantial relief from my own thoughts is genuinely a testament to its immersive world and engaging characters.


We saw Ghost live in Minneapolis this month and OH MY GOD, what a freakin’ show! Theatrics! Goofy stage banter! Pyrotechnics! Guitar solos! Masked, ~anonymous musicians! A sinister pope playing the saxophone! A keytar! Fog! A packed audience chanting ominously to Satan! Fans in costumes! The weirdest, most random, mixed-up audience I’ve ever been part of! Drunk older women coming up to tell me how much they love my Get Bent tank top! I super recommend going to see them if you get the chance at any point, even if you don’t think it’s your thing. This show was just bonkers and I will definitely get out to the see them again as soon as humanly possible.


We’re in St. Louis right now and it’s beautiful here. I am all about this good Fall Shit and I am soaking it the hell in every second that we’re here. Fall came and went in about a week here and I am sure we’ll return to frigid misery, so I will take what Missouri will give me and say thank you.


And three to look forward to…

a beautiful day in the neighborhood   last christmas   knives out