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Since we moved, Crystal has become obsessed with a Japanese stationery store nearby-ish and in turn has gotten me hooked on the Uni-Ball One gel pen in both the .38 and the .5 because it is a smooth, quick-drying, and easy writing delight as all pens should be tbqh.
We have also gotten hooked on Tous Les Jours because their iced tiramisu latte is bomb and also who can resist cases full of very beautiful fresh pastries? I love the strawberry croissant because I am basic and fine with that and also anything that has a sausage in it because they are making hot dog experiences I had never previously considered. Oh and the milk cream/cream cheese bread/danish type thing. And their milk bread loaf. Cloud cake also great… I actually don’t think we’ve had anything we haven’t liked except the egg tarts but that’s because I am not that much of an egg person and Crystal thinks she is, but actually isn’t.
I just re-read (well, listened and boy did I think that narrator was goofy) Heated Rivalry because I have been having a hard time reading in general and Spotify offered it up to me at the start of November (probably because I was listening to a lesbian hockey book that I ended up DNFing boo) and it was nice to revisit the story again because it is very soothing and very charming. I had kind of forgotten that the show was coming out, which we are now also watching and mostly enjoying (I would enjoy it much more if I never had to see/hear anyone else talk about it, but what can you do!!) and as I made acquaintance with Rachel Reid waybackwhen (She told me I should write a book!) I am absolutely thrilled for her so will continue to overlook the most annoying people in the world and their opinions.
Also I cut all my hair off! I have been experiencing insane emotional distress around my hair for like, I don’t know, five or six years at this point that I am sure is connected to all kinds of things, but I also developed an insane… not fear, but aversion to getting a professional haircut, so it’s mostly amounted to Crystal hacking off between four and ten inches of my ponytail every six to twelve months and calling it good, but as soon as we moved, I knew I needed to just suck it up and cut it and I went in and I did it even though I was freaking out and it was totally fine (Thank you, Hope!) and I got a pretty cute cut that even looks fine when I don’t style it and I am sleeping better because my hair isn’t driving me crazy and I don’t have a headache from pulling it back and I cannot believe that I lived with it for so long for no real reason. Feel free to take this as your sign to do something you’ve been putting off! Your life will probably get better!
Alright, I think that’s it! This month we donated to Anti-War Committee MN and to help our friend Tabby get back on the road, which, if you happen to have some extra cash and donate, I would appreciate with my whole heart! As always, please let me know if you have a charity you’d like to share: ashrocketship [at] gmail.
I hope your holidays are as busy as you want and as bright as you can manage. I know it’s rough out there, but I believe in us and if you need to take a break from believing for a bit, I’ll save your spot. ♥
I really liked Margo’s Got Money Troubles. I thought the stylistic conceit of the POV shifts were clever and that it was funny!
I also liked Biosphere a lot! Sensitive! Smart! Funny! Took a goofy scifi premise and did some unusual stuff with it!
I’m obsessed with the NYT game Pips because I find it satisfyingly challenging (or infuriating depending on the day) but I can’t really recommend it because the NYT is a platform for evil. I don’t have a subscription and I don’t pay for the games and I block ads on the site, but I still feel a little gross using it at all and I shan’t wish that on you.
This month we donated to NPR and The Khartoum Kitchen to help feed people in Sudan. As always, please let me know if you have a charity you’d like to share: ashrocketship [at] gmail.
I don’t have a lot more to say this month because — fingers crossed! — as this posts I will be moving into a new house in a new city after being tortured by the efforts to do so for basically all of 2025. Hopefully I’ll have some cool shit to share in November!
One miserable day you decide you want to change your life. You’ve tried it before in all kinds of different ways, each time deciding that a different thing is the problem and attacking with vigor. And things change and they get better and they don’t change and they get worse. You succeed and fail, more the latter than the former, and you give up and you try again.
One miserable day you decide that, if you must be miserable, if this is an intrinsic part of who you are, you can, at least, try to do it in a different place.
You have done this before also. It did not go well. It did not make you who you wanted to be. You came home with your tail between your legs and a well-rehearsed line about how it just wasn’t the right place for you. It haunts you, but life goes on, and you end up somewhere worse because sometimes that’s how it shakes out, but there are people you love with you and you find people to love in that worse place and you keep living.
One miserable day you decide that maybe you’re not as miserable as you think you are. One day you realize that, actually, living in that worse place even with people you love, is making you worse too. Colder and meaner and smaller, less enthusiastic when that was your entire brand as a person for most of your life. And you think: I can get the fuck out of here and I can try again.
Anyway! I got recommended “I Don’t Love Nothing and Nothing Loves Me” from Dinosaur Pile-Up’s album I’ve Felt Better and I’ve been listening to it and the whole album ever since. I like that it’s pretty homage-y — from AC/DC to Nirvana to fucking Bloodhound Gang, I have been having a GREAT time figuring out whichever tenuous little connection is tickling my brain at any time and adding them to my Sounds Like playlist — and I’m especially fond of “Big Dogs Eat for Free” and “‘Bout to Lose It” and “Big You and Me.”
I know I’ve talked about Mac Glocky before, but here I am doing it again because his covers/reinterpretations are some of the most fun I’ve had with music this year. I’ve been obsessively listening to his Smashing Pumpkins take on “Everlong” and I can’t get over how good the “Cherub Rock”-ification of the “Everlong” riff works and it makes me insanely jealous of his ability to break apart a song and understand what makes it. I also got obsessed with his Alice in Chains version of “The Man Who Sold the World” earlier this year because it sounds so much like it belongs in their episode of Unplugged and I also LOVE his Idles-ized version of “Once in a Lifetime” and especially appreciate that the video turned out so charming! Oh to have a single musical cell in my body!
I read You Gotta Eat by Margaret Eby this month and loved it! I have a hard time thinking through what to do about food when I am physically/emotionally drained and she has lots of great strategies for getting through those times that I’ll for sure be implementing. Also she’s funny! And never condescending!
Alright, that’s it! I haven’t made all of my donations for September yet, but if you have any extra cash a friend of a friend could very much use some help — Stand with Fredy — and as always if you’ve got a favorite charity, let me know about it: ashrocketship[at]gmail, please!
I have been under a constant state of static, waiting based stress for a huge portion of 2025 and the waiting portion finally ended yesterday with good news so now the more regular doing stuff stress is starting which isn’t necessarily fun, but is forward motion, so I’ll take it!
Anyway, that means as Decision Day approached I kind of stopped thinking entirely and had a LOT of very stupid trouble focusing which means I mostly watched movies I’d already seen (Independence Day – still a banger; Scream 3 – even better than I remembered, Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure – still as important to me as it was when I was a kid) and barely did any substantial reading (I did read and love Carmilla and thought Dinosaurs at the Dinner Party was fun!) though we are almost down with Murderbot which I’ve been enjoying so much more than I had expected, not because I didn’t enjoy the books, but because they seemed pretty hard to adapt.) and that’s basically it.
I would say hopefully next month will be more full of enthusiasm and good stuff I liked, but I know things are just going to be a different kind of stressful, so I’ll just hope I manage to meet my goals and call it a day.
This month we’re donating to ILRC, MIRAC, and NICWA, and I hope you’ll join us if you’re able! If you have any particular charity you’d like to recommend, shoot me an email: ashrocketship[at]gmail, please!
Stay sane out there! Love you!
Not only is the world as it is at the moment, but personally it has been a complicated, stressful couple of months and it’s about to get more stressful, so I’ve been trying my best to stop scrolling and enjoy things when I can to mixed success.
I’ve been trying to not spend all my time on my phone partially for obvious reasons and partially because I am literally fighting a repeptitive motion injury in my wrist from scrolling for [redacted reason to be revealed later maybe] and it hurts, so I have been doodling in one of these KingArt sketchbooks. I’m not an artist and I’m not using a medium more complex than Sharpies, but the paper has a pleasant enough texture and it fits in my bag with my Moleskin journal and Leuchtturm planner without screwing up the careful balance of garbage I carry with me at all times. And they were cheap!
The only book I’ve finished so far is Pokko and the Drum by Matthew Forsythe, which I do highly recommend! Such a fun story and such sweet illustrations. We’ve been watching Murderbot, which is not as good as the books (Adaptations rarely are! Life sucks!) but is really fun on its own.
My coworker got us some blind boxes to open together–it’s funny that this has become a big trend again when they were so big in the late 00s (We have a pretty big collection of Vinylmation from Disneyland from that era!) and I wonder if it’s like… a comfort in uncertainty kind of thing–and that’s been extremely fun and now I will always have a cute little Space Molly reminder of it!
What else… Oh we tried the Tate’s Bake Shop chocolate chip cookies and those are pretty bomb. I really like the Walmart brand bettergoods creamy oat milk (especially with Frosted Flakes) which is a nice find. We also recently housed a package of the Keebler original EL Fudge cookies which were bomb. (Lots of sweets in our house right now… Stress? What’s that?!) Crystal used Biotone starter fertilizer to plant all her annual containers this year and they look fantastic, so I highly recommend that too, which feels weird at the end of a bunch of food, but whatever.
Okay, that’s it! This month we made donations to CHIRLA, Jail Support LA, Clue Justice, and eSims for Gaza and I hope you’ll join us if you’re able! If you have any particular charity you’d like to recommend, shoot me an email: ashrocketship[at]gmail, please!
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