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I read and loved Landis Blair’s The Night Tent which is so beautifully and charmingly illustrated and written that it makes me wish I had a kid in my life in need of a bedtime story!
I listened to the very first episode of 60 Songs that Explain the 90s and had a good time! I laughed a lot if begrudgingly since it’s hosted by a man who clearly thinks he’s soooooooooo funny, but I will for sure be listening to more episodes anyway.
I’m enjoying Maria Bamford’s Sure, I’ll Join Your Cult which we’ve been listening to as an audiobook which is both nearly impossible for me and my auditory processing issues and also extremely delightful because she’s a comedian with great range and fantastic delivery. Someday I might even manage to finish it!
A couple of albums I’ve liked lately even though my ability to listen to music is extremely broken for some reason: Screaming Females, Desire Pathway and Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill which I’ve been listening to for most of my life but deserves a mention and Metric’s Art of Doubt and The Decemberists in generally because I am still In It!
Okay, that’s it! It’s been rough going around these parts lately — Did you know change is really hard? And having your life in upheaval is exhausting even when it’s for a good reason? And that money sucks? And adhulthood is stupid? Also being mentally ill is terrible? — but we persever nonetheless because honestly the other choice sucks way more.
I hope your fall is glorious! See you next month!
September 2024 will not be going down in the books as one of the best I have ever lived, but it hath brought me FALLOWEEN as it always does and some pretty alright stuff, so let’s talk about that and forget that I am Mentally Unwell.
I made a kind of middle of the night unhinged Amazon order because I was out of flossers and every single different kind of flosser I tried is just absolutely garbage? I grew up using Plackers because my dad always had them in the car for tooth emergencies and they were the go-to for years, but now they’re awful? The quality is so bad and if I am going to do something I hate for the environment I would at least like them to successfully floss my teeth. All the Oral-B ones are bad too? Like either they shred or they have that weird plastic tape floss that I promise your hygienest does not want you to be using because it’s useless. But! A year or two ago, we were in the Cities and Crystal placed a Target delivery order for drinks etc, and I was like, “oh I forgot flossers, can you grab some?” and she bought me these baby child infant flossers and while initially I didn’t like them, I now love them because the floss is thick and makes it easy to work between my teeth without shredding but then after like two years of being able to get them reliably they’ve been discontinued or something? ANYWAY, I found a seller on Amazon who had four 90 packs for what was actually what I paid at Target per flosser and I ordered five four packs. Which is basically five years worth of flossers so I guess I have to stay alive that long now? Which is a little stressful but not the worst reason I guess.
We bought some expensive fans earlier this year that we’ve now been using long enough to have an opinion about. This one is great, suuuuuper quiet but also really moves air around a space, and this one is also great though not better enough that I would buy it instead of the slightly cheaper again. This one is my biggest disappointment — the fan itself is quiet and it moves air great and it’s not the ugliest thing in the world, but just long enough after buying it that we couldn’t return it it started making a real weird noise when it oscillates and I know I should reach out to the company but like… Do you know how hard that stuff is? Like, man. I’ll probably stop being a lazy piece of shit about it eventually, but sheesh. ANYWAY, they’re some of the nicest looking fans I’ve seen in a while and the remotes are nice and I’m sure it would be great to use the wifi also actually, but since the app’s TOS is basically like, “We will give your information to cops no questions asked :)
” I will simply not ever be learning anything about that.
We also, finally, after eight years of suffering our old, poorly hung, drafty, shitty front and back doors, bit the bullet and bought new ones and had a professional hang them and they’re incredible. Not only are they not drafty! They also open and close without me having to push, pull, or bang my arm into them (depending on the season)! And also they’re very beautiful because I have great taste! I feel bad because our back door used to have a full length window and Bruno would spend his days standing there trying to see out (which he could not as we put light refracting film AND a dark curtain on it as soon as we moved in because the sun was UNBEARABLE in the afternoons) and now it only has a half window because I am cheap and also because I didn’t actually want him to spend his whole day there barking, but that’s not going to stop me from feeling bad, babey! We were also finally able to get a storm door with a retractable screen put in and I cannot wait to actually open it and have air moving around the back of the house for the first time since we moved in! What a time to be alive!
Alright, I guess that’s it? What a weird old person list of things I liked… I also watched Stop Making Sense which I have not seen recently enough to have a strong feeling about whether the restoration/transfer is good, but GOSH what a fucking movie. What a concert! What a band! What an experience! Also the tribute album is pretty good! Or at least has a few bangers!
Oh and I also liked Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves! What a fun movie! What a great bunch of characters! What an incredible bunch of creatures! Everyone in this was so charming and so fun to watch, I wish I’d been able to see it in theaters which I don’t often think anymore even though we used to go to the movies like twice a week but can’t because our theater here isn’t usable for fat people and also because I think if someone whipped their phone out during a movie I would rip it out of their hand and throw it all the way to hell. What the fuck happened to the world, man?
Okay, that’s it! I’m old! Happy Falloween! Better days are coming! Unless you’re a summer person and then well I guess I am very sorry and I hope you find peace anyway.
I have not been having the happiest or most dignified time lately and finding enjoyment has been hard! Liking things has been hard! Nevertheless we keep on keepin’ on and trying our best! Right? Right!
Anyway, I have kind of learned how to listen to podcasts! Which is an absolutely huge evolutionary shift for me. So far they have to be about music (a thing I am used to hearing only) and I still have to concentrate pretty hard so I mostly do it while doing data entry or organizational type work, but I’m having fun! I’ve listened to every episode of The True Story of the Fake Zombies so far and quite a few episodes of Song Exploder which I really like since the episodes are just about the songs and are nice and short and sweet.
Youtube-wise we’ve been watching a lot of Garden Answer because it’s oddly and wonderfully soothing to watch someone work really hard on projects across their bonkers property that you would never in your life even vaguely consider doing yourself in any way.
I really liked The Husbands by Holly Gramazio which, despite me having very recently read the synopsis, was really different than I expected! I thought it was clever and fun and also more emotionally resonant than I would’ve guessed it would be and I also thought the thanks/acknowledgement of, “Every stranger with whom I’ve exchanged a glance and thought, just for a moment, about a different life where they’re my friend,” was SO relatable and moving?
I also, due largely to Bad Brain Problems, recently reread Heated Rivalry and The Long Game which were both very charming/sexy/fun/funny the second time around. I’m really, really not a big re-reader, so you know I had a good time if I go back to something. Maybe no higher compliment, tbh!
Alright, I think that’s it! No new snacks except I got really into the Reese’s Take Five bars that came in the bag of candy I bought to put on my desk at work when I thought perhaps this year would be different than every year before and was trying to be a nice host. I was wrong, but the snacks are good anyway!
Fall is coming, babey. Hang in there.
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.
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!
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