stuff i liked recently

a picture of ash as a baby in a walker with their tongue hanging out and a potted pothos nearby

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!

tunesday: june 2024

a square image of a kid anywhere from age four to seven tbh with bangs and a black and white striped shirt mouth hanging open while sitting at a table full of play doh accoutrements

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

The only thing I want to wear right now are the Oilers sweatshirts we’ve accumulated from their collabs with 22fresh because the quality of the sweatshirts is soooooooooo good. They’re warm without being stuffy, heavy and a little oversized, and super comfortable. I’d probably order some straight up 22fresh ~merch if they believed fat people exist. At least the Oilers do for now tho! I accidentally made an OCD rule that I couldn’t wear team gear on game days so I haven’t gotten to wear them as much as I would have wanted, but come cooler weather and the new season we’re breaking that dumbass rule real quick!

four oilers sweatshirts starting with green tie dye, two black ones with pink and blue logos, and a pink and blue tiedye one

I watched Dune and liked it a lot, even though I did not think I would at all. I also watched and loved Bottoms, which reminded me of my own high school experience way more than one would imagine based on how it all plays out, lmao.

I’ve been listening to a lot of Chappell Roan like all good queers everywhere. I feel like I’ve been listening to “Pink Pony Club” for like eighty years at this point just waiting to get a full album and I wouldn’t have thought it would live up to it, but it did!

I also listened through Men I Trust’s entire discography and was not disappointed even once. I like that you almost never know what to expect from a song, jazzy Carla Bruni-esque almost jazz or low-pro garage-y chick rock and whatever it is they’re doing at any time somehow seems to work.

I, insanely, have absolutely nothing to say about any books this month. I read the first issue of Steeple which I loved, but I can’t read anymore because every library inexplicably only has the first issue and not the first volume and yes, as you can tell, I have yelled about this repeatedly.

In other things, I am hooked on Marcella Gourmet Sweet Pickled Garlic which Crystal randomly bought at Menards. Being midwestern means knowing that some of the most delicious things you can eat will be purchased at your local big box home improvement store and ain’t that grand? Also little s’more bites from Target that we demolished in like two days. I have also become a recent Scrub Daddy convert. I’m not actually big on the original sponges, but the dishwand was recommended to me by a very long time internet friend and she was right, it whips! Isn’t adulthood thrilling?!

Okay, love you, see you soon!

tunesday: may 2024

a square image of a four year old kid with the worst mullet of all time sitting in front of big thunder mountain at disneyland in pink and blue plaid pants and a blue shirt while smiling in a grimacing emoji fashion

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

Some books: I’m not having good luck with books this year! But I read some alright ones! Kiel Phegley, Strikers and Stephanie Hoyt, Prove It and Cat Sebastian, We Could Be So Good.

Some tunes: Games We Play, “Girl Shaped Crater” which i have been listening to on repeat like an insane person. Oh and Kittie’s “We Are Shadows,” which is SO good and also it’s great that while I am experiencing a personal metal revival via this playlist for the 13yo in my heart, so many bands I liked at that age are coming back. And The Decemberists in general, but specifically I’ll Be Your Girl, this time around. 2024! The year I become a Decemberists guy! As I have already said! A lot!

Some eyeball stuff: I am still watching a movie a week and I rewatched The Social Network which is still just phenomenal. Aaron Sorkin and David Fincher, absolute TITANS of film, coming together to make a movie about something as stupid as Facebook lawsuits and every second of it is perfect. Sorkin’s a prick, but that man can write dialogue, babey. And everyone’s just acting the hell out of it. Andrew Garfield’s beautiful face haunted with emotion, Jesse Eisenberg’s blank disinterest that you somehow know is because he’s too busy thinking about something else to be present… Fantastic.

I also watched Poor Things which was so much weirder (POSITIVE!) than I was expecting and while the story was fine to good, the sets and costuming are going to be what really stick for me, just absolutely beautiful and stylized and fun to look at for the whole runtime. Also, Emma Stone was GREAT. I don’t care about awards, but for sure she deserved whichever one of those things she won.

Alright, that’s it! See you next month! Love you!