|
|
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!
As a kid, instead of being normal and hanging out in the toy aisle at the grocery store while my parents shopped, I would camp out in the school/office supplies ogling all the pens and markers (and usually managing to go home with something new). As an adult, nothing has changed! Though I guess I do it mostly virtually now. I love stationery and I am always convinced that this new pen will be the perfect one, the one I’ll buy over and over again for the rest of my life. It never is, but I have a ball with the process anyway. On the eternal search for highlighters that won’t bleed through my Moleskine planner pages, I recently grabbed these Sharpie S-Note markers and I like them a lot! They work in my planner great and they’re saturated enough to write with and they’re also excellent in the one coloring book I own and use maybe once a quarter. Highly recommend.
My Spotify wrapped was atrocious so I won’t bother you with any of that (This is what happens when you fire all your people! You need human people to make things that are worth human time!) but it was nice to see that I listened to the Decemberists as much as I thought I did and I’ve been listening to my top songs for the year a lot despite the lackluster wrap-up. Anyway! Other stuff I’ve been listening to a lot: Boys Go To Jupiter’s “Virginia,” All Saints, “Never Ever,” Beach Weather, “Seth Cohen,” and a lot of Daft Punk.
I haven’t read anything I loved in fooooooooreeeeeeeeeeverrrrrrrrr which sucks, but I’m having an okay time with Ray Nayler’s The Mountain in the Sea, so fingers crossed!
Okay, that’s it! Happy holidays! I hope you have exactly as much fun as you can handle and an excellent new year. We can make it through this (and that and the next thing) together. <3
To be honest, the last month has been a little bit of a mess in ways I had not exactly expected and though I did listen to, read, and watch some stuff, my ability to retain whether or how much I enjoyed that stuff is… less than stellar.
I listened to a lot of Aurora on purpose which was a great choice. I’m particularly fond of The Gods We Can Touch but have not not enjoyed anything I’ve heard.
I read The Talented Mr. Ripley and had a pretty great time, thought it was significantly less gay than what I’ve seen/heard of the movie led me to believe. I also read and liked Kate Leth’s Mall Goth which hit me with some real good nostalgia in the midst of a good, though hard, story.
I watched Pretty Woman for the first time and had a great time! I get why so many women of a certain age are Like That about it and also seeing Jason Alexander be a gross little weasel was so unsettling to me.
In non-media things I’ve enjoyed recently: making canned cinnamon rolls by baking them in cream (The whole internet’s doing it! But this time they’re right!), our new laundry basket that was a little annoying to put together but rolls fantastically and holds a lots, putting a heating blanket just across the foot of the bed so I can tuck my feet into it when they get chilly but not get too hot to sleep, sleeping with my window open even though it’s in the 30s most nights, this little rechargeable Drew Barrymore lamp that I got for our newly renovated bathroom where after six years of living in this house we can finally shower which would also be a thing that I have enjoyed recently (and is of course to some extent) except it cost three times what we were told it would and was a shitshow from beginning to end, Abbot Mojave which does somehow remind me of home, and these little shower curtain clips that install easy and seem to hold the curtain well even if when I ~scanned the QR code to get installation instructions (They’re stickers, I thought I probably had it handled, but it never hurts to check!) it told me the company’s account had expired from non-payment.
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!
|
|
