The end-ish of this month has been ROUGH because I got sick like a dumb idiot and also because I have to go in for my semi-annual endometrial probing and I also have other stuff scheduled and I don’t handle having plans very well? I prefer to be free and I will assume that this is just my nature as a pisces, since one of the other things I find myself obsessed with in 2019 is astrology even though I don’t believe in it at all. What an adventure being alive is!
I did at least manage to like some stuff this month, so that’s cool!
I thought Unicorn Store was incredibly sweet and charming and also it made me cry a little bit, but in a nice, moved way, which is always great. Brie Larson is a national treasure who I already love a lot and Mamoudou Athie is a wonderful new addition to my list of People to Be Obsessed With. I liked that this just leaned into its premise and let it play out as weird as it wanted to without sacrificing any of its characters’ humanity. Samuel L. Jackson was also great as always and man, what a wardrobe!
I didn’t actually know anything about Jessica Knoll’s Luckiest Girl Alive when I finally started reading it 10,000 years after the hype died down and though I don’t think it mattered much enjoyment-wise, I do think I would have been extremely fucked up by the expectation that it might be anything like Gone Girl because it just… Is not at all that kind of book and I don’t know what marketing person decided to fucking, die on that hill. This is some of the best writing I’ve read in a long, long time and a really complicated, interesting narrator to spend time with and I am so glad I read it and happy to never read it again.
Lizzo is a babe, a talent, a hero, an idol, an inspiration and Cuz I Love You is joyful and fun and energetic and beautiful and I am so glad I’m alive on earth at the same time as her. I can’t imagine telling a young version of myself about Lizzo’s entire existence and I am so envious of and happy for young people right now. Favorites: “Cuz I Love You” & “Like a Girl” & “Jerome” & “Better In Color”
I L-O-V-E-D The Umbrella Academy! It was really fun and engaging and a little dumb, which is generally what I’m looking for in all my media about people with superpowers. I like the characters a lot, even when I don’t — looking at you, Luther — and I thought it looked really good, bright and lively with really fun set and costume design. I liked that it never hit a point where I felt like it was taking itself too seriously, which is really important for me with most things I watch and read, but especially stuff with an inherently goofy premise. It hit some really nice emotional moments, gave me a bunch of characters to care about, and left me looking forward to the possibility of a second season!
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I really liked the third season of One Day at a Time! As a show, it really fills a hole in my heart made by 90s sitcoms that wanted me to learn and feel things and I like that I get to have that experience again, but with some issues that would have never made the cut in my youth. I love these characters very much and I like that the stories are tightly contained and solved relatively simply, but never without a pretty satisfying emotional payoff. Even the cheesy sitcom dialogue works in the show’s favor because the acting shines against the constraints of the words and helps diffuse some of the preachier bits. I’m sad it won’t be coming back, but it’ll be fun to have three solid seasons to rewatch when I’m feeling bad about the world, which is basically always.
I really, really L-O-V-E-D The Haunting of Hill House and though I know it’s like, deeply uncool now to admit that spoilers matter to you, I am so glad that I managed to go in with really only my knowledge of 1999’s The Haunting (a mostly terrible, but extremely gay movie I saw in theaters) because waiting for each new moment was really satisfying and stressful and made the tension the show was building extra delightful. I was amazed at how quickly I was really invested in the characters and also how much I liked things that I am normally bored by in media (mostly those constraintless timelines and try-hard dialogue). It’s yet another series I am left hoping will stand as-is and another where I won’t seek out anyone’s opinions about it because they’ll mostly be boring, which is a sign that I really liked the show. If the thought of an adult man in front of a cake makes me weep, well. That’s how I like it.
I didn’t listen to a lot of new music in February (instead inexplicably deciding to relive my childhood by revisiting the Beatles’ catalog? The White Album still rules tbh.) but I did manage to listen to Two Feet’s 20 Something Fuck which I think is extremely solid, if short. The algorithm served me “I Feel Like I’m Drowning” way back (I posted it as a ~jam to my Instagram story in June, I think) and I’m glad that the whole album has a similar sound and energy. This is very much summer music for me and I need that right now because BOY AM I SICK OF WINTER. I’m very into the aforementioned “I Feel Like I’m Drowning” but also love “Hurt People” and “You Say” and “Back of My Mind”.
Crystal and I finally watched Baby Driver after a like two hour fight with my dad’s DirecTV login because we are truly millennials but thankfully it was extremely worth it. I really loved the characters and the acting (Fuck Kevin Spacey, obviously.) and the CAR CHASES! Set in daylight! The sign of a good car movie is how bad I want to drive fast afterward and I have to say the people of North Dakota are lucky that I am old and scared of winter driving or I would have immediately been out there raising hell. The music was great even though it’s clear that Edgar Wright thinks his taste in music is ~extremely cool~ and I loved the sound mixing (even though the whining they put in when Baby had his headphones out was TORTURE because of my intermittent tinnitus) and ASL. Also I accidentally came out of it extremely attracted to Ansel Elgort which is mildly upsetting.
In this year’s fit of nostalgia (last year’s was music based!) Crystal and I started re-watching Stargate: Atlantis and have been having a wonderful time reliving the early days of our friendship bonding. It’s fun to be infuriated at the same dumb plots and bad guys and to laugh at the dweeby (and dated!) jokes and also to revel in all the friendship and found family. Also, I have been shocked to find that the computer graphics hold up strangely well? So weird!
Early this month, Crystal inexplicably decided that she needed to rectify the Four Weddings and a Funeral hole in my pop culture blanket and you know what? I enjoyed it a lot! It was funny and charming and weirdly like watching something extremely strange because of both the time it was made and how extremely British it is. The 
