ask me about...
(week of 8/10)
Last week was rough but I’m back for yaps this morning hey
...what I'm reading (books): Finished A Good Person by Kirsten King, which made my life feel less fucked up in comparison. Currently reading Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One by Kristen Arnett, which is somehow relatable despite me being a little bit scared of clowns. I’m also really trying to savor every story in Fat Swim by Emma Copley Eisenberg. Her writing is so deeply compelling to me, there’s something so tactile in how she describes bodies and the ways we live in them, and something so evocative but never flowery or dramatic in how she puts sentences together. Forever taking notes from her.
...what I'm reading (fic): The fic reading and writing part of my brain is off right now. I’ve been in the kind of depleted, burnt out, whatever-you-want-to-call-it headspace that makes it really easy to poison the things I love, if that makes sense? What's the word for that again? Depression? Yeah. Keeping all things fic safely tucked away on a high shelf for now.
...what I'm listening to: I struck thrift store gold last last weekend with a CD haul that includes Weezer’s Green Album, Bowie’s The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust, Belle and Sebastian’s The Boy with the Arab Strap, Beastie Boy’s License to Ill, and Yo La Tengo’s I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One. I had all of these albums on repeat constantly when I was in college. Listening to them now feels like time traveling.
...what I'm watching: Oregon is in the middle of its worst wildfire season on record and the air quality was bad enough last week I didn’t open my windows once from Monday morning through Friday morning. Temps were also in the 90s. It sucked. In an effort to make it suck less, I had movie night every night. I watched: Red Eye (still fun), The Devil Wears Prada 2 (boring), The Drama (way better than I expected), Trap (so bad), and Skate Dreams (very cool).
...what I'm eating: A lot of froyo. Also these spring roll bowls because if you add pre-cooked shrimp (or chicken or whatever) there’s zero stovetop/oven required.
...what I'm working on: Please refer to what I’m reading (fic). There was a faint spark when @dags-over-caravans posted a little update of the final chapter of BLP but a very distant spark. Like watching a wildfire start in eastern Oregon, but in a good way. See, that was a horrible metaphor. That’s why I’m not writing right now.
...what I'm doing to touch grass: I spent most of the weekend outside after being cooped up inside all week. Went on a Cat Walk on Saturday, where a bunch of neighborhood families had their cats in windows or on leashes outside for people to say hi to and it was very wholesome. And yesterday I walked around Mount Tabor Park and watched preparations begin for the soap box derby next week, which is a whole fun weird thing. Being in community for fun weird things is one of the best ways to touch grass imo.
...what's making me laugh: Last week a coworker (who is weaponized incompetence personified) kept asking if July had 30 or 31 days (because he’s dumb) and after multiple people tried teaching him the rhyme thing, my manager just quietly, politely said “Have you tried checking your calendar?” and I’m still laughing about it. It was the sickest corporate burn I've ever witnessed.
...what's giving me hope: Firefighters? Idk dudes. Wildfire season is always tough but it feels extra tough this year for some reason. Maybe because we’re building data centers that use up so much water and worsen the conditions that make it possible for one little lightning strike to set hundreds of thousands of acres on fire? Wait, this was supposed to be about hope. Firefighters. Right.
...what's so true to me right now: Say hi to people. Yesterday I ran out to grab some lunch and I smiled at an older woman who was passing by on the sidewalk, and she stopped and said hi, so I said hi, and then she started talking about how no one ever says hi anymore. So then we chatted for a little bit about the library because she had a few books in her hand that she was on her way to return, and then she went on her way, and that was that. It was just a nice little moment. And everyone has countless moments like that all the time, but maybe not as much as we should, maybe she’s right.
So yeah, consider me the older woman with library books passing by on tumblr, saying hi.
