These Are a Few of My Favorite Things: May/June
Warning: many of the song links in this post are explicit, so click with care.
I hate summer. This is a thing I know about myself, but somehow, every year, I am surprised anew by the ferocity of my loathing. It's too hot and it's too humid and my hair is too long and thick and my weight is too high, and all I want to do is lie around with a fan pointed directly at me, and I am snappish and irritable and lethargic, and it is altogether miserable. I also hate winter, but for different reasons, and while I don't exactly hate spring, I hate it in Oklahoma because it means tornadoes and wind and rain and rain and rain. Autumn is the sweet spot, but it would be even better if it came with the drowsy buzzy blooming of spring.
Anyway, I spend too much time thinking about the things I hate. There are a lot of them because I am a very particular sort of person, but there are also so many things I love, and I would rather talk about those. So let's.
For a start, I love sitting on my couch during mid-afternoon with a light rain falling outside and the cats arrayed around me. I love loving people who love me back and who both articulate and demonstrate that love on a regular basis. My primary love languages are quality time and words of affirmationn, and I do need regular reminders in these ways that people care about me. It's entirely too easy for me to convince myself that they don't. I love showers now, which is a thing that would have been unfathomable to me even a year ago. I love getting a good night of sleep, something I very rarely get, followed by a perfect breakfast and a cup of coffee. I love soft snuggly blankets. And I love sharing media with people and getting them to love it too.
Every time I hear a Mac Miller song, I think to myself that I should really listen to more of his music, and then I don't because my brain is a hyperactive toddler on the best of days and it's difficult to rangle it. But because Stay has been my favorite for years, and because I also like Dang! with Anderson .Paak, I finally listened to The Divine Feminine all the way through and it's so good. His lazy drawl makes everything he says sound sexy to me, and this album feels just right for the edging into summer mood of lounging and wearing as little as possible to stay cool. I love a horn in a hip-hop song, also, and there are plenty of horns here, even though it's sometimes a little cheesy like the saxophone in Skin, my other favorite. A tragedy that he's gone and will never make more music.
Let me give you a mini mixtape of other individual songs I've been listening to on repeat. Do You... by Miguel has been scratching a specific itch in my brain and he might end up in my Spotify Wrapped at the end of the year based solely on the number of times I've played this one song. Beauty & Essex by Free Nationals featuring Daniel Caesar & Unknown Mortal Orchestra is another recent find that I can't stop playing. I know Matty Healy is kind of a terrible person by all accounts, but I love The 1975's music and I heard A Change of Heart on a playlist a while ago and it immediately went on my playlist of songs I never skip when they come up on shuffle. And lastly, Alaska by Maggie Rogers. I love Maggie Rogers and have been listening to a lot of her, this is just the most recent one.
It had been a while since I watched a new to me horror movie, because sometimes it's difficult for me to force myself to commit to one and start it, so on Memorial Day I sat down and watched 3 in a row. Of those, The Menu was hands down my favorite. I loved it so much. It's a very over the top premise and you do have to suspend a certain amount of disbelief, but if you can do that, it's so, so funny and Ralph Fiennes is wonderful in it. I primarily know him from Harry Potter and I don't think he gets to do his best acting in that. I also watched The Blackening, which was a lot of fun and had a great cast, and it's the most in my wheelhouse of all of them. I don't think it makes the most of its premise or fully interrogates the issues it raises, but I don't really care because it's so entertaining. It would have been better to watch with someone else though I think. The last one I watched was There's Something Wrong with the Children, which was fine and had some interesting dynamics between the adults with regard to open relationships and mental illness, but I don't really recommend it unless you're just bored and have nothing better to watch. The creepy kids leave something to be desired.
Minx is a show that's been on my list of things to watch since this time last year, because I'm a huge fan of Oscar Montoya and he talked about it on a podcast where he was a guest, and I finally got around to it last week. I watched the whole thing in one evening and it was an absolute delight. I was obsessed with every character and wanted good things for all of them, even Jake Johnson's kind of awful sleazy character, and it's hilarious and charming, and I'm furious that I don't currently have access to the second season. I need to know what happens. Please watch this if you're not put off by the extremely sexual content. It's set in the 70s, and it's about a very uptight and pedantic woman who wants to create a feminist magazine and ends up working with a shady publisher to create the first erotic magazine for women.
I just read The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix this past weekend and I absolutely loved it. This is no surprise because I've been a Grady Hendrix fangirl for years, ever since I first read My Best Friend's Exorcism. That's still my favorite and I liked How to Sell a Haunted House slightly more than this one, but third best from Grady Hendrix is still amazing. It's so warm-hearted and funny, while at the same time being very gory and disgusting, while at the same time being a poignant commentary on the mistreatment of women by the patriarchy, where the patriarchy = their husbands and a vampire. I don't know any other author who balances funny and genuinely creepy so well and I want more horror that does this. It seems like they can usually manage one or the other, but not both. I recommend this so much if you're comfortable with gore and bugs and rats and an off-page rape with a rough aftermath and a ton of gaslighting of women. His books are a lot.
And as a bonus, here are the perfumes I've been wearing. There's a perfumery called Majikah that shows up at the Renaissance Faire in my town and also at the Haunted Castle, a Halloween attraction at the same venue, and they have a lilac oil I fell in love with last year and came back for in May. I only have a tiny vial of it, so I use it sparingly, but it smells like the essence of summer to me. I want to try so many of their other florals, and I also wear Harvest Moon from them in the cooler months. And I bought Devil's Millhopper from Solstice Scents months ago and hated it when I first wore it, but I let it sit for a long time and then tried it again, and now I love it. It has a strong earthy dirt note on me at first that isn't ideal, but it dries down into something sweet and fresh and sunny and perfect. I've gotten compliments on it before, which isn't a requirement necessarily, but it's always nice. I'm still searching for my perfect scent, which is something like an apothecary in the middle of a garden just after a rainstorm, and I want to try Garden Hideaway from Stereoplasm but it hasn't been available for a long time.
I hope you've enjoyed this wander through the things I've loved recently. I think I'm going to do these semi-regularly because it's so fun for me to share things with people and keep track of them myself. What have you been enjoying? Share your recent favorite movies/books/TV shows/music with me, or anything else that doesn't fit into those categories.