i need to start writing again but everything i start i stop and so i’m gonna try something different to break the seal. i got off instagram for most of july (harm reduction, not recovery) and was thus was closed off from my primary modes of expression (posting to my stories) and socialization (watching other people’s stories).
i thought that the lack of a platform combined with my constant and never-ending need for attention might drive me to write here, but that was not the case. on her instagram, which she is the goldilocks amount of addicted to, deborah does monthly roundup posts to the grid, so i thought to publish something/anything here, i’d try that here, so these are some images from my camera roll in july with occasional commentary and redactions (ed note: this is hella long, so you will probably need to click through to the web version to view all of it):
deborah on our way to t’s birthday dinner birthday dinner (we ordered too much) deborah’s favorite musician is billie eilish and unfortunately my favorite musician to mock is billie eilish there are artists more worthy of my mockery tbhfascinating experiment! less crunch than you’d normally want from a chip but the texture plays into the grilled cheese-ness in an uncanny waymiso covered in my weighted “cooling” comforter [redacted] my favorite day i put off watching Hacks for a long time despite the hype because the clips i saw on socials just never really worked for me (i am a very hard sell for modern comedy) but my friend cc was insistent and of course it’s an incredible show that makes me laugh so hard and also feel things for the characters (without the cloying sentimentality of so many smarmy “everybody’s good on the inside” vibe that kills so many contemporary comedies for me).really though watching it would have been worth it solely for how many screenshots i can get of the name Deborahthe main way i have been working on this newsletter, other than thinking about it and feeling bad that i’m not working on it and occasionally jotting down ideas for letters that i will not develop and will soon lose any spark about, is when we’re watching TV or a movie and someone mentions gratitude, thanks, thankfulness etc. i take a picture of the screen, with the vague idea that i will eventually do something with them (i guess this is something). i have…so many pictures. this is from Zombieland 2, a movie i didn’t know existed but was actually charming and quite watchable!this simile made me think of harris wittels’ description of shooting up heroin being like "if your entire body was covered with dicks and they’re all coming” dog walking outfitdeborah and i both love the newest olivia rodrigo album but disagree about the value/placement of the song “expectations” (she likes it, i don’t think it fits well within the side A / side B vibe of the album and also lmao that she’s now dating someone who works in private equity) so it was validating that craig jenkins agreed with medeborah’s favorite hat footnote from True Color by Kory Stamper, a fascinating book about trying to come up with standardized systems for describing color that is full of tidbits like this i have to write another post solely about my recent deep Canada/Aussie/Geordie Shore addiction, it cannot be contained in a mere caption “I was grateful for the sense of control I felt when writing. The real work of nonfiction, and of profile writing especially, is in making a series of arbitrary and disconnected events legible. The best profiles force a coherent ac from a string of mostly random occurences: of course it all happened just like that. Writing was a corrective to my reality, which felt incoherent” (Amanda Petrusich)
i also like the punctum of this water i dropped while reading during lunch falling on “my sobs”one of my all time ego-boost songs is “King Kong” by Curren$y and i didn’t realize the chorus comes from Training Day first half marathon distance run of the summer. it’s always hard, both during and after, but it makes me feel a solidity in my body that i can still do it if i push myself. fried rice with fried egg and chili oil by chef Deborah i can’t wait for this movie to come out on streaming. (meta note: i mostly use screenshots of things i’ve read as markers to find them in the future because i can’t be bothered to use a more rigorous or detailed organizational systems)
one of the only times miso tries to be cuddly with me is when i’m trying to do yoga i just love that someone named their dog Hennessy pretty good though i am ready to burn TJs to the ground if they don’t keep the ketchup lattice potato chips (a perfect snack food) the LA chain Eggslut came here and i was mostly underwhelmed, though i’ll say that i am not really a breakfast food person (don’t @ me) and also these rosemary truffle hashbrowns were very good (though a hashbrown seems pretty hard to fuck up)
card i made for e’s birthday using the super fun clipart.studio app, which is delightful highly recommend playing with!i left my job at the end of june and after the luxury of taking a real summer vacation i have to get back in the game soon and create a LinkedIn which i have avoided up until this point of my life not afraid to be servicey: i don’t know why they make adjusting the iphone camera as webcam so hidden. i love sex and i do think the world would be better if everyone were having more and also i think saying “I love how efficient we were!” is almost as bad as being an incelthis is from life of pie, one of my top five pizza places in portland (though nearer the bottom of the list). recently deborah and my friends have gone crazy a different pizza restaurant, the turning peel, which i alone find to be very mid. i have also vowed that this summer i will try again the mexican place closest to our house, which when we moved in 6 years ago i tried, hated, and swore i would never eat at againlike novelty oreos, you’ll never top the OG of cocoa pebbles, but i appreciate the effort. these were…fine but got nothing on cinnamon toast crunchdid you know that there is an airbnb but for the subset of people who are a) rich enough to have a private swimming pool but b) not so rich that they won’t rent it out by the hour to strangers? it’s called swimply and i do one every year for deborah’s birthday (also file this under experience gifts to get for people). smoking a joint outside in the summer while drinking a beer is basically my peak summer activity (and the pool is the cherry on top)this season of the ultimatum was filled with, even by the low standards of netflix reality dating shows, truly unlikable people. my biggest problem is that the “trial marriage” is such a sham that nobody ever commits to (on the straight version, at least. on the far superior queer version, my friend CC said “those lesbians are living whole other lives [in the trial marriage]” but in a nuclear macro-agression the queer version has been canceled and all we have are evangelical christians arguing about social media use) Deborah has almost knitted an entire sweater while we’ve been watching TV and despite Miso’s best efforts to prevent her from doing so! this season of House of the Dragon has been pretty bad. like the small council scenes in GOT were all like “how can all of these super clever people one-up each other with devious twists and stratagems” and in this show it’s just like “everybody’s dumb and doesn’t know what to do”truly no ideadappled for her birthdayamazing birthday portrait of miso by k amazing portrait by mei still use the Brick daily after reading this newsletter and getting one and i don’t think it’s really made me anything but marginally more sane but i’ll take itnever get tired of looking at her tattoo! (which i was against lol) i was so resistant to getting on tumblr back in the day because i thought it was this sign of everyone getting too dumb to actually blog with words (which maybe it was though also it is the internet i remember most fondly). every generation has their own cycles of “everyone is getting too dumb”a coworker i worked closely with learned my true age and was shocked because she thought i was “Maybe 35? Maybe!” and yes this was the nicest thing anyone has said to me in this calendar yearanother monstrous creature
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