media diary: september

 

Media Diary:

September 2023

Books:

• You Animal Machine by Eleni Sikelianos
• Death Prefers the Minor Keys by Sean Thomas Dougherty*
• How to Dress a Fish by Abigail Chabitnoy
• The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
• Women in Love by D.H. Lawrence*
• The King's Touch by Tom Sleigh
• 4:30 Movie by Donna Masini

Poems:

• "You Cooked For Me" by Caitlin Colon
• "Woman on Cell Phone Dragging an Empty Cart Through Washington Square Park" by Donna Masini
• "Instructions", "Mary Wore a Red Dress", "Eve's Real-Life Pillowtalk" by Eleni Sikelianos

Albums/Playlists/Artists:

Here is the link to my September tunes. 

And here is the link to my October bangers.

• Here's what I listen to most mornings before school/work. It's a weird combination of 70s classics (The Dance, 1997) and contemporary R&B, and also Barbra Streisand? 
• A female manipulator playlist with a lot of Meghan classics, like The Smiths, The Strokes, The Clash, The Cure, The Vaccines, etc. 
• Cate Le Bon
• Depeche Mode
• Deftones
• The Wombats! I saw them 09/30 at Big Night Live.
• Stevie Nicks (obvs)
• Samara Joy
• Puddle of Mudd
• Talking Heads (obvs)
• Dashboard Confessional
• Duster
• Amy Winehouse

Movies/TV:

• Love Island
• Below Deck: Mediterranean

Essays, Art, Obsessions and Other Digital Things:

• Going to the club. I love dancing. I love dressing up. I feel very Eve Babitz when I go out two nights in a row, then come back home and read/write in my party clothes. I love the inevitable moment of dissociation when I feel both extremely tired and extremely energized. I love taking the commuter rail. I love talking to strangers outside the club, when my ears are ringing and I smell like sweat and perfume.

• Black cats. One day, I will own a black cat named Sylvia Charlotte Marlboro, and she will wear a red collar. No notes. 
• This tweet:

• Haley Colborn over at Hot Literati. Her substack is to die for.
• Doc Marten Mary Janes. The heaviest shoes I own, and also the most killer. Red tights + black dress + Docs + scruffly bangs = heaven. 
• Attachment styles/actually working on myself. The most mind-boggling realization I had in therapy was that my thoughts are not all always true. Just because you think it, that does not mean it is reality. WHAT?! I looked at a list of cognitive distortions and wondered why on earth my daily routine was on full blast for everyone to see. I do all of those things every day! Acknowledging that I have the power to actually...not do that...was baffling.

• Frida Kahlo. Always!

• Emily the Strange. Who got this footage of me? Bangs, cats, black clothes.
• Regularly updating my Goodreads.
• This essay on "girl dinner" "girl math" "girl" whatevers.
• And this essay on what it means when women call each other "girls"
• Or this one on women's work, acting-as-writing, and daughterhood.
• The saying, "if it's meant to be, it will be". Who knew. I'm hanging on by a thread (jk), and the thread is that saying.
• Female friendships. Being cherished by and cherishing my female friends is such a radically beautiful act. There's something wonderful about being a menace with your girl best friend at the club, seltzers in hand. Or sending voice memos back and forth before you both go to work. There was a time when I did not have many friends, so I feel quite blessed now.
• Crying. I love crying. I love being sad. Melancholy is my greatest comfort. I cry in the faculty bathroom, I cry in the car, I cry in bed, I cry on walks, I cry in restaurants. I cried yesterday on the highway, with the windows down, eating mochi ice creams and listening to Lana Del Rey. I've been reading about how emotions usually last 90 seconds before our brains turn them into an entire narrative, so I usually put my hands on my chest and let the wave pass over before I pull myself together and move on. Essay on sadness forthcoming (?)
• Listening to albums all the way through. I'm an album person! I like picking an album and listening to it front-to-back while I rot in bed. Once upon a time, I wrote album reviews for kicks. I should do that again. Describing music is a challenge that pushes my literary linguistic skills in a deeply gratifying way.
• Sardine naps. This one's weird, I know. But I think I have low iron. I say this because I've been coming home from work, eating a tin of sardines, and napping for an hour/two. AND - get this! When I wake up, I feel so much better!!! It's like the iron and the nap hits all at once, kind of like a coffee nap, but with teeny, tiny fish.