I’m not really a big diner girl, but I did enjoy Juniors across from Brooklyn Paramount after the CMAT concert. Its breadth and dated decor reminded me of a long-gone Pittsburgh diner called Gullifty’s. Cheesecake is worth the hype, and I appreciated their large menu.

I waited for an hour in the sun to eat at Kasama, Chicago’s Michelin-starred Filipino bakery. You can order baked goods ahead of time and skip the line, but the hot meal is worth the wait and completely transcendent. For a drink: Manila fog is has hojicha with a pandan cloud on top; for the meal: I loved my sweet pork belly adobo but enjoyed trying my friends’ Filipino breakfast sausage and coconut-crusted chicken adobo; for treats: a black sesame macaroon and some cakey thing I forget.

I loved overstuffed Italian sandwiches from Milano Market when I used to live on the Upper East Side before TikTok got ahold of it and had the opportunity to show some uninitiated friends. The menu is huge, and you cannot go wrong.

The 2010s are calling because I finally tried a cronut from Dominique Ansel Bakery. Cheuginess aside, they are a great treat and have a different flavor each month. I had a s’mores cronut that tasted like an elevated Auntie Anne’s cinnamon stick oozing with cream.

Matt told me my first week of work that I needed to try Shelsky’s Brooklyn Bagels, which I now have since I live nearby. Listen to this: pastrami, egg, and cheese on a sichuan peppercorn bagel. Gooey goodness with a spice you barely notice until it builds that buzz.

A healthy suburban childhood includes a coffeeshop that feels like a close friend. After management changes at mine made it less cool and yummy, I have fully converted to Orbis Caffe a few blocks down. It’s a coffeeshop by day and cocktail bar by night, genuinely cozy and pretty in a way that felt Brooklynish. I love their iced chai and got my mom to try a hugo spritz for the first time.

When a bar in Pittsburgh is actually good, it feels like the best bar ever. Hidden Harbor feels like one of the best tiki bars I’ve been to, strong drinks coming in over-the-top vessels. Plus, they make a fabulous french fry.

If Insa was in the West Village, it would be constantly mobbed with influencer types. Thankfully, it’s in Gowanus so families can have a normal night out with killer KBBQ. You pick a meat, and they cook it for you. I loved the galbi beef and japchae. Don’t skip the low-lit bar in the front or the private karaoke rooms.

My friend’s friend that feels like my friend opened a natural history museum-themed bar in Bushwick called The Museum Bar & Gift Shop. Go for a date or night with friends. All the cocktails are elaborate (one even has pureed bugs), and you can balance them out with dino nuggets.

My neighborhood has what might be the best coffeeshop in the world? Cafe Regular is the perfect atmosphere for reading, working, or eavesdropping. There’s a huge painting on one wall. I don’t know what year I’m in when I’m in here.

Sometimes you’re out somewhere not paying attention to the background music, and suddenly a new song smacks you across the face, piercing through whatever activity you were doing with its perfection. “When a Good Man Cries” by Irish lady singer CMAT smacked me a few months ago. CMAT’s genre is encapsulated in the name of her latest album, Euro Country. Her tracks are a bit folksy, a bit poppy, and all show off her unique voice that sounds like it comes from a person who’s overcome stuff. My friends were on aux playing this song last year when I first heard it, and I ended up getting a ticket to go see CMAT’s tour with them. The show was spectacular even though I only really knew the songs from her newest album. She has a band (the sexy CMAT band, she squeals) that all look like they are having the best time, and she sounds even better live. This was also the most Irish accents I’ve heard in one space.

These first three music fixations are probably the three new-to-me artists I’ve been listening to the most lately. My favorite might be underscores after getting a song of hers (underscores is one person) via Spotify Discover and then tearing through U, which is in the running for my favorite album of the year. Sometimes you hear an artist and think they’ve made music specifically for you, and I feel that way about this album. It’s a bundle of contradictions in this emotional, electronic ball. I’m sorry to invoke astrology, but I really think that this album encapsulates the dichotomy of my detached Aquarius sun and sensitive Cancer moon (and rising! Yikes). Some of these songs really pound, perfect for traversing through a busy train station or getting really angry about how passionate you are. “Do It” is my favorite song of the year and makes me feel like such a protagonist. I love every song on this album and need to listen to more of her stuff.

Did you love late-2010s R&B and are looking for a more modern version of those lover-baddie-in-the-city anthems? I am obsessed with Chxrry (pronounced Cherry?), a Canadian singer and her album U, Me & My Ego. I got onto the Chxrry wave from the singles that came out earlier this year: “Main Character” immediately stopped me in my tracks (a la the CMAT song I just mentioned) with how much it makes me feel like an Instagram baddie visiting a tropical city going out somewhere expensive on a Friday night, and “Hall of Fame” makes me feel the same way but if the Instagram baddie lived in the aforementioned tropical city. These two songs along with title track “U, Me & My Ego” are some of my other favorite songs of the year. Most of her songs are about confidence but usually confidence as a reaction to betrayal (If you don’t want me, I know that the club will). Not all of the songs are hits (Mariah the Scientist collab “Bottles & Lights” is haphazard; “Groupie” would be a good song without that feel it in my coochie line in the chorus), but most of them are easy listening for your next pregame.

I heard this song from TikTok and implore you to listen if you like weird song structures. “Gimme a Gas Station” by Faith Leazae takes whiny, bored rap to new heights. Listen to how she says beeeeeecause.

I’ve been listening to random singles from rapper Monaleo since my New Hampshire days, and most of them make me want to fight. However, “Everythang Pinka” ft. Teezo Touchdown is a relaxing summer anthem. This windows-down song has steel drums and feels like an exhale.

Just appreciating jazz as a genre! I was back in Pittsburgh at this time and trying to work a lot, but I get distracted if I listen to music with words while I work. I just shuffled a bunch of random jazz playlists I have as well as Spotify pre-made ones, old stuff and new. I just like how something so chaotic can be so centering. Jazz makes me feel like New York. When I don’t know what to listen to and feel a bit wired, jazz is there to inspire.

I got back to New York on the Sunday of Pride. It was a crazy day, but I got some grounding partway through when the DJ played “Just Fine” by Mary J. Blige. This is one of my all-time favorite songs, getting me up in the morning or in a good mood if I’m feeling down. I started listening to this song a bunch with my mom when my parents first separated, and it’s followed me through all sorts of life changes. A full-circle moment I had was listening to this with my mom as we made bagels on her first week of opening the shop. When this song came on at the Pride party I was at, I went ballistic. Thankfully, one other girl shared my obsession so we could go ham together.

Anitta has made music in multiple genres and languages. Her latest album is much calmer and more contemplative than her past high-energy hits. I don’t know Portuguese to know what’s happening in “Ternura,” but it’s the musical embodiment of exploring a secret garden, seeing some lush paradise for the first time.

Olivia Rodrigo has always made good music, but I’m not usually in the place to really relate to her sadness and/or anger. However, you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love got me at the right time. It’s all about her relationship with actor Louis Partridge, starting lovey and ending sad just like the album. It gets very New Wave-y in songs like “u + me = <3” and even features Robert Smith (lead singer of The Cure) in pre-breakup banger “what’s wrong with me.” I genuinely like every song but because I don’t cycle through sad music super often, the song that will get the most play for me is “expectations,” which feels like a child of Madonna’s “Material Girl” in its production style and themes.

Noor texted me that she had free Madison Beer tickets that night if I wanted to join her. I like some of her music and listened to her most recent albums, so I said yes. I would never buy a ticket to see her, though, and still feel the same. She played at Madison Square Garden (and never made any sort of pun or reference to her name that way) for the end of her tour in what was one of the worst concerts I’ve ever been to. The arena was far too big for her, someone who tends to stand in one place for an entire song. The set was mimicking previous Sabrina Carpenter and Ariana Grande sets but was all grey. The most visually interesting number had bright purple lights to finally add some color. She and her four dancers were somewhat dynamic but mostly stiff, and the vast majority of her songs were her just standing and singing. I don’t fault Madison for this; she is a beautiful singer. Her team did her dirty with a bland set and too-basic choreography. I felt like I was high and everything was hilarious to me. Noor thinks she should DJ for her next tour, and I think she should tour with a symphony playing while she stands and sings, just something more suited to her skillset. I feel frustrated for her — a person with depth and multiple eras of art as she searches for authenticity and critical acclaim — but she is doomed to basicdom because of how perfect she is, or at least how perfect she looks. She cannot break free from looking like a mean girl even though she sees herself as the quiet girl making songs. Her tour was clearly loved by her scores of adoring fans from her homeland of Long Island. I did really love back-to-back “Baby” (song of hers I liked in college) and “angel wings” (favorite song from her album now), and the performances of both were engaging.

I’ve been following this girl named Annabelle on TikTok who has been biking her way from, like, Scandinavia to South Africa with her boyfriend for the past few months. They actually just finished their trip and made it to Cape Town this week. When I included this as a Current Fixation, however, Annabelle was in this logistical hellscape trying to cross from the Republic of the Congo to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The border agents in both countries were giving them different kinds of visa trouble, and it took them weeks to successfully cross the physically short distance after having to wait for all sorts of bizarre circumstances to fall into place. It was just really interesting to watch bureaucracy suck.

I like getting promo for bad and/or poorly produced music. There is some song out there I can only describe as the Appalachian grabber whose TikTok clips all begin (assumably) partway through the song for the last line of the rap, when a white guy with cornrows says Come to Appalachia and let me grab ya before the vibe totally switches to a meeker guy singing Can you feel it in the air? Ai-ai-air? Something about the whole exchange feels vulnerable but it is overall hilarious.

There’s some guy on TikTok @coll.sharp who talks at the camera in a direct but poetic way, telling short stories that fit into a Lana Del Rey cinematic universe of southern young love and heartbreak. His videos appear every now and again, and whenever they do I always lock in.

The algorithm doesn’t always act in my best interest if I’m scrolling while sad, but I started getting videos from a girl named Riley Meckley who posts earnest, extremely positive day-in-my-life videos usually set to pop songs as she dances around her room. Her music and style feel like something from the early 2010s and is the kind of happy content that is best for a depressed person to watch.

Twitter was a few years behind the 2010s seasons of America’s Next Top Model when Tyra Banks was promoting a YA novel she wrote called Modelland about a self-insert protagonist named Tookie De La Creme who attended a modeling boarding school. It’s another campy, over-the-top Tyra project with an equally strange theme song.

I like getting Pittsburgh-y TikToks when I’m back in my hometown. I enjoyed a series from a local influencer about a multi-day hike across the Laurel Highlands. I take these forests for granted because it’s what was accessible to me, so it’s cool to see it as a host for adventure.

Love Island had a lot of great moments, but far and away the best was during the post-Casa Amor recoupling ceremony when Trinity is appropriately yelling at KC, but his new girl Titi decides to chime in. There are some electric reality television moments that you know are historic as soon as you see them, which is how I felt hearing, You can pipe down. I’m Titi.

I really must have been in a horrible mood this week because the thing I wanted to talk about was parasocial relationships TikTok users were developing over rower Kelsey Pfendler breaking the record for fastest kayaking trip from California to Hawaii. I’m too lazy to find proof; just trust me on this one. I just felt like…this lady is out at sea all alone and is going to come back to a ton of people knowing all these intimate details about her…ew! Since logging this fixation, I have chilled out and think that people just want to be happy for someone doing something incredible.

This lovely drag queen’s name is A’keria C. Davenport, but Twitter showed me that Drag Race subtitles are calling her something I find myself thinking about multiple times a day:

I was never a cheerleader, but these girls have an impressive ability to make up cheer tournament remix songs. What feels especially crazy is that they are British. They also gave us another viral video a few years ago that I don’t really know how to describe its significance.

I’m a year or two late to Baby Reindeer. Although it stressed me out, I really enjoyed it. It was also a great reminder that there are so many people making way worse decisions than I am.

I had never even heard of 2005 romcom Hitched when Netflix peddled it to me. Will Smith plays a New York dating coach, and Eva Mendes is a cynical gossip columnist. Corny lines, great New York backdrop, and public declarations of love made for a lovely weeknight watch with the gals.

Sometimes I consume media that feels like it’s targeted more for my parents than me, but that doesn’t stop me from loving Four Seasons, Netflix’s modern retelling of the Alan Alda 80s movie of the same name. Three sets of couples that have been friends forever deal with one of the couples splitting up and how it changes the group dynamic, seen over four trips taking place over the year. The show has the same bones as the movie with a different coat of paint (e.g., the movie’s Danny and Claudia are Danny and Claude in the show) and a stacked cast, including sexy douche Steve Carrell, non-Lemon Tina Fey, a whiny Will Forte, and the inescapable, gorgeous Colman Domingo.

This is my first season of Love Island USA. I adore the OG U.K. version and immediately ditched my attempt to watch the first U.S. season a few years ago because I thought the show was way lamer without British accents and cultural differences to study. I started watching this season because 1. this is one of the few monocultural experiences we have left 2. the nearly daily episodes encourage watchers to create healthier habits so they can be cozy by 9 p.m. to watch. I was so angry during the first episode at how stupid everyone and everything. By episode two, I lost enough brain cells to be hooked; it was my own “He loved Big Brother” 1984 moment. It is a real shame that I was on writing hiatus because I have a lot to say about this show.

I’ve seen the sequel but not the original Steve Martin Pink Panther movie. It’s an easy watch. Beyonce is there!

At the start of the year, I began watching Mad Men, which might dethrone The Sopranos as my favorite show. I stopped in March near the end of season three when HBO realized I am not in the same physical household as my mom. I resumed watching when I went back to Pittsburgh and immediately fell back in love with this show that, oddly, makes you excited about white collar work.

I really liked Obsession, but I found it more stressful than scary. Am I a bad person for feeling bad for the guy? You can’t be too mad at someone in a horror movie for not realizing that they are, in fact, in a horror movie.

An even better horror movie to see was Backrooms, packed with jump scares and slow-building frights. I’ve always been fascinated with liminal spaces (plentiful in Pittsburgh) and loved that this was really a movie about therapy. The ending was a bit confusing but in a way that made me want to watch it again.

Disclosure Day would have been an amazing movie if it was made at least 20 years ago, but its optimism makes it so out of touch. So much of the plot leans on the premise that people would revolt if they learned — not just that aliens were on Earth, but — that our government abused aliens they captured. Genocide, rape, and gory death footage are easily accessible on our phones, and people are at least somewhat numb to it.

I got only tangentially interested in the World Cup this year, more excited about the cultural exchanges than the actual soccer…but the games I watched were pretty interesting. It’s just wild to see such a corrupt organization run rampant in our corrupt nation in what’s advertised as a globalization victory but often ends up being colonialism in sport form. FIFA’s riggory for Argentina wasn’t strong enough to win them the whole thing but was powerful enough to get the rest of Latin America rooting for Spain.

Code Switch piqued my interest with episode title “What the Savannah Bananas have to do with race and baseball.” Turns out their league just revived a negro league team called the Indianapolis Clowns, a polarizing team that did a mix of real baseball and minstrelsy. Lots of nuance!

I sat on a bench of a scene-y Wicker Park coffeeshop and read New York Magazine article “The Rise of the Fool” about clown comedy. It’s more of a countercultural movement than someone wearing a red nose and funny makeup. I really enjoyed reading this story about what some people think is a revolutionary art form and others think is a toxic ecosystem based around making bad art.

This American Life had an episode on kids sussing out if the adults in their life are being truthful with them called “Here’s Looking at You Kid.” It was a bit of a sad listen, a more lighthearted story about a guy who mentally could not handle being a football player and a much darker one about a girl who wasn’t sure if her mom molested her. The second story featured one of the craziest archetypes, someone who has intellectualized their argument so much they do not know how monstrous they sound.

Food journalism has lost a lot of its fun factor. Thankfully, Shut Up ‘n Eat is a really fun newsletter x podcast about restaurants, mostly in New York and LA. My friend/old boss Matt is one of the people running it, and since launching last month they’ve already interviewed teams behind ultra-buzzy places like Lei, Kabawa, and KBBQ place I mentioned earlier Insa.

I’ve written before about my love for New York City history podcast Bowery Boys, but I get so annoyed when they collaborate with their sister gay nerd history podcast The Gilded Gentleman (about the Gilded Age, obviously). He isn’t even that bad; there’s just something about his content that annoys me and feels like an interruption in my feed from my chosen nerds. I did, however, enjoy the interruption of an episode he did called “The Scandalous Hamiltons: Sex, Lies, and Blackmail” about the messy life of Alexander’s great-grandson, which features attempted murder, false identities, and unsolved deaths.

I’ve listened to a lot of David Sedaris stories on This American Life but never read any of his essay collections until seeing the recently published The Land and its People at the bookstore. I get that he is a revolutionary humorist and essayist that changed how people write and speak (me and other public diary writers owe a lot to him, whether we know it or not!). Nonetheless, enough time (and time being rich and famous) has passed that he is also just another out-of-touch Upper East Side old person complaining about pronouns. I still enjoyed the book, but I need to read some of his earlier stuff.

Search Engine does a lot of episodes that I think are great introductions to podcasting for people who don’t listen to them because of how accessible, entertaining, and thorough they are. A Substack writer that operates under a pseudonym asks “Why doesn’t anybody come to my parties?” so PJ interviewed her and all sorts of people in her life to find the answer. I’m happy that someone was brave enough to get a journalist to investigate what makes them socially undesirable.

Remember Savannah Guthrie’s mom’s disappearance/death, I guess? New York Magazine reminds us of this disturbing, ongoing mystery happening at what is often such a lighthearted morning show in “The Today Show Goes Dark.” Other than a catalogue of events, it’s a dissection into how a show that’s supposed to be positive deals with incredible personal tragedy.

Search Engine is replaying old episodes during their summer break, so I’m finally listening to the three-part series non-Search Engine listeners might know the podcast from: “Why didn’t Chris and Dan get into Berghain?” These episodes brought ultra-exclusive German techno club Berghain further into public consciousness, and Bowen Yang and Matt Rodgers are making a movie based on the episodes.

Are you one of those voracious readers that plows through thriller, romance, fantasy, and romantasy novels like it’s your job? It’s actually my friend Georgina’s job to do that now because she and her colleague at The Daily Beast launched a Substack called On the Same Page interviewing authors, reviewing books, and gabbing about book world gossip in Georgina’s beautifully raspy voice.

I went to the Ashnikko concert and was by far the most basic-looking person there. The outfits made this the best concert for people watching.

Chicago’s Chinatown feels closer to an amusement park than an actual neighborhood. I saw multiple tourists wearing those wide-brimmed Chinese cone hats (obviously not Asian people, let alone Chinese farmers). I know that we’ve taken a lot of steps back on wokeness, but it’s 2026; this feels like someone wearing a rasta hat and dreads wig or a fake Native headdress.

My new digs are on the border between Park Slope, a picturesque neighborhood of brownstones, and Gowanus, an industrial area with a superfund site that reminds me of Bushwick. Both neighborhoods have very different kinds of debris and stoop finds, and on the Gowanus side I saw a smattering of at least 20 burgers scattered across the sidewalk. Most of them were still wrapped in foil, and many of them were crushed. Did Ronald McDonald’s truck hit a bump in the road?

My train stop is across the street from a forgettable bagel shop called Brownstone Bagels. What isn’t forgettable is a bagel-donut pastry they sell with a little sign poking out that reads BONUTS. This portmanteau made me smile.

I had a lot of dogs speaking to me this week and being my guardians in a way that felt deeper than a usual run-in with a pooch. I connected with one at the park, one in front of my apartment, and one sitting next to me on the flight back to Pittsburgh. As I became friends with her owner, she eventually sat on my lap as I pet her for the whole flight.

There’s a park I go to when I’m back in the Burgh to clear my head, and there are always at least two deer staring back at me when I go to park my car. The burbs are all deer, friends I’m pleased to look back at unless they’re surprising me on the road after dark. It was nice to see them without fail every time I would pull up to the park, and they would trot away to give me space without me having to ask them.

This was such a stupid Pittsburgh old man thing to happen at a nice (to my suburban brethren) seafood restaurant in the mall. A guy that was already in the restaurant came up to the hostess stand to tell the waitstaff The water was running in the bathroom sink, so I turned it off. What person would think that this is something worth going to tell someone? You want to be thanked? Why is this worth reporting? I wanted to punch him.

I always look at people’s phones next to me. With my friends, it’s unintentional. With randoms, it is very intentional. I was sitting behind an older woman on the LIRR as I trekked to Fire Island on the Fourth of July watching her ask ChatGPT Write me 4-6 short poems wishing everyone a happy fourth of july. I was furious. She then asked them to be less corny, copied one, and sent it to a group chat called Wordle. You’re wasting water so that you don’t have to come up with a way to say Happy 4th! to your friends you play Wordle with? I hate this woman and always will. One of her friends responded You’re a poet, and don’t you know it! She doesn’t know it! She doesn’t know anything!

The bus to Jacob Riis Beach goes all the way down Flatbush Avenue through subwayless neighborhoods like Flatlands and Marine Park. Along the way, there is a park called the Trust Triangle. It’s just a tiny triangular block with a few trees and a sign. I couldn’t find any information about it online aside from some site claiming it was founded in 1899, and I want to know its story!

The girls and I are a few glasses of wine deep at a mediocre Italian restaurant when the radio quiets for a too-loud rendition of Happy Birthday to play over the speakers. The version of the song is so off-putting and elaborate, much more distracting than the slice of cake arriving a few tables over. I’m already laughing but, as soon as the song ends, loud crashing comes from the kitchen and just continues as if the dishes were dominoes.