Today's topics
Hi friends!
I don’t have time to write you something real today. My excuse? I finally had the motivation to do the thing at work I’ve been putting off for months! Another win for my procrastination…is what I’ll say when everything is all done. I’m going to go to yoga tonight. Bye!
10 thoughts I had this week
I don’t want to see AI if I can avoid it. I went to a new trivia night, and their audio round was AI renderings of movie quotes into songs. Not only was I immediately annoyed, but the robots were not enunciating, so we couldn’t hear their words. The host said This is part of the challenge! Yuck!
Who is in charge of digital strategy at NJ Transit? Why am I buying a bus ticket and it’s asking me what “zone” I’m going to, but I can’t find a zone map online to tell me? I just guessed zone 3.
New Hampshire gave me the ability to like anywhere in the world…but New York made me more patronizing. I finally had a Hoboken Night Out for a friend’s birthday and had the best time dancing to a live cover band called the Bergen Boys at a bar. Me and my friends kept saying we were studying abroad in New Jersey. If I were a true city girl snob, I wouldn’t be able to have that kind of fun, but I also probably wouldn’t be the same brand of obnoxious.
I am too autopilot sometimes. I had Meera calming me down as I thought I left/lost my wallet in Hoboken the night before while I searched my mind and apartment. Meanwhile, I had already put it in the bag I was going to use for the day. It was so instinctual that I forgot it as the first step. A few minutes later, I left the house and came back because I wasn’t sure if I locked the door (which I obviously did).
The ultimate gentrification crime is if a new business is overpriced and not even worth the extra spend. Decades Pizza, I’m talking to you!
The host at Decades Pizza looked almost exactly like what my dead grandfather looked like in his 20s. If he wasn’t hardened by war in Vietnam, he’d look just like this tall, mild-mannered guy. I was this close to asking for a picture.
I can’t be as dramatic about my cat allergy. Meera catsit this weekend, and I didn’t plan on staying overnight because I didn’t want to sleep in cat. I ended up doing so one night. Allergy pill plus no face touching equals no reaction. This doesn’t mean I’m ever going to get a cat, though.
When was the first time you felt like you emerged? I was posing this question to Ryan’s family while we got dinner and were talking about someone we know who, even at their big age, never did. I tried defining it as when you realize you’ll be able to be in the world with some degree of success, however you define it. Ryan and I both had our first emerging experiences doing camps away from home.
I saw one of the most American scenes a few blocks from my home: bartender and bar patron tossing a football outside while both of them had cigs in their mouths.
I am so afraid of bridesmaid boxes. How do you make them? Do you put that much effort into them because you want to impress upon your bridesmaids the effort they need to make to your wedding? Most of them aren’t even bespoke and sweet; they just look scary. Pandora’s bridesmaid’s box.
This week’s photo is from catsitting Moo. Look who woke me up.
Current fixations I want to mention
Food & Drink
That outdoor rooftop bar in Bushwick that’s been hyped up for a while, Cherry on Top? Yeah, it’s worth the hype. Just go during happy hour so you can spend less than $10 per glass.
Music
I went to Lorde’s failed attempt at performing her new song “What Was That” before its release at Washington Square Park. Too many people showed up so cops tried disbanding the mass. My crew left, but the unemployed and/or NYU stragglers left there two-and-a-half hours later for no reason actually got the surprise performance that made it into the music video. I’m excited to hear Lorde’s old themes return to her music in this song. Any time she mentions being a teenager, I’m sat. I felt like the background had a bit too much going on but feel like it’s a strong start to whatever new era she’s embarking on. It’s still stuck in my head.
Internet & Pop Culture
I am endlessly fascinated by cultural appropriators. Rachel Dolezal, Guru Jagat, pre-outwardly Orange County-y Stefani — these people leap past the boundary between appreciation into appropriation. We all appropriate things (some of us more than others), especially from Black women. Another case study of this gone haywire is a girl named Energy Goddess I saw in one of those TikTok video series in which one single talks to a bunch of other singles holding balloons that can be popped when incompatibility is reached. Energy Goddess is a white woman with a blaccent and a bindi. She does “real estates,” makes music, and writes books. The rest of her videos are a treasure trove, as well. How does someone get this far into appropriation? Who isn’t telling her she needs to stop? Or is she just ignoring the haters? The one thing I’ll give her is that she oozes confidence.
Television & Maybe Movies
I didn’t watch much TV this week so I guess I’ll tell you where I am in The Real Housewives of New York. We just started season 7, and it already feels like a complete shift from the season before. This is also when I started sitting around for a while watching it when my mom had it on (maybe early high school?). The two main dynamics revolve around cougardom and Bethenny Frankel. Barely any of the remaining housewives have wives, and Ramona’s marriage disintegrating feels like the end of an era for the franchise, not just her. Most of the wives are now out and single and are playing around with guys in their 20s. Carole just started dating 29-year-old chef Adam, which begs the question: what’s stopping her from dating a 26-year-old Bushwick transplant that already has a girlfriend? Bethenny is also back and single…singlehandedly restacking the social hierarchy with her at the top. Bethenny is calling all of the shots, leaving previous season’s queen Holla Heather to look like a social-climbing nobody (which I don’t think she is, and I’m sad that Bethenny isn’t giving her a real chance at friendship yet). This is the housewives I know: Luann’s Hamptons house, Dorinda drinking, and no decorum with these ladies that are truly embracing tackiness.
Journalism & Literature
I’ve had a lot of news doom and gloom, so if you want to use it to rewire how you think, listen to Code Switch episode “Why now is the time to find power in ‘otherness.’” It’s just an interview with professor and author Viet Thanh Nguyen, who refugeed to the U.S. from Vietnam as a kid. I was kind of bored of the interview at first, but he hooked me in with his theories on perpetual victimhood. Basically, some groups use their victim status to continue reliving trauma and fear everyone else, while others (or others in them) realize that their strength and healing can come from solidarity with others. I agree and never thought to put it into words before.
Something I Saw in the Wild
I picked a $20 bill off the ground!