hello! as this publishes, i’m midway through a flight to los angeles, most likely doing the following:
watching a movie over someone’s shoulder1
wondering why it takes so long to get from new york to california
blissfully drinking a ginger ale
stressing about how i will ask my row mates to get up so i can go to the bathroom until i have to pee so badly it’s an emergency
scrolling through my camera roll in alternating amusement and horror
listening to this song on repeat:
let’s get into the good things.
1. waiting for the bus in the cold
everyone has no choice but to do a little dance side to side because it’s freezing and the bus is so slow and standing in place is so hard. on sunday night, me and two other people had an informal dance party waiting for the b57. look for it next time!
2. bernie’s (greenpoint)
every time i’ve tried to go to this place,2 they’ve said the wait is 4 hours. finally3 made it in on friday with some friends and my meal was picture perfect: a crisp cosmo, 1.5 mozzarella sticks, some caesar salad, half of a divine chicken parm, a few fries, and a sundae to round it all out. they also give you crayons to draw on the tablecloth which is cute. lourdes leon, madonna’s daughter, was there too. i need to go back for the burger and the chip dip thing.
3. this new yorker essay about body horror
if you are a lame prude loser who is easily offended and squeamish, don’t read this. but i have not been able to get it out of my mind since sunday. i’ve never watched anything from david cronenberg, whose work the essay is grounded in, because it turns out, i am kind of a lame prude loser. the fly sounds like it would keep me up for days. i rarely engage with art that makes me uncomfortable, like those movies would, which i’m seeing is a limiting habit. i was compelled by the thrust of the essay which is that: transformative experiences are necessarily grotesque, and in order to be profoundly changed, we must surrender to the weird/dark/scary.
4. admitting that you like attention
the other day at one of my jobs, i was doing a recording with an extremely accomplished, humble, and kind older writer. after we finished, he told me that he loves doing audio stuff because he loves the sound of his own voice. i found this so refreshing because i, too, like hearing myself talk (if that wasn’t already blatantly obvious), even though that’s a generally frowned upon thing to admit. we’re not supposed to say that we like these kinds of things. it’s much more chic to ‘hate your birthday’ and ‘not like attention.’ but the truth of the matter is: attention feels great! and more people should give up the act and admit that they like it. can you tell my stick was never picked in kindergarten? this all reminds me of one of my favorite bits from john mulaney’s most recent special:
5. the rachel incident (caroline o’donoghue)
i am only about a fourth of the way through this book, but i am so sucked in. i’ve already taken pictures of several paragraphs to come back to later. caroline o’donoghue’s writing is sharp, illuminating, and BOL funny. also so irish. so far, it’s about rachel and james coming of age in cork. this is a review from gabrielle zevin, author of one of my other favs, tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow:
“If you’ve ever been unsure what to do with your degree in English; if you’ve ever wondered when the rug-buying part of your life will start…if you’ve ever loved the wrong person, or the right person at the wrong time…In short, if you’ve ever been young, you will love The Rachel Incident like I did.” -Gabrielle Zevin
6. the days leading up to a vacation
a wise person that i do not remember once told me that you never feel better than you do than in the days leading up to a vacation — not even on the vacation. nothing can match the high; the anticipation; the excitement; the build up to a trip. it reminds me of the giddiness i’d feel sitting in the hot car with my seatbelt buckled, ready to leave for pennellwood even though it could be hours before my parents finished packing the rooftop carrier and shoving items into every available inch of space. if you know, you know! all week i’ve been gearing up for LA with my besties, soaking in this lovely anticipatory excitement.
♡good thing from a good person♡
my cousin ellie o’connor is gracing us with a good thing today! i think a lot of my humor is informed by growing up around hysterical people like ellie and the rest of the OCs. ellie is witty, smart, passionate, and can quote movies and do impressions like it’s second nature. in fact, i used to do an impression of her when i was like 4, probably because i recognized how funny and cool she was and i wanted to emulate it. love laughing with you, el! here’s her good thing:
KAROL G. La Bichota. Colombian reggaeton and Latin urban pop absolute FIRE of an artist and human being. If you know who she is, you know what I’m talking about. If you don’t know who she is, I'm so psyched to introduce you to her cause she is absolutely blowing up. I'm not only beyond obsessed with her, I wanna be her, I'm envious of her, and I'm absolutely in love with her all at the same time. Needless to say, it’s been an emotional rollercoaster since getting to know her and I can't wait for y'all to hop on with me. I mean, look at this pic!! Is anyone cuter or sexier than Carolina?! I'll answer in Spanish, no.
Little background on this sex-on-a-plate of a woman. She was born in Medellín, Colombia on February 14 (how fitting) of ‘91. She did some teenage acting as per euge and moved to the Big Apple (obvio) in 2014 and has been killing it since. For some of you that aren’t in-the-know on the Latin pop reguetón trap urbana etc. music scene, she’s collabed with hella big names: Bad Bunny, J Balvin, Romeo Santos (check out their song "x si volvemos" - hot hot hot!), Ozuna, Peso Pluma (their song "Qlona", really spelled "culona" means "big ass" - just wanted to add that fun note), Nicki Minaj, Shakira, and my absolute personal fave future novio obsession and her EX, Anuel AA. Some of her awards include Song of the Year, Best Urban Song, and Best Urban Fusion/Performance which she received at this past Latin Grammy Awards for her song "TQG" with Shakira. Her most recent album "Mañana Será Bonito" won Best Musica Urbana Album at this year's Grammy Awards. (I have this on vinyl at home - absolutely changed my vida. Listen first word to last palabra and you'll get how deserving these awards were and are for her).
I'd also be remiss if I didn't mention more about her ex Anuel AA so I'm gonna force y'all to watch the video of one of the songs they made together called "Secreto" which, when released, made public their relationship. I could go on and on about these two and their love story and their broken engagement but that's a whole other storyline (perhaps for a "good things. bad things" series?) So watch this video and have your heart filled with true love romance and absolute heartbreak for a solid four minutes and 17 seconds straight.
But long story short, you could find out all this shit on Wikipedia so, just trust me. Follow her on Insta. Check her out on Spotify. Watch videos of her dancing braless in belly shirts on YouTube and fall in love with her just like I have.
Te quiero mucho, Karol G.
that’s all the good things this week! i have unfortunately started the newest season of love is blind. the show disturbs me to my core — full of truly deranged people sitting on garishly ugly sets talking about inane things — so i cannot, in good faith, recommend it to anyone. but i would like to discuss with fellow disturbed viewers so hit me up if you have thoughts.
xoxo see you next time.
this is the only way to watch anything on a plane. you can’t hear anything with the issued earbuds that make it sound like it was recorded with a string and a tin can
one time
after one other time of trying