What I’m listening to: The new Slayyyter album is absolute batsh*t crazy and a lot of fun. I feel like an old (meaning, not in my 20s) loser (meaning, not at the club doing the list of drugs she’s singing about and I can’t even identify) listening to it at the gym (meaning, trying not to pull my back), but those beats are catchy.
What I’m watching: This video of St. Vincent performing “Running Up That Hill” as a tribute to Kate Bush for being inducted into the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame last night. Kate did not go, so they had the wonderful Annie Clark St. Vincent perform. (Which, also, I think kind of highlights how difficult Kate Bush songs are and how no one can really perform them like her?) Big Boi gave a lovely little speech ahead of time as a tribute. These things are always so … ugh, what’s the word? Stiff? Like, it seems glamourous on the outside but then you look closer and realize it’s basically just an industry dinner at the end of a conference. Case in point: in the video PEOPLE ARE TALKING THE ENTIRE TIME. (I’ll forgive the person who recorded it with their phone, one of my concert pet-peeves (drop the phone! enjoy the show!) because, well, Kate Bush.) Anyway, the nerve of these folks to talk over Kate Bush’s art. No wonder she didn’t show up.
What I’m reading: So much! I just finished Speech Team by Tim Murphy, which was lovely. It’s about these Gen X Breakfast-Club type kids who go back to confront a teacher after, 30 years later, realizing that he said some things that really messed with their head. There’s a lot about revisiting trauma and forgiveness and understanding the complexity and layers of people learning to love yourself etc etc. But also, it’s a quick read? Ha. I enjoyed it. Right now, I’m halfway through Lauren Groff’s The Vaster Wild, which I’m enjoying more than I thought I would. Oh man, she’s probably one of my favorite writers because what she does is always so different and creative and lyrical. This one is about an unnamed girl who has escaped her servanthood in the early colonies of America and is trying to survive in the wild. It’s intense and quite good.
And, I just finished Going Infinite about SBF. I think Michael Lewis kind of let’s him off the hook a bit - like, it finishes almost as if it’s like “Oops!” and there’s no real conclusion from the author - but it’s still a good and interesting read.
What I’m eating: I’ve had a couple of full caf coffees this week “as a treat.” (Fast forward to me complaining about my stomach.) Where will it lead? Am I living a lie? Time will tell.
What I can’t stop thinking about: Starting my own business and getting married and trying to figure out what I want to do with my writing has put me on this wild trip of wrestling with my identity. I don’t have an a point here – I mean, hell, it’s what I can’t stop thinking about, if I stopped, it’s because I would have a finite point – but there’s just a lot going on in my head with all these things of how I define my self and my life and how I spend my time and where I am now and what I want to become and so on. Perhaps it’s the mid-life crisis brewing or perhaps not or it’s something bigger or something smaller or I have no idea but it’s A LOT!!!
Also how is it November already.