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WATCHING & READING

Do you have any recs or wanna chat about something on this list? Email me!🦄

A u g u s t

Reading

• Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative by Melissa Febos

Watching

• Heartstopper This show is so heart-melting. Feel-good and wholesome. I love how they incorporate little drawings throughout the episode to emphasize electric feelings and thoughts of love. It's too sweet. The cast is lovely and not overly glitzy, which is refreshing.

• Witcher S3. I'm a little concerned that Liam Hemsworth is replacing Cavill, but we shall see.

• Survival of the Thickest. How watchable is Michelle Buteau? I also watched her special Welcome to Buteaupia on Netflix and had a good laugh.

• Happiness for Beginners. Fluffy rom-com. Made me want to go on a week-long hiking trip. And that letter (poem) he wrote her at the end? ::swoon::

M a y

Watching

• Death Note S1.

• Love S1-3. Going through these quick. Fun watch. Mickey is sort of a nightmare, and Gus is overly nice which is prob not the best thing. The last scene of the last ep 🥹

• Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. A Marvel movie that actually made me cry. It's the animals!; they get me every time.

• The Batman. The thing I like about Gotham is it’s always dark, moody, and rainy. I liked it. Pattinson did a surprisingly good job with the role.

• The Departed. Rewatch. Classic.

• Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story. The best of the Bridgerton series so far.

Reading

• Junky William S. Burroughs

A p r i l

Watching

• Yellowjackets S1 & 2. So, finally started watching this. Already love Nat, but we’ll see how it goes. Misty is batshit crazy but so fun to watch. I couldn’t have picked a better time to watch this…I needed something all-consuming to forget the world a bit. Soundtrack A+.

• Picard S3

• A Girl and an Astronaut I watched this on my day off in one swift go. Loved it. Sci-fi elements ✔️, painful love triangle ✔️. Impressive performance by Polulina. Have you watched it? Did you like the ending? I didn’t want this show to end…i wanted to stay in it you know?

• The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die UHTRED SON OF UHTRED!!! I missed this show so much. Thinking of watching the whole series over again.

• Riverdale S6 Cheryl has the best lines.

M a r c h

Watching

• Clara. Beautiful, heart-rending, gave me shivers at one point.

• Mae Martin: SAP Hilarious. Sitting here, eating my sushi dinner and having a good laugh.

• Andor Just started it, and so far, I like it. (Update: I stopped watching this for some reason. Might go back to it idk)

• Lady Chatterkey’s Lover Meh, not for me. Slow (not in a good way), lack of story, and the chemistry between them was bland.

• The Recruit Background show while I draw.

• You People Ummm….a few parts were funny. Some of the characters were not believable?—too over the top. Great actors, but it sort of fell flat. idk.

• Yellowstone S5 I like the show, but Beth’s character…my goodness; she’s just so mean. Ok, we get it…you’re tough! Wonder if Kayce will finally figure things out…he’s always been stuck between two paths.

(Why this sudden trend of making us wait weeks/months in the middle of a season? Pls stop)

• Shadow and Bone S2 Twisty ending…I liked it. Is the darkling really gone??

• Mandalorian S3 Baby Yoda’s noises are overly adorable and I can hardly stand it. I just need to squeeeeeeeze him.

• Mystic Pizza

• Moonstruck. LOVE. Young, quirky Cage is the best.

• Honey I Shrunk the Kids (1989) Not sure why I’m watching this. Need comfort, I guess.

• High Fidelity (2000) Rewatch. Still great, although I might prefer the remake with Zoë. I know... sacrilege.

• We Have a Ghost

• Sex/Life S2 Started watching this because I like Sarah Shahi…missed watching her on L Word.

• Outer Banks S3

Reading

• So Many Ways To Draw A Ghost by Chelsea Granger. This book is such a balm. The book has a real zine feel to it; raw, and not too perfect.

• We Peaked At Paper: An Oral History Of British Zines by Gavin Hogg and Hamish Ironside. I’m in love with this book. I like how the interviews aren’t heavily edited…you get a real feel for each authors personality.

F e b r u a r y

Watching

• You S4 I binged the whole thing today. So good. Why do we have to wait until March for part 2?? Arrg.

Reading

• Let There Be Light by Liana Finck. Her drawings are simple yet packed to the brim with feeling. I get lost in all the little details.

J a n u a r y

Reading

• Ace by Angela Chen. A friend recommended it, and it's proving quite interesting.

• The Good Life Method by Meghan Sullivan and Paul Blaschko. I got this from the philosophy section, but it’s reading as a self-help book. Philosophy as self-care!

Watching

• Twenty Two Zines Wesley talks about how not everything has to be perfect and finished in order to share things with people.

• Barbarian. Gross. I’m never listening to my brother again. The beginning of the movie had my heart thumping…but it kind of dwindled downhill as the movie came to a close but overall I enjoyed it. Imagine that! I actually watched a horror movie. Alone! What’s happening to me.

• The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry Terrible movie. It tried too hard to be poignant and fell flat with its weird all-over-the-place subplots. I didn’t feel anything for any of the characters. But I wanted to like it...Who doesn’t want to own a bookstore on a quaint little island??

• This is Us S6. So. Many. Emotions. I love Randall and Beth; he's the best actor on the show. Kevin is a fucking train wreck, but I’m still rooting for him, Jack is a saint of course, and the best father/husband and Kate has a heart of gold.

• A Discovery of Witches. I didn’t want this show to end!

• Ginny & Georgia S2 The chemistry between Ginny and Marcus—❤️‍🔥. Marcus would have captured my teenage heart, and Max is fun to watch. They're unpacking a lot of mental health stuff in the second half of the season; it’s quite heavy. (I mayyy have started watching the whole two seasons all over again).

Listening

• PANTS with Kate and Leisha. How did I not stumble upon this earlier? I basically fall asleep to this every night now.

2022

D e c e m b e r

Thoughts

• I used to wake up in the morning, sit on the couch, sip my coffee, and read books, but now, all I want to read are blogs!

• What if the meaning of life changes depending on which decade of life you're currently living?

Reading

• Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

• Manilla Folders I’m quite possibly in love with this site. Serendipitous music finds, coupled with A+ writing.

• Baby, Baby, Baby! 45.4 Room lit mag

• Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Didion

• Black Swans by Eve Babitz

• On the Road by Kerouac

• Just Put Stuff Out There by Matthias Ott. Great post about hitting publish more often.

• My Inner Sky by Mari Andrew

Watching

• Emily in Paris S3 Fun, light, full of ridiculousness; exactly what I needed over the holidays. And yes, watching it does make me want to move there! J’adore Sylvie, how chic is she?

• It's a Wonderful Life 1946. This is the first time I've watched this film. I may have cried a little at the end.

• Willow (The show) The first three episodes were fun to watch; looking forward to future episodes. It made me want to rewatch the movie, which I missed! So many great characters. (I still love the name Sorsha).

• Firefly Lane S2 Last episode made me cry. (It seems like I’m crying a lot over shows lately 🤷🏻‍♀️…I should prob watch more comedies)

• Wednesday It was fun to watch...although for Tim Burton...I expected more weird stuff. Gwendoline Christie stole the show.

• Dead to Me S3. This season was so sad. I didn't want sad! I wanted the suspense quality of the last two seasons. Still loved the show, though. That Cardellini is just too good. The last episode 😭.

N o v e m b e r

Thinking about

• I still think Adam Driver’s best performance was on Girls.

• I caught myself thinking about starting a Substack newsletter, but then I would feel like every time I wrote something, I'd be bothering people?? I’d feel weird about my tiny life updates dinging someone's inbox. Idk. Plus, there's a certain freedom in the obscurity of a tiny blog hiding amongst the vast web.

• Blot—a blogging platform with no interface??? Very cool.

Reading

• Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer. I reread this book every now and then, esp in the winter, for some reason. I love it, and it makes me daydream about taking off into the wilderness (minus the dying alone part, obv). Is happiness only real when shared?

• This Page is Designed to Last: A Manifesto for Preserving Content on the Web by Jeff Huang.

• Darkfever by Karen Marie Moning. It’s a supernatural series with one of my favorite slow-burn love sagas thrown in. Most of the time, I find the romance portion in novels poorly written. Over-the-top feelings of love after just meeting the person is annoying and a real turn-off. But this book…gahhh…Moning gets it right.

• I Write My Best Poems In My Notes App: A Divorce Backwards by Brittney Uecker

Watching

• Palm Springs Milioti was so good in this one.

• Shantaram. I'll be honest, I started watching this show because of Hunnam. I miss Jax in SOA. Is it weird that I feel like I'm watching Jax play an English guy, lol (I was shocked to find out he's from England). Anyway, we shall see how it goes.

• I tried Triviaverse on Netflix. Wow. I’m not the smartest cookie in the bag. It’s still addicting, though!!

• On my day off yesterday, I watched The Quiet Place, and The Quiet Place 2. It’s been a while since I watched a horror?/thriller. I loved it! I love watching John in anything he does, and Emily is just a gem. Watching horror flicks (which I hardly do, but maybe I should??) unintentionally relieves stress. Have you ever felt that way? The high intensity of some scenes, followed by the quiet lulls…it’s almost like a stress regulator. Is this why people love horror???

• The Bear. Whoa. Every episode felt jacked-on speed. It was a chaotic mess, and I missed watching Jeremy White.

• Watching the last three seasons of Everybody Loves Raymond. It's a comfy show, but some of the writing is a bit cringe in today's cultural landscape.

O c t o b e r

Thinking about

• Sad to see one of my fav bloggers, Ru, taking an indefinite break from writing on her blog.

Reading

• Datente A mish-mash of blogs around the web.

• A Handwritten blog?? Yes, please! Wow...I really love this site.

Watching

• A Trip to Infinity I love docs like this. I wish I had the brains to be a particle physicist.

• Love is Blind S2 I never said I had impeccable taste. I needed something light and fluffy after watching Breaking Bad.

• Fate: The Winx Saga S2 I liked S1 better but this season is still entertaining.

• I finally started watching Breaking Bad. Walt's big C triggers my health anxiety, but I'm now on episode 6 and entirely hooked. Update: So I finished the whole thing. Ugh. It was hard to watch the ending crumble like this. Walt is a shit person, and I feel bad for Jessie. Not my fav show.

• Morbius. I liked it. I can't believe Jared Leto is 50...He still looks very, very good. I liked how their faces changed to bat-like features instead of your typical vampire.

• I watched four episodes of Dahmer at my friend's house last night, and I'm not even sure I can watch the rest of it on my own. My sister and her husband finished it in one day, but I don't know... it's literally my worst fear. Peter's performance is creepy as hell! Update: So I finally finished it. It's so fucking sad. Those poor young victims and their parents. And for Dhamer's parents too. That scene where his dad pulls him aside before he gets taken off to jail...confessing his guilt, was heartbreaking to watch. And Gacy, geeze, people are scary, and I never want to leave my house again.

S e p t e m b e r

Thinking about

• I've been reading about the small web and wish I knew how to code a small personal website. I got a kid's book on coding, so we'll see how that goes

• There's this line between journaling for yourself and publishing on the web that I always struggle with—how personal is too personal? I wrote a bit about that here.

Reading

• Last Night at the Casino Vol 1 by Billy McCall. A compilation of all his zines about working at the Casino. The stories! Such a great read, also, I never knew how hard it was to be a dealer.

• Becoming Supernatural by Dr. Joe Dispenza. Your thoughts literally become your reality. I love stuff like this.

• I've been falling in love with the idea of making a personal website as a refuge and a place to document the everyday. I found this post that Anh wrote, explaining how she loves her website (which I adore as well).

• Winnie Lim is writing about how she loves her website too...and It's all so inspiring!

• Take care of your blog by Robin Rendle

Watching

• Only Murders in the Building. I love this show. The opening song is catchy for some reason, and both Martins are hilarious.

• Paper Girls I wanted to like this show, but the characters seem forced? I love sci-fi, but the acting in this show is just terrible. Some good tunes, though, esp when Mac and her brother start jamming to Danzig in the car. Nice.

• Still re-watching Vampire Diaries, I'm on season 2. Why are re-runs so comforting? I do the same thing with The Office.

• Watching reviews about zines is very relaxing before bed, like this one from Zineville