AUGUST 2 — cold enough to drink hot tea

wowee zowee

It’s 72 degrees outside, with a nice breeze coming in my bedroom window. I’m wearing my favorite hoodie, and fluffy socks with cats on them. I have a hot cup of kind of terrible herbal tea that’s supposed to make my period suck less. It’s so nice to have weather that allows me to take care of myself like this. It’s so nice to feel cozy, and warm, just warm, not sweltering. 

I’m trying to avoid thinking about how anxiety manifests itself in my body. Insomnia, and nausea, general aches and unwellness. I can’t, at this moment, see a way to get rid of the causes of the anxiety, so I just have to live with the symptoms. Which, frankly, just sucks, so I try not to think about it. It isn’t really working, but I can try.

Anyway. I don’t have any wisdom or anything. I do have like three pairs of fuzzy socks with cats on them, and this tea is actually decent if you put a ton of honey in it. I think I’m going to eat a bunch of Doritos now? Probably not the whole rest of the bag, but maybe? I don’t know. yolo.

PICTURE OF THE CAT

me putting my hand in the cat’s fountain is like when my dad listens to punk bands — earnest yet confused attempts at bonding with a child 

WHAT I WATCHED YESTERDAY

I finished rewatching Fantasia, and I wanted to write something about how animation is magical, and how Disney would never make something so ambitious and weird today, but I am tired and I don’t actually want to write. I am very fortunate that I grew up with this film, and am excited to re-watch Fantasia 2000 in the near future.

SONG OF THE DAY

Pavement were one of the first bands I really fell for that my parents did not understand at all. Which is funny, because I think that a lot of punk bands they accepted easily enough are much more annoying, but like, the Ramones at their most obnoxious are rooted in something very recognizable, they’re bubble gum garage rock. And Green Day are just the Ramones but louder with more swears. Compared to that Pavement are just real fucking weird. My memory is that my dad wasn’t annoyed so much as baffled that this nonsense was what I wanted to listen to. This impression was probably not helped by the fact that the Pavement album I imprinted on was Slanted and Enchanted, which is particularly atonal compared to their later work. I love how lazy and angular and incoherent Slanted and Enchanted is, and finding it as a teenager was some sort of revelation. I think I’ve written before about how sometimes you’ll discover music that sounds like the inside of your brain, and what a joy that can be, what a relief. Slanted and Enchanted was that. I still love that album, although for today’s song of the day I’m picking something later, the Pavement song that I think my dad will probably like/enjoy the most (which is also a song I love).

(I actually called my dad to ask if he had changed his opinion about Pavement after more than a decade of exposure, but he didn’t answer his phone, so unfortunately it is going to remain a mystery. It is possible that he actually likes Pavement fine, and was just teasing me because that is how we show affection. It is also possible he has no idea of who Pavement are, and has forgotten ever having to listen to them.)