have i already talked about how i’m really getting into mustard? i think it’s one of those things that happens after you turn forty, you just wake up one morning and suddenly want to pour vinegar all over everything. now the best straight up mild yellow mustard is and always will be plochman’s. there’s no argument. it’s the best hotdog mustard, the best corned beef sandwich mustard, it is simply the champion mustard of all time and it’s big fun to squeeze that tubby round barrel.
we always keep a jar of maille whole grain mustard on hand because it looks fancy and it pops like little champagne bubbles on your tongue. it’s for when you have people over, you just feel so sophisticated smearing tiny mustard rocks on your dinner. for dijon you can’t go wrong with fallot; beaver makes a good hot chinese mustard; koops’ does a mean spicy brown; trader joe’s dill pickle mustard is simply incredible, and you know how much i frown upon their silly ass joke foods; and the greatest innovation of all time is food for thought’s maple cream mustard, which perfect angel debz sent as part of a gift basket when kirsten had her surgery (it’s always so hilarious to get those, because it’s like, what am i supposed to do if i eat this specialty jam and fancy seeded crackers manufactured by a company that doesn’t actually exist is the best thing i’ve ever tasted and i will literally die without it?? not my harry and david’s ass buying myself giant gift baskets all the time) and we put that shit on everything. luckily, i found it online and also discovered that they make a salad dressing version, too? and of course i bought some, come on. long story long if you are coming over for lunch, please know that mustard will be on the menu.
i’m still coughing my lungs out and can’t go anywhere fun so last night we got a pizza from the good kalamazoo pizza spot and stayed in on the couch to watch that new netflix movie his three daughters and it was good as hell. two thoughts: 1 i have been in a situation where my siblings and i have been sitting around waiting for our parent to die, and the movie perfectly captures (maybe even uncomfortably so) that feeling of being trapped in close confines with people who should know each other well but actually don’t, who also happen to be hanging on to decades-past hurts and slights they can’t get over or let go of. it felt very real and tense and lived in, which i appreciate. and 2 speaking of feeling lived in, something that has become super interesting to me when consuming movies and television, particularly since i started working on a ~fashion~ show and have now sat through many fascinating production meetings during which much discussion goes into every little thing a character touches, are all of the choices the production designer makes when creating a person.
when i made my pilot (RIP) i remember a discussion about what brand of candle fictional sam would have by her bed, and i was like “?????” and we had a twenty minute conversation about whether the fake version of me from 2002 would’ve spent her rent money to get a candle from diptyque. that’s the kind of shit that makes it hard for me to be a bitch about tv shows, knowing that nine people spent three hours on a zoom debating what kind of drinking glasses a fictional character would stock in a nonexistent kitchen. THAT SAID, whoever did the production design for this movie really killed it by giving carrie coon one of those phone cases that also hold your metro card or whatever. it’s hard to explain but i saw her with it and immediately knew the exact woman she is. it was, like, floppy and brown and you could just see her scrolling a consumer reports listicle of the highest quality phone wallets to find it, truly the perfect accessory to telegraph that a person is bossy and annoying. anyway that was killer and i enjoyed the movie go watch it.
a couple podcast appearances i forgot to hype: an embarrassingly long time ago i was a guest on lindy and meagan’s podcast text me back on which i told this (dumb and too long) story about when i was in high school babysitting this kid and thought an evil spirit was trying to kill us. if that doesn’t move you(r bowels), we also played a game of fuck/marry/kill (or maybe MASH? i can’t listen to myself) in which one of my options was CHARLES S DUTTON. truly? a hate crime. i laughed so hard i almost died. also my peoples deesha philyaw and kiese laymon started a podcast called reckon true stories and i was overjoyed to be their season finale guest. they are both so brilliant (you haven’t read the secret lives of church ladies? you haven’t read heavy???) and talented and even though i know them i was intimidated to be in conversation with them and i hope it’s not too obvious. two things i hope made the cut, since i will never listen to myself speak: 1 they asked me something like “what is your favorite thing to do with money?” and i gave the most honest response i have ever given anyone in my life when i answered, “use it to get away from other people.” and 2 i fully admitted to kiese that 10+ years ago i had this heartsick crush on him and i used to fall asleep at night listening to an interview of his. disturbing, right? i mean, unsettling at the very least??? why would i tell him that.
i haven’t really heard much of chappell roan’s music and don’t know much about her because i’m an old lady (if i’m being fully transparent, i only heard of her because i saw this trino and adam “pink pony club” tiktok and was like WOW WHAT A BANGER.) i’m late as hell, i know, but the young people in my house are into childish gambino and faye webster and wtf do you expect me to do, “listen” to the “radio?” i don’t make a habit of tracking down songs i hear in target commercials, sorry!!!!!!! jk the truth is that my cool and young friend amy kept posting her songs on instagram so i assumed i was too washed for them. anyway i do have a deep appreciation for the way she has asserted herself when it comes to her boundaries and i love her persona and also she just seems really fucking cool, so i just read delia cai’s interview with her in the face and also this rolling stone cover story by my beloved brittany spanos.
a thing i’ve been thinking about lately, i.e. “i saw some clips from the VMAs and have no idea who anybody is,” is letting go of keeping up with new music. i’m gonna release myself from the prison of knowing what shit is. the only cd i have in my busted subaru is a busted copy of mel tormé encore at marty’s that i got in 1998. i can’t be THAT and also be BRAT. i don’t know that i have room in my brain for every al green melody and sabrina carter, too. i try to keep a running playlist every year of songs i like that come out that year, and as i was adding something to 2024’s i was like “who cares about this? i’m just gonna go back and put on tori amos anyway” and that’s so real. i’m like my own mom, except instead of complaining about rap music while cleaning the house to motown i’m like “what’s drill music?” while turning up portishead. if you, too, need permission to stop evolving, consider this your slip.
i ordered some gummies from this cutie cute internet weed store called go easy that my weed doula carly posted about a few weeks ago. it’s small and owned by ladies and they ship to all fifty states (i’m pretty sure) but a new thing i’ve begun to obsess over in the middle of the night is i think i might be allergic to weed????? i haven’t gotten stoned in months and i think i feel less shitty, but also i’ve had pneumonia so honestly who can say. my psychiatrist says (i should stop there) that my hyperawareness of, say, how tingly my toes feel on edibles is simply a manifestation of sensorimotor ocd, and she’s probably not wrong but i really do think weed makes me feel bad so i’m done getting high for a while. in case you aren’t, a handful of exhilarating things to watch while stoned:
the full scene in maestro when bradley cooper is conducting mahler
that sydney sweeney military movie (your heart might explode)
the kevin hart/kenan thompson fake news show recapping the olympics
madonna’s “ray of light” music video (volume UP)
alyssa edwards’ greatest hits
the villa??? of secrets?????? (my youtube algorithm knows me better than anyone)
beautiful whales!!
i read this book all the colors of the dark and i simply cannot exorcise it from my brain. it’s so fucking good. TO ME. kirsten read it and hated it very much, which begs this extremely important question: should we……………….get divorced? we simply do not have the same taste in reading materials. which shouldn’t be a problem, because there is never a situation in which i have the desire to read the same shit as someone with an ivy league master’s degree. like, are you crazy? but whenever i’m like “wow i love this dumb book for adult babies” she’ll put down whatever nobel laureate she happens to be reading and reads my books even though she always hates them. so sometimes i try to impress her by reading some ~literature~ she might be into and i succeeded with the god of the woods, which took me a sec to get into but is really fucking great.
i just finished god of the woods, which i enjoyed very much. it’s about a girl who goes missing from a summer camp in the 70s, the same summer camp her brother went missing from years before. i started reading this romance novel called funny you should ask, which is a hot-movie-star-falls-in-love-with-a-bedraggled-regular-person kind of book (my favorite), but i can’t find it now. maybe i threw it in the back of the car? who knows, so until it shows up i’m gonna get some gay romance going with the pairing, which can be summarized: “two bisexual exes challenge each other to a hookup competition.”
rainbow has a new book called slow dance and this gabrielle zevin blurb made me laugh: “if you, like me, think thirty-somethings methodically working through their issues is very hot, slow dance is the book for you.” it’s finally fall which means it’s finally cookbook season, and i just ordered two additions to my old faithfuls: caro chambers’ what to cook when you don’t feel like cooking (do you get her newsletter) and justine snacks’ justine cooks (do you look at her instagram).
also it’s about to be chili season and my hands-down favorite utilitarian chili guide is this one from the kitchn. they teach you how you can just use whatever ya got or play around with flavor combinations to figure out what’s good to you without worrying that you’re gonna ruin a giant pot of slop. (for the record, my perfected combo is: ground turkey, red bell pepper, green bell pepper, garlic, onion, kidney beans, chili powder + cumin, light beer, and frozen corn.)
snack corner: found these planters rosemary and sea salt cashews in the impulse purchase aisle at my local full-priced grocery store, and they are delicious. maybe even better than the trader joe’s rosemary marcona almonds. and considerably less greasy, which is quite handy when you like to snack while typing or swiping. also it’s halloween candy season (bless), which means these bad girls are out in force at walgreens, hooray. i was shopping at the bougie grocery store near our house because i thought i deserved a little treat, and because i am a sucker for an unnecessary endcap item featuring colorful packaging that children might like i bought a couple of these mela watermelon waters (i used “i’m sick and dehydrated!” as a convenient excuse) and they’re delicious. the package says it has vitamins and electrolytes but it might just be juice. also i sent my pal kelsey a box of shaq-a-licious xl sour gummies because i want her teeth to rot out of her head and my love language is trolling.
xoxosos