things i have been reading/watching/listening to instead of doing my work

it's been a minute, you're welcome!!!!!

why your team sucks 2022
every year i look forward to the one thing i know will bring me pure and absolute unadulterated joy, drew magary’s hilarious yearly rundown of why every single nfl franchise in existence is a huge piece of shit. and i say this as a person who still spends every week watching and listening to football games, the redundant and argumentative analysis of said football games, and also the speculative pre-analysis of the football games happening next week. drew never misses, not ever. it’s the highlight of the hot and boring preseason!

perfume genius’ excellent, hilarious strategist list
is mike hadreas the funniest, most perfect person in the world? probably! for example, here’s what he says about my lifeblood, diet coke: “i’m not going to say how many i drink per day. i read an article once about a man that died from drinking too much diet coke and smoking too many cigarettes, and the amount that he drank was less than i drink. i’m not smoking as many cigarettes, but i’m sure i’m making up for it with the extra cans. but if i eat something bad that’s not agreeing with me, when i drink a diet coke, i really do think it kills whatever’s going on. people say i look young for my age, and i think it’s because it’s embalming me while i’m alive. i’m joking, but i secretly believe it a little bit. it’s selectively killing off only the bad things in my body and preserving the good.” WHOLEHEARTEDLY AGREED.

dirtbag massachusetts
i think isaac fitzgerald is so fucking cool. he looks fucking cool, he’s funny, and he’s a genuinely lovely person, which is infuriating but also great. he also wrote an incredible book which i am currently making my way through, and it’s astonishing. it’s a memoir that’s also an interrogation of manhood and masculinity and it’s really good, i promise.

“cuff it” beyoncé
i’m sorry, BUT: beyoncé making a disco record??? i am a dead body. she literally made this for me, a person who knows every lyric to every teena marie song ever made. look me in the face and tell me this absolute fucking jam isn’t the bastard son of “it could be magic”?????? YOU CAN’T. as a child who requested baccara’s “yes sir, i can boogie” be played at all my birthday parties i simply cannot believe the good fortune of my good bitch putting out a 70s/80s/90s dance album??? it’s so fucking sick it makes me physically ill, and it might just unseat the battered copy of crystal waters’ surprise currently jammed in the cd player in my dumb car. if i drive you anywhere, you must be able to sing “makin’ happy” (this is the most 1991 ass video of all time) from memory before i drop you off, sorry but those are the rules! i am listening to all the songs, in sequential order with no skips, but the ones i repeat multiple times before allowing the record to continue are:
summer renaissance
cuff it (omg this goes so hard i want to throw UP)
heated
virgo’s groove
plastic off the sofa
cozy
energy
break my soul

dopesick
i can’t remember if i mentioned this before and i refuse to look it up, but this show gutted me. give michael keaton every award.

air mail’s the perfect ending column
i could read one of these by every person in the world and never get bored. i just like knowing what apps people use and what they eat for breakfast and what books they pretend to like. i am going through a pretty serious ethan hawke phase right now and someone sent me the one he did and i was, of course, besotted. then i scrolled through a bunch of other ones and honestly it doesn’t even matter whether or not i know who the person is, i enjoy knowing that there is someone out there who has a very specific brand of socks or writing utensil they buy!

will be wild
i have told everyone i’ve seen or spoken to in the last few weeks to listen to this podcast and i might never stop. it’s about the insurrection, and the storytelling is so inventive and compelling and (dare i say) riveting??? your jaw is gonna be on the floor, several times. it makes me think of my jam slow burn (i paid actual money to get access to all the bonus episodes, if that says anything about how much i love that podcast) and also this amazing a m a z i n g podcast called fiasco that i had to sign up for luminary to listen to because i heard a snippet of the bush v gore season and was instantly invested. that season is so good and also infuriating because that little bush for real had his cousin steal that election and everybody was like “well, okay.” okay not really but also…………….kind of! just listen to it, it’s good. not to be a podcast freak or whatever but i prefer my news and historical events read to me in concise, easily digestible 40 minute bedtime stories. i cannot learn anything in real time but if you let 10+ years pass and package it up with a little podcast jingle??????? i’m in.

tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
i know this book is all over instagram and you’ve probably all read it already or been told by your friends to read it, but my books are magic monthly subscription just arrived (it’s been here, i just never open the mail) so forgive my tardiness. anyway i’m like 85% finished and this book fucking rules.

bon appetit green goddess tuna salad sandwich
first of all: hell fucking yes.
second, here are the amendments/substitutions i made based on what we had in the house and me very specific preferences and i think they made it better tbh:
1 i’m not sure who over at big tuna decided to get in bed with big spring water, BUT: i only buy tuna packed in oil because i like delicious things that have flavor. that said, instead of adding olive oil to the blender i squeezed in the oil from the tuna cans and felt like a genius.
2 i tripled or maybe even quadrupled the tuna because the recipe makes so much sauce sheesh
3 i am dairy-free over here at the moment so instead of sour cream i used the trader joe’s vegan alternative and please know i would never let it touch my tongue on its own, but blended up with a bunch of mayo and fish oil and shit it was fine!
4 all we had was grainy, seedy health bread in the bread box and lol fuck that, so i ate it on a bed of torn up salad greens with salt and pepper and a squeeze of lemon and drizzle of oil and it was bangingggg.

samantha irby’s shelf life
okay so technically i’m not reading this because i fucking wrote it and i’m a normal person who is humiliated by everything i’ve ever done, not a freak who is proud of myself. i am at a point in my career where people are always asking me (how is everybody always getting my fucking email? i gotta do something about that) to do stuff like this and idk if it’s paywalled but if so here are all the books i recommend, free of context (and also free of my brilliant commentary, so why not just click the link and read the prompts???):
two girls down louisa luna
bastard out of carolina dorothy allison
milk fed melissa broder
this time tomorrow emma straub
cheeky ariella elovic
getting to center marlee grace
nightcrawling leila mottley
nightbitch rachel yoder
skinny dip carl hiaasen
house of the spirits isabel allende
weird in a world that’s not jennifer romolini
gone girl gillian flynn
salem falls jodi picoult
made for love alissa nutting
the mothers brit bennett
my best friend’s exorcism grady hendrix

die happy: the oral history of dashboard confessional “unplugged”
a couple weeks ago i was driving the dog to day camp (PLEASE), scream-singing along to the unplugged version of “the best deceptions” and pretending i was in a season 1 episode of the hills and the very next day this article crossed my timeline and my skeleton jumped right out of my body.

the real world new orleans homecoming
okay so i started watching this when it first came out because i was an ~extremely~ devoted watched of all the seasons of the real world prior to that vegas season where they stopped having lives outside of their apartment and just, i don’t know, sucked each other’s dicks in a hot tub all day? remember when pam was on the real world and also in medical school???????? ah, the halcyon early days of reality television! then i must’ve gotten hit by a meteor, rendering me unable to keep up with the show as it aired, but i listened to lindseybobby talk about the episodes every week on their patreon (every single fucking time they mentioned it i was like “oh shit! i gotta get back to that!” i mean literally every week) and i finally watched the remainder of the season and wow is it good and also totally fucked up. i’m desperate for them to do boston. like where is kameelah??? and i need to see montana!!!!!!!!!!!!!

bullet train
i’m sorry but this is a perfect movie. 10/10 no notes.

“symphony” maggie rogers
i don’t know what it’s like to have your record come out on the same day beyoncé releases a fucking smash but i do know that once my pub day was shifted because someone else was releasing a huge book that might completely overshadow mine (impossible, i know) on that same day, so miss maggie is obviously the bravest person in the universe????? i like the album a whole lot, and i got this song on repeat.

the last seduction
we moved and our new house has a closet big enough for me to shove a desk in so now i have an “office,” i.e. a dark and quiet place for me to stare at the wall where no one else can see me. i’ve never had an office before! i decided i wanted two very specific things for my new adult office that i will mostly use to watch sports highlights on my ipad: a laserjet printer and a large, professionally-framed poster of the last seduction, one of my favorite movies. while i waited for its delivery i watched the movie twice to celebrate and damn linda fiorentino is a goddess, wendy kroy is the baddest bitch of all time, who better to watch over me as i work?

dark winds
i was listening to npr’s pop culture happy hour podcast in the shower (sidenote: kirsten got me a bluetooth shower speaker to save me from the embarrassment of trying to prop my phone in the mouthwash cup to amplify the sound and wow what an innovation) and they did an episode about summer shows they missed but liked and one of the hosts mentioned dark winds, an amc show about a navajo tribal policeman solving crimes in the 70s. i’ve only watched a few episodes but so far it’s good as hell, especially since it features my man zahn mcclarnon who also stars in…

reservation dogs season 2
THANK GOD IT’S BACK. gimme a hundred episodes of this perfect fucking show. no, a thousand!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“lifted away” joseph
the other night two of my sisters called me so we could have a conversation about our other (worse) sister and there is no planet in the galaxy on which any constellation of us could get along long enough to sing a song we wrote, together, in harmony. we were on the phone for all of twenty seconds before the call devolved into the kind of adult fight where you just say each other’s names over and over, but sometimes posed as a question. “jane.” “samantha.” “janie?” “samantha.” “carmen!” “samantha?” multiplied by thirty of the longest minutes of my life!!!!!!!!!! anyway carmen maria machado posted one of joseph’s songs in her story and i fell down a k hole, watching their tiny desk and a bunch of acoustic performances, marveling that three people born of the same person can cooperate with each other long enough to make entire albums that also sound good???

good luck to you, leo grande
watched this friday night and it is so sexy and sweet but also heartbreaking and dude is so sexy it caused me physical pain. basically emma thompson’s husband died and she realized she’d never had an orgasm so she hires the hottest sex worker alive to fuck her until she has one, but their relationship becomes about more than that, in ways that are both good but also upsetting. it’s lovely and i scrolled through that man’s whole instagram (he doesn’t post much) and jesus god he is so gorgeous!!!!!!!!!

industry season 2
i don’t know what this show is about or what anyone’s name is or what their job is or why they’re so stressed out and/or combination cry-yelling every episode but still, for a reason only god knows, i continue to give my rapt attention to this fucking show. idk what anyone’s problem is or why the stakes are always so high, and i watch the shit with subtitles on and everything. i sort of understand the constant fucking and drug snorting, but also not really! okay wait, i know eric is hot and i would let him hit me with a car and i know who harper is and that she’s new and regularly on the verge of a complete meltdown but what the fuck is this show about? banking?? trading??? i watched all of season one when it came out and so far i’ve watched the first two episodes of season two and i’m still like HUH? and yet, somehow i’m hooked. again!!!

toasted millet salad with cucumber, avocado, and lemon
lindy and aham came to visit for a week last month and let me just say this: boy do i love to cook for people. there is an alternate universe me somewhere wearing an apron and high heels while making cute ass lunches for her five adorable children, absolutely destroying her knees and lower back clicking around a kitchen trying to make fruit sushi. i would never bear a child or use a whimsically-shaped cookie cutter, BUT: if you come to my house i would be delighted to spend hours making something nice for you to eat.
lindy wanted to spend some days at the beach but i had to work and also i do not do that, so she and kirsten packed up the car and drove to south haven while made a bunch of fancy, refreshing salads for them to eat while scratching their sunburned skins. this salad was particularly good because at first glance i thought it was gonna be gross. i love a surprise!! anyway i made two changes:
1 i don’t like millet so i used farro, which i prefer because it’s big and toothsome; i hate eating little crumbly shit that feels like someone else picked it out of their teeth. i toasted the farro in oil then added water and boiled it (uncovered) until it reached the consistency i like (sturdy yet chewy).
2 i am obsessed with mike’s hot honey (it’s so good, if you buy it you will love it; i like both the regular and the extra hot and i will never not have them in my kitchen, you can put it in/on anything) and i swapped it into the vinaigrette and it was delicious.

“hotline bling” drake
still a jam!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! in case you were wondering.

sharon van etten’s entire catalog
the wild hearts tour came to kalamazoo and WHAT? when i first saw the announcement i thought it was a mistake and bought tickets like “yeah…………….okay” then totally forgot about it. but it was real!! angel olsen was really in this stupid town!!!!! i would go to jail for sharon van etten, and not to be a gross hipster about it but i’ve been on the bandwagon from the jump and she is everything. seeing her live (from a chair right next to the exit) was like a fever dream, and i’ve been listening to all her records on a constant loop ever since.

tom cruise on inside the actors studio
say whatever you’re gonna say, i don’t give a fuck. maverick ruled and my man is a STAR and they finally uploaded this interview to youtube so i watched it goodbye!

trainwreck: woodstock 99
of all the things that fucked me up (there were a lot!) i think the thing that fucked me up the most was thinking about how i was alive when this happened and literally had no idea any of it had occurred. i mean, i’m sure i knew peripherally that the festival was happening and i probably saw whatever story about the aftermath made it to my local news but i don’t think i registered that a bunch of limp bizkit fans burned a fucking town down?????? i was 19 but i wasn’t exactly paying attention to what korn was doing, i was listening to dave matthews while working the closing shift at great harvest. it’s weird to be alive during a huge cultural event (she typed as we are all currently living through many terrible cultural events at the same fucking time) and have zero recollection of it twenty years later, so watching this documentary was a little like getting in a time machine, a horrible time machine that reminds you that you somehow still know all the words to “bawitdaba.”

the talented mr. ripley
i’m not sure why but kirsten was out of town and i was scrolling through hbo and the app was like “hey wanna watch this gay shit?” and i was like “OKAY.” usually when she’s not around i watch something i know she’d hate listening to while pretending to read, like an entire season of reality garbage or some revenge dad™ bullet extravaganza in which an old guy is just stomping around grumbling arthritically while throwing knives into people’s faces for two hours. so i watched it and remembered what a good movie it is and how in lust i am with jude law and it was a good night.

the marvelous mrs. maisel seasons 2+
and then, inspired by the period piece of it all, i decided i wanted to watch another 1950s era program and i remembered how much i’d liked the first season of mrs. maisel and thought “whatever happened to her?” turns out she’s been on amazon prime, a platform i continue to pay for yet never watch, this whole time, wearing constricting girdles and telling her little jokes. it’s a nice show! sometimes it’s fine to just watch a thing that is nice!!!

the momofuku youtube channel
i watched all of these videos for one simple (read: dumb) reason: i bought packs of their noodles and got obsessed with them and then pretended i was going to do stuff like “chop mushrooms and cabbage to add to it so i can feel fancy.” there’s no way i’m ever going to do that when i could just boil noodles for four minutes and put some sauce and chili crunch on them, but living in a land of make believe is nice. my favorite is the tingly chili wavy noodle, a perfect food, especially when you want both the cooking and eating of your lunch to take fewer than eight minutes total.

tuca and bertie season 3
it is my sincerest wish that you are watching this thoughtful and hilarious show, about which paste magazine correctly says: “throughout its run thus far, the show has explored a myriad of timely themes such as anxiety, mental health, gaslighting, trauma, and toxic relationships in a well-balanced approach using vibrant imagination, subtlety, and/or raunchy outrageousness.” RAUNCHY OUTRAGEOUSNESS??? what’s not to love??????? my brain is mostly made of stale cat food so i barely remember having worked on this (tv is weird because when you write for a show but do nothing on the production side when your contract is up you just…………..sign off? then wait for a year to see what you helped make??? it’s jarring!) so watching it is a damn delight. i wrote one episode this season and it’s called “screech leeches” and not only did we get pamela adlon to say “cannibal sex monkeys” i also wrote so many stupid jokes and sight gags and it really is the best damn show. matthew rhys is in it this season, and one behind the scenes tidbit i can give you is that during one of the zoom table reads he was hunched over in his car and he still looked incredibly sexy. hmm, okay, not spicy enough? well, on another zoom table read i was talking to steven yuen (I KNOW) who plays speckle and i told him i live in kalamazoo and he was all excited like “hey! i went to college there!” and he told me about this frat house he lived in and how he and his frat bros (my words, not his) really tore the house apart, like totally trashed it, and he was talking so much shit about that house and it was so funny and i was genuinely laughing really hard and then i asked him for the address and he said “[123 address street]” and i suddenly dropped my voice and got really serious and was like “oh……………..that’s my house” and he looked terrified and started to apologize and i said “haha jk” and we laughed and laughed and laughed and had a gay old time. anyway WATCH THE FUCKING SHOW.