I honestly haven’t listened to enough new music lately to create a compelling postcard playlist that’s not just Noah Kahan, so, instead, I’m expanding the format to encapsulate the little things that are bringing me joy in what feels like a very new chapter in my life, the start of a metamorphosis. I’ve spent the two months since graduating working, watching my brother graduate high school, falling back in love with my hometown, and trying to visualize a future. A big part of that has been trying new things, saying yes, and trying to be more present in my life than I’ve ever been. And that feels good. So here are a few bits and pieces that I want to put in the scrapbook and also share with you.
Music
“Blowing Smoke” by Gracie Abrams
I’ve been listening to The Secret of Us quite a bit since it first dropped. I wasn’t a fan of Good Riddance, so as an OG Gracie Stan, I’m glad this one hit for me. It’s been very strange to take in music from a more casual consumer vantage point, but it’s also really nice.
“Blowing Smoke” is one of the songs on the record that always jumps out at me while I’m driving. “Tell me is she prettier than she was on the internet,” is such a fascinating line. It twists the expected notion that people tend to augment themselves to look better online, and it reveals a whole hidden layer of stalking and insecurity at the same time.
If you want the way too long version of my thoughts on the album, you can read them here.
“Maine” by Noah Kahan
I haven’t written you a playlist in a while cause I’m either listening to Tortured Poets or Noah Kahan, and that would make a very boring playlist month after month. My current Kahan obsession is “Maine” off the under appreciated Cape Elizabeth EP. I love the plunky guitar in the introduction mixed with the centering bird song. I think I also identify with this uncertain nostalgia, a longing for something that is gone but still feels so close.
There’s a good chance you’ll catch me driving down Loop Road after work with a goofy grin on my face singing along to, “Laughin’ at the way that you would say, “If only, baby, there were cameras in the traffic lights they’d make me a star.”
“Down Bad” by Taylor Swift
Who can resist a catchy melody and a good beat? Besides belting out “The Black Dog” or getting existential with “The Manuscript,” this is the TTPD song I get most excited to hear. It lingers in a whiny, goofy energy that’s fun to indulge in from time to time, and when you want to feel dramatic about a silly crush that may or may not go your way, it’s a good spot to pour some feelings.
My phone wallpaper is currently a girl getting beamed up out of the mountains in black and white line art.
Books
Mother Doll by Katya Apekina
In June, I read the most fantastic book called Mother Doll. I picked it up on a total whim, and it was exactly what I needed. I spent six hours of my day off on the couch finishing it. The book weaves together three narratives–a woman in the present day watching her relationship disintegrate, a medium who contacts this woman with a message from the dead, and the great great grandmother who tells her story living during the Russian Revolution through the medium–with truly exceptional skill. There’s no way to describe the novel in a way that makes sense or feels compelling, so I’ll just tell you to read it. The book has some of the best writing I’ve read in a very long time.
for more coherent convincing, read my actual review of it.
Food
Moose Bread
I hadn’t been to Dornans in years, but this summer, I vowed to immerse myself back into my hometown and all the parts about it I’ve loved. So after a hike, I declared that I needed pizza, so my mom and I ate Dornans on the deck. As a kid, I’d devotedly order cheese pizza, no sauce (it took me a long time to warm up to the idea of tomato sauce), but also specifically not Moose Bread. Because Dornans happens to have a cheese pizza with no sauce (I always knew it was a good idea!) on the menu; it just happened to have garlic butter and parsley or some kind of green flecks that no child would go for.
Having evolved since 9-year-old, we ordered the Moose Bread for real this time, and let me tell you, it is divine. The crust is the fluffiest, pillowiest, doughiest you’ll ever taste. The cheese is delicious with the hint of garlic. The green stuff–whatever it is–still does nothing for me. There’s a marinara dipping sauce for those in need of tomato around their pizza-shaped delights, but it’s unnecessary. Perhaps it was made even better by hike-provoked hunger and sweaty satisfaction or the incredible view, but Dornans remains pretty unbeatable. It also made me crave a root beer, even though it’s a flavor I’ve never been especially fond of.
Yogurt with Banana
I get that this isn’t anything terribly exciting, but in the last few weeks, I stopped mixing honey into my plain greek yogurt and started cutting up banana and half mashing it into my yogurt. And it’s amazing?! The banana adds a subtle sweetness that’s less intense than the honey but has almost a vanilla twinge to it if the banana is ripe enough, but it also makes the thick yogurt even more creamy. I will eat this for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, and I’ve become so obsessed with it that I now get anxiety about having enough purple pints of Fage in the fridge.
I’m dreading the day that I wake up and never want to eat it again, but until then, yogurt and banana is the backbone that’s holding my precarious life together.
Fun
String Lake
The parking situation is already such a nightmare that I hate to even mention this beautiful, perfect place to the seven of you reading this, but also, nothing in Grand Teton National Park is a secret anymore, so what’s the harm. I’ve always had a soft spot for String Lake. It’s about the width of a river but placid and calm and relatively shallow. You can easily paddle across it in a handful of minutes, and there are tons of great beach inlets. Last year, when I worked basically every waking minute of the summer, String Lake was the one place I made a quick trip out to before I went back to LA just to stick my hand in it.
In June, I went on an impromptu paddle boarding adventure with my parents–the paddle boarding experts. One of my friends heard where I was heading and tagged along. She was very patient with my ineptitude on a board, and we had a great time getting sunburned in the middle of the lake, watching my mom adventurously paddle against the wind to the outer reaches of the lake with my dad sitting on the end of the board. This summer, I’m being adventurous, I’m trying new things. And this was a great day of trying new things in old favorite places.
Tuesday Hikes
Do I like hiking? I think at this point in my life I can say yes half-confidently. Do I love walking uphill in the dirt as an in-the-moment act? No. Definitely not. I don’t like feeling my heart absolutely hammer out of my chest on Josie’s. But every time I get down, I change my tune from “why the hell did I do this?” to “see you next week.” Thankfully, we don’t do Josie’s every week. Hiking is one of those things I’ve just decided I’m going to like because the sense of accomplishment feels good, because my body craves it, because it’s cool to see pretty things, and, mostly, because when I’m doing it, I feel more closely aligned with the person I want to be.
So I’ve turned one of my days off into a hiking day. So far, I’ve been to Bradley-Taggart, around Phelps, around Jenny and up to Hidden Falls, and up Josie’s a few times. I’ve been thwarted this week by my first ever bout of COVID and (hopefully) next week I’ll be on a lawn in Utah listening to Noah Kahan instead, but this consistent standing hiking date with my mom has been a favorite party of the summer. Maybe I’ll climb a mountain or two by the end of the season.
Stupid Pickle Ball
Originally, I just called this item pickle ball, but what my friends and I play on Sunday nights cannot actually be called pickle ball. We wait ages for the privilege of standing on highly trafficked pickle ball courts. We own like 6 different paddles by now. But we most definitely are not playing pickle ball. We’re spiking whiffle balls at each other with abandon, stepping all over the kitchen (that’s an official term, right?), and mostly just trying to get it back over the net. We hit it too hard and too soft. We’ve nearly taken each other’s heads off a few times. I have a real propensity to take a killer swing at the ball but be two inches from making any contact. I still find the very serious organized leagues absolutely hilarious and have mixed feeling on the sport overall, but as an excuse to run around a court laughing and chatting and lobbing shots at one another, it’s my new favorite pass time.
Adult Summer Reading
If you know me in real life, you’ll know that I am utterly obsessed with Adult Summer Reading at the library. When I was a kid, I ruled summer reading. I kept a detailed notebook and used the stopwatch on my phone to log my reading hours down to the second. There was a middle school summer where all I did was plow through stacks of books on the couch. I never won any of the raffles–didn’t get much out of it materially–but god, did I love it. So I was thrilled this year when I discovered they let adults get in on the fun now too logging minutes to get raffle tickets for things adults like–hot springs passes, movies, Target gift cards, local bookstore money–and completing challenges for fake money to spend at the coffee shop by work. I’ve devoted a decent chunk of my free time to racking up reading hours. I have yet to win anything, but I am bursting at the seams with joy about the library and reading and getting to do it semi-competitively.
Dating?
What a concept! I graduated college young, which is my defense, but I’ve never really dated. I went on one date last year before I deleted the apps and said I’d try it another time. I couldn’t handle awkward social interactions or the sinking feeling in the first 5 seconds of meeting someone that you’d rather be at home on your couch or back at work or literally anywhere else when you’ve signed up for at least an hour of awkward fake-smiling. This year, I decided I’d be stronger. I’m finally at a point in my life where I have no clue what I’m doing, but I’m also trying to put down roots. There’s a permanence (or the possibility of it) that I’ve never had before. So I can justify the growing pains in the service of getting to know more people.
And you know what? It hasn’t been awful. It’s actually been kind of nice. I’ve certainly gotten better at vetting who I’m likely to vibe with in person through dating app DMs. I’ve been on two dates, and I’ve had fun. On one, I drank caffeine far too late in the day and talked about feeling new in my hometown. On the other, I got my favorite ice cream sandwich and then took this very patient man to get a library card when he uncovered that particular passion of mine. Who knows where any of it will go, but for once in my life, my narrative loving brain is accepting that they can just be fun afternoons with new people that don’t have to mean anything. If you’re a dating app skeptic like I was, it’s not always like how they’re portrayed online. We aren’t all lucky enough to have friends that set us up on dates. While the thought of dating is still scary, I am expanding my horizons an inch at a time.
Updates
Good Writing News
At the end of June, I had my first article published by a major outlet go live! I wrote the pitch sitting in class bored one day, so to finally see it come to life a few months later was incredibly cool. I’ve been trying to consistently send out pitches and build my name as a writer beyond my little self-created corners of the internet, and this felt like a big step. If you want to read my book round up, you can catch the books I recommend you read to get ready for Sally Rooney’s new novel in Observer! (And if you or someone you know is looking to have some writing-related work, let me know!)