Weekly R.E.P.O.R.T. #4
have been absolutely slacking on writing so here's this to try and get my groove back or whatever.
Welcome to another R.E.P.O.R.T. which is kind of like a five things but less about the shit rattling around in my brain and more about the shit I having been liking lately. C’est manifique!
READING
As many books as I can. I’m behind on my reading goal by, like, a lot.
Probably stupidly I set a goal of trying to read 50 books this year. To some that might sound like nothing, to others it sounds insurmountable. To me (at the time lol) it sounded very doable. Enticing, in fact. Getting back into reading fiction has indisputably been one of the best things I’ve done for the good, ol’ mental health.
And now here I am sitting 7 books behind being on track towards my goal and we are in June which is basically half the year gone. Neat!
I hate feeling like I can’t meet a goal. Especially when the only person getting in the way of the arbitrary goal is, well, me. I don’t know somehow it’s worse. Even when the only thing really holding me accountable is the ticker in my own brain and a tracker on an app so terrible it seems like it is only being held together with scotch tape, a glue stick, and a dream. (Yes, I am referencing Goodreads because HOW.)
So I have a new goal of finishing multiple books this week to catch up. I have a particularly quiet weekend coming up, my Kindle packed thanks to Unlimited, more than one paperback waiting to be cracked and bent while I page through it. I even bought a book light! I’ve found more than one title that is 300 pages or less which I can historically finish in about 5 hours if I commit. I am going to make it happen.
Here’s hoping I don’t get more behind on a goal that doesn’t really matter!!!!
EATING
Ricotta toast, ricotta toast, and more ricotta toast.
There are certain foods to me that feel like they have seasons. There are the ones we’re all familiar with: tomatoes are really only their best when in late summer, cherries the same, apparently you’re only supposed to eat oysters in months that contain an R but to me oyster season is based more on how much you believe in yourself. That being said, burgers and hot dogs are a summer food. Deviled eggs don’t taste the same in a group of under 10. Pozole is really for September through February. And I only historically find myself craving noodle bowls in the spring.
But toast? Perfectly golden slices of bread with layers of butters, sauces, avocado, tomato slices, lots of pepper, or a maybe a fried egg? Toast is an always. A must have. A staple, if you will.
Currently all I want is ricotta toast. More often than not just drizzled with chili oil in the mornings, but sometimes with layers of prosciutto and a supple stone fruit and a drizzle of hot honey. Bellwether makes my favorite bougie brand, but the Trader Joe’s ricotta is nothing to sneeze at. And if I can find a perfectly marbled heirloom tomato to slice and salt heavily before squishing it into the little piles of ricotta on top of a thick slice of sourdough I might just consider becoming religious again.
I get very hung up on semantics—annoying and predictable, I know—so I rarely talk about things like my video games, my outfits, or my meals as a “hyper-fixation” of sorts. Rather, I look at them as seasons. Little fleeting times where there is a snack or a meal of choice you can’t get enough of. We are currently smack dab in ricotta toast season and what a glorious season it is.
I know what I’ll be eating in a few hours.
PLAYING
This TikTok over and over again on a loop.
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
If being right truly does give me 5 extra years to live each time, call me Blake Lively in The Age of Adaline. Who coincidentally, is in fact a Virgo. 😇♍️
OBSESSING OVER
Jenny Nicholson. Well, video essays in general but specifically Jenny Nicholson.
Am I highly suggesting you watch a 4 hour YouTube taking down a hotel experience you’ll literally never even be able to have? Yes, yes I am. Does that sound crazy? Well, not to me because it is very good but I can see how you might think that upon first impression.
Jenny Nicholson is a streamer, YouTuber, and pop-culture commentator who has recently gone very viral for her multi-hours long video talking about the demise of the overly extravagant Star Wars Galactic Starcruiser at the Disneyland Resort. Not only does Jenny dive into the marketing and build up of the attraction, but she and her sister actually attended when it was still in operation and she documented the entire two-night affair. Let’s just say: it was bad. Like, really bad. And when you consider she paid over $6,000 to do it (which was on the low end!!) it makes it even worse.
Now. Here’s the thing. Do I care about Disney or Star Wars? Not particularly, no. So why was I thoroughly invested in Jenny’s 245-some minute epic about the entire thing if a massive media conglomerate and a subsequent also massive space franchise don’t really do it for me?
The same reason I want to read 50 books this year and I almost exclusively work to podcast episodes and I love a “fun fact” and I often find myself on Wikipedia deep dive after midnight.
I simply love to know things.
I wasn’t a great student. What was probably some smattering of ADHD mixed with my overall aversion to authority just made me reject the notion of being told what and how to learn. But in my adulthood absorbing information and being able to converse about various topics or lines of conversation no matter who I’m with is honestly important to me. So while I refused to read To Kill a Mockingbird in high-school, now I jump at practically any opportunity to learn something new. I relish the idea that I can know about something going on in the world. Even when that something pertains to a hotel I will literally never be able to visit.
So yes, Jenny Nicholson’s videos are scratching a particular itch for me. I love how detailed they are. I love how she examines every corner from marketing to pricing modeling to comparing Disney to Spirit; no stone was left unturned. Even if I’m not totally sure who Boba Fett is or why Pedro Pascal is always wearing a helmet, I feel like I came away from Jenny’s video with a greater understanding of exactly what went down with the Star Wars Galactic Starcruiser.
If you like feeding your cerebellum with random pieces of information, I bet you’ll like it (and her other videos!) too.
RECOMMENDING
The Free People Hot Shot Onesie.
Yes, I am but another white girl who has found herself victim to the hot shot onesie. Thank you for your thoughts and prayers during this trying (but very comfortable) time.
I can’t get it off of my body. When I reach for jeans or a cargo pants or a legging, I am immediately drawn back to the hot shot. I have paired it with everything—and I don’t just mean body suits, sweaters, and tees (oh my). I mean I have worn her to farmer’s markets, to wine tasting, to work, to the ferry, to a multi-course dinner of pastas and dips and spritzes, to the park, to Bingo, to play Apples to Apples on a brewery patio, to anywhere and everywhere ideally all that once. I have ordered it in two more colors. I cannot get enough. It is the perfect outfit.
Anyway the dupes aren’t good, don’t fall for it. Just cough up the $75 (or find them on DePop!) and take the onesie plunge. I, as the subtitle suggests, highly recommend it.
TREATING (MYSELF TO)
Being by the water any chance I get.
Last month marked my tenth year living in Washington. It’s the longest place I’ve lived other than the town where I grew up. Biologically and scientifically speaking, I’m a completely different person than when I came here in 2014. To say the last ten years I’ve spent living in the PNW has altered me in a seismic way would be an understatement.
I have a complicated relationship with the concept of “home.” I’m not a person who has ever felt like they have a home to go back to. I’ve never had the proverbial “soft place to land.” Even in the paragraph above, I don’t feel a connection to the term “hometown.” I don’t have one of those; I just have a place where I was raised and left when I became an adult, so to speak.
But when I’m in an Adirondack chair at a brewery with a small batch sour beer, a dogeared paperback, and a view overlooking Gig Harbor I can’t help but be overcome with the notion that I’m where I’m supposed to be. When I’m with my best friends on American Lake and the mountain is out and we’re munching on boat focaccia in the sun it’s obvious to me that sometimes it just takes a couple decades to find the place where you should land. When I’m at the coast and the smell of the tide is just a little bit in the air and I’m met with mist in my face and the sounds of the waves crashing again and again and again, I understand what it’s like to love somewhere in a way that makes you feel like writing a Rupi Kaur poem about it.
I don’t really believe in forevers anymore. I think you can change your mind and find new paths and be pushed or pulled in different directions even when you least expect it. I don’t feel strongly in my ability to commit to something being an “always” because honestly who knows! Just like the tide I love so much, things go in and out every day.
But what I do know is that Washington is one of my very rare alwayses. It will always be a part of me. It will always be a place I can come back to.
As I said in my little love letter last week, I could never be landlocked again.