Helloooooooooo. Wow, it is Friday and BOY do my eyeballs hurt! I kinda forgot to go outside and look at nature this week, and now I feel like my corneas got bonked by the Matrix. The good news is, my updated glasses1 are here, which will help keep my eyeballs from feeling as though they were forced to attempt push-ups during the Presidential Fitness Challenge. I was accidentally really productive this week: I sent at least 20 personal emails, I drafted my will2 and I wrote a ton of fiction/poetry/project proposals. Now I don’t wanna do anything! I wanna stare at a rock until March.
In my downtime this week, I wanted to do something totally brainless. So I introduced my boyfriend to a crucial part of my development: stop-motion YouTube series The Most Popular Girls in School. Content warnings for gratuitous cursing, teen pregnancy, forcible limb removal, a creepy lunch lady, and consumption of roly-pollies. MPGIS follows several Barbie dolls (and Barbie-adjacent dolls, like a Dollar Store knockoff and a Princess Merida) through their days at a fictionalized version of Overland Park High School. Since I grew up in the KC metro (the Missouri side, ahemmm), this is extra-delightful to me. When the MPGIS have a showdown with rival cheerleaders at Oak Park Mall, I can say, “I have been to the Build-a-Bear there!”
I didn’t realize MPGIS went five whole seasons. I’m excited to catch up with the newer episodes and see the EXCITING CONCLUSION. In case you were wondering, I’m a Rachel Tice sun, Trisha Cappelletti moon, and a Saison Marguerite...how do you say...rising.
Speaking of High School
Last week, I introduced a new column, Detritus, which will feature occasionally in these Dispatch emails. It’s just stuff! Just stuff: screenshots, odd momentos, funny Post-Its, spelling errors that tickle my fancy. Potpourri!
BUT. Paid subscribers will get access to full-length Detritus posts. The first installment is this one, featuring a column I wrote for my local newspaper in 2011. The paper has since shuttered (NOT MY FAULT) (probably?) and its website now redirects to a black hole of nothing, but luckily, my Gram Cracker, the original Wayback Machine, saved all my writing.
Full disclosure: This content is only gated behind a paywall because I am cringe. Here’s a quote to illustrate what I mean. Please note, I DID go to high school from 2009 – 2013, NOT the mid-90s, despite my weird attempts to use “hip” “slang” and…explain what blogs are…?
The high-tech replacement for paper is pixels. After all, paper is easily ruined-it can be burned, torn, yellowed, or, if you leave it in the presence of a small child or particularly stupid adult, eaten. Digital copies of mementos are considered to last forever, and in a society where everyone wants to be everlasting, being remembered in pixel form for all eternity appears to be a pretty sweet deal.
Couple the lust for immortality with raucous narcissism, and what you're left with is the internet: a breeding ground for shameless self-promotion and ignorance. What better way to promote oneself than with a web log, better known as a blog?
You can read the full thing at the link below. Next week, I’ll post another column, either my “geek chic” one or the LONG missive about bacon.
Speaking of Detritus
Here! Have some! Have some scraps.
A good memory! Guess where I worked when this happened3 to me?
Bug nails:
Hehe…it me:
Do you guys think this looks like the house from the refractive tests at the eye doctor:
Screw It, Jimmy Stewart Fancam
Sometimes I like to go on YouTube and type in [random name] + “fancam” to see what comes up. That’s how I found this Owen Wilson fancam, which is mostly Lightning McQueen, and this Cat in the Hat one.
This tribute to Jimmy Stewart is not exactly a fancam, but damn! It made me freakin’ cry! Stupid! Everybody leave me alone!
Katherine May Knows How My Brain Works
It was an instant paid subscription to
after I read her post on “how to keep a writer’s notebook.” It’s rare for me to see my brain so accurately transliterated, but lo, here it is, right on Katherine’s page:My notebook is made for nobody’s eyes but my own. It’s a completely private space, and I protect that viciously. I will never show anything directly from its pages, and I certainly don’t let anyone have a flick through. This is important, because it gives me the freedom to write anything in it. That might be my darkest thoughts or my fragile feelings; but mostly it’s just terrible writing. I’m allowed to be incoherent, self-pitying, tacky, boring or stupid in this space. It’s nobody else’s business.
This absolute assertion of privacy is fundamental. If you do nothing else, do that.
I always call it a notebook rather than a journal, because that helps to keep things casual. I do not write in it every day, or even every week. Sometimes I’ll fill half a notebook in a couple of days; sometimes, whole months will go by without a single word written. It doesn’t matter. My notebook is there to catch the thoughts that need to be caught. It doesn’t work on any schedule.
All of her Substack writing is brilliant. I can’t wait until my book-buying moratorium is done so I can get all of her books and notate them. C’mon, March!!!
The Algorithm Has Given Us a Gift
Spotify REALLY wants to be a social media platform, so they’re now doing this thing called “daylists,” which is like a Discover Weekly but it generates throughout the day. It’s a DAILY PLAYLIST, get it? Hardee har. But! I shouldn’t be a hater! BECAUSE,
yesterday Spotify generated what was almost the perfect playlist. It was titled “romcom coastal cowgirl avenue.” WHAT?! That is a flawless combination of nouns and adjectives! I want my life to be all those things and more! I hurriedly copied the daylist into a playlist before it could reset for my “evening mix.” Typically a daylist is 50 tracks long. You may note that this one has 49 tracks. That’s because this nearly-perfect playlist tried to trick me into hearing the Fall Out Boy cover of We Didn’t Start the Fire, which I have yet to listen to. By design. I don’t see how, on a playlist that includes a boatload of Fleetwood Mac and the musical accomplishment that is Walking on Broken Glass, the algorithms that be could try to shoehorn in a song with the lyrics “SSRI's/Prince and The Queen die.
Anyway. Here’s the playlist sans its evil interloper. Please enjoy. The cover image was created by the AI tool in Canva.
WIDBTW
Whew! Long week, fellas. I’m ready to [fax machine noises] [timer ding] [busy signal][faint Björk sound]. To wrap up, let’s look at my fiscally-responsible decision-making. Here’s what I didn’t buy this week:
This VERY cool carved handbag, which was served to me via Instagram ad, and made me say “ooooh, PRETTY!” out loud
These fun weird strappy Asics, which I suspect I wouldn’t like AS much were it not for the cute li’l bow socks they are paired with here:
The Weird Sister Collection, from Feminist Press, which I WON in a giveaway! Thank you, Feminist Press, and thanks also for the VERY cool postcards!
The Rat Boi “dream skirt,” which looks exactly like a skirt I got for $9 at a thrift store years ago, but is (ouchie) $88. Mine was a school uniform skirt in a girl’s size 14. INCREDIBLY heavy wool and a button closure that I broke a lot of nails on!
Another Instagram purse, the Laflore “bobobark” and “bebebark” cork purses. They are very pretty! They are elegant and simplistic in the way I always forget I am not. I think they’re awful pricey but I will admit, I went through their “bundle builder” and did imagine buying the full set (purse, backpack/briefcase, wallet, coin purse, makeup case, glasses case and strap) for $733. And then I didn’t!
A renewed subscription to the Paris Review, despite this sort of funny email they sent me:
Cinnamoroll frog, who I want to hug so bad
A mini Build-a-Bear rainbow cow so my Build-a-Bear can hug a Build-a-Bear
The “darling daisies” Sanrio collection, who I want to hug SO BADDDD
This Shipman Agency class with Maurice Carlos Ruffin, which I still may sign up for, if I can get a li’l wiggle room in my April schedule!
And that, as they say, is that! TTFN folks. I will chat at you soon. Thanks for listening watching reading!
I got new lenses put in my favorite (pink! big, round) glasses, and also bought a pair of green aviators, which make me look like a hitchhiker with ill intent
Just cause I had a coupon :)
Answer: Martha Stewart Living magazine!