constellations #20: consumed by, consuming
Hi again.
Hope you are holding on this week. And welcome, to those of you who found this little missive via the good and great Viking’s Choice newsletter! I am delighted to be called tender and reflective by Lars Gotrich, a man whose taste in both music and adjectives is top-notch.
In the spirit of this festive week of overdoing it, here’s a little list for you.
Nine Things I Consumed Or Have Been Consumed By Lately:
The Sopranos, season 1. I have been meaning to watch this show for a long time because The Internet loves it and I want to be in on the joke, but mostly I’ve held off because of my weak stomach for simulated violence. My parents adored the show when it first aired — and actually, my dad’s paternal family is from the same town in Italy where Tony Soprano’s family is supposed to be from. I can imagine I’ll have a lot to say about the show the more I watch it, but probably not here, because is this newsletter the right place for reflections on a two-decade-old TV show by someone who knows nothing about film or TV? Who knows! But my initial impressions are that it is indeed very good, hard to stomach, and — in terms of hair styles — very much Of An Era. (Also I think it is giving me nightmares; Monday morning I woke up with a decontextualized fragment of one that included someone’s bashed kneecaps.)
This list of Roland Barthes’ likes, which I saw in a tweet.*
So much of this is funny to me: listing “salad” first; unspecified pears but specifically white peaches; etc. I like tracing my overlap, especially the very vague ones (coffee, desserts) and the very specific (the smell of hay; having change).
These blondies from Smitten Kitchen. I’ve made them three times during the pandemic, because they’re extremely straightforward. I usually add chocolate chips and espresso powder and everyone in my house loves them (or claims to). I’m not a scientist but I think you could make them vegan pretty easily with Earth Balance and the egg replacement of your choice.
Anxiety. The overwhelming mood of the past week for me. I keep catching myself during the day staring off into space and clenching my jaw. All the stressors in my day, mostly tiny, grind into a simmering rage. It feels bad! I have walked away (metaphorically) from more than one conversation in the past week feeling stupid and just aching with regret (“there’s my favorite word again: regret” a friend said to me this weekend, which I loved); I keep snapping at my partner and then feeling bewildered by my actions. I can’t pinpoint where it’s coming from, but I guess it’s coming from everywhere. It feels bad!
A search for cardamom. Over the weekend I was struck with inspiration to try to make cardamom buns, like I had in Sweden last year. But both of my go-to bougie grocery store options were out of cardamom, as was the big chain specialty store on the border of the suburbs. I’m afraid I won’t find any before the urge departs. If anyone has a hookup in the DMV, let me know.
The feeling of interacting with, maybe trying to impress, someone intriguing who is more-or-less unconcerned with you. Isn’t this a delicious and also totally awful feeling? I think it runs the gamut from a regular, nice-enough person you think is smart to a full-on crush extending all the way to, say, Intellectual Heroes, with many characters in-between (a new friend; a good-looking TA; a particularly sharp editor; a hot yoga teacher). It’s awful, of course, because you generally feel like a fool for extending yourself and arranging your face like that and trying so hard. But delicious because it reminds you that the world keeps spinning even when you say the wrong thing, or when you make an incoherent point, or when your opinion — it turns out — doesn’t have any affect on the outcome. Ha ha ha! We have so little control, and most things mean nothing! Ha ha ha!
bell hooks, All About Love. After several months on the waitlist at my local library, a copy of this book was delivered to my e-reader last week. It was a soothing read, but not unchallenging. (Also, I did not expect so many quotes from erstwhile Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson.)
Seitan wings from Boundary Stone. My favorite neighborhood restaurant is closing this month, as many people’s favorite neighborhood restaurants recently have. It was my favorite for a lot of reasons — the Old Fashioneds, the fried pickle chips, the fact that they’d sometimes play Stop Making Sense on the TVs when it got late — but the seitan wings played an outsized role. The restaurant changed its recipe to a much-inferior seitan situation over the summer, which broke my heart, but when I ordered them last weekend it was back to the good stuff. I could have cried.
An ambient album my friend just released called Music To Work To. I listened to it while I was writing this. I recommend taking the title literally.
Hope your week is filled with good things. Solidarity to those of you who aren’t where you planned or hoped to be this week; hope you’re consumed by health and general goodness anyway. Thanks for reading. I’m grateful for you.
xo,
M
*The photo in the tweet doesn’t have an image description, but if you want, you can read the whole list here.
Really feeling 4 & 6 this week! Who knew that anxiety rashes were a thing?