4. The Bus Don’t Even Come Here
Hi again!
250 WORD UPDATE ON MY LIFE
Fuck Joe Rogan for making Joni Mitchell pull her music from Spotify!!! This suuucks! I respect what Joni’s doing, but did she need to beef with Joe? Why couldn’t it have been, like, the Beatles? I’d be a complete wreck right now if I didn’t already have nine of her albums on vinyl (#10, Ladies of the Canyon, is on its way to me in the mail). I’m comfortably stocked for at-home listening, but what exactly am I supposed to do when I’m driving out to the desert and need to hear “Amelia”? Or when I’m feeling wistful on a plane and only “Nothing Can Be Done” will get me through? Basically I always want to listening to Joni when I’m traveling, and now I can’t. As someone available on Apple Music once said: everything comes and goes, marked by lovers and styles of clothes.
I might be in a soup phase, but it’s too early to say for sure. I am definitely in a Green Day phase. I think I almost exclusively derive pleasure from food and music?
I already regret what I said on the record about not complaining this year. I’ll make a clarification: I want to complain as little as possible, but I am allowed to complain a reasonable amount if it’s warranted. Glad we cleared that up.
The other night I had a dream where someone was telling me that Paris Hilton’s name is actually Helen Paris Hilton. Why did I dream that?
A LIST
TOP EMOJIS THESE DAYS: Eyes. Face with wide open eyes. Sad pensive face. Red angry face. See-no-evil monkey. Sobbing face. Smiling face with little hearts around it. White bicep. Smiling with sunglasses face. Watery eyes face. Nerd. Hug. Magnifying glass. Purple grinning devil. White thumb’s up. White “hang loose” hand. Groucho Marx disguise face. Zany face with tongue hanging out.
FIVE SONG PLAYLIST
SOMETHING OLD: “Give Me Novacaine / She’s a Rebel” by Green Day
SOMETHING NEW: “Want / Need” by Boy in the Water
SOMETHING BORROWED: “Beg For You” by Charli XCX ft. Rina Sawayama
SOMETHING BLUE: “Get Me” by Everything But The Girl
SOMETHING ELSE: “You asked for this” by Halsey
A CURRENT FIXATION
The graffiti on this Marry Me (2022) bus stop ad.
It reads as follows:
J.Lo. is past expiration (not important)
Phonebooths are non-existant
[$5.50] on a non-credit card accepting machine is Dub-a-Dickalus
4. The Bus Don’t Even Come Here
Half Mast Phone booth sign?
Food for thought!
PERSONAL MOTTO OF THE MOMENT
These are good problems to have.
LINK TO SOMETHING ON THE INTERNET
A Diary in Alphabetical Order by Sheila Heti. I can’t pitch it better than the author herself, so here’s the introduction:
A little more than 10 years ago, I began looking back at the diaries I had kept over the previous decade. I wondered if I’d changed. So I loaded all 500,000 words of my journals into Excel to order the sentences alphabetically. Perhaps this would help me identify patterns and repetitions. How many times had I written, “I hate him,” for example? With the sentences untethered from narrative, I started to see the self in a new way: as something quite solid, anchored by shockingly few characteristic preoccupations. As I returned to the project over the years, it grew into something more novelistic. I blurred the characters and cut thousands of sentences, to introduce some rhythm and beauty. When The Times asked me for a work of fiction that could be serialized, I thought of these diaries: The self’s report on itself is surely a great fiction, and what is a more fundamental mode of serialization than the alphabet? After some editing, here is the result.
This project MOVES ME DEEPLY. Shout out to Mollie for sharing this with me. If you’ve hit your NYT article limit for the month, read this tomorrow!
THREE RECENT PICS FROM MY CAMERA ROLL
A CONFESSION
There’s a nasty stain on my car’s passenger seat from when I spilled a smoothie many months ago. The smoothie wasn’t even for me, so I’ve resented the imposition of cleaning the stain; now too much time has gone by and I’m afraid I won’t be able to get it out. A tidal wave of shame crashes over me each time someone sits on the stain. I know they see it!
DID I EARN THAT BOY SCOUT MERIT BADGE?
Wilderness Survival: Yes. Yellowjackets vibes!
Sports: No. Not Yellowjackets vibes.
Insect Study: No. Not yellowjackets vibes.
A RECENT NOTE ON MY PHONE WITHOUT CONTEXT
I want to be like diglet.
QUESTIONS I HAVE FOR YOU — GENUINELY CURIOUS, PLEASE EMAIL BACK
Are you playing Wordle? Are you playing Taylordle?
When you die do you want your journals burned, published, or somewhere in between?
Do you have any earrings you want to give me?
Who is a pet that is not your pet that is beloved to you (living or dead)?
What are you looking forward to?
WHERE AM I AS I HIT SEND
At my DESK at WORK which is FUN to SAY.
WHAT WILL I DO AFTER HITTING SEND?
Go home.
1. Is there a Joni album you DON’T want? 2. Maybe Helen? - you were dreaming about Grandma? 3. I have a pair of earrings to give you in Feb. wore at wedding with Dad. Now you don’t want them??? 4. No Wordle)sp?) for me. Last to join! Love you!