The longest distance between two points

Irritation, Taco Bell, book quotes, allowing a podcast to forecast my summer

Sitting at one of my go-to coffee shops writing this, I think: how is my latte this white, surely there’s espresso in here somewhere. And then, more passively: turns out even your favorite people can still disappoint you. More actively: music is also disappointing right now. I saw a tweet yesterday about how a song will hit #1 on the Billboard charts, and most people wouldn’t be able to recite one lyric. A Teams message comes through from an optional meeting I didn’t join: You guys want to talk about politics? A beat later: Kidding! I think: maybe I should’ve joined this one.

Thanks to a Reddit post and my own uptick in restaurant-related screentime, I’m also thinking about food influencers’ cholesterol levels. This Pete Wells piece comes to mind. “I’m Leaving the Table” is a great title, no notes.

I’m refreshing my inbox more than usual, waiting for an email that my film scans are ready. The film lab is running behind, but I dropped off two rolls and am eager because 1. April and May were eventful, and 2. one roll is from 15 years ago, and I’m wondering if it turned out at all or if I just wasted $18. I text my friend: Do you think film developers look at your film, lol. He texts back: Yes, lol.

There are once again work-related apps on my phone. I went almost a full year without having them, but it’s become necessary again, and I’m trying to be positive about it.

The guy next to me asks me to watch his stuff while he goes to the bathroom. He says, You seem trustworthy, haha. His stuff includes a laptop, one of those tan leather notebooks from Barnes & Noble, and his wallet, which is on the other side of the table. He’s gone for a while. I think: how quickly someone else’s absentmindedness becomes your problem.

I shuffle my Release Radar, and realize my aforementioned music disappointment is partly a me problem. Only partly.

Happy to report I finally finished East of Eden. My favorite line: “And now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good.” I liked The Grapes of Wrath better, though. Right away I started All Fours and the main character has already annoyed me twice. I’m not married, so maybe I shouldn’t take it personally, but the “I hate my husband and need to find myself” arc is growing tired. Can we get more books where people like their spouse, lol.

It’s fleeting, but it’s there: a yearning for Fall.

Gen Z is “emotionally time traveling” via chain restaurants in order to feel something. I didn’t grow up going to chain restaurants that often, but in high school and college I was obsessed with Applebee’s. I could see myself emotionally time traveling in an Applebee’s as long as there are boneless wings and a dollarita in front of me. All the nostalgic food establishments of my childhood are closed, so I guess going back to simpler times is out of the question for moi. I did go to Taco Bell this week which has no grip on my childhood but whose Instagram I look at sometimes for job-related inspiration. Their Social Media Manager does a great job.

After listening to this podcast interview with Giada, I decided that I want a summer full of better pasta, fresh lemons, ripe tomatoes, and sunset dinners. Heartburn is buried somewhere on my to-read list, but it’s getting bumped up.

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It’s a couple days later and I decide that Friday nights in after a week of extending yourself as far as the eye can see are not a 30-year-old thing, I’ve actually always been this way. On the docket: finishing this and watching the latest And Just Like That…(it’s like a bad car crash, I can’t look away).

June means Gemini season. Two of my favorite people are Geminis and are probably reading this right now (<3). I’ve never understood the disdain honestly. Maybe save that for {redacted}.

I tried the Key Lime Pie flavor at Milk Jawn this week and had a transcendent experience. Key lime pie is a top three dessert for me. It makes me think of a date I went on two summers ago and how our love for key lime pie was the only thing we had in common. We talked about it, and dessert in general, for probably 40 minutes.

There is part of me that wants to take this newsletter a lot deeper—tell you more about my disappointment, the past dates that actually matter, the backhanded comment from three weeks ago, the work woes, the work highs, the most overrated restaurant in Philly. Don’t all the great writers do that? Keith McNally literally, on record, gave an answer to Who is the worst person you know? There are people across the popularity spectrum giving their entire inner monologue to the internet, seemingly without a second thought. From where I stand, it feels impossible.

A friend said something recently that made me immediately think of my favorite line from Writers & Lovers: For a moment all my bees have turned to honey.

I read something about birthday parties and then see this tweet:

No one tell theharkyp that my 29th birthday party was not in New York but I was—am—still obsessed with it.

For some reason I’m still hung up on the music industry. Perhaps writing in silence isn’t entirely a bad thing, but there was a time when I had Spotify running 9 hours a day, and the shuffle button actually worked, and Daily Mixes weren’t made using AI, and no one was reheating anyone’s nachos. “Nettles” is good. I think: this may actually be one of my favorite songs, ever. Thank god it’s 8 minutes long.

My alarm is set for 6:45 AM tomorrow, a Saturday. Not wedding related. I have a hair appointment at 9, but I want to get a walk in, but I want to go to a coffee shop I don’t go to that often, which will be further, but I have to shower before my hair appointment because I’m leaving from the hair appointment, and then I’ll be in the car a while, but oh I have to remember to take the trash out. Two thoughts: living this way sometimes feels exhausting; it feels good to be disciplined.

Every day I stumble on a new posting about an open call for pitches: short stories, poems, articles, the first ten pages of a novel. The screenshots add up, and the due dates, once stretched out in front of me, start inching closer to present day.

I think about how 30 feels softer. 29 was all hard edges. Maybe that difference is part of my irritation from before.

A Facebook notification comes through my email, which is weird I definitely have notifications off and I barely go on Facebook, and the ping startles me. My old tap teacher posted an update, that’s all it says. For a moment I’m nine, at a dance competition, with stiff aerosoled hair that will take two washes to get out and pink blush you can see from space.

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If you made it this far, thank you for reading, and please give me music recs. Or drop your favorite playlist. I sometimes find good songs from this and this. If you want me to start spilling my guts, let me know that too. I haven’t missed a week since I started this thing, so I think it’s officially safe to say, see u next week xxxxx