listful thinking
a small list to kick off list season
I am wrestling some brain goblins these days, so I am trying to take the pressure off of myself. I’ve decided to make things dumber and stupider and sillier and foolisher for a bit until I feel like I can take myself seriously. I think that my own earnestness has crawled around my neck and it’s holding me there like a choker and I need for it to be more of a scarf (or a loose garment, perhaps). So here is a list of some dumb things that happened this year to kick off the season of lists (which always unfairly omits December, but I will write about December later).
1. I started drinking caffeine.
Guys. What the fuck?? Did you guys know about this?? I had no idea about this… like. I thought you guys just all really liked the taste, I guess?? And I think coffee kind of tastes like pure shit, but I like… kind of love the way it makes me feel like my brain is quiet and calm? Like if my ADHD meds had a sweet warm feeling as well??
Anyways, I’ve started drinking coffee drinks, and I am a weak tiny baby with sugared down taste buds, so it’s still mostly lattes and milk drinks for me, but I’m enjoying my foray into caffeination so far.
2. I got RSV.
It came on so fast I thought maybe this diva was down for good. And then I got home and found out it was mostly a baby disease for toddlers and babies. When I researched to try to find out how to take care of myself, it just said to keep myself home from daycare, so I did.
3. I made a little pouch for my Airpods because I kept putting them somewhere in my bed and then losing them in my sheets and then flapping the sheets to try to find them and then the Airpods would fly out and hit the wall and the case would open and the individual pods would fly out and I wouldn’t be able to find those either and I would be late to work.
Yeah.
4. I listened to a stupid amount of Charli XCX for someone who has not ever and probably will not ever try party drugs.
I have NEVER “done a little key” or “had a little line”. “City sewer slut” is NOT my vibe (I dress like SHIT). No style? I CAN relate (I DRESS LIKE SHIT). I am NOT “everywhere” I am NOT “Julia” (EXCEPT for the lesbianism). I do not “go to the club” but apparently I DO wanna hear those “club classics.” Watch this space.
5. I reached over 1500 points as a contributor on Genius.com.
To be clear this is not a job. This is something I do for free because I am neurotic. Also because I love music, and I want the people who make the music that I love to be properly credited and archived and notated. I am currently a leading scholar on Canadian singer Sam Lynch (whose album Outline I adore) and British indie pop band Clean Cut Kid (whose album A Crisis of Faith At The Death Of A Loved One I started writing a piece about but never published. The album tracks grief in a way I deeply appreciated, and maybe someday I will publish the piece I wrote about it).
6. I got a job as a freelance production assistant for The Drew Barrymore Show.
That in and of itself is not dumb. However comma, here is a sub-list of dumb things that have happened at that job:
Ariana Grande waved at me.
I spent probably an hour on Getty looking for videos of teens having mental health crises.
I parallel parked a 15-passenger van in midtown.
I kayaked in the Hudson River as a stand-in for a shoot.
I mistook a former teen heartthrob for an elderly lesbian trying to emulate early Ellen or a young Justin Bieber.
I made a list of gen-Z slang and taught it to my producers for a segment that then got cancelled.
7. I visited the Bed-Stuy Aquarium before they paved over it.
I had worked remotely that day — one of the many perks of no longer working retail — and needed an excuse to leave the house. It’s about five blocks from me, not even a half mile. People stopped to look at the fish, some sitting on the benches by the leaking fire hydrant, some taking pictures. Hajj, the man who is I guess the steward? or inventor? or founder? of the Bed Stuy Aquarium, hung out nearby, asking people to follow the Aquarium on Instagram. I sat and watched the fish dart around underneath the surface of the water. It was kind of serene and fun, and I remember being really surprised that it was run by a Black man — I don’t think of Black people as particularly whimsical, or I guess I didn’t really know we were allowed to be.
I thought about this a lot on the short walk home from the aquarium. It’s probably part of why I want things to be dumber and sillier this year. I’ve been putting an absurd amount of pressure on myself to do something Amazing, and I think that’s a hard thing to set out to do. What if I set out to be more whimsical? To just do shit I think would be cool to have done? This aquarium serves no functional purpose. It won’t win any awards. If anything, the runoff is wasted water, and it’s small for the number of fish in there. But people came. People stood and watched and took pictures. Walking home, I could think of nothing more worthwhile than building an aquarium just so that people have something nice to look at and fish have somewhere nice to swim (I do not actually know if it actually was nice or healthy for them to swim in, but these are the thoughts I had at the time).
This trip to the Bed Stuy Aquarium was not so dumb, after all. I thought it would be silly, and I think this trip actually ended up encouraging me to take myself less seriously, and to do things just because I think they will be nice, which is earnestly good advice. Thank you to Hajj and to the fish for guiding me to that conclusion and for affirming it again now in my memory.
There’s a new version of the Bed Stuy Aquarium now — a real tank with heaters and water filters for the fish, no longer just a pool of water at the base of a leaking fire hydrant. It’s definitely better for the fish, and for water conservation, and maybe easier to protect than the small vulnerable puddle it once was. But I do feel grateful for the man who saw a small crater of water on the corner of Tompkins and Hancock and thought, what if there were fish in there? A good use of free will. A good reminder to use my own.
thank you for reading!! keep an eye out for more writing soon <3
great post. very solid
you are just the best