#6 Wednesday Round Up

Happy Wednesday (It’s Monday)

It’s 2:10 PM Pacific Time, but if you’re anything like me and have people you love all over the world, you are used to doing whatever math your love requires. So add two hours for my Texas & Midwest people, add three for my East Coast babes, and add eight for this random European freakshow that has weaseled its way into my heart and refuses to leave. So good afternoon and goodnight to all my lovers. 

**My intros seem to be getting longer so, as usual, if you are not here for the stories and just want those recs, scroll down to all those beautiful links.**

On Having Feelings or, How I Learned That Happiness Ain’t Even Close to Enough:

This week I was brimming —  so full of everything that sometimes I wasn’t quite sure where to put it all. In pockets and in voice notes and in music and in dancing, I swear I walked through every feeling a person could have, leaking blues and boo-yeahs like battlecries behind me. When, after reading a particularly sentimental piece of fanfiction (linked below), I found myself unable to stop squealing and waxing poetic about my yet-to-be-great-love-story, a good friend reminded me: I think it is important to remember that you are on your period…So feelings may be a bit *enhanced.* It should be noted that if a cis-man ever said this to me, a seven nation army couldn’t hold me back. But, alas it was not, and so I was strangely comforted with this assault of reality.

What is different about this week, dear readers, is for the first time I wasn’t rushing away from the feelings music had elicited or desperately trying to plug the holes literature had left in its wake. I let it be. And though taking my time with big feelings can be a particular brand of agony, I think I prefer it to tricking myself into a premature, knock-off brand of diluted happiness. 

I used to put a weird sort of morality on happiness —  that if I wasn’t happy, well then that pointed to some sort of deficiency within me —  a lacking without a cause. This of course sent me careening into a shame spiral where I endured self-taunts such as “nothing bad enough has happened to you, so you can’t really be depressed” or “the real problem is that you’re lazy, so maybe if you worked harder you wouldn’t feel so lost” or “people like happy people, Montana, no one wants to hang out with someone so negative.” With a few more years under my belt I am able to see that what I wanted all along was peace: I wanted to wake up unafraid of what might happen, I wanted to get ready unworried that someone somewhere was disappointed in me, I wanted small things to feel small, and I wanted big things to feel shared, and I wanted to stop kicking my own ass for not feeling or doing or being something I couldn’t.  It’s been a while since those messages reminding me about everything I am not have been able to get through my armor, and this week I was reminded of just how far I’ve come. 

Here’s the thing: for a long time I thought I was chasing happiness, but I was really just running from pain. I didn’t have a direction other than away and then colored myself shocked when I discovered I was lost. Since then, I have seen happiness stretched past its expiration date, and I’m not sure there is anything more heartbreaking than watching someone exhaust themselves holding desperately onto something that is gone. Happiness isn’t meant to stay forever, and a full life requires me to make room for all the other feelings without wishing they were happy. We are haunted by the things we can’t stop clinging to, and I’d rather feel a scorching rage or hollow loneliness than live with stale ghosts. 

The longer I shrugged off anger, the more I shamed my sadness, the further joy ran from me and the longer it took to find her. So maybe it’s time to invite something besides euphoria in for tea. Sit with your melancholy. Walk with your wanderlust. Ask them questions and listen when they speak. Get to know them and what they need, and you might find that that high-frequency panic that sits on your chest each morning may start to slowly dissolve once it knows where to go instead. 

Of course it’s hard to stay in an uncomfortable feeling — teenagedom and early twenties taught me to tussle with regret, grief, and fear at the earliest sign of trouble instead of being patient and curious about why they had arrived. Oftentimes, I also wrecked my own joy just to ensure someone else wouldn’t take it from me first. The Brandi Carlile break my own heart before you can approach —  check-mate, right? I immediately followed this with the distract myself long enough, and I just might forget I’m hurting method. You can see how cyclical this gets. But here’s the secret no one told me: happiness isn’t the goal. Happiness isn’t any more important than any other feeling, and happiness has no bearing on your worth. You are allowed to be angry. You are allowed to feel despondent. You are allowed to let grief gut you. And people will still love you. You are also allowed to heal. You are allowed to feel joy again, wherever it may find you. You are allowed because you are. You are worthy because you are. There is no doing or earning required, and if you find yourself feeling the need to prove your worth in order to gain affection, leave. Love doesn’t live there. But it does in so many other places that are waiting for you to arrive. 

This week, love arrived in the form of music: almost daily song swaps with friends, soundtracked sunset walks, and sweaty rock concerts. Seeing four live bands in three days and taking advantage of the amazing music the Bay has to offer, has allowed for quite the robust Listening Round Up.

On Music - Hiding Her, Losing Her, and Dancing With Her Again:

I spent most of my life embarrassed at my music, offering the aux cord to anyone else because I knew that no one would get it. And I didn’t want my heart to break with taunts or even worse —  indifference—  to the music that always meant so much to me. I have always been drawn to music that makes me feel something or puts language to emotions I could never name, and so while music has been there for some of my most joyful and some of my darkest moments, it was also something I cast out of my life when I was intent on feeling numb. 

For years after college I consumed only niche Podcasts about all the diseases that could kill you or the events that led to the politicizing of the Supreme Court, figuring if I filled my head up with enough knowledge, maybe I could hold at bay all the feelings I had that always threatened to spill out. I cannot express the relief that has come in being able to enjoy music again, discover new artists, and recover a sense of shared something. After years of hiding my music, and then years of silencing my music, I now find myself dancing in the kitchen again and exchanging playlists with friends almost daily. It still freshly shocks me that somehow I am in charge of writing a weekly newsletter recommending music to The People. But here we are—  I am no longer afraid to play what moves me and play it loud. 

A few weeks ago, after eating eggplant sandwiches with my dad in his kitchen, I asked him “If you could see any band, in any venue, which band would it be, where would you see them, and who would open?” It cannot be overstated how excited my father became at this question and not only did he answer (The Black Pumas opening for The Teskey Brothers at Tipitina’s Record Club in New Orleans) but he then played me a taste of the concert —  two songs from each band as we danced around the kitchen. “Who would yours be?” he asked as the music winded down.  At first I was embarrassed —  “you won’t like my music, dad.” “So what?” he smiled “Play me your concert.” So I presented him with Lake Street Drive opening for My Chemical Romance at somewhere super tiny. In retrospect, maybe I would have chosen Café du Nord in San Francisco or Pete’s Candy Store in Brooklyn— venues where it feels like the band is playing with you and not for you— the lines between spectator and participant blurred past definition. 

After our concerts, I told him about All The young Dudes, and how it had introduced me to so much glam rock of the 70s. “No shit!” he said “I have all those albums,” and then promptly scurried to his bedroom to find Electric Warrior by T.Rex and David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. “You gotta listen to this loud,” he said, as he turned the dial of his record player. T.Rex blared through the speakers, as his albums spun for the first time in decades. “I haven’t listened to these in forever,” he beamed as he twirled and danced around, eyes closed. “Pretty cool that your dorky Harry Potter obsession is showing you REAL MUSIC,” he teased. “What’s next?” 

To share a night with my dad, to dance to the music that shaped him and is now shaping me felt like a certain kind of magic. And as I watched him play his air guitar and hop across his kitchen floor, I was warmed by the thought that the songs we blast at twelve, fifteen, twenty one, they are always going to live in us— make us yearn and scream and cry and laugh at all the life we’ve lived with that soundtrack. They open up avenues of stories of those wild nights or sweet moments shared behind a cigarette on a fire escape in a city so familiar and so foreign. It gives us a language to speak to each other in when words get tangled in our throats. We sway, we jump, we cry in the tunnel of sound that we are lucky enough to find ourselves in together.

A week later, my dad texted me “busy Friday night?” and because I am never busy on Friday nights, we went to see The Wood brothers at the Fox Theater in Oakland. There, we danced the same kind of magic, but were also able to share something new together — listening to songs neither of us had ever heard, both making connections to other musicians’ influence that we heard in a once unknown opening act. “This one feels like Jackson Browne” he whispered as Taylor Ashton crooned and “this one has a Paul Simon vibe” he nudged, and “Paul Mcartney played the same bass” as he pointed to Julia Easterlin strumming and providing backup vocals. 

We danced as The Wood Brothers jammed for over two hours and we both grinned and threw our hands up when they covered Ophelia by The Band. Memories of riding shotgun with him in his pick-up truck flooded back while boards on the window, mail by the door wailed through the speakers all around us. He had been playing that song for me since I was a kid and to hear it live with him was a moment that I knew— in the moment— I’d never forget. To the man who taught me that no one can take your rhythm, thank you for always dancing with me to the music. 

Listening Round Up

I’m still floating in a milky soul trance from this weekend’s shows and getting myself amped for another one tonight. God, this is the power of live music, isn’t it. You can listen to a record, and it’s great right? You can build a relationship with it, and it’s yours to keep. There when you need it whenever you call. But going to a show…seeing it alive and moving in front of you played in a way it will never be played again…looking at the sea of faces up there and all around and watching as the words tumble out of their mouths, and every body is moving and moved because we know this is it— this is the moment. And it will end. But god damn if it doesn’t taste so good right now, eyes smiling surrounded by the sound... That’s magic, lads. Stay present when it’s here and release it when it’s gone because you can’t preserve your life in salt and amber. We were meant to rot…so let’s get to livin’!  Listen to the stuff that makes you feel, read the stuff that makes you squeal, and enjoy this fucked-up beautiful ride. 

🎧February Magic by me (playlist of all my favorite music lately including the albums below)

🎧The Romantic by Taylor Ashton (alt folksy bluesy pop rock)

I WILL NOT STOP TALKING ABOUT TAYLOR ASHTON I AM SORRY I WILL LITERALLY NEVER STOP. Overnight, he has become my favorite artist. His songwriting? Incredible. Stage presence? Out of this world. I got sent to another planet and also to the depths of my soul. His tour is here —  GO SEE HIM LIVE HOLYSMOKES. He’s also randomly married to Rachel Price from Lake Street Drive? ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Favorite tracks:

• F.L.Y:

• Pretenders

• Fortnight

• If You Can Hear Me (MY ABSOLUTE FAVORITE and gives me Trapeze Swinger vibes)

• Nicole (everyone’s favorite)

🎧Loaded and Ways Not to Lose by The Wood Brothers (American roots)

The Wood Brothers are AMAZING live. Like, I don’t think you’ve really heard them until you’ve seen them live. Chris Wood truly is IN LOVE with his bass and can’t stop dancing with her, spinning her around the stage in his low-top converse. The drummer PLAYS THE PIANO WITH HIS RIGHT HAND AS HE DRUMS WITH HIS LEFT??? And of course Oliver Wood on lead guitar and vocals. Hot damn. They are so fun to dance to, but then they move you with a one-mic bluegrass set that makes you cry? ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Favorite Tracks:

• Loaded

• Postcards From Hell

• Luckiest Man

🎧Fly Right and Grenadine by Oliver Hazard (songs, American roots? Idk honestly, but they have an album coming out soon!)

These dudes opened for The 502s and are so good. Definitely see them if they are in your hood! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

🎧Could It Get Better Than This  and by The 502s (roots, rock, bluegrass)

Last week, my British friend sent me Just a Little While by the 502s, and I started listening to some of their other stuff and would you believe, when I looked up concert tickets on Saturday THEY WERE PLAYING IN SAN FRANCISCO THAT NIGHT?!?! 

So I bought a ticket and went alone and reader, if you’re ever too nervous or awkward to go to a show alone because you think it’s weird or pathetic I ASSURE YOU IT IS WORTH THE INITIAL DISCOMFORT. I danced, I swayed, I jumped, I beamed with electric glow. Especially with this band who claims they are the happiest band in the world. If you get a chance to see them live DO IT! They have so much energy, and you can tell they are having the time of their lives. They are still a small enough band that they are like, so shocked and appreciative of the crowd loving their jams? They will be at Bottlerock in May if you’re a Bay Area kid. They are touring the US —  heading to Seattle tomorrow, February 7th. (CECELIA, LYDIA, and COLLEEN GO SEE THEM!) Their upcoming album Stories to Tell comes out this year. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Podcasts

🎧Death, Sex and Money - Jenny Slate and Dan Fleischer episode (Podcast, Interview)

If you were a fan of Jenny Slate’s early indie-comedy or her viral Marcel the Shell with Shoes On videos (or recent feature length film), give this interview a listen. She is interviewed along with her ex-husband about their collaborations throughout the years and why they decided to end their marriage but keep their artistic partnership. ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Watching Round Up

🎬Tickled (Documentary available on HBO)

I have watched some weird films, but I can say with confidence that this 2016 New Zealand documentary about the mysterious world of underground competitive tickling may take the cake. To everyone that I’ve already made watch this film, I am sorry and also, you’re welcome. Grab some popcorn —  this is a wild ride folks. ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Reading Round Up

📚What It Means When A Man Falls From The Sky by Leslie Nneka Arimah (fiction short stories): 

This collection of short stories came out in 2017, but I return to it often and taught it to my sophomores in 2019. The titular story is one of my favorites, and I’ll let it speak for itself below. CW: grief, mentions of suicide.

Excerpt from What It Means When A Man Falls From The Sky (page 153):

Nneoma flipped through the channels, listening closely. If the rumor that Furcal’s Formula was beginning to unravel around the edges gained any attraction, it would eventually trickle down to the twenty-four hundred Mathematicians like her, who worked around the globe, making their living calculating and subtracting emotions, drawing them from living bodies like poison from a wound. 

She was one of the fifty-seven registered Mathematicians who specialized in calculating grief, down from the fifty-nine of last year. Alvin Claspell, the Australian, had committed suicide after, if the stories were to be believed, going mad and trying to eat himself. This work wasn’t for everyone. And of course Kioni Mutahi had simply disappeared, leaving New Kenya with only one grief worker.

There were six grief workers in the Biafra-Britannia Alliance, where Nneoma now lived, the largest concentration of grief workers in any province to serve the largest concentration of the grieving. Well, the largest concentration that could pay.  ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

**If you are looking for book reviews of African literature and literature of the African diaspora, I recently came across Darkowaa’s book blog and have been loving it. Check it out!** 

📚Liebestraum by lunchbucket ( *EXPLICIT*Harry Potter Fanfiction - Sirius Black X Remus Lupin)

This was the fic that sent me into my feelings spiral that my British friend had to pluck me out of last Tuesday. Not because it’s sad, but because it’s beautiful and will make you crave the love that you deserve. It follows Remus Lupin, a classical pianist, and Sirius Black, a composer and violinist, in forced proximity at the Philharmonic in New York seven years after their breakup. It is a muggle au set in the US BUT THE MUSIC AND THEIR LOVE IS MAGIC ENOUGH I PROMISE YOU! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Cooking Round Up:

🧁 Winter Vegetable Salad

Ingredients:

- homemade cheesy cayenne croutons (stale bread tossed with olive oil, salt, cayenne, and pecorino romano roasted at like 400 for like 15-20 mins? Til they are crunchy)

-1 cup cooked quinoa-salt/pepper/olive oil tossed cauliflower florets: roasted @ 400 until they smell good and get limp (idk how else to say that sorry, but that’s how I like to eat them! browned and sweet and salty)

-baby bella mushrooms sautéed with NO OIL IN THE PAN BC MUSHROOMS ARE A FUNGUS NOT A VEGETABLE, add salt and a teeny bit of oil after water starts to come out of the mushrooms. Chop and add rosemary (a little soy sauce if you’re feelin’ it)

-shredded kale (massaged)

-fried chickpeas (olive oil, garlic powder, cayenne & salt) sautéed on med/high until crispy

Dressing: lemon garlic tahini dressing from Yotam Ottolenghi- 60 grams tahini paste.1 ½ tablespoon lemon juice.1 garlic clove, crushed.A pinch of salt, or to taste.3 tablespoons water, plus 1 teaspoon water, or as needed.

🧁Every Day Butter Cake (Buttermilk By Sam) 

I came across buttermilkbysam on Tiktok and made two of her recipes this week! She claims that this everyday butter cake gets its name because you’re likely to have all the ingredients at home already. This, as my lovely Swiss-German friend pointed out immediately, is not true, especially if you are not a dairy girl.

For those of you who know how I feel about white creamy sauces and dips (I hate them), I think you might owe me a standing ovation for working with sour cream in this recipe. I nearly vomited, but I was committed to making this cake! It actually tastes so wonderful (sorry about the vomit imagery, and for mentioning it again now). This is the perfect, sweet, fluffy, and buttery addition to a morning coffee or afternoon tea. Scrum dilly yum yum a burr burrrrrr.  ⭐⭐⭐⭐

🧁Banana Nut Bread (w/ Walnuts and Chocolate)

Okay this woman is so aggressive in her love of banana bread and her insistence that you make it, but don’t let her style intimidate you. The bread rocks! I added chocolate chips and walnuts to the batter because I need those textured surprises, but feel free to leave those out! ‘Tis moist. ⭐⭐⭐⭐

🧁Lemon Poppyseed Pull-Apart Bread (Buttermilk By Sam) 

Okay this is truly my claim to fame this week. I have never once made a roux in my life, and truthfully have avoided any recipe that called for it, but because I love you and because I love bread, I learned how to do something new! I followed this recipe almost exactly, except I added lemon extract to the batter to up the flavor. (Don’t use lemon juice…shit gets weird). Also —  this bread requires two separate rises —  one after you make the dough and another after you roll out the dough and stack the pieces— so, make sure that if you plan to make this bread to eat, you start the process at least 5-6 hours ahead of time. ⭐⭐⭐ for flavor ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ for how fun it is to pull apart.

Making Round Up 

It’s all about candles this week, gents. I don’t know about you, but I am a candle freak, and I hate wasting any bit of the wax or the jar. So, for the past few months I’ve been removing the last bits of wax and keeping them in little ziploc baggies and upcycling the jars. So far I have five jars and three bags of wax that would have ended up in a landfill. I have ordered wicks, which shall arrive shortly and will spend a lazy evening making old candles new. Here are a few links for candle projects!

🔨 Upcycled Candles: there are two ways to get the wax out: you can freeze the candles over night and the wax falls out with a bit of tapping OR you can boil water and let the wax float and harden at the top. I have always used the boiling water method because I hate waiting, and I never have room in my freezer, but do you boo boo!

Check out these other fun candle projects below! (note** I have not actually done these projects yet, which is why there are no stars)

🔨 Painted Candle Sticks

🔨 DIY Funky Candle Sticks

Laughing Round Up

😂 Going to a Party in Your Thirties

Acknowledgements:

• Gemma- Congratulations to gemjoy for finishing her first feature length piece of fanfiction, The Downfall of Us! Go give it a read (I haven’t read it because my heart isn’t ready BUT I WILL SOON!)

• Devon and Alicia - a big thank you to my Sunday night dinner girls. Cooking, laughing, snuggling, reading, and listening to music with you is the highlight of my weeks. 

• Hilary - thank you for doing my laundry and showing me what it means to be such a kick-ass parent. Your commitment to always learning gives me hope and makes me excited to try new things.

• Leo & Arina - to my Shadow and Bone siblings! Thank you for our adorable movie nights and for making the show so much more beautiful when it’s shared with you two roses. 

• The Barnacles —  to my bookclub that has become a family. I’ve never cared about people I’ve yet to meet so much in my life. Thank you for loving me. You give me strength and double me over with laughter daily. **Shout out to Serena who is moving into a new house!!**

• Sisters —  to my group chat with Mel, Toni, and Cassidy that provides me with endless love and joy. I am so happy for the family we’ve made. It feels so good to be known by you. 

• To my Aunt Kathy — anything I’ve learned about calming my noisy brain, having compassion for myself and others, and following my dreams has come from our walks, talks, and stories. I love you so much. 

• Lauren Anderson - a belated birthday to you, my sweet cherub. Being your friend has been one of the deep joys of my life. 

• Lauren Nelson - GOOD VIBES TO YOU as you take the dreaded Bar exam. You’ve got this!!

• Sina - the way you express yourself is like oxygen for me. You make sense to my brain and my heart and I’m so happy I’ve found you!

• Amanda & Jessica— I love that you’re here! You’ve introduced me to so many authors and artists throughout my life, and so many songs remind me of our summers covered in huckleberry juice.

• Amanda — thank you for reading every week and telling me your favorite parts. <3

• Rhiannon—  you’re the funniest goofiest loveliest person and I would blindly follow you into whatever battle you’ve entered.

• Lily- we’ve built a home in each other. You love is my favorite poem. 

• Bex & Kaya —  thank you for wanting to be my friend? You’re so cool, and I have to sort of pinch myself when we’re in the same room together.

• Lana —  fuck off? Thank you for reading my mind and letting me read yours. It’s a scary, wonderful, and hilarious place to be. 

• To anyone who feels a bit sad that they’re name isn’t on here —  I love you and I’m grateful for you. You’ll be in future acknowledgements because if you’re reading this, I have been moved in some way by the way you move through the world and the love you radiate. 

Ending Note:

A day late, but hopefully it was worth it. As always, please reach out with your favorite bits or if you’ve tried any of these recommendations! It makes me day to hear from you. XO, M