cyclical superstitions

If you eat the roach, you’ll get higher.
It's just like how if you sleep with a spoon
Under your pillow, then you’ll get a snow day
Or how if a dragonfly lands on the tip
Of your fishing rod, it’ll make you
Catch fish like never before. But the 
Dragonfly causes the water to ripple
And scares the fish away. And the spoon
Makes your pillow lopsided so you
Need to sleep through the next day anyway.
Or how the roach just burns your throat
Like smoking it would have done anyway. 

playlists & my music taste evolution

lucy was so kind when talking about my playlists so i thought id make a blog post about my playlists. heres a quick timeline of the 268 playlists i have created in my time on spotify. 

 My first playlist is now called "This playlist old as fuck," a title i added when i was very insecure about my music taste in 2020. I forget the original name. its a typical 2017 thirteen year old playlist, lots of dodie, lorde, billie eilish, but some fiona apple made its way in there. based since day one, they say. 

 

 

skipping a few,  now in 2018. this playlist is called "Falling & falling" and shows when i discovered the beauty of bedroom pop as well as music by people who want to kill themselves. Lots of beabadoobee, clairo, mabel ye (an artist i still love), but also dandelion hands, flatsound, starry cat, whatever dad, angele. There are many artists on this playlist i stand behind, like Shura, Mabel Ye, Yumi zouma, Emily Yacina,  free cake for every creature, and many more. it also has lots of kim petras, because it was 2018 and i had just seen her open for troye sivan on his bloom tour. 

July of 2019 was when i created a playlist called "July of 2019," which is where i discovered my lofe for Sophie. This playlist is much more upbeat, with lots of sophie, more mabel ye, frankie cosmos, some car seat headrest, and too much girl in red. its ok, it happens. we all have shame within. Then i started listening to harry styles and the world became infinitely worse

2020 started fairly typical, i was in a riot grrl phase, so i listened to a llot of bratmobile and dazey and the scouts, hole, bikini kill, le tigre. you know the vibe. the playlist was called "men make me angry." lots happened in 2020, though, so it must be split up into parts.

I started listening to harry styles, the 1975, conan gray, billie eilish, waterparks, 2020 slop like that. this was, however, when i first listened to kimya dawson, and i fell in love with their music. remember that i love you is one of my favorite albums of all time. i also started listening to snail mail (awesome), hozier (kinda slop kinda awesome) 100 gecs (awesome) and the luucy dacus phoebe bridgers boygenuis crowd (awesome tbh). This was very much a transitionary period for music, i had a lot of tiktok music but i was also trying to branch out and build upon what i already liked.

 

 

i also kept listening to the kill yourself music because it felt good to know someone else was as miserable  as i was! this is the era where playlist names started becoming meaningless and named after whatever was in my line of vision duirng the creation. (see oxford american dictionary)

its still 2020 and im discovering electronic music. Parking lots was my favorite band, and i was addicted to the sound of sophie.

 Uh Oh! tiktok rotted my brain. i started adding top 50 tiktok trending songs to my good playlist making them bad. Arctic monkeys, mother mother, and the orion experience flooded my carseat headrest, raincoats, L7, and front bottoms. 

but its okay because my love for phoebe bridgers became a full obsession when she released Punisher.  My favorite playlist was her entire discography, plus half of fiona apples discography, plus mitskis entire discography, plus half of beabadoobees discography, plus snail mails discography, plus a few other heaters. this playlist is still very good because i added the entiretey of several full albums. this is also when i began listening to more than just Oom sha lala by haley heynderickx and listened to the album like i should have to begin with. big theif and kimya dawson had a big role in this playlist as well.

i must leave 2020 but not without another frankie cosmos phase, this time intertwined with a lorde phase. the prettiots had a moment as well, and i am so glad they did. i dmmed them on instagram begging them to get back together so i could havemore music. it did not work. 

just before the end of the year i had a megan thee stallion phase which led me to a rico nasty moment which led me to city girls. i have lucy to thank for the megan. it was a good way to close out 2020. 

 

2021 began with elliott smith, LOTS of fiona apple, lots of phoebe bridgers, lots of sza, lots of mitski. i also began to love fka twigs in this time, crowning madgalene as one of my favorite albums.

 this year still had tiktok influences, but i discovered how to make a playlist actually good, and not just tiktok exclusive. i started loving folk punk, and lots of alternative rock. i was kind of angry this year, i think. Radiohead was big for me, as was mother mother, the mountain goats, the front bottoms, and car seat headrest. also pavement.

I discovered the most incredible album i had listened to, deathconsiousness by have a nice life. it changed the game for me and made me discover so much about what i like in a song.it was also awesome because i was depressed. i did the rounds, too, i listened to lots of giles corey and adjacent groups and projects.

Then i had another riot grrrl renaissaisance, then a 90s punk renaissance, then an evil radiohead elliott smith phase. still listenint to lots of sza, semler, sophie, lauryn hill, as well as lots of amy winehouse, willow smith (for some reason) and adrianne lenker.

 2021 is when i began really focussing in on what i like in music. indigo de souza, weyes blood, sophie, faye webster, more lucy dacus, so much ctrl by sza, so much fiona apple. i realized i will always have a female dominant music taste, and there was nothing i could do to stop that.

i found the song boy for sale, which is an awesome song. it helped me stop taking music so seriously. if i like a song, i need to listen to it, even if its kinda dogwater. thats the point.

 2022 started with fugazi for whatever reason. i had a strange post hardcore phase, with grouper, duster, teethe, and some random assortment of junk along those lines. i was painting all the time and listening to music in the background, so i discovered lots of new artists during this time. 

 

 2022 was when i started listening to ag cooks solo music, and found out i love electronic more than i ever thought i could. i had a miniscule charli xcx phase, lots of arca, sophie, himera, zora jones. i also had a nicki minaj phase somewhere within this.

i return to female indie like i always do, our on again off again relationship was the one consistency in my music discovery process. lots of black belt eagle scout, lowertown, rachel chiniouriri, julia jacklin, alvvays.  i liked sufjan stevens and i did not want to graduate high school!

then i got depressed because i was graduating high school. so i listened to car seat headrest, elliot smith, radiohead, and excessive amounts of mount eerie. i read hanya yanagiahra and cried. 

 soon came nirvana, deftones, soundgarden, the smiths. unfortuantely deftones stuck.

i graduated high school to have a nice life and elliot smith and phoebe bridgers and fiona apple and xiu xiu.

I came to UVM and tried to be unique, but failed deeply. beabadoobee was my weapon of choice, as we had quite the history. phoebe and fiona felt too basic. i listened to wolf alice, pretty sick, robinaugust, kate bush, nussy andrews, odie leigh. i tried to stick with some of my basics as well, still integrating mabel ye and whatever dad and elliot smith into my rotation. 

kimya dawson came back in full force, their music helping me out of a freshman year depressive rut. remember that i love you helped me remember that i love you.

 uh oh! i watched tick tick boom again and my musical phase reopened. i dont care, i listened to next to normal life my life depended on it, rent like my rent was due, spring awakening like i needed an abortion. it was nostalgic, largely because i missed having so many built in friends in high school.

still depressed, i fell further into car seat headrest (as one does). it was so good for me tbh.

still depressed, missing home, i listened to a lot of bruce springsteen. 

I went home and remembered that it was time to leave, and that was good for me. i listened to a lot of ichiko aoba, ethel cain, soccer mommy, adrianne lenker, whatever i felt was reflective. 2023 began okay. i listened to lots of lauryn hill, amy winehouse, and sidney gish in the beginning, music that everyone agreed was good. i listened to pinkpanthress, boygenuis, outkast, faye webster, and strangely, lots of math rock. 

it was fun

i took a blast to the past and returned to tapestry by carole king, lots of joni mitchell, aretha franklin, cocteau twins, david bowie, old shit that i missed. thanks teddy, your old soul healed me.  

i was twee as fuck, listening to angel olsen, frances quinlan, beabadoobee, florence and the machine. i made a new playlist every few days.

big time skip, and im into my indie girls again. this time with an emphasis on sidney gish, grlpool,  haley heynderickx, fiona apple, kimya dawson. i liked deftones but i hated that i liked deftones so i didnt tell anyone. i listened to some bon iver, lots of carseat headrest again, and found the beauty in bjork. my playlists were pretty good, kept a hold of my old reliables. 

over the summer i listneed to alex g for some reason. i kept with fiona apple, lucy dacus, big theif. sophomore year started, and i had friends and a big room this time. i listened to slowdive, kendrick, souxsie and the banshees, and yes, king gizzard and the lizzard wizzerdddd. 

i had a phase with the female blues on a playlist i called Greens, listened to a lot of bessie smith, big maybelle, ruth brown, victoria spivey. i listened to some men, but i kept falling back into my girls. 

i had another electronic phase, with sophie, rina sawayama, and charli, but that was just the precursor to the japanese ambient phase i was about to enter. Lamp, ichiko aoba, lily chou-chou. it was awesome. 

i went back to my girls, but for whatever reason i added a different wayne song to every new playlist i created. like literally every one, i dont know why i did that. 

2024 started with more ethel cain, more lauryn hill, more car seat headrest, more kendrick. i tried to like contemporary rock but i failed. i listned to lots of muna, better oblivion, david bowie, mazzy star. i listened to whatever i wanted to, i stopped trying to curate my music taste so other poeple would like it and started making playlists i knew i would enjoy. who cares if pretty girl by clairo is next to youth by glass animals which is next to what once was by hers which is nex tto 3peat by lil wayne. i dont!

It gets boring from here on, as i still listen to most of what is there. I have a wider net of music taste, though, i dont make playlists based on genre anymore, i make them based off of me. i love my spotify playlists and the baggage that comes with them. there was a point in my life where i was going to delete all of my old playlists but i couldnt bring myself to do it. so much went into even my first playlist, and there are remnants of it all in my current music taste. i am proud of every playlist, 1 through 268. 
 

 

 

 

falling asleep on a capless green pen

 I heard a story that if you fall asleep on top of a green pen
You become what would have been drawn with it. The ink that
Your skin absorbs becomes the stem of a flower, the back of a rose bush,
A half-finished coloring book page of the bottom of the ocean.
Eyelashes become butterfly antennae and fingers asparagus stalks,
The bottoms of your feet the grass that frames a landscape,
Your eyes Granny Smith apples. If only your tongue was a lime,
Then kissing you wouldn’t be so sweet. Your dry elbows would 
Become the alligators you compare them to, your bangs basil leaves
And bamboo. And the words, some so big they wouldn’t fit
On a poster board, some a signature on the bottom right of you.

being cool

 Which chips my nails on purpose and buys colored pencils.
And tending to the fitted sheet that keeps coming unfurled, 
Using a blanket upside down despite it keeping the warmth out.
That draws teeth instead of math and gets no extra credit for it
And uses sharpie on skin to draw flowers with noses. 
When dying hair and glittered eyes haven’t been enough
It’s habits return, like braided bracelets and cigarette stench,
And talking about when I made more and made it better. When 
The floor was covered in paint splatters and nail polish, 
When makeup was for canvases and paint was for my face,
With no straight face kisses and no stickerless surfaces.
Coconut and blueberry taste great together. Wearing quilts
And cutting up prom dresses, painting over t-shirts’ words
So I can have the merchandise no one can afford. 
Orange cheeks and pink noses, sunburnt shoulders and 
Potentially the remnants of fish gills. Ideas for future tattoos
And tears over nothing, shoes with no socks, bedazzled sprained ankles,
The same purple as the hydrangeas on the walls of my room.

disclaimer: no more disclaimers

 im not going to do disclaimers anymore bc its making me not want to post on my blog. if i post something and its bad thats okay. this is a place for first drafts. revised pieces will be clearly stated. good bye insecurity on my own blog. hello awesomeness

rough & very unfinished first draft but i missed blogging bad

 this is the beginning of a short story i recently started writing. it has barely begun, and i have yet to revise or edit it, so dont judge too hard. also idek if im going to stick with this idea, i think its fun but idk if it will pan out the way i want it to. this part doesnt reveal much about the plot im ngl but i swear its more than just ramblings about nothing i have a plan for it. im so bad at keeping tenses consistent so just ignore that. n y way heres what i have so far pls be nice. 

 -------

    There isn’t much else to do but write. 

    I ripped open a pack of instant ramen and spooned instant coffee into yesterday's dirty mug. The kettle murmured a soft cry for help, its extreme overuse leaving it unable to come to a full boil, just a subtle rumble when it was warm enough. Over six hundred pages of writing have come together to form the most disjointed, unreadable slop of a novel, if one could even call it that. The noodles began to separate in the plastic bowl, which was clearly not designed to withstand this heat. Half of the novel is notes, marginal corrections for my later self, beginnings of plot lines that have never been revisited. 
    Everyone said the first draft was the most difficult, but where am I now? No agent or editor wants to touch the beast I created; no one sees the statue within the stone. If there even is one. I went into the writing process with full faith in an idea, in a set of characters with complex motivations and strong personalities, and a full outline. All I needed to do was fill in the blanks. But now I’m here, 600 pages and eight months later, with nothing. Nothing of substance, anyway. I scooped three heaping spoons of brown sugar into the clumpy, unmixed instant coffee. Its the only thing that makes it tolerable. 
    Living alone is the only reason I can survive like this. Dedicating the living room to a workspace, no television, no coffee table, just a standing lamp in the corner that barely lights the room when the sun goes down, and hundreds of papers and sticky notes taped to the wall, and a few small furniture pieces only to write with slightly more ease. Tape is a strong word for what litters my walls, though; some drafts are stuck in place by band-aids, fruit stickers, price tags, chewed gum. Whatever is nearest during a moment of inspiration. The walls are covered in windows, leaving any passerby to see the wreck that I live in, the dirty mugs that litter the floor, the papers strewn across the floor like a rug, dirty shoe prints covering paragraphs I’ve now abandoned. Its the only way I can see my story, scrolling through a document isn’t enough for me. I need to see the story in front of me and rearrange the paragraphs until they are perfectly aligned. But what good has that gotten me so far? 600 pages of bullshit, but bullshit I arranged so meticulously. 
    There’s a smattering of ivy threatening to enter the window. Once just climbing the siding of my small home, it now crept towards the edges of the glass, like a vignette on a romantic painting. It helps to focus the light, though, directing it towards the wall that needs it the most. My landlord keeps requesting I cut it down, don’t let it take over too much of the house, or else it’ll become a bigger issue later, but I haven’t found the time yet. For now, it will keep the light focused. 
    The ramen is cold by now, noodles barely separated from each other due to the now lukewarm water. I empty the seasoning packet into the bowl anyway, shaking out every last bit— the only thing that makes it tolerable to eat in this state. I take the bowl into the living room and drop myself onto a tall wooden stool, the only seating I’ve allowed myself in the workroom. The ramen would be better if I nuked it, but the microwave has been broken for nearly three weeks now. Maybe I’ll get around to it when I cut the ivy. I have other priorities now. To start, my beginning. 
    My writing is full of pretentious prose riddled with half-thought-out metaphors and language so floral it’d make a bumblebee gag, cliches with no twist, and uninspired ideas, despite my insistence that they are thrilling: reading my own work makes me disgusted nowadays. I’m tired of my own words, yet I keep spitting them out and forcing them together. I feel like an angsty, teenage Samuel Beckett, but without the follow-through, without the confidence that makes his work work. I slurp my ramen with dismay, hatefully flittering my eyes across the disjointed storyboard. The printer that lives on a small end table spat out fifteen pages last night, but I retreated to my bed before I could remember to attach them to the wall. Putting down the bowl and taking a swig of sickeningly sweet coffee, I flip through the pages, which I thought would be my final pages before the editing process. I always think that way when I'm high, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, I can picture my project completed. But sober, rested me sees nothing but stoned ramblings, run-on sentences, observations so simple yet so dramatized that I begin to wonder if the weed actually works.
    I'm exhausted just looking at what’s on my wall. I take the red sharpie from my back pocket and begin flipping through the new pages, crossing out any absurd ramblings and circling anything with potential. I need to quit the writing stage, focus only on structure, revision, and editing, but reading my own work is a battle in itself. I stand, viewing my wall as a whole. There’s something here, though, something that's resisting my constant urge to quit this project, start over completely, wipe the slate clean. 
                        ——
    Hours of revising passed, and I found myself, once again, on my laptop, writing more. I should be whittling down what I have, killing all my darlings, but I can’t help but add more, force thousands of needles into this haystack. The room is darker now, the mid-afternoon sun beginning to lower behind the trees. I press print on the six pages I wrote, and hear my old printer gurgle in response. Three pages print before an error message pops up on the screen.
    ERROR: REFILL PAPER TRAY, the screen reads, accompanied by a long beep. I stood up, opened the tray, and saw nothing but one half-crumpled piece of paper. Maybe this was a sign I shouldn’t be writing anymore. I need to stick with the pages I already have. Quit the creative process and begin the critical process. I checked the time, 6:40. The office supply store would be open for another hour or so. Fuck it, I said to myself. I’d rather write anyway.
    I placed my laptop on the floor, grabbed my wallet, keys, lighter, and cigarettes, and started off to the store. Lighting one up, I notice the ivy from the outside for the first time in a week. The yellow siding was barely visible anymore, masked by layers of vibrant green vines and five-pronged leaves that yellowed around the edges. It had overtaken the chimney, which I hadn’t noticed until now. How many days had it been since I actually looked at my home? How many days had it been since I went outside for anything but a smoke break? I plucked a leaf off and made a mental note to buy shears the next time I was at the hardware store.