Optimism Pop

Artist unknown

I recently read an article about Coldplay and Chris Martin that made me think. Coldplay is, of course, the globally known, highly lucrative band that first hit it big with their single "Yellow" in 2000 and then followed that up with about a zillion other hit singles. I still get a bit overcome when I listen to the piano riff from "Clocks," a song that was inescapable in the first few years of my 20s and is mystical and poppy in equal balance. Martin was famously married to, and then consciously uncoupled from, Gwyneth Paltrow, and the whole thing had a very earnest and wholesome aura. His daughter's name is Apple; the name evokes both crunch and shine, much like Martin, much like the band. 

The article's thrust was that Coldplay has become, "well, motivational," which Amanda Petrusich, the author of the piece, seems to find puzzling and, at times, corny. (Her word, not mine.) She contrasts Coldplay's straightforward motivationalism with bands like Bad Brains. The D.C. punks were able to capture an optimistic mindset in songs like "Attitude," in which they boast, at top volume and speed, of a "positive mental attitude" without losing their edge. The implication is that Bad Brains is more interesting, and maybe better.

I liked the article, and not just because it reminded me that Coldplay has been around for as long as I've been an adult, which is, quite frankly, weird. It also reminded me that our cultural conversation about happiness, positivity and art can be complicated.

When artists lean into positivity, it's easy to write that off as corny, because, you know, it often is. It comes across as unsexy. Coldplay's music evokes the starry eyes of infatuation but leaves out the primal sweat of the bedroom. In pop music, plaintiveness adds vinegar; yearning adds nettles; sexual aggression adds spice. These ingredients can be present in the musicality, like with Bad Brains, or in the lyrics, as in Taylor Swift's depresso-pop song "I Can Do It With A Broken Heart." Without those elements, music can become too sweet; some of the best pop songs are the saddest fucking thing you've ever heard in your life, sung over a glittery synth line. I don't dispute this. I'm dancing—and crying—alongside everyone else.

But we live in a tough world. The planet is warming, wealth inequality is real and growing, food and housing have become precarious for millions of people, and pop music is getting categorically sadder. Do we not, as listeners, deserve the option to escape into Chris Martin's Rumi-inflected cheer-up songs about love, possibility, and our place in the universe? For me, this conversation is also about when Beastie Boys got heavily into Buddhism: while developing a more cosmic understanding of themselves, they didn't sacrifice funkiness or style. Or Paul Simon, whose 2008 song "Love is Eternal Sacred Light" is written from the perspective of a playful God who wants nothing more than to go on a road trip. In fact, much of Simon's catalog could be filed under "optimism pop."

There's an critical implication that music that centres joy, or positivity, is somehow less worthy or serious that music grappling with darkness. I...reject this. I hate this posture. For me, there is nothing edgy about being on edge all the time. It is so easy to slip towards depression and to find media that reinforces that mindset, ending up in a sucking eddy of shitty feelings. I've seen it happen.

It can feel radical to lean into joy, connection, spiritual lift, community, and a sense of positive possibility. Coldplay music is but one avenue for this: for every Game of Thrones, we need a Ted Lasso. For every Thirteen, we need a 13 Going On 30. Our lives can't only be vinegar, nettles, spice. Deliciousness is in the balance.

I will never go see a Coldplay show—I'm nowhere near that level of fan—but I do admire the approach. Martin seems to take his job as mood-lifter and world-improver seriously. While he's still a musician and performer, he's also an avatar of possibility. If it's trite, well, then, so be it: things are allowed to be trite. We can like them anyway.

We live in a world where everything signifies something: there is nothing without political implication or cultural weight. I follow poetry accounts on Instagram and read articles about the meaning of Barack Obama's pants. It's nice when I can turn my brain off. It would probably offend Chris Martin to hear that his music is a bit of a respite from the constant thinking we're all doing, but I mean it as a compliment. We all deserve an escape, even for just a few minutes—say, the length of a pop song. Coldplay's music, and other optimism pop, is interesting without being a bummer, the lyrics are generally life-affirming, and the stance seems to be "this place could be beautiful, right?" Come with us, the music says, we can be different, for a while. If we want to be.

Your Fall HairyScopes

 

Sleight of Hand by Rokus Aleliunas aka Casual Polar Bear

 

As always, please feel free to read your sign, the signs of your lovers and children and enemies, the sign of the person you most admire, the signs you wish you were, and any other signs you'd like.

Aries: In 2013, normcore erupted. The proposal was simple: release ourselves from the hipster's aesthetic chokehold, reclaim the stonewashed denim and puffy white sneakers of the Seinfeld era, and relax into a deliberately sexless, ambiguously gendered, and defiantly unironic look. However! According to its originators, the artistic collective K-HOLE, they originally meant for the term "normcore" to simply mean wearing outfits that fit the context, regardness of if they fit your own personal style: wear pleather pants at a rave, wear a blazer to the office, wear a cap to the ballgame, because that's the done thing. (What we now refer to as normcore was originally called Acting Basic.) I am FASCINATED by this switch in meaning: is this what critical theory professors mean by the death of the author? In any case, I invite you to think about places where you act basic, where you reject the dominant mood, and whether or not you feel lonely or if you feel free.

Taurus: Every year, my town hosts upwards of a million tourists, most of whom come to see capital-T theatre. It's interesting to live here, because the million of people who come through have fairly specific tastes: they like a quaint downtown, a lovely riverside promenade, and lots of local shops. As a result, certain parts of the town can feel Disney-fied, with upscale women's clothing boutiques and nice cheese shops, but not a lot of places that feel weird. And you know, that's becoming true of a lot of cities! Even big ones like Toronto are shedding their music venues and Weird Malls in order to build condos. Taurus, it's easy to bemoan this, and I think we should: when our places see us solely as consumers, rather than as citizens, it can make the experience of living there rather flat. How would you inject new life into your town, Taurus?

Gemini: There's this idea in therapy that we need to look under the first feeling to get to the real feeling.  Because of socialization, a lot of men express anger when they're really sad, and a lot of women do the reverse; we tend to funnel our feelings into expressions that seem safer or more familiar. I've been paying attention to the layers of my feelings, and it turns out that I'm often sad, angry, and afraid all at the same time, and dropping down through them feels like spelunking. I try to figure out what my biggest emotional response is, and run towards that. Anyway, all this to say: what makes you sad, angry, or afraid?

Cancer: A few years ago, I wanted to have a more sustainable wardrobe. I coveted that breezy linen look—the boilersuits, the overalls, the shirtdresses—or the waxed canvas, or the denim twill. But, like, Cancer: do you know how expensive those sustainable fashion companies can be? I cannot, in good conscience, bring myself to pay nearly two hundred dollars for a pair of shorts, or seven hundred dollars for a sweater. I know! I admire those who can, even though, probably, whatever you're doing to be able to afford $200 shorts is not sustainable either, if we're being honest. Why are ethical choices so expensive? What kind of world have we built? And honestly, Cancer, I still want the good shorts.

Leo: I love zines. I love concert posters. I love mix tapes. I love magazines. I love shitty paperback novels. I love maps. I love photographs. I love calendars (my all-time favourite was 2014's Beautiful Sheep). I love cards in the mail. I love love letters. In the digital age, many of these things have been miniaturized and zapped into our phones, and I want some of them back. A friend sent me a DVD in the mail, and scrawled a poem of friendship to accompany it; I framed it. It's almost like a museum artifact, a thing that might have been so common once—a shard of pottery, a loaf of carbonized bread—and now it's rare and precious. Do you miss these things too, Leo? Or are you relieved to not carry around so much? Make me a mixtape and tell me all about it.

Virgo: Everyone is turning 40 right now! From the giant high school-style house party to the international trip, to the non-acknowledgement to the bona fide midlife crisis, I love seeing how people are choosing to mark the occasion. I myself had Covid on my actual 40th birthday last November, so I did a re-do party six months later and woooweee let me tell you: it's true what they say about alcohol. I had my first three-day hangover, an experience so wretched I have not had a drink since. I sort of like this sober summer, especially as a part of this weird first year of separated life. Self care doesn't always look like what I think it might, you know? And when will I want a drink again? I don't know. I'm not sure I will.

Libra: I've started framing the things that I know I should do, but haven't been doing, as self harm. These are little harms, not big ones: when I spend fifteen work-avoidant minutes scrolling on my phone, or when I reach for a simple carb for the fifth meal in a row, or when I don't reset before I do my child's bedtime and end up in a furious lather. I know the solutions—put the phone down, eat some green vegetables, take five minutes—and that when I shirk them, I feel much worse. It's easy to say, "oh, that's self-care, that's boring self-care," but somehow, that doesn't motivate me. But when I flip the avoidance of self-care into self-harm, then I know it's serious. I have come through serious self-harm behaviours, and frankly, I'm glad I don't do them anymore. Taking care of myself isn't always glamourous, and sometimes I feel like I have to trick myself, but I can be both smart and dumb at the same time.

Scorpio: God, I love cheese. I'm not a snob about it—I don't need your fancy imports or your farmer's market selections—but please, yes, give me the salty, fatty, creamy goodness. I especially love a good cream cheese and cottage cheese; everyone always goes for the upmarket hard cheddars or mould-laced stinky bois, but I love soft and a little sweet and salty. I don't what this cheesy affection reveals about me, but I suspect that we all have preferences we know are slightly downmarket. Do we stand in our affection, or hide in shame?

Sagittarius: In most astrology, Sags are flighty nomads, but this characterization annoys me because I'm a rare "please let me stay home" Pokemon variant. I haven't travelled extensively since I was a young kid; the travels I did take as an adult are all at least ten years in the rearview. I have never really felt compelled to book the trip to Stockholm, to take the redeye to Porto, to do a roadtrip to the Grand Canyon. Many of my Sag friends are wonderful at travelling, but I would much rather read a good book about a seaside vacation than actually take one. What a snooze! But also, what a dream to grow roots instead of wings. What a privilege. 

Capricorn: I'm single now. It's a weird feeling, to be single at 40. My ex-husband has a new girlfriend, and sometimes I roll my eyes about it and sometimes I pity them both, for different reasons. I care about this a little, and I wish I didn't care at all. For the first year of our separation, I could not examine the question of how much of what happened in our marriage was because of me. It was such a painful question, and impossible to answer, truly; it's not like my ex would say, "Actually, I will own 68% of these problems, and that leaves you with 32%, enjoy and good luck." I am culpable for some of it; I want to be accountable, because that will lead to healing and hopefully better relationships in the future. But I couldn't even start asking myself those questions for nearly a year. It's almost time, now. I can start soon.

Aquarius: Love is like bread, as the saying goes. It must be made fresh every day. Sometimes it's a feast, and sometimes only crumbs, but we do eat every day. Tonight, my child and I walked hand-in-hand and ate mango ice cream in the September heat. We were lovely, chatty and funny. Last night, I cried in the dark because I was too overwhelmed by single parenting, by another dinner rejected and uneaten, undone and unhappy. It was too much. And yet: the loaf of our love rose again, a little miracle. I have to trust that we will find our way back to mango ice cream, back to the warm loaf of our love for each other, because the miracle of parenting is that so far, it has happened every day. We rise again. 

Pisces: Poor Pisces. You are the last on the zodiac, and the sign I find hardest to spell (and I say this as a Sagittarius). I blow my writerly load on sexy signs like Scorpio and Taurus, and leave you to the end. On the other hand, you youngest children get away with stuff that the Geminis would never even dream of. I associate you with a certain silver sparkle—maybe your fishy scales, or your empathetic nature—and a dreamy quality that belies your steely undergirding. I think we forget the Pisces at our own peril, truly. Not that you would ever be vindictive (I don't think that's in your nature), but that you would simply leave us all in your silvery dust. 

Manifesting

Artist unknown

Last week, a bestie came over, and in between cackling about crafts and outfits and feminism, she said something I thought was pretty great. She said, "I'm speaking this into being," and then proceeded to describe a sweet little date scenario, with a a specific type of date on her arm. I was like, "yes, do this magic spell on my front porch!" and we both cackled some more. 

I don't know about manifesting. It feels very woo, but it also seems to work sometimes. This spring, the car I learned to drive on was dying a slow death, and after dragging her back into my driveway, I rolled down my window and said, out loud to the blue sky, "I need a new car." Two hours later, a friend texted me: would I be interested in hearing about a car she had a line on? You bet your ass I was.

On the other hand, if manifesting was that simple, I would like to formally request some more money (without anyone dying, thank you), the ability to sleep through the night, and a child who might one day like me again. I would manifest the time and motivation to regain my bangin' hot bod. I would manifest a housing situation that didn't feel slightly skin-of-my-teeth at all times. I would manifest a hot partner who was great at buying presents. 

On that last note, I've been thinking about what type of person I'd like to date next. I feel very meh about dating right now—my brain is taken up with grief, still, about the end of my marriage and my sudden drop into single-mom life. But this week I also burst into tears listening to the Barenaked Ladies song "Enid," about a doomed high school relationship, so I know that there's something that needs to be addressed in this area. 

I recently thought about how I'd like to have a relationship that feels like high school sweethearts, but without the inevitable slide into taking each other for granted. I'd like someone clean-cut but with a filthy mind. I'd like someone who will fall in love with my kid, too: I am part of a package deal now. I'd like someone who is excited about their own life, who likes themselves, who gives freely and generously and without keeping tabs. I want someone who is curious. I want someone with hobbies, especially maker hobbies—there's something so attractive about woodworking or sewing, you know? I want someone who is smart as hell and who thinks I'm funny as hell; those two things are related, of course. I want someone who is interested in me—who sees me as more than a mom/wife/fucktoy paper doll. I want solidity, dependability, but with spark. I am going to speak those things into being.

I don't want to play the comparison game between whoever is coming next and the marriage that came before. Suffice it to say that, when I was in my twenties, I always knew the deficits of my friend Lindsay's boyfriends by the guys she replaced them with. The slob was followed by the neat freak; the mean guy was replaced by the sweetie; the emotionally stunted was supplanted by the emotional tsunami. A savvy reader could go back to my list and see where the gaps were in my marriage; a smart reader wouldn't do that.

I feel skittish about dating, like I'm going to have to come at it sneaky-like. I haven't been single since I was 26 years old; before that, I had a bad habit of convincing myself that the guys I slept with were boyfriend material, despite zero evidence of either their long-term interest in me or of them being functional adults. It never occurred to me to factor in if I liked them; I just wanted them to like me. I don't blame them—being in our early- to mid-20s was hard for a lot of people, you know?—but I also know the rush of physical affection can be swept away by the disappointment of reality. I tend to fall fast and hard, and I want to protect my heart a little, even if the next person I date is an absolute golden retriever.

And besides: what am I even looking for? Pre-marriage, I was riding that relationship escalator hard. We met, we dated, we moved in together. I wanted to have a baby, because my biological clock had been ticking since I was 26. My boyfriend asked me to marry him; I said yes. We got married and had a baby, and I had checked the boxes that meant I was a person in the world. Someone married me! I had a kid! Proof positive that I was worth something, after all. 

When all that fell apart, I finally internalized that if I was worth something married, I was worth something single, too. In fact, I had been worthy and worthwhile the whole time; I had just convinced myself that external validation was the only kind that counted. (Psych! Turns out it's the other way around. Thanks, therapy!) But I won't lie and say that being single at 40 is easy; it's just that being in a bad relationship is harder. And now I get to choose: am I on an escalator again? A dance floor? A Juliet balcony overlooking a garden? If I don't have anything to prove, what would I choose? 

I think about the Billy Collins poem "Litany," that great song to the world and to a lover. I am the sea searching for a shoreline; I am also just a woman writing on a computer about the things she would like in her love if it ever comes back to her. It's a good time for me to think about what those things are, so I can keep an eye out for them in the world. Even if I'm not ready today, I will be one day. I am going to speak that into being, when it's time.

The Grift

One of the biggest bummers about living in a capitalist hell-pit is that everything, and I do mean everything, is expected to be monetized. Our hobbies, our housing, our friendships, our gardens: all of these have a market value, and if we wanted, we could line our wallets with their spoils. 

I've talked before about Dr. Devon Price's statement on community—that is, what we think of as community "are actually friend groups or fandoms or brand identities." Friends, when I say that blew my mind when I first encountered it, I would be understating the moment. That was such a major a-ha for me. At the time, I was thinking about how the narrowness of "friend group" actually dilutes the meaning of "community"—because the project of friendship is to, you know, like each other, while the project of community is less interested in personal relationships but rather in a shared goal or vision or experience—and how we have come to use them as synonyms for each other despite that. But it also brings in those other dimensions, the fandoms and the brand identities, and asks us (okay, me—look, I'm doing an academia!) to examine how our so-called communities are complicated by those elements as well.

A case study: I recently started following an Instagram account called Deep House Yoga. I was interested in the basic idea (silent discos with yoga, it's sort of right there in the title), but the actual events turned out to have fairly narrow presentation. Almost universally, the attendees are thin, young white women in dusty-rose yoga shorts. It does not look like anyone over 40 or 130 pounds attends these events, and the darkest skin tone is, like, cafe-au-lait. 

I'm not going to lie: this bums me out. Not least because, while I am white, I am also old and fat and my yoga clothes are baggy and worn out. I suppose I'll have to do yoga to Rufus Du Sol alone, thank you very much. And yet, this account talks constantly about the power of their community, and how their community shows up for them. It's clear, however, that this community is not one that is, say, engaging in collective childminding or showing up at a sick member's house with a casserole. This community is fandom and brand identity, pure and simple.

A deeper dive shows that the two besties who run these events are not just friends but also business partners, and the business partnership is framed as the two of them helping each other manifest their financial destinies. Now, obviously, this is some woo-woo pseudospirituality. But there is a certain type of person whose work requires friend buy-in; that is, if you are friends with them, there is an (often explicitly stated) expectation that you will be purchasing their merch, working the door at their parties, posting about their events on your social media. It's the eco-system, the quid-pro-quo of how capitalist friendships are structured now: how can we make money being ourselves? Is our friendship something we can use to sell to others? Are we the product?

From what I can see, this structure usually has a few different components: a charismatic leader, or better yet, a duo modelling a fulfilling and fun-looking relationship; the idea that, by buying whatever they're selling, you will also gain access to the fun person at the centre of the hub; and that this access will make you more interesting, fitter, more attractive, or more popular. For women, it's the central spine of the modern MLM, the allure of the best bartenders, the shop owners with the savviest marketing. I'm sure men have this with certain podcast hosts or comedians. There's an illusion that you, too, can become a member of this community...if you can pay the entry fee. 

Good lord, I am sick of this. A friend of mine called it a grift, and it is. It's an illusion. Communities, by their nature, are challenging and generative and diverse and weird. By contrast, brand identities smooth the edges, giving convenient shorthand to communicate values ("I buy American," etc.). And fandoms orient, again, towards consumption; while the best fandoms are challenging and generative in their own ways, often beautifully so (see: my recent dive into Dramione fanfic, and no, I'm not taking any questions) their shared project is not shaping the world, but rather responding to media. A worthy cause, but narrower in scope than is what is useful in the hell-pit.

It's been interesting to see how many of these types of grift-communities are out there. Once I started seeing them, I couldn't stop. The tragedy is, some of it is survival: I don't fault the cool shop owners for inserting themselves or their personal lives into their marketing, because for most small shop owners, there is no real divide between who you are and what you're selling, no off-the-clock that can be guarded and kept private. And that is exhausting—these folks tend to post a lot about burnout. And for some, the tragedy is that it is sometimes revealed that there is no "fun person" at the centre of the hub: their project isn't community, but sales. As long as everybody's buying something, they're having fun, but the second that stops, things get frantic.

I know that, in the modern world, our lives are the product: our data, what we search and where we go, our interests. There are platforms to monetize everything we do, from Etsy (crafts) to Substack (writing) to Twitch (playing video games) to YouTube (opening presents), and that each of those platforms takes its own cut, either in money or information, usually both. And I know we are also yearning to connect with each other, to make meaningful friendships and loving relationships. This grift capitalizes on our yearning and promises that we can be cool, beautiful, accepted, known....as long as we have the right dusty-rose yoga pants and money for the tickets. I'm going to leave my wallet in my purse and see how I make out; it's old-school, I know, but I've got hope that it might also be the future.

Illustration by Nikolas Ilic

Slow Time

Cabinet Mineral for Soleil Rouge Digital — March, 2020 Alisa Calypso

Life has been hectic lately. I don't know if it's post-separation comedown, or post-mid-pandemic malaise, or post-busy-work-springtime, but I find myself challenged to stay motivated to do anything. Monday mornings, I often take a little crash for anywhere from one to 24 hours: rot on the couch, watch sitcoms, scroll social media, and ignore my duties and responsibilities. It's not ideal for actually getting anything done; it's also not ideal to feel slightly out of control of the crash, as though I can barely drag myself to the resting point before turning my brain entirely off. 

watching sitcoms | watching improv shows | reading romance novels | reading fun magazines | a little snack | a seasonal fruit | a new flavour of sparkling water | reading a how-to book | putting my phone away

The things that sustained me in other hectic, hard-brain times—Drag Race, knitting, cooking, queer romance novels—have lost their lustre. I don't think it's depression, because I'm still joyful and grateful to be alive, but it's like a little void has opened up and I'm not sure what, exactly, to fit it with. I like being busy, but it feels like one of those situations where you've been eating strawberries your whole life, and then suddenly, you mouth is itchy when you eat one. Where did that come from?

doodling | hanging art on the walls | sewing | knitting | blogging | writing a short story | writing a poem | menu planning |

I feel somewhat like my creative tank has been spilled out—and really, it's hard to be creative when we're in survival mode all the time. I feel also like I've been someone with passionate hobbies (those of you with ADHD and autism are shouting "hyperfixations! special interests!" and don't think I can't hear you), but to suddenly find myself with a lack of hobbies, or at least hobbies that are fuelling my creative tank, is weird. Yes, I'm still knitting, but nothing too involved. Yes, I'm still blogging, but my last post was a blob. I'm still doing stuff, but I'm doing the most basic versions of the most basic stuff. Why? 

dancing | going for long walks | lifting weights | yoga | riding my bike | swimming in the lake | throwing a football around | flying a kite | a massage

Realistically, I don't feel energized and I'm not sure why. Is this perimenopause? Is this...sadness? Is this a meme about anime and Harry Potter? Is it burnout? Is this something else? I feel much less anxious in my daily life than I have for many years, but was anxiety the fuel I used to propel myself forward? If so, respectfully, what the fuck? Because this feels boring, and I feel like I'm boring right now, and I hate feeling that way! And maybe I do need to unpack why I feel the need to be interesting and helpful and shiny all the time, but really, I also enjoy doing things and not doing things feels sluggy and weird! So: perimenopause? Burnout? Sadness? WHAT??

talking on the phone | going for coffee with a friend | dinner with my sister | walks with my mom | driving with my dad | going to the splash pad with my kiddo | pal sleepovers | visiting friends out of town | sitting in a busy coffee shop | sitting in a quiet library | therapy | sending a card in the mail | writer's group | volunteering | snuggling

Maybe this is just a season of slow. Summer is often go-go-go, but it actually carries a lot of grief for me. Summer is when people have historically gotten sick, and when affairs have come to light, and when a walk on the beach is likely to contain slow tears or a drunken sob. I do much better in spring and fall, when the heat is soft and the days have structure. And, after all, I am still grieving the collapse of my marriage, and the additional relationship devastations that have piled on since then. I feel punched in the brain, in the heart, and like I'm still trying to get up from that.

tidying up | paying my bills | laundry | sweeping | grocery shopping | cooking something easy | cooking something hard | gardening | 

And maybe this is also a bit of choice paralysis: I could be doing anything, and instead, I'm curled up on the couch because it all feels a bit impenetrable. My creative goals used to be small-scale ("knit a pair of socks!") and then I felt like I could take on more; then I started edging into territory like "refurbish the dining room table" and that might actually be too big for me. Shoot for the moon and you will land among stars? Dude, I can't even figure out how to get off the launchpad. I've thought a lot about how percolation is a key element in my creative process, but where does percolation stop and overwhelm begin? 

a soft shirt | a cozy blanket | a pretty dress | a nice bit of jewellery | showering | good-smelling soap | the right sunglasses

The idea of sitting in the void, even just for now, is stressing me out. It's not my usual way. My usual way is to distract myself with a million things to do, little jobs that keep me busy and moving and going all the time. And I want to get back to that—I do!—but the motivation is so low. I don't really know what my alternatives are. I can't force myself to feel better. I can't bully myself into productivity. I mourn the loss of the easy, spring-up side of myself, and trust that she will return. 

And if she doesn't, who will I be?

Life, Right Now

Lately the vibe of this blog has been single-topic rants/harangues/love letters/musings, which has been great for my writing chops and focus, but I do sort of miss the days of writing a meandering blob of nothing in particular. Working on this little corner of the internet for the past fifteen (!!) years has meant that I have dabbled in a lot of different formats and approaches, and the meandering blob is a perennial favourite, right alongside "the listicle nobody asked for" and "half-baked takes on things that matter to me" and "pop culture responses, I guess??", but I often feel compelled to put a little more oomph into these things, now that I'm only doing one post per month. Still: maybe this month is a little less oomph-y and a little more flowy, as a little treat.

There are things happening behind the scenes that I don't want to broadcast, or at least not yet: domestic shakeups that are not yet fully formed, changes to lifestyle and habitat, and an overall sense that the plans I had made are maybe not the life I will live. But those things are yet to be finalized, and so focusing on a collection of small things while the Big Things thunder on in the background is where I'm at right now. 

And, oh, what small things! In no particular order: 

- Spring is here, and that is very good for morale. The garden is popping off, and the azaleas and rhododendrons are not messing around. Pure beauty. Every year, I have delusions that I will make dandelion wine or pickle magnolias; every year, the moment passes and I don't do it, taking me one step farther from being a self-sufficient forager type and/or cool weird hippie, but likewise, every year I enjoy the spring more and more. I get why retired people get really into their gardens. It's good out there. 

- It's been an utterly fabulous friendship time. I feel wildly blessed that so many good people have collected around me. How? I don't know, but I don't take it for granted. These are people who make me laugh until I cry, who laugh at my jokes (the dream!), who hold me when I cry, who send thoughtful cards, who linger on my front porch, who walk with me, whose kids I love, and whose advice I take. Friendship wounds have crossed my life in many ways and those scars can run deep, but right now, I feel like the small collection of besties I've somehow ended up with are absolutely the right people for me. 

- Likewise! Beyond just ("just") friends, I am having a really nice community moment. The volunteer work I do with the climate group and on the library board is so generative and positive! I feel good about it! The relationships in those spaces there aren't friendships, but they are friendly and rooted in mutually aligned goals and values, which is affirming and feels important. Plus, because my paid work is remote and my colleagues are spread far and wide, having people that I sit at an actual table with feels like a novelty, but a good one. 

- I'm on a Harry Potter fanfic kick, and while it is DEEPLY embarrassing to be known in this way, I have to admit that the reading of the fanfic has been SO FUN. It's so fun. I have many theories on why fanfic is so fun, but it's basically spending even more time with your imaginary friends, and who doesn't want that? This is like discovering several new seasons of your favourite sitcom, or a sequel to your favourite movie, and as an added bonus, it comes with much less of the terrible politics of the author, and a lot of in-jokes and snark. 

- I just broke four years on Duolingo. I spent a year learning Japanese and retained none of it; I've moved on to Spanish and I'm...medium-bad? This is more of a phone game than a language acquisition process, but I know the Spanish word for owl now, and I didn't before. 

- I am struggling with time management right now, and I know it will get worse in the summer. I am not really a morning person, and in order to be effective, I need to get out of the house and do something right away, and then go to work. On the days I have my kiddo, the commute to school is usually enough structure to get me to my desk by 9:30; on the days I don't, I can be a gormless prawn on the couch for several hours before I haul myself to the computer. I need to break this habit, because it doesn't serve me. At the same time, I am really a person who enjoys evening work, and that is hard when I have to simultaneously do a bedtime routine. Advice on this balancing act appreciated, although I suspect it boils down to "be a different person" and that's tough. 

- My creative goals are all over the place right now, but they include (and are not limited to) the following: making friendship bracelets; framing and hanging my art; making new art; creating a kitchen-themed oracle deck; writing more chapters on my weird time-travel novel; figuring out what to do with the three yards of neon-orange mesh fabric I bought last summer; deep cleaning my house (not technically creative, but key to the creative process); refinishing the dining room table; and maybe cooking some new or low-rotation foods. 

- By the same token, one vision I have for the summer is a Weekend of Indulgence, where I just go and eat at all the good restaurants, scarf down pastries, buy some trinkets or fancy books; walk through some natural areas, and wear some great clothes. I know for many people this is also slightly-elevated normal life, but right now it feels like a real reach. Not in a poor-me kind of a way; in a "this will be special" kind of way. Holler if you want to join!

- I realized recently that the fight-or-flight hormones that had been flooding my body for....many years....pretty much constantly....have largely ebbed away. My overall anxiety is way down, along with the intrusive thoughts and generalized panic. I feel like myself for the first time in a long time, and it turns out, I like myself! I can put my foot in my mouth still, or have hard days, or struggle with motivation, but the sheer bad-feeling-ness that had become my "normal" has been a mega relief to slough off. I'm smart and funny, strategic and weird, and I have things, people, and goals in my life that feel like they fit. I like it. I'm happy. 

Image creator unknown

Fashion Vibe

Amanda S. Lanzone

I recently stopped into a new coffee shop. It was cute - the vibe was very GOOP, with refined sugar-free cookies and ashwaghanda hot chocolate - and as I sat there with my goat cheese-stuffed date and ice tea, a parade of new mums came through. It was wild how similar they all were: sleek mid-ponytail, black leggings, white sneakers, gray or black sweatshirt, little gold hoops. It was almost at the level of a dress code, or, frankly, cult member. And it made me wonder: is this stylish? Is this trendy? My baby is eight—should I dress like this?

I think a lot about style and trends. I love fashion and clothing, especially how it functions in as proxies for our social selves. Clothing creates in-groups and sends signals about how we want to be perceived. It helps create our public images. Clothing is a tool by which we create our lives. 

I've been thinking about this again lately, because it had occurred to me that the people in my life that I look up to for being stylish are all wildly different. There is my bestie who dresses like a stoned woodland princess (a lot of velvet and silk and interesting headbands); a pal who dresses like a member of a 1990s girl punk band (Doc Martens, windbreakers, leather pants); a friend who is an unabashed wardrobe maximalist, who routinely wears head-to-toe neon pink and heart-shaped glasses; and a buddy whose wardrobe, despite being mostly beige, seems so luxuriously touchable that I can't help but swoon.

In trying to define what unites these diverse and divergent queens, there are a few common denominators. They all make use of texture—wooly numbers, leather and fur, lacy bits and bobs, squishable fabrics, unexpected choices. They all have great accessories, like weird glasses choices, an excess of rings, or a funny poofed hat. None of them are shrinking violets: these are outfits designed to be seen and admired, not to blend in. And while they're all attractive as hell, most of them downplay the fuckability element. These folks are dressing for the girls and the gays; the straight male gaze is an afterthought, at best.

But more to the point, each of the people has a deeply personal way of dressing that just...matches who they are. It's hard to explain: I could write a thousand words on my friend who dresses like a girl-punk, and how she's brash and sensitive and a former member of the Pillow Fight League and how she will get in your face and defend anyone's honour...but I don't have to, because her frilly socks and t-strap Doc Martens say it better than I ever could.

So: is being stylish just a matter of matching your own vibe?

I think it has to be. I think this is why I still feel like I'm discovering my own style: because my internal vibe has shifted dramatically in the last ten years. That goes along with changes to my body and budget and my willingness to be perceived and get weird. In my 20s, I felt like my style was more like cosplaying who I wanted to be. In my 30s, it was a desperate apology for getting fatter and not being as hot as I once was. Now? Now, I feel like nothing hangs together, and it sort of works anyway.

The internal-vibe thing is so interesting to me, because it answers my question of why "it" works for some people and not others. Some people's maximalism is delicious while others' feels messy. One person's frilliness is perfect, while on another, it feels childish. Some people look like a million bucks in an outfit that could be described as moderately unhoused, while others need a boiled-wool coat and a low-heeled boot. Sometimes I want to tweak someone's personal style—I have a friend I really want to see it more 1980s band tees—and sometimes it's hard to define what's working and what's not. Why does athleisure read as slobby on one person and sleek on another? Why does office wardrobe look polished on her and like a costume on her?

Again: the vibe. The vibe is misaligned, and while it's not wrong or bad, it's just not as gloriously personally perfect as it could be. This is a low-stakes problem to have, and exploring solutions is just the most fun. Does a necklace solve the problem? What about the wrong shoe? Can we bring in a statement piece? Can we make it our signature thing? C'mon people, let's try some solutions! I don't want to be part of the Legging Mom Mafia. That seems dull as hell.

I still don't know what my internal vibe really is—am I a fritzy earth mother? a hard-edged femme? an outsidey community activist? a low-key professional who still cracks jokes in meetings? the third-hottest person at school pick-up? the girl crying in the bathroom at the club?—because the reality is, I could be any one of those people on any given day. Some days, I'm all of them (those are long days). I am weird and strong and soft and shiny, and I mostly dress to reflect that. I dress as a dreamer, too: the people I want to become, trying them on for size. And I dress in order the tell the world: I am still becoming the person I am.