august favorites
As I´m writing this, I´m sitting in my local library, and it´s September 1st, which is insane. I know, that´s how I start every monthly recap. But I can´t help it, time does fly. Summer is almost over, what the fuck.
August was another rollercoaster, I´m still recovering from a massive mental breakdown that lasted almost a whole week which is something - thank God - I haven´t had in a very long time. Crashing out for a week used to be normal, until it wasn´t anymore and I thought I´m a grown up now. Apparently, it still happens occasionally.
It was probably a mix of outer circumstances, and the fact that my period was late (like, concernedly late). I even had to call in sick at work during the peak of said crashout because I physically couldn´t handle working, and the days that I did work, I felt like I was on the verge of passing out because my body felt weirdly weak and shaky.
Anyway, besides that I had my fair share of good moments as well, I spent sunny afternoons by the lake, I read more than usual, had so much good food and was sucked into a massive rabbithole of nostalgia on the early tumblr days, which already brings me to my first obsession of the month.
The other day, I went to a different library than my usual, and they had CDs????
Looking back, I remember my Mum used to bring home CDs from the library all the time during my childhood, so it makes total sense that the library still has CDs. I mean, they also have games, DVDs, I don´t know why I never thought about CDs just because my library doesn´t have them. Good to look beyond my own nose sometimes.
Anyway, they had so many CDs that are deeply tied to my teenage years, and I´ve had the best time feeling like I´m sixteen again listening to them (also, don´t tell anyone, but I copied all of them to my mp3 player, so I can listen to them for a very long time).
Born to die - Lana del Rey
Of course, THE album that defined the tumblr era that I was LIVING in back then. It´s a record I keep coming back to from time to time, she´s never forgotten but having her on my mp3 player going on a walk in warm summer nights was making me feel invincible. (Well, that was a little dramatic.)
Badlands - Halsey
Oh my God. I felt teleported back to 2015; I could sing along every word. There are records that a great, and there are records that define an era, and a feeling. When I listen to this, I feel like I´m fifteen again, trying to figure out ways to get a fake ID for buying alcohol and for clubbing, I feel like tipsy nights sitting somewhere in a field with my best friends (being a teenager in a small town really was something) that turned into black out drunk nights in a club somewhere in a bigger city close by. I feel like scrolling through tumblr on a school night until 2 am, reblogging aesthetic photos thinking about how I could save up enough money to buy Doc Martens. But most of all, I feel the way that carefree summers used to feel like.
Hinterland - Casper
This one dominated the soundtrack of my teenage years. Casper is a German rapper that I was OBSESSED with at the time. I still know the lyrics to every song, out of all the albums, this might be the one that feels most like my teenage years.
AM – Arctic Monkeys
It´s a good record, even though to me, it doesn´t feel as much like tumblr era then the other albums - I don´t know why, it´s one of the OG records, I listened to it back then and can still sing along every word, but it just doesn´t feel like the other ones. I think it´s because I kept listening to those songs somewhere, on social media, mostly. But when I listened to Badlands, for example, it feels like a time capsule bringing me straight back, because the last time I´ve listened to this record was during the tumblr era.
I Love You. – The Neighbourhood
Another tumblr era banger. To be honest, I never listened to the whole record until now, but I very much obsessed over Sweater Weather, as everyone did during said era. Sweater Weather feels like dreaming about California, about watching my favorite YouTubers living it up in LA, it feels melancholic, it feels like Doc Martens and striped shirts, like wired headphones, like black painted nails, like cigarettes and cheap alcohol, like Polaroid-like images and a slightly blurred memory of a night both euphoric and sad.
— ☾ —
Tomato and Egg on Rice
Sport
In the beginning of the year, I wrote about my new year´s resolutions and how I wanted to move my body more as a healthy way to release tension and anger. It´s already august, and I finally signed up for Urban Sports, which is a sports program very popular in Berlin. A little late, but better late than never, I guess.
There are so many different courses to try, and I felt slightly overwhelmed, so I started with Indoor Cycling. Honestly, I didn´t think I would enjoy it, but to my own surprise, I did. I always choose a class with a fun music theme, such as Gaga, Britney or 00s Party Pop, and had a blast every time except the first time I went.
I really want to try Pole Dance next, but I´m slightly intimidated, even though it´s something I´ve been wanting to try for almost two years. Today I have a day off, maybe maybe maybe I´ll go to a class tonight instead of Indoor Cycling.
Update: ✶ I didn´t, but it´s okay, I´ll go another day.
To be honest, I do feel better in general, but my huge crashout last week made me rethink the idea of regularly moving my body as the cure to feeling better mentally. This was also the week where I didn´t move my body, so maybe, if I would´ve gotten up for a cycle class, I would’ve felt better. Who knows.
My friend Maja and I have a little no pressure book club, where every now and then, we recommend each other books we think the other person might enjoy and discuss them afterwards. Sunburn by Chloe Michelle Howarth was a novel that took me a while to get in to, but I really started obsessing after maybe the first 100 pages.
Very much coming of age, maybe intended for a younger audience, but I felt interestingly connected to the book. Maja and I talked about this later, this feeling of nostalgia while reading and the yearning for something we both never experienced in our teenage years.
In a way, it also made me reconnect with younger me, reliving the feeling of secretly crushing on girls and being afraid to tell anyone, of making up crushes on boys in my school so I could fit in because I saw how everyone treated the openly gay boy in my school, and I was scared they would do the same to me.
— ☾ —
Some good reads on Substack I´ve come across:
Why Albums Still Matter by The Album Shelf
Yes Yes Yes 100% agree!! (that´s all I can say about this)
i am 1 year sober!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! by Kitty Lever
Had me tearing up a little towards the end, one of the rawest pieces I´ve read in a while
…and this article from the New York Times:
I’m Begging You: Never Write With A.I. by Bret Stephens (published in New York Times)
This sums up my thoughts I had on AI and writing for a while pretty well - yes, my essays may be a bit messy from time to time, but at least they´re 100% mine and human written.
“The problem with writing with A.I. is that it’s mentally enfeebling — an escalator toward a result when you really need to make a daily habit of taking the stairs. As it becomes ubiquitous, it undermines not only our individual ability to write but also a society’s collective ability to reason, a culture’s inner capacity to create and everyone’s reason to care.” - Bret Stephens
Everyone´s reason to care, that sat with me for a while. Why would I care about a piece of writing if a machine wrote it that never experienced anything of the things written about?
Lately, I also became quite paranoid about reading essays without noticing they were written by AI, which made me a lot more distrustful in general. This is an evolution quite sad, because I noticed I immediately shift towards a negative attitude when reading something that feels slightly off, and it´s something I need to work on. Because I want to enjoy reading, but at the same time, I feel like nowadays, so many things feel AI written that it took away my love for reading essays.
Watched some good video essays:
An analysis of the book Shy Girl by Mia Ballard, in consideration of AI writing. Honestly the first time I´ve heard about the book and the whole scandal of the author allegedly using AI when writing this. Very interesting, would recommend.
Substack and 'performative intellectualism' by According to Alina. I wasn´t able to embed this, but I linked it so you can still watch it if you feel like it. Some very good takes on performative intellectualism, and the role the rise in popularity of Substack plays in said discussion.
And of course, as always, the monthly episode of my favorite podcast, Taboo off the bus. I love Zara and her takes, especially this one.
This Reel I came across the other day touched something in me, and I think it´s the perfect way to end this piece of writing. (I have no idea why the thumbnail is a soccer player, but that´s that.)