December favorites

Well, it may be January 14 today, which makes my December Favorites a little late - but better late than never, I guess. Everything has been slow and hectic at the same time, I just came down with an eye infection due to my eyebrow piercing (again) so I finally have the time to sit down at home and write.

December was a month I´m having a hard time finding a word to box it into - from finally getting approved to my dream flatshare, planning out the whole moving process just for them to change their mind a few days later because their friend suddenly needed a place to live in, to loosing my job, to my grandpas funeral, a weird Christmas with my parents new partners for the first time, to name some of the lows. On the flipside, I finally finished the layout of the blog, got to spend time with my family, my period was way more chill than usual and I got to spend time with Maja which is special because we don´t live in the same country anymore.

I´ve seen When You´re Strange right in the beginning of December, I watched a few more movies but since music documentaries have been my obsession this year, to no surprise When You´re strange was chosen to be my favorite.

It is a documentary about the band The Doors - the movie came out in 2009, but got screened in my local cinema again to celebrate 60 years of the Doors. I love the Doors and their music, so when I heard they brought back this documentary to the cinema I was really excited and cancelled dance class so I could go to the movies that night.

Unfortunately, I missed the first few minutes since I took the wrong subway and noticed way too late that I was going into the wrong direction - I was so lost in my music and occupied with my own thoughts. When I looked up, I already took four or five stops into the wrong direction.

Anyways, I´d rate the movie an eight out of ten, the soundtrack was obviously great, and I learned lots of new things about the Doors. While the documentary is about the Doors, it mainly focuses on Jim Morrison who was the lead singer and his ups and downs during his career and also very short life. A new thing I learned for example was that two members of The Doors (Robby Krieger and John Densmore) are still alive - which makes sense given the fact that they were big in the late 60s, but I´m a dumb rock sometimes. And while I enjoy their music, my knowledge about The Doors wasn´t that great, except for some random key facts.

What a book. What a book. What a book.

“Want” by Gillian Anderson first caught my eye in the library due to its color - and because it was written by Gillian Anderson who has been on my list of celebrity crushes for years which I think are both quite valid points for choosing a book.

After only being halfway through I already recommended it to Maja in our book club because I was convinced it´s a great and groundbreaking book which didn´t change as I went on reading. I´m also convinced it´s my favorite book I´ve read this year (alongside Pattis´Bread of Angels, of course).

In her anthology, Gillian Anderson collects anonymous sexual fantasies from women all around the world, of all ages, sexual orientations, religion etc.

She explores the question how do women feel about sex when they have the freedom to be totally anonymous?

For me personally, some chapters were really healing, reading about other women who have similar fantasies or have had similar experiences, which made me feel a little less alone. Of course I can´t relate to everything in the book, that isn´t the point of it, but regardless, I also find it fascinating to read about other women's fantasies. The fact that everything is real and not fiction, that's what caught my attention in the first place.

Also the chapters are also very short (1-3 pages on average), so I could read a little bit here and there, and not just when I have a lot of time which has been great in a very busy month like December.

I picked it up from the library but chose to buy my own copy of it (which I only do for books that really, really convinced me) because I know I´ll come back to it and specific chapters from time to time. It also made me think a lot about sex in general, about fantasies, taboos, and gave me a space to evolve my own fantasies as well. It´s been a while since I read something that occupied my mind beyond just reading, so if there´s one book I can really, really recommend, it´s “Want” by Gillian Anderson.

Obviously nothing new, but an album I rediscovered recently, and have been playing on repeat on my mp3 player, I´m even listening to it as I´m writing this. Currently playing Backstabber.

I think there aren´t many whole albums out there that are just fun, but Animal is one of them. It makes me thrown back to my party teenage years in the best way possible, I was raised on songs like Tik Tok (still a banger even after all those years) and the whole era of 2010s party pop has a very special place in my heart.

I feel like I´m a teenager again, sneaking out with glitter on my face to attend some party and get black out drunk. As someone who has been sober for the past two years, the album is still such a banger and very fun to listen to. Generally speaking, I´ve been listening to lots of music that makes me feel nostalgic to a past version of myself, I´ve been listening to Avril Lavigne (actually I never stopped), all of Lady Gagas old albums from her Fame Era (honestly, also never stopped listening since 2009), Lena (who won the ESC for Germany in 2010, I had the biggest crush on her but wouldn´t admit at the time), just to name some of my heroes from back in the day.
Also, I´ve been watching the music videos of said album and I´m obsessing all over again the way I did when they aired on MTV back in the day - highly recommend!

✶ Random story, I also blasted the album in the kitchen when cooking my part of our Christmas dinner the morning of Christmas eve, singing very out tune and performing for no one while cutting way too many onions. When my Dad joined me a bit later to start preparing his contribution to dinner, he wasn´t amused about my choice of music, but didn´t say anything, so we stood there, he was cutting veggies and I was frying a shitload of onions for my vegan sauce while Kesha was blasting through the house. Very christmassy, I know.

A little bonus thing that shaped my December was my tea drinking ritual.

My favorite coworker - not at the new job I lost this month, I have another job that I´ve been working at for years, and my favorite coworker, Nina, gifted me with a tea advent calendar as she knows I love drinking tea.

So every day for the first twenty-four days of December, I made myself a cup of tea, sat down on my couch, I lit some candles, sometimes put on some music, some days I embraced the silence. There were days I enjoyed it as my morning tea, others I had it as a little night ritual, depending on when I could free some time to myself.

And let me tell you, I enjoyed drinking my tea so much, either while slowly waking up and getting into a good mindset to start the day with, or while rewinding back the day in my head. It helped me be more present, as I was solely focusing on drinking my tea, while also feeling loved because Nina bought the tea for me which was just a sweet gesture.

I always love drinking tea, but this month, I created a little ritual out of it which was special.

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Feel free to share whatever you obsessed over - as always, you know I love your recommendations! Take care, I know it´s tough out there, and talk to you very soon.