november 5x5

buzzer beater

Sorry for the late time you’re receiving this. In all honesty I am extremely burnt out and ran out of mental RAM to do this any earlier than right now. But here we go!

5 things to read

I was back in the presence of my physical book collection and I acted accordingly by reading like 13 books.

The Strength of the Few by James Islington

Once again James Islington visibly improves his writing in his latest novel. I was so obsessed with the first novel in this new series, but the sequel surpasses the first book by leaps and bounds. It is a really interesting exploration of character that I thought was cleverly done. Also the concept of death becomes far less straight forward in this one, which is pretty slick.

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

I am not going to lie, I meant to read this book like two months ago, and only picked it up again because I found it in my backpack when I was trapped on a downed metro for an hour. This gothic novel parody is genuinely hilarious, and I found myself laughing out loud very often. Put some respect on Henry Tilney’s name—he’s another wonderful Austen love interest.

All That We See or Seem by Ken Liu

I started subscribing to a book subscription box called The Broken Binding, and this was November’s book. It follows a hacker as she tries to unravel a wealthy man’s empire through his dreams. The concept is insane, and beyond some issues with pacing, I really enjoyed this both as an introduction to Ken Liu’s writing and the subscription service in general!

On the Grid by Zoë Hitzig

This article in The Drift brings light to the ways in which we’ve turned the instruments of technological surveillance into affection between friends and family. Think of the Find My app on your phone, or Life360. It’s full of absolutely banging lines like:

Where we once guarded our control over personal information, we now give up control not just freely but even tenderly, monitoring and being monitored by loved ones through social media platforms like BeReal and location-sharing apps. It’s a strange form of Stockholm syndrome for the surveillance age — we love, and love with, the tools of our captors.

The Persian Boy by Mary Renault

This second book in Renault’s trilogy about the life of Alexander the Great is told from the perspective of his eunuch lover. A really unique take on what it meant to love such a great man not for his greatness, but for who he really is, flaws and all.

5 things to hear

NOBODY’S GIRL by Tate McRae

Tate McRae obsession kicked in again this month with the release of her deluxe edition album. Odds are good she’s going to be my top artist of the year lol. I swear I used to listen to mostly alt music.

4 Raws by EsDeeKid

What do we think: is this Timothee Chalamet?

Comfortable Liar by Chevelle

100% got into this song because I saw a sick Transformer’s edit.

Fever by Buckshot & fakemink

I keep seeing this one office worker guy dance to this and it’s enchanted me…

mangetout by Wet Leg

This song was featured in the new show Heated Rivalry, which I will talk about shortly, but basically I haven’t been listening to anything else since the first two episodes came out. It also made me start running again.

5 things that are in

Heated Rivalry

They made this show in a laboratory to directly appeal to my interests. I couldn’t be more happy that my Canadian tax dollars went to the funding of the gay hockey show directed by the guy who made Shoresy and Letterkenny (who am I kidding, I don’t make enough money to actually pay taxes). I saw the first two episodes and loved it so much that I immediately bought a sweatshirt from the official website because I wanted them to have a little walking around money.

Skincare

Coming back from almost a month of travel made my skin irredeemably mad at me. I have been having a lot of fun this month trying to earn my own face’s forgiveness in the form of many relaxing face masks and lovely products that make me feel very fancy. I forgot how much fun taking care of yourself can be.

Having access to music streaming

Being forced to go almost completely without music in October made me so incredibly appreciative of the ability to access whatever song you want to, whenever you want to. It’s the kind of greed they talk about in the Bible, but my goodness I don’t know how I could even give it up again.

La Haine (1995)

Shoutout to the public library for giving me access to a lot of the Criterion Collection, and this movie in particular. I watched this on a whim one night this month, and fell in love with the film. You follow a cast of three young men from the wrong side of Paris as they react to the beating of one of their peers by the police the night before. Genuinely some of the best filmmaking I’ve seen in a while.

Hobbies

It’s always when I finally have time again to do my hobbies that I appreciate them so much. This month I got back into sculpting, knitting, quilting, and writing. Who knows what else I’ll get back into over the holidays this month.

5 things that are out

Formatting things

Baby’s first first-author paper is coming out shortly, which basically means I spent the entire month moving things slightly to the left for like two days straight. I love being a perfectionist in the most stupid of ways.

The cost of car repairs

You are a victim of the snow one time… all of a sudden it’s $1100 to fix. Stupid and financially debilitating.

Cold weather

Honestly if the wind wouldn’t be so biting on my face and the streets weren’t so slippery I wouldn’t necessarily mind the cold weather, but the bruise on my butt and my chapped lips are making this have to go in here. Also I just got a paddleboard and now I can’t use it until like May :/

Friends moving away

Listen, I am so happy for them because the reason they are moving away is incredible. However, don’t leave me… Usually I’m the one leaving, I’m not built to handle this.

Price of movie tickets

Okay this is me being a little bit naive I guess since I mostly go to the movies on Tuesdays and on top of that I exclusively use my Scene points to pay for them, but I paid EIGHTEEN DOLLARS to see Wicked: For Good on a Wednesday in front of THEATRE BRATS who TALKED THE WHOLE TIME. What the hell.

5 things that made me laugh on twitter

That’s all from me this month. Be well.