The love list

Here's what I loved in July

The month of July is on its way out - stupidly hot, chaotic, and full of surprises. This is the Love List - where I take note of moments, essays, movies, and other things I loved during the month, plus give you a little update on studio things.

Along those lines, I’m closing out the month with a manuscript word count of 14,000. That’s not as far along as I’d like to be right now, but I’m keeping on keeping on.

• I made three trips to Wilson’s in Frankfort (one with my mom and two with Tracy) and Tracy and I also went on to Ironweed Native Plant Nursery in Waddy. (Wilson’s has the best garden statues I’ve ever seen.)

• The hawks have been spending a lot of time in our yard, on our fence, and in our birdbaths, which is cool but also a little disconcerting for the other birds.

• I wanted to freshen up the energy in my studio. You might think for a person of my age this means leveling up in some way - making the space more minimalist or mature - but you would be wrong. I added more whimsy, more color, pink mushrooms. I aimed for making the room feel more like a teenager’s clubhouse, and I’m loving it.

• I returned to a 100 percent plant-based diet this month and it feels good to be back in harmony with myself. My physical body has been seriously out of what for the past year or longer, and I so desperately want to get it back into whack. This feels like a good first step.

• We lost Shelley Duvall, Richard Simmons, and Shannen Doherty all in a row. Richard Simmons was such a kind person. He spread spread so much love and acceptance in the world. And Shannen Doherty was someone I spent alot of screen time with. I hope there’s a Peach Pit set on the other side where she and Luke Perry can hang out and laugh about how strange and beautiful life is. My favorite Shelley Duvall performance is 3 Women. I highly recommend it if you’ve never seen it.

The totally awesome smells of our 80s and 90s icons

This is the look of a joyful woman

Voices torn from the roots

Necessary wildness

Mask Bans Insult Disabled People, Endanger Our Health, and Threaten Our Ability to Protest

I’ve been enjoying National Park After Dark.

I just started listening to The UFO Rabbit Hole and it is sooo well done. She does a great job, in the first episode, of explaining why it’s so difficult to talk about things that are conspiracy theory adjacent.

I don’t know how I missed seeing Times Square all these years, but it’s streaming on Criterion now and wow. I am in love with this movie. It immediately skyrocketed to my top five movies of all time.

I also binged School Spirits and eagerly await a second season.

I can’t decide if my favorite moment of the Olympics Opening Ceremonies was a bunch of Marie Antoinettes holding their own singing heads or the catwalk Bacchanalia. I cheered and cried when Celine Dion sang. And hey, um, did anyone else notice that bruised and battered Statue of Liberty?

“Paris is back on its feet, jubilant, flamboyant, creative and open. Free” - Thomas Jolly, Artistic Director

The full moon in Capricorn on July 21 was something else, wasn’t it? I’m not going to say we jumped timelines, but it feels like the timeline got accelerated, like the trajectory we were collectively on got sped up. Does that mean our individual timelines were also sped up? I don’t know, but I asked my fav Youtube psychic- so I’ll get back to you with what he says.

And that’s it for the month of July 2024.

I’ll see you in August! (That’s tomorrow.)

xoxo