A Reintroduction

Time flies when you're having fun, or whatever it is that I have been doing since my last post on this webpage. However, one of my New Year's resolutions was to restart my blog. Unfortunately for you, many of my old posts have been archived, so you are not able to read the unhinged ramblings from the teenager who started this blog. Fortunately for me, I had such a fun time reading my unhinged ramblings to the point that I was inspired to grab my keyboard, step up to the plate, type away on my keyboard, and hit "Publish."

When I was a teenager, I was quite literally using this blog as an outlet to talk about television, movies, and books. It started off as a book blog, but once I entered high school and reading became required, I pivoted to movies. Bloggers in 2011 always had a sign-off, and mine was, "Happy Reading!" When movies and television became my special interest, that sign-off shifted to "Happy Movie Watching" or even "Signing Off" or "See you Next Time." Something about seeing how happy I was to send my words out into the digital void really touched me. I didn't care if one person saw it or if 50 people read what I wrote. I was just happy to write and talk about the things that I loved. This blog is what made me want to become a writer. I don't get paid to write. Hell, sometimes I wonder if I actually even enjoy it if there's no one reading what I have to say, but I've been getting in the mood to write. I've been getting into such a mood about writing that I get a headache if I don't at least attempt to write something down. 

And so, I write, even though something about doing this makes me feel annoying. 

Perhaps I want to be different by not posting on Substack, as this was once a safe space for me.

Maybe I actually want to stick to something consistently for once in my life, like I did when I was 13 and bored.

And so, I write, even if I am a little bit of all of those things...or even if there are mistakes...or if no one reads this at all.

am i sober now?

 

 
I had a conversation with a friend of mine this morning that has been sitting with me all day. we talked about my big move to chicago and what that's going to look like: the people i'm going to meet, the places i'm going to go and the things i'm going to do. i've talked about it before, but although i know that moving doesn't make me a new person, i can't help but feel like does. i feel a shift in my energy when i think about my new home, like a bubbliness that feels like glitter has exploded in my abdomen. it feels like i'm going on first date with someone i've been talking to for months and i'm at the point where i'm counting down the days until its time. and see, i'm the planner of my friend group, so figuring things out is kind of "my thing". i'm the person who is writing up an itinerary for a three-day trip. i'm the person with a list of places to go broken down by cost, each person's interest, and how relatively close they are to other things we can do. i'm the person who always knows what is going on for the week, who's going to be there, and what the vibes are. or moreover, i'm the person who can always find this information out relatively quickly, so people usually look to me to figure out what they wanna do. 

  

so, you're thinking about quitting your job.

i've only ever quit a job once in my entire life. i've worked at so many places and done so many things, but i've never really actively sat down with my employer and had a serious conversation saying,  "i'm leaving. here is my two weeks notice." this is partly due to my fear of confrontation. this is also partly. due to my fear of disappointing authority figures. however, this is mostly because i never really had a job where people depended on me specifically. they needed someone to just be there. so when i left for college and the place i had been at for years never heard back from me, or when i graduated and could not longer be the "student receptionist", they simply got someone else to fill my shoes. the one exception to that is this time i actually did quit my job as a server at a local pizza restaurant. i don't even think i stayed the two weeks because i'd initially requested the next two weeks off before i quit, so essentially, i just kind of up and left that joint and didn't look back.

these are there stories: promising young woman and its case for rape-revenge films

CONTENT WARNING: now, before i begin this post, i am going to let you know that there is a bit of talk of a few heavy topics including, rape and sexual assault. if you're not into all of that, please stray away from this post. otherwise, read on.

watching promising young woman took me back to early film theory classes. in one, we watched i spit on your grave (yes, the 1978 version; yes, a man taught the class). while this wasn't the first time i had seen the film, it was the first time that i was allowed to openly have a discussion about the film without someone blinking wildly and going, "HUH?"

dating apps were ruining my life, so i deleted them.

it's been a year since i deleted all the dating apps from my phone. i know most people don't think its the big feat that i am making it out to be, but i really had to pat myself on the back when i finally swiped that annoying flame app into the trash where it belonged. however, it wasn't just tinder, i ditched absolutely all my dating apps. cold turkey.

tinder. hinge. bumble. hot or not. coffee meets bagel. facebook dating. all of them.

i was possibly, inappropriately early to the online dating game back in my late high-school/early college days. i don't quite remember how i found out about tinder, but when i signed up, i truly almost lost my mind. however, the plethora of little ceasars style hot n' ready coitus was enough to turn any sexually available young person into a bit of an addict, which we will get to later. this toppled with the fact that dating apps are structured as some sort of game where the winnings were just an actual response to something you had to say. WITH WORDS. SENTENCES EVEN. NOT. EMOJIS. i think the worst part of my experience on dating apps was the fact i didn't realize how attached i was to "winning" this hypothetical game until i threw in the hypothetical towel, chucked up a deuces and walked off the court.

amazons' the wilds proves that we are seriously failing teenage girls.

the introduction to amazon's new show, the wilds, really hit home for a lot of reasons. not because the show is essentially about young girls being stranded on deserted island. not because the girls had to fend for themselves with barely any food or fresh water. not even because they're obviously extremely traumatized from what happened on the island and being forced to relate what happened to two grown men. it is because of how each of the girls talk about how they were better off on the island alone because of how poorly they were treated by society before they fully cut off from it.

each episode focuses on a different girl and the very different experiences they've had that led them to getting put on the plane that crashed-landed on the island that they're currently inhabiting. one of the girls is named leah, (sarah pidgeon) who is dealing with her first heartbreak. it's very real and very painful, but, what we learn later (which those mf annoyingly scientists gloss over), is that her relationship was with a 30-year old man. she is very evidently, the main character of the group. we spend the most time with her outside of the group and she is the one that leads the monologue that sets up one of the most important parts of the show: that, we, as a society, are failing teenage girls.