Hi! Happy Yeehawt day! I am in the midst of experimenting with topic and format, and thus I present to you some tidbits about what’s been on my mind, in my ears, covering my torso, etc, lately.
What I’m watching:
Love is Blind Season 2 (Eye roll.)
I started watching Love is Blind Season 2 this weekend. The jury is still out on whether that was a good decision. (Some early season spoilers ahead.)
If you’ve never watched Love is Blind, here’s the gist – single people get to know each other in “pods” where they’re separated by a screen and can’t see one another. After some number of hours chatting, they have the option to get engaged in the pods, and it’s only after they’re engaged that they meet each other in person for the first time.
My most pressing grievance with this show and romance reality television in general is that often the central conflict is just a woman being manipulated. We don’t need TV for that. We could easily just take a trip down memory lane of some of our own relationships.
In season one we got the explosive-to-say-the-least couple of Damian and Giannina. It was physically painful to watch their relationship unfold on television, and I couldn’t even bring myself to tune in for the follow up series that tracked the couple after marriage.
Now, only a couple of episodes into season 2, we’re watching an absurd love triangle play out as Shayne asks Natalie to be his girlfriend one moment and tries to audibly sext Shaina through the screen in a pod over the next moment.
If your first question is “What are you wearing?” you’re not being subtle.
Shayne confuses the two of them multiple times in the pods and is caught and called out by both of them in separate instances. He (as the most annoying men do) tries to flip the script and pin it on them instead, forcing them to retreat and diffuse the argument.
A few pods over, we watch Shake ask very pointed questions at every woman aiming to find out how much they weigh – “If we were at a concert together and I wanted to put you on my shoulders, would I have a hard time picking you up?” And he’s one of the ones who ends up getting engaged! To the woman he asked that question!
This is not to say every woman on the season is perfectly prepared for a marriage as well, but at least in this instance, Shake’s fiancee Deepti is seemingly one of the most genuine people I’ve ever seen on a reality dating show. It’s heartbreaking to watch him not appreciate her.
More and more it feels like these women are cast as bait for men who are clearly not ready for the kinds of relationships the shows advertise. When is misogyny going to stop being a plot device for reality TV?
On one hand, sure, it should be pretty obvious the shows aren’t designed to foster actual loving and long-lasting marriages. But man, can we give the girls a break for one second? If they wanted to be manipulated and yelled at, they would have just gotten back together with their exes.
This is probably not the last time you’ll hear from me on the topic, but in the meantime, I’d love to know if you also felt physical pain watching this season so far.
What I’m listening to:
Polly by Dora Jar
So cute, so funky, so easy to love. Dora’s lyrics have a certain flow that begs you to learn and repeat them on a loop. “I’ma rip my face off and I’ma dance for you” really does make me want to rip my face off and dance for you. The girls who get it, get it.
See also: Scab Song by Dora Jar
There are only a handful of songs in Dora’s discography thus far, and “Scab Song” is the another standout to me. Layered harmonies of “Come swim on me, my skin is the sea” are luscious and inviting as the song bubbles and builds. I’m excited to see how she evolves this jazzy woodland creature vibe.
What I’m reading:
Has the Vibe Shift moment already passed? I’m still mulling over this quote from The Ann Friedman Weekly:
“Having lived through a few vibe shifts already, here's my take on the question of To Shift or Not to Shift: There is always something to love about the dominant vibe, always something to reject. Despite the ‘everyone's doing it’ tone of trend reporting, most of us will never wholly embrace any given cultural moment. So it's not about whether to throw oneself headlong into a suite of trendy things or to stay hopelessly locked into the passé. It's about selectively keeping aspects of the previous vibe(s), then adding or subtracting a little bit of the new, all the while maintaining a sort of personal baseline. That's called style.”
The latest thing will always change, and by the nature of its name it cannot always stay the latest thing. Anyone who imposes judgment on your love of something that is not the latest thing simply because it is not the latest thing is probably not someone whose opinion you should weigh heavily. A cultural vibe shift may be upon us, but you have the agency to curate your personal vibe however you so please.
Trends pressure us to consume beyond our means and beyond our own desires even. We don’t want the trendy thing because it will genuinely spark joy, we want the feeling that is promised by attaining it. As the vibe shifts, (and it's always shifting), check in with yourself on what you actually enjoy versus what promises a feeling that could never really come from a material item.
What I’m enjoying:
This stupid fleece jacket.
I say stupid because I do not like or wish to support Urban Outfitters, but I can’t deny that I have barely taken this jacket off the whole month of February. It’s just really cozy. (Never pay full price though.)
Maple syrup in my coffee
Much more delicious than plain sugar, and I just happened to find out after drafting this that one of my friends does the same – hi TJ! I brew my coffee (fancy way of saying using my roommate’s Keurig) over a little maple syrup with a shake of sea salt, and it is so good.
Not watching Euphoria
I’m sorry, but I’m really not. I don’t have the space in my brain to care about this season right now. And it feels oddly freeing to log on and not know what the hell anyone is talking about sometimes. Let us rise and break the shackles of needing to understand the joke behind every meme.
What I’m looking forward to:
Warm weather is nearly upon us! I can’t wait for afternoons in a lush green park again. Daylight savings is rearing its confusing head in less than two weeks, and we will finally experience a sunset that takes place after standard business hours. Hallelujah.
love is blind and it is also infuriating
"Let us rise and break the shackles of needing to understand the joke behind every meme." This is my pop culture CREED, now. Thank you.
I haven’t watched season 2 but I remember watching season 1 and Damian suuucks. Also lmao at your real estate agent photo caption