July
This rainy July, I weirdly felt motivated to work on my zest for life: experimenting with food for fun, being brave with dating, and attempting to get back to crafting instead of binge watching (although now I do both, which feels like progress since I’ve at least diversified from Love Island). There were a few days where I felt like I might have a crush and it was like everything in and around me was alive. I have been trying to stop hating the part of me that feels things to such a grand extent. Now, even when reality brings me back to earth, I know that it’s good to have proof that I’m more capable of intimacy than I think. From FaceTimes to hours long walks, I had some beautiful moments of friendship, and that is a privilege I have to be thankful for. I have the greatest buddies.
Book Recommendation: Any Person is the Only Self by Elisa Gabbert
Any Person is the Only Self is a lovely collection of essays on what it means to be a person among other people. It’s about the strangeness of inhabiting a self, and the tender impossibility of fully knowing someone else’s. The chapters move between philosophy, pop culture, and personal reflection, but never feel cold or academic; instead, they are lived in and curious. Referencing Sylvia Plath to Joan Didion, Elisa Gabbert has a way of turning over everyday ideas until they show new meaning. Her writing reminds me a bit of Olivia Laing; both write with this soft curiosity, as if they’re inviting you to think alongside them instead of delivering the answers.
There's a particular stranger from deep in my past I remember. I was six years old, in a playroom at some kind of day camp. I saw a pretty brunette girl, who struck me as older and more sophisticated than I was, though she couldn't have been more than seven or eight. She was standing with friends, and I wasn't. "Do you have a staring problem?" she said, meeting my gaze. I was shocked, ashamed-and understood I should not look at people for long. But I still stare at strangers; I still have a staring problem.
Honourable mentions: There’s Something About Mira by Sonali Dev, Overspill by Charlotte Paradise
Movie Recommendation: My First Summer by Katie Found
Claudia is adrift after the loss of her mother. She meets Grace, who insists on making herself part of Claudia’s newly isolated life. Together they build a small universe of their own: river swims, secret conversations, and a vulnerability that comes from being seen when you least expect it. There’s an innocence to the way they move through their shared summer, and an undercurrent of grief and uncertainty about what comes next.
My First Summer is about learning to trust again when the world has felt unsafe. It’s slow and tender in a way that feels like a memory you might have had years ago. If you can remember what it was first like to yearn over someone, this will resonate achingly.
Honourable mentions: Frances Ha by Noah Baumbach, My Own Private Idaho by Gus Van Sant, Some Like It Hot by Billy Wilder
Music Recommendation: Emotion by Carly Rae Jepsen
The year was 2012: I was wearing chunky necklaces, Toms, and business casual to the club. “Call Me Maybe” was everywhere, uniting college parties like I had never seen (well, maybe only rivalled by “Levels” by Avicii, which I can’t listen to without immediately smelling Malibu — but I digress).
After the massive success of “Call Me Maybe”, Carly Rae Jepsen stepped away from the spotlight to make something that would be entirely her own. Emotion was born from that reset, creating an album that leaned into a lush 1980s synth-pop, and brought forward collaborations with producers she deeply admired (including personal favourite Dev Hynes who she fell in love with because of his work on Solange’s “Losing You”). Ten years later, the record has become a total cult classic. “Run Away With Me” (with its iconic opening horn!) still fills me with total fantasy, and “Warm Blood” has an underrated haziness that made it one of my all-time favourites songs.
Honourable mentions: Immunity by Clairo, GO:OD AM by Mac Miller, DON’T TAP THE GLASS by Tyler the Creator
Other Favourites:
@leahdaviscomedy — her skits are brilliant and SO smart, and my favourite is her work as a bay leaf on TikTok Live
Dense bean salads as made famous by Violet Witchel
Treating myself to a deep clean service where the team complimented my cleanliness — I have honestly been floating on that high ever since
A return to my love for making polymer clay creations, this time in the form of floral and food-themed magnets — a real hit!
The few singles that I’ve heard from the latest Blood Orange project Essex Honey, particularly “Mind Loaded” with Caroline Polachek, Lorde, and Mustafa
My sweet friends introduced me to bingsu and I am still thinking about it longingly, wondering when we will next return to Snowy Village
Stewed apples with yogurt and granola for breakfast — as a “sleep until 20 minutes before leaving” girl through and through it takes a lot to get me out of bed, but I think this is really helping
My sister is on her first run of Vanderpump Rules, and because I wished to feel as alive as I did when I was once in her shoes, I rewatched the Scandoval season in solidarity — a truly fascinating insight into the psyche of clout-hungry freaks
Happy summer,
Sab