monthly digest: may 2025
ghost cat, florida noir, sam neill goin crazy
This month was… honestly sort of terrible for me (the person) though it was also a great month for me (the accruer of readers on here) and a productive month for me (the writer of things on places that aren’t here). I felt like I was wading around in mud for a lot of it. I drafted the beginnings of a lot of things I couldn’t finish, like a post on Lord Dunsany. I fell asleep all the time.1 All of these phenomena may be traceable to the part where I forgot to take my vitamins for a couple weeks. Vitamins… somehow, sort of a scam for everybody… except… me?
Anyway, it was one of those months where you keep telling yourself “it can’t go on like this” and “I need to change something about how I’m doing things” but the content of “it,” “this,” “something,” and “things” remains elusive.
Nevertheless: the posts continue. Also Taylor! She bought her masters back!!! WAHOO. More on that toward the bottom.
May in fiction
a may ghost story
The first time Jen heard the cat, she was in the bathtub. The meow was plaintive and unmistakable. She put down her glass of wine and listened, but it did not meow again.
This story was inspired by real life events, by which I mean I did hear an impossible cat meowing while I was taking a bath. I have not started eating raw liver, but I didn’t think I’d hear a phantom cat either, so you never know.
I also wrote a little bit about why I’m doing this (spoiler: there is no reason).
May in posts
What can generative AI not do? AI cannot explain why Tate McRae maybe did a murder. Hate is parasocial, and while I tried a lot of sunscreens, none of them will deflect against the evil eye. Finally, and most importantly, we all love Sam Neill’s gigantic mouth.
May in capsule reviews
Books:
Territory of Light (Yuko Tsushima, 1979 / trans. Geraldine Harcourt, 2019)
Quicksand (Junichiro Tanizaki, 1947 / trans. Howard Hibbet, 1995)
Movies:
Sidenote: I decided to read another Vicki Hendricks novel and picked Iguana Love, asking myself, “how literal could that title be, really?” Well.…
May in writing abroad
Nothing published, but I’ve been filing some edits.…
May in perfume
May in Evangelion
The finale:
End of Evangelion:
May in research anecdotes that made me go “wait, what”:
Fritz Leiber’s wife, Jonquil, was kidnapped as a child but nobody in her family noticed. Also she saw her brother get shot in the head? Lot going on here.
May in musical discoveries:
Josephine Foster sings Emily Dickinson.
May flowers bring June posts…
A June ghost story
This story started its life as a James Tiptree, Jr. pastiche, but over the writing and editing process, it turned into more of a Fritz Leiber pastiche. However, neither of these writers should be blamed for the final product, in part because it doesn’t resemble either. You can direct those complaints to my lawyer (a raccoon in a suit).2
June preorders
The Black Swan Mystery (Tetsuya Ayukawa)
The Lady, the Tiger and the Girl Who Loved Death (Helen Marshall)
Fox (Joyce Carol Oates)
The Unmapping (Denise S. Robbins)
Parallel Lines (Edward St. Aubyn)
June in Evangelion
We’re gonna get to the manga in June. I have acquired it! It’s sitting right next to me in the sense that I got an ebook and thus it is always near me, in the cloud. Yet it is also always far away.
Incidentally, the manga is a good case study in how to bully me into doing things because I mentioned I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do it and then one of you3 posted that you were reading the manga to “get ready” and I was like oh no… I’ve incurred obligations… I’ve established expectations… I must fulfill them.…4
June in perfume
There will definitely be a post about ERIS Parfums, one of the first sample sets I got but which I am only now feeling sort of able to write about.
There might be something else because I have other perfume posts at various stages of cookedness (including one on Guerlain which is sort of becoming the love of my life???? maybe? except when it’s trying to kill me?). Still, I’m trying to build a bit of a backlog because once I start traveling I anticipate a slowing down of being able to test these things and write about them. So ideally I will have some things drafted and filed away. I mean you guys will survive a perfumeless month… but will I?
June in Taylor Swift Studies
She got her masters back!!!!! I’m happy but what am I gonna do with these gazillion notes I made in preparation for reputation (taylor’s version)… post em I guess. But as far as the deal itself I’m waiting for more details or to see if she does something crazy (this possibility cannot be underestimated) before I have a Take beyond being happy about it.
I was not a “Taylor’s Version only” kind of fan, but I did mostly listen to them if I didn’t have a strong preference. I went back to the original Fearless yesterday afternoon and listening to her squeaky teenage voice made me very emotional.… 🥲
ETA: never mind I went for it.
put the masters in the bag
I was waiting for the dust to settle before opining on the news that Taylor Swift bought back her masters for a reported $360 million. But then I was like never mind. If I’m wrong I’m wrong. So this is a two post day. Apologies.
One night I fell asleep around seven in the evening, woke up about two hours later, fell asleep again and slept until one in the afternoon, only to get sleepy again by 4:30.… I can also promise you that whatever tip you have on these things, I have definitely tried it.
Can’t tell you how many times I have almost bought this shirt.
name withheld to protect the guilty
It’s like how Pierre gets tricked into getting married in War and Peace when a third party just announces his engagement (which doesn’t exist). He’s like… well… it would be too awkward to say “I never proposed” so I guess I’m getting married.…
I just finished W&P and I'll never forgive Helene for being vaguely Hot at Pierre until her dad could plausibly say "Congratulations, my dear boy!"
I watched almost the exact same phenomenon play out between freshman and sophomore years of college, and that girl is one of the few I've ever met to whom I took an active and permanent dislike.
Hope you feel better! I will get my Eva manga off the shelf for my first read-through as well…