1. Last Sunday morning I woke up with the beginnings of an agonizing head cold that also might be a sinus infection; I can't really tell the difference between these kinds of things. Then I went to work for fifteen hours and nothing about it was great but then finally it was over! My co-workers bought themselves some wine to drink and they were all "Aren't you so sad that you're doing Sober January and can't drink wine with us?" and I was like "I have literally never been less sad about anything in my life." Then I called an Uber and had such a chill Uber experience. It was warmish and humid out and the driver had the windows down and was blasting "I Wish" by Skee-Lo, which, as it turns out, is the best song I've ever heard. "I love your music," I screeched, in my scratchy gulpy sick person accent, "This is amazing." Next he played "Mo' Money, Mo' Problems," which was equally amazing but slightly less revelatory, since I already knew I loved "Mo' Money, Mo' Problems."
2. The next day I downloaded "I Wish" and "Mo' Money, Mo' Problems" and then worked out to both of them. Skee-Lo is basically a genius to me. I really love the part when he's like "When it comes to playin' basketball, I'm always last to be picked and, in some cases, never picked at all"- I think that in some cases is so elegant! Skee-Lo is Evelyn Waugh.
3. The one upside to my being deathly ill is that it has been perfectly timed to my becoming obsessed with binge-watching the entire series of The (US) Office. Guess how many episodes of The Office I've watched in the past four days? Forty-six. All of Season 2 and Season 3. I skipped Season 1 because I listened to Mindy Kaling's entire audiobook when I flew from London to Toronto in December and there's a part where she talks about how the general consensus is that The Office "came into its own" during its second season and I can't really be bothered with watching a season of a TV show that came out in like 2004 and hadn't come into its own yet. Anyway, The Office is the best thing that's ever happened to me. I am still reeling from the Season 3 finale, which is when Jim drives back to Scranton from New York City and Pam is in the conference room talking to the camera about whether or not Jim is going to get the job in corporate and then Jim walks in and asks her if she wants to get dinner and then Laura Jane erupts into violent sobs because Jim and Pam's love is the most beautiful love that has ever been.
4. The part in "Savoy Truffle" when George sings "Coffee dessert- yes you know it's good news" and really just the whole joyful act of imagining cutie-cute George Harrison sitting around and writing a song about a bunch of different desserts. What a perfect boy.
5. The picture above, which is of a man who is not a Beatle playing the piano at Abbey Road studios, in conjunction with the part in The Beatles by Bob Spitz where he describes Abbey Road studios as having a "library stillness," which is really inspiring to me. I am going to go to Abbey Road on Monday if I am no longer dying of a head infection.
6. Guess how old I'm turning on June 24th? That's right- thirty. I'm turning thirty. Thirty years deep. I've recently been feeling pretty iffy about my future thirty-ness recently, but then I had a genius and fear-nullifying revelation in the middle of my having insomnia last night, which is that I am going to celebrate my thirtieth birthday by taking myself on a special LJ Turns Thirty adventure to the Loire Valley (AKA "the garden of France"), my favourite wine region in the WORLD, where I will stay at the wildly-Instagrammable Hotel de France and work on my nov and gorge myself on I literally don't even care what I eat because ALL I WANT is Chenin Blanc. As a rule I think it sounds really ugly when people say, like, "I want to drink all the Chenin Blanc," but in this case it's true. I want Anjou Rose and Savennieres in June, to be shared with nobody in the world except my best friend LJ.
LIZ'S THING OF THE WEEK: Dancing to "Typical Girls" Under a Disco Ball While Ian Svenonius Skulks by in His Peacoat
I saw Chain & The Gang twice last week (including at a semi-secret show Friday at Punky Reggae Party at La Cita) and they were the best and wildest shows I've been in a long time. Like I can't even believe how great they sounded - both nights I never wanted them to stop playing, and I hardly ever feel that way about bands. At La Cita the stage is teeny-tiny and instead of staying up there with the band Ian Svenonius mostly danced around the crowd like a madman, or stood at the very edge of the stage like in that photo I took above. Lately I'm into the concept of human energy as a renewable resource, and Ian Svenonius is good at letting me know you can your scream guts out and dance your feet off all the time forever and the more you do it, the more energy you'll get to keep on doing it some more.
After Chain & The Gang the DJ played. And toward the end of the night "Typical Girls" by The Slits came on and I danced the hell out of it, thinking of Viv Albertine who is newly one of my heroes because of her amazing book, and also of Ari Up's fly dance moves in the "Typical Girls" video. We were under a disco ball, I did the pony, and at one point Ian Svenonius skulked by and did a little skulky dance next to Patti and then skulked away again, wearing a peacoat. I've been working so much lately, to the point where I feel like my head's going to fall off and roll away down the big hill I live on, and it's nice that Life was like "Okay, here, you get this moment of dancing to 'Typical Girls' in a Latin nightclub and of Ian Svenonius dancing by you in his peacoat, being a beautiful beast." It was a cool present.
So work continues to be bonkers and I had like zero "downtime" this week but I tried to take little breaks and give myself things that would make me feel stoked and inspired, like LJ's Notes from London writings and like Soft Focus, which is a talk show thing Ian Svenonius used to do for Vice. So far my fave is the Chan Marshall episode; it's got the warmest vibes and she's a goofball and wonderful and they love each other so much. I love her earrings and her story about playing CBGB for the first time, and how she makes Ian Svenonius smile a lot and show his crazy teeth. I like what he says about the power of the U.N.
