write me well

Tag: love

  • Moody Moods

    Almost exactly a year ago, I rediscovered The Moody Blues. I randomly remembered their rather delightful song Lovely To See You, decided to use it for a tiny reel I made for the journey downtown to get my last tattoo, then promptly forgot about them again.

    Something in the late summer of this year brought them back from my periphery, and unsatisfied with the various Best of The Moody Blues collections I could find online, I created a nearly two-hour-long playlist titled The Moody Blues Per My Childhood. It has been my constant soundtrack these past several months and, the way often only music (and particularly, music with uniquely nostalgic ties) can, it has brought me a disproportionate amount of joy.

    As with many things in my life, this stems from an obsession of my mom’s (shout out to Karen King). The Moody Blues were a deeply seeded staple of my early childhood, linked inexorably with memories of the condo featured in our home movies and my mom’s Laura Ashley dresses and Princess Diana haircut. When I asked her how she got into the band in the early 90’s, which was hardly their heyday, she said it was through my Aunt Joan (shout out to Aunt Joan).

    So on my next call to my aunt, I asked her what caused the sudden love for Justin Hayward, John Lodge, Graeme Edge, and Ray Thomas. She shared that at the time of the onset, she was living in Vancouver and studying for a masters. She was also, as it happens, incurably homesick. Home for my aunt wasn’t California – having left for Denver before I was born, she was missing the Rocky Mountain State. So when, in 1992, The Moody Blues issued a recording of their live performance at Red Rocks, it was for her like a postcard from home. A fantastic live album in its own right, it cemented The Moody Blues as one of her, and eventually my mom’s, favorites.

    (Prior to this, she hilariously shared with me, her only knowledge of them had been Nights in White Satin, which she hated, because for a group of friends she spent time with in her early 20’s, it was the song the boys in the group would play on repeat whenever they had a girl in their room. A musical sock on the door, if you will, played ad nauseum. I die.)

    If nothing else, I am a total sucker for nostalgia, the weepy whims of missing something, the feeling of needing a person or, better yet, a place or a time. Finding out that my own family’s ties to this underrated progressive rock band were rooted in exactly that – UGH, the full circle swell of joy it brought me! They are my favorite brand of feelings: the emotional equivalent of the French word souvenir – meaning memory – being adopted into the English language. Give it to me ALL. DAY.

    This all felt very appropriate for September, which was a month of family things. After an unintentional two-year hiatus from Sacramento, I spent the last week of September staying with my family and having the best time. Sushi, vintage shopping, and laughter with my sister and her girlfriend, ice cream sundaes with one niece, an afternoon of coloring and make-believe with the other, visiting the renaissance faire for the first time in a decade with my other sister, and many mornings of tea and chats with my mom. A perfect moment for The Moody Blues Per My Childhood, if I do say so myself.

    Prior to September, the entire summer had been spent fully entrenched in car things: Aaron started teaching me how to drive a stick shift, I went to more car shows than I can count, I planned scenic drives for my work. Cars on cars on cars. Then there was my trip home, and now, it’s fall! Lovely, leafy, tea-filled fall. Yesterday was a crisp autumn day and we had shepherd’s pie for dinner. This morning was cozy and spent on the sofa before heading off for coffee and errands. I have every plan to bake homemade ginger nut biscuits this afternoon, and tomorrow – currently looking to be all blue skies and chilly sunshine – we’re going to head out to Snoqualmie Falls. In a world that is feeling increasingly insane, it’s the little things. And sometimes, those things are listening to a silly little playlist while the leaves turn.  

  • Gerunds

    Well, if February felt quick, the four months that followed lasted all of five minutes. Which is how you find me, in the near-exact middle of July, deciding it’s time to check back in and think some thoughts online.

    Completely ignoring the raging dumpster fire that is this nation, the first half of 2025 has been rather dreamy – particularly in comparison to the six months that preceded it. Instead of walking through the last however-long sequentially and all of the delightful things that did happen, I’m just going to round-robin my way through some of the sources of joy because this is my slice of the internet and that’s how I want to do it.

    Kevin-ing

    Let’s lead with Kevin.

    Last I wrote, I thought I hadn’t mentioned him here, but turns out I had one time in passing. If you’ve talked to me at any point since August 30, 2024, you know this tabby ball of meows deserves far more than a mention in passing that was so short I didn’t even realize I did it. Here is that more.

    Full disclosure, cat people of the world: it wasn’t until I met Chevy that I really understood why people loved cats. I was born a dog person and knew no other way to exist. What can I say – I like my affection obvious, so visceral that it knocks you over when you come home from work because the affection is a dog that is jumping on you. Chevy changed that. I loved Chevy and Chevy loved me. But Aaron was always her Person, and she loved no one quite as much as she loved her Person.

    Kevin is not perfect. He is needy (we call him special needy) and really doesn’t like it when you play bongos on him. He is a LIAR about having been fed, has a propensity to CONSUME SILICON that had never before been seen by our vet, and for a nearly 15 lb cat he has the meow of a thirteen year old girl from the Valley. But Kevin has decided I am his Person, and dear reader, let me tell you, this is a first time experience for me and I cannot.

    He waits for me to wake up in the morning. He meows at me when I get home. He comes and lays on my chest, getting so close to my face it’s like he’s an infant trying to get that newborn skin-to-skin contact. At night, he sleeps tucked into the crook of my elbow with his chin resting on my forearm. He is The Worst in many ways (usually when he is lying about the fact that he hasn’t been fed), but PAPA I LOVE HIM. He has been no small source of silliness and laughter (and annoyance) and joy since he waltzed, shouting and underfed, into our lives last August. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

    Goal-ing

    Of all of the goals I hoped to achieve when I set up my beloved intentions last January, the one I had the least faith in being able to achieve was, obviously, finding movement.

    PEOPLE, SHE HAS FOUND MOVEMENT.

    For the first time in twenty years, I am enjoying RUNNING. I have been running three times a week for eight weeks and it has been…delightful? I won’t be that person that instantly makes their chosen form of exercise their personality (even though here I am, blogging about it at the first opportunity) but what I will say is this: regularly moving around really is the best way to appreciate my silly little body. You simply cannot go wrong with movement. So, find your movement!!

    And if you think it could be running – or even if you don’t think it could be running – highly recommend investing $5.99 in the Couch to 5k app. Grab a pair of headphones and pretend you’re on The Island with Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson, listening to the dulcet tones of an apparently omnipotent woman telling you “Great job deciding to move your body today!” or “Begin your workout now!!”. It also tracks your runs/steps/distance, and genuinely starts from a place of no experience. It may feel silly running for sixty second then walking for ninety seconds eight times in a row, but it truly is effective.  

    Not Work-ing

    Sadly, no, this does not mean I have been off work for four months. Rather, not work-ing refers to an intentional, personal switch in focus from on work to on not work.

    Not work-ing is caring far more about not-work things in your life than the work ones. Reading more. Planning trips. The aforementioned movement. Kevbo. Motorcycle rides. Family, friends, relationships in general. I don’t dwell on my work stress anymore. She is the secular version of letting go and letting god and it is golden.

    Highlights of not work-ing: annual trip to the Bay Area to see friends and Aaron’s family in June, having friends come to stay this past week, hosting floovies (the act of watching a movie while eating food that matches said movie), getting my Italian paperwork up-to-date, making future long-term plans.

    Inspo-ing

    Last weekend Aaron and I saw F1: The Movie and no, it was not the best movie I’ve ever seen. But it WAS the best movie theatre movie I’ve seen in years, and I had truly forgotten just how good a good movie theatre movie experience can be. I am actually debating going to see it again while it’s in theatres because guys, it was just so PRETTY AND FUN. A++ soundtrack, score, cinematography, Kerry Condon, unexpected shots of England. Brad Pitt is the worst but Javier Bardem is not. These days, I take what I can get. I’m okay with a really good movie experience being inspiring.

    Writing???

    HECK YEAH I WROTE WRITING.

    Last but not least, I have started a new something which may or may not go anywhere other than an amorphous Word doc of indeterminate size and shape.

    And that, my friends, is wonderful.  

    So there you have it! Some absolutely made-up gerunds to sum up the last four months. Sorry guys, as they say: you get what you get and you don’t throw a fit.