Mini Blog 3/many, In Defense of the Full Album

Since listening to the podcast Dissect, I’ve been making a greater effort to listen to new albums in their entirety.

The rise of MP3 players and music streaming apps have made it very easy to pick and choose which tracks to listen to. In my experience, this eventually turns into, “Oh, I like that artist! I mean, I know their singles! I’ve never actually tried listening to anything else!” This is not necessarily a bad thing – if an artist releases a new single, then chances are it’s a good song that they’re proud of, right? – but it definitely makes it easy to forget that they’ve worked hard on so many more songs. In many cases, artists work hard to make cohesive albums as a singular work of art (as Dissect taught me!), so I’ve recently come to feel that I should consume music the way that the artist intended.

This was especially apparent when I started going to more concerts where I only knew one or two songs – songs that I really liked, sure, but did I like that one song enough to drop money on a concert ticket and clear my entire night to see it live for four minutes? (Honestly, it varies.)

I’m definitely still a long way from the days of listening to CDs on my CD player – make sure you don’t tip it over or it might scratch the disc! – but I definitely like having more variety in my music listening!

Mini Blog 2/many (My Gatsby Silk Shirt)

I finally have it! After many moons of pining, yearning, hoping, and wishing, I finally have a Patagonia Synchilla fleece!

I don’t know when I started wanting one, but living in Boston (and travelling around New England in general) definitely played a big part in it. I’d see Patagonia everywhere – on the T, on people walking around, on my friends! – and I longed to be part of their comfortable (and presumably warm) clique.

I perused the sales online for months and months, and sometimes even went to any outdoors store I could find so that I could maybe! just! touch! one! before flipping over the price tag and feeling my stomach flip with despair.

Since I’ve moved to Davis Square, I’d frequently use all of the thrift stores around – Goodwill, Buffalo Exchange, and occasionally Thrive – as an excuse to get out of the house and walk around. (Especially when it’s cold!) I never go in with the expectation of buying anything, but I do like simply browsing around and wondering, why didn’t your owner want you anymore?

At last, yesterday at Buffalo Exchange, I found the new love of my life – a Patagonia Synchilla fleece, tucked away among all the other sweaters from no-name fast fashion brands, in my size! and in an acceptable color, for – and this is the best part – A THIRD of the cheapest price I’ve ever found online!

Dreams really do come true!

(Why didn’t your owner wa- OK, let’s not even think about it.)

Mini Blog 1/many, hopefully

My life has forever been split into two eras: before I ran a marathon, and after I ran a marathon.

After spending an entire summer beating my body up for the sense of glory (and Instagram likes), I have been spending the last 4 months or so resting my body. I slowly worked my way back into working out by taking boxing classes, following along to yoga videos on YouTube, and feebly forcing my legs to remember how to run again (the last one, regrettably, is still a work in progress).

Whenever I took a new class, the instructor would go through their usual spiel: this is the class, here’s what you’ll have to do, do you have any injuries?

“Well, I just ran my first marathon,” hold for applause, “so I have a few running injuries, but I think I should be able to manage!”

As I struggled my way through upper! body!! work, the negative thoughts inevitably swirled through my head, “You’re weak! You have no arm or back strength! You can’t do anything!”

… which were immediately countered with, “Wait, what the fuck, I just ran a marathon, I can do something.”

… which then turned into, “Huh, I ran a marathon before I could do a full push up.”

… which then turned into, “Huh, is that how I’m measuring my life now?”