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may review

as noted over on my writeblr at @catchingbigfish, may was a very deeply needed break from everything in my life. i spent the last week of taurus season in the most deliciously taurus-y way on a long, relaxing vacation where we did nothing but swim and go to the hot tub, watch tv and play video games, and crafting, and it was so badly needed. (i don't know whether to apologize for the increasingly astrologically woo language i've been using or not, but here we are.)

i did basically nothing i'd planned to do but i'm honestly happy with the way may went; i did exercise more, and even got some new home equipment to make working out more effective and more fun, though. i didn't get nearly as much reading done as i'd hoped, and the one book i read was... not good.

june plans

i got back into bullet journaling so i'm thinking about posting some of my spreads here; i'm also back into breaking goals down into weekly plans again, which is working much better for me since i'm better able to observe what's happening around me in the process of planning. right now, i know i'd like to focus more on writing and exercise this month, and i want to get my reading habit back up as well.

my very rough ideas for this month are:

* exercise roughly 120ish minutes a week (at least for the first week so i can revisit as needed) * finish at least one book a week this month (currently reading the pallbearer's club, my first tremblay, and very much enjoying the ride) * [writing goals are over at @catchingbigfish, but those are heavily in the mix]

#life updates #goal setting #goal planning #about elle #monthly updates

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april review

books read: 3 * the harpy by megan hunter * mister magic by kiersten white * the grip of it by jac jemc (re-read)

movies watched: 19 * favorite first-watches: poor things, late night with the devil * favorite re-watches: mean girls, the cleansing hour * new obsession: stand-up

also: lots of lana del rey, marina & the diamonds, mormon stories, colors of the dark, the booktrack edition of rebecca by daphne du maurier, and the x-files

if my theme for the year is to be more discerning about the choices i make, i suppose my decision to stop tracking any of my habits by the second week of the month could be considered successful?

it hasn't been a bad month by any means, although i was quite sick this past week, but it's definitely been a doozy! my second class for my MA wrapped up last week, and i'm finishing my term paper this week; i'm not taking a summer course, so i'm looking forward to a relaxing few months.

i did land on a solid topic for my eventual thesis -- i'm going to be looking at haunted houses in some form, and i'm hoping i'll get approval to do a house of psychotic women-style manuscript about housing and books about houses -- and my currently unfinished term paper will hopefully turn into a chapter. i'm writing about the grip of it by jac jemc as a postcolonial haunted house narrative, but the journey to get there with the paper was disrupted by some theoretical approach issues that i don't need to drone on about here!

my specific goals absolutely did not pan out but i've been careful about checking in on whether it's an actual problem or not, so i'm not too upset. i think i have to DNF the satanic verses and come back to it some day, it's honestly too dense and far above my pay grade right now! it's going to be my white whale probably.

may plans

i'm going to take a cue from my writing goals (which you can read about at my writeblr @catchingbigfish) and not try to be too set in stone with my goals. i'm enjoying making things with my hands (i got into cross stitch finally!), watching a lot of movies and the x-files, and spending my lunch breaks outside by the water working on crafts and listening to audiobooks and podcasts. i have some minor ideas of where i want to go this month:

* read the haunting of alejandra by v. castro, finish rebecca by daphne du maurier, and house of leaves by mark z. danielewski (i'm so terrible at reading paper books, it's wild);

* finish the cool cross stitch pattern i got based on the witch and maybe sew a skirt or two?; and

* do more yoga lol

#monthly updates #goal setting #goal planning #about elle

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Murmur, Cameron Barnett

#thesis tag

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being up past midnight to read a 7 page article for my seminar paper wasn’t in the plan but i couldn’t let it go until i’d finished it. it was a great article — a systematic review of marxist-feminist studies on the financialization of housing — but i don’t know how one unwinds from the mortifying ordeal of taking 2+ hours to get through such a short article (economics isn’t my strongest point, but still, the number of times i had to get definitions for terms i thought i already knew was not fun) and i’m pretty sure my strategy is going to be watching ted lasso til i pass out

#studyblr #gradblr #about elle #who knew writing about haunted houses would take me to these places

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update: i read milk fed and holy shit, this woman knows how to write depression with an exquisite precision that almost makes me uncomfortable

i'm only a few chapters into death valley but between this and the pisces i'm starting to suspect no one can write a depressed character quite as realistically as melissa broder can

#for the record #the pisces was not great #death valley was okay #milk fed was pretty good #but putting your brain into that headspace is fucking insane and i can't believe how uncannily perfect it is

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march review

(i did actually write one of these for february but i got too in my head about it, and i wanted to focus on getting it done over publishing it, so i made it a private post)

march was another month of very ambivalent outcomes. by the beginning of the month i was confident i wouldn't meet my measurable goals for the quarter, and while it's not the end of the world, i was disappointed in my failure regardless no matter how much i reminded myself that the point was just to be present instead of achieving something. i purchased the "look back, plan ahead" zine from the underbelly shop and highly recommend; even though it wasn't at the calendar year, it was super helpful for a reset, and i'm seriously considering buying it in bulk to use for the rest of my life

my goals for march included finishing rouge and death valley, reading all's well and milk fed, and reading both the satanic verses and joseph anton. i did the first part, but didn't get through the satanic verses and so i didn't even start joseph anton; i'm about 50% of the way through, though, so i've got joseph anton on the backburner now. also: my thought about how melissa broder just writes depressed characters better than literally anyone else panned out. milk fed was so much better than death valley (or the pisces) but goddamn those are hard headspaces to put myself in. i don't know which awad book is my favorite, but it's definitely not rouge, and could be all's well.

april plans

i sat down and really nailed down exactly how i want to approach my goals for quarter two. you can read more about my writing goals over at my writeblr @catchingbigfish, but i have very specific plans for how to approach my other major goals for the year, which are yoga related and a kind of amorphous "mindfulness" goal:

* i'm going to work through the elemental tracks + the inversion track on the underbelly by the end of june, so for april, my goal is to finish redoing the air track (which i did two years ago, probably?) and get through at least half, if not more, of the earth track (which is where i stalled out);

* my amorphous "mindfulness" goal stemmed out of a morning pages goal, and while trying to nail down exactly what it was that i was getting out of it, i decided journaling would be the best way to put that, so journaling for 10-15 minutes a day on as many days is possible is my focus; i also got a very cute moon phase journal from the underbelly, so my specific goal for april is to journal for each of the big moon phases;

* and i also have some reading-related goals, but as my semester ramps up and it becomes time for me to write my seminar paper, i'm going to let myself shift focus there for a while. these are some of the specifics:

finish the satanic verses (stretch: read joseph anton and knife)

re-read the grip of it (kind of cheating, as that's what my seminar paper will be on, but it still counts! i even counted my critical theory textbook towards my number of books read this year)

read one of the other classic haunted house books (since that's the subgenre i'll likely do my thesis on at the end of my degree), like rebecca or the turn of the screw

#monthly updates #goal planning #goal setting #bookblr

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storygraph should have a letterboxd-esque function of notifying you when a book you've put on your TBR is released. i can't keep track of these dates myself

#bookblr #storygraph

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i'm thoroughly enjoying my intro to lit theory course but exactly what i'd feared would happen has: i can't fucking read for fun without feeling like i should be reading for class, lol. i fear the only solution is to read as far ahead as humanly possible so i can read for fun during the last few weeks of the semester

#studyblr #about elle

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i'm only a few chapters into death valley but between this and the pisces i'm starting to suspect no one can write a depressed character quite as realistically as melissa broder can

#death valley #the pisces #melissa broder #booklr #books

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monthly update

goals status

this year, i set roughly three overarching goals, but it's more of a theme because i don't actually like SMART goals for life purposes? i don't mind breaking down longer term goals, or outcome-focused goals, into SMART ones, but i don't actually like the feeling of a revolving door of accomplished goals -- i really prefer to focus on moving in the direction of a feeling or ideal i'd like to reach, but isn't super measurable.

so, with that in mind, my actual yearly goals are to write, read, move my body, and practice mindfulness in ways that feel sustainable and pleasurable. i have more specific subgoals, but the idea of doing the things i love and that make me feel good, in ways that are reasonable and feel good instead of guilt-ridden or obligatory, and to practice the discernment necessary to figure out what that looks like on any given day, is the overarching theme i'm working towards this year!

my quarterly goals for non-writing tasks are to finish reading the artist's way (still doable) and reach full bow pose (more dubious).

reflection

i started the month far more rigorously than "practic[ing] the discernment necessary to figure out what that looks like" would lend to, lol. i tried to write, do yoga, and do morning pages every day -- i crashed and burned once an anxiety flare subsequent to a new weird sleep disturbance cropped up.

actually, i kept doing the things, but it wasn't reasonable or pleasurable, and i'm trying to inject more flexibility into that as i move forward. i've picked up another movement practice to add more flexibility to the yoga goal, and in the last few days i've made a very specific point of allowing myself to choose whether to write or do morning pages, so that's the theme i'm planning to continue into february. i'm also going to start counting meditation within my morning pages goal and turn it into a mindfulness goal instead.

media highlights

books* read: 7 * favorite new read: graveyard of lost children by katrina monroe * favorite re-read (because i did it twice this month): white oleander by janet fitch (my absolute favorite novel as a teenager, haven't visited it in 10+ years, actually better than i remembered)

*i find it so weird that this month, i read a short story (diamond big as the ritz by f scott fitzgerald) which is exactly as long as one of the books i read (a shining by jon fosse), but whatever, i'll keep it at 7; these categories mean nothing, though

movies watched: 14 * favorite new watch: broadcast signal intrusion, dir. jacob gentry (2021) * favorite re-watch: resurrection, dir. andrew semans (2022)

listened to: a fuck ton of both halsey and james blake, mostly

february hopes/plans/goals

schoolwork is going to ramp up towards the end of the month so i'm going to try to get ahead on my reading, or at least stay on top of it (aka finish before the day of class), as much as possible. i have a meeting this friday with HR to try to force my employer to honor the tuition reimbursement benefit they offer, so i'm fingers-crossed for that so my MA doesn't get derailed.

#elle's monthly updates #goal planning #journaling

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hi! call me elle (she/they). i'm a 30 y/o creative writer studying for my MA in english with a focus in literature while i work a day job in a legal-adjacent field. this is my technically main/functionally sideblog where i write about my life more generally than on my writeblr/pseudo-main, @catchingbigfish. i'm most active there, but i'm transitioning this blog -- my actual main -- into a life blog, and updating it accordingly.

i post mostly about the books i’m reading and the papers i’m writing; my thesis will eventually be on haunted houses as forms of social commentary, so expect a decent amount of focus on that. i also post monthly goals updates, but those are almost exclusively for my benefit yet lovingly read by my fiancé who will probably never notice this post (:

i post all of my writing related updates, and almost all reblogs, on my writeblr!

#about #archival pin

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Dwelling places in Twin Peaks say a lot about the characters who live there. For instance, Laura lives in a detached, white-shingled house on a hill that is often filmed from below in a way that makes it look both looming and miniaturized, a nightmare Barbie house that reflects the horror underlying her picture-perfect family life. Audrey lives in a hotel that overlooks a torrential waterfall, and this reflects the untamed power of her wet-ass pus–[I am forcibly removed from the lecture hall]

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is your comfort character also a sad pretty boy with trauma and questionable morals or are you normal

#jeff winger

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i am formally renouncing all the times i said quentin tarantino was bad and all his movies are bad. i watched reservoir dogs and it was good

#this is literally happening to me bc i listened to pure cinema for elric kane and then they became the new bev’s podcast #i still resent his comments about david lynch but i can acknowledge his later stuff is Good just not for me #but reservoir dogs is definitely For Me

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be the climax (2018) fan artist you want to see in the world

#i haven’t even seen climax #but i love this??

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#one of those easy/hard questions #i know lost highway is my favorite #but what about inland empire?? #what about wild at heart and blue velvet and fire walk with me??

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