Love and hate lists

Getting ourselves unstuck.

Whenever I’m stuck in a rut or have things to write in my journal but don’t want to write up the who, what, when, where, and why of it all, I make it easy on myself and write up two lists. One list includes the things I like and the other list includes the things that I hate.

Here’s an example of one I wrote in November:

Likes

• Clean laundry

• Sundays spent in the neighborhood at home

• Ear plugs and a sleep mask

Hates

• Performing your job

• Sweetened plant-based milks

• Darkness at 5pm

• Strawberry flavoring

The idea came from one of the famed YA novels of yore, The Clique. In the book series and movie, our middle school protagonist/villain, (anti-heros, wow! You were ahead of your time, Lisi Harrison.) Massie Block, writes up these State of the Union lists. They’re mainly used to categorize who among her friends she loves and hates throughout the novels, but they function the way other in and out lists do. They offer up a short snapshot that says a lot without saying too much.

It’s been a minute since I’ve written in this newsletter. I could tell you why but I’m working on being more mysterious. I’m eluding you with my absence of emails, aren’t I? Why don’t I just give you a list instead and tell you that maybe I’ll be contributing more to this newsletter in the future, or maybe I won’t! Who knows? Certainly not me.

Loves

• Acting on impulses

• Buying shoes off of eBay

• Curating playlists for hyper-specific events

• Staring at green trees for at least an hour 

• Three drink dinners with your best friends

• The burn that turns into desensitization that you get from sitting in your splits for a long time 

• When people remember the details you tell them and bring them back up in conversations

• Eye liner, mascara, lip liner, and lip balm 

• Dancing in a mini skirt at the club

• Moderately uncomfortable but highly stylish footwear 

• Salads as the food of the summer, not because of health reasons but because you don’t have to cook them but I also don’t feel like a piece of shit after eating them, so it nails both ends of the pleasure-health spectrum

• Sabrina Carpenter as a mentality and philosophy and approach to summer living 

• Chic normal men

• Mirror outfit pics

• Regularly going to the beach and sitting in the sun

• Making yourself and your friends a cake and then delivering slices like you’re the metropolitan cake fairy

• Eating dinner at the bar

• My cunty little ballet teacher who is ruthless but when you earn her approval it means something 

• Saturday matinees at the ballet on your lonesome 

• Every single time I’ve chosen to not say something

• Lying out of convenience for a conversation

• Lana Del Rey’s Blue Banisters — arguably her most under-recognized but best album

• Rachel Chinouriri’s What a Devastating Turn of Events — British pop princess!!

• Samba rock

• My adept ability to make a playlist that me, myself, and I enjoy

• Shirts, pants, and skirts that are kinda boxy 

• Shooting the shit/talking about nothing 

Hates

• Spite 

• Paying for allergy medication — that should be free

• Impulsive people

• The way face makeup looks on my face

• Falling down the subway steps and spraining your ankle 

• Having no chill

• Eating dinner across from someone at a table 

• Bickerers 

• Whenever I forget to respond to a text

• Yearning — pathetic ass emotion and embarrassing word

• Arguing at a chain restaurant 

• Musicals 

• Male comedians (with the exception of three people) 

• White Teslas as a symbol of suburban wealth 

• When you have to drive in the suburbs but you’re kinda bad at driving and nearly break like seven traffic laws on one ride and then spend the next two months awaiting an imminent speeding ticket that probably won’t come but you have bad anxiety about driving so you believe it will

• Private stories on Instagram 

• Tomato sauce on a new shirt 

• When you have to ask somebody about their job because you can’t riff with them at a party