storm notes

input + output on a rainy day

retreat from the storm, jean-francois millet, ca 1846. via the met

storms in LA are extra biblical. it only rained for twelve hours, but the sidewalk is riddled with palm fronds and bloated worms; it’ll take twice as long to drive anywhere all day because the city isn’t built for rain and neither are its drivers. petrichor, fecund and sensual, is the smell of mother earth in heat. i’m writing from altadena, under evacuation warning again—at risk of mudslides from the burn zone. we live just south of the danger area and are fine, but it’s hard not to feel like, fuck, it was fire and now it’s floods? what next, locusts?

i’m four episodes into Love is Blind: Denver, and oh my god. it might as well be Love is Blind: People Who Insist on Calling It X Instead of Twitter. everyone is into hustling and bio-hacking and the girlboss-to-tradwife pipeline. i thought denver was, like, backpackers and white dreadlocks culture, but maybe this is white dreadlocks culture now. maybe this season spawned from the mud at a burning man orgy, a plague unto itself. in reducing my screen time, i’ve really penned myself into one little cul-de-sac of the internet; i hear the distant sirens of mormon maha culture, but they rarely turn onto my street. sometimes the narrowing of my field of vision makes me feel old and boring. other times, as when i watch Love is Blind: Denver, i feel the shadow of pestilence has passed over my house. you either age into obscurity or die insufferable, i guess. i will absolutely finish the season.

i finished Love Island Games last week and all i have to say is that of the finale four, i think it’s fucking hilarious that the couple that won pulled it off. (i hated them the least, which is basically the same as rooting for them.) game-based reality shows don’t usually do it for me—aside from the occasional figure skating or dressage clip, i don’t watch the olympics—but i love watching stupid people strategize ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

i’m like 1/3 into Chris Kraus’ new book, The Four Spent the Day Together, and very into it so far. like so many women, I Love Dick was the most identity-defining read of my early 20s, and while this book is obviously different, Kraus writes like a streetcar: it’s all linear efficiency on one level, but just underground the whole thing is pulled along by live wires and searing electricity. i feel like she and i are having two conversations at once when i read her work. honestly, i’m in a little bit of a crisis because i used to read all the time and now i just scroll dog advice reddit, reading my dog’s shit like tea leaves to divine potential food intolerances. i’m also writing a novel.

things i have cooked recently: spaghetti al limon, various attempts at grain bowls, air-fried salmon, an entire duck (again, i am writing a novel—i will do anythingggg not to do the thing i want to do most in this world), annie’s stovetop mac with frozen peas and cut-up turkey dogs. next is chicken soup with broth from the duck bones. the best carb in chicken soup, imo, is egg noodle. rice is a close second. spaghetti is upsetting.

happy fall x

aiden