Coffee Grinds 18: Rory should have gone to Harvard

plus, Halloween goodies, rom-com recs, and the TV show currently making me feel good about myself

Things I’m obsessed with this week: photography, s-curves, nachos, Spooky book fairs, Harvard Yard in the fall.

This week I tagged along with my husband on an errand downtown, a nice change of pace from working at the kitchen table. You might ask why I don’t do this more often. Traffic. The answer is always traffic. On a good day we live about 20 minutes from the city. Reader, it is never a good day. There is always traffic. So, despite living this close to downtown Boston, I rarely go. It’s just not worth the hour in traffic each way. And if you’re thinking, but Angela, just go at a different time of day. I’ve tried. It’s always rush hour where I live. Even Sunday morning. Even at 11pm on a Wednesday night. Always and forever, I live in a traffic vortex.

Anyway, I used the opportunity to grab my laptop and work from two different cafes along with an hour long lunch break where I wandered around Harvard Square with my new camera (I’m obsessed) looking very pretentious or like a tourist or both and basically just getting in everyone’s way for the sake of the shot.

I felt like Rory Gilmore walking around Harvard (where she should have gone btw) I felt like Lorelie when I accidentally wandered over to the dorms, I felt like I was in Good Will Hunting when I rested on a bench. I was everyone and no one and it was beautiful.

Anyway.

Freshly Brewed Reads ☕️📚

Nora Goes Off Script by Annabel Monaghan—my current read and another that I started, abandoned, and have now decided to revisit. I read Annabel Monaghan’s Same Time Next Summer last year and somehow didn’t realize it was the same author? I actually think I like this one better so far.

Substacks

If Icarus wore lingerie by

Pandora Sykes

Different Mountain, Same American by

Livvie

as part of her Mr Darcy Project

Notes on “Likability” by

Laura Leffler

8 Books to Inspire Wanderlust by

Kendra Mase

Sunday Sundries 013: A Real Life Rom-Com & One Of My Best Purchases Last Year by

Becca Freeman

All rise for the ‘fuck yes or no’ girlies by

katie morley

I didn’t come here to make friends by

Soph Coombs

Are you Successful Yet? by

Hannah Connolly

Love at First Sip ☕️

a barely surviving kind of Monday. Via @oxfordjanebooks

Via @illiemilliedesigns

@cakegourmetsugarservice

@Jess.a.creates

Steamed and Streamed ☕️🎬

• La Maison (AppleTV)—I like this show because it makes me feel smart watching it in French. Also, it’s really good. (and yes, I have subtitles on — despite several very diligent weeks on Duolingo, I have never learned French. :( )

• Unsolved Mysteries, original Robert Stack series (Amazon)—this is where it’s at. I love me some Stack.

• 90 Day Fiance The Other Way (Discovery +) It’s trash, I love it.

Pour Over Playlists 🎬🎵

If you know me at all IRL, you know my weakness is pop punk. One of my PR clients right now has a straight out of Warped Tour sound (mid-2000s Warped, mind you), and I can’t get enough.

Another one I’ve been obsessed with? Also a client (I swear this isn’t on purpose it’s just how it goes when you work in music) and their album MANIC EPISODE!! which takes you deep into the chaotic, terrifying experience of living through mania; the frenzied energy of a mind in overdrive.

Here’s the pitch: Sounds and moods switch abruptly in extraordinary mix-and-match configurations as Downupright paints with different genres like different brushes to illustrate the hyperactive, intoxicating fleeting nature of epiphanies and impulses that highlight a manic episode. Last year we did a release called We're Doomed We're Dancing, an album truly unlike anything else, that explores the end of the world—sixty different ways across sixty different genres, each with their own reaction to their own unique apocalypse. The genre changes every 60 seconds and it was 100% backed and co-created with the help of Kickstarter patrons. Over 50+ collaborators are on the album and there are genres in there I’ve never even heard of. Jersey Club anyone?

I love working with this client, because they’re so much fun and it’s always so creatively fulfilling.

Anyway, it’s really good, and really clever, and there’s also a meme filled (not for kids) music video we released yesterday if you’re interested.

Other things I did this week:

• Wrote this piece on Y2K culture and the never ending struggle of body image issues (with a special nod to the Victoria’s Secret fashion show that happened this week)

• Rediscovered my love of photography, starting with an abandoned diner (this is very me)

• Began teaching myself how to use Lightroom

• Took more photos including at the beach, downtown, in Harvard Yard, and across the city

• started reading a new book

Photo Recap:

See you next week! <3