I know it may hurt, but it won't last forever (2026-W27)
It has been hot as fuck this week which is extra unbearable when you’re pregnant and already uncomfortable all the time. Our baby shower is next weekend and will be at our house, so I’ve taken on the task of deep cleaning one room a day ahead of that. It’s slow progress because of the (aforementioned) heat, minimal lung capacity, and discomfort bending (which is kind of a critical part of cleaning). Still, I’m slowly making head way.
Really I’m just missing feeling like my body belonged to me and was useful. In a macro-sense, I’m happy to be pregnant and have a healthy baby on the way, but I miss being able to move easily. I get up to pee a few times a night and it’s an ordeal to roll over and stand up each time. I know of course that life with a newborn will be a new challenge — I’m not naive enough to think all my problems will be magically solved; rather, they’ll be replaced with new ones — but on the whole, it feels like I’ve been pregnant for so long and I’m just ready for it to be over.[1]
In terms of web stuff, I rebuilt the website for Pitch & Play, a (short-lived) podcast I did a few years ago with a friend, using Eleventy. It was previously built with Hugo (and I did a write-up about how I did so here). This was a fun challenge! I really like Eleventy, and doing this project pushed me to learn more of its inner workings (like how to generate a custom RSS feed — big ups to Mark Littlemore’s write up). It also pushed me to move the site off Cloudflare Pages, getting me closer to ending their dependency on their infrastructure. I also rebuilt the website for Podtrificus Totalus, a Harry Potter podcast I used to do before Rowling went mask-off evil, using the same process.
I still really fucking miss podcasting and taking on this rebuild got me thinking again about resurrecting Pitch & Play. I always look for new projects when my summer breaks begin because it’s a great opportunity to dive into my hobbies, but I’m also giving birth in two months and doubt that I could really take on the commitment of a podcast long-term with the way my time is about to dramatically transform. Blogging regularly is probably a more maintainable goal to set, but I also just fucking love talking (and audio production).
Reading
I’m theoretically still re-reading Adverbs, though I haven’t picked it up in a while. Most of my focus has been on re-reading The Outsiders for the first time since I was in 8th grade. I’m teaching 8th grade for the first time next year and I’m working on prepping units and materials. I am happy to say that I’m enjoying The Outsiders a lot more this time around than when I was a teenager.
Watching
I don’t think I’ve mentioned it here, but I’ve been binging Modern Family on-and-off for the last few months. I’m in season eight, I think? It’s not transformative television, but it’s fun to watch.
I’ve also been working on archiving old Giant Bomb content (mostly Giant Bomb East stuff) to my Jellyfin server. I’ve been watching back through some of that, too, as I go.
Playing
I’ve been playing Shadow of the Tomb Raider lately. I’m mostly enjoying it, but I did encounter a bug that will forever prevent me from 100% completing it. I had a very normal reaction to this and wrote nearly 12,000 words about it.
On the other hand, in playing this game, I’ve discovered that there are some really fucking cool online spaces dedicated to Tomb Raider. I thought the humble video game fansites were mostly subsumed by mega-corp shit like reddit and Wikia, but for Tomb Raider at least, they seem to be alive and well. I particularly love Stella’s Walkthroughs, which look straight out of 1999 (in a good way) and have detailed, annotated screenshots walking one through quests! Tomb Raider Girl also has great content, and the domain hearkens back to a simpler age online. I’m glad sites like this still exist.
Listening
I listened to a bunch of Yung Lean this week. I was really into Stardust at one point a year or two ago, but I hadn’t listened to much of his discography outside of that. I really liked Starz, particularly “Outta My Head,” “Hellraiser,” and “Acid at 7/11.” Pitchfork gave this album a 5.5 and called it “empty flexing.” Luckily, Pitchfork is full of shit and my taste is all that matters on my stupid fucking website. Starz certainly isn’t a mature or deep album: compare, for example, “I sold my soul when I was very young / I’m so gone / Now I’m outside of a 7/11 / Acid at 7/11” to, say, Mac Miller’sGO:OD AM (both released when their respective artists were 23): “It was all a dream, there was a time that I believed that / but white lines be numbing these dark times / the pills that I’m poppin’, I need to man up, admit it’s a problem / I need to wake up / before one morning I don’t wake up.” One is clearly more reflective and has better wordplay, but sometimes an album is just a vibe[2] and that’s OK.
To test my thesis re: Pitchfork being full of shit, I listened to Exeter by Bladee and ℮ by Ecco2k. Pitchfork named the two as more thoughtful than Starz. Exeter was pleasant to listen to, but there were no big standouts for me. ℮ was a little more interesting — it reminded me of “snow lasso” by BOPPLES and “We Wish You” by POBBLES in places (particularly “Don’t Ask” and “Security”). This is a good thing. I also liked “Time” because I like big stinky beats.
I also listened to the new Olivia Rodrigo (you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love) and thought it was just OK. It’s getting a lot of hype right now, which is sort of a double-edged sword; I’d probably not have listened to it otherwise, but it’s also almost impossible for something to live up to that hype. I don’t think it’s a bad album, but it’s not anything I’d seek on my own. I do like Rodrigo as a person, but I think mainstream pop just doesn’t resonate for me. It’s perfectly listenable but far from revolutionary. I haven’t given it a second thought since I played it through.
Lastly, Los Campesinos! is re-pressing their first three albums on their own label and I spent far too much money pre-ordering them (especially considering I already have WABWAD). Unfortunately for my wallet, it’s LC!4LYF all the way down.