monthly fluf: september 2019
by the fluf team
to inspire your month ahead:
everything we did last month
Chichi Offor
WATCHING: After waiting two years for Mindhunter Season 2, it finally arrived on Netflix this past month. I watched all 9 episodes in one day, and learned about the Atlanta child murders. I never knew something that crazy happened in Georgia. Watch if you love a good cop show and Jonathan Groff.
LISTENING TO: I went to a concert on a boat during a thunderstorm. It was not fun to say the least. I’ve also jumped back into the hip hop world with the good good tunes of Dababy. Check out the song Suge. Your booty will thank you.
READING: I’m reading The Path Made Clear by Oprah Winfrey. If you like Oprah’s Super Soul podcast, this is basically it in book form — Oprah and her pals dropping all the wisdom.
WEARING: I’m finally wearing skirts again. Here’s a plain black one that goes with everything and a leopard printed number that has been stealing the show.
Emily Owart
This month was HOT HOT HOT. I mostly mean that in a literal sense as I sweat my way through Satan's underground tunnels aka the MTA, but also for media consumption! Here are my favorites:
LISTENING TO: "Motivation" by Normani (exclusively), Girls Gotta Eat podcast (that podcast that fills my "independent, sexually liberated woman in nyc" fix) and The Clearing podcast (great true crime expose from the daughter of serial killer Ed Edwards).
WATCHING: The music video for "Motivation" by Normani (On repeat), Euphoria on HBO (season 1 is over and I need season 2 to hurry it up), and Mindhunter Season 2 on Netflix.
READING: How to Getaway by Jon Staff and Pete Davis. Unwifeable by Mandy Stadtmiller.
BUYING: Trying to limit this and get my budget on track? That said, please send any finance/budgeting tips, tricks, and donations my way. Cheers.
Brittany Booker
Nothing to see here, just hanging out with one of my favorite four-legged friends. Oh come on, you can’t resist this cute face!
Tavis Gray
READING: Big summer reading series for me this month. Began with James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room (kill me in the middle of the street), followed by Tom Stoppard’s very funny garden hermit play Arcadia, then Normal People by Irish-millennial savant Sally Rooney. Mid-month I finally finished The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis (stupid good). Then promptly fell on my face reading Alexander Chee’s How To Write An Autobiographical Novel. Starting September with Lamott’s Bird By Bird, which I’ve somehow never gotten to, but am now devouring thanks to poet pal Christina.
WATCHING: Terms of Endearment and Steel Magnolias via TCM. Younger catch up via Mom and Dad’s cable subscription (bye Charles, bye Josh—I’m team more of this). Aaaaaand the first two seasons of The West Wing via four days of never leaving my house.
LISTENING TO: Lana’s new album. Red Hearse. My sweat hitting the sidewalk.
THINKING ABOUT: Yellow peaches, dead plants, escape.
Marco Martinez
TRAVELING TO: Hard to believe that I've been riding for 6 months now. I've always been anxious about going on longer rides but August was a breakthrough month for my confidence! I rode down to San Diego and back (the return trip was solo) and a few days after, spent the past Saturday in Santa Barbara with a fellow rider friend. We're really spoiled with all the riding routes we have available in California!
LISTENING TO:
Warm (feat. HAIM) - Charli XCX
Eat, Sleep, Wake (Nothing But You) - Bombay Bicycle Club
Many Moons of Love - Babe Rainbow
BUYING: I was waiting for months to find one of these Engineered Garments Parkas on discount and last Friday was my lucky day to score it! This will serve me well given how LA has been trending towards warmer weather. By the same token, why do I shoot myself in the foot by acquiring thick coats? Is this my subconscious telling me to keep them around for a potential move to the Pacific Northwest or to NYC?
Never thought I'd enjoy mesh tanks as I do with this hand-knit one from Nicholas Daley! I've been wearing it on its own, underneath a shirt, or a jacket, depending on the situation. It's a head-turner but definitely one of my favorite purchases over the past few years!
THINKING ABOUT: Snakes, spiders, mortality, legacy, millennials, climate change, home decor (I moved apartments!), and my new constant mantra: “I want to break free” :) :) :)
LISTENING TO: To echo Tavis in all things, including taking a social media hiatus this month, I too have been listening to Read Hearse and Lana’s new album. It seems our collective auditory psyche will not yet escape Jack Antonoff’s clutches, and I think I’m okay with that.
Also… mostly just listening to Caro (aka Caroline Baker)!!! I have been so excited to follow her hard-earned, well-deserved rise through the Spotify charts this month and I hope you all are as excited as I am to read the upcoming new interview we’ll have with her upon the release of her EP!
READING: The aforementioned online hiatus has indeed confused me but also drastically improved my ink-and-paper literacy. Read a lot of books I loved and this is the approximate order in which I loved them: Normal People was my favorite by far and yet in a very close second comes Family of Origin by CJ Hauser, whose book I immediately looked up after obsessively reading and sharing her Paris Review essay, The Crane Wife. Shortly following that in love level was Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine.
Also working my way through two deliciously heartbreaking books suggested by Tavis, Autobiography of Red and Giovanni’s Room. These donations to my must-read list were made shortly after I finished Normal People and immediately sent him my copy. I don’t know about him but I am loving our depressing Lonely Hearts Book Club! I think we should all top off this appropriately autumnal sadness by finally reading Call Me By Your Name, since I can’t justify watching the film for the fifteenth time without reading the novel that started it all.
AND just started All the Light We Cannot See… only a few chapters in but can’t put it down! LONG STORY SHORT (pun intended), I have really enjoyed escaping the stories we all tell about ourselves online to delve back into my first love: the stories we tell about the secret worlds in our minds… and the lessons that the people there can teach us.