2022 in review and 23 things to do in 2023

it feels like i say this every year, but SERIOUSLY: how is 2022 over already? i loathe the passage of time. anywho, it was a good year. a great year, even. it wasn't omg-best-year-of-my-life-all-my-dreams-came-true or anything, but you can't win 'em all. here are the highlights, and some to-dos for next year that will hopefully provide some inspo!

in 2022, i:

• resumed my tradition of winter getaways with a trip to visit my friend alissa in st. petersburg, florida, where we ate, drank, went on a museum scavenger hunt, drank coffee at cute cafes, stalked adorable houses, watched inventing anna, bought a drink for a tiktok star we saw at a restaurant, and watched the super bowl halftime show at a bar

  
  

• saw 40 artists/bands live (including 2 festivals, 16 acts i’ve seen before, and the long-awaited and twice-postponed def leppard/mötley crüe/poison/joan jett show at fenway)

• met andrew mccarthy of brat pack fame at a travel show

• spent a beautiful, perfect week in portugal

• started a substack newsletter, which will be returning in 2023; shameless plug to subscribe!

• took my first dance class (hip-hop) since before COVID!

• met my internet friend danielle IRL and had a fun-filled overnight trip in mystic, CT 

• drank frosé, people watched, and jumped around to ABBA at the tea dance in provincetown 

• enjoyed a completely idyllic weekend at a farmhouse in upstate new york with 6 other ladies for my best friend gleni's bachelorette extravaganza — we drank wine, made dinners and breakfasts and french press coffee, lounged in the pool, took edibles and sang karaoke under a blacklight, watched legally blonde, did nail art, had a coastal grandma photoshoot, and made s'mores by the fire pit

• went to brooklyn for for gleni’s wedding, gave a toast, and danced the night away

• dealt with the insanity that is salem, massachusetts on a saturday in october, but apple cider cocktails eased the pain

• reunited with my marist friend tati in vegas for a whirlwind adventure that involved a distillery, high winds, meow wolf, magic mike, and a frantic but ultimately successful search for when we were young sunday tickets after the festival was canceled on saturday

• did the stranger things thing as eddie munson with my friend cassidy (who was max) at the liberty hotel halloween party

• got a new couch!

• found out both my moon sign (aquarius) and my enneagram type (7) and have been fascinated ever since because they’re SO ACCURATE and have given me so much insight into why i am the way i am

• did barely ANY writing outside of my full-time job...for me, anyway. i've been dealing with a prolonged case of writer's block that i just can't shake, so i'm going to get my club out and chase that inspiration until it submits to me in 2023. i did manage to eke out a few pieces i tossed up on medium, though:
• mmmbye: breaking up with my favorite childhood band
• the enduring mystique of pizza hut
• searching for stars hollow

happiest moments:

• sitting for hours at a wine bar in porto, portugal with my new tour friend nolene — looking at the douro river, eating cheese and sardines, drinking wine, and chatting 
• marveling at the natural beauty of the caves on the algarve coast on a boat tour
• singing and dancing like a fool by myself at a machine gun kelly concert
• seeing a man walking his pet pig at the hollis flea market
• finding a random magic 8 ball on the sidewalk on my way to get a scone and sourdough and iced coffee on a summer sunday morning
• drinking painkillers at the treehouse bar + watching youtube videos with danielle in our b&b room in mystic
• floating in a random suburban pool cassidy and i rented through swimply
• walking 45 minutes to honeycomb creamery in cambridge and ordering a scoop of port cherry vanilla ice cream and a scoop of salted caramel crackle and walking home
• screaming "pour some sugar on me" with thousands of other people at the stadium tour
• singing karaoke for hours, watching family feud, and then sleeping in a magical canopy bed during the bachelorette weekend
• listening to "away from the mire" by billy strings several times on my solo road trip and tearing up every time
• seeing my best friend get married and dancing to the best wedding playlist!
• smoking a joint in my bathtub and listening to d'angelo on a random tuesday night
• reliving my emo glory days and catching up with tati 

pop culture favorites 

note that these did not necessarily come out this year (though some did), i just consumed them in 2022.

songs: HERE

albums:

the berries - high flying man

nilüfer yanya - PAINLESS

rolling blackouts coastal fever - endless rooms

why bonnie - 90 in november

harry styles - harry's house

momma - household name

they are gutting a body of water - s

PHONY - AT SOME POINT YOU STOP

soccer mommy - sometimes, forever

movies:

promising young woman

hotel mumbai

jackass forever

barbarian

top gun: maverick

books: 

mary jane by jessica anya blau

miss fortune by lauren weedman

in five years by rebecca serle

the paris apartment by lucy foley

everything i need i get from you: how fangirls created the internet as we know it by kaitlyn tiffany

cackle by rachel harrison

one italian summer by rebecca serle

a novel obsession by caitlin barasch

tv shows:

inventing anna

the 7 lives of lea

the sex lives of college girls

the summer i turned pretty

maggie

the bear

2022 to-dos review

well, out of 22 items, i did 11, which is kind of par for the course at this point. not bad!

visit portugal

sing karaoke

visit a friend in a different state

take a road trip

find one of the records on my vinyl wishlist out in the wild and buy it (the list includes MC5, the stooges, and crosby, stills, and nash) found CS&N at bull moose in portsmouth!

take one day off work for no reason other than to relax and recharge

see a live play/musical counting lost spirits distillery and magic mike in vegas

finish the new york times crossword every day for a week

order a cocktail that involves fire got a smoked old fashioned at two different bars, so i'm counting it

hang out on someone's boat technically, the p-town ferry is someone's boat, right?

watch a classic movie rome adventure

23 things to do in 2023

1. do a sound bath meditation

2. visit a state i’ve never been to (looking at you in may, utah)

3. dine at the olde pink house in savannah, georgia

4. go to a sofar sounds show

5. finish taking (and develop!) the roll of film on the disposable camera i bought last summer

6. take a pole dancing class

7. finally learn to parallel park and do it successfully

8. get published on one of my bucket list publications (the new yorker, the new york times, travel and leisure, condé nast traveler)

9. go to a poetry slam at lizard lounge

10. make this bourbon cheddar apple pie

11. find the acler raven midi cutout dress secondhand for less than $100 because i fell in love with it last summer at saks off 5th and have thought about it nearly every day since, but have nowhere to wear it

12. go to a GVF show with danielle because we haven’t seen them together yet (bonus points if we get barricade on jake’s side of the stage so we can realize our banger sisters/cougar dreams)

13. host a dinner party for real, for real this time

14. try a tasting menu (maybe at tasting table?)

15. go to the encore casino since i haven't been

16. make dinner using a majority of ingredients from the farmers market

17. be a guest on a podcast

18. get a cute vintage table + chair set for my dining room

19. visit montreal

20. crash. a. wedding. SOMEBODY DO IT WITH ME!

21. complete and shop around a book proposal to literary agents

22. get another eerily accurate psychic reading from raymond at the tremont tea room

23. stay at a luxury hotel or resort (thanks, heather!)

also! i decided to take a look back and note the stuff that i've had on previous lists that i eventually accomplished in a later year. this was kind of a fun exercise. there were 45 in total!

2012:

visit san francisco 2015

go to a talk show taping 2013

take a pottery class 2019

go to an open house (with no intention of buying) 2014

visit nashville 2013

go out to a sit-down dinner by myself 2015 if bar dinners count, 2019 if we're talking an actual table

take pictures in a photobooth 2016

go to tampa & st. petersburg 2022 

go to the rock & roll hall of fame induction ceremony not the ceremony, but R&R HOF in 2018

make my own bread 2015

stay at a bed & breakfast 2016

go speed dating 2017+ 2019 with two different companies, and they were each comically awful and everyone received refunds because literally 20 women and 2 men showed up both times despite the fact that you had to prepay???

ride a bike 2016

finally get my cheeseburger tattoo! 2015

2013:

see blue man group, because i've never seen it and that's just wrong 2019 and it was one of the cooooolest manifestation stories ever
visit the pacific northwest (preferably portland, OR) 2017, seattle and portland!

drink a mint julep 2017

hula hoop 2022 when my neighbors were throwing theirs out and i swiped it from the curb

play a musical instrument 2022, trying guitar again!

send a query letter to an editor or literary agent 2014
go on a picnic 2015

2014:

try air bnb 2017

get something that i wrote published on mcsweeney's 2016, 2019, and 2020!

win at pub trivia 2015

2015:

secure a book deal 2019

go zip lining 2018

relax in a hot tub 2018

get a tarot reading at the tremont tea room 2017

2016:

take a day/weekend trip to providence and/or newport, RI (i've never been, somehow??) 2018 and 2017, respectively, and then newport again in 2021

sing karaoke (preferably a rap song) 2017, but i sang harvey danger

give a toast 2022

2017:

book a trip to south america 2018

jump into a ball pit 2018 

read seinfeldia 2020 i think?

adopt a shelter cat 2020

go to a renaissance fair and order a giant turkey leg 2021

find and buy liz phair's exile in guyville on vinyl from a brick-and-mortar record store 2018

2018:

visit south america 2019

related: take a selfie with an alpaca not a selfie, but a photo with one, 2019

get my aura photographed 2019

eat fried dough on hampton beach 2019

watch an outdoor movie 2019

see the sunflower fields at colby farm 2020

(weirdly, nothing from my 2019 list)

2020:

renew my passport 2021

spend a weekend in philadelphia 2021

my 22 favorite songs of 2022!

well, it was another banner year for music, folks. we're having a good run! i narrowed down this list from like 55 songs, so this is just a fraction of the tracks i loved in 2022, but hopefully you find at least a couple you dig as well! full spotify playlist for easier listening here.

honorable mention:

widowspeak - "the drive"

arlo parks - "softly"

ty segall - "hello, hi"

partner - "time is a car"

soccer mommy - "don't ask me"

alex g - "runner"

44phantom - "hurricane"

22. parker gispert - "stuck inside someone else's dream"

i've vehemently held that the whigs are one of the best and most underrated bands of the 2000s — mostly just to myself because nobody else cares that much or even knows who they are. buuuut if you're so inclined, i highly recommend listening to all of their albums because they're flawless. while the band is on indefinite hiatus, frontman parker gispert has ventured into solo work in recent years that retains the alt-country swagger i know and love. this rollicking deep cut from his latest, golden years, was an immediate standout for me.

21. wednesday - "bull believer" 

y'all know i'm a sucker for that early '90s sound, and there are a handful of current bands that i think are really nailing it, including wednesday. this song is a true *journey* and trying to describe it in words would be a disservice; you just have to listen to it to understand what i mean. preferably while feeling angsty in your bedroom at night.

20. quarters of change - "t love"

it's giving gen z fitz and the tantrums! i dare you to listen to this song and not nod your head and/or smile real wide. 

19. harry styles - "keep driving"

confession: personally, i think harry's house is the weakest album in harry's discography (don't @ me!). but that's probably because i am decidedly not into it when every artist/band inevitably makes a synthy pop album. why do they all do it? you don't have to do it! so it's no surprise that my favorite songs on this record are the '70s soft rock, fleetwood mac-y tracks that are more reminiscent of fine line fare: "grapejuice," "daylight," and this one! i also dig the vague, slightly naughty stream-of-consciousness lyrics that include "cocaine, side boob, choke her with a sea view." ope! you wildin', mr. styles.

18. dry cleaning - "don't press me"

in theory, i should dislike dry cleaning, because in theory, they're quite similar to black country, new road, whom i cannot STAND. you know that nick cave quote about the red hot chili peppers? that's literally me with black country, new road. pretentious, pseudo-intellectual, critic's wet dream nonsense. but i digress. i love, love, love dry cleaning. it must be the female vocalist, because their lyrics are just as ridiculous ("don't touch my gaming mouse, you rat!"). but the guitars are tight and searing and i can't help but bop along to this quirky gem; it's very reminiscent of the british indie rock acts of the mid-2000s like the cribs, art brut, and the subways.

17. bad suns - "life was easier when i only cared about me"

bad suns have been churning out upbeat, '80s/new-wave flavored indie pop for the past decade that just makes you feel all sparkly and happy and bright. the chorus alone rockets me to the moon.

16. camp blu - "madame murder"

i've been in my *~spooky~*/darkwave era for the past year — please hit me up if you want some playlist recommendations — and omg, "madame murder" makes me want to don a red velvet cape and sulk around my lair in a vampire's castle. or, like, do the pulp fiction dance in the basement of a goth club with a dude wearing eyeliner. 

15. day wave - "blue"

hearing a lotta shoegaze and a little early smashing pumpkins influence here and it soothes my soul. this song is a big, cathartic sigh and a big, cathartic hug from someone who gives really good hugs at the end of a bad day. :)

14. pool kids - "i hope you're right"

pool kids are a florida-based emo outfit with a pop touch. "i hope you're right" is lush, dreamy, and haunting. i especially love the "ha-ha-ha-ha" pre-chorus and when the guitars are totally unleashed at the end!

13.  diane coffee - "our love/the run"

i've been a fan of diane coffee, the solo project of foxygen drummer shaun fleming, since i caught his absolutely electric live show at the 4knots music festival in brooklyn back in 2016 (i also highly recommend his fantastic NPR tiny desk concert, my favorite to date!). since, shaun and i have struck up a bit of an internet friendship on twitter and instagram and it's great to know that he is just a super cool and funny human in addition to being an incredible singer and musician. the latest diane coffee record, with people, was a bit of a return to form in terms of his soulful retro sound while incorporating the synth pop elements of his last release, internet arms. i always lean toward the former, so "our love/the run" caught my ear right away. it draws you in with a unique, isolated vocal melody that is constantly stuck in my head and and slowly reveals a soaring chorus. 

12.  PHONY - "the middle"

my only complaint about this song is that i wish it was two to three times longer! neil's songwriting and melodies just resonate so much with me — "great white" was my #3 song last year before his full album, at some point you stop, was released this past summer. but "the middle" manages to pack so much gorgeous, raw emotion into two minutes. love the production on this track, too.

11. dani mack - "fleabag" 

one thing about me is that i love a good banger about catholic guilt. just kidding, sort of. i don't really know how to explain it properly, but "fleabag" is one of those songs that just sounds so much like ME, from the vocal delivery to the sarcastic/deadpan lyrics to the handclaps, because another thing about me is that i fucking love a song with handclaps.

10. golden apples - "high school"

fuzzy, hooky, lo-fi goodness straight outta philly. the "come and get it, don't regret it" part and subsequent instrumental just hits my earholes so darn favorably.

9. sorry - "key to the city"

i don't know if i've ever described a song as "evocative," but that word really encapsulates this beautiful, dark, understated but surprisingly complex tune. it's one that stays with you. and, like, the lyrics "i know that you're somewhere out there, being fucked in someone else's bed?" oof oof oof. been there, babe.

8. kurt vile - "hey like a child"

quoth a random youtuber: "oh you like a little twang? a little distortion? a little trippy and totally groovy? songs that feel like the sun is shining directly on you? lyrics that hug your insecurities and give you an understanding that you aren't alone? you should definitely listen to kurt vile." preach, sister.

gotta be honest, though: (watch my moves) is definitely my least favorite KV record. i know the man likes to wander around within songs a lot and i love that about him, but he went off in some very meandering, strange directions a bit too often and for too long for my taste on this one. but! there are several bright spots, including "fo sho," "like exploding stones," "mount airy hill (way gone)" and this one! if you listen to nothing else, listen to the way he says "in a-da-reeeeam i da-rewww my blueprint" because it's 100% kurt vile core. god bless.

7. the berries - "prime" 

first, i will urge anyone reading this (for the second time) to listen to the berries' jaw-droppingly good album, high flying man, immediately. while there's not a filler or skip track in the bunch, the undeniable riff and catchy, simple-yet-relatable chorus of "prime" wormed its way into my brain this summer and it came out on top for me. so goddamn groovy.

6. russ - "yes sir"

my introduction to russ was kind of funny and quite roundabout. i was visiting a friend in portsmouth, new hampshire for the day back in the spring, and i forget what exactly we were talking about, but she brought up the remix of his song "handsomer" — which had been making the rounds on tiktok — and played it for me in her car. i immediately loved it and added it to my playlist. the next day as i was scrolling, because the 'tok is always watching and listening, this clip came up of a smiling, happy fellow drinking a cocktail on a boat and without even seeing who it was, i was like "who is this man with such IMMACULATE VIBES?? I MUST KNOW WHO HE IS!" and surprise, surprise, it was russ!

"yes sir" was undoubtedly my #1 summer jam. russ' style is sing-songy, fun, and playful but also delightfully clever — e.g. "baby i'm a star, of course i'm hangin' out the moonroof" and "come here, kitty kitty/i don't mind a couple whiskers." we love a body positive, feminist king! yes sir, we do. side note: the scenes in this video of him eating pasta on a parisian rooftop are going onto my vision board because this is the energy i want and need in my life, always.

5. bendigo fletcher - "broken routine"

can someone pay me to write about music like this (minus my gratuitous "like"s)? because music writers generally don't, and i feel like they should instead of trying to be clinical and academic, because feelings are the essence of why we love music, right? right?! thaaaanks!

ohhh, how i love bendigo fletcher. "sugar in the creek" made my top 10 last year, and the first time i heard this tune from their new EP wingding, i was like "those bastards have done it again!" i'm typically not super into lyrics when it comes to music — it's usually all about the sound for me — but BF's lyrics so beautifully capture the mundanity of everyday life in such a gorgeous, humorous, authentic way that i can't help but pay attention to them above everything else. i can't be sure, but "broken routine" seems to elegantly describe the idea that as long as you're with your person, even the boring, bad, annoying stuff is no big deal because you're together. "how can i ever be ornery?/doin' your laundry/i imagine you slippin' into every garment/walkin' a clothesline over the carpet"? or "how could we ever be off base?/gettin' stoned in the crawl space/we imagine the locked door turning to chocolate/we are eating our way out of every problem." relationship goals. and that high note in the chorus? chills. every. time.

4. nilüfer yanya - "the dealer"

a track from one of my other favorite (and one of the most underrated) albums of the year, PAINLESS, "the dealer" is somehow urgent and ethereal, mysterious and familiar all at once. no one is quite doing it like she is right now, IMO.

3. my idea - "cry MFer"

ah, yes, my requisite "main character in a '90s movie stares out a window moodily during a train ride" soundtrack. from that hypnotic, looping riff to the yearning chorus, it's easy to get carried along for the four-plus minutes without even realizing it's been that long. 

2. shane t - "night drive"

it's so funny to think about the first time i heard this song because i really liked it, but i had a completely different impression of what it was until a few listens later. it originally came across to me as pure sugary pop, but i soon realized that shane is an indie singer-songwriter that reminds me a lot of briston maroney, whom i also love, and listening to his EP painted a clearer picture of his sound ("deeper" is also pure FIRE.) "night drive" is immediately catchy and intriguing, but goes in a bunch of unexpected directions that it definitely doesn't have to, and that — along with the copious amount of pure VIBES and eminent danceability — is what takes it from good to great for me. 

1. momma - "speeding 72"

big year for songs about driving, i guess! momma first appeared on my radar back in 2020 ("biohazard" was my #3 favorite song) and they struck gold again with their sophomore album, household name. while admittedly, i enjoyed the slightly darker tone of their debut, two of me, overall, "speeding 72" is by far the best song they've written thus far. its sunny, windows-down feel and crunchy riff perfectly match the laid back theme of the track; there are major shades of veruca salt and the breeders, and even a reference to my favorite pavement song in the chorus! as most know, guitar is v personal to me and i'm a slut for good riffs and solos, and that little mini-jam outro makes my mouth water. that TONE, dude. 10/10, no notes.

emo-ing in the desert: when we were young fest weekend recap

whew, what a journey! from the moment the inaugural when we were young festival was announced last january, my friend tati and i — who hadn't seen each other in 12 years(!) immediately hatched a plan to reunite and go together. you see, we lived together in a suite with five other girls in prime, peak emo time (2005) and bonded strongly over many of the bands who were playing. she and i had been talking about meeting up in vegas anyway since i love it there and she lives in idaho, so this gave us the perfect excuse.  i somehow, against all odds, snagged tickets during the presale, and we were giddy with excitement as the weekend drew closer. you know what they say about best laid plans...but despite being faced with quite a major challenge, we emerged victorious against all odds! 

DAY 1:

i was having a great time identifying the other elder emos at my airport gate, and both of the other people in my row on my flight were going to WWWY — which i surmised before even before talking to either of them from one of their two-toned, black-and-fire-engine-red hair and piercings. i was all like, "i don't look the part much any more because i'm old, but it's still in my heart."

the weather was absolutely gorgeous when i arrived in vegas, so i set my sights on the whimsical terrace pointe cafe at the wynn, which had a cutie pie patio overlooking the pool. i got a strawberry lemonade mocktail to pace myself and a hot smoked salmon burger (apple-smoked salmon, pickles, olives, onion and caper crème fraîche, frisée, cilantro, and watercress on an everything challah bun) and life was good. realizing i forgot to take a picture of the burger but it was so good!

healthy eating and drinking went out the window very quickly, and after lunch, i grabbed an iced cookie butter latte at the coffee bean and tea leaf because we don't have them in boston.

since, as i've mentioned, i've been to vegas a bunch so i've generally seen and done most of the stuff on the strip and was kinda gross from flying, i relished a little time to shower and chill in our hotel room and watch halloweentown II until tati showed up a few hours later.

we'd made dinner reservations at LAVO, a sleek and chic italian place in the venetian hotel where the ambiance was perfectly sultry for our first evening in vegas. i bullied tati into ordering a one-pound meatball appetizer that she rushed to give the waiter permission to cut into before we could properly document it...so here it is, a beautiful pound of splayed-open meat. worth it, though. she got a pasta dish and i got a very large chicken parm and everything was fabulous.

we ended the evening around the corner at the electra cocktail club, which was very dark and had very loud music, but was overall cool and surprisingly empty for a thursday night. tati went with a sazerac and i ordered the "western sour" from the cocktail menu (old forester bourbon, lime, grapefruit, and housemade velvet falernum). 

DAY 2

during our trip, tati and i fell into a funny little routine since she's a night owl and i'm very much a morning person: every night, after i went to bed, she'd go on a little adventure to the 24-hour CVS in our hotel to buy random shit. and every morning, while she was still sleeping and i was up and ready to rock, i'd go to the starbucks right next to our hotel to get coffee. i'm pretty sure we did this routine every single day (except for sunday, when i realized there was a dunkin' not too much farther away). cracked me up.

anyway, we had to fuel up for a pretty packed afternoon of plans, so we grabbed brunch at jardin at the wynn. we ate on the dreamy little patio next to their garden and pool, and had the funniest/strangest waiter. at one point, he leaned in and whispered to tati "I LIKE YOUR STYLE" apropos of nothing, gave me an unsolicited iced tea to go when we got the check (?), and was just generally a character. i ate this amazing hickory ham and cheddar omelet and got a croissant as my side. i was expecting, ya know, a normal little croissant. this thing was massive!!! jam jar for scale. 

we walked off our brunch by strolling down to the bellagio botanical gardens. i'd been before, but for some reason i didn't realize they completely change it to match each season? lots and lots of huge-ass pumpkins, cornucopias, and generally fall af shit.

then it was onto meow wolf, which is located in this really cool complex off the strip called AREA15. there's a main building with various shops, cafes, and bars.

it's funny; back when i went to st. petersburg, florida in february, we went to this museum called fairgrounds st. pete, and i didn't realize that it was basically a smaller version of meow wolf. this made meow wolf very very slightly less cool, but it was still super fun! especially loved the decoy supermarket in the front that had hidden tunnels to the rest of the museum.

then we had mocktails at this dope bar with an illuminated tree:

and had some barbeque at the in-house restaurant, the beast by todd english.

then it was on to lost spirits distillery, which was probably the coolest thing i've ever done in vegas and one of the coolest things i've ever done anywhere! it's a bit hard to explain, but it has been called "the willy wonka of booze" and i'd say that's a pretty accurate assessment. willy wonka & the chocolate factory is one of both tati's and my favorite movies, so we both naturally loved this. basically, you enter this very moody, vibey building and are given a rum sample in a glass. then, you walk around and into all of these rooms with different, rotating entertainers like snake charmers, acrobats, pole dancers, mentalists, and aerialists as you seek out three more rum samples. it's like a cirque show and alcohol scavenger hunt in one! there were also plenty of places to sit and chill and drink throughout, along with a live jazz band. dug it all so much!

DAY 3:

saturday...oh, saturday. you held such promise. so, when i took my morning walk to starbucks and was waiting outside in the line because it was so long, a few gusts of wind hit me and i was like "huh. it's kinda windy! hmm. ha. wow, wind! ha. it's fine. it's...fine." and indeed, as we would soon find out, it was very not fine. i was all dressed and ready to go in my cute festival outfit and hat, tati was doing her makeup in the bathroom, and i happened to open instagram to see THIS:

i literally barged into the bathroom on poor tati without knocking, screaming "you've gotta be fucking kidding me" because more than being pissed, i was in SHOCK. we were about 10 minutes away from leaving our hotel! suddenly, this festival that had provoked so much skepticism and doubt was certainly seeming to be too good to be true. but, from the start, we had been like, "at least we'll be together in vegas if it all goes to shit!" granted, i did expect we would actually make it to the festival before that happened, but still. so that attitude, along with my general repeated disappointment with various events in the past few years made it pretty easy to pivot and be like "ok. we're fortunately not flying home until monday, so let's try to get tickets for tomorrow. and in the meantime, let's go eat and drink. we good." honestly, i feel like my friends who were DMing and texting and tweeting me were more upset than i was at the time! haha.

we headed to fremont street and ended up at a place very creatively called eat. but the food was so delicious! also...and i am DEFINITELY only saying this because we eventually got tickets for sunday, the festival cancellation created a very memorable, interesting, and kind of exciting dynamic in vegas that day. like, we started chatting with the girls next to us, who were also victims of The Great WWWYF Depression but had managed to already secure tickets for sunday through a friend. but the sea of dejected emos in the casinos, on the strip, and in every restaurant and bar were surely a sight to see and one that i won't soon forget. the NY times did a great piece on it that i just saw this morning, actually!

many of the bands who were set to play, like hawthorne heights, armor for sleep, and all-american rejects, quickly announced pop-up shows at local restaurants and hotels. we decided against trying to compete with 80,000 other bored would-be festivalgoers to hit up any of them, and instead went to drink tequila at this very cute, small cocktail bar called lucky day. funny moment: tati taking this photo of me, showing it to me, and me not recognizing myself or that it was the bar we were in for some reason? "wow, that's such a cool photo! who is that?" "it's you, just now, dummy!" hahahaha. and we hadn't even gotten our drinks yet!

and soon, when we moved on to the smashed pig for another drink, it WAS our lucky day, as i finally got through the sea of stubhub searchers to get us tickets for the festival. it was all turning around! the only hitch: we originally planned to see magic mike on sunday night instead of saturday, so as we sat and drank our cute cocktails, tati called the sahara to switch 'em and it all worked out.

i have to say that the biggest disappointment of the day — even bigger than the festival cancellation! — was the peppermill. it's widely regarded as a storied vegas staple, and i had somehow never been, so we tried in vain to snag counter seats like 45 minutes before we had to be at magic mike because it was like an hour wait for a table. despite the fact that we could see several open seats at the counter, the hostess said it would be a short wait. ok, no problem.

as we sat in the waiting area, we realized the vibes were very chaotic and depressing, and it honestly felt like a glorified denny's. children were screaming, this guy next to us was being super animated and extra in an extremely obnoxious way, and we were growing more impatient by the second as 5 minutes turned into 10...and then into 20. i went to check with the hostess to make sure i didn't miss my name, and she's like "oh, you're up next!" ok. 10 MORE minutes go by, and nothing. meanwhile, there were at least 6 counter seats open! i could see them!

like, what was happening? it was just strange and silly and we couldn't afford to wait any longer, so we booked it to the sahara and found this little counter place called prendi that had huge, surprisingly good and doughy pizza slices and scarfed them down in 10 minutes.

neither tati nor i are into male strippers, but we love us some magic mike. the movies are cinematic treasures (namely, the final dance scene in XXL, mah LAWD) and the show ended up being actually quite feminist — as feminist as a male revue can be, anyway. there was a female emcee and it was very empowering and fun. that being said, you can bet your ass i was out of my seat singing to ginuwine's "pony" for the finale and enjoying the hell out of watching chiseled himbos writhe on stage to it.

since it was only 10pm, we wanted to get a nightcap somewhere and my trusty phone informed me that another cocktail bar in the venetian, rosina, had a great menu of classic cocktails — and when i saw that they made their whiskey sour with egg white, i knew it was a good bar. we snagged the two open seats at the bar and omg, guys, what a hidden gem. the two bartenders were so friendly and funny, the art deco decor was gorgeous, and it felt so small and intimate that you would hardly believe it was right next to the loud and crazy casino floor. and of course, the drinks were fabulous. can't recommend this place enough for a drink if you're in vegas. along with the festival and the distillery, it was a highlight of the trip!

a lil' drunk and in a silly goofy mood, we came back to the room and i pulled my cold chicken parm out of the mini fridge and got into bed and ate it like a pop tart because the plastic cutlery was no match for that frigid lil' filet. it tasted amazing and tati was laughing hysterically at me and then i started laughing at myself and it was just a great time.

DAY 4:

amazingly, incredibly, surprisingly....sunday's festival went off without a hitch and was everything we dreamed of and more. basically just a huge, fun, good-vibe singalong that was chill because we're all old now. all in all we saw 13 bands:

-hawthorne heights

-story of the year

-armor for sleep

-pierce the veil

-the used

-AFI

-jimmy eat world

-taking back sunday

-the all-american rejects

-sleeping with sirens

-bring me the horizon

-paramore

-my chemical romance

not too shabby! i was also so impressed by the bathroom and water situations. they had, like, actual bathrooms that were clean on the festival grounds and the lines moved fast! and while i was waiting for water in the alcohol line, some guy was coming through with a cart of water and gatorade for sale to speed things along. the food was good, too — i had a smashburger and pork dumplings. 

overall, an excellent little trip down memory lane. vegas magic delivered, as always!

24 hours in mystic, CT

while i don't think there are any quaint coastal new england towns that i actually dislike, mystic, connecticut is definitely one of my favorites. 

i've been several times, and so had my internet friend danielle. so when we decided after almost a year of texting, a couple facetimes, and a phone call to "meet in the middle" IRL for the first time (she's in NJ) we figured we'd make an overnight trip of it and opted for mystical mystic. it ended up being the perfect choice and the weather gods blessed us, which was a bonus!

we met up around 10:30am and neither of us had eaten breakfast, so we got in the looooong line at sift bake shop because we'd heard good things. i got a massive strawberry-rhubarb croissant, danielle opted for a plain one, and we both got iced coffees, obv. i soon understood why the line was so long; the service matched the laid-back seaside lifestyle here. let's pick up the pace, people! BUT we forgot all about that when we retreated with our treats to the very euro feeling patio that was just lovely.

carbed up and caffeinated, we decided to wander a bit around the downtown and came upon this little sailor knot shop called mystic knotwork. it mainly had bracelets, but also napkin rings and other accessories. i love me a good sailor knot bracelet, and when i saw they had tie-dyed ones, it was game over.

lunch was on the patio of s&p oyster, which is not only one of my favorite restaurants in mystic, but one of my favorite restaurants, period. not only are the food and drinks are consistently wonderful, but the service is fantastic, too. we told our waiter our backstory and he's like "stop, i love that so much!" and kindly took a picture of us, hahaha. i got the crunchy buttermilk fluke —basically a fancier fish and chips — that i forgot to take a picture of, but it hit the spot! 

prior to the trip, danielle and i floated the idea of getting our fortune told at a spot downtown called astrology boutique, but the prices we saw online were a little too rich for our blood. but as luck would have it, we walked by the place and they had a sign out in front advertising a $25 special. perfect! i read tarot and the cards she pulled for me didn't quite resonate (the moon, 8 of wands, 5 of wands), but she did give me some validating insights on another matter. worth iiit.

we checked into our hotel — the inn at mystic — which had certainly seen better days, but it was perfectly nice enough for an overnight stay. we had a cute little balcony that overlooked the water, where we sat and drank wine and listened to music and chatted for a bit before hitting up the happy hour at the hotel restaurant, rocks 21. if i'm being honest, we specifically had planned much of this trip around eating a crab cake, so when we saw they had an $8 happy hour special, we were all in. it was great, which made up for the margarita that was nothing to write home about. and the waitress asked if we were sisters, which was just highly amusing for many reasons.

we grabbed dinner at the mariner, where i got scallops, which were good but nothing earth-shattering. i remember having fond memories of a meal here like 12 years ago on a family trip but we ended up eating outside so it kinda took a little bit of the cozy nostalgia away, but it was too nice not to!

last time i was in mystic, my friend brianna were staying there during a trip to visit long island wine country. on our last night, we discovered this amazing outdoor bar — treehouse at oyster club — that, much as its name suggests, feels like a really cool treehouse, complete with twinkly lights and lush leaves. it's seriously one of my favorite places. and as a bonus, the drinks are actually so good! 

we each got a painkiller and it was definitely, by far, the best painkiller i've ever had. it even looked incredible:

of course, no trip to mystic would be complete without a visit to the iconic mystic pizza, which 1) is insanely, surprisingly delicious and 2) is as kitschy and cute as ever. pro tip: you can eat in their dining room, but they also have a small bar/counter area where you can order by the slice. we grabbed a couple pieces of plain cheese and parked ourselves outside on a little bench area nearby to devour them.

after chatting with a silver fox dad on the street about his 1960s mustang (necessary), we walked back to our hotel at like 10pm because we're old and, uh, *relaxed* on our fortuitously secluded balcony (bucket list item "smoke a joint at a quaint yet wildly overpriced new england inn" simultaneously created and checked off). then, we sprawled out and giggled at our favorite niche youtube videos and i ate the rest of my strawberry rhubarb croissant and life was good.

the next morning, we enjoyed some of those canned la colombe oat milk lattes on our balcony and then wandered down to this bakery i found via last-minute google maps search called nana's bakery & pizza. between the aesthetic and the waterfront picnic tables and the food & drink (granola with rhubarb jam and oat milk + a vietnamese nitro cold brew for me and a coconut chia pudding + coffee milk for danielle) and the portrait of anthony bourdain above the counter, it was my vibe completely.

before hitting the road, we explored a little more of the property at the inn and walked up to the haley mansion, where they host weddings. there was an overlook with adirondack chairs that were just begging to be sat in, so we did just that as we surveyed the view — and the substances left over from friday evening's reception: an abandoned glass of whiskey, a cigar,  random shards of glass, and a whole lotta cigarette butts. 

all in all, a delightful day trip!