the ballet
This month, I took myself to the ballet. I found a single seat in the middle of the last row on the second circle, and bought it while pretending the price didn’t sting just a little. After work on a Wednesday, I walked myself and my physical ticket over to Lincoln Center and tried not to reek of awkward while everyone and their friends moved around me. Between a seventeen year old girl who wouldn’t stop taking selfies and an older woman who smelled like butterscotch candy, I watched selections from Balanchine. To be honest, most of it I didn’t like—and that was my own fault, really, having not done the research on what would be performed to make sure I would enjoy it. I didn’t understand the choice to perform something that required a Christmas set design in the middle of April or why one of the principals was chosen for a piece that she seemed uncomfortable settling in, like the sensuality of the movements and the music didn’t fit quite right. I did love the last performance, though. In white tutus sparkling with Swarovski crystals and the principals in glittering tiaras, the whole company was onstage, floating and flying.
family visits
A lack of sisters and one girl cousin close in age makes for a built in best friend (if you’re lucky, and I do consider myself so). She’s also become something of a concert buddy, our taste in music crossing over easily. I flew down to North Carolina to see Hozier with her for a second time. We drank lukewarm white wine in a Best Western hotel room that lacked effective air conditioning, indulged in burgers and cute drinks at a place that (weirdly) lit incense and was filled with teens pre-prom, lugged a blanket around an outdoor venue completely clueless to the fact that we had seats, sang along to Too Sweet and Work Song in breathtaking humidity, sat in the dirt parking lot for an hour waiting for our Uber, and then spent the next day completely couch-bound for a romcom marathon (Endless Love, Mama Mia 1 & 2, and Good Grief). Spending time with her has always been a gift and probably will be forever, even more so now that seeing one another requires PTO and a short flight.
taylor swift
The last few Taylor albums have always been second-listen-loves for me. Starting with Folklore, where I was confused and so much was happening at once and I couldn’t grasp a single thing amid the shock of it all that first time. By the end of the year, her and her sister were my most listened to albums of the year. They’ve all pretty much been like that since. The initial listen means nothing. It’s all the listens after that where the songs sink their claws into me, where I find myself agonizing over every line and listening to it on loop for weeks, or even months. The Tortured Poets Department has gotten the same treatment. I disagree with the critique that she needs to learn how to edit, that the songs are too verbose, meandering and long, mostly because that’s most of the poetry that exists in the world (anyone who’s ever read the Romantics would know). This album is for lovers of words, the girlies who poured over Wordsworth, who have sat beneath Sylvia Plath’s fig tree, and made The Lakes their brand for the three years that followed its release. Sorry to say that the girls who get it, get it, and the girls who don’t…well, you know how the rest of that goes. My top five, in case you were wondering: Down Bad, Florida!!!, Fresh Out The Slammer, The Alchemy, and Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me (disclaimer: this could change at any moment, and probably will).