God knows, I want to break free
Waves, geese, The Weekend, Freddy Mercury, and why I'm staying in LA.
This jam slaps even harder if you’re high.
To kick us off, as promised, one single jewish factoid explained in plain English.
Let’s pretend Hanukkah was last week so this is relevant.
Many believe latkes and jelly doughnuts are a staple of Hanukkah celebrations. And they are, kinda. An expert from The Conversation actually does some epic plain-English justice to this concept.
Hanukkah commemorates a historical event that took place in Jerusalem in the 2nd century BCE, when the Seleucid Greek empire was the ruling power. In 168 BCE, the king Antiochus IV Epiphanes outlawed Jewish practice and defiled the Jewish Temple in the city by installing an altar to Zeus Olympios and sacrificing pigs.
A small army of Jews, known as the Maccabees, rebelled against this religious persecution. They regained control over the Temple, removed the symbols of Zeus and built a new altar so they could once again offer sacrifices in keeping with Jewish law.
According to a legend recounted in the Talmud, a compilation of 3rd to 6th century Jewish teachings, a miracle occurred at this time.
There was only enough oil to keep the Temple’s menorah, one of its most important ritual objects, burning for one day. But the flame stayed alight for eight days, until a new supply of oil could be found - the basis for the eight-day celebration of Hanukkah.
So you see my dear mensches, it’s much less to do with the potato pancake or jelly stuffed pastry, but all to do with the oil they’re fried in. You’re welcome.
Now back to the news.
I told the internet this will be the year I resolve to stop prefacing everything. A little over a week in all I can say is, fuck resolutions.
This is a weekly dump. It has a lot to do with music, art, literature, and the random thoughts I have about life.
It has nothing (at least not intentionally) to do with my job.
The industry I work in takes personal brands very (read: far too) seriously and that’s kept me from writing about what I want to write about. It’s also led me to delete a lot of what I’ve written — subsequently losing it forever, which sucks. Simply put, I’ve always wanted to write something that some portion of the world reads (and hopefully enjoys), so bear with me.
Musings I’ve enjoyed on the www last week.
First things first, the songs I’ve ♥️’d on Spotify.
This poem is that feeling when you’re in nature and remember that nothing really matters.
This album called A by Ariana Lenarsky. It’s beautiful and a little painful. I’ve listened to it roughly 6 times.
An album I came back to, against my better judgement, but in the end fell in love with, was Lido’s Peder. Favorite song: University (followed by How to Do Nothing and BEST4U, ending with Pure / Santiago). *sigh*
Even. more. music. I finally listened to (and watched) The Weekend’s 2020 album, After Hours. I then listened to a 30-minute recap of the album, which can roughly be summed up as, homeless-Toronto-soft-boy-becomes-super-famous-rapper-and-has-too-much-fun-in-LA-before-realizing, like literally every single other famous person that is thrust into stardom, that-the-life-they-dreamt-about-is-terrible-and-fake-but-also-kind-of-amazing. Beautiful album. Thanks Abel. Favorite song: Save Your Tears (fuck me up with that 80s synth vibe)
Inspired to keep writing this every week by Zhong Lin’s 365 days of photography project covered by IGNANT. She’s in the 250’s as of last week. My personal favorite? #132, titled slug.
Went down a Youtube rabbit hole starting with Chicago’s 25 or 6 to 4, because my brother, Dan said that was his last Myspace song (long story), which then led me to 5 minutes of nearly intolerable Carpool Karaoke with Paul McCartney, until I finally saw the Freddy Mercury documentary recommended, so of course I watched all 85 minutes and 5 seconds of it. My favorite bits with commentary:
00:00:05 - ah Freddy…
Freddy: “Do you want us to go?”
Director: “Uh, Freddy, the engine will be running in half a minute.”
Freddy: “Half an hour!?”
Director: “Half a minute.”
Freddy: “I can get married and divorced in that time!”
00:00:27 - #falic
Interviewer: “When you face an audience the size of that crowd in Barcelona, do you get intimated with a crowd that big?”
Freddy: “No, the bigger the better.”
00:02:14 - let’s all channel Freddy’s ego in 2021
Interviewer: “Why is it called Mr. Bad Guy?”
Freddy: “Because it’s me.”
Interviewer: “Do you miss the rest of the guys?”
Freddy: “No”
Interviewer: “Who plays on the album, any surprise guests?”
Freddy: “Yeah, me.”
00:21:03 - he says this with such a sad smile
Interviewer: “Surely comes a time when you want to share your life with someone?”
Freddy: “Yes but no one wants to share their life with me.”
00:41:53 - an all too familiar feeling
Freddy: “I hate talking to people I don’t really know…they don’t really know the real me, I don’t think anyone ever really will.”
1:00:12 - Freddy 2024
Freddy: “I want everyone to get fucked! All night, every day, just like I do.”
And now for some editorializing.
Gone Fishing
tl;dr I’m staying in LA indefinitely.
Something happened 8 months ago that will define the next chapter of my life, which you as a receiver of this will be privy to either IRL or via this literature.
Turn on, tune in and drop out.
I showed up in LA, more depressed than I’d ever been, at the very beginning of June 2020. I checked into the city in the heat of racial injustice protests with nothing but my oversized duffel and a backpack. “I’ll just go for a month or two” I said. “I’ll be back.” I said. I had high hopes of returning after moving out of my 4 bed, 1 bath East Village “home” for the last 3 years. What the hell was I thinking?
That first month in LA lasted exactly 5 weeks. I know this because I patiently and painstakingly waited for the month to end. I waited to call my then boyfriend who stayed in New York, and asked, “it’s been a month since I got here, how are we doing?”
I knew how we were doing.
Moments later, we broke up. For 3 hours, we sifted through how we got there. All the wrong turns and speed traps. I was never any good at navigating. I cried so much that night my eyes literally swelled shut. I slept at my brother’s apartment for a few days under the safety of his gravity blanket. I cried for the relationship. For the loss of a friend. But mostly I cried for the loss of a good person in my life.
Soon enough I began lamenting something else entirely. Tears would well up, here and there for months to come. I cried as I cut away the thickest string tying me back to New York City. It was him that kept me there during COVID and it was the loss of him that freed me from it.
Over the next few months, I continued to cut the remaining strings that tethered me to my dear city. In July, I dove into new and old friendships in LA, while releasing old and unattended ones. In September, I left my job of 3 years for a west coast team — a sign to many that I was never coming back. In October I went back to get my things from a storage unit, cancelled my NYSC gym membership and invited all my closest friends up and down the coast to visit me out west. Then, on Monday, January 4, 2021, I sat next to a relatively new, but quite dear friend, listening intently as he said, “I don’t care how good the bagels are, I’d be bummed if you moved back to New York”.
The night before, while parsing through New Year intentions, I said, “I’ve never been as happy as I am right now. I’ve spent most of my life doing things that make me unhappy in an effort to find happiness and I’d like to stop doing that. I’d like to just do what makes me happy now.” Who I am in LA, has made me very happy. Who I was in New York City, especially during COVID, made me quite sad. More sad than I’ve ever been frankly. So I’m staying, even though I miss New York City more than I can express, because happiness is worth chasing but it’s impossible to let go of once you’ve found it.
I’ll be back one day I’m sure. Likely after the garden of emotions I’ve trampled all over has had some time to grow back. Or maybe I won’t! Maybe I’ll just stay put, for once. Until then, you’ll find me surfing, strumming, singing, hiking, biking and figuring out how to 5000x my investment portfolio.
That was too much to text.
Too Much To Text is a weekly brain dump written by Nina Stepanov. She also wrote this little blurb but she wrote it in 3rd person, so it sounds more official. If you like what’s happening here, share it with a friend or your parents. Parents love Nina.