July 2021
Hello everyone! Welcome to yet another monthly wrap up! This July, I’ve been taking my time with myself, trying to recover from the heavy loss of my best friend last month. I tried writing a short story for last week but I didn’t like it at ALL, so after forgetting to post last Monday (in true Mary fashion), I went back and tried to edit it into something good…as you can see, I didn’t quite make the mark. After such a rollercoaster of emotion this past month, I think I can forgive myself for skipping a week! Hopefully you all don’t mind…!
Anyways, let’s get into July!
Debauchery At Its Finest
This month, I went to see Zola with my real life husband Matt and my work husband, Chaz. If you’re unfamiliar with the movie’s plot, let me give you a quick synopsis. Zola is a server and a stripper who meets Stefani at her restaurant job, and the spark between them is undeniable. After stripping together the same night they met, the next day Stefani asks Zola to come along with her to Florida. What happens next is insane…and that’s all I’ll tell you!
The movie is based on a real story that happened to real life Zola! In 2015, she tweeted out the 100+ Twitter thread that would become stuff of Black Twitter Legend. The iconic story has been passed around the Internet ever since, even with her deleting the thread later on. I remember reading the story a few months after it went viral after searching for it for a while. It was a fucking rollercoaster. The movie stuck to the thread pretty well, taking creative liberties as movies do to streamline the story.
When I read the thread, I was enthralled, tense, and hypnotized, needing to know what happened next. The movie gave me the same feeling I had reading the thread years prior, and I left the theatre wanting to turn back around and watch it again. I think they did an amazing job adapting the story to film, and Matt, who had never read the thread, loved the movie just as much as Chaz and I did.
If you’re looking for an absolutely ridiculous movie that will keep you on the edge of your seat, consider going to see Zola! The cinematography is beautiful (I expect nothing less from A24, honestly), the acting is great and honestly so funny, and the story is so crazy, you’re going to be hooked as soon as the lights go down.
If you’re interested in reading the thread that this all started from, click here! The link takes you to an article about the movie, but the Twitter thread is in the article.
Stardew Valley, but with Sims
July 22nd saw the release of the new Sims 4 expansion pack, Cottage Living. I have been looking forward to its release since its announcement earlier this year. It’s a very popular thing to impose a set of your own challenges while playing the Sims, so I decided to try to make it to the tenth generation of a Sim family before the release of Cottage Living. I’ve always wanted to commit to the Legacy Challenge (arguably the most popular self-imposed Sims challenge). The day before its release, I achieved my goal!
The Walsh Family is currently in its 10th generation, and if I have anything to say about it, it’ll probably end there. I admittedly get bored with playing the same family long-term, but I think knowing that I can get to the 10th generation on my own will make actually trying the Legacy Challenge, and sticking to it, more fun the next go-around!
Because I usually don’t share a lot about my Sims playthroughs, I don’t have a whole lot of pictures from the earlier generations of the Walsh’s. When I start over with a new family, I’ll document it more and we’ll see about maybe making a little blog series out of it, perhaps?
Anyway, back to Cottage Living. Julien Walsh, the last Walsh in the family, moved to Henford-on-Bagley, the new Cottage Living Residential Neighborhood, the day his mother Dani passed. I moved him into a small cottage in the Bramblewood, as he loves the outdoors and I wanted to try out the new farming mechanics in the pack.
He has a cow, some chickens, and lots of fox and bunny friends. He’s also growing watermelons, which will hopefully be giant in time for the Finchwick Festival this Sims Saturday. I’m really liking this new expansion pack, mostly because it reminds me of Stardew Valley so much. Stardew Valley is one of my favorite games of all time, so anything that is remotely like it is my cup of tea. Learning how to juggle relationships, part-time jobs, and the farming life has been a fun experience, and dealing with the damn foxes that want my bunnies and chickens has been fun despite the stress of watching Julien get to the coop too late.
I say if you’re a Sims fan, or a fan of the farming stimulation genre at all, you’d probably be interested in the new expansion! Check it out here!
Lots of Friend Time
This month, I have been very grateful for all the time I’ve spent with my friends. Through FaceTime, during a rush at work, going over to their houses, impromptu dates, the list goes on. I’ve seen a lot of my friends this month! Checking in with the core friend group has been essential, especially since the loss of Damian, the birth of the Buoni Baby, and Erin’s vacation-ruining car accident have all happened one right after the other. The only person left to have something happen to them is me…so let me go knock on wood real quick…
I met the new nephew of the friend group, Vinny, a few weekends ago. He’s literally perfect and I’m already brainstorming little gifts to buy him “just because” every time I go over to their apartment. Seeing my best friend Angelo and his lovely wife live their dreams of starting a family has been so wonderful to see, and makes me want to live my own dream of starting mine with Matt that much more! Even though the two of them are rightfully exhausted, I can see how happy they are to have their son Earthside.
Matt’s best friend and his fiancée invited us to Magic Mountain out of the blue one night. Of course, anywhere with a bunch of kids is going to make me nervous (where there’s tons of kids, there’s tons of germs…that’s the case regardless of whether or not we’re in a pandemic!), but I ended up having SO much fun. Being able to forget about my stress and my never ending list of things to do for a night was really, really nice.
Seeing Juan and Halle is always a special treat as well! They, like us, are always busy, and now that they have two kids and one on the way, their time is extra limited. I genuinely enjoy them, so any time they hit us up Matt and I try to clear the schedule for them…because who knows the next time we’ll have time to see each other!?
Citalopram? I Don’t Know Her
At the beginning of this month, I started a new anti-depressant. I was on Citalopram for a while, but I didn’t know that it wasn’t really “working” until Matt mentioned to me that I had been pretty stagnant for a while in my life. The medicine was helping me not be sad, but it was dulling every other emotion I was feeling! As someone who likes to emote, I decided to listen to my husband and talk to the doctor. He put me on Lexapro, and let me tell ya: I have been genuinely feeling like myself ever since starting it.
Coincidentally, my first day on Lexapro was the day that Damian passed away. I didn’t think the medicine was going to help me at all, but admittedly the grieving process has been much more emotionally manageable now that I have a working anti-depressant. When my coworker and friend passed earlier in the year, I could barely go about my day to day life. Citalopram kept me in bed until the very last second, work was a blur, time passed too fast and I was still stuck crying myself to sleep every night, if I even managed to make it to bed without crashing on the couch at two in the morning. It was not a great time.
The week before Damian’s passing, I had to wean myself off of Citalopram. Still reeling from my coworker’s death (even though it had been three or four months), I didn’t know how I was going to keep going without something to dull the grief. Of course, once Damian passed it was a whole other level of grief that no one could have prepared me for.
Lexapro not only helped me regulate how I was feeling, but it made it easier to grieve. I had a hold on my emotions for the first time in a year or so, and it honestly couldn’t have happened at a better time. I honestly think the depression plus the grief would have stopped me in my tracks if not for the medication change.
I know I talk about my mental health a lot, but I feel like it helps to talk about it because there’s still a huge hands-off, don’t-talk-about-it kind of mood surrounding the topic. If I can help with the normalization of speaking on mental health topics, then I’m gonna do it! Of course, I’m no expert, and I’ve told everyone I’ve talked about my med change to to really talk to their doctor if they want to start looking into anti-depressants or any other medicinal help. What works for me doesn’t work for everyone!
Music Obsessions
This has been a good month for music, in my opinion. Tyler Lyle (one half of the Midnight) is having a particularly busy July, releasing anniversary projects for the Midnight’s album Endless Summer as well as releasing a new single with his side project, Smith, Lyle, and Moore. A beautifully done reimagining of “Memories” is on the EP The Rearview Mirror, a collaboration between the Midnight and Magik*Magik celebrating Endless Summer, and SL&M released a great cover of the Steppenwolf song “Born to be Wild”.
Lil Nas X stays winning as well, with the release of his new single “INDUSTRY BABY” which features Jack Harlow. I’ve been obsessed with Lil Nas X since the beginning of his career, so I’m happy that not only is he doing his own thing on his own terms, but he’s thriving while doing it. I cannot WAIT until his album drops!
AlsoJakob (with Matt Watson), Aurora, and Bo Burnham all released some new stuff (well, Burnham released the song only version of “All Eyes on Me”), and I threw a few songs on there that Damian loved, Matt suggested, and one that I haven’t been able to get out of my head all month. I must’ve watched a lot of the Little Mermaid 2 around this time of year when I was younger, because the opening sequence has been replaying in my head nonstop all damn month. You guys get to suffer along with me, but it’s the first song so you won’t have to suffer for long!
Lots of variety on the playlist this month. Have fun listening to it here!
That’s it for July’s wrap-up! It’s been an up and down month, but it ended much better than it started. I’m hoping things will continue to look up going into August, especially since my birthday is coming up! It falls on a Sunday, so I’ll be able to celebrate it without having to go to work! Yay!
Feel free to follow me on Twitter for blog updates as well as goofy retweets and occasional doofy Mary tweets. I’ve been tweeting less thanks to being so busy, but you can always count on me tweeting the blog post out…at some point every Monday! Unless I forget. What am I if not consistently inconsistent?
For now, I hope you all enjoy the last week of July, stay cool in this hot weather, and enjoy each other! I’ve got some Plant Room Projects to research, so I’ll see you here next week! (and I’ll put it in my calendar to actually remember to post! Haha)
