#47: long time reader, first time writer

Kaitlynn's on vacation so a friend is taking over!!

hi hi hi sisters ♡ As you all already know, Kaitlynn is OOO for a couple weeks (on a super fun trip and we’re so jealous of her!) so today and next Monday it looks like you’re stuck with me 😈

My name’s Alyssa and I’m Kaitlynn’s roommate here in NYC. Kaitlynn and I met in college through mutual friends and kept in touch via texting and Marco Polo when she moved. And very happily for me, I was immediately won over by the city when I visited Kaitlynn a few years ago and moved in with her as soon as I graduated in 2022. And we’ve been bestie roommates ever since! Our header pic this week is from that first month in New York together. We’re so cute :’) Love you, Kaitlynn!!!!!!!!

I’m a little overwhelmed about trying to figure out how to introduce myself here?? Like I’m so intimidated by all the cool substack girlies (gender-neutral!) who could be reading this! But I guess I’ll just tell you some things I love so you can have a little sense of who I am:

(oop accidental reference to Taylor Swift’s spoken line in Daylight, “I want to be defined by the things I love”!)

• pigeons (and really all birds)

• movies!!! my letterboxd top 4 at this precise moment (I switch them around regularly) are La La Land, Asteroid City, Little Women, and Perfect Days

• hot and spicy cheezits (as alluded to in my substack username which is in fact @alshotandspicycheezits)

• Jane Austen, John Steinbeck, Sally Rooney, and Suzanne Collins

• Hadestown!!!!! like you don’t understand—I’m obSESSED

• laying in grass, looking up at leafy trees

• every song Billie Eilish and Finneas have ever written

Okay now let’s get into it!!!!

Keeping with Kaitlynn’s recent series of recommending her favorite Substacks, I’d like to recommend two of my favs as well. Hmm That’s Interesting by Clara is “culture thoughts of/for/by the chronically online.” To give you an idea of what to expect, Clara wrote recently about Simone Biles and her perfect response to MyKayla Skinner calling the USA women’s gymnastics team lazy in leaning into pettiness (complimentary). I also loved her piece why are we all so into emily henry novels? a couple months ago. She was a Substack featured writer last year and for very good reason! She also has some more serious political commentaries, like when she wrote earlier this summer about why the DNC needed to replace Biden, and I love that side of the newsletter as well. And she’s great at sharing super interesting articles from other writers on topics that interest her!

Rec number two has to be New Means by Joshua P. Hill, which is about “politics in the broadest possible ways” and how different political ideas/actions have and will affect our world. Negation is not enough really struck a chord with me. In it, Joshua writes about how we on the political left need to focus a bit more on building rather than just critiquing.

“We will not win by building a movement solely of critique, a movement that says everything is wrong and nothing is right. We are required to build, we are required to present a positive vision, difficult as that may be.”

Say it again for the people in the back, Joshua!

movies: saw Dìdi (2024) and looooved it. The director, Sean Wang, got on my radar last Oscar season with his nominated short, Nǎi Nai & Wài Pó (2023) (on Disney+!! WATCH IT!!!). Fun fact, the grandmother in Dìdi is Wang’s ACTUAL grandmother!! I recognized her immediately and it made me so happy. She’s so cute. The movie is hilarious and earnest and it made me cry about missing my brothers. So what are you waiting for—go see it! Also watched Barbie (2023) for the third time and just giggled my little heart out. Someone get me on the phone with the choreographer for I’m Just Ken because I would like to personally thank them for their contribution to society.

music: this week I’ve mostly been listening to Clairo’s new album, Charm, and my own coastal cozy playlist. I made it last November for a Rhode Island trip and haven’t listened to it since, but it randomly came back into my mind so I’ve been listening again and ngl… i kinda ate with that one.

books: finished The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie on a flight this past week. It’s only the second Christie novel I’ve read (both Hercule Poirot mysteries) but I’m excited to read more by her because they’re seriously sooo much fun. Listened to the audiobook of White Tears/Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color by Ruby Hamad and highly recommend it!! Essential feminist literature!! Also started Memento Mori by Eunice Hong at the recommendation of my coolest friend, Faith, and am loving it so far. Calling all lovers of reimaginings of the Eurydice/Orpheus myth!!!

in my mind: soooo I can’t stop thinking about Twisters (2024) and I’m not sorry. Like it’s been almost a month and I still think about it probably close to daily because I just loved it so much. And also because I get so much Daisy Edgar-Jones and Glen Powell content fed to me *everywhere*. Like this podcast interview with Emma Chamberlain or this substack article on the power of Powell. It’s fr a multi-media takeover. Podcasts, articles, music (this Leon Bridges song!!!!), photos, videos. So. Much. Twisters. Content. I’m not mad though

in my stomach: happy to announce I’m back on my same-old grilled cheese sandwich shit. I think it’s because the temperature outside has taken a minor dip and grilled-cheeses are so fall to me (I know, I KNOW we still have a month of summer left!! I just love fall so I’m excited okaaaay!?). And let me put y’all on something. A simple grilled cheese made with Trader Joe’s Tuscan Pane bread, colby jack cheese, and butter, finished with a little pinch of salt over the top when it’s done cooking, and then—wait for it—dipped in a little lazy-girl-tomato-soup. And by lazy-girl-tomato-soup I mean THIS pasta sauce (or whatever you have, but this stuff is lovely) thinned out with a bit of cream. Or I guess you could use milk if you don’t have any cream, but for some reason I feel like we always have cream in our fridge leftover from a random recipe, so this is a perfect way to put that to good use. And you don’t even need to use a pot. Like I just pour those two into my dipping bowl and pop that in the microwave. I told you it was lazy! But you know what else it is? DELICIOUS. I can’t stop and quite frankly I don’t ever want to so don’t try to make me!

Let’s talk about the 2024 Paris Olympics since they have now (tragically) come to an end. I can’t even count the number of times I have been brought to joyful tears over these Olympic games. First of all, I’m just so stunned at the talent of these people. And second of all, my heart is bursting at all of the little displays of humanity and comradery between both teammates and competitors.

The joy in this picture of gymnasts Simone Biles, Rebeca Andrade, and Jordan Chiles says it all:

The other week, Kaitlynn mentioned Juliette Armanet’s cover of John Lennon’s “Imagine” performed at the opening ceremony, and I was right there with her in being deeply moved by it. Those lyrics will always strike a chord. Most especially,

You may say I’m a dreamer / But I’m not the only one / I hope someday you’ll join us / And the world will be as one

Something so magical about the Olympics is that it puts the dreamers on display and shows us that sometimes dreams can come true, especially when paired with real effort. And our dreams for a better world must be thought of in the same way—our better world will only come if we are committed to it and put in the work.

I was also struck this time around by these lines:

Imagine there's no heaven / It's easy if you try […] / Imagine all the people / Livin' for today

I’m an atheist-leaning agnostic myself, and I don’t interpret this as saying that it’s necessarily bad to believe in an afterlife, but I do believe Lennon wants us to think about how our actions might be different here if we knew there wasn’t one, or at least operated under the assumption that there isn’t. Not in a there-are-no-consequences way, but in a way where this life is considered so supremely sacred simply because maybe it’s all there is. How might people behave differently if they knew that the only chance that we have at living in peace is by making it happen here on earth, instead of believing that everything will just work itself out in heaven? I think Lennon is saying that if more people thought that way, maybe they would also feel it more important to work themselves towards creating that peace, and turning our world into a heaven on earth however best we can, despite it being an uphill battle (I know this is the understatement of the century).

“Imagine all the people livin for today,” he says. Imagine all the people consistently working towards positive changes in the world instead of being halted by hopelessness or (even worse) apathy, believing that only God can fix things. Living for today!! Living for THIS world!! It can be beautiful to believe in heaven as a sanctuary, where people can finally rest, but I also feel that we need to be accountable to each other to do the best we can for one another as long as we’re here. That means staying politically engaged and it means voting in local elections as well as national ones and donating to organizations that are taking action and volunteering in your community. And it means never stopping our calls for a ceasefire in Gaza and keeping that fire under our politicians’ asses until they make it happen.

So I’m committing that I’ll always keep that dream of peace at the forefront of my mind and that I’ll keep working towards it, alongside my fellow dreamers, as long as I get to be here. Thank you, Paris Olympics 2024. I’ll never forget you!!!

tiktok: did this make me cry? why, yes; I love Nikki Hiltz; this dancer is hypnotizing

pinterest: a reminder; something that made me giggle; me af

and I unfortunately do not do a lot of instagram exploring so here are some youtube links instead! I love when we get a new song and video all at once; this was a delight to my ears, eyes, and heart; I’m obsessed with them

Woof that was long! Kaitlynn may never let me write for her again!

But if she does, I’ll see you then :)