Rosy Mishmash, Vol. 1

As has become standard for 2025, I’m having a bad brain time. I know I’m not alone with this. So, as I was trying to decide what I wanted to write about this week, I came up with the idea of talk about random things throughout the first four months of the year. Last year, I tried to think of the year in quarters, but the end of Q1 through my life into a bit of chaos. Instead, I broke the year up into thirds, and what do you know? Here we are, about a third of the way through 2025.

Here’s the mishmash!

Music

Alessia Cara “Love & Hyperbole”: This was what I originally thought about writing for the newsletter. I was delayed at listening to her new album (released on 2/14), and when I finally got to listen to it, it struck me how much of her work is about anxiety. And to be honest, this shouldn’t have been groundbreaking. Her first single, “Here”, was about social anxiety. Her second album “The Pains of Growing” was obviously about growing up and the anxiety from that. Third album “In the Meantime” had a focus on her insomnia.

For an album called “Love & Hyperbole”, I didn’t expect so much focus on anxiety, even though most of it had to do with romantic relationships. It’s always interesting to me to see artists almost a decade younger than me write songs that I can relate to. She’s always been an extraordinary talent, and I’m glad the industry hasn’t dulled her shine. In a different world, I’d be seeing her on tour this week, but she postponed her US dates and I’m still waiting for the new schedule. I’m curious to see how she performs this album and her others.

Coachella livestream (week 1): As someone who struggles in large crowds and hates the heat, Coachella is literally my worst nightmare. It’s always fun looking at the headliners and other acts though! The past two years, I’ve really enjoyed the livestreams on Youtube. Last year, I adored watching No Doubt’s sets both weekends.

This year, I wasn’t as into all the acts. I pretty much singled out Saturday as the day to pay attention (sorry, Lady Gaga was way too late for me! I am old!). Although I’ve seen Jimmy Eat World before (their “Futures” 10th anniversary tour! and opening for Green Day in 2005!), I was curious to hear their set. It’s been six years since their last album, “Surviving”, but they’ve been touring a lot since. Having their set open with “Pain” was perfect, and when they got to “Sweetness” (my favorite song), I was convinced that this Coachella was pandering to millennials even though most millennials would never actually attend the show.

I also really enjoyed Charli XCX’s set, especially as she had no dancers on that big stage with her. Obviously, her guests, Troye Sivan, Lorde, and Billie Eilish, were highlights. She puts on a great show, and I do love “brat” very much. But I also can’t believe she didn’t do “Boom Clap”?!

Books

My favorite books from the first three months of the year all had to do with time: Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock by Jenny Odell, The Seven Year Slip by Ashley Poston, and The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley. I know this means something, but I can’t figure it out yet.

I’ve already discussed Saving Time which was about feeling like you’re running out of time. The Seven Year Slip was about trusting the timing of your life and when and who enters it. There’s magical realism and a bit of time travel element for this romance that worked for me extremely well. And then there’s The Ministry of Time, a true time travel novel about how to live with your mistakes and learn from them.

I’ve been in survival mode for way too long, and I don’t know how to break the cycle with everything going on, so I really took solace in these reads.

It’s baseball season, and my Yankees are doing better than expected (because they’re missing their ace, Gerritt Cole, and one of their big hitters, Giancarlo Stanton). I’ve picked up two baseball romances, which are making me deliriously happy.

First, The Art of Catching Feelings by Alicia Thompson was just so cute despite lies of omission. I started reading it before baseball season started, and it really got me excited. The atmosphere Thompson evoked was perfect, and I found Daphne relatable and falling super hard for Chris.

I haven’t finished this one yet, but I’m reading You Should Be So Lucky by Cat Sebastian right now. It’s a historical romance, taking place in the ‘60s and it’s queer. It follows a baseball player traded to New York (the Robins, not a real team) and a journalist set to write dairy entries for him. There’s a lot going on in this as there’s homophobia and racism as was the time, but there’s also the fact that the journalist is grieving the loss of his partner, and reading how he opens himself up again has been heartwarming.

The final book I want to talk about is Here We Go Again by Alison Cochrun. This one is also a lot as it’s about two ex-best friends who have to take their dying teacher on a final road trip. Also, they’re both gay and neurodivergent. It’s extremely moving, a solid summer read, but obviously emotional! I really related to how both women navigated their ADHD as it manifested differently for both of them.

Fresh Starts

It’s finally spring which means fresh starts. I get one major haircut every year. And this year was a STRUGGLE. I use Groupon, and the first place I got, the stylist cancelled on me TWICE. My hair was severely damaged, and I needed a change. Eventually, I got a refund and a different Groupon, and have been loving my hair for the past week. I don’t really do anything drastic (although this time I got curtain bangs!), but my hair feels so much healthier and that’s what I needed most of all.

I also got a new phone! It has been lovely having my phone not die after like three hours!

Novel Gauntlet

I’ve mentioned previously that I write stories. While being an author would be nice, I don’t know if I’ve written anything good enough to published. I used to partake in NaNoWriMo, although I was never successful except maybe for Camp NaNo which took place in April and July and was a little less stressful. But NaNoWriMo is now dead, and I found Novel Gauntlet to take its place.

And I haven’t done well! Originally, I started with a 30,000 word count rewriting one of my (many) unfinished romcoms. I thought I really had unlocked it this time, making it dual POV, and getting back to my original idea. But life happened. A perfect storm of poor time management and the horrors of the country combined, and I’m barely at 8,000 words. Literally nothing has happened plot-wise, the two characters merely have met. It’s only been two days in the story.

I think this is my problem. I have ideas, a good concept and how I want to end it, but I struggle at the details. The messy middle almost never gets written! This shouldn’t be surprising as I had trouble writing papers in high school because I hated putting too many details in, but that’s not how fiction works. And I really wish I could unlock that part of my brain to make something worthy of people reading!

Hope your spring is going well. Let me know what you’re working on or enjoying lately!