Obsessions This Week: May 11–17, 2025
Polish poetry, yuzu kombucha, and giving people their flowers.
🔥 A Louisiana plantation from 1859 burned down
🎬 The Saoirse Ronan movie The Outrun
I guess this movie came out last year and I totally missed it. Have you seen it? Planning to stream this week, because the trailer alone was captivating. I love a Scottish accent and setting!!! Let’s go to the Orkney Islands!
📺 The new Meg Stalter/Lena Dunham show
I have never drunk the Lena Dunham haterade—for which I have receipts—and in fact have paid socially and publicly for the sin of liking her work on more than one occasion. Dunham’s entire gestalt has cast a long shadow over my own millennial art, and while I didn’t watch the majority of her TV show Girls, I will forever be grateful for the acne and body and vision on display in her 2010 film Tiny Furniture.
Watching that movie 15 years ago at the single-screen Oberlin, Ohio, movie theater marked the first time I ever felt seen watching a feature film, and I will always be interested in whatever Dunham is cooking. Did you know you don’t have to want to be friends with someone to appreciate their artistic output? Why do we apply the double standard of likability to femme filmmakers only? Why must I want to get a beer with someone to take them seriously as an artist when they’re in a female body?
Anyway, I also happen to enjoy the comedic stylings of Meg Stalter, and I am looking forward to the new show penned by Dunham and starring Stalter, appropriately entitled Too Much. There’s no trailer for it yet that I could find, but it drops on Netflix in July.
💐 A few of my favorite things
Creature’s in Eagle Rock (hat tip my friends Grace and Niki for introducing me to this place) - a plant store with a cafe and a 50-ft nursery on the east side
Dr. Jart+ face masks - especially the Cicapair one, which reduces redness
The unreal bouquet of blue hydrangeas and pink roses my friend
received on the day of her book launch that I get to enjoy while cat-sitting for her while she’s on her BOOK TOUR!
The TikTok joke (?)/trend of “Gingers are Black” - cringe but maybe sweet? As a (white) redhead, I’m trying to just watch this play out in silence while friends continue to send me the memes
Fermensch Kombucha (have I mentioned that I’m in LA?) - it’s got real cane sugar, which is best for people like me for whom fake sugars and replacements cause cluster headaches, and the yuzu flavor is crisp and refreshing
The namesake coffee drink at The Good Friend in East Hollywood, which has sweetened condensed coconut milk and cinnamon in it for good measure
🎼 My mom’s music
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