Music You Should Hear December 10 2023

i look at my profile often and wonder what else i can remove. i used to have over 150 reviews, did you know that? some more images. some more listening history. i have like 60 lists privated, many containing text in even more flagrant violation of basic internet safety than this one. i wish it could all go away but everyone could still look at it but nobody could look at it. and there are too many things that i just can't say here. but there are things that i can only say here, too. last year i said i was done forever with writing on rateyourmusic in ways not explicitly comedic or expressive of a positive opinion of a piece of music because i thought it was maybe hurting me. but all of a sudden i miss it desperately. ha ha tee hee. do i betray my stekker & phineus ii - friends by writing about them? probably i do. it doesn't seem to stop me. ok well i started to feel really guilty about it so i changed all the names.

there's too much. where is it all supposed to go? everything is just fluff like watching a movie.

i have a friend named jordan. jordan asks me a lot if ive seen xyz tik tok. my standard response for a long time was “I don’t have tik tok”; jordan found it very funny i said this instead of just "no". over time this developed into an inside joke, where im so desperate to tell people that I’m not on tik tok because I think it makes me so cool. jordan will be like “oh did you see that tik tok where etc” and ill be like really pointedly “um? Actually? In case you didnt know, I don’t actually /use/ tik tok???? So I don’t know what that is, sorry” in a dramatic way you know what I mean. And we laugh its very funny. Although to be honest, I sometimes wish jordan would just remember that I don’t have tik tok and instead of saying “have you seen this tik tok”, say “look at this tik tok” or “I saw this tik tok”. It’s just a little twinge.

The waymo cars (driverless uber basically) are in heavy operation now whenever im in the city. It doesnt feel real. I saw jordans friend tom the other day and he said he was accepted to the beta, or whatever it is theyre doing now . Then we went to a rock climbing gym with one of toms housemates, whose name I cant remember but I met him once before when jordan and I dropped stuff off at toms. When we had gotten up to leave, he had run over to shake my hand and tell me how VERY nice it had been to meet me. Jordan and i remember him as “that guy who really liked me”. There were 3 more of toms housemates at the gym when we got there, which makes it a majority. I was sitting down at one point and he (the housemate) came over and sat down and said “I heard you started a new job!” The only way he wouldve known that is if jordan had talked to tom who talked to him. He asked about it and whether I liked it. I was honest and said I didn’t feel that great about it and it wasn’t what I wanted to do. He asked what I did want to do . I told him I wasn’t really sure, but I didn’t want to have to think about it the way you think about teaching. I said I didn’t want my life to be about work. I talked about retail, food service, industrial labor, etc. when I used the phrase “factory floor”, he asked me where I live, and said he might know of a factory. I said do tell. He said he knew of a factory in sunnyvale that makes computers. “You know foxconn?” He said. He told me it’s the company that makes the iphone, and that this sunnyvale factory is just like them. He knows about them, he said, because he works for a company that makes AI systems for other companies, and the factory in sunnyvale makes big, powerful computers for them to run them on. I said I wasn’t sure that was what i was looking for, and that I imagined something more like moving heavy things around or sanding wood. (Interstitally I sighed for having thought of “sanding wood” in particular.) “you could make surfboards!” He said. I could just carefully sand and shape the perfect board, that would be a lot of sanding wood, he said. “There’s probably tons of surfboard manufacturers in half-moon bay.” He’s probably right, there probably are. That’s where the mavericks are (ish). half-moon bay calls pacifica “pathetica” according to a boy from high school (the first boy jordan had sex with (who he still thinks about and texted a few months ago but recieved no response)). I think thats a surfer thing. tom came back and talked to him about the V3 they were trying to climb. jordan was elsewhere, on the rowing machine.

the other day (a month ago or so) I got onto a train and most of the seats were taken, beside the accessible ones by the doors. On bart, the accessible seats face toward the aisle, while the other seats face towards the front or back of the train. I decided to remain standing . A minute later, a man sitting in standard seats directly in front of the accessible ones motioned for me to sit . Without really thinking, I sat. The man was maybe 60, asian, wearing a dark hoodie and dark cargo pants, both heavily stained. he leaned forward and asked me “do you want to see a magic trick?” He spoke with a slow, rounded sort of cadence that gave me the impression he might be deaf. I said sure, why not. He sat back in his chair, put his hands into his sweatshirt pocket, and sat there. A minute or so passed in silence; I made eye contact with a lady sitting with her friend opposite the aisle. The man eventually removed his hands from his pocket and was holding a small sliver of cardboard not bigger than his thumbnail. He showed it to me. He then proceeded to flawlessly perform that magic trick where you pretend to show someone both sides of the thing while actually only showing one side , and then seem to change the color of the object by passing your hand over it when all youre really doing is flipping the object around. it was well done, and I reacted with great enthusiasm, much to his joy. He shook my hand so many times afterward. He asked for a donation so i gave him what i had. He told me “I want to take it to penn and teller.” I said oh, I know them! “You know them?!” He said. I clarified that I was only familiar with their show, I don’t know them personally. But he should go for it I said. He smiled and shook my hand again. He thanked me a lot. Then I got off at 16th st mission, walked up 3 blocks to dolores, walked two blocks over to 18th, took off my shoes, walked across the flat part of dolores park, climbed the hill on the other side, sat down leaning against my favorite lamppost, and smoked a joint.

this tune still fucking rules.

the school im working at is one of the richest primary schools in the city. on my third day we had our weekly staff meeting upstairs. The theme for this week was how to approach political issues and “current events” in the classroom . The head of school and DEIB (diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging; "Diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) are four concepts that work together to boost team dynamics, productivity, and innovation within your organization. With DEIB at the core of your mission, you ensure that each team member has equal opportunities to do their best work and feels valued." top google result) lead led the meeting and made it very clear that while they /definitely/ arent just talking about palestine, theyre mostly talking about palestine. The head of school pointed to a passage in the schools guidelines/manifesto/etc about protecting children, and asked us to refrain from sharing political sentiments with our classes. Examples they gave of political sentiments: “ceasefire now”, “free gaza”, “I stand with israel”. Example of approved statements in line with the school’s values and mission statement were “peace now” and “end all wars, everywhere”. The head of school told us to bear in mind we are a diverse school with a wide range of feelings and connections and political views and etc about things. “We have students who’ve lost 65 family members in the last month…” she said, deadly serious, “…and students who are seeing signs that they feel are perhaps antisemitic.” my mother has worked at this school for more than 15 years. i worked here for 6 months in 2018/19, and my sister worked here for 3 months last year. it is also the school that yuying and jordan went to for kindergarten through eighth grade.

on the way to the rock climbing gym, jordan called tom to coordinate picking him up. we were at the base of haight by ggp, and tom lives on along the north side of the panhandle. jordan was confused about which way to drive; he thought we were facing north. tom said we should get something to eat after we climb. jordan and i said it was ok, but that we would just watch, since we had already eaten. "oh, also laurel," tom said, deadly serious, "if you're open to it, i think my last mukbang wasn't very good, so i could improve on it this time." tom was referring to the last time i had seen him, when he, jordan, and i had been on a video call for some unfathomable reason and he was eating food and i in jest asked him to do a mukbang for me. i stammered in reponse, and eventually said it was fine last time, but i was looking forward to seeing how he improved. "oh my god laurel, thats--thank you!" he said. he sounded genuinely touched. when he got in the car, he said "it's my favorite people!" he suggested we go to a japanese restaurant with a 30 minute wait. he worried his girlfriend anne would feel left out of climbing. he thought maybe we could invite her to eat after, if everyone was willing to go back to pick her up, except maybe not, since then we would have to go back to put our names down for a 30 minute wait, which might be just too long for people anyway, and jordan wondered why anne couldn't go put our names down, and tom said he couldnt ask her to do that, like, what, was he just going to ask anne to go put our names down at /his/ restaurant, that's just, that's not an option, and jordan reasoned it’s /our/ restaurant since we’d all be going, and tom searched for words and evetually said he just thinks we really shouldn’t ask anne to do it. jordan couldn't understand this exchange. jordan always complains to me later when tom says that sort of thing. later, after we had parted ways with tom, jordan brought up the mukbang exchange, which had apparently confused him. i explained that i had just said exactly what tom had wanted to hear. oh, jordan said.

the other day (two days ago) jordan told me pollsters currently rank donald trump as the most likely candidate to win the 2024 US presidential election.

one time early this year jordan and yuying were at my house and the three of us were in the living room, watching something on the tv. it was late and we had already done everything we had meant to that day. yuying was on a chair the left of the couch, jordan was on the left side of the couch, and i was on the right. a 3-person couch. yuying was watching the tv. jordan was looking at his phone. he saw a funny tik tok and leaned over to show it to me. i looked at it and something puzzling or surprising happened, i don't remember what. i was leaning to the left, my weight partially on my elbow and partially on my back against the cushions, and i took my hand from where my head was resting on it and cocked it to the left in a questioning gesture. it happened to be rather close to jordans face. as the tik tok progressed he carefully leaned the right side of his face into my hand, my fingertips near his ear. i held completely still. yuying never looked. the tik tok ended and he leaned back over to his side.

another time a bit before that, me and him and yuying and tom and anne and this other guy misha who yuying and jordan and i were friends with in high school were all in jordan's suite (at [university]; this before he graduated). it was like 3am. we were in the living room watching spirited away. everyone was nodding off one after another in the array of plush chairs and couches the four residents had scavenged. jordan and i were on a two person couch in the middle of the room, yuying to my left, misha to jordan's right, and tom and anne went back to tom's room. i asked jordan for a blanket and he brought one and spread it over both of us. eventually misha and yuying had fallen asleep. jordan laid to the right, resting his head on the armrest, and suddenly obliquely shoved his left leg sideways, intertwining it with mine beneath the blankets. then he pretended to be asleep. eventually i got up and put out all the lights, turned off the movie, sat back down, and slid my legs back into the position they had been in. then i leaned back and fell asleep.

in january, jordan is moving to australia. the reason he is moving to australia is that his boyfriend of 2 years aiden got a job there. he expects to be there for at least a couple years. he never seems happy about it. he talks about it maybe every other time we see each other and he never smiles. he worries about being able to find a job (one which employs one or preferably both of things he has degrees in (environmental systems engineering & computer science)). he worries about culture shock and being unable to find his people. and he worries about aiden, feeling disconnected from him, feeling they lack common ground, wanting him to engage more with things important to jordan, struggling to get him to open up. he feels irritated by the prevalence of aiden's insecurities, and doesn't understand how to respond when aiden voices them. he feels guilty for feeling this way.

there were other times. we flirt a lot, honestly. yuying made a passive aggressive comment about it once. i don't know why i participate. those two times are the only times it’s felt soft. when he's right there i can feel it, but it's hard to remember it when he's gone. it doesnt stick in me or take me over. it seems likely that what entices me is largely just that he seems to want something from me, which feels very close to wanting me. one time was my birthday this year. we took shrooms and they were stronger than we expected. we rapidly developed a thinly veiled system of coded language (derived from house md) to talk about our desires and the prohibition aiden represented. jordan really wanted something to happen. we touched briefly a few times, fingers to palm or forehead to forehead, but nothing else. i cried for a bit at one point and he got scared and went to the kitchen until i stopped. i said i was sorry for withdrawing so suddenly. he said it was ok. the whole trip i felt nauseous, so nauseous, and it wouldn't go away, and i wouldn't throw up. i shouldve stuck my fingers down my throat but i've always been so afraid to do that. later we walked down to the cliffs at sunset. there was a large rug facedownin the sand that we crouched on. the sunset was so beautiful. i've never see nanything like it. shades of pink moved rapidly, visibly, across the sky in cycles. the whole thing rippled. I'm used to overwhelming sunsets, I've seen a lot in my life, but this one was special. it was endless bursting rippling motion, bars fanning out and spreading. we talked about nothing. aiden came up tangentially once; jordan wouldn't say his name, and only said "oh, that was someone else who said that." someone else being aiden. we went back into the city, and at jordans request i went with him to tom and anne's house's housewarming party. i tried to have fun, and i did have some at first, but i fell silent eventually. i stayed for an hour and then went outside to wander the panhandle and smoke weed. "im still an introvert, you know. i need time to myself, and it's been a long day, so i might not stay for that long", i had warned jordan before we arrived. he knows, ive told him lots, that parties have never been my thing, i've never had a good experience at one, they make me uncomfortable, etc. "oh. yeah, I always forget that," he had said. he seemed disappointed, but it mightve just been me. i assured him he didn't have to leave with me, and I would just wait for him outside. he was okay with this. i saw him later and he drove me home. he told me on the way back to the car that he wished i could've stayed for longer.

before we called tom, on our way down to haight, jordan told me misha came out as bisexual. "In the opposite way from me, though, if you know what I mean" he said. "i know what you mean" I said.

🔲🔳