For some reason, since I started doing my morning walks, this song has been stuck in my head.
I mean, "walkin'" is in the title, so that tracks. But walking at seven or eight in the morning is too far after midnight to qualify for the sentiment. And my walks are purely for exercise, so that doesn't track either.
But it's a classic song with a great little groove to it. If this pops up on shuffle, you can do a nice little strut to spice up your walk.
More classical music should be remixed into jams, especially disco jams. It's in the public domain so it's not gonna be expensive. This is just a really groovy song to have fun to. I want more!
It was also the theme song to Mrs. America on Hulu, which is a great miniseries if you want something to binge and learn about the women's movement and the fight to pass the ERA in the 70s.
Apparently Friends is a big deal. People lost their shit when it left Netflix the first time so they spent $100 million to keep the rights for a year, and when that year was up they were in mourning the second time. But it found a new home in HBO Max so people can watch it to their hearts content again.
The only thing I don't understand about all of the panic is that Friends is not that great. I get that there are certain shows that are comforting, and you can just play on a bad day and feel relaxed. But there are better shows about friends hanging out and having shenanigans. New Girl. Brooklyn Nine-Nine. The Good Place. Parks and Recreation. Community. Living Single (aka The One That Friends Ripped Off).
It's fine. It's not revolutionary. There were no boundaries broken. Any edge was smoothed out. It was perfectly fine. The only thing I have found genuinely hilarious and made me laugh out loud was the trivia game that decided who got Monica and Rachel's apartment. The jokes were quick, and even though we were learning new information about these people we'd seen for, at that point, four seasons, none of it was out of left field.
Also, I don't care about Ross and Rachel. The constant will-they won't-they wasn't interesting to me, mainly because I don't think they were a good couple. Why were we as a people interested in them? What made them this special couple? I'm seriously asking because I don't know the answers to those questions. I do not understand the fascination with two people whose relationship was toxic and could never stick to it long-term.
My big issue with Friends and the hype surrounding it is that it's treated as one of the best comedies of all time. It isn't. Popular does not always equal best.
I just had the longest lasting stomach bug of my life. I've been fine the last couple days, so I think I'm in the clear and don't feel like I'm jinxing it by writing about it.
It started on Friday, May 8, thru Sunday, May 17. That is 10 days. 10 days of nausea, upset stomach, and not being able to eat a thing. The majority of the time in that stretch I couldn't do solid food. It was hell. Every single time I moved it was like a wave was rolling in.
I was actually starting to get better on Thursday, May 14. I had gone to urgent care the day before and got some meds. Then the next day a brush fire started in Starkey Park and the smoke was awful. On top of the potential of having to evacuate the house and it potentially burn to the ground, my stomach bug was also at square one.
When I start my morning walks, I like to pick a song you can strut to. Like "Stayin' Alive" by The Bee Gees or "(You Drive Me) Crazy" by Britney Spears or "Crazy in Love" by Beyonce. It's a good groove, up beat but not at a super fast tempo. Well, you can add Niall's "Small Talk" to that list. I could also add his single "Nice To Meet Ya" to this growing list of strut songs, but I want to focus on "Small Talk" because it's an album track and not a single.
When you listen to an album all the way through for the first time, you never know which track is gonna stick with you first. This is the song that stuck with me. It grooves.
Earlier this week, the miniseries adaptation of the book Normal People dropped on Hulu. Now, I am in a bit of a pickle because I have copy of the book, but it's in my apartment in New York while I'm quarantining at home in Florida.
Here are my options:
Watch the show and not read the book.
Wait until I can get back to New York to read the book and then watch the show, who knows when that will happen.
Get another copy of the book and I'm out an extra $20 I don't have to be, and I'm a notorious cheapskate.
Usually, it's a coin toss as to whether I read the book beforehand. It really depends on how interested in the story I am, and there's a lot if interest around the adaptation. I read Little Women before the Greta Gerwig movie came out, but I didn't read Little Fires Everywhere before the miniseries started on Hulu. At some point I'll circle back to the original novel, because it'd be interesting to see what changes were made.
I also really liked Sally Rooney's first novel, Conversations With Friends, and Normal People, was her big breakout here in the states. There's a reason why Normal People was adapted first. I want to read the book more than I want to watch the show. But I don't have the book with me and I need things to occupy my brain.
We'll see. I may find other shows to watch before I even get around to starting this one, so hopefully I can distract myself with other television that I'm not wanting for it as much and I can hold out.
