The Traitors, Vertigo, and Salted Caramel Cheesecake
September 2024 Round-Up
Welcome to your September 2024 Bi-Monthly Round-Up!
Summer was busyyyyyyyy. I swear we spent 90% of our free time working on indoor and outdoor house projects, and the other 10% of time trying to recover from those projects. We finally feel more settled and are starting to claw our way back into some of our routines and pick up the slack on things we put on the back burner while navigating moving chaos. And that means new recommendations for you!
For those who are new here, every two months I put together a list of all of my favorites across a handful of categories, including what I’ve been listening to, watching, purchasing, and more (note that any affiliate links will be clearly marked with an asterisk). So let’s get into my recs from July and August.
Music I’ve Been Vibing With
It’s been a great summer for full albums, so I’ll focus on those in this round-up and save singles for next time.
There’s Gracie Abrams’s The Secret of Us. My favorite tracks are “Felt Good About You,” “Risk,” and “I Love You, I’m Sorry.”
Short n’ Sweet by Sabrina Carpenter has been rightfully blowing up. I really enjoy her use of humor in her songs (my favorite line in “Slim Pickins,” a song about how she’s progressively lowered her standards for men, is, “And since the Lord forgot my gay awakenin’”). Top picks for me include, “Taste,” “Sharpest Tool,” and “Dumb & Poetic.”
And lastly, Griff’s Vertigo. I love her voice. I love her songs. Y’all know I’ve been listening to “Vertigo” since the single was first released, and lately I’ve been dancing around to “Tears For Fun,” “Anything,” and “Pillow In My Arms”—“Oh, it loves me in the morning and it loves me in the evening | And it loves me when everyone is sleeping | And it's all that I've got left.”
What I’ve Been Watching
We flew through both seasons of The Traitors on Peacock, and Alan Cumming earned the hell out of his Emmy win for Outstanding Host For A Reality Or Reality Competition Program (ending RuPaul’s eight-year reign). His outfits? His theatrics? His adorable dog, Lala, in the second season? PERFECTION.
The show is high camp. The challenges are either unique (imitating bird calls? having to play common songs on bells in a tower?) or diabolical (please never invite me to that cabin in the woods). The drama is delicious. You go back and forth between rooting for the traitors and rooting for the faithfuls. If you like reality TV and competition shows, you can’t go wrong with this one.
I loved the first two parts of the Simone Biles Rising mini-series on Netflix, and I can’t wait for the third part to drop showcasing how she dominated at the Paris Olympics this year. I’m just so happy for her that she listened to her mind and body, took the steps to care for herself, and then came back stronger than ever.
I also watched the I Am: Celine Dion documentary. My mom is a huge Celine fan, and I have a very early memory of the “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now” music video playing on the TV (I would have been 6 or 7). The documentary crushed me, so have tissues nearby if you watch it. I lost it completely when she sang along with Wyn Starks’s “Who I Am” at the end. *sob*
Finally, we watched all of I Kissed a Girl—the sapphic reality TV dating show that premiered on BBC this past May (it’s on Hulu currently). It was nice to see a cast of all lesbian and bisexual folks, and they had some deep conversations about queerness, labels, and stereotypes amidst the typical reality show relationship drama.
For My Book Nerds
One of the free audiobooks I selected recently as part of my participation in the MacMillan Audio Influencer Program was The Wedding People* by Alison Espach. I thought it was poignant and beautifully written. Alison captured all of the mixed feelings that arise in the aftermath of divorce, including despair, humor, and hope, in her prose, then wove it into a completely unexpected setting. One of the best books I’ve read this year!
I’m also about 80% of the way through Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow* by Gabrielle Zevin (I’m late to the game, I know), and I’ve been enjoying the ride (even though I just got through that part and was devastated). It’s been a while since I’ve read a book with an omniscient narrator, and the way the story is pieced together through multiple POVs is well done. Don’t let the gaming theme keep you from picking this one up! The story is more about love, loss, and friendship than it is about video games.
Products I Recommend
Moving for the second time in a year was expensive, so we’ve been trying to cut back a lot on purchases and up our side hustle game to recover our finances. Especially because our wedding is just over a year away and we are paying for it ourselves. #BudgetingBitches
The most exciting things I’ve purchased in the past couple of months have been:
A personal laminator machine.* Yes, I now own my own label maker* AND laminator. I am a menace of organization. Hear me cackle in the key of efficiency!
I bought this Anker Charging Station* (which I think is intended for conference tables) and put it on a little wall shelf behind our couch. It gives us easier access to multiple plugs, we keep a USB cable plugged into it permanently for phone charging, and it has two retractable USB-C cables included.
This lovely 10” plant pot (I have it in White Honeycomb) for my first monstera!* My MIL gifted me a baby monstera when she visited in July, and I named her “Mother Monster.” So far, I’ve kept her alive and enjoyed all her new shoots!
Recipes
These Honey Glazed Salmon Bowls were popular in our house (I added edamame, chopped carrots, and these miso mushrooms, too).
I baked this Salted Caramel Cheesecake for Jessie’s birthday, and it was a huge hit. I struggled with my first batch of caramel using the recipe she provided, so I switched to my tried and true method (seen in this TikTok video), and the caramel came out perfectly on attempt number two. I was proud there were no cracks in the cheesecake either! Water bath success.
That’s it for this round-up! If you have questions or want to chat about anything I included, don’t hesitate to comment (if you’re a paid subscriber) or reach out via email. You can also find all of the past round-ups you may have missed here.
Queerly yours,
Shohreh
*Links with an asterisk are affiliate links. If you purchase items using those links, I may be eligible for a small commission which helps support my writing and other content.
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