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A Short Ode to Maggie Smith

A few years ago, I watched a series called Downton Abbey. If you haven’t seen it, it is about a wealthy family living on an estate in the early 20th century and the staff who work for them. Lord Grantham and Lady Grantham live a comfortable life with their three daughters: Mary, Edith and Sybil. Mary is the eldest and faces a lot of pressure to find a husband so she can carry on an heir. The staff at Downton also have their own backstories as well. Thomas Barrow is a closeted gay man, Mrs. O’Brien is super gossipy and is friends with Thomas until later in the show when she leaves to work for another lady, Anna and Mr. Bates have a thing going on that is really sweet, and Daisy and Mrs. Patmore have a really special bond. One of the characters I absolutely love, though, is Maggie Smith’s character. Maggie Smith plays the Dowager Countess at Downton Abbey, and when she meets Isobel, she is not happy because Isobel is trying to be chatty and friendly and show off her expertise as a doctor. In one episode, there is a butler named Mr. Molesley who has a rash on his hand, and immediately Isobel puts her doctor training to use and starts grabbing all sorts of tinctures and remedies for his hand, diagnosing the condition as erysipelas. Dr. Clarkson tells her gently to cool it, but Isobel insists on treating Mr. Molesley’s hand rash herself. However, the Dowager Countess only finds it amusing that Isobel is so quick to diagnose Mr. Molesley’s hand condition, and when she examines it she laughs and says that it is actually a rue allergy, not erysipelas. She walks off before Isobel can argue with her, and when the Dowager Countess walks off, she has this smug grin on her face. However, eventually the Dowager Countess warms up to Isobel, and they end up becoming good friends even if they don’t always agree on everything. The Dowager Countess has so many great lines, and I also love her elaborate and stylish hats!

I haven’t watched her older, older roles, but I love Maggie Smith as Professor McGonagall in Harry Potter. It was my first Maggie Smith movie, and I love her acting in that series. I really liked her in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, too.

7 Shows I Really Love

I remember when I was younger, my parents would limit my time watching TV to weekends. During the week, we were focused on school, so we weren’t allowed to watch TV. I think this helped immensely. I’m guessing the only exception to the no-TV rule was Oprah Winfrey’s show on ABC on weekdays. Oprah would often talk about important topics such as nutrition, getting out of debt and managing finances, and various disturbing life experiences, such as the woman who went to an ATM at night and had to beat up a man who assaulted her and claimed to be her husband. I loved a lot of Arthur and Between the Lions, and as I’ve grown older, I’m becoming more addicted to YouTube, which is technically TV to me. I am also starting to binge-watch a lot of shows. I always get this heavy feeling when a show is over, but then I understand that these people need to move on in their careers and do other stuff. These are a few of the TV shows I have binge-watched these past few years:

  1. Blackish: This was a really good show. I was sad when it ended but also understood that the actors needed to move on and do other things. It’s about a middle-class African American family living in Los Angeles who are trying to navigate living in a predominantly white neighborhood. Dre is the father of four (and later five) kids: twins Jack and Diane, his teenage son, Junior, his teenage daughter, Zoey, and his baby son, Devante. Dre’s parents, Pops and Ruby, live together with the family and they are hilarious. The show has some funny moments but also brings up serious issues, like one episode where Dre and his coworkers debated about the 2016 election and another where they are addressing police brutality in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. Dre also works as the only Black person in his department (until Wanda Sykes pops in some of the episodes to call out Stevens and Lido on their shit. Those moments were priceless.) so he has to navigate a lot of microaggressions and ignorance from his white coworkers and boss. I think one of my favorite episodes was “The Nod,” in which Dre and Pops teach Junior the importance of nodding to another Black person as a form of acknowledgement.
  2. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. At first, I didn’t know if I would be interested in it, but then I watched the first episode, and the minute Midge got onstage and started drunkenly talking about her husband having an affair with his secretary, flashed her breasts and got arrested, I was hooked. What I love about this show is that it showed me that failure is necessary for success. Midge fails many times during her standup career, but she learns what works and doesn’t and becomes a successful comedian through lots of trial and error. She also stays true to herself and remains down-to-earth, even when society tells her that she needs to fit their expectations. I remember one episode that stuck with me was when Midge meets this famous comedian named Sophie Lennon. Sophie has this gimmick she does where she pretends to be working class and from Queens, but in real life Sophie lives in a mansion and is very wealthy, and also incredibly pretentious. She tells Midge that to survive the competitive male-dominated world of comedy, she needs a gimmick and can’t be true to herself, but Midge proves her wrong because even though people don’t warm up to her at first, they eventually do, and they realize that she is in fact very funny.
  3. Downton Abbey. I remember seeing my mother watch this show a lot in May 2022 because it was going off of Netflix. I didn’t understand what the big deal was at first, other than that I kept hearing people talking about it. When in my cello lesson, my music teacher referenced the mood that a piece was trying to convey as being like Downton Abbey. The minute I watched the show, though, I could see why people liked it so much. Each character has such an interesting and rich backstory, and it wasn’t just about the wealthy Crawley and Grantham family but also about the butlers, the footmen and the chambermaids who work for them every day. At the time, I developed a crush on the actor who plays Thomas Barrow (Robert James-Collier). I got really attracted to his dark hair and tall stature, and so I kept looking up interviews about him because I thought he was really cute. Also the music was incredible; I really love the music during the scene where Mary and Matthew fall in love in the rain (the song playing is called “Such Good Luck”). I also love the friendship between Isobel and the Dowager Countess, and the competition between Denker and Spratt.
  4. Ted Lasso. I am so glad I got the Apple TV as a gift because watching Ted Lasso was a Godsend. Also, the same actor who plays Spratt in Downton Abbey is the same actor who plays Leslie Higgins in Ted Lasso (Jeremy Swift). I really love Ro Kent’s character. If you haven’t seen Ted Lasso, it’s about an American football coach named Ted who goes to England to coach a football league called AFC Richmond, despite not having any prior experience coaching UK football. He encounters a lot of obstacles when he first starts coaching, to the point where everyone is flipping him the bird and shouting at him a certain six-letter word (hint: it rhymes with “banker”), but over time people learn to appreciate his dedication to AFC Richmond. I also love the show because it addresses the importance of getting help when you struggle with your mental health. Ted suffers from panic attacks, and at first, he is reluctant to get help, even when Dr. Fieldstone keeps hinting to him that he may need to make an appointment to see her, and he laughs it off like it’s no big deal. But he realizes over the course of the show that even as he is taking care of and encouraging others, he needs to take care of himself, too. As someone who has been in a dark place with my mental health, I learned the hard way that toughing out a depressive episode or a nervous breakdown isn’t a great (or safe) thing to do in the long run, and delaying getting the help you need only makes the situation worse. There have been many times when I thought, I don’t need therapy, I’m fine! I can figure this shit out on my own! Or when I was first referred to a psychiatrist to get on medication, I freaked out and ended my therapy appointments. I often waited until I had gone through a crisis, until I was on the very edge, to ask for professional help, and honestly looking back, I would have trusted my gut sooner when it told me that all those periods of isolation and withdrawal from others, thoughts of death, lack of energy and appetite fluctuations, and loss of interest in hobbies and activities were probably a sign of something more intense than just “I’m sad.” I think that is why watching Ted Lasso encouraged me because it shows that seeking professional help and being honest about what you’re going through with other people can be a scary experience, especially because there can still be stigma around getting help, but it’s necessary for healing from these painful experiences. Which brings me to my next pick…
  5. Shrinking: After watching Ted Lasso I was so excited to find out that Brett Goldstein, who plays Roy Kent on the show, was on the writer’s team for Shrinking. Shrinking is another Apple TV show and it’s about a therapist named Jimmy who is grieving the death of his wife, Tia, and figuring out how to show up for his patients in the best way. He also has a strained relationship with his teenage daughter, Alice, who is also grieving the death of her mom. His colleagues, Paul and Gaby, help him navigate through his grief even when going through their own challenges as therapists. However, they also are not happy when he goes against the grain and decides to get more involved in his patients’ personal lives by spending time with them. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it backfires, but Jimmy develops genuine connections with his patients, namely a man named Sean, who keeps getting into fights and suffers from anger management issues. The writing of this show is absolutely brilliant, and each character has a unique personality. It also reminded me that therapists aren’t just therapists; at the end of the day, they are human beings with their own problems and worries. Honestly, after watching this show and other shows about therapy, I have more appreciation for the work that therapists have to do. Listening and helping people navigate complex issues such as trauma, grief, sexuality, and relationships isn’t easy and compassion fatigue is real, so that’s why I appreciate the work therapists do.
  6. Bridgerton. I kept hearing about this show a lot, and I finally decided I wanted to watch it to see what all the buzz was about. I admit, I have only read the first couple of books in the novel series, but I am anticipating season 3 of the show. I thought it was cool that Shonda Rimes was able to create this world of Bridgerton. It is the most racially diverse period drama I have seen in a while. Also, I really love it because the actress who plays Eloise Bridgerton is a Buddhist like me. She has this really awesome interview on Shondaland about how she used her practice of Nichiren Buddhism to overcome her challenges with mental health and become an actress. The interview really encouraged me.
  7. Succession. I am going to be honest, this was one of the more difficult series to get through. It seemed on the surface like a bunch of mean-spirited backstabbing and other shenanigans, but I love satire and dark comedy and this show is definitely a dark comedy. It’s about a multimillion-dollar media family named the Roys who argue with their dad, Logan, about who will succeed him as CEO if Logan becomes incapacitated or passes away. While none of the characters are necessarily great people, the show gives a glimpse into their humanity and each actor really brings the character to life. I started watching it after the show got numerous awards at the Emmys, Golden Globes and SAG-AFTRA awards. I wanted to see what the buzz was about, and at first I couldn’t get into the pilot episode, but as I watched the intrigues and the arguments and the suspense unfold, I couldn’t stop watching the show. I was also cooped up indoors during the time I watched it, and wasn’t going out much, so I had a perfect excuse to binge-watch the show. If I could have done it differently, though, I probably would have watched the show over a series of weeks. It’s emotionally intense, especially towards the end (no spoilers, I promise), so by the end I was pretty exhausted. I think the most interesting character relationship dynamic is between Tom and Greg, to be honest. Tom acts like this super confident person, but he treats Greg like a subordinate, and Greg also lacks self-confidence so he later on in the show becomes a pretty corrupt character. It kind of reminded me of when Nate Shelley in Ted Lasso became egotistical and tore up Ted’s Believe sign. He was a sweet character at the beginning, but he never got his dad’s approval, so he got upset and took it out on Ted. However, Nate redeems himself eventually after picking up an old hobby he loved. Greg is sweet and naïve at the beginning, but even he is trying to gain Logan’s approval and a taste of power at Waystar- Royco and he ends up following in Tom’s footsteps to chase after that power. I did fall in love with Greg’s affinity for California Pizza Kitchen in season 1, though. The music by Nicholas Britell in this show is absolutely incredible, too. The theme always gives me goosebumps because it’s so powerful. It’s this genius blend of hip-hop and classical and conveys the power and ambition that the Roy family and the other characters crave throughout the show. The writing is also really good.

The time I took a risk

Daily writing prompt
When is the last time you took a risk? How did it work out?
View all responses

In May 2022, I took a huge risk by quitting a full-time job without a job lined up. I had been thinking about it a lot, and had been applying for other jobs, but wasn’t getting many interviews. My mental health was also spiraling, and so I decided after thinking about it for some time that I should leave. Honestly, it was very difficult to look for a new job after quitting the job I already had. I also was living with my parents at the time, and we weren’t getting along. I just fell into a spiral of self-pity instead of taking responsibility for quitting my job. I also didn’t have a plan and looking back, I would have probably done things differently. At the time, I became depressed and also wasn’t taking care of my mental or physical health, and I just wallowed in shame about how I quit my job without doing anything to address the situation. So, I started exercising, and now I’m working again, but I’m realizing that self-care isn’t something that requires quitting my job. It is a daily thing I need to make time for, even if only a few minutes. I also realized that having hobbies and interests outside of work is important so that I don’t burn out. When I spent that entire year not working, I had a hard time engaging in my hobbies because I was worrying all the time about not having any savings left because I quit my job. While I definitely appreciate that I had the time to figure stuff out and leave my job, If I could do things differently, I would have been more patient with myself when searching for another job and would have put together a plan instead of deciding to quit with little money saved.

My Environmentalism

I’ve been figuring out and reflecting on how to cut my carbon footprint lately, especially because I’m reading a lot of reports about how we don’t have much time left to reverse the effects of human activity on climate change. Environmentalism was a huge cause for me as a kid, and in middle school I remember starting my own small campaigns to raise awareness about environmentalism and climate change. I think that is why Greta Thunberg was so encouraging to me when I first heard of what she was doing, because her life journey reminded me a lot of myself. I remember being really depressed during seventh grade and I also struggled with low self-esteem, and I wanted to feel a sense of purpose in life. I don’t know exactly what prompted me to care so much about the environment and global warming, but I remember around the time I was in fifth grade or sixth grade, my family and I watched a lot of documentaries. One of them was Super Size Me, and after watching the movie I decided I wasn’t going to eat McDonald’s ever again (of course, many of my peers took the film with a grain of salt, one of them telling me, “I saw Super Size Me nine times and I still love McDonald’s.) In fact, when I went over to a friend’s birthday party, her dad drove us up to McDonald’s in the morning after our sleepover and when they asked me what I wanted, I said, “Oh, no thank you. I watched Super Size Me so I’m not eating McDonald’s anymore.” I’m pretty sure I got an orange juice and one of the wrapped hash browns because I didn’t want to seem rude, but that documentary impacted me a lot (“The Smoking Fry” feature turned me off from ever having McDonald’s fries again)

Another documentary that scared the shit out of me and got me to care about the environment was An Inconvenient Truth, a documentary by former U.S. vice president Al Gore. The documentary explored how human activities over several years has contributed to rising temperatures, rising sea levels, and a rising urgency to save the planet. A year later I found myself watching this incredible livestreamed benefit concert called Live Earth, which took place in several cities around the world and was geared towards raising awareness about climate change and environmentalism. The festival featured a bunch of short films that were pretty brilliant. One took place in a convenience store and an old woman and a cashier argue about whether or not to ask for a plastic bag or bring a reusable one to the store. Every time each of them picks the plastic bag option, they slap each other and then break the fourth wall, telling the audience that it wouldn’t be necessary to ask for a plastic bag since plastic bags have a negative environmental impact and end up in the ocean. The old lady ends up bringing her own reusable bag to bag her groceries. Another short film was called “Inconvenient Ruth” and it was an animated short about a girl named Ruth and her penguin friend, Eff, who is a refugee of Antarctica and plays the banjo. Ruth talks about creative ways we can save the planet, like making buildings out of recycled orange rinds and drying used toilet paper out on clotheslines so we can reuse it (realistically, both of these would need to go through serious sanitary processes for us to actually do something like this. Even though I feel guilty about using a lot of toilet paper, I probably wouldn’t reuse it after all the stuff I put it through while using the restroom.) Ruth also has a huge crush on Al Gore, and she fantasizes about him being this hunky muscular guy and knight in shining armor, until a gas-guzzling car nearly runs her over and snaps her out of her romantic fantasies. She reprimands the person for producing carbon emissions by driving, and gets flustered, but then in a cruel twist of irony she ends up passing gas and her flatulence burns a hole in the ozone layer. As a child who loved tooting humor, I guffawed after watching this short film. It brought humor to a serious topic.

Another short film I loved was a three-part series called Bob and Harry: The Last Two Polar Bears. Bob and Harry were played by the late actor Rip Torn and Harry Shearer, and the show was about the last two polar bears who are still living even after the polar ice caps have melted and other species are going extinct due to the effects of global warming. Bob and Harry are trying to survive in a world where resources are becoming scarce, but they often fall short. In the first episode, they approach a real estate agent because they are looking for a home. The real estate agent shows them different climates where she thinks they will thrive, but the climates aren’t suited for polar bears. Because the polar ice caps have melted, all the climates are warm, and some are actually zoos where Bob and Harry wouldn’t be able to roam freely like they usually do. When Bob and Harry are about to give up, the real estate agent shows them the last glacier that she keeps in an ice box. However, it is really just a big ice cube, and it only has enough room for Bob and Harry to sit on it. It’s not a sustainable living environment for them because they actually need to be in an icy environment to thrive, but since the polar ice caps are gone, they don’t have a home to live in anymore. Another episode is where Harry tries to find a soulmate, and the lady who is finding a match for him can’t find the right match for Harry. The most she can find is a panda bear named Lucy who is attractive but has really bad digestive problems and lives far away from Antarctica. The matchmaking lady tells him that if he had come sooner, they would have found him a mate, and by sooner she means several years before global warming made several species extinct. The final episode in the series takes place at a restaurant, and Bob and Harry order seafood. However, instead of bringing out seafood or food that polar bears eat, the waiter brings them rice (without the sushi fish), a disgusting tar-like mixture of oil from an oil spill (when the waiter said it was a “Valdeez” broth, at first, I didn’t know what he was referring to, but then I realized it was a play on “Valdez” and was referring to the Exxon-Valdez oil spill in 1989.) and the final dish, a broth made of tangled fish nets and debris from the ocean. All of these episodes were meant to illustrate how depressing life is going to be for polar bears (and all life for that matter) if we don’t reverse the effects of global warming. I remember this series had a pretty serious impact on me, even though it, like Inconvenient Ruth, used humor to illustrate a serious point.

I remember also watching a few Ad Council commercials that were pretty scary when I watched them as a kid (as they were intended to be, because realizing how much the planet is burning up is pretty scary) One of them featured a series of kids saying the word “Tick” over and over again, and in between saying the word “tick” they listed off all the irreversible consequences of global warming, such as melting polar ice caps, severe drought, and devastating hurricanes. Another commercial by the Ad Council featured a middle-aged man standing in front of a camera while a train moved closer and closer, and he said that some people think the irreversible consequences of climate change are 30 years away (the ad came out around 2007) but in 30 years, it won’t affect him. He then moves to the side, and we see a girl on the railroad tracks with the train heading toward her as she looks hopelessly into the camera, indicating that the people who are going to suffer from global warming’s impact the most are future generations. The Ad Council was very effective in getting me to want to care about protecting the planet, and so I remember getting really pumped about finding creative ways to lessen my carbon footprint and raise awareness about environmentalism. I remember being in Texas History class and passing around an article from either Newsweek or TIME about an organic farming initiative that students at Yale University were kicking off (the article came out around 2006 or 2007) I’m sure my teacher wasn’t thrilled about me distracting the class while he was giving the daily lecture about how Texas wanted to secede from the Union, but some students actually enjoyed reading the article. I went on to buy organic cotton shirts with messages about saving the planet (one of the labels was called Mission Playground), to recycle like my life depended on it, and to turn off the lights whenever I left a room. Oh, and I also loved composting. Then in ninth grade, I read a book called 50 Ways to Save the Ocean, and it gave a lot of useful tips for what fish to eat and which fish to avoid, how to raise awareness about overfishing, and how to protect our world’s oceans. It had a lot of cute illustrations, which I found appealing because I loved a lot of books with cartoons, especially of animals. I ended up cutting out fish from my diet altogether, and decided to become vegan when I began ninth grade. I also started to look up fuel-efficient cars, and dreamed of one day owning a Mini Cooper, a Volkswagen Beetle or, better yet, a Toyota Prius. I think in college, I started to become more aware through doing research that the environmentalism movement wasn’t perfect and that it has a history of overlooking the contributions of people of color to the movement. I also didn’t know anything about environmental racism, which is where marginalized communities are disproportionately affected by pollution and other environmental problems. There is a predominantly Black community in Chicago called Altgeld Gardens, and they were located near a polluted water system. It was often called “the Toxic Donut” because so many chemical facilities surrounded the community, and a lot of residents in Altgeld Gardens started dying of health problems linked to exposure to these toxins. In 1979, Hazel Johnson, one of the residents, wanted to do something about this and so she started an initiative called People for Community Recovery, where she and the other Altgeld Gardens residents organized grassroots campaigns to address these environmental issues in their community and getting the state and the city of Chicago to recognize that this was a huge problem. Doing research on Altgeld Gardens really expanded my perspective on the environmental movement as a whole. While I was focused on the present-day environmental movement, I didn’t know much about the history of the environmental movement or how people of color played a huge role in the environmentalism movement and were often overlooked in history. I am grateful I got to take a course on environmental ethics in college, because that’s how I ended up learning about environmental racism and injustice and wanting to write a paper on it.

TV Show Review: Abbott Elementary season 3, episode 10 (2 Ava 2 Fest)

I missed the last episode of Abbott Elementary last week, so I am playing catchup, but I was able to catch this recent episode tonight. In this season, Janine is working as a member of the school district and is away from her classroom at Abbott Elementary most of the time. In this episode, she has to make a huge decision about whether to continue working for the school district or go back to being a teacher at Abbott. There are several signs throughout the episode that indicate she is going to go back to being a teacher at Abbott. She often revisits the photos of her students and coworkers, and they make her miss Abbott. However, her coworkers at the school district–Manny, Simon and Emily–are super pumped and want her to stay with them at the school district. Also, the new superintendent (played brilliantly by comedian Keegan-Michael Key of the comedy duo Key and Peele) informs Janine that she has been reassigned to work for a high school. Janine tries to get the message across to her coworkers that she doesn’t want to work permanently for the school district, and wants to go back to Abbott, but it takes her a while to get that message across because she knows there will be some consequences against Abbott if she quits her job at the school district. However, what really gets her to come back to Abbott is the really sweet card that Barbara and Janine’s students made for her. They all signed it themselves and Barbara wrote a sweet message to Janine about how she is looking forward to all of the things that Janine will accomplish. I only worked as a pre-K teacher for about two years, and frankly I missed a lot of days of work and called in sick, so I couldn’t really understand how hard teachers work for their students every day and show up to do that hard work. (I just realized Teacher Appreciation week is in a month) But it must have been hard for Janine to be away from her students since she has built such a strong bond with them for the past two seasons of the show.

The Ava Fest part was pretty hilarious. At the beginning, Shanae and the other members of the cafeteria staff are stressing out and running around the kitchen preparing all this food to prepare for Ava Fest, which is really an open house, but Ava wanted to glam it up in her authentic Ava style, so she made it all about Ava and invited Questlove from The Roots as the guest musician. When the kitchen staff have Mr. Johnson taste-test the food, I thought Mr. Johnson was going to like it, but he said it tasted like trash, prompting Shanae to throw his food across the room and get even more stressed about how people were going to like the food. Barbara, Melissa, Jacob and Gregory think Ava is lying about getting Questlove to come to Ava Fest. They also think she is lying about her connection to Questlove and how they started The Roots together. When Questlove doesn’t show up at first, Melissa tries to kill time with the audience by doing a lot of impressions of actors, but many people find these impressions unfunny and cringey. I thought Ava was lying about her connection to Questlove and that Questlove was coming, but it turns out he shows up for the open house after all, and he throws down a lot of sick beats as always (if you’ve seen him or heard his music, the man can jam. He DJ’d at the Academy Awards one year and it was so dope!) To be honest, I was glad when Janine decided to go back to Abbott. Gregory was also quite happy because while they were dancing, he had this huge smile on his face. Gregory mentions at some point during the episode that Janine is the main reason he stayed at Abbott. It was also stressful for Janine to not be in her classroom and to have to deal with the various substitutes who came to her class while she was away. In one episode, there is a substitute teacher named Jessca (no “I”) who rejects the traditional grammar rules and has a very permissive style of teaching, to the point where she lets the students call her by her first name. They end up repeating these behaviors when Janine visits, calling her by her first name instead of “Miss Teagues.” Janine thinks Jessca is going to stay at the school permanently, but she only ends up staying for a week, especially because her week subbing for Janine has been rather “mid” (I just looked it up in Urban Dictionary because I didn’t know what it meant, and apparently it means “below average.”)

Movie Review: Cat Person

After watching Succession, I developed a slight obsession with Nicholas Braun, who plays Cousin Greg in the show, so I looked up other movies he had done, and one of them was called Cat Person. The poster featured him and a young woman kissing, so I assumed it was going to be this sweet romantic drama about a young woman and a young man finding love.

That is, until I watched the trailer. (Spoiler: the movie is a psychological thriller)

To be honest, I am quite ignorant and before watching the movie, I had not read The New Yorker story “Cat Person” by Kristen Roupenian, but the trailer looked interesting, so I wanted to learn more. Honestly, as a young woman who has struggled with a similar situation as the main character, Margot, it was pretty tough to watch and to be honest, I wasn’t sure which elements were supposed to be serious and which elements were supposed to be comedic. It was categorized as a horror/thriller and I’m not a big fan of jump scenes, so I ended up reading the parents’ guide for information about potentially violent content, which isn’t a great idea because then you can predict the plot, but I’m a scaredy cat when it comes to horror movies and thrillers, so I decided to do my research before coming in cold.

The movie deals with the grey area of consent in romantic relationships. Margot is working at a movie theater concession stand and a tall man named Robert approaches her and buys some treats before going to see the movie. She finds herself attracted to him, and then he approaches her another time and asks for her number. Pretty soon, they are hitting it off, but Margot’s friend, Taylor, isn’t sure that Robert is the cute 20-something-year old guy he is posing as (it turns out that he is actually 34) and Taylor tells Margot she needs to set texting boundaries with Robert. Margot, however, doesn’t think Robert is going to listen to her if she sets those boundaries and so she continues the texting conversations. When he texts back, she feels thrilled, but when he doesn’t text back, she sends a lot of double and triple texts (to be fair, he double and triple texts her a lot, too.) They finally see a movie together, but Robert keeps sending all these ambivalent signs that he’s not really sure about their relationship, and so throughout the film Margot is wondering where to draw the line between all these fantasies she has about Robert and the reality of who Robert is. She imagines him sitting on a therapist’s couch and telling him that Margot is this beautiful girl, and it was love at first sight, but there are also the incredibly dark and terrifying moments where she imagines him beating her, yelling at her, and holding her hostage. Taylor finally gets tired of Margot not setting her boundaries and grabs her phone, and texts Robert (she makes it look like Margot was texting instead of her) that she isn’t interested in texting him anymore. At first, Robert seems to be respectful, but then his insecurities come out and there is a scene where the room goes dark except for the blue light on Margot’s phone, and Margot and Taylor huddle together in their dorm room while reading Robert’s incessant texts, with him finally calling her a “whore” in his final text. Margot realizes that Taylor was right, that there were a lot of red flags about Robert. The story by Kristen Roupenian ends with Robert calling Margot a “whore” over text, but the movie doesn’t stop with the text, but culminates into Margot sneaking into Robert’s house and Robert beating her violently while she tries to call 911 and escape, and then accidentally starting a huge fire in Robert’s house.

Even though I don’t have much dating experience, I have been in similar situations like Margot. And after reading the short story “Cat Person,” I got chills because I have been in similar situations as Margot has. I hadn’t gone on dates with any of these older men who were trying to flirt with me, but the encounters made me wonder whether it was okay for me to text them or engage with them in any way. There was one time I was working as a barista, and a really nice older gentleman came up during the six o’ clock in the morning shift. I was the only barista behind the counter. Our interactions were fine at the beginning, and he was really nice because he tipped me $20 every time that I made his tuxedo mocha latte drink for him. He kept coming, and to be honest, at a time when I was strapped for cash and fresh out of college, I needed the extra tip money to go towards paying off my student loans, so I was quite grateful for the generous tips this man gave. However, when I told my therapist, she encouraged me to be careful because I don’t always know people’s intentions. I broke down and cried because this older gentleman and I had a lot of great conversations, but as a people-pleaser and someone who, while growing up, was told that I was always “so polite,” maybe even “too polite,” I didn’t want to say no. I ended up writing a fictional story in my private time to get all this anxiety about encountering this man off my chest, and I also chanted Nam-myoho-renge-kyo (it’s a Buddhist mantra I chant) to gain clarity and wisdom to know what to do, since this was also during a time when I didn’t know how to set clear boundaries with people. One day, I was setting up the counter and the Tuxedo Mocha man walked in. He came in with his traditional smile and his $20 bill, and I tried to be super polite and was a little flustered and my heart kept beating at about 100 beats per minute. He laughed and said, “You don’t have to be all polite for me, just because I’m a customer. No, girl, I came to see you.” And honestly, I wasn’t sure how to react. My parents were suspicious of the guy, my therapist was, my coworker had told me that he might be one of those “sugar daddy” type of people. I was wondering if I was misinterpreting this man’s greeting as a flirtation or just a regular non-romantic or sexual greeting. I wondered if I was giving off mixed signals that I was coming onto him, if I was being too friendly. When he came in next time, I was with other coworkers, and the minute he came up to the counter and said hi to me, I panicked and politely asked one of the other baristas to make his drink while I hurried to the bathroom and broke down in tears. I felt so stupid and confused at that moment. I didn’t love him, I just love being a friendly person to people, so why was I freaking out over my interaction with this man? To this day, I’m still not sure what was going on between me and this older gentleman, but after that, he never came back. I was worried that all the nice tip money he gave me was gone forever when he left, but somehow, after a lot of perseverance and tears, I still managed to pay off my student loans even though he no longer came to the Starbucks.

Throughout the movie, I was so stressed. It brought back a lot of personal experiences for me. There was a time where I had met someone older than me, and he was a nice guy, but then when we started texting each other, I wasn’t clear about what my boundaries were, and so I wasn’t able to communicate clear texting boundaries to him. We would text each other constantly, and at first it was nice because it was just a casual friendship, but then at some point I felt a deep anxiety gnawing at me, wondering if this was appropriate to continue texting him. Then he asked me to dinner and called me and left voicemail messages, and I would avoid his texts and voicemails, and then I would apologize, feeling bad for missing his messages. After a while, we stopped texting each other and we still managed to be on good terms, and he found someone else, so it all worked out. I was sad at first that it didn’t work out and that I ended up ignoring his texts and calls, but I realized that I wanted to only say “yes” to us going on a date because I was worried about hurting his feelings. I didn’t know if he wanted to just be friends or something more, so instead of asking him directly, I decided to avoid his messages. I didn’t know how to set clear boundaries when we were interacting over text, and so I just tried to not address it at all. Margot goes along with her sexual encounter with Robert because she doesn’t feel comfortable saying “no” or “stop,” and there is a version of her that is telling her that it’s okay to tell Robert she doesn’t want to have sex anymore, but she keeps arguing with that version of her, thinking that it’s going to be romantic and that she is going to like it. But she ends up not enjoying the sex, and after a while their text conversations get less and less fun as Margot starts to see how insecure and controlling Robert is. Finally, she stops responding to his messages as he continues to berate her. I was stressed watching the final scene where they fight because Robert doesn’t bother giving her saline solution for the pepper spray that she accidentally sprayed in her eye.

There are some pretty intense scenes during the film. I had to close my eyes at the beginning because there is a scene where Margot goes into her dorm and a dog follows her into her dorm, and her RA, Laura, tells her to take the dog outside since no pets are allowed in the dorms. Margot has a nightmare where she wakes up in the middle of the night and finds that the dog has mauled Laura. I read that this part was super bloody, so I decided to close my eyes. The end of the film is pretty intense, too. Throughout the film, I was just really stressed and uncomfortable, but that is how the movie is supposed to make you feel because in real life, young women have to deal with these kinds of uncomfortable interactions in relationships and a lot of times it is easier said than done to set clear boundaries and say “no.” Even when Taylor told Margot to say no and be firm about her boundaries, Margot wasn’t sure about what she wanted in her relationship with Robert, and also Robert made her feel bad about wanting to assert her boundaries and also intimidated her, so it wasn’t easy for her to say “no.” (To be fair, there have been times when I haven’t respected other people’s boundaries, and I had to reflect on that and chant about it.) I thought about this scary ad from the Ad Council that I listened to in which Jamie Lee Curtis narrates this chilling story about a teenage woman who meets a guy online who says he is in junior high like her, and they strike up a conversation and he says they should meet up. The young woman meets him in real life, and it turns out that he “wasn’t nice, wasn’t in junior high and wasn’t a 14-year-old boy.” It reminded me of how Margot and Robert find out each other’s actual ages. There is a scene in the movie where Robert takes Margot out to a bar, and Margot can’t get in even after the guy checks her ID, and Robert is upset with Margot that he didn’t tell her she was 20 and under the legal limit to drink alcohol. Then after the unpleasant sexual encounter, Margot finds out that Robert is 34 years old, and she doesn’t get to see any of his cats and wonders if he made up a lot of the details that he told her about himself.

I wasn’t sure about watching this movie at first since it didn’t get a super high rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but I was so curious about the movie that I decided to watch it anyway. I’m not used to watching a lot of intense thrillers, but this was a pretty interesting film. I am pretty creeped out after watching it, but like I said, it was supposed to be an uncomfortable film to watch. Although one part I did appreciate was that they gave a shout-out to asexuals during the film. The guy who Margot was dating confesses to her at her stepdad’s birthday party that he realized he is asexual. It of course was difficult for Margot to swallow the news, and I understand it was, but I also don’t see a lot of asexual characters in film and TV (I haven’t seen BoJack Horseman or Sex Education yet, but I heard they also have asexual representation) so even just having a minor character identify as “ace” made me light up a little, speaking as someone who is coming to terms with my own asexuality. I also looked up who Susanna Fogel, the director, was, and it turns out that she co-wrote one of my favorite movies, Booksmart!

Cat Person. 2023. Directed by Susanna Fogel. Runtime: 2 hours. Rated R.

My Lactose Intolerance

I am lactose-intolerant, which means I cannot eat large amounts of dairy. I became vegan when I was in high school, so I haven’t had dairy since. I remember growing up and cheese and ice cream were my go-to foods, and they were so delicious. Going to the grocery store and getting a large tub of vanilla Blue Bell was the highlight of my childhood. Digging into Haagen-Daas ice cream while watching a movie was heaven. And Chuck-E-Cheese? I wasn’t a fan of the animatronic mouse and his fellow buddies (especially after Five Nights at Freddy’s came out. I haven’t seen it, but I don’t want to anytime soon) but I loved me some cheese pizza with cake and ice cream to go with it.

However, every good thing comes with a cost, and my stomach paid a huge cost from not being able to digest all this delicious dairy. I remember in fifth grade, a really nice girl invited me to her birthday party, and we went out to Cici’s Pizza for dinner. My mouth watered, and I ended up getting multiple slices of pizza and enjoying each one. Cici’s was the ultimate cheese party for me as a kid. Growing up in the South during the early 90s and 2000s, there definitely weren’t as many vegan hot-spots or options at restaurants as there are now, so I had to eat what I could on my pescetarian diet, which consisted of a lot of fish, eggs and dairy. I downed those slices of pizza, and I was fine on the drive home. However, about thirty minutes later a loud grumbling sound issued from the depths of my stomach. I groaned. Not now, stomach. We got ready for bed, and my stomach growled even louder.

“Are you hungry?” one of the girls asked me with a worried look on her face.

I tried to manage a smile while trying to not make my stomach growl anymore. But it wouldn’t listen; it let out another loud grumbling sound.

“No, I’m fine, seriously,” I said.

“But your stomach keeps making those growly sounds,” she said.

“I promise, I’m fine.”

I wish that experience was a cautionary tale for me, but after that I continued to eat ice cream, Little Caesars, and other food products of bovines. However, my stomach still continued to suffer and scream out to me that it was in pain, and that I should stop eating dairy once and for all. Finally, in my freshman year, I decided it wasn’t worth the stomach aches and the embarrassing flatulence to continue enjoying dairy, so I decided to go vegan. I would occasionally cheat and eat stuff with dairy now and then, but it has been a while since I’ve had a slice of Papa John’s or had a date with Dreyer’s. Because there are so many great lactose-free options available. I feel quite spoiled when I go to Starbucks and can order a drink with oat, soy, coconut or almond milk (although as a former barista, there were some drinks that definitely didn’t do well with non-dairy milk. I once tried to make the Unicorn Frappuccino with coconut milk, and it tasted terrible.) The only issue was traveling abroad and knowing that I could not drink the regular chai when I went to India in 2016. Honestly, I could have let my friend give me her lactose pills so I could enjoy all the chai, burfi and paneer to my heart (and stomach’s) content. But I chose to brave it out and sacrifice a cup a day of fresh hot chai from the stalls to save my stomach, and it was hard, but at least when I was studying at the university, we had a really wonderful lady who made vegan options, so I made it through the trip pretty ok. Except of course when we rode Air France. I felt bad for asking the flight attendant about the vegan meal because they only had so many meal options, but one plus was that when we were in the Charles de Gaulle airport, I went to a stall, and they had a kale and tofu bowl. And man, was it delicious.

So, do I miss dairy? Sometimes, but I think I only miss it because I associate it with my childhood. As a child, I loved me some Kraft cheddar cheese. I could dig into Paciugo’s mint chocolate chip gelato like it was nobody’s business. Movie theater nachos with lots and lots of Velveeta cheese? Sign me up. Red Barron cheese pizza and curly fries for lunch in the cafeteria every Friday? Yes, ma’am! But now I have so many options that don’t involve dairy, and that’s something I need to appreciate. I can appreciate those memories of going to California Pizza Kitchen, Cheesecake Factory and IHOP as, well, memories.

My Time in Western Europe

The summer before eighth grade, I had the opportunity to go on an ambassador program to Western Europe. It was a very wonderful trip, and to be honest, I think now that I am older and have gained more life experience, I would probably be able to deal with it differently than I did when I was thirteen. I will say that going to another country is a humbling experience, because it’s one thing to read about a country, but when you actually get there it’s a new experience. It was my first time leaving the United States and I was travelling with a group of people. We had an orientation session at a church building/ school and got to know each other. I wasn’t seeing a therapist during that time, so I don’t know if I had depression, generalized anxiety disorder or social anxiety, but all I remember is that I was a very moody teenager during that time and I brought that moody teenage energy with me on this trip. But looking back, I have so much more appreciation for it than I did when I was actually on the trip. We went to quite a few places within a span of three weeks, which I found out goes by pretty quickly. We first went to Ireland, and visited a few places: Trinity College in Dublin, Sneem, and Killarney being a few. We got to visit a storyteller who told this poignant story about something having to do with birds. We also rode boats on this large body of pristine-looking water (I’m pretty sure it was Killarney because I remember a postcard that said “Greetings from Killarney.”) It was beautiful being on that body of water because it just seemed so clean and peaceful. We stayed at a Day Inn in Dublin, and I remember eating fish and chips for dinner. On the plane ride, we experienced a lot of turbulence and I sat next to a young woman who I didn’t feel like talking to for some reason, probably because I was so moody and pubescent that I hated just about everyone I came across during that time. We also went to Brussels, and it was an interesting experience because there was a statue of a naked kid urinating, and it was called Manneken Pis. I was immature at the time, and like the other kids I thought it was hilarious and couldn’t stop giggling. I was also probably taken aback a little because where I grew up, you don’t just see statues of little boys urinating in fountains. We went to a chocolate shop and watched a video about how cacao beans were harvested and how they made the chocolate in the shop. I remember this was one of my favorite parts of the trip because I love chocolate, and so I bought milk chocolate and white chocolate. While I was browsing the store, I accidentally bumped into a porcelain vase that held umbrellas, and I broke it. Being someone who apologized a LOT (it is something I am still working on doing less of) I remember feeling really terrible about knocking over the vase and I’m pretty sure I called myself an “idiot” and “stupid” too, because those were names I also loved to call myself for some reason, but the shop owner was very sweet about it and he told me simply, “It’s ok. Just don’t do it next time.” Because I was so hard on myself at the time, I thought I was never going to live down the day when I knocked over a porcelain vase at a chocolate shop in Belgium, but I can happily say that I did live it down and have made lots of other mistakes since then.

I remember one thing I struggled with while on the trip was chronic lateness. Every activity that we had, I was always running late to. I don’t remember if I was chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo or doing gongyo on the trip, but looking back I think it would have helped me elevate my life condition because I was so negative all the time about everything. When I chant I feel better and more centered, so that’s why I try to do it every day. I still experience challenges like everyone else, but when I practice Buddhism it helps me see situations differently and helps me tap into the wisdom I need to take the right action. I remember being late quite a few times, one time being when we were at a cemetery commemorating the death of soldiers during D-Day. I was roaming through the cemetery, paying my respects, feeling the heaviness of so much loss. It was raining, and I hadn’t noticed that I was the only participant who hadn’t gotten back on the bus.

“There you are!” an angry voice shouted. I turned. It was Blake (name changed to protect privacy), one of the chaperones on the trip.

“You’re late!” he shouted.

I panicked and hurried back with him to the bus.

“I am?” I asked.

“Ohhhhh yeah,” he said, running out of breath as we rushed back to the bus.

When I got on the bus, I started apologizing and calling myself all sorts of negative names and crying my eyes out because I’m sensitive and often would get my feelings hurt if someone yelled at me. Some people had to use gentle words with me to calm me down. I acted like the world was going to end because I was late rather than taking responsibility for my mistake and simply resolving to do better next time. I remember at one point Rachel, the main guide for the duration of the program, had to limit my time in the gift shop because if I stayed the full ten minutes like everyone else, I was going to be late coming back on the bus.

“Everyone you have ten minutes to shop around.”

She turned to me.

“You have SIX minutes,” she said, knowing I was the late one in the group.

I got back on the bus in time, but man, I was panicking while figuring out what souvenir to pick because six minutes goes by fast. I’m not even sure if I was happy with what I got.

I remember we were in Wales, and I woke up late and found my roommate was already lugging her suitcase out of the room.

“I’ll see you downstairs,” she said with a sympathetic smile.

I hurried downstairs. I hope I make it in time for breakfast, I thought.

I got down and was able to grab some oatmeal. But by the time I got downstairs to the eating area, everyone had finished eating and was getting ready to leave in a few minutes. I looked at my friend’s plate. She was eating baked beans and toast, which is what I wanted, too. But I was too late to order one.

“Wait, they had beans and toast?” I asked her incredulously. I was so jealous of her because the beans and toast was so good.

“Yes…” she looked at me, confused.

“But I didn’t get any!” I complained.

“Well, if you hadn’t been late, then you would have gotten beans and toast,” she shrugged, and continued to enjoy the beans and toast on her plate.

I was very disgruntled.

Looking back, this entire program was a great learning experience. I could say I had regrets, like, “I wish I wasn’t such a Negative Nancy during the trip” or “If I had just lightened up more, people would have liked me” or “If I had been on time, I would have made time to enjoy everything on the trip.” But looking back, I’m glad I went on this trip not just because Europe was so much fun, but because it was full of challenges, and I needed to grow from these challenges. I also loved that our tour guide had this really awesome playlist she would play while we were touring the different cities. I hadn’t heard about The Kooks until listening to a few of the songs on her playlist, so after the trip I ended up putting a lot of songs by The Kooks on my iPod. And a couple of the songs we heard on the playlist was “Crazy” and “Smiley Faces” by Gnarls Barkley. After listening to those songs, Gnarls Barkley became one of my favorite music groups to listen to.

To be continued…

Random playlist

Here are a few of the songs I have been listening to this week. Most of them are Motown. I’ve been craving a lot of Aretha Franklin and Stevie Wonder lately.

  1. “Baby Baby Baby” by Aretha Franklin
  2. “Can I Get a Witness” by Marvin Gaye
  3. “Jimmy Mack” by Martha Reeves and the Vandellas
  4. “With a Child’s Heart” by Stevie Wonder
  5. “Big Time” by Peter Gabriel
  6. “Fool in Love” by Tina Turner
  7. “New Attitude” by Patti LaBelle
  8. “Put Your Hands on Me Baby” by Joss Stone
  9. “Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)” by Sly and the Family Stone
  10. “Border Song (Holy Moses)” by Aretha Franklin
  11. “Only the Lonely” by Aretha Franklin
  12. “Eleanor Rigby” by Aretha Franklin
  13. “Mean Old World” by Sam Cooke
  14. “Trouble Blues’ by Sam Cooke
  15. “Let’s Go Get Stoned” by Big Mama Thornton
  16. “Hound Dog” by Big Mama Thornton
  17. “Dark End of the Street” by Aretha Franklin
  18. “Dark End of the Street” by Percy Sledge
  19. “Papillon” by Chaka Khan
  20. “I Got a Bag of My Own” by James Brown
  21. “Funky President” by James Brown (I’ve listened to this so religiously this week. It’s got a really funky beat and makes me want to get up out of my swivel chair and dance around the office.)
  22. “Mother Popcorn” by James Brown
  23. “I’m Shook” by James Brown