allycatthebadboycappp

[allycatthebadboycappp]

new years resolutions 2022

hello.

hi.

i was going to try something wild, that being making a youtube video all about my new years resolutions but i feel so much more comfortable and eloquent when i communicate in written word only.

this year, i felt the desperate need to share my new years resolution, so that i’ll actually follow through on them, in a way this is a contract with myself. i’ll also get real personal and honest so if you’re my friend or family member reading this... i don’t actually know what to say... maybe, let’s let this be our secret?

1, be more active  i hate how serious i am about this. it just feels too common, kind of ironic, like whose list isn’t this on? i’ve already gotten much more active in the past year, i average about 15.000 steps a day, thanks to my lovely little doggo bonnie who gets me to leave the house even on my most depressed days but i want to do more. i want to run. i want to be healthy and fit, more so than i already am, because let’s be honest i barely scratched the surface of what i’m capable of. besides, i already started running in the mornings and it gave me such a high i could only get from three cups of coffee before. and i’d love to end the year with a full on workout routine… after all what was it that elle woods said?  “Exercise gives you endorphins. Endorphins make you happy. Happy people just don't shoot their husbands.”

2, drink less coffee i drink up to five, sometimes six or seven cups of coffee a day and it’s my goal to get down to zero, to only drink coffee when i’m out for breakfast or brunch or afternoon tea — any kind of special occasion. now this is where i get real: i started drinking excessive amounts of coffee about three-ish years ago when i was in the day clinic, due to being a depressed little (coffee) bean. and why did i start you may ask? well, i was afraid i had bad breath, i figured i’d much rather have coffee breath than just plain bad breath. and why was i so afraid of that? oh, i couldn’t be any more mortified to answer that question… but the answer is quite simple: prior to me attending the day clinic i got so depressed that i was not capable to take care of myself, meaning i barely showered, let my apartment go to absolute shit and my teeth? i didn’t even give brushing them a thought. i couldn’t. i was too depressed, so now that i’m in a healthy(er) state of mind i’ve come to the conclusion to stop drinking these excessive amounts of coffee.

3, get my teeth done phew, so i already talked about how i fucked my teeth over, now it’s time to get them back to being white and pearly and overall nice. i haven’t been to the dentist in nine years and it shows, or maybe it’s only me that sees the damage, i think i’ve gotten decent at hiding it but the show’s over, something needs to get done and thank fuck i got over myself and got an appointment in january to start the conversation of what it is exactly that needs to get done.

4, publish music now for something a little more lighthearted and less painful, though it still fills me with anxiety. i’ve been writing songs since i learned how to write and i’ve always been too scared to publish any of my songs, no matter how good i think they are. but this is the year that’s got to change, i shouldn’t be scared of something that makes me feel so good, no matter who may listen or may not listen to my songs.

5, read more easy. this is on the same level as “be more active”, no anxiety accompanying this point at all.

6, make my home at the moment i live with my mum in her house, i moved her a bit over a year ago because, again, i got so depressed that i couldn’t take care of myself. but now i can and i’m the good kind of anxious about living on my own again, having a place that i can go to town on to make my own, to make it my home. i’m looking forward to it a lot, so much so that i already have most of my furniture picked out (spoiler alert: most of it is pink, which shouldn’t surprise you if you know me and if you don’t and just so happened to stumble upon this blog post… i’m so sorry for you but hello, hi, how are you?).

7, start studying for the first time in years i see a future for myself, i have a bigger picture in mind and i can’t wait to paint it. i’m currently between three fields of study, each of them a different path but all equally exciting. i’ll keep them a secret for now, i’ve decided to simply let it come down to my gut-feeling when i’ve been accepted.

anyway, that about sums it up. kbye.

[allycatthebadboycappp]

books i read in april

hello.

hi.

i like to read. and this year it became somewhat of a goal of mine to make reading a habit. not because it was some new year’s resolution, no, it just happened upon one morning when i woke up and legit said “i need to read more” — i may have also gotten caught up in booktube (what a fun niche).

and even though i’m a bit late for april i still want to share the books i read in april and what i thought of them (cause.. you know.. my opinion is so important). i also created some book covers (some better than others — quite frankly, i got lazy).

1, the sorrows of young werther by johann wolfgang von goethe

my take: i should let you know i’m biased, since i spent the last 10 years calling the sorrows of young werther my favourite… and i still do. i’ve read it for the third time in full now and before that i used to read single letters of this collection. and. i. love. it. goethe is romantic, philosophical and depressed and it shows through his work. every chapter (or letter — yes, this is a story told through letters) is like a painting, you can visualise it as easily as breathing. actually, you can breathe in this novel and it’ll make you feel like you forgot how to breathe for a second. it will sit in your lungs and live there while you think about this absolute masterpiece (and i do enjoy it when a book makes you think about it).

should i read it? yes… if you can openly talk about and discuss suicide and its many viewpoints. you’ll also need to get along with a lot of  “oh my’s” and the feeling thereof. basically, if you’re a romantic, philosophical and depressed fool like goethe and like me, YES.

rating: 5 kittens

2, snow white and rose red, a matthew hope novel by ed mcbain

my take: a little info beforehand; i picked it up at the vintage section of strand bookstore in new york for a dollar purely for the title. i finally read it while i was waiting on some new books and was pleasantly surprised to find it was a crime novel with a hitchcock twist. i like the characters and even though it’s apparently part of a series you can read it without having read the others. essentially, you follow matthew hope as he finds himself entangled with a girl in white he is to have released from an asylum (he’s a lawyer) all the while detective bloom is trying to figure out who murdered a girl in red.

should i read it? do you like hitchcock and crime? then, yes, absolutely.

rating: 4 kittens

3, norwegian wood by haruki murakami

my take: this one.. this one made me angry. i wanted to like it so much. i wanted the bragging rights that come with loving this book. i wanted it to be one of my favourites. but it didn’t become one of them. and that isn’t due to the themes of sexuality, mental illness and suicide murakami covers or his way of writing them. he actually did a great job of de-stigmatizing those and if it would’ve been just for that norwegian wood would indeed be one of my favourites. no, it’s the structure for me.  you can splice it into four sections: the beginning, the main - or - middle part, the pre-ending and the ending. reading it was as though murakami’s words were like a thread delicately woven through the pages that unraveled at the middle part and then were completely lost at the ending. you should probably know that i’m a slut for a good ending, but this one i disliked with a passion. not just what the protagonist did within it but also how it didn’t connect to the beginning in a way that made me think i was reading a whole different book than what i started reading…which may have been the point but just not to my personal taste. murakami shattered a perfectly fine stained-glass-window he just crafted to make a new one from the shards. that’s exactly what it felt like reading norwegian wood for me.

should i read it? a lot like with goethe: if you can openly talk about suicide and death as an every-day thing, yes. murakami does a brilliant job of twriting about them as such.

rating: 4 kittens.

4, the snows of kilimanjaro by ernest hemingway

my take: rapist, racist, mysogonistic trash

should i read it? no. no one should.

rating: no kittens, not even dead ones.

5, nightsky with exit wounds by ocean vuong

my take: a lot of trauma is what i took from it. this poetry collection gave me a very personal history lesson, which i enjoyed but it wasn’t for my personal taste. nonetheless i can see the appeal, vuong has a solid way of telling his story. it is quite repetitive but that’s one of the things i like about nightsky with exit wounds, it underlines the trauma neatly and will hit you over and over again, much like vuong must’ve been feeling while writing.

should i read it? if you’re up for trauma and don’t mind maybe not understanding at first read. and if you’re up for some pube-tastic surprises.

rating: 3 kittens.

6, less by andrew sean greer

my take:  this one might be worth a double-read. remember what i said about me being a slut for a good ending? this one’s ending turned the whole book around for me. most of the time while reading i was thinking “how fucking pretentious” and it didn’t hit me how sad less really was until a few days after i finished it. in the end the book really comes full circle, which i love, and greer does a phenomenal job placing all the right dots for you to connect. it really leaves you feeling accomplished, with a pretty picture in hand (though sad when you really look at it). the last chapter really made me feel things, good things and i can now honestly say that i whole-heartedly recommend less with every fiber of my being.

should i read it? yes, it’s very gay and very good.

rating: 5 kittens. 

7, ariel by sylvia plath

my take: poetry, again. i adore plath’s instinct for rhythm, it’s off but it isn’t and i am a sucker for that. it’s like plath is forcing you to breath in deeply and then not letting you exhale until you get to the next line. i liked how repetitive she was, though at times it was too repetitive for me, it was very much the thought of “i read that before” with many hospital and atlantic similes.

should i read it? a little bit of sylvia plath won’t hurt, so yeah. plus you get to read the line of “with my red hair, i eat men like air” in context.

rating: 4 kittens.