june notes
Humboldt county, pilates, rage bait
Last weekend Valerie and Edwin and I went camping in Humboldt Redwoods State Park. Despite living in California for my entire life, I had never ventured very far north of San Francisco before. In fact, I did not know there was anything above it, much less hundreds of miles and multiple state parks until early in college. I want to blame my public education for this, but it was probably on me to consult a map of my home state at least once before the age of 18.
The camping itself was a cover for the real purpose of the trip: to visit a small town called Orick, subject of a youtube video we were fascinated1 by in college. When I watched the video again today to find the link, I was startled to see that it only had about 80,000 views. For some reason, I had thought it had a million. After passing through several tsunami warning zones, we stopped in Orick for a Saturday lunch. The town was a lot less lively than I was expecting; it has a population of about 300 people now. At the iced americanos Valerie and I purchased in Eureka, the lady working the Snack Shack asked, “Where did you get iced coffee? I know it wasn’t near here.” It probably wasn’t fair of me to hold an expectation of a place based on a 8-minute video filmed 21 years ago. We ate cheesy tater tots, made use of an outhouse, took photos in front of a bunch of elk lounging by a school house, and stopped to look at burl art.
The awesomeness of the Redwoods is hard to convey through photos. My dad once told me that, when traveling, it’s better to just take pictures of your friends rather than mountains and vistas better captured by postcards. A 346-foot tree and a ten-foot branch can take up the same amount of space on an iPhone. The majesty is in the sense of scale.
Sometimes I feel like a little monstrous troll doll in my pilates class, wearing leggings from high school and exposing my tufts of armpit hair during tricep moves, surrounded by impeccable matching Alo sets. In high school, this sort of physical difference would have been distressing to me — for basketball practice I needed to wear the exact length of socks, same brand of shoes, same hairstyle as everyone else. Any false step in the manufacturing of my appearance could out me as an imposter, an out-of-shape shooting guard, a slovenly freak.
I’ve been regularly going to pilates and yoga classes for about a year now, and the experience remains as silly as ever. During this time I’ve heard some shocking EDM remixes that I otherwise would have had no knowledge of. I never thought that group exercise could be something enjoyable, but my attitude toward exercise has changed along with my primary motivation for it. It used to be rooted in fear, a punishment, a resistance to the possibility that my body might ever change. Now I clock into my classes mostly to build bone density and also to keep myself from looking at my phone for an hour.
june notes:
I don’t want to get my hopes up too much, but when Lilou and I left the movie theater and saw that Zohran Mamdani had bested Andrew Cuomo in the New York mayoral primary last Tuesday, we were giggling and smiling and saying, “Oh, I needed that.” When I vote for him in November (spoiler alert: my future whereabouts) it will be the first vote of my adult life motivated by genuine excitement instead of dread and resignation, and that’s meaningful!
I’m ready to be vulnerable and share that I am sensitive to rage bait. I want to be cool, calm and collected, but sometimes I find myself swimming in an endless pool of brain-dead, reactionary takes, unable to force my head above water. I am in such a dark place right now that I spend a portion of my day downvoting bigoted reddit comments. I don’t use my reddit account for any other purpose than this.
Speaking of rage bait, in an act of radical self love, I have deleted from this post spirited Takes in response to an influx of Sabrina Carpenter think pieces as well as the abominable live action Lilo and Stitch remake. There are bigger fish to fry. Today, I choose my peace.
I finally got to attend my first WNBA game with my parents early this month to see the Golden State Valkyries vs the Minnesota Lynx. Rooting for the Valkyries feels so refreshing because it is a fanbase with a ton of energy and very few expectations. Between rooting for the Valkyries and shooting baskets for the first time in months last week, I find myself predictably transformed by the Love of the Game. Declaring it now — Summer 2025 is for the love of the game.
Recommended Reading:
I read two books that I really enjoyed this month — I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman and Sky Daddy by Kate Folk. I love the San Francisco library.
When I was 22 I did some travel writing in another small California coast town, albeit in the opposite direction of Orick. I’m really interested in sort-of ghost towns, though that term is not quite right for either Orick or Harmony, which have shrunk slowly rather than disappeared altogether. My father grew up in what is now a true ghost town — Christmas, Arizona — which I hope to visit and write about one day.
fascinating is a key word here. i don’t love the vibe and i don’t mock the vibe; i simply find it fascinating