Episode 2

Sunday Coffee Chat: Bojack Horseman reactions, Handmaid’s Tale Sequel, and Routine

Well, technically milk tea chat but that’s alright

💡 Consider listening to this piece if that’s an option to you!

Hi, I’m Lucy, and episode 2 of the coffee chat is actually a milk tea chat. After a week of being obsessed with being able to make cinnamon-flavoured coffee at home, I’m back in my milk tea phase.

Cinnamon-flavoured coffee

Add a bit of ground cinnamon to the ground coffee in your coffee machine / pourover, and tada! It’s that easy.

This week is a long weekend, so I took things slowly all weekend. Usually, I spend a considerable amount of the weekend time working on my side hustles, but I really took a breather this week. I’m not even sure if anyone’s noticed, but instead of sticking to the strict 4pm EST routine of reviewing publication submissions, I’ve been checking more … sporadically. Ditto with the weekly newsletter — I usually have the weekly poetry prompt compilation and The Brain is a Noodle newsletter out roughly before or around noon.

Today, I went out for pho in between the two.

I’m genuinely curious if anyone’s noticed, or if they’ve just encountered these things by happenstance. I often wonder about how much people cue into the strict schedules and routines that I’ve set for myself.

📺 What I’m Watching

Last week, I was watching The Expanse and Bojack Horseman, both of which I finished! I think both will get their own post sometime in the near future.

The Expanse is a sci fi show that I think I’m going to keep watching (when the next half of the season comes out), and recommending to people. As someone who couldn’t find a good sci-fi show for quite a while (and felt overwhelmed by bigger, more dedicated fandoms as a more casual watcher), I feel like The Expanse has been a good segue back into this world. It’s a really rich world to explore, which I hope means that there will be many more seasons to come.

Bojack Horseman is not a comedy. I keep saying this, like it’s some mantra. Why? Well, it’s funny in some parts, and as animation goes, is set up like a comedy. But, this show was really dark to watch, and I couldn’t pull myself out of it. The only way was out. And damn, I’m glad I’m out. (I liked it? But I also hated it. And I feel like that sentiment alone warrants some further exploration in the form of a longer review. Stay tuned!)

This week, I started watching 與諜同謀, a Cantonese show about a business spy group that was infiltrating the beauty industry. It’s … okay as a show. I wouldn’t say it’s the best Cantonese show out there nor th worse, but I just needed to not forget my Cantonese and that’s why I’m watching it. I needed something bland, after something as bitter as Bojack Horseman and fantastical as The Expanse.

I also finished DOTA 2: Dragon’s Blood. I’m not gonna lie, I spent the entirety of the second season trying to remember what happened in the first season. If I could redo this experience, I’d rewatch the first season again before sliding into season 2. It’s just one of those shows that are scene after scene of important plot points. Succinct. Elegant. Bad for the Bad Memory Brain (such as mine).

Movie night: Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

People have been so excited for Simu Liu (which yes, I was too) that no one really talked about the fact that Fala Chen and Tony Leung were in this? Granted, perhaps it was because no one knew who they were outside of the Hong Kong movie and tv show industry. I was just super psyched to see so many familiar faces in this movie. I was also just super psyched to see Chinese mythical creatures featured in a Marvel show. Definitely going to spend some time writing more about this movie.

Finally, I revamped my TV show tracking bit here on Medium! If you have TV show or movie recommendations, you can now directly drop them into my watch queue via the embedded forms in the piece below:

📚What I’m Reading

I … did not finish The Bomber Mafia by Malcolm Gladwell. I spent a lot of last week’s coffee chat justifying that I liked the book while being able to remember absolutely none of it. Eventually, I had to return the book back to the library and didn’t have the time to finish it. In fact, finishing it felt rude, because I wasn’t truly giving it the love and attention that it deserved. I’ll come back, some day.

For now, I’ve added Gladwell’s Revisionist History podcast back into my subscription list.

Now, I’m finally reading The Testaments by Margaret Atwood. This was a book I could really get into, and will probably have a lot to say about. In fact, despite my partner never having read or seen The Handmaid’s Tale, I’ve been talking his ear off with the little things that emerged in my brain for this show.

It’s eerie, to have read The Handmaid’s Tale for school. That book is written from the point of view of an adult, and I first read it as a teen. Then, it felt dystopian enough to just be that — fiction. Reading it as an adult, and then seeing it on screen as an adult — that was different. Having encountered barriers to accessing birth control, some of the scenes from that show and book are not far off. I think that’s why it was a book that skyrocketed to fame in the ripe year of 2016 onwards, despite having been published in 1985.

The Testaments, on the other hand, is written from the pov of two teens and a middle-aged woman, in different positions in that dystopian world. Reading this felt like a swap in identity because now I’m an adult, getting to see this world I’d already experienced through adult eyes. Some of the scenes anger me deeply, for this reason that a lot of these encounters are happening to a child, parentified and adultified beyond their age. Like, yes, I’d be mad if an adult was hurt, but the hatred burns scorching red when it happens to a child.

☕ How I’m Taking Care of Myself This Week

I did not do as promised from last week. My set goal from last week was to do yoga for at least 10 minutes a day, and despite thinking about potential barriers, I did not follow through.

I just want to be thoroughly honest and authentic in the true experience of what it looks like to insert a new habit into my routine. I’m good with routines, but that addition to the plate is a journey. I find that reading accounts where someone just sets out on doing the thing and then they DO THE THING just … so unrelatable.

Like, I love that others are able to do this and not have to suffer as I do. But I’m guessing others like me need to also see someone who also suffers as they do in incorporating something new into their routine without being told not having reached a goal is “just excuses” and “lacking effort”.

Listen, you try having unruly and excited puppies for a brain.

Anyways, I know in my heart that this is something I will continue working on, but I’m actually truthfully acknowledging that I’m going to take a break. It’s the long weekend this weekend and reading week, which means I’m spending time away from home and away from my yoga mat.

This in itself, this time away from being at school, is how I’m taking care of myself. We’ll return to regular “How Lucy Finally Incorporates Yoga Into Her Life” programming next week.

💌 Passion Projects I’m Working On Lately

Noting that I’m on break, the passion project I’m working on is me. Or maybe my relationship. Just truly connecting with another.

I’m trusting that my routines and workflows will exist for a week without me needing to input into them. My side hustles will still run without constant input from me. That’s what makes them mostly passive.

Here’s a sneak peek of what this looks like:

• Redbubble: While I try to add new designs whenever I can (~2–3x a week), I don’t need to every single week. There’s a whole archive of stickers and products that people can choose from, and 90% of the work is done by the Redbubble company (i.e., shipping, sales, promotion, etc.). So, I can lay back knowing that I can return to these stickers whenever I want.
• Medium: Contrary to what most writers do, Medium is actually more of a passive project for me too! I write a lot of my poems on the go, waiting for the kettle to boil, or truthfully, on the toilet; I batch-schedule a lot of them a head of time so that one moderately sized poem goes out a week. That’s my baseline. If I have more time or I have more to get off my chest that week (e.g., like the 1283129837 tv shows and movies I really want to talk about), I might sit down and write to my heart’s content, and see if there are places that I can submit these thoughts to.
• Social Media: All of my social media are cyborgs. That means that it’s part “bot” (i.e., a baseline amount of scheduled content) and a chaotic, unpredictable amount of me showing up and needing to tell everyone about the weird fruit I found at the grocery store. If I do not find any weird fruit, then the baseline keeps the rhythm going.

Hi, I’m Lucy and I hope this week brings you rest ❤