Scattered Shells #8
Lattes, lemon baths, and literary hyperfixations
Scattered Shells is where all the half-thoughts and random life notes go to live their best life. Think current obsessions + brain dumps + stuff I’d text you.
1. Living my best latte life
For my birthday, I bought myself a Nespresso in an attempt to kick my Starbucks habit. I try to leave the house every day since I work from home, and “oh, I’ll just go get a coffee” has become both a routine and an unfortunate financial lifestyle choice.
After some research, I went with the Vertuo Plus with the milk frother—the one that does both espresso and coffee. So far, I’ve only been making lattes and I am, unfortunately, obsessed.
I’m still trying to figure out the right amount of milk for the frother without it being too little or wildly overflowing (the line inside the tin is a lie), and I’m working my way through a variety pack to see which pods I actually like. But I’m already very happy with the purchase, even if I’m not going to win any latte art awards anytime soon (see below for proof).
That said: Nespresso pods are not cheap. Fellow Nespresso people—where are you buying your pods? I’d like to stop defaulting to Amazon if I can, but the prices are slightly better there than on the official site. Tell me where to shop and which pods are your favorites.
2. Other little luxuries I’m into
The Tatcha lip mask is one of the only lip treatments that actually does anything for my chapped lips. How I manage to have chronically dry lips in Florida humidity is a mystery I do not have the range to solve. It’s technically a mask, but I wear it like a gloss, both with and without color underneath.
I am very much a Bath Person. I take a bath every night, and I am a Dr Teal’s zealot who insists on trying every scent they make. Lately I’ve been soaking in the lemon prebiotic Epsom salt, which smells fresh and herbal without being too citrusy. It claims to support your skin’s microbiome to protect the skin barrier, which I assume is nonsense, but I’m still into it.
And I’ve been really liking the e.l.f. Halo Glow liquid blush. The range is on the glowy side, so not ideal if you’re not about that shimmer life, but the shade Candlelit looks natural on me, blends easily, and costs ten dollars. No notes.
3. No. Just “The Bride.”
I already posted this on Notes when it dropped, but have you seen the trailer for Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride!? That was a weird bit of punctuation—the title actually includes an exclamation point—but the enthusiasm is earned.
This movie looks absurdly good.
Officially, it’s a retelling of The Bride of Frankenstein, but the synopsis reads:
In 1930s Chicago, groundbreaking scientist Dr. Euphronious brings a murdered young woman back to life to be a companion for Frankenstein’s monster. What happens next is beyond what either of them could ever have imagined.
Basically: Bonnie and Clyde, back from the dead. With impeccable makeup.
The cast is excellent (Jessie Buckley, Peter Sarsgaard!), and I’m hoping this makes up for the disappointment of that other recent Frankenstein adaptation. I really enjoyed Gyllenhaal’s directorial debut, The Lost Daughter, so I’m cautiously optimistic in the way only a person who has been burned by unnecessary reboots before can be.
4. Revisiting Panem
I recently posted about book-to-film adaptations coming out this year, one of them being The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping. As I mentioned in that post, I’m always wary when a franchise returns decades later. But several people whose opinions I trust have said the book is actually very good.
That sent me into a Hunger Games spiral.
I read the original trilogy about 15 years ago. I’ve been told I don’t need to reread them to enjoy the prequels, but I wanted to anyway. Revisiting old favorites is always risky, but so far the reread has held up.
I still think Katniss kind of sucks. I still think Peeta is an underwhelming hero (though I do appreciate the gender reversal of his entire personality being that he’s in love with Katniss). I still think Haymitch and Cinna are the best characters in the entire series.
I also thought all of these things the first time around, so at least I’m consistent.
Overall, I’m enjoying the reread more than I expected. The real test will be Mockingjay, which I truly hated. We’ll see if time has softened that opinion or just made me more stubborn. I’ve also been watching the movies as I finish the books, and my main reaction is: why is everything so dark?
5. I fear I am the target audience
Speaking of reading, I’ve developed a new love and her name is Carmen Maria Machado.
I first came across her work when her short story “The Husband Stitch” was recommended by Mia over at Reading Through Life. I usually trust Mia’s taste, so I picked it up and then promptly inhaled not only that story, but the entire collection.
Her Body and Other Parties is a genre-bending short story collection that moves between sci-fi, surrealism, and psychological realism while addressing feminism, queer identity, body autonomy, sexual violence, and more. There’s “The Husband Stitch” (and if you know what a husband stitch is, you already know what you’re in for), a haunting “retelling” of Law & Order: SVU episodes, and six other stories that hit the right balance of strange, disturbing, and funny without feeling deliberately quirky.
I’m not usually a short story person, but I was rapt. This collection will definitely not be for everyone, but I am apparently exactly the right kind of feminist weirdo.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go reread everything by Angela Carter.
So glad you... I guess "enjoyed" might not be the right word, but so glad you read The Husband Stitch. I am now also obsessed with Carmen Maria Machado! And I also endorse the statement about chapped lips and FL humidity, like what the heck! And somehow my eyebrows have been peeling and dry, no idea what that's about, haha.
Mockingjay is absolutely the weakest book in the trilogy and it never needed to be split into two movies and I will die on this hill!
And I first read Her Body and Other Parties years ago and still think about it all the time. Hands down my favorite short story collection of all time.