Since it was raining in NYC starting on Saturday night alllllll the way into today (Monday!) because of Tropical Storm Henri, I accidentally created a fun theme to match the gloomy, yet elegantly named, seasonal weather.
First, obviously, is watching the anime film Weathering With You, which you already know I am obsessed with since the day I saw it during a special screening at my local theater. Pre-Covid movies times were the best. Lots of anime nerds like me making cooing noises at the delicious animated food and super special cameos. 🙂 If you have HBO Max, watch it! It’s available to stream right now and I’ve only watched it a million times since then. Warning: it will make you hungry for a Big Mac. Not that I can eat one… You’ll see!
Something about the rain makes me want to watch anime all day. I guess that’s because any Japanese content I watch always seems inherently melancholy to me. Especially when there is a scene that has… rain! And Weathering With You has a lot of it. If there is one useful lesson to learn from this lovely bit of imported entertainment, it’s this: don’t tempt the weather.
Second, an aptly named graphic novel, Rain — my most obscure LGBT title, second most obscure is When I Came Out. I actually saw this at Newbury Comics in Boston during my trip, but didn’t think I could fit anymore stuff into my suitcase. I was right not to purchase it in Massachusetts because I was that fool at the airport whose checked luggage was like 6 pounds over and I had to open up and shove some stuff into my boyfriend’s bag right there in front of everyone. I got it down to 49 pounds in the end, though.
I thought I wrote down the name of this when I first saw it, but no. Apparently I was too excited to get a bunch of souvenirs for my friends and didn’t add the title to my notes or take a picture or ANYTHING, so I was scouring the internet for every LGBT graphic novel list ever made, thinking I would recognize it by the cover art and be able to buy it off Amazon or something. Sorry, Newbury Comics, I was trying to travel smart!
I would have recognized the book if anyone else in the world had read it yet, but NO! I even saw When I Came Out on some of those LGBT graphic novel lists and it is DANISH! And THAT is why this falls under my most obscure LGBT titles. Because it is English (as in London Calling English), no one else knows about it yet, the only reason I found it again is because I randomly remembered the title the next day, after I had long since given up trying to find it at all!
Finally, I consider not having to water the Little Shop of Horrors aka MY BALCONY part of my theme because I can safely watch these drought-tolerant little monsters get plenty of water over the last few days, which means I can watch the lovely little bastards from inside and not be covered in terrifying ants every time I go out onto the damn porch to take care of the morning glories. As you can see, they have taken over basically the whole balcony and I frequently have to trim them down because they climb up the brick wall and even some wires. The landlord, thankfully, has not noticed yet. So crazy to think that these plants were grown from seed and won’t stop growing! At least they are flowering now, which means they’ll probably be on their way out in a month or two.
I won’t plant them like this again, but I think I know how to maintain the situation better now, so next year I will definitely go for morning glories again. Just maybe do it with a little more style and a lot less ants (if that can be helped at all!)
Here’s hoping that you had a nice day inside during the very “chill lo-fi hip hop beats to study/relax to” weather and you didn’t lose power or have to evacuate! Remember, prepare for a storm and don’t tempt the weather!
Miss Moody Lilac 