thank you for being a friend
sincerely, your friendly neighborhood spider-xan
this is embarrassing, i had my serotonin services turned off on my phone settings, i been depressed for nothing smh
shout out to the goldenest girl out, betty white, st olaf stand up 👵🏻
shout out to the homies (y’all know who you are) out here kicking 2022 off with a bang. we couldn’t link for the new year but we’ll link asap for projects, parties, nba street contests 🌱
big late hbd to amelia and lucas, y’all the realest, funniest, goofiest, kindest people I know and y’all deserve the world and more. here’s to more years together✨
big ups leah and her new stem tutoring program, tuteezy. it’s been a blessing to see you glow up and work on this over the last year, so proud of ya 🔌
big ups issa rae on dropping that season 5 pack on all of us and paving the path for all of us young creative and ambitious millenials still figuring it out to know we don’t have to have it figured out; we just gotta do it. the world will miss you 📺
shout out to [redacted] for the scam of a century, by god…our first lady of scammerology…iykyk…🧱
big ups to spider-man no way home for transporting me through time for 2.5 hours; i felt like a kid again for the first time in a minute and i wish i could see it again for the first time. drip god willem dafoe, you did ya thing 🕷
big ups ray and mo, dope show, thanks for having me back and as always, astronomy club is dead like family to me and i will always appreciate the time we’ve had together and look forward to more in 2022. james, jon, jerah, caroline, keisha, tane, looking to link soon ❤️
shout out to jah! we gonna make fire this month, count on it 🙏🏾
big ups to maria about to go off on this nutrition journey and I know you’re mad excited and a lil nervous but you mf got this even if i…gotta (can’t believe i’m saying this)…be your client and eat better. just don’t take taco bell away from me plz, i beg you 🥭
big ups kyra, valeska, and lee: bb writers made toddler writers, queens get the money 🤝
shout out to the nyu langone team who got me feeling like the tired spongebob meme trying to get my knee stronger. megan thee stallion, i’m coming back for my corners 🦵🏿
them spanish money heist niggas was getting it in, shout out to vosotros culture, alba flores hive all day
spiderman: needs new homies
matter of perspective: did the lady on the train whip that apple at your cranium or was she aggressively tryna keep the doctor away from you?
dear shorty on the train shadowboxing in the corner, i hope you won, looked like you was getting washed lowkey
stop pretending your life is a twitternovela challenge
burnout boy: african giant
bowery train station definitely in the top ten nyc metro stations bruce wayne’s parents would get murked in
saw two tweens doing gang dances in front of the projects by my building, yes, go off, keep that property value down, rob me if you need to sustain that energy
shout out all the “we outside niggas” who now got omicron *inside* their lungs
some of y’all need to sneaky link with a therapist
white liberal people who are pro-crt and can’t name 5 black authors…you the niggas who need to pop the crt pill too, g
andrew garfield spidey hive eatin eatin now, stan social anxiety spiderman aka spider-xan
shout out to all the epidemiologists out there who got their degree the same way you can become a minister in 10 minutes
i’m just tryna be ya favorite bitch’s favorite bitch so you have no chance but to love me too hahhhhhhhh
“that one there was a violation, personally, i wouldn’t have it” is top tier side commentary, right up there with “hate to see it”
my name rings bells at the container store, don’t play with me
y’all better be reading that bell hooks pack:
we real cool: black men and masculinity - too many of us goofy-ass black men are under the impression that “black women have it out for black men.” honestly, they have every right to in a lot of occasions (if twitter is to be believed) but in reality it’s so much deeper than than that and it requires looking within to understand that black men, under the banner of “masculinity” are set up to fail in a lot of ways by a white cisheteropatriarchal society and that same society makes us point fingers in the wrong direction. using history, personal anecdotes, and some sociology, hooks takes a loving approach towards black men (similarly to ‘the will to change’) to diagnose all the symptoms of society’s projections onto black men and then those same black mens’ projections onto each other and the world in general. tap in.
all about love: new visions - aida finessed my copy and went away but i copped a new one. as a person who has been more cerebral, this book put me back in my body and made me rethink my relationship to love and to validation. comedy was not a safe space for me because i began to forego internal validation for external validation, feeling like i was losing myself to keep the façade going. all about love brought me back and also, years ago, helped me discover distinctions in types of love that sent me down the path of interrogating romance, attraction, and who felt safe to be around in my community. this one is for everyone.
rock my soul: black people and self-esteem - being black in america (and worldwide) can knock you on your ass every day and rather than get back up when it knocks you down (no keri hilson), sometimes, you wanna stay down. through therapy, i learned about my strong sense of justice and fairness but always as it pertains to other people, never me. i learned that i never stand up for myself because the few times i did felt like it ended in catastrophe (unpacking in future loosies, keep it locked). 2022 is all about channeling everything back into action; i wasn’t always buns, i deffo used to pop off more. hooks’ book helped me tap back into me over the last few years (along with brene brown) and unpack the shame inside that i convinced myself was gone but it’s just in hiding. this book is for any black person who feels overwhelmed in any space, teaching us how to ease that low-lying existential pain and recover together.
up next:
abolition. feminism. now. by angela davis. geeked.
emily in paris
come on bro. come on. she still in paris?? listen, i swore a blood oath never to slander the child of drum legend and tarzan soundtrack contibutor phil collins, but lily…please, read the room and then leave the room and then blow up the room because we can’t do a third season of this. s’il te plait, pour nous, laisse nous vivre…if this season gets more award noms, i’m gonna lose my mind because what are we even doing anymore.
and just like that
we wouldn’t have emily without sex and the city. i just wanna give a big shout out to the angel dust hbo execs was smoking when their looked at the current social landscape and said “you know who needs to have a hot take on wokeness? three rich, horny, privileged white women?” nostalgia done wrong…y’all wrecking the legacy!!!! they’re not the hero gotham needs right now. [love you cynthia, would’ve been a great governor imo] pass that loud, hbo
the knicks
2022: turning ambivalence into action
“ambivalence all 2021.”
that was the mandate and i delivered.
i gotta celebrate me for a second (no deadass, my therapist and all my friends keep telling me i need to so allow me).
2021 was a wild year. i was off socials all year, i moved, I got knee surgery, i managed to write 4 episodes of tv (1 drama, 1 comedy, and two animated childrens projects, all soon come), get into two labs, get a mentee, and garner interest in more of my own personal projects. i stayed low and built since college and it finally happened and i felt…nothing.
there’s a difference between ambivalence and numbness but I don’t quite know the line. both protected me from pain like a local anaesthetic but sometimes i feel like i don’t know how to feel. sometimes i feel like i feel too little. and sometimes i feel like i feel too much but the safe space is right there in the middle; not much of a take in either direction. that, of course, was a product of the social media hot take fatigue that i developed over the last few years; it was an unhealthy relationship with synthetic and conditional validation that i needed to quit cold turkey and i regret nothing. but somewhere along the way, i lost my ability to feel because that pain was too visceral, too scary, too reminiscent of a time in my life where i felt guilt, shame, fear, and loss in a “community” that i didn’t feel had my back (and i was right).
that is numbness. it felt good for awhile, but as an intellectualizer, i needed to fully understand my numbness. that took me right back into the lion’s den, guilt, shame, fear, and loss constantly circling, with me perpetually on edge waiting to see who was going to strike first.
the survivor's guilt of being a first-generation kid in the united states using the vast resources and opportunities that this country offers to simply do jokes on stage. having homies who died never getting to get the opportunity to be where i am in my life and feeling guilt about situations that i had no power over. feeling like i failed friends who were assaulted or died while i was off doing me. feeling like a failure who didn't deserve to be in the rooms that i fought my way into my whole life. the imposter syndrome of not trusting your own senses because “maybe i’m being too sensitive,” “maybe i need to give this other person the benefit of the doubt.” i began a gaslighting recovery program and as i learned more about narcissistic abuse, i started seeing the signs everywhere get a lot of my peers. honestly, the line between american toxic individualism and narcissism is so thin that the difference feels often negligible in artistic communities. even now, i worry that my transparency will be interpreted as “look at me, look at me” but i found that balance between those who have done me harm and how my own actions have kept me from unlocking a true potential and called it ambivalence.
which brings me to 2022. ambivalence has served me. focusing on me and the people that i care about deeply, building community, paying it forward, and sharing memories that will last a lifetime came from ambivalence but it's time to close that chapter and use different tools to achieve the same result.
2022 is all about action. it is about feeling, trusting myself, and fearlessly acting upon my feelings.
i have talked myself out of many different feelings, denying myself the very right to be a human in order to “keep the peace,” either for me or for others. we off that now.
action made up of audacity, authenticity, positionality, sustainability, and community. these are the things that serve me and help me connect with what i love and care about. these things will help me not be afraid to feel again. those feelings will help me celebrate myself as i celebrate others and maybe i’ll feel more whole? maybe i’ll reclaim those youthful years in my 20s lost to adultification? who knows. but let’s find out together gang.
action all 2022 🤝
burnout boy, african giant
“got the choppa singing opera” is the hardest bar i’ll ever put to paper
just know when i say “whole lotta gang shit,” i’m specifically talking about “scooby and the gang”
pouring one out for rose nylund tonight
hopped back on social media to check dms and saw shorty who i once watched eat a cold 7-11 hot dog talking about worrying about what’s in the vaccine
shout out haim and pta but respectfully, i’m not putting licorice pizza anywhere near my eyes and ears, no sir, not meee
sad bitch contest i’m in first place, normalize sad bitchery in men
not lady gaga’s ‘house of gucci’ acting coach being unlimited breadsticks from olive garden!!!! here are my better fashion stories:
house of fashionnova - starring cardi b and megan thee stallion, soundtrack by french montana - “the road to the fastest fashion is paved with bad bitches and curvaceous characters” (working title: the devil wears a nova)
house of skechers - papa john and paula deen voice two pairs of relaxed fit skechers trying to get home for christmas. exclusively on fox.
house of jnco - papa roach like you’ve never seen him before…starring dame judi dench and rihanna - “after a denim oligarch dies of non-denim related causes, he leaves behind his son with a crazy dream: make the biggest mf jeans ever”
house of pelle vs house of pelle - starring fat joe and french montana vs styles p and jadakiss - “before left twix and right twix we had pelle and pelle. before the bond, before the blood, there was beef”
💔💔💔
more loosies content soon come, thank you for being a friend.
Happy New Year