Yeahuary
trying to bring otterful joy into my & your january
Otters! How was your weekend?! Thank you to the god-knows-how-many of you who have joined the Dam in the last week or so. If you’re new here, this is the Substack where I talk about my life (and also far more interesting things), usually (read: hopefully) twice a week.
Obvs no pressure but I hope you stick around. The goal is for this Substack to be the funniest and most lighthearted thing in your inbox.
And so much good stuff is around the corner for Things You Otter Know in the coming weeks! I have a schedule and everything now. We should dive into it.
Last year (last “season”?) I experimented with some awards-show coverage (see: the Oscars and the JUNOs) and I am gonna try to make that even more of a thing this year. So you’ll be getting a Grammys recap on the morning of Monday, February 3.
I am quite literally doing this because it’s fun and also quite literally because it gives me an excuse to not do my readings for class. (i.e. I am typing out this post to avoid reading Jane Austen for my Jane Austen class).
On the topic of big things happening on Sunday nights: did you watch that AFC Championship game? I know 99% of you couldn’t care less about football, but that doesn’t mean I’m not gonna ask.
As a lifelong casual Bills fan I was crushed by the result. This is a regular occurrence for Bills fans.
The game itself, though, was exactly what we had hoped for and more. If you love sports, if you love watching two rival teams and / or players go at it — hell, if you love watching greatness — then you absolutely love to watch Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes go at it in the same high-stakes situation almost every single year. I was too young to fondly recall the Brady vs Manning era but it’s cool to be living through this. I may be biased but I want Josh Allen to win MVP this year. I don’t think it will happen because Lamar Jackson exists but I just want Josh to get one MVP trophy in his trophy cabinet. Mostly because it appears he might never have a Super Bowl in his trophy cabinet.
I honestly have no idea if the Chiefs are actually gonna do the impossible and become the first team in NFL history to win three Super Bowls in a row, so please don’t ask me. Whatever the result, you’ll get a Super Bowl recap on the morning of Monday, February 10. My second annual!
As you might already know, I’ve watched a fair smattering of football this season, and I’ve watched the Super Bowl annually since I was a kid. But this year I am even more stoked for the halftime show. Kendrick’s doing a set! And a medley of songs he’s done with additional special guest SZA, most likely. I’m honestly the most excited I’ve been for a halftime show since… I became conscious? And hey, who knows, if it’s insane enough you’ll get a whole separate post about it.
In between those two major events in the pop culture world I am also trying to keep busy. One of my new years resolutions (though really it’s less of a resolution and more something I adopt at the start of every year, because that’s how much I love live music) is to go to more concerts. Which usually is hard for me, given my fairly distant proximity from Toronto, and the early bedtime of my parents (long, heavy, deeply annoyed sigh) who refuse to have me walking down the suburbia streets of my suburb neighbourhood at night.
My quest sort of technically begins on Friday, when I see Taylor Tomlinson! One of my favourite comics and I know her new hour is going to absolutely destroy. I don’t see a lot of comedy in Toronto because it always starts at, like, 11pm. But Taylor’s on at 7. Thank god.
The week after, on February 6th, I’m seeing a hardcore band I love called Gouge Away! Hopefully you’ll get a writeup on it the following morning.
And the week after that, I’m seeing a band called Thursday! On a Friday, though, so that’s disappointing.
I wrote briefly about Thursday a few years ago in the early days of this Substack; they are a legendary post-hardcore band I’ve wanted to see live for yeaaaaaars. According to the Internet, they were in Toronto a few years ago for an anniversary tour, but I don’t ever recall hearing about it, and now I’m sad I wasn’t there. On this show Thursday are actually opening for the Canadian legends Silverstein, who I don’t listen to.
This is a long-winded way of saying woohoo because we are in the tail end of January and things have finally picked up steam again. That’s why I haven’t been writing nearly as often as I thought I could. Now that I have a sense of what my life schedule will be looking like for the rest of the semester I should be able to eventually start squeezing in time to write! Time to write poems! Time to write posts like these!
I was telling Jess the other day that one of the problems with finally being busy again / adulting-whatever is I don’t have as much time to write! Part of why I love writing so much is how sucked in and into it I get. But if I spend 3 hours, say, revising a poem or writing a new one, I lose time to do all the boring stuff I have to do.
Good thing writing this post only took me a thousand years. Now to fire off a million summer internship applications. See you Friday.