February obsessions ♥️♥️
and a shoutout to Wuthering Heights 🥀
I haven’t watched Heated Rivalry yet. I know, I know. How is it possible? It’s the internet’s collective obsession. I’ve seen the memes and the screengrabs. I squealed when I saw Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney grab Hudson William’s leg on the red carpet at the Canadian media gala. I understand how important the show is, a love story between two male hockey players, set and made in Canada on a shoestring budget.
I promise I’ll watch Heated Rivalry soon. It’s just that:
When someone tells me I must watch a show, my gut reaction is to not watch it.
I’m not a big fan of romance-centered storylines.
I’ve been obsessed with another show. I can’t commit to anything else when I’m in that state. Like that time I watched Gilmore Girls for the first time last year. Or Buffy the Vampire Slayer for the second time two years ago. I must watch all 153 episodes and not even think about having a life outside of the Stars Hollow/Sunnydale universe until I’m done.
The object of my affection is called Younger (2015-2021). I started it during the Christmas holidays as I nursed my swollen tonsils back to health in my childhood bedroom. It’s a story about a divorced 40-year-old woman returning to the workforce after being a stay-at-home mom for years. The problem is nobody will hire her due to the extensive gap in her resume. Her solution: lie about her age (26!!) and get an assistant job at a publishing house in NYC.
Wait a minute… an (almost) 40-year-old woman returns to the workforce after several years as a stay-at-home mom and gets hired as an admin assistant? C’est moi???
C’est moi!
Almost. I’m not divorced or dating a 26-year-old tattoo artist, my best friend isn’t Hilary Duff, I didn’t lie about my age but I did consider removing my Master’s degree from my resume. I feared not being considered for positions that had nothing to do with my specialty—identity reconstruction in migrant literature of Syrian memoirists in Chile.
Now that I’ve binged Younger’s 84 episodes, I can live again. I finished A Life’s Work by Rachel Cusk, which was an excellent memoir about early motherhood. I’m going to start Sheila Heti’s Motherhood, a novel I’ve been avoiding for the past six, seven years. It’s about the push and pull the narrator feels between becoming a mother and living a creative life. Having more perspective and life experience since first hearing about the novel, I’m ready to dive in.
Otherwise I have been completely obsessed, consumed, hopelessly in love with Margot Robbie’s red carpet looks for the Wuthering Heights movie. I’ve never read Emily Brönte’s Wuthering Heights (1847), but I know it’s a gothic story about romantic obsession.
How it happened: I saw a picture of Margot Robbie wearing a gorgeous strapless black and scarlet red gown and immediately recognized the necklace around her neck. It was the Taj Mahal diamond necklace Richard Burton gifted Elizabeth Taylor on her 40th birthday in 1972. What better represents romantic obsession than Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton’s tumultuous, can’t live with you, can’t live without you love affair ?
Is there a career for a woman who recognizes niche 17th-century heart-shaped diamonds on a movie star’s neck???
One thing led to another, and I have found myself, yet again, DMing pictures to my hairstylist, begging for an appointment to “make me look like Margot Robbie” even though I am a dark brunette and look NOTHING like her. I have an appointment at the end of the month. I cannot WAIT for my transformation (a couple of well-styled layers).
My close inspection of Margot Robbie’s red carpet looks has led me to her makeup artist’s page on Instagram. I can’t stop watching videos of Pati Dubroff explaining how she created Margot Robbie’s soft, natural makeup for the promotional tour, and wonder if I’m hyperfixating on the beauty of soft pink cheeks because the world feels so dark and hard right now.
We need more softness and love these days, don’t we?