Things I'm obsessed with, how about you?

Obsessions, #1

Welcome to Following Studies — an adventure through subcultures, obsessions, the things we follow & the things that follow us. I’m glad you’re here. If you think someone else would have fun hanging out with us, be sure to share.

views from a recent trip to Joshua Tree

There are a lot of things that I will talk your ear off over - some of them are items (like how last year, along with all the cool home design girlies, I wanted you to buy custom matchbooks for your house), some of them are memories (did anyone else go to a church’s Hell House as a kid? Please let me know), and some of them are existential. In the spirit of this newsletter, here are some of my current obsessions:

• Anne Hathaway quiet parenting every crowd she encounters.

• This hike in Joshua Tree National Park and coffee beans from Joshua Tree. I’ve been hiking a bunch with my friend and recently had quite the Cheryl Strayed failed boots in the woods moment in which the back of my heel almost tore off. As I nursed my bleeding ankle from my perfectly fine boots (that I swear I’ve hiked in before), I watched a group of hikers in ALL WHITE sneakers, and maybe one water bottle between them, skip up the hill I was hiking. Truly humbling. I’ve switched back to hiking in my ancient Hoka sneakers.

• The fandom and critique division of Taylor Swift’s new album being inventive or sounding the same as her old stuff. The most common critique I hear as someone who at first casually listened to Taylor Swift's discography and then dove straight into her catalog is that all her music sounds the same. It’s such a common statement, complained loudly in Instagram comments —her music sounds the same, the songs say the same thing, and most of them talk about high school love drama. Each album can’t be just another album - it must be an era, complete with new sounds, a new look, a new Taylor. But we rewatch shows, eat the same food from childhood even when we really know how to elevate something in the kitchen, and chain restaurants are the comfort stop on a trip. Taylor Swift gives us more of what people want – music that sounds like her. It's almost as though that's exactly what her fans have been asking for.

• This pizza dough recipe is something that you should be using even if, like me, you don’t have an ooni. You can toss this dough in the oven. You also cannot mess this dough up, promise. Use a food scale to weigh your ingredients out.

• It feels odd to write personal finance as something to be obsessed with, but why? Aren’t we all just trying not to go into endless debt and exist in this capitalist hellscape? I’ve read the Frugalwoods blog and Refinery 29’s Money Diaries for years because I love the voyeurism of seeing how other people spend money. I’ve noticed Instagram has become one endless scroll of people trying to sell me things (have you?). I’m weak, so to combat this impulse buy urge, I started a list on my notes app to write anything I wanted to purchase, and my friends, the list was bizarre, the savings were significant, and I highly recommend it.

Okay, let’s hear it. What are some of your obsessions?

Next week, we’ll dive into Llano del Rio, a failed socialist collective in the Mojave Desert, an hour from LA. Get ready, friends.