Con’s Consumptions (August 2026)
I saw this quote from David Lynch recently: “You can have your coffee or your milkshake, and you can go off into strange dark areas, and always come back to the safety of the diner.”
I resonated with it both literally & figuratively. As I write this, I toggle between my own internal world & coming back to the present moment in a coffee shop in East Hollywood, Cafe Nido. A coffee shop that gives the aura of home.
I am built in a way that can seemingly contradict itself. I am built to explore & create, while also having a deep craving for stability.
My life has a void without this combination. If I am only exploring & creating I can feel completely burnt out & untethered from reality. While if I spend too much time in one place, it feels like an uninspired prison of my own making. My day-to-day life needs the mundane & the adventure to play together so I can explore & create, while coming back to the metaphorical diner.
This past month, the theme of my consumptions have been around… the meaning of HOME. At the end of July, I left SF after living there for 7 years & have moved to LA. This month has been very transitional. Most of my stuff is in storage in SF. I’m in an Airbnb in Los Feliz for the first couple of months of my time in LA to get a lay of the land.
So while I am in LA, my soul feels alive, but it only feels fulfilling & meaningful if I am also connected to my foundation. When in SF, I found that my physical day-to-day was stable, that was home, so I really found my exploration in the things I was consuming. That has flipped itself. My physical day-to-day is now the adventure, so I have been reaching to consume things that feel like home.
I’ve found these things in small ways OR it’s found me:
It has been being in a coffee shop on a Saturday morning & Norah Jones, Don’t Know Why is playing after my uncle & grandma both just shared Norah Jones on Pearl Music that same morning.
It has been walking into the LA Fitness in Hollywood & it smells exactly like the LA Fitness that I went to in high school in Round Lake, IL.
It was walking past a bar in Silverlake at Happy Hour & seeing everyone drinking a drink that I had made for my friends earlier that summer in my apartment, that has been a running bit. (it’s a spaghett!!)
It’s been eating goldfish out of the same colorful bowls that I’ve had since high school, that fit the perfect portion of goldfish.
It’s been walking Ferris.
It’s been playing comfort shows in the background while sleeping in a new place. Gilmore Girls, New Girl, How I Met Your Mother.
There are also new things I have watched that have either brought a sense of comfort, or ones that have further explored this concept of… HOME.
This show came out the night before I had to move out of my apartment in SF. Over the span of that weekend, I had to move everything out of my apartment, stay at a friends place in SF for a couple of days, then come to LA. My second day in LA, I finished the show. It felt like this perfect bit of continuity throughout the chaos of these things. I was trying to squeeze in watching it wherever I could.
I had been waiting for this show to be released for awhile. I was a big VPR fan while it was on. I also have followed & listened to Taylor Strecker for 7 years. I even saw Stassi & Taylor when they were on their podcast tour together… not once… but twice. They provide a sense of comfort for me that has spanned many seasons of my life.
What I also find interesting… were the main themes of the season of this show. There was a large storyline around Stassi & Beau figuring out their dynamic with her work heavily picking up & him being a stay at home dad with their 2 kids. People on the internet had a lot of opinions on this. The reality is that life & home aren’t a one size fits all. Everyone has to explore what that is for themselves & also has to constantly explore that as life changes. I find that we get to see the reality of this in this show.
We also got to see the Taylor’s explore their own pregnancy & starting a family as a lesbian couple. Representation that is not out there on reality TV. Other vulnerable conversations of what it means to have a child who is not biologically related to one of them. Also, a crossroads of a baby being born at the same time as a huge career milestone for Taylor Strecker. Another perspective of finding what the right balance of home is for people.
I finished Big Mouth… another act of continuity during change. Something I started a couple of months ago in SF.
I thought the show was really creative. I love how they use the hormone monsters or other characters to represent their inner world of what it is like to be going through puberty. The writing of that was just chef’s kiss. It kind of relates back to the David Lynch quote in the way they structured this. During the show, you can watch the actual thread & journey that people go on in their own mind, even when in a crowded room of people.
I was trying to think of who my favorite character on the show was & I think I have landed on Jay being my favorite. Jay is the perfect representation of the archetype of a sensitive soul that grows up in a chaotic family. His escape into magic. The way he builds his own sense of home throughout the series.
This documentary was released in 2025, but I just found out about it now & had ironically watched it a few days after I had just been to the Sunset Marquis. There was a gallery opening for Janis Joplin photos in the Morrison Gallery I had gone to.
I knew that the Sunset Marquis was famous… but I didn’t know the depth of it until watching the documentary. When I walked in for the first time, there were people dressed in true rock & roll fashion. I felt like I got transported back in time. The actual place was not what I expected. It isn’t a flashy hotel… if anything I thought “This is the Sunset Marquis??”
After watching the documentary, I came to understand, that a lot of people acknowledged the same thing. It wasn’t about being flashy… it was about the energy that place holds. It has been imprinted on by some of the greatest in the music industry. It was a place of community & held a sense of normal-ness for people who led far from normal lives on a regular basis. It was HOME.
Now I technically saw this right at the end of July, a couple of days before I moved. Had to go see at 10am on a Tuesday in order to get tickets for the 70mm viewing. They should preface to people to not wear hats when watching this movie… it literally cut off part of the screen by having it on. Besides the point… but I think this is also another story that has a big emphasis on home.
The archetype & lesson of this story is one that can be applied to many different aspects of life. I think that is the beauty of Greek myths, a way to fully visualize a theoretical concept play out in a way that connects with a person. It is all about Odysseus & his journey home after the war. No matter what, he always had home in his heart. It was etched into him. Home also never forgot him. I think it was a beautiful representation of what it means to go on a journey… to then come home & carry that journey with you.
The comfort isn’t only in the movies & tv shows… it also showed up in the music I was drawn to. It heavily leans towards folk, alternative, country this month.
I was listening to an episode of Theo Von’s podcast where Ella Langley was the guest. Listening to Theo Von is out of character for me, but sometimes I catch clips of him with a powerhouse female guest & it makes me laugh… he can be endearing. I did have to sit through crypto & betting ads for it, but it was worth it.
I kept trying to figure out what made that conversation so interesting to me. It’s the same thing that drew me to Leanne Morgan earlier this year, watching her specials & sitcom she stars in. The same day I listened to that episode, I went to a show in LA too. The artist, Brenn!, who I had just discovered that morning, was from Alabama & had moved to Nashville, same as Ella Langley.
That’s when it hit me… there’s something grounded & real about people from the South, & it shows in their work. They bring their home with them wherever they go.
The rawness of a live performance from a folk or country artist also reminds me of seeing live music growing up in the Midwest. I saw four artists live this past month, they weren’t all country or folk, exactly, but their vocals gave me that same feeling of seeing raw, live music growing up. I saw Remi Wolf, Gavin DeGraw, Mt. Joy, Brenn!.
& my hyperfixation song of the month was ‘Cigarettes’ by Jaid Joice, another artist out of Nashville.
All to say, moving to LA has been less drastic than I thought… because I’ve learned how to bring home with me when I go somewhere new.
