rachel's wrap up 2022
digesting the year that finally was after so many that weren't. or something deep like that.
i did one of these last year and i don’t know if it made an impact on a single person but i enjoyed writing it and reflecting on the ways in which culture shaped my life that year when there was little else stimulating me. so i guess i was the single person it impacted. and that’s enough. I’m bad at making lists of movies or music or books or tv shows so I am instead embarking on the 2nd annual rachel’s wrap up, where I list in no specific or ranked order things or shows or drinks or places or ways of thinking that made my year a little brighter and maybe they will make your 2023 brighter too.
i also watched way less tv and movies than the year previous because i was … busy living? groundbreaking, huge news. it actually sort of was huge because we could do that again. wasn’t so long ago where doing things was basically illegal. i do want to watch more movies this year though but that’s more a mental note for me than for you. anyway. proceed.
colin farrell + jamie lee curtis - actors on actors
i really like watching/listening/reading actors interviews on process and the early days and the behind the scenes and all of it. not all are created equal and some do in fact sound hopelessly pretentious but sometimes you listen to a conversation that’s like music. ideas are bouncing and the mutual respect for each other and the art is so profound. the colin farrell/jamie lee curtis variety actors on actors interview was one such interview. lots of nuggets of wisdom about life and you could palpably see how grateful they were for this one. also the banshees of inisherin was fucking crazy.
sometimes there’s nothing like a cute little summer romcom. and even that feels condescending to say. note to self: work on my internalized misogyny in 2023. the books upon which this series is based were a favourite during my adolescence (which my therapist tells me technically doesn’t end until 25 so i’m technically only just now done being a teenager). it’s about love, yes, and the conventions of the triangle are alive and well but more than that it’s about growing up and seeing yourself as pretty for the first time. which i am still learning to do.
the MOVIE. i was dubious only because the musical is so friggin good and i couldn’t imagine the story told without music but it was literally so magical and it’s such a tragedy that the writer died right before it came out??? men are fucking crazy. you go keri russell.
the only good movie about platonic man/woman love i’ve ever seen. like the opposite of when harry met sally but in a good way.
reneé rapp
the sex lives of college girls was a huge standout from last year (and this year but i didn’t want to be redundant) so reneé rapp’s musical stylings were of much interest. tattoos was my top song of 2022 and i have yet to tire of it. i also relate to it much more than i did when i first heard it but that’s neither here nor there.
the killers (again and always)
i love when you can look back at a year or a season or whatever period of time you so choose and you can see the inflection point where things changed. call it a pivotal moment or an epiphany or spiritual awakening or whatever but i put the killers concert in my calendar before i had tickets or someone to go with. this was going to be my celebration. of what? a lifelong love affair with images of the desert and the vegas strip and wistful songs about two-horse towns and teenage love lost that have filled my life for close to 20 years. i ended up going to the concert with my childhood crush who is the one who inadvertently introduced me to the killers in the first place. it was a spiritual experience beyond merely listening to mr. brightside sung by a chorus of twenty-thousand, which is a pretty surreal experience in itself and i do highly recommend experiencing at least once in your life. after the concert we made friends and it just felt like one of those anything-could-happen nights. i only wish i remember it all better. but such is being young and dumb.
remember why you fell in love by natalie madigan
i don’t know how i stumbled upon this song but it was up there for top of 2022 when all was said and done and spotify wrapped had its say. didn’t crack the top 5 though. still fucking slaps. it also reminds me of the boys i went on dates with this year, none of whom i fell in love with but a few i probably could have. less what ifs in 2023!
do you ever forget the things you love? maybe it’s out of repression or depression or some other condition tied to trauma that I AM WORKING THROUGH but sometimes i forget how much i love live theatre. how magical it can be when writing and performance and design all come together and you get the right audience at the right moment in time. not to be all the ephemerality of theatre is what makes it so magic but it literally is. yaga at the cultch was one of those this year. it reminded me of the downtown new york theatre workshop-esque shows i saw in new york that reminded you of the magic of being alive and you’d walk home afterwards, drunk on overpriced theatre wine and possibility. the power went out due to the wind the night i saw yaga so i came home and had to light candles in my room and plug my phone into my laptop until one of them died. it’s funny how the circumstances surrounding an experience become the experience as well.
matcha lemonade
i got this on impulse at the waves on broadway before an acting class one june day. it felt very on the nose to be going to an acting class carrying a green beverage but it was so fucking good and i’m pissed they’re only seasonal but 10/10 would recommend. drinking these became a minor league summer ritual. i do think they might have fucked with my digestion but i’ll spare you the details of that imagery.
caesars
i don’t even know how i got onto my self-professed caesar kick but i’m obsessed. i am working towards trying every caesar in gastown and then who knows where the ceiling on this experiment will go. vancouver? BC? canada? i guess that’s the ceiling because they’re a canadian thing but i digress. one night i went on a bar hop in gastown and my sweat literally smelled like worcestershire and clam juice by the end of the night. had to take a brief caesar sabbatical on that one. but the fact remains: never met a pickled garnish i didn’t like. unless it’s a sweet pickle in which case fuck that.
note: caesars are the canadian translation of a bloody mary. they are infinitely better but do not imbibe if you have a shellfish allergy. the clam juice concept freaks people out but it’s sort of like anchovies in caesar salad dressing (whoa i didn’t even mean to compare the caesar to the caesar, thanks universe), it just adds that umami little something. the spicier the better.
sunsets
i remember when i worked at the airport during my summers home from university, my favourite activity was to take my break around sunset every evening and get food and go sit up on the observation deck, watching all the planes take off against the backdrop of a pink sky. it’s sort of insane that the sky is pink and orange and golden or some combination thereof two times a day for us. this year i made more of an effort to stop and watch those sunsets. my version of the proverbial roses. you’re never going to regret watching the sun set. i could pontificate more (have you met me? i could ALWAYS pontificate more) but sometimes silence is the word a moment needs. and sunsets speak for themselves.
consistency
tale as old as time but it’s freaking true. writing, performing, tea drinking, reading, taking care of myself. doing the things that i like to do. consistently. doing special things regularly doesn’t make them less special, it reinforces that you yourself are deserving of special things because you are special.
matcha blueberry in LA
one morning after all my friends had left i decided to saunter down the street to get myself a morning beverage. my friend jake had recommended this tea place to me but on my way there i stumbled across a different place that pulled me in. and that’s what life’s all about, right? being on one path and then feeling called down another, sometimes even when the path doesn’t exist yet and you have to pave your own. wow i really turned a fresh blueberry matcha latte into a metaphor. listen it’s the time of year when everything feels symbolic and important and i’ve never been one to shy away from analogy or cliché. it was from blackwood cafe and it slapped.
sitting on the beach in LA with katrina
after two and a half years, i saw my best friend again. the person who i can be myself with 100%. i can say anything, no matter how fucked up. (i don’t have that many fucked up opinions, i swear) one day during our week in california we were walking along the santa monica pier and i got dippin dots and katrina got water (at an absurd price, of course) and we were both exhausted from a week of sun in november which is not something one is used to living where we live, respectively, and so we just sat on the beach, children and families milling about all around us. i ate my dippin dots. one of nature’s accidental marvels, much like penicillin. they were cotton candy flavoured. it was a perfect moment.
complex by katie gregson-macleod
that tiktok song that went viral i don’t know man it fucking slaps. sometimes things that are popular aren’t popular because popular things are bad but because their popularity is the very sign that they are good. you know?
albums
listening to music in order! on an album! as it was intended to be consumed. i think the resurgence of the concept album is great for this. but it’s a beautiful little journey. i feel like this is especially nice on road trips where you can then forever associate that album with that trip. assuming it goes well. if it doesn’t, well, good luck charlie.
collaging/ journalling/documenting your life not just on instagram
i started a “tea journal” at the beginning of 2022 where in the random blank pages at the end of my planner that i never know what to do with, i started writing out whatever tea i had that day. and yeah listen sometimes i forgot a few days in a row and then forgot what teas i had drank that week and some days i didn’t drink tea at all or some days i got coffee even though my little body CANNOT handle the stuff and i would soon be bouncing off the walls. and of course there’s a symbolic metaphor incoming because this is rachel ruecker we’re talking about, but the list became not about the drink of the day but about the memory of my daily beverage ritual. about remembering that i got a london fog with an old friend in september or an iced tea on a date in july. or that for two weeks straight i made tea at home in one of the wiser economic decisions i made in 2022. my life in tea. like a sort of reverse-tea leaf reading. or something. whatever you get it. david’s tea cream of earl grey slaps.
leaning into who i am/following my instincts
not to be all yolo but…it’s literally true! being embarrassed is literally so dumb and i GET IT society sucks more often than not but what if we all just agreed to dance like nobody’s watching collectively? i don’t know man sounds like a lot more fun that constantly overthinking what everyone on the waterfront-bound canada line is thinking about me every day. and trust me i have been there. don’t roll your eyes at the weird dude dancing at the bus stop, admire that he’s living his damn life! you know? i don’t know.
i’m a huge fan of a podcast. especially in the last two years where it felt like listening to two hosts banter about pop culture was as close as i could get to socialization. similarly, hockey became an outlet as all my other passions were banned - theatre, stand up, my friends - but hockey, albeit in a bubble, could still happen. so i leaned back into the canadian stereotype and cried over teams that weren’t even mine because there is something inherently magical about sports. how they unite us even when we’re apart. how when i was in new york and i saw a canucks hat on a stranger in the wild i felt my heart smile. steve dangle, though a fan of a warring team in the great canadian east-west divide, loves hockey for the same reasons i do. even if he makes his living on loving the leafs.
prioritizing what matters
i’m not saying be a flake, i’m saying when presented with multiple opportunities, what’s going to make your life RICHER? that’s the motto for 2023. a rich life. not a wealthy one. a rich one. but if it ends up being a wealthy one too i mean i won’t be mad about it but one thing at a time.
making time + showing up
show up for your friends.
cooper raiff is my celebrity crush, don’t tell. his mastery of words and zillennial ennui and nostalgia and homages to the coming-of-age movies i loved growing up? inspired. and in cha cha he’s just a sad boy who likes a girl he can’t have all while figuring out how to be a person once divorced from the safe haven of university. and we’ve all been there.
libraries
if you follow me on instagram or have talked to me at all in the last like 4 months you know i am deep in my library era. which shouldn’t be an era it should be a forever thing. i got a new york public library card in 2020 and loved just hanging out in their grandiose reading rooms or peeing in their grandiose bathrooms. the vpl bathrooms are slightly less grandiose but no less effective for girls with small bladders who aren’t trying to buy their third green tea of the day just so they can pee at a coffee shop. anyway this summer i got my vpl card and have ACTUALLY BEEN READING the books i take out. you know the high you get when the boy you like texts you? dude finishing a book is like the beast mode version of that and it’s not attached to a man. ideal.
wow that all got way more philosophical than intended. okay welp. more matcha and caesars and sunsets and friendship and being present in 2023. that list has no parallel structure but you know what we are also BREAKING THE RULES in 2023. grammar and otherwise. cheers. i’m also trying to share my writing more this year so hopefully the next thing i post for public consumption isn’t my 2023 wrap up. but i mean there are always my instagram stories, right?
xo.
rach