Dear Mack, I Don’t Think They Should Allow Me on the Train Anymore

Dear Mack, I Don't Think They Should Allow Me on the Train Anymore

I don’t think they should allow me on the train anymore. Not because I’m a danger to the general public or anything (I’m not I swear), but because I become a reminiscing monster whenever I get on one of those things. Something about being on a large moving vessel that moves at high-speed with a clear view of my surroundings, in combination with my Sony WH-1000XM4s blasting acoustic guitar-led introspective indie folk…it just makes a girl THINK. I’m also prone to fall victim to nostalgia in general, so it’s honestly just a recipe for disaster. I’ve probably backslid and regressed in my head back and forth more times than humanly possible. I’ve been taking the BART more than usual, because I find myself returning to the city and that general area more often these days.

Songs You Should Not Listen To On The Train (Lest You Begin Reminiscing)

★ So Far Gone by ROLE MODEL

★ Phoenix by Slaughter Beach, Dog

★ About You by The 1975 (also Guys)

★ Scott Street by Phoebe Bridgers

★ Spring Into Summer by Lizzy McAlpine (also I Guess)

★ Hot and Heavy by Lucy Dacus

★ You’re here that’s the thing by beabadoobee

★ skinny dipping by Sabrina Carpenter

★ Big Picture by Grace Gardner (feat. buffchick) (love you Grace my friend)

★ Before We Step Inside by Charlie Burg

★ Yoko by Maisie Peters

★ Suburban Legends by Taylor Swift

★ company by …me (Yes I listen to my own music on the train I DON’T CARE!!! #selflove)

It kind of started after we hung out three (?!) weeks ago now (hey so why does time move so fast), and I’ve just been going back. I forgot how beautiful the Bay Area actually is, despite having lived here my entire life. I’ve complained and still complain about how boring it is here, but in reality, San Francisco is right there, and it is (for the most part) so awesome and wonderful and full of history and so rich in its culture. I think, sometimes, it’s hard to appreciate what’s right in front of you because it’s always been so close—like, if someone held up the Mona Lisa approximately two inches from your face, you wouldn’t be able to acknowledge and recognize how legendary it is until you take a step back and really take a look at it. That’s how I feel about the Bay. I think our trip in the city together really made me realize that we grew up in such a cool area, we were just always too close to notice it. Also I miss you! I think I keep going back because I keep thinking about everywhere we went when you last visited and how fun it was!

Anyway, the weekend after we hung out, I took an impromptu road trip to LA for literally less than 24 hours to see my friends. I hadn’t seen Ginny (one of my best friends and moviestar bandmate!!) in FOREVER because our lives have just been so busy and it’s been hard to make time to meet up (looove adult friendships) so it was really great and such a relief to get to see her again and hug and squeeze her before the year ends.

ME SQUEEZING GINNY!!! I LOVE HER!!!

I also got to see her boyfriend Harry, who is also one of my good friends, which was wonderful (yes their names are Harry and Ginny like in Harry Potter. I cannot make this up. It’s pretty awesome), as well as Kevin, one of my longtime friends and music collaborators (shoutout ACADIA!). I brought my brother Luke along with me because I needed to share the drive (I hate driving you know this) and plus, my friends love him anyway. It really warmed my heart to see them all get along. We went to get dinner (Vietnamese food which was YUM) and then we went to CityWalk at Universal Studios to mess around and hang out. We also got breakfast the next morning where I had the strongest coffee I have ever had in my entire 23 years of living. That’s definitely an exaggeration but when I tell you it woke me up instantly…I’m so serious. It didn’t taste very good but it was very effective, which I’ll take. It was so nice to see friends again and also to get Porto’s. I love that place and their cheese rolls—my family gets them every time we visit SoCal, so it only felt right to stock up on a couple boxes and bring some home for everyone.

I had one rest day in between before I went to go see another sweet friend. Elle has been one of my best friends for the past few years and is currently based out of Hong Kong, but she had been traveling across the U.S. to see all of her friends who live here (which is a lot). I jokingly referred to this month-long trip of hers as her U.S. tour dates, and it might as well have been, because there are so many folks here who love and would make time for her any day. We got to stay in a hotel and just have a girls’ night in / sleepover and our room number was 333, which felt really lucky and sweet. Also we DoorDashed so. Much. Food. We also got complimentary reception drink tickets and ordered gin and tonics, which we took back up to the room and discovered tasted really good with passionfruit green tea from Panera. I said we should both do a total career switch and become bartenders, make it an actual drink, and call it The Substack Special (since we’re both writers on that platform).

It was very much an Elle and Faith evening, and by that I mean we drank and ate sweets, talked about everything and anything, and watched Friends (one of our favorite shows. We can both quote the entire thing word for word and it’s kinda insane). It was such a short time, but I loved getting to see her, and felt especially special that I was the last person she saw before she flew home, concluding the Elle Read Some Books U.S. Tour. She also gave me a special edition of Beach Read—my favorite Emily Henry book…she knows me so well—which was so so sweet and thoughtful of her (a book I know you didn’t particularly enjoy but it’s okay. We like different book genres and that just makes us even cooler polar opposite best friends). I was so sad watching her Uber drive away, but I still went back into the hotel and took advantage of complimentary breakfast like a champ.

After my three weekends of Oomfchella, I got to just relax at home throughout the weekdays which was honestly so nice. After such a tough comp exam and a few busy (yet fun) weekends, I really needed a bit of a break. I saw Wicked in theaters with my family the day it came out and it made me ugly cry so many times throughout. At the end of it, I said out loud to my sister, “I think I cried the most at this than any other movie I’ve seen in theaters,” to which she replied: “No. Do you remember when we we saw Dear Evan Hansen the movie? Your face was STREAMING.” She’s right. Like sure, that movie is objectively…not the best adaptation, but I’m kind of easy to impress. If a movie makes me feel good at any point at all and doesn’t upset me with its ending, I generally will just say that I enjoyed it.

But despite my emotional bias toward musical theater aside, objectively, Wicked was a terrific adaptation of the stage musical. I kinda really love Ariana Grande, so I went into this knowing I would love her even more, but I wasn’t super familiar with Cynthia Erivo and her work before this. And oh my goodness. She was phenomenal. Whenever she sang, I cried. It was simple. My mom is obsessed with all things Oz—she played two roles in her high school production of The Wiz, Glinda and Aunt Em, and got to see Wicked during its original run in 2003 at The Curran Theatre in San Francisco, with Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth in the cast. It’s kind of insane. She’s so incredibly protective over this musical, so I was genuinely so surprised when she told me she loved the movie. It’s not a surprise if I love a movie, because I’m kind of so easily entertained, but my mom’s the opposite. So if she says she loved it, it should honestly say a lot.

I Love Scarves. I Am A Scarf Lady Now

Like I said earlier, I’ve been finding myself back in the city, and yesterday, I was there again with my siblings. Every time I’m there, I make sure to look my best because I want to experience an organic meet cute SO bad (I look really good in a scarf. This is a recent discovery. I haven’t worn a scarf in forever and I stole the one pictured above from my dad’s closet but still…I think I rock it pretty well). The closest I got to one was at dinner last night, where my siblings were convinced the server was, and I quote, “trying to rizz me up”. We concluded at the end of the meal that he was, in fact, probably just nice, because we heard him talking the exact same way to another table nearby…I guess all men really are the same.

u will have to pry me away from these film photobooths

You asked in your last letter what my favorite relationship tropes are, and to that I say that most of my favorite romance novels have been either friends-to-lovers/slow burn (i.e., One Day by David Nicholls) or just a straight up rivals-to-lovers story (i.e., Beach Read and Book Lovers by Emily Henry). But if I had to experience one for my next romantic endeavor in real life…hm. That’s hard because I would prefer for my endgame to be a friends-to-lovers situation, just because it feels like the most realistic way for me to fall in love with someone for good and like a great foundation for a relationship that’ll last for the rest of my life. Getting to know someone like the back of your hand, knowing all their little quirks and details, and what they’re thinking before they even say it—all of that and vice versa just feels like the ideal situation for an endgame relationship. But my next love interest doesn’t necessarily have to be my endgame (although I might just want it to be at this point because I’m TIRED), so if I just wanted to experience a trope for the hell of it…maybe I’d have to go with rivals-to-lovers. It would be very interesting and bring a lot of drama into my life for sure, but maybe I need that. Sometimes I get really bored and just beg the universe for something to happen, so maybe it’ll serve me right.

Circling back to my forbidden train playlist, what songs shouldn’t be allowed to be listened to on the train for you? I know you’re less of a reminiscent person than I am, but what songs would absolutely wreck you if they were heard while on public transit, particularly train?

Write back sooooon,