What December Deserves

December outside was doing its usual thing: wet streets, no light, people who looked like they’d already given up. The kind of weather that makes you feel like your life choices are the problem. Fine. I had a few suggestions.

Lana Del Rey had released something new, and it was long and atmospheric and I watched it in the dark more than once. The album wasn’t out yet—she was still this strange apparition on the internet, the whole aesthetic half-constructed, the mythology suspicious—and somehow the uncertainty made it more interesting. You could watch it and project whatever you wanted onto it, and if some of that projection was physical, that was between you and Lana.

Skins deserved a full rewatch from episode one. The British version. The American adaptation had been an embarrassment to everyone involved and should be mentioned only as a warning—touch it and something bad will happen to you. But the real thing, with wine and whatever else was in the flat, starting from the very beginning: that was a legitimate use of a grey December weekend. It was better than it had any right to be, that show.

Somewhere in the noise that week was the story about the Pope being ticketed in Germany for not wearing a seatbelt. Not important. Just somehow completely perfect. Also: Japan apparently had Pringles flavors that should not have been allowed to exist, and this felt relevant to something, even if I couldn’t say what.

Whatever you did: survive it.