My mind is a jumble of schoolwork, Love is Blind and Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Covered Powerberries

and I've had too much of them all. This is an update from the GRIEF AND MEDIA PROJECT!

Hello, my friends! I hope you’re doing well and enjoying your October. It’s been very fun for me because I’ve been wearing my Uggs with every outfit. However, the mysterious nature of when we have to change our clocks (I refuse to Google) and the thought of 5 p.m. sunsets are looming over me. I could let this take my joy from me. Will I? Probably.

waterproofing your Uggs is a scam, or more likely I just did it wrong

I’ve been a bit MIA from the GRIEF AND MEDIA PROJECT, so I wanted to give you all an update. I’m at that midway point in my first semester of grad school, and it shows. (See: One 5 p.m. sunset could send me down a spiral.) For the remainder of this semester, I’m going to take a break specifically from This Week in Grief and Media. I’d like to focus my limited newsletter time on twice-a-month essays that will either be a personal essay on grief or on a piece of media through a grief lens. My first essay is coming next week. I will still be adding to the database (please submit any media you’d like to see on it here!), and my goal is to bring the podcast back early 2025. GRIEF AND MEDIA PROJECT is not going anywhere, and I plan to schedule my time out next semester so I can pour more of my heart and also obsession with reality TV in it.

By the way, in school, I’m hoping to do research specifically on grief representation in media. I’ve been working on a research proposal around grief, identity and coming-of-age TV shows and movies. Being able to talk about Conrad Fisher in an academic/professional setting is what every person dreams of, I think. I’ve also been toying around with the idea of getting my PhD. I said this to people in my cohort the other day, and in response, someone said, “Dr. Piscatelli!!!!” and yea… that feels right. When I google Dr. Piscatelli, a gastroenterologist in New York state comes up. I need to put Dr. Piscatellis who barely know what a liver does on the map.

In this week:

• Being in school. Oh, I so mean it. School is sooooo fun and even though I’m stressed, I’m more happy with my ~career~ than I’ve been since I graduated college.

• Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Covered Powerberries. While I do have a stomachache from them as we speak, they’re the best of what Trader Joe’s has to offer these days. (I will never forget you, Trader Joe’s Milk & Dark Chocolate Sea Salt Caramel Popcorn That Got Discontinued In 2020.)

• Iced coffee with vanilla and hazelnut syrups. I drank too much of this while working at the coffee shop I work at last weekend, and I did get anxious and twitchy. But I will certainly be repeating these mistakes.

• Saying I’m going to go to the movies to see The Substance on my day off, then not going to the movies to see The Substance on my day off. I think I’m going to Thursday, though. Maybe.

• Watching home videos. I love watching old videos of my parents, and I love that my dad loved to record everything. I’m so glad they were mine. In every lifetime, I’d pick them as my parents.

Media I’ve been into lately:

• Love is Blind. I’m admittedly behind, but I’m obsessed with the rich guy whose rich parents and grandparents have all passed away before he was 30, so he’s now the owner of the family business. I hate when all grief representation has to fall onto a “perfect victim”-type of character who the audience can empathize with. Let’s get some annoying grievers!!!! They (we :/) need representation too.

• Andrew Garfield’s episode on All There Is with Anderson Cooper. For those who don’t know, Anderson Cooper started a podcast on grief, after the recent loss of his mom, following losing his dad and brother when he was young. Andrew Garfield lost his mom to cancer in 2019, and he always has this admirable eloquence in the way he talks about grief. This is a beautiful podcast episode.

• Neopets! Without fail, I always come back to her. It’s usually a sign of my mental state, but that’s okay.

• Nobody Wants This!!!! I love a rom-com. And Adam Brody is the hottest person to ever exist, after husband of GRIEF AND MEDIA PROJECT. I’m serious. Number three might be Adam Devine, but only because of a dream I had about him in 2014 that I won’t disclose.

And the latest media database addition:

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Thank you for reading. I’ll see you next week!

Please consider sharing the GRIEF AND MEDIA PROJECT with a friend. It would mean the world! <3