is that the way that you wanna be loved? [playlist]

[ indie pop & lo-fi or whatever the heck ]

in 2016, my friends and i snuck into a TOPS and weyes blood show downtown. i say “snuck” lightly, because we weren’t particularly sneaky at all, i just think the bouncer didn’t care enough to say anything about it.

in my 3rd year of college, i lived in a house near the beach with 7 roommates. i had a bedroom to myself, although i shared the bathroom with 3 boys. my bedroom was small but lofted, so i had a ladder going up to an area with a tiny window where i kept my twin-sized mattress. the downstairs area was for my desk, records, shoes, sci-fi posters, and eventual litter box for my kitten, aragorn, who i adopted halfway through the year. there was a big backyard with a hot tub and a roof that you could climb up on, and we lived maybe 3 short blocks from the ocean. i remember one evening, i had a 30-minute break between work meetings, so i skateboarded home from campus, sat on our rooftop just to watch the sun go down for a bit, then skateboarded all the way back. the most beautiful and memorable sunsets of my life all happened in this year, either watching from our rooftop or the beach or our palm tree-lined street.

three of my roommates were in a band together and four of us worked at the local community radio station, where i was the general manager at the time. we’d throw house parties every few months with themes like ‘monochrome’ and ‘tiny glasses.’ everyone i knew would be there, even some of our friends from out of town, and on one occasion, staff from other college radio stations. we’d dance all night in our packed living room to songs like “hunnybee” by UMO and “take me out” by franz ferdinand, and i’d take shitty film photos on my point-and-shoot where hardly anything was in frame (i wasn’t even drunk). afterwards, my friends would sit on my bedroom floor heaving into a trash bag or drunkenly ranting about racism politics in relation to cup of noodles™.

the day we all moved out of the house was bittersweet. most of my roommates were graduating and i was transitioning to a studio apartment a bit closer to campus. i moved all my belongings in the morning because i had to go in for my shift at the urban outfitters store downtown. frankie was dancing to hoops in the living room, and there was an inside joke that we shared. sam was sitting in the moving truck holding his guitar. our couch was in the front yard and claudia and yarden sat on it while drinking kombucha. i cried on the 20-minute drive downtown.

this playlist is inspired by that year of my life, that house, my roommates, our parties, and the artists we listened to in our living room.