Horny-sad-horny sandwich
Welcome to this Sophia x Houston crossover recap. I’ll likely reference her as both Sophia and Bofa (origins: Sophia turned into Bophia by way of the B emoji randomly becoming popular freshman year of college. Bophia became Bofa as a shortening because we were childish and kept saying “Bofa deez nuts”).
Horny-sad-horny sandwich
Bofa is a big movie girl, and I occasionally get into bouts of intense movie watching, so this lent itself to an unintentionally movie filled week. We started the week watching Babygirl starring Nicole Kidman and Harris Dickinson, which was marketed as an erotic thriller. I am in love with Harris Dickinson (but also happy for him and his girlfriend) and was excited to see this project. It was fun and steamy, but nothing insane! I think Harris was great and the soundtrack was fantastic, but I think there were parts of the plotline that could have been fleshed out. I also just can’t get into Nicole as an actress, and unfortunately, the work she’s had done on her face often took me out of the movie. I truly try to not comment on people’s plastic surgery, but her face at times was intensely uncanny and felt distracting at points. If I had letterboxed, I’d give it 3 stars. The following day we watched Aftersun, a sort of single location movie about a dad on vacation with his young daughter. It’s shot really beautifully, and I think Paul Mescal’s performance is solid, but it’s shocking to me that he received award nominations for it. I didn’t realize the full weight of the movie until after Sophia read aloud a breakdown of the film dissecting some of the more ambiguous scenes, and I’m sure if I were to rewatch it, it would feel a lot more emotionally intense. We traversed from sad to even more heartbreaking with our next pick as Iron Claw, a movie so devastating we pushed back Sophia’s birthday dinner reservation to finish the movie (and cry). I highly recommend this movie and the fact that it’s based on a true story is just another nail in the coffin(s). Sophia and I finished off our horny-sad-horny sandwich with 50 Shades of Grey, which both of us had never seen. We took edibles before we watched it and holy shit, I’ve never laughed so hard in my entire life. The dialogue is horrendously undercooked and almost juvenile, but the movie is so graphic it’s almost terrifying- it’s a distressing combination. We were only 18 minutes in and had already paused five different times to attempt to process what was happening, except we were high and just freaking the hell out. Wouldn’t recommend it, and won’t be watching the next two. I was so baffled on how this is a cult classic and catapulted Dakota Johnson to stardom, and then I remembered she’s a nepo baby. Everything made sense after that.
Houston is fun!
Bofa and I bopped around downtown Houston for a few days, and it reminded me of how fun the city can be, especially when you have someone to explore it with! On Sophia’s birthday, we were disgustingly hungover with the worst tequila shakes you could ever imagine, and down a pop socket wallet that was unfortunately never found. After aimlessly staring at the grass outside the bars from the previous night in a poor but well-intentioned attempt to find Sophia’s pop socket, I got us biscuits and coffee from Blacksmith which is one of my favorite cafes in the city. We sat outside the steps of the Airbnb and ate them while praying to the sun to evaporate the hangover from our bodies. It didn’t work, but the moment felt very reminiscent of our Blueprint biscuit runs after a brutal hangover in college, and the nostalgia made the tequila shakes partially worth it. Following a necessary shower and feeble efforts to look presentable, we walked around Ironworks, a rehabbed warehouse that has cute little shops and then a trip to Juiceland, which was unusually busy, and soaked up the sun once again as multiple motorcycle gangs drove by. I had mentioned getting sandwiches earlier in the day, and the thought resonated because juices in hand, we made the two-minute trek down to Onion Creek where I got the yardbird and Sophia got some sort of turkey club, and the hangover started to feel like more of a memory (until we stood up, of course). The following day, we went to POST which is this massive multi-level building downtown with a great food hall and many other random activities including an art installation experience. Bofa and I spent almost two hours walking through various light and art installations, most of which were trippy, a few of which we really loved and a couple of which made us weirdly anxious. After Bofa got a hotdog and boba, we went to Montrose to hit up Leopard Lounge and Pavement- classic. It was a great couple of days to remind me that while irritating at times, Houston does indeed have some charm.
Confirmation of my calming aura
“In stressful situations, you have such a calming presence that I really appreciate” Sophia said this to me at some point during our hangover haze and it has stuck in my head since. We momentarily lost Minoux and Luna outside whilst housesitting, in which I was confident we would find them mostly because we had to. It wasn’t an option for me to lose them and thankfully, we later found them both just past the backyard fence. When Sophia lost her pop socket wallet, I immediately stepped into my mom role (for clarification, I am the mom, Sophia is the youngest, Alden the middle child and Isabela the oldest). While my resolve didn’t fuel reality, it satisfied me to have outside confirmation that in times of crisis, I’m a calming presence.
