What's Making Me Happy: The Return

Y'all, the first two months of this year have been 800 days long and have included literally all the snow. I wanted to try to overcome the struggle and inject some joy here and into the universe. So, I thought I'd resurrect one of my regular features here - What's Making Me Happy! 

If you've talked to me lately, there's a high likelihood I've told you about Pen15 on Hulu. Y'all, this show is incredible. The two main characters are played by two thirtysomething comediennes. Okay, so what? Well, WELL, they are playing middle school versions of themselves in the early 00s. The other piece of this is that everyone else in the series is normally cast for their age. 

For me, it's the perfect nostalgia feels - It's a time I know well in both the pop culture and experience. It's also just absolutely hilarious, and I LOVE it. To the point that I've watched it all twice, and I'll probably watch again soon. 

(GIPHY)

Oh, and if you want even more happy/reasons to watch, they have this playlist on Spotify. If this was MySpace, this would be totally playing in the background rn: Pen15 Playlist.

Another great piece of middle school "stuff" that I checked out this week was Eighth Grade - Now streaming on Amazon Prime! Much like Pen15, it took me back to middle school, but in a very different way. It was full of so many feels! While it focuses on kids today and the role of social media, the want to fit in descends all the generations - and even beyond middle school. It was outstanding and a film that really made me think.

This is a really good clip from CBS Sunday Morning (a perpetual source of happy for me) on what the film is all about:

Y'all, I cannot think of a time looking back on middle school/adolescence made me so damn happy, so that should really, really speak to the quality of this stuff.

As a final happy treat, here's a picture of me from my actual middle school days.

Gucci.