It’s July, which means half of this godforsaken year is over. Jesus christ. Yay. Ugh. What have I been into this year? Let’s do a recap.
This is like a journal post, but not. A round up of things I want to remember halfway through the year. What’s the point of this? Well, I’m not sure exactly. To stop insanity via boredom at work? To document a time in my life I wish I wasn’t living through and try to turn it into something good? Possibly. Mostly, I want to get better at talking about things I like.
I started this year with last year’s obsession seeping into it… Yes, Heated Rivalry got me, like everyone else on this planet. (If you’re reading this on tumblr dot com you are thinking: no shit.) It alerted me irrevocably in ways I am still dealing with. If you have no idea what I’m talking about or any understanding of what I could possibly mean by that, don’t worry about it. Seriously. We watched the show differently, and that’s okay. Just know that the HR crazies were/are real and took a long time to stop. There was/is a lot of relapsing, despite my tumblr tag for all Heated Rivalry content being "heated rivalry sabbatical.” It gets funnier the longer I continue to use it.
Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL)
This has been the most profound and most beautiful aspect of my 2026. I was “beginning to get into hockey” (whatever that means) after my twitter For You tab decided I liked the San Jose Sharks in December of last year. I’m not sure why either. I mean, I know it’s the algorithm and a result of liking HR posts and HR = hockey, but I’m not sure why the Sharks were chosen for me. I simply started seeing Sharks content on my twitter and, damn, they have some funny fans. They charmed me. I imagine it’s what being a casual Taylor Swift fan is like and looking in on Swiftie Twitter from the outside on a particularly eventful day. That’s probably gibberish to most. It’s like this: you may not understand what the hell’s going on, but people are making you laugh, no doubt.
Anyway, 2026 blessed us with a year of Winter Olympic Games. Thank. God. I needed them so badly. I won’t get into “why," just know that the Winter Olympics is my favorite thing in the world. This year, as told through my letterboxd pro stats, you can literally see that I didn’t watch a movie for the 2 prime weeks of the Winter Olympics; a rare occurrence for me (see graph below).
For those curious, I especially love figure skating, ice hockey, and snowboarding. And this year, I finally got [a little too much] into curling. But, the USA women’s hockey team was the highlight for me. They absolutely delighted me.
That final game between the USA and Canada almost killed me. I was sitting on my couch in agony, Canada up 1-0 for the majority of the game until American Angel Hiliary Knight skated onto the ice and changed everything in the last 2 minutes of the game. The USA won in OT and I felt like that meme about doing drugs and watching overtime hockey being the same experience. Sorry to any Canadian reading this, I love you guys.
I was watching the PWHL before the Olympics, but it wasn’t serious, I’d have a game on in the background while I did something else. Post-Olympics was a turning point. I was locked in. I fell in love with the Boston Fleet and Montreal Vicitioire—and both teams made it to the playoffs this year, the Victoire winning the Walter Cup! Oh, the high you feel when the team you’re rooting for wins. I get it now, “It” being why people act that way about sports. My 2026 hockey watching season can be summed up by saying that I laughed, I cried, I sweat, I danced, I got... a shot and I had many epiphanies. God bless the higher powers of hockey who decided all PWHL games are free to stream on YouTube. If that changes, I am killing mys—[record scratch].
The unfortunate part about getting into a sport is that it has an off season. I miss hockey, so much so that I watched a draft. I screamed when Laila Edwards was drafted by my chosen expansion team, (the still nameless) PWHL San Jose 4OA. If I had to pick my top 3 teams right now (not necessarily in order):
PWHL San Jose — Still nameless, PWHL San Jose is my girl. I don’t know why, but me and San Jose sports teams have an inexplicable bond. I’m San Jose down. I don’t care if they “win” or “lose,” they are mine.
Boston Fleet — This team organically charmed me. It just happened. I do wonder if my feelings will change post-expansion. Lots of moving around happened here but I do want to continue loving them.
Montreal Victoire — I love these players so much. My Walter cup champions, the current team post-expansion is beloved and stacked. They really earned my support as a fan.
And, honorable mention for the Vancouver Goldeneyes who just drafted KK Harvey 1OA. Trust I will be paying attention to you.
I can’t wait to watch again. All I needed to get into a sport was to find the right sport. Ice hockey is fast, and dynamic, and violent, and, most of all, FUN! I seriously should've been Canadian.
Around the same time as the Olympics, I got really into doing the crossword. Yes, as in a weekly newspaper crossword. My sister and I started looking forward to picking a new one up each Thursday. Now, we’ve sort of fallen off, but it was a really good run we had there… that’s wrapped up in my memory of Q1 for sure.
As Love Island comes to a close (and is not featured here because Love Island is far from a “new” thing in my life) I realized with a swiftness that I needed something else to devote my attention to in order to avoid dwelling on the horrors of my life.
Big Brother started calling to me. I have a good handful of friends who watch it and have told me I’d really like it but have never gotten around to watching it myself. So, I thought, what the hell, sure! However, a friend of mine shared that she was watching Survivor 50 first to better understand the game play of a few contestants. I love doing my research, so I went: “let me join you on this journey!”
I’m obsessed. Watching Survivor is all I want to do. At first, I was intimidated by episode 1 being 2 hours long, but about 15 minutes in was all it took to hook me. I spent my weekend watching 9 episodes. Trust I’m about to finish the season tonight. I’m very excited to start Big Brother knowing some of these players' backgrounds and even more excited to watch more Survivor.
I guess that’s all for now. Excited and hopeful to see what joys I can find in the second half of 2026.
snowghoul
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