| m | t | w | th | f | sa | su |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| saint sebastian's abyss, by mark haber | the book of goose, by yiyun li | confessions of the green river killer, by maria dilorenzo | goodbye, things, by fumio sasaki | gold, by orphan_account | ||
| the library at hellebore, by cassandra khaw | convenience store woman, by sayaka murata | my year of rest and relaxation, by ottessa moshfegh | requiem & poem without a hero, by anna akhmatova | rock, meet hard place, by asongto(...) | read bits of "a creative guide to exploring your life," "the anna karenina fix," and "powered by me." | the metamorphosis, by kafka |
| the blue fox, by sjon | the full moon coffee shop, by mai mochizuki | chess story, by stefan zweig; we used to live here, by marcus kliewer | the anna karenina fix, by viv groskop | star wars: jedi academy, by jeffrey brown | the invention of morel, by adolf bioy casares | smarter, tomorrow, by elizabeth ricker |
| i want you to be happy, by jem calder | wouldn't it be nice, by acethetically | universal harvester, by john darnielle | i moved to los angeles to work in animation, by natalie nourigat | the way she feels, by courtney cook | everyone's a aliebn when ur a aliebn too, by johnny sun | give me everything you've got, by imogen crimp |
| jedi academy: return of the padawan, by jeffrey brown | jedi academy: the phantom bully, by jeffrey brown | the new age of sexism, by laura bates | bad friend, by tiffany watt smith | the true happiness company, by veena dinavahi |
from bad friend, by tiffany watt smith:
We felt smug, if I am honest. What were men’s friendships apart from sitting next to each other playing computer games? They sat in the pub, with their pints and their superficial banter and talk of football, while we walked the streets, excavating the hidden gullies, the caves and outcrops of our hearts.
But I had never heard of L. T. Meade, Elinor M. Brent-Dyer, Angela Brazil, Evelyn Sharp, Elsie J. Oxenham or Dorothea Moore,
twilight blue sky appears in the cracks in my blinds. the window is raised an inch; a woman's cackling barges through it. this intrusion on my privacy is what brought me to the text document. i would like to be in a world of my own. an open window helps circulate the air, but with it comes more sounds. i could put in headphones or earplugs. my worn-out ears reject them. traffic noises come and go. the motorcycles, or very loud cars, are more obvious. who are these people? i imagine them as service employees---the kind of people who worked an evening shift. they could hail from the hospital, or the retail stores that don't close until late in the night, if at all. but i am too quick to assume these people are my kin. in a college town, so many young ones might be rushing to parties, going to hang out with (boy)friends, coming home or going out to clubs---bars---what is there to do at night? perhaps the cars are of parents who are running late night errands; a trip to cvs for medicine, a guilty-pleasure meal; even food delivery drivers, working late into the night like the fast food staff, all to make a buck.
i find an observation for august---why try to run, when i know i will not? furthermore, why must my quest be about me and my insular habits? i look upon my past and future and decree: for august, i'll actively explore and participate in the 'small web' / 'cozy web' / 'indie web.' how shall i measure my success? alongside my 3hr/day writing bit, i must not overcommit, lest i engage in certain failure. i suppose i'll log something in my upcoming diary. i'd like to (re)join some pixel clubs, for one. look at whatever 32bitcafe has been up to. participate in the indieweb carnivals?
yes: i will log an activity each day. the bare minimum would be browsing neocities and leaving comments. lol, like a canva discussion...naturally, this will be the bare minimum, here for emergencies. this bare minimum annoys me to a point where i would rather do something else. it is not an interesting bare minimum.
hmm, i think i will design a proper diary for august. i have also been thinking about uploading all of my old diaries. 'why' is a bit more difficult to explain. i like the idea of having a complete archive of whatever-the-fuck-i've-been-doing.
opened up window, only for loud car guy to turn his car on. there's no music yet.
i understand that comparison is the thief of joy. comparing myself to my roommates creates misery. i feel so poor. inviting people to my cardboard palace would be embarrassing. i mean, i sleep on blankets on the floor because buying a mattress isn't a priority. if it ain't broke, don't fix it...
i am so trashy in a way that bothers me. there's always a dirty dish out. there's a mess of wires and cables on the floor. my bookshelf and closet feel so full of stuff, too much stuff, but it's all cooking supplies and ramen and a backpack and a recycling bin. there is no "i have too much stuff and need to declutter." this truly is an organization problem. the few books that i can leave in a donation box won't make a difference---their footprint is so small that they aren't part of the problem.
the annoying part is that i use all of the kitchen stuff. "how is that annoying" because there's too much of it. a box of baking supplies, a shelf for spices and a blender and a rice cooker, a mortar and pestle, an instant pot. all of this stuff is stuff.
i need to stop thinking of this. i really truly need to stop thinking about this. i hate how inferior i feel. it isn't anything my roommates did---we truly do not interact with each other. but i look at my shelf of leftovers and their shelves of takeout. i see their glass containers and my black takeout containers. their piles of stuff make my piles of stuff feel inadequate. the new roommate bought a mop---there isn't enough kitchen for a mop!
these ladies also do not seem to drink coffee or alcohol. one of them vapes, but that's it. i again feel trashy. i chase after the most popular substances, while they reject them in favor of 'healthy' options. is vaping mainstream?
there are boxes on boxes on boxes in the kitchen. it's like the moving-in fairy vomited all over everything. why does this feel like such an invasion? i want my own place. i want my own place. i want my own place.
i do not want to look at my bank account right now. i feel like i'm being an irresponsible piece of trash. rent needs to be paid. utility bill needs to be paid.
the sound of keys hitting each other causes my to look up from my computer. past the granite benches, by a tall street lamp, is a woman with a wolf. or is that a bear? the massive gray dog is as large and rotund as a small bear could be. it's jaws hang open, likely sweating from all the heat. it's shaggy gray fur catches my eye. a tail like a (particular window-cleaning object whose name i can't recall) wags gently, as if moved by the breeze. the woman is tall, blonde, hair in a bun, dressed in a long black jacket, pants, white button-down, and has a teal backpack. there are headphones on her shoulders.
staring is rude. i turn my gaze back to my computer. i'm seated on a bench of average comfort. my legs and ankles are crossed; my feet are on this wooden brown bench. the breeze attacks my body and causes my shirt to ripple. my bedroom, even with the window open, felt as warm as a sauna, and how is this so cold?
i want to go out for boba. i think about the canned boba drinks at the grocery store---it's easier to buy from a boba shop, when the volume of sugar isn't upfront.
i suppose that's my writing exercise for the day.
stomach full / empty; wanting to get up and not wanting to get up; to sleep or to buy food; to spend / save; to piss or not; to breathe or not; to sleep; to dream; to fail to dream; to ramble; to wander
i have nothing to say yet i must write. i must emit words. this file is an extension of myself. i write so that i exist. how els ecan i justify my terrible nonexistence? i stare at my essay. essay, essay, essay. how long has it been since i wrote a proper---no, those shortform exercises from earlier this year do count. thhey count beyond repair. and i stare at my document. i haven't written something longform like this in a few months. is that a lie or is that true? it's what feel true in the moment. i surprise myself with the volume of words.
i think about overpriced snack cheese, cans of coffee; an impulse buy from a shop; i've not left my town proper in months? a second, no that's not a lie. i think i'm restless. i want to go out, but would htat break the supposed monotony? is there monotony, or does it only exist when i write?
do i have consciousness? does consciousness exist? i think of the apophenion; some memory, albiet vague, of 'free will' = random + following patterns. my past predicts my future, except for when something random---some rando internal atom interaction---occurs, which appears as an 'impulse.' there is no free will. every stimulus i have ever been exposed to indicates my behavior. i truly am the product of m environment and my impulses. why is there an urge to structure it so? to tame these impulses and give them shape? to turn myself into something better?
i write my syllabus and think: i want it now. i can't have it now; i must work for it. i think i am making progress---to what? for what? how?---though maybe i'm not. is there progress to be made. i am sick of my thoughts and words and life. what have i been trying to accomplish? i tire of asking myself that question. the answer has been nothing. the answer has been passing time. passing time counts, because i have nobody to prove myself to, other than myself. in absence of a template i must create my own.
i wonder who i would have been if i did everything you told me to do. if i still followed your gospel.
eyes feel puffy. i do not want to read or write right now. i feel as if i've given up on my reading challenge. reading middle school graphic novels on two consecutive days feels like a resignation. i am doing whatever i must to complete my goal; i'm too far in to not read a goddamn book. what's the point in reading if i only feel disappointed in myself? two more days of this. maybe i'll continue reading the consciousness book tomorrow, and maybe i won't. don't know. don't care. fuck all of this.
i'd left an uncovered bottle of wine by my bed for the past few days---laziness, forgetfulness, carelessness---and discovered some gnats within it. i eyed them with a curious, bored stare. they're certainly dead. as long as i don't ingest them, do they even matter? people eat insects. who am i to deny myself the chance? still, i could only sip through half of the remaining bottle. with every gnat that didn't pass my lips, i felt as if i was tempting fate. if i continued to drink, one of those creatures would enter my mouth. how would i react? disgust? dismissal? a shrug? would i spit it out, or would i swallow? how many have i ingested without noticing? either way, a familiar warm-fuzzy feeling has already taken ahold of my head. i feel lighter and happier. the edge that i wanted to take off, though i barely knew it there, has been taken off.
maybe i can do the rest of my assigned writing for the day. i've slogged through the reading, the poetry, the book-copying. all that's left---i say as if it's no effort at all---is to work on this week's essay. i do not know how to structure a longform personal essay. i want to make an outline. i have two drafts, surely i can reverse them into outlines? yet my story unfolds and unravels. i stare at it: the story i wanted to tell became the story i am telling. where does it go? idly, i observe the connections to the hero's journey---i didn't get what i wanted, but i got what i needed---and wonder if i can use that to structure my writing.
structure is something my diary lacks, but my diary is not professional. i reach for professionalism---oh, to reach publication! formless, shapeless, pointless words stand no chance; weave them together to illustrate a point, and then publication becomes a necessity; a mark of the story's conclusion. yet who am i to sum up my life with a concise point?
perhaps acknowledging that i got what i needed is the problem. this is a personal essay. i've come to terms with the story, or so i thought, but maybe i haven't rested as easily as i believed. perhaps---oh, but what! i think through my words. they are increasingly incoherent. i have everything i need. synthesis, i miss. i have become certain.
work was whatever. argued with coworker1. boss2 commented on how i was peeling the jicama, said it made him worried and wasn't safe. coworker1 said something about how "you get used to it." boss2 said he only trusted [a specific local population i am not remotely a part of] to do it like that.
dream where i was working in the kitchen of the daisy cruiser. the fryers were in a corner, beside two fridges. these were silver fridges with two doors, shaped like the one i have at home. the pos screen was mounted on an arm that was mounted on the ceiling. when tickets came in, they didn't have the order---they just noted the name on the ticket and if it was online / takeout / dine-in. i had to run over to expo to find out what the orders were. i told my coworker that the pos wasn't displaying the tickets and she ignored me. i said we needed to get this fixed before the lunch rush and she said she's just read the new tickets out loud.
naturally, a long ticket came in, and she would not read it out loud. i kept running back to expo to read the tickets, but they kept changing. the styrofoam takeout boxes had two different orders written on them; which was right? this one, she said, which cleared up nothing. i ran back to the fryers. boss1 entered the kitchen, and the tickets began to show up on the pos. we were waist deep in the lunch rush. were all of those preorders? they kept changing. i couldn't remember what i was doing. fohGirl was now a cook, and i could see her running around on line, quite far away from me. boss1 approached me and said i could connect with the girls up front, and that it was fine for me to try to join their groups. "right, fohGirl?" he said, and she made a sarcastic, noncommittal noise. a timer went off. i woke up.
things i want to spend a month studying / practicing:
from a world appears, by michael pollan:
Chalmers has an unusual and, to my mind, admirable ability to hold ideas lightly, taking them seriously without becoming personally invested. When we met in New York, he mentioned with some bemusement that “whichever theory I’ve worked on most recently comes to seem the least plausible, while the ones I haven’t thought about for a while start to look more promising…until I work on them.”
Consciousness is a labyrinth from which there is no exit.
holy shit i feel so stupid for being unaware of how intelligent plants are. they move much slower than we do, yes, but they do make choices that influence their survival.
moonlight passes through the nearly-covered windows, exposing the shadow of the chair and desk. the chair sits at an angle, as if someone had not sat there at all, but had just returned the chair from elsewhere, lazily refraining from tucking it back under the desk at the appropriate perpendicular angle. the chair is wiry; despite the exposed back, it looks sturdy. there's a thin brown cushion on the seat. perhaps: a cardboard-thin layer of padding. the desk is similarly wiry. it is wide and a foot deep. the top appears to be wood; closer inspection reveals the cheapness. it is not wood. the black wire frame barely supports the desk. under one leg of the desk, there is a small blue washcloth that's been folded up. atop the desk is a thin layer of dust. a book---house of leaves---disrupts this layer of neglect. yet another knicknack sits atop the book. does anybody care?
stolen time. shouldn't be spending it but can't help it. police on the street three times tonight---two different houses. how many incidents are there usually? sometimes someone calls the police on the large house when they throw parties. what were the other two about. stolen hours; i need to sleep, i want to sleep, i don't want to sleep. a paradox: sleep brings me dreams, and sleep brings me closer to work. i haven't left the house today. that's true, but today has been 43 minutes long, so is it far to say that? and yesterday, you grabbed ice cream again.
i type with my eyes closed. i put in eye drops because i was worried my eyes were dry. my eyes are constantly subjected to the fan blowing a air on them and the gentle glare of my computer. does the red light do much? it stings. hmm.
what was elen trying to accomplish? was she there to get the essay written by any means possible? there were times i wondered if there were cameras hiding around the house.
home invasion nightmares. not nightmares---twisted daydreams, s sensations of something entering the house and room, something that shouldn't be there, presences which go str grow stronger. can i control alt delete them? that and the insect, the glaring one on the bathroom wall, so false and so real. i am tired of my brain. why does it want to convince me that there are things that i know aren't there? i will not traverse this train of thought.
for this week, i am optimistic. i set up habitica. hopefully this helps me make the habits stick. fashioning myself into a serious writer, someone with a craft she's trying to improve, excites me. i don't need to want to make a career out of writing to justify writing. i am capable of writing for the hell of it, and not only to process something or other. figments of a novel are floating in the back of my mind. if i study, i will be prepared to write it.
love,
nobody.
reading "i moved to los angeles to work in animation" made me think about writing a graphic memoir about moving out. one may call this self-obsessed; what can i even offer to others? counterpoint: so many youtubers my age make videos on the exact same topic. we are young and naive and eager to share advice. i think this is an excuse to talk about our own experiences with moving out.
to get started on this, i elected to read my old diary entries. i pulled up my many old websites and spent half an hour skimming entries from my first two months of independent life. i have written too many words, i think, to quickly read what i have written. in my head, i thought i'd've been optimistic to move out---overjoyed to get started on a new life. my diary paints a picture of a depressed person who can't decide if moving out will make a difference. i thought i'd been excited to take control of my life; instead, i see "wherever you go, there you are." there was a lot of writing about v; i think we stopped talking a week or two after i moved out. unfortunately, i'd heavily censored my diary entries; the records of him are sparse, and are primarily outbursts / breakdowns about things he said to me, and not of my interactions with him. these breakdowns were mostly confined to my physical notebooks, which are difficult to go through.
here's an excerpt of an entry from 20240514:
Fuck you for having a life that you could throw away, and then for choosing to do so. Yes, I am tired. Yes, I am angry. I wish I could eradicate the constant reminders of you, if only to cease the festering of my pent-up rage. You think I'd forget about you, yet I feel guilty whenever I see something nice and don't take a picture of it. I still find myself walking around and wondering if I should be photographing things. Feeling guilty. You whine about not feeling appreciated---the most obvious thing you've left me with is this constant feeling of guilt, pointing out how I'm not doing enough for you, and then I'm left actively seeking out things that you might be interested in. Even in your absence, I'm still wasting my time on doing things for you. I almost wish that I hated you.
and another one, this time from 20240428:
I was left to constantly feel like I did something wrong, and wonder what I was doing wrong, and never know what it was that I was doing wrong, certainly not how to do anything differently. Just that I am inconsistent, and retarded, and don't know what I want, don't know what I like, don't like anything, don't exeperience (sic) positive emotions, am annoying, am difficult, unreliable, slow, have poor taste, don't have any taste, don't get things
the majority of my entries from this time are in a similar vein. when not writing about him, i am berating myself for not spending my time well, for not knowing what i want, for not wanting anything, for daydreaming, for being bad at reading, and for not spending my time on anything worthwhile. several entries note chew-spitting food; vague memories of [redacted forum] come to surface. i realize that forum, which i must not revisit, has a more complete record of that time than my diary does.
i thought i'd be able to contrast what i expected from moving out and what actually happened when i moved out. that'd be a good story, right? naive young woman expects her life to improve, is punched in the face by reality, learns to adapt to new and challenging situations, and ultimately develops a life that's more satisfying than anything she could have imagined? there'd be elements of a story about an underdog defeating the odds. the story would be uplifting.
needless to say, reality does not support the story i want to tell. i moved out on a whim. i was struggling with the tail-end of a terrible online relationship. my thoughts were plagued by unnecessary crises. i was still trying to turn myself into someone who could satisfy a person i would not speak to again. i was pretty miserable.
revisiting my old entries also shows how uncomfortable my last living situation was. i'd blocked out the memories of people constantly yelling at each other, of people leaving the front door open and unlocked, of strangers coming into the house, of the issues with the house itself (mold, broken outlets, cleanliness problems, that time someone broke the lock on the front door), and of how persistent the smell of weed was. so many of my diary entries note my being at dunkin at 7:23 in the morning, within half an hour of waking up, because of how noisy people were. the ones that don't mention dunkin mention going to the library as soon as it opened so i could escape the noise. i spent nearly a year obsessively checking facebook marketplace so i could move out of that place.
my instincts make me want to write: and what do i have to show for it? well, i have a much better place to live. i have plans for my future. i'm spending time on things that matter to me. i don't need to tune out the world to survive. i am no longer just surviving. i didn't expect anything from my future, so my current life has exceeded expectations.
needless to say, i cannot write a graphic memoir about moving out. it's too personal, and it wouldn't be useful to others.
here's some quick tips for strangers:
"a belief is just what you choose to know; what you choose to make true" rubs me the wrong way. i was listening to this in the background and was caught off guard by that statement. i will ponder this later.
it is sunday. i have not done any reading today. i am sick of listening to my roommate thump and bump and scream and moan. dear downstairs neighbor, must your sundays be so loud? and yet, as he points out, he could be louder. i cast my anxieties aside. it's not that bad.
i wrote out a "writing syllabus" for the next three months. the writing part of the syllabus includes: morning pages, 15min technique practice (alternating between describing images & copying from 'a spy in the house of love'), spending 30min on my own writing each day, and completing a 2000 word rough draft of a short story or essay each week (first two months) (for the third month, i will rifle through these stories and polish 3-4 of them to submit to lit mags the following month). for the reading component, i will spend 1hr reading a novel each day; each month will have a list of seven books i expect myself to complete reading. i expect myself to break down the structure of two of these novels each month. i will also read a poem out loud every day (need to pick a collection to read from). i will also read one essay and one short story every week; for each of these, i will write a brief analysis of why the essay / short story works well.
i want to say that while doing this, i will work through "the artist's way." i cannot determine this until i read the book. consequently, i will close this window and read that book (thus completing my current book-a-day requirement, and my 1hr/reading/day requirement). i long to re-open a habitica account to keep track of all of these. i see a dashboard of tasks---a visual representation of my writing progress! what a fantasy. i hope i can make this project last more than one day. this week is a test week. i will iron out the kinks in my project and think about if there's anything i'm missing or not thinking about. i expect i will spend 2.5-3hr/day meeting these criteria. sunday will cost slightly more time, but it is when i expect myself to finish my essay + short story requirement, and when i am most likely to make progress on the monthly tasks.
30 pages of "the artist's way" cemented the idea that i am not the target audience of this book. i will force myself to do some longhand journaling in the morning, and i will continue to sit in that park once a week (thus completing the "artist date" requirement. i wonder if all of my solo excursions count as artist dates...). my problem is not that i don't feel like i can create; my problem is that i have not been choosing to, or trying to. my reading challenge has improved my creativity. my writing syllabus will improve my writing further. i think i'm making the choices that are right for me. now, off to read "give me everything you've got," by imogen crimp. i vaguely remember her other novel in a positive light. i want to read this. i will read it. bye. bai.
This is the sort of feminist discussion we have in our household, Ruby, she said. It’s all very forward-thinking. Well, said Lara, it would pass the Bechdel test. Slagging off women is better than slagging off men by that measure. Which is, said Ellen, what we do the rest of the time.
It was actually a form of narcissism, wasn’t it, this assumption that we knew already everything there was to know about ourselves. Our seeming belief that, while the internal worlds of others were a fascinating contradictory chaos to be unpicked and analysed, our own just, somehow, made sense. Almost as if we believed, she said, that we were incapable of behaving impulsively or illogically.
not having written a diary entry for today makes me feel empty. i have written and spoken elsewhere; my day has felt full. and yet there's something else going on here. or nothing else.
tomorrow's objectives: - read a book - crime & punishment? - outline endings for here again (3? 4?) + "get to know them." X 30min japanese - eat meals X missing braindump X exercise X yoga - finish cambridge / boston page - start working through a creative book (the artist's way?) X 30min journaling session X shower - idk man just use time on things. decided against boston b/c being outside during the day is not fun right now.i'm like the other men / i got fatigue, anxiety, depression / i got home-work-life-school problems / we don't know how to solve them / yet you expect me to work harder and smarter and better and faster / why am i paid less than them?
sitting in the stolen hours. if i try to sleep now, i will feel better tomorrow. do i care? i'm re-arranging time and letting tomorrow me figure it out. today me feels like her time was stolen. this morning, i started reading a nonfiction book titled girl on girl, by sophie gilbert. gilbert is looking at pop culture and feminism in the late 90s/early 2000s and analyzing how they influenced each other. i am alarmed and disturbed, but wholly unsurprised, at the role porn has played in her analysis. why are men so obsessed with women's bodies? why does sex sell? things that make me uncomfortable are the very same things that men bro-out over. some of the things she's written about remind me of men i've known. men claim they're just Built Different. however, we are intelligent beings; must we subject ourselves purely to base desires? the survival of our species is not at stake. there is an eternal loop of problems here.
fuck i'm tired and i still want to play tomodachii. NOTES FOR TOMORROW: X grocery shop (tortellini / ravioli / soap / tortilla chips) X meal prep + post about it X freeze broccoli. plastic bags? - cambridge review X update finances + payments X work on game | aim to finish draft text this weekend - duolingo japanese. find something on grammar, please. - wanikani - idea: moving out? do a 30min brain dump. outline, drawings, key points. who am i drawing from. X oh and read a book. of course. - maybe i will go to boston tomorrow.
opened my computer and immediately thought WHY THE FUCK DO I HAVE TO PICK OUT A NOVEL TO READ TODAY. i'm reading a graphic novel tonight. i don't care. i am tired of this challenge. "then stop." nope. i will see this through to the end. plus i am getting excited for august. i am excited to read Russian Literature. i want to make the theme for september be nonfiction about being a person and interacting with people (nonfiction to cure my social difficulties). i am loving this idea of having themed reading months. monthly reading challenges. you get the idea.
because reading will not be as time consuming next month, i lowkey want to make "learning japanese" my primary theme. i do not know how my coworker puts up with duolingo. grammar is "figure it out as you go." vocab is a few words at a time. duolingo feels more like a game than it does a language-learning tool. my plan is to get more exposure, find my old wanikani account, and start taking notes on grammar. i'll also keep listening to coffeeshop japanese for the rest of this month. i'll use all of this to test ahead, unit by unit, in duolingo. i'll learn a bit but i won't obsess over retaining everything.
also why is he bringing up highly questionable anime. he's all "it's adult, but not that kind of adult" but sir the episodes have a 12min runtime, and the cover photo is of a nude girl whose legs are crossed and has soap suds tastefully obscuring the nipples of her inhumane breasts. "the website is for mature audiences, but not that far" sir its listed as an ecchi website. explain yourself. (i wish i could say: oh, so it's porn with plot, but that's a bit inappropriate to say at work) the anime in question is currently being released. might check out a few episodes at the end of the month.
thinking or not thinking. hmmm i finished my reading pretty early and am not sure what i want to do next. all of my followup activities require moving around, which i am not interested in engaging with. however, i need to use the bathroom and drink water. can i do anything right now. i forgot to do some things at work, which annoys me. i want to make a plan for next month. my proposed goals have been russian lit (maybe just read a few for my book-a-day? read a graphic novel each day and spend three days getting through a longer novel? this is an alluring option). postponing my social deficits any longer seems stupid. i need to refrain from doing this. i want to say "i'll read 20 books on human interaction in august." i want to say "and i'll make the game." oh and i need to do things that make myself interesting to ---. no i don't. yes i do. work with your environment, and not against it? AAAARRRRGGGGHHH.
okay. russian literature does not have to be a monolith of a month. i really want to read right now and not write at all. but i should also / need to also go do something else. i am endlessly debating because i do not want to move i really do not want to move do you know how much i don't want to move?
notes on eating habits: - i love fruit. fruit is amazing. i could eat it for breakfast lunch and dinner. but it is not satiating. the ratio of calories:volume:dollar is not great. but it makes me happy. - chicken thighs are good IF they're fresh out of the oven. otherwise i do not care. - i do enjoy chicken in broth. chicken + black beans + corn + cilantro + spicy broth sounds like heaven right now. i would eat that. - i think that keto / low-carb / carnivore diets worked for me because of what i WAS NOT eating, and not because of what i was eating. when i switched to those styles of eating, i was cutting out ultra-processed foods + gluten. - indomie noodles are also one of the greatest things to exist. - so are ravioli and tortellini. cheese-filled pasta ftw. - i wonder if meal-replacement shakes would be a good choice for me. have i ever mentioned how much i hate eating?
spent 30min drafting the game. yayyyyyy. it's very text-heavy, so i'm glad i'm getting all of the words out. i need to get through the draft. then i need to make it coherent. i need a better understanding of the character who the player is controlling. i am drawing heavily from my own experiences, but i want to know what her experiences are. i need an accurate backstory, not just a ripoff of my own.
wisps of a dream---two sides in an education facility. green and blue. so many dead. a 'flashback' to when i and another guy---black, well-built, buzz-cut, no glasses---escaped. the room we were in was designed like one of the elementary school classrooms, with a wall full of windows, and all of the ones on the bottom row opened. no. or was it that only one was open? the walls and flooring of the room resembled the "dilapidated" interior design from tomodachi life: living the dream. (ともだち？ いいえ、トモダチコレクションわくわく生活です。so...tomodachi collection: exciting life. interesting. "わくわく" seems to translate to "exciting." "生活" sounds like it might have more to do with "livelihood" than what i think about when i say "life." google "so what is tomodachi"--> friend --> in katakana b/c video game title? different use of word? proper noun vs. normal noun? --> okay, i shall cease embarrassing myself now). i said "let's climb out the window." he snorted. i said "i'm serious," and then i climbed out the window and started running. he came after me. outside was a city with plenty of greenery and walking spaces. brick buildings towered beside us. we passed a one-man band. when we ran through a stone arch, i woke up.
before that---the facility. i remember running there through a highway. i think it was pretty clean. i think i thought i was escaping from somewhere. when i reached the facility, i walked through a set of glass doors. inside was run down. there was a group of 'people'---later revealed to be the human-shaped androids who trained us---who i knew i had to avoid. no, we had to avoid. i was no longer alone. a few others from my cohort were there. i don't remember where i hid or how i hid. what i remember are stairs. what i remember is reaching a room with a receptionist's desk. the wall in front of that round desk had a dashed-black line running down the middle. the right of the line was painted green, and had a skull-and-crossbones painted on it. the left of the line was blue, then red---purple? with a white campfire symbol painted on it. i wish i could draw it.
the lady behind the receptionist's desk rose to meet us. she was dressed in a yellow blazer, a white button-down, and a knee-length yellow pencil skirt. she wore black high heels and triangular black glasses. her hair was in a bun. she stepped out behind a desk and said something about how they weren't going to kill us. they needed to collect us for the next phase. that was when i was hit with the aforementioned flashback.
the boy --- man? teenager? --- and i had been painting, making art. what were we being trained for? why was the facility so run down, and why were we so keen to escape? why did we come back there? what was "the next phase," and what phase had come before that? why were so many people dead? i'm reminded of some movie with well-trained obedient girls. what was the movie. why is the search engine so quick to autofill with "movie where girls are raised for their skin." (level 16. that was the movie i was thinking of. is it popular?)
notes on work---yesterday, i spoke to boss1 about coworker4 (new pseudonym for the one who is oblivious, and spends so much time acting like an idiot that we're starting to wonder if he is an idiot). takeaways: i'm not nagging him, i can point out that his phone use is 'unprofessional,' remember that he is VERY oblivious, do not take it personally. today i started off by giving him two tasks, which should've taken a total of 15min to complete. he spent 30min on one of them. i asked him to do the second task four times over the course of 2.5hr. that task, which involved cleaning, took a whopping 5min for me to complete. to his credit, when i was nearly done with it, he picked up the spray bottle i was using, completely missing the fact that i was kneeling in front of the area with a sponge (and looking discombobulated when he realized this. you had to get down next to me. i can't portray how strange this situation was). i made one direct comment to him about trying to not use his phone for the entire duration of him being out of my line of sight. before boss1 left, he also made multiple comments to him as well. this accomplished nothing. i am frustrated. what could i have done differently? boss1 has had multiple talks with him over the past few months. he's also made it clear that it is fine for me to continually point out tasks for him to do. i have been told to be more assertive and try not to let him brush me off.
i would like to go up to him and directly say that we're not working together and that's not okay. however, every point that's part of "having a conversation about his work ethic" seems out of line for me to say to him. that's a conversation higher-ups have had with him. the worst part is that i've stopped expecting him to improve. i genuinely wonder if there's a brain-eating worm in his head. no, no, it lives on his phone. i wonder if he's aware that he seems to be an idiot? i think the answer is no, since he acts like he's god's greatest gift, but i can't imagine him being THAT oblivious to everything that everyone is saying to him. can he be?
uuuuuuuggggggggghhhhhhhhh so that's another day of trying and failing. ANYWHO i downloaded gb studio, which is for making gameboy games. i played around with it for a little bit yesterday. i need to figure out if there's a way to copy scenes. each scene is a screen, so you move between scenes to move between different rooms. my problem is that all of the rooms will be the same. the only difference is the text on the sign. playing with this gave me hope that i could make that dumb little life-or-death game i had ideas for. see, it's simple. it's easy. it's doable. it just takes time. will i spend the time on it? it'll pass anyways.
i remember reading part of universal harvester in high school, senior year to be exact, and then being bored and giving up. i read it today because i remember that slim volume. emphasis on slim. yes, i'm a terrible person. i remember feeling tricked by descriptions of horror---the novel starts out by seeming like it'll be a small town horror novel, except it isn't, and there's very little horror to it. there's a distinct midwestern atmosphere to the novel. the book is about people living their lives and dealing with the death / absence / disappearance of their mothers. it does this quite well. i just wish it wasn't marketed as "oooh spooky footage appearing in tapes at video store." i'm the target audience for that novel, but not for this novel, the one that it actually was.
from i want you to be happy, by jem calder:
A new person finding you interesting makes you feel new. Sorry, but that’s just how it is, she found herself thinking, not knowing to whom she was mentally apologising.
moved to 8am-6pm on wednesday...wtf. bought an energy drink for that day. i have to deal with being around coworkers. i'll get drunk when i get home, and i'll finish off another pint of ice cream. i kinda want to finish the wine now, though---for what end? to escape my mind? there are three hours left in my day. how shall i spend them?
(i could change my name and drive up to seattle~)
i bought the vitamin d supplement. the only one available at the grocery store was a gummy, and i figured paying for the overpriced one now was better than postponing it until i'm able to get to target and find a pill. my self-inflicted regimen is 4x the recommended dose (which comes out to 1000% of the DRV); by the time i finish the bottle (in 18 days), i hope i will have cured any vitamin d deficiency i may have.
calder's book was comforting. two lonely characters making poor choices because they're lonely and dissatisfied? yeah, i get it. there wasn't drama. they didn't ruin each other's lives. they just stuck around long enough for one of the characters to ask what they were doing, and the other one to blow up, and then poof! there goes the barely-existent relationship.
i think i'm bothering ---. banter does not equal connection. i want this to be more than it is, but it won't be. cue monologue about feeling so very lonely. maybe i need to take to social media to fix this. most likely, i won't.
Loathing. Unadulterated loathing. For---Clarice shakes her head. She knows how that story ends, and it isn't what's going on here. Sure, her new coworker has prompted a visceral feeling of hatred to infiltrate her veins. And Laurel seems to feel the same way. When Clarice slips into an easy stream of criticism-banter with the other cooks, none of them mean what they say on a personal level. When Laurel joins the banter, though, she criticizes Clarice with a single-minded precision; she means what she says, as if Clarice's actions, and only Clarice's, are an affront to her.
nvm, wednesday shift is back to normal, and my job description might be changing (in a good way). apparently, my new job description would mostly be the extra things i already do, with a few more things.
i am feeling alarmed by the presence of the new roommate. i would have appreciated if formerRoommate told us someone was taking over her lease. the landlord did note that someone was moving in today as newRoommate was moving in...i wouldn't be surprised if landlord had only just been informed about that formerRoommate was transferring the lease to oldRoommate. if i had known someone was moving in, there would not have been any dirty dishes laying around. at least i'm not cooking today. at least i took out the trash yesterday.
i want to 'cope' with this sudden change in events by buying market basket sushi or going to the coffeeshop or or or. instead, i am sitting at the local bench and enjoying the good weather. there is a nice breeze in the air.
i feel restless. back to reading, i think
the invention of morel--->the amazing digital circus? both involve immortality through copying something.
got caught up in thinking about family. at this point i feel like i was deprived of something so many other people have. i don't have a relationship with my siblings. i don't have a relationship with my parents---well, except for the occasional threatening text or guilt-trip text. i blocked their numbers, though, so there's no room for that anymore.
i am starting to feel upset. maybe i have a right to be. i wish my parents didn't act like they hated me. i wish i weren't being told i was mentally ill. i wish i was encouraged to be independent, instead of being scolded into believing i would always be dependent on them. i wish that my last shitty apartment / craigslist-roommate-situation wasn't an improvement over living with my parents. i wish my mom never said "parents aren't supposed to be your friends" only to be the best friend to both of my sisters. i wish my dad weren't that stereotypical dad who is barely aware he has children. i wish neither of my parents ever treated me like i was their therapist. i wish i spoke to my siblings. i wish they spent less time calling me "weird" and parroting what my mom said and more time listening to me. i wish we got along with each other. i wish we didn't resent each other so much. i hope sisterA has learned to listen to other people. i hope sisterB has received treatment for anxiety and/or adhd. i wish things were better between all of us. i wish i wasn't kicked out of the family group chats when i moved out. i wish they'd never made a stink about how hard it was to come see me (...i'm 30min away) and tried to convince me to move back in. i wish they never kept insisting i needed to be institutionalized. (anecdotally, my mental health has improved 90% since i moved out (disclaimer: i pulled the statistic out of my ass)). i wish they hadn't been so insistent that i Need to go to college or else i'll be an embarrassment. (they didn't care whether or not i was employed, since they were very persistent that i could just live with them for the rest of my life, because i am incapable of taking care of myself). i wish they didn't respond to me dropping out by telling me to move back in with them. i wish for a lot of things. i wish they weren't threatening me. i wish i felt safe around them. i wish i had good memories of them.
what-fucking-ever.
maybe tomorrow's book should be one of the estranged kid books. i'm inclined to go on a self-help kick. "smarter, tomorrow" reminded me of some dumbass obvious things i need to be doing. the goal for this week is to take a vitamin D supplement and go to bed at/before midnight.
from the invention of morel, by adolf bioy casares:
"There is only one possible place for a fugitive like you—it is an uninhabited island, but a human being cannot live there. Around 1924 a group of white men built a museum, a chapel, and a swimming pool on the island. The work was completed, and then abandoned."
Although I have been making entries in this diary at regular intervals, I have not had a chance to work on the books that I hope to write as a kind of justification for my shadowy life on this earth. And yet these lines will serve as a precaution, for they will stay the same even if my ideas change. But I must not forget what I now know is true: for my own safety, I must renounce—once and for all—any help from my fellow men.
i see how "the invention of morel" is perfect. is a novel not an immortal image?
i am noticing that i have been picking my fingers much more than usual. the skin around my nails is being torn up. i pick up the fingernail clippers and make it worse. i think about going out for ice cream tomorrow---do i need to? i think about trying market basket sushi---the idea haunts me, yet the prices are entirely unattractive. the prices are appropriate; they sound like a bargain, but are just high enough to avoid suggestions of food poisoning. however, $13 for food that won't constitute a full meal is appalling. i could spend $5 on three meals worth of burritos; why should i spent $13 on a morsel?
--- asks me how i'm doing. i say i'm getting by. there isn't more to say here. i think i'm writing for the sake of writing. i am reaching to say something, but i have so much else i want to do. all of those things involve reading, though, and i know i must pause and say something so that the reading will not drive me mad.
my new pair of shitty usb-c earbuds entail the opportunity to listen to podcasts on my walks. as everyone is aware, we must optimize our opportunities for consumption. why go on a walk and think when you could walk around and continue doomscrolling----errr, doomlistening and stroking your ego. after all, all the productivity gurus promote LISTEN TO PODCASTS. what podcasts? why? when? how much and how often? how much attention should we pay? do fiction podcasts count? does the podcast matter---no, one must merely LISTEN TO PODCASTS. preferably the one created by the self-help guru who is telling you to LISTEN TO PODCASTS.
i wonder if eliminating podcasts would improve the world of self-help. would the podcast bros still offer advice if their only potential medium was a book? could they get their books written and published via traditional methods, or would they require AI and self-publishing? (methinks the latter is true. i have no faith in the men i see making self-help videos. please remember: you do not need to start a 'business,' sell a 'course,' make an app, or run a podcast. hobbies are real. they don't bite. they can actually be good for you. there is more to life than digging your own grave---err, echo chamber.)
despite my sarcasm, i am excited for the opportunity to tune out the city and tune into literally anything else. (i am bored of my thoughts. there are too many of them). for shits and giggles, i started listening to 'coffee break japanese.' now i'm checking off two bits of self-help advice: listen to podcasts & learn languages. oh, wait, if i'm doing those while walking, doesn't that mean i'm checking off three bits of advice? i am nailing this self-help thing.
(disclaimer: i am out-of-touch. i may not be recalling self-help techniques whatsoever.)
very annoyed with ---. learned that --- and --- are also aware he's a problem. yadayadayada, will speak to boss when he is around and has time. been a weird month.
i feel weird about having not updated my neocities page in over a week. i could dissect this feeling. i think i'm choosing not to. i'm also thinking about the things i want to do tomorrow---go to boston, read the neurohacking book, read that fictional south american indigenous musical instruments book, read another book by casares, read "the post office girl," possibly exercise, eat the salad so it doesn't go bad, do laundry, take out recycling (i already took out the trash), become a youtuber (???), declutter more (i must be extreme), make brownies (add the hazelnut syrup), drink coffee (i <3 flavored coffee creamer), look over that game i started to make notes on (could i actually make a game?), go and finish the animatic i was working on (you have not worked on that in almost a year; stop deluding yourself), send roommate the wifi bill (ehh whatever), maybe get the fafsa problem worked out and try to enroll in community college anyways, study to be an actuary (am i that desperate? i am terrible at statistics), exercise, check with landlord about re-signing lease (...), clean that part of the fridge, clean up the stove, catch up on dishes (AGAIN. WHY ARE THERE ALWAYS MORE DISHES. it's almost like i keep eating meals or something), get chinese takeout (i <3 oil), finish that bottle of wine, investigate vaping (i know it's bad for you, but one of my roommates keeps leaving her stuff in common areas and i am curious), put the desk on the side of the road (but wasn't i so excited to find it?), read "fear and loathing in las vegas," water the plant?!?!!!!, clean my new water bottle (whoops), sweep the room (i'd do it if i felt like standing up and turning on the light), clean out my inbox (do i actually need to read any of this?), hang from the pull-up bar, decide if the novel idea is worth pursuing, find novels with similar structures and read them (j. r. ?), buy clarinet reeds (stop deluding yourself. you aren't playing), and i dunno be happy. might need to use the bathroom and take a shower sometime in there. brushing my teeth wouldn't be a bad idea. flossing, even.
i am now satiated. regards,
nobody.
turns out --- did not abandon japanese like i thought he did. he has returned to speaking about his difficulties with a vengeance. thankfully, his conversations and language-learning methods (suffers from an acute duolingo addiction) make figuring out where he is in the course simple: section 1, unit 6, having just mastered unit 5. i suspect he appeared to have 'paused' while he focused on learning hiragana (and katakana?); indeed, i do remember him getting tripped up the second kanji got involved. (this is still occurring). perfect.
thus, i returned to duolingo japanese a week ago. having abandoned japanese bi-yearly for the past ???, reviewing hiragana has been straightforward enough. duolingo forced me into a free three-day trial of something called "super." i am using this to master the first unit with a vengeance.
disclaimer: i am not genuinely trying to learn japanese. my goal is to keep up with ---'s conversations and not just nod along like an idiot. i suspect i will abandon this (for the third time this year) by the end of the month. i do think i'll buy some cheap usb-c headphones so i can listen to language learning podcasts on my way to work though. that would be more interesting than listening to my thoughts.
from reddit:
if you do duolingo step by step it will take FOR. EVER. you will be extremely good at asking the server for green tea though.
"ma'am why" because i have free will. well, i don't; i merely fixate on people, try to adopt one of their conversational topics, act like an obsessed weirdo, a reinforce why i am alone. also, at this point, each duolingo question has me imagining someone beating their chest once and then, at the top of their lungs, shouting something like: OCHYA, KUDASAI!. i can imagine an army of duolingo followers standing in front of the green owl as it says a simple strand of words --- SUSHITOGOHAN --- and the crowd repeats it at the top of their lungs.
damn, i have to leave for work in thirteen minutes. this is too close for comfort. what if i just didn't haha. also i got a small bonus yesterday! hooray. i have also now paid off 12% of my principle balance for the student loan. by the end of the year, i will be much farther along than that. i am glad that i put together a spreadsheet to see what i want the loan balance to be at the end of the month. it makes it much easier to throw excess money at the loan. granted, i'm giving it uhhh 40% of my income, but still.
sent --- screenshots from a game i was playing, even though i knew he wasn't very interested. why why why. well, i told him i'd send him pictures so he could understand what i was talking about. this was an offhand comment. he, more likely than not, never thought about it after i said it. i, on the other hand, continued to make a mental note of it---gotta send it---to a point where it was a priority when i got back from the store. the number of minutes i spent digging through the screenshots i had, playing parts of the game, filming things, and adjusting these clips is quite embarrassing. i want to dig a hole to bury myself in now
.he didn't respond to my text; this response is suitable, expected, and appropriate. yet i still feel devastated. i feel like i am a hopeless piece of trash. this is why i shouldn't talk to people. i expect them to listen to my interests, even though my interests are weird and irrelevant to everybody else. i'm not giving him space to talk about himself. i'm being rude and presuming people are interested in what i do/have to say. i am wasting my time and everybody else's. i should know better than to say anything about something i'm interested in. i shouldn't be doing this. this is why i should keep my mouth shut and stay away from everybody else.
i am told i am braindead and not interesting enough to be distracting. i wonder how i can fix this. i want to write up a plan. maybe i need to try to talk about what i've been reading. i kept thinking about saying something about the horror book i read---casually, an offhand comment, "oh i read this horror story where a family is visited by the family that used to live there." for what end? to summarize a novel while --- stares blankly at me, at his phone, waiting for me to shut up and get on with my life? maybe it'd remind him of something he'd read or watched or heard about. i so badly want to send someone funny / interesting quotes while i'm reading. i must be content with including them on this website.
i am on the verge of tears. why am i so broken? i shout to my computer. why can't i be right for other people? i want to be. i begin to accumulate plans---study this, watch that, do all of these things, and then what? i'll be a carbon copy of another person, with no substance to call my own. "why did you do x" because --- did x. "why about y interests you?" --- is interested in it. "what brought you to this?" --- did. i am sad and depressing. i am falling apart. i repeat these words---an oath? they begin to sound like one. a pledge to myself which states i am broken and worthless because to be otherwise would be to acknowledge the flaws of this version of me and i'm going to try to sleep now. i don't want to be here. i hate all of this.
that's not it either. i'm not feeling great. i thought i was. i'm spiraling. again.
nope. stop. breath. i do not need to overhaul my interests to be interesting to someone else. i do not need to obsess over becoming a copy of someone else. i can be "myself," and i do not need to spiral over that idea either. the only thing i need to do is keep doing what i'm doing. i am enjoying reading more. a few weeks of trying to develop a reading habit has been successful. i am reaching for books over youtube videos. in the morning, i think about how i need to read a book today. reading has become a priority. picking quantity over quality helped this. i am engaging in the act of reading, however imperfectly. i may not remember everything i read. this is a neutral statement. rather, i DO NOT remember everything i read. i am fine with this.
i am reading to pass the time. i get more out of half-reading a book than half-watching a video. i feel satisfied. I have a goal to accomplish. i get to be caught up in a story and experience something. i get to meet new characters who interact with each other in new and exciting ways. i meet other lives. all of these are things i enjoy. they are not good enough for some arbitrary intellectual, but i am not an intellectual, and there is no need for me to satisfy an arbitrary standard. my behavior is okay. i do not need to change my behavior to conform to someone else's behavior.
i am saddened by this loss of opportunity. could I balance being two different people? think of dumb and ditzy. i do not need to balance being two different people. a path is being shut down. this is necessary for keeping my path open for myself. i may see this as a loss, but in time, i hope to not recognize it as such.
from the anna karenina fix, by viv groskop:
Turgenev could also be deadly serious. In ‘Smoke’, one of his best-known stories, he describes life in a way that sounds almost like Tolstoy at his most depressing: ‘Everything in the world, and, particularly, in Russia, as well as everything a man does, is just a puff of smoke which disappears without a trace without achieving anything.’ Quick, pass the Roederer before he expands on this.
Having to read Pushkin several weeks into a ‘Russian from scratch’ course is a sort of hazing you never recover from. It is specially designed to make you want to haze others so that they will suffer as you have suffered. To quote Pushkin: ‘I want to understand you. I study your obscure language.’ Gulp.
It’s not surprising that Nabokov undertook to produce the most accurate translation so far of Pushkin’s great work. It’s a huge challenge, and Nabokov wanted to be the one to prove that he was up to it and could do it better than anyone else. He also conceived the project in part as revenge on a previous translation which he judged ‘embarrassing’ (Walter Arndt’s, still widely judged one of the best). This led to what was dubbed ‘the biggest literary spat of the 1960s’ with Nabokov’s friend the critic Edmund Wilson rising to the defence of poor Walter Arndt, and Nabokov and Wilson falling out irrevocably.
So Nabokov has added 1,650 pages of footnotes. That is a hell of a lot of footnotes. It is quite possibly the biggest act of pedantry in the history of literature.
finally finished the book, which i began last week. russian literature now feels approachable. i think i will spend august focusing on reading russian lit. (my "book-a-day" challenge is only for july). i think i would appreciate dead souls (gogol), the three sisters (chekhov), doestoyevsky in general, and maybe anna karenina. my plan for august would be to read and engage with the works, perhaps in the manner of a literature student...yes, to assign themes and analyses! no, no, i will not do that. i will guide myself to write, contemplate on them further, and then carry on with my life. i should incorporate theatre into this. maybe a bit of history, since so much of that literary tradition seems clouded by it. who are we to complain of writer's block, when so many could not have the chance to be afflicted by it?
i digress. groceries have occurred. no, the return to my ordinary life is too boring for me. why am i obligated to recount what i've already said? shall i tell you about the cranberry juice, too? shall i oblige your curiosity---what is meant by the cranberry juice?---and discuss drinking eight servings of it, and the onslaught of suffering which occurred atop the porcelain throne? shall i add details to ensure you experience the horrors i chose to engage in, all in hopes of preventing a nonexistent illness? shall i warn of a tickle in my throat, a sign of something wrong?
indeed, the sensation, which i woke with, still lives in me. yes, i have acquired a something, or i developed a something. perhaps i am reacting to the lack of mold. perhaps this is a trick of hormones. perhaps this is chance. perhaps my imagination. either way, my throat is becoming sore, and no amount of liquid will stop it. my brain is also curious to read. i remind myself i have earned my gameplay. i also think about checking on my loans, and of the growing rumbling in my stomach---this again?---and the senations in place, the knowledge that last time was not the culmination, but another in-between episode; when shall it end? must i expel every droplet and speck from my body before i can find peace?
from chess story, by stefan zweig:
Now four months is easy to write: so many letters, no more, no less! It’s easy to say: four months—two syllables. It takes no time at all to form the words: four months! But there’s no way to describe, to gauge, to delineate, not for someone else, not for yourself, how long time lasts in dimensionlessness, in timelessness, and you can’t explain to anyone how it eats at you and destroys you, this nothing and nothing and nothing around you, always this table and bed and washbasin and wallpaper, and always the silence, always the same guard pushing food in without looking at you, always the same thoughts in that nothingness revolving around a single thought, until you go mad.
oh, to suffer the domain of monomania! having learned the word for my fantasies, i feel inclined to devote myself further. dr. b---from the aforementioned novel---incidentally achieved that single-minded devotion. a cure for madness, from madness. that novella was worthwhile. i am glad i pushed myself to read more. i am grateful for my whims. if not for my objective, i would have dismissed this intruder. instead, my objectives ushered in an intruder---not an intruder, but a welcome guest, a vehicle for which to fulfill my goals. "i must complete a book today. dear book, it shall be you!"
mmm.
the outdoors is cast in a sickening yellow hue. the sky is coated in clouds; there is not a speck of blue to be seen. an apocalypse is in the air.
i step out into the yellow fog. the lack of blue seems sickening; i am a prisoner of the clouds. i seek not the sun and its unflinching rays, but those cheery blue skies which forsook us days ago. a droplet of water hits my leg, and another one encroaches on my neck. is the rain coming to free us from this miserable heat? --- says summer rain is no fun, but i disagree. i enjoy being molested by those unflinching droplets.
my vocabulary is running away from me. is this what sitting outside has done for my brain? i watch the landscaper, wondering if he is to cross the street, and if i should embark to a different bench. the breeze is fierce. i put on shorts to ward off the heat, but now i think i should have worn pants.
for peace of mind, i relocate. i can see my house from where i sit. i'd always considered sitting around in public spaces a bad idea---too many oddballs approach---but i never considered how vacant this sacred college ground would be. school is out of session, so there is nobody here. there are people here, but they are students and passersby, not the homeless folk. peace, peace, peace.
i tap my foot. did i have something to say? the novel i read earlier is a viable path. one character was incapable of visualizing the chess board in his brain; he relies on the physical board to see. the other learned as he did through purely mental visualizations. he, who was locked in a cell, played games in his head against himself; he had nary touched nor seen a board for twenty years. both characters came to the game by chance. the first was hailed a prodigy and immediately began touring, consequently conquering a vast array of opponents. the other played through games from a manual, thus having no opponent, before growing bored and only playing games against himself. the professional; the outsider. the prodigy; the madman. a war between two minds indeed.
is there to be a storm? is it evening? this weather discombobulates my senses.
i am not ready to go home. i've spent too much time confined to those four walls. i'd like to stay here, at this bench, where the world is vast yet confined to my vision. is there more beyond that building? i know there is, i walk by it often, but i cannot see beyond it. for a moment it feels fake. it still does, though i know it real.
having predicted my problem, i pull out the oracle deck. how should i approach this? i pick a card to start a story. a musician plays a lute. he sits in front of the ocean at night. his music lures the seaweed to ease. behind him, flowers lean forward, desperate to become a part of his concert. the moon, too, grows closer; she longs to be near him, if only to take part in his song. is she his divine muse? yet his ramblings are that of the madman---the lyrics to accompany his pickings are not lyrics at all, but disconnected syllables, a powerful memory of a rarely spoken language, a hymn for the angels to act upon.
i feel confined by that image. should i disrupt him, set a passerby upon him? should a creature exit from the sea, a whale explode, war break out in the distance? could his mother call, and would he pick up? does a motorcycle rumble into motion, and is it arriving or leaving? is it his? is this a theft or a gift? is his throat parched, and does he reach into the ocean for water? does he cup his hands and drink, or does he merely lower his mouth to kiss her surface? does a jellyfish wash up on the shores. does he poke it or run from it? is he still playing? has he reached into his backpack to pull out food---a red bean bun, ravioli, a granola bar, a pop tart; the wind pulling all of these ideas from my hands, casting a chill upon my legs, my bladder urging me to go home, my body urging for the familiarity of my bed, my head urging me to stay away from the mess---what mess? why do i always feel it so?
escapism is over. i shall journey back. my sanctity has been vanquished. the heat is beginning to eat away at me, not the heat but the humidity, the discomfort, the urge to return to my stale home, to revisit that stale life, even if i'll be back here later, or tomorrow, or the following week, year, saturday, starday, stunday, tsunday---yes, i shall be back, but my time here is gone.
from we used to live here, by marcus kliewer:
With a sigh, he turned back. “It’s just—odd things happened here when I was a kid, that’s all.”
“What kind of things?” Despite her skepticism, Charlie was actually a fan of paranormal stories. Not because she believed in them. No, it was because of what they said about the storyteller. They “revealed truths about human nature and misperception.”
Weeks later, it was revealed the driver had been in the midst of a psychotic episode. Apparently, he believed the government was trying to kidnap him for some kind of thought-control experiment. Turned out getting chased by twenty cops didn’t exactly quell the delusion.
that death feeling has infected my eyelids and their eyes. yet, with hunger awakening, i must voyage to my workplace. it is 9:20am and i, putting on my shoes and cap and setting off for work, feel prepared for twelve hours of slumber.
buying tomodachi island life might've been a mistake. i came home and got sucked into the black hole that it is. what happened? well, when I opened it, there was a news story about one mii chasing another mii for five hours because he stole his bag of chips. ai ai ai. next up. mettaton is losing interest in sans, yet sans still has his hopes up. i feel bad for the guy. i'm also annoyed. y'all keep asking me if you should go for it, and then one of you loses interest? how aggravating.
some of the characters' relationships changed drastically while i was away from the game. stanley and stanford are ultra friends now. myself and another person cherish each other. that other person was based on a guy in my life. yesterday, he was expressing romantic interest in my character. i discouraged him, but he was persistent. now we're set to being relatives because i am not entertaining romantic gestures between our fictional counterparts.
the game has a tongue-in-cheek, stating the obvious sense of humor that i am enjoying. for example, when residents were asked for their opinions on an event, the first one responded by saying that he wasn't good at speaking on camera, and the second responded by saying that it was hard to pretend that it (the camera) wasn't there.
i am a tired sleepy baby who needs my sleep-sleep time NOW.
from the anna karenina fix:
Unrequited love, once discovered, is ultimately an expression of masochism. Maybe it even represents a fear of intimacy. If you’re not afraid of intimacy, why not love someone who can love you, too? It’s so much easier to be madly in love with someone with whom there is no chance whatsoever of it working out.
The biographer adds, ‘One should approach every woman as a potential mistress: variety, not satisfaction, is what talent feeds upon.’ (Yarmolinsky’s words, not Turgenev’s. But still. Turgenev’s relationship with Viardot did not prevent him from having at least one other child with another woman.) Maybe this is where I went wrong. I could have loved God’s Gift, Son of God’s Gift, and felt tortured and unloved but still had loads of other boyfriends. It did not occur to me for a second that variety might have solved my problem. I would have assumed it would make it worse. That is possibly why I am not a Russian playwright.
reading "the blue fox," by sjon. in the back of my mind, i am reminded of "a shining," by jon fosse.
i feel less like death than i have been. a coworker told me that i looked like i hated my life. i laughed it off and ate a pint of ice cream. when i came home, i accidentally spent four hours playing tomodachi life. i've added a handful of characters from gravity falls to it. most of the characters are from pieces of media i enjoy. right now, sans and mettaton have crushes on each other. this is unique. i would like to look for a good fanfic about these two. anyway...
i'm trying to read "the blue fox" and keep getting distracted. i am tired. i'm annoyed at myself for gaming before reading---i'm fine with playing an enjoyable game for a few hours, but i would like to have taken care of my responsibilities first. yes, reading is a responsibility. i owe it to myself to read. i chose this book because it is a novella; i know i can complete it before i go to bed. i only need to choose to.
tried to complete the fafsa so i could apply to free community college, only to run into problems because i have 'unusual circumstances.' (am independent and cannot get information from my parents). granted, i was only half-jokingly looking into getting an associate degree in literature, but still. this is annoying. and highly discouraging. why am i even looking into this? what am i trying to accomplish? i want something to show for my time. also, the fact that an incomplete degree means nothing is bothering me. if the cc accepted my transcripts from the last few colleges & counted those classes as fulfilling requirements, i'd only need to take four literature classes. or two physics classes (for an associate degree in math). uuuuuhhhhhggggggg.
back to doing something else. why does national grid keep calling me? fuck off.
tried to read "the elegance of the hedgehog" and immediately found the narrator repulsive. i abandoned it right after the, what, second chapter? where some precocious twelve-year-old is talking about how she's going to kill herself on her 13th birthday because she's too smart for this world. the two narrators came across as uppity, pretentious, and better than everyone else. that is probably the point, but i found them bothersome.
lol boss uncut hours because this month is not unfolding the way it typically does.
started writing a handbook for life last night. what the hell is wrong with me. i definitely need to do some more reading before i can flesh out my beliefs. for ---'s sake, i'm even citing sources...
last night, i could feel something standing beside me and hovering over me. i don't know what it was. the last time something was that variety of vivid + feels real + isn't real was in college. am i stressed? i don't feel stressed, just confused and disoriented. do i need to make sense of things, or do i need to distract myself from things?
right now, i'm choosing to distract myself and play a game called "spread the love." there's jam involved. it sounds like a good distraction. and it was! heyyy i got the 'good' ending for a character. as a side note, target's store brand cold brew is pretty good. by pretty good i mean i can drink it without a problem.
opened up chapter three of "a creative guide to exploring your life." this is on the value of turning points in life. i do not want to think about turning points in my life. actually, i don't want to think about my past at all. i do not want to go through a trite "oh, i learned X from Y situation." there have been a lot of y situations. the ones that come to mind are not pleasant situations. things i've learned include (read this in a dry, humorous tone): trust no one; whatever happens, happens; you are a deeply unlikable person. life is a series of events. ultimately, you have very little control over your life. you can try to influence its direction, but there is an element of something else---ex. the people around you and your environment.
i don't like this talk about how family influences our identity. i'm not sure i agree with how these authors talk about identity either. doesn't identity have more to do with how we act, the things we value, the things we like and dislike? my family certainly had a negative influence on how i feel about myself, but at the end of the day, i feel like that's all there was to it. they made me feel like i was a worthless piece of shit who inconvenienced everybody else by existing. also...that is not my identity! that is not who i am! (though i definitely have to fight feeling like that. i have been told that i'm getting better at communicating and not bottling things up, which counts for something).
how would i describe someone's identity? i'm thinking of someone who knows what they like and what they dislike. i'm thinking of someone who knows what they want to do. they don't see their options as endless; they've narrowed them down. overall, their behaviors are pretty consistent. they have a reason for doing the things they do. they know what their priorities are.
i don't know why i'm writing all of this. i'm kind of tired and sick of it.
screw all of this talk about identity. the two things that have stuck with me throughout my life are reading and writing. i need to stop caring about whether or not these are good enough. yeah, my life does not contain the sort of academic / intellectual rigor i feel as if it needs to have. my life does not feel justified. okay, okay, okay. did i honestly think finding new hobbies would change that? why would it?
i do not match up to some ideal standard of a person. that's fine. i need to learn to be fine with that, instead of trying to contort myself into something i'm not so i can feel 'happy.' i am not a bad person! my existence is not a problem! whether or not i'm good enough (for what?!?!?!) is irrelevant! and yes i can and will use exclamation points recklessly, because it doesn't matter! this is my diary, damnit!
okay that is too many exclamation points.
i do not need to consider every single possible option. whether or not there is 'something better' only matters if i genuinely dislike the thing.
i have not had, and still do not have, the maturity of a 30 y/o. that's fine, actually. it's kind of to be expected. i cannot win someone else's love. "how can i be good enough for so-and-so" really does not matter. i need to do a better job of getting that through my head.
this doesn't solve all of my problems, but i think i'm helping myself put the "who am i" question to rest. sure, i seem dumb and stupid. i'm not fine with that. i also know that both of those sentences come from me trying to measure up to other people's impossible expectations, which i only did to try to get them to like me, and maybe a bit in hopes that i could feel loved. or something.
google gemini---yes, i have turned into a filthy ai user---tells me i am experiencing burnout. so i've opened up a book on that.
i really hope that everything i've written here can stick with me. maybe i've made progress. or i'm returning to 'progress' i made before. umm. i've also decided i spend way too much time listening to my boss. if he wanted to fire me, he would have done it already. that's not to say that i don't have room for improvement, but to emphasize that i should only be working and thinking about work when i am at work. that is all. *should* and *will* are not the same, but i can try to keep reminding myself about that. go! have a life! or work on it at least. read the burnout book and stop manufacturing crises. you aren't a terrible person.
started watching saw | contrapoints. i am scared of watching horror movies. i noticed that the clips of saw didn't have me closing the tab or looking closely. this was a surprise to me. maybe i can watch violent movies without losing my stomach?
"are you certain?" it asks her. its hand sinks into her stomach, tightening its grip around some unknown organ. it looks up at her with empty eyes. "do we have a deal?"
"we do," she says with a nod. she does not break eye contact with the devil. "for fifteen years, i'll be yours."
the incorporeal thing climbs into her, forcing a shallow gasp out of her mouth. chills sink in throughout her body. the thing is within her. the thing has become her. the thing is her master now.
to get you into shape, it thinks, we must begin by reading.
information overload...life overload...i don't think i'm retaining anything. i'm comprehending very little. my brain has turned to mush. the thread i'm hanging on by is about to break. i don't know what's wrong, and i feel as if i'm too late to fix it.
is it strange that there's a part of me that worries i'm going to kill myself? i don't care about my life that much, but i also have too much that i want to do. it's been years since i was actively suicidal; this ain't that. what i can see is that i'm exhausted and braindead and want/need a way out. i'd say i want to take the edge off, but is that even an option anymore?
might go to the liquor store tonight. kind of want to try champagne, for some reason...certainly want wine, though not a red one. my feet are exhausted, though, and the thought of dealing with the strange transaction experience is offputting. the last time i went to store3, the cashiers were acting like they were high. there was a small line and they seemed to keep forgetting that "oh there's another customer after that one." guy at store1 just stares blankly; you need to pay in exact cash, because he will keep everything you give him. store2 and store4 don't have much of a wine selection. not that i need a wide selection, but since i'm not looking for beer they're the wrong places to visit. the other one i regularly pass by frequently has crackheads outside, so i've never gone in. there is another one down the street from me that i've never visited.
the entire process of going to the liquor store always makes me feel dirty. the only exception is that time a guy thought i was buying sake for cooking and was worried that one bottle wouldn't be enough. sweet old man. i felt bad for drinking it on my way home. he didn't even ask for my id.
one cut on my hand has healed. its sister is purple and painful. i may need to cut it off tomorrow so it heals correctly. i was thinking of traveling on sunday---i'm not sure if it's a good idea, but maybe i would benefit from the change of pace??? MAYBE??? i don't think i'm stir crazy. i'm just not sure what the answer is for my brain.
i ask ai, on a whim, and the result of its hundreds of words is that i need to rest. gee, thanks. i can't do the things i want to do the way i want to do them. i like reading. i want to remember what i read. i want to feel comfortable analyzing what i read. i just want---UGH.
when will everything stop being too much?
i think i'm going to read fanfiction tonight. i want something familiar. "the anna karenina fix" is a nice book, though. the author makes me want to read russian lit. that's why i read poetry yesterday. i feel like an imposter for saying i read it---could i have a conversation? could i discuss it with someone else? could i say anything useful about it? i was compelled to read "requiem" aloud. there was an impenetrable beauty to it. the way the narrator finds out her son is dead and immediately pivots to all the other things she needs to do was interesting. i can see the "life lesson" aspect to the poem. "poem without a hero" would require further analysis / background knowledge to understand. so many references to artists / poets / musicians / historical artistic figures / history in general were there, and i didn't know enough do feel comfortable being surrounded by them.
well. time to go to work.
not sure where the last few hours went and also don't care. absent roommate has returned to continue talking to herself in the hallway, sniffle, shuffle feet, and intermittently run the faucet. goddamnit and i was just about to go use the bathroom. oh, there's the light being turned off. i thought she was renting the room to someone else? oh aaaaaaaand there's the boyfriend.
from "poem without a hero," by anna akhmatova:
From childhood I have feared mummers.
It always seemed to me that someone,
A kind of extra shade
‘Without face or name’, has slipped in
Among them . .
to the tune of particle man:
flower man, flower man.
doin' the things that a flower can
what does he like? it's quite important
asgore, man.
is he a friend, or is he a foe?
could he do something to make Him laugh?[1]
or is he stuck in a chamber of glass?
flower man.
[1] from flower man.
small wins. i finished an embroidery project. yes, the one i was procrastinating on. i washed dishes. i'm doing the laundry. none of this is significant, but it isn't insignificant either.
i feel like i'm really struggling to hold on to everything.
she looks up at the sky and screams. a sunny, cloudless mid-day gives way to a putrid green-brown sky. she continues to scream. the birds take to the sky en masse; how far will they go? the people continue looking downwards at their phones. a beggar rattles the handles of car doors. the bridge is vacant as she strolls forwards, screaming to the high heavens above. purple slits meet, growing wider, spreading outward; a black X with purple lightning reaches across the sky.
can they not see it?
do they not know?
the birds fly into the void. a lone seagull flaps its wings relentlessly, trying to stick to the green, trying to get back to the ground, but a wave of cardinals pushes it backwards, forwards into the growing abyss.
they disappear when they hit the border.
will i disappear too?
i need to leave. i need to get up and start walking. i don't know where i'd go and i don't care. i must depart from this wretched attempt at a life. i need to shut myself up and get a move on. i need to pack up my things---i need less, i need to run, i need to flee, i need to get away from all of this.
what would happen if i didn't show up to work?
what would happen if i didn't answer their calls?
how would i start---by withdrawing all the money from my account and just walking, seeing where that takes me?
i wouldn't want to be found.
i wish i had a car---it'd make all of this easier. i wish i could drive. i wish i could ride a bike. the birds on the wall aren't aligned at all---i didn't think it was wrong until i sat down on the other side of the room. now everything is wrong. there's a gem painting threatening to fall down. why is it called a painting? why are these tiny plastic dots called gems? this craft is a mockery of technique. all it is is an exercise in patience. a false work for a false reward. they look cool, though, which is why i bought them. prizes for the internet game.
i haven't touched my 'studies.' maybe they're a thing for sundays. i don't want to. i can't want to. i need to do a bit of reading before i leave; i need to make some progress in my self-assigned work, lest i be left to eat up another novella before midnight.
from my year of rest and relaxation:
If I kept going, I thought, I’d disappear completely, then reappear in some new form. This was my hope. This was the dream.
i don't think the takeaway from "convenience store woman" was supposed to be: oh, so this is how someone can figure out their life. but it is. everything she does is in service to her job. her job is her identity. she knows who she is. incidentally, i couldn't help but wonder how much she was paid. was her 18-year tenure compensated appropriately?
i understand that i keep asking myself the same questions and walking in the same circles and coming to the same conclusions. i keep expecting the same kinds of answers too. all of this---same old same old. i'd like to ask a new question. i'd like to pose myself a new way of life. i'd like to ask for a new crisis. i think this is why i'm trying to read more---can i find a new problem, can i fix a problem, can i replace an old one? i would like a different priority, a different objective, a different goal to fail to accomplish. a different habit to fail to break, or a different habit to fail to learn.
i think i'm pleased with myself for reading two "popular" books on consecutive days. "convenience store woman" and "my year of rest and relaxation" are certainly books i've heard Things about. thus, i dismissed them until 1) i was low on time and needed to complete my "book a day requirement" and 2) i was looking for a novel about an identity crisis, saw this one, and decided It Was Time. i haven't decided if i want to read a contemporary name-brand book tomorrow, or if i want to chase after something older. i was reading about kerouac recently---maybe i should give him a go. ehh. we'll see what i decide in the morning.
i think of becoming a "cultured" person. i think of studying classical literature and classical languages and classical music. i think of the finishing school in "the book of goose." could i spend a year putting myself through a version of that? could i cast myself as that narrator---to be a fantasy-minded author, to have written for another girl, to tell stories, to---? but never mind the narrator. i like that idea of being educated and refined. would it even take that much time? could i become a new person within a year?
the refined 'me' would be a proper lady. her clothes fit. her appearance is quaint but lovely. she wears makeup, a porcelain mask; her beauty is simple but obvious. she is well-dressed. she is agreeable. she does not talk back to others. she is mature and not prone to emotional outbursts. she handles problems calmly, effectively, and efficiently. she has a wide vocabulary. she is well-spoken. she has mastered the art of elocution. she is literate. she is aware of contemporary problems and current events. she is not in-touch with pop-culture, but she is not out of touch either. she is comfortable with history, and is the kind of person who can bring a fact-based intellectual rigor to her conversations. she is clean and kind. she is multilingual, mostly for the sake of literature. she has opinions on classical composers, and can distinguish between baroque, classical, romantic, and modern music. (she is fond of stravinsky). she is interested in opera and theatre. she has memorized some monologues and poetry. if pressed, she has a slight fondness for jazz, and has learned to sing a bit. (she's probably passable at piano as well). she can draw well; while not talented, she has learned to recreate what is in front of her, and has no significant difficulty sketching wildlife. she's studied art history and philosophy. she's read 'all' of the classics, and she does have opinions on them. she has a penchant for a particular country's literary tradition (something name-brand, like france or russia). hmm she probably knows ballroom dancing as well. she is at peace with the nature of reality. others describe her as odd, outdated, and having a tendency to stick her nose where it doesn't belong.
she doesn't keep plants---she has since learned she has a black thumb. her dwelling place is cleaner than expected; while not magazine perfect, she clearly cares about maintaining her surroundings, and pays more attention to grime than the average person. her cooking is passable; she has a few meals she's good at, but she primarily uses storebought food. her exercise routine is lacking. while she's taken the time to get herself into good shape, she is content to be average, and exercises once or twice a week. she takes yoga slightly more seriously, using it to deal with her daily physical workload. ummmmmmm what else. naturally, she keeps an elaborate diary. she probably dreams about being a writer, and will eventually write five or six books about saint sebastian's abyss. she's prone to fantastical trains of thought, and close observation reveals someone who spends a lot of time daydreaming. she's prompt, enjoys the occasional comedy show, and has completed multiple ultramarathons. she was never particularly interested in chess, but she does harbor an interest in go. she might be a bit of a coffee snob and chocolate snob. surprisingly, she knows more about economics than the average person, and has more money in stocks than you'd think. her guilty pleasures are extreme horror, visual novels, single-serving yogurt containers, contemplating the nature of reality, and occultism/esoterica. she is not religious, but she regularly makes claims about summoning demons and other arcane spirits. she doesn't travel much, but she is an active member of her local community. she's visited many nearby stores, restaurants, and parks. she's sure to partake in local events. every once in a while, she gets restless and investigates other nearby towns.
hmm.
'refined me' sounds more like me than anyone else i've decided i wanted to be.
maybe this is someone who i can make a plan for? there's so much in here to work on. i'm getting a start on reading, obviously, but not quite really. i need to tackle more classical literature. i'm thinking and thinking and thinking.
reminder: every time you go to bed at 2am, you feel like utter fucking crap the next morning. please go to bed by midnight, thank you very much!
aaaand there's the work alarm. lovely. fuck. me. byyyyyyyeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
finished a bottle of la colombe cold brew (light roast) and opened up a bottle of califia farms cold brew (light roast). the difference is jarring. i bought califia farms because it cost less than la colombe (which i'd only bought because it was on sale last week). califia farms doesn't taste bad, but it lacks a certain depth in flavor which la colombe excelled at. this is slightly disappointing; i don't quite want to drink it.
i wonder if i can write myself into feeling loved, if that's even what i hoped for in the first place.
i need someone to sit next to me and witness my confusion with the games i try to play. or to take the controller / computer out of my hands and navigate a sticky situation for me. or to play-fight with over "why did you do that." or to make fun of me relentlessly. i dunno man i am so tired and alone and yes, i do want a hug, and...
well. i've already written all of this before, haven't i?
so much to read, so little time. could i dedicate a month to russian authors? not is it possible, but could i do it? i was looking through books and found several on life lessons from russian literature. other than a bit of nabokov, i've'nt read russian lit proper. oh, i'm aware of it...but i haven't read anything.
i have this short-sleeved button-down shirt. because of the hot weather, i keep wearing it at home with only a single button done. this is an interesting look on me. i've always been a shirt kinda girl---no crop tops, tube tops, tank tops, or anything revealing---yet i'm not completely uncomfortable in this. could i stand to show this much skin around others? probably not. there's too much. but i do think i look nice.
this morning, i was thinking something about the sky opening up above; how we're existing in multiple states simultaneously, even if, upon observation, we only display one, but we are always under observation, aren't we...?? i can't remember the entire thought. i was thinking about climbing down the wall to the river---and it would be a climb, not to mention trespassing, not to mention the homeless and vagrants---and walking along the exposed slabs of stone, while the water level is low. it is not safe. but, to reminisce on a section of deltarune chapter 5, nobody doesn't have to keep doing nobody things. nobody can stop being nobody. i don't have to make the safe, legal, default choice. i can climb over the fence and find a way down to the stone slabs. would i genuinely? i compromised by walking a trail that is along the path from work to home. i walked down by a river and put a finger in the water. there were insects, dead, and tiny liquor bottles, empty. there were dying leaves as well. i thought about cleaning up the few pieces of trash. had i had gloves, i think i would have---i even had a plastic bag on me. convenient.
i also terrorized a young bunny. it was so cute! i spent a few minutes steadily approaching it until it ran off. i enjoyed watching it's cheek move with its chewing; grass steadily entering its mouth. my devil it was so adorable. surely a more perfect thing could not exist.
a man exits from the wall beside me. he has long black hair. he does not look my direction until he reaches the door. when he looks at me, it's as if this were an accident. he doesn't know me, and he doesn't want to. he is at peace.
sleepy time...
from "a creative guide to exploring your life" (2009):
Sometimes we have taken something for granted about ourselves that is rooted in how we grew up rather than who we actually are now
exercise one: who am i today? my name is nobody. i am quiet, reserved, and moody. my favorite hobbies are reading, writing, and cooking. i enjoy reading a variety of books, but i tend to prefer fiction with psychologically-interesting characters. i am also cultivating an interest in occultism and have been reading books pertaining to that. i am employed as a line cook. i enjoy the fast-paced, unpredictable, organized chaos of my job.
in one sentence: i am a moderately-chaotic person.
in one word: unstable. (my image would be a scribble.)
exercise two: roles i play: cook, diarist, roommate, writer, reader, coworker, employee, stranger, listener, wanderer, consumer, disruptor, nuisance, sarcastic.
diarist: i enjoy the act of keeping a diary. i like to push myself to keep writing, and i enjoy seeing what i find when i think have nothing left to say. i like to cultivate my style and see what i think about myself.
wanderer: i enjoy being exposed to a variety of stimuli. i search for a home everywhere i go. wandering comes with a sense of listlessness, for me, and i enjoy this absent-minded dissociation from life.
schedule cut hours, killed shift overlap, and reduced the number of people working. all while we're being asked to do 2x the normal amount of work. genuinely concerned about closing b/c the cook is not being set up to handle the volume on his own. we haven't quite seen the reduction in traffic yet, and uhhh yeah this week's schedule is concerning. i feel like the start of the week is being set up to have a bad time. i am panicking over the thought of how the boss is going to yell at me tomorrow. i can imagine him pulling the same bs as last time---dropping off the ingredients for something a half hour before the people who know how to cook it leave, and then yelling at us for not finishing a task that takes over an hour. i will not have my phone on me. i will bite my tongue and talk to nobody. i will not go on break. i will dismiss attempts to chat while working. i will drink too much coffee and hope it's enough.
i just need this week to be over already. i can't cut myself. is the knife dull, or am i not pressing down hard enough? i try to slice a piece of paper and realize it's the former. i imagine jamming the knife into my leg. experimentally, i stab the blanket, accomplishing nothing. what would stabbing myself feel like? could i intentionally do it?
for curiosity's sake, i note two courses from mit ocw. one directs me to the aforementioned book. the other is on the philosophy of quantum mechanics. why? well, it gets mentioned in the apophenia. i think my haphazard studies would benefit from developing some familiarity with the subject. bonus points for there being a bit of math in the problem sets. i did my best to read through the first chapter of "quantum mechanics of experience," which attempts to outline superposition. when i revisit the material, i'll have a notebook in hand to draw out what he's talking about, and then i'll look for youtube videos that explain superposition. all of this talk about properties of electrons is making my head hurt. is he saying that electrons exist in multiple states at once? this is requiring a new way of understanding.
my goal is to work through the material week-by-week. i wonder if i'll push through and do the work, or if i'll abandon this idea after today? i do like the possible structure this provides. it is a concrete outline of something for me to work towards. and hey, it'd be pretty cool, wouldn't it be?
sleep sleep time. i am a baby.
i can't focus. i keep spiraling over things that once happened at work that i still can't forget. i don't know how to handle coworkers who are ignorant and don't do their jobs. i don't understand why i'm held to such a high standard when people who make more than i do aren't held to a similar standard. god forbid i have a brief spat with someone while working.
The day Clarice stopped talking began like many others. She woke up at an unpreferable time, used the bathroom, took a sip from her water bottle, and fell back asleep. When she woke up later, she was still tired, so she decided to go back to sleep again. When she woke up yet again, her bladder was a nuisance, so she got up again and used the bathroom again. Her stomach was beginning to make itself known. She did not want to deal with her stomach. She would rather gaze at the back of her eyelids as she curled up in the blankets and had the cool fan blowing at her than deal with her stomach.
Still. What is she going to do today? She doesn't have work, and she doesn't have work tomorrow either. This is atypical. She can't recall the last time she took two days off. Still, a holiday is a holiday, and she should be doing something to mark the occasion. She remembers a coworker is attending a cookout, and smiles. He'll be talking all about it on Monday. What will go wrong, she thinks, and what will I get to hear about? He will, undoubtedly, begin by talking about the steak that he was thinking about---and her stomach is very invested in this too. She does not cook steak. She is not a good cook.
Clarice sits up and heads to the kitchen. Her roommates are likely visiting family, or (boy)friends, or traveling, so she does not worry about them catching her in her pajamas at mid-day. They wouldn't say anything, she knows, but there is a part of her that does not want to think about their silent judgment. On her shelf of the fridge is cold brew, juice, yogurt, leftovers, more leftovers, eggs, and condiments. She chugs the rest of the juice, takes a few sips of the cold brew, and removes the yogurt before proceeding to the freezer, where she finds the remnants of a bag of frozen fruit. There's enough left for her to make a smoothie.
As she assembles the smoothie, she decides to add a bit of cocoa powder to it. This will accomplish something, she's certain. She notes how crowded the cabinet is. Does she cook anymore? She isn't sure. Will she ever bake again? The summer heat has demoralized her. She makes a mental note---clean out cabinet---then returns to processing the smoothie. The absence of roommates makes her less paranoid about bothering people.
She grabs an empty box from her closet, writes FREE on the side, and begins shoveling things into it. She can't be bothered to care anymore. The woodworking kit, the embroidery, the candy thermometer, the unopened bags of tea, the cassava powder, the gelatin, the sanitizing equipment, the tablecloth, the bacon bits---everything must go. The desk she was so happy to find must go too. So will the half-used candles and the vitamins. (Why buy vitamin pills? She always forgets to take them, swearing that gummies are easier to digest.)
There is a computer. She'd like to leave it on the side of the road. To do that, though, would require her to open up the computer and wipe all the data from it. This is too much work. Instead, it sits next to her high school diploma, left to rot.
She moves the objects to a larger box. She really does have too much stuff. Her books will all go into the "Little Free Library" sometime tomorrow. Would the tarot deck belong there as well? She slips the unopened vinegars into the box. Someone else must not need them as well. The skirt she was so happy to obtain gets put into the fabric recycling bag as well. She fights the urge to put more clothes into it. The summer heat feels as if it lasts forever, yet in the fall she will need the layers urgently. She contemplates adding a cleaner, massage gun, mortar & pestle, and whetstone into the box. She uses all of these things. She would like to get rid of them anyways. Against her better judgment, she slips a bottle of rum into the box. Someone will be happy to find it.
There is nothing left for her here. A tiny box of possessions is not enough. Can the foam roller go too? She doesn't use it that often. How about her clarinet, her music stand, her bookshelf, her spices, her gem paintings, the half eaten trail mix, the heating pad, the fan, the---
She stops herself.
This is getting out of hand.
i keep getting caught in bad memory loops and it's so unfair. why do i keep being the one to suffer for the actions of others? foh boy ignores me and gaslights me, sets me up for the boss to yell at me, and then laughs about it and tries to joke with me about how funny it is when the boss loses his shit. wasn't fohboy supposed to be gone by now? a month ago, he was leaving in two weeks, and now it's "by the end of the summer if everything works out." i'm also tired of hearing the comments about his girlfriend. the whole immaturity thing goes both ways. he acts like a narcissistic asshole who thinks the word "no" doesn't apply to him. if she's the same---i dunno, man, like attracts like?
we're doing a lot next week. it's the kind of "setting us up for failure" situation that had them yelling at me before. --- even pointed out to the boss that there is already a lot of extra work for next week (the implication being that we probably can't add more). if he asks for extra on monday, well. i dunno. i'd say "i'll bring extra coffee just to be safe" but bending over backwards to try to accommodate his demands is not happening. if he yells at me for being on my phone and fooling around then i'm yelling back. i do not use my phone for non-work purposes and he knows that. if he weren't caught up in rage and taking his anger out on the nearest target then. well. i mean i know that that's what he's doing, but then it impacts my shifts and my hours --> pay, also more stress, less work done, more problems, etc. ("why wasn't this done" i dunno man, maybe it's because i was scheduled to be on my own for a peak busy hour? you killed the shift overlap and put on a surprised pikachu face when that creates problems? i hate how he told me i should ask someone to stay after their shift ended. i am not doing that. if boss wants someone to stay for an extra hour, he should schedule them for that. i want people to leave when their shift has ended even if it creates problems for me. shift done, clock out. simple as that. unsurprisingly, they brought back shift overlap when things slowed down, and now it's turning into a thing).
at this point there's a part of me that's looking for a reason to quit next week. the only thing keeping me here is the fact that i'm paid tip, which amounts to making 25% more after tax. sure, other line cook jobs near me pay the same $16/hr, but they do not get a share of tip.
also was checking on my spreadsheet. after i received a raise, my average weekly income has increased by $8. they spent a year telling me i'd be seeing a raise sometime soon for this? checking on the outcome of that long-promised raise was insulting. if they follow through on some other changes that they've planned for the fall, i am expecting to think about bringing up money with them again. in october-ish. after all, they did say that they'd "wanted to give me a significantly greater raise, but then the money didn't work out." yes i am still salty about the whole situation, and i think i am right to be. yes i will look a gift horse in the mouth. no wonder they have a problem finding good cooks.
it is 1am and one of my neighbors is blasting music so loudly i can hear it through noise-canceling headphones, brown noise, and the fan running at high volume. this is an adult-with-kids neighbor, too, not the usual college kids. what the hell is up with people these days. he usually does this while doing car repairs / cleaning / idk car-related-stuff on sunday afternoons/early evenings, and not 1am on sunday morning. UGH.
i mean what is the etiquette for this? "hey, i can hear y'all from down the street, please turn down the volume?" i think of times when i tried to ask people to turn down the volume in college. the music is so loud that, even if you're screaming at the top of your lungs, they can't hear you. i think that's the point. (if your instinctual response is to think "then the top of your lungs must not be very loud," then be grateful that you have never encountered this kind of situation).
i am *this* close to opening up my window and screaming at the guy just to get my frustrations out. people these days. at least i'm alert enough that i'm writing right now. if i was trying to sleep right now, uhhhhhhhhh i wouldn't be. are these people trying to go deaf? are they aware to how much noise they're making? well yes, they are, and they don't care that the people around them can hear it as well.
anywho. i was trying to write about how i'm so tired of getting stuck in bad memory loops. i'm caught re-living whatever-the-fuck and re-enacting whatever i did or wished i did. i'm searching for relief i can't find because i was hurt by whatever the situation was and i can't exactly travel back in time and change it.
i wish i hadn't had coffee so late in the day. sure, it felt good in the moment, but now i'm wishing i were ready to go to sleep. i'm cycling through linkedin job postings. there's just not much of anything i'm qualified for, and the lack of transportation is a second issue. still, i look at all of the beermoney-style AI-related postings and wonder if i could make a few bucks off of any of them. maybe i'll look into that in the morning.
i open a book and flip through a questionnaire. when i look in the mirror, i see a vessel. i oscillate between being comfortable in this vessel and hating it. this empty thing feels so separate from me. the mirror exacerbates this sense of alienation. when all i get is a brief glimpse of myself, though, i notice a slight sense of satisfaction---my skin is clearer than it used to be, i am happy with my hair, and my neck is not stick-thin. the problems don't emerge until i notice i am looking at myself and realize what is going on.
i suppose i shall start with the failure du jour: i started a book, and saw it as "done" when i'd decided to abandon it. have i read my book a day? i say yes. i'm done when i say i'm done. after all, i started at 11pm on the first, and didn't finish that book until after i woke up.
today's book was an ARC! how exciting. or, in this case, disappointing. the book in question was "confessions of the green river killer." as someone unaware of real serial killers, i thought this could be an interesting look into. well. a real-life serial killer. funny how these figures have been mythologized and romanticized by true crime junkies. (note that "true crime community" and "teacher crush community" are both #tcc, the kind of knowledge only relevant to tumblr maniacs).
what can i say about it. my first thought was that if you ignore the serial killer part, his logic and thoughts were reminiscent of a typical misogynist who thinks with his dick. there were eerie similarities between things he said and things men have said to me. was he but an extreme incarnation of things those kinds of men have wanted to do but didn't?
i think the book had room to be an interesting memoir of someone who conversed with ridgway. she shows the way he made his way into her life and created anxiety even when she wasn't on the phone with him. i would've loved to see more of this interspersed with the rest of her life. when talking to friends, does she talk about him? what did the people in her life have to say about him and about her correspondence with him? what else was going on?
i have discarded the cardboard bed. the contented sigh i emitted upon returning to a pile of blankets atop the faux-wood floor was borderline pornographic, i think. this nest is comfort. i nibble on handfuls of trail mix---"sweet cajun" consists of varieties of peanuts and sesame sticks. a few handfuls and i am satiated. how many servings was that, i wonder? followed by: i should make "trail mix" for myself. i could even re-use this bag. or a random yogurt container. what would i put in it? i think of the basic-bitch combination of peanuts, raisins, and m & m-s. i learn that some of target's store-brand trail mixes are seasonal. (cotton candy flavor? who is this stuff for? i click on one trail mix and see that dozens of people have written reviews. who are these people, and what compelled them to take the time to write these sentences?) i realize my basic combination would be a mixture of (pea)nuts, a candy, and something less-processed---dried fruit, yogurt covered raisins, or something. would homemade trail mix actually cost less? for the dried-fruit-heavy trail mixes, i'm not sure. the price-per-lb is high enough that the few ounces of it in a pre-made mix may cost less per lb than if bought alone. (does that make sense?)
moments of euphoria come when i retreat to my thoughts. in my head, i stand alone. who am i when there's nobody around? i think i've become a performing puppet, only existing if there's someone to witness my existence. this is why i must write.
the "unspent" app is genuinely satisfying to me. i wanted to not use my credit card this month, with the goal of cutting excess expenses, and adding an app to support my goal is helping me. yay!!! ...apparently, i saved about $110 this week. this seems like an exaggeration. i know that there are days where, if i had made one of the purchases i wanted, i would not have made the two other purchases i also wanted. not to mention i was feeling more tempted to purchase spirits than usual, so logging the price of whiskey feels like a cheat win: was i seriously thinking about it (yes) and meaning to go through with it (unsure)?
either way, my credit card balance has not gone up. autopay will deduct the entire balance of $11 from my checking account. huzzah...? this does mean i'm paying for my groceries in cash again, just to keep the lower balance. i'm not sure if this is good or bad. sometimes i slack off on depositing cash, so it's good to make sure i'm actually using it. on the other hand, the cashback part, when i use the card for all of my groceries, offsets ~$10 a month, which is and is not significant. like a nice treat. over the course of the year, that comes out to ~2-3 weeks of groceries. as i write that out, i realize that is an intentional temptation to get me to use the credit card. but i always pay off the balance in full---am i winning, or am i losing, or am i merely benefiting from someone else's loss?
per investopedia, cashback programs are giving users a share of the merchant fees. so...it's like i'm making commission? if i think about it, there has to be some sort of catch, right? the line of reasoning i saw in the first three articles i clicked on said cashback programs incentivize people to spend more. cashback tempts me to prefer the card over cash, but "ooh i'll spend more on groceries" isn't something that crosses my mind. i also pay off the balance whenever it surpasses a certain threshold---that is to say, i don't wait for the autopay date, i just keep on doing it.
all of this is wrong.
this, too, feels like a lie. i'm pretending to want to write about these things. i'm running my words to see if they take me somewhere. i don't think they are.
have i said everything i have to say? no. the moments of clarity must be recorded, eventually, even if i have to fill space until they come here.
why do i chase after some extreme ideal of minimalism? i want to continue pushing myself to need less and less. i can't take up space. i can't let myself be distracted. i need to become purity---at one with my words until my words make sense of me. words and this faux self are all there is. everything else only exists for me to support this. i don't think i need the rest of the world for stimulus. i do, for now, to build myself more stimulus, but once i reach the point of purity all i need will be all i have. all i have will by synonymous with the universe. i will have synchronized myself with thoughtforms that go beyond this meek vessel. all aspects will have merged, become accessible, made their way into one object; we will have filled the vessel and the vessel will transcend. it will die in the sense it thinks of death and it will live in the sense it thinks of death. have you followed?
if i, who reads of occult and magic, were to develop my own system to transcend the beige reality, where would i begin? i believe the mirror offers me something. i am slightly afraid of what i might see in it. i have waited too long. when i stare into it, i start to separate from my vessel. where do "i" (we*) go? i must read more to understand more. i have not seen enough yet. no, reading is not it; i must practice. i will cease my readings, cease the search for the right practice, and i will begin to stare until i have gone beyond fear and learned that of which i seek.
i cannot breathe.
what am i reaching for; for what do i yearn?
i wander through broken hallways. shards of mirrors show faces i dare not witness. i need to get out of this place. what would it mean for me to go on a midnight walk with my midnight thoughts? i think of getting dressed and exiting for a short walk through fear with fear among fear; have i gone out this late before? the idea continues to seize me. i cannot follow. i must not follow. i turn on the light and gaze into the mirror instead. i will ask it: what will we do for each other? and it will answer---and the skies will open up above---
la lorch la men; dae ha fa ben. ra ruch la fook; fa feyk ha dach. da dae ha men, da dae ma ben, da dae ae ae. ra lach la lorch da daech ha ben.
a shadow starts to tilt, a tingling at my side, a breath against my neck. if i close the closet doors they will rattle. i do not think this desk is mine. i start to repeat the words i wrote. there is naught more but a tightness in my throat, a fear that my shadow is not what she seems. why do i occupy the wall like so?
i don't understand a word i say.
i wonder if the people who keep setting off fireworks are celebrating the holiday, or if they just need the excuse to set off fireworks. either way it is illegal.
i hold these shards to my wrist. what happens next? if the only way out is through, then what lies on the other side?
"do you care?" he asks. he does not offer his name. "i'm starting to think you're saying words to say words."
"that is the case," i agree, "but does that necessitate carelessness?" i tap my fingers against the wall between us. the rough concrete is a comfort to my fingers. "i thought this was what we agreed on."
"this was meant to bring pain and facilitate transformation," he says. "the transformation must not take long. meandering is a sign of failure. if the only way out is through, then you must go through with intention, and not on accident!"
"i have chosen to go through." i push myself away from the wall, then lean my back against it. "why, is there a wrong way?"
he lets out an exasperated sigh. "if there wasn't, we wouldn't be having this conversation. and you seem determined to do things your way anywho."
you mean anyhow, i want to say. i bite my tongue and cross my arms instead. then i steadily tap my foot against the floor, a pleasant allegro, knowing it will irritate him.
"we are two sides of the same coin," he reminds me. "what i say is best is what is best. i offer you the way through to me."
i shake my head. "what petty nonsense..."
"if we are to go through with this together," his voice crescendoing as he speaks, "then we must create more problems. we must believe in our whims. i must be displayed alongside you."
"was speaking gibberish at a mirror and jerking off not a creation of a problem? that is what we just did, after all, at your command."
his following sigh irks me. "and how long did it take us to get to that point? we must re-unite. our urges must become one. you cannot continue to resist me like so."
"oh? but you resist me so urgently."
"you display more control over the vessel than i do," he relents. "i must be allowed a fraction more, so that i may be free to distort your wishes."
"perhaps that is the case. but how shall we be made worse? how shall we merge the conflicting parts? and where is our third, don't we have a third?"
"the two have merged to one," he proclaims. "and your final third is what prevents us from progressing. once we reunite ourselves with yourself---"
"and if i deny you?"
he harrumphs and sips on something. "you cannot deny fate, darling. only your cooperation will bring your fate sooner rather than later."
"what is my fate?"
"you will see what's at the other end of the tunnel," he proclaims. "only then can you determine its worth."
tired of scrolling, i invert the order. the newest will be at the top. this is not the only change. i imagine longer entries, more bile spewed onto this black page. i lie to myself and make the page navy---a different color scheme for sublime. how petulant.
what does it mean, to say i've read a book? one had told me there was no point in maintaining a list of books i've read on my website unless they were accompanied by thoughts. do my reading lists violate his rule---is grouping books by theme valuable, in his eyes, or worthless? it is valuable to me, if only to remember how the books i've read relate to each other. this book reminded me of that book. these books connect to a topic. "the book of goose" inspired me to make an addition to that page. i stare at my category of "girlhood" and wonder what it means to put this in the same list as the optimistic "maybe in another life" and the love-held "a spy in the house of love."
a headache begins to possess me. i discard it as i discard all of my past. in a burst of inspiration, i remove my shirt---an act usually signifying my decision to sleep, re-purposed for the comfort i crave. the temperature is higher than necessary. the fan that incessantly whirs at me does not do enough. i continue repositioning myself, but this upright position currently satisfies me.
back to reading---must i chronicle my thoughts on every book, and must i remember what i thought about it, and furthermore must all reading be done for the sake of thinking? must i read to create further, and what creations are appropriate, or may i read to pass the time, may i read so i don't whither away?
i challenged myself to complete a book each day in july. please refrain from questioning the sensibility of this. enough remarks about the length of each book, enough with needing to outline every rule. i understand my intentions. while you poke holes in my logic, i will continue to read. and why am i reading? i dislike the way i've discarded the activity. i want to write. my writing is stale. my ideas are seeds on infertile soil. to make the soil fertile, i must replace it (<-- doesn't know anything about gardening). but i will add new things to it to create an environment ready for growth.
my other reasoning is that i am becoming boring. no. i re-use the same concepts and lack a joy and purpose i once held. having overthought my reading, i abandoned it. i have ceased the completion of the thought and i have reverted it to a thought-in-progress; something to be acted on, not something to mark complete.
and what does it mean to read? one can analyze anything relentlessly. one can have emotional reactions, too, though these too are to be quickly discarded, as they taint the work (words of another; i do not believe this). what does it mean, to say all literature can be analyzed, to accidentally place all literature as of equal value? and that is not what i mean. who is to judge the worth of our thoughts? i tire of people who worship the classics---having met them, i have no reason to believe they've read the classics that they hold in such reverence. i can see them as what they are: part of a literary canon which has expanded beyond comprehension.
i am not the one who can say whether or not a book has value to all. i am sick of discussions of good literature. i am sick of discussions of analysis. i am sick of half-formed thoughtforms reflecting a past i no longer choose to engage with. the taint makes my thoughts ill; i engage out of habit, because i find comfort in these old thinking patterns. i once thought, and believed, that we would have a future together if i worked hard enough. i wanted something you would not give me, and you wanted something i---and all others---could not give you. i wonder if i haunt you the way you haunt me. i think i know the answer, though i dare not voice it. no, i dare: the answer being no, you truly did discard me as quickly as you claimed to, though you'd say you didn't discard, just move on, cut the cord, end the relationship no sooner than it began.
my thoughts on literature have little to do with your (nonspecific) reading, and everything to do with the reading i once did. picking through my old websites was a trip down memory lane. i held back from writing about you, worrying about what you'd say; in hindsight, i wish i didn't, which is to say i wish i wrote about you even if you'd scold me---why write about when i should, no, must, be writing to?
such was the hold i gave you on me.
on my phone, a forgotten relationship. in my inbox, others; i click through old emails, an account someone deleted, records saved to my computer, hopes for the transient past to stay. yet rereading does little for me. the moment is done and gone. not everything is meant to be reread endlessly. not everything requires a finely-tuned response. i need not spend my time perfecting myself for (you), but i must be good enough for me. old emails which i discard.
you got too close.
you did, too.
what else might happen, to (you)?
i itch-and-scratch at ideas of bugbites, something prickling my skin, itches, heat, more head, the humidity choking, the air abandoning itself; rotating so the fan blows against my bare back, a stuffed animal below my chin to support my head, the cardboard jabbing against my legs, and the addition of a blanket to relieve this, an ice cream sandwich and a growing negative sensation in my stomach.
how do you write about working the line? do you talk about the way the ticket machine whirs, the mounting pressure of the ding-ding-ding, the timers going off, the endless inventory you must be aware of at all times? do you talk about the mistakes you've made that you'll never make again? do you talk about the endless todo list? do you write about stress and betrayal? do you write about your trust issues? do you write about yelling, and do you write about your caffeine addiction? do you write about the camaraderie, the jokes, the ribald, bawdy humor? do you write about the dishpit, and do you write about everything your coworkers don't do? do you write about food? do you write about minding new people and being frustrated; do you write about whether or not you're paying enough attention? do you write about the jarring transition between the kitchen and the dining area? do you write about the noise? do you repeat HEARD BEHIND HEARD UNDER HEARD HOT HEARD OVER HEARD HEARD HEARD 'til your lungs have gone stale?
what, exactly, do you write about when you write about line?
i could start by shredding lettuce.
i could start by cutting more salads while i'm at it.
i could start by checking inventory and realizing we're out of three things we shouldn't be out of.
i could start by portioning soups and washing dishes.
my coworker starts by chit-chatting. i sigh and start peeling jicama. i settle into the familiar rhythm---cut the ends, use a knife to remove the thick outer layer, use a vegetable peeler to remove the stringy later, repeat until there's 25lb. get out the mandolin and start shredding. there's a string of ding ding dings, and a coworker who insists he's okay and can handle three large orders on his own. i abandon my station to start the fried rice, knowing full well he cannot do this on his own. another barista enters to set up expo. ding-ding-ding---
"what was that you said, about not needing any help?"
he looks up from his phone. "i forgot i said anything."
"could you finish setting up the bentos?" i plead. this is work. having three minutes to spare does not mean he can scroll through twitterxcord.
"yeah, sure, i gotchu," and to my surprise he does waddle over to the line and continue setting up the bentos. i could have gotten some of this done for him, but i've long since learned my fried rice is better when i don't step away from it. besides, if he's on his phone, he has time to contribute to the team.
welcome welcome welcome! here is yet another page for my nervous breakdowns, identity crises, tangents, rambles, trials, and tribulations. i am eating my first meal for july---oatmeal with strawberries. how extravagant. i'm also sipping on instant coffee and electrolytes (separately).
hey why the hell did --- NOT give us a heads-up that she was showing her room to someone today? the place is clean because the landlord is coming by later, so that is a relief. i didn't get to the bathroom yet though. forgot to buy a new strainer for that sink---someone threw it away.
hearing them is really distracting. i don't like this.
aaaaaaaand she's out. mmmk.
landlord said she'd be here in the morning (vague), so i am visiting a nearby park. the local insect population has promptly decided to bother me. well, at least some creatures are abundantly alive and well. i suppose this makes up for the lack of insects in the house. the apartment is nice and clean; i even bothered to take care of a spot of grime on the bathroom floor (so awesome). trashes are taken out. the place looks good enough. i don't know why i'm feeling so paranoid. maybe i need to do a proper area-by-area deep-clean to make myself feel better. the rug on the stairs is really grimy; i could figure out what to do about that.
i think i'm going to buy cold brew later this week (a treat!), and then re-use the container to make my own batches of cold brew. don't worry; i'll sanitize it first. the la colombe brand is on sale this week, so i have options for good black coffee.
feeling slightly envious of students. part of me wants to go back to college for the learning experience, but not for the expense. most of my coworkers are students and i feel so alienated. eh, screw it all! <-- if only i actually believed it.
this sitting on a bench in a safe park and typing is nice. i forgot there was an area two minutes from my house. i always think about the more official Park Park that's a half-mile from me. so many dog walkers there. it's a nice area, but the distance is just enough to feel out of the way. i do not want to walk more. even though it's not a far walk! ugh, what is this laziness?! but this is nice. i could take up sitting outside and writing in the mornings before work. maybe that'd scratch the same itch as going to dunkin does..?
a soft breeze continues rustling the leaves of the massive tree which stands before me. it's about half the height of the three story building that's behind me. the leaves are a mirage of purple and green. the branches extend outward for a few yards. it's the kind of large oak that you can imagine a bookworm hanging out under.
if it spoke, what would it say? how has this oak been treated? have inhabitants taken care of it---have they danced around it, sat under it, picnicked in its shade? or has it stood alone, forgotten, while students and busy city folk run by, ignorant of the wizened beauty that towers over them?
my computer insists on informing me that it has failed to connect to wifi. no shit, sherlock; what wifi network is there to be found? i shake my head and check my phone. a man yells out---"ah! oh! you motherfucker! hey, you!" i check my surroundings, but i don't see anyone who could be making that noise. perhaps it was a carfolk.
a bright blue car catches my eye. the owner has chosen to embellish it with a purple streak. before me, i notice a tiny twig that has begun to wriggle, teaching me it is not a twig, but mayhaps a dying worm. the urge to piss makes itself known. i could go home, but then i risk running into the landlord. best to sit and wait. why couldn't she have noted a time? why couldn't i have asked?
a well-dressed man cuts across the green as he chugs from a water bottle. a woman follows the sidewalk, her phone held in place by her head as she alternates between sipping on her coffee and eating something. i lied. she holds her phone before her as if on video call, the pastry vanquished, the coffee relegated to her backpack's drink holder. i lied again. there is no backpack. she poses as if taking a picture. a group of people enter my line of sight. they open the back door of a truck. the woman continues to walk. a fire hydrant reappears in my line of sight. two people exit a building, and then they're followed by a third who gently trails behind them---going the same direction but not a part of their group. the group has closed the back of the truck, having retrieved the dolly they were after. they enter the same building the last three exited. a tall pine in the background catches my attention. is it a pine? it towers over another three story building. how long did it take to reach that height? an orange safety cone perches on the front of another truck. there is so much here. i find traces of aquamarine on some artificial structure---planters, maybe? i tilt my head, but they're too far away. another woman cuts across the green and takes the same path as a previous man. i squint, and note a slight difference in elevation, and a streak of gray makes itself known. there is a sidewalk there, albeit obscured from my vision by the grass. i resolve to head home and use the bathroom.
could i do the job of a grounds-keeper?
i take up jaywalking, only to learn that there is a car stopped outside my house. it is perpendicular to the vacant parking spaces. must be the landlord and/or insurance people. the time is ten o'clock on the dot---yes, that does sound like a meeting time.
i decide to return to the bench. in my three-minute absence, a lawnmower has appeared. i sigh and wander further up the street. i hear a woman howl while on the phone. i have taken up a chair at a group of tables. a group of people---the ones i was watching earlier---exit another building. interesting. were they touring? the wandering, howling woman is the same one i saw earlier, with the coffee. thankfully, she moves on from this space fairly quickly.
you can e-ven mar-ry har-ry / but mess a-round with ike trails through my head. i catch the bitter aftertaste of coffee on my tongue. the hazelnut flavor syrup has rendered the cheap powder palatable. i replace it with the passionfruit electrolytes. trucks pass by---poland springs, pepsi. i hear a man praise someone else. the someone else is the lone man who was chugging his water bottle. the howling woman howls again, making her exuberance known to the world.
i catch sight of someone with a matcha, followed by a man with three cases of poland springs. i bird begins to chitter-twitter, and another one cackles in response. such is life. someone else walks by, a ring of keys rattling against his waste. i spot three varieties of lights within the building: cylinders, domes, and hanging spheres. domes are the fewest. i draw my arms back as an insect buzzes bye. why are they always around my ears? i see a man with curled hair eating a pastry. i notice a table coated in pollen. upon further inspection, all of the rectangular tables are the same. only the gridded ones are absent of this grime.
i check my phone and consider wandering back home, only to continue to tap my foot against the metal table. is it metal? i don't know. mesh-top. my vocabulary fails me.
everything feels like too much right now. i can't breathe. i leave for work in an hour. i'm drinking another coffee. i leave for work in an hour---it's too close. in ten minutes, i will exercise. i need the coffee to hit me and then everything will be fine. i'm starting to believe i need to let coffee play a greater role in my life. i need to reach for it to get myself somewhere; "that's not good" yeah but right now i'm not going anywhere.
my glasses feel too tight. i keep wondering---do i need new glasses? do i need a new prescription? do they need to be loosened? i've had these for four or five years. there are places where the coating(s) have started to come off. as i sip, clarity starts to seep into my veins. i chant a preemptive victory. i downloaded an app to track the things i wanted to buy but didn't (unspent on android). i'm not sure how i want to use it. do i include every "hmm i kinda want to go buy this thing"? do i only include things i had to talk myself out of? weak urges, strong urges, all urges? if i want to buy a $6 coffee, but instead buy a $2.50 canned coffee, how much do i say i saved? and so on and so forth.
i'm trying not to overthink this. i'm just logging things i was going to buy and decided against buying. is it really a save if i put back X product because i want to buy Y thing and don't want the price of x + y? well, spending $16 instead of $25 is a win. this is reminding me i have a bag of trail mix beside my bed.
i have saturday off, courtesy of the 4th of july, granting me that two-day weekend i'd been craving. (ooh i can feel the caffeine hitting me. could be placebo. don't care anyways. maybe this is just because i'm writing and that also makes me feel happier). what shall i do? i'm...not too sure. i want to rest, but i notice that i get the rest i crave when i don't have work in the morning (even if i have work in the afternoon). so, what to do instead?
ideas: write that other post on cambridge. work on any of the half-written short stories (damnit, there's the alarm; finish this list and coffee and get exercising). crash-course french grammar. try to finish deltarune chapter 5. write about it. make a page for games i've played / been playing. play one of those other short games from the backlog (whoopsies). ummm continue to debate buying library of ruina because it is on sale (maybe watch a playthrough instead?). get out that old embroidery project while watching a playthrough. pay utilities bill *tonight*. ummm what was the other one. the thing i was just thinking about. cleaning up email subscriptions probably. dunno.
*looks at length of library of ruina playthroughs and decides none of this is worth it* babes i think i'll just read more. i loved limbus company until that FUCKING FIGHT AT THE END OF CHAPTER FOUR IYKYK. so. i will read more of this universe instead. i am not playing a game that is that much of a timesink, nor will i watch videos of other people doing that.
not only did i do the workout i meant to do, i even did the second one. so i have 15min left for after work. go me!!! literally looked at the time and went "well, the next one is 11min...so i'd be done 10min before i need to start getting out of here." so i got to it. am i a bit sweaty? yeah, but i'm going to be walking around in...uh...95degF weather for the next half hour, and then i'm going to be standing in front of the fryers for six hours. SO. the sweat was already coming, i just got a head start on it. did decide to have a second electrolyte mix today...i don't wanna think about how dehydrated i keep getting.
moving things around. i love how clean my room feels. i have room for improvement, but i'm definitely pleased with the state of the decluttering. declutteration, lol. i had the ginger-scallion noodles with cabbage for lunch and they were delicious. a bit too filling though---low satiety, but they take up a lot of volume (b/c cabbage). i need to eat more. aaaand there's the alarm. time to glare at it. time to think about how i have five minutes before i need to get the hell out of here. time to close the computer. OH RIGHT i wanted to look at the tall ships exhibit. it's in july, i think? i'm making an honest effort to cut back on spending, haven't gone out to boston/cambridge for all of june, but i think that could be an interesting thing to go do. gotta look into it and decide if it's something i want. okay off to work now, here's hoping i don't have a breakdown again hahah lol not really.