welcome to august!

go home

20260801

the first time i read 2666, i was sitting on a blanket on top of some wires of unknown use, with a second blanket on top of my legs, and a third in a disgruntled pile beside me. in absence of a cushioned chair, my pillow was upright behind me to support my back. i held a hot ceramic bowl of noodles and broccoli, which i eagerly crammed down my throat. i understood then that i could not begin to read until i had finished my meal. the noodles are shovelled down my throat; they will sit in my stomach for a short while. i set the empty bowl on top of a cheap notebook on the cardboard box that serves as my bedside table. i think about cleaning the bowl. i could rinse it out now, scrub later, scrub when i'm scrubbing a pot i'm afraid of damaging. i sigh and go rinse it out. there is no point in letting this dish distract me from my reading.

rinsing out the dish is not enough for me. crumbs of noodles sit at the bottom of the sink and are sent to the trash can. in my fervor, the bowl, chopsticks, a mug, and a spoon are sent through soap and water and placed upon the other drying dishes. i scrub the pot again and scrape off more grime with my fingernails. it is cleaner, but it is not clean. i add more soap and hot water for future me to appreciate. i pull a peach out of the fridge and curse its hardness, remembering i must let it sit on the counter to ripen. distractions alleviated, i return to my room and capture the just-happened events, and then return to reading.

Worse was discovering what the members of the group thought about his own attempts at fiction. Their opinion was so negative that there were times---some nights, for example, when he couldn't sleep---that he began to wonder in all seriousness whether they were making a veiled attempt to get him to go away, stop bothering them, never show his face again.
She had none of the attributes of the ambitious. When she suffered, her pain was clearly visible, and when she was happy, the happiness she felt was contagious. She was incapable of setting herself a goal and striving steadily toward it. At least, no goal was appealing or desirable enough for her to pursue it unreservedly.

in the following day, i already forgot that i had been reading this novel. why am i so quick to reset my memory? wisps of the story come back to me---it could be any other half-read novel. have i no urge to move forward?

20260802

i make the mistake of birthing an idea. the stray thought enters reality with reckless abandon, demanding i give it a shape, a voice, and a form. i must work with it so it will not make a nest in my head again. the accouterments surround me; every prop has been made and all roles are ready to be played. what's stopping me from finishing this now? ahh, if i were home alone, i'd continue onward, but it is 0130 and i am aware of the impending noise production. the new roommate appears to have fallen asleep. tomorrow, i will put this beast to rest.

as one idea enters the world, eight more infiltrate my body. they seep into my veins, overcoming my bloodstream, and take my body as their home. a knot forms in my throat as they clamor to reach out of it. 'do me' they all shout. 'make me. create me. birth me.'

i am overwhelmed by my possibilities.

shards of mirrors dig into my bare feet. i cannot see what i am wearing. this hall appears to be boundless; there are windows on my left and right, tall ones, not truly windows but gaps in the stone structure revealing a cloudy white outside world. they appear to be close, i believe, but i know that if i step closer they will be as far away as before. the ceiling appears to be a black fog; how high does this cathedral reign? mid-way through the hall is a lone standing mirror. this tall, ornate thing gazes back at me. i cannot see myself in it. if i walk any closer, i will be more hurt, and i may not be able to approach it in any sense. the shards of mirrors continue down the hall, giving off the illusion that the cathedral's floor was once a massive mirror, broken due to what, overuse? improper use? carelessness? perhaps these broken mirrors were once windows. yet why does one mirror stand still in the distant center? if i walked closer, what would i find?

a monster. i know i'd find the monster i truly am. and then---

this gif is from a month ago. i stare at it like a stranger. i spend too much time letting these questions harass me. the impeding new hires, and their inevitable questions---who are you? what do you study? how old are you? what else do you do?---bring me back to this. when someone asks about me, what do i say? "i am a writer" is too serious; to me, this implies a novel, and not a haphazard collection of writings on the internet. yet if i can reach publication, yet if i can acquire my desired professionalism, would i still refrain from wanting to call myself a writer? when someone asks me for my hobbies---oh, i read and write. i'm not in school haha, not really my thing, i just work. gotta pay those bills, amiright? (cue highschoolers with very different financial situations).

in this heat, i feel weary, winded, and out of place. the thought of focusing on anything feels impossible. i have left my body.

i observe a strange urge: to annotate my earlier diary entries. not only the ones from this month, but from the previous months as well. my brain feels slow and sluggish. what could i learn from my previous self? i want to make sense of my life; i want to pull together a coherent story. i want to remember where i've been and where i'm going.

i've kept holding onto the idea that i can learn french with ease. the basis for this belief is that i took two years of french in middle school, which must've laid the foundations for future french fluency, or so i've been telling myself ever since then. i have dedicated very little time to french since then. every few years, i decide to try to read something in french, give up, and then continue to tell myself i will learn french, despite all contrary evidence. if i learn french, people will think of me as a smart, intelligent, and philosophical person. i will become interesting.

there is a french book on my bookshelf, and it is next to a french dictionary. these mock me for failing to learn french, and remind me that i will learn french, despite having put no effort into doing so. i could rail against these possessions and say i'm wasting valuable space on delusions. i could say that these books create mental clutter which distracts me from my focus.

to let go of certain unused possessions, you need to let go of the person that you thought you were. how can i let go of a decade-long delusion? i want to be someone i'm not, but i'm not desperate enough to put in the effort to be that person. i stare at these books and know it's time to donate them. i congratulate myself for narrowing my focus; i have eliminated another distraction from my purpose. for what?

as i write this, i'm haphazardly learning japanese to impress a guy who has shown explicit disinterest in me. i have no intention of telling him i'm trying to learn japanese. he takes his studies seriously, committing content to memory and talking to me about it, and i languidly sign onto duolingo and wanikani, glancing over lessons and being surprised when i pay attention to what i'm trying to learn. i can sit here and congratulate myself for coming to terms with the fact that i am not going to learn french. what does this accomplish? i'm still repeating the same mistake. i'm spending time on trying to be interesting for people who do not care. i want the magic pill.

fearing tomorrow. --- and --- will be all buddy-buddy boy team. i'll be the stupid girl in the back who washes everybody's dishes. it's like they're mocking me. we've been able to keep up with the extra work all week, but---all i can think is they're mocking me. i don't want to go to work tomorrow. i can't even have my comfort coffee or happy food. well my food is good so that's a lie. i can have ice cream for dinner. i hate this. i hate knowing i'm going to be useless, which is what always happens whenever this situation happens. i'm relegated to being the dishwasher who ensures all the guys can chit-chat with each other and do less work. if i get to do anything, it'll be the boring grunt stuff---the most grunt work of the grunt work---and the boys will be given the credit. "thanks for getting that done, we really needed it" though they're just fucking around and i'm doing their work and feeling like i'm oh so behind on all the other stuff. or i'll be there being told "oh we don't need your help" "oh we don't need you" "find something else to do" and i already know i'll ask to leave early, citing the fact that there's been more people than work all day, and all i've done is kill time and give the guys reasons to not work, but who cares because the guys are the favorites.

--- brings the new people into the kitchen and introduces them (what's the plural of him?) to the kitchen staff. the guys are called workhorses. he notes how they've all been here for X years, how they're hard workers, how they get the job done, how they're good people to work with, how they always do the grunt work. i get called the only female cook, and am reminded that i started with no experience (true of the 'workhorses' as well, but he won't say that), and maybe there's a comment about how i'm multitasking and keeping everybody in line. but, more often than not, my credentials are "only female cook," while everybody else's credentials are the work they supposedly do.

i need to dissociate from this job. i need to build my broken-down cathedral, the one that's been haunting me for longer than i'm aware of. i'll rebuild my old mind palaces and create a world i can inhabit as myself; a world where i'm labeled by my character traits and abilities, and not by the fact that i'm a woman.

20260803

from a psalm of life, by henry longfellow: "Let us, then, be up and doing / With a heart for any fate / Still achieving, still pursuing / Learn to labor and to wait." what an uplifting bit of poetry.

from this is not a story, by denis diderot: "`I have become an unbearable object; my presence weighs on him, the sight of me troubles and offends him. If you only knew what he said to me! Yes, monsieur, he told me that if he was condemned to spend twenty-four hours with me he would throw himself from the window.´" --- me and men fr. format of this story is interesting: it is a conversation between the author and a character who speaks for the reader. while technically a short story, it is more a conversation between two people which displays two sides of humanity---good men & evil women, and evil men & good women.

I think it's telling that I begin my writing session with closing tabs and windows, and not by opening up the writing document. I want to tell a story---what story is there to tell? I'm resigned from life. I don't see a hopeful end to this. I'm not depressed enough to go back to writing about suicide, but my outlook hasn't improved enough towards anything in particular. I think about how I'm going to copy-paste this into my diary. This is depressing. A 30min writing session, the intention of putting together this week's essay---and for what?

I'm giving myself a writing class so that I can become a better writer. I avoid my assignments. For most of last week, I skipped out on reading poetry. I'd selected a volume inappropriate for my tastes, and I wonder if this was on purpose. I prefer poetry with form. I want to think more about rhyming. Poetry with form has a coherent rhythm. I think this is what I need to read for poetry to have the desired effect upon my prose. Naturally, I selected a volume written in free-verse. I failed to read for most of last week.

This isn't the story I want to tell either.

There is an empty cathedral. I take a step forward. Glass shards dig into my feet; shards of mirrors pierce my skin. I am barefoot; worse, I am naked. I despise this familiar setting.

We've spoken of this before, but I'll remind you of the setting again. Before me, the mirror; behind me, the void, or the grassy hills, or the clouds. It doesn't make a difference either way. To my left and right are the remnants of windows; hollows in a hall of stone. Above me is an arched ceiling which stretches into an eternal darkness. From the outside, it appears to be bounded, I think, but the inside of this cathedral reveals its infinite form. Best not to ponder on it too much.

The mirror sends a shock through my body. I have never approached it. I prefer to stand here in fear, waiting to flicker out of this existence and into another one. My arms are crossed---whether to hug myself, protect myself, cover myself, or warm myself, I can't say.

I blink.

I'm curled up next to a man, chuckling, my head on his chest and my body pressed against his side. One of his arms is wrapped around me, and he's rubbing my head, as if to play with my nonexistent hair. I smile, and then he's gone, and then I'm here again. This stupid cathedral. This strange empty plane.

Am I alone?

Threatening lifeforms cloud my vision of possibilities, yet a sign of life nearly seems less frightening than the complete absence of life. Surely something must have built this building.

Did I build this?

Who, or what, broke the windows?

I hope for a howling wind to break the silence. There is none. The clouds have turned yellow and pink; somewhere, a sun is setting. I step forward. The shards become sandals, and then they're shards again. I can't decide whether or not I'm in pain. Inhale, exhale, I don't want to do this. I can't be here. I rub my eyebrows, drag my palm down my face, and blink.

"I bet you can't make it through your twenties without being in a prison or mental asylum," says my sister. She's younger than me by a year.

My other sister, four years younger, nods in agreement while chewing on her pencil. "Is that even up for debate? You're crazy. At least our parents will let her live here. They'll make us move out when we're eighteen. I'm not ready for the real world."

I cross my arms and roll my eyes. "Whatever. At least you guys have a future."

The memory fades out of view as I blink.

This cathedral.

This god-forsaken cathedral.

I flinch; there's a sudden application of pressure throughout my body. From what? I daren't turn to find what's behind me. There can't be anything there. I imagine a tall, shadowy figure towering over me. I see him grabbing me by the throat and choking the life out of my body. I see him shoving me to the floor and shoving himself into me. I see him reaching into my ribcage, tearing out my heart, and eating it; blood dripping down from the pristine-white teeth on his nonexistent face. I hear him sweet-talking me; a wolf in sheep's clothing. I hear--- nothing.

There is nothing there.

I don't turn around to confirm this. As I step forward, brown sandals flicker in and out of existence. Where do they come from? They're hard against my indecisive feet. They grind down a piece of glass. These feet are not mine. These alien feet continue to bring my body forward; slow, halting steps force my body to approach the mirror. Shall I confront it? Shall I break it?

What lies behind it?

I blink.

"You didn't give me the right sauces," says a customer. "There's supposed to be more."

"If you'd like extra sauces---"

"I don't want extra sauces," he insists. "I want the sauces I ordered."

"Your order comes with two ounces of dipping sauce. If you'd like---"

"No. It's two plastic cups of sauce."

"Each order comes with---"

"You didn't give me what I ordered."

"If you'd like extra sauce, you'll need to speak with the cashier to pay for it."

"I don't want extra sauce. There's supposed to be two cups, not one. See? This is one."

"Your order comes with two ounces of---"

"No."

I blink. Damn customer. If one of the guys brings out his order, he doesn't pull the same shit. If he has company, he doesn't do this shit. I treat myself to a vision of packing up his dine-in order as a take-out order and insisting it's for take-out, but if he'd like to eat here, he is welcome to do so; if he wanted dine-in utensils, though, he should have placed an order for dine in. I treat myself to the image of him getting up and tripping over the chair and knocking over the table, his food landing perfectly on the floor---indeed, the food itself doesn't touch the floor whatsoever, nothing leaves the plate, it is entirely intact and fine but the bottom of the plate has touched the floor. I imagine this happening when the dining room is full, the customers are bustling, and he has made a public spectacle of himself. Except nobody seems to notice. Nobody looks his way. He insists we need to remake his entire order. He has already eaten the majority of his food. We cannot remake his order.

I blink.

20260804

I am wearing jeans and black sneakers. Why am I not wearing a shirt?

I blink.

I am drowning / there is no sign of land / you are coming down with me / hand in---

I blink.

Glass is fully embedded in my feet, even poking through the tops of my feet. I'm wearing jeans and a white t-shirt and a black porkpie hat. I am in front of the mirror. There is nothing in it, and then there is me, and then the shadow man is there, and then he isn't; his hand is on my shoulder, my neck, my chin, and I can't move, I can't breathe, why is he here and why is he touching me and---

The mirror is in the distance. I rub my neck and turn around; there's nobody there. My feet are bare and show no signs of damage. I'm wearing a green shirt and black pants. On my left, an infinite black space; on my right, another infinite black space. The floor is made of blocks of stone, like that chapel from my childhood. The stones are grimy, a grey-black, and there is nothing between their cracks. How can I see, in a space so obviously absent of light?

I sit down, then lie down; the cold stone is a balm to my overheating body. The ceiling, which at first thought was black, is actually a navy blue; flashes of light twinkle in its distance. I smile. Something growls.

I jolt, and am on my feet in an instant, twisting around to see what might have made that sound. A feral dog will come running towards me, or perhaps a minotaur, some kind of mythological monster, or a person, or nothing recognizable at all---everything is dark, dark, so very dark, and then I see the mirror. I must go to it.

Or is it a trap? Whatever growled could be behind the mirror. I resolve to wait in anxiety. Something else is in this space. There's a noise again, and I realize it isn't a growl, but a grinding rumble; the sound of stone against stone, or bone against bone. Perhaps I can approach the mirror. The space is blank and dark. I feel nothing beneath my feet. Am I falling? I cannot know. I am paralyzed; I will not put my foot forward to investigate my surroundings. Torches flicker in this dimly lit stone corridor; my hands are against the walls that threaten to press against me. I strive forward, determined to reach the mirror at the end of the corridor, but the light that was coming through the windows of the cathedral goes out. The mirror must lay before me. I must continue forward. Shards of glass press into my arms, my legs, my feet; my body is on fire and still I move forward. I need to see what's behind it. I blink, and blink again before I can think. I need to see the end of this, and even if I do blink, I'll blink again, another foot forward, even as the creature behind me grabs my wrist and waist and hooks a foot around mine but it is not there and neither am I. The mirror. My mirror. I must witness my reflection, even if its how I see the shadow man sinking his teeth into my neck, blood dripping down my chest as I stretch out, certain that this reflective surface will guide me to safety, even as it warps away from me; I stumble forward, out of his grasp; in my rush to reach the mirror I trip over my feet and scrape my nose against the stone. I rise to my feet again, instinctively brushing off my shirt. Since when was the wall so close to my back? The mirror is but two strides before me. Torches illuminate it. I reach forward to wipe off the dust but it's gone, again, and I run.

The walls give way to a collage of textures. I see sheets of music, ancient pieces of paper, strange creatures made of paper, and are those parts of video games? I cannot think long. I must run forward. Light pools out of everywhere I step; the black surface temporarily filled with circles of cyan and gold. The collages glitch---blue and red---and then return to their dancing selves, paper creatures swarming in patches of this two dimensional surface. I pay them no heed. The mirror looks like a drawing, a sketch made by a child, and in it I see the stick figure that is me. I press my hand against it. Light shines through the windows of the cathedral. Patches of blue break through the clouds. The person in the mirror looks at me with a thoughtful expression. Then she grins. I press a hand against my mouth and she presses a hand against hers; my hand drops to my side and she follows me. I squint for signs of imperfection. I want her to wrap her hands around my throat, to bite me, to eat me. She does not comply. She gazes at me as I gaze at her. I tap my foot and she crosses her arms, but my arms are crossed too.

Do I dare look behind the mirror? Anxiety grips my heart. My mission is not so simple. Her and I raise our fists and strike each other. Shards of the mirror fall to the floor. Through it, and around it, the infinite void presents itself. Except it is not infinite. It is an altar made of stone---what else did you expect from a cathedral? I step through the mirror's skeleton, paying no mind to the shards that pierce my feet. Who am I to judge them?

I climb up the steps of the altar. They're built for a giant, yet I too am a giant, and then I'm as small as they are. I reach the lectern. A book is opened to a blank page. I rest my finger on it and ink spills out, begging me to tell me who I am and what I want from it.

"I don't know," I say out loud. "What do you want from me?"

The ink reforms: answers.

"I can't provide answers if I don't know the questions."

The page is covered in black ink; bits of white poke through and vanish, squiggling throughout the page and disappearing. I wonder if it's mocking me. I try to flip the page, but it will not budge.

i do not want to read today. fuck.

from 2666:

for Norton made frequent and rather tasteless references to her ex-husband as a lurking threat, ascribed to him the vices and defects of a monster, a horribly violent monster but one who never materialized, a monster all evocation and no action
but as the angel who had fortified their friendship, forcibly shown them what they'd known all along, what they'd assumed all along, which was that they were civilized beings, beings capable of noble sentiments, not two dumb beasts debased by routine and regular sedentary work
I'd love her until the end of time, he thought. An hour later he'd already forgotten the matter completely.
Life smiled on them once again. They traveled to conferences here and there. They partook of the pleasures of gastronomy. They read and were lighthearted. Everything around them that had stopped and grown creaky and rusted sprang into motion again. The lives of other people grew visible, to a point. Their remorse vanished like laughter on a spring night. Once more they began to call Norton.

20260805

i keep thinking that today is the sixth. the time has already slipped through my fingers, and i've done what exactly? at least my room is clean and the laundry is done. i don't know why i haven't done my reading for the day. i started to get pretty into 2666 last night. the flashes of violence, with little reflection on them, are adding a bit of texture to the story. the pretentious academic vibe is reminding me of saint sebastian's abyss. i've decided to stop searching for a plot and comprehension and let the story wash over me. there's an impressionistic quality to this work, i think. i suspect knowing more about politics and history in mexico, or latin america as a whole, would provide more context for this story. instead, all i can say is that the main cast has partaken in violence while remaining outside of violence, kind of like they see themselves as above all of the goings-on. i'm getting the sense that these academics and the writer they're chasing might not be the point of the story. instead, they're yet another texture in whatever is going on.

i'm enjoying getting to take my time with my reading. i assigned myself seven books to read this month (a far cry from last month's 31), and i haven't finished a single one of them. how wonderful! how freeing! oh, the weight of my future does creep upon me, but for now i feel light and distant. i wonder if last month has made the thought of sitting down with a tome easier for me---i'm so tired of finishing books, of jumping from story to story, that absorbing a story i don't think i understand is refreshing. funny way to describe a book that's becoming increasingly steeped in violence.

re. a painting: a smiling, rosy-cheeked child grins at me from his stool. he is white, looks to be about seven years old, and has hair that is fluffy and brunette. his eyes are furrowed, squinting at something i cannot determine. his pupils are so obscured that i think they must be black. he has a small, button-like nose. white teeth peek through his soft pink lips. his chin tapers off to a point; indeed, he is not as rotund as one would expect someone of his age to be. i think he's bony, and wonder if he's getting enough to eat. his clothes reek of formality; yes, his parents have dressed him well for this occasion, and he has nary a complaint about the formal wear.

And so, I blink.

"Why are you sabotaging my plans? It's like you're not even trying to get your job done. All you do is goof off and scroll through your phone. You're leaving the work for everybody else to do. There's no point in scheduling you to work if you aren't going to work."

My boss is lecturing me at an elevated volume, again. My coworkers are doing their best to avoid the scene of the crime.

"I don't know how to cook that dish. Nobody has taught me. I picked up a bit when you showed Peter six months ago, so if you reviewed it with me I'd probably be fine, but I need someone to check my work, or else I'll screw it up and you'll have more problems," I reply. I've been working all day. The only time I was on my phone was when I was calling him to let him know a few things we needed him to grab, and to send closing staff a message about a few major mistakes they made. I want to list off every single thing I did and point out how my other, much older, coworker outright refused to cook the dish he's asking about, and maybe you should be criticizing him for refusing to do a job he knows how to do, instead of criticizing me for not doing something I don't know how to do?

"You can't sit here and blame everybody else for your mistakes," he continues to insist. "It's like you're not even trying. I was relying on you to get this done, and you have no reason not to get it done."

I should bite my tongue. "I'm sorry, do you honestly want me to try to do something I haven't learned how to do before, without supervision?"

"That should be done by now. You had all day to do it."

"You dropped off the ingredients an hour ago," I point out.

"Your coworker should have grabbed them this morning."

"Okay," I say, certain there's venom in my voice. He is mad at us for not getting a task done, and he is taking his anger out on me. This is going to have a lot of repercussions that I'm not looking forward to dealing with. In the future, a similar happening will occur, and he will tell me that I was set up for failure, and that it wouldn't make sense to expect me to do something I didn't know how to do, something that nobody taught me how to do, something I'd been given vague instructions for without the proper equipment. In this instance, he will continue to insist that I was set up for failure, and that it's not for lack of me not trying, but that the circumstances were wrong and the timing was wrong and I had been set up for failure. I will decide to turn this into apology of sorts, because these two occasions were more or less the same, the only difference being the exact task, and of course the differences in his anger, or lack thereof, towards me.

Perhaps it is time for me to blink.

I replay the memory and imagine driving a knife through his chest, or trying to, yet not being able to so much as break his skin. I imagine walking out, and then I imagine trying to hang myself. I think about sticking my arm into the fryer. If I deep-fried my arm, would that make it easier to cut off bits and chunks of it? Surely it could hurt less, my nerves already damaged by the high heat?

I should move on. I should blink.

I wonder how my boss would react to me throwing myself into the deep fryer. Would he even blink? Would he do anything? I think he'd just bitch about how I'm creating more problems, and I've clearly given up, and there was no point in scheduling me to work if I was just going to kill myself, and maybe I could start separating my personal problems from my professional life, and this is very inconvenient because I was the only person available to work at that time and nobody else is coming in for two more hours. If I want to go to the hospital, he tells me, I'll have to walk there. Nobody wants to put the mess you are into their car. And if you're trying to die, would you hurry up about it? I'll need to change the oil once you get out of there, Lord knows we don't know what you're putting into that fucking fryer, just do us a favor and don't find a way to clog the filter?

Would I be dead, or only severely injured?

It is time for me to blink.

What would happen, if I died? Would they think: good riddance, we didn't need her anymore anyways? Would my coworkers experience problems, and would they learn how little they know, and how much they rely on me? Would the expectations be raised for everybody else? Would anybody attend my funeral? Would my coworkers be embarrassed---would I be a harrowing workplace tale, of the cook her put herself in the deep fryer? What would I be to them?

I blink. The ink black page and its mocking questions---who are you, and what do you want---stare back at me. I want to step away from the book. My surroundings are surely worth an exploration. Perhaps there's more interesting details in this altar. Perhaps there are more interesting books here. But I know as much as anyone else that there are no more books in this altar, and that this book is the most interesting detail on this altar.

"Do you need me to tell you who you are?" reforms the ink.

I jump; a feeling of relief washes over me. "Yes, please." Perhaps there's an easy way through this after all.

The page turns black again. "You are not ready to see what is within the book. Come back when you're prepared to hear the answers."

There's a sharp pain in my hand when the book slams shut. I pull my hand out before the book can cut off circulation to my wrist. What's wrong with this book? I ask as I massage my numb wrist. I need it to give me the answers. I try to flip the cover open, but it won't budge. I must commit an act of violence. I pick it up, slam it to the ground, and stomp on it. The book does not move from the lectern. I set it on fire. I have no torch. The book sits there untouched. What is wrong with it? Why won't it let me have my way with it? It will do my bidding, I decide, even if it costs all of my pride...

20260806

re. painting: a woman with snakes erupting out of her head stares back at me in agony. i cannot decide if she's in shock, horror, fear, disgust, or sadness. i do not care for her expression. the snakes continue to wither as blood continues to gush out of her head.

20260807

what a midnight to be alive at. i am, once again, so very tired of being myself. i am sick of this dreaded brain and its dread problems. i am tired of feeling so much and thinking so much about the wrong things. i am tired of these headaches and---is flashbacks the term? the memory loops, how i am sick of them! maybe they are making me sick in a literal sense. i wonder how things got this bad. why can't i be like everybody else, and not be so absorbed in my job?

i need to let things go, but i can't stop myself from replaying the memories. at this point i just want to do something drastic and impulsive and stupid.

who am i to give my life a purpose? i stare at my writing tasks and dismiss them. why bother. why care. no, why doesn't even cross my mind. i am in a Mood and i do not give a fuck. these things don't make a difference in how i feel, and i suppose that matters to me. but even as another emotion becomes all-consuming, i think about how nice it would be for this to not be the case. i feel powerless in the face of my life.

i don't know what my problem is. i don't care either. i just want all of the pain to go away. i am so tired of reliving bad memories. i am sick of all of this. i feel as if i'm fighting against some inevitable bad end. how much longer? how much more do i have to fail to do? i ruin everything i touch, and i fail, and i don't fucking try. i should care. i don't care. i relive the memories anyways. i am so sick of being controlled by the past; i do not know how to take control over it. either way, i'm probably about to fall asleep, more or less, so i'm uploading and calling it a night.

how do i stop being like this. how do i move on from this miserable excuse of a self. how can i do---well, whatever it is that i'm not doing. i'm giving up! or not. wtf. i can't put my life into words. i say: everything is too much right now, and i can't clarify enough for someone else to understand what i mean. how is it that this emotional and mental pain keeps transforming itself into a mental one? i am sick, sick, sick. i don't think i know how to hold conversations with other people anymore. i say that as if i ever did. i suppose i need to continue to readjust my standards. i am tired of these minute lists of things to do. none of them matter. i need someone to understand, and i need them to be able to give me an outline for how to fix it. that is all. easy task, no? something that should only take five minutes? don't know, don't care, good night again.

20260807

woke up feeling like death. i don't want to do this. i don't want any of this. maybe i'll be late for work and i won't even fucking care. i want to rejoin ---. doing a 48hr fast; started at 7pm last night, so i'm only 14hr in. decided against stopping by target to deposit cash. placed an amazon order instead---the electrolyte mix is cheaper there + has magnesium + was on sale! only 20% off but $14 for 30 servings of the sugar-free electrolytes is better than $16 fro 20 servings of target's sugar-free electrolytes. also bought 2 week's worth of high-protein granola bars...they were the cheapest option so hopefully they're good. the brand i used to buy cost $8 more for the 12-count than the discount brand. what else...i found out that the gummy vitamin i'd been taking cost $4 less on amazon than at my grocery store. all of this means i have no need to go to target...except to go deposit cash. but that can wait until next week. now i've made the venture less urgent.

fuuuuuuuck i need to leave now but i really don't want to. fuck fuck fuck. i do not want to work i do not want to work i do not want to work.

20260809

spent most of today on some shitty side-thing that i can't even talk about here...a 'terminally online' day makes me want to stay off of my computer for the rest of the month. i hate how easily i get caught up in things and wasting? time and losing time. LOSING TIME. yes, that's what i'd call all of that. nothing here feels real. i think i would benefit from avoiding the internet for the rest of the month. or is that only what i want to tell myself?

--- is definitely consuming my efforts for the near future. i'm looking forward to delving into the fictional aspects of it. i'm also hoping it'll help me do a lot of the stuff i've been meaning to do. UGH.

anywho, what else have i been failing? my writing course is dead. i think: i gave myself too much work to do, i expected too much out of myself, i failed to properly address my goals, i fell for an idealized version of myself and failed to aim for my true aspirations. ugh. the more i write, the more i realize i prefer writing in a diary to all else. is this a low bar to set for myself? i was re-watching crazy ex-girlfriend. the scene where josh thanks rebecca for showing him that he could expect more out of himself stuck with me. i don't expect much out of myself. i don't expect anything out of myself, actually. what would expecting something out of myself look like? what can i expect out of myself?

a more accurate statement: i don't expect much for myself outside of work. inside work, i expect a lot out of myself, and hold myself to a high standard. i'm half-satisfied, half-not...it's complicated (if i never made that obvious). i don't want to write about work. i only bring it up to point out that my standards for myself aren't as rock-bottom as i want to make them out to be. what does bother me is my life outside of work. what am i doing? is there a better future for me? (i don't think so). how do i want to spend my time, and why does that matter to me? is my discontent real, or is it an artifact of the past? how do i make friends, email people, join discord servers, or engage with other people, and how can i build relationships that aren't isolating? what do i need to do to connect to other people?

i feel as if i'm stuck on the outside looking in. part of me knows that this is because i don't speak 'their' language. i lack cultural context. my interest in movies in nonexistent. my music taste is ~le shrug~. when i like media, it's because of some oddly specific trait, and when i like media i REALLY like media. everything else is meh. my brain does get stuck on an intense loneliness and a craving for physical contact. i mean, i was daydreaming about someone petting my head and scratching behind my ears and how nice and cozy and comforting that would feel. am i a person, or am i a cat? is that even a thing normal people do...? would i actually like that, or am i watching cat videos and wondering if the things that they like could be things that i like?

it's funny how i like writing diary entries but also get sick of writing about myself. i want to have something of more substance for myself. i have ensured my life is devoid of meaning, and then i hate reaping the consequences. what a surprise.

while the writing course is dead after two weeks, i wouldn't call it a failure. i noticed how much i resented trying to do the morning pages. they didn't feel any different from writing in my diary. the main differences were that i felt more free to give specifics on topics i have to be vague about here, and that i could draw willy-nilly. maybe incorporating specific details would make these diary entries feel more concrete. alas, i cannot, because those specific details concern creative projects that have my face attached to them, and i am not interested in doxxing myself.

sleep is reaching for me, but i do not think i am done here.

to my great surprise, i am still 'studying' japanese. wanikani is fun. i like trying to memorize what all of the new symbols mean. i like staring at the context sentences and comparing them to the translation, trying to read them, trying to pronounce them, and pretending i have any level of comprehension. i found 'manga kotaba' and want to use it to make myself a cardcaptor sakura anki deck. this was the first manga i read, waaaaaay back in elementary school. though i do need to make sure i can find a japanese pdf of it :D. my point being that reading it would be something to work towards---certainly more concrete than "vaguely try to pick up some japanese to get along with coworker who is also trying to learn"... maybe that'd be the way to get myself to start to pick up some grammar.

also, i need to keep writing the cathedral story. i need to know what happens next! anywho, back to sleep...

hey self, remember that one?

20260810

do people actually read this? do they comprehend the words i'm writing? do you understand this more than i do, or is it not at all? are you a voyeur, a wannabe interactor, a consumer of words? i wonder if people who read this get the same feeling as i get when i read journalnook, in that i don't quite understand what he's saying but i appreciate the words. if i sat with it, would i learn what linguistic strip-mining and all this analysis of his own writing means, or is that writing for him more than it is for me, in that i will not understand it because of its inherent nature?

anywho. i am sitting here and writing, again. i found several dozen ants in my kitchen yesterday and proceeded to slaughter them: vacuuming them up, spraying cleaner at them, smacking them with a rag, smashing them with a shoe. i walk into the kitchen today and it's like yesterday's massacre never happened. the slaughterhouse has become the kitchen, again, and it even got cleaner in the process.

lol a week later and the ants are still trickling in. i bought ant bait yesterday; hopefully this does the trick. i'm getting tired of killing them. i should've bought some sort of insect spray as well. i bought a fruit fly trap which is periodically releasing a sulfurous stench. i hope all of these make a difference.

i want to go to dunkin. i want breakfast---this is depressing. i wonder if i could do a quick dash in-n-out of market basket. my fridge is all chicken---butter chicken, breaded chicken, and grilled chicken. i do not want to eat any of this right now. the dunkin app tells me i have enough reward points for a bagel with cream cheese, so i suppose i can go with that. there is a nice breeze streaming in through the windows.

i say that i write so i can make sense of my life, but what have i made sense of? i fear i've only created a record of a life i've forgotten. as the days pass, my brain resets, forgetting most of my life except for the few bad memories i must loop. why am i still doing this, why am i still here, and why do i feel as if i'm only parroting an empty self? this is a hollow shell---not hollow, but the interior does not belong to this realm. i feel so separate from my reality. it's hard to reconcile my existence with myself. logic dictates that my body / presence in this reality means i must interact with this reality. i am here, so i must be a part of it. but i feel inherently irreconcilable. i have been alienated, but this is because i am an alien to this reality.

a pure retreat to the inner world feels akin to:

the pure retreat does not sound like acceptance of myself. it sounds like a mistake which would leave me feeling more alienated and hateful. but how can i be a part of the human world, which has so clearly rejected me? i do not want to become a hateful person who resents everybody else. i do not want to shut off the outside world and despair. if i am to move on from this reality, i must do it peacefully, but rejecting half of myself---my human body and needs---is the opposite of peace!

one thing is true: i cling to the need to make sense of something.

HUMAN NEEDS:

HUMAN REJECTIONS:

okay, okay, okay. so how do i answer this question that continues to plague me. how do i deal with this vague discontent and alienation and put all these feelings to rest. what is the goal of putting these feelings to rest: to stop thinking of them, to make sense of how i want to live my life, to understand myself, to stop feeling upset for no apparent reason.

i hate how much i spiral over little things. i wasted an hour reliving some dumb fucking memory of a bad day at work. then i went out for ice cream. which was nice and good and delicious and also violated my nobuy rules. UGH UGH UGH. but it did help me get my mind off of things, and it was the first time i'd gone out for food this month. so yay.

  1. the objectives will be enough. expect objectives to be re-evaluated. remember to post objectives or else they will be forgotten.

20260811

from sweetbitter:

i would tell him that for so long i thought i would be nothing; that my loneliness had been so total that i was unable to project into the future. and that this changed when i got to the city and my present expanded, and my future skipped out in front of me.

i wonder what my life would be like if i were entwined in 'typical' restaraunt culture. anywho, i loved the idea here. i can imagine myself in her shoes, and i can imagine myself saying something similar: i thought i'd had no life; my anxieties were so great that i could not see past the realm of my family. all of this changed when i decided i'd move out anyways, and in this city, my future expanded before me. except my city isn't much of a city, is it, not the bustling thing you think of when you think of chicago, new york city, or boston. people do not move here. they are born here, more or less, and then they die here. i am an outsider; the culture here is not mine.

20260812

"sweetbitter" was about a 22 y/o woman who moves to new york and starts working in a restaurant. this book watches her get mixed up in the seedier sides of her world---drugs, messy relationships, alcohol, more drugs, sex---and lose any parts of herself which she might have had. we don't learn the narrator's name until halfway through the book, which really sent home the narrator's lack of sense-of-self. we learn her name through a superlatives event, where she was voted as the person that the most people "want to be stuck in the elevator with," which translates to "she's the pretty girl who everybody wants to fuck." (she is not happy to learn that that's what the superlative means). the escapism element reminded me of "my year of rest and relaxation." both characters are young woman who are drugged out of their minds and running away from themselves and their past.

one character, simone, is an older woman (37 y/o) who wants the narrator, tessa, to start taking herself more seriously. simone starts to play the role of the mentor who molds a naive, undeveloped person into a refined, classy, well-developed human. she quotes poetry and schools tessa in the art of wine. i really connected to this desire for an older person who molds the naive girl into a real woman. tessa fails to develop in some ways, but she does learn a lot about wine in the process, and begins to develop respect for it. by the end of the book, she's definitely gone off the rails and lost herself, but she's learned enough to move onto the next stage in her life, even though she's also wrecked herself quite a lot.

i wonder what taking myself more seriously would look like. i am ignorant and out of touch. i know very little and stay in my inner world, even as i also threaten to abandon it. i write in circles and say a lot without ever saying anything. tiring, isn't it, to be so latently self-obsessed? anywho, i'm prompting myself to develop an understanding of politics, which will hopefully combat some of my ignorance. i can hear the eye-rolls from the critics who point out that i am wasting my time because i have never shown any interest in politics, and that my escapist urges directly contradict trying to be interested in politics, and probably something about how my trash taste necessitates the 'wrong approach'---but aren't the first two of these the point? i am part of this world, and i need to find a way to partake in it. i cannot get along with cultural references and cultural context, but distilling contemporary society into culture seems ignorant of the other half of things. i can become aware of the other half, that other fabric of our current reality. that, at least, is something i stand a chance of making sense of.

goes to make a pizza instead

20260813

i am devouring discipline, by larissa pham. the narrator's conversations with different people leave little impression on me. she gestures to some things that have been, but her details are ambiguous. she'd rather not re-tread the past, although she did write a book on it, which she is taking on tour. i cannot see: is she running from something? she discusses the relationship with the professor in passing, as if it happened to someone else. where will this book go? i cannot see.

i was thinking about a game where the player would wander through different rooms, buildings, stores, and other places late-at-night. specifically, in part thought out by this first question. how could i capture a feeling of wandering, of postponement---perhaps the settings give way to a dreamlike state, the narrator half-searching for something, he'll know it when he sees it, though does he think he's searching for something?, his in-person browsing the equivalent of offline doomscrolling in one sense, though something completely else in another; perhaps the stores fade together, their wares becoming strange and unrecognizable in unforeseen places (moldy food in an antique store, a clarinet in a health food store, more stores and shops (is there a difference?) selling things they 'shouldn't be selling,' but shouldn't is based on a vague feeling of wrongness, something is not right here, the reality he thought he knew has transcended sideways and turned into something strange and unfamiliar), all giving way to a park that isn't a park, foul greenery lining his sight, though he has no choice but to continue down the path, through the mocking trees and the questioning animals, his life continuing to give way---what thoughts has he had so far?---until he reaches a library. "inside every library is a book that answers the question that burns like a fire in the mind" (or something, from a lemony snicket book). the library---what does he find in the library? i imagine a babel-esque place, where every book that could exist does exist, him wandering---here, i'd certainly have to draw from borges, though i've long-forgotten his tale, but i'd twist it, traces of borges but no copycat---picking up books, staring at pages of apparent gibberish, and for what? recalling "a short stay in hell," yes a trace of that too, but less fantastical and more eerie. something is closing in on him, maybe what he was running from or to, but he wasn't running, just wandering, postponing the day's end, not out of fear of what's to come but another Thing entirely, this Thing indefinite, its amorphous nature hinted at, a faint shape given---

this is how it ends: with a crash, a re-opening, a repetition of the journey that has no ending.

reminded of a different story---wandering through a store, each aisle prompting visions of another life. selling ourselves to daydreams of people who we are not. the player walks into an aisle of supplements, then powders, protein bars and electrolytes, their basket filling up, the visions compounding, the weight of potential suffocating, except not only is the basket empty but there was no basket to begin with; entering another section, makeup, cleaning, room decor, games, clothes; these other lives intruding, their inexorable pressures building until the player leaves again. leaves is wrong; they're still haunted by the lives that they could live .

half an hour ago, i was visited by a brief torrent of rain. i must leave for work soon. will the rain return again? shall i bring extra shoes, extra socks, and an umbrella? my falling-apart work shoes cannot stand the rain, or rather my feet cannot, as the top part of the shoe is half-separated from the bottom half. i imagine eating fries. no milkshake. i think of frustrations with coworkers, more discussions with my boss, me the nagging bitch, him insisting i'm not, me looking at the coworkers and wondering how it could be any other way, me the asshole who wants people to do their work and them the people who'd rather be anywhere else than here, me always picking up the slack, the standards raising, the wages not, and when does it end? i wish my coworkers and i did work together, but we seem to have opposite goals: them, to take as much time for themselves as they can and do the bare minimum, me, to serve customers efficiently; me staying on top of everything, 'leading by example,' saying: 'i don't think leading by example works. they're not paying attention.'

my feet hurt. i might go to the grocery store after work. i need to deposit cash soon---my bank account craves the money, the bills certainly will ask for it---yet all i can think about is putting it off. sharp, stabbing pains echo from my heel through my calf. the ankle is sore. the arms are seizing up, hands and fingers struggling to keep a grip, the elbows simultaneously limp and tight, alarm going off, bye bye friend.

20260814

the day has turned, even though my day has not. i stare at the hours gone by: where did they go, and why? how is it that i have not had enough time---the time slips through my fingers, and when my eyes grow weary i find myself asking for more time, time which i had in the morning and failed to use, time which i now choose to steal. i need to sleep, this much i know.

20260814

i wake and immediately seek to avoid that which i had wanted to gain: time. sleep beckons me again. i do not want to seize the day. i am not of this world and i do not wish to partake in it. let me slumber a little while longer, please, 下さい rest, comfort, peace。。。

the alarm jolts me out of bed. i resolve to set my alarm a little earlier---ten minutes will be manageable, surely? i immediately take care of the financial stuff i'd been putting off, then japanese, then exercise, then shower, then eat, the time slipping through my fingertips; i must leave for work within seven minutes, and still i sit here, putting off the rest of the day, wishing i'd taken the time to start a new book, or to do yoga, or to work on ---, or to do more of anything and everything. the burrito i just ate mixes with the toothpaste i used ten minutes prior; what a contradiction.

another alarm goes off; my day has ended. i must go to work. tonight, i go to target and act like a beauty-obsessed 'self-care' youtuber. what a mistake, no?

20260815

i do not want to go to work. this continues to be a recurring state of mind: i don't want to deal with --- and ---, two boys who fail to remain interested and attentive, who prefer to avoid getting their hands dirty and would rather chitter chatter ignore their jobs. i am so tired of being the person who has to make sure everything is running smoothly while they lounge around and don't work without being told to. how is it that two days a week can have such a high impact on me? it's just a few hours. i will continue to do as boss1 has told me, which is to keep telling them what to do, but why can't they learn? i am so tired of being the older, responsible person. one of these guys has been here for longer than me. the other was hired to do the grunt work, yet i seem to do his work so much of the time. how aggravating.

i am staring at the possibilities i have surrounded myself with. i was looking at makeup and skin/face/bodycare products last night and grew tired. so many acids and serums and moisturizers. which does what? why are they so expensive? the video instructed me to buy a lip scrub, hyalauronic acid, and a lip mask. the first, i couldn't find, but vowed to make at home (apparently sugar+honey+oil will do the trick). the second was $14. the third was $5; i purchased it, but i think it will be gone within a week. it does smell nice though---supposed to be creme brulee flavor/scented. i nearly bought a pumpkin spice sugar scrub, but they only had the minis. i am swarmed by visions of another person---the picture-perfect 'fall pinterest girl' who i see online.

i imagine daydreaming up people more than i imagine being them. i see someone who is obsessed with body care. (i cannot imagine the haircare obsession, as i maintain a buzz cut). i imagine a woman in a brown trench coat. she's wearing a scarf and reading, journaling, or knitting. she smells like pumpkin spice. when asked what she does for fun, she says she savors the season, and would you like a slice of pie, she's trying to perfect her apple pie seasoning and wants feedback on the recipe. she's added some star anise to the crust. you take a piece---how could you not---and are overwhelmed by the variety of flavors. i grew the apples myself, she said, and i took exceedingly good care of them. i'd sung to that tree every day for the past eight years, and played classical music to it too, didn't you hear that was good for the plants? it's the perfect apple tree, she proclaims, and it's done her well. she smiles and you stare, this pumpkin-pie-spiced goddess glowing at you and bringing you to your knees. she looks down at your imperfections, then plays at offering you a hand. how could you refuse? you let her pull you up, and her strength pulls you closure to her, drawing your face into her neck. "let's get you home," she says, as you inhale her heady scent and wake up on a couch that isn't yours. there's a bookshelf in front of you. candles litter the short table in front of the couch. how did you get here? the dim mood lighting comforts and unsettles you. there's leaves strewn all over the walls. there is no window, no natural light poking in---

it's been two weeks since i've had a coffee, and the craving is hard to ignore. i think i will give in.

all time is lost and cannot be found. i sometimes think i crave sex, and then i cannot pinpoint if that is a concrete 'i want this' vs 'this is another Normal Person Thing that i am missing out on and would like to experience for lolz.' this is an annoying state of mind. i am also very lonely. the one thing i genuinely want is to hug someone, or maybe just sit next to someone for a little while. but directly next to them, touching them, them touching me, me falling asleep because the thought of being held by someone who i feel comfortable around is very pleasant. either way, i am terrified of human interaction, especially of the vaguely intimate (not necessarily r-rated, get your mind out of the gutter!) variety.

i wonder if i should be releasing these thoughts to the internet. i do not think i know how to be honest with people. "i only know how to lie / i guess i really can't dodge it this time"---what was that song? ghost rule? i am nothing more than an empty ghost. i fight the urge to drown myself in covers and cmvs and dance videos and mmd videos---i must continue writing. i feel more like myself when i'm writing. i do not know if i am a good writer, but writing does bring me closer to a reality, even if it brings me farther from this reality.

---a heavy wool blanket has been wrapped around you. really, the couch is quite comfortable, even if it is also alien. a steaming mug of apple cider catches your eye. it's on the coffee table, beside a small stack of books. the one on the top mentions something about a coffee shop---you decide it's a cozy fantasy book. this room reeks of fall aesthetics; yes, you feel as if you've fallen into an autumnal pinterest board, if that pinterest board was in someone's caliginous basement. beneath all of the pumpkin pie and apples and cinnamon is the sickly-sweet stench of rot. these smells reach into your nostrils and up into your head, drawing out a piercing headache.

a gentle guitar tune croons through invisible speakers; you turn your head to the pitter-patter of footsteps. the most beautiful woman you have ever set eyes on has entered the room. her long, wavy, orange hair rolls down to her waste; small leaf charms have been embedded in it. she now wears a long cream-colored dress; the long sleeves billow, but the strapless nature of the dress exposes her shoulders and accentuates her collarbones. she looks down at you with a slight smile on her face. there's a plate in her hands; the apple pie! suddenly---the bookstore, was it, or a cafe, running into this gorgeous lady and you passed out like a coward, didn't you, you fucking failure, embarrassment, rot and die in hell---

"how are you feeling?" she asks, a voice with the gentle beauty of a running brook. "your tumble down the stairs knocked you out for a bit, i'm afraid." she puts the plate next to the mug and sits on the couch. "do you remember?"

"where am i?" you say.

she smiles at you. "at home, dearie. where else would you be?"

"but this isn't my---"

"you had quite the fall. would you like your pie?" she stabs the offending object with a fork and reaches for your mouth. you have no choice but to obey, consenting to her desire to slip more of that sweet poison into your body.

kk i'm tired of that one now.

i am annoyed by how awake i am. it's 2am. i blink and look at more websites, then blink and i'm back here. i was looking around for more pixel cliques to join, maybe some text cliques, though what am i actually looking for? i stare at webpages. that one is too complicated, i say. that one is not what i'm looking for, i say. that one is too high effort. i look at one page and wonder what i'd rate my site. the majority of the content here is sfw, but there are flashes of nsfw thoughts---everything here is words. and does this matter to me? when i click through the list of people who follow me, i get the sense that kids and teens aren't reading this, and---well, does any of this matter to me?

anywho........................................

when i was at target last night, i was staring at skincare products and imagining different versions of myself. there is a consumerist aspect to it. i long to partake in the world of pretty girls. slathering myself with product after product, scent after scent, and chemical after chemical is wasteful (in more ways than one), and yet the visions tempt me so!

i do not give much thought to my appearance. i barely know what i look like. there is something alienating about seeing my reflection in the mirror---that creature is me, and i am her. i wonder what other people see when they look at me. there are people who are vocal about my appearance---a buzz cut, a flat chest, yet traces of femininity (or, as an acquaintance muttered, "you look trans"---i'm not, but i'd forgive someone for thinking so). i wonder what the non-violent people think when they look at me. do i look plain? ugly? slightly pretty? fit? like skin-and-bones? i am not much to look at, i think, but i look at these over-edited photos of women my age and wonder if i could look like that. could i look beautiful. what do these women have that i don't? i stare at the mirror. my skin is fine. the area under my eyes seems to be permanently darkened.

how much makeup would it take for me to catch someone's eye? i imagine my face in color; woman use blush, i think, to add a bit of pink. would that look good on me? what would happen if i coated my skin in product after product, developing my own 42-step skincare routine to swear by? if i slathered my skin in sugar scrubs and body lotions and whatever-the-fuck, would people think positively of me, or would they be annoyed? would i feel happy, more like a person, whole?

the visions don't stop there. in my head, i contort my body, reshaping its proportions into those of something other than human. i imagine muscular arms, the kind that i envy on men; back muscles worth bragging about and those perfect shoulders; feet and legs that are never in pain. i imagine myself happy. at least this is something i am working on. i love how sore my body felt today and how much i wanted to exercise. maybe i've finally made a plan i can follow? lolllllllllll

i think this is enough writing / wandering for now. i shall use the bathroom, and then i will lie on my side. i may sleep. if sleep does not take ahold of me, i will read. if my eyes cannot focus on the words, as i imagine will be the case, i will try to be like the pinterest moodboard girlies and create a pinterest account---when all else fails, surely images will do something for me?

no, none of this sits right with me. the shadow man at my door agrees. he strides forth and takes ahold of my neck, wringing the life out of me. he stands still in his corner, watching me. i wonder what would happen if he removes his hat. he obliges, and nothing changes, bar his shape. i think of dark ralsei; when he (she? they? ???) removed his hat, the entire sprite changes, our strange guide becoming a fluffy goat boi. the shadow man is no such sprite. instead, he stands at watches, grabbing me from behind, forcing himself upon me, standing in the corner while interacting with me in increasingly violent ways. he disappears when i stand up, and reappears when i sit down on my bed blanket.

i hate sitting at the 'desk.' for one, this mis-shapen entryway table was not designed to be a desk for one to sit at. this long, thin thing would be more at place in a hallway. it is a place to rest a few objects on, and not a place to work at. it wobbles. i have tried to level it out, but it is still a wobbly table regardless. this is because the legs are thin. applying any pressure to it---writing in a notebook, for instance---causes the surface to shake back and forth. typing is alright though. i am overcome by the urge to rotate it. i will make it work anyways. yes, i vow to myself. tomorrow, i shall 1) clear the objects off of the 'desk' and 2) use it to complete my todo list. i shall take notes on my readings like a good little girl. i shall study politics and japanese and literature---yes, those are very classy things indeed! my laundry will be put away. i will be dressed. my todo list will be empty. it's 3am and i have the hiccups.

ugh. and now, i shall sleep. <---liar liar mcliar face. more time passes and i refuse to put the computer down. i derive a sick pleasure out of these late-night hours. but maybe sleep will infest my eyelids and bring me to a better place. maybe.

20260816

for my next diary page, i will go back to putting new entries at the top. i do not know why sublime randomly opens up the file in a different location on the page, but i am tired of scrolling. hmm...does anybody notice? does anybody care? dear readers, do you prefer the page to be in chronological order, or is reverse chronology alright with you? also, what's the shortcut for going back to the bottom? and why am i too lazy to look it up? *scrolls through a sublime shortcuts page, sees nothing directly pertaining to my query, gives up*

anywho. the spoils of the day. first, i puzzled my way through the first few pages of cardcaptor sakura. whoopee! i am following the reading schedule from the absolute beginner's bookclub thread on wanikani. the reading for the first week took me almost 1.5hr...aiaiai. i know so little vocab that 'oh archaic vocab' doesn't even process as intimidating to me. all of it is words i don't know. (though there was one kanji i actually recognized! that was also exciting).

my primary goal is to start to familiarize myself with grammar; if i pick up new vocab, that's a plus, but i do not expect myself to. this is also forcing me to get used to reading katakana. wanikani has unintentionally solidified my hiragana knowledge, since i keep typing in it, and my infrequent duolingo usage is infrequent. i'm telling myself to just use it for ten minutes a day to study katakana, and once i've 'mastered' that section i can never touch it again. i've been doing one lesson a day to maintain my streak, but that's it. i do not like the green bird. i'm also wary of the usefulness of the japanese course there; i don't think i learned anything out of finishing the first unit. also the kanji usage in the first unit is deceptively nonexistent. my point being that i am refusing to learn grammar and BASIC READING ABILITIES the easy way (app), so i must jump into the deep end (deciphering children's fantasy manga).

i am definitely relying on child!nobody's obsession with cardcaptor sakura. my library only had the first volume, so until i found out that interlibrary loans were a thing i just obsessively re-checked it out and re-read it for a year. (when i learned interlibrary loans were a thing, i proceeded to put every single animorphs book on hold. my parents were not happy. i also got my younger sister's login information and kept putting scary story collections on hold for her. she was five and had zero tolerance for that sort of stuff. hilarious). that reminds me i also read hikaru no go around the same time---maybe i'll revisit that later?

on the plus side, i did download bunpro, which many people in the wanikani forums mentioned using for learning grammar. it gives me a one month free trial, so i'll try to speedrun the n5 grammar in that time. there's nothing stopping me from using my plethora of email accounts to just create new accounts for more free trials, but i like to think that the time crunch will enable me to learn something. "look, nobody! you only need to actively study grammar for one month! then you can focus on decoding manga." hmm...

i did try to read about history today, but i think studying japanese was easier. the gist of "clash civilizations" seemed to be that the author believes that religion / culture is going to be a major dividing factor. unfortunately, i am so clueless that i can't make any connections between his arguments and the modern times---is religion more divisive---wrong word, causing more problems, more schisms?---than any other factors (ex. ideology, country)? i feel out of my depth and stupid. my eyes were glazing over. i understood every other word. i'm not sure what the point of reading that was.

i also started reading "the end of history." this book was a little bit more approachable, in that i understood more of what the author was saying, mostly because he's primarily speaking in broad strokes and not as many specific details/references. (my sentences are run-on. is this a problem? do i care? it feels sloppy). he's started off by talking about how the 1800s sold people a story of progress and hope for the future, and how the 1900s---wwi, wwii, further international politics---destroyed ideas about the future. in the wake of massive disasters, history became incoherent. how can we say humanity is progressing when it is giving itself to calamities?

i am embarrassed to realize i'd never understood why communism seemed like such a threat in the 1900s. this wording seems erroneous---it's not that i think communism is fine, but that i don't have a grasp on why the u. s. (and others) was so concerned about it. i vaguely recall learning about mcarthyism and paranoia about communists, but was communism abroad genuinely an active threat to the noncommunist's way of life? my ignorance is showing.

i think this book is helping me see some 'themes' to the 1900s. for example, he's talking about the different styles of governments at the time---democracy, communism, and fascism---and showing how these ideologies clash with each other. i'm struggling to put what i'm thinking into words. i hadn't thought about how hitler's fall showed the flaws of fascism, particularly in how fascism has a militant nature that will destroy itself. that's not a good wording either.

forgive me, readers, for my forays into understanding the real world engender confusion. i am horifically ignorant and my lack of comprehension will constantly show. still, we must boldly march forward into this new life, even if embarrassment befalls us. with nothing but sheer determination and brute force, we will find a way.

to take a break from my idiocy, click here. yes, i re-opened up a pinterest account. look at all the pretty pictures. once the weather cools down and autumn truly begins, there will be a cute little scrapbook-like section. i will do real Fall Activities and watch real Fall Movies and bake real Fall Baked Goods. i did see a video where someone used twine to make cinnamon rolls shaped like pumpkins, and i would love to try that out for myself. i've always associated cutely shaped baked goods with buying cookie cutters and specialized single-use items, but twine? twine is multipurpose. this appeals to me.

i've noticed myself beginning to grasp how many hours there are in the day. at 2pm, i thought my day wasted---i'd hardly made progress on my todo list, and time seemed to be slipping through my fingers, all made worse by the fact that i didn't wake up until 11am---and then remembered that i still had ten more hours until i went to sleep. how can i proclaim a day a waste, when ten unused hours remain?

when i reach consciousness in the mornings, i've stopped thinking: ugh, i have to leave for work in 2hr, why bother with anything. now, when i wake up and have an opening shift, i think: two whole hours! how shall i spend them---reading? writing? there have been a bizarre number of mornings where wanikani is the first thing i do. (i don't think it's about learning japanese either. i think it's that i'm learning something that doesn't bore me in a way that's manageable and appealing to me. my brain is satiated). if i'm working closing, thus don't have to leave for work for six+ hours, it's a completely different story...i am slower to get out of bed, but i'm slower to proclaim the day a waste. even if i lay in bed for an extra hour or two, well, there's five hours left for me, and how shall i spend them?

i would like to stop thinking about my life in terms of time wasted. i thought my afternoon a waste because i didn't spend much time reading. 3hr were lost to a haze of making that fall page---of listening to some youtube videos and writing down some things and tinkering and looking for graphics---but were they a waste? it's what i wanted to do, isn't it? i'd like to stop casting entire parts of my life in moral terms and start thinking about what i was doing. i had fun! i made a new page with new styling! i envy those idealized women who are seasonally obsessed, and i did something that kind of person would do! why am i framing this as a bad thing? yeah, i didn't do all of the reading i wanted to do today. my todo list included about 7hr of reading, though, so is it any surprise that i didn't do all of it?

i am in the middle of too many books right now. there's the consciousness book. 2666. the end of history. that book i got an arc of. a room with a view. cardcaptor sakura, though that's a bit different. all of these feel equally pressing. i ignore all of this and return to wanikani. these new vocab are not that interesting. 王子。　女王。　田んぼ。　王。　正す。　正しい。　i shrug.

in the cathedral, the shadow man stands beside me. does he guide me or control me? who is he to me? his hand softly glides down from my shoulder. there are goosebumps on my arm. his right hand covers my right hand and his left hand rubs my shoulder. i am frozen in place. a pearl necklace has been draped around my neck, and i am dressed in a stiff, conservative black dress. these heels hurt my feet.

with his left hand, he twists my chin and forces me to look into his face. his top hat casts a shadow over his eyes; his pearly white teeth shimmer, even in the absence of light. he pulls my face towards his; once i'm free to draw back, crimson lipstick stains his teeth. he licks it off before i can say anything.

"do you like it?" he says.

"do i have a choice?" i say. he bares his teeth and hisses, though i swear there's an affectionate tone in there. my swearing is for naught; his knee against my chest, my back hitting the altar, his mouth growing impossibly wide, his hands at my throat---

he coughs as if nothing has ever happened. his hand slides off of mine and onto my waist. i'm not interested in this story either. i write out of habit. perhaps not.