A world over it's been since I last came on here! I have a new job, that's driving me to the end of my wits in terms of anxiety, and I have been sick for the last week or so. You all have no idea how lucky you are to be pooping properly. I'm going to wash my hair in a bit, but I thought I'd take a moment to acknowledge what a beautiful day it is. It really is such a nice day.
I'm sitting there enjoying the ambience of the early morning traffic, winds rushing through the tree by my window and the birds have finally fallen quiet to get on with the day. My cat is sleeping on the bean bags, and she looks so peaceful. Her eyes are closed and she's slipped into the backdrop, sidestepping into an ethereal realm not too far from our own but also not quite here. The birds wake up every now and again, exchanging pleasantries no doubt. I bet they're also exclaiming what a wonderful day it is.
I caught myself in a moment a bit earlier. I was sitting there pondering if I should watch an episode of adventure time before I wash my hair. Then I asked myself if I was really happy. I wondered if watching adventure time would make me happy, and if not, what it is that would. An underlying sense of happiness is there, underneath the folds of it all, but it's not coming up to the surface as it should. I am happy, I think, especially in this moment, apart from the meaning of everything when put together.
I recognize that there are parts of myself that are no longer there, and others that were not there before. It's impossible to think back on yourself from a few years ago and identify every single thing that ever was to be somewhere else but still there. Some things are just not there anymore, and I can't miss them because I don't know their names. But I do!
I remember how differently I felt on mornings in college, and how different the mornings were at school. I remember some of the past jobs and what their mornings were like, and almost exactly what I felt back then. I try to compare it with this morning and something is off. Not that this morning in particular has something lacking, but rather that this morning is an entirely different morning.
I even look different from how I used to look. My face is now older, wiser, less excitable. My eyes are sharp, always. I was more relaxed back then, but also, I was looking at the same things from entirely different angles. I had half a mind to set up before I wrote this, wanted to sit by the window like I used to and put up the big screen, but my bean bags are currently occupied by a sleeping furball that I don't dare move. It must be pure evil to upset a sleeping cat.
Where was I going with this? Not quite sure. Just rolling into the idea of a fine morning. This morning feels slower than the rest. Comparing it to last morning, which was rushed and loud, this morning is one where people aren't too quick to turn up to things. I keep hearing a bird now and again and I melt into the moment, forgetting what the hell I was saying. I guess that's how you tell nice mornings from others that aren't so nice. Nice mornings are the ones you keep losing track of.
I have a lot on my mind lately. There's a way I go about writing on my blog where people can't just swing in to see how I'm doing. They have to ask. That's why I don't want to get into it straight away, but rather take my time with it and perceive the things that exist on the sidelines.
The reason why I'm taking the time to write about this fine morning is that of late, I've been cursed with the morning illness. That is, I wake up and I start thinking about all the things I should be doing and all the things that are waiting for me to get out of bed. I don't rest in it and enjoy the moment as it comes, it's a guinea pig wheel that's waiting to grind me into a pulp. Mornings are mixed with stomach pains, bathroom breaks, running around the house doing things and getting ready. I sometimes even commit the atrocity of forgetting to kiss my cats. I always double back for that, and when I'm already out of the house I never forget to kiss them as soon as I'm back.
I was watching a video of luna the pantera and it was just so pleasant. It reminded me a little of Banana, she has the same form, but I would have liked to own a panther. It made me notice how the nicest moments of my day are spent watching animal videos or playing with my cats. That is when I am at my most genuine happiest. I guess my ideal life would be to live in a wildlife sanctuary and take care of animals. But I bet I'd still worry about my cats.
I've made a decision to try and write here more often, as I used to. I want to try and record as much of the experience as possible because it grounds me when I come back to read it. There are posts on here from a million years ago and reading them is like slipping into a dark and dusty room that's been barred for residents for years. This one has my old piano box, this one has my favorite book from when I was 13!
Banana is now sitting by the window. I wonder if she's thinking and feeling the same things I'm thinking and feeling. Sometimes I look at her really closely and try to gauge what it is she's thinking, but no matter how hard I try I'm still human and she's still a cat. Freaky Friday, pretty baby? Are you interested to know what it's like being me too?
She just looked at me! I'll take that as a maybe!
Oh this morning. It's so sweet. I wish it would last forever. I'm going to take a couple of hours and rest in it. Top of the morning to you!
Hard to wrap my head around everything that it means, and even harder to believe that I've been coming here on odd nights for nearly 13 years and documenting how it feels on a molecular level. The day itself was inconsequential, I spent it with a friend and had a ton of cake. Cake is really one of the best things man ever made. Who was it that looked at a grain of wheat and thought I'm going to shove that thing into an oven to completely reshape its biological makeup? We've come a long way from swallowing whole grain or feeding it to poor goats just so we could eat them. I don't know what I'm on about, really. Just a random appreciation of cake.
So the day itself wasn't a big deal. There was no overwhelming vibe other than dread, but I've carried that with me for a couple of years now. It hits you when you hit the big 3 oh and never really leaves, thinking of everything you could have achieved had you tamed your wild mind on those long nights in. I read a stoic saying the other day that went something like this: the mind is a terrible master but a great servant. It was terrifying, the mere thought of trying to direct the ineffable workings of my mind seems unsanctified. It is not up to me to do this, I am merely following its whims to explore the depths of my humanity, for how else would I know where to go if my logic or intuition never hit any metaphorical walls? I was also listening to this podcast and it said something about the mind being eternally caged in a dark room that is your skull, and how it can still manage to make up a world of light. It sounds like hippie garbage at best, but it also made me think about how terrible and messy and fragile the human experience really is.
This is perhaps the best way to describe aging. It's super messy! We try to make our actions into neat little rows but we experience life through five different senses and it can drive us crazy. Meaning is how we make sense of a gushing stream of non-linear experiences that have nearly nothing in common, with zero utility to call its own. We're obsessed with purpose, we want to work to earn our happiness and wages, and deserve our tastes and flights of fancy. None of it makes any sense when you really break it down, but we do it anyway, and we suffer a lot on the way because it doesn't quite work out.
Maybe it doesn't work out because it's not meant to!
Jesus gave us one lifestyle, but can you imagine hanging out with him everyday had he been your friend? Forming a cult, being obsessed with his drive to be a good human. People following similar figures throughout history, this just makes me think of Erich Fromm's Escape From Freedom. Wonderful book, full of delicious logical fallacies that go on to make a perfect point. I would have liked to follow a god who made mistakes, walked the earth like Vishnu and fucked shit up ginormously as they tried to explore their own holiness. Jesus is nice too, just a little too idealistic. No one can love that much (except for grandma.)
Right, 31. I don't know. I can't tell where I've changed. I read my blog posts on here and it feels like I'm talking to the same person from really far away. I can remember all the things I cared about and all the things that broke my heart, but it's more like a walk through a museum - looking at ancient relics with no sense of meaningful attachment.
I met a dude I really liked but I think I scared him away. He stopped messaging all of a sudden. That made me think how I still get awkward texting a boy at 31 as I did when I was 17. Honestly, I wouldn't know what to do with him if he does keep talking, so I'm feeling ambivalent about the whole situation. It's barely worth a mention but I'm writing my heart out and he made an appearance.
I feel like things streamed better when I was younger, they made more sense tied up in consecutive little knots than they do now in a mound of ka3bala. I could trace my days back into a week and my weeks into a month and somehow get something out of it, now it's so choppy I can barely piece a day back together through sheer memory. I'm also not assigning feeling or meaning to things as I did back then, it's just a recipe for heartbreak, I know better now. But god knows somedays I am so bored I could take getting a little hurt if it means something happens. Anything. Such a John Watson moment I just had here. "Nothing ever happens to me."
A lot happens to me, I just don't register them anymore. I'm bobbing my head to the tap tap tapping of the keys and enjoying the sound of dying traffic. I used to like writing what time it was when I blogged as a kid. It's not 1:50 am on a jobless Thursday and I'm sitting up in bed trying to give myself something to do, trying to figure out how I feel about breaking the three decade barrier. Man, I've been around for three whole decades, I did a few nice things and a ton of shit I don't like, and I still got at least 30 more to go. Oh god, midlife crisis! I'm square in the middle of my lifespan! Does it only go down from here?
I heard good things about your thirties. You know what you're doing, you peak at everything, you start bringing in big money, you find the lasting sort of love and you know who you are. Sounds good, can't wait. It's mostly sitting in bed so far.
I was chewing some food earlier and I thought: there's absolutely zero proof that people taste things the same. An apple could very likely taste like an orange on a different tongue, and there's no way we can find out just as we can't know what birds are thinking when they close their eyes to go to sleep at night. I keep having nightmares about birds, I had one where birds kept hurling themselves into my mouth to be swallowed, and I didn't want to swallow them so it was very jarring, and another one where a flock of birds chased me off a building like some sort of Hitchcock movie. Crazy shit! I like birds, I'm not scared of them. What gives?
Perhaps a major sign of me growing up a little is that the dogs are no longer that cute. I resent them for taking away my choice to go for a run in the middle of the night. I still wish them well, but merely the thought of criticizing their existence would never have crossed my mind before a certain age. I would have happily given away an arm and a leg to keep them happy and cozy. I mean, I still do, but I do want them to not chase me around the block and bite my ass too.
What is growing up anyway? You turn into a boring person, you don't feel as much, you think along different lines and you are completely disillusioned about the nature of human relationships. How is that good, in any kind of world? I mean it's good because you learn to make better decisions, which increase your likelihood of survival, but if we try to think about it from a humane angle, there's really not much there. I think I'm grieving my 20s, but I'm glad they're over. They were absolutely boombastic!!
I just told a good friend of mine I'm having a rough day and he gave me a 70 pound Breadfast voucher for a Milka bar, just in case you're wondering if my friends have gotten better. The answer is, they have! :D
I was reading an older post and my eyes zoomed out, which made the lines look like literal lines and the white bits get smaller. I don't know what I was thinking, my mind sort of went away into the study and locked the door behind it. Maybe it's sending out some important letters.
Yes, yes. Turning 31. I don't know, really. It's not like turning 30. It's less special. Things get a lot less special after you're 30, it's like people make a collective decision to stop counting. But it doesn't have to be special, that's okay. We are just conditioned to want to feel special by all the treats and celebrations we receive growing up. It's all a lie. The cake is a lie!!!!!!!!!!1
I accidentally punched a flower. I didn't mean to, something about it made me want to flick it and it tore right off, with the heart still intact. I felt terrible afterwards, and it made me think about the fragility of life, and how it may have already been dying because it was stupid enough to lean away from the sun, but then again maybe it likes the feel of the sun on its neck instead of its face. All flowers are girls, and bees are dudes. It's an interesting matriarchy of an ecosystem that surprisingly works.
My cats have learned to not mind each other's company. It started out on the day they got their flea vaccination, something about their joint demise brought them closer together. They are also very wary of spots that have each other's smells on them, it's amazing to watch. My cat was sleeping on the beanbag earlier and my other cat sniffed it and went away on its own, it also avoided the bed on its way out because my other cat was on there. Wouldn't it be great if humans were the same way?
I watched the night roll on by twice, once when it was still dark, and another time when the sun was up. It's amazing how life surged into the otherwise quiet street, filling it with cars and pedestrians where there were only delivery guys and garbage collectors. I thought about the garbage collector today, there was no one else walking on by and it made me think how he was safe because he had nothing to lose. Who wants to hurt someone without getting anything out of it? That guy owned the place.
When the sun was up, I saw a pigeon timidly approach another pigeon, presumably the female, only to have her fly away when he was close enough to have a pigeon cuddle. It was heartbreaking to watch and it made me aww and giggle at the little guy. I hope he gets some soon. He was rather handsome but his feathers were hella ruffled round the back. He may have been in a fight too, bad day for the little guy.
Good day for me! I've been watching Scrubs, for four days in a row now. It's something to do and it gives me company. I missed a big interview today because I overslept, but I luckily managed to reschedule it to later this week. It took a bit of groveling that I'm not proud of, but I managed. I'll make it if I have to stay up all night, since I missed 7 alarms today. Makes you think...really dark things mainly, so I'll let that trail off right around here.
The dogs have been coming on by every day, I want to feed them but we have no leftovers, and I'm too broke to buy cat food let alone dog food. I wish our neighborhood had one of them crazy ladies who fed strays, too bad it's me for this neighborhood.
You know, I've always thought JD was super lucky to have Turk, I never thought he was lucky to have Carla, which makes me think about the way I'm built and what it really takes to make me happy. Maybe I'm thinking too much into it, but they really have a connection, you know? Carla is needy and always makes up fights about nothing, making mountains out of mole hills as Turk once said. Him and JD just support each other and have fun. Better relationship, hands down.
I've been looking out the window because I love doing that in the middle of the night and I gotta tell you, it's just not the same when you're no longer smoking. That's right, I finally quit, now I smoke heated stubs out of a pink flat dildo that goes just so well with my nail polish. Anyway the dogs aren't out today (yet) and it's a quiet night, a blanket canvass of eeriness worthy of Nightvale. The next thing you know, Cecil is gonna dangle from upstairs and drole on about Carlos and how his new haircut is criminal.
I have to ask, why do trucks light up so much? They look like toys. How many lights do you really need to stand out on a highway? Some of them are like a moving party, and they flicker so much they might give you flashbacks of your past.
This time of night, I usually make vanilla tea and panic about work. Right on the clock, I made coffee this time and wondered what the hell is going to happen to me if I mess up the couple of interviews I got lined up this week. People starve quietly, I came to learn this year. Look around you, there's probably 60 people starving without you knowing about it.
The internet just bailed out on me so I'm writing this and it might never see daylight. The night is nice though, that's the best I can do in terms of analogy with my current mental state. It's like warfare in there, chimpanzees are jumping out of dim corners and flinging me with poop for daring to challenge them.
It's really so quiet this time of night, sometimes it torments me, but right now, I'm just enjoying the fact that every homo sapien within a 10 mile radius is sound asleep, and I'm up confusing my cats' biological clocks like I one day confused my rooster into announcing daylight at 4 pm. Yes, I had a rooster, it was a well-meaning gift from a farmer who finally had the baby she wanted to my mom. I kept him around till he got too big and bird flu threatened to kill every last one of us so they took him to a farm. I believe he was happy there, dad said he bolted right as they released him out in the open. I still think about him sometimes, how many kids he must have had before he cuckoo'd for the very last time.
I usually get a bad feeling around this time of year, but I'm not feeling anything this time around. Maybe closer around December I'll sniff a dead person before they drop like I always do. I hope not though, it's been a nothing kind of year and it feels like it's going to end in pretty much the same way.
Whisper sweet nothings into my ear and make me hot cocoa, I'm looking forward to Christmas. I don't think I'll have anyone around to set up the tree this year, I don't like anyone enough to invite them over. I'm not too sad about it though, I'm going to enjoy putting up the tree and baking bad cookies that I'm probably gonna throw out anyway. Cookies are really complicated, you know that?
Something about this time of night makes me want to introspect, but there's nothing in there unless I mean to scoop out darkness and smear it all over this page till I come across a new shade of black. My darn old brain isn't a friendly place to be in right now, it's riddled with anxiety and bad dreams and more anxiety. Honestly the best thing about my everyday right now are my cats, little balls of love and mischief.
They're howling into the night as I write this, it's making me very happy. They're different dogs though so I need to be careful about feeding them. I don't want to lose a finger to goodwill. You typically only lose sweaters to those.
There's something about writing in Times New Roman that's soooo nostalgic. It's only in the editor but I still enjoy it. I think I wrote all my college papers in Times New Roman, so this is bringing back all sorts of memories right now. This and the fact that it's five in the morning and I'm just sitting there typing my heart out and paper rocketing it into the giant black maw of the uncaring internet.
I've been thinking about writing a book again...as soon as my writer's block is gone. Who am I kidding it's going to take years of just prepping myself up for this. I've always wanted to write scripts too but I doubt that any of it will see light of day even if I spend every waking moment writing stuff for Netflix. This writing project has been taking up a lot of thought though so maybe, just maybe, I'll go through with it. figured I'd start off with writing here again until the cogs in my big old noodle are properly greased.
I missed the show today, I ended up sleeping it off, but I got a big day tomorrow. Lots of things happening. Interview in the morning, a women's summit in the afternoon and about five shows that I need to choose from in the evening, all in different sides of town. I haven't slept yet because I woke up at 7 pm and this is basically tea time for me. I'm wondering if I should stay awake or take a long dissociative nap until I have to move. I'll leave that for later.
How did I use to write again? oh yeah, I sat there and poured my heart out into the void. Let me try that one again. I've been stalling.
Friends.
Friends are really complicated. I was daydreaming earlier and I wanted to know what it would be like to have friends support you while you're public speaking and I literally felt uncomfortable with the idea of having supportive friends there. I'd rather writhe in pain and suffer for breaths for the longest first five minutes of my life than have a familiar face I can look at in a crowd of judgmental Simons who won't stop (s)cowling.
Oh yeah, I still daydream. I daydream all the time, when my mind is not completely blank, which also happens all the time. It's either a JD situation with puppies and eagles and red tractors in outer space or the deafening but dependable buzz of total white noise. There's something wrong with my brain, I want to give it soup and tell it to take a few days off from being a thinking organ, but I'm pretty sure what I just described is a variation of brain cancer.
I did not just make a cancer joke.
How do you make friends as an adult? Do adults even have friends? Everyone is so disconnected these days, the closest thing we get to an emotional breakthrough is an Instagram reaction. I'm craving animated, stimulating people who bake you cakes and take you dancing and boozing when you're down. I don't think these guys exist anymore though, everyone is super depressed.
It's the pandemic, I tell you, it broke something in the collective hive mind. The whole world pretty much lost its ladle by the second year. Man, I wish I recorded my own flights of fancy while the world was dying, but I was too busy trying to hold on to my own sanity and failing.
That's okay though, the best and the most interesting people out there are completely out of their minds. Every genius was cuckoo, and every artist is dysfunctional in more way than they let on. Now, all that's left for me to do is become an artist, or solve a mathematical equation dated in the 11th century.
I don't remember if I wrote about it yesterday or not but there's this language exchange thing happening in the evening that I'm thinking of going to, but I'm scared of being too awkward or running out of conversation starters, or faces. Maybe I'll go, if I'm still awake by that time.
It's really shitty that every first conversation with an expat is the same. You talk about cultural differences, boast about how you managed to get over them and talk some more about how many people haven't to give yourself a sense of accomplishment and achieve immediate closeness that fouls time itself. But that applies to everyone else too, there are conversation templates that people follow because they're too scared to go off track.
I talked to a friend today that I hadn't talked to in 12 years. Can you believe this? I'm at an age where I can say that, haha! It was nice then he had to take another call and promised to call back then blew me off. I waited for three hours before I gave up and watched something. It reminded me of my old waiting rule...it's pretty straightforward. It goes like this: never wait for anyone or anything.
I've been doing this thing where I look at the positives of everything that happens as well as the negatives, it's been going well and making me feel brighter than usual. I'm betting another year of this and I'll be two inches happier than the next buster.
Banana just rolled over and looked at me like a crazy person. I guess I'm typing too loudly. I want to get one of them clickety keyboards that gamers rave about so I can type and it sounds like a typewriter. I'll file it in my list of things to buy when I have an income again, next to a gym membership and Muay Thai classes.
Oh yeah, friendships.
Why can't we just exchange sandwiches like we used to back in the day? It's was much simpler back then. What you lack in general length, you gain in emotional fulfillment. Get me one depressed eleven year old!
I have this friend that's been hiding her pregnancy from me. We had a bit of a fight and she found out right after, then I found out by accident from another friend. We eventually made up and had a couple of chats before anyone said anything, I figured she had to be the one to say something first then I remembered who I'm talking to and brought it up. I then asked her why she didn't say anything, and she literally said: I just wanted to know what you would do. Like I'm some sort of Guinea pig she could poke around for hyper casual entertainment.
This brings me back to a common topic on this blog - why do people enjoy being treated like shit? I was never into that sort of thing, immediate turn off, but people really dig it. Want to make a new friend? Show little interest and treat them like they don't matter, and they'll be all over you. I don't like that. I see it happen all the time, and it baffles me every time.
I don't want to dwell on this too much, because it's not worth it, but friendships are about as straightforward as a wet spaghetti. Try to logic your way out of it and someone will eventually say one spaghet is still a line, it's just taking the long way round. If they're a little smarter, they'll tell you the shortest distance between two dots is another dot if you can time travel.
It's really hard to make friends when you're older, you want to hold on to your old friendships no matter how shitty they are because you know for a fact that by the time you meet someone else and get past their weird defenses, survive your first fight and earn your first secret, that's another three years out of your life that you're not getting back to make another friend. These things should really be scheduled, you know. You want to work on them as much as you work on that Spotify playlist you play at parties, time the drop and all that.
What do people want out of friendships anyway? I know what I want. I want stimulating company, understanding and gestures of love. It's pretty simple. And it's nowhere to be found within a thousand mile radius. Vapid conversations, mass sent memes and a lot of likes is what you get instead.
It's starting to get dark in this bitch. Peace out.
I've never been on a mud slide. I've also never sat on a fountain. When I was young, I didn't have access to a green space. It was just my grandmother's house, and the occasional times I opened the door as a kid and walked out only to be escorted back home by the baker down the road. I don't know where I was going, even back then I had the urge to leave, run, escape.
Open the door and just go.
But where do I go?
Growing up makes you forget a lot of things, like how to make friends or how to get out of bed. There's a mud slide in my soul and my heart can't stop going on it, sliding down to my stomach and back up again. This weird pain, that traveling pain. What is that? Is it a bug? Is it a lovebug? It's cuffing season after all. I'm not into anyone though, and no one is into me.
Life is an expanse of endless vacuum that rides along space and time.
The dogs left. No one fed them, and I didn't feed them enough. I hadn't seen them in a few months when I noticed the howling I'd come to depend on was no longer there. I miss them most during the night, when that thing in my chest starts beating at me to do something, anything!
Sometimes, it really does feel like my heart is beating out of my chest, or that it's trying to leave my chest in any case. I bet it has nowhere to go either. It's mine after all, how could it want something that I don't know about?
But it does. It does want something and I have no idea what that thing is. I've been out of a job for nearly a year now and that kind of space leaves room for unidentified objects to fester. It's not for lack of looking too. Lack of luck, though, yes, I believe. I've never been lucky. It runs in the family.
I don't want to sit here and lick my wounds. It's been ages since I logged on to write, but it's all the words that are swirling in my head right about now. I'm just dumping them here to see what forms. Maybe I can make sense of it regurgitated.
It's been rough, but I've been finding ways to make things beautiful, like I always do. It's something inside me, a generator, maybe that's what's whirring off tune. I'm listening to this LoFi Harry Potter mix and it's making me feel like Christmas. It's not even Halloween yet. Not that either matter without company, or do they?
Company.
Company.
I don't enjoy most of the company I get these days, and it's few and far in between. I guess the word for it is loneliness. I've been lonely lately, but people aren't filling it. Not enough conversation, not enough stimulation. I had a crowd a long time ago but they're all gone to their own places in the world, tangible and ethereal.
Making friends when you're 30 is like waiting to fall in a ditch, only it's the 21st century and there aren't any of those anymore. I'm pretty sure I'm getting the worst of it because it's in my mind. If I was one of those "age is just a number" crowds I wouldn't be suffering as much. Or maybe everyone is suffering and no one is saying out loud. People tend to do that in large numbers and it's just a terrible idea. They also tend to do the opposite in large numbers and it's an equally terrible idea. There's no way out, really.
I'm having a bit of slump, just in case that wasn't clear by now. I feel discouraged most of the time, it feels like everything is so predictable. I was on a yacht with some friends last week and there were so many people I could talk to, but instead I chose to sit there and watch the water. It felt like the more dependable thing to do. The water is a memory I can look back on. The conversations, not so much. A few years of friendship and then it's gone, and I'm left here starting over and over and over again.
It's Groundhog's day, every day is more of the same.
I'll pick this up another time when I have brighter metaphors in me. So long, internet.
I fed the dogs yesterday, for the first time in what feels like a million years!
It's not Itchy and Scratchy. I don't know where they went. This new pack is huge, and I am a little worried about them, traffic is dangerous now and I've noticed them get stuck on the little road islands between both highways. They seem to be doing well so far though, and they're gorgeous.
They had been howling at four or so in the morning when I started playing with them from my window. I copied their howls in whistles, and one responded. He didn't know where I was though, so I used my mobile flashlight to show him which window the sound was coming from. We played like that back and forth for a while, then I decided to do something I haven't done in so long.
I decided to go feed them.
I put on some pants and grabbed yesterday's chicken leftovers, and I went downstairs. They didn't know me until I did the flashlight/whistle signal, but they wouldn't come. They couldn't cross the road.
There were so many of them so I was apprehensive about getting too close. I haven't done dog rescues in such a long time, so I'm rusty. I did cross though, and stood on the sidewalk with my hand out and the pot smelling awfully nice - I had warmed it up for them and there was some roast potatoes in there too.
They barked at me, chasing me out of their fiercely defended territory. I stood my ground, then when I realized they were hostile, I dumped the food on the sidewalk and crossed the street again, back to my home.
Except, the one who responded to me in the window followed!
He looked rather sad that he scared me. He didn't even take a single bite, he just followed me back, and two more followed him.
I told him "scared!", and my heart was beating out of my chest. My legs were shaking. I haven't done this in such a long time, I was afraid I may have lost my touch. Nerves are everything when you're dealing with wild dogs. You have to maintain your adrenaline levels.
They let me pet them, and they listened to me when I said "down!"
I played with them for a bit and was filled with joy. I promised them to be back again, and I went back upstairs. With any luck, I'll train them to cross the road and come for runs with me by the end of the year. New resolution!
I spent an hour or so playing with my cats, introducing a variety of new and old toys, and working on their inter-play dynamics, introducing them to each other in new ways. They all had fun, Ludwig perhaps the least, but I could tell they were all relaxed by the end of it.
I also did some animal flow, and the knots in my back felt a lot better.
I wondered why I hadn't done this in so long.
It is such a huge part of me, my relationship with animals. I cannot let the world make me forget.
I will get my mojo back too, and not be scared when I play with the neighborhood dogs again. Dogs are not scary, people are. Animals are amazing creatures, we do not deserve them.
Khalo Sobhy passed away, that marks the last of grandma's siblings. She's not doing okay, but I managed to calm her down considerably last night. I used a mixture of things she believed in, telling her he's in a better place, and promising her he'll come to her in her dreams tonight. She hadn't seen him in so long. I also haven't seen her, or him, in a while too. I got busy.
It's astounding how busy we can get, doing everything but the things that matter.
I woke up with a weird feeling yesterday. It didn't feel good, so it made sense when I got the news. I can always sense these things coming. The little hairs on the back of my heart prickle right up.
This year, I'm going to pay more attention to my spiritual well-being. I am currently interested in seidr and animism, and I am determined to become a shaman. I mean, for all intents and purposes, I've always been a bit of a shaman. Fairy abductions aside, the whole thing really is quite charming. Beautiful celtic and norse lore, interesting people who call themselves heathens and pagans but are some of the nicest I've ever talked to, and ancient runes verging on scary accurate more than 90% of the time.
Odin hanged from Yggdrasil for nine whole days and nights to gain runic insight. Grandma has always known things she possibly cannot, and I dream of people before they die and see signs in the universe on my evening forays. Might there be something outside the realm of reason?
I believe, as always, in the possibility of everything, and this new hobby is giving me hope where once there was only bed and horizontalism.
I'll take it.
The other heathens are mad at me for refusing to worship though. When I told them that I'm interested in trees and animals, and that they're too free to care or ask for my soul in return, they were offended. I've always known I'll never make it into heaven, but it's kind of funny that now I'll never make it into hell either.
Guess it's Ginnungagap for me! 😂😂😂
I'm planning on doing some reading, and maybe some running or general movement, today. The last couple of years have been filled with darkness, and it's not about to lift anytime soon, but it's not my job to babysit others in their personal nightmares. I got my own to worry about, and they're so much funner.
The wrong people die, and the wrong people live. Isn't that annoying?
"Look back in memory and consider when you ever had a fixed plan, how few days have passed as you had intended, when you were ever at your own disposal, when your face ever wore its natural expression, when your mind was ever unperturbed, what work you have achieved in so long a life, how many have robbed you of life when you were not aware of what you were losing, how much was taken up in useless sorrow, in foolish joy, in greedy desire, in the allurements of society, how little of yourself was left to you; you will perceive that you are dying before your season!
What, then, is the reason of this? You live as if you were destined to live forever, no thought of your frailty ever enters your head, of how much time has already gone by you take no heed. You squander time as if you drew from a full and abundant supply, though all the while that day which you bestow on some person or thing is perhaps your last."
One time you're a kid frolicking in the grass somewhere, the next you're grazing it with your back bent and your knees wiggling under you. It's not an exaggeration about those knees, they're the first to go if you're not active enough.
I haven't been walking nearly enough. I have it in mind to start again next week, once the blisters are gone from my feet. Whoever wants to go to weddings, anyway?
I hate weddings and funerals. I've always thought of them as private events. People grieve in private, and they join their lives with another in the company of a few friends. As it should be.
I was just about to sit down and do some coding when I thought I'd come on here and try to tear my chest open and degrease those cogs. They've been running on overdrive and doing their fair share of squeaking.
That's what I plan on doing today, get some much-needed alone time and learn a few things I might never need with the hopes I might one day need them. I'm rather stuck, I made it to a part that I can't get past on my own. It's pretty advanced since I'm almost done with that language, and I need to backtrack and go over some things again then make another try. I'll be doing a bit of that tonight.
Tonight, when everything happens if you just let it.
It seems like every time I get on here I whine about almost turning thirty, but you can't possibly imagine how much that kind of thing hovers over you. I'm almost halfway done with the year, and as much as time feels like it's running on snail juice, I don't know where time flies when you're aging. You enter through that wormhole in a back-alley and come out in a dingy off-road that takes you on a highway you don't want to be on, where you waste the slowest three hours of your life to get somewhere you don't want just to get to a place you want, and it all happens way too fast.
What's so scary about turning thirty anyway? Other than the realization and the scary round number. It's just like every other year. My face is not exactly lined with the passing of time, not yet at least. I think it's just knowing that you're there with the weight of all the expectations you had about it growing up. I think I may have written myself a time capsule email when I was eighteen that will make its way to me next year, if the service is still up anyway. I hope it does. Maybe I'll remember all those damn expectations that are weighing on me behind my back.
I don't even have that many expectations. What IS scary about the big three-oh?
I remember coming on here and wanting to write about the hunger, and the foreboding sense of endless waiting. That post is now scrunched up in my virtual backyard. I'll get to it when my muse forgives me.
Why did I need to go to that wedding, I'd really like to go for a run, but my feet look like something out of Chernobyl. It would be another week at least until I can even take the subway.
Today was the first Sunday since I started my new job that I didn't want to work. I kept listening to music and talking to people with a gnawing sensation at the back of my head telling me that news doesn't wait for anyone. It's not like I'm a real journalist, I'm a flimsy tech journalist reporting on blockchain technology. No one will die if I don't write about it. No one will cease to live either.
That's not entirely true, I love my job. I just didn't feel like doing it today. I did it anyway, but it was a new feeling, one that I didn't think would visit me for a while. It must have something to do with the fact that I've been having trouble sleeping. I enjoy my time with myself too much to cut it short for some shut-eye. This morning, I must have been staring at how the light fell through the curtains for hours. It felt like sleeping, with my eyes wide open. I was at rest, engines whirring lightly in the aftermath of a good burst of energy. I wanted it to last for several more hours, but hours fell off the clock like ice cream melting on a sunny day.
Why doesn't time go by when we need it to?
As pretty as the office is, I hate staying after hours. I'd much rather be in my room, sitting in the glow of my large gaming screen and pursuing some interest or other in the manufactured quiet of a long evening. Not long enough, as I keep realizing. It ends too soon, I'm not done being by myself when I'm wrenched away to be with other people.
How do people ever find comfort in public spaces?
I could sit like this for hours, and not nearly be done. Just staring ahead, lost in thought. I'm trying to remember if I was ever like that or if that, too, came with age.
So many things came with age, but none that I'd care to recommend to a younger person. I still have hope that it's only a matter of time until the unpleasant aspects go their own way and leave me be. Time does that, it never sits still, even as we do.
I haven't blogged in ages, I may have forgotten how to do it. Let me try.
Lately, time has been moving in pond circles. It's almost as if I have aged a thousand centuries and I'm now looking down upon humanity with its trivial pursuits and wondering what I could possibly want. Most of the time, it feels like I don't really want anything.
Conversations fade into the background of my thoughts, I'm never really paying attention even when I look like I am, and socializing is such a humungous drain. Every time I'm out with someone, all I can think about is when I'm coming home.
I'm also having trouble with my personal pursuits, I don't seem to want anything so the drive is not there anymore. Even the things I know I want, I seem to psych myself out of them only to browse for hours with a feeling of restlessness that could make the sphinx get up and take a stroll.
I don't know what's wrong with me, I had so many dreams growing up.
I still do.
I want to write a book, make a game, and travel the world. I want to build an international animal rescue network and do martial arts well into my 50s.
But even when I was travelling lately I'd get hit by that sudden bout of ennui. It is unshakeable and overwhelming, all it does is eat away at your presence until there's nothing left but a whiff of you that suggests you were there but no longer are.
I keep telling myself I should just do things and it will go away, but it doesn't go away. It's a state of being. I don't want to spend my thirties like this, or what's left of my twenties. But how do I move out of a state of being?
I can't remember the last time I was excited about something in a way that lasted, and more importantly, I can't remember the last time I expressed that excitement and pursued similar feelings out loud.
It might not sound that big but it's really important, to be loud about the things you are.
I miss writing too, I haven't done it in ages. I had this story that I started on Medium and I deleted all four chapters of it on an immensely stupid day. I wish I hadn't, it was wonderful and I doubt I can write it again, the way it was anyway.
A huge part of me says stop chasing away the feeling and just start doing regardless of it, which is what I do sometimes, but the feeling is horrible and I want it to go away. It's also hard to describe, it's a nothingness that has volume and mass and stretches out like there's little to push against until it consumes everything, then it sits there on your face like a huge fucking cat that won't let you breathe.
Sometimes I think it's not actually a feeling, but the absence of a feeling that should be in its place - an indulgence maybe, or an ongoing conversation with yourself that leaves little room for intrusion.
Other times, it feels like the presence of something bigger that's stuck in the smaller space of my head and won't let me have nice things.
Either way, I want to roundhouse kick it out of my consciousness so I could go on living without pause.
I hope it goes away soon, or I figure out what it is, whichever works. I can't take that for a year or more. I can barely take it throughout one evening.
Maybe someone else has felt it, or has a name for it. What do you call this thing that watches you watch things and lies in wait in case they tickle you so it can rub lotion on your skin and keep you all gooed up and expectant, watching from afar?
I don't even know anymore.
It even affects my writing. The minute I sit down and grab a pen to document a thought or a feeling, it stops me from finishing the sentence because what does it matter if I write this or not, what does it do in the bigger scale of things?
And here's the thing, I don't even care about the bigger scale of things, or if it does something or not, so it's not even a viable argument.
What is it, anyway? It's not sadness, per se. Or maybe it is. Can you feel sad without feeling sad? Is it a repercussion of sadness? This absolute stillness that has weight and won't move?
The way I see the world has changed so much lately because of it, I watch things like I'm a thousand miles away, and I feel the seconds painstakingly tick by against a wall of air that separates me from feeling it. It's like bubble boy, but with feelings instead of microbes.
It's almost like the aftermath of intense shock, or the feeling you get when you wake up on a cold morning having not really woken up.
Is this what Nausea was on about? That book was mad. I should reread it.
Fucking hell I can't read either though, for the same fucking reason! I think in between the lines, and then again in between words. And then I think while I'm thinking and I have to read it all over again.
I had this feeling in Aswan and Louxor too. I remember being on a boat, really enjoying the view and the wind and trying my best to remember it exactly from where I was sitting for as long as I can. As I did that, time weighed down on me, like the minutes were scratching my skin as they were dragged away from me in the longest cutscene ever known to man. Time was passing, I thought, and it was too slow.
I've been getting this everywhere, and especially when I'm around people. My social battery runs out so fast now, and I space out as they're talking to me and travel to that heavy place.
What's the point of anything if you're feeling like this? And when does it go away?
I want to remember to write about my trip, or try to write about it. I should have written about it while I was there, but I was too busy getting in the way of myself to do that. Maybe it's because I'm getting in my own way that I didn't write about it. Introspection is the shit.
Over the past few weeks, I've been having terrible anxiety. I get triggered by the oddest little things, most of them surprise me even though there's no one I know more than myself.
At least I'm writing again, but it's different this time. It's not my usual sort of writing, it's letter writing. I'm writing like I am in trouble and seeking a friend.
Why am I seeking a friend in the universe through the electronic folds of this little thing?
I wouldn't know what to do with a friend if I had one.
I guess I'm seeking myself the most. My bubbly self, the one that fell back on herself and always managed to bounce, because I was one bubbly motherfucker.
Where did all that bubble go?
It turned into bubble wrap and was used to hide a body somewhere. Not my body, not my bubble wrap.
I feel displaced.
I want to wake up one day and not feel scared. Scared of the future, scared of the present. Scared of what it all means, or if it means anything at all.
It can't be that hard for everyone, something is wrong.
lol, something is wrong. Of course, it is.
But what?
I got my hands stretched out, which finger finds it first? It's all so dark.
It's odd, and quite useless actually, because I don't know what I'm waiting for.
I'm not entirely sure when this started, but it feels like I've been waiting a long time. Years, actually, but in the last few months it's been swallowing my days whole.
I'm usually doing something, and I open a new tab to check my messages, or I'm on the couch watching news and I grab my phone and check my messages.
It even happens when I'm not on devices. Sometimes, I'm just sitting there, remembering things past and people gone, and my thoughts are interrupted with an overwhelming sense of waiting.
It's horrible, and I want it to stop.
It might be anxiety, but how am I waiting for something if I don't know what it is?
The thought is actually quite depressing because I often find myself thinking "what am I waiting for? Nothing is happening, no one's coming" and that just makes it infinitely worse.
The fuck, man.
The new year is here, and last night, I asked myself what is that I really need.
What is it, that when around, I'll consider things complete?
I've been thinking about it all day, and it's all the usual things. Leaving, moving to a new country, a beautiful place with better people, and making new friends.
I wonder if I'll stop waiting then. I wonder if this has anything to do with it.
I then tried to make it so that feeling is replicated, just to see how it feels. What if I stopped waiting? What would it feel like when I'm not waiting?
What is it that I need to do for the waiting to stop?
It's quite weird actually, because it's quite disruptive. I'm finding it hard to focus because it happens in the middle of me doing things. I had the urge three times while writing this to go to a useless tab and stare at nothing.
It's Christmas, which means it's almost the new year, and oh my god has this been the worst freaking year of my life, hands down, tits up, fingers still moving.
I had missed pouring my thoughts and feelings into the great, uncaring beyond. It has a feel to it, that surprisingly changes over the years based on the kind of enemies you think you have at different intervals of your lifespan as a derelict humanoid.
I have so many hopes for the new year, but I guess I could concatenate all of them under the umbrella concept of ground.
This new year's eve, I'll be in my neighbourhood church praying for a metaphysical floor collider. I definitely need to get out more, I hear that those who suffer from similar circumstances but have bigger communities often get the not-so-great-but-definitely-better alternative of a collision course and get by on momentum.
How do people make friends at my age anyway?
A moment of silence for my apt and suitable use of 'at my age'. I guess I haven't run out of firsts just yet.
And most importantly, how do they do it and maintain their mortgages? I barely have enough to feed myself and most of my upcoming expenses are already planned out.
I miss grandma, I'll happily trade a bunch of fingers to see her sometime soon. She's been infected by an inter-dimensional virus and her tongue swole up to twice its size. She can't speak and they're putting her on enough painkillers to make a small horse chuckle. Visitations are also not allowed because of Coronavirus and I want to slap a bitch because I can't keep gesturing to her through the door. It's not V for Vendetta.
I've been praying a lot lately, more in a spiritual way than actual prayer. I wonder if there's somebody out there listening, or maybe an entire pantheon of gods or an array of celestial beings sipping goblets of mead and smoking weed. Younger me would be surprised to read this, and a little concerned.
I missed out on Thanksgiving this year, which feels really weird because I haven't sat down and made a list of all the things I'm grateful for. I want to sit down and do it, but I don't think I'll find much to fill one line. It's really been quite a terrible year.
It's been so terrible, TikTok makes me sad because all I can think about is 'oh wow, look at them all happy and well-rested in their pretty house' or 'I wonder if I'll ever afford a couch' or 'I miss hugging people around the holidays'.
You've guessed correctly, I'm significantly sadder this year than I've ever been around the holidays. I hope things turn around soon, I wish myself the best and nicest of all things and would hug myself if I could because I know I really need it.
It's been a fucktillion centuries since I last wrote here. It's also strange writing when there's so much I can't write or talk about lest the promise guardians swing out their arms from the overarching celestial pockets and tear me a new one.
But I wanted to come here and flex my phalanxes.
I've been learning C# for the last month, and I went ahead and got myself a curved gaming monitor for Christmas. It's set to arrive tomorrow, here's to hoping the delivery guy is having a good day and it manages to put a smile on my face. My cheeks are in dire need of some stretching.
I made a decision to take the next month off, but I failed to abide today. Instead, I found myself applying to jobs and losing four hours into the fat folds of LinkedIn.
I really hate LinkedIn.
I hate how people talk on LinkedIn, it's so...pre-Quora.
Christmas is just around the corner, and due to extenuating circumstances, I wasn't able to celebrate December properly, and am now struggling to get into the holiday mood and out of the holiday blues. Maybe I need some Christmas socks, I'll think on it.
God save me from consumerism, I haven't had an income since April, so I'm basically eating away at my own flesh at this point, but that's alright. As long as it makes me happy, happies cannot be bought.
I'm also planning on going out this month, attending some art and culture events and making new friends wherever possible. I also have a couple of people I want to say hi to and check on for the holidays. All in good time.
Semsema is getting a lot bigger, she's twice as big as she was when I last saw her. I guess she's staying, I couldn't find anyone to take her and my parents are already super attached to her. Banana has changed. She's still feral, bless her heart, but she used to have a bit more wild affection than she does, I'll try and get her sorted. They were promised treats, and they shall get them.
Ludwig is still my favourite, but he's shakier than ever. Poor baby isn't used to violence and he is now forced to share his dump suite with two street urchins. I feel for him.
I wonder if they make Santa hats for cats, I'll have to check.
For all the insight Amazon is getting about people's mental states, they should expand vertically into the health sector and start issuing drug prescriptions by now. It would work better than five therapists put together, I guarantee it.
I'll go back to Adventure Time.
Oh, and I'm 29 now. Yay? AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-
I had nestled into a beanbag with a book when I felt restless. I was overcome by the urge to write exactly as I was appeasing the urge to read. I felt torn, I wanted to try and capture the moment, but I was scared of what might happen if I put down the book. Momentum is fleeting, and I was caught between an unstoppable force and an immovable object that threatened to move elsewhere.
I got up, and I reached for my poncho. It's an old poncho that I'm rather fond of, it smells like winter and old houses. I put it on because I needed to feel warm, warmer, but I wasn't cold.
I struggled to make a simple decision, to read or to write? What if in trying, I lose both? It was terrifying, and I felt very weak. I made it to the sink, and then I made it here. Now that I'm here, trying to pour my soul and find my voice in what feels like the first session of introspection I've had in years; I judge my writing. My form is weak, I've been whoring my pen out for far too long, but it doesn't matter. What matters is that I'm here.
I had a moment today. Well, I had a few, but I don't want to force it. This quick brown fox might jump over the lazy dog then run off into a distant foxhole and I wouldn't be able to write again for years.
This week, I spent 700 EGP on self-care products. The name irks me, it makes them sound like we have to buy them for our own good, when in fact, they were useless. A perfumed body lotion from Victoria Secret that smells like exotic mangoes and promises glittery evenings with shiny-torsoed men. A strawberry body splash that reminds me of an older, much younger, me. A spherical lip balm that tastes like crap but looks good when you apply it in the middle of a restaurant. Some fancy hand gel for nasty car rides and nastier public bathrooms.
I spent 1290 EGP on books; an extravagant collection of philosophy, sci-fi, poli-sci and contemporary angst, the synopsis of which can be compiled into one paragraph that others might post on Twitter as a subdued cry for help.
I splurged on a grilled shrimp meal for brunch one day, hoping it would make me feel full. I had Ludwig vaccinated for 600 EGP at the best vet in town, because I didn't want him to feel suffering. Or perhaps, because I didn't want him to feel suffering at my behest.
It's been years since I've spent that kind of money on myself. I spend many frustrating evenings, toiling away at a gig or other to make that kind of money. I file it away to my bank account and hope it keeps coming. Perhaps if I make it to the next digit, I might sleep better at night.
I look back on my weekly expenditures, and I run my fingers through them trying to track my feelings. It is a modern practice; seeking self-awareness through consumerist outbursts. Perhaps I should spend more, I tell myself. Perhaps I should spend less, I tell myself. I don't know which is true. Either way, I still don't know how I feel.
I had a conversation with a child today. She was bright, she liked writing and comic books, and wanted to be a bag designer when she grew up. I tried to share with her two of my favorite websites growing up; Neopets and Orisinal. She struggled to understand how a game could be a website and not an app, and didn't know what I meant when I explained that one of them made flash games. She didn't know what they were. Both websites were down, I felt very old.
It was a welcome change, because talking to her was absolutely terrifying. The weight of her soul was crushing; I couldn't bear her innocence and limited capacity for understanding, her openness, passion and awe. The responsibility scared the living shit out of me. I don't think I ever tread that carefully around a conversation, and I quickly realized that I didn't really know how to talk to a child.
When she said she didn't understand why some of the book sections at her school library were closed off to her until next year; I advised her not to read Russian literature before she was 30. She stared blankly at me and her mother laughed, I felt very stupid when I considered how meaningless and strange that sentence must have sounded to her.
When she asked me how to get better at writing, I spent 20 minutes explaining what writing prompts were and introducing her to Nanowrimo. She said they didn't take that in school. I said it's a new practice. She said she didn't practise any sports.
She said she took part in Spelling Bees. I asked her what the hardest word she had was. She said it was 'encore' and spelled it wrong. I told her it was a French word so it doesn't really count. Besides, word will spell for her anyway. She stared at me. I asked her if she knew what word was. She said she knew many. I asked her to spell oesophagus. She spelled it wrong. I said I didn't know how to spell it either.
Meanwhile, I struggled with my own vocabulary. I replaced each fuck and shit with bad. When it came to concepts, I didn't know what to replace, and what to replace them with. I tried to remember what it was like to be her age, and I couldn't remember being aware of school libraries, spelling bees and fashion apps. She was very calm and possessed. I am 27 years old, and I am still not.
I walked home from the bookstore, and my mind wandered as I dodged near-death on the newly-installed highways. I couldn't imagine what it would be like to have a child, more so now that I've talked to one. I thought of my friend, her mom, and I tried to put myself in her place. My mind exploded with scenarios and immediately shut down. I shuddered and thought instead of the road and my impending death by a swiveling car. That, I could deal with.
I jumped over the sandy underbelly of the loch ness bridge that now sprawls over my home. I was grateful for my Timberlands; the same ones every one made fun of when I purchased. "When are you going to stop buying boy shoes?"
The issue of how I look has taken over my thoughts lately. I was aware of a gigantic chasm between how people my age dressed, how people my age dressed everywhere, and how I dressed. At this point, experimenting with my bursting femininity through changing style would be met with ridicule. She is desperate, they would conclude. I would feel uncomfortable, even more so than I do now with my horrible fashion choices and outfits that are somehow always wrong for any given occasion. I should have done it years ago, back when I still could and get lost in the crowd. Now I'm stuck, and it is ironic, because unlike back then; I am not comfortable in my current style anymore.
It is baffling that I am at an age where I care for style. I hate it here, mid-twenties I mean. Everything holds meaning, status and context. Everything is a test. Everyone is always watching, and they are never kind. I barely know what's going on half the time. The other half, I'm positive I don't know what's happening, and have accepted the fact that I have no way of knowing.
Today, I had another moment. I have spent too long reaching out to others, trying to find a point of similarity or common ground. Perhaps there is none, and perhaps I should stop trying.
Perhaps I should be honest to my experience and try to give it voice, again. After all, there is nothing else I could possibly do about anything. Perhaps, I might even enjoy it.
It's been a gajillion years since I sat down to write, although I write every day from morning to night. Blank documents scare me, they distort my pen and force me to yield to best practices; often set by tired, underpaid writers elsewhere who are only writing to make rent.
I fear so much. It is a sign of growing up, to learn to fear the right things. Some days still, I wake up fearless, and I take a leap of faith into the great unknown, driven by the rush of the fall and the calming knowledge that it can't possibly get any worse than this. Then it does. I laugh, and I am grateful that I still can.
In the same week, my career peaked and unceremoniously spiraled to a mute end. Unlike the last time, I am at peace. I have come here of my own accord, and I hope that I can still think of something, even though I can't get myself to write.
As much as being booger-ridden is generally considered horrible, it does don a nice afterglow to mundane things like watching a movie or lying in bed. Or maybe it's just me, I feel positively dapper, sitting here, fighting for breath and pausing the incestuous Noir drama I chose for the night to write.
My life is spiraling out of my control, and there's no way to tell my good decisions from the bad without the re-affirming nods of a nuanced coven. But in the middle of it all, in my moments of rare clarity peculiar to aftershock and explorative, late-night episodes where everything seems to apply - I am sometimes swept across the board by an overwhelming sense of liberation. Free movement is intoxicating, this is how Archimedes must have felt like as he ran butt-naked through the busy streets of Syracuse, cheeks flapping in the wind.
The problem is, I am not on the verge of a groundbreaking scientific discovery.
Lying in bed this morning, I was struck by my newfound ability to miss the days of the week. Mondays are the same as Wednesdays, the AM feels the same as the PM, Fridays are no longer the holy grail of the week. Hours fall off the clock in perfect levity, unaffected by their assigned meanings in the grand order of things. I found myself thinking, this is the farthest out that I've ever gone. The veil has dropped and I have passed through, will I ever be able to go back to a time where time held sway? In this rare, naturally-occurring case that is impossible to retrace to its causative method, time itself unwittingly contributed to its own destruction. Perhaps if it had all happened in shorter bursts, it might have been easier to wind back the clock and find my way back, through it all, to a place with re-assuring gravity, plausible vector and the primitive lull of a swing. Perhaps, that too, is merely a booger-ridden reverie.
Now, I notice my small distinctions as I talk, my split-second quirks as I move and the irregularities of my breath with no stimulus to condone it. How it all is just a tad out of touch. I also notice how the surrounding zombie horde twitches at the whiff of fresh-meat, and people's deep-seated discomfort at the sight of an unknown entity watching them from behind a curtain, extending a perfectly edible limb out in an attempt to find middle ground, higher ground, any ground. What does the grass smell like on your end? What does it feel like on your bare feet?
Most people don't really want the burden of the first contact, so they selfishly pull the rug from under your feet in self-defense and reflexive malice. 'My planet', they hiss at the threatening unknown, 'not yours'. And I can't blame them. They prefer their familiar place and floundering frequencies, for in its waves they've made a home and bought a cuckoo clock that tells the right time at least twice a day. How dare you peek through for a whiff of pie, freshly baked and alluringly bare on a picture-perfect windowsill?
My search for familiarity pervades the smallest of my daily chores, as I recreate the things I've done before hoping to recreate that brief, intoxicating sensation of familiarity. Instead, I slip in my oversized skin suit and hit my head on a brand new edge. Everything is so much thicker than it used to be, wading through it takes more out of me than I have in store, and I'm not as nimble as I once was.
Stupid teenagers, they don't know their superpower of forging a home in unlivable spaces. Snotty-nosed little pricks, holding the skeleton key and trying to shove it in their bodily orifices instead, hoping it would unlock something deep within them that they can destroy and use to build a new, unfamiliar nest. To have their powers once more, for a day. To spend an evening with entitled, open-ended questions instead of crippling final answers.
They never tell you what grief does to thought patterns, and how if it hits in just the right place enough times, it might short circuit a logic loop for longer than initially intended - a neural network transformed into a cabbage field with the ominous swish and flick of a misguided elder wand. The empowerment texts are easy enough - positive thinking, support community, putting the right foot forward. But what if you don't remember the right string of commands you used to move your foot?
What bothers me most is the constant feeling that I'm a half note off-tune, somewhere, and in the chaos of it all, I can't quite put my finger on which note is to blame. You lose your ear sometimes, walking to the sound of your own drum. It's in the fine line.
So I swing, trying to find the cockiness that would fuel this new place or the familiarity that would lead me back to old charted courses, and the motion sickness overpowers my senses - pushing me back into the chair. Sit, silly, you're going to hurt yourself.
I'm watching Mad Men and it got to this episode where Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King was shot dead on award night and everyone was so torn up about it. It makes me think about how there are absolutely no politicians that could incite this kind of feeling in us anymore. It's just an incredibly sad contrast of our time, one so devoid of hope and pink-hued delusion about the possibility of the world being a better place or people standing up for something without an agenda. Oh well.
Post-war depression, misogyny and lack of voting rights aside, the 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s had it better than us in that each of these generations had a world where they could dream about the possibility of a better world. They thought if they went to war they would change something, then they thought if they came back from war they would change something. They even went so far as to abolish war altogether, because they thought it would make a difference. We just got to the end of the stream and the color bars are rolling. This is it. The 90s had great music and great civil rights movements but I guess it ended real hope for change. We've all become too wisened to our own helplessness, and all the governments are too entrenched to budge. Well, most of them anyway. The third world is pretty much on its way down all the way to kingdom come.
Norway and all the rest don't count, part of me thinks they're not even real anyway. Maybe when you die you don't go to heaven, you go to a Scandinavian country.
It's a beautiful morning. The light is falling just right through the blinds, and Ludwig is sitting there taking it in, with not a worry in the whole wide world. To be Ludwig, for just one hour.
Dusting has never really been my strongest suit
I've been watching this TV show called "How To Get Away With Murder", and I have to say I'm not a huge fan of Shonda Rhimes. I miss the days when Amy Sherman Palladino was all that. She deserved it. She wrote complex female characters that made mistakes and redeemed them. Shonda Rhimes made a career out of extorting the pull of abusive relationships through intriguing plot twists. For all I care, she's the female Alaa Al Aswany. Besides, we don't really know if she means to empower; we expect too much of the things we like, and we assume goodwill. How do we know she means to empower? She could just be building an empire out of ash; burning bridges and depending on human nature to stay around for the fireworks.
She knew what she was doing though, because it worked. She found a winning formula, that's how she made it really. Do you think people will ever evolve enough to realize that? Or do you think our feminist narrative will be stuck in that place that only gets us more seats?
I don't know why people want to sit around anyway, so I must not be there yet. I'm just not a huge fan I guess, but I do appreciate the craft.
For the first season or so, it's just a matter of segmentation really. Geographically speaking, odds are you're going to check out shooting star Annalise. She talks at just the right speed, says all the right sounding things. You can't help but to want to be her, you know? Then Ophelia gets some screen time and you're like, hot dayuuuuum, now that's a VIP if I've ever seen one.
Even before the script made her likable beyond a reasonable doubt, at that point where they had an ultimate throwdown in the kitchen that just felt out of place in the natural order of Hollywood things, I had started blaming Annalise. And it wasn't out of deference to Ophelia's old age, I've never been a proponent of that. I found myself yelling at the screen, saying hey she loved you with all her power within her own understanding. You can't blame her for that! You should know better! I guess the scriptwriters thought 80% of the segment contributing to their ratings would appreciate a little more spark; so they added a long match and some quality racial drama. It's always good to go by the book.
That always works.
I'll give it to her though. Apart from George R. R. Martin, that brilliant brilliant man who never bothered to take out the second R. of his name for a couple dozen more book sales; Shonda Rhimes is perhaps one of the rare modern authors who put time into getting you invested in hating a character. I just hope she has the foresight to turn it into something that matters by any means other than deus ex machina. I'm really tired of those, life is full of them these days. Pretty overused.
Nobody needs a manic pixie Rebecca anymore, we've all had enough of those. Puppy sells tho, so maybe I don't know enough.
Well, I've had a bunch, but I don't quite trust my ability to record them at this point, you'll know why once I muster up the guts to actually get into it. Hell, I don't even know how to get into it. It's been a really long time, I'm so out of practice.
Let's try and retrace my steps. How did I used to do this? Oh yes, I sat here and I opened up into the all-accepting cyberspace, and at one point; words started to hold on to each other's shoulders, form an orderly line and do the cha-cha!
Oh lookie, I got a spark!
But let's not get ahead of ourselves here, and most importantly, let's stop beating around the bushes.
I've been having such a horrible time lately, and it felt like I had lost all sense of hope in things, people and myself. In fact, even as I was inspired, I resolved to wait for 24 hours just to see if the flame will actually twinkle down to a kindle and eventually get pissed on by an unaffected defense mechanism passing by on the way to the bathroom. Then I realized, hell, it probably will, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't try and keep the fire going. It's the most I've had in months. If I can hold it off for just another 24 hours, by Odin I'll take it. It's a good start, it's a place to start. So here I am, trying to verbalize what the hell happened in my head and why it was so starkly different from everything that has taken place over the past year.
Growing up is a real bitch, in a number of ways, but perhaps the worst part about it is that grownups forget what it's like to be a kid. They forget the magic, the awe, the misplaced hope. But most importantly, they stop themselves from trying because trial and error taught them not to, after a certain point anyway. Grownups forget! I've been growing up, I forgot, and revisiting some of my old posts on here jolted my memory to many things that fell through the gaps as I parried life's attacks on my sense of self and understanding of how things went, as they go.
My days have been the same, but today was one of the hardest. I had slumped into bed after virtually flinging myself at about three dozen unexpected employers; using the powers of power lines to bunch myself up into a cannon and launch it across the Pacific, tunneling through the cross-continental wires and probably landing on a bored HR manager's desk. Statistically speaking, a middle-aged 'she' would likely dismiss me for being that far and requiring visa sponsorship, and I would wallow deeper into the same hole of despair that led me to apply abroad in the first place. I had simply applied to all the jobs available within borders, even the ones that I didn't want, and came to the conclusion that my career was over.
My slump was the mother of all slumps, I wasn't even mentally punching it out anymore. I had, for all intents and purposes, merged into the beanbag and started watching Scrubs for what must have been the hundredth time since I first met John Dorian on TV after school and realized there was someone out there who was like me, in every single catastrophically strange way. It had become my restore point, and many a breakdown was spent hiding it out in my stinky bat cave with an endless junk food supply and a variety of exotically roasted coffee beans. I was down, and I had given up. Then I came across this.
I had written this when I graduated from college. I remember that day really well, I spent extra time on campus trying to get some form of closure, trying to find the gold buried at the end of the rainbow, and spent the whole day flitting back and forth between both ends across campus without finding any. I ended up spending my last day with two friends that I actually was not that close to, and I took three polaroid pictures with them; two of which never came out. I kept the overexposed film anyway.
I also remember how I felt that day, but I didn't remember what I was thinking about or why I felt that way. It took me completely off guard that I struggled with every single situation I worried about in that painfully young post, for months, when I got my first house. I just forgot that I started worrying about it that early. But that's not the point.
The point was in how I looked at things around that time, and how different it is from how I have come to see things.
It made sense, retracing my steps. I followed the breadcrumbs down my own timeline and briefly stepped into my younger self's shoes on the trip to the observatory, quitting my first full-time job, getting my first iOS game out, getting my heart broken by a thousand friends on a thousand and one nights, and generally getting torn apart by loss and grief over grandma and everything that happened down that yellow cobbly road; feeling everything all over again, exactly like I did the first time around. I actually got the rare gift of seeing myself grow up, shatter and get here, and somehow, here doesn't feel as real anymore. It has lost all power over me. I've seen how it came to be, and the monster is not as big as its shadow; I've just been cowering in a dark corner on the wrong end of the candle for too goddamn long.
And I forgot, because grownups forget.
I forgot so many things. In fact, there are entire areas of my life that are now lost to the ether because I didn't write about them here, but it wasn't just writing that I was doing when I came on this thing. I was figuring things out, I was verbalizing how I felt about things, but most importantly; I was clawing at the debris avalanche, digging magic, awe and hope out of the horror of everything and burrowing my way back to the surface. I will be coming back to those later, I will make time, if I can find the courage. But this is toil for another day. Now, I'm trying to string some words together and remember how I did this.
Writing for a living really was the worst thing that happened to my writing, but that's NOTHING compared to what it did to me. I completely lost my voice over the years. I got...old. Listen to me, no space metaphors, no stubborn grumpiness, just complete and total resignation. Shame on me, the world went ahead and turned me into a goddamn pleb. It reached into my soul and took out the small oxygen-rich plant I kept hidden at the back of my head for dark days when my exo-suit ran low and I was too far away from my starship; with no jet fuel to spare for remote vehicular recall.
Now when bad things happened, I said of course. How else would they happen? I was no longer outraged. The bitches had finally got to me. And I don't even get to have a beard to make it worth my while. Oh, the utter disgrace.
Growing up had done more than make me forget and lose my sense of awe, it had gotten to me at my job too. I no longer found joy in learning. Things like status, respect and office politics took priority over what I wanted to do with my life, and consumed my energy. I was burned out, and I hadn't worked in years, not mere months.
I got old. I'll bet if I buy a copy of The Economist, I wouldn't feel 20% of what I felt back when it meant something to me. I lost my holy grail in the ageing typhoon, and then I went on and forgot what it meant to me. What's worse, I went on and forgot how it came to mean that much; the process of it all.
Growing up also got to me in all the places that no one should get to. It had seeped into the hidden reservoir that hosted my entire spectrum of emotion and poisoned it with an unadulterated sense of permanent dread. I am scared of everything, and everyone; because I am now aware of the amount of damage they can do to me. It is true that you can take so many blows in a row you recoil so far into yourself that you forget how it actually looked like, or how it was supposed to look like. My forehead is wrinkled, my face has sagged. I have to constantly remind myself to unfurl my eyebrows and curl my shoulders back into their proper location. My back is killing me from all the stress hunching. Public transportation is not exciting, it's season 5 of Fear Factor with just a touch of season 4 of American Horror Story.
Things have changed so much, but they have always been changing over the years. I couldn't find my way out this time because I had changed so much. I lost that kid, and that kid was wonderful and doesn't deserve to be hated for the mistakes that she did along the way. She was trying so hard, so honestly, so dorkily and - at times - so brilliantly, that it shone through the years and came through to me.
It's funny to think that in the end, I would be the one that ends up helping me. I will still give that 24 hours. But first, I must find the manual. There has to be a chip somewhere where I stored those parts of me, and there has to be a way that I can access it now. I might just go crazy in the process, but I'll still take that over how I've felt for the past few months.
It felt like there was no way out, like that was really it. Nine years of working my ass off, burning through what felt like about a trillion nerves, sawing my health down to a fraction of what it one day could handle, losing so much of myself and so many people I cared about to get here, had simply been for nothing.
Then I realized, that shouldn't have happened in the first place; simply because I never actually remembered getting to a point where that was my goal. It had happened naturally; I came here because I was frightened. I didn't choose this. I shouldn't choose this. This is not how I should go about this. I have put on the ring on my way to Mordor, and forgot to take it off. That led to me trotting about for several months mumbling "My Precious" and eating the pinky finger of whoever got in my way. I must throw the ring into the lava before the lava swallows me up!
I don't think that applies anymore. It hasn't been for nothing, I just got lost. That happens. I can find my way back to that healthy headspace, back to a place where the world didn't feel that small and hostile, back to a space that had a thousand sources of inspiration wherever I looked.
Growing up does horrible things to you if you don't keep it in check. It can eat up entire galaxies, munch them down to their very wavelengths until it felt like they were never really there to begin with. I can't let that happen, there was so much beauty there. There still is, I just have to try and remember how I used to find it. I had a process, I have a process for everything. Maybe I could follow the landmarks back home.
And even if I don't, I have to try, because this is the first time in months that I feel there is actually a way out of here. It's been so dark. I hate the dark, you can't see shit and I'm half blind already.
So much of us is lost when we start to view ourselves in context; another horrible byproduct of growing up. Everything is a competition; how well you live, how well you work, how well you lead your life and how well you handle your conflicts. It's been a tirade of self-doubt, endless comparisons and loss of path. I don't remember the last time I followed a Patronus through the Forbidden Forest. Hell, I don't even remember how that felt like. Growing up has been starving me of everything that I needed to survive, and I had everything that I needed right here. Distracted by people at every turn; friends, boyfriends, colleagues, bosses, enemies, frenemies and everyone else across the shitstorm scale in between.
I haven't dorked out in months. Years?
I haven't spaced out and entertained a thought that kept me company and made me feel fuzzy on an evening where the light fell just right through the blinds. I haven't drawn stupid metaphors out of any personal sidequests. Hell, I haven't gone on any solo adventures down the side streets of Cairo in...yes. It really has been years.
What happened? Did I fall into a fucking wormhole? Was I abducted by aliens and had my sentience overridden by a hostile species and just recently experienced a brief sense of awakening because an antibody got there on time for once?
Where the hell have I been? And how do I get that little kid back?
Should I even try to get her back? Or should I try to figure out who I am, at this day and age, following a different path? I sound so different, and it hasn't been that long. It would be a real shame if I survived all the crap that life flung my way thus far only to break over this. That would be like Voldemort's unfortunate little incident with an Expelliarmus charm towards the end. There's no glory in that, just bad nose jobs. I will not have it. Gosh, golly, I like my nose!
I think I know what to do. It involves a blanket fort, some maps and a whole lot of fun readable material.
