“What are you, some kind of caterpillar or something?”
This was meant as an insult, or at least as a joke. The speaker seems alarmed when I don’t laugh it off, or cringe, or take offense.
“Maybe,” I tell him.
“What are you, some kind of caterpillar or something?”
This was meant as an insult, or at least as a joke. The speaker seems alarmed when I don’t laugh it off, or cringe, or take offense.
“Maybe,” I tell him.
people freak out about age gaps in relationships because aaaaahhhhhhh Power Differential and like yeah but actually what is mostly going on is that the man has a List Of Movies You Haven’t Seen Before because there are some References You Didn’t Get and the way he responds to the experience of watching you not get the reference is to have a LIST because this is the only way he can fend off the crippling existential horrors
More attunement to one’s partner in every relationship no matter what kind of relationship exists. More attention paid to what is okay with them and what is not okay with them. More curtosey. More attentive listening to all forms of communication from the other and from the self, be it tone of voice or body language cues or spoken words… from the subtle hint that is afraid to offend to the kind of clear and direct communication which can’t afford to care how it will affect the other. More checking in. More reaching out and being brave and asking for what you’d like without insisting upon a particular response. More remembering small things. More taking ownership of desires. More smart decisions about when to indulge desires and when not to do that. More trust. More respect for other people’s autonomy, their sacred capacity for self governance. More consideration for the liberty of people who are not clearly autonomous yet or anymore. More connection that doesn’t break the instant you can’t give someone what they appear to want from you. More connection strong enough to withstand rejection or different expectations. More repairing beloved connections when they get damaged instead of throwing them away. More showing up for the ones you care for whenever you can. More showing up for yourself. More clear discernment between when it’s time to walk away and when it’s worth staying. More feeling safe to speak up; more knowing when it isn’t. More connections where speaking up is safe. More concern for the safety and comfort of other people. More stopping to check in with the person who is with you if they appear to be upset. More quiet forgiveness and letting it go and moving on. More knowing what not to ever, ever forgive. More slowing down or stopping or changing what you’re doing if and when it appears that a boundary has been crossed (which is probably an inevitable thing that happens in many relationships, but it’s not about never making a mistake it’s about how you respond in the aftermath). More understanding for the other person. More understanding of yourself. More not needing to understand. More willingness to risk upsetting people by telling them no. More receiving a no without needing to make it about you. More of the truth. More respect for privacy and dignity and sovereinty. More vulnerability. More grief. More healing and recovery. More access to the resources necessary to heal so that there can be more healing. More attentive love.
.
I don’t write explicitly about experiences of interpersonal violation on this blog. This is not up for debate. Probably never going to elaborate as to why because I don’t want to talk about it.
.
maybe it helps me to focus on how to love well or what I wish love could be instead of ruminating over instances where there was no love at all
Free Palestine.
“In my mind, in a future five years from now
I’m a hundred and twenty pounds
And I never get hung over, because I
Will be the picture of discipline
Never minding what state I’m in
And I will be someone I admire
And it’s funny how I imagined
That I would be that person now
But it does not seem to have happened
Maybe I’ve just forgotten how to see
That I’m not exactly the person that I thought I’d be
And in my mind, in the faraway here and now
I’ve become in control somehow
And I never lose my wallet, because I
Will be the picture of discipline
Never fucking up anything
And I’ll be a good defensive driver
And it’s funny how I imagined
That I would be that person now
But it does not seem to have happened
Maybe I’ve just forgotten how to see
That I’ll never be the person that I thought I’d be
And in my mind, when I’m old I am beautiful
Planting tulips and vegetables
Which I will mindfully watch over, not like me now
I’m so busy with everything
That I don’t look at anything
But I’m sure I’ll look when I am older
And it’s funny how I imagined that I could be that person now
But that’s not what I want, but that’s what I wanted
And I’d be giving up somehow, how strange to see
That I don’t wanna be the person that I want to be
And in my mind
I imagine so many things
Things that aren’t really happening
And when they put me in the ground, I’ll start
Pounding the lid
Saying I haven’t finished yet
I still have a tattoo to get
That says I’m living in the moment
And it’s funny how I imagined that I could win this, win this fight
But maybe it isn’t all that funny
That I’ve been fighting all my life
But maybe I have to think it’s funny
If I wanna live before I die
And maybe it’s funniest of all
To think I’ll die before I actually see
That I am exactly the person that I’d want to be
Fuck yes
I am exactly the person that I want to be…”
Amanda Palmer. “In my mind.” Amanda Palmer Goes Down Under. January 21, 2011.
Bandcamp link: https://amandapalmer.bandcamp.com/track/in-my-mind-feat-brian-viglione
Home. Made the autonomous decision to have a helpful but also extremely painful medical procedure done this morning. Hurt like a son of a gun. Felt more than a little invasive and vulnerable, but the medical practitioners were respectful and kind towards me. Still in a lot of pain.
Currently being treated like a prince because I have earned that. Distracting myself with treats – iced latte, lemon danish for tomorrow, truly absurd but wonderful amount of sushi – alaska roll, salmon nigiri, kiwi king salmon roll. It’s helping.
Am curled up on the couch in sweatpants and a bathrobe, cradling a hot water bottle. The pain sharpens the mental state significantly, I think because the pain is keeping me stuck in the present moment – it’s so loud I can’t focus on my own thoughts enough to get swept up in the spirals, which has the interesting effect of helping me stay calm. But I already knew about this.
Hoping I can focus enough to read a book or watch a show. Might honestly be easier to distract myself with a podcast and a video game.
Then again the pain is making me so tired that I might be able to sleep.
Wearing moss agate earrings and listening to Maggie Rogers.
Took a ride in the back of a taxi cab. Got drunk on a martini in a hotel bar.
Attended a philosophy conference – listened, asked questions, discussed the strength of arguments or the implications of claims. Topics of colloquiums and symposiums included autonomy (especially temporal), personal identity and survival, what we owe the dead, pacifism as war abolition, political philosophy of social movements, the political epistemology network (with talks on epistemic encroachment on political normativity, and also hidden content moderation), buddhist illusionism, epistemology and social identity (which included an inquiry as to whether experiencing oppression can provide a unique epistemic advantage), the epistemology of resistance, the language of queer hookups – including a careful analysis of the definitions of words in the vocabulary surrounding sexual orientation and a bright and colorful and sexy presentation called “how to fuck with words.”
Mingled and engaged in shameless people watching among a crowd of drunk philosophers from all over the world in a hotel ballroom in the evening. Caught a glimpse of a well known author of a textbook for philosophy of mind, agreed he was very good looking in person. There were people here from all over the world. Steve was shamelessly checked out by a good looking guy who walked by our table like three times before he finally asked if he could sit down and then pretended to read a book so he could eavesdrop on our conversation. He then proceeded to turn up at the “top, switch, bottom” symposium and then like lean against the doorframe and try really hard not to look at Steve. It was cute. I get it.
Listened to street musicians in a subway station and accidentally got on the wrong train. Visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Could have spent days in the Ancient Egyptian exhibit. Took the bus when it was too cold to walk. Strolled down a street adjacent to Central Park. Navigated the streets of Manhattan via NYC’s useful coordinate numbering system but still felt overwhelmed and turned around and like it would be so easy to get lost. Stood in Times Square and looked up. Enjoyed live musical theater on Broadway. Bought a magnet featuring Van Gogh’s Starry Night from the gift shop at the Museum of Modern Art. Invited friends we hadn’t seen in way too long back to the hotel room and had the chance to visit and talk and sing. May have smuggled them into the conference for a session or two. Ate a bagel and drank an iced coffee in the café and talked about ideas. Picked up some naan and falafel and rice from the Halal Guys food truck. Ate fried noodles and steamed buns and a tea egg and scallion pancakes from “Real Kung Fu Little Steamed Buns Ramen” but also later on we tried just “Kung Fu Little Steamed Buns Ramen,” just to see if there was a difference.
Got ourselves some pizza in New York.
After a long day of sitting still and listening to other people speak, and then spending time being social – both of which were lovely, and both of which take energy in their own way – it felt nice to walk down to the fitness center and get a workout in. If I lived within walking distance of a fitness center it would really change my life. I would be there all the time. I would quickly become the strongest person you know.
It was just some exploratory weight lifting followed by some time on the bike and some time on a rowing machine. But it helped me.
I needed that.
long day
tired girl
sad song
big world
good times
homesick
heavy eyes
neat trick
thick thighs
class war
earrings, pearls
corner store
city lights
pretty view
sleepless nights
missing you
soft glow
patterned rug
our show
big hug
cold glass
forehead
stay true
instead
My first experience of NYC is almost an hour in a taxi on the way from the JFK airport to Times Square in Manhattan. My first view of the New York City skyline out of the windshield of a taxi took my breath away.
God I hate being told what to do.
“Does it help?” I ask.
We are closing the restaurant. It has been a long day.
“Does what help?”
“The, ah – yelling and swearing about all of your frustrations, at nobody in particular, in a mostly empty room. Slamming doors. Throwing things.”
“I mean, yeah. It helps.”
“Okay, good. Carry on.”
New year’s resolutions
Courtesy of Steve
Shake together 3 oz silver tequila, 2 oz triple sec, 1 oz freshly squeezed lime juice, 1/2 oz agave syrup, and some ice cubes. Pour over ice into two glasses with lime juice and kosher salt on the rim.
Makes two servings.
Enjoy with a stack of bean and cheese tacos, spanish rice, and crema with garlic and lime.
Fake year. Science fiction year
insomniatic activities
“Protect the egg.”
~ from a show called Cobra Kai, which is a direct sequal to the original films in the Karate Kid franchise. More specifically, this quote is from the season 5 finale, Episode 10: “Head of the Snake.” Released on Netflix on September 9th, 2022.
The quote refers to a specific moment during a street fight between two rival karate dojos.
–
If the chick is not able to break the shell of his egg, he will die without being born. We are – chick. The world – is our egg. If we do not break the shell of the world, then we will die without being born
my eyes just read the words “spice up your panic attack with a harmonica” and that was. enough internet for one day actually
The woman who was working out next to me at the gym today was crying, very quietly.
I didn’t know why she was crying – it could have been so many things. I didn’t feel like I could do anything for her except give her a moment of privacy and space and pretend as if I hadn’t seen her crying.
I could have gotten her a drink of water, or asked if she was okay. But it might have hurt her pride to be witnessed or seen or spoken to when she was crying, especially when the emotions were so intense that she couldn’t keep the mask on. People can be so delicate, especially when they’re trying to be strong. It’s not a shameful thing, to be delicate. So are most ecosystems.
I don’t know if I would have had the right words to try to make her feel better. I wouldn’t have known what to say.
But I have very often not had the energy to mask or keep the sadness or anger or frustration or grief contained or get up and leave and go somewhere else so nobody would see me cry. Steve has the terrible privilege of seeing me cry, like – all the time. And I have definitely cried, quietly, at the gym.
Sometimes it helps not to have to wear the stupid mask.
Solidarity.
December can be so mean.
Tiny sparks throughout the day. The melodies of familiar songs. The smell of pine needles, the lights on a tree. A painting, abandoned in the snow. A parent’s handwriting on a gift wrapped in paper. The pet cat’s boundless enthusiasm upon realizing that we put up a tiny stocking for her, too, and her joy at getting to play with the pet cat toys inside because she knew immediately that they were for her. The way she mimicked us by sitting beside her tiny stocking as we opened ours together in the morning. The porous, waxy texture of the outside of an orange. The way a homemade snickerdoodle cookie crumbles in the mouth. An hour or so of a favorite video game before leaving. Trying to open a bottle of wine with increasingly creative methods when we forgot the corkscrew at home. A football game halftime show featuring Beyoncé performing music from the album Cowboy Carter. Listening to a Foy Vance song and washing dishes in the sink, in their new kitchen:
When I need to get home,
You’re my guiding light
You’re my guiding light…
‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds;
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;
And mamma in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap,
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow,
Gave a lustre of midday to objects below,
When what to my wondering eyes did appear,
But a miniature sleigh and eight tiny rein-deer,
With a little old driver so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment he must be St. Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name:
“Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donder and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!”
As leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky;
So up to the housetop the coursers they flew
With the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too—
And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.
He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a pedler just opening his pack.
His eyes—how they twinkled! his dimples, how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard on his chin was as white as the snow;
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath;
He had a broad face and a little round belly
That shook when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly.
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose;
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight—
“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!“
Clement Clarke Moore, circa 1822
Took the money from my share of the tip jar at the café this week and spent it on a blanket to keep the snow off the windshield in the winter because scraping ice off that thing is an ordeal. Also got a portable air pump because last time I put air in my tires they were at ~ 20psi and they need to stay closer to 34psi, per the number on the sticker on the inside of the drivers side doorframe, and I only had enough quarters to fix three of them properly before I ran out of time on the machine.
Almost went off the road a couple of times on the eastbound expressway at 10PM tonight because salt doesn’t work well on the ice when the temperature is close to zero degrees Fahrenheit. Did not exceed 45 miles per hour all the way home because the roads were bad, turned the flashers on in an attempt to communicate with other drivers who wouldn’t stop speeding up to drive past me.
If I didn’t have music through my radio as a self soothing coping mechanism, piloting a vehicle would be, ah – worse. I think this stress is more likely to kill me than any kind of collision etc..
Oil was changed recently. Passed inspection last summer. Has fortunately stopped making the noise.
Snow tires would put a large dent in my bank account right now but I think I can technically afford them and not put the balance in the red. If this is what the roads are going to be like this winter it might be worth the money to ameliorate the risk of ending up in a ditch.
It’s one of the only things that I’m actually afriad of, you know? Getting hurt in a car accident, or someone else getting hurt in the same situation. And yet these roads are some of the only things keeping us connected to each other.
“Drive safe,” I tell people.
Deadlifts, squats, bench press, 20 minutes on the bike at the gym resulting in muscle pain that doesn’t go away. Gotta be one of those things because those are the only new things in the routine. Focusing on good form; starting with so little weight that these other people at the gym keep giving me judgemental side eye, at least in my imagination. It would help to cool down and stretch more. Trying not to get hurt for stupid careless reasons like letting the dysmorphia bully me into a major lower back injury.
Missed exactly one dose of medication this weekend and by halfway through the next morning I felt like I wanted to die. This happens pretty much every time I miss a dose of this medication. Pattern recognition usually catches this early and knows how to fix it right away, but a bad night of sleep combined with the seasonal blues meant I couldn’t pinpoint the source of the wanting to die feeling for several hours yesterday morning. I got stuck.
It was embarrassing to have Steve there with me through that. Being witnessed in a gross and pathetically dissociative/discouraged mood is vulnerable in the extreme. Like being walked in on in the bathroom, like being seen with no clothes on, like someone taking an unflattering picture of your face and framing it and putting it up on the wall. But he stayed, and he was steady and calm, and I still don’t really know what to do with that kind of love.
After correcting the dose, the thing that helped me feel better was getting out of the house for a while (the change of set and setting really helped) and then getting back home and eating a plate overflowing with eggplant parm and ravioli with diavalo sauce and mozzarella, and a garlic tuscan roll.
Slept until almost noon today, then gym, then work.
“I just wanted you to know
That baby, you’re the best.”
Lana Del Rey. From “Summertime sadness.” Born to Die. 2012.
“Wait –
They don’t love you like I love you.”
“Maps,” by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Forever To Tell. April 29th, 2003.
.
“Good luck, babe
(Good luck, babe…)
You’ll have to stop the world just to stop the feeling.”
Chappell Roan. “Good Luck, Babe.” Released as a single on April 5th, 2024.
.
“Won’t you come on over
Stop making a fool out of me…
Why don’t you come on over, Valerie?”
Amy Winehouse. “Valerie.” Back to Black (Delux Edition). January 1, 2006.
How can you see into my eyes
Like open doors?
Leading you down into my core
Where I’ve become so numb
Without a soul
My spirit’s sleeping somewhere cold
Until you find it there and lead it back home
Wake me up inside
(I can’t wake up)
Wake me up inside
(Save me)
Call my name and save me from the dark
(Wake me up)
Bid my blood to run
(I can’t wake up)
Before I come undone
(Save me)
Save me from the nothing I’ve become
Now that I know what I’m without
You can’t just leave me
Breathe into me and make me real
Bring me to life
Wake me up inside
(I can’t wake up)
Wake me up inside
(Save me)
Call my name and save me from the dark
(Wake me up)
Bid my blood to run
(I can’t wake up)
Before I come undone
(Save me)
Save me from the nothing I’ve become
Bring me to life
I’ve been livin’ a lie
There’s nothing inside
Bring me to life
Frozen inside
Without your touch
Without your love, darling
Only you are the life
Among the dead
All this time, I can’t believe I couldn’t see
Kept in the dark, but you were there in front of me
I’ve been sleeping a thousand years, it seems
Got to open my eyes to everything
Without a thought, without a voice, without a soul
Don’t let me die here
There must be something more
Bring me to life
Wake me up inside
(I can’t wake up)
Wake me up inside
(Save me)
Call my name and save me from the dark
(Wake me up)
Bid my blood to run
(I can’t wake up)
Before I come undone
(Save me)
Save me from the nothing I’ve become
Bring me to life
I’ve been living a lie
(bring me to life)
There’s nothing inside
(there’s nothing inside)
Bring me to life
—
Courtesy of Amy Lee, of the band Evanescence. The song is called “Bring Me To Life,” and is the second track on the Fallen album. This song first appeared in the soundtrack of the movie Daredevil in February 2003. Fallen was released in March of the same year. Wind-up records NYC.
—
still no word on an Alecto the Ninth release date. possibly as late as 2029. they are calling it the Alectopause.
I have previously named each entry in the classical music concert review series after the featured composers. I won’t make an exception for the arranger and producer of The Rock Orchestra.
This immensely talented ensemble of wind, strings, and percussion performs classical covers of favorite rock songs. They are “reimagining legendary Rock and Metal with all the grace and power of classical. Complimented by a stunning gothic visual world, The Rock Orchestra breathes beautifully dark energy into your favorite songs and presents them in a wholly unique way” (the-rock-orchestra.com).
Their set list included but was not limited to:
“Thunderstuck” by ACDC
“Bring Me To Life” by Evanescence
“Killing In the Name” by Rage Against The Machine
“Nothing Else Matters” and “Enter Sandman” by Metallica
“Sweet Child of Mine” by Guns n’ Roses
“Stairway to Heaven” by Led Zeplin
“Paint it, Black” by the Rolling Stones
“Tainted Love” by Soft Cell
and “Zombie” by the Cranberries
.
The stunning gothic visual world in question featured a jaw-droppingly beautiful set. Two pillars of lifelike skulls flanked the orchestra. Behind them are stained glass windows, like the kind you might see at a catholic church. Must not forget the eerily lifelike skull that was taller than an adult man. It swung and bobbed, as if to sing along and shake its head back and forth to the music, during the higher energy songs.
The performance was illuminated by a fascinating display of visual stage lighting, by itself a work of art. During “Zombie,” it was not a coincidence that the stage was lit up for the entire song with a bright and vibrant green. “Bring Me To Life” had a backdrop of Evanescence album cover blue. When the lights went out, the stage was gently illuminated by soft white candlelight.
Each performer wore a mask of intricate jewels arranged in the shape of a skull, and wore varying artistic renditions of bones on their sleeves so that they resembed skeletons. A woman dressed like the Reverend Daughter of the ninth house from the locked tomb series sang “bring me to life” with all of the energy in her body. She sang out her soul. She ate and left no crumbs. Her name is Erin Fox and she is an artist.
The energy of the performance was insane. The cellist and the upright bass player sat across the stage from each other, symmetrical, holding down the rhythm and the beat. The lead violinist, saxophonist, and trombonist took turns carrying off the classic guitar solos that the audience can be relied upon to know and love with enthusiasm and outrageous skill. They were brilliant. They were synchronized perfectly. It was clear from the way they moved – from the way they danced and swayed and in some cases ran all over the stage to solo and duet with each other and hype up the audience, as rocks stars tend to do – that their fondness for the music they love to listen to informed their enjoyment of their performance in this style.
The music was a perfect marriage of the genres which are, really, not so different from each other at all – in spite of the way they might sound distinct from each other to some listeners, they are structurally similar in ways I don’t have the words to describe. I will never listen to either genre the same way again.
That was my first rock concert with Steve Rogers. We painted our nails black. (He doesn’t have to take it off for work, now, not for a few weeks.) Tickets for seats up in the balcony – once I was there I wanted to sit closer to the performance, but I think it was a good view of everything all at once. Steve wore black – he usually does. I let him pick out a black dress and stockings and a leather coat, for me. Glasses so that I could see the stage. He drove, I was the navigater in the shotgun seat.
The Rock Orchestra is releasing a record featuring many of these songs, which I think is available for preorder via their website. They have just recently released a single of their cover of Zombie, which is available to stream wherever you get your music. Featuring Erin Fox as the lead vocalist.
.
“Another head hangs lowly,
Child is slowly taken.
And the violence cause such silence;
Who are we mistaken?
But you see, it’s not me,
It’s not my family,
In your head, in your head,
They are fighting
With their tanks and their bombs,
And their bombs and their guns,
In your head, in your head,
They are crying
In your head, in your head,
Zombie, Zombie, Zombie.
What’s in your head, in your head?
Zombie, Zombie, Zombie.
Another mother’s breakin,
Heart is taken over
When the violence causes silence,
We must be mistaken
It’s the same old theme since 1916
In your head, in your head,
They’re still fighting
With their tanks and their bombs,
And their bombs and their guns,
In your head, in your head,
They are dying
In your head, in your head,
Zombie, Zombie, Zombie.
What’s in your head, in your head?
Zombie, Zombie, Zombie…”
“Zombie.” No Need To Argue, Track 4. The Cranberries. 1994.
“I cannot interfere, it’s a canon event” & “I don’t want to spoil it for you.”
the amount of time I spend perusing wikipedia and making good use of the various freely available search engines and databases is nobody’s buisiness but my own
“There to dwell
In adamantine chains and penal fire
Who durst defy the omnipotent to arms
Nine times the space that measures day and night
Rolling in the fiery gulf
Confounded though immortal, but his doom
Reserved him to more wrath, for now the thought
Both of lost happiness and lasting pain
Torments him; round he throws his baleful eyes
That witnessed huge affliction and dismay
Mixed with obdurate pride and steadfast hate
At once as far as angels ken he views
The dismal situation waste and wild
A dungeon horrible, on all sides round
Regions of sorrow
Doleful shades, where peace and rest can never dwell
Hope never comes that comes to all
But torture without end still urges
As one great furnace flamed
Yet from those flames, no light
But rather, darkness visible”
These words are recited on a track called “Darkness Visable” on the Delta album from Mumford & Sons. Narration on this track courtesy of Gill Landry (formerly of the band Old Crow Medicine Show).
These verses are an excerpt from Paradise Lost by John Milton (1667).
Which is, to my knowledge, a poem involving free will and the garden of Eden. It’s been the inspiration for such works as His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman and The Dark Tower by Stephen King.
what do you MEAN “am I team Edward or team Jacob” those two idiots need to kiss
#twilight
Never speak about her in that way ever again.
Not in front of me.
“Well I grew up in the fallout from the riots in the ’90s
Static cranes stand lifeless, casting shadows on the town
I stare at that hallowed ocean as if to pick a fight
For the dreams my old man drempt for me lay on the other side
I would leave if only I can find a reason
I’m mean because I grew up in New England
I got dreams, but I can’t make myself believe them
Spend the rest of my life with what could have been
And I will die in the house that I grew up in
I’m homesick…”
Noah Kahan and Sam Fender. “Homesick (with Sam Fender).” Stick Season (Forever). 2024.
“If I held in my hands everything gold could buy
I’d still not have a thing worth giving you
You tell me the sun is shining in paradise
And I have to watch your lips turn blue
I would burn the world to bring some heat to you
I would burn the world to bring some heat to you
I would burn the world to bring some heat
You are the reason I went through it
The only meaning as I knew it
And I can only do my best
I do not do this for myself
I’d walk through Hell on living feet for you
I wouldn’t be seen walking through any door
Some place that you’re not welcome to
You stare at the faces smiling from somewhere warm
From some place the sunlight won’t come through…”
Hozier. “Hymn to Virgil.” Unreal Unearth: Unending. December 6th, 2024.
Standing at the edge of the lake and staring out across the water, shouting up in secret anguish at the sky:
“Do you think love is strong enough to last the winter?”
And the answer echoes back:
“Yes. I do think love is strong enough to last the winter.”
And the ice that will be here soon may not melt until the spring, and the sun sets early so the light in the sky is already fading to dusk, and the critters are curling up under the mud on the bank of the pond to go sleep for a long time and not wake up until the world thaws out, and the geese are already gone.
And I’ll pretend I’m sat across the table from the splintered piece of soul of another wounded inner child who isn’t sure if any good and healthy love will ever stay with her, will ever last for a long time, and I’ll try to remind her:
“Love is strong enough to last the winter. You can set that worry down, now, dear one.”
“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. Do you understand the rights I have just read to you? With these rights in mind, do you wish to speak to me?”
These words seem relevant to some high profile current events in a way that I’m not sure I have the words to explain at this time. Something to consider.
*cradling the inner child who still believes that everyone would completely fucking hate him if only they understood how awful and bad he was, secretly, if only they understood all the wrong and unclean things that he had done*
—
“heyyy bud. let’s drink some water and go for a walk and listen to some music, okay? let’s try and take a shower and get some of the grime off. we can go get ice cream soon. in the meantime, may I offer you some extremely cool books to look at? they’ve got swords in them… cute girls, too… oh, oh no. aw hell no nope no no no hey drop it, drop the interesting shame spiral, let it go for now it will still be here later if you still want to look at it when you get back…”
“It’s amazing how you can speak right to my heart
Without saying a word, you can light up the dark
Try as I may, I can never explain
What I hear when you don’t say a thing
The smile on your face lets me know that you need me
There’s a truth in your eyes saying you’ll never leave me
The touch of your hand says you’ll catch me if ever I fall
You say it best, when you say nothing at all
All day long, I can hear people talking out loud
But when you hold me near, you drown out the crowd
Try as they may, they could never define
What’s being said between your heart and mine
The smile on your face lets me know that you need me
There’s a truth in your eyes saying you’ll never leave me
The touch of your hand says you’ll catch me if ever I fall
You say it best when you say nothing at all.”
–
Lyrics by Paul Overstreet and Don Schlitz. Notably performed by Alison Krauss & Union Station. First recorded and released for a tribute album for Keith Whitley in 1993, then included on their Now That I’ve Found You: A Collection record in 1994.
–
For context on a more personal level, this has been my favorite song since I was, like, three. I may have rediscovered it a couple of winters ago.
“Loving you, almost worth it to me
If only I was gone
If only I was already gone…”
Excerpt from the lyrics of a song called “Almost,” by the Ludlow Theives. From the Skyline EP. 2015.
_
“This is the way it is
Now
It’s a hard time
But it’s our time
One day we’ll be looking back
Missing the way it is now…”
–
“Baby don’t break down on me
We’ve got a thousand miles to go before we see
That there’s a silver lining in those clouds and we were meant to be
Baby don’t break down on me…”
Sarah Jaroz. Excerpts from lyrics of songs on her Polaroid Lovers record from 2024.
–
“When I meet her eye
Janey always breaks a smile
Sheds a light into my life
Cat said, life’s a road
That’s only lit by those you love
And Janey knows
So Janey don’t regard him
He’s not open hearted
Ever since we parted
We’re jaded and we’re gaurded…”
Foy Vance. “Janey.” Joy of Nothing: Live from Belfast. 2012.
_
Steve and I were sitting on some rocks at the top of a waterfall. It was a nice afternoon in late spring. We’d been hiking and creek walking. That was our first date.
What kind of relationship are you looking for? I asked him.
That question was maybe kind of forward, probably too direct. However – I have found it is less upsetting in the long run to clarify expectations sooner rather than later. Hurts too much, otherwise.
And if he had said, “I’m looking for a summer fling,” or “I’m not looking for anything serious,” or “I’m in a dying relationship that I cannot bring myself to leave and what I am looking for is something secret and casual that is just for me” or even “I just want to have a nice day together and see where this goes,” I’m not sure how I would have felt, or even if there would have been another date, as such. We’d been nurturing a strictly platonic connection of which we were both fond for a good while at that point. I would have hesitated to risk losing that for a casual fling. I’ve learned to know better.
He told me that at this point in his life if he was going to date anyone it would be with the intention of making it work and staying together for a long time. He told me that what he was honestly looking for was a forever, basically. He told me he wanted someone to do life with – to go to the gym and the grocery store, and watch TV, and go to concerts, and go hiking, and get to come home to at the end of a long day. He was telling me he was lonely, that it had been a long time since anyone had been fully emotionally available to be with him. He was telling me he wanted something that was healthy and real.
Before the waterfall date, he told me that when he thought he was never going to see me again, he was sad.
And this answer was probaby altogether too forward, too direct, and way too much too soon. But for me it felt like a relief.
I remember I looked down at the waterfall below us. I was quiet for a minute. I thought about the implications of what he had just said. Some of those implications were inevitably going to be tough and complicated and sad. Others seemed promising.
And I said, okay. I said I thought I would be up for trying to do that with him.
And I think that was the closest thing to a wedding vow that I have ever said out loud.
Just two people sitting at the top of a waterfall, together.
The rest of that day was new and strange and awkward – we couldn’t agree on whose hand was meant to be in front when we held hands, for one thing – but it was a good and lovely day. The sun was out. We stood on the upstream side of a bridge over a creek and dropped leaves into the water and then went over to the downstream side of the bridge and waited until we could watch the water carrying the leaves we had dropped. We stood side by side with my arm around his waist and his arm around my shoulder and I thought, huh. Okay. This feels safe. This might even feel lovely, after a little time.
I think maybe that evening was the first time I ever told him “text me when you get home safe” and he said “you too. I’ll watch for your text.” I just didn’t realize the significance of that, at the time.
Fuuuuck I love giving people free beer. Especially the stuff on tap. Because I can draw up a perfect draft of scotch ale with no collar (good skill to have) and then tell them “no yeah don’t worry about it that’s on the house” and it makes their entire evening. (And then sometimes they put their cash in the tip jar instead.)
Crucially, I can only do this occationally and only when the boss has left for the evening. And it’s usually the leader of the band.
gremlin line cook man threw a slice of cucumber at me and missed so I picked it up and threw it back across the full length of the galley style kitchen and it very nearly hit him in the eye but that’s okay because he deserves it
“Now if you never shoot you’ll never know
And if you never eat you’ll never grow…”
Matty Healy, of the 1975. “Robbers.” The 1975. 2013.
Not sure when exactly I made the switch from being the person who was too afriad to step outside of their comfort zone and try anything unfamiliar because they were self conscious and afraid of not being good at something new and instead became a person who has the audacity to just try a new and complicated thing that could probably go quite badly if it doesn’t work out as intended.
I have now lived through so many instances of working up the courage to try something terrifyingly uncertain and surviving the consequences. Even if the consequences were painful for me and very likely other people, too.
This is why – though my comfort zone has expanded outwards, I think – it’s still a finite space. There are still lines I will not cross.
No matter what happens when you take a risk, you learn something. Hopefully.
I think maybe the only way to learn how to climb is to accept the risk of falling. And for every unpleasant fall and every new callus there is the joy of knowing you’ve accomplished something you could never have done if you hadn’t taken the risk. There is the “there. I did it” feeling. And this is worth something.
“Never change who you are for a man. Or a woman. Or anyone, really.”
Okay sure but one situationship with a hiker/backpacker guy like six years ago resulted in a closet full of backpacking gear and a lot of unforgettable adventures, even after my connection with that person had died. I spent a lot of time hanging out with a dungeons and dragons player who made characters for fun in his free time and I never used to think that was something I would enjoy but I am now making a characters for a tabletop role playing game, for fun. Same with first person shooter games. We don’t talk anymore. My husband is a philosopher and the way he thinks and talks through questions has permanently changed the way I think. My friends who are dyed in the wool gamers will spend hours talking about the plot of their favorite video games if you let them and this is the reason I am willing to try games I never thought I’d be interested in trying. This month I have picked up a guitar and played music more often than I have in years because a friend is trying to start a band. I only ever smoke when I’m with people for whom that is a favorite activity. My favorite books are almost exclusively from recommendations from other people. And this isn’t from a place of “oh I am pretending to like the things you like in order to impress you so you will like me.” It’s like – you seem cool, the things you care about seem cool, you caring about the things you like makes the things you like seem cool, therefore I will try them. Something something permeability of the soul.
I don’t know. I’m all for letting other people change you. At least some.
but those are some of my most interesting flaws. why should I pathologize these things when I am secretly fond of them
why is their platonic ideal of a person just an empty shell who has never done anything actually wrong over the course of an entire lifetime. what is the point of trying to be good if being good is supposed to be easy. why can’t I let myself run
“I wanna catch the butterflies you’re feeling
I wanna dance until we can’t no more
I wanna be the alibi you’re needing
I wanna lay beside you on the floor
I wanna be at the exit when you’re leaving
I wanna love you like this forevermore
I wanna take the pink in your complexion
I wanna paint it all over the walls
I wanna take the future you’re expecting
I wanna make it elegantly yours
I wanna find the beauty in the wreckage
I wanna love you like this forevermore
Don’t you let me let you slip out of my hands
In some kind of act of, act of innocence
I wanna bathe in all the tears you’re crying
I wanna make ’em part of my charm
You know I would die trying
Trying to find a space in your arms
I wanna stay beautiful and silent
I wanna love you like this forevermore
I wanna carry all your burdens
I wanna put ’em up on my back
Beside the world I got on my shoulders
But don’t you worry, don’t you worry ’bout that
Just let the light come on in from the curtains
Just let me love you like this forevermore
Don’t you let me let you slip out of my hands
In some kind of act of, act of innocence
Don’t you let me let you let this ever end
In some kind of act of, act of innocence…”
–
I just think this is probably one of the prettiest love songs ever written and anyhow it’s called “Act of Innocence,” it was created by an indie alternative band from Athy in County Kildare, Ireland called “Picture This” on their recent album Parked Car Conversations. Songwriters are James Joseph Rainsford and Ryan Martin Hennessy. Copywrite 2024 by Universal Music Publishing Ltd.
This entire album is so gorgeous.
“I wish my disability would stop disabling me”
“Grief” seems too strong of a word. So does “heartbreak.” Even when every fiber of my being seems to ache like nails on a chalkboard.
I will say only that I am a little sad.
I want to curl up on the couch under the comforting weight of lots of blankets. I want the cat to sit on my chest. I want to slouch in a big coat in the car with the heat on full blast and cry. I want to knit. I want to sing. I want to listen to the angsty lyrics of the same song on repeat for two hours. I should play Stardew Valley. I want to bundle up and walk for miles.
Instead I am frozen.
I will say only that it was probably the caffeine.
I mean, yes, yearning is painful – but letting anyone else know the pain was there would have been much too unkind
“Lie in the grass, next to the mausoleum…”
Fall Out Boy. “Sugar, We’re Going Down.” From Under The Cork Tree. May 3rd, 2005.
Absolutely essential to be as weird and strange and true to yourself as possible, to create as much incomprehensible and wildly self indulgent art as possible. Whoever is still around when the dust settles should be allowed to stay.
“I’ll be home for dinner, honey, so don’t go out with your girls and get your nails did.”
Tonight I gave my phone number to a girl I didn’t know. But not for the reasons you think.
I know you are probably thinking, what about Steve? to which I can honestly reply that if I ever work up the courage to give my phone number to a pretty woman because I want anything other than a strictly platonic experience out of that interaction, Steve will definitely be the first to know. Maybe even before the pretty women in question knows. Assuming he wasn’t already in on it to begin with.
God, I love my husband. We aren’t married, I just think these exact words over and over again every day.
But no yeah I gave my phone number to a woman playing the drums in a local jazz quartet comprised entirely of women. A friend is trying to start a band and we’re looking for someone to play the drums on a couple of tracks, at least. We are creating a rhythm section from scratch, trying to network and meet people across the local music scenes.
The drummer in this band stood close to me when I worked up the courage to go over and say hello. She was friendly and bubbly and chaotic and I thought she was beautiful. I gave her a shot of espresso with a splash of milk from the fridge because she said the little plastic cartons of half and half freaked her out. Her band played for two hours and they sounded amazing.
Apparently one of my coworkers deadass asked her out the last time she was here. Which my other coworkers reported with a certain amount of side-eye. I get why he would do that. But that isn’t why I gave her my number.
Maybe nothing will come of this. Maybe nothing will happen. But my friend who is trying to start a band was cheering on the other end of the line when I told her I went over to say hi.
I am lucky to work in a place that hosts live music for every night. This time it was good.
“Did you ever start carrying that knife I gave you? You should. This is the time of year when people get robbed.”
‘Cos of quantum.
It was my nineteenth birthday and my year of being eighteen was done. I was working that day, I think? Or at least I was hanging out in the place that I worked to study and be among people and be in a space that I liked. It was a college learning center with whiteboard tables you could write on with erasable markers, natural light from the windows, origami everywhere. Of course I was there all the time. It was nice there.
A coworker I thought was vaugely cute back then found out it was my birthday and he laughed and slumped back in his seat and said something to the effect of “you have to be at work on your birthday? gross. dude, you don’t even have any friends.”
Which was a false and completely unnecessary thing to say, especially because (a) I did have at least one friend, which is logically refutation via counterexample and (b) I thought the people I worked with were extremely cool and I wanted to be friends with them. Even though about half of them were leaving and I was fairly sure I was never going to see them again. I just didn’t know how. There is an unforgettable kind of admiration towards the (much older, cooler, and more sophisticated) students who are exactly one grade above you in your first year of community college. This may read like satire, but it isn’t. Their graduation – not just the vaugely cute one, the entire lot of them – felt like losing this first real sense of community I had discovered. Even if I was still experiencing that feeling of being stuck on the other side of a wall of glass, even then.
Everything feels intense and vivid in that way, when you are eighteen.
And I was such an oddball of an eighteen year old human. Quiet. Shy. Irrevocably homeschooled. Still living at home when everyone else was off on their own for the first time. Took most things way too seriously and everything else much too personally because I was literally eighteen and when you are eighteen or nineteen or twenty-one you still think you are the main character and everything is all about you. And honestly I didn’t have many friends. Had just ended a dying relationship with a highschool sweetheart I didn’t love anymore and I had been wandering in the woods on campus and crying my eyes out over that loss for days. Had just cut my hair short for the first time since I was fifteen and couldn’t stop trying to figure out how to style it in the bathroom mirror with an embarrassing amount of sticky waxy hair paste. As a displacement activity, this was better than the extremely obvious obsessive compulsive skin picking rituals which took years for me to heal.
It was That Time of the semester – exams, etc.. I don’t think I even had glasses yet. Still had a flip phone.
A few of the guys in my Calc II class asked me if they could have a copy of my meticulously crafted 8 1/2″ x 11″ formula sheet for the final calculus exam. I had spent my entire semester devoting hours to helping them with the homework, standing at the whiteboard covered wall with my back to the room, learning the subject better even as I was trying to help them. On that day I finally told them no.
Before I left that day my boss at the time smiled at me and told me he was proud of me. I couldn’t tell if he said that because I had just said to the boys “no you may not copy my work for the exam” or if I was good at the work that I was doing, but it was nice of him to say. I have kept that memory on purpose.
The first time I met this person who told me he was proud of me I was immediately struck by a feeling like oh my god. You’re like me. We’re not much alike, as you seem lovely and I am terrible, but we have something in common. I have never once met anyone in the world who was like me. I cannot explain how exactly but it’s there. I didn’t even understand what the thing we had in common was, at the time. I just knew it was there and it was important.
In retrospect I think it was false to think I’d never met anyone else who was “like me” in this way. I just think most of us who grew up homeschooled or in the culture of an extremely conservative white middle class school district learned to hide so we could blend in. But over time I’ve been lucky enough to find other people who are like me and experience this sense of commonality with them. We are not exactly alike, we are not in any way the same person, just – we have something in common that is neither good nor bad just different from everyone else and it’s something we can both relate to and understand without ever needing to talk about it.
(For those of you who aren’t one of us – the best I can do at translating what specifically it is we have in common is that it’s something similar to “ah yes – you’re a writer, too.” And this is all I will say here.)
To this day, finding these people and befriending them and nurturing those friendships as best I can – even when I don’t always know how – is probably one of the best things about being alive.
When you are eighteen you don’t have a clue who you are yet. You’re not done cooking. But it’s the beginning of a chapter of experiencing your life in a new way. We grow up fast. We are constantly changing and learning how to live. And even years later on we are still constantly growing and changing and we aren’t sure what’s going to happen next in this life. At first glance it doesn’t seem like an advantage to have friends who remember what you were like when you were young and terrible. It’s this “mortifying ordeal of being known” thing. But perhaps it’s a kind of gift to have been known for a long time.
I remember being eighteen. The memory is excruciating.
As of yesterday I am slightly closer now to my twenty-sixth birthday than I am to my twenty fifth. But as a character in a book that I like said once – “that’s a universe away from eighteen.”
When you hate everyone, eat something
When you feel like everyone hates you, go to sleep
When you feel like everyone hates everybody else, spend some time outside
When you hate yourself, take a shower
“You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. From “The Little Prince.”
“There are many things that I would like to say to you
But I don’t know how…”
Oasis. Lyrics from the song “Wonderwall.” (What’s The Story) Morning Glory? 1995.
When I moved in with Steve Rogers I brought so many books with me that we had to start assembling shelves. I brought trunks filled with grocery bags full of stacks of books. The books represented the majority of the physical possessions worth bringing with me. They are one of the few things I will allow myself to collect. Even if I haven’t read them, even if I am taking a recommendation on faith from a trusted source. I enjoy having them. I have been collecting since I was, like – ten.
“I’ve gone ahead and ordered a bookshelf for your books. It should be here next week. Do you think this one has enough space? Do you like the color?”
I am not used to this. I am not used to letting people who aren’t family buy things for me – luxury items. It’s unfamiliar. Most things I have needed and used in my life have previously belonged to someone else – clothes, books, CDs, furniture, a car. Which is honestly how it should be. To this day, even just allowing people to pay for my food makes me feel like I am indebted to them in a way that I am not always sure I can pay back, so I mostly don’t let them. As a rule I don’t expect anything in return when I give gifts away to other people, so I’m not sure where the anxiety over being in debt to another person is from. But it’s an ever present feeling in the realm of exchange. I am not used to this particular kind of generosity from anyone who isn’t family. Not the inherent generosity of a nice time spent together, the generosity of “if you want this I will take care it for you without batting an eye.” There is a fundamental inclination not to ever need or want anything from anyone that I cannot get for myself and that will never fully go away. Receiving is complicated. Even from people who have plenty to give, who like giving.
But he’s asking if I like the color, so I give in and tell him that the color is good. He insists that it feels necessary to try and make this place into a home – before me, this apartment was clearly a place where A Man Lived By Himself. It’s different now.
When the unassembled shelves made it to the apartment we took them out of the boxes and peeled away the layers of styrofoam packaging and sorted the pieces by type across the floor in the living room and he dug out a box of tools from the bottom of a closet somewhere and we carefully, meticulously read the instructions on the paper from the box. And we built a bookself together. It was a good bookshelf.
The books are nestled in no particular order among the knick knacks, as they should be. They are proudly on display in the study and in the living room and in a pile by the side of the bed. I am fond of them.
We built something together.
just gonna have to play it by ear, I guess
“One day I’m gonna cut it clear
Ride like Paul Revere
And when they ask me who I am
I’ll say I’m not from around here…”
Noah Kahan. “Paul Revere.” Stick Season (We’ll All Be Here Forever). June 9th, 2023.
Stopped by the old fashioned sub shop and everybody knew you
[Pre-Ritornello 1]
Ricordati di noi a bere dentro a un bar
Di quelli con l’insegna luminosa che non va
Ricordati di noi a combinare guai
Ma quante cose devo ancora dirti
Ma quante
[Ritornello]
Ma quante volte devo ancora dirti che mi spiace
Che non sono capace
A vivere una vita senza te
Non ci sono più canzoni da cantare
Farfalle de mangaire
Ho un dubbio dopo l’altro, ma so che voglio
Voglio te, solo te, soltanto te, ah
Ti dirò: “Finirà” e chi se ne frega
Tu butta tutto via, non è importante
Per me sei devastante
Per me sei devastante
–
Olly. “Devastante.” Tutta Vita. October 25th, 2024.
better profoundly imperfect communication than no communication at all
divide et impera
Last week I told em that I was one (1) heartbreak away from permanently descending into my inevitable classic bass player persona.
But honestly it was already much too late for me, I fear.
In a pool of sand and silt a starfish had thrust its arms up stiffly and was holding its body away from the stifling mud.
“It’s still alive,” I ventured.
“Yes,” he said, and with a quick yet gentle movement he picked up the star and spun it over my head and far out into the sea. It sunk in a burst of spume, and the waters roared once more.
“There are not many come this far,” I said, groping in a sudden embarrassment for words. “Do you collect?”
“Only like this,” he said softly, gesturing amidst the wreckage of the shore. “And only for the living.” He stooped again, oblivious of my curiosity, and skipped another star neatly across the water.
“The stars,” he said, “throw well. One can help them.”
He looked full at me with a faint question kindling in his eyes, which seemed to take on the far depths of the sea.
“I do not collect,” I said uncomfortably, the wind beating at my garments. “Neither the living nor the dead. I gave it up a long time ago. Death is the only successful collector.” I could feel the full night blackness in my skull and the terrible eye resuming its indifferent journey. I nodded and walked away, leaving him there upon the dunes with that great rainbow ranging up the sky behind him.
I turned as I neared a bend in the coast and saw him toss another star, skimming it skillfully far out over the ravening and tumultuous water. For a moment, in the changing light, the sower appeared magnified, as though casting larger stars upon some greater sea. He had, at any rate, the posture of a god.
But again the eye, the cold world-shriveling eye, began its inevitable circling in my skull. He is a man, I considered sharply, bringing my thought to rest. The star thrower is a man, and death is running more fleet than he along every seabeach in the world.”
Loren Eiseley. “The Star Thrower.” An Unexpected Universe. 1969. page 172, I think
“Life is what happens when you’re busy making plans.”
Ate pasta alfredo and garlic bread, watched the Moulin Rouge, now reading a canto of Dante. Got the chance to climb and have some tea earlier, which was a lovely time.
Showing up to be present with the people whose presence in your life you cherish and appreciate to no end when you aren’t at your best and you’re worried that anything you do or say or do could scare them off and make them think less of you is fucking terrifying. Like when you aren’t feeling well and you don’t trust yourself with the connections that matter to you, you wonder if even showing up to be present is a mistake because you can’t mess up a good thing when you aren’t there. Do you feel me.
In a bedsit somewhere in London, John Watson is having a nightmare. He is reliving his Army days and his team is under fire somewhere abroad. A colleague cries out his name as the gunfire continues. Finally he jolts awake and sits up in bed wide-eyed and breathing heavily until he realises that he is safe and a long way from the war. Flopping back onto his pillow, he tries to calm his breathing as he continues to be haunted by his memories. Eventually, unable to stop himself, he begins to weep.
Some time later he has sat up on the side of the bed and switched on the bedside lamp. It’s still dark outside. John sits quietly, wrapped up in his thoughts, and looks across to the desk on the other side of the room. A metal walking cane is leaning against the desk. He looks at it unhappily, then continues to gaze into the distance. He will not be sleeping again tonight.
DAY TIME. The sun has finally risen and John, now wearing a dressing gown over his night wear, hobbles across the room leaning heavily on his cane. In his other hand he has a mug of tea and an apple, both of which he puts down onto the desk. The mug bears the arms of the Royal Army Medical Corps. Sitting down, he opens the drawer in the desk to get his laptop. As he lifts the computer out of the drawer, we see that he also has a pistol in there. Putting the laptop onto the desk and opening the lid he looks at the webpage which has automatically loaded. It reads, “The personal blog of Dr. John H. Watson”. The rest of the page is blank.
Later he is at his psychotherapist’s office and he sits in a chair opposite her.
ELLA: How’s your blog going?
JOHN: Yeah, good. (He clears his throat awkwardly.) Very good.
ELLA: You haven’t written a word, have you?
JOHN (pointing to Ella’s notepad on her lap): You just wrote, “Still has trust issues.”
ELLA: And you read my writing upside down. D’you see what I mean?
(John smiles awkwardly.)
ELLA: John, you’re a soldier, and it’s gonna take you a while to adjust to civilian life; and writing a blog about everything that happens to you will honestly help you.
(John gazes back at her, his face full of despair.)
JOHN: Nothing happens to me.
–
This is an excerpt from the transcript of “A Study In Pink,” pilot episode of the British Broadcasting Co.’s TV show “Sherlock,” a modernized retelling of Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Episode written by Steven Moffat.
“But your death, it won’t happen to you
It happens to your family and your friends
I pretend…”
.
That was a quote from some song lyrics by Matty Healy of the 1975, for a song called “I always wanna die (sometimes)” on a record called a brief inquiry into online relationships published in 2018.
.
One thing about working at the café is that I have access to, like, an exceptionally good quality sound system to play whatever music I would like to play before the café opens. I am on one hell of a 1975 kick right now, so I’m in there alone blasting music. Immensely fond of this particular british indie rocker/recovering heroin addict songwriter man. I think he’s a sad pathetic wet cat idiot but we love him anyway.
So the thing about blasting the 1975 generic playlist over the speakers at work. Is that when a song called “I always wanna die (sometimes)” is on the playlist and blasting over speakers there is a real possibility that your boss will walk in on you chopping up some onions and crying and she’ll give you funny look, and then ask if she can have a slice of rye toasted for some specialty butter she stole from over in the consessions department. And you make her some toast and in the background Matty Healy is just going “AND I ALWAYS WANNA DIE SOMETIMES… AND I ALWAYS WANNA DIE SOMETIMES…” and she’s awkwardly standing there as you say of course you will make her some toast out of a slice of rye and you talk about how many foods can be used as a vehicle for stress eating delicious stolen butter and you actually have some pretty good banter going there for a minute and then she walks away and you’re like. Fuck. Standing there wanting to bury your head in your hands from embarrassment.
But then she is especially kind to you for the rest of the day. Not in a condescending way. Just being friendly. And you think – fuck it, the Matty Healy in me sees and acknowledges the Matty Healy in you.
Namaste.
How does one decide what to wear to the orchestra?
We almost didn’t go to the orchestra.
At about noon I had a panic attack so big I almost exploded into a thousand little fragmented shards of glass and Steve, who had no idea what was happening, just had to try to hold me until I got to a place where he could help me remember how to breathe again.
Steve asked me if I still wanted to go to the orchestra. I said no. Then I said yes on the condition that I could literally wear sweatpants and a carhartt bomber jacket. He just smiled and said that would be fine. We went to the fitness center because not going would have been worse. It was good to move.
Then we got home and had to actually decide what to wear to the orchestra – $21 for each ticket I had purchased so far in advance that I had almost forgotten this concert was even on the books.
I tried on the wrong outfit first. It was a long red dress with a frankly unwise amount of cleavage and bare arms, high healed shoes, dangly gold-colored sparkly earrings shaped like fish skeletons, a gold-colored necklace featuring a pendant with a line drawing of a rose, and red nail polish. A femme version of me exists and is possibly quite stunning, but she doesn’t actually surface often and crucially this was not to right outfit for me to wear this evening.
So I ditched the red dress and high heals in favor of black jeans, a well fitted black blazer to match Steve, and combat boots. But I kept the gold-colored necklace and dangly earrings shaped like fish skeletons, of which I am growing rather fond. I kept the nail polish, too. This was significantly more comfortable than the dress would have been, on a lot of different levels.
We drove to the parking garage and walked in to the little café outside the hall and had a glass of wine. Steve told me a little about the life of Nietzsche, a philosopher who lived with significant mental and physical disabilities for most of his life and whose writings aggressively critiqued anything he believed to be life-denying.
The orchestra’s performance of “Also Sprach Zarathustra” from Strauss was powerful, moving, and cathartic. It is one of those big climactic pieces of music where everyone knows the first six bars, partly because it was featured in 2001: A Space Odyssey in 1968. During the intermission I took of my boots and curled up sideways in the chair in the theater and rested my head against the back of the chair and put my legs across Steve’s lap and looked up at the paintings on the walls of the hall and looked up at the chandelier.
Listened to Italian pop music all the way home.
“Being good will never solve the problem because the problem is not that I am bad”
~ Clementine Morrigan
em and I have just arrived at the conclusion that as a direct answer to recent events, we should all be dying our hair blue
Hhhhhhhhhuh time to buy him flowers again I guess
Okay, so what’s the plan for working with Republicans to get the US to stop supporting the genocide in Palestine? With this new administration specifically.
If your views align with leftist politics and you didn’t vote for the Harris administration because you didn’t think you could work with them on this one specific foreign policy issue, at the expense of countless domestic issues, I would be fascinated to hear literally any strategy for working with the administration we are about to have to create the meaningful change necessary to stop supporting this genocide or any other.
I mean we could tell them that slaughtering innocent civilians is antithetical to christian values, in addition to being fiscally irresponsible [citation available upon request].
But also fascist governments really like money, and weapons dealing is an extremely profitable industry.
.
So like. What exactly is the plan?
–
The first step of creating change is ensuring public awareness but it is not enough for everyone to sit there and go insane acting as witnesses to the horrors without makiing a plan for what to do
–
Hell hath no fury.
Now let this be the thing that lights a fire under your ass
*reaches out and takes your hand and doesn’t let go for a minute*
Look at me. Look at me. Hey. Good, thank you. While I’ve got your attention –
*hands you a jar of cold water and watches you doggedly until you have managed to drink some of it*
Okay.
Big breath in. Hold. Release.
In 39 years I would like for us to be sitting on a front porch together somewhere reminiscing about the way US politics were back in the 20’s. Do you remember that year? God, that was shitty. Remember how none of us could sleep because we were wondering if the good guys were going to win, and we thought – is there even such a thing as good guys and bad guys, and it got really philosophical for a hot minute there. Do you remember how we sent that punk of ours off to Brooklyn on an overnight bus because she cared enough to vote in her hometown. In 39 years I’ll be reminiscing about what politics were like back in the 20s and I would be honored if you would still like be there to do that with me. Please. That would mean a lot to me. Okay?
Okay.
Just the Misha Collins part of the meme.
have just convinced drunk Steve (three shots of emotional support bottle of whiskey and a very long day) that zydeco dancing in the living room, petting the cat, looking at pictures of waterfalls, listening to the same song over and over again (ft. vaugely risqué lyrics and pretty acoustic harmony), and watching V for Vendetta are all objectively better activities for staying up late than watching election results coverage
No matter what happens
There’s still going to be work to do.
There are still going to be things to fight for
People to stand up for
There’s you.
No matter what happens, there is still going to be an infinite collection
Of small corners of the world
Where an apparently insignificant outcome comes down, in the end
To a conversation
A judgement call
Based on the previous inculcations
Of perspective, insight, nuance, fact.
Brief flashes of understanding
Of things I hadn’t seen before
Because I didn’t know to look
These are things which, in small ways
Affect everything I do
All the actions that don’t seem like they mean very much
By themselves.
No matter what happens,
No matter which rich white man wins
There’s still going to be work to do.
One path might be worlds more heartbreaking to walk than the other,
Especially right now.
And we don’t know yet
Which path we’re going to be walking
I will walk down either path, even though
I guess I could turn my back on everything
And I guess this is technically a choice, to keep walking
Even if I have to stop and rest periodically to keep my legs from giving out
I’ll be back, on the path, when I can
Because this is a choice I decided to keep making
A long time ago.
And it helps me to remember
Even when it’s impossibly hard to remember
That I am not walking alone.
–
I wrote and published this poem for this blog on November 4th, 2020.
Four years ago I was drinking cheap whiskey, watching comedy central, perpetually doomscrolling, wanting to cry, feeling as though I was living through the beginning of the end of the world because my specific chronically online internet echo chambers kept telling me that was true. This was me trying to fight back against that hopeless feeling.
I have absolutely needed to rest
but I still haven’t turned my back on everything
I’m still walking
And I still have you.
my fake persona at work at the café is a grumpy antisocial butch with a filthy mind who collaboratively objectifies hot people for fun but is intentionally respectful and supportive of women, doesn’t like the company of men and will talk shit about them, doesn’t care about politics, is teachable and responds well to praise but gets closed off in response to criticism or anyone attempting to teach them “the right way” to do anything, doesn’t take shit from anyone, is thorough about completing the daily list of tasks, and is confident and calm in a crisis (especially during a busy shift).
–
my less fake persona with my friends is a socially awkward nerd with a sensory processing disorder armed with a paper cup of chai tea and a flannel collection
I cannot sleep. Perhaps if I shine a flashlight that tells me bad news directly into my eyes for a couple of hours, that’ll calm me down and make it easier for me to relax.
for Halloween I am dressing up as a butch lesbian
there are times when I should be forbidden to write, such as when I am actively dysregulated and it’s late and I should be asleep but I’m not and writing feels less like partaking in the divine art of creation and more like inflicting something harsh upon anyone who cares to read – including myself, a little further along the timeline, when I wake up with a headache and a belly full of regret in the morning.
this concern does not usually stop me, though perhaps it would be kinder and more loving for everybody if it did.
Why do people smile when they look at me. It’s like – this smirk as if they know something that I don’t know. Why are they doing that. Why. What have I done. Is there something stuck in my teeth. Am I beautiful? Is that it? It cannot be that I am beautiful, I look like – like two elbows. Have I said something wrong. Are they laughing at me. What is going on. Why are they looking at me like that. Please don’t, it’s embarrassing, it’s as if they can read what I am thinking and they think it’s funny but I don’t know why. Christ. Lord help me. What are they laughing about. I cannot possibly fathom what I am doing to provoke this. I expect nothing less in the future than to be constantly bullied as if I am one of the boys and yet people keep loking at me as if I have done something ingraciatingly cute when I really haven’t. Why. What happened. Is it because I made a joke that indicates that I am not a sweet innocent summer child and that’s unexpected because I look like one. Let me be –
Complete mastery of one’s native language in the spoken or written form has little relationship to one’s ability as a writer. If nothing else the minor grammatical errors and typos and other mistakes will carve out a distinctive voice for the writer and also let the reader know that what they are reading was not made by generative AI but rather made from scratch by a human being. Beyond a certain point past which the writing is clear, comprehensible, and pleasant for the reader – striving for an arbitrary standard of linguistic perfection is a distraction from actually having something worthwhile to say. Why should we say “this peice of writing is a rough draft, unfinished, not good enough for the eyes and minds of other people” before it has been scratched up with a red pen?
In other words turn in the gods damned paper it is likely good enough already
I would rather get him flowers than poison my own lungs and those things cost me almost exactly the same in terms of this stupid artificial currency I have to work with and so it’s not a difficult decision to make
Genuine question for the politically conscious and the socially concerned.
Imagine you are young and broke. This week you have $25 superfluous dollars that you don’t have to spend on rent or a car payment or a phone bill or groceries or gasoline etc.. There are currently local, state and national elections happening, the outcome of which will have significant implications for the well being of billions of people. What are you doing with your $25?
.
(a) donating to a campaign fundraiser to support a candidate you’d prefer to see in charge of the executive branch of the government of your nation for the next few years. Alternatively, supporting a more local campaign.
(b) donating food to a local pantry. You want to see good done in the world, but you don’t trust far away politicians to make that happen. You’re doing your best in your own little corner of the world.
(c) donating directly to a cause you support, such as a nonprofit organization that operates independently from government. You think the limited resources you have to give are better allocated directly in the hands of organizations you believe are doing good work, outside of the political sphere.
(d) spending a little extra money on a luxury item you personally would like that would improve your quality of life, such as a pair of shoes or a paperback, a nice meal, tickets to see a show. You are putting your needs and wants first. If you don’t do these kind things for yourself, who will? You do not think of this as selfish, you think of this as putting your own oxygen mask on first.
(e) getting flowers for someone you love very dearly, because if the world is going up in flames you will be damned if you aren’t going to use your limited time and resources you have left to do everything in your power to make them happy.
(f) buying booze or drugs or cigarettes or all of the above to numb yourself to the incredible pain of watching the fall of civilizations in real time.
.
What are we doing with this hypothetical $25? Asking for a friend.
We have a lot of choices. The pressure to make certain decisions is very real. I’m just curious.
Staying in. Frying banana walnut pancakes in butter on the griddle and drowned them in maple syrup on a plate. Listening to an interesting interview on YouTube. Listening to podcasts. Scrolling. Scrolling. Scrolling. Looking at art. Beanie, sweatpants, sweatshirt.
Tired eyes. Wrists and knees and knuckles swollen and sholders aching with arthritis. Coloring with cheap markers on a page decorated with fall leaves in a coloring book. Sipping coffee. Working at the café, later. Tired, tired eyes.
I bought my first pack of cigarettes from the corner store down the side street from work. It cost me $17. That’s more than I make in tips on a slow night at the café.
I remember the smell of smoke on the breeze at a music festival and the memory is pleasant. Nostalgic. Wrapped up with recollections of music and dancing and crying from partying for three days ad a child without sleeping and probably sensory issues from a bad contact high.
I don’t smoke the cigarettes. I am flirting with the idea of a nicotine addiction to cope with the painful stress of working fast shifts in food service until 10PM several nights a week. I am flirting with an excuse to step outside and take a breath when I am tired. I am flirting with the concept of dying an early death from lung cancer because I might slightly prefer this to a future of growing old and being lonely. But I do not smoke the cigarettes. I just have them in my bag.
What did you get at the corner store? Our jewish line cook with bad teeth and a beanie who inhales vape juice and has red bull energy drinks in his veins wants to know.
I tell him. He is suddenly very still. This man, who quotes bad takes from republican talk shows and constantly talks shit about his partner. This man, who is nice to me and on the worst days will hit me with the words don’t quit on me. He looks sad.
“Don’t start,” he tells me. “It isn’t worth it.”
One time my mom caught me leaning out the window of my attic bedroom smoking from a pack of camels I confiscated from a friend. I told the friend I was smoking them – he used to roll his own from a huge discount bag of cheap mystery tobacco. He had a smokers cough. He said that he could quit at any time. He nearly always had a cigarette in his hand.
“You should throw those away,” he told me. “It isn’t worth it.”
I did throw them away. But after my mom caught me smoking out the window, exactly one time, all hell broke loose between us. This was around the time of the beginning of the mutually toxic power struggle from hell.
During the worst of it, I turned to my kid sister, who has been smoking for years. I crashed on the couch at the trailer, which was so full of smoke you could hardly see through the smog. I stole a lighter from her redneck mechanic roommate.
The other day I ordered a latte with a shot of espresso and the buzz from the caffeine had me shaking and nauseous and wanting to cry, so I walked up the cemetery and sat alone under a tree by the tomb and smoked a cigarette and looked up through the burnt orange leaves at the blue of an October sky. And I felt truly peaceful calm for the first time in days. My lungs stil hurt pretty badly from the smoke. I’ve been coughing.
I have to be so careful with that sensation of quiet, of calm. The temptation is to use that on purpose, as medicine, because god knows I could use that in nearly every waking moment of my days.
And then I went back to work.
The other night I was washing dishes at closing and my arms were in hot greasy water up to my elbows, and I thought – what if in all of rest of my life, this was all there was? And I think I probably wanted to cry again, then, too.
–
“Don’t quit on me.”