I missed this page. I miss my life when I had nothing or when I felt like I was somehting with a little too little to be something. Caleb's friend's aunt, Antoinette is awake. She won't interrupt me because she doesn't know that I've been awake since 3:30. I just started to tear up over
I let my mind run wild
I don't know why I do it
But you just settle in
Like a song with no end
i need an editor who understands me. I can;t fkeep feeling like I'm failing my fingers everyt time i sit down to correct their mistakes. I hate feeling like something is worse than it could be, and that's exactly what editing is. Yet, for some reason, I feel so cocky about my changes whenever I edit osmeone else's work. ughhhhhh. I need someone who can be that cocky about my writing. I have yet to meet a single person. It feels awful. Like I'm stranded on some island, wrapped up in delusions.
and when I see that poor fuck in the sand I want him buried. so
in red soft leather chair. i have such a hard time reading the news, but it's addicting. I have such a hard time distracting myself from my personal goals, but i'm addicted. Addicted. It is necessary. Fonts. need to pick fonts for parts.
i feel horrible. what descended? let me sit with that I feel horrible. I have blended. I have opened my arms to the hurt and am now feeling it.
I just cooked:
This font represents a reassuring part
This font represents an ambiguous blend
This font represents a Tough Guy
This font represents a narrator, structurer, contextualizer
Hello. I would like to reassure you. Thank you for listening to me. I’m really a nice person. I want you to know that you are too. You don’t need to be sad. If you cry that’s okay but I would prefer if you don’t, because I want you to be happy. I picked out this font because it looks nice.
Wait do you know you’re a part of me?
Im just trying to be nice and I want to help you. This font reminds me of a cartoon character child smiling. A little redheaded fat boy with freckles. Not fat in a mean way but in a kind way.
I think the little redhead is chubby but I don’t think this helpful (?) part would call him fat. That comment must have come from a part that was okay being offensive at the cost of an accurate description. I think the entire description was by a different part who wanted to be creative and specific and intentional with my description
Does my breathing change whenever you’re speaking?
Well I don’t know I’m not the master of that.
Hello. Look at me! Haha wow. Well I guess I don’t believe you that you are excited about me having a voice. I guess I feel like you might want me not to have a voice. I guess there are parts that don’t want me to have a voice.
well I guess You’re gonna have to suck it up.
Why do you want me to suck it up? I’m always trying to be nice.
Sorry god shut up stop fucking changing everything . Ug You have to suck it up because we all have to suck it up. It’s called life.
I like you though. So what do you have to suck up?
You have to suck up that nobody likes you. AGH! Stop it.
Hey, I’m here. It’s okay. We can go slow through this.
Stop talking to me like I’m some fucking infant. And you know what? I’m not. I’m a grown up.
Okay. I hear you. I’m really sad right now. For you, that is. I’m listenign and I care deeply about what you have to say.
Let’s just all shut up okay.
Okay, I’m going to ask if everyone could take a deep breath with me, and maybe a couple steps away from us. We don’t want anyone to feel overwhelmed, right? Breathing in. And breathing out. Maybe we should do another that was pretty nice. Yeah. That was nice.
Everyone’s still yelling at me.
What are they saying to you, Chaitan?
They want me to stop being such a bitch
Wow, that’s hurtful. I’m okay with you as you are.
Well I don’t care what you think, I care what they think?
Who is they?
Alex. And Andrew.
I remember them. What do you remember about them
They were always talking about me and making me feel like I was an outsider to their friendship.
Aw dude that’s fucking terrible.
Yeah. It was. IT was terrible, especially because they were so cool.
They were pretty cool. What made them cool to you?
The way they carried themselves, like they knew everyone respected them. The way that the look at me, like I was some foreign object. I guess they felt real to me, more real than I felt.
Hey, you seem a little calmer.
Yeah this font is too loud now, lol.
Okay, let’s get someone to turn it down a bit.
How’s this? This is nice. Hi.
Hi! I’m really happy we’re having this conversation.
Well. Let’s get back to what you were saying
Okay. Too small! I AM NOT SMALL.
No, no, so sorry. Hold on one second, ok?
Hey. Hi. As I was saying. They always kept me at arm’s length, and that felt deserved. They were cool and I wasn’t, so it was only natural that I should be held away from them. Pushed away, I guess is what happened. God that really hurt. They were the only people in the school that I actually liked. Well, them and angel.
Angel!!! He was so sweet. Gosh what an angel he was.
Yeah TOO SMALLLLLLL
Sorry. Hmm let me fix this.
Okay. I’m starting to feel more comfortable here. There’s less yelling at me. I was standing on the diving board, trying to jump, but I was feeling scared. I guess Alex was in the water and yelled Just jump you bitch. Maybe that was Eldar who yelled back then. But it was Alex just now.
Can We talk with Eldar? Is he here? First, let me make sure it’s okay with you.
It’s fine.
Are you sure, friend?
Are you really my friend?
I really want to be your friend. Remember earlier, when I said I just want to be your friend?
Yeah. I’m a man.
Okay. Why?
Well. I’m strong. I’m not a bitch. I can do anything that you dare me to do. I’ll even punch a teacher or whatever.
Really? You would do that?
No.. I guess I wouldn’t do anything mean. Or anything that might hurt me. That’s why I was afraid to jump. I didn’t want to break my neck trying to flip.
Jeez.
Yeah, I know right? Why the fuck would Eldar want my neck broken?
He sounds like Pierce, like someone who wants what is “best” for other people, but only from his daredevil point of view.
Yeah. I’m sorry I told you to suck it up. I guess I don’t want to suck up this jump. But I’m also excited to hit the cold water and have it take over my senses.
Wow. You’re great at speaking, you know that Chaitan?
Shut up. Sorry.
It’s okay. Why did you get mad at me for saying that?
You’re trying to make me feel worse for being bad
Oh, no that was exactly not my intention. I was trying to point out that the things you might consider to make a good person are things you are.
Well, it only made me feel worse about being a dick.
Well, that’s okay. I knew you were just making sure everyone was protected from being hurt.
I trust you, you know?
Wow. Thank you so much. I trust you so much. I really do.
Can we hug or is that gay?
I think I would love to hug you. We’re breathing deeply, and we’re hugging, and we;’re breathing deeply together inside one another and I can feel you and it’s amazing.
That sounded so gay oh my god. Haha .I guess it’s okay though. It didn’t feel gay
Haha. It’d be okay with me if it did.
Can we stop? It feels quiet.
Well of course we can. But one last question, if that’s okay?
.. yes, that’s okay
Can you get my attention if you need to speak again? I liked having spoken with you, and if you ever need to do so again, I’m here.
Yeah. I’ll tap you on the shoulder. I’ll make sure our shoulders are wide and strong and then you’ll know that I hope they are.
Then I’ll know. Thanks dude. You’re awesome.
Shut up. Thanks. Fuck you.
Woah. Still got stuff to say?
Yeah. I feel bad for cursing you out but your compliments make me feel worse about myself.
Okay. Would you prefer if I don’t vocalize my positive thoughts about you?
No. I guess- I want to tell you why they make me feel bad
Well go ahead. I think I know why though.
Great… Ugh
Sorry. That didn’t feel like me, but I just wanted to let you know that I was listening and remember what you said earlier.
Okay. Well. Whatever. I
I’m sorry.
No no
Hey it’s okay. Come here.
He starts crying into my chest. He sobers up.
Nobody ever listens to me
That sucked so bad
Yeah
I’m sorry for crying
You’re most okay. I think we both know how awesome that was
Sorry to butt in. That was really awesome for us too. I think we’ve gotta get going.
revolutionary road
and holy shit i am filled with dread, with this pitiful sadness for shame inexpressible for sorrow unsympathized for remorse seeping into every last thing. The way april curls against the passenger seat away from Franklin, taking out his sympathy on the cast and the director in anger instead of sadness. this brutal fear to look the pain in it's unwavering eye. even I can't do it.
I open my computer to write this note so that I can capture my throat clenched squirm but even the act of this writing is too much, so i go to instagram to message to distract to look away. Yates is so courageous. Wow. Implicit is my contrast.
At Being Uncomfortable
I don’t use umbrellas or raincoats or whatever. I keep my one key in my wallet. On a good day, I have a pack of juicy fruit to stuff into my pocket. Otherwise, I leave the house with my phone, my wallet, and a pen. A good day because gum absconds my mouth of productive purpose, contributive energy otherwise shunted to speech. I spend much of my life performing minute gestures towards escape, what some call fidgeting. Fidgeting is a word that is powerless. Its sound and connotation say nothing to the dissociative, nervous, scared, avoidant nature of the movements entailed, towards one’s compulsive fixation on change. “I noticed that my opponent is always on the go / and won't go slow, so's not to focus, and I notice / he'll hitch a ride with any guide, as long as / they go fast from whence he came / but he's no good at being uncomfortable, so / he can't stop staying exactly the same.” Fiona Apple. I see myself, but doesn’t that mean I don’t?
After a brief search, however, I have come to know that the word is derived from an Old Norse word “fyken,” to move about restlessly. This word, it appears, has an interesting connotation, one that perhaps speaks to the “good day” quality of my juicy fruit. “Fyken” comes from the word “fikjask,” meaning to desire eagerly, suggesting that to fidget and to fuck are linguistically connected. A good day indeed, says my salivary gland, watering at the thought of bursting joy, two pieces of yellow powdery white Juicy Fruit, two to blow better bubbles, to pop away another wandered thought back into the present. I must apologize—there was and remains to be no intended tone of vulgar euphemism. Continuing on.
I once called these little fidgets—each chew of gum, each removal and replacement of the cap of the pen in my pocket, each twirl of my hair—stammers of the suckle. They seem very much infantile, unaware, casually vulnerable and delicate without intention or protection, like a baby wanting the nipple without the words to ask. They’re societally accepted moments of self-doubt, where we pause in the thoughts of actions, the polarized threshold. Lou Reed says “Between thought and expression / lies a lifetime.” That’s a harsh way to look at it. I must say, I never find myself doubting whether I should eat the last piece of Juicy Fruit. It is one of those moments in a day that I can come to call good when I allow myself to act without the self-censorship of a scarcity mindset.
I am told that the societally accepted view of Juicy Fruit is negative. I don’t understand. It is relentlessly nostalgic, like the song your parents played for you hundreds of times every single night to put you to sleep. Well, I guess not… Baby Beluga doesn’t seem to have that effect on me anymore. But Juicy Fruit explodes with simple satisfaction for the hundredth time, thousandth time, just as the first.
In the mornings, I check the flimsy yellow paper containers for straggler pieces; I throw away empty cardboard boxes; I pocket full boxes; By the time I return home, my pockets, filled with unused second-piece-wrappers and smelling most wonderful, are depleted of gum. Of course, in the rushed dethresholding that oft occurs returning from long day, I have no interest in throwing away those empty boxes, in engaging with the morning me that has that motivation, that courage to act. I simply shove the empty box onto my dresser, next to my phone, my wallet, and my Pilot Fineliner pen. I pull my pants off, and I get in bed. A new threshold awaits.
Chaitan Butte
Feb 4 2pm
Doors are so stupid. I just closed the door to my girlfriend’s room, but I can still hear “That’s So True” pouring insipid and unrelenting out on from laptop speakers, her roommate’s, another dear friend currently catharted by Gracie Abrams. I came in here to stop hearing them, to write, so I closed the door, but the little thin piece of wood, disjointed and never to become whole with the rest of the world again, fails to accomplish its task. I can still hear their every word, their mutterings of thank you and hollerings of wait, what?? And I’m worried they can hear mine, feel my typings, listen to my laments, and wow… the wind. I can hear it fully. That’s not through the door, that’s through the window. My goodness, am I unsafe from everything? Through the roof, I can hear the rain pizzle pazzle. So my attention must turn there, a belief after belief billowing through me like bile: the rain sounds are loud, you should appreciate it, the rain sounds loud, you should be annoyed by it, the roof is so thin, you should be worried, the roof is so thin, you should be annoyed. Now we all say: hello through line!! Hello through line!
I’m annoyed, and it’s not with this roof and window for their barely filtered access to the chaotic sounds of the mother… or this door, for opening my attention into the world of the rest of the apartment. I’m mad at the door of the room I grew up in, also thin, unprotecting, and impotent. I’m mad at the sounds of my mother, on the other side, controlled chaos funnelled from her childhood into mine. I’m mad at the door, for having closed, only for the simple action to be begged into reversal. Why? Why? Can’t you tell that the door is closed for a reason? Does this door, hack jobbing as a wall to the outside whirl, not mean anything to you? What about the lock, pushed into depression, keeping the handle, the door’s gateway drug, from ever budging. What about that responsibility, the choice to unclick and twist from the inside, a choice between resolution and exile. The door placed such a burden on me.
I would usually be reading calvin and hobbes, trying to pretend like I could flip the pages, scan the panels, until the pain faded. I spent many minutes in this exile, in my room hoping time would stand still, hoping that the monstrous slam and the ominous click would deter predators and parents alike. Maybe part of me grieved the imposition that such noises created, the violence towards kin. The door gave me that, the means to slam, to exile myself into the world of Watterson. Thank you, I might find myself saying to the nearest door. I’m sorry, I might hear myself telling the grief, the inability to not shut out and shut down, the failure to comprehend the infinite permeability of good faith in parenthood.
I’m in a different room, in a different time now. The walls are blue and the desk is in the corner, piled high with books and papers, none of which academic, none of which intellectual. I was wary on intellectualism, wary on the place in front of the desk where a thinker stumped. But stowed against the back of my trundle bed, I’m impatiently waiting to be impeded, trampled into recognition of right and wrong, into perspective. I’m telling myself I know what went down, who went awry, why I’m crying. I’m not crying. But I’m telling myself I know, I know, I know. I hear you, I might have said, were it not for the pressure in my ears, the popping of the lock as I slinked off my bed to the door to do so, the pressure to be heard and the the pressure to hear. Fuckin’ door. Why do you let their pleas through? Why do my tear drops dry up when they enter? Why did the rain stop? Reply from Chaitan Butte
Doors are so stupid. I just closed the door to my girlfriend’s room, but I can still hear “That’s So True” pouring insipid and unrelenting out on from laptop speakers, her roommate’s, another dear friend currently catharted by Gracie Abrams. I came in here to stop hearing them, to write, so I closed the door, but the little thin piece of wood, disjointed and never to become whole with the rest of the world again, fails to accomplish its task. I can still hear their every word, their mutterings of thank you and hollerings of wait, what?? And I’m worried they can hear mine, feel my typings, listen to my laments, and wow… the wind. I can hear it fully. That’s not through the door, that’s through the window. My goodness, am I unsafe from everything? Through the roof, I can hear the rain pizzle pazzle. So my attention must turn there, a belief after belief billowing through me like bile: the rain sounds are loud, you should appreciate it, the rain sounds loud, you should be annoyed by it, the roof is so thin, you should be worried, the roof is so thin, you should be annoyed. Now we all say: hello through line!! Hello through line!
I’m annoyed, and it’s not with this roof and window for their barely filtered access to the chaotic sounds of the mother… or this door, for opening my attention into the world of the rest of the apartment. I’m mad at the door of the room I grew up in, also thin, unprotecting, and impotent. I’m mad at the sounds of my mother, on the other side, controlled chaos funnelled from her childhood into mine. I’m mad at the door, for having closed, only for the simple action to be begged into reversal. Why? Why? Can’t you tell that the door is closed for a reason? Does this door, hack jobbing as a wall to the outside whirl, not mean anything to you? What about the lock, pushed into depression, keeping the handle, the door’s gateway drug, from ever budging. What about that responsibility, the choice to unclick and twist from the inside, a choice between resolution and exile. The door placed such a burden on me.
I would usually be reading calvin and hobbes, trying to pretend like I could flip the pages, scan the panels, until the pain faded. I spent many minutes in this exile, in my room hoping time would stand still, hoping that the monstrous slam and the ominous click would deter predators and parents alike. Maybe part of me grieved the imposition that such noises created, the violence towards kin. The door gave me that, the means to slam, to exile myself into the world of Watterson. Thank you, I might find myself saying to the nearest door. I’m sorry, I might hear myself telling the grief, the inability to not shut out and shut down, the failure to comprehend the infinite permeability of good faith in parenthood.
I’m in a different room, in a different time now. The walls are blue and the desk is in the corner, piled high with books and papers, none of which academic, none of which intellectual. I was wary on intellectualism, wary on the place in front of the desk where a thinker stumped. But stowed against the back of my trundle bed, I’m impatiently waiting to be impeded, trampled into recognition of right and wrong, into perspective. I’m telling myself I know what went down, who went awry, why I’m crying. I’m not crying. But I’m telling myself I know, I know, I know. I hear you, I might have said, were it not for the pressure in my ears, the popping of the lock as I slinked off my bed to the door to do so, the pressure to be heard and the the pressure to hear. Fuckin’ door. Why do you let their pleas through? Why do my tear drops dry up when they enter? Why did the rain stop?
words only come easy when i'm not involved
no words
worms
i hear voicing calling out defenses for my lack
he worked through things like worms slowly and surely breaking down soil into meaning
he may not have been prolific but he struggled under forces heavy enough to catapult himself far away
he may not have changed the world but his one goodness proves himself a member of the satisfactory elite, the ones who changed hearts enough to matter
he sees the words that ring his doorbell standing outside in the cold rain and never did he wish for them anything but the dry glow of greatness
i find myself unable to write the words I am asked, but instead, drawn to the tail of the donkey, the blind meandering of prose that only my fingers can find. does it matter where?
The song is nine minutes long. Whatever comes out now will be what rocks.
Tweedle dee dum dum, humming to the tune of my own song, song sung, hips shaken and stirred against the subtle humdum bass drum groove of your soul, against the side, scratching and murmuring in kind, like nothing else except the face of the one you love, the testing and the taking of another step, another chance to make things right, to get the first touch taken and then last breath inhaled, smelling of dew and of lavender, of cauliflower and clouds, of soggy mornings and stale evenings, past the bedtime but before the dawn.
here we go again, breathing, taking whatever can be took, in and down from the tops of the trees and the sidewinding streets of the mountain behind your house, in and inside the mouth of tree tongued chameleons, of a desperate attempt to keep things tied up and swallowed, to keep the night away from the good light, the light that takes you in and turns you around, spins you until you feel like getting rid of everything we ever built together, all the wood beams and dust mites, all the vacuum jobs in spite and in hope that the feeling, the tawny ache, wouldn’t seep back in.
It’s so easy to replace it. It’s so easy to take things slowly when the world feels locked, when time stood still because she had to, because whether the light was red or the line was flat, it's up to you. It’s hard enough to feel dead in the mornings. Try feeling alive. Christ, do we ever give ourselves enough credit? Can we take in anything? There might be something on the edge of okay, always around the corner and inside the bud that never really blooms. How many corners will we turn before the chase becomes a case, before the edge of things catches up to us, and the lights turn out?
We don’t really get along, me and her, but we try, and what does that mean anyways? Why should we try to get along when our breaths do enough for the both of us, intermingling intertwined and in love. Does this make sense? I can’t hear you. No, no, no. I guess things don’t need to be anything other than they are, that this thing in my hands and my mouth, behind my eyes and my sighs, my hear and my stove, this thing i have is.
maybe i should take notes from my class on here. I feel this saddening urge to be heard, unfortunately dismissed repeatedly by a hold-on hand held to my face.
hmm re last post... i draw a strong boundary between life and death, between continuity and finality, between the river and the stone, between movement and stillness.
Okay - an imperative.
I seek to catalogue emotions in terms of multiplicity. From these eyes, the biggest emotional "problem" suffering our world is mainstream masculinity's rejection of multiplicity, demand of unity, pressure of conformity, reductions of identity, culling of diversity.
My research will pertain to the soul -- towards a language to describe the force that I currently have too few words and too much meaning to enunciate. I have taken to calling it The River. Here are some words that currently describe the river:
Life. The river is a vital force that empowers the multiplicitous (as in, both literal and metaphorical) metaphorical beating of our heart. It is the blood that our heart pumps, the muscle that pumps it, and the fuel that our engine runs on. It is the substance and sustenance of life. In terms of the river, it is the water that shapes the riverbed, meaning it is also the riverbed, and the downward tilt that it possesses. (if downward tilt is ostensibly incorrect, disregard).
Love. This is a force that is immanent in all behavior, thought, action, and intention. Before we are socialized, we are this force. This experience of life is the experience of pure experience, and lacking all emotional imperatives, we only feel one emotion, less an emotion than a state, ongoing until (and perhaps before/after) death. It is an activity of constant concurrent awareness and acceptance, that I call experience.
Implicit in this selfsame conception of life and love is a dissolution of any mind-body separation.
Socialization does eventually threaten our ability to experience without action and to act without intention--to live solely on the basis of this force, in a state of active experience--and these threats, when perceived, demand protective intentionality, what we might label as thought, emotion, or action. Here, morality and will arrive, accompanied by compassion and protection. I recognize that here, I am approaching Spinozan territory.
Because of the discontinuity in threat between activity and passivity -- the experience of these threats is a passive, indirect one, as in, the threats happen to us, but the perception of these threats is an active one, as in, "we" perceive the threats -- "we" are not the actors in said perception. Our lack of agency over the reactive protection to said threats is a manifestation of the lack of agency by which these threats arrived. Our agency, prior to said threats, manifested in experience. This does not change after threats occur. Rather, other abilities of the river (here, I approach the edge of my language to describe) react to protect. If there was a large rock impeding the flow of the river, the river would continue to flow over the rock until the rock is eroded (active voice, passive action) by the river. The water does not change, or act, it simply continues to exist in reaction to the rock. The difference between the river and the human is that the human does not possess (or is not taught) the language of this non-dualistic agentic existence, and instead, possesses the language of agency. This multiplicity of agency, to be both active and passive at once, at the whim of the flow of the river, but also, the flow of the river, is key to my research. Because the identity of these actors is, by now and by definition, imprecise, I will try to refrain from using pronouns to describe them.
Because the river is life, all action to protect this force should be held in terms of it being life or death necessity, with its moral connotations. Because the river is love, all action to is to protect the experience of love, with the moral connotations that that may entail. Actions to protect, or, to use more compelling verbs, to save life and to stay love are, to me, actions of utmost compassion and morality. The more complex a threat is perceived, the more precise and perceptive its reaction must be. Because all action stems from or is motivated by these pure intentions, all action is moral. This does not mean good, but it does mean "not bad."
There is much complication to be added here, but I think this justifies a solid framework to describe my understanding of human emotion. From where I sit here, words like anger and anxiety and hate are imprecise, or inaccurate, as they fail to describe what is occurring in compassionate terms, sans problematization, an evidenced necessity for all description of emotion and behavior.
This inaccuracy is especially severe in predominantly masculine spaces, where problematization of non-agency is perceived as necessary for improvement, success, and avoidance of weakness-related shame. Here, we encounter problems (intentional word choice): blame, bigotry, othering, and competition. In seeing these behaviors from the moralizing light of the river, I seek to de-problematize these behaviors and allow for explicit (external) compassion to permeate the culture, in synergy with predominant implicit compassion (internal).
the less i do the more spint up in my own not doings i bcome, the faster i unravel, the quicker I tire, spring metaphor, slinky to some,
i'm tired of wanting to speak and not having the words to make myself feel better. I've got to learn to just start somewhere, to just begin and know that everything is a point somewhere down the line. I just clicked away from this tab. I paused, so i clicked away. it was too uncomfortable, that brief moment of having nothing to say (for myself).
everyone is in the ktichen talking. claire is in her room on the phone with her mom. I'm on the couch in the cluttered empty living room, writing myself company. I could go in there, but there's nowhere for me to sit. That's not really true. I don't know.
i have so much to say fuck ufck fukc ufkc
read some stuff and at teh end of the reading of said stuff i put on hannah sun. present tense.
gotta get em out
gotta get out
gotta get
gotta give
fuckk
I read old blogs
one man wrote vitriol as his reason-to-be
he received gobs of hatemail, good stuff.
he let himself go on there, over and over, hating everything
hate set his fingers free and i wish it would happen to me
do no harm
how can i do no harm if my words have power, if my feelings have force
if the right thing flung from fingers once cautious of their futile ineffectuality can make me feel like this, what could the wrong thing do? probably absolutely nothing.
i have ideas, i tell myself, ideas, so many of them! I hear my mom, for she said the same thing to me just a few days ago. She was sitting on the cushion of the breakfast nook with the lip of her head held in her hands, her hair spouting over her fingers and down, covering her face, her eyes open and down, not really looking at the table, looking at the table. But I have so many ideas, she probably said.
i want to stop feeling like this. stop feeling soggy, logged, slogged. im mkaing the same face as my mom, in my head. I'm tired of not doing, tired of doing not doing, of being doing, tired of not being a doer. i'm tired of disappointing myself. I'm tired of taking distraction one day at a time, of taking direction one day. of putting sentences together to make myself feel better, with little effect other than a renewed disappointment in the endless connive for dopamine. i really feel myself to be pathetic, in this time of night.
--it's 2:17am. I have very little going for me. I have so much going for me I wish it never happened, wish I was still living the lie life, the lie that I deserved at the time, the lowlife loser who lost in fortnite again. At least then my desperate rerouting of lifeforce into the ocean (through the sewers, of course) would at least not be in vain. --I'm a terrible human being, a waste of time, a life that hasn't occured enough to even scorn. --I'm another fool trapped between glass panes--, watching the world with a bottle of windex and tissues.--
Okay.... goodnight. there's so much love that i'm simply unable to express because the lack must be listened to first.
drinking from my hard kombucha
and i'm looking at the lamp.
i'm slightly high but high enough to know that drinking from my hard combucha and looking at the lamp is behavior not worth discussing. it's easy. it's the natural result of millions of years of decades of generations of. how dandy. how grandyose. how delightful. wanted to write about Life tonight. inspired by man writing about hate. wanted to write about God. inspired by stella's father.
read lots of reddit tonight. realized there is an entire world of writing i know nothing about, one potentially highly potentiated by lotsa dopamine. Dope. Dopamine. Jesus christ, am I stupid or something?
😈😊😁🫵🔘
"the wind continues its push on these flames and it looks like we've lost another house. It had been holding on for a couple of hours... and now it seems it has been lost."
It's 10:47.
We've just about packed up everything that matters. It's all downstairs on our living room floor, in suitcases and duffels and kennels. There's a lot that matters... but I think we're good at choosing. All my stuff is in one carry on suitcase. Jesus. gotta go
6:48 pm
the fires are getting closer. the night is only beginning. I'm scared, because I know I'll be much, much more scared in 3 hours. i can only bear a minute or so outside, the trees are screaming in the wind. it's unbearable. they're bending over, 60 feet in the air, spines breaking, and if you don't think about it, they look like they're about to snap.
the border of evacuation is 6 blocks from our house. but the border is also the border to santa monica, and it could very well be that they lag, they falter, and we should already be preparing to leave. I'm scared.
This is the world I've been preparing myself for... the world burning 6 blocks from my home... of indifference and blame, of icy chattering hedges, trees writhing, pushed and bent and burning, outstretched arms forced back, into and towards chaotic embrace.
a casual frenzy, embers and all, just another day, just another night, just another dawn soon to come.
7pm now, and I'm scared.
happy new year
ugh
there you take my hands back... replace me
i hate waiting for people to respond... hashtag jury's OUT bitches!!
i have like 3 people that i've sent writing to that haven't responded... the first 3 adult writers I've ever sent my writing to... it's just an unhelpful gulp, in the back of my throat, that reminds me I'm not safe... not yet.
I hear screaming, in the form of the heater's mindless purr, above my head and surrounding me, endless warm air blowing, around and around and around, away!
Re command+tab, command+t, youtubenetflixemailetc: LOOK AWAY! He says deliberately, almost like he wants me to never look back
Bob dylan... looking away, always, never through, away and around and then finally at a place of realization... the aversion is dissatisfaction, but aversion to satisfaction is greater than any discomfort... the tickling nausea of something still being wrong is the greatest pain that laughter brings (the ones that walk away)... why would Mr. Zimmerman pursue satisfaction, if all it brings to the windshield of my mind is a (perceivably) inherent concern...
Re hearing things that are true but do not penetrate through: Its as if my lumps expand whenever part of me tries to pull those sentiments over them (wrap my head around), infinitely expansive and impeding of acceptance
its 5am. I woke up because of a dream (forgot) and went pee ferociously. It smelled of molasses so i went to get water. my mom was awake, or woke up, and joined me. we talked about the brutalist for a cursory one or two sentences. and departed back to our coves.
Hi
Thinking about death. I'm not sure what it means but I remember just how annoying an upset stomach is, and I think it might feel like that, but everywhere, in your throat and your bones and your eyes and your blood. Your heart hurts because the thing that has to happen is finally happening, and your head hurts because of all the things that you're now realizing didn't in fact have to happen, all the reasons that you had to live for that weren't reasons at all, no, just fingers pointed away from Him.
From the wrinkles on my forehead
To the mud upon my shoe
Everything's a memory
With strings that tie to you
Some old quack at a chilled white (wine) orgy told me that I should write about my dad, but I do, you simple town bastard, I do!
Not sure where this anger is coming from... well, that's honestly a really easy fix. It comes from "i've had a long year dad." Where's my "I Know Chaz," I want to ask... but I won't, and I don't, because long years aren't shit when He's waiting around the corner.
You say I can do it, definitely. I don't know, man. Sometimes it seems like the world could flow from my fingers or my lips and it wouldn't be enough to do what I really want to do... which means that my desires are internal... and that fingers are being pointed awayawayaway.
pointing fingers
our parts are really good at it
good points are made all day every day
i think something can only be a good point as a rebuttal, a response, a rebuke, even
but a true good point isn't responding to anything but the river
it isn't attempting to stop any flow, only to feel it
UGH THE RIVER PLEASE I NEED TO CAPTURE YOU
heres what I have so far:
the river is life, endless motion and flow, a force beyond words or dams or bridges or boats, just a current that carries us along
thing that I cup in my hands to never let fall like water from the clearest of snowmelt rivers
as we are socialized into capitalism, we lose the ability to empathize (and personalize) everything because capitalism demands a boundary between self and the other, between producer and consumer, mother and father, father and son, sister and brother, friend and friend, because production and consumption (and thus love and connection) are means to ends rather than intransient and ongoing processes of life… everything is The River
The walls vs the river
the river is the antonym of the wall
the river is life and death in the same metaphor, the river takes you towards the next place, nowhere else
its natural and damning but ridable, illusion of agency against its power
everyone thinks they're in their own river but they're not, we're all in the same river
the reason i say river is because of my internal demand for structure... if i didn't have direction i wouldn't have Self, or so my parts think
so, the river, and not the ocean
obviously water though
water... mmm
Quiet thumping on the outside door as I turn the second to last page. I look up but I don’t want to get up. I don’t have it in me. I’m entranced by the pause, the waiting for another knock, but in that moment of decision I leave myself and I let my everything be held in silence. I wonder if they love me. I scrap that thought. I decide that patience is stupid, but because I was held, I have an obligation to hold, or to at least grasp, at least reach. Outstretched I carry myself to the outside door. She returns nothing but a windy porridgeless night, and disappointed so, I slide lumpingly back to the chair in front of the cold fireplace. I suck the blanket back across my back and my chest and then my legs and hopefully my feet, with enough shuffling, my feet will no longer be cold. Socks are all the way upstairs. I’m so tired I couldn’t do that whatever it may be even if I tried, which I obviously won’t because I’m tired.
tears streaming down my face and snot dripping from the lip of my nose
tenth of december by george saunders
holy
one of the most beautiful moments of my life, up there with aftersun, and the couch and fiona on thursday
agh
aghhhhh
argh. i get so frustrated to think that I'll never do something this good, this true
george saunders ARGH!!!!! i want to go to syracuse and study under him
but i can't even get into a berkeley short fiction class, let alone a grad school
oh well
bitter tears
butter tears really, melted and soft, and making everything better
got to go love
tonight we swept across the carpet and the little gremlins that got stuck in the cracks could stay because the cuzzling of our soft summer feet was enough to call the world clean.
tomorrow we will dance and rejoice at the air, light and weird as it has become, to the dismay of callous acceptance.
and in the future we will sing across the moat and the sea, into the vast shaking earthworm salad.
There is a house by the moat with its front yard unswept, a grassy ceiling to the world with only furniture
Monsters monsters monsters!
The disreputable public knows not a shred of our business secrets, well, maybe a shred.
I say let them come, storm the moat in their aggrandizing boots, take the chambers but leave the maids a life raft, I don't think they ever had the chance to swim. Flood the pavilion with calls of senseless cessation. You'll see me through the parlor's sliding glass door, waiting outside with a question on my mind.
it is 2:35 am and I can't sleep. maybe because I drank a cappucino at 9:50 in order to finish my second and final final paper.
i fell asleep watching ceramics videos on youtube
stressed stressed going to die if i keep talkign im going to die, i think i am going to say something wrong i think i mgoing to die. i can;t i ahve to i cant i really cant its going to be horrible
Okay, I'm okay. Yes. Stern eyes. Looking down at the screen as my fingers pluck feelings until tips grasp truth. fuck all them "the"s
having dry hands make me feel bad about myself
i was quite insecure about the roughness and dryness of my hands as a small one, in elementary school people used to recoil when they touched my hands, they'd say woah! mwah.
now that I have put moisturizer on my hands I feel better. It takes me a long time to do little things like this, and that makes me feel like a very bad person. I struggle so deeply with the small physical acts of improvement. the putting up the shelfs, the putting on a jackets, the laundry the sheets the water the teeth.
enough with content. BULLSHIT! process time.
it feels pathetic to not improve myself, it feels lazy, it feels disappointing, father, boom. Great. As if it was that easy. Okay. onward. When I want to improve myself, I feel powerless to make real change. I feel an ineptitude of outcome that begs the question, why do it? Is this a symptom of an inherent ineptitude? Have I experienced little things making no difference in the past? well... quite the contrary actually. UGH! Remembering the few times I studied for math quizzes and got awesome grades... when I put my laundry away I feel confident and sure of my place. UGH!
Can't do this shit. BAD MOOD! Okay, better mood, that was goofy.
Later, in bed. Instead of writing an outline, I'm writing here. I can't live tomorrow through feeling as pent up as I do now. I would like to scream, but I've screamnt enough today. I would like to cry, but we all now how that goes.
i had a thought while walking home earlier... my hands are the first thing that someone touches, meets, of me. Perhaps part of me felt that through their inadequate softness, one could perceive my inadequate soul. Whew, that's a doozy. Inadequate. Inept. Words words words
Going to talk about something warmer. Someone I'm fond of reminds me to be fond--foolish, eager, tender--of that which I still can. Remind me again, what can I not? I find it hard to see a pair of eyes that could not crinkle their way into the fondness of my own. I wish one could convey the crinkle of eyes over words. here, let me try.
i see, and before I can reflect, I smile, my hands warmed again above the fire, for seeing sight alone sparks kindness.
that was good. it took me about 3 minutes. there is nothing i would rather have been doing. i should write poetry more. here, let me verse it (from Latin versus "a line, row, line of verse, line of writing," from PIE root *wer- (2) "to turn, bend." The metaphor is of plowing, of "turning" from one line to another (vertere = "to turn") as a plowman does).
I see. Before I
reflect, I smile,
my hands warmed
again above the fire,
for seeing
alone sparks love
sleepy but can't sleep. this portishead song is great. improv went well, but I always get really embarrased because I always do really embarrassing things. I guess that's like my special ability is to do kysworthy jokes and not kms. how special.
I miss talking to you. I guess it makes sense that my best conversations are with you. But it doesn't excuse the infrequency that I have them. I write too little.
i have lots of superpowers. I'm grateful for every one (that I know), but I still find myself incomparably inadequate. I wish I knew more about the struggle to be that you all go through. I wish other people talked about themselves as much, as plainly, and complicatedly, as I. I always feel embarrassed to talk about myself in the way that I know how, that feels revealing proper, that feels like I could get somewhere within myself by having whatever conversation will follow, I feel embarrassed to put those I love through that trial. I understand it's somewhat of privilege, but it does feel super blind... fell alseep in the middle of that sentence so im not sure what it means, but im gonna call it here. goodnight moon
Watching joseph campbell, old white man with old white man voice, explain the hero with a thousand faces. its this documentary that Christine recommended vividly, and so i eventually got around to watching. I'm tired.
I miss the days though, the days of a good 2 hours in a long car ride with the fam dedicated to singing it all together. We'd skip the song dediacted to Hamilton's steamy affair, tear up when Eliza cries over Philip, and say wow when the whole shabang charade ends. History has its eyes on you. I guess I hear that a lot. Eyes on you.
I can blame a lot of things on a lot of things but I really feel such a complicated relationship with my intelligence. It hurt me so much as a kid, or at least, I think it did? I genuinely can't remember! I remember this idea of being scared that I was going to hurt someone if I spoke. I know, I know, I can ask... but I'm tired.
I guess I still feel like an asshole whenever I talk about other people's feelings, like I'm explaining something obvious to me (which it, to some part, is) as something not obvious to them...
I guess I simultaneously assume they don't already know what I'm going to say, assume they will be upset at me for saying something they don't know, assume there is only value in what I have to say if it is a new opinion / outlook, all while beating myself up for being an asshole by assuming what they (don't) know, how they feel, and that they care.
parts are saying I should ask questions about what other people think when they're talking to me about their problems instead of saying what I think. I guess that's a good idea, as compassionate understanding must occur within, cannot be forced in from without.
But i want to keep that idea alongside the idea that i have a polarized complex around sharing my own opinions, one part discouraging as self-centered, egotistical, not helpful, not being a good listener/making someone feel heard, and another part encouraging because he both really wants to be heard and also I think has good ideas that I want people to hear.
bleugh. bleugh. bleugh. excited to watch this movie (waking life) and go to bed
Reasons why I write:
At this point in time, my writing here is no longer a coincidence. I have fallen into the throughs of intention. I write to force the habit, here rather than somewhere else. Writing about myself is much easier than writing about others.
This is something new I have discovered. I feel the need to write rigidly.
I feel the need to ask "why?" I feel the need to investigate, to dig, to uncover. I feel the need to pursue. I feel the tense stirring of a congealed surface, a desperate emulsification, a plea to reduce and synthesize and understand and know.
I wish to write freely. I wish to write with the current of a thousand streams, combining and colliding and falling into one another with the trust of a boundaryless existence.
I wish not to disappoint. I would hate to disappoint! What if X considers me in such a way that I cannot be? Perhaps that is the main reason why I find myself occasionally telling people "haha, no, I'm straight, haha, I wish I was gay though!" I don't REALLY wish I was gay. I have enough on my hands! What I wish, is to not be a disappointment. That's not so much up to me, now, is it?
I have been having ideas for projects lately.
One is a narrative expose on frat culture. It would involve a main character, a boy, not so much pressured as encouraged into fraternity by his father, or by his friends, or by instagram reels, or by all three. It would involve a sexual assault. It would involve profound empathetic capacity.
Wow. Lots of worked up feelings about an interaction with riley earlier to day. I'm hoping that writing them out to her and ... yep. sent her a text, and I feel way better. Way to go, parts. Alright, I'm done here. See ya! Tomorrow?