monday night musings in glasgow

i'm in glasgow. tomorrow morning we get on a 51 minute cross-country train to edinburgh. then wednesday we fly home to new york. it's 9:43 and i'm having a pint of cider alone because why wouldn't i. i don't want my trip to end.

i brought my kindle to the pub, but i'm... feeling weird. i wrote some postcards while sitting here. i usually write to my mom, but she's here on this trip with me, so i've written one to KW, and i've written one to IE. and now i just... want to continue writing. i should have some solo time. like a proper duration. if i only i could impulsively extend my trip. i literally can't, i don't have access to my work infrastructure even if i wanted to. that... does seem problematic actually. i guess i could work on resolving that. something to consider.

i've spent the whole trip texting IE. is it any wonder, when he actually responds and is interested in me? fuck, i'm not being fair. i shouldn't compare them. but i've also texted KW multiple things, multiple times, and he's barely responded to me. it honestly makes me very sad. IE is not my soulmate. i LOVE KW. i love our partnership. i love the ways we see the world, and the ways those views overlap, the ways they don't. and the way we handle those differences. i love the language we've built together. i love the weird we can be. the ways we can do nothing together. the ways we can communicate. about big things and little things and nothing.

and jesus fucking christ, i need to feel wanted and i do not feel wanted. sure, i know he loves me. i know it, i do. but like... does he miss me? does he want me home? will he kiss me like he spent 10 days not kissing me? (longer, even, in fact, since i had strep right before i left.)

...am i using IE, to fill the tracks in my otherwise fulfilling relationship? or... is getting to know IE merely revealing those cracks? can i live with the cracks, or is deciding to plow full steam ahead just careening toward future heartbreak and loneliness? if i don't decide that my unmet needs are significant enough right now, how will i feel in the future? how will i feel if we wind up breaking up eventually anyway and i've let a real connection get away?

i can't compare the two. IE is fascinating and brave and exciting and interesting and reckless and thoughtful and introspective and sensitive... but oh my god, he's no KW. he just... wants me. he really wants me. and he'll talk to me the way i want to be talked to (for the most part). and since he's not sober, we can be mild degenerates together. i want that. i want that reckless running free romance. not long term. i wish i could just... have a break to have this whirlwind affair. but that's obviously impossible. not possible in my relationship context, and not fair to IE, and i sure as shit don't want to explain that to anyone i know. but... oh, the fantasies. the fantasies, the places, the grabbing by the hand and laughing running through a city in any country. oops, am i going to cry?

i had to go refresh my pint of cider because a suicidal fly drowned himself in my glass half-full. so i got an extra half on the house in a new glass.

i'm lonely. not chronically, i don't think. but acutely. it's nearly 10pm now and i have to go back to the hotel soon, and shower, and pack. it'll be about 5pm back home. i think i'll call KW on my walk back to the hotel. ...the troubling thing is, he's standing in for IE right now. i really want to call IE on my walk home, but he's hiking up a mountain in wyoming at the moment. so i'm settling for KW because IE's unavailable. what an awful thing to think. then again, i guess in the grand scheme of things, i've got this whole thing with IE going on because KW's unavailable, in a sense of the word. i've spoken on the phone/facetime with IE multiple times on this trip. i haven't spoken to KW once. i mean, we've texted a bit. but... fuck, that's so sad to me.

do i miss KW? i think i do. i think i do. i think i do.

the pleasures of connection, part two

back on my old blog, the one i wrote when i was 19 and anorexic (and god, reading it back i really do sound so young), i made a post titled "the pleasures of connection" when i met someone new unexpectedly and hit it off with them. i suppose that's not very profound, but... it's what's come to mind lately.

i met someone new. no, this isn't an announcement of a new soulmate or that KW and i are breaking up, or anything like that. i'm not in love. not with anyone besides KW anyway. but... something interesting is happening. this is someone i've chatted with off and on online for a few years now. i'll call him IE. we spoke very frequently for a many months back in 2023/2024, before it kind of fizzled out. i helped talk him through calling off an engagement. we candidly talked about all sorts of subjects, including our respective relationships. in some ways we were familiar with each other's struggles, having experienced similar ones. it was always very mostly platonic. sure, there was some flirting, mostly on his part. he had some qualities i find attractive, if you describe my type you basically described him, but he was also a lil goofy looking and a couple years younger than me and like, we were just friends.

anyway, as i said, it fizzled out eventually. just sort of naturally drifted into talking less, and then hardly ever. for about a year, maybe? closer to a year and a half. and he lived abroad when we started talking, from the US but living in europe. he moved back to the US earlier this year, and wound up basing himself temporarily out of maine. he was coming down to the city for a couple events one weekend and was like hey if you're down we could meet up and hang out. and even though it'd been a bit since we regularly chatted i had every confidence that it'd be a fun, cool time. i really felt virtually no social anxiety about it, which is rare. i felt like we just had a guaranteed good rapport. and i was right! we got dinner and drinks when i was done with work on friday, and had a fantastic time. near the end of the night, after a few drinks on both our parts he asked pretty directly and respectfully, are we meeting up as a friend thing or like is something more on the table? because i'd told him in the past as online friends that KW and i had had some troubles in our sex life and also had been discussing open relationships, but those waters were uncharted for us, but the possibility was sort of abstractly there someday. and i knew he was attracted to me, and i think he figured on some level i was likely attracted to him too, but i wasn't sure tbh. so, y'know, fair play to IE to ask. i told him let's just hang out as friends, and he accepted that.

we parted ways on friday night with optimistically tentative plans for him to come out to my neighborhood for trivia on sunday. come sunday, those plans changed because of his timelines shifting, but i made an impulsive decision to go into the city for a couple hours to hang out with him sort of aimlessly, just wandering around chelsea/midtown with his camera. during our walk, i was aware sometimes of our hands brushing, of him teasing me that i couldn't be a hot girl if i didn't know plants, and him even telling me outright that he was trying to thread the needle of sufficiently downplaying his crush on me while still leaving it obvious. god, his boldness is so alien to me. anyway, this all contributed to a palpable vibe shift at the moment of farewell. there we were, on the corner of 14th and 8th, my old stomping ground, having hugged goodbye but both lingering, just kind of... looking at each other, so clear that neither of us wanted to end our time together when who knew how many months it might be til we got to see each other again. so clear that there could be a kiss between us, so clear we both felt it. eventually he hugged me one more time and planted a fat kiss on my cheek, and we finally said goodbye. i got on the bus to union square, and he went back up to his hotel for his date that night. emboldened by farewell, and partly driven, i suppose, to let him know that my telling him that friday was just as friends wasn't down to lack of interest, i texted him that he was much cuter in person than i had anticipated. and i guess that broke the barrier - now our mutual attraction was acknowledged. he tried to get me to turn around and come back, but that seemed unwise. so i continued home. he pitched the insane idea of me joining him for a sunrise photoshoot in DUMBO the next morning and i was like nah man that's not happening, and besides i have work. eventually we decided he'd come out to my neighborhood to grab lunch with me and see me one last time before he went back to maine. he said he wasn't sure why he so adamantly felt the need to see me again, but that he tries to listen to gut instincts.

i started to talk to KW that night, because after the almost almost kiss with IE, and with the irish guy last summer, clearly lingering in this "we've talked about being open but haven't pulled the trigger" zone is a recipe for disaster. i'm going to take something too far, and this isn't sustainable. but he was home from a long demanding work day on not enough sleep, so it wasn't really a good time for the whole conversation. but when i said that it's been confusing being in this position where two people have tried to kiss me and i'm really not sure if it's an option for me, he said he does think that's an option. but we left it there, bookmarked to return to with more bandwidth.

that night i had a dream in which KW told me after that conversation that he'd kissed someone else, and in my dream i kind of leapt straight over offense or hurt to "sweet, this means i can kiss IE at lunch tomorrow." and i woke up very disoriented by that whole thing having not happened at all, and therefore my conclusion not being true. it left me in a very strange headspace. and then i met him for a bagel on my lunch break. i don't usually even take a lunch break so he already had me breaking patterns for him. and he was waiting for me outside my local supermarket. i approached him and straight away, he kissed me. and i didn't stop him. i kissed him back, and not a little bit. i was quite in my head though, and it was so strange to be kissing someone who wasn't my partner of seven years. i was kind of yelling at myself in my own head that i wasn't sure this should be happening. after, we started walking toward the bagel place and both unsure of what to say. he said "yeah, i need to let the butterflies settle." and i thought to myself but did not say out loud "butterflies, huh? i felt that lower." because while i had not had butterflies and had mostly been going "!!!!!!????!!!" in my own head, there was definitely some kind of physical response occurring iykwim.

so we had bagels, and chatted for the better part of an hour, until reluctantly i had to get home and resume my work day, somehow, impossibly. we kissed one last time, chastely, at the train, before saying a final farewell so he could go back to maine and i could go back to my mundane monday.

but then we never stopped talking.

i talked to KW about the kiss that night, and that cracked the conversation about openness open properly. but clearly neither of us really knew where to begin. but one thing was clearly stated by both of us: our relationship as-is does not have a future. if we remain in a monogamous closed relationship, we will implode. neither of us are happy with our bedroom life, and it's going to lead to bad places unless we try something. yeah, openness might be catastrophic, but doing nothing would be heartbreaking. and god, i'd feel so bitter if something as "petty" as sex broke up such a fucking solid relationship. but... we didn't really get to the point of defining the parameters of an open relationship for us in a practical sense, but we had to sleep so we put a pin in it and knew we had to once again circle back to it at a later date. leaving things uncertain clearly doesn't work.

but after certain things and permissions being granted in my relationship when i was talking to someone online hot and heavy earlier this year, i've sort of been running with that as license to have some fun with IE over text, talking about some possible - and like actually possible? - future where KW and i have figured out what will work for us and i can actually like legitimately sleep with IE. and god, do i want to. GOD do i want to. the possibility is... so tantalizing. he's told me a couple times to come up to maine and see him. he's really trying to get me to do it. not in like a pushy or domineering way, but... he really does want me. how fucking phenomenal that feels after so long not feeling that way.

even talking not-sexually has just been intoxicating. it's hard to put my phone down. i've been so unproductive at work. it's so... fulfilling to get to hit it off with someone new. it's so hard to not get addicted to this feeling. why is learning about someone sometimes so much more satisfying and addictive and... a rush than actually knowing them in an intimate and sustained way? i suppose it's likely the possibility left in the unknown. the sort of dopamine hits of new levels of knowledge being uncovered with more conversation. i... don't know how to be smart about this. i should be smart about this. i'm feeling too many echoes of ZM/KW, even though the title is a callback to HB way back in the day.

what the fuck am i doing?

things you forget, or remember

it's funny, the way we can linger in someone's memory.

we know the ways people linger in ours, of course. we can feel them. we know we listen to this band because of someone we met in college, because of a drive we took late one night; we know we like a certain dish because we had it states away, on a trip. we remember a dress we had in preschool gifted to us by a classmate. we remember the first time we learned about batman, or played nba jam, or learned that you could do tricks on a trampoline. or the smell of someone's house that has too many cats. even maybe someone we never met. we can think of them when looking at a landscape, because it reminds you of a photo they sent you once of the area near their house, in another country.

my friend, a dear friend but someone i don't talk to often anymore, texted me out of the blue to say he was thinking of me because he'd invented a malaphor at work. that he said to someone they have bigger fish to put before the horse. and... what that makes me think of is my grandmother. whom i never met, but i would hear from my mom the way she said things like "you buttered your bread, now lay in it." instead of "you buttered your bread, now eat it" or "you made your bed, now lay in it."

and so not only do phrases like that make me think of someone i never knew, but apparently at one point in time i told that to this friend of mine. i have no recollection of doing so, but now phrases like that make him think of me.

i wonder what other parts of me exist in the consciousness of other people.

i guess this is what i do in march

for context, i wrote this on 3/24/24

almost exactly one year since the last entry i wrote. maybe it's that like... new year's resolution hangover. people have given up on journals and planners and new year's organization. i actually literally am sitting next to a journal i bought on a whim at staples (their promotional same-day discount for when you make an online amazon/paypal return in store is really effective) and haven't used because uh.... of the very sane and understandable reason that it is too pretty to waste. so whatever i do in it had better be very intentional and not at all a mistake or just something i'll ramble in about my relationship for 3 months before giving up on it and sticking it on a bookshelf and hoping KW never gets curious about all these notebooks on the shelf (the bullet journal graveyard of years past is there to keep it company).

or maybe it's just the last throes of seasonal depression. it's been sort of a rough couple of weeks on the joy front for me. for no particular reason. i just feel aimless and restless and rather existentially joyless. days pass by simply scrolling them by like a boring tiktok. except because i don't want tiktok on my phone i wind up scrolling through instagram reels like the out-of-touch millennial i have become. every day is me trying to convince myself to do something better with my free time, and then i just simply do not. didn't i used to enjoy my life? i mean... i was always depressed but i used to have fun. nothing like the rose-tinted nostalgia glasses of present-day ennui.

actually speaking of a pretentious french word, i am beginning french classes this week. i hope i'm excited about it. i mean, i am excited about it, but honestly mostly i think it's simply because it's something to do. a way to spend my time doing something a little more engaged. maybe that's... enough? is that what people do? things, just to have something to do that isn't nothing?

well, not a good sign that i got tired of even this. it just feels like i lack the drive to overcome any amount of inertia in performing any task. i tried to do some pilates just to get some proper exercise in this week and i honestly gave up like less than 5 minutes in. i did some of my own stretching and pushups and stuff but like... i just didn't have the will. i don't have the will for anything. i'm just being dragged along by the current of time. and it's sunday, so... yay, back to work tomorrow and then i'll just keep waiting for the next weekend to come so i can do nothing once again on my own time. it feels like boston. boston didn't feel good.

think i'd better knock on wood

it's felt like a long evening. even on a school night. i guess it's cuz i went out and did something after work and then came home, all before it was even dark. i didn't even move quickly, really. i went over to the other end of the neighborhood where there are stores (we're more of a restaurant area... just so many restaurants) to try to do some shopping before this wedding i'm going to this weekend. i'm gonna be my friend's plus 1! i've never been a plus 1! i was supposed to be KW's plus 1 this past december for his old work partner, but we had the flu and had to cancel 😢. but i'm gonna go visit my friend MM! and see a bunch of other people who live in the area, hopefully! i'm excited! and getting over a cold, so also hopefully my plans do indeed go through.

anyway, i was unsuccessful. i do have a backup dress to wear but after re-gaining the meager weight i lost last year, it's a bit of a tight fit in the torso. were i to attempt to dance, my range of motion would be very limited. but i suppose it'll have to do, i'm unwilling to really drop dollars on a dress that i intend not to fit in for long.

seriously, i need to lose the weight. i'm also going to be my friend OV's bridesmaid in september, so... i really wanna be looking better for that, before all the photos go in albums, digital and otherwise. ...do people actually do physical albums anymore, for anything? never mind. point is, my body will be immortalized against my will by participating in this event. i'd like it to be thinner then.

this is all very besides the point. not that there's ever much point here other than my absolute rambling.

but, i came home from shopping, watched a little TV, and then let netflix steer me into rewatching easy A. man, i really feel like it holds up on most fronts. adorably quaint tech usage though. funny, really, what a short time frame it was that we texted on flip phones and sidekicks in high school. and i was there!

anyway, it got me thinking about a couple things. one, how gorgeous emma stone is. it's not fair. and that hair color works beautifully on her, i wonder if i could pull off anything like that. two, how gorgeous penn badgley is. it is also very unfair.

and yet, there's something about his facial structure that actually really really reminds me of KW. sort of always has. and i always thought a lot of that was from the old gossip girl days when he played a hipster writer living in brooklyn. like, come on. that was KW's bit in high school, so of course that description rang a bell. totally different coloring, but the bone structure in adulthood is actually very very similar. i wonder if other people see it. then again, given penn badgley's current infamous role, maybe i don't want people thinking KW looks like him.

so i was browsing through pics i have of KW on my phone, trying to assess how real the similarity is, and i found a picture — a picture of a picture, actually, since KW never did forward the pics along to me — of me, KW, his sister, and his two young nieces (who were about 3 and just about a year old at the time) up at a vacation house his sister had rented and invited us to visit. and i love it. it's objectively unflattering of me but it's one of those cases where i don't care? everyone looks so happy, and i just... love that i'm involved. i love that i'm included.

i really felt that this year, over the holidays, how much i love feeling like i'm part of KW's family. i've been trying to figure out (not actively, just kind of passively) for a while if i really do want to marry KW or if i just feel like it's The Thing To Do At This Stage Of Dating, and... i honestly don't have an answer to that. do i want to get married, or am i just attending a wedding this year? do i want to get married, or am i just watching my friends get engaged? do i want to get married, or am i just 30 and insecure about my progression in life?

i don't know, i really don't. but i do think a major weight on the pro-marriage scale is wanting the legitimacy of ceremony to lend stability to the feeling of belonging in KW's family. i don't want to feel like a visitor. i've been given a temporary role in someone's family before, and i know i'm the one that ended it. but this feels different, and i'm not sure why. i don't think it's that i'm more comfortable in KW's family, because i felt absolutely comfortable in being myself with ZM's family. maybe part of the difference is that i actually really like KW's sister and want to feel close with her, whereas i always felt (and still do) that ZM's brother is kind of... an ass? like, not meanspirited, just... not someone i would particularly voluntarily choose to spend time with. not that ZM's brother ever made me feel unwelcome, but i was also never concerned with impressing him. but KW's sister really seems to want me to feel welcome. and i absolutely treasure it.

i also think about the girls, and i remember my cousin B, who's i think 12 years older than me, i remember her boyfriends when i was young, i remember them appearing at a christmas or two or three or even four, and then disappearing, and then there'd be a new one later. i know that's part of life, but... something about that has really stuck with me. i always think, "will i be a Brad to this kid?" if i'm not a permanent fixture, what will they remember about me years later, when i'm gone? will i be a faint memory of someone their uncle KW used to date? and he is Uncle K to them... will i ever be Aunt A? or just A? i suppose it doesn't matter, but i do wonder what the line is there. if KW and i get married, will i be permanent enough to get a familial title?

i keep being intentional about phrasing it as feeling like a part of KW's family, not as being a part of KW's family, in part i guess because i don't want to... get ahead of myself, or let myself trust in something and then lose it later. or i don't know. i don't want to be presumptuous. but i'd really like to trust in it. i'd really like a family. even with the family politics and drama that everyone's got to some extent, which i've been a third party observer to for years now, getting closer and closer looks... i'd willingly shoulder that, for a chance to feel at home.

it's been a while

i started this draft when it was nearly september. ...2021, that is. i can't believe a year went by so fast. ...i only said that for the rent reference, in truth. it hasn't seemed very fast at all. but it also has? it's been the bulk of my time living with KW so far. we've been at it an entire year past what i was writing about last time. i think we've gotten better at it, in some ways. in most ways. it has certainly helped that he's not in school anymore. he graduated! it did look dicey near the end there, with him working wild hours to finish his term project and truly falling short in some aspects, but everyone in his course knew how damn good he is and they pushed him to pass. and he did, and he managed to take the paramedic test with admittedly minimal practice time because he learned it was scheduled with only like 4 days of lead time, and he fucking knocked it out of the park on the first try. i knew he would, i honestly did. it was hard not to put pressure on him, because i've been there - i've been the person people are saying "i know you'll succeed" to, and worrying that if the very real possibility of failure comes to fruition, i'll have disappointed not only myself but them as well. and i understand the paramedic test to be fucking hard as hell, with a lower pass rate than the goddamn bar exam. his failing would not reflect poorly on him and i needed him to know i would understand that. but, quietly, confidently, i was certain that if anyone could succeed, it would be him. and lo, i was right.

so he's been a fully certified paramedic for just coming on a year now. he's only working just a little less than full time, three days a week, because he was hoping to pick up more shifts here and there with the flexibility in his schedule. he largely has not, unfortunately. i don't know how to encourage him properly. some things never change. we're similar in that way. all too happy to coast. happy's not the right word there. but... you get it.

i've been binge watching zoey's extraordinary playlist for the past few days. this show was not correctly marketed. it has so much goddamn heart. i thought it would be some cheesy musical sitcom, but it is much more dramatic and real than that. and emotional. i have cried at like 80% of the episodes. and i'm not usually so weepy at television! i just watched the episode where her father passes away (i'm sorry if this spoils anything for *checks stats* no one, but also, you know it's coming.) and fucking ugly cried, multiple times.

once my face isn't so tearstained and my eyes aren't so red, i really ought to go for a walk. i wanna pick up a claw clip for my hair. i know, this is interesting shit. i just wanna take better care of myself. since my last post, i lost like 8 pounds. i probably gained that too, though, before losing it. so it feels like i've made progress but in that regard i'm probably back where i started. weighing about the same since like april. and here we are, in september 2022. i've bought myself new shampoo, have... at times sustained a skincare regimen, but i've fallen off that wagon again. i wanna be able to put my hair up in a non-damaging way to my hair and my scalp. so it seems a claw clip is the way to go, best i've found.

i received a blessing from the federal government recently, what with the biden administration forgiving $20000 of my debt. well, a shade under $20k. i'd actually paid my balance down to about $13400 with $1200 in payments stashed in a savings account just waiting for the forbearance to end, because i wanted to see what was going to happen with that $10k forgiveness, hopefully before the midterm elections. and we got it! but fuck, i had not expected an additional $10k forgiven! i got pell grants to pay for some of college! i was already grateful for them, but fuck they just became even more of a blessing, like 12 years later. i'm debt-free. and not only that, but because i'd paid so much during the forbearance period, i was able to request a refund of nearly $6600, to bring me as close to a $20k balance as i could, without over-refunding and having to make an exact payment. the government can keep my extra $40. i'll take the freedom. it's funny how much some extra room in my budget can feel like getting a raise. ...even though i still haven't gotten a raise and i really need to ask for one. that'll be an issue for another time.

work's been okay. only okay. maybe slightly less than okay. i did get my best friend AD a job with me! which sometimes i feel guilty about because the company does let her down at times. she's the only one dedicated to a specific client project and she doesn't get the support we should be giving her to execute her duties in a timely way. i feel bad about that. i also want a fucking raise. i interviewed for another company a few months back, which provided a wake-up call to me. i was recruited, but failed the technical interview. i received the nicest rejection letter one could hope to get, which said that by all accounts i seem like a delight to work alongside every day, and if i can just... get better, they'd be happy to interview me again in the future. so i've tried, in fits and starts, to study code in my free time. it's really hard to dedicate myself to that when it's what i already do for work. i think i'm feeling burnt out. i just want a vacation, all the time. i even took one, mostly. went to the outer banks with my friends for a week in july. and it was fantastic! i'd never been on a plane by myself before, never booked my own ticket, organized all (okay, most... i coordinated with JB&AS to benefit from their rental car) my own travel. i'm thirty years old, is it sad to feel really proud of myself for that? it was really great to get away for a while, even though i worked remotely for two days while i was down there.

KW and i are going to iceland for a week, really soon. since that's international travel i won't be working at all, and i cannot wait. if what was basically a collection of 3- and 4-day weekends was restorative, i bet a week will be amazing. i hope we travel well together. it'll be interesting to learn how we mesh with so much time off together. we went away together for literally the first time ever, for my 30th birthday in april. just to an airbnb in the berkshires, to get out of the city. and it was nice. nothing extravagant. accidentally went on too much of a hike on the day of, so it was very low-key after that. a whole week together, that we've planned entirely ourselves. internationally!! i've never been on my own in a country where i don't even speak the language. sure, i know pretty much everyone in iceland speaks english as well, but... i don't know. it's hard not to feel underprepared i guess, especially with my love of languages. but yeah, he decided to splurge and treat me really well for my 30th birthday, with tickets to iceland. seems random, but he does know it's always been a dream of mine to see the northern lights. we're hoping we can thread the needle with the seasons and be late enough in the year to see the lights but have enough daylight to see the country. i'm sure it'll be absolutely phenomenal, either way. i'm looking forward to taking tons of pictures and definitely slowing us down at every step of the way to do so.

this is just a picture i stole from a google image search for "iceland" but this is kirkjufell which is one of the stops on our trip, and if i'm lucky i'll get my own version of this very photo... albeit probably (and indeed hopefully) with a lot less snow, and very likely not at night either.

i miss writing. i know, it's the same old words from me in that regard. that's why i'm writing this post, finally, a year in the making. saying nothing of consequence. i read some of my old posts and actually really liked some of what i wrote. nothing this time, though. no profundity. no nice turns of phrase. no deep feelings delicately described. maybe someday.

when i come back from iceland, i think i'll get a second piercing in each lobe. and i want to start taking classes, for fun. in my free time. i want to avoid lifestyle creep, especially since with the extra funds from my would-be loan payments i can maybe afford to buy real estate before i'm 40. but i also want to live my life the best i can, and not hold back. fully commit to things. enrich my own life. be my best person. it's not entirely for myself.

apathy's a tragedy and boredom is a crime

it's been over a month since my last post, and i feel oddly guilty about that even though this blog doesn't have an audience? nor do i particularly want or need it to because it's only my own thoughts written down somewhere that isn't a material object i have to maintain or fill. and because sometimes the detachment of a keyboard makes honesty easier. even if i have always liked the way a pen moves on paper. i remember back in the day (high school) having a diary in the form of email drafts in a yahoo inbox, because that was the only place i felt i could handle talking about my friends growing up and starting to deal with sex and drugs. not so much rock and roll. what is this blog but an expanded yahoo email inbox, with perhaps less spam in it.

things haven't been all that great here. KW's in a full depressive episode and it's frustrating that i don't know how to support him. when a depressed person wants to be left alone, is that the depression talking, or them? how do you make someone smile when they don't want to? when they think they can't do something because they're not up to it, do you let that stand or do you push them into it because you know that they really can? and then i know his depression has nothing to do with me, but it drags me along with it sometimes. it's a fucking bummer, to feel so useless and unhelpful when the person you love is in crisis. but in the moments i've been unable to stop myself from being down on myself and giving the negative thoughts a voice, KW has attempted to be there for me, sometimes successfully, but at other times telling me he can't deal with the same conversations again and again, or that he can't really give me the support i'm looking for because he's unequipped, also depressed. so... i try to tamp it down.

it's one of those days. KW's been in the bedroom all day, i've been out in the living room listening to the songs from the most recent bo burnham special, inside -- a musical depressive episode played out in quarantine, and watching his old performances. just a big bo burnham kick today. i tried to go get KW to do dinner with me, but then raised the idea of maybe going out either to pick something up or eat at a restaurant, and then... things just collapsed, until he basically stared at a menu on his computer for 5 minutes straight, and the plans for the evening ended. i can't get him to have dinner. maybe if i'm lucky at midnight he'll decide he actually is hungry and will sort something out then. i microwaved the remaining 40% of last night's leftover burrito and ate it at my computer. we were going to watch the new in the heights movie; he's been excited about it coming out, and this is actually a night where we're both at home without other real obligations. oh well.

i don't want to be egocentric, what's going on in his head is about him and his brain chemistry. but he seemed to be doing okay, until i tried to make dinner plans. he told me he was a little down, and then i just watched him decline.

anyway, i'm still at my computer, where i've spent the better part of the day. i probably shouldn't, given that i learned at the end of the last month that i actually need glasses now for the computer. i have hyperopia - ironically for my life, i'm farsighted. she who fears thinking of the future because that's how hopes are made, and hopes are how disappointment comes to fruition, is farsighted. excellent distance vision, is what i was told, but having to focus on the screen in front of my face all day is straining my eyes and worsening my vision overall. anyway, i got a pair of glasses but then immediately decided i hated the frames on my face and went back (with my mom's assistance) to pick out new ones, but i had to give up my old ones and haven't gotten the replacement yet. so... here i am. spending the entirety of a day i'm not required to be on the computer, on the computer.

one thing that's become clear - or had its clarity reinforced, rather - is that KW vastly prefers when i actually engage with the world. that's been a theme for a while, as was bravery in our first relationship. and i think the definition of that's pretty flexible - to do more than be carried through life by the relentless passage of time, to be conscious in how i spend my days. it can be playing video games and watching netflix, as long as i do it with intention and find a form of joy in it. and growth. if i find it fulfilling, and not just treat it as a way to make the day end. this comes back to being interesting. passivity isn't interesting, action is. intent is. purpose is. thinking is. i still say creativity is but i don't have that. i find myself, right now, at 11:50 PM (and earlier when i started this post) wanting a way to improve myself, right now. to learn something, to practice a talent somehow. i'm watching bo burnham and i'm watching him express himself and perform with piano, with guitar, with words, with cinematography and lighting. what is my... any of that? on a smaller scale of course, since i neither expect nor have a desire to be famous or renowned or particularly widely appreciated. i'd just like to do something for myself that KW can see me do and be proud of me for. for whatever it is, it would be a thing i did with purpose and found something in it for myself, even better if also for other people. i want to make him proud. i want to be worthy of him. i don't want to be sitting here trying not to fall apart alongside him, i want to show him that i am and/or still can be the person he's fallen in love with. although a part of that has always been a potential, not an actualization. part of what i strive for is to realize that potential, lest i let him down. i can't grasp what he sees in me, but he hates not seeing me be it, or be working toward it.

can i do art? can i paint? can i draw? can i find a class online and actually stick to it? can i put effort in without immediately feeling it's too hard and giving up? can i do more photography? can i take pictures and like what i see and enhance them in lightroom and photoshop, rather than looking through my shots for the day and feeling disappointed that nothing in there is spectacular? can i study code to advance my craft and my career, or dedicate myself to learning for its own sake, as long as i stick with it and retain it? can i practice languages and not be afraid to use them?

i want to be more confident. i know, i'm sure i've said that before. my self-image is at quite possibly an all time low. and yes, i used to have anorexia. i still feel worse about my body than i did then. at least then i had discipline. my skin's gone to shit and i can barely take care of myself for more than three days at a time. i've gained weight because not only did i stop going to the gym, but i picked up baking. i don't get dressed in the mornings because there's no reason to, and i don't want to wrinkle my clothes and be uncomfortable just in order to spend all day in my living room, or bedroom as the case may be. it's hard to dress up for KW either because he's never really been clear about what he likes to see me in, other than not skinny jeans. even when i try to ask, he just says confidence. he thinks i'm sexiest when i feel sexiest. what a fucking ouroboros of sex appeal. i guess that should make it simple, but it doesn't.

so... what? what'll it be?

precipice

cross the street from your
storefront cemetery

it's almost funny how evocative something can be. those are song lyrics for an old song, but a local song, contemporary to where i've been. KW came home while i was listening to music and a song came on that i didn't know, but he began singing it - all the lyrics before it even got to the vocal part of the song. a song he knew well, clearly. the album art given by spotify was a sort of blurry off-angle photo of a walk light on a street corner, at night. it's a TV on the Radio song from 2003, so the picture is assumedly of some corner in brooklyn. it's not the lyrics that get me so much as the tonal undercurrent of energy that doesn't quite crest that the song carries, imo. 

it's not my new favorite song or anything, but it just hit me at the right angle to slip through a crack and get into my soul and echo around in there, knocking loose some nostalgia for a life i never quite got close to living. it's a song i could have liked, a corner i could have been on, a connection i could have had with a version of KW i probably pined for in past years, or would have strived to be interesting to.

this feels like a related feeling to the book i read, meet me in the bathroom - given that tv on the radio is featured in there, being local to the scene and of it in the moment. 2003. brooklyn. did KW even live there yet? yes, having run the clock through my head, he did.

you're staring at the sun, you're standing in the sea
your mouth is open wide, you're trying hard to breathe

my brain's been being mean to me. i haven't felt equal to anything. not only in past tense, but expansively. i have felt that i will never be equal to anything, will never know how to be equal to anything. i went for a walk on a beautiful day, up to a beautiful park, summer weather inaugurating our hopes for the rest of 2021. some guy even hit on me a little bit after asking for directions. i took some pictures as the light leaned toward the golden hour, although i'd forgotten to bring my new camera (speaking of things to inaugurate). but i still just felt so absolutely miserable, like my muscles protested carrying the useless mass of my consciousness around for nothing.

i don't want to feel this way. KW himself said he felt himself on the verge of depression, like his brain is trying to shut down on him but he just simply doesn't have the time. his work is piling up on him, he's behind on a deadline, he's got term papers and exams and paperwork, he's got no time to sleep, he's got 100 hours of rotations to cram into a month, around a full time job and a doctor's appointment that's keeping him from dropping a shift to save time because he needs to stay full time to keep his health insurance. on top of this, his grandfather's dying. imminently. any day now. KW flew across the country to be with his family on friday and saturday, mostly to provide comfort and familial medical authority rather than to get any comfort himself from being able to be with his grandfather one last time. and that in and of itself is a tragedy, his grandfather's death. i've been really looking forward to meeting him. back in 2019, when i moved to boston, KW was out at his grandfather's remote island house - his favorite place on earth, even with how much he's seen of it - and i remember sitting alone on EG's couch when i was crashing there and talking to KW on the phone about how he finally was able to tell his grandfather about me and that he said i sounded like "a neat lady". he said his grandfather's got an incredible talent of being able to make whoever he's talking to feel really interesting and special. earlier drafts of this year had us going out there to the house to celebrate KW completing paramedic school. truth be told, the house is being left to KW and his sister, so it won't be lost to the family. but i'm sure it'll change how it feels. i really do want to go out there someday. KW's really talked it up, like the phenomenon of watching the orcas gather in the waters just below the house...

to the point, though. this is a hell month for KW and i just want to be as useful and supportive as i can be, so i'm trying to operate in a... facilitative facility. i'm stepping up and taking the household chores, because if KW is here he either needs to be doing schoolwork or asleep. and if he's trying not to slip into a catatonic depression and checking out, i want to be a source of joy and comfort. and that, i think is where i'm losing it. i don't know how to be there for him effectively and my brain is all too aware of that. so him being on the edge of depression is throwing me over it at as well. which is just not a productive dynamic and definitely something we're going to want to get a handle on, given that we both, obviously, experience depression.

it led to the horrible experience this weekend though of feeling like i was about to have a breakdown but KW was there and i just needed to try to keep it together to the best of my ability but i didn't do a fantastic job because obviously he knows me really fucking well by now but what i'm NOT going to do is say "your intended support system instead needs to be yet another thing you have to take care of and worry about now." i cannot fall apart right now because that would just be more shit for KW.

i don't want to trivialize my own feelings by saying that it was just because i've been sad that i don't know how to make KW happy. it's possible that was the gloom-spark but i fucking wallowed in brainshit all weekend while KW was out west. but substantially i kept beating myself up and feeling like the right person for KW would know, the right person would know how to keep him happy and make him be his best self all the time and would be by his side to support him through difficult times. and because i wasn't by his side, because i can't make him do his schoolwork, because i can't keep his brain from shutting down, i'm not the right person. there's a better person out there, someone who would love him better and whom he would love better. someone who would do for KW what he does for me, which is make me want to be more, want to live to and through my own limits. i spend too much time thinking of the other person he loved in high school, when it wasn't me anymore - in seeing him succumbing to his addiction, i just felt sad and powerless, but i continued to defer to him. if he was doing it, he couldn't really be fully out of control, right? i trusted him, so if he trusted his judgement, i decided he must have the right of it since he's smarter than me after all. this other person loved him enough and was certain enough that they were right and he was wrong and dumb that this very petite person punched him in the face about it. he once told me this story with the hint of a smile. he loved that they were driven to physical means of aggression to try to get their point across. not to sound too stupid, but i want to love him in the way that means i will punch him in the face if i think that's what's right. (i am not advocating for domestic violence, hopefully it's sufficiently clear what i mean here.) the way i am now, he'd just say something like you don't need to punch me in the face and i'd go yeah, you're probably right and then he'd continue being a fucking idiot and i'd feel powerless and useless and insufficient as i watched the man i love destroy himself before my eyes. i'm not being melodramatic, that's early 2010; we've literally been there. it was a hell of a boon to my poetry but fucking misery.

i was plagued by cravings to cut all weekend. i wasn't wholly successful in resisting. i kept it light, though. two extremely superficial scratches to my arm that faded by the end of the day (although were def visible as i was out walking around at the park) and one a little more thorough on my hip that honestly i can still see because i know what i'm looking for, but it'd otherwise likely go unnoticed. this may be something i need to confess to him once it's all past us, this tough time for him. but in the meantime i just... needed an outlet and couldn't go to him. trying not to get too hung up on the fact that i'm twenty fucking nine years old and still dealing with cutting urges like a stupid juvenile emo teenager even though i know as i say that that that's a terribly inaccurate and harmful stereotypic stigma, but it's an extant one nevertheless.

monday was better, though. i didn't feel so mentally well during my work day but once it was over i got to snuggle with KW and finally have a lot of good sex and watch tv and cook dinner and enjoy the evening with him. i've felt substantially better since then, although physically absolutely exhausted. we've got some minor germs swimming around up here, that's for sure: low grade fevers and sore throats; KW's gotten two negative covid results so it doesn't seem to be that. anyway, physical health aside, i doubt that a good evening of quality time has fully cured me, nor would that be unconcerning if it did, given that that's a level of dependency i would have hoped to never experience, especially not when i've been feeling so much more independent than i've ever been in a relationship before. and doubly concerning because with KW spread so thin this month, that quality time won't be coming again for some time. i don't want to be in a crisis spiral for a month, instead of the happy helpful person i want to try to be for him.

the water's at your neck
there's lightning in your teeth
your body's over me

incidentally, 3 years ago at perhaps this exact moment, i ended my prior relationship. happy cinco de mayo.

reluctantly 29

i have aged, officially. i feel cheated by it. i just feel so fucking cheated out of a year of my life. and obviously people had it worse, people lost lives, not just spent a year hiding in their apartment. but i do find myself very unhappy about the fact that 2020 had to count toward my age. how was i 28, when i barely left a 3 block radius around my apartment? please wipe it clean off my time slate and allow me to start fresh at 28 again, give it a real go this time.

anyway, i suppose that feels like old news, now. will i be excited, when my next birthday is 30, or will i be too ready to pump the breaks on acknowledging and celebrating aging?

so we're settling in together. there is still much unpacking to do, and decorating, and acquiring remaining supplemental pieces of furniture to make the space more livable. i'm frustrated by not having space to put everything away. there are the miscellaneous remaining boxes that are stubborn. some art supplies, toiletries, medicine, towels... and mostly just junk. but it's junk i have a hard time parting with, the junk whose only use is sentiment. i just want everything to have A Place and this apartment is approximately one closet shy of making that happen. a proper linen closet would be life changing.

i find that i feel i have less time than i did at my old apartment. as though there are more things grabbing my attention and i'm doing less of them. i have to clean, constantly, i don't seem to read much anymore... i don't know where my down time has gone. consequently, time for introspection has gone with it, hence the relative quiet on this blog. my brain doesn't do the things right now that used to make me want an outlet. there's nothing to get out.

it's probably that KW fills the small pieces of time that would otherwise add up. even though i am here in the apartment alone without him a lot, given his insane schedule. but the in-between hours turn into waiting. and once he's home, we catch up, we watch TV. we've finally been able to live out my utterly mundane adult fantasy of being able to cuddle together on our couch in our own apartment and watch west wing on our own TV. just something about that image seemed like a picture of such an adult, stable relationship, and that's what i wanted, and now it's come true. that part is lovely. but what hobby am i replacing with KW time? we started dating in part because i felt enriched by him. i want that to continue. to find time for the things that made him love me while still having him around. i didn't expect this to be a challenge. i expected the boredom to come from me, not from a lack of time.

well, it's the adjustment period, and still won't really settle into reality for another month or more as KW gears up for 44 days without a single day off. i'm going to spend May essentially role playing as a housewife and i could not be less excited for that. i don't want it to set bad precedents, because i find habits so easily established by places. how you begin to live in a new place often becomes how you always live there. a new scene sets a new scene. this is our new scene, but i don't want my role to be cleaning and cooking and looking after a busy man. i look forward to setting up our life together when he has more of it to share.

anyway, because i'm totally not a housewife i'm going to now do so many dishes and take out the trash and recycling and go grocery shopping and then try to make brownies. i saw friends outside for a little barbecue on saturday and JB sent me home with her leftover container of homemade caramel sauce. like a fool, so easily parted.

movin' on up

view of the entryway, ft. large box of broken down boxes from the move

literally, up. KW and i are all moved in to our new apartment, which is on the fourth (top) floor of a walk-up building. it was exhausting. it's nice to be here though. it started by feeling... oddly surreal. like this was just an odd vacation home. a stopover, somewhere and somehow and with all our stuff. it's begun to feel more normal though... funny how that changes. how home is so much more a feeling than a place, and how we almost bureaucratically override that periodically by moving. it takes feelings a while to catch up, like they took the cheapest shipping method to get there.

my birthday is tomorrow; i'll be 29. if i think about it too long i get angry that i was robbed of the opportunity to be 28 at all. second pandemic birthday... i always used to be so obnoxious about my birthday. it was my favorite holiday, essentially. i've never particularly liked attention, but on my birthday i wanted it. maybe the pandemic has finally killed that for me. it feels like it's sneaking up on me this time. like, usually by april first i'm all about "it's my birthday month!!" but... now my birthday is tomorrow. i took the day off, but i pretty much just intend to sleep til 11 and then play video games for the rest of the day. KW has a full day of school from 8 am to about 10 pm. i'll go get a nice coffee at starbucks, trek for my favorite bagel place, and go buy a hopefully-discounted bottle of wine from a place i half-tried to talk into giving me the member discount for my birthday even though i'm not a member. maybe i'll chat with some friends online for a little bit. i find myself not particularly excited. did i get any birthday gifts last year? i don't even recall. god, last year was a horrible birthday. a year ago today, KW started showing early symptoms of covid. a year ago tomorrow, his symptoms advanced and were undeniably covid. i spent my birthday crying and terrified and overwhelmed, and still reeling from an exhausting, stressful, and insanity-inducing weekend. so... this birthday is best viewed in comparison with my 28th, i suppose. still, i miss birthdays of yore. being able to get out of town, be taken to a nice dinner, and just spend the day with someone who loves me. that's all i want, really. i guess for my 30th birthday, maybe that'll be possible then.

i know i have more to say, but none of it is ever important. it's fleeting, leaves no impact on my brain and i forget i ever wanted to say it.

steeped in the words of others

when i was younger i used to write out the lyrics to songs that moved me, or stuck with me. all the time. i'd have a notebook just for writing out songs by other people. is that weird? i find myself missing it. maybe it's part of my mental efforts to put myself back into a place where words used to flow through me. how many teenage habits can i adopt without reverting? i'm blogging, i'm writing out song lyrics... shit, i'm even dating my high school-era boyfriend. have i gone too far in the pursuit of poetry? in recapturing youthful habits in the hopes of rediscovering youthful words?

i think there's some drive to echo beauty. you know how when people - particularly kids, at least that's when i remember this - hear something funny, part of their appreciation of it is repeating it? i wonder if that's a similar instinct. i don't remember particularly feeling this desire in my baltimore era. or maybe call it my ZM era. if i had to hypothesize, i'd guess that back then i could sing more. we had more space, more privacy, more places to ourselves - our own building, a store i was frequently alone in, our enclosed car. i used to sing. all the time. i loved it. i miss that tremendously, too. i used to be able to sing along to songs i liked, if not at the top of my lungs then still passionately and frequently. that was my channeling the beauty, expressing that it moved me. and it really did (and does) feel cathartic on a soulful level. i think even in my new apartment i won't feel free to sing as much as i'd like. i learned how noise-permeable the walls of my childhood apartment were after hearing a first floor neighbor sing loudly one day, and instantly being horrified that my whole building could hear much more than i thought. sorry, neighbors.

so maybe now that i've been a few years without regular private car access and in a very non-soundproofed apartment, it's all pent up in me. if i can't use my voice and my lungs, i'll use my pen. ..and hope that KW doesn't think i'm super weird. there will be fewer habits i can hide from him, now.

creative envy

i found a piece of paper on which i'd written out a poem that KW wrote in april and sent to me on skype. he didn't tell me what it was about, but... i'm reasonably sure it's me. it was in a stack of papers and had a few books on top, and i melt when i read it.

you take me to your heart's home
willow-light, birch script lazy notes on lake borne breeze
i want to see this place in all its seasons
i want to know the road you walk down

childhood recalls you
remembrance light in cheeks flush with all your summers
i want to see this face in all its seasons
i want to know the road you walk down

i want to write a poem. the ache in me when i read beautiful words... the envy. why can't i put language together like that anymore?

i wrote so many poems about missing him, about not having him, about having him and then losing him... it's always been a challenge to write about something that doesn't come from a place of pain, but there's part of me that's still mildly surprised about not having had any poetry come to me about having him again.

how many old habits can i re-adopt in the hopes of slipping my brain back into producing poetry?

existential crisis time

we've signed the lease! the direction is forward, now. packing, logistics, all the shit i don't know how to stop obsessing about until it's resolved.

should i have KW make a zipcar account just for the month of April so that we can run apartment-setup errands without having to lug stuff on the subway or pay for expensive ubers? IKEA is so far.

see, that kind of stuff. i'm just not going to have a resolution for that yet. i want to solve all the problems but it can't be done all at once, by myself.

it's hard not to feel distant from KW right now. he's busy, i have only a sketchy idea of his schedule... i should check in and see if he's put in for the friday post-move off. see? logistics take over my brain. as i was saying... i texted him a time or two yesterday and didn't hear back until late, to learn that he had actually taken the day off and done nothing. why that didn't mean he could answer my texts, i am still unaware. sigh. it'll be less of a problem in 2 weeks. texting has never quite been his forte.

the rest of my time has been an existential crisis on a few levels. one, i decided to take the enneagram test (the free ones online, of course). i really tend not to buy into personality-descriptor type stuff, knowing that my birthday may class me as an aries but god, nothing about that sign describes me. and having taken online MBTI tests a few times and consistently getting different answers. do i have no personality? or poor self-awareness? it seems to have low test-retest reliability, to reach back into my college-brain for some psych research methods terminology.

anyway, as i was saying - i decided to take the enneagram to have another personality type indicator to reject. i got typed as a Nine (or 9 with a 1 wing), which i guess is the type that strives for peace and harmony in all things, including internally. which like... idk if that sounds like me. none of them sound like me. but apparently part of the Nine type can be poor introspection and therefore thinking that none of them sound like me. so that's been too much introspection for the past few days. i don't think it really has any implications on my life, but it does cause me an odd sense of anxiety in my chest to think about it.

the other existential crisis is that KW wants me to be more useful to the world. a job recruiter reached out to me on linkedin - and then followed up, which caught my attention - for a position in a truly frivolous industry with a starting pay of $100k. naturally, i followed up with the recruiter (unfortunately it didn't go anywhere), and i talked to KW about it. he was like, "wow, that's awesome, i'd definitely be happy for you if you made 6 figures... but also it's ridiculous that i save lives and am paid dirt." (i'm heavily paraphrasing here.)

he wound up calling me to chat about it and said that he feels like i don't respect the work i do - i disparage it by describing it just as "arranging rectangles". and he wants a) his partner to respect the work they do and b) to respect his partner's work, which is easier if they do. there's probably a good amount of imposter syndrome at play, and my own lack of self-confidence (it must be easy, if i can do it), and i told him as much. he said that he'd like to see me make a difference in people's lives, that i have a skill that is still (for now) relatively rare, and i could use it for good. i could help make websites for small woman-owned businesses, for instance. maybe that could be my job and i could take a step down in pay for it, or that i could do that volunteer work on the weekend or something if i still wanna stick with a high-paying, less-useful job.

i just... don't know what to do with this. i don't feel useful, i never have, and in all likelihood i never will. KW has always talked about his drive to feel useful, how that helps him feel better about himself - no matter how low he feels, he knows he's helping people who need it. and that's just never resonated with me. i don't know if it's that i'm selfish, but i think more so that i just feel innately useless. there's nothing i can do that someone else can't do better, and it would be a disservice to do something for someone when they could get someone better to do it for them. all i would do would be to come in and fuck it up and complicate their lives when i should be doing the opposite. like making a website for someone - no, they should have someone who's good at that do it. i can't take that kind of pressure. to know that if i fuck up there's actually something at stake. i will not rise to the occasion, i will not meet the expectation, i will let everyone down, and someone will suffer because i suck. that's why i don't want to do anything useful. like i said in a joking tone (but fully seriously) during a classroom mock interview during my coding program, my primary goal anywhere is just to not fuck things up. i can either have no effect, or a negative one, and i don't want to have a negative effect so i will aim to move quietly through the world and leave it undisturbed. i want to not make a place worse for my presence.

one of the things that drove me to choose KW instead of running from my feelings way back when is that he really does make me want to be better. he's always seen potential in me. in my most insecure moments i've described it as him seeing something incredible in me, falling in love with that possibility, and then being let down and leaving when i show him i'm too fearful to be what he wants me to be. i think to describe this as being fearful would imply i see a truth in it i'm just too timid to reach out and grasp. that's not the case here. i have no idea what i could possibly offer the world, and as such my life philosophy is basically the macroscopic equivalent of "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all."

i guess this will have to be another thing i strive for to keep him. i try to be braver, i try to be less insecure, i try to be more interesting... i'll have to try to be useful. i thought i could get away without it, but i guess i was wrong.

progress on a place

we may have found the place. hopefully the minor snags in our application materials do indeed prove minor - KW has no credit history, having never had a credit card nor taken out a loan (although mine is quite excellent), and my state learner permit appears to be expired on its face, but that's because it was valid until April 2020, and we know what was going on then. certainly no permit renewals. the state has officially extended its validity on word alone, through at least the end of this month. i just need the rental company to understand that word. financially, we hit all the targets. fingers crossed.

it's a one bedroom, as opposed to the two bedroom places we'd set out for initially. but it was just proving too hard to find a two bedroom that didn't.... well, kinda suck. or have obvious detractions, usually in size or light. and seldom any amenities. the place has a small kitchen, counter space at a premium, and unfortunately no dishwasher. but it does have a sizable balcony, all surrounded by brick to the sides and overhead, making it feel secure enough for me to sit out there and work, or enjoy watching a thunderstorm. it gets good light, is in a relatively convenient location (slightly more so than where KW currently lives, anyway), and the bedroom is big enough for our bed and nightstands and probably at least one dresser. huzzah. he will just have to live with my nail polish collection in plain sight. but god, it will be nice to have our own outdoor space. i can even sit outside to do my nails, when the weather is nice, and not stink up the place. maybe do art outside, if the paper doesn't blow away.

my sketch based on memory and no measurements

my nerves have shifted. i can't really let up the search yet, not knowing if we'll be approved. and we won't be approved until after i can drop off a deposit, and send out our file of information. i was sort of hoping one of the listings i visited today would send me a video of the space, because it was very similar but i really liked it. worse oven (smaller; no window to watch my bakes), but a forthcoming dishwasher soon. and central air, plus a nicer building staircase, on a lower (but still top) floor. balcony rear-facing, and again very conveniently located. arguably a shade more so, being one train stop closer to manhattan. unfortunately it comes with a broker fee, and without laundry in the building.

anyway, sorry for all the tedium. i am, to no one's surprise, obsessive about this. but god it would feel good to be on pace for moving April 1st without stressing about cutting it close. about being able to close this chapter of uncertainty.

for another, of course. this morning i woke after a fit of restless sleep, feeling like i was dreaming half-awake about setting up the new apartment. KW was really cute the other day, though. we had a chat about our rental options, having previously ruled out listings that have a gross rent outside our budget but are offering months free, thereby lowering the net rent across a year lease to something we could afford. i didn't want to entertain the idea, knowing that when it comes time to raise the rent the following year, they'll raise it based on the gross rent, and we will not be able to afford to live there any longer. i'm so sick of moving every year, i really just want to find a comfortable place and stay put for a while. but KW raised the point that at this point, he's not looking for a place to live long-term, just a place to live with me. in a year we'll both be in financially better standings, though, and be able to increase our budget substantially, him having doubled his earnings and me having hopefully sorted out the open question at work of how much i'll be expected to travel again once that's feasible. i hope to be able to renegotiate so that a) they substantially reimburse me, b) they cancel my travel at least mostly, or c) they raise my salary in accordance with the travel, at least partly. i'm just glad he really wants to live with me. not being able to see each other and really be able to relax with each other is just awful.

although we were talking about it when the application was proceeding quickly and he was like "oh, this is really happening fast. is this the place we'll be taking? the commute's kind of awful for me, but the window's closing on finding that miracle spot..." and i know that he was just airing what the downside is, with his family all in brooklyn and commuting there being a bitch from where he's at now, which is pretty close to where we'll be moving. but then i found myself worried i'd failed us. like i should have done better. but he liked the place! he was the one that was like, we should put in an application in case this place gets away from us. so i know that's not a rational fear. i put in so much work, it was exhausting. and i'm just ready to be done. the next time we move, we can do it together. we can search together, snuggling in bed and going on showings together. i did tell him i was worried i didn't do a good job if he'd rather be in brooklyn, and he was like "that you might think that occurred to me, and i was like 'i hope she doesn't think that.' but no, not at all, and i'm very grateful to you for taking the lead on this." so, i should let that nagging thought fade away.

anyway, there's my rant. i'm so decision-fatigued.

under pressure

i am anxiety.

there's a tension in my chest and i'm holding my breath absentmindedly. i clench my teeth and then realize i'm doing so and try to relax my jaw but suddenly i'm biting my cheek instead. on the other side of a month, things will work out. (probably.) it just sucks that i'm the one that has to work it out. i talked to my therapist about how i guess at the end of all this i won't have an excuse to call myself not an adult anymore. i've never felt independent or capable of anything, at least far behind where all my friends have been. is this a crash course to catch me up?

i just want to know where i'll be living. and i want it to be good. i won't get everything i want but what compromises will i make? will i live in the dark with no views other than brick walls? will i have no living room to speak of? will i have to go at least a year without taking a bath and soaking my back? already seems likely that i won't have a dishwasher or access to a roof or balcony. i want a window in my living room that does something besides look into another person's living room window. i'm so tired of living in my bedroom, i want my living room to be the most pleasant place in the house. i want to have a reason to get out of bed, ever.

i have decision fatigue. i look at apartments, i decide if i like them. i decide if it's worth going to see them. i decide if it's worth applying. i'm trying to decide if i should get a new credit card, because i want another one and the moving period will be a high-spend time that'll sail me right over most bonus requirements. probably.

i should learn how to meditate, i think. all the shit i said at the start of this post still applies. i'm literally holding my breath while typing this sentence. why am i like this? how do i calm myself down? coping mechanism?

i hate this. i have always hated decisions and responsibility and now somehow my life is full of it. god i just want to go back to normal. i just want to be able to breathe again. mid-april, i will turn 29, hopefully my apartment will be adequately furnished, and i can start a new year of life in my first Independent apartment with a partner. i'll be able to cuddle him whenever i want*. he'll cook me dinner and teach me how to make a good bolognese sauce. i will be able to relax. there will be relaxation in my future.

*when he is home

it is 4:30 pm on a thursday. i think i'll put a bottle of wine in the fridge to chill it so i can pour a large glass soon.

P.S., at some point i should probably mentally revisit the fact that i keep feeling like everything is a first? am i discrediting my past achievements, or encouraging myself to feel like i'm continually accomplishing things? this apartment with KW feels like a marked achievement because it will be my first place that will be totally in my control (shared control, but still, no roommates), and the first place i'll have to fully set up myself, be in charge of utilities. but it's not the first place i'm finding by myself (that was boston) or applying to by myself (again, boston) or signing a lease (boston yet again), or living independently in the city (that's here!), or living with a partner (that was baltimore). it's less a big leap into an unknown i'm unqualified for than the next logical baby step toward adulthood... right?

there's a place for us

a zillion zillow tabs

god, this apartment search is weighing on me. i know it doesn't need to. i'm sure we'll be okay. i just cannot stand all the uncertainty. i literally do not know what my address will be in a month. i know i'll be paying too much rent, though. i don't know if i'll have to pay a fucking broker fee. i don't know where i'll be living, and i don't know how the lease will get finished out here. i don't know if AZ2 (yes, that's not me) and FB will still live here after may, and neither do they. will i get furniture out of the deal if the apartment needs to be emptied? i can't count on that, and likely won't be able to nearly until may begins. i just want all the answers, and i don't get them yet.

i need to calm the fuck down though, because i'm even getting insecure about KW. and that's just fucking dumb. we don't talk enough, because he's busy, because he's tired, because he's stressed... probably in at least small part because he's resentful that he can't see me. at least besides when we go on apartment tours together. and that's where i know i'm being stupid - there's no reason to be insecure. he loves me, and trusts that he will continue to, or he literally would not be searching for apartments with me. shut the fuck up, demon brain.

i'm nervous. i've never lived in a place that's just me and a partner before. i lived with ZM, sure, and that was delightful. but that was a) a very different relationship dynamic, and b) we still had roommates. i am worried i'll put too much pressure on myself to entertain KW, with no one else to sweep him up into interesting things when i feel boring. i am, as always, concerned about being enough. about being entertaining enough, and about giving him enough space. i'm so glad that he's taking this leap with me, given that i know he did not like living with a past partner. i, on the other hand, loved living with ZM. we were best friends, being around him was as peaceful as being alone and as fun as being with friends. KW and i have not gotten enough opportunities to truly be alone, to be outside of outside pressures. we've never been on vacation together, really. he visited me in Boston, maybe that counts. i don't remember doing a lot with him, but i don't remember feeling unfulfilled. i remember wanting down time with him, because we missed doing nothing.

maybe living with him will encourage me to be more consistent about my attempts to be more. maybe i'll do more art. maybe i'll study more, learn more. invest in being interesting.

it's been about 3 years since we began falling for each other again. how many more years til i don't feel like i have to strive for his love? if i get to that point, will that be the beginning of the end? i worry sometimes - backed by my therapist's hypothesis - that things with ZM being so easy is part of why they didn't last. i think i took him for granted. i was never worried about doing things to keep him, and it kept me complacent. in choosing KW, i chose a certain amount of instability, and i knew this at the time. he made me (and makes me) want to be better, want to be more than i am, more than i've been. i want to be the best that he sees in me. and i don't know where he'll take me, never staying anywhere long. there will be no settling, with him.

half full, half empty, half hungry

sour cream crumb cake

i'm not eating enough. not to echo my old blog too much. it's not on purpose, really, i just cannot be fucked to put effort into it. it's just not worth the energy to get up, go to the kitchen, and put even a modicum of effort into eating something i'm not particularly excited about. i'm literally too lazy to eat. a lot of it's probably got to do with the fact that i've been buying and cooking the same food for a year with minimal reprieve. haven't really put many new things in my rotation, aside from baked goods. and i have been enjoying those baked goods, although i've been off my cookie game for so long...

if i'm honest, there's probably part of it that's old ways. like... i guess if i notice it's been a while since i've eaten, there is a small voice encouraging me to keep it going. like, if i've already gone this long without dinner, and it's practically bedtime, may as well push through and just skip it, right? i have lost weight... my clothes fit better than they did a few months ago. never exercising but always baking has its impacts.

this is a terrible habit, though. it'll probably resolve itself when i live with KW and he can cook delicious food and we can order in and there's someone there at least sometimes to hold me accountable. and help me stock the fridge.

i don't know what's wrong with me.

y'know, i'm kinda sad that the old Pretty Thin forum died. and its replacements. i found a small community there, for a time. i wonder why i routinely gravitate towards anonymous forums. there were the old fan forums circa, what, '05? that lasted a while. there was PT the "pro-ana" forum. there was some app? something with an L. and then there was yik yak, and its chain of successors... sometimes i wonder why other people don't need anonymous apps as part of how they spend their time. where do they vent to? why am i the one left needing somewhere to talk to no one in particular? am i running from my thoughts, or processing them?

sharp objects

i've always been too neurotic to properly self-destruct. even when i was best at letting my demons chase me into dark places and dumb decisions, i couldn't help but look where i was walking, at least a little. i never wanted to lose control. and yet something in it has always appealed to me. i feel almost a sting of jealousy when i read about people who have been able to go off the rails, be fully in the deep end, swimming for a little while. as long as they came out whole, or as whole as one can be in adulthood.

i read meet me in the bathroom, about the rock scene in aughties NYC, naturally depicting stories of debaucherous nights - where there is rock and roll, there are sex and drugs. and i just felt like i'd missed out on something i wanted to have been part of. i feel so adjacent to that scene in a number of ways. i like the bands, i lived in the city, but i was too young to be part of it then. missed that window. wouldn't have fit into it even if i were 10 years older, most likely. but it's a powerful case of FOMO it sparked.

just now, i've finished sharp objects, read for book club. and it's a twisted mystery crime thriller, but the main character has spent her adolescence and adult life cutting herself and using sex and alcohol as means to cope and control. i shouldn't find that sort of thing appealing at all. i guess my life has veered just close enough to both of these cases to give me a sort of perverse nostalgia for an alternate timeline in which i ran more wildly from my own mind. maybe i'd have found the catharsis or comfort if i'd just gone a little farther.

rationally, i doubt that. rationally, i'm probably better for the measures i took. there's no safe risk, right? but god i have always - okay, not always, that's disingenuous - too often shied away from risk. to what is probably an unhealthy degree. but people don't really call you out on being careful. can't be too careful is an expression for a reason.

i wonder why this sort of chaos calls to me, though. maybe i feel like i haven't lived enough, or made enough messes. i've played things too safe, done too much of what i'm supposed to, and not enough of what one would want to do, if i wanted to do anything at all. another common theme in therapy, that i seem to have trained myself away from wanting as a means to protect myself from not getting what i want, to stave off disappointment. irrational again, of course. impossible.

i read because i want to figure out how to be more, but sometimes it really highlights how little i've ever been.

good news is at least in reading sharp objects i'm not jealous of the cutting or the unhealthy relationship with alcohol. although i used to cut, and still do honestly miss it sometimes, i'm grateful to not be covered in obvious scars. it makes disclosing that history optional. and i'm not jealous of the borderline alcoholism either; it'd be nice to turn down the volume on my fears and intuitions, but alcohol is just too messy. i do envy some of KW's experiences with AA though. to go through those 12 steps - some more appealing than others - to have someone else help hold you accountable to them, too. i have found myself more than once wishing that there were programs like that for people without having them need to be addicts first. just because i haven't used a consistent substance as a crutch or an escape doesn't mean it wouldn't be helpful for me to do a searching and fearless moral inventory of myself. i laughed as i typed that out. fearless, we know, is a failing for me.

what i do find myself bizarrely jealous of is the ability the main character has to just... sleep with people. just fuck. boldly. and again, fearlessly. that'll be a common theme in this whole blog, i'm sure of it. she winds up fucking two people during the course of the story, in the span of a few weeks. she recounts her time as a precocious beautiful teenager wielding a sexuality that probably got out of hand. but still, something in that holds an appeal for me, who kept my sexuality so buttoned up for a decade or more. who spent years wanting to be pure, or the right kind of enigma. desirable but untouched. i'm probably demisexual, with the degree to which i simply cannot truly understand wanting to fuck someone i don't know intimately. but i don't want to be. i want to be able to see a hot man - or just a hot person, really, and go to bed with them. takes more confidence than i have. not just confidence in terms of being able to seduce them, but the confidence to know that i'd want to do that. the confidence inherent to finding a person attractive, to knowing that you'd want to fuck them.

idk, i won't get resolution to any of this any time remotely soon, so all this rambling and reflection is a bit flaccid and impotent, to use some thematically-related words.

the next book i read should be light and wholesome, i think. otherwise reading is going to be a bad influence on me. how hysterically nerdy would that be?

signifying nothing

i made biscuits today. baking is the only hobby left i know how to do, even though it's new. i've finished reading 8 books so far this year. i do enjoy it, mostly, and there's a lot i still want to read. but i still worry that much of the time it feels like something the sort of person i want to be would do, rather than genuinely me. is that a normal feeling? people acting in a way that's more in accordance with some role they feel they should inhabit?

does that make me more interesting, if all i do is read? probably not. i can think of interesting people who aren't great readers. i think what makes someone interesting is a combination of creativity, curiosity, and just enough fearlessness to utilize the two others. is it a coincidence that i think i lack - well, not all of that. i do think i'm very curious. i want to know everything. i love being given knowledge. but i do think my lack of creativity does impede my curiosity. there are some ways in which you can't know what you don't know unless you can conceive of not knowing it, of its absence. and then god knows i have no shortage of fear.

such a common mental refrain is that i want to be more. i'm sure i'll say it many times here. maybe i hope that reading will spark something new in me, or will begin to place enough puzzle pieces that i'll be able to know what's left to fill in.

it just hit me how funny it is that my whole last blog back in ~2011 was about trying to be less, and now it's all about trying to be more.

what even is my aim here? is this just masturbatory introspection? probably. i - i'd say i wanna find my voice, but i think i only have a voice. i am only method, no substance, and i always have been. i was an art major with no inspiration. i loved assignments. i've always said i'm about execution, not ideation. picking an essay topic would always cause a minor breakdown.

i wonder who i'd be if school had been different for me. if it had gone either of two other ways. if i had either learned how to work, developed discipline and a capacity for hard work, or if i'd not been so concerned with being right all the time, with being perfect. if i had only knew how fucking imperfect striving for it would make me. i'd be less afraid of failure, and wouldn't be constantly searching for the right answer. i deeply resent the disservice school has done me.

i just want to be enough. i want to be enough for KW, and maybe that'll be enough for me.