Problematic

I should subscribe to the New York Times. I love NYT. I feel like NYT, the New Yorker, and Washington Post add a lot of value to my life and I should really be contributing to their continuance- but maybe I also resent myself for not going with a journalism major and I'm taking it out on them. More likely, I'm indulging in that one economic principal I can't remember the name of- where basically everyone is terrible and is way more likely to take advantage of free stuff. I spend a lot of my day calculating exactly what would be missing from my diet if I restricted it completely to the snacks that are provided in the breakroom. It's not as though they're bad snacks, either. It's trail mix, beef jerky, dried fruit, various sparkling waters, wheat thins, chips- it's probably completely sustainable. There's even pita chips now! I feel like I'm just a step down from having "made it" by landing a sweet tech gig with a cafeteria. I have never fina...

I'm not good at falling. I remember falling very often as a child. I wasn't particularly clumsy. In fact, I didn't fall everywhere, all the time. I fell often, but only in one spot. On the way to school. I can't remember what the area looked like, but I remember the falls. For weeks I fell in that one spot. I bloodied my knees. I was always a mess. I didn't fall easily or delicately. I fell with unintentional determination for calamity. My mother was with me on these walks, but nothing could prevent this daily occurrence. It was destiny. This sidewalk would not let me go until it had proven a point that I should carry with me through the rest of my life: traps await you, you will fall hard, it will hurt, there is nothing you can do to escape. Unless, maybe you weren't on this sidewalk at all? I didn't learn to accept falling. I learned to fear it above all else. It was an unnatural spell. It was a curse to fall so often. I would never do it again. This i...

I am ensnared. Confined by a cold rain metastasizing to ice on the roads. My weather app tells me it's snowing. I imagine that is where you are- blessed by the snow. In a part of the world gifted with airy white flakes that fall gracefully like the natural lightness in your heart. A soul callously unburdened by the disastrous nature of your life and it's effect on others. Aloof and fleeting people love to dance with you, but after too long you begin to destroy life. Now that I know your new girlfriend is moving in I wonder how long it will take for you to hurt her and I wish I were able to sever myself from you completely. There are icicles outside. I've never seen icicles in real life before. It's snowed twice in Texas this winter. I keep experiencing new things. I started watching 9-1-1 today. It's a little too emotionally draining with no real pay-off. It's like speed-running episodes of SVU but never seeing anyone go to trial. The outcomes are rushed ...

My allergies are so bad I look like a coke addict, or at least the impression of one I got from TV when I was younger. Constant sniffing and furiously rubbing my nose. I think of death often. I wouldn't say I'm death obsessed. Mostly it's premonitions of my own- which probably goes along with the whole suicidal thing. In my head "I imagine death so much it feels like a memory" kind of swirls around every few days. I don't think it's quite the same- although I wonder. Sometimes. I do wonder if I'm not already dead. If I'll know. I feel haunted by the eventuality, the unknown and the idea that I may never find contentment before it comes. Yesterday I talked to a guy about getting drunk and listening to emo-music. He included Elliott Smith, which I argued wasn't emo, but I would accept on the playlist. He said he'd been listening to Kings Crossing which is my favorite song from From a Basement on the Hill and I fell in love in the same fli...

She thought of it more frequently, though she saw him no more often. She was sure she was embellishing. She inserted more meaning to his shy gaze upon her as he commanded that she close her eyes. Perhaps she mirrored her own affectionate expression in her fantasy. She hadn’t been expecting him. The memory was dreamy, so she knew it was not honest. She imagined a soft and earnest Sufjan Stevens song should have accompanied the moment. She imagined the complexity of her amused anticipation catching in her throat as she complied. She couldn’t quite remember how she felt, but knew that, from all her pop-culture references, she was about to receive a gift. Her first surprise from her first love she had long given up on. She gave more meaning to the moment every time it snuck into her consciousness, which was recurring with more frequency, almost urgency, but always seemed to be untriggered. She remembered he wasn’t alone. Maybe this was part of the narrative she created. Their friends ...

I'm easing back into an acknowledgement of the pleasure of being single. This might fade by the time Valentines Day rolls around, but for now I burp with impunity and that is enough. I have begun to divide my time in more productive ways. Relationships absorb a lot of time. Work, school and a relationship create a bad pattern of exhaustion. With the last miserable semester over I am carving out time to maintain and grow my familiarity with French. This has been supporting my very tenuous grasp on Spanish, and I intend to exploit this bridge so my Spanish speaking friends no longer feel they have to order for me at Mexican restaurants. And so I won't be so sheepish around the waitresses. It's not that I don't know enough Spanish to get along in that setting, it's really that I just have an atrocious Spanish accent. My French accent is much better- I blame it on my fat tongue and it's stubborn refusal to roll 'r's. French is a wispy language - it has to ...

Another year slips away. It sneaks out of my bed and into the night, shoes in hand, like a one-night stand. It wasn't a particularly good year, so I don't know if I should be forlorn about the impermanence of our relationship. In a lot of ways it seems logical that I would spend the last few days of the year with a cold, maybe the flu, maybe both? It's been a year of loss. For a lot of people. In a lot of ways. For the country. There have been some gains- notably for the long-silenced victims of sexual abuse. Every step seems to fall a little short of getting there though. I'm hoping to make this next year one of more positive change. I've been considering writing poetry, because I think my thoughts are unnecessarily floral, but succinct. My goal, however, is to start writing complete stories. Short ones, then drawing them out further and further, until I disappear into a story that seems to have no ending. Like a George R.R. Martin series. I've been o...