Problematic

Today I read this article  that wants to convince Austinites to flee to Houston in a message that completely lacks any self-awareness. The writer wants the middle-class mostly white residents of Austin to perpetuate the problem they are facing in a bigger more diverse city by following suit of the middle-class mostly white Californians fleeing rising housing costs in Silicon Valley. Houston is the 4th largest city in the U.S. and as of April 2021 was considered the most diverse city in the country, it should not require any cajoling to move there, but please don't. Houston is already facing the same issues of gentrification that Austin faces from people moving from out of state, it does not need any more help from people who feel they are having to settle. From the moment I moved to Austin for college 15 years ago I have had to hear about how it is the superior city for all the racist reasons one would expect from a town designed to keep black and brown people at the edges of the c...

 I think every day I know less what I should be doing than any day that preceded it. I'm 33 now. I feel like I had a better sense of purpose when I was 16. There was probably a good period between 20 and 25 where things could have found a track. There was an obvious and clear path somewhere, I'm sure. I would have found someone to marry. Or something I liked to do. Or had a baby. Maybe all three things. At the very least I could have found a job that I liked and could settle in to while writing on the side. I could have thrown everything away and moved to a coastal city to chase some dream. I could have believed in having a dream. I spent the Monday before my birthday looking up who would inherit my debts if I die. I've spent so much time lately wondering what I would do in an active shooter situation and fearing being shot, but then I spent about 20 minutes considering several viable ways to quietly kill myself while Collin was playing DnD. The most obvious answer is all t...

 I'm getting my second COVID vaccine today. Should I be putting COVID in all caps all the time, I wonder? Like- is that the grammatically correct way of referencing covid? Do I care about grammar in this instance when I am so bad with it regularly? Who's to say? Anyway, I'm high on Ambien and thinking about my day and my life. I'm not high on Ambien in the sense that I'm just taking it to party and write sad blogs, I if you don't fall asleep right away you get a little high. I watch things I forget I watched, although I guess that's not an uncommon occurrence while I'm not high. I buy groceries I don't need. I guess that might not also be completely dissimilar from my normal functioning, so I suppose you'll just have to take my word for it. As I'm getting sleepy, but not quite there, I feel intoxicated. I was thinking about the magnitude of wasted time and experience when I slipped into this state. What is a life wasted? There are probably to...

I feel bad that I hate Drew Barrymore. She seems like a perfectly nice person. I have no idea why I hold any animosity toward her.  I have been thinking for a while that I am afraid of offending people. I spend a lot of time thinking about the way I phrase things and whether my thought process is informed, compassionate, and socially conscious. I live with a lot of shame in my life and I just don't want to compound it. I also don't want to hurt anyone. I consider the jokes I laugh at carefully. I appreciate this added anxiety. I don't want to live self-righteously or anything. I think I'm probably doing the bare minimum. I'm sure that there are people and perspectives that I am missing. There are definitely opinions I'm being dismissive of and feelings I'm shrugging off. I still think I'm better off, and society is better off, trying to adhere to cancel culture. What kind of sociopath is going around unafraid of hurting other people's feelings? White...

I hate myself and I want to die. I'm exhausted. I should probably be in therapy. I don't know what I would do with therapy. I've tried therapy. But maybe drugs aren't always the answer. Or maybe I'm not on enough drugs. Drugs are probably the answer. Things would probably be a lot better if I were on a lot of cocaine. It worked out for that bear. It's getting a movie now! I Googled "what to do if I don't think therapy works" because I trust Google will answer all my problems. It's a lot like drugs that way. There was a Psychology Today article, because of course there would be, and it said I should set myself up for therapy to work. Get out of abusive relationships. Eat better and exercise. Get 8 hours of sleep a night. You know- just take care of the things you might discuss in therapy before you get into therapy and you will find you feel a lot better about the progress you're making in therapy. I was pretty annoyed the moment I saw ...

Thursday Night It's weird to look out a window at night notice that the darkness is not much different from the day. It's not the historical blackness one remembers when they think of the night. A world lit only by moonlight and stars that I have never in my life experienced. I am used to an artificial glow brightening my life. I have been feeling really fat lately. For a while I was drinking Yakult every day and I stopped because I didn't think it was doing anything, but maybe it was because I have been feeling very bloated. I move my belly around with disdain and am convinced I must be gaining weight. Last time I felt like this I was so convinced I could not believe the scale when I weighed myself, so I had to buy another one. I am still unconvinced. I have largely maintained the same weight over the last year (or whenever I actually gained the weight I had lost after Scott, gained back after moving to Houston, lost after becoming bulimic, and regained during quarantine.)...

Monday, February 15th I once again find myself completely unprepared for how bad things could get. I thought "oh, we won't be able to get sushi for Valentine's day because it will be snowing all day, we'll just have to settle in earlier and cook something special." I imagined, as I mentioned, cocoa and cookie baking. Maybe the pipes would get fucked up. Maybe (more likely) the pipes would get fucked up in the rickety house in Houston I was living in on my own. My parents had gone over to turn on the heat and drip the faucets, but the house is sort of in disrepair to begin with. Mostly I thought people's pipes would get fucked up and no one should drive. Because I am a rube and believe it when people in charge say things are going to be (mostly) okay. Of course, things are a lot worse. Again.  My friends and I were half-heartedly joking that the winter storm might at least keep people inside and reduce COVID cases. Instead millions of people in Texas lost power...

 I've developed a probably unhealthy fixation with my cat in isolation. To be honest, my preoccupation with her before was probably not at healthy levels. The obsession has only grown. This is probably not novel. I don't think anything I do is. I think I prescribe to the cynical notion that originality is impossible. There are too many people and too many thoughts for anything to be unique. We're all built up on history. Then again, it is scientifically proven that is is virtually impossible for two snowflakes to be the same. And someone thought up the Babadook. And then someone thought up the Babadook as a queer icon. So, I'm probably wrong. I think it's clear I have a lot of insecurity that is not exactly underlying. It's a very forward facing insecurity. An insecurity so self-aware it probably circles back around to a complete lack of understanding. I think, like with a lot of people, my insecurities shape my most aggressive distastes and negative beliefs. Li...

 I need to write more often. I feel like this is one of those things I say all the time. And think of a lot. Like I gained back all the weight I lost from having an eating disorder over quarantine and it was like "ugh, what was even the point?" I know that's a bad joke. It's like- only half a joke. But it's another thing I think about all the time. I should start to do yoga. I should eat better. I just weigh myself constantly and pray "please don't be fat" which is pretty fucked up. I also think about school a lot. Reading books. Cleaning. A billion things that are pretty easily within my grasp but I tend to brush off in favor of following random articles online (as I mentioned in my last post.) And then I need to spend time being silently (or not so silently) outraged by the articles I read. So much time can be wasted being scandalized. I have been eating better. When I was worried that democracy was going to collapse and there would be violent mobs...

 I think sometimes I mourn things that haven't happened. I often get anxious about the things that might happen. And I cry at the losses that will eventually occur. My head is filled with disaster. I read a lot now. I spend a lot of time reading about things that are just generally fucked up with no where to put this information. To list a few things this week I read about American war crimes, male rape during war conflicts, deadly FBI shoot-outs, cults, musicians who committed statutory rape, and Marjorie Taylor Greene. No one really wants to talk about the military coup in Myanmar and the historical precedent for it. Who would want to delve into genocide and the ramifications of embracing someone that later goes on to argue in favor of atrocities? It's not like it's the first time the United States supported a leader who ended up being disastrous for the country they held office in... I talk a lot, but I think I end up sitting on a lot of information that just dies in me....

I can't say that I missed you as much as I have missed other things, but I do feel bad for being gone for so long. I hope you didn't miss me. I like the one-sided sense of community, but I hate to think I was letting anyone down. I've been very productive today and I hate it. No one should have to be productive. Things may look like they're improving, but they haven't demonstrably improved yet and we should all be allowed to just stop. I realize this is a very privileged and impractical position to take. There are a lot of people who are never really allowed to stop. The people that feed us, the people that take care of us while we're unwell, the people who pick up our trash. A lot of people we regularly don't give enough respect or pay enough couldn't be as unproductive as I want everyone to be able to experience. Probably, honestly, the people who most deserve a break. Maybe some day. It's a new year and a new administration in the United States of...