Problematic

 I am trying to be more consistent. I really need to have more consistent practices than canceling plans. My most consistent practice this week has been to not go to things after work that I planned on going to. And not applying for as many jobs as I meant to. Tomorrow I have therapy though, so maybe we can talk about that. I don't know.  I'm also trying avoid spending all my time learning about things I hate. So, I'm very excited about The Vampire Lestat's first look . I will admit, when I finished the second season of Interview With The Vampire, I was pretty miffed about the way it felt the ending was all about making the white man, who we established as abusive, have a level of ambiguity to his actions and motivations. However, maybe I should have read the books. Maybe this was always the narrative. But then, the introduction of Louis' Blackness and Armand's Brownness were definitely added for the show. It's also been pretty well established that Louis...

 I have started deleting photos. It's almost a year since I cut another person out of my life, and I wonder why I am always so lonely. I should probably find a way to bring this up in therapy. Things can't always be about work. Sometimes they have to be about your intolerance. I wonder if I should ever get rid of the photos of Isis. I loved Isis so much when she was alive. I mourned her so much when she died, and it was right around the first election of Donald Trump and my big breakup from Scott. Before I knew for sure he had been cheating on me the whole time and that Isis, unlike The Kitten, was an enabler. How can a cat be an enabler? Isis was a much friendlier cat than The Kitten. She loved everyone. She accepted everyone. This meant she didn't attack my enemies at the time. Which, is probably what I need around me, but she is gone now. And The Kitten has no problem with my prickly nature. The Kitten thinks other people who are not Collin are terrible and deserve ire. ...

 I don't understand fashion. My apologies to Alexander McQueen stans, because apparently Alexander McQueen originated butt crack pants. And it was about female empowerment? And Scottishness? Highland Rape was the title of the fashion collection , and it's such a startling title I am struggling. It occurs to me that it took a really long time for me to learn anything about Alexander McQueen and by the time I got really into McQueen he was dying. I should learn more about the things I think I care about. Or at least, try to remember that information. Most of the information I retain is about death. So, you'd think I'd know more about other people who have also been obsessed with death. The interesting and multi-dimensional just make me feel guilty and jealous. I read a short article today that made me think more about the way that I learned about McQueen to begin with: magazines. The article was about this little shop  that focuses on print media and zines. The article sa...

 I feel like I could never fully articulate the level of betrayal I feel from the fashion industry sometimes. Irregular Choice shoes are going to stop selling their iconic insane maximalist bullshit. Heatherette, the fashion company of my secretly-a-theater-kid dreams went under in 2009, right before I started to earn enough money to even dream of buying their clothes. I guess, I could probably look for some of that shit on Depop- but let's be honest...there's no way they were making inclusive sizes at that point in the 2000s. Also, is anyone actually using Depop? I did download it, but much like Too Good To Go, I find the idea of actually using it a whole "thing". "Thing" being some artificial and undefinable barrier. When we reach "it's a whole thing" status, that is the exact point in which my desire to do or learn something hits up against my low capacity for risk and failure. But, I digress... Alexander McQueen is another fashion house tha...

 It's apparently been over a year since I have tried to write something personally. But, it's probably been way longer than that since I felt like writing a diary. And, the last time I tried writing creatively was definitely in the early 2020s.  Overall, I've shrunk.  Yet, I have been privately, constantly, been screaming. I have been spending so much of my time trying to insert myself in conversations and places in the name of taking up space. In therapy today I said that I didn't want to leave my job because I was worried if I didn't stand up to a workplace bully that there would be people who would have to deal with them after me. Do I really have to be the person fighting any particular fight though? Does anyone even really want me to? Who is asking me to do this beyond a previous version of myself that didn't realize this was a fight I would be in? If I'm being honest, I think I mostly act out of self interest. And I think people can smell it. The vibes...

 Love is Blind got crazy.  Spoilers for everything: If you haven't seen Saltburn, you should, if only to earn the last two minutes of Barry Keoghan dancing naked. It really is iconic. I have not been out dancing since before the PANDEMIC and MY ANXIETY IS HIGH. I mostly don't know how to be in public spaces. I am going out for a Saltburn emo disco. I better not see you there. My fervent hope is that because it has a $10 cover it will be slightly less crowded. I have planned an outfit I hope lives up to the spirit of scandal. Anyway, back on Love is Blind, I finally figured out these mostly square mostly white people are from North Carolina, which does make those facts make more sense. One of the things I hope to never forget was this guy telling his fiancee that if she "got out of shape" he would tell her to go to the gym. Unsurprisingly, this man did not say yes. I feel like she's going to take him back because she clearly has low self-esteem. I say this as game ...

 Love is Blind is what I am watching right now. It's scratching a morbid itch. I appreciate the neediness. I recognize it inside myself. The level of desperation that wants someone to choose them and also wants to have, potentially, the adoration of all Netflix subscribers. I remember the age I wanted to be famous. Sometimes I still dream of writing something so interesting and insightful I am catapulted into the spotlight as I assume Lena Dunham felt when she called herself the voice of our generation. Or whatever. Don't quote me on quoting her on that. I'm probably still at the age as well where I want someone to become obsessed with me. Yet, I'm also at an age where I feel deeply judgmental about this unhinged behavior in other people. I have a weird habit of repotting my plants without gardening gloves. So I have dirt under my nails. After getting ringworm from Little Gray Cat when she came inside, I realize that I am playing with ringworm fire. As with most things,...

 Wow. It's been a really long time. I have 4 cats now. Still one boyfriend. 2 mostly virtual friends. 2 friends IRL, but at least 1 wants to leave. A job I possibly hate because I don't know where I fit in or how to be effective. It's probably been over a year since I had 5 friends. I grow more and more concerned that I cannot genuinely connect with the people I used to love. Even if we have similar political views we handle them in different ways. We have very different problems even though we're in ostensibly similar periods of life.  My life now is trapping and caring for community cats, and being equal parts over involved and flaking out on the community. Who even is the community? I think before the pandemic my friends were my community. I lived myopically. My vague sense of purpose to make things better in some undetermined way. I'd figure it out as I grew up, I guess. But now I am growing up, and the way to make a difference has never been so opaque. Around 1...

 I'm watching a Korean drama about a man who has been living a lie and I feel like I'm drowning. The depths of my lack in direction and success are boundless. I'm almost certain I'm headed toward a point where only two people and four cats truly want to be around me. Even then I'm sure two of the cats could take it or leave it.  I buy imaginary things and crave boba tea constantly. Pretending small indulgences don't add up seems to be the only way I know how to survive and it's sure to kill me eventually.  I've been 35 for two months and a college graduate for two years. I have this elevator pitch about it. I talk all the time about not having the guidance to navigate higher education and how much it made me value educational equity. I'm always mentioning how my parents didn't teach me Spanish because they didn't want me to be discriminated against. Now I mention community building and community meetings every chance I get. Everyone at work i...

I think I might finally be at the point in my life where I am ready to be loved. It's also one of the points I have felt most isolated. I have felt so inauthentic. I'm no longer prepared to be honest. I have so little to lose at this point in my life, but everything feels so much more shameful. Everything seems to have so much more weight as I'm aging. I'm going to be an age soon I previously couldn't imagine wanting to live to see. And I've accomplished none of the fantastical things I thought would make dying a young artist romantic. I don't even make art anymore. Motivation is a rare find. In many ways I'm losing my voice. I haven't been able to sing because I have spent so much of the last few years throwing up and letting allergies close my throat. Finding notes is a struggle. I'm not sure what the point would be to finding a vocal coach besides my own happiness. Happiness is such a foreign concept I can't entertain it as a real reason t...

 I went to therapy recently. Friday, specifically. I also bleached and dyed my hair. That happened earlier. I feel like that was more impactful on my declining mental health. It did take a few tries though. I went through a couple of cycles of bad dye before landing on Manic Panic, which I had never tried before. It bleeds out every time I shower, but the color still seems pretty bright and closer to what I was envisioning. Anyway, my girl group has broken up. I think? Kind of. For all practical purposes at least, at the moment. I don't think it can be narrowed down to any one moment. It doesn't seem to be anyone's fault. It seems over the course of the pandemic we found ourselves in very different places in life. A few friends lost really important people lately. It was hard enough to get everyone together before, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of room for scheduling around grief and tragedy. We all have very different habits now. It felt very rare we were all up t...

I both am and in a nightmare. I both am and am in a nightmare. I am in, and am, a nightmare. I'm in a nightmare. I am a nightmare of a person. I am not sure how best to capture the sentiment. I'll be brief about it. The last few months have been a slow spiral in the wake of my best friends experiencing personal misfortunes on a larger scale. I probably haven't been accurately expressing how volatile I feel because I don't think there's space for it in anyone's life. There's no space for it in my life. It feels like there's a higher unspoken level of strain everyone has been under that's causing us all to snap, but quietly repair ourselves mostly off-screen, then reenter the scene because there doesn't seem to be anything else to do. No one's been allowed a break. I feel like a lot of my feelings are secondhand anyway. I probably need respite the least. Luckily, there doesn't seem to be any to snatch up, so I'm not being greedy about i...

 It's been a week. But when was the last time it wasn't a week? Obviously by that I mean when was the last time I didn't spend the work day grinding my teeth and wondering what is the point if there's always a life-changing disaster looming? Years are days and days are years of frantic dread. And anger. Blood boiling anger. I want to boil my enemies in pools of their own blood. Starting small: how are companies still asking for 3-5+ years of experience for every fucking position? Can we not all get over ourselves, please? Everyone knows their office is 50% people who are completely incompetent, and if you don't think so it's probably because you're one of those 50% No shade. People who are not good at things deserve to survive. And a lot of them are. A lot of really stupid unqualified white men are thriving. So let's just chill out with our fucking skills and experience required sections, can we? It's also already way too fucking hot and I'm alre...

 Thoughts from yesterday: I guess these are always thoughts. I inherited the worst traits of both my parents. My mother told me this often. I think I probably inherited more of her bad traits, but that's probably because I know very little about my father as a person. I don't know a lot of people that know a lot about their fathers as people, and the people that do seem to regret knowing them. The breakdown was this: my mother's bad skin, she was prone to breakouts, my father's thick black hair, that included body hair, and their general incompatibility with joy. I've probably mentioned a lot of this before. I think I definitely mentioned that I assume, if I am bipolar, that I got that from my mom who I most certainly believe is bipolar. It is also possible that I inherited her skepticism toward accepting I am mentally ill. I think I eventually inherited their fear and tendency to cut themselves off from the world. But there are things that I acquired that were less...

 We live in the soft glow of a failed experiment. A little spiral tree of lights that was meant for the lawn. A lot of life in a house you care about seems to be not knowing what to do. There are half painted walls from the moments shortly after we moved in while I had motivational anxiety. Humming with ideas. Hoping to escape and make a place feel like it was a place for me. We have succeeded in making it a place for The Kitten. She has soft places to sit and watch us, to catch sunbeams for a lightly toasted Kitten, look out at a world that it seems impossible to be a part of. Same. I also feel I've picked up her habit of rotating interests. There's only so many things that are comfortable, soft, and safe I seek with regularity. It's not quite a routine. It's slipping into a modest interest. In the window as things go by I have the impulse to bark. I stare with curiosity and hope the intensity of my envy is concealed by my computer monitor. The idea of expanding my wor...

 I keep bumping into things around the house to disastrous effect. That's an exaggeration of course, but I have ended up with a lot of bruises and deeper cuts than I would have expected. My cute office chair betrayed me and I have had some pretty serious back pain for a bit over a month or so? I had to quickly purchase a new chair because my aesthetic choice was unworkable. I also acquired way too many seat cushions in order to try to keep it because it was one of the first things I bought for the house and my office. I think my first purchase was the elliptical that very quickly became a towel rack. I was very proud of myself for being able to make these purchases, and it was really nice to be able to replace my chair so quickly as well. I had forgotten after 3 years of being a full-time student and working part-time what it was like to have money. It is very good. It occurred to me, finally, the other day that maybe I should stop trying to focus my attention and motivation for se...

Continuing back through the archives of incomplete and unposted musings: December 2018 - ft some add-ons from 2022 So, Ryan informed me when this song dropped, and initially I was very skeptical. We have very different relationships with our exes. I am on the Cardi B-Beyonce-Rihanna end of the spectrum where I'm taking money, tossing out clothes, and thinking "let me catch you unaware, I will burn your shit down." She's a better person than I am. There's like 4 places you can go with a break-up song: " Irreplaceable "- in which you're pushing someone out of your life and cataloging how they got you twisted. I feel like "Take a Bow" kind of fits with it, and " Be Careful " takes it to the Kill-Bill-vengeance level of rage. I've done Irreplaceable, but have since sunk into the thinly veiled threats of someone who has been getting gas-lit for years. " IDGAF / Sorry Not Sorry "- is the level that I want to get to. ...

February 2020: Sometimes we fall asleep holding hands. Like otters. It's disgusting. Like otters. I hear they smell kind of gross. There's no worry that we would drift away from each other. There's no worry of that at all now that my medications have kicked in properly. This is the playlist I have made because I am a sad sad person living in the past: 1. Glasgow   2. Between the Bars    3. Sea of Love    4. Mystery of Love    5. Maps    6. Let's Dance to Joy Division    7. I Won't Let You Down    8. With My Whole Heart  9. Garden Grays   10. Everything Reminds Me of Her The order feels important. I have been listening to Garden Grays on repeat for a week or so. I found it on my second run through of, and Collin's first encounter with, You're The Worst. I couldn't recommend the show enough. I couldn't recommend this relationship enough. The order matters. But the individual parts are lovely and fun.

I have a lot. I have none. I have traded in Hannibal for Housewives. I don't know how I should feel about this. The tone of my mindless comfort has taken a drastic change. Instead of simmering drama and darkly lit scenes, my vision is overwhelmed with tacky prints, glasses thrown and broken, and near constant screaming. I don't think I've heard so many women called prostitutes since I stopped watching Law and Order SVU. I can't say I don't appreciate what would normally be an intolerable and socially unacceptable amount of sequins that are worn at all the parties. And there are SO. MANY. PARTIES. I read this article once about the appeal of Housewives being that Americans worship wealth and excess as signals that someone is successful and, obviously, superior to those with less. Housewives shows us that those people are often as terrible and annoying as the people we know, hopefully more annoying than most people you know, and money just means the weaves getting pul...