August
7 september three things have pissed me off this morning
1. shittily graffitied advertising competing for attention
2. a salon called "beauty care" that cares nothing about beauty because they have written hair - Makeup - Nails in that casing
3. two air dancers pathetically flailing in front of a shitty store on a shitty road in a shitty neighbourhood. lipstick on a pig
5 september no quotes in july. no quotes in august. have i encountered anything real or am i genuinely not alive inside of myself anymore? i hope september has better things in store for me. my wonder has run out, could only sustain it for so long. last person to catalyse some change in me did well. and i hope to feel something like that again. please.
to a SPIRITED SEPTEMBER.
29. i had misjudged the older girl i befriended. not terribly, but her habits are correcting the initial impression.
its been less than a year and she has fallen out with someone here she insists is disrespectful to her. i have not seen disrespect myself. then again, im not especially good or interested in assessing it.
i have not asked what happened, but i dont have to because she tells me things anyway its kind of magical.
she once out of the blue asked if i knew what an empath was.
"yes i do."
"i am an empath. i feel my emotions three times stronger than other people do"
"are you also a sociopath?"
"no."
"just kidding."
"did you see that girl i smiled at downstairs?"
"did you know her?"
"no, but i felt her smiling at me, so i smiled back."
"interesting."
"yeah."
"well, does that make you a people pleaser?"
"no. absolutely not."
"good. its good to have boundaries"
"but people can still sense that i am an empath, so they target that weakness in me."
"maybe."
"thats why im avoiding people here."
"already? come on, we've just started"
"someone here did that to me, so i avoid them."
"are you sure or is that your guess? i mean did you talk to them about it?"
"i gave them a few chances to prove me wrong, but they didnt. so im avoiding them now"
"oh. well communication is important too."
[conversation ended here]
combined with a few other instances, this is the cause of my revision. but i want to be careful not to fall into the same trap of impenetrable certainty--bet i wouldnt see that one coming. so i'll file my observations in the back of my mind. i do wonder if that is the reason things are mellow between us. my interpersonal situations have always been relatively peaceful. but if people truly wage silent imaginary wars against others based on shaky conclusions, i will not be standing too far outside. we will see. lord please give me better topics to write about.
24. obsessively organising belongings, deleting my socials, and dressing for comfort were, in retrospect, all indicators of the same thing in me: an inability to tolerate burdens. i did not realise i was being lead to this thorough understanding of unencumberdness. but i only had to organise my belongings a million times to realise i hated to own them. i dont want to say i am a minimalist, or that i am frugal, but the wisdom i can find in both lifestyles does spark joy in me. even extreme minimalist sibu, now living in a tesla, i can admire and learn from and completely understand. to me this is not a matter of forcing myself to do something i dont want to do for a theoretical ideal, but of retracing my steps, revising beliefs about possessions, and then simply being honest with myself. with that i can realise things i never would have otherwise. the ultimate conclusion to this optimisation has been chopping all my hair off. i previously stated my wish to wear less and maintain less, but it seemed like reciting a distant fate somehow. i did subconsciously know my long hair was the obstacle. i just never realised it. i acted on a year long itch to cut it all off because i believed it was unhealthy (it was not i was told), but it led me to realise the feeling of relief i was supposed to cut it for all along. regardless, i have made one more right decision and i am happy and sure of it. how free i feel. lightweight like i could flutter and fly at any moment. or better: swing like a monkey. i am still getting used to the fact that the bane of my existence was my hair. hard to believe, considering how much i cherished and took pride in my curls, but its the truth. i wonder what other obscured obvious truths there might be waiting for me to realise them. the best i can do is keep an open mind.
whats better than a five minute shower and NO post shower finger curling? honestly, maybe matterless curly hair. but that doesnt exist, because my long curly hair exists, here, in a bag, in my room, occupying space. if i owned or made any stuffed animals i would stuff it in them. but i do miss gardening, so ill make an offering. im grateful for all the people who tell me it suits me, but im getting too many compliments for comfort. i guess one must simply endure the consequences of correct decision making.
my favourite animal keeps changing, but this time i feel a strong connection to monkeys. previous favourite animals were only for the sake of having one, but monkeys are authentically recurring in my life. keep swinging.
23. i have a hard time keeping up with people. keep up with that and you’ll have a friend for life in me. that’s what me and M are. we meet once every two years despite living in the same city, and it always feels like ive met her the day before. i wish M would replace my day to day acquaintances. but i can see that she is simply someone the ice has already melted with long ago and adult socialising will always be demanding otherwise. for our hangout today me and M chose to do something i have been fantasising about doing with a friend for years: running an errand by subway. what a sad funny life i lead. these past few weeks were ones of decluttering. i picked apart all the blind spots in my house until they were spotless in my mind. familiar and memorable, no longer a cause for worry. i thought id hit my limit, but i felt like i truly knew what sparking joy meant this time and decided to sell my guitar. hard its been to finally admit that finger tapping is as hard as it looks, but at least i don’t have to agonise over it anymore. a friend of a friend was willing to buy it. and when we arrived at the station to meet her, i asked M if i should hug the girl or not. M asked if i was a hugger. i told her i am not. that is why my judgement was clouded. the girl did end up hugging me a few times, but oh well it’s not the worst that could have happened. at least the ceiling stayed where it was. i told her my reasons for selling and wished the guitar a better fate in her hands. she told me she was already a bass guitarist, and i was pleased to know that the only poser was me. i parted ways with it still not knowing what a fucking chord is but with greater respect for guitarists than i initially had. glad it happened fast before i could change my mind but the money was enticing enough anyways. me and M settled on a mall and hot dogs afterwards. although nothing was more fun than the earlier tidbit, i still enjoyed it. in catching up i witnessed a fundamental transformation for the better in my friend M, and i am proud of her for it. spring has come, the grass has grown by itself, and a $320 appeared in my hands.
rethinking progression
18 i rushed to show you ive finally become you. only to see youve chosen to become me. i spent my life running from the fool. only to find you have gone looking for him.
16 i had to pay to see a few depressed monkeys at an exotic pet store a few days ago, and its still eating at me. and that was really weird, paying to see the goods. ($7 for 10 minutes). in the moment i felt really ambivalent; i held a snake for 2 seconds, refused animals offered to be let out for me. but after i stopped laughing at the video i got of the monkey crouched in a corner of a brightly lit glass box at 11PM, its pitiful glossy eyes staring at me through the screen compulsed me to leave a bad review. and thankfully i had a few more videos (taken for my young cousins) that were accidental documentations of animal distress. now that i left them a bad review i think i might know that their business credo is if youre going to witness the mistreatment and tell you might as well pay us. mine is be nice to the animals, you animal.
15
today i buried my first love,,, as in: my first computer,,, as in: the first i made a website on
9 the taxi driver today must have been legally blind judging by what i could see through his glasses. those lenses were milk bottles. i remember my camera charger, forgot it at the house. ill have a hard time finding another till i return but i probably won't need it... i dont like my return flights being so late. there is a unique despair in the trips to the airport and the look of my grandparents house at night adds to it. i think of life, death, the future and the past. how many more times i will get to come here, the fact that its probably a double digit number, and whose house we will gather in when it reaches zero. maybe that is why those flights are cheapest. the last time i stayed here twice as long, trying to sleep on the guest room sofa a few hours before the flight (also at night), i had these thoughts vividly under the ac. it felt like i was plunging into the depths of despair over and over again with the way it whirred in a restarting rhythm. today i miserably retreat again. to the life that is entirely mine but not. to the thoughts, feelings and surroundings i immerse myself in that i know nothing complete about. their irrelevance to me is palpable, an everyday event. but its not like i belong to my grandparents house either. because conversely, when i leave my home to stay with them i think "back to a halt, back to gloom", (amongst the positive, but that is not the point today). these thoughts branch out and i start thinking of my place in the greater world. where i'll be in ten years, when my excuses to stay somewhere are over. i never really oriented my dream towards building a life with another person. i oriented it towards returning. to where the people i love are, and growing there. except ive changed far too much on the journey. i dont think i can still consider it home the same way i used to. i told my grandparents that i will come back to live with them and myself that i want to be on that beautiful land. but i know that land is barren. and i am allergic to it, literally. i leave it today with sensitive nostrils and nasal passages. and yet nowhere else can come close to this home that homen't. i am in the inbetween like i am right now on the flight to: not here nor there. but i dont necessarily want to become someone who belongs somewhere else just because i dont belong here. im hesitant to reinvent myself. self expression is frankly a low priority to me; id like to find belonging without having to reintroduce or tweak parts of me nor pretend i am intriguing. interestingly its not with those in the same boat either. if shared alienation was the basis for belonging, we would belong to half the world. besides, i can barely stand my incongruencies to endure another's. i dont know if my aversion towards new places and people is bitterness or my temperament. i suppose we notice these things most when we are in transit. before the airplane door, the worker at the door took a restless child out on the ledge to show him the airplane and calm him down, to his mother's gratitude. "the people in [where im going] would never do that" someone said. what the fuck, mind readers. i have landed after thinking i was going to die on that plane. it was only turbulence, but the fear of death felt real this time. i didnt know whether i would be able to walk down the stairs once we landed, my legs had turned into jelly and i stopped writing. but i am here. i wear a cardigan under my quilt jacket. it is hot but not swelteringly so. not blisteringly so. and it smells good, like disgusting fried food, and when i look at the brick walls and trees in front of me along with smelling that smell i feel hopeful. it only hurts when i think of my grandparents. i will call them often... i havent been taking pictures of much--i am visually and aesthetically fasting for an unspecified amount of time-- but being in different places grants you different lenses. its both a blessing and a curse, because similarly to my taxi driver, i might be blind.
change as vital6 a perspective on change i cant recall but remember what it conveyed to me: life on earth is fundamentally evolutionary therefore fear of change is irrational. or at least alien. hmm. probably an aestheticised quote on pinterest not meant to be this profound that only resonated with me in my current headspace. i should have wrote it down. when people are growing and moving away, when my todays and tomorrows are looking eerily different than my yesterdays, i must keep it close. to the forward, up, side, downs.
another step away4 this week has been the worst experience ive had with the people i love the most in the place i loved the most. it leaves me with nobody to talk to and little desire for my days to go on, but im too cautious with both wishes: i don’t need yes men—i have already validated myself into obstinacy—and despite the old unjust life i acknowledge its value just the same. i only need someone to catch me and truly hear what i am saying and what im not. perhaps the one who hurt me the most, before i actually start drifting like ive been told i have. regardless, ive sworn to never go back to that place in spite of all the pictures i took of it. tearing my heart away, the trajectory of my life changes here; the garden i loved as it grew did not only not grow to love me back, but grew thorns—no, pea shooters and cabbage pults and laser beans and spikeweeds, and attacked me like i was a zombie coming for greg. as for the people… i still love them. always will. people are not a place you can swear to never return to. but they can make you wish they were, when you cant live the life they live yet cannot live a life without them. how do you separate loving from living? i dont think i ever can, that is my perpetually fresh wound. sometimes i wish i was cold, but im grateful i am not. i dont get enough credit for what i do, but i will not beg.