when resisting the current, it's hardest to remember where you're headed and why. i know i'll regret it, but sometimes i just want to put my head down and have a meal without thinking.

but writing for papers is hard while a splitting trench waits to be addressed. work as anaesthesia is failing, it's competing for attention. what do you adopt, what do you abandon, no time to think. function fragmented until retreat arrives. does the tearing hurt? accompany it.

i wish there was time to be foolish.

feels like identity should be whole by now. the blows come and you accept some, fight some. nobody does it with me unless they're just as lost. and reaching out to the hardened sure ones only means lying to yourself. makes you wonder what to do, where to go, where to belong.

no comrades. is the middle road that less travelled?

ive logged many things in my mind that have probably flown away rom a false sense of security, but here is a quick rundown of what jo experienced on earth these past few weeks:

she thinks she found a nice spot amongst online humans (who knows?)

swapped social anxiety for boredom (now she just has to disrupt it!)

was catalysed by a certain someone's conduct to insist on herself (and is still working on it)

reached out to a dear old friend and had the talk about mutual struggles she knew they would

got a trojan (she's always loved homer)

and carlos has recovered! although he has been robbed of his greatest ability im sure he continues to be the excellent human being he is

been consistenly waking up at 1:00pm these days. a bird tried to urge me awake at 10 this morning but i didnt listen. [on my journal] this atrocious handwriting does not look good on its own. i have no visuals to back it up with anymore, so i should fix it. maybe get a proper pencil instead of a needle for starters. i had a dream that i bought a pack of pencils from an enthusiastic clerk. i think ive been bothered by this subconsciously long before i realised.

i feel better. day spent watching talkartoons. life is slower. i found a good online community. people are kind.

flescher invented rotoscoping. but im most impressed with how deranged that guy was. im glad they snuck a few years worth of bimbo and betty in before the hays code. my favourite toons are the herring murder case, teacher's pest, and up to mars.

these bouts of thought come to me in waves. i always reach a resolution and make peace with logic eventually but it seems the checkpoint has finally eroded. everything looks colder. cant say this wasnt anticipated, but it was hard to picture. well dont have to try anymore, i see it. and im scared. not sure how this happened.

dont know how to live with this long term, what ill think in the future. i wish it wasnt guesswork. im disappointed that im like this already. thought id last longer than that. im also disappointed i was given a sound mind and this is what i use it for. it tortures me, isolates me, then abandons me. what to rely on now?

the world is so big.

i am a product of culture. and then i am still a product of culture.

im so scared

im so scared

im so scared

getting back to digital art on a cheap huion makes me feel like what i can only guess is karl kopinski relearning how to draw after his stroke. except i was never kopinski. maybe nothing was wrong but the ease of it. got fat on a 13inch screen and state of the art software.

inconvenience breeds innovation.

i think carlos was right. it was for a rebirth. and i will bank on a pseudo profound, low effort, contemporary piece. a framed disabled tablet, technically art.

get better, carlos

i am afraid of dying and nothing happening next.

i am also afraid of going to hell.

but i dont think thats what restricts me. but a cowardice im afraid to face. old ways im not sure how to abandon. the key has walked up to me a few times but i turned it away. silly.

i need to live my life to the fullest. i dont want to have any regrets.

because i am afraid of dying and nothing happening next.

but i am also afraid of going to hell.

there is no use defending anything but yourself and humanity. the world is a hopeless case.

life has gottten smaller but its all mine. and i love it. a few issues with solitude, sure, but could you even call what i had then company? i only took down the cardboard cutouts.

finding solace in my warm milk and two pages before bed. feeling everything deeper now. reclaimed senses.

this is what lifes all about pal. and suddenly im not afraid of the prospect of an eternity. if its like this, i want it.

i hope youre okay carlos.

terrible news, carlos had a severe stroke. terrible isnt the right word. shattering, numbing, hand on my heart. been waiting for him to show up for once so i could see him again. show him how much this artiste was able to do thanks to his belief in them. if he gave ziad rahbani a listen and what he has to say about his jazz. what life changing literature he might have for me. how i loved talking to him. awakened me from this daze right when i was on the brink of collapsing on my face. i remember his words to me. the people here are SO boring! he mouthed. there was company in this desert of thought. he retreats to a likeminded community, but i hope he really meant it that day we surprsied each other with our kindred spirits, when he thanked me for the conversation and told me i made his day. i know he made mine. if not my life; i know im not going crazy now just almost mistook this silence for the norm.

my energy for the next few years has been renewed.

and as i write this tonight.

i pray his health renews just the same.

if my cat gained hands as extensions of his greed, he would be a lemur. and yet i find myself doting over them and their bony black fingers. wanted to hold it and squeeze the apples out of its guts. but all i could muster was a back rub and a phone wallpaper of our brief contact. i will never forget them like how i assume one never forgets an estranged child.

be well, agile manifestations of papalardo, your fur im grateful you let me touch.

today i had a dream orwell wrote a poem about me. he addressed me as farm girl and prasied me. but when i came to recite it i couldnt recall any lines.

i blamed orwell for writing a blank poem

i see a million people in my life but it feels cold. in retrospect its white bright and blue. but thoughts of a human connection outside that frame feel warm. dim, orange and red. it makes me want to cry.

being yourself is doing too much when your personality could be handed to you ready made. wanting to hold one persons soul is antisocial when you can have the whole world from afar.

it feels foolish im ashamed to admit my longing for simplicity, mediocrity, the mundane. but why?! why uno?!?! when youve got the world!!!!!!!!!!

i opened my eyes and remembered something good. i had a dream about the motherland. a vision, if you will. a cluster of colourful houses fitted in the green. it was august. nobody was lamenting the missed rain anymore. from a castle, after failing to capture the houses on my camera, i inform my father of something:

"you worked hard to get out of here, but i'm moving back."

"you want to leave cities behind?"

"this is a city," i gesture around us, "but nature keeps things balanced. you're just too urban, having lived in bigger cities your whole life."

i don't remember his reaction, but i'll see it for myself in this life.

point nemo. casting line into internet ocean. hello im jo.

setting up in the middle of this storm leaves you with ideas backed up by no context. consistency could have prevented that but experience isn't easily forgotten everything will come in its time.

i recently came across this poem when searching for something to put on a card. it wasn't what i was seeking at that moment but seeking it i was. funny how shel silverstein hides behind children's stories.

“She had blue skin,
And so did he.
He kept it hid
And so did she.
They searched for blue
Their whole life through,
Then passed right by-
And never knew.”

i dont know what else to write, reeling in

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“How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.” ― Henry David Thoreau