10/17/23

i know jesse lacey was cancelled and everything but sic transit gloria still goes hard. what a fucking masterpiece

10/9/2023

i tried to find the post that started the whole thing with new paltz but i can’t find it anymore it’s gone i wish i could find it i wish i could see and remember and

this weekend i got to see what my life would have been like if things had been different, got to see what things would have been like if one of my backup plans had been played out

(is it so bad that i liked what i saw?)

catch me in the post tomorrow please never

9/25/23

• “to all the women i’ve loved” scratched into a subway seat – the rest was illegible
• tried a new restaurant for quick meals near school; too many green onions but otherwise good
• did a lot of work today but as always feel like i did nothing at all
• spent the whole day trying to prevent my nail polish from chipping off
• i want to write but i feel so tired; it has been a long day – i left home at 9am and came back at 9:30 pm
• i am looking forward to the end of october when my time working for the Politician will end and also one of my other classes will end so i will have more free time (to do what? to do more work?)
• i dont want to be the type of person who makes work their personality but that is kind of the nature of my profession – i have to commit to being more than that (this is me committing, this is me making a promise to myself)

9.25.23

days like today remind me of being at art school in boston in 2013. it was my freshman year of college, but not my first time on my own. i had a hard time making friends at art school. i don’t know what went wrong. i have had a similar experience in grad school, but i feel less sad about it now. i only think about my lack of friends now when i think about how i will have no one to invite when j and i get married. everyone at our party will be his friends only.

i was on campus all day but spent very little time talking to anyone. i talked to my doorman about the rain today when i left home. i talked in class this morning (because i had to) and i talked to the barista at the coffee shop (she confirmed they do in fact let patrons use their own cup and gave me a discount for bringing a reusable tumbler). i talked my co-TA on the phone for 26 minutes, mostly for us to rant about the Politician. and i talked to the man working at the fast casual restaurant where i picked up my dinner.

so i guess i did talk to some people today — but something about the nature of these interactions reminds me of being in art school ten years ago. no meaningful conversations, no personal conversations, not even any just-hanging-out conversations. i remember ten years ago i used to see how long i could go without talking.

9/21/23

• i went to the death cab/postal service concert with c. one thing that i have realized about c and me is that we are stadium girlies. we love wandering around a stadium, circling the whole thing like a track, absolutely freaking zooted and drinking $20 cans of stella artois. i had on a great fucking outfit and i got to hear the full transatlanticism album played live. truly excellent.
• working with the Politician is a nightmare. it’s starting to become all i think about. i need to stop obsessing over this job. it’s a distraction and bad for my mental health. he is so fucking temperamental. he is a big bully. i had to send out a mid-course survey to the students (thank god this is only a seven-week course) and one of the students said he is not providing a safe space to learn. actually, more than one student felt that way. the Politician is definitely mean to students. he interrupts them to tell them what they’re saying isn’t good enough. it must be fucking terrifying to be a student in this class. the Politician also refuses to walk to class by himself, so i have to walk with him, which puts me at risk of my new greatest fear, which is being photographed walking next to him and ending up in a tabloid, because then no one in my career is ever going to take me seriously. also because i never look good in candid photos.
• i have been wearing some absolutely great outfits lately. i hope this is a good sign, a sign that my style is improving.
• i’m going to go for a walk before the sun sets

9/11/23

i was having a good day, then i started feeling bad. i spent the whole morning working on things that don’t have any concrete deliverables or metrics of productivity. i made them items on my to-do list but crossing them out didn’t give me the satisfaction i was hoping for.

i watched the rain bounce on the exterior window sill in my kitchen. i want a life where i do not have to do a lot of things, just enjoy watching raindrops bounce, you know. i know that life is unrealistic. i think i have written before that people always used to tell me that i was the type of person who would be bored if she did not work, but i have become increasingly doubtful of that. i think this is why i like government work – at least my work feels like it has purpose, some meaning, like i am giving back in some way. but if i could choose between government work and no work, i am not so selfless that i would choose government work.

when i was a child, my mother told me that the best thing anyone could really hope for was a mundane life. i used to have lofty ambitions. i used to think i was meant for something more. but now i am okay with a mundane life. more than okay – a mundane life, a quiet life, a simple life, is appealing to me. i don’t think this feels like settling. it just feels like i value different things than i used to. i take a lot more pleasure in small things now.

9/11/23

i had, overall, a very good weekend. i didn’t have class on friday, so c and i went to a museum and drinks and shopped and got ice cream (fall flavors, despite it being 90 degrees) and sat on her roof during a rain storm. i also dropped off my dress at the tailor on friday. that felt good to check off my list. i got home from c’s by 7 or 8pm, so i had dinner at home and went to bed early. j was away this weekend for a family wedding (only married family members could bring their partners, so i was not invited, but i’m actually kind of relieved, since j and i have to go to a wedding again this upcoming weekend, and i hate back-to-back weddings), and i had no plans to see anyone for all of saturday and sunday.

i got up early on saturday morning and went to the gym right as it opened. i’ve never been to the gym when it opened on saturday –i’ve gone early to a class, like in the spin studio or something, but never just to work out in the main space of the gym. it was actually more crowded than i thought it would be, and it was mostly men aged 40 to 65, probably. they hogged a lot of the machines and had poor gym etiquette, but i still ran a mile and a half warm-up and then got a good push workout in. i am so proud of myself for starting strength training this year. i think it has been a really positive improvement in my life. after the gym, i went to the grocery store. fall items have hit the shelves already, but i didn’t buy that much fall stuff, because pumpkin spice really feels like a cold weather thing, not a 90 degrees with humidity thing. at home, i ate breakfast and watched modern family and took a shower. i also cleaned the shower while i was showering. after that i did homework and i baked a crumb cake and while it was in the oven i did more homework. i stopped work around 5:00 pm and wrote a poem (!!) and then for dinner i had the last of my summer beers in the fridge and made a vegan buffalo chickpea pizza and it turned out so so well. i made a collage at the kitchen table while listening to death cab for cutie and did a sheet mask and went to bed early.

on sunday i woke up early and got to the gym when it opened, because i had a spin class an hour after it opened, and i did a full pull workout before spin. i used the steam room and showered at the gym after class, then went to the pharmacy to get some toilet paper and hallmark cards, and i treated myself to a little three-pack of scented carmex. (i am adorable!) then i went home and had some crumb cake that i baked the day before and did some more homework and answered/sent emails and after that i cleaned my apartment (vacuumed, mopped, cleaned bathrooms, etc.) and did laundry and put my clothes away and took out the trash and the recycling. i also scrubbed the kitchen sink. i stopped working around 5:00 again and was sweaty from cleaning so i took another shower and used a sugar scrub and put on an Extremely Cool Lounge Outfit and then ate leftover pizza and watched more modern family. i got in bed early and finished life is strange and it was great. anyways thanks for listening to me talk about how great my weekend was.

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