💾 Archived View for zach.e-worm.club › log.gmi captured on 2022-04-28 at 18:35:09. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
⬅️ Previous capture (2021-11-30)
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garden = work! these weeds crazy
slopers are coming along, but I think I need professional help. what I would give to be an apprentice. daniel day-lewis take me in. maybe my local tailor will have good advice.
work is fun now? kinda weird. maybe if I'm having more fun, I will be more productive, then I can make them pay me more money and I will get to buy a home all my own sooner? this some narc shit, but good not to be bored all day at work at least.
sorry to pollute my log but this is too long for statuses:
"A cafe in the town of Mendocino made headlines after announcing it will charge customers a $5 fee if they order while wearing a mask. It also threatened to charge $5 to anyone 'caught bragging about your vaccine'.
'It’s about time the proponents of these ineffective government measures start paying for the collateral damage they have collectively caused,' the cafe owner Chris Castleman told NBC News. He also offered a 50% discount to customers who threw their masks in the trash."
I'm sorry for not putting more thoughts here. Sometimes I think my thoughts are only for me but now I think it would be nice for them to be laid upon the e-worm table.
Let's start with the porch rave. What a night. Purely free. I think it *was* materially different from porch fest bc I literally knew no one at either one but at porch rave I was having so much fun going absolutely nuts w a bunch of strangers (who ofc became homies as the night wore on). Porch fest was just us all standing around trying not to look uncool. And everyone slobbering over Jon. I think he would say that is unfair because he got to have his fun. I think it is much nicer to be a wiggly bug bouncing around the jungle with all the other bugs than to be another faceless cool-band-watcher surrounded by only faceless cool-band-watchers and cool bands. No gods, no masters, no clout. How lame is it to make a show about you when you could make it about everyone?
I have endured a week of stress. First I got completely ghosted by a girl who seemed really cool. She kept texting and flirting and being cute for a weekish and we made plans to boat around in golden gate park and it all seemed so fun and nice, and then suddenly nope. Funny how you can be so content and then have a dumb experience that triggers a week of anxiety. Also funny because I never end up wanting to date someone after hanging for ~1 month, so I almost certainly have lost very little from this ordeal. But somehow my brain twists my inevitable ambivalence into extreme high-stakes and anxiety surrounding every person who excites me at all.
The other anxiety was only slightly less embarrassing- I thought I had literal bedbugs. My legs were just itching and rashing and decaying in front of my very eyes. Not a good accompaniment for insomnia. But it turns out it's only poison oak! I'm not a pestilence-carrier, my bed is clean, and my legs will be ok (after a time). Either way that girl sucks amirite.
Also I'm sewing again and what a joy it is. Well it's still a little stressful but soo nice to put on clothes and have it feel fun, right, me and to say 'oh yah I made this' when I get compliments. And to have people say I look like a nymph unprompted (exactly how I want to appear). Taking down wardrobe dysphoria one shirt at a time. Have so many nice fabrics and projects in the works I will make sure to keep the worms apprised.
Oh also we went camping that's where I got poison oak but it was sick I saw so many plants I only knew from pictures and have decided redwood sorrel is extremely cute.
shit I gotta write this article ab e-worm someone help
San Francisco: beautiful.
Lepechinia Fragrans: enchanting.
NorCal: ideal.
Happy equinox, world.
I am writing so I do not forget all the wonders I experienced yesterday in Point Reyes. With Darren in tow, I met so many new friends I knew only from books, computers, or tiny babies in my back garden. We saw:
and loads of others that I either do not remember and/or cannot name.
We walked an unplanned 9 miles from forest to beach and then had a bonfire at Darren's. All in all a delicious day.
What a lovely weekend I have had. Noting so that I do not forget it.
Saturday:
– I woke and finally emailed about the listing of a cute little wrought iron plant cart– the kind you could picture being rolled around by child selling wildflower bouquets to over-eager lovers in the park. Bid adieu to Juhi + Seema and got to work.
– I ripped open and spread out all the bags of gravel (2 cubic yards) that Juhi and I lugged one-by-one from the street. Also cleaned up a lot of trash from the yard.
– I had a luxuriant shower.
– I drove south through Noe Valley to Fairmont Heights to retrieve this cart. It was so clear and sunny on the hills. Bay views peeked from the end of narrow streets. Made up my own way home and savored every moment of being out in sf.
– Hung out w Darren Jon + Jacob on the beach. Jon and I walked about a mile and a half looking for somewhere to pee. Eventually settled on a strip mall chipotle.
– Had amazing Nepalese food, watched the Lonely Crowded West doc, listened to This is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About. Felt kinship with Jon.
Sunday:
– Woke up and felt too tired to work outside, so I meandered over to the Clement st market. Was surprised to find some berries, so of course I nabbed. Got cream and tea and bread and veg as planned. Learned about woofing and van life from my new friend Alexa of Alexander's Creamery.
– Still felt too tired to work outside, so I re-sowed all the herbs that died while I was away and a couple new flowers to go along with them. All while sipping my new jasmine tea. Warm day on the front stoop. Then I brought them all in and cut some cardboard liners to sit between the planters and the new cart. Sitting in my favorite chair in the sun, the seedlings looked so nice in the cart by the window sill that I nearly shed a tear. Felt so satisfied and whole.
– I ate lunch and listened to Haim and cleaned the kitchen, then finally persuaded myself to go out back. Tamped all the gravel and removed all remnants of the old overgrown shrubs save one stump that was too heavy to throw over the fence.
– It was only half-past-four-ish by the time I felt done, so I packed a book and set out for the park. Straight to my favorite tree, where I lay for something like an hour. Amazing how the crown glows different colors as the sun sets. At one point a man and his child stumbled on me half-asleep and tried to make a quick getaway, but I stopped the man and made him look up at the glowing branches. He agreed they were "really something". Something about showing it to someone was nice.
– Didn't even take out my book once. When it felt time, I went to the AIDS memorial and sat and felt somber in the foresty bit. On the walk home, I was especially grateful for the pinky blue sky and the view of the Marin mountains.
– Now Juhi is back and my cart is ugly, so I guess that will go away. Funny how things like that can feel so differently to different people.
almaty has a really nice coat of arms
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almaty#/media/File:Coat_of_arms_of_Almaty.svg
Ok not to get too political on here but my parents have been watching msnbc lately. All this liberal handwringing over "traitors" and "seditionists" makes me wanna vom. Their so obsessed with this little white picket view of america the great that they can't see it's just power. Little idiots. They're going to be speechifying about how bad they wanna fuck the constitution while the fascists just waltz in and take control by force.
Also they've been talking so much about the white privilege of the fascists and I can't help but find it a little disingenuous. They are so eager to make it about race, not ideology. Like obviously cops would have slaughtered any black people trying to pull that shit, but they also would have slaughtered a bunch of white anarchists or an left-wing protest that attempted to take the capitol.
Liberals are so smugly basking in their constitutional superiority, their righteous love-of-country. Smiles are gonna be wiped off their faces when they figure out that the right doesn't actually give a fuck about any of that. One side will die for their values and the other just wants to live out a perverse technocratic fantasy.
I have been home for a month or so and I feel ready to leave. I desperately wanted to instill patterns of real life here, and I think I did. I did yoga, yard work, tons of sewing, some reading, and collected many delicious supplies for future pursuits (fabric, patterns, and books). Fewer screens and happier sleeps.
I recently returned from a chaotic and slightly dispiriting new year's camping trip. Lots of small frustrations and on-the-fly planning definitely strained our interactions. So after spending three days inspecting all sorts of capitalism-degraded landscapes and navigating seemingly endless obstacles, I was feeling a little hollow.
In this headspace I started reading a collection of Vonnegut short stories and thinking about what I wanted out of life. By the time I got through ten or fifteen, he had me convinced that I was definitely not having enough sex. And then we started listening to Frank Zappa and I started feeling all these things that Juhi always talks about: that my youth is fleeting, that I need to hurry up and start living, etc.
This anxiety has haunted me for the past few days. I know sex is not really what I'm after, despite the croonings of messrs Vonnegut + Zappa; I know how boring sex can be. Being desired, lusted after even, is more the need that I rediscovered. I don't feel desperately drawn towards whatever rando I'm messaging on tinder; the anxiety is not really about having lots of sex with whoever. I think I wish to be someone who people want desperately and have a bubbling anxiety that, as an already twenty-three-year-old, I am too late— that I will never become truly sought-after since I clearly have not figured out how to do it in however many post-puberty years I've had.
I don't think I've ever felt like my romantic anxiety has ever felt so urgent. And it's obviously never been riskier to go meet strangers, so there's not much I think I can do about it besides lose sleep.
Sewing has been amazing though. I've finished one shirt for me and a shirt/shorts combo for Sofia. I have so many more projects planned which will become clothes/accessories that feel truly *me*. Soon SOON I will be the androgynous forest nymph that every girl dreams of.
I do wish that sewing wasn't so finicky. It's hard to summon up the necessary focus after working behind a computer screen all day.
I also am so excited to have so many new books to read and such an extensive list of others to borrow from the library.
I think that is all. Sweet dreams sisters.
Today I am grateful to Varun Gupta, for his endless curiosity and desire to understand.
And to my job for being chill and paying me.
Happy BDAY SOFIA. you aren't reading this but I am celebrating your arrival into extra-adulthood nonetheless.
I think I am weary of glut. Too much is far worse than just enough.
Today I spent all day sowing seeds, ticking off small chores, and building a new cottage on the e-worm minecraft server. Thinking about the solitude of all this. Not that it is actively lonely, just that something is missing.
I wonder what it would be like to do these things as part of a group. Or build infrastructure for a community. I guess e-worm is that; e-worm feels as if it was always here though. And it too was created in solitude, even though many now tap their thoughts into my sweet little server. Also wondering if (when) we start putting on carefully curated parties, will that feel like the thing?
All the time I sink into cultivating plants feels almost like an academic exercise. Like I don't *need* to plant in order to eat or even in order to be surrounded by plants. I can just buy my perfect life at a store. Of course I derive a satisfaction from bringing these sprouts from seed to flower. But there is still something pastiche about it. Playing house in the middle of apocalypse; except instead of house it's whatever slice of utopia that includes low-stakes gardening and writing.
I'm not sure it's quite enough. Or maybe that feeling will fade as I continue building. I could imagine five years from now, when I'm more dependent upon self-made infrastructure, that it feels more real, more meaningful. Once my morning glories flower maybe it will not feel like pretend. Or maybe once the place I live is my own, it will not feel like pretend. Or maybe once someone actually cares whether I do it or don't, it will not feel like pretend.
Maybe I just need someone to play minecraft with me.
Jon and I (and some Darren) jammed a little on Friday, which felt really good. I want all my creation to feel just as effortless and impossible-to-fail as banging out notes on a toyish synthesizer. Sewing is still too hard to do regularly. Poems I like writing alone. But minecraft, plants, and music should all be done with friends I think. I need to text him.
I'm scared that feeling like my beautiful life is just pretend will grow to haunt me more and more. Maybe if I sleep enough it will fade.
Rainy day. Drip drip drip. Happy plants. Chungeez me.
It's a day off from work. Shouts to american imperialism :P
I met the coolest girl ln. From tinder. But she was down to come out for drinks w me and antonio and juhi! And it was super fun! It is strange because usually the people I meets on tinder are not people I would naturally gravitate towards in real life, mostly j randos who are sometimes cute. But I feel like we actually have such overlapping interests politically aesthetically etccc. Never really met someone romantically who I have so much in common with? I think. So that's weird. She even inspired me to finally set up an e-worm minecraft server 🥵 I'm going to shut up now bc she'll probably read this at some point.
Also it is so nice to have friends / friends with free time here. Feels like it gives us such a freedom to have random experiences that would be totally different if experienced alone. Like this funny group date last night. Or like halloween. Or whatever omg wait speaking of halloween was so funny.
So I got all dressed up in juhi's leather miniskirt, her zebra fur coat, and my pink hat w pompoms. Posted a thirst-trap-y insta story 'meet me in the mission if you want to hook up or w/e'. Headed to antonio's ready to absolutely crush this night out. Everyone looking hot and crazy, all drunk, bopping around, the coolest people on the street, on any street. And then Darren loses his wallet and we're semi-stressed but we press on. And THEN, I finegle Skepta Jauz Man Remix onto the bluetooth speaker and we pass these kids on a stoop who are like hyping us up. And I'm like wait wait wait guys you have to hear this drop. So juhi n darren n antonio start talking to them or something while I'm just preparing for the insanity that's about to unfold when this drop hits. And boy does it HIT. Literally my first jump just going absolutely nuts, I land on the edge of my stupid floppy teva sock sneakers and my foot buckles the wrong way under me. Ankle fucked. I just sit down wondering what the fuck happened. Darren appears to lend a hand and I pull out my ankle and it's like
literally
like a lime-sized lump just on my foot. ANd I'm like 0.o that looks fucked up. So I'm like I need to go home, and darren starts carrying me but then everyone else just comes too, no one really wanted to stay out. And then Darren shotguns a beer and Daddy Antonio is like full on fireman carrying me, very hot. So we stumble back and order Thai food and I get Roti w Ice Cream and its LITERALLy the best dessert I've ever had even though Everyone was tryna make fun of my order. Darren ordered some spicy ass pad thai, but that roti ice cream really outshone it. Actually idk I was never gonna try that pad thai. Ankle kinda healed up fine, still a little wonky but whatev.
I'm kinda into low-level injuries now. Like I fully just fell off the skateboard the other day and got all scraped up but it was kind of exhilarating. Maybe I just long for childhood idk.
Need to get better at keeping a calendar. I have decided.
What a lovely weekend. Saturday shrooms in the park, where I became my true joyous child-of-the forest self. And found a tree of great majesty and importance just off the path.
It was a great big redwood I think
And it’s lower limbs hung down so that it was like a room underneath it
And there was a bed of needles inside
And I laid down and looked up and the entire trunk was ablaze with the afternoon sun
Just looking up through it for like an hour
And the branches were so sinewy
Like where they met the trunk
And I had a little mantra about it
But I’ll write that down later
And then a night. What a night. Everything was joyous because everything was simple. No layers between me and my feelings. Just sat outside feeling full. And then ate thai food and felt full. We wanted for nothing.
Sunday was a walk to the beach. Which seems far but really was just fine. Along the way was a farmers' market, an almond arsicault croissant, and views of beautiful hilly foggy SF. On the way back lay a beautiful beach, a beautiful presidio, and a beautiful garden shop.
I want for nothing. I might need more sleep.
After stressing about my laptop all weekend I just gave up and am sshing into a VPS for work. And now I've written and submitted real code! So they can't fire me just yet.
Went out with Antonio + Juhi friday night in the mission, and it was like maybe the most fun I've had going out. We went to a funny bar that was showing basketball and ordered food with phones– so every time something came it was a surprise since we never ordered from a person. The next place was an outdoor bar where we all got hard kombucha and they played King of Limbs by Radiohead the whole time. Which I hadn't heard since like 10th grade— very funny. I think then we went to go pee and Antonio peed in a corner while I peed through a fence onto someone's garden. The next place was nachos– really tasty and I got to talk about computers with them. It's so fun when people want to hear what I have to say about that kind of thing. Maybe this is actually when we peed idk. The next place was frozen margs from the doorway of some bar. We had like a 15minute conversation with the server (who was trashed) about shoes and skating and margs and tajin and him hating the Haight. Then we walked to mission park and drank our margs and talked about something cool (maybe tripping?). And then we went and saw Antonio's apartment where he's paying like 14 and has a nice room, a great location, and an entire view of downtown from his living room. Crazy nice. I think the most fun part was like bopping around to different places and being drunk on the street. It felt like we were people of SF not people of some bar. Patrons of the city not some random business. Also bopping between diff places kept the conversation fresh and interesting. (maybe?)
On saturday we did some stuff but nothing too out of the ordinary. Skated in GG park (fun!), picnicked with jeff! and some random FOAF girls (fun!), listened to some hard dubstep at darren's (fun!). I missed darren, but I think I agree w juhi that I don't just want to hang at his apt all the time.
Sunday was so fun too. A classic bopping around the sunny haight day. Got fun coffee and art supplies and a gift for mom. Spending money isn't quite fun yet but it's definitely less stressful than it used to be.
And then last night we went to dinner w Seema and it was so nice and relaxed and fun. I'm such a fine dining person now ugh. Also embroidered this shirt a little. It used to be boring but now I think it's cute and fun. Or at least on its way.
Still intimidated by these fabric paints / dyes, maybe should just look up a tutorial.
Louis sent me a free sailboat on craigslist, maybe I should cop. Also decided I want to buy a bunch of trees and plant them in the garden and make it all beautiful and pay for it myself. As a gift to Seema and the house.
Today my work had 'introspection' where we just talked ab what was making us anxious +/ excited at work. funny. My coworkers are very nerdy but I actually like it.
Started listening to spotify bc I wanted to try ncspot on my work computer. Found this guy Bonnema who just has like a million hard-as-fuck songs. Me n juhi trying to figure out what genre it is. Bass house + trap ? idk
Thank god for the bong.
I need to get off screen.
I have been working for three days now. Most of my time has been spent setting up my computer and stressing about how long it is taking me to set up my computer. My co-workers are really nice though, funny to have nerdy ppl around to help me use stuff like nixos– since usually its just me alone banging my head on the keyboard. I wonder if they will buy me mouse/kbd/monitor if I ask.
I put the new keys on my little keyboard today. Some are too small and the fruits don't quite work. Oh well. I should probably just get a big keyboard anyway, since this one isn't even that portable.
I was feeling a little blue yesterday. Something about working all day and not really having many friends around. Weird since I'd been looking forward to alone time after spending 3 straight weeks w chris and juhi. Something about the change of pace making me question whether I really have close friends / really am loved. Not sure what to do ab it, maybe need to start keeping friendship logs so I remember to reach out to ppl. Also something slightly empty feeling, like something about the day-to-day little joys is missing. Maybe I just need more sleep.
I really like cooking again. Something about providing your own food (ok just the cooking but still) feels really good and whole. Foggy sf is nice too, just wish I could feel more wistful, less trapped. Maybe I need to listen to more music.
No longer simping. I think I know more what I want from romance now. Hooray!
I AM EMPLOYED. FOR MUCH MONEY. a great weight has been lifted. Thinking about all the things I could do with money:
Also we went to dinner and it was beautiful– Margot! They told the waiter it was my birthday but then he checked our IDs for alcohol and realized it was not my birthday. Then juhi made a joke about it on insta and ppl really thought it was my birthday smh. Also I can't stop talking to this girl Zullette. Weird. Simp energy so lame tho.
Remembering the time Ola and I ditched our co-workers in Osaka to go run around the streets and drink beer w skaters who were very nice but spoke no english. I've really been talking to girls a lot. I think after one date I will not want to talk to random girls any more for a while. Hm.
Also remembering that Laurel Canyon doc and how convinced I was 3 days ago that we need to make ~real~ culture the way they did. But tbh only a few of them were that real– I really just want a community like that to be a part of. And I want an alternative to increasing levels of glitched-out aggressive nihilistic pc-music shit // apolitical feel-good indie shit. Bass music feels like its the middle ground. Wonder where I could push it if I was a proper laptop kid– or if I had an insane setup.
LA is so ugly but very comfy and fun. Glad to be with friends. Stressed ab unemployedness as always. This mediterranean backyard pot-garden is really nice but it needs a trickle of water. So jealous that LA ppl just get to grow whatever fruit they want. I love my new tie-dye shirt. Chungeez.
