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1/15/23
it's too cold to walk outside today and my car battery is dead in the movie theater lot
been looking at kinfolk in other genres: abstract painters, ambient musicians, and who else? the beauty of non-narrative poetry and impressionistic, soundscaped forms in general is that they can never be bought and sold! they will never tell you how exactly to feel. and they are not meant to be consumed in one sip. beginner's guide to free improvisational music was really delightful for thinking through some of this, albeit mainsplainy. “if you cling to the desire for a beat, you’ll forever stand at the front door”
i'm not really writing these days but revising and reading. keep an eye on this
read this excerpt
//newyorker.com/culture/the-weekend-essay/coming-of-age-at-the-dawn-of-the-social-internet
and agreed with almost all of it, will probably get the book when it comes out. made me appreciate flounder all the more for its unflattened ways. also made me want to find a more robust system for storing and retrieving my links. when i want to read / remember / pursue something further i just drop it into my notes app (easy to use, hard to retrieve) but have considered spreadsheets (not fun to use, easy to retrieve) or something like notion / are.na (decent to use, easy to retrieve, but feels unstable like the platform could disappear or charge a high rate unexpectedly). what do other people use for cataloging their interests?
re: advent of code, as you may have guessed i did not make it past day 2. it was difficult to want to spend my free time outside of work doing more of the same. next year we try again
crazy layoffs at my old company. i keep in touch with my mentor there. we caught up on the phone a few weeks ago. he got let go, and so did my old manager, the INFP boss of my dreams. it feels like the party is over in new ways all the time.
12/1/23
december survival challenge let’s go @bluets
day 1 advent of code was harder than i expected but we did it. not feeling confident about making it to day 5 (goal). we’ll see! i think i actually have to start at midnight so i can sleep on the solution
my boss is so bad interpersonally that i am sure he’s the reason i will quit one day. although i said a year ago i would not work for a startup again yet here we are
just noticed there’s a flounder user whose handle is my boss’s full name with one extra letter lol
yesterday got two pairs of pants altered to fit perfectly and felt briefly like a new woman. last night went to n.’s EP release and was happy to see everyone again/be extracted from myself. i haven’t really been hanging out. made plans to have coffee and do melty beads with r. who i’ve known for three years now and never had 1:1
a. got hand food and mouth disease from their nephew
11/29/23
literally got scolded by the dental hygienist for being late but she was right because i was. last time i went, she reminded me to avoid soda but it was “ok to have a la croix every once in a while”
went to the mechanic straight after which was a redemptive experience (what the jetta does with herself is out of my control)
whenever a. is out of town i disassociate from my present in a fun/lightly concerning way. idk why, maybe it’s because i’m not responsible for anyone else’s physical experience so i’m free to check out of my own. stayed out too late with n. and y. last night and had one martini, one bitters and soda. discovered all three of us have been reading r/***** instead of talking to each other about things lol
ok now that i’m here i’ll try advent of code again. goal this year is to make it to day 5 with pandas LETS GO
11/27/23
i just learned that you can download your whole uber history. spent an hour googling different pickup and dropoff points to see where i was going in 2015. obviously the most interesting rides were from like 3 AM. my own personal geoguessr. disturbed that i couldn't remember every night. looking for proof that i was THERE
making some kind of interactive map of everywhere i went could be a fun datababybase project. but i would 100% drive myself insane and will not be pursuing that
some findings
speaking of, i'm finally playing neocab, which has been on my wishlist for years. the writing is pretty good and it's atmospheric, set in a futuristic SF-type city. you're a cab driver. though there are moments when the storyline gets a little too meta about its own form (it's a branching visual novel) where the main character asks herself q's like "do my choices even matter..."
reminds me of when poets can't resist the urge to talk in a coded way about poem-making. within the poem. it's not a bad thing, you just can't do it that often. my thesis advisor said first books are often telling the story of their own inception.
oh the reason why i was looking for my uber history is because i saw a tweet about a high rise in the south loop getting sold for less than it cost to build. and i wanted to know if i used to date someone who lived there. i didn't, it was the building was down the street. we took my fake ID pic in the lobby. i kind of wish it had been the same building, which would have been soo narratively perfect. close those loops
1/17/23
first last day of school
1/16/23
the car wash is so fun i wish it lasted longer. it rained today and a tornado passed through (?) i just did errands, cleaned my house, made my desk area cuter with photos and a plant to inspire me to sit there, vacuumed my car, donated things at goodwill, ironed (?)
i think i have a sinus infection woohoo
listened to time to say goodbye as i was cleaning, which i haven’t done in a while because of how much the hosts can ramble, but i will consume anything featuring hua hsu
picked up a. at the airport, not a husk anymore
1/15/23
finished rewatching drinking buddies last night, i love this movie and missed a lot the first time. like the scene where olivia wilde and her bf are about to have sex, then he's like wait brb i got something for you today and he hands her a copy of rabbit, run. it's me (the boyfriend)
cooked steak with n. and y. last night. my besties in iowa. lately been thinking about how we're still so polite! i am a fortress who attracts other fortresses. we love each other i'm sure of it, but i feel a little frustrated and want to plot ways to be more messy...melting...
spent all afternoon in the library editing a very long poem. it's 18 pages. i wrote it this time last year and i want to get it right for my thesis. usually i have trouble describing what i'm saying but this one is easily tagged by childhood / texas / assimilation / urban sprawl / lol. i had so much propulsive energy to move through then, wonder if i will ever write like a maniac again
tried to repair n.'s burst pillows today but had to stop bc they kept jamming my machine
made a bowl of banana slices, matcha ice cream, frozen pomegranate seeds, and chocolate chips :p
k. why don't you believe in synonyms
em i'm sorry you have covid! perked because i used to live 2 blocks from quesadilla la reina del sol and miss it toooo
every time i visit chicago i'm surprised that people still seem to be going to the same places i knew from 5-10 years ago, except that everyone is younger with shorter hair and more satiny clothes. maybe not surprising at all but feels weird. last month when i was there with a. we had time to kill after dinner, before going out, and it felt so unfair that we couldn't lay down in my old apartment around the corner. instead we drank a red bull and loitered at logan arcade. locked out!
googling "should i wash my car even if it's going to rain tomorrow" and not getting the answer i wanted
getting sunday scaries about teaching on tuesday. so glad a. returns tomorrow
1/13/23
woke up feeling good because i think i slept deeply and spent time with t. and co last night, listening to recordings of their new book. t. is one of two new friends i've made this school year and her voice has been influencing my poetry. they are extremely good at continuously revealing themselves, like k. hello k. i hope u have a beautiful day tomorrow :)
anyway i got grumpy because of ghost pms (everything except period dropped). went for a run, did laundry, got to the library around 3. i read a collection called imagine us the swarm by muriel leung, which had some crunchy one-liners ("the story of labor is that it goes on") but overall didn't move me. doing more "research" reading than anything else to see how collections are put together and what is winning prizes
feeling some general anxiety lately, probably about gr*duation. starting to look for jobs and had an interview yesterday for a position that is tiers up from what i used to do. it feels like there's more title inflation in analytics now (?). the interview reminded me that i do not want to work for a startup again because it just sounded like the sort of place i could easily get fired from...no thank you
the upside (and maybe i'm delusional) is that i'm feeling more confident now that i could have a corporate job and also live my creative / dirtbag / whatever life peacefully because i did not otherwise have a strong asian / queer / writing community before. my non-iowa friends have told me that it seems like i am iffy about grad school, which is funny because i am forever grateful for it, it has literally changed my life, but i feel so embarrassed about this that i overcorrect and end up talking a lot of shit about my apartment or the food
for the record, i hate to leave here
i watched some of the tegan and sara show called high school last night and the weirdest thing about it to me was how petty? mean? the parents were without being actually abusive. i guess this is a super common dynamic for parents to have with their kids but it felt icky. reminded me that the worst part of gossip girl reboot is how emotionally involved the students, teachers, and parents are with each other. like there are absolutely no boundaries to how far the grudges can go. i know this is the whole point of the show, scandal and deception, but the original was not sloppy like this. even when lily and rufus couldn't be together because of their kids being in love </3
what else
this song is wonderful
//youtube.com/watch?v=ND7sUqIaMIk
i have never washed my car since i bought it in august 2021. i don't think i've ever been through the car wash not as a kid in the back seat. i promised that i would do this once it goes above freezing possibly sunday
12/27/22
i'm staying at a comfort inn by the outlet mall because my brother and sister have covid and i stupidly didn't buy trip insurance for my nyc flight. walked around the mall and saw people lining up for an ugg drop. i love outdoor malls that remind me of the one in san antonio
i just took a bath in the questionably clean hotel tub. watching the hot chick on tv and trying to edit poems. not sure yet if i have thoughts on body-swap movies. i really just want to know what's going to happen in l word but can't connect to hulu rip
update: a.'s brother kicked me off his hulu double rip
12/23/22
i'm almost enjoying the blizzard. feels like cosplaying svalbard island cecilia
//youtube.com/channel/ucnfhqlaqiqs6vw_mmg0brww
today i read some jack halberstam and the hours. jack is amazing because as he's explaining some part of queer theory he always brings in race and class. some of the book is intense, though. and i have to remind myself that there are limits to what i can apprehend though text. then i went to artifacts to look for a present for my sister and ended up buying myself a long leather jacket i do not need but it's seriously buttery...the cashier told me the first owner paid $3k for it "the sky's the limit". i chose to believe him
went to the gym later and walmart for a car snow brush. i bought this fake caviar which was $5 and 83% seaweed extract. it was disgusting, idk what i was thinking, i wanted a treat
obsessed with hoa nguyen this month
//poetryinvoice.ca/poems/blousy-guitar
i'm back on here because it feels a little wrong to take without giving and i miss the flounder voice. it feels like every time i sit down to write now, i'm trying to get a poem out of my little poem machine, and that wears me out