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4/21/24
https://rhinopoetry.org/reviews/sundaey-by-kirsten-ihns-reviewed-by-anthony-madrid
i think the sentiment behind this review is really beautiful, especially
Consider the ancient wisdom regarding punk albums. The band’s first record is always hot, ’cuz of three factors:
1) it was created in a spirit of pure love for the art
2) it was worked on for a longer period of time, compared to the band’s other albums
3) the band’s emotional support and encouragement came almost entirely from their friends, people who “got it”
had a satisfying medium-stakes conversion with n. last night. usually we operate in low stakes (hi hello i love you what's new) or high stakes (help i urgently need to talk about this problem) but yesterday hit a cool medium (how much time and money would you give your theoretical kids, what's going on with your health, what do the next two months look like and how do you feel about that)
watched la chimera last night and thought it was great especially the last thirty minutes. i don't watch that many films but (materially) old vs. new is not a texture i am forced to think about that often so that was interesting. and even though i have trouble focusing on movies about a masculine rascal instead of a pretty girl, this was a 9.5/10 for me
e. (translator and zumba friend) offered to pay me to make her a website. honestly affirming and also fraudulent because i got everything for my own site from chat gpt. i'm going to do it for free for her and d. too
a. and i got into a long discussion two weeks ago about how important it is to care about technology. generally i think it's important and interesting but of course people will equate all tech with big tech and (a. correctly reminds me) have bad associations with the ruling class. i want to share what knowledge i have (maybe by walking artist friends through a basic html site?) but also i don't know if anyone is asking for that. except d. who has a flounder brain. i'm getting ahead of myself
4/9/24
day 2 of 3
went to HIIT class this morning, ate TJ kimbap for breakfast (decent), now sitting on the floor with my papers
having a thought about ethical vs. unethical enjambment will expand more later
4/8/24
day 1 of 3 off from work so i can edit my manuscript
what did i accomplish... no actual writing. i cut out 16 pages, replaced with 5 that i originally scrapped, thinking i need to write 10ish new ones now (of what, idk yet) maybe next step is to print everything and stare at it laid out?
(went to print before ballet)
i've been taking a beginner ballet class since jan. pros are live piano music + a place to turn away from work. cons are that there is no actual dancing lol. teacher is extremely pedagogically rigorous. today we did slow motion quarter turns which is the most exciting thing to happen so far. crazy to compare to zumba which is all learn by doing
4/7/24
i'm seeing myself through the eyes of a roommate in a preparation for living with n:
last night got home and had only dregs but needed meat so i air fried bacon. then watched a bunch of videos about how to clean the top of the air fryer (it's basically impossible). i'm a bad fridge roommate. if you only saw how mine is kept you would conclude i'm extremely unwell
i love living alone but i also love n. so we are gonna be ok. and hopefully get closer
probably yoga in 2 hours and then applebee's with j. after that. or i'll go to yoga if i feel satisfied with how much thinking i've done between now and then
some heaviness lately for reasons i cannot get into here. that will also be ok. i believe the universe drops you a line when you need it to. today when i was mid-spiral i got a text from s. about how she's been "struck" by another o. i said haha yeah some damage is taken.
she said no the opposite and said something affirming about how i was in our relationship that i needed to hear. that was connected to my spiraling. and it helped me get out of it. that time directed a lot of who i am today. back then, the directives were just called "bits."
anyway i didn't tell her any of this. and i should probably go back to therapy instead of waiting for well-timed and unexpected texts to help reframe my thinking. i have been good before and i will keep being good now
3/25/24
hosted a reading tonight but did not read. i have a headache. it was cute
3/24/24
since last time food is good again and i talked to my boss's boss who talked to my boss so that part of my life feels comparatively under control
thinking about why i loved the dropout. the death of the chemist was the worst part. it was funny though and i thought what they handled so well was the wretched anti-swagger. the scene where she lowers the blinds for a moment of privacy and maybe real joy with him, in their conjoining offices, she’s skulk-dancing to lil wayne and drinking green juice and i lost it.
hungover and there's no food at the library but i don't want to give up my spot
i sat talking to t. yesterday for like two hours. feel proud that i’ve accumulated all this digital debris on my hands from working at twitch and touching machines in a lab. like at least i can shoptalk. i don’t even have that kind of brain, though in a perfect world i would. i just have that kind of heart? that’s why i suck at the technical parts of my job. i want to be near the thing that hums but i have questionable tolerance for dissecting its actual parts.
a. really feels like my best friend lately and we had a good day yesterday thrifting and walking and they came to zumba (yay). almost two years. i think maybe we feel extra close after the situation last week which i cannot waste anymore breath getting into but i’ll just say i have to be more careful about who i befriend. ignore no signals. gotta have my guard (further) up
realized from all that i’m an inconvenient combination of conflict-adverse and directly-communicative. i hate engaging in conflict because basically anything interpersonal saps my energy but i will say what i am feeling because i believe in emotional honesty. which means sometimes i have to deal with the consequences of my actions...
archival lust vs. archival dust
2/10/24
something disturbing has been happening for the past month which is that for days in a row food will sound gross and i have to be intentional about eating enough. disturbing because this datababybase has never not had an appetite.
one of many signs that i need to quit my job soon bc surely that's related. my current boss (toxic) is giving me nightmares. excited to catch up with c. (angel) next week and scrounge for some advice, although she just got laid off herself so that might not be the vibe.
i saw an incredible, moving, funny play last night called dance nation by claire barron. please citizens of flounder go read it. i'll email you the pdf. it opens with
cuteness is death. pagan feralness and ferocity are key. everyone is nice. everyone is vulnerable. and everyone is trying their hardest
went shopping with r. today for trinkets to put in our hongbao and for lunar new year outfits for the potluck tomorrow. we got
was hit with preemptive nostalgia for iowa today in the library parking lot. why does it always happen there. it happened to me once in the emeryville target lot, my legs were cold, i had just bought deli meats and socks, was walking to the emeryville-go-round stop, shivering, under the sky i had only ever seen a sliver of the place which barely started its slow homebrew
1/15/24
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