2/17/26 - 2/23/26: The big toe is the thumb of the foot.
2/17/26
I keep waking up too early in a groggy panic. That ping of existential crisis that gets your brain whirring and pops your eyes open like a sudden gust of wind popping a door open. It’s dreadful. Lately it’s been around 6 a.m.
During today’s 6 a.m. awakening, a notification on my phone appears: “Your iCloud storage is full.” I think that a real eye cloud, though, would be limitless. A cloud that was an eye? Absolutely infinite.
It’s my brother’s birthday today. He’s 39. Instead of texting him happy birthday, I texted “happy lunar new year!”.
I was just thinking “who’s the artist who created the cover art for the Animorphs book series?” His name is David B. Mattingly and the first page of his website are those indelible covers, one after another. Those covers always stayed with me ever since I first started noticing them at the library in 4th grade. I never read them. Now I must. All 54 of them.
2/19/26
Do you ever wake up at 6 a.m., really wonder what someone would look like with a mustache, and then proceed to draw it on a picture of them? I just did this to a picture of someone I miss. I think it would make them laugh.
2/20/26
Even a plastic Nalgene water bottle can break if dropped suddenly from the grip of my fingers in just the right way in the parking lot of my new favorite clay studio. And even a metal troll keychain charm I got in Bergen, Norway a few years ago can get ripped off my dangly set of keys if pulled from my pocket with just the right amount of caffeinated force. But these are just things. When this kind of chaotic breakage and change happens within human relationships that are meaningful to me, it feels like more than my sensitive self can handle. It inserts a huge mess of fear in the pit of my stomach. The hope I hold onto in this situation is the main tool I have to suffocate that fear. Take the air out so it doesn’t grow. I like hope. I imagine it dancing, fluffy and fresh, and no one can possibly bring it down.
I just can’t think of anything in terms of never. It’s too incredibly unfair to connect that much with a person whose company I deeply enjoy and just have them vanish.
I can’t stop thinking about him. I can't help it. And not just his soft lips. There’s just this way I feel when I’m around him I can’t explain. I’ve never quite felt it before. And yet here we are. I have to lay here in bed at 7:21 a.m. and miss him, and wonder if I’ll ever see him again. I truly just wish I was a gibbon. But a ceramicist gibbon. That would be ideal.
I started my first sculpture tonight. It’s a monster-like figure. Their name is Tony. Hopefully Tony won’t explode in the bisque fire. I like Tony. I’m painting underglaze on them tomorrow before my mom’s CAT scan. We’ll see if Tony ends up looking fetching.
2/21/26
I skipped swimming this week. I can feel it. It’s bad for me to skip it.
I can’t get over how hard it feels to change even the things in your life you know you despise and must change for your peace of mind. It can be such drudgery.
I just realized the big toe is the thumb of the foot.
2/22/26
That song by The Proclaimers about walking 500 miles for love was stuck in my head tonight. My mom made the astute observation that the monks walked over 2,000 miles. So, what the hell Proclaimers? “How lame” I said. “They should be traversing a ton more mileage.”
I keep thinking about making a cup for everyone on the planet. I know it seems like a far-fetched idea, but there’s a big part of my brain that thinks this is a totally reasonable goal.
2/23/26
I picked up the first book in the Animorphs series and I’m joyously excited. Even if it’s bad, I’m beyond thrilled. I also picked up a book about being a nun and their journey towards eventually fleeing such a life.
There’s a special place in my clay heart for the studio where I finally got the hang of wheel throwing. That moment where something kind of just clicked for me felt so euphoric. I want to practice with much bigger mounds of clay because those are way harder to center for me. And I love the challenge.