4/16/26 - 4/19/26: a mess of a mass with moss on it

4/16/26

"You would think that any way of sorting their situation out would be preferable to remaining stuck, yet that's what they did, and so it went on and on." -Olivia Lang from Art in an Emergency

 

"...the unmappable region of the interior." -Olivia Lang from Art in an Emergency

 

At 5:29 a.m. I want to map it all. See it. Reveal all the nuances of the many-layered, parfait-style mysteries of one's inner-world. The flavor profile of such a parfait would be enigma. As in "wow, I can really taste the enigma. Though it also has strong undertones of paradox and the texture is giving riddle." 

 

Rumination seems to be most powerful at the random times at night I wake up. Lately though, instead of ruminating on things outside of my control, I've been picking up my Animorphs book, or the book full of essays on art by Olivia Lang I've been working my way through. 

One of my favorite art essays in Lang's book is the beautiful, petite one on Derek Jarman's garden in England he spent years thoughtfully creating in the face of his HIV diagnosis. I found it gorgeous how she wrote about creativity in the face of illness. He was working on the garden until his death.

 

I've had it in the back of my mind to find a therapist, but with how busy life is all the time I don't do the research required and it remains on the back-burner.

 

I think it's been about a month since I last swam. Normally I'd judge myself for breaking such a healthy habit, but I'm just a person and I'm choosing not to. I've suddenly decided that I don't need to judge myself as harshly as I normally do.

The unexpected and intense isolation my mom's cancer brought about gave me a ton of extra forced, focused time to look inward. It's unwittingly caused a new desire to better myself beyond belief, so to speak.

Even with self-improvement I can be competitive. Mainly with myself. I don't often voice my inherent competitiveness to anyone because even I know it can be a bit unruly. And, honestly, it's truly embarrassing to admit I possess such massive amounts of it. Competitiveness is kind of a silly thing if you think about it. Truly meaningless, yet still quite fun. 

 

I've felt exhausted by it all lately. I want to sit in a grassy field with that perfect cloud/sun ratio, hat over my face, and take a month long nap. I'll wake up when the flora and fauna has started growing all around me, accommodating my large human mass. More like my mess of a mass. And with moss on it, too, if I'm doing it right; if I'm napping as intensely as I'm imagining. Just a buckets-of-drool amount of sleep.

I think a lot about why people don’t go toward what they want. Do they feel like they don’t deserve it? Does it scare them too much? Does the familiar appeal to their very human cowardice? 

I have experience in being too scared to go toward what I want. It was back when I was applying to colleges and I didn’t choose the one in New York City because it scared me too much. The judgmental, self-critical narrative I've always had was that I severely messed that part of my life up by choosing not to go; by choosing not to take a chance because I found it too scary. 

 

Not too soon after I made the decision to stay in California, I fell in love with an emotionally abusive man and stayed with him long after I should’ve left. The idea of leaving someone I loved was scary. I reveled in the new role of supporting and caring for someone I had fallen in love with. It felt like something I was naturally good at. And maybe to keep it all going and prevent me from having to end it, I pretended it was better than it was sometimes. But it was a really bad situation I was in with him. Fear is such a large, all-encompassing creature. 

In not going to New York City and staying seven years in an emotionally abusive relationship, I learned a tremendous amount about my own fear and what happens when I let it take the lead without question. Fear leaves me with nothing but agitation and sadness.

When I hear about fear playing a defining role in other people’s decision making processes I’m all too familiar and have tremendous empathy. I hate fear. I hate how shriveling and small it makes me feel. It turns me into what I’m not, always. Fear doesn’t know who I am. And if you let it it starts to carve away at who you are, creating jagged edges of regret.

I felt so strange today. Nothing felt quite right. I briefly went to the studio but I hadn’t eaten so I left to get food. I was feeling so cranky and frustrated and I thought I was just hangry but I ate and still felt so off-kilter.

I finished a drawing this evening that I love but then started to spiral internally about my lack of much of an art career. I used the slab roller for the first time today. I made progress on a painting. All good things I couldn’t see the goodness in because I felt so fucking awful and peculiar.

 

I cancelled a date for this evening I’d made awhile ago because I felt this deep malaise and agitation that felt unpleasant to bring into a date. They were understanding. I still have people from the dating app I deleted that I’d planned to go on dates with. But I’ve felt so depressed about dating. My heart hasn’t been in it. Honestly I’m too captivated by someone in particular to truly consider anyone else at the moment. What can I say? I'm a sensitive Sam. 

 

I just could not handle anything today.

 

4/17/26

And of course I can’t sleep. I think my whole body is being extremely affected by the sleep issues I’ve been having.

I don’t understand anyone that golfs.

I saw a statue today of rabbits helping another rabbit up, holding them by their little rabbit hands. It was very wholesome. Just a couple of kind rabbits paying it forward.

4/18/26

I got my hands on a free tomato seedling and glorious succulent today. I need to make bigger planters for them. Also ones for my cacti so they have room to breath and get bigger. My bandwidth as a plant mother is limited to cacti and succulents right now.

 

I hate having to miss someone and not being able to get them off my mind. It’s like they’re imprinted there. And I’ve had no time to make art which is my way to make sense of it all. 

 

I’m excited about the new plants. Drove them home tonight and played them Mac Miller. Started with Blue World. They liked it. I could tell.

I heard you should sing to plants and tell them how much you love them. It helps. Even if this weren't true I'd still do it.

Phone full. Email full. I’m personally also at my limit. It’s not relegated to the technology.

I can hardly take the trap of cancer any more. I keep pretending I can make all this art and have a career and have a personal life but the cancer lately has been reminding me I can try but that I’m losing. That I’m delusional. I have no help and I'm struggling under the weight of all this. "When will illness be done with my loved one and just go away?" I ask internally, completely disheartened.

And I can’t even be with the guy that actually made me feel like there was a glimmer of hope on the horizon. It was an incredible feeling to feel safety and comfort just from holding someone’s hand. I loved his touch. If his touch was a place it was a place I wanted to be all the time.

It sometimes feels like I’m doomed in the Love Department. I should call their customer service hotline and complain. They'd probably be like Mam, have you tried being just a tad more patient? We feel it would bode well. 

I noticed that my feelings for this person were becoming softer and softer. And, at one point, I was on the outside looking in at us, and I could see something beautiful happening between these two people and it did start to feel like it was so delicate. Or I was feeling delicate about it. 

It all felt natural. I’ve never had it feel so easy. They felt familiar. Like I was supposed to meet them. Like we happily stumbled upon one another like two gibbons running toward each other in a long armed embrace. These sorts of feelings where you're drawn to a person like they're magnetic and there’s this hot spark between both of you. My whole nervous system was attached to the hopefulness I had with this guy. I felt connected with him even when we weren’t talking. Just sitting next to each other, holding hands. There was some kind of shared palpable connection that I could feel deeply. It scared me. It felt so good and so real. Like something I could have hope in. Something solid perhaps. Or something with the fiercely passionate potential to be built into something solid.

4/19/26

I just saw graffiti that said “HAN”. Possible ways to finish this are as follows:

HAND

HANDY

HANDYMAN

HANDLE

HANK

HANKY-PANKY

My studio is going to be closed for a week so I brought pieces home with me to finish. I have a ton of in-progress pieces.

I started making round ceramic face magnets that I’m really excited about. Got to spend a little time with my clay buddy today. Mostly we were pretty heavily focused on our projects. I’m very focused on finishing up my first cup I did slip trailing on. It’s very detailed of course.

I just applied to another teaching position tonight. I think the two things I’m most scared of right now are teaching and cancer killing my mom. (Well, also never seeing a particular person ever again. I’m quite scared of that, too.) In terms of teaching, my fear is based on intimidation and shyness. It’s an issue of how I see myself I think. But if a fat, fascist asshole can become president then I think I can teach. I’m just in my head about it. But once I jump into it I’ll hopefully get better at it and more at home in such a position.

I swam today for the first time in awhile. Only for half an hour but I was reminded how imperative it is for my mental health. It’s like drinking water or sleeping or making art. A basic necessity.

 

I’m really curious about creating a crackle effect with ceramics using sodium silicate. I also have yet to try raku and obvara. There is a ton to learn in my second year into ceramics. I’m incredibly excited.

4/19/26

Lightsucker

Is there a medicine
for this ache of absence?

Is there a spongy fruit
encompassing the pit of despair in
my belly?

Can I fumble around
and pretend to be
ignorant to the 
happiness I felt
with another?

Can I fall into a body of water and
never leave and become a fish?

Will I go back in time and remain in
the form of a sliver of hope like a 
light he carried in his hands?
All 27 (times two) bones clenched 
around the light

but dropped, and the light is
spinning,

spilled.

Easily absorbed
if you put your mouth to the surface
and suck.

Someone mentioned a period of their life where they didn’t want to be perceived. It would be relaxing to have a hiatus from perception.

I absentmindedly left part of a baguette out and it became so stale it could definitely be considered a weapon. I can read the headline now: Killed by way of stale baguette. Better yet, Mauled by bread! Beware!

 

I keep really feeling a certain fluidity to life that’s hard to describe. Maybe I’m feeling more present in my day to day so I’m noticing time differently. But the way things are currently ebbing and flowing in my life right now feel quite specific and new.

 

I find myself soused in so many new feelings and discoveries. More so than ever before.