7/12/26 - 7/15/26: legitimately loveable
7/12/26
“…she had a pervasive sense of standing outside, of not being quite real or legitimately loveable.”
-Funny Weather by Olivia Laing
I’m nervous about my phone call tomorrow with a counselor from a prospective college. Why, though? It seems silly for me to be nervous. But alas, I am.
I’m trying to embrace how lame I’ve been feeling. To just go with it and not be judgmental. It’s hard not to think I’m the lamest person alive sometimes.
Poem:
There is no dance
quite
like the dance of need,
quite like the cushion
of reliance
that you can melt into
if you never choose to leave,
never choose to
move
in
to
a different room
through a different
door
through which
unknown expanse expounds in a sparkle with a wink,
and a kiss with a lisp,
unwrapped and freshly milky.
7/13/26
Maybe it’s because I woke up at 5 A.M. and felt slightly delirious this evening, or maybe it’s also just an innate tendency of mine, but I found myself in the grocery store tonight truly feeling like I was visiting from another planet taking field notes for research; surveying everyone in this expansive, slightly scientific manner. No harsh judgements just observations on the full scope of humanity through the microscopic lens of just this one tiny supermarket. A microcosm that speaks to the macrocosm. It probably just looked like I was spacing out a bit. Everything felt kind of still and quiet in my head, while I simultaneously felt so outside of everything and everyone. All these ineffable, large feelings roaming around in such an odd swirl in my body, all while I was simply just trying to get ingredients for sloppy joes and potato salad, two things I don’t normally eat. I wasn’t just thinking about all of humanity in a tiny supermarket but also time and life and meaning. You know, just your minor, casual thoughts.
I was right by my clay studio but didn’t have time to go. I did have time to longingly look in its general direction with pining eyes, though.
Sometimes I probably get way too inside my head that it’s like I’ve jack-hammered my way so far into it that I get lost inside an entirely different, unheard-of dimension. One I need a well-written manual to get out of with a precise, clear map. The brain: a trap of sorts.
I found out I need two more classes than I thought I did in order to be eligible to transfer. With circumstances as they are I’m unclear when I can take these annoying classes. Hoping in the fall.
Doing exercises with my big metal weight recently on my ten year-old yoga mat has felt really good. I’ve ended up stretching and meditating, too if there’s time. I like standing and basically just shaking my whole body out, too. It all feels good. I momentarily wasn’t thinking about anything. It was a miraculous feeling.
Of all the new people I’ve run across this year only one’s really stuck. I’m always so grateful for new friendships. I don’t think I can handle anymore ghosting this year by anyone.
I'd prefer ghosting if it involved actual ghosts, and referred to a fun ghost activity they got up to; a ghost's version of dancing. "Hey, let's hit the town and go ghosting tonight!" says one ghost to another, feeling that ghostly need for a satisfying shimmy.
I think I'd like actual ghosts if I met any. I could ask them what it's like to be a ghost and be able to float through walls and people. I could ask them what they think of Casper. And what they think of people, now that they're former people. I could write a whole, in-depth anthropological study on all of humanity through the ghosts' perspective.
The sunset was pretty tonight with blues and pinks, and clouds melting into each other, slowly falling into a nighttime sky. I was going to finger-soften my vases tonight but I was too tired. I like softening new pieces slowly and thoroughly with my fingers.
“Goodnight. I love you and can’t stop making you” I say to my vases. They can hear me but they’re not loquacious. Their silence is part of their elegance.
7/14/26
Next creative project I want to experiment with: French fold mini zines.
Amazingly I was able to sign up for all the classes I need. Now I just need to pass them all this fall.
Apparently my body wants me up at 5 A.M. now, so once 5 P.M. hits and the tiredness starts to elongate in me, I'm extra goofy. Full goofball mode.
I wish things weren't so scary right now. My mom's only done one immunotherapy appointment (they're about once a month) and already we're entering rough waters. My brother has yet to move back and I'm very scared. Last time on immunotherapy things got so bad and her eyes were sunken and she looked deathly. That was right before we ended up in the emergency room.
I want so badly for cancer to stop ruling our lives. To stop trapping us.
To cope, I pretend. Some days I just don't think about the cancer at all; how bad it's been and the difficulties to come. I put blinders on. I can't let the massive chasm of desperate, seething despair envelope me in its evil, drooling, bottomless mouth, eating me alive. The days I let it I can't stop crying. It's beyond overwhelming.
Cancer is a thief in the night, the day, and afternoon. It's the thief of too much to name.
I'm trying to be an attentive caregiver and help alleviate the side effects of my mom's current cancer treatment and go back to school and start up my business again all at the same time. I don't know how it's all going to work. I do appreciate busyness, though since it helps alleviate my ruminating tendencies. But I'm also hating how fucking hard everything is right now. I suppose it kind of always is, though.
The lavender where my childhood cat Stella is buried is getting bigger.
7/15/26
