2024 - july

• actual fieldwork for my field notes!

june

• answers to the question "what else are you going to do in mount pearl?"
  • black mass
  • night gardening
  • eat plaster
  • softball game

may

• obsessively planning my fieldwork travel but not the actual fieldwork, just itinerizing every single day. and also planning all the groceries i'm gonna buy, it's gonna be a glow-up month for me since with the per diem i can actually afford good produce. i will be unrecognizable with all the vitamins in me
• at the eye doctor and hearing "wow this looks great and -- wait. huh. ok........." during my exam
  • so anyway yeah. iritis! spent half the month at eye appointments and putting steroids in my eye that made me unable to read, which was just super great timing since i was supposed to be finishing my lit review this month. but definitely one of those things where you get a little break and your body is like "ahhhh, wonderful, time to give in to all that stress-related inflammation we've been fighting while you had shit to do"
  • watched like 80 hours of dimension 20 because it was the only show that 1) it didn't really matter if i could see it, since mostly the action is happening in the ~theater of the mind~ and 2) didn't have fast cuts or bright effects that strained my eyes lmfao. and like what else was i gonna do when i couldn't read and was also extremely photosensitive so i couldn't like. go outside much
• my horoscope: may is YOUR MONTH, it will be a month where you can accomplish your dreams. everything is possible for you in may
  • me, lying on the couch in pain, vision blurry: yay

april

• at the dentist and she's like "ok yes this is TMD but i see very little evidence of grinding?" and the hygienist says "did you look at the insurance" and the dentist says "oh... grad student... you need to unclench your jaw" lmfao cannot believe i got diagnosed with grad student
• goodbye gathering for s :(
  • lovely time with some of my favorite people in the world, i am so lucky to be a part of this cohort
  • bum bada bum song???
  • s teaching us kurdish swears
  • "what department are you in"
  • "what is vigilante shit"
  • "i love walnuts"
  • listening to acadien and quebecois rap to hear the difference in dialect/accent
• nan's birthday
  • sooooo many relatives i haven't seen in 20+ years greeting me by name and i was just like "hey... you......"
  • they are all great tho i love them. the genes are just too strong tho and i can't tell anyone apart
  • baby j feeding me crackers
  • sneaking into the employees-only basement with my mom bc she snuck in there with my uncle the other day to look at the antique toaster
  • literally the coolest venue i've ever been in, what a spot
  • me and l frantically jamming buttons on the fancy keurig trying to get coffee made for some feral old ladies
  • my aunt to the two 95-year-old and 100-year-old guests: can i get you some sandwiches?
    • the response: oh no dear, we don't eat (???????)
  • baby c sticking his hand in the cake and then trying to share the icing on his hands with nan
  • i love family bc sometimes your fav relative can be your uncle's ex-wife's second husband who you just met. and all your actual relatives are like "oh yeah no he's great"
• thesis proposal presentation
  • definitely followed the old "bad dress rehearsal, good performance" rule, godddddd it was so bad and i got so anxious after that i had to 1) throw up 2) lie down on the floor 3) go to bed
  • but the actual day of was good!
    • s was so kind to me, she taught me some techniques that did wonders for my nervousness and she let me hole up in her office while i got ready and even insisted i take her chair bc it was the comfiest
    • coming back to my seat after i presented and d had left a little note there for me to welcome me back
    • afterparty part 1: legacy beer (which members of the faculty brew using the previous year's beer)
    • afterparty part 2: campus bar with some of the cohort ahead of us; absolutely incredible darts tournament (none of us knowing how to play well and just kinda trying to do trick shots with zero skill)
    • everyone's day started at 6 so i was at home on the couch by 8, lol
    • someone telling a story about getting bruised across the back of their thighs, me saying "wow i've never had that happen on both thighs at once," waking up literally the next day with giant bruises across the back of both thighs and no idea how they got there, aside from perhaps witchcraft

march

• easter at my nan's
  • getting to see my cousin's baby for the first time
  • my uncle telling a story about "scummy jim," my new favorite entry into the extensive unclesverse lore

february

• observation since leaving twitter: i am having a much nicer time getting quality attention over quantity
  • still gotta go there to see what the weatherman says about storms, though :(
• rewatching yuri on ice for pretty much the first time since i originally watched it back in 2017 or whenever; getting to introduce a new person to it (who loves figure skating so that is very fun)
  • "i forgot about the mortifying ordeal of [gestures at screen] whatever that is"
• e saying "you guys have LIVED" as j and i were reminiscing on our years of dirtbag depression travel in our early 20s (not to be confused with all the dirtbag depression travel i did in the years before and after that)
  • but it was cool to hear that and be like "yeah! i have in fact had a somewhat adventurous and happening life!" considering the like. however many years of just straight-up being mostly unable to function or sometimes leave the house or sometimes get out of bed. i got a little emotional at an art festival last year bc it felt like a glimpse of how my life could have shaken out if i hadn't had that long-ass breakdown period but rn i'm kinda like "ok well if you want to have had that life, have it now, and then you will have had that life in another 20 years and not have to be sad about it"
• glass bowl-making class with my bff
  • running out of time and just haphazardly gluing pieces on because we spent sooooo much time just looking at all the pieces of pretty glass
  • hers is beautiful!
  • mine is. well. i described it on the form we had to submit so it doesn't get mixed up after the kiln as "looks kinda like the sun setting on a sea of goth doritos"
    • but as we were doing this i was like "god i missed just being real goddamn awful at a new thing" like. it is so fun to be bad at something and just make a big ugly mess
  • anyway it was very fun and i would like to do more glass stuff, it was sooooo satisfying to break the glass with the big clampy boi

january

• road trip highs
  • the return of the dirtbag tableau
  • marfa... we were so upset at this point but also what a place
  • also alpine! only drove through but it was kind of a balm
  • arriving at k's to find the most soothing and relaxing atmosphere possible after a hellish few days
• road trip lows
  • wipers dying in the middle of a downpour
  • getting robbed :/
  • a million traffic jams
  • accidentally booking the wrong trailer in marfa and ending up in one the size of my goddamn 6' self
• befriending the cab driver but fearing for my life bc i sat in the backseat and he kept turning around to make eye contact while we talked. which was very nice and meaningful but also we kept veering over the lines
• grad school, semester 2
  • showing up to find a new guy in the class i (until now) only shared with my cohort and low-key panicking like "am i fictional. are we fictional. are our ratings so low they had to add a new character" until finding out he's from another program but wants to use geographical methods for his research lmfao
• the worst ibs flare i've had in years (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻
• off my meds and i always forget that the worst side effect is not the mania or anything physical, it's dreaming vividly. hate to be aware of whatever's going on in my brain while i sleep. that's simply none of my business
  • most recent one was trying to do a heist in a fancy hotel in france but also it was some kind of weird dystopian post-apocalyptic future and somehow also tedious. like this should have been fun or scary but it was boring and i woke up tired, i hate dreaming
• the godforsaken boxspring is out of my room!!! instant mental health improvement 400%
• "i would so enjoy being stuck in an elevator with post malone" - my mother
  • to clarify she does not have intentions towards him, she just wants to hang out
• 100% on my first assignment of the year
• museum with my bff, befriending an archivist, an exhibit i was excited for but didn't love (but an exhibit i wasn't excited for and did love!), best sandwich i've had in a long long time
• running into m downtown about five minutes after wondering if i would see him while he's home!
• the absolute funniest comedy of errors trying to have dinner with some of my cohort, i don't know if i have ever laughed so hard (future self, when you read this and if you have forgotten what this refers to: l and j leaving for less than fifteen minutes and coming back to me and b crying with laughter in the laundry room in different clothes than we showed up in)

2023

december

• landed a TA position for winter!
• very sweet and encouraging feedback from my prof
• random guy at the bus stop downtown taught me how to recognize labrador tea

november

• quit twitter for this month and i think i'm gonna quit it for good in the new year, this is a way better way to live lmfao
• i'm fucking TIRED, i really love my cohort and my other classmates and learning and reading but i simply cannot wait for the semester to end. those 2-3 weeks off before christmas are gonna be so good
• finally feel like i kinda know where i want my thesis to go? maybe?
• leading a wild-ass seminar and having a great time doing so
• amazing meeting with my thesis committee + another student who is very cool!!
• full of love for my cohort and my department at large
• heading back to california next month to do the road trip we did at the start of this year in reverse??
• rip to my bff's mom :(

october

• realizing i do not really like grad school, lmfao
  • but once i get through the next semester and a half, i'm in research/thesis mode and that should be much more tolerable
    • late october update: i like it now actually
• a very relaxing midterm break aside from the random breakdown
• thanksgiving at nan's, surprise cousin appearance + her very sweet dog
• writing the hell out of a paper at the last minute and being extremely happy about it
• eating the worst ramen of my life at my fav sushi place :(
• new tattoo!!! from my artist's halloween flash, it is a toad and i love him so much
  • i have tentatively named him maximilian
• amazing dinner with two folks from my cohort, i love them
• adopted a cat!!! big timid orange boy who is 13 years old!! his name is ferguson and i have been trying out calling him gus, but he does in fact know and answer to his full name so that's maybe not gonna work
  • later addendum: turns out he's just not a gus. this boy is a ferg
• signal hill + bannerman with half the cohort, the sunset over st. john's and the moonrise over the ocean at the same time, incredibly beautiful
  • i keep flashing back to when we were at bannerman and it was too loud to hear the other half of the table. down at our end we're talking about the boot scootin boogie. and then the music quiets and we realize the other end of the table is having a very serious discussion about how the iran hostage crisis was talked about in their respective countries
• first snow of the season (october 30)

september

• 24 hours travel back home in an absolute daze
  • befriending my airport shuttle bus driver; all his impressions
• starting grad school
  • sooooo good to be doing classes with people in my age group again lmao
  • climate strike
    • crying with laughter when people jokingly started a chant of "i don't like climate change. climate change is not good" but then it ended up getting picked up
  • being absolutely overwhelmed in my arch class and bonding with d over our frustrations re: latour
• getting sick :/

august

• catsitting
  • remaining alone in the woods for the first two weeks
  • derealizing so hard for two of those days lmao could NOT get the ghost back in the machine
  • seeing their basil plant wilting: i can fix that
  • upon their arrival back: soooooo i killed your basil plant deader than any plant has ever been before
  • sweetest cuddles with the murderiest cat
  • mornings sitting on the coffee table drinking coffee, thinking "i should drink my coffee outside every day," then remembering at home i cannot step outside without being accosted by my noisiest and nosiest neighbor
• a second catsitting gig!
  • these cats once again taking two full days to be like "hmm well our people disappeared and this one arrived not long after. very suspicious timing. probably a murder. anyway they haven't murdered us so i guess it's fine"
  • me watching horror movies all day: nothing scares me [hears one (1) strange sound in the bedroom and sleeps on the couch for five nights straight]
  • sooooo much hgtv
  • crashing so hard i slept for 12 hours a night. ideal tbh

july

• doing a huge walk on the one day it was cool enough and ?? my normal, ambling walking speed is close to, like, "race walking" records, a thing i only found out was a thing when my dad doubted my times (thank u zombies run for backing me up though)
• day trip with mom, nan, and my aunt
  • somehow meeting my publisher's mom at a random cafe in a town with 600 people
  • absolutely feral with how good the food was at a hotel restaurant named 'chad's' in bellevue beach
  • feeling like i should be nostalgic but it was kinda like "oh yeah we did used to come here. anyway"
• day trip with j, c, and a
  • whale-watching but the whales didn't get the memo
  • surrounded by fog; honestly fuck the whales i wanna see FOG
  • pocketing so many cool rocks that they stretched my pockets out so far they were more like cups
    • which is ideal tbh, because whenever i looked down i got to see all my cool rocks
  • the most beautiful picnic of my life
  • "wow. nature is amazing" re: a rock covered in scotch tape
• heat wave misery, i am accomplishing nothing and not even in a fun way
• catsitting
  • alone in the woods, first cool day in weeks, rain pouring down and i'm just like... wow the cottagecore girlies are onto something, living like this would in fact fix me
    • that said i still think the cottagecore girlies in their long dresses and bare feet still need to be informed about ticks. get it together girlies

june

• festival!
  • getting in the zone at a zine workshop and spending like an hour drawing the house from monster house
  • breaking my own rule about not going to art galleries alone when i'm sad, but having a great time despite my own existential dread
    • also, getting to screenprint!
  • accidentally attending a punk show
• getting recruited to an MA program!
• summer weather overnight (not even overnight! leaving for work when it was 1°C and it jumping to the 20s that same day, 30° the next)
  • which means pollen overnight, i'm miserable
• i have never actually thrived before and so was not prepared for the guilt of doing well while various loved one's lives go to shit. i'm used to being in the shit

may

• absolutely incredible first week at the new job, cannot believe i got offered a job out of the blue that pays so well and still gives me ample rest time and coincidentally hits all my favorite research areas. honestly bummed it's only for the summer, which is wild -- normally by now i'm already counting down the days or formulating an escape plan
• the absolute whiplash of funeral home thursday, funeral friday, eurovision party saturday
• six months of "it's probably not TMJ!" later... it's TMJ and i am so tired of jaw/face pain

april

• starting the month off with a lovely outing downtown with my bff ♥ sushi, seed-shopping, record store, new fav cafe, pokemon
  • oh yeah and starting pokemon go again for the first time since 2019 probably deserves its own note. this mf will NOT stop assigning me three years worth of missed fieldwork and i'm like damn maybe this isn't actually the great end-of-term stress relief i hoped for given i am about to spend the next few days trying to, y'know. finish my actual fieldwork writeups
• house/catsitting!
  • cooking disaster so bad that i ended up deciding not to cook the nice dinner i'd planned later that night and just making boxed mac and cheese
  • a cat ignoring me for three days straight and then coming through the apparently-not-all-the-way-shut bathroom door like the koolaid man to demand attention while i peed
  • met a nice dog outside the bakery (and nice people with her but really the dog was the critical part)
  • realizing at like 10 pm i could suddenly taste garlic again and being like "well i have to bake a loaf of garlic bread right the fuck now i guess" and i nearly cried eating my midnight garlic bread, it was so good, i missed garlic so much
  • chance encounter with a really sweet person downtown
  • making sushi with leftover pease pudding from easter and honestly it ruled
  • first day it was warm enough to be out in a tank top
    • but i lost my fav scrunchie (the backup to my old fav scrunchie) bc it was on my wrist when i took my jacket off :(
  • finally making roberto, a soup
  • having grandiose plans and ambitions and then largely just spending entire days on the couch playing stardew valley with hgtv on in the background

march

• finally starting to understand basic statistics on my third consecutive attempt at this course because this prof uses horror movies to explain concepts
  • also because i actually went to class for once. like that probably helped
• developing a hand tremor out of nowhere? i'm assuming this is a covid thing since someone else i know had the same thing happen during covid but ?????
  • my doctor being like "it's too soon to worry about this but let's schedule a time to worry about this 4-6 weeks from now" god i wish i could schedule all my worrying so precisely
• still not able to taste bitter things post-covid?
  • i keep forgetting this when i'm grocery shopping and buying myself bitter little treats and it's just like "oh. this beer tastes like rancid koolaid"
• negotiating our group project contract and our prof overhearing some of the terms and being like "oh you guys... you guys have group project trauma, huh"
  • having a group meeting that was like "wow we. we probably didn't need to meet today bc we're all on track. has anyone ever experienced this in a group project before"
• happy spring! enjoy snow daily until at least april!!
• the server at jungle jim's insisting on bringing nan a complimentary birthday dessert and being like "don't worry, i don't have to sing." well she sure did do that anyway lmao

february

• [eminem voice] my loser liege lord
• [ten minutes after reading a comment on a 'how to give yourself a wolf cut in three minutes' tutorial that said 'this is foolproof']: well it sure looks like someone underestimated my ability to be a fool
• "i apologize, that wasn't very mr. boombastic of me"
• the fact that i took great and expensive pains to get back from california in january so as to not miss much school and then immediately got hit with strike and now illness, so i've been to one in-person class this whole time and we're into midterm break... don't love that
• covid for the first time and honestly fuck everyone who ever tried to be like "it's just a cold!" bc this is the worst i have ever felt and i have literally nearly died before
  • that said, i'm honestly having a blast with the no sense of smell/taste thing. like i'm having a lot of fun tasting everything to see what i like
  • this just sucks man i'm on day 12 and i still need to sleep 12+ hours a day, i have midterms this week and i don't know what the fuck to do

2022

okay yeah no this is boring

• 0131: well i sure am glad i decided to keep a mostly-daily log so i can always remember [checks list] a lot of sadness and dread
• 0129: just too sad for anything tbh
• 0127: rip little cat :(
• 0125: casey had a seizure or possibly a stroke :( so worried about her
• 0124: feeling brilliant for managing to get through my first lab of the year easily, even though it was because i did the same one last year before dropping the course
• 0123: once again smashing deadlines in the one elective course i have that does not matter, while simultaneously ignoring every deadline for the courses i actually need to graduate
• 0122: see prev
• 0121: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
• 0120: making good room progress and poor uni progress (honestly, do i even want to keep throwing money at an institution that apparently considers all of us disposable); enjoying the hell out of critical role
• 0119: grocery run with mom, nan, and aunt -- nice day even though it feels sad to go back to this being the extent of my social life. uni made announcement about going back to in-person, which means i'm just gonna skip all my classes and see what happens, at some point you just gotta look at yourself saying "in-person learning is important" and realize you're asking people to risk their lives to take statistics for arts majors
• 0118: me, completing one single deadline a day early while my others for this week have already passed: wow i'm such a go-getter
• 0117: weird to think snowmaggedon was two years ago today when i was out on a really nice winter walk, no snow on the sidewalks
• 0116: had brain stew by green day stuck in my head out of nowhere, literally haven't heard it in years, couldn't remember the name of it. about two minutes later, saw someone with "sotd: brain stew" in their profile. incredibly dull coincidence but literally the most interesting thing that happened to me today, so.
• 0115: monumental day: i read witcher fanfiction for fifteen hours
• 0114: grocery run; only my second time out of the house in 2022 lmfao
• 0113: failed to accomplish anything from my to do list aside from showering and baking cookies but tbh that's still a win
• 0112: justifying staying up til 6am binge-watching the witcher by swapping my 9am class for an asynchronous one (that i thought i'd dislike but it's really fun!), still feeling the booster so just kinda chilling and having a lazy day
• 0111: asleep by midnight, awake by 4 ;__; first day of classes, first time remote since last april, excited to have my thirty second commute back. amazing first class, i love this prof
• 0110: booster shot! first time out of the house this year aside from bringing the garbage out, lmfao
• 0109: aaand more of the same
• 0108: more of the same.
• 0107: the tree is downstairs! headache finally faded after nearly 3 days but i have pain from clenching my jaw that whole time lmao. giving the witcher another try, liking it better this time
• 0106: pressure headache, slept all day and then went back for a nap two hours after getting up, generally just lazing around being miserable until critical role. managed to get the christmas tree down but hurt too bad to move it downstairs so there's just a sad plastic tree tipped over on the floor and i keep tripping over it
• 0105: read shadow life, played slay the spire, got way too deep dans la sauce reading about the quebecois influencers scandal, continued to deal with pandemic frustrations/anger/despair by decluttering, finally managed to get booster bookings for me and my mom
• 0104: pretty much the same as yesterday :/ furniture is finally all where i want it, time to deep clean, declutter, and decorate
• 0103: omicron despair (govt literally said "well we're all going to get it so why bother shutting restaurants" after two fucking years of having some of the lowest case numbers in the world through being cautious), rearranging more furniture about it
• 0102: rearranging furniture and more tidying, watched guys and dolls (not into the romance but you know i will always love a movie that wants you to root for criminals. also the catgirl burlesque scene was real weird?? why was the hays code ok with catgirl burlesque????)
• 0101: lackluster ringing in the new year (really good cheese, though). playing lots of slay the spire, tidying, avoiding looking at covid stats.

january

• shrieking along to truce by the dresden dolls with fai as we tried to stay awake on the road
• putting my music on shuffle as we got close, santa monica coming on as the last song, feeling a way about it ( with my big black boots and an old suitcase / i do believe i'll find myself a new place, not to mention we can live beside the ocean / leave the fire behind )
• getting a silent migraine so powerful i didn't understand what was happening to me and thinking a particularly sinister tree outside blythe had put a curse on me as we drove past
• staying in a beautifully aesthetic hipster hotel in the desert one night, a retirement village with a curfew the next
• "pull your beak outta your cloaca"
• taking an exit just because there was a sign for gas and finding ourselves at a combination ancient aliens museum/dairy queen
• getting coffee with my bff and sitting outside to drink it, but a small child inside the shop came to the window and stared at us for a few minutes like we were zoo animals at feeding time

april

• cobra kai never dies
• trinity trip
  • heist movies + the george clooney nespresso commercial cinematic universe

may

• new?? mcr????
• lunar eclipse was dope as hell, rip to neil degrasse tyson but i'm different
• magical girl slenderman

june

• museum punk show, cried several times
• stonehenge livestream boring this year, no storming of the henge
• being a haunted house evangelist

july

• smoking a joint with my friend's boss in a small town rec center parking lot

august

• blueberry festival, where i failed to eat a single blueberry
• rooms/supper for my bff's birthday; finding """sangria""" on the side of the road
• catsitting
  • for once getting the stereotypical cat experience (being treated with the utmost disdain)
  • security alarm throwing a tantrum at 1am because of a low smoke detector battery
  • trying to speedrun my 101 in 1001 while i actually have a few days to myself for the first time since the pandemic started
  • binging all the scream movies and being sure i was going to get murdered on my last night of housesitting

september

• only customer in a thrift store and ended up hanging out with the only employee for nearly an hour, listening to the bbc livestream and waiting to see if the queen died
• "you can have my money, or you can have my time, but you can't have both" -- some absolute wisdom coming from my dad but the context was pay-to-win MMORPGs

october

• first real concert experience since i guess 2019? just some local bands at a big outdoor thing but it felt so good
  • tin whistle metal is the future
• who's that pokemon?
  • it's clinical depression!
• new tattoo, cool as hell
  • first time with a sanoderm bandage, can't stop poking the ink sac
• last time i went downtown the queen died, this time truss resigned. not sure why political upheaval in a different country is cosmically tied to me having a nice breakfast sandwich at a cafe before appointments and errands
• guy busking playing some trad stuff, but he clocks me as i go by and suddenly busts out 'welcome to the black parade.' i'm furious about being perceived so hard but i gotta respect and appreciate it all the same

december

• flu for 3+ weeks :/
• last minute writing a take-home final, doing three full essays on pirates of the caribbean, acing them
• the genuine warmth with which an old friend greeted me when we ran into each other at the comic book store
• "how many cups in a liter?" "what? four." "what do you mean what for. so i can make gravy"
• "in the weeb game, it's one strike, you're out"
• arrested for korning too hard

2021

june

• i can have a little breakdown, as a treat
• blackberry mint soda... yes
• "it's a strike." "what are you protesting?" "ennui"
• not wanting any referential tattoos because every time i love an artist they turn out to be a monster, but also pining for a two coffins tattoo
• baby j's godzilla grabs for food
• stonehenge solstice livestream going so pearshaped that it was unbelievably funny
• figuring out the timeline of the han seoul-oh cinematic universe

july

• honestly i don't even remember what i did for like ten out of twelve days of the month so far, so. there's that!
• day trips with family ♥
  • accidentally sabotaging a beautiful influencer's shoot at cape spear
  • flea market in cape broyle feat. a cat
  • feral with hunger in the goulds jungle jims lmfao
• errands and adventures
  • meeting the kittens!
  • dropping in to visit a horse old enough to be considered a peer
  • first sushi since the pandemic started, i nearly cried
• so fucked up on extrovert energy from actually getting to do stuff in person again

august

• second vaccine!!!
• beep beep my ride's here (worm in a dragula)
• feeling like shit post-vax (~3 days; felt fine after first one)
• northern bay sands with bff and her family
• new tattoo!!
  • did not wait long enough post-vax and jump-started another 3-day immune response lmfao
  • it's the cutest though!!!
  • itch itch itch