On the floor

Just laying on the floor, the sweet serenade of an Age game clicking and shushing and ringing in the background.

I listened to a webinar on labor issues and just transitions while watching... he needs an alias... Gameboy play on mute. I don't feel like I learned anything; I think I'd heard the same words in a similar sequence before.

I keep reading and listening hoping that something will click, and that seems like the problem. It is clicked. I do get the scale of the problem.

And yet, I'm stuck.

I can't put into words what I want a just society to look like.

Is it because my life would be worse?

Is it because I don't see the path that gets us there? I want to lay one foot in front of the other, but that's not how revolutions work.

Gamerboy just won, after two losses. That's nice. Julia making excessive emotional investments in the feelings of random men, what else is new.

My bedtime approaches. Jordan says he'll game with me tomorrow night for Sinergy Thursday. I hope he does, and I hope it's more fun than it was with the physics noobs.

I just want to talk to him too. Maybe I should call him now.

The Agony of Perceivedness

Did you miss me?

My social media feeds are almost exclusively donation links, activism how-tos and don't-dos, and a few potters still flogging their work to the masses.

I'm glad - the pressure of this moment comes from the protests being constantly visible.

I'm not part of it, though, yet. It is interesting to watch the messages change as the 24-hour Instagram Stories expire and the next level of analysis and list of organizations makes the rounds. The messages stream out like the beat of a heart. The sketches, and quotes, and photos, and Canva amalgamations spin like a merry-go-round getting lightly reshaped every day. Are we learning, or reacting? Are we thinking on the outside? Like bacteria becoming a biofilm, are we specializing our functions through constant signals and triggers to become a functional part of a bigger animal?

Why don't I join the party? Do I not think of my "followers" as people who could read these messages and learn from them? Do I think of my "followers" as copies of myself, seeing the same things again and again and drawing the same lessons? Do I just not feel the drive that everyone else does?

Am I afraid? I think it's the former reasons rather than this one. I almost posted about the CCL steering committee debate on making a group statement on LinkedIn, but I stopped, because the story is only just begun. The next chapter was the discussion we had on racism and police. The next chapter is our discussion of Baldwin (or whatever we do!). There is no arc yet except for the one inside me, and I don't share those stories online.

I used to. I used to share them here. And technically in 2009 every third thought made it to a Facebook status, but let's not dwell on that.

I wish that posting would feel like action, but it doesn't and it isn't. Trick Mirror reinforced that belief. Donating $$$ feels like action. Going to a protest felt... exhausting and neutral, but I do think it was meaningful. Talking to Longform and CCL feels very real, if a baby step for all involved.

I thought of this blog because Warren Ellis's newsletter had a note on blogging:

"None of us still blogging do it for clicks. We do it to leave our traces, because it feels good to us, and because complete statements are better than tweets or facebook updates."

To leave our traces. It does feel good. My mind is clearer, and the rhythm of the words puts chaos into order.

I think of this blog as a person trapped in time. College Julia has been on my mind lately. I've been looking at old pictures. They have made me laugh, lately. I would have expected to feel a little heartache, a little yearning, as I have before, but they make me fully happy. They make me glad for the life I've lived and the person I am. I wonder why they didn't always feel that way?

The oldest members of the DC Reed Alumni group were the most resistant to canceling our hangouts at the beginning of the shutdown, and are now the most eager to start them back up again. My conclusion is that losing 4 months of your life at that age (75+) is a much greater loss than "losing" 4 months of my long and winding future.

Indeed, my life didn't change a huge amount. It was more how I thought about it that changed, and how I socialize. But, the total time spent "with" friends? Not so different. I've made marginally more time for exercise and cleaning since the former is one of the only reasons to leave the house and the latter is more urgent with two people at the house all the time.

Oh, the title of this post. I think about Beckett in the context of social media activism, and also in the context of Age of Empires streaming. To post about what is happening strangely feels like it makes it more real. The compartments are gone - the people at the march aren't the only ones who know you were there, now. The bubble of lived experience pops into the ether of digital truth, to be perceived without context.

That stresses me out. The things that I post on social media are funny or charming to me specifically because they are out of context. Incidents that are nothing in life become something in an Instagram post. Things that are something in life become nothing on social media.

Age of Empires... the disjointed and surreal interfaces between the player, the game and the audience(s). The feeling of togetherness, watching the rules you know play out. The emotional cohesion as you read the player's mind, the opponent's moves, and watch them both striving for the goal you all share.

I suppose every sports fan knows what this feels like, but I am just discovering it. When I watch sports I just get riled up beyond control. When I watch Age I get focused. I feel the flow state of the players. I'm invested.

That is enough rambling from me. I do understand things better now though, so thank you for that, self and internet.

Self reflection

From 6/13/18


What happened

I leave my life and job and move to Oregon. I feel relieved and excited but also like I don’t know how to do what I have decided to do.

I come to DC, feel very vulnerable and protective of myself. Feel pressure to figure out what I want to do for work.

I make clumsy attempts to ask for validation (“are you still excited to live with me?” And the girlfriend thing). Feel troubled when they don’t really pan out, but also don’t take it personally and acknowledge to myself that it’s not fair to ask those questions and assume a positive outcome.

I feel happy and safe in DC for a few days after working hard to take care of myself and look for inspiration, and talking in the park and feeling like we connected also helped.

Our last conversation shakes my basic assumptions about our status. I am scared and stressed but I don’t really know what it means.

I fly to Portland, Liana talks me down in the airport and then I get your text messages and I feel okay.

I go to Corvallis. We talk about two things that might have been okay to talk about if I hadn’t been 90% of the way to an emotional breakdown.

Break down emotionally for several hours, call you at 3 am.

I write you an email.

Next week or two is basically a blur.

Start to feel better, went to Showcase and Renn Fayre

I write you a few letters, focusing on the good stuff.

Fender bender in PDX with Jeanie, spend the next few days getting more and more stressed about minor things and also my trip to DC, feeling like I was behind on planning for it and wishing that I could know what it would be like.

Go back to Corvallis. Get it together a bit, feel more productive and stable.

Go to ceramics workshop with mom. Cole’s thing with his girlfriend creates physical and emotional discomfort that lasts for a day or two. I’m angry at myself for bringing it up again. I’m annoyed that I built it up into a big thing and that I haven’t been able to build it down. I’m annoyed that something that should have been sweet is sour.

Get sick, lose my bag, go to Bishop, stay sick.

Get better, go on some nice hikes and adventures.

Bedbugs thing. The idea of canceling this trip at the last minute and that it would be okay for you but not for me brings everything back. Cry all night and call you in the morning. Phone call is not great for either of us.

Texting about it sucks a lot and then you understand what’s wrong and I feel much better.

Come here and things are good but not great. Feel like neither of us knows where the other is at. Don’t really want to share where I’m at because it’s not so pretty, and I don’t understand it. Feel like I don’t know how to take care of you and you don’t know how to take care of me. Feel like our stresses are compounding instead of us helping each other with stress. Feeling excited to live here, like there are many opportunities for me to thrive on multiple fronts. Feeling like I made a big mistake in thinking the fear and hurt would go away if some time passed and we had other experiences that didn’t reinforce those feelings and instead made me feel appreciated and in sync with you. Feeling like there’s nothing else to do? Feel like when I think I/we’ve made progress it undoes itself. Feel like I don’t know what’s fair to expect from you or from me, don’t know how to get what I want or need from either of us.

First time talking about the misunderstandings and the month after (in meridian hill park) felt bad. Felt like it was on me to get over it and to be ready if/when it happened again. Felt like we had set ourselves up well to talk about it by having a fun night but it still didn’t work. Feeling like we needed more practice talking about things in general but that now there was a ton of weight built up behind this and it makes it so much harder.

Second time talking about it felt better. Felt like you understood more why I felt how I felt. Felt like you addressed my fears directly and gave me reasons to let them go.

Last night got in a little loop. Felt like I had been holding things in and struggling to share myself. Don’t really understand why it felt so intense right then. Feel bad for not being able to communicate about it and for getting annoyed so quickly. Feel bad for ruining our sleep.

You told me that you never didn’t want me to be your girlfriend

You told me what being your girlfriend meant, and it made me feel like we were equally committed

You told me why you loved me and they were good reasons

You told me you didn’t understand that I had been stressed about you not being committed, which helped me stop resenting you for leaving me uncertain for so long.

You apologized specifically for the misunderstanding

I felt like you tried to understand where I was at.

When I feel like you are annoyed with me for having strong feelings

When I feel like you aren’t trying to understand what’s going on for me

When I feel like I’m under pressure to fix it

When I feel like I’m doing something wrong

I need to feel less vulnerable in general in order to be able to choose to be vulnerable.

I feel like I don’t know what’s going on for you so I can only try to figure out what’s going on for me and then I spend too much time thinking about little things that I should move past.

I feel like my stress is a burden that I have to deal with on my own

I feel like you don’t think about how some things you say will affect me, and that when they do affect me I have to deal with it on my own.

I feel like there is a problem, and I try to blame it on myself so that I have control over it, and then it becomes too much for me to handle.

Part of why I call you when I’m freaking out is because I am afraid that you don’t realize I’m scared or hurt. And when you don’t react the way I expect you to (with concern for my wellbeing) I feel like you still don’t realize it, even though I’m right there overwhelmed by it.

I feel like you’ve been putting less time and energy and thought into this than you did when I was in Santa Cruz, or other times that I visited. I recognize that circumstances change and you are busier than before and there are lots of other things to take care of, and that you’re still putting a lot of time and energy and thought into this. I’m not even sure it’s true. But it does seem less even.

Make a list of the things I’m proud of and happy about that have nothing to do with him :P

Being brave and doing scary things because I want to have interesting experiences

Being a good friend to myself

Being a good friend to my friends

Talking to new people in new situations

Finding interesting things to do and learning from them

Agreeing to do the freelance project and doing a pretty good job at it

Being called a consummate professional :P

Having ambitious dreams and not giving up on them even if they might be far away

Church coop

Writing

Charming people when I meet them

Not taking it personally when people aren’t charmed by me

Giving myself a second chance to charm people even if I think my first impression was meh

Getting a little better at puns

Getting better at cooking

Getting to know myself better

Writing nice letters that people are impressed by

Make a list of things I’m grateful for some of which have to do with him

The support of my family

The support of my friends

The creativity and bravery of my friends

Being financially independent and secure for the foreseeable future

Being physically healthy

Having an awesome younger brother and building a relationship with him

’s eyes

’s lips

’s hair

’s back

’s front

’s cock

’s legs

’s smile

’s laugh

’s grin

’s head on my chest

’s hands

’s company

’s support

Curiosity

Buy something nice

Express myself more bravely

Think about things that make me happy when I’m feeling stressed and anxious



What made it better



What makes it worse


Themes


Questions


Are we spending too much time together?

I could do lots of other things in the evenings if we should have more alone time.

Are we putting too much pressure on this by planning to live together?

Are we putting too much pressure on this by living together now?

Is the pressure of the house thing too much?

Are we talking too much about serious stuff and not having enough fun?

Should we be dealing with the bedbug thing more coherently? Want to plan a set of actions, or want to deal with it later when I’m not around?



Autocorrect therapist: I feel like I don’t know how to take care of myself and I feel like I feel pressure to feel like I feel like it and That was that time we had been a lot better to go together to do things like that we felt we had a good feeling like that and then it was a good time for you and we felt together.


Things I’m going to do to stop freaking out

A day with my brother

My brother and I talked on our porch from 11 am to 4 pm yesterday. We talked the night before, we talked while cooking and over ice cream last night too, but that marathon conversation was so intense.

Started 5/14/18

The conversation was a major turning point for him and I, individually and within our relationship.

The California Experiment is over.

“California is a place in which a boom mentality and a sense of Chekhovian loss meet in uneasy suspension; in which the mind is troubled by some buried but ineradicable suspicion that things better work here, because here, beneath the immense bleached sky, is where we run out of continent.” - Joan Didion

Well, the continent ends in the other direction too. 

That loss and hope and pale blue sky were passing through my lungs on a daily basis in Santa Cruz. The ambivalence hasn't gone away, but it has changed. It didn't change there. Santa Cruz was always too beautiful and too lonely. When I started to put a bandaid on the loneliness, I realized that I didn't want to live with covered pain. I'm too young to say "this is enough." 

It sounds dramatic and it was dramatic, and it is dramatic. I still can't think of it without crying. There's my extra motivation to keep looking forward.

So what is my ambivalence now? An intense love that is being tested as the infatuation remolds into a relationship. Processing what my last relationship taught me, in terms of my needs but also in terms of my expectations. I say that this new love raised the bar, and he did, but the old love had it's strengths too. I can't expect to never fight when I am trying for something more complicated than I had before. I hope that I can feel unconditionally supported. I don't know where this fear comes from, but here it is. 

I will finally try out the other side of the country, as I intended to do for college. Reed was the only West Coast school that I applied to. I nearly committed to try out the other coast for school, but at the last minute (well, in the last day) I changed my plan. The girls at Bryn Mawr talking about their Cotillion Balls were a major factor.

It could be bad and it could only last 6 months, like my travels, like my life in Santa Cruz. Like this break. Part of the appeal of Washington DC is the idea that I could stay there for years and years. I could put down real roots and build a real life. For the first time, that kind of commitment appeals to me. 

I'm in Oregon now, in my family's beautiful house. I'm in the beautiful spring, looking at warm rhododendrons and cool irises. I'm watching white blossoms turn into green fruits. The cherries and the pears are the same size and the same color today, but the glossy berries will turn red while I'm in Washington next month. The pears might be ready when I'm at Burning Man. 

I'm emerging from a hormone-induced funk. Ethel says I shouldn't reject my sadness. My love and I read An Unquiet Mind this week, and it doesn't encourage me to let my dark moods in. 

I did math again

I did math again for the first time in what feels like years.

I found a job at MIT Media Lab that looks so awesome. I'm almost qualified for it. I just need figure out if the engineering is really for me. The perfect interdisciplinary life is waiting for me, somewhere.

It was the last day of my Confucius Institute Chinese Class. I left work ten minutes early, and the sunset came at me in between tunnels on muni as chocolate covered espresso beans took over my feelings.

Chinese was weird, but I really appreciate the friends I made in that class. We saw the propaganda arm come out a little bit, which was funny.

In the dungeons of the Civic Center Bart station a girl sat next to me factoring polynomials and I thought... that could be me.

I'm 870 pages into 1Q84. A main character is a math prodigy and math teacher, and I'm a little jealous of him.

And then I finally cracked open Boas when I got home, and I took half a page of notes and did two quick arithmetic problems before I started to tear up. Not from a panic attack or anything, but just from seeing an old friend who I had a falling out with and I might be ready to forgive.

It's not fun yet, but it doesn't hurt as bad. I'm going to take it very slow, and forgive myself as well.

up down shang4 xia4

Going up the stairs, I lean left. My left ear drops towards my shoulder; my shoulder dips away. My right hip comes out, in order to let my torso fall in. I walk up the stairs at a speed prescribed by my tilt, measured to keep me standing.

On the way down, I don't lean. My chest raises, and my chin distances itself from the bounce of my feet against the painted wood. I slow down when I get to the cracked step, landing carefully without pinching myself.

Not so balanced, then.

I'm learning Chinese, because I am going to China.

I had a weird day, but we can mostly blame the 16 ounces of coffee on an empty stomach. No, it was just weird. I sent Anna my thesis.