persistentprobings

[persistentprobings]

cannot repost this enoughhhhh

i love you adult women on tumblr i'm glad we all still have blogs

[persistentprobings]

The Power of Kangwon Province (Hong Sang-soo, 1998)

[persistentprobings]

life update real quick

my active thoughts are more of allowing myself to be an entrepeneur, a law school student wannabe, an elementary batchmate who attends her classmates’ parties, a woman in her late twenties who smells good and looks put up, a well-articulated and empathetic mouth in conversations, someone who pays her dues on time, and someone whose body stands erect to the sun with every non-rainy morning available. not so much of a writer and reader in the strictest sense these days but i’m always gathering materials. always plucking details and stitching a sentence or two to make sense of a life. my medium may not always be the written word, but i am always coming up with words through conversation, movement, living. and that for me is enough. to actively lean into life moreeee when it so wants you toooo. to do the dishes, the walking, the thinking, the kissing, the tucking into bed early at night.

[persistentprobings]

Chen Chen, “God, Gods, Powers, Lord, Universe—”

[persistentprobings]

[persistentprobings]

The purest form of love is consideration. When someone thinks about how things would make you feel. Pays attention to detail. Holds you in regard when making decisions that could affect you. In any bond, how much they care about you can be found in how much they consider you

[persistentprobings]

[persistentprobings]

can’t believe it’s saturday already. i want to start a blog outside of this platform but i don’t know if i can position my vulnerability as a subject. if i can be honest if i don’t feel safe about people discovering my honesty.. (esp that lurking ex visiting my profile every now and then and making a world about it). this tumblr feels safe because only my someone knows i’m here. how about a travel blog then? a little impersonal and a fun way to organize my thoughts while i hit new roads? i feel the urge to reach for the creative non-fiction book i bought a year ago. to study again.. but something is bothering me. i don’t know if it’s fear. maybe it’s fear. to step outside oneself is kinda terrifying, don’t you think? writing is pulling your interiority outside of yourself, hoping it reaches someone because what good would it be it isn’t shared? felt by someone? the best things in life can only be experienced when shared with another. the mirror where you see yourself all the time is more interesting when someone is beside you.

[persistentprobings]

jealousy, love, death.

jealous in a dream with j. there was a woman, a client of his, attractive in her long dark hair and cherubin face. the three of us sat across a long table with empty plates and polished wine glasses. i felt them looking at each other as they discussed her case with lots of nodding and agreement, slowly becoming familiar with each other's non-professional lives through the specifics of hers. i think my hands were on my lap the whole time, erect and behaved, like a school child watching adults make serious plans. at one point the woman showered j with praises, organized and trustworthy of a man that he was. a dry observation came through me: they could make a great pair someday. or sooner. idk. i was hurt by my own jealousy, thinking how easy it would be for him to leave my side and go across where the woman and her dark hair and sweet smile and not-so-messy life were waiting for him.

last night, i went to j's house in a haze, rushed by rage for an ex who's still bothering us in his lurking creepy way. we agreed on confronting him on the phone, insist that he fuck off and stop assuming our personal lives were still connected with his. but lo and behold, the night had better plans for us. when i climbed down the car, j and i took a walk to the nearby cafe, bought take-outs, shared meals in their living room, caught the forgiving night air on his balcony as i drank the carbonated refreshment he excitedly made for me, felt the closeness of his body, felt him really there, kissed on the corner while the kids hanging out on the nearby store probably glimpsed us, drifted off into his bedroom, continued kissing, made love. he had minty-colored bedsheets, the one he showed me the night before in a video call, giving me the best laugh i had in days (the top he wore that night serendipitiously matches his new bedsheets in a comedic preciseness). i was dripping wet, all with love and complete awe of this person who can lay me down in his green-tea colored bedsheets and make me feel the most safe.

left their house by 10 pm and drove back home overtaking trucks and being honked at by vehicles in the opposite lane, toying with danger. but before that it was mostly slow. all the big trucks were full of weight and the darkness of the night can really haunt you in a melancholic way. at one point, i got hypnotized by the slow rhythm of the trucks and their red/orange headlights meeting mine. it felt like a dream. nothing felt real but this foggy non-physicality of things. i felt like i was watching myself hold the steering wheel. i realize now that maybe i was disassociating. anyway, it all seemed like a peaceful death was within my reach. like i could just close my eyes and leave this corporeal body. everything unreal but death. i was really hypnotizingly okay with everything last night. then the dream of j and a woman client appeared when i slept the sublime okayness away.

[persistentprobings]

[persistentprobings]

i think a maybe underrated aspect of being alive in the world and not becoming subsumed by the quiet horror of being alive in THIS world is sometimes to just.......go off the deep end a teeny bit & acquire a plethora of interesting facts about the countless things around you

[persistentprobings]

i need to be by the lake

[persistentprobings]

— Van Gogh, The Letters of Vincent van Gogh

[persistentprobings]

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre cast (2003)

[persistentprobings]

document the highs. document the lows. document the interim. 

——

fell asleep last night with my index and middle finger squeezed between pages of the hour of the star. i started on the intro and only made my way into the acknowledgment section. hours before that i locked myself in the next room and cried. i was so tired, of the packing and the selecting. shifting between fulfilling orders alone, with my body sore from previous yoga practices, and completing the list for the next titles with an adrenaline-charged brain (no caffeine but this bookshop endeavor really feels like a shot of espresso for most parts). halfway done there, so i gave myself time to sink into other queries: could the bookshop be a sustainable source of income, and more questions in that line of thought. only because i am late to realize that yes, i need my passions fulfilled, while also securing an easeful future for myself, and i need money for my nerves to relax. the unreachable parts of me stretching out into view. merging. collaborating to build what the external world calls strength, both of body and mind. all through the night i disconnected from my phone and concentrated on stitching myself back into reading. gradually my emotions settled. i was just a person holding a book on her bed.

in sleep i had vivid dreams, of discovering a secret source of water hidden from public knowledge, and of old friends asking me out for lunch and. one in pursuit of knowledge, and the other in pursuit of play.

this morning i checked my bookshop’s messages and found gems. two encouraging messages from my undergrad prof and another person who ordered lispector and dickinson. i think another way to describe that latter person is she’s really beautiful and interesting (curiosity leads me into checking on my customers’ profiles, if only to ponder what their lives are and imagine the circumstances that brought them into choosing their book order/s. they are the major source of inspiration for me right now). i found that it was really nice for my professor to ask about my sales as a way to show support (he suggested my bookshop to other lit majors from our uni). it was like a pat on the back. and sophie, the other customer, filled me with such joy. the deep type, the one that seeps in my blood. she said that finding my bookshop has been the highlight of her year and thanked me for the service, for the selection of books, “you a beautiful human being.” her message carries the energy i need to continue this pursuit.. of this pursuit,, that makes me feel alive and exhausted, so human, so in flesh and close to the inner workings of my mind. the median. the equilibrium. 

[persistentprobings]

[persistentprobings]

because why not?