#one cannot understand how unhinged I am about this one (1) podcast because it's my favourite work of fiction of all time

[bepillian]

He dropped the last episode!! Thank you!! Life is good!!

HOW WE GOING MILKMAN OF ST GAFFS NATION (all 10 of us)

ONCE OUT OF NATURE EPISODE 2 IS OUT

[jiessicas]

07.17.23 -- 07.23.23

07.23.23 (sun) picnic @ little farm

picnic at little farm, the ride there and back with s&s <3

cannot escape cliche / that day is not this year

dreaming of small glowing object timer 

i think i better understand hinging and unhinging / realities are malleable etc etc 

i’m told i bring good vibes to the function

mathematical transformations; the object of study didn’t change but what you noticed did; was that a transformation or did you find a new point of entry?

gods favorite (kiosk order #1 at matcha cafe maiko, japantown edition)

looking for a new social media (listening to podcasts again)

learned of diplomatic immunity

07.22.23 (sat) japanese tea garden; prose & pals; n's bday <3

new newjeans ep in the car! i want to hear "super shy" in the club

remaining soft is how i get here / remaining flinty is how i preserve my softness, my ability to get there 

learned that the casio is the "terrorist watch"

i turned the corner and there you were; an altar, an arrow, a shrine in real-time, a monument for today;

remaining soft is how i get here; remaining flinty is how i preserve my softness, my ability to continue to get there

i am so happy for friends who are happier / so much i want to talk to p about

celebrating n's bday! he said "the future is short" and i felt the room tilt for a moment (and change color, as the lamps were set to due on a timed basis hehe)

07.21.23 (fri) picking poetry books; shuggie's

strategic scatterings, diligent dilettantes

trip to dogeared; saw a tiny puppy right next to a tiny baby in the bookstore

thinking about aunthood (buying a tiny bucket hat and the sundae school puppy fleece for someone else's dog)

the green light at shuggie's trash pies reminds me of the green in "all about lily chou chou"

asking people often "how did you feel about that" in part because of the lil kid in me that had to monitor the feelings of adults around me, but also because it seems really good for encouraging pause/listening to oneself in times we don't always remember to pause for

"we sound like war veterans"

07.20.23 (th) "all about lily chou chou" / jialing @ ugsf

athleisure (appropriating tennis aesthetics to sit in the sun outside to read "greek lessons")

knew today was the day to resume wellbutrin when i watched a video of a puppy eating an ice cream cone and felt compelled to eat an ice cream cone, just like that puppy

sometimes being dysregulated is so nice yknow 

i’m just trying to live my american dream (eat a little edamame potato croquette w chili crisp and wash it down with some ito en black milk tea in peace)

A Grand Unified Theory Of Dog/Daughterhood, Being Baby, But Also An Older Sister, Probably, Also, “I Bet On Losing Dogs” (2016) 

knew today was the day to resume wellbutrin when i watched a video of a puppy eating an ice cream cone and felt compelled to eat an ice cream cone, just like that puppy -- ie, going through a moment in which i see any pup and think "it seems like it would be nice to be you" (it's There Are More Dogs Than Children In San Francisco x I'm Baby syndrome)

thinking tenderly of student journalism in light of the student journalist who got someone to resign over their reporting

watched "all about lily chou chou" my god

saw jialing at undergroundsf, what a treat! i bring a sort of nonverbal athleisurely vibe to the club that my brain cells thank me for when i get home at the end of the night 

07.19.23 (w) ucsf visit; japantown loitering

times i feel like a surrogate or stand in / times i feel nonfungible 

thinking of my parents as poets; not redemption but remembrance; not transcendence but immanence 

finished reading mckenzie wark's "raving"

felt flowers in the vase

called c; thinking about different kinds of love; the loves that help me stay grounded in the present and the loves that help me embrace the future as it arrives. a kind of love wherein i learn the joy is rooted in peace, in building together; pleasure, a necessity, and one i want to nourish me

with c, I talked about feeling useless in contexts, feeling powerful when I am with people, feeling out power, not for anyone’s use but our own; he talks about feeling useless in one context, getting better so as to be useful in a diff context; feels like we are on opposite sides of the same plane;

there’s a mole on the back of my left ear, he says; we say i love you through subtitles when i'm on the bus; this call and the day before makes me miss him very very much

pop pop pop ice cream… not in the Bible

"that’s either drama or a jess instagram post"

i admire moments of surface disagreement to recognize the shared root that could be grasped together; i haven’t transcended but i found immanence; i don’t believe in redemptive arcs but i do believe in remembrance

i am so grateful for ucsf; i sip on a little juice box; i am instructed to wiggle my toes to distract myself; got a photo of an ultrasound of my uterus (beautiful, perfect lol); i stand in front of the poetry plant tablets and cry a lil bit;

the joy/power i reach for is to stave off my existential dread

i walk along sutter in the sun and wander into a grocery store that has piroshki, potato salad, and i sit at their counter to eat

groceries from nijiya, noncommittally wander through daiso, pick up an eraser for lil and finally get pen refills / a pencil sharpener and eraser for myself

then i sit on a bench outside of marufuku ramen & Free Associate to k!!!! Gosh; so many thoughts about lorde and gordan in thanks to them

07.18.23 (tu) bart movie screening; tender media primers

read alina stefanescu's piece on abortion: "the author of the abortion is 'I': against redemptive forms and genres"

intimacy doesn't need a reason / gray area / learning i am most generative and feel most powerful when i am useless in through the lens of instrumentality

the craven desire to be an “intern” again; to be a puppy (cute and clueless; bark bark arf arf woof woof; etc)

essay texting with k; concern with people's imagination, the foreclosure of it; a human/political concern

how was today? media consumption day--

a primer for tenderness via n - "throw someone a pep rally" ask polly (hard work becomes joyful when we make a connection to the hidden abilities and talents inside us...making that connection to our buried abilities, our muted imaginations, and our blocked desires becomes easier when we recognize that every living being is filled with just as much potential as we are) -> think being a teaching artist would be incredible for this reason

the club is bumping // the ladies look good // the alcohol i flowing // there is much tenderness in the world, and in this room

angie kang's comic, "desire paths"

read "what it was like" by natasha rao sent to me via c

ran into v: joshua tree was a midpoint between phoenix and california; consulted on a drink choice and got a drink as the consultant fee B)

maybe i read it yesterday but today it feels present - “‘What happens to me next is inscribed without causation… I will be passing into myself’” - from angie sijun lou's story, motorcycle factory

i walked out the door listening to linda diaz's music; feeling like i had a lot of time in the world, which i did!

gifts for people - earplugs; felt flowers; the burrito that d held, that looked like a bouquet also

check out "tunnel vision: an unauthorized BART ride" !!

Process notes from chatting with s

Times we have had solid working relationships?

When do we know it’s enough - having a story to tell, something to collapse the theory into 

Time is clear in the thread, what about the meta thread?

07.17.23 (mon) two wolves; parmesan soup; gathering; generative babies; southwest

sean (short for parmesan) would be a beautiful name for a baby girl ~ l made parmesan soup, and we added chicken sausage to it for the ultimate pizza soupppp

gathering deadlines; (categories here)

two wolves - raver that wants to be lightly eviscerated outside by some groovy tunes; writer that wants to cocoon inside under a bunch of blankies w a notebook

rhys - i had two longings & one was fighting the other. i wanted to be loved & i wanted to be always lone

i wish to indulge a little less so i can be a little more diligent !! or i wanna be more diligent about my indulgence

in what ways do i feel ready? in what ways do i wanna be able to choose something not as an escape? i wanna write and document today, then clean at home, want a functional workspace, less excess

readings: sour heart jenny zhang; closet space kming chang; obit victoria chang; franny choi

my lil sis' first day of work! she sent some generations of her as a baby via some app which kinda looked like me as a baby...

generative baby with fucked up hands but she's cute

i generated some of my own and sent to c; dislocation, seeing hugging face stuff, poorly rendered artifice, poorly utilized hyperrepresentation (dating apps, egg donations grotesque in their own way)

what is the feeling of dislocation? seeing yourself outside of yourself, any kind of familiarity that is defamiliarized is a dislocation, somthing you don't know how to place yet; the injury, when something is moved out of its usual or expected location

sat in the sun to journal

found a cool utility dress at o+f that makes me wanna sew

curled up in a corner at the commons to calendar; felt like calendar was in a good place in thanks to the franticness of last week // met v in passing who made me think of the southwest

technologies for the psyche, vs technologies for the ego

the fun of telling two people about one another

listened to music for 18 musicians

i’ve slept 7 + hours every day since wednesday and i’m reconfigured

i feel like i am on some hamster wheel hmm / or i feel scattered; it’s not bad i am just like “hm what shall propel me / what shall i propel myself with now”

from James Turrell - “Science strives for answers, but art is happy with a good question.”

i want to work on computation that brings us closer to our bodies / technologies that get us closer to our selves

Affirmations: My Obsessions Nourish Me . They Do Not Destroy Me 💯💯

Affirmations: I Refrain From Losing Sleep Over My Obsessions (happy to report a week straight of sleeping ? 7+ hours ? i truly cannot recount the last time i did that was)

why did this just flip a switch in my brain

every person is a puzzle i guess; "If you ask too many why's you end up like 250k years in the past at the dawn of man"

there’s a meme where people are now like “not in the [reference text]” and ap styleguide is hilarious /// In Praise Of An Expansive Usage of “Situationship”: A Treatise

times i used notes app as twitter before i caved in to use twitter as twitter

RIP Dead Inside, Who Once Walked Into The Club (He's Not Dead Dead He's Just Lightly Immobilized From Dancing) ~ can still barely walk from dancing

return window passed and check's already cashed 

[sexygarbage]

1:20am

Have I written about how I realized that I have a hometown murder???! I recently finished every episode of MFM that isn’t a live show and isn’t a minisode. So, now I’m going down the list of minisodes. Which, are just as entertaining, if not more so than the good ol fashioned shows. And every time I hear these hometown murders I am like so jelous that I don’t have a story to tell! I mean, people are writing about close encounters with famous serial killers or even unknown killers. Or like not even murder related but touching and thoughtful or about ghosts or the super natural. And I wanna be featured on it so bad. I was listening to them talk about a mother who had murdered her own baby or something and how it’s the lowest of the low in prison if you’re a mother who murdered your baby. And then it all came back to me. I had a middle school/high school friend named Barbara Ramirez Sufuentes who drowned her two twin babies in her bathtub like 4 years ago!!!!!!!!! I honestly thing I repressed this memory because at the time, she had started posting more on her facebook about them and also she had commented on a depressing instagram picture I posted of a bb gun to my head. She was like “are you okay? guns are kinda serious” And then she straight up murdered her two twin daughters!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! At the time, I just could not believe it. It was a numbing time, a depressing time. Me and Barbara had fallen out of touch. It was weird of her to even ask me anything about myself because we had not spoken for years. So, I’m sure at the time I just repressed it. I wasn’t into true crime shit just then. And when I was listening to MFM I re-remembered. I wrote to them but I doubt that it will get read because sometimes I feel as if I have to dumb myself down a little bit and I probably did that in the email, causing it to probably be boring and I don’t think it would make the cut :/ 

But! It was interesting to re-remember something from my past. Barbara was like one of those girls who were super intimidating and like really pushy. And you kinda just had to feed into their delusions in order to maintain peace you know. There was something about her that was always a little unhinged, or like off... I always thought that... which is why I wasn’t so committed to staying friends with her after middle school yanno. But upon my research, she was arrested on mothers day and she claimed it was a horrible accident. She started the twins bath and was listening to music very loudly and the next thing she knew they were dead... She was also seen smiling when she got arrested! She was found guilty and is serving a 6 year prison sentence. People in the fb comments were heavily debating. A lot veer into the side of it just being a crazy accident and then some people are too ragefilled about it. Also upon researching, I discovered a prison penpals website where she wrote an ad seeking friends while she was in prison. And it was very strangely written, she only said she was in prison for a crime that was due to recklessness on her part and that she hadn’t done anything wrong before that. She also used a lot of quotes and named the bands she listened to... It just seems so creepy to me. Because with all the red flags, it’s so obvious that she totally killed her babies and it was not an accident. But this was a girl I basically grew up with!! We might have even had a sleepover or she at least came to my house once or twice!! She was someone that I knew. Someone that I had study hall with, someone that influenced me as a kid and she totally fuckin murdered her own children!!!!!!! I mean, it’s crazy when I think about it now. Now that I am so invested in crazy shit like this and have heard so many fucked up stories. And the thing that baffles me is that when you’re in school, it feels already like a prison. And everyone around you can bond over the fact that you are all pretty much miserable. And Barbara was def not a student who stayed out of trouble. She was always in trouble. She was fuckin crazy! School is like baby prison. Prison is like real life adult serious prison!!!!!! Like, murderers, rapists, unfathomable, unforgivable crimes is where prison is! And I already empathize way more than I need to so when I realize the legitamcy of it all, it fuckin freaks me out. Ofc I didn’t write anything as poignant and personal like this when I wrote the email for MFM. But, I still shared the small barely interesting story. 

I keep thinking about it and I just wanna know that they read it. But I can’t count on that outcome. I’ve just listened to like 5 minisodes in a row and they have all made me laugh and cry and scream and get goosebumps. They make me feel so many emotions, and they trigger me and I begin to feel genuine feelings which is so hard to come by especially because the people close to me are a majority of sociopaths. And when I listen to the stories and the carmraderie and the sense of belinging, it just warms my heart. I mean I hate to be so cornball about it. But shit, I’m mostly having a bad day and I’m mostly secretly struggling and feeling out of place and uncared for and this just totally turns me around and I become intrigued, I am put in a trance where things are just not so shitty and the hottest of tea is being spilt in the most twisted of ways! It is everything I live for! 

So yeah, I’ve been emmersed in these crazy stories, I might be gong insane a little bit. I also wanna write about my thoughts on my therapist because I don’t write about it that often. Me hanging out with Coco so much and hating it is an indication that I, too, am quite insane. Because I have no where else to go. And so I keep going back to Coco when I know she makes me feel like shit. It’s not normal that every time I call Sas, we have to have a Coco complaints hour. I know it’s fun to talk about the dysfunction of others. But at a certain point, it is spilling onto me. And look, the situation is not easy for anyone. Idk if anyone would care, but I would be certainly sad if I just straight up ghosted everyone cus I couldn’t stand Coco. No, I love everyone else, that’s why I have to put up with Coco. And when I go to my therapist about it, I could be talking about so many other things... My committment issues, my daddy issues, so many other issues but all I wanna talk about is how many times Coco has rubbed me the wrong way within two weeks! And I tell my therapist how shitty I’m feeling, and it upsets him to know that I’m upset so then I feel even more shittier. And we know the only solution is to get rid of her but it’s not easy and it’s not realistic. And I’m kinda just looking for a scientific explination of my dynamic with Coco, of my reasoning for my own attachment. But we never get there. With my therapist, he never gives me a scientific explination as to why I am the way that I am with certain people. He praises me a lot, he tells me positive things about myself and shitty things about everybody else. And on one hand, I do need to hear good things about myself because not many people are praising me and I need validation. But on the other hand, I am uncomfortable about it and I don’t know how to make that clear. I just think my therapist is way too emotional. Way too empathetic. And way too on my side! I mean, I know I’ve been gaslighted to believe everyone should be mean to me, but I need someone who is unfeeling. Someone who will give me scientific explanations. I’ve been kinda wanting to break up with my therapist :/ Which sucks because I love him so much. And part of it is me. Because I just don’t know how to deal with someone who sees me for me. I only know how to deal with people who make me the butt of the joke or something like that. I’m not used to people being so nice to me and it freaks me out and it makes me uncomfortable. And I know I shouldn’t feel guilty about it. But idk what to do. Also, my therapist is good at taking this into accountability, but it is different to have a white therapist when I’m not white. And he’s like super aware of racial differences, super understanding. And sometimes I just feel like I need a person of color therapist you know. Maybe not straight up filipino because you know pinoys are judgemental and hella religious. But at least just another person of color and a woman, so we’re all on the same page. Like, my therapist is an openly gay trans man and you could not ask for a better sense of open mindedness and a radical stance on politics. But, I am already so emotional. My therapist cannot be more emotional than me. It makes me feel like I have to retaliate and so then I become unfeeling. 

And also, the thing about therapy is that your therapist is always gonna be on your side. I was talking to Sas about what Coco’s therapy is like and it’s true, you can just straight up lie the whole time. And that’s probably what Coco is doing. She is doing her mother teresa act, crying her crocodile tears and her therapist has to buy it, her therapist has to be on her side and tell her the things she thinks she wants to hear. But her therapist is missing a huge chunk of Coco herself because therapists will only ever get your side of your story. I have probably hurt a lot of people too, and it’s not supposed to matter to your therapist. But sometimes I just wish it would so I could know how much of a shitty person I am. The way Coco’s therapist would never tell her. I wanna know all the bad things about me. A stranger just can’t know that about you because ofc I’m seemingly nice, and so are the thoughts that come out of my mouth and into my therapists’ ear. Ofc, he’s not gonna tell me all the bad things about myself. Ofc it’s just me finding new ways to hate myself even when I try to get better about it... Sometimes tho I feel as if I don’t even need therapy when I know so much shit already. But that’s just me being cocky and stupid... Anyway, idk! Imma just ride it out. I still have writing. And I still have my podcast and other creative endeavors. 

Actually, you know what I think this is me just like dealing with the fact that therapy is really that hard. I mean, you tell everyone to go to therapy but it’s only if theyre willing to work at it. Because it is a constant constant battle. And it’s never gonna be easy. And it’s so hard for me to like not feel bummed out about it because life is so hard. And then sometimes I just feel like there is no hope at all. Even when I put myself in a position to see that there is.. 

[fashiontrendin-blog]

My Fiancé and I Look Forward to Couples Therapy More Than Date Night

http://fashion-trendin.com/my-fiance-and-i-look-forward-to-couples-therapy-more-than-date-night/

My Fiancé and I Look Forward to Couples Therapy More Than Date Night

Like everyone else, I’m obsessed with Esther Perel’s raw, intimate couples’ therapy podcast, Where Should We Begin? When I first started listening, I had just moved to a new city with a (newish) partner. Since meeting a year and a half before, we’d moved in together, gotten engaged and relocated to Boston for his new job (which meant temporarily giving up mine). The stress of these changes left our relationship frayed. To be brutally honest, it also highlighted what had become perilously obvious: We simply didn’t know each other that well. We had yet to become familiar with each other’s triggers and were still rooting through emotional baggage. Our fights escalated quickly both because the stakes were so high (I left my socialized health care for you!) and because we hadn’t yet learned how to argue well. After a particularly brutal fight on his birthday that ended with a waiter awkwardly sliding a free dessert complete with lit candle between us as I wept silently into my wine, my partner announced: “I think we need to go see someone.”

I’d been wanting to try premarital counseling even before falling for Esther’s podcast, eager for a framework in which we could constructively address the big ticket questions — money, babies, debt — that go unasked in the bloom of early love. I’m also a big fan of therapy, which has been vital for managing my mental illness and enabling immense personal growth. But I’d never been to therapy with a partner. Before our first session, I made him promise that he wouldn’t let our new therapist break us up. “Remember, we love each other!” I hissed in his ear as we walked into her office. I had the urge to perform our love — to basically sit in his lap on her couch during our session as he shifted uncomfortably and tried to extract his hand from my sweaty death grip. I was petrified that she’d excavate some invisible fault line I didn’t know existed, or diagnose us with an insurmountable conflict and present us with a prescription for immediate separation.

She didn’t. Abby, our therapist, is lovely — intelligent, insightful and real. She has gently wielded her magic therapy wand and endowed our relationship with new levels of intention and happiness. We look forward our sessions more than date night. I evangelize about therapy to anyone who will listen, but if you don’t have the resources or just aren’t sure that it’s for you, I present you with five lessons I’ve learned in my six months of couples counselling so far.

1. It’s Okay to Go to Bed Angry

I am someone who burns hot, so the idea that all arguments should be wrapped up before 9 p.m. has always made me itch. Sometimes I need to stew in my cauldron of righteous fury before I’m able to see a situation clearly. Our therapist has taught us how to recognize when it is time to shelve an argument: If we’re talking in circles or escalating a fight, we’ve become adept at slowing down and saying, “Let’s bring this to Abby.”

If you can sense that a fight is taking on a life of its own, don’t be afraid to call a timeout.

This isn’t a quick fix, but it allows us to diffuse the situation. By the time we’re next on the couch, we’re likely calmer, more willing to hear the other person’s side and more clearly able to articulate our true feelings. If you can sense that a fight is taking on a life of its own, don’t be afraid to call a timeout. Drink a glass of water, eat a few cashews, take a walk around the block. Do what you need to do to take care of yourself, and if that means waiting until the morning to figure it out, go ahead! Everything is better after a good night’s sleep.

2. “The Cat Is Just a Metaphor”

Tim Riggins is a totally unhinged ball of ginger fluff that I rescued as a kitten from a basement in Queens. He came with me into our relationship, and try as my partner might, he hasn’t been able to crack this cat. Watching the two of them at a standstill breaks my heart, and having to live with a maniacal animal makes my partner crazy. When we brought this to Abby, she gently floated the possibility that there was more going on here than just a disagreement over a (totally innocent!) pet. This is both true and not: Sometimes we are really fighting about the cat, but much of the time, the cat (or whatever the fight is orbiting around) is a symptom of something deeper — in our case, my rabid and anxious need to fix everything and his desire to have autonomy over his moods and actions.

Try treating your relationship like an archeological dig: Are you really fighting about the fact that she bought vanilla almond milk when you clearly asked for original, or could there be something else going on?

Therapy has provided us with a venue for unearthing these issues, which allows us to tend to them even in the midst of heightened emotions. Now I’m much more likely to take the time to ask my partner why he feels the way he does, rather than rushing to fix the problem or assert my own point of view. Try treating your relationship like an archeological dig: Are you really fighting about the fact that she bought vanilla almond milk when you clearly asked for original, or could there be something else going on?

3. Accountability Is Key

In one behavior study, people using a cafeteria were twice as likely to clean up after themselves when posters featuring human eyes were hung around the space. Unsurprisingly, we behave better when we think someone is watching. I can attest to this: Since starting therapy, I’ve often noticed myself thinking, “What would Abby say?” Mid-argument, I’ll imagine Abby shaking her head sadly as I come close to undoing all our hard work. There’s no therapy report card (IS THERE, ABBY?!?!?!) but I’m a chronic overachiever, so simply knowing that there is another person out there expecting me to behave better makes me want to ace my relationship. If you aren’t in therapy, it can be helpful to simply think about how you’ll look back on this fight in a few hours. Will you be proud of how carefully you listened or ashamed of your low blows?

4. You Partner Is a Beautiful Stranger

There are moments when I could tell you exactly what my partner is thinking, and then there are times when he might as well be an entirely different species. I find both of these truths completely magical. I’m thrilled by the prospect of getting to know him more intimately and also relish the secret folds of my own heart that he has yet to discover. This comes up again and again in therapy: I’ll believe that I’ve understood exactly why he did or said such and such, and yet in that room, on that couch, he’ll provide an explanation to our therapist that will completely blow my mind.

Coming to terms with the eternal mystery of other people has been immensely helpful in being able to let go of a lot of my expectations about what a relationship should be.

Coming to terms with the eternal mystery of other people has been immensely helpful in being able to let go of a lot of my expectations about what a relationship should be. Your partner is just as complex as you are, and it is rarely possible to understand the full permutations of another person’s thoughts and behaviors. When we argue now, I try to remember that there is more happening under the surface than I can see, and that asking questions — without judgement — is the only way to learn more.

5. Therapy Is for Everyone

The most common reaction we get when we tell people we’re in therapy is a confused, “But aren’t you happy?” We are, indeed, really happy — and we want to stay that way. I believe mental health check-ups should be part and parcel of preventative health care, and I COULD GO ON, but instead I’ll simply say: It is easier to shore up a whole and healthy relationship than it is to fix a broken one. My partner and I are learning tactics now that will, fingers crossed, enable us to weather the inevitable challenges ahead — challenges that will only increase as we start a family, build a home, and get old and dusty. It is both a luxury and a gift to be able to devote those 50 minutes to tending the gentle animal of us, and I cannot recommend it enough.

Photo by Krista Anna Lewis.