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Content warning and transcript under the cut (:

Let’s Walk: This Song is about NOT Telling People Things [Transcript]

[Content Warning: brief mentions of sex, specifically cheating]

Hey. I am listening to a song I am currently a bit obsessed with. [Song begins playing softly]. I’m sure you’ll notice it in the background, maybe, unless the car drowns it out. It’s called “Your Girlfriend,” it’s by a band called Blossoms, and I’ve noticed something interesting about the narrative. Also trying to drive, sorry. Um! Right. So, most songs, I feel like, are spoken to—well, like, they’re directed at somebody. Sometimes the singer is talking to themselves, something the singer is, like, addressing the universe at large, y’know? Um, but then sometimes they have more specific recipients like an ex or a crush or a best friend or a parent or guardian, y’know what I mean, like? When a song has “I” and “you” in it, “I” tends to be referring to a specific person, and “you” also tends to be—y-y’know what I’m saying? There is a “you” that the song is directed at! Songs are messages. There’s usually somebody or some entity in mind that the singer is directing this message at, so. I mean, yes. Thank you, Yuki, for stating the obvious, but … What I tend to notice, I guess, is that songs have, like, either a specific recipient or a general, sort of, this is going out into the universe … it’s rarely, like, three specific individuals at different points in the song. See, this is what’s interesting too. 

Taking Back Sunday and Brand New, their, ah, debut albums, um … Tell All Your Friends and Your Favorite Weapon, respectively … those albums are each, at different parts—sometimes at the same parts—directed at two different characters, to my understanding. Each other—Nolan and Lacey talking to each other—and then also the, the girlfriend of Lacey who Nolan made out with, and that betrayal kind of kicked this whole thing off. Also, like, the girlfriend betrayed Lacey too, like. Both, both Nolan and Lacey [I meant to say the girlfriend, not Lacey!] are culpable in this, in this thing. So there’s a lot of accusations flying, a lot of hurt going around, and that’s, like, part of the fun of the album, right? Er, I mean—“fun.” It’s bad that this happened. I’m sorry they—I’m sorry that happened in their friendship. It sure sounds kinda traumatic for all of them … although I have less sympathy for the cheaters, obviously. But, um. It is kinda fun listening to this and trying to pick out, oh, which parts is Nolan singing directly at Lacey? Which parts is he singing directly at the girlfriend? And which parts are, like, him kind of berating himself, or, like, y’know, what parts are directed at both Lacey and the girlfriend? ‘Cause, like, Nolan feels betrayed by them both—which is very silly ‘cause he’s the one who cheated, but, like. He feels like Lacey is giving up on their friendship over a relatively minor thing. I do not agree with that take, Nolan! Uh, and then he feels like the girlfriend used him—like, for sex—and then, y’know, all he got out of it was losing not only her but also his best friend. So Nolan is hella upset for—I think—the least valid reasons, but ... I think about Nolan often because I like his album a little bit better. I like the album he and his band put together, um, more than Your Favorite Weapon. So I’m biased! But also I need to hold, I need to hold my boys accountable because Nolan, you do not look good right now [laughs]! And any attempt to make yourself look better makes you look worse! Um! [Laughs]. 

So, all this to say; back to “Your Girlfriend.” This song is weird because it—it’s not—it doesn’t—it’s really clear about which parts of the song refer to or are directed at each of the people … it’s trying to talk to. But then, also, that’s the thing: this song is about NOT telling people things. This song is about having a r— … not regressive, what am I thinking of? Like a subconscious and kind of troubling desire … subversive? Is that what I’m trying to say? Incognito? That’s not what it is either. A forbidden kind of … like, a secret, shouldn’t-be-there kind of desire … for another person’s partner. That’s a—taboo, maybe that’s what I’m trying to say. Yeah, it’s about a taboo desire. 

So this guy has a crush on his roommate and friend’s girlfriend and that makes him feel so guilty [muffled clattering]. Simultaneously he wants to get close to her as much as he can, even though he knows [muffled clattering] that it’s kind of a shifty, sketchy thing to do, because he’s drawn to her for her own characteristics. If she wasn’t already dating this person, he would probably ask her out, y’know? [Muffled clattering]. So, like, unlike the Nolan-Lacey situation—where they’re kind of spiting each other and their own friendship is in contention here—the narrator of this song has no ill will towards his friend. He, he’s not interested in his friend’s girlfriend because he wants to mess with his friend on some level. He just likes her. And it’s just a ba—it’s just an unfortunate situation ‘cause she’s already, she’s already committed to someone who he cares about, so he feels really bad and feels like he can’t break that up. I mean, I would argue it’s bad to break up someone else’s relationship whether or not you care about each individual member, but whatever, like. Yeah. He acknowledges that the things he wants to do and the ways he wants to hang out with this, with this woman and get to know her better and get closer to her in a romantic capacity—that’s … kinda … [REDACTED (shitty)]. And he can’t do that. As much as he wants to, he’s gonna suppress it, he’s gonna shove it down. 

And likewise, he doesn’t wanna sit down and have an honest conversation with his roommate about this—his roommate and friend—because he feels ashamed that he desires his friend’s partner so much. ‘Cause, like, he knows that will make his, his friend bummed out too. Right? So he doesn’t want to—he doesn’t want this to be happening! So he’s not gonna talk about it openly! So who is he gonna sing this song about his, about his subversive desire to? Some third party observer. Some, like, friend who lives in a different country or in a different part of the country—what? Some, some friend who doesn’t live with them, who isn’t connected to the situation. Or maybe he’s, like, on his blog typing out something so that strangers will read it, like. Do you know what I mean? Like, what do you do with a desire that you can’t—that you feel like you can’t—tell your closest people about? You kind of spew it out into the universe and hope somebody somewhere, some stranger, might be able to find it and sympathize with you ‘cause that’s the only way you’ll be able to get sympathy. 

So, in this song, there are three recipients of this message. The majority of the song is directed at a sort of general observer, a stranger, a-a friend of a friend, someone who isn't connected to the situation to commiserate with—with whom he can commiserate. And you can tell when he’s singing to this sort of nondescript outsider person because he refers to the girlfriend and the boyfriend in third person terms. He calls the girlfriend “she,” he calls them hanging out together “they.” Like oh, “they get along so well.” He’s talking about them to someone else. That’s how you know. There’s a third person in this equation. 

Then, the first line of the chorus shifts into “you” and “I” language: “and now your girlfriend is ringing through my ears again.” So in that line he is, he’s saying what he would say to his roommate directly, except he can’t bring himself to admit it … So he’s kind of talking to the roommate—he’s directing that message at the roommate—but he refuses to say it. So that’s interesting. And because the chorus repeats, that line comes back again and again. It feels like guilt, it feels like repeatedly revisiting that thought and feeling bad about it, so it’s really smart that they put it in the chorus. That really—she’s ringing in his ears again! And the guilt that he feels every time he feels joy at seeing her … rings in his ears again! And he wishes he could just be honest and tell his friend about it but then he has so much shame around it, which—I mean, I see why … 

I really wish he would just sit down and be like:

“Hey man, I’m having some weird feelings. I really like your girlfriend but I don’t wanna—I-I’m not, I don’t wanna break anything up. I just—it’s kinda killing me having this inside my chest and I need you to know about it. I value our friendship and I value your guy’s relationship. It’s, it’s rough that this is happening the way that it is.” 

I feel like most secure friendships would be able to handle that. Like, if this roommate is actually a good friend, then the roommate will be like: 

“Yeah that does suck, um, I’m glad you’re not trying to break up our relationship. I’m glad you told me. I-I can hang out with my girlfriend outside of our place while you get over her. Like, let me know how I can help you, y’know?” 

I-I feel like … I just—I feel like … in almost all things, you should communicate. But then we wouldn’t have a song, would we? 

So the third person who he speaks to—er, the third person he has a message for but refuses to let that message out—is the girlfriend. And this is the bridge—which is sandwiched by two choruses, which is … that really tells you a lot, doesn’t it? It—he’s thinking about his guilt towards his friend and roommate but even inside the depths of that guilt, there is still that little hopeful spark of desire towards this, towards this wonderful woman who shares so many favorite things in common with him and who he thinks is funny and beautiful and who he just wants to spend more time with. And what he says to her—or what he wishes he could say but he will not let himself—is a fantasy of what it would be like if he were to do the transgressive thing and try to date her anyway, even though he knows that she’s committed to someone that he cares about! So he basically just gives her, like, a pseudo-date scenario: “thought maybe we could go out for a movie and we could forget friends who are fuming and I could walk you home in the evening—and that’s just being friendly.” 

[Song plays.] Oh, here it is. [Sings along to the bridge]. But then it loops back—“and now your girlfriend is ringing in my ears again,” it’s the guilt again. And then the song ends with him saying, “I heard they got engaged today.” So it pulls all the way back out, it zooms out again, and he’s talking to this nondescript stranger. Y’know, lamenting, like—even if I’d had a chance, even if there was a shot that she would’ve liked me, I wasn’t gonna take it anyway, and now it's too late to do anything because their, their commitment to each other has just gotten even deeper than it already was. [Sings along to the last line]. Then the guitar wails one last time. [Song stops]. 

So really, if you go through the lyrics,  you could highlight—with purple—all of the lines that are spoken to this nondescript stranger-outsider. You could highlight with—pink—every time he’s talking to his roommate, which is the least. I think he talks to his roommate the least, which probably indicates to whom he feels the most guilt and shame. Right? And then you could highlight with—green—the bridge passage where he’s talking to the girlfriend. Or, where he would talk to her if he would let himself, which he refuses to because he’s a good person. And, like, props to you, buddy. 

So it’s a really interesting song, because it’s technically the whole thing—like, you could argue that the parts that he would speak to his roommate or to his [the roommate’s] girlfriend—because he, because he doesn’t actually say it to them, he’s kind of talking to himself. Like, he’s rehearsing with himself, “what if I went up to my roommate and said this? No, no, I couldn’t possibly do that. What if I went up to the girlfriend and said this? No, I’m trying not to—I want to be a good friend and that means I can’t ask her out.” So there’s four people who are receiving messages in this song: outsider, himself, girlfriend, roommate. This song has the most, like, fragmented … set of recipients I think I’ve ever heard? I just, I don’t think I’ve heard a song where there’s so many messages going in so many directions. But the thing is, like, it doesn’t sound that chaotic when you just listen to it for the first time. When I first heard it, I was just like “oh look it’s an interesting narrative about transgressive aff—[trails off] … romantic affection. Y’know, that’s neat.”��

But like, y’know, people write songs about partners they can’t have, partners who are already engaged with other people, all the time. So, like, y’know, it’s like a staple of the genre almost; like, indie, boyband, sadboy sounds. But this also isn’t really a sadboy song, is it, ‘cause it’s got that, like, retro vibe and it has that guitar. It’s like easy listening, kinda chill. Yeah, like, the instrumental is—well, the wailing guitar adds that bit of sort of depth and darkness and sadness, I think. It adds a bit of, like, somber quality to the tune. But like, it’s kind of upbeat. It’s like—it’s like he’s trying to, to keep a smile on his face and act like this is all okay when he’s kind of dying inside. Ahhh. That’s such an interesting musical choice. I think that’s so good.

Um, so yeah, just—this song is a lot more complex, I think, the more you sit with it. Or I am just projecting and I’ve been listening to this song on repeat for several hours for the past couple days now and I’m just, I’m just, digging—I’m digging holes when there isn't even anything to find. [Clap] That’s analysis for you! [Laughs] I’m kidding, analysis is wonderful and you learn so many things. Even if it wasn’t the author’s intent to put the things that you find where you find them, I think it’s interesting nonetheless to explore the implications of, like, certain word choice and how does the instrumental interact with the lyrics, if at all? Like, do they mirror each other? And I feel like—

Oh, y’know what? Dusty, ah, noticed something very cool about this song as well. Apparently the chorus ends on the note re—on, like, the do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do scale? It’s the second note on the scale, so, so technically, I guess, it’s, like, unsettled? Like, it wants to resolve and it, it hasn’t yet, because it ends on the, on the second note of the scale. And that kinda bothered Dust a little bit—er, I dunno if it bothered them so much as, like, he just pointed it out—like oh, it’s interesting that they chose to end on re ‘cause it doesn’t resolve and it wants to. And I was like, oh that makes total sense narratively because, like, there are two resolutions here! One: he, he becomes a bad person and tries to date the girlfriend of his friend and roommate. Or he keeps all his feelings deep inside his heart and he suffers quietly while they have a happy life together and he has to get over her in silence by himself. Like, both resolutions are bad for different reasons! So of course he’s oscillating between the two options for as long as he can until they get engaged. ‘Cause he doesn’t want to doom himself to emotional heartbreak but he also doesn't want to screw over his roommate and be a homewrecker! So of course the chorus wouldn’t end—or, it wouldn’t resolve—because he wants to resolve but he won’t let himself resolve, in either direction! So neither will the chorus resolve, y’know? 

So—yeah, I guess that’s another thing I really like about this song, the music is telling the story in the same way that the lyrics are. Like, the instrumental and the lyrics are working together. It’s not just, oh, this is a cool soundtrack, lemme slap some lyrics over it. The music and the lyrics were crafted both to tell the same story. And I just think that's so interesting and so clever! There's a lot more going on in this song than I think it initially gives you. It sounds so easy-breezy-effortless, but … yeah! See, I think stuff like that is what warrants the deeper analysis. Sometimes, y’know, you’re doing analysis and you realize, like, eh, a lot of this is probably just stuff that I’m finding coincidentally and it’s not necessarily planned. But because of those musical details that Dusty found, I think it’s worth digging into the lyrics more. I think—I think that analysis is validated by the source material itself and its—the way it was crafted. You see what I’m saying? 

Anyway, uh, yeah. Thank you for listening to me break that down. I feel very cool. It’s nice to stretch my brain a little and to remember that I can absolutely do analysis even though it’s been several months since I graduated. My English major is still, uh, kickin’. I still got it, y’know? [Laughs]. Yeah. Thank you. I love you a lot. You’re, uh, you’re ringing through my ears again … and I hope I’ll ring through yours sometime soon.

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Let’s Walk: Dead-end Crushes [Transcript]

“‘Cause when my heart breaks, it always feels like the first time, first time”

Oh boy. Alright, so I’m trying something a little different. It’s one of those things I think I keep re-trying and then failing to hold up. I would make a terrible Atlas. The sky would plummet from my hands [laughs], um.

Right now I am having what I like to call a dead-end crush. That is to say, I have some romantical feelings about a person with whom I know a relationship is not possible. Geographically, spiritually, multiple roadblocks are here. Sometimes you like people you’re not compatible with, and that’s ok. There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s not your fault, it’s not theirs. Just—you like ‘em and it can’t go anywhere, so you have a choice: you either do what you can to get over that, basically, discourage yourself from liking them. Or you can do what I’m doing, which is … go to the end of the one-way street. And camp out there. And enjoy it.

One-sided crushes can still be fun. Unrequited feelings aren’t always the melodrama … that they're portrayed to be. You gotta be careful with it, though, you gotta be careful with it. You gotta know yourself pretty well if you’re gonna do a dead-end crush. And luckily, knowing myself excruciatingly well is one of the few upsides of having more anxiety than you probably should [laughs]. I think about myself constantly. It’s like that quote, y’know, self-hatred is a kind of, kind of … what is it when you’re arrogant and self- … self-impressed? Yeah, like, even, even spending so much time berating yourself for the things that you don’t like about yourself is still time spent thinking about you. It’s still kinda narcissistic. That’s what I was going for.

So I’m workin’ on that, too—I mean, I’m workin’ on a lot of things. I’m trying to push myself to live in the world more and live in my head a bit less. It’s comforting in there, I’ve got a good mental blanket fort, lots of little hidey-holes and secret tunnels … some of which are bad and some of which are nice. But I want to have as rich of an external life as I do an internal life. That’s one thing, that’s a—ah—we’ll put a pin in that. Maybe we’ll talk about that another time.

The way I’m doing the dead-end crush right now is … I dunno. What is there to describe? Oh, ah, managing it. Right. This sorta goes along with something I’ve said before, I think, which is that having crushes is a choice. Not to say that to whom you are attracted and with whom you fall in love is necessarily a choice, I’m not claiming that. If one could change their sexuality on a whim, believe me, you would see it happening. There are plenty of people who … would choose an easier time of it in terms of how they are perceived societally, I’m sure.

Being ace isn’t always fun … I’m not saying I’d give it up if I could choose not to be, but I’m also not saying I wouldn’t [laughs]. Let’s leave that there.

What I’m, what I’m pointing out is—again, like this adage that people say about how love is work, love is communication, … being with someone long-term has some stuff to do with being attracted to them but it’s also got to do with, like, choosing actively to continue to work with them. To continue to support them and live with them and do chores with them and help them through emotionally tough times and then lean on them when you have those hard times. And if you’re not able to work that out amongst yourselves, then this relationship is probably not sustainable. So that would be like choosing to separate. Do you—so, do you see what I mean? Love is a choice, it also isn’t, it depends on the context in which you’re talking about it so hopefully you get where I’m at right now.

So, given that, I think, when you start to sense a crush coming on, you can—you can pursue the crush, you can continue to seek out that person’s company and basically encourage your feelings to blossom more. Or you can pull away from them. Or you can, y’know, change the way that you think about them, try to use more platonic language, I guess, around them, that sorta thing. You, you can shape the relationships that you have with people. No duh. Meaning that you can lean into a crush or you can pull back from it.

So that’s sorta the dance I’m doing now. If it ever starts to hurt, if it ever starts to really bum me out that I’m not compatible with this person I’m currently having some romantical feelings for, then I back up and I just sorta don’t talk to them for a couple days, because … ‘cause I need that distance. I need a little bit. It’s not fun anymore. And then, y’know. When that feels better, and when I miss them, and I wanna have a nice chat with them and flirt a little bit, y’know … then, I re-engage and it’s fine.

I guess something worth noting, here, is the person I have a crush on is aware that I have a crush on them. They are also single, so that clears up some of the ethical issues that might otherwise be happening. [Car passes]. I think it’s probably possible to enjoy having a crush on someone who’s married, someone who’s very much unavailable, not just because they’re not compatible with you but because they have other arrangements or—they are not—like, whatever, d’y’know what I mean? But then I think it would be kinda—it would be kinda skeevy to flirt with somebody who’s married … and I think it does help to communicate to the, to the people you have crushes on that you have crushes on them. Not that you need to, but … uaaaah, ethics, y’know?

It’s also a little bit nice because it becomes, it’s like a—it’s … [sigh] it’s not like a gift I can give, but. It’s like a little, a little boost of confidence I guess, a little external validation that I can offer someone that I care about. Hey, I like spending time with you, I like your face, I like the thing that is you to such an extent that I have romantic vibes for you that don’t work out in this particular timeline, but I just thought you should know. And y’know, it’s nice to be desired. For most people, granted. There might be some aromantic folks or asexual folks or otherwise aligned people who are just not, are not interested in the dating situation, which is understandable, I get y’all. I also don’t get y’all ‘cause romance is fun, it’s a pain but it’s fun. [Laughs].

Oh, and then, because they know that I’m crushin’ on ‘em a little bit, it becomes kind of an inside joke? And that makes it not hurt as much, do you know what I mean? That makes it basically painless. Because I consider them a friend as well, and I think they consider me a friend too, so it’s nice that I can share what’s on my mind with them, and I feel—basically, I feel like they, they are willing to care about me or care for me to the extent that they’re not gonna mess with me on purpose, y’know. It feels very safe. That’s why I feel like I can have fun, that’s why it’s a dead-end crush but I feel ok drawing enjoyment from it nonetheless [car passes].

It’s important to talk about how love, in all of its forms, is super multifaceted and can look really different than the sort of typical nuclear family versions of love that most media … portrays. A lot of times, people talk about this in the sense of, like, queerness. Which is also a thing, like queerplatonic relationships (qps), relationships that are classified differently than platonic or romantic or familial, it’s kind of its own class of creature. I don’t really understand qps that much, but I have read descriptions of them by people who do understand them and they sound frickin’ neat. Um—this is to—oh, and also like, like, polyamourous relationships, that sort of thing, um. There’s many ways that people love each other, multiple people at once, and it—it doesn’t have to be inherently queer. It doesn’t have to be, like, LGBT+ people having those relationships. I think that a good example of, like, unconventional love relationships, I guess, that apply to cishet (cisgender, heterosexual) people—as well as, of course, every other human person on the planet—is, like, a one-sided crush where there is a friendship and it feels safe and you just can feel the feelings that you’re having and it doesn’t have to be weird.

To get back to where I started with this, a lot of times, unrequited feelings—especially of the romantic kind—are portrayed as deeply tragic. And I’m not saying you’re not allowed to feel sad if you … like somebody and they do not like you the same way. I get it. I’m there right now, I’m with you. That can suck. That certainly … isn’t ideal if you’re a person who wants a romantic connection to, to be mutual—which plenty of us do. That said, I—I just, I just think it’s important to realize you can still draw joy out of that connection if, if the settings are right and if you want to. It doesn’t have to be all sad all the time. It can in fact be a source of happiness, unconventional though it may be.

I just think we gotta love each other more, if that’s what you’re into. There’s so many sources of affection and validation that aren’t really given a fair shake. And y’know, [laughs] these are baby thoughts because I’m not as well read with queer theory as I probably ought to be if I wanted to talk about it in the way I’m trying to, but … I do remember, from, from the Intro, um … Queer Identity and Feminism course? Gender, Queerness, and Feminism—I can’t remember what it was called. GQS? Yeah. Yeah. It was a course on, on gender, queerness, and feminism. There you go, that’s what it was. I can’t remember the exact name of the department, doesn’t matter, we’re moving on. Um. I do remember talking about the idea of queering concepts, stories, spaces, in the sense of exploring unconventional avenues around this concept, place, or thing, or what have you. Like, disrupting the … the standard pattern, if you will. So that means you don’t have to necessarily align yourself with queer or other LGBTQ+ labels to do the act of queering something. Just by having unconventional perspectives or being willing to listen to and practice unconventional perspectives—that is causing disruption of, sort of, overarching established patterns that kind of choke out any other way of being. Do you know what I mean?

So! This is, this is why queer theory is cool and I, like. Even—I feel like people are gonna look at the gender, queer, and feminism courses and be like “aw, y’know, I’m a, I’m a straight guy, always felt like a guy; this isn’t for me.” I mean, you don’t have to take the class, but there’s some interesting theory happening that you can apply elsewhere and there are spaces where you can, like, listen in and be active participants in it. There’s some world-bending stuff in there. I just think it deserves your attention, if you’re curious. But yeah, like, y’know: re-examining how you, how you do crushes and thinking about, y’know, why, why do … why do I think about unrequited feelings the way that I do? Is there another way I can think about them? Is there another way I can have healthy interactions that aren’t necessarily requited? Y’know? That’s a way of queering how human interpersonal relationships work. And just kind of, y’know, expanding people’s ability to draw joy from different relationships. That’s kinda cool. That’s kinda doing theory in action. That’s kinda changing the course of how people think—for the better. That’s praxis, baby! [Laughs] I really hope that’s what praxis m—no, I know that’s it. Like, theory is kind of the concept and praxis is the application of theory. So that—the joke worked and I’m very funny [laughs].

Great, beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. I’m sure at some point I am going to move past this crush, I am … either going to feel like I’m going to far and need to extricate myself or, perhaps, the person that I’m into right now is going to get into a relationship that is exclusive and then, y’know, for necessarily, ethical reasons, I’m going to have to back off a fair amount. So whether it’s by my choices or by theirs, this is inherently a short-lived way of drawing joy from this particular relationship. And I’m ok with that, that’s also part of it, like. I’ve sort of lost already? In the sense that, for me, my ideal romantic situation would be something monogamous with one other person that’s long term. One-sided crushes are not—they don’t fit into that ideal, so … so [laughs] … But what I’m doing with this one-sided crush is enjoying losing.

I wanna get better at that. I’m going to fail in so many other ways in my life, it’s going to be nice to … to find a way to sit with it and even be grateful for it. Even be happy about it.

I think that’s it. Thank you for listening. Yeah. [Sigh]. Have a great rest of your night and I’ll catch you on the next one.

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Transcript and content warning under the cut~~~

Let’s Walk: I Am a Location [Transcript]

[Content Warning: possibly graphic body descriptions (organs are "piles of meat," etc), sexual acts spoken of in metaphor, heavy wind sounds throughout]

"You're my baby! Come to bed, I'll be your girl" 

Phew. It's cloudy and I do not have a raincoat. This is risky business. It's also been a long time since I went outside. I am pretty behind on ... on classwork right now, I will admit that. And so ... I just haven't been out here. Bird calls are so majestic. [Sigh]. This suburban street is just blowing my mind. There's so many little sounds. [Bird calls and breathing].

I mean it all sounds so loud now, this ambient noise all around me, but technically it's never ever really quiet, is it? 'Cause your breathing makes noise and so does the thrumming of blood through your veins. So does your gastrointestinal system. So you kind of never experience honest-to-God silence. In order to do so, you would have to experience detachment from the very forces that keep you alive ... and that just can't happen. We haven't found a way to do it yet. 

[Wind sounds]. Hello. [Soft chimes]. That's a bell. Breezes and bells, it takes me right back to, to the [Inari] shrine at Nara [Note: I meant the Fushimi Inari Taisha in Kyoto]. Isn't it great how these little details can just pull forth whole swaths of memory? Human brains are complicated piles of meat. Okay, alright, okay. Let's ... go. [Laughs].

The other day I was holding my cat. His name is Joey, he's got his little tuxedo and his white paws and his bright white whiskers against his dark face. Beautiful contrast, love him. He's a very cuddly little man ... and it occurred to me that my arms are a location. I am a person, I am also a place—which are two of the categories under the subcategory noun, y'know, a person, place, or thing. So I guess this isn't earth-shattering but it, it meant something to me. [Car passes]. I'd never thought of myself as a place before. [Car passes]. In fact, the phrasing of the definition of a noun—a person, place, OR thing—it implies you can only ever be one, at least at a given time. But when I hold my cat, I am both a person—a creature with its own consciousness—and the location where another consciousness rests. My arms are a container.

It's the same thing as when you hug somebody. Although, I think that one's a bit more complex—with Joey, I can hold his body completely on my person without relying on any other surfaces, so ... he is 100% located upon me. I am his location, in that moment. When I hug somebody, their feet are still planted on the ground—although, I guess, maybe I could be giving them a piggyback ride or something and clinging to them in that way, which would be more akin to the cat example but … going with the more complex example—if their feet are planted on the ground, but their … abdomen is what is in my arms, then where are they? We're both in a room, or outside, or something, but then we are also partly embodying one another's space. We are both located in each other. 

... Which you can also take in a very sensual direction if you wanna think about penetration! That's another way in which human bodies are locations in which you can be—very literally! We're not gonna get too much farther into that, don't worry. Get it? Farther in? Ha! [Laughs]. But y'know, that's actually—that's another interesting, complex one, because part of your body enters another human or part of another human enters your body, but then another part of that entered person is still ... not completely in your body, right? So where are they? Are they in two locations at once? 

This also makes me think of the Four Corners in the United States, it's .... aaaaaaah, I don't know. Utah, Wyoming, ... [car passes] Nevada? I wanna say Colorado is the last one but I've been wrong before and I'll be wrong again [Note: It's actually Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico]. But—oh, look at this cute little crocus. Hi, little buddy. It's purple, it's a—almost lilac, a pale purple, with this bright, orangey-yellow, fluffy stalk in the middle. That's great. I love crocus leaves, too. I like that they're spiky but then you actually touch 'em and they're soft and bendy, and uh, they're dark green with this white stripe up the center, just emphasizing that spike formation. I wonder why they're not bigger because it must be kinda hard to get—[laughs] I almost said serotonin. It must be kinda hard to get [car passes] a lot of sunlight if you don't have a lot of surface area, but maybe crocuses are just very efficient with their energy distribution* and they don't need giant leaves to amass as much sunlight for chlorophyll as possible. Anyway. Carry on. Where was I? [Laughs]. Aaaaaaaah. Um.

People are locations. Yes. True. Yeah … What does it mean to be trusted by someone to the degree where you either allow them to enter you—metaphorically or literally—and also they, they allow themselves to enter you, y’know? It’s mutual trust. [Car passes]. 

And yet, it’s really easy? Joey did not like being picked up when we first adopted him. He was pretty skittish about it and the way he acted, it was like he didn’t understand what being picked up meant? And that he was more afraid of it than anything else. Like, I would scoop him up and his limbs would be still and he would push against my chest with his little hands and his eyes would get all big and he’d just sort of freeze for maybe 10 seconds, and then he would start to scramble and squirm and try to get out, so I’d put him down, but. Over time, as I picked him up more and more often and let him down when he had enough, 15 seconds later, I think he kind of figured out what it means? I think he figured out that I reached down to pick him up and bring him closer to my face—and bring him into the location that is me—because I want closeness with him, and that closeness is affectionate. And it’s vulnerable! I mean, having-having a creature with claws placed right under your chin, resting on your heart, basically, that’s … that’s vulnerable! [Laughs]. So I think, I think he kind of figured it out? And he’s now accepted this as a symbol of closeness, a symbol of togetherness that he also draws meaning from. 

I’m—I’m kind of projecting onto Joey a little, which … run with me, though. Because now when I pick him up— … okay, so you know how when cats are comfortable they, uh, they’re more willing to close their eyes, um, and they, like, they tuck their limbs under their body—you may have heard the term “catloaf”? In Japanese it’s kobako, which, um. Hako is a word that’s very similar to that and hako means “box,” ‘cause it looks like the cat just sorta turns themselves into a little box with, with corners for where their feet are tucked in. Um. I also made up—at least, I think I made it up. Someone else may have come up with this before me, but I made up another way to talk about that cat stance where they’re all tucked in. I call it ashi nashi: ashi meaning “feet” and nashi being, uh, a conjugation of nai which means “lack of” or “none.” So, no feet! But it also rhymes—ashi nashi!—and I think it’s funny. Nashi, uh, just by itself, can also mean “pear”—like, as a noun, not as as a conjugation of a [wind wounds] verb—so ashi nashi could also mean “pear feet,” which is equally funny, [laughs] so … don’t mind me, just making puns that are incoherent but very enjoyable. 

Anyway, yeah. So, cats, cats will sort of let their guard down and … Tucking in their feet and being willing to close their eyes or look away from you—and not be watching out for potential attacks at all times—those are signs of trust and comfortableness in cats. So, every time I pick Joey up these days, he almost immediately tucks one of his hands under his body while he’s rested on my chest. And he does, y’know, blink his eyes and close them on occasion and he starts to purr. And purring isn’t always an indication of cat happiness, I mean, contrary to popular belief, like—cats that are in labor purr, cats that are operated on can purr, um … purring is just like a—it’s a response that a cat either does when they’re in a stress situation and they want to calm down or if they are very pleased and they’re having a, a good time, y’know? Um, so, if, if a cat’s purring, it’s either having a great time or it’s having a bad time and you gotta use context clues to figure out which one it is [laughs]. Um. But yeah, yeah, Joey does multiple signs of what humans have thus far understood as cat comfort. So I think he does recognize being picked up as love and I think he has also taken that to mean love. Like, he understands that when I pick him up I am showing him love and more than just that, he also accepts being picked up as love. He receives that love [now, compared to] when previously, before he understood what it meant, he didn’t receive that love—d-does that make sense? 

Also you can understand that someone is trying to do a loving thing for you but not accept it that way. Like—like you see where they’re coming from but it is not for you. For me, that would be gift-giving. I try to be … I try to say “thank you” anyway ‘cause I understand people mean well when they give gifts but unless it’s something that they’ve asked me about or something that I specifically mentioned—and we’re close enough that I know they’re not gonna hold it against me somehow, or, like, they’re not gonna have these great expectations of reciprocation and make a big thing out of it—I just have such a hard time receiving gifts, they are not my love language. They, they symbolize stress rather than love, for me, and they symbolize work, like, now I need to keep track of this thing you’ve given me and make sure I give you something back of equal value. And it becomes more about performing affection than actually … giving and receiving affection. [Huff]. So I recognize that gifts are used to indicate love … but I do not feel loved when I receive them. Or, at least, I try to and often fail. 

It seems like in Joe’s case, he has … he has learned to accept the love of being picked up? ‘Cause he could kick me, y’know. [Car passes] I try not to be a dick about it. If he really doesn’t want—like, even after, like, I dunno, five minutes of being paraded around the kitchen in my arms, if he gets tired of it, he will sorta kick around a little and like, sometimes he mews, too. And then I put him down. I try not to force him to be in the location that is me for longer than he actually is willing to stay there. So y’know, if he kicked at me from the get go, I wouldn’t pick him up [car passes] but that is pretty rarely the case. Most of the time he’s [car passes] rather docile about it [car passes].

This is to say, how do I feel about being located in other people? [Car passes] I used to ride horses so that is a kind of—in that scenario, I am Joey and the horse is me. The horse is the location that I am now occupying. And we are traveling together to get to another location, whether that’s circling back to the barn after, y’know, going on a trail or like in Red Dead Redemption 2, Arthur riding his various horses to do missions, to get to certain people’s houses and shoot things and draw flowers in his journal. [Laughs]. Arthur, a man of many talents. Arthur Morgan. [Taps chest] proud to be related to this man. But yeah, in that way, I guess horses are kind of liminal spaces in that they are a location you can be at that is a mode of transportation, a mode of connection from one location to another location. Maybe that’s why it’s so weird to me to think of horses as locations, or as myself as a location for Joey. I am a liminal space. I connect Joey from upstairs to downstairs, I take him down there all the time. 

Whoa. I am a corridor. I am the atrium of a beautiful hall. I am a courtyard. I have many venues through which I can enter and exit. 

This is both physical and metaphorical, right, like, think about all the ways that you—that your body carries you through life, and all the paths you ignore and all the ones you choose. Wacky. I guess, in a way, you could think of your own body, like, this meat carcass, as a location that you constantly live in … Yeah. ‘Cause my arms are a container that Joey sometimes occupies, but I occupy my own arms all the time. All the time. 

… Huh. I guess this depends on what your definition of where you are … is. Ooh, that sentence did not hit right. I think some people envision selfhood as centered in the brain—although there have been studies that show that … mmm, similar connections … lemme start that sentence over. There are studies that show that your, your guts, your stomach, uh, [taps body twice, keys jingle]—I dunno if it’s that it has neurons or if some of the connections or energy or something that happens down there are involved with brain decision-making. I can’t remember what it is but there’s something about your gut [taps body twice again] being involved** with stuff your brain does more so than just the digestive tract. Yeah, something like that, I guess [laughs].

So I guess you could make the argument that your selfhood is located in your gut. And then some people even transcend the body with their idea of selfhood, and they’re like, well, it’s this nebulous thing. Like yeah, sure, you inhabit your body but it’s also possible to be very much alienated from your body. I’m thinking of, like, trans experience here, where people can fall on a spectrum of being totally in love with and fully, fully embodied by their, their meat existence—[laughs] meat existence. You’re welcome. While other people really struggle with their features and feel like these features do not accurately portray the gender identity—person—that they know themselves to be in this other nebulous, nonphysical way. 

The body is a home—OH, places versus homes, that’s a whole other thought. Ok. [Laughs]. [Car passes] that might be a lot, for now. Maybe we should put a pin in that. I think we should put a pin in that. Phew. Ok. Alright. Good talk! Thank you for this. That was exciting. I appreciate it. Thank you for letting me talk about my cat, he’s just, he’s such a sweetheart. Always adopt, adopt cats, you find the coolest little weirdos and they’re great. Alright [tongue click] I will catch you on the next [car passes].

*It turns out I'm a little right, but also wrong; a 2017 study found that leaf size is connected to risk of overheating and freezing. A plentiful batch of narrow leaves, like what crocuses make, can collect enough energy to fuel their growth while also surviving chilly nights; they can withstand temperatures as low as 14 degrees F or -10 degrees C (Source: atlasobscura.com, plants.ces.ncsu.edu).

**I was right this time! The link between our brains and guts is referred to as the Brain-Gut Connection or the enteric nervous system (ENS). It’s mainly in charge of digestion but it’s also been shown to send signals to the brain that cause emotional shifts (Source: hopkinsmedicine.org).

[snowedinpodcast]

A lighthearted one this time. Transcript below!

Let’s Walk: The Clues that I Catch [Transcript] 

“So get back, back, back to the disaster/My heart’s beating faster/Holding on to feel the same!” 

That song is a neutral brown. It’s not warm like mahogany and it’s not cool like driftwood. It’s in the middle. I really like that. 

I wanted to tell you just a quick story today, and that is about one of my shirts [laughs] … yes I have stories about shirts. I have stories about jackets, I have stories about a lot of different things that I wear … partly because I project personality traits onto them and partly because a lot of the things that I wear these days have been thrifted, so. They have … they have dramatic backstories! It’s not just me making this stuff up! The universe is conspiring along with me. 

I’m wearing this flannel right now. The brand name is Brixton so I, I named him Rix. He’s also been arbitrarily gendered. I don’t know why. He’s a him shirt. [Faint barking]. That’s just how it is. That’s how it is. He is a men’s small. He is a sort of … [barking] … deeper tan color as his base, with .. uhh … brown, red, and green striping going in various directions. I believe. I did literally just look at Rix so I should know what colors he is, but [tongue click] I’m outside now and it’s dark so I don’t have any perception of any color at all. Also I’m cold and I don’t wanna unzip my coat. [Car passes].

What’s important about Rix is that I knew I was going to like him the moment I saw him, which doesn’t happen a lot for me [barking]. I was in Tacoma [Washington], I was at … not the Goodwill outlet, not the place with the bins where everything is weighed and then paid for by the pound [barking], but the store that Goodwill has … [barking] on 6th Avenue? [Inhale]. That’s not really helpful unless I have the, the other street [barking] it is also close to, so, [barking] do with that information what you will. [Barking].

This poor dog [barking] is having a time. [Barking] sweetie. I hope you find your bone. I hope whatever’s troubling you fades away like a breeze. 

Anyway, yeah. Rix was on a hanger at the front of the men’s long sleeve shirts section of this particular Goodwill. I’d already been here a few times by that point so I knew how to navigate the store, I was dimly aware of the layout … so I beelined for the men’s shirts and there he was. I loved him for his pattern right away, it was the browns and greens and the reds, these jewel tones that’re also quite swampy when they’re all together. Neutrals: I like them. Earthy colors. And I could tell by the fit, I could tell by the boxy fit, that he was going to be exactly what I was looking for. I did try him on but I didn’t need to. I was already in love, I was already picking up the clues. This was supposed to happen. 

I don’t really believe in fate, but if I did, me finding Rix was fate. That was supposed to happen. [Softly laughs]. I think a lot about the clues that I catch and then the clues that I miss and how many I think I’m actually catching—if fate is real, of course, which I’m not even really sure if I’ve decided on, so already this is a weird thought exercise, but. It’s fine, it’s whatever. [Car passes].

I like the idea that there may be some entity or some set of mathematical patterns or whatever it is you believe in operating in the background, things that humans are on the cusp of understanding or see glimpses of but don’t quite grasp the whole picture … And within that network of possibilities and plans, sometimes you pick up some of them … and other times you don’t. I just like thinking that. I like thinking that Rix was supposed to be there for me, that he was supposed to be seen by me and immediately recognized as one of my kind. 

“I knew when we collided, you’re the one I have decided who’s one of my kind.” That would’ve been a better quote to start with! You get two songs this episode. 

Um … yeah. As for Rix’s traits, he didn’t really feel like a character very early on, not the way some of my other clothing pieces that have personalities did. Rix took a while to … to brew. And even then, I make fun of him a little because his main character trait is that he doesn’t really have a character [laughs]. He’s sort of like your average, mediocre, boring office dude who has, ah, close-cropped hair of a beigey blonde kind of color. He has tortoiseshell glasses that are a little hipstery. He obviously wears a lot of flannel and a lot of pinstripe—y’know, crisp, button-down shirts type of deal. Slacks. Maybe neat, hole-less jeans on casual Fridays. 

He doesn’t really say a lot. He tends to hum disapprovingly as his reaction to most questions you may ask. He, he’s the kind of guy who says “I see” and then just kinda stares into your soul [laughs]. He’s kind of polite but in a hostile way, y’know? Yeah. That sorta thing. I imagine he has a lot of thoughts and feelings but he doesn’t disclose them easily. He might not even be aware of all of them himself. He just kinda does what he has to do and then he goes home and he puts on his jazz music and he drinks his tea and he decompresses. And then he goes back to the office starting on Monday. Maybe he goes fishing on the weekends. I feel like he’s very solitary of a guy, y’know? 

That’s Rix [laughs]. That’s the personality I have pushed onto him. Oh! Does he have freckles? I think he might. I don’t remember. I’ve tried drawing him before. It wasn’t the easiest thing to do because he doesn’t really have a character … And that’s because flannels just work really well with other stuff. I’m wearing a swampy green T-shirt with UFO imagery underneath … of Rix, and he looks great with it because brown complements green. Shocker, they’re both earthtones! [Sigh]. 

So because Rix is so agreeable, he kind of ... he blends in ... [car passes] … but it’s a little forced, there’s something about him that’s a little too crisp. There’s something about him that didn’t seem to fit at the thrift store. He’s very pretty. He has a bit of pilling here and there but overall his condition is really nice. He just—he just felt a cut above, y’know? A little bit haughty. Like he’s hiding something. But it’s not nefarious, it’s just … guarded. And I like him! I like him a lot, I think he’s fun. I think he’s easy to pair with things. I like a character that’s mysterious but in a non-menacing fashion. 

I like oxymorons. I like politeness that has an edge to it. Rixton’s a type—Rixton? What? That’s a band. Rix is a type. But so’s everyone, this is one of those things I’ve had to reconcile with. Every single person in this world is unique in their own specific way but also, there are character archetypes that get obviously watered down and simplified for TV and books and what have you. That’s how you get character archetypes. But like, y’know, you can—to some degree—recognize a type when someone fits it. Not that you should decide if they’re worth listening to or not based on what types they do or don’t fit. That’s a little ... that edges on being racist. Or sexist, or misogynistic, or ableist. The list goes on. But I don’t know. It feels like, it feels like that sort of thing where ... I’m, I’m edging towards the threads the universe has put down when I’m like you’re a type ... This is not useful information in any way, I’m just getting a vibe off of you, y’know? You’re a type. 

That means I’m a type! And I can’t tell what type I am! It’s like, it’s like in so many fantasy universes where you have a fortune-telling character who can see everyone’s fortunes except their own, y’know? ‘Cause you can’t be an objective viewer of yourself, can you? In many ways, you are the only person who can know certain parts of you, but in as many other ways, you will be forever touched by  bias. 

That’s why I think people need people. Not necessarily to be happy or fulfilled, but … [sigh]. If you live entirely in your head, then you live in an—in a biased world, y’know? And if you don’t have other people around you to bounce your thoughts off of and to absorb the different viewpoints of ... you don’t have as rich of an experience? I think I really will go out on a limb and say that. Community makes people who they are … so if you don’t have community, there’s like a whole part of you that you don’t get to see reflected accurately, or reflected to you in a way you never would’ve seen before. And then there’s parts of others that you don’t get to see. [Distant horn sound]. [Sigh]. 

This got a bit rambly. I don’t think that’s where I intended to go. But that’s where we went. Thanks for listening. I love you. I’ll catch you on the next.

[snowedinpodcast]

Hit the read more for the transcript <3

Let’s Walk: Soft Spoken with a Broken Jaw [Transcript]

“With the birds I share this lonely view, and/with the birds I share this lonely view …” 

I don’t normally read pre-written statements aloud for these, but this really encapsulates how I feel about that song in particular … and it feels important? It feels bigger than myself, so I just wanna … wanna immortalize it, I guess. It’s about the lyric, specifically, um, “soft spoken with a broken jaw, step outside but now to brawl, and …,” and what I wrote is: 

Why's this feel so achingly familiar? It's the sort of person I want to be. Yet, standing up for myself and being relentless is as much a point of pride as it is a vice for me. It's part of me I'm deeply proud of and deeply frustrated with. So like? In another life, I'd be a soft spoken—I’d be soft spoken with a broken jaw, y'know. It's a way of personhood I admire the hell out of but I can't bring myself to actually be it. It isn't for me. But I treasure it.

And I think that’s exactly it. Something someone I used to really care about told me was you can mold yourself into the person that you want to be. It’s not like this is super profound or anything, like, yeah, he’s—this person who said this to me is very smart and will go places and I believe that. But, it’s just that … I hadn’t believed it until he had said it to me; I think because I watched him do it. I watched him … shapeshift? 

I’ve always felt very me my whole life—I’m pretty sure everyone does, one, one can hope—but somehow my positive traits, the things I favor about myself, have felt more static … no! They’ve felt more dynamic than the things that I want to work on about myself. My vices feel really rooted. To give you another lyric, from a band who broke my heart … and who I don’t think about anymore, “I speak my mind whenever I feel slighted” [voice drops so low that the end of the lyric is inaudible]. I can’t sing that lyric properly ‘cause it goes too low! Um—no, I’ll try again. [Pitches the lyric higher than previous attempt] “I speak my mind whenever I feel slighted.” That was closer. [Sigh]. ‘Cause it’s true. [Laughs] that’s what I like about you! No, that wasn’t where I was trying to go with that. 

It’s true. When I get, when I … It’s not even just when I get upset, it’s when I feel like someone … isn’t listening to me. It’s when I feel like someone is putting me down, whether or not they’re actually doing that, it’s when I feel slighted that I get so angry and that I have to shout louder and stomp harder and prove to this person—who already is belittling me and therefore doesn’t think I’m worth anything—that I’m worth something. How useless is that? Getting angrier at a person who laughs and says “aw, you’re so cute and harmless when you’re angry” is not going to make them … respect you. Because they’re laughing at your anger in the first place! 

It’s the way yelling is this strategy I keep going back to to try and express to people how much something matters to me [even though] I understand what being yelled at feels like. I know it doesn’t make me feel more willing to change my mind. It’s just so deceptive. Yelling is so deceptive. In the moment I feel like I am making a power move but what I’m actually doing is pushing people away from me and I hate that. I hate that it feels like I’m doing something meaningful and I don’t realize that’s not true until I’m distanced from that occasion. Hindsight 20/20, yknow? 

I’ve been able to pick up new skills, I’ve been able to meet new people and develop new interests and find beauty—and if not beauty, find interest—in things I hadn’t considered before. But I can’t shake this yelling thing. [Sigh]. It’s like I have infinite good in me but finite bad, and I don’t know which orientation is better? I don’t know if it’s better to have finite good and in—well, I guess it’s not … but see, the thing about having finite good with infinite capability for bad is that you’ll never dip below however much good you start with. That’s a given. It’s a constant Y, right, for a changing X ... on the graph. You—it’ll always just be a line, a horizontal line, it’ll stay constant. I meant, in a, in a grid plane? What? What’re those called? Y’know? You have the Y axis going north-south and then you have the X axis going east-west? Yeah, that. 

But the thing I have, the way it is for me, I have finite bad and infinite good. At least—well, maybe that’s a little bit … maybe I’m flattering myself because I’m sure I have the capacity to pick up more bad habits. But my personal, biased self-assessment is that it’s so hard to shake the things about myself that I want to shake, they feel stuck in me, but at least I don’t feel like I’ve gotten significantly worse—significantly more unhealthy—in terms of how I relate to people and express myself. I’ve stayed at about the same level of decent, but could do better. And that sucks in its own way! ‘Cause I feel like I’m still here while everyone else is progressing in life. 

And then this taps into a whole other set of things, where … being asexual and not tapping into attraction on this level that feels like—that, that feels like—everybody else is able to get … I don’t know what I’m missing out on, so I don’t miss it, but I feel a loss somehow … and that’s tough. I feel static in that way. And don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty to be proud of too. There’s plenty of drama I don’t have to deal with and there’s a sort of quiet solemnity in my soul, I guess. Zero doesn’t have a value, per se, but it’s a placeholder that’s as important as any other digit. [Sigh]. I don’t know. I don’t know. 

I don’t think I’d be the same person if I … if I was soft spoken with a broken jaw. Because that’s the only option there is, right, I couldn’t have been soft spoken from the beginning. The broken jaw implies one used to brawl or one used to get pulled into brawls whether or not they started it. But now soft spoken, or perhaps always soft spoken, one didn’t want to be in these altercations, however they ended up there. It’s the history in that line, it’s, it’s that implication of reform—I think that’s also what gets me, what feels its way into my heart, y’know? ‘Cause maybe that line is offering me a venue through which to unstick myself? ‘Cause if he could go from breaking his jaw every other week to stepping outside but not to brawl, then maybe so can I. [Exhale].

This is sort of an offshoot to the, um, to the brawling thing, but … I’ve also given myself a lot of crap over the years for caring about romance. For trying to figure out how I feel about it, how what I am capable of feeling stacks up against the majority of everyone else's experiences. It’s so hard to tell because one person’s flirtatious action is another person’s platonic action, and also different actions can hold different weight for different people or for different relationships held by the same person, yknow? It’s all very context-based, I think, for the most part. So romance kind of means anything? And, like, what constitutes sexual contact also has a range? And that’s why communicating with your partners is so important, so everyone’s on the same page about where, where the attractions are and what things people like and what actions mean in these various contexts. [Sigh].

What I’m trying to say is, I have given in to this implication—it's not an implication—to this outright labelling of being interesting in romance as stupid and shallow, particularly if you occupy a feminine space in the world. Like, no one’s dumber than a girl who cares about kissing people. That’s what I’ve been taught to believe and that’s what I’ve internalized and that’s probably what I’ve projected outwards too—especially in middle school, hashtag “not like those other girls”—and I want to be better than that, and I think I have gotten better than that. 

So part of this ongoing journey to be better than that is to forgive myself, I guess, for caring about not just relationships but the identity aspects to these thoughts? Thinking about relationships is not inherently stupid because life is short and relating to people is one of the most beautiful things that there is out there, in the same way that pure, unadulterated solitude is equally beautiful. And, like, chipmunks are beautiful, like, there’s so many things! Ballads, piano ballads! Like, there’s so many things that are beautiful and worthwhile and relationships are one of them. Romantic, platonic, familial, what have you. So caring about that isn’t stupid, and I’ll repeat that until I believe it, and I’ll forgive myself for caring. And I will forgive my past self for trying to act like she didn't care. It’s ok, little idiot, you’re fine. 

I think this does tie into why I feel like I have to fight. I’m just so prepared to be laughed at or to be challenged … and I think part of that is, I believe stereotype—like, I believe that people are more done in by stereotypes than, maybe, they actually are? I anticipate the worst in others because that’s kind of a coping mechanism that’s kind of a safety thing; if I expect the worst then I’ll be prepared for the worst and if the worst comes to pass, then I will be emotionally and hopefully also physically prepared for it. But what turns out, what ends up happening, is people are are actually a lot kinder to me and a lot more genuinely interested in what I’m on about … so by being so willing to fight, as a coping mechanism for what might happen, I end up pushing people away and making these situation worse by bursting out and being aggressive and hostile. And that’s not fair … to me, but especially to the people I’m talking to who are not treating me the way my outburst—they haven’t earned the outburst! And then sometimes they do, but the ratio is off. I outburst way more than people deserve. And I understand why I do it … and I forgive myself for why I do it. 

I get it, I get that you are scared, ‘cause I am scared, ‘cause I feel that too. I am right here with you all of the time. But dude, you are going to be happier and healthier if you figure out how to trust people just a little bit. Just a little bit. I’m not asking you to become soft spoken with a broken jaw. I’m not asking you to get your jaw broken. I’m asking you to get your jaw maybe a little bruised, ok? I’m asking you to risk it. [Exhale]. 

Thank you for this. I love you.

[snowedinpodcast]

Long time no chat, friends! Transcript below the cut, as usual

Backstreets: Ice Cream ’Speriment [Transcript]

[ Note: there are intermittent wind sounds throughout this recording ] 

So, I have two cute anecdotes I wanted to bring out just for you. One of them is my ice cream experiment. Yuki, what is your ice cream experiment? Well! I go through phases of favorite ice cream flavor. I think last year it was mostly … mint chocolate chip but not, not just any mint chocolate chip, specifically the one that has green coloring in the, in the ice cream part. If it’s white with the black chips, no. If it’s green with the black chips, good [laughs]. I have strong feelings about the aesthetics of my ice cream, ok? Deal with it. 

But lately, I have, I have shifted. I have gone into a new phase of my ice cream life … and that new phase is dominated by the vanilla-chocolate combo because it reminds me of those ice cream sundae cups that they used to give us at Lextended Day, woohoo—the, uh, the elementary school after-school program in Lexington, Massachusetts. These sundae cups were like paper cup—the sort of thing you get shaved ice, er, shaved lemon ice in, like, y’know what I mean, those little paper cups—and they were filled like three-quarters of the way up with rock-solid ice cream ... that was exactly, perfectly cut down the middle. And on the left side, there was chocolate, and on the right side, there was vanilla. Well, I guess it could be left or right, it doesn’t matter ‘cause you can swivel the cup and— … right. 

Anyway, the way that I would always eat that is that I would … I would strategically scoop out the ice cream so that I had a little bit of chocolate and a little bit of vanilla at the same time in each spoonful. Or I would just blend the whole thing together into a chaotic mess that ended up being mostly chocolate flavored because chocolate is a stronger flavor than vanilla. So if you want something that is more of an actual even mix between chocolate flavor and vanilla flavor, you need to do, like, two parts vanilla to one part chocolate. At least, in my experience, alright? I guess it depends on the, on how much vanilla frickin’ extract you put into that ice cream. 

So, in light of this, in light of this nostalgic flavor flashback I’m—my mouth is having, great, I’ve been getting chocolate and vanilla ice cream from the Cellar, which is the lil pizza joint place [at the University of Puget Sound] that’s student-run. It’s great. Here is the experiment part: because of my specific vanilla-to-chocolate ratio whatever, this works out best when I can eat some of the chocolate beforehand, just like straight chocolate by itself, and then when I have two parts vanilla to one part chocolate, I can stir them together … and then have a good time. So this works out best if the person who scoops the ice cream for me puts the vanilla scoop on the bottom and the chocolate scoop on top of that, ‘cause then I can just easily access and eat half of the chocolate scoop before I then stir everything up. 

So I’ve decided that I’m going to test to see if I can influence the order in which the people who work at the Cellar … scoop the ice cream for me based on what I tell them with my order. ‘Cause I have a theory, and the theory is, if I say I want half-and-half vanilla and chocolate in this cup, uh, size small please, ‘cause obviously I bring my own cup ‘cause I’m a good environmentalist [laughs and taps plastic cup three times]. Love this cup. It’s not even a cup, it’s like one of those—it’s one of those microwavable containers that comes with a spoon that splits in half that you can, like, click together. Yeah, I dunno, I think it’s meant for, like, [three more taps] cooking an egg in if you want to have a quick breakfast. Like, you just crack an egg in it, stick it in the microwave for fifteen seconds, and then you can eat it with your spoon on the way to work—I dunno. Point being, my theory is that by asking for vanilla and chocolate I will get the vanilla on the bottom and then the chocolate on top of it, as opposed to asking for chocolate and vanilla in which case I think I would get chocolate on the bottom and the vanilla on top. Because the flavor that you say first is the flavor that the person will, will immediately go to scoop. You know, y’know what I mean? This makes sense to me, ok? Follow with me. Follow me. 

So, the past two or three times—I’m not, like, making a chart or anything for this, I don’t care that much, I’m just kind of taking note of the data as it happens to come … to come to me to remember to remember it. Whatever. The past couple times I have said vanilla and chocolate and this has worked to my advantage. I have gotten vanilla on the bottom. This time I asked for vanilla and chocolate, as usual, and I got chocolate on the bottom so I had to stir my ice cream a little teeny bit just to get the chocolate layer mostly on the bottom. That’s it, that’s the story. That’s the chocolate-vanilla ice cream debacle. 

Here’s the second ane- … anecdote, and that is, I can’t remember what TV show or book or movie or what I got the phrase “I dunno how to act right” from, but it’s—there’s a specific way that I remember that line in my brain. And it is “I dunno how to act right” [beginning at a higher pitch at the start and sliding to a lower pitch by the end]. Now that I think about it, that might be something a Youtuber did, so it could be a Youtube video. There’s no way for me to search this … I don’t think. So I was trying really hard to remember what type of media and possibly who coined that specific way of saying that phrase because I like it so much and I repeat it so often … and as I was thinking that over, I realized how much sadder that phrase can get if you interpret it literally. 

‘Cause the joke is, like, [in a rounded, whiny, low voice] “oh, why am I like this, why am I full of anxiety, wuh, ugh, I dunno how to act right.” It’s like oh, LOL, y’know, like we all don’t know how to act right in certain capacities and it’s very easy to get frustrated inside your own mind. But y’know what, we all manage to work it out. Part of being human is that you don’t have a guidebook that explains to you how being a person should work. And so, like y’know, we all don’t really know how to act right but you do your best and you learn from your mistakes. Like that’s kind of—that’s the way I usually mean it when I say [same whiny tone] “oh, I dunno how to act right,” ‘cause it’s not an excuse to be [REDACTED]. There’s no excuse to be [REDACTED]. You do your best and you try better next time. [whispered] Try better next time … [regular voice] whatever, you get what I mean. 

But if you analyze this sentence for all it’s worth … if you separate the parts and look at them individually … I don’t know how to ACT right. Right meaning correct, assuming that there’s some standard that humans are forced to meet in order for them to be correct and worthy and ideal … which is sad. [Sigh]. And act … act as in carry out OR act as in put on a facade and then do, like acting in a theater, right, like you’re putting on a different character’s brain and being them. 

So one could see the, the phrase “I dunno how to act right” as a literal … like, call for help. It’s saying I don’t know how to even be a person at all and it is really, really difficult for me to navigate this. I don’t know how to act right, can someone teach me how to fit this mold of what I’m supposed to be as a human? I’m very lost and … I feel like I’m not doing it right. 

Which is super sad! Like, there is no doing human right, like—or maybe there is, and that is doing your best and not hurting people, and apologizing and trying to understand what you did wrong when it happens. And also standing up for yourself when you didn’t do anything wrong. It’s just trying to navigate not hurting people and also having a good time. That’s what being a person is. So, no, there is no correct way to act. I mean, I guess you could argue that just trying your best and listening to people is the correct way to act. But I dunno, I dunno, those are my thoughts. 

Anyway, it’s cold and I wanna eat my goddamn ice cream, so … thanks for listening to me talk. If you can’t tell, my voice is getting a little bit short and stuffy, which is what tends to happen when I’m about to get a cold! Let’s hope that’s not happening. Ahhhhhh—

[snowedinpodcast]

Transcript and content warning below the cut!

Let’s Walk: Kind of Stillness [Transcript]

[Content Warning: in-depth descriptions of bodily coldness]

There’s something about being physically cold that’s so upsetting. Like, there’s kind of a sweet spot to it, I think. Right now, my right hand is half-numb—like, the ring finger and the pinky finger? If I move them, I can just about feel them, but that's it, and then the rest of my hand—the middle finger, pointer finger, thumb—are, like, burning? Like, they’re so cold they’re hot, y’know? So they are not numb, they are having a bad time, and I feel like the numbness is that kind of sweet spot. It’s like oh, my hands are so cold that they don’t even register how cold they are, so I am not in discomfort. This is fine. 

But it takes … an hour? Maybe 30 minutes? To get there, to that numbness sweet spot. And then, like, moving your whole hand feels really strange ‘cause you can barely—your hand barely registers that muscles are moving ‘cause they’re numb. So … it’s like, it’s comforting in that it’s not physically uncomfortable but it’s upsetting in that you’re watching your hand move but you’re not feeling your hand move … and then it’s like an alien creature has inhabited your arm or something. [Laughs]. It’s bad! It’s bad, don’t love it. Um, but also do love it, weirdly. I prefer the numb feeling to the burning. My left hand is entirely burning, so that’s great. 

Um … there is something a bit settling about being cold, though. Like, physically cold, once you hit the numb point. Because it sort of feels like a kind of stillness. When you’re hot, there is also a kind of stillness, but you’re, like, sweating, y’know? You’re, like, laying on your bed … just … pouring liquid out of your pores [laughs] and it’s sticky, and it’s uncomfortable, and where, like, your arm lays close to your body, there is more heat ‘cause both your chest and your upper arm are in close contact with each other. And so that—like, the heat enveloping both of them overlaps, so there’s points of heat where your limbs connect that you just can never do anything about ‘cause you can’t disconnect them. Whereas when you’re all-over numb and cold, you’re all-over numb and cold. It’s not more cold or less cold in any one specific place. When your whole body gets to that stage … your whole body gets to that stage. Or, more specifically, ‘cause, like, you tend to keep your core and your neck and your head warm—or else you’ll die—but, like, when your extremities all reach the same level of numb-cold, that is the best. That is the best. That is the kind of stillness that I go for. And it’s settling. But I hate the process of getting there.

I also hate the process of getting out of that kind of stillness … because when your hands are numb to the point where they’ve registered that the coldness surrounding you is like room-temperature-level or is acceptable hand temperature, bringing your hands back up to room temperature is upsetting to them! Your fingers swell up, they don’t know what they’re doing! They’re like, why have you done this? I thought we just re-established a new normal room temperature! And I’m like, well, we’re inside now, and I want to draw. Like, that’s the thing, when my fingers are, like, numb-burning—either going through the process of becoming fully numb or coming out of that process and readjusting to room temperature—your fingers puff up, they burn a little bit, and, like, their movements are not as precise. So I can’t draw. You don’t know how many times I have come home from school—high school—and just wanted to freaking draw. But I can’t. And I have to sit abjectly by the fireplace, sticking my hands out, until my hands are done warming up to the point where I can hold a pencil and make confident strokes. [Laughs]. It’s upsetting! Oh my gosh. But anyway, yeah. 

And I also haven’t felt numb-cold in a while because I spend most of the year in Washington state … going to university. Which I won’t be doing after this semester and then the one after it. Terrifying. We’re not gonna think about that right now. Being a senior is such a liminal experience. It’s a whole year of, just, being in-between places. If you think senior year of high school is weird—which it is, it’s very weird—ah, try senior year of college. Yeah. I’ll bet you, like, the last year before retirement is also weird—although I don’t know if you know that as certainly as you know it with high school and college. ‘Cause you gotta go somewhere after senior year but people can technically retire whenever they want to as long as they’re financially able to do so. I guess if you were keeping really strong track of your finances and you were like, yes, by the end of the next five years I will be able to have enough money to retire at this facility that I’ve researched intensely or on this island that I bought, whatever it is, whatever … [laughs] whatever percent … whatever tax bracket you’re in … 

If you earn over $100,000 a year, you should just be eaten—[laughs], no. You should have whatever other income you get on top of that skimmed off and donated. Maybe you can pick the charity you want to donate it to, how ‘bout that. That’ll make it feel a bit less like the government is strangling you but … like, as suspicious [as] I am of governmental structures and as frustrating I find it that bureaucracy slows everything down … millionaires cannot be trusted. Capitalism and its free-for-all, laissez-faire bullshit is going to favor … corner-cutting, rich, trust-fund baby types who have not read enough intersectional feminist theory to make informed decisions with their money. If you’re a shrewd businessperson who doesn’t have an ethical bone in your body, who chooses to ignore ethical considerations, you are going to trash this planet [and exploit workers]. That is how we got here. So I need there to be something that holds the millionaires accountable for themselves. If I have to side with the US government to fight the millionaires … I guess I just have to do it, man. I guess I just have to do it. 

‘Cause at least with the government, to some degree, you can vote people in. Not trying to say that there aren’t biases there that shut out people of color—women of color—and favor, y’know, the third Kennedy kid, whatever his name was. Like yeah, yeah—voting people in, having democratic representatives still isn’t perfect. But at least the people have some kind of say, unlike with millionaires. Like, you just become a millionaire or you don’t, like, you have that million dollar idea and it takes off but you haven’t been vetted—like, you haven’t … you, you don’t have to qualify to be an ethical human in order to reach millionaire status. Whereas if you’re going to be representing your, your district, your state, the country at large as one of the Supreme Court Justices, you need to do a lot of proving yourself worthy of that title to the people you represent before you get there. And I think that is better than nothing. [Sigh]. It’s definitely better than just millionairehood and the wacky ways in which that sorts itself out. God, I’m cold. 

How did we get here, how did we start talking about millionaires? God, I’m cold. Oh yeah, it’s retirement and the last year of retirement and how that must feel weird. I’m sure it does … “but not as good as me!” “Left, left, left my wife and 49 children without any gingerbread. Think I did right. Right? Right, by my—” 

I love that I can just quote … random passages from my favorite books that I read as a kid. It doesn’t even necessarily have to fit whatever I’m thinking, I can just call up exactly how the actor hired to read the audiobook read those lines and just play them in my head and then imitate them to the best of my ability with my own voice and it’s just instantly funny? I don’t know why it’s funny. Maybe it’s not so much that it’s funny but it’s comforting? And it’s a little silly ‘cause it obviously sounds different in my head than how I’m able to replicate it ‘cause my voice is not the same voice as the people who read the audiobooks for these stories, but … and then there’s also a bit of humor in, like, just randomly spouting a phrase that has no connection to what I was just thinking ... but that still feels right somehow. Like, the reason that “left, left, left my wife and 49 children” fit that moment was because it is comforting to me as a human, it did not fit with the subject matter of what I was talking about. So it fit for a different reason, and these incongruent contexts in which the conversation I was just having and this quote still somehow fit with, like, me as a human … that’s just weird! The contrast is weird! And weird things make ya laugh. [Laughs]. I don’t know, dude, trying to explain humor is like, … god … if you ever wanna watch an English major—er, a Lit major—froth at the mouth, ask them to explain a joke … and they will fall over themselves. 

Ok, great. Thanks for that, thanks for that. I love you. [Tongue click].

[snowedinpodcast]

Transcript below the cut! 

Let’s Walk: Spirit Butterflies [Transcript]

[Content Warning: ghost stories, vaguely unsettling imagery like shadowy figures and death-inducing charms: no bodily or mental harm)]

「今日も雨 あの日と今を/空と空でつなぎたいの」

(Translation: Today it’s also raining; even now I want to connect that person’s sky to mine)

Let’s talk ghost stories, dudes. I’ve got a couple from mom, from her time growing up in Japan, and … they make me feel a kind of way. They remind me how … my agnostic ass does enjoy some chthonic, earthy spiritualism. 

I guess a quick prelude is in order before we get into the, into the meat of things. I don’t tie myself to any one faith or another. My dad is a Zen Buddhist. My mom is … casually Shinto? There aren’t any strict religious traditions that we really do in regards to either of my parents’ choice of faith. We do Christmas kind of superficially, for the presents and for the fun of it, not so much for the Biblical significance … so that’s my background. 

What I do like is places and objects that feel like they have a kind of agency—some sort of presence that is beyond my understanding, as a human. I don’t need to know if it’s the case or not, I don’t even know if I’d be able to know if it was the case or not, I just like feeling that way. I like liminal spaces, places where the normal bustling activity you expect is gone, and so everything feels alien and strange: like an overpass at two in the morning. There’s still some cars—which feels strange, ‘cause it’s two in the morning, where could you people possibly be going?—and yet, there’s so few cars compared to what you’re used to in the daytime that … you can hear the individual hums of each car as they go by. And it’s intimacy is what it is, you’re too close to something you’re not normally close to or aware of in that way. I like that. I like intimacy with places and with objects. I like picking up a skeleton key in an antique store and feeling the heft of it … and then looking at the price tag and seeing that it’s $4.00 and I am absolutely too cheap to pay that for a single key, no matter how pretty it is!

I do like thrifted clothes, though and that’s also part of it: I like the story that this object has, I like that it’s outlasted me already and it will probably outlast me if I take good care of it. And again, it’s not about knowing, I don’t need to know who owned it previously, I just like the wondering, I just like reaching out into this nebulous life-before-me … and sitting with it. Life outside of me. Life beyond me. 

So that’s the part of ghost stories that I like so much. And—I guess maybe ghost stories isn’t entirely fair. That’s what I like about … about unexplained, natural moments. Chthonic earth magic! Yeah, let’s just call it chthonic earth magic, sounds good. It’s kinda redundant because “chthonic” means of the earth, so. Apparently, also, “occult” really just means of nature: magic that is tied into naturalness. Occult has gained a connotation with the demonic and the sinister but it includes more than just that. 

‘Kay, I think it’s story time. I’m going to give you … three stories. Two are short, one is long. 

First story: My mom’s mom, her grandma—no! Her mom, my grandma—Obaasan—told her that if you notice a shadowy shape behind a tree, behind a building, lingering around you, you should think, inside your head, that you and this shape are of different worlds and there is nothing you can do to help it … and you leave it alone. This didn’t really hit that hard for my mom until the day in elementary school or middle school when she was out at recess, out in the schoolyard, and she did sense a shadowy humanoid figure ... and she took her mom’s advice and didn’t interact with it. [Sigh].

I can’t say I’ve had any experiences like that, but there is a little stone lantern sculpture thing that we have in our front yard. It has a hole that runs right through the center of the main lantern part. It almost looks like a little house, actually, ‘cause there’s a cylindrical piece that is the main body of the lantern and then a heavy, straw-triangle-hat-shaped stone piece that fits into that cylindrical body—so I always called it “the spirit house.” And I remember one summer I just left bundles of flowers in that hole through the middle because it just felt like a nice thing to do for whatever creature was living in it—‘cause I guess I just felt like a thing might be living in it and it’d be nice to give it things? And this freaked my mom out. She didn’t like that at all. She said not to look through the hole, don’t try to interact with the thing, stop leaving it gifts. Of course, I kept doing it, and nothing happened to me, but I remember … I remember feeling distinctly, one day, that there wasn’t a thing there anymore. And so I stopped giving it flowers. Or maybe I just got tired of it, who knows, but yeah. Yeah! 

Occult stuff doesn’t happen to me, I really wish it would. Come mess with me, demons, I invite you. I may live to regret that … that invitation. 

Second story. My mom was hanging out with a bunch of friends from school, they went to one of the friend's houses and played hide and seek, played card games, Karuta, what kids do. And at some point they noticed there was one more child than originally gathered at the house. My mom took into account the advice of her mom and she didn’t point this out, she just waited it out, continued to play with her friends and this new mystery child who no one could quite identify. And then at the end of the, the playdate, when everyone went home, there was the right amount of children in the house … same number as before. 

Third story. This was prompted by me telling my mom about the drive home from seeing Wonder Woman at a drive-in theatre a state away. I took on the driving, uh, two of my friends—we’ll call them H and K—came along. Um, because we still live in pandemic times, we all wore masks, and we kept our gathering to a small number, just the three of us, so. So it was obviously not the safest but it was, it was within covid19 safety regulations and it’d been a while since any of us had hung out, so … you do what you do. You make do. And it was really fun. It was great. They served food at the venue so we didn't have to worry too much about bringing snacks. We’d all seen Wonder Woman before, so we got to make snide comments and jokes and gush about how hot the characters were the whole time [laugh]. It was, it was just, it was so exciting. We also talked about Greek mythology—my buddy H is big into that stuff, and Ares plays a significant role in this film, so y’know. Good times. 

On that drive home, I was on a main road and got six or seven or eight green lights in a row. It was unusual. It wasn’t … occult-y … but it was unusual, and by the third light that remained green as I sailed beneath it with my friends beside me … I started bowing my head a little bit as we came up to the next light, and the next light, and the next. They kept letting me through, so it felt ritualistic. But not dangerous, it felt … interesting. When I finally hit a red light it was just as I was in the lane to make a left turn into a major highway, so it felt like the natural end of that road. I was moving from one path to another, and so I would’ve had to slow down or stop anyway. 

When I told my mom about this, she told me about the trips in the taxi to and from the summer house where her extended family members gathered. These weren’t fun trips for her, there was a bunch of drama [laugh] on my mom’s side of the family. Drama is putting it pretty lightly, um … her mother was married to the first son of the family and so there were pretty heavy expectations put on her and she was expected to do a bunch of maternal caretaking for free and to not complain about it. And she was looked down upon by other members of the family. Not entirely sure why—maybe it was because my grandma’s family’s status wasn’t the same as the status of the family of the guy she married, but, either way, from what I understand, there was significant mistreatment and emotional abuse and it wasn’t a good time. 

My mom had a sense of that, the other cousins kind of singled her and her older sister out. The, the patriarch of the family, I think her grandfather, would pick a child and question them at mealtimes and my mom did not like that pressure. He was a difficult man to read and she just didn’t know what he wanted and she ... [sigh] it was a source of stress for her, she wasn’t a fan. So she remembers these trips as unhappy. She remembers knowing she’d have to eat boiling hot noodles in the sweltering, humid summers of Japan because noodles were the family patriarch’s favorite dish. Just general unpleasantries. 

At least twice—maybe more?—on the drives to this summer house, the taxi driver would seem to be lost. It was like the path turned into a loop. More time than it should’ve taken to reach the summer house would go by. And then my mom would notice that her older sister was squeezing her hand. She would look over, and her older sister would tell her, quietly, that she’d seen the same tree multiple times. This struck my mom as kinda strange ‘cause she would look out the window and just see a blur of trunks, no singular tree discernible amongst the swath of them, but her sister said what she said and eventually the taxi driver would pull over and get out of the car to do some small activity. Maybe go have a smoke, maybe circle the car a little bit and mutter. Then they would get back in the car, get back on the road, and the path would sort itself out. They’d get to the house late and the taxi driver would offer a reduced rate to make up for the trouble. 

My mom says she doesn’t remember where she’d heard this, but this is what she told me about this phenomenon: when you find yourself on a path that turns into a loop, you may see an inn. That inn will have a door, and behind that door will be a long hallway that doesn’t have anybody in it. You should not pull over into the parking lot of this inn, you should not knock on the door—not for food, not for water, not for directions, not for anything—and you should definitely not go in. What you’re supposed to do is find a place to stop, to break the cycle, to get off the road. Take a little break, exit your vehicle if you have to, don’t stray far. Then get back in and you will find the path takes you where it’s supposed to take you. 

I asked her what deity or creature is responsible for this driving diversion and she says she doesn’t know. It’s all very mysterious. Chthf—[laughs]. Chthonic earth magic really be that way. 

So yeah. Now that we’re on the ghost topic, the spiritualism topic, I did think of something. I wish more occult-y stuff happened to me, that would be exciting, make me a believer, why don’t you—again, making invitations I may live to regret [laughs]. But there is something I take notice of every so often. It hasn’t happened for a long time, but, especially back when I was in Japanese school—which I did from kindergarten … no, from preschool, up through … no, from kindergarten up through the end of middle school, I’m pretty sure—we would have field day at least once a year. Granted, Japanese school was a four-hour session every Saturday, it wasn’t after school every day for me, but it was an occurrence, and I wasn’t always a fan of it because why do I have to have an extra day of school when my friends get to have two days of weekend? So there were ups and downs and there were times I was grateful for it and times I was less grateful for it … and overall that shakes out to a net positive, I guess; thanks parents, thanks for pushing me. I’m glad I have a basic third-grader’s amount of Japanese vocabulary and sentence structure. That’s all I retained but it’s better than nothing. 

Anyway, we had field day every year, I remember being in the indoor gym—this is important—being in the indoor gym, digging through my backpack, pushed up against all the other backpacks at the side of the gymnasium, and seeing a flicker of something out of the corner of my eye? It moved the way a butterfly does, a sort of uncertain hover, very quick and noncommittal. I don’t remember what color it was. I think it might’ve been gray. But I couldn’t look at it because someone called my name—one of my friends—and I looked over at them and they were telling me it’s time to line up to go do one of the, one of the sports day activities. Tie your hitai-ate around your head already—tie the strip of cloth that’s red on one side, white on the other, the two colors of the Japanese flag and the two teams that you could be placed on to either one of for field day activities—and, uh, get your butt over here already, man. [Note: The term for this cloth is actually “hachimaki”; “hitai-ate” refers to a forehead-tie from the Naruto manga and anime. My bad!]

I looked back where I thought I saw a flutter, obviously nothing was there, and I went and did field day. This happened also at an outdoor field day. Some years before or after, again, I was sitting somewhere, on the grass I think, on the hilly part of the courtyard, and I remember seeing a flutter and I think, this time, it was white … I’ve seen grey flutters, black flutters, and white flutters. I think most often white … probably because it’s light shifting from a door that moves, but you know, who knows. But yeah, I remember telling my mom about these too; I tend to, whenever anything vaguely interesting that is possibly of a spiritual nature happens, and I think she was puzzled about them? She didn’t seem to be concerned, she didn’t seem to be thrilled. 

But yeah. Yeah. There is a very tenuous thread that weaves my whole life together and it is various shades of spirit butterflies, I guess. If that’s really so, the universe is in good hands. Good paws … good feet? Good wings? 

[ Hi, I’m here to break the no-edits rule that this podcast promised you [laughs]. I have one more thought to add to this meditation. When I was 10 years old, maybe, on a trip to Japan to the Inari shrine, specifically, I was “called” into the woods—supposedly—by the Inari god. The fox god. The Trickster god. That is how my mom remembers this, that is how she told it to my grandma, who was as concerned as my mom was. 

I don’t remember it this way. I remember seeing a path in the bamboo shoots and just thinking it was cool and trodden on but not as much as the main path … so I should follow it. See where it goes. Why not? The wind whistled past me as I was running down, and then I heard my mom yell, and I guess she seemed farther away than I thought I had managed to get by that point. But I turned around, and I went back to her, and she was upset. 

Having talked to her about this more over the years, she’s since revealed that there’s supposedly a cart that sells dark talismans off the beaten path of the Inari shrine. Normally, at most shrines, you will be able to purchase various talismans for good health, for success, for … good romance, for positive studying results. But then this other cart, which is harder to get too and off to the side, sells bad luck totems and wishes for death upon individuals of your choosing … talismans of that nature. So when I thought I was running down any old little path, my mom thought I was being called to the dark cart. [Laugh]. So I guess, in retrospect, I see why that was troubling to her. 

Another thing about the Inari shrine is that you can buy little pieces of paper that are cut in the shape of a fox and they tell you … your fortune, pretty much? Yeah. You don’t get to see what it says until you’ve bought one, obviously, there’s a container full of them, you pay, you pick one out. And we did them, my mom got ... I think middle luck, or something? I think my dad might’ve gotten bad luck, or one step above bad luck. But I got big luck … I got the, the best option they have in there, and that struck my mom as strange because apparently Inari-san doesn’t really favor anyone? Or if they do, their favor is fickle, because they’re a trickster god. They just, they just like watching things burn. They don’t have loyalties ... to people. We’re just little dolls to them that they can maneuver for fun. ]

Alright, well, this has been fun. Thank you for that. Always good to talk to you. I’ll catch you on the next. 

[snowedinpodcast]

Welcome to a new kind of episode! “Backstreets” episodes feature recordings from months or years before SIP began—same kinds of thoughts, different diary-like feel. 

As always, transcript below the cut!

Backstreets: Pretty Complicated Animals [Transcript]

[ Content warning: brief mention of how emotional abuse can be refuted via song ]

"If my body was on fire, oh you'd watch me burn down in flames/You say you love me, you're a liar, 'cause you never, ever, ever did, baby/But I'm dumb enough to catch a grenade for ya ..."

Ok, we're gonna talk about this, this trope, this theme, this line about someone never having loved you because I have some thoughts about this and I think they're useful. Also it's 7:30[AM], and we're half an hour away from my Geo[logy] final, I need something to do! I should be studying but sometimes you just need to get all your jazzy feelings out and I think this is how I'm gonna get mine ... sorted. So: lines about having never loved you at all. I'm pretty sure Taking Back Sunday has one ... what is it ... "remind me not to ever think of you again"? No, that's different, that's different, but there is one ... "I know you well enough to know you never loved me," that's the line [tongue click]. Yeah. Taylor Swift has a bunch of them, uh ... "You're Not Sorry" is a song that she wrote, there's also "and the saddest fear comes creeping in / that you never loved me, or her, or anyone, or anything." 

What I think this line does ... is—it's not the power move everyone thinks it is. It might be in some instances, some very specific instances where somebody was abused and they are eschewing all of the gaslighting and false love that their abuser put upon them, that—it is one thing to say you always told me you were doing the best for me, but I—looking back, now, I see that is not the case, you are a filthy liar, and I'm taking you out of my life, like that is a very powerful statement and that is one that people who have been abused are definitely entitled to make. 

On the other hand, as is what I believe to be the case in a lot of these songs, a past friend who has done you wrong or a girlfriend or boyfriend or partner who just has failed you in some way ... I don't think it's helpful to say you never loved me anyway. And why I don't think that's helpful is because I don't know if that's necessarily true. People can do [REDACTED] things to each other while still caring about each other, and it's—it's pretty [REDACTED] up, humans are pretty [REDACTED] up. We're also pretty complicated animals, pretty complex beings, ok? And I don't know what purpose re-writing history serves in these kinds of narratives—again, barring abuse situations where it's an empowering, very powerful thing to tell someone that their lies are not effective anymore. [Sigh].

For another thing, I feel like this retroactive declaration of you never loved me anyway ... is also just boring. If you're going to write a song about something that was really powerful and emotional for you, and it involves a person who did something that really hurt you, then ... I don't understand why you wouldn't represent that story the way that it is: "I loved this person and I thought they loved me, but they ended up doing something that hurt me." That is the point! It's not "I loved this person and I thought they loved me but they DIDN'T!" Does that make sense? Like, one of these things just sounds a lot more ... kind of dramatic and whiny ... than what I believe to be the truth, which is objectively far more interesting. Like, I have to say, thinking about people complexly and understanding that people can do harmful things while still caring for the people they are harming: that is a super compelling, super interesting narrative, like—I'll give you an example. 

In "I'll Keep You in Mind, From Time to Time," an album by Moose Blood, he [the lead singer] makes several references to his dad having dementia of some kind—but, like, not being an awful person. He does mention, though, that his father, in some cases, is really difficult to be around or to handle, kind of? And I think, he says this in particular, like, in—by proxy, like through talking to his mother, and he's saying something like "do you remember when your hair was long, do you remember when dad could drink?/I guess so much has changed for you lately/But I'm so proud of you and him." That is such a complex statement 'cause it's showing how you still love people who are far removed from you, who are starting to become removed from you, and I love that nuance! I love that detail! I love that he includes "so much has changed for you," that it's really hard to be his mom right now because she has a lot of responsibilities for the people that they both care about, but he's so proud of her AND his dad. He still loves the person his dad once even if that person is starting to not be as apparent anymore. Or, at least, he still understands that his father loved him and that there was a relationship there even if the one that currently stands is not as explicit. 

I think that that is a lot healthier, in the end. It's more interesting, it's more clever, it's more truthful, and I think it's healthier. If you can—if you're at a place with your relationship, with whatever person it is who did you wrong, if you're at a place where you can see it for what it really was ... I think you are doing a much better job than these songwriters who are deciding that their clamping statement in their song is going to be that their lover never loved them anyway. Or that their sister didn't, or that their father didn't. 

'Cause a lot of the time, people that hurt us at one point or still care about us. And that is not what matters, but representing that truthfully, I think, is what does matter. Ok. We're done here. Thanks for listening to my rant, I had fun making it. Alright. Geo final time! Love you, bye. 

[snowedinpodcast]

Long time no chat, friends. As usual, transcript is below the cut!

Let’s Walk: Life is (not?) a Strategy Game [Transcript]

“Wake up without you/flood in your [my] room, I see your headlights” 

Wooooo we have a situation right now ... I would like to cross the road because there’s people coming down towards me on the sidewalk but there’s several cars that are making that tricky. Please allow me to cross the road, I beg of thee! Ok, great. That’ll do. 

Hi. Let’s talk about ... romantic love! Everyone’s favorite, love to hate it. Ok. Ok, so, this comes to mind because I do kind of have a crush right now. I say kind of ‘cause it’s waning—thank goodness—but [laugh] it happened and I’m not ashamed of it. I am a little bit, let’s be real here: is anyone ever genuinely, wholeheartedly in love? I don’t think s—[laughs] I promise I’m not bitter, I’m just like this. This is just my personality, babe. 

Yet again I find myself in a weird position on the road, ok, great. This is what i get for not being on the sidewalk ... but also, what am I supposed to do when there’s only one sidewalk and there’s other people coming towards me on it? Quarantine problems, guys. Every human’s a biohazard! We always have been, but, just now more so than ever. 

The point I want to make here is ... Good question, what is the point I want to make here? I feel like I’ve had pretty good luck in terms of having crushes on people who wind up being interested in me back. I’ve only had ... mmm ... three solid dating experiences ... and those all taught me something, for which I’m grateful, but in all three cases ... Wow. Wow, I think that’s actually true. In all three cases, I was the first one to like them ... and that coming to light was what prompted them to either start liking me back or, like, y-you know what I mean? Like ... I didn’t necessarily make the first move in every instance but the fact that I was interested in them ... came to light before their interest in me surfaced, does that make sense? 

So what I’m trying to say is, am I a siren? [Laugh] no, I’m sorry, I’m joking, I’m sorry. But no, I kind of have to wonder, right? I’ve heard that someone being interested in you and you realizing this, knowing it as a fact, can encourage reciprocation in you. Y’know, the idea that someone liking you is kinda hot and it’s fun to be wanted, right? So even if you didn’t initially notice them at all before, now that you know this, that might make that person just a little more attractive to you ... which may lead to a date which may lead to a relationship, you see what I mean. So in that way, I wonder how much agency I’ve had in terms of these romantic experiences. I wonder how many of them ... came to be because I kind of willed them into being? 

[Distressed sound] I know that sounds a bit ... um ... cocky ... which I don’t want to be. I’m not trying to say that these people I’ve dated don’t have their own free will and thoughts because ... gosh, I hope they do. Otherwise, what’s the point of other humans if we all just merge into one another? Part of the joy of being human—one of the few joys—is that we’re all so different and interesting. 

But yeah, crushes, the way that reality changes depending on what reality is? Ugh, that’s confusing, how do I say that better ... Yeah, it’s—it’s that idea of willing something into being ... like speech acts, kind of, y’know? You say it and the act of saying it is what makes it true. The act of liking another person in a romantic way can sometimes be a factor in making that romantic relationship between you and that person work out. And I don’t know what to call this. It feels weird to call it power because power implies it’s a tool that you can deploy at will. I can’t do that. I can’t—I’m not a siren, I can’t ... inspire sudden, unquenchable lust in other people. Wait, er—is that succubi? Sirens are the ones who sit on rocks and sing songs that sailors cannot resist, so, similar idea, I guess. Cool. Thanks, Odysseus. That’s not what I’m doing because it’s not guaranteed. Me liking someone does not guarantee that they will like me back but it does up the odds in an interesting way ... sometimes. 

Which I guess goes to show, if you are interested in someone, the worst they can say is no—which can be kind of an emotional blow, so I get it. I get why you might still hesitate in terms of asking them out, but ... if they don’t know that you’re an option, then—then there’s no chance of this happening at all, y’know? So, so you might as well exercise your pseudo-siren powers and let the person you are interested in—or people—know and see if that may increase your odds. In an organic, non-creepy way! ‘Cause it’s worked out for me. I’m twenty-one, twenty-one divided by three is seven, so—is that how math—am I applying averages correctly? On an average of once every seven years I’ve had a successful romantic interaction. Maybe that doesn’t—mmm, maybe that doesn’t actually sound like such a, such a solid set of odds anymore. Maybe I don’t have the experience to be giving this advice but I just noticed this and I just think it’s interesting. That’s what this is for. 

Here’s another thing I find interesting. I’m the kind of person who is an open book. Full stop. I am extremely expressive with my face and with my tone of voice, I—I talk with my hands, I talk to myself, I scowl, I clap, I make finger guns ... and, incidentally, I’ve noticed that I am more dramatic with my emotional cues than I usually am especially when I’m on a Zoom class call. And I think that’s ‘cause I’m adapting to being in quarantine and doing class remotely and wanting to still give my peers validation for their cool points and also allow myself to be read easily ... ‘cause I have to put more effort into emotional cues to be read over call versus in person when there’s just a lot more visual data available to you. 

And that’s what I want to get at: the ability to be read easily. People tend to see that as a weakness and I have seen it that way before. In fact, there’s still moments where I’m like, god damn, if I could just keep my own feelings a secret, that would be extremely useful. Hey brain, can we do that? And my brain’s like “hmm ... no. No, sorry, your nature is just to be extremely readable.” But that doesn’t mean this doesn’t work for you in interesting ways. 

So on the one side, right, people think “ah, if I keep my cards close to my chest then I am less easily read by opponents and I thereby have power over them in two ways. One, they don’t know what I’m up to and I have that knowledge, and two, I can read them more easily so I have a sense of what they’re going to do, I can predict them,” right? 

Then look at my side of it. By making myself more easily read—or just by being that way in general, ‘cause a good fair amount of this is just how I am, and sometimes I amplify parts of it intentionally, but ... yeah. By making myself easily readable, I set up my opponents, quote unquote—or my peers, or my parents, or whomever I’m talking to—I set them up to read me accurately, which is actually extremely useful in getting a very quick, very accurate picture of how someone I don’t know that well treats other people. 

Lemme give you an example: something somebody says to me upsets me a lot. It is extremely hard for me to hide the fact that this person has done something to upset me or said something to upset me. I will react vocally, I will react emotionally, my face will contort, that whole deal. Trust me, I’ve tried to not react to something that deeply upsets me ... I’m incapable of it! I would have to practice a lot to be capable of that. This means this person now has, very likely, a pretty clear idea of [thing that upsets me]. If they continue to repeat it with malicious intent, then it is very clear to me that you are an asshole who doesn’t extend their empathy towards other people and I probably don’t want to be friends with you. I probably don’t want to hang out with you because I’ve seen how you are, how you treat people. On the flipside, if that person notices the connection between the thing that upset me and my very visceral reaction and they either ask me about it like “oh hey did that bother you? Um, can I ask why? That’s interesting” or if they stop the behavior because they realize it freaked me out, then you’re probably chill. You probably have a sense of empathy and you could be a really cool friend. Yeah. We can hash out our differences in a meaningful way and continue to interact healthily and excitingly. 

So, do you see what I mean? Because I am so readable, I prepare people to receive the message that I want them to have, which is how I genuinely feel. And that teaches me a lot about them. By giving information, I actually get back a pretty fair chunk of information. However in-power my opponent seems to think they are, they always give something away to me. 

I realize that this language might make it sound like I view the world as a constant battle. And I do a little bit, trust issues will do that to you. Everyone is, on some level, an opponent who I must shield myself from somehow ... and you have to make use of the tools in your arsenal, right? So if you happen to be very readable, you need to be able to frame that in a way where it works to your benefit and this is the framing that has been useful for me. Because this part of my nature would be a lot harder to change than it would be to adapt to be useful. 

But that said, I do like to think that in general, people are cooperative. That is how a lot of things have happened in history. That is how a lot of beautiful structures have been created. That is how a lot of core human ideals have been developed, challenged, changed ... and that is why, if you sat me down and made me pick between being able to hide my cards or constantly having to show a card or two—perhaps even my whole hand, god forbid—I would still pick being the type of person who can’t not emote. Because I think being willing to give information is not only useful in the way I laid out but it’s also ... more conducive to cooperation. I almost always appreciate it when someone gives me more information rather than if they hide it because that means I can help you better. It also means I could hurt you better [laugh], but that’s just kind of a risk I think is worth taking. Again, this is very generalized, like, don’t bear your soul to someone you barely know because that’s probably not going to end well, but ... incremental willingness to ... to share, I think, is just kind of ... good. 

There’s some worldview ideas from a twenty-one year old. You’re welcome. Play life like a strategy game! No, I’m kidding, don’t, don’t do that ... [laugh] oh my gosh. Alright. Thanks for talking. I love you very much. [Click]. Catch you on the next one.