Anew

The annual domain registration on this website is up for renewal soon.

A new semester is starting.

We finally have a new president.

We are entering, hopefully, vaccination season.

Each day is another one until many more until it's time for it to be almost done, and then it will be just a little bit longer.

We're on mile sixteen or mile twenty. Still too early to start counting, but close enough to, perhaps, start hoping.

OOO

I'm quite out of things to write about this week.

Numbing

Numbing can be a good strategy sometimes, right? Every serious surgery uses it. Getting to the root of a problem is usually very painful. But how can we practice a local numbing, one that doesn't put us to sleep but one that isolates the problem, allows us to dig deeper and repair? How can we allow our sense of feeling to return slowly, enough so that we understand an important correction has been made, enough to appreciate what it might feel like to be healed?

I certainly don't know, but I'm hoping this beer will help.

Happy Yup

Wow, you know how you think about something, and then it starts, and then in the middle you're not sure how you feel, and then it's over? That's a big way of saying nothing but it's also describes just about everything.

I always forget that an ending always means a beginning on the other side. The New Year is an apt reminder of that, albeit in purely superficial form.

I used to accidentally write the previous year at the headings of my papers, back when I wrote things down for school. But I doubt that I will make the same mistake this year.

Merry Christmas

Late to the Party

I know I am so late to the party, but 90 Day Fiancé? Have you guys seen this? Fiancés from other countries come to the United States where their visa stipulates they have 90 days to marry their prospective spouse, or return to their home country.

It is a real-life cringeworthy romantic comedy just without much romance nor comedy. It's an ethnographic laboratory where sociopolitical and economic forces to play out in real time. It is so bad but I have a winter break coming up and I am so in.

Packages, Boxes and Bags

I did some Christmas shopping yesterday, which was a nice break from the daily monotony. I hummed Christmas songs in my head and noticed all the Christmas things hanging around, and thought about how amazing it was that people still put up the decorations. It's an act of theatre that I appreciate, setting the stage for a show that won't really happen this year, but will happen nonetheless.

"Maybe Christmas," I thought, "doesn't come from a store. Maybe Christmas, perhaps, means doing the same thing we did last year because no matter what the f*ck happened this year it's still f*cking Christmas so get those G.D. lights out and let's do this."

End Year's Resolutions

I resolve to be ok, to let it happen, to try my best, to let it go, to write a bit, to think some more, read a book, walk to the store. Same year, very much the same me.

The Day After

Shuffling into the kitchen, overlooking the landscape of drying dishes and full containers, I hope you're finding some peace and solace in the calm after the storm. It might have just been a rain shower this year, but it was nice nonetheless. Here's to Christmas music, which may now legally commence.

Another Cusp

Looking down the barrel of winter feels daunting, so I am starting my preparation now with the practice of letting go. While forgiveness means giving up the hope that the past could have been any different, I'm trying to apply that to the future. A pre-forgiveness tour, if you will, which I imagine looks like one of Cher's farewell tours only it's me in the headdress and I'm alone in my apartment.

The cyclical nature of this thing is numbing and jarring at once. There is both so much noise and so much silence. But I hope you know that these words mean that I'm still humming over here, and you reading them means that you are, too. And for that, I am so thankful.

What a Relief

I prefer brunettes to blondes, but at the end of the day Biden will work just fine!

National Theatre

I know this is an unpopular opinion, but I am kind of living for the drama.

I am waking up without my phone, spending at least an hour doing something productive or just putzing around while I listen to the tense silence of my willful ignorance. (You can tell how anxious I am by how meticulously organized my apartment is.) After my mental summer camp, I set the stage with a cup of coffee by my computer, opening the front page of The New York Times in quiet anticipation. Still nothing, still nothing.

Maybe it's the lack of live performance in these past many months that has left me hungry for suspense — not the kind that hurts people, but the kind that feeds the ego. In truth, we have plenty of time. But we want to know now, and the tension of not knowing has created a national theatre in which our insatiable desire for certainty can perform her one-woman show.

I wanted there to be a decisive blue wave so I could fall asleep three nights ago full of some optimism and a lot of pinot grigio. But as this year has shown us, disappointment and patience are the names of the game. So I'm going to get my popcorn. And I hope that when the fat lady sings, she'll be singing the national anthem, for a country with a new president.

Hallows' Eve

I feel like I've written this before but Halloween is truly the night I wish I had a boyfriend that would look up at me and say, "Do you want to just stay in tonight?”

Of course this year is different. Everyone with any level of respect for themselves and others is staying in or staying back, and I hope you find a way to make it fun or funny or anything that's different from normal but also definitely not actually scary.

I also hope that by my next writing we'll have a new president elect. In any case, I can guarantee that I will have taken another trip to the grocery store, and between sale candy and the chip isle I will have gathered many a comfort food. Bon appétit, loves.

Fwd:

I just want to reiterate that there will be a day when it's warm, you'll see smiles, you'll give hugs, the election will be over, the work will be continuing, and you'll be so, so happy.

Discipline

Doing something even when you don't want to is the definition of discipline, and waiting until the last moment to begrudgingly do something is the definition of whatever I've been doing.

Dreamscape

It's an interesting part of the dream now where it's past the point of being shocking yet still before the point of total resignation. It feels like the new work is staying in that space, not shocked, not resigned.

Make sure you vote, and make sure you spend some time totally zoning out. Cheap advice, but affordable!

Karma

It'll always catch you, baby.

How to Say Nothing

Wow, what a truly unprecedented time in which we find ourselves. During these times, it is more important than ever that we remember what connects us, who we are, and why we do what we do. Throughout these many months, I have been continually inspired by the myriad ways in which we have all adapted to this new normal, each recognizing our unique capacities to contribute to the common good while also continuing to confront unfamiliar and even uncomfortable realities with kindness and resilience. And while this is certainly not the future we envisioned, it has presented us with new opportunities to do more, and to be more. While the future may be uncertain, one thing is clear: words are words and wordy word word, word wordy word, word word word.

I Just Gotta Say

If you’re finding any moments of joy, relaxation, peace, calm, delight, solitude, togetherness, smiles, laughs, deep breaths, long pauses, soft pillows, hard floors, shinning light, deep darkness, surprise, serenity, hope, or longing, that means you’re still here, and that’s still good.

Just a thought

If you can, try looking at a flower today.