Tuesday, July 21, 2026

Tarkovsky said Thinking during a film interferes with your experience of it. Take a watch into pieces, it doesn't work. Similarly with a work of art, there's no way it can be analyzed without destroying it. It occurred to me on the bus ride to see AJ that maybe love operates under the same rules— though of course I don't love him yet— and that the presence of feeling is justification enough for any of this, now & future. Too, I noticed the walk from the bus stop to see him feels long, but when he walks me back to my bus stop it feels very short. Even though I decided I shouldn't take the watch into pieces, I still thought to add this fact as a "plus" to pros & cons list . . .

Another heatwave & I think the warmth eases my arthritic pains. I finished the last of my medicine, but I'm still not better. Rae noticed the undiscarded amber bottle on the kitchen table yesterday, newly empty of its contents, & asked if I was better now; no, just uncontagious, absent of streptococcal bacteria, but that was already true three days in when I had to throw away my toothbrush. It feels odd now to eat unaccompanied by a pill, or without consideration of how long ago my last pill was, an extremely basic freedom that I had forgotten. The only pills I have left now are not even in my name; they're in AJ's name. He happened to have a large bottle of my pain relievers in the same dosage. I trusted him enough to accept them but not to take them without looking up their imprint on various pill identification websites after our date. I've been able to avoid taking them most days, but it still hurts to walk or to have sex. I have been so bedbound that during my first grocery store trip in a month, Suzanne suddenly turned toward me & remarked that it was strange to see me standing, that she was so used to seeing me laying down. Then she tried to say that I seemed better, but accidentally said that my health was "waning" instead of "waxing". Every time I leave the house now it's to a place where I can sit, so much so that it doesn't even feel like I am meaningfully leaving; instead it's as though I am sitting in front of a changing greenscreen, always sitting, always sitting. It seems the longest I can walk with the accompaniment of painpills is forty-five minutes. When I went to the urgentcare, they sent me home with pills but never told me when I was supposed to get better. When will I get better? I wonder if I will spend the entire summer like this, in pain, in this reduced state of life. My heart still needs to be checked, and as I go about my painful daily life, I worry about what they'll find. This feels like a repeat of being sixteen, the echocardiograms and the EKGs and the acne and the terrible heat. Perhaps it was because of the heatwave, but my Icy Hot burned me today, bright red circles on my knees. It doesn't smell like root beer to me anymore, just mint; that mystery is gone.

Monday, July 20, 2026 — Lists for a dumb guy

Things I've done that I'd been avoiding:

- Sex / lost virginity
- Pissed myself
- Dating ( unplanned, but I wanted a summer romance ever since finding a fortune cookie paper on the ground that read "A beautiful, smart, and loving person will be coming into you (sic) life." )
- Took the bus to Vancouver / went places that took many transfers & it was not the end of the world, I even enjoyed it
- Got drunk ( accident, but it turns out that having a single drink does not make you an alcoholic ! )
- Injecting ( the more consistently I do it, the easier it is )
- Went dancing ( it turns out that I really like dancing )
- Ended strangely overly-attached relationship with Suzanne ( really she ended it )

Heart & Feather:

- I feel very at ease with him despite the fact that we've met only recently, silence feels comfortable, plus
- Neurotic but in therapy, similar issues with anxiety, plus
- Had a bad childhood like me, plus
- Has fraught relationship with family mirroring mine, plus
- Is kind to homeless people, same politics as me, plus
- Same fetishes / kinks as me, extremely congruent desires, plus
- Experiences chronic pain, plus
- Very conscientious of my pain, plus
- Smokes pot, but doesn't smoke when I'm around, says he's trying to cut back but seems addicted, unsure-negative
- I don't want to be like my mom & date a pot addict, negative
- I worry that dating him & forgiving / ignoring his addiction is a roundabout way of forgiving my father, negative
- I would never consider our relationship to be serious if he couldn't overcome his addiction, there would always be a part of myself that I am withholding, but I don't want a serious relationship, unsure
- He reminds me of my mom sometimes, but only her positive traits, positive
- Says he quit smoking cigarettes / vaping in December after smoking since he was fourteen, plus
- Self-admittedly bad with money, negative
- Hardworking but works a job he doesn't like, says he wants to go back to school to become a drug counsellor but also offhandedly mentioned wanting to work on a fishing boat, unsure
- Seems to be in a state of trying to get his life together, but I also am more interested in other mentally ill people, reminds me of myself when I was depressed, unsure
- Very respectful of my wants, conscientious, plus
- His explanation of why he enjoys photography was extremely similar to how I describe my own writing, a focus on the mundane, plus
- Doesn't know a lot about my writing but encourages me to write, plus
- Seems more into me than I am into him, unsure
- Is more comfortable giving affection than me, though everyone is, unsure
- Is fine with me seeing other people, considers himself poly, plus
- Enjoys hearing me talk about birding, plus
- Enjoys cooking & eating, tea & coffee, wanted to be a chef when he was younger like me, plus
- Enjoys spending time outdoors, likes camping & hiking, plus
- Seems to be a forthright person, plus
- Collects marbles, builds Gundam models, likes watching a racing anime, boyishly cute interests, plus
- Not into reading or film, unsure-negative
- Self seems underdeveloped, unformed, unsure-negative
- Seems to admire me, unsure
-I very clearly feel romantically toward him & that is not something I often experience, plus

Here it is, dumb guy:

Thursday, July 16, 2026

When I was a child, my parents had a cat that would attack me unprovoked from the time I learned how to walk. It would hide under furniture & sleep in my mom's closet. My earliest memory is getting attacked by this cat. It was sleeping beneath a table in the upstairs living room. At the other end beneath the table was a block that I wanted, so I made the conscious effort to angle my body so that my hand was obviously grasping toward the block & away from the cat, hoping that the cat would be able to understand my fearful intentions, but it didn't work. My hand was met with a quick swipe, leaving red lines on skin.

I misbehaved once and my mom locked me in her closet where the cat slept. The door didn't lock from the outside, so she held the knob in place as I desperately tried to turn it. It was dark; the lights were off. The lock was on my side, but the lightswitch was on hers. I don't even know if that's true; all I know is that I was powerless to turn on the lights. I cried at the door while she held the knob in place, then I climbed up onto a shoe rack so the cat wouldn't get me. I don't know how long this lasted, probably not very long at all, though to a child it was an infinite dark. I cried & cried & begged to be forgiven. It only occurred to me when I was much older that perhaps the cat wasn't even sleeping in the closet at the time, that I could have been climbing away from nothing. Somehow, my secret misery was recounted almost exactly in Ingmar Bergman's Hour of the Wolf. I took my new boyfriend ( who incidentally has the same name as my 5th grade bestfriend & crush, AJ ) to see it. I went from a puppylove slackness to undergoing an instant rigor mortis, becoming completely upright & rigid in my seat as my childhood was recounted to me on screen. My stiffness was interpreted as revulsion toward his touch & he withdrew his hand, asking if I was okay. I nodded in the dark room & replaced his hand. It was my first time holding hands with a boy or going on a movie date. I would have leaned on his shoulder if not for the subtitles. It felt completely mundane yet thrilling. It reminded me of what it was like to see snow for the first time, something new & wonderful that other people experience regularly. Here are things that humans do: They see snow; they hold hands; they take the bus at night. I am also human.

Tuesday, July 14, 2026 — Still sick

I am not getting better. It hurts to walk now. I haven't slept a full night in a month & my circadian rhythm has been overthrown by a schedule of extended release pain pills & antibiotics. It hurts to hold binoculars. The doctor's bedside façade is transparent & I can see directly into her worry. I have to get an echocardiogram because there might be something wrong with my heart valves. Like Cassandra no one believes me. I cried for the first time in a year & my immediate thought was that my voice really does sound different. I am too tired to cook & when there is food in front of me I am too tired to eat it. The apartment is messy since Suzanne & Rae came home. I misplaced my Saint Michael necklace & worry I left it in a stranger's apartment. I only leave the house to have sex with strangers & I tell them that I am too stiff for most positons. I let them know I am sick but not contagious.

Tuesday, July 7, 2026 — Still sick

Doctor told me I have rheumatic fever today. I've been in horrific pain. Summer wasting.