1.31

watched tv with two best friends last night and the plan was kind of thrown together and there was a misunderstanding so one friend came a bit late and was like "honestly i'm annoyed, i felt rushed" right when she got there. we hashed it all out and each admitted our role in the miscommunication, then climbed under the covers to watch 2 episodes of The Traitors. I was taken aback at first but i really loved that vibe. don't stew on it, just talk about it and then we can carry on. they've been friends since high school so i really respect their dynamic. my friend has a bed that you can raise into a sitting up position with a remote and i think something like that could change my life

my thoughts on The Traitors:

-the soap opera lighting frightens me when i think about it too much. i think it makes everyone act unnatural or it at least appears that way

-this is an insane stupid psychological show but in a different vein from beast games. i think this one is more sinister and feels less good. which is really saying something because i do think that mr. beast has a slightly evil vibe. like that show does make you feel kinda good bc it's engineered to be deeply entertaining but the last episode was literally the trolley problem so how spiritually pure can it really be. i think The Traitors feels less good because the contestants are all minor celebrities of some sort so there is major ego involved. i like the "this is a random person" aspect of beast games, you can really become endeared to someone

-bob harper the former trainer on biggest loser was added to The Traitors and he has such a rank vibe that i viscerally reacted to him every time he was on screen. i think that was one of the most damaging american tv shows ever made and that bob harper is experiencing the spiritual fallout from it. he is a deeply insecure man and it seeps off him in every moment of his screentime. one of the challenges was figuring out a riddle and going up and smashing an urn with the answer on it. only one person can attempt to solve the riddle and he went up before everyone and rolled his eyes and was like "i'm probably gonna get it wrong" and was acting so above it all. he did end up getting it wrong and rolled his eyes again like it was so ridiculous. just classic insecure behavior! but you can tell from his body language that he's desperate to be beloved. bob that will never happen, you got your fame from giving children eating disorders a decade ago

1.30

i wonder if my neighbors can hear me and my cat meowing at each other all day

kid at the dentist doing flips in the lobby yesss

washing my face at a friend’s house and i asked if they have a towel i could use and they point to the hand towel that says CUM RAG all over it

1.29

accidentally fell asleep last night with both lamps on surrounded by a coloring book and the two books im reading. when my roommate came home it probably looked like that picture of the puppy that got out all his toys and then passed out in the middle of playing

today my boss had a presentation about our project in the department meeting so he practiced in front of me and sydney beforehand and then was like “was that good, i’m not embarrassing you guys by saying this in front of everyone right” and we were like ???

mj lenderman tiny desk and stl show in june… lfg

1.28

update: i have experimented thoroughly with sleeping with lamp on vs. lamp off and i prefer lamp on i think. i suspect this may just be because my body associates it with being dead tired, too tired to hold my eyes open long enough to turn off the light. which happens often for me so i don't think that's necessarily a stretch. i typically turn it off in the middle of the night at some point so it's best of both worlds.

i'm working at the fleet building today with my friends and i tried a new drink at starbucks- royal english breakfast latte. i think the real difference from what i make at home is just 2% milk and 3 pumps of classic syrup? it's kind of doing nothing for me. i've been using brown sugar maple oat milk creamer in the yorkshire gold tea recently and it goes crazy. i didn't really like it at first but it's really grown on me. i think i want to try the cinnamon roll oat milk creamer at trader joe's next.

last night my roommate finished making this big floor cushion she's been working on and i helped her with it! we cut up clothes i was going to donate for the stuffing which was perfect. it's the right amount of stuffed and now i don't have to part with these things that i've cared about. i have such a connection to my clothes and it's hard to get rid of them even when i don't really wear them anymore. i had this blue flannel that i rescued from my neighbor's house after he died. this was at my parents' house in the country, it was some dude i never met because he didn't really live there. he just used the house as a dumping grounds for his hoarding spoils. he went to auctions and thrift stores all day and amassed a truly remarkable collection of items that we got to go through when we helped the family clean up. off the top of my head, he had at least 20 cars in various states of disarray and 50 lawnmowers lined up neatly on the lawn. i remember seeing a somewhat sultry ronald reagan calendar and a street sign that said "beanie baby way" that i regret not taking. anyways, he had a lot of men's clothes from the 70's that i got to pick through. that constituted a lot of my wardrobe in the latter half of college. one of the items i still had was this big blue flannel that i would wear to play frisbee in the cold. it looks hideous on me, just textbook Too Big. but it holds good memories for me, cleaning out that bizarre house with my family and snow frisbee with my friends. so we cut it up and put it in the cushion and i feel good about that.

1.27 2

just found out how to post pics on here yesterday. yall are gonna be sick of me

1.27

last night i was talking about mr. beast with my brother and my mom overheard us and said "who is this? where does he live?" as if we were talking about our mutual friend Mr. Beast

some good things:

a book i requested from the library in october finally came in and it was worth the wait

i received 3 letters in the mail today

one had a wax seal on the envelope and was written fully in cursive

i had a stomachache before lunch and ate cafeteria fries and apple juice & it

healed me completely

my friends and i thought we accidentally ingested 200mg from miscalculating dosage of infused coconut oil on friday and for a second i thought i was going to have a life changing high (negative) but we recalculated and it was more like 4mg. i've been waking up every day grateful that i didn't get mind melted that night

tschuss LA wildfires benefit on thursday!

busiest work week i've had since i started this job...feeling highkey employed

1.26

host last night banned watches and changed his outfit every hour on the hour. hilarious bit

1.25

returning to my roots tonight (going to a house party alone)

1.24 2

tweet i just saw: "it's wild that david foster wallace saw basic cable television c. 1991 and immediately realized the existential risk of always on video entertainment, he was getting oneshotted by being able to watch a colorized version of stagecoach at 11am"

hateee the term oneshotted but yeah

1.24

updates from me:

-trying a blue bottle new orleans style iced coffee in a milk carton right now

-i've started picking up my cat right when i get home to trick her into liking being held. she needs more affection and attention than most cats (to put it nicely) so this is hopefully a win win

-i bought loop earplugs, the ones with 3 settings so i can wear them to concerts and to the movies to drown out talking and popcorn noises yayyy

-got a serious project at work so now i feel like i actually have a job yayyy

-bought my mom an electric kettle because she's been really into tea for the last couple years but i just found out at christmas that she just microwaves the water? so i'm about to change her life

-switched from bigelow english breakfast tea to yorkshire gold tea and it's huge. and the yorkshire one is cheaper which is crazy. i've started to understand english people, i have like 2-3 cups a day. i kinda prefer the lower caffeine situation and i can have it at any point in the day, this is the first time i've had coffee in awhile and it feels a bit intense

-i made cute valentines for my friends last night and it was so fun! gabe made this cute paper heart accordion style book and wrote sweet things on each page because she is a creative genius!

-we made a movie spinner to decide what we would watch with our friends and it was so cute. i love being friends with elementary school teachers, i freaking love a craft and an activity

1.23

at my friends house like ok yeah yeah can we watch Beast games now

it feels absurd to watch because it is a terrible show but it is so hard to take your eyes off of. i realized last night that it has to be sponsored by the us military in some way. there’s no other way they’d be getting that much money from what, venture capitalists? corporate sponsors? tmobile is a huge advertiser on the show but do they really have billions of dollars to give away like that? there were some parts that made us shoot out of our seats, copaganda etc. it just kinda has weird subliminal messaging and when you know it’s going out to truly The Masses it’s kind of chilling

rewatching some episodes of beast games right now which sounds literally insane but i can't stop thinking about it

i read a twitter thread this morning about the bird flu and how it is so contagious and fatal that it will be so much worse than covid both in terms of actual suffering and denial from the public. beast games is half prisoner's dilemma type games which reveals some wisdom re: the psychology of betrayal to me. upon our first watch we joked that all the contestants feel like people you went to high school with, or random coworkers. true laypeople. that's part of why it feels information rich maybe. it illustrates the concept from econ 101 that all participants in the market are self interested, all acting in a way they presume is best for them as a whole. you're able to see the decision making process occur in real time, and i feel like i'm getting valuable information on how individuals make choices within a group under pressure. like the thought process and also the patterns we can observe of the people of ~these times~ of hyperindividualism and whatnot. like do people generally tend to be more selfish and opt for betrayal or are most people faithful/self sacrificing. but of course there is also the pressure of doing the right thing on the world's biggest stage. imdb states that beast games garnered 50 million views in the first 25 days of airing, making it the #1 unscripted series of all time. some people will go out of their way to make a charitable move in order to look noble to the world. it is a different story as to whether a hypothetical individual who has an exposure to bird flu will choose to self isolate or continue to work and socialize, given that no one knows they might have had an exposure.

rewatching this kind of thing reminds me of the part in Although of course you end up becoming yourself where david lipsky and david wallace are in minneapolis with some friends and are watching tv on the couch after the infinite jest reading. something that's well established is that DFW loves tv. like doesn't have one in his house because he couldn't get anything done once he turns it on. gets completely sucked into it. they watch a movie together and almost everyone is yawning and trying to keep their eyes open besides wallace. once it ends he says "how about another one?" and they all acquiesce because of his enthusiasm. they end up watching a 2 and a half hour long Bible epic about sodom and gomorrah. that's how i feel with my friends about beast games only. i usually feel kind of ashamed of my tv watching ability. i can't really be consistent enough to watch a whole series show and i tend to get up and wander around towards the end of an episode. but this kind of thing enthralls me, it gives me so much to think about that i just want to keep going, far past anyone else's capacity for the sleep-deprived dramatics or corny graphics. but it makes me understand the concept of The Entertainment in infinite jest a bit more, this crazy politically-charged slop that's fatally engaging.

1.21

ex's birthday today and my costar says "tell them you're thinking of them". you can't be talking like that white baby

there's this sighswoon post from like 2015 that has been in my head recently

"bought this expensive magazine and haven't even read it

i guess the sky isn't falling

i guess gold is the coolest thing

and being super into something or even obsessed

with it brings life down to a manageable scale"

i am echoing mothbaby's previous statement "i think i'm gonna get really into movies this year". it's really fun to follow the oscar race and it takes up a lot of time. i listen to several different podcasts now that talk about the current movie discourse. i'm also addicted to reading my book! i turned down a dinner party invite on saturday because i wanted to catch up on my page count. which sounds cooler than it actually is. it was a fifth wheel situation and that's kind of uninteresting to me at this point. i used to tag along with couples a lot and i didn't mind but now it's kind of annoying to me for some reason. i think it's a sign that i'm divesting from the "you need to be in a relationship" mindset that i've grown up with. now it all seems kind of strange to me. i was talking about this with sydney yesterday, how i don't feel this way about long standing couples but with new relationships i'm like can you please move..

anyways i try to read at least 15 pages a day and i cross off the day on a hand drawn calendar when i've completed it. doing these things has made life feel more manageable!

1.20

typing this during the trailers before The Last Showgirl. i don’t think i’m going to quit my job anymore, at least until my one year in may. my in person days are 8 hours of hanging out with my best friend, and the wfh days are unlimited reading time. if i stay on top of a schedule and go to the library during the day it could actually be a really good time. i feel like i’m finally coming out of my winter depression somewhat.

i couldn’t sleep last night and read an entire book while i waited to feel tired. i ended up falling asleep with my lamp on and turning it off an hour before i got up. i love when that happens, i think it makes me sleep better. i think i’m gonna do it tonight on purpose and report back my quality of sleep. try to contain your excitement!

1.19

tiktok gone last night then back again today “thanks to president trump’s efforts” …

most obvious propaganda ever. can they please just ban it for good. a clean break would’ve been so much better

saw sing sing tonight…haven’t cried that hard in a theater in awhile. there was an obnoxious old couple talking almost the whole time and the other five of us in the theater took turns shushing them. it was electric, how a group of strangers can team up against a common enemy

also in light of the brutalist drama i think that colman domingo should win the oscar no question. but i don’t even think he’ll get nominated and i’m getting worked up just thinking about it

1.18

alamo season pass is the best investment ever...i’ve been two days in a row and i’ll probably go tomorrow? or maybe i’ll see sing sing or the last showgirl which alamo isn’t playing. hate how busy it is though, it’s been hard to find parking and i have to walk a long way to the theater. it’s kind of nice though, nickel boys was really intense and it was good to process it in the cold dark walk to my car. im really in a january groove rn, it’s fun to try to watch all the awards season buzz movies and i have a big book that i’ve been hacking away at every day. every time i leave somewhere i look forward to getting back to my book. best feeling in the world

1.16

how to say i love mr. beast games and think it's genuinely fascinating as both an anthropological study and entertaining tv show without sounding stupid..

i've been making english breakfast tea which is the base for boba and i realized that the nice rubbery taste of boba comes from the tea, not the tapioca pearls. i've been putting maple brown sugar oat milk creamer in it and it literally tastes like boba from corner 17 without the pearls. which i get sick of really quickly tbh, i only want to eat like 8 and then i'm done

fellow underemployed friend coming over to hang during my wfh…could be huge for the program

1.15

going over to a friend's house today to watch Mr. Beast Games. my coworker told me on Monday that an old high school classmate was on that show and it made me sort of curious about it. i wondered if she could ask him whether or not Mr. Beast has an evil aura in real life but she said she hasn't talked to him in years so that's not the kind of question she can just ask. which is fair enough. i thought of just turning it on to satisfy my curiosity but i'm genuinely concerned watching it alone would put me in a terrifying depressive place. and watching it with my friends sounds fun and funny. sooo yeah

whole foods has a sale on kombucha, they’re 2.70 each :)

1.12

have been having a hard time leaving my house recently bc i've been enjoying myself so much there. i could barely focus at church today because i couldn't wait to go back home and read my book

i did go /out/ on friday with my friends and i had a really nice time. in the car we all took turns singing what we thought were the correct lyrics to father figure by george michael and every single person was wrong. we bought champagne from walgreens and then smoked in the parking lot. i left the window open to air out the car and we listened to father figure on the way to the bar in silence. you could tell everyone was contemplating the song deeply. when it ended we all said ...woah. very powerful stuff. i love when a song is recontextualized. i used to hear that song growing up and it just sounded like 80's fodder that my parents loved but now i love it too. my lyric flub was that i thought it was "i will be your bottom feeder" instead of the titular phrase. later we smoked weed that my friend buys from a sketchy food mart and it reminded me of kirksville weed, which i've been missing recently. we walked through the snow a lot, from apartment to bar to apartment back to bar. i felt really happy, walking in a straight line with my friends like that. thanking the line leader for squashing down the snow to make a path for us. someone i want to be close with said "emma, i consider you my real friend" and i reciprocated, of course

today i'm washing my sheets and this evening i'll go see better man, my first movie on my new alamo season pass. i'm going into work tomorrow for the first time in almost 2 weeks. im excited to see my best friend but i've cultivated a shyness from being home so much that i'm worried i'll tire out quickly. we'll see!

1.9

we have these 2 water bottles floating around the house that have been bothering me. they take up space and i had no real use for them, but im morally opposed to just drinking one in my house for no reason? spiritually negative item i think. so i used one for my coffee this morning and it brings me no pleasure to admit that it tastes really good

1.8

hi @grace :D

1.7

watching the half blood prince with my roommate! that’s what i love about having a roommate, they always put on something you would never think to watch and it ends up being so enjoyable

1.6

thinking about how i was diligently reading infinite jest (i think 15 pages a day) this time last year. one friday night i had read my pages and then almost immediately greened out in my bedroom. i remember thinking that it was maybe a bad idea to be reading the magnum opus of a man who killed himself. upon further review i've learned that i was wrong about this! or at least i've changed my mind. in Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself they talk about how he took an experimental antidepressant for decades that was very effective. eventually he stopped taking this medicine and could never fully get back on the wagon. he tried other stuff but he just kind of succombed to this thing that had been mostly in the background, which i find relatable. i think i had assumed he was this deep brooding depressive that would infiltrate my brain, but now that i've read more of him i really misunderstood his whole deal. and honestly that was a stupid paranoid high thought that i never really challenged. i think it's really hard for me to recognize my own ocd behaviors but i'm trying to get better at it! i will probably pick back up on reading IJ again at some point but i hope to move in silence about it. i have collected many other books to read first. need to prioritize the DFW book i borrowed from mothbaby's house on new years. i really respect and admire the way they emphasized "but i want it back! i am bad at returning loaned books and other people are too!" or something like that. that's part of the reason why i've stopped lending out my books, bc i never get them back! mothbaby i will never do you like that.

one of my favorite life hacks is that you can go to the library any time you want, grab some things that look interesting, and then just take them home for free. and you can take as many as you want. if you feel the urge to buy something, you should just go to the library because it fulfills that urge. i have a stack of books on the floor by my desk and i love just looking through them, it gets me really excited. if i don't feel like reading i just take an inventory of what's floating around my house and then i feel reinspired. i am kinda flirting with the idea of getting into literary fiction this year bc i am mostly a nonfiction person. i at least need to switch it up to every other so i can get through things faster. even though Holding Pattern was bad i flew through it and i enjoyed myself while reading. very cool

my roommate decided to get snowed in at her boyfriend's house which has kinda been nice. the night before the snow i started feeling my body get involuntarily slow. i had all these plans for saturday night and i didn't do any of them because i wanted to be in my house! which is really unlike me. i've been floating around my house in silence and mostly enjoying myself. it feels like a lapse in real life. i feel like i will be stuck here forever kinda? but i have a lot of books and a lot of movies i want to watch and i eat the same two meals over and over and it tastes amazing. i'm glad i'm feeling this way!

1.4

had a beautifully simple day yesterday and went to bed like :D

i went to a show at the doorknob and one of the bands covered chores by feeble little horse and it had that bassist that looks like mj lenderman x ivy wolk..he’s so famous to me

i think i’ve talked myself into getting an alamo season pass. i paid $20 to see the brutalist on opening night which is literally the cost of the season pass. so that’s exciting

1.2

i maintain that i do not think my house is haunted, just doesn't have that vibe, but the past couple nights i've been hearing an animal moving kind of sound in the house when my cat is right next to me. the other night i heard the sound of an animal getting up and running, and then last night i heard my door pawed at and then creak open even though i could hear fran snoring on my jeans on the floor. it doesn't freak me out really idk why

1.1

hi flounder :)

seeing nosferatu today