12/1/24 -Big news in the world!! In a rush of activity, Kitsch and I toured an apartment, applied, paid the deposit, and soon we'll be signing the lease--we may even get the keys tomorrow. This is much quicker than we ever anticipated, but the apartment was beautiful. While we stood outside waiting for the property manager to meet us, we looked up and down the stonework and the lattices of dense, dormant ivy and the flickering lanterns and it felt like a fantastical dream. There was a man reading a classical book and smoking a cigarette in the courtyard. I kept telling myself: "don't fall in love, don't fall in love, don't fall in love with this place." And, well. You know how that went. I expected Kitsch to like it less than I did--they maybe liked it more. While I chatted with the manager, they took more laps around the place, peeking into all the rooms. We've been in high spirits ever since. We're planning what everything will look like and where our things will go. I feel heady and light, like I'm about to get married.
Not much else in the world. Work is going well, though I'm behind on some freelance tasks, which I'll want to stay on top of for the time being. I'm packing up my things at the house I currently live in. My mom bought me a flight home for the upcoming winter holiday, so I have even less time to move out than I thought I might. And Kitsch and I are going to a concert tonight. I didn't get any sleep, so I'm not really looking forward to it. But I'll put on a brave face and maybe stay until 10:30pm or so.
11/23/24 -I'm in the middle of a six-day work week, and pretty tired. Currently working the 8-4, and J and TA and I are sitting in the lounge, talking about food, sleep, and everything. It's about time to feed the kids lunch, but I don't know if the pork will be done on time. None of this likely means anything to you (whoever you are). After work, I'm meeting Kitsch near the train station, since we get off work at the same time, then I think I'll take a nap. I got about 4 hours of sleep last night.
My antibiotics are fucking me up, as they always do, and piquing my anxiety in strange ways. Last night before bed I thought I was floating away or dying. Felt like a bad trip. Now I'm alright, just pretty nauseous and out of it. Two more days of meds to go.
I read Mindbridge by Joe Haldeman yesterday--I started it as I boarded the bus to get to work, and finished it about an hour and a half before work ended. A great book; I'll write up a review of it on my Alien Fiction page eventually. Immediately after finishing, I started CJ Cherryh's Hestia, which is a shorter book, but one I feel may take a bit longer to chew down. I like having so much downtime to read and hang at work, but I need to get better at prioritizing my to-do's. My freelance work has been suffering unduly, despite all the time on my hands. I'm thinking about quitting my last freelance job; but it depends on what my first paycheck looks like from my in-person role at the end of this month.
We've been really chatty this morning since I "clocked in;" now J is on his laptop and I'm on mine and TA is off somewhere doing her own thing, so it's quite for the first time in several hours. I feel overstimulated and warmly welcome the silence (apart from the clicking of my keyboard keys, of course, which is hard to muffle. I took my keyboard protector off, which means the sound is louder than it used to be. Sorry, J).
What will I do tonight? After napping, of course. Probably draw a bit with Kitsch, maybe see our friend. It's hard to think I have work again tomorrow at the same time--and the day after that, and after that, too. Sigh. I'll be glad when it's holiday break and I can finally rest, then I'll have a regular schedule again. No more overtime. Phew.
11/19/24 -The last few days have been hectic. Yesterday, I spent most of the daylight sleeping. I was in the ER from 1:30am to about 7:00am, got home around 7:30am, hit the hay until 1:00pm. Kitsch and I ordered food, ate, then slept some more, until about 6:00pm. It was a chill day apart from the fucked-up ER visit.
I still hurt a lot. They put me on painkillers in the ER, but didn't prescribe me any to take home, so I've just been rolling through Tylenol. I'm watching an old TLC television series from the 90s called "Amazing Space" while waiting to go to work, waiting for a bad storm to roll into my part of the country. I think Kitsch and I might watch Saw tonight. It was a hyperfixation of mine for a while, now it seems it's a hyperfixation of theirs! We also might not watch Saw. Maybe we'll just sleep. That would be okay, too.
I'm thinking about maybe opening up my Alien Updates pages to Sci Fi and space exploration in general. I'd really love to know more about our solar system, and the galaxy, and the universe beyond it. When Kitsch and I get our own apartment, I may even invest in a decent, middle-grade telescope, if we have a balcony or an outdoor space.
11/17/24 -Still not much to report. I want to do more with my website, and I probably will soon. Oh, speaking of which--I should update my Alien page. I have a book I read recently.
At work now, and I've just been on my computer and listening to my coworkers and wards, lightly chatting. TA and J are in the office now, talking about badminton, but before now we were talking about horror movies, the Hunger Games, all kinds of things. Later, we're going to play Outlast in the Fishbowl (which is like our lounge area). I'm getting paid to do all this. I still feel like I'm trying to catch up, socially, in this role. Most of all, my job requires being friendly and trying to make friends, which are two things that I categorically and historically suck at. But it's nice to have an opportunity to get better, I guess, even if it's hard for me.
Tomorrow, I wake up early to go volunteer at the art store, and I think Kitsch is coming, too, so we can grab groceries afterward. I'm looking forward to having a place together so I can just wake up and ask if they want to join me whenever I do things. We won't have to plan everything in advance anymore, we'll just be able to say "hey, do you wanna do this with me?" or "I'm going to the store" and then do it. Soon, I'll have enough money to regularly stock groceries and weed and stuff, too, which will also change things radically for us. The dignity of being able to dependably. One day, one day.
11/14/24 -Trying to stay in the journaling habit is hard lately. I had good intentions, I set expectations, then they fall away. I've been sitting at the front desk at work for a good long time now, listening to my coworkers have their easy conversations with the teens in our care, thinking about how hard it is and has been for me to do things and feel confidently about them (except when it comes to loving Kitsch, I feel that is the one area of my life I feel absolutely secure in, sure of--they said the other day, something about how the love they feel for me has the same feelings as creating or writing does, something they get a lot of self-satisfaction out of, something they feel is a constant collaborative process of creation, something, something, and I've been thinking about that a lot, too, and I think it's true for me, too, and maybe that's why I feel so displaced from my creative labors nowadays, because I've found the thing that I was striving toward in all my creative labors, I've finally found the Creative Project that will endlessly sustain me until I die, the thing I never get sick of laboring for, and it's love, y'know, that sounds tacky, I know, but it's true). I'm quite tired. I will probably step away to make some coffee now.
Made the coffee. It's cold in here. The walls are thin and the windows are antique, some of them maybe original to the building. I sit at the door for several hours and I buzz people in. I handle difficult conversations. I read CJ Cherryh's novella The Scapegoat yesterday at work, then finished it at Kitsch's apartment. We called off hanging with Jade but ran into her while she was taking out her garbage and chatted for a bit, which was nice; Kitsch and I had smoked nearly two joints and were pretty slobbered, and later we walked to my house for food and heat, and smoked another joint and a half, which means I'm out of joints, which means I'm officially starting a t-break, probably until Friendsgiving. The Scapegoat was about friendships, peace, and war, but it was really actually about a grenade. I read most of it while standing in a Zara in the mall, waiting for one of my wards to try on a bunch of clothes she supposedly wanted to gift to a friend. At a certain point, she fell out of my line of vision, I guess I just wasn't paying close enough attention, and I had to wander around Zara like a mom looking for her daughter, asking if anyone had seen a so-and-so about so-and-so high with so-and-so hair. I found her eventually and she seemed disappointed in me for seeking her out. She didn't talk to me as much on the way back as she did on the way there. This job seems to mostly be about social dexterity: reading rooms, losing kids, then finding them. Knowing when to break a rule. Knowing when to do nothing (doing nothing while waiting for kids or counting kids is most of the job). We have an endless supply of medicine here. I am going to take some Tums and Tylenol with my coffee, since I have cramps. I don't want to be drinking coffee. I want to go to bed. I want to wrap up in blankets in a bed with Kitsch. I want to dream. I want to dream. I want to dream.
11/13/24 -It's been a while since I updated. I started a new job yesterday, and it's kept me fairly busy on top of all my other freelance work. It's raining a lot where I live. Unfortunately, due to the nature of my work (I work with students), I probably won't be able to talk about the details much at all here, but it's really fun, despite being a bit out of my comfort zone. I miss spending so much time with Kitsch. I forgot to set my alarm this morning, and was very upset to see that it was past time to wake up when I finally checked my phone, because it meant I had to leave their bed and go out into the world alone. Later today, I'm taking a student to an appointment, and I get to sit for a long time, and I think I'm just going to bring a book and get paid to read. After work, I think it'll be me and Jade and Kitsch. I have some work to do, but I think I want to draw instead while they play Terraria together.
11/8/24 - I'm catsitting for my friend today in a different neighborhood. It's been more than a year since I've seen him or his cat, Nico. When I arrived, the curtains were thrown open and I could see from the outside that he'd left bird videos on the television for Nico while he was gone, and he'd rearranged his entire apartment; it looks much nicer than it used to. Though, I guess when I used to sit for him, he'd only recently moved in, and a lot of his stuff was still in boxes. Nico is nice and does a little dance whenever he gets fed, which means it's always exciting to feed him.
So far today, I looked at more apartments with Kitsch, and we tried scheduling a few tours. I refilled my prescriptions, which I really should've done way long ago, before it was so necessary. I signed my offer letter from my new employer and bought a cheap freezer pizza and store-brand cookies for later tonight. This house has two porches, which means I'll get to choose which balcony to smoke on tonight. How luxurious...
11/7/24 - The world turns as usual. I went to volunteer today at the nonprofit; I've gone each week for a few months now. It was the first time I'd been out in public since the news broke about Trump's election, and it was fairly jarring, though a nice setting to onboard into. Everyone was on the same page, and I sorted donations of coloring supplies while listening to podcasts.
Today, I've been cleaning fastidiously. I finished my write-up on MUFON over in Alien Updates just a moment ago, though it feels half-baked. Kitsch wanted some company on their break at work, so I biked down, and we realized together that we're going to have to move in together much sooner than we anticipated. Since we live in a blue state and a leftist area, we foresee rent going up as waves of marginalized folks migrate out here during the initial months of Trump's presidency. I love Kitsch dearly, and I've been looking forward to this moment for so long, but I'm still really anxious about it. I didn't expect us to move in together under these circumstances. I was sadder than I thought I'd be when I came home and told my roommates. I really love my house and the community that exists here. I think I'll look back on this year of my life and see that I had something really special with this room and these people and this place, even if it was sometimes hard for me to navigate.
Kitsch gets off work soon, and we're going to look at apartments online and maybe schedule some tours. My sort-of roommate, Bugs, says it's harder to find housing in winter, but it's not like we have a choice. Band practice is tonight, so my other roommate's girlfriend's band is practicing their new songs. They're a two-piece band that sings punk songs about women's rights. I like their music quite a lot. I'd share it with you, but they don't have any of their recordings available yet.
I also got a job offer from the school I interviewed with a few days ago. Technically, they offered me the job yesterday. I said yes, of course. It will maybe be my job for the next four years. Funny thought, that.
11/6/24 - What to even say. I'm updating today because I need to set a precedent for myself, not necessarily because I have any thoughts about our situation that haven't already been spoken into air. I'm disappointed and terrible afraid. I miss my loved ones back in Ohio. I'm in a blue state, but I'm under no delusions that this grants me any protection from federal polity. I'm grateful I got out of Ohio when I did. I'm grateful for my partner, and their friends, which are becoming my friends, too. Last night, we watched our movie, and afterward some folks wanted to go to a tavern. I didn't want to go. It was approaching midnight and I felt sick to my stomach. I walked along while they shared a blunt and at the bar they took a long time tryin to decide what drinks to order. It was one of those old-American joints, y'know, with the wooden booths chalked-up in former drinkers' etchings. I was already a little out of my mind and my eyes kept wandering to the bar, and the bartender, and our eyes kept meeting, and their eyes looked black with grief as they stopped everything they were doing between orders to watch the tv mounted about their station. I couldn't focus on the words being exchanged around the table or the smells of the place. They had a DJ playing loud reggae and it vibrated and bounced in my brain. Almost everyone I know takes medications to survive. Almost everyone I know exists under the poverty line. My mental health has been atrocious this year; so bad, in fact, that I'm unsure how I'll live if any of my rights get rolled back. The fact that I have to say that: "rolled back," as if my mortality and rights were a poster you could put back into a tube and hide under the "democratic" bed.
What to even say? That the bed got shitted many centuries ago. We've never had a true democracy. The rot we wake up to is nothing new, just a confirmation of what we've always known: other human beings hate us, or are so indifferent toward our very existences that they're willing to barter our lives away for the comfortable sense of superiority and power they want to maintain. This might be the next four years, it may be the next eight, or it may be the rest of our lives. I never expected to have to have the fortitude to bear this in my lifetime. I don't have the fortitude, and I don't want to bear it. What will I do? I don't know. I will sit in this bedroom while my partner is sleeping. I will look out the window. I will feel a stronger iteration of the same despair that has plagued me my entire adult life. I will feel sorry for all the young people who had no say in this, who now must wake up to a world we continue to ruin for them. I will grieve. I will not hope. It feels silly to hope right now. I can't even imagine what it must feel like to wake up in good spirits today; if you are one of those people, leave this page and never return again.
The morning has been chilly. The winter cold took hold sometime yesterday, and it almost smells like snow, but there is a clean blue sky. I can't see it because there's a skyrise in the way, but the skyrise has windows: I can see the sky reflected in them. Tomorrow will be a different day with different weather. I will continue to pay attention to it, to everything, and report back to you what I can: nobody can tell me I'm not allowed to do that. No matter what happens, we can watch, we can pay attention, even when it's hard, and they won't be able to do a damn thing about it.
11/5/24 -Well, it's election day. I've been dreading this day for a while now, in abstract. Kitsch and I are watching a movie with friends tonight to blow off steam: Killer Condom. We've already watched it before, but our friends haven't. It's fun, but there's a bit of transmisogyny, which is upsetting. I was walking back from Kitsch's apartment this morning and got an email from the place I interviewed with yesterday asking for references and a background check, which is probably a good sign, right?
I've been putting off responding to one of my freelance bosses for some time now, waiting for a job to come through. Truthfully, I don't want to work for her anymore. I think the work I do under her leadership takes advantage of pretty lonely people--writers without communities of their own, mostly older people with retirement funds to spare. I've been having a hard time engaging with the editorial work I'm responsible for. I think art's intersections with capitalism has me pretty jaded and exhausted. I never want to make money on my work, because the people I tend to write for don't have much money to begin with, and capitalism has already taken so much from them. Queer, working-class and impoverished people, largely, from rural or semi-rural backgrounds. I think a lot of my friends and family in Ohio and whether most of them would even understand the types of things I'm up to now. I fear I'm getting further and further from my roots. Last night, I went on a walk and saw an oak bookcase lining the back wall of someone's living room through their window. There were no curtains and the overhead light fixture cast a diffuse gold glow over the wood, the reading chair, everything it touched. There was no one in the room but the gentle intentions and turn-turning of humanity radiated like a heat lamp over a basking rock. I should probably respond to that email today. I plan on doing it in an hour or so, when I head over to Jade's house to play Job Applications with her. Jade lives in Kitsch's apartment building, so I'll probably (hopefully) go to their place afterward, and continue to work on my website's design a bit. I'm beginning to understand cascading style sheets a bit more.
I'll maybe update more later, as the day continues. Earlier, I was eating a bagel and setting aside some ramen for dinner at Kitsch's place, and dreaming of what I'll buy when I have the money to make a real grocery trip. I hope I hear about that job offer soon.
11/4/24 - I just got back from a job interview about an hour ago, and I've been working on designing the alien pages for my website. I think the interview went a bit funny, but I also suspect this feeling likely stems from the fact that I am not entirely normal in the head. There was also a mix-up, because I was supposed to get a tour, but nobody at the front desk was told I was getting a tour, and everyone seemed a bit inconvenienced by my asking for one. I hope I get a job offer before the end of tomorrow. I'm running a bit low on funds of money and hope, and I worry about what will happen if I go much longer without steady work.
On a less serious note, I've been watching a lot of documentaries from the 70s. The voices of the narrators are so soothing. As I right this, there's one on about Noah's Ark. I don't believe in the religiously-affiliated Noah's Ark, but I'm always fascinated by the lengths folks will go to in order to circumnavigate truth and confirm their own belief systems. It's clear whoever wrote and produced this film was fairly desperate to show that their notion about the Ark was historical, when it's clear to anyone capable of thinking critically about evidence (especially when that evidence happens to intersect with a personal value or idealogy) that most of these arguments are fallible, fabricated, or made in bad faith. But it's still such a gorgeous film; perfect background noise.
Tonight, I want to watch an alien movie or delve into scientific explorations of the possibility of life on other planets. It occurred to me while riding the bus this morning that, if any life exists on other planets, it's probably far more aesthetically interesting than depictions in pop culture. I'd like to know what experts have to say on the matter.
For now, I'm waiting... Waiting on an email from this potential employer, waiting for texts from friends, waiting to hear from Kitsch about when they want to see me this afternoon, waiting to muster up the energy to go make lunch...Maybe I'll have more for you later, but that's all for right now. It's a beautiful day here in the PNW. All morning it rained hard; I had the window open so I wouldn't smell like weed smoke (though I moved my interview outfit to the stairwell closet outside my room...just in case) and I could hear the big drops hitting the gutter like so many pearls scattering from a broken choker. I picked up my umbrella from Kitsch's apartment before my interview, but I didn't end up needing it. It hangs on a hook on my closet door now, impotent, also waiting. Shaping up to be a sunny day. I'll probably walk while I smoke tonight.
11/3/24 - Today I made my first header, which is just an image centered above everything else...I don't know how to use CSS to design the page layout yet, and I'm too anxious to try it out on my own.
Yesterday, Kitsch and I went to the aquarium with our dear friend Jade. We got in for free, thanks to the local library's museum waivers. I loved looking at the jellyfish, because jellyfish are some of the world's most alien creatures. They look galactically inspired, anyway. Before the aquarium, Kitsch and I went to Short Run Comics Fair and bought a VHS tape about an alien baby and I bough ta few dog prints for my dog wall from an artist I really admire, Sam Hensley. After the aquarium, we took the train, and Jade and I talked about the fish we liked. She liked this brown, leathery fish that lurked on the bottom of the Underwater Dome. It looked kinda like a puppy but I can't remember its name, so I can't link a picture of it here. Kitsch and I got off the train early so we could run a few errands. When we got back to my place, we smoked and played Halo. I felt mostly really happy all day, which is a big accomplishment for me.
Today, we looked at apartments on Craigslist in the morning, and then they went home. I'm in my room at FTPC now (that's my house), and our cat, Dog, is sleeping on my bed, so I'm using the chair. Downstairs, our couchsurfer and former roommate, Bugs, is fixing the PA system and the effects pedals with his friend, Blue. They're making lots of ambient noise and it's pretty good, it feels a bit like the entire house is submerged in heavy water.
11/2/24 - HI MY NAME IS RARE! I'm a dog or a collie! I don't know how to make a website anymore, because I got old and forgot all the HTML I learned when I was a pup in Kindergarten. I am old enough that if I was a real dog, I'd definitely be dead, so I'm glad I'm in this human-body, so I can live to love another day.
My magefriend (which is like a boyfriend or girlfriend, but a wizsard) wanted me to have a site and offered to teach me how to build and maintain it. I really love the idea of us both having a website, a little like playing with a ball or a rope in a big, beautiful field of green grasses and dandelions and stuff like that. I think they are the best thing that has ever happened to me, and not just because they're more technologically capable and have more patience for this stuff than I do. Their name is Kitsch. Everything about them is nifty as hell. Visit KITSCH at their TOME DEPORT!!
