03282024.

bristle in my throat

something terrible has happened

there's a bristle

in my throat

yes

from the toothbrush i've been using since i got back from chicago

i forgot to pack a toothbrush for that trip

it was late at night by the time i realized

don't worry, gabby the nematode said. we can

gopuff it

so they conjured a gopuff order

for a corner store nearby

there was a $12 minimum or something

strawberry popsicles

bread

candy

some other stuff

and a pack of toothbrushes

i noticed the bristle problem early on

but i just spit them out

made a mental note every morning to get a new toothbrush

i already had a pack of two in the

cabinet!!!!

i must have spit out two bristles a day for the past

two weeks

some days i would find one in my gums

the bristles are thin

the nerve endings in my mouth barely register them

and in my throat the sensation is faint, infuriating

i can feel it moving

it started out in the right side

right before i fell asleep it was more on the left

this afternoon it is back where it started

i have gulped water

and meals

i have insisted to myself that it's

NOT

THERE. THE BRISTLE IS

NOT THERE.

but i know it is

i can feel it

"surely, by the laws of gravity..."

said nigel the coworker.

surely

what are you here to teach me,

bristle in my throat?

do you want to go down?

do you want to come up?

well you can't stay here

in my throat

the larynx is my problem

never the esophagus

please

spare the esophagus

to my esophagus:

we will get through this

or rather,

it will get through us

we will get it through

please

esophagize

esophagize like you've never esophagized before

blocked

it scared the shit out of me you know

to see your name in my DMs

after four months

what could he have to say

i wondered

JUST KIDDING

you have never had anything to say

it was a meme

"thought you would enjoy this"

i had seen it three times already. even the first time i would not describe my experience as "enjoyment"

anyways

i replied

and then you didn't

it is always like this

you start the conversation

with no intention of having a conversation at all

WHAT IS HE THINKING?

i demand of my cohabitant

HASN'T HE CONSIDERED THE EFFECTS

OF REACHING OUT TO AN ESTRANGED EX

WITH NOTHING TO SAY?

WHY DIDN'T HE STOP AND THINK

WHY AM I DOING THIS?

AND

HOW WILL IT MAKE HER FEEL?

the cohabitant continues washing the dishes

he blinks

he says something sensical and soothing, probably something

he has said before,

because it is always like this

i waited until this afternoon

i added up the hours

he could have been sleeping for the past 12 hours, i reasoned

but then i remembered

that i am not in love with this person anymore

and that i don't have to wait

i mean the whole point, the whole breakup was about how

i didn't want to wait anymore

besides i'm already in touch with one white ex

and i think that's enough

shoutout nick

you're still my favorite

MJ131 Apr 28, 2014

"Thank you for responding. I am shocked to say that my symptoms have gone away. I do not have pain in my throat nor do I feel the sensation of the bristle anymore. I don't know if this means it was absorbed by the skin or mucus or what have you, or if it was just a scratch or something. Either way, I am thrilled and feel as though my life has been given a second chance. I will take your advice with me to the doc on this Wednesday. Thank you for taking the time to help people in this way. It really does mean a lot." (medhelp.org)

03262024. hey flounder

i am really not feeling like work today or like anything!!!! scream

problemista was really good. THE DATABASES ARE OUT OF SYNC

i haven't really touched school the past couple days except to make sure i hadn't ignored any specific messages/requests. it just suddenly doesn't feel important lol but i will tune in again soon. it is spring break so maybe it's ok

feeling weird and stiff today

i remember reading a kind of insane post on the spasmodic dysphonia subreddit where someone was like i cured my SD by externalizing all of my internal aggression ahaha...maybe they are onto something though

i am planning to attend a sunday service there is a church like a 2 minute walk from my apartment that just recently entered my awareness i'm just curious...

bleh bleh bleh anyways

finished noam chomsky + ilan pappe on palestine today will probably need to reread sections

i wish i wasn't so scared of everything

nice moment

*when [coworker i worked closely with when i first started, before she switched departments] asked if i would be part of a DEI thing. she said she remembered me having a lot to say at a strategic planning meeting last year. "i remember being impressed because you were still so new at that point." i didn't think anyone remembered or really cared haha except for [coworker who did my job interview who doesn't work here anymore] <3 that was nice

i have been feeling called to visit champaign. reason 1 i need a haircut and i only trust eunice of juno hair champaign. reason 2 [champaign friend who never texts me] texted me today. reason 3 i miss D we called on sunday. reason 4 idk i feel like leaving. for a little bit

during lunch walked in circles around the outdoor enclosure. it was quite cold, i was bundled and listening to donny hathaway. my eyes are soo dry today. just kind of uncomfortable in a lot of small ways that are restraining my mood

ENT nurse replied to my message, she said they are "willing to work with me" but idk what that means in the context of what i said. appreciated i guess

if i get one more champaign sign i will plan a trip for may

thinking of backing out of the 4/20 gig. i am not feeling "called" to do it. i am borrowing this language from the instagram christians

03252024. good morning flounder

i caffeinated with G yesterday before work <3 i like talking with them, they are comfortable with silence, i can take time before answers / in between utterances without them tensing and hurrying to fill the space (this is what [] does and it stresses me out, sometimes i just give up and let him do his thing)

trying to decide if i should go to a movie or do school tonight

03232024. good morning flounder

it is my work weekend

i woke up experiencing flashbacks to my last laryngeal botox injection which sucked. i was thinking of getting another one soon but idk now

anyways

ariana grande "we can't be friends" covered in FACGCE tuning. the results are astounding

03222024. hey flounder

new SiR album oh yeaaahhhh

bro they are laughing sooo loudly at the coffee shop

03202024.

having: a weird time

i like my outfit today. G said it's giving working professional but ready to escape, like, ooh, where's she going after this. amazing comment

voice: symptomatic

^ i think i may be experiencing """allergies""" which may be making the normal symptoms worse. i am not usually affected by """allergies""" so idk...

i can't write here about the thing i actually need to write / make a decision about because the writing would be ugly and embarrassing which should really tell me all i need to know lol

i am too weary to agonize

at the coffee shop with hot vanilla latte fighting sleep

03182024. good morning

difficulty of wakeup 4/5

gaining sentience

my eyes are so dry i keep involuntarily slamming them shut which gives me the facial expression of an upset person / a person experiencing pain

trying to have a better week than i did last week

satisfying job moment

a woman had asked coworker how to do something. he showed her, in his fast detached way, she was like ok thanks. she came back later, to me this time, and asked how to do the same task. i went really slow. at the end i asked her to do it so i could make sure it made sense. she was like i get it now :D

trying to decide if i should go to open mic tonight my weekly dilemma

03172024. once again disturbed by how irritated i am by the sound of laughter in public places

03162024. hey flounder

bleh

today is full of dissonance

i have been dating someone since december and lately it's like he can never say the right thing. he responds to everything in an agreeable way but it doesn't sit right a lot of the time. sometimes his replies feel auto-generated or like he just hears keywords and offers something related but not connected. like today when i mentioned people drinking in the library and how it is challenging to address. he was like, i feel like there are better places to get drunk lol. i was like yeah but maybe not if you're homeless. he was like hmm true...and then said something about how our culture has normalized binge drinking but not smoking weed blah blah. like sure i guess but what are we talking about rn. and then i forget what i was trying to say in the first place because he's already rerouted the conversation to whatever talking point he had stored away. also we all know you have a troubled relationship with weed, and that is your business you don't have to justify it by booing alcohol. like how did this turn into me listening to your tired points about why weed good alcohol bad. idk what i really want from people in conversation though, i just know when it feels good and when it doesn't. i do think i experience conversational discomfort at a higher than normal rate though. like i am obsessed with getting meaningful feedback and followup about my ideas

03152024. hey flounder

not doing so good! lol

03142024. hello flounder

alioop i read your love is blind thoughts!!! i came on here to tell you that after watching the reunion i feel more tenderly towards clay and resonate more with your reading of him. i was mostly rageful after the finale but i thought he communicated in an earnest and urgent way at the reunion and it touched my heart in a small way. i was not expecting things to start off with such hostility with the jeramey and sarah ann stuff lol. i expected to hear more from chelsea and jimmy. overall it did what a reunion episode should do, i think

had such a long day

good things:

the high school student from china who came in to get her visa photos taken. i took a bunch for free because she wanted to try different hairstyles don't tell anyone. i asked if she had come to the u.s. with family, she was like no just me, i was like you're brave, she was like, it wasn't my choice :) anyways we gabbed. she is a queen

and then a couple from india came in with a tiny baby, it was their first time at the lib. they were like, you're so nice, i was like, i love you please don't leave, jk i didn't say that

there were bad things too but i will keep them inside for now....

omfg i still have the do the dishes

noo

03122024. hello flounder

back at work...too warm in here wish i was outside. still i am steadily sipping mugs of hot water to prepare for all the customer servicing my voice will have to do today

i barely thought about my voice this weekend (relatively speaking) which was relieving. around family my voice increases in both breaks and volume. i was reminded of the sound of my unmasked disordered voice. normally i am producing a weird masked, tensed version of it. i have been thinking about scheduling another botox injection but i am playing a show on 4/20 and i don't think my voice would heal in time to sing

just did a passport appointment with a fun white family that travels a lot. the first question out of the dad's mouth was "where did you get your jade?" which surprised me because no one asks that and i kind of forgot i was wearing it. i told them it's my mom's from HK and they said "jade always has a story" omg lol. i handed the credit card to the dad with both hands just out of semi-cultural habit and he said "sorry i forgot" because he gave it to me with one hand lol. then they started quizzing their kids for me: "do you know how you would say thank you to her if you were in hong kong?" they were like uh....xie xie? which was closer than i thought they would get, i taught them thank you in cantonese which seemed to delight the parents #enjoyableexotification

can't go anywhere with [] there are always like three random people who know him. still i am glad we took the walk to coffee during break, i am in a better mood now, and the recognitions were funny, especially the last one which involved a woman stopping as she crossed to street to point at him and shout, DJ! DJ!

03092024. good morning flounder

in chicago

trying to enjoy

i am enjoying but whenever i am not home my mood becomes really sensitive to stupid things like if my hair is greasy or if pimple

03072024. good morning flounder

alioop re: love is blind the new episode was some of the most heartbreaking reality tv i have EVER seen........here are some clay quotes ******LIB EP 12 SPOILER ALERT******

*"i became a better man dealing with you" THIS WAS PART OF THE VOWS BTW. he said this over and over again, in different ways, during the whole show. gross

*"my heart is like, beating"

*"i know you'll fight for me" -- spoken with confidence AFTER saying no at the altar

*"at the end of the day, eternity is forever" .......

an AD quote

*"i feel like a sacrifice. you learned so much about yourself and you used me to do it"

poor baby was so heartbroken she could barely speak

i've been listening to this radio show on the college radio here. i haven't kept track of the days but it's usually on when i'm driving to my study spot after work/dinner and sometimes when i'm driving home afterwards. it's three girls and i think they're funny. it is comforting

03062024. good morning flounder

difficulty of wakeup 3/5...an hour earlier than usual because today is a class day. which means i clock out an hour early but stay here to log into zoom class. which is what i did yesterday

came to work in the closest thing to pajamas as i felt was acceptable. i thought briefly about calling in. i'm glad i didn't because [only other coworker who shares my morning responsibilities] called in so i suddenly became important for like 20 minutes

thinking about how 90% of the love is blind men's first utterance after proposing was LET'S GOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

hello flounder (8:29pm) so tired i could cry. still might

they're playing neyo at the coffee shop....it's gonna be ok....

^ SECONDS after typing this the barista hit skip and put on some passion pit sounding thing.....it is not gonna be ok.....

wait now they're playing 2000s avril lavigne.....it IS gonna be ok.....

03052024. hello flounder

difficulty of wakeup 2/5

keep thinking about [] blehhhh. stop

03042024. good morning flounder

too warm

difficulty of wakeup 1/5

having the on the edge of tears feeling not in the hopeless way

E left her yerba mate and her little gourd, i am going to drink it and miss her

i can feel myself drifting! how to return? just do my homework i think

hey flounder (10:12pm)

at the coffee shop, the one that is always full of undergrads. where do the grad students study? i would ask reddit but i don't think they would be nice

gonna edit the nick hakim wikipedia entry, there's nothing about the newest album

this cafe has two sections. the other one is cozier and plays music with words, and the lighting is weirdly too dim but also harsh. this section is brighter with bigger tables and plays lofi to study to. neither vibe is great but this one makes more sense to me

i didn't go to open mic tonight, i have a feeling D didn't either, i think something is weird with us right now, and i think we are both aware. no one sent the "where are you?" text

today i remembered [cursed ex from summer 2023]. we hung out at this coffee shop a couple times, outside on the patio. i remember he said something like about how he appreciated that silence was just as important / special to our conversations as the words. i thought this was really sweet at the time. it is actually exactly the type of thing i like to hear from a partner or friend. the warming weather is making me think of summer a lot. summer 2023 was crazy. all i did was drink coffee, sweat, fall in love, cry

03032024. hello flounder

at the cafe with a vanilla latte being the woman from the reductress headline who has never denied herself anything

watched a good documentary today, left the theater with a dreamy feeling

said bye to E and A, neither for long

class registration opens tuesday 3/5 at 11:30 bluet do not forget.

sometimes when i go for a little while without being depressed or heartbroken, i start to get anxious because it feels like i've lost touch with a part of myself. i felt most me when i was very lonely in a new city right after college. it was not good

*****LOVE IS BLIND SPOILER ALERT NOT REALLY THOUGH BUT JUST IN CASE*****

chelsea and jimmy continue to exhaust me. they remind me of my relationship with [] if i had been worse and if [] had been better. ken is the biggest disappointment of the season because wtf. or maybe jeramey. all the shots of the men fucking around on their phones while their partners sit nearby waiting to be engaged with fill me with dread and make me want to be on my phone less

*****END OF LOVE IS BLIND DISCUSSION*****

03022024. hello flounder

at the cafe with a matcha latte soon (i think) to be joined by D

someone near me is coding something and there are a lot of colors going on. that is all i know

i finished two papers yesterday, one about downsizing and one comparing HTML and MARC, i didn't really see the point of either to me personally, but it was interesting to read and write about these random things

i should've brought a book

i don't have much to say right now this is just part of my settling into a cafe routine

difficulty of wakeup today: 2/5

E arrives in the evening

03012024. hello march

alioop thank you for teaching me the word marginalia

re: feeling zoomed-in i think it was like...the narrative voice felt like it was inside my head...and the narrators+characters were extremely sensitive to each other...so it was like a lot of lenses pointed towards each other...idk!

here is a passage. it is something that one of the characters has written about the other, and now the subject (dorothy) is reading it

>dorothy is a huge woman, who floats with the slow grace of the always fat in airy, gaudy single-cloth garments of indeterminate nature. her face is intelligent, and her emotional intensity rises from her like a force field. in conversation, she is incisive, and she displays an acute sensitivity to nuance and an uncanny ability to read a situation emotionally by scanning the minutia of expressions and gestures that frame it. when she talks of the early days of the Definitist meetings, she does so in symbolic, mythological terms...when she discusses the split between Bradley and Granite she is like a child talking about her parents' divorce a month after it happened...

so all week when i was interacting with and observing people it kind of sounded like this in my head. and i was also kind of noting my own actions in a similar way. it was weird!!

here is the marginalia btw. i think they are phrases lifted from various places in the book but i'm not sure because i don't remember reading these phrases and many of them are not grammatical. it's all written like this in a block on the last page

>memorys remains

>a rosary electrical haloed

>clinging to beautys circling flotsam in the violent energy roiled ocean

>rosary necklace of emotional muzak

>hard boned erotic ferocity

>dying in the attempt

>an exchange of promises, stretched scream

>a wound wrapped

>nourishment flows from your mouth

>lunge into pain

>resonate supplication

>freedoms black emptiness

>between the here before us

>dead heated air cleft

>cloud swallowed heart