void98 / juhi ♫(　-_･) ︻デ═一  ▸

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032225

🎵 Gaga's new album, Relationships by HAIM, choke enough by Oklou

I yearn to worm; the worm yearns for me. i’m trying to be more deliberate with my words. I’m trying not to waste them out loud.
San Francisco feels like a foreign object: at Yamo, I make eye contact with a stranger, a handsome man at the counter. I’m convinced I recognize him, just like the group of three that walks up for a table, and the girl in the snazzy leather coat who passes me on the street. I’ve been gone for too long (25 days, to be exact) and in a stupor I wonder if everyone in the city knows my name.
No one does, to clarify. And as I stand in the throng at The Lab, a storied experimental music venue open (TIL) since 1984, I realize how many slices of the scene there are that I have never laid eyes on. That I haven’t even ever heard a whisper about, not in the narrow streets, not on the passing fog. I feel swanky with my +1, but I am yet green to San Francisco and its myriad secrets, its buried corners.
I’m coming off a whirlwind week, says ChatGPT. “Breakup brink, emotional rollercoaster, deep vulnerability, a grounding friend trip, re-connection, tenderness, food, a record 5K (!), and now you're here.” Now I am here indeed. In bed, in a cotton kimono from Goa, with residual tummy issues and an oddly resilient nervous system. I think about peace: I felt it today, baking a turkey pot pie. I felt it yesterday, painting my mural on the wall. I felt it the day before, running to the beach. To have an empty day, with nothing in front of you demanding your attention, nothing trailing behind you with the weight of obligation, is a peculiar kind of freedom I have not afforded to myself in recent memory. I sat on the couch as the sun refused to set and thought, “well, what do I do now?” Returning from India to a blank calendar was nothing short of a gift.
I’m protective of the peace. Earlier today, I balked at the idea of going to to the Mission. To reinsert myself into the social tumult of urban life seemed too much to bear. “I am happy at home, with my strawberries and chocolate. I am happy at home with my tulsi honey chamomile tea.” I felt like I stepped into another woman’s costume. I watched Tarta Relena, the duo I wrote about in my column this month. I wore clothes befitting me, but also the persona I have crafted for myself. I observed the venue and the audience. I felt it natural to be there, to assume my role. My peace felt faraway, and yet I was fine. ‘This is how the tumbleweed starts,’ I thought. Important to preserve the peace, set boundaries. You don’t have to be everyone’s all the time. The art will be created, the project will be completed, the meaning will be made only when I am mine.

In Big Sur, we faced a comedy of errors: the firewood was stolen, the logs we foraged were wet, the wicks of the candles were too short, the joint fell in one of them. We chalked it up to Mercury and Venus in retrograde. We drove down the 1, three girls, enjoying each other and the Pacific, wildflowers and the crisp spring air. To be 27 is a particular time, just like being 24, and probably being 32. I relish it for what it is: all the frivolity of youth, with all the wisdom of age.

with Kaesha, I went to a crypto guy's personal arcade in Potrero Hill. I drank Ito en and played DDR. a story for another time.

030925

I drag myself by the fingernails to my keyboard to worm. not out of any sense of obligation to the cause but begrudgingly, because Dr. ChatGPT said some form of creative release could help assuage my mental and physical illness. weak in the limbs from a spell of projectile vomiting and diarrhea, weak in the mind from the unnatural experience of expulsion as well as the disintegration of my relationship, I sit in the harbor suite at the taj palace in a state of alternating terror and ennui. outside, the birds circle. they're the kind of birds you draw like \/. they circle relentlessly in the heavy air, pulsing with humidity. throngs of ordinary folk gather in front of the gateway of india — a small gate for such a large country — to get a photo in front of the scaffolding. my mom lays in bed after her own bout of vomiting, almost entirely convincing me that we are not meant for this country any longer. a banana makes my stomach go gurgurugurgur. a toast does the same. I look in the mirror and think I look good – "skinny queen." I wonder if having finished Jennette mccurdy's memoir will trigger disordered eating patterns. the mirror might just be warped –I would do that if I were to open a luxury heritage hotel in Mumbai. the sky has a pale gradient — blue to yellow to pink, with a deep undercurrent of smog. we discuss going to colaba causeway while my mom sleeps. at once I must leave this room and distract my weary mind and also I cannot fathom stepping out into the big bright chaotic world. I read old worms and feel that I have become jaded, lost my brightness. I smile wryly at depictions of my old love(s), both a blessing and a curse to have elucidated them in such great detail so early on. to reflect on them brings me sorrow but also confirmation, that what once was no longer is, and in that truth there is a solace. if I die on this trip, will someone tell my boyfriend?

030425

Ella beseeches me to worm, and so I try.
I write from a rocking chair at my cousin's apartment in goa, in a village called bambolim. I rocked so much that I feel unsteady, my stomach gurgles with emergent nausea. in my tummy are pastries from padaria prezeres, a local Portuguese bakery that people line up for early in the tourist season; given that we have left that behind, as well as any semblance of a pleasant temperature, the place is comparatively empty. in Goa there is a mix of Portuguese colonial architecture and leafy but derelict bungalows, Coca Cola signs, cashew vendors sitting on mangroves. palm trees abound, as well as the sounds of tropical birds, all backlit by a hazy sky, a dim horizon. the fan runs constantly in this apartment, cooling the intolerable humidity. I struggle to elucidate how I feel here—one moment paranoid, the other frustrated, the other elated, the other totally disassociated. February was a month of stress, save for a restful weekend in miami. my coping skills—developed through years of DBT—are truly being put to the test, but I think I can say I'm coming out on top. I wish for a spell of good news in April: my world turns on an email. I await Susan miller's march horoscope like a koi on the boardwalk.

earlier, I walked to the pool at the Hyatt residences, and heard music blasting from a nearby balcony. the song was crazy frog.

(it was time for the history to go to a separate page)
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