07/06, Saturday
This was something of a weird day. J, T, J’s roommate, and I went to the scent museum. It was generally cool to smell lots of things but it’s still hard for me to interact with T in a way that is satisfying to me and completely without fear. I’d like to try smelling some perfumes / colognes and wearing them in the future.
T and I then chatted, and I tried to communicate my angsts and difficulties within our relationship, which was good and felt somewhat good to do, though of course he didn’t respond in a particularly satisfying way. It was enlightening to some extent, and I’m glad he has some understanding of this and through this, that I’ve freed myself of some amount of responsibility (by sharing info). I really do hope things get better, but I am a bit scared and I don’t enjoy this insecurity and anxiety I feel around him. I wonder if it’s partly because one way I was propping up my ego was with this idea that I was particularly (“objectively”) interesting to those I interact with, but this guy is kinda interesting-maxxing and so I just cannot feel this way and then ow.
We got ramen w/ A and it was ok, and then we went back to A’s house and did something. I was still feeling negative emotion, but later stopped feeling this way and had some nice moments. I remember recounting some cute, boyish thing about how I pee standing up, which I liked a lot to exorcise any shame surrounding this and come to love myself for it. We talked other stuff and I held A and T’s hands, this was nice. I also got pretty excited and wired and this was entertaining. T told me about Small Hours via S and this made me feel nice in part, and he sent me some playlist he’d made around this, that I want to listen to soon. Overall I felt cared for and somewhat important in this period and it was nice.
07/07, Sunday
I had a lazy Sunday with A and enjoyed it a lot. I don’t often just do nothing and nap and all. We had some pretty good brisket and were surprised by it. I enjoyed playing ping pong w/ A at the brisket place too b/c she was good enough to volley but I also experienced no pressure and could play with smooth and fancy strokes (some aesthetic pleasure + pleasure at being in control). I want to play ping pong more often.
We watched Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs and it was good. He unfolds his (meaningless) story in a very compelling way and the actors act so specifically and it’s nice, this particularity.
It was good to see J in the morning, but frankly I was too tired to be at a museum or to socialize with her.
I’ve been enjoying Lispector’s early stories a lot because they’re much easier to parse than her novels but still have her odd style and cutting messages. I’m sensing a theme through this set and it is compelling.
07/08, Monday
I felt pretty bad upon waking up and for most of the day because I felt irresponsible – this tension between my internal life and my work life. When work life is the core, all is well responsibility / anxiety-wise; but when I spend enough time in the everything else, as I did this weekend, and I really enjoy it, I want that to be the core. But this impulse quickly begins to compromise my work life and then negative emotions set in. Balance is necessary because these two things are pretty orthogonal currently.
I’m also feeling stressed at how many (social) things I’m committing to, and I want to do them, but they come at the detriment of personal time and routine and sometimes productivity (being locked in to work as core).
I went climbing though and felt much better during adn after. I want to remember how much I can enjoy exercise, especially when it’s in the right amounts – meaning not too much, controllably pushing myself, w/ some sense of accomplishment. I did a few cool routs I didn’t expect to do, two that were a lot of legs and balance that was initially unintuitive to me. I’m also starting to learn to rotate my torso, which feels nice and exciting. I got to see T too and he’s been helping me learn to do some things and how to approach routes and certainly is making climbing more accessible and fun for me. I also notice my mental health and mood quickly deteriorate when I am lacking routine and exercise.
Before this, I had a surprisingly good pork banh mi at DragonEats–super juicy in a way that’s uncommon for banh mis but definitely pleasant.
I’m going to sleep soon, and wake up without an alarm, and I’m looking forward to having a productive and structured day of work tomorrow. I may call A, though I’m not sure I should – there is much time to be spent alone queue’d up in me, and I also have been wanting and meaning to call S for an abnormally long while.
07/09, Tuesday
I spent a lot of time thinking for research today, but didn’t feel like I made a ton of concrete progress. I’m wanting to learn about causal inference though and so started engaging with this and in my mind excitement and curiosity are always wins, so logging that.
I climbed again, and was surprised that I wanted to and that I enjoyed it. A bunch of routes just clicked for me and were suddenly easy and this was super cool and gratifying to experience. At the end, I was struggling to position myself properly on this white V2, and after several tries hacked it together, and then redid it calmly once more and it came together so much more gracefully. I’d like to do that a bit, this revisiting and solidifying. I was watching a pretty good climber do this on low level climbs but he moved so beautifully that: I loved it.
I called A today, and I was expecting it to be alright, but then it was actually pretty good and open for the later part and I stayed up way later than I intended (like 3am). I’m upset with myself for letting this happen, but I was also enjoying myself a lot in a way I haven’t felt in a while, so I don’t quite blame myself. Things seemed to fall out pretty calmly, you’re free!, and I felt free in response.
This morning, I am stressed and tired and not enjoying my decision.
07/10, Wednesday
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