︎︎︎

March 21, 2024

I need to read more fiction.

One of the things that kept me sane during tree planting was the lack of internet or cell service.

Sometimes, in the forest, you think of a word or a concept and have this intense craving to know all about it and look it up and implement it in your own life, but you can’t, so you just invent a definition for it.

Someone used the word “bucolic” yesterday. I’m trying to exercise self-control and just allow myself to wonder what it means, even though I’m on the internet, right here, right now.

Possible meanings of the word “bucolic:”

•  a type of disease that a baby would come down with that would force you to isolate them in a bubble, and they would have a lot of mucous coming out of their nose. 
• A way of describing a person who is large and round.
• A way of describing a friendship that has become sour
• A quality of foods that are slightly salty and soft to bite into
• A vague musty smell that is ultimately a little gross but reminds you of some time and place you haven’t thought about in a while
• Firm pliability
• Slipperiness due to being covered in soap
• Something sad but poignant that will become a cherished memory
• Shyness
• Warm brown

Recently, I’ve been feeling this heavy and thick tension in the air all around me. It kind of creates a physical sensation, like my arms and legs are slowly drudging through some kind of atmospheric mucous. I can’t make sudden movements. The pressure in my chest is palpable, like the outward and inward forces of my being are at war.

I went to the the dentist and he took some x-rays of my head. I could see the bright silhouettes of my jewelery and the dark crater where my brain is supposed to be.  There’s something so embarrassing about looking at a photo of your own empty head. How could I ever have any secrets?

I take medication for my anxiety, but sometimes it gets really, really bad.

Recently it’s been hard to manage. I look over my shoulder repeatedly when I’m walking.  I worry that my friends will die. At home I feel like my room is shrinking and I am growing, and my spine and shoulders will soon press against 3 walls and that I will never be able to leave.

It‘s probably hard for everyone to live normally right now. I want to be a good person and pay attention to the news but it’s horrible. I was on my phone today looking for a distraction and I saw a video of a father shaking the dead body of his child towards a troupe of soldiers. The child’s head was just rolling around his shoulders. The bereaved father was screaming and spit was flying out of his mouth and his eyes looked like something I have never seen. What is there to say? I saw another video last week and it made me throw up.  

I don’t really have a thesis for this blog post. All day I was kind of envisioning myself turning my own unrest into some spectacular piece of prose, but when I got down to it all I could muster were recollections of the dentist and of images of war. I was thinking about all this insightful non fiction I’ve been reading, or all of these artists I’ve been inspired by, but for today, I guess we’re stuck with the human experience.

March 1 2024

I walk past this house all the time.

Basically every day I take the same walking route. It’s not because I don’t like variety. I like watching subtle change. I feel like such a voyeur a lot  of the time, even though I generally do not know what my subjects look like or anything about them.

This place always stands out to me. Under a certain influence I could imagine myself being inclined to knock on the door. It’s one of the plainer houses in the area and it’s not decorated with any particular finesse (Through the front window, I can see a desk from the LACK collection from IKEA and a correspondingly plain office chair) but it maintains a kind of balance between chaos and order that really sings to me. I’ve never seen them, but I would love to spot someone  smoking weed at that little table.

I have this kind of imaginary universe for the people in this house. I feel like they belong to Generation X. They have a lot of clutter and a good capacity to allow their plants to flourish. They’ve been in that house for at least as long as I’ve lived in Vancouver, but probably much longer. I don’t want to say too much about their love lives , out of respect for their privacy. But I will reveal my thoughts, out of respect for your curiosity.

One thing you can’t tell from the picture is that this house is not delightfully tiny and square, it is delightfully tall and narrow, because it is on the face of a steep hill. If you look down, you can see side entrances that are portals to probably totally different types of people. I don’t know anything about those ones.