3.23

yesterday morning i woke up at 6:30am naturally because i was so nervous excited about my party. i forced myself to stay in bed until my alarm (7am) and i thought about what all i needed to do while watching the sunrise with fran. this morning i woke up at 4:30am and laughed and smiled about everything that happened yesterday. waking up naturally early feels childlike in a nice way

i labeled everything yesterday because that’s how i like things at parties and alexis (dressed as a tennis ball) said “oh should we label the puzzle too? how are they gonna know it’s a puzzle”

but that is my party philosophy! most people are timid at other people’s houses so you have to set up everything so that it’s clear that it’s for them. if something is still in a wrapper it’s going to make people feel like they’re not allowed to unwrap it. me labelling my speech scroll on the table was a bit much though, i’ll give her that

costume contest awards:

best dressed: rhi as joelle

most exciting: idi as eric clipperton and sabrina as (consider the) lobster

most thoughtful: sydney as jesse eisenberg

as david lipsky in the end of the tour, the film adaptation of although of course you end up becoming yourself

goated: ray and andrew as supernation O.N.A.N. president Johnny Gentle and vice president Rodney Tine Sr. respectively

most faithful depiction: xander as director/physicist james incandenza, liam as microwave head james incandenza

best couples costume: gabe as the entertainment and alex as the medical attaché, the first victim of the entertainment

i talked to my neighbor in the laundry room yesterday morning and was like oh by the way we’re having a little party outside today! and she said oh that’s fun! and then later gabe ran into her while wearing a full length gown and a cardboard box painted as a tv on her head and i was like “oh i forgot to tell her it was a costume party”

3.22 2

need to start taking things seriously. my crush said “okay you should probably go” as i was in the kitchen griddying

feeling like i hosted the march madness of four square

we listened to heavy metal by cameron winter and the new horsegirl album each twice tonight idgaf. and if you get sydney out in four square i will find a reason why you’re wrong

and there were 3 ortho stices tonight. did anyone predict that

today i was like “i’m gonna laugh today the most i’ve ever laughed in my life” and my friends made fun of me but i meant it

3.22

writing my infinite jest party speech

3.21

went over to r's last night and while watching beast games they told me a little boy ghost lives in their house and i burst into tears immediately. ghost stuff has always made me tear up, even when i'm the one telling the story. ghosts don't really mess with me though, i think i'm one of those people that they choose to avoid which i've always appreciated. jenny slate talks a lot about how ghosts are drawn to her so she's always seeing them and i feel so bad for her! i got really scared when r said they talk to him & see him in the doorway between the bedroom and living room. we decided that if we died now we would pass onto the next thing but if we had died as children we would be ghosts for sure. i wonder if most people feel that way, that they grew up feeling so unsettled that they couldn't pass peacefully. we went dancing next door afterwards and i could still feel the dried tears on my face

r got a mini tarot deck and i think they have a real talent for it. it reminded me of a reading from fortune teller, it's that good. i got the hermit as how i've been recently and the fool for what's coming next. so true

roommate is on spring break so we've been hanging out on my work from home days and it's lit actually. i really regret being annoyed at her on here, i think i was being cowardly by bitching about it instead of talking to her. ppl can be touchy about their relationships so i try not to mention it at all anymore but i know that i can trust her with a conversation like this and she would be understanding and helpful. and she is so good about gently asking me to load the dishwasher differently and things of that sort, so i feel like she deserves that from me. and i don't even feel annoyed at the boyfriend anymore, things actually feel normal again and we've all hung out a couple times and it was fun. they have a really awesome IJ couples costume for this weekend and when we were all trying our outfits on together i was like aww you guys :') i love u!!! i need to be more tolerant of quiet men probably. i was a profoundly shy kid growing up and i would blush almost any time someone talked to me in public so i should have more grace. however in some cases i am right! i really love the quote from orson welles talking about woody allen, i think all of my friends have heard me mention it so often that we just have to say "orson welles woody allen" and it's understood. it goes as follows:

"I hate Woody Allen physically; I dislike that kind of man. Oh yes, I can hardly bear to talk to him. He has the Chaplin disease. That particular combination of arrogance and timidity sets my teeth on edge."

Jaglom countered Welles' assertions, suggesting that Allen was a shy man and, therefore, surely couldn't be labeled as arrogant. "He is arrogant," Welles persisted in retort. "Like all people with timid personalities, his arrogance is unlimited. Anybody who speaks quietly and shrivels up in company is unbelievably arrogant. He acts shy, but he's not. He's scared. He hates himself, and he loves himself, a very tense situation. It's people like me who have to carry on and pretend to be modest."

i really think that is true of some people and not others. there are certain pure hearted shy men that i mark as innocent, and i think roommate's boyfriend is one of them. i'm going to try to make more of an effort to be friends with him because i've heard him talking on the phone and he's got jokes. sometimes im in my room laughing along with them

3.20

historians will say she was in her bag

last night my dad and brother played in a staff vs students basketball game and there was a middle schooler named my exact name but with an s on the end. when her name got announced as a starting player it felt like a dream where i didn't know i was supposed to be playing

reading intermezzo with march madness multigame view playing on the tv. as god intended

3.19

didn't steam my shirt for work today and feeling insecure about it

my job this week is infinite jest costume consultant. so far everyone has picked something different and corresponding to their personality which is exciting. i'm reading a thesis paper about james incandenza right now to get further intel. i wonder what i will talk about when this is over. on saturday someone made me a limoncello cocktail and i said "woah this tastes like lemon pledge! in a good way. the tennis players use that as sunscreen in infinite jest" but no one was fucking with that tidbit. they said what is lemon pledge

3.18 2

:/

3.18

went to pupdog01's special weekly gathering last night and had an amazing time...it's an extremely cool event and i can't wait to get my 4 visits card. free jukebox is awesome too. outside we were yelled at by a man in a car driving by about enjoying our monday too much (?) to the point where he turned the car around to drive by yell at us more. but all we could make out was him saying "monday!!!!!!"

R brought aesop's fables to the bar and we used it to do tarot outside (rip fortune teller). i went first and thought about {redacted} and then everyone tried to guess what i was thinking about based on the parable i got. i don't know the name of it but it boiled down to "use the strengths you have to create an open community that includes everyone" which i thought was apt because that is like, the main thing i care about right now

3.17

realized this morning i'll be 25 in one exactly month. which means that some of my personality traits have definitely solidified and i'll most likely be a clothes on the floor person forever

sydney's brother logged eyes wide shut as a 3.5 stars on letterboxd today and we called him about it immediately and he said “why, should it be lower?”

there's this drew monson video where he's talking about his pill addiction and he says that when he couldn't get certain ones filled he would look at pictures of the pills on google. and i've been doing that with food i'm craving. i look at everything and make a fake order and then close out my tab. the sushi ai website hates to see me coming

does anyone have a copy of magic art of tidying up i can borrow? i’m going to read the spark joy chapter to alexis before we do a big spring clean tomorrow. she has dyslexia so i read my flounder posts to her sometimes. last night she picked up one of my poems and said “did you make this!” and i said “yeah but i don’t know if it’s good or not!” and she replied “well i guess we’ll never know”

3.16

went to a local candy store for infinite jest related treats and experienced profound generosity and kindness. the owner kept coming up with brilliant ideas and i was following after her holding my head saying “you’re a genius! you’re literally a genius”

remembering that i talked to someone about david dobrik and how he’s buff now for a minimum of twenty minutes last night. the conversation kept coming back to that somehow

i basically had the busiest 24 hours anyone’s ever had yesterday. but it was really perfect, there wasn’t one minute where i wasn’t having fun. but my cat got very lonely so it’s a hold her while i cook kind of day. i’m the prime example of you can’t eat at just anyone’s house

my friend from college texted me the other day about joining me on my trip to france this summer and then going along to ireland with her afterwards. i’m putting off looking into changing my ticket because i think it will be very expensive but i cannot pass up on the experience. we’re meeting our other friend who’s doing fulbright in germany in the south of france and it’s going to be lit! we all did frisbee together in college so we’ve travelled together a million times and they’re some of my favorite people in the world. they were both captains of the team and poli sci majors so they’re very organized and on top of things which is ideal. i’m really thrilled to go to europe with people i actually know. last year i did a big trip where i met up with a tour group of like 20 australians and we went to 6 countries and it was wonderful and sort of lonely. it was cool to be completely anonymous and uninhibited because i will literally never see any of those people ever again and how i acted had no consequence. i would go off on my own during the day and do what i wanted and then go out partying at night with them. it was mostly surface level friendships with everyone but i will say that australians are amazingggg partiers. on the last night of the tour i stayed at a different place from everyone in amsterdam and it felt very cool to be walking alone across town to meet my friends. and i wonder if i’ll ever experience anything like that again. i did it mostly as an introduction to everything so that i could go off on my own in the future and i think that was a smart move in hindsight. but i think it will be more meaningful to go with people that i’ve known for a long time, i really trust them and think we’ll be compatible while navigating a foreign place

3.15

thoughts on cold plunge: it’s cold in there

3.13

it has been friday for 3 days

volunteered with my church group tonight and i enjoyed myself. my church has the highest concentration of lesbians i’ve ever seen in my life and that is really saying something considering the spaces i frequent

3.12 2

i’m so happy to see bluet here again, last week i was thinking about how much i miss reading their posts

3.12

watched almost all the horsegirl music videos last night, they're so cool to me. the world of pots and pans lyric video is one of my favorites but i'm biased because they say my name so much in that song. when i saw that song live i felt sooo special

had a turkey gouda apple sandwich today from the work dining hall and ate it outside in the sun! i've always loved cafeteria food, when i was in college my friends always said "emma uses her meal plan more than anyone i know"

tonight is the first night in several days that i don't have any obligations and i'm really excited. i think i'm gonna go to trader joes because i'm seeing my mom this weekend and she likes to try new types of chai tea and they have a new spicy one right now. then when i get home i'll go on a long walk and listen to music and plan my party in my head. i'm almost done with the Infinite Jest Party document which has actually been very fun to write. sometimes i forget that i care very deeply things in the real world because my job makes me feel so passive

3.11

visiting the lavender farm i used to work at this weekend with my friends and then we're going swimming at my parents house in the country! at my funeral they will say "she knew how to curate the perfect saturday"

3.10

having a great day at work! the bosses took a small group of us out to lunch and i tried sushi for the first time. i'm kind of squeamish about meat but i thought it was good! i probably wouldn't get it on my own but fun experience. there wasn't too much work to do and i had so much to tell sydney from this weekend and we went on a walk in the beautiful sunshine in the afternoon. i'm still sore from pickleball but when i get home from work i'm going to go on a walk & talk to my friend will on the phone. anyone else feeling literally amazing???

3.9 2

having a hard time deciding…originally was going to go to baltimore with friend but then i thought she couldn’t come anymore so i started looking forward to going alone. but now she actually really wants to come but i’m nervous about it. i need to decide soon what i want but it’s hard to tell how i’ll be feeling in april. right now it sounds awesome to be alone and do my own thing. i really like going to shows alone, i just talk to random people and it’s easier to do that when it’s just you. but i travel alone a lot and it could be really fun to go with someone. and i’m going to the netherlands fr alone this summer so maybe i should change it up. but i’m worried about getting tired of being around her nonstop because i get really irritable if i feel stuck with someone. it’s not her personally, it’s more me i’m worried about. i haven’t really traveled with anyone since college with my roommate and that was easy because we were so used to being around each other all the time. maybe it would be healing for me to do that because i want to practice being more vulnerable. i’m very much not a hugger and i hate feeling out of control. i think that’s why i loved the piano teacher so much, it reminds me of all the women in my family. harsh and controlling and repressed. i told a friend that it was kind of healing for me to see that sort of dynamic on screen and alexis said “guys i watched the same movie and that is a crazy thing to say” which was funny but it’s giving me a lot to think about. god i love that movie. i’ve been thinking about if i rented out the arkadin theater like idi did, what would i play. and i considered the piano teacher bc it feels so profound to me but i think that’s really not the vibe. my answer right now is some boys dont leave short film as the opener and then the worst person in the world. i don’t really rewatch movies much but that one i could rewatch indefinitely

3.9

last night during dinner we were like “let’s make tonight an episode of the real L word :3” and then it actually really was. but it’s funny that all the main dramas in my life are happening at public dances. sometimes conflict is hard for me because i think a wizard put a curse on me where what i say has to feel 100% true or else i feel uneasy. i don’t really want to get into too much but an extra sensitive new friend had one of my friends confront me last night about being standoffish at international womens day rave bc i was a little more quiet than usual and that made them anxious and think that i hate them (?) and i was like oh sorry i thought i was normal? and i was trying to dance and be regular after watching a freaky ass femcel movie im sorryyyyy im sorry im sorry. i just don’t like people who are so anxious that you constantly have to reassure them that you like them or are interpreting your actions as a sign of how you feel about them on a larger scale constantly. and i wish they had just asked me if i was okay in the moment instead of sending someone to accuse me of being impolite at the club the next day when they’re not even there to do it themselves. it is frustrating when someone is so self involved that they confuse your interiority for a judgment on them. it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy! i don’t want to be scrutinized so heavily, so that makes me not like them as much which is what they’re afraid of. and i think it’s insulting a little bit bc i feel like it’s clear when i like someone and when i don’t? like i don’t really talk to people i don’t fw. and this is someone i’ve hung out with like 3 times before like okay let’s just chill!!!!! i know where she’s coming from but you just can’t act like that. or at least it’s not a vibe i’m very compelled by. i’m seeing it as a “the people to be most frightened of is the people who are the most frightened” type of situation. but i apologized for my demeanor and after that discussion everything was normal again and it was maybe the best time i’ve had at tschüss. afterwards rhi made us fried rice and when it was ready alexis sydney and i were all curled up asleep on the same couch. i woke up at 5am and drove home and slept through church which i feel bad about but not too bad. then i had to go pick up my hungover friends in the afternoon and drive them back to their cars. it was a dire situation unfortunately, to the point of actually being really funny. i woke up to a phone call saying “emma everyone is puking and shitting can you come pick us up” which of course was so enticing i couldn’t resist. but i’m glad i did it, i ended up laughing and having fun. alexis and i are gonna see mickey 17 tonight and then white lotus after. please chime in with any times i’ve seemed weird in great detail <3 thanks!!

3.8 2

showered after pickleball and now getting ready for tschüss at alexis’s house with rhi and sydney! i feel like i’m on vacation. you know how when you’re so tired after a day of vacation in the sun and then you shower and have dinner and you feel like you’re floating. that’s what’s going on right now

3.8

went on my first 3 hour walk of the year yesterday and it was beautiful! they let me clock out at 3pm for employee appreciation day too which made it even better. i feel like i have so much on my mind, i’ve been preferring to be alone recently so i can think

played pickleball with church people for like 3 hours today at tilles park, im walking back from that now. church people don’t play about pickleball, we had some real ballers out there. at one point i was convinced we were playing the most intense pickleball game in st louis at that moment in time. i love racquet sports, i never get tired of it. my body always wears out before i’m ready to stop playing. i think everyone in my family is way more competitive than the average person bc people are always surprised at how much i love to play a game and take it seriously. as if it isn’t one of life’s purest treasures!!! and pickleball being so popular is a huge win for me because i always want to play tennis and pickleball is close enough to scratch the itch. but i digress. i thrifted a really nice red white and blue tommy hilfiger sporty jacket today for $5 and i wore it to pickleball and it looked like i was representing the united states in the olympics. which i think set the tone nicely

3.7 2

i am writing the costume doc and i keep having to take a break because it's so stupid hahaha

a kid just called me on my work number and said "are you a chicken nugget"...apparently my work number is written on a bunkbed at pinecrest christian camp in southern missouri. love!

have been loving the new horsegirl album recently

the piano teacher being one of the most perfect movies ever made. omg

alexis and i at mississippi underground tonight like has anyone here seen the piano teacher!!! we need to talk to you

3.7

made slow cooker potato soup yesterday and it was amazing...i basically worked on it all day and then my friends got to enjoy it in the evening. very rewarding, maybe i'll get into doing more slow cooker things. i've been bad about cooking at home for the last couple months but i want to get more serious about it bc i've been very ambitious with my travel plans this year

the bowls in my house all have cracks so i think i'm gonna go to an estate sale this weekend to replace them. i want to go to the natural wine festival on sunday but i didn't get a ticket fast enough :( i've been feeling kind of quiet recently. sometimes it takes me a couple seconds to think of what to say which doesn't feel like me. but what i like about getting older is that you start recognizing patterns and realizing that stuff like that doesn't really matter. i have gone through cycles of being quiet and then feeling normal again endlessly throughout my whole life. one time i had a lunch meeting with my boss and it made me feel awkward and i was talking a lot to try to make something happen within the conversation and nothing was clicking and it made me feel like something was wrong with me (???) and i told sydney "what if i'm awkward like this for the rest of my life" and she said "you sound like you greened out at lunch" and that helped me realize i sound ridiculous

i'm watching the piano teacher with alexis tonight and i'm looking forward to it!!! and i'm excited for white lotus on sunday!!! and i collaged the invite for infinite jest party last night so i'm going to invite people today!!! i hope all stl flounder people are able to celebrate with me. i think i'm gonna work on the costume idea pdf during work today. last night we were laughing about how easy i make it for my ops to hate me...it is so crazy to ask people to dress up as characters for a book only i have read. counterpoint: i have but one wild and precious life

3.6

8 more pages of infinite jest left. friend said recently "it'll be cool when you're done with that so you can retire the femcel thing you're doing" harsh but. amen

3.5

they balled out for employee appreciation day today, we had donuts and pizza and ice cream and candy. so sorry if i’m hyper at poetry and rage tonight

3.3

genuinely surprised that anora swept the oscars. i did not like that movie. but conan obrien was a really good host and i'm generally pleased with all the other awards. i think i'm gonna go see last breath tonight at alamo, i've been looking forward to it since the trailer before nosferatu (on january 1st!). they're saying that the first day of march is the real start of the new year...i think they might be right because that's when i started feeling weird. no ocd but the friend i was going to meet up with at mardi gras ended up with the stomach flu yesterday so maybe my spiritual sickness was an intuition. but maybe not!

they started a reading competition at work for the month of march and i have to log my daily pages...why couldn't they have done this during infinite jestapalooza. but i've been wondering if me feeling strange and sad has something to do with that coming to an end so i think i'll use this event as an excuse to be weird and intense about the book i'm reading again. if that's okay with everyone

3.2 2

twitter interaction i saw today-

i follow someone who is actually way too into dfw and they listed all the copies of infinite jest they own (one in chinese which is cool) and in a now deleted response (</3) someone said that one time they were reading IJ to a girl and she couldn’t resist him and threw the book on the floor. he said something like “she lost interest in hearing about ken erdedy, she wanted me instead. but hey what can you expect when you’re hanging out with a girl past midnight” and it made me embarrassed to be associated with this whole thing. however i have 35 pages left if someone wants to throw my book to the floor before #completion

3.2

went to sonic today and it took so long that everyone got out of their cars to confront the staff…someone actually went inside to try to find an employee. nuts

3.1

biked halfway to the mardi bike brigade and realized i was suffering from a spiritual sickness so i went back home. then i watched some elementary school soccer and now i feel relatively normal

2.28

st louis is such a great place, i feel lucky to live here

2.27 2

greg mendez was so awesome. last time he was here he was opening for squirrel flower so people talked through his set but this time he was headlining and everyone was listening intently and it was perfect. both times i’ve spoken to him i’ve said “i think the live version of long division is the better recording” and he says “i think that too”. the whole thing gave me a lot to think about so i drove around st louis for awhile after. i’ve been doing that lately, driving around neighborhoods i’ve never seen before at night. this time it was north st louis. it was really cool seeing all the ornate churches and building ruins exist in such close proximity. it feels soviet in some ways, the concept of which has mostly stopped making me sad. there’s an old sabrina carpenter breakup song that’s like “you used a fork once, turns out forks are fuckin everywhere”. for me it’s you date a russian man, turns out everyone loooves dostoevsky

2.27

feeling kinda depressed today. i have 100 pages of infinite jest left and i don’t want to read it anymore but this too shall pass. i think i’m just feeling stressed out because of everything happening this week/weekend, it’s event after event! and i’m overwhelmed. but mardi gras will be fun and i think i’ll watch the oscars alone on sunday to decompress

okay i was behind on my IJ reading bad but now i’m caught up and in a better mood

roommate’s gay music video night is breaking the sound barrier and when i had 20 pages left to read i was pissed off about it but now it’s making me smile and laugh…major lesson to be learned here about subjectivity of emotion in different moods & circumstances. hope everyone’s taking notes

2.26

making a detailed itinerary of my baltimore/ann arbor trip so my mom won't be anxious about it. best daughter ever award? i reserved an airbnb last night and i'm really excited. i almost went with this boardinghouse that had fugly design bc it was the cheapest option. but when i thought about it i didn't really feel excited to go there, it made me kind of uneasy. so i ended up spending a bit more for a nice little place which i'm really looking forward to. i am justifying it bc it's for my birthday but now i am a poor woman

saw peel dream magazine and friko at atomic last night and it was awesome. i like that venue and it drew a good crowd. someone i knew was friends with peel dream so we went to kenny's afterwards and they are such cool kind people, i wish they lived closer to here. someone ordered a drink called "if you know you know" and i couldn't identify a single flavor in it

i'm top 4 in the office ping pong tournament currently, i'm playing my boss in the semifinals today and he grew up playing ping pong...pray for a miracle everyone

2.25

mmkay i just purchased my baltimore and detroit flights so i am going to the cameron winter show...scheduling flights is so stressful my heart is pounding

if you have any baltimore knowledge and have a suggestion of where i should go please lmk, i'll be there for about a day and a half! the show is in the johns hopkins area so i'll probably be staying around there. my plan right now is walking around a lot

going to the friko and peel dream magazine show tonight...recently i've been daring to ask if life can be party all the time. and the answer i've gotten is YES!!!

my job just started being real and it is sometimes sorta hard. you know that meme that’s like when you accidentally become important at work. for me i accidentally became employed at work. ultimately it is a good thing but it does make me feel dumb every single day

2.23 2

good day good day… woke up went to gabe’s room made everyone laugh with my jester routine. it’s cool she has a boyfriend because it’s fun to have people at my house. she said “where are you going? oh you’re going to church, that’s why you’re dressed so gay”

and reader, she got my ass

went to church laughed a lot at the sermon walked to mestiza for lunch & reading and my waiter was goated, he gave me a free taquito with a tray of a bunch of little sauces in tiny bowls and tiny spoons. then he asked me about my book and came back later being like “i just wanted to give you space because i know you’re reading, it’s not that i don’t want to talk to you” which is crazy bc it’s like was i giving the impression that i thought he wasn’t asking me enough personal questions. lol. and the food was really good too. i think i’ll write a 5 star google review, that’s how much it moved me

then i walked to alexis’s house and we went on a walk in the alleys and passed this dented soccer ball we found back and forth as we walked. if i make a list of ways to elevate a walk then this will definitely make the top 3

then we saw i’m still here and we cried so hard that tears were dripping down our necks. i think that completes all the oscar movies i wanted to see before the ceremony comes up. actually i just checked and i do want to see the apprentice actually. i don’t even know if that one was in theaters at all which is frustrating. i think sing sing could’ve had a shot at winning best picture and actor in a leading role if anyone had actually seen that damn movie. but my official favorites of the season are the brutalist, sing sing, a real pain and i’m still here. final answer

i’m not ready for the oscar race to be over, i like listening to podcasts about it. there’s a host on the big picture that mentioned going to an mj lenderman show two weeks ago and this week he said he went to a cameron winter show and everyone said “yes we know you’ve mentioned it 100 times”. when i hear those names i am activated like a sleeper agent. alexis likes him too now and when we get in her car she turns on love takes miles real loud. then we watched white lotus and i like this season so far. she used to live near where it’s filmed so she has interesting insights. she’s allergic to cats so she can observe my relationship with fran objectively and she thinks that since i scoop her litter we’ve become intertwined, that that happens when you have a cat. i also talked to gabe’s old roommate this weekend and we connected over the experience of living with fran. he really hated her because she’s almost punishingly loud and ever present. i think the intensity of our emotions about it is the same, i just swing the other way to being incredibly attentive to her. but she is sweet to me, she sleeps next to my pillow every night and in the afternoons when i wfh i hold her like a baby while i sit at my desk. i have to tell myself that sometimes she is just talking to talk, not everything requires a response. do i sound like a hostage right now or am i being normal about this

2.23

keep crying little happy tears today. may elaborate later after reading but i woke up to my cat sleeping under the covers with me like a human and i almost died

can’t stop thinking about this…i had a weird conversation with a newish friend on thursday where she was warning me about flirting and not leading ppl on and i was like what are you talking about and i went to sydney and asked “how can i announce to my friends that i am a monk at this time” and she said “maybe you can post a picture of friar tuck on your story and say i’m thinking of getting this haircut what do you think?”

2.22

the real L word is maybe one of the most entertaining tv shows i’ve ever seen. it is probably the closest to the samizdat i’ll ever be

2.21

zine release was awesome, i forgot i like those kinds of things. got to talk to flounderer james who is the sweetest! and had infinite jest party input which made me giddy. we talked to someone who described to me that she has a hard time finishing a book so she's made a book club where you don't have to read the book, you just read excerpts of random things she chooses. it was my first day out of the house since monday so i was generally talking a mile a minute but all i remember responding to this was "huh." definitely an interesting concept but unfortunately my life currently revolves around finishing a book so that was a disconnect. but she was very cool otherwise and i am curious to check it out. the more i think about it the more i like it as a concept. the house was super nice too, i would go to many more poetry events there. i sat in the sex room which was um. cool i guess

i bought the ticket to the cameron winter show in baltimore so basically i’m gonna go to that. and my friend alexis might be able to come with me too. so epic

happy birthday david foster wallace

2.20 2

had one of the worst days at work in my corporate career which is shocking bc i was in my own home. they were terrorizing me thru the computer

2.20

mj lenderman and rachel brown from water from your eyes are together...i have no one to talk about this with

remembering how the mj show was mostly dudes and sydney was like whaaaat. from the way you talk about him i thought he was like a teen heartthrob vibe for the girls. hahahaha anyways i am happy for rachel i follow them on twitter and i am usually one of like, five likes (no shade) so this feels like i'm seeing oomf win. or like a flounderer that i've never met kind of vibe. someone from here should start dating cameron winter that would be really exciting for me

2.19

i am enjoying the show severance. if anyone has ever heard of that

looking forward to the weekend! roommate had another snow day and our favorite topic of conversation has been this hypothetical infinite jest party. the more we really think about it the more improbable and silly it becomes, it is really fun to imagine. we discussed the concept of me writing a pdf to disseminate with the invitation that describes all the feasible characters and themes that people could dress up as. it’s funny to think of people pulling something together based solely on my description. i want someone to be eric clipperton, my favorite character. he is the junior tennis player that plays every match with a gun pointed at his head and makes it known that if he loses he will pull the trigger. i think it could be fun if my hypothetical guests lean into the Challengers of it all since it’s partially set at a tennis academy. can’t decide if only i get to be david foster wallace or if other people can be him too. maybe it’s better if everyone is david foster wallace. sea of white bandanas playing four square…i can see it. except sydney wants to be jesse eisenberg portraying david lipsky interviewing him in the movie the end of the tour, naturally. at one point i said “this is way too far fetched and people won’t come bc it’s too high concept” basically and gabe was like “that’s why we can only invite cool people” which is soooo true. the older i get the more i am drawn to people who are down for anything. i was talking about this with my friends on valentines day, we were like “we’re kinda the realest out there because we’re all single and can show up to everything with like, an hour’s notice”. not to say being in a relationship is bad but i really do enjoy being single, it is awesome to be so available for my friends. i had a for REAL crush on someone in my church group for like 1.5 weeks and i felt real dread about it because i was like ugh if i really do something about this then i will have so much less time for myself and i have so much i want to read still. but we made candles last tuesday and kinda talked for awhile and i’m not really that interested which was a relief.

anyways if you see me and gabe this weekend or in the future please engage us in this conversation re: infinite jest because we love talking about it

remember when i was like “if i read infinite jest this year i will probably be lowkey about it” ……....let women enjoy things

it has really actually made my winter though. i think it’s really good for me to have something to work towards every day. i wish i could read infinite jest for the first time every winter. i think i will maybe do crime and punishment next winter or something like that. but i will definitely labor over a long book for subsequent winters. i think it’s actually crucial for staving off seasonal depression

have been eating trader joes frozen scallion pancake with a little cup of soy sauce for almost every meal. just letting you know, jot that down, etc.

last thing: i think i am developing my first codependent relationship of my life with my cat fran…she scratches me a lot and i think she maybe gave me that parasite that makes you obsessed with cats. i made a little bed for her by my desk out of a turned over backpack and she’s obsessed with it and it makes me so happy. i just walked into the kitchen to make a scallion pancake and she was sitting upright on it in the dark. i love seeing her happy it makes my heart grow 10x

2.18 2

just bought a very expensive plane ticket on my phone. feels wrong. however i am glad to have that over with

the only not sold out cameron winter show is in baltimore on my birthday. contemplating going to the show alone and then flying to detroit afterwards and taking a bus to ann arbor. is this crazy or is it yolo

roommate was home for a snow day today and we came up with such a brilliant plan for this weekend that we both started aggressively griddying. i hope everyone gets to experience something like that in their life

2.18

very busy this week

finally deleted pictures of my ex from my phone so that i'm not scared to go into my camera roll anymore.. i really was/am struggling with ocd thoughts around avoiding thinking about it. it's getting better all the time but it was really jarring to see the lengths i would go to not have to experience a couple moments of pain. it's become just an occasional flash. sometimes it's a little sad, sometimes it's nothing and i experience it as just another memory. this is probably something i need to journal about for real honestly. when i get busy and stressed about performance that also triggers the ocd thinking, that if one thing goes wrong then it'll all collapse, that i need to preserve momentum above all and that a situation can be unrecoverable if something slightly unfortunate happens. putting it down on the page that that is stupid! i really like the "things you learn in boston AA" chapter in infinite jest, it has been really comforting with things like this. here are a few selected excerpts

That loneliness is not a function of solitude. That it is possible to learn valuable things from a stupid person. That it takes effort to pay attention to any one stimulus for more than a few seconds. That you can all of a sudden out of nowhere want to get high with your Substance so bad that you think you will surely die if you don’t, and but can just sit there with your hands writhing in your lap and face wet with craving, can want to get high but instead just sit there, wanting to but not, if that makes sense, and if you can gut it out and not hit the Substance during the craving the craving will eventually pass, it will go away—at least for a while. That it is statistically easier for low-IQ people to kick an addiction than it is for high-IQ people. That boring activities become, perversely, much less boring if you concentrate intently on them. That if enough people in a silent room are drinking coffee it is possible to make out the sound of steam coming off the coffee.That sometimes human beings have to just sit in one place and, like, hurt. That you will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do. That no matter how smart you thought you were, you are actually way less smart than that. That there is such a thing as raw, unalloyed, agendaless kindness. That concentrating intently on anything is very hard work. That most Substance-addicted people are also addicted to thinking, meaning they have a compulsive and unhealthy relationship with their own thinking. That 99% of compulsive thinkers’ thinking is about themselves; that 99% of this self-directed thinking consists of imagining and then getting ready for things that are going to happen to them; and then, weirdly, that if they stop to think about it, that 100% of the things they spend 99% of their time and energy imagining and trying to prepare for all the contingencies and consequences of are never good. Then that this connects interestingly with the early-sobriety urge to pray for the literal loss of one’s mind. In short that 99% of the head’s thinking activity consists of trying to scare the everliving shit out of itself. That if you do something nice for somebody in secret, anonymously, without letting the person you did it for know it was you or anybody else it’s almost its own form of intoxicating buzz. That the people to be most frightened of are the people who are the most frightened. That it takes great personal courage to let yourself appear weak. That you don’t have to hit somebody even if you really really want to. That no single, individual moment is in and of itself unendurable.

That no single individual moment is in and of itself unendurable!!! oh my god! i read that for the first time about a month ago and i still think about it often. here is the full chapter for any interested. some say this is a threshold chapter for reading infinite jest, it's around page 200 and that's when it really clicks and you're In It. i would say that is probably pretty accurate

https://howling--fantods.tumblr.com/post/172459342889/things-you-learn-in-boston-aa-excerpt-from

2.17

i really do feel mentally clearer today. thank you to idi and everyone else who kept their fingers over the send email to my boss button this weekend

2.16

nearing the end of infinite jest, a little over two weeks left. roommate today said “what is our life going to be like when it’s over. should we throw a party to celebrate?!” much to unpack in those statements. grateful to have someone so supportive of my stupid projects. would you attend an infinite jest completion party or should i be drawn and quartered for my hubris? if i do have one we should play four square

2.15

that was frankly the best valentines day ive ever had. secret admirer show was awesome, kinda flounder meetup

oh also i did not smoke or anything last night. i was tempted to and my friends were like “you have so much time to recover from the brain fog” but i remembered my covenant to you guys and refrained which i’m happy about! instead i drank a reasonable amount and then had a ton of water to balance it out and then my stomach hurt for awhile and every so often all my friends would say “aww emma we feel so bad for you” in unison bc they know i love that. pity has the power to heal!!! amen

2.14

i am 700 pages into infinite jest. 281 more pages left, a reasonable book length. this morning i read an excerpt that made me feel so much dread i thought for a second i might throw up

was genuinely sad this morning but i had an important meeting with my boss so i did 20 pushups to get my head right. surely you cannot be sad after 20 pushups. but it actually mostly worked

job has become a real job that i am now stressed about my performance in. going on a T break to sharpen my focus for next week bc it's an important one. saying this to keep myself accountable bc me and my friends have good plans tonight and i will want to go back on my word. i hereby give you permission to email my boss to snitch should i stumble. thank you

2.13

finished two books in one day.. can you tell i am avoiding something that i really don't want to do

i think i will work on that thing and then start watching severance on my lunch break and then go pick up my lamp from my lamp repairing friend and then go see seed of the sacred fig tonight. sound good to everyone?

everything i've eaten today has been so delicious, it goes as follows:

breakfast- kodiak protein apple cinnamon oatmeal (free from work)

TJ's meyer lemon and cream yogurt

english breakfast tea with brown sugar oat milk creamer

lunch- mexican street corn soup

second lunch- giant scallion pancake with soy sauce

berry, jackfruit and aloe vera smoothie with chia seeds :)

seed of the sacred fig was so bad that now everything is pissing me off. the plot is so interesting but the execution does absolutely nothing for the story in any way. that felt like the longest movie i’ve ever seen and there’s no payoff at the end

2.12

having a bad day :( was hard to get out of bed and my outfit feels overstimulating and it looks like i was styled by ellen degeneres and i dropped my work id in the toilet lol

won the first round of the office ping pong tournament against the big boss...whole day has turned around

the match did remind me of the point im at in infinite jest where hal incandenza is playing ortho stice in a challenge match but i had the tact to not mention it

love takes miles by cameron winter is going platinum in my airpods

2.11

we’re making candles at church galentines tonight i’m so excited

i went to the ymca to run during my lunch break and i was like wait do i have pneumonia but it turns out im just really out of shape hahahaha

2.10

having complicated feelings about health and safety by emily witt

i'm enjoying the album Heavy Metal by Cameron Winter currently

finally deleted all my flounder open tabs so my defunct fleeting page doesn't endlessly update lmao

busy at work todayyyy will maybe go see seed of the sacred fig tonight while it's still in theaters but i gave my friend my old iphone SE tonight and they maybe need help setting it up so we'll see

everyone needs to watch The Real L Word

critics agree it is even better than beast games

2.8

going to a birthday party tonight and the host texted my roommate “dress sexy” and texted me “we’ll have cake” lmaooo

2.7 2

went to a theology class at church tonight and then went out with a bunch of ppl afterwards and i was like wait you guys are ordering drinks…i grew up baptist is that allowed here ?!?? i’d never seen a single person from my church have an alcoholic drink in my entire life. had to stop myself from being like ummm you guys are so cool

but so many people from my church are chillers it’s actually amazing. working up the courage to be like haha so what if someone is gay hypothetically what would you say

2.7

having a hard time focusing today

went to 6am yoga this morning for the first time since the snow storm and the instructor was happy to see me :) then i showered and fixed my haircut and i like it. it's kind of boxy i think but i saved like $50 by doing it myself and that makes me happy

2.6

my ends felt crunchy today so i chopped up my hair in the bathroom with these blunt haircutting scissors and i don't know if it's good or not. i might be getting too old to be doing this to my hair. but my old hairdresser is like 45 minutes away and it's $35 plus tip now which is way more than i'm willing to spend for just a trim

was dreaming of a QT hotdog with relish all day at work and once i clocked out i went straight there but they didn’t have relish…i stood frozen at the condiment section plain hot dog in hand..i wanted to go to another location but i had already assembled the hot dog. i literally felt like i couldn’t leave without relish though. i really didn’t know what i was gonna do. a woman helped me go through the cabinets but we only found like 100 bottles of mustard. then at checkout i asked the QT employee if there was relish anywhere at all and he opened a previously unseen cabinet containing a few bottles of relish. hooray! it was so freaking good. only $2.50 too. cannot recommend enough

2.5

tranquility base hotel & casino is my favorite arctic monkeys album by far

there is something going on with fran.. she is scratching and biting a lot more and is like 50% louder. maybe it's the weather. but it's making me feel like the mother of a toddler! she bothers me at my desk all day by meowing and catching her nail in my clothes over and over so i have to stop and unhook her. i made trader joe's butter chicken for lunch yesterday and she went into my room and screamed because she couldn't have any. i wish i could talk to her and get to the bottom of it because it is starting to drive me legitimately crazy

flounder keeps deleting my entries.. i think i need to stop keeping draft tabs open on my phone. i have 95 internet tabs open right now and i keep all my apps running in the background :p sorryyy

planning a little trip to see my friends in amsterdam and germany in may and it is stressful planning ahead that far in such uncertain times...torn between waiting to see what happens vs. not letting fear prevent me from living my life. like what if i legit have no money in a couple months because groceries become completely unaffordable. what if my plane falls out of the sky. these are becoming legitimate concerns to consider rather than paranoid thoughts. so that's cool

i think that's why i had that weird dream about my flight to chicago gone wrong. dreams have been way too literal and personal recently. except for last night, all i can remember is that rhi (vegetarian) and i were trying to go to arby's at like 6am and we were shocked that they weren't open lmao

2.4

on the phone with an old flame tonight and they said "wow i forgot how flirtatious you are" when i thought i was being completely normal and polite which has disastrous implications for my business and personal life

eric clipperton is my favorite character in infinite jest so far