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 (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