supposed to be writing (#14)
...can't go under it can't go over it gotta go through it
this month has been about adjusting. which sucks constantly modulating or shifting around sucks. who wants to fight (their environment, other time sucks) in order to Do Their Work? i also don’t want to do my work. i wish writing felt all the time like the fever dream where you figure it all out. instead, my fingers (wrists) feel stiff. my body (brain) feels tightened, and i keep writing the wrong suffixes on my words. i’ve tried breaking down the work – no longer conceptually but instead indiscriminately into units of time. i can write/read/focus for ten minutes – can’t i – and then maybe ten minutes more. that truly is exhausting, which feels unfair and sends me spiraling into regretful rememberings of other moments when i felt sharper and faster and better (More Good). there was less dust.
comparisons do no good, and i (a machine) am still running. i can run and write to the edges of the human scale, and then go just ten minutes further. i can’t seem to find the argument, but it’s probably because i’ve been running away from it and into the hateful wind. these things are on a loop and i or the wind will turn around eventually.
– feed me
une tradition, ça sera tout, merci; steak (as in a hamburger sans bun), red cabbage & green beans, pommes dauphines; oranges (clementines?) from sicily; korean fried chicken, rice and sauteed veggies; omelets with mushrooms, côtes du rhone; menu kebab pain normal sauce mayo biggy sans oignons 7 up mojito; sandwich poulet crudité: sometimes with sundried tomatoes, once with avocado, always iceberg, always mayo; tabasco because you forgot the tajin!; honey (sugar) lemon hot water; poulet rôti chips, tagada, biocoop chocolat noir avec noisettes; un allongé.
that was an incredible orange.
– read me
or like take a break ! i am now learing about Business from east asian dramas but mostly drooling over food {Revolutionary Love}.
i actually did read a lot but i don’t feel like processing yet.
– i was feeling bad for me
or how to eat in a dorm (l’internat) when you’re almost 30
Step 1: Complain about having to buy new shit when you know you have perfectly good shit packed away in some forgotten, overflowing cupboard in david’s apt.
Step 2: Buy the bare minimum, which turns out to be big mug for coffee and a rubber spatula. You remembered to bring a knife, and a scale turned out to be cheap too.
Step 2.5: A kettle, you definitely need your own. How are you supposed to get dressed for the day pre-coffee.
Step 3: Realize that you cannot make yourself in good conscience use communal plates, and luck out that you have a kind friend whose mother will lend you dishes.
Step 3bis: Having real plates is a big part of being an Adult.
Step 4: Borrow a tire-bouchon (can’t even tell you how long it took to remember how to say that in English: corkscrew). Realize that you don’t have a clean glass/mug/cup to offer the friend who helped you open the wine.
Step 4, part 2: Frequent the neighborhood brocantes for higher end junk than a vide-grenier. Ogle some midcentury lamps and find sky blue ceramic coffee set that happens to cost 5€ le lot.
Step 5: Teeter on the edge of buying your own pot and pan and cutting board for a while. Also consider a mini-fridge because people are the worst.
Step 6: Find a supermarket that is larger than the width of your shoulders and sells delicious oranges. Bonus points if the manager exclaims to himself periodically in English (My God!) and has infused his shop with warm and happy energy. Buy a canvas shopping bag that is larger than you expected and has two lengths of handle. Be thrilled that something has worked out for once and feel the universe confirm the shift in your luck as the rain hovers at a drizzle and the sun goes down, so that the parisian lamplight gives off the right orange-ish glow
Step 7: buy the damn fridge and change your life
Step 8: encounter a covid-ite for the second time in the kitchen and order a hot pot that makes it seem like you can make soup and sauté an egg. swear that you should learn how to cook faster and feel justified in being masked in common spaces.
Step 9: find a decent boulangerie after trying thousands of deeply mediocre ones. make cake in a friend’s kitchen. accept that you’ll eat out more than usual but you’re also walking an absurd amount so you can pretty much deal with the fodmaps. also you’re in paris, get over yourself
Step 9 ¾: the hotpot is now your personality and you are a hotpot influencer. final step is a blender so you can combat the deep muscular and emotional fatigue with protein-laced smoothies because it is already Spring.