10312025. good morning flounder

back in [college town], walking around last night text from Nick: u should come to Florida / okey dokey / nick: I'm serious!

I almost walked all the way to the bench where I called him to end things in fall 2019 but was worried I wouldn't get back in time to move the car. approaching the area realized I underestimated the distance between things here, I must have been walking so much every day. actually cannot remember anything I said on the phone but remember a few of nick's statements: can you hang up now? I feel like i've been getting broken up with for 45 minutes. and that the call started in a parking lot and I was walking on the curbs. and that night swinging through the air over massive shimmering water body, still one of the most beautiful dreams I have ever had

presently am seated the wrong way on D's couch, facing the balcony where my yesterday clothes are strung out because the restaurant infused them with deep beef smell. showered and ate and he is still not home, finishing reports or whatever paramedics do. on the kitchen floor, six empty jugs of carlo rossi burgundy red wine (he is still Dionysus even though he is a paramedic). []'s courthouse wedding appointment is at 11:30 and I don't want to smell like beef. at 3 [] is playing at the skate park and at 8:30 [] is playing at [the bar which has replaced the other bar]

good evening flounder

hiatus kaiyote red room at the cafe yummm

feeling good on this cold and clear night

alarmed by how many of my favorite campus cafes have been remodeled to run completely on self service kiosks on the front end

10292025. good morning flounder

october has been interesting, tender

feel so tired but not in an empty way, just a feeling of wanting to put my head down on tables across from people and stare at them and listen forever

the library patron who has been wearing the same grey-blue tee for a year just got a new shirt, dark red, now every time i see him i'm like woah

10252025. good morning flounder

writing to you from the "business centre" which is a single computer i had to ask the front desk for a password to use for 30 minutes

about to do something off script - meeting up with 2018 instagram friend

yesterday was nice i got to spend time with a water body

kind of like sitting w the waves in SF but different activities in the mind. [] asked me what i thought about and i realized i wasn't really thinking mostly juts hearing things like the water. and music in my head

[] is in "deep grieving" about daniel naroditsky and says he has not been playing chess online out of a "subconscious respect," why does he always sound like he's guessing at what a human would say

big sib said she understands why i would stay in [spiritually mid town] lol. all the pics i've taken recently are patio or trail. could probably do a couple more years on patio and trail

not so into chess lately, 1. because i no longer calculate outcomes and 2. writing more regularly soothes the puzzle-solving impulse 3. [the best chess player i know] acted like such an asshole last week (no one is surprised)

oh well back to the mission: have a good day

after last night, thinking about everything i missed while dissociating during chinese dinners. [parents' old friend] said i never spoke, supportnig my useless theory of my childhood selective mutism

the walk yesterday was unbelievably beautiful, nematode kept walking off the trail into the trees because he became obsessed with looking up, but seemed disappointed every time. mom was like, what's he doing? peeing??

six more minutes of my business centre computer session

above the computer a large blue painting of the cityscape completed in 2013

10242025. good morning flounder from Vancouver

yesterday was epically long and it is still physically tiring to think about [] so I'm trying to do that less but I have such powerful memories that it is hard to avoid the pathways to them

my loud and insistent patio friend said some almost helpful things about it like

• THIS ISN'T EVEN ABOUT HIM. IT'S ABOUT GETTING WHAT YOU WANT. YOU'RE JUST FRUSTRATED YOU DIDN'T GET WHAT YOU WANT. YOUR WORK IS TO ACCEPT THAT (and then something about being ok with singlehood which I ignored because obviously i'm ok with being single this was the first romantic activity in 2 years but maybe she meant it in a different way idk)
• YOU YOUNG PEOPLE ARE SO QUICK TO **** ***. I WAIT AT LEAST THREE MONTHS

yesterday on the plane I encountered the memory of the time I stopped by to see him before driving to [hometown] for the weekend and I got kind of lost and he came out to find me, I could tell from looking at him that he had just been drinking coffee and singing because he liked to do that at night and this would create a funny intensity and bounciness in him, but he would also be kind of quiet and super watchful like a cat in between zoomies. also I could smell the coffee. I do not remember the conversation at all, except that he kept saying "thanks for coming to see me"

he never learned how to use the TV in his old house because he never used it (whereas the roommates were always playing video games) so the few times he'd want to watch a game or something his roommates would leave it on for him before going out

10212025.

overheard at the bar ~5:15pm: "at the end of the day no one is gonna be happy about a traffic accident. no one wants to be in one, no one wants to hear about one, that's just the truth of the matter"

10182025. good morning flounder

it is really annoying to be at work right now. i wish i was at E's house

i've never been a housesitter before but emotionally it makes sense to me because i always feel like i'm living inside someone else's life 💯

god please take my suffering and give it to the white lady who harassed me on the patio about attending the "no kings" "protest"

white lady: DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THE NO KINGS PROTEST SATURDAY OCTOBER 18

me: i'll be at work

white lady: trump needs to know there's opposition out there

white lady: something something nazi germany something something hitler

white lady: something something "color of their skin" *gestures at me* (lmao)

white lady: my son lives in chicago.....the city

white lady: we need more people out there under 60 (SHUTTTTT UPPPPP)

i wonder why she didn't consider introducing herself or asking my name before she launched into her moronic rant

at the end of the day a lot of white people are still just trying to exert control and i don't really care anymore what other identities or ethics they're attaching to their actions. white lady on the patio didn't see me as a person any more than my trumper coworker and actually he's funnier. white lady on the patio i hate you so so much and you ruined my vibe

10132025. good evening flounder

finally wrote a song

10122025. good evening flounder

i think I will remember this weekend for the rest of my life

Saturday I practiced violin and guitar then went to []'s art exhibition then the movie screening. we were out from 3pm to around 10pm which is unusual. the art gallery was an emotional and awkward space full of love because everyone was so happy for []. I didn't expect to have a powerful experience with the paintings or to be recognized by anyone as a person that [] had mentioned to them. tender embarrassed feeling. afterwards [] and I sat by the fountain for a while and they finally told me the thing that i've been pretending not to know about. it was easy to act shocked because the thing is still very shocking. stopped by their apartment, dinner, movie time, met up with [] here - suddenly a group. interesting night, waited all day to text [] back. ribbon in the sky Stevie wonder

Sunday I woke up late and wrote about the art exhibition and practiced guitar and violin. [] texted "do you want to see me later" and I did and when we were together he told me he wanted to stop. there was more in between but this was basically the point. I was surprised by how I felt (very sad and loving). I don't know when he decided this. he said "no one else gets tears out of me like you do" (country voice). what a random thing to happen, again. I did not calculate this

10112025. good morning flounder

a lot of serious fall lovers on here, I feel more inspired to embody the season

a nice night - [] texted a little before my shift ended and I met them at [cafe/noodle place]. we don't see each other much, it's mostly a "i'm feeling weird are you around" kind of thing. this time they were upset/overwhelmed by news that they couldn't share so we just talked about other stuff. they are so interesting to me because usually friends want to talk about the thing. but [] doesn't need this from me, they have closer friends for that, so when they seek me out I know it's for comfort/distraction/company and I enjoy this, the conversations are usually simple and slow and I can tell when they are starting to feel better by how much they're laughing and how relaxed their gaze is (usually their eyes are kind of darty and unfocused)

there was the one time I was out with them and [other friend they are closer to], so conditions were met for [issue] to be presented and unpacked. the conversation was intense, strained, circular. I feel like we were all kind of unsatisfied and embarrassed at the end. ever since I have been a big believer in not talking about [issue] or at least not approaching it in such an obvious way. wounds can be soothed in other ways

10102025. good morning flounder

sometimes life is so simple. sometimes you just need to **** ***

no one is an NPC to me

buy train tickets

obtain insurance cards

buy new contacts case

10092025. good morning flounder

the job has felt weird since [coworker] died

a couple coworkers have been unraveling, especially [coworker], but people are so used to unhinged behavior from him that it doesn't seem to matter how bad it gets, he was here every day last week on PTO unwashed, talking to himself, sometimes crying

today [coworker] asked me if it was "that time of the month," i asked why she would ask me this and she said "you seem real internal today"

i think part of the exhaustion comes from seeing [] for the first time since december 2023. like there is a physical heaviness associated with hearing from and ignoring him

lately conversations feel a little precarious like the other person is always really close to saying something that makes me hate them

reading

• the lonely city by olivia laing (before bed)
• ongoingness by sarah manguso (at work)
• the heart of henry david thoreau's journals edited by odell shepard (after dinner)

A is having people over tonight so i'm thinking of avoiding the apartment after work and going to the show. nothing that bad could happen but nothing that good either

i can tell when [] is cooking up an annoying sentence by the preceding breath, today it was *inhale* "berklee is really good at producing commercially viable musicians"

for just a moment, with great effort, i could imagine my will as a force that would not disappear but redistribute when i died, and that all life contained the same force, and that i needn't worry about my impending death because the great responsibility of my life was to contain the force for a while and then relinquish it

then the moment would pass, and i'd return to brooding about my lost memories

ongoingness by sarah manguso p. 40