Dogbane Beetle

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scribbles in a notebook. old notebook here, abandoned because it wasn't inviting to write in anymore.

09 14 24.
it's been a rough week. i woke up feeling gross and weird on wednesday, and it only got worse as i didn't eat lunch & then ate fried tofu first thing when i got home. since then, my stomach has been fucking me up. i don't know what's going on with me, but my stomach just seems to absolutely hate me. i was able to get GERD to calm down by basically only eating pasta, rice cakes, and juiced cucumber & apple for two days, but it's still been incredibly sensitive. i can't eat much at all
i've had this weird nerve tingling that come and goes for about a year, now, and it came back strong, too. it's in my arms & legs, but it's around my lips and face generally, too, which is one of the most disorienting feelings ever. it's worse than being dizzy, honestly. i conveniently had an appointment with my neuro this week, and she basically told me that it's likely small fiber neuropathy, and all the meds that could help it we've already tried and not been able to use for other reasons. i've been finding some solace in gabapentin as needed, though. and she thankfully referred me to a GI and nutritionist within my POTS clinic, which i can't wait for
anyway, it's been pretty awful. i went to a show last night with my girlfriend, though, and it was so fucking fun. i bought some awesome shit and had the best tie moshing & dancing & screaming the lyrics and also being a little biit in love with a member of one of the bands. i managed to rip a hole in the knee of my jeans somehow. they had a ton of free zines and then narcan, plan b, covid tests, and face masks, which made me really happy. i got a million zines & some plan b 'cause i already have a ton of narcan
today, though, has been incredibly stressful. my mom sent me a show that she thought i would like which is tomorrow night, inconveniently both after food not bombs and before a very early morning out (i was hoping to stay the night at my girlfriend's and carpool with her). she didn't say much, but i got the idea of going with her and my girlfriend, but then my girlfriend was feeling too tired for it, and i was suddenly in the middle of a self-manufactured "choose who you want to spend time with more" situation. i know that my mom didn't particularly care about the show, and staying with my girlfriend isn't even about choosing her over my mom as much as it's about convenience, but i still feel so awful not going to this show with my mom
i feel like i've always had this intense sense of needing to make my mom happy, and just the idea of choosing something else over her is just... viscerally painful. i don't understand why. i know she doesn't care about the show, but for some reason not going to it is leaving me with a pit in my stomach. maybe it's especially bad because my little sister's just been born and my mom's showing me a lot of love right now. i'd feel the same pit bailing on my girlfriend, too. i don't know what the fuck this is. i wish i could just enjoy myself
i'll be okay, though. i'm telling myself that. i have to be okay, and i'll be okay. i know every time i get hurt in the pit that it's a single-night pain, and i think i can convince mmyself that this pain is single-day. maybe two-day, if i'm unlucky. either way, it'll pass. i love my mom and i love my girlfriend, and i can spend time with both of them

09 10 24.
i'm in an art history class and feeling quite tired, but also good. the heat wave is finally coming to pass, and i got to throw on the wheel for the first time in ceramics today which was annoyingly difficult (and dirty), but really fun, too. i had a very nice veggiie burger for lunch, and i wish i could take a nap, now. i might try to take one during a break i have after this class, though. i read a little spanish article the other day that detailed the benefits of a mid-day nap, and it's been making me very envious
my dreams have been very intense, lately. i started to write them out, here, but i think i'll put them in my mirages page, even if i don't remember many details. they've been those kinds of dreams that you rremember slowly throughout the day
i'll write again later, i think, but for now i'm feeling tired and distracted. i need to try to pay attention to this lecture

09 09 24.
classes were sort of irrelevant today. not exactly boring, but like nothing we did in any of them quite mattered. we could've cancelled everything and not missed anything important, y'know? spanish was honestly really nice, though. she turned off all the lights so it was nice and dark and we just worked on a few simple assignments for most of the class. i kept looking over at my girlfriend and just admiring her, and trying not to make it too obvious. it's not like she was wearing anything new or exciting or she had her makeup or hair done in some perfect way, but she just looked so beautiful to me
anyway, the rest of the day was fairly boring, to be perfectly honest. i got a bit of a dehydration headache earlier, but figured it out, and my girlfriend and i spent a while watching disney's 1963 the sword in the stone as part of a cute little movie series for a myths & legends class we both have. it was so cute & fun and we made so many stupid little jokes
i should probably go to bed, but one last random thought i had: why is it that every kind of gummy (mott's, welch's, etc) all have like... one gummy that isn't made as much as the rest? like, why is it so hard to find the little grape gummy in the welch's packs? i don't know. i got a 90 pack box from costco as a little (not little) treat to myself and now this has been very on my mind

09 08 24.
i laughed a lot today. a friend came over for a while, and we ate scallion pancakes and parathas and worked on writing some essays, which was nightmarish but helpful. it was his first day coming to food not bombs, and we had genuinely such a good time
for the first time, i really took initiative and helped plan all our food. i think we all felt a little bit shaken up since we weren't making any of our usual things other than salad with the incredible heat wave as of late. actually, we ended up making essentially only different types of salad. one classic salad, one coleslaw-type cabbage/carrot/cucumber/corn/orange/dressing salad, one fruit salad, and one pasta salad. we also used some watermelon and orange to make a little agua fresca, which was wonderful. i felt really proud of the whole thing
i went on a little ice & water bottle mission (again, because of the heat wave) with a few people i don't usually talk to, and we had a great time laughing about how incredibly inspiring ants are, joking about insect sports (especially perrtaining to ants and green june beetles), and our general awe at little creatures, and it was really nice getting to talk to them. also, the food turned out absolutely incredible. like, so good. i want more of that pasta salad right now
i feel so much more inspired lately than i have in a while. i'm not necessarily energized, but i have a sort of life that i lost for a while. it feels almost like i'm very tired, but i'm not burnt out. i don't know what it is, but it's nice

09 07 24.
today was really fun. i went to a risograph & zine fair with my uncle, who's in town to help manage things with my new baby sisterr. oh, yeah, by the way, i have a new baby sister ! she's a sweetheart. she's everything to me. i literally cannot help being in love with her
i mean it, though. she fell asleep on my chest for a couple hours yesterday and i just laid under her, smiling at her movements and little sounds and getting sleepy with her. i love them, but i'm not usually a baby person in the sense that i find them super adorable, but i find myself cooing at and obsessing over her every little action. she's my sweet little quail. that's what her name means in nahuatl. quail. and to blossom/flourish
anyway, we had a good time today. i hung out with her and my family in the morning and tried & failed to work on writing some essays. then we went to the fair in this godawful heat wave which was pretty nightmarish in that regard, but genuinely so much fun to look through & buy things at ! so many lovely artists & super cute things ! and then we got boba and came back... spend some more time with her & my parents & watched a soccer game and i successfully worked on my essays. it was a good day :]
i've been all over the place this week. it's been chaotic, and exhausting, and beautiful. i feel good. just really tired. yeah. life is good

09 02 24.
doing well, i think. i went to a show on friday and it was so fucking sick. we attempted to put my hair in a mohawk which was just like... an entire nightmare, but in a really fun and funny way. the show was so, so good, and the pit was fucking awesome, save for a couple crowdkillers that were crowd killing in very... weird & unconventional ways
it's so odd to watch people straddle the line of performers & fans in more local scenes and i love it. it's cool to fangirl over band members one second and mosh with them the next, yk ? i love it
a sort of current scene celebrity [bruno bones of spunk] was at the show, and i couldn't help but giggle at his vibe, in a black leather jacket and his sort of spiky, short red hair. he felt very much like he could've pulled up in a limo, and kept taking photos with people [had a kickass scowl], and i felt like he commanded the energy of the space around him in this weird way. such an interesting dude. it's cool to see these people up close, and not have such a distant connection to them
anyway, yeah. it was an awesome show. i caught their hand drawn show flyer, which was cool. it was an anti-nos pro-harm reduction fundraising show, also, which was sick. i loved it

08 27 24.
i'm really tired, but also doing good. i wish the days weren't so long & that i had more energy. there's so much shit to do, and i'm just so exhausted that i get home and scroll or lay in bed and watch youtube or something. i guess it's good that i'm resting, but i wish i was doing more of the creative things i want to be doing
it'll get easier with time, i hope. i will mmake it so !

08 25 24.
i've bought so much art recently, it makes me so happy. CDs & zines & little pouches & stickers & keychains & ceramic pots & wall hangings & chokers & even a strap on. it's all incredible and so exciting. i love having art. i love making art and buying art and experiencing it all
idk, it's just so wonderful. there's so much joy in sharing art. i might go to a show this weekend, and i really hope i'm able. it'd be such a blast :] i love shows & people & just... agh! god. my hiips & knees & shins & ankles hurt so much right now for no clear reason but i have so much love for the world. okay. goodnight.

08 23 24.
jeremy allen white should not be so attractive to me it's unfair. like i am not a person who likes white men but ohhhh my god!
it's kind of funny, though-- he looks so wildly different in different photos for some reason? sometimes i'm like who is this weird white man and sometimes it's just. wow.
also though i think i especially like him because i know him as carmy [my love] in the bear. there is something so incredibly captivating to me about his character. he's intense, but aware of that, and very surprisingly emotionally intelligent for someone so traumatized who has not gone to therapy. his little sign language "i'm sorry"s get me every time. agh.
anyway. he's my one [1] white man crush. i'm allowed one. as a treat.

07 24 24.
long day today… so sleepy now.! i started reading martyr! by kaveh akbar n fell in love with it right away & i love this new flannel sooooo much & i just got donuts n ice cream with my parents :] donut i chose was called yo la mango which is fucking amazing n so funny to me, even though i've never actually listened to them before (until now)
i modeled today for the first time and it was so wild n tiring n really fun ! i need rest now, though. i'm genuinely so exhausted, it's absurd. life is beautiful fr y'all

07 23 24.
just saw a blog post of a friend's n remembered that updates etc don't have to be poetic to be beautiful n worth reading and that this is for me ! for connection & community & getting shit off my chest ! so hi i'm here n fuck grammar & long live speaking freely
been working a lot these last couple days b/c i started an internship with this sick as fuck upcycling fashion company/sew shop and it's 7 hour days plus like an hour driving, but i'm alive ! the people are all so lovely & the time honestly passes quickly. for some reason though, i never want food while i'm there ? like i can't get hungry at work for some reason... it's a hassle to force my body to eat lunch
they asked me to model for some photos for their website tomorrow, so that's really exciting and a bit nerve-racking. i think it should be fun though ! we'll see :] i have to bring a lot of pairs of shoes & jewelery though... sigh ! i have more to say but it's more poetic so i'll save it for when i'm less tired n wanna explore the thought more

07 18 24.
hello! it's been a minute. i wrote about most of what's been happening recently in my 'blog' post about guatemala, so i'm not going to cover that all that much here. i'm incredibly tired tonight. i meditated yesterday like midway through the day & i think it gave my day today more life. i also passed out with all the lights on, my room door open, and an audiobook playing, so like... that was sort of a first. falling asleep accidentally isn't something i never do, just not usually with the lights on, a door open, and an audiobook playing. i felt a little sad, though, because my girlfriend and i like to call over discord while we sleep and didn't get to
today was good, though. i woke up refreshed and had a nice morning and just... did good things all day. lots of reading. lots of me time! and i didn't feel lonely, which was weird but made me happy. i cooked dinner for family which just went awfully (which is something that i don't think has ever happened to me with cooking) and i was really sad about it, but we saved it, and it turned out pretty solid
i finally found a cool symptom tracker that i'll hopefully stick to... and started using a little diary app again that i used to be really consistent about and then dropped off with. i'm hoping this works out for me, but we'll see. i might try to meditate for a couple minutes right now, before my girlfriend and i call and play some fear & hunger. and then it's bedtime!