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Eating Alone vs. Eating Together

June 1st seems to bear a theme something along the lines of "struggling for solitude" and it couldn't ring more true than what I felt before attempting to process my previous memories from this day. I've also consulted AI more than once on this day, because it felt like it was too exhausting for me to engage with humans and their emotional threshholds (in other words, I didn't want to be a burden to others and concern them more than I already do).

the left image is from eating at a ramen spot (Tamashii Ramen in Astoria/Long Island City) for the first time in 2018, alone because my boyfriend at the time was rightfully afraid of eating out due to a severe peanut allergy (I've called restaurants in an effort for peace of mind but the concern remained non-negotiable). he also just enjoyed being inside playing Fortnite or watching anime and I wanted to go somewhere nice for food as something different. it was nice being alone and spending time with myself although I hoped it wouldn't develop into an expensive habit since it always felt less worth it to eat alone - I didn't know how to treat myself (I still don't). of course, there was a catch:

apparently "the ramen was nice but these two bros were sitting at the table next to me. one of them goes, "yo you know our friend tried to kill himself last week" and then they started saying it's the most cowardice thing someone could do, why would he do that he seems fine all the time, why would he do that his girlfriend is hot look at how hot she is. instead of being concerned they just kinda took a huge shit on him and said if he wanted to actually kill himself he should've done it better instead of having his girlfriend find him unconscious on the floor. I wanted to call them both out on their bullshit, people have their own damn battles and talking shit about attempted suicide instead of being a friend to your friend and being concerned is literally such a scumbag shitlord thing to do. also the fuck what does a girlfriend being hot have anything to do with anything"? this is a direct quote of a Facebook status I made because I am too tired to paraphrase something that was already conveyed by me. yeah.

anyway, the right image is from my friend Kyle and I eating steak & eggs at Bushwick Burger Co in 2024. coincidentally, I have been stuck between reaching out to him and others and isolating because of how insane I've been feeling in the year of our lord 2025. I would go into it in further detail but after deciding to stay inside today instead of going to an event with social interaction and other various things that feel easier than sitting with my own past, it may be best if I lived in the present for the rest of the day. after all, I spent a majority of my life distracting myself just to end up in a similar headspace once again. and I hate feeling the way I have.

oh, almost forgot that this post started out about struggling for solitude. guess I'm still in it.

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trying to process my May 28ths

today was a notoriously difficult day for me across the board.

on this day, I had dreams from different years involving: giving birth and being a terrible mother to a child with devil horns who may as well have ripped my nipples clean off; swimming in Great Kills Harbor after going overboard while people were drowning; other dreams my friends in the waking world inquired about that I couldn't even speak of because they were "too much (and now long forgotten)".

interesting how Great Kills Harbor comes into play though - on this day in 2008, one of the most significant people I dated (to inadvertently fuck up my self esteem by way of infidelity) drove me here because he thought I would enjoy it. at the time, I did enjoy it and took a photo of the sunsetting sky to post to Facebook:

two years after this photo was taken I would have that dream about the harbor. my friend Joshua said in a comment that the people who were drowning were pissed because they were jealous of my swimming skills (my swimming skills are passable in real life).

earlier this month - on May 15th and not in dreams - my dad randomly decided to drive down with me to check the spot out again since he hadn't been there for a while (he used to go jogging there but stopped due to lack of shade down the main road; way before that he used to take me, my mom, and my dog to the beach area to play - I was a toddler then). I took a photo when we went on our recent visit, but this time it was when we were pulling away from the parking lot during a heavy fog (shockingly posted to nowhere and no one until today, for reasons):

I don't recall being there any other time within that seventeen year span though. it was always an annoying distance without a vehicle. maybe future findings will reveal more forgotten connections to this place. but honestly I think this is connection enough, the way this is all fleshing out.

---- in 2011 I attended an Of Montreal show at Webster Hall but wouldn't have remembered had I not taken a few photos. I used to pregame by drinking a vodka-filled water bottle and chugged the remainder before I reached doors. all I recall is Monopoly money being thrown at me, a dancer's earring breaking apart and falling onto me (I think I still have a bead from it somewhere), and me drifting in and out of consciousness taking a Manhattan bus back and forth trying to get back to the Staten Island Ferry afterwards. more on the alcoholism development at another time, if ever.

---- in 2019 my friend Zlata had to convince me to go to the hospital to get stitches because I had deeply cut myself the night before and I woke up disoriented and covered in blood. this was because I got into an argument with someone I was dating at the time while we were on different coasts and he mocked me for asking him about specifications for a wifi extender so I could have a more stable connection to video chat with him. I was so upset that I drank alone shortly after and blacked out, forgetting that I had taken Adderall earlier (don't do this).

---- in 2022 I had a severe mental breakdown from being accused of cheating on a different person I was dating at this time, to the point where I ended up posting a photo on Facebook of me frozen in a silent sobbing scream in my Bushwick bathroom, quite like a scene straight out of Everything Everywhere All at Once (it was so embarassing I had to set it to private after a while - it was terrifying how I couldn't make a single sound come out of my mouth. also this movie came out the same year).

my friend Tony was keeping me company while I was grieving over the death of my grandma and going through her apartment in Chinatown before the accusation. I was also working night shifts at Amazon warehouse on Staten Island, severely lacking sleep. Tony was only coming by because he was a courier then and had a flexible enough schedule to help me out and keep me sane enough while the person I was dating was working full time. our fortys and blunts sessions helped a lot.

---- days like these I wonder if I should even look back on my memories.

but then again, without doing so, I wouldn't be able to contextualize and realize my relationship with alcohol has changed for the better. earlier today, I gave my dad all my unopened bottles of wine that were left over from yet another recently failed relationship. I was reluctant to let them go for months, in hopes that things would get better and that one day we could celebrate. I initially wanted to keep one bottle of red wine called "The Butterfly Effect" but in the end decided against it (and just now I realize that it was also the name of a movie introduced to me by the very first ex I mentioned in this post...).

anyway, my most recent ex unintentionally allowed for my past insecurities to slowly creep back in, accompanied with that the tempting return of a solitary drinking habit. funny how he also struggled with infidelity too, responding to it by distracting himself from the consequences of his own actions whilst longing to return to an unresolved past I had no business suffering with him through.

here's to Swimming Away from The Fog.

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"sitting sad or dancing better, the music is still there." (2023)

my earlier Facebook statuses from May 27th involved a lot of wondering where my happiness went. seems like today was historically a very volatile day for me. there is something strange about this day that I can't place - interestingly, today was also the day I found out Kai Monarch passed away, while I was on the way to the 2023 Drum and Bass BBQ with Hector Mamajuana and his friend from Canada (also RIP somehow... I remember her face but not her name because we only spoke during the car ride). a few hours ago today I also posted a status offering cuttings from my heart philodendron plant I had named Georgi, after the late Georgi Vee (I found the plant abandoned on a hot sidewalk in Bed-Stuy during the pandemic shortly after his passing, and I felt the name fitting since I felt confident in bringing back to life and propagating the vines as a play on his name and the Roman numeral five).

bright sides: on this day in 2018 I found a framed artwork on the way to a house party on Staten Island and brought it with me walking down Richmond Avenue - it still hangs on my bedroom wall to this day; I had a fun time tripping on acid with my friends at Prospect Park in 2017 and developed a fluid and lighthanded drawing style from it (also curious that this style was reflected in the pieces I did at the DNBBQ - the title of this entry is also from the post I made the day I found out about Kai); I also realized in 2021 that Adderall helps with my mood so I'm most likely going to take a half dose after I get some food in my system today (I may consider finally starting on my "biggest piece yet" as referenced from another 2023 post from today, of another street-found art piece, utilizing only the frame).

the song Vienna by Billy Joel also showed up in my memories from two years ago, and I had mentioned that song to someone who sat at the table I was drawing at when I went to The Hop Shoppe this past Friday. this person insisted on taking me home after having some serious conversation with me in regards to outlook on life and family struggles. it was then revealed to me he was also an "artist" so I suggested the color scheme of my bird to fill in the outline of a fireball in the unfinished piece he showed me and inquired about. while relatable, the age difference paired with varied nuance of perspective was not enough for me to justify continuing the night with him. I was correct in my assumption because vagueposted bitterness was directed towards me in the form of an Instagram story the following day with a paraphrased, "if I can't have you then I won't heed your artistic direction".

two years ago I said I was going to make Kai proud - I think I did at least a little bit of that. I'll keep trying to do so by moving forward and looking a little bit back.

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where to/where from (2015)

found some documentation of when I visited Hong Kong with my mom on this iteration of May 25th. I'm not sure where I was going to or where I was coming from but I know I was accompanied by both mom and aunt. we would all do mini excursions to different places every day, visiting various friends and family all over, utilizing MTR but mostly buses, vans, and the occasional cab to more remote places. lots of checking out malls because it was hot and humid as balls there. this day started out clear but there was a great downpour heading back past midnight. the rain spilling off the double decker onto the windows in waves as I tried to decipher the scene behind it reminds me of experiencing a subterranean waterfall such as Ruby Falls in Tennessee, the water surrounding and becoming the Only Sound. I was thinking about the duality and juxtaposition of it all so I got stuck considering either doing some more investigation into them or just keeping it unknown. more updates to come, or not!

*my dad and I go to Corning Museum of Glass every year as a little unspoken tradition that came out of wishing I had more time in there without having to rush back on the bus. I guess my family has been pretty well traveled too. other random associated thoughts regarding this: waterpark mushrooms, hong kong public swimming pools, the significance of things I investigate and how they relate to each other in such roundabout ways, file systems.

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"feeling bad for things I never actually felt because considering the existence of that possibility just makes me guilty" (2020)

I put on Mutemath's album Spotlight and was getting ready to review my Facebook memories for today but got distracted by my bird, Doodle. I also took 10mg Adderall and had some coffee (which I don't think affects me much - I just enjoy the taste and the warmth). either way, still distracted and straying the course (as usual).

when I finally sat down I started scrolling up from my earliest Facebook posts (easier that way since my later posts are mostly shitposting regurgitated memes), I noted I had listened to some Pete Yorn and a song by Beck called Lost Cause sixteen years ago. it seemed like I was having a bad time because some of my statuses were about how I wasn't necessary, how I wanted a ctrl-z for my life (and even entertained a copy/paste option - fitting since I would feel this way for years to come).

on the same day, I also took the Staten Island Ferry into Manhattan and went to Union Square, where someone chased after me and said he would cry if he didn't get to speak to me. he kissed my hand and called me sweet. I gave him my number because "I like connections". I assume that this interaction sort of lightened my day at the moment (I notice now that this type of external validation both helped and hindered me)*. I wonder who that person was and where they are now.

but not so much as who I was and where I am now.

---- moving onto the following year, I thought how coincidental it was that in 2010 I posted a visualization video for a Mutemath song since I felt the urge to put them on to start my day today in 2025... I had to do a double take when I noticed it was the SAME SONG I was listening to in real time - Reset.

this was the ninth track on the album and I had not been paying attention to it much since it was playing in the background. I was birdproofing a corner of my room (removing a wire shelf Doodle was interested in chewing) and corresponding with someone I had met earlier in the year but never got to speak to until I encountered them again at a Town Hall a few days ago (having conversation with Hsuan-Yu Pan about other people's receptiveness and understanding; humbling self).

---- here is a music video of a song that I couldn't find on Spotify to add to a playlist of my mentioned songs (fourteen years ago in 2011 I was supposed to be working on a final paper so I wouldn't "freak out" the following day. instead, I ate pancakes with Nutella at 2am while watching this and also clips from the movie Persepolis (2007)):

I also made a post about my procrastination issue but it feels more suiting as a list so here is my paraphrased status:

Things That Don't Make Me a Zombie: . freaking out . weird breathing problems . head pounding . heartbeats up in throat . college

then when I woke up I went to Stop & Shop to buy cheese sticks, spinach dip, pita chips, and hummus (instead of salsa... and working on my aforementioned paper). I also made a post about how my constant farting was unappreciated, which can also be said about my farting around (procrastination still ongoing).

---- two years after that (2013) I made a post about how "I'm a really shitty person" but I'm not sure if I was doing it for attention or not since I actually was a really shitty person looking back and didn't fully know how or why for a very, very, long time. the comments for the post felt inspired by Ladytron's song Destroy Everything You Touch and the album Weathervanes by Freelance Whales. Tony Lee - my friend from high school - considered some song lyrics with wordplay involved and I turned down the idea, mentioning that music was the last thing on my mind those days (I've come to learn that the music never leaves, as seen with Mutemath's Reset and apparently other examples to come).

---- random: for some reason in 2017 I was browsing Groupon and found this. it reminded me of how I contributed to the downfall of Gaia Online's economy:

---- some smells from May 23rd:

. dog smell from being in a six-pet household for two weeks and not realizing because of allergies . my former Bushwick apartment smelling like an Italian family's faint cigarette smoke filled house during a dinner party

---- *in 2023 I posted about how "I forgot how pleasant conversations can be sometimes. if I could never get tired of talking to everybody maybe those moments would be more reoccurring."

---- I've spent a handful of May 23rds questioning my worth (examples of this became abundant and unremarkable while scrolling through my memories) and I'm absolutely sure there are more of those days to uncover, as I have been noticing for quite some time (just not documented here as this is my first post on Tumblr since The Significance of Forks). in 2020, I posted STRFKR's album Being No One, Going Nowhere as one of ten albums that has had an effect on my life, as part of a ten-day Facebook "Challenge" during the start of the pandemic and lockdown. this album resonated with my life since release, title applicable to much; oftentimes I wondered if I would always return to it one way or another. and here it is again, with growing acceptance for what was, is, and will be (and also a newly discovered and less frequent recurrence, by way of Norman Rockwell):

---- tonight I will be going to The Hop Shoppe to see another high school friend of mine - the talented multi-instrumentalist James Reilly - play in a group called Carbon Copy. I was considering inviting other people but I think I still need to spend more time alone as my social meter has been quite low-to-negative for quite some time. besides, who knows who or what I will run into while I'm there. better to keep my interactions low for the time being as I continue to resynthesize my past.