#putting a soft boiled egg in my instant noodles is one of my human rights actually

[rackartyg]

i like vegetables. i want to eat vegetables. when my food is too beige i get sad. but anything colourful is so expensive this time of year and this year it's even worse, obviously

bwease i just want some fresh broccoli

[fishmongeringstudies]

eight: if time can't heal it and love can't save it and hope won't keep you alive anymore

it turns out the ceiling light in my room was kind of busted. for three months i thought light fixtures in america were just Like That but looking at this one, right now, i realize light fixtures are supposed to be Like This, by which i mean bright enough to see your hands under, by which i mean bright enough to illuminate someone's eyes and fifteen gold earrings and teeth. the teeth are important. though if they aren't laughing very much i guess it won't matter.

lately i've been telling myself the same narrative over and over again in a grim attempt to retain my sanity. it goes like this: dear me, i say while punching a wall like a well-muscled thirty-something year old white male starring in a hollywood film in which his wife runs away with another man and he's heartbroken and super hung up over it but mainly disappointed to find that instant noodles don't taste as good without soft-boiled eggs in them. dear me, i repeat for dramatic effect. then i say it thirty more times, really fast, like bloody mary in your bathroom mirror on steroids.

dear bloody, bloody me. are you listening? so i know things aren't going so great right now and i know you struggle to walk down this hallway without thinking about someone's shadow on the wall and i know the last two months have been so awful you sleep in two hour bursts now like batman on a three week stakeout, like someone who can't afford to take their eyes off the door, but one day you're going to have the best fucking story to tell at dinner parties, and everyone's going to be mesmerized because 1) you're really good at telling stories that are so fucked up they're funny and 2) you're really hot and this story is so fucked up it's funny and you're always going to be hot so they're all going to fall in love with you and you're going to break all their hearts in alphabetical order and it's going to be great.

dear me: i know you're miserable.

i know how i've set this up. you're leaning forward in your seat now. we're at the dinner party i talked about in march, april, may. you're in a tux or a dress with a ruffled collar and i'm talking about how my first semester of college in america was a joke, and you look super hot and i look super hot and everyone looks super hot because all my friends are hot and funny and good at telling stories, but right before you can ask me what i mean by a joke (was it a good joke? a bad joke? did anyone get hurt?), i put my glass on the table and wander off into the crowd.

that is to say: it is not the time yet to tell The Story. but we can talk about the aftermath.

this room looks out over the other side of the building. it has a view of the greenhouse, partially obscured by a large tree with green, heart-shaped leaves. the bedframe is situated at such a ridiculous height that i can sit underneath it without hitting my head, and there's blu tack stuck to the walls, the shadow of spring, old signs of life. one of the drawers in the dresser is crooked. there's a table light that doesn't work. there are water rings on the table.

during the last leg of finals week i dragged myself out of my room for dinner because i refused to sit at my desk and be sad on a friday evening, even though the alternative was to sit in one of those white lawn chairs on the grass and be sad under a slate-gray sky, and halfway through the bit where the protagonist accidentally gets locked inside the room where he's being served a three-course meal and the staff tell him to punch a hole in the wall to get out and he's like i can't do that, i can't break this nice-looking wall and then he breaks the nice-looking wall, when the day was getting late enough that the sky was starting to look less slate-gray and more like a black eye, someone came up to me with a rolled-up yoga mat slung over one shoulder and a camera in her hands. 'i need to shoot something for a final project due tomorrow,' she said. 'can i borrow your hands?'

even the cornered mouse has broken someone's nose before. paintings on cave walls were made by people with skin just like ours. when you feel like you've been backed into a corner and you have nothing and will never have anything ever again, remember this: you are part of someone's spring 2021 final project. you with your super fucked up fingers and your book about the guy who, after punching himself out of that wall, went home with half a rewritten manuscript and met his old lover who, instead of getting married, realized he had followed the wrong person home and had thus taken the necessary steps to rectify his mistake. i am describing the final beats of andrew greer's less. but no conclusion is worth much without a beginning.

where does this story begin? was it that snowed-in morning in washington dc when i stepped off the plane feeling like i'd left half of my heart in the seat pocket? was it the long car ride to school, leaving muffin-crumbs all over the upholstery, the cold wind in my face and the radio blaring through the soft, serrated static? was it that first evening in the half-lit hallway?

it's hard to identify the start of a nightmare. fear has a tendency to reach backwards in time with painted nails and skin, and strangle your past selves so as to prevent the re-introduction of light. this part i won't tell at the dinner party, so i can tell you. in my first semester of college in america i made the wrong friend a few times. one of them was really, really wrong.

but it's never too late to call quits. walk off the set. get in your car. go home. and if you need to, if home becomes homicide, ask for help. the world isn't all mouse-traps and misery. some people want you to flourish. i know it's a hard idea to wrap your head around. you're sitting across from me in a mcdonald's with your metal straw sticking out of your mouth and you're frowning at me. you think i'm full of shit.

it's true though. one day i'll drive you to a dinner party and i'll tell you about my personal sleep paralysis demon, circa 2021, and you'll be mesmerized because i'm good at telling fucked up stories in a way that makes people laugh and my voice will be really hot so everyone will be super bothered by 1) how fucked up this guy is and 2) my really hot voice and then the story will end and i'll smile in the half-light and end with my signature line about how first impressions are all wrong and you should never trust a stranger who says they want the best for you and also people who talk to you in bathrooms are not doing okay and you should stay away from them. and then i'll say but this lady was really nice, and my friends stayed mad when i got too tired to be anything but miserable, and i nicknamed him richard the slut after richard from the secret history by donna tartt, which i was rereading at the time, and one time someone said 'i'll never be able to look at him without thinking of 'richard the slut' again' and i laughed so hard i punctured a lung, and have i mentioned i have really funny friends? you'll say no. i'll say it again. i have really funny friends. you're a really funny friend.

today i pour strawberry-lime kool aid into two teacups and we reminisce about the good old days, when we thought everyone had a sense of basic human decency.

maybe i'll sleep with the light on tonight. i mean look at it. it's such a nice light.

05.28.21