What is it like to be me in Charlotte? But now I feel exuberant again, I feel like I can be funny and clever whereas the first couple days I felt like my brain was slowly falling out of my ears as I sat on the catch dazedly watching novelas with my mom. I was still at a baseline but i was ready to fall asleep as soon as there was a lull. It’s funny how time warps things. I want you to know how I genuinely feel, but sometimes how I genuinely feel depends on how you genuinely feel. We’re both tortured. And there’s nothing we can do about it. struggling to connect to the WiFi now I feel like I’m fully plugged in again— even if the rest of my body feels like a car wreck. I’ll take the bus to the studio, listen to music it takes an hour to get to the studio. I usually don’t do anything in the studio except hang out. I have boxes and boxes of magazines: Nat Geo, Our State, Collier’s, Saturday Evening Post. The drawers are full of junk. I imagine our space is where they did testing back when the county had control over the building. It looks like my 8th grade science lab. Why are they losing the factory? She turned down the money because she hates that dude so much? What a terrible business woman. They sent her to the looney bin? She escaped? No one’s looking for her? Oh so someone smuggled her out. You think the husbands gonna kill the wife? No? Not even when if he’s drunk enough? That seems like what they’re setting up to. It’s all very predictable so I make predictions. I am still thinking about the mountains. Last year I was really frustrated that I went back to old habits almost immediately after I got back home, I was drinking and watching the Sopranos all day and playing Tetris and feeling like shit. But this year things will be different, there’s no other choice. There are so many things in my life I have that I didn’t have a year ago. Vanessa is a big part of it, we talk the day after I come back. It feels so good to hear her voice and talk to her. I set something up with Emily and Kathy too. Between the three of them these comics absolutely have to get done. I have changed. I have to believe that even there is no evidence to that effect yet. I am so tired. Physically spiritually emotionally. Exhausted. I never knew I could feel so empty to the bottom of my core while still being alive. Paco and I talk about politics, we talk about novelas , but really we talk about whatever is on the tv. Television is the interface we use to communicate. We were watching cocodriles and she was shocked that they lived to be 70-100 years old also she said that she couldn’t believe such ugly creatures procreated. I roll my eyes, it’s exactly the kind of line Paco would say. Creo pero no creo estoy repartida Marimba Santa cecilia bailando todo la noche What the fuck am I waiting for? And now on to the morbid part of the story: Sometimes you go to sleep and wake up the next day expecting everything to be fine. Except you wake up in excruciating pain. I woke up and my stomach felt like it was exploding, I had never felt such excruciating pain. At borderlands I drink some beers and watch the dark knight thinking about everything I rather not This is who I actually am: someone who will go to sleep in the waiting room bc I’m so tired. I don’t know who I was in Swannanoa that was a different person. Me siento perfecto Being driven insane by betrayal. Bust out a flute and start playing it. And everyone is like why the fuck are you playing that? It felt like Naruto My smiles are genuine my feelings are genuine because if I don’t feel like doing it… I won’t. It’s funny I thought I’d returned refreshed from the mountains instead quite the opposite— but this is not me trying to talk shit, my pain is self chosen after all. What a sky! Am in the other world? Is this paradise? I credit this to inertia. While I was going I was gone, but as soon as I get into bed or sit down on the couch at home I start nodding off. I only care about my own edification at the end of the day. Kurosawa is the master. If god exists he does not weep. If god exists he fucking hates us. So of one world and also of another. The light rail will come in 30 minutes after the But I also remember being really lonely is what makes me appreciate kindness so much. But being in Swannanoa left me with a tooth ache— there should be a balance. People describe me as sweet, but I am just trying to behave in a way that aligns with my values and the kind of person I want to become. I want to inhabit the world I wish already existed. The idea that you don’t have time, or you have less time than you thought you had : not being able to share something with a family never or passing it on it’s really fucked up. I talk with my friends about Palestine all the time, I am not always the most educated person on every subject so I don’t try to talk about everything, but it breaks my heart every single time seeing unimaginable cruelty against children and crimes against humanity There are many Spanish borrowed words from Arabic. The one i find most fascinating is ojalá. Ojalá basically translates to hopefully and it is hard to see what’s going on in Gaza and continuing to live life as normal in the heart of empire but WE were never going to free Palestine. Palestine will free itself; it’s presumptuous of the savior style to believe the west will be the one to do it. all we can do is keep track of what is going on here, take down names, and keep people accountable . I believe in the bottom of my heart that Palestine will be free This whole place is confusing. My sister and I go see Lilly and Darren at their new home at Aldersgate. It’s a retirement home campus, some people live in the main building in wings dependent on their conditions, some people live in cottages. They’ve been there for a month at this point and they seem to We walk around the lobby and i notice it’s mostly white people staying there. They all wave at me, they start conversations but it’s all small talk, so I don’t feel anything beyond a bit annoyed after. I We get lunch in the grill. It looks like just like a hotel lobby and after lunch I realize just how much like a hotel it is: there’s a giftshop, a movie theater, a hair salon. There’s even an art room just like in Black Mountain: a big table in the middle We try to find the pool because i would really love to get better at swimming In the middle of things Lilly tells me to put it on my calendar that her 80th birthday. You only turn 80 once after all. Bev and Bill. We used to go to church together when I was a teenager. Bill vaguely taught me how to use the soundboard. I didn’t want to say no when she asked me if she should knock, so I just said sure. Sure is less an affirmative than a yes, in my mind at least. It felt a bit cruel to visit. To remind them of something that was maybe painful… Does the good outweigh the bad? Bev opened. She looked exactly the same as a remember. She hugged me and Day. I don’t know how long it’s been but it’s at least 7 years since I turned 18 and pretty much decided that I was done with school and done with church since it reminded me so much of school. All the dogma just drove the bile up my throat When you grow up with it in your heart, you sort of keep it. It’s fun to have my grandchildren around Y’all are like my grandchildren. She’d never said that to me. Nelle said it’ll just take time. #zines Legal contracts It’s exciting to me it makes me want to take my vitamins and do my crossword puzzles and take care of my body. It would be so fun to continue to surprise people at 80 even though I don’t think I’ll make it that long. My mom, Paco, got into it with me because we were talking about Lily and how she’s 79 and still going on and on and I said it was because she has things to look forward to and projects that she’s involved with and lives that depend on her. My mom said she wished she had something like that, anything beautiful in her life Well it’s been 3 fucking years! The law of sustainment is something ive been thinking a lot about. I am not and never have been and never could be a manic pixie dream girl! I am and have always been a fucked up eldest immigrant daughter! Which explains why I’m so uptight and why being “free” appeals so much to me. I didn’t really have that freedom growing up or especially not as a teenager. So much! So much going on! But like at a good pace! Not in a I have to go into sleep debt to keep up pace (you know exactly what I mean) went to Richmond weekend of the 8th I’m seriously considering buying a version of your toy camera because I think it’d be a great way to make a zine. I mean I just use Karly is just like a lot of the NC girls I know but like a much cooler version of the NC girls I know. I want to keep it light, I’m always a little introspective and I don’t think I can change this, but I’ll try to save my brutal honesty for the zine. I feel like a version of myself struggling to be me.