You have access to the hidden places. You also circulate among those who are hidden. I need you. You can keep me on this earth. Be vigilant. I love you.
November 10
The horse lies naked in the shed
Brain fog; reading goals; rationalism.
I've been struggling with brain fog for some time now. I always hesitate to ascribe that specific term to how I'm feeling because it's so clinical and I don't want to bind it to myself like that, or at least, not medically; but it's the range of symptoms that best describes how I'm feeling. I've been bothered by it for a few months, but it's recently gotten worse and I need for something to change because it's hard for me to think clearly and there's nothing that I really want to do in consequence. I haven't been able to write and I hardly read all of last month; it's hard to do anything, really, except for being tired, and I think that part of how I feel is because of my sleeping habits. I haven't been sleeping well or on time, and I remember feeling better when I made an effort earlier in the season. It always comes back to the basics: Food and rest and exercise. I'm very bad at all of these things, but I want to be better, and I think that's a good first step—but I always say this, and it leads nowhere.
The mental roadblock keeping me from doing anything is the most frustrating because it's jeopardizing my semester, yes, but it's also plain making me unhappy. I always feel best when I'm reading voraciously and October was a total slump. I *wanted* to read, but I didn't because I was so TIRED! I've been struggling to get through Solvej Balle's "On the Calculation of Volume 1" for the better part of three weeks—it's a short book, only 150 pages or so, but there were such long gaps in my reading of it when I started it that I think the whole experience has been ruined. I picked it back up today after a good week of dreading it and was surprised to find that I liked it much better now that I was reading it with fresh eyes—I don't love it by any means, but the writing has a strangely hypnotic quality about it that suits the subject matter, and I always appreciate that kind of thing. It's hard to do. The prose is rhythmic and the whole thing takes place on a rainy November's day, making now the perfect time to read it; and it really encapsulates its time, too, through it's melancholy, ambling story.
Relatedly, it makes me sad to see people talking about reading goals, especially towards the end of the year, since that’s when people realize their self-imposed deadline is coming up. I think that they’re fun in concept and good at motivating a certain kind of reader, but I hate the strange competitiveness that’s been fostered in a lot of online spaces where people define their literary lives through obscenely high numbers. This is a case-by-case thing and there will never be a rule—everything is an exception—but generally, I think the moment you, as an established reader (that part's important—I think reading goals are more beneficial for people who need a foothold into reading as a habit), start treating recreational reading like a chore, you're doing both yourself and the work in your hands a massive injustice. Every book is a conversation between your heart and mind and the words on the page, and to commodify them in order to look cool now that 'intelligence' has become further aestheticized will always rankle me. Reading for the sake of aesthetics is nothing new, of course, but it's a trend that comes and goes, and it's been pronounced for a few years now. Generally, I think that an obsession with numbers is antithetical to the spirit of reading. There's never going to be a wrong way to read and my point in saying this is not that reading goals are bad—I myself set them for fun and take pride in having read a lot of books in a year—but I also think that if a person is reading 30 books a week, that they're not *really* reading.
Back to the subject at hand: No, I didn't read much in October, but one of the books I *did* read was "More Everything Forever" by Adam Becker. It incensed me beyond measure. The book is about the philosophy and history behind the current AI boom and 'profiles' various actors in the scene by going through the things that they believe in and showing how faulty said beliefs are. This is all very new to me, personally—AI has been a huge blindspot in my life because it's so big and I never quite knew where to start with it, and I've also not been very interested in it, either, when speaking in terms of academic interest. I have a lot of thoughts and opinions on it, but they're very vague, so I want to back my feelings up with actual research. It was refreshing to read someone who hadn't bought into the bizarre otherworld of ChatGPT, but the downside is that it's really scary to read these things and have it be proven once again that the people driving this movement are all *crazy*.
The book starts by introducing the philosophy of effective altruism—essentially, the endless optimization of the world through, as the name suggests, altruism. (I think this shares a philosophical root with reading goals…) I had a niggling feeling as I was reading the chapter—especially it started to discuss the related philosophy of rationalism—that I'd heard all of this before, and I realized once he brought up "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality," a handguide disguised as Harry Potter fanfiction, that I had. It's a bizarre story written by an absolute crackpot, and I'd learned about it earlier in the year when I listened to a Behind the Bastards episode on the subject. At the time, I remember thinking it was a little funny and considered reading it, but it's a uniquely difficult-to-read tale and insufferable, too, making for a tricky experience. I want to revisit it now that I know more about rationality as a philosophy, in the interest of learning more about it since it has such a chokehold on some very important people. Expect to hear more on that as I explore further, but probably only during the winter break.
I’m so tired even as I’m writing this. I’ve been really sad and I’m not sure why, and the horrible nightmares have continued. Everything in my life is covered in a pleasant sheen right now, but it all feels very rotten. It snowed yesterday. Today, it snowed some more, and the whole world was blue all day. Happy 'songs' by Adrianne Lenker season... "standing in the yard / dressed like a kid / the house is white and the lawn is dead"... I am very worried about the people that I love dying. Everything feels deeply impermanent; I regret not being a nicer, more docile child.
October 20
Post-break blues
My fall break; creepypasta; knitting.
Yesterday was the last day of fall break. I got absolutely nothing that I wanted to get done done, which is definitely no good, but I did lots of other, smaller things, like working on my site and starting a knitting project, and I will take this win. I've done hardly any reading this entire month, something disappointing but probably predictable given how much I read *last* month. I went to the library yesterday, though, and got lots of really cool books that I'm excited to through—I already started "Paradise Logic" by Sophie F. Kemp, and I'm really enjoying it. It's kind of experimental and the narrative voice is such a delight.
Mama drove me to the library and stayed in the car while I went because she's been working all weekend despite hurting her back. I really wish she would drop her standards to something manageable. My library card expired yesterday so I got a new one made, and this photo's a lot nicer than the old one. The librarian who took it was nice and I told her about the books I was returning. I always feel kind of out of place making small talk or holding conversions, especially when I'm not at work. I feel like I never really know what to say or how to say it, but I think that conversation went well.
I said earlier that I haven't been reading much, which remains true, but only of books. I've been reading *creepypasta*. I was never big into it as a child because I was very sensitive to scary things and tried to avoid anything horror-related—I still remember how my parents told me a funny story about a snow shark and I woke up having nightmares about a bipedal shark walking slowly towards me in the vast, snowy darkness.
So, no creepypasta for me as a child, though I was well-versed in second-hand accounts of all the classics. Slenderman was, of course, my favourite in that weird, shivery way you're drawn to certain things you're afraid of, and I'm still very fond of him now. I really like webfiction and I love the indie web in every sense, and now, as an adult, I can safely say that these stories don't scare me anymore, so I thought it would be neat to go through as many as I can. I want to write down my thoughts on them, too, both in the sense of looking-back contemporary review and a genuine desire to meet the stories where they're at. It really annoys me when people refuse to interact with the story in its world and on its terms, something many people do, and it's easy to because a lot of them are literally not very well-written. Still, I think if you're going to claim to like them, it's a cop-out to adopt this half-mocking, gotcha tone where it's clear you are, in some way or another, looking down on them. It's boring! Be genuine!
I'm going to refine that thesis statement for the page I have planned for this project, but those are the broad strokes of my thoughts on it. As for what stories qualify: All of them! I found a few different lists compiling them and I think my initial starting point will be the video the youtuber Izzzyzzz did on the subject since it's pretty thorough and mentions all the big entries. I know a lot of these have teen-fueled extended universes so I might have to initially be picky about where I draw the line of what is and isn't canon, but eventually I want to get super thorough and literally go through *everything* I can find. I don't want to poke fun because at my core I genuinely appreciate even the most technically awful of these—they're so indicative of the era and truly built a kind of internet culture, and I admire that!
Seguing back into my epic feelings, I've been feeling really *weird*. I'm not sure what it is—probably stress paired with the changing season and the lack of structure over break and, of course, the spectre of chronic mental illness. I hope that now that school's back on, I'll start to feel a bit better with something to do with my days. That, and my knitting! I really hope to finish this project and I think I probably will since it's much less challenging/more mindless than the other one. That's not to say I don't enjoy a challenge, just that the amount of breaks I was forced to take in making it threw off my rhythm and I was really frustrated with it for that. I'll pick it up later— I like the pattern a lot.
October 14
The first one
Changing seasons; sickness; playing nice.
I love every season except for the winter, which I only like, and just barely to boot. Fall maks me catastrophically sad every single year. This means nothing to anyone who is not me.
I finished my midterm exams last week; some real, proper exams, some work-in-progress check-ins. I am proud of myself for studying for them all, and on time—just a year ago, this would have been almost too much to ask. I am happy to be studying. I am happy to write and to know the midnight people and to see the world clearly, or, clearly enough; because there is the same old problem, now as ever. This is the quick of it. The long of it is that I have been dreaming bad daydreams about getting sick, really, properly sick, with pounding ears and my whole skin aching like a bruise. Phlegm is a good word; I feel like phlegm; persistent, unwanted, thick and spattered, which is maybe a masturbatory way to think about myself, but who else to do it if not me?
Earlier, in September, I went to the doctor’s. I have been reading a lot, definitely more than in past years, and I am proud of myself for that, too. I like to read books and I like to know that I am reading books, and it is nice to read them on transit with so many other people. The sentences that I write feel fragmentory and ill-conceived and at night I curl up in the other direction—I have a new pillow and I still haven’t gotten used to it. My dreams are still bad, but recently I’ve started waking up from them with my heart beating very hard. I have been dreaming about dark shadows and dusty buildings and waterlogged corpses. I am a very small person; the world is very big. That word again: *phlegm*! The first time it happened that I can remember, I woke up disoriented and afraid and had to go to the window to see outside on some unknowable impulse, and of course the outside was there and so, too, were my blinds and the keychains I have hanging from the ends of the blinds and the sticker pasted on the windowsill. I have one half of a pair of earrings strung up on the mesh—I don’t really wear earrings but I have a lot of them and this one is part of a novelty set, a big, plastic cat dangling from a small, plastic stick. I half-expect it to holler HANG IN THERE! at me whenever I look at it. I calmed down seconds later and then I felt silly in the privacy of my head.
I have been making a concentrated effort to *play nice*. I am texting my friends. On Sunday I sent a message to An. and asked if she wanted to come over so we could watch horror movies and gorge ourselves on Dollar Store candy. I ended the message with “i miss you!” She said yes, and she said:
and that was nice.
I have also been watching lots of *bad* movies, most of them with J. I want to watch more movies the same way that I am reading more books, but I guess a movie that makes me laugh because I am watching it with my friends is better than the alternative, which is no movies, and maybe even better than the other alternative, which is watching good movies, but by myself this time. I feel lousy for the work I did for HLM, but I have this week to fix it even though everyone has complimented my work. It doesn’t matter because it feels stupid and dull to me.
The old girl in Offred’s room scratched “nolite te bastardes carborundorum” into the wood and then hung herself. I have been thinking about this. I have been thinking about “Aftersun” and how hard it made me cry, and I have been thinking about a little private index of little private suicides. I have been crying more and it makes me feel stupid and it makes me want to swear. I love to swear in my writing; every woman I write says the word FUCK prolifically. Goddamn cunt. Stupid motherfucking bullshit bitch-ass cunt. These are the words that I like to write these days. Isn’t that so fucking weird? Fuck. I have things—I have *shit*! This changes nothing.
Coming home from school and it rained, and it has not been raining much so this was special. I was afraid water would get on my library book so I hugged it close to my chest as I walked.
Grinding heads like stag beetles.