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.

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.