I found a new friend this morning! I looked away to brush my teeth and it scurried across the hall into an uncovered part of wall insulation, but still. I often get glints and glares in my glasses in the pre-noon toilet light, so it took a triple-take until I finally made eye contact with Mousie. Certified real creature! What a legend. I think my favourite part about all small animals is their efficiency of movement, like they know just where to go. Of course, it only looks that way to me because I am a slow-moving giant and they are Muad'dib. I will keep the mouse secret from the house, because the mouse traps have failed thus far and we don't need to try again. I wish I had a cat with me everywhere I went.
Adrianne Lenker's new live album is ridiculous. It's so sweet, and I love tape recording. I'm glad I've kept up this much with unreleased Lenker music—it's going to keep making me sob no matter what. I caught a glimpse of an old license plate my mom keeps in her nightstand and remembered again that this is the life my parents want. They are just art kids who keep scaling up their projects. I used to have this daydream in high school that, through my transcendence to normalcy, my parents would find their way to a presentably suburban life. They moved to the woods after I left, so I think that dream was just for me.
Tape recording pro-tip: -12 dB of room reverb and -12 dB of sixteenth note slapback make me sound just like a cowboy. Results may vary. Since a kid I have always had dreams with big, metal, square warehouses like oversized shipping containers. Last night I dreamt something pleasant and vague with them, but then I woke up this morning—forgot—and fell back asleep to much scarier dreams (this happens most days). At one point, I could feel myself actively dissociating because of what I was experiencing in the dream. The men in my dreams have names I know, but their faces are always amalgams. Thankfully, my second leg of dreaming ended in warehouse reprieve again. I stood on a balcony, listening to Emma do a stand-up set through the giant reverb of one of those big metal walls. They ended the set by clearing their throat into the mic and saying under their breath, "I am going home after this." It got a huge laugh from me. Before I woke up, I heard the applause you'd hear on a live album. My earbuds had fallen out; my dad was outside chainsawing a tree.
I guess today I'm in the pocket of my feelings again. For a little bit, it seemed like I had a pocket that was just holding all my feelings: right breast, surrounded by the cyclonic cowlick in my chest hair. I am effectively still personifying as no one, but I am at least now acting on behalf of feelings that are real and also mine. The trade-off for this is that I also have to remember everything that's been done to me, and all I've done—but those are not my present moments. And that is not yet a mantra. My present moment is: remembering how well I make omelettes/holding my belly/wanting coffee/picking what stays and what goes with me when I move/playing tiresome roleplaying games for the gender affirmation until I'm immersed enough not to care because otherwise I'm just simulating gender dysphoria on top of the gender dysphoria I already feel and what's the point of that? Is there any single song that I would be willing to play at the local open mic night? Can I condense all my being and all my senses down into just one song I know/love more than any other? Will it translate? Who is listening? Will they hate me? Should I practice being phony just a little bit more? This is all still a work-in-progress.
Last night I sat on a folding chair in the backyard with some West-grown Pink Kush and watched the stars. I pressed play on my April playlist just as I took the first sip. I had forgotten that I could enjoy my own playlists that much. Then its vibe got miserable, so I accepted that my emotions are complex as I emptied my finished herb into the dirt. Big Dipper was right above the house, but there were a handful of dots just above the trees that kept steadily moving in different directions. I made sure to track them against the stationary stars to confirm they were indeed no hallucination, then I started to thank God for miracles in aviation. Two dots passed by each other like shooting sisters. It felt like I hadn't been that still in almost two years, and it still feels that way. Maybe strain really does matter. I just know the flavours were nostalgic: savoury, pleasant. I was passively concerned about coyotes, but I'm still hoping to see a skunk.