3/22 Alex is home from New York, so I am half awake and warm on her couch. Kismet comes to cuddle with me every once in a while. His small brigade of organs, raising and lowering themselves, apparent through his small furred chest, is the only reminder that I am actually here.

I was just on the phone with June. I miss him a lot. 

Hes in a lot of pain, and it feels kind of ridiculous of me to tell him how bad of shape I am in. Like that one MJ Lenderman song. Still not going to listen to that song, it always upsets me. 

Alex tells me about New York and what it was like. I cant even remember what New York is like at this point. I say I am excited to go back with her in May. I think I am. Its hard to think that far ahead. 

“What are you wearing to Coachella?” I ask her. 

She answers, I look at my calendar and realize its in two weeks. Its hard to think that far ahead. 

Its hard to even think about tomorrow. 

Zoe arrives and this is my signal that I should probably head back home to prep for tomorrow which is loaded. I run to the bathroom really quick to blow my nose, but when I do this I end up just bleeding from my mouth. Which probably isnt good. 

“How are you feeling?” June asked when we were on the phone, however many hours ago.

“Im okay. Do I sound bad?” I know i sound bad. 

“Kind of”

Yeah I know. 

—--

At home, a spider richochets itself between my curtains and the window. Despite feeling completely foible, i get a small cup to trap him under with the hopes of setting him free outside. 

I have never been able to kill bugs. Its just too sad. 

I am so weak it takes a lot to trap him, and then eventually move him to his home which is just;  vaguely outside. 

I lose him at points, wondering if he is still under the cup. Whenever I check, he is doing worse. His stamina is flagelating, his legs moving slower and slower, his tenacity is practically leaking. I think the cup might have hurt him, I dont know how, but I think I might have hurt him. 

I open the back door, and go to let him out, as if he were my dog, but when I remove the cup he isnt moving. His flaccid body piles down the back first stair. 

I think I hurt him. 

This is ridiculous, I think. Im almost crying on the kitchen floor now. I did not mean to kill him. The whole point of the cup, and trapping him, was so that i wouldnt have to hurt him. This means nothing seeing as he is little and dead now. Dead and little. 


3/21 I slept the entire day which really made me feel weird. I didnt get home until 4 which I just cant take anymore. 


I woke up half heartdly around 9 am, coughed up blood, and went back to sleep because I didnt want to deal with that. 


Dillon and I are in our eternal poses, Im strung across the couch, hes painting on the floor. We talk to each other without ever making eye contact. This makes talking about hard things feel easier. Our air cnditioner being the only annoyance, its quite loud so you have to scream whatever it is that youre trying to say. 


I dont know what I am even trying to say. I think Im asking him to come to this magazine launch, making the point its only walking distance away. Making the point I have an ad for my blog in it. Maybe in my own pathetic way I am asking him to support me. 


He cant. He has his friends show. I dont even know the person by name.


He keeps apologizing without ever actually saying the word ‘sorry’ because I didnt express actual disappointment. Life is just something that happens. 


Im not actually upset. I also dont even have the energy to be upset, not in a real way. I have enough energy to mildly and vaguely complain though. 

—---


I gave up on the prospect of going to the last ever Milly show around an hour ago. Its 9:28 now and theyre set to play at 10. Theres no way I am making it to pasadena within that time frame. I dont want to. 


I think if I even try to do that I’ll die. 


Im barely here, on Beverly bouelvard outside of this bar. I ordered a water, which totaled to 8 dollars. Sure. 


This guy is talking to me. About movies I think. 


Hes wearing a suit. Im wearing a t-shirt meant for little boys who play baseball, a pair of black shorts from work, and last nights eyeliner. I tried scrubbing it off, really hard, to the point that it burnt my eyes but to no avail. Its pocketting itself in my waterline. 


Which I thought made me look bad but apparently not bad enough because this guy wants to take me to dinner. 


I genuinely cannot figure out why. 

I have done nothing. I’ve said virtually nothing. I am virtually nothing right now.


Ive offered no sort of hint at any sort of redeeming character traits. At all. 


I figured maybe this would get him to see I am in no place to be taken to dinner. I think this is only wanting to make him try harder. 


I feel like I am going to die. At the risk of sounding dramatic. When I was talking to Jameison earlier I felt like I made no sense. I coudlnt even figure out what I was trying to say. I felt like everybody was wondering why I was there, and what the fuck was wrong with me. 


I feel half awake, but still warm. This is overall an incredibly unpleasant feeling. 



3/20 Last night of the Julia gallery tonight, I think I am very sad. I think I am sad because people are going to Berlin. France, Wherever. I just know it isnt los angeles. 

Its weird to think after tonight I will never go back to the gallery. I dont know how it became such a third space in my life, or really what my friends and I did to deserve such a luxurious playhouse. But I will miss it. Bad.

Lots of things are ending; Milly’s last show ever tomorrow is at Sid the Cat. I think Keyan, Alex, Dillon and I are going to go. Feels full circle. I’ve been to probably like 20 Milly shows. They just kind of have always been around. It used to be a Friday night thing, go to a Milly show at El Cid, then back to their house in South Pasadena (yellow house is what everyone called it), the boys would drink beer, talk about their producers, music industry things I guess. 

Its really sad that wont be happening anymore. Ever.With things ending I have just kind of been forced to think about the fall. 

I still cant listen to Ee which really pisses me off. But i think that proves what is wrong with me; my stark and frankly scary ability to adapt. I can be happy, more so convince myself that I am happy under nearly any circumstance. I can be good, I can be mild. I can be tantamount to whatever is expected of me in almost any situation. 

But then there are these rips, rips of reality which threaten to tear that all apart. I think if somebody forced me to listen to that one Ee song I’d start to cry, or something worse. Is there anything worse? I’d do whatever is worse than crying. 

Theres this fear rising within me █████ ██████ ███ ████ ██████ █ █████ █ ██ █████ ██ ██ ██████ ██████ 
Thats something I dont want to account for, something I dont want to figure out “what it means”

I know that it means nothing; I will let it mean nothing. It cant mean anything. Not right now. 

-----

here is this communal drunkness from all the champagne. This guy, Tim, is trying to buy Zoë and I drinks. He’s the worst kind of guy who is hitting you on despite the fact it’s benevolently clear you have absolutely no interest in him; he habitually interrupts you as much as he harasses you. 


“That’s okay, really” Zoë tried to say.


We kind of don’t need him to buy us drinks because we are on a covered tab here.

-----
“I just think its about–” Theyre talking about writing in front of me, which I dont mind. I can hardly think though. Its loud here, everybody is hot seeing as the gallery is in an old theater from the 30s. Maybe the 40s. 


Everybody’s skin is sticking to each other. 


I have taken to going on my iPhone instead of trying. I think this is fine, or at least better. I dont care about my essay on Baudrillard or Krauss right now. Im pretty champagne drunk, and it seems like this will be my last drunk night sponsored by the kindess of German millionaires. I am trying to enjoy it; it isnt working. 

I cant figure out why. I keep going to say things, talk about things I know I care about. I can only find myself saying the same thing when everybody asks me how I am “just so busy with work”

Im stil sick in a really worthless way. I cant breathe on top of the capacity issue the gallery is facing. I gave up on trying to breathe around an hour ago, when we first initially got here. It was puzzling to see it so packed. It felt wrong. 

I have spent so much time here borderline alone. Or with Zoe and Alex, who I am so close to it might as well register in my brain as still being alone because I am that comfortable with them. 

Alone. I realize I havent been alone all day. I went from being at the office for ten hours, to dinner with a coworker, to getting ready in ten minutes (while I could hear zoe and dillon laughing fron the living room), to on the concrete being hovered over by people that I supposedly know. I know them. I think I know them.

Im just really tired and out of it. I probably shouldnt be drinking when I feel so physically weak. But I dont know when my debauchery will be sponsored again; if it ever will. 


I am going to go downstairs and get another drink 


“I am going to go downstairs and get another drink”


No one really understands this as “I am going to go downstairs and get a drink to be alone” because I didnt say that part. So now we are all going downstairs to get another drink. 


I eventually piss, which I only half had to do so I could obtain a semblance of alone-ness. 

Got my period. Great. 

I wash my hands, taking my sweet time doing so. My hands turn prunish under the lukewarm water because I am taking so long. I am completely distracted my reflection in the mirror. I look like hell. I am covered in an array of bruises I dont remember obtaining, my skin is practically melting off of me, my pathetic attempt at 10 minute makeup only looks sad. Im completely null and void. Theres not really a trace of life there at all. 

—-

German house music rapes my eardrums. What a good verb. Thats exactly what it is doing; raping my eardrums. 

Everyone is here. Probably too many people I know. 

I have no control over this; I dont care either way. 

It feels like life is just something that happens



3/19 Air conditioner is broken in the office today, which is cradled by my remaining menial fever. 


I walked in weary. I think I will always be scared to go back to work after being out for a duration of time. I am worried everybody is mad at me all the time, generally in life, or upset with me. I dont know if worried is the right word. 


Because i ultimately am not afraid of the supposed anger towards me, the preconceived “upsetnesss” thrown my way. It just kind of weighs on me in a worthless way that makes me really hard on myself. 


Its a fake pressure I apply to myself. 


Im self aware of all of this; yet it doesnt help in any sort of way. If anything it makes it worse. 


Much to my disbelief, I enter a meeting with my bosses aand everybody is very happy I am back. I almost turn my chair around to see if there is somebody else behind me. Me? Really? Okay, I guess.


I’ll take it. 
—

The meeting goes exceptionally well. I feel really happy. And supported. 
hese are two great words. 

I feel as a basal pressure. But its hard to know if thats real or something I am making up for myself. 

3/18 I did not intend to do so; but I am drinking champagne at the Julia gallery again. 


Something has happened, it is packed tonight. Our pseudo clubhouse feels blown out. I recognize instagram models, granted the more artsy ones, but they’re here. They’re boys, I guess men, my age here. 


They keep looking at me.


I am starting to believe I might be beautiful. 


I can’t figure out why people think this matters. Or shows any sort of skill or tact on my end. 


“Obviously you’re fucking beautiful, and you’re smart” Alex, the bartender, holds my hands, literally ignoring the willing and patient customers. He seemed to have miss me during my bout of mystery illness.


It felt nice to come here and have everybody ask where I was, and if I was okay. I said I was okay. I was. 


I feel inclined to ask “so what?” 


But I just drink the champagne. 


Being called beautiful, at least as a woman, has always only ever felt like the twist of a knife. I’m perpetually aware that by the time I’m 35 nobody will pay attention to me. 


Unless I get real smart.


But the grocery store, will just be a grocery store.


These comments instill some sort of notion within me; that I have to act quick and fast while people still care. I have to take advantage of this thing I have no control over; because I really will eventually have no control over it 



3/17 I am the worst illness have-r ever. It is impossible to sit still.


Yesterday: I spent most of the day lazing on the couch while dillon painted. He even let me paint a small section. He said I have “very good technique” that I was “actually pretty good at it” 

Charity. He says the same thing when I round off on his drums. Its like when you tell a child they are good at ‘playing’.

I sat under the air conditioner in a tiny babydoll dress feeling pretty fucking useless. I went on my phone and saw things that upset me, only mildly, but they still upset me. This only made me feel even more useless.


I thought of what I wanted, because when you’re sick you have this insight to your deepest desires, an almost prenatal truth to what you absolutely need in that moment, what do i need?  I dont think anybody would like my answer to that question; I dont like my answer to that question. 


Selfish. 


I tend to get pretty angsty when Im ill. And sentimental. Like a baby. Its the one time I’ll let the front, if thats what you want to call it, down. And even then, it isnt fully down. I still have agreed to the Jaded London photoshoot under the guise it will take no longer than 30 minutes. I text Asher from sex magazine back that I am in infact available for a call today. 


I dont know how to stop, which isnt even a sentiment I am concerned with. I dont want to. 


I dont know when I figured this out, but I very much enjoy to be busy. I need to be busy. If i am not, I will kill myself. This is a simple sentence, one very easy to digest, and makes a lot of sense to me. It is generally easy enough to subscribe to. It is a beneficial sentence to subscribe to. 


████████ ████ ██ ██ ██ █████ ███ ██ ███ ██ ██ ██████ █████ ███ ███ █████ █████ █████ █████ ███ ██ ██ █████ █ ████ █████ █ ███ █ ████ ██ ██ █ ███ ██ ███ ██████ ████ █████ ████ ██████ █████ ███ ██████ ██████ ████ ███ ██████ ████ ███ █ ███████ ████ ██ ████ █████ ██ ██ █████ ███ █ █████ ████ ████ ███ █████ ███ █ ████ ████ ████ █ ███ ███████ that became a full-time job in it of itself. It became a career. A conviction. 

█ ███ ██████ ███████ ████ ██ ██ ████ █ ███ ████████ █ ████ ██ ██████ ███ █████ ████ ███████ █████ ██ ███ ███████ ████ ██ ███ ███████ ████████ ███████ ████ ███ ██████ ██ ██ ██ █████ ████████ ██ ████ ██ █████ ██████ █████ ███ ███ ████ █████ ████ ███ ███████ █ ██████████ ██████ ███ ████ ██ ████ ██ ████ ███████ █████ ██ ███ █████


I never understood why my tact was seen as concerning  ███████ ██ ████████ ██ ██ █████ ████ ██ ████ ████ █ █████████ ██ ██████ ████████ █ ████████████ ████ ███ ██████████ ████ ████ ██ ███ ████████ ████ ██ ████████ ████ ██ ███ ███████ ██ ████ █████ █████ ██ █████ ████ ██ █████ █████ ████ 
It made sense then. It still kind of makes sense now.