sunday confessions

[linking up with becky if she posts this week!]

I was kind of a weenie,

Monday was a perfect fall day, weather-wise. It was so nice and golden and crispy that when I stepped outside to get lunch I thought this exact thought: “Goodness, what a perfect fall day!” And then I smiled and took a deep breath and cozied up inside my cardigan and headed down the street. Then the universe said, “EW UGH YOU’RE BEING SUCH A WEENIE” and a crunchy yellow leaf swooped down and stabbed me in the eye.

I engaged in some retail therapy,


I used my eye wound to justify a shopping spree at Rite Aid. If you’re wondering what my version of a “shopping spree” is: One (1) face wash, one (1) bag of cotton balls, one (1) bottle of witch hazel, and one (1) moisturizer. Honestly so indulgent.

and my apartment was a mess all week.

Our landlords are a trio of brothers (not triplets and not, to my knowledge, a “thruple” – good thing I had the foresight to give that a quick google) that live below us with their parents. Recently they’ve been in and out of our apartment because they’re winterizing the roof and the only access is in one of our closets. It’s been a thrilling week of taking everything out of the closet, waiting for them to be finished, and then putting everything back into the closet. So fun.

Just kidding I hate it. Last night (I’m writing this on Thursday) we decided to just leave everything out because they need to come back again with a roofer and it seems silly to keep taking coats and storage containers in and out. Especially if we aren't going to film it all and then play it back very fast with a silly song playing.

Before I realized that all of this roof-related activity would take place this week, I’d planned on getting a few projects done around the house (hang different curtains in the entryway, put up a coat rack, clean the carpet, things like that) so I ordered a few things (curtains, curtain rods, a coat rack, carpet cleaner, things like that) and so in addition to winter coats and cat carriers and Christmas decorations we’ve also been stepping around cardboard boxes filled with Things.

I just close my eyes and imagine that everything is put away and hum “A dream is a wish the heart makes when it’s trapped in a nightmare…”

The brothers are lovely and entertaining, though. It’s interesting to interact with people who are as awkward as I am but in slightly different ways.

A text conversation with one of them:

After reading the exchange aloud to a coworker, I said "He's very nice but a little odd." And she said, "He's probably reading this to one of his coworkers and saying the same thing about you." I really hope that's what happened.

Then one night I got home and they had already been working for a little while. I went to heat up Baby Joe's dinner noticed that Griffon was in the kitchen with one of the brothers. I said "Oh he's out here with you! Usually he runs and hides under the bed when people come over." To which the brother replied, "Oh yeah we've been hanging around for about an hour! He recommended some latte art classes." 

It's this vague, barely-funny sort of humor that I so, so enjoy. Mm. 

Happy last week of October! 

Here seems like a good place for a picture of my butt.

I can't remember the last time I shaved my legs, but did I let that stop me from shaving my face? No, I did not. There are a few cuts on my arm from where I practiced with Diego's straight razor (which several internet sources advised me NOT to use, but did I let that stop me? No, I did not!) but they sort of blend in with Griffon's handiwork so I don't think they'll alarm anyone. So far I feel exactly as neutral about this method of face-hair-removal as I do about any other method of any-other-hair-removal. Why yes, actually, I am perpetually disappointed that hair removal and how many pounds my body is takes up so much brain space. Thank you for asking. 

I lied, I can remember, it was Tuesday. Same day I washed my hair. 

I spent $100 on a juice cleanse even though we bought a juicer a few months ago and I could probably just make the cleanse myself. Or like, not do one at all, because they're stupid. But since when has anything being stupid stopped me from doing it? Never, is when! 

Yesterday while I was scrubbing away all evidence of the week from all the surfaces of our apartment, I was also thinking about which dress I was going to wear to dinner at the cute place with the curtain-y booths and about how nice it would be to put on lipstick and be in the world after a day of scraping wet cat litter (AKA CEMENT) off of the bathroom floor. What we ended up doing was ordering in a lot of garlicky carbohydrates and watching Practical Magic. I did put on my house dress to go get a bottle of Chianti, so like, I made it partway into the world. What do you want from me? 

Here are some miscellaneous pictures of summer that are sitting on my desktop for reasons I cannot recall:

Linking up with Becky even though BY HER OWN ADMISSION she has read HP fanfiction. 

I want to write you a poem every day until my hand breaks
and assure you that you’ll find your place,
it’s just
the world has a funny way of
hiding spots fertile enough for
bodies like yours to grow roots.
LUCAS REGAZZI

This isn't a confession, I'm just going to talk about my cat for a minute. Or ten.
He's finally, finally "adjusted." I think. He's gone from squeezing his big fat butt onto the shelf next to the toilet and growling while I feed him treat after treat after treat at 2AM and empty my bladder as quickly as possible to following me around wherever I go. He is my short and scratchy shadow. Like, here's where he is when I'm sitting at my desk:

And here's where he is when I sit on the couch (aka here is where both of us always are):

Et cetera, et cetera. I JUST LOVE HIM SO MUCH, YOU GUYS. And he loves me, too, or so it would seem. As long as I don't pet him for too long, or, goddess forbid, try to snuggle him. He really does not like that.

MOVING ON.

I'm a shitty vegan but an okay vegetarian. 
I just can't stop with the cheese. Also, did you guys know that not all beer and wine is vegan? I'm half a bottle in to a probably definitely NOT-plant-based bottle of white, okay okay three-quarters, I'm three-quarters of a bottle in, wine as we speak. As I type? Anyway if I'm waiting for Diego to finish work and somebody hands me a chai latte, I'm not asking if they made it with almond milk. I'm just drinking it. And hoping he finishes soon because it's Saturday and Full House is on Hulu now and I'm about ready to drop the "I Am A Person Who Gets Dressed And Goes Places" charade. And listen, if I'm going to eat a taco and it's not going to have pork and pineapple on it, then it's going to have fish and I'm going to be really happy for however many seconds it takes me to make it disappear. I don't miss meat at all. Not even fish (unless it's on a taco but we've already covered that.) But the rest of it is challenging. And you know how I deal with things that are challenging... by not!

The good gosh darn am I talking about? Cats and fish? I'm so sorry, everyone. Blame the meat wine.

I had an idea of what I was going to read next but then I realized there was a book I bought a long time ago that never downloaded to my kindle. So, sorry book about Actual Important Things - you'll have to wait, because I'm now very involved in this book that I cannot remember the title of/have the faintest idea what it's supposed to be about except that there's a forest and an abandoned town and a lovable dog and a sarcastic protagonist and some dead guys. BASICALLY EVERYTHING.

I'm in the process of trying to get back into college and it's the worstttt. It's more the worst than I am at eating plant-based.
It is actually not the worst, and I am quite extremely privileged to have access to an education. And a hard-working Mexican to pay the tuition I owe to the last college I went to so that they'll release my transcript - ba-dum, tss!

And in between dealing with that, I'm googling properties for sale in another state because I think I may be coming to the end of my tolerance of this city. I love her so much, but she's wearing on me, guys. I've got maybe three, four more years left in me before I start talking to myself on the bus. I mean like, loud enough that other people can hear me.

I love fall so much that as soon as the temperature dropped below 70 I ripped all the sweaters out from under my bed and rolled around in them. Pumpkin I could give a shit about, but clothes in earth tones that cover my chubby upper arms? HAPPY OCTOBER TO ME.

and if you can't sleep alone
be careful of the words you speak in your sleep
and
ask for no mercy
no miracles; 
and don't forget:
time is meant to be wasted,
C. BUKOWSKI 

- [Edit: On second thought, maybe swallow this one for now.]

- I didn't watch The Handmaid's Tale as soon as it came out because I was deathly afraid it would be terrible. It wasn't, at all. Phew. (Shouldn't have doubted you, Ms. A.)

- I thought I wanted to write a blog but I think I actually just want to drink coffee and look out the window with the cat.

I finally hit up Wayfair for a desk to put into the space Diego created in the living room when he moved the couch while I was at work a few months ago. I confess that he was right about where the couch should go (because I now have a cute little desk corner and it's very peaceful when Arwen isn't lighting herself on fire), which makes it okay for me to also confess that even though I said I liked it when he first did it, his having rotated the couch ninety degrees actually made me very sweaty and disoriented.

I also confess that the only difference between this desk and my childhood desk is that I drink a lot of wine while sitting at this one. It's still filled with coloring books (mostly actual coloring books designed for children and fat crayons) and abandoned cross-stitch projects. And I can't actually light the candle, because of Arwen and her wayward rear end. So.

Have made zero discernible dents in the piles of books I purchased last year. Lindsay. God.

My upstairs neighbors were uncharacteristically quiet on Friday night and all day yesterday. While I was enjoying the quiet, my thoughts kept creeping toward the morbid. At one point while I was vacuuming, I realized that I was silently narrating my own true-crime podcast about what might have quieted them - F O R E V E R. When I was leaving last night, I walked backwards up the sidewalk until I got to the corner store (where hours earlier, the man there sold me black market beer because who cares about laws and licenses, NOT US), because I was watching their windows for signs of movement.

They're not dead, I hear them walking around up there now.
... at least ONE of them is walking around up there.

Linking up with Becky!

sunday! the most glorious of days

I confess that "Oh, I wish I could stay!" means "Please for the love of Aslan stop drawing attention to the fact that I've been edging toward the door with my coat since I got here because you are prolonging the time before I can be at home where no one else is." Why this is a fact not universally understood by everyone, I do not know. 

I confess that the reason my stove is so dirty in the second picture (you know, the one of me spending Friday night pre-baking and freezing all the Christmas cookies I said and then immediately regretted saying I'd bake when I realized that baking, packing, and transporting Christmas/any cookies requires a modicum of planning? Also the ability to bake things that other people want to ingest?) is that I've been using it every single day this week to brown brussels sprouts in addition to frying eggs for my handsome roommate because the first thing I did after hanging the lights and garland was to test the selfie light OBVIOUSLY:

and the results of THAT little experiment sent me spiraling into the deepest grossest parts of my brain where the little voice that's mean to me lives. There's obviously nothing wrong with this picture, or the body that the picture is of. It's fine. I'm fine. I LOOK GOOD, EVERYONE COME SEE. 

But anyway, so, the dirty stove - I leave the pans on the stove usually, and when Diego wakes up for real later on he washes them before he leaves. What he does not do is wipe the stove off, and funny enough, it is the same thing I do not do when I come home at night. Because if you think I've even GLANCED at that thing after work since my mom bought us a microwave, you are mistaken. (Bless you, manufacturers of frozen black bean burgers. Bless you.) SO I ALSO CONFESS that sometimes a lot my stove has odd-colored rings around the burners for several days at a time. Doesn't THAT feel good to get off my chest. 

I confess that my arms and parts of my back where I didn't even know there were muscles are not. happy. with. me. We had our first real snow yesterday morning and I was out before everybody else for what I thought was Round 1 of shoveling. I win at neighboring. (I said that part out loud, real loud, as I typed it. For the benefit of anyone around here who didn't notice I was first.) Then it rained later and there didn't need to be any more rounds hooray! but man. Telling that to my arms is not making them feel any better. So lazy, these arms of mine. 

My boyfriend just now (from the bed where he still is) told me to decide where I want to go today to buy my new shoes. For his birthday dinner. At the obscenely expensive restaurant where we have a reservation WAY past my or anyone else at the neighboring senior center's bedtime. Also I dropped a disgusting amount of money on our train tickets home for Christmas this year, and felt good about that decision before I remembered about there not being a holiday hiatus on rent. It's actually, much like my sexy body, all fine. Everything is fine. I'm so fucking lucky, even. And I know this, and I walk around saying it soothingly to myself under my breath and being, I'm sure, very off-putting to everyone around me. But no amount of self-soothing lately is making me FEEL fine. It's hard, when I'm in this, to feel like it's ever going to be any other way. The same way I know that everything is actually fine, I know that feeling like this is temporary. But I don't believe what I know. So I'm just a big ball of anxiety right now, even though I am also happy about most things - I confess.

What I do believe with great certainty is that right now I am very hungry for banana pancakes and that I need to take a shower and perhaps apply some lipstick before entering the world. And banana pancakes, to my great disappointment, do not make themselves. 

linking up with becky, or i will when there is an up to link to, to whom i would like to sincerely apologize for not being able to figure out buttons today.

I CONFESS: it's tuesday

I’ve been listening to Christmas music since the end of August. Part of me is afraid I’m going to burn out by the time Christmas actually gets here, but the other part of me just wants to start lighting the Christmas candles I’ve been hoarding since last year. And the pro-Christmas part of me is bigger because it eats more cookies, so guess who wins. Also, if I were the sort of person who could use the word “juxtaposition” without sounding dumb, I would tell you that I’m quite enjoying the juxtaposition of my morning commute from Queens to Harlem against the tune of “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” (see: Children laughing, people pushing each other over to get a spot on the first M60 that comes even though everybody knows another one is thirty seconds away, children laughing some more and grinding potato chips into the floor with the toes of their light-up sneakers).

Don’t worry though, I’m not trying to skip fall. I sat near some hay bales outside Gansevoort Market the other day:

Now all I want to do is go to an orchard and pick things and drink cider, even though I know it’ll either be too cold or too hot for my liking and then I’ll complain about how heavy the pumpkin is and how it got dirt on my coat. It’ll still be fun though. I’m so fun!

The gym I “go” to was merged with one of its sister locations two blocks away. So now that it’s not directly across the street from my bus stop, which I need not point out is the greatest burden to ever be endured by mankind, I am feeling extra smug and accomplished about actually going. I confess, though, that I still wouldn’t have known the stupid gym had moved if Diego hadn’t gotten out of work early last night and picked me up so we could go together. (Monster. Actual monster.) Because if we hadn’t gone together I wouldn’t have gone at all. As it was, all I did was run a half-hearted mile and then walk on a .00001 incline while watching thirty minutes’ worth of Amberlynn Reid’s Youtube videos. (SUCH A COMPELLING CHARACTER.) See, the issue I have with working out is that once you start you do not immediately fit into size-two bikini bottoms. Which is enough of an issue for me that I don’t want to bother with it at all. Me and my pajamajeans are doing just fine without you, abs. Wherever you are. 

I can’t remember how many days it’s been since I washed my hair. 

I wrote most of this at work today. It’s amazing how much less time everything takes when someone isn’t making a series of increasingly-uncomfortable-to-listen-to personal phone calls at the desk behind you, or forcing you to mentally construct a detailed plan to launch yourself into the sun because they won’t stop tapping their desk and sighing or typing aggressively loudly (the reason their fingers are free for all this noise-making is because they are making the personal phone calls on a hands-free device, so don’t worry, at least they don’t look as douche-y as they’re acting. Don’t. Worry.)

I confess that the most adult I ever feel is when I get my eyebrows done on the way home from the gym. My nails are disgusting and my apartment is a mess and I haven't gotten a haircut since March and I'm terrible at taxes but for an hour once a week I am CRUSHING IT.

I confess that I went Christmas shopping on Black Friday even though I am against it on principle. (Wishy washy and half-baked, these principles are, but I stand by them nonetheless. Except that this confession is about me not standing by my principles. Mmm. It's just, standing makes me so tired.) I didn't do it on purpose; we were in Brooklyn saying goodbye to Diego's dad for a while, and Target happens to be on our way home. I thought buying presents for family might be a nice distraction, and I was right. Nothing is more distracting from anything than Target in Brooklyn on Black Friday. Nothing. Plus we got a big fat chunk of our shopping out of the way and came in way under budget, which feels great, so. Thanks for forcing people to work mandatory overtime for basically no pay, corporate America!

I confess that I feel real betrayal every time I look at shapewear in any store. How much happier would we all be if we just agreed to let our soft parts be soft!? Come on, people. Come. On.

I've been very seriously considering getting a handheld voice recorder. As of two seconds ago, I mean, when I sat down to write this and could physically feel the words leaking out of me and into the parts of the room I can't reach. My brain spends all day long making observations and pinning words to the observations it makes instead of doing whatever it's supposed to be doing, and if I could whisper those strung-together words into a tiny box that would remember them for me then maybe this stupid blog would have more content. And maybe I'd have journals filled with thoughts instead of lots of blank books laying around as reminders of how poorly managed my financial expenditures are. I understand that even the most basic of cell phones has this capability now, but I think I need it to feel old-timey. I think it will help with the process. The other thing I think will help with the process is to remember that it is a process, and that I don't necessarily have control over when it happens. What I do have control over is capturing it when it does happen. I'm so sorry, I lost myself at "whisper words into a tiny box." 

"In fact, it seems to me that most of the mistakes I make in personal relationships, most of the times in which I fail to be of help to other individuals, can be accounted for in terms of the fact that I have, for some defensive reason, behaved in one way at a surface level, while in reality my feelings run in a contrary direction." 

Carl Rogers, On Becoming a Person 

The universe is smart. Also it has night vision and IT SEES YOU. IT SEES WHAT YOU ARE DOING. And no matter how much you nod and smile and go along with things that don't actually feel good to you, that actually are slowly eating away at all your favorite inside parts, the universe knows the truth. I confess that I'm tired of feeling guilty and/or worried about faceless, made-up things and so have turned to women on the internet with soothing voices and elaborate background music to talk me through vibrational matching while I wash dishes. 

I've also started actually using the worksheet my friend gave me while they were getting their millionth degree in Making People Feel Better, the one about deconstructing anxious thoughts and negative self-talk. You know, the one that an actual smart person in real life suggested might be beneficial that I promptly shoved into a book and forgot about for months and months and months until a strange lady streaming footage of her face to the tune of Enigma reminded me of it? That one. Of course by "actually started using" I mean I dug it out and smoothed out most of the wrinkles and thought vaguely about using my boss's toner to make copies of it. And then congratulated myself for utilizing a source of stress as an instrument in managing stress. And then had a fantasy about the book deal I'll probably be offered pretty soon re: my thoughts on how life works.  

My Christmas tree cost $9.99 and I feel like I overpaid. I also feel smart and thrifty, because I decorated it with ribbons we had from the Mexico-Jamaica game in Philly this summer and the flowers I wore in my hair on Halloween. 

Another thing I feel really smart about is sneaking Chapstick into places where unsealed Chapstick isn't allowed. In fact, I'm considering becoming a professional Chapstick mule since I'm so good at it. If only this skill could be applied to something more lucrative. OH WELL.

I wasn't kidding about the handheld recorder, folks. Starting tomorrow I am a tiny box whisperer, and then maybe Sunday Confessions will be less rambly and nonsensical/not be the only posts I write ever. MAYBE. 

Generally my clothes come from the bins at the Goodwill outlet on Van Dam, but for the past few weeks I've been dying to go to the mall. Now, I don't get why people take trips into the city just to shop. Like, they have special express shopper trains into Manhattan during the holidays. WHY are you paying for a train ticket to come spend more money here on stuff you don't need than you would anywhere else? Haven't you heard of Amazon, where you don't have to squeeze through walls of people to make it to a space big enough to crouch and hyperventilate into a shopping bag? I feel the same way about malls. But. I sort of love a mall at Christmas. And right now I think is prime Christmas mall time because the decorations are up and the music is playing but December is still far enough away that most people haven't started panic buying last minute landfill fodder yet. I'm wearing leggings and a plaid shirt to go with my topknot and as soon as Diego gets back from his aunt's house I'm going straight to the mall to spend money I don't have on Starbucks and sweaters and deeply inhale that Christmasy mall smell. 

I bought a gym membership last week. I picked Planet Fitness because there's one close to where I live and I can't afford NYSC. I can't really afford PF, TBH. LOL. It's clean and the people who work there are nice without being too chatty and there's always a treadmill open and that's about all I care about. However, there are a ton of people just walking around taking selfies of themselves in the different mirrors, which doesn't directly impact my "workout" but is still confusing. Another thing I find confusing is that there's a giant tub of free candy at the reception desk. Also I've heard they have pizza/bagel days. Also also they're having some sort of social media contest where the prize is New Year's Eve in Times Square, aka The Worst Thing Ever. Going to the gym is yet another life thing that I find incredibly disorienting. 

I need to buy a birthday present for a one-year-old and I have zero clue. Well, not zero exactly. I know they like breasts and their moms and looking at stuff. I'm just going to walk into a baby store, hand an employee some dollars and ask them to turn that into a present. But what I'd really like to do is pick out a present for an older child and give it to the baby with a card that says, "For when you're more interesting." Not in a mean way, but in an encouraging sort of way. You know? 

i've done it before and i'll do it again

Where are we at with the PSL? I feel like for a while pumpkin spice lattes were this thing everybody made fun of, because for a while before that there were all those pictures of girls standing in orange leaves wearing lacy knitted boot socks and holding #PSLs, no? Am I making that up? I can't tell if they've now become something that people are ironically ordering or not. And irony is not generally lost on me. Just can somebody please tell me if the barista is rolling her eyes at me when I order a pumpkin spice latte. I JUST WANT TO BE COOL. Honestly though the Christmas flavors are where it's really at, so I'm saving the rest of my fancy coffee dollars for all of the peppermint things that anyone on the chain coffee marketing teams can come up with. 

I never exercise on purpose, although I do usually move around just enough to keep my body from total open revolt. Usually. Last weekend I suddenly noticed that months of pork buns and empanadas and taking the bus to work more often than walking were beginning to appear in less than flattering ways on my various bits and pieces, so I naturally proceeded to house tupperware containers of kale and carrots for the entirety of this past week. Now, I have no idea how much I actually weigh because my checking account balance is the only number I'm interested in obsessing over ("0" is such an interesting number, don't you think?) but to be honest I know I'm about ten pounds over what my personal happy place is. I'd like to be able to say that if I'm going to give up foie gras it'll be because of cruelty to ducks and not just to starve myself back into those size 4 J.Crew shorts from two summers ago (I SWEAR I WORE THEM ONCE, I AM NOT MAKING IT UP) but that will just never be true for me. Anyway, I confess that these thoughts are inside my brain.

You want to know what I did on yesterday? Woke up at 7AM, spent an hour and forty-five minutes in the bathroom waxing my upper lip and bikini line and shaving the top parts of my legs for the first time in eight months. Then I got back in bed and turned on Audible and slept for three more hours before waking up to go spend my entire paycheck on butternut squash dumplings and drinks with maple grenadine. If I had a child right now, his or her memoir would be the kind where the family moves from one dusty trailer town to the next because the parents have to skip town whenever the law catches up to them.

"Write 31 Days" was changed to "Write 3 1/2 Days," in case you didn't know. I absolutely did not get bored and quit.