it's finally october. my favorite time of year. i'm begging for it to be the beginning of positive change. this year has been a year of feeling thwarted, stagnant, and confined. my prevailing states these past months have been exhaustion, dread, and dissatisfaction. now that i have made a decision and have begun to take tiny steps every day i am pleading for purpose and direction. i've been brushing up my french, and my mind has been consumed by the thought of work ahead. but i must take it piecemeal if i am going to be able to function.

i have to start doing research but i'm terrified that what i find out is only going to further discourage me. i have to get into the mindset that i'm doing this and i either equip myself with the best knowledge to be as clever as possible or i stumble blindly. i've set the gears turning and pride will prevent me from turning back. i think i've decided that either way i am going to go for as long as i can on a 90 day visa and scramble for a foot hold if i don't already have one lined up. i can always come back to seattle and save up again to throw myself out there again.

yesterday ended up being a thwarted day that ultimately ended well. work was a bit miserable. i just find shaden so deeply grating. i don't know how to put up boundaries because she seemingly refuses to read my social cues of discomfort. or she believes that being even more familiar will be endearing? i don't mean to be so cold and rude to her i just am not an immediately familiar person, and i distrust those that are. wind was also taken out of my sails because both my hookup and date that i had planned for the evening cancelled. it got me in a funk. but turns our cris's new spot was opening last night and ian, jerry, and colton were going so i tagged along. i'm glad i did. it was fun to spend time with them all, i dearly love and appreciate their friendship. the drinks were great and the food was killer, even if the food did take almost two hours.

apparently cris's boss has a crush on me from glo's and knows about swamp wife. though she said i'm sort of rude to her. i hope i don't come across as rude.

i drunkenly pitched to colton as we were leaving going back to his place and cuddling. he was down and i'm glad i did. we had a lovely time and i think i'm really getting over my hang ups around casual sex. i think all it took was confidence in my body. who knew?

today is apartment cleaning day. no practice. which is fine by me. it feels like we're all kind of falling apart. but i think we've been so entrenched in the band for months that we could all use a break. it's good to spend time away from things such as these, so you can start to miss them and return to them with earnest interest.

is it bad i may try to set up a hookup in between cleaning?

i'm fucking furious. i went to go start laundry only to find that one of the washers was full of blankets and towels, but it hadn't been run. i gave it a few minutes to see if the person was coming back. after ten minutes i decided fuck it, you lost your opportunity and went to take their stuff out only!!! to!!! discover!!! that the washer was full of cat litter!!! what the fuck i hope whoever did that chokes on cat hair and dander i am so angry go fuck yourself you stupid inconsiderate fucking cunt. sorry for the genuine anger but i am furious. this is the most mad i have been in a long time. because i spent all day yesterday trying to do laundry to no avail. and now this!? i wish nothing but misery and suffering upon whoever did that.

anyways. yesterday i got some of my cleaning done. i did the kitchen and bathroom. got the mirrors cleaned, changed the shower curtain. i wasn't able to get to floors because i wasn't able to wash the rugs because the laundry room was full all day yesterday. but i at least got something done. with practice cancelled my plan was to just relax and go to bed early. i ended up spending most of the night hunting for a hookup. one was about to come over, but after i prepped and set the apartment he flaked. go figure. the nexrt half hour was madly spent on the apps. who i did end up finding was a maestro and it was a lovely evening in that regard. i got his number and will definitely be hitting his line again. i also maybe have a hookup lined up for friday after work with a super hot daddy. life is wonderful.

though i'm beginning to grow concerned at the amount of time i spend seeking sex. it's only been the past two weeks but still. i guess it's freaker fall. i'm only living out the season! and i am surmounting an emotional and ethical barrier that i have long been wanting to unlearn. and i'm having really fun sex along the way.

i think in between doing laundry today i want to work on a new demo. i've been wanting to make a two phase song a la empire ants. i need to figure out some tempos of songs to get the pace right. i've got five hours until i've got a date to go see candyman. oh yeah i've got a date tonight. we'll see how it goes. i'm not terribly invested. but he seems nice enough. to be seen.

i spent my gym time today listening to a bientot de te revoir. i learned a couple useful phrases and i'd like to believe that listening along will help even if i understand very little. i was able to discern a couple times the rough gist of what they were talking about. i think the more i make it a habit the more my comprehension will improve.

been contemplating writing creatively more. i may start a page for prose. i started a note on my phone for the month of october like i used to years ago. i've only got a few lines down, but that's something.

why am i in a constant state of paralysis? why am i thwarted so consistently?

oh also i facetimed charlie today and i'm feeling better about her moving to texas. she made some good points. i think it might be good for her to be on her own. sink or swim and all that. who knows.

woke up in the trenches. today is day two in a row of setting an alarm to get up to go to the gym and not going. and i ate a burrito last night after having two beers at ian and jerry's and also having a slice of cake that rio brought and i just feel so awful about myself. i've been sleeping like shit, doing too much, drinking too much, and i just can't take it anymore. i need to institute another rest week soon. but i can't really, not until the end of october.

i just need the perspective shift that i'm having a bad day. there are physical reasons why my mental state is so bad. i need to eat something. i hate myself for not being fit. even though it's taking so much of my time and energy to reach for even the slightest level of acceptable i still am constantly staving off simmering resentment. i judge myself constantly for every infraction. and what will being fuckable get me? why am i tearing myself to shreds over this? why am i applying a moral framework? why am i destroying my sleep schedule and punishing myself for? i can't stop though. i have to get as hot as possible, i want to be lean for once in my stupid fucking life. i don't want to eat today. what is wrong with me? i think i'm just hungover and sleep deprived.

sorry that was maybe candid, and tainted by a bad mood, but i don't think i allow myself honest awareness of the strictures i have rigged up for myself in pursuit of bodily aesthetics. i tell myself it's fine, i'm taking care of myself, that eventually it will lead to happiness, but deep down i know it won't. i know i will never be satisfied with my body if i don't change my thinking. but i'm worried if i change my thinking i'll stop trying and let myself go and i'll die alone, unloved, unfuckable.

why am i so unhappy? what am i doing wrong? i don't even know what avenues to take to help myself towards a happiness. i'm doing all these things that one would think would point me in a direction but i'm just spinning in circles. flailing trying to figure out not even how to get what i want, but what i want in the first place. what makes me happy? what does an ideal life look like to me? if i get it, will i be satisfied? or will this gnawing engine of dissatisfaction simply erode the scenery until i'm once again stranded in gray scale? i have to fix myself, but i haven't the time. people to see, rent to be paid, gym time to fit in, all that.

at least i'm studying french again. and it's been going fairly well. like riding a bike, no? ou plutot, non? though the excitement is waning and the dread is back. i just don't think i can do it. i'm filled with so much self doubt these days it's impossible to move. like a stupid example, i made plans to go to the benson boone look a like contest today, but i don't think i could even do it and i have no energy and i don't even look like him and why try.

why try? i think that's the most insidious and powerful motif that has been paralyzing me lately. why try? you're not even going to come close, so why try at all? why get out of bed? why even leave the apartment? you're fat, you're ugly, you have no marketable talents, you're uncreative, you're lazy, you're cowardly. so why try?

this is no way to live and i know that. and i ask myself, is writing all of this exorcise or indulgence? i don't know. it's brought me to tears, but has it helped? i just want to not have to care, not have to choose, not have to be responsible. i want to abdicate any agency. i would abdicate any consciousness. pass the buck to some other dumb schmuck, let me fade in a moment, let them take the wheel. i'd take debilitating and crippling head trauma at this point. a quel point, to be in a vegetative state, to me, seems preferable. my life is fine, my life is good even, i am seemingly incapable of contentedness. so why try?

feeling slightly better than when i wrote my entry yesterday. but only slightly. the harsh voices have quieted a little, but not to complete silence. i weighed in the same today as i did five days ago. but at least i got to the gym. and on only four hours of sleep. if that. i went to bed last night like a good boy at 7:30 only to wake up at 9. unable to fall asleep, i ended up studying french for an hour or so, then tried in vain for hours to get to sleep. i only managed to slip away to sleep around 1 am, only to get up at 3:30 et voila, on y est. i feel myself collapsing in on myself but i don't know what to do. i just want someone to hold me and tell me i'll be okay. i want only a moment of safe harbor.

je rêve d'écrire ce journal en français, mais je sais que ça devra attendre. en attendant, j'étudierai aussi souvent que possible. je pense payer pour babbel car duolingo n'est pas le meilleur.

work today is going to break me i think. i'm training shaden to host. what a miserable hell. on a sunday no less. the last time i trained her i nearly ended everything on the spot. i was begging god to strike me down so i didn't have to endure another second. and now it will be even worse! because i will already be enduring the hordes of sunday. quelle misère incroyable. it never ends does it?

after work i have to maybe go grocery shopping? it may be able to wait until tomorrow. though i should probably do it today. tomorrow is the smerz show and it would do me well to nap before. that way i don't miss another gym day and spiral into self disgust. it's silly how quickly that can happen these days. it seems i've allowed my body and beauty to govern a frightening amount of my self worth. mais à ce stade, qu'est-ce que j'ai d'autre?

yesterday i spent $80 on cds and after a long walk went and read in the park. i started dancer in the dark and honestly it's perfect for my current moment. i'm looking forward to diving in deeper to it. it's sordid, earnest, bleak, tragic, and deeply romantic. parfait.

pray i don't lose it entirely at work today.

hier s'est mieux passé que je ne le pensais. shaden ended up getting sent home because "we were over staffed" but i think the real reason is there's no reason to train her to serve weekends if she's not going to be around in the long run. i wish her all the best but good god i cannot wait until she's gone. je la trouve très très très grinçante et insupportable. and the day went smoothly even though i was running on maybe four hours of sleep. there were only a few annoying people and the pace flew by. what a mercy.

après le travail j'ai fait les courses. i didn't have to get too much, especially since i got some eggs and fruit from the farmer's market. after that i was dreadfully staring down washing the rugs and doing the floors. but honestly it was fun to do. fun is may hyperbole, but i had an okay time. i got the vacuum (la vide) out to get under shelves/le lit/dans les coins. put the air conditioner (le climatiseur) away and threw a couple other things in the storage space. i really need to organize that thing. it's getting full. that's for later. spring cleaning perhaps.

after that it was nearing 6:30 so i went to put on an episode of drag race france, but i got distracted by how good i looked. and the sun was going down, it was golden hour so the lighting was right. i ended up spending like 30-40 minutes taking a bunch of nudes and it was such a confidence boost. the first time ever in my life that taking nudes hasn't inspired loathing and misery. hell, it felt amazing. my back looks insane. i'm really proud of myself. silly to be here after three days of complete and utter self loathing. how the tide (la marée) turns. it gave me the confidence and wind in my sails that i needed. i look better than i think i do, and it's only improving. i've got a long way to go, but i deserve to be proud of what i've made of my body over these past few years.

work today, then maybe band practice/a meeting? i'm sort of hoping not, since it's the dragula premier and i really want to watch it. that means a nap after work is in order. i should text the group chat.

movie night tonight! i think it's going to be the perfect amount of people to figure out exactly how many i can pack in my apartment. and everything is clean, so all i have to do once i get home is stage the apartment so it looks nice and send the text blast out telling people to byob and to come up the back stairway. i think it's going to be a fun night. i really hope it goes well and i can make it a monthly thing.

yesterday... what even happened yesterday? i worked and it went fine. nothing of note. i got to work with molly and that was nice to see her. i work with evie today. after work i took a long walk because the weather was so perfect. i listened to it's blitz! through twice. i fucking love that record it's perfect.

i attempted to nap but couldn't really. so i stayed up and finished france all stars before dragula premiered. this season is going to be so much fun the girls are fightinggggg. and it's only episode one!! genuinely i am so grateful for this show i love horror i love drag i love horror themed drag i love faggotry and shenanigans and artistry intersecting.

i scheduled two dates last night. well three really, because cory is back in town so i'm going over to his place tomorrow night. why? because i'm terribly lonely and i know romantic and/or sexual attention won't solve it, but it would be a salve. but now this means that through sunday i have morning and evening plans. every. single. day. why do i do this? i know at least one or two will cancel. we'll see.

short entry today, but i don't have much on my mind and i have to study french and take a picture for the movie night invite for next week before i start getting ready for work. wish me luck!

movie night was fun. it only ended up being cris, colton, and leah. but! it was fun, and i had a good time. got to spend a good hour before and after cris and colton got here just hanging out and shooting the shit with leah. it was great to catch up with her and before she left we had a good maudlin moment of affirming our mutual importance to the other. i'm really grateful for her presence in my life.

the preceding day was a bit of a bummer but that's okay. gym went a bit poorly, i tweaked the back of my left knee doing calf raises and it's been giving me a touch of trouble since yesterday morning. oh well, it'll heal. then work was a slog. well, not entirely but i was just so deeply exhausted after another night of not really sleeping catching up with me. je dois dormir plus, c'est insoutenable. then i spilled on the white shirt i was wearing and that further soured my mood. and then came the cavalcade of texts telling me people couldn't make it. i almost cancelled the whole movie night. but i'm glad i didn't. and i think next week will bring more people. hopefully. it's a more enticing movie.

i got off and went grocery shopping, then decided i had time to take a nap. i only dozed for about 30 minutes until at 5:30 there was a knock at the back door. i wondered who the hell would be here that early and hastily threw clothes on and opened the door to who?? missionaries!!!! asking if this was apartment 9!! Qui diable leur a donné mon adresse? très très agaçant! je peux deviner qui probablement, mais qui exactement? Bref, ça veut dire que je n'ai pas fait de sieste. j'espère q'ils ne reviendront jamais, mais je sais bien qu'ils le feront.

je dois étudier encore la conjugation d'avoir. les temps futurs. je les ai oublié.

aujourd'hui, je vais aller au pacific fabrics pour acheter du tissu pour mon costume. et puis après ça, je vais chez cory pour regarder les vidéos musicales. et peut-être embrasser un peu. espérons! il est beau, je vraiment envie de coucher avec lui.

again i'm spiralling, why try why try why try? i'm going to fail, and what is there really to work towards? am i capable of contentedness? i'm beginning to seriously doubt. doubt that i will ever be able to build a life that is "worth it". doubting that such a thing even exists. doubting that i can sustain any friendships or relationships or semblance of public life. doubting that i can move to france, that i'm capable, that i am brave enough. doubting that i can learn french. doubting that i am worthy to create. doubting that i have anything to fucking say in the first place.

there's this terrible little engine within me that is so cruel. and this cruel little engine if i let it will drive me to self destruction. and i know that through multiple detonations and explosions it will ferry me to a ruinous enough, empty enough, pointless enough existence that i will finally be able to throw the towel in. and part of me doesn't want to fight against that cruel little engine. i'm tired of trying to convince myself there's a point. i'm tired of trying to convince myself i deserve anything. i'm tired of trying to convince myself i'm capable of any of it. even if i am, i don't want to be. i just keep asking myself, say you stave off the depression again it's just going to come right back and the veil will be lifted and you'll see once again that it's always been pointless. if i'm going to end up here again, why. fucking. try.

and i know it's just perspective and philosophy and that if i really wanted to i can change my life and be happy. but that just makes me feel worse. that tells me that the way i'm feeling now is a moral failure is a character failure. i can't help but feel inherently inadequate. built with a fatal flaw. i don't think i can ever be happy.

i want to be hit by a bus.

i want severe head trauma so i don't have to think.

i want every relationship in my life to be severed.

i want to be unburdened.

but i also want to be happy again. i want to have something to live for. i desperately want to be okay again. but it's been almost a year and there's just nothing but annoyance, inconvenience, burden, guilt, obligation, stress, anxiety, fear, resentment.

why try?

not really doing much better since last night. to explain: i had a weird day to start, took a nap, then woke up in a funk. had to start getting ready to go to a hardcore gig at vera project with emma and evie. had to send a rejection text to a guy from a date on thursday. a lot on my mind. then abby sends me this text:

"hey i’ve been waiting to talk to you until i got back from my trip and said something to emma after work. i know you have been tired lately too i was hoping it would give you some space to rest. things with emma and i have gotten messy and your name came up and i think we should talk about it. i’m not upset at all i just want to understand. let me know if you have time in the next few days to chat :)"

who the fuck even knows what that's about, i'm finding out tonight. anyways, i was just further in a mood. got to the gig and realized a song into the second set that i didn't care and didn't want to be there. so i left without saying good bye, sent a text to evie and emma. who fucking cares. walked home from queen anne. cried and constantly had to stop myself from going and picking up take out. pig. and now i skipped the gym this morning. it's all falling apart, i'm falling apart. i don't care. i welcome it. i don't want to hold together anymore, i'm so tired. i want to give myself over to the movements of that cruel engine driving me towards self-destruction. who fucking cares.

i want to quit the band right now. i just don't care anymore. it's been a burden and obligation for a year now and it's just not worth it to me. i want to quit the shows we have on the books right now. it really doesn't matter to me, i'd give anything to be free. if it were just devoted to song writing and recording before i go, fine i guess. but between the shows and the social strife, it's just a burden, i do not care. i want to throw all my music gear into the ocean and cauterize my creativity. it's a thwarted drive that i am incapable of meeting. it only provides me with anxiety and guilt. i never create enough, it's stupidity, it's moral failing, it's laziness, it's a character flaw. i'm just a lazy consumer, drooling, snivelling idiot. i want to cut off the urge within me to create, it only ever brings pain.

work today. hooray. shaden is hosting and it's going to be a shit show. who cares. i just have to not cry and not let anyone know i'm not well. i have to circumvent my stupid urge to sprinkle in cries for help. who even cares? and why saddle anyone with the responsibility? it's no one elses business but yours and it better stay that way. don't be pathetic.

so much to update. feeling better from yesterday by the way.

shaden finally got fired. yesterday was a shit show. i do feel a bit bad because i definitely feel complicit in setting her up for failure, but honestly she was such a menace to the work environment i do not mourn her leaving. we had multiple customers complain, she was being either rude or overly familiar to customers, and she was touching people!! that woman knows no boundaries it's insane. anyways, the vibe all day was absolute shit, but that oddly put me in a better mood. when everyone else is down i have a tendency to laugh at the absurdity and it brightens my mood. i think also the knowledge that shaden was going to be gone bouyed my spirits.

finished work and went grocery shopping. soundtracked by beach house because i only brought sad cd's to work because that was my state as i was leaving the house. very silly. anyways i decided to treat myself and got spinach artichoke dip and chips. got home and ate/rested/watched youtube nonsense (my desire to cancel my internet grows by the day). then started work on the costume while watching the dvd of björk music videos jess lent me. i think i've got it mostly figured out, and i'm going to work on it more today after work. i should stop by threads on the way home to see if they have curved needles to make sttaching the balaclava to the sheet easier.

anyways abby came over and it was way less terrible than i thought it was. it would seem her and emma's relationship has broken down completely. i confessed that i am tired of the band and she expressed relief because she's been feeling the same way. we decided to nix it. i was the first to text and cited my worsening mental health. i also personally texted lola and emma expressing love for them and wanting to maintain creative relationships. i might offer the olive branch of planning on recording an album by the end of my time in seattle, but i'm not sure. i think i'd like to, but i just don't know if it's feasible. i may set the goal of recording a solo EP by the end of my year here.

but that means swamp wife is dead. and i mostly feel relief. sure i'm sad it didn't live up to my expectation of it, but i don't think i'm going to miss it. i feel the worst for lola, she's having a horrible week. and i really (and selfishly) hope she isn't mad at me. i'm anxious about seeing her monday for smerz. i hope i can maintain the same level of friendship with both emma and Lola.

but this means more time for my own creativity. and i must devote myself fully to creating. whether that's costumes, or music, or whatever really.

god i'm just so excited to be done. the band has been nothing but burden, anxiety, discord, and strife for the past year. i don't fucking care anymore.

work today. going to be down one person because shaden is gone lol. oh well. who gives a shit. i'm attempting to alchemize my depression's disinterest and carelessness into a blasé apathy. the kind that makes it easier to weather annoyance, because nothing matters. who gives a shit? you know? that's the attitude i'm trying to bring my day to day adversity.

prioritized rest over the gym today. woke up, sat there for a second, then realized i didn't have it in me. and for once i'm not beating myself up about it. i ended up getting a good little nap in before i had to get up for work. and honestly i'm so exhausted i really don't mind. i can't make the gym tomorrow either and i'm not worried about it. i need to learn that missing a few days in a row isn't going to kill me. i won't balloon in an instant if theres a week that i only go three days. sleep is just as important to health and regulation.

work went fine yesterday. the diner feels so much lighter now.

all day i was thinking about lola and emma and was planning on writing them both a long thing when i got home. as soon as i sat down to write them Lola texted me voicing how she's frustrated and hurt and how inconsiderate it was of me to announce the band dissolution less than a week after her and peren splitting. and she's right. i wrote what ended up being an 8 paragraph note about how she's right, how sorry i am, how i recognize i should have gone about it differently, where i'm at, my perspective on the complete breakdown of abby and emma's relationship, and a thought i had about a future for swamp wife. she responded pretty quickly and we talked for a little bit. i'm nervous about seeing her at smerz tonight.

i wrote emma one too but she still hasn't responded. i don't think she's even opened the note yet. i hope she does soon because i'm waiting to hear back from her before i reach out to venues/bands about cancelling everything. she usually takes a couple days to sit on things like this it seems. i understand, it's just inconvenient. if i haven't heard baclk at all by tomorrow night i'm going to text her and say i'm waiting to hear back from her before i cancel stuff. i also need to talk to lola tonight.

i feel a little dumb that i went about it like that, but it's done. and i have no regret that i did it, i had to say it, i just could have gone about it smarter. it was impulsive. i did have the idea to take some months off (let abby and emma figure their shit out), then focus on writing and recording an album before the end of summer. i feel like if we put our whole selves into it it's more than doable and we could make some great music. i think what's held us back is not enough time, and not enough focus on writing/recording. it's been an afterthought. but if we turn all our engines towards writing and crafting beautiful artful recordings we could make something legendary. and i think it would be mondo cunty to surprise release and drop an album after we've been broken up and then actually break up after that. lola liked the idea.

work today then therapy then smerz. though i can't remember if evie or lola bought my ticket because i can't find it? i'm hoping that's the case. who knows. i feel like it's going to be weird tonight and that everyone is mad at me. but whatever, those wounds will heal and at least lola has a right to be mad at me. i'm kind of irritated at evie because it sounds like her go between gossip was potentially a big driver in the rift between emma and abby. i feel like i can't confide in her anymore about anything because it get's out and bites me in the ass. i'm a bad gossip too, but at least i know when to hold my cards. i don't know. maybe this is misplaced frustration? i'll just have to find out how i am with both lola and evie tonight at the gig.