I accomplish my second and third renovation projects while John leaves for the second day to work on the float. “Get ready for a surprise when you come home! I’ll have knocked down a wall and installed a water feature.”

He leaves and I jet out the door behind him to the store to make a final decision about a media hutch / console thing. We’ve been using the same, ramshackle ikea sideboards since I moved to San Francisco in 2016, and it’s time for them to go. I’ve got ~$600 in my pocket in the form of a digital Visa giftcard from a work rewards cash-out so I’m trying to do all this for essentially free. Console looks good, so I order it online while in the store for in-store pick up because this digital gift card can only be spent online. Order placed, I also order paint for pick-up from Sherwin Williams, and painting supplies from Home Depot. After running to all those places in reverse order as my phone dings that the times are ready, I make it home, clean out the living room, and dismantle the furniture.

I summon all the deep memories of painting and edge cutting from home renovations since I was 11 and bang out the wall in 45 minutes flat. While that coat sets, I assemble the hutch, make some executive decisions about what will stay in the room, and have a mild freak out over how light the paint looks. I stress for another 20 minutes before noticing that where I started is substantially darker than where I finished, and just decide to trust it. 3 hours later, the paint looks great, and I immediately undo it by painting the second coat, which while wet looks worse than before.

I reassemble the room, get things moved into their semi-final positions (read: 3 inches from where the wall is currently still drying) and hope it dries dark enough for John to be impressed. It’s the least ambitious episode of your favorite home makeover show, but when John comes home, he’s over the moon.

I use my holiday break in a way the surprises even me: non-stop activity, home improvement, art projects. It’s a burst of energy that comes from a resolution-adjacent place — less about self improvement, more from a big, churning desire for capital C Change.

I didn’t want to take my house frustrations from 2022 into 2023. So, while John was volunteering to help assemble a float for the Rose Bowl, I stealthily embark on a trio of minor renovations. On day one, he leaves the house, I kiss him goodbye, and immediately spring into action. I clean the kitchen and dining space, truthfully planning to maybe make a process video. Things are spic & span and I start to film and think… what-the-fuck-am-I-doing and who-the-fuck-am-I-doing this for? I scrap the filming part, and get down to business. Our house has this insane bar space that the builders threw on in a last-ditch bid to increase the kitchen space when the house wasn’t getting offers. It is five inches taller than the counters, made of a single long wooden countertop sawn in two and bolted together. Nearly everything about it bugs us, but the height is the worst offender so it has to go.

I unbolt both pieces, and take the vertical board outside, where, sitting on it like Wile E Coyote, I trim off the offending five inches with a newly purchased circular saw. I adjust the height of the wall bracket, and in less than 40 minutes, a gripe that has needled us for 18 months is resolved. I put the house back together, and prepare to see how long it will take John to notice when he comes home: it’s a significant change but not an obvious one. The room works better but you’re not entirely sure what is different. There’s still a bunch to be done to maximize the cabinet space. So much shit has to be out right now due to the lack of storage, and that will come sometime this year.

He gasps the moment he walks in the door.

Books read in December!

Books read in November

A thing I drew a while back, and recently dropped some color into. I’ve been trying to assert myself as an art-focused person lately on Instagram. Alarming how many people I’ve met and made friends with here in LA and SF that have… no concept of me as a person who draws. Which is primarily how I view myself? It’s weird.

Books read in October

Books read in September

Three days until we leave for our big European trip. Trying to ignore the way it seems like the UK and Europe have all just sort of… rinsed their hands of Covid. Seems inevitable that we’ll contract it again.

I’m trying to figure out how to get out of my local photography rut. I used to low-key sneer at people who only took pics while they were on trips, their instagram giving the illusion of permanent vacation. I used to pride myself in finding beauty in my home town. But since moving to LA my world has shrunk to the bounds of my home, the car insulating you from absolutely everything. Today driving to coffee I saw a pair of red velvet heels discarded on the side of the road, one on the sidewalk, the other somehow balanced on the edge of the curb. I wanted to take a pic but there was no way to stop. In any event I’m sure I’ll have literally thousands of photos from the trip, everything looking new and unique to a tourist’s eye.

An insane foray into medication.

Six weeks ago I approach my primary care physician with the complaint of a suspected kidney stone: dull ache in the murky vicinity of the back guts, familiar pang. We do a urinalysis and find nothing, and he orders an x-ray. In 2022 this means that it will fall to me, a fully employed and busy person whose job is NOT health care to find another health pro, a radiologist, to do the x-ray, probably in some remote clime like Burbank, or North Hollywood; 2.5 hours round trip, plus parking, etc. I do not follow through, relegating the task to the “someday” section of the task management software I use to file things I will never do.

Meanwhile I am plagued by procrastination and anxiety and absent-mindedness something dreadful and actually DO try to do something about it. Recommendations from friends, referrals to health care, good advice etc. I make an appointment with a psych. Is it ADHD? Has it always been. I am reminded of chiding teachers throughout my k12 career, and well into college.

Four weeks ago I awake at 2 am with a bizarre pain in the abdomen. I suspect food poisoning: a delicious but suspect rice bowl from a thai food stall dripping with half cooked eggs and sketchy sai ua. I get out of bed, and an hour later, the pain now electric and specific. It announces itself to me like gabriel: this is your appendix. I google symptoms and know it for fact. We go to the ER and some administrata harrying later I find myself wild-eyed and frantic as an oxygen mask is slipped over me and zap out for two hours while they cut the damn thing out. I wake up frantic, mind racing. I wonder if that’s what death and maybe reincarnation will be like: the terror of the final moments, conscious and full of dread, and then the empty and blank blackness of oblivion. And then shot back into reality absolutely baffled.

A week later and I’m more or less healed from the surgery. Laparoscopic. My bellybutton is changed forever: no longer an outie-innie, a charming button set back from the surface. Now a strange inverted parenthetical thought, a burning man emoji: )’(, but healing nicely. I have my scheduled psych evaluation with a doctor who shares a name with a Hollywood actor, and he thinks it’s not ADHD but general anxiety. Meanwhile the breathing tube from surgery has left me with a lingering cough in a brutalized trachea.

I lose 10 pounds in the ensuing weeks. I suddenly find myself intolerant of diet sodas: I can feel them slogging through my kidneys. I give them up almost entirely. I am more well-hydrated than I have ever been: drinking water turns out to be the trick comma who knew question mark eye roll emoji full stop.

And that’s how, 7 weeks ago I went from taking 1 pill of Truvada as necessary in the hale and hearty blush of youth to today, when daily I take 4 capsules of Metamucil, a Truvada, a Lexapro, two tablets of Mucinex, and ibruprofen for the headache of it all. My nightstand looks like my grandpa’s.

Books read in August.

A friend got his film back from our trip to Palm Springs from a while back.

At like 39.8 years old I feel like you shouldn’t be getting bamboozled by social dynamics like you’re still in 5th grade.

A friend told me I should come to a show with him and a couple other people when I saw him on Sunday. Messaged him last night, made plans to meet them at the bar, and when I got there became increasingly aware how much I was pushing the convo.

Weird, I think.

I’m asking him questions, making an effort to get to know his new beau, and realize to my creeping horror that I’m not getting… anything in return. The ratio is 30 words from me and two words in return, sometimes one. It’s like I’m trying to pick up a stranger who is patently not interested. From the people who invited me?

What is happening.

Get into the bar and the group, people I’ve hung out with numerous times, and generally had a great time with — although usually with John there, oh god — are all more or less… stonewalling me. I spend almost an hour with backs turned to me and only the meagerest pleasantries lobbed over the wall once or twice. “Hey haven’t seen you in a while. You good?”

I’m… spiralling. This dread, this stupid fucking loser-kid trauma. Sitting in the elementary school library with the group you’ve tagged along with and realizing suddenly that you are NOT their friend? That they actually wish you were not there at all? That you’ve miscalculated this whole equation, that you’re the kicked puppy. How is this happening. I am an adult.

After an hour plus, and the show still not started, I just… leave. I tell myself all kinds of prudent excuses: this show is almost an hour late to get going, it’s a work night, etc etc etc. When actually, as is excruciatingly clear when I get back to the silence of the car, it’s the crystal clear recognition that no one cares if I’m there or not. I get no texts asking where I went. I wake up to none the following day.

It’s… an education. I realize that these people are not… friends? That they are acquaintances, and honestly, really John’s acquaintances that I think are cool, and we occasionally have a laugh together. Where my ability to make them laugh feels like a fee I pay to get to be included. This is a recurring theme for me lately, which means it is … probably a me problem.

I’m so tired of feeling like I have to like, tapdance and put on a show to pay my way when I’m out with people I think of as friends. I guess I just don’t get the… math? Why don’t they ever ask me questions about me? Why aren’t they interested in what I’m up to? How have we hung out for 2 years but they don’t know what I do for work today, but I know like… what college they attended? They’ve come over for dinner. I’ve made them dinner. Multiple times. I’ve paid into this bank account of friendship for ages and find that I am never able to make a withdrawal. This feels tragic. I’m embarrassed for me.

I do not really know how to transition into this phase of adulthood. How do you make friends at 40. How do you find people who are as interested in getting to know you, as you are in getting to know them. What does it mean when the people you spend 80% of your free time with have never seen you sad? or angry? what does it mean when you’ve never had a disagreement with any of them?

It seems so… impossible. What are the odds of finding more than one person who not only has similar hobbies or interests, or even just complementary hobbies or interests, who also wants to hang, who can have a convo with you and wants to? I don’t feel like it’s fair to dump that all on a partner, it’s too much for one person.

But I just… cannot feel like I did last night again. It was humiliating, in the most banal sense of the word. I laughed out loud after sitting still in the car for 20 minutes in total silence. Incredible.

Books read in July

Recently back from a semi-impromptu trip to Kaua’i. We had unused credits for flights to Hawai’i from the beginning of the pandemic, and were hitting our “use em or lose em” deadline from the airline. Always a magical prospect for me, having lived in Hawaii for a while almost 20 years ago now.

It was wild to go back, really for the first time, to a place I know so well as an unfettered adult. No mormon spouse, no mormon friends, no children, no family members. Again, it’s so funny how a conservative cultural milieu will prevent you from living your best life, even if the only forcing function is family size. If you have 5 kids with you, it almost automatically remove nice restaurants, paid cultural site visits, or strenuous activities. You are almost required to eat at a burger king and do nothing but go to the beach.

All that to say this time, and for the first time, we did the damn thing. Nice restaurants with incredible experiences. Dive bars. Hikes to the top of a sheer cliff. Nude beaches. Kaua’i like I’d never seen it.

Played around with the Halide manual camera app for th eiphone — the macro shots it allows are absolutely insane. That’s sand and a gecko no longer than a pinkie finger.

We ate strawberry guavas off the trails, we explored the incredible green spaces maintained by the Limahuli Garden & Preserve, and just gaped at the beauty in general.

Finally, we sat on a cliff and watched the sunset, almost 16 years to the day since I did so with my mom, the last time she visited Kauai. The following day I laid flowers where we scattered her ashes.

2016

2022

I miss you, mom.

Books read in May.

Spent Memorial Day in Palm Springs. John and I drive up a day early on Thursday night in a desperate bid to outsmart a Friday full of meetings that would have had us on the road during rush-hour and holiday traffic. We booked a sight unseen spot for the night, which turned out to be the gorgeous Sparrows Lodge. Really lovely space, so serene, and gorgeous little touches. Definitely going back next time for an extended visit.

The rest of the weekend was spent at our Airbnb — a standard Palm Springs mid-mod with an enormous pool — with a couple friends and friends-of-friends, with mixed results. Kids these days, grandpa’s tired, etc. The highlight beyond was getting to spend time with friends from SF who also happened to be in town.

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We attended a big gay pool party, went antiquing, hung out at some dives, and watched music videos.

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The biggest revelations was getting hauled to a gay bar called Quadz, a watering hole on the strip previously avoided due to an athletic-lettering themed sign, but upon entry was revealed to be a slightly more… tragique version of The Edge in SF. A showtunes video bar replete with customer sing-along, bartender choreo, etc. Would have been a major highlight, but unfortunately tainted by features of the Glee version of Downtown and the Radio GaGa scene from Bohemian Rhapsody — truly no one wants to see it, diva. The evening was saved by a surprise screening of all 10 minutes of The Aloof, the Heavyweight, and the Big Finish from Sweet Charity:

Books read in April:

• Detransition Baby was electric and sharp and cinematic. Loved it.

• Crying in H-Mart was the absolute wrecking ball I had heard it would be. Brought up a LOT of memories of my mother’s cancer. Big ugly sobs, some primal screams in the shower while John was out. Zauner’s prose regarding the illness is so raw and true, but it was her description of being Hapa, being in between that made me say “fuck.” outloud. “But you’re not even Korean.” Fuck.

• Tuck Everlasting and Island were obvs both re-reads. Babbitt really crafts such a sharp story, and the writing is so evocative and imaginative for such a young reader. I listened to Islands on the way back from Puerto Vallarta, and it was such a treat, but unexpectedly arresting when we got to the death of Rontu: the reader got emotional, and though a total pro, you could tell she was reading through tears and stifling a sob throughout the event. I wept wept wept, completely out of nowhere.

• Re-read Living with a Wild God, an interesting one to revisit from time to time.

• Everyone Knows Your Mother is a Witch felt like a chore, to me, but I think, weirdly, it was a CPTSD reaction. It was very funny, and very well crafted, but man… my whole body reacts to stories of like… religious persecution and policing. I wanted to fling the book away from me at parts. This is a sensation that has crept up on me during Handmaids Tale and Game of Thrones (of all places.) Never not catching me off guard.

A weekend in Peurto Vallarta with Laura for John’s birthday.

8 days into my new job and the entire project (scheduling) I was hired to work on has been cancelled. They’re moving me onto another team, on a product that I know nothing about (campaigns). Part of coming over to this co was founded on the supposition that I was going to 1) be working on a new product, and 2) part of largely new team at the company. It’s not make-or-break, but that set up assuaged a large part of my anxiety as I felt like I would have ample leeway during onboarding, get to fail and fumble along with the rest of the team and keep impostor syndrome at bay.

Now I find myself on a very established team, on a very visible, well established product where I’m the only newbie. It comes with a lot of opportunity, but obviously a lot of risk and a ton of room for anxiety.

Everything about this new job sounds like I am an employee in a Chuck Palahniuk novel. I am campaign’s new staff designer. I am campaign’s advocate for an improved customer experience.