hi friends—
BRAIN BYTES:
from these last, long months
nostalgia
i knew i still had my very first gmail account, kirinn@gmail.com, but on some whim i decided to log in recently and comb through it. it mostly consisted of deleting spam and 3,000+ emails that were utterly useless (did i not understand how to delete emails when i was 14-18 years old??? apparently), and it also involved deep-diving into an enormous well of embarrassment and nostalgia, made up primarily of livejournal entries and copied & pasted AIM conversations. in a fit of proactivity (and also probably embarrassment), i deleted and purged my longtime livejournal, but through this email excavation i discovered a remaining, earlier livejournal, and…yeah. be careful wading into the depths of your past. i can’t seem to decide whether it’s helpful or harmful, but i don’t think it’s for a lot of people regardless. me, i will masochistically continue to preserve the remnants of my former selves no matter HOW much of a psychological toll it takes on me to revisit these shadows!!!
on a related note, i really, really, really, really, really, really, really miss AIM. what i wouldn’t give to have it functional and populated again with everyone i know.
camera obscura
m decided to get into film cameras, which means i 1) have been exposed to an extremely concentrated amount of information about them in a very short time and 2) am now co-owner of a lovely and ever-growing collection of them. we’ve been dicking around with point and shoots, and it’s been nice to think about photos, and why we take them, and how to do it. i still remember the time derrick holt complimented me on ig by saying i had a great eye for light. let’s hope i can bring that great eye to the roll of fuji 200 in this nikon lite touch af! results to come, from that and other cameras, in future missives.
*rihanna voice* work work work work work
i quit my old job back in july after procuring a new one. this line of work is still so fucking bizarre to me but i am okay at it and it pays and i never have to leave my house. i harbor no hope for any agency now; i assume the insanity will be the same everywhere, and that i will just keep jumping from sinking ship to sinking ship. but i left the interview with my primary coworker and functional boss hopeful that our values are as aligned as they seem. capitalism is a sticky web that all but the wealthiest of us have to navigate, but if enough people are on the same page, can’t it be mostly bearable? maybe not. worth it to keep experimenting towards that end though.
space & time
my last day at my old job was july 23. my first day at my new job is this tuesday, september 3. i did indeed take almost 6 weeks off, mostly because we knew that kathy was going to die soon and also because i have not had more than 3 consecutive days off without obligations since fall of 2021. the way my mind exhales when i am left to my own devices again. the way i always feel healthiest and happiest when i am (mostly) master of my own schedule. i think that a lot of people struggle to find meaning if they don’t have external validation or accomplishment; as i get older, i’m finding the opposite is true for me: it gets in the way of me enjoying living life. i want more space to tune in to the experience of existing, in this way, in this time, for this window. give me space, give me time, gimme gimme gimme.
death
kathy, my mother-in-law, passed on august 4 after an intensely difficult battle with MS and another undiagnosed neurological disorder or disorders. it felt long, but in reality, it was extremely short: just 7 years took her from fully functional to wheelchair-bound, from a healthy 59 to dead at 66. i’m grateful we got to see her more in these last few years. words cannot really explain how deeply proud i am of m, my love, my best friend, for all the incredible care and advocacy he provided for her to the very end, for the way he walked with his mom through this ending. tough fucking shit, to put it poetically. it was miraculous to witness, and humbling to participate in. kathy deserved better than she got in this life, and i hope she’s finally found peace. i’m actually going to watch the packers play this year, for you.
kathy’s resting place
toward a more frivolous ending
stationary! i’ve been experimenting the last few years with journals and my journaling routine. i’ve been journaling for 20+ years, and have used everything from drugstore composition notebooks to moleskines to fancy shit. in the last few months and toward the goal of better embracing my mercurial nature, i got into these fancy leather 6-ring binders, and i am appreciating their boundless internal flexibility hidden behind the veneer of coherence and consistency. i’ve also been iterating and iterating on how i journal, and what’s working for me right now is:
keeping a log on my phone for things that i want to be readily searchable to the exact day
using a single page in my journal in the mornings to summarize the previous day
creating a portal to myself (carving out time once a day to listen to music and type away without stopping, thinking, or self-editing—a kind of morning pages, but not always in the morning and not the way julia cameron teaches because i just never jived with the artist’s way)
LATELIES
🎶 grapefruit - maaya sakamoto (1997)
🎮 “just crow things”
📺 “american nightmare” on netflix—this case was not on my radar at the time and bro it was fucking crazy!!!
📽️ “godzilla” (1954)
📚 girl, woman, other by bernardine evaristo (⭐x5)
here’s to enjoying the last dregs of summer. autumn awaits, o my heart.
💌 KM