frog

last night i dreamt that i had to perform a spell on my snake that turned him into a tiny green tree frog. or maybe i had to perform a spell that transferred my snakes soul from his body into the body of a preexisting tree frog? i don't remember why i had to do it, but i had to do it. it made me feel nervous and uncomfortable but i knew that for whatever reason, in this parallel universe it was the right thing to do, so i did it anyway. it worked and i think my snake just vanished and then the little frog hopped out of the tank and all around one of my bedroom walls and around my window and i panicked and became filled with regret about my decision to perform this spell, afraid i was about to lose my tiny snake frog forever. but he jumped back into the tank and i was able to shut the lid. good boy. 

i sat on my bed and took a deep breath, but before i had even finished exhaling i noticed a skinny green snake was now in the tank, and my snake was also back. they were fighting. i think at this point in the dream that thing happened to me that happens in dreams sometimes where you either become physically paralyzed, or become an outsider who is looking in on what is taking place in your dream; like reading a book or watching a movie. either way, i was now unable to touch anything in my bedroom, let alone in my snakes bedroom. the green imposter snake and my seraphic little white snake twisted and coiled and writhed, swelled and diminished and then swelled in size again, orbited around the four walls of the tank until it was tipping and shaking and rocking violently on top of my vanity. i felt scared, irresponsible, disgusted, ashamed. and then i felt very, very small. i was looking at the ceiling of my room but my head and my eyes were facing forward, i was moving up my bedroom wall very quickly, and i felt okay again. i think i was the frog.

usually i just write my dreams down to myself in a notebook that i use exclusively for dream documentation and moon manifestation rituals whenever i perform those, but i've been royally sucking dick at updating this blog as of late so i decided to flesh this one out a little more here. if i had written it in my notebook i probably would have just said:

i turn snake into green frog
green snake appear fighting my snake
then i was the frog

a book i have about dream interpretation says that a dream about a frog is a symbol of transformation and rebirth, i may be coming to the end of a phase, and the frog promises me new opportunities. that sounds nice. i don't know if i believe in interpreting dreams, at least not in a manner so straightforward that objects, creatures, occurrences, and feelings can all be translated and organized encyclopedia style in a book. but i do think that dreams have significance and paying them attention can help you learn things about the world inside of yourself and about the one outside of yourself, too. in 2016 i had elaborate, vivid, cinematic dreams about various apocalyptic global demises at least thrice a week for over a year. they were all beautiful and terrifying and i'm glad that they stopped. i'm also glad my snakes okay. a tiny, bright-colored frog would make a cute pet for a person living in a small apartment to own. 

rock, paper, fisters

a friend of mine told me something silly a couple years ago while she was working as the head of the copywriting department at the office where i work as a graphic designer, and i still think about it semi-frequently.

her theory was that all people can be binarily categorized two different ways. every persons face and head is either Potato, or Rat. and every persons personality and demeanor is either Fingerer or Fister.

i like the first one because while it does divide people based upon their physical appearance, the division is in no way tied to attractiveness, or even to any specific definable characteristic(s). I also like it because it works! like, you can look at anyones face and very easily decide whether it is Potato or Rat. I can't efficiently explain why, but you can. 

i like the second one because it sounds dirty, and in a way it is, but in another way, its also not. the nature of "fingering" could be interpreted as a light, grazing touch upon any surface. or poking someone in the shoulder with your index finger. or the obvious sexual connotation, fingering an orifice. and fisting; a fist fight, obviously. the sex one, of course. the "rock" in rock, paper, scissors. the way you hold an axe or a hammer or a microphone.

both categorizational methods are as abstract and open-ended as they are definitive and binary. and silly. i think that's why i enjoy them and still revisit them from time to time. i've been tragically busy at work and haven't had the motivation to write in the evenings for the past few days, but after seeing and talking to Zoe and Meetka about "blogging" again i want to try to make myself write something, anything, here as often as possible. later!

- Rat Fister

energy vampire

aaron started watching a tv show on FX about vampires so we watched an episode together last week, it's a comedy and pretty dumb but it did make me laugh a few times so i think i like it. most of the characters are vampiric in a traditional sense; they kill and store humans in a basement to drink their blood, they transform into bats in order to travel more quickly, etc. but one of the characters is an "energy vampire" who garners sustenance by speaking to the coworkers at his office job and to the other vampires too frequently and in a manner that drains them of their ability to communicate with him or with anyone. some of the characters fall asleep when he speaks to them. 

his character was one of the funnier parts of the show. something i've thought and talked about a lot for a few years is how the way i operate externally and function internally can be overwhelmingly influenced by the energy that i perceive and receive from the people who i interact with and observe in my life.

one example that comes to mind is about a girl who runs one of my favorite meme accounts. a lot of what she reposts is content made by the black, american, teenage part of the internet. i'm comfortable going as far as to say that i think they're the only people still creating genuinely smart and funny content on the internet in 2019. throughout her nearly 24/7 meme stream she also intermittently includes personal posts; cute selfies, cute semi-censored nudes of herself, cute lighthearted posts about the food she is eating or the friends she is hanging out with. i don't know her well personally but my roommate has known her for years and she is close friends with a boy who i dated for a couple of months last year and became and remain friends with. through both of those sources i know that she has struggled with being suicidal and been hospitalized on more than one occasion. the extent of our interactions IRL have been limited to chatting at a party a long time ago where she was blacked out, singing Why Not by Hilary Duff into a karaoke machine together at the beautiful apartment of a rich friend of the aforementioned boy on his birthday, running into her while she was on a date with a potential sugar daddy who she decided she wanted to get away from (which my roommate helped her do), and the last time i saw her. 

the last time we saw each other was at one of the parties that happen in unnamed spaces up 3+ flights of stairs inside a door next to a chinese jewelry store on canal street where you end up knowing nearly everyone, and everyone who you don't know looks just like someone you do know. i'm not sure what had happened to her earlier in the night but by the time she approached me and my roommate she was either incapable of or unwilling to form a full sentence and collapsed into our laps on one of the few spots left open to sit amidst all of the sweaty bodies and indoor cigarettes. it was a really gross couch. after she comforted her and tried to get her to speak for a few minutes, my roommate got up to talk to a boy or a friend or a boyfriend and i was left with this girls head in my lap, bleary eyed, unlocking and relocking her phone. i had my hand on her shoulder and while i had absolutely no idea what was happening in her head or her life, i felt overwhelmingly sad. or empathetic. i'm not sure what exactly i felt but it wasn't fun. my roommate came back and so did a group of cute girls who immediately engaged with the corpse in my lap and expressed their concern and pulled her to the other side of the couch with them, so i said something like "fuck this!" to my roommate and we moved to the other side of the room, closer to the bar. i think i ended up sitting cross-legged on a plastic folding table and talking about myself to a group of friends and girls who are more interesting than i am.

i was very drunk (the alcohol was free, i think the party was affiliated with an art thing? a fair? frieze? i don't remember) and probably on cocaine, i don't remember. regardless, i couldn't shake the way it made me feel to see this person in the state that they were and to feel her energy through her body while it touched mine. i felt exhausted. despite having lots of friends still there, and an open bar, i ended up irish-goodbye-ing and walking home like 20 minutes later and going to sleep. 

this was a person i'm not even friends with! another weird example i can think of is when i can tell that a friend of mine has facetuned or photoshopped their face or body in an instagram photo in a manner thats probably undetectable to most, but to me—who has worked as a retoucher, spends 8 hours in adobe programs a day at my office, has a mercury placement in scorpio, and accidentally/immediately memorizes the faces of every person i love—is glaringly apparent. it makes me sad and it makes me wish i had a way to make them feel like they didn't need to lie about the way they look on the internet. it makes me think about what else is going on deeper that has manifested in their bodies and the apps on their phones. 

when my mom tells me how lovely a weekend trip was that she took with my father, who i know has ruined her life and broken her heart and still continues to on a semi-monthly basis, it breaks my heart too. well, it used to. now i usually just try to respond kindly, hang up, and then meditate or run across and back on either the williamsburg or manhattan bridge. my parents are two people who i know not to feel responsible for anymore, because i know that i can't. 

i think it's ultimately a good thing about me, and its better than drinking human blood. i think just i need to learn how to turn it into something advantageous and positive for myself and for other people. i think i need to give more energy than i receive. i have a lot of good energy to give. is there a word for the opposite of vampire?

routines

have been thinking about routines a lot lately, reading about them too. in almost every case they are proven to have a positive effect on the individual performing them. the idea of a morning routine that involves a short vinyasa and meditation appeals to me and is something that i'd like to start practicing at least 5 days per week before i turn 30 and keep practicing for the rest of my life. but right now i like to sleep as late as i can most days, have to work or write emails before leaving my apartment to go to work some days, and am in the habit of exercising and meditating at night. which is fine, for now. these are the routines that i currently practice 

i drink the same smoothie every morning, if i am waking up at home. this routine helps me because if i don't eat like a million calories as soon as i wake up i feel nauseous, and this helps me check a few nutritional boxes off for the day as soon as it starts. i put these things in it:

• banana (i slice and keep them in a gallon ziploc in my freezer, they blend easier that way and you don't have to include extra ice because the banana is a sufficient cooling agent on its own) 
• baby spinach
• peanut or almond butter
• almond, cashew, or oat milk
• plant-based protein powder (chocolate or vanilla, depending on my mood)
• powdered collagen peptides
• flaxseed meal (it's supposed to be good for your gut health and prevent fat accumulation in your abdomen. i have pretty nice abs and don't work them out as hard as i used to, so i think it probably works. it also has a subtle nutty flavor that i like.)
• sometimes a shot of espresso

i eat the same salad for lunch at work 1-3 times per week. it has these things in it:

• avocado 
• braised chicken
• scallions
• dinosaur kale
• red cabbage
• white quinoa 
• red quinoa
• farro
• black beans
• tortilla chips
• a dressing (tomatillo, garlic, jalapeño, avocado, white balsamic vinegar, lime, cilantro)

i smoke a marlboro 27 on my walk to work every morning. this routine is good for me because i enjoy it

i feed my snake twice a week. well, i go through the feeding routine in attempt to make him eat up to two times a week. if he eats the first time, i just wait until the next week. sometimes neither attempt works so i give him space and wait until the next week. ball pythons can go up to a year without eating if they want/need to, which is amazing. i love my snake. he used to eat baby mice, called fuzzies. now he eats the next step up, which are just referred to as "small mice". i keep them in my freezer sealed in individual little baggies inside of a box. i take one out, wrap it in paper towel, and put it in my refrigerator for 24 hours. the next night i take it out and place it in very hot, but not boiling, water in a 1970s plastic mug that has a lid and was made by a company called Ingrid. i take the mouse out after about 20 minutes and then i blow dry it for a couple of minutes so it isn't soggy. i dangle it from my feeding tongs inside of his tank for a while, sometimes he'll eat it right off the tongs. other times i have to put the mouse on the floor of the tank and leave the room in order for him to feel comfortable (or whatever) enough to eat it. this routine is necessary for obvious reasons

i take 11 vitamins every day, they are

• grape seed enzyme blend
• devils claw, ginger root, angelica, gigas root
• lactobacillus acidophilus and bifidobacterium lactis pre+probiotic
• coenzyme Q10, lipoic acid, and tocotrienols
• K2+D3
• glucosamine HCI, enzymes, ginger, green tea, chondroitin, MSM, 
• huperzine A, bucopa monnieri, curcumin, folic acid
• coldwater omega-3 fish oil
• a multivitamin (A, C, D3, E, thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, B6, folate, B12, biotin, pantothenic acid, calcium, iodine, magnesium, zinc, selenium, copper, manganese, chromium, molybdenum boron)
• blueberry + bilberry with lutein and zeaxanthin
• a broad spectrum antioxidant; grape + olive seed extract, lycopene, tocopherols, carotenoids, vitamin c

i brush my teeth every day, i like marvis toothpaste. it has a prettier tube than any other toothpaste

i go to the gym on my way home from work 4-5 days a week. for a year or so i would run 2-4 miles on the treadmill, sometimes lift weights, and end by stretching for 20 minutes. as of the past few months i've started only running 1-2 miles and then spending more time using weight machines and lifting free weights. i still take about 20 minutes at the end to do various floor stretches that i remember from yoga classes i've taken. i always finish by lying in childs pose and focusing on my breathing for 5 minutes. i believe that this routine has played a big role in preventing me from having a panic attack for a little over a year now. i stopped filling my "emergency" ativan prescriptions in 2017.

i drink beer on lots of nights. its objectively gross but i really like beer. only the light and watery kinds; my favorites are tsingtao and asahi. i usually don't drink enough to get drunk, sometimes i do. sometimes at home, sometimes at a bar with a friend. i like whiskey and tequila too but i don't drink either often enough to consider it routine-like. i think that drinking a little alcohol multiple times per week helps to prevent me from taking things too seriously, sometimes helps me be more creative, and often leads to social situations that enrich my life. i also like to make espresso martinis but i don't have them very often. i think a charming "routine" to have would be to make and drink an espresso martini every friday evening, religiously. maybe i will do that

i don't shower every day. my body mysteriously never really smells bad, even when i'm sweaty, so i just don't think its necessary. i try to wash my face every day though. the skincare routine that i've developed over time and practice now includes

• a dead sea salt bar that i scrub my face, neck, and ears with. its really mild and i love the packaging. there's a photo of it down there ↓ . i used to use african black soap for a long time, which i also love, but it would get gross and disintegrate when damp and looked like a turd in my shower. my boyfriend hated it and recommended the one i use now. he's 5 years older than me and has nicer skin than i do
• a glycolic acid chemical exfoliant that i put on my face and neck with a cotton ball
• a hyaluronic acid + B5 serum that i rub all over my face with my hands
• an "eye cream" that i don't really think does anything but i bought it for some reason at some point, and i still have it, so i still use it
• rosehip oil. i love this shit. i keep it in the fridge and rub a small amount all over my face and rub any excess that stays on my hands into my hair
• in the winter i use another moisturizer after the rosehip oil because my skin gets really dry

i hoped that writing these things down would rekindle my affinity for routines and maybe light a little fire under my ass to develop a "morning routine", but it kind of just made me tired and feel like i already have enough routine in my life for now. whatever, here's the cute soap

there's a coffee shop called Oliver a few blocks into my walking commute from my apartment in chinatown to my office in soho that I go to a couple of times per week. It usually has a queue of at least 2-3 people and as someone who is prone to oversleeping and general tardiness, as well as someone who hates lines, it's probably kind of impractical for me to patronize Oliver as often as I do. But the baristas are all beautiful and aloof, they make a great iced oatmilk latte, they still use real (plastic) straws, and you can stand in line outside to buy the coffee from a little window to the street which feels nice when the weather does too, so I go a couple times per week.

Today I stood in line in front of a shiba inu-chihuahua-something mix (its owner isn't sure what other breed because his mother brought the dog back from korea) and behind a tan, shirtless man with wrap-around sunglasses and sun bleached facial hair. Sunglasses had a conversation with today's gorgeous barista that made it seem like he probably knew her personally, but he might have just been being way too friendly for 8:40 AM. she's the hottest barista at Oliver. she looks like a young halle berry if young halle berry was a little too thin, had curly collarbone-length hair, wore cargo pants, and had a wider and warmer smile. She always giggles and stumbles over her words when trying to tell me the price of my latte, which is the same price every day. i like when she's my barista the best. 

the part that I caught of Barista and Sunglasses conversation was as follows

S: well, you just gotta do it!
B: i mean, of course i want to, and my boyfriend wants me to, too. i just can't decide
S: take the flight! life is short 
B: that's the thing.. life is short. we will all die
[I laugh, B looks at me and laughs, too]
S: exactly, that's why you just gotta make the decision
B: but what if i make the wrong decision... and then i'll die

i stopped listening at this point because the shiba inu-chihuahua-something licked my ankle so i was talking to its owner about korea and about his mother. but their conversation reminded me of something i read recently, which went something like:

prolonged decisions do more harm than "wrong" decisions

i don't know where i read it. i also don't know if i believe it. i've made some decisions that i know were wrong and did harm to myself and to others, and that i may not've made had i "prolonged" them and been less impulsive in my actions. but then again, i don't regret anything that i've done. i know that's something that people just say, but i really don't! i'm still getting to know myself, but i do know myself well enough to know that no one has ever been able to tell me what to do and that the only way i am able to learn anything is through my own experience. which sometimes (oftentimes?) has included me making "wrong" decisions. 

either way, i think adopting a mindset that prolonged decisions do more harm than "wrong" decisions sounds like a nice way to live, even if only experimentally or temporarily. i'm very thankful for my job, for my friends, my apartment, my boyfriend, my roommate, my snake, my roommates rabbit. but i have begun to feel an old and familiar sensation of restlessness, boredom, anticipation, and anxiety lately. lately and increasingly. the same one i felt every sunday when my parents made me go to church until i made the decision to tell them that i wasn't going to go with them anymore when i was 12. the same one i felt in college in columbus ohio, despite being the most content i'd ever been in my life and surrounded by people i adored and still adore today. that one didn't go away until i made the decision to drop out and move to new york to live on my sisters and my friends couches and sign with an unpromising modeling agency. i also felt it two years into living and "modeling" (by "modeling" i mean booking a "modeling" job here and there, while spending most of my time working as a carpenter for a 40,000 dollar salary) in new york. i got rid of that feeling by deciding to move to los angeles for a role as a graphic designer reporting directly to dov charney. that obviously didn't work out as planned either but that's not the point.

i wish i knew what decision wide-smile cargo pant halle berry barista is struggling to make. i also wish i knew what decision i'm currently struggling to make. maybe if i wait in the line outside of Oliver next time i see her in the window and ask her it'll provide me some clarity or insight for myself. but maybe it won't!