(oct 2023) sounds in the desert: a rock wren's call in a slot canyon, the breaking of mud flats like milk chocolate. the crunch of salt beneath your shoes and yells seeking an echo that are silenced on walls of sand. a nearly oppressive silence strenghtened by heat. later, the splashes made by our bodies in lone pine lake and those salt chunks shattering in that ephemeral salt lake. the soaring in your chest when you see those desert mountains, each morning blanketed softly by early sunlight. one friend wondering what constitutes accidental beauty, another friend wondering what constitutes universal beauty. accidental like the existence of eclipses, universal like how no one dislikes the moon (except perhaps stargazers). the next day: the sound of moths fluttering, gathering around your phone light as you descended that mountain in the dark. losing your way, you looked up frenzied to see a strange bright streak across the sky above the mountain ridge. you suddenly understood the reverence people had for the moon. the relief when you heard another climber's voice. the exhaustion you felt after that fear...

(may 2022) saw many dogs in the park and pet two of them. a man at a jazz club in new york told us to look up "cut" in the dictionary (eighty something definitions) but i told him that i already looked at "heart" and it had forty.

(april 2022) in march there is everything and in april there is more to come. today my friend told me that his advisor said that to make some impact on the world, the goal during the phd is to become a world expert on something (it does not matter what). i have never felt myself capable of this -- but maybe all it takes is that i need to find my home. yesteday i was talking to my roommate while holding a bag of bok choy and suddenly i found myself crying, when for the past week it has been difficult to feel a drop of emotion. i am fueled on research and coffee and bliss and not much else. my body has become accustomed to the lack of sleep. but yesterday something about the situation made me feel vulnerable and my voice wavered as i was speaking and i hugged him three times. i have been feeling gratitude more than usual -- i am lucky how my body works as it should. i bike for three hours and then tire myself out at the gym and wake up the next day feeling fine with no issue. it reminds me of when i was in fourth grade and read a gruesome and violent story about a girl who wants to be an artist despite the world's cruelty towards her -- she gives a monologue about how if she loses both hands she will draw with her feet. her body is there for her and mine is there for me. i am lucky that i am surrounded by people who care about science and care about me. i've barely slept more than five hours each day for the past week and a half and today and yesterday i started hallucinating waviness when i see a bunch of lines next to each other -- for example, in heating vents. i think i will sleep for as long as possible tonight. sleep is a funny thing. i wonder if i can chalk it up to my ADHD. when i talk about my lack of sleep i feel like someone from my high school or college who constantly brags about how sleep deprived they are, and i don't like it and tend to stop myself. i wish i could sleep more, but my body won't let me. sometimes when i stop identifying as an insomniac it helps. i've tried everything.

(march 2022) is a city of time travel. i haven't had any time to be reflective since everything has been packed in together so, so densely. i stepped off the light rail into the city and it is like i am transported into spring and stepped into the future but it is also like i have been dumped into my past life two or three years ago. interacting with the world is at first strange and awkward but very quickly it all feels so natural. stepping into the cafe to order my favorite dessert again. talking to someone from my life in baltimore. i am delirious and alone but at the same time not alone. on the flight and at the climbing gym i make friends with young people. at the bus stop i bond with strangers about the bus timing on weekends, and i get a dry 'welcome to baltimore' with the baltimore accent. i show my friends my film list on my website.

(march 2022) is a city that i have only arrived at while sleep-deprived and full of delusions. in chicago the trains are colors and the buses are numbers and my friend lives at an instantly recognizable address. the building number is a perfect square. it is also the name of a coffeeshop chain back home. i drift in and out of sleep on this couch and when my friend coughs for the first time i imagine the entire building has just sighed. i dream about a genetic disease that makes your eyes an otherworldly color and it spreads through a population. i think about the guy who works at the pizza place down the street. he seems like he has had a tough life, but it's looking better for him. he seems like a nice person. in chicago the lake looks tall. when i saw it for the first time i mistook it for mountains. when i saw it for the second time i recognized that it was ocean. mountains of water that will swallow the city whole. my friend has a nice couch and even nicer speakers. i appreciate and understand people who like 'nice things' of some sort -- any sort, really. anyway i am just screaming into the void. i am shy on the internet but it feels okay to scream into the void. though somehow i have two real life friends who are both on tilde town. my other friend lives by the train tracks in a building where the ceilings are at least fifteen feet tall and the walls in most places don't go all the way around. i can hear the cars and motorcycles beneath. i drank too quickly at the polish-korean restaurant bar (and met maria, of maria's) and my brain is more mixed up than ever, than it has been in a long time. i feel like chicago has more soul than the city i live in and have made my home. chicago is a big city and i feel lucky to have friends in it. i am decidedly drunk but it is still early -- it is 10:40 PM. but i have not changed my computer's system time to central time, otherwise i would miss all my meetings and mess up all of the times by one hours. and if not for vim i'm not sure if i would be able to write and edit this. anyway i chugged my bourbon drink too quickly and also drank my friend's boyfriend's beer because he was the designated driver... and i am the designated drinker. i slept so well on my friend's floor mattress yesterday in his room. and today i sleep on air in another lovely room. the next time i am in chicago i have decided that i will stay at that hotel in wicker park underneath the rooftop bar (up & up / the up room) and order a negroni and sit in the small heated area on the patio.

feb 26 2022 today i tried the kilterboard in the climbing gym. it was really fun! the app aspect makes it kind of like strava, but i prefer it to strava because it feels more anonymous and maybe because i'm less self conscious. anyway, you can find me on the kilter board app under the same username :) saw a movie called after life tonight. i really liked how physical their conception of purgatory was -- a place where there are seasons and flowers, a place limited by constraints of the earth. there are power outages and there is snow. everything is a bit worn down and you remember things just the same as on earth. the employees are just humans too.

Jan 2022 is light something that can be stolen? yes. a hole in a wall makes a lit room less bright, unless you use a mirror.

Summer 2021 a rainbow in rural mongolia kids pointing at the google car the church and the city hall in columbus a biker flipping off the camera inside a museum yellow flowers on the side of the road in two places an opal mine in nevada a scene from your favorite movie the high desert