All my words

I was high alone in my apartment on August 31st 2022 gargling around a losenger in the back of my throat because I thought that might be the most efficient way to alleviate the sting of weed smoke, when I thought:   wouldn’t it be hilarious if I choked on this thing and died right now? Or worse, I choke on it just long enough to experience the terror of choking to death, hoping and praying to god that this mother fucking losenger will MELT in my throat before it obstructs my breath for long enough to kill me?  

I am really good at pretending that I am OK. perhaps the worst thing to be good at guy in a perpetual state of “getting it together” and “figuring it out”

I get nervous in a room full of people who know me. Thrice I’ve completely incapacitated myself with drugs and alcohol in the presence of 20+ of my friends. Events I personally willed into existence through. I can enjoy talking to people in small groups. Not everyone I know, all at once.

do you guys have tapioca pearls?   yeah where might they be located? over there thanks! im gonna make my own boba!   who fucking cares dude. kill yourself

can’t take a compliment can’t be comfortable inside or out can’t write compelling without some kind of list repetition gimmick can’t commit to a daily routine can’t sleep can’t wake up can’t save money can’t save himself can’t save his siblings or parents or girlfriends   can’t help but bring others down with him as he drowns can’t stop free associating on the roof can’t stop thinking about himself   can’t stop thinking about what he must look like right now, as if this was a scene in a movie or worse, a tiktok can’t stop thinking this all the time can’t stop pretending to be mentally ill to relate to people can’t stop pretending in general

can’t take a compliment can’t be comfortable inside or out can’t write compelling without some kind of list repetition gimmick can’t commit to a daily routine can’t sleep can’t wake up can’t save money can’t save himself can’t save his siblings or parents or girlfriends   can’t help but bring others down with him as he drowns can’t stop free associating on the roof of his apartment building can’t stop thinking about himself   can’t stop thinking about himself can’t stop thinking about himself   can’t stop thinking about what he must look like right now, as if this was a scene in a movie or worse, a tiktok can’t stop thinking this all the time can’t stop pretending to be mentally ill to relate to people can’t stop pretending in general

lately i’ve been having these fantasies about renting a cabin out in the woods for a while and severely limiting my contact with the rest of the world, spending a week or so in complete solace.   it’s not that i dislike seattle or the people i know, but i want to see what kind of thoughts my brain produces when completely removed from all the stimulation.   no internet, no gaming, no urban defense shield, no responding to texts, no choosing what to wear, no wondering what girls on the street think of me, no laundry to do or groceries to buy or 3 AM fire alarms to kill my dream with the worst sound you’ve ever heard.  

Does anyone else repeat the text of their own messages aloud, imagining the reaction of people reading it because that’s what writing is and oh god everyone is a writer and you’re not special and your life is meaningless and tiktok is the future and you will die alone and you’ll never experience teenage love and it’s all your own fault

How do people have entire conversations face to face? I can do F2F for about 5 seconds before I go crazy with fear. I’d rather stare off into the distance and type words into their ears like we’re both looking at a big projector screen connected to my computer.   There’s the conversation itself, and then there’s the Oh god, they’re looking at my face as I’m saying these words and I’m looking at their face too and I hope they’re not also thinking this and how should I be standing right now and are they looking for an exit route or do they really want to talk to me and if so, why? What do I want from this conversation? What do I want from this person? Why?   All these thoughts rushing through the conscious part of my brain while the less conscious goes “uh huh, yeah” and tries to retain the information they’re giving me with their brain and mouth and tongue.  

i’ve been having these fantasies about renting a cabin out in the woods for a while and severely limiting my contact with the rest of the world, spending a week or so in complete silence.   it’s not that i dislike Seattle or the people i know, but i want to see what kind of thoughts my brain produces when completely removed from all the stimulation for a week. no internet, no gaming, no urban defense shield, no responding to texts, no choosing what to wear, no wondering what girls on the street think of me, no laundry to do or groceries to buy or 3 AM fire alarms to kill my dreams with the loudest sound you’ve ever heard.   for a week, i pretend it’s 1888 and i live in a little cabin. or i’m some modern day amish guy, out in the woods, so dedicated to my amish-ness that i follow the rules even when no one’s watching.   you know the amish let their people live life with all the gadgets for a few years when they turn 18 and most of them choose against it? they see life on t...

Sitting in some dead grass in Olympia looking at the sky, being eaten alive by bugs and understanding, just for a moment, why someone might choose to live their life, which you only get one of by the way, in a yeehaw rural area like this. Living in a small town full of dumb pleasant white folks who know your name. Not because there’s anything special about you, just because you’re there. Never hearing gun shots at the park. Getting together with your big old family on Christmas and half-watching an Adam Sandler movie. Trekking up to the city once every few months, re-sensitized, horrified by it all. The drugs. The crime. The misery.

do you remember how i used to avoid you in high school?  how i was so cold? i’m sure you’re able to piece it together with your now-adult brain, but it’s because I was extremely attracted to you and didn’t know how to process it it felt wrong to be a senior guy so into a freshman girl. yeah i was a young senior and you were an old freshman but it doesn't matter. it's about what people think. what people say. it would have been social suicide. they would've called me a pedo. i would've believed them.  and i also felt like i needed to focus single-mindedly on school and sports and other trivial nonsense and that you would not help.  so my solution was to literally run away. walk my two legs in a different direction when you approached. and as i’m typing this i just now realize that i’m never going to send it because I already soft-hit on your friend when i learned she was living in Seattle, completely unaware she is in a happy relationship, and Everybody Talks so you prob...

netanya is the name of some girl i barely know who i have, through the miracle of social media, become desperately, one-sidedly obsessed with. thanks a lot Zuckerberg, Dorsey for creating these super awesome tools that make it super easy to form deep, fake bonds with people you don’t know and will probably never know because all your time spent on social media retards your IRL social ability, making it impossible to form connections with the very people your screens have taught you to love. it’s hard not to imagine how perfectly she would fit into my life. and i can never share this with her because the worst way to attract someone is to tell them how much you want them, or that you perhaps even need them. because people only want what they can’t have. sad.   i don’t need her. i will be okay in the extremely likely event that nothing ever comes of this, but knowing me, i will have to try something.  

I sometimes worry that the incongruence between myself in these notes and myself in public disturbs you people, like you’re somehow being misled by one version of me and the other one is The Real Me.   There is no real me. They’re both fake, they’re both real, there’s no difference. There are some people I trust with potentially unsavory personal thoughts and most people I do not. If I ever reach the point where I trust everyone in the world with these thoughts, then I am a “Writer.” I’m coming up on 2,300 Notes in the Notes App since I lost all my 2021 writing last October. This is an addiction I will likely carry for the rest of my life.  

Train is leaving. Escalator down is blocked. I am running. Fake authority figure patrol officer (woman) standing at the bottom sees me spring frantically down the inactive escalator’s stairs: NO!!! SIR PLEASE GO BACK UP, yOU CANT—   Me (still running): SORRY!!! THE TRAIN IS RIGHT THERE!!   Her: SORRY ?! (in utter disbelief that I would invoke “sorry” as my defense in this situation) Me: I WONT DO IT AGAIN!!! *athletically leaps over the side rail of the closed off escalator about 5 feet from the floor, expertly clearing the caution-colored structure at the bottom and the exasperated Light Rail Patrol Officer (female)* Her: … Me: SORRY!! I WONT DO IT AGAIN!! *sprints past her and shuffles on to the train with seconds to spare, slinking into the very last seat in the back, still late but not as late as i WOULD HAVE BEEN if i turned around and took the elevator and missed the train   The things I will do to not make my friends wait. To not make them spend 10 minutes of their...

I want to write a short story. Or maybe I just want to have written a short story, so I can show other people that I have written a short story, so they can think: “Wow, he wrote a short story,” and I can feel like David Foster Wallace, the current object of my affection.   Even the most Enlightened among us engage in some form of hero worship. We are only monkeys after all. I guess it’s healthier to endure this pathetic reflex than it is to go live alone out in the woods like Walden and trap kill and eat ducks for food and slowly go insane in a much less relatable way.  Even then you're still emulating someone. 

When you see a formerly close friend after a while and realize that they’re doing better without you.  It’s not like I wanted him to be doing worse, it was just a bit unsettling how well adjusted and happy and okay he seemed after just five short years apart from his childhood best friend and abuser: me.  He was my first girlfriend. High-strung, moody, emotional, completely in love with me.  It appeared that he was the leader of our two-man group, but between us, silently, he followed me. In high school he was Class president and I was VP. Bush and Cheney. He was hardworking, conscientious, passionate. I did the bare minimum. He knew more than me, but I had something he didn’t. Something that allowed me to score better on tests without studying, and something that put people at ease when he would erupt. I didn’t know what it was. I still don’t.  We were the same age, but he grew up several years before me. He knew what he wanted. He knew what college he wanted t...

When you see a formerly close friend after a while and realize that they’re doing better without you.  It’s not like I wanted Steven to be doing worse, it was just a bit unsettling how well adjusted and happy and okay he seemed after just five short years apart from his childhood best friend and abuser: me.  He was like my first girlfriend. He really was my first girlfriend. High-strung, moody, emotional, completely in love with me.  It appeared that he was the leader of our two-man group, but it was understood between us, silently, that he followed me. In high school he was Class president and I was VP. We were Bush and Cheney. He was hardworking, conscientious. I did the bare minimum. He knew more than me, but I had something he didn’t. Something that allowed me to score better on tests without studying, and something that put people at ease when he would erupt. I didn’t know what it was. I still don’t.  We were the same age, but he grew up several years befor...

I wasn’t really upset about it because i had other things to be upset about and also there was no money in there on account of I lost it all playing black jack right before it happened. And no credit cards in there because I keep them attached to the back of the evil friendship addiction device i carry with me everywhere every day. All I ended up losing was a condom and a tablet of advil and some old gift cards I hadn’t seen in years.   the real loss was the sentimental value of the wallet. (oh god, i’m old enough to assign “sentimental value” to things.) it was a shitty velcro wallet that said “bugle boy” on the front. i had no idea what that meant but it didn’t matter because it was funny. i had been carrying that around for about 5 years since my mom gave it to me because i didn’t have a wallet and i just never bothered to get a better one. it accompanied me on every trip, every plane, every relationship, every job, bugle boy was there. and now it is gone. thank u, next

So what are you up to nowadays? I work at an ad agency. You don’t know what that is. Why do I even bother. Just imagine me as Jim from The Office in the early seasons. Kind of pathetic in retrospect but it doesn’t seem that way because at least he’s self aware and decently good looking. Oh, like sales and business and stuff. Cool… No. It’s not cool. But having money is cool. The money is what I use to do cool stuff. But the work is the antithesis of cool. It’s meaningless, it’s just profit. There’s no “but at least we’re helping people!” aspect to it all that keeps people like teachers or lawyers or even engineers from sinking into their own personal pit of despair, it's just clicking buttons for money.  But the money, the money is good. The money gives me freedom. The money feeds me food that tastes good, I can skip lines, own useful things and present somewhat confidently to the world. It allows me to leave town and not worry about whether I can afford a random Uber if I need it....

Complete with an anti-sugar mantra, a manufactured dark memory related to the ingestion of sugary snacks, a choreographed grimace any time you think of sweet food or see an ad for, like, Dairy Queen.   You’re like: Ice Cream. Yuck. I don’t eat that stuff. Just like some people don’t eat spicy food. I don’t eat sugar. If a small victorian child couldn’t tolerate it, it’s not for me. People can make themselves believe they like 99 gecs. That it sounds good. Anything for BPD pussy. Anything is possible.

I know where to get good food I know you don’t have to pay for the train I know 5 good date spots and 50 bad ones I know how much things cost   I know how much people love their masks I know which streets are dangerous   I know how easy it is to find drugs and how hard it is to find love