12/05/2024 / Cookies & cream apartment boba, yakitori, & tonkotsu ramen with ginger (at night on the phone).
11/30/2024 / Leftover Thanksgiving food; dry & wet in the wrong places.
11/13/2024 / So tired that I almost skipped writing today.
11/10/2024 / I almost ran over someone's cat today. I went grocery shopping.
11/08/2024 / My mom made me walk around a strip mall, sorry, two strip malls, with her for three and a half fucking hours.
11/07/2024 / We almost got in a car accident en route to class after getting the dulce de leche frappe at McDonald's. We were late, again. At least I didn't have to drive.
11/06/2024 / I have a cold. I would like to start writing the days of the week in my diary. I got a hot cocoa in the morning. I cooked noodles with a random assortment of ingredients & went back for seconds.
11/05/2024 / The only way to not feel worried about things is to do them.
11/01/2024 / I got in a car accident today & my dad asked me if I stopped afterwards to pick up his prescriptions. No, no I didn’t.
10/27/2024 / I feel sick thinking about the upcoming week. / Father A_n asked what it was like living at home; “I don’t pay rent, so I can’t complain.” “Yes you can.”
10/23/2024 / My head hurts.
10/22/2024 / I hate myself.
10/21/2024 / I didn’t have an anxiety attack this morning; I wasn’t sick.
10/17/2024 / I really want McDonald’s pancakes.
10/16/2024 / “foods that cause anxiety” “foods that decrease cortisol”
10/14/2024 / My mentor nonchalantly told me that I had a natural talent for teaching.
10/13/2024 / I started my period but don't feel horribly depressed. Did laundry.
10/08/2024 / Ordered the wrong coffee from Starbucks, but it was alright.
10/07/2024 / “Depression meals” are too hard. I need “tying a noose meals.”
10/06/2024 / Officially not sick anymore.
10/04/2024 / I bought Grimm’s Contes (Fr $2.99), The Iliad and The Odyssey (Chapman trans.), & Silence by Shusaku Endo. I must’ve heard of the Shusaku Endo book somewhere once, because I felt instant recognition towards it, that I had to have it. Its image of the crucifixion on the cover was evocative & made me buy it with little thought. (Unregretful, for once.)
09/30/2024 / Resting my hand on my throat, I had the almost rememberance of last night’s dream. I think I had a dream about hanging myself.
09/28/2024 / I coughed up the white spot in my throat. I guess that means I’m getting better.
09/27/2024 / There’s something nice about being sick. It’s so simple.
09/25/2024 / I am physically and mentally very uncomfortable.
09/23/2024 / My best is not very good right now.
09/22/2024 / Cried when I got in the car / I did my laundry & cleaned my closet partway, because it’s okay to not do things completely & perfectly & all at once. Partway is better than nothing. Nothingness is not a source of perfection.
09/21/2024 / Almost car wreck.
09/20/2024 / Scared to walk up the stairs the wrong way, because something bad might happen. Scared to turn left while driving, because something bad might happen.
09/18/2024 / Wow, I want to kill myself.
09/10/2024 / Quick! Put your hands up & don't kill yourself!
09/07/2024 / I tried, without hyperbole, the worst iced coffee of my life (Thai). It tastes so sweet that they I think they want to kill me with antifreeze. An absurd amount of unsweetened milk made it almost palatable, but still awful. I ate a little of the Pad Thai but it tasted gross (in a wrong way) & now my stomach feels weird. Burning. I told my friend that I was going to try something ~new~ today. What the fuck, Vashti? Just stick with your ramen next time... Not really. The Pad Thai I do regret, simply because it was mediocre and sickness inducing. The iced coffee I do not regret, because I truly think it's the worst iced coffee that I'll ever have & that's novelty baby! / Playing Stardew Valley. I named my farmer Sonny. I love the name Sonny. If I were not Vashti, then I would be Sonny. You can call me Sonny.
08/29/2024 / Fuck everything. I'll twist my own arms into loving my life.
08/27/2024 / My dad complained that my floor was messy with clean laundry. It took a lot of self control to refrain from telling him it's messy because I am preoccupied with thoughts of suicide. He keeps commenting on how unwell I seem. You want to hang yourself? Clean your room.
08/25/2024 / One of my friends came home & another talked on the phone with me for three hours.
08/19/2024 / License plate: HAPI-NES
08/17/2024 / Small fair in the neighborhood park. Overpriced funnel cake. Stomach too upset to eat it. Bruce Springsteen.
08/16/2024 / I went out with a friend from school. Thrift shopping & boba. E would be proud of me. She has been encouraging me to make more friends. Brown leather mary janes.
08/15/2024 / Shoulder is burning. I started my period.
08/11/2024 / Back pain & pain & pain & pain & pain.
08/10/2024 / My sister heard my back pop, asked if the sound she heard was my back, looked at me & said: "Sometimes we need to go to the doctor."
08/09/2024 / I found a meluné hidden in the fridge, & I already know the perfect time to drink it. I need to go grocery shopping, so my diet has mostly consisted of unsweetened coffee with milk, a daily Mexican probiotic drink that I saw in a dream some nights ago, & takeout. Last afternoon I had a fast food chicken sandwich & last night I had ramen. / I would like to write longer letters again. I used to be quite the epistolarian. / I hurt my back again today. / My sister told me I was dressed like a "Bratz doll."
08/07/2024 / I saw a wingdog on my walk today, on a man’s shirt, labeled a “Bird Dog.” It’s my (wing)lucky day. I am not alone. / My parents send me on cigarette runs constantly & even though I find it really fucking annoying it's had this reverse effect where I think about smoking constantly.
08/06/2024 / I put stickers on my laptop yesterday & they're really cute. Any time I manage a particularly good sticker arrangement I feel pleased with myself. Will be decorating a semi-journal-semi-planner today as well, though with print-out in addition to stickers. Yesterday I had to get my fingerprints done in a gun range of all places & waiting for my appt., I just wrote in my little paper pad that I am accustomed to carrying around. I forgot the name of it. Anyways, it made me realize how splendid it would be to have a journal with me at the time.
08/05/2024 / Going to bed early, before 10 PM. I want to.
07/31/2024 / I got burgers with a girl from school today. She told me she wasn’t sure if I liked burgers in a trepidatious voice, “because all [she’s] seen [me] eat is Asian food.”
07/28/2024 / It is twelve in the fucking morning and my father has been vacuuming for the past half hour.
07/23/2024 / “Then, I am locked in a cage!! Help!”
07/21/2024 / I am going to make my bed today. I can do that.
07/20/2024 / Sugar on meat. The raw meat smelled so good that I was going to sneak a bite, till I thought about how I'm too busy to food poison myself. What a boring way to think.
07/18/2024 / I think I had a panic attack today. I even asked someone if I was going to have a heart attack, and as I said it I knew the question was stupid. / I received some news so good that it doesn't even seem real.
07/16/2024 / I can tell when things are serious once I start waking up too early, before the sunrise, every day. I'm going to be here for a while. I might as well make the best of it.
07/14/2024 / I read that many suicides have been attributed to climate change, the miserable weather. Sad, but it also gave me a sense of vindication.
07/13/2024 / Feeling... alright. Gyūdon.
07/12/2024 / My friend E texted to say that she may stay in Japan all the way till the end of August because of plane ticket prices, which despite its simplicity has a lot of gravity in saying: I am your only friend & you will be alone for a month longer than you thought. She knows this, I know this, but still, it is what it is.
07/11/2024 / Hot pot, iced matcha, canned coffee, rice porridge, egg sandwich, rice crackers today.
07/10/2024 / Started (re)reading Le Petit Prince on the train this morning. I’ve been thinking about the story a lot lately, though it’s been a long time since I’ve read it & I remember it in a very disjointed way. It’s vignette-like almost, like my actual autobiographical memories. I’m reading it in French & unexpectedly, I can still read almost every word. It’s like I never quit studying.
07/09/2024 / I shouldn't be this tired.
07/08/2024 / Lemon donut like Sufjan Stevens' “Lemon yogurt / Remember I pulled at your shirt.”
07/07/2024 / “Let go or be dragged.” / I put pins & keychains on my bag instead of cleaning my room, most of them from Japan. I was nagging myself to clean out my closet by tonight, finish my school assignment early, but then I asked myself why & couldn’t answer.
07/05/2024 / I've been really tired.
07/01/2024 / First day using it & my Jack Frost gacha keychain broke. As I was putting it on my bag, I thought about how I could keep it home & it would never break, but then I thought of my sneakers that I started wearing every day & how it's better to use things. Everything is fleeting. Nonattachment. Bubble in a stream.
06/30/2024 / 4:41 AM & not tired at all. Jet lag really is something. / My eyes feel like they're gonna melt out of my head. How the hell am I supposed to go to school tomorrow? My whole body hurts & every movement feels wrong, like I'm pushing a doll's limbs too far. I'm hungry but eating disgusts me. It makes me feel conscious of my body. I need to unpack my bags. I need to write. I need to stay awake & I need to sleep.
06/02/2024 / Found an illustrated book of saints at the used bookstore... for $15; (For reference: $5 is an expensive book to me.) I really, really wanted it, even thought about stealing it, till I realized that 1) It was giant & 2) Due to the irony of stealing a book about saints, surely I would get caught doing so. I mean, that's how it would work in a story. So instead I put my other books back & bought the book about saints. Sorry St. Augustine's Confessions... & sorry past Vashti who said less than a month ago that you've finally sworn off purchasing books, but I think it's good to have a vice or two. I suppose you could take up smoking, but I think buying books is the better vice, and that perhaps this is a false equivalency. Now my vices are: sweets & coffee & books. Can those even be called vices? What would a genuine vice be?
06/01/2024 / "If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading."
05/31/2024 / The “sleeping into the afternoon” thing did not go very well: The latest I could sleep was till 10 AM. / There was a lightning storm & the lighting strikes were horizontal-diagonal, purple; Thunderstorms here are so purple, like when Chūya wrote: "My heart is rusty, purple."
05/30/2024 / Learned how to fry an egg, finally, so I have been eating fried eggs with rice. My dad described my current diet as "gruel," but I can't say that I'm displeased with the comparisson: I'd like to adopt a monk's diet for a time, out of curiosity and intrigue, but when I look into it I'm inundated by fad-diet nonsense. I don't want to diet, I want a sense of spiritual clarity in overcoming my "need" for good tasting food. That being said, now is no longer the time for self-denial. I intend to really enjoy myself, in the sensuous sense, this upcoming month.
05/28/2024 / After months of deliberation, I have finally decided what to buy with my gift card: An alarm clock.
05/24/2024 / I watched Saint Maud (2019) & my room looks just like Maud’s apartment. It looks like we took decorating advice from each other. I now understand why when I redid my room my sister asked me if I was going to kill myself. I get it now.
Life goes on, life goes on, even during these happy days! Somewhere in my heart there is a breeze & a rainstorm, & the weather of my heart keeps the heart from mummifying: "Eternal sunshine creates a desert."
05/23/2024 / It feels like they (Who are they?) put someone else's (Whose?) stomach in me
05/21/2024 / Forgot it was 2024 / I think I should start taking vitamins
05/20/2024 / Tired of questioning my motives all the time: Instead of wrestling with myself & trying to convince myself that it’s alright to sleep in, I can just wake up early. It’s fine. I can just do what I want: with this & with everything else in my life… Why am I trying to argue myself out of self discipline? Who else in the world has this problem? Please, I would like to meet them & kneel & tell them I am so sorry about their neuroses.
05/16/2024 / Today I got my little brother from the bus stop & the rain was so torrential that the umbrella almost broke. When I am away & he is feeling lonely, I want him to remember me as someone who loves him enough to be rained on. Even if I didn't like the rain, I would get him regardless.
05/14/2024 / Being mentally dominated by sudoku
05/13/2024 / Closest thing that I've ever had to a parasocial relationship is whatever the hell I have going on with Franz Kafka right now
05/12/2024 / Phrases from today: “WHY ME” - License plate / “SHAKEN BABY SYNDROME” & “GATHER YE ROSEBUDS WHILE YE MAY” - My phrases chosen while playing hangman / My sister said I “look like a Vogue model”
05/10/2024 / Took the bus to a coffee shop to study for my final & failed at it completely: I truly did not retain any information. Who cares? I could get a zero on the thing & pass & get my scholarship money... I studied only as a performance for my family. / Drank a matcha latte that was surprisingly good; not good as in authentic, but good as in good tasting / Talked to a friend for much of the day; gull on the phone
05/09/2024 / I feel like a disappointment today; not to anyone else, but to myself / All of this because I slept in a couple of hours... Just forgive yourself & get over it. / My stomach is making odd, overly loud noises & has not stopped for ten-fifteen minutes
05/06/2024 / Bad latte, mean librarian, but today was good- It seemed like it needed more ceremony / My sister gave me an old stuffed animal that reminded her of that "dumb artist that [I] like," (its eyes), Yoshitomo Nara
05/03/2024 / Sometimes reading the things I've written in the past feels like reading a stranger's writing
05/02/2024 / Good weather today / I did not mention this yesterday, but it rained torrentially. The word I would use to describe it is "hurly-burly;" Macbeth. One lightning strike shook the house. I was out in the storm before the lightning made me scurry home. I watched the rain fall and bounch off the ground like little dandelion wisps / Today I learned to use an espresso machine & I cleaned my room / I stayed up until 4 AM last night writing a paper, wrote another tonight
05/01/2024 / Happy day / Saw this weeb at school decked out in anime stuff & felt kind of jealous; wish I were still into anime... Simpler times
04/30/2024 / Crying fits, but at least I don’t want to kill myself / Ate the best bowl of ramen of my life
04/29/2024 / Still sick / Truly prepared to just not visit my mom anymore; after I graduate in a couple of weeks I’m not going to have school near here anymore / Our relationship’s been fraying ever since she ran out of things to hold over my head; doesn't work now that I’m taller than her
04/28/2024 / I am in so much pain. My body hurts. It hurts. I feel like a doll that was put together incorrectly
04/27/2024 / Sick, didn’t sleep well / Anger embedded itself under my skin like a bug or like a parasite / My sister asked me on the phone if I was medicated, suggested that I become medicated / I think I yelled & ranted about things for half the phone call… The only time we call each other is when we are angry. We have no shared affection; the closest we get is a united anger / Normally anger feels good to some extent, but nothing felt righteous about this. It was more of a sickness / Spent much of the day sleeping, a three hour nap
04/25/2024 / Sore throat / Spent the whole day so self involved that I can't even remember what happened... / Providence
04/24/2024 / Going to read a partial draft of my aunt's smut novel; she said she would grant me the grace of not giving me explicit depictions of hetero sex & this is true allyship / These pants are too big, but they're so cute; the drawstring came out of them & now they just barely grasp my hips, well not my hips, the dip between my hips & thighs / Nighttime: My back hurts right where I hurt it back in October; I wish I could go back & tell myself that I was not being dramatic, that your parents are wrong, that you should go to the doctor, that you should not work with your hurt back / At least I learned my lesson... Just wish the punsihment weren't so long term; A 6 month sentence is pretty goddamn harsh
04/23/2024 / Another day of waking up before my alarm / I wish there was someone to whom I could ask for advice; without sounding tired & cliched, there's no one who understands my mental health condition in the least; I tell them I’m feeling good & they congratulate me / I don’t feel tired at all, though I keep waking up in the middle of the night / Last night, I was awoken by a crystal beam of moonlight upon my head; right now, life is anything but “crystal” / My feet still hurt / I feel like I'm trapped in my own body, yelling at myself to move & to work & it is all to no avail; pointless struggle
04/22/2024 / In the mood to find God & cleaning my room is the next best thing / Sous le couteau / “Being an 18-karat manic depressive, and having lived a life of violent emotional contradictions, I have an over-acute capacity for sadness as well as elation.”
04/21/2024 / Serving a life sentence in my own head / “Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.”
04/20/2024 / I don’t really mention it often, but I’m in pain almost all the time; not enough to stop me from doing things, but my body constantly hurts regardless of what I do… It gets tiring, frustrating / Skipping school Monday & am going to have a four day weekend
04/19/2024 / Headache, body is sore, maybe I'm falling ill / I keep yelling at people; my dad asked me to stop yelling “I’m going to kill you” whenever I am mildly inconvenienced
04/18/2024 / My fucking jaw hurts
04/17/2024 / Acquired hair gel for $1.19 / Talked to my math professor for an hour or so, one of the topics being board games & chess; she said she expected me to be “hypercompetitive” because I'm smart; I explained that everyone is my family is intense & angry & so I am more mushy in comparison to account for this / Started reading a collection of short stories by Haruki Murakami: Men Without Women / Ate (delicious grocery store) tiramisu
04/16/2024 / Wanted to ask my sister how to clear a shrine in BOTW, but I blocked her number / Was debating whether or not buying hair gel would interfere with my nonattachment-to-appearance philosophy & would make the previous shaving of my head futile, or at least diminished in meaning, but upon seeing the price of hair gel I was quickly reminded of my suburban genteel poverty / Mixed up Medea & Hecuba
04/15/2024 / Burning stomach pain; wonder if I'm getting another ulcer
04/14/2024 / Realizing I have a pernicious habit of putting things off, even when it's absolutely unnecessary
04/11/2024 / I wonder if God is a misanthrope; maybe I am just projecting
04/10/2024 / Cool, breezy day / Today marks the one year anniversary of my diary; proud of myself / Feeling a sense of religious guilt for the first time in my life / Train made a strange sound that I hadn't heard before
04/09/2024 / Okay, maybe Vashti is losing it a bit: Feeling of bugs crawling on my skin; almost cried out of guilt because I killed a roach; almost cried out of happiness because it was raining a few minutes prior / I feel annoyed with everyone, but I still want them to reach out & hold me / I still feel really good regardless of everything internal & external; like my heart is a Happiness Motor
04/08/2024 / Perfect synchronicity in every single way / Supposed to thunderstorm tonight & tomorrow, “severely”
04/07/2024 / Went out & forgot my phone; it was nice / Almost scraped a car that was in my blindspot; maybe not, their car didn't flinch at all, maybe it was imagined / I keep feeling bugs on my skin / Got a cute new crop top, don't know how to descibe it, but it's very cute / Spent hours playing video games
04/06/2024 / Coworker said he went to a movie with his grandma & when he came back, his girlfriend had cleared all of her stuff out of their apartment; I wanted to know what movie it was, but it didn't seem like the right time
04/05/2024 / Called in / Bad headache all day; no medicine for it / Accused of mania / Driving in the dark
04/04/2024 / Almost fainted at work; bedrest
04/03/2024 / My feet have hurt for days & my room is messy / Wanted to hide in the library so some girls from class wouldn't sit & talk to me, but I didn't / Mercy Seat
04/02/2024 / Matcha, pho, then matcha again / Ivy, don't read this italicized part: Picked up 1Q84 from the library / Okay, you can look now / Listened to Runner by Alex G on a loop as I wrote a twenty page essay & then Taking by Alex G as I was runnning
04/01/2024 / One of my professors signed an email off with, “The end is getting closer” / Lots of sirens & many flashing lights today / A nice bus driver / Saw someone hanging a plant from their car, from the handle above the passenger door / A short lived thunderstorm; with each flash, the sky turned a dusty purple / “I’m on the path of the total eclipse.”
03/31/2024 / Cows along the roads grazing in wildflower fields, so many of them; though in this part of the world, if you call them all “cows” instead of “cattle” or “steers” or “calves” or whatever you get scoffed at; seemed like every rancher let their cows out today / Saw a horse too / Saw girls in pastels & boys in cowboy boots & jeans / A couple dozen vultures off the side of the road, but I didn't see what they were eating / I think I should start running / From far away, it looked like a couple was making out on the park sidewalk, but when I got closer I saw it was someone stroking a child's head after they'd hurt themselves on the pavement, brother & sister maybe / I miss scraping my knees on pavement & asphalt; that's one of my favorite feelings, actually / Talked a lot with my friend the Gull, exchanged memories & insights
03/30/2024 / Sore feet / I wonder how much of my life I've spent looking at the sky? / Saw two blue jays, bright blue jays / Walked around our childhood neighborhood with my sister at night / E likes the song “Both Sides Now” by Joni Mitchell; my grandma liked “Big Yellow Taxi” / Got pho with mom & smelled the spoons together / At the bookstore with E, I told her Milk & Honey by Rupi Kaur was the worst work of literature that I had ever read & she read some of it & couldn't stop laughing; she asked incredulously, “Is this what people think poetry is?!” / Went back to the bookstore with mom 'cause the pho place is across the street & I found a copy of Letters to a Young Poet & caved & bought Men Without Women by Haruki Murakami 'cause I was eyeballing it with E & didn't get it; mom offered to buy my books, but I told her no thank you / My dad was insistent that I buy a lotto ticket & I lost / E & I felt nostalgic as we drove down an old road together, the deer road