neither bloody nor bowed

i'm super bummed because i made a cool friend but now she's moving away to go to medical school which is awesome for her, she's smart and she'll be great at it but selfishly, i can't stop thinking about how awesome it was to have a friend who loves gin and nihilism and cats and perfect eyebrows and scary movies

there was a vigil. i didn't go because i didn't feel like i knew her well enough to be there, but the photographer gave me the pictures of her that i loved so much and i took them to the location of the vigil. her daughter has them now.

years and years ago, back when i just came to events at the gallery and wasn't a part of it and didn't really know anybody, i saw these beautiful vibrant pictures on display of a cool woman just exuding personality, and i loved them. after seeing them a few times, i approached the photographer about doing a shoot with him. he and his wife and dogs and cats ended up being so important to my life. and if i hadn't met him, i don't know if i ever would have met my cousin. i only met the woman from the pictures a couple of times. she moved away years ago, our paths didn't intersect much. she had been missing for several days, and her body was found today. i'm deeply sad about it, even though i barely knew her, because how different my life would be if i hadn't loved those pictures of her.

i'm so frustrated after my therapy appointment today she keeps telling me that i need to work on my self esteem and find value in myself, and it's gotten to the point that today i said "honestly how do you expect me to develop these things when i hate myself most of the time, you can't get blood from a stone" and she just gave me a dumb worksheet that looks geared to middle school kids -- but I also don't have a lot of options. so many mental health professionals around here are faith based, and it's not just that i'm not a believer, it's that i feel like they would be judging me on my life choices based on their belief system. i can't see anything productive coming from that. beyond that, there's not a lot of options that take my insurance, and most of the other options are located in the same building, so i'm guessing they'll all be similar, and it will be a whole thing if i switch my therapist is nice enough and she laughs at my jokes, but i just don't know if anything productive is coming from it

a dumb thing: for years i've thought about doing stand up comedy. i think i'm pretty okay at knowing how to make people laugh and i've got an endless amount of weird stories plus, back when i used to be a GTA, my coworker and i really excelled at what we referred to as "gynecomedy". we had a whole routine going. but i don't know how to go about actually trying to do it one of the local bars has a comedy night, but i've been going there for years and i hate the thought of encouraging applause from people i halfway know but beyond that i'm just like ???????