e l l i

''what if you regret it'' then you will expirience regret - a normal and unavoidable part of the human expirience.

hopefully i'll get to do something other than endure soon. that would be really nice

Wednesday the 15th. What an excellent day. Middle of the week, middle of the month. Truly, we are in the middle of things.

one time I went over to a friend's house and their housemate was making paper in the living room, and we saw this big tub full of water they were using to dissolve old scrap paper into a slurry, and everyone was immediately like "oh, you need scrap paper?" and started turning out their jacket pockets and producing expired coupons and bus tickets and crumpled receipts and old shopping lists and whatever else they'd been carrying round with them for no good reason, and passing it all to the paper-making housemate to make sure it was suitable before it got torn up and dropped into the tub, while people took turns stirring the slurry with a big wooden stick. it was strangely ritualistic, like presenting an offering to some kind of temple elder for inspection before placing it in a watery shrine to be devoured and reformed. pulp for the pulp god.

after much deliberation I have completed a simple task that took less than 10 minutes, and I'm happy to report that this time it only cost me about 3 days of dread

“you’re such a ray of sunshine!” thanks! one day i chose to act happy and then i kept choosing it over and over and over and over until the neurological pathways formed like desire paths in the thicket. i dug and clawed my nails into the grooves of my brain and carved out joy. i retouch it every day.