4_6_24

Need to stop thinking about myself in how i relate to material things/what i own. This is difficult to do when alone

4_3_24

Man oh man

3_31_24

Headed out of town now, back to florida. Hmm.

Found a house and housemates i really like and i'm trying to move forward with them; the landlord is the sweetest woman i've ever met who comes back to prune her raspberry plants and placed mezuzahs on most doorways. It's the house she raised five kids in so she is just covering the mortgage by renting it out. What happened yesterday? The day before i went to the leather meet, which was set up very awkwardly on a long table in a lounge that played dragula for us and a sportsgame for the other patrons. I met River, met Cedar again, formally met Hawk and Andrew, and met Kells. Kells asked me on a date and we spent an hour or more walking around capitol hill with honey lavendar ice cream. He was worried about the age gap but has the same with one of his longest-held boyfriends so got over it, kind of. We talked a lot about transmasculinity and responsibility and so on, and he had the prettiest brown eyes i have ever seen in person. River invited me to a garden concert that i wound up missing on account of roommate interviews; River is a very confident, or at least outgoing, person with hypermobility and a kick ass leather tux and a lot of handy hobbies. Hawk is an elderly trans man who, like Angie (who wasn't there), wants to make sure i get here safely. I talked to one of my probable roommates about thinking the Seattle freeze is kind of bullshit and he pointed out that the leather scene, trans especially, is the glaring exception in how much warmth everybody holds. I need to reach out to the owner of Doghouse Leather, because i told him to stock The New Bottoming and New Topping books and he said i could send him a publisher, which i just found (i hope) and will email him about before my flight. I feel a lingering fear, or rather knowledge, that none of my pain is going to leave me without a lot of hell in between. I should really hop on telehealth or something... i don't like that format, but naturally it's cheaper. I no longer take antidepressants, which has been fine, but there's a lot of things i hold onto that i don't know how to begin sorting. Once i grasp onto something half a dozen other stones shove against it, relentlessly.
The leather scene is genuinely beautiful, though. It's really easy to move through even though i'm so new to it, which seems to be a major point. I'm kind of forgetting a lot of what happened yesterday... oh! I went thrifting with my probable roommates, Beck and their partner Aethan. Got two long-sleeve shirts that kind of pass as sweaters depending on who you ask, a flannel, and my dream radio/alarm clock! Also a leopard shark plushie. Also just realized that the reason a tsa agent looked so disgusted/surprised upon inspecting my bag is there is a massive black spiked dog collar in there. I forgot. Sorry ma'am. There were two who looked into the bag and the other guy did not seem to care at all. I showed Beck and Aethan some Russian new wave (mostly just Buerak) and Aethan put on some experimental Japanese psych. After meeting them i met another housing group where another Alan resides. We had a lottttt of interests in common, mostly music and literature wise. It was pretty awesome. I didn't really like the rest of the situations there, though... everyone else seemed distant and i'm very much looking for friends.

3_28_24

Arrived in Seattle around noon yesterday, just a visit for now, but my next flight here will be final. I'm pretty intimidated, but you've got to do everything scared.

I don't think anybody has seen this in me except for the patrons of REI who could see visible distress on my face as i looked at the prices of rainjackets and windbreakers. Genuinely panicked about it for an hour, because trying to get rainjackets at target, ross, etc., is a struggle; most of the time they don't have any. Anyway, I interviewed for a roommate position yesterday and honestly loved them. I was spoiled with chili, water, and a massive slice of cheesecake, and everyone was very open and kind. Transit was a struggle, though- not getting to, but fro. There was one bus that went into downtown to the lightrail, or it'd be a 35 minute walk there, which i had to do because the bus was delayed by an hour... so what was the point, eh? It wasn't raining then (it did dizzle a bit), but on a day when it truly is raining, constant, not in spits and stalls? No dice.
After that I went to rei, and after that i headed down to Neighbours. Online it was deeply conflicting about whether or not it was 18+, with some posts as recent as 2022 saying it is. I was headed over for a drag show i saw posted on lex, and wound up becoming friends with the drag clown who'd posted. Their name is Bonk the Clown, and they were outside smoking a red with the doorman. I asked about the show, she said it was happening in an hour, and i was welcomed into the conversation. One of his friends arrived from out of town, and when Bonk bounced indoors to deal with setup from time-to-time, Jay and i talked. I noticed the doorman was checking id and slumped. Jay told me to lie, say i forgot it, i said i'm a shit liar and worried that'd just be humiliating. I messaged Bonk about the age allowance tonight, and it was indeed 21+. Later in the night i'd notice some other people between 18-20 who didn't get to stay inside; most of them were dressed up to club and there's no way they weren't freezing their asses off. I guess for 15-20 minutes outside it's not bad, but i'd been out there for an hour and jittered at times in my heavy clothes when i wasn't talking to someone. Funny how that works. Bonk came back outside and i missed a chance to light their cigarette. They looked over, pointed, and got close, whispering to ask if i was really twenty. "Say you forgot your id" she instructed. I said i'm a bad liar, they said it doesn't matter, just say the words right now. I did, and he exclaimed "OH MY GOD, YOU FORGOT YOUR ID?!" to which i said of course, i only brought my orca card and cash for the queens. They nodded, saluted, and went to talk to the doorman, who said to talk to Roxy. Bonk told me Roxy does whatever he asks and went back inside on a mission. I was amazed, really. I saw two drag queens who were in the show (a competition apparently) step out- one was in this beautiful neon green and leather set up with assless chaps and almost no other clothes beside harnesses and frilled arm sleeves. The other was covered up, but said she was wearing orange because her team decided it and she seriously wasn't feeling it. Bonk, by the way, was a massive pink puffball, with a dress and sleeves that were essentially rotated tutus, and had painted his face a pale pink with a vibrant pink heart covering most of that, and a white feathered-around-the-rim cowboy hat. White boots i think too, but i can't completely remember.
In the end, it didn't work out. Roxy said absolutely not on account of the recent raids, the fine the bar could get, and the jailtime i could get. Bonk (Sunny) had really given it their all, seriously, and spent like half an hour trying to figure out a way for me to watch. One person we were with joked that'd they stand outside with me and watch from here in solidarity (the stage isn't visible from any window, but still funny and i appreciate the bit). The same person said entertained me using their id and saying its pre-transition, which blew my mind. They're nonbinary, 25 i think, and there's no way that could cut it- we look about the same way along in our transition, only voices differing. It was kind of absurd and we laughed. I was just amazed and grateful by the effort they went through, by the friendliness, and the way everyone smoking outside was pretty comfortable striking conversations. I really couldn't be upset, and came to the club with the expectation that it'd be 21+ anyway since it was so inconclusive online. Bonk promised me to tell me about 18+ events, so i'll find one at some point. I still have the trans leather meetup on Friday, so i'm not at a total loss. I really hope to see Angie and tell him i'm moving out here for good.
After all this i walked back to the hostel i'm at and fell asleep. Sleep was turbulent because of the open window and all the street noise that came with it. Sometimes i heard yelling, always i heard cars, and once i heard music. There was always conversations passing by, too, but nothing i could make out (or really wanted to). There are free earplugs in the lobby, which i may need. I'm a cafe currently, and later i'll see mercy, a tumblr mutual of mine lol. I don't know how long that'll take or what we'll be doing except walking around. Tomorrow i've got a day free, mostly, unless Jasmyn gets back to me. I'll head to the aquarium and probably not the art museum, but who knows.
Met mercy! It's an absolute sweetheart and we spent hours chatting. Before i met with mercy, i went to an antique store where i picked up some buttons and postcards. The clerk was an old man with stark white hair and asked me if i was moving to seattle "on purpose", but he said it with no malace or snark that i could pick up on. It really surprised me hearing it phrased like that without attitude, just curiosity. It struck me that i have moved so much, and yet this is the first time in my life it's on purpose, at least on my terms and my purpose. How insane is that?

3_24_24

"What got you here won't get you there"

3_17_24

I can't stand writing when i haven't had time to read anything. That's how you get to write anything worth writing, especially anything as difficult as poetry

3_17_24

On Tuesday, March 12, my parents suddenly decided within 24 hours that they're gonna move a little out of town... at the exact same time i'm moving. Mom's always running away from something, evident best by the fact that before age 18 i'd lived in 11 homes with her and by 19 that number was up to 13. Ever since we fled Texas for California, then California for Florida, she's moved every 2-3.5 years. I am washing my hands of it.

I'm sitting outside to keep Sonny from barking at a stranger. I can hear our neighbors (also moving) splashing in the pool. I heard two birds in some beautiful unique song i hadn't heard before. Their voices are gone and it's back to the typical quips and squawks. One of them sounds like a tiny hawk imitation. I can hear water dripping from a fountain. Working on doing this week's m.a. prompt, and found a poem type i may want to try out for a prompt i missed. I'm reading up on diapause and now i need to read up on poetry.

3_8_24

Turned twenty yesterday... grateful i'm not a teenager anymore. I've been having a hard time keeping up with anything outside of work. Work's not interesting, i'm just far too tired, maybe

3_2_24

Got a neat sweater, started a push-up routine, Wednesday's the day between my grandpa and i's birthdays (March 5; March 7), so we're having dinner together. It's terrible how i can't hear my voice when i speak, hear how it's changed, but at least i can hear it in audio playback. Been struggling to write for m.a. because i keep coming to memories that i can't elaborate on because they can truly be a sentence, and the literary devices of those real times can be seen immediately, unique syntax outside of plain text often inhibiting the meaning... comparisons end

2_25_24

Sweet dog video

2_21_24

My serious transition timeline is t2b, twink to butch. Insane

2_11_24

Often when i find pictures of my bookcase i feel ashamed by how many spines (overwhelming majority) are uncracked. It's like John Beger said, talking about advertisements: "Its promise is not of pleasure, but of happiness: happines as judged from the outside by others." "Being envied is a solitary form of reassurance." "You are observed with interest by you do not observe with interest-" (that particularly reminds me of Donald Brook's Why I Fucking Hate Weblogs) "-if you do, you will become less enviable. In this respect the envied are like bureaucrats; the more impersonal they are, the greater the illusion (for themselves or for others) of their power." "The spectator-buyer is meant to envy herself as she will become if she buys the product."; this is all to say i promise myself something better and freer where i read, engage, learn, but that's for someone else, the will of the future. Allen of the future. Every day i'm out or off from work i'm too exhausted to focus. If i'm not too exhausted, i'm too scared, somehow. My brain's on the fritz. This did not improve with medication- some less chemical block must be there. I don't know what it is but i want to carve it out. Why am i so scared of reading? My strongest guess is it lends to too much emotion, or that "it takes too much time." I know the time will pass anyway. It will pass whether i sleep, scroll, panic, or finally read. What is my problem here

2_4_24

Went through my stuff earlier this afternoon and set up about three suitcases and a trash bag of things to donate. I've still got three months till i leave. I keep sleeping earlier and earlier to make time fly faster... it doesn't feel very wise or good, though. I'm glad it's been relatively easy to decide what items to get rid of, but books are definitely gonna give me problems. Clothes may pose some issues, but not many. I know exactly which blankets and single pillow i'm bringing, so those are fine. Newspapers might be an issue. I have.... a lot... nothing crazy but a sizeable mound.

Once i get my Washington id i'm definitely going to shoot for different jobs. I'd love one without a uniform so i can finally wear my clothes, but even if it's got a uniform i've decided i'll pack a bag of at least a t-shirt to change into after each shift because i'll be spending a while on transit and walking and i'd like to not be seen in whatever messy blue-collar garb i'm in again.

1_30_24

A large part of me wishes i could stick to the south. A large part of me remembers the united states looks more like the south everywhere than in its cities. A large part of me remembers that i just need to stay offline... thinking about that article and the book it's from. Thinking that ... i need to figure out how to integrate more time off screens and time off fear. Most damaging is my sense of time is warped- everything is flying by and my locus of control doesn't extend to it. I'm weak and scared in the realm of attention and thought and devotion. I want to be devout

1_24_24

Honk mimimi....

1_11_24

Personals on a goth site for young adults and teens. interesting piece of modern history. so much....

1_6_24

Another night of turmoil. I feel so crass writing about it. i once talked to a theology phd student about this, but longer, more scared and apologetic, and she wrote something i'll never forget: "you are carrying so much, and worse, you know the exact weight of it all, and worse than that, you care how you look carrying it."

1_6_24

I think i'd really like a phalloplasty... if i get married i think it'd be in my 30s or 40s, and i think after that i'd really try to arrange one. I'm not interested in the erection implant but that could change in a decade

1_1_24

Who knows

12_18_23

Hmm. internet identities are.....................

12_14_23

Spent hours combing forums in the wayback machine... wound up on so many cool sites i don't even know where to start... i spent a while copying and pasting and translating the diaries of a Japanese uni student in 2007. she was in a relationship with another young woman but they struggled a lot to build a life together before deciding it probably wasn't gonna work, that there lives would always be parallel to each other and never intersect. i translated it and read what i found out loud to devon over facetime while she played league. took sonny for two maybe three walks tonight? three i think it is. she's restless but i'm not really playful... i found an anti-capitalist tintin comic, found a shit ton of anarchist sites, found a major strike in honor of indepdent radio which touched my soul. independent radio means a lot, a lot, a lot to me. so much, man...
Finding all those anarchist sites, forums, news outlets, the lot- it was so experimental. it was beautiful and ripe and raw and expressive and utterly communal. there were so, so, so many websitesm. most of them shut down after 2014. man. i can't think about that too much. it feels like a severe, brutal injustice. confined to a few social media sites and everyone's gotta be pure an fully identified and whatever. man.

12_9_23

12_4_23

December......... unnerving. Next month is January next month is 2024 and even though i've never felt attached to new years this one feels insanely important. January i begin my mad dash out of florida. Real, actual progress, not just waiting for appointments. January 17 hosts an appointment i can't miss. It'll set everything else up.
I have no intention of coming back for family holidays for at least two years. I can't wait for the weather and constant jacket wear. I can't wait for my pace in community college. I can't wait to join writing groups and roll my eyes and maybe stare awed 1/10 open mic nights. I'm gonna struggle a lot, i know. I prefer struggling there to here. Pick a struggle and pick a place. I need to find a local place to work at... i don't mind my current job but i'd rather not continue. I want to get back to my roots and work for a bookstore or sex shop or something.

11_29_23

I think i should kill any sense of professionalism i've tried to establish here..... really the only pages guilty of that are the formal photo slideshows. Gonna freakify them and by that i mean just not... let it be polished... who knows. I kind of get awfully overwhelmed looking at this site and how much it holds... it's a record of a very turbulent couple of years... i don't know

11_13_23

Tired or some other secret thing...

11_4_23

November.... loathe being too restless and anxious and neurotic to do anything. reading is a chore. it's my livelihood (philosophically i guess) and i can't do it.

10_17_23

I hate sharktank

10_12_23

Dunno what to do with myself. busy brain and rigid hands.

10_10_23

I love all of you and your entryways and means and histories

10_06_23

I went through my phone's notes app earlier this evening... man, what bullshit. one fall after another. shit was crazy. insane. i've been exploring web forums and while looking for ones on Springsteen i found an extreme alt-right website where they were all getting on his ass for being 'nothing special, so perfect for NJ' and looking faggy and like he was pissing on the american flag in his Born in the U.S.A. album cover. insane to me how those guys actually get Springsteen better than the average american does. they accurately quoted his lyrics and their meanings, even knew about how much he loved and kissed Clarence Clemons, too. i wanted to kill them. i got violent after reading a few of their post signatures and had to dip. i'll spare the other details i guess... i mean, you know what hatred exists in the world. you know what nazis and other fascist types are like. you might not be familiar with the american kind, but you can get the idea from those around you. each user covered 1-4 nazi-specific bases in their signatures. "if you're raised with an angry man in your house,
there will always be an angry man in your house,"
and naturally i want to gut them out with their own hunting knives. i'll never forgive the shop owner who sold me a red camera with pictures of his cock on the internal drive. i bought a knife from him too, dull, military, special forces no less. fancy. i'll carve it off.
but of course i'm pretty meek. that'd never happen. i'm better off with a hammer and a good dog

9_23_23

Picked up a book about Spinoza, Hunter S. Thompson's Songs of the Doomed, and the verse by the side of the road at Fleamasters. The last one's about the Burma-Shave roadsign campaigns that were honestly kind of killer. Business and marketing and shit sure but some of them really, really remind me of Jenny Holzer

8_26_23

Parents left their house to me and sonny all week. it's been nice without them. they're coming back in about two or three hours and i don't really want the reunion... just means im gonna be holed up in my room for ages all over again.
All day everyday i say i'm tired but i really think it's a deep dissatisfaction that causes immobility and a wreck in my nervous system that chooses to sleep over facing a reality that stimulates no emotion worth loving or wanting

8_17_23

I think what i ought to do is take time to read and digest. but after work, at home, i'm so exhausted and i can't focus on anything. i have so much energy and desire pent up in me to do this or that but i can't muster or use any of it. i wanna make this page, i wanna read this, i wanna do this, and i can't do anything but sit and stare, lay and sleep, or stare at the addictive rectangle i got a semi-transparent navy-blue case for that i love so, so much.

6_18_23

Been using a physical journal

6_7_23

Back in the southeast and trying to overcome fear & paralysis

6_4_23

Been having a lot of breakdowns but right now i'm in central texas again. saw a lot of cool striped rocks

3_23_23

Been feeling lost

2_19_23

Had a number of detailed dreams about being hunted, 2/3 times by something much larger than anybody, once by one being. lots of drama in the brain. soon i will be starting emdr, and honestly that can't be soon enough

2_7_23

Went to see Springsteen at Amway on the fifth, and it was amazing. he opened with No Surrender and i belted the whole thing. i'm never, ever gonna forget how he said "This is the most important part" into the mic before the screens lit up with images of Clarence Clemons. when he sang Because the Night, chris and i gawked at the lighting bouncing between lesbian and bi flag colors, and of course we belted the whole thing as well. the new sax player, Jake Clemons, fucking rocks. by the end of the night when everything was quieter and i could hear my own voice, i realized i had a pretty intense vocal fry. it didn't hurt like normal... usually, my vocal chords expand and cause me so much pain i have to go mute for at least a full day. but no, i just sounded like i was 3 1/2 months on t. pretty fucking funny

1_26_23

Hello... wrote more poems and i'm trying to keep this diary vague. barely keeping up with schoolwork or myself; i need to do laundry, schoolwork, get a job, exercise, and stop feeling like death itself

1_25_23

Clouds are rolling in and there's a falcon outside. i'm in a museum surrounded by art and i'm staring at the falcon outside.

1_21_23

Been getting worse... but one of my professors wants to talk to me about trees, and i'm writing poetry again.

1_14_23_

Finally got scott's weed out of my clothes. mom brought me over to her bi-yearly zoom call with her friends from high school. they all spoke over each other.

1_11_23_

Reading has been making me anxious for a long while now... i don't know why. i find something i'd love to absord and i get paralyzed. i'd like to say it'd be as easy as changing my intentions, like i successfully did with journaling, but i think i just need a therapist.

It's strange looking back on a relationship and not being able to deny shame as a possible factor for why they left the way they did. that's the bad part about never being given an explanation, let alone any remote closure: i've only got my imagination, and it keeps reminding me of the time we sat on the fort walls and they admitted they felt guilty for being with me, of the very, very few things they let slip about their adolescence, of how scared they were to look honest & present queer in florida. they're going somewhere they believe all these fears won't follow them. i hope it doesn't, but speaking from experience, i know it will. i'd like to help them, to trust them, but they made sure i can't. i wish i didn't have a choice to read into anything, and just had an answer. they made very sure they'll never know what they did, and especially sure i'll never know why they did it.
Just gotta sit with it.

1_10_23_

I've been going on walks around my parents' neighborhood, and it's really hard to look anybody in the eye. nothing happened here, i just don't feel at home. i feel so much more horrific, as a body and a mind, when i'm here. St. Aug isn't home, not really.. but it's a lot more a home than this place.

Very much thinking of scrapping the page of my poems from last year... they just kind of embarrass me, and need to be reworked... have needed to be reworked since last year, lol