7/30/2022

Here I am. Trying. Trying my absolute best to ‘get on a roll’ as they say. Writing. Writing about my experience and life. Perhaps there are prompts that I could give myself to get things rolling, and in turn writing about the things that affected me during a day. Instead, I am just going at it without a roadmap or plan, like a disheveled bandit waiting for orders from his bottle of gin. 

I took in a lot of things today, namely a podcast episode from ‘The One You Feed’ ….. where a woman was going on about design thinking, and mentioned ways to reframe problems (she mentioned how substitute teaching was more of a retention problem than a recruiting problem, etc). There was a recommendation for a book that provided exercises for reflection. I would like to go back and check that out.

Another random podcast episode that played (while I lay next to Rio as he slept, once again rediscovering the joy of video games …. aka the ability to focus my energy and mental attention somewhere that doesn’t lead me to constantly re-litigate the fact that Japan is a xenophobic country …. the jury needed no deliberation on that one yet still I keep trying to find more evidence to convince … myself). This podcast was from the New York Times book review, and featured an interview with John Waters, a figure who I’ve known of but never really delved into. Apparently he has a novel out (maybe it’s his first), and I would very much like to read that.

Today left you to deal with your struggle to take action vs thinking about taking action vs feeling the dark cloud of depression making you run away from any kind of action. I hope that there are things you can do to overcome this feeling, because as mentioned in the audiobook you’re consuming entitled The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, you have a right to author your future. And you have decided to do otherwise, perhaps as a means to line the coffers of others who seek to take away your free will.

You also began to re-litigate the foreigner condition …. where you argued (to yourself) that you have no person with whom you can actually communicate your thoughts, since you can only offer a very abridged version of yourself to your wife in English, and expressing yourself in Japanese leads you to subconsciously change your identity altogether. Man, I remember having a conversation about this very thing with the the therapist I saw back in the day (whom I later ran away from because he was suggesting I take part in some kind of what I thought to be cooky therapy).

Speaking of cooky …. I’m so fucking done with Koo Koo Kanga Roo. Hope we can get the hell out of the house tomorrow.

What is a final project that you would be proud to put your name on? Today, while watching the finalé of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars, you thought long about how those people have formed a community, even in the face of being ostracized. And that really spoke to you, as a foreigner who is more or less fluent in Japanese. How could we facilitate a community for people like me? This is somewhere I’d be proud to focus my attention.

That, and the whole anxiety you felt about the people you are forced to spend your days with at your job. How is it that you are better compensated to do something less meaningful, less taxing, and less rewarding? What’s wrong with all of this? I just don’t have the mental capacity to keep doing this flies // shit ==> bees // honey thing. I should have a better outlook on it but I can’t shake it. Probably because my thoughts are in a constant state of being half-digested.

Keep on writing. Keep on streaking (by that, I mean doing the 4 activities that will make you feel more grounded).