#2 - dispatch experiment
i'm not taking a CNF class anymore and i have a lot of unfinished thoughts
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My dad sent this picture to our family WhatsApp group. It was from when my grandfather was still alive, and my grandmother could still be convinced to walk. It was Eid. I look too tired to be walking to the mosque. It makes me sad to look at this photo because I want my grandparents again.
I went to film school, I’m in grad school for Creative Writing, and yet I still feel like I’m squandering my potential. I feel like I’m wasting my breath. Self-stifling. And then I tell a friend from home what I’m working on for my thesis and they say that’s a show they’d like to watch, it’s both validating and crushing. A part of me doesn’t care if my stories ever see the light of day.
I’m bad at shopping for backpacks. All the ones I’ve owned have either been hand-me-downs or impulse purchases of necessity. No backpack I’ve owned has ever matched my “style”. I’m not sure I have a definitive sense of style. Always too big, not big enough, too full of stuff, never prepared for the day. I wrote an essay about bags and containers and Ursula K. Le Guin’s Carrier Theory. It ended up in the portfolio I submitted to grad school. I didn’t realize how big a deal my program was until I got there. I still feel like an outsider, an interloper. The screenwriter got lost on their way somewhere else. Transitory. Always Zayn leaving One Direction.
I feel like stone. Stubborn and heavy and probably creating an irreversible dent in my mattress. I’m pretty sure I’m sick but I don’t believe it. I insist on working but I don’t want to work. I must be stopped.
I’ve cut both my hands on two separate occasions. One was a paper cut on my right pinky I don’t remember making. The other is an unfortunate brush with a kitchen knife attempting to pit an avocado. I precariously covered the wound with four band-aids and they all came off by the time I was finished teaching my seminar. It was the palm sweat that did me in. I bought gauze and tape at the pharmacy and wrapped my hand overnight. Blood was absorbed and dried.
I was digging through my old Evernote account and found something dated January 27th, 2014 that said “THEY’RE HACKERS”. I’m not sure what compelled my fifteen-year-old self to document that. Maybe it was a solution to a story problem, maybe it was a note about Mr. Robot, maybe she just saw people that were using that one website that makes it look like you’re coding. I wish I committed to learning how to code.
I’m most comfortable in the awkwardness of a comedy club green room. I never know anyone. I don’t think anyone can hear me properly past my accent. It’s the only time I’m ever itching to get on stage.
I am struck by the phrase “settler colonial terraforming”. It’s happening everywhere. Too much. Borders are stupid and so are nation-states. If any immigration officers are reading this, I’m kidding. (I’m not, please don’t deport me.) I want to go home but I don’t know where that is. I’m sick of working from home but there’s no space to work elsewhere. The office makes me feel funny. I don’t think The Office is funny, much to the dismay of my loved ones.
Waking up in the middle of the night is better than waking up two hours before your alarm goes off. I always feel robbed. I want to stop feeling guilty for sleeping. I’m plagued by the need to use the phrase “I’m being plagued by.”
These dispatches sound so sad and negative. I don’t think I’m sad or negative, I’m a very tired person struggling to stay awake. I think I’m pretty optimistic nowadays. I have started to believe in rest. I think my roommates are playing Jack Harlow in the other room and I think it’s very silly. There are too many white people making noise and calling it music. I’m judgemental only to entertain myself.
All my love,
Ari