WHOA.

This is wild. 

Quaretine-while

Like everyone else, I have been stuck inside, stuck with my thoughts.

And it has given me a lot of time to think about how I define success and how to achieve that success.

And I don't know.  I mean, I've achieved a lot of the things I thought would make me happy, but I still feel like the same person. It's probably along the lines of, "Wherever you go, there you are."

There's this idea of needing to make the best of any situation and learn and grow and whatever.

But, what happens when you don't know the direction where you want to grow?  I have no idea. I thought that this whole extensional dread thing would be over by now.

I'm still the same anxious person that I was, but not in the same shitty situation? And yes, that is amazing and I'm glad to be on the other side of the shore, but what now?  What would living a good life look like?

I'd like to be able to work out with more regularity. I'd like to write more. I'd like to cook more. I'd like to have the patience to work through the humdrum monotony of working towards a life I'd like to live. I know I need to put the work in, but putting the work in seems so much like. . .work?  Haha.

It's fucking hot in Los Angeles right now.

I've made good friends. I have good friends, but sometimes I can't stand them.  Is that normal?  What the fuck. I have these half attempts at relationships, but I never know what to do about them. Intimacy is this thing that is behind a screen. Like, I see it and I know I should want it, but eh. And even while embracing my identity as aromantic, it still feels like there's something I'm missing out on, like I'm having FOMO on a feeling.

But other than being stuck with my thoughts, I have been gardening and drinking quite a bit. So, there's that, I guess.

This is it.

Well, it is dark and I am sitting outside after a yoga class.

I guess this is it.

I have been shitty at the writing prompts thing, and I definitely need a routine. Oh well.

New Hobbies

I need new hobbies.  I am not about this quarantine life.

Watashi wa shiba

And now it is Sunday!

It's been a hectic week, even with the quarantine.   I'm probably going to have to rethink this writing challenge business, but it is all cool.  I've got time.

Thursday

Thursdays are a time suck, so no writing today.

April 1st

I had a writing challenge lined up, but I had a long day, so we're gonna write about real life.

It's 10pm when I get the text, "We're getting ready."  Oh shit.
"Do I come now?"  15 seconds.
"I'm coming down."
"No, wait.  We're gonna wait till morning."

I haven't been sleeping so anytime was fine.  I take too many sleeping pills and wait.

It's 5am when he texts me, "We're going."
"I have a job, I won't be there till after 11."
"Can't you come sooner?"
"I'll come sooner."
"No, it's okay.  Come after 11."

When I finally get on the road the horizon is a sun bleached bone and there are more that two hundred miles to go.  

Annnnnd scene!

I also had a corona virus scare, I think I'm okay?  Eh.  I wanted to include that, as well as entering an empty house, but eh.

I also wanted to write about getting waaaay to close to some of the rigs, but I like this kinda stark scene better, and I feel like describing too much would take away from that.

What they don't tell you about the end of the world

What they don't tell you about the end of the world is that there are still nice days. That there are still sunny days, where the blue sky goes on and on and on.  It's the beginning of spring, so more sunny days are probably ahead.  That's something that they don't tell you about the end of the world--that it begins in the spring.  But today is a grey day and it matches the grey freeway and the grey mood.  This is what you expect of the end of the world, dreariness and drabness and ominous mood.

The end of the world is walking past empty research buildings, save for men in orange jackets and masks hauling out desks and equipment into trash bins on the side of the road.  The end of the world is walking onto a empty campus, save for the white testing tents outside of the hospital. The end of the world is carding into an empty building wth dimly lit hallways, riding up a shambling elevator that reeks of urine--that once stopped with you stuck in it, but you don't take the stairs anymore after you listened to  nurses and doctors and researchers in the stairwell crying and yelling and whispering into their phones.  The end of the world is walking into your fancy windowed office, and walking past your desk because they never got around to giving you a computer, so you just enter into the next office over, sit hunched at a narrow desk, amongst the artifacts of someone you've never met.  At the end of the world, you're sitting at an old and failing computer. The end of the world is looking at pictures of someone else's son and wondering where they are and if they'll miss that ruler you've been eyeing. The end of the world is reading emails.

The end of the world is feeling like you're sneaking into clinic.  It's walking through the side entrance, past the stocky man covered in protective gear, mask and eye shield.  It's having no where to sit because we can't get too close to anyone.  It's listening to people apologize and telling voices on the phone to stay home, to stay safe. The end of the world is lying to your family and telling them you haven't been in clinic.

The end of the world is driving past marquees that tell you to stay safe, stay home, avoid gatherings and to wash your hands, amongst the billboards telling you SoCal Residents Come to Disneyland! and Toyota Days, Come and Go!  There isn't a lot of traffic at the end of the world, save for the drivers driving too fast, and too many remains of popped tires and spare parts.  There are still so many car accidents at the end of the world.  There are police cars patrolling every street at the end of the world and the end of the block.  The end of the world is fast and grey and 20 minutes to LAX.

The end of the world is getting drunk with your friends and not with your friends, watching their faces online  and illuminated, barely looking human but still friendly, and knowing that that day, people in the hospital quietly met to discuss who was worth saving.  The end of the world is text messages saying not to worry and wondering who is lying. 

The end of the world is dog videos, treading lightly and so many voices telling you to wash your hands.  The end of the world is empty streets and sunny days.  The end of the world is holding your breath and wondering if the tightness in your chest is death or heartbreak or panic.  At the end of the world, your bills are still due. 

What they don't tell you about the end of the world is that it is only the end of your world, not the end of THE world, and that it is spring and there are still sunny days ahead. 

My notes: I think the fun thing about this is that it COULD be about a break up or y'know, a disease hitting Los Angeles. 

PSA

I'm gonna do a writing challenge!

I've got 28 writing prompts and stale tortilla chips.

Let's do labels: YT tries to get her grove back, quarantine thoughts and writing challenge.

Let's try to do a writing challenge per day, with forgiveness on Thursdays.

Is this how you do this?  Eh, fuck it.

No heroes, no villains, only survivors.

Baby, I promise I didn't come crawling back to you because all the things I usually would have filled my time with have been taken away from me.  Baby, I promise this time I'll stay. Baby, you believe me, right?

I'm trying to ignore that my last post is still the thing I am struggling through aka "What does it mean to live creatively?"  Maybe I don't write anymore because it forces me to confront how little I've actually accomplished and/or how little I have to say?  Naaaaah.  That can't be it. Maybe if I focus my writing?  On what though?  Does it matter?  Is writing even part of my version of "living creatively?"

What story do I have to tell?  What experiences can I share?  What's relatable?  Is trying to work through my decade long writer's block just another distraction from dealing with what is front of me? Is trying to organize and make my creativity productive actually stifling it?  Maybe.  Maybe the goal is just getting through this.

Yeah, yeah. I get it. Bad things are happening.  Bad things are happening, and I care a lot about those bad things.  But, being oversaturated with grief, feels a lot like not caring at all.

I stopped to stare at my phone for like five minutes just now and just scrolled through more of the same: Covid19, Covid19, Covid19, funny animal video.  Whenever things get too heavy, I fidget with my phone.

It feels surreal to know that huge swathes of humanity are being extinguished, and we still have all the funny dog videos at our disposal. It's surreal to drive on the freeway and see marquees telling me to wash my hands and stay away from people, alongside Disneyland ads.  Is this how the world ends?  Just feeling out of place and dissatisfied?

I checked my phone again and watched an ad about a blanket.  It was better than sitting with those feelings, I guess.

This morning, I did half a yoga class before my connection was so spotty that I gave up.  An hour later, I joined up with another yoga group--not fitness yoga, but spiritual yoga--and chanted and meditated as a group.  Instead of feeling connected to either experience, I felt like a fraud, a spiritual tourist.  Sometimes saffron is just orangey-red.  Sometimes the machine has to chose who to save, before the wave hits.  Sometimes you  need to make it procedural and matter of fact, so that when the choice is in front of you, the part of you that is part of the machine, makes THAT choice.

Oh wow, that's still bothering me. So it goes and goes and goes.

I check emails, I check emails, I check emails.  I watch hundreds of Youtube videos. I add a inspirational quote to my bullet journal.  I work on my handstands.  I imagine how it would look like if I snapped my wrists.  I move through some asanas. I vow to be better.  I vow to be better.  Maybe I'll get tired on my own bullshit. My hands are flakey from all the alcohol spray.

Hey, I'm sorry.  I'll try to be better. Hey, I'm already feeling better.

Welp.

Here we are again.  You would think I would get the hang of it by now?  Idk, idk.

I got a fortune from a fortune cookie that said "live creatively."  And I mean, if there was any time to live creatively, for me, especially, it would be now.

Instead, I am completely at a loss for what that even means.  What does that even mean?

I guess, I need to approach this the way I would have approached work.  First, define what we're trying to explore. What does it mean to live and what does "creative" mean to me?

I guess, a life would be one that I would earn money and still have enough time to do things that I enjoy i.e. maybe climb?  A life where I also have time.

And creatively?  What the fuck that does that even mean?  Maybe live off a skillset that doesn't turn me into a ball of anxiety?  Maybe have the courage to live life?  HOW THE FUCK DO I EVEN?

Hot Yoga

Maybe if I  keep posting something like a sentence at time, I'll get back into the swing of things.

Hot yoga is like redemption.  It's like, "Yeah, I've been shitty at my home practice, but now this impossibly thin and flexible woman is enthusiastically telling me find my edge and go past it, and god I think my muscles are tearing, is that sweat or are they tears?"

Wtf

Today I woke up at 4:30am to go on a run. Wtf.
I should use this thing.

Use it or lose it.

I suck at writing. Wtf.

It has been a hard year.  But, it has also been a good year.

Motherfucking shit.

I suck at remembering to write.

Every Day Adventure

There this white man, long haired but balding, in a baseball cap, on the train. His gray-white hair and pink scalp peak out from his cap.  His sentences are drawn out and snarling, speaking the way I imagine an elderly crocodile would speak.

The train is packed and the smell and the people and he occupies two seats.

There's a man who legit looks like Jesus eating a loaf of bread. A fucking loaf of bread.

Am I going to miss this?

Taking a new lover.

I'm reading trail reviews and I ran across the sentence, "I do love that mountain." And that seems so weird.

How do you love a mountain?

Like, I definitely understand how someone can love the ocean. I love the ocean. The ocean is beautiful and wild and kind and selfish and and dangerous and terrible. How can you not love the ocean? Sure, the ocean takes and takes and takes. But it's the ocean. It is supposed to. Besides, it gives so much more. The ocean feels like home and family, and like those things it can alienate and turn on you. Loving the ocean is frightening, and maybe it's a reflection of my own faults, but I think love should be a little frightening and unsettling. Why work hard if it's a sure thing? Why strive if it's comfortable? Not that being happy and comfortable aren't good qualities and that people shouldn't seek them out, but they don't seem very conducive to a life full of adventures and new experiences. And that's what I want: I want to experience all the things.

But mountains? Mountains just kinda hang out. They don't demand sacrifice and pain and uncertainty. Or maybe they do and I haven't learned how to appreciate it.  There are definitely bears and snakes and high places to fall and plants that are trying to hurt you, in mountains. There are a lot of ways to die in the mountains.

Maybe I'm having trouble loving mountains because of the way they make me feel.

When I'm at the beach, I feel bigger, stretched out. Not thin, but like the load of my emotions and being myself, is more evenly distributed across a larger area.

When I'm in the mountains,  I feel so specifically me; like all the particles that make up me are being finely milled into this exact pinpoint of me-ness.  There is no doubt that I am Ynez, none of the overlapping of Ynez + Ocean. And right now, I'm having a hard time with that. It's uncomfortable.

So, I guess I will have to learn how to be me, with diamond cut precision. I will find a way to love mountains.

Forget all that I said, maybe distraction works best.

I was planning on writing something introspective and maybe contemplating whether or not I was having a psychotic break from reality, but then I remembered that life has always been weird and terrible and amazing and exciting.

For example one friend is interviewing for a television show.
And another had a lot of money mysteriously deposited into her account.

Oh, and I did go ghost hunting in an abandoned medical facility, but let the people I was with go first and they were chased out by a swarm of bees.  After that, I decided it was a good time to pick up my car from the shop. 

Life is Good and Appropriate Answers

"So, I hear Big Sur is supposed to be one of the most beautiful places in California."

"Yeah, I've heard that too."

"Want to go when you get back?"

"Yeah!  I have a few weeks, we can start in San Diego and camp, making our way up!"

"Let's do it in September, then."

"We better buy a tent heater, then."

"Okay."

Haunted

I stumbled upon the realization while ghost hunting, wandering around abandoned hospitals--I feel haunted.  Not in that moment, but in my daily life.

I feel like so much of my most basic personality, the bits of me that make me feel most like myself, hinge on confidence.  The confidence that I am being myself as hard as a I can and that no matter what happens I will manage. 

I mean, I still feel like myself, but I also feel like I'm always watching myself too--always peeking around the next corner trying to see the blurry faces of strangers just before they're in my line of sight.  It's a weird feeling.  It's not the feeling of loneliness which is this weird gnawing grey thing, vague and insubstantial thing that could be easily distracted and mitigated.  This is something very specific, a noticeable lack.  Like there's this hole in the world and like a hole everything rushes to fill it, but it still drains away.  

I have always been very fortunate.  It's cliche to say this, but it's probably the most accurate word, but I've been blessed.  I've always managed somehow and I've managed to become kind.  I've met wonderful people and continue to go on wonderful adventures.  I have learned to appreciate kindness and the difficulty of being kind.  I have seen my goals and taken steps towards them--for me there are no more "what-ifs."  It hasn't been easy and I won't lie, there have been very dark moments.  But that's what they were--moments.  There was no disconnect with myself; the person I was awake was the person I was asleep.

But now, my dreams are so angry.  And I have differently dark moments.  They're dark the way lava is dark.  But also bright and violent and burning.

What do I do with this?  Is this something I can bring to a priest or witch or whatever?  I feel like I can't talk to my friends, how do you explain that you're being haunted by yourself?  I feel whole, I mean if I'm not myself, who else can I be?  But now it feels like there's someone else here with me too.