~stoned~

just some lil thoughts

while I’m stoned -

11/14/23

I saw an ig where they were mixing thick printing ink. And I got so sad I couldn’t remember the smell. The smell of ink when I got to look in the vat of leftover ink. It was my favorite part of being at my moms job.this was before my dad was in the picture so after school and summers and the occasional weekend and bank holiday, I’d play in her office or try to convince viktor to buy me an orange juice in the break room, annoy the woman working front desk, and play kid pix. But the left over ink vat was the best part, all leftover ink was just tossed (in much the same way I now scrape plates while bussing tables). It changed like a kaleidoscope, a new pollock everyday in that industrial waste barrel. And it had a smell, it’s one that if I smell it it’s like being smacked in the face, it feels like the moment In ratatouille when the chef is transported back to the cottage with that bite. The feeling of childlike joy and rapture.

I can’t find photos online (maybe my mom has some) of the printing company but there’s this really sweet tribute to it here (my mom probs worked with this guy she was there 91 to 99 -idk maybe 2000? I’m not great with dates) https://www.craigvarjabedian.com/blog/an-elegy-for-a-printer-named-cottonwood

9/23/23 (I think this was supposed to be in the dream section)

We’re on field trip/vacation? We keep going back & forth between this big mansion & mall? There’s witches? We’re friendly the mansion is theirs, it’s strange, empty, we keep finding bodies, unsure if theyre statues, corpses, magically frozen, but know if we linger too long, think on them too much we’ll meet a similar fate, all these places aren’t empty but are disquietingly, unnaturally & quiet. We find our friend has been turned into/his spirit contained within a comic book. We steal it from the witches room, her backpack is the same kind as mine so it’s not suspicious to stuff everything of mine in hers & try to leave. We run thru huge mall atriums and then odd cobblestone streets to make the bus & we do. It’s packed & we’re traveling thru a v strange forest.

The bus starts to turn around. The witches are like vampires their movement is limited by many factors. But their powers extend farther. So we bail out the window. There are camps set up here. We’re deep in the woods & it’s getting cold. Were afraid of whose in the tents & find a tent of cold frozen corpse’s & know we need to get to warmth. We huddle together. It’s my sisters but also friends? They keep shifting. The 3 of us try to seek shelter but realize there’s teens on dirt bikes with bow and arrows & balaclavas attacking this loose encampment. We consider bailing down the hill but see a similar battle playing out in small boats and the brush around the lake we’d hoped to hide near.

We get captured but they know we’re not part of the group they’re attacking. Were taken to the guy in charge (imagine Francis in later seasons of Malcom in the middle but he’s shifting back and forth between shaved head and ginger with loose curls & has a nose ring which th both hairstyles. Either way, in the dream I think “wow he’s sooo cool & older” so I think I’m like young? Like he’s hot in the way the high school guy leading some youth group thing was so unbelievably hot to me when I was a middle schooler) we learn he’s max (there’s rumors of a mad max in the woods - think more Robin Hood vibes?) we have him look thru the bag& comic book, will any of this give us away? We go into the house, see his cot. I try to extend my hand to offer like friendly hold hands with him while he’s talking about sad shit and he shifts weight, doesn’t meet my hand, but doesn’t fully pull away?we can’t return to the places we know. I wake up.

9/6/23

You know how the weather is crazy && different & climate change has intensified weather shit. And you know how there are people like “when my knee hurts, it’s gonna rain” (and it’s real because of like barometric pressure, humidity, & electricity, and the way your body can detect those things because of how they impact circulation/inflammation), are there people who have like chronic pain symptoms now that like … 100 yrs ago wouldve only had issues when it was a thunderstorm?? I assume/wonder about similar dynamics with like asthmatics post Industrial Revolution and whatever the duck is going on with celiacs in America -like why are there so many gluten intolerant people I know whove says they can eat European bread without issue (or this crunchy mom who ground her own wheat & said the celiacs wasn’t a problem then?? Idk she was kinda crazy even for an evangelical maybe that was the deal). Is this just an America is poison thing???? I think about flint, or even just the lead levels in chicagos water by neighborhood, & find it hard to believe that this many people just lived in constant physical pain & gastric distress in the past. (Idk maybe I’m being overly-idealistic-about-a-mythologized-past or Amish or hippy-right-before-joining-a-co-op here)

Either way, i just set up an acupuncture appointment with someone a friend recommended and im so excited & a lil scared. Call Walgreens and cancel my rx, this is gonna cure me. (I’ve been having a really hard time with my meds lately like ughhhhh it’s sooooo annoying taking pills 3 times every single day like omfggggg there is nothing in my whole life I’ve ever done that much I’m not meant for this) but disclaimer for the my fans: I’m taking my meds. I’m going to keep taking my meds.

8/31/23

My work is trying to instate a new late policy and when I found myself thinking “theres no way for them to punish me that matters” I realized why certain kinds of authority figures/teachers never liked me. Like certain kinds of power trips/authority rely on desire & denial. But I spent so much of my childhood in ascetic evangelicalism; intentionally neutering myself of desire to the degree that I still just don’t know what I want a lot of the time (after years of therapy to fix this). I understand the “punishable by fine just means ok for the rich” on an intrinsic level. Nothing they say or hold over my head will change that I’m just going to be late and they’re going to do all their vaguely stated punishments and I’m gonna go “okay👍🏻” & they’re gonna hate it. I am trying my hardest, nothing they can say about “importance of timeliness” is going to change the threshold of my effort or if im on time.

“but Nicole how have you been on time to other jobs/important things?”

I haven’t.

“But Nicole if you’re always late how have you never been fired?”

I am, at minimum, 2 of these at every workplace I’ve ever been in:

- hardest or fastest working

- anticipates problems no one else does

- most reliable (minus 1st 20 min of shift)

- does things no one else will

- does things no one else ~can~ because I figured out the best way & no one else will let me teach them because “you’ve got it figured out”

- best at de-escalation/keepin good vibes

Like an employer is just gonna learn to suck it up because we both know they’re not firing me over 15 min tardy (when they know I’m the one who will stay & work an hour late without complaining) but eventually they begin to resent it because being Unpunishable makes us equals.

This is part of why my last job sucked so bad. My bosses punishments were childish, inconsistent, & cruel mind games (like pointed silent treatment in a small open floor plan office) which unlike clear direct communication, do work on me. Like she offered to let me stay at her apartment while I was trying to leave my horrible ex, but also regularly, caustically, & publicly criticized everything I did down to how I spoke (using like or um) in casual conversation. (Also the pay was shit, and she abused every part of the above “2 minimum” list above using guilt tripping, shaming, and yelling until I was burned out beyond belief)

Like goddamn, I just want to go to work, be 15 min late, do an incredible job, make everyone else’s day as easy & chill as I can, and then just go home & not have any work bother me at home. Is this truly so much to ask????????

6/11/23

Drunk but fucj it that applies here.

Had a coworker comment when I mention going to a friends bday party today that “haha you’re always going to birthday parties” && like tbh I kinda am, but like I think I’m good at parties but not very good at sustaining or developing one on one relationship. So like yeah I get invited to a disproportionate number of bday party.

Also idk I’m worried about my cat because she’s been meowing a lot lately &&&& the internet is always like “if you’re cat is meowing a bunch take them to the vet they’re probs in pain or some shit” but like this bitch is ALWAYS fucking meowing (it’s literally her name sake!!!!!!!) so like idk I think she’s fine, just mad.I’ve been home less

6/8/23

I wonder if a reason that so many autists have issues with peroception is that our bodies want things differently && it’s not necessarily an inherent inability but rather a lifetime of suppression leads to a lower inability to perceive it. I’ve noticed as I’ve been unmasking that I feel more pain. When I’m not just “everything is good and fine”-ing my way thru everything I realize that more things were not good and fine. But also the overlap of pots/eds and autism and the fact that for both of those it’s better to eat a half dozen small meals thru put the day. Vs 3 larger ones. And so like if you spend your life suppressing hunger cues for snacks (and like say no to snacks for diet /fatphobia culture reasons) that you can no longer recognize what early hunger cues are. (Also lol maybe that’s just me)

—-

A few months ago a close friend told me that it’s always fun hanging out with me because we’ll all be talking about something and “you’ll just say something totally wild that none of us have ever experienced before” and idk. It’s stuck with me in a way I’ve been surprised at. I didn’t realize it hurt my feelings until today & realizing I haven’t stopped thinking about it. (I think i was talking about how I can just choose to stop feeling certain kinds of pain - which upon reflection is mostly just like a kind of intentionally dissociating? Like I can choose to not be inside my body for a little bit if it hurts or something bad is happening)

Like idk it’s not like I want every weird thing I say like celebrated or coddled or something idk. I just wish it felt less like being stared or leered at by the people closest to me. I don’t want to be unique & strange & experiencing things no one else ever. Or maybe just not when it makes me feel like that. I’ve tried so hard to erase all those parts of me & at times that’s hurt me & at times that’s benefited me. And idk it feels like unmasking is just so risky. Also sometimes when I’m with this friend it just feels like they’re watching me or that like they’re manic pixie dream girl-ing me. && idk how to like …. Approach that or talk to them.

5/14/23

I wonder if there’s a name for the narrative structure in like specifically found-family tropes. Where the beats are like distrust>gradual begrudging respect> genuine care & love > perceived slight or misunderstanding or reveal of earlier info that sows renewed distrust> fracturing of relationship>sacrifice on one or both sides>reconciliation & renewed/deepened love. Often seems to occur in a story that move between a lot of different locations, traveling or odyssey or like “long night out”.

5/6/23

Ok so I’ve seen TikToks where people are talking about how they confuse fear and excitement because psiologically they feel similar (quicken heart rate, flushed skin, pupil dilation, heightened sense, etc) - is this the same reason that there are so many kinks that involve fear/power dynamics/punishment. Like being punished is scary, being weaker in a power dynamic is scary- is that like functioning in the same way?

——————

I feel like you could combine soy sauce with chocolate ice cream in some really nice ways. I googled around & wasn't reaaaaally seeing much (but v likely there's results im not seeing because theyre just not in english). but like imagine a reaaaally creamy chocolate ice cream in like a waffle cone (like the stroopenwaffle ones, not the fluffy ones). like I was seeing a lot of soy sauce caramel things & you could do like soy sauce caramel chunks or a ribbon?

OR i bet if you added soy sauce to the espresso while making a tiramisu it'd BANG. maybe ill try making one next week, it's been a long time since I made a tiramisu.

3/13/23

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CpjSOL1IWUn/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

Link is to an instagram reel where the first part is captioned “me being trans in 450 BC:” good shit revered etc me being trans now and it’s just this girl head in her hand and audio of a transphobic speech

Now here me out, there’s a few threads I’ve been pulling on recently and they are:

- this pop culture understanding//way of talking about psychology & neurodiversity (or tbh I can’t remember hearing anyone specifically describing it in this way so maybe just way I’ve been contextualizing/understanding the patterns I see in my own head?) is this idea that neurodiversity is actually an evolutionary adaptation and that for example people with adhd used to be the hunters in hunter gatherers because an inability to sit still, unless you’re super focused on one thing, while maintaining a highly tuned sensory awareness, and an ability to ignore pain/hunger is pretty fucking helpful for hunting. So I would think that interrelated things like autism would also have formed for similar things (mood disorders seem to generally be more so impacted by trauma & environments - Altho if you consider spiritual practitioners in many times of history you see psychotics -unsure if that’s the right term at this point but it sounds poetic & i am one so…) all this to say, neurodiversity developed because at one point in time it was useful & had respected spots in society (disconnect/pathalogizing of this appears to happen at time of Industrial Revolution, accelerating after world war 2.)

- queerness is about much more than sexuality & it is no mistake or coincidence that so many of us suffer from chronic pain, EDS, & digestive issues that often appear to be comorbid with or related to mental health & neurodivergency. (Trans people are autistic) but I think when people say “someone can be gay but not queer” usually the “only gay” person they’re referring to is nuerotypical. I think this is often because queer people don’t stop asking “but why do it the way you guys say is ok?” At just sexuality, but continue to ask that question around other systems (aesthetics, politics, art, gender, spirituality, etc)

- I believe that the way I see often symptoms described/clustering that many parts of autistic and adhd mental health issues are deeply related to//caused by certain kinds of physical inaccessibility issues with the way modern life is structured. For example, I hate doing the dishes not only because of a nebulous “executive dysfunction” of the mind, but also because standing upright, still in one spot like that is painful for my joints (i away back and forth when I do the dishes) however, since starting a job where I am able to move around more freely I find it to be less physically painful to stand still and do the dishes.

Now if we believe that mental health conditions are highly tied to physical characteristics, and we believe that physical characteristics in part had to have been impacted by evolution (& I guess the differences between homo sapien & the other ones????) and also that certain mental health conditions also have an overlap with queerness. Then like queerness has always been helpful & important in society.

Evolution works one way; keep the things that are good.

So

Queerness is here and it stays

and it fights and it stays

and it adapts and it stays,

because it is a thing that is good.

(Also I worry that this is, in someway that I am entirely blind to, extremely problematic- if so hmu. I’m stoned rn but gonna re-read tomorrow)

3/8/22

I like that very very early on in breaking bad. We get shown that Walt has an out and that he is doing it because he wants to, not because he has to. Like the moment he turns down that offer I realized this is a fantasy where he gets to be both the spy & the nerd who gives him all the tools. Wow.

In todays edition of why get a therapist when I can just get stoned, I realized:

I find Walter white hot in the first episode of breaking bad because he is doing things with the abandon of a person who believes they won’t live to see the consequences && that probably has to do with my having been suicidal for so long. Like I spent years of my life kinda acting like some consequences wouldn’t keep up with me because I didn’t think they’d keep up with me, and when you’re in that headspace you don’t want to be around people who are always “living like there’s consequences” because seeing people do that too close to you feels a little bit judgemental & they worry about you. & I didn’t want to feel bad about just having a feeling I couldn’t stop/control. && I still think it’s hot.

10/20/22

I think movies that are really beautiful are scary because I know that the things happening will not be in service of a plot and therefore are harder to predict. Idk like pt Anderson - like the stakes/tone wildly yo-yo in his plots, but it’s all so pretty

—-

When I’m stoned or drunk I like other people to know because it feels kIke an excuse for if I can’t mask effectively enough. I spend A LOT of energy mediating my own social interactions (even when I try not to) & so it’s nice to feel like if I “fail” at social interactions, then at least people know why/I have an excuse

I like watching bad horror movies because I don’t like feeling ~ too sad~ and if they’re bad I don’t have to feel that emotion. And then I was like haha what if there are other emotions people try to not feel by watching shitty movies and like my first thought was like action movies. Like you just get all the octane diesel and none of the mamby pamby and then was like rom coms? All the sweet nothings and none of the nonsense

Also one of the moments that most fills me with terror is the moment the husband in the basement emerges in parasite like wtffffffffffff that fucked me up

—-

I love hot ones this guys such a great interviewer? Like he gets such emotional, thoughtful, often seemingly vulnerable responses. And it’s like not just the wings. Like I think his skill hides behinds the sauce it took me a long time to get it. The research he does at the beginning shows the person this like respect? & often brings up facts that the person is surprised he’d be able to know- which disorients but flatters them? Then gives a softball again, comforting then with the instagram segment -at the wing they often begin experiencing physical pain- he shows them that like he knows the boundaries? Like the celebrities often have this look when he explains the segment where they look a little panicked, then often relief when they see what’s picked & have fun, enjoyable and often vulnerable anecdotes about. Then he asks a few more while they experience real physical pain. It’s a really interesting format//the beats are really consistent.

I love that the host is from chicago - it feels correct.

It’s really funny trying to practice more positive self talk because I’ll just have strings of thought like:

-ugh I hate this im giving up on doing dishes fucj them untill tomorrow

- that’s ok, you’re doing a great job friend <3 let’s keep going for just a little bit longer, think we can do that? :)

-omg stfu I hate you.

Like just shouting “you’re not my real dad” at myself after giving myself a lil pep talk lmaoooooo

Typing this out I’m like ok damn maybe a bitch does need to find a therapist.

—

I wonder if part of the reason that so much shit is set in high school right now is correlated with how sexless a lot of tv/movies are. Like it’s less weird that way to treat sex like it’s this huge deal and dirty and no one’s doing it if they’re all teens.