reverie v. reality

https://reverie.bearblog.devreverie v. reality2025-05-06T10:06:11.237265+00:00reveriehiddenpython-feedgenhello there, wandererhttps://reverie.bearblog.dev/unpeeling-an-orange/unpeeling an orange2025-03-26T16:06:10.904576+00:00reveriehidden

Last night, I dreamt of a movie that doesn’t exist: The Long and Slow Unpeeling of an Orange.

The dream comes apart in layers. In the first, I am within the movie, watching the characters pass by - ghost in the narrative. A layer up: telling a friend about the plot (more than a little perplexed and irritated with it…"Why would they name the movie something so unrelated to the main storyline?"). Even further up, I find myself in a space where I’d already awoken and was trying to explain the first two layers of the “dream” to my mom over the phone.

I always feel disoriented in the mornings after waking within a dream. There's a series of hours after I surface where I have to watch things closely, worried that I'm in yet another tier of dreaming. (Perhaps Paprika (2006) or Inception (2010) has contributed to those fears a bit...?)

I pay close attention to my dreams. This is mostly because - in the instances that actually I remember them - they are incredibly vivid and cinematic. I find this humorous, considering I don’t think I have a good internal sense of visualization when I'm awake. On the Aphantasia Apple Visualization Scale, I think I might say that I fall somewhere around a 3. (I've always struggled to imagine a perfect picture of what characters and clothing look like when described in books, for example.) Yet my dreams, when I look back on them, are full-scale, movie-level 1s. They feel just as real and tangible as these keys beneath my fingers; a world I could surely interact with, for how detailed it seems.

I can see sunlight pooling like molten oil on a river’s surface, and the mottled reflection of a train on the bridge crossing over it. I can see the distinct shading of the undulating darkness in a hallway as I creep towards a distant light; the chip in the egg-brown coffee mug next to me in the cafe; the freckles and blemishes on my friend's flushed face as she greets me in the cold outside of the theatre, wrapped in her puffy blue jacket.

Does it mean something, then, that my imagination in sleep is so daring? Why can I see an old friend for dinner in a dream, but fail to remember the color of her glasses and the line of her nose when awake? It feels, in some ways, like lighting a match in the day versus the night: just a flash of color, when the sun is up; but a stark illumination in the dark.

I'm not the type to read too deeply into my dreams. In most ways, I know that they're the reconfiguration and consolidation of data that our brain has picked up over the day, so when I wake from something that feels a little too close to 'a meaning', I try to let it pass over me without letting it consume me.

(My mother is a 'meaning' person. She can find a line of connection in all of my dreams - even the ones I'm sure she'll consider the absurd firings of my neurons in the night.

Me: This odd little character kept stealing into the house to try to marry me and I ended up in a screaming match with it in the driveway telling it that I wouldn't accept its proposal while it howled, "NooooooooooOOoooooOOoooooooooo," with its fingers in its ears. Weird, right?

Mom: Well, that's obviously about Set-Up.

Me: NO! I think it was just a movie I watched the night before!)

Still, sometimes I wonder what my subconscious is trying to tell me. Does it mean something; a dream of a movie about a train line that takes the dead to a place between life and death? Is life the orange, unpeeling? Is death? I wasn't afraid in the dream, just present. I see, so clearly, the platform between worlds: a perfect, lush forest. So quiet and speckled with light, and filled with the gentle shadows of other people who are waiting on someone to arrive.

What is the lesson? Is there one?

To quote Alice Notley's "The Poetry of Everyday Life" (1988)¹:

I'm saying: we dream stories and scenes, but we don't live them. \[...\] What about the fact that we dream while we're awake? And why can't I be better at that?

I just don't know.

Good luck out there,
Eve

• • • • • • • •

Trout, Fawn, and Pepper¹ are coming over tonight to celebrate Fawn's birthday. Originally, I'd thought that F&T were going out to dinner with her family, so Pep and I had made plans to watch a double-feature of Yellowjackets episodes, since we had to rain check last week's drop.

I ran around today and yesterday getting some items together for a relaxed birthday celebrations: chocolate cake mix, chocolate and cream cheese frosting (I want to see if we can layer the middle with the cream cheese and make the top chocolate), and all the fixings for mojitos, since Fawn likes them! I think F&T are going to bring stuff over to make spring rolls. Not sure if I have all the ingredients for the peanut sauce, now that I think about it....wuh-oh.

(A pause while I called them to ask if they have sesame oil. They do. Crisis averted.)

I'm beyond happy that I get to celebrate with them, and I've really been enjoying hosting, too. I've had two friends in town in the past two weekends who stopped by and I feel an unexpected sense of pride in my house, especially now that I've had some time to settle in and make each room feel homey. I have a comfy couch for all my friends to relax on, and some couch-side tables I can pull around to make an area for board-gaming and conversation. I have cute plants and mugs that my friends have gifted me, and I've made sure Willow and Algernon have a dozen places where they can supervise or hide, as they see fit.

I wondered, when I moved, if I would feel lonely after all of the time spent with other people, but I've been enjoying my solitude so thoroughly - so voraciously - that a new part of me wonders how I managed without the quiet and time to myself before. I like the quiet. I like waking up and falling asleep when I want, without worrying about my roommates' schedules. I like sitting on the porch on the weekends and drinking cup after cup of tea, with the Moomin (1990) TV series on for background noise. I like letting Wil and Al have free reign of the space all the time, so they can come cuddle on the couch with me whenever they want. These things seem so simple, but wowza, am I learning to appreciate them now that they're possible again. And my weekends are still full of the people I love, so I never truly feel alone.

I feel very grateful that I have a space for my friends. A place where I can host birthdays, and - maybe, some day - dinner and holiday parties! I've always dreamed of having a Summer Solstice picnic in my yard (though it gets hellishly hot here in June). There are so many things to plan; so many possibilities! It's really exciting.

This entry isn't really going anywhere, I guess! But I've been wanting to write more, now that I've settled into my new job and home. Today, I feel full to the brim with happiness. Maybe it's the spring sunlight outside, or the knowledge that I will see several people I adore this evening. I try to treasure that feeling and capture it where I can.

Good luck out there,
Eve

• • • • • • • •

Thank you, Kayla, for the tag on Ava's Bear Blog Question Challenge (+ Silly Questions for Fun from Dabi)!!!

• • • •

bear blog questions

why did you make the blog in the first place?

Oh man, haha. I mean, I have it mapped out a bit more neatly in my restoring my sense of self post, but overall, I just felt really like I didn't value my internal dialogue at all; I didn't think I had anything to offer and was really just floating through life like a jellyfish or something! I wanted to reconnect with myself. I really admired some of the people who I'd been following on here in the way that they were able to make their daily lives so relatable through words. I wanted to feel like I could matter a little bit, too! :)

why did you choose Bearblog?

I like that Bear is a smaller platform. I know it's already grown a LOT, just in the year since I've joined, but it still feels more personable & cozy than some of the other options I’ve poked around on & I enjoy that. I have terrible stage fright, so it made me feel a little less like I was stepping onto a stage in front of thousands of people. Sort of the difference between going to a Broadway show that's making the rounds versus your local edition of the same play. Still something you love, and often performed well, but a little less intimidating and hopefully the concessions aren't $30 a pop. I've lost control of the imagery, but you get what I mean.

have you blogged on other platforms before?

Yes! I had a Xanga back in the day (don't laugh) and I tried Blogger and Tumblr at one point. I think I tried another platform during undergrad, but I cannot for the life of me remember what it was. None of it really stuck! I lasted maybe two months before bowing out, so this is the longest I've lasted! (A year now, as of August 31st - though I missed my one year blogaversary due to settling in to my new medications. What's a girl to do? Life gets in the way.)

do you write your posts directly in the editor or in another software?

I write in an iOS app called Runestone. I am inordinately fond of one-time paid apps and will shell out a flat price with a little less hesitation than I might with a subscription app, if my test drives go well. I really like Runestone, though. It has a lot of option for Language (i.e. Astro, C++, Elm, HTML, Julia, etc. - many of which I've never heard of), and when I utilize Markdown, I can set my color scheme so I can more easily see my Markdown commands in-app. Only wish is that it transferred to PC, but since I generally write on my iPhone or iPad, it really works well for me 99.9% of the time.

when do you feel most inspired to write?

Ahhhhh, I find this question so hard to answer! Let's see...when I'm sad, when I'm happy, when the day has been really interesting, when the day has been incredibly slow, when I want to talk to someone, or when I wish everyone would leave me the fuck alone. Sometimes none of those occasions move me at all! I guess, mainly, I'm most inspired when I feel real and in touch with myself. When I feel out of joint, everything I write feels like a joke; like I'm some amateur play-acting in the big leagues and everyone knows I'm barely managing to make it onto the field. And then, at other moments, the smallest things make me want to write down every little detail, like: Today, I was walking into work, and the sun was so bright - catching, crystalline, in the plume of my breath - as I crossed the lot, and my heels clicked so crisply & rhythmically on each stride that I felt the moment fossilize within those three points: my breath, the sun, the sound. And other times, it's like I can have the best, most memorable weekend ever with my friends and yet I can't get a word out! Um, so, to summarize: I really don't know! The inspiration comes in flashes!

do you publish immediately after writing or do you let it simmer a bit as a draft?

Hit or miss - ramblings, I usually post pretty immediately after finishing them, but anything without that tag has often sat & marinated in the drafts for a bit. I keep three "stages" of formulation in my writing app: drafts, edits, and published. (Easy enough to keep track of, right?) Posts that are "d • title" in my app are the messiest and most disjointed versions of a post. Those could be torn to scraps and made into new posts, or scrapped outright, if I feel so moved. It’s only once I have a general idea of where I'm actually going with the post that I change it to "e • title" so I know it's closer to publishing. Generally, I just need to rework a few sentences or reorder a paragraph or two. And once it's all done, I change it to "p • title" and drop it into the "Published" folder!

your favorite post on your blog?

I'll go with today i am miserable, but tomorrow i won't be (litany against recurrent woe), because it helps me make it through hard days & hopefully helps someone else, too.

any future plans for your blog? Maybe a redesign, changing the tag system, etc.?

Yes - probably a light scrub and bubble on the design, but not within the new few months! Maybe once stuff settles down at work and at home. Right now, I get in the door and put on Leverage in the background to relax and turn my brain all the way off. I cannot fuck with my blog setup right now, haha. She stays how she is until the stars align once more!!!

• • • •

silly questions for fun

do you believe in aliens?

Yes! Maybe not in any way we would conceive of, but I think there's some form of intelligent life out there, even if it's just a repetition of us à la the Poincaré recurrence theorem. (This was the closest thing I could find to what I’m trying to describe.)

if you had to dress in just one color for the rest of your life, what would it be?

I'm going to say blue, because it's my favorite color and I feel like there are so many different shades (that I actually love and would not avoid), so the monochromaticness of it would be variable????

favorite random fact that you know

Some patterns of damage to the visual cortex (part of the occipital lobe) cause something called "Blindsight" — meaning that someone might believe wholeheartedly that they can't see, but can still avoid objects in their way or "guess" what an object in front of them is, if pressed.

childhood dream

To run a huge, farm-sized rescue for animals. To be honest, this dream has definitely followed me into adulthood. Would love to see it to fruition if the means ever become possible one day...(fingers crossed).

if you had to be a teacher, which subject would you teach?

English Literature (favorite class in school) or Psychology (my graduate degree). If I could Frankenstein the two together into a combo class similar to a few of the more specific EngLit classes I took in Undergrad, I would be in heaven - pure and simple!

if you were an astronaut going to the space, which items would you bring with you?

I want to say my cats, but I feel like they would hate it in space, so I'd let them hang out with Trout & Fawn while I was away. Depending on how long I was going for, I think some answers might change, but let's say a month, for now. Definitely some books; maybe two that I already know & love, and two I've been eyeing for awhile. Some way to listen to music. Puzzles (sudoku & crosswords, probably). A notebook and one of those fancy pens that let you write in space.

only being able to run, or only being able to walk?

Run! I have PLACES to be. Maybe I can bring it down to a jog, if I need to be in the moment, but it would send me into a tailspin to have to stroll everywhere. I wanted to say walk for the atmosphere I think it would create of "learning to embrace the moment" but also I know I would be kicking my own ass up and down the street every day because I would end up running late to any and everything if I had to walk.

favorite letter?

I actually love all vowels ferociously...but in particular, E and A. E feels more "crystalline" and A feels "warmer". I think I have to go with A as my favorite. Also, it's so fun to write AAAAAAAA.

a memorable song that has impacted you in some way?

This question makes me break out in hives, haha. It's so hard to pick a song and justify the way it's impacted me.

• a song that makes me incandescently happy: Don't Stop Me Now by Queen

don't stop me / 'cause i'm having a good time

• a song that makes me weep: Get Lonely by The Mountain Goats

and i will try to find / a little comfort in it

• a song that reminds me of people I care about: Orange Sky by Alexei Murdoch

that's when i miss you / you who are my home

• a song that makes me feel real: Stop this Train by John Mayer

stop this train / i want to get off and go home again / i can't take the speed it's moving in

• a song that I would have on “Eve's OST”: No One by Aly & AJ

so open all the blinds and all the curtains

favorite celestial body (planets, stars, constellation, galaxies, etc)

The moon, most definitely, and then the Witch Head Nebula. She's so cute! & I often wish Laika had a constellation of her own.

• • • • • • • •

tagging: misu

For I have known them all already, known them all:
Have known the evenings, morning, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot

I toss and turn in my sleep; if I don't make my bed every morning and tuck the far corners in, I find myself in a tangled coil of sheets and duvets in a matter of nights. There's something about it that I don't mind. I like the twist of it: a comfortable cocoon of blankets as opposed to a flat layer. I try to find forgiveness for my lack of bedmakingness within this enjoyment. Sometimes I wonder how much of life is just letting some things roll off your shoulders.

I get tangled in intangible things, too. Feelings, patterns, ideas, perceptions: old versions of self; lines I draw between my life and other peoples'; the paths between one moment and the next. You know, the usual. All of the time, I am unraveling layers and layers of life. It's like one big rubber-band ball, or a knotted skein of yarn, but it never ends. I can never find the center.

Something in the beginning of a new year makes me all the more aware of these messy, overlapping parts of myself. Most likely it's the sudden, glaring beam of unmet resolutions shining down upon me. Oh, hey, remember us? What the fuck happened, huh? I smother those thoughts as tenderly as I can manage, but the guilt is still there.

I get scared a lot, in a lot of odd & incomprehensible little ways. Often about things that really don't matter. If I think too much about what waits in the heart of all of the matters I need to pick apart, I go cold all over. I make a maze of myself and then refuse to move through it.

I moved recently. I'm changing positions at my job. Objectively good things - yet, I lie in bed at night and take deep breaths to ward off the chill of fear that touches me quietly on the sides of my neck. So, again: the forgiveness. I'm coming back to that, is what I'm saying. I get scared. I twist myself into knots. I try to look at them kindly; try to work around or through them.

Yesterday, I made hot tea and wiped down the sink. I ran a load of laundry and folded all of it while I listened to the same song on repeat. I watched House while I played Sudoku, then swapped to Teen Titans because all of the medical emergencies were making me want to pull up Web MD. I woke up early today and read for thirty minutes before I went to work. I read a Youtube comment that made me smile on my lunch break. Over Christmas, I painted a rock to look like Snoopy. The rock was perfectly shaped like his head. Fucking incredible. I feel happy, like I'm finding some measure of joy in the little things that I'd momentarily lost.

I wonder what I'll find next.

Good luck out there,
Eve

I had therapy this afternoon - which I was dreading and wanted more than anything to cancel - and plans with Pepper to grab dinner and a movie, which I am really glad I had set up in advance, because I ended up needing the mood boost to balance out all of the crying. I got into a huge fight with my mom Thursday night. Usually, we call each other in the morning after a fight, but today it was radio silence on both of our ends until late afternoon. I cried the whole drive to my therapy appointment (partly my bad, because I should have changed songs the moment I started crying along, but I was kind of hoping to get the worst of the crying out prior to therapy, so I wouldn't blubber my way through the entire session...I am not a coherent crier). It was a little bit about the fight and a little bit about how I feel like I'm just fucking up any and everything I get my hands on these days.

Anyway, apparently I'm, like, therapist-verified depressed, instead of what I thought was just think I've been feeling low and a bit lost-depressed. I had my suspicions, I guess. I definitely haven't felt like myself. I just...thought it was a low point? The sudden apathy towards things I'm usually really passionate about maybe should have tipped me off, but it's always harder to see it from up close, right? So I'm moving forward with trying medication. I've been on anxiety meds before, which means I have an idea of what I'm in for. I'm having...a lot of mixed emotions about it all, I guess. Nice to have someone tell me that some of the behaviors and emotions I've been tearing myself apart over are perfectly normal and very much branches spiraling out from the same source. I feel sad, still, though. And, ah, disappointed, perhaps? A bit relieved? Hard to untangle. I guess in some ways I thought I would pop back out of this feeling any day now. Just - whoosh - sunshine again. Gotta deal with the leaky roof a little longer.

Needless to say, after that big whomp of an afternoon, I was really, really happy to see Pepper. We usually hit this one restaurant next to the movie theatre when we go see a film. We're definitely creatures of habit and this place has good margaritas. Then we walk over to the shop next door to snag some cheap candy before strolling back over to the theatre. Confession: I really cannot resist the siren song of a Cherry Slushee, so I'm always suckered into getting one when we go through the line for popcorn. Pepper has a system where she asks them to fill it halfway, adds the butter, and then gets them to top it off with more popcorn. I was unaware that this was something people were particular about, but we ran into some other friends tonight who were heading to a different movie and I got a good laugh out of Pepper and one of the duo very seriously discussing this system. I made eye contact with the other popcorn-butter-ratio-neutral friend and we both shrugged. I just like to eat Sno-Caps with my popcorn. That's about where my interest checks out.

I thought the movie was entertaining, although there were at least two narrative decisions that I was kind of surprised by? It was a good time, though, with a lot of big audience reactions. I blasted one of my upbeat playlists on the way home. Got pulled into a kind of heavy discussion once I got in the door, but now I've escaped and am enjoying a moment of quietude. Algernon is sitting next to me, which is kind of out of character for him? He's usually sort of an explorer, so I find it funny he's being a bit of a snuggle bug tonight. Maybe he knows it was a weird day.

Good luck out there,
Eve

Spent last weekend tucked away in a tiny cabin with my friend Pepper. We'd planned the excursion out tentatively in the spring, but decided to hold off on locking it in until we were through the majority of July, since it was a really busy month for us both. Luckily, our schedules worked out, so we hopped in the car Friday evening, loaded to the gills with coolers of yummy beverages and stuff for weekend meals, and headed up towards the mountains. It was rainy and overcast pretty much the whole drive up, but considering it literally poured buckets last time we went here (I think that was, like, two years ago?), a little sprinkle was nauttttthin and we managed to get everything unloaded into the cabin with only a little rain tracked in behind us.

There's a local spot to eat nearby, so after we got the majority of our stuff inside, we ran out for a bite to eat. Oh my GOOOOOOOOD, it was so tasty! We split the chocolate torte for dessert and it was seriously incredible. Then, we snuggled down into our pajamas and settled in for night one, for which our first priority was: watch some fun movies.

I'm actually not great at keeping up with movies (though getting a Letterboxd account has helped, since it at least lets me know what my friends are watching and sometimes moves me to give anything they rate highly a try), but Pepper is a movie fanatic and keeps me apprised of good ones. Unfortunately for her, I had panic-downloaded a random selection of stuff, since I didn't think we would have much internet connection...aaaaaaaand, I was correct. Fortunately for both of us, I somehow managed to secure a pretty good array. We finished one movie, started a second, and then paused to go to sleep.

In the morning, we woke up and crushed some mini-muffins (lemon poppyseed and chocolate chip, for me) and I drank copious amounts of coffee. Then we finished the previous night's movie. It was overcast and horrendously humid when I stuck my head outside, but the cabin had great A/C, so we were able to keep it cool enough to lounge around without overheating.

Last time we stayed at this same location, we rented out a different build and apparently that one does NOT have A/C. It was a meltingly hot 48 hours and we had to beg floor fans from the people who run the site, because otherwise it was waaaaaay too warm to sleep. Lesson learned. I checked our reservation about thirty times just to confirm this one wasn't going to turn into an impromptu sauna.

We waffled between a board game or a TTRPG. I have a few two-person TTRPG games I've been absolutely chomping at the bit to try and Pepper was really interested in a few of them, so we ended up playing a session of house and it was really, really fun. We fudged the rules a bit for our own purposes and we ended up rolling a six-sided die a few times to make some decisions that the deck of cards wasn't quite able to narratively satisfy, or where we were stuck on which way we wanted the plotline to fall. We played for maybe three or four hours total, with intermittent breaks for other stuff (like lunch! We made some delicious & super stacked sandwiches). I think we filled out seven or eight pages of a notebook! I want to type it up more neatly when I get some time. I think the game would be a really good lead-in to a longer-form Monster of the Week campaign. I'm gonna be thinking that over for the next few weeks, I imagine.

At the conclusion of the game, we tried to go out for a walk along the path that lines the cabins. The clouds, which had been mulling over the possibility of a rainstorm all day, took that moment to make their decision, so we pulled on our shoes to the sound of raindrops starting a slow beat against the roof of the cabin. Still, we figured we'd at least get outdoors for a minute; maybe the rain would stay light and we could meander for a little while. Picture me with my ankle-high rain boots, holding an incredibly flimsy umbrella (taken from the work lost-and-found, after no one came to claim it for a month). I gave Pepper the more structurally sound umbrella and we set off into the drizzle. Unfortunately, we only made it about three minutes down the path before the storm doubled down and we were forced to hoof it back. We gleefully settled in for resigned ourselves to more movies, in place of a walk.

The cabin didn't have a full kitchen, so I made microwave risotto. Wild experience, because the spinny-plate would NOT stay on track and I had managed to forget a measuring cup, so there was a lot of eyeballing measurements and hoping for the best. I told Pepper if she hated it, she had to forgive me for cooking her something terrible. It was a bit of a spectator sport for her, watching me try to wrangle the meal together. Still boggled by the amount of onion the recipe called for. I halved it and it still seemed like 85% onion??? It ended up being edible, though, so - whoooo! I win!

Anyway, we had planned to do s'mores outside over a fire to end the night, but it was still sprinkling and we couldn't find the firewood that we thought was provided in the rental, so we just decided to go full-microwave with it. I have not laughed harder over a s'more in my life. There were at least three points were I thought I might choke to death on marshmallow, because so many things were going wrong but also we were trying to eat them before they 1) fell apart or 2) coagulated into something horrifying. At one point, I opened the microwave and Pepper touched a marshmallow to check its meltyness. The only way I can describe the level of horror in her scream was, like, that moment in scary movies where someone touches a person and they turn to goo under their hand. Tears in my eyes the whole damn time. It was really awesome. I just have so much fun with Pepper, even when we're doing something so incredibly stupid.

We watched Twister (1996, dir. Jan de Bont) in preparation for going to see Twisters (2024, dir. Lee Isaac Chung) this weekend. So, that's something I'm looking forward to tomorrow! Though, I haven't seen the trailer for the new one, so I'm walking in blind in terms of what the plotline could possibly be. More Twisters, I would reckon. Guess we'll see!

Good luck out there,
Eve

I have two brothers, both of whom are between a half-decade to a decade younger than me. We got along alright when we were little. Although, between my somewhat insular nature as a kid ¹ and the gap between our interests, I wasn't as close with them as they were with each other during our adolescence.

It took a long time - pretty much all of my undergraduate and well into my grad school years - for me to feel like I finally knew and understood them. In part, this was just because of how our age stratification played out with school stuff. My middle brother didn't graduate high school until I was finishing up with my undergrad and my youngest brother only moved on to college after I was already done with my Master's program. (That is SO weird to see written down. The passage of time. What the fuck.)

We never co-existed in school spaces; only at home, and we were often in our own little world, because I was utterly disinterested in Roblox and Minecraft, and they could not have cared less about whatever ridiculous TV show or romantical 2010s novel I was engrossed in at the moment. (So fair of them.) We didn't have much overlap in friends, either, and when we did, it was just via our friends' siblings being at similarly stratified ages, but we never hung out in a larger group or anything.

It's not that I don't have fond memories of us being close when we were younger (I have tons, actually: like, we used to take turns trying to beat levels in Scooby Doo: Night of 100 Frights, but we all really sucked at it so mainly it was just a lot of commisseration over how bad we were or overzealous cheering when one of us actually managed to clear a section), but when I think of myself at ten or fifteen or twenty, there's so much difference in who I was, what I felt, and what I wanted from life. The pieces of my brothers I knew when I left for college were wildly changed when I returned, and I was changed, too. In a lot of ways, we were totally new people when I finally moved back to the same state. It was a weird realization: that we were reconnecting, even though we'd seen each other at every major holiday throughout the years.

Like: Hi, you've known me your whole life, and I've known you so long it might as well be my whole life. Who are you, again? What's your favorite movie now? Are you still convinced you hate mangoes? When did the family dog start loving you more than me? You had my same English Lit teacher; did you like the books she had us read? Have you grown out of your grass allergy? Tell me what music you're listening to. Where are you trying to go next?

Maybe this says more about me than anything else. I can't say I wasn't pretty in my own head throughout undergrad and grad school. Luckily, by the time I had to move home to save money, we were all in a much better space life-wise for bonding and I'M SO GRATEFUL - I will shout it to the hills - because my siblings and I locked in on being buddies once I returned. As torn as I was about the decision to move, I'm glad I made the choice to come back home, if only for the fact that it's allowed us all to grow closer. If I was still far away, I'm not sure how much more time would have passed before we reached this point. And I really love all of the moments that we have now that I've had a chance to get to know my brothers as the people they've grown into.

I see more of my youngest brother - let's call him Trout² - since he and his girlfriend swing by to visit me pretty frequently. Our middle brother (Badger) moved away for work near the end of last year, so I don't get to see him in person often, but we hear from him pretty frequently over calls and texts (when they're not busy being Really Cool Trendsetters in the small town they absconded to). He and his fiancée - Shrimp - sometimes lay low for several weeks at a time, depending on their schedules (Shrimp is starting an artists' coaliation and Badger is making crazy code at his job), but when Badger finally hops back on a long-distance family-game-night after a long hiatus, the rest of us cheer uproariously.

Trout and I have grown to be fast friends over the last few years. This is sometimes to his detriment, since it means he often has to cope with my following him around incessantly at family gatherings³ so that we can at least bounce the conversation back and forth to one another instead of succumbing to the full force of an Aunt or Uncle's what's going on in your life questioning.

It's also really nice, because I get along really well with Trout's girlfriend, Fawn. She's a regular staple in family game nights and as the only two Sims players who have been abruptly displaced into completely different gaming systems, we often end up running around together during video game nights (we're brave, but we prefer to go in a pair during the horror games, since the boys will just fucking disappear around a corner - Fawn and I have each other's backs, haha). Honestly, Fawn probably texts me more than Trout and Badger combined, which truly makes me laugh. It makes me really happy to feel like my siblings' significant others feel welcome around me, because - quite frankly - my immediate and extended family are a lot of big personalities and opinions and are therefore a very intimidating group to walk into.

Also, while I'm sort of guiltily grateful not to have a sister (some strange underlying fear that, if I had a sister, everyone would compare us constantly, I think?), I feel like I get a shadow of sisterliness from Shrimp & Fawn, while also getting cool friends who are welcome additions to the family dynamic. I mean, of course I'd rather get along with prospective family members than not, but it's nice to actually really get along instead of the perfunctory we tolerate one another deal that I've seen from other people.

I just really love them all, I guess.

It means a lot to me when I get glimpses that I'm not just accidentally third-wheeling (fifth-wheeling???) whenever we all get together. Like, for example, after a group lunch⁴ on vacation when everyone started to break off to go do whatever they wanted: I try not to insinuate myself into anyone else's little pockets of alone-time, so I wandered off on my own, expecting all of us to meet up later. It was no small amount of surprised delight that filled me upon hearing my name called out as I turned to see Trout and Fawn come careening around the corner of the building, trying to catch up with me. It's wonderful, to feel like people enjoy your presence; that they might even seek it out.

I'm just grateful for the relationship I've been able to cultivate with my brothers now that we're all older and can meet each other as the people we've grown into; and while, obviously, we all still have growing to do, I feel like we've already forged a steady base for our friendship and understanding of one another to build upon.

(Also, slightly tangential to my rant about how much I love my little brothers - but my siblings also have several friends who we've known for years who I absolutely consider family, too. They've come along on trips and seen the nitty-gritty of embarassing family fights and heard us all ramble on long car rides. One of them keeps asking me to come to this dance social night. Like, not even trying to get Trout to go, too. He just told me he thought I would like it. I cannot express how touched I was that he very insistently made sure I'd noted it in my Google Calendar. I think he found out that this guy that asked me out once several years back attends and is trying to engineer a meet-cute (is it a meet-cute if you've already met???) but it's so meddling-little-sibling-vibes that I can't even be annoyed about it. It just makes me laugh.)

Ah, I just love my siblings and all of their nuances. I can't wait to see who they become as they move through their twenties.

Good luck out there,
Eve

• • • • • • • •

a collection of messy & unfinished things¹

• • • • • • • •

and it takes forever to arrange the words in any semblance of a meaning.

I am moving sideways now across a
very small amount of space and it will
never end.

• • • •

tearing apart old poems
to find what they're made of.

i want the base components -
blood or sorrow, joy or pride.
i want a room that sings it back
to me. it's building up a chorus.

I had it once - a well-spring,
where there were tens of thousands
of stories pouring out and into
waiting palms.

I spelled the water into ink
and wrote until the page was far
too darkly sodden to see.

• • • •

the need to separate shards of myself into neat, perfect boxes.

a journal for my clean self, a journal for the mess. a room where I am lost and a room where I am blessed. infuriating. meaningless. standing within myself and screaming, "we cannot break apart like this!"

as if in agreement: the same sunshine no matter the room. the same handwriting, just from a different view. cultivating a tenderness towards the self that's new.

• • • •

swear that you'll know me.
swear that time will not change us.

turn and bear away the shade that creeps, shyly, overhead.
the trees grow taller, thinner, sharper.
breakable. brittle,

like small bones.

i thought that life could play in reverse;
that it could flow uphill to the old roots.

i thought that time would bear us back to how we were,
forgetting that the river runs in only one direction.

• • • •

where the sun is streaming evermore over the hill, thin and soft as though through leaves or water

• • • •

There you stand: with a fine line of sunlight painted over you,
growing brighter then turning away.

Where am I, now?
Ahead or behind you?

If I grow around you, if I grow away from you,
if I tear down bricks and boards and stones,
how, then - how, again - how can we go on?

I'm asking you to love me.
I'm asking if I'm worth the knowing;
can I been seen without cracking open the contents of my stomach and ribs?

• • • •

deliverance defenestrate dally disparate dispense delegate dour drown desperate delicate despicable drought double destitute drawn daughter denounce diligent diffident distillate diversion driven divest dolorous demonstrate derelict disenchant derail dreamt

deference
disdain
doubt
deliberation
demiurge
denouement
distance

• • • •

anything to get the words out - set the words free - let them spill, messy and unpolished, onto the page. so desperate for something other than pale, empty space and the hollow echo that is heard when the room is void of everything real.

• • • •

first things first:
anticipate fear; anticipate soul hunger.
say a word and then consider the implications.
inhale wanting, cold and blue as smoke.
not catharsis, but a step beyond it:
wrung dry of sorrow or seething rage.

• • • •

For a moment, forget the ending: the longing echo, the ripples now still. Stand in a quiet hall, looking long-ways out to the end, like peering down a well. There is no real difference between horizontal & vertical, other than the awareness of gravity. You land much the same as a coin the in water. With your eyes closed, you're falling inside either way.

• • • • • • • •

Another trip at an end. Despite having a moment of panic mid-week where I was like, I should have shortened this trip, I'm straight up ruining everyone's schedule, everything went really well & I'm so, so happy with the entire experience. My friends' (let's call them Riley and Taylor) baby was SO cute and hilarious (as babies almost always are) & I have a soft spot for kids a mile wide, so I was really pleased when he started grinning at me outright instead of giving me suspicious little side-eye looks of Mom, why is she still here? everytime I showed up in the same room.

While some plans fell through, new ones happened pretty spontaneously and I think it all balanced out well. Riley is really organized & a great planner, so I think she had some stuff on the back burner for if I choked and totally failed to come up with things I wanted to do and/or see while I was in town. I'm kind of glad we didn't have anything set in concrete because Taylor's work schedule is very sporadic and it was good for Riley and I to be able to make quick changes to plans based on the baby.

One of our other friends - Maia - (who Riley knows from childhood and who I know through Riley) joined us for a bunch of outings, which I was really excited about. I didn't think she would be able to join as often as she did & it was a pleasant surprise each time! She & Riley have a rapport that I find frankly comforting to observe. It's very obvious that they've been friends for forever; there are no airs put on, no silence is awkward, no spindling thread of conversation is stilted. I could go silent at moments, listen, & let myself be buoyed on the wave of their well-worn camaraderie.

Also, Riley & Taylor are two of my only friends who own and regularly play board games, so I was making use of that fact every possible evening. Calm two hours while the baby naps? Hey, guys, what about a board game? I got to try maybe four or five new games. A blessing and a curse, because while the introduction was welcome, I can rarely wrangle any of my friends at home to play. I'm going to have to strong-arm some people into going to the local board game cafe soon, so I can get my fix.

• • • •

A moment within the trip that I was not expecting at all: I sort of stumbled down the conversation path of telling Riley & Taylor that I'm asexual.¹

I went to bed that night and just lay there laughing as quietly as I could for about twenty minutes, because not only did I start the conversation on a completely separate note and had not expected it to veer that direction, but it went really well and they were both really kind & supportive in a way I've only really heard from other ace friends. I'm tearing up a little right now, thinking about it.

In a funny way, I felt a bit like they accidentally unlocked a "hidden dialogue" path, because usually I'm pretty good at skirting around questions and topics of conversation surrounding my dating life, but they were asking about if I'd gone on any dates recently & I said, truthfully but leaving a lot of stuff out, no, not really, the last few I went on weren't great, so I'm just kind of not worrying about it right now.

Taylor, who is a pretty straightforward person, asked, "Well, do you like dating?"

In all the years of friends asking me about my dating life, I’m not sure I can say that anyone has ever asked me that question. I guess it was enough to shock me into admitting outright, "No, I pretty much hate it. People always want me to know after a few dates if I'm interested in them and I just can't tell that quickly."

\[the ensuing conversation, with a lot of paraphrasing\]

Taylor \[with honest curiosity\]: You can't tell if you're interested in someone immediately?

Me: Not really. Sometimes I think people are good looking right out of the gate, but I can't tell if I like someone until I've know them for a while. I think I've had maybe four crushes since high school and all of them have been people I've know for maybe a year or more.

Taylor: Oh, okay, so you don't think 'they're attractive, I want to get to know them better'?

Me: Um, yeah, not really. I want to get to know if I like people in general, first. And the people I've gone on dates with seem to think we're both immediately like, I like you romantically and you like me romantically! and I'm still stuck way back in what feels like an earlier chapter of the platonic to romantic book or something.

Taylor: Oh, okay! I think some people would say that their romantic, sexual, & friendship interest grow alongside one another.

Me \[trying to be brave & not dance around the point as usual\]: Yeah, I've heard that from some other people. I don't think my levels of interest increase on the same scale - they kind of jump at different intervals. To be honest, I consider myself, like, asexual and maybe some level of aromantic - I like people, but it takes a long time, so it's hard for me to go on random dates because people typically want an answer about how into them I am way earlier than I can comfortably say.

\[Taylor & Riley take a moment where they're clearly re-analyzing previous conversations they've had with me about my dating life - I have a little laugh about it internally.\]

Me \[to Riley\]: Sorry I never said something earlier. It’s not that I didn’t want to tell you, it’s just that I don't really know how to bring it up, sometimes.

Riley: I mean, I guess I'm not totally surprised? I remember all the times you'd come back from a date while we were roommates. I definitely thought, at one point or another: Wow, she really does not enjoy going on dates.

Me: Yeah.....so, um. That's why I'm kind of weird about people trying to set me up with their friends. Because they might be really nice, but it's hard to gauge how my interest and attraction might go. And I've discovered— through a lot of trial and error and hurt feelings - that I'm typically not operating on the same playing field as other people, to really mangle the metaphor.

Taylor \[earnestly\]: You know we love you and support you, right?

Me \[beyond flustered by the turn this conversation has taken and a little overwhelmed by this direct admission\]: Oh, yes - um, thank you, I mean - I know, yeah.

Taylor \[trying to lighten the mood, since it’s obvious I’m emotional\]: I’m an Ace Ally!

Me \[laughing\]: Oh, that’s great - that’s really great, maybe we can get you a t-shirt.

\[end scene\]

At this point, the conversation meandered around that for a bit until we ended up wandering off to other topics.

I don’t know. I’ve only spoken to a few friends about all of this; the majority of which (read: two) are also ace-spectrum, so I was really taken aback in a good way by the flow of the conversation.

Not that I necessarily thought they would be rude or cruel about it, but a few of the family members I’ve talked to have definitely had some difficulty wrapping their heads around all of it. Which is fine, to me. I don’t need everyone in my life to understand me perfectly, as long as they love me for who I am. Would that we could all be Known & Understood clearly, but on the whole, the reality of all of us being separate people with unique experiences & understandings of the world is something I enjoy about life, so I think it’s a fair trade off.

Anyway, I had a really great trip. I feel very grateful to have so many wonderful people in my life. Oh, man, I’m misty-eyed again. I just really love my friends. So many of my friendships formed years back have dispersed to different cities and states and countries. I feel immensely lucky when distance and the business of all of our lives doesn’t dull the connections we forged. I really hope that my friends enjoyed having me muddling about in their house for the week. I got to cuddle their cute dogs, play many spirited games of peek-a-boo with the baby, and loaf on the sofa with Riley just like old times.

I can’t lie, though - I am more than ready to collapse in my own bed and I’m itching for the opportunity to smother Willow & Algernon with kisses they’ll pretend to hate but come poking after once I’m tucked in bed and dead tired (the joy of cats, am I right?).

God, I also got the cutest postcards while I was in town, as well as the funniest baseball cap I’ve ever seen. I’ve been provisionally prohibited from bringing my younger brother anymore cool caps or t-shirts as gifts since he’s sort of overrun with them (that is my bad…I just really love to bring back gifts) but I shot off a quick text as soon as I saw it, because it had me howling with laughter. Needless to say, the hat ban was temporarily lifted because the cap was much too good to pass up.

I have zero plans the rest of this weekend and I’m so ready for a Sunday full of Doing Absolutely Nothing. (Here you can envision me discreetly kicking my unpacked bag behind me. We’ll deal with that later. That’s weekday!Eve’s problem.)

Good luck out there,
Eve

• • • • • • • •

It's odd, being underfoot at a friend's place. There's something I love about it - getting to see the flow of someone's daily life - but I'm definitely someone who worries about interrupting habits and preferred timetables, so I always feel a little nervous when I come to visit someone and it's not for some big event (like a wedding, etc.) that shakes up everyone's schedule. Luckily, my friend is a teacher and gets the summer off, so I'm only disrupting summer-break schedules, instead of normal-work schedules.

I told my friend when we set out dates for my visit that I wasn't worried about planning a ton of stuff to do while I'm here. I've visited before (though it's been a minute), so I've seen a lot of the "main stuff" - and they have a baby that needs to be considered when planning outings and events. I figured plans that work for everyone would kind of fall into place and I certainly didn't want her to feel like she had to make massive changes to her schedule to accommodate me when I'm more than happy to just hang out at her house and catch up.

Since she lives a bit of a trek from me, we don't get to see one another in person often. Last time she was in my town, I only saw her for only a few hours and she hadn't been able to bring the baby along (it had been for a work trip). I wanted to come meet him before time flies and he's suddenly, like, five or something. It happens so fast!

I'm a little worried I'm stressing them out by not giving them concrete things I want to do, but honestly, I really just wanted to go see the coffee shop I spent most of my time in while I was up here for work (I got to do that yesterday! It looks exactly the same, despite 7+ years!) and maybe go on a small hike or something. (I'm heading out for that in about twenty minutes!).

The weather is a little chillier than I anticipated, but I think it will be a welcome change compared to how hellishly hot it's been at home. You couldn't pay me to go hiking in my state right now. I would make it half a mile and then lay down under a shady tree until the sun set.

I'm a few hours offset from my usual time zone, but luckily any jetlag has yet to crash into me. I think it's more likely it will get me on the return home, but I suppose I'll have to wait and see. I feel like time changes on trips are overpowered by my sense of excitement and/or anxiety, but once I get back to stasis, all of the time-fuckery has a chance to catch up to me. And catch up, it certainly does.

We woke up around 7 / 8 AM the day after I arrived (the baby wakes up pretty early), drank some coffee, ate some breakfast, and went on a long walk around the neighborhood. Yesterday we went to a bookshop and coffee shop, then came back and read in the sunshine for an hour and played board games - Flamecraft and Explorers. I'm really loving the very relaxed pace of this adventure. Sometimes it's nice just to have a very chill hangout with people you've missed, and there's a nostalgia to this adventure because it reminds me of when this friend & I were roommates, as well as of my time spent up here for work on the train line.

I'll try to snap some nice photos of the waterfall at the end of this hike!

Good luck out there,
Eve