#97 - I killed the biggest bug I’ve ever seen in my bathroom last night

Good afternoon!

Comin’ in hot on a Sunday even though I was planning to take the week off because I’ve been overly self-critical of my writing recently and I don’t like to put myself into negative despair spirals around things that when I’m not overthinking them genuinely bring me a lot of joy.

But! This morning I woke up to light rain and the greyest skies and I love a cozy Sunday morning so much. I described it to a friend as the perfect weather to wake up to after like a third date. Just super sleepy and soft.

I didn’t sleep well though, because last night an absolutely terrifying thing happened in my apartment.

I had just finished washing my face. I patted myself dry, picked up my floss about to rip a too-large piece off when suddenly, the biggest cockroach I have ever seen crawled out from behind my bathroom mirror.

I can’t describe the scream that came out of me when I saw it. I’m someone who regularly waits to use my blender because I know exactly how thin the walls between me and my neighbor are. I didn’t have time to even consider anything besides but my own terror.

This thing was massive. Like I saw anatomy that I didn’t know existed. I hate how much I know about their legs now.

It was the size of my palm or those mini CDs from like 2008. Just disgusting. A full shiver has run up my spine every time I remember it.

I live alone though, so my options for dealing with it were limited.

I grabbed my chunkiest Camper boot and began disassociating my little heart out.

Went back in, watched it fall off the wall onto one of my containers. And its wings fluttered and it made a thunking sound that will haunt me for the rest of time. Then, I smashed it. Smashed the absolute shit out of it. Deader than dead.

Got the dustpan, threw it in the trash, doused it with windex because I got worried it might have the possibility of spawning more, and immediately took the trash out even though there was a thunderstorm a’happening because no way was I sharing a home with that thing for a second more of my life.

My heart was pounding and sleep was out of the question, so I smoked like three bong bowls back to back and watched a long Jenny Nicholson YouTube video while also playing Stardew on the Switch because if there’s one thing I know how to do it is take myself right on out of reality and into sleepyville.

Forcing myself to compile a list of “reasons its okay to go to sleep even though I’m now intimately aware of the monsters I share this earth with” was a fun exercise. I reasoned that I could go to bed because I do have two cats who I am so glad didn’t get their paws on this thing, and I’ve lived there for 2.5 years with minimal bug interactions so it’s rare, it’s hopefully the only time it will ever happen—sorry, had to go find wood to knock on—and honestly there’s nothing I can actually do about the fact that this is a very stark reality of living in New York City.

I’ve been watching Love Is Blind week-by-week with a friend—a delightful practice I may try to do with more shows, we’re also watching Vanderpump in real time and I’m keeping up with Succession Sundays. Great TV is meant to be an event and the marathon consumption model is not the future! Make proper seasons of television complete with filler & bottle episodes a thing again!

One thing that struck me about the conversations the couples are having about what it means for them to really mesh their lifestyles together is how often modern occurrences get framed as trivial. It’s just made me very aware of how stuck culture is.

Kwame talked about bringing his video games back to their temporary apartment, and it’s played as a way to make him look immature. When are we going to accept just how many adults play video games? I think that actually asking questions about gaming and how much time it occupies is a very crucial conversation to have. Is he someone who plays on live? With friends or strangers? Is he on mic? Does he get upset when he loses?

It’s struck me how quickly life options have changed, how much technology has completely changed the way we interact, and how unwilling so much traditional media is to acknowledge the changes. (It’s because it makes marketing harder, but anyway.)

I love living alone. And I don’t think that’s a narrative often shown. I don’t have any desire right now to have anyone else in my home. I am so satisfied with having my apartment the way I want it, and I’m truly thrilled at the freedom I find in being the sole occupant of my home. It’s mine.

I’m safe there.

From everything but the massive bug that will haunt my nightmares forever why did it have to be the bathroom??? The most vulnerable place in the house!!! The only place worse to find it would be on/near the bed!

I’m so grateful I saw it emerge because I didn’t have to stumble upon it but also yikes I’ll never look at that mirror the same way again I should honestly tape up where it came from because I haven’t been able to be in there without panicking a little bit since. I brushed my teeth in the sink and I don’t find that particularly appealing to do again but also like aahahhhhh it was so big, I almost took a photo because I didn’t quite believe how big it was but also like I do not want to ever see it again it’s cursed and now it’s removed from this planet and I’m someone who’s happy to take spiders outside but fuck roaches forever truly wowowowow I’ve never hated them more.

Clearly, I’m still processing this. I would say out loud but this is literally written. I didn’t get a great night’s sleep last night but I did get new curtains this week and they’re lovely and totally change the vibe of my room and I just love decorating my place it really brings me such joy.

Again on Love Is Blind one of the girls was describing all the lonely nights in her apartment and I felt really aware that I’m older than her—something that always freaks me out re: reality tv people because I’ve been watching it since I was a kid and was always younger than everyone—but also that I’ve never felt lonely in my house.

Would I have loved to not have had to be responsible for exterminating that beast? Absolutely. I’m so proud of myself for not just packing up and moving out instead of dealing with it. I wouldn’t have blamed myself for a single second, that thing was massive, if that thing wanted the apartment I was certainly willing to let it have it.

But no, it’s my home and my problem and for all the joys there’s also a bunch of responsibility blah blah blah being an adult is just accepting that you have to take care of your entire life all the time and that the cycles are endless so we have to make them joyful as often as possible and buy little treats and bevs throughout the day as rewards for making it through another day of late stage capitalism.

There is so much genuine tragedy.

Seeking joy and maintaining optimism isn’t always possible, but when it is I think we have to drive it full speed ahead. Optimism isn’t naive, it’s integral to our survival. There must be a way to make tomorrow better. We can improve, time will heal, and it will pass regardless of what we do or don’t do with it.

It’s incredible what we are capable of. Including the days we make can’t make it out of bed. There’s nothing to gain from self-shame. We live in overwhelming times, and I think most of us are doing our best with what we’ve got.

I really genuinely enjoy Love is Blind as a concept, but it’s hilarious to me that even the show that is ostensibly based on the concept that love can overcome any preconceived notion of preference when it comes to appearance, they sure are hesitant to cast any non-traditionally gorgeous people.

It’s just not that interesting to watch hot people fall in love anymore I’m sorry!!!

And they could simply just cast a more body diverse group of people! It would really be that easy! I understand than shows like The Bachelor would have to make much more of a ~thing~ about it and for whatever reason no one at ABC wants to produce my idea of The Fatchelor, tagline: the weight is over. (It’s okay for me to make fat jokes, I’m fat, you can laugh. Like besides, if I don’t joke about the lack of representation when it comes to which bodies executives deem worthy of love I will cease to be able to consume any television!!!)

For a long time, I thought the goal of life was to be happy for the majority of the time. But in the last few months, I’ve really focused on instead just accepting how I feel moment-to-moment. To learn to treat “fine” as the baseline. I just want to be present enough to experience joy when it comes and also know that when I’m in the depths of despair that it will end, that there’s no way I’ll feel that way forever. Asking myself what makes me happy used to panic me because I felt like I didn’t have concrete answers, or the things I wanted to hope for felt embarrassing to admit because failure is shameful or something, but getting better at asking myself that question just required honesty.

I’m working on continuing to extrapolate it to larger-scale risks. It’s a process, but everything is a process.

“Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway.” - Earl Nightingale

The time will pass anyway. We will trek forward through life because we have to live it anyway, may as well try to shape it into something resembling what we wish it to be.

Oh, what, am I supposed to be ashamed of having desires?

I still overthink things. I still haven’t tried some of my riskier ambitions, but I think knowing was most of the battle, and following my instincts without overanalyzing them helped a lot. I’m getting better at being honest to the questions I ask myself. I’m no longer allowing shame around what I want drive my actual needs underground for fear of being too much.

I’m glad that I like my life as it is, I’m really relieved that I have enough sense of self now to not be embarrassed about my incredibly basic wants and wishes. Both those that I can provide for myself as well as those that I can seek with the help of others.

What’s happening on Twitter this week will be studied in marketing & comms classes for years to come.

Elon is not a genius. He had enough money to invest in a bunch of companies and then one of those investments work so we don’t care about the hundreds that didn’t and then he got hailed as a genius for years (despite clear evidence to the contrary). And now he’s ruined Twitter. So, that’s a cool result of all of this. Shoutout to every journalist who hyped him up for absolutely no discernable reason besides their lingering desire to sit with the cool kids (and be part of deciding who the cool crowd is).

I can’t believe Buzzfeed News is shutting down.

Jonah Perretti failed. He failed his employees, and he’s throwing them overboard to satisfy the board of “““investors””” that required sacrific.

He gets paid the big bucks, so why isn’t he sacrificing himself for the crew? The crew whose labor is sailing the ship. Why are they the ones walking the plank? The crew that is the sole reason buzzfeed was ever respected for a single second.

Mr. Beast opened 300+ restaurants in one day for a YouTube video. Workers suffering injuries in these ghost kitchens that lack basic safety features is explicitly his fault. He created them. He’s the CEO. The buck stops with him.

Because if not with him, who?

You don’t get to have all of the glory without being willing to spill your own guts (or some other overly violent metaphor).

Mark Zuckerberg now has the power to sway the American presidential election. He has so much power. And he has used that power incredibly irresponsiblely. Why isn’t he being removed after allowing a genovide to be organized on his platform? Why does he get to steal and destroy public lands in Hawaii because he needs to be so alone and removed from humanity?

I guess we can take some comfort that the ruse is being exposed each day he sinks more money into the metaverse. It sucks that people will lose their jobs over his dumbass decisions, but the tech world is crumbling now that Venture Capitalism isn’t so ready to treat startups like low-interest piggy banks so that’s something I guess the labor force will have to prepare for.

Bring manufacturing back. Union factory jobs that paid $50 an hour. My best friend always says that the death of American manufacturing was the death of the American dream, and it resonates more each day.

Like I am once again requesting an answer as to why Bill Gates is remotely qualified to plan a worldwide vaccine rollout. But just like Kavanaugh’s “baseball ticket debt” I know that I will never receive a satisfying answer.

Wake me up when Clarence Thomas is held accountable. I don’t understand the deification of public servants. He failed to be impartial, his job is impartiality. I wish we had listened to the women who tried to warn us, but I also wish I was surprised.

Google Maps should have a New Yorker option for directions. I only ever want to take one train or one bus and then walk the rest of the way. I can deal with maybe one transfer and I will be judging the distance/number of stairs the entire time. Don’t get my started on the Lorimer L → G hallway.

Took a few buses recently though and was once again reminded of how great buses are. I’ll never get over the fact that one bus can hold the equivalent of a mile of car traffic.

With each passing day, I am more radical about the idea that we should ban personal cars from New York altogether. Bus lanes would change Brooklyn in a blink. I would bike everywhere if biking was safer! I get why some people think they need cars but I think our imagination of what a robust system would look like is so stunted.

Buses are wonderful because they’re above ground and they have phone chargers in the seats and I can explore the neighborhoods we drive through and I can get a lil’ stoned before hopping on and then I have 0 responsibilities and I can listen to my little podcast or read a book and the only thing I have to worry about is missing my stop—which wouldn’t be the end of the world because I’m planning to walk a bit on the other side anyway.

The pettiest reason I want cars banned is that they’re ugly and they’re everywhere and so many of my pictures of the trees around my neighborhood would look better without them in the frame.

I get enraged when I see parking lots. So much housing could fit in these mostly vacant spaces that are dedicated homes for cars.

Air quality increases! Automatic improvement of accessibility for pedestrians! Honestly having more buses would be the best way to instantly increase the accessibility for folks who use walking aids and wheelchairs because the subway elevators are a nightmare but buses are really easy to equip with ramps! The public transport in Portland was an incredible example of the more beautiful world of accessible transportation and the MTA could take several notes from their book. Including making public transit free! That way we wouldn’t need “fare evasion police” who inflict trauma and bodily harm on those who dare to jump the turnstile. And look, when they give out parking tickets there is a distinct lack of violence so once again this is an illustration of who we criminalize.

Also ACAB, fuck the NYPD and our cop mayor forever.

The flowers are in bloom. There are so many varieties of cherry trees and magnolias in my neighborhood and the piles of pink petals make the world more whimsical to walk around.

Two years ago I had a complete breakdown in April about my stunted spiritual growth throughout my twenties. I was so miserable and had been ignoring it for so long, so I started going for morning walks and writing in my journal and took really gentle steps into a long healing journey.

I love my morning walks in April and May the most. The world is in bloom and the changes are so minute they take a moment to witness. The sun is rising with sync with my slowly waking consciousness.

I write fewer pages in my journals these days, mostly because I no longer feel in crisis. Finding peace within myself has been revealing of just how turbulent I was keeping my life for so long in a bid to distract myself from self-perpetuated misery.

Breaking cycles is exhausting. But it’s crucial.

The time will pass.

The flowers will bloom again.

& hopefully some things will be easier tomorrow.