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mysymmetry · 42 minutes

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Observations:

When I was at Jester's, my sleep schedule actually adjusted to up in the early 7's, asleep by 10 and I LOVED IT and actually stayed with it for the first time ever. I think it worked because I never went outside of it, and I think that was possible because I wasn't socializing with anyone on a different schedule. Would I have been happy to stay on that schedule forever? IDK. Would I have been able to have a social life with it? IDK.

Also at Jester's, I was EXCITED to get out of bed for the horses. Every day. I think that might be one of the only things I will excitedly jump out of bed for. Even walking the dog I can put off. The horses and the job aspect of it made me excited.

NB: I was in my Luteal phase at Jester's too. It was not a lie of estrogen.

As soon as I come back into a city environment, I feel the urge to shop. Online and in-store. I start scrolling for sweaters and boots and many things I already have. When I am out camping or in the country, I don't. It's as if the city is constantly stimulating me to want more.

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mysymmetry · 3 months

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2024 Reading List Updated Jan 28

Read so far:

Shy, Max Porter

Love and Other Poems, Alex Dimitrov

I said the sea was folded, Erik Jansen

High Risk, Ben Timberlake

Excavations, Kate Myers

Currently Reading:

Foolproof, Sander van der Linden

Trick Mirror, Jia Tolentino

Best American Essays 2023, ed. Vivian Gornick

Deaf Republic, Ilya Kaminski

Lanny, Max Porter

A Minor Chorus, Billy-Ray Belcourt

Want to Read:

Splinters, Leslie Jamison (out Feb 20!!)

Lioness,

Land of Milk and Honey,

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mysymmetry · 4 months

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Ok so here are my thoughts on A Little Life (spoilers start in paragraph 2):

The first part that brought me to tears was Harold describing the relief he felt when his son died. Relief, because the one thing on this planet he was most scared for, most terrified of being damaged and harmed, could no longer be hurt. Reading that in the candlelight 3000 kilometers away from my dad affected me in a way that few other glimmers of truth have in years. I could imagine the pain that my dad felt during my sister's accident in an entirely new dimension. The preciousness of parenthood flickered on the walls around me.

The middle of the book - the section where they detail Jude's traumas at the monastery and with Brother Luke - broke me. In the same way that Jude distrusted everyone after those years, I hardened myself to the book. I didn't cry fo the next two hundered pages, though there were many more tear-worthy events. Plus, there had been no trigger warning for the sexual abuse of children - not from the author, and not from others who had read it. People warned me about the suicide, but not about sexual abuse of children, the pedophilia, the kidnapping.

When Willem died, I hardly felt anything. It was so sudden, so without buildup, that after ploughing through 250 pages in 2 days, I set the book down and forgot about it for 4 days. My capacity for tragedy was null.

JB is an asshole.

The ending felt unjust to the rest of the book. Caveat: the rest of the writing was brilliant. The narrator simply disappeared, weaving glimmers of silver hope throughout a book dense with raw pain, hardened pain, bright and striking pain coexisting with prolonged agony. Physical and psychic pain. Yanagihara's writing was perfection - until the ending. How does an author end a book that's covered 700 pages, 40 years and 4 characters lives and deaths? It's not an easy task, and I'm not sure it was executed as perfectly as the other 650 pages were. Nonetheless, the pace of the book was a marvel: never rushed, never paling or stale.

The tenderness of Harold's letters were the warmest part of the novel.

The culmination of Jude's journey with Harold to Jude's tantrum over the grilled cheese was perfection. It was an unexpected but necessary suture in their characters and storyline.

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mysymmetry · 5 months

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Majestic Evening - Paul Batch

American , b. 1979 -

Oil on panel , 18 x 18 cm.

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mysymmetry · 6 months

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2023 Reading List updated Jan 8 March 13 April 10 May 29 July 5 July 31 August 22 Dec 14

Read So Far: Play It As It Lays, Joan Didion All of This Could Be Different, Sarah Thankham Matthews Readme.txt, Chelsea Manning The Book of Grief and Hamburgers, Stuart Ross Burntcoat, Sarah Hall The Best American Essays 2022, ed. Alexander Chee Easy Beauty, Chloe Cooper Jones Very Cold People, Sarah Manguso Son of Elsewhere, Elamin Abdelmahmoud Happy Place, Emily Henry Couplets, Maggie Millner Strange Loops, Elizabeth Harmer Milk Fed, Melissa Broder Tides, Sara Freeman Biography of X, Catherine Lacey The Guest, Emma Cline No One is Talking About This, Patricia Lockwood Ripe, Sarah Rose Etter How to Do Nothing, Jenny Odell Homebodies, Tembe Denton-Hurst Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin Trust, Hernan Diaz The Fake, Zoe Whittall Anon Plz, Deuxmoi Utopia, Heidi Sopinka Death Valley, Melissa Broder

Currently Reading: A Little Life, Hanya Yanigahara The Best American Essays 2023, ed. Vivian Gornick Everyone in My Family has Killed Someone, Benjamin Stevenson

Want to Read: Love and Other Puzzles, Kimberley Allsopp (on hold @ city) Land of Milk and Honey, C Pam Zhang (on hold @ city) Lioness, Emily Perkins (on hold @ city) Monsters, Claire Dederer (on hold @ city) Body Friend, Katherine Brabon (avail @ SA Lib) A Real Piece of Work, Erin RIley (not avail @ SA Lib) Priestdaddy, Patricia Lockwood The Light Room, Kate Zambreno Lurch, Don McKay Started but Haven't Finished

Saving Time, Jenny Odell Really Good Actually, Monica Heisey My Autobiography of Carson McCullers, Jenn Shaplan Bliss Montage, Ling Ma Death in Her Hands, Ottessa Moshfegh The Hurting Kind, Ada Limon A Single Rose, Muriel Barbery We Have Always Been Here, Samra Habib Pathological, Sarah Fay The Marrow Thieves, Cherie Dimaline Animal Person, Alexander MacLeod My Face in The Light, Martha Schabas Pure Colour, Sheila Heti Satched, Megan Gail Coles A Lover's Discourse, Roland Barthes The Country of Marriage, Wendell Berry

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mysymmetry · 7 months

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Thanks given.

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mysymmetry · 7 months

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Second half August 2023

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mysymmetry · 8 months

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It took this long to feel like myself again. Nearly 4 months, but twice in the past week I have thought I feel like myself again. I feel more like me.

What changed? I don't know what to pin it on emphatically, other than the change in medication. 20mg Escitalopram daily. As a result, I fear that in two months I will be low and bland again, the same as I was after a few months of Sertraline. A muting of all emotion, high and low. I fear that the first month is always the best. But I haven't hit myself in the head for a month, haven't shrieked and convulsed in anxious pain, haven't wanted out.

I have an iPhone note for all the relationship and period-intertwined emotions I feel. I am writing and painting more. I have written poetry, the first new work since Paul's death.

I did not develop a new meditation practice or asana practice or honestly go to the beach all that often. Rephrase: I stayed consistent with my asana and meditation practices since before I was off. I practiced more with Yoga Medicine Online and Erin Gilmore.

I feel compelled to write all of the things I didn't do while on leave... didn't finish knitting my sweater, didn't rearrange my bookshelf by genre, then alphabetically, didn't develop a new recipe or start an online yoga program or volunteer at the food bank or take an exotic trip or spend every single day on the beach or repaint a room or refinish a desk or take horseback riding lessons or

I took a weeklong painting course. I read a lot of books. I cleaned the house a lot and enjoyed it. I began enjoying trail running, and ran my first 5k (easily). I grew a beautiful garden of zinnias and phlox, purple coneflowers and rudbeckia, hydrangeas, a butterfly bush, sweedums, sunflowers, snapdragons, mandevilla, tomatoes, shisito peppers, Chocolate and Lemon drop peppers, Thai and sweet basil, cilantro, sage, rosemary, thyme, dill, watermelons, raspberries, eggplants and corn. Oh yes, I grew a garden. How lucky am I to live here, and for the rain? I decided on a new career path. I started therapy. I went to physiotherapy for my shoulder. I went to massage and chiropracter also for my shoulder. I started teaching at a new yoga studio, and had to audition in front of the studio-owner to do so. I sent monthly emails and asked for doctors notes even though it was uncomfortable and embarassing.

I did things. I started to heal. I do not need to be perfect, to be healed, to be anything other than present. Feeling the sunshine on my skin, or choosing to hide from it because it's too bright, it's too late at night. I saw Tim Baker, got an autographed record by him.

I don't know what it'll be like, but I know it'll be alright.

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mysymmetry · 8 months

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2023 Reading List updated Jan 8 March 13 April 10 May 29 July 5 July 31 August 22

Read So Far: Play It As It Lays, Joan Didion All of This Could Be Different, Sarah Thankham Matthews Readme.txt, Chelsea Manning The Book of Grief and Hamburgers, Stuart Ross Burntcoat, Sarah Hall The Best American Essays 2022, ed. Alexander Chee Easy Beauty, Chloe Cooper Jones Very Cold People, Sarah Manguso Son of Elsewhere, Elamin Abdelmahmoud Happy Place, Emily Henry Couplets, Maggie Millner Strange Loops, Elizabeth Harmer Milk Fed, Melissa Broder Tides, Sara Freeman Biography of X, Catherine Lacey The Guest, Emma Cline No One is Talking About This, Patricia Lockwood Ripe, Sarah Rose Etter How to Do Nothing, Jenny Odell Homebodies, Tembe Denton-Hurst

Currently Reading: Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin Black Foam, Saving Time, Jenny Odell (lib on hold) My Autobiography of Carson McCullers, Jenn Shaplan (lib on hold) Trust, Hernan Diaz (lib on hold) The Best American Poetry 2019, ed. Bliss Montage, Ling Ma

Want to Read: Foster, Claire Keegan The Light Room, Kate Zambreno Lurch, Don McKay Daughter, Claudia Dey

HALF FINISHED

Death in Her Hands, Ottessa Moshfegh The Hurting Kind, Ada Limon A Single Rose, Muriel Barbery We Have Always Been Here, Samra Habib

Pathological, Sarah Fay The Marrow Thieves, Cherie Dimaline Animal Person, Alexander MacLeod My Face in The Light, Martha Schabas Pure Colour, Sheila Heti Satched, Megan Gail Coles A Lover's Discourse, Roland Barthes The Country of Marriage, Wendell Berry

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mysymmetry · 9 months

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Half August 2023

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mysymmetry · 9 months

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July 2023

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mysymmetry · 9 months

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2023 Reading List updated Jan 8 March 13 April 10 May 29 July 5 July 31

Read So Far: Play It As It Lays, Joan Didion All of This Could Be Different, Sarah Thankham Matthews Readme.txt, Chelsea Manning The Book of Grief and Hamburgers, Stuart Ross Burntcoat, Sarah Hall The Best American Essays 2022, ed. Alexander Chee Easy Beauty, Chloe Cooper Jones Very Cold People, Sarah Manguso Son of Elsewhere, Elamin Abdelmahmoud Happy Place, Emily Henry Couplets, Maggie Millner Strange Loops, Elizabeth Harmer Milk Fed, Melissa Broder Tides, Sara Freeman Biography of X, Catherine Lacey The Guest, Emma Cline No One is Talking About This, Patricia Lockwood

Currently Reading: Small Things Like These, Claire Keegan My Friend Leonard, James Frey We Have Always Been Here, Samra Habib Ripe, Sarah Rose Etter Ace, Angela Chen (lib yes - placed hold) Pathological, Sarah Fay The Best American Poetry 2019, ed. Bliss Montage, Ling Ma The Carrying, Ada Limon Death in Her Hands, Ottessa Moshfegh The Hurting Kind, Ada Limon A Single Rose, Muriel Barbery The Power of Geography

Want to Read: Foster Claire Keegan The Light Room, Kate Zambreno Lurch, Don McKay No Archive Will Destroy You, Julietta Singh The Story of Our Lives, Ted Chiang

HALF FINISHED The Marrow Thieves, Cherie Dimaline Animal Person, Alexander MacLeod My Face in The Light, Martha Schabas Pure Colour, Sheila Heti Satched, Megan Gail Coles A Lover's Discourse, Roland Barthes The Country of Marriage, Wendell Berry

Minique, Anna Maxymiw We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies, Tsering Yangzom Lama Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson

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mysymmetry · 10 months

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Chune, innit? (June 2023)

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mysymmetry · 11 months

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2023 Reading List updated Jan 8 March 13 April 10 May 29 July 5

Read So Far: Play It As It Lays, Joan Didion All of This Could Be Different, Sarah Thankham Matthews Readme.txt, Chelsea Manning The Book of Grief and Hamburgers, Stuart Ross Burntcoat, Sarah Hall The Best American Essays 2022, ed. Alexander Chee Easy Beauty, Chloe Cooper Jones Very Cold People, Sarah Manguso Son of Elsewhere, Elamin Abdelmahmoud Happy Place, Emily Henry Couplets, Maggie Millner Strange Loops, Elizabeth Harmer Milk Fed, Melissa Broder

Currently Reading: Tides, Sara Freeman (lib yes - placed hold) Ace, Angela Chen (lib yes - placed hold) Ripe, Sarah Rose Etter Pathological, Sarah Fay Biography of X, Catherine Lacey The Best American Poetry 2019, ed. Bliss Montage, Ling Ma The Carrying, Ada Limon Death in Her Hands, Ottessa Moshfegh The Hurting Kind, Ada Limon A Single Rose, Muriel Barbery The Power of Geography

Want to Read: Foster or Small Things Like These - Claire Keegan (lib yes for both, recom from bookseller at Different Drummer!) The Light Room, Kate Zambreno No One is Talking About This, Patricia Lockwood Lurch, Don McKay No Archive Will Destroy You, Julietta Singh The Story of Our Lives, Ted Chiang

HALF FINISHED The Marrow Thieves, Cherie Dimaline Animal Person, Alexander MacLeod My Face in The Light, Martha Schabas Pure Colour, Sheila Heti Satched, Megan Gail Coles A Lover's Discourse, Roland Barthes The Country of Marriage, Wendell Berry

Minique, Anna Maxymiw We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies, Tsering Yangzom Lama Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson

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mysymmetry · 11 months

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2023 Reading List updated Jan 8 March 13 April 10 May 29

Read So Far:

Play It As It Lays, Joan Didion All of This Could Be Different, Sarah Thankham Matthews Readme.txt, Chelsea Manning The Book of Grief and Hamburgers, Stuart Ross Burntcoat, Sarah Hall The Best American Essays 2022, ed. Alexander Chee Easy Beauty, Chloe Cooper Jones Very Cold People, Sarah Manguso Son of Elsewhere, Elamin Abdelmahmoud

Currently Reading:

Happy Place, Emily Henry The Best American Poetry 2019, ed. Bliss Montage, Ling Ma The Carrying, Ada Limon Death in Her Hands, Ottessa Moshfegh The Hurting Kind, Ada Limon A Single Rose, Muriel Barbery The Power of Geography

Want to Read:

Biography of X, Catherine Lacey (March 21 - ordered from Someday) Milk Fed, Melissa Broder (lib yes) Ace, Angela Chen (nf, asexuality, lib yes) No Archive Will Destroy You, Julietta Singh Couplets, Maggie Millner

HALF FINISHED

The Marrow Thieves, Cherie Dimaline Animal Person, Alexander MacLeod My Face in The Light, Martha Schabas Pure Colour, Sheila Heti Satched, Megan Gail Coles A Lover's Discourse, Roland Barthes The Country of Marriage, Wendell Berry

Minique, Anna Maxymiw Tides, Sara Freeman We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies, Tsering Yangzom Lama Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson

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mysymmetry · 1 year

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What is there to say? Fear of all things disappearing, Grey's on the internet, Tumblr itself. What am I doing here? Why the fear? What am I being shown? Have I made a mistake? Why, still a year later?

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mysymmetry · 1 year

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Control is my favourite illusion. Judith Lassiter TIME in the morning. Thankfulness, Insight, Meditation, Exercise. Is the voice in my head actually helping me? Say to yourself "I want to be here with you". How do I make that true?

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