from eileen by ottessa moshfegh

grabs your hand. you've had enough plot and exposition and character development lately im taking you to the beach episode

i want to read literature, i want to be present, i really do. but what of these demons?

read literature. be present. make love. make tea. write a poem. cry. watch a sappy movie that makes you want to throw things at it. paint your nails. cook something. call your best friend. learn an instrument. wonder. take a bath. go for a walk. lie down on the grass. listen to the entirety of ur favorite album from 2016. take pics of sunsets. ponder. shamelessly dance in your room. curl up on your bed. make endless wishes to the stars twinkling in the midnight sky. think about nothing. think about everything. think about things so hard that you barely remember what happened moments ago and why you’re feeling the way you do

it's because the bear wouldn't kill me just for being a woman. the bear doesn't kill me for fun. the bear can be shouted at, and will leave me alone. the bear won't make a tiktok complaining about how i crossed to the other side of the path when i saw him coming. if a bear kills me, it's just being a bear: it cannot understand logic. it is not acting out of malice - just fear or hunger.

bell hooks once wrote about how porches might be the only outside space left for women - it is still the domain of the house while it is also outside-but-safe. when i am in the woods, i am in the bear's home, and he has a right to defend his property. outside spaces - anywhere at night, certain parks in the day - those are often implicitly "owned" by men. i cannot explain the feeling of knowing when you have entered a man's "territory." you walk into a place and just know you are in their space. you get a sick sense - you're in danger.

the other day a group of about 8 men were fooling around in the woods while i walked my dog. i had to go around, take the extra 3 miles just to avoid them. it's okay, i like walking. this wasn't even a #feminism moment. it was just a tuesday.

what a plain and easy question. only one of the situations is seen as a tragic accident. i would rather die and have a park bench erected in my honor rather than have my family questioned about why they let me, an adult, walk in the woods in the first place when i should really be at home in the kitchen.

i worked in retail and food service. i have had women say and do absolutely heinous and abusive things to me - not because i was a woman, but because i was there, and they were angry. the way men treated me when angry was different - it was because i was a woman. you can always feel the difference, how there's an undertone of i'd hurt you worse if i could get away with it. i keep seeing people try to cite stupid statistics. why is there always a strange rage whenever women agree on things? like men can argue their way out of our lived experiences? it isn't a buzzfeed quiz - which of these traumas are you? 10 super cute ways not to fear strange men.

i have actually (thrice!) seen a bear in the wild, by the way. i died each time, obviously, and am a ghost writing to you. (it was scary but completely and utterly fine). the second encounter was a black bear with her cub. she looked at me like - do we have to do this or are we good? my dog was busy sniffing a bush, completely nonreactive. i felt like i was in a sitcom: feminist poet reacts - does she actually mean she'd choose the bear? my only thought was - she's so beautiful. her paws are massive.

and there's a part of me that feels the rage spinning out in a corner. why do we have to come up with quippy little comments in order to teach men empathy. would you rather die in a car accident or due to a mugging? and would you rather your house burn down due to an electrical fire or due to arson? gee willikers - it's almost like we're human people, and want to risk the accident versus the intention.

i would rather my last thought be oh shit, a bear rather than i'm a person too. why doesn't that matter? why don't you care?

and of course i've been thinking about tragedy and how you can say "there was a way both rose and jack could have survived", "there was a way for achilles to save patroclus and himself from their fate", "there was a way for orpheus and eurydice to both get out of the underworld", "if only they had done this", "if only they had thouht of this" but in the end the people involved are not gods, they are stirred by their emotions and preconceptions and the limits of their knowledge and their fears and ambitions, and in good tragedies i think there's always a way out that is completely plausible and even easy to find but the humanity of the characters drives them to mistakes that ultimately add up to the most heartbreaking conclusion you can imagine. and i think that's beautiful.

obsessed with stories that start out silly and stupid and then turn out to be deep and heartbreaking in their beauty. like okay, make me cry at midnight while i reflect on the true meaning of friendship i guess

I cannot express how much I adore dappled shadows formed by sunlight in paintings and photography and in real life

William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra

i don't know man, i just wish that we could [suddenly realising i'm coming dangerously close to expressing a real and earnest thought instead of filtering everything through several layers of intangible running bits] blow up the entire world. or something.

"you need to let it go" that would be really cool, unfortunately I'll take it with me to the grave

saw a grown woman on tiktok snidely calling gen z the christopher columbus generation bc someone’s fifteen year old son ‘thought he’d discovered weezer’. newsflash every generation finds out about the music of the previous generation at some point it comes free with being fifteen. being annoying about music also comes free with being fifteen. a kid saying yeah i’ve just found this band nirvana have you ever heard of them should be a thing of joy

I wish the world would stop for grief

i don't smoke for the obvious reasons of not wanting to develop an addiction to nicotine but god do i so often feel the emotion 'i need a cigarette'.