i wonder, what is the biggest lie that i have ever told anyone that they were naive enough to believe in spite of the evidence in front of them... it is probably horrible and terrible. hit me up in the comments if you know!

the biggest lie that anyone ever told me that i was naive enough to believe in spite of the evidence in front of me: "my place is only this messy because of my roommates, not me"

i found an envelope on the ground today. a white envelope, in a fairly wide open area with a decent amount of foot traffic. it had not been there long enough to get stepped on, but there was also no obvious suspect for who dropped it in sight... though there was a crowd of ~30 people watching live music not too far away. maybe it belonged to one of them. i opened the envelope.

it was a greeting card. addressed to someone, and then signed from someone. but no personal message, no date, no "dear", no "love". just two first names, and the message that came printed in the card.

i did not attempt to find whoever dropped the greeting card.

• what did public transportation waiting areas look like 20 years ago, 30 years ago, 50 years ago. Before "Phones" I Mean. i spent a lot of time in public transportation waiting areas today and i spent a lot of that time observing how most people were on phones. i know we had other rectangles before this — static, printed rectangles. even squares that people filled in with letters sometimes. but sometimes i sit in public and look around and think "am i the only person looking around and thinking right now?"

• when a group of people are waiting for public transportation together, it is less likely but still not unlikely that these people will be on their phones.

• having all these Phones But Too Much thoughts feels incredibly basic but also like i think there's phones but too much. the thing that's incredibly basic is trying to defend it like with that one comic where everyone is texting a loved one or whatever. bullshit, my unqualified counterclaim is that at least 50% of people are scrolling through toxic social media. personally i will smile and laugh due to messages i get on my phone and i did not see one single person smiling or laughing at something on their phone so, idk, seems strange.

• what do i do on my phone in public? i've never answered this question for myself before. the answer is "messages" and "look stuff up" (map, thing i saw, thing that someone else mentioned, maybe thing that popped into my head). it's great to simply not have social media as an option. i could look at my RSS reader, and i have during some idle times, but something i hadn't considered formalizing is what if i: don't. i didn't when i was out today! what if that's just an "at home" activity instead. that seems like a good idea, i'm formalizing that for myself now 👍

• i called these saturday thoughts because the day is saturday but it seems like these are all phones [sic] thoughts so far.

• do you ever feel a wave of sleepy sneak up and crash down on you? this just happened to me!!! i love to be excited to get into bed before 9 pm and read a book until lights out these days.

• last night i said this (friday thought) and then i watched a youtube video on my phone instead. very annoying get it together 🙄

• among the many phases and eras i have started this year… i was not calling it this until now but i am in my discontinuation era. this is where i discontinue things and the things specifically are the mood-altering drugs that i put in my body. it started a few weeks ago when i woke up one day after several months of having "a skosh of weed" nearly every single day and felt at a very deep level that actually i did not want weed anymore. not as an intention that i had to set and struggle toward, but as an impulse that vanished. and now i have also replaced coffee with tea, and i have been off my antidepressants for a week, and it seems fine. it actually seems fine!

• at any given mundane moment i might find myself with the thought "maybe this is all my life will ever be" and i think the followup is always "i'm ok with that" but that seems awfully suspicious now that i type it out.

• there are a bunch of things that i had very sketchily planned on getting done today that i did not get done. i made no promises to anyone and yet i am a little sorry for this. not annoying but also i must believe i can do better.

you wouldn't download an update

what they say: i've been getting into modular synthesis lately
what they mean: i've been getting into modular synthesis lately
what they really mean: i've been getting into modular synthesis lately
what they don't mean: i haven't been getting into modular synthesis lately

this seems like something "one of you" would have said before and yet

guy who's been getting into modular synthesis lately: so i've been getting into modular synthesis lately

"li, have you ever thought about how relatively little of your adult full life you have spent living on your own?" yes i am thinking about it now.

not to say that it is more normal or not normal to live with other people, or not live with other people. many times in my life i have lived with other people and still had my own space and also shared space in mutual harmony (i would say that this was a privilege that i had back when i lived with my parents). and then there have been times when there was less harmony, or not enough space that was each person's own — a physical push towards enmeshment dynamics.

i have been living alone for the second time in my life ever for about a year now. (the first time was a period of a year and a half, about a decade ago.) there are a few things i have figured out, but i still feel... very far from figuring it out. small things about what i like or what i want or what i have the freedom to do. a lot of it involves rediscovering ways i enjoy spending my time and realizing i can change the space to support spending my time more in these ways. which is something i've ~always been conscious of, and enacted in certain ways, but. i feel like i am recognizing this with a new clarity tonight, the sort of clarity that reveals how little i know at all, how little i've known all this time.

there are many ways that i have changed. there are also many ways that i have stayed the same, and some of these i appreciate, though lately my attention has been mostly on the frustrating stuck and stubborn bits. i have lived with myself for so long and shouldn't i know myself by now? but i don't. i lose something familiar, i drop a mask; sometimes whatever follows snaps spontaneously into place, but more often i find illegibility. or emptiness.

well anyway. i lightly rearranged my living room and it's better now, although it's still not quite right. i think i can make it right, though. eventually. if i keep moving.