17th September Sea Lion Caves In The Dark
Went out too late and had to walk back home after sunset. Carrie & Lowell. I was going up the hill and looking at the tennis courts through the wire fencing, and it made me think about how years and years ago we were in the habit of showing photos to one another, and everyone had brought in photos of themselves or things happening to them to show while I had brought in about nine slides of blurry violet sunset through that same sports-centre wire fencing. At the time I thought it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever photographed and I wanted other people to not only see it too but to know that I was someone who appreciated beautiful things. Instead one of my friends commented something confused-sarcastic, Wow Kong, pretty.. fences? along those lines, and I knew it had been a mistake. That’s what I was thinking about. Then I crested the hill and could see the ocean and all other thought was driven from me, except this faint image of sea lions from “The Only Thing”. It was one of my most beautiful evening walks yet. I think I’m always going to love Sufjan Stevens.
16th September Morning Music + Dream
I love NILFRUITS… This morning “Hi Phi Club” and “Bluffman” .... I found the latter through a mi_yuu cover like always and it felt like early teenagerhood, discovering the Shama trilogy. It’s wonderful that they’ve continued creating and I can continue enjoying like this. Flower’s artificial robot-kid high-pitch that I used to find grating fits perfectly in HPC, or maybe I’ve just gotten used to it.. nevertheless I could listen again and again. And the voice used for “Bluffman” is perfect because of how human it sounded. When I listened on Spotify I was surprised and thought maybe NILFRUITS uses human singers now? No, it’s just a very human-sounding vocaloid which goes so eerily well with pale Mada, who pretends to be human but isn’t. Having the cover is like the cherry on top. I feel twitchy about not working this morning so I’m going to sit down and read for a while but later when I can’t bear any more this will be here for me. A good day I hope.
One more thing: right before my alarm woke me I was having a dream about a very ugly woman who was getting married to some faceless unimportant male character. Her name was Piggottey-Bye. (Maybe the wrong spelling). Not at all like Peggotty from David Copperfield, this was a purposefully grating woman, ugly spelling. Anyway, she was getting married to this man, who was named Rice (that I remember). He had stood her up. I remember that I was standing quietly off to the side applying moisturiser (the wedding ceremony was in my bedroom, guests included) and she was standing in the middle of the round rug (we threw it away, it’s not here anymore) crying, calling Rice? Rice! “You should have told me you didn’t want to,” she said, and then wept, and then just as things were getting good Bell Tower shook me from my slumber. I hope things went alright after that. You deserve better than Rice, Piggottey-Bye… my subconscious didn’t even bother to give him a face.
15th September Fish And Sky
Very recently I’ve been having this recurring thought and it is this: Nothing real has ever happened to me. It’s an evil ungrateful thought that makes me uncomfortable. I feel like “real” things and events have floated up very close to me, even occasionally engulfed/surrounded me, but none of them have penetrated deeply enough to resound as genuine (“real”). Even things I know have happened to me and I know are objectively upsetting/significant/prestigious, things I would trust as "real" if a friend experienced, don't seem to touch me in a real way at all. This is to the point where I don’t even know what the “real” would entail in my own life, though arrogantly I believe I can gauge its presence or absence in other people. I read a blog or meet someone at a party and feel cowed when they’re more real than I could ever imagine, or pitying when they’re even flimsier than I am. I think this is the evil trait that makes me both egoist and diffident, and 100% chameleon. Why I am intimidated beyond belief by the E___ whom I see as all realer than the movies, and why back then contorting myself to pieces in order to befriend and felt so disgusting and strange.
I don’t see my life as dull or pointless, neither of those things are true. It just feels like I’ve been living at a distance once removed for years. If I told my mom about this she’d probably say it’s my cushioned anesthesia of financial/social privilege. On the face of it this explanation seems comforting: I’ve been lucky enough to be cared for and provided for all my life and maybe once that’s lifted and I experience “hardship” then the “real” will follow. I would like this to be the case because then I know for sure something real will eventually happen to me. But secretly I subscribe to a far more pessimistic and terrifying alternative, which is that these feelings have got nothing to do with anything physical and they’re just going to follow me around forever.
I’m thinking over in my head about people I envy as having experienced the “real” and there’s nothing tangible or situational that connects them. Some I think only experience it partway, or maybe everyone experiences some jolt of “real” in their lives (except me) and that's what connection is, uncovering it. Isn't it such an asshole way to think though and I don't understand how this belief sits beside some of my more core beliefs (that every person in this world is important and has something to teach me). The memories closest to "real" experiences I have are mostly from childhood, blurry strange, embarrassing, often disgusting. I can't tell if they're things I've actually experienced. I’ve gotten to the end of what I’m able to successfully articulate. This whole thing leaves me confused and with an ungrateful-bad taste in my mouth.
One of the aims of dearestkong is to "be a person in this world"; I woke up with that phrase on my mouth one summer. Kong has to be a person in this world. So does .
13th September Steady, Steady
My god the past few entries. Can I do anything else except weep and wail, it's crazy, this blog reflects really badly on me because even in its nascency all I do here is groan and complain. This isn't good for the health of my poor new website, it's like being born under an unhappy star.
Anyway I've decided it's going to be okay now. I will keep going. I will work dutifully at my labours though I am not entitled to their fruits. (I read that before sometime, where?). I won't worry about things out of my control. The other night I was wallowing in misery over the mountains and then I stepped back and thought: if my future self appeared right now and told me my destiny was to die on those mountains I would still go. I wouldn't even take it that badly. I care that little about it. There's no course I'm trying to perfect, it's just something I want my soul and body to try withstanding for a while. Even dying there would be kind of beautiful and circular in a way. And every time I think about dying all my other concerns shrink to nothing.. so it's okay, seriously. They're just mountains.
Don't deep it, a pretty girl told me. (This was earlier in the unrecorded summer and we were about to jump off somewhere high together.) Come on it's not that serious. Okay, it's not that serious. Then actually I fucked up the water landing and it and wasn't very pleasant and I wouldn't want to do it again but she was right, it wasn't that serious.
These days I keep breaking out in unknown hives. Let's look forward to tomorrow, where I plan to say hello to the sea, and finish the book, and suck it up to do the scary thing and frustrating thing despite being scared and frustrated.
12th September Pushing It
"Give it up! I was a track star for Mineola Prep."
It turns out when someone's chopping you to pieces you act pretty badly and attract attention either way. Also when you have a mental breakdown your family all get real nice for a couple of days.
9th September Under The Wire
I'm home and really in the crunch of it now. There's not a lot of time left. My chest is constantly tight. I don't want anyone to see how scared and unprepared I am, so I'm moving very slowly and gently and pretending everything is okay. It's like for months I've been having a long argument with someone and now at the end of it they've lost their mind and pulled a knife on me & now I must negotiate peacefully and defuse the threat before 1. a bystander notices and causes a stampede or 2. I am chopped to pieces.
Things I've been fastidious about lately: oiling my nails
Things I've been neglecting lately: my future, everything else
6th September First Sunday
Today all of us split off. I’ll remain here alone for a while longer and then return home.
I’ve received so much grace and leeway in the past couple days, it’s astounding. At the same time, I’m more stressed than ever.
Back to the grace and leeway. So much I felt giddy. This place is old to me but for a while it felt new. I’ve been welcomed and supported, and my shortcomings all forgiven & accounted for. My phone was smashed in three places and I’m not even too sad about it. Bidart again: I’ve been pulled into the circle, even if they’ve been lying and admittedly I’ve just been stumbling around, but still, I'm so grateful.
I remember everything but will be short about it. Most moving memory being how the two of us intended to be tough customers but were melted unexpectedly by a boy with Christian shoulders. Most favourite memory being in the car with C's good voice & absentminded driving, one hand off the wheel to gesticulate while everyone jittered in the backseat looking up lyrics. In general memory: Everywhere we went we had to be in a big clump like an amoeba. Even later when we got drunk we all had to be in a pile or a circle like puppies. I don’t think I acted too embarrassingly, though I was frequently embarrassed. The food was all good as expected. I have so many people I thanked and now owe, for letting me crash/driving to get me in the middle of the night/providing all that shit I forgot. My flowers and chocolates too. Too much to count. The basic point being be grateful and give back. I have to keep approaching things from the perspective of being within the circle. None of this would be possible if I kept pacing the circumference all cagey and stupid like I usually do. I love you guys !! Let’s do our best !!
2nd September Start of Month
Summer went by unrecorded in my diary for the first time in four years. That's so dangerous that I've decided to do something drastically new. I'm still not sure if writing on this site is a good idea but there is something about the semi-exposure of a public blog that makes me want to pull myself together. My private diary is too whiny and annoying, too full of self-flagellation and beating a dead horse. but now I have to stand up straighter for some hypothetical internet user. I do believe writing this way is good for me.
I'm worried about a lot of things: my towering stack of preparation, facing it again, the mountains and making my way back home in the winter, the possibility of repetition, packing and unpacking, pain of throwing my hat in the ring, embarrassment of throwing myself in prostration, internships.
As for everything else right now it's not much, the usual. Eating well & getting into black coffee again, reading annoying but significant things, eating fruits I've never eaten before, booking tickets on many forms of transport, ointments, good faith, trying not to let my teeth touch in resting face. Recently and interestingly I shared a bed with my mom & she tells me I've been yelling in my sleep.