I just watched the 1997 film 'Clockwatchers' with my Dad the other night &
really enjoyed it! It's about female friendship, office drudgery, & personal
growth, presented in a patient, slice-of-life sort of way. It's comedic at
times & mostly light-hearted. I found it peaceful & refreshing. It was
tastefully shot.

Oh my God, I also watched 'Mikey and Nicky' (1976), which is FANTASTIC. Peter
Falk & John Cassavetes (being long-time close friends in real life) have
fantastic chemistry & I really felt like I had no idea what would happen from
moment to moment. It's so compelling even when nothing seems to be happening.

Pretty soon I'm seeing 'Barry Lyndon' in theaters with a good friend & I'm
really excited. That's another good example of a movie where it's somehow
enormously compelling even when very little is happening. It's quite long but I
seem to have a taste for three-hour artsy films (like 'Andrei Rublev' or
'Céline and Julie Go Boating'). --- It was fantastic, as expected! My friend
really liked it. I can't believe it damaged Ryan O'Neal's career...

In my last entry I mentioned a few albums that really make me feel at home.
Somehow I forgot to mention my favorite album of all time, Elizabeth Cotten's
'Folksongs and Instrumentals with Guitar' from 1958. Some of my favorite pieces
from that record include "Vastopol", "Sweet Bye and Bye / What a Friend We Have
in Jesus", & "When I Get Home".

My mental & psychological health is the worst it's been in a long time. Every
day lately has honestly been really hard, but I have lots of support & I'm
doing my best, so I'm optimistic that I'll feel substantially better soon. I'm
taking it day by day, that's all I can do. --- It fluctuates a lot. This
morning I would have described my well-being in really sour terms, but this
evening I find myself feeling really normal again. (That's probably quite
common.) It's hard to know what provides momentary relief & what makes a
lasting difference! --- Mornings have been really hard. It's been hours since
my alarm went off & I'm still in bed, I just can't bring myself to get up. I
feel such constant fear.

I'm almost done reading my way through Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou. (I just
finished volume 4.) I've borrowed each of the volumes in turn from a close
friend so I associate the series really strongly with her. (There's a panel of
Alpha & Kokone sleeping side-by-side on the floor of Kokone's apartment that
made me burst into tears when I first saw it, because made me think of my
friend & I.) I've never read anything from the slice-of-life genre before &
I've really enjoyed that dimension of it. (I guess it's got something in common
with what made 'Clockwatchers' so appealing!) It's a nice vision of life
because it can seem peaceful & sweet & even quite happy without pretending that
there's no such thing as suffering or nothing problematic about life. In
Yokohama, for instance, everything is coming to an end, the worst has already
happened. This is key to many fantasies I entertain about what kind of life is
possible for me: peace in the aftermath. My friend & I call this "The C-PTSD
Fantasy" but that might be a bit glib...but basically it's just about living a
peaceful life separated as much as possible from the world's pain & violence
without forgetting it, without needing to forget it, because the worst has
already happened. It's about finding another woman, someone you love, peaceful
& trustworthy, to hide & wait for the end with. But that means giving up on
certain hopes & dreams, I think. It's just a fantasy, though. You can't
actually escape what this world is until you die, & even then, who knows...

I seem to be getting back into reading yuri. It's nice. --- It's getting late &
I shouldn't stay up, but I really want to keep reading "Shimeji Simulation"...

I'm very hard on myself.

I'd love a full-size standing e-ink monitor, but I guess they're really
expensive!

I had a good time going to a baseball game the other day.

I felt better after therapy today. I went for a good run, too.

I really do need to rewatch 'Crash'.

Sometimes you can really feel the presence of hell & sometimes you can't. I
don't know what to do with that.

Lately one of the few things that brings me relief is seeing another trans
woman out & about in public. I feel reassured that we can still participate in
the world, in spite of everything, & I feel hope for the woman I see. I
probably need to get to a point where I can feel similarly about myself, where
I can feel hope just because I know I'm still here & it's not over.

Wittgenstein connected divinity with the experience of "absolute safety". He
must have been a very anxious person too...although I'm not sure I've felt what
he's talking about. I'd sure like to...

Forgetting is an art & I'm not good at it.

If you accept yourself, if you love yourself, you can enjoy taking a bath. (It
might still be a little melancholy, though.)

This afternoon while sitting on the steps in my backyard crying I had another
moment where it felt like my dissociation subsided & I returned to reality.

I'm thinking about what my self-regard might be like if I had really short hair
again. It's making me feel strange.

My Dad got out an old bicycle & set it up for me. We've had it for many years
now & I've always admired it: it has a basket & pale-blue paint that glows in
the dark! Unfortunately the handlebars are quite low so I have to lean
uncomfortably far forwards while riding, but maybe I'll get used to that. The
world is bleak, but a bicycle is something exciting...