August 2022

August 2, 2022: Where tf have I been?!?!

It's been exactly a month since my last entry. A lot has happened. I didn't really have access to my computer, so I didn't bother writing entries. Let's start with the biggest thing... I got married! Kinda cringe honestly. I don't usually shy away from that word, but I don't like overusing it either. But truly, the experience of getting married is quite cringe. I'm not sure how other people cope with it, or how they experience and interpet it but I could hardly bear it. We got married at the registrar's office and a lot of paperwork had to be collected. A lot of translations, apostilles, what have you. I didn't really talk much about the document hunt here but it was exhausting to say the least. Next thing we planned to have some of my closest family with us, so we had to book a restaurant for the wedding too. My mom really wanted photos but I didn't want anything fancy so we got them taken at the studio. Now that was a mistake. The studio was really trashy and the lady posing us didn't really take our awkwardness into account. I could go on about this experience but I'll keep it short because I have to go back to unpacking. The ceremony itself was quite okay and short (took 10 minutes) but it kind of felt like getting scolded by a teacher in their office with all of your family watching. A couple of days before the wedding my sister and I saw a tiktok of a girl saying that weddings were embarrassing because they felt like someone singing you "Happy Birthday" - for the whole length of the ceremony/celebration. And yes it's true. The dinner was fine, I was able to relax a bit at that point and enjoy the food. I'm very happy my friend was able to come and be my witness, along with my sister and husband of course, she made me feel most at ease. We had a good time drinking and talking, but we ended it pretty early. It was after all, a really small celebration and gathering of about 15 people. I'm happy that it's all over and done with and after 6 years of being apart, we're finally together and married!

Other than that, we went on a little vacation and I got to enjoy the sea for a few days. Hence the lack of laptop. Besides the seaside, the rest of our vacation was spent on getting a new wardrobe for my husband as clothes in my country are 50% cheaper and he really started running out of stuff to wear. After the vacation we came back to our apartment, the flights were much less chaotic this time around.

I've also been looking for a good piercing studio in the city I live in now but it seems all the good studios don't post their prices publicly. Why?? I just want to know how overpriced it is, as I don't have issues with paying a bit more for a quality piercing job. I really want to get a vertical labret... And that would probably be the end of my piercing journey.

Lastly, I finally finished The Sopranos... A really great and quotable show honestly, if you haven't watched it I definitely recommend!

August 15, 2022: Covid... thinking about my weight gain and reading feminist theory (very contradictive)

Soooo I finally got covid. My sister told me it's very cringe I got it this late and I have to agree. Jokes aside, I'm glad I got it now because it's extremely mild. My husband got it a week ago so it was only a matter of time. At first we tried to sleep flipped, as in my head at his feet and vice versa but we gave up on that quickly. It is quite comfy to sleep like that though, as it feels there's more space for my arms to spread. We had our last 5G microchip booster shot 8 months ago so it makes sense we both got sick. He had a fever, I didn't. I'm just coofing and my nose was stuffed for whole of two days. No other symptoms, and I think I'm mostly recovered today, still coofing a bit though. Everyone in my guild got it too, so we joked that this batch of covid is online contagious. Seriously though, one person recovers, another gets it the next day.

I wrote a huge essay about my personal relationship with food (which is healthy) and my recent weight gain but... I got over it in the middle of writing so I don't even feel like having it up. I'll just conclude it with I'm cutting out snacks and going back to morning yoga. I looked at myself in the mirror and I look great, I am not sure why that greatness doesn't translate into pictures. Reverse body dysmorphia, perhaps?

Also my hair is growing at a rapid speed, I had to cut my bangs only a week since I cut them last. My hair is at buttcrack length, I really want to cut it but I don't know how. I want to have jaw length hair but I fear it wouldn't suit me.

I've been reading Dworkin's Right Wing Women, it's really good so far. Despite Dworkin being a radical feminist her writing is respectful towards the subject(s) of the book but it doesn't pull any punches. I admire the brutality in her writing. Hell, I'm not a right-wing woman, but I feel called out in some of her statements. This book was published in 1983... so some of her observations are outdated (such as women being paid 50% of what men are, and... abortions being legal lol), but this book isn't just about right wing women. It's about why women choose to survive in and conform to systems that are clearly against them in many ways. And why these women, in those systems, still manage to be the most devout and honest followers of said systems. I haven't finished it yet so I'm not logging it in my books page, but I'll leave you with this massive qoute.

Right-wing women have surveyed the world: they find it a dangerous place. They see that work subjects them to more danger from more men; it increases the risk of sexual exploitation. They see that creativity and originality in their kind are ridiculed; they see women thrown out of the circle of male civilization for having ideas, plans, visions, ambitions. They see that traditional marriage means selling to one man, not hundreds: the better deal. They see that the streets are cold, and that the women on them are tired, sick, and bruised. They see that the money they can earn will not make them independent of men and that they will still have to play the sex games of their kind: at home and at work too. They see no way to make their bodies authentically their own and to survive in the world of men. They know too that the Left has nothing better to offer: leftist men also want wives and whores; leftist men value whores too much and wives too little. Right-wing women are not wrong. They fear that the Left, in stressing impersonal sex and promiscuity as values, will make them more vulnerable to male sexual aggression, and that they will be despised for not liking it. They are not wrong. Right-wing women see that within the system in which they live they cannot make their bodies their own, but they can agree to privatized male ownership: keep it one-on one, as it were. They know that they are valued for their sex—their sex organs and their reproductive capacity—and so they try to up their value: through cooperation, manipulation, conformity; through displays of affection or attempts at friendship; through submission and obedience; and especially through the use of euphemism—"femininity, " "total woman, " "good, " "maternal instinct, " "motherly love. " Their desperation is quiet; they hide their bruises of body and heart; they dress carefully and have good manners; they suffer, they love God, they follow the rules. They see that intelligence displayed in a woman is a flaw, that intelligence realized in a woman is a crime. They see the world they live in and they are not wrong. They use sex and babies to stay valuable because they need a home, food, clothing. They use the traditional intelligence of the female—animal, not human: they do what they have to to survive.

August 18, 2022: tfw I will never be a teenage weeb again

Today I felt jealousy, a feeling I haven't experienced in a long while actually. Well, I'm not sure if it's really jealousy, or the feeling of having missed out on something. You see, my husbands country is full of weebs. There's a mall that has at least 3-4 anime related shops. A fucking hentai shop, which is really funny, we went into it today to see what they have. But all throughout the day I was looking at groups of teens, obviously at their weebiest, with their cute little outfits, silly makeup, funny hairstyles and fucking Shinji tattoos. Most of them looked dishelved, awkward and a bit musty, but life must be so fun for them right now. I didn't get to enjoy my hobby in such a way, when I was a teen. None of those things existed in my country. I couldn't order stuff online either, it was expensive. Basically what I'm saying is, god I wish I was a weeb wearing naruto headgear and armed with a yaoi paddle.

Or now, a weeb with a black wolfcut with chunky boots and an oversized black tshirt... I wonder what they talk about when they hang out together... I wonder what online spaces they frequent. Are they actually just turbo normies going through a phase? I don't know.. But this is the only thing that ever managed to instill this feeling that I missed out. I never had a group of friends to properly sperg out with. Maybe the only reason I'm glad I don't have to deal with being a teenage weeb today is all the gender identity shit. It's so weird how all of the anime shops I went into sold lgbt flags, pins and other paraphernalia. It's like sexuality/gender identity itself became a fandom and a part of weeb culture. Weird ngl. But those kids seemed to be having fun so... good for them. They were real living and breathing mall rats, something I never thought I'd see.

In other news I definitely settled on which studio I'm getting my vertical labret done in. I went to check it out today, and it looks really nice. To top it off, they actually list their prices online which is pretty based. I hate when info like this isn't publicly disclosed. I'll probably do it during late September when I'm done with pools and swimming for the season. Quite hyped.

Oh and I finished Better Call Saul. The bus singing part was cringe and hard to watch. Other than that, I'm pretty satisfied with the ending. I'm glad it ended less dramatically than Breaking Bad. Not going to say much else so I don't spoil it for anyone. Overall, I'm not sure which one I liked more. I think Better Call Saul was definitely the more fun one to watch, Breaking Bad made me want to look away too often - not that I don't appreciate that. They were both really good shows in their own ways.

August 31, 2022: The Trouble with Angels, weddings and executive dysfunction

Yesterday I went to the cinema with my husband, we decided to go on a whim. The city we live in is well-known for having a cinema/library media center, and the cinema doesn't just play new movies but also a lot of classic ones too. I guess it's called a cinematheque? I've heard that word being used in such a way in my language a couple of times. The movie we ended up watching was The Trouble with Angels from 1966, directed by Ida Lupino. The movie is about two rebellious girls attending a catholic high school run by nuns. Frankly I thought it was a really sweet slice of life/coming of age film. Mary is the ringleader, and Rachel is her follower. The two of them cause a lot of trouble in the school, much to the dismay of the nuns. But as time passes, one of the girls secretely decides to become a nun even though both of them were quite against the idea at the start of the movie. This decision becomes clear to one of the girls at the end of the movie and a rift between them happens. They still manage to reconcile in the last scene, so I thought the wrap up was done well. It's a cute story about female friendship, and realizing you want to live by helping others. Frankly, I don't even think this has much to do with religion or god - that it's some kind of a Catholic propaganda movie. Being a nun always seemed to me like an amazing way to live, especially as a woman, in times when women were respected much less. To live in a community surrounded and managed by women, while volunteering and helping others seems like a really alluring lifestyle.

My husband has been invited to 3 weddings in the next week. Quite abhorrent honestly... I truly dislike weddings lmao. Luckily I won't be attending 2 of them. I don't know the people, my husband will be going with his work buddies that won't bring their +1's either, and we will get to spend less money in gifts, everyone wins! The third wedding is a mutual friend, so I'll be happy to attend, and happy to know that it's going to be a small, informal wedding that will end with a barbeque! Sweet.

Saving the best for last, I've been talking with a friend about how we're both suffering from executive dysfunction. Both of us are delaying our bachelors thesis/dissertation to the point where we're going to be paying for university next year to delay it even further. Neither of us really understand why, as the topics we're supposed to be writing about are interesting to both of us respectively. Not sure whether it was the pandemic, the earthquake, me not being near my uni friends anymore, but something is affecting me in such a way that I simply can't get myself to progress academically and do any kind of administrative task. There is also a lot of resentment and anxiety around my university messing up my enrollment a few years back, which resulted in a slew of issues that are going to hold me back a year. It's absolutely eating me up inside. So starting now, I hope I'll get to work a bit on my thesis. I'm feeling it today!!! Not really.