DEAR DIARY

07.31.2025 Gulp Fiction in the Covered Market

Note to self: make more whale jokes (jokes about whales, jokes involving whales, jokes where the punchline demands some specific knowledge/vocabulary that is whale-centric). Note: whales themselves should never be the punchline/butt of joke. Rather, joke is funny because we both/all know about whales. Have more conversations about whales/(re)direct convos towards topic of whales so that whale jokes can emerge in a way that feels organic rather than forced. Make sure to have some jokes ready to go before leading convo towards topic of whales, but be willing to improv(e)/play around in the moment (go with the flow, etc) in a way that feels organic/unplanned. Workshop this. Where does humor lie re: whales? Definitely jokes to be found in setup of whale sieving krill - workshop punchlines.

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It is 2:36 and I have created this odd time interval for myself by preordering a 3:30 Too Good To Go order from the Pret in the Westgate mall. I didn't want Pret but I told myself this would Force Me to Go Into Town and run errands. I suppose it did. I got my new Bod reader's card - no longer the student card, as I am no longer a student - and I spent three million dollars on books, because Trinity deposited £50 into my bank account and suggested books might be a good purchase and I figured you know what, yes please, and really went all-in on it. I bought a stack at Blackwell's but I am now in this coffee shop-cum-bookstore (I always feel sophomorically uncomfortable writing ___-cum-____ because written down it really is just cum, cum that links/binds two words/concepts, which I suppose is as good a use for cum as any) writing in this little notebook (I might type this up later to put on e-worm[1], but right now I feel like writing in this little spiral-bound notebook, using the plastic ballpoint pen the nice man who runs a French printing press[2] gave to me and Ginger at the Fine Press Fair).[3]

I wonder if I've bled through my pad. I wonder if the fact that I'm writing in a little notebook is something the cute boy reading at the table next to me finds alluring/attractive. I hope it is and that he does. I hope he imagines me writing something far better/more interesting/more articulate than what I am in fact writing (this). I hope in his mind I am writing a short story that follows the ill-fated seven-month relationship between these two characters called Shelby and Mike. It takes place in the Pacific Northwest in 1995 in this small town (which is now a shell of itself due to the declining lumber trade), and it really captures the spirit of the time/place in a way that critics might call "evocative."

I wonder if, when I stand up, blood and piss will gush forth like the floodwaters if that one hero of a Dutch boy EVER removes his pruned finger from that godforsaken dike.



[1] Yes I am typing this up later ie now ie 10:06pm back home on the couch
[2] Should have made a nice/Nice pun here as reflection of man's kindness/residence in France. Note: apprentice self to printer.
[3] Should add that while I wrote this I was drinking an iced oatmilk latte that came free with Annie Ernaux's The Years, which I bought because I've been meaning to read it for ages but also because it was on the table that said "purchases of books on this table come with a free drink"


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