dear diary

05.26.2026

It is just too hot.

I like the time capsule feature on iphoto because I like revisiting the recent past and reframing it as a golden age of fertile, if misplaced, productive energy. I like scrolling through the camera reel saying "yes!" and "that!" and "poor girl didn't know how quickly time would pass :'("

I am an essentially sentimental person in this respect. Nostalgia is a wonderful tool for polishing the no-longer-accessible to a gleaming "was." I can see my own distorted reflection in a well-polished "was."

Local pockets of mourning - "good days gone by" - are great vacation spots in which to seek refuge from a demanding present until it, too, ages and calcifies and becomes polishable.

05.18.2026

This past week I went to York and Edinburgh. Travel happened, to me or to someone else. I will log what I did and saw as soon as I remember how to write. Unless I forget what I did and saw before then.

Today I went to GP in attempt to figure out why I am tired all the time. Blood seems okay. Answers seem unlikely. I am going to try eating certain foods and not eating other foods. I'll do more research on what foods I can and cannot eat as soon as I remember how to read. One day I will figure out my relationship with food and autonomy, or at least consider it. For now I will try (try?) to stop putting away sugar by the spoonful and rubbing butter on my gums and snorting gluten, a passive witness to my own consumption.

I walked from Cowley to Summertown and from Summertown to Cowley. I walked into charity shops and M&S and spent too much money. On: houseplant (1), plant pots (3), peanut butter (1 jar), honey (1 packet), cough drops (1 bag), Muriel Spark paperback (1), dress pattern I will likely never use (1 pattern with 3 variations). Also bought Colin the Caterpillar gummies (2 bags) bc Heavily Discounted (50p each!), despite knowing the real (high) cost of sugar is to Body and Soul, and that, by binging sugar, I am contributing to my own sick fatigue.

But ate nutritious meals today, other than Colins nibbled in Holywell Cemetery and night focaccia from E-- and A--. Varied vegetables in varied bright colors. Yogurt. Grains. Eggs - local - poached - yolks flowing orange when poked, rich sick viscous nauseous golden.

05.10.2026

Yesterday I was crossing the street at the light. I had a walk sign. The green man showed up on his sign and told me to walk. I trust that man with my life. When he walks greenly I walk too. When he goes red I know to Wait! until he goes green again. I follow his lead.

A motorized bike was suddenly zipping towards the crossing, perpendicular. The bike was going fast. The bike did not listen to its red light and instead listened to the man riding it, who (it seemed) did not care about lights at all and cared mostly about going fast.

I sort of got tangled up with the bike and its motion. I felt like I was falling for a long time, an extended prolonged Mr. Bean fall with a bike both on and under me. I somersaulted backwards and came to rest with chin (mine) pressed up against curb (city property).

I stood up and bled a bit. The rider said sorry (laughingly) and, when asked for his Information by a kind man who declared himself a Witness, got back on his fast bike and zipped away fast. Really it seemed he mostly cared about going fast.

A-- and G-- ubered me to hospital and fed me kinder bueno and tangfastics from A&E vending machine. The man at the intake desk asked slow dull questions without wasting time generating facial expression. He did not ask whether I'd sustained head or neck trauma but did ask for my race, noting white (other) while I hunched over ice pack. He asked for next of kin. He asked if I'd filed a police report. Robotic but with an apathy that felt uniquely human, is how I described him to mama once I'd logged into the hospital guest wifi and checked 'i agree' to a privacy policy I hadn't read and called her on whatsapp.

It seemed miraculous, Miraculous!, that I was basically okay, just a bit beat up, after a collision so exaggeratedly & limply & comedically physical, so I got all giddy and giggled about nearly everything. I ate tangfastics. I heard myself repeating myself. My lap was damp from ice pack drippings.

Woke up today both stiff and wiggly. Spent most of day in bed feeling both stiff and wiggly. Meant to read but didn't read. Scrolled for ages. Felt strange. Took ibuprofin. Took paracetamol. Ate rest of tangastics from A&E vending machine.

Before getting struck I had been playing catch. It was a good day, the first in a while. I cleaned my room. G-- came over and we walked to South Parks. We lay on my picnic blanket at the top of the hill, the city's spires spread fantastically below, and talked about Life. I teared up under my big sunglasses and pretended she couldn't tell, even when she stopped talking and started rubbing my shoulder. Then we played catch. We played catch!! Playing catch is miraculous. Playing catch in the park is as good as it gets. Go wide!! we called out. And let's try left hand only! And sorry, my bad! And great catch! And one more one more! Down below, far enough away to be fantastical, small traffic slid along St. Clements. At that sort of distance the traffic can do what it likes without hitting you.

05.09.2026

Time is going real fast. It moves in these jolting spurts & oozing slurries. I am not okay with this movement: it is nonconsensual and sick.


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