DEAR DIARY
09.26+.2025 On train OXF to London Marylebone
It is Friday morning and you have a train to catch, you have ten minutes maximum before you need to leave the house and walk to the bus stop to catch the bus that will take you to the train station — that is, will drop you off a ten minute walk from the train station — when you suddenly realize that you don’t have £40 cash. There is a woman who comes to clean the house every other Friday, this is one of the landlord’s conditions, and she must be paid £40 cash, it must be left out for her. E— is friendly, usually you’re home when she comes, because you’re unemployed and have no life, so you chat about things, her kids, the world at large. She broke her finger a while ago.This was a strange week, you were barely home, the days all ran together and were also distinct on account of being filled with different contents.
———
On Monday you spend all day cooking for Rosh Hashanah, you make a round raisin challah, immense and glossy brown and pillowy. You make a poolish -- 2 hours to ferment -- hydrate the raisins, mix the dough, knead for twenty minutes until the heel of your hand feels foreign and detached, form the dough into a ball -- 2 hours to rise -- divide it into four equal pieces by weight, roll into four strands, braid into a circle -- 2 hours to rise -- brush with egg wash -- bake about 40 minutes -- tent with foil to prevent burning, remove from oven. In the rising time, make apple tart, whip cream by hand, whip frosting by hand, frost cake, buy chicken, mix compound miso butter (left butter out to soften in a.m.), slice onions, peel garlic, chop potatoes, wash chicken, dry chicken, rub butter mixture into chicken, over and under skin, tetris chicken pieces to fit over onion and garlic, parboil potatoes, chicken in oven, drain potatoes, toss in butter and oil, potatoes in oven, sautée halloumi, halloumi and sweet potatoes on rocket, make vinaigrette, dress.
Guests arrive, 6 + L—, dining room table extended to fit everyone, wings outstretched.
“I’m sorry, the chicken and potatoes will need another few minutes.”
Blessing over candles, blessing over wine (sunshiney mead, which E— brought), blessing over bread. Nobody else knows the blessings, nobody else is Jewish, so you sing alone, warbling. And you slice the challah, and you taste the challah, and you realize — you forgot the salt. You left out the salt. The texture is right, the crumb is right, but there is no salt.
“I’m sorry,” you say. “I’m so sorry, I left out the salt. I can’t believe I left out the salt.” Everyone says it’s okay, but it’s not okay, because you left out the salt. There is something missing from the bread. The flavor is missing. You forgot the salt. You apologize again, knowing your repeated apologies are making things worse and making everyone uncomfortable.
You bless the apples and honey. You have a good evening.
———
On Tuesday it is Rosh Hashanah proper and you have to make a choice about whether to go to services. You find yourself at progressive services in the back room at the local multipurpose synagogue and none of the tunes are familiar. The couple next to you is kind, they introduce themselves. You accept their warm generosity with passive gratitude. They invite you to a post-service lunch and you find yourself saying yes, find yourself walking down unfamiliar streets in Jericho, getting in their car, hearing anecdotes about the local rabbis, temple drama, it is wonderful, you get lost in it, you end up at a house on Woodstock Rd almost to Wolvercote filled with congregants, conservatory-style all-glass back wall letting in sunlight and English garden, clustered chairs, table with challah and honey cake. Apples are picked fresh from backyard tree. You have been adopted and are introduced and introduced. People are so friendly you don't know what to do with it. You go through the same questions: I just graduated! Master's degree. One year. English literature.
People ask for your interests, your goals. You can't think of any. Your voice is a stranger and the parlour (if it is the parlour) is lined with seemingly every book that you've ever meant to read but haven't read, every single one, like some sort of confrontation. If asked, you could hazily describe a lot of shortform videos, you have a clear memory of Jordan Peterson saying "the rat goes like THIS," you've listened to that fucking auto-generated song about wire coils being transported on their sides, but you don't know the plot to a single Thackeray novel. You haven't read anything by __________ or ___________, you never finished ___________________, you never even started _______________________. That's probably a literal crime. You'll probably be punished for that by the authorities or by God directly. You are a hypocrite. You are a worm of a man. You are eating apple crumble. You're not supposed to punch yourself in the face in front of other people so you don't. You wonder if one day you'll forget your name entirely, learn the language of snails, find a cozy spot somewhere in an old cider block (Earl will live in the other half), spend your days chewing on old shoe leather, drinking Yakult through a flaccid sausage casing, trying to recall what comes after "F" in the alphabet, slurring out greetings like "hellope" and "To WHom itmWmay conceRnnn," remembering words like "Tanya" and "agapanthus" and "samphire" and "Pellegrino" only vaguely, they're just angels who kissed you once long ago in a dream, you can't picture their faces only you sometimes feel a warm glow on your cheek.
You find yourself deciding to go to tashlich because you've never done it before. A nice woman says it's a five minute walk but it's at least ten and it seems like only the most dedicated congregants have come along. You find yourself walking with a local boy, home before heading back to start his third year of uni. He grew up at this temple, he was bar mitzvah-ed here. You throw peas into the murky canal and they are your sins.
"Do you feel cleansed?" he asks after.
"Not yet. But it's probably, like, delayed release. It will hit in a few minutes. Fifteen, twenty minutes from now? Absolved."
The two of you trek all the way back to the house, chatting vaguely and over-earnestly about lack of faith. He goes in. You cross the street and take the bus back into town.
The Liberal machzor doesn't seem to include the whole "who by fire" bit.
———
On Wednesday, Fantasy School day one (really day 2, but missed day 1 on account of Religious Observance). 9am-5pm talks on publishing. You try to imagine a career, a career in anything, really, try to imagine looking back on one from a podium, wearing a Liza Minelli-style loose fitting sequined set, recalling the early days, thanking _______ and all the folks at _________ -- if they hadn't believed in you, you'd never have become *This*. You can't even imagine a foreground that isn't a bald man eating an egg sandwich. You don't recall how to imagine a world that isn't television static. When you were little you would squish down into the living room couch or the plum chair with a stack of library books and read for hours, emerging bleary-eyed and ready to live a thousand lives. Where has she gone? Into what wardrobe?
2 writers speak. _______ __________ is so articulate you feel sick with it. She also seems like a genuinely positive person, she has an interesting face and an energy that moves forward and up. Imagine having an energy that moves forward and up! That makes people who don't usually dance feel comfortable dancing, that makes people order something off the menu that feels a little different, makes them say hmmm well I've Never tried that before but... actually, you know what, what the heck, I'll go for it.!
———
On Thursday, Fantasy School day two (really day 3). You rush back home for career meeting via Zoom with B- W- back in Chicago. You desperately want job, even more desperately want to be told what job to want. Then you Zoom into London workshop and write smudgy words with smudgy ballpoint and it actually feels good.
———
Now it is Friday and you’re on the train from OXF to LON MYB.
09.21.2025
Wondering how much of my discontent stems from the lifelong feeling that I have a calling but my hearing is not good enough to make it out. I figure maybe this is caused by earwax buildup, which can affect hearing but also lead to vertigo, malaise, etc; if earwax is removed, the voice of God might ring loud and clear and I will realize it has been saying "Ella, go forth and __________" for years but I have been mistaking it for electrical humming, white noise, birdsong, men making loud business deals via airpod phone calls, etc. I looked at Specsavers website re: earwax removal but too pricey. Glanced at church notice board on Iffley Road as I walked past but emphasis on Jesus/God did not appeal. Will get new glasses and contacts this week (with updated prescription), which might improve clarity somewhat, make signs and portents appear with crisper edges, but is unlikely to altogether remedy. Faith would be a lovely thing to fall back on right now. A huge beanbag would be a lovely thing to fall forward on.Since moving to England, I've found (with slight self-reprimand for living-under-rock) that the hyper-specific language of Christianity is entirely foreign to me. The way that God is discussed, addressed, referred to, at least in the Anglican tradition, sits oddly in my ears. Went to Evensong for the first time last Michaelmas, eager to be moved (although unwilling to be converted), and suddenly realized how unfamiliar the liturgy was, affirmations of faith baked in British stoneware, heavy Victorian hymns, open pleas for the conversion of the unbelievers. Most foreign was the Creed, spoken in one voice. I felt grateful that the prayers I grew up with were never chanted in the vernacular. I prefer the smooth mouthfeel of noncomprehension.
I have been sending job applications into the void, but not enough. Not fast enough, not enough volume, not enough. I need to up my game. I need to up my pace.
It's so funny to worry about vocation etc. when I am for the moment sending cold emails to retail jobs and not even hearing back and I genuinely just need to make money before my next month of rent is due and I feel wildly overwhelmed by every CV revision and every email response, when I follow "I'm good at writing" with an inarticulate, truncated, chat-gpt-sounding list of skills and experiences. I need a fresh brain. I need it rinsed out -- maybe this is all just a matter of earwax removal.
My work, both professional and academic, has prepared me to successfully undertake this role. My ability to think critically, write clearly, research thoughtfully, and manage projects independently will allow me to thrive as a member of your most devout and celibate monastic order.
Tomorrow night the gates open and then I have until Yom Kippur to atone. I have a LOT to atone for. I'm throwing a Rosh Hashanah dinner party tomorrow, first time hosting since Big Move. Hopefully I won't have to atone for my COOKING haha, am I right??!
Spent the day twitching. Felt off. Felt like one of those small white elderly trembling dogs with the bulging glaucomic eyes. Clench jaw (left side). Clench jaw. Jolt through shoulder. Give head little shake. Bite lip. Clench forearm (right). Felt like I was on the edge of forgetting how to breathe. Felt like I was on the edge of forgetting not to mutter to self in public. Walked to Tesco. Walked around Christ Church meadow. Twitched feebly.
Not really a triumph of a day. But a day nonetheless. Does that frighten or reassure? Rn, frightens. Hopefully, eventually, I will learn to be reassured by days and their coming one after the other. It was a juddering, uneasy day. Seemed directionless and blindfolded from within. But a step, maybe? On a pilgrimage? To _________?
I demand a road, oil on panel, winding back and back up into the mountains, past shepherds and their flocks, towards the town in the far distance, towards the brushstroke suggestion of a town where particulate people live particulate lives, towards steeples that predate churches. I am not sure what to picture in the foreground. All I can picture now is a bald man eating an egg sandwich, but that doesn't feel right.
Can't believe I'm spending my 10:52pm journaling when I have like 5 emails I was supposed to send and 3 job apps I was supposed to submit today. Ella, atone for this. Or - just do better. Get your act together.
09.20.2025 Missing Bean
Head again empty [clearly spending all money I do not have on coffee, which is like £4. Perhaps need a Fox News economist to discipline me.][Realized I made a mistake in my entry for the 18th -- Blue Sisters woman was sitting to my right, not my left. I got left and right mixed up (which I don't usually do) while writing with my left (non-dominant) hand (which I don't usually do). Is this interesting?]
09.19.2025 Jericho Coffee Traders, 12:29pm
"Fire and rain" playing09.18.2025
(Missing Bean 2:11pm, written backwards in brown-paper covered sketchbook)Woman to left is reading "Blue Sisters" by Coco Mellors, a dog-eared paperback. She can't be more than 15, 20 pages in. [S]he has 3 pins [tacked to] her bag, one of which [says] "Coco Mellors Blue Sisters." This raises questions: did she commit to the promotional pin before reading the book? Is she advertising something she cannot rightly vouch for? Or is she such a big fan of the book that she reads it always everywhere? Is this a second read? A third? Does she have a "Blue Sisters" shirt? Is it her whole personality, her whole schtick?? The world is overburdened with small mysteries.
Am forced to write backwards (at great cost to left hand musculature) because anyone can see my page -- I hate the idea of writing about someone in public and they see.
Blue Sisters girl greeted freshly-sat glasses man as she left. She is 3rd yr student? He is creative writing prof? Teacher?
The main thing when sitting working in a coffee shop is to be considered. To be considered cool is desirable. To be considered Hot is ideal. To be considered hot by other patrons is validating. To be considered hot by a barista is simply to be hot--and is thus a triumph.
[wrote some more but not typing all not bc personal but bc sleepy]
(Missing Bean 3:21pm, typed in notes app)
The man sitting across from me, salt and pepper stubble, glasses, creative writing prof at _______?, working now on screenplay, [just] made conversation. Are you from the states? He asked. [He must had overheard me Americanly buying the half-priced baguette] We conversed. I have not spoken to another person today (other than at children’s bookstore, where I peeked in and asked about job prospects) and my words came too thick and too many.
I deserve to know what his read of me was. I deserve to know what he was thinking before, during, and after our conversation, what initially led him to start talking to me, whether it went better or worse than expected, whether he was glad afterwards of having initiated, whether he would do the same again if given the opportunity. I want to ask him about my performance, if there was anything I could have done differently, if there are any areas for improvement, if he has any constructive criticism so that I can do better the next time a man with glasses and salt-and-pepper stubble begins a conversation with me in a coffee shop. I deserve feedback. I deserve guidance. I deserve to know what he wanted from this, in the realms of both realistic and fantastical payoff. Was this a moment of general human connection, the kind that they say on NPR makes us happier, a friendly chat with a stranger in a waiting room, a brief relationship developed with the woman in the seat next to you on the flight from LAX to Midway? Or was there a desire to take this to a second location? Is there another version of me hovering in the back of an active imagination, one that laughed in the right places and said the ideal expected and unexpected things, said “yes” and “yes” and "maybe…” and “I shouldn’t… but…” and “yes” and “yes” and “yeS” and YES!” and “YES!” and “ohgodohGODyesyeSYESYES.” I deserve to know these things. I deserve to know where I stand, where I recline, where I lie back, where I straddle.
I deserve to know what medium I am to be painted in, sculpted in, what genre I am to be written in, how many lines I have. I deserve to know whether my role requires nudity, an intimacy coordinator, an accent coach. I deserve a second coffee. I deserve a slice of cake. I deserve a world in which an afternoon is really just the start of something, in which an evening is really just the start of something, in which entering bed, closing eyes, turning out light is really just the start of something. I deserve a slice of life, a life sliced and sold at 50% off. I deserve a croissant that flakes in the mouth but not in the hand, not on the plate, not all over the lap.
I deserve to be mentored. I deserve to be guided. I deserve to be visited on a forested (but well-lit and clearly-marked) path by an angel incarnate, a disguised representative of God himself who judges my actions and finds them morally commendable, who judges my outfit and proclaims me a “fashionista,” who judges my face and says “THAT could launch at LEAST a few ships — anyone got any ships? Look at this face, y’all! Don’t tell me you’re not ready to launch your ships. Boys! Let’s get those ships LAUNCHED!”
I deserve a big blue ribbon that says “#1.” I deserve a big blue ribbon that says “WINNER!” I deserve a featured jam stall at the county fair. I deserve to be considered and commended. I Deserve a double macchiato, a pain au chocolat, and a baguette. I deserve a 3pm phone meeting with a slick man who is just trying to get his AirPods sorted out. I deserve a Thursday that is followed smoothly and joyfully by a Friday. I deserve a Thursday that leads fearlessly and bravely to a Friday, a rich Friday, a Friday that lasts from morning to evening, a Friday that does not attempt even slightly to defeat itself.
(5:18pm, home, dining room table, lighting dim)
Have been thinking a lot (per usual) about what a diary is and whether this is a diary. I often tell myself that I should be using the diary format to really describe/keep track of What I Do Each Day. Woke up, scrolled, brushed teeth, downstairs for breakfast, made pour-over coffee using shitty £3.50 M&S grounds, leftover carrot cake, Tesco sparkling water, etc etc, walk to magdalen road, into book shop, asked about jobs, chatted, over to Missing Bean, worked there for maybe 2 hours, back home, made miraculously delicious leftover chicken sandwich etc etc etc. The beauty of this kind of a diary is that there is no need to pretend the "I" matters, or get bogged down by idea of personality, rich inner life, individual character, selfhood. You needn't pretend that the details of living are anything other than dull when listed. But! When strung together, day after day, year after year, they become History. This is the Samuel Pepys school of diary-keeping (note: portrait of Samuel Pepys in Bod Lower Reading Room, I think near corner w/ Clarendon view). The exact map/sequence/schedule is inherently unique but historically/culturally representative. We can use it to answer the question: how did people like that live there back then?
I don't do this. I forget to list my movements. Doctors appointments, dinners, etc, hover exclusively in email confirmations - Google calendar entries - "see you tomorrow" text messages. I find listing my movements at best tedious, more often depressing. Instead of actions, I see a series of "should have"s and "didn't"s. And besides, is this form of traditional diary outdated? Can first I ______, then I _____..., accurately capture days injected with pulsing, flashing, algorithmically-optimized Content? Should I note my daily screen time? Should I list/describe each of the 1000 tiktok videos that flash by (and how long I stick around before swiping past) and each instagram reel recipe I save in an attempt to capture the sheer scale of sound/image/message/face/etc I consume by 10am?? Write down the day's trending reddit topics? The wordle answer?
My diary is less a firm, complete record and more a stream-of-consciousness ramble. But is it even that? I fail to share truly personal details. I share too much and too little - I will give background that I don't need for myself, say "my mom" instead of "Mama," as if writing for an external reader. I withhold or encode the crass and the vulgar - although it's not like I write "secrets" in a separate, private diary. Maybe I should, maybe that would be good for me. (Read: Journal of Emily Shore, entry for July 6, 1838. Note: ability of ventriloquists to create an external "honest" self). Occasionally I'll write or type an entry and not post it, but usually because it's too self-indulgent, or has details about identifiable people I don't want identified, or I hope to turn it into ~a real piece of writing.~ So my journal is personal, but not enticingly erotic in a Carrie Bradshaw sex diary way, or messily relatable in a Bridget Jones weight-gained, wine-drank way, more dog-on-therapist-couch-in-New-Yorker-cartoon. Stream-of-self-consciousness, if you will.
Goal for tomorrow: ignore the self! Ignore! Don't think! Just describe external things. 5 senses, all that. Just describe the world as it happens. Don't worry, you'll be in it, the way a camera is in a photo - that's all.
09.12.2025 Rad Cam
Empty head not a single thought not even an image.09.09.2025
Need to stop excavating the self, move on to more fertile sites. It is a dull sort of undoing to spend all day staring at my own tongue in the mirror (cite: "I'm Yours," Jason Mraz).09.08.2025 (kitchen island)
Dizzy sort of morning.Woke up at I think 6:07am, woke up all the way awake, too awake to pretend to be anything else. Scrolled on my phone -- stopped myself. Teeth brushed. Downstairs. Coffee. Almond butter. Sudden sense of hollow loss and longing so intense I felt it pulling my collarbones back and down. Realized the collarbone feeling might actually be byproduct not of emotional suffering but of yesterday's pilates class. Rolled out my yoga mat on dining room floor to stretch, try to remedy. Put in vaguely broken Apple EarPods(TM) and, on a whim, turned on long-abandoned "Pillow Fort Chill" Spotify playlist from 2016. Punch to gut and sternum.
It all feels so far away now. The room in New Grad, stretching my quilt across the gap between my lofted bed and Alex's, arranging pillows and blankets and Alex's battery-powered tea lights below, nesting in the in-between where childhood was cozy-close, adulthood was future-tense and glinted with romantic promise.
8ish am, curled fetal on TK Maxx synthetically-outgassing yoga mat laid over gapping floorboards. Sufjan. Spoon. The Shins. Vampire Weekend. Arctic Monkeys. The Velvet Underground. Belle and Sebastian... And everyone I'd brought to college from home - James Taylor, Simon and Garfunkel, John Prine, Sam Cooke, Carole King, David Grisman, The Jayhawks, The Beatles......
Pulled my sweatshirt hood over my face and drew the drawstring tight so that if Lily came downstairs she wouldn't be confronted with sentimentality, only reduced visibility.
Ate rest of bag of mature cheddar and onion crisps and felt nauseous. Ate milk chocolate to balance savory nausea with sweet nausea.
Need to build a blanket fort, maybe tonight (watch out for house spiders -- huge one yesterday near couch). Need to remember what it is to feel that the world is a place of burrows made, enjoyed, unmade, of quick construction and deconstruction, of building, of sharing, of summer camp stargazing, Peter Bjorn & John and MGMT and Feist, Justin Timberlake's "Summer Love" playing on the radio next to Arielle's pool, Otter Pops, morning bagels, birthday cupcakes, who-will-go-where for college, actually going there, orientation-week frat parties, a big pack of wide eyes trailing the boy who says he knows where he's going, borrowed American Apparel shirts, the certainty that the next party will be the party where it all happens, shots shots shots that cannot damage the liver because there is no liver, the liver does not exist, flirtations that can be laughed at because the next party will be the party where it all happens. I can't remember what it felt like to be in it.
I remember some things, high school junior year eating lunch alone in the art classroom, pretending to paint, "Diet Mountain Dew" playing over the Smartboard speakers, pulled up on Pandora by girls (---, ---, and ---?) who hadn't noticed me there. Even that feels pleasantly nostalgic now, hazy.
I remember being 14, 15 maybe, at camp, going around the circle during evening cabin chat, deep enough into the week that we'd all started sharing things we hadn't realized we'd been waiting to share. I remember saying it had dawned on me while listening to James Taylor ("Carolina in my Mind," maybe?) that I didn't remember my dad's voice at all, that at some point as a kid I'd decided James Taylor's singing voice sounded like my dad's and that I would listen to his "Greatest Hits" CD over and over. James Taylor's, that is. And after cabin chat, when I'd wiped away my snot and Aladdin (if it was Aladdin) held me tight in a shockingly muscular hug, a frat boy gym bro hug, I found myself wondering when I'd last been hugged like that, if I'd ever been hugged like that. I remember wondering what I wanted from this sharing, what it was all for, where the words came from, feeling dirty, somehow dishonest, wanting to be hugged again, not by Aladdin, but by other strong arms. I wanted to share again, cry, be held, recover, share, grow close through it, grow tighter, press up, pull in.
I tried to take that hug into the world. I'd experiment with small confessions, I'd listen to "Fire and Rain," I'd build pillow forts, I'd try to infiltrate classmates' lunchtime circles, I'd frown uncomprehendingly at book characters who said "I don't WANT PITY !!" I'd drink a Naked Juice, I'd drink a Vanilla Starbucks Latte, I'd pick the tomatoes out of Larchmont Wine and Cheese caprese sandwiches, I'd watch free Vampire Diaries episodes on Hulu, I'd wait for the world to begin.
It's 2:38pm already, somehow. Need to stop seeking comfort in confession and memory. Need to get cleaned up and go on walk while there is glorious sun in the sky.
Pt. 2:
Finally left house, walked to Christ Church meadow, bought Tesco water bottle, up St. Aldates to St. Giles fair, felt overwhelmed, didn't even get knee-deep before turning back around, back to (other) Tesco, bought reduced price fruit and cookies, back to Christ Church meadow, sat on bench by Isis trying to finish CV rewrite
Haven't been sleeping. Need to find place to live. Need to get job. Need need need need.
09.07.2025 (drinking twinings "sleep" tea from "wellbeing collection")
Took two studio classes today, pilates in am, restorative yoga in afternoon, bc 14 day yoga trial expires today and I wanted to squeeze those credits for all they're worth.Restorative yoga was a series of held positions.