movies:
  1. prisoners (2013) ★★★★★
  2. running man (2025) ★★☆☆☆
  3. there will be blood (2007) ★★★☆☆
  4. pulp fiction (1994) ★★☆☆☆
  5. bodies bodies bodies (2022) ★☆☆☆☆
  6. bring her back (2025) ★★☆☆☆
  7. the collector (2009) ★★☆☆☆
  8. the collection (2012)★★☆☆☆
  9. no country for old men (2007) ★★★☆☆
  10. arrival (2016) ★★★★☆
  11. the fall (2006) ★★★★★
  12. swiss army man (2016) ★★★★☆
  13. fight club (1999) ★★★★★
  14. no other choice (2025) ★★★★★
  15. tár (2025) ★★★★★

winter wrap up

good afternoon anon,

in the time since i last updated my site, i've lost my job, became a cinephile, made some poor life decisions, made some good life decisions, had my birthday week celebration, made friends, lost friends, got my permit, saw my family, got some piercings, started two new stories, and had my bird fly back to me. my nails look like the greenish iridescent carapace of a beetle and i'm older now, my family told me i didn't "look like a kid anymore" when they saw me. when i look down at my hands, they look more and more like my mom's, the tendons are more prominent, the veins more obvious and blue. i had a mental breakdown and had delusions that i was the public universal friend for a time. i do things now that surprise me, things carrying the burden of shame and a magnificent guilt but i'm told to go along with it and "follow my heart". yes, that's correct, everything has always gone wrong and terrible because i haven't simply been doing that the whole time. what if my HEART is wrong, nobody ever asks that question, huh... being unemployed has me so audacious. i saw an ad for a hot air balloon and thought, why the hell am i not on one of those right now? i look for jobs in national parks and other beautiful far away places. maybe i'll go somewhere someday.

february plans include reading all the books in my library, getting my car, going back to chicago to hang out with a friend, getting a new job, uhh...

accidentally met my dream woman, my ruby sparks? huh. funny...

you have to chase life like you're starving for it

i read that phrase in a tumblr post which motivated me to assert some agency over my own life since i rarely ever do - the harsh consequences of lacking reality privilege. fact #1: i answer to everything with impulse. spun the numbers around and hatched a plan for an impromptu trip to chicago with some coworkers.

i feel vindicated for feeling the way i always have about touching grass and making friends. when the people you're going with lack social decorum or any ostensible interest in carrying conversations, it lessens the appeal of "socializing" and "making friends". it made me miss my caged bird, and some of the women i'm no longer in contact with. because of their absences, i've been feeling very lonely lately. i'm grateful for the people i do have and thank them endlessly for their being here, but there's still something large missing from my life. something i'm trying to find that i can't really place. it made way for a desire i usually try to keep secret... that desperate yearning for more than work and exhaustion and getting three days a month to plan a trip with people who don't see or understand me. when the cosmic cat coughed up the hairballs that were each of us specimens, it felt pretty bad that we couldn't choose who we were, you know? i had to be particular and high-strung and operate in a way that very few people on the planet can tolerate, while i myself tolerate others scarcely. the struggle is real but, sincerely, who gives a shit...

ahem. the dioscuri told me recently that she actually views me as a FRIEND. she's "reticent about meeting strangers online" (understandable) but is making the exception for me. which is insane because i feel like in most of the important ways, i would be someone she actually quite... dislikes. and she has said as much, on account of our different political views. but people are drawn to their counterparts at the end of the day, i suppose. it's why i'm the only dog person in my friend group and everyone else is a cat person (though the dioscuri is a dog person as well?! all of our other differences make up for our similarities!) the dog versus cat war not only places one on the political spectrum but tells me all about one's sexual needs and desires. phoenix believed this uncontested and even proved, with an anecdote of his own, my theory. these are field notes in action. where else will you get this sick, sick feedback.

i played saihate station and was disappointed by it. it's a perfectly average game, but not to my tastes, at least when it comes to the dynamic between the main characters and reasoning behind their attachment to each other. it was all very cliche, all the way down to the sister reveal. it made me want to make my own yandere thing; maybe i'll get to that some time after decalcomania...

i told ███ about the ██████ ███████ and now █████████████████████ haha... ████████████████████████ ██████████████████████████ █████████████ ██████████████████████ ███████████████████████ ███████████████████████████████ what a victim! i can't wait to make new art about the pain. i LOVE comparing the toys!

anyway, i do still draw. this is for a project i will be working on after decalcomania is finished. bon appetit

actually the word 'project' lacks the heft of what it really is. uh. i guess words are meaningless at this point. you'll see. maybe.

and speaking of decalcomania... i made it to the halfway mark. here's what the critics are saying:


hmm... until next time

?

monthly round up #1

phoenix has been gone for exactly 3 days over a month. his absence feels like tragedy and pulls me into spirals, swirling vortex, thin pendulums in hollow earth. i'm tired all the time and feel stuck somehow even more often. but i want to go home, "better i die [there] with [him]" he said, so i'll behave.

a coworker at my old job got elevated to friend status. we ate at the new place i'm working at and spent some time walking around in the plaza afterwards, talking about our job and our lives. she's incredibly funny, charming, and down to earth -- we got along well at work, both casually exchanging information rather than getting in the swing of socialization like our other coworkers. we're quiet, or rather i'm quiet, straight faced, unsmiling. she's chipper and sweet and bubbly. but we only ever talk about one thing on the clock (our job), which others us from the younger-ish crowd working there. when we hung out, i realized how little i knew about her. she recently got out of a long marriage with the most selfish, undeserving man possible, one who cheated on her with a tiktoker in florida who owns six french bulldogs. she regaled me with accounts of their walmart thieving and his constant pathetic emails, telling her he made a mistake, he regrets everything, etc etc...

the plaza lead to a small, unfinished amphitheater, erect stone tablets in the clearing, half lit, half left in the dark. a grand total of 0 words were chiseled into them. even the bridge (generous word -- two wooden railways without flooring) leading up to the pergola had no path paved to it. like the mayor's little side project lost funding and got abandoned midway.

i am an incredibly cagey person when it comes to broadcasting what projects i'm working on lately, so this is a hard task for me, but i'm going to share a bit about what i've been occupied with. the first of the projects is an interactive fiction/vn with ei-person about three characters facing the end of the sun. it's a middle eastern desert setting with some fantasy elements to it, and there's a focus on the personal dynamics between the characters. it'll have a few endings, some gorgeous art work done by ei, and maybe even a unique OST...?! please look forward to it.

my primary project is my longform story. calling it a novel feels... pretentious, but it's something like that. it's about twin sisters separated for ten years that plan a trip to see each other. it's a very #wholesome story. there will be no death and there will be no pain. this world lacks taboo. and denies all things scary and dark.

played the demo for morsels. its one of my most anticipated games this year. so is dino run 2, long awaited sequel to the dinosaur extinction side scrolling multiplayer platformer... the wish of a childhood memory crystalized in a kickstarter campaign. i backed it, obviously. you should too.

recent-ish reads:

song for this update: let it happen

an unfriendly alexithymic apparition haunting this image phoenix took

some finds from my trip back home (muji planner, zine, print) and recent ish things (lip stain, cat tweezers, digital camera)

some stickers i bought for my lenowo twinkpad that finally came in. courtesy of princepuca. support female artists!

dear phoenix

(2:05 AM)
If you’re alive in the morning and wish you weren’t just remember you still have to come back home
(2:06 AM)
Better you die here with me

i find it remarkably funny how our cataclysms managed to line up. just a week and a half ago you'd told me you were taking a break and i worried for you, like always, and i wished i could be there for you, sad, nervous, but i told you i loved you and that i'd be waiting for you when you're back. only i didn't realize that i too would fall apart just a few days later, like i have been for some time. i suffer a degenerative disease of the soul, where any holes that break it open never seal right, where i can bandage and dress my wounds but my spirit-flesh doesn't remember how it held together before, and sags and bleeds anyway. and i just haven't noticed until lately. maybe you relate to that.

i understand now with perfect clarity why you worded things the way you did when i came to your house the first time this year. "if things don't work out for you." i didn't realize that your elegant dancing around what you really meant to say was entirely by design. now we're two swans waltzing a miserable pas-de-deux of death and rebirth because it doesn't feel like things are working out for me either.

i'm really unsure of myself but in an emotional way lately, which is probably surprising to you when all i do is wax poetic about how i'm a freak loser with no future (that is to say, a more tangible, monetary fear.) but i'm not worried about that right now. i still have confidence i'll move back to our state and i'll be able to see you some more, and the job, the college, etc, that'll come later. but i don't know. more often than not i feel like today is the day i'll collapse or break for good. every day i feel this way. every day feels like the end of the fucking world for me. but you know the sad, pathetic thing? nothing's even happening. the world is spinning just as it always has. i go to work, come home with back pain, write on my computer or play games. but for some reason, everything is getting harder. it's the same, but incrementally more difficult. one more drop of water added to the bucket.

right, i said that i'm also experiencing a cataclysm. well, i've shut myself off from all forms of communication with people outside of my job. which isn't to say that i've lost much, you know i don't talk to anyone. but what few friends i do have, i've abandoned. they're all holed up in the summer cabin by the lake and it's winter now. i'm alone. i've replaced the time i usually spent with them with other activities... taking walks to the nearby park-ish thing, reading more, writing more. so it's the same pattern as always, go to work, come home, eat, write my stories, play games, take walks, read books and articles. it's nice. but worryingly, i don't miss them... the people. i used to go crazy with loneliness in the past, always wanting some sort of external attention to verify that i exist (you talk to me therefore i am), but now i'm at peace with my solitude. i really enjoy it. i want to be alone. totally. forever. crazy forest hermit living in the trees alone. and because i like it so much, because i'm so fucking maniacally happy to be alone, it worries me. i shouldn't breathe this great sigh of relief that finally i'm alone, finally it's just me in this awful world, finally i don't have to be anything, i can be nothing, i can be nobody, i can just go to work and keep myself supported, hooking myself up to life support, IV drip, and wait for the "real" to begin, later this year, abandon all that i know, forget it, not that i have memories associated with it anyway. it feels wrong. i shouldn't do this. it's "wrong". i can't just leave people. who care about me. who love me. but can't i? i want to.

it's this mental malaise that plagues me, this impermeable feeling of wrongness that came bundled with the human life experience. i've told you before that i was born wrong. like my body knows on a molecular, cellular level, that i was an accident and works overtime to remind me of this every chance it gets. thanks for giving me a thousand complexes by telling me i was unwanted, father. but it's not just him and his certain, unambiguous words. other people like to remind me of this, too. i'm treated differently by them. the world. i thought i could mask and pretend to be something else but i can't. i'm strange. and people know. i don't know how they know, but they do, and i try to be more like them, but i can't be. and even if they think i don't realize it, they really do treat me like the outsider i am. the only variable factor is my attitude towards it, whether i'm okay with being this or not. i don't know where i am right now. i don't feel like anything, and i don't feel anything. i'm not trying or not-not trying to be like them, i'm going through the motions. autopilot. on my back in the sea staring at the blank sky, being carried who knows where or how far. i used to equal-parts agonize over this and reassure myself i didn't care, but now i don't think anything. i genuinely have no thoughts lately. is it the meditation (yes i started meditating) doing that to me?

i feel like i'm losing myself, phoenix. i feel a lot like i don't know who i am anymore. i told you before how easy it is to lose ourselves in this semiotic world and, you know, i told you before that i have these terrible eyebags. didn't really have to tell that to you, i know you can just see them. they're so deep and i've had them ever since i was a kid. and i stepped out of the shower today, looking at myself in the mirror while i dried off, and all i could think of was how exhausted i looked. i look tired like it drains my energy just standing up, just existing. everything about my body sags. i was going to say it was a symbol of my exhaustion, but it's not a symbol, it's the direct result. god, i'm so tired. and i can never be honest about this. to people. to anyone. people don't really accept this sickness even if they pretend to. i know you do, because you're there. i like that it's just real between us. with others, it's different. people wanna remedy it with a diagnosis and pills. but i don't need a written note or chemicals, i need something to change. badly. i need something to shift backwards to the good times. it's a downwards slope that i see in everything -- yeah, THIS is the symbol, the negative spiral, the curl. the death. the death of all things, heat death of the entire fucking universe.

i used to think you and i were unkillable people but sometimes i catch the sun on my skin and i realize this isn't the flesh of gods, but soft animal tissue. other times i realize my past self, my self from last night, bought a donut for me to eat the next morning so i didn't have to make breakfast. and i feel a shred of relief. i hope you're finding relief too. wherever you are.

third visit's the charm, right? see you soon.

love,
winter