0xdeadbeef

[belle-ciao]

Zero effing energy

It’s finally Friday, and I have zero effing energy.

I believe I’ve been “accumulating” this lack of energy since the beginning of the pandemic.

I occasionally have energy bursts which make me overwork, overcommit, do more stuff than I can physically do, and often be very creative.

The pandemic seem to have screwed up with my energy. I was an avid reader, I used to play a lot of games in my free time, watch movies, animations and series. Some things still gave me pleasure, but now it seems so hard to find that drop of dopamine.

I don’t feel like I’m actually resting just using my phone all the time. I may skip work, but I’ll still be home doing nothing and staring at screens.

I don’t think burnout is only caused by work, but I think staying home and having a hard time separating work from personal life and not going out very often may cause it.

Anyways, I’m tired, very tired. I don’t have enough spoons today for anything. I just want to exist in a low-battery mode.

[belle-ciao]

On navigating love and anxiety

I’m in love. 

I met this person on OkCupid a couple of months ago and we went on a date last Thursday. It was great, it was nice talking to them, and then when we were going back home we held hands and it made my heart warm. 

We went on another date this Wednesday and it was just as great. I told them that I was in love and they shrugged and cringed and they were overwhelmed, but we still walked around holding hands and we had other kinds conversations. 

I told them through text that I had some expectations, and that I worried about going too fast (something I tend to do). 

Things I have to work on: 

- I keep waiting for them to respond to my messages, even though I know they take a long, looooong time to read their messages. That makes me anxious, and it’s not their fault. 

- I keep thinking that I’m moving too fast. Sometimes I feel like an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object. 

---

Sometimes I feel very depressed because I feel like I may be too overwhelming and that I somehow make people go away. I hope this doesn’t happen right now. 

Anyways, I’m in this melancholic mood because I’m really in love but I’m also feeling very anxious. 

[belle-ciao]

It’s my birthday and I’m depressed

So, yesterday it was New Year’s Eve, and after a change of plans I ended up being completely lonely. Not only that, but I wasn’t really in the mood for going out…

I’ve spend the New Year’s Eve alone, watching Sailor Moon and Moonrise Kingdom, had a bite of a magic cookie and went to sleep, without even waiting for the new year.

To make things worse, today is my birthday and again, nobody. I mean, people did remember my birthday and that’s amazing, but I’m really craving physical contact, having people around.

I feel so lonely and depressed that I’m easily crying. And it’s not my friend’s fault but myself. I was the one that canceled all the plans and decided not to have a birthday party anymore.

I feel like my long gone depression is coming back.

[belle-ciao]

Meeting people is easy

This is the title of a Radiohead documentary that they’ve recorded back in the OK Computer sessions.

I love this title because I find it so ironic. I’ve been fighting against social anxiety my whole life and I can tell you that meeting people is really difficult.

That always chimes in when I download dating apps. Lately I’ve been able to get a couple of matches and they seem nice. But idk, my brain just expects that I will have that spark with people I meet and that doesn’t happen as easily.

And after some time, dating apps seem so pointless. You start swiping on a bunch of people, you rarely get matches and you start wondering whether there’s something wrong with you or with your profile.

To make things worse, I’m trans, autistic, demi and lesbian.

I wish meeting people was easy.

[belle-ciao]

On being just friends

So, I’ve had a crush on a girl, but she wants to be just friends. And I’m awesomely okay with that!

I’ve been through that a lot of times. Being in love and then feeling the “rejection” that is not actually a rejection, but the person is simply not in the same vibe.

I fortunately learned how to deal with that. Being friends is great, and I don’t like going through the logic of throwing people away.

Anyways, I’m happy. Thanks for this girl for being my friend :)

(Apologies for the weird English, as I’m not thinking straight)

[belle-ciao]

I feel like I don’t have enough sensory stimulus and I want to scream

I’m autistic. Sometimes, too much sensory input can drive me mad. Sometimes, too little sensory input can drive me mad.

It’s awesome to work from home, but I miss taking the train, seeing people, touching and being touched. I’m in one of these days when I can’t sit still. This is something that kind of overlaps with ADHD: I’m feeling hyperactive and I haven’t enough sensory input to satisfy my sensory needs. If only I could leave my house without fearing for my life and for the live of the ones I love. Get some fresh air, see people.

Sometimes I wait anxiously for people to respond to my messages, sometimes I feel like an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object. Sometimes it’s the other way around: I often dry my whole energy and become too depressed to even leave the bed.

[amethblowl-deactivated20211130]

Elliott Smith in Brooklyn, 1998

[belle-ciao]

Soundlinks #1

It’s a linked list of music. For each band that I add, I will also add artists that are somehow related to this one. (Might turn it into a tree someday)

First song is Car, by Built To Spill. They relate to other 90s indie/college rock bands such as Silkworm, Pavement and Dinosaur Jr. They also remind me of Pinback

Pinback remind me of Portishead, Alt-J and Yo La Tengo.

Alt-J reminds me of The National. Both have this depth and sadness to it.

The National’s Matt Berninger’s bass-baritone voice reminds me of Interpol - a band that I like to place as part of a post punk revival movement from the 2000s.

Interpol reminds me of another great 2000s band - the kind of band that was featured in Rock Band. Yeah Yeah Yeahs!

Which reminds me of The Killers and the early Muse.

[belle-ciao]

https://youtu.be/HJzp2SRs0Ak

This song by Agnes Obel is simple and beautiful. Agnes music reminds me of Aurora.

This is the kind of music that I would hear in a wooden house, deep in a foggy forest.

[belle-ciao]

https://youtu.be/WTxkLGBkcO0

Being in space must be lonesome, cold and oddly beautiful.

Can you imagine feeling homesick in space?

[belle-ciao]

I’m really obsessed with William Basinski. Basinski is mostly known for Disintegration Loops, an accidental masterpiece made with deteriorating tapes that was finished on a tragic day (9/11/2001).

https://youtu.be/dgVyl9CxHpM

The footage that is featured is strangely beautiful and sad and nostalgic (in the sense of melancholic nostalgia).

https://youtu.be/ObdZ8lhC0f0

I was 2 years old when the towers collapsed, I don’t remember anything, I don’t even live in the US, but the world has definitely changed after this event. This album brings me some strange kind of memories, foggy memories.

William Basinski always capture this eerie kind of feeling in his music.

https://youtu.be/eEkx4AVRZjg

[belle-ciao]

A friend recommended this song to me and I’m completely obsessed with Pinback.

It’s definitely the kind of music that you hear when kind of depressed (but not desperately sad, just melancholic or nostalgic), maybe when it’s cold. Maybe when walking around the city in a rainy day.

Pinback reminds me of Alt-J a lot. Both have this depth in their songs, both feel strangely dancy and melancholic. Both have these bass and guitar lines that are simple, yet powerful.

The similarities are even more clear in Loro, that definitely reminds me of Alt-J’s Taro.

Pinback also reminds me of Yo La Tengo, Portishead and Built to Spill.

[belle-ciao]

Something funny about me: I always feel some kind of nostalgia from the previous years.

2020 was a crazy year, not just with the pandemic but with a bunch of changes in my personal life.

And I kind of started feeling really nostalgic for the beginning of the quarantine. Suddenly, I was working from home, I had to go back to my parents house, I didn’t have to take the crowded train anymore or wake up super early.

I had a bunch of free time and I wanted to do things: study everything, play some games, read plenty of books, attend French classes online, make a lot of bad drawings. Took me a week to freak out! We could hear the silence on the streets, and the sky looked so different back then, when most people actually stayed at home. It was creepy, the future was uncertain (and it still is) but I was able to carry on.

Anyways, playing Animal Crossing again reminds me of this early pandemic vibe. It was the game that helped me to not freak out. And boy do I look cute in this game.