box opener – Page 25 – must a sport be entertaining to watch?

i can feel the edges of where i could tip over into a weird and yawning sadness, but i’m not doing it! everything is fine. today i have lain on the grass both productively and unproductively, and consumed a lunch without repercussions. i am very much inside my body, but that’s okay, it feels all right in here. not great, but just fine. i am writing a poem that can seem to trap the reader in a loop, but actually there’s a way to get out. that’s the feeling for today: you can get trapped in a loop, but you can also get out.

ah yes, friday, the day i set aside each week for spending two bewildered hours being wildly, unreasoningly fascinated by the new postdoc, who i’ve spoken to once, for ten minutes, about baking

UPDATE: THE FRAT HOUSES ACROSS THE STREET ARE PLAYING A TECHNO DANCE REMIX OF WONDERWALL AT MAXIMUM VOLUME

guess which opaque intersection of planes just presented some WORM SCIENCE to a bunch of WORM SCIENTISTS
it’s me. i did

well my boss looked at the (¾ths of a) poster i was able to assemble by myself and seemed to be of the opinion that it was a good presentation of the data/an interesting story which is holy shit an unbelievable relief to me, i’ve never assembled a poster before, i have no idea what i’m doing
like on some level i’m aware that i’m actually possessed of some degree of expertise as far as my research subject is concerned, and also that i do in fact know how to write and frame a narrative, but i’m so constantly aware of all the ways in which i am a total knowledge&experience-free infant that it’s hard to put any weight on it
but oh my god, i’m actually kind of good at biology, and the thing is i really love it, i like figuring out how to think about these problems and i like thinking about complex systems and talking them over with other people and i like working with data and microscopes and i especially like figuring out how to communicate things about this to other people, i can actually do??? my job????? in the field i am planning to pursue even more years of specialized training in? so uh that’s a relief lmao

so i’m presenting a poster at a conference on thursday which i’m excited about except i have 1. a really unambiguous men’s haircut which also brings out Confusing Androgyny Face lmao and 2. a very high/femmy professional presenting-things voice (and also in general lmao)

since i also have my girlname on my poster & the program & that’s how i’ll be introducing myself, i should definitely wear girl formalwear but 1. i don’t really… own much of that anymore 2. most of the stuff i’m comfortable in makes me read to myself as almost more masc just due to like… dissonance. it’s weird bc i didn’t used to think that basically at all but now every time i wear girlclothes im like “hmmm. shoulders. shoulders. face? body…. shape. hhaaaands. ………no”. i don’t think my body has changed at all except haircut so maybe it’s just my perception and not how anyone else will see me? probably that even. but still. ….hghgk

some very sad excerpts from my current workflow

[sad on main]

[it wants to be a numb dull thing; or an obelisk in a room; or an arrangement of many intersecting ropes that describe, in the space between them, an empty space shaped like a person; or, most usefully, precisely itself, but with the “conscious experience” module only active at specific times]

[or, you know, it would like to be exactly itself but with, let’s say, everything from 5π/4 to 7π/4 excised, for quality control. maximal usefulness, minimal minima, enough negative-values range to give some purchase for neighboring intelligences]

WEIRD sad, just like… a weird, weird sad