california trip

Last week, I attended a wedding in southern California. My family has been in anticipation for months and I’m glad it’s over. I enjoyed my time. I currently struggle with some collateral emotional complexities though.

I kept various observations in my sketchbook and I took various photos and videos too. That’s why I’m making this journal post ଘ(੭˃ᴗ˂)━☆ﾟ.*･

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airplane

An airport can sprawl like a nervous system. Airplanes are a little bit like digital communications; packets, maybe. Each layer of the plane represents a function, and people are the communication data. The overlap between a body, an airport, and a communication network is really something brilliant.

Middle America is marked with the circles and the squares of colonialism. The space has been manicured for production and has no life except the life that exists to be consumed. At least America does consumerism well.

The airplane bathroom had soap sitting at an angle and a sign that communicated “do not drink the water”. The plane had at least two categories of water: consumptive and productive. Beneath the surface there is a network of decisions. Networks are everywhere it seems.

The flight home was diverted (and terrifying) and the airplane was grounded for two hours. Before the second departure, the attendant announced that the ground crew needed to change the lavatory because it was full. “The lav”, she called it. The plane also had categories of waste. Plane as communication, or plane as insect? Maybe these are the same thing.

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wedding

Before the wedding, I got super drunk on expensive mezcal. I stood outside a taco place and smoked a cigarette and my brother asked when I got so witchy. The next morning I was very hungover and I vomited out of the car window and I vomited more when I arrived at the venue. My body cleared up as I waited in the bridal suite.

My hair and makeup were done by professionals. My dress complimented my skin tone and my figure. The skirt reached my feet and had been hemmed to my heel. I could not look at myself which I recognized as dysphoria.

For me, dysphoria is a discomfort with the gender binary because of its relation to sex. I was a normal woman and I hated it. Apparently, I was stunning though I took no pictures and refuse to look at any. I have acute dysmorphia, which I think is something of an illness. Dysphoria is just a reaction to the absurd pairing of genital and social role.

The wedding was wonderful. I was too busy to make any direct observations.

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beach

We spent our final evening at Manhattan Beach and I wanted to find seashells. I thought I did not like beaches though the beach was a highlight of my trip and I want to visit again. The waves, large and strong, pushed the shoreline towards the land. The water that rushed around my calves carried the warmth of the sun and I sank as it pushed stressed sand away.

I didn’t find any seashells, but as I made my way back to my mother I noticed a subtle wiggle in the wet sand. I wanted to see the tiny clams I recall from my childhood, so I pushed the sand aside with my foot. It was not a tiny clam, but instead a sort of isopod (!) and its thin legs squirmed as it burrowed back into the sand. I startled and skittered away, giggling.

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complications

My eating disorder has flared up. I loved wedding cake. It was half cookies and cream and half espresso and so well made. All the food we ate was wonderful. And now I am in a fight with myself to be normal about my diet. I maintain a strict diet of mostly whole foods and I don’t snack out of schedule. Still, I feel my body press against my clothes and the air and I have a need to remediate. I think I’m going through a bout of psychosis, so I’m doing what I can to dissociate and be objective.

My mother took photos of me at the beach. I eventually looked at them and a visceral disgust welled up and overwhelmed me. My mother really likes the photos and I tried to keep my thoughts to myself. “I hate that you hate that” she says when we talk about the photos of me. I don’t know how to combat my self-hatred other than trigger avoidance, but that’s complicated when the trigger is my body. “The trigger is my body” reminds me of mirrors when I was a boy so I guess some things don’t change.

I am also washed over by ennui and I don’t know what I want to do. This tends to happen when I experience new things in quick succession so it will pass, but it compounds… What matters most is I can find the good in all of this. I know I can’t trust myself, which means I know how to rationalize these struggles. I just need time to process and move on.