Discoveries From The Notebook

To the tune of Applebottom Jeans:

Covid-19

pants with the stain

most likely developing chronic back pain

I had a dream where celebrity lookalike contests meant you were the new celebrity. If you won a Mylee Cyrus lookalike contest, you were by default the new Mylee Cyrus. People were getting plastic surgery and there was like, a new Kim Kardashian every day. Celebrities were getting crazy, unreplicable tattoos, people were investing in makeup artists, it was chaos.

Note: I haven’t actually double-checked any of this recently, so take this all with a grain of salt.

• Humans have 5 fingers because any more results in flippers and any less results in hooves.
• We developed Uncanny Valley to spot snakes and other human species.
• Fingerprints have nothing to do with genetics: it’s when your hands press up against the womb.
• We still have arm and leg hair because it makes it harder for parasites to suck our blood and easier for us to detect them.
• Before our teeth grow in, they’re stored under our eyes.
• When bodies are flung away from lightning strikes, it’s not because of the impact but because your body launches you out of harm’s way.
• Most handprints and cave art were made by women. (Not sure why.)
• Another effect of our pattern-seeking brain is seeing shapes and faces in things like cars or tile splotches.
• If you ever suddenly jerk away, it’s because your heart rate dropped fast enough that your body had to make sure you weren’t dead.

I dreamed I was in a grocery store. One of those well-lit ones, but it was entirely empty except for me. Outside you could hear the wind, like when you’re in a car and it’s blizzarding outside, but more musical. I walked around for a bit, grabbed some Jello and instant pasta, and headed to checkout. Once I realized there was no one to check me out, I just kind of..left. I didn’t even bring my cart with me. Outside the doors, there was an entire abandoned city. But not like, ruins. Like everyone had suddenly disappeared. It was snowing and the wind was still loud and spooky. But, it was warm outside — I remember because I was in shorts. Somehow this didn’t totally creep me out, and I walked through the streets. Before anything else happened, I woke up.

HUMAN THINGS THAT I FIND ADORABLE

• making handprints/seeing a handprint and immediately putting hand on it
• playing with each others hair
• the excitement and chaos that comes with finding a Really Good Stick
• going barefoot for things that require shoes
• storytelling
• hi-fives
• “it’s dark, someone come with me”
• talking in sleep
• thinking fire is the coolest
• hitting people with long sleeves
• talking to inanimate objects
• building sandcastles and snow forts
• jumping in waves
• seeing a baby; “can I hold your baby?”
• staying up late talking about stuff
• taking care of each other after sickness or pain
• holding the door for people
• friendly conversations with strangers
• watching the rain
• singing!
• collecting pretty rocks
• the urge to put something in new pockets
• wanting to pet dangerous animals
• picking up stuff with toes
• mimicking sounds of things
• face paint

Zombies, as always. Except I think somehow these ones were a covid variant or something, because those notifications (“you have been exposed to covid”) had been modified and would go off if someone who was a zombie was nearby. Dad and I were trying to raid a grocery store. It was pitch black outside, dusty, and dead quiet. We were making our way back to the car, which was on the far end of the parking lot. Out of nowhere, my phone started buzzing, and when I checked it, it was virus notification after virus notification, so many that my phone was freezing. We could hear them shuffling over. Dad grabbed my hand and kept us at the same pace to get to the car, and he kept telling me to keep calm. The car doors were opening super slow and I kept fumbling the keys.

That’s when I woke up at 4:00 am. I think my brain was finally like “Woah, hey. This is NOT relaxing.” and pulled me out. I had to sit there and process myself out of thinking it was real for a good minute.

Note (from the blog, not the notebook)– that was easily one of, if not the scariest nightmare. I’ve ever had. I’ll never forget all of the covid notifications blowing up my phone and the pitch black parking lot, and how real the whole thing felt. Those notifications were real, by the way. If you had an iphone, it would automatically ping you if someone near you had covid. It felt very apocalyptic.

(Written after my own bout with covid had left me temporarily weakened and struggling.)

Being Nice to My Body

My lungs are made of cellophane: / I feel them waver when I wheeze.

But even then, despite the pain / they work hard to let me breathe.

My heart is loud and squishy: / it pumps weakly as can be.

But even then, despite the headache / it still keeps up with me.

My hands are quick and clumsy: / they make much imperfect art.

But I’m learning to forgive them, / like I do for lungs and heart.

Every “Motivational” video ever

[shot of a sweaty man running in slow motion on a dirt track in the rain in such high resolution that you can see every single pore] [super dramatic music]

“You gotta get up and go. You gotta bleed daily and work so hard that your bones give out and you cry vomit. Because life isn’t fair and everyone wants to kill you.”

[montage of a guy doing only sports related stuff and falling down, always in black and white or some weird filter] [louder music] [narrator shouting for some reason]

“You gotta remember that if you don’t give 130% at all times, you shouldn’t even be alive! If you don’t push yourself to exhaustion you are wasting all of your potential!”

[guy scores a goal or wins a race]

“Remember…to…live.”

[black and white cheesy quote in basic font as music fades out]

Note from the blog: I think you can tell how annoyed I was from the motivational videos I was forced to watch in student council.