hi! i arrived
thanks for encouraging me to do a newsletter and now please place your expectations on the floor.
good morning
i am just waking up, sitting on my favorite rooftop itw and listening to this slowed eno & laraaji record.
i love the way it smells here. when i arrived, i thought of this text my friend dasha recently sent me: “Do you ever wish you could Shazam Smells? There’s a candle at this tea shop called Bardo and smells SO GOOD but has no label HAHAHHAHA” (any instance of all caps can be categorized somewhere on the *unhinged alignment chart; HA's are harmless-unhinged). there is something about the smell of this place that I am OBSESSED with(dangerous-unhinged). i would love to shazam the smell. is it humid fruit? jungle + ocean? candle name generator
i didn’t sleep the night before i left, and as a result, i had a raging headache by the time the plane landed. not my usual migraine, more of an all encompassing, TV static at 12/10 volume, chernobyl-ish feeling.
i got pulled aside in customs and had my things rifled through. luckily, a situation that would normally give me mega anxiety was no match for my newly pharmaceutically-altered nervous system- - beta blockers ftw. i suppose it could have also been due to my lobotomy-tier-headache. the gentlemen in charge of the rifling seemed bemused by my packing situation and aimlessly poked the keys of my keyboard as if it were a chubby belly. poke-poke.
there was confusion about some of the things i packed. the internet on my phone was barely working so i couldn’t translate. one man held up his phone for me to speak into his translation app. whatever i said seemed to produce an embarrassing result because they passed it back and forth and chuckled. i can’t say i blame them- i reckon i look suspicious enough to pull aside, but non-threatening enough for a chuckle. ultimately they let me go without too much trouble
a friend picked me up and we stopped by her place before she dropped me off. i got to meet her many many animals. and i pretended i wasn't in pain because i didn't want to be rude.
later i saw one of my best friends here. it was SO(harmless-unhinged) good to catch up. granted, i was delirious from lack of sleep, but there’s something about seeing someone you know well, but mostly from a distance, that feels extra surreal and dreamy. like being outside of life… i guess that’s sort of what i was craving that lead me to come here. i just sorta needed to step outside of normal life to get perspective. wait, is that what a vacation is? Lol.
my plans for today are, go to the grocery store to stock up on …groceries, then probably catch up on rest aka potato, then I think go to the beach? ….
after a super intense and dark winter (for those who don’t know, my mental health was a toilet) i am really appreciating that life can also be really gentle and expansive feeling. something i’d like to incorporate into my being for future dark times or instances of being rifled through.
okay, now off to have some coffee and ruin this effortless tranquility i stumbled into this morning.
au revoir!
(my gringo brain in a foreign country: any non-english word will do!)
Oh, ps, the color of my skin is currently translucent. which led to the question- is that where the term “blue blood” comes from? like, your skin is translucent/pale because you don’t do labor outside, and you can see your blue veins?! mind freak
pps i brought a point & shoot and hope to include photos when i figure out how to get film developed here