10/1/23



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10/2/23


8:38pm

the start of october


on saturday, i threw my husband a massive surprise festival/variety show/party experience for his 30th birthday. it was called Live Laugh Love Fest and everyone who came showed him how much they loved and admired him. i needed him to know that. i booked his musician friends to play, our comedy friends to do improv, and our close family and friends to tell stories about him. i gave a toast, we had lots of food and cake and drinks, a raffle basket full of merch from the performers, a silent auction where people could bid on custom songs written by my husband, a honey roast, a karaoke contest he judged, and at the end of the night we all danced to “Jump in the Line” by Harry Belafonte. his band got him to play with them and it was incredible. i am so glad he loved it. it really was selfish of me because it was all things i enjoyed too. i keep rewatching the videos from it because i loved it so much. it really was a special and magical night. i think it was a good way to start his next decade.


today is the second anniversary of his dad passing away. i miss Pops very much. my husband is a musician and philosophical thinker like him. Pops would have loved watching his son on that stage, watching him be a father, watching others love and appreciate him so much. i could feel his love through the music that night. maybe that’s why i’m rewatching those videos of it so much today.


my stepdad’s death anniversary is coming up on the 16th this month. i miss him a lot too. i found a journal from when i was 9 where i had written down a memory i had with him that i had forgotten about. about me trying to eat faster than him every night at dinner in a silly competition. i am glad i have that memory back now.


i am struggling with the relationship i have with my dad now. i don’t know what to do about it—should i tell him how he’s making me feel, which would undoubtedly make things rough between us? i have already lost two father figures—do i have that time with him to waste? should i try to fix our current dynamic? or ignore it and just focus on making good memories? i don’t know.


i am glad my husband is so thoughtful about the kind of father he wants to be. he says he is most looking forward to when she is 40-years-old, which i think is very funny. but the more i thought about that notion—wanting to see who your daughter is and who she’s become when she’s 40, wanting a good relationship with her then—shows just how much love and effort he’s willing to put into those 40 years to get to that point.


when i think about my parents, i realized that while they did a really great job of giving me a wonderful childhood, I don’t think they were prepared to still be my parents when i was an adult. i do not have the relationship i want with them; i am not as close to them as i was when i was a kid, and i don’t think that’s my fault—because i have tried reaching out and putting in the effort, and they don’t seem to want to match it. it makes me sad and hurt and angry.


it’s all become magnified since i’ve become a parent. exhaustingly, i’ve been reflecting on parent-child dynamics more than ever before. knowing my husband’s parents has made me change the way i see my own. that makes things harder sometimes. there are things that my parents did before i had become a parent, that i might not have thought twice about then; but now that i have a daughter, i am noticing some of the ways they treat me in which i would never want to treat my daughter: unnecessary and thoughtless criticism. apathy. passive aggression. selfishness. not putting my thoughts and feelings first.


i am looking at every action and decision and conversation with them with a hyper awareness that i don’t want. it’s making me feel worse about them than i want to feel. i don’t like it. do other new parents feel this? i feel such guilt over it. i feel so ungrateful and hypercritical of these people who did so much for me.


but i am not taking issue with my childhood (my entries from my 9-year-old journal were very happy); i am taking issue with the way i am being parented in adulthood—because it doesn’t stop there, and i think maybe my parents think it does. i don’t know. that’s how it feels. i feel like such a little kid, tantrumming from the lack of attention from her parents. but i still need them. and sometimes it feels like they don’t want to deal with me anymore. they love the grandbaby. but i am difficult. (shrug/sigh)


we are determined to be good parents. to put her first and show her pure love through every stage of her life. i think all the time about the ways i will likely mess up, to try to get ahead of them. i plan on asking my kids for a lot of feedback. but not too much, and not in a crazy desperate way—I don’t want to mess them up!!!!! but i do want open communication. and i think a voluntary mid-year evaluation from a six-year-old would be both hilarious and helpful.


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10/3/23



11:11 lucky me


tagged 10 different audiobooks

going to listen to them on my commute to work

feels like cheating

being able to finish books while driving


is good


hard to pick up a physical book with a baby


he’s talking in his sleep again

“ah ba ba bup,” whispered


hot night tonight

🎶i love / hot nights🎶

oh to be cruising in my pastel colored convertible in the 1950s

oh to be walking the streets to different restaurants and bars on a summer night

oh to be sleeping on an air mattress with the windows open and fan going in my boyfriend’s city apartment

oh to be walking across campus alone after getting off the T


i stay up too late all the time

what happened to my tiredness that had been haranguing me all day?

this happens all the time

“night owl” they say

i miss watching conan in bed on school nights

and the fresh prince of bel air on nick at nite

on my giant box tv in the corner of my room


i miss my wooden desk that my legs didn’t quite fit under

where i would do my homework

and listen to my alarm clock radio from the 80s

and tune it to the christmas station in december

cold nights in flannel pajamas then

now i am sweating on top of flannel sheets


brain goes buzz buzz

my stream of consciousness looks different than his

i think in broken thoughts and phrases

these aren’t poetic lines

just my brain jumping to the next thought

the next train

the next traincar

i’m just a hobo riding this train of thought

jimmy crack corn and i don’t care

skip to my lou my darlin


my darling baby

so sleeping

so peaceful

and breathing and lips

i can’t wait for her morning smile

in her little kicking sleep sack

i want to see it every day

i love her


early tomorrow

i wonder if i will see my baby

or if i will have to goodbye in the dark and go

before i get to see that smile

hm


_____________________


10/4/23



8:28pm

i take it back


my mom has been doing a good job putting in the effort to connect with me as an adult. she texts me all the time and asks to go to events together and offered to babysit so that i could go to my friend’s event which was very kind of her. i was just upset during my last entry.


my dad is still frustrating me. didn’t respond at all when i said i missed them at my husband’s surprise party. but when i send a picture of the baby he responds right away. i want him to care about my whole family. hurumph.


so weird i was brushing my teeth and thinking about work and thinking about how while i am sad to not work with kids as much, i am grateful to be on a day shift schedule as an admin because i was getting cozy for bed while other employees were just finishing night hike and starting the campfire for our current overnight group. glad that’s not me tonight. i got to watch a horror movie with my husband and snuggle with my baby.


but anyway weirdly while i was brushing my teeth and thinking about work and being glad i didn’t have to deal with work, a co-worker texts me about work. and she apologized for texting after hours but she had an important thing to update me about. it was a long text. i mostly was just perplexed that i had probably started thinking about work while she was drafting this long text to me. maybe i sensed it somehow.


i read once somewhere that the little voice inside your head that warns you about things is really your self sending telepathic thoughts to you from a different plane. isn’t that a neat thought?


so after i experience something bad, or near misses, or a really happy moment, i close my eyes and try to send my past self a message through some alternate dimension to watch out for whatever i should avoid, or to savor the moment while i can. even if it doesn’t help out my past self in this dimension, maybe it’ll help out another timeline version of me who can hear me.


and as i go through each day, i try to really listen to my inner voice because whatever it is that my heart seems to want, maybe that’s my future self telling me which way to go.


— - - - - -


sad that my dumb rubber straw has mold in it. i have to clean it. i keep forgetting to bring it downstairs. thirsty at bedtime.


— - - - - -


my thoughts are too unorganized and mismatched to put in the same document. that’s why i’m logging my day across five different files in different writing styles/formats


sorry if it’s annoying


i actually deleted fb off my phone and not just my home screen, so i will be on here even more and become even more insufferable


ali, people don’t have to read any of this if they don’t want to. i literally doesn’t matter. write whatever you want however you want to. no one cares. your thoughts are all over the place and chaotic and not nice and neat or minimalist like a lot of other pages you admire, but that’s okay, you don’t have to be like them. just be you. it doesn’t matter and it makes you unique. just do what’s best for you and your brain. however you want to write it good. it’s good. relax. deep breath. don’t care. just don’t care so much. knock it off. it’s better for you not to care. care about some things, sure, of course, but certainly not this. okay?



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10/5/23


so idk how to set the timezone on here, but i keep starting a gemlog late at night and it’s naming the file the next day because it’s the next day in australia or something already.


i hate pumping at work so much. it’s so annoying and gross. i am so glad when i’m wfh.


working with kids a lot this week because so many people are out sick. it’s nice. they like me. they got excited when i came into the dining hall this morning. that feels good.


show tonight went well!


i think maybe will use gemlog to track my everyday thoughts and my diary to track more emotional reflections


i got a new haircut this past weekend (like a shag with curtain bangs) and my one coworker said it “looks fabulous,” and it looks good in the pictures from tonight, so that’s good ^.^ i always get self conscious and regretful after haircuts so glad that at least today was a good hair day


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10/9/23


cozy rosie

standing up stronger

voice getting stronger

smiles so big they’re her whole face

and the only thing in the world

i love her so


maybe work will end

we will see

will talk and see

see how time plays out

how feelings will feel

and see what changes

(if anything at all)

looking forward to the possibility

of it happening

i need to stick to my heart

no matter what

and my heart is with her

and we can do it

and what is best for our family


fun band play

gimlet

dancing (not enough)

drive home and laughter

always laughter

smiling

this is where she gets it


i think i’m in

the good ole days


______________________


10/10/23



____________________


10/13/23


i gave up on Heart Berries. beautifully written but didn’t like the audiobook reader; i think it would be better if read as a real book. also there’s some heavy stuff in there that i’m not in a place to engage with now.


listening now to Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner and i love it. she describes grief so well and describes food in a way that leaves you drooling and ready to eat a chinese-korean feast at 7:30 in the morning.


eta: this is one book i think is better to listen to than read because 1) i love when books are read by the author, 2) her speaking voice is just as nice as her singing voice (which makes sense since she comes from a family of voice actors), and 3) i can actually hear her pronounce all of the korean words correctly, which my internal voice would not be able to do.


she is visiting case university on 10/19 and i would really love to go see her but the talk starts right at the baby’s bedtime. sigh. i miss being a college student and going to cool talks and performances. listening to a lot of japanese breakfast today instead.


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10/15/23



____________________


10/19/23


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10/23/23



i want to get the baby a bouncer/activity table because she loves standing while we hold her and is just starting to play with toys. i think one of these things would make her so happy and really help her development. maybe a christmas present? but maybe that will be too late. hm. we’ll see.


i need to write my four month poem asap


she is so sleepy after her vaccines 🥺


i asked chat gpt to make me a chore schedule for when i become sah and i’ve never been more excited to do chores. it’s so weird. but i am so happy to have the opportunity to make our house what i want it to be for our daughter. homemaking is a real thing and i feel like it is so undervalued and dismissed (by all genders). i feel like i’m letting go of being a “powerful woman” by becoming sah, but i keep reminding myself that true feminism is the power of choice. i honestly feel like i will better have the power to be who i want to be this way. it’s not only best for my baby, but best for me too.


i really enjoyed making homemade chicken noodle soup for the first time!! it tasted so good, and i loved layering the flavors and using fresh herbs i’ve been growing and tasting and adjusting…. cooking makes me feel like a witch, lol. bubbling and boiling and throwing different earthly elements in a big pot. what fun.


i really need to go to joann fabrics tomorrow to get the last materials i need for the baby’s pumpkin costume. sewing is also so fun. also somehow witchy. i want to make little baby clothes and teethers for everyone i know who has a baby!


crying in h mart has me thinking a lot about my relationship with my daughter. i hope my daughter will know i love her as much as michelle knew her mother loved her.


it also makes me want to learn korean and travel to asia. i had a student do a presentation back in 2016 on namsan tower and i have wanted to go there ever since then. we know like four different couples from different circles who visited japan within the past two months. i’d love to go to tokyo and see the mountains and cherry blossoms of the japanese countryside. the book also described vietnam so beautifully. and my friend who would visit family in india has always made me want to visit there too. of course the great wall of china is on my bucket list. i want to travel everywhere, really. will be quite a while due to kids tho.


i am nervous to travel in a non-english speaking country, but plenty of people seem to get by. i just am terrified of inconveniencing or annoying any locals with my ignorance. it’s too bad i am estranged from my aunt who teaches japanese and korean; she was so cool until she cyberbullied me when i was in middle school.


languages i want to learn:

ASL

italian

korean

japanese

spanish (i have intermediate knowledge of this one already)


i predict that the first international travel we do post-kids is in the caribbean, though. or maybe canada lol


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10/28/23



/journal/

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