lost and profound.

in a package from home, my mother was kind enough to send me some jergens tan-building lotion for albinos. with the lotion was another smaller tube. i assumed it was for my face. no. it was the same lotion. in a travel size. jergens thought it would be a good idea to give their natural glow daily moisturizer away as a gift in a sample size.

i’m really sorry, jergens. it isn’t that i’m ungrateful. i’m not. but seriously? why the fuck would you think i would want a sample size of fake tan?

at what point would it be necessary or appropriate to apply a sample size of said product? o, for convenient air travel? because it is so fucking important to work on my mile high tan?

i seriously can’t even understand. why the fuck didn’t they just put it in the same bottle and make the bottle bigger? why are there two containers of the same thing?! what a waste of plastic.

robbie is here. it is nice to have a little traveling (bearded) piece of america. funny enough, when we said goodbye back in cincy, we weren’t even sad because we were certain we’d see each other again before anyone else. lo and behold, it happened. meeting him at the subway station today was as normal as anything. it helps me appreciate korea more when i have someone to show it to. (this makes me wish i had done a few things differently during peter’s visit in april; however, i have to believe that we are always living in a state of grace and that the right thing happened because it’s the thing that happened.)

also. i really like that in korea there are zippers on the backs (or sides) of shoes for convenience. if people know anything about me, it’s that i like to make a quick change and a quicker escape.

is that weird?

also, i’ve gone from 54.2 kg (119.5 lbs) to 51 kg (112.4 lbs) in about two weeks. not entirely sure how that happened, but i’m not asking questions.

people are hard to love. they change. they change their minds, their careers, their hair. they grow up or get fat or lose their teeth even. people can lie to you. they can hurt you. they can disappoint you. maybe i’m wrong, but to a degree, love seems like something that should be…permanent, fixed somehow. but a person changes from second to second. you can’t attach something fixed to something that never stops moving.

but a city. you can love a city. a city has endless patience. it changes, but it never moves. it can grow or shrink, oscillate, breathe…but it doesn’t re-locate. it will always be exactly where you left it. it will never expect anything of you, never ask anything of you. a city doesn’t take it personally when you have to leave, and it will always welcome you with open arms if you return. a city has no judgements, no pretense. you can be the one who grows up or gets fat or loses your teeth, and the city won’t see you as anything different. a city doesn’t care if you’re afraid or insecure. it will offer you the same amount of space and the same opportunity it offers to anyone else.

even take a tough city like los angeles. if you choose to love LA, if you ask for it to open itself to you, it will. it will take you in and bathe you with over 300 sunny days a year. it will give you mountains and beaches and all different kinds of food. then there are cities that are somehow better suited to loving. like new york. or london. sure, you pay for the ease of those cities with biting winters and rainy summers, but they find a way to give you everything. quiet cafes in the middle of bustling intersections. art, music, business, culture, life, language…anything you are looking for, you will find.

but at the end of a long day of finding everything you’re looking for, a city can’t hold you. it can’t follow you into your bed. even if you live in a city that doesn’t sleep, you still have to…and if you sleep all of those sleeps alone…well, eventually, i think, you move to the country to find someone to love. (or to eat a lot of peaches. yeah. i went there.)

maybe don’t love a city…

(as they say, a rolling stone gathers no moss.)

i have hit the three month mark. the tingle that rapidly becomes an excruciating itch. from a single, dimly lit thought to the brightest signage in my head. i want to leave. and as things have gone in my past, i feel the itch at month three, and i’m lucky if i make it past month five…

it isn’t because i hate korea. i don’t. (i’m really tired of not being allowed to try on clothes in shops though…) it isn’t my friends. they’re wonderful. it isn’t my job. it’s wonderful.

i just feel really alone. somewhere really foreign. and i forgot how to cry for so long that once i started up again, i can’t seem to stop. or maybe my feelings are simply fueled by the recent reintroduction of 40 mg of isotretinoin (accutane) into my daily life.

i woke up this morning, and i wanted to give all my stuff away. i wanted to exchange everything in my closet for new clothes and rid myself of everything — and to a degree, everyone — in my life and start over. again. i love that feeling. because it reminds me that i’ve become so independent. that i don’t need anyone or anything and that i can always find a new adventure if i’m willing to seek it out. that i can continue to roll on, gathering no moss.

the thing is though, stones are made of stones. i’m made of human being.

Anonymous asked: write. a. book. :)
-apurva

haha, about what?! i have nothing to say. xo

instead of the obsessive and frantic mantra, “i want to be fit. i want to be healthy. i want to be beautiful. i want to be the best me,” and on and on, just stop. it was once a well meaning little something to remind ourselves. but now it’s the same hectic frenzy as, “this adds fifteen calories, and i won’t be able to spend an extra two minutes at the gym because…”

stop desperately squeezing this shit out of yourself. just be it. right now. in this moment. just. be.

…the world won’t stop functioning because you forgot to remind yourself that youwantyouwantyouwant. just be who you are in this minute. and hopefully, you can do it again in the next minute. and work up to a series of minutes, and maybe, one day, in the future, you can just be for all the minutes. and the unnecessary pounds from stress-eating will shed, and the acne will subside, and the pain and the longing to be something will fade, and the loneliness that comes from not being friends with yourself will just become a memory.

but for right now. take a breath. just. be. laugh, cry, sleep, eat, dream, write, sing, sit. be.