My Astrologer, ‘*** and Love’ horoscope, for Halloween, is grim and on-trend for me.
(Libra) “Get ready to take some chill-time - give yourself the space to recover. People pleasing is out, boundaries are in!” Yeah, I’m like Texas, I have unsecure boundaries.

Sure, I KNOW horoscopes are horoscopes but while other signs get unicorns & puppies:
Aries: “Use your deepest desires to please yourself, step into your power.”
Gemini: “Your curious and bubbly nature shines, shoot your shot for that special someone!”
Cancer: “Be at home in your feels, your needs & emotional expressions are valued, go deeper.”

I’m getting “**** it up buttercup,” thanks universe - what did I ever do to you?

We’ve been scanning the teen magazine fall looks, “We’re living in a bold era, a time of expression!” They declare, which means dramatic-metallic eyeliners, goth grunge, bold reds and Beyoncé’s “Renaissance silvers.” Luckily, Yale’s pretty low fashion environment, because seasonal changes are a lot to keep up with.

I love Autumn, with its colorful leaves, pumpkin lattes and colder nights, but coming from the south (in ‘21), I had no idea how badly heated air could dry out my skin and hair (freshie year, my thumb literally started to crack, like a plastic Barbie). In the spirit of fall fashion and maintenance, my entire crew made an Ulta store run this morning for hair masks, detox tonics and skin moisturizers - we’re ready, bring on the cold.

The best smelling places on earth are Ulta and Yankee Candle stores. In my religion, heaven smells like Starbucks in the morning, Chick-fil-A around noon and Ulta stores as the sun goes down and things turn dreamy and romantic.

Log Kehte hai jo pyar karta hai...
Wo hi gussa karte hai....
To kya gussa aur beizzat Karne Me...
Wo farak nahi janta hai....
Kisi ke liy pyar Me gussa karna jayas hai....
Par...par...
Kya ush pyar ke naam par ushe jalil karna ulta kehna Abuse karna bhi pyar me jayas hai...
Janab Agar ishe pyar kahte hai to dur hi raho aise pyar se...
Jo khusiyo ke jagah udaasi de...
Khusi ke jagah gum De...
Izzat ke bajae beizzat kare...
Aur last me galti accept krne ke bajae ush glti ko aisa naam de...
Pyar me dono partner ko imp. Dena jaruri hai...
Ek jhuke to ye nahi ki app hmesa ushpe ungli uthao ushe jhukao...
Jb tk wo jhuk rahi thik hai jis din wo ye sochne lagi ki hmesa wo kyu...
To kuch bhi kar loge wo laut ke nahi aaegi....
Waqt se pehle kadar Karna sikh lo..
Aksar hame jiski kadar nahi hoti wo kadar tumhe waqt dilata hai...
Aur tb tak bahut der ** jati hai...

Jab caha ish dil ne kuch krne ki....
Zindagi ne dikha di khudgarji....
Jab bhi socha maine apni...
Jindagi ne jhatka di joro ki...
KAbhi  rahu ketu mere kundali se nikalti nahi...
Kuch ish tarah meri khusiyon se banti nahi...
Jb bhi socha kuch sahi karne ki...
Hmesa ulta hi hua mujh bandi ki....
Jb socha manjil ko pane ki...
Rasta utni hi hoti *** lambi....
Kuch is tarah meri khusiyo se banti nahi....
Jb socha ab kat jaegenge ye pal muskilo ki....
Kismat ne baji palatdi....
Jb socha musibato se nikalne ki...
Jindagi ne mujhe wahin daga di...
Kuch is tarah meri khusiyo se banti nahi....
Kuch ish tarah meri khusiyon se banti Nahi...

when the time comes, a drunk will speak
more sanity than a sane person is
capable of, then we'll be ripe to talk about insanity,
and incapable of "treating" it.

it's not really about the beard,
well, it sorta is...
i grew mine so i could fiddle with it...
which puts me in a position
where i say: violinist, in the classic fm
philharmonic!
i'm thankful that i was able to grow a beard,
no, not to look "trendy",
****! i was about to ditto in the word cool...
you never realise how much vogue
and indeed: fashion, gets invested in
when we're not talking about clothes
but about a person's vocabulary...
yep, so i'm 30 and have a beard:
or let's just say, ****** hair had the same texture
as ***** hair...
the gods are laughing,
how to discover exist, become so self-conscious
that you're able to tell a joke,
and then laugh back...
       that's why philosopher have beard,
you can just see it in them,
wait a minute: **** consistancy hairs
are growing on my chin!
  mortal have that poker hand ready
and waiting for the existence of gods,
   a Frankenstein momentum...
it's funny... so we just keep on enjoying ***...
   and the reason why i wasn't distraught
about the Fritzel case? i read
marquis de sade's ******* novella...
that doesn't mean i don't think about
       being a spec, a second in Hades' lava lamp
reincarnation flow... like we, really are:
recycled goods...
          laughing about it gives us armour...
reincarnation is so Hindi, i'm
about sport a bindi (that red dot on the forehead,
that macedonian wish we were **** with an
empire, shindig setting sun)...
you're the one talking to me in braille...
i'm  a half-wit trying to compensate the conversation
with an observation:
modern life looks like a revival, or an attempted
revival of the art of dialectics...
humanity is really trying to revive dialectics,
or as the platonic dialogues seem to suggest:
find the right enough of people...
find enough people to agree with you,
there's absolutely no mention of disagreement
in the platonic dialgues...
well... they're really monologues...
back to square 1...
                      it's hard to envision a dialogue
between people, it's even harder to stage
a dialogue, given that we'd have to
take to the art, or quasi-geometry...
and have to constatly fake it happening,
by faking it i mean acting as we really
cannot disregard our apathetic communion
toward the mere act of talking...
    dialectics is an art form... and it's begging to be
revived... but it seems to be failing in
an attempt to revive it...
                        everyone is just shouting
over each other, exchanging insults...
  joking... apparently comedy is trying to slow
things down, comedy is a pseudo-art-form
that's more arty than art itself, it's fartsy...
   who could have thought a **** (**** in polish means
luck) would ever make people laugh...
  we're all in the slaughterhouse askin idol guillotine
to: lay to rest, make ammends,
                say something, something profound,
if not prophetic.
              i just see a chat show host grappling
with an interviewee about how to engasge with
a dialectical art,
   we do live in very artistic times,
people call it minimalism,
they draw a square and you're expected to say
it's profound... because the art of dialectics
doesn't exactly agree to taking offence...
   it means retracting from the fictive monologue
of writing books...
it's a biblophobe movement...
        we're talking retraction,
we are saying: marriage doesn't do it for us anymore...
i'm trapped, in this world, and i have a stash
of 2000+ years of memory that i'm asked to
revise / improve on...
     you expect any different, from what i'm doing now?
people are in want of dialectics,
  they are bored of group therapy yoga....
and they're tired of being treated like
canned laughter... or an audience
with prompt cards they later don at political
rallies...
  like: when to laugh, followed by a t.v. editor
telling some minion: prompt the verb laugh
at an audience at a big brother show...
   i'm drunk, but i'm not stupid,
actually, being drunk and writing this makes
me ulta-conscious... i wouldn't say
intelligent... i think of myself as a sieve
most of the time... but you know, life, life gets
in the way and you sometimes a few
stupid mistakes, that you are thankful for.
i can't remember the last time i used
a dictionary... or a thesaurus...
       and i opened the fridge door about 100
times before i opened the front door...
and walked to the shop
where the cashier knows my name...
i'm like Bilbo Baggins who decided to stay
at home and said: ******* adventure!
i'm staying home and reading J. Joyce.
   we can't find dialectics, no more than we
can ask for a socrates real, by reading plato.
but it's nice that plato suggested that
philosophy could be theatre, i.e. staged,
made into a dialogue...
     just when we were bound and keen to
our sophistry, to our rhetoric,
and felt no emotional content could be bound
by mere talking...
     dialectics is a shade hanging over modernity,
i can't read a sun-dial with it hanging
over us... why art is so ritually minimalistic,
because this one art-form is missing...
no one is going to approach dialectics
is there isn't a real case for expressing empathy
and merely rooting it in: a need for comedy.
that halo-of-an-oasis is going to dry up...
(yes, written while under the medical care
of a headache... that **** is just lodged in my ****
and is teasing me... come out you little
cupcake, i'll flush you down the toilet, pronto!
or as the poles say it properly:
gówno przez ciebie gada / ****'s talking
through you... oh gladness, the oven bound parasite
booked for 37 degrees of the body's high-end
of temp.) -
but it's being staged as we speak,
   an art form, deviating from up-start and on the ready, go!
art of rhetoric...
               modernity is equipped with competent
talkers... persuasive and gnat-like annoying
with their provocations...
  what's missing is dialectics...
  how one side can question and become almost
mermaid... dragging someone into nodding
if not clapping approval...
      we can all agree that some people do talk
with the art opf rhetoric being almost
self-taught... ******...
                     dialectics is so much stranger...
it's an art of speaking that has become
      like a dusty moth infested ******
of a 80 year old nun...
                     she bakes great cookies though,
let her off.
               it's not that we're even having
these discussions, we're slobbering a chance of having
one with lies, shouting and "in your face"
dynamics... it's not even that we can
imitate plato enthralled by socrates, constantly
agreeing, going: aha, yup (nod nod nod,
******* pigeons)...
                    we positioned ourselves for the basis
of having to express hostility...
       because to have reached such a freedom
as we have, that we dare to call it: esteemed,
or highly regarded as in need of improvement,
or redefining.
  we seem to be unable to say why we
can't resurrect dialectics...
           all the talk-shows on a late friday night
will not answer that question...
     i'll spot the Halley's moment though...
a comet known as Hailey (hey! bruce lee)...
        when artists return to less abstract concerns,
we have all the science we'd need...
   can the arts stop contemplating new york
traffic grids, and ******* stops
and we return to celebrating the human form?
   it will really be something to see
dialectics... i.e. with one person so persuasive
that the other person doesn't argue...
    and i mean that as a concept anti despotism
without a massive throng of people doing
a political mantra chant of sheep, herd, approval.
it's like that question about consenting to ***,
that part of you that says: can i actually
think this?

Sophy’s mom sent her a giant case of “Fun dip” - a thousand packets of sour, fruit-flavored sugar. Is there anything more junkavore a parent can buy a child - well, ok, an 18 year old?

She LOVES them and so does Leong who’s from China where, apparently, you can’t get useless, non-nutritional snacks. The two of them are running around, all sugar hyped with their emo-grape-chemical-lips, sticking out phosphorescent-green-tongues and threatening to tickle everyone with cherry-red-fingers. It has me wondering, should I switch to dentistry?

Our college prep has moved to a new phase - with just 16 days until we move back into our residential college. We’re suddenly sleeping-in. It’s nothing we planned or even discussed, it just started happening. We go to sleep around 10pm and sleep until 10am - or later. I think we all subconsciously realized that soon we’ll be back to sleeplessness.

I’m peachy - in a great mindspace - these days. I’m well rested (see above), we’re killing our sophomore prep - even the physics, my period was a nothing, we spent over two hours in Ulta sampling perfumes, I have a new Macbook M2 (see below) and I painted my nails in tropical colors.

The FedEx man rolled up yesterday. “Anyone expecting something?” Anna asked the crowd of roommates attracted by the driver bringing packages to the door, two at a time. No one was expecting anything. Eventually he’d delivered 8, back to school, M2-Macbooks (2 in each color) - one for everyone - from my Grandmère.

If that sounds needlessly ostentatious, then you’re thinking she went to the mall and paid full price, but she probably just traded Tim Cook a half ton of lithium or something - one of her companies mines it - in Chili - I think. But still, my roommates were blagabloo.

I picked a starlight one. An odd thing about the new, flat Macbook Air design is that you can’t pick it up with one hand - unless you hook it underneath with a long fingernail - what are guys going to do?

Saint Tropez is a summer town.
Smaller than it ought to be, really.
Like when you realize the French quarter,
in New Orleans, is just three blocks wide and long.

In the fall, there’s a feeling of disuse in Saint Tropez.
A turquoise bike leans haggard against a stone pine,
and summer leaves gather in gutters like trash.

Your appearance in a bar is treated like a surprise.
The wait staff gathers, like they might take your picture
and not your order - one brings napkins another the menu.

Summer memories are indistinct now, from disuse.
You aren’t sedated by sunlight and warm ocean airs.

Was summer some French, romantic, cinematic fantasy,
like "La Belle et la Bête" or "And God Created Woman"?
Or was it deliciously bright, seductive and real.

You find yourself saying, “In the summer, when the thyme,
lavender, rosemary, citrus and jasmine bloom, the aromas
are strong, actually physical, like going into an Ulta store,
where a thousand delicate perfumes vie for attention.”

But it’s like describing ghosts or deserts under glass.
You search for the words, like a poet or an actress, unable
to remember her lines - lines that would make it real,
invoke it, precious and immediate - like a spell.

The Saint Tropez of summer.

Sitting outside of Ulta,
A make up store.
Waiting for Brooklyn,
To get done borrowing
Some samples.
The lights in there,
They are very very bright,
And it makes me uncomfortable.
That's why I'm just waiting.
Out here, not in there.
When will I not be so
Ruled by my anxieties?

Today I went
shopping
at the make-up
counter
all alone so
nerve-racking.

dissociating again.
once again.
but this should be a happy moment
at brusters ice cream.
you're so heckin cute.
you like thrifting too?
and to think..
i almost blew you off completely..
because online you seemed
just like an average guy.
but heck;
im an average girl
aren't i?
but we can't stop talking.
we giggle during what would be
awkward silences.
wow.
and Aquarius;
just the thought of you is..
dreamy..
well here i am,
kissing you goodbye,
outside ulta
at 12:30

check your grades once a month and don’t wash your hair. the care routine you got yourself into won’t make your skin shine the same, so stop it all together. you don’t need to spend all that money at ulta anyway.
2. don’t answer your phone. keep a minimum of 100 unread texts. it’s easier to let go of people when you anger them. this way will keep them from getting hurt.
3. drink cough syrup when you aren’t sick and swallow benadryl when you aren’t itchy. the high you will feel will change the way you think of being hazy. you’ll learn more about yourself from those few hours than any other time in your life.
4. stop saying i love you. let people detach naturally.
5. forget your homework. lay in your bed for hours and cry.
6. sit next to the toilet and sob.
7. take your heart from your sleeve and throw it on the ground. crumple it up. make sure it will never be the same shape again.
8. sob when no one’s there for you, but never forget you are the one who pushed them away in the first place. you broke your own heart. you brought this upon yourself. the loneliness you feel is your fault. all of this is your fault.
9. break your fragile bones like glass. rip your heart into pieces.
10. fall apart.