Rat brains need help, too.

I'm desperately, at all times, searching for a method to tame the madness.

Sensation Dispatch(ation): Rat brains needs structure

Hi, miss you. I’m trying something new out. It’s been about a year of my beloved MishMashy, and I’ve realized my big, beautiful ADHD rat brain neeeeeds structure in order to produce any sort of output. Otherwise everything becomes quite nebulous. I wish I could show you all how many half-finished essays/newsletters I have in my drive. Maybe some day I’ll push them all out, or perhaps we can all gather and wear black and have a funeral for them. We’ll celebrate their compulsion to exist, but mourn their inability to make that desire a reality.

Anyway, that’s what this new format is about. To find a method to tame the madness. My plan is to send something like this out weekly and intersperse longer essays, the stuff I usually do, when I have the brainspace/time. What I’m doing here is not novel. I’ve resisted Machine In the Garden-ing myself. But, god, I’ve got to take some of the pressure off.

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I’ve been feeling more and more insane as summer nears its end. Typically, as the oppressive New York heat subsides and, here and there, I catch glimpses of the palliative fall, I tend to feel more grounded. I tend to feel more free and happier and more like myself — like the clutter in my brain has been cleared out, like I can think again. Not this year.

Most of my waking time is spent staring at my computer screen. In the morning, I open my eyes about 15 minutes before I’m slated to sign on for work. There is no bridge, no gradual incline, between sleeping and waking. Only one sharp jolt from the astral realm into a digital one — not a moment to spare for a layover in the real world. Sometimes I obsess over the routines of creatives that have come before me. When did they wake? When did they work? When did they play? Could they teach me how to be someone who makes?

I’ve bitten off more than I can chew. I always do. Look at all I can juggle!!! I can do it all!!! I’ll do everything you ask of me and more!!! Is that enough to be adored??!! I always have something to prove to people who aren’t even watching, to people who can’t comprehend satiety. So which part of me is leftover for you? Which part of me should I hand over to you? Everything I say to you, everything I write to you, is so drama drama drama. You know I can try to be funny too.

I…

… saw

The tiny leaves that fall in our tiny backyard have started to gather in miniscule clumps. Spencer doesn’t want to acknowledge them — doesn’t want to accept the arrival of fall, the death of summer. Looking away doesn’t keep things from changing. I always know the season has officially begun to change when I start sneezing in that repetitive, constrictive way.

Part of me says good riddance, is relieved for the season to end. For much of my adult life, I’ve known summer to mean discomfort, to mean strain. It’s not what I knew as a child. I’ve only put a swimsuit on once this summer, which feels like an offense equal parts tragic and embarrassing to me. The ocean is literally right there. What kind of a person doesn’t go to the place they feel most called?

This past spring, I purchased a Sony camcorder from like 2005. I’ve been taking it everywhere with me and splicing the videos I take into silly little things. There’s something comforting about this camera: the fuzziness of the imagery, the clicking sound that comes through from the zoom function. It’s sole purpose is to watch, observe and capture. I’ve been posting whatever I feel like to YouTube every Sunday to an audience of none. How freeing. I took this little guy on my trip upstate, a trip I needed so desperately (there will be a forthcoming essay soon). For now, here’s a video of my time on the Beaverkill River. It’s set to Fairuz so…

… heard

Do you guys know about Frou Frou? You know, the electronic music duo composed of Imogen Heap and Guy Sigsworth? I didn’t. At least not until Spotify curated an early 2000s playlist for me and, I think while I was biking to work and letting my headphones hang around my neck (never on my ears because I’m scared) as a treat, I heard the most sublime sound trickling out of them. “Let Go” by the duo was blasting, a sound somehow so simultaneously modern and retro, and I was immediately transported. I’m not heaving my body and this heavy e-bike over the Williamsburg Bridge: I’m in a club, circa 2002. The lights are dim apart from the pink and purple strobe lights pulsating along to the beat. My hair is slicked back into spiky space buns and my chrome pants are low slung. Frosted eye shadow and crystalline lip gloss shimmer on my face as I bob my head, throwing my arms up in the air and snaking my hips. The iPhone hasn’t been invented yet and no one knows about “circling back.” I know algorithms are evil and homogenizing but sometimes they lead to glory. By the way, they are indeed on the Shrek 2 soundtrack, the true measure of taste.

… smelled

There’s a spot in the Seaport, right under the Brooklyn Bridge and along the East River, that has one of the most pungent, grotesque, gnarliest smells I’ve ever smelled. It’s indescribable. It’s so odiferous it almost has a taste. It utterly mars the magnificent view of the water and the bridge. Every time I go into the office, I pass this specific intersection and think “someone has got to put some oysters in that water.”

… tasted

The last few weeks of summer, even though I’ve been waxing on about how ready I am to get them over with, fill me with regret, remorse for all the warm-weather activities I never got around to and those I took for granted. Take, for example, eating ice cream. Walking through the park after work, nearly everyone is licking or scooping from a cone or cup. I’m no different, no better. The sheer number of frozen dairy treats I’ve had this week should have sent me into some catatonic state.

• On Saturday, after a night out and ramen at Marufuku in the East Village, we stopped at Van Leeuwen. I can’t remember what flavor I got, but it had chunks of something in it. I <3 chunks.

• On Monday night, after pizza, pasta and calzones with Lucali with

  Megan O'Sullivan
  ,
  Tara Maria Gonzalez
  and Kat, we stopped at Farmacy in Carroll Gardens. Have you guys ever had an orange dreamsicle float? If not, you’ve never known true euphoria. I don’t care if you’ve experienced the miracle of birth, this dessert feels, at the very least, like a close second.

• On Tuesday night, a mini Oreo ice cream bar with Spencer. Something terrifying happened to this treat in transit and only a tiny nub of the stick poked out. Nevertheless I persisted.

• On Wednesday night, ice cream hiatus.

• On Thursday night, this fish-shaped, red bean ice cream thing.

I have nearly turned myself off from the stuff. Just the thought of soft serve is making me kind of queasy.

… touched

There’s a bruise on my arm from where the nurse stuck me with a needle — where she couldn’t find my vein and dug around for a moment until she punctured a vessel. I always watch as the needle goes in so I don’t flinch, so I don’t make it worse, so I’m prepared. I watch the blood trickle into the vials too. I want to know the moment it’s over.

I’ve been running my fingers over the bruise, feeling the lump that’s settled under my skin. My doctor told me some sad things, but I love her still. I’m good with doctors, and this one reminds me of my mom. When she’s listening to my heart with her stethoscope, I focus on steadying my breathing, stabilizing my pulse. I want my insides to sound like they’re supposed to. I want them to sound beautiful. I cry after every appointment.

NEVER FORGET: FREE PALESTINE. There’s currently a Palestinian-American teen stuck in IOF detention. Call your local rep and demand they work toward his freedom and an end to the genocide in Gaza. As always, you can donate to Healing Our Homeland, who is doing grassroots work in the strip.