Strange Days Indeed

June 28, 2022 My best friend often has dreams of me that she writes down in her journal and calls to tell me about the mornings after. Dreams of me radiating soothing green auras, holding hands and swaying with a recurring being she's never met in her entire life, dreams of me running through forests, sorting lunch and dinner plans with said entity. Ever since the beginning of this year, a dreamy repertoire of otherworldly instances I have the delight to partake in have plagued my poor, lovely 27 year old best friend of 9 years. In the Winter she'll have her PhD, but until then she's stuck with foreseeing my future. Such is life.

Such ornate dreams have led her to the likes of dream interpreters, tarot readers, even having spiritual run-ins at lavish Indian summer weddings. She asks about me and in return, the next six months of my life have been laid out before me and I have no choice but to watch things unfold as they come.

June 30, 2022 Went to Chinatown and ate at the restaurant my mom and my grandmother first ate at when they first moved to Los Angeles. It was still the same remnants it was back then in the 90s, same oversaturated tea and plastic red cups and sticky lazy Susans. All dining tables should be round and dizzying. Before that, we were in the best thrift store I'd ever have the pleasure of being jammed inside of. Mad Men boxsets, pristine Christine Dior, shelves of beautiful items, each one stranger than the next. I came home with a disgustingly magenta dress, two Peter Mayle books, The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Short Stories -- Oscar Wilde, two black sweaters, and an 80's pastel lacquered picture frame. We visited my family who moved up in the hills and I tried to muster up the courage to drive my uncle's beautiful navy blue Porsche Carrera (2007 jst like my car, I think?), but in fear of James Dean-ing myself, I only moved a couple blocks before ejecting myself to lay on the fake grass of their mini golf course. 

July 1, 2022

Scoobidoo Love ........ Choir and Orchestra Charlie Steinmann

Bad Habit ....... Steve Lacy

Sometimes ....... Faye Webster

Get It Together (ft. Black Coffee & Jorja Smith) ........ Drake

Can You Stand the Rain ....... New Edition

Lunar Playboy ........ Piero Piccioni

July 4, 2022 Weird. She said that for the inevitable to happen that I was responsible for making the first move; how annoying is that? Anyways, baby blue is the best color.

July 6, 2022 Went to a shop that sells crystals. I remember one of my friend's psychics telling me that citrine and jade would suit me best so I picked some up, alongside some malachite and blue quartz because they're my favorite colors and all together they look like a pretty candy assortment. It was nestled in some weird in-between neighborhood and after squeezing through the pocket of an alley it was hidden in, I felt anxious, I stopped at Chevron and my friend caught an old man standing in front of the convenience store staring at me as he walked into his car. Then again at the market, a girl came up to me and called me pretty when I was in the canned soup aisle. I didn't feel it at that moment. I felt disconnected and shaky, trying to nurse the anxiety with a slice of carrot cake in my hands. Once I was back home, I confessed to my roommate that I had a feeling something strange was going to happen soon, some sort of big change and to my surprise she said nothing but, "I think so, too."

July 7, 2022 My best friend talked to her psychic again. Something about blockages and someone... maybe something.. or an energy or feeling standing in the way of sorting things out. In all caps she made sure to emphasize PROTECT YOURSELF. Another thing about how things WILL work out regardless but ONLY IF we manage to move past these blockages. Weird and to be honest, quite annoying, Nothing is as easy as nature and love songs and I hate that. Her psychic says this guy and I both have things from our past that keep blocking us from biting the bullet and getting this stupid heart-to-heart over with. There's not a doubt in my mind that that's true; I just don't like hearing being repeated back to me in clear and concise wording. I wish I was able to make it out to be that simple in my head. Instead, all I hear is elevator music and typing and waves crashing and scenarios from different timelines playing out. 

I shared an elevator with an untidy lawyer who was running late for his appointment just like I was. I was in the wrong building. Went to a different one, which was also the wrong one. The right one was two buildings over and I should have known, but I chose not to listen to my intuition. In a courtroom of about 20 people or so, we took a 48-question test and if it had not been for the 4,000 steps around the block I just took, it would've been no sweat. Still, it's the middle of summer and I was bound to feel it. There was a man sat next to me in a nice suit who I overheard tell other applicants that he'd work for firms all around LA and it felt sick, straight out of an Ottessa Moshfegh book. Something about everything I've done, seen, and felt this past week has feel like that. Weird. I peeked out the window of the courthouse and saw a pretty purple tree lightly shifting with the breeze and I thought of how beautiful the chances I've been given are. I left the courthouse and passed all the khaki-cladded cops and ordered lunch and trudged back to my car many blocks down. I came back to the office and my friend told me I'd look good in navy blue and another one oddly mention that now is the time I should do what I've been too scared to do. I think they're both right.

It's already the second week of July and I don't know what to do with this strange feeling. I'm torn between ignoring it and confronting it with a fake-careless façade. I've become increasingly irritable and worrisome and it grosses me out. What happened to the calm me of weeks passed? I feel so strange. I hope the feeling is mutual, even though I already know it is, so I don't know why there's this strange hold up. I pretended to write this part under tomorrow's section, but even my conscience is looking at me weird, so I changed it back, because it really is still Thursday and I don't know why I'm in such a rush in the first place when I'm the one being a coward. I miss how easy it was when I wasn't disgustingly craving affection from a fool.

July 8, 2022 Yesterday I finally felt the intensity of my worries transfer into physical pain and agitation. I had my friend do a limpia for me and when we were stood across each other at the island of our kitchen, we saw a crown of spikes bubbled up at the top of the glass of water. I should have known evil eye was at play this entire time. The unsettling feeling that had pierced my excitement through its heart yesterday when I heard what happened and how that stupid, naïve little girl acted. Not only was I worrying my body with the intensity of making all my desires come true, but I was worried and I was right. I know I am because at 4am the following day I woke up with tears streaming down my face and a gutted feeling in my stomach. I knew it the entire time, and that feeling that had been bugging me this entire week was the very thing I was trying so hard to protect myself from. My intuition has never failed me and this time I know that any and all evil energy being sent my way doesn't only fall short, but also goes back tenfold. When everything is done with good intention, you'll always be divinely protected. 

Art is D25 (1957) by Yves Klein