Tea for Two

Me and Hannah Horvath

The other morning I wrote “I was recently re-inspired to write. Maybe it was falling asleep before 12 and waking up as the clock struck eight. “ This is all I managed to type out as I in fact did not wake up at 8. Right after finishing that sentence I drifted back to sleep.

I feel like Hannah in Girls right before she popped her eardrum. Maybe this is a different season but I am thinking of after she gets her book deal and cannot write a single word. 

Humility doesn’t suit me. I am confident this was the same episode. 

This scene has always been a hard one to watch. When I was a child a deep fear of q-tips was instilled in me. Even now, I wouldn’t even consider using one. To me, the second it goes in my ear something dire will happen and my hearing will never be the same. 

When I first watched that episode, I knew something was afoot the second she pulled the q-tip into view. I felt my body tense and even after it happened I could barely finish the episode. Visions of q-tips haunted my mind. I had the same reaction when I rewatched the episode with Georgia a year later. 

It’s kind of like when you imagine something scratching your eye and you have to squeeze your eyelids shut until the image fades. It doesn’t really work the same but after the episode ended I still felt my body tense as if it was trying to somehow close my ear canal.

Sometimes I wonder if I am missing out; people seem to love cleaning out their ears with a passion. My hearing isn’t always the best, maybe that would change if I could gather up the courage to do something about it. 

To those of you with a similar fear, don’t worry. This is a change I am not really willing to make even in my year of bravery. (Especially when you consider the year of bravery is coming to a close, it is already over halfway through October).

Also, a couple of years ago my grandmother gave each member of my family a value sized pack of q-tips. She is dead now, and I have no idea where those q-tips went. An omen? Or a sign? 

In my mid high school (short-lived) eco-warrior phase, one Christmas I asked my mom for reusable q-tips. I’m not sure what use I thought they would bring me. I was using a lot of very unflattering eyeliner at the time and sometimes used cotton q-tips to get the extra makeup off from under my eye. 

Something I could have easily realized in my search for reusable q-tips is that the specific ones I asked for were made of hard plastic. This plastic is not a material very useful for makeup remover, especially from the skin under your eye. 

Anyway, after seeing one too many pictures of myself I decided the eyeliner had to go, so this issue solved itself. 

My life in New York this week is even more like Girls, if you can believe it. On Saturday, I am going to a gallery opening where Mia works. 

She is my Marnie and I am crossing my fingers that while I am there I will see some Booth Johnathans. Ideally, Mia would try and steal the attention from the artist by singing Stronger but I am trying to manage my expectations. 

I am trying to think of other similarities my life has to Girls because it seems a bit pathetic (?) to make such a statement with only two examples to back it up but I don’t think I have any more. 

My cousin Nell (who guest wrote a while back) lived in Japan for about a year, just like Shoshanna. Ella Greene goes to Oberlin. Chloe works at a coffee shop. I have had a UTI. I have been inside a house in Brooklyn Heights. 

I take back what I just said, the similarities are endless.

Kindle Craze

This summer I was lucky enough to find a kindle at a yard sale. I cherish my kindle, although I will say that I probably spend more time thinking about it and talking about it than actually using it. I keep imagining myself sitting at the kitchen table beside Alienor and Charlie who both also have and use kindles. We are all on our kindles reading the same book and laughing in unison. (We’re probably on different parts though because I am a very fast and talented reader). I imagine Alienor to be eating peanut butter egg toast and Charlie toast with jam. Jaimie is there too although she’s not laughing because she doesn’t have a kindle to join in on the fun. 

Even though I prefer reading actual books I enjoy every step of the way using the kindle. The journey starts when I first open Libby, smiling slyly to myself knowing the book I want is probably on one of the six library cards I own. This is actually not very realistic but I am gracious and patient so it doesn’t phase me. I like pressing download for kindle and having the Amazon account be logged into automatically because I don’t remember the password and have to otherwise go on a lengthy search for it. My favorite part, though, is when I’m reading on the kindle app on my iPad because I can’t see my actual kindle in the dark. On the iPad I can check every couple of pages my reading speed and expected time left in the book. I also get to use my iPad which I have neglected recently. 

This isn’t to say I don’t use the actual kindle. It’s a night and day thing, really. I love pressing the buttons on the side and it keeps me off Snapchat news so there’s perks to both. Enough about kindles though. 

As many of you know I am recently back in Brooklyn. Since I’ve been home, I have been on a very strict schedule. 

When I wake up, which is probably around 11, I open my computer and spend around 20 minutes doing online work. It is very taxing, so of course I usually have to recharge with a green juice. 

I then move to the living room and sit, thinking about my day and where it might take me. I go on at least one big outing, which is becoming a problem as I like to have a task for the outing and I am running low on directions to walk and errands to do. Even worse, it’s only been four days and I have two more weeks. 

Please don’t stress out too much on my behalf though. With Georgia leaving on Tuesday, I’ll be forced to get creative. 

When I’m back from my outing I usually sit and think some more. Sometimes I stress out about all I might be missing out on now that I’m spending less time on reels. I’ve been crafting again too and spend many hours drawing the thin stripes that somehow make their way into most of my projects. The bottom left part of my phone is not working well, so it’s also been very time consuming to do really anything on my phone, much of my afternoon is spent flipping it back and forth between portrait and landscape. 

Georgia and I have been declutterring and tackle one section of our room a day. I’ve gotten rid of lots of stuff and found many gems. This has forced me to reckon with my hoarder side. I think I’ve talked about this before,  but this year has been good for my anti-hoarding growth. Eliza was talking to me about how keeping scraps of paper from collageing or wherever they came from felt stupid to her, as there was no world in which they would ever get used. It always feels wasteful to throw scraps away, but it’s left me with piles and piles of crumpled pieces of paper I am too scared to root through. They’ve all gone in the recycling…. On top of this, distance has made me less fond. Maybe attached is a better word than fond, but I see less of a need to keep bottles and bottles of old shampoo from hotels. 

I found many awful drawings from quarantine. Those, I kept. I found lots of old notebooks and some pungent incense Georgia and I bought that we can still get whiffs or even though we threw it out on Tuesday. 

It is really boring going through old stuff but I can see all the joyful things on the horizon… I’ve rediscovered many useful things and gotten rid of piles of old homework. (Hopefully I won’t need to revisit my freshman year physics tests anytime soon) The best of all, Georgia and I can finally display our trolls collection and give them the visibility they so deserve. 

I’ll post a picture of them when all is done. 

Violet