its remarkable how quickly you get used to yourself after a change to your appearance. even more shocking is how to cease to recognize past versions of yourself as *you*, and instead, three-days-ago-you, before the hair cut, is some vile uncanny valley monster simulation
like when seeing a something created, it can be so easy to view it as a whole, forgetting the process and decisions being made by a human in a given order responding to pressures.
walk into the party. sister of the girl i dont talk to anymore is the first face i see. shes on ketamine on the couch across the lap of "her photographer," whatever that means. shes nineteen. when she was seventeen i used to go to her diner and get a catfish. turn around to face the kitchen. leaning on the counter is the bar manager who asks me out once a year. i said we could try again on tuesday but theres a chance neither of us keeps it. go to the porch for a cigarette. light from a girl with whom i engaged in a heated argument about whoredom in messages last month. we hug. now to the basement. dance with a girl i didnt remember i knew; remember only when she irritates me in the same way she had before. backyard now for a second cigarette. on the way out the bar manager and i catch a word in the cement holloway and it smells like wet generator. see you tuesday, i say, and i look at his bottom lip for what feels like too long. in the backyard i get a light from the producer for an ad i got dropped from a month ago. he confirms it was due to the abundance of searchable nude photos of me online. you wouldve been good, he says, because of your dark hair. i say thanks and thats nice. behind my right shoulder is the party photographer i blocked online just to say i had to my friends. i think he knows. over on the adirondack to my left is the guy who comes to the club and doesnt spend any money, just watches. i am surprised he is friends with the young and beautiful. i am surprised -- always -- by the intricate abstruseness of familiarity, which at parties feels wound tightly enough to kill something small, but to you only works to make you feel charged and buzzing and happy to confer.
there's a whole genre of posts/memes to the effect of "all/autistic/nerdy men are cute, innocent, silly puppies. its actually *women* who are the bad ones and the reason people think men are bad is because women see the worst in us" these posts are and have always been dumb & bad
like seriously i hate this shit. "men if they had a time machine" this. "women don't care about just playing uno" that. its all so dumb and bad and to see adults making this type of garbage is demoralizing