Goated Blog

There were goats grazing on the hill coming back from Laguna. Everyone pulled over to watch.

I’m assembling a collection of writing from the past week and a half, things I’ve been journaling about or reading.

On Good Times

Don’t let good moments turn into “time wasted,” when you could have been: outside reading a book, on your computer writing a spreadsheet, with someone you miss a lot, growing professionally.

There will always be something more important.

Remind yourself that you felt happy right now.

You were content: grinding your coffee, listening to a good song, pulling the cookies out of the oven, looking at the sunlight (on the plants).

There will always be:

outside,

and books,

and spreadsheets,

and person you miss a lot,

and professional development.

You can’t always get:

fresh coffee and cookies,

an hour for a whole album,

and sunshine in Seattle.

4.11.26

I wonder how many people live long enough to realize where they went wrong.

How many people live long enough to admit they were wrong? Depends on how much humility you have maybe.

Turns out sunflower seeds are among crows’ favorites. I bought them peanuts too. Ducks like grapes. I fed a couple on the way home from mailing letters to some friends.

A girl needs to feel free like a cat. One who is bound can never be happy. Life is a dance, and everything alive must dance.

I wish people would ask me more questions. I love to talk but I get self-conscious. Questions are great because they help me focus and they say “you should keep talking.” I hate when you can tell a question isn’t genuine, like the asker doesn’t actually care for your answer. Sometimes I worry my questions aren’t genuine because my ulterior motive is that I expect a question in return. I’m also not the best listener all the time. My mind likes to tune out boring things, which is actually great until I miss something important. I’m not sure how normal that is…

I want to get better at asking good questions. Maybe I’ll start watching more interviews. Not Charlie Rose. Maybe Charlie Rose. I don’t want to be Charlie Rose, I just want to ask good questions. (If anyone has favorite interviews please forward them to me.)

I want to be free like a cat because I crave the feeling of choice. I love to know I’m choosing to be with someone, or at least to have the illusion of choice. I think sometimes it’s an illusion and other times it’s very real. It feels more real when things are hard and when priorities change. Priorities are ultimately a choice I suppose, but that’s hard to remember. Choosing someone feels like an investment, but I don’t think it should feel so uncertain. You should be choosing knowing it will pay off and being content making sacrifices with no guaranteed returns. Trusting. (If it doesn’t feel like that, well I don’t know…)

Excerpts from Tax Day (4.15.26)

In elementary school, we had this game called ZAP!* You would write the name of someone “special” on your friend’s palm with a time, and they weren’t allowed to look until that time or if it disappeared. If you looked before the time then you had to go and ask the person out. We were addicted to it.

(Before long, the game joined the long-standing list of things banned from elementary schools, like the Harlem Shake or Silly Bands.)

I feel like I’m playing the game again. I want to look, I want to be forced to ask. But I’ll just keep ignoring it until the pen fades. I don’t even know if I truly want it… The grief is a drug. I use it to remind myself it’s time to seize the day, to build the life I want for myself. That’s a hard thing to do alone…

You never realize how impersonal your life is until you lose someone who has sculpted you into the person you are. Then you see that you are just a collection of other people’s things. You are your father’s smile and your mother’s good nature, and your grandma’s selflessness. Nothing in the world is yours anymore. But then if you are made from these people then they might also be made from you. You are the effect and the cause. They are carrying around your things too, all your good and bad and things beyond the spectrum.

Two years and I still don’t know what it means. No one said not to love, and I don’t regret it anyway. I just wish I know the right way.

*I feel like it needs to be capitalized with the exclamation mark to emphasize the drama of it all.

Orange

On the plane to Orange. I finished Mockingjay; no tears. Not the right time.

Good writers, I’m convinced, are just people who have learned how to slow their minds down enough to make sense of their thoughts and retrace the paths that connect them.

I wish my lola kept a diary, especially one in Tagalog. I would have loved to read it and better understand her life and values. I wish I didn’t have to do so much guessing and assuming. I wish I knew what was most important in life. (I guess you have to discover that on your own.)

I wish I could speak as freely as Julie Delpy in Before Sunset.

I wish I had more urgency to be alone with my thoughts, but usually my mind is a tense and stressful place. I find myself walking the same paths and arriving at the same places.

I hope it’s warm enough to go in the ocean and the saltwater doesn’t burn my skin.

I did go in.

The ocean stole my sunglasses…