Last night Mariam said (screamed over the loud music) that she can hear the conversations the boys have on the second floor Mmmmm with perfect clarity (the boys being Josh, Max and Dusty) from her apartment on the 4th floor.

She’s listened in to see what they’re talking about and apparently it’s utter nonsense. She said itms dumb boy stuff.

This echoed a conversation I had with Mikey last Sunday. I guess there was a boy’s night at Nikola’s. I asked how it was different when we (Andrea and I) aren’t there. He said boys are gross. They make fart jokes. And he’d much rather talk about Gilmore Girls.

I forget what that was like. To just hang out with guys. In my late teens/early 20’s, I almost exclusively hung out with Danny’s dude friends. It was a lot of getting high, eating Los Betos burritos paired with horchata and playing video games while It never really felt dumb or gross though maybe because toxic masculinity was never cool with us. We were the nerds who had all been ostracized by those douchebags as kids. And maybe because I had an intense curiosity about how humans humaned, especially boys since I didn’t grow up around them.

There was only one guy whom I couldn’t stand. He was Eurotrash from Germany. He hit on all the girls. And he took out his guitar at parties when it was definitely not the vibe.

I was UBER uptight then. It made my eye twitch to hear him sing. I think my defining feature was to disapprove of things in general. I think I was was kind of a douchebag.

Last night I felt a little like 21-year old Vene. It was so loud at the bar I was breaking down. I didn’t have any coping mechanisms. I couldn’t hold a conversation. I was frustrated. If I opened my mouth it was to complain. And not even with wit. I wasn’t me. I was HER.

So I empathize with HER today. I don’t think she was was born unhappy and snarly. That was her way of dealing with things that felt completely out of control.

Today I’m better. Today I’m ME. Not 100%. But enough that I don’t have to defend who I was last night because my ego isn’t getting in the way and there’s nothing to be lost. I can be kind to myself and eat mole in bed.

The museum can wait. I need rest, as much as I’d like to get out of my room and live out in the city. I need to fast from conversation, even with the people I love most. I’m not able to be a good listener right now. They’ll understand. There’s no rush.

Just as a side note, I remember last night with clarity. My memory hasn’t been the best because of depression. It’s been frustrating in 10 different ways. One of the ways that specifically bothers me is that I can’t remember conversations in full to know how I got from A-C. Normally I’m so on top of that that someone can lose their train of thought and I’ll reconnect it. Right now it is not the case. I just have to be patient. It just makes me self-conscious is all.