notes from april: JERK-OFF SLIDESHOW

It’s been a slow choke. April feels like the last day of school. Bittersweet but more sweet-leaning, even the moments of hopelessness I suffered seemed to have a reasonable resolve, and I think I prefer that more to the senselessness of this past winter. Though this month wasn’t amazing, it feels like I’m at the beginning of something good, and I’ve heard a rumor that beginnings are never easy.

Everything around me is starting to drop its shoulders as I exist in this state of exhale, graduating from my recent past onto the now. Slowly, everything is becoming simple. Sometimes I fear that I sound boring when I’m asked what I’ve been up to lately, but I think I prefer this to a balancing act.

• I go to the coffee shop

• I walk 10,000 steps at the park

• I run into people I love

• I talk in circles with my roommates

• I do freelance bullshit

• I sing the new Addison Rae to myself on the way to the grocery store (x)

I think I deserve a good spring and an even better summer, and though it’s tough to allow myself to feel hopeful completely, the forecast seems clear. I dream of a weeks-long, 80-degree, exzema-free, malaise to find me as compensation for all the emotional heavy-lifting I muscled this winter.

When I close my eyes, I see nothing, but this time it’s not rattling me; all I’ve done is be good, so good things will come to me in return.

Here are my notes from April:

• One of my best friends started seeing a celebrity crush of mine. I could spend my time being mad about it, but I’ve decided that it’s not right to be mad at someone I love for disrupting a fantasy. Tricky, but friendship rules over fantasy always.

• Put my music on shuffle, asked for a sign, and Expresso played, which felt so dated and made me feel a little angry. If it were 12 months earlier, I would’ve laughed and texted my roommate about it, but in the present, it just made me feel as if my life was lacking a needed magic.

• My pictures have been used for catfishing in the past—once before I was of age and again during my freshman orientation week at college. At the time, it felt like an invasion of my personhood, and back then, I was averaging about 4 episodes of Catfish a week, so I was more inclined to drop a sinister lens over the whole thing. But I think as I’ve grown, I’ve come to see situations like this as a form of flattery, also, I think anyone would love to see how others decide to dress them up and rename them. I like seeing who I could’ve been if the deck was shuffled two cards deeper, and it’s a nice feeling knowing some parts of me are too potent to be erased.

  

• I spent April Fool’s Day at Planned Parenthood. After bleeding gray, pencil lead colored blood through a pair of my unimportant Hanes— a pair I keep reserved for my unseen days, the days I know there isn’t even a chance that I’m taking my pants off in front of anyone important. I’ve never bled that color before, and googled ‘period late 50 days gray blood’, and grew increasingly concerned. I took an Uber to the nearest place that would take me immediately, and made friends with a girl in the waiting room who had these incredible DIY acrylic nails with big Hello Kittys attached at the tips. My visit resumed with my doctor telling me something I already knew. She asked me if I had a history with anorexia, and I had no choice but to tell her that recovery is never perfect, and I’d probably like myself a whole lot more if it were. She stepped out of the room to give me some privacy, and I cried like a child, wishing I could be perfect for myself.

• I went up on the roof to dance and pulled a muscle in my neck while pretending to be Justin Bieber. Spent the three days that followed bedridden.

• I took up praying for myself before bed. I’m not religious by any means—if anything, prayer feels like an elaborate tribute to Tom & Jerry. Each night, I light two candles to cover my bases: one religious, the other vaguely spiritual and hippie-ish. I get on my knees beside the bed and ask whatever might be listening to have mercy on me. To lift whatever blockage is keeping me from the simple things I want. To help me build and maintain newer, healthier habits.

• Spring is not about physical touch. Spring is about leaving something to be desired, becoming a semi-permanent part of the jerk-off slideshow that plays in someone’s head before bed. Leave a trace, nothing more.

• It’s important to keep your routine the same when the seasons are changing. Don’t change your shampoo. Stay off of WebMD.

• Explained to my dad that Mondays are kinda like Christmas for freelancers.

• Watched the girl ahead of me in the line at Quodba order a burrito bowl with four extra squirts of sour cream. The amount was so excessive that I thought she might be participating in some type of social media challenge or trend I wasn’t privy to. As I stood there, waiting my turn, watching it squirt out of the squeeze bottle, I thought about how I actually have no idea what sour cream is. I have nothing against it, but I’ve actively avoided it because I’ve never been in the mood to try digesting it. On my way back home, I looked it up on Wikipedia and was pleasantly underwhelmed. It’s as self-explanatory as it sounds, but I was fascinated enough that I was just a hair away from getting clipped by an approaching Nissan.

  

• I think the last time I was sick I blew out the flap in my sinus that keeps snot at bay.

• Being a narcissist and compulsively recording the ins and outs of your everyday life are not the same thing. They are both mental illnesses, but they are not the same thing.

• I don’t look like either of my parents, but a small bit of my father’s genetics are revealed when the wind blows. Soft, easily persuaded thin hair and a weak hairline that refuses to fully give out. I tell myself that the embarrassment will all be worth it in the end because there must be a special slice of heaven reserved for girls born with their father’s hairlines.

• Whenever I suggest that I have superpowers, my friends agree.

• I’ve spent a lot of time feeling hopeless this month, but it’s working for me. My heart feels a little like astronaut ice cream you could get as a souvenir at The Smithsonian— dry, fake-y, crushable, and maybe if you put it out in the rain for a little, it would disappear completely. I want to want, but my arms don’t know how to reach anymore. My swag is yet to return to me in full. The horny/lustful/crazy feelings nip at my heel most days, but commiting to all that becomes non-existent after I begin to engage with the steps my curiosity wants me to take. It's daunting to try to say the right words, send the right text, or even allow yourself to be seen as a potential sex object. Baby steps.

• It was my friend Ben’s birthday. I spent the morning with him on his stoop, he told me how nervous he felt about bringing people together. He kept telling me, “ I think I’m overthinking this”, but isn’t that what birthday parties are for?

• I was eating ice cream on a bench at a Soho playground with my friend Sophia when I saw a familiar face, Sebastian Bear-McClard—Emily Ratajkowski’s ex-husband. I was honestly surprised I recognized him because he was with his son. I saw him take note of Sophia and me, and I turned the other way. The last time I saw Sebastian was in 2023, when he followed me down the street in Midtown for 30 minutes and badgered me for my phone number when we were eventually stopped at the same crosswalk (obviously, I declined). Anyway, it was weird seeing him there at the playground. Even though I just got a quick look, he seems to be an adequate father— I don’t know why I’m always surprised when creeps contain multitudes.

• I keep on coming back and re-watching this video by waverlyvienna8 (x) on Instagram reels. I think the thing that originally got me so hooked on the internet as a child was the opportunity it gives me to find people who are unlike me so easily. Waverlyvienna8 is obsessed with those kitchy food-shaped footstools that became popular amongst tasteless people during the pandemic. Though I don’t think waverlyvienna8 is tasteless, anyone who has this much excitement for something so relatively small possesses a quality so special that it overrides the question of taste (but no, I wouldn’t want my home to look like this). But in a way, she is an artist, and the aisles of Home Goods are her medium.

  waverlyvienna8

  

  A post shared by @waverlyvienna8

  I think the phrase “chicken jockey” is 16 weeks away from becoming an alt-right dog whistle (x).

• I know the seasons are officially changing when my eyes start making these very loud clicking noises every time I rub them. For the longest time, I thought I was the only one who could hear it, but over the past few allergy seasons, I’ve learned that not only can everyone around me hear it, but it’s actually quite disgusting to hear without a warning.

• Falling back into Astrology has been a treat. Read a great cracked-out blog post about Aqarius and its relationship with the internet (x).

• Did my eyebrows.

• I have a habit of refusing to forget anything; things slip, but I’m such a memory hoarder that it’s rare. Recently, I ran into a girl I hadn’t seen since sleepaway camp. Without really thinking, I immediately launched into a story about how I remembered her singing “Party in the USA” at campfire. I went even further, telling her, “Oh my god, yeah, and you were wearing that really cool black tank top with the necklace”. My recollection seemed to disturb her, she made that face one does after seeing close-up magic. Before brushing me off, she said, “Yeah, that sounds like that could’ve happened”, leaving me embarrassed. I wish I could say a scenario like this doesn’t happen to me every week, but it almost always does.

• Had a nightmare that I told a girl that she had “soccer girl voice”.

  

• There is a certain power in being corny that a lot of people aren’t smart enough to recognize.

• Tried smoking weed for the first time after I quit a little under two years ago. I anticipated paranoia, but ended up teary, curled up in a little ball with the sheets pulled back, thinking about how brave it is to love. I know that sounds silly, and the word brave may even stir a cringe within some, but in the moment, I was all golf-ball-eyed, and it felt very serious. My thoughts mostly circled around my close girl friends, their love stories, and the ones we share platonically— how our partners will come and go, but our shared love will always act as a cradle, no matter where we are. My commitment to them can be seen on my face, their love and our shared processing has folded me into a shape I’ve always wanted to take, and I’ll never shut up about it.

• I pace around like a man when I’m nervous. While I don’t think this behavior is ladylike, I don’t have much of a choice. If I can’t move my body during moments of duress, I feel like all my joints will lock in place, leaving me stuck like a cryogenically frozen caveman in a cartoon when the moment I’m supposed to loosen up arrives.

• Caviar is not a food. It’s a marker of celebration. We don’t need to think deeply about it. Nobody needs to be an expert on it. Caviar talk should begin and end with, “Okay, this is nice”.

• Took the train into New Jersey to spend the day in my hometown. Dropped by my high school and ran into my old math teacher, who struggled to remember my name, but once we started talking, he quickly told me about his 13-year-old daughter’s affinity for shoplifting big items and asked me for some advice. I told him all awesome women have a history with shoplifting, including myself, and that seemed to put him at ease.

• Made Pho without a recipe, and it tasted exactly how I wanted it to. I find that if I’ve eaten something enough, I can piece it together on my own. Every time I follow a recipe, things turn out weird, more expensive, and grainy somehow (?). I think recipes are a little bit of a psyop. I think if you think really really really hard, you can figure it out.

• Anything I say about music should never be taken seriously because I still listen to Phoenix.

• Got two new tattoos. One says JERSEY, and the other is difficult to photograph.

• Bought incense for the first and probably last time the other day. I was lured by the packaging that seemed to promise that the ‘dragonblood’ scent, when burnt as would actively protect you against evil. I lit one when I got home and realized that I made a massive mistake after I got a crazy headache, had to lie down, and take an Excedrin.

• Lost my favorite ring.

• I was drinking a Modelo and taking a couple of laps around the park when I decided to go into Other People’s Clothing on a whim. This month ends in a dressing room. Other People’s Clothing’s selection usually underwhelms me, but somehow I ended up behind a curtain, sticking my leg through the neck hole of a dress. I felt silly standing there in something that fit me so well, especially because I was waiting on a payment. I was about to turn around and return the dress to the rack when, like magic, I got the notification from my bank I’d been waiting for—the go-ahead to make the purchase. I don’t know if I’ll ever have an opportunity to wear it, but sometimes just knowing something is hanging in the back of your closet, waiting for your touch, is enough.

love to every potential jerk-off slideshow victim

xoxo Mackenzie <3