notes from january: I'M HANDLING IT!!

I’m starting to think all my uncomfortablity might be paying off. I think it’s always hard to admit to yourself, especially when you’re in the thick of it, that the only way out is through. Though I’m writing this as I’m nursing a minor cold with a broken sink in the kitchen and a leaky radiator beside me— I think I’ve finally reached the next version of myself. I reached a point at the beginning of this month where I just said fuck it, and made a couple of shifts to reach clarity— in better words, I tossed my hair in a messy bun, drank some coffee, put on some gansta rap, and handled it.

Here are my notes from January:

• I never participate in New Year’s resolutions. I find them incredibly grim. I’ve only ever done them when I am forced, or in a group activity situation where I would look like a type Daria if I didn’t join it. On New Year’s Eve 2023, I was at a party where slips of paper and pens were passed around, I wrote “THREE MEALS A DAY & MORE MONEY” on mine before folding it up and putting it in the waistband of my skirt. Of course, there are things about me that I want to change, I just don’t feel motivated by pointing them out so explicitly. If there is something about me that I want to change I promise you there isn’t a moment awake that I’m not beating myself over the head about how badly I want to fix it.

• Received my first gift from 2025 which came in the shape of a juicy stye on the inside of my right eye that made me feel pregnant in a way that’s never been felt before.

• Occasionally I’ll end up on the high fashion side of Twitter and feel so much envy. I admire people who know all of the details of a garment, the history. People who can use the words and phrases like rusching, and resort collection with ease. All I can do is touch a piece of clothing and tell you if it’s American Apparel pre or post-bankruptcy.

• Unfortunately, I’m a restrictor in every facet of my life— love, work, eating, social stuff. I will prevent myself from doing all my basic needs and wants if I don’t think I’m achieving enough. In college, I got crazy UTIs for a few reasons, but my ability to hold in my pee because I felt like I didn’t deserve to use the bathroom was definitely a main contributor. When I feel like I’m not making progress I will halt everything until progress is made. I used to believe that this mentality was just a rigid reward system but in reality, I’m just setting a trap to further self-punishment. Working on it.

• An angel spoke to me via Instagram reel and said, “Hi I’m an angel, here is a hack that will help you do a historical poop, during the month of January, you will send this Instagram reel to many of your friends and scare them with your enthusiasm, godspeed”.

  litredbook

  

  A post shared by @litredbook

• It’s literally crazy that I let stress take my beauty away from me.

• Nothing tops the time a girl asked me if my boobs were fake. I could give birth to a baby of my own and still believe that moment was a little more meaningful.

• Finally started opening up about the time in 4th grade when I was the new girl in school and told my classmates that they could call me T-Bone instead of Mackenzie. It didn’t catch, but imagine if it did.

• Long before there were conversations about the future of TikTok, I was hoping that the app would cease to exist. About 2 years ago, I walked away from a following of half a million people because what TikTok demanded of me was killing me creatively. I find TikTok’s needs to be insidious, and I don’t think I’m cut out to be a content farm. Though someone is currently impersonating me and re-uploading all my old videos under my name, my absence from the app has been much needed and I don’t see myself returning anytime soon. I say all of this while acknowledging everything the app has done for me, the night the app was taken down I was at a bar here in Bushwick sandwiched between two friends who were once TikTok mutuals of mine. Anyway- the talk around TikTok has caused me to examine my relationship with the internet as a whole, I began to write about it in a piece called ‘Void Lover’.

• I saw Babygirl and didn’t really love it as much as I thought it would. I have to stop letting people on Twitter set expectations for movies, especially films that allegedly have a freak-nasty-crazy premise. I always walk away disappointed that didn’t see fisting or a camera going straight up someone’s urethra.

• I hate having a snuffy nose because it’s always so one foot in one foot out, I would prefer to be completely unable to breathe through my nose than fighting a thick layer of snot for air. They need to invent earplugs for the nose holes.

• They should invent lips that don’t chap.

• I was out late with my friend Ian the night it snowed. We saw a movie and got hot pot afterward. We finished our meal around midnight and started walking toward the L when Ian suggested we go to Central Park. Oh my god, free will? I’d forgotten all about her! We quickly headed in the other direction, hopped on the D, and went all the way to Central Park. I get too comfortable in my neighborhood and forget there are other places in this city. Ian and I walked around in the snow for about an hour, listening to World Princess Part II (x) and laughing as we quoted that viral video of the woman talking to her local news about how much she loves running in the snow because it’s “low impact” and “the perfect texture for running” — right before tripping and hurting her back. (x).

• Craving a house party for the first time in my life. I’m aging out of them, and I don’t think I would ever look for one, but I want nothing more than an opportunity to people-watch from the corner of a room in a house that isn’t mine.

• Speaking of Ian, I’m in the process of living down a fart I did while we were hanging out a few weeks ago. I don’t fart around people, you might mistake me for the type of girl, but that’s not me. I left the room out as a courtesy, but reentered too quickly and embarrassed myself. I asked Ian if it where it ranked on the list of the worst things he ever smelled in his life and he said it’s a contender for 8th or 7th place. Notes included: melon, raccoon, and kimchi.

  

• To soothe myself during these times I keep telling myself that the world has already ended.

• Lost my vibrator’s charger.

• Started keeping a rolling list of karaoke songs I would like to perform one day, but it’s getting so long that I’m worried I’ll die before I get through them all.

• Was reminded of the time I was 16 and Mac Demarco’s bassist found me after a show and asked to buy oxycontin off of me after I told him earlier that night during some crowd work I participated in that I just had my wisdom teeth removed.

• I made the mistake of posting a picture of a wallet made out of a human nipple on my close friends' story with the caption, “They are turning me into a nipple wallet tomorrow.” I assumed everyone would think I was joking—I WOULD NEVER LET SOMEONE TURN MY NIPPLE INTO A WALLET. But I quickly received many messages of concern, including one very distraught voice message from my friend Marissa. It made me laugh, but also made me think about dialing back my unpredictability. I don’t want to be known as the girl who might cut off her nipple on any given Sunday.

  

• Stopped using the snail mucin facial lotion (x) I use every night and thought my whole face would fall apart until for it to remain the same. I should be mad about the placebo of it all but I’m way too into the idea of objects helping me.

• I think it’s such a mistake that they don’t tell girls in health class about the two chin hairs they will have to tweeze every 45 days after their 20th birthday.

• I had two recurring nightmares about Alan, the antagonist and monster from the web series Daisy Brown, which I was secretly obsessed with in college. I say "secretly" because I never told anyone I hung around with at the time, fearing they wouldn’t have the patience or find it too weird or unfinished. The series never had a regular upload schedule, which I loved—sometimes months would pass without an update, making it feel so real. There are parts of the series I take issue with, but that’s also why I liked it so much. In college, I was surrounded by so many people terrified of taking risks because professors rewarded them for upholding creative traditions. Finding things like this online always reassured me that I was on the right path.

• Overheard a man make a flirting attempt with a girl who was commiserating about her 25th birthday that just passed, he said “You know your cells stop regenerating at age 25”. She didn’t laugh or find it remotely charming.

• There is a college-girl level of drunk that becomes unacceptable after a certain age. If you can't pinpoint the moment in your life when this behavior should stop, I will always worry for you. We all deserve drunk nights out, but there is an art to being drunk that should be mastered a few years before you age out of your parents' insurance plan.

• I bought myself a nice coat and, hours later, tried to convince myself I was allergic to it so I’d feel ashamed enough to return it. I was looking up “how to become unallergic to a coat” on Reddit, finding no definitive answers, and whipping myself into a panic on the couch at a Drag Race viewing party. It wasn’t until the next morning that I realized the tight feeling in my throat was just the aftershock of fulfilling my own desire.

• I end this month at a gay bar I had no idea I was going to before I left my house, I wouldn’t have worn a turtle neck if I knew my night would end this way. I ran into an old friend at summer camp, he kissed me on the cheek and insisted that I get up on a table and dance for the room. I quickly hit my head on a pipe after smacking a go-go dancer on the butt as firmly as I could with eyes on me before taking a step down. On the dance floor, I met eyes with every ex-boyfriend of every gay boy I’ve ever met in the greater Bushwick area, and ended up leaving in an Uber with my friend Mera around 1 after someone stepped on my foot.

I also did an interview with Polyester this month that you can read here (x)

xoxo Mackenzie