i slept through the new year and i didn’t care :･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ✧

Jan 2

I finish the last ten pages of my book with a glob of my own mucus on top of my left hand, on the little plateau like a flat isosceles triangle between my index finger, thumb, and wrist. I’d just sneezed and felt a wetness in the back of my sinuses, but I was not willing to look away from the book to get a tissue, so I made a small, effortless non-decision. I inspect the clear smear of it for a moment — like a small crushed jellyfish, tiny air bubbles suspended in the gel.

I finish reading my book, and then read all of the author’s notes, all of the discussion questions at the end, the copyright information.

I get up and rinse the sneeze off of my hand and sit down to write this.

I feel for the second time this week an odd gratitude to my body protecting me, as if we are two different beings.

I took a long walk in the cold this morning and I imagine the mucus accumulating to protect my throat. I have always been a baby about panting cold air, unwilling even in the days that I did run (imagine!) to go into the cold of a California evening to do it. I hated the ragged pain of it, the taste of copper faintly filling the taste buds at the very back of my tongue where it would become throat.

I have been irritable this December. So irritable that, say, when I listened too closely to the sound of another person chewing, I could clench my teeth and feel annoyance.

I saw my acupuncturist last week and mentioned it to her. “I’m so grumpy, I can’t stand myself.” I titled the symptom, like my counseling training instructs me to: mood.

She looked at me with her huge watery eyes, told me to lay on the table. She took my pulse in three different places, moving around the entire perimeter of the table to attend to both wrists. It always takes my heart a long few moments to slow down and relax. I try holding my breath sometimes, not wanting the artificial quickness of my pulse to disrupt the magical counting she is doing. “My heart doesn’t always work this hard,” I imagine myself saying. “It was fine just a second ago before you told me I had to relax.”

My acupuncturist, an angel, whose intimate conversations over the years have led me to feel that she is something like a wise older cousin in the same dysfunctional family, says, “Hm. Your liver pulse is all over the place, and weak. That’ll make you feel stuck all right.”

I ask, “What does that mean?”

She explains, “Energetically, think of it as a blockage of some kind. You’re a tree and you want to grow up and out.” She brings her hands and wrists in front of her, gesturing up and out. “But you’re stuck. Stagnant. You can’t clear things out. You have no choice but to grow up and out.” She looks at me knowingly: “You’re a tree.”

I AM A TREE, I think to myself. I HAVE NO FUCKING CHOICE!!! BUT TO GROW UP AND OUT!!!!

“But you’ve hit a sidewalk,” she finishes. “We’ll work on it.”

She puts a point in my neck, on my toes and sides of my feet, my calves. She matter-of-factly hikes my shirt up to reach my stomach. She feels around in the strained muscles on the side of my head with great acuity and precision, and the needles she places there and in my neck hum with soreness and energy in a way that makes me think of splintering wood.

She gives me Chinese medicine — elegant little Fufang Xiaoyao San capsules. She knows I want to understand, so on the little glass bottle, she underlines the first herb with her Sharpie fineliner: 柴胡 Chaihu. “This is going to be really nourishing to you.”

I tell my partner later, “Honestly, I am moved. My liver was trying to tell me with the irritability that it was blocked. So I could get help.” I feel a slight self-consciousness about how I sound, but stop caring. Chinese medicine is so much smarter and more ancient than anything else I fuck with. Everything is communication, even symptoms. This is my body. It is giving me clues all the time.

I leave the Fufang Xiaoyao San capsules in the passenger seat of my car so I remember to take them. My antidepressants are in the center console of my car for the same reason. I have such minimal executive function these days that this is my best shot.

I popped an SSRI taking my mom to radiation three weeks ago and she asked, “What was that?”

I swallowed the little peach pill with the water bottle I keep filled and sitting in my car for the same executive functioning safeguard. “Antidepressant.”

She looked at me, surprised. “You’re depressed?”

I laughed really loudly. “Oh, yeah. We all are.”

She, herself so depressed, looked at me with a mother’s concern, for real. She doesn’t want me to be depressed.

I dutifully take my SSRI — a sophisticated, minimally-obtrustive, small dose of a hot girl’s antidepressant — because it helps me to get out of bed and do the things I must do. I rejoice at its ability to carry me on a morning walk with my dog and wash his dishes at the end of each meal because he is getting the fanciest raw food mixed in with his fanciest farm-to-table dry food. I drive to work every day, sometimes late, but every day. I can clean my house to a certain extent, see my friends to a certain extent. I am afraid of losing my ability to do these things, to work and find joy in working (which I still do), to play with my dog and find joy in my responsibilities (which I still do), to go to my mother’s apartment after a long day of working and walking my dog and crush her medications and administer them to her through a feeding g-tube that protrudes from her stomach and weeps pus even after months of healing, to talk with her about my day and about how she feels about the world while her beige vitamin shake drips through the cord into her tube at the slow rate of 400ml/hour.

I am losing my relationship with my body almost entirely. It’s such a strange feeling and I know deeply that it is the drug. Sensuality and pleasure started to feel strange to me as the serotonin in my brain reorganized itself. The zap of sex and sensuality and pleasure ended up being tied to my image of self in a way that I did not predict. I always thought of myself as such a complex, multifaceted, multiple-sources-of-meaning type bitch. I think intellectually that this may still be true. Nevertheless, I stopped wearing clothes that make me feel hot. I placed a plant in front of my closet and haven’t even gone inside to pick something beautiful in two months. Instead I pick my beloved sweaters and chic, loose pants from the same three drawers in my dresser and wash them over and over again. I don’t feel hot, plainly. I avoid looking at myself in the mirror. I don’t feel bad when I see me. But I don’t find myself searching for a slip of myself the way I used to when my sense of self was buzzing and strong and alive. I used to catch glimpses of myself in very clean glass buildings or in my rearview mirror and think, Aha! It’s you. And feel the grim and intense pleasure of being grateful to be myself, to inhabit myself, to have an irreplaceable me-ness.

I dress for fashion and power and fun, still. I laugh still. I receive affection and touch still. But from a cloud where my body does not feel like my own.

I am ostensibly switching or quitting this SSRI. My doctor knows. We are fighting with my insurance company to cover the only other antidepressant I’m willing to try right now.

I am here in this foreign body typing this neutrally, feeling nothing except a slight nod of truth at finding the simplest words for this experience, and my dog is sleeping beneath my feet under the table. He did this as a tiny baby puppy, loath to be too far, hopeful for a morsel of food. Now he comes here to feel safe. He is big now, so big. He pushes the legs of the table with his feet for more space sometimes, or, like now, he just falls asleep with his little rabbit foot tangled up in the table without being bothered.

I know what this baby dog means to me. He possesses such a striking, innate sense of being Danmuji. I am tearing up writing this. He is Muji Baby in such a special and true way. Every day, I sit on the kitchen floor with him. Maybe ten times a day we sit together there. I hold his face in my hands and he puts his nose to my nose and I say to him, as if for an audience, “I love the guy! I love the baby dog!” His eyes sparkle with love for me. Sometimes he sneezes with pleasure, a behavior that I did not know dogs do.

I feel a desperation to protect him that must be tempered with the rational acceptance that unpredictability is everywhere and that Muji’s joy at being in the world and sniffing in parks and on trails sometimes comes with chaos. He was chased down and snapped at by a dog at the end of our New Year’s Eve hike by the McKenzie River and he was so scared, snapped back. I pried the dogs apart as the other dog’s owner, the recipient of my judgment and ire in a way that is perhaps not fair, yelled, “Don’t get bit!” in a way that told me that her dog has bitten before and she still hasn’t taken the right precautions to protect her dog’s sense of safety and predictability. When I began running with Muji back to my car, she pursued me, saying nervously, “My dog is friendly! They’re okay!”

They were not okay. I was disgusted that she was trying to prove something to me and wasn’t comforting her dog, making her own dog feel safe so that he could start to unwind that behavior.

I sped out of the trailhead without making eye contact with her or offering a people-pleasing “It’s okay!” and she called out after my car inaudibly.

Muji and I were damp with mist and the whole car smelled like moss and soil. I love him. I exclaimed, “FUCK!” to no one.

I said, “I’m sorry, baby dog.” Muji sighed and lay down. He was okay.

I fume and fume in my most annoying, aghast soccer mom way about dogs feeling safe. This is the heart of stewarding another life in this world, I believe. It is our responsibility to these little creatures to protect them, to advocate for them, to undergo great self-reflection and ego-death to limit stressors and dangers and listen to their real desires and needs more than our imagined sense of who we are as dog owners or who our dogs should be. Or kids, or students, or cats, or adults we caretake for.

I have not been perfect with Muji and I expect to fuck up in the future. One of my big psychological to-dos for this year is to disentangle my own wounded childness from my emotional responses to protecting Muji.

I know why I feel so brokenhearted when he is exposed to a danger that I couldn’t avoid.

I know it is about the suffering of everyone around me and my feelings of helplessness, helping with so many small tasks in the face of insurmountable pain and suffering. I know that being together and offering dignity is better than solutions. I try to do this in practice.

I know that I protect Muji with the ferocity of someone who was not protected. I have an early memory of my parents fighting, yelling, throwing things at each other, and creeping out of bed as a three-and-a-half-year-old to come to the hallway and sit in front of the door and watch them. I remember my sense of indignance and impatience. I crossed my arms with the judgment of someone much older, already numb to violence. My legs were crisscrossed. I was just two little pretzels, big eyes, black hair. When they finally noticed me, I said flatly, “Nina and PJ are sleeping.”

In their bitter divorce, I had dreams that my mother would die on the nights I did not see her. I felt even then that my presence would somehow protect her. The nightmares came predictably every night, and I would play mental math or story games in my head every night to defer sleep. I was afraid of my dreams, which seemed like portents. I also knew that staying up and falling asleep from exhaustion was my best chance of not remembering my dreams.

It’s not like I let people protect me now. I could laugh! At the idea! Of leaving something with actual stakes to someone else!

I relish the safety and love I feel from the tangible ways I seek and receive help. I have things to still untangle about the ways I have orchestrated my own loneliness and overwhelmedness by being so selective with receiving help. I picture myself as Fräulein Maria from the Sound of Music spinning in a field with my skirts following me in a huge, soft semicircle, and I’m singing, “I KNOW I’M NOT SPECIAL!!!!!!!”

I practice with huge effort and psychological torment to say yes to things like my partner walking my dog when I am too cold to go outside, or my coworker bringing me coffee, or my friends mailing medical supplies to my mom.

People have told me a lot that they always know I’ll be fine. It’s been a compliment. And it’s been used against me.

Fine. Fine. Fine.

Last night, I repeated to Muji while he was sleeping, “Goofina. Goofina. Goofina Aguilera. Gooooooofina. Goofina. Goofina. Gooooooooofffffiiiiiinaaaaa. GooFINA!” We were laughing. Finally he answered to this name I call him thousands of time a day. He sighed in that way dogs sigh, rose from his spot in the kitchen to lay beside me on the couch. He fell back asleep promptly. I was still saying it. High-pitched and low-pitched.

Fine. Fine. Fine. Fine. I’ll be fine. I’ll be fine. Iiiiiiii’ll beeeee finnnnnneeee. Fine. Fine. Fine.

✿

if you still want to read my top ten slays of 2022

here they are

in no order

simply stream of consciousness

Top ten slays of 2022

Getting a dog who is a pickled radish who is my son and best friend and biggest comfort and source of unconditional love and so goofina and so kind guy little guy baby dog
All the times I have followed my therapist’s old advice: “If you aren’t sure what to do, do nothing.”

BITCH, OKAY!!!!!

A practice in slowing down reactivity.

I repeat to myself all the time when I’m worried about this: I can stand in my own integrity. I know my intentions are clear: wellbeing and peace for every single person I know. I know I can cause suffering with my choices and actions but I ultimately stand in my own integrity and am at peace.
Going to early couples counseling w my hot thembo boo and fundamentally restructuring how two extremely traumatized QTPOC engage w conflict and attachment conditioning. Bonus points to my personal therapist who says if you are both carrying a lot of trauma, it’s so important to understand that you’re reacting to a LOT of stuff outside of the conflict at hand and are in danger of reconstructing bad patterns unless you practice disengaging the SECOND either one of you starts to escalate.
To say this to me!!!! Who has historically understood “hard work”/tolerating conflict without end as LOVE?????? from there, believe it or not, u build capacity to engage with conflict that is only about the conflict at hand and not about your other fucking baggage. A work in progress but a slay nonetheless.
Getting the re/source residency at IPRC and using my RACC grant to fund bitchtucci.com and just feeling like I can belong to art and art belongs to me (and all of us) no matter what and it’s never too late and too late is a myth made up by ppl who are materially invested in low-frequency shit
Dinners and trips w my friends and just being there while they talk and laugh and layer jokes on top of care on top of roasts on top of love
Mom’s immunotherapy working (and all the community support we have received around her cancer care) (ilysm)
Deciding finally this November that it makes more sense to keep my house at 63 degrees at the coldest instead of letting it get freezing and warming it up because a lifetime of poverty taught me that leaving the heat on was crazy, even though logic tells me that leaving it at a baseline warmer temp is more efficient. hehe!
Auxiliary: putting a wall heater in my freezing bathroom so it never gets freezing anymore. blessings to my ass, y’all
Getting a detachable showerhead so I can give my dog a bath easier and so we can both experience Spa
Fulling committing to being an e-reader hoe and reading 6373927374 books on my e-reader, especially goofy or embarrassing books that I can check out for free via the bonus slay Libby app
My queer protagonist haircut, originating in March 2022, by @madeline.hair

Top ten dog slays of 2022

Investing in training with @noblewoof. Muji was always sweet-tempered and smart, but he has become so much SAFER and more PREDICTABLE and more UNDERSTANDABLE to me and vice versa. He loves Brie, Jackson, and Jaime so much 😪😪😪.
It feels so important and special to build a common language with the baby dog, and to do everything reasonable in my power to make him feel safe, relaxed, and secure with himself, me, and other dogs.
The Wonder Walker harness. It’s so good I’m crying. I had to watch the how-to-put-on video so many times and pause it. Pause. Hold up harness. Squint. My abstract spatial reasoning skills are weak, actually. Must touch to know. I clip in front because Muji still likes to pull when he gets excited.
Clicker training, positive reinforcement literally all the time, and always literally always having healthy treats around, in a dog Fanny pack on every walk, in little jars all over the house
Muji teaching himself how to hug 😪😪😪😪😪😪😪😪😪😪😪😪 and teaching himself how to pet. Sometimes he hugs me and very gently pets my head. His nails scratch me but I love him.
The dried cow knees ???? sold in bulk at queer and poc-owned Headstong Hound
Brushing !!!!! And toweling Muji off. He loves Spa and walks straight into the towel headfirst. He rubs his head along the towel like a lion strutting in Sub-Sahara among the gazelles.
The Waterhog xl floor mats from LL Bean fundamentally changed the amount of shit Muji tracks in and have restored my sanity as a type-A Capricorn who cannot rest when there is debris on the floor. It did not start w me, I have a lot of childhood trauma around particles on the floor. Don’t ask!!!!
The ruffwear car hammock omg. What a dirty dog. And always trying to climb on my lap. This gives him a safe place to be and contains the mud from when Muji loves to lay in a puddle at least once per walk.
Toppl > Kong, and stainless steel lick mats >>>>> anything else
Muji running fifteen feet ahead of me on the trail and then turning around to wait for me over and over and over throughout the walk. He keeps walking only after I say, “Thank you, baby dog!”

Top ten household item slays of 2022

Weighted espresso tamp. Who knew????????!!!! I was using the plastic one that came w my espresso machine years ago but finally I said. U know what bitch. You deserve more.
Those targeted Instagram ads for couch cushion covers???? Muji had Giardia and i had to wash and sanitize everything and I said “no problem I am a couch cover Asian now”
Decluttering and wiping down the counters consistently???? W vinegar and water spray!!!!! As my only multipurpose everything cleaner!!!! Mrs. Yang Meyers knock knock let me in
Terro ant traps for the ~outdoors~ SO I CAN GET EM BEFORE THEY EVEN COME INSIDE I STAY ONE STEP AHEAD OF MY ENEMIES
Having shelving of some kind to organize cleaning shit under the kitchen sink. Any narrow shelving of any kind.
Decaf coffee beans around all the time. The option for a half-caf or a decaf is huge if true
This little bamboo IKEA e-reader stand. Reading while eating gets my brain to calm down and experience pleasure and take time to mindfully eat. I always make a beautiful plate, even leftovers eating alone. When I just attempt to ~mindfully eat alone~ my brain cannot stop thinking about millions of things and I end up eating quickly. Eating while reading is like a fucking vacation. There’s nothing better. Silence. Dog at my feet asleep under the table. A bowl of random leftovers arranged beautifully. And taking forever to eat and read. Oh my god. OH MY GOD!!!!!!!! I have a stand at home and one at work for my lunch break and I emerge from lunch like………centered and at peace. In a public school. Can you even imagine the power i have, all thanks to this IKEA e-reader stand
Magnetic knife rack stuck w 3M tape to the cabinet next to my stove. I said to my knife block “I ONLY USE THREE OF YOU GUYS AND U are taking my limited counter real estate!!!!” U gotta think like a CEO sometimes. You run the counter. The counter does not run you.
Putting all of my dog supply odds and ends and my linens in a low, six-drawer thrifted dresser. Having everything in its own spot and out of sight makes me feel in charge of my destiny………………staring into the mist unafraid of what is to come. The poop bags are in the bottom drawer. The treats are in the top drawer. The medical and hygiene supplies are in the middle. That’s LOGIC. That’s POWER!!!!!!!! And if the other side contains linens thrust in without any regard for their role? So be it. I have my limits.
Toaster oven. When u live alone and don’t own a microwave. U can really test the limits of what a toaster oven can do. This is what I imagine Venus and Serena Williams’ dad felt like when they were kids. He was like. I see ur potential. I will push you further than you’ve ever been pushed. And you will do GREAT things, greater than you ever DREAMED

Top ten wellness girlie slays of 2022

High-quality shwaganda powder religiously in my coffee every morning for years continues to this day!!!!! If you struggle with stress response and adrenal fatigue, this is my top rec of my life!!!! It’s subtle and hard to explain but it’s like…my lows don’t last as long, and the feelings of stress and dread unclench faster. It’s like a little more brain elasticity to bounce back from things. My acupuncturist says twice a day would be great too but I can never remember to do this at night!!!!
Magnesium and encapsulated lavender to sleep and not grind my teeth at night!!!!!! Magnesium in particular is so crazy!!!!!! I just….sleep through the night!!!! Without feeling groggy in the morning?????? After a lifetime of shit sleep?????? Including as a child????
Having an acupuncturist and naturopathic doctor who both listen to me and respect me and whose wellbeing I am deeply invested in and vice versa
Taking my body pain seriously!!!! Nice. And getting treatment accordingly
The first month of my SSRI. That was amazing! I did so much! I vacuumed between my stairs!!!! Now, as u know, the side effects are crushing my soul so I’m on the journey for another. Fingers crossed, girlies!!!!!
Having a dog and watching him run off leash!!!!!! Gives me more joy than!!!! Almost anything!!!!!
Consistently experiencing meaning, purpose, failure, resistance, triumph, and transformation in my work as a counselor. Some days I can barely get out of bed, or I have 637447 responsibilities before work in the morning, and I truly wish I could have a more flexible schedule and do all my administrative work from home, but ultimately I look forward to working with my students every single day. I have always loved my students and I always will.
Sometimes opting to stay home from social engagements to get stoned and watch Blue Planet w my dog
Kefir????????? Most mornings I am so disheveled that even prepping a bowl of yogurt to take for breakfast is intolerable but I can pour Kefir into a jar and hit the road knowing that my gut is in good hands
Being invited and included. Nothing makes me feel more loved and considered!!!!!! Even when I can’t go!!! Thank you to every single person across space and time who has ever invited me and made me feel included.

Top ten beauty and skincare slays of 2022

If you have ever been loved by me, you know: eucalyptus oil flung on the wall of the shower
My Sonicare electric toothbrush. The real slim shady ultimately!!!!! Honorable mention to tongue scraping
Hair shit: Melanin leave-in conditioner, Curlsmith hydro style flexi jelly, Felicia Leatherwood detangling brush
Beauty of Joseon Relief Sun probiotic spf!!!!!!
Very low dose of Tretinoin twice a week, courtesy of Curology but any script will do
@kravebeauty everything, especially the kalelaluyaha toner twice a week and great barrier relief all the time!!!!!
@dieuxskin everything, especially the deliverance serum and instant angel face cream
Calendula oil for everything anytime at all times
@fatandthemoon’s most beautiful lip and cheek paint, especially mortar and pestle, zlatta baba and clay idol. Their branding is soooooo……….but the product slays and this is a list of slays, after all
Doing less, strategically. No actives when my skin is even remotely sensitive. Hydration and moisture over all the bullshit. Extremely effective and top-of-the-line actives like prescription tretinoin and non-redundant peptide serums and gentle, well-formulated acids. No stripping, clunky cleansers. Oil cleansing every night. SPF every day YES I SAID EVERY!!!!!

OUT

Imagining I have control over things that I do not. I am actually laughing typing this
Falling asleep on the couch before I brush my teeth
Trying to do too many things in a day so running compoundingly more and more late for each commitment
Allowing folks to project onto me and then just taking responsibility for resolving their feelings because I have the skills to do it and the people-pleasing tendencies to match
Letting all of the little piles of clutter engulf entire spaces
Forgetting to water the plants who are more out of sight :(
Aimless guilt

IN

The greatest gift of my entire life: the feeling of friendship. Friendship with friends, friendship with my mom, my family, my students, my lover, my dog. The feeling of just being delighted by someone who is delighted by you without expectation; the trust that reciprocity works itself out over space and time; just noticing someone’s specialness and having them notice your specialness, and you are liked and they like you.
Taking baby dog on adventures and stacking positive experiences of safety and consideration
Making decisions from a place of abundance and humble not-knowingness
Art and the poking feeling of yearning right in my heartspace when an idea comes to me
Ideas
Taking Mama Yang on experiences and being present for our conversations and time together and not pushing her to do too much out of my own sense of wanting good things and meaning for her. Dignity for her, and for all.

We were talking just before the New Year and she said, laying in bed, “Even with all of this, I feel a great sense that life is wonderful. And my life is wonderful.”

I said, “You know. Me too. I am at peace.”

She said, “You are?”

I nodded, feeling sure.
Fucking off more
Multicolored taper candles. I mean, wow
Trusting that most people can essentially take care of themselves without me needing to game-plan fixing a problem twenty steps ahead. Prioritizing not being a mind-reader or centering my way of doing things, helping when asked, and when I actually can. Resentment can allegedly be avoided if this simple formula is followed. I wouldn’t fucking know!!!

WHAT I HOPE FOR YOU (AND ALL OF US)

The discernment to know when your worries are making you zero in on control or hyperfixation on someone or something else. “Let go” by frou frou, after all
Feeling known by yourself and perhaps occasionally by others

Marissa Yang Bertucci

i slept through the new year and i didn’t care *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧