We don't trust each other anymore
Journals 12/9/25-12/10/25
Wednesday, 12/10/25
I still consider myself new to the suburbs. Without an established community, the quiet feels antisocial, almost violent—threatening omnipresence of red circles and golden arches. I look for little ways to shake things up for myself.
8:30 AM
I got in the car to drive to the train and said fuck it, played “Club Classics” at max volume, started chugging the half-empty can of Diet Coke that I’d left sitting in the cupholder overnight. It was gross. Flat as a Texas plain. Betrayed the small rebellion of the moment, its effervescent thump. There’s a chance I’ll never go to a nightclub again. I can make peace with that. What even constitutes a “nightclub” these days? I remain staunchly anti-morning soda.
My whole look today is mid, but not without effort. It took four products and multiple tools to do my slicked-back bun, and it still wasn’t right. Postpartum hair breakage is a humbling phenomenon. Shit will have you looking like a chicken even with a head full of glue.
No makeup today, just thick layers of Weleda Skin Food and Lanolips. Listen, a lot of products claim to be “Botox in a bottle,” but this lotion in the Kelly green tube is the one for me. It’s so thick and tacky that the effect is almost blurring. I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to try it.
My goal this winter is to be as moisturized as possible (shocker). I have an entire drawer full of lotions and oils, including:
EOS vanilla cashmere lotion and body butter. Don’t bother buying the body butter. It is no thicker than the lotion and it doesn’t smell as good.
A travel-sized Sol de Janeiro Cheirosa 59 body butter
Bio-Oil that I thought I’d use on my c-section scar until I realized
Necessaire Hinoki body lotion
Jojoba oil with a big dropper
L’Occitane almond oil spray
Two body butters from Trader Joe’s, the coconut and the unscented. Coconut is delicious. Neither are as thick as I want. They had a superthick dupe for Cheirosa 59 last year and it’s a high I’m still chasing. If they bring it back, I will buy three.
I’m probably forgetting some. Also in that drawer: my perfume collection and two vibrators. Makes sense to me.
I’m wearing baggy dark jeans from Uniqlo and a vintage J.Crew cable knit sweater in an inspiring shade of blue—Pantone 2394 XGC, perhaps. The other day I asked my husband what color he thought I looked best in (pathetic question) and he said blue, which bothered me in its blatant fiction, its complete disregard for what I actually look like and wear. I don’t look great in blue. That’s facts. I only wear it occasionally because it’s pretty.
This whole Pantone thing is insane btw. Reminds me of the Sydney Sweeney eugenics ad. I open my phone and it’s like sticking my head in a blender of rage bait and AI slop—and because I consume so much internet writing, I read that line back to myself and have a mini panic attack that I’m unconsciously plagiarizing someone. This is really no way to live.
But yeah Pantone… the arbiters of color!… actively choosing not to break through the mental illness gray neutral palette of modern life, and instead, risking one million think pieces about the freaking color of the year which is no color at all? I find that lame. Everything is so very lame.
On the train, I was buried in my book, Devin Kelly’s debut novel Pilgrims. Fucking stunning. Not even 1% lame. I’ve been reading Devin’s work for years and he is one of the humblest, most special writers of our time. Pilgrims is about a guy who escapes modern life in NYC to become a monk upstate until his brother runs off course during a cross country race, disappearing into the woods. Read it if you like Faulkner. Read it if you’re a runner. Read it if you fantasize about going totally analog. Pilgrims is the first book that’s moved me to tears in a long time. You will want to highlight every passage.
The homeless woman behind me on the train muttered "white trash whore.” I looked around for another woman and there was only us.
2:23 PM
Text exchange with my husband:
5 PM
Getting off the train, I watched to see how many people held the railing as we walked down the stairs. It’s a steep flight and the steps are tight and precarious. But everyone seemed to have agreed not to touch this thing, shiny metal lifesaver it is. Everyone held their arms tight against their bodies, kinda “floor is lava!” but more serious, more instinctual.
We don't trust each other anymore. Maybe we never should have. People go to work sick every day; lots of people can’t afford not to. But on a rainy day in wet shoes, what are you supposed to do?
Now, I want to tell you what happened as I exited the station. It happened so quickly, the details are blurry. Imagine there are two doors beside each other. This woman was exiting on one side and I tried to exit on the other, and somehow, not understanding the technology, I shut her in between the two doors, her tiny frame wedged between them… and not softly either, if we’re being honest. She was so small. She was wearing a mask. I blurted, “OH MY GOD I AM SO SORRY” and she looked at me with such penetrating disgust I could have cried right there. She looked at me for a good five seconds like she was trying to remember my dumbass face for karmic retribution and said “it’s ok” in a voice that told me it was absolutely not ok and I should probably burn in hell. And she was right for that!
Oh, the shame leveled me. The idea of hurting another person. Of forgetting? How doors work??? I climbed into my car, rested my forearms on the steering wheel, put my head down, and cried. Maybe we can’t trust each other anymore. Maybe we never did.
