Kartika Upadhyaya

2/1 – 2/7

believe mile-high club should be for smoking pot in the lavatory.

chatted about reservations in the southwest.  this helps explains the history of the problem… tack on marvin harris’ hypothesis that absence of domesticated megafauna (beasts of burden) in the americas slowed agricultural development (relative to farming across the oceans).  no horses/oxen meant fewer dense cities meant no need to purify water through fermentation meant no need to build resistance to alcoholism means genetic descendants suffer today. 

rewrote a dialogue by northerners in deep south for southerners in the far north.

what am i gonna wear?
what are ya gonna [club]. 
i dunno, he got, uh, he’s got a lotta stuffed heads in his office. 
heads!  what kina heads? 
i dunno.  he’s got a [moose], a bear, a coupla [seal]. 
woah, you gonna [club] a [seal]? 
i dunno.  i suppose.  i mean i’m a man’s man, i could go [seal clubbin]. 
a sweet, innocent, harmless, [salmon]-eating, doe-eyed [baby seal]. 
hey lisa, i’m not gonna go out there just ta wimp out, ya know?  i mean, the guy’ll lose respect fah me.  would you radder have dat?  door slam  whaddabout dese pants i got on, you think they’re ok?  oh! 
door open. imagine you’re a [seal].  you’re [swimmin] along, you [need to breathe], you spot a little [hole in the ice], you put your lil [seal] lips [above] the cool clear water..  bam!  a fuckin [club] rips off part a your head!  ya brains are laying on the [snow] in little bloody pieces!  now i asks ya.  would you give a fuck what kind of pants the son of a bitch who [clubbed] ya was wearing?

2/8 – 2/14

believe the best version of the st. louis blues comes from ella’s concert years.  there are sounds she makes in why don’t you do right that would require an orchestra’s worth of conductors to elicit from any other instrument.

appreciated genius.  propose adding “snowball to face without crying: pairs event” and “biathalon but with jumps” to 2026 winter olympics lineup.

ubered into town.  sipped on nestle-owned latte by skating rink, frowned about hegemony of wework, reminisced about a world where you just sit and think.  g&t before dinner.  listened to strangers chat about important, silly, things.  hello bartendress.  i came here for a flirt, a fight, or a fuck.  can i please have more drank in my cup?

watched the exquisite illustrations of khan academy lectures on interest & debt and housing, including rule of 72: estimating when money will double.

2/15 – 2/21

exercised a different set of muscles.  drank perhaps too much great coffee.  escaped.

am not rooted.  was born by chance in one town rather than another and pass through various temporary homes in the course of one vagrant life.

hoarded.

struck up conversation with waffle house residents.  declined special something circling the youth.  waitress filled coffee cup in my outstretched hand as if we were the sistine chapel ceiling.  everyone felt good, we are all alive at the same time. 

you got nice hair.
not as nice as yours.
that’s sweet. *pause* you’re sweet.
do i still have to tip you now?
*bursts into laughter* girl –
well?
you a bad tipper?
i’m better at washing dishes.
you wanna wash the dishes?
sure.
alright. you wash the dishes. tip me after.

dc too much for you?
*shakes head* city too much for me.
ok city too much for you.
yeah.
and you thought “waffle house is the place to be.”
i met you didn’t i?
girl, if you don’t stop playing.

want legacy of mental health voyages to mean something. 

2/22 – 2/28

lived another week.  dined at a restaurant, saw people in love.  everyone sitting together, for thirty or ninety minutes, clinking glasses, just having a moment.  even salespeople.  even rivals.  all in love.  they might mistake it for not love, just friendship, just good business.  but one day they will realize how few and special the people they spent their time with were.  we all will.  life feels long while it’s lived, short as it ends.

woke up to calisthenics mobile app drone-demanding two sixty second planks. obliged.

suffered from excess of hospitality.  protested fifth meal of the day.

r: sit down. sit down, na.
m: no i’ve read hansel and gretel.
a: good accept your fate.

convinced ankit to install a tropical visitor.