it is the sunday of my first full week back in austin, and i am really proud of how i’ve been holding up! it’s always tough to be at my apartment alone long-term after traveling and seeing rax/friends/fam, but i’m really relying on little rituals to brighten up the alone time (which, tbh, i do need, bc i am the definition of ~gets energy from being alone~……did i mention im am EMPATH and an INTROVERT)????
sadly and capitalistically enough, the main ritual i rely on to make time spent sitting in my living room smoking weed and watching tv feel cozy, rather than oppressively humdrum, is candles. obviously there are jokes to be made here about millennial white women and hygge worship and candles, but they make me happy!!!!! it is what it is!!!! so much of eating disorder recovery (or maybe about life in general?) is just tricking yourself into taking care of yourself, and a stupid little candle going while i pull tarot and facetime people and apply moisturizer is very helpful for these purposes.
i just burned my way through my HEB butter tortilla candle (8/10, i adore this, nobody else likes the smell but i live alone so who cares) and am almost done with one of those soy brown-glass-holder california hippie candles you can buy at almost any bougie home goods store (name eludes me but theyre always a 7/10), so i seized upon a nordstrom’s sale and purchased this set:
boy smells 3-pack votive candle set, $39.20 on sale
buying candles online often feels like a deep-dive into wanton spending indulgence for me, since there really is no limit to the amount of candles i want. i want candles in my freezer, stacked in my closet, ready to go under the sink in case of emergency (and technically they are practical! ish! in case the power goes out! idk!) i snapped these up, though, because i’m as gay for boy smells as the next she/they my age, and the deal was right. excited to light them and try to make the next few months in austin (or at least the next few weeks until rax visits) feel as nice as possible.
currently watching: apatow movies all day for no apparent reason
currently reading: i keep my exoskeletons to myself by marisa crane, cannot WAIT to get deep into this one. i also just finished all-night pharmacy by ruth madievsky for the second time (i tend to read things twice due to my shit attention span), and it made me feel so many queer russian addiction/compulsion feelings and is genuinely one of the best things ive read in forever. recommend the hell out of both!
currently listening to: renee rapp, aka the REAL gaylor swift we deserve
xoxo