### **Morning Pages** Why is it that two older writers I know talk about having less energy or stamina compared to when they were young? How do I continue to increase my energy and vitality as I grow older? 5:54 AM Roughly reached the end of Clair de Lune with very huge hiccups. - [ ] Find framework and sources Suddenly sprouted a goal to turn my CW198 output into a publication-worthy story. Like, literary. At the thought of that blindsiding instagram comic post where one half the couple doesn’t communicate they’ve been unhappy for a long time, I thought about how it’s not people’s responsibility to hyper-perform and monitor their partner’s happiness, but sometimes in this world, everything is competing for their attention and time and sometimes the familiarity starts to grate at them because their unhappiness is sourced in a lack of dopamine/serotonin from novelty, which is biology. It’s like that time you thought you were depressed in 2017 because you internalized all your history and childhood trauma, but you were still able to work. You just had attention issues. It becomes that person’s emotional labor to start being an agent of novelty and excitement especially as they’re working against the freshness seal breaking, the sex getting increasingly boring because of course it just fades if you’ve already had it multiple times, the wear-and-tear of daily life together doing chores and capitalism’s demands like work draining energy to be more present and creative and fun together. Even worse if you’re too serious and neurotic and can’t exactly be spontaneous. The open loop of newer crushes and attractions screaming at their unconscious because they’re new and mysterious. How do people manage? I cannot even fathom and just want to avoid everything about it, yet I crave it so badly. I want a partner I can grow with, someone to challenge me, someone who’ll have my back, someone who’ll be my sounding board. I want to build something only we could possibly share, a new language in a country of shared laughter and dreams and hopes. Somebody who’d fight for me and my goals. I want someone to grow older with. Is this too much to ask? Is there really no person out there for me? Am I hopelessly idealistic? I just realized all this outsized effort may just be an unconscious bid to be high-value. Hate the word, but I could see how it functions in society. I want someone who comes from a good, if not healthy, background where they’ve learned to keep their ego in check and have some form of self-awareness and is great at communication. I want someone who isn’t going to be defensive and is willing to work against a problem as a team. I want someone who isn’t selfish and is willing to pull their weight and then some if I can’t because of reasonable things like illness and all. I know all of these things may not be common at all, and the people who are like this are probably in happy relationships anyway already. Or they’re not my type physically. I want someone who is straight-laced in a way that when they make a decision, they follow through and commit. I know I am working on all of these things and it may come out that I may become it, but maybe I won’t meet their standards in a different way, because of course I exist in a body that’s inherently limited and disadvantaged. I don’t want a workaholic who’ll ignore me and be emotionally unintelligent, but I also want someone who has a stable career and has goals they’re working towards. It seems like it would be easier for me if I was really attracted to women, and not just in a porn way, because women seem to be better poised to meet my standards. How can I expect this of a man? Where do I even find them? Surely they’re not on a dating app? In some sense I don’t want a fellow writer, if only because both types I can think of are somewhat unappealing, on the farther end of left I can see someone who’s full of contradictions and is comfortable in it and lives in the gray and is probably less likely to value the stability of long-term relationships and is probably going to go after their sexual urges in a more liberal way and will probably like the idea of an open marriage, but at the same time I want someone with a high sex drive. I don’t want a Christian writer who isn’t progressive. I can’t see myself liking a conservative man, even if I was at a 180 only 2 years ago. I feel so disconnected from my previous concerns. But I do see the appeal of a Christian who is open-minded and syncretic and doesn’t take it too seriously. I just feel like Christians value things that are less material, like love or faithfulness. I want someone who is class-conscious but sees the value in some form of authority. All of these things are what they bring to the table, but I haven’t really thought through what I myself can do for them. Maybe I’ll learn how to cook, and maybe I’ll even do their chores for them. At this point in my life there’s a chronic emptiness and the feeling that I’m infantilized by my own situation, having communication and social difficulties and having no social life that fulfills me. People who are on the move and have goals they’re working towards probably attract the high-value person I want. If I were a guy looking at me as a prospect, I wouldn’t want me either. I haven’t graduated college. I am not appealing sexually. I don’t have social intuition yet. I’m neurodivergent and the schizo/psychotic past turns them off or scares them. I am a flight risk. I have no career. The only way I can see people introducing me to high-value men is if I go back to school to get a master’s, or if I win an award or people contact me themselves. How does that happen? I am a woman, I am supposed to be the one who is pursued. I should be someone’s goal or dream. I don’t particularly give off dream girl vibes. I suppose I’m not a good person at heart, and I have no idea how to be one. You know, someone who has a deep-seated desire to care about a particular cause or advocacy. Like Vico. Or Stanley, if he is who I think he is. He is probably in a relationship already. Manifesting a person like Vico or Stanley or Hidilyn Diaz’s husband who coaches her pls!!! Universe do your thing!!! On another note, why are there so many negative reviews of Gabriela Lee’s works? Maybe a disgruntled student with nothing to lose. I remember her calling me out in class, although that’s not enough for me to go after her personally calling her a “mediocre writer” “childless author” “worst book I ever read” “snuff my interest in Philippine Speculative fiction.” those comments would really get under my skin. Maybe she thinks it’s me. Maybe if I ask her husband for a recommendation she’ll really suspect it was me, or if I win the PBBY-Salanga contest, or if I get into Tin House. Oh well. I faintly remember a suspicious “response” to my children’s book from Stanley, but it’s now gone. I really cannot fathom how they would know though, unless they were actively monitoring what I was doing. The only reason why I got that spike of KDP reads. Which of course, he is proof that what I went through was real???? As in they found out about my crush on him—through my fucking diary?????? Hours fizzed by with nothing to show for it. Goddammit. I got swept up stalking people. I have got to stop doing this. There is a reason why they’re not posting, and it’s because they’re busy living real lives offline. I need to stop caring less about my online presence. It’s just so dopamine-rich and it’s my only gateway to social life and a network. Like Emmily linking to my review. Hopefully that’s something to look forward to. And the Romeo Forbes competition. And getting excited to wake up because you have Josefina’s bicol express. And getting things done. And hopefully I get the Clarkesworld story published again. Please! I talk a big game about starting things and routines and all, but I just procrastinate anyway because I’m so scared of discomfort and confronting my lack of knowledge. And also being scared of being stupid. I cannot wait to buy a new computer. This computer is horrendously slow already even if I only got it in 2022. Maybe if I get a MacBook Pro I’ll regain some of my lost skills again. LETTER TO DECEMBER 2025 ME: Are we going to make it? Am I going to transcend my limitations? Am I going to be worthy? Will we have what we wished for at that point? If not, will you press on and try again? I feel like I’m already doing everything I can and nothing is working. Uridine doesn’t seem to have an effect. Maybe it takes more than a week. Just saw pictures of myself today. There’s a picture that I’m not particularly aghast at and is actually sort of attractive. I just need to enhance what I have. I know I don’t have white skin. With Canthoplasty and eyebrow lift, I’ll be on my way. And permanent makeup. And veneers. Applied to be an editor and submissions reader at SeaGlass Lit. Found it on IG. ??? Confirmed. But also, WTF??? So they are reading me. Well, it wasn’t me, that much I can say. If I had been a better student maybe she would have become my mentor like Sydney. I remember all my enemies, and Gabriela Lee was never one of them. CW 198 Idea about woman being cheated on and then she reaches old age while her ex is happily married to the kabit who he met on an underground app that promises to match you with people who look like your porn preferences and types. Which leads her to inner bitterness and anger but she never takes it out on anyone. She is single all her life. On her deathbed she gets a second chance to do something: either go to a relatively more peaceful life with a perfect man or do something about how she is constantly being left by men. She becomes a coach and empowers women who have been disempowered.