Field Notes: July 15th, 2025

An exercise in writing badly. Consider this my morning pages, my substack contribution, my podcast, and all the other things I am convinced that I should be doing.

9:33 am —

The power just went out at work. It did this yesterday too, one part fun to two parts annoying. This morning, I wanted to quit my job because I couldn’t find my clothes. I wore two shirts all day because I had convinced myself that I didn’t have time to take the bottom one off to exchange it for the top one.

7:57 pm —

Ate dinner, then stared at my phone for too long. God, that’s fucking annoying. Anyway, my stomach hurts — maybe I have a stomach problem — maybe it has something to do with the tumors from a couple of days ago.

I’m doing some research for a piece I am writing, which is taking me in some fairly interesting directions, including my Mythology101 textbook from junior college and the website for a Chinese Sex Doll manufacturer. (The manufacturer is Chinese, the dolls are mostly American, actually.) They’ve made some real innovations. No longer are they made out of the flesh of a beach ball, or have two seamed holes, or have arms akimbo with permanently shocked faces, regardless of their dead eyes. No, the eyes seem to have souls behind them now. They look like they can speak. It is likely that some of them can speak if I am being honest, but I doubt they are saying everything they would like to. Almost assuredly, I got some kind of virus on my laptop from my reconnaissance mission, but I couldn’t stop clicking. One page was titled “accessories.” I expected to see some kind of freakish attachments or garish off colored clothing, but it was a foot severed at the ankle and hyper realistic. So realistic that I had to slam the lid of my laptop shut.

I got onto this whole sex doll thing after seeing a video on Instagram of a worker removing a doll from the mold. Her hands shook. I know that this is because she is made of silicone soft enough to wrap around, and I know that this man is likely underpaid and just doing his job, but something about this made me want to gouge his eyes out and feed them to a street dog so that the sad fuck could finally see the inside of a bitch.

Too much?

I got high last night and submitted to the New Yorker. How humiliating. I know I said I was going to, but I didn’t need to be so impulsive. This must be what it feels like to spend three thousand dollars on a piece of silicone you’re eventually going to have to rinse out or suffer the smell. I can’t tell if I am rinsing or suffering the smell right now.

Too much?

The sex doll people make male dolls, too. They don’t look so much like they have souls, and they’re far uglier. Must be low sellers.

Interesting.

Anyway, I gotta go.