Memoirs and Musings

Subdued

Walking down the fluorescent-lit corridor at 2:45 PM, that long stretch of hallway toward the hospital’s forgotten tail, where Thanatos is hidden beneath the floor and Eros is found in sterile plastic. An abyss of a sort, an area of limbo leading to that end where surrender and structured chaos arise. This is where time collapses and contorts in rigid waves. Stepping into that angular stretch, my heart races as I stare down in search of purification: the sacred in these mortal walls. The air carries a faint sweetness, of undoing, decay, flesh.

I know that something will unspool tonight. It always does. There is always a subtle loosening of symmetry, of breath as if the geometry of the body has grown tired of holding itself together. Something ancient will rearrange itself molecule by molecule. I remember how I find myself transformed into the labyrinth itself as I am thrown into the inevitable spirals of medical gaze: me flowing with decrepit human bodies and monitors.

Here, I am allowed to linger at the trembling of sacred proportions without apology. To study it, to move with it. That permission can intoxicate me. Here, the veil is permanently thin, and I observe human’s strange composure and brutality through complications and conflict and pure bodily surrender to medicine, protocol, daily rituals. Just temporarily, within the confines of those 8 hours, I have permission to be obsessive, a socially acceptable way of being obsessive. Constant movement: I feel myself a quiet wheel turning within the vast rhythm of a machine I can barely grasp. Into the unknown, searching through labyrinths in my mind while I walk bleary down that bright hallway in search of a glucometer.

Mall as Machine of Desire: A Deleuzian Take on Valley Fair

"...many days spent walking through Valley Fair Mall alone, in search of meaning inside something as familiar and readily available to me as consumerism. Recently, I stepped into a high-end department store on a fall evening and I felt the air change. It was colder, perfumed, suspended. Outside, time moved in the sunset. Inside, time dissolved into escalators and polished marble. I stopped trying to resist it. Instead, I entered it, imagining I was in a metaphysical realm of brands radiating soft emotional pulls, bodies inside a circuitry, and escalators channeling hypnotic movement."—me, from a fragment written in my journal on 12/11/25

I have always felt cynical about shopping malls for most of my life. I saw them as hollow bourgeois spectacles: overstimulated by that concoction of smells, people, and endless stimuli. I'd scoff at the Instagram-friendly boba shops and the forgettable overpriced restaurants. Yet there is a profound alienation about the mall that now appeals to me immensely. The way the mall does everything it can to modify human behavior. No longer animal, but transcended into pure capital necessity. I found a way to enter the mall differently now, to embrace it and transcend its boundaries. I now experience it as a dreamlike identity experiment. I dissolve, temporarily, into the materialism surrounding me.

What I saw that evening was a constellation of human bodies wandering, consuming, drifting. Architectural channels that guided and captured movement, corporate brands exerting affective pulls, forming a functioning machine of desire. Through each step I took in the mall's corridors, through the food court and up the escalator, past another "Coming 2026" sign for another fast fashion shop, I felt the flow of pure capital (transactions, credit, data) passing through each storefront. My mind in a zen-like slate, I let the desire that emanated from displays, mannequins, advertisements wash over me. I people-watched: watching the other bodies circulating along escalators, corridors, the movie theater, trendy storefronts and pop marts. I observed the way the mall redirected and intensified the human body to accumulate into absolute consumption. I decided to walk into Aritzia for the first time in my life, something that I never imagined I would partake in. I laid my hand on their famous Slouch™ Coat and found myself lost in a micro-garden wired inside a larger ecosystem. My sense of time altered, with the lighting warm enough to soften my gaze in the enormous mirror. The bass-boosted pop music pulsed low and restrained. I was left in an intoxicated consumer daydream state in a way the store wanted me to. This coat and the curated environment surrounding it altered me. I could not help but slip into a quiet, trance-like state of wanting, because I wanted to. I no longer resisted.

Still, I knew the checkout counter was a point of capture consolidating attention and purchasing power into the system. I knew I had become a component plugged into the mall: my gaze, my movement, my attention, my credit card all becoming machinic parts.

I feel that Valley fair is particularly special compared to other shopping malls in my area in its ability to make me enter a trance. Great mall and Eastridge barely fool me, their clothing and shops feel so tacky, ugly, and outdated that imagining any sort of "possible becoming" is impossible. Valley Fair instead has a luxe sort of interior that doesn't tell me who to be, but instead saturates me with possible becomings. It creates a particular experience the way a garden creates flowers. What I mean by this is that the moment I enter the mall, I have left ordinary life to enter a climate-controlled, timeless interior. My identity dissolves, and I then re-attach to new identities through possibilities: “I wear this,” “I could look like that,” "I belong to this lifestyle.” It was purposely and meticulously designed to be this way. Each purchase reterritorializes me into a coded consumer position. I feel this strongly when I shop at a perfumed corporate space or a high-end department store. I can physically feel the modern space of the mall modulating my behavior softly but continuously. It is continuous but not necessarily oppressive. More like an ambient form of control that is mild, seductive, and omnipresent. Some stores feel seductive; but others feel hostile and surveillant, such as Bloomingdale's and Byredo. The control that these two shops thrust onto me was less ambient and more forceful, making it dreadful and alienating. I felt so surveilled in there as if a camera were following me from the ceiling, my every movement being gazed upon.

I find an eerie excitement in understanding how my consciousness is being shaped while it is happening. On lonely weekdays, I observe myself becoming someone under lighting and scent at Valley Fair. I look in the fitting room mirror and am offered infinite drafts of possible selves, hanging on chrome racks under controlled light. Identity feels attachable, almost purchasable, and I can vividly picture in my mind's eye the aesthetic possibilities of what life could become. I desire desire. The sensation of wanting, of discovering my potential selves shimmering beyond shiny glass.

Among Others, I Dissolve

Being around people who I have to suppress myself and my opinions around is so alienating that I'd rather stay alone. My solitude is less lonely than the constant self-monitoring and fear of being judged and scrutinized for doing what is natural to me. I have felt many people quick to judge me the moment I am authentic, honest, and vulnerable. I like people who understand me intuitively, without me having to explain myself constantly. There have been instances where people made me feel understood and cared about, where what I have to say actually matters. But those moments are rare. I have to join an esoteric book club or meet dropouts and outcasts with interesting lives in order to feel any semblance of belonging. Only people willing to live outside scripts feel safe to me.

Faking social niceties. Endless small talk. Pretending I belong. It rots my brain and bores me to death. To truly be who I am is to risk being misunderstood constantly, and I have to be willing to accept that and be okay with it. There's a very specific kind of loneliness that comes from being surrounded by others while having to constantly dilute my thoughts and preemptively manage how I'll be perceived. I'd rather not have to deal with that emotional labor. So I will spend my days going to cafes alone and immersing myself in my various interests. I don't want people to feel sorry for me or pity me. I just don't want to feel excluded or outcasted for simply being who I am. I only want to follow what my heart yearns for without anyone making me feel silenced.

What sucks is that, now that I am a grown adult and have actualized many aspects of myself, I notice there are people who want to be my friend or want to know about my personal life, despite me not reciprocating, never having spent much time with that person, or despite me feeling like I cannot be authentic around that person. All my life I have been taught to "mask," to play the game of social niceties, to cultivate social harmony in order to prevent myself from ever being ostracized.

As a result, I unintentionally give off the impression that I am more open and socially available than I truly am. In fact, I am secretly so deliberate and careful that it is notoriously difficult to become my close friend. I first and foremost love people who are okay with being strange and breaking social norms and discussing taboo topics. I don't shy away from these things unless I am around people I can't be myself around. The wrong people will have you questioning the very traits that make you so magnetic to be around and then convince you that filing down your curiosity, softening your intensity, and censoring your thoughts will somehow make you more pleasant.

It requires a very high cognitive and emotional tax for me to exist in spaces that require self-betrayal. That is most social spaces. I've already made immense effort to belong, and I can—and often do—partake in social harmony, but I find it erodes my soul over time. It is a strange thing to me that many people think that belonging is worth the cost of betraying themselves. My choice to remain alone is an ethical choice not to lie to myself. It is difficult for me to make friends because I feel I do not meet many people who operate in a similar manner to me, and that is okay. The moments of being understood matter to me deeply because they prove connection is possible, not because I needed intensity.

For the past five years, I made many friendships because I wanted to break free from the confines of my social anxiety disorder that plagued my entire being. I wanted to go out and do things, to feel like I finally belonged with people, to not constantly feel like an alien or an outsider, and to feel that people actually… liked me. I also wanted to understand others and be there for them. Ultimately, it did not fulfill me at all; in fact, it exhausted me and left me confused about my own identity and morals. By age 25, I have voluntarily cut off all of my friendships, and if I said that I can finally live my truth instead of pretending—that would also be a lie. Right now, I'm still negotiating with the world, as can be observed by my paradoxical need to justify my own solitude instead of simply stating: "This is how I live. Take it or leave it."

Autistic Cadence

Today after dropping off my leather Frye boots at the shoe cobbler, I went to a tech retailer to purchase a laptop. It’s funny, I felt oddly intimidated being there. I lacked the cultural capital I usually carry so effortlessly at thrift shops. All I really wanted was something with ample storage, something I could use to design my site on. I felt shy and even a little scared to ask for help. Normally when I shop, I overflow with temporary confidence, enough to break minor social norms.

A peculiar employee approached me and asked if I needed help. I sensed he had an intuitive knack for identifying normies with zero computer hardware knowledge seeking something decent enough to browse the internet and download things. I began with, “I want to buy a laptop..." "specifically the starlight-colored 15-inch Macbook Air, 16 gigabytes, 256 gigabytes.” I had no idea what 16GB or 256GB even meant, but whatever. I worried my request sounded overly specific or cumbersome, but he immediately understood. I ultimately went with a 16gb/512GB, sky blue MacBook Air.

I felt an immediate sense of comfort and familiarity with him, as though we somehow knew each other already despite being strangers. He had an unusual and striking appearance. He had a pronounced lazy eye, with each eye drifting severely in a different direction. He was ethnically ambiguous, perhaps Persian or Iranian, and his age was equally indeterminate: he somehow looked both 25 and 45 at once, balding included. He had a jagged limp that suggested an uneven hip or torso, possibly scoliosis. I accidentally let slip that I’d be using the laptop to “pirate books and films,” quickly following it with, “um, actually please don’t tell anyone I said that, I have a career at stake,” delivered deadpan. It landed perfectly. We both laughed.

The interaction itself was chaotic. I was rushing since I knew what I wanted. My card was declined twice because my phone had died and I couldn’t confirm the purchase with my bank. He insisted on finding a charger for me, which felt ironic given that we were in an electronics store, and he was unable to find one. He even offered to go to his car to grab one. Luckily, I managed to force my phone on at 2% and frantically approved the transaction. As part of his job, he asked the usual questions. Did I want to join their membership? Sign up for Microsoft or Adobe subscriptions? Purchase external hard drives? “No.” “No.” “No.” and so on. What stuck with me though, was his articulate, deeply knowledgeable way and particular way of speaking when he were discussing the laptop. There was an autistic cadence to it, something I immediately recognized. The kind you hear in people who have spent thousands of hours online, reading obscure articles, studying niche topics with quiet devotion. I think that’s why I felt so unguarded around him.

Anyways, it’s strange. I walked in wearing my usual attire, feeling out of place among the tech displays. He looked like a nerd you’d find writing wikipedia articles about spatial complexity. Yet I had this intuitive sense that I had just encountered a rare person who was operating on the same strange frequency as me. I wonder if he felt it too? This was the first time in my life I truly wanted to befriend a man, to crave an equal companionship rooted in shared strangeness or uncanniness. Maybe I’m projecting, but I found it compelling based on subtle congruities in his presence, even within the constraints of his job.

Looking back, I realize we were unconsciously playing our roles: me the customer, him the Geek Squad member. The moment you step into any American retail chain shop, especially a corporate giant, your behavior is softly being modulated without you realizing it. It was almost as if we were acutely aware of this, desperately trying hard to fit our roles under the unspoken expectations of retail and the looming panopticon. Yet still we were failing here and there. My quick curses and exasperations when my card kept declining, our shared giggles when I kept saying "no" with a finalized tone to every single add-on question he was required to ask me. The peculiar looks he was giving me at my odd questions, specific comments, me referring to how I went to reddit dot com for research before coming in. I feel we both picked up on each other's neurodivergencies, which is why I felt so in tune with the wavelength we were on.

I could just be looking way too into it. This could all just be in my head and in fact it was a perfectly normal interaction of small talk between customer and salesperson. But I like to think of life as more interesting than that. The most fun I have is finding a rich inner world inside the most daily interactions. There's a lot you can delve into if you hone in enough on moments in your interactions.

His unfamiliar and unique appearance made me reflect on how quickly we assign stories to people based on what we see. I found myself wondering whether being visibly different might have shaped the way he moved through the world or was treated by others. Was he ever avoided? Mocked? Or was he treated no differently than anyone else? That thought resonated with me and made me feel a quiet sense of kinship rather than judgment. I assume that someone with such a look had more depth to them, namely from how they have been treated by others. Something I can relate to as someone who was bullied for most of her childhood.

I think it’s neat that I can take something so short-lived and fleeting and turn it into something that lasts forever.

Perfumed Resentment

Dr. H and the residents tell you, carefully, that you have a month before your intestines rupture. You just made the difficult decision to proceed with an abscess drain that would only prolong the inevitable.

I hesitate and sigh, feigning sadness in front of Dr. H, performing something like humanity while my mind inventories tasks: medications, sepsis screens, endless charting, and a time-sensitive discharge. I've just gotten my SBAR report. There’s no room for mourning. I knock on the door, mentally preparing for an explanation as to my rancid perfume stench after reading the printed sign on your door: “THIS PATIENT IS HIGHLY SENSITIVE TO SMELLS. PLEASE PROCEED WITH CAUTION AND REFRAIN FROM WEARING FRAGRANCES OR SCENTED PRODUCTS.”

It’s 3:30 p.m. already. My stomach twists. Grief doesn’t live in me today, and being here feels like trespassing. I have no idea how to proceed. I feel horrified for existing in your vicinity at all. This morning's spritz of Elizabeth Arden’s White Tea Eau de Toilette, advertised as “clean and inoffensive”, suddenly feels like a chemical intrusion. Even my hair reeks of a sample of Lush Supermilk leave-in conditioner that I hastily brushed through my dry hair, betraying me before I even enter.

Awkwardly, I knock on the door and step into your hospital room. Sympathetic to your hyperosmic olfactory bulb, I attempt to contain myself to no avail, staying more than 10 feet away at all times, already apologizing profusely, with my body language guarded and reserved out of shame. Even my tender voice intrudes, as my perfumed stench permeates the room from 15 feet away. The sickening scent of chemical-laced clary sage fern water, ambrette seashores, and candied orange slices in white tea. It clashes loudly with the gourmand of my tousled brown hair bun dampened with supermilk: nauseatingly sweet almond-oat biscuits drenched in vanilla milk. An absolute screech of scent. You turn your face away and start dry-heaving.

In and out in under a minute, I sincerely apologize for my fragrant decadence, quickly kick myself out of the room as if by a mysterious force, ask for another nurse who begrudgingly switches patients with me, and we never meet again. I sigh in relief. Once again I avoid facing mortality even though, ironically, mortality surrounds me. The perfume clings to my scrubs like guilt. I can’t escape it. Walking down the hall, my hands shake, heart racing, my checklists blur, and every breath of nausea I’ve inflicted lingers on my face mask. Every time I smell White Tea, I see her pale face and smell my own failure.