i am above all, down with modular people, and it feels so unnatural to sing your own name, or: FYFI

(these are the junior boys. fyi.)

well, can you fucking believe it? it's motherfucking new year's eve.

ahem.

so yeah, forgive the pause in posting... i have a lot of posts built up that i meant to get out here for you guys... but i am so damn thoughtful.... that's the nice way to put it.... that i get caught up in thinking about them, making them perfect. i've been meaning FOREVER now to post my top songs of 2008 since, for the first time in recent memory, i've been obsessively and actively engaged in the current electronic music culture of this great planet of ours. (i say planet because i don't listen to that much music from the US, so i can't say country. WOW I SOUND LIKE SUCH A MUSIC SNOB. and i am! but the nicest one you'll ever meet, i swear. i would never, ever, ever, EVER say that your favorite band sucked; i might say something like, "well, that particular ep kind of left me wanting, where as disc two of the collectors editon of apocalypso really delivered what it promised," or some nonsense like that.

(side bar: i can say, with perfect, unwavering authority, that disc two of the collectors edition of apocalypso [liquid moonjuice, um yeah, exactly!] is HANDS-DOWN the best remix album of the year, AND POSSIBLY OF THE DECADE, OR CENTURY. just, you know, fyi. oooh, side side bar: you wanna hear a funny story?!? for like, ten seconds, i was all like, i "steal" all this music, i should really be more militant about putting up my own torrents of things i adore, share the love, etc, etc [sharing is caring]. so i made a torrent of good ol' disc two and put it up on the pirate bay but i fucked up the torrent somehow, or something, so i never seeded it, and shrugged my sholders, and resumed normal life. a couple months later, this dude from canada tracks me down and is all like, I NEED THIS!!! tracked me the fuck down, got my email from my old blog! so i sent him alllll of the presets stuff he didn't have, and get this: i MADE HIM TAKE A LOYALTY OATH TO THE PRESETS AND FOLLOWING ONE'S PASSION BEFORE HE CLICKED THE DOWNLOAD LINK. man.... i am a piece of work. whatevs. )



so, if you couldn't guess, i am writing this post tooooootal stream-o-consciousness style. but the point is this: it's the eve of a new fucking year, people!!!!! and i, to be honest, have been thinking a great deal about putting this old girl out to pasture, or out to stud, which would probably be more fun for her, my blog that is. this is for two reasons, each one better than the last, actually!!!! so although i have much to speak about i will restrict myself (and possibly this post) to elaborating on these two reasons. BECAUSE I AM IN CONTROL OF THIS BLOG. BLOG DICTATORSHIP. OHH YEAH.

okay, wait, there's three reasons.


REASON ONE: i have a fabulous idea for a new blog that i've had for like, two years now. (no foolin.) it is not a personal idea, it is an nyc sort of idea. and i want to focus on that, and more reporterage kind of writing instead of all of this waahh waahhh me kind of stuff. this is what i pay my therapist for. so i think i am finally going to launch that soon. i'm really excited about it!!! so yeah. get excited, i guess.

REASON TWO: i enjoy maintaining this blog OH SHIT I JUST REMEMBERED:

I AM GOING TO SEE THE FUCKING PRESETS IN APRIL! ROCK. OH AND PS I DO LISTEN TO LOTS OF OTHER MUSIC BESIDES THEM, THEY'RE JUST #1 IN GETTING ME WORKED UP, FOLLOWED BY THE JUNIOR BOYS AND KELLEY POLAR. (you know, fyi. or, we could say fyfi, or for your fucking information.) [goodness, what's gotten into me? oh wait, iiiiii remember.] okay, right.... i enjoy maintaining this blog to keep in touch with some dear friends who live far, far away, etc.... but other people who read my blog.... well.... i hate using my blog as a passive-agressive form of venting, and hoping that the people in question may recognize themselves... or something. FEARLESS SPEECH, PEOPLE. no more back-door shenanegans. (well, some back-door shenanegans, heh)but i want to be better about actually talking to people. so you know, let's talk on the phone, or text, or email, but to each other directly. NO MORE OBLIQUENESS. or, as little as possible, because let's face it, i'll always love the oblique. THIS KINDA SORTA BRINGS ME TO MY THIRD REASON:

kelley polar.

ha ha, no.... really....

REASON THREE: and fuck, i told myself i had until seven to write this entry, and here it is, 7:06 PM so i'll be brief.... i don't want to play in the wound anymore. DO YOU HEAR THAT SHIT, CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?!?!?! i mean, i will always be the kind of person who plays in the wound, i mean shit, NO DOUBT, you can set your clocks to that and put it up there with death and taxes but.... i've scabbed. THIS FUCKING WOUND HAS NEARLY HEALED! of course it will leave a scar but i love scars, for many literal and metaphorical reasons. i mean, i hate to be brief but i have to so, i mean, can you believe, i have thought this bunch lately, that i really, in actuality, have NOTHING TO BE DEPRESSED ABOUT?! and have been struck by it enough recently that it is like not even a big, existential tearful moment anymore and is instead more like a cozy, sexy bathrobe-of-a-moment now? i mean, not that everything is all roses and cream, but here's the rub, now *I!!!!* am roses and cream so i can be roses and cream about other shit. my life, really, i have never been so excited about my life in all of my life, never lived my dreams as much as i am right now in all of my life.... and NEVER SPOKEN SO CONSISTENTLY FEARLESSLY IN ALL OF MY LIFE!!!! let me reiterate: i have a) not just started seeing someone b) somehow fixed everything bad about my life or c) had a full frontal lobotomy.

but here i am, JUST BEING HAPPY. ABOUT MYSELF. ABOUT LIFE. ABOUT HOPE, AND LOVE. AND I BELIEVE IN THINGS. so fuck all of your fucking jargonistic shit about metaphysics, etc, (AND I CURSE ALL OF THAT WITH LOVE, FRIENDS, LOVE AND A BROKEN BOTTLE FOR A GOOD BARFIGHT.) i will say it again: I BELIEVE IN LOVE. I BELIEVE IN PLEASURE, IN SUBJECTIVITY, IN PHILOSOPHY AS THERAPY, IN CHANGING THE PAST, IN REMEMBERING, REPEATING AND WORKING THROUGH, I BELIEVE IN SYNTH POP AND FLUFFY CATS AND DESIRE. AND SUGARY SWEETS, AND HOLLANDAISE SAUCE, AND TREES AND CLOUDS AND FEATHERS.

I BELIEVE THAT SOMEHOW EVERYONE IS LOVEABLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(what this all means, however, i am going to enjoy an entire lifetime, and hopefully writing several books on, figuring it all out. really. i look forward to deciphering the hell out of this shit.)

AND I WISH YOU ALL LUCK IN YOUR OWN JOURNEY. LUCK, AND COURAGE AND LOVE.

peace, y'all. i'm out. i love you.


i love you.

(this last one was said to me, but i'm letting it permeate me before heading it on out to you....)

this is clearly the world's sexiest tea towel, i mean, am i right or am i right?

in case it was not obvious, this is an alison goldfrapp original. cheers, deers. happy christmas-tide!

pronoun ambiguity. shotglasses and derailed trains.

thoughts. little thoughts, wandering. wandering off the road.
nowhere is the best place but it's so hard to be found -

no one can find me anywhere.

my headphones broke the other day and i was so upset! everything goes wrong at the same time. like a smell i give off. objects know but people are too busy to pay attention; they are too busy paying attention to objects so they'll know. stupid; pay attention to me. the wires have shorted out. i am too hard. it's only been three months! i hold everything up to an unattainable standard and then they break. inevitable. (?)

correction: i ask of things what i ask of myself. i don't break, i'm here! i'm just fine, thanks. stronger than wires, than plastic, than shoe bottoms, than socks, than love. then love.

my new shoes come in the mail on monday. hooray! the only pair of shoes i will have without holes in them. my old ones (which i am wearing now, still, unthinkably) reached a pleasant equilibrium with their decay. first, they troubled me because the holes meant that rocks kept getting in them. [central park west is full of rubble.] now, they are so full of holes that the stones pass in as quickly as they pass out. [adaptation.] funny how the future takes care of itself? (so many roads to choose it can keep you from walking... but when you get there, there's only one. always. [kierkegaard.])

i got a random text from you last night. interesting. you're upset i think. i like that you choose me to want to confide in, the way you can see me for five minutes on a subway platform and tell by the cut of my eyes above my super-well-performed smile that i'm upset. but we've never actually confided in each other. i hope we see each other this weekend, although i'm more than a little scared and more than a little nervous. attractive people make me nervous. being myself makes me nervous. losing control makes me nervous. being in control makes me feel like a hot evil bitch and then it makes me nervous. we want to see each other, so we don't. simple as that. why is it so embarrassing to submit to pleasure? (because pleasure is uncomfortable. pleasure defines the self in a way we really can't control. even freud says that!)

i had a dream about you a couple of weeks ago. you were in costume which i liked better i think. we met at a mini-mall frequented by rich white bitches down by the half-built housing complex. (the dirt pads of my childhood, mountain bikes and mudpuddles, the end of the world, rattlesnakes.) i was at my friend's new house and i was supposed to leave before her clients got there but i didn't, i was too busy telling her everything looked fine, making her feel better about it all. [always fucks me in the end.] they enter and i think to myself, "shit, they'll all just think i'm her lesbian lover again." that feeling where you can feel, taste, palpably, what everyone else in the room is thinking about you. (other people feel this, yes?) what does this mean, how does it work? [wittgenstein? i'm looking at you.] you kept me laughing even when the rich bitches kept telling me you were no good for me. we kissed in a darkened hallway but as i've never kissed you it didn't feel like anything except a shadow of a promise. i felt myself pulling away from my lips as i kissed you back. i do this all the time, too easily, for so many reasons.

[half-built houses, i'm surrounded by half-built houses and i am not particularly invested enough to see any of them through. i live a flower-like life, i bruise easily, i decay quietly under the surface of the water, blooming all the while. but when you touch me, i fall apart. ]

we chatted and it was only slightly awkward which is pretty good, i guess, as we were both completely sober and haven't seen each other in some time. you still look so tired, your eyes can't lie (at least not to me.) you don't look well although i can tell you are trying hard and everyone else is probably falling for it. it's curious to me; maybe i see people in a conversation not as dancers so much as swimmers, moving forward and backward through something unseen and heavy.

i hate how i can tell when i'm really saying something good, something meaningful, in my element (silver) by sensing people backing up, metaphysically, from me. i feel the distance. i see the faintest faintest faint hesitation in speaking, eye contact. you are thinking "she. look at her. i wish, i wish... she. shit." the hardest lesson these last months have taught me is that the way to know i have really made an excellent point is to see if it is met with silence. silence means brilliance. if people have something to say back, it's to say [mostly in kindly ways] that they think it's shit. misguided shit. but pretty things hang in silence until they fall to the ground. and then, stupid stupid darling that i am, i step on them, or quietly kick them out of the way while blushing. i sidestep over myself and out the door. i exit the conversation, even though i am still talking. you did it, i saw you (felt you). i was talking about my thesis. can i help that the story it tells, written in between the lines, is the story of my life? de-siiiiiiiurrrrh leahves-uh traaaaaaa-accce. true-ey true truuuuuuu-eww. singy singy-sing song. a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down....

i don't know how to hold things out at arm's length, other then to get a better look at them. (my eyes are ruined after years of reading in the dark. no, really. i have reading glasses. and they're only for one eye; only one of my eyes is bad enough to warrant corrective lenses. this is my life. )i truly worship the asymmetrical; i wonder what i would do if i didn't. one breast larger than the other. one foot more crooked than the other. one pinky straighter than the other. one lip bigger than the other. one shoulder higher than the other. one leg veinier than the other. i am ambidextrous; i masturbate with my left hand.

i love italics. they signify in a text what must be emphasized, what is of the utmost importance. my tattoo: times new roman, 37 point, italics. (you really thought i didn't think about all of that? ah, how little, little you know me.....)

i dreamt about you the other night. you shot yourself in the head in front of me, five times. each cartridge landed neatly in your lap. i flew off the bed and ran to you, kneeled before you crying, after the first shot. the gun kept going off but you were still alive and you kept shooting... bang.... bang....bang.... until the gun was out of ammo. even though i was on the ground in front of you.

and even i knew it was hopeless, hopeless to beg.


it was the coldest walk i ever took but still i didn't cry. not until the man on the street called to me:

"hey, ma'am... you're beautiful.... beautiful....."


it was the ma'am that killed me; when a guy on the street tries to treat you with respect even as he's catcalling you, that means something. it means.... it means....

you have to like getting into a little bit of trouble. if life doesn't hurt, you're not doing it right.

song with no tune

[i wrote this on the 31st and disliked it so i shelved it. today i feel much more kindly disposed to it so i'm posting it after all. hmph.]

maybe

?

just a sapling, i'll admit

i bend but never break


tasting the wind
feeling the sun
looking

'til i'm blind

all new

i bend with each caress

the wind
it plays on my hair
a strange tune


little white lies
i tell each day

keeping it burning


building my dreams in
thin paper

lets the light in
moves so freely
cuts so easily
stings


throw it into the fire


you're the first thing i think of in the morning
and the last at night

never never never


you're a seed

who knows what rainbow dreams
slumber within you
just a seed


the hope i feed myself
is starving me

i'm hungry


i am a sapling

i need the light
i grow towards the light

you're just a seed

just a seed.


i am a sapling.

dreams are not realities, or why i don't listen to the dresden dolls

once upon a time i was a sweet, sensitive goth with perfect grades that were only surpassed by a more perfect reputation. it's funny but it is completely true - i looked like bloody death but i acted like an absolute angel; it wasnt until college that i did anything even remotely morally reprehensible in the slightest (well, wait - does anal sex count?)

this combination of scholastic ability and respectability earned me the unique privilege of attending the summer session of harvard university. i confess that to this day i am stil not completely sure that i understand why my parents let me go - they were the type that were overprotective to a fault, and overprotection is not really something you associate with letting a sixteen-year-old live in a dorm 3,000 miles away from home with a bit of money and a wardrobe inspired equally by aubrey beardsley, jane eyre and twiggy ramirez.

(you think i'm kidding? i loved this picture.)

but they let me go, and the experience was a definitive one for more than a few reasons. it was the summer in which, left to manage myself entirely, i did exactly as i pleased and was young enough to not feel any shame about it. i read in the cemetery and befriended the bums who congregated outside of it. it was the golden age of my life as a modern dancer, in which i had the rare opportunity to have a dance choreographed on me. it was the summer in which i became almost entirely nocturnal, and it also went down as the summer in which i spent all the money my parents had entrusted to me so solemnly on records, flowers, vintage clothes, sweets and comic books. (they were not pleased.)

but the most delicious gift that that summer gave to me was one that i still play with passionately today - a taste for the heady thrills of flaneurism. late at night, depressed and alone, i would wander wander wander around the streets of the deserted city, up to the store 24, down to the bus depot, through the yard, over to radcliffe, over to the gym, anywhere. i'm not sure what first inspired these late-night jaunts, and that's part of what makes them so charming to me. i simply decided to begin, perhaps fueled by the innate curiosity to witness and to know that governs nearly all of my pursuits. at any rate, i discovered quickly that walking was an excellent palliative measure against existential sadness, and i developed an immense taste for it.

it was on one of these innumerable nighttime ramblings that i first saw amanda palmer in harvard square. on friday nights there were always all sorts of people milling around there; between the T stop and the ABP it was the sort of place people chilled at just to be seen. this was the era in which she was doing her act as the eight-foot bride and i was immediately transfixed.

(amanda palmer, as she would have appeared at the time)

oh my god!!!! i remember thinking. she has black hair too! and she's also wearing a vintage wedding gown! and holding flowers! AHHHH! clearly, clearly we are meant to meet. and be best friends. (keep in mind i was but sixteen, and unused to the harsh realities of the world.) it was almost too pat. i believe at the time she had a card in front of her with a snippet of emily dickinson on it, something about silence.

so what did i do, this sweet, sensitive young scholar? well, i did what any poet philosopher would do when confronted with a similar situation.

lately i've been thinking about the word "insecure." i use it at times to describe myself but more and more often it is feeling stale and falling flat as far as capturing exactly what i mean when i try to use it. i am an anxious person, sure. i am a trepidatious person, sure, given to fantastical flights of the imagination and hesitation in the midst of ambiguous and troubling scenes. but when confronted with scenes of extreme meaning and beauty i don't doubt for an instant - i go forward blindly with perfect vision and balls of steel.

i am certain that i dressed with particular care, although i do not remember exactly what it is that i wore. i can hazard a guess, however, that it was my favourite dress, a cream wedding gown in raw silk from 1860. i wrote my favourite emily dickinson poem on a dollar bill, rolled it up, tied it with a sprig of evergreen, dropped it into her urn, and waited.

eventually she stepped off her box, and i was there. hesitant but full of strange love, i timidly complimented her on her dress.

"it's not mine." she answered, awkwardly, coldly, turning away, freezing me out.

really now, can you believe such a thing? freezing out an adorable, raw, silly girl in a precious dress with a sad little face? incomprehensible. (but then again, i'm slightly prejudiced.)

almost nothing, really, but to me, what a something it was. i was so upset i ran away to the edge of the yard and hid in the dark against the wrought iron fence. here i had a foolish little cry, knowing just how foolish i was, and completed the foolishness of the scene by writing a foolish little poem about it all.

because i am "like that" in that i still have all of my journals, i have that exact poem here in front of me. i hesitate to reprint it because it is terrible, just terrible, but i feel like it would be false to not include it. (besides, it is slightly hysterical.)


"I.

and i wonder as i sit
i still see your face clearly
your hair was pulled back
and you stepped off your box
to talk to those outside your realm.

you opened your mouth and things fell
out, not exactly the colour i expected.
hiking up your dress,
"it's not mine" and a falling tone.
how strange for me the irony sits.
it's musty but still a foundling to me.
how strange.
live up to your poetry after all,
and the distended layers would match,
and i wouldn't feel so empty.

when you suppose that you scare all the pieces you thought were yourself strewn about
then it is time to go home
when you suppose that it is time to go home
then it is time to scare yourself

and then will perhaps leaping
make me thinner,
make you truthful-er,
make my hair blacker?

(i'm guessing that this is around where it starts becoming about my boyfriend and not about amanda.)

why did my persistence die
with our first kiss?

it's encroaching
it's so close now
i can feel it feel it feel it
and however far i run
it's not like i will forget

time may be kind,
but it's just trying to make up
for what's coming next."


i never connected my experience to the dresden dolls until they started becoming more popular. their first website was part of jon whitney's brainwashed, which i frequented pretty religiously in those days. (a brief sidenote: jon whitney was, for a space of time in my life, a hero of mine, and when i had the opportunity to meet him he was more than pleasant. sidesidenote: if you really want a laugh, click on the feb 2004 interview with jon whitney from afterimage. holy shit that made my night.)

pretty soon even my dad, in his inimitable manner, was telling me: "hey suz! i heard this song and thought of you. it's about a boy! who runs on coins! you should check it out!" so check it out i did. and as soon as i read that amanda palmer had been a street performer in cambridge, i stiffened. that bitch. and i refused to listen to more than a few moments.

and i wonder now, especially as it is quite a timely notion for me to ponder on: when the iron enters my soul, what should i do?

of course, there is no answer. i am almost at the point where i can laugh at such a thing, and happily find the dresden dolls torrent and live a life full of bliss. but i am not at that point yet. and it is, as i elaborate on at length in my thesis, it is that "almost" that makes all of the difference my dears.

when the iron has entered my soul it is a type of permanence and yet it is not permanent. how could it be? i could simply say, "i am a foucauldian" and let that stand in for any further elaboration but instead i shall elaborate. i am sure if i had amanda palmer here in her own defense she would mutter something about being insecure, or annoyed, or busy on that particular summer evening. and there is a way she could say it that would melt that frozen part of me. this is a given. (this notion is part of why it is so damnably hard to determine a real prescriptive philosophics.)

but until that cold, hidden part is kissed by the sun, iron it remains. and i stick to that right, and continue to not listen to the dresden dolls. dreams are not realities; dreams need to have someone home for them to come true. so right now i am turning to the dreams that are "at home," so to speak. i know it is the right thing to do.

overheard in chelsea

1. so, how's your dating life? seeing anyone or anything?
2. (snort) dating life? what dating life? ha. what about you, you seeing anybody?
1. HA! (cackles.) me seeing anybody? my heart was firebombed like dresden, son. right now i'm just looking for porcelain in the ashes.
2. oooooooookay. wow. that bad, huh?

obligatory happy obama post

right now i'm listening to people whoop and hoot and honk it up on the streets below me.

earlier tonight i cast my vote on the shittiest, most ancient voting machine ever in the multi-purpose room of the only "true" housing project in bushwick.

and now i have to go back to writing my thesis on pleasure against nihilism AND there is homemade cake in the fridge.

[the short verison is: things are okay!]

only two regrets (oh, isn't there always):

1. that i was too tired to make it to babeland for my free silver bullet for voting (!)
2. that i didnt vote absentee for CA... i mean, what the fuck? you'll vote obama but no on prop 8? keep your fingers (and toes) crossed....

ADDENDUM: you can still make it to babeland for your free silver bullet! until the 11th!! be off, i say!!!!

ten questions

1. is wearing red glitter platforms and enduring exquisite agony worth the pleasure of having someone stop you to photograph you in them?
2. how strange is it to think of all the people who are thinking of you but are too scared to speak up?
3. why do i keep dreaming about alison goldfrapp?
4. why i am so terrified to finish my thesis?
5. how cool is it that fall leaves look like graphs of chaotic functions?




6. what is it about rainbow chip frosting that makes it so fucking delectable?
7. would foucault really consider his notion of subjectivity to be "nihilistic" in a critchley-ian fashion?
8. what is it about language that fascinates me so?
9. how can i best protect a wheatpaste from the elements?
10. is it love or is it an addiction?

sharing is caring

song of the day:

Boomp3.com

Daniel Victor Snaith (born 1978) is a mathematician and electronic musician recording under the stage name Caribou.

"I'm not the type of person who takes physical things apart and plays around with them, but I like taking mental ideas apart and playing around with them. That's what appeals to me about what I've spent my life doing."

"andorra" was the winner of the 2008 polaris music prize.

enjoy.

xoxo

after seeing an old friend after the passage of much time

i have learned some secrets
in my time
(still haven't learned to keep them but
i always tell them out of love)

i have learned some secrets in my time
and i could tell you
but what would they mean?
you must learn your own secrets and
tell your own tales,
as i have
mine.

1. you must give love to get love.
2. you must trust to feel trust.

i am a problem solver; i must be not so hard on
myself for always discussing problems.

why do things fall apart? the
answer hardly helps, doesn't mean
anything
although the answer
at times it is essential.

poster down the train says, big:

JESUS PAID THE PRICE FOR OUR SINS

but i think that's slightly wrong

he paid the price for our sins to be
more like us, we
pay the price for our sins without the threat of hell,
right here on earth.
for what is sin but something we do
when we feel hurt, alone, misunderstood, angry, alone, pained,

something we do instead of be honest
something we do instead of love

(and what does sin do to fix any of that?)

we pay for our sins when we realize what
it is to love, to forgive, to trust.

i am paying now when i regret the
times we didn't talk, didn't share, i don't exactly remember why
fear? pain? hurt? anger? fear?
right, you moved and didn't tell me. i drew a line.

(an emotional artist, i'm always drawing lines. but i use pencil. they move, these lines, like people move, like people move and don't tell you.)

i wanted you to think i was special (you always did)
and i wanted you to do the work to prove it
and now neither one of us works, we just drink vodka in columbus park
and laugh in the darkness at the rats
eating chocolate shaped like rocks
telling stories
trying not to cry

"i can't tell you how many times i imagine getting really, really trashed and just showing up on his doorstep." (in the rain, of course in the rain.) "and we fuck, or... or, we do something, i don't know."

this is the problem with people like us:
we give because we have so much
we can't imagine anything else
love is boundless, ebb and flow
only mean change, not scarcity

this is the problem with people like them:
people who don't give don't give because they don't have anything
tight-fisted with emotions
they cling, trying to live without
the comforts of lived dreams

3. dreams generate dreams, dreams generate self, but
4. our actions define the real.

this is the problem with people like us:
we do it because we know naught else
we do it because we cannot stop
dreaming and dreaming until we ACT!
pain is pain and fear is fear
but there is always something more.
pain and fear are always there, but they are nothing but
shadows cast by desires realized, desires uttered,
parading in the sun.

they are the change left over from
precious things bought at a hard price.

we eat our buns,
we kiss goodbye on the platform
no grandiose speeches, nothing more than
the knowledge that we will continue to live our parallel lives
3,000 miles apart. this is enough. i
used to need evidence, but i have learned so much.
i understand now how this is enough.

5. love is a spontaneous reaction. it cannot be forced; it cannot be faked; it cannot be rationalized. it can only be felt.








how many words will i have to write
to write you away?
how many pages until you disappear
completely?
but why bother
why bother
why bother
why speak when there is no one there to listen?

we don't speak when there is no one there to listen.

the more i write myself
the more i write you

why speak?
we don't speak.
why speak?

listen -

points and the bitches that have them

Last night I went to a poprally at MOMA in drag and worked the free absinthe like it was going out of style. When the woman behind the drink table says, “oh, you! You want another one?” when you walk by, well, you know….. hmph. Exactly.

The funny thing is that I didn’t really drink that much at all, my tolerance is back to being a bit lower than it was and it was never that high, but I’m still absurdly sensitive about it – obviously. And this colors my perception - undoubtably. The truth of the matter is the woman recognized me because I was dressed somewhat ridiculously in a pink and chartreuse bow tie (among other things) and because I was super-friendly – I like to chat up the help at big events. (I mean, shit, all they ever hear is “give me that now” and “I want a drink” and “hurry up!”)

I think I am sensitive about drinking because I obviously am quite personally concerned with notions of presence and control (I’m a bloody Foucauldian, for god’s sake). drinking enables me to flirt with both notions in a strange, convoluted way. And this makes me excited and once I get excited about something I usually get suspicious.

I did get an “I (heart) absinthe” button out of the whole shenanigans, so you know, that’s worth something. And what is interesting to me, what I think of now as I hold it in my hand and giggle at its affable stupidity, is that I only got it because I asked for it. I wanted it, and I said I did, and I got it. (there weren't any to be had, so the girl gave me hers.) And here it is, on my decrepit antique end table, a tangible evidence of a desire fulfilled. I like this.

I met friends of friends and chatted politely, but what I really enjoyed was being free to get into my own trouble and knowing my entourage was around somewhere to back me up if the need arose. Don’t get too excited - you know that for me “getting into my own trouble” meant wandering around the kirchners agog, giggling at whatever pleased me, frowning at all that didn’t, and making security guards nervous by getting THIS CLOSE to everything.

Upon my expressing a desire to take another turn through the exhibit, now that I was a little drunk, friend-of-a-friend laughed and said, “ah, I can tell you’re a real artist!” I didn’t bother to correct him; was correction even necessary?

I don’t know what I am sometimes. I am better now at reminding myself , feeling even, that the confusion is delicious, that the untangling and working-it-all-out-ishness is the magic of life, the meaning of life. Perhaps one could say I am an artiphilosoflaneurlinguistisist. (the extra “ist” is very, very important, it’s what makes it post-postmodern.) hmmm. I almost like this. I’ll keep trying. (Ha, of course I will.)

I think I’ve worked out the problem of foucauldian agency. Now, I’m not stating this to be egotistical; if anything, at times my thesis confuses me because I’m like, “can’t you just read the book? It’s all right there, you know?” so I feel as if I’ve just deciphered a bunch of dusty, obscured, enigmatic, crabbed and cranky hieroglyphs (and, trust, Foucault on agency is all of those fucking things). But at any rate, it speaks to this notion, this notion of constantly working out and creating the self anew, and you know, bitch has a point. A real fucking point.

[how fantastic would it be if, for my defense, I could just walk in the room and throw two books on the table (zettel and Foucault live) and be like, “bitches got POINTS, yo! WestSIIIIIIDE. Peace! I’m out.”]


I like this. I like this.

on love, II

"yes, sure. (laughs.) a good club sandwich with a coke. that's my pleasure. it's true. with ice cream. that's true. actually, i think i have real difficulty in experiencing pleasure. i think that pleasure is a very difficult behaviour. it's not as simple as that (laughs) to enjoy one's self. and - i must say that's my dream - i would like and i hope i'll die of an overdose (laughs) of pleasure of any kind. because i think it's really difficult and i always have the feeling that i do not feel the pleasure, the complete and total pleasure and, for me, it's related to death.

(why would you say that?)

because i think that the kind of pleasure that i would consider as the real pleasure would be so deep, so intense, so overwhelming that i couldn't survive it. i would die. i'll give you a clearer and simpler example. once i was struck by a car in the street. i was walking. and for maybe two seconds i had the impression that i was dying and it was really a very, very intense pleasure. the weather was wonderful. it was 7 o'clock on a summer day. the sun was coming down. the sky was very wonderful and blue and so on. it was, it still is now, one of my best memories. (laughs.) ...a pleasure must be something incredibly intense. but i think i am not the only one like that."

happy birthday, michel.

(xoxo, and thanks again for everything.)

heavenly discourse

(day. new york city. upper west side.)

horoscope:
Cancer:
"Hypersensitivity is a mixed blessing"
Thursday, Oct 9th, 2008 -- Although you are quite familiar with your emotional attachments, they could pull you in a slightly different direction today. You may realize that your hypersensitivity is a mixed blessing, for you cannot avoid feeling someone's discomfort with your affection. When you understand that this is not about rejection, you may be able to grant him or her the necessary freedom for a new kind of love to blossom.

me:
you know what, horoscope? why don't you just go fuck yourself?! ....aww, goddamn it, tell me something i don't fucking know. shit. i know, i know, i know already. you know what? fuck repetition, too. AND freud. fuck y'all.

shit, i need some more fucking coffee.

damn. (sips coffee reflectively, eyes softening.)

damn.

oh, snizzzap! or, i thought i was so fucking original or, it's amazing how things come full circle, isn't it?

"subjects of desire vs. agents of pleasure..."

on love, I

dad: i hope i didn't annoy you with all the texts i kept sending.
me: no! i told you i always wanted to do that, so i was excited to know where you were!
dad: i got you a present!
me: ooooh!!!!!! what what what, tell me!
dad: okay... so we were up by ely, and we found this road called the echo trail. it's this dirt road that goes like 50 miles straight into the woods.
me: oh my god! awesome!
dad: and we took it to this pristine lake. it was so desolate. and that's where the road ends.
me: ooohhh.
dad: but anyway, right by this beautiful lake there was this birch tree. and so i peeled off a bunch of birch bark for you.
me:... dad, i'm tearing up. no, really. that is so sweet of you.
dad: i'll mail it to you. and guess what else? the whole trip, from start to finish, took us 707 miles!
me: [seven is my lucky number] ahhhh!!!! that is so awesome. okay, go get a pencil.
dad: okay, why?
me: you gave me a present so now i'm going to give you one... i listen to this band a lot and think of you every time i hear them. you're gonna love them. it's like surf rock, but the chick sings in khmer - she's from cambodia.
dad: oh!!! i think i've heard of them.
me: okay, are you ready? D-E-N-G-U-E F-E-V-E-R. you know, like the disease? i really like, i think it's their first album. the one with "flowers" on it.

Flowers

dad: you know what song i've really, really been liking lately? (laughing) that "graveyard girl" song. it's like, 80s but new 80s. it's awesome.

Graveyard Girl

me: hmm. i've never heard it, but i'll have to check it out. oh, i love you dad.
dad: i love you too!

from monday: "second reader"

desire
i write
comes from where?
a nihilist types:
1. not a good question. its like asking where light comes. the point is that there IS desire. it has something to do with the body but cannot be reduced to it.

oh ho ho!
don't i know
my body is willing but the mind says
know i know i
know i've phrased it badly,
i meant to say
what makes desire
possible?
no, i know! i wake up and the words are on my lips and the feeling is only just fading.
"no, can't have pleasure, it's not for me."
not i
know pleasure i know pleasure but
no pleasure lets me know pleasure
because i know
what makes desire possible:
"the impossibility and possibility of a relation to the other."

desire is pleasure, is trust, is faith, is hope,
where they flow together i fish.
a wet underworld, slippery, dark and constant
constantly shifting.
you're biting,
but when
i reach in
the water
you're gone.
changed.
slippery fish!
the self is fleeting and we
write not to die,
must kill you with language,
pin you down, mount you
- wait, wait, wait, i've got it all wrong! -

kill me with language
pin me down, mount me
on your wall
stare
alter as need be until
i am perfect
visions, revisions

i'm looking at you
(my desire)
but i want you
(is about)
to be looking at
(the other)
me
(not me)

this pleasure can't exist with me
this pleasure erases me
it's a small death,
a little death,
very little, almost nothing

desire
i am always and only me
in response to you
desire
you are always and only you
in response to me
desire
and yet,
desire
and yet!

pleasure is not you
nor me
it is the border
we share, it is the language
we speak, the same language
we both speak,
with different tongues.

do you see?
help me see.

speak me, say me, pin me
down with language.
kill me, make me die. i
hate that
only you can
make me
me
it can't be
me
it can't be
true.

is this pleasure?

on parrhesia

1.  today i picked up my first leaf of the season. like a rich flame, it flickers from a ruddy raw umber to a burnt terracotta orange, with tiny ebbs of goldenrod around the veins. 

i look at many leaves and i wonder.... that one? should i? and sometimes i do and sometimes i don't. but every rare while i see a leaf and i know. this knowing does not happen often enough to give me any peace or spare me any anxiety and yet it always happens again. always. 

(the sodden world will be dry tomorrow.

why do i feel in this a loss?

for it will rain again...

how foolish to imagine - yet i can't help but imagine

a world without rain.)

2. i am sore undoubtably, emotionally. yet today i had several tastes, mouthfuls even, of bliss. not the kind that overwhelms you and makes you screechy-giggle and dance but the kind that swells up through you slowly, like a hidden spring, and spreads across your chest and up into your eyes and nourishes you wholly. i did my best, my absolute best, not to ruin my experience of it by pre-mourning it's departure. i did a good job.

3. i was walking down 72nd street from central park and i caught sight of a man working a UHO table on the corner. now i've made a point in the past of giving to them as often as possible (i mean jesus christ what do you really do with your pennies, anyway) but lately i've been paying for things with pennies on some occasions so... you know, i've been having to look out for myself first.  but today i was feeling pretty benevolent, not to mention grounded, and i happened to know that i had some change in my coin purse so i decided it was the exact right time to make a donation. (bliss should be shared, passed on, spread like a rash or a smile.) the man wasn't really doing much to draw people's attention; he seemed a little listless.

"how's it going?"

we began to scrape up the usual small talk as i collected my pennies, him warming to me as he realized that i could hear him (my headphones are a bit imposing!)

"okay - and you?"

"well... i've been better..."

my voice wavers, i am scared for a moment i am going to choke up - no, i am scared for a moment that i am going to cry, i am choking up-

"one of those days, huh?"

"yeah, one of those days...."

my voice trails off. i am looking him in the eyes.

"but you know, it's like, it sucks when you're going through it, the problem that is, and it sucks to have problems. but..."

i am speaking slowly for once, trying to think about how to say it, how i mean it right now, to him.

"when you solve the problem, it's like, wonderful. you figure it out and it's like, a reward."

he is not just looking at me anymore, he's looking at me.  and this is enough of a reward.

"...have a good one, okay?"

"you too!"

i can tell, even in those two  little words, that he means it, that what i've said has penetrated. i feel his eyes on me as i turn around and cross the street. 

4. i also went to my first botanica today. i've wanted to go to one forever since moving to bushwick, but i just never had the balls to do so. there are times, in the past, where being looked at, in certain situations, was so extremely disturbing and upsetting to me that it absolutely prevented me from doing things i wanted to do. and by looked at i mean what might also be expressed in the spirit of our times as being hated on. there is a fine line between the two, and one sees that line often in bushwick, one sees it get crossed and stamped out and erased and ignored and obeyed. 

but today, all of that was different. i walked home a different way than i usually do because i had new eyes and i wanted to see new things. and there it was, on a streetcorner, just being fascinating. and i was so fascinated and intrigued by it that, even though i felt a slight reluctance to enter and be judged to be something i wasn't, that i didn't even really feel the reluctance fully... it was far outweighed by my own desire to experience it. additionally, i did rationalize, i was wearing my virgin mary bracelet (which, if you've never experienced it, was made by nuns in a basilica and is covered in rhinestones and pearls, and is magnificently exquisite simultaneously in such a cheap and such a sacred way) and that had to earn me some kind of botanica cred. 

so in i went and i was so interested in everything that i was barely self-conscious. and, wow... 

look, just go in one, i'm not going to cheapen my experience by killing it with words right now. (although i want to be specific and say that while is not at all my full opinion on the function of language it cannot be denied that it, at times, certainly functions in this fashion.)

as i was finishing up my tour the man behind the counter, surprisingly, greeted me warmly and in english. i replied back kindly and went back to my exploration hesitantly, eventually turning around to him and speaking.

"um, yeah... could you possibly make a recommendation?"

he smiled and replied in the affirmative, and leaned in to hear me as i started speaking - so hushed did i begin.

"well... i just broke up with someone last night, and i, i have a hard time speaking up for myself and saying what i want and, i, it's like, i don't even know what i want, like i have no desire... so if you could recommend some herbs or a candle or something, that would be great."

"yes," he said. "yes, i think candles work well. how about a candle?" 

he lead me over to them, looking on them in a way that i couldn't suss out entirely, i wasn't yet sure that he was taking me completely seriously. 

"we have lots of candles," he began. then paused, then spoke again.

"you want him back?" (looking over at me.)

"i want myself back," i answered, with a quickness that surprises me in recalling it. 

he laughed, surprised, an honest laugh. i see admiration quickly pass through his eyes. he is taking me seriously now, i am sure of it.

"what about control?" he says.

"like you mean, controlling other people or like, control and myself?"

"having control of yourself."

"ah! that's perfect. yes. great!"

he pulls a yellow candle off the shelf and hands it to me. i looked at it briefly earlier. it is covered in blue spiderwebs and near the top a large threatening spider looks down on a small man, praying in fear near the bottom. 

later on i get it home and anoint it with the perfume i wear (after all, that is what my name means in hebrew), and light it. it takes a few tries, but it's still burning now. and i prayed, and had a moment with myself. you can imagine what i thought of, what i may have told myself. but that's it - once again, not a space for this kind of language. 

language, language. i follow it for a space, but it always goes on without me. 

no. no!

5a. "more precisely, parrhesia is a verbal activity in which a speaker expresses his personal relationship to truth, and risks his life because he recognizes truth-telling as a duty to help improve or help other people (as well as himself). in parrhesia, the speaker uses his freedom and chooses frankness instead of persuasion, truth instead of falsehood or silence, the risk of death instead of life and security, criticism instead of flattery, and moral duty instead of self-interest and moral apathy." - foucault.

5b. "the parrhesiast is someone whose fidelity to the truth becomes the pivot of a process of self-transformation." - parrhesia, the journal of critical philosphy

5c. "parrhesia is the price the subject must pay to gain self-control and self-definition back from the other. this, contradictorily, enables it to then fully consort with both itself and the other; this is what enables love, makes it possible. (of course, it only makes it possible. love only results in the rare situations in which parrhesia is able to fully function as a bridge between the subject and the other.) but love is certainly nothing without it, it simply cannot fully exist without it." - ...

(maybe this only for the neurotic, but...)

?

exhibits: pleasures from the other

a. "but yeah, he knows that language is kind of a big deal to you, yes?"

b. "i completed the typescript while i was teaching a course on foucault at the new school for social research in new york. i want to express my gratitude to my students for the inspiring discussions, and for confirming by their enthusiasm how exciting reading foucault is."

c. "you know, in your little outfit... you look like a ragamuffin!"

on desire, I

i know i shouldn't spend the dollar on sugar
but i do anyway
the chocolate chips make me sigh with pleasure
i don't even mean to
my reheated lunch that i don't want to eat
tastes perfectly fine although it is a week old
and i cut mold off of the green peppers

it is not as easy as philosophers say
this poem is shit now that i've written it out and it
was perfectly fine in my head
my project is to discover
my desires, to unchoke their leaf-filled gutters but

i wanted to write this poem down
and i can't
i want to lose ten pounds and
forget everything i know about nutrition so i can
eat cookies without guilt
but i can't
i want to spend all my money on coke that we lick off
each others nipples before you
trace my contours with the razor blade
and i want to hear you say
that you want it too,
that you want me to hear you say
that you want it
but you wont, because you can't,
so i can't.

i can't.

new-yorkish cerebral funfetti concerning questionable behaviour

so a few weeks ago at duane reade something rather funny happened. as i was whipping out my club card from the change purse where i keep it, a roach flew out and fell onto the counter. (now, i don't mean a bug.)

and i blushed, and then laughed. the chick laughed too, but didn't say anything. i have three roaches in my change purse and i really don't know why; as a girl who does her hair in a lot of vintage styles you can be sure i always have a bobby pin on my person somewhere. this means that roaches get killed, so to speak. but i still don't feel right throwing them away. hmmm. [ ed. note: haven't been partying too much lately, trying to keep myself in tip-top shape for the thesis.]

the local DR (or the drizzle, as i like to call it [ed. note: do you find that everyone in new york has a personal nickname for duane reade? i do... except i can't remember any of the ones i've heard recently... good story, eh?]) is really one of the biggest loci of small-town culture in new york, strangely enough. (other places i would note would be the bodgea/deli, the bagel cart, local parks, etc.) this is easily explained by the fact that one usually goes to the same one (the one near work/home) at the same time (right after work, right after getting home) on the same days. this means you get to know the staff and they get to know you. depending on the kind of person you are this sometimes has interesting results.

once upon a time on a friday, several months back, i was at my usual DR (98th and broadway) while on my lunch. i had a $5.00 rewards coupon and was looking forward to using it to dull the cost of an "expensive" purchase i had to make. after shopping, i walked up to the couter and set my items down somewhat shame-facedly: one maruchan instant lunch, one giant monster energy drink, and one big box of coloured and flavored condoms. the person at the checkout was a young man who i had conversed with somewhat extensively on an earlier occasion as we had discovered that we lived not far from each other way out in the wilds of brooklyn. hence, i could hardly play stupid and ignore him.

after awkwardly handing him my coupon (while looking at the counter) and then commenting on how expensive some "things" are (while blushing) i tried to make a joke (unsuccessfully) about how the only thing really for myself was the $.99 ramen. of course, all of this only delayed the inevitable; as he handed me my receipt he smirked and yelled after me smarmily, "you have a good night tonight, okay!"

now as i type this i laugh at my embarrassment at buying condoms (forgiveable but childish). it's weird, that kind of duality that exists sometimes. i of course could have made fun of him and his "not-about-to-get-laid" status but that sort of thing never ever occurs to me.

a couple of weeks ago i was walking down 23rd street after a doctors appointment and not really attending to the world around me too closely as i had had a great deal of blood drawn and feeling what some might call "woozy." i, being me, get off on this sort of feeling and would, with the right musical accompaniment, even refer to it as "transcendental." so after having all of this blood drawn and while taking an arduous city hike and observing the world at large while listening to fantastic music, i suddenly had my mind snapped BANG right back into real reality. i had just walked past a doorway where one of two hobo-ish men had flicked a cigarette butt into the air that flew mere millimeters from my face. i stared behind me in shock, looking back into his equally shocked face as he stammered out an apology. i instantly forgave him because i felt as if, this one time only, it was as much my fault as his; like him, instead of attending to the world around me i also had been staring at what his buddy had been proffering up to him eagerly - something in a dull transparent orange pill container. "hmmm!!!" i had thought, as i looked at their intent and excited faces transfixed upon the bottle, "i wonder what that hobo has in that pill container!"

water drinks michael phelps

yeah, it's been a while.

yeah, i've got a list - two lists, actually - of shit i've been meaning to blog about. like twelve things. that's pretty pathetic, i admit, to have a fucking list - no, wait - TWO lists of things to blog about and still not be able to manage to do it.

oh well!

i've been happy lately, a shocking, delicious, and (most of all) new sensation to me. it's hard to figure out how to go about my life-as-usual now that i'm pretty consistently happy since a) happiness is so novel to me it mostly spawns nothing but anxiety and shit, let me tell you, being constantly anxious really shoots your schedule all to hell and b) as sadness was my motivation for a lot (read: most) of the creative things i did, it is quite challenging to figure out how to completely shift my ground for creativity.

again - oh well. this is why we are alive, this is the magic of the ego.

lately everyone's been all into this sports thing - let's see... i think they call it the... olympics. olympics, right! everyone's been all into the olympics! and hey, i don't have anything against that at all. i'm not, or rather, i'm trying not to be one of those academics who thinks shit like, "ugh, this shit has no real meaning, purpose, being, it's just mindless athleticism, trained apes, etc." because obviously that position is complete bullshit for several reasons. the first is that these olympians should be lauded not only for their extreme skill but for the fact that they celebrate, nourish and cherish their bodies, and most likely have a relationship with them that is quite foreign to most americans (who delight in torturing their bodies with processed food that their brain wants to eat but that their body fights in vain, and, who, even worse, spend most of their time ignoring the subtle language of their aches, drives, hungers and pains). secondly, anyone who can sit on a futon for hours at a time, usually intoxicated on some kind of substance, and think things like "hmmm.... it's like, when you consider death, it splits into notions of language and self, which are really the same thing, equivalent, in the eyes of death. hmm, fascinating..." cannot really be too critical of the purposeful utility of anything, especially something which results in a pure, physical action.

i haven't had access to cable in about two years now, and haven't actually owned a tv in almost a year. this means that my news of tv-related things is usually quite derivative and distorted, and that's perfectly fine with me, just the way i like it, actually. i am, of course, proud of michael phelps, proud of his historic contribution to sports and to america, but, being me, i am much more interested in seeing what people do with the facts of this situation, how they get digested by society at large, than actually watching him glide through the water, in a speedo, at superhuman speeds. (this, according to some, could be my loss.)

for instance, while i smiled at phelps' modest face in photographs after each medal and warmed to him when he declared that he missed his own bed, these things didn't really stick with me, they didn't penetrate, or rather, they only penetrated my mind so far. however, two other things i read, things that used his victories as a springboard to other ideas connected to but far beyond michael phelps, will stick with me for a long, long time. (the second one, especially.)

i offer them as documents, as testaments to the indefatigable human spirit (both intellectual and physical), below:

1.
2.

fresh blood

i've been mentally preparing for a weekend of strange, mind-bending fun; consequently i've been wandering around the vaults of erowid again for the first time in a long while. check them out if you've got an hour or two - there's something fun for everyone - promise!

reading the trip reports really brought me back - suddenly i became a strange, morbid teenage girl again, trapped in my parent's stuffy den. a boring box of a room decorated with bits and pieces of riffraff too out-of-fashion for the public rooms, the den was where the computer was. hence, the den was where, i suppose, a great deal of myself was born, strangely enough... born in that ugly box of a room looking out directly into the stucco of my neighbor's house, in with my dad's guitars and my ugly debate trophies and my grandmother's huge, pumpkin-coloured velveteen armchair.

i would spend hours late at night, straining to hear any movement from the direction of my parent's bedroom, reading trip reports written by unstable chemists who could only reference what they were taking by long chemical names dotted picturesquely with numbers and hyphens. i had friends who smoked pot, who drank, and these, at the time, held little interest for me. they frightened me somewhat, because they seemed to me to... muddy the mind. and this was frightening, unclear, nebulous.... muddying. exactly.

the hallucinogens, however - ahhh, the hallucinogens. from those early days i would read on and on, listening to that ugly clock tick into the dark, devoted like a lover, tingling and sweating with desire, with anticipation. DMT was always my favourite... the one drug i've always wanted to do and never gotten to do.... it held some aura for me, some potent, palpable mystery of initiation, brotherhood, transitivity and (subsequent) abandonment. i read, i researched, i bought the yage letters from the upstairs room of city lights, and when my favourite band (probably still, too) put out an album devoted to hallucinogens and time exploration i was beside myself; the original pressing came with six stickers and of course, the 5-meo-dmt sticker was the one i put on my c.d. player and prayed that someone would notice. no one did, of course, but that is more than likely for the best. i was, after all, seventeen. i was seventeen and i was looking forward to pulling my mind apart. still am, honestly. suppose that's why i'm a philosopher, an analyst, a proctologist of the soul, if you will.



today my therapist and i had an interesting discussion; we always do.

"maybe it's time for you and sorrow to... break up...?" she posited, hesitating, yet speaking with decision.

i laughed. i laugh a lot in therapy. then i sighed. i also sigh a lot in therapy. (i'd like to think i was an amusing analysand, but then everyone does i suppose.)

often going forward means going backwards and vice versa.

vice versa and vice. vice, indeed.

curious,


curious.

OMG! turns out M.I.A. and i have the same birthday! ROCK.

this makes me feel much less bad about a good section of my thesis being inspired by a lyric of hers from 20 dollar...

and it'll collapse/when there's nothing in it

(language, intentionality, etc.)




that is all.

haaaaappy birthday toooo meeeeeeeee! (or masturbatory celebratory post)

today (thurs) is my birthday. tomorrow (fri) is the full moon, and i'm taking the day off to go to the beach. i have a cupcake to eat for breakfast (cake for breakfast is a bday tradition in my world) and have leftovers from my favorite diner dinner to eat for lunch (and i didn't even have to pay for it!) today i got no less than ten - count 'em, ten - compliments on my shutter shades. (fav one - italian guy at eighth ave: "hey!!!! i like-a you glass!!!!!!)

happy birthday to you, kid...

another lap around the sun - run on your own terms.

(there is always a way to squint your eyes, warp your brain, so that you can see the positives. they're there, they're as real as shit... just as real as depression. true dat, yo!)

so maybe, if you have a second tomorrow, watch the clouds, pick up a leaf, scrutinize some graffiti art, think about what's important to you, or listen to the presets...

this is my life, darlings, and i'm happy to have it and happy to share it with you.

and now, the thrilling conclusion! or - i'm going to blog about something positive for once!

i realized that i have a tendency to blog about things that are going on and then never discuss their resolution. why discuss resolution, really? usually once it has been reached, for me, it is enough. (discussion is only for confusion. with knowledge and surety comes silence. interesting.)

but then i was re-reading my old posts and was like, um, maybe i should just let everyone know i'm okay and doing fine again. i mean, i pretty much admitted to flirting with alcoholism (however briefly) and being dangerously depressed. so - no worries! i'm back and better than ever. i did some serious thinking and some serious drinking and spent time outside with good friends - all positives! i revisited the magic that is the to-go margarita from the turkey's nest, referred to myself in mixed company as a post-post-modernist, and then wore my sunglasses home in the dark (it seemed like the right thing to do at the time... sorry, but that's all i've got as for a rationale. it really just seemed right. strange.)

(side note - i am also realizing that, more and more, i am that girl on the subway. you know, the girl not only bopping her head to her ipod, but usually tapping her foot along as well. and... god.... i am embarrassed to admit it.... usually singing along, silently, con spirito. sunday night this was certainly the case:

"i am aware.....that i don't fit riiiiiiiight.... i get lost.... doo doo doo..... and you feel the same... never older, always the same.... like the man who.... diiiiiiiiiiiies everyday...doooo."

a long time ago i came up with this theory that why new york natives seemed to be so profoundly uninterested in such things as moving from the middle of sidewalks or modulating their voices while discussing intimate personal details is because in a space such as this, where no one has any private personal space, once simply creates it by distancing oneself from it, ignoring it. i think this is what i do when i listen to my ipod. it's really not about looking cool (HA!) or anything like that - it's quite the opposite. i think it's how i make myself feel comfortable, at home, in this delightful nightmare.)

i went to alphabeta, a silly new graffiti shop in greenpoint and treated myself to some excellent new krink... and found a delightfully tiny shack by my local park that specializes in hot dogs and hot sausages with homemade chili and sharp cheddar cheese. (transcendent!) i came up with a lot of crazy goals for myself and am challenging myself to work on accomplishing one each day, even though they are the best and worst kind of goals - serious goals - terrifying goals - goals that make your stomach clench with determination and fear, because you just want it to go well so badly, and you're so terrified that it might go badly and you're equally terrified that it might go well.

oh! and last, but certainly not least, i bought some orange shutter shades.


[street vendor guy: those look really good on you!
me: (laugh)
street vendor guy: no, really, i'm not kidding!
me: (laughs again) well, actually, i think they look pretty stupid... but i'm going to get them anyway!]

feel free to ridicule me as i pass. (no, not really. i guess all i'm saying is that i realize full well that they are fucking ridiculous and terribly ugly. but then, we all know that i go in for that sort of thing.)

OMG!!!!

(more)

relativity's a bitch

overheard on a south williamsburg roof deck:

1. are you brown? you look brown. have you been to france?
2. yes, yes, i've been to france. just the other week! lovely, etc, etc.

overheard in a north bushwick loft:

1. ack! (cough, cough, sputter.) um... i think, i think it's more of a... back-of-the-palate wine. you know, like, if you taste it with the back of your palate, it isn't so.... horrible.
2. um, (x), ha! you mean like, if you just gulp it down your throat without tasting it? like, chug it?
1. um, yeah, i suppose that's exactly what i mean. hmmm... cheers!

don't read this. really.

i don't know how you people do it. i've drank half a bottle of liquor, quite a bit for me, and i don't feel anywhere near better. i feel worse, actually, much worse. in spite of my intoxication, i feel naked, i have absolutely no illusions. love is a lie, life is a lie, truth is a lie, all of it. there's really nothing, nothing at all. nothing at all. god, how awful. i have no idea why i am here typing about it, it feels fucking indescribably lonely. just terrible, especially as i don't really have a real relationship with 9/10ths of the people who read this shit. i want to make it private, my blog that is, but i just can't bring myself to do such a thing. it goes against my principles.

i mean, as per usual, i really shouldn't complain. for everything that's raped my soul, i have a friend or a token of affection that the situation enabled to rise to the occasion or bestow upon me. i know grammatically that sentence makes no sense, but you know what i mean. how can i be on the point of vomiting up my soul and yet still feel so sober? everyone else i know is asleep. everyone else is happy. of course it looks like that on the outside but i know full well that the inside is much, much different.

the problem of the other. what do you do when someone takes the power they have over you and pretty much fucks you with it (and i don't mean in the good way)? i know i am supposed to remain quiet, i know i am supposed to die quietly, i know i am supposed to fade away without a peep, with a dying fall, yet i protest. i will take the risk of drunk dialing just to spread the truth. as i said on my drunk dial, "the truth is the truth, and you obviously don't understand that." true. very true. or as i always used to say in french class, vraiment vrai. i will not keep silent about these embarrassing things, situations, fears, hopes. whatever. i don't understand. i don't understand. unfortunately the act of not understanding does not lead to understanding; at any rate, it illustrates, much as alan bass would say, that there is no relationship between the word "cat" and a four-legged domestic animal. things that seem to follow one another are not necessarily related at all, as much as they may seem to be or as much as we may like them to be.

i went to a private party tonight and had hors-d'oeuvres for dinner. hors-d'oeuvres and beer and vodka. a well-balanced meal, featuring both the brewed and distilled variety of alcohol. and i inhaled a lot of paint - i mean, not recreationally, but because i was helping friend and friend with a fashion shoot planned for sunday and they were painting shit. i, because i was steadily getting drunk because of events that befell me, was the supervisor. this means that i shouted a lot of inspirational slogans and sighed heavily and cried into the couch. i guess it is true that sadness shows you who your true friends are; it also shows you who the dumb fucks in your life are. unfortunately, i'm more hung up on the dumb fucks than the friends at this point.

how shameful. how despicable. how juvenile.

am i talking about him or myself? good question.

good fucking question.

i know i will wake up tomorrow and regret posting this. i know i will wake up tomorrow and be like, "why the hell did you write all of that dumb shit and put it out in public for other people to read, to know?"

well, i put it out there because it is the truth. and the truth is the fucking truth, no arguing with that. even i, a drunken, love-sick fool can see that and immediately recognize it.

i am so over life. how frightening. no, don't worry, i wont do anything rash. but i wonder what i will come up with to go on. my graffiti - yes, it helps. but so little. no one believes in altruism anymore, what's the goddamned point?

a week or so ago there was an article that swept nyc about a hospital in brooklyn that allowed an ambulatory patient to die in the waiting room, ignored by hospital staff and security guards. on the website where i read about such a thing, tens of people had posted comments about the article. these comments expressed rage, disgust, anger, sympathy - all normal human responses to the human tragedy (dare i say truth?) of dying alone, forsaken, unsupervised. (and there was a video posted of security cameras who captured the whole ordeal. i couldn't bring myself to watch it. the reality of such footage is simply too staggering for my mind to comprehend. absolutely terrifying. how can one watch this sort of thing? oddly enough, in my mind, it taints one to view it thus, makes one slightly complicit in the ordeal at hand.) at any rate, i scrolled through these comments and as much as i related to each and everyone of them, i became disgusted. as they went on, more and more people began to elaborate on the current state of the world, describing it's miserableness, it's hopelessness, it's hell-in-a-handbasketness. i swear to god, i was seemingly the only person who read that fucking article and was like, i want to volunteer, i want to be a candy striper there. i won't let another person die alone, i swear it. i will, in my small way, do what i can to make sure no one else will suffer like this. (i once, in high school, sat on my front porch for an hour with a wounded mouse because i couldn't stand the idea of it dying alone.) why will no one else think like this, respond like this?

boys' hearts are fickle, i said to him, on his chest, his smooth, hairless chest. beautiful tattoos, beautiful face. that's why i say it, i said, because boys' hearts' are fickle. he laughed, can you believe it - he laughed. and now we come to this. now we come to this.

hearts are fickle.
hearts are fickle.

but not mine. i remain steadfast. i can do naught else.

today i am the most depressed i've been in weeks, goddamn it. judging from friends' blogs, 'tis the season. what a fuck. i have absolutely nothing at all edifying or meaningful to contribute to the world at large via this entry. yet i'm here anyway... mostly because it is SO SLOW at work i am going out of my mind. i have things to be happy about, sure. but... whatever.

i find myself driven to express myself, even if it is only in the form of a scream, or through verbal diarrhea on this dusty blog outpost. why is this? plenty of people i know create magic out of their worst moments; i myself as a teen worked this shit to the sky. yet now, even though i feel the same drive to create, i feel much less of the creative aspect of such an act. sadly, desperation is more of what i feel as i type, speak, act in this state. ugh. motherfucker. there is no swear word yet to describe the state a depressed person is in. oh wait, yes there is - depressed. got it. like something crushed, something that used to be full and is now empty. something lower than normal, less than zero. right. all been said before.

oh my god, wait! i have a leftover chocolate chip cookie from lunch. the nice guys at lenny's bagels gave me an extra one for free. ahhh, something to live for! and karma.... maybe it's out there, somewhere, working for me. i'd like to think so. this is why i will never call myself an atheist - because i do think there is much more to life beyond humanity. that there are things external to, outside of, humanity. (cue single tears, world's smallest violins, etc, etc, etc.)

oh joy! three 71 lb boxes were just delivered to work. guess i have something to do now... and it's nice and mindless. usually i revel in this sort of thing but today i'd rather not be left alone with my thoughts. at least yesterday when i was carrying heavy things around i was wearing a wifebeater (part of my birthday week fun times celebration, more on that to come) and each time i walked past one of the many mirrors at work (funny, there are a lot of them) i could be like, "oooh! look at you, you sexy, sexy beast! grrrr!" today i am not wearing a wifebeater although i look nice; consequently when i look in the mirrors today i will be all like "look at how cute you look! why the fuck won't (x.) text you back then?!" (this is not a happy thought, this is wellspring of the current depression.) i swear to fucking god, there is some kind of cellphone gnome that has programmed a signature into my text messages - but only certain text messages. (bear with me here.) it totally makes sense! it could be based off of sweat levels on the key pad. anytime the level went above a certain number (as my hands tend to sweat when i am particularly nervous and insecure and daring) a little signature would be added to the outgoing text. it would read something like this:

"it was extremely difficult for suzanne to send this text to you and she spent a long time worrying over it and being excited about it and working up the courage to send it, so all in all it's probably best if you don't respond to her. once again, DON'T REPLY TO THIS TEXT. I'M NOT KIDDING HERE. CHILDREN WILL DIE."

i'm telling you, that's the only rational explanation. i'm going to go kill that fucking gnome now.