if.so

2008-07-25T00:16:00.002-05:00

to mark progress, several years after inception:

serifs, those tacky little hangers-on.
still.

2006-12-10T22:04:00.000-05:00

oh ho, do i have a bad feeling about this. hello my friend Terrible Sense of Timing. hows Unabated Frustration these days? i know, disneyworld is nice this time of year. great that Viral Misapprehension is housesitting; i knew id seen her out walking the dog in the neighborhood. well, ill catch up with you later - sooner, you say? great. fantastic. i look forward to it.

2006-12-06T03:03:00.000-05:00

oh, but. i left maine thinking i might have to stave off regrets as soon as i sobered up (fig.), had a few days to days to organize my thoughts. still, i should know better ; even the things i do that are poor, not of the best morals, materials or construction, dont comprise regret. missteps tell me a lot - one, that i know they are what they are, and getting that far is hard enough (my everyday morality is a cobweb, and my personal preferences are surprisingly elusive - do i want to be in new york? if only my desires were that compartmentalized and accessible! instead i have to play stupid stomach games, where i divine deep, morphic, volcanic sentiment by testing whether or not a certain hypothetical causes what i like to call a walnut to develop in that place where our instincts live...anyway). two, they draw attention to things i would otherwise pass over as well-oiled ; if you see it coming, after all, thats not much of a misstep so much as an inconvenient decision. and im still not totally settled on this one, which is whats a bit galling - i need to make a choice, go one place or the other, and i keep pushing each end's bounds, teasing it out, and thats just miserable. What Do You Need, dear. for its not just a matter of wanting, either - its testing out my cravings when i know im not eating well, what am i missing, what can i hear that i need. whos wholesome, whos tasty? oh my, im all for trashy metaphors.

2006-11-02T20:30:00.000-05:00

i am so busy that although i missed antm last night - for the knife at webster hall, amAzing, but again, too busy to process (busy, but cute and computery!) - i hadnt even thought of downloading it until now, which im promptly not going to do, because ill end up watching it instead of indulging in my sweet, achingly small dont-burn-yourself-on-the-heater four hours of sleep. also, i forget how to talk. doot d do

2006-10-31T19:34:00.000-05:00

oh winter; oh youre on me like a lover, sweating me up, its 70 degrees out, but im not fooled; i know its you, underneath where the piles of leaves would be, here, if there were trees. summers woozy and slow, but youre a chokehold, the plucking and dripping of the heater in the night, last-minute mojitos, baths on the floor when the weak light comes in the window and cant get out, and you Madame before all others, wont let me forget that i fail in my faith; what is easy, what is not.

2006-10-16T18:41:00.000-05:00

edit. i give up on drugs and am now trying cookies, more cookies, and lots of many sundry liquids. i feel better already.

2006-10-16T17:58:00.000-05:00

it is so cold, and the heat isnt on yet. im leaving my window just the smallest half-crack open because i cant even fathom how germ-encrusted everything would be if i didnt let at least a little air move. sniffle, snivel, i should go buy some real tissues, but again, it is so cold. its too bad i wont let myself waddle across the street in blanket-wrap, because it really is cozy and nice; its also nice to think that if anyone gets sassy i have my sexy, infectious cough to fend them off with.

maine was very, very nice, but there was just too much going on; too many fireworks, not enough stars.

ok, clearly "sick and functional" is a big lie; back to bed for some more "sick and od'ing on dayquil, which, oddly enough, still makes me as drowsy as nyquil does." im frustrated because its too hard to read, movies are too stupid, and everything else takes energy. also, its nice that the one thing in the history of man my roommates choose to throw out, ever, voluntarily, is the pleastic bottle i keep to make my orange juice in. i cleaned it and left it on the counter to dry, and lo, i get back and its the one damn thing on the counter thats been moved - not the tv remote, not the sinkful of dishes, not the other plastic container (bent in odd, unacceptable ways) sitting on the counter. whiz kids, these.

i go forage for warmth.

2006-10-12T14:56:00.000-05:00

i am going to maine tomorrow and its going to be great. everyone should come to maine. maine is awesome! i love maine! beaches and my moms apple pie should be enough reason for anyone.

my moral compass has stopped working; i cant tell up from down, so its a good thing im sticking to familiar roads for a few days, anyway. its just too bad that i keep having to scale what i want down to all these wacky distortions i cant recognize so well, so its hard to say whether or not i still want them. to borrow from the roomie, it may still be yours, but its not cake anymore after you eat it. and i keep pretending like i care what the smartest or wisest thing would be - as if theres any point in lecturing myself on that one - when really i just need to sit down with my dignity and ask her what she needs. does pretending its dignified help, or is it better to just own up to the trashiness and make your peace?

2006-10-10T01:06:00.000-05:00

fucking watersheds; tomorrow i promise myself i will be showering and together like i believe in the nothings wrong. and to think, it really isnt, everything is, or will be, even-keeled: im hastening the correction of a long, exhausting, slow starboard tilt. i think once its righted ill feel good about knowing my own longings better than ive been able to intuit for a long time. im scared of my own dedication, here, my own incontrovertible stubborn will, and once i move past the stupidity of the forms my lessons need to take i hope ill find my whitewashed, born-again clean dignity on the other side ready and worthy, more so than id ever really actually hoped for, not without artful dodging of questions that matter - the newly-discovered stubornness actually a pleasant surprise, the demands i make on myself having reassuringly high standards, the things i dont just aspire to but insist on doing are, actually, genuinely, really good, noble in their way. still, my head hurts, a lot.

2006-10-10T00:07:00.000-05:00

oh honestly, youre not going to take on that kind of responsibility. its not that im foolish so much as optimistic in asking for help here, and i dont see the malignancy in asking for it when all parties involved know that the aforementioned responsibility is always and forever, bless its soul, going to rest with me. so yes: i am belatedly aware that you were right in citing your selfishness, and for looking at me like i was a little cobwebbed up-there when i suggested generosity as even an extant but out-of-reach desideratum; there was a woman in the park today who looked straight from the bell jar, dressed up sane and belted but clearly not of this, this, she didnt tilt her head when she watched! i cant name what it was about her post-electric remove, but something wholesale beyond, above, horrific and dreadful utterly POST-, her airs not circulating, this is what so much is leading-to pointing-toward the remove, the meta, within-without, that were prodding at and able to prod at only because its unfathomable, unobtainable, distant, the stupid benumbing fact that our ideas are and so we may, faithfully and penitently (mostly), take them very seriously indeed, this is all so old i know and im sorry (concentration in penitence, my new favorite life major), but it was like she had no faith in this at all - automaton - whose reasoning consisted in acceptance and therefore imitation, they do it must be - past the cogito, past the guilds, past the petty distinction between harlots and whores, past even the deserts and neons and clover-leaves and fury, to, to, to what: there is nothing inexplicable, patterns are reckless, theres never any reason not to, the fucking future:

this wishing, this constant, dire wishing i have, suddenly out of place, and more importantly not petty, even if futile, even if it continues its ignored, unknot-yourself existence; which it might, and which it might not, depending on the fury and the scorn and the figuring out if im really so clever as to have exacted revenge on myself, being evidently capable of an unhappiness so genuine and so thorough with my own willingness to compromise that i have to break every reasonable bone in my body to demonstrate EXACTLY HOW VALUABLE THOSE REASONING SKILLS ARE, and then theres today, the day left with my point proved and a lot of what looks like broken china and no rhyme (not that there ever was - i dont live that particular poetry) and definitely no reason anywhere left to understand it.

so i do in fact who wouldve thought exaggerate, because there are by far too many reasons left, and theyre all reverberating and echoing and yelling at me. oh theyre very clear about how they feel; i just didnt know they did any feeling at all. its nice to know, i guess, and thats what i have for silver lining; how very, unexpectedly intense they can be, and its oh so much the worse now that theyre pressed into knowing of their solitude - or, if not knowing, knowing that thats the only allowable assumption. im not even sure what my pronoun here is referring to, but whatever they are, they are pawing and fetal at the same time, grabby and offensive but skittish, malnourished, translucent, seeing the light of day for the first time and not quite able to blink quite enough.

2006-10-06T19:00:00.000-05:00

DANCE PARTY AT THE GUGGENHEIM

f/ ratatat

anyone whos doing anything else tonight is just a fool. fools, i say!

also, sunset rubdown at the bowery ballroom last week was delicious, but theyre so good live and so not as good recorded that i cant really praise them to the high heavens (i think most people know wolf parade, but its the same dude. who rocks the accordion).

guiltily un-self-aware hence un-be-blogged,
jf.

2006-09-29T13:57:00.000-05:00

it is impossible to get to maine. actually, its impossible to get anywhere, looking at what the trains are (or, more relevantly, arent) doing this weekend. in other news, my air conditioner is finally out of my one window, so ive been reintroduced to this "daylight" loveliness. sadly, ive been cleaning all morning, and now that i finally have the entire apartments laundry (eg the tablecloth which has been absorbing various take-out chinese sauces since before i moved in - thats an awful lot of chinese, let me tell you; not to mention the process of cleaning off the table, period, to get to the tablecloth was an hour-long project in itself, what with the past-due notices and, ironically, laudry detergents obstructing my path) together im rather bewildered at the concept of actually hauling it all down to my laundromat, where i sit and read because although id love to watch the soap operas theyre in spanish. and then i need a box to ship some presents in but have no idea how to go about obtaining one; i know ive done this before, idiot child, but ive completely forgotten how. all of which assumes i make it to a post office before five, which is looking less and less likely, and so may have to be done in the twee hours of tomorrow morning. and god only knows what tomorrow is going to be up to in spite of me, but i will at least squeeze in a viewing of ANTM episode 2 with the k, since we still cant find a place (being tv-less ourselves) to watch it when it actually airs. also red wine or maybe mojitos, if were going to be all sassy-fancy. faaaaah off to the laundromat, as soon as i find some clothes that arent slated for the washing.

edit. im not moving. im just cleaning. all day long. for ever and ever amen.

2006-09-22T02:45:00.000-05:00

why new york is exciting:

1. you never know if that 6'+ homeless guy walking past you is not, in fact, going to walk past you, but instead is going to try to punch you out with a nice left hook. thanks buddy. yeah.
2. a one-woman (written, directed, performed, cradle-to-grave) show about her experiences in rwanda (fall in love, almost die, drink tea) will reassure you that your life is, in fact, really fucking boring. no, really, stop saying "but--"; no one cares.
3. not only does my roommate have a CANE but get this, this is amazing, he has to wear dress shoes with it. he has to! doctors orders! hahahahaha (stiff soles or something - but still!).
4. or then theres the good ole "leave the atm card in the atm machine" trick, which always stirs things up a bit when all else - "but i just wanted to go grocery shopping" - fails.
5. or the ensuing lecture from your mother about how mayyyyybe youre still just a twee little bit irresponsible young lady you live in a big, scary, mean city now and could you please stop losing that damn card and why o why must you always leave it in the most obvious of LOUDLY BEEPING AT YOU TO TAKE YOUR CARD places?
6. and the "mother" game, where your conscience takes on the persona of an uptight, hardass, bible-thumping belt-snapping mom (who is really nothing like yours at all) in order to express itself since youve basically closed-circuited it out of your life (manhole covers...flocks of sheep, hereded by string and sheepdogs) so you end up muttering to yourself while walking down the sidewalk: "young lady...were you thinking...", when in reality you just got off the phone with your real mother who cancelled your card and is giving you cash to tide you over until you get your card back, at worst maybe called you sweetie.
7. i need to prepare a pirate joke for next time i see orlando bloom skateboarding so i dont just stand and blink (repeat) (which, for the record, is about the reaction i expect from any pirate joke i ever tell, to anyone).
8. pouncing on the free moma tomorrow afternoon (how unbelievable is it that target has to sponsor it? what kind of asshole, over-puffedly self-important museum cant afford even four free hours a week? ok, yes, they admit it: "The ultimate purpose of the Museum declared at its founding was to acquire the best modern works of art," and its kind of cute how shameless they are. awwe. still: pouncing, roar).
9. the ever-pressing need to constantly Make Excuses: why youre late (i get on the right train in the wrong direction embarassingly often), why you forgot the wine (the guy at my liquor store tends to disappear for big chunks of time, though he leaves the store open), why youre busy saturday (my plants need me), why are you hanging out in midtown (honestly, everywhere is too expensive, so why single out the 30s?), why are you not up by 10 (im unemployed, remember?), why did you just send me a tyra banks voicemail that calls me "chocolate mama" (i love ANTM shamelessly and you should too, though the chocolate part, well)?
10. increasing dopiness. i feel dumber every.damn.day.
11. there are other people here who love alaska, and dont think im crazy.
12. (this ones a little smarmy) for all the crushing mess of people, its getting easier to connect to them in real ways.
13. its fun to be an idiot: navy blue and black totally match. and no one (its the anti-junior-high) looks at you funny.
14. people are intimidating in their creative energy.
15. anti-war shows - at least until the concert organizers come out and kill the energy by stiltifying it (its hard to look a blatant 'we are going to stop the war in iraq with this show in union square' lie in the face and not die a little, when you really do wish it were true).

bedtime. wasnt that a lame ending? man, i kinda suck these days. pffffftt

2006-09-14T16:41:00.000-05:00

thinking of this summer, trying to admit that its passed, and where - summers have essences where other seasons dont, brief and selfcontained - its foci lay, finding them outside myself already (theres the 'past' part), keeping track of them with my hair (it had to be dyed again today - has it already been six months, two dyes, since colorado?), yeah well i know its kind of unbelievably banal but just you tell me how you keep track of these things, how do you know that youll at least try not to forget, other than moving your happinesses through you - this reminds me of that paragraph from dune, the oft-cited 'fear is the mind-killer,' which, alright, but when your fear is what you love, what it can take from you? - trying so hard to keep it close that it embitters your blessedness, wondering (though at least not worrying) about the ways in which what you love doing is going to manipulate you into missing other things less obvious, more needed than wanted; trying to keep passion from deteriorating into self-neglect; i love fall, i love it, i havent smelled downed leaves in so many years that theyre calling forth this wicked pelvic response, and im just so bad at change, so overdrawn, that its a constant reconciliation, i clearly cannot handle this fourth-dimension bullshit and have to materialize it, i need hair and falling leaves, all of it, just to start to understand; ok, guys, wheres everything gone, already.

union square for a cookbook and some chicken-free nuggets. i wish i didnt have to bother with other food; cant they make some sort of space-ready nuggets with all the vitamins a young girl needs? oh well (for the record, the only brand i endorse is morningstar, though the others are passable in a pinch). and nail polish. happy frivolities.

and happy fall. im excited.

2006-09-10T20:42:00.000-05:00

tater tots are amazing. this is going to be an excellent week. ive finally got some resolve to back up my actions (whew) and im going to go ahead and indulge the latent-catholic thing and start exploring the more austere side of my spirituality (that word makes me twinge).

theres also, apparently, snow on peak one. shit dude.

ok, so maybe maine the weekend of the 23rd, but more likely the 30th? please summer last just a little longer. i feel like youve been all sweat and tears and id kind of like some ocean and crisp sheets and a fire out back and popular mechanics on the porch (in the company of the decapitated mice - why do cats eat only the head, again?).

its always a good sign when i start focusing on tangibles - the potato, for one, just isnt likely to cause me much trouble.

! melodrama. sorry

2006-09-07T23:37:00.000-05:00

can i just say im tired, and theres something very specifically stressful about feeling youre teetering on the edge of inadequacy.
i feel like if i do anything remotely related to self-reflection in the next week i will go on a kinderwhore divest-everything-of-all-possible-meaning binge, sex, drugs, rock and maybe ice cream;
im edgy as fuck-all, havent the energy even to whinge about the roaches (and i HATE the roaches! i LOVE whingeing about them!), and am busy thinking of what i dont have, and am not going to have in the foreseeable future, and its driving me fucking nuts, suddenly, the things ive left behind - by not just choice but intention - and now maybe im mistaken in these intents, badly, ohhhhhh, because it seems like what ive eschewed i suddenly want very badly, its stable, curtains, purpose.

i feel ungrateful. these were my decisions, and ive no business whatever regretting because of consequences i planned for - god, the solitude, maybe i didnt realize -

and even with that - considerably less opaque than usual - im still not sure ive put my finger on it, but im getting closer, because there must be an explanation for large-scale panic attacks in the face of respite. but as i said ive used up my quota of introspection for the, er, ever, and i thoroughly plan on lolling in others' solipsism for a while, which sounds, unbelievably, refreshing.

2006-09-07T04:05:00.000-05:00

and if im happy, why cant i just say so? ...which is as close as i can get, to just saying so.

2006-09-04T23:58:00.000-05:00

after long explanations and thoughtfulness and even then barely-superficial consideration theres two things still worth hashing out:

one, the things left behind are really important, and i still cant get over the brilliance of the glass slipper, the fortuitous circumstances were all so in love with just taken care of, an image really worth its words; stealing things as, instead of a gap-filler, protection against future loss; the loveliness of having a new void, that youre confident isnt, at least, taking anyone elses space, especially your own; knowing that, as usual, you object to the principle of competing so utterly that maybe its finally progressed into true empathy, like its supposed to; knowing that while, ok, its progressing, you are no saint; at least there is, therein, an incredible strength of self that you cant, whatever else there may be, forget; relying on that, bracing yourself, because the word ensuing is kind of tagging along after you up in queens somewhere. which it is, despite the overbearing solitude thats making me leave all the lights on tonight, sleep on the couch (comfort of communal space), not shower, because, like i said, the void isnt taking up my space, it isnt me, but it sure doesnt fix the solitude, either. it just makes it ring hollow, the clapper on a bell.

two, my ego contemporaneously doesnt forgive and doesnt have any idea whats best for me, which more or less translates to If you didnt know any better its not my fault and im not about to forget it. which is no good whatever for anyone, but at least has similarly negative (as in impotent) bearings on reality, in that it tends to produce a galling, enthralling number of non-response responses from both me and anyone who happens to fall victim to ego-demands; the ego at her best wants me to pretend that the offensive party doesnt exist, not meriting such attentions, which luckily seems to generally work with the goals of the offending party. hence the one-sided "you dont know were in a fight" fights. also henceforth known as the 'getting really fucking stoned and "finally worked up the nerve to buy condoms from the old lady at the drug store" possibility of getting laid so i hope you understand why i dont have time to see you' fights, which i cannot stress enough are sheerly ego-oriented and have nothing to do with my actually not at all inept ability to get over people. i can, is the long and short of that, and i realize im not good with actual positive reinforcement, but the point is im far and away - cant you tell - too narcissistic, introspective, overanalytical-obsessed to do anything but get over people intrinsically, in and of themselves, without drawing others into the practice aside from the occasional whinge. its the proegressive im incompetent and external with, and ive never been an optimist, the ensuing, you go for it; ensue, as you will.

awesome straws!

2006-08-30T01:34:00.000-05:00

(from the bastille day pre-party, with k & hl)

since i clearly no longer believe in decorum: i need (ok, "would prefer instead of just going with my mother") a date to my cousins wedding on sept 16. takers? ill get you liquored up enough to dance.

in a very good mood. a girl couldnt have better friends, and i get to play poker on friday.

2006-08-28T03:08:00.000-05:00

well, at least i didnt scream when i saw the mouse.

(this gets a little gross, so skip it if youre not bodily-function friendly. apparently freak-out overrules modesty or even decency.) one of these days ill need to delineate all this issues i have with this apartment. in the meantime, i am wearing combat boots (maybe to bed) and leaving the tennis racquet at my side - as if it could ever actually qualify as anything else while still in this room - AND REALLY LOOKING FORWARD TO HAVING A HISSY FIT AT SOMEONE, only its 4am and theres no one to hissy fit at, and its just me kind of subtly not weeping trying to figure out what im going to do next time i have to, god forbid, pee. you see, the mouse was (is) in the bathroom. i am hoping i have the incredible moral fortitude that said action apparently requires, even with combat boots and tennis racquet, because having been through the attempt once already: im FINE at getting into the other half of the apartment, turning all the lights on, slooooowly creaking the bathroom door open, yeah, all ok, fine, even closing the door! to the bathroom! this is a small, small space, people, for one person, for half a person, were talking airplane-bathroom, let alone a paranoid person, a dozen roaches, and a damn fucking furry rodent NONE of whom want the others to exist in their daily lives. and at that point, really, the hard stuff is over - im irrationally afraid of mice, certainly, considering their size and powers (at least until i start thinking about their tiny, sharp little teeth...not the teeth!), but at least not abhorrently, embarassingly so; no chair-standing, no flailing, though i admit i wish i hadnt been wearing flip-flops on first encounter - but no. its like some sort of horrid, twisted, performance anxiety, and i just cant pee in presence of mouse-possibility. hypothetical mouse. here i am, having boldly thought that the very phrase "having to go" kind of explained the situation, and its necessity, that do-or-you-dont-actually-have-to catgory, but no. jesus christ. i can sit and stare at the place where mouse (mao, by the way) probably came from, and now most certainly isnt, and kind of wonder how im possibly, ever going to shower ever again, and consider moving out right.this.second and sleeping on various couches until i decide that yes, in fact, an extra $200 a month is totally worth not having mice, a serious roach problem, a building whose wiring blows every other time i turn on the a/c, a room six feet wide, a questionable neighborhood thats near positively nothing (there is one, ONE chinese place that delivers), frozen flies scattered throughout the freezer (how? i ask you HOW??), maggots in the garbage, and food that magically disappears. is there anything else.

but thats all i can do, is sit and whinge, first to myself and now very much out loud, until i have a game plan for getting rid of mao. other than boots-and-racquet. which the racquet, not practical at all here, really, i think its actually as wide as the bathroom and so loses a lot of its otherwise highly pleasurable right-angled perfect-cubes versatility. although honestly id have a lot more problems disposing of dead mao than scurrying away from live mao - boot-scurry unpretty as it is - and should maybe invest in some more rubber gloves since i already used all of mine (not discussing exactly how). lets hope kitty downstairs stops nibbling on the boric acid and takes up hunting.

moral of the story being that mouse is incredibly, unbelievably annoying, in this seriously unexpected totally nonsensical way, and that for a well-educated presumably in-touch-with-reason-if-not-totally-reasonable woman i am really embarassing not to mention inconveniencing myself here, what in fuck is going on, this is going to be some serious test of adaptability oh-sure i can live in a tent that drips constantly on my forehead and go to job interviews smelling like campfire, or live in a trailer with no heat and a roommate who cant flush and a dog who rolls in dead salmon and then hides it somewhere, or sleep in the car because this is flat tire #3 and honestly who needs to "go" "anywhere", or be abandoned by a one-nighter and spend the rest of the eve with italians who dont speak english and propose a series of vodka-and-tang toasts to them, or even - waffles? is that a tattoo of waffles, that says "delicious"?, or did you just light those skis on fire, i think you may have, i think you oh thats my lighter, thanks - yes, to all these glories, i may now add that i am cowering in the face of a not even very big mouse, and i have to pee. thank you, and goodnight.

2006-08-25T17:25:00.000-05:00

dear j.,
dont write things in public spaces when youre drunk and dont remember them the next day. youre intolerably whiny, and your grammar isnt what it should be.
love,
sobriety

(not to say that its not true, of course. i am so done with the other-woman thing, and am, in fact, intolerably whingey about it. except maybe academically, because thats a pretty fascinating phenomenon, whinginess-cum-disappointment in stealth "we arent talking about sex" mode).

back from vt.

2006-08-22T18:48:00.000-05:00

I AM SITTING AROUND AND DRINKING TEQUILA AND BEING SICK OF MEN WHO CAN BE CONVINCED THAT IM SMARTER THAN I AM. and IM ALSO MAKING ZERO APOLOGIES FOR ANYTHING FOR THE NEXT WEEK (GOAL)/NEXT TWO DAYS (MORE PROBABLE) SO YOU CAN TAKE YOUR SOFT, INDULGENT, COTTON-CANDY-TOUGH UNDERBELLIES AND COWER THEM AWAY INTO THE CORNER LIKE YOU USUALLY DO.

for anyone needing a literalists translation, that means that i feel that ive been imposed upon in the past few days, and feel also that i am very bad at being imposed upon, totally inadequate at it, and am as a result simultaneously guilty and grossly indulgent. theres no telling where this leads! other than to tequila and sarcasm, of course, we already know that, now dont we princess.

at your peril.

havent

2006-08-14T12:55:00.000-05:00

i feel like a jane austen character, weighing her better judgment against her sense of self-preservation. am i that insensible, supposed to be that impervious? oh ouf. suppositions be damned, im not, but ill get there if i must.

2006-08-13T19:27:00.000-05:00

living through themes. i give up on any sort of adventure-lens, sponge-eyed and bleary, and am now generally working with one of the following:

-religion (icons, idols, false idols, faith, objectivity/omniscience);
-justice (martyrdom, penance, punishment/reward, law, chaos/order, futility);
-cycles (addiction/withdrawal, laundry, routine, habit, and spontaneity)
-creation/consumption (mostly Art but also valuation, self-sufficiency, inspiration)

as in: randomly running theories of postmodernism as the idea-child of capitalism; rule of law as a miniature, imperfect version of the justice (karmic, caste-d, or judgment-day'd, eg) that underlies contemporary religion - or lack of; fairytales and folklore as precursors to a wikipedia-like institution (widespread popular consensus, or shared paradigms, usurping the place of an ivory-towered encyclopediac knowledge - see also the martyr question, where justice lies in the vox populi, as an earthbound substitute for omniscience - isnt it funny how popular opinion is so dirty, how no one wants it stuck to them, like a dog humping your leg?).

tomorrows plan being to go see the corpse flower at the brooklyn botanic gardens (free on tuesdays!) - latin name being amorphophallus titanum: gigantic deformed penis (the victorians werent nearly as stodgy as we think...?), and that smells like rotting dead stuff. no, really.

meanwhile, finding that the first-beat emotional response is not to be messed with, that the harder i push for emotional generosity the less capable i am of actually relating; knowing that what i want for other people often isnt what i want from them; if and how im going to bridge that gap between how they want me and how i am. that no ones going to revere my dirty little secrets the way i do - theyre not secrets any more, after all - and that, when push comes to shove, im going to take whatever is given me, for the least altruistic, most hard-suffering reasons, on both sides. again: when are we going to stop using each other? but theres a lot of beauty that springs from that rotten source, so maybe i just keep working with it in the hopes that it will purify itself, that our motives fall more in line with each other. my mother's breast was thorny, the constant war that underlies even (especially) the most intrinsic of our loves, and defines it (but im not arguing that now; im going to bed).

deerhoof (...packed. and they took my camera batteries, fuckers. bunny bunny bunny) and ice cream yesterday, positively nothing today except for the letters of flannery o'connor (i cant even speak of how much love...), and im curious about tomorrow, wondering what these relationships-in-transit are going to do in a different light, whether that gut reaction can be overcome, for being unearned and involuntary, by something that may take a little more time but is, at its core, more genuine, and certainly more kind (here im torn between the importance of kindness - lets not jest! - and the almost certain unimportance of a few sentences to a longstanding friendship, right? oh whatever, ive never really been good at seeing the forest anyway, i ought to know that much by now).

thats quite enough. bonne nuit.

2006-08-10T00:40:00.000-05:00

i have only shitty pictures i took while trying to distract myself from friends doing the makeout right behind me. sorry. im craigslisting scanners right now. also, kitty con carne (i am convinced the name comes from e's roommates deep underlying hatred of his own cat, lu, who resembles him in possibly discomfiting ways - manic tail, incessant mewling) played their (whoo!) live debut tonight, and though i think they could use a few choir boys (whoo! again), and a few power chords, and maybe please dont dance like you have to pee (more on that later), ok, no, i totally enjoyed the show, especial favorites being (the songs as far as i know lacking names) That One Where the Beginning Is Slow And It Puts E. to Sleep But Then It Picks Up, But I Think Shes Just Being Impatient And Like It The Way It Is, and of course The Last One, Where I Again Dissent And Dont Think That Theres Too Much Going On At All, but then again this is e im dissenting from and she fancies (among other things) power-pop-pop ditties from the 50s. the singers voice is a little low for a lead singer, and hes got no ...gusto?... but other than that, if theyd move a little more toward hardcore or experimental rock...oh whatever, stop bitching. as for galapagos, the venue: their mission statement is indulgently capitalistic, which leads me to suggest that, then, as a business venture, they should consider replacing the curtains-as-doors in the bathroom with (suspense here) doors-as-doors. or at least curtains that extend below ones knees - get a bit of a draft and all of a sudden youre staring straight at a dripping batcave (sooooorry that was bad - and will "wiktionary" ever make it into the OED? oooh.).

bitched at the wrong roommate for ruining my cheese this morning. whoops.

dont need to drink/drug/pray - cant feel a damn thing anyway. uh, whos this?

haute

2006-08-07T23:35:00.000-05:00

all of which must be followed by: this is largely a backward byproduct of pseudo-nostalgia, the love i have for whats been, and the love i still have for people i used to love, or for people i never thought i did love, which latter two are creating a bit of uncomfortable all-too-connected segmentation (cant tell the difference between where ive been and where im going any more; i just know theres space between here, there, and the greenest grass) as ive started affectionately calling this little out-of-body crisis thats, im sure, to be resolved as soon as i can hear out of my right ear again. thanks for your patience.

couture

2006-08-07T22:28:00.000-05:00

im not really going to explain why im sitting in total (albeit nicely cool) darkness to write this. ive made friends, enemies, and then friends again (kept me from one potentially awful case of vertigo, that dear) with the fusebox in the basement, but for all that our relationship is now deep and meaningful, id rather not see it for a while.

this totally insufficient self ive found myself burdened with is starting to fight back. she seems to know better than i do at present, know that im just as likely to get roped into something awful as stumble onto my long-lost hidden talent, and that im kidding myself about something, though she might not be sure what. the biggest issue right now being the creative/consumptive paradigm, do i really suffer enough when i dont create, like hell whatve i actually done in the past year, and (not even considering relative importance here) what am i going to do in the next, and the one after that, and maybe once i have a career plan like EVERYONE ELSE i can join a gym and get a dog and grow plants and live somewhere that doenst require slating ten extra minutes into my morning for roach extermination/disposal, and remember how to relate to people. yeah i guess that last addendum there didnt really fit, right, i know, its staying anyway.

to return, it feels like theres so much doing that nothings getting done, for or by me, that for all intents im neither creating nor consuming, im just halfway not even there for all the do. as in: have you ever felt really stupid all day long for wearing something you actually kind of hate, because you tried to make a decision in the morning, but the weather/lack of time/need to do laundry got in the way, so youre presenting yourself as this thing that actually kind of annoys you? sure, its presentation ( - representation - or, as in the discussion i had with a very nice fellow at the hotpants party, who the hell cares how you present, or represent, when you can misrepresent yourself in a smart way? these are the moneymakers, the virtual misrepresenters), and it may or may not mean anything, but youre clothing yourself in fabric you literally dont like, and who the hell does that, and what justification is there - or is it a total fallacy that it needs to be justified anyway? heres the problem. youre going to present yourself, one way or another, and you can actively like it or dislike it or not care, or whatever, but you do what you do by intention, is the general plan, but then you get so sucked into other things (brush teeth or look for that shirt for another five minutes?), and things compress, and i end up, inevitably, either smelling funny or looking funny, and yes this is because i cannot get up before 8.30 to get to a job that i never have to be on time to. but of course i wont be late, either; theres that conscience again little fucker.

all of which is me trying to explain why i look like shit all of the time and feel vaguely inadequate about it. not just because i cant dress myself but because i feel like im not good at the process of dressing (allegory, people, if i hear another catty bitch talk about how ohmygod im such a tramp because i like shoes, seriously, ok it was funny the first time and will be again, but id rather we didnt): a heavier leaning on the symbolism - creation! distinction! individual-snowflakiness! - and an increasing ineptness with the underlying signified. i am all vague wishes and cravings, starting with "work out all these little superficial inadequacies (which are of course vague and undefined) so you can please, honey, move on to something that matters (even more amorphous, of course)." i suppose i could discuss interesting things,the unmarked irish speakeasy, seeing liz last weekend, why i am never going back to puck fair. but honestly i dont care, and im not thinking about it; im thinking about my unplucked eyebrows and why they were fine being unplucked two years ago but now i feel compelled to kind of small-scale freak at them in the morning (and not have time to do anything about it, which cycle, for about ten days now, has really started to amuse me). i can only assume that yes, its complicated, but it starts with Whats A Given, whats your infrastructure and your underlying assumptions, whats your context and expectation. and im back to what i was saying before, but more: not only am i just barely figuring out what this city is trying to do to me, its making me figure out whats been going on for the past god-knows-how-long, too, because everything is such a fucking process. the givens that worked their way in somehow without your noticing...what a stupid, awful feeling, that they did that to you...what else has changed you? when did you start swallowing your words, waiting for consensus, fear too much black, need sleep? and - god, worse - did you make all these decisions yourself, did you do this to yourself, and of course youre responsible but is this the best you could come up with? thats the catch; what if you come out disappointed? what if because of this stubborn unwillingness to compromise matched with random, occasional, overpowering fears (which, of course, cant be compromised) you end up kind of not who you are? god, why are you wearing this fucking skirt? you hate this skirt.

2006-08-01T00:40:00.000-05:00

i kind of assumed citi-fying would make me cool, in that id really have to know who i was to even sort of survive all the choices, every day, about everything, where nothings just a given, the default pattern is minimized, even laziness must be justified as A Thing, all avenues open, all ambition fair game, all solicitude voluntary, all bitchiness both incredibly justified and totally uncalled-for, all tastes and preferences accounted for and support-grouped, where all liking and disliking is fabulous as long as the object is in common, and all objects are accessible. pouf.

instead im just tired. i have hangers, and a new plant. my computer doesnt have enough memory, and i havent written down important numbers anywhere so im fucked when i lose my phone, by hook or by crook to misuse (an appropriate misuse though, i feel) an idiom, the bagel for tomorrows lunch is still frozen, i yelled at my roommate the other day (justifiably or not, who knows; i dont like it when i feel that people make me yell, mostly), and - i cant even believe it - theres another carton of eggs in the fridge thats older than the one from june i just tossed. cool? this is cool, this is awesome? man, seriously.

and, though not full of regrets, full of question marks about the idea of "deserving," the realism of loyalty, the variance in the degree of cause-and-effect connections were able to make. im despondent about connecting with new people, whimsical about reconnecting with old ones, and too selfish, in the meantime, to be worthwhile for the ones i have around. this isnt the beautiful sufficiency i envisioned. its just expensive in too many ways to count.

2006-07-28T00:47:00.000-05:00

when you think about what hasnt been betrayed. oh - whoops - rather brief.

tempus fugit.

2006-07-27T00:19:00.000-05:00

oh my god there is no time. i am sick of being responsible and having no money and googling the location of everything. and trying to iron things when i dont have hangers to put them on because they at least have to wrinkle nicely. and letting things like eggs dated from may in the fridge bother me, and feeling utterly compelled to go buy new ones. in the damn city grocery store that does not in fact meet the qualifications of a grocery store (produce? produce, anyone? how about some fucking fruit in this neighborhood? guys?). getting home at a damn reasonable hour every day, or sleeping on someone elses futon - nice futons, no doubt, but waking up more or less in a kitchen, and a strange one at that. or GOD FORBID i get drunk, because coming from 10k' i cant get tipsy for under a bottle of hard liquor, and if i even think about eating anything after 2pm im just rock solid sober for the rest of the day. and what if i tried to sit down and, say, listen to music for a solid priceless hour that would later wrack me with guilt? how about trying to leave the apartment without it being a production, either of "do i at least not smell funny, and feel that i can sit on the subway without feeling inadequate, or maybe at least inadequate with mascara" or of "i think id better take off the pumps and pinstripes to go to the bank, seeing as its in bed-sty and im white enough as is." god, and could i please stop bleaching the shit out of everything in sight? or, say, shut the fuck up because there are clearly things i feel i should be doing, and this isnt exactly on the short list?

i am very happy about being unbearably self-sufficient, but at some point id like to keep the self but drop the so fucking sufficient. JUST SUFFICIENT WILL DO, THANK YOU. ID LIKE TO CHILL. faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

fey, adj.

2006-07-25T22:32:00.000-05:00

dictionary.com's etymology of fey begins thus: "The history of the words fey and fay illustrates a rather fey coincidence."

OW. OW, STOPIT. i miss the oed.

2006-07-23T22:28:00.000-05:00

this city is all riffs, all electrics.

echoes and funny acoustics today at mccarren park pool for 'That Grandaddy Guy' (jason lytle by all technically correct accounts, but i didnt once hear him referred to that way) and pretty girls make graves. which effects on sound of an ex-abandoned empty pool/failed public works project/wait is this clearchannel in our neighborhood, goddammit?/"oh good, a heroically random concrete something, lets leave the chipping turquoise paint, throw in a slip'n'slide and the hipsters will come a-runnin" im positive havent been studied, but i sat in front of the speakers for a while (for pictures which probably wont get developed for at least another week; oh digital, you elusive) and thought it was fine (is that normal?) while everyone else was wincing at the high notes in the back. given that im tone-deaf and rhythm-negligent i really havent the faintest what was going on, but there are apparently some questions about an abandoned (and creepily shallow) pool's value as a venue (really? im glad someone saw that coming and promptly proceeded to neglect it, given that whats important here has nothing to do with sound, and more to do with [private] "access to prime market segments" and [public] "better than an abandoned shithole collecting broken glass and standing water, not that we really care, so long as it doesnt cost us anything").

which to clarify, the free shows are put together by jellyNYC, and proceeds benefit further restoration. The money shows ($30 and up?) are put on by Live Nation, which although independent is a stepchild of the big CC (via gothamist).

--although they keep on saying "donate! keep free shows free!" and the blatant failure of logic to apply here is infuriating and makes me wonder if theyre all standing over a wormhole to a more-dimensional universe than mine. i dont mind donating, but do lets please acknowledge how money's existence applies to my personal four-dimensional land in which money given means 'not free', nor 'keeping something free' by paying for it. its also a guilty cry, and pretty much any catcall that tries to justify itself is a little wussy, and, finally, 'donate! keep mccarren park public/help renovate williamsburg's best space/more slip'n'slides for everyone!' would be way more interesting.

[wicked belated sidenote: of course i think this is funny, its me. and emily, craning to the right, with glasses.]

so anyhow, pretty girls did a really nice show, i think knowing full well that stuff off the first album was going to get the most attention and love from the crowd. their second encore (speakers push the air) - which they very nicely pretended the crowd had enthusiastically demanded; showing up being about as excited as anyone gets, unless youre in a small venue and feel like youre being made love to, and other than lone girl embarassing her boyfriend (we all know her), there wasnt a sway to be seen - was my high point, for a number of really obvious reasons. mostly something about the way the lead singer (andrea...?) finally sounded like she was enjoying performing live, not just putting on a show, instead of kind of messing around with pronunciation, coming in late, or just trying not to bore herself.

as for lytle, i only caught the end of his set (beer fiasco...anyway), so i cant say much other than acoustic shows are probably better in this venue, but the high energy needs to stay, because otherwise everyone starts watching the dodgeball game.

(of montreal is next sunday at mccarren, also free, 2-8pm. wicked totally.)

oh, tired. im going to start keeping track of how many times ive read emma so i start feeling guilty about it.

dracula!

2006-07-21T00:11:00.000-05:00

wicked, almighty exciting : i am planning my week around this : COME :

showing of dracula at the prospect park bandshell (celebrate brooklyn! strikes again), with the kronos quartet performing philip glass's sountrack, thurs., july 27, 7.30pm; i assume the "suggested" "donation" for the "free cough up your three bucks, asshole" concert applies again.

http://www.brooklynx.org/celebrate/2006_popups/dracula.asp

really sick of being tired & crabby. ugh. lets (royal) try not to fall off the bed tonight, eh. idiot.

none.such.

2006-07-19T22:00:00.000-05:00

i am all peeves, nothing but pissy.

boy: youre a little nasty, you know.
girl: pot calling the kettle black, dont you think.
boy: uh. what? i put tea in that kettle this morning.
girl: [pause] i dont think were talking about the same kettle.
boy: what difference does the kettle make?
girl: idiomatic tea?
boy: yeah, that stuff that smells good, right? i know what youre talking about.
girl: well, you got the pot part right.

i live in an existential cartoon.

one more thing.

2006-07-19T00:19:00.000-05:00

the fact that im a temp, and that its only been two days, and that ive met all of three people who actually work for brune & richard, aside: in reading the cv-bios of their lawyers on the website, ive gleaned that the firm was (in all namesake probability) founded by two ladies who got their JDs from harvard and have unabashedly scalding academic reps (its a par-three of mcl, a fellowship/scholarship, and an award per phase of study - undergrad, a casual masters because you really do love academia, or at least one seriously badass internship [recalling a planned parenthood and some whitehouse action here], and law school). and then their chosen comrades, all listed proudly name space space space where they got their latest degree from. the heartening, and intriguing, part being this: theres a lot of women, and a lot of youth, and a lot - despite the overwhelming knowledge that half of working there is networking, and half is being an incredible overachiever, and that these two must coexist, each one supporting the other (the networking part balancing a possible lack of experience for the ubertalented youth, and the ubertalented youth bringing value to the concept of networking, which in all too many instances is just the easiest way to decide or do a favor) - of wholesale balls-to-the-wall-ness to it (which if youre minus networking maybe isnt so good, but im running with this for now). so maybe law school. which is going to require some almost stupidly intense planning on my part (still better than trying to do a JD/PhD ahem), but at the very least its something to get inspired about, and seriously consider, and yes i know i need a job for the immediate, pressing, bill-paying future, and ive hardly gotten over the fact that im not in AK, but im not about to toss some well-missed, ill-used ambition out the window now that its decided to show up again.

in, out.

2006-07-18T22:37:00.000-05:00

group text messages? am i seriously supposed to spend my dignity points punching the 7 over and over again to respond to something about as heartfelt and sincere as a goldfish? oh what, since were being sarcastic anyway, and then im going to go even a skim little mile out of my way to see you, precious precious child with a deficient (but precious!) little thumb? put a "j," and a comma, at the beginning of the message and ill be forever convinced that youre a rapunzel whose hair is worth climbing. see? see how i easy i am to assuage? i am flexible! versatile! low-maintenance (ok, well.)!

i have no idea if my standards somewhere along the line changed radically without my knowing, or if it became really ok to be blase about things you actually do genuinely want to do, or if people decided that it was worth going out of their way to perform these perfunctory actions of passive aggression (god i need to get off this theme) that wouldve been better left undone (eg, id rather be ignored than get a group text, much like a group email [dont do it! dont! why! you just come off as too big for your own damn popularity britches!], unless it contains serious, far-reaching and therefore catholic revelations about your existence, or strict functionality). i am wicked frustrated with people - otherwise diligent, attentive, charismatic, generous people - who are just dropping the personal-touch ball all over the place. pickup.thedamn.phone.

also: considering the necessary lie. oh, no, not with other people - that necessity is i think pretty obvious, and if not obvious then so damn convenient dont lets even pretend its debatable - and not really lying to yourself, either, but the idea that sometime we must fantasize - we must think things that are, fundamentally/logically/realistically, just plain untrue, we must fabricate! it is our essence! - that to understand you must imagine, you must apply a real-world tenet to a hypothetical, and in some ways must live it, say it, let the idea bubble out of your mouth and, purple and swollen, drift around for as long as it cares to, -- that in some circumstances the only way to understand what were experiencing is to let the lies slip, let those little essences of what we wish were true unfold (akin, i think, to disbelief). you have to be able to wish, long, miss, lust, hesitate, relive, what isnt there; and what do you fall asleep to? neverending waking nightmares of all the stupid things youve done this week, or the color red? or maybe your lies, because thats my favorite. i love the lies. wed be so impure without them - no idealism, no craving.

parenthetically, k, im really wicked sorry i couldnt help you move sunday. ill help paint! really! i promise! and then well go out and buy paintball guns so we can shoot at all the baby carriages from your window (and maybe a stray shot or two going toward a dog, but thats an accident, really).

settling in in a way only real routine (courtesy the having-a-job bit - a block from the stock exchange, incidentally, and i love that i can wear pumps without being One Of Those Brooklyn Girls there) can bring - i had a scrubbing fit last night and bleached the fuck out of everything, and the War Against Uninvited Inhabitants (both plant and animal) has totally begun. watchout, mildew.

other things to do. have mother send songlist. theres this song called 'heartbeat' that hl & k have, but its a different cover than the one i know (and love), but i dont know what band it is, and there are a million that do - of course - a song called 'heartbeat', and my pos computer wont play the damn cd the songs on, and im never going to find the right one, ever, unless i magically remember where i put that damn list (though yeah i can probably rule out ice t). in the atlas, at New Hampshire or at least New England Region, is my guess, actually, but somehow i dont feel like explaining that.

my peripheral vision is going insane with the bugs. soda cant bubble without me whipping my head around and starting to whack at it. moving currents of air make me want to cry, fluttering, twittering. flashing lights are out of the question.

drinks, dinner tomorrow, movie-in-the-park thursday, chance to see some more PoCo kids on friday, and im assuming a serious crash this weekend - sleep, my demanding mistress, my lover, i am so sorry for the way ive been treating you - but i think everyone can agree that a beer and tapes 'n tapes and glorious, glorious a/c will do for now.

up up

2006-07-14T18:09:00.000-05:00

happy bastille day!

im going to go celebrate with (nominally) wine and (really) tequila.

also, my three weeks of temp Document Reviewing with Brune & Richard starts monday (thanks amy). i think tomorrow may be ladysuit-shopping day, because i get the feeling that ill be doing that sort of do. gainful (albeit brief) employment, what.

finally, celibacy in the city is really a wicked lot of fun, and so long as i keep away from the - god forbid - charm'n'charisma set, should last.

i think i might even wear a skirt.

2006-07-11T18:50:00.000-05:00

no more tequila. this is like the ass-prints in the sauna: i fucking know better, man.

ive been dusting off a few long-lost experiences of late - reminding myself of things my mother probably wouldnt let me forget, anyway - but delineating, like armando's architecture critic i forget his name's diagrams of lines hes loved, one from a glacier, one from a stick, these drawn out on the pages of one of his books, really, printed there; spiderwebs and vortices of dying loves. it feels good to know so much, finally - though im sure im imposing it grossly on others - about something you can really know about; what youve done and not forgetting the way your bones felt, way back when, jealous and narrow; going to write like "im going to go hang out in the word processor," as if it were a breakfast nook.

i did have occasion to see a couple of pomona co-grads at a houseparty of alices the other night - all doing wonderful, happy things with their lives (TforA, working at a law firm, recruiting for TforA, publishing, marketing), youth and health and wealth.

as for violence, ive given up (pretty much) on wanting to hit things that its actually physically possible to hit (mostly now its concepts) and have basically decided that im peeved and dont care. simulataneously, of course. im just so over people who dont have time for me - which is basically passive aggression, because its almost impossible to not have time, like what, i know calling me when you know i wont answer and leaving a message is so fucking hard. ive never exactly had high standards.

seriously, i dont think i can stay sane and listen to the damn ice-cream trucks any more.

oh! - and night watch (watching netflix with c & armando because thirdwheeling with cuddlers is a hobby) is a fabulous movie - in fact, almost as fabulous as blade (i or ii). luckily, its very russian, so what there is of "plot" tends to get lost in "dubbed in english with russian accents intentionally made thicker at times so you dont really worry about whats going on and watch the pretty colors. theyre pretty, dammit. ooh, bleeding."

although in all seriousness i loved the first twenty or so minutes; its actually a very narrative-intense movie, absurdist-lovely images, the ideas behind them continuously half-explained so you understand the story, their relevance to it, and their standalone value all at once. if i were to take it too far, id argue that the beginning is a gorgeous merging of media - simultaneous storytellings half-merged so you see how they work together and how they could, so easily, subsume each other, get lost, or maybe even just come together fully - and maybe they do that, successfully, im not sure. id love to argue against dialogue (ick) but thats a literary argument and might just turn dumb if i tried to apply it elsewhere.

im going back to writing emails, which is about, at this rate, to become a sport.

2006-07-10T21:39:00.000-05:00

thanks to ka, i still get my occasional bit of juneau gossip, which despite being utterly unjustifiable i indulge in; so, a holdover from days of yore. rory-palooza (conjures a montage of a stoop, a few flyers, and a lot of looks between me & alison saying "my their tea was very nice but now theyre getting a little creepy, i wish theyd shut up about the K-Y, although [me: he does look rather pretty in that towel]/[alison: i cant decide which of the other two i like more..although...maybe i dont have to decide]") apparently has (had?) an '06 sequel, bubba-palooza.

i miss being overwhelmed by how comic - how happy-absurdist, happy-drunk, comic that town is.

though i wish shed spend more time at the alaskan, we all know how its my favorite, and of course has my favorite barkeep - though it is quite a toss-up between "i like polka dots" (best. postit. ever.) and "i cant believe wait an email address? was i that drunk?" - and i, being not at all dissatisfied in NY but feeling that, perhaps, there are other places id rather be, need to live vicariously.

mmmft. lame.

allez les bleus!

2006-07-09T21:21:00.000-05:00

you know it: the coup de boule de m. zidane, who is now my favorite, ever. of course you want to see it again! (and in french! commentator: "et pour quoi? et pour QUOI???")

we watched at the bar tabac, french HQ in brooklyn (packed! with mostly native french speakers), which leads me to the following question:
why is it sometimes necessary to cheer ALLEZ LES BLEUS! but then sometimes necessary to cheer ALLEZ-Y BLEU(S)?

im really fuzzy on the (im sure very necessary) distinction here.
is it that sometimes you only want one bleu to go, instead of all the individual bleus? is the -Y without the LES a little more emphatic, or is it like GO TEAM vs GO TO IT, GET TO IT, GO GET EM, GO HEADBUTT THAT ASSHOLE OF A DEFENDER? im confused.

god, looking forward to sleeping at home tonight.

phot.

2006-07-07T02:13:00.000-05:00

w/h at the portland waterfront in may; a mere pause in the frolic, of course.

briefly

2006-07-07T01:08:00.000-05:00

cliterati, n. the feminist intelligentsia;

oh wow, i cant believe ive been missing this;

back to those funky sleeping patterns - and sadly, im not referring to my weird hours, but rather choice alignments of body, bed, & pillows. yeah, flamingo-style. yum.

final thoughts for the night.

2006-07-05T01:40:00.000-05:00

and i wont, wont believe its bad to rest on some laurels; ones that reassure, that arent really here or there for your ego but just shower you with potentialities,

the laurels of fruition - both picked & dropped figs, if you will, the ones you chose & the ones you chose to let fall, because what matters is that they were there;

its not about the choices youve made, the accomplishments youve alphabetized, the whos-who of your life, but rather the true judges of worth, the acquaintances you secretly loved, the lovers you never really did, the ones you never had to say anything to, is really what i mean, the ones who know ex officio what they need to, and ignore (in the pointed sense, as in ignorant) what they dont, and it was - ha, i hate this phrase, and im glad at least that if i must use it im trying to break its context - what it was; the doors you opened, or found unlocked, or pried at long enough with stiff enough a crowbar, or enough of that awful metaphor.

the laurels that exist in maybe the surest, purest sense of laurels, the ones that exist almost strictly because their nature is mutable, because they could have been so many other things, that each action was only one among many, chosen maybe for a reason and maybe not, /it was what it was/, and could have been both more or less, and just because it wasnt doesnt mean you cant see its possibilities, see what it could be in different contexts, now, today, soon, even, if youre lucky, then;

and those, i think, are the only laurels i need right now, not the positive i-was-this, -did-this, -had-this, because translating them is always a gamble - /not the same river, not the same man/ - can i really recreate that, something like that? am i that person, would i ever, could i ever,...? so what i need is the malleable laurels of mistakes, things not perfectly executed, whose potential hasnt been used and beaten and drank and sweated through, yellowed;

and the rest is good, clean, whole-bought-paid-for and im pretty proud of it, sometimes, even if i see its face everywhere these days, moving in khakis and a yankees cap - ok, probably not that - but in what i seek, in others and myself, i believe its possibility; - faith! fucking faith! how precious, dire! -; as i said to ka:

some sort of sacrosanct integrity, worthiness, and utter love-ability that i feel like a lesser human being for not being able to cope with let alone act upon

this is what im after, this is what im thinking when the sweaty, striped kids around me sway to whatever it is theyre swaying to these days, this is what doesnt just follow me around but pulls me, thanks mr beer oh-physics i mean pushes me, everything from getting orange juice to seeing h move in with boy to everything im jealous of to every graffiti'd wall to everything i have to say and no one to say it to, the laurels, my laurels :

can i have you?
can i keep you?

and of course the corollary, can i become what i respect and keep the differences, the reserve, the reason i maybe hesitate, because that, too, is integrally me? that i dont trust, because these are all possibilities, unknowns, unassureds, and isnt it silly to rely on a maybe for assurance?, for reassurance, but how i must! how i trust in possibility, how i trust in the things i hope for, how i trust in the wishes i hesitate, rationally, to believe, how i trust in some other perception that grants me the positivity it is impossible to gain on ones own, how i trust that...that...that even if its not for me, i can be happy for it, for its being, that i have a god of sorts, that its not me, but it is and its great and there are things deserving of faith and honor and maybe theyre hidden under well-fitted jeans and a too-small t-shirt and the occasional more or less silly aspiration god, isnt it beautiful, isnt this capacity, these capacities, these loves, beautiful?

hell, i like thinking about the things ive done that dont give me knots.

can i have you, can i keep you? i can live like this.

middling around.

2006-07-04T23:58:00.000-05:00

so as it turns out it was the dude from Voxtrot who played between sets at the Land of Talk show, which k & i realized when we went to CelebrateBrooklyn! (love the exclamation point, guys) for the aforementioned TV on the Radio, where V.Trot opened for them. thanks to this total coincidence we got a double-take of a couple songs, one night perf'd by just the frontman (Ramesh, thatd be him in the photo, from brooklyn vegan), the next by the full band.

(god damn does my head hurt. also, im wondering why the hudson only got two sets of fireworks, and the east river three. although last year i guess they were all on the east, so maybe i shouldnt wonder, but threes are really satisfying.)

one of which was raised by wolves (right-click-save-target, goes a little nutty if you dont, too lazy to fix so im typing all this out instead). this is the V.Trot version, but it was really way better done by ramesh when he was just rockin out, less smooth-poppy & more as if it (rah!) had meaning ; it was a little dave-matthews-y at the bandshell (venue-appropriate, arguably), very like "go ahead! love me! sure ill never love like you do, who the fuck cares, i love great! i LOVE my love!" (uh, you need to listen to the song for that to make sense) whereas when he went it alone it was pretty clear where the song came from, and why. which of course isnt always easy to convey! --but that was the glory of the first rendition, and the possible lost-in-translation consequences of huge-venue, huge-crowd, song-maybe-not-best-adapted-to-band-play. and i mean wed just walked in on the guy in the middle of a mini-sized set and didnt know who in hell he was but we could both remember the song the next day, and knew what was what. oh hell, its still a good song, whatever.

so anyway i love my friends but man hitch a boyfriend onto them and its like, friends? what friends? did i have friends? did i mistakenly think they wanted to hang out with me, ever, and when they did, that they didnt want to be on the phone with the boyfriends, with exemptions only for something dramatic and important and life-changing like buying tomatoes? god, plum or hothouse?

also, there are silverfish in my room and i have no idea why, unless they can sustain themselves on cigarette ashes and water and styrofoam alone. its really elegant, sitting here staring at three of their smushed corpses on the wall. i kind of keep hoping theyll remove themselves, as things often do.

(we watched from this rooftop just off the jefferson stop, which is funny because its so damn far inland its only a single stop closer to manhattan than mine, but the view was actually wicked nice, we could see the f'works on the east & the hudson, & some from i assume LI, & some rogue but impressive ones from brooklyn itself. a was dj'ing & k knew this other guy but that was the long & short of everyone i knew there, which turned out to be good since, good samaritan that i am, the night ended up involving the humanitarian project of Dancing So That Girl Can Dance With The Person She Wants to Take Home Tonight, Which Wouldnt Happen Otherwise Because Theres Actually Not A Single Other Soul Dancing For Three Square Miles. though im a perfect incarnation of grace & elegance so doesnt really matter.)

also: why are there no ballet competitions? dance-offs? meets, challenges? its got to be adaptable to competition one way or another, right? its infinitely more a sport than, say, cheerleading, and surely there are ways of distinguishing such talent (yeah time to stop being unemployed, i know, i know).

still, its hard to beat tired & happy, very much working on entirely self-sufficient, honest, still coming up with new uses for duct tape.

maybe in large part because im utterly so not cut out for this, its so low-key, low-pressure, at-will, easy -
my roommates are never here -
and im so free to miss, to long, to absorb and wish and indulge everything, every martyrdom and saintlihood and hedonism, every impulse and every impulse restrained.

it is all good, great, ok, if i can put up with this surely i can put up, reciprocally, anything.

superpowered, thats what.

locked out & hungry.

2006-07-01T15:57:00.000-05:00

"im having none of this," last fall, courtesy n.

"fuck i love whisky, and whisky makes me love you too," june, courtesy kat (on r).

after spending embarassingly large chunks of saturday locked out (hanging out in the kitchen in pjs, considering the so-close-yet-so-far-ness of my keys, mobile, and wallet, any one of which would have allowed me an alternative method of entering my room, but alas). luckily, with a little duct tape, copper wire, and battery-less drill, i managed to re-insert myself into one VERY unwilling bedroom. --very luckily, since neither of my roommates seems to have returned home at any point between then & now, so thats at least 48 hours of milling in the hallway, bonding with the roaches. god damn, the roaches.

new york is hungry, endlessly hungry, the already superhumid air sucking up ever more (im used to saturation, the air already smug & satisfied, dishes and laundry and sweat dripping for hours, but it seems not even the turbocharged fire hydrants can give enough, tires sitting in running pools well into the hubcaps), the risks take-able, the capacity - whats a few hundreds? - liquid, and the AC is amazing. just amazing.

ta

2006-07-01T00:15:00.000-05:00

girl gets pissy when she has to seek her way vaguely, pokingly and by smell, as she imagines homing pigeons do (only they probably have a better sense of "home"), because the damn train isnt stopping at her damn stop, because apparently they only run the locals in one direction.

but she does have a mirror (free!).

unabashed self-examination ensues.

more tokyo police club.

2006-06-30T12:36:00.000-05:00

their single "nature of the experiment" (source).

its catchy (which is not a condemnation, dammit) and tough, but NOT rough or even close to anything -core as seems to be implied by the few scarce-y reviews i can find (which seem to be written overwhelmingly by Indie followers and not Rockers, which is maybe the problem). wow this broad-sweeping-generalization, It Is Said, People Say, irresponsible-"journalism" thing is kind of fun.

hoo-ha so the guys who stole both my roommates' laptops (dont ask) ate some of our cookies; the chips ahoy box was a little short. seriously.

tpc/welcome to brooklyn

2006-06-29T23:52:00.000-05:00

saw tokyo police club tonight at this place called The Syrup Room (oh, golly, realm of utter abandonment off the morgan L thats a little skeezy & a lot full of puddles lack-of-drainage-hope-this-isnt-sewage-im-high-maintenace rah). they apparently hired someone, or goaded a somewhat older, almost-intimidating almost-stocky friend, to stand outside the door to this warehouse to greet every passerby - or every Oh You Know The Type passerby with $8 in her wallet, because honestly theres NO other reason to walk this street - with a howdy-do "its in there," end of sentence, end of story, end of conversation (save for the momentarily confused grunting "oh" "um" "hunh" sounds), because seriously theres no other way to find the arbitrarily-named Syrup (a door among doors, but maybe with a little bass vibrating through the cracks in the sidewalk). as for TPC themselves, im totally impressed. it was really intense (k: "you look like you want to stab both eyes out") but not in a performance-, emo-, rock-out-intensive sort of way; it was just really good, really solid, serious (and seriously good at grit and minors) sort of rock, solid the way its hard-but-fun to pick a single off a really excellent album, solid the way it platonically Should Be, you know, right.

theres a reason i dont talk the music talk after all, and though i feel somewhat guilty about making k leave after their really pretty short set without even hearing the uhhh "headliners" i guess thats what theyd be, "the ballet" oh no wait "land of talk,"as im sure she would have enjoyed going out for more than an hour or so, one i wanted to get back because my neighborhood is NOT the best & as it turns out im BAD at finding my way back from the M oh block-and-a-half, and two i finally figured out that thats just about the only way i can enjoy a show (well, its one of many constraints, saving the possibility of being half of one of those really, atrociously annoying couples, one of whom would always be embarassing the other if they werent both blinded by their everlasting love, gloria estefan, etc, and really, who actively wants to do that? [not the everlasting, i mean the blinded] i think - i hope - it just sort of happens, it victimizes): basically, to admit when im exhausted or bored or cant take the Scene any more and go home, no regrets, no feeling the need to milk my $8 for all its worth, no overdosing on nicotine to keep myself awake. because ill do that on the way home as part of looking Purposeful and Aware and generally do-not-fucky, because one im nervous anyway & two on the way out i got more than enough Hey White Girl, Hey Whitey.

maybe im uptight but im actively gentrifying so hell nuh-uh im not too comfortable with that, there it is, so be it; as h. said that van (oh, god the van) my mom rented is the giant, fantastic (in the fairy-tale sense), white, virginal, take-no-prisoners beast of gentrification so maybe we might scrape a little paint off the roof in the pathmark parking garage (the clearance bar may SAY 6'6" but who the fuck reads them? youre supposed to clear the clearance bar, right? which we did, with flying colors) but lo, youd better just move, sugar (unless of course youre an already-gentrified concrete ceiling, in which case you win).

i keep pretending im just here as an experiment, not-for-real, a test subject who happens to have a lot of film and a little time to kill. exactly what im protecting myself from remains unclear. but with a good nights sleep (ah yes, back to sleeping; its great how some experiences translate almost directly into reassurance and confidence when you most need it) and cabinetsful of groceries (the scraped roof was for something, after all) so i can cook and, like i said, a few rolls of film AND tv on the radio tomorrow im very, very excited, and not as weepy/stressed as i thought, and my room is really very nice; turning out to be in fact cozy and not just cozy-euphemism-for-incredibly-fucking-small.

good, good. i want to keep things the way there are, so full with possibility, so unclosed-off, so im-almost-there where i can feel through the barriers like sisters, like patience, like theres nothing to judge, like theres a past that tells you only that theres a future, that, if youre good enough, and do your own, there just will be, and even if theres not there should have been, and well all know it.

2006-06-27T21:57:00.000-05:00

the problem with sleeping being that a fresh start erases so much, so much of the old one(s).

what if i (whiny voice) dont want to start over.

moving.

2006-06-27T16:43:00.000-05:00

moving makes me nutty. im a weepy mess.

oh, oh - but things are so good - so good - and i wonder what i did right, and, even now, still!, i dont trust it. weepy mess, runny mascara, i still cant eat this fucking bagel from this morning, the three hours of that drive never even hit my consciousness (where did those hours go), and ill bet therell be lane lines running through my exhausted dreams tonight, working themselves out.

time to call in the reinforcements.

2006-06-25T20:30:00.000-05:00

SAUCY rah rah i have less and less conception of why people do the things they do doot doot ... also id be really happy if you come to see me in new york ill be there wednesday. come. visit. add to the inexplicable.

revelations:

2006-06-24T00:13:00.000-05:00

once upon a time, there was a certain gent whom i casually referred to as the MSLT, partly because acronyms are a lot of fun (stringing random consonants together and then trying to pronounce them usually is), and partly because i felt the overwhelming urge to indicate what a Melodramatic, Solipsistic Little Tool this kid was without being so bold as to just say so. in the intervening years id forgotten about this delightful habit, making this soul in his present incarnation the OYIFATAB ("Oh Yeah I Forgot About That Acronym Boy"), or, better still, the MTAWRITSEAAPALNB ("My That Acronym Was Really Inappropriate, Though Still Eerily Apt, And Perhaps A Little Negative Boy"). which actually has more vowels than id like, but so it goes: mmm-tah-rit-see-pal-n-bee.

i really like my new sewing machine, but i seriously need to work on my skill with darts; either i grow pointier boobs or i figure out how to avoid that fake-nipple-in-the-fabric look.

the catch-22 of my right-now favorite ignorance being: some questions are impossible to ask if you dont already at least sort of know the answer. i really want to know not why some things happen - things tend to happen at general will, especially if they make a lot of sense on paper - but why do they keep happening, once you realize that the theory isnt translating? if, in other words, things arent as good as they could be, how long do you ride it out to see if some day you can achieve the ideal? at what point do you let things (friendships, friendships that accidentally ..., pseudo-relations, real bona fide Relationships...) just die their miserable little deaths?

what in hell are the intentions?

isnt that what we all, ever, always want to know?

id like to slap some sense into many, many people right now; i know im being tooled on, and fucked with, and on, and around, and all sorts of fucking prepositions, but i usually at least kind of know it, and kind of condone it (in this tacit little agreement of mutually beneficial fucking-with -- although im pretty good at grudges despite my catholic aspirations, so chances are ive had to sit back & give you some kind of consent somewhere along the line, not to mention im unemployed & have a fucking lot of time on my hands to think about these things, so really youve probably done something to piss me off and unless youve seriously paid your dues, ive probably had to actively, vaguely pretend i ahem oh just didnt notice, oh-my-egos-infallible-anyway-who-cares, GET IT TOGETHER, ASSHOLES, no but i seriously am working on that saintly sort of socratic ask-the-right-questions autodidacticism-for-dummies thing;), but sometimes its just people being idiots, just not thinking before they fucking speak, or act, or commit, or imply, thats when its really a fucking issue (about 25%), and the sense-slapping becomes really the operative action here.

ugh. and here id thought id started avoiding the sucked-dry, so-soulful-im-soulless, sensitive bastard types.

i could just out with my intentions most of the time, but that wouldnt clarify so much as "scare," "foretell impending doom" or even "induce agony/incontinence/obscene amounts of pressure/embarassment/fight-or-flight instinct" or maybe even if im lucky some sort of self-fulfilling prophecy, but given that im not generally an optimist that wouldnt, generally, be a good thing.

{oh, and that asshole in colorado? mostly, i like it when people get what they think they want. plus, ive always thought that square plates are really satisfying.}

two goals for the immediate future:
one, to return at least to the realm of parametric hinting, probably the only form of subtlety i know, if not a wholesale plunge into the realm of Embarassing Honesty;
two, no fight-picking, no defensive sarcasm, no penting-up, be good (ok, at least better) to your mother, appreciate the glories of celibacy, get up at a fucking reasonable-r hour, read the paper more often, reconcile yourself with relative meaninglessness or at least try to move past those Wrong Things. and drink, of course, as much coffee as necessary to do all this. you can even have it with sugar. mmm.

wt

2006-06-23T22:19:00.000-05:00

The Wrong Things: they are the opposite of missing; theyre too present; theyre supposed to go away and you wont miss them. but there they are being saucy, and impossible in their very utter should-have-ness. cant now, not without a very very good excuse.

o.

2006-06-23T00:20:00.000-05:00

it is a war against serifs, those tacky little hangers-on.