113024 (pt. 2)
every so often, I get a glimpse of the summer. in some dim bar with red lights in Lisbon, swaying unenthusiastically to a Russian DJ, waiting in the pitch black for the last ferry to take us back from France to Geneva, dragging my feet and a 30lb backpack on the sweltering sidewalk, trying to find our airbnb in Rabat. on a ferry on the Mediterranean from Gozo to Valletta, in a hellacious black cavern of waterfalls in Lauterbrunnen, meandering uphill on narrow pathways in Porto. perhaps the half-life of memories is 3 months, and everything from my subconscious is swimming up to the surface to osmose to the air.113024
"i am a writer, I am a rewriter, I am a writer, I am a write, I am a write,r" I tell myself. somehow it is only clear to me on a Saturday night at 8pm, returning home from a cathartic run where I flail my arms and mouth along to My Chemical Romance songs I haven't heard since I was 14. somehow it is only clear to me when I listen to a stilted AI voice reading the close of My Brilliant Friend at 1.5x speed while I sit in the passenger seat of my mom's Mercedes "and there, on Marcello's feet, were Lila's shoes." somehow it is only clear to me walking up to the newly remodeled Peet's coffee in FOB flip flops and my ex boyfriend's pilling Patagonia, the automatic door gliding open for me like I am Tri-City royalty. somehow it is only clear to me, blazing past suburban homes on the quiet midnight streets, golden light seeping out the kitchen window, silhouettes anonymous like Charlie Brown adults, tracing the glow of the Christmas lights on the stucco to the car windshield, my feet hitting the pavement in front of each house, one foot after another, until I trip on someone's unrepaired root heave and fall face-first on the ground.on the ground, I think "I am a write, I am a writer, I am a writer? , I am a writer, I a a awriter..."
112524 (fragmented impressions that will undoubtedly fail to render a cohesive image)
arriving under cover of darkness, at Jon’s house in west Oakland with a $36 pumpkin piean easterly wind lapping at my cheeks, standing on a sunny bluff at mori point
driving back into the city over the bay bridge, listening to nothing but the hum of my car…
there’s nothing to worm about, everything exists in the crisp winter air. it hangs like a wet drop on the edge of a leaf, weighted by its consequence.
112424 (hungover, emo, and gossipy)
I think I need to start somewhere else.I'm feeling a little down — is it because of the myriad types of alcohol we drank last night? probably. I hardly drink now, and I hardly ever get drunk, and I hardly ever mix vodka, wine, tequila, champagne, and fernet. but when do, I will generally top it off with a joint smoked between 2 and 4 AM. I woke up this morning with a throbbing headache, read an article about the best coffee shops in the Bay Area, ate a 2-day-old salt bagel, and hit the road. I set off for Mori Point, coasting down the 1 on a uniquely clear day.
it's been raining in the city, which has provided the backdrop for a nice, cozy time; P— gave me permission to hibernate, and when I got it, I took it and ran with it. he says the winter is for staying in, resting, and recharging, and he didn't have to tell me twice: I stayed home 5 nights in a row, working on my secret project, putting my feet up on the coffeetable, lighting candles, and baking questionably healthy desserts. I think I am by nature an introvert, despite being so obviously charming and sociable.
my friends are truly spectacular, each one so different and unique, it is easy to feel the loss when one disappears, even for a relatively short time. what to do with such brilliance? when I think of E—, I think of a small world, or perhaps a planet containing an actually huge world, of thoughts, language, symbols, gesture, plants, animals, microorganisms with unique ways of relating to each other, forms of expression, music, dance. what is it to live in that brain, to touch the world with those fingers? I adore my friends, to read about the world from their eyes, to even get a glimpse of their experience of it, is so marvelous, I could do it constantly. I am totally along for the ride—I cry at Thomas' grave, I sit in the pews, I don't clean my glasses, I stare at the desolate, streaky world. except the world isn't desolate — it is rich, and full of color, and even when it is tragic or melancholy it is the most beautiful, brilliant blue you've ever laid your eyes on, or maybe lilac, or maybe indigo. and Yo La Tengo drifts faintly through the evening clouds, carried by the dusk. and it's just enough to make you start bawling for no apparent reason, because everything is happening, everything is in that air, that is my life, sitting there in the doorstep, hanging from a bare branch, that is MY life, that is my LIFE, quivering in the breeze, that is MY LIFE turning the corner with a bag full of groceries, one peach falls out and tumbles all the way down the road...this is MY LIFE and all I can do is shout... yell.... scream to the world...
I like the music, and art, and books that do that best — that capture that raw beauty, that essence of life. books that are too dry, detached, inexpressive, lack something, they're devoid of soul. everything can be terrible but I want to hear Maya Angelou describe Momma's rusty store, I want to be there smelling dinner on the stove, I want to feel the Arkansas sun beating down the nape of my neck. I don't know that I want to sit in an austere Athens, listening to a morally bereft woman blabber on and on, I don't know that I want to be on a spotless boat in the Mediterranean, ogling a choreographed family. I don't want that life, or even that hollow power of observation, if I don't see the beauty of life dangling from a string, if my heart doesn't leap to catch it. make me feel something, make it real, scream down from the tops of buildings, this is MY LIFE! this is what I see, this is how I feel, and don't you feel it too? perhaps this is all very self-centered, and that may be true, but somewhere next to me-centered is we-centered, or something...
do I write about ——, my other weirdly complex and nuanced relationship that would be tough to put into words? in some ways a classic story of 'what perhaps people wanted, but could or would never be,' or perhaps a different classic story of 'people who later decided it was a bad idea and they were wrong,' or a less classic story (?) of an insanely deep friendship and connection forged in the trauma of COVID, in the budding simplicity of what was to be many months of isolation, podding up, and small victories and joys...
—— still hates me and it's decidedly getting on my nerves — I don't know whether chalking it up to them being poorly socialized and unpleasant is unfair in some way that i'm not fully conceptualizing, but truly they are a bit of a vortex — a cyclone would be perhaps too generous — they really suck all the energy out of a room. i'm tired of playing nice, and besides, although I do believe it's a part of my personality to give people a chance, I'm surely not too devoid of pride to allow rudeness like that to go unchecked. I've had it with them, it makes me want to be vindictive...it's sad because I actually find them smart, creative, and engaging, even though that's the vast minority of the time I've spent around them. anyways, they want to start something, I'll play along. seems like that's what they want anyway.
back to ——, it's a weird thing — the uncharitable read, like D— said once upon a time, is that we use each other, but although there may be a fragment of truth in that (given that we are both marginally self-centered) I do think there's somehow something deeper than that, perhaps some chaotic energy from a past that never got resolved and otherwise is coming to fruition. it is fun, though, to have that coursing energy with someone who I feel deeply comfortable being around, in contrast to ——, who still haunts me sometimes for no discernible reason...
110424 (happy bday mama)
my therapist tells me to make a list of things that replenish me.we hike about 20 minutes at 1AM, along the bluffs overlooking the Pacific. our uber driver asked us no questions as we got off in the middle of the night at an empty roundabout in Daly City. following purple glowsticks and the light of the moon, we make our way to the renegade. while sitting on the foliage, I speak for too long about how 'Cool story bro' is poised for a comeback. 'the culture has turned mean,' I say, thinking I am making an argument. we sip spiked chai made days before for Diwali, soaking in its own juice for days in the fridge.
we discuss how everyone is quitting, and everyone does ketamine - does anyone have a real job anymore? reminds me of how my millennial manager used to say 2008 was, after everyone got laid off and lived freely and cheaply. they drank 3-for-1 shots at shitty bars and scammed their way into free stuff, the days that birthed funcheap. 2024 - the cycle continues?
the chai has bourbon, and black pepper. it sits on the tongue and warms the throat. I observe everyone's outerwear. is everyone warm-blooded, or just not a little bitch like me? a girl wears a floor to ceiling marshmallow coat that irritates me. though, I guess she is warm.
faraway, but not too faraway, Gumby pours drinks for patrons of the arts. when he is where he is supposed to be, illuminated by red lights, he looks beautiful - if I were on acid, I would look upon him all night. when he comes closer to me, with his hands on his head, puts on a jacket, talks to a group of strangers, he looks hostile, tall, and frightening. I recoil.
on that auspicious night where we gain another hour, we leave at 4:30AM, before the sun rises, to feel less deranged.
(next)