how honest to be?

how much of your life can you reveal without being written off as the crazy dog lady, living in the jungle. this has been my lesson of the past few years. it is a brave thing, being yourself. everyone is crazy. some people can handle craziness from another perspective, some can't.

i have been writing an autobiography. but if i share it, there is the very real possibility that people will judge me by it. my ex boyfriend 't' was revolted...

this past week i visited budapest, for the first time. it was comfortable. i have distant family there. i recovered from jet lag in my hotel with half a bottle of wine and a strict cutoff of 't'. it breaks my heart (owwwwwwww) but i can only live my life without him right now. in budapest wandered the town, got lost. ended up eating crappy food and feeling like a tourist. my dad though, is hungarian. he broke up with my mom (whom he met in vienna, presumably) before i turned age 3. i spoke magyar til then. i ate crepes and ghoulash. i was daddy's girl for 3 years... and after that, nothing- a bleak nightmare, a war zone. so now when this dad of sorts traipses my way with promises of godfather tourist guides, i scoff and point to his dead replacement, my stepfather, synopsis to come..... i decided to rebel in budapest, to find my own way. which really, considering i like walking, is good. i rode the funicular from pest to buda, up castle hill where it rained dismally but was breathttaking. i walked the chain bridge back across the river as ships passed underneath. i went and soaked in the decadent bath house which was so beautiful but in which the men ogled my boobs. i poked at the gingerbread and drank mulled wine in the christmas market. i dodged a german hari krishna.

then i came to istanbul, where i have really normal friends. friends with apartments, with families, and friends with friends. baking christmas cookies, passing joints, being boring and polite. i have a night of bliss and connections to people like me, where we get wasted and the turkish guy complains about his wife. i next have an off night of antisocial twitches and the missing of 't', so badly.

istanbul is one of the most beautiful places on earth... so laid back and so friendly. so ethereally beautiful and ancient. i ride taxis for hours, pantomiming communication. i pet the fat fluffy strays on the cobblestone streets. i wink at the men who think they are macho or alpha. men are easy. they love me.

so back to honesty. here is one thing. i was drugged to the brink of death and molested from ages 4-14 by my mormon missionary stepdad. yessiree. while being a genius kid who skipped grades between comatose spells. my stepdad was later executed on death row for mass murder. my mother not only looked the other way but actively blamed and as a result abused me. i basically raised her kids while she acted like a prostitute. can i tell people these things?

i feel like if i tell the truth normal society will avoid me, like a freak. things happen, in life. they really do. they are true. it's a good story. it is my crazy. and people you have to explain to aren't worth it, right? would it be a story worthy of telling if it was too accessible? would my voice carry? all i know is i hate being judged incorrectly. 't' judged me harshly... oh pain in my heart.

it's humid and hilly and the calls to mecca soothe me, vying with calls from the shop men in doorways. i take pictures of the colorful lights and dodge glances and feel alone. i drink half a bottle of wine in my room to the soundtrack of bad movies. i contemplate the fact that i always get what i want, even if i am miserable in the process. i want to write but can i be so honest?

high

hullo stray browser i have trapped in my web. what are you doing spying on me here? not much to see at the moment. sorry to say. i had a weird couple of weeks in which i was inundated (buried alive really) in work, which has now miraculously disippated. aside from that i have been humming along in as much domestic bliss as i can muster in a life that is typically quite absent of that. a fat happy boyfriend, some neighbor cats who have adopted me (whom i tease endlessly with catnip which makes them silly). the comfort of a stuttering tv. i'm booooored though- really bored. i must say. the cracks in this facade run deep. there are so many things that can be done when you stay in one place. so many things you can build ('t' and i have endless ideas). people to make relationships with ('t' and i have endless barriers). but i just feel like i am missing out on the world, running in place here in NY. despite all the stimulation i remain angsty & sedate. i pay $1500 a month and insane amounts of taxes to barely ever leave my house. i breathe in pot smoke like it is oxygen. i fill up the pit of my stomach with alcohol. i avoid my friends and don't make any new ones. i pace.

but spring is alighting outside my window, finally. and if i do get out of my den my mood changes drastically. i walked down to the park at the waterfront with 't' today and it was good. i did yell at him a bit for living off of me. but since i get so much in return i don't berate him too badly. the only thing that really makes me feel like running away from him is sexual frustration. (so unfair.) i have other candidates knocking on my door but can't bring myself to cross that line yet. yet.

good thing i am headed to costa rica again on friday. road tripping it to the carribean side. beaches, rasta, jungles, wildlife. just the way i like it. 't' and i have resolved to give our selves a boot camp, to remind us what we want from life and get us out of a rut. we shall see.

speaking of sex i ran into my favorite blogger on my street today. was too shy to say hi to her even. i'm pathetic right now. i just realized.

hum

i almost forgot i had this here blog, having been buried under a huge pile of work that seemingly fell from the sky onto poor little me the past few weeks. i have no life outside of work right now in fact, and thus nothing much to talk about... i did have a couple of dramas- the only girl i ever loved in my life coming to visit and my supposed "friend" stealing her out from under my nose (typical, and now our friendship has cooled considerably). my boyfriend-again finally having signed his divorce papers, but only after his (now ex) wife went berserk (also typical).... other than that i have been wistfully dreaming of wildlife-ridden jungles and placid beaches, surfing websites and visiting animal shelters full of kitties and puppies that i can't adopt. the usual. and pining for spring.

until i can get to a real update, you are welcome to read the real story that i turned in to my fiction writing class (based on my last post). it's a little clunky since i wrote the character descriptions first and then launched into a story full of mostly inside jokes... but my class absolutely raved about it, even though it really was my first fiction piece ever! so apparently i am not a horrible fiction writer after all, which is a relief. at least says them.

write indeed

on the topic of nicknames, which was assigned to me in my writing class.

'bird witch' was shy. she was so-called because her nose was long and and so was her chin. she dressed sort of oddly, and her fear of the spotlight led her to avoid even mirrors. her lashes fluttered and she clucked nervously. her tendency to turn slightly purple in the cold and her inability to meet peoples' eyes led most people to think she was sketchy, depressed, or worse even slightly retarded. she was in fact happy and intelligent, just unable to communicate normally upon short notice, never having been properly socialized. her family history (partly hungarian) presumably included gypsy blood. the brood was all restless. she had changed schools about 3 times per year as a kid, and globe-hopped most of her adult life. she'd spent a lot of time alone.

the boys she met in her adopted city of NY loved her anyway. something about her nurturing tendencies. she would gather them around her and cuddle them over drinks. presume to teach them one by one her small mundane discoveries, in her stilted analytical way. her enjoyment of the moment and sense of adventure usually served as a magnet straight to the male friend zone for her (she skipped dutifully toward it almost every time). "you're good", they would tell her. "wanna hang?" they played together like children, poking and joking. it kept her sane.

love, though, she was not lucky with. love seemed to hate her. she was currently roller-coaster dating a guy named 't'. his austrian name was NOT 't'. he was eccentric, rather bubbly, and definitely psychotic, with a public image (talented musician) that kept him afloat and had gotten him his green card. behind his goldi-locks and wide blue eyes was a scam artist extraordinaire. the boys all despised him, but 'bird witch' could not resist. the bottomless pit inside her needed his constant stream of bullshit to feel full. heck, he was keeping her alive in part. but good times were shared between them, chasing novelty, negotiating boundaries, dreaming. one day they would grow apart for sure, but at the moment they were clinging still to the last vestiges of their dysfunctional relationship. he no longer left clothes all over her house or dropped in to raid the fridge. when 'bird witch' would touch him he would flinch. when she wanted sexual... er.... alleviation she had to strike out reflexively at friendly passersby. "but i love you!" he would proclaim with a little awkward twitch that told her he was lying baldfaced. she wasn't sure if she was lying or not when she returned the sentiment. he would cry dramatically at anything he didn't want to discuss honestly. she refused to let him go due to a fear she really was an unworthy 'bird witch' who was doomed to be alone.

'hippo' was 'bird witch's 'nabe', as she called him. he was tall and gangly, with shaggy brown hair and a beak...rather unlike a hippo, in fact. he never seemed to notice her oddity. he had a deep inability to be alone for more than five minutes, and he cheerfully appreciated whoever was around to the extent that he was generally adored. but he was smart enough to pick some favorites out of that devoted crowd, and 'bird witch' and he were like peas in a pod. "we must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children" he would whisper to her with a giggle, and 'bird witch' would smack him affectionately, and a little worriedly. "oi oi!". he had grown up a punk kid in boston, and had a sort of skinhead tourette's syndrome- spouting off nazi slogans just to annoy surrounding listeners. (you did have to wonder if it really was a joke, the kid did have to have a dark side somewhere, everyone does, right?). in the daytime he created advertisements for the drugs the pharmaceutical companies wanted to keep you addicted to. at night he obsessively cultivated magnificent aquarium ecosystems. he was dating a smart stubborn redhead with tattoos and a trust fund.

'jdawg' was there too, and this was the gang. 'bird witch' and 'hippo' and 'jdawg'. 'jdawg' was the rather short, thuggish latino with the sensual lips. while being very precise and militaristic in his mannerisms (he was a sergeant in the navy), would make up fantastical stories about those around him, and try to convince them that they were true. "hey baby", he'd text. and it even worked sometimes. enough so that 'bird witch' would forget herself and sniff his neck when she was tipsy. "you'd better make me some pancakes". his shy surprise when she was nice to him always belied something under his hardcore skinhead exterior. he preened like a puppy under her gaze. mostly though, they just elaborated on their mutual stories in friendly text messages, when they were trying to escape their boring classes (in his case) or stifling home office (in hers). or they would clink together their beer mugs in a dive bar. 'bird witch' realized that 'jdawg' was too good to subject to anything beyond friendship.

and so they were, and so it was.

..........damn, i really need to learn to write dialog, and have a point to the story!!!!

p.s. here are pics from belize. i will have to write on here sometime soon about how great it was to connect with my brother there, in a land of abundant sun and sea life!

sheesh

i swear i will post something positive soon, as my last post is really misleading! headed to belize tomorrow morning, with my estranged little brother whom i have not seen in over 10 years. should be...weird!

wtf

i never hated myself until a few years ago. always my problems in life were due to someone else (my betrayal-happy parents, whoremongering exes, etc.), and i never internalized things, being at heart an optimist who knew i had inadvertently drawn a bad lot in my early life.

then thailand happened (i suppose this is an extension of the last cathartic post). being infatuated by and thus inextricably immersed in a culture that was diametrically opposed to my own was like walking around with a scolding mirror permanently affixed to my forehead in front of my face... so i could constantly see the reflection of my own ugliness- the neurosis, the inability to fit in to normal society, my stupid penchant for believing the lies of people who wanted to divest me of everything i am worth, and lying myself bare to their abuse. my numerous patterns of ridiculous mistakes.

so a few years ago i started having violent flashes- quick daydreams of vicious torture of myself. my flailing at my wrists with slick razor blades in white-eyed rage. my choking myself with clenched fists in blind shrieking fury. my shrugging myself nonchalantly off the edge of a skyscraper. i couldn't escape myself and i wanted me dead.

a few in-depth google searches revealed some fascinating websites on the topic of self murder. from detailed instructions on how to concoct a fatal brew from household chemicals, to an elaborate plan for euthanasia of the elderly by a plastic mask that sucks helium from a tank into grateful lungs, the resources i needed for my planned demise were quite prevalent and usable.

but even in those lonely, anguished depths of dark days (last year) i could not bring myself to give up on life. as much as i despised myself, i couldn't refuse what adventures were sure to be on tap in future. and besides, i am a wuss. i have panic attacks centered around not being able to draw breath, and a petulant intolerance of discomfort. and voluntarily robbing myself of oxygen/life is quite laughable in fact, and really not an option.

and the thing is, death will come for us all, all too soon. and speeding it along is just insanity.

so times like now, when i feel like i just got jipped in every way, when i feel as though if i did do the deed, no one would even notice until my body swelled and burst and leaked sickly sweet smells from the neglected heat of my room, when i feel like i have melted disconsolately into the gravel underneath me and can't seem to consciously re-combine my atoms into a solid, standing, confident state, i realize it is just a passing phase of weakness, and tomorrow will be inevitably be better. and i am trying to work through that nasty hatred of myself which really is startling considering what a good girl i am, and realize that no one is ever perfect and my brain chemistry is a likely culprit. and accept that moving onwards and upwards while i have the chance, the gift, is the only way.

here's hoping tomorrow is another day.

:( ---> :)

at any moment of your life you can choose to be a happy person and deal with things like a happy person does, or choose to be bitter and sad and depressed. my dumb hippie buddhist ex thai boyfriend, ot, first learnt me of that, in between shirking all human responsibility and uselessly smoking spliffs on my hammock. and my most recent, beloved but platonic (excepting prolific snuggling) boyfriend, 't', has reinforced it in a way too, which is why i love him terribly and desperately, but also why i rebel and occasionally despise him (happiness scares me). sigh... relationships are so freaking painful. it is hard to be positive and not just sabotage them before they hit you......... but i digress.

i don't know if i ever told the story on here about how i had started an informal (psshaw solo and un- credited or helped out in any way by my meth head thai boyfriend who was busy trying to bilk me out of whatever i was worth to him, ie. a fully stocked and planned bar and outdoor theater, at which time he received it he would toss it aside with scorn and go fuck just about everyone else, but there i go digressing...) yes an informal animal shelter on my beach on the island in thailand (!!!).

it started with that lonely peal in the night, a squealing pup found in a pile by my ridiculously sculpted and tan brazilian neighbors, who fornicated loudly every afternoon from the depths of the bungalow next door. they had almost hit her in the road with their motorbike. my puppy calling me. she had a fat belly full of worms and was ridden with fleas. i took her in and flushed her out and took care of her for about 3 1/2 years, despite my reluctance to even name her and thus attach. she chased me through the scattered gardens of the muslim side of the island (full by the way of not only the queer howling of the calls to mecca, but also the skittering of scary ass monitor lizards trying to eat her every time i turned my back- i could hear them killing things behind the hut in the wee hours of the morn), she biting at my heels. as she grew into her adolescence i watched her learn to make friends with the wild dogs on the beach, watched their territorial dances. she was as adored as any prized pedigree, living amongst festering and fighting street dogs. i misplaced (or did i?) all of my biological need for children on to her. we understood each other very well. she hung her head when i barked at her for climbing in my bed when there was a terrifying display of fireworks nightly on the beach. i ran to dote whenever she yelped in various tones according to what she had encountered (a snake or beetle, a smelly piece of trash or dead animal tossed in my yard by my betel nut stained neighbors who carried machetes, spouted unintelligible platitudes at me, and smoked me almost out of my house every morning when burning their trash outside my window). i love love love her still. and i loved loved loved the life we spent together on this magical and alien island.

but i loved all of them. dogs of all sorts can sense i am not afraid of them (except in packs in certain dark temple squares in bangkok, in which i have a full on panic attack and yell). all the dogs of my dusty jungle village started sniffing around my house after 'puppy'. first because she was in heat, which i quickly put a stop to because the male dogs wanted to fight me for her! but later on because she was so obviously pampered, which is a transfixing oddity in thailand. there was scruffy, an old veteran of the survival scene. he had already proven himself a formidable alpha male and retired. he was loud and mean until we were alone at night, when he would snicker and cuddle. he choked and hemhorraged to death of heartworms on my floor- he went off in an insane cloud of flies. i watched the life ooze out of him for hours.... there was big mama, so pathetically and meekly accepting my cruelty. she really reminded me of my red-headed mother. i kicked big mama so hard one time i think i may have broken my toe. she still loved me to her literal death for feeding her. i took care of all nine of her puppies which she dragged rather sheepishly to my yard one day. such naive stupidity. i couldn't help that though. i loved every one of them as much as i could, even until i had to kill them to quench their wracking seizures, and bury them, me sweating and teary, behind the animal clinic. i loved the poisoned ones too who just died quietly in places they had crawled away to be alone in. & the ones who would venture tentatively, sniff warily at me, and bolt for the rice and sardines i would leave out under the house. be mine for a week or two, grateful and loving and well behaved, and disappear to never be seen again.... and goodbye 'sick', the dashingly handsome boy who appeared one day, shaking his mane at puppy and smiling. i took him in because he was irresistably charming (and someone had obviously dropped him off for me), not knowing that he had already survived a round of canine distemper (what most of my dogs died of) and some wicked flu, and now had a horrible auto immune disorder that would ultimately not allow him to fight off mites that would eat all his fur, leaving huge ghastly infected scabs on his bald skin, and making him feel like he was dying faster than he was. it sounds cheesy i know, but he always looked up to me with trust in his eyes, just like all the dogs who died. i had a strange connection with every one of them. they knew i loved them, and we both knew they would not be around long. i shared their fate more than any other human. it was obvious by how many of them hung around me, to the point where it was embarassing to leave my house and walk to a restaurant in the village, where my sickly but valiant dogs all tried to come in to sit at my feet, to the barely veiled disgust of the other humans.


i had to leave them though, because a place in which the lives of these animals was allowed to exist the way they did was so shocking to me. thais really seemed like such ruthless, heartless people in so many ways (i still believe they are, but have to keep in mind i was amongst a peculiar demographic, on an island where people would run to hide after they committed crimes, run by violent feuding drug mafia families who took offense to my straighforward NY'er ways and actually started hunting me down for them). i was a girl alone, which was strange. a girl who didn't fall for all their tricks, and who stayed too long in a place in which she was thus intruding, and garnered too much information in a socially awkward way. in a place where most of the people did not know much about the world at all outside of their small set of dirt roads lining the jungle and beach. and thais know how to scare you, yesirreee. they are not afraid of death- they don't think too much about it. they don't attach to any idea. they know you will bounce back as whatever it is you ultimately deserve, and they believe people and dogs attract their fate. life is cheap, blood is stimulation in a sleepy town where it is a physical impossibility for you to leave without their help. it is a dark, seedy existence in lush, ecstatic paradise.

paradise gets tedious too. the rotating of all those friends who were so happy and beautiful, smoking on my porch and drifting away back to their countries. waking up every day to the sounds of cocks and piglets. the yoga, the dancing, the completely uninhibited week long parties. i have to remember the lesson i learned from such decadence, to balance, and bask in love. gather the good and real things and people toward me and push the bad or superficial things away. i am trying to learn to detach in general. not depend on anything or anyone. you would think i would be a pro at that by now but i am too optimistic and stupidly hopeful that some day i won't be so alone. that humans are as worth loving and losing as dogs.

and that is the story for the day, boys and girls. my sad story of the dying off of the last dog, the one i tried to save and make into my family.... i learned today that the absolutely insane israeli woman i left her with was about as trustworthy as i expected and abandoned my spoiled girl recently. left her to the dogs. i would love to believe the other dogs would step aside gracefully in reflection of her innocence and grace, but i know the reality is she would have been torn apart immediately by either canine or human. and i have to send her messages in my dreams now. and apologies for abandoning her to that fate of hers, myself, despite desperate efforts otherwise and much twisting wrenching anguish.

that and the realization that my paradise was a shiny rainbow veneer on a dull stone, tied to my ankle, ready to drown me has me, well, down. the fact that i couldn't accomplish something i was passionate about. that no love is unconditional or without horrific pain. the fact that i really do belong in NY and not in a mystifying and unsympathetic place with no instilled moral code (even the US's contrived plastic billboard morals are preferable to none).

RIP 'puppy', because i know that place and i know you are too good for it. it will have eaten you up quickly. i had to escape before it ate me, and i hope all of you poor dogs understand. i choose to be happy and go towards the light. i will go and live for all of us.

and i think i have decided to cancel my impending visit back to thailand.



(oh p.s. here are pictures from my christmas trip to mexico, where we were stranded for 5 extra days while it blizzarded in NY)

christ mass

the first christmas i remember was when i was 7 maybe. my younger brother was a toddler. he used to crawl around, and there were vents in the floor which got really hot in the wintertime and gave him blisters on his hands and knees. we were poor. we had a pathetic christmas tree, as usual. my main present was a pair of tennis shoes with stripes, to replace the ones i had grown out of. unwrapped. i shared a room with my 4 younger siblings. (step)daddy would get drunk. he got mad at my little brother for peeing in his pants and not on the potty chair. he beat the hell out of him, broke his collarbone. social services hauled my dad off, made him live in a hotel (where i was forced to go visit and sit quietly in the gray, airconditioned room, while i watched him twitch his feet in sleep for hours). most of the time i lived with my mom. i vaguely remember field trips with her (one in which i got a contagious yeast infection of the mouth- wonder what that was?!) to amazing cliff dwellings in the arizona canyons. i was in the 4H club. mom would bake and force us to go to church. daddy would feel my forehead and tell me i felt feverish. he would proffer and insist upon my chugging a whole bottle of nyquil. he would give me some pills too, which ensured a knock out evening.

this early christmas i remember him taking me to see my first r-rated movie ever; 'uncommon valor'. i remember waking up in the car afterwards, in the cold parking lot, with him breathing heavily in my face. i was staring out the window at the lights.

i don't remember the rest of the night. i know my sister and i would sneak up early to try to catch santa every christmas eve, so that is most likely what we did. i know i was unimpressed with my shoes. i know later on we had to pretend to be a perfect family whenever the caseworker brought dad for a visit. & due to the potential wrath of my mother, she bought it every time. i know i am so happy that that was 27 years ago...

i don't really care about christmas this year. haven't much paid attention- every day is the same in my little home office, after all. i did have a nice soundtrack of old timey christmas tunes in the car the other night with 't'. he told me how in austria they have a christ child with wings who brings you presents at 8pm, instead of santa. but that's it... i have no christmas tree. no family get together. no office party. no gift exchange. i am not even interested in seeing the christmas movies i usually pile up to zone out in front of.

but that doesn't mean it won't be a happy christmas. i will be sipping cocktails and watching the sunset on an island for the next 5 days.... so uhrhnnn all you normal people!!!!

blah

it's definitely winter now and i am not sure if it is the fact that it is a nipply 20 degrees outside, the fact that i have stupidly accepted way too much work from clients, the fact that i have not really left my bed much at all, the fact that i have been swallowing tramadols like they're m&ms, or the fact that my bf-of-sorts has been mostly sleeping at his house lately (probably for the best) that has me feeling insanely witchy.

sigh. i know this about myself. i get evilly out of sorts this gray and gloomy time of year. i hate that the sun sets around 4:30p. i hate that it's christmas and i don't have anyone around to care about. i hate that i can't just walk happily around my neighborhood in flip flops and pet doggies. i hate that i start to detest & revile anyone in my immediate proximity. especially if they are fat and loud and obnoxious and damaged and gross and stupid!

...thank the lordy for radiolab. for psychology and astral physics video lectures from the web. for netflix and kayak and youporn. for bottles of white wine, footy pajamas, and the thick brainless hardcover book i am reading myself to sleep with. thanks for my new handheld herb vaporizor which looks moronic but does the job nicely. thanks for my tickets to an island just off cancun next week. thanks for somehow making me just wimpy enough to never be able to put myself out of my misery.

freedom

in the mood i am in now i should probably not write in my blog. let's just put it that way.

hmmm. let us move on. i have just re-remembered myself, my amazing life. just had a magnificent trip to costa rica in which i drove bickering amusedly with my escort... all over the lush foggy bright green countryside. we lounged under the volcano (arenal) in steamy hot springs, and got waterfall massages, spied on by friendly jesus christ lizards (who walk on water). ate lavish and expensive meals proferred by simpering sycophant waiters, ziplined breathlessly over awesome jungle valleys and a majestic lake lined with singing (and roaring) rainforest, chock full of wildlife that we coaxed out or observed bemusedly with binoculars from a boat at the cano negro wildlife preserve. i fed steak bones to and patted stray dogs in the sketchy but friendly tourist town square of la fortuna. poked at medicinal plants with a self proclaimed shaman ("it's okay!?" he asks, excitedly and repeatedly, as he points through the debris at a hovering sloth, or crushes cinnamon leaves to sniff, as he takes every opportunity to touch me rather inappropriately). i had an overall amiable time getting drunk and thrashing with nightmares along side my so-called (and thus probably not) boyfriend. wishing that the plane rides would end.

travel is like looking in the mirror on acid. such an honest and even crass and critical look at your own life. the tedious days of waste you realize you live most of the time.

it's nice to come back to NY too though, the intellectual magnet. the beautiful contest. my undeniable and generous freedom.

chuckle

uhhhhhh. it's a full moon tonight and i can definitely feel it. have had desperate dreams of seducing my boyfriend-again in every way imaginable. (not reminiscent of real life). been choking down bong hits to keep myself inflated. been watching a hilarious show about a fellow new yorker's life mishaps. went to the opera with my friends (and escaped to the lobby to get wasted with an octogenerian with smeared lipstick). what can i say that hasn't been covered on facebook, the blog-slayer....

headed to costa rica on wednesday. fantasizing endlessly about it in advance.

....

what the fuck was i thinking?

life

san francisco hasn't changed. i have though, i learned this past weekend, in which i took an escape to have a too-short fling with the west coast. my old 'hood in SF is still most definitely the 'hood. but the desperate walking dead (crackheads) that would beat each other with baseball bats and have overdose seizures outside my window didn't seem as prevalent now. it felt mostly empty and quiet to me. san francisco will always have the musky sea smelling air of a grizzled hippie burnout though, yelling nonsense at the prancing faggots and slinking noir beauties in the shadows. sigh. such a sensual place in a way.... i hung out mostly with the tourists, by myself. i took pictures of the sea lions barking fartily on the piers, i wandered through the (golden gate) park on what was apparently family sport and crusty dancing hippie day. i ate some amazing and expensive mexican food in a nice bar with black and white mexican films on in the background. i dodged shouts of appreciation from men who liked my cute outfit (or something). i took bubble baths. i wandered through airport shops.

now i am back in NY, which i still love better. no city like it, it's amazing the drive back in, feeling awed at the city skyline, the line of crooked bridges, the dodgy industrial 'hoods. i have unceremoniously (and not too calm and collectedly in retrospect) dumped my snuggly boyfriend. the advice of everyone around me is that rather than loving me, which is what flows so smoothly off his tongue, he is taking advantage of my comfortable convenience ($) while he works on finding himself (looking for coke whores on craigslist) after being married for 9 years. well. that is unfortunate. because this is what i keep finding over and over. but even if i am just a rebound girl for him (harumph) i genuinely love him and hope that somehow we can work out whatever way in which we are best going to relate to each other long term. blech. relationships are like math class sometimes. tedious, irrelevant, frustrating nonsense. i send them the evil eye and indignant huffs.

oh well. still have my nice bong, my hilarious friends, my job that pays me a lot to do nothing. my tickets to costa rica (ok i do sort of regret the fact that i have to go alone). tickets to mexico which i will most likely share with my sister-friend 'y' since we have spent the last couple of christmases together and it is starting to be tradition.... i have the poi (fire) spinning classes i am gonna take in my 'hood so i can wow the little nerdling travelers and bar boys when i return to the thai islands. the writing class that i am gonna force myself to eventually take so i can vomit out all my pain etc. oh, and i have actually been running at the gym! bought shoes and everything. eat your heart out subway musician suckers, you know who you are... my life is great. it is truly your loss. ;)

a few stray & halfhearted pics of SF

fun at uj

what. what what. all my friends are mad at me for my emotional outburst about the guy i can't help but tolerate. and even yes love goddamnit. singing like a reggae master in the other room. stupid kids, they'll learn.... when you love someone you love them... ain't no room for anything else.... except for when love entertwines with hate (yum) and makes things exciting (regular sex outlet at least!).... well maybe there's a little too much hatred for myself, it's true, for being dumb and trusting. but if it is a choice between potentially being happy and being not, you choose the love every time, i say. ;)

we took a leonard cohen poem and turned it into a song the other night, when we made up, t and i. then we fucked like languid kittens. when we sleep we cling. this was a typical night other than a beautiful fight (in which i was humming, on ecstacy, and came across a message he wrote completely zonked out on a sleepy drug to another girl. i decided to throw him out quietly. i went outside and met a gorgeous girl of my own, on the porch step, with whom i commiserated for an anonymous and infatuated hour, while the neighborhood freaks traipsed by. she inspired me to be strong. i returned to my apartment and packed t's things by the door, for when he awoke from his daze. i snuck onto his facebook and changed his status to 'married', which is true, and evil. ;)))) but the days go on... mostly happy. :) he comes back around. he picks me up in his car. he cooks his signature weird food (the boy did go to culinary school) and talks about historic culture to keep me entertained. we snuggle. i make more of an effort to regularly escape him and do my own shit, like trying on fake eyelashes or staring at myself naked in the mirror.

i got a new job, in addition to my fleeting online romance with my real job, which i interact with hardly ever except to talk to my boss about her dogs. i am pretty much rich right now (probably why t comes back around). this new job is run by an israeli man with honest black eyes. i want to throw his stupid little japanese dog "sushi" at the wall and scream, and to hug his beautiful wife and blooming mother.... him i like, he's straightforward. i want to be his friend and help him which is an oddity when it comes to me and authority.... i also have a crush on my project manager, with his long island drawl and pink cheeks. good peeps!.... i feel constantly stimulated at the moment. by everyone i meet. and meanwhile i am doing some good work.

looking out my window at the funeral home, circled by taxis. thinking about freddy upstairs, who hasn't come down for a few days. i hear him moaning and thrashing and even screaming upstairs, but i am too scared to help him, which makes me feel vile. i have a crick in my neck and my heart aches. his elderly friend, jerry, comes by, doddling in his windbreaker, and tells me about his dizzy spells. he leaves packages of baked goods for his old friend, & nods to the neighbors with me, at the furniture store next door. i hope sometimes if i breathe deep enough they will all feel all the love in the building. <3

it's all good. i guess.

normal

i had two warm multi-colored autumn days in which t and i took a road trip to the hippie town of woodstock, to a little cabin we had stayed in before, by a waterfall... we played with doggies of passersby, sitting in the sunny town square. we grilled piles of meat on the porch and got wasted and lolled around on the bed and giggled all night like idiots (once our first evil fight had sputtered out, ack- in the car for 2 hours in the dark on the highway upstate, my fault mostly.)


woodstock, ny

but that was it for the summer, and an instantaneous fall. now winter is kicking in and i start getting morose and bitchy. my fingers won't thaw until i step off the plane into tropical costa rica next month (necesito practicar me espanol). ditto my freakishly long nose. my eyes will be perpetually bloodshot, my lips purple. i start to resemble a zombie hag! sigh, i hate winter. shivering in the wind on my way to the shelter at the waterfront, or at the doggie park walking t's wife's dog (!...sigh again!). but hey, there is that trip to costa rica after all, and not too far off, mexico. and maybe thailand in january too. periods of warm sunny decadence just the way i like it. danger and sin. lush nature and intrigue.... meanwhile i will just snuggle and coo at my warm, fat, constantly spluttering, embarassingly sweet, sometimes annoying companion. have him cook & drive. try to get him to stop binging and make more money so he can keep up with me. do nerd things with him to keep us both stimulated. fumble about each others' genitals at night (squeal, sploosh, yawn). figure out which one of his lies is the truth. & reevaluate next spring... :)

at least that is what my nabe friend and i joke about, when i can snatch a night out with him. we are defiant in our mutual agreement not to fall into the relationship trap. the tedium, passivity, repetition. lack of variety! we have sworn to make each other go out and keep breathing and doing shit. that shit usually involves drinking, flirting with my navy boy friend c who is a master manipulator and a sweetie. we all spend a lot of time joking around about nazis. telling each other secrets. coming up with business plans (i do that with a lot of people. few of them go through).

...anyway i also bought fuzzy bunny slippers, and a crackling warm fireplace insert, and a heated blanket, and some sweaters. (i almost bought a warm persian kitty too- these days you can buy anything on the internet! but i came to my senses and he was sold before i got there anyway, phew!) . as long as i keep myself warm i will be ok in the winter :(.


my fireplace

i want to hole up and write about my life too i think. the 25 years full of lives, that happened before this blog started. they really are a lot of material, i just have to feel out the right voice. how honest should i be? that is my debate with myself. the honest story is the most interesting but also the most shocking to those who judge quickly based on little (basically you readers). which do you think i should do? i suppose whatever i do has been done. but i can't think about that part. maybe i should just write aimlessly until a pattern begins to form. yes i think that is the key.......................

scribble

what can i write about. that is the perpetual question right now. i could write about the writing course i was gonna take to hopefully jangle up my writing chops. but it was too expensive. & i don't feel like i should have to go to a course before i can write. i am a defiant autodidact, right? i just need a topic...and as much focus as i can muster in my shy pothead way.... sigh.

hmmm. now is a topic.... now i am sitting at my desk in my tiny little alice in wonderland office, which hangs like an afterthought off the side of my apartment. it is just after smoking a post-work bowl. through my window i am watching the leaves and the evening fall over bedford avenue. there is a long slow siren down at the navy yard by the brooklyn waterfront, wailing like the children of hasids (& probably doing so for some kind of jewish holiday). the bus roars past on schedule. my window rattles as a girl shrieks and giggles with a spanish accent below. i'm realizing again i have social anxiety, as i peer out at young, fresh, gorgeous, rich, people i feel inferior to, walking briskly past in the fall air - whistling, digging in their purses, holding hands and preening prettily. looking confident or busy or sad. smelling like sex. talking to their families on the phone. who are these abundant dream people of this hipster land? (so different from t's area of brooklyn with it's shopping cart street vendors). i prefer to watch them from safely inside, hunched over my laptop in the quiet warmth.... gotta hit up t's voodoo medicine man (his psychiatrist is from haiti).

t (otherwise known as "bf-of-sorts") i have forced onto his regular schedule of zoloft, which makes him less of a blabbering madman grasping for other substances (and me) to fill his holes, and more of someone who can carry his own weight of late. we are getting closer to having a normal sex life too (sigh... why me?!). we are planning future travels together, pouring over our laminated world map. we play racquetball in the park. we sit rocking and talking to each other for hours most nights, and scooting our bodies into each other as closely as possible. i adore him. purr.... but i feel myself moving on a bit, back to the licking clean of my own fur. can't believe any (dramatic) word he says. gotta remember that!

the writing class was going to be either on the topic of inventing one's own religion... or writing a memoir of one's life. i nose dived in my head towards the memoir, being self-obsessed. i have a hell of one brewing, whenever i decide to erupt and spew.... but the religion topic, gasp! challenging!... i shirk from religion normally, am pretty much anti-religion. anti- any kind of dogma or zealousness. no fanaticism for me thanks. no sales pitch. no literature taken as law spit out in long meetings at my broken and punished, prostrate figure, blech. i completely avoid thinking about religion as it reminds me of years of my life and people i knew, that engender misery and puking sessions.... but i guess i would want to adore life with my religion. not attribute it to anyone/thing but chance just yet. i would encourage people to forge their own paths with the idea in mind there is some purpose, like a guiding light, but the creator might not think or exist like we can comprehend with our language and science and senses, and it is futile to attempt it. a waste of time! and we may never learn that purpose of ours before we have expired.... so the goal is placing oneself only in the moment. now. make now good. enjoy it. be selfish enough to get what you want, but try not to hurt people. be honest. be positive. expect good things. plan and work for them. open up, and don't reject what comes in, but learn from it. remember that with the bad stuff comes lessons. and most of them are just you gritting your teeth and bearing them. or standing up for yourself. or recognizing errors. and love is important. love everything and everyone for being special. love your enemies but make sure they know exactly who you are. hate and love are the same, you can only begin to understand something by seeing both sides of the coin. but if everyone loves each other then everyone is loved....

yep. i should have been born a hippie, somewhere near hunter s. thompson and his motorcycle (watched a documentary on him and have a crush).

vodka

my bf of sorts (i explain to everyone i don't have time to hang out with in text) says what i lack is a room with a door, in my head. i have multiple hours of video of me yelling at him to shut the fuck up about this room with the fucking door (rolls eyes. yes, another egomaniacal, but brilliant, partner for me…) it's where i am supposed to put "things", but i have yet to figure out what those things are. there is something to this i think, that i need to learn, but i have to learn it by myself, not with stinky jesus my pseudo-shrink preaching at me (i'm such a rebel). once i create or discover this magical room, my stifled artist and repressed childhood emotions will suddenly and dramatically reverse themselves out of me, and copious amounts of vomiting in both a literal and figurative sense will ensue and i will emerge from the sticky stench a changed girl with sparkly thigh high boots, curly lashes, and tattoos, lovers on both arms and some sort of writing contract. more balanced, more sexual, more blatant, more expressive, more focused, more alive. wonder me.

ok. despite my protestations that he is just trying to convert me to extroversion, he has a point. and i am good at learning. what i am learning right now is that for all my meticulousness (yes i can rightfully be accused of being anal to an almost OCD degree) i have no focus. and an absolute lack of confidence (damnit thailand! and damnit people who call me a dumbass, you know who you are). i wish i could start my life over at 21 and go down another path- one that was parallel to mine but was more amazing. in some ways it really is too late for me. but that is the past…

these are always artists who tell me these things. and even if i am not an artist, i am amazing just as i am. my life is amazing. i do have a voice, whether i choose to broadcast it or whether people choose to hear it or not, it's there, so there. i have a great apartment i pay for with a great job (which i grumble about until that nice check comes in the mail). i have fun friends who actively love me (i hope anyway, they are all boys!). i am happy in NY even without traveling for months at a time. i have seen a lot of greatness in my time… and maybe as an introvert i also love just being a witness. fuck whoever tells me i am not clever, or that i am not doing enough, or tries to change the core me. who smokes my weed, eats my food, stays in my apartment all the time now, tries to swindle me into helping me with his work and supporting him since he's broke (for now)… who keeps me from my real life and self, who smothers me all the time with his prolific greatness (which admittedly really is great). who like all artists i have known is kind of a slob, an animal even …why do i end up with these semi psychotic manipulative people, whom since i love i find very hard to get rid of? who latch on to me like i am a mama bitch?

but then again, there is that love bit. bf-of-sorts drives me around on adventures. binges happily with me in several ways (there is that dangerous challenge). is super fun to cuddle with and kiss and bite. is patient with my ridiculous sexual hang ups… oh, i decided not too sleep with him right now, dear conscience-slash-blog-stalkers. he is enough in my face that i don't need his terrifying *penis!* on top of everything. and he's married still. i found him a couples counsellor to take the wife to this evening, come what may (so grown up and repulsive, even the concept). maybe wifey wants him more than i do. maybe i should let her have him…. if not she might kill me someday soon (she's a destructive alcoholic ballerina from a rich family), but i am trying to be fair. she knows about me and how to reach me. i am not trying to take her man. her man is definitely the one trying to get me.

anyway… he can be shockingly and even annoyingly sweet. cooks elaborate crap in the kitchen and brings it to me to sample with little decorations. laughs uproariously at my favorite british comedy with me, and flops around analyzing my favorite science radio show. tells brilliant stories of his own- acts out historical battles or science fiction with accents. crawls onto and plays very talented music on the bed in the middle of the night. has an interesting life in which film crews follow him around to document him, and he gets free trips to play festivals in brazil (to which i think i will latch on in turn). & he seems to like me a lot more than i like him, which is always good, but suspicious.

maybe i am just scared, sigh. relationships are both a yummy comfort and a tedious bore. at least when you are by yourself you have no one else to blame or resent. but i have been complaining about not having someone to share things with too, for the last year, so maybe i should try to enjoy the good parts?!?!?!? maybe i should open up and fall madly in love with him because he came along in just the point of my life that i need him and am ready for him. but that would mean a lot of years of breaking out of my shell first (to the point where i have to be aggressive and tell him what's up so he doesn't swallow me), before it's balanced. is it worth it? sounds so monotonous! blahhhhh life. why can't i just be happy in a miserable relationship like everyone else? pshaw.

anyway another thing bf-of-sorts helped me with, was to me drag my lonely 78-year old neighbor fred to an ambulance when he called me all bloodied and drunk from the floor upstairs, with his balls hanging out. second time this has happened. poor fred- depression trigger extraordinaire. as they drag him down the stairs he yells his life story to me- his dead daughter, his evil ex wife. his calendar has written on it vodka. with an underline. every day of the week. sigh.

blah

so my muse morphed into a weirdly platonic friend who just drive-by cuddles me. this was after a lot of intense drama i won't get into, mostly caused by yours truly. he drops by my house to smoke my weed and jump on my bed and be overly dramatic and messy and generally cause a ruckus. he's a human tornado of expression. i heart him for sure and can't really remember what my life was like before him! (his energy is that abrupt). but- he's starting to feel like an pesty younger brother who is stealing my independence.... and thus i discover that the grass is... always greener right where you stand now, so take what you can get, elocin...... but i am done playing mother to any helpless stray boys (thais kinda ruined that for me). hopefully he is a man in boy-disguise.

i can't complain at all of anything but boredom, which is my own fault. things are really good now. my nabe, whom i love with his gawky and incongruously subversive lack of guiles, also hangs out a lot in my new living room. he brought his peculiar dad the other day, visiting happily from thailand, to sit on my loveseat and sample my smokeable wares. he was 65 and spry and likes drugs even more than we do(!). but was refreshingly intellectual and unassuming. his father figure only served to reinforce the brotherly vibe i have with nabe though, who even spent the night dreaming quietly on the far side of my bed last night, when his own bed was packed up in a moving van (thank 'god' he's still my nabe though, he's just moving closer to the park!). i love him too, probably would love to cuddle him but didn't, don't wanna *do* him at all. sigh.

so what else. every 3rd boy out the window is shockingly handsome. i have a from- afar crush on this very awkward and shy nerd boy who looks like a young, hipster clark kent. i have seen him and wanted to run up to and save him about once a week for the past year, in his dark rimmed glasses and nervous glances, shuffling down my street.... otherwise various lurkers at the edge of various neighborhood scenes tempt me out to look at them now and then, but they kind of all blur together.

i decided i am some version of boy crazy. i need the intrigue of a boy in my life, and once i fill that hole so to speak (yay!) i can happily move on to unblocking other ones (ie. writing anything of note). it's pathetic really, but i am after all a girl.

meanwhile i work (which entails being available from 9-5 for random conference calls and conversations in which my boss just vents and i pretend to be enthralled, and otherwise wandering around my house in a daze, or watching films). i sometimes go to the gym and do the minimum possible of exercise that could be considered a workout. it's a nice walk to and from though.

i also sit and agonize about where to travel. i am so unfocused i can't decide. i am bored of boredom(!) and miss decadence and freedom. i want animals and sunshine and water so bright blue it's painful to the eye, and a hammock on the white sand, and parties under the moon with people from all over the world...

uh oh. and winter is coming fast!

......

i know you are all waiting breathlessly for an update, but i am out having a life. i'll come back soon.

set up

this boy i met, this man i met, this boy who wrenched my heart beating from my chest and started to devour it, and then from whom i snatched it back in possessive and unbalanced confusion. this married man writhing in pain in front of me, whispering lies right to me. such blue, wistful eyes, my twin orphan, my soundtrack to tantric sleep, my fellow rider on the ecstatic storm of shaded lights through brooklyn and manhattan backstreets, making me and my life feel big and amazing and the world seem small and far.....

yep, infatuation. and illicit at that. damn my brain for being so logical and seeing right through it, thereby slaughtering it. wisdom is the enemy of dreams i wish to live in forever.

we had an amazing couple of weeks of decadence and an eery, intense but childlike connection. the kind of whirlwind foolishness you don't trip over very often... the kind that everyone talks about. and then bam, i had to slam the lid down on it. because i am not a stupid girl.

now i feel like i can't breathe, hyperventilating, choking on my insides. it's like i dropped him down a deep hole and listened until the screams died. and i want to throw myself in after him but i know better.

luckily these things pass, and i am moving tomorrow which should be a distracting change. and i got out before it got too deep. but i can't promise not to stalk him to death, even if mostly in my sweaty teary dreams... and i can't promise that my whole weekend won't be spent in utter anguish.

until when, my beautiful echo of a muse. i will never forget you.

little changes

out of nowhere came a storm of dates (thank heaven when it pours), and i have been going on them despite my insidious reluctance to leave my comfort zone here in my brooklyn 'hood. one date was a half black (but looked white) carpenter i met on a dating site, who helps run a roadhouse bar for musicians and bikers, and who bitched at me over canned beers about women who failed to meet his expectations and otherwise treated me fairly rudely. i keep meaning to talk to him again but it never happens. i ran into him on the street since and we said an awkward and sideways hello and that's it...

then there was the strange, unwashed, eccentric hobbit boy who hunkers in his dark room, writing product reviews for fun and creating strange images and music. i liked him a lot as a person (made it to two dates) but whenever he tried to touch me i flinched and snapped at him(!). he didn't seem to find much of interest about me (even when i ventured to tell about my life)- he seemed focused on the potential sex. and besides the fact that his sheets disgusted me, i tend to look for other stuff than just sex right off the bat... or maybe there just wasn't chemistry... oh well can't always win. i still had a lot of fun smoking his bong with him, playing a version of rock, paper, scissors that involves monkeys, pirates, robots, zombies, and ninjas... we even tried to play tuneless music together on his instruments, and walked all over the lower east side from park to park. so in the end he was good...

the third date was my favorite, and sprung from real life even. serendipitous and strange. many years ago when i lived in williamsburg i used to have a crush on a subway musician who sang quite plaintively and had beautiful eyes. i admired him from a distance, except one time when i bought a cd from him and shyly skittered away. he sort of represented a big side of NY to me at the time. but life took me travelling across the globe and i had since pretty much forgotten about him. three weeks ago i met a real estate broker who showed me an apartment. i found i didn't care about the apartment but i liked the broker. he had bright energy and we got along so well. i sent him an email afterwards asking if he would ever want to go out with me- very abnormally forward for me. he took awhile, but finally answered, and i found out he was the very same musician from years ago! i just didn't recognize him- kind of chilling. so he picked me up excited in his big grandpa car, drove me to a great neighborhood on the water, where we sipped beverages and vomited out all our truths almost as soon as we had sat down. i have never met someone with such a similar life story to me, and definitely never learned that within the first hour of being with someone!... that led me to think he was disturbed, but that is only more enticing to me. he made me laugh all evening with his dramatics, his silly clothes, his attempts at lying to me about his wife. haha. i definitely want to see him again (and he made it very obvious that he wants to see me) but i think i shall keep him at arm's length at least until he can prove he is separated from her....

and the most recent date was spontaneous, with a good friend. well, as good a friend as one could be in a couple of months.... we have had very honest text-based relationship on the phone. in person we are very incongruous. he is shorter than i and totally opposite- he looks like a squat gangster skinhead. my friends would never understand how we managed to hook up. but his pheromones are ridiculously and hypnotically pungent to me!!! i can't resist him when he gets close to and breathes near me or touches me, it feels exciting, and biologically somehow right- so weird! plus, his approach is to worship me, which goes over quite well ;P, he could teach the other guys i know a thing or two (and he is ten years younger than i am)... but i also need to keep him at arm's length because i feel like he is not what i am looking for- he's a bit alcoholic, and not like me at all in important ways, and i therefore might hurt him if he really likes me as much as he says. (what am i thinking, guys just want sex anyway right? it's probably all good)....

& i have one more date scheduled for this week with a guy i have been putting off for months because he, much like date #2, approached me sexually right off the bat, and i can't have sex with someone i don't connect with first. my brain is my most sexual organ, as cheesy as it sounds, but it also "cockblocks" me a lot of the time. if you can manage to hit me the right way i get past it and so do you. but if you just want to feel me up, you have a seat in that line over there... we'll see. this guy does my exact same job so at least maybe i can network (yawn).

anyway yay! fun times, i could get used to this dating thing. new, awkward, interesting experiences with strange people i might not have otherwise ever met is right up my alley, thanks. i hope this means my dry spell is over!

...other than that, i did something mystifying and that is put down a large deposit on an apartment for rent(!?!). moving in 2 weeks. i did it because i want my own place, my own space, my own things- a place where i can invite my traveller friends to visit, and otherwise feel like i am living like an adult. but the ties aspect is terrifying, as is the fact that it is right smack in the middle of a very annoying neighborhood (closer to the heart of hipsterdom- whenever will those hipster dorks move on!) and the rent is expensive, so subletting it when i travel in the impending winter might not be so easy, and i hope i don't lose my job somehow!... but at least so far i have resisted getting a pet! and i am excited at the new change... for now i am happy. :)

bZZzzZzzzZZZz

i would like to do a new blog, where i tell interesting stories and post cool shit i find, and maybe do some creative writing or something. maybe involve my neighborhood in some way. this blog is just like therapy for me. and my musing about how much i love to and want to travel i guess. i can't believe anyone bothers to read it (since the travel part has been put on hold indefinitely while i re-stock on cash). i suppose i need a new and more creative outlet. hmmm am i too lazy to set up another site? we shall see...

this week i am so wound up, i can't calm down enough to breathe properly, my shoulders are at my ears, i am so hunched up with inexplicable stress and remnants of nightmares which i have been waking up muttering from. i haven't been able to do much at all except hover breathless in one place, like a hummingbird on speed. and it has coincided with a very slow week at work (i am too good, i do my work too fast. i am gonna perform myself right out of my jobs!) and a confusing drop off of my friends who are either bored of me because i am a girl who won't sleep with them (as usual) or are just busy. i am really surprised i haven't just blasted off into space yet, i am so completely bottlenecked. it's been kind of rough! i feel like i have lost my center of balance.

i have tried exercising (on my gazelle, to intricate stories from radiolab wafting in and out on the breeze). i have tried smoking pot in abundance (weed delivery services in NY are one of the very best perks of living here). i have tried drugging myself half to death with tramadol (yum fun but here i am). i have tried glugging beers and smoking cigarettes til i felt like choking and my skin broke out. i have tried walking around my shady 'hood in the dark. i have tried stuffing my windows with new plant-pets and their kindly oxygen. tried looking for larger apartments in my 'hood and decorating them in my head with velvet settees, bordello canopies and painted chinese divider screens (i did meet a very interesting german musician/real estate guy with brilliant blue eyes and blonde curls, whom i subsequently sent an ill-disguised love letter to!) i have tried my hip hop dance class (in which i look like a gawky, hopelessly clumsy man in the mirror compared to my buxom airy teacher i am crushing on). i took myself to see a late night film by one of my favorite directors (jeunet) and can barely remember it for all my fluttering about in my brain (though it was a beautiful film, visually- micmacs). i tried shopping therapy online but someone snatched up the edward gorey tarot set i was coveting on ebay while i daydreamed stupidly out my window for half an hour. i directed myself towards the salon for a hair trim and a chat with the stylist who seemed to have heard it all before and made me feel boring, and who seemed even more frustrated with my stubbornly straight and limp hair than i was, finally just throwing her arms up and pushing me out of the chair towards the door. i tried flirting with my new penpal/friend, who is a skinhead from ecuador/queens, who listens to racist music, has lots of tattoos, and talks about blowing things up in the navy. he gives me lots of attention, which i need because lately i feel like i despise myself. he is blatantly sexual with me but non threatening at the same time.

none of it has worked though, in calming my poor little neurotic anxious as f*** head. must be the moon phase.

last week was great- i have been doing the things i want to do regardless of who goes with me or not. i went to see one of my favorite bands - cocorosie, with an old friend from years ago, in a huge warehouse in the city and we walked all over the meatpacking district together. i rode the train aboveground through brooklyn, to ride the cyclone in coney island, until i got whiplash. and i danced in the rain on the boardwalk with lots of puerto rican families and gangstas. one night i sat on the sidewalk with my friend tom sipping beers and listening to a jazzy pianist while seductive hipster boys slinked past like they were in a street fashion show. things flowed really well last week, i feel like i am balancing out my karma this week or something! i might need professional help!

i read a post about a girl who had gone wandering off alone into distant areas of indonesia, which has made my lust for travel reignite. globe trekker on tv as well. a plane ticket usually can cure most of my woes! but i have to go back to new hampshire next week for work so i can't skip off to anywhere fun til after....