these texts are an archive of my life in the San Francisco Bay Area from march 2007 - march 2015. it stands as a record of close to a decade of my life, charting the struggles i faced as an artist, daughter, and lover. messy and chaotic at times, eloquent and poetic at others, these texts are an index i am proud of. it was here in this electric box that i learned how to be honest about my experiences and the person i needed to become. it was here that i first learned the truism that words make the world and how to trust such a beautiful, rife, hard fact.

thank you for meeting me here in such tall grass.


my artist website is here.

Nov 26, 2012

beautiful day

i pulled on the shiny black pants i bought in new york.  i pulled a sweater over my head that i made at the beginning of this year and have never worn.  i stuck little pins in it. one that says R. MUTT and one that says I WILL CRUSH YOU. then, i went walking in the dark and in the cold.  it lit up my lungs and skin.  i feel a bit lighter in spite of myself, in spite of my arrogant pins.

i indulged in some much needed sweater-making time today.  i sipped coffee and wrote.  and last night after my last blog post i stayed up til 2am reading The Maids by Genet.  i truly love that man's work.  i love his ecstatic, passionate engagement with language.  after i get further along in german, i'll dive in to french so that i can read his work in its original form.  but The Maids...  it is a dark, seething play.  it spews the hatred that the poor of this earth often feel.  it tells of the insanity that can grow from humiliation and degradation.  it tells of the insanity that can grow from envy and subjugation.  it tells of the insanity that two sisters can grow together if left alone together too long in too hard a world.  it tells of the insanity we can encourage in each other when we stroke dangerous desires; the dire longing that reduces one to a state of abjection.  or maybe it isn't insanity at all?  i remember feeling the same way when i was very young and growing up poor.  i remember feeling so much less than everyone else.  my cousins and my classmates.  our society encourages it.  it's always been the case that we associate beauty with wealth.  to be poor is to be ugly.  to be poor is to be lazy and stupid.  to be poor is to be lesser.  or so the lesson goes.  it took many years to root that lesson out.  nevertheless, reading The Maids last night i could identify with that hard longing to be seen as an equal, to be valued for something more substantial than what clothes rest on my back.  and the language of the play is absolutely stunning.  cutting.  Genet is as masterful at sarcasm as he is at poetics.  i'm happy i stayed up late last night and read it.  i'm happy i stayed up late last night and read!  i plan to do the same tonight.

i went walking in the cold because i needed to buy a new notebook.  one more notebook filled and one more to go (at least) before the end of the year finds me.  i can't believe winter is already here.  wasn't it just yesterday that i was braving these winds?  did summer and fall already rush by? god, it's all been such a rush of image and breath and dance.  such a flood of music and alcohol and laughter.  i'm glad i took the time to write so much of it down.

i am so lucky to have crossed your path. 


4 comments:

Rebecca said...

I wish I could make sweaters for myself. I have a student who knits in class and I always want to touch everything, the colorful yarns, the hot needles.

angela simione said...

hi rebecca, you CAN make sweaters. i promise. it basically requires a fondness for repetitive motion and that's it. oh, and being a glutton for punishment helps as well. it is a tedious task but being able to make your own sweaters (or any of your own clothes for that matter) is seriously fantastic. my favorite clothes in my closet tend to be the items i've made. :)

P.C. Fergusson said...

What's that on the wall behind you? Have you posted the pages of a book you are writing or reading?

angela simione said...

hi miss fergusson, they're actually redacted pages from a book i found on the ground. some bad murder-mystery thing that i'm not reading other than scanning to find beautiful little combinations of words. it's just something i do as a way to keep moving forward poetically. sometimes, the pages are their own thing, other times they expand in to a larger artwork. i like them. :)