writer problems

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i need to start over, perhaps. 

i need a different set of rules (or maybe no rules at all) when it comes to this place, when it comes to words on a page, when it comes to reaching out to other human beings through these electronic waves.

i've had this little sandbox of mine for so long, this blog. the last few months it's become increasingly hard to write here and i'm not sure why.  i want to write here.  i miss having a daily love affair with my blog and want to rekindle my fervor. walking home from the grocery store this evening, i agonized over why it's been so hard for me to come here, to type out the words...  and i think it's because i'm judging the whole enterprise by what this blog has been and not allowing for what it could be.  i'm not allowing for change and so it's become stagnant.

maybe i needed a break for awhile too.  maybe i needed to step away from the out-pour.  maybe i needed a bit of privacy.  everyone needs to curl up under the covers some times and just hide from life.  i'm no different.  perhaps that's all i've really been doing by not writing here: claiming a space of silence for myself, allowing myself a deep, abiding privacy and quietude.

some explorations are necessarily made under lock and key, away from the eyes and ears of the world, in total darkness, in total silence, under the sheets, without words, without record, without apology.  i've largely enjoyed my silence. still, it isn't me to not write.  it is such a huge part of who i am and how i live.  there is the diary, yes, and there always will be but the writing i do there is entirely different from what lands in public spaces.  a different impulse is responsible for bringing me to this electric square of light and a different urge is satisfied when i type.  a different demon is exorcised when i publish my thoughts here. 

i need to just let this space evolve.  evolve or die.  the strictures must be chopped away and i need to hold on to the fact that this place was always intended to be a place where i could say whatever i wanted, without fear and without judgement.  it's always been meant to be a play-space.  it's unhelpful for me to judge my life and self and writing NOW by what i wrote BEFORE.  i need to let go of the writer i used to be and nurture the writer i am now. i'm not who i once was.  the temperature of my entire world has changed and, when i look back, certain days feel like total fictions. 

how do i set myself free from what my own practice has been?  how do i stop holding up current projects to the expectations set down by previous accomplishments?  how do i write without thinking at all about what i've written before?  how do i begin again?  how do i start anew?  because that's exactly what needs to happen.


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gently and gladly

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there are blessings everywhere.  even in this pain.  i am reminded of the very first injury-  it was then that i picked up my dusty crochet hook and taught myself the bastard stitch.  it was then that i began to lean on text and textile rather than oil.  it was then that i learned how to be patient-  a hard task for such an eager girl.  this past week, i had to learn it all over again.

it's not easy for me to be cooped up.  for as much as i may enjoy my solitude, it is only because my life is generally very busy.  my days careen by in a fantastic parade of images and sounds, a whirlwind of restaurant life, art life, and romantic intrigue.  my long mornings at home before work have become so precious to me and i am possessive of them.  the hours i spend sipping coffee, writing, and listening to music as i leisurely get dressed are prized.  my days off are spent primarily at home.  i am stingy with my free time as that is really the only time i have to become deeply involved in my projects.  this past week though, i actually had time to read again.  i pulled IN MEMORIAM TO IDENTITY  by Kathy Acker from my shelf, lay down on my stomach with an icepack on my lower back, and read until the narcotic bliss of the Norco i'd popped swept me away in to a crazy menagerie of chemically fueled dreams.  actually quite a wonderful way to spend an afternoon.  one must look for the pleasures within the agony in this type of situation.  :)

slowly, i'm bouncing back.  i could walk today with just a hint of a limp.  i couldn't walk at my normal quick clip but i could walk.  that's truly all that matters.

now, laying on an icepack again in bed, smiling to myself as i realize it is friday night and most other people i know are excitedly hurrying off to enjoy whatever revelry awaits in this wide city, i am content to spend the evening at home with my work.

earlier today, i shipped two crochet pieces to Darger HQ for next month's show and then spent a few hours leafing through old portfolios of my drawings, work i haven't viewed in close to three years.  i smiled to myself as their graphite edges dirtied my hands.  i smiled and thought, "geez...  maybe i am a pretty good artist after all."

all week i've returned, over and over again, to the knowledge that art is truly what my life is about and that i should never allow myself to become blind to or distant from that fact.  it's easy to get wrapped up in work and saving money and making plans for the future without stopping to think about the REAL work i do: the art.  maybe because i've spent the last 2 years working primarily on the street, it's easy for me to forget the old dreams of attending residencies and submitting work to shows, magazines, etc.  it's easy to fall out of that particular loop when one no longer pays any attention to things like deadlines.  for awhile, i didn't miss it.  in fact, i liked not being a part of it.  i liked having a break from all that worry and struggle.  it was important to me to separate myself from those ambitions because they had been so intertwined with the life i led in my last relationship.  i didn't want to think of those goals and i didn't want to look at the work i made during that time.  especially during the last few years.  the pain and isolation i felt during that time was too easily awakened.  it sat so plainly on the surface of all my drawings.  it was so obvious.  i couldn't do anything but tuck them safely away in portfolios to be stacked in the back of my closet.  i needed to make a new life.

but lately, i've been thinking of those dreams again.  i'm excited about next month's show- to have work in a gallery space again, to see how it interacts with the work of other artists, to see how it looks surrounded by white.  and looking at my old drawings today made me want to show them too.  but more than that, it made me want to draw again.

soon.

soon.

and i look forward to being totally sideswiped by it.  i look forward to seeing what images arrive first.  tonight, it is enough just to listen to the click of the keys beneath my fingers and the train in the distance.  tonight, it is enough to dream again, to hunger after these things.  tonight, it is enough to lay in bed on an icepack and crochet.  this gentleness is its own type of luxury.  quiet and unassuming and hidden from the eyes of the world, i lay below an open window and knot thread in to lace, and feel happy about the future.

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a song for the new year

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too many people wondering this time of year if they should stay or if they should go.  well...

as the queen says, second best is never enough.  you'll do much better, baby, on your own.  ;)

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yeah, i said it

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tonight, i think "fuck grad school"...

tomorrow i'll probabaly think different.

and next week i'll be in anguish.

because how fucking long am i gonna hem and haw over this shit?

how many weeks/months/years

because before i know it i'll be 50

and before i know it i'll be 60...

or at least, i fucking HOPE i'll be 60...

you know my mother died a week before her 56th birthday, right?  it's gonna feel really fucking weird when i turn 56.  if i am so lucky.  because i assure you, all youzzz who are over 55 and are reading this are LUCKY.  it's true.  so isn't it totally stupid that at the age of 33 i'm worried that i'm somehow passed my "prime".  fucking stupid. because i assure anyone that may need assurance, i live on the edge of my prime.  my feet are hardly wet.  i love this place where i stand.  how is it that inadequacy finds me?  how is it i ever feel unsure?  how is it i look at my eyes in the mirror and search for the crow's feet???

AS IF THAT SHIT MEANS A FUCKING THING!

i will tell you right now, crow's feet don't make a shit bit of difference when we're talking about ANYTHING that actually matters and is worth discussion.  a wrinkle don't mean a thing when we're talking about art and it don't mean a thing when you're bleeding out (or over, or on) a poem (writer or reader).  a fucking wrinkle won't get in the way of any type of real beauty, not for a second, and it sure as shit won't make me look any less magical, any less spectacular, any less worthy of idols fashioned in my likeness when i'm sucking your cock.  just saying.  and if that's crude, if that's distasteful, i really don't give a shit.  i truly don't care.  because anyone who's got a cock i should be sucking wouldn't be offended by anything i've just said at all.  in fact, they'd get hard.  and for more than the obvious reason.  i let some twisted ass suburban version of spirituality pervert my view of Self for far too long and i've been listening to britney spears and drinking vodka all night.  just a regular sunday night.  i've been getting my hands dirty with graphite and thanking my lucky stars that i'm not trapped in the life that was (once upon a time) laid out for me. some life of bitching at each other...  some life of being told what to do and how to be.  come on now.  i ain't my mama.  i don't get told what to do.  i loved that woman, be sure, but she wasn't perfect.  and all us girls are allowed, at a certain point, to critique our mothers (dead or not), to see them as women, and to determine for ourselves who we will be despite the crazy shit they taught us.  it doesn't make me love my mother any less and it surely doesn't make me miss her any less to tell you that she fucked me up.  she did.  so did my dad.  that's what parents do.  i am not minimizing ANYTHING.  because the truth is that some parents fucked their kids up way more than others.  *cough cough*

but this isn't about blame.  it's about singularity and how to bare it.  how to walk with one's head held high amidst the onslaught of judgement flooding forth from the most unsupposed places and people. it's about fear;  the horrible nagging fear that maybe your best just plain sucks.  it's about the strain and stress of looking at one's own life and wondering what the fuck avenue to cruise down next.

don't you know i just want to run to you, curl up against you, feel that tremendously beautiful heat that i cannot provide myself regardless of how hard i try, and spin in that beautiful ache of pleasure and pain and need.  don't you know that your face in my hands is the only image i actually think sacred?  don't you know that when you slapped my face, i found completion, and all i want is to curl at your feet and whisper all my secrets across your toes.  i'll scratch your back and play your favorite song on repeat...

or at least, i would...

if i were as brave as i try to be.


tonight i think "fuck it all".

tonight i think, "just tell everyone you love that you love them".



and really, who gives a shit if you've got a line at the corner of your eye.  girl, keep smiling.  you've got every reason.  it makes you more beautiful anyway.  that's what i've been telling myself all day.  even though my life has been what it's been, i've got every reason to smile, the least of which  is that it makes other humans want to be around me and i really like hugs and scritches.
 

curl up with me.  let me scratch your back.  come watch me draw pictures.  come drink my vodka.  come help me practice my german and french.  come dance.

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my mama (what do they know about this love anyway?)

i get home, i take my shoes off, i pour myself a drink,  i take my drink to bed.  it sits on the night stand and i think: "maybe i should write?"  i have nothing important to say, it's true.  and maybe i never have.  maybe i just like to talk.  in fact, i wake up wanting to talk.  that's why i'm a diarist.  i've learned how to channel my waking need for conversation into a literary habit.  i remember walking into my mother's bedroom when i was 18 or 19 years old and instantly gabbing at her about the dreams i had or whatever i had planned for the day.  she'd be there, lazy eyed with her coffee, rubbing her feet together, one over the other, and she'd say, "Angela, i am not awake enough for this yet.  go away. "  hahaha!  and it would hurt my feelings so bad!!!!  but then i met other people who are like that too.  i no longer take offense.  how can i when i have a diary?  a page is always open to what i have to say no matter how boring or insignificant.

but god...  my mama.  damn, i miss that woman sometimes. she had a funny way about her.  a goofiness tempered with the allure of her height and thinness and full lips that was so endearing.  she could be so silly in such a brilliant, life-affirming way.  she really did love the world...  all the little secret, forgotten things that no one pays any mind to.  if you ever wanted to go thrifting or poking through flea markets, she was the woman to follow.  she had such a big love for the forgotten things in the world; the things other people considered to be junk or thrash.  she would take those things and arrange them, just so, on a mantle or on a window sill and it would be such a beautiful thing.  high design.  she should have been an interior decorator or just a straight up artist.  she should have never listened to the crap her husbands told her or the rest of the world either.  she should have listened to me.  really, she should have.  she should have just painted and written poetry and played her guitar and sang.  she should have been as wild as her curls.  as wild, but just as soft.  she was such a sensitive woman.  beautiful.  aggravating sometimes, but nevertheless charming.  i had the health of her spirit in mind every step of the way.  i loved her and i wanted the best for her.  i wanted her to find the strength to tell everyone to Fuck Off. i wanted her to be herself.  and damn right!  i wanted her to ENJOY being a curly-headed mess, rambling around in yummy plummy lipstick, melissa etheridge on the radio as she bumbled down the highway in her bouncy Wrangler.  i wanted her to flip people off and smile as her huge gold hoop earrings dangled against her cheek, her huge smile flashing and that damn cigarette pinched confidently between her fingers of her left hand.

how did i get on this subject?

oh, yeah, i wanted to talk.

i'm telling ya, i am the worst girl in the world to bring home or attempt to seduce.  my chatterbox ass just won't shut the fuck up. before you know it, it's 4am and i've barely taken my shoes off  :)

i know what my mother looks like driving a jeep through the southern california sun down the 10 freeway singing this song.  i know how the light catches her curls.  i know how the light catches her lips.  and i know how she sounds when she sings, "i'm coming home!"  i know how beautiful we both were in that windy, bumpy moment...  all the times we drove through the rich neighborhoods looking at big houses and dreaming together, smoking marlboro reds, and trying to hold tight to the small ache inside of each of us that told us we weren't nothing...  that we weren't born wrong...  that it isn't a sin to want something better, or at least something fitting... 

that it isn't a sin to want love not to hurt.

happy

went out yarnbombing last night after a beautiful and fun dinner with my beautiful and fun friend Trish.  i love that we got to see each other before i take off on this adventure.  she is one of the most well-traveled, adventurous, insightful, and open people i have ever met.  i feel so blessed every time we hang out because i walk away so much richer with insight and perspective than i was before.  i picked her brain for travel advice and how tipping works in other countries.  i'm so looking forward to the food.  especially in france.  i will definitely eat snails and frog legs.  but more than anything, i'm looking forward to simply being in a foreign land.  simply sitting at a cafe and people-watching will be such a deep pleasure for me and so affective.  Trish said to be safe but not worry too much and just have fun.  i will do my very best to do just that.  she bought me two greyhounds at a bar we'd never been to before after dinner and then dropped me off at the corner of Claremont and Telegraph so i could install a few pieces on my walk home.  i've been trying to get every parking sign on the even numbered side of the street from the traffic light at Aileen to the light at 59th.  last night i reached my goal.  :)  it was important to me to get it done before leaving.  i walked slowly down Telegraph Ave and straightened the other bombs and even replaced the one someone snipped down as a souvenir.   i was sad to see one go missing but also complimented that someone out there likes the work so much they couldn't resist taking it.

 

this afternoon, i walked back to take photos of the work.  i decided to put on my travel bag, fully loaded, and see how heavy the thing really is.  after about a half hour, it felt pretty heavy.  Becca and i are going to get fucking buff, is what.  ha!  but it was such a privately romantic moment...  just walking down my city's streets with my bag on my back, dreaming of new york and paris, and berlin, and  photographing my work up in midst of all this oakland buzz and hustle.   it was a beautiful way to spend the afternoon.

the last few days have been exceptionally beautiful, actually.  i had dinner with Becca's mom the evening before and being around her is so emotionally and spiritually nourishing.  i think of her as Spiritual Food.  i truly do.  i leave feeling replenished and excited and driven to "be MORE myself" (always hearing your voice in my head these days, suzanne, encouraging me along).  we had goat cheese stuffed dates that were wrapped in bacon and they were unbelievable.  i can't even describe how delicious they were.  over dinner we talked and talked and talked about europe and how special it is that Becca and i are undertaking this together.  "i met your daughter almost 8 years ago in a color theory class and look at all the beautiful colors we've managed to bring to each other ever since." i said.  sentimental as fuck, yes!  but sentimentality has its place too and i'll never feel embarrassed of appreciating and loving another person.  not ever.  i am honored to have the opportunity to do so and to feel this way.  i'm lucky to have such amazing women in my life and i adore them something fierce.

and then last night after i got home from dropping all my bombs (6 in total last night), seth and i stayed up drinking (well, i drank anyway) and watching the final dance scene in Dirty Dancing over and over again.  i tried to learn the steps in the kitchen and quickly realized i need to hunt down a tutorial.   :)

watch this and try not to smile.  it's a piece of my childhood and makes me laugh joyfully like a child everytime i see this!

 

 :D

a run of beautiful days leading up to my departure.  i am so thankful for the beauty that swirls around and through my life.  hard to imagine how desperate and sad i once felt.  hard to believe that i was once convinced i was not capable of living this way.  i am astounded and endlessly grateful for the freedom i now enjoy.  endlessly endlessly endlessly.

MORE MORE MORE

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a new day, a new notebook.  it's always a fantastic feeling.  but for the passed three days i've been locked inside a NyQuil stupor, stoned as hell on over-the-counter cold medicine, trying to shake whatever bad bug this is that bit me.  yesterday and the day before all i did was sleep.  today, i was at least able to sit and write for awhile before needing to head back to bed.  i won't be making in to class tonight.  

and so i lay down in my warm bed and medication and twist black yarn around my hook.  stitch by stitch, i go.  how soothing it is.  how familiar, how comforting.  it is a balm and a deep, good therapy.  maybe it is how i mother myself?  making all these blankets and sweaters?  i fashion sites of warmth and emblems of safety for myself. i wrap myself up in my tiny poems emblazoned in wool.  i leave them on street in the hope that those who need a bit of comfort may stumble across my little offerings.  i begin to dream of the future again...  a future self and who that might be.

it occurred to me in the wee hours of the morning that i have occupied my white room for almost a year.  may 1st is the anniversary.  look at all these important markers of time all lined up in a row!  it catches my attention in such a serious way.  it's been an entire year now that i have been completely on my own, no hand to hold, paying all my bills myself, buying plane tickets and red lipstick as often as i felt need to, and never for one second letting the reigns slip from my fist.  every time i've maintained control over my own life, day, and destiny the results have always been good.  i've been happier, not to mention more successful.  and likewise, every time i handed over control of my life to someone else the results have been atrocious.  unhappiness followed quickly on the heels of such a horrible decision.  i can't ever imagine making such a decision again.  i can't ever see a day when i will sacrifice my financial Independence.  being able to choose the terms and conditions of my own life is the greatest gift i've ever given myself and i will never give it up.  my daily existence is so free, so respectful of my being and loves.  now, more than anything, i simply want to be more and more my Self.

i've been crocheting a new round of yarn bombs the passed week.  they read "cry harder".  that's what i aspire to.  that's what i want for all of us.  to cry harder, cry louder.  to be ourselves without reservation or apology.  i hope to drop a few in san francisco and oakland in a few days once this sickness has passed through me and left me stronger as a result.  in so many ways, street art is the pinnacle of artistic production because it doesn't seek permission or reassurance.  it simply IS, and it is up to US to reckon with IT.  i love it.  i'm not very good at it yet but i'm thankful to take part to the small extent i do. it makes my life feel poetic.  it makes me feel alive inside my own body, inside my spirit, inside the night and this world and all my unnameable desires.

relocation is Prime.

and in the art realm of things, i've got some work online at Darger HQ and more coming soon.  i also updated my White Columns account.   take a peek!

a new season scratches at my cheeks

i am always catching the last train home.  in my neck of the woods that means i need to get my ass to the station by midnight.  tonight, as i sat sprawled in the powder blue seat and gazed at the interior of the empty train car i alone occupied, i thought, "i don't think the trains in New York are ever this private".

i've been missing New York a lot lately.  so much, in fact, that this evening at work i requested some time off in late april to go back for a few days.  and this time it won't be to get rowdy, though i'm sure there will be a bit of that too.  museums by day and LES bars by night.  primarily though, i want to go and look around with a serious eye.  the ache in me to walk those beautiful streets throbs something awful.  i miss the way the air moves there.  i miss the sound of all that hustle. 

the last few weeks it has been very hard for me to ignore the fact that i am in definite need of a change of scenery.  in august, it will be 8 years that i've lived in the Bay Area. and even though i'm working and taking classes, making progress in my personal endeavors, the fact remains that i'm sort of just hanging out.  i don't plan to or want to go to grad school here.  my two american dream schools are Columbia University and UCLA.  what am i doing farting around in oaktown for?  i can wait tables and make art anywhere.  i have a good job but it's nothing to plan my future around.

the last year was largely about figuring out how to give myself permission to live life again, to be wild and unruly if i needed and not beat myself up about it, to be myself without apology.  i'm so tired of this horrible instinct toward guilt that was instilled in me as a child.  any time i begin to think of my own dreams or what it takes for my to feel happy an fulfilled, the accusation of SELFISH SELFISH SELFISH resounds in my ears. it's no way to live.  not if one actually wants to do something beautiful with the short time one is allotted on this rock.  i've learned how to put that knowledge in to action.  it's time, again, to grow and explore.  it's time, again, to welcome discomfort and create the situation of sink-or-swim.  i tend to be at my finest in those dire moments.  if the choices i am presented with are to fail or to shine, i always shine.

and so the decision is made.  for my birthday this year i will relocate.  september 3rd is the mark.  from here on out all i can do is work, work, work and save, save, save.  if i can get it done before my birthday, even better.  a new adventure is on it's way.

let me lay a little judgement down, let me cast my questions out

don't write for the public, just write.  

don't write for the public, just write.  

don't write for the public, just write.  

don't write for the public, just write.  

don't write for the public, just write.  

don't write for the public, just write.  

don't write for the public, just write. 

don't write for the public, just write. 

don't write for the public, just write.

don't write for the public, just write. 

write as if no one is watching.  

especially your mother's family.

this is what i tell myself tonight as my fingers reach for the keys.  i tell myself: please do not try for eloquence or an even keel.  do not reach toward that horrible expectation to be fucking fair and unbiased and full of benevolence.  i am not a god and don't want the responsibility of one.  though as far as i can tell, gods are really just dead-beats who somehow managed to turn the abuse of neglect in to "mystery".   maybe being a god is the freest thing an entity can be?  still, i prefer the heat of my flesh to the cold skin of aloof perfection.  i turn back through the pages of my ravaged and bent diary and find so many insights to cling to.  and not simply of my own either.  i've recorded the things friends have said to me.  beautiful, intelligent, talented, cultured women who i am stunned by and proud to know. i thankfully had the good sense to write down the advice they gave me and the assessments they made.  whether it be a day ago or a year ago, their words are a balm and a warm hug.  just like everyone else i possess a tremendous talent for convincing myself that i'm Right.  :)  luckily, i am a diarist and can prove to myself otherwise.  my wet and trembling eyes skate hungrily across the thin blue lines that carry my handwriting.  i read page after page.  the ink functions as a mirror.  at times my script becomes wild and loopy as my emotions build and gather steam.  other times, i am controlled.  my script is measured and small, sure of the curve of an N and the beautiful slant of a T.  in the diary i write in cursive so that i can write as fast as possible.  

i will never be able to write fast enough.

what i wanted to talk about tonight is that marriage seems largely like a bunch of bullshit but doesn't that make me sound bitter? does it make me sound envious?  i assure you i am not envious of married people and if any married person wants to know why that might be, i suggest you take a moment and look at how YOU speak about marriage.  y'all don't exactly seem to be a fount of five star reviews.  just sayin.  y'all speak ATROCIOUSLY about what marriage entails.  you use the worst language imaginable to speak about your spouse.  it's sickening.  it really is.  not to mention totally offensive.  WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU STILL MARRIED IF THAT'S HOW YOU REALLY FEEL?  seriously???  why are you married?  and please don't give me that "for the kids" crap.  we are all so beyond that degraded, abusive, deformed logic.  the desire to have children itself is, in our time and place, a pretty thin reason in and of itself to wed.  i myself do not intend to procreate.  i have absolutely no desire to be a mother.  i do not want to bear children.  in fact, i am doing my best to ensure that my particular bloodline has the least chance of survival possible (and if you met some of my family members, you'd understand why).  aside from that glaring bit of judgement, i simply do not find babies to be at all compelling.  i never have.  i have more to offer this planet and humanity than my biological capabilities.  i do not think that raising children would be a worthwhile way to spend my time.  not at all.  and why does everyone seem to throw logic out the fucking window when it comes to this topic???  as if EVERYONE needs to have a baby???  for all you know, i might end up being the WORST MOTHER IN THE WORLD!  but i suppose it's the same dumbass glitch that makes us all believe that, upon someone's death, even the monsters among us go to heaven.  because i'm not talking about the waiters, artists, and chefs i frequently hang out with, i'm talking about regular people in the suburbs.  all the so-called Christians who esteem the institution of marriage.  y'all should hear how your respective mate speaks about you when you aren't in the room.  better yet, maybe you should go to your room and think about how you speak about your mate.  use it as a mirror.  look at how ugly you've become.  look at what an ugly proposition you've presented marriage to be.  think about all the things you deny your counterpart.  think about all the rules you've wrapped around them and your association with one another.  all the little signals you expect to see as PROOF that he or she really loves you.  i am becoming convinced that it isn't love that most people want, it's protection of their fabulously tiny egos.  as i move forward i realize more and more that i am simply uninterested in a conventional life.  i am not interested in being involved in what others have termed a "real" relationship.  if the utter shit y'all are describing is a "real" relationship, i prefer to play house, thank you.

i know 3 couples, maybe, who seem to truly love and respect each other.  their love is an encouragement to me that maybe something different from what i've known exists.  i don't want to be embittered or smug.  of course i want to believe that i belong somewhere and that at some point in my life i will be appreciated.  why do i need it to be "forever"?  nothing is forever.  we all march toward our demise.  death is not a fiction.  we age every day.  we will all find  another white hair in the mirror tomorrow.  while i'm here and while i am able, i want to create as much joy and passion as possible.  i don't need someone to promise the rest of their life to me in order to appreciate the absolutely stunning beauty of their humanity.  the rest of a person's life is a huge thing.  who am i to dictate the terms of it or feel entitled to make rules regarding it?  love is not subject to scarcity.  there is not a limit to how much love a person can feel.  there is not a limit to how much beauty a person can behold and appreciate.  and pain will come regardless so let's just get over our egos and let people be who they are.  if anything, that's what i want.  i want to be myself.  i want you to be yourself. i don't want to be a parent.  i don't want to suppress another human being.  i want a man that i might love to come back to me freely at night.  i don't want a man to lay next to me out of a sense of obligation or pathetic fear.  i've had that and it is torture.  it is torture to lay next to the sleeping body of someone and know, for a fact, that they are only there because it has become expected, because it has become comfortable.  i would rather risk my heart being broken over and over than ever suffer that shit again.  why should anyone think my heart too fragile to withstand the risk?  i'm an orphan, guys.  we're tough. and like most tough motherfuckers, we are capable of tremendous love.  we are capable of ushering forth tremendous compassion, beauty, understanding, patience, and appreciation for the hardships and horrors inherent to humanity.  what i am no longer capable of (and i hope my siblings aren't either) is allowing another person or social expectation to limit the amount of pleasure, beauty, and love that exists in my life.  if someone loves me for a day or a year or 10 years, it is a gift so long as we are both being ourselves.  i don't need an ordination to know it or a tradition to approve it.  my mother would high-five me and kiss my forehead and hug me so tight and say, "little girl, you better suck every bit of joy you can out of this experience".  i know because she said it to me often enough when she was alive.  she knew my heart.  she knew how soft it is, how eager to please and comfort.  she worried that it would be taken advantage of.  it has been, in horrible ways, but i am not afraid of testing other waters.  i know how to be myself.  i know my own death will find me.  i am afraid of it finding me too soon.  i am afraid of it finding me in the midst of some unreasonable fear or expectation that prevents me from knowing the world in all it's sorrowful glory. i am afraid of it finding me before i kiss the weary eyes of another human being who has also been subject to the wrath of this world's winds and retributions.

fin.

WORDS WORDS WORDS

my Talent of the Room finds me and every morning i spend a solid 2 hours writing in my diary at the kitchen table as i sip my coffee.  i look out the window onto my busy street.  i listen to the cars and people rambling by.  i feel the sun on my legs and the pen in my hand.  soft pleasures.  necessities.  i can't imagine ever being without this little waking ritual of mine.  i can't imagine ever giving this up.  these hours behind the pen, inside language, inside the inexplicable twists of dreams and memories.  there's nothing "little" about it.

i've fallen back in to a phase of self-investigation and exploration.  i doubt one's need for such things ever really goes away and that's probably a good thing.  as i gain insight and information, i recalibrate.  as i pick up moments of confusion and wonder - or even doubt and fear - i use them to look a bit closer at my own motives and desires.  everyday i seem to be learning more about myself.  i feel like i'm growing up in a totally new way.

i finished reading the second volume of my 2012 diary yesterday on my train to work.  going through these pages is an integral part of my current round of investigation.  i feel so lucky to have such a tool at my disposal.  i can't explain how amazingly valuable it is to be able to read exactly what i was thinking about and wrestling with on THIS DAY one year ago.  it's a fantastic was to measure change.  but also, i return to the idea that to keep a diary is more than simply recording one's thoughts and activities.  it is a life's work.  i've said so many times here that words make the world and i truly believe that.  language is a living, nebulous thing and our use of it impacts how we see ourselves and the world we inhabit.  it determines the world we create.  my attractions all have a root in Language.  from the look of a person's handwriting to the particularities and lilt of speech to the a person's command over poetics or even just the maintenance of a deep, strong vocabulary, my interest is ensnared.  i have deep attraction to people who have big vocabularies and can use them effortlessly, who don't sound pompous and puffed-up.  even the sound of someone's sigh is attractive to me and a good laugh is a very strong aphrodisiac.

all this to say- language, in all its forms, the very act of and desire to communicate with another human being is something i've always been attracted to and is a basic building block of my own personality.  as i look back and re-live certain experiences through the lens of my diary, i see how necessary certain types of connection are to me.  i need conversation, intellectual engagement, philosophic enterprise, and poetic experience.  simply put, i need passion.  i am not a simple person who can be satisfied by simple relationships.  i'm not difficult either but "difficult" is not the only opposite of "simple".  complexity is also an antonym.  i like complex people.  i like the mysteries they contain.  i like not knowing the next thing that might shoot out of a person's mouth and i appreciate people who know how to hold up their end of a conversation. 

sounds simple enough until i look deeper at the statements that i just put forth.  it is romantic to say that i want a passionate life.  but in accepting a passionate life, one also accepts the necessity of pain.  one must accept certain risks and that sometimes the gamble will be lost.  i won't always come out on top but, thankfully, i'm the type of person that can turn almost any negative in to a positive.  i'm not thankful that other people have mistreated me and i would probably never thank someone for their atrocious behavior regardless of the good that may have ended up flowing from it later on.  but i am thankful to be the kind of person that can take that hurt and allow it to polish me rather than become embittered against others.  it's not so much a point of forgiving others as it is a matter of forgiving myself.  i'm not exactly sure what that means or how to accomplish such a thing other than learning from my own mistakes and not allowing myself to slide back in to familiar, yet harmful, patterns. 

it's difficult to know, though, when i'm being smart or when i'm running scared.  certain emotions make me feel foolish now and i've noticed lately that i run from them.  i play it cool and not a single ripple of embarrassment or heartache will show on my surface if i can help it.  i have no problem showcasing pain in art or writing or even here on the blog but i do not put that shit on display in front of many other people.  there is a very small handful of people that i am close enough with to really lay my emotions out in front of and, within that group, still fewer that i would actually allow to see or hear me cry.  but i suppose that feeling foolish (or even actually being foolish from time to time) is going to be part of the ride.  necessarily so.  but i don't know how to uproot this idea that seems to have grown in me that others will find my emotions to be repulsive.  i don't know how to counteract my experience that people run away from the darkness a human being contains.  i don't know how to stop believing that most people are fair-weather friends.  somehow i must unlearn these things and manage to become brave enough to risk feeling foolish. it's the next step in becoming a better friend and a better artist.  risk is mandatory. especially for someone like me who wants to know about the world and establish meaning in life.  especially for someone who doesn't think before she writes and puts all this shit out on to the internet for anyone to read. ;)

exposure

i spent this grey day at home in my pajamas studying german vocabulary and listening to german music.  i am a bit under the weather today.  my throat is sore and so are my eyes.  the perils of airline travel.  trapped in that recirculated air for 6 hours isn't exactly the best shit to breath.  but it's worth it to have seen the atlantic again.  it's worth it to have seen that distant sky.  my flight in was diverted to Buffalo due to dense fog at JFK.  a gorgeous sunrise met us there.  me and so many strangers walked to the large window with our cups of airport coffee and stood there gazing together at that luscious, unexpected orange. 

and then to come home to 70 degree weather and bright skies.
and then to come home to such ease and warmth.
and then to come home.
in spite of this little chest cold, i feel lucky and light.  i've been to New York twice in 2 1/2 months.

i spent the first 2 hours of my day scribbling leisurely in my notebook, recounting kisses and attempting to identify my newest desires and latest dreams.  life has changed so much this year.  life has changed so much in the last 2 months.  and something has clicked in to place as a result of returning to the scene of certain crimes.  something has healed.  i no longer feel quite so dire as i did before.  i no longer feel like time is quickly running out.  i no longer feel that i need to be wild in order to feel that i have lived.  i enjoy wildness, it's true, but the past few days i've enjoyed a deep, warm sense of calm.  a stillness.  a readiness for something a bit more serious.

after ending a long term relationship at the beginning of this year, i think i needed to take advantage of a very high level of freedom.  i needed to stay out late and dance and drink and have fun.  i needed to be stupid and i needed to be dangerous.  i needed to stop caring about the clock for awhile; expectations and responsibilities and all the things i had allowed to take root in me that choked my ability to blossom and change.  i needed to cut away so many things.  i needed to turn my back on so many things i was taught.  those horrible falsities and all the beautiful lies we are sometimes so eager to believe.  for years i listened to my instincts screaming at me to leave but i was just so fucking afraid of so many things to know how to do it.  i had come to believe that being myself was a selfish thing.  i had been made to believe that every desire of mine was self-serving and, therefore, shameful.  i am finally taking a clean, deep breath.  all these months and years later am i finally able to look at what i tolerated and ask myself why?

when you've been taught from childhood to believe that everything you are is bad and wrong, you become unable to trust your own instincts.  you become unable to act in your own best interest.  you put other people's happiness well before your own because "that's what a good person does".  you tuck your tail and you smile.  you save your tears for the shower.  you become a master of silent crying.  you become a master of self-denial and self-deception.  you stay put because you've been taught so thoroughly to believe that you are somehow deficient.

deficient.
inadequate.
silly.
dirty.
dumb.
ridiculous.
selfish.
childish.
ugly.

and it is only when you are doing what you're told that maybe a bit of affection is thrown your way.  a crumb.  a scrap.  a pat on the head.

as my mother crept ever closer to her death, i began to see so glaringly that i had been chasing scraps of approval my entire life.  so had she.  she was strong in so many beautiful ways but also suffered from such tremendous guilt.  she too believed that everything about her was bad and wrong:  the legacy that is handed down.

shortly after she died i was able to say fuck it.  if i'm bad, i'm bad. so be it.  if i'm selfish, so be it.  shit can't get any goddamn worse.  i feel like dying too.  if this is what being Good gets me, let me test drive Bad.  my life depends on it.

i used to cry almost every day.  in the last 9 months maybe i've cried 9 times.  and i'm being generous in my estimate.  deciding to stop caring about whether or not other people will label me as selfish is the best decision i could have ever made.  my worst fear is hurting other people and that has led quickly to my own undoing, my own site of deep, atrocious pain.  i am so afraid of being a disappointment that i silence myself, i tie myself in knots, i wake up in a panic in the middle of the night afraid that i am the worst person alive and wondering how i can gain forgiveness for the fact of my horrible birth.  i have let other people do horrible things to me.  friends, family members, lovers.  i have tolerated extreme neglect.  i have tolerated viciousness and cruelty.  i have allowed myself to be convinced that i deserved these things.  this is the self-hatred that was instilled in me at the very beginning of my life.

a friend of mine recently passed on a saying to me: we recieve the love we think we deserve.

i've been turning it over and over inside my head.  i've aimed it right at my heart like a gun and i've rolled around in it like a child in tall grass.   i obviously thought i deserved very little;  that love was something i could only aspire to give but not necessarily receive.  during the last few months of my life, i've loved myself in a way i lacked for a very long time.  i decided to attend to my own needs and not leave it up to chance or benevolence.  i've had more fun that i can describe and i've written some of the best prose of my life as a result.  i've met so many interesting people and have had my faith in humanity restored by such seemingly simple things as dancing with strangers in dark clubs and watching the sunrise in a different time-zone.

i walked down market street in san francisco last night to meet a friend for drinks and as i crossed the street, i thought i stand entirely on my own...  god, this feels fantastic. 

to be alive...

the streets are wet and black.  a slow rain is coming down.  i am wearing one of the first sweaters i ever made.  how strange to think of where i was then, and how i spent my nights and days. even my body is a different size.  george michael sings in my ear (again and again) and a faithful Greyhound rests at my side.  i think this might be the first time its rained since i moved in to my white room. 

what can i give you tonight?  or any other night that might make up for my arrogant absences?  what can i give you that might mend the tear that i can't help but deal with my sad silences?  sometimes i need such a grand depth of space around me, such a deep, abiding stillness.  i slink low in to my warm bath of solitude and i do not surface until i have to.  i languish in it.  i luxuriate.  and then i go to work.  i look at the calendar and think of friends i haven't called and the skin i haven't touched in so long, the hair i haven't brushed and the glasses i haven't raised to the honor of such wonderful people in so long.  i hole up with my own projects and beverages.  and i suppose we all do it.  we all get lost in out own present tenses.

over dinner tonight with new friends i admitted that, now, a little more than 7 years after relocating to the Bay Area certain home-town friendships are finally starting to deteriorate.  it is sad because we've managed to hold on for so long.  we've managed to call each other on a regular enough basis and still say i love you but so much changed when i became single at the beginning of the year.  a renewal of sorts.  and so much changed after going to New York:  a birth that i knew would occur.  so many people have commented on how "alive" i seem since having gone.  so many people have commented on how much happier and stronger i seem.  and what they see is real.  i deal out a lot of my vulnerabilities here in this electric square and i willingly supply evidence of the existence of my own excitable, quavering heart; nevertheless, i have become quite brave this year.  it's an event that surprises the shit out of me.  i've wanted to be brave my entire life.  i've wanted to know the definition of courage for so long. it is totally different from what i assumed it would be.

i am finally myself.  i am finally allowing for change and experience.  i am finally allowing for pleasure, finally able to accept the pleasure of risk.  for the first time in years, i am enjoying my daily life.  i don't feel like crying as i walk closer and closer to my front door.  i don't feel like, with each step, i am telling lie after lie.  i look at the sky and think of my mother and wish she could see me now.  she would be so happy for me.  she would tell me how well i'm doing and how proud she is of me.  she would be envious of my trip to new york and we would talk for hours about it.  she would want to hear all about testing perfume at Lord & Taylor and how delicious the hotdogs are at the food carts all over manhattan.  she would want to hear all about walking through the lower east side at 4 am and the dead pigeon i accidentally kicked.  she would commend me for having found the courage to stake claim to my own life.  she would ask me to speak to her in german just so she could hear the language of her favorite land in the entire world, a place she always wanted to return to.  she had been stationed there when she was 19 years old and always longed to return.  "there's such magic there", she said, and in so many ways, that is where my family begins- our strange, careening story. we've all become so different. we share such similar stories but walk such distinct roads. 

november is coming and, with it, an election, a concert, and another trip to beautiful New York.  i am on pins and needles waiting for the first of the month to arrive.  a new adventure is breathing down my neck and i cannot wait to turn and collect its kiss. 

friday night bullshit

listening to The Smiths and enjoying a spectacularly poured greyhound here in my white room (zum wohl!) with a burning shoulder from spending the last several hours hunched over a painting.  these text pieces look so simple but a tremendous amount of labor actually goes in to them.  all my work seems to be that way.  my friend Lea once said "your work is so devotional".  her comment has stuck with me.

i am a devotee, to be sure, but devoted to what?  the rules change quicker than i can name them.  it's gotten to the point where i no longer care about rules at all.  this damn inner compass of mine gives me enough trouble.  i've made a point of ignoring it lately and just leaving myself open to the strange throes of exploration.  how else will i know what i'm made of?  how else will i know anything?  how else will make art?  risk, as such, is a definite necessity.  i've felt so scared of so much for so long.  i've felt afraid of being myself.  but i'm at the point now where feeling afraid of something actually becomes the reason to explore that particular something or do that particular something or cultivate an environment where i have to somehow explore the fear.  fear becomes the reason for a lot of things these days but never not to do something.

funny enough, the result is that one begins to be afraid of very little.  maybe i am devoted to the questions?  maybe i am devoted to the attempt?  to understand anything.  to understand one's self.

am i getting too philosophic?  is it too late for that?  wait, it's friday night/saturday morning.  it's not too late for anything!  and aside from that, it's never too late for philosophy!  philosophy is a necessity.  it's right up there with food and air.  so let's get philosophic.  tell me your secrets and what the fuck you expect out of this life.  the clock is ticking, friend.  get on it.  fear is a reason to DO IT.  i look at this body of mine and i watch it dying.  people think i'm so much younger than i am.  in some ways, they're right.  in some ways i am much younger than i actually am.  but i am watching this body age, for however imperceptible that may be to others, and it is a huge motivating force in my life.  i look at myself and i see my mama somewhere under this skin.  her genetics, her softness, her absolute kindness...

fuck.

talking about her makes me want to cry and marry the first person who will ask me.  our fairy tales are hard at work in me too, i promise, i've just decided to ignore that shit and hold out for the best.  or atleast the most honest expression of self i can manage.

but my mother...  she's dead. and i feel her beauty everyday.  it is such a deep pain.  i try to think of my life along the same lines of hers.  i ask myself "what if you die at 55, kid?"

and so: i bought a ticket back to new york.  7 weeks to go, friends.  7 weeks.  and this time i plan to go all alone.  i will walk and walk and walk and see as much art as i can.  i will write in the bars and cafes.  i'll do things that i am afraid of doing.  it matters.   i plan to move there in the spring.  i have 6 months to save as much money as i can but, regardless, i'm going.  even if i end up arriving penniless, i'm going.  this next trip back is more about exploring what daily life would be like rather than being on vacation.  i re-read my NY diary tonight over sushi at my favorite oaktown sushi bar and recalled how instantly at home i felt in that city.  god, it overtook me.  i loved it the second i saw it.  i loved it the entire time i was there.  i was heartbroken at the thought of leaving.  my last day in NY was a rough one.  i really didn't want to leave.  it took all i had not to cancel my flight.  it really did.  i have to go back and let her have her way with me.  i have to follow my own trembling, romantic, boisterous heart.  our time is too short.

but let's not get too serious.  the brevity of our moment is also a reason to participate in exquisite simplicities and sensual pleasures.  i'd like to offer a very loud and public THANK YOU to Lady Gaga for making my life infinitely better by making me smell this fucking fantastic!  her perfume is amazing.  seriously.  i test drove it at Lord & Taylor in manhattan but waited til i got home to buy it.  i've already spritzed an inch of the stuff and i've only had it a week.  good thing i bought the big bottle.

and speaking of Lady Gaga, there's this really special thing i keep resisting making mention of here:  jack halberstam's new book GAGA FEMINISM.  oh looky, looky! whose image is that on the cover?  awwww shit!!!  yep, you guessed it!  yours truly!  and i am absolutely honored!  SO HONORED to have been asked by such a thoughtful and exciting theorist as Jack to use one of my drawings on the cover of this book! and also SO HONORED to participate in the feminist/queer discussions of our age.  it's a major feather in my cap that jack liked this drawing.  period.  and i am absolutely honored to, by proxy, engage with Gaga's discussion of identity.  i am a lucky bitch, to say the least.

and if you are at all wavering on whether or not to buy this book, don't!  it is spectacularly written!  i'm only about half way through and i am IN LOVE!  GET IT! GET IT! GET IT!!!!!  you definitely won't regret it.

and now back to painting and drinking greyhounds.

all my love,
angela.


.

LOVE.

can i tell you how good it feels to choose the thing we are discouraged from choosing?  can i tell you how good it feels to choose exactly that, which as females, we are told is selfish and bad and wrong?  god, are there even words?  is there a way to highlight this sweep of ecstasy, this central pleasure?  is there something i can compare it to?  the divinity of the first prime number?  the excellence of music?  the wholesome quality of that innocent moment when, as a child, you would lay yourself down across your mother's lap and she would lovingly scratch your back?  can i tell you, now, how good it feels to have chosen my Self?  to have spent these last 6 months looking only into my own eyes?  can i tell you how absolutely unlonely i am? 

there is no loneliness within me.  i long for nothing except to be an artist.  if i crave anything it is to be left alone with my work.  if i crave anything it is to wake, alone in my own bed, with my diary well within reach and a pen in my eager hand.  the voices i wait for are the voices of my best friends.  i lean in to their love and back away from the other expectations and exploitations of my faith, of my natural willingness to help and please. 

6 months.

and in a day and a half i will be on a plane to new york.


when i was 7 or 8 years old i had a poster of the NY city skyline all in silhouette.  it was pinned next to where i slept.  i would lay in the top bunk and gaze at the image and dream of a place i had never seen.  i will be 32 years old on september 3rd and i will see our great american city for the very first time a few days before that.  a life long dream is actually coming true. 

can i tell you how good it feels to live life exclusively on my own terms, making apologies to no one,  and void of the need to fashion excuses for a goddamn thing?

lovely.

fact

.

(orphan or not, this is the case. live.)


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