3 days

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sifting through pages, the never-ending pile of papers, the abandoned manuscript(s), the poetry collection, paragraphs cut up, rearranged and taped back together again;  a mangy, coffee stained scroll.  gorgeous.  i tuck it into the box that holds my diaries.  i close the lid.  i close my eyes against the sting of tears.  how badly i want to lay around today and read these things.  especially with my back such a stiff mess of pain.  later.  another day.  one fine day, it'll be such a gift when this box comes back home to me.  for now, a hard patience.  for now, a closed lid.  for now, vicodin and ice. i'm hopeful that tomorrow i won't need the crutch of this little opiate but today i do.  the injury wins.  i am a snail.  i do what i can 20 minutes at a time and then i reward myself with 20 minutes on ice.  i must finish the task of sorting, boxing, throwing out and making way.  yesterday, such an existential crisis about clothes.  i looked in my closet and thought, "who am i going to be now???  i'm paving the way for someone new.  will this new girl still need this sequin jacket???" ha!  i  leave clothes on the street.  they disappear quickly.  more sketches and half finished drawings find their way in to the recycle bin.  suddenly i hate all my earrings and i leave them in a big pile on the kitchen table for whomever may want them.  i pawn off my nail-polish and perfume on my roommate, sara.  i pawn off my big binder of cds on my roommate, ben.  i'm sure i'll find something to pawn off on seth too.  i leave a silk pocket square hanging on his door-knob.  what to do with these old rosaries?  what to do with this huge mirror?  what to do with the ache in my heart?  this old red trumpet that wants to blare and blast and scream.  dear friends, what am i without your hands on my shoulders?  i am going to miss everyone so much.  i close my eyes against the sting of tears.  my 20 minutes are up.

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upon deciding to move to new york...

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...and creating a life that feels right for me.




the tickets are bought.  New York, here i come.  :)

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trying not to count the days

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i am awake and alone inside a silent house.  the light is beautiful and i had no bad dreams.

i booked a room at The Jane in new york for a few days in mid october before heading up to Montreal and then back down to Vermont for the residency.  less than 2 weeks now until i board my plane.  last week, i was full of excited anxiety and it was incredibly hard to go to work. this week, i'm calm.  i'm trying not to think about it much, only in terms of what needs to be handled before i leave my life here in Oakland for 6 weeks-  the packages that need to be shipped, the day i'll need to spend at the DMV replacing my lost driver's license, bill payments that need to be scheduled, etc etc.  when i start thinking about anything beyond these types of regular responsibilities, my blood runs too hot too quickly and i return to that semi-afraid state of elation that finds me so easily at the mere mention of travel.

but this is more than travel.  this is Time.  it's been years since i've had the time to just curl up with a book for three days straight if i want to.  it's been years since i've had the time to curl up with a drawing for three days straight if i want to.  it's been years since i've been surrounded by other artists on a daily basis.  not since art school.  and i'll tell ya, hanging out with other artists is what i miss most about that experience.  it's one of the things i'm looking forward to most about going to this residency.  i'll be one of 50 artists and writers.  i'm so excited for the conversations that we're going to have. 

i've been reading Keith Haring's journals the last few days and his descriptions of art school, going to painting class and poetry readings, putting together shows, and his own ideas about his practice are so intoxicating.  i revel in it.  i turn the pages hungrily, grateful for each word and insight.  i'm comforted by his texts, so full of casual language.  that's how i write in my diary.  i am no Anais Nin.  my eloquence finds me after a flood of slang and swear words.  i've always sort of felt bad that my diary is not a place of eloquence.  until now.  perhaps the eloquence is simply of a different variety?  perhaps my aims are totally different, totally my own.  i'm looking forward to traveling with Keith Haring's diary pressed against mine, two of the best travel companions i can think of.  i'm looking forward to walking around new york city and seeing the places he describes in these pages.  those that are still there.  i'm looking forward to going to the Guggenheim for the first time and central park.  funny i've yet to do such quintessentially new york things on past visits. 

but there i go dreaming. :) 

it's important to me to stay put in The Present the next 13 days.  i don't want to slide off into reverie just yet.  i want the realities that surround me.  i want to enjoy the peace and quiet of a slow morning at home before work.  i want to enjoy the sounds of the street and the screech of the train.  i want to enjoy walking in to a neighborhood bar at midnight after a long day at work and seeing my lover sitting on a bar stool waiting for me.  i want to see him turn and smile at me.  i want to hold his face in my hands and kiss it.  and i want to stay in that moment.  i want to laugh with him.  i want to laugh with my friends and fellow waiters and roommates.  i want to enjoy every single thing about the simple goodness of my life right this second and not slip off in to dreams.  the future will find me.  i am creating it.  there is no need today to loll inside such images. there is a need, instead, to be gratefully happy for the day i'm standing in. 

i am a very lucky girl. 

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the adventure is here

anne is taking me to the airport in a half hour. 

holy shit.


HOLY SHIT.





see you on the other side of this wild dream.

i love you. 

angela

...a soldier to my own emptiness...

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okay, so i didn't buy a red dress, i bought a blue dress. :)

red is so specific.  i was looking for a fire engine red dress but the closest thing i found was some crazy shade of coral which, though i like the color, was made of such cheap knit that it unmistakably showcased my unmentionables.  and hey, i admit to being okay with looking a little slutty but this wasn't in that good way.  and the only other "red" dress around was maroon.  maroon is categorically NOT RED.  but i was there and eager to shop; excited for my trip and feeling spunky.  this is, in fact, the grand side-effect of The Kelly Bundy Dress.  as well as having two plane tickets, a train ticket, and a concert ticket in my hot little hand.  5 more days!!!!!  AHHHHHHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!  and so amidst the Beyonce that blared from the store's stereo system and the excitement in my own heart and mind, i decided turquoise was the next best thing to red so here we are-  packed and ready for adventure, a devil with a blue dress on. 

i'm gonna see this wide world, mama.  

sure the fuck am.  :)

leave nothing on these streets to explore.

i have never felt so happy in my entire life.


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the countdown begins...

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a mere 8 days stand between me and my adventure.  or maybe the adventure is (and has always been) well under way.  it is, in fact, the life that came before that has made me capable of living bravely now.  i am ecstatic and discombobulated and so entirely grateful.  my bag is packed and waiting.  i'm thankful that i have a few more days at work to keep me occupied and make a bit more money to throw around in new york and berlin.  otherwise, i'd just be a total basket-case right now pacing in the kitchen and waiting for the morning when i get to board my plane.  it's almost all i can think about at this point.  :)

i'll leave an hour early for work today to stop off and buy a red Kelly Bundy dress to wear during my travels.  i feel a red dress is absolutely necessary.  especially a tight one. :)  red lipstick is, of course, an undisputed travel requirement as well.  and this morning, Becca and i texted excitedly back and forth to each other about how inexplicable and wonderful and TOTALLY UNBELIEVABLE this whole thing is.  regardless of what happens, this will definitely be an eye-opening, life-changing event in both our lives and i feel so excited to be on the cusp of it.  excited and lucky.  

i can't believe this is my REAL life.  but it IS!  

the feeling of being Capable is one of the best feelings in the world.  it is my hope that, regardless of a woman's life or dreams, she feel Capable.  it is the very root of genuine happiness, courage, and self-respect. 

we ain't goin' to the town. we're going to the city.

.

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strange and beautiful

i rescued all of my books from my storage unit today.  10 boxes.  i have not yet unpacked them.  i need to by a bookcase.  i open each one and peer in.  a time-capsule, each and every one.  i open the cardboard flaps and read the titles: my loves! here is "A Lover's Discourse", here is "Ariel", here is "With Deer".  i paw through and find the black ceramic cups i made 2 years ago in Santa Rosa.  odd to hold them... an artifact.  in some ways, it is like holding a different person's objects...  or how one feels when one picks up a relic from one's childhood.  Childhood!!!  i have the entire collection of The Munch Bunch books!  here!  now! they are currently in my kitchen!  does anyone else have these????  these books and my white teddy bear are the only relics of my childhood i have left.  it is strange to see them.. strange to hold them...  to hold them and wonder what might have been.  what might have been if our parents were ready to be parents...  what might have been if we'd ever really been considered...

but i am not sad and don't mean to usher in a somber tone.  not at all.  i am more in a state of Wonder than anything else.  days come and go.  i look at the sky.  i write.  i take pictures.  i look at my hands.  and now, i can turn books over in my hands, smell their spines and leaf through them as if each second were an hour, as if each second were a lifetime.  bibles, all of them. 

looking at these boxes i know that i can't cart all of this into my future.  i'll have to make the hard decision (soon) to sell most of these volumes.  there's simply to way to transport such a mass in to my next phase of life.  it's a LIBRARY!  and i have no clue where to begin. 

i left picture frames on the side of the road today and they were gone within the hour.

and then dinner with my beautiful friend Trish this evening.  when she dropped me back off at my house i told her that not a single member of my mother's family called me over the holidays.  not one.  this may or may not have something to do with the fact that i swear.  rumour has it that my dropping of an F-Bomb on my sister's Facebook page caused quite an upset.  and so:  silence.  me.  my mother's eldest and without any other parent.  orphan.  and despite all that, a grown ass woman. 

well now...

guess whose religion is glaring?  not mine. 

Trish hugged me and reminded me that we can make new families.  everywhere we go.  it comforted me to know that maybe the disappointment i've known is not the entire story.  maybe there are people in the world who are capable of a deeper love than what i've experienced.  maybe there are people who mean what they say.

in 2 1/2 weeks i'll be back in my beloved New York.  i'll bring a backpack and nothing else.  a change of jeans, two t shirts, socks.  i'll have 5 days to explore the museums and galleries i've yet to enter.  i'll have 5 days to eat at good restaurants and drink in wild bars.  i'll have 5 days reprieve from giving a fuck if anyone understands me or loves me.  i'll write and walk the High Line and meander through the beautiful Bowery.  and until then, i have my wealth of books to keep me company, the greatest of which being 4 years of volumes of my diary.  geez.  what a world made entirely of ink and commitment. 

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.

do you think of me as much as i think of you?

who are you
watching me from way over there?
it'd be nice if you leaned in a little closer.  it'd be nice to sit together, your neck an inch away from my lips; your skin, a net for my breath.

but tonight we only have my pitiful words and the glow of my little electric play pen.  maybe that is more than enough.  maybe it's just as good as candle light.

the passed few days i've spent such lovely mornings with my diary.  page after page filled.  my handwriting becomes wild and loopy.  i write faster and faster.  i forget eloquence and choose vulgarities instead.  i write with pens stolen from hotel rooms and think of New York.  i wish it weren't winter.  i'd fly back in a minute if i had the right coat and the right boots.  i miss the bowery.  i want to walk along the streets there without a plan, notebook tucked in my bag, a map and a couple bucks for drinks.  i will be back in the spring.

but here in my little corner of california, i listen to depeche mode and crochet a sweater for my best friend's mother.  she is my mother too in very special, specific ways...  and also a friend.  i lucked out meeting Becca.  we met in a color theory class at CCA and have been friends ever since.  fuck student debt.  if one thing came out of going to art school, it was meeting her and i assure you her friendship is worth ever cent.  in fact, i got her at a bargain.  when my mom died, she cried on the phone with me.  i called her from tennessee and as i cried, she cried.  i will never forget that moment.  i will never forget that level of spiritual generosity.  what it is to cry with another human being...  it's something beyond words.  there is no way to describe it.  thinking of it even now makes my eyes sting with tears.  there is no way to thank someone for it.  the best i can do is say that Becca endured the torture of that moment with me.  she breathed it when i breathed it.  she didn't back away.  the dark didn't send her running.  she stood with me there in that moment and didn't flinch.  i recounted my last moments with my mother to her and she bore it with me.  when i returned home after the funeral, she sent me my very first tube of red lipstick.  NARS red lizard.  and just like that she changed my life.      

("art witch" indeed, my friend.  ;)  i miss the hell out of you. if anyone speaks the same language as me, it's you.)

she is such a treasure.  i love her endlessly.

so let me spin another song and let me pour another Greyhound.  i have the day off tomorrow.  like a good girl, i went on a 2 mile run today.  i'll do it again tomorrow too.  i'm thinking about the New Year and making resolutions.  you know i'm too impatient to actually wait until the 1st to get going on my plans but, still, i love the ritual.  i love the marker of time.  a brand new year finds us again and i am thankful for it.  so thankful and so hopeful.  for the first time in years i feel like my life actually fits me, that i am not living a lie.  it is a fantastic feeling to feel authentic.  it is a good, deep warmth.

and here in my white bed, i call up my favorite memories...

oh, i would snuggle up against you if you were here...




but first i'd rub your feet and leave my lipstick on your cheek.   and just like last time, we'd look each other in the eye and be sure not to regret a thing.

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. 

living the dream, baby!

it's been a wild week.  i'm full of stories and secrets, full of dreams and experiences, full of the knowledge that the best thing a person can accomplish in this life is Being Oneself.  i feel like Myself more and more.  i make less excuses and fewer apologies.  i simply smile and enjoy my time.  and in spite of my silence this passed week here, i've been writing like crazy.  my brother sent me a fantastic text message the other day telling me that he really enjoys my drunken writing here on the blog and that he thinks i should compile it and write a book.  it definitely warms me up in an indescribably way to know that people appreciate my work, but it is uniquely comforting to know my brother appreciates it and finds value in what i'm trying to say.  in some ways i'm trying to speak for all of us -  myself and my siblings - and to lay down a document of pain that may work as a cure.  i believe that the act itself of Telling can go beyond the therapeutic and bring about a reckoning.  i feel so transported sometimes, so changed by the act of writing.  i feel myself Becoming more and more who i know myself to be.  the core of me becomes more evident, more available, less shameful, less scary.  i learn, again, how to expose myself courageously. 

i've spent the morning drinking coffee, doing laundry, scribbling in my diary and thinking about what i need to pack for my return trip to New York.  i fly out tonight and land at JFK at 6am tomorrow morning.  i can't believe i'm already going back.  that came up quick!  it doesn't feel real and won't feel real until i'm staring at the lights of our most spectacular city from the cabin window of an airplane.  it'll be interesting to be there so soon after the hurricane.  i have no idea what to expect.  i know New Yorkers are on top of their shit and i'm sure the city isn't nearly as fucked up as it was last week but, i mean, it was a hurricane!  i think of Staten Island and my chest goes tight.  i hold my breath.  i'll see it for myself soon enough. 

and so i'll be off the grid for a week, off exploring and dancing and writing.  i'll pack as lightly as i can get away with and concentrate mainly on writing as much as i can make time for and taking a few more pictures than i did last time.  my friend annie is meeting me in Chelsea.  it's her first visit to NYC and i am so fucking excited to be there with her.  a fellow server at the restaurant, upon hearing that she and i would be in New York together, shook his head and said: you guys are gonna get arrested. ha!

i promise to not get arrested.  ;)

all my love,
angela

the hurricane makes my heart ache...

this ugly girl wishes she were there with you in the dark and the wind and the rain...

images from trip #1

eager and warm

tonight, on an empty dance floor, i moved my hips and danced with my beautiful friend dressed in royal blue.  our friends were there to watch and i never once felt embarrassed.  life is too damn short.  years ago a woman said to me "dance while you can because before you know it the fat lady's gonna sing".  i heed the warning and take the opportunity to lose myself in the thundering bass.  what else is there?  and in 17 days i'll be back in new york.  i will walk, dressed in my black sweaters and sentiments through the lower east side, looking for a different dance floor where i can drop my sweat and hope.  freya was just there.  she sent me texts and pictures.  she had drinks at my favorite bar.  i can't wait to be back in that fair city, in the cold and quick pace of breath and footsteps.  17 days.  i will stack as much paper as i can between now and then just to burn on drinks and bagels and hotdogs and coffee and entrance into every museum i can make time for.  my red-eyed chariot awaits and i cannot wait to see that blazing city come back into view from an airplane window.  my love.  my only.  my face pressed against the glass, hungry for all you offer.  my pen is eager to spill poems for the scents and shapes you describe.

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. 

beautiful darling

.

to be bold and naked at your side...

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.


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east coast west coast pistoletteo: longing: NY rant #2

me and michelangelo pistoletto at MOMA in NY

 

and SFMOMA just yesterday.

what of my bleeding heart?  what of all these dreams?  except that i plan to make no excuses for myself.  except i plan to make no excuses for my desires and the longing i feel in my fingers to trace the line of foreign hipbones and poems found in used bookstores.  my romantic heart will not be made to feel embarrassed.  my romantic heart will not accept limits.  if they want to laugh, let them laugh.  i will take pictures and write poems and paint pictures for you for you for you.  

tonight, i am listening to the favorite band of a long ago ex-boyfriend.  the one who dashed me to pieces so many years ago.  i am able to do this, finally, because of new york and the experiences i had there.  the smashing pumpkins were playing in the background as i scratched a man's back, as i smelled his hair and felt his hands. 

 and now i can't stop listening to this music.

this is what it is to feel connected.  even if the connection is fueled by loneliness.  this horrible ache.  i know i am heard.  at such unexpected and beautiful intervals, i am given the sweetest encouragements.  finally, i can tolerate being at home.  california, i love you and i always will but i need the staten island ferry and the dead pigeons on the sidewalks of the lower east side.  i will take my teddy bear with me, the only remaining relic of my childhood, and cross this wide country.  i will empty my storage unit of its contents.  my mother would tell me, "little girl, you're too sweet!  it's only stuff!  it's just hunks of wood!  give it to the goodwill and get going!"  this is her hope chest we're talking about.  this is the only reason i have a storage unit in the first place.  to keep hold of my mother's possessions while i welcomed quasi-homelessness 7 months ago.  and in the stillness of such loneliness, within the chaotic swell of such uncertainty i redacted book-pages and made sweaters and backdrops to pose in front of.  scenes that make me out to be a heartbroken whore.  and maybe i am a heartbroken whore. maybe we all are.  all i know is that, suddenly, i felt understood and connected to my status as Human on a dance floor and in the shadow of the statue of liberty and in the arms of a stranger and in the humidity of manhattan. 

somehow, i will return in november.  plans are in motion.  it is a certainty.  until then, i push the paint and pull the stitch.  until then, i listen to the smashing pumpkins and dream away of all manner of inappropriate enterprise.  until then, i write in my diary and sing a song of rebellion all night long.

the joys of the sullen...

at 4 o'clock in the afternoon on september 3rd i was sitting on an aluminum chair on the High Line in the meatpacking district listening to a man play Bach on a mournful cello.  a slight smattering of rain. so romantic and it was my birthday.  i was thankful for my mirrored aviator sunglasses.  tears rolled in a slow, straight line from my eyes.  it was such a moment of simple beauty and generosity.  i sat there for close to an hour and just listened.  it felt perfect and important to relish the notes that bled with such intense sadness from the strings of the cello. 

i usually ignore my birthday and let it roll by without any real acknowledgement whatsoever but this year i made a point of doing things differently.  so much has changed in the last few years, and especially during the last several months, that it was important to me to actually physically take note of the passage of time and to celebrate the fact that i am alive and kicking, not beaten, not degraded, not broken.  this year i feel alive. 

when the man stopped playing i gave him the few bucks i had in my pocket, thanked him for his amazing playing, and walked away in the rain listening to Ohne Dich on my headphones.  i headed toward the Lower East Side and stopped at a blue mail box on the street somewhere along the way.  i filled out two postcards, both relaying the same tale of my immediate moment of listening to music in the rain in New York, put stamps on them and dropped them in the box.  one was to one of my best friends ever and the other was to myself.  it arrived here in oakland 2 days after i returned.  it is tucked in to the corner of the armoire mirror.

 

i took this picture right before walking up the steps to the High Line.


and this is the song i walked away listening to.

 



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new york rant #1

it's 1 am and i'm in bed with a glass of riesling after meeting up with the crew for a quick round of  cocktails.  everyone wants to know about new york and what i did with my time there.  it's a blurr of fantasy and fascination.  i can't tell you what i did because i'm still waiting for my breath to slow and for the earth to stop quaking.  all i know is that, now, almost 4 days after returning home i feel so heartsick and stupid for leaving.  i have enough in my savings account to make relocating to new york a do-able enterprise.  hard, but do-able.  i just didn't want to be a dick about it. and besides, i still need to go to Germany.  but my heart throbs.  i long to return.  right now.  fuck it.  let me buy the ticket and pack up these stacks of books.  let me throw some clothes in a bag and give the rest to the Goodwill.  what am i sticking around for anyway?  because the truth of the matter is that i feel, every second of every day, the weight of death baring down on me and there are precious few reprieves i receive from it's heft.   in new york, i started crying angrily at my friend that we needed to pick up the pace, that we needed to walk as fast as we could, that I needed to walk as fast as I could and round as many corners as possible and caress as much pavement as possible and hear as many accents as possible because my mother is dead, died at the ripe old age of 55, a week before her birthday, and ever since i feel the weight of mortality pressing against me.  i feel it wrap its eager hand around my throat and i stare at other human beings in disbelief that they seem to think they have time to fucking spare.  news flash:  there will never be enough time.  this is the tragedy of our existence.  this is why we make stupid mistakes.  this is why we risk all for a chance at the fairy tale.  this is why we are bastards to some and angels to others.  this is why i write and write and wait and wait, wait for someone to act like they fucking understand one goddamn word coming out of my stupid, impatient mouth.  because in two seconds i'll be old.  in two seconds i'll be staring my own death in the face.  i don't know if, at that moment, i'll care about whether or not i ever traveled or the books i never read, but i sure care right now.  i care about dancing and sweating and feeling connected to something larger than myself, to some sort of surging universal passion that might **might** be capable of connecting me to another human being in a way that defies all logic and explanation.  is that really out of the question?  in new york, on my birthday, i shared such an amazingly beautiful moment with a stranger and i can't define it at all.  all i can tell you is that i am rattled.  i am rattled in such a way that i'm actually grateful for the pain of intense longing that has resulted.  i don't want to be on the pacific coast any more.  i want to be back on that beloved ferry, named after my brother, looking at lady liberty and crying silently behind my sunglasses.  i can't tell you how emotional it was to see her.  i stood on the deck and stared at her green contours and listened to the myriad of languages swirling around me and thought, "can a person really call themself an American without having seen The Statue of Liberty?"  and then i thought of my mother who died without ever seeing her, without ever seeing the new york skyline or the famous paintings in MOMA or the wide smile of a happy stranger in a dance club in the lower east side at 4am.

these statements make me seem wild and intense.  maybe i am wild and intense.  all i know is that i cannot live without passion.  i tried and something inside me, something fundamental and necessary, withered to a state of unrecognizable atrophy.  finally, that which was stilled has woken up and is gaining strength.  i don't care if i make mistakes.  i've spent the entirety of my life being "good"  and it has only ever amounted to degradation, humiliation and confusion.  it has only ever led to self-loathing and the painful dismissal of tightly held dreams.  no more.   i am unwilling to go that road again.  i know where "good"  takes me.  can "bad"  really be that much worse?  if redemption exists for me anywhere it is in my art, in my diary, in my words.  it is a pity that so few have the stamina to love me and so i traverse this world alone.  fuck it.  let me know you by your art.  you will know me by mine.

a stranger's hand brushed my hair away from my sweaty forehead on a dance floor in new york and my entire life changed.  for as complicated as i am sometimes accused of being, it's just that simple.