November, 2003
drifting falling
we went out dancing. i flipped out, not in a bad way. i drank some vodka very quickly, mainly because i needed to put the glass down so i could flip out. 2 many DJs. i sweated a lot. no, i mean, a lot. there was a puddle in the small of my back. i am pretty sure i flung sweat on everyone around me. this is new york city though, so i didn't fucking care. i couldn't help but be reminded of years of hard techno in my past. i couldn't help but think, this is how we do it where i come from. so few people can understand where i'm at in those moments on dance floors. it's true insanity, in it's best incarnation.
last night we went to a complacent party. a tuxedo was involved. it was all outside because it'd been half shut down. someone i thought would give a damn about me didn't, and i saw stacy again for the first time in years, and she was dressed as a pink bear. i was happy. we ran around and everything was golden.
sometimes things move at the speed of light. i feel like i am seen, then five minutes later like i am the most unknown person alive. right now i feel a little sick to my stomach. the way you feel when you come down off something. i am not sure i have the energy to continue here, but i am damned well going to try.
read some things about the harmonic concordance. yes, it has its own homepage. honestly, i don't really care about it. isn't that weird?
fuck, i am so sad.
don't worry, i'll sleep it off.
somewhere else, the world is on fire.
chalkrind disposition
today is a fucking down day. it's raining, the pumpkin on the porch looks sad, and no one is calling or emailing. i kind of want to lay down and die but it's just gone too far for that now. i have no idea what i would rather do, i just know it's not that.
i feel like i need to be in my own process today, to work on php & other projects, to sit quietly for long enough to actually come to some kind of understanding of something inside myself. not really sure how to do that in Aquarius Home, where we live on top of each other. not due entirely to others invading me but to my own desire to let myself be invaded.
noah emailed with questions about the harmonic concordance. honestly, i really don't know. if i saw it in someone's natal chart i would gather up my palm fronds and follow them around, but in the sky, today and tomorrow? i don't know what it means. i don't feel it happening, i don't feel anything today.
yesterday i went outside
the days blend into each other. it's as if i've always been here, amy cooking, making coffee, cursing and pacing. i hear the sound of her typing and then an ejaculatory ASSHOLES! or laughter. being in the same home as her comforts me enormously. she is a good good friend.
it's rainy and the pumpkin on the porch is surely so wet. so wet. the leaves are wet too. i wandered down to tea lounge and sat staring. today, bob dylan sang sad eyed lady of the lowlands as i watched a woman repeatedly fall asleep over her crossword puzzle. my warehouse eyes, my arabian drums / should i leave them by your gate / or sad eyed lady, should i wait?
at le tigre i could not deal with the crowd, so i pushed myself through the nyc style hardpacked throng and out into the hall of irving plaza. hardwood floors and black walls, merch tables and tiny baby dykes. kathleen hanna screaming. i bought a BANDS AGAINST BUSH shirt and wore it two days in a row. i danced happily in the hall, away from the loudest noises and the pushing kids. and actually bumped physically into the chick from cibo matto in the midst of my goofy dance moves. before all that i'd been kinda freaking out.
something someone once said about me applies to someone else: you're just an endless pit of tempation and sensation.
i have a new phone. so far the nicest thing about it is that when i spoke to peter just now, the sound quality was good enough that i could hear one of the cats purring across time and space. peter is there too, real and accepting. who can explain what happens between two people after four years of togetherness? so much becomes unspoken and that which is spoken is somehow still amazing. it's hard to understand, and i'm in it.
i feel cradled and loved, and like even the inevitable pain of everything is worth it. i'm sure i won't feel that way always but i cherish the comfort of that revelation for now.
more soon. it's weird that i'm so calm.
dreams
recording dreams for posterity and to keep me remembering them. last night... battle diagrams about travel with oliver, abrah vomiting up some kind of green jelly covered vomit. she was so sick, we were in a cafeteria. maybe i should call her? i think seeing elephant last night fucked with me, i had a lot of high school type of dreams.
time time time
[01:00] <*caliban*> seriously though, let the dust settle [01:01] <*caliban*> time time time.
...
reality is rushing in. work, obligations, interviews, the need to eat real food. waking up in the middle of the night to the pulsating radiator, whiny sounds, an arm reaching out to pull me in. in and out of bed again. drank too much coffee in the evening, stayed up forever. sitting here slit eyed at almost 3pm. total gut wrenching fear at the idea of a fulltime corporate job. will most likely resist.
paper is due in one week. must put aside all other obligations.
called peter, woke him up. i said, i wish i could nuzzle you. he said, i wish i hadn't drank so much whiskey last night. how much whiskey did you drink? about a pint of knob creek. sometimes i wonder how i would fare in the situations he gets himself into when i'm away. feeling far away from him today. a yearning to go home where it is calm.
i feel tortured by the lack of cats in my life. also, i want to have babies after i have orgasms, and this very much pleases me and also concerns me. hormones are amazing drugs. but is this why i feel so maternal towards men who curl up against my bosom?
been lost in memories lately, trying not to speak incoherent pointless images to oliver at all times. the history thing is weird, i don't speak in memories to people i have known for many years, maybe because i feel that some essence of my history is shared and understood, so i just think of the memory and feel that they own it somehow also. but with a new person (who isn't new, really, only physically) it's like a constant barrage of trying to fill in some blank which is of course impossible anyway. that and being in a new place making some sort of new albeit seemingly temporary life makes for memories. the mind's desperate search for context and continuity.
two interviews tomorrow. work in the studio wednesday. must visit library thursday or friday at the latest, or maybe tomorrow after the interview? rutgers isn't that far. help.
...
two people have kissed
or pressed against each other
and
every second within every touch
each subatomic sympathetic physical reaction
in the dawn, dark, twilight
in beds, in hallways
heralds the inevitable defeat of time
and space
oh me oh my oh
she said, i wanna do right but not right now.
...
/m oliver everyone suddenly has such high standards for my behavior
/m oliver is this adulthood?
[11:24] <*oliver*> welcome.
...
NEVER LET YOU MUTHAFUCKAS PUT OUT MY FLAME
it gets dark at 4
feeling down and quiet and sad today, full of conflicting thoughts. it's probably just today. went over to feed phoebe, the cat of the person who is probably soon to be my new roomate. today is the kind of day where i'd let myself be depressed, a little pms'ing, i would wallow and peter would take care of me, bring me things. i wouldn't get out of bed, maybe, and i'd start to panic about my future and my life. i'd miss my friends and need them so much. if it were a month ago, that's how today would be.
instead, today is about a low level hum of possible pms/depression that i'm trying fend off with intellectual understanding of my desires as they stood yesterday before i felt down. it's hard. i'm about to do a lot of things to ensure my happiness. MY happiness, for ME. me, elly, no one else. i'm about to take a job, i think, and i'm about to get my own little room in brooklyn. i'm about to figure out how to get my books and records out to ny, so that i can spend a year here working hard and studying, taking care of myself, and learning what i want independent of anyone.
i feel like i have been pushed, or pushed myself, into making huge life decisions in what is ultimately too short of a period of time, under duress. peter had wanted to get married, i had wanted to have babies, i had wanted to be faithful, to settle down, and all of those things. but i just can't do it yet. as much as i am thought of as independent, as much as i have traveled without peter by my side, on my own path, even within our relationship, i have still bent myself to work within the desires of others. even the things i write in this journal are related to checking myself because of the judgements of other people. it's so tiring, and i may have done a disservice.
i know that SF will be angry with me on a number of levels. friends will feel betrayed that i've joined the ranks of people who have moved east. people will feel like i bait and switched by saying i was only going to come here for november... well, i thought i was. and i thought i'd be home, and i thought a lot of things. i thought i was just going to be his friend, i thought after a week of me being here we'd discover how unrealistic and stupid it all was. instead i seem to be on a brute force journey of self discovery. it's not gentle, and i'm actually surprising MYSELF this time. this isn't me being stubborn, this isn't me being ornery, this isn't me doing what i want just because i can, it's honestly a huge surprise to me too. i don't know why i'm moving to new york, it's just what i'm doing, and i think it will be really good for me.
i want to be self sufficient, to have my own life with my own goals. i have to figure out what i want to do, who i am, what the hell is going on. i have never been fully present or commited to my relationship with peter, i'm realizing, and that is fucked up. when i realized that i thought i should turn around and go home and fix it all. but i really don't want to. i need to take care of my shit. i can't force myself to be in it. i want to stay in new york. i can't change myself to work within the current structure that we have built for ourselves in our relationship.
i have been thinking of something an enemy turned dear friend said in her journal recently - that she always wanted to be with someone who chose her, who loved her because she was just right, not because she was who came along at the right time. or the first girlfriend, or the only one who would put up with the person's shit, or whatever. i'm sure i'm paraphrasing here. i'm not sure how to provide context for you, gentle reader, about that comment and why i'm thinking about it, but i am.
in the words of yoko ono:
the opposite of love is not hate. the opposite of love is fear.
...
oliver's friend pat came over yesterday, and i don't want to forget how nice that was. he was confrontational in conversation style, which was good only because he was also very intuitive and asked really good questions. i liked him right away. he hung a mirror up, and checked it with a level, in true virgo style.
you know, even though i'm feeling very thoughtful about my relationship with peter, and i've basically decided to move away from him to live in new york for a target date of one year, not a moment goes by that i don't miss him. i see him in the people around me, like pat, and given too much time for contemplation the sadness of that absence overwhelms me.
for once i'm being honest with you. please save your judgements. sometimes i get angry because people tend to "side" with peter because he is such a fucking nice guy. and you're right, he's perfect and wonderful. and you're right, i have been less than awesome to him. but honestly, the secrets between two people are more vast than anything one human mind can analyze. so don't be flippant.
i really really really really really miss my cat, you guys. seriously. i think she might be the only thing that can get me through these sad days. but she's so far away. and i don't think i can bring her here because my roomie already has a cat, and it's a girl cat, and they might hate each other. although my cat is a lover, not a fighter. and she's lived with girl cats before. but if i bring her out here, and they don't get along, well. where will she go then???
i keep trying to take pictures of the sun's light and missing it.
♥
hate was just a legend
later, extreme sadness and regret. remembering him so clearly. how we can demonize someone we love from afar. i don't understand who i am and what i'm doing or why, all of the sudden. the extreme polarity in my understanding of myself is crippling. one moment, i feel that i am strong and ready to be in this town, with these people who i trust, and then a few hours later, i feel that i am lost and giving up something so wonderful. who the hell am i. who am i. who am i and what do i want. who am i and what do i need? i have no idea.
ok.
oscillation stabilized for now.
the top of the shit
trying to get schoolwork done. really trying not to beat myself up for how much of a slacker i've been. truth be told i inflicted chaos on my life and my schoolwork is suffering. really need to focus next term and enforce a schedule of studying regardless of work and social life and long heartfelt conversations and laying in bed for hours murmuring and calling him to lament and pacing and worrying and writing about it all and sitting on chat describing the dilemma over and over. yes, regardless of all that shit, there is one thing that is more important than all other things: gnosis. KNOWLEDGE. must study.
i just did one of my cheesy things i do when i'm confused about something, which is that i go and do a silly tarot reading at facade.com. i think divination still works, even via perl script. i did two one-card readings, one for SF (because i started thinking maybe i need to stop being an idiot and just go home and study since my life is set up to do that there already), and one for NYC. here is what happened. pretty fucking freaky right?
|
SF: Three of Pentacles (Works), when reversed: Delays in the commencement of business, commercial transactions, or employment. Holding back or failing to use one's abilities to their full potential. Shoddy workmanship and lack of attention to detail. Being hamstrung by convention, or failing to temper artistic fancy with an understanding of reality. |
|
NYC: Ace of Rods: The seed of a new venture - perhaps as yet unseen. An opportunity to be met with boldness, vigor, and enthusiasm. The herald of birth, invention, or entrepreneurship. An innate and primal force released. May suggest a surge of vitality, creativity, or fertility that can set things in motion. |
ps. i'm listening to ladytron.
pps. everything will be ok.
and
*[brakits]* tomorrow will be great, just wanted to let you know [23:44]
oh and
simon is asleep on the couch. she fits way better on it than i do.
mundanity
very long phone call with peter. finally he is calming and we were able to actually talk. things feel so level for me, i have never been this emotionally serene, though maybe that seems hard to believe. i'm just not interested in violent destruction right now, not interested in sobbing and moaning and getting sucked into various emotional blackholes. i want to conduct all business as realistically and respectfully as possible. and i'm feeling like protecting my own borders pretty fiercely.
i want to be busy. i suppose i am. i want a little more structure. waking up and sitting on the couch in my pajamas isn't really doing it for me anymore though. i like to wake up, have enough time to take care of morning needs, like food, armpit wash or shower, pooing, and maybe coffee. this generally should be about 1.5 hours worth of waking up. less than that is not good. but, once the requisites have been covered, i want to have somewhere to go. where people are expecting me. and i can deliver some kind of good helpful thing.
i am flying all around again soon. home to SF (when does it stop being home? what is home? home is everywhere) for 2012 and the geek premiere showing of The Return of the King. SO EXCITED. it will be gut wrenching to be back in SF and have to leave my cats and my plants again. and peter, but let's save that idea for brooding over in dark rooms alone. i'll have to gather up books and other sundry items for mailing here to nyc.
there was some dilemma about what to do with my other stuff, furniture, etc, and tonight i feel like i will just not deal with it for now. basics out of the way in dec, and the illusion of a minimal life here for a while until i'm ready to go deal with the stuff. belongings. hoohaw.
in other news, i am always surrounded by people with tons of aquarius in their charts. fuck, i love them so much.
ok. bed at 3am. early for once.
ps. cats!
closer to 30 than 20.
here is my birthday. i am 26.
i don't usually get too caught up in holidays, birthdays, and things like that. usually my birthday can go by calmly and it doesn't affect me at all. but i have to say, i am a little sad today, and i think it's because it's my birthday and i'm away from a lot of the people i love. not just because i'm in new york, but because they are scattered about the world. northern ca (nathan and megan), austin (joanna), florida (my family), san francisco (everyone, but especially xep, eric, jim, kristie, austin, toshok, tuggy, peter, eve, and someone important i surely forgot who will hopefully will not feel sad when their name isn't in this parens).
last year at this time, i lived with a passel of hippies. megan baked me TWO sloppy chocolate vegan cakes, and peter replaced my lost turntables with even better ones that have blue LEDs in them. eric was over. i think xep was in australia? eve made me a necklace that is perfect for me. i got my ears sniffed by nathan until i squealed, and i don't remember anything else. there is a nice picture, though. OH, and egg gave me a present that is supposed to make me into an artist. it included monofilament, a beret, and a manifesto.
toshok will be in ny tonight though! i can't wait to see him!
so, yes, i guess i am missing people today. i suppose if you're going to miss people, your birthday is an obvious time to do that. even though i miss people i feel really thankful for, and loved by, the people i'm with here in ny also. egg and oliver feel like my family, and this home is totally my safe space.
the day has just begun though. i just climbed out of warm nice bed 20 minutes ago. there was a single rose on my laptop!
it's sunny and i need some UV so i'm going to go the post office, again, and get some coffee too.
it's a calm day. there'll be a nice dinner. i'll think about the coming year and the past year. i'll mull over my solar return chart some more. my mom might send me a good email. yes.
*blink*
*stretch*
out into the world.
also:
...
THEMES FOR NEXT TATTOO 2012 spaceship earth space hunab ku the galactic center cosmos
...
i feel comforted by the possibility of slowness, dreaming, fantasies and sleepy acceptance. especially when i know all this can occur with the hectic kinetic chaos of nyc.
november
in germany, when i was a teen, we spent our days in the markplatz. various cobblestone courtyards in front of ancient town halls and churches with gilded gargoyles. we were at home with all that was old and made of stone. i wore black jeans and combat boots. german street punks with too tight jeans and german shepherds would bum cigarettes off my metal boyfriend. and we'd walk for hours. the sky was perpetually grey and sometimes we'd be caught in the rain, and we wouldn't go home, and we pressed against each other laughing, outdoors in vast empty farmers fields.
before that, the person i thought was the coolest was a girl with dyed black hair, named mary. she had a really messy room and she was friends with my sister. she wore a lot of dark purple. i was only in 7th or 8th grade and she still talked to me. her brother was a punk, and the legend was that he'd pierced his lip with a safety pin while the principal was trying to lecture him and suspend him.
...
my birthday was weird. at first, i thought it was going to be awful. i was upset and felt a lot of pressure and hated all my clothes and felt like a "crank and an outsider"* in new york city. i was terrified that oliver was going to like, go out of his way to make things great and i was going to be cranky the whole time and be an ungrateful asshole.
but then it all was ok. we ate dinner at a crazy restaurant which i'm not sure i can describe but they brought us continuous wonderful asian vegetarian delicacies like grilled roots and pumpkin cucumber stuff inside a hollowed out persimmon and little flowers on the plates and special green tea. there was some requisite birthday embarassment where the staff sang to me and made me wear a pretty robe and funny hat and pose for pictures. i was embarassed but of course i loved it.
we went and fetched toshok from some strange cuban place near times square and whisked him to a massage parlor that is now a bar. called happy endings. we (me oliver tamara toshok amy nick pete) took over a former sauna and i was in fine form since i was a little smelly and pete told me i smelled like elly again, which is a special compliment. tamara told everyone in the bathroom line that it was my birthday. there was drunkeness and yelling and story telling and they played like every cheesy hiphop song ever and we took lots of pictures.
toshok went back to his hotel in a cab and we went to brooklyn and everyone else went and got more drunk and met jimmy fallon and he grabbed pete's balls or something. and they came home screaming at 7:30am and i was awake too because of the sugar in the alcohol. eating hummus on the couch. it was a good morning. i ate some things, including tylenol, and went back to sleep, woke up and toshok came over and we went to get food. oliver wore elvis glasses and was quite hungover.
now it's later and i've had coffee and food and phone calls with peter and we listened to concrete blonde which made me remember germany - why i wrote some memories up there. it also made me remember my sister who loved bloodletting first, especially the song about wendy. now it's sugar (the band, not the substance), and household activities and the sun setting so early, so early.
meeting toshok on the doorstep earlier, i stepped out into the mottled sun and bright leaves and unseasonably warm fall day. barefoot, i looked down the row of brownstones and said, how nice is brooklyn, right?.
things are great.
* my astro.com travel horoscope for NYC said i would make myself out to be a crank and an outsider here. fucking germans wrote that shit.
new york cares
nick's voice is so low that it sounds supersonic over my headphones - not disturbing, just a very bassy muffled rumble that permeates the interpol track i'm listening to for the 50th time.
another slow/gorgeous day in the house. coffee and laying around in bed and nick showing up with food and having a phone call. for a while he was sitting in the chair reading the paper. i putter slowly on my website contract. amy wanders around barefoot in a slip - isn't she cold? it's going to be kind of sad when i have to go to work fulltime. it's been a comforting vacation to be here in the apartment. but in some ways my whole life up to this point has been a comforting vacation. it still can be, i suppose.
my bank account is running so low, i need a coat, and i'm working. i'm not real worried. maybe just a little. it'll be bad if my phone gets shut off.
tomorrow, everyone in the world leaves for thanksgiving. thursday i will take a train to long island to hang with eve & lynzee and a gramma. oliver will be far, egg will be far. peter is far. ab will be here friday night. does the parade of human relationships never end? who in the hell are all you people?
i feel serene and... spiritually aware of all the tangents of my existence. if that makes any sense, which it probably doesn't. i feel very thankful for all my friends in all the places. and i feel sad and optimistic at the same time. i was feeling scared but i don't even really feel scared anymore. just pushing through.
relief
being alone is interesting. i haven't done it for a few weeks. it's something i always said was necessary for me, but i think i've actually been afraid to be alone since i've been in nyc. my family of aquarians has been propping me up, and being all alone with my own thoughts just hasn't seemed like a good idea, lest the panic set in. i was alone for a few hours at pete's, feeding the cat, yesterday, and i totally started flipping out. i immediately came home to amy and oliver's, where i've been staying these past few weeks. calm returned upon my arrival there. it's ok to be at a time in your life where you just need a lot of comfort and support from other people.
now it is wednesday night and everyone has left for their various thanksgiving journeys. it's been maybe... three hours? since egg left for grand central and oliver sent his 'ok, on plane!' text message from the newark airport. i'm all alone. i've done some things:
- napping with impunity
- watching BAD TV (content of which will never be disclosed)
- secret behaviors no one will ever know about
- using bathroom with door open (egg does that anyway, alone or no)
- daydreaming
- feeling things and not judging myself for them
- laying in bed wiggling and making noises
- eating food on the couch and leaving the containers out, with no plan to pick them up for anyone else's benefit until much later on
...
i realized with some sadness that i have nothing to bring with me as an offering to long island tomorrow. i felt like a louse for a little while but i think i've just decided to feel some major gratitude and thank the universe for a return on favors i've done in the past. and it will be ok.
now, i will walk down 7th avenue and feed the kitty.
archives
2012
2011
2010
2009
2008
2007
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
2000
1999
1998
1997
1996
youth
rain
mission
fibroid
music
san francisco
delete
sleep
dreams
oofie
there was no way to know
swinneyposts
tattoo
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omega
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school
egg
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life
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eff
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yoko
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jarett
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cats
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s5
lists
tuggy
love
