In my happiness and beyond.

From the Buddha: the "Five Remembrances" we should recall each day. (taken from Thich Nhat Hahn's The Heart of Buddha's Teachings)

1) I am of the nature to grow old. There is no way to escape growing old.

2) I am of the nature to have ill health. There is no way to escape having ill-health

3) I am of the nature to die. There is no way to avoid Death.

4) All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature to change. There is no way to avoid being separated from them.

5) My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground on which I stand.

Five more:

1) I bought Bitter Apple spray as suggested
by everyone in my last post. It's on all the
cables now. And while I admit to feeling
a slight mania while spraying (the cat running
to hide from the scent), I wanted to hug him a
lot more afterwards. He's just a cat, after all.
And I'm sooooo human.

2) Holy shit! Daffodils!

3) Dreamed about him last night, and this
evening the twilight was all loaded with
gleeful melancholy, so I went for a long
walk, listening to songs that reminded me
of him, all self-destructive-like. Such
decadence! Ah, but spring in New York is
entirely decadent. I couldn't help but
bounce down the sidewalk, particularly
to the Verve, and when I got home I realized
I'd lost my keys. Excelses! Excelsior!

4) Took my book to the Top of the Tower
and eavesdropped on an ugly businessman with a
very young blonde Russian. "To your freedom!"
he kept saying, as she sat there, saying
nothing.

5)

I really don't think I'm ever going to fall
in love again, not like that, but I feel
pretty grateful every time I think that.

Five:

1) Spring is muscling in through my window,
all health and joyful back slapping and
teeth. Makes me feel like breathing again.
There's a dove on the rafters. It's impossible
to work today.

2) I wore a little black denim miniskirt last
night, with black suede high heels. I've never
worn a miniskirt before, and probably should
have worn hose, but didn't think of it. In Harlem,
first reactions were very "you have a nice
night now, ma'am." Second reactions were mis-
trustful leers from dads, which made me doubt.
And then a few short fat women sniggered.
I stared loftily at nothing. Then this really
butch black woman was walking my way, pompom
on her head, sports jersey, swinging enormous
thighs around each other in men's jeans, also
staring loftily at nothing, until, at the last
second, both our gazes swiveled down and we looked
directly in each other's eyes. I held my breath,
still walking, and then she yelled so the whole
street jumped, "AWW GIRL you KNOW I hear THAT!"
Oh my brothers. Yes yes yes!!

3) There was a dance performance last night, and
the last dance was this very whimsical thing in-
volving people wearing yellow cellophane and blue
buckets on their heads. It was a sort of amusingly
oblique commentary on the industrial war complex,
until suddenly SEVEN BURLESQUE QUEENS with THREE
FOOT silver MISSLE-SHAPED STRAP ONS came on and
sang a song about SUVs and I thought oh Jesus SAVE ME.
I really hate it when I see art that reinforces the
idea that artists are just loud people with trustfunds
finding self-righteous postures to justify their
refusal to grow the fuck up. Fine, don't grow up.
Just don't pretend it's a higher calling.

4) Big revelation of the day: I've been relating to
people mostly through my sexuality for years. And
there are other, friendlier options.

5) We went to a hotel with a swim-up bar and sauna
and soaked and swam and sweat in blue light like a
Fellini movie and goddamn that girl was pretty, in
her hot pink stripper thong, and hell yeah a new
friend!

Five statements through 24 hours:

1) His face next to mine as sleep
pulled its fingers off my eyes and
he said, "Do you want me to go?"
and I said (I think), "No, no...
you're fine, it's fine." And here
is the really remarkable thing I've
just learned from this relationship,
and only this one, in all my life:
arguments in new relationships are
99% less world-ending if you haven't
yet had sex.

2) Argument or no, the day before,
piled back on the round earth with
noses to sunshine and white oak and
drifting cloud, a bit of breeze
twisting around bare ankles, and
mouth stuffed with red gummi bears,
plus the kind of serious friendly
discussion that sincere young people
have, I felt pretty fucking good.



3)

Irving Penn, the draughtsman of
the Medici Court, the manuscripts
of Joyce, Kerouac, and Auden, plus
the original score of Copland's
Fanfare for the Common Man.
And a spectacular sequined dress, the
color and texture of polished hematite.

4) He asked me, "Did he do... terrible
things to you?" And I grinned, tears
already pushing out of my eyes, "Only
terrible things I wanted him to do to
me."

5) There are four things I have come
to understand that I learned from my
former job:
--how to touch, and be touching some-
one.
--how to listen, and hear what people
are trying to say.
--how to recognize quickly what any
individual basically wants.
--that I fundamentally relate to people
through my sexuality, which is why.
I had. to stop.

Five Shorties from 4/4/08:

1) From Hoboken, the Path train goes right
through the crushed shell of the WTC, like
a macabre ride at Disneyland. Yet again,
as so often in New York, Revelations 17:5.

2) Being in over my head and having SO MUCH
responsibility, essentially running the
company in my bosses' temporary absence, with
multiple major projects being seen through
from start to completion alone, is stressful...
but I feel incredible. I'm actually learning
about new parts of my personality under this
stress, a sinew I didn't know I had. No
breaking whatsoever. Thriving!

3) My new goal is to know the color of each
person's eyes by the time I turn away from
them. I want to be REALLY LOOKING AT YOU.

4) Bought a thing of Southern Comfort and
met a new friend from LJ at a dance per-
formance in Queens, which sucked. We
skipped out, with relief, and hit A
Clockwork Orange with red wine instead.
And by this, and coffee with another new
friend prior, I know I have lived well
today.

5) He was playing the best songs on
his keyboard, so I gave him a dollar
and thanked him for playing happy
friendly songs and he told me his name
was Fingers and he bet I could sing
too, which I cannot. When I walked
behind him to get on the train (1:00 AM)
I put my hand on his shoulder and joy
coursed through him, and me.

The Gutter Twins

Aw gawd Mark Lanegan, don't die on us anytime soon, please...
Anyone else heard the rest of the album? I am very excited. Is this rock? Does it LIVE??

A number of days rolled into one:

1) Man, is there anything finer than the first
sip of Patron? With that leafy hint of lime
already in it, and the near certainty of im-
pending nakedness?

2) I've become that cliche, in so many ways.
The incredibly driven woman who basically just
wants to be pinned down and made to feel like
a helpless girl, and, also, wants to feel safe
and loved BUT RESISTS WITH ALL HER MIGHT!!

3) Last night I saw this symphony just get
creamed by their own choice of music. It's
not that hard for even an untutored ear to
know good symphony... it has to do with
whether the mind WANTS to listen, or if it
directs your attention elsewhere to avoid
witnessing confusion and embarrassment.

4) But then this tall woman entered and moved
to her harp, and her limbs were wild and bitter,
the way a white oak is wild and bitter, and
I could not look away from the very line of
her calf.

5) Hans Gal's Concertino, Op 52, unraveled
the strings of my heart, as I sat there in
Carnegie Hall, desperately randy, alone with
my flask.

6) There is a hollow in the back of the throat
where laughter hides.

7) When I re-read that Anne Carson quote
to myself, I shiver as though my neck were
being grasped and kissed.

8) I never did mention the time I saw a young
man dance up the stairs of the subway. He had
this way with his knees, hopping and flying in
rhythm, and it looked like so much more fun
than what I was doing: plodding up the stairs
like I had no other options. To this day, I
dance up and down stairs. Sometimes I can't
stop and dance a few more steps at the bottom.
To me, this is how to do life, because I like
to fly, I like to move fast and gracefully,
and it is so much easier than plodding.

9) Had my hair dyed at the school today. I've
never done it before and I told them to "go
wild!" Three different steps later, and I think
it looks exactly the same, but you would not
know it from the reactions I've been getting
from men.

10) I am THIS close to giving up my cat.

I know some of my music geek friends will like this TEDTalk. These animators had the idea to make a music video "without a concept," with no story to tell or crossmarketing involved. The conceit is, "What would a music video look like if it were purely directed by the music?"

Some conceit, I guess, and I won't say the results push any boundaries in my mind, but it is mesmerizing and makes me want to get all synesthetic and hook up encephalographic-style... if only encephalography worked that way... [I KNOW you've had that thought...]



E.T.A. And not "hook up encephalographic-style" like that, P.

via elyrie:



Link to the gallery of portraits.

"What I was used to," says Schels, who has taken hundreds of portraits during his career, "was people who smiled for the camera. It's usually an automatic response. But these people never smiled. They were incredibly serious; and more than that, they weren't pretending anything any more. People are almost always pretending something, but these people had lost that need. I felt it enabled me as a photographer to get as close as it's possible to get to the core of a person; when you're facing the end, everything that's not real is stripped away. You're the most real you'll ever be, more real than you've ever been before." Link.





Also, this has been in my mind constantly for weeks, but especially so today, [and I am always the dog]:

Are there many little boys who think they are a
Monster? But in my case I am right said Geryon to the
Dog they were sitting on the bluffs The dog regarded him
Joyfully

--Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red