7/16/08

Teach a lesson and then take a atand

I'm sorry about the previous post. Sort of bragging, or it seems like bragging. and I really hate that. I have absolutely no patience for bragging, from, like, anyone in the world. I don't care if you've just won the Nobel, there's no reason to go spouting off about how great you are. It's totally transparent and really obnoxious. Very boring. But I'm not going to take the post down, I want to document some stuff. Every summer, it feels like, my life kind of picks up. The past two (or, maybe three) summers in New York I've had these cool opportunities and I never capitalize on them. I get scared. I worry that I'll lose my touch. I don't call back. I never follow-up. I'm afraid of having to show up to my own life. I'm getting over it.

Yesterday, talking to two downtown media mavens about myself, giving them the laundry list of "What I Do" (excepting my day job, obvi), one of them asks me how I came to be so well-rounded. When I mention all the projects or things I do (or work on doing) it sounds like a lot. When she asked how I do it, which means why I do it, I instantly answered that I always say yes. Which is obviously not entirely true. I wish I said yes all the time. I say yes a lot of the time, but I'm working on saying yes more of the time. The picture at the right is me, just after my performance on Friday night. I'm saying the words "Thank You", to someone who complemented my piece. I'm performing the first part of it, 8 minutes as per the producer's time limit, at the Deitch space in Long Island City. I'm terribly nervous about doing just an excerpt, but again: what's the worst that can happen? I get booed off the stage? People are bored and leave? No one ever books me again ever? I believe in the message from LTTR, a really brave and inspiring lesbian art collective. Their motto for the third issue of their magazine was PRACTICE MORE FAILURE. I think that's fabulous. If you're not afraid of failing, then you can go make art. Making a performance while having a fear of failure is the most painful and awful thing, I think. Let it go!

I saw a really gorgeous boy on the train this morning. I was looking disheveled, grumpy and bleary-eyed. I wear only black and purple, and my headphones are blasting Christian Death. It seemed nice. He wore a buttoned-up shirt with the sleeves rolled up. I felt envious of him for a) being cute and b) having what seemed like elegant, meaningful tattoos on his forearms. One, on his right forearm, was in Arabic. What can I say? It looked pretty. I won't get into whether or not I thought this achingly white boy can read Arabic (I don't think he can read Arabic-- I'll say it). After staring for a few stops, I noticed that he had another tattoo, on the inside of his left forearm. It said, in italic cursive big blue-black letters: TAKE DRUGS. If there us such a thing as a sign from the Universe, I guess that'd be it.

So I'm incredibly nervous about the reading tomorrow night and the performance Friday night. I want to get back to: writing a new zine, maybe. Starting to, anyways. Writing songs with my new friend who is a music producer. Working on videos for the dance band I'm in. Hanging out with my friends. Exercising at the gym. I want to incorporate these things back into my life. I kind of want it all. I want the relaxing parts along with the crazy hectic exciting public parts. These are an insane two weeks.

Things that fill me up and calm me down. I have an insatiable appetite. I need to eat sugar round the clock or I get cranky. Wood, steel. I mean to say: bones and the things that make you feel them. Reminding myself of my capacity to feel fortified, strengthened. I really like the remix of this song (the video is dumb), mostly for the Brooklyn-accented "I told you not to call here no more". It cheered me up this morning on the train, when I felt dirty, ugly and misshapen, staring at a pretty boy's tattoo's instructions.

1 comment:

Stay-At-Home-Dan said...

THAT was not bragging!