6/10/13

GOODSTONE

She wakes up in the morning and get on a good stone. You know: diamonds, rubies, emeralds. In gold bands, soft enough to chew.



New CdG perfume series. I'm obviously excited. I look great in blue. Would I smell good in blue?

Yesterday, the neighbors next door built a church in their backyard and had services. There was a band and a choir and a preacher, who spoke in English and was translated into Spanish. It was supremely annoying, but I got angry at myself for being annoyed. It's church. But it's also loud.

Listening to Teena Marie's Emerald City, which I just found on vinyl for a song. Took it home to see it's on green wax. That's a lucky sign, right?

Today was an exceedingly difficult day. One of my work shirts ripped, on my left elbow. Which wouldn't bother me except it's a H&M CdG shirt I'd been lovingly taking care of. And that wouldn't bother me (shirts wear out, after all) if it hadn't also happened to every other my work shirts this week, the +J shirts I'd been wearing in rotation. They've all split on the left elbow. I've been trying to get them patched but it doesn't work. I've dry cleaned them so many times that the fabric's worn out. Simultaneous spontaneous shirt death. It's petty bourgeois, I know, but it did force a question: what will I wear to work now? This is a loaded question. I never know what to wear on my free time, but I used to always know what to wear to work: one of those three shirts. But now it's all up in the air.

I had a similar realization when I first moved to Brooklyn and my ipod broke. I had saved up for that iPod for months, and I used it to play backing tracks when I sang. So without that, I didn't know how to perform anymore. Maybe I wasn't a performer anymore, or not the same kind. It was scary but exciting. Can I have another realization, please? I'm halfway through my saturn return.

Also on Sunday, amidst the backdrop of a revival in the backyard, I did a bunch of chores. I went to the gym, I cooked, I cleaned, I did laundry. I got a haircut from the awesome Jess Paps and feel much cooler (in all senses). I met my long lost friend Izzie for dinner. We sat next to a pair of sexy boys but I ate with gusto nonetheless and had a really spicy margarita. It was perfect.

Saturday I saw Linda Simpson's photos at ClampArt in their NYC c. 1985 exhibition, which was so cool! A really touching and dynamic way of looking at a really complex time in New York. Linda's my favorite drag queen in New York, and her legendary zine My Comerade made me so excited to live here. I got to perform at her night at the Cock with Telfar (called SLURP, which always reminded me of the SLRP), and it was a definite highlight.

I was thinking about this video I saw of Vivienne Westwood, where she talks about punk rock:



I like this idea of a book as a punk rock accessory so on Saturday:



Afterward, I went to band practice with B0DYH1GH for our performance on Friday night at the BIRDSONG SHOW in Brooklyn. Which is going to be very exciting. Then we went to this awesome reading at Interstate Projects, featuring: Joseph Keckler, Xeňa Stanislavovna Semjonová, Samantha Thornhill, Anthony Thornton, Mary Walton, Lord Breaulove Swells Whimsy, and Joseph Whitt. It was SO MUCH FUN. I was really inspired by my awesome friends. It was outdoors, there was too much free red wine, it was great.

Friday night I got to read at the SUMMER CRUSH, opening for Ariana Reines. I gotta say, it was a super fun event, and I got to hang out with Kayla and Duchess Crystal, but I do feel like I totally bombed. It was okay, though. I like bombing (much to my professional detriment). I like doing a bad job sometimes. I'm just so excited to get to open for Reines, it's the same feeling of playing the same punk show as a band you like. Just to be on the same bill. Just to be in the room. You know? It's not different form being a fan; it includes that. Sometimes we think we need more than we do.

And then today was awful hard, really. In so many ways, all day. Most of it was my own doing, just me freaking out. But there are some things bugging me. Some worries. I feel really disorganized and stressed out, and like I can never catch up. But I came home and one of my room mates gave me a H&M CdG shirt he was getting rid of, which is gorgeous, and my other room mate gave me a glass of prosecco and I did a facial masque and ate a light dinner including pharmaceuticals and my room mate also gave me a spare cigarette he had hanging out, so it can't be all bad.

I just feel like, if you're really smart and if you practice a lot, you can function invisibly. They say it's impossible but we know (so many of us) that it's not impossible; camouflage is an ancient survival mechanism. And so I know, I think I know, that we can poison ourselves silently. I could be shooting myself in the foot without realizing it. And that's a scary thought. But it's not scarier than the alternative. 

Tomorrow I'm going to work then to rehearse some songs at BAX by myself, then to meditation then home to cook dinner (or something?). I'm going to try to get up extra early to go to the gym.

Sometimes I wonder about timing, or how long things take versus how long they feel like they take. Sometimes I think I am so tired of certain things not being done. I'm so frustrated for not having outgrown some aspects of myself. And other times I really miss things about myself that I used to believe were true. These are the negative parts and I'm trying to think of the positive parts. The positive parts are less glamorous.

I wrote a poem, for the beginning of the new issue of my zine. But now I feel like I can't publish it because it came true. And so now, I feel like life is trumping what I was trying to do, or something. The world took the words out of my mouth. Isn't that what breathing is? That's what Caroline says in meditation class; we think it's us doing it, with our brains but that's not actually it. That's not how it works.

I think I'm protecting myself and maybe that's a delusion. But at the same time, I don't think that by pretending that my brain was in charge,  I don't think that I could breathe underwater.

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