There ought to be a star named after Mykki Blanco. Call it Quattlebaum. A girl so famous, so beloved that one of her patrons bought her a place in the firmament. A home away from home in a galaxy out of town. That would make sense: that Björk sends you a note saying that she's bought a star and named it after you.
That morning I went for a run at sunrise and when I got home I saw a man sitting in a bakery truck, nervously and slowly driving through red lights, smoking. I thought about the pastries (I'd still eat them and gladly).
It's not that I'm falling backwards it's that I'm using what I know to heal myself. I really felt out of control for a while. It's like in some ways I'm done being a teenager, but in other ways I ache to not be getting to do it all over again. All I want is to begin again. To master adolescence. Knowing what I know now.
Two phrases I hate and why I've come to hate them:
- "Self-awareness" this is so frustrating to me because I feel like its willfully dispensing with consciousness the word the concept the feeling. And I'm fine to dump it there are a lot of good reasons to do that and none of them come to mind when I hear "self-awareness" it's particularly annoying to me in adjective form as "he's totally not self-aware" it feels wrong. I literally hate grammar but this feels like an incomprehensible sentiment.
- "Self-care" I'm all about soothing. I'm all about healing. Empowering. But the premise of self care is that you provide care for yourself, inherently a performance of dissociation. Treat yourself like someone you care about. Give yourself the care that you know you deserve but which am ignorant selfish world cannot give to you. It's not the pathos that bugs me (pile it on) it's the premise that you don't take care of yourself. I mean I don't. I think deep down most people don't but want to. I think I have a good sense of human nature. Not to brag. But "self-care" is a call to be a parent to yourself. Which is great but nothing works forever and why trap yourself in a dynamic where you need a parent? For me self care is like gently reminding that I need it I'm not getting it I think I need it I think I'm not getting it the world is insensitive or I just think the world is insensitive. It's more about admitting my needs than doing a magic trick, putting on a fake mustache and funny voice and pulling a rabbit out of a hat.
Wore my new baseball cap on the subway. It's oxblood dark maroon and it says SCAB in stylish bright blue fake farsi embroidery. It's by Undercover and while I love it part of me does worry that it makes me seem anti-union.
You know when I was younger I was really into the thing of the home wrecker, the libertine, that position. But a scab, as in someone hired to cross picket lines? How awful. Because they're desperate too. It's a notion of no winners. Not even the bosses. Nor the witnesses, the customers.
But a scab as in the healing crust of a wound? That I support. Something daring you to pick it. The body's way of demanding patience, management, attention, care. The veiled threat of a scar. A great fashion statement.
Waking up on only the wrong sides of the bed. Hungover, un-joyous, distracted, angry, pissed-off and confused. I sat on my stoop and smoked a cigarette and tried to make out the tiny buds coming in on the tree branches across the street. I've been in a bay mood forever. I've been moody.
Revisiting my favorite 10"s. When human beings upset me, when the ghosts online are barking on their wire leashes, when my newly aging body betrays me, when Spring isn't fast enough, when the Sun ain't gentle and the world doesn't care I can always comfort myself with the records I listened to in high school. My favorite format, the ten inch. I had to wait until my 20s to finally find my favorites on vinyl (Sleater-Kinney's Self-Titled on Chainsaw, Cat Power's Dear Sir on Runt, and Huggy Bear's Taking the Rough with the Smooch on Kill Rock Stars). Just put my angry records around me. They never let me down. They don't boss me around, they don't have parties without me. They don't hurt me.
Part of me thinks jewels are tacky and vulgar and part of me thinks mineral, geological proof of age and development is the most sophisticated and straightforward type of value: adornment. I want to protect myself from my own insecurities.
Thinking about the first two lines of Cat Power's "Great Expectations": I am like powder, I am relaxation
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