Ridiculousness:

Sunday, 13 May 2012

Wednesday, 09 May 2012

  • You break my heart, I break yours.

    Friendship comes in waves.

    Compassion is the closest thing anyone can have to god.

    You don't know anything.

    Bodies are oddly shaped.

    Mine is squishy

    strong

    bulbous

    I am full.

Tuesday, 03 April 2012

  • My professors and I have maintained that healthy college distance. Even for an art school, where we're all touching and feeling each other all the time. I've forcibly hugged some of them out of an actual love of guidance resulting in an awkward clanging of two bodies magnetized by obligation and optimism respectively. This one particularly stoic character, a tense woman, hair seemingly pulled back even when it's not, has repeatedly seen through my thinly vailed bullshit. The way she chews her cheek and quantifies imagery has made me drag myself even slower than usual to sit before her to take that student role of gatekeeper -I must've blocked out so many more lessons from her. My willingness to listen is so arbitrary. A very exclusive club with many fat-fingered bouncers herding various voices around its perimeter, but letting few in (as of late). Stoic woman professor momentarily crossed the velvet ropes today, permeating my soul. Watching someone forget their own abrasiveness is truly remarkable.
    She was responding to one of my long-winded answers to an art theory question regarding the mathematical quality of modernism. I rambled on about how these artists seemed to have almost sarcastically responded to society's illegitimizing of art because of its perceived purposelessness. It's unproductive, retarded quality. Why not make systematic paintings then? Rows and rows of tick marks? Modernist paintings looked factory fresh for a reason -to assault the notion that art was an unquantifiable menace. A time suck. Here, we've made it a tedious chore, now it's worth something, right?
    Stoic woman professor seemed pleased by this answer, and she then unfolded her wings and her eyes became those of a small reptile -expectant, open, curious.
    She said to me (to the class),

    'You know, I came from a very conservative family. Going to art school, pursuing art... that was just... they couldn't understand it at all. And because of that, I became so filled with doubt. I had a teacher who once told me, "Art is your job. It's what you do. There is no question about that." That notion floored me. Her words were actually very similar to what Rainer and Krauss were describing about the idea of making these tangible art tasks. It is work. It is real.'

    My eyes became slightly misty, which I immediately batted down as some hormonal side effect, some womanly problem; the voice of society clanging in my head. I had locked eyes with stoic professor and understood her whole being.

    The chore of those few moments of engagement in any sort of intellectual stimulation rendered me useless for the rest of class. I sat making vast to-do lists and shifting around until it was time to head out.

    Mike wandered over to sit by me, as he does in every class we have together. He looks at me with expectation and delight, which is not lost on me. I recognize that few people look at me that way now. We mill about. Occasionally I bellow eccentricities in a desperate attempt to coerce my classmates into nervous laughter.
    We walk out, squinting.


    I have never been this young before. For such an extended period.

Saturday, 10 March 2012

  • Currently
    Rainforest
    By Clams Casino
    see related
    I wish you didn't look so good now. Or so stylish.
    But I bet you still smell like milk anyway.
    I wish my best friend would answer my texts. And that I didn't have a consistent inferiority complex with her.
    But she's the only person who completely understands me in the whole world. And maybe that's why I hold her so high.
    Maybe I envy that she gets me
    because I don't get me.
    She is enviable for a lot of other reasons though. I'm not the jealous type though. I swear. That's why we're best friends anyway. I think most other girls couldn't take it. She's just the best. All the time.
    I wonder how many others love her as much as I do.
    I wish I was partying tonight.
    But I generally hate the parties here because I never know anyone and they don't want to meet me and I can perceive that whenever I try to meet them. That's a New York thing. That whole vibe. Haha. Fuck that. It's so cheesy.
    It always ends up being a cold walk to a cold place. Even if there's heat in the warehouse.
    I wish I was not confused about everything,
    but then I'd be middle aged.
    I wish I was financially independent.
    But that's really hard and I can barely take care of myself as it is.
    I wish I knew all the things I didn't know.
    I wish I was Google.
    Google just puts out advertisements to laugh in everyone's face about how unanimous it is. Like it needs to be advertised.
    I'm like hungering for something and I don't even know what it is.
    I think it's the feeling of finishing a project. I've been having that feeling for a minute now because of school. I think I miss it now that I'm on break.
    I think I'm going to sculpt something to put on the mantle. Something cool. Like one of those designer Japanese collectible toys.
    For hype beasts.
    I'll make something like that.
    Juan asked the drunk guy that always hangs out in front of our building to help him carry this couch that someone threw out into our apartment. My apartment. I say our because he's always there. But it's not really his.
    Maybe it is.
    I don't want to say that.
    The couch smelled a little funny.
    It seemed very gross.
    I sprayed it down with febreeze and threw a fleece blanket over it.
    It's crooked. One of the legs is broken.
    But I doubt it's going anywhere. At least it's furniture. No one likes a big empty room with a bunch of bullshit strewn all over the floor. And that's what that room was before.
    Now it's a room with a crooked couch.
    Marvin came over yesterday. He's visiting NYC from Chicago. He's a poet. We were born on the same day of the same year. I am now friends with 2 people who were born on the same day in the same year as me. We must gravitate toward each other. I think I actually invent a kinship with them.
    But I definitely wish I were more like Marvin. He's a great guy.
    I love poets.
    More than I love other kinds of writers. They're usually a bit nicer. They know what to say. Great conversationalists. Very supportive.
    I don't mind not participating in their art form. Just watching them, cheering them on. Wondering what it would be like if my mind did those same things with words that their minds do.
    I'm wearing a lot more color and confronting people more when they make me angry. I'm less passive, I hope.
    I'm slightly more responsible. Not always entirely behind the 8 ball, which wasn't always true. For 2 whole years, I was always 100% behind the 8 ball. Now sometimes I'm not.
    I'm making slow, good progress.
    I have more aches and pains now. It's scary to think that those will just increase as I get older, until they reach a critical mass when I'm really old, and I'll have to take a cocktail of medications just to not feel totally miserable.
    I don't think about that often, but when I do, it's scary.
    I wonder how many people will look back at their lives spent on the internet when they're very old and regret them being spent on the internet.
    It's harder to remember things you've lived on the internet.
    I only have a couple internet memories.
    I'm sort of afraid of the outside world in New York. At least the day time outside world.
    I still don't leave much.
    I wonder how many things I'm addicted to that I don't realize I'm addicted to. Like putting q-tips too far into my ears and twisting them around. I'm not supposed to do that, but it feels really good. I do it every other day. I don't think I could stop even if I wanted to.
    I can't cook and I don't mind that.
    Yet.
    I resent the car wash located right next to my apartment building. Its sounds permeate my whole head.
    It's almost midnight and I'm still in my bed. I'm always in my bed. If I leave, it's a blur until I'm back in my bed. Why is this the only place that I actually notice my own presence? Well, here and the metal shop at school.
    I guess it's either a state of quietness (aside from the car wash noises) or loud chaos and sparks flying.
    I really just want to weld forever.
    I like being able to control the state of something as strong as metal.
    I like holding something that gets so hot that I can't even look at it with bare eyes.

    I like the notion of fighting.

    It's coming out in odd ways.

Thursday, 08 March 2012

  • On my honed symmetry with others

    There was a seamlessness that perhaps only I felt.
    Of the many crowds I found myself swelled into. The fellows around me packing tighter and tighter as time wore on and suddenly springing to life as one singular being. Throbbing and jumping up and down in unison, taking me with them. If you fought the physics of that, you ended up hurt or trampled. And I never fought it. I never felt any pain in doing so.
    Symbols of those I had recently met would present themselves all over my body. Here a new pair of shoes, there a new way of speaking. It was constant. There was rarely a time of dwelling with one individual, one way. I needed more people to become and more facets to absorb. That might mean my entire social existence has been selfish, but that doesn't seem unique. And those that push others away altogether, the supposedly unselfish ones, are usually the worst people ever.

    I go out much less now. There is little quality time with anyone I'm interested in absorbing. I'm shocked that there is still some sort of fanfare when I arrive at gatherings. Even though I've been such a hermit and am not wealthy.

    It'll come back, I know it will. The rawness of trailing another's sweaty body on bicycle. The only sounds in the pregnant summer air: our breathing, pedaling, and the far off traffic.

Thursday, 23 February 2012

  • Few phrases terrify me more than:

    "I've been constantly testing those around me, seeing who's done their research and who needs to be enlightened."
  • A gap toothed man with a heavy accent gave me free ice cream and an extra egg sandwich at Dunkin Donuts today.
    I felt obligated to give him my number when he asked for it afterward. His request took a couple of minutes for me to understand. He just kept repeating himself over and over. I explained that I had a boyfriend, once I understood what he was saying, though I wasn't attracted to him in the least. He smiled, shook his head, and said, "No, just friends. You come by, I give you food." It seemed like a good deal. "Thdee-foudr-seven-foudr-foudr-nine-eight-doublefive-seven," he recited. It seemed to take an eternity for me to understand the 'double-five' part. I entered his number into my phone while he expectantly held the mint chocolate chip cone in front of me, as though it were ransom. I kept smiling coyly. Like that was me. I wondered how much more weird misunderstandings I'd go through for this ice cream. "Call it," he said, cleverly. There was no escape. A past me would've forcibly believed in the possibility of a fruitful friendship with this gentleman. A present me was hungry and slightly jaded. I called the number, seeing no graceful way out. After feeling his phone vibrate within his pocket, he said, "I call you, I give you food." He handed me the cone and then walked away as though the exchange never happened.

    Sweet deal.
  • There is a man doing voice exercises, or meditation chants, or humming next door. A phone ring tone chimes in.
    I am now certain it's chanting.
    It sounds like a moo that tapers off into a broken gulp.
    It is not sexual,
    but it is very distracting.

Thursday, 16 February 2012

  • remorse letter.

    I wish I hadn't given that fat slice of creativity to you.
    I wanted to throw your art away. Or give it to someone I didn't even like.
    But my boyfriend said he'd keep it.
    He hasn't done anything with it.
    It's in a grocery bag hanging on the doorknob of my apartment.
    Down the long hallway.
    As far away as possible.

    It's way cooler to forget the people who've wronged you. Like it's super dope not to mind them at all.
    But until that shit is gone, man. That's like the last piece of it.

    Just get it out of my fucking house.

    It's worse to lose respect for someone than to be insulted by them.
    That feels worse.

    I haven't had a regret in so long. Until like 2 weeks ago.

    But it's on its way out. In the trash.

    Either way,
    in other separate news,

    I'm on my way.

    Like actually though.

Monday, 16 January 2012

  • The hardwood floors in Harlem are ice cold.
    As is the inside air.
    So that I am propelled into the next room by necessity. I am propelled back into bed by necessity.
    The temperature compels me to watch every single episode of Seinfeld in a row and ignore the New York that is certainly outside and certainly enveloping me.
    The meager heat pipes are no match for the draft making its way inside
    and that is why
    I must lay uncultured with a heart beating a little too fast
    and calm all 19 of the former selves more active than this one that are screaming from the past.

    It's the pipes.

    It's not me.