I am sitting alone, listening to one of those songs that makes you feel cold inside, at one of those coffee shops that tries to make you feel warm inside wondering when I am going to feel good about everything, and if I even want to feel good about anything.

I am sitting on a stool that is a perfect height and I am wearing a sweater that makes me feel perfectly toasty with its over the top fur collar and sparkly clasp. It is halloween. Did I say I was alone? I feel it deep down, a loneliness that reaches past my sweet sweater, through my bra-less chest and inside every irregular heartbeat.

I feel a conscious change, an indescribable shift in most parts of me. It is all rushing by me as I sit and think and watch and feel sorry for myself. I am a laughing cynic, an alert space cadet, and a starving glutton who can't figure out what to hate, what to appreciate, and what to fill up with.

look at those above-neck moves.

lurve.

from that astral plane.

[wavves]

"every night i tell myself that i am the cosmos"

i feel a little bit lost these days. not sure what to do with my time, not sure what my "homework" should be anymore. I have a goal in mind, but it almost seems unreachable. It was easier then. Then, when I didn't know what I wanted. It was easier to be told what my plans could be for the night. To express interest in what I wanted and to have someone else make a move, to have someone else pull the strings and to have them tell me it would be a good time.

Because then I could offer myself in a different way. I could give advice, I could help him not feel so lost, and in the process, not feel so lost myself. I never thought of myself as a giver, but I turned into one for a short time. A bitchy, selfish, unrelenting giver who took just as much. But I realize now that I took it all for granted. Of course its a learning experience. Of course I don't regret it all in the end, but I do feel sad that its gone for good.

But I'm managing, don't get me wrong. It feels better when I've earned it myself; whatever it is that I earn daily. I just can't help but feel, uh, reminiscent? Is that the word? Lonely? Sure. But its not just loneliness, its progress. It's learning more about myself, recognizing the shitty ways I dealt with feeling insecure and inadequate. I'm beginning to feel less inadequate, but now who do I share it with? Who do I commiserate with? I work best with a give and take, and I have people to give to, and people to take from, but it feels better when one can offer both. I miss it, and I want it back, but its not my place to ask anymore.

So I'll wait. I'll take my photos looking Nathan of Wavves in the eye, hoping I could give something that might make his show seem more meaningful. I'll write those emails, hawking my "talents" to the magazines I admire, and I'll dream the dreams I have since 4th grade with my Vogue-plastered school binders. But I hope that you'll feel the same way, that its not worth giving up on.

I want to undo the damage.
I'll take it easy. And be patient.

now i understand how, even the things you want to do can become a pain.



[voila, my coffee table/to do-or-read-or-write list]

its strange when you begin to realize that you can't decipher what is good and bad for you. vices that make you say too much, smoke that makes your teeth hurt, and friends that fail to have your best interests in mind. they're so wonderfully predictable; at least you sort of know what you're going get.

what about the things that aren't so predictable. the new people who you're scared to let in, and the things that continue to peak your interest til you can't quite decide whether to let go or hang on. some connections are intangible, some literally are missing parts of the senses. is it wrong to let them slip away on account of miscommunication? because though intangible, they are the most interesting, the things to live by and to live for. with these people it becomes clear that the guard you built up lacks the safety it used to boast.

you just keep getting closer, and i don't know if it's good or bad for me.

is "blissfully unaware" the right way to describe it?
does that make sense to you?
now i know that for me that being busy equals avoiding things.
work all day, flip from smart to big mouth to slacker,
come home, play dress-up, paint my lips
and leave again.

i act my age but when do I stop?
when do I tire, or take a step up?
or wash my dishes and shine my shoes?
theres not enough thinking time.
not enough "15 step" and (nice dream) and electioneering
instead its small talk over champagne and hugs and cheek kisses

which is all okay,
i just need my token mellow friday night and saturday day to catch up on it all.

yep, that looks about right.

its weird that looking back at my listening habits over the past year can actually create a timeline of moments, a literal soundtrack to those big and small moments that were so impactful...

Radiohead- it was my saving grace, my its okay to feel, my secretly cry at my desk.
"(Nice Dream)" - The Bends

Red Hot Chili Peppers- this was and is my most recent, 2nd of 2 musical obsessions. the only band i let into my life and my heart for a solid month, and i have yet to wake up one morning since without one of their songs in my head. i miss them already.
"Suck My Kiss" - Blood Sugar Sex Magik

Bon Iver- i need to be haunted, for its okay to be in this introspective mood. i might tap my foot or tear up, but its always cold. and nice.
"Re:Stacks" - For Emma, Forever Ago

Mystery Jets - what is a girl to do when she spends the evening, night and morning with these guys. call it love or blame it on the blow, my life was changed that night.
"Flakes" - Twenty One

Little Joy [replacing with Human Highway] - it may seem mellow to most, but this was my scream at the top of my lungs, let it all out exiting the 101 into downtown soundtrack.
"The Sound" - Moody Motorcycle

Broken Social Scene- came to me when i was most broken. swimmers and lovers spit, i am so happy i found this band.
"Lover's Spit" - You Forgot It In People

Royksopp- royksopp forever was my epic filler.
"Royskopp Forever" - Junior

Metric - see BSS, but now I got to get angry.
"Gold, Guns, Girls" - Fantasies

Miike Snow - I came back to happy. To Black & Blue and Silvia, and epic car rides and it was all on my own!
"Black & Blue" - Miike Snow

Justice - sure fire toe-tap at work, even years later.
everything.

D.R.I. [replacing with Kings of Leon] - well, really just one song - Use Somebody. That song, remixed, or not, is fantastic.
"Use Somebody" - Only By the Night

Deerhunter- a phase. [replacing with Waaves/Vetiver] - waaves vetiver, i bought these albums on the same day, and they represent the calm and anger i feel pretty much everyday. the angst and what-the-fuck and ahhh-why-me of "So Bored", plus the thoughtful contentness of "Everyday", i listened to these albums as an activity, not as a soundtrack to one. Just got confirmed to photograph wavves next weekend, can't wait to see what all of the live-show-hype is about.

Amy Winehouse- anytime.
"You Know I'm No Good" - Back to Black

Heartless Bastards- if i keep smoking, or rather, when i get older i'd like to have the rasp, the attitude, and the wisdom of this voice. its grit and grime and utter confidence is just rock and roll and shes just got me wrapped around her finger.
"Sway" - The Mountain

The Raveonettes- eternal fan, Bang! was on repeat for a good solid week, while love in a trashcan, lust, aly walk with me, my boyfriend's back, and twilight are general staples.
"Bang!" - In and Out of Control

okay i am officially bored of this, not going to read over.

notes from the otherside

For the record, i would like to state, that prior to September 1, 2009, my knowledge of the Red Hot Chili Peppers was paltry at best. Sure, Californication, Under the Bridge, and Give it Away crossed my path thanks to the reigning "alternative" radio stations of the 90s and the surprisingly "grunge" taste of my grade school classmates (at a strict private school, mind you), but this band never held a spot in my heart like Lauryn Hill did. Never did I make the trip to Tower Records to pick up a copy of Blood Sugar Sex Magik after school in 2nd grade. The RHCP fan-girl persona seemed to be an absent part of my fate.

A chance meeting between me and a copy of Scar Tissue, Anthony Kiedis' quick-and-dirty memoir documenting his evolution from goofball California pothead street kid to "serious" musician, I attached whatever brain activity was lingering in my head at the time to full-on rockstar obsession, studying this intriguing group of characters. Aware only of the Chili Peppers' mainstream and industry success musically, Anthony Kiedis' modelizer past and present and Flea's naked antics, I made it 24 years in this world virtually unaware.

Let me just say, I will not claim to appreciate RHCP based upon John Frusciante's "radical ability to shred" or the "funky soul x rock and roll" musical innovations. It all started rather superficially.

Yes, I am a woman, and thoroughly intrigued by Kiedis' sexual freedom and spiritual passion for all that is my species, I was initially hooked on taking a piece of his spirit from reading the book. But what is a girl to do when suddenly, she goes from hipstering out, listening to Girls and The Raveonettes new albums to rocking out to Blood Sugar Sex Magik on her car stereo. Blasting it at full volume I ingest the almost laughable baritone words AK exhales. "Girl please me, be my soul bride" quickly followed by a full on head-bashing get-in-my-pants-now "blood sugar, baby, shes magik, sex magik", I could not and still cannot, get enough. A full-on, diehard convert, I'm drinking the Kool-Aid, chugging down every cup of horny-thoughtful-soul-fuck-sex-love RHCP juice I can get my hands on. It's in my head, on my ipod and saturating my being.

Starting with Blood Sugar Sex Magik, on to By the Way, One Hot Minute, and Californication, I have just scratched the surface as far as discography goes, but have preoccupied myself with a tour-de-youtube scouring the internet for pieces of history I was unable to experience with my lack of MTV and, well, my born-too-late-to-appreciate situation. I'll admit that my pre-teen years were filled with visions of Zach Morris and Kelli Kapowski, sadly devoid of Anthony Kiedis' bare chested humpfest.

I am all at once turned on, turned off, obsessed, and frightened by their lifestyle; for it is easy to love it on paper, less easy to live through 20 years of addiction, tortured friendships and abundant sexual opportunity. The more I study them the less I become focused on AK's sexual energy or John Frusciante's long hair; the spirit of these men is enough to carry me for, well, apparently a good solid 2 weeks so far.

Delving into this band's cast of characters, I have become fascinated on a personal level, notably by guitarist John Frusciante. He stimulates my psyche in terms of creative output, both educating me on the effects of massive drug-intake and the beautiful product that results from such activity. Respectful of the individual turmoil and destruction of this period of his life, I selfishly take it into my being as a beautiful reminder of the human mind. I am dosed by his raw uninhibited energy, the eerily perfect gift he gave by documenting verbally and musically this journey he was meant to have, feeling as though I can experience it on some other level through him.

While I may be destructive in other ways, I strive to write a line like
Folding pain tightly so it knows what it means,
for its silent vowels to be all that bleeds,
like me it knows the sides,
and of what it means to keep trying
or
Cause I’m a pretend me,
And I’m real cause I can hit me softly,
and bleed blood I can hear,
Cause I’m here now

Cryptically unintelligible, I can appreciate the rhythm and honesty in which he speaks throughout the eerie short film made by Johnny Depp touring his artfully trashed Hollywood Hills home. I feel a tiny bit of his pain and relate it to my insecurities and lost search for how I will eventually unearth the knowledge I ingest on a daily basis. For it doesn't get more real than being out of your mind, and to be out of your mind while free of substances is another challenge altogether.

Dismiss me as a straight up fan-girl, but I think that everything comes to us for a reason, and this band currently and consistently consumes my mind as a way to improve myself and to be in touch with the reality of everything around me. To say what I mean, to be content with silence and to leave the meaningless behind. To adopt a playful seriousness, and to absorb and internalize the wonderful beings I encounter everyday; not to take advantage, but to simply take it all in, so that I can in turn regurgitate it uniquely without inhibition, thoughtfully injecting inspiration where needed. To take the mundane and to keep trying.

!!!

from jak and jil alexander wang 10

I was hesitant,
Is it wrong to be hesitant?
Once again hesitation was holding me back,
Not him, not the girl checking names,
me.

I turned it off,
that so-called rational thinking,
and walked into the tent,
got my card and took my seat,
who, me?

horn, thump, im no joan didion,
ill be the one, the one that might,
cry at the sight and sound of
all of it, yes thats right
me, cry.

it was a taste,
a tiny dip in the pool
of my future, can't wait,
its there, a sip of future addiction,
me, high.


haven't come down yet.

lead-foot,
bottomless-pit,
drunk-dialer,
chain-smoker,
clothes-horse,

i want my cup filled,
i want my heart punched,
and my ears drowned in music.

i want to talk to you,
i want that book to read,
and just another hour away from home.

snort it sip it puff it touch it,
call me touch me text me love me.

what am i looking for

a "star birth". how radical.
from NASA

where are you

Feeling Fucked Up
by Etheridge Knight

Lord she’s gone done left me done packed / up and split
and I with no way to make her
come back and everywhere the world is bare
bright bone white crystal sand glistens
dope death dead dying and jiving drove
her away made her take her laughter and her smiles
and her softness and her midnight sighs—

Fuck Coltrane and music and clouds drifting in the sky
fuck the sea and trees and the sky and birds
and alligators and all the animals that roam the earth
fuck marx and mao fuck fidel and nkrumah and
democracy and communism fuck smack and pot
and red ripe tomatoes fuck joseph fuck mary fuck
god jesus and all the disciples fuck fanon nixon
and malcolm fuck the revolution fuck freedom fuck
the whole muthafucking thing
all i want now is my woman back
so my soul can sing

I start by saying, I don't feel sorry for myself. And I don't feel sorry for you.

I feel sorry that I can't reconcile this. That I can come to terms with almost everything in my life except for this. I can reunite with everyone else, I can think, with a clear head about my next steps, about my hopes and my desires. That I can make friends and keep them. That I can try something different and that I can be alone.

But I cannot close this. I cannot speak to anyone the same way, feel comfortable with anyone else the same way. I cannot stop thinking about it, and cannot understand why it was the only thing that made me feel real, and outside of myself. That besides then, I have not once in my life felt unselfishly sad. A type of sad that has yet to exist inside of me again, one that hit me so deeply inside of my heart that it could not escape me. Instead it sat in the pit of my stomach replacing food, replacing reality. My literal hunger was replaced with a driven, sad calm.

There are many things to be said.

song for me

I bought the album as if I had a record player to play it on. As if there were no distractions.

I put it in my stereo, put my headphones on, laid back with my arms up on the couch, and closed my eyes, listening. I was taking myself back to a time. Back to a time where I would never live, to a place where I had a pile of carpets and maybe even a fireplace. A place where I would lay on the floor on a pile of pillows. (They would have tassles on all four corners) And I would lay alone, my only goal to listen to the Byrds or to Gram Parsons all night long. Eyes still closed I would imagine the times I had read about them in the paper, or perhaps even met them. Satisfaction and happiness would wash over me, for I appreciated every strum, note, and lyric. And every letter that streamed out was spoken only to me, entering my ears, down my throat and into my stomach, sitting there digesting, sending the blood up into my heart. Simplicity at its most fulfilling.

My mind wanders between now and then, between the past that was never my past, and the present that isn't really my present either. But for now, the sound makes it start to feel like it is.

"So take me down to your dance floor / And I won´t mind the people when they stare / Paint a different color on your front door / And tomorrow we will still be there"