Take me back from whence I came
April 25th
Roommates being loud Just barely submitted my paper please God let me do well You never shouldve made me write about anorexia nervosa what is that about? Ridiculous headache at either temple been obsessive again been grinding my teeth when you happen into my dreams I suppose, I suppose also that ... something is just not right there ... obsessive demon never fully exorcised of course whatever was I thinking ––
April 18th
Doing work I am proud of drawing webs qui marchent bien ––
April 15th
Yesterday I exorcised some obsessive demon, today it is much better now, comparatively , though never ever gone, only managed
April 8th
Still writing huffing the spine of the Doheny Library copy of Le Ventre de l'Atlantique that lays on my chest and wanting very badly Twizzlers. Mary Gaitskill told the Paris Review that she only ever writes four pages at a time, at the absolute maximum, and she cannot remember the last time she did that –– I do wonder what she means by "at a time" is that to say in one sitting? In one day? I write in long painful bursts mostly besides when I am diarizing comme ça. I make it painful but Mia told me two years ago now that She could tell when I procrastinated and that was when my best writing always happened, when I would be most lucid, when I thought too much about it I would start to spin and my line of thought would turn to ash –– thinking all evening of the full moon coming Saturday how it harkens hearkens back to October, when I'd had a vivid premonition about how my relationship would end (which I was exactly correct about) and naturally spent the month making myself sick, crying on campus etc to the point that Dr. Meeker told me i didn't "look very well" -- whatever this means for me now in the current return I am very curious to know, probably only goes as deep as the lunar new year and the close of this Venus retrograde which marked the definitive end to the relationship, seeing as it was so obviously over in October (It was over last January honestly it was over the whole time. Worthwhile even so I hold ) if not long before, But you have to wonder if I will have another premonition, or if I am having one now, having had one already, gonna have one up north, thinking about that. Thinking/knowing it is worse than gauche to diarize a past relationship online like this
April 7th
Missing desperately some people who really annoy the hell out of me.. what is that about? Longing for distraction? Wanting them to come around and be their not-annoying parts only? Sometimes it feels like I make my project on this Earth into a "how much of a bitch can I be" challenge. How much of a bitch can I be and how much can I procrastinate and how can it feel beautiful all the same. List today:
April 5th
Unsure whether I will ever be a nice girl again Not saying this seeking pity or even for anyone to agree (my mother did so over the phone ce matin là) Anything like that just considering my own capacities and my endless bullshit how I slouch and look away –– cannot fool myself anymore! I give myself away No swimming pool no nothing nobody Cruel vein more so an artery
March 26th
Thinking about my Mom's-Mom's-Mom Joyce Ann and the clown dolls she kept up on the shelf near the door to the garage in Havasu
March 25th
Unsure of what I would like to do with my day –– maybe will go to Clark st and do chess homework –– saw her today know she saw me but I was on the phone and am having an exceptional hair day so all is fine, though I was wearing the same outfit as I was when we split, funny to call it that but Talked or Broke Up is so serious, anyway –– very frustrated with myself for myriad reasons (always makes me think of Heathers) And my laptop died mid-lecture (Zoom) Naturally bodega charging cable hardly works and I had good things to say, too , for once, about relic and performance and queer image-consumption. As a daughter, thinking: it must be so strange to birth and rear a child who goes on to, suddenly, one day, it always happens so quickly, write essays, ascribing to ridiculous ivory tower nuance and vocabulary (this is to say, my mother ne comprend pas my drivel, this being no moral failure on her part, of course), it just would make worlds more sense for the child to have become a carpenter or something, learn to work with materials and tools and one's hands, or even a computer technician of some sort, though this reflection presents only the mise en abyme of my pessimism and distaste for what is precisely the object of my desire, this world of beautiful people and beautiful words filling beautiful documents, how unreal it is, how perplexing, surely the distaste is only my own sick sense of inadequacy despite all this precious training, but really it is unnatural, as much as I love and want it, so many terrible, unnatural things I love and want(!)
March 22nd
Such is wrestling such is wrestling such is wrestling
Wrestler's son put on your belt , fight and put down
your opponent
You are the stronger
March 21st
Did nothing of what I intended to choosing to cry about it instead, frustrated this afternoon til I saw the Hollywood sign, cure-all thing, now having washed my hair with the right stuff and made my bed with the new quilt (spilt dr. pepper all over my favorite white one, and it had ink blots aplenty from its only other occupant, and both of our vomit, bought it with the first one almost 4 years ago now, what's up Allen I wanna say to her, makes you think) and clean sheets, I am sitting at the big table which I never really do, gonna just write and push away the conveyor-belt banner of I HATE THIS I HATE THIS with a flashing I LOVE THIS I LOVE THIS, kind of need to reread the novel in its entirety I am realizing, maybe that's why I'm scared, why be afraid to write? I wrote a decent paper in 4 hours last week It's not like it's even that Difficult for me and here I sit squandering my one real ability, the only thing I have been trained to do and find success in–– Nexttttt year I'll train for a half marathon so as to give myself another ability. In threeish weeks it'll be something new different good
Practicing a studious form of the Experience by re-reading Le Ventre de l'Atlantique with a diet coke and a big water and oolong and CBD and herb pills and turning my laptop off now in bed on the new quilt..
March 6th
So good I catch myself walking around smiling. Due to Eliza, and the Classicist, and New York City, my endless good fortune, I keep getting so lucky now if only I could make myself work on my thesis, that is what I must do, if I write two chapters this week I'll feel good then one more and edits before I leave on Thursday. How to avoid il malocchio when celebration is always in order? Life is best shared I want to tell everyone my plans and hear all of theirs and watch it all happen
Judith Slaying Holofernes
March 5th
Oxford Classicist quoting Sappho by way of Salinger to me, dreams really do come true!
Took myself to work for brunch, I am having:
March 4th
PSYC100. I will not complain.
There is much to think about in down dog and less in child's pose, until you take a side body stretch, then it all comes up again. Rest in peace Carl Dean, I don't care what they say Dolly loves you to hell with Kenny Rogers and islands in the stream
Two sips of coffee left that I've been nursing for two and a half hours now Michelle says it's the year of the web site, I just felt this drivel was too drivel for Substack, I find it too serious for what I've got going on, respect it too much kinda, don't wanna categorize flash fiction cultural commentary this is just a dumb website I like it that way. Boyfriend girlfriend couple sitting at separate tables, mine in between, he gets up to kiss her and is bored and she is busy and asked just now to stay longer, looking ahead of my table I can see my fucked arches in the knee-height mirror under the pastry case, I love bringing other people here and watching our ankles and shoes walk us towards the tablet register, think later when I'm here alone, like now, of watching us that way then, four feet like one animal together
I think God needed a babe and I wasn't busy. I feel capable of telling him a few things because I don't buy the "I'm not worthy" concept. I respect that he was a master teacher, but I'm walking my path. Tori Amos
March 3rd
I can't wait for my first day of Law School I'm going to wear this green silk skirt I bought last week at the Long Beach Saint Vincent de Paul for a dollar forty-nine and a tank top because it will be New Orleans and boiling. Looking over my shoulder into the mirror at my hair down my back, it's at my waist when I tilt my head back, when I am moving to New Orleans it will be there without me exposing my neck up like that. Yesterday I walked in the wind and imagined someone biking up the sidewalk behind me and yanking my hair, imagining how my gaze would trace up slow-motion quick catching the tree five meters that way and how my neck would jerk out, my hair blown across my face ugly in that shock with my mouth open, blonde stuck to my lips, surely I would fall, then, onto my right side, tumble and look up and grab my neck through my hair, tangled now, wouldn't be able to see who did it would I
Last March 3rd what was I doing it was raining I had just gotten that horrible bruise from the ice machine at work-- the corner very corner of the metal flap door came down on my bicep, bruised so deep it hurt and showed for over a month–– I was just thinking about that the other day, my distrust forever now, I was wearing my favorite blue cashmere perfect cardigan that Mama bought me, that I left on the bus when it was raining, it slipped out from my bag without me noticing somehow, naturally. I remember when it was Andrew's birthday and I fit Lauren's jeans so well, wore them for months like they were mine, with that dark blue polyester blend sweater in the rain with the mock neck and plasticky buttons. Felt good I was still filling that light purple Moleskine. This week or next I'll finish the black diary I started in June and buy another to take to New York
February 26th
Listening to Twin Peaks from another tab, positive today, ready to be better, proud, playing chess, good radio show this week, 4 weeks since, yoga tonight. What is there to write about? Michelle sent me a Franz Wright quote about something Rilke said regarding Christ as a pointing finger that we bark madly at like wild dogs; I thought to Sara Ahmed, how space is defined, how close to that pointing directional finger any one dog may be, where that finger points, moving and being (barking...); then, I thought to our conversation the other week ... I know that my reading is generic, yet ... went to the market, saw a good friend, drove an hour to the beach but it was 20 degrees colder at the water than it had been inland, I am embarrassed to have assumed it would be any other way, didn't even think about it...
January 21st
I went to New York for that opening and had the perfect rainy day. Broke two pairs of shoes that day and bought French silk ribbon and spilled my tea everywhere... loved every minute
Sitting in PSYCH100 where I come to write emails at 8am ... wearing Violette Hay, Christmas gift, Jasmin and Liam are in Paris having coffee in the 5th, terrible world besides
December 5th
Valeria Luiselli Dia Chelsea gallery opening and Hannah Arendt poetry reading happening on December 11th in Manhattan, why am I in Los Angeles, Tarra said "Come to New York!" as if it were so easy, maybe it is, credit card points
December 4th
Décembre itching for gratitude tight with fear stretching feathering unfurling rustling listening to Professor Church lecture on AA, Narcotics Anonymous, spirituality of addiction
October 23rd
Thinking about money all the time.