My Generation (will) Blows (up?)

I woke up with this topic because of being up late last night reading snippets of Norman Mailer’s correspondence of 1945-2005 featured in this week’s The New Yorker (”In the Ring:Grappling with the twentieth century”) It starts with a letter to Beatrice Mailer - his “Sweet Baby” - from overseas at war.  At one point he desires the A-bomb for his own self-interests so he can be with her (so the war will end) and she in his arms again. However, he quickly realizes the terrifying idea of how one weapon can wipe out such a grand sweeping amount of humanity and rescinds his own utterence.

Instead of reading through all of his letters sequentially - I skipped ahead to his last letter after reading his first.  Doing this put me through some sort of surreal correpsondence space-time contiuum that rendered me very still.  In his moribund last letter he reveals a sense of greater impending doom than with his A-bomb musings.  This is not because of his older age at all I believe, in fact, he seems at peace with where he will go.  But he’s at a loss for where the 21st Century is headed, quite aghast at the state of things and through his eloquence and keen observances, not old fashioned experiences, he seems to assess our modern age with aptitude.

I am young. And from looking back at history - to the “doom” of past ages, the way past ages have been destroyed, have rid themselves, I must say - I feel as though this age seems to be especially close to annhilation.  Why and how do I know this? I don’t. I’m an uneducated sack of shit. Just kidding…No but I do know some things.  And part of it seems that technology, apathy, incredible self-indulgence and just the state of the union in my own ignorant country seems to be leading to this.

I am writing all this now I think in part, due to fear of what the our administration might be (if the Republicans take office) and also to the way a lot of people my age behave. I being one of them.  Even the intrinsic way of communicating Mailer has, writing about things in such an ethereal ocular beauty of which we somehow lose nowadays (not trying to be hippy-ish).  I feel as though I am nostalgic for a past I never lived in.  I love facebook, love ipods, love technology! Do not get me wrong, it’s not what I’m saying. I think progression is a fascinating important evolution.  My point is that so much humanity gets thrust to the wayside when technological advances appear at such lightening speeds. 

We don’t know where we are heading.  Mailer says “This is the first century that weighs upon us like an incubus”. I think because so many new things flash upon us in such rapid succession that at any moment something even bigger than an atom bomb could exist that rip 6 billion human faces off in less time it takes for one neurotransmitter synapse to fire.

Mailer died almost a year ago (November 10th, 2007) and missed the good-fortune of witnessing the end of days. (Aka Palin/McCain flooding the Earth with oil and Christians).  But he along with so many of his generation, even though I am not part of his generation at all, will stay close with me.  I will treasure my past human because they are a part of me.  I will treasure their styles, their technologies, and their beautiful ways of communicating that are so lost.  Maybe, I will be able to talk to lovers the way he was able to - through letters with ink, where a real tear drop could even fall and an eyelash could lay and talk of an H-Bomb would be eons away….

I Fainted

Yesterday morning I fainted on the train. Again. Contrary to popular opinion, I happen to be a very petite lady.  My mother is the same way and has always been fainiting all over the place - at least almost fainting.  In March I fainted too - at the exact same time - right before getting off at Union Square which is my stop on the way to work. 

Being a fainter, (I can now call myself that, it sounds like painter which makes me sound artistic and interesting, right?) I am worried about a few things.  For one - I’m worried I will one day hit my skull, for another I think maybe I have a horrible disease and will die shortly.  Either way, I know I need to drink more fluids and eat a little in the morning.

What really got me though was the enormous amount of attention I received from this occurence.  A true Florence Nightengale lady who looked like she should be everyone’s mother propped me up on a seat from the floor and put my head between my legs and massaged my shoulders (!) until we got to Union Sq.  Then she helped me out and I almost fainted again up the stairs.  Of course, there was a  medical student right there who immediately layed me down and put my head on a big bag that felt like a fluffy wonderland given the circumstances.  He whipped out his stethoscope, took my heartbeat and demanded the crowd that had formed to give me sugar. I look up in my haze and hands are being thrust towards me with mints, gums, a granola bar, juice and some other Sean Connery looking man miraculously has a big bottle of cold water that he hands to me - James Bond himself gave me fluids. It was like Christmas! (but Christmas on some sort of hallucinogen).  I couldn’t talk very well either but I managed to get up and an MTA EMT dude asked if I wanted to go to the hospital. I politely declined.  I looked at my crowd of helpers and thanked them all profusely saying in a very drugged sounding voice “Thanksh you all so much, you are all SO niccee”. Whereupon a few of them gave a sympathetic chuckle.  The EMT walked me to the stairs leading to the world and I gave him a hug and he laughed as well.  I got to work in one piece somehow and plopped at my desk, stunned.

Anyway - I’m not saying that fainting is great - it feels horrendous before when you know it’s coming. It’s extremely panicky.  But hey, if I feel the need to be loved by strangers I can just not eat in the morning and I’ll get tons of attention! Kidding…I don’t want this to happen again, but I am very thankful that I managed to receive this amazing outpouring of love and help from people I’d never met and will unfortunately never see again.

Whither We Wait (and Wither)

Here is a paper I wrote:

            Waiting is expecting something you choose to receive.  It is the time lapsed between your decision to acquire something (a want or need) and the time you actually get it.  No one is exempt from being in abeyance.  Like most things in New York City, waiting is much more severe here than anywhere else. It becomes your constant companion, ready to slow you down at every corner. New Yorkers are in a constant struggle of moving too fast within tiny spaces and a plethora of people.  Waiting is not what you want to be doing when you are in this fast paced metropolis of madness.

            It starts even before you leave your apartment.  In the many (very sub-par) living quarters you’ve had the good fortune of over-paying for, waiting occurs early in the morning with the shower. You stare longingly into the upright shoebox of a shower and dart fingers into the arctic stream every few seconds, each time hoping it will become at least room temperature.  You never call the super as this is futile, and would result in an extremely long wait on top of it all.  In the end if it doesn’t warm up, you give up and must leave the house still coated in last night’s bar grit. 

            When you walk out the front door, you must immediately wait at the end of the block for the light to change, and directly after that, the bike messenger who ignores traffic rules completely.  If you do not allow wait time for a bike messenger to run his red light, you risk getting sworn at loudly at the very least, and at the worst – rammed into at full force, causing you to meld together in a tangle of spokes, documents, and body parts.

            The subway system of New York City is the waiting wonderland.  Here, the stakes are much higher for the arrival of your need.  Everyone during rush hour seems to have the faces of little lizards. The eyes dart back and forth at rapid paces, they hide behind the big painted metal pillars and peek out every so often down the tunnel for the glimmer of light.  If you live where there are several lines on the same track, you must wait for that specific train. You need the C but three E trains pass.  The wait times in these scenarios are mentally damaging. Patience is not a virtue that is practiced often. During these waits, the mind of a commuting New Yorker goes through a series of imaginings that would be clinically psychotic under normal circumstances. You wish death upon the families of the MTA workers, envision fires igniting in your office building so being late will not matter anyway, and finally, you accept your fate of becoming unemployed, loveless, homeless, and dead.  When the C train does finally come however, all of that temporary insanity vanishes and you return to society. 

            Worse than waiting for things that simply fuel and transport you throughout the every day routine, are the things that you have waited for all your life.  Those who move to New York City have dreams.  Yes, you can make your dreams come true, but in the meantime there is a hell of a lot of waiting to do. Artists here for example, wait in line to audition, wait for a song lyric to manifest for a gig, wait for the agent who may or may not like your new opus.  As we wait for our beer to fill at that East Village dive, we wait for inspiration to take hold so we will finally “make it”.  We wait in layers because we want so much.  We wait for notoriety and wealth while we wait for the laundry cycle to end and the delivery boy to come.  We wait for the spring while we wait for the cab, wait for Friday to come while waiting for the Tuesday to end. 

Waiting for vacation is a very hard thing to do. You are waiting to leave the city, which is quite dramatic.  The week before it comes all you can do is think of how you are finally free.  You will be able to see something other than towering buildings watching you, you can breathe real air, and you can perhaps eat a meal that doesn’t cost as much as a television. You wait for the day when you can sleep all night without having siren induced mini heart attacks.

            The aura of New York while you wait can be lonely and wrought with hopelessness.  You can anonymously wait within a sea of people if you choose, or alone in the corner of a bar.  We all wait for love to arrive in this town.  On the one hand, it is a gargantuan city that is capable of throwing you endless possibilities, on the other hand, it can be like another dimension, where no one is real, no one has a soul, and everyone has an iPhone but you. You teeter in and out of different types of groups, the hipster party, the Wall Street event, that book signing, some political march.  Do you belong to any of these groups, or must you wait for your people to arrive, for your species to come rescue you?  When you do find love, you must to wait for it to blossom, to see if it sticks. Both parties are initially very frightened of the other’s intentions.  Will he invite me to his work thing, or do I embarrass him?  Will she call me after Yoga, or was she grossed out by my fake Armani suit?  They come to New York City from the opposite ends of the Earth, but end up here for the same reasons.  The one common goal of achieving success binds them, but that same goal can destroy them if it becomes more important than your lover.  When we wait in vain for a love to come around, New York feels like an evil island of soot and sadness. The city takes on whatever color your mood is.  Last week this café was lovely and you felt peaceful enjoying your book.  Now you come back and it is a cold wasteland where your phone rests idly on the table without any chance of ringing.  Your coffee tastes like the wall and the other patrons look like aged chimpanzees floating around you and gabbing while you understand nothing.

            In this city of purgatory, we wonder whether we’ll ever find contentment, peace, happiness, and love. We wonder how long we must wait for this, and if it will be all in vain in the end.  If we stick around long enough we will find out, won’t we?  Perhaps the key is making the wait worthwhile along the way, using that time to your advantage. Filling yourself with the city’s grand beauty while you wait can save you in the end.  Instead of hating the waiting, use it for observation and introspection.  Perhaps this way it ceases to be waiting, and becomes merely a quiet pause in your day in which to reflect about things that will come your way.  This city is illuminating and grotesque, smelly and sweet, rapturous and hellacious.  As we wait for what we came here for we can choose to use the time for the better or let the wait wither you away.

Woman Of This City

That is the gayest title for a blog ever - sorry.  It’s honest though.  One of my courses (I’m back in academia once again) is called “Writing New York”.  We read Luc Sante, Whitman, Chester Hines, and more.  What is so wonderful about this course is that it allows me to compare all of my experiences and perceptions with those other writers.  Finding similarities in these writers’ stories with my own life here is like finding a friend, like finding a fellow drinker at the bar who just had the same day you just had.

I’ve never been so ready to delve into a class.  A wonderful part is that it seems I’ve been taking this class, on my own for years. I’ve always been fascinated with NYC’s history, it’s people, it’s men, it’s buildings, it’s intensity, it’s sickness. 

I build my own bridges as I walk on the bridges of this city.  New York builds me up, and it shits me out and it breaks me down and builds a bank in my stead.  Why woman of the city as a particular theme?  Well I’m not trying to be a Sex and the City retard here - but there is something different about being a female New Yorker.  First of all, there aren’t too many women who have actually written about New York. There is not one book I’m reading in class that is written by a woman, although there are some poems and essays within the anthologies we have.

I vie today to become a female New York City writer.  I know there are others, but not enough in my opinion…and far too few who aren’t named Candice Bushnell or Lauren Weisberger (google them if you don’t know who they are).  I want to write about New York the real way, the multi-cultural, multi-class, multi-psychosis way that happens to you and to others by being here.  I want to show people that this city can make a woman offended by a disgusting cat call and lifted up to the status of a CEO in the same day.  That my smiles are few and far between on a general walk around the block, but dazzle in the midst of friends, and when I have lived out a fantasy that you can only have in this city.

I’ll leave you with all with a poem:

I’m sorry e.e. cummings, but I’ve stepped in on your verbiage

Like stone masons I haul rocks around my neighborhood waiting for something to take it away -

Locked I can’t go into the twenty-four hour superette when all I wanted was some stupid wrapped cake to ease my sugar needs

Shamed and defeated by such base human need I yearn for primal and rational to fuse more.

Don’t want my need to shit to conflict with my important documents. 

Instead I’ll hold it in until Happy Hour so I can be care-free.

Soda Water

Ok so I’m not going to say anything about soda water in this post. I just wanted to get your attention, and I KNOW nothing else but something as exciting as bubble H2O can elicit interest in my blog.  ??? Sorry.

No, but I am on vacation so needless to say the neurons are on it as well.

I must utter that things have been a bit bumpy lately, people letting me down, and usually I don’t allow myself to get let down. No one should, but sometimes it just happens.  Luckily for me I am with an extraordinary friend who lets me forget this bullshit.

Still however, I have a faint tickle of disappointment over a few things that of course may slap me on the ass the second I get back to NYC.  I must hope that I can have the courage to wash away that crap while I’m here in the wilderness and on the beach and eating delicious seafood.

Beach + flora + seafood = Forgetting and conquering?  I think it may happen.  As i write these very words, I’m already working on a relaxation plan of attack. (Because relaxation and attack are usually thought of together, right?) Goddammit though, I’m going to relax the fuck out of myself so that when I get back to the city I’m so fucking relaxed that I can conquer this horseshit!!!!!!!!

Wow. I’m um…not the best vacationer in the world - definitely something I need to work on so help me Lord.  Ok I’m going to get off the internet now and lie down and force myself to have vacation.

Fucking vacation.

Going Forward

The term “going forward” makes me want to vomit.  When people say (namely, my boss) for example, “I would like you to start chronicling emails this or that way going forward”, I want to rip out the dividing wall from my cubicle out and throw it across the room like a discus.

My life does not have that idealogy in it. I do not examine the things in my life that I do too much of or too little of and try to rectify it “going forward”.  Instead, I get incredibly stuck with the notion that I have the inability to do anything.  I reject ”going forward” and sink into “going bonkers”.

“Going bonkers” is much more interesting to me.  Not in the sense that it is cool to be crazy. It’s funny to talk about being crazy perhaps, but that is not my intent. I am bonafide bonkers, not putting it on for some (3 people only probably) who read this on the internet.

My point is….uh…my point is….um….

I guess I’m just saying that for me - the idea of “going forward” doesn’t apply to the way I go about things.  If I’m working on self-improvement, it is a wild disaster that goes very much backwards before going even a milimeter forwards.  Then sometimes when it is very present, I put it on pause or put it off somewhere to the side so it can be sufficiently repressed or ignored.

I shall now go nowhere at the moment, and I’m okay with that. I can’t do anything if I don’t really want to.

Choices make me cry.

The choices that I’ve made in my almost 27 years of living on this retarded planet have really fucked me.  I’m not blaming anyone but myself and the gay-ass chemicals in my brain.  The chemicals coerce me into doing really stupid things, and similarly, NOT doing smart things.

I ultimately have the choice, the final word in the fireside chats with my chemicals. 

One day I remember fondly, my neurons were misfiring like usual and so I scheduled a quick touchbase to figure out a solution, or at least listen to their suggestions.

We met at a local nook on the couch (where I have my usual anxiety attacks) and started going over what we needed to do going forward.  They suggested I forget about the interesting book I wanted to read or the creative writing I wanted to do and instead stare at the floor and cry hopelessly.  I asked them how the fuck this would improve my life and they of course proceeded to explain that I was a hell of a crazy gal anyway so I should just try to wallow.  This still not making sense, I got up and paced restlessly.  The fuckers made me antsy right after having been banished to non-movement with tears on the couch!  Now I’m antsy because I just cannot figure out what my damn neurons and hormones are doing.  I finally said that I needed to re-schedule for a follow-up touch base with some more research on their part.  They sighed, but said that in the meantime they suggest an off-site conference either in a bar or with enablers.  SCREW YOU GUYS! I do NOT have time for that.  But the way I feel after that unproductive meeting, I know it’s the only solution I have.

I decided to circle back with them after my damaging off-site, so I sent out an urgent meeting request.  I couldn’t quite get good reception on the polycom, but I managed to pick up a few snippets. They told me that after some research they concluded that they were wrong about sending me to the offsite afterall.  The CIO of my chemicals, seratonin, stepped in for an impromptu aside as he had some enlightening news about all of this.  He said that I made the wrong decision and that he would round up the folks and have a town hall to explain what happened and how they can do better in the future.  As soon as the CIO left, however, some of the neurons came up to me and said that I should feel really badly about making the wrong decision and not to worry about being pro-active. I was pissed and knew this was bullshit, but my hormones and the other fuckheads didn’t want to allow me to become proactive. 

So I came full circle, and realized I should hire some consultants to come in and maybe fix these operational glitches that are going on in my head.  One consultant I contacted to come in for a preliminary round table was a company called Positive Thinking Inc.

What the?

Ok - I am feeling very bizarre as of late…I feel as though I’ve lost friends for certain reasons I don’t care to disclose at this time.  But I cannot stand it. I know I am better off than when I was 20-22 years old when being alone was status quo for me. 

I was living in Brooklyn with a great gay couple, but most of my friends from acting school either moved to LA or back to their home towns.  The few that stayed in the city like me were up in Harlem and it was tough with all of us being dead poor to do much socializing besides sitting in our tiny holes of apartments.  I still saw my two favorite gals once every two weeks at LEAST, but we were all so busy busting our balls to get acting work while waitressing at 2 or more gigs to do more together - especially when all of us are on totally wacky un-planned schedules!

I used to drink far too often than I do now (probably still do too much but that’s another entry).  In Belgium where I lived from junior high through high school, going to a bar/cafe alone was incredibly normal and standard even for a woman.  Most bars in Europe also have espresso machines and at least some type of menu for snacking, so even if you didn’t want to drink, your friends still could and you would be perfectly happy with your tasty coffee and croque monsieur.  Here it’s different though. I still would go to bars (happy if I found one with coffee so I didn’t HAVE to drink), but still feeling people were looking at me as cheap whore looking to grab some local alcoholic (sounds tempting I know!)  To most men a woman alone means she wants to get laid.   Really it was about  having company to talk to when I couldn’t hang out with my girlfriends.  In the summer I would be in there even more because my apartment was unbearable.  Air conditioned bars became my living room. I would bring my novel, my New Yorker, and my journal and be content to stay there until I could go home and just pass out.  Of course being so young, men who come up to you and flirt and charm, even though I wasn’t a dumb ass, sometimes would give in to their musings out of sadness of feeling unwanted and alone.  Why wouldn’t I go to say a dance class, or a pottery class? I think because I tried to create a Europe in NYC, and was definitely a depressed young artist who tried to have creative epiphanies the way many of our great artists have done.  Ah the early years of th 00’s were a sad one for the old me.

I wouldn’t say I’ve reverted there at ALL, as I haven’t been to bars alone yet again. I have a lot of friends still, but in some ways I feel friends are disappearing, and for nothing that is really in my control. I don’t want to go back to that horribly lonely confusing time, where I searched for meaning in beer.  I want to be the new me, who is not necessarily stable or “better” but has more self-power than before.  I have to remember that I’m not alone, even if I lose friends.  Because if I lose friends due to  their biases then they probably shouldn’t have been counted as a friend in the first place. (I know this is so cliche but aren’t I always?).

I know now that I am a good and loving person. I still feel much alone and confused but I also believe that the love I put out will give me the love I want.  Let’s just hope I don’t decide to destroy myself because of the pain in the meantime.

I am inadequate

MY SISTER JUST GRADUATED FROM MEDICAL SCHOOL WITH TOP HONORS. I AM A SECRETARY WITH NEUROSES. THAT’S ALL I NEED TO SAY.

Little Pleasures vs. Great Fulfillment

I have always pondered the idea of fulfillment for human beings.  On one hand we all have different ideas of what it means to be fulfilled, but at the same time I feel like it is a smorgasbord of different things rather than one main goal.  I somehow cannot believe that the lady who has 5 kids but never had a career is completely 100% fulfilled, but that’s me. There is a chance she may be.  Is it enough that she feels fulfilled from raising her 5 children, either represses the dream of career fulfillment aside from child rearing, or does she consider her work enough?  I probably don’t know what the hell I’m talking about.  In fact I know I don’t know what the hell I’m saying because I’m dead tired, bit hallucinatory and dizzy. Ahem…anyway though. Getting back to my weak analysis of God knows what it is I wanted to address.  Oh yeah.  I guess fulfillment is the ability to apply your intellect and values together in a way that gives you a sense of pride and confidence and goal-meeting.  For someone with clinical depression however, the glow of “happiness” begotten from a triumphant feat, is very short-lived. It is not permanent for “normal” people either, but I think that the idea does linger more.  For us it is a joke.  I “accomplish” something (whatever the fuck that means as I never think I accomplish shit) and I just go right back to wondering whether I will be fulfilled tomorrow or not. 

Small pleasures however, the trivialities in the daily swing of life, keep me from beer bonging lighter fluid.  The idea of a beautiful reading chair that is arriving on Saturday is keeping me very happy at the moment.  The idea of my new red microwave is also fun.  I also love the time between the subway and the cafe where I am not eager to go to work, but very eager to get my coffee (and sometimes on Fridays a fatty pastry!!).  And of course, to be the cheesiest idiot alive, I simply adore my friends (my family is on the top, but that’s just too obvious).  I have some of the loveliest girlfriends around.  I don’t have loads of girfriends, only about a handful, but they are MORE than enough because of their spirit and love for me.  And I laugh at them because they are freaking hilarious, and they in turn ALSO laugh at me, so it’s like double fun everytime.  So, somehow, even within my terminal depressive brain, I am able to ignore the fact that I am a failure with no future who could have been a more successful artist and probably happier in the great sense. 

Ok, I can’t really ignore it. It haunts me and the need for that kind of fulfillment makes me weep with regret and frustration.  But in the meantime, I can count on coffees and furniture and books and friends to let me at least allow me to ignore that vague idea of needing great fulfillment.