Monday, April 30, 2001
our server at the office was down all day. no email, no surfing. i'm tired. jet-lag. melania sent me a beautiful, amazing drawing of a turtle. i wonder if she knows how talented she is. it made me extremely happy to get this present. i Have to finish her package and mail it. -- time. time is my friend these days, knock on wood. or maybe it's stevenm. i remember looking at his name, on screen, probably in an email, and for one or two seconds i felt like i "knew" this name. like i had been in that moment before. it's strange yet familiar, loud yet peaceful.
11:22 PM

Sunday, April 29, 2001
Back from Spain. I had a feeling on the plane yesterday that today was going to be the first day of the rest of my life. Cheeseball statement but it fits. I made many discoveries, some of them subtle, some of them loud. There are times when you feel rejuvenated by your friends. Times when even if you get annoyed, you realize these people are your chosen family. I think I tend to criticize those I love and I'm working on being more gentle. I thought of stevenm a lot while overseas. we're getting dinner groceries at 5 today, after my yoga class, and the next 4.5 hours feel longer than the past week. sigh. it's somehow tricky to meet a new person and make sure the first impressions they have of you are not carved in stone. how to explain. i feel much of Living is about Growing. sometimes people can hold you down under labels they've assigned you years or even months ago. i've done this as well. it takes effort to be attached yet detached. the beauty of old relationships is that you get to know each other like you know your favorite t-shirt or old pair of jeans. the challenge is to leave room for inspiration. actually, i think all my close friends are jewels. it's also up to me to initiate new grooves. i feel this trip to spain has brought me much closer to "buttercup". we talked of things that were long overdue. laughed like mad for the first time in 10 years. "NUNCA!" (long story which perhaps will forever be something only she and i will share/laugh about) -- strange phenomenon is that whenever i have flashes of my potential (and they've been arriving more and more often), i get dizzy with the things i want to do. things i know i CAN do. so much. so much to taste.
12:28 PM

Thursday, April 19, 2001
Tomorrow afternoon i start my trip to Malaga, Spain. My week has prevented me from giving this trip much thought. I need to pack wisely. I need to buy film. I need to sleep. I hate going on vacation exhausted. I know I'll come back "better" somehow. I'll remember how much I love to travel and what a varied world we live in. NYC gives me tunnel vision. I give myself tunnel vision. Sleepy. So very very sleepy.
10:58 AM

Wednesday, April 18, 2001
"feeling vulnerable open and raw..
thinking about" him
10:15 AM

Monday, April 16, 2001
i'm starting to confuse dreams with reality again. conversations i don't remember if i imagined or had. thoughts thoughts thoughts everywhere. i have to sift thru, deal with the important ones, toss the other away and learn how to live in the present. is that possible, i wonder. i started reading The History of Danish Dreams this morning. a very good choice. -- by the way, tobyOne is doing much better. he should come home tomorrow. i will give a full report after i get some work-work done.
1:55 PM

Sunday, April 15, 2001
today mom and i took tobyOne to the one 24 hour open Animal Hospital in nyc. he had a very high fever. 105. 102 is normal for dogs. he will be there ca. 3 days. mom didn't sleep all night. today she was a mess. i am oddly calm. exhausted, with a sore throat and tired. T I R E D. but empty. calm. i've shut down for now. i feel detached. and quiet. at some point i will try to make it thru a weekend without speaking. no tv, no radio, only silence. trees and grass. i miss fresh air. poor little toby. his ears and little paws smell like fresh earth to me. i love his smell. -- it's hard to break old habits.
8:27 PM

it's strange to slide into domestic tranquility after only 2 weeks. i like it but it is also alarming. i think he will agree: we need to make sure we meet somewhere in the city first and then maybe make breakfast. (which by the way was delicious!) -- i'm realizing how important it is to CREATE. for some of us, i guess. i liked seeing your work, stevenm. a lot. thank you. -- tomorrow: easter. i'll watch Easter Parade if it's on, but nothing else festive. we have to go meet our tardy accountant for tax papers and also take care of our ailing tobyDog. and i HAVE to start a new book.
12:09 AM

Friday, April 13, 2001
avery fisher hall: mozart's requiem: partial view = most uncomfortable seats i have EVER experienced. AWEsome interpretation of the requiem. very slow and fluid. chorus of 19 men and 20 women, as counted by mom. she wasn't as enthralled as i hoped. she's in an anxious state. tomorrow, coney island. perhaps the 5th time i've been in 6 years. must find cheap, great polish or russian restaurant.
11:29 PM

"The open-to-all memory is a reflection of an essential part of New York life, which involves the nearness of diversion and the necessity of exhaustion: you pay too much money to live in close proximity to places where people can enjoy the kind of pleasures that you are too worn out from the overwork necessary to live in proximity to such places to enjoy. (In the six months since I returned to New York from Paris, for instance, I have never once been to an opera, a ballet, or, save for a matinee of The Music Man, to the theater. Yet, if I read in the Sunday Times that the Metropolitan, the City Ballet, and the Music Box had all closed down for lack of custom, I would be outraged, and wonder why I was living in New York at all). Such absences increase in our lives year by year, of course, through the force of work and exhaustion and, above all, children. But even in our salad days, when we were hopping in the garden, most of the lettuce goes untasted--even when we do our best to do New York, there always seems to be another New York, of piano players in cool bars at midnight and hard-rock bands in hot basements, not to mention blue margaritas in downtown bars, which we were going to do, and somehow didn't. There is a New York idiom, if not peculiar to the city then at least prevalent in it, that seems to capture this feeling. "Live around here?" people ask each other earnestly. The condition of New York is the condition of living around, and looking at all the outside"here's" on your way home. "
--Adam Gopnick, New Yorker
11:48 AM

Thursday, April 12, 2001
411 - 4.11.01 -- it has happened before. it will happen again. it happened last night. something familiar yet new. feeling suspended, grounded, free, captivated. listening to your songs now, i am quiet. breathing is shallow. heart attack would not phase me. providence you say. you feel like nature. N A T U R E
5:25 PM

Wednesday, April 11, 2001
i get really impatient as well. and sometimes skittish (like a cat) - and sometimes sad and sometimes happy. WRITE ME NOW!!!!! (:
5:17 PM

Tuesday, April 10, 2001
from another journal, about another's journal... (this feels/rings very true for me)

"Why is Fear Cold? 2001-04-10 15:33 (Anonymous)
Fear is cold because Love is warm. I know you don't like yes no, good evil, but I am going to make a this and that analogy anyway. Love. Fear. Is it not Love Hate. It is Love Fear. To me all other states (emotions, feelings) stem from Love and Fear. And sometimes they produce similar states - like euphoria and confusion. You feel cold in Fear because of the absence of the warmth of Love. The scene of a killing has no Love. I send my hugest hugs to warm you. I am so relieved you are not hurt (shot). I came to your journal entry at the end of my day, what I thought was a hard, stressful day. But no one died in my day. No one had to hear and see a death - feel a so public act of Fear. My day was not hard.

Love, Marie"
11:23 PM

talked to veronica for the first time tonight. she is filled with wholesome energy. amazing laugh. some of my friends have awesome laughs. i like that. -- buying groceries, a beautiful aria was in the background. and then a young man walked by and he looked and felt just like i imagine River Phoenix was. so much so, i had a slight impulse to tell him to take care. not to do it. -- saw an improv show. the thought of being up there made me nervous. it's hard. my friend did really well. nice monologue. especially the bit about him not getting sarcasm. i won't try to quote it. he's a writer. i think he'd take offense if i got any lines wrong. i saw his girlfriend in the audience. she seems very nurturing. i'm glad he's happy. but i left right after it was over. i've been moody girl lately. i should have long black hair twisting in the wind over some moors, is how moody i've been. -- i do look forward to tomorrow... must go check out Betty Blue. a choice is good. Betty or Veronique? -- moody. yes. i feel like i should apologize, but then again, i don't want to. am i really sorry? well, yeah. i am. of course i'd rather skip about and hum. twirl my imaginary long hair. imaginary. been thinking of that lately. starting to think about all the imaginary events i've been thru.
10:47 PM

there's not enough light in the world. -- i don't know what that means. it just came out. tired. i am exhausted. couldn't sleep till 3.30am. then woke up at 9.30 -- no dreams i can recall. had a nice (yet sad content) message from my still virtual friend vero. she heard gunfire in her neighborhood and someone got killed - last night. the third shooting in 1.5 weeks. -- and there i was at 10.30pm walking home, feeling very safe. -- nap. i want nap in fresh sheets with sunlight filtering thru heavy cotton curtain.
11:39 AM

"We sat in an empty theater and we kissed,
I asked ya please to cross me off-a your list.
My head tells me it's time to make a change
But my heart is telling me I love ya but you're strange."
-- bob dylan

he gets me everytime. Mystery on PBS is in the background. do i want to watch? am i in the mood to read? begin another book while my Les Miserables relationship extends to 1.5 years (400 pages to go)!? do i keep writing? do i write andie a letter? easter. must send easter cards in romania.
12:17 AM

Monday, April 09, 2001
watched Tao of Steve. it felt like a mix between reality and a fable. it made me think of a line from Someone Like You. Ashley's Judd character is complaining about the kinds of men she's been involved with. Wolverine loses patience and tells her there's something in Her that makes relationships fall apart. i'm paraphrasing but the main idea is that she's got to look at herself as well, not just point fingers at the men who left her or provoked her to leave. earlier on Wolverine told her she would love again. at the end of the movie she confesses it was that idea that scared her. -- fear is a way to limit ourselves. i guess at one time it insured survival but now?! ok. there's fear of dying of an overdose. fear of destroying yourself -- "Steve". back to Steve. i have always loved Steve McQueen. he was born same week as my dad. both died relatively young, by modern standards. both liked to drink and live fast. question is, could they have lived longer if they had slowed down? or would they have died anyhow except would not have enjoyed life as much? dad always said "you have one life" and "fuc_ing life". he was calm and wise about it. not bitter - very understanding. i don't blame him for anything. i can't. it would be unfair. when he first got his diagnosis i got some advice that i should make him Want to Live. so i told him i wanted him to be there at my wedding. but i abandoned that line of emotional manipulation real soon. -- why do people self-destruct? does it matter? is it a lesson we need to go thru? if there is only One life, what matters? -- i feel pure joy from certain moments. smelling a flower, Thoth the performer, collaborating on a project, laughing with mom till we're crying... -- how do You get rid of desire?
11:38 AM

Saturday, April 07, 2001
interesting. i just signed out instead of posting. lost the message. is it a sign i shouldn't post? is "it" testing my resolve? i wondered if there are any unspoken "rules" about writing online vs. speaking. i wanted to wait to tell him but then decided to go ahead and write. hey, at least he's not going to explore Mars! what are the odds of watching the same movie the same night? "you didn't see Red Planet, I saw Red Planet. I saw Red Planet. You saw Red Planet?" etc. etc. etc. -- what happens if you wait the initial fever out? do you find ashes or the sun? it's rare to take Time. honor yourSelves and then embrace more than what you only want the other to know. sigh. am i a romantic? is this being romantic? or is it fear? could the two be intertwined? i mean, how balanced was byron and eminescu (see below) -- i tell ya though, I Feel Young And It Is Good. oh yeah, and i like mono-syllabic talking. it doesn't come around that often. - rare - smiling - excellent - mmmmmiau -
7:10 PM

i'm finally sore all over from my yoga class. it took 24 hours to kick in. odd? why would i write anything this late? maybe to record how out of whack my sleeping habits have become. not good. one of my girlfriends wrote something nice: "love can be a monster that pushes its way up through the earth like a big fat root and scares everyone... leetle people scattering... like godzilla... or it can be this subtle thing that creeps up on you after years... so many flavas. thats what i keep saying to mostly myself." i hope she won't mind my posting it here. "here" -- "this" is a place. a place that holds my chairs and my legs and fingers and elbows. it captivated my eyes and tries to keep my brain active. -- today, for the first time ever, my boss and i laughed till we cried. at the train station. we made up a story about asking an italian fast food cook (at one of those street fairs) to give us a plain sausage in a roll... then ask for him to cut it into bite size pieces... then ask he feed you the sausage... then say you can only eat if he does the chooo-chooo train / airplane trick... then you pretend you're not gonna eat... man, we were rollin'. it's what kjell and i did all the time. what adam got me with years and years ago. i think some people can do this kind of humor ALL THE TIME, with ANYONE. i have to find my way into it. at the point it feels like pressure to continue, i want to stop. could be lazyness, could be the nature of the game? maybe i'm morose and just don't know it? (nah).
1:49 AM

Friday, April 06, 2001
woman on the train to CT talked of "truth about cats and dogs" and how jeanine garofolo was the insecure, ugly friend when she's actually attractive. how it's weird and how badly it must make the rest of america feel. -- if there was no advertising, what would we find Beautiful / "worth" having? how much is enough? no one told me to like the color yellow. no one told me Eau de Hadrian smells better than (insert other brand here). -- fame. what's fame all about? another friend asked this question today. i am still thinking.
8:20 PM

i grew up with the poetry of mihail eminescu 1850ñ89. he is considered "the foremost Romanian poet of his century. His poems, lyrical, passionate, and revolutionary, were published in periodicals and had a profound influence on Romanian letters. He worked in a traveling company of actors, as well as acquiring a broad university education. His poetry reflected the influence of the French romantics. Eminescu suffered from periodic attacks of insanity, dying shortly after his final attack." if i remember correctly, he had syphyllis.

translations are tough but this man knows what he's doing. just his article explaining the music of romanian language vs. english is fascinating. (see link above)

Unto The Star / La Steaua

'Tis such a long way to the star
Rising above our shore
It took its light to come so far
Thousands of years and more.

It may have long died on its way
Into the distant blue
And only now appears its ray
To shine for us as true.

We see its icon slowly rise
And climb the canopy;
It lived when still unknown to eyes,
We see what ceased to be.

And so it is when yearning love
Dies into depth of night:
Extinct its flame, still glows above
Following close our plight.

translation by Adrian George Sahlean
1:16 AM

Thursday, April 05, 2001
i took an incredible yoga class tonight. carolyn recommended kate - our teacher - carolyn whom i met at s&g. where i ended up because i met matthias when he interviewed at herman miller. and adam and matthias happened to go to the same college together. i became friends with adam. he gave me matthias' number in nyc. matthias who was working at s&g. i don't know what chains brought carolyn there. but tonight i walked out and i felt love. expansive love. for a few minutes it was strong and clear. i want to learn how to live in "that" space. -- and then i bought DEBUT.

I can sense it
Something important
Is about to happen
It's coming up.

It takes courage to enjoy it
The hardcore and the gentle
Big time sensuality.

We just met
And I know I'm a bit too intimate
But something huge is coming up
And we're both included.

It takes courage to enjoy it
The hardcore and the gentle
Big time sensuality.

I don't know my future after this weekend
And I don't want to.

It takes courage to enjoy it
The hardcore and the gentle
Big time sensuality
Sensuality

-- bjork: Big Time Sensuality
10:49 PM

"one day, quite some time ago, i happened on a photograph of napoleon's youngest brother, jerome, taken in 1852. and i realized then, with an amazement i have not been able to lessen since: "i am looking at the eyes that looked at the emperor." sometimes i would mention this amazement, but since no one seemed to share it, nor even to understand it (life consists of these little touches of solitude), i forgot about it." -- roland barthes "camera lucida"
12:32 PM

Wednesday, April 04, 2001
he asked: "burnt?"
she said: "yeah."
he replied: "bastards. how could they do that to sweet innocent crazy psychotic you?" she laughed. flattered to be called crazy. saddened to realize she wasted time. hindsight can get you. -- david bowie. today i jumped right back into him. heard firsthand how he's a really cool guy. can talk of philosophy or corrupt landlords. spans a wide range. buys his own drinks. treats people he's hanging out to drinks. i'm still not sure whom i would like to meet - if i could choose anyone, alive or dead, who would i want to talk to? 3 characters. tonight i'd say Jesus (find out the real deal), my dad (find out the really real deal), and either e e cummings, frida kahlo or willie nelson. -- i'm tired. overwhelmed tired. quiet tired. anxious tired. ate too much tired. just read the 10 year old niece of a friend's coworker was killed by a driver who had a stroke and lost control tired. may she rest in peace, where ever she is now. -- easter is coming up. i had forgotten my parents met on Good Friday. and oddly enough, mom and i are going to see Mozart's Requiem at Avery Fisher Hall i think, on the 13th which this year is a sunday and an anniversary. well, a double anniversary. mom said she felt this pain in her stomach the first time she saw dad. love at first sight: trouble. recognition at first sight: sure. -- i HAVE to volunteer somewhere. anything hands on.
10:24 PM

I'm starting to fade. sleepy. I found an archived folder with old emails from '98. I do wonder how i've changed since then. i view progress as change. it's disturbing because i still agree with some things i wrote back then. but i never did anything about them. as if i was stuck/frozen/afraid. still am afraid but less so. i'm finding guides and companions. seeing friends i've had for years in a new light. my new light. good g_d! i'm a cheeseball today. better get back to work.
1:30 PM

steven-m: i just had a wonderful tonight. it's today actually. so good. so good. i wonder if it means "la vida loca" is our song?! nah. but it was fun to hear it. i just so appreciate that we can get to know each other. hang out. i had an idea about the nat. history museum. we can go and see the space show and then walk around a bit, but what if we split up for an hour and each write something, whatever we think of and then meet up again and see if we can combine it into a story. or just see what we picked up on. the similarities / differences. maybe that's too contrived and there can be too much pressure to be "creative". (as in we walk and write and then combine). but i think there's a good idea in there somewhere. eh?
2:42 AM

Tuesday, April 03, 2001
ahhhhh... thanks for the link, spiralgirl. -- today i had lunch with pebbles. that's my nickname for her. and it was sooooo good to see her! we've known each other for about 15+ years!?!?! it's lovely to see how we're becoming "women". she's taken some of the best photographs of me. i have to ask her to take some more. -- i wonder if i'll ever be able to leave nyc. -- i dreamt too much last night. had email/flash/real world story combination where at some point i had a 4 line story which was controlling the dream and i was erasing it. bizarre. exhausting. they're playing RATT at the office. i really don't like it. Black Sabbath i can take. RATT is laaaaaaaaame. argh.
2:02 PM

Monday, April 02, 2001
darrrrrr... blogger lost my birthday message to katelet earlier today. and then she returned my call! happy birthday little fearless one! you seem fearless - or rather capable of moving mountains. do it! do it!
6:50 PM

i have gotten into the late night habit. not good. i wonder how differently i would relate to my old friends, if we just met today. by old i mean close friends i've had for 5+ years. i suppose after Time you start giving people a break even if you should grow apart. which is why it's so good to connect to new souls. there are no obligations to fulfill - it's pure brand new friendship. i was starting to think i had reached my quota when melania started a torrent of new names in my address book. ok, i consider 3-4 a torrent. -- otherwise, finished before/after. now i must go home, henna my hair red, take a bath, and eat. let's see if any of those things happen.
12:25 AM

Sunday, April 01, 2001
just saw Someone Like You in theater number 13 at Union Square. ashley judd is INCREDIBLE. i have her voice in my head. i'm narrating my thoughts and what i'm writing Now in her voice. I have some tissues with the end of the film but it made some good points. women play as large a role in any relationship as men do. (newsflash) knowing when to get out, knowing when to walk on by is one secret. oh, and i found another key walking home. the second one this month. ok. back to relationships. was talking to mom and realized how little a lot of women are impressed by. is it mostly nyc? to think that having a man call when he says he will, listen to what you're actually saying, be kind and considerate: this is incredible. i guess when you like someone, their shoelaces seem beguiling. the shadows made by their laces are mesmerizing. they're not psychotic devil worshippers? wow! they're not sexually ambiguous or in love with someone else? yipee! they're able to talk about a variety of subjects and have a sense of humor as well? somebody pinch me! ultimately that's just fine. i'm sure men have their own bullet points. and when it comes down to it, we're all people. i don't know if i'd make a very nice man. i may be somewhat of a jerk, if i were a guy. interesting thing to think about. yikes. i don't like the implications of that statement. hmmmmm... -- 16 Candles is on. the dude she "loved" had the most annoying eyebrows. nice hands though. i wonder how many couples replayed the birthday cake scene. otherwise, more and more people i know are getting hit by the interactive hurricane. -- working on before|after today i had a very mild anxiety attack, thinking that whatever i "create" potentially can outlast me. i must be extremely self-centered but i never thought of leaving a legacy behind. the idea of having a book for example or any tangible object/experience outlive me gives me the shivers. i won't be there! i'm starting to bore myself with these thoughts of life and death. but they need to come out. after all, i am paying rcn $ to host this site. affordable therapy although it helps if someone else can point out any patterns? loopholes? constructive advice?
1:41 AM