Saturday, March 31, 2001
Ended up going to the Armory Crafts Show in midtown. It was sub-standard. And that building has dark dark energy. A lot of beautiful jewelry. Nothing "perfect". It was sad to be with only mom because dad would have liked it. we would have had a great time. -- We cut thru Central Park and we started discussing the Time Change. We got all confused, with Spring Ahead, losing or winning an hour. Dad would have laughed at us and cleared it all up. But he was very much not there. -- Then when we were waiting for the subway... a man with a deep, strong, amazing voice and a guitar sang Bessame Mucho in Russian! Then followed with Ochi Chiornia (sp) and thankfully the subway came as he began O Sole Mio. I was sooooo crying. Crying in my scarf, crying in some napkin I had in my purse, crying in my hands. I would laugh and then cry. Mom was more in control but she put on her sun glasses. I know I've been thinking of dad these past few weeks, with the project i'm working on. i've intellectualized it. Somehow i had to break. -- Tonight having dinner with C. Maybe a movie though i despise weekend crowds. -- Nick Drake. Pink Moon is pure beauty. His voice is filled with TIME. and dusk. there's that fine line between being happy and being ravaged by sadness. If you can combine the two elements you feel - i feel i'm standing on the edge of the world. it's a feeling of full emptiness. don't know if that makes sense. some songs, some singers make me feel ALIVE. timeless.
6:25 PM

Coincidence - ESP - all those incidents that happen and seem to be telling you something... I went thru a very cynical phase where anything that seemed to be "odd", I discounted as chance. Surely it's possible we attract "chance" if we're open to it. Yet I'm also sure sometimes there are hidden messages. Or maybe there is a strengthened awareness - a call to keep your eyes open. A reinforcement of some kind. For the past 2 days I've been working with a drawing dad made after we had Thanksgiving dinner at Sammy's Romanian Steakhouse, in NYC. I chose this drawing because I conveniently found it in a heavy packet of papers I store in the office. Today Steven M mentions Sammy's Romanian Restaurant. Which made me realize dad's drawing was made after we ate there. Then tonight I had a lovely dinner with A. and walking home I thought of what I just wrote above. Then I looked up and I saw a big vertical sign that said SAMMY'S. At first I thought it was the same place (I'm geographically challenged) but then I saw it was an Oriental Garden Market. Yet the big Sammy's sign could not be denied. So what does it all mean? Eh?
2:02 AM

Friday, March 30, 2001
Count Duckula is one of the best cartoons ever created. Mom and I loved him in the late 80's when he was on. I bet kids would like him today. I bet kids would be a lot smarter if we gave them some credit. It seems to me the media talks down to children. Or just numbs them with violent games and gross humor. I'm always impressed when I see a coherent, intelligent 12 year old. As if that is special?! A 12 year old SHOULD know who Picasso, Dickens, Beethoven, were. Am I only exposed to media kids? Hmmmm... I think the only kids I've seen have been the ones on TV. I mean, I see them on the street, but I don't talk to them. It's possible my image of children today is completely skewed. This would be a very good thing.
3:27 PM

Thursday, March 29, 2001
it's odd how many people i know have other virgos in their lives. 5 men have virgo mothers. one has been involved with 5 virgo women at different points in his life. the women i'm friends with usually have other virgo friends. don't know exactly what it is. -- they say whatever kind of energy you put out, you get back. i've been getting some great new collaborators/friends. it makes me excited about the future. future. i've got to remember not to ignore the present. Present. a gift you are forever unwrapping. argh. i don't like sounding like a pseudo-hallmark card. -- have been reading things i wrote in the 80's. i haven't changed that much. i was dramatic back then. hopefully i know better now. -- i'm hungry. maybe that's why i'm getting grumpy. will i ever eat another steak?
6:07 PM

Wednesday, March 28, 2001
Steven M inspired me right back to Listen. Walking home a woman/girl was talking to her boyfriend, telling him how she walked out of her apartment and a dog came up to her. The owner said "Well, I trained him well. He only goes up to pretty ladies." Girl then called the owner "an old skeeve". Not to his face, but to her boyfriend. Hmmmm... it's not so easy to write others' conversations. I remembered the term "skeeved out" and it makes me smile. I was so young when it was "in". Maybe it's still popular in other areas. sigh. so many places to see. so many things to do.

i've been working on the before/after project. it's becoming an editing exercise. ok. that isn't accurate. i just have thousands of photos. many many pages of words. many old emails. many drawings. many things i want to share but i have to Focus. And I also must remember, it's a beginning. -- speaking of beginnings, I am thinking of Melania, many miles away. I send her strength and love.
10:36 PM

It's late. I'm super cold but I want to get this down. I had a wonderful dinner with two old co-workers and friends. It had been one year or so. That's one insane aspect of Manhattan. Years go by and you don't see people you like. But you may end up spending too much time with people you don't care for that much. Anyhow, went to El Cantinero, our place. I didn't think I'd make so many memories in this town. It's quite small if you live here. The subways dissect it very nicely. Time. Time is a strange creature.

I overheard the following this past weekend in a Citibank. Two small boys (maybe 8-9) came in with a woman. One of them had this monologue:

"- and then i told him after you die, you can come back as anything you want.
- and then he said, 'i'd want to be a butterfly'.
- and i said, 'that's unacceptable'."
12:23 AM

Tuesday, March 27, 2001
"The chemical revolution of the past 50 years has altered nearly every aspect of our lives. Many of the products we rely upon every day ñ from plastic bags to computers ñ would not exist without synthetic chemicals. Most of us believe the chemicals in consumer products have been tested and approved by some government agency. In fact, until they are proven harmful, most chemicals are presumed safe."
12:21 PM

Monday, March 26, 2001
I had a mild anxiety attack walking to work. Realizing TIME is limited. How many years will it take me to read all the books I have on my shelf?
12:28 PM

Saturday, March 24, 2001
Just saw De La Guarda. It is sad. Very powerful and dark. The performers are amazing. Strong. Beautiful. Angry. Inspiring. Annoying because my shoes got soaked. You stand the whole time and there isn't much air. It reminded me of the Matrix a bit. Delicatessen. Maybe even Brazil, the movie. The sketches were not as defined as they could be. It's strange. I feel they could go 5% further. That it's the last 5% they are missing. Maybe it has to do with the fact my neck kinda hurts from looking up the whole time. Or that i was trying to not get water in my contacts. I'm not sure if it's worth $45, but overall I'm glad I saw it. The images will stay in my mind for a long time. It had made me sad. But energetic sad, not mellow melancholy. Which is good. -- I went with my two cousins and their friends and that made it great. I forget how good I feel with family. I'm not used to having blood relatives around. There's a comfort level I haven't found with my friends yet. It's very very strange. I'll need to think about it more. It sounds like an extreme statement to make...
9:10 PM

Friday, March 23, 2001
Been hearing the moon landing was a fake. It wouldn't surprise me. "Have you ever thought about how much technology the world had in the late 60's and early 70's? Was it enough to get three men out of the Earth's atmosphere and two of them to the moon? Maybe. But how could that be so when the computers used on the Apollo missions didn't have any more memory than a modern day washing machine. And the computers they used, in size, took up more space than the ship had room for. With that in mind, and the fact that the technology in the 60's was merely squat, how could NASA of generated tens of thousands of such high quality images when there weren't even computers good enough to do so? That's where the thought of a possible sound stage comes into question. "
11:55 AM

Thursday, March 22, 2001
i'm wearing amber around my neck. a beautiful necklace my mom bought in europe years ago. amber. so many things may have happened below the trees these beads came from. david bowie is on. he is wonderful. sometimes i feel like a dog hearing those special whistles. i react strongly to music. it's an alternative to chocolate.
7:20 PM

Wednesday, March 21, 2001

3:15 PM

Tuesday, March 20, 2001
I will always love e.e.cummings:

no time ago
or else a life
walking in the dark
i met christ

jesus)my heart
flopped over
and lay still
while he passed(as

close as i'm to you
yes closer
made of nothing
except loneliness
3:13 PM

Monday, March 19, 2001
I am tired. Stayed up late, laughing with YS. Now in my sleep deprivation, I FEEL more. I am frustrated with how slow things have gone in the past. I'm not able to grow Alone. I need Catalysts. This year has brought amazing people to walk and run and play along with. It's a new beginning but I have to make sure I don't rebel against who I was. I need to gently donate my old self, like a used pair of jeans, instead of throwing them out with the trash. and then MEMENTO. Guy Pearce. someone. something good. DO vs. Think. i wish i had a car so i could drive to an empty spot and scream. it was a great weekend though.
1:05 PM

Saturday, March 17, 2001
My mom and I bought a small plant today. It's worth writing about because it's taken us weeks to go ahead and pick one out. Now we need a name. I'd like to find something French or Spanish. Was thinking of KIKA, except the movie was very disappointing. The name is cute. She has small, plump, round leaves like a lace dress. And she completely changes the whole apartment. Julia. I like Julia too... -- I scanned some drawings my dad made me. He was a genius. And he was mine. My dad. My infinite supply of unconditional love. -- Will I ever find a person who can get inside my head and not only "understand" what's going on, but also be kind, funny and helpful about it?
8:40 PM

Friday, March 16, 2001
argh! that's at least 5 pounds overweight! which makes a huge difference. most men don't believe me, but it does.
3:28 PM

I used to collect stamps in Romania. My granddad got me started. He had a great collection he sold before he and my grandmom "defected" to Germany. I HAVE to go visit them. I have wonderful memories of Romania. Except for fights my parents would occasionaly have, everything else was fantastic for me. I was too young to feel the communist iron fist, so I enjoyed school, my best girlfriends, playing Canasta, finding amazing seashells at the beach, being amazed by the one restaurant that made an exotic dish called "pizza". I read a lot back then. I wonder how I would have turned out, had i stayed there. I've written all this before. But it periodically comes back in my thoughts. I think being a teenager would have been a whole lot easier back then, back home. -- Today, I weigh 127 pounds. Must do the kg. translation.
3:24 PM

Thursday, March 15, 2001
I've finally started working on a project i'm excited about. before|after i entered the web: what do i remember of myself before, who am i now? (i paraphrase). initially i thought of the negative aspects of the interactive world. being stuck to a keyboard, staring at one or two screens, being isolated from nature and real dirt on my fingers. but then i realized the web is also wonderful. like i've said before, email is the reason i have some incredible friends. some friends have moved away. some of those "email" friends i have never met. some of them work 10 minutes walk away. yet we still email. -- i see the web as my job. but the happiness and grief i've experienced isn't directly connected, or due to the web. if i wasn't an interactive designer, would my dad still be alive? no. would i be happily married with a beautiful house in the mountains? perhaps but it's unlikely. would i have won the lottery? i don't think so. i'll keep thinking and see what happens. -- because the next hurdle is deciding on the design. i wish i could forget about aesthetics. about making things "cool". i've got to take some kind of exercise class beyond my sunday yoga. something good has to happen soon.
11:30 PM

I hate working late. My eyes | body | mind hurts. The longer I work, the more time I need at home to deconnect and be able to fall asleep. I've been very conscious of how much I still use the word "I" and "me". It disturbs meeeeeeeeeeee.
7:03 PM

I dreamt big last night. A whole story. I was blond too. Had been involved with a man who became a thief, semi-psycho killer. We had two kids. I was running from him but one night he found me in a rundown house. He had a gun he was going to shoot me with but I came on to him and we ended up getting back together. We started our lives over in a different town and somehow he gave up his life of crime. At the end of the dream I had black hair and a full beard! Bizarre. -- The dream could have somehow been provoked by this 48 Hours show. I heard men had eating disorders as well, but I was shocked to see two married guys each with two kids, go off the deep end. Their wives must have been so frustrated. I don't know if I could stay with a man who starved himself into a hospital. I guess it's a type of addiction? And the insane thing is that while I was watching the show, I thought "I could do that!" Seeing them made ME want to turn super thin. March. March is a challenging month this 2001.
11:16 AM

Wednesday, March 14, 2001
Photographs have been creeping into my life lately. I am not certain why. Is it a message to let go of the past? No. that doesn't feel right. Am i to understand we all are linked by some common desire to be understood and remembered? Not necessarily. Part of me thinks we take photos because Kodak wants us to. But that is cynical and paranoid. If I didn't have any photos of my dad, how would I remember him? how would i remember our vacations? My most successful photo [which I took in college] was of two people in a NYC subway car. Unknown to them, I snapped some shots with the camera lying in my lap. And voila: a happy accident. It was exciting to see this result but also irritating to have it be somewhat of a coincidence.
12:16 AM

Tuesday, March 13, 2001
Today is one year and a half. I'm not in touch with this knowledge. I'm not letting myself think or feel and that is just fine.
11:58 AM

"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 (1980)
12:22 AM

Monday, March 12, 2001
yes. i am spent. tired tired. started doing some production work for a site and man, is it boring! mind-numbing yet i've still got to be on my toes. numbers, rules, naming conventions. -- i've been having mild anxiety attacks. they're not bad ones. they're just a bit outside of the "i'm feelin' groovy" exclamation. -- stars. i miss seeing stars. i wish to lie outside on a thick blanket with no insects and no maniacs and look up and see the milky way. if there's a breeze, i wish for a soft sweatshirt. and of course someone to share the moment with. just so i don't have to explain it to everyone. it must be such a pain in the butt to be the only one to witness a miracle.
9:03 PM

Sunday, March 11, 2001
I had a wonderful day yesterday. Saw a show on Alexander Girard. Wonderful work. Inspiring, beautiful, happy. Then walked over to the Met for a disappointing exhibition on Vermeer. It was packed with sneezing tourists that would back up into you with clueless "sorry's". I'll deal with a stampede of elephants, if I'm in tourist mode, but NYC is home right now and I have to remember to go to these places during off hours. At night A. and I made dinner and watched an awesome movie she had checked out from the Public Library. A man in '74 had created a half hour tape with funky, sexy, angry, funny, abstract shapes with different colors, repeating and breaking patterns. We played different music in the background and somehow the shapes adjusted themselves to the beats. We were not on drugs: it was a natural trippy trip. we watched the tape 3 times and started associating different patterns with our different friends. so much fun. moments like those make me cherish my friends. and life. breaking the pattern of everyday. this is what i have to continue doing. -- then today yoga class brought everything together. -- i have many travel plans this summer. am growing more and more excited about them. must remember to request not only flowers, but also stars in CO. as for Spain, i'm just hoping to avoid the rain.
5:46 PM

Friday, March 09, 2001
yesterday when i was getting my teeth cleaned, i told lana, who i've been going to for a long time, that my dad had died. she said her own dad died 6 years ago and how you never get over it. she's a woman in her 50's yet we were the same age when we spoke of our loss. tonight i saw Gone in 60 Seconds. Awesome movie. some of the cars were beautiful. dad would have loved it. i know the parts we would have laughed about and nodded to each other, said "cool" and then kept watching. maybe i would have taken a pee break. put the movie on - pause -. mom would have come in and out, complaining it was too much tension for her. at the end i would have said "great movie". dad would have beamed at me, and agreed. me, a little piece of him, all happy to watch action movies. and now dad is gone. and it is a surreal world. not that it was any more real before, but it was the world i knew. i haven't thought of him for what it seems a long time. i have to space out for long stretches of time... i don't think of him being absent. and you know what? people who say your loved ones stay with you no matter what? yeah, sure, there's lots of truth in that. but memories and photos and lessons you learned and saved tapes from old phones, they don't compare at all to the actual person. their laugh, their smell, their eyes. the only thing which is certain in this life is that we are all going to die. and yet we forget this fact on a regular basis. at least the majority of this western culture forgets. i think dad would think i was a little crazy for writing like this, for anyone to see. and he would worry about the safety of cyberspace. but he would ultimately be cool. man, was he cool.
12:37 AM

Thursday, March 08, 2001
What was my life like before I entered The Web? -- eMail is making a big difference. There are many friends I would not "know" as well if we couldn't write instantly to each other. And the lovely element is that I only write emails with people who write back and enjoy to correspond online. Conversations can turn ugly quickly. Emails are easier. Even the nasty ones. This is not necessarily good. Oh no! I hope I don't lose my "people" skills. (that sounds lame). -- This journal is something I wouldn't do with pen and ink. I wonder if it helps me. I can't tell yet.-- My body isn't happy to sit infront of a computer the whole day. -- I don't like libraries anymore. As a teenager I started getting grossed out by touching a book 50 others could have held. I think I found a hair inbetween some pages once and that started my aversion to borrowing vs. buying. I like to borrow from friends. Anyhow, the web does provide eons of information on anyone or anything you're curious about. Sure, it's antiseptic, but it's much more powerful than the Dewey Decimal System. Is that what the organization of books was called? I better do a google search and find out...
1:51 PM

Wednesday, March 07, 2001
syn-es-the-sia: Sensation produced at a point other than or remote from the point of stimulation, as of a color from hearing a certain sound.
11:28 PM

Hindsight will kill you if you let it. Gee, doesn't that just sound like some crap you'll hear in a random bar from some random drunk. It's true though. Managed to see 60 Minutes II. This stuck in my head: the Oxford English Dictionary hired 32 year old lexicographer Jesse Sheidlower. I feel mean, but I thought he was such a smug, lame, silly little nerd. There's nothing wrong with being a nerd either. Some nerdiness can be quite intriguing in a person. However, Jesse got words like "yadda yadda yadda", "shyster", "doozy", " scudsbucket" and "scudsball" into the OED. He also edited a 272-page book devoted entirely to the F-word. Allright. Well, I do chuckle to think of "shyster" in the Dictionary and would expect it to be there already. But "yadda yadda yadda"? Let's hope "Yabba Dubba Dooh" is in. (I mean that). Man, if we all spoke ONE common language, wouldn't things be a little simpler? What if everyone was bilingual? Would that be such a horrible thing, to do away with the world of Babel? Too bad the international language of love isn't doing the trick to promote world peace. "Yadda yadda yadda". It's hard to get over it.
12:24 AM

Tuesday, March 06, 2001
I was throwing old papers out and came across a mention of "The Madness of a Seduced Woman" by Susan Fromberg Schaeffer. I read it 7-8 years ago. I still remember a passage which mentions the main character's object of desire. He was some handsome, emotionally unavailable creature. After a lot of turmoil, you hear his side of the story. He said this woman, who loved him so completely made him feel insecure and inferior. He felt he could never love her as well as she loved him. He wanted to find someone he could cherish and worship, someone who would not drown him with her love. Someone who could let him breathe, let him pursue her and show her that he loves her. Not a woman who wanted him so much he could never escape the shadow of her desires. -- I wonder if I buy this explanation, but it actually sorta kinda makes sense. Yet it makes sense if you're in a somewhat dysfunctional relationship. I still believe that when things are right, the problems aren't about who loves whom the most, but about how you can go see the pyramids together while still having food on the table. Or what the future of our society is, etc. etc. etc.
4:22 PM

Today is a horrible day. Horrible. Horrible. I can just about only type this word, over and over again. Horrible. Incompetence left and right. Horrible. But I almost laugh about it. It almost amuses me. It sucks. It sucks and the disappointing part is, there is no one local I really want to talk about this with. My friends either have bigger problems, or they're oddly optimistic about everything. Bizarre. And it all lives between my ears.
12:49 PM

Monday, March 05, 2001
I will never eat another hamburger again. This knowledge makes me very sad. Especially today, when I feel completely spent. ABC News says: "March 3, 2001 ó Across Europe, hundreds of thousands of cows and bulls suspected of having mad cow disease have been ground up and stored in huge mounds in airplane hangars ó still infected and dangerous to humans. Others are being incinerated but the ashes themselves are contaminated... It remains legal in the United States, for example, to "grind up cattle, feed them to pigs, and then grind up the pigs and feed them to the cows," says Hansen. Lacey calls this a "real danger," that "must be stopped immediately."
12:41 PM

Friday, March 02, 2001
I don't know why my site would show up when people search for "Nude pictures of Melania Knauss". And just yesterday my theory was that we're all just looking for Love. Even the twisted people. Maybe especially the twisted people. Which doesn't give them the green light to be twisted.
12:09 PM

Thursday, March 01, 2001
I've always had difficulty with being Patient. When I was a baby my parents gave me whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted it. I don't remember having to work for things. I think I was still a good kid, but also an only child. Point being, I don't like waiting. I don't know if anyone does like to wait. -- I haven't had something odd happen to me in a long time. Haven't found any keys, haven't stumbled into any coincidences. And according to my horoscope in AstroCenter, the month of March will be extremely challenging. I'm a little afraid. I wish I knew of a dance I could do to appease the gods.
6:07 PM

Thanks to F., this site can give some perspective. It's very sad although I'm sure the people that died did not get a chance to order their last meal. -- as expected, am very tired today.
12:36 PM

It's 1:53am. Caught up with a wonderful friend and now I am so tired and I know how much more tired I will feel in the morning, I don't want to go to sleep because that will get me that much closer to having to wake up. Nice logic, right? Was writing a lot today and i realized the keyboard feels stuck to my fingers. Or it's an extension of my fingertips. I've got virtual ink running out of them. Feels too seamless and unnatural to type so easily. And quickly. Numbers give me trouble since I don't use them. But otherwise, bring it on! I sorta wish I had a document to transcribe. Then again, I wish I had a ranch instead. Or a comfortable, open home in the mountains. With wild flowers growing in the garden. And fresh vegetables. Time to dream for real...
1:42 AM