Wednesday, September 26, 2001
The Secret Sits
We dance round in a ring and suppose,
But the Secret sits in the middle and knows.
-- Robert Frost (1942)
12:46 PM
Tuesday, September 25, 2001
oh no. i think my cold is back. i may just start popping Sudafed. -- also wondering what book to take with me on the plane. should i try and finish Les Miserables? or can i dig up an optimistic "vacation" book at home? i'd like to jump into non-fiction but at the same time need a distraction from reality. -- woke up early today. went back to sleep. need more. tonight is "take it easy" night.
3:17 PM
conversation. conversation. conversation. i grew up with it. listening. i am used to it. i crave it. i'm not the most outspoken person but i'm starting to speak my mind. i don't need to say much, just summarize my ideas. maybe this is why i cherish friendships so much. maybe this is why romantic relationships confuse me. i feel it's easier to talk to a friend than a lover. who knows. i don't know. what do i know? except that it's 1 am and i had a strong drink over 3-4 hours and i heard two friends discuss and argue and go back and forth and in circles but it was good to be there. and i think they could have settled their differences in 5 minutes and moved on. regardless, it was good. thinking. i haven't had to use math in years. and now i have trouble adding and subtracting. it's true! it's frightening. if we don't THINK and discuss, that part of the brain atrophies as well. at least that's my feeling. -- so eric is here to stay, for a few months at least. living on a boat on the jersey side. transportation isn't smooth yet. they're supposed to install a bus system. one of the tunnels is closed. -- i want to travel. i want to forget. i want to LIVE. i want to leave fear behind. although fear is a factor of surviving. to rephrase, again and again and again, i want to leave my fear of LIVING behind. -- adam wrote of the corrolation between being independent and being detached. having independence be perceived as detachment. in relationships that is. intimate relationships. it's an interesting point. -- what is the point? is it "to love and be loved by annabel lee"? i wonder where i'd be if i had never left romania. i wonder where i'd be if i was living 100 years ago. 200 years ago. what if i had stayed with my first kiss boy in highschool? what if, what if, what if. no more what if's for the future please! i ramble. i must stop now.
1:16 AM
Monday, September 24, 2001
the sculpture on my homepage at the moment sits infront of st. eustache. i remembered the name because adam and i named it st. moustache. -- "Saint Eustache Cathedral has its origins in a church dedicated to Saint Agnes. This was true until the 16th century when, in 1532, Jean de la Barre, the mayor of Paris began work on what is now Saint Eustache Cathedral. The reason for the beginning of this work was because it had become necessary to enlarge the town square. The work was discontinued during the religious wars, and was not begun again until 1624. The church is 105 meters long by 43 meters. The exterior of the church is very ornate and beautiful and has a gothic architecture like Notre Dame." i LOVED being inside. it's huge and it's silent and it's hidden away among trees. i remember thinking i was inside a whale.
12:25 AM
Sunday, September 23, 2001
spoke with YS yesterday. she's brilliant.
3:46 PM
Saturday, September 22, 2001
sometime in '93 i wrote this:
"And he would know everything she had done and felt and thought. She wouldn't kneel to him. No, this is no God or saint. He simply is hers and he will claim her. So she walks and wonders if he will ever show himself. She's listening to "Mon coeur s'ouvre a ta voix" - Samson et Dalila, by Saint-Saens. It's a perfect Aria. Its beauty rearranges every stray cell in her. It's as wonderful as bunny rabbits and rainbows and pink fluffy clouds. It's amazing because it makes all these things seem beautiful. As pretty as ruins and monuments and Cathedrals. So she thinks of the Rodin Museum and how painful it would be to SMASH every sculpture in the place. Destroy everything. Have this music cry in the whole place. And lie down among the broken pieces. The marble arms and necks and shoulders. The ears and broken noses, the toes. Nothing could hurt more. Maria Callas is dead now. - She hates it when people say "passed on." Passed on to what? Reincarnation is a nice idea but before you can reincarnate, you die. Passed on... you pass on notes in elementary school or rumors or streets. The streets were hard to walk on. The pavement wasn't absorbing her steps. Her weight - 121 lbs. Her dream, to be happy."
8:54 PM
i LOVE willie nelson
6:59 PM
Friday, September 21, 2001
gas masks are being sold across the country. stores are running out of them. maybe i'm wrong but i wonder what exactly a gas mask could do. can it save a life or merely prolong the misery? -- i've been to quite a few psychics. they've all told me i have a long life. my mom as well. this "fact" makes me feel the end of the world will not come soon. and if the end should be near, would all our palms have short lifelines? would babies be born without lifelines? -- i'm almost finished with the last book of the Pullman trilogy. it's not helping my dreams.
7:23 PM
NASA offers an astronomy picture every day! "September 14, 1999 - Explanation: The Great Nebula in Orion is a colorful place. Visible to the unaided eye as a fuzzy patch in the constellation of Orion, this image taken with the Big Throughput Camera shows the Orion Nebula to be a busy neighborhood of young stars, hot gas, and dark dust. The power behind much of the Orion Nebula (M42) is the Trapezium - four of the brightest stars in the nebula. The eerie blue glow surrounding the bright stars pictured here is their own starlight reflected by nearby dust. Hot oxygen and hydrogen gases cause the extended green and pink glows, respectively. Dark brown dust filaments cover much of the region. The whole Orion Nebula cloud complex, which includes the Horsehead Nebula, will slowly disperse over the next 100,000 years."
6:09 PM
Thursday, September 20, 2001
today was also a good email day. today has left me exhausted yet hyper. today i wonder whether i'll ever visit the pyramids. at least i floated in the dead sea. it was the most peaceful place i've seen.
10:51 PM
today i was reminded of the Cowboy Junkies. TO LIVE IS TO FLY. today i vented my frustrations on dreamers. today i wish i still ate red meat so i could have a nice filet mignon. my face is breaking out. i guess it keeps me looking teenage youthful. if planes fly properly next weekend, i'm in vegas baby! meeting up with 2 friends from college (who live in LA) and their wonderful mates. i asked them two days ago and they agreed within a day. which makes me very very happy (:
4:02 PM
"Like Kandinsky, Klee valued the "primitive," and especially the art of children. He envied their polymorphous freedom to create signs, and respected their innocence and directness. 'Do not laugh, reader! Children also have artistic ability, and there is wisdom in their having it! The more helpless they are, the more instructive are the examples they furnish us ....' In his desire to paint 'as though newborn, knowing absolutely nothing about Europe,' Klee was a complete European. His work ferreted around in innumerable crannies of culture, bringing back small trophies and emblems from botany, astronomy, physics, and psychology. Music had a special influence on him. He believed that eighteenth-century counterpoint (his favourite form) could be translated quite directly into gradations of colour and value, repetitions and changes of motif; his compositions of stacked forms, fanned out like decks of cards or colour swatches, are attempts to freeze time in a static composition, to give visual motifs the "unfolding" quality of aural ones - and this sense of rhythmic disclosure, repetition, and blossoming transferred itself, quite naturally, to Klee's images of plants and flowers. He was the compleat Romantic, hearing the Weltgeist in every puff of wind, reverent before nature but careful to stylize it. Klee's assumptions were unabashedly transcendentalist. 'Formerly we used to represent things visible on earth,' he wrote in 1920, 'things we either liked to look at or would have liked to see. Today we reveal the reality that is behind visible things, thus expressing the belief that the visible world is merely an isolated case in relation to the universe and that there are many more other, latent realities ...'
12:58 AM
i wish my mom wouldn't watch the news ALL the time. i wish a lot of things. this is not a major wish of course. i just had 3 hours of intense, wonderful yoga. kate is the best teacher i've had. i almost think of moving to DC, where she lives, to be able to take her classes regularly. (almost) she read in class a passage explaining we are not defined by our experiences. we extend beyond them. i've wondered about my identity. and complained about life having done things to me rather than me doing things in life. i also like the idea our breath is a common ground. breath has no religion or race. if you feel lonely, focus on your breath and know you share it with everyone. (which is a bit gross) -- the class focused on backward bends. they open your heart and help the lower back. -- politics... so depressing. i feel old. i feel i was born old. and now i feel melodramatic. i need to sleep. and dream. oh yes, last night i had a nightmare. except i was calm. i dreamt i saw a bomb fall. it looked like a falling red flower. mom was sleeping next to me and i kept screaming for her to wake up. only she wouldn't. then in my dream, i woke up. i dreamt while dreaming. -- over dinner tonight a friend said the chief of security at Logan airport who had retired 5 months ago stated that the main competition their security workers had was from McDonalds. so basically the same person would either serve us hamburgers OR make sure the skies are safe to fly.
12:41 AM
Wednesday, September 19, 2001
YS sent me a fantastic email today. helping me START. sometimes i see different paths. i can almost enter them and spend time in these forgotten options. the roads not taken. what a waste of time. talking talking talking. -- yoga class tonight will help. i wonder...
5:46 PM
today... i wish someone else could breathe for me
2:01 PM
Tuesday, September 18, 2001
Sister Wendy (Beckett) is a trip! I haven't seen her before. She's awesome. I miss school, listening to her. She says: "One of my limitations is that i am not interested in how a thing is made. what draws me is what's being made and what it means. So it's ironic, and it probably serves me right, that the painter i love most in the world and think the greatest, Cezanne, is great precisely because of the way he paints." she is blissful. she talks in an exquisite yet universal language (no art lingo). her whacky little buck teeth only make her more endearing.
10:58 PM
i still have my cold. i should name it. maybe phillip. i think that would be a good name for a pesky cold... phillip not phil. phillip: bless you: thanks. -- otherwise, happy birthday sanjay!
3:38 PM
Monday, September 17, 2001
today was not a good day. new moon. maybe it contributed. uncertainty is tough to deal with for me. although i got wonderful birthday presents from madeline. i got to unwrap! the pen she sent is AWESOME! it has a plastic little monster on top which lights up unexpectedly when you write. -- also we received a messengered letter from Thailand. a wonderful man dad worked with is the only business man he knew who contacted me and mom after the Tower disaster. it's incredible how many people he helped and now they have all disappeared. i know if one of dad's collegues had died and left a widow and daughter he wouldn't have forgotten them. people are strange. -- now... i know it's important to keep a chin up. i know it's important to keep going with a chin up. but... if i could easily leave this town, i would. -- i wish i knew what was going to happen. in this case, i want to know the future. mom was saying this morning how most people only go thru one disaster in a lifetime. we've been thru 3 so far. yes, we're lucky to be "ok". yes, we need to be grateful. but man oh man. i feel tired. i think there's a fine line between keeping things in perspective (i'm lucky, you're lucky, etc.) and allowing ourselves to feel scared, unhappy, exhausted, sarcastic. ahhhh... sweet relief: Seinfeld is on. and it's an episode i haven't seen.
11:16 PM
Sunday, September 16, 2001
9. Honest With Me - bob dylan: love and theft
Well, I'm stranded in the city that never sleeps
Some of these women they just give me the creeps
I'm avoidin' the south side the best I can
These memories I got they can strangle a man
Well, I came ashore in the dead of the night
Lot of things can get in the way when you're tryin' to do what's right
You don't understand it, my feelin' for you
You'd be honest with me if you only knew
I'm not sorry for nothing I've done
I'm glad I fought, I only wish we'd won
The Siamese twins are comin' to town
People can't wait, they've gathered around
When I left my home the sky split open wide
I never wanted to go back there, I'd rather have died
You don't understand it, my feelin' for you
You'd be honest with me if only you knew
My woman got a face like a teddy bear
She's tossin' a baseball bat in the air
The meat is so tough you can't cut it with a sword
I'm crashin' my car trunk first into the board
They say that my eyes are pretty and my smile is nice
Well, I'd sell it to ya at a reduced price
You don't understand it, my feeling for you
You'd be honest with me if only you knew
Some things are too terrible to be true,
I won't come here no more if it's botherin' you
There's a Southern Pacific leaving at 9:45
I'm havin' a hard time, believin' some people would ever arrive
I'm stark naked but I don't care
I'm goin' off into the woods I'm hunt'n' bare
You don't understand it, my feeling for you
Well, you'd be honest with me if only you knew
I'm here to create the new imperial empire
I'm gonna do whatever circumstances require
I care so much for you, didn't think I could
I can't tell my heart that you're no good
Well, my parents, they warned me not to risk my years
And I still got their advice oozing out of my ears
You don't understand it, my feeling for you
Well, you'd be honest with me if only you knew
9:21 PM
"By the time they reach 60, most performers' work has been rubbed smooth by complacency and compromise, like an eroded stone--particularly if they're harnessed to a tour schedule of around 200 gigs per year. It says much for the seemingly limitless renewability of Bob Dylan's creative gifts that Love and Theft, his 43rd album, should sound as distinctive and intriguing in 2001 as his debut did nearly 40 years earlier. It's one of the most important albums of Dylan's career, being the follow-up to the Grammy-winning Time out of Mind which re-established him as a serious commercial prospect, at a time of life when even Mick Jagger might window-shop longingly for a nice cardie, slippers and a bag of Werther's Originals. And for once in his life, Dylan neither disappoints nor tries to wilfully destroy his reputation, but instead seems energised by the challenge."
-- Andy Gill, The Independent(UK) [9-6-01]
9:06 PM
Friday, September 14, 2001
finally got my IRS letter about the $300 refund. guess it's all going to vegas.
10:15 PM
com_passion
testing... testing... testing...
4:55 PM
Thursday, September 13, 2001
i'm tired. i'm tired of thinking and talking and writing. i'm watching Poirot on PBS. this morning i read my sci-fi book The Amber Spyglass, by Pullman. i'm about to eat really good basil, pine nuts, mushroom, chicken, garlic, olive oil pasta. i keep coughing. and although i'm tired, i don't stop thinking. seeing, smelling, hearing the aftereffects of the towers falling i see, smell, hear Death. i feel more sad than angry though i do become irrate when i hear and read of people who try to make Bin Laden into a justified ideologue. well, whoever master-minded the attack is EVIL. i feel the lines between wrong and right are being erased by some commentaries. i agree we should look at what caused these INSANE terrorists to act. ideally the root of the problems with the muslim countries would be addressed. of course i don't want more innocent people to die, no matter what their beliefs or lack of beliefs may be. but the idea of obliterating the training centers for walking thinking timebomb terrorists sounds fine to me. i am in a cynical mood. and i keep thinking that any statement i make needs to be precluded by "i'm lucky to be alive". i am exhausted.
10:31 PM
Talking to kids about the terrorist attack... i think adults are suffering from the symptoms as well.
5:27 PM
i keep hearing people say "we can't give in to the fear... if we give in to the fear they'll win"... and thing is, i am afraid. i don't know if it's PURE fear, or the instinct to survive. it's about not having our heads stuck up our butts. and sadly, it's about losing innocence. -- i do wish i was living somewhere else. maybe austin, like i've talked about for years. or new mexico? even philadelphia or man, pittsburgh seems like paradise. i do feel pride in being a new yorker though. there has been no looting i've heard of and everyone on the street is very helpful and kind. -- the smoke is starting to get stronger. i'm at the office and i feel it. -- today is 2 years since my dad died. it's unfortunate to have another before/after event happen.
5:15 PM
Wednesday, September 12, 2001
smoke is filtering into our apartment in chelsea. they say to wear facemasks to keep the asbestos out. i'm tired. very very tired. it's a period of time when going to sleep is a drug. the escape. the grand escape.
11:19 PM
i woke up still sick. outside it's a beautiful autumn day. the weather makes it all more surreal. i wish i was living in austin. or europe. i wish i had a larger family around me. of course i wish yesterday had not happpened, but it did. i'm calm.
11:59 AM
Tuesday, September 11, 2001
"CLOSURES
An area of Lower Manhattan around the collapse-site will be off-limits to civilians until at least Thursday.
All bussinesses below 14th Street in Manhattan will be closed Wednesday.
The New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ markets were closed Tuesday and will remain so through Wednesday.
The Empire State Building will be closed off Wednesday.
Postal service will be suspended until Thursday.
The remainder of Fashion Week in Manhattan has also been cancelled."
-- oh no. fashion week is cancelled... (i'm being sarcastic). and i'm blank right now... no labels. tired. --
10:43 PM
earlier today veronica wrote:
"AA flight 11 BOS- LA = 11
UA flight 93 NEW - SFO = 12
UA Flight 175 BOS- LA = 13
AA flight 77 Dulles - LA = 14
as i was buying melania's birthday present this afternoon a psychic woman pointed these numbers out to me. i dont know what they mean- if anything it shows the sequence and shows the precision of what they did."
-- frightening. if you told the events of today to people yesterday, they'd think it was a bad movie. unlikely. paranoid conspiracy theories. and yet it happened. walking to get groceries with steven it seemed to me the Twin Towers disappearing is like death - i know thousands and thousands of people HAVE died and i think of them and their families. but so far they are faceless -- the Towers are GONE. death. so much like death. it IS death.
i think of you my friends, and the poor souls who died.
8:24 PM
i am "ok". worried about april and eric. she lives right by the World Trade Center. talked to her after the second explosion. she was gathering her papers to leave. we were on the phone when she started screaming and then the phone went off. the first tower had fallen. i called back and got her machine. 15 minutes later the second tower fell. i had told her to come over here. i hope they will. i am waiting for them.
stevenm just said: "the devil usually carries a smile"
1:23 PM
good God. two explosions in the Twin Towers. "apparent terrorist attack". is this war? the month of September seems to be about death and destruction these past couple of years. i feel nauseaus.
9:39 AM
Monday, September 10, 2001
Grahm tonight was good. Got caught in the rain. Left wet tennis shoes and socks in his hallway. He worked a lot on my throat and head. When he was at the throat I had an image of an envelope. Then thought how I keep different emotions in different envelopes. Some sealed, some not sealed. I send them to different people but itís an organized process. Later I felt my entire head was a seed and I had a green strong shoot growing out of the top of my head. The green stalk turned into a lotus flower. I wanted it to be a lotus flower and it was a pink/white one. I also saw my entire body become a strong flower stalk. Green and potent. It was a good session. Now if I could get rid of this cold by tomorrowÖ when I was putting my shoes on Grahm advised to do something special tomorrow. Celebrate the flowers that are growing within me. I wish all my long-distance girlfriends were physically around me. Miau!
woweeee: i called Melania in arizona tonight to wish her a happy birthday for yesterday and her phone kept ringing and ringing and i held on, thinking there is two way calling or maybe a slow answering machine. she answered and it turns out she was calling me at the same time to wish me happy birthday for tomorrow! my phone was busy, since i was calling her... i love moments like that. if it's any indication of how my 30's will be, bring them on!
10:00 PM
i have a bad cold. don't know what i want to do tomorrow night, if anything. how to bring in my 30's? i have grey thoughts. i'm moody. i'm On Hold. i waste energy thinking about things i hopefully won't remember on my deathbed.
4:58 PM
Sunday, September 09, 2001
thinking more of last night, i thought of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864 - 1901). oddly enough, he died today one hundred years ago. he was 36.
"On 24 November 1864 a son was born to the Comte and Comtesse de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa. He grew up in one of the oldest families in France, with ancestors who had fought in the crusades. The French aristocracy had little political power by the late 19th century, but the Lautrec family was very wealthy and kept apartments in Paris as well as country estates around Albi, not far from Toulouse in south-west France. -- However, the child's aristocratic stock did him much more harm than good. Though his parents seemed complete opposites - his father, a wild eccentric hunter of women as well as animals; his mother, quiet and devout - they were in fact first cousins. And although he at first appeared a beautiful and healthy child, young Henri had inherited a congenital weakness of the bones.-- During Lautrec's early teens, two slight falls (one from a chair, one into a small ditch) caused fractures in each leg. The bones stopped growing and remained weak and feeble, while the rest of his body grew into maturity. By way of cruel compensation, nature rewarded Lautrec with the full attributes of manhood: a thick beard, rich voice and lively libido. "I may only be a small coffee-pot", he was fond of saying later, "but I have a big spout"!"
2:56 PM
my throat hurts. alot. whenever i feel this way, i think i'll never get well again. i feel trapped in the nagging discomfort. do we have to feel ill to appreciate being healthy? -- last night went to stevenm's ex.girlfriend's b.day party. it had been a long time since i was in a social situation where people could talk without having annoying music overshadow every word. managed to avoid small talk with 3 other guests. i don't like small talk. then again, i feel i need to get back into serious reading. i can't support or develop my thoughts enough. overall, i think it's strange and unnatural to spend time with a current lover's ex. it's interesting to see who they were attracted to previously. i suppose once you cross the platonic threshold, things are never the same again. which is a big supporting argument for staying platonic unless you're ready to deal with the consequences.
today: happy birthday Melania!
yesterday: happy birthday Jennifer!
1:47 PM
Friday, September 07, 2001
sarah asked: why is turning 30 so monumental, do you suppose? Is it a particuarly important date for you?
i answered: 30 is a benchmark: i see it as one. makes me evaluate where i am. what i'm doing. how many orders i take from others: at work especially. everyday should be an evaluation (?) but turning 30 makes it "easier" for me to review my life so far. i feel it's tougher to be irresponsible and dumb as a 30 year old. there are less excuses. i think back and remember being in my early 20's. during a summer internship i met a woman i thought was amazing. she was 32? anyway, i'm nearing her age now and i'm not like her yet: the fearlessness i associate with being a "successful" adult. on a positive note, i do feel i'm getting there. S L O W L Y. i'm excited about 30+ but besides dad not being HERE, like i said so far, it's the deer in headlights syndrome. for instance, i wish i had my own kitchen: owned my own apt. and had a kitchen i could lay tile on. i have a vision of working on my kitchen floor. putting beautiful tile pieces. the counters as well. and the bathroom also. THE WHOLE APARTMENT! ALL PRETTY TILES! ok, not the whole place, but i feel i have NONE of the accomplishments which used to mean you're an adult. by the time my mom was 30 she had me, she was married, she was a famous actress. by comparison, i'm a teenager. at least i'm not a drug addict. i know i'm LUCKY. but in order to move forward, i need to be hard on myself. know what i mean? it's not so much about patting myself on the back as it is about making a to-do list.
12:13 PM
Thursday, September 06, 2001
... blood red vampire roses ... tall and strong, stems like fingers, hair, veins of desire, petals taut, deep like an iris, elegant and strong -- my eyes are sore now. my throat is better but borderline scratchy. i wonder how much of it is psychosomatic. is LIFE psychosomatic?
3:05 PM
sandpaper throats 'r us
10:51 AM
Wednesday, September 05, 2001
ahhhhh... the joys of being woman. 30 won't be so bad after all. yesterday was good with steven. he found my other online journal and didn't have a hissy fit after he read all of it! he knew it was "private", as private as anything online can be, but it seems to have mellowed him out, in a good way. i still feel 100% honesty with a lover usually involves cruelty. i mean, if i go thru various crushes with various people, do i have to give a report every week? every month? i've never cheated on a man. i've broken up for other people, but never overlapped physical events. to enjoy the present. i will give it my best.
12:23 PM
Monday, September 03, 2001
yesterday: brunch at Norma's and the MOMA. i thought i remembered why Picasso's Les Demoiselle d'Avignon (1907) is an important painting. i was close. it paved the way for cubism. this i remembered. i never liked it much. besides the Blue period, i don't like Picasso's work. -- more exciting is the fact I finally love Cezanne. i am old enough to loooooove him. after reading the sci-fi Golden Compass, i look at his paintings and i see other worlds. his brushstrokes are layered and separate yet the painting is complete. it's magic. most advanced magic. steven said Monet's waterlilies look like fire. he's right! i never thought of that analogy.
12:25 PM
Sunday, September 02, 2001
ever since dad died mom seems to be focused around money and dying. which is a paradox since dying is the most non-materialistic act. i feel my life at the moment is overshadowed by money. security. wanting to be independently wealthy. it's a waste of time unless i do something about it. for instance, i'm wondering whether being an interactive designer will allow me to achieve my potential. maybe if i finally would do some work for a non-profit, i could find out how much of a difference i can make. non-profit vs. becoming independently wealthy... they don't go hand in hand. what do i really want anyway? what do i want? -- finished Cold Mountain (by Frazier). not a happy book. technically i still have 10 pages to go. but for once, i couldn't wait and i had to skim the end. too much tension. i don't like unhappy endings in books anymore. maybe i've finally lived some tragedy and now i know it SUCKS! -- weather outside is Perfect. -- i'm surrounded by "what ifs" this morning. they're exhausting.
10:37 AM
