ypsilanti's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- the dishes are done, man every time the telephone rings it sounds like a song every night you fall asleep with those old headphones on. it's not the type of secret that you want to keep too long look for me and i'll be gone. ******* so it has been spring, and i have somehow been blessed with the idea that the truth is as much as i need to make bail, you know. yesterday i was in new york, smoking a cigarette, trying to look cool for all the boys in the queer coffee shop, them looking out the window only half as non-chalantly as i was looking in. i was actually trying to look as ridiculous as possible, smoking with my entire hand practically covering my face everytime i raised the cigarette to inhale. and it really wasn't the boys who i was hoping would benefit from my sophomoric tricks, but the person standing between me and the glass of the storefront. how utterly impossible that i was on three planes, and awake for so many hours, and over enough states and clouds, just for a little while. just long enough to see two exhibits at the fashion institute; an amazing collection of original art from and issues of visionaire magazine, celebrating it's 10th anniversary. it is an amazing and amazingly complex publication of art, ideas, fashion and style. also an exhibit of belgian clothing designers, almost all of which were stunning and some of which truly floored me. in 1997 me and andrew were obsessed with avante-garde design, mostly comme-de-garcons. i was initially blown away by the sparse and utilitarian aesthetic of prada at the time, too. (their clothes have since gotten really shitty and annoying, but at the time i was mostly hanging around my parents house being sick with kidney problems and listening to joy division, so it was perfect timing.) i remember we looked like total freaks, all in black and way too giggly and joyful, always laughing or screaming about something, but then going into borders and spending hours looking at Harper's Bazzar and Vouge, mostly at the ads. it was a truly horrifying and beautiful time, and i miss so much about it and about you. had it been that time, or was my mind still in that mode, yesterday would have been the fruition of any number of unheard of dreams. first seeping in the exhibits, and then spending a fair amount of time at Barney's, where i touched and saw all of the most brilliant clothes and the bravest ideas, in a world i will never really fully understand or personally know. still the experience was more than worth having, but you can break my fucking windsheild in, you know? get in my room through the screen door and take my cds, records, even my four track or books or clothes or all the flyers i've ever made or any picture i drew or the blankets off my bed. i obviously don't care if you read my diary, right? cash ruins everything around me, and there's bad luck and hard times and missed appointments and teeth that have cavities for a few years longer than they should and lights and water that get turned off and everything. then there's moments when i watch people throw paper out the windows of trains and get some sort of feeling or concept in return, or maybe spend a lot of money on something they won't even care for or think about for long, and it all ends up running together, and sometimes i'm starving and sometimes i've eaten too much, and sometimes i stayed awake too long and sometimes i slept through two alarm clocks. it eventually never evens out or ever ever ever balances, and you can learn to walk by walking. today i wrote a song that makes reference to amy and ethan's sweet little bunny rabbit emerson. it says "maybe both of them, maybe neither one, maybe emerson." we were in new york city across maybe two dozen blocks, also just long enough to take two cab rides and seven photographs of you. claws and halo. hands and eyes. and it's weird because it's not starting over or some new era or something new or even something continued. it's just starting, maybe every time i see you again, "how was your day today? what did you do? was it cool? do you love it here? what are you going to do tonight? do you want to get some food? should we take a walk?" it seems like the most natural and un-ridiculous, unakward thing in the world to have been sitting by your side, hands laying somehow over each other, nails and teeth and secret codes that no one knows, and i have no idea how it happens, or what clicks and makes us older and realize there's not as much time to be afraid of each other or wait for the truth or waste time on whatever didn't make sense before.. but mostly i just miss you and nothing could have made me happier than city blocks floating through taller than every building hearts like children or someone's parents dancing somewhere shake a panther's paw and with you. (there were also a couple of moments when i could have jumped across the table or ducked down any alleyway. i wasn't going to say anything, but it's totally my new style to be bold.) there have been so many phenomenal and important things happening. i have done at least one really important thing every day of spring. like if spring started the new year, my resolution would be to do something special or important each day, at least one thing. it was hard on the days that snowed, but it was still important. like chicago and louisville, so much and so many things, too much to believe. and then home and there were guests from far away, and i was happier than i'd been in months, and it just got better and better and better as the week went on. and then our third saturday looks good to me show, in columbus ohio, and every single precaution was taken to ensure it would be disasterous, almost orchestrated horror and sick-to-our-stomachs times.. but then it was amazing and pure, and most of all real. like everyone realized that there were lots of problems and misunderstandings and hurt, but you could either stay and play or cause more pain or just leave, and then some stayed and some left and mostly there was no pain. it was the first show ever where i played an electric guitar with no electricity. when the p.a. was so bad we just all unplugged our instruments, sang with no microphones, played the drums with the tips of our fingers and the keys only of the keyboard. nothing could have ever been better, could it??? oh fuck! i totally ate two zagnuts that night, and that just topped it off. brilliance. something i thought about that night was that every once in a while i'll think back... just kind of milling down my memories, if you will.. and all of a sudden i'll be back in the late summer or the early fall or the endless winter of my 22nd year, and i remember everything so well. i remember exactly how everything went, and sometimes i'll use the knowledge or experience i've gathered since then to look back on specific memories of our times back then. and i'll remember so many countless times when you hurt my feelings and when you said and did such unacceptable and mean things.. man, you were so fucking mean to me. how come? who said that any series of events made it cool for you to be that cruel and hurtful towards me yet not remove yourself from my life? and i think more and more and i wonder why i never got angry then, i only got sad. and i wonder if i didn't have the words, or the ideas of self-respect or realistic problem solving, or if you were just a really smart and mathematical arguer.. but then i realize that the entire time in your light feels like some false construction that has nothing to do with me at all.. and maybe the "reality" of feelings and emotions is always as such, just kind of in the moment or in the context of the people involved and their mindsets, but fuck! i start to understand how people end up crazy as fuck, just walking down the streets screaming "I NEVER SAID THAT!!! OH NO YOU DON'T!!!" those crazy motherfuckers are still mad at people who stopped being a part of their lives years ago, they still going through old shit trying to win the argument or fix the problem that happened when they were 22. still stuck in the construction of what is actually happening and what is actually important, and man it's such a mean joke. like seeing someone you know on the street as you're driving, then honking so they'll notice you waving in the other direction, at the other side of the street. i have to let go of everything old and just embrace what is real and what i can trust as lasting and lastingly important. but then i think about all the other people in my life, and how our problems have arisen and been dealt with when they happened, and they so rarely do, and everything actually at least feels ok, and i think i'm really happy and joyful and maybe even a good person... positively fourth street, maybe?? i swear, i love my friends. i want to hold hands with forever, shooting arrows into heaven. soon it is going to rain, and when it does, we will continue to grow, or we will be struck by lightning, or some may get too much water and drown, and we will learn to run by running, learn to cry by crying, learn to kiss by kissing and realize we stopped waiting a long time ago for the perfect times to start. thank you so much for reading all of this. if anything is unclear, please remember why. sleep sweetly and dream safe. listen to: bob dylan, dead milkmen, dancecard, meltdown, bessy jones, emergency, strategy, saturday looks good to me, magda, his name is alive, orchid, jerome's dream, coffinzx, they might be giants, mohinder, skip spence, groundhogs, mini-pops, retsin, celebrity girlfriend, andrew wk, sparks, the rolling stones, godzuki, outrageous cherry, led zeppelin, misfits. 1:12 am - 4.5.01 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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