Thursday, November 12, 2009
lydie:
ask me about the boots
talk to you about american idol even though i don't watch it
coffee in a cardboard cup
and that weird model from
remember when you were carpentarsdream? i never understood the misspelling or the reference, we could chat online about frivolous stuff. we had the luxury of such casual communication, of getting up from our desks and coming back, watching tv, chatting with others, knowing that the other would be there to respond whenever. whatif i had recordings of your laughter on the phone. your laugh traveled WELL that way. it was a beautiful thing.
i regret my lifelong discomfort with the phone, but am relieved to remember that as much as i tried to get off the phone with you, you kept me. what the hell were we talking about? i can't remember everything. ridiculously, i remember talking about American Idol, the first season it was on TV.
i wear your makeup and the motorcycle boots you gave me, and your deodorant. the loss of you has taught me that life can really suck, it's fundamentally not easy in a way I didn't know about.
Friday, September 4, 2009
Monday, July 27, 2009
Merce cunningham
My favorite piece by Cunningham is Winterbranch from 1964. It was performed in black sweatsuits and a footballer's facepaint, largely in darkness with roving spotlights, with drilling, abrasive music (design by Rauchenburg and music by LaMonte Young I'm pretty sure). The dance was about falling, ways of falling and getting up. There is repeated impact of all the joints on the floor, or sliding down without an impact, or a sudden trust into a backwards spin he must've learned with Martha Graham and then made more violent. It looks like a disaster. I love this photo of it because it features Carolyn Brown, the most incredible modern dancer I've ever seen on film. Plus she is beautiful. Merce is center in this photo. If you ever find a copy of Winterbranch you should see it and I would like to see it again too.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
after
no one knows: lydia's friends are still checking in "Stay strong, love you" on Facebook. My mom proposed not having a service. She was just tired probably, impossibly tired. It was her little sister. I checked, she was just recently turned 43 years old.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
pina bausch
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Saturday, June 20, 2009
all i want
Friday, June 19, 2009
what goes on
We each swallowed an adderall from the upstairs drug dealer and walked from their apartment in Bushwick to Ridgewood, Queens. The porches looked like Urbana or the small brick homes looked like Chicago, and the desolate corners of expressway entrance ramps and car dealerships looked like Jefferson Park, Chicago. We turned south-west, walking through blocks and blocks of factories where there were no other pedestrians. Everything felt good, I guess that was the drug. I had energy and wanted nothing.
Walked to the Williamsburg Bridge, crossed into the city (walking the bridge takes 28 minutes). We'd walked something like nine miles when we landed on the Lower East Side. Jason found a batgammon set that I only just now remembered and realize I left at Home Sweet Home later.
Then were did we go... joined by Michael Quattlebaum and a boy named Nanu we walked to a zine release party, and then the Soho Grand Hotel. I bought a tank top; my shirt had stayed just slightly sweaty all day (the shirt was left at the club too, shit). At Nanu's place in TriBeCa there was a boy that looked like Willem Defoe and also a girl who looked like ugly Lady Gaga and is an alleged thief and a Japanese girl named Sayaka and a Mexican boy named Tom Pipol. I liked those last two a lot. We all drank. I had 2 drink and was wasted because I hadn't eaten. We went to Home Sweet Home for the goth night but I was too drunk to tell if it was fun or not or how long I stayed. When I left it was raining. Couldn't be bothered to untie my jacket from my purse, walked from below Delancy at Christie to 26th and 1st in that tank top, couldn't feel a thing.
It was a big New York day, and I was happy for it. I was so happy for so much of it.
Later I learned how sick my aunt Lydia is, and have felt very badly ever since. It is my intention to go back to Chicago after my class ends to spend time with my family; they are hurting very badly.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
choices
Tonight it is the scene after my parents left Seth's sister's condo, where we'd hosted them for dinner, and I went to gather my belongings to meet them down at the car. I was kneeling on the floor while Seth said goodbye to them, then he raced down the hall, and we hugged there on the floor, laughing from the relief and joy that the thing had gone well and my parents had warmed up.
I hate this, wondering whether I am doing the right thing. A little, I want to stay in Chicago where I don't have a job or any worries, only friends and family and the only task is to see them. Though this place isn't isn't easy; already I feel my own distance everywhere, and I feel terrified. I try to remember my life in New York as anything but uncomfortable lonely and difficult.
This has been the most acknowledgment I've given these feelings so far. I decided not to unwind all of it for as long as possible, because I know after I've thought everything out to myself I'll be a sobbing mess for the rest of my little time. Such small things can set off my regret.
My parents were themselves a bit choked up at the same moment I described earlier. As they left to bring the car around they observed to one another that now, I had had them over for dinner for the first time. Everyone's a big baby over here, everything is heartbreaking in Chicago. Maybe I'll be better, distracted at least, once I'm back on my grind in New York. I don't know what to do.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
where-i-want-to
Today during my break from work, I walked over to Everyman Coffee with Sequoya and Logan, and we ran into Margo and Mike D. The place is becoming our breakroom away from work, all of us with our shirts changed for 40 minutes of sitting around listening to Sequoya talk about things that make him laugh (The Far Side). It was the first time I was late coming back to work. As we strode up the stairs we heard pages over the intercom: "Will Mike D report to register 11, Olivia report to register 9" and laughed and felt naughty (maybe just me on the latter). Tonight I am going to "girls' night" at Kristen St Claire's in Bed-Stuy, I bet we're going to talk about work crushes and eat ice cream :)
Friends in Chicago should be advised that I'm looking to have a potluck in a park between the 11-14th. Not all of the days, just one of them. So keep 4 days of your schedule clear until further specification.
Monday, June 1, 2009
yeschterday
This week will be better because I'm going to Bennington today for a couple days, and finally at the end of the week I'll be home again. Just picked up some crisp white tees (they are all I wear, and my present ones are getting dingy or as my mom would say "Irish white") and some dip-dyed ankle socks for my journeys. See you soon, everyone I love.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
neighbor bro
Monday, May 18, 2009
334 E 26
I live on the 18th floor, with south-facing windows to look at downtown and the East River. Here is a picture I just took of myself. You can see, what, Greenpoint across the water.
I'm coming to Chicago June 6-15 and I hope you'll spend some time with me if you are reading this, because it means you are one of maybe three very close friends.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
week of j lee
am i really unfun or very open and dreamy? i keep getting conflicting impressions from otherZ
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
"whole fucking summer", 2008
yesterday i dropped off my last paper, which was about wile e coyote and americans and shit. i worked 1-9 and then i went to karaoke with Jason and all his friends in new york. It was an unprecedented ball even though i didn't get to sing "i will always love you", the dolly version (i had practiced). today i woke up early as usual. i borrowed a horrific Alaskan ID from patty for jason's birthday celebrations.
michael quattlebaum jason and i raided the bins of stuff people from my dorm tossed. michael got three rugs and two mattress pads and a cleopatra halloween costume. jason got an amazing set of speakers and an ipod alarm clock. i got a ton of shit that is now daunting because i have to move out sunday, including some dishes, a wooden spoon, an unopened dvd of Il Postino... the most astonishing thing we found was a pack of Plan B birth control, which for those of the ladies who haven't been there, is 50 dollars a pack. Why some lazy girl threw it in the bin, I will never understand. I took it. hope it isn't expired and i get pregnant :X
Anyway we made fish tacos and went out to party. the alaska ID did not work. the night was chill; considering it's a tuesday i think that's allowed. after the party i came home and raided the food bins: got a lot of popcorn, pasta, olive oil (considering my episode earlier this week when i broke an entire quart on the floor, i deserve this one) and trader joes natural pop tarts. time for my nightly bicycle crunches regimen, and a pop tart.
ARE YOU BORED YET
Thursday, May 7, 2009
mr lonely
no. we just moved here. i don't have a friend.
i don't have a friend. and irving gland across the street doesn't have a friend either. we play together because, neither of us has a friend.
let's have a club. only people who don't, have a friend, can belong.
we'll call it the no friends club.
okay.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
addicted to your light
I really hope I can concentrate on my Juarez paper now that I've gotten this out.
Friday, May 1, 2009
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Is To Be
There were little clamplights in all the corners of the room, so it was dim in there, and the black curtains were pulled to cover all the mirrors. I entered in a white tank top, ace bandage, and underwear. I performed a solo where I did a pose on the ground covering and uncovering my mouth how some people smoke cigarettes, and a low knee bend for crotch-shot effect, and crawls where my legs and arms alternated against the ground, and walks where my head weighed closer and closer towards the ground, and I'd catch it, and then it'd drop to the ground. I put on a sweatsuit, and wrapped a big teal blanket over my head, and bent my needs open again slightly. The last part was improvised and everyone laughed. This had something to do with the climax of M'appari, performed by Pavarotti.
The next part was titled Waltz with Emma Sartwell. Another dancer who is a smaller girl with short hair came in on her elbows. Meanwhile I put a bandanna on my head. I picked her up and we stood on one foot for a while, her foot behind her in her hand, mine crossed over my supporting, bent knee. We slow-danced, with her melting gradually down my body. I'm Not Saying by Nico was playing now; both pieces of music were played tinnily by my tape recorder. Emma left shortly.
The last two sections were solos without music. The first was titled No-Swan Pas De Deux and I used the choreography I mentioned making in an earlier post, from the Petipa Swan Lake adagio, but removing the female dancer. (When Emma saw this section in rehearsal, she said she was deeply disturbed and saddened by it, that it was more moving than I thought.) After that, I performed a steady and slightly athletic, manic dance of aloneness, involving squats and planks, scratches of the ground by my toes, walking, a repeat of a pose Emma'd done on the ground with her legs held up in a sideways V, and more walking. The walking brings my head to the ground and it does not touch, then I walk normally, with purpose, then the purpose dwindles, I am close to the audience, slowing, and I stop.
I like this piece and I wish more people could've seen it. It is my hope to make more full length work and my dream to include people from my life, such as my boyfriend and any willing other friends. I think my tendency for the theatrical is ok. I hope friends this summer will make work together.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
text i recieved
Thursday, April 9, 2009
fucking ballet
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
HELLO!! I am nineteen.
DFW
four bicycle crunches
bounce on balls of feet, swing L shoulder forward (w/ arm down but resembling a tennis volley)
crawl, on back pushing w/ feet and head touching the ground/// swing body into standing as in Laura’s piece
stand at a lectern. posture is wrong to be leaning on something that isn’t there. look up intermittently. take time
pose on side like a big man, but also like a Chinese sage, a sexy female. reach behind for cig. roll onto back and wiggle.
brief kickline (still on your back, on the floor)
rapid crawls where opp. arm and leg extend and pull in like a caterpillar or Alvin ailey
stand, then go to ground lead by the head weight, if being borne down, hands hold it at the last breath, head to ground