shakti

Faith spent a lot of our dance class crying in a bathroom but when she came back she started doing this amazing improvisation. She was doing a swaying walk in her black onesie outfit, the fabric was gathered in elastic at the waist and made her romantic and round on the hips. her legs overcrossed and she was tip-toeing and moving fast and sweetly, i let out a little laugh because i was happy and relieved. She was laughing with the other dancer; moving had extricated her from her mood (pervasive, unshakeable, Faithmood) for a little while.

Shakti is her secret name and I only ever call her that in my thoughts. I catch myself mentally calling her Shakti every day but it's never once slipped out. It's a weird thing to be stuck in my head, since it's not as though I ever hear anyone calling her that.

She and I embraced a long time after class and she said "I really love you so much, you are such a good friend to me" and I thought about how good it feels to take care of her even though she is impossible. She'd never said it so plainly before. I really love her too.

Dreams To Remember

what does this song mean? he has dreams of being with her to remember, to fight for in spite of seeing her with another guy? or he has bigger dreams, things he lived for before she came along ("girl you just satisfy me"-- just she ONLY satisfy and not exceed, like when doing all the requirements for a term paper will earn you a C?)

the fade out: "i've got dreams-- rough dreams! bad dreams!" -- throws me for more loops. the title is just such a big position to stake, and then it goes out in every direction.

when i was listening to otis redding and falling asleep on the g train i could see myself slithering, a slow dance that could be performed lying on a rug as well as standing. a dance in the pelvis and including all of the surfaces of my body, which have changed in texture since the last time i was listening this hard to this music, when i was "only sixteen"

this is possible!

holy shit i love makeup

lydie:

"l...checking your messages while walking to your familiar spot under the trees...as you know 'I have my what would Lydia do in this case moments 'and that's when I hear you and" a woman wrote that on your facebook and i liked all of errors, i believe her
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.

Merce cunningham

I'm so glad I saw his final piece, opening night on his final birthday. And the lecture later, at the Guggenheim, on the process of chance. I was as exposed as possible I guess, and I was charmed.

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.

after

the kids have really sunburned necks and watery eyes, but Lilli's always looked spaced like that anyway. She's really skinny and was wearing a sweatshirt down to her knees. Gabe was clearly angling for a sleepover, sprawled on the couch. In a few energetic minutes they shot fireworks out the front windows, onto the street.
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.