2025.083
Apparently I only write in my blog when I feel shitty & the record shows I've not felt shitty in the past 15 days until yesterday-today, which turns out to be my mom's birthday in her time zone. Clearly the universe is punishing me for not remembering her birthday & talking shit about her in therapy. (I blame everything but myself)
a) Conflict of interest & miscommunication with my roommates as I plan to move out & sublease, b) conflict of interest & miscommunication with A as we fuck but accuse one another of self-indulgence & poor relationship skills, c) conflict of interest & miscommunication within myself because I don't think I was wrong to say the things I said but feel ashamed & unhappy about it nonetheless. The worst part about smaller disagreements is that they sometimes reveal a deeper disagreement within relationships, such as the absence of mutual respect & goodwill, or the presence of unresolved resentment & disdain. Faced with the reality of all the issues in my relationships, I can hardly believe that I'm not the destroyer of peace & joy.
The demon I have to face is the fact that I wish to do no wrong & also desire to be forgiven when I do wrong. A person who is righteous but also feels entitled to forgiveness... sounds pretty disgusting to me. It's useless to try & cope by weighing the hurt I took & the hurt I caused because I lack the skills to turn that into grace. In my mind, We All Make Mistakes never turns into It's Okay You Made A Mistake Move On because I have trouble forgiving anyone, including myself. This is how you collect mortal enemies at 24 & end up walking down certain streets of Manhattan like a fugitive.
2025.068
Happy Women's History Month to all the girls with bangs & bad fathers... The skater girls... The horse girls... The girls who need their boyfriends to get a vasectomy... The girls with trust issues... The girls who can't pick a dessert... The girl's girls... The misogynistic girls... The girls who never have cash... The girls who lie in therapy... The girls who hate being a girl... The girls who love being a girl... The girls who hate the porn industry but watch porn anyway...The girls who make porn... The dog girls... Cat girls... The girls who count calories... The girls who can't cook... The girls who are estranged from their families... The hetero-optimist girls... The girls who only date finance bros... The girls with no personality... The girls who compete with their sisters... The girls who steal from the library... The corporate girls... The Marxist yet trust-funded girls... The preventative botox girls... The intermittent fasting girls... The overqualified girls... The politically incorrect girls... The impossibly nice girls... The blogger girls...
2025.063
God how is it possible to be so tired all the time-– in the morning, in the evening, before coffee, after coffee, ALL THE TIME. (I am on my period.) My brain has lost all capacity for creative thinking & I'm eating like I just got out of prison. Rain taps on the bedroom window like a lullaby & my eyes almost give up. I'm in no condition to be pithy, & I'm full of absolutely useless complaints about the things I need to do. There is no joy in my duties. Only intravenous exhaustion & a heavy, digressive cycle of trying to optimize my life inch by inch. But nothing's efficient about wanting to eat chocolate after brushing my teeth. Is it a side effect of feminism that I feel uncomfortable seeking rest while bleeding through my vagina? Is it a sick coping mechanism to blame every personal psychological flaw on a societal conspiracy? But when you find yourself thinking you're not even in that much pain compared to some other women, & then subsequently find yourself correcting your comparative acceptance of suffering, it sure feels like you're a lab rat steadily dying due to the lack of certainty & comfort in her own thoughts. Goodnight...
2025.056
CK quoting AR:
"AR says 'When you're writing in real time you have to revise a lot.' By this I think she means that every time you try & write the truth it changes. More happens. Information constantly expands."
This is accurate in my experience because my heart isn't hermetic & shit keeps happening to it. I'm not in love the same way I was yesterday & the disorganization of it all makes me feel out of control.
A tells me there's a pattern to our "arguments," which feels like a finger pointed at me for looking inward first at all times. ("Arguments" because I didn't know one could argue calmly, accompanied by shared meals & sex.) I'm quick to blame myself for my feelings, shut my mouth, & leave the apartment with not much explanation. I don't wonder how annoying this can be–– I know it is. I write desperately in real-time but information doesn't expand much. No text, no update, no pretending like nothing happened. Just an unprovoked Icelandic artist trying to convince me that all tech bros are drug addicts & psychopaths (ungodly timing). It stings to sit in silence & recognize that I am upset with him in several ways. It's painful to admit that someone who loves me can lack consideration for me sometimes. But it's even more painful to accept that I can be hurt. That I can be so butthurt about some crude jokes, some lack of gentleness.
To self-soothe I eat a lot of wasabi peas & remind myself I've been generally okay despite worse things. The world expands. More happens. More difficult choices & conversations. More love. I eat even more wasabi peas & aggressively type some emails. I'm irritated by how abstruse men can be. Are they ever satisfied? Does every man believe he deserves a 10? I crack the code–– this is exactly why it's so easy for women to hate the entirety of men. The allure & specificity of one man becomes unbearably overwhelming when multiplied into a herd. But where's the fun in the life of a heterosexual girl without making exceptions?
2025.049
The long weekend is over & there is one thing I didn't do–– paint.
I had breakfast with L on Saturday & we sat in a Polish diner until 2 PM discussing her East Village co-op renovation, the price of gold, work ethic, & my co-habitant/lover as known as her son. I devoured some toast & fries & sausages & scrambled eggs that were perfectly made but took 45 minutes to be served. Going through the initial homemaking stage at a new apartment myself, I felt excitement for L's capacity to tear down walls & floors but also a grand relief that I'm not going to be doing any of that. I'm only quixotic in the sense that I believe I might be in a happy sexy relationship forever but not in the sense that I can build a happy sexy kitchen/bathroom/living room from scratch. After I parted ways with L, I walked through the rain to E's apartment in Clinton Hill to check on her cat. I painted this cat last year so I felt a responsibility to care for its well-being while E was in India. The cat was smaller than I remembered & it sat right next to me on the couch. I spilled churu on my pants but stayed & watched the Martha Stewart documentary on Netflix because E was kind enough to provide amenities & I don't have a Netflix login. I didn't know that Martha Stewart actually didn't commit insider trading until I watched this documentary. & because I respect women who make it out of prison, I started following marthastewart48 on Instagram & headed back home feeling like a true girl's girl/DIY princess. I installed some shelves in the bathroom & passed out around midnight.
On Sunday, I vacuumed the mess I made from drilling holes in the drywall. I ordered more stuff on Amazon & felt disgusted about ordering stuff on Amazon. I hung some paintings & stretched & gesso'd 10 surfaces. L texted me if I would join her for dinner. I made my way to Williamsburg & went to a store that sells a lot of junk & felt annoyed when the cashier called me "bae" & then "boo" & then "bae" again. I bought a wooden tray & got soaked in the rain on my way to the restaurant. L ordered a cocktail & I got a glass of Italian red I'd never heard of. I wondered if I was forcing myself to believe that it could be easy like this to spend time with my boyfriend's mother or if it was actually this easy because I'm incredibly lucky somehow. We spent 3 hours just talking & eating & I got home around 9. Following asleep I wished I was dead or A was here to hold me. I had a dream that B texted me & declared they now identified as white & straight.
On Monday, J came & we went out for ramen. I learned about a male hair transplant specialist in Belgium whom she met in January. We walked through the wind storm & I impulse-bought a tiny glass shelf from the hardware store. She helped me mount it on the wall & we talked for hours over some chocolate & grapes about dental care & lesbian porn. We found ourselves on opposite sides when we discussed the distances we would go for our boyfriends. I said I wouldn't move to another country or have a child for a man but would die for him if needed because love is fragile, but death is not. I explained that there are consequences once love is over but none when life is over. J seemed surprised by the lack of confidence I had in myself to deal with heartbreak. I wished she'd sleep over but she didn't & when she left I felt overwhelmed with exhaustion. I gave up on even considering making dinner & opened the packages I got from Amazon. I cursed my body for being so tired even when blessed with wonderful friendships.
2025.042
At the gym a stranger shares his thoughts on my workout posture as I do my dumbbell curls. He tells me to bend my knees when I lift & I say thanks but I feel like if I bend my knees after what he said, it means I listen to men I don't know. & I guess there's nothing wrong with taking advice from men I don't know but the advice from men I know is already an overflow in my life. I tell A about this & he says maybe(most definitely) my posture was awkward. I get furious.
Living in the age of Kendrick in bootcut denim & Trump presidency 2.0, plus sort of moving in with A, I feel like I'm an inch away from my mother's death, my great grandmother's resurrection, a miscarriage, & a spiritual awakening. I was a sick woman in January but no longer. I'm staying hot & I'm staying nimble–– I type as I take a sip of my cold decaf coffee & check if it's time to head out for my appointment (waxing my vagina)
After almost 2 years of monthly brazilian I can confidently say it's better than a visit to your gyno but spreading your legs under intense overhead lighting is solid 15 minutes of discomfiture. Now that I reside in Bushwick I have to try a new wax center & say goodbye to my Bedstuy waxer who has heard about all my foreign & domestic travels. My new waxer H is nice & we don't talk much at all. I tip the same amount I always tip & wonder if I should've tipped my former waxer more since she had to listen to my takes on Canadian McFlurry & was kind enough to share her takes on bars in Boston.
With Valentine's day looming, I'm in a curious & girly spirit, ankle-deep in the slutty side of substack. & I still don't have a grasp on how to style my hair since the haircut & look rather exceptionable but my forearms are getting kinda huge & butch.
2025.035
It's one of those days where I am actually getting shit done. But does it get tough writing so much about other people's paintings when I barely have time to think about my own paintings? It's especially tough when I have to write about mediocre art. Working for a gallery means you have none of the freedom an art critic has–– singing praises while maintaining the illusion of objectivity is peak craft. The meaningful part of it is getting to represent the true philosophy of the artist & provide the narrative that is most precise for the artist's benefit. Complications arise when the artist is dead–– family members & foundation/estate board members with insatiable appetites for the battle of i-knew-him/her/them-so-much-better-than-you contesting all that you write will make you a tiny bit suicidal. Art critics are free from this crap because their obligation is to observe what the artist was actually capable of, not what the artist intended or believed or assumed. So my job gives me perspective albeit not so clear, on how things could go when I die. Best case, an art school graduate with good intentions, moderate reading & research skills, & crippling journalistic instincts to write what she believes in would produce a glib about my life & art. People with higher education & paychecks would tell her to switch some adjectives to make me sound more important. My husband, if he is still alive, would read it over & say this isn't accurate or intelligent because he can. After all that he had to endure from being my muse for decades (aka compromising his peace & beauty to deal with my hysteria, manic obsessiveness, & neurotic sensitivity to light/color/jokes/tone of voice/etc), that is his right. The art school graduate would find herself in a desultory state–– once again humbled & injured by the confirmation of her lack of power in most things. She would revise her writing after reading more self-obsessed, borderline pornographic writings I addressed to my husband. "An esoteric yet gem-like epistolary" she may say, as she quotes me on "your cock as hard as a diamond I saw when I first walked into Tiffany's" & paints me as a feminist hero with feminist sexual desires for submission & feminist ego to talk about it loudly & feminist paintbrush to paint a lot of male crotches... a fully illustrated monograph will hopefully go for at least $120 a pop...
2025.030
I eat Special K with berries & whole milk as a midday snack & the sugar gives me a stomach ache. In Korea, Special K is an entirely different kind of cereal & is marketed as a weight-loss meal substitute. I remember as a not-quite-skinny 12 y/o following the piece-of-shit instructions on the box like it was scripture–– TWO BOWLS A DAY TO REPLACE BREAKFAST & LUNCH, EAT A HEALTHY SALAD FOR DINNER–– except I didn't eat dinner. If we(society) were more embarrassed about our obsession with young girls' bodies than girls eating & blowing up school toilets I'd have had a much easier time growing into the kind of woman who eats cereal at 4 PM & shits for a long time in an art gallery bathroom
I search for a bedside table for A's new apartment but this man is receptive yet aesthetically ambiguous & hard to please so I feel a little testy. I go on Wayfair's nightstand category & list products price high to low because I cannot gauge his taste otherwise. But after seeing the most hideous 25k-a-pop nightstand I quickly switch the setting & scroll until my eyes feel so blinded by all the déclassé furniture. Why do humans need so much shit in the house to live. I can talk about why a small dot in the corner of a painting ruins the whole picture but cannot articulate why a certain coffee table looks gauche or a carpet looks nuts. It drives me insane that I cannot clearly explain why something is good or bad. I wish anyone would just believe me when I say it looks awful. How does one achieve such magisterial status
2025.029
I'm sick again & it's ridiculous because how can someone get sick twice in one month. I attach some psychological conspiracies to make sense of this, as in sniffing for bad vibes lurking around me which my body might be warning me of. But in my vicinity there is not much else than A who is excited to try a hokey fried egg recipe, N who renders me deeply humbled with his poignant faith in art & a ferocious black chihuahua named Mushy. The reverberation of safety I feel in A's arms competes with the steady alarms of NYT live news on my phone.
It always feels cringe to be loudly liberal or leftist because as a liberal/leftist my opinions will always have a flaw (or many) & that causes an injury to my self-perception as an empathetic & moral person. Not to mention the fear of coming across as pretentious while having no solid plan to achieve something lucrative. & living in New York City is, in a way, a type of troglodytism–– look at the comment section of this: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/10/nyregion/adams-migrants-sanctuary-nyc.html Notwithstanding that NYC is just as vulnerable as anywhere else in the world that faces a tyrant, there is an immense feeling of protection & freedom, which I believe is achieved through comparison with other more oppressed cities & states, which is an automatically popular strategy in times of crises–– think about how well-off you are compared to the starving children in Africa, etc.
& it's an anticipated shame that the vast majority struggle with the idea of loving the bottom of the barrel. The system that fuels the thirst for competition makes the efforts to love the illegals, the homeless, & the addicts seem foolish. So I accept the sadness that comes from seeing the liberal defense for undocumented immigrants: "Just wait & see how fucking expensive everything is going to get." The argument is simply trying to defeat the accusation of foolishness, by assigning value to the illegals as a workforce, as no other inherent value they have as humans is admissible. I unfortunately relate to this "useless-unless-in-service-of-others" status in a personal way & suffer from migraines.
2025.022
The world is falling apart & I don't have focus.
2025.019
There are days when love is there but it isn't & all I can do is stare at the floor or the bedsheets but also be mesmerized by the symmetry of his face & I take exactly nothing at face value & he definitely knows me but doesn't know what I'm feeling & I'm pretty sure all we want is to be free but it's snowing & I'm too cold to go outside on my own.
2025.016
Four days until one of the most grotesque public figures in modern history becomes president for the second time & this is the shit I came up with at the gallery as a tiny hustling bolt of a well-greased machine:
As society evolves within the structure of capitalism, the value of objects and ideas becomes increasingly dependent on their quality of being measurable or quantifiable, which, more often than not, leads to the misevaluation of the significance of art in our lives. In the age of giantism and automation, art puts pressure on the assumption that human prosperity is solely indexed by macro development and commercial achievement. Demonstrating refinement and painstaking introspection of the artists, the works in (show name) invite the viewers to come close and become intimate with the shapes of inexplicable emotions, observations, and instincts. These works bring attention to the personal and spiritual needs of people–– to extend empathy and curiosity about another human’s experiment, to imagine a life behind the fragment of a stranger’s painted memory.
Is this a joke? I couldn't even look you in the eyes if you asked. Can you still feel shameful about this if you're poor? Do I feel sorry for myself? What?
The sad part is I really believe in what I wrote. Take it out of the context of paintings that ask for high six figures & a 24 y/o with a painting degree from Baltimore–– there's validity in saying that life's depth is beyond our currency. If only I knew how to stop feeling so fraudulent, so shallow, & so incomplete! All I do to cope is think about what I'll cook for dinner & when I'll have sex next.
2025.014
I am depressed & exhausted although I have fun like a dog on the high school track at 6 AM. Today's workout: run normally, then very fast whenever the train passes. The simple rules really get me going & simple rules surprisingly work very well in various aspects of life, even compared to elaborate & complex rules, except in romantic relationships. The murkiness of is it sex if it's over the phone or is it cheating if it's just talking, etc. generally gets me distracted & deflated. I will go out on a limb & say that being horny is exhausting–– "I gave my time to a penis instead of a painting" is what I'll say if asking strangers about regrets & private issues is still a thing when I'm 70.
I go to Zabar's but instead of getting any of their acclaimed Jewish deli meals, I just get a coffee. I regret not getting anything as I walk away from the store but the wind is like a machete & I struggle with even holding the coffee. I see my reflection in the cab window & my face is emanating serious struggle. The coffee dribbles onto my hand & I wipe it on my jacket (fuck!) & move my hair out of my face with hands still kind of wet with coffee (fuck fuck!) I wonder how some beautiful women are so beautiful that they cannot be anything else but universally acknowledged for their beauty. To be so hot even when the wind pushes your hair back & renders your face like a well-licked platypus, makes you squint & frown like a blind infant... god
2025.010
Are the beetles singers in Central Park unemployed? I wonder as I walk down my usual path through strawberry fields. I imagine robots wearing fingerless gloves & strumming the guitar in 20-degree weather. These singers would work from home, sing in the warmth of a centrally heated apartment. The fantasies of the second machine age have been entirely debunked at this point, with extremely intelligent people coming on YouTube & admitting that the capacity of robots is nowhere near where we expected them to be despite what we see in Marvel or that one movie where Scarlett Johansson transforms from really hot to a big computer.
As I search "how to style shoulder-length hair" on Instagram & go through videos of exceptionally beautiful women with Dysons & sparkling oils, I see videos of burning homes in LA as if the algorithm knew a woman looking to pay for overpriced hair products would donate instead if shown the right content. Perhaps this is how straight white men (liberal) felt when they witnessed crying lesbians on social media after the election. Essentially, it's a feeling of sadness because I think as humans, we are intrinsically uncomfortable with grief in our fellow humans' lives. But there is an extant pointlessness in being a witness, not a victim in a case of tragedy. It feels emotionally fraudulent to say that I have sincere feelings about an event that is merely psychological to me, when my apartment is janky but flameless nonetheless.
2025.007
I feel a bit better but still light-headed & weak so I stay at A's for another day. It's unbelievable the ways he chooses to take care of me–– letting me sleep in until noon, treating me to coffee & burger for breakfast, putting his entire weight on my frail body & pointing out with a full smile that he can smell BO, etc. In sickness, everything moves like a sleeping kitten turning inside an old woven basket. The slow speed of my mind registering stimulation & generating a reaction. The sharp sensation of my muscles when pressed & my skin when brushed... The difference between me & a cat is that the rest haunts me.
I talk with B on the phone in the cold pantry room to give A some space to work. I feel less like a slob in the cold & perhaps I let that get to my head. I recognize my didactic tone (YUCK!) in my efforts to be nonpartisan on the issue that B is going through. When was the last time I called a friend expecting anything other than "that's so fair"? I take pride in the fact that most of my friends are better than me & they actually expect an "honest opinion" when they say they are looking for one. But as it goes for a lot of faux-intelligent people, I stretch the concept of honesty to cover my shitty advice & lack of emotional foresight. I pledge to fix this about myself in 2025.
2025.006
Having an early January birthday is generally helpful when transitioning into the new year. Since the first day of January is swallowed by the overwhelm of the holidays & hangovers, using my birthday as the marker of a new beginning & a new age allows me to clean up my act & ease into the new year in a more lenient time frame. But this year, I wake up febrile & sick, feeling stunted because I expected my first day as a twenty-four-year-old to be entirely better than my last day as a twenty-three-year-old. Truthfully, my expectations have always been amorphous in this regard although not completely senseless. I'm not looking for a tangible miracle, say winning the lottery or becoming six feet tall all of a sudden, but rather, feeling significantly more hopeful in the prospect of my growth. This hopeful feeling comes from recent data that shows consistency on my part, like a clear record of waking up on time to go to the gym, gathering knowledge through research & adventure, creating something new in language & image, etc. But because of the error of the leniency I grant myself within this Jan 1st to 5th timeframe, I only have recent data of excessive long showers, not sleeping in my own bed, & indulging in stupid shit on the internet.
& becoming sick is indeed not in my control, but it begs the question if I'm even taking charge of the things that are in my control. Am I a meaningfully contributing member of society? Or a feint that misrepresents this generation as lazy, full of self-pity, & hopelessly romantic, while the actual players of this generation are making real advancements & distancing themselves from the rest of the world stuck in the framework of the past? I have to admit I'm not philosophically sound enough to resist the social constructs & the deeply traditional ways in which those bring satisfaction & fulfillment to a person's life. It comes with extreme emotional turbulence & self-deception putting the phenomenons that cannot be indexed on the pedestal of my mind's temple. So becoming sick is one of the most unfortunate things that could happen to me this time around–– being put on bed rest, constantly aching in A's room while he takes meetings in a language I cannot understand on any level.