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Contrary to the somewhat popular belief that it feels more comfortable for depressed people to remain in a state of sadness, I choose to jump right on the feel-better train at the glimpse of it. I switch from advil to cardio, crying to forgiveness, fasting to broth & noodles, all night pacing to sex & cuddle. I suddenly feel embarrassed about all the bitching on this blog-turned-diary, but what a relief that I'm not Sylvia Plath & no one is interested in reading any autobiographical writing by anyone else. 

Love is exhausting, but so is painting. Wow!!! I came up with that all by myself!!!


2024.304
Enough is enough with the haziness. I need cardio, not painkillers. I've never slept so much consecutively & it feels like my skull is splitting in half. Even my Costar says Let go of the past. With a clearer understanding of my limitations, I thought I would finally be relieved from the anxious desire for more–– more love, more assurance, more time, more commitment, more paintings–– but I only feel sicker. I've never felt sicker. My eyes are burning like they could start crying at any time, my nose is stuffed up as if I've been crying for hours, & my mouth tastes bitter when I gasp to catch a breath. I want an apology. I don't want to be the one that got away.


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Indeed it is devastating to use a sick day when I'm actually sick, but there is at least minuscule satisfaction in anything spent to serve its true purpose. The benzaprine numbs the pain in my neck but also dulls the sensation throughout the rest of my body. I feel like wet laundry, smelling like cough drops & potato chips, obese, & dreaming about becoming dry & crisp. One snap of the neck will get me neatly folded. I think this injury was a self-fulfilling prophecy as I secretly wished for an excuse to rest. But now that I have no choice but to rest, I feel ashamed of the way I'm spending my time. So I feel relieved when I wake up from my dizzying nap to find out I have to work late at the art fair this week. It's comforting that I can somehow make up for my uselessness later in the week. 

B texts me & they are in love, which I think makes perfect sense. Some people are due happiness in immeasurable quantity & B is definitely one of those people. M & L just got married & I think this also makes perfect sense. Sometimes there's no question about two people & the concept of forever. To see other people's happiness is perhaps one of the best ways to be reminded that the world goes on, no matter how cynical I feel on a personal level. 

At this point I feel confident that there's power in acceptance. I accept that sometimes I love you isn't a guarantee for anything, or even properly understood by the mouth speaking it. I feel a bit closed off again but feel safer. It feels more natural now to take whatever A says literally, but with a little less sincerity. Maybe it's just the stiff neck I have right now. Or maybe I've cracked the code to "trust but verify." There's no point in trusting something I'll never be able to verify. 


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My jaw hurts from clenching & I contemplate the concept of revenge on the subway. I am irritated by the person who pulled the emergency breaks causing delays & redirections in my commute. But I consciously remind myself that having empathy for a random person's emergency means I value their urgency more than mine, which is a graceful way of living. As I sit in the C train running on the F track, I think that all aggressively self-serving thoughts & actions are justifiable in the context of justice. Justice is a wonderful buzzword for people like me who've made all life decisions out of spite. The results of these life decisions are questionable at best, but revenge still sounds sexy, totally fair, & well-deserved. A victory that's been a long time coming. 

Curiously for me, the most impossible emotion to let go of in the context of revenge is humiliation. If my dad had overpowered me, cornered me & beat me up like a drunk deadbeat, I think I would've felt sympathy for my lack of physical strength. I would've had an excuse for being beaten up–– the element of surprising rage, my lack of practice in self-defense, etc. I even think I've forgiven the few instances where violence came from a place of "losing control." It was rapid, raw, & explosive. No one can avoid a sudden volcanic rupture & therefore I am not humiliated for being hurt by it. The violence that I cannot get over is the one that humiliated me. 

My dad usually gave me a choice. Pick a weapon: a dense metal ruler, a golf club, or a wooden stick. Pick an apology: describe your crimes & how sorry you are. Sentencing: how many spanks? what do you deserve? I was made to kneel in front of him as I answered & I usually chose the ruler, a lengthy apology for my lack of discipline/talent/elegance/common sense/humility/gratefulness, & a number somewhere between 15 and 35 because I'd like to be able to sit down afterward but also not understate my wretchedness. The last time this happened was almost 6 years ago when I was 18. I promised myself as I was on my knees asking for forgiveness–– for failing him as a daughter, for running away to a foreign country because I couldn't make it in my home country, for choosing to study something as worthless as painting, for wasting time & resources, & betraying his love & trust–– that I would have my revenge one way or another. 

I stew on shit like this because I feel guilty about the things I've done since. I've lied to their faces about how much I love them, how I care & think about them, how I miss them & their home because I needed them in my back pocket for money in college. I made my parents feel comfortable, loved, & needed. I lied well & had my way. But on the verge of taking all these lies away from them, I feel nothing but shame & guilt. I'm a disgusting, manipulating, selfish, greedy bitch unless I can get myself to truly believe in the personal execution of justice. With their parenting, my parents have rendered me utterly unlovable, incapable of trust, & deviantly thirsty for physical dominance from men. I am placing the blame on them for the way that I am, which will be the reason I go down in history as immature & stagnant. 

If I were a narcissist, I would've probably felt humiliated by whoever pulled the emergency breaks because they've successfully demonstrated that my time is not more valuable than theirs & not everything in life is under my control. I would've sought revenge–– wish this unknown stranger a painful death, or a devastating loss of a limb, or at least an embarrassing interaction with an EMT. I would've fantasized about these vengeful curses coming true & feel glad that my malice has the power to shift the universe & someone else's fate. I would've believed that this person was in fact, dead, & felt proud that despite this nuisance, I've adapted & changed to arrive at my planned destination. But I'm stuck in the slow train, stuck in the joke A made about never settling down with me, stuck in the path to shallow revenge, biting the inside of my mouth, seriously considering a relapse because food tastes like junk these days & a cigarette will probably fix everything.

​
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I wonder if it is a waste of time to date someone who dreams of different things than me. It probably most definitely is but I just fold. I'm stretching my youth to its full capacity. Time is finite & I'm squeezing in as many foolish decisions as I can. 
​

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Why is it that people who make you feel love are the same people who make you feel pain. I feel sick to my stomach when A tells me I'll feel better. It was ambitious of me to think I could feel enough fulfillment from giving love without experiencing the same returned. I pour my heart out, go on & on with the list of words because that's the only way I know how. I hear an echo of You're very special which makes me feel like a child with down syndrome or a hooker who gentle-fucks virgins. Oh the exhaustion of being an excellent placeholder/deuteragonist/past-tense reference of the future

Admittedly, it's important to get a grip. Better so, walk away as soon as I can upon acquiring the information that I'm a cloudy vision. Haven't I learned my lesson? M told me once I was the best thing he's ever had. He kissed me in a parking lot in pouring rain & said we'll always see each other somehow even when he returns to Lithuania. But then he fucked an older & hotter photographer & I haven't talked to him since. J told me I was his dream girl–– everything he's ever wished for, head to toe & inside out. It took about three years for him to redefine "the most special girl in the world" which came out as I've never known anyone with this much baggage. After all this I've been brave & it hurts.

But the logical voice in my head asks me, Honestly, did you really think YOU were THE ONE?


2024.290
Way late on the bandwagon but I justify my delayed purchase of I'm Glad My Mom Died as an unsolicited critic's stern attitude toward best-selling literature. I didn't know Jenette McCurdy was a Disney actor until A told me. Apparently iCarly was a really popular show. This is the thing about being an immigrant & pretending to fit in–– there's never enough catching up I can do with the late 90s - early 2000s pop culture. 

Turns out it's an impossibly difficult book because I can't breathe while reading it. When I got the book I hoped to feel a sense of approval that it's okay to almost want my mom to die because some random woman thought so about her mom too. I secretly hoped for the abuse in the book to be somewhat moderate, like bad, but not that bad, so I could feel justified in my murder-adjacent fantasies. But man these moms don't come in a huge variety & they all love swinging kitchen knives, holding sweet treats hostage, & regretting their choice of husband out loud. At least now I know that exposure therapy will result in my death by asphyxia. & I feel so suddenly grateful that I didn't opt for the audiobook & that no one ever yells at me anymore even when I don't listen. 
​

2024.283
I text L about the people who walk into the gallery early afternoon: 
So I see these groups of white women (massive lip fillers, weird boutique accessories, not rude but sort of arrogant attitude, bleached blonde, starbucks) who’re usually on a tour with an “art-guide” (kinda tall, suede/wool jacket because he probably thinks it looks more artsy compared to the normal polyester blends, On sneakers, hits on me/makes jokes to look suave) who takes these women gallery hopping mid-day so they can educate themselves on art despite having meaningless degrees from state schools & just staying at home most of the time…The question is….....do you think these women fuck the art guide???????
L replies that they are absolutely fucking the art guide. How interesting this slimy dude must seem to these women with obese old money husbands. Sometimes a man who knows Anne Truitt paintings is sexy. Sometimes a woman who is impressed by a man who knows Anne Truitt paintings is sexy. 
​
​
2024.281
When Jenny Holzer says "Men are inherently not monogamous," I'm inclined to chuckle under my breath & imagine myself as a crudités platter–– optimized for light snacking & intrinsically shareable. Truth is undermined as truism when it stings to admit no one would actually choose to have only tzatziki when you could have a whole set of different dips. & if you opt for variety, the baba ghanoush will not run away screaming I deserve better than this!!!!!! But women are not baba ghanoush

Monday mornings are dreadful knowing I have therapy in the evening. When my therapist asks me if anything happened in the past week, there is game-time decision to be made–– to share a disturbing question that has been consistently altering my psyche for the worse or a random event from the past that I'm not sure if I'm over. It's to choose between asking if she thinks I'm lovable at all despite no evidence towards such suggestion, or talking about the finance bro who yelled at me to cuddle with him after tedious intercourse. It's to choose between asking if she thinks I'm a great addition to a platter rather than a solid, single-packaged dip, or bringing up the time I saw my pet bird beheaded, domestic violence style. 


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To be an adult woman is to never know anyone who meets your emotional needs. Although I'm pretty certain my emotional needs are impossible to meet due to their exaggerated & desperate nature as a result of my rather average & ordinarily abusive upbringing. My therapist just tells me like a broken record every time I see her, "Your life is just really, really, complicated." How many people have complicated lives? I know some men have multiple side chicks, & live double/triple lives. Some people never pay taxes & somehow go unnoticed forever while dreading the possibility of going to prison where they only give you beans & shit to eat. Some people protest against abortion, then get pregnant from a rape. In comparison, my life is, in fact, uncomplicated. 

Being in love is complicated because all of a sudden you have this insatiable desire for acceptance. I'd drop everything I was doing if A told me he was feeling sad. But the reality is I have always lacked a sense of boundaries & am extremely generous with my time whenever I think I'm in love. Perhaps what feels cold to me is the norm for self-respecting people. Nevertheless, self-respecting boyfriends hurt my feelings time & time again & I learn to live with the disappointment by turning that into some type of immaturity on my part which at some point my friends would shake their heads about & tell me to end it. What makes me undeserving of full attention when I'm sad?? Why do people I love disappoint me? Now I know how much it sucked for my mom to watch me chop my hair off & paint men's crotches. 


2024. 275
Morning run as my heart is throwing up left & right into my ribcage, I remember I saw a golden mutt wearing birkenstocks last week. I think how fun it must be to run with a four-legged animal by my side wearing better-quality shoes than my own. It would be full of company & sweetness even when the leash gets tangled up between my legs because the dog is running back & forth towards me.

Despite my shallow knowledge & lack of respect for Christianity & religion of any kind, "the cross I have to bear" is a simple concept to digest. My childhood dog is the cross that rips my shoulders open & reminds me that all the boys who loved me poorly are the results of my sin. 5 years ago when I was heading to the airport to never come back, I waved at my little dog as if I was just running an errand. I had no means to save him then & I still don't. My dad fed him garbage & I threw that shit out of the bowl & my dad walked over with a black remote controller to beat me up & my dog barked at him to save me & so he beat the dog with the remote control. I watched my sweet puppy yelp & groan until I worked up the courage to get in between & take the beating. Even so, I'd like to think that I protected him more than I did my sister. All I did whenever my sister was getting beaten up was sit outside her door & listen because mom turned up the TV & someone had to listen at least. When my face was getting dragged against the wall like a palm sander he barked & cried circles around me. When the cops came only to shake hands with my dad afterward, he sat on my lap & licked me until my whole face smelled like vomit. He's an old dog now. Still with my parents but now that my sister & I are both gone, he has no reason to bark. Or that's what I pray for if prayers are ever heard. 
 

2024. 270
I think about the Paris trip A & I made in June & my heart feels sore like when you see a curious little kid hanging out by herself in the park. I tell myself it takes guts to kiss someone in a foreign country as I will inevitably associate a whole nation/city with a kiss until I die. Every day is a day in a foreign country for me but Paris is different. I kissed A when he took me to a little brick island in the middle of the Seine. As we sat down under the willow tree I thought he really had a knack for stumbling upon magical destinations. When a man has mysterious talents, you give him a kiss regardless of the risk of tainting Paris with a bittersweet anecdote forever. After our kiss next to a lesbian couple who also shared a kiss & a bottle, I briefly imagined myself as an old woman busted down in black cashmere, telling an unidentified acquaintance over coffee that Paris 2024 was incomparable. That night while eating mcdonalds, I thanked A for the most beautiful sight I've seen & expressed my awe for his ability to end up in wonderful places by chance. He then told me he had that willow spot flagged on google maps before we got there. Paris 2024 really ruled.


2024. 269
Feel like an irritable bitch for being so annoyed with a woman on the subway snorting every 5 seconds. I place myself as far away from her as possible but still feel my stomach turn each time I hear her mucus being shoved down her sinus. My empathy for seasonal allergies is nowhere to be found this particular morning.

I dislike that I have peeves because I feel culturally superior telling people I'm not easily bothered. I charge myself a hefty amount of shame whenever I feel the impulse to whisper "ew" or "shut the fuck up" to uphold my inner status, but it's generally a bad strategy to use self-image & social hierarchy to calm your nervous system. It is a primal function of the brain to detect danger, which sometimes are not dangerous things at all. Just a bit ugly.

I see a video of a human heart awaiting transplant & feel a grave fear of death. Sure, abjection by Julia Kristeva or whatever, blood is gross, organs are gross, etc. But this blood-pumping slab of meat is inside the dog I left with my parents. The cats I left with my ex. Everything I ever loved will one day become somewhat gross, hard to watch, tainted with an image of horror. 


2024.267
So they say exercise is great for mental health & I'm definitely feeling the effects of regular running & strength training. I think much less. Which on an artistic level is extremely concerning & it might be foreshadowing the impending demise of my creative capacity. I feel much less inclined to dwell on what confused/concerned/intrigued me. I just go on a run instead & while running think about the slurs in music & memorization of lyrics against the use of them, my parasocial relationship to Ariana Grande as I relate to having "a man with so much to mention," & the rewards for running (i.e. pizza, kudos on Strava) in comparison to rewards for painting (i.e. personal satisfaction on rapid decline, acquisition of an image that previously only existed in my mind) 


2024.256
I half-sleep in A's bed while he attends a meeting at 6 AM. I wonder if this is the life of a housewife. Looking at the back of his head, I think he is serious & that is intimidating because I'm not doing anything at all, except entirely naked near a fully functioning Zoom screen & trying to fall back asleep. I tell myself it's ridiculous to feel fomo because my boyfriend is working hard in the morning & it's embarrassing to put any form of labor on a pedestal. Eventually, I fall back asleep & have a realistic dream about humming the Harry Potter theme song loudly during A's meeting & him looking at me disgusted. I apologize to him after the meeting & he confirms it was only a dream. 


2024.255
I found the presidential debate less stressful than the Anna Delvey documentary. If you can't vote you have to somehow transcend all the things in life that could go wrong after an election, which actualizes in the form of "it can't get worse anyway." Many things can get way worse, in fact, but that goes against the self-pity I intend to hold onto for a couple more years. 

Working out & running recently has changed my appetite. I have a desire for home-cooked meals which is totally unsustainable in my lifestyle. It's a shame I love living in a walkable city & hate grocery shopping without a car. Delivery grocery feels like getting a pedicure. I daydream about ripping fresh basil leaves and sniffing my fingers, slowly melting butter into cream, picking up hot pasta with tongs, & stabbing a meatball with a fork. I watch cooking videos relentlessly until I can almost smell it. But in the end, I just show the inside of my mouth to a salad kit that's been in the fridge for two days. 


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The Cut: The woman who moved in with her sperm donor discovers regular sperm donation improves sex performance

Ifyoucangivegoodhead.org: The woman who married after two dates confesses to her bitter, untrusting, unfuckable twenty-something daughter, I never thought he'd hit you


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I'm relentlessly bothered by what I lack. I hate to compare but I can't drink the same drink just to keep believing it's the best drink in the world. Someone else's drink has tasted better plenty of times and I feel sick to discover that. What is the reason for my unique existence. My life does not seem to help others & I feel disappointed it's not helping me either. The things I love don't talk to me. They only stare at me hanging from the sad pale walls...


2024.249
Lingerie for a libra rising?


2024. 227
Ah back to therapy after a year of teaching myself how to show up, eat & sleep while being a nervous wreck every minute of the day. THIS IS NOT SELF PITY!!!!! A pat on the back for keeping myself alive is not what I want. Mostly I'm expecting some actionable relationship advice from my therapist. Ah Tiffany tell me if I fix me he'll love me! Tell me if I fix me I can be good with my dad! What if my therapist with a very Long Island name (according to my roommate) inspires me to pull a David Lynch... move to West Hollywood with a selfish lover... religiously rely on transcendental meditation for personal peace... take prozac with merlot... fully embrace violent kinks as sexual liberation... sleep in the bathtub... etc etc...


2024.221
When a decent person with no bad intention refers to my no-income painting/writing career as a cool hobby, I feel like stealing people's dogs & causing insurmountable grievances to pet owners all over the city. 


2024.208
Uninspired or lazy!!!!!!!!! I can only hope my diagnosis is not both. For some time now, I have aggressively disagreed with the concept of sadness & tragedy as a normal & sustainable source of inspiration for artists. But I haven't always disagreed with it. When I was a teenager, I found it wise to tell myself & others that the depressing construct of my mind was actually an advantage. But since I accepted that I want to live a happy & peaceful life rather than a wild & glamourous hoax of a suffering artist's life, I've been faced with a dilemma: Can I be happy & peaceful & also an artist? I finished reading Kim's memoir this morning & she said you must stay uncomfortable & strange. Otherwise, you'll be shopping in the discounted outlets or dollar stores of writing subjects. I like her writing very much & she even inspires me to do some drugs & get back to the habit of solo drinking, but what a devastating pronouncement. Can't I shop at the Bergdorf's of Inspirations while drinking a $15 latte sweetened with date syrup, walking in an understated but gorgeous pair of Alaïa boots, next to a really beautiful boy who understands my desires & dreams? My whole life I've insanely overestimated how interesting I am & I'm paying the price for it now. I feel gross about my imagination because deep down I know my "taste" is just made up. I didn't grow up watching avant-garde films or going to various museums or mastering an instrument or playing chess. I grew up watching pirated Disney movies & conservative news channels, only sometimes encountering soulless art in lobbies of big malls & banks, playing the piano for a bit & then the violin, being barely good at both, stealing books from libraries, & getting bored of board games because I was playing against myself. So the truth is I have no business making art about the sophisticated culture, the hedonistic life, & the satisfaction of material & emotional abundance. Sad & Hard is my area of expertise & I stupidly decided I wanted to make something with it instead of escaping it.


2024.200
If you ask me how I feel about gifts I'll say I have a great time making or choosing them & also love receiving them. Although, there is such a thing as a good gift & a not-so-great gift–– I am a good gift-giver because I usually give good gifts & only sometimes give not-so-great gifts. My parents didn't believe in Christmas, or even birthdays, which is why I am very fond of gifts of all kinds, especially handwritten letters, polaroids, & peonies. To be clear, I am not the kind of girl who doesn't like diamonds. I could also make a whole list of paintings I'd like to be gifted off Sotheby's website. Dream of Luxury by Dorothea Tanning has been on my mind since March when I saw it at the New Museum. I would love to have in my living room any of Domenico Gnoli's surprisingly large paintings made in the mid to late 60s because that would actually cure some of my unhealthy desire for dresses from Sandy Liang & the now-discontinued Hiraeth Collective by Rooney Mara. I could go on if any of the readership is interested in seeing an extensive list of art/fashion I like in the future. But this entry is in celebration of the gift I received from A yesterday. ///CROCS PLATFORM HEELS/// Have I worn crocs clogs before? Of course. As a child, I had fallen into swimming pools wearing them & had thrown them at my sister when she was being a bitch. But I've established a mindset as a young woman who grew up watching a lot of Gossip Girl–– my feet could be trained to be happy in heels, even on cobblestone & subway staircases. It is an impractical way of thinking, only sustained by my short-sightedness & lack of concern for my spine health. Oh, but these crocs heels are so comfortable. Like my feet are indeed trained for heels. & that slight embarrassment I am prone to when walking in stilettos, of taking myself or my aesthetics too seriously, is absolutely absolved by the little holes on top. & the infinite freedom of jibbitz decoration I have feels more indulgent than picking an excuse to cancel dinner plans. It's like when I'm wearing them, I forget I'll die someday. 


2024. 189
It's been a while since I wrote anything that isn't broken up into odd lines. I've frankly indulged in the pretentious allure of poetry writing as if that must be something different than any other form of writing. Most terribly, my time is consumed by my lack of skill. & I mean I cannot synthesize natural experiences–– walking down the empty streets of Bushwick on July 4th, watching Gone Girl, almost losing a really great guy, seeing a goldcrest carry a feather as large as its body–– into immediate glittering craft. I require too much time for learning. My body on its own is incapable of being memorable, while great artists can turn the most banal into a legend. I read before I could write because words come out like a diffident apology until I fuel myself with muscular & well-received writing by others. Although these powerful writings don't alter my feelings about what I supposedly want to write about, they do inform me I am ankle-deep in cliché & misinterpreted manifestos. To be consumed by romantic feelings towards a man is trivial business as a woman. & it is a curse to be utterly bored by the rest of the things in my life, even the museums and the paintings, not to mention the walks, the bars, & the return of days & nights. Time adds up to nothing, & being honest only becomes harder. No writing becomes easier to solve, & it's easy for me to blame the culture that worships perseverance. 


2024.155
I'm putting this in parentheses because I can't believe I thought of this & I feel awkward sharing it publicly. 
(It's June & I finish Kim's book on the subway back home. I read the very last poem about the desire to be remembered by all the past lovers, which is a smart poem to end the book with because it tells the reader to remember this. I realize that most times I try hard to forget a lot of things & sometimes I do succeed at forgetting which concludes I wasted time in the past kissing & fucking people I'd rather not remember. This leads me to think about A inevitably because as romantically uncouth as it is, he's the person I think about the most in my life these days. I think calmly about his past lovers & what remnants he keeps or doesn't throw out. It hits me so mercilessly that he probably doesn't want to forget anything. He probably didn't waste his youth the way I did. I envy that.)
 
 
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What is it that I want. Maybe it's a donut. Maybe it's to look good in every photo. Maybe it's to be a mom. Maybe it's a weekend in the woods. Maybe it's to say I'm sorry. And I love you. Maybe it's to give up and run away. Maybe it's to be worshipped. Maybe it's an end to a genocide. Maybe it's a small, personal comfort. Maybe it's to be hurt. Maybe it's to get back to old habits. Maybe it's to stay disciplined and uneasy. Maybe it's to die young. Maybe it's my own Christmas tree. Maybe it's to see my grandma. Maybe it's to quit my job. Maybe it's to be understood without saying anything. Maybe it's strawberries. Maybe it's for him to stay forever. Maybe it's to be with everyone before I die. Maybe it's diamonds. Maybe it's never crying. Maybe it's a good song.


2024.144
& perhaps it is futile to talk about something as quotidian as men hitting on women in a vulgar way. It doesn't strike as a tragedy on an individual level or a macro level because it happens often and most of the times with murky endings with just second hand embarrassment and annoyance on the woman's side. What is the purpose of the internet if not for a girl like me to attain a small victory of memorializing cringe behavior of a small man at a gallery opening. 

With some devastation that I pushed back only subtly instead of telling him to shut up, here I list his actions: 

1. Said "Let me guess, you live in Dumbo?" In hindsight he was probably calling me a dumb bitch. 

2. "Can I add you on the Gram?" Sadly I said yes. 

3. Quizzed me with the greatest artist alive. Whispered in my ear "Gerald Richter."

4. When I was ridiculed by the fact that it was Richter, he touched my hair & said that was too cute.

5. Insisted on getting me a pinot grigio in an open cup instead of a beer can.

6. Insisted on walking me to the subway station when I was trying to get away from him. 

7. Said "Let's go to this Japanese restaurant while you wait for the subway. My treat." Sadly I only said maybe another time & rushed to the subway station. 

8. Sent me a link for a Richter documentary & said "Let me know if you want to watch it together."

9. Got himself blocked. 


2024.143
When you think about hiding your poems before they're published as gatekeeping a combination of vocabulary that existed for centuries, it feels quite pointless. Is plagiarism actually a beautiful thing? (I know it isn't.) Attribution is a discretion rather than a hard rule & even so who gets to decide what is readily recognizable or not. Is creative ownership an ego thing? But you're not even making money off of it! 


2024.136
The school bus driver who shouted "Let me take you home, hottie!", I hope the kids piss in your coffee. 

The guy who put his hand up my skirt on the 4 train, I hope your mom finally tells you she never wanted you. 


2024.135
I see Lempicka with E in broadway and it's a stunning reminder how moving things (aka people singing and moving around) bring me joy in a way that paintings cannot always do. Seeing any sort of fictional/semi-fictional work depicting painters/paintings inevitably involves a bit of cringing due to the romanticization and misinformation but you can almost just ignore it. That's how persuasive the craft is & how meaningless I am as a critical consumer at the face of a professional heroine. 

I wish sensory experience can always be intellectually stimulating, which might be the case depending on how you define intellectual stimulation, but it doesn't really feel like an amazing sensory experience is intellectually satisfying. What new thing am I discovering from a good song that makes my skull feel like a balloon carrying a brain? Would the repetition of dynamic sensory experience lead to knowledge? Wisdom? Or just fall into the deep pot of pick-a-number-but-everything's-the-same-number? If a painting doesn't make you wonder about a story or take you down a steep hill of niche historical interest, is it an intellectual painting? Wouldn't anybody want to feel smarter? Are paintings reserved for the frontal lobes of those who are already so satisfied with their intellectual capabilities? Why not drugs then? Do you really get what you pay for?


2024.134
What is gratifying about the body's ability to recover from sickness is that it reminds me what was lost could generally be found again. Although I imagine as I get older, I will learn that I can live without retrieving what's been lost. At the moment, I'm an impatient young adult who gets upset when the honey is not thoroughly mixed in with the yogurt & my mouth suffers the unbearable sweetness of the spoonful of honey. My cold sores & canker sores are all gone, & I have mostly recovered from my cold which is now indistinguishable from the symptoms of my seasonal allergies. I'm happy my mouth is still my mouth despite betraying me and causing me pain & what else can I do but simply forgive myself for ruining my own week. 


2024.132
I participate in a Mother's Day brunch with A & his family in West Village. Something about the normalcy of this event bothers me, as things like this always do. I am devastated I feel this way. I can't remember a time I had a peaceful meal with my own family & somehow it's my damn fault because instead of giving more shots at having a peaceful family meal, I left & have not had a family meal in five years. I feel like I should be punished for giving up. Do I give up easily? I would believe that I do if someone told me that I do & punched me in the face. Nowadays I'm not sure if I want someone to be upset for me or upset with me. I think I want someone to break my nose, see my nose bleed, & cry because I'm bleeding & hurt. Not crying with remorse, but crying because he doesn't want me to be in pain. I hate to think about pain in the context of talking. This happened & that happened & I'm sensitive & that's why, blah blah blah... If my face was covered in blood, anyone could just see. & if YOU punched me, you would even know who caused it & I wouldn't have to say a thing. 


2024.130
I am ill! Sick! Need capsules bought from Walgreens every four hours to think clearly & not cough! Of course, I am exaggerating a little bit because it's been a couple of years since I properly experienced sickness. What good comes out of a bad experience except an entertaining story? I slept 15 hours yesterday & this morning. I had a nightmare too which was one of the reoccurring fan favorites but I still get shaken up. My reoccurring dreams are: 1. all my teeth falling out & I try to hold them in by clenching my jaw– this one I've been dreaming since I was in middle school 2. someone I love leaving me because I'm a fraud & worthless– started last year 3. sitting across from my dad in a jail cell- started when I was in high school 4. running away from a serial killer on an endless escalator- this one since I started having dreams. Last night it was 2 and I wanted to die but I saw some silly texts as soon as I reached for my phone so that made me feel better. I also never dream in color which makes everything dramatically depressing. I'm sick!


2024.121
I go to Frieze New York ftft & you would think that preview opening night would at least be some fun even if you're surrounded by recycled art from other fairs last year but no. I walk through well-dressed twenty-something-year-olds saying I got one of these at home & distressed gallery directors on the phone: Oui oui j'expliquée c'est tellement importante! There was a vibrating bench somewhere. 


2024.118
Not just a cold sore but also a small infection (or scratch maybe) inside my mouth which hurts & I can't get Overtime out of my head after the Knower show. It's catchy & sounds complex & casual at the same time but the reality is having someone who makes your heart work overtime makes a difficult life. I know I'm not growing if I'm not crying but what if he only likes me for his own growth. She was what I needed then. No!NO!NO!!!!NO!!!!!NO!!!! & I disappear slowly because my body is tired of my heart working relentlessly & I am covered in cold sores all over my body until the little blisters swallow each other & turn into a big balloon that just pops. 


2024.117
Have a vicious cold sore on my lower lip & despite noticing it early & applying cream faithfully it's taking its natural course of getting worse. I am not kissable & it's like finding out you're allergic to air. I've been sleeping less than 6 hours every day this week. Painting until 1 AM and going to the gym at 6:30 AM. I've never felt more happy until this cold sore crept up & said I needed more sleep. If I don't stay up late & wake up early to do things that make me productive I'll get stressed out & still get a cold sore though. How do I let the body know to just fucking listen to me when I say it's all good. What is the point of youth if I can't abuse it a little. 


2024.114
I feel happy because I have a painting I want to keep working on. But I have to go to work that actually pays me. Maybe I should try a slow dry medium but is there a medium that doesn't make the paint thinner? Oh to have time to stick around while the painting dries. I can give up my left pinky for that. & lack of time makes me impatient. I used to not be like this but nowadays I get fixated on one painting rather than working on multiple paintings at once. Which is very bad because I get excessively frustrated when the painting isn't working out. PMS & a bad painting habit feed each other & hurt my feelings.


2024.111
Some poets I follow on twitter are losing their minds over Taylor Swift's new album. It's embarrassing to see amazing writers foaming at the mouth defending their high & mighty job title "Poet." Louise Glück was probably sick & tired of these kinds of writers when she said no one actually is a poet– only writers who aim to be poets which is unachievable. But also I'm acting high & mighty referencing Louise Glück & being sanctimoniously neutral about Taylor Swift. I'm this way because recently I've been feeling embarrassed whenever I talk shit about anything. Bad paintings, cringe writings, train not coming, people who think we're friends, Ice Spice, deadbeat ex, etc. I feel embarrassed because [A] it shows that I have a lot of wack things in my life which probably means I'm a wack person in some way [B] makes me feel immature for not being able to keep my negative opinions to myself [C] who am I to criticize anything. Honestly, I'd be willing to give up something important if I could lose all my appetite for bitching. It'd be cooler if I was rageful rather than just a bit pissed off but I'm scared of getting seriously angry, which shows I'm too indolent to handle real emotions. 

& this entry is also a whole lot of bitching so let me write one thing I appreciate: Post Malone in the Taylor Swift music video. 


2024.109
Saw a comment on a Renoir painting: Estrogen. I'm so in love. (not with that comment although I think it's spot on.) Today I walk & live like everything is going to be okay. All the things bad & sad that happened & all the bad decisions I made based on the bad & sad feel forgiven. Not by me or by anyone with the authority to forgive anything but it's a feeling. It's like I've been told "you broke the rules but you didn't hurt anybody." I didn't have a dream last night or a sudden death of anxious catastrophizing so I don't know why. Maybe I'm finally growing out of tragedy as a requirement for beauty. Maybe I have my head screwed on straight now & I look at what's in front of me. Maybe it's because the books I ordered finally shipped. Maybe I really, really want to stop worrying & it's satisfying to accept that. Maybe it's because I go home in 5 minutes. Maybe I'm really in love.


2024.108
I look at Frans Hals paintings while drinking nespresso coffee. There's such radical acceptance when a painter gives no way out to an ugly face in a painting. If their cheeks are oddly flushed and fleshy, gooey red yogurt-y paint is what they're getting. It's not the painter's job to beautify ugly things so looking at beautified things leads to prettier paintings I guess. My mom said she looked at pictures of pretty girls when she was pregnant with me. Unfortunately, my mom is not an artist. 


2024.107
Something weird is happening to my skin– light red irritations on my hands, hips, & arms. I don't know if they were always there & I'm just now noticing them. Makes me feel neurotic because I think these marks are probably harmless but I don't believe that. Probably not a big deal but also what if it is. 

My mom says going to the gym three times a week is so meaningless & I don't know what to do about that because I definitely can't go everyday. Or maybe I can but I really can't. There's nothing worse than working out so hard that you have to take a nap. If I wanted to nap I would just have a drink.

I haven't watched Dune or SATC or Friends or OITNB and it's been years since I said I will catch up someday & I realize now I might never catch up because I've almost entirely lost the ability to sit and watch something for more than 2 hours without doing anything else or feeling fomo for not doing anything else. What if I can never relate to that part of pop culture & have no cool tv shows to speak of when my mouth is wrinkly.


2024.104
Want:
1. painting of Sydney Sweeney

2. coquette tramp stamp


2024.103
I run on the treadmill listening to abcdefu by Gayle & the joy of not dating a bad artist strikes me in the head. Working at a gallery means I have to look at a good amount of works that suck. I'm pretty lucky to see a lot of nice paintings at my job but work is still work. It's not always fresh or consistently impressive. Now imagine if this was a relationship. You don't get paid, you don't get to build a community, & you don't get to go to HR & report unwanted sexual attention. (Oh, the artist says I'm blueballing him by refusing sex!) All while having to maintain game face in front of his thoughtless, craft-less bundle of shallow historical references & bro trauma.
Whatever integrity you thought you had about your logic, your sharp sensitivity to form, color, light, & scale, your skill to synthesize a visual experience into language, & your ability to elevate the sensation of your optical nerves to a spiritual event, are bruised, to say the least. Once you say out loud in your own words lies about the impact of "Art," especially with the intention to comfort or let down gently, you are no longer a reliable viewer or speaker of your artistic experiences. Your self trust crumbles & you realize no man is worth that so you dump him. Then you rebuild all over the house in your mouth, & the guts, to let out sentiments like "It's ass" at the sight of pretentious pictures. So I feel joyous & free running like a dog listening to a pop song. 


2024.102
The weather is nothing but a Renoir landscape & I love the big window at the gallery being open. (How deciduous is sadness in great weather!) Finally it's a sunny day like a bright apple & I listen to some desperate love songs walking through the park. I walk the same path I walked yesterday when I talked on the phone with B about vibrators.

I go to close the window because the wind feels colder as I sit still for a while. I see the Longfield painting I haven't really paid attention to & the red gushing out from under the grays is attractive. In some abstract paintings the shapes are vague stimuli for some specificity we remember. In some other abstract paintings, the shapes remind us of nothing which is great strangeness to the brain, because there is no greater comfort than to recognize. The shapes in this painting relate to nothing, at least inside the limited visual library of my brain. So I latch on to the bloodiness of the painting & make enormous assumptions. She might've been blood-coughing-sick with love when she painted it! How marvelous I get to have this encounter on a day like this!


2024.101
A guy walks into the gallery & says he doesn't get it. I ask him why. He says: "I think about female chefs when I see this. See, I'm a bad boy. I don't understand these things." 

I am tired (despite good sleep), lonely (despite good people in my life), seriously irritable (despite guava croissant), & anxious (despite nothing actually). I try my best not to appear sulky at work. The photographer filming the big painting debut calls me Mica & I correct him that's the school I went to, not my name. I stand in front of the camera staring at the two naked asses Diebenkorn painted. He tells me to marry a hedge fund guy if I want to live like these uptown girls. God bless his daughter. 

I miss when I wasn't embarrassed about the way I lived my life. I'm not sure if there actually was a time like that because there is always something very ugly about survival. S said to me that being a painter is like being a priest–– once you feel that calling, you have no strength to resist it. It's hard to explain this to most people & perhaps I lack the beauty of practicality. Sadly this lack cringes me today. 


2024.99
A & I watch Coherence & it frightens me that we choose to watch this the night before the solar eclipse. I act like a bitch because I hate this you-are-your-own-enemy type of mystery so steadily maintaining its level of scariness for 90 minutes. The movie sort of unravels itself in the last 20 minutes. Multiple versions of ourselves–– from darkness to light–– live in different universes of reality & make different choices according to our reality & personality. I tell A I feel like I'm being blackmailed by another version of myself all the time. He laughs. 

I decide not to go to Seattle with A next week. My life is moving slowly & I don't want to slow it down even more. I see him dreading this trip & that makes me want to come along. But I feel stupid trying to make time for something I don't know how to enjoy. 


2024.98
There is a sense of comfort that comes from establishing the banality of my existence & the choices I make consciously & subconsciously. An aspiring artist gallery girl, an asian girl dating a white boy, an awkward 5'6 mousy hair brunette, etc, etc. It soothes me in a way that being part of a sorority or a band would, through providing a sense of belonging, or a mild assurance that whatever I'm doing is not a mistake, & if it is, it's a shared crime among us. Still, there is an irreversible grotesqueness in this realization. There's nothing about me that is unique or complex enough to be called different. Of course, there is no way that what I've experienced so far in life is unique to me. & I'm nothing but the collection of events I've run into, media I've consumed, & people I've kept or tossed. Despite what I believe I could synthesize within myself after common experiences, I end up the same as most people, making the same choices. Even my desire to feel special is no different from what others want. 

K stops by my desk at the gallery with her baby. I realize how surreal it is to try to communicate with someone who can't talk. I thought 7-months-olds could talk but I was wrong. The kid has this sparkly, wide-eyed stare that I can't resist at all. She's got some hair sprouting on top of her head & her lips are wet because she doesn't really know how to close her mouth & I think it's the prettiest thing I've seen. Feels wrong to think I want this kind of presence in my life–– to associate something as magical as a child with what "I" want. 

I write up some stuff about artists for upcoming fairs & it's very easy to write about people who've already been written about so much. There's very little pressure to be diplomatic or knife-blade-precise because that's already been done by people with much more authority than me. It's fun to sneak in some opinionated inspections. I see A's text from a party I couldn't go to. He texts me like we have to organize a time to meet & I think he is drunk. I feel like this distance between us is unnecessary. Why am I writing stupid booth proposals?  


2024.97
Feeling pathetic as carbonated grapefruit-flavored water drizzles down my chin & onto my unwashed sweater that had been sitting on A's couch for a week. I could describe myself as splendidly clumsy from a more self-accepting point of view. The earthquake is not to blame for my clumsiness & I'm not about to con myself into the convenient anecdote of  "the earthquake made me reconsider my past choices." I'm just excited to see many texts from people about it & I send the same response to everybody. 

Planning for travel is not working out very well. It's very true that you won't know how to play if you've never played before. (I actually don't know if this is a Korean saying or an American thing.) How do you plan for travel if you haven't traveled? It really irritates me though, the possibility of greatness, & by greatness I mean a romantic getaway, dangling in my mind which anyone with some capability of imagination can also picture. I'm also quite sure there are people with much more elaborate capacity for neuro-visionboarding than me. I'm starting to think that travel is maybe not what I get to have/give to myself unless it involves some kind of problem-solving, or functions as a temporary solution for problems that could never be fixed. By this I mean traveling to see my mother & maternal grandparents for the first time in 5 years while being childishly bitter & still unsure if I care how I'm perceived. 

Alas, it is great to have in my possession LF's first monograph, signed. At the bookstore, the way my palms were sweating reminded me of that video of girls in front of Justin Bieber's house being told to get lost, & they ask if they can get a hug. 


2024.95
I wake up sweating because I remember in my sleep (I don't categorize this as a dream because there was no distortion from what actually happened) the time I gave my ex "White Fragility." It sounds funny metaphorically but it's a title of a book. I drag myself out of bed with so much discontent. I go to the gym & that makes me feel like I'm not a failure. 

The thing with the rain is there are so many worms in central park & I have to look down the whole time to make sure I'm not stepping on them. Not just to avoid killing them but also to avoid further crushing the worm corpses. They look like small intestines unraveled on the street & the cobblestones are a scene of massacre. Who I am in the present is a pile of me from every second of the past, & I don't want the future me to carry the burden of having stepped on worms. 


2024. 93-94
I buy Sylvia Plath's journal from Barnes & Noble after MoMA with Lauren. I seriously wonder how much money I would've saved if I'd bought a kindle a year ago. I read a line where she describes a German guy describing Frank Sinatra– very moonlight night, ja? Makes me smile so I buy. She also writes that the only thing better than being young & sound & a virgin on a beautiful night is being raped. I explain to Lauren she means it's worse to be lonely than to be raped. The horrendous influence Sylvia Plath had on women to mislabel their cursed sense of humor as a symptom of depression. But I can just see myself lying at the beach & finishing this book. 

On my way to work I walk through central park & regardless of whatever real new yorkers have to say about strawberry fields, I cannot get myself to remember another pathway that doesn't go through strawberry fields. My head is spinning & my right hip hurts all of a sudden & I think in these precise words, "Oh, why the fuck is my butt hurting?" & the birds, the drizzle, the buildings I see through the trees don't stick to my mind as an image. Maybe because from the moment I see, I decide what I'm seeing is not worth painting. Although I always, ALWAYS, think about what Kim said– there is no such thing as a trivial subject, only trivial perspectives. I might be able to memorize another way to go across the park if I don't lean into my propensity for language. Writing & painting are different jobs & one who cannot authoritatively distinguish these two ways of information consuming/stimulation processing/obsessively explaining makes a lousy painter. Or a lousy writer. 

Additionally a bit hung up on what B said about A: "He seems pretty decisive about you." It's one of those things that sound too good to actually be happy about.  


2024.91
I woke up feeling a bit like shit dreading I had a hair appointment. I have not been to a hair salon in four years & feel embarrassed. I did a lot of amateur cutting & dyeing my hair in college because I couldn't afford a salon. Now that I'm generating legal income I feel it's reasonable to begin the search for a salon that will not ruin my life either by taking away too much of the only thing that prevents me from looking like a teenage boy or by persuading me to buy a lifetime supply of leave-in-conditioners. 
 
I go to a place in East Village although no one personally recommended it. It was the only place available for appointments on Easter Sunday. The hairdresser says my bangs are cute & I tell her I trim them with nail scissors every month. A good chunk of my hair is cut off & I think of Domenico Gnoli's hair paintings. Also Sasha Gordon's braids. Whenever I receive any beauty service, I feel like I'm taking myself too seriously. What about me cares for polished nails, a hairless body, or a structured haircut? I refuse to discuss deservingness after all the therapy. I hate the attention I pay to myself because it's vain but self-portraits aren't painting themselves either. 

I should remember to paint my cheese grater. 


2024.88
Finished painting Kate Moss's tits this morning. Not because I want to paint her per se but because I want to paint small tits that look bigger from being in a small frame. Something about nipples showing through thin fabric is much hotter than bare nipples. Makes me think about what Jenna Gribbon said about painting nipples with neon pink. Whatever used to be sexy is not sexy anymore in the culture of sensory overload & endless consumption of visual experience. I think being a painter can feel like being a porn addict.

At the gallery I'm wearing a bodysuit and tights and whenever I go to the bathroom I think that I am being unfair to myself drinking as much water as I do. I meet X and I think about how I would feel if someone said, "Hi I really like some of your works," & decide against saying shit like that. I attend a webinar about galleries supporting women artists, & gallerists are eager to defend the stuff they sell as good art, not good women's art. "Intellectually relevant art" is the worst thing I heard all week. 

I'm doing another poetry workshop with Kim in April & I feel very socially adequate & bravely poetic to participate in this kind of therapy where we collectively decide feelings aren't shit unless articulated through non-elitist craft. What do I do with all this museum-worker-has-an-affair-with-donor-twenty-years-her-senior references I've consumed in my free time.


2024.87
I hate negotiating. I hate the idea of it, I hate doing it, I hate planning for it. How is it fair to be raised to require nothing from anybody only to be forced into adulthood & speak of what I deserve. Seems like there is no money in the market for art workers but so much for artworks. Or are we just trying to make it so cool to spend so much on things that'll never talk back. Gosh but if you buy her something from ABHK she might kiss you back. 
​
It's almost the end of March & the muddiness of the weather is irritating me. How tardy is spring. It's like getting excited for a man who would just piss all over my feelings. 
 

2024.86
I keep thinking about vacation & what that would mean if there was no rest involved. I don't seek active resting but also what is the point of suffering. Forgot about my mom's birthday last weekend and due to the difference in time zone, I ended up texting her a whole day late. Wished her a happy birthday week & she said she couldn't wait for me to confirm the dates I'll be coming home. 
 
At dinner with A, I run my mouth about a non-date date I had– Facetime with an Australian lawyer who turned me off very much with his accent while accusing me of flirting with him over the phone. Why do I do this. Talking about things that are the opposite of gravy. Although I'd rather not go into detail about my bland fantasies about a magical vacation. We could get out of New York for a bit & ride a vespa or something. Look at Giotto. Eat oranges & swim. But who says that, like, Let's go to Florence? 
​
The lyft that picked me up this morning was a white tesla. I'd never been in a tesla before. L thinks women in NYC are all getting punched in the face. I fear something like that too but usually I worry about being perceived as needy, or as wanting something everyone else also wants. Or making a painting that I love painting but not looking at.
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2024.82
Just finished anonymizing the names in my unpublished blog. Not sure if or when I'll actually publish it. Cowardice & factual writing look ugly together. Still, I find writing in this format much easier than twitter since I have trouble coming up with one-line-bangers. I look up to Susan Sontag for electing easy English to write about feminism. 
​
I feel much less desire to write about work since my work has been good. I started this blog to keep a record of things, which I still doubt if it's a genius fucking thing to do, but now I feel content that I can lean into more private matters like the fact that I pre-ordered Olivia Rodrigo's red tank top merch after shamelessly stalking some girl's Threads because her Instagram was private. 
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My new year's resolution to drink less than 2 cups of caffeinated beverages a day has been flexibly adjusted to 3. Also I am cutting out processed sugar to look better.