JOURNAL TRANSCRIPTION 

Friday November 10th 2017

Wednesday evening, Alex Mackin Dolan had an opening at David Lewis Gallery on Eldridge. I had an urge that Reilly should be there. I was sick of the silence he had "given" me so I went. I wore a navy knee-length wool A-line skirt with a black turtleneck and a green Prada sweater. As I walked up, I made second guesses and then came to senses and went up. Of course, he was the first person I saw coming out of the elevator. He wore my trench coat and some hideous ironic pink hat made of fake mohair. Distressed, I walked right by talking surfacely with familiar faces. 

J*** L***, the town gossip, came to me however with some incredible tea. D**** M**** of V****** stabbed Will in his sleep at a coke dealer's upstate birthday weekend. D**** wasn't at the CFDA awards, which he was nominated to win $400,000 towards his brand. I think.

Anywho, as I was leaving, I was sure he had left but then I bumped into him and on his face was a silly little grin. I jumped the bridge and asked him why he's been playing mute. He said he was mad at me for "ending his future relationship with Rachel." I said sorry but now I am not sorry. Just to tell this saga clearly, I will write it in a timeline. 

• I get back from Tokyo. That same night Rachel and Reilly go on their first date. (Her and Johnny have only been separated for about 3 weeks.) 
• I tell Johnny that night at Dimes. He gets very upset with me and tells Rachel about my fat mouth. She claims it wasn't a date. (Lie.)
• I see Reilly 2 days later and he tells me that Rachel hasn't spoken to him in a few days. I back her up and remind him that she's going through a lot and that her and Johnny had recently hung out.
• Reilly gets mad at me and stops speaking to me all together. Rachel tells Reilly she can't see him anymore because she doesn't like how fat my mouth is....
• 10 days later I see Reilly for the first time. He tells me what Rachel said.
• That same night I see Johnny and he says that him and Rachel are hanging out A LOT.

OK. So bitch Rachel is full of shit. She used me as a scapegoat so she didn't have to seem embarrassed at the fact she was using Reilly as a coping mechanism for her own breakup. I didn't do shit. The only person I should apologize to is Johnny for being rather insensitive with my wording. The only problem is that if I tell Reilly all this he'll just tell Rachel. Or some shit. OR, IN HER LUCK, I will only prove her point of having "a fat mouth." Either way, the truth will get to him. 

Ethan hasn't necessarily come around romantically. I probably need some space from him only to figure out if its my typical fashion - my normal state - taking form again. A boy-crazed distracted, emotional mess - utilizing a boy as a box to store my fears in. I've learned recently that space is cool. I finally understand what everyone is whispering about. 

I've been worried about my career that has yet to begin. However I ran int this girl named Stella Greenspan. She's tall with black curly hair and a thick Swiss accent. She's as bubbly as a carwash and literally jumps with excitement at the site of anyone or anything. It was nice and cold out, dark and windy. We walked a few blocks together and I told her some of my stories from Tokyo. She gave me great advice. I don't remember what she said but when she was my age she wishes she hadn't been so consumed about what important real work really meant. She told me to be patient and humbled that the universe will bring me exactly what I need. That's also coming from someone who was Grace Coddington's first-hand assistant. However, I appreciate that advice and have often reminded myself of it since. 

I think I've truly lost my lust for fame and really want to focus on getting involved in small rooms. Today I went up to Dashwood. Miwa was working. She had just finished editing this book on Araki color correction prints. As humble as possible, I enquired about working for her. She said no. I'm not too sad about it, though something good for me soon should arrive I am certain. 

this morning I woke around 9am. I got a coffee and smoked a cigarette. I then got a coffee for my boss, Sabrina. I went to her apartment on Henry street and sifted through some clothes she was ridding of. When I arrived she was talking on the phone with her accountant. She showed me to her room and I picked out a few things. Prada, Miu Miu, Jil Sander. My favorites! 

I hope I can go on vacation come spring time. I didn't get the Apple commercial which would have funded it. But Bella got it and to be honest I am jealous. 

I'm honestly so surprised I haven't died yet. For example, I sat on the edge of a building wasted and sad this summer, considering jumping off. I ran across the bowery without looking while on Molly for the first time. I one time rode a bus full of Neo-nazis in Hungary when I was 16, I also lived in an apartment for two weeks with a gas leak. I've been thinking about death a lot lately and it's just as entertaining as it is debilitating. I really don't believe the old Canadian Proverb, "Live every day like its your last." If you live like that you'll drive yourself straight to the mental ward at Riker's Island! Can't believe that people would choose to be so anxious. Sorry, just thinking out my ass. 

After I went to Sabrina's this morning, I walked to SoHo to buy a copy of the print edition of W Magazine with Björk on the cover. It was selling out everywhere as it is an investment towards the future, especially when printed entertainment is an artifact. There were 4 remaining copies and I bought 2 of them. One for me and one for Novy. I'll give it to them when I go home for Thanksgiving. 

I should probably head back downtown or something and do something exciting like sit in the park or go to a movie. Maybe I'll start that painting I've been lying about to everyone. Speaking of which, I've noticed I've been lying a lot less. Its nice. Much less stressful. I don't know why I've lied so much in my life. Well, obviously insecurity and fear and wanting to impress others. I hope one day I never lie again. I have no integrity. I want to a rich and fruitful life filled with patience and honesty. 

so fine

   I've always been very fine. So fine. So fine so fine so fine. I often make do with what has been dealt. I try not to resent, or lament, or wish. I just try to try. But ever so often am I so thrown off by my own complacency with life that I can only wish for an alternative. I cry. 

    

    

taking a shot

Every morning when I sit in the park, I plan out my day in my head. Sometimes the day is full of errands, I route them out. I take into account if and when I'll become hungry and what neighborhood I will be in when that hunger comes about. When I do everything in my mental checklist, the day leaves me feeling satisfied and with a purpose no matter how mundane the tasks of that day were.

Lately however, I sit in the park and I can't think of anything I ought to do. There's nothing I 'need' nor anything I would want. I dig and dig and dig for things. I scroll on my phone and look at cleaning supplies I might want to try. I try and think of what I might want to write. I think maybe I'll want to write at a coffee shop but all of the coffee shops I usually like to write at have begun to bother me. Should I start writing at a bar at 1 in the afternoon somewhere far uptown? I talk myself out of it because I don't want to take the train downtown at rush hour. I tell myself I'll try a new restaurant but I always talk myself out of that too because I worry I won't like it. 

I thought for a moment that this weird phase I am in is because I'm losing my spirit in daily living. Not in a way that a doctor would prescribe as depression but that maybe it's all simply getting old to me. As a creature of habit this is a startling place to come to. I tell myself over and over again that change is good, that transitions in life are some of the most poignant times for growth but I always lose sight of that ladder. I want to stay right where I am! But I hate where I am. 

Of course I don't hate where I am in my life, in fact I am rather satisfied with my work life, my home, and my social life. I've spent hours wondering where this nameless and invisible void came from and when. 

Around a year ago, my camera broke. I wasn't too torn about it. These things happen. Film cameras are especially fragile and like a everything, they may die without any warning. I saw that death as a great time to try something new. I bought a camera on Ebay that broke within a week and I hated the way the photos looked despite it being $600 and every photographer told me they loved it. Now I had no money and no camera. I was mad! Fast forward to July, a friend sold me his $2,500 camera for $500! What a steal I thought! But that camera hasn't felt like mine and I don't think it ever will. The photos just aren't me.

So on it's way from Japan as I write is the camera that I hope will bring me closer to normalcy. The camera that died about a year ago, not the same one but one that it's now previous owner claims was only used a few times. Just thinking about it being on it's way is making me smile. It's the perfect camera for me. I have missed it so much and I wonder if I'm putting too much weight on the thing but I am getting fidgety just thinking about it.   

dusted

 The other day I decided it was finally time to go through my things and either dust them or ditch them. 

I began with my junk drawer, which in the beginning was difficult. To throw out something innately referred to as 'junk' is hard to justify throwing out at all. Why would one keep something they would call 'junk' in the first place? And if one would keep it why throw it out at all? In my junk drawer I found old ID's, lighters without any fuel, pens from Croatia, perfume samples, someone else's adderall, and empty envelopes with my name on them. I told myself to just throw it all away. I went into my kitchen and grabbed a trash bag and tore the drawer out of my dresser and turned it upside down across my bed. I sifted through everything with haste and kept only the old ID's and any lighters I got on vacation. There were some spare keys I threw into a Gucci bag along with an expensive perfume I was gifted last Christmas. 

I dusted some books. I can't throw away or get rid of any books. There doesn't seem to be a reason to. I am always perplexed when I see on Instagram that people are selling their copy of Bluets by Maggie Nelson. Just give it away! Books like that are meant to live in charity. There are expensive books that I could sell but I am too broke to sell them. I will only sell my expensive books when I have children and they can't eat. 

In my underwear drawer I went through about 15 bras that I have never worn. Two of them were bras that didn't fit and I only kept them for so long because they were once Bella Hadid's. It was clear the whole time that she had never in fact worn them and they were just donation. I threw those out with the lighters and empty envelopes. 

In my drawer of sweaters I had a particularly difficult time. For every sweater there is a perfect moment. I looked at all 30 of them and really looked hard. Most of them I was never going to wear so they went in the garbage with Bella Hadid's bras and the lighters and the empty envelopes.

After all was said and done, I vacuumed my carpet and fluffed my comforter. My room felt lighter. I took the three trash bags out and smoked a cigarette at my desk as I looked at all my hard work. I turned on NPR and Brian Lehrer was talking to those calling in about costume ideas for Halloween. There were only a few minutes left to call in. I was about to call and tell him about my chainmail when a woman called in and said "The best way to make a costume is to take all of the clothes you're about to throw out and really get creative with it! It's a win-win and its great for environment and your wallet!" 

hellppppppp!

 I feel as though I have lost things to say, though I know that isn't true.

Going through my old journals the other morning, I would write pages and pages about everybody's problems. Moira's dying mother, the way I loved walking by hospitals, how much I hated walking down certain avenues, avenues that reminded me of people I had big crushes on. 

Now when I write in my journal, I haven't a clue what to write. I sit down and think maybe I will document what happened last night, or this morning. But there isn't anything I want to say. It bothers me and makes my skin crawl. 

So then I try to read. I read a page and suddenly find a way to convince myself that there is no point in reading. 

Then I go for a walk and think too hard about what I want to write about. Everything I want to say feels weightless and meaningless. The second my mind goes elsewhere I start talking to myself about all of the things I've been trying to say and so I go find a place to write it all down and it all disappears by the time I pull my pen out. 

I am so bored of reading and writing but maybe it will come back. 

a weekend in the smallest world: 2 ballets

I've seen 3 ballets in my adult life. The first time was maybe 4 years ago at the Lincoln Center, and the other 2 times were this past weekend. 

    I'm not a connoisseur of ballet, nor am I a regular though by the second evening I felt like I was. The first evening was 4 short ballets with an intermission right in the middle, and I was only somewhat into the performances themselves. They were contemporary, experimental, and at times dull. The most exciting of the 4 acts was the final one. My friend having done the set design stage piece holds no weight in my bias, but the music did. Caroline Shaw's Partita, which won the Pulitzer Prize some years ago, has always snuck into my life in odd ways and finding something recognizable in a setting you don't find yourself in often is always a good way to be swayed. 

    The second evening was a much more classical lineup, also in 4 parts though this time with 2 intermissions. Debussy, Tchaikovsky, and some other heavy hitters that I can't recall off the top of my head. To be entirely honest I was not dreading the second evening but I felt a bit 'ballet-ed out'. I was hoping it would be quick but when we sat down in the Orchestra left seats, I noticed in the Playbill that it was going to be a long evening. The orchestra tuned and the curtain rose to unveil a large blue screen, facing the audience. It was a mystifyingly deep shade of royal blue, illuminated at just the most comfortable level for the human eyes. The second act had me crying, a riveting duet by two of the company's biggest stars, the stage set to look like a dance studio made of linens, with the blue screen still behind it. The two dancers were in love and for some reason that made me cry. Debussy blaring. It was pure magic! I was moved, you could say. 

    I got to the Whiskey Tavern down by the jail just 30 minutes after the performances had ended. It was a startling change of scenery after 3 hours of classical hypnosis. I ordered a gin and tonic that was served in a tall heavy pint glass. The Whiskey Tavern wasn't nice at all but somehow they have nicer glassware than The Met. I used to order champagne at intermission when I would go to opera with my best friend but the plastic champagne flute was too bruising to my vision of a glamorous night uptown. 

    I don't remember the first opera I saw at The Met but me and the man I loved most at the time left at intermission to have a drink somewhere else. On the way down the winding red steps, we saw Joan Didion inching her frail way down heading towards the ladies room.

    In December of 2019 me and my friend saw the final matinée performance of Phillip Glass' Akhnaten. It was horribly boring and tediously long, so we left at the 2nd intermission and got drunk at the diner behind Juilliard. We ate burgers and cursed that opera like it had personally done something deplorable to us. Later that week, on Christmas Eve, we ended up meeting the actor who played Akhnaten (the lead and pretty much only person in the 4 hour slo-motion string heavy bore). Ethan had told him we watched the whole thing and later on I told him we left at intermission and that it was boring, but that was an accident. 

    This past weekend though, on Friday, I did see Mikhail Baryshnikov in the lobby. He was stunningly old. I couldn't believe it! Most people know him as "the Russian" Carrie Bradshaw, of Sex and the City, dates in the series' final seasons. Weirdly, I met his ex-wife's daughter a month ago at a bar somewhere upstate. The world is so small. 

    As I sat through these performances, I was thinking so many things. I always drift off mentally at operas, symphonies, and ballets! It's a wonderful way to go about things. I always think about how lucky I am to not be anxious at a ballet, opera, or symphony. Nicole Kidman in Johnathan Glazer's Birth, cries in one scene while attending the symphony. Her character is so terribly anxious. Her dead husband is in the body of a 10 year old boy and she just came to terms with the fact that she wants to fuck him. It's crazy. 

Anywho, hope you all have a wonderful weekend and make sure to go to the ballet, but only if you are not anxious. 

sent from my desktop

 It is almost 7pm and I am at home. I don't know the last time I was home between the hours of 4-7pm. I am typing this on my brand new desktop. I got it at the apple store in soho 3 hours ago and I am incredibly obsessed with it. Everyone said to get a laptop so I can write at a coffee shop or something if need be but I can assure you I had a laptop for 6 years and it seldom left my apartment. its so cool to have a computer tethered to my desk which is tethered to my home. This man I know who is currently in Paris is going to give to me his MacBook Air so so I can write out of my home if I there is an emergency, or say, a job I have to do.

I've been hungover all day and buying this computer in such state was not the most sobering. I was out till 7 am and woke up at my friends house about 20 doors down from mine at around 11 am. I took a long shower and shaved my legs and remembered that today I had to buy a computer. So I went and I walked my broken self to soho and said "I'm buying that computer." I thought this would be easy but it wasn't. I paid with my phone and the transaction took roughly 15 minutes but I had to lie a whole lot. The guy selling me this beautiful piece of technology asked me if I'm a student. I lied and said I was. Then he asked "What are you studying?" I lied and told him I was an aspiring news journalist, studying political journalism. He asked me where I studied and I didn't know what to say, so we moved on and he told me about his brother's dream of making music for museum lobbies. I lied a third time and said that I would love to hear it one day. I told the guy I was really hungover. I told him about how I was at a bar till 7am. I told him about how I was going to faint if I don't get fresh air soon. I walked across the street with my huge box, scared I'd get murdered, jumped, robbed, and raped on my way to Fanelli. Aaron and Lucas were drinking beers and eating onion rings. I had a Coca Cola because I was still suffering. I hailed a cab on Broadway like a rockstar, with my giant desktop for everyone too see. I only had to pay $130.00! Now I will pay that every month for a year. 

Anywho, I hope that having this desktop will allow me to write more, as it is in front of my bed (my bed is my chair) unlike my laptop which lived under my couch or under a giant stack of photo albums. I forgot to mention that this computer is also for making music. So more writing and more music! This is great. I love this thing. I'ts so beautiful. 

Sincerely, 

Meetka. 

Sent from my iMac. 

Waiting for my Career

6 years ago this week, I walked in a Hood By Air show. I had just moved to New York to do whatever. I can't really recall why I had moved here or what ambitious idea I had for myself, though I do remember that after that show I thought I'd be the biggest thing in the world. That it was the beginning of a lifelong career in fashion...all because some guy named Walter had plucked me out of the instagram masses and asked me to do it. I thought I had found my calling. I started working for stylists, casting directors, and modeling once a month for magazines no one had heard of. I never got paid, and I never really had fun. The degree of broke I was led me to do bad things. I lived in a studio in Bushwick with 2 other girls. One of my roommates at the time was a grifter and taught me how to dine and dash the polite way. We would go to restaurants, get wasted, and then leave. I'd find some money and go back the next day and offer to pay. They never made me so I'd give them a $20 as a tip to the poor waitress who had to serve us. We would do this at the same restaurant almost weekly. It got to the point where they just stopped charging us in general and we didn't have to sneak out. I still feel bad especially because that restaurant closed. (R.I.P. Jules Jazz Bar)

Anywho, I started interning at Eckhaus Latta. I had no business being there. I asked for the job and when they asked what I wanted to do, I said, "I don't know. paperwork?" I couldn't sew, knit, clean, or even use Excel so for four whole months I would just sit at my computer and pretend to type things into a spreadsheet and call it research. They would give me meaningless errands such as washing one piece of cloth to see how it faired in a washing machine or get sheers sharpened just to keep me out of their hair. I one time fell asleep while smoking in the backyard and I'm still in awe that they didn't fire me after I decided that I'd drive to Maine to get a tattoo of a lobster. When they called asking where I was I said, "Vacation! I thought you had to pay people in order to implement rules. I'm so sorry I didn't know you needed me." Much to my surprise, I ended up walking in that season's show. I thought them asking me to be in the show was a good thing but it turned out it was a really nice way of letting me know I was too stupid to do anything useful. That was the very end of my internship so I walked across the street and asked for a job at Dimes. I loved it from the beginning but I genuinely felt worried that working in a restaurant would hinder my 'career' in fashion. I really thought that my life was falling apart because I wasn't typing gibberish into Excel for $0.00 an hour. I wanted to keep trying so I could one day get the free flights to Paris that all of my friends were enjoying. I kept up some of the modeling gigs and assisting jobs but I was losing steam on the opportunities due to my being insufferable. Getting booted from the fashion world was quick and painless however, out of the blue, I would get asked to do these big jobs and I would unconsciously destroy them. I was supposed to walk in Hood By Air again but I slept through it. I was supposed to interview with the casting directors at Gucci but when I arrived I showed them my diary and they asked me to leave. I was supposed to be on the cover of National Geographic but I slept through that, also. I decided in 2017 to stop saying yes to modeling. I then quit Dimes to try and do other things that felt more 'real'.

 I started assisting Amber Heard but by assisting I mean picking things up for her. It was the best job in the world. I would wake up, she'd tell me what she wanted, I'd go buy them and bring them to her hotel in Gramercy, and she would PayPal me $400. Or more. Sometimes the job involved more emotional things and I'd occasionally fill her in on my intensely delusional love life. She was always the sweetest to me. She was like a mom who didn't have to do much more than give me money and tell me I was pretty if I went to CVS and bought her falsies. :) Once upon a time she lived in the pink Schnabel building with her boyfriend, Vito Schnabel. I became quite close with the door men who would let me know all that was going on. I would go into the apartment and look through the junk drawers and imagine living there. I never found anything interesting because the man was never there. It was a sad sad place with horrible energy. It was all for nothing but doing coke and sitting on the toilet. I would imagine the incredible parties one could throw there but they didn't seem to happen. Everything was dusty and the apartment smelled like a college dorm. The dining table was an open air file cabinet. Everything was broken. Nothing worked as intended. The refrigerator was a crime scene and don't get me started on the bathrooms. I was very happy when Amber moved out and went back to the hotel life. I loved the bellhops at the Gramercy Park Hotel and writing this makes me want to go visit them but it just simply isn't the same if I don't have a case of wine and false eyelashes to deliver to Amber.

I ended up back at Dimes two years ago and I'm still there. My career as a waitress is the only constant in my life. I don't love it but I certainly don't hate it. I've travelled the world being a waitress. When I was 20, I took a month long trip to Tokyo by myself, for fun. I promised myself I'd do it again but in Europe. So when I was 23, I packed my bags and went to Paris and Berlin for a month to do some sightseeing. Everyone I knew had been to Paris. They all got flown out there and put up in hotels, went out to nice restaurants, and did the whole fashion week thing. I was always butthurt I was never invited or asked to work in Europe so I took it upon myself to go alone with my waitressing money. It was horrible. Paris sucked. I had gotten there at the bitter end of Fashion Week and kept running into all the people who had no money to pay me back when I was trying to make it in the fashion world 4 years prior. Everyone was mean but not in the nice way. They were mean in the dumb way. I walked into a bar one night and walked out being pointed and laughed at by the other patrons. I tried to buy a baguette one time and the lady wouldn't let me and she too could not stop laughing at me. Every time I'd ask for water they'd bring me an egg. I developed a weird, short-lived masturbation addiction. It was a horrible horrible trip. I would go back to the maid's quarters I was staying in and watch porn at 8pm and try to talk to people on the phone. After two weeks of this, it dawned on me that I didn't have to stay there so I prematurely went to Berlin via train. It was instantly better. Everyone was hot, nice, and the sky was gray. I made friends 20 minutes after being there and I even fell in love with a law student and we took care of a baby together. I cried when I had to go back to Paris. My flight was out of Charles De Gaulle and I thought maybe I'd regret it if I didn't try a little harder to like it. I took the train back and by the time I arrived, I had gotten an email saying that I was needed in Berlin to model for a German magazine. I swore off modeling but I needed out of Paris and was running out of money so I said yes. The shoot was excruciating. I cried 4 times in privacy because I simply hated being looked at. When I got back to New York, I was so relieved to not be living in Paris and will only go back if I am payed.

I was a host at Metrograph for 2 years. The private parties were ridiculous but deeply entertaining at times. Jennifer Lawrence was extremely nice and thought I was one of her friend's friends quietly stalking her but I was actually just her personal waitress and she had no idea. Michael Imperioli loved talking to me about whatever book I was reading at the host stand. He loves Rachel Cusk. The girls from Broad City are mean as all hell, Uma Thurman almost spit on my face when I asked her who the birthday cake she had in purse was for, Quentin Tarantino was nice but I felt bad for him because no one came to his party except for Harvey Keitel and Uma. Kristen Wiig's agent and his lawyer husband asked me to go upstate and work at their orgy, Greta Gerwig had a panic attack Christmas morning and asked if she could sit next to the host stand and stare at the wall. There are plenty more celebrity anecdotes but writing about it reminds me why I had no desire to go back after the pandemic.

After many years of staying out of the fashion orbit, I walked in a show again this past Monday. It was fun and I didn't feel ugly for once. I'm glad I did it but being back in that environment brought back many memories of sitting around waiting all day. When you model all you do is wait wait wait. Sit in foldable chairs and twiddle your thumbs. Maybe if you are lucky, a stock model from Russia will ask you a question. There is sometimes free bagels but usually they are old. When the food arrives, it is fun to go sift through the salad and pick out the sandwich no one wants because you want to seem greedy. You will wait for 4 hours doing absolutely nothing but if you get up to go smoke, you could be in trouble for potentially wasting time so you smoke it as quickly as you can and get back to the foldable chair and wait another hour or two. I definitely do not miss all that waiting and wasting the day away so for now I will keep my job waiting tables and having no obligations the second I clock out.

CD ?

I had to revert two entries to draft. I re-read them both the day after I had written them and realized they were not at all me. I was feeling weird when I wrote them. The entries were by no means displays of disingenuous writing or personality hopping, but they were written in a way that was uncontrollably unfamiliar to me and in turn made me ultimately uncomfortable. They may come back but I'm not so sure, so the numerical order of future entries is to be determined. For now it is a ?.



This past week was such a whirlwind. I read a book a day for 7 days. The first 4 days were nice and I was very much enjoying myself. I had no intention of stopping until I reached day 6 I was about losing my mind just sitting there reading reading reading. It led me to try and quit smoking which was also a failure. The morning I decided I'd quit, I told myself, "After this pack, no more cigarettes!" but by the end of the pack, I decided I'd cut down from 25 cigarettes a day to just 5. I have cut back quite a bit but I'm still in the teens. Yesterday was 13, the day before 14. Hopefully today I can achieve my new goal of 10. I watched a bunch of videos on youtube, vloggers primarily, who talked about quitting smoking. They weren't so good at convincing me but I did enjoy watching them for some reason.

Talking on the phone with Ethan last night, he told me about how his first cigarette was when he was 13 on Avenue A and he was drunk or something. He said he could remember how bad he thought it had tasted. This too was a trend with the Youtube vloggers...about how their first cigarettes were disgusting. I remember my first cigarette was outside the school in Hungary. I was sitting with a girl named Bárbörá who told me that I would have a difficult time making friends if I didn't smoke and of course my 15 year old self wanted so badly to have a few more friends then just being glued to Bárbie. Now as I write this I realize that maybe she wanted me to go make different friends, too. She gave me one of her Marlboro menthols and I have smoked a pack a day till now. Now I am trying for half a pack. I was telling Tess that I want to be able to not have them on me and feel fine...that instead of anxiously worrying about when I run out, I simply just wait till its most convenient for me to go buy some. I count my cigarettes like they are the last thing I have. I hate sharing them. I hate sharing them especially with people who don't smoke. The people you see every single night at the bar who ask you for cigarettes and all the while sitting there continue on about how they quit smoking two years ago. I am vowing now to not become one of those people but I wouldn't be surprised if I did.

I was looking out my stairwell window again but this time it was night and I could see directly into my friend Silvia's apartment. Well, it used to be her apartment up until December that is. Someone bought the building and kicked everyone out. It was the best building. It was like a mansion with a few friends living in it. For some reason though, looking out the stairwell window into what will always be to me, Silvia's kitchen, I didn't feel all that sad or mournful like I usually do about these kind of things. It was actually rather peaceful and those few minutes of staring gave me that painful feeling of wishing everyone could see what I was seeing. Of course it's mundane, two apartment windows, looking into a kitchen. The oven's green clock illegible from my distance but very much there, the round kitchen table by the window with a box of some kind sitting on it, the lamp on the countertop and it's light painting everything in the room gold and yellow...the outside of the building is an alcove of other buildings including mine and 2 others allowing it to resemble at times a sort of European gamut of architecture. Silvia's is Italian with its gray and yellow walls, the apartment between ours is British with it's deep red brick and shutters at each window, my building is more French, and the building across from the British one, between Silvia and I's, is much more Germanic.  And to top it all off, the post rain dewey smell was so refreshing, especially now. It was so calming it made me a bit sad, it was like I couldn't see it all well enough because it was so pleasant. It all looked like a Gail Albert Halaban photograph after post-production. I turned my back for maybe one minute and when I turned back around, the lights were off. It's not as sentimental as I'm making it seem to be but it was just something that I really enjoyed. Maybe the best part of my day. I've attached below some good Gail Albert Halaban photos below... :)

The sun is shining so bright this morning so I will try and get my groceries early rather than wait all day as I have been in the habit of postponing anything that requires labor of any kind...Warmth to u all!

-m.

big thanks

I'm quite sad the holidays are over. They always come and go so quickly and you can't live like that forever, doing so many festive things all the time. I'm not really into one particular holiday but I do enjoy all of the things surrounding them. Where people are going, who they are spending time with, who's in town, who's not in town, which friend's parents house you will drink too many drinks at. I love buying people things and I of course love being gifted things but my friends are not the gift-giving type. Two years ago, I got my friend Sabrina candlestick holders. A pair. Green glass, nearly clear and very tall and long and cylindrical. I kept one for myself. In part because I wished to buy the one of kind candlestick holders for myself but also as a way of expressing friendship or something. Coincidentally, Sabrina gave me a tapered candle that came originally as a pair. She kept one for herself as a way of noting friendship. I should've called her when I burned the candle but I believe I lit it while in bed with someone.

One year on Ethan's birthday, I tried to take him to the top of the World Trade Center but my card declined so he paid. Afterwards, we went to the mall and had Shake Shack. I tried to pay for that too but did not. So on Ethan's birthday he gave me a view and fast food. I got Ethan a photo book that year. It may have been his first but I don't know if I'm just making that up but I really do believe it was his first. Two years later, I got him another photo book and then a Calvin Trillin book that I am now reading. He read it in a day and told me to read it. It's funny reading the inscription I wrote on the title page as if it was something he returned to me because he hated it.

I got my friend Rewa The Year of Magical Thinking for Christmas this year. I tried to get her to read it for a long long time but she refused for the same reasons I did. There was something too fashionable about it especially with the Joan Didion documentary being so popular and all at the time. I read The Year of Magical Thinking en-route to Wisconsin two summers ago. I bought it in Chicago and read it outside of my old school on the steps of The Art Institute of Chicago. I couldn't stop reading it and I guess that's when I let go of judging books by the people who read them. I read it in the car to Wisconsin and then again on the plane back to New York. I've sold the book to many people but Rewa for so long would not budge! So I force fed it to her in the form of a gift right before she left for a long flight to Lebanon. She emailed me recently saying "I will now listen to your recommendations."

I got my close friend Tess an original Japanese poster for Rosemary's Baby last year. I gave it to her at the Jewish diner we often go to early in the mornings. Thats changed now because Tess has a full time job and I'm waking up later these days. That morning I gave her the poster, she gave me this beautiful tacky lamp I'd been eyeing at a thrift store in midtown. Its a porcelain little boy holding a basket of giant eggs and is standing on what looks like maybe a cupcake. The shade is yellow and blue tartan. It's a great conversation starter in my living room.
My friend Morgan always goes crazy with the gift giving. Morgan will give you a gift because its been 7 and a half weeks since your birthday, which I guess to her is a reason to celebrate. Morgan one year gave me a camera and a long letter singing my praises. She also gave me expensive hand cream that year. I barely considered her a friend as we were still getting to know each other. This year she got me my favorite hair oil and a beautiful silk shirt that looks and feels the opposite of cheap. Trying to give Morgan a gift is a difficult task. She'll love and adore whatever it is you give her but there is a natural desire to really impress her. Morgan is fair skinned and lithe and dainty. She has long naturally orange hair and bright baby blue eyes. Her cheeks blush the exact color of her lips especially after a wine. She talks at low whispered volumes sometimes but laughs louder than anyone else when she means it. Everyone who knows Morgan hopes that she likes them. Her taste is incredible and everything she owns seems to mean something to her..so with that being said, buying a gift for the orange-haired pale-skinned whispering little tastemaker is a job that takes more thought than it does to buy your guy friend who will basically appreciate anything you give him because he is not-so-sentimental about objects the way you are.

My friend Bella is the most difficult to buy gifts for. Her best friend once told me in secrecy, If you didn't make it, Bella won't like it. Luckily, I do in fact have some creative capabilities but I'm not so good at coming up with ways to use them. I thought long and hard and tried to paint something for her but it was shameful. I tried to make a sculpture that could be a nice tchotchke on a windowsill but it just looked stupid. So while in her apartment one day, I stole the hair out of her hairbrush and put it in my pocket and walked across the street back to mine. I took the hair out of my hairbrush and plugged in my flatiron and sat for a long long afternoon straightening each individual hair and then made a little braid. The braid fell apart too easily so I just wrote her a long letter and glued all the strands to it throughout. Her best friend told me it was too creepy but Bella seemed to like it. That same year, Bella gave me the best gift I've received in a long time. It was a video she compiled of all the most important people in my life saying happy birthday to me. It made me cry it was so sweet, this nice little non-confrontational surprise party compiled into a 4 minute video. I went a long time without watching it but recently found it on my computer. It did in fact make me a bit weepy but not because of how heartfelt it was but because some of the people in the video are rarely in my life like they used to be. That's how life goes, though. People come and go and so do their gifts.
I rarely throw anything away especially not a gift. I have a tendency to apply sentimental value to most everything. I have a bag that is filled with foreign receipts and subway tickets and pencils and pens and candy wrappers etc. The bag is gathering dust and I feel little to nothing upon looking through once in a blue moon, but I just can't get myself to get rid of it. My dad one time was helping me move out of my apartment in Chicago after I had dropped out of school. I was smoking in the alley and upon returning saw him throwing a dried up dusty rose into a trash bag. I screamed bloody murder, That's the rose that Grimes gave to me after her concert! My dad laughed and said, Okay what? and broke it in two and went on going through all my dusty little treasures. Of course I survived and can live without the dried up rose that Grimes gave to me when I was 17 but you see, I'm still writing about it.

I keep letters for as long as I can. They seem to always disappear after a few years and moving around. I recently found a stack of letters that all my classmates in Hungary gave to me prior to returning back to Ohio. It's unfortunate that I can no longer read them. I used to be able to read Hungarian with ease and near fluency. That was only 5 years ago but when I look at them now, I can hear the words and their meanings in my head but I simply can't comprehend them. Despite not being able to read these letters, I of course will never throw them away. All the Hallmark cards with not a single personal inscription, garbage. At least sign the thing!

I will always love giving gifts and it feels good to buy expensive things for other people. I always find myself so broke around the holidays; buying people stupidly expensive photo books and perfumes and hand creams. Though at least I get to experience the pleasure of watching someone open something you deliberately went out and bought for them. It's obvious you can't buy love but you can in some ways buy them a big thank you.