white lotus, le voltiguer, and the best chicken in tokyo

Every Wednesday after school, my best friend Emma and I would drive downtown to the best Thai restaurant in Dayton, Ohio. My father preferred Thai9, watered down and adjusted fittingly for middle class white business men. Emma and I were White Lotus girls. White Lotus is a small, white tiled, bar seats-only little box. The owner is also the chef and she is her only employee. Emma and I were in love with her. She was in her 60's at the time and her eyes were just a few inches over the counter. She was incredibly mean and would kick people out if they didn't order quick enough. Emma  and I would always get a burger and pad thai and she would scold us for never being able to finish it all. One time we walked in and she sat at the bar, watching a soap opera, clipping her toe nails on the bar, and told us we had to wait till the episode was over before she would start cooking our food. One time, just as she had started cooking, a cop car went by and stopped just a block down with its sirens on. She turned the burners off and left the diner, locking the door as she left. She was gone for maybe 15 minutes and upon returning said, "Those stupid cops always pulling people over outside of my shop its annoying so I go tell them to stop doing it."

Emma and I found a dead rat in one of the potted plants at the bar. 

A lot of other customers complained about her funny yet usually time consuming antics. Emma and I didn't mind all the things she did because the food was always delicious, we found her genuinely entertaining, and once you started eating and she had no meals to cook, talking to her was always very pleasant. She grew to like us over time and would often times make us drinks on the house and would tell us stories about her friends in Thailand. The pad thai was good among many other dishes, but her cheeseburger was so simple and delicious. I miss her and her restaurant where I spent so many afternoons at. Beyond the food being good, I associate White Lotus with lots of laughter and joy. 

                                     

I've never been an adventurous eater on my own accord. If I'm presented with any food, I will likely eat it but I won't go hunting for it on my own. When traveling, choosing a place to eat for me is an incredible debate with myself. "Too expensive." "No one is in there." "Too crowded." "Too far." "What if there is a better place a block away." "I already ate there and shouldn't eat there again because I'm only here for so long but what if the place I go instead is really bad and I regret it." These are all thoughts I have while deciding on a restaurant in unfamiliar places. Paris was a personal hell because every brasserie is the same aside from the color of the chairs outside and the price of wine. I couldn't for the life of me choose between places to dine in Paris so I just stuck to one that I liked and stopped kicking myself for not trying other places. It was an hour away from the apartment I was staying at but I still went every morning and afternoon. I developed a relationship with a table outside that I felt attached to and was magically available even at the busiest hours. The waiters there grew to be more fond of me as my French improved. Upon returning from a two week excursion in Berlin, the sexy waiters gave me a croque-madame on the house which felt very triumphant compared to my other interactions with Parisians. The food there was okay, very mediocre and stereotypically French but there was just something about the place that resonated with me. In the many afternoons I had spent there, I sat next to Frances McDormand and watched her chain smoke and talk politely to excited pedestrians. I stopped by the cafe after an afternoon trip to Versailles and found myself sitting next to an old lover who I had met on the train in New York some 3 years prior. I ran into my friend Violet at that cafe and we spent 5 hours talking. There was a men's clothing store across the small street and one of the employees there would come outside from time-to-time and ask to borrow my lighter. He was handsome and cute but I only thought so because I was in Paris. This man otherwise would've gone unnoticed in other places. We developed a nice repertoire of borrowing cigarettes and lighters from each other and we seldom spoke to each other about anything other than, bonjour ca va? One morning I was walking in Montmartre and the man I barter with came running from behind me and playfully hit the back of my head. He got on the same train as me but in a different car and we sort of tango'd through multiple neighborhoods until we reached our obvious destinations; the cafe and clothing store. There was definitely something romantic between us but also something incestuous. My last day in Paris, I bid adieu to the cafe and ate escargot and had a glass of wine around noon. It was a beautiful morning and I remember feeling melancholy about something specific, but I am having a hard time remembering. 

Outside of Tokyo you can find the Miyazaki museum. It skirts a small forest with little shrines and paths all over. I stumbled blindly through the forest in the rain and reveled at how Miyazaki-esque the forest happened to look that day. When I finally came to a road, I went into a small tea shop with only two petite tables. I asked the woman working if she could point me in the direction of the popular museum. When I arrived at the museum, I waited in line for maybe an hour at most and when finally getting to the front, I was informed that since I am a tourist from out of the country, I had to make a reservation at least 90 days in advance online. They luckily have a Totoro statue outside for rejected guests like me to depressingly take photos with. The rain came down harder and I ran back into the tea shop that I had stopped in an hour before. The lady working sat me down and told me she was sorry for not warning me about the ticketing process for tourists. 

That evening, I went back to the apartment I was staying in which happened to be in a more residential area near Shibuya on the other side of the highway. There were hardly any places to eat near me and I was too tired to go all the way back to Shibuya for food. As I made my way to the 7/11 mart, I walked past an empty restaurant with a man and a woman sitting at the bar. I walked in and the two people got up enthusiastically with magnified smiles on their faces. I turned around and walked out before they could say anything. I browsed the food at the 7/11 and decided to go back to the small empty restaurant. I walked back in and the two people got up again and rekindled their smiles. They shook my hand and sat me down aggressively and began interviewing me and the foods I liked. The boy began putting an apron on and stepped behind the counter of raw meat and fish. They introduced themselves to me and asked me what kind of music I liked. I said Bjork and they put on Bjork. "Meetsika, please try everything." the girl said with a certain seriousness. The girl told me her brother was "the best chicken maker in Tokyo". The chicken was in fact incredible. It was salty and gingery with an almost fishy flavor. I could've eaten 100 of the little pieces of chicken over rice and pickles. Mind you, I didn't eat much chicken in Tokyo  but I will for the sake of it agree the girl. The chef, who I found out early on in my experience, was her brother. He made me all sorts of food and she made the drinks. I still to this day haven't been able to pinpoint what exactly I was eating but it mostly tasted good.

 An hour into my busy meal, a man covered in tattoos walked in, soaked from the rain. He looked at the brother, sister, and I as if we were dead and seemed to be in disbelief that there was a customer. He took off his coat and sat down right next to me and lightly nodded his head as his introduction. The 4 of us all sat at the bar eating different foods and drinking endlessly. The tattooed man seemed to be maybe the brother and sister's cousin and was very quiet and still. He would smile upon making eye contact but that was the peak of our interactions. I barely speak a lick of Japanese and they knew only basic English yet for some reason the girl was very insistent on the topic of politics. I maneuvered the conversation back towards more visual things. The brother pulled out a laptop and connected it to the speakers and asked me to show them my favorite music videos and they will show me theirs. We stayed up till 4 in the morning, drinking sake and wine and beer and eating ice cream and watching music videos. I left and never returned but I'm glad that it turned out that way. I'm glad I went in there instead of taking home the onigiri from 7/11 which mind you is also a great option when in Tokyo.

Looking for the horoscopes in the New York Post this morning, I came across a disturbing story of a woman who was killed when pieces of a building's facade fell and crushed her. It reminded me of all the thoughts I've been having lately regarding freak accidents and sudden death or injury. As I left the bodega, I heard "ACTION!" and Joaquin Phoenix went sprinting ahead of me and I noticed all these extras crossing the street. I must've been assumed to be an extra so I didn't look into the camera that was not far from me however tempting it may have been.

The past few days have been so uncomfortable and obstructive. Post-sickness is almost worse than just being sick in the moment. Refraining from certain foods while feeling slightly off, achey muscles, fatigue, and dizziness make for strange days. Slow and lazy, unamused, uninspired, uninterested, all the feelings that aren't debilitating but just enough to puncture through the body and make living feel like work. I didn't drink for some days and slept early. I followed that awful BRAT diet. I ate rice out of my rice cooker with saltines and ginger tea, fell asleep 5 times a day and had terrible acid reflux. Yesterday evening, I tried to drink but had a hard time swallowing. I had a single glass of white wine at my friend's birthday gathering then ordered another and could barely finish it. I went to bed scared I'd wake up sick again but I am feeling back to complete normalcy. No acid reflux, no drowsiness, no soreness, just normal.

Walking down the street right after sunset, I ran into some men that I know. They are sort of like older brothers, or, my older brother's friends, or, my best friend's older brothers. I'm not so sure where to place them but they make me feel very safe to be me but also in some ways criticize the things I do. They invited me into the restaurant they were standing outside of for a drink. I told them I wasn't drinking but I'd eat some food. I told them all about how I had started HRT and how I could feel the changes coming. Men always seem so enamored by the effect hormones have on me. Women usually just laugh and say things like "You're like me now!" or "Welcome to the club!". When I tell men that my skin is getting softer or that I won't go bald, they turn their heads like people in movies. The instant I start talking about growing breasts, its all eyes and ears and many many jokes. I seldom am offended by jokes and my own personal rule is that if I love you, it's very hard to offend me. So when my 'older brother-type figures' in my life crack jokes about my transition, I don't really mind at all. It actually makes me feel more human and accepted. It wouldn't be fair to be exempt from all the foolish humor just because I'm not privileged in some way. Insisting on immunity simply because you are this or that only highlights whatever 'this' or 'that'' may be. If I scolded every man in my life for the stupid jokes they make, I would have no men in my life and they wouldn't have me in theirs. The jokes and humorous questions said to me by the men in my life are rarely ever actually offensive, but if I put on my activist mask, everything they say would suddenly become hushed and beaten, and what's the fun in that? If someone says something questionably dumb or something that I know may be offensive to someone else, I will tell them in verbalized slapstick that what they said is stupid. Other people in the LGBT community have expressed that I don't use my Instagram well enough because the lack of social justice and queer activism is a waste of the large platform I have. 14,000 followers is a lot of people but who's to say that silence isn't activism? My image online has morphed into something less personal and more secretive. I try not to post anything too telling of my world. It consists primarily of selfies, screenshots, and photos of strange things. I wondered if it was true that I wasn't using my Instagram profile to its best potential. It wasn't until I received messages from people of all kinds who said that they admired my lack of an activist's presence that it came to me that maybe acting as if I was just your typical city girl, that the deserved freedom of being would speak for itself. Is a trans person simply being not activism? It's also not my life's work to explicitly educate the masses through a platform that is conducive to poor judgement. I have things to do, people!


Going to go buy some groceries and eat udon then hopefully go see Uncut Gems in the evening.

warmth, m.

Oliver Sucks

I read Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks this week. It was good but I wasn't entirely amused. I heard of him through my favorite author, Siri Hustvedt. She too writes heavily on neurology and art and music and she often references some of his work and I believe they may have been good friends. She is a much better writer and isn't telling stories the way Oliver Sacks does. He tells you an interesting story and then just starts telling you another one. I understand that science, specifically neurology, can be difficult to write about in a digestible way for people who don't know much about the science behind the brain, but Siri really takes you through the brain in a much more sophisticated and stimulating way. She really blows my mind and I wish I could read all of her essays for the first time again. I was hopeful that Oliver Sacks would bring me this joy but he let me down. Maybe I'll try another one of his books, but my expectations are much lower now and I can't undo what Siri's work did to me! I was in Berlin when I read her largest book of essays and I remember reading it in 6 hour sittings, completely entranced. With Musicophilia, I found I was just reading fun facts for me to retell at a party to seem interesting, which I will for certain do.

I was reading at the coffee shop a few days ago in the East Village and a rather frumpy old woman asked to sit at my table. She didn't seem to like me all that much for whatever reason but I kept to myself. The barista came over to her with her coffee and said, "Do you wanna spoon?" and she said yes, to which he replied, "Okay! You're place or mine?!" They both let out breathless laughs like broken wind instruments and I couldn't help but laugh along. The second my lips shaped into a smile and I let out a single breath of humor, they both stopped laughing and glared at me and went on their ways. She gathered her things and asked for a to-go cup and left briskly.

My attention span has truly morphed into something out of the ordinary ever since I deleted all my social media. I've been reading 3-5 books a week and practicing the piano with my greatest undivided attention. I'm constantly shocked at how much time has passed when I look up from my book or over at the clock when I'm playing piano. My brain surely does feel more stimulated and my anxiety has gone down revelatory amounts. The only problem with deleting social media is that close acquaintances think you've blocked them.
At a house party on Friday, I saw one of my crushes. He was with a girl who I could care less about so I stopped the pursuit there. I spent the whole party in my friend's bedroom and laid around on the bed with 8 or so other people, laughing, talking and being stupid. The next day, my crush texted me saying, "Are you mad at me? :( I tried to send you a song but it looks like you blocked me on Instagram! Did I do something?" I was flattered he cared enough to ask but also confused as to why he cares when he has a girlfriend now. "No," I said, "I just deleted it because I was spending too much time on my phone. But, btw, I don't really care you are seeing G. but you could've told me so I wouldn't have wasted so much time talking to you with a possibly romantic intention..." He replied quickly and apologetically, "No! We are only kind of seeing each other. I was talking to you too with a possibly romantic intention also..." I don't know what to think about it because I honestly feel asexual as of late. It didn't really phase me or make anything inside me feel very much. Ever since I started HRT a month ago, my romantic/sex drive has gone down significantly and it is truly a blessing. I was boy crazy for 3 years straight and now I'm finally feeling like I can breath again. I'm open to intimacy but don't desire it the way I used too. The other major difference I've noticed since I started HRT is that I only eat spicy food and my tolerance for spice skyrocketed essentially over night. Everything I eat must be spicy or I am bored. I also like rock music now.

A few weeks ago, Mercury passed over the Sun. I walked down to the East River Bandshell where astronomers from all over the city had set up telescopes for anyone to look through. I showed up near the final moments of the terrestrial event but still got a good view. Through the telescope, the Sun was a white circle and Mercury was a little black dot, moving at a glacial pace. It all felt rather significant and special and I talked to the astronomers about what it all means. I don't remember what they said but I felt very happy afterwards. I walked all over the city thinking about Mercury and it's little trip in front of the Sun. I don't know why it affected me so much but I can only assume it's because its such a relief to feel small and temporary. To remember that from Mercury's point of view, we are all essentially little tiny microscopic germs living incredibly short and meaningless lives. It put a pep-in-my-step to feel like a germ.

Trying to save my money up so I can take another month-long solo vacation to Iceland in February. It will be a feat if I manage but I've been longing to go for so long now and it feels like the right time to go. I want to go when Iceland is at it's most Icelandic self. Maybe Iceland's identity is stronger in December but I'm incredibly broke due to this frugal phase I'm in. All I want to do is go shopping and spend a lot of money on nice food. I've been eating at this pricey sushi restaurant alone a lot and ordering whatever I please. Now that is not an option, sadly. I want to be rich so I can eat wherever I want and order whatever I want. I don't really care for a nicer apartment or to own a car or anything like that, I just want to be able to order the nicest glass of wine with the nicest cut of the nicest fish. I dated a guy briefly who's billionaire father funded that lifestyle for him. It was nice to tag along but he ended up being rather spineless, as you can imagine.

jasmine

I feel guilty for not having posted in so long. I remember making a mental note at the beginning of October to really get on top of things and start writing more as Autumn comes but clearly I kept a false promise to myself! It's funny though how it all doesn't even matter, a nice thought to have. 

So much has happened since I last wrote that I find it pointless to even try to summarize all of the significant episodes. The important details will just have to come in quietly, on their own, at different times. 

I went to the new and improved MoMA the other day. I had no idea it had been closed for renovations all Spring and Summer but I guess it had just reopened in October. I had heard it was much much larger and more interesting so I took the train up at about 1pm and got out at Bryant Park so I could walk up 6th Avenue. I brought my camera incase I had a fleeting moment of inspiration to take photos. To my surprise, I was very inspired by all of the people on the street and did in fact start taking photos. Everyone, all the 9-5'ers, the tourists, the middle-aged European long faced couples, nurses and teenagers looked exceptionally stylish. It wasn't until I reached MoMA that it came to my attention that there was no film in the camera. 

I was very overwhelmed by the new MoMA. It was the same but different. The walls were moved around and the ticketing desks were in strange places leaving me disoriented like a dream where you can't walk in the direction you are trying to walk in. It was hot in the museum and I took off my scarf and coat and started up the first set of stairs. I don't like museums, I get overwhelmed trying to see everything yet at the same time, looking at art usually bores me. I like pictures and moving images and collages and some paintings. I waited in line for 2 hours at the Pompidou in Paris one time only to leave after 10 minutes because it truly does make my skin crawl. I of course like art but something about large contemporary museums make me angry. 

I stormed through the entire museum, or so I think. I'm not sure if I missed a room but I walked through every room I did see an entrance to. I looked at the sculpture garden through a window in a room with some Yoko Ono pieces about, well, peace. I found Monet's Water Lillies. They always make me think of Sex and the City when Charlotte becomes a tour guide at MoMA and sees her ex-mother-in-law, Bunny, criticizing the Monets. I saw something Andy Warhol made, I think. I like Magritte's paintings. I saw the one that has the plate, the cup and a fork and a knife. It looks like a normal still-life but if you get closer, you can see an eyeball wedged into the ceramic plate. I like photographs of people and there were some of those scattered around. I like photos in general, especially when they're blown up all big. I love seeing Deana Lawson's photos printed largely. 

I left MoMA and went to Chick-Fil-A. I waited in line behind all the antsy people on their late lunch breaks. I had a classic chicken sandwich with waffle fries and a large coke. I fisted my hand into the box of mayonnaise packets and put my other hand in the hot sauce. I ate my food in Bryant Park and read for an hour and half. I tried to listen in on a conversation near me because I overheard "Harvey Weinstein" being thrown back and fourth with sympathy and wanted to hear why they sounded so pleased to say his name.

I've been sleeping in Ridgewood lately at my friend's apartment. She usually sleeps at mine in Chinatown but to be a fair friend, I have been taking the trek out to hers. It does, however, make more sense to sleep at mine considering we both work within spitting distance from my apartment. Neither of us have any business in Ridgewood other than to sleep. The early morning serenity of Ridgewood is rather nice, though. I wake up before my friend and head to a coffee shop around the corner at around 7:30 and then at around 9, I will text everyone I know who lives in Ridgewood and invite them to come have coffee with me and talk shit. Or, as expected, I just run into other people by happenstance and they sit with me. Zoe came to me the other morning and told me to read a book called FEMALES by Andrea Long Chu. It's short and new. I read it in just two 30 minute sittings. I finished it yesterday morning and went to McNally Jackson to find something new to read. As I walked in, there was a poster on the door advertising FEMALES and that Andrea Long Chu would be speaking that night at 7:30pm. What a coincidence, I thought. I meandered around the store and eventually I chose Annie Dillard's, PILGRIM AT TINKER CREEK. As I was checking out, I flirted with one of the employees. He always compliments me in some way. The other day it was my socks and yesterday my book choice. He asked me if I would come to the talk that night and I said maybe. He said he was planning on sticking around for it. I never ended up going but am now realizing maybe I should have. I had wine instead. 

I started Hormone Replacement Therapy about 2 weeks ago. It's been kind of strange but not by any means shocking. I was expecting it to be scary but its not. The most annoying change is the occasional stomach cramps but otherwise my life feels entirely normal. I'm happy I have refrained from drawing a line of 'pre-hormones' and 'post-hormones'. The only reason I believe I can do that comfortably is because truly not much is changing in my social life and I let that privilege be without argument. I'm not coming out to anyone's surprise, heck, I'm not even coming out at all. I'm just taking a pill and my face is getting prettier. That's all it seems to be for me, for now. Who knows, maybe I don't know whats coming but at least I can have that thought to keep me on my toes. My first day back from Mexico was a bit scary but Ethan helped me back to normalcy. I had been in my bedroom and felt it wasn't my room and that my friends weren't my friends. That all went away by spending time with my friends and eating at my favorite restaurant and buying nice new socks. 

I'm excited for a snowy evening soon, I bought a mink fur coat with a matching fur hairband. I am itching to wear it in the dark. I bought the coat from a large Russian woman named Angela on 2nd and 2nd. She always has the best selection of coats and dresses. My friend bought a great Missoni dress there one time, and some Prada boots as well. Its fairly priced and you have to sort through a good amount of forgettable things but there is always something worth at least trying on. 

 

I smelled jasmine in the air the other day and was shortly teleported back to Berlin in late March. 

-m. 

Went to the ballet with my friend Morgan the other day. I don't know much about dancing but was entertained at times. Whenever I go see an opera, a symphony, or a ballet, I usually tend to just drift off into dream like states of awareness and enjoy the environment for what it is...the details on the walls and ceilings and watching members of the orchestra and wonder about their lives. Halfway through the ballet performance, the conductor turned to the audience to introduce the new first chair oboist. She was shy and 34. The conductor praised her skill and devotion to her long awaited career to be in the best orchestra there is to be in. She said she spends 2 hours a day making reeds for her oboe and then spends roughly 3 hours practicing before coming to work for 8 hours. At the end, the conductor mentioned her 18 month old child spending lots of time at the Lincoln Center. While usually moved I am by the dedication so many musicians in symphonies display, it frightens me that this is what is expected of someone. Ballet, music, figure skating, etc. are careers that generally concern me due to the either 'for life or failure' notions. How traditional and archaic, the concept of dedicating your life from childhood up until the near end of your life to one thing...makes me feel as though my life is stupid and simultaneously smarter. I could never do that and knowing that about myself brings me comfort.

I spent the day yesterday enjoying the cool air. I woke up early and read on my favorite bench and then had a small breakfast. While I was reading, a strange Frenchman who sat next to me asked me to look up when the Guggenheim closes. He was balding and pale with dried out skin around his eyes. He had those European sneakers, the very small and flat ones, and of course he had a fanny pack that stretched around his chest and under his arm. You aren't European unless you have one. We started talking. I told him to skip the Guggenheim this trip and go to the Breuer. I also mentioned The Cloisters but warned him of it's distance and consuming time. He told me he was here only till Monday and then mentioned that he came alone and without his wife and children. He stared at me intensely and I did in fact have a strange connection to him but no attraction. I got up and left and he excitedly shook my hand like a child. I forgot about him until I started writing this.

I went upstate for the first time the other weekend. I had of course driven through but never stayed more than the time it takes to fill up a tank of gas. My friend Djuna drove Tess and I up to her family's summer home. It's a modest home with contemporary ergonomics. They have a compost garden and the house runs solely on their four solar panels. Every little thing in the 20 year old house made sense. Every nail had a purpose.
Tess and I spent a full 24 hours at Djuna's house while Djuna went off to work at a restaurant in Hudson. We had no way of leaving and had to reason to even if we could. We napped in a hammock that overlooked a valley and wandered around in a forest where we saw a snake and a rock hanging by a string from a tree. We sat by their pond and looked at the frogs and spiders. It was all very wholesome.
The next day, when we went into town, Tess and I separated because I wanted to read and be alone and she wanted to go look at the river or something. I read until the coffee shop closed and they had to bring the tables inside and then I walked towards to river to find Tess. I saw one hot guy and then decided that I was moving there but that idea vanished after a few hours. Our friend Yoma got off the train from the city around 9pm and we got drunk and broke ceramic plates in the street. I felt very different up there, much more destructive and elevated in a bad way. Like I was levitating on Chris Angel: Mindfreak or something. Was glad to be back in the city after 3 days of spiders and frogs and hanging rocks.

I've been feeling very lucky lately. Grateful is probably a better word but lucky is more exciting and I feel more excited. I have been less paranoid and anxious and feeling more at ease and relaxed. Yesterday, in the late afternoon, I walked over to the basketball courts on Houston and Forsyth to watch my old love, Reilly, play basketball. I was terribly mad for him at one point but now we are great friends. I played basketball with him. My heeled loafers and skirt were not too convenient for this but I prevailed and remained steadfast. We gossiped and made fun of each other's seemingly low and empty lives. "If I make this shot, we are getting married." He said. The ball went through the basket swiftly and I jumped into arms, elated. He held me like a baby and said, "Okay, if I can get this in while holding you, we are getting a divorce." He got that one in too and I was devastated. Reilly always turns me into such an actress.

This week has been an incredibly difficult one. I'm going through a strange, undefinable thing with a best friend, taking space for the better of things. It feels like a breakup but even that feels like a bad title.

I wept all weekend and finally came out of the tears early monday morning. I listened to sad music and walked around the streets either on the verge of tears or already crying, happy to have a non-verbal agreement with strangers on the street to not interrupt my exposé. I even told a girl I bumped into on the street that I was going to go find some place to let out a thorough cry and she said, "You know, you really do have a weird face. But like, in a cool way. Ugh sorry, gonna go get a coffee, text me!"

Monday night, I went to go see Joanna Newsom perform in East Harlem. It was just what I needed as accidental therapy. I listened to her mostly in high school and junior high but this past summer I had become re-obsessed with her entire discography. I didn't think I'd get to go but an old coworker had an extra ticket and knew that I loved her so she offered me the open seat. The show was so powerful and beautiful that all it's power and beauty was ineffective till after the show ended. It wasn't till I was on the train going back home that I felt how wild it was.

Yesterday evening, I laid in my bed listening to skateboarders shriek and go by, a few last jingles of the ice cream truck's summer residency outside my apartment, and researched Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT). It's something I read with hesitance and secrecy. I clutch my phone as if I'm watching violent porn even though its rather the opposite. I get overwhelmed with all the information and at the end of every medical webpage is usually a short message that makes me get all wet-eyed. If you are struggling and need help, there are plenty of people who support you and are here to help (555) 555-5555. I don't know why it makes me so sorrowful to read little messages like this from a faceless place but it simply does. It seems to only highlight the isolation that comes with these sort of conversations, alone in the afternoon, lying on my bed.

Last night, another friend of mine was going to Joanna Newsom and had extra tickets for me and one other person. I brought my friend Allegra at the last minute. I was happy to see her play two nights in a row. The show was a completely different setlist than the night before and it was even better. The songs were more personal for me this time. She played songs that I had a real heavy attachment to when I had moved to Hungary and spent a lot of time alone on trains and walking the streets. It didn't necessarily make me cry but it made me melancholy and cozy. At the end of the show, my friend who brought Allegra and I asked us if we wanted to go to the greenroom and have wine with Joanna and the crew. Of course I said yes! I don't really like meeting celebrities, especially musicians I have an emotional attachment to. I convinced myself to say yes because free wine sounded good, too. In the greenroom, there were two British girls in their late 20's or early 30's. They seemed to be merely fans having somehow been invited in. They were very sweet and pretty. I liked hearing them talk to Joanna as I was sitting across from them talking to Joanna's friends. I know that they didn't know her from before then because they introduced themselves and pulled out little pictures for her to sign. They stuck around the whole time I was there, talking to Joanna about how she writes her lyrics. I kept my distance from Joanna because I felt strange being back there, with her. I spoke minimally to her. I have listened to her every day pretty consistently now so it's a little uncomfortable for me to try and pretend I haven't drunkenly cried on my living room floor listening to a handful of her songs. When I left, I felt I should say bye and thank you to her. When I went up to her, she took a small step back and said I was pretty or something. I don't remember what word she used but it warmed my heart. After 4 consecutive days of misery and sadness, it's nice to hear a simple thing like that from someone you admire on a certain kind of level.

I saw two movies in one day last week. I liked them both.

I am going to Michigan tomorrow morning for a funeral. I'm rather excited to get out of the city and be in the early autumnal nature. I will try to write a lot.
On a brighter side, I am applying for a new job tomorrow. I'm excited for something new to happen to me.

upward spiral

I was sad for about 2 weeks. I feel out of it now but am worried that I may have just temporarily become disillusioned and the sadness will strike again any minute!

I was sad for multiple reasons and I won't write about any of them at all today. I'm not worried they will trigger me back into the state I was in but simply because I don't find any of the reasons all that interesting yet. It feels like coming back from a vacation and not wanting to share all the little details. It becomes exhausting to retell and explain over and over where you were and why you went there.

I went to my friend Dan's debut concert last night. Many of the people in the crowd I knew or recognized. I grew anxious to talk to any of them and kept coming up with excuses as to why I had to "go over there!" or  "Be right back, one second!" I saw an old old friend who I had to cut ties with which sent me flying across the room out of her eyesight. I had no energy to play kind with her but still felt guilty on the train ride home. I also felt guilty because there was one girl there who I really admired and she stopped me to talk chat but I still had no interest in small talk. I like her in intimate settings and knew that talking to her would only worsen my already frantic energy. I wanted to text her after to the show and apologize but I must've accidentally deleted her number at some point.

On Sunday, I went out all night with three of my friends. I played music on a radio station till around 6pm and then we all went to a hotel roof in Williamsburg. It was so funny to us, we never do that sort of thing, especially in Williamsburg. It was windy and the four of us drank vodka on the rocks. My crush was DJ-ing but I had no interest in speaking to him because it seemed to be too much effort. I was comfortable on the outdoor furniture thinking about how happy I finally was.

We then all went to a party that my friend Tess suggested we go to. It was in a brownstone in Bed-Stuy and was filled with a lot of people I have known a long while. Most them working in art and galleries and art buying and art selling. I was probably the youngest person there, the oldest being somewhere in their mid-30's. They were all coked-out and dolly-eyed but remained kind. I sat on the stoop most of the night and talked to the people I liked. I grew bored and Ethan and Eddie and I all left and went to a club in Ridgewood. We danced for a bit but I kept finding myself outside walking around, looking through all the fences and watching people walk home. Ethan and Eddie came out and found me and we all agreed to just walk around. Ridgewood is going through a very quick and steady era of gentrification and I really saw it that night. The new apartments look so horrendous and out of place. Plastic siding and oddly shaped windows. Each building looking cheaper than the next but still asking high rents. Buildings of silver and and burnt orange, vanity addresses half-lit and distracting. These expensive shacks are oddly illuminated, likely for a sense of safety for it's residents. This sight depressed me and made the glossy high-rises of Manhattan look fine.

Ethan and I took a car back to the city at 6 in the morning and he offered me some poppers. We had stupidly been with them all weekend and we decided that it was time to get rid of them. I poured them out and threw the little jar on a pile of garbage bags. I woke feeling good again.

While I was reading outside this morning, I overheard a large older woman talking to a man she was walking with. They seemed to be on something or maybe just drunk. Her voice was scratchy and almost like a loud whisper. She said, "And when I reached East Broadway, the tears went away!" "And who said that?" her friend asked. "All of em'," she said, "they tease me 'bout you all the time like that." He then kicked his Coca-Cola can into the middle of the street and cheered. I still wonder what that all meant and can't go an hour without thinking about it.

Last night, for the first time in so long, I sat in my kitchen till the early morning and read at my table. It's one of my favorite ways of relaxing and I had abandoned that routine during the heat of the summer when my depression became me. I wasn't home at all during my midsummer depression. I was outside trying to find validation from people, spending money, going out too much, working too much, trying to find ways of busying myself that didn't involve any sort of practice. I was deeply uninterested in any sense of order. I recited mantras to myself as I walked all along the streets, trying to convince myself that the reason I was oh-so-depressed was utterly banal and didn't deserve the outpour of energy I was feeding it. I was what they call, spiraling. It happens to me every summer like clockwork, however, I'm used to it. It's like a friend coming to town at the end of every July and overstaying her welcome till the end of August. She makes me cry, eat garbage food, say things I shouldn't say, think things I shouldn't think, and she takes away the little desire I have left to create anything worthy of my time. She left town at some point recently and I've been spending more time at home and sleeping more. I've been eating better and reading again, writing again. Since she left, my apartment is cleaner and clothes are hanging in the closet and not in a shapeless bails on the floor. It's still rather hot out, which is likely the reason for my Annual Summer Spiral, but the sense of Autumn just around the bend is putting me back together again.

Without a doubt, there were some good things that happened during my spiral that I want to acknowledge I got a new job working at a cactus store that requires me to just sit outside and make sure no one steals anything. They don't really sell cacti in the part of the store that I work in, just incense and some t-shirts. People usually come just to see the building as it has been a mystery to the neighborhood for quite a while. I sit outside once the shade reaches the store front at around 2:30pm. I sit there with an extra chair waiting to be sat in by a friend or an acquaintance who happens by. Some people sit with me for hours, catching up, smoking, drinking coffee or wine in paper cups. My friend Mathilde who seems to be one of the only people in my life lately who really has a way with saying what I want to hear came to visit me a lot during my spiral. She would talk to me about her life and I'd talk to her about mine and we would find all the comparisons and analyze them. Of course Tess was here for my entire spiral and so was Rewa. Ethan too, in some ways. It is generally harder for me to open up to men the way I do to women. Another great thing that happened during my spiral was a rekindled relationship with Joanna Newsom's music. I had a thorough and obsessive phase that put me in sweet states of short pleasure and distraction.

I'm going home next week to attend my grandfather's funeral. It's apparently not a real funeral, more of a ceremony about his life and less about his death. He passed away a few months ago so I'm sure the energy will be more positive than the funerals of those who passed away 1 week prior. I'm excited to go but more-so overwhelmed. My ability to socialize with extended family is very tasking and exhausting. To explain to each and every one of them what my life situation is and only to get stern looks in return is getting rather old. The predictability of what will ensue at each extended family affair is making me grimace by just thinking about it. The gestures and conversations are so premeditated and robotic it forces me to mold into whatever it is I think they would like. I say things they want to hear and tell white lies to keep furrowed brows at bay and I begin to morph details of my life to eliminate low-drama This unfortunately makes for a very dry experience.

-kiss.
m.

say aahh...

Was eating udon at my favorite restaurant for lunch when my stomach began to hurt. In the past week or so, I've been having moments of extreme nausea and then vomiting only a little, as I'm walking, talking, eating, etc. I also found a lump under my chin that was tender to the touch and hurts when I look to my left. On my walk down from eating, I decided I'd go into my local CityMD and get everything checked out. I waited a long while in the waiting room when finally my name was called. The doc checked my blood pressure but we had to do it three times because I kept crossing my legs. She then gave me a cup and I forgot people still pee in cups so I had to ask her just to be sure that that was what I was supposed to do with it. I came back with the warm and fresh urine and thats when I noticed Friends was playing on the small T.V. next to my chair. She then took my blood and I stared at the fun medical poster instructing CPR or something, I forget, for the entire duration of the blood drawing. I thought about so many things in that period. I thought about going back to school, my friend Bella, about that one time in Montreal where R. and I sat on Mt. Royale and wrote down everyone we've slept with, and  I thought about Friends. Doc put the bandaid where she had stuck the little needle in and I looked at the two vials of blood she had filled. My blood looked so brown and orange like a dirty brick. I was disappointed that I didn't get to have the glamour of fainting while laying at a 45 degree angle with my limp arm out and a needle with a tube of my blood sitting on the metal tray next to me. I love that sort of posture and composition but I unfortunately don't faint when having my blood drawn. Doc then pulled out two chic and thin cotton swabs with pretty blue shafts. You know the procedure now... said Doc. I opened my mouth and stuck my tongue out and did not say aahh...

I left and ran into a girl I know who is engaged and moving to L.A. I took a photo of her because I might not see her for a while. I walked to the park and ran into a boy named Alec who has big lips and a voice so stoner-y that you would never believe he doesn't smoke weed. I told him I had just gone to the Doc because there was a literal lump in my throat and I had read online that HPV can turn into throat cancer rather often especially if you are a smoker. Do you have gonorrhea? I had gonorrhea maybe once or twice. As long as it's not hot down there you're good to go baby. I took a photo of him and kept walking to sit with Ethan by the basketball courts.

Loving my new routine of having a cappuccino between 4 and 6pm. It's really a nice way to slip into the evening.

kiss.
m.

mood swings

It's been a very bumpy August thus far but I feel like these lows always end up resulting in some sort of positive change(s).

I feel drastically different now than I did when I woke up. I woke up tired and sore from what I can only prescribe as a terribly slow moving anxiety attack. The things I thought the night before lingered in my head all morning as I got coffee and went to the ATM. I came home from the grocery store around noon and my roommate had asked me if I wanted her bed, which is significantly larger and firmer than the bed I've slept in for the past two years. I was delighted and  right away moved all my furniture around. Once I finished, I realized how within the duration of my rearrangin', I hadn't thought once of anything dreadful or overwhelming. It seems that that was exactly what needed to be done. 2 hours of maneuvering large things back and fourth through my slender door, reorganizing my books and wiping all the dust off of them, finding old photographs under my bed of Tess at NoHo Star (R.I.P.) and coming across a stack of manilla envelopes that have collectible and rare magazines in them. Some of the manilla envelopes also have letters and zines friends have made. One that I am so happy to have found is a little book my friend Sabrina made for my birthday that contains poorly printed photos of Björk and little notes about our friendship in the margins.

Ethan and I had lunch at Nepalese restaurant yesterday and then walked in the rain to McNally Jackson. I wrote in my journal and he read his new book. I left him and went home to watch Jeopardy and drink wine with two other friends of mine. After Jeopardy ended, we skipped around different channels - Reality shows, every variation of Law & Order, Friends, the local news, the world news and what have you. We stopped on Turner Classic Movies to watch the last 15 minutes of some Ingmar Bergman film starring Liv Ullmann. It was in classic Bergman nature that there wasn't much happening other than a clock ticking and Liv Ullmann running up to a house. My friends were bored but I was very comforted watching this. I usually get fidgety in these tedious moments but it felt like I was very little again playing with a string for hours on the living room floor; slightly bored but not bored enough to do much about it.

Tess and I went up to the Upper West Side the other day and walked up Amsterdam till we reached The Hungarian Pastry Shop. We sat outside and an older man started talking to us about some documentary series he's making about museums around the world. His plan is to have celebrities like Cate Blanchett and Monica Bellucci host different episodes. He left and so did we - making our way down to go take a look at The Dakota. I haven't been in a while and I read a book last month where a large part of it was about the apartments in the famous building. I pointed out to Tess which apartment I believed was Lauren Bacall's and the Bernstein's family. I felt sure in my knowledge but I was probably bullshitting for all I know. We got back downtown and wikipedia reminded me that it was in fact the 5th anniversary of Lauren Bacall's death! Coincidences always come for me.

Keeping busy really does do something to your mood. How do I always forget this?!

intimate portrait

In the past few months, I've adopted a new addiction. It's not a bad one but it can be depressing at times.

I have cable television and an off-brand Apple TV. You can access YouTube on the thing and one night in May, I stumbled across a series of videos called, Intimate Portrait. It's a documentary show that ran from 1990 - 2005 on LifeTime television. Each episode focuses on a single actress and lasts about 1 hour. It's subjects range from Audrey Hepburn to Meryl Streep and have a comforting and sweet messages to each episode. There is gaudy piano music at the beginning with black and white photos of feminine Hollywood icons gliding across the screen. There is a nondescript soft voice saying things like, "It wasn't long till Hollywood came to accept Ms. Hepburn as a major figure in cinema." and, "Shortly after filming, Bacall found she was pregnant, yet on the set of Bogart's new ambitious project, a miscarriage interrupted the serenity of her newfound love." Everything is suddenly important.

The best episode is on Lauren Bacall. I watched it after reading Jamie Bernstein's memoir on her father, Leonard Bernstein. In the book, Jamie Bernstein spends many pages describing what it was like to live one floor below Lauren 'Betty' Bacall at The Dakota on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. I never paid much attention to Lauren Bacall but after reading the addictive memoir, my interest inflated on Bacall specifically. I searched for some documentaries on Bacall one night and that is how I came across this great series of "Intimate Portraits." I admire the sweetness and unapologetic censorship this sensitive series presents each subject with. It's as if no woman in Hollywood has ever done a thing wrong. I like this because for once I am not looking for something controversial at the end of the night and simply just want to hear about how great Audrey Hepburn and Ingrid Bergman were.

Toni Morrison passed away this morning. I've never read any of her work but have known her name for as long as I can remember. I remember my mother reading a few of her books and when I look at them at the bookstore, they summon blurry memories of childhood. In the past month or so, I've picked up a few of her novels and considered buying them but I have yet to follow through. Maybe soon the time will come. I really have a hard time looking at social media when a celebrity, especially one within the hands literature, passes away. The myriad of people who haven't picked up a book since 8th grade post photos plastered with emojis of broken hearts, the fashion people who like the intellectual's iconic sunglasses more than the work they've left behind, and the Bard graduate who thinks it is unexpected for them to show interest in such a mainstream icon - it all instills such a strange anger in me I simply have to exclude myself for the day from looking at Instagram and other platforms. I dread the day Joan Didion dies, dear God.

I'm having a hard time overall with reading and writing in this week. The book I'm reading feels more of a burden than it does a pleasure. I wake up each morning and open it as if someone's holding a gun to my head and I have no other option. I start reading and before I know it I've read 2 words and it's been 1 hour. I don't know what I was looking at or thinking about. Today, while I was reading this terribly boring collection of essays, I was reaching in my bag for a cigarette and stared into nothingness when I noticed beyond my periphery a pair of dirty hands waving to my left. I looked over slowly to find the skater boy that I had slept with not-so-long ago. He himself declared we don't speak anymore to which I agreed but it is clear to me now that he has some desire left within him. I don't. I smiled with my lips tight and he walked off with his strange posse.
Writing has been equally as difficult this week. I meant to dedicate today to writing in my journal but had fallen into a deep sleep around noon. It was a terrible accident, this nap. I woke up on my bed at 5pm and felt as if I had been asleep for many days. I didn't know what time it was and couldn't remember much about my life prior to the deep and accidental sleep. I felt nauseas and fatigued - full of rage and sadness towards myself - a precious day-off spent mindlessly.

Autumn comes to town soon and it's all I can look forward to. My romantic life has plateaued into a rather dry and silly place. The only person I have true feelings for is miserably misguided and just as lost as I am, it seems. My attempts at moving forward are not so strong but I'm starting somewhere and that's enough to make me feel fine about myself. I'm just about over my job at the movie theater but I at the same time don't mind it all that much. These feelings are all too familiar as this becomes my life with each and every August. Come mid-October, my life seems to always take a wild and drastic change. I wonder what will come within October? 8 more weeks - I question how I'll fare!

kiss
m.