Burn my diaries
Collected Agenda #28
WHAT I DID
Sunday, January 19
Wet hair in the lobby at the gym. I am criticized only very slightly, and I am struck with nearly physical rage. I can’t walk anymore today. When I walk, I am compelled to think - then write - about myself. I have this huge body of work. I’ve written 364,133 unpublished words since my birthday in June, but they are all about myself, and the ugliest parts of myself at that. “You must be able to convert some of your journals into work you can use,” some of my friends say, but I don’t think anyone realizes just how bad they are. Any problem, the smallest problem, I can twist and chew and solve, often through written and rotating self deprecation and self congratulation that renders said problem irrelevant. I can do this over and over and over again, for hours daily, if I'm being honest. It’s not necessarily bad as a limited practice - churn out sludge so that it doesn’t live in your mind - but it becomes more and more excessive, nauseatingly so.
I meet Madelyn at Shosh for dinner. The snowstorm has started. I texted David at the gym earlier: "big snowstorm coming." "Link me an article or you're full of shit," David said, but I wasn't, because it's here, and it's falling in big fat clumps.
Shosh is lovely. It’s a new vegan wine bar in the West Village, which I would roll my eyes at as a concept, but Madelyn’s friends work there and I walk there in the blizzard - enter to a silver bar, an open kitchen, cream walls with a perfect archway cut into them that frames shades of glass wine bottles and assembled rows of thin wine glasses. We don’t get wine, but we do get gem salad, celeriac shawarma with fluffy bread, mushrooms, by which they mean every variety of mushroom you can imagine and a perfect green sauce to accompany.
“Hummus is one of those things you think is all the same, but then you have good hummus…,” Madelyn’s friend who works there says, and he’s right, because the hummus here is determinately different. Better.
Madelyn tells me she likes showing me good food, and I like this, too. Left to my own devices it’s all instant pistachio pudding and cold mashed potatoes eaten while standing up. This isn’t how one should live - slogging through the essential details of survival and routine like it’s something to get over with, not something to enjoy. At the very least, it’s something to be appreciated. I like meals like this.
There’s the Casual Encounters reading later, the fundraiser for Los Angeles reading at that gallery in Tribeca, although all the galleries seem like they are suddenly in Tribeca these days. We’re there early. I can’t find the building, can’t get out of the snow.
You do get out of the snow, eventually. You pick a few GoFundMe’s from the options laid out on the table, so many options on the table. You sit on the couch so you’re removed from the room, you have a birds eye view in that sense even though technically, you’re beneath, not above, it all. “You can see the social dynamics from here,” your friend says, kind of kidding, kind of not. You can see how the room clusters itself, at least.
I stay for the readings, but not for long after. Walk home in the sleet and ice. It's a blizzard, but nothing is really sticking. Streets are mostly quiet - people in the windows of Lucia and Cipriani but otherwise it’s all empty.
My reflection surprises me in the mirror when I get home. I only wear dresses, but today I’m wearing jeans. Mundanity, mundanity, mundanity. David says he wants to go to KGB, and at first I want to go too, but then I decide that I don’t. He leaves, walking into the storm as I’m coming out of it.
I start to feel sick around eleven pm. I feel strange, falling asleep. Being sick really scares me. I hope it goes away.
Monday, January 20
I expected to wake up sad this morning but I didn't. The snow didn't stick, but a thin layer of it did freeze. I'm sliding down the streets, and they aren't empty anymore. Bright, bright, icy light today. Coca Cola and muffin at the bodega for David. Celsius for me. Green tea mango and Cyanocobalamin. I need black coffee.
Inauguration today. I walk and write for ninety minutes. I tried to join the David Lynch Meditation Live Stream at noon, but I got the time zones wrong and I was meant to join at three. It’s five now. Too late. Sitting in a steam room in a cloud of eucalyptus smog.
The semester begins tomorrow, and other things, too. An end to my life of leisure, or more generously, an end to responsibility only as self directed. I feel like I was starting to figure it out. Non-fiction in the morning, fiction at night - my friend Grazie advised me of this schedule this summer. Being honest, though, I need more intensive direction.
Natasha goes to take snow photos in Washington Square Park, but she says that Jill Stein is there and the park is so so so loud. The theme is: anti imperialism.. She sends me a photo of the birds in the snow.
In an ironic twist, David is sick, but I am not. He orders sushi from Soho Sushi. He gives me five pieces from a california roll. I make cinnamon chai tea in the mug my dad got me from the ceramics shop near Mishaum. Every mug there is different. Mine has coarse leaves all over it, and a special rivet where your hand fits.
“This apartment is pretty magical when it’s icy,” David admitted earlier, because it’s a greenhouse roof and so when you look up today it’s all like a snow globe. Icicles swirl in soft formations overhead, melting in morning light and then refreezing slightly differently as the sky turns hazy. I have my head under the cover. I’m reading other people’s diaries. Kafka, Anais Nin, I like the diaries I find online, too. I like the diaries I am sent.
This isn’t my diary. I cannot stress that enough. My real diary is often quite ugly. This is one of the things I feel most guilty for. It’s strange, though. I wake up, I write in my secret diary, I walk for many miles, I write in my diary that I share online. It is good I will have less time, soon.
Anya is staying with me tonight. David, in a friend's spare bedroom because I cannot, cannot, cannot get sick right now, too. It's so nice tonight. Anya and I have been friends since we were two weeks old. I used to tell people that as a child - "this is my best friend since I was two weeks old."
Dimes in the snow. Clandestino in the snow. I really like sitting in the corner of a bar until the night reaches its bitter end. Not tonight, though. It's only ten.
Tuesday, January 21
My first real responsibility in a month, and it's canceled - a whim of the weather.
The snow has melted overnight and in its place is chalky salt stained pavement as far as you can see. It looks like marble. They turned Soho into marble in the night. I try to run outside, but it's too cold. Bitter cold, not pleasant cold. I'm coughing up the chalky air. It's the coldest day of the year.
There's a man on the street and he's running towards the train, sloshing coffee all over his suit but he doesn't seem to even notice, certainly he doesn't care. The drops are freezing to the sleeves of his camel hair jacket before they reach the ground. He's covered in little coffee icicles. I doubt it will stain.
I had nightmares last night. Everyone knew I was Actually Bad. I woke up saying "help me", but I used to wake up talking about rituals in rural places, so this is not a negative progression in the storyline of my possible possession.
The chalky pavement has turned to ice in the afternoon. Walking under the Washington Square arch on the way to Tibet House and its icier than ever. The ground is all glazed over. It’s the latest installment of the Arden Wohl’s reading series at Tibet House; Inauguration Edition this time. Madelyn is wearing a pink sweatshirt when I get there. Madelyn is telling me about knowing your own mind.
Alex Auder reads about cock sucking and brings up a friend to read with her who enjoys the act, because she doesn't
"I feel demeaned when I suck dick. I feel demeaned when I teach yoga," she says. She reads a story about a life in servitude to someone famous who reminds her of Donald Trump.
Tonight is a night where as soon as I have one glass of wine, I wish I didn’t. The haze sets in, and I want it to clear. Beckett arrives. The readings are mostly good, but I’m jittery. I sit in the lobby and I eat some grapes and cheese, replace the wine with water. “Over the years I noticed from my overlord that peasants were increasingly behaving like they were nobles,” Alex Auder is saying, when I return.
“There are more cameras than there are people in the world,” Gideon Jacobs is reading, later.
I can’t stop drifting in and out of the room. I’m worried about some things, about some people. I get like this sometimes, and I wish I could get it to stop. I go to the bathroom and I return again, to a reading about Courtney Love.
“She used to do water ballet and she was getting into the grateful dead.”
“She lied a lot and never listened directly but she was a sponge - she takes a word from an incidental periphery and works it into her trope in real time. She’s that fast.”
“She said she was born on my birthday; July 1st, but she was born a week later; July 8th”
This is my type of lie, I’m thinking. A lie to please. False enchantment. It’s a juvenile compulsion, you mostly outgrow it, and if it was Courtney Love partaking then perhaps it was charming, but my visceral reaction is one of repulsion.
Lizzi Bougatsos reads about Gary Indiana. She sits on the floor and she clips her toenails.
“We shall mark memory with reverence,” Arden is saying.
Beckett is telling me that it’s cool to be at a reading that’s an older crowd, and it is, it’s wine and cheese, there’s no disco party to follow. Beckett introduces me to his acquaintance from Paris. They are talking about Godot and prison sentences. Samuel Beckett gave his Nobel Prize money to a jail org, or was it prisone.org One time, there was a prison break after a performance of Godot. Madelyn is making tape formations on her phone with the other Lacanians. Lacan as separated from psychoanalysis. Lacan as applicable to real life. I’m just gleaning sentences. These ideas aren’t mine.
Cigarette outside and then a burger at the orthodox Jewish establishment nearby. We forgot they can only do vegan cheese on burgers here. A lychee martini instead. They’re playing pop music so loud
Wednesday, January 23
I hear my neighbors door shut as I’m poised to leave this morning. Decide, instead, to hover in the kitchen. We don't really like each other, my neighbor and I. Nothing was ever said, but there’s an underlying hostility. I have friends over too late, too often. The walls are thin. I'm glad to be waking up at the same time as the rest of the world, though. Sometimes - up all night, becoming manic around five am, this can be nice, but it's usually not. Normal hours. Normal cycles of day and night.
The ice has come and smoothed everything over. Too cold to listen to music on my walk to school. I'm peeling off layers in an office, at the gym, the hallway of our apartment is becoming salty and dusted with the chalky snowstorm residue that first coated the surface of everything, and that now is starting to settle.
Nothing is volatile. Such placidity, suddenly, but I’m not bored. All the calm in the world. Thank god. It really was about time.
And so, you eat two chalky protein pop tarts on the bench at the gym. There are two girls with thick french accents in the locker room parallel to you. "He's a fucking retard, he only calls me at three am and it's only because he wants to sleep with my friends," says one of the girls. She's wearing a sherpa jacket. KHRISJOY, it says, in big red dripping letters. Spray paint imitation. You look it up - $2145 online. It's so ugly, but you're vaguely impressed. Of course you are. You're wearing a Versace sports bra that you bought for a music festival in high school. Absurd. The people watching here is good. The girl is still talking. She's so furious. "And he would be calling to sleep with me, but he knows he can't, fucking retard," she is saying. This version of the narration makes more sense - her rage rooted in something adjacent to jealousy. You gather your things. You gather your tote bags. It's too cold for so many bags. Your hands get numb out there. You're in a humid basement now, but you can't stay here forever. There's an artists talk tonight, but do you have it in you to attend?
Cheese and sausage for dinner at home. I forgot about the dishes and I left the sink running for an hour. I’ve never known how to dress for the weather, but that doesn’t mean I mind the extremes. Today - my mother’s gloves, a borrowed Urbit hat from David, a beanie really, it looks insane but it’s too freezing for me to mind.
More isn’t always more. More is often so, intolerably, annoying. I don’t want to wear a coat.
My books arrive today. Mostly for school, plus one Ruby recommended. I’ll read them all - I’m glad that I have reason to.
The Company She Keeps - Mary McCarthy
The Fire Next Time - James Baldwin
The Situation and the Story - Vivian Gornic
A Room of One’s Own - Virginia Woolf
Are You My Mother - Alison Bechdel
The Atrocity Exhibition - J. G. Ballard
WHAT YOU SHOULD DO
Thursday, January 23
From 6pm - 8pm at 61 Lispenard — Canada NY and Eighth House present Rest and Reprieve: A Window into Creative Solitude. Eighth House is “an interdisciplinary residency for artists and curators located in Central Vermont.” The exhibition serves as a benefit for this very special residency.
From 7pm at 4 Berry Street — Limousine presents a reading featuring Jordan Codley, Iva Dixit, Jeremy Gordon, Ama Kwarteng, and Iva Dixit. Bring your Ins and Outs for 2025, and the readers will provide feedback.
From 7pm at EARTH — Simone Films presents a night with Alex Zhang Hungtai and Will August Park.
From 7pm at Skinos (123 Washington St) — The Drift hosts their Issue Fourteen Launch Party. Free for print subscribers, or $20 for admission + a print issue. Tickets at the door.
Friday, January 24
From 6:30pm at The Back Room — Substack presents Burns Night - “a night of scotch & murder by words.” Readings by Alex Auder, Emily Sundberg, Natasha Stagg, Nate Silver, and more.
From 7pm - 8pm at Sullaluna— Cartoonist Daniel Perkins (TOM TOMORROW) will be in conversation with writer Marina Catucci. Sullaluna is a fabulous new Italian restaurant and independent bookstore in the West Village. It comes highly recommended for both spirit and food, and I'm excited to investigate.
From 7pm - 10pm at The River — Arcane 3 celebrates their launch. Hosted by Francis Irv, Nana Wolke, Mindaugas Matulis, Domenik Tarabanski, and Violet Denison.
From 8pm at EARTH — Heavy Traffic Reading featuring Sheila Heti, Amalia Ulman, Sean Thor Conroe, Sam Kriss, and Ada Antoinette. This will be great - very excited. Come early, because it will also probably be packed.
Saturday, January 25
From 6pm (readings at 7:30) at Salon Scharlin Union Square — Casual Encounters presents the launch party for “Umm… Exercise”. Readings by Tif Sigrids, Travis Diehl, Sammy Loren, Josh Shaddock, Annie Armstrong, and special guests.
From 7pm at Heart House — Extreme Animals presents “Should I Delete My Channel?” - VHS Tape Release Show with Callahan & Witscher and DJ Cool Groceries. Tickets $15 in advance / $20 at the door.
From 7pm - 10pm at Nublu — Lucky Henry, Beau, Dogwood Hill, and Boston Flowers preform
From 10pm - 4am at MoodRing — Kim Uong (and others) are hosting a Lunar New Year Party. Sounds for The Year of the Snake by Chinatown Records and more.
Sunday, January 26
From 5pm - 7pm at Reena Spaulings — Solo show by Marc Kokopeli opens.
From 7pm - 10pm at BCTR — A few tickets are still available for Vanya on Huron Street; “an adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s timeless classic with a new translation by Albina Aleksandrova. Directed by Matthew Gasda.”
From 7pm at Lubov — A night of plays and performances with Ben Lipkin, Peter Vack, Alice Aster, Zoey Greenwald, and the Board of Ethics (True + Jamison) – “A Return to Form! We are serious people. Whatever happened to intention? Conviction? Decorum?”
From 7pm at KGB — A theatrical Confessions is coming to you.
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I’ll bet your ugliest diary entry is the best