mutually assured destruction

#46 Collected Agenda

WHAT I DID

Sunday, April 27

Sitting up in the middle of the night and saying things I don't mean and, it's not that I'm talking in my sleep exactly. More so, I've been trying to figure out if this harshness comes from being evil or if maybe it's more of a vindictive thing instead. Being vindictive implies, at least, that you are seeking some sort of equilibrium. Wrong and be wronged. You aren't just a gratuitous little freak about it. Causality is irrelevant, and I'm nauseous at the gym, playing high vibration Youtube videos in my headphones, standing on an electric plate that can jostle my insides, lymph nodes, drain me like a detox, and yes, there needs to be one of those soon. Making calls and making complaints, and then I'm like, oh sorry, I didn't mean it, I was drunk. And then I'm saying that I feel crazy instead. I feel insane. You don't understand. I have lost complete touch with my judgment.

Costa Rica, in the rain I was kicking around mud with my feet and drinking too much and his friends were like oh you think you're in a teen movie or something because I was saying kind of nasty things, too. It's way worse in New York. That is the definitive thing and, also the fact that there is nowhere else. Something can be confusing and still not impossible to regulate. Sorry to be all obfuscated about it.

I can control my consciousness. It's my consciousness after all.

I go to church in the evening, which feels unbelievably affected - would a girl that is evil redeem herself on her knees before God? - though, that isn't really the question. You believe in good and evil, yet you have found yourself entirely incapable of distinguishing the difference between the two. Yes, then, prognosis, logical conclusion, you have lost your mind.

I eat a cookie for breakfast and then the leftovers of the quiche for dinner that I fugue state ordered for my boyfriend at six am, which was a disaster in and of itself. I decided to do something nice, and then the delivery guy couldn't figure out the buzzer and so I stumbled down in my socks and Brandy Melville, I wasn't even very polite about it when he handed me my bag. I pointed to the buzzer and said that's the buzzer and then I called my boyfriend over and over because I realized, also, I'd forgotten to bring down keys. It's the type of day where I spend almost no time eating, but I still feel kind of full in a bad way. Everything I did eat is so calorically dense that it creates some kind of cognizant dissonance. I shouldn't feel this bogged down from just some stupid scraps.

I don't want to say terrible things, I said. And yet you constantly are saying terrible things, he said. I wish we didn't do these things, I said. That's like saying you wish spiders weren't real, he said. People are vicious and awful.

Then, I do pilates from the pilates app that they sent me for free on Instagram. I'm enough of an influencer these days that brands will send me spam mail disguised as PR. Like 20% off coupon codes to their clothing line personalized just for me, but I still have to pay them 80% if I want the clothes. This means, basically, that I am not an influencer at all, but I have just made things like my email address and my diary psychosis way too public. The pilates studio said - "share if you can!" but I'm sorry, I can't, I'm not really talking about me, I'm talking about something else. First name, last name, coupon codes, face to the name, you're ruining all my plausible deniability.

I started sobbing by the window, and he said don't worry, you're sweet. I started thinking he was dead, and he said don't worry, I'm ok. I'm blurring the timelines a bit. He told me I could meet him on the steps of a Chinatown apartment a little bit after sunset. Inside, his friend took calls and let the bathtub-in-the-kitchen Chinatown apartment become a kind of neutral territory. I sat in the guest room and held my breath. Say the same things over and over, and because you mean it, they eventually stick. Viewing everything in black and white. They've told me that's my problem. That and being too suggestible, and also out of control.

I started being all dramatic about it and yeah there's been too much partying, but I come to learn I'm pretty much like this sober, too.

Things were really really really pure and sweet, and I keep on thinking in ninety days, ninety days of being pure again, and everything bad can be problems that belonged to someone else. I am trying to become like a Monk about it. It's not so much that my impulse towards reaction is wrong, but rather that I act purely on impulse, and impulse alone never did anything other than make a situation that much worse.

Spring and Redemption, I say, on my dumb fucking TikTok. Spring and redemption, my boyfriend says. Yeah, that's cute, this one is cute.

Did you spell synchronicity wrong for engagement or to be insane? my boyfriend asked.

Insane, I said.

He stopped to think about it. So stupid, he said. You aren't that insane.

Order diet pepsi bean and cheese burrito nicotine gum and we're lying in the sun. So much sun through the windows that we have to keep the blinds shut or the light goes too crazy, the air conditioning fires up but not much can be done in the face of UV like this. Lucky, luck,y lucky. I spent the week talking to myself. Lying on the floor and I'm trying to seek cognizance in repetition. The same word three times. First, you remember what it means. Second, you determine what you think is true.

You don't take it for granted. If you don't take it for granted, then you won't lose your mind.

Monday, April 28

Eiverything gets better overnight. No more crying in my sleep. 2:22am and I’m not yelling. I see things more with precision than as if through angels and mystics. I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to be so transcendental about it. It’s really evil to try to mythologize something that is neither beautiful nor true.

I stayed at Hudson Square until late last night. Black socks and black shoes and a tennis skirt that doesn’t match to be late to class today. The sun has rushed back and it’s iced tea no breakfast no lunch. David meets me at Cafe Reggio, where to our left, an awful woman is berating her husband to levels of borderline abuse, and to our right a lovely couple is talking about the difference between mere activity, and real fulfillment. You gain fulfillment from things like C-suite and making tv shows and real estate, the man is saying. Activity is something like going to Europe, he is telling his wife. These are the things that fulfill us, for others it might be different, the woman is saying. I am surprised to hear, that in referencing C-Suite, they are suggesting real fulfillment..

Materially, things are working themselves out. The rot has been first, material, and then secondly, spiritual.

We go to Lupa for a lovely spring dinner. Sweet then sour then sweet. I am endlessly interested in reiterations, but that just makes things worse and worse.

Homemade focaccia and olive oil and arugula salad and lobster corn ravioli and lamb chops and tartufo which is like a shell of hazelnut, ice cream, paper plane to drink and the restaurant is closing by the time we leave.

Tuesday, April 29

You stop a night terror like this: creep down the ladder and say to your boyfriend, you need to turn off the projector right this second. The light was emitting vibes that were very off putting and I was concerned about scentless and odorless gas. My boyfriend makes me pasta and gives me a beer. You kind of briefly entered a state of psychosis, he tells me. I get super offended by that one. A bad dream doesn’t mean I need lithium or something, I say. I didn’t say you have schizophrenia, he says. I said you seemed to be under the impression that the projector light was toxic, poison, and evil, which is the very definition of a state of psychosis - the merging of reality with hallucination. No, I say, that’s the very definition of a bad dream.

Anyways, I’ve been having sleep paralysis because I’ve been having insomnia. I’ve been much more normal about it. Run, coffee, iced tea, the world's worst sandwich back at Cafe Reggio in the afternoon.

Do you have any favorite spots in New York, the tall man next to me is asking the short man across the table.

“Well, it’s far from here,” the short man tells the tall man. "it's really far from here. it's called Coney Island."

I pick out all the healthy bits of my dinner and eat just the bread instead. I’ve been feeling tempted to get really fucking skinny again. Being weird and off putting with my sandwich and then leaving my scraps with abandon. Feeling pretty sane today, I don't really want to get out of here anymore.

Wednesday, April 30

Up all night just like last week, and I'm in class reading from my story like oh I'm probably not going to freak out but it's still a possibility.

David turns older today. He's still asleep when I get home in the afternoon. Macarons and iced coffee on the table. We go to Vol de Nuit and I get promptly drunk on cider.

It's bright and nice and I'm writing tipsy. This week won’t eb and flow in the way that I hate.

Make yourself head empty and then see what happens.

We go next door to Dear Stranger for dinner. Red snapper and jalapeno sauce and wedge salad and shrimp tostadas. Two martinis. David makes a scene in a scuffle with one of those guys on the streets who shill comedy shows on the way home. Then, I wake up and it feels like morning but it’s only just past midnight.

I used to miss the things I have right now so much. I’d miss it through abstraction, really. All through hypotheticals because it had never really been mine in the first place. It shocks me when I see my life emerge unscathed from fits of self destruction. Playing fast and loose when it comes to the thing of redemption. I am trying not to be that way.

First it is sour and then it is sweet. This is one of two directions that any progression of events can take. Obviously, I know the direction that I would like to pursue.

Thursday, May 1

Everything has come alive again, though I'm not quite sure if it's solid yet. I almost step in a pool of blood on Rivington Street, and then we're talking about the uptick in dead bodies that people keep finding around town these days. I'm going to stop being so morbid. You can be thinking about one thing, and then you can decide to be thinking about something else.

Yesterday evening felt sparkly and nice. David and I stayed at Vol de Nuit for a while, drinking cider, which makes me feel full but not that drunk, lots of sunshine and we bring in our own food. Peanut mayonnaise garlic sauce on french fries. I'm less disgusted by these things than I used to be.

Yesterday's dinner felt nice but a little too drunk. I was drinking iced tea at two in the morning and then my boyfriend was throwing bottles across the room in a way that was funny, not crazy.

I got an email asking me if I'd like to talk about Dimes Square for a German newspaper but I wouldn't like to do this and so I didn't respond. I got an email regarding Amtrak tickets. Things have been too whiplash lately. I got an email from my friend. I owe edits on some projects, and I like when big things happen quickly, though we are not quite there yet.

The nature of how I am creatively always edges on narcissism - reflection and observation being more natural than imagination to me, I suppose. although the night terrors suggest some kind of imagination. People like to tell me that. I’m close to the mystics. On a literal level - clinical - the night terrors suggest nothing other than a flirting with psychosis, though my paranoia does not extend to fear over my mind. Nobody actually thinks I’m losing my mind

Physically, a parasite cleanse can be dangerous because the heavy metals your parasites held will be dumped right back into your body.

I do have paranoia surrounding being poisoned, though this is more a concern of the mind.

April - I wrote 40,000 words in my secret diary that I do not share here. This is surely excessive. There are worse things. What I meant to say is: the narcissism has felt less like filtering observation and reflection through the self these days, and more like actually just kind of sloppy-like, thinking about Myself.

The sun is nice, because it heats my greenhouse apartment so quickly - downstairs becomes for the daytime, and upstairs becomes so bright and burnt to a crisp that it has to only be for sleep. Sleeping in the day here is nice. It’s like somebody cast a spell on me. I am not someone to sleep in the day, but a greenhouse apartment is something like a potion this time of year.

Friday, May 2

When I think about how to synthesize an idea into a quote or a meme, something pithy really, then the idea is immediately ruined. Even it was a good idea at the start. This makes me want to distance myself from the quote, meme, thing of posting more generally I suppose though, I’m still having fun.

I’m so sure about things, now. I was feeling really really really unsure about things and I’m so sure now. I feel so bad for acting all ambivalent about it. I’m so certain. I have never been more certain and I have never been more sincere.

WHAT YOU SHOULD DO

Tuesday, May 6

• From 7pm at Pete’s Candy Store — Mind Palace Poetry presents The Girls Room, with special guest host Sophie Appel. Featuring Sascha Cohen, Siena Foster-Soltis, Jude Lavelle, and Montana James Thomas.

• From 7:30pm at Molasses Books — Matthew Gasda’s new novel The Sleepers debuts. I am working on a review of this book, so I will avoid too much commentary for now, but it is one my very favorite new releases of recent memory.

• From 7:30pm at Gospel — Reunion and Sean Glass present Reunion LIVE. “A live anthology featuring seven short standalone pieces with different casts. All connect thematically and at times diegetically with characters crossing over from one piece to another.”

• From 8pm at Beverly’s — Blade Study presents a night of video by friends & family. David and I are showing video art from The Strangest Hotel in New York. Other videos by Drew Zeiba, Emily Janowick, Joshua Citarella, Sophia Giovannitti, Webb Allen, and more. Music by Dreamer, Skype Williams, and Umfang. See you there <3

• From 9pm in The Lower East Side — Jackie Klein hosts Painter’s Pool. DM Jackie for location. A painter is your ticket in.

• From 8pm - 11:59pm at Jean’s — Bec Lauder and The Noise play a birthday concert, featuring Sofia D’Angelo and Nautics and Son of Midi.

Wednesday, May 7

• From 6pm - 9om at Foreign Domestic — Extended hours at Genevieve Goffman’s solo exhibition all the words that came down to meet the body that came up from the ground, along with soundscapes from Genware, Pure Immanence, and Plebian.

Thursday, May 8

• From 8pm - 10pm at The Bench (Chinatown) — Doomers returns for 2 Nights Only. “In humanity’s last act… who plays God?

• From 8pm - 11:30pm at Brooklyn Center For Theatre Research — The Metropolitan Review presents A Night of New Literature. 4 readers, 4 new books: Jules Tarranto, John Pistelli, Ross Barkan, and Matthew Gasda.

• From 9pm - 1:00am at Chino Grande — Meg Spectre hosts Karaoke with Meg. Will you sing songs?

• From 10pm - 4am at Nublu — Rats is a new party series I am quite excited about. It kicks off with Brian DeGraw, Mo Yasin, Will Welch, and more. | Tickets $20, no list.

• From 10pm at Paul’s Baby Grand — Julia Cooke is hosting Art Party.

Friday, May 9

• From 6pm at EARTH — Eli Keszler presents A Musical Environment - “extended and chopped play through of new album.” Featuring sets by collaborators Nate Boyce and Sofie Royer. One night only.

• From 8pm - 10am at The Bench (Chinatown) — One last chance to see Doomers

• From 5pm - 4am at Le Bain – Club Chess hosts an 11 hour party, featuring Dese Escobar, Maraschino, Arjun Shah, and special guests. Summer is here!

Saturday, May 10

• From 12pm - 6pm at 137 Duane Street 3a — Yours.NYC is hosting an insane sale in a Tribeca apartment, featuring every curated vendor one might possibly imagine.

• From 11pm at The Stranger — Thre hosts, four djs, and zero bikes presents Tour de Les. Hosted by Bianca Asha, Lolita Lupita, and Leg5. Sounds by Callie Reiff, Raquel Michel, JM Kettle, and Morali.

Sunday, May 11

• From 2pm - 4pm at 243 Bowery — SuperRare hosts a panel discussion on Factory Reality: Post-Realism in the 2020s. Featuring India Price, Mika Bar on Nesher, Ruby Justice Thelot, Brendan Dawes, A.L. Bahta, Kevin James

• From 4:30pm at Rhizome — HEARTLine hosts a live advice show. “Text your questions and confessions about living in an online art world to 412-256-8055 NOW.”

• From 6pm - 7:30pm at Stilllife (1 Kenmare Street) — Qingyuan Deng presents Readings at On Cue: A preformative exhibition by Stilllife. Featuring Sarah Chekfa, Qingyuan Deng, Violet Handforth, Gia Gonzales, Craig Jun Li, and Cato Ouyang.

• From 3pm - 9pm at Nowadays — Mister Sundays returns!

• From 8pm at KGB – It’s not a Sunday without Confessions.