The Leanover: Glamabella

(Untitled)

2009-10-28T00:23:07Z

I write down all of my goals, dreams, and aspirations on note cards with as much detail as possible and post them on my walls. I barely look at them and more often than not forget they're even there. I just don't know how to go about accomplishing any of them. Is it just that I've far exceeded what's within my grasp or that I haven't given the effort enough thought? I'd like to believe it's the latter but I'm leaning more towards the former. My pessimistic sentiment certainly isn't helping matters.

Last night, I wandered around Facebook for the first time in months. It was a foolish decision at best. Facebook - for those of us who wander with our feet firmly placed on the ground, for those of us who frequently dream, for those of us who occasionally seethe in anger - is a test in masochism. It can be a reminder of alternatives you've never imagined or lives you've only fantasized about. The feeling is overwhelming, not necessarily heady, but certainly unnerving.

A girl I went to high school with is gallivanting around the world with a plan and a trust fund, two things that are not within my grasp. The photos feature was thankfully down, allowing me some respite from envy.

The Men Who Love Me:

2009-10-28T00:21:46Z

The men who love me are men I can not trust because I can not trust myself. I know myself too well to believe in someone who sees my flaws and finds them desirable, even cute! What I'm saying is that my insecurities get the best of me.

Break of Day:

2009-10-27T03:13:12Z

"Look. See what I'm doing. Measure what it's worth. Is it worth my assuming a tarnished reputation in order to nourish in secret, mouth to mouth, the prey that people think I am myself absorbing? Is it worth my turning away from those dawns that you and I love, to give myself to eyelids that I dazzle and their promises of stardom? Judge, better than I can, my hesitant work that I've gazed at too much. Trim your hard gardener's nail!"

- Colette

What I Saw When I Looked:

2009-10-27T03:06:05Z

I understand how easy it is to live completely numb. I imagine if you were someone who fantasized, succumbing to numbness would be the only natural response to a life unfulfilled.

What I See When I'm Looking:

2009-10-27T03:04:39Z

There is dreariness to taking the train in the morning, one I didn’t recognize until it began to get colder and I felt less inclined to stare out the window at endless amounts of gray. The faces I now see seem somber, pensive at times, but mostly asleep while awake. They too are going through the motions. It’s a familiar sight but certainly not comforting in its familiarity. What are they all yearning for?

On losing home:

2009-10-27T02:38:55Z

It’s amazing how quickly things cannot be yours: money, lovers, and parts of the city. There are blocks that seem as foreign now as when I was 18. Sometimes, I like to go back and walk around and pretend I am a citizen of the neighborhood. But being there leaves me without the sense of belonging and nostalgia that I anticipated, and rather, with a sense of guilt for intruding on the lived spaces of strangers; a sense of weariness as an outsider; a sense of foreignness and unfamiliarity, as if each day gone by is worth a year in time. There is no home there.

On dreams:

2009-10-25T22:01:24Z

My dreams and aspirations are like drugs - a temporary relief from the brutality of everyday life. The high is so potent the first time you conceptualize it, but it never feels as good as the beginning, especially if reality makes the dreams seem permanently situated as fantasy.

Written:

2009-10-24T17:59:32Z

For Newcity:

“Diverging Matters” at Finestra Art Space

Barbara Wakefield at Dubhe Carreno

On crushes:

2009-10-24T17:56:08Z

To crush is to objectify: I collect crushes like objects. They are representative of my sexual ideal. They keep me happy.

Hipster Temporality.

2009-10-24T17:52:00Z

My life is a continuous past. I am unable to function in the present. Decisions now are culled from experiences of what once was. On a cultural level, there is a frantic urge to relive or recreate the temporality of past motives and movements and meaning. Does this allow us (or perhaps punish us) of authenticity of the present? How can we hope to live within the moment, to exist with a semblance of truth when we are so enamored with the past?

I feel dissatisfied with life in the sense that it all feels the same. Experiences are comparable to dejavu, devoid of any newness in the sense of an abnormality from day-to-day experiences. Newness is derived from the fact something, anything is there where it once was not.