ring me

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you must know yourself

i think, therefore i am.

ginsburg trouser

Fearing, I wait.

I was laying on a blue patio chair in my nightgown. I wasn’t wearing any underwear. If you could see me from the street, you might have spotted a beaver or the letter L, taking into consideration all the extra leg I have. It was the afternoon, but the sun wasn’t what it used to be. I waited—book in hand. Muffy scratched on my bedroom door. She could be seen through the glass. I let her out, acknowledging this could be the last day. Mainly for her, but I guess for me too.

In between each song, I could hear the pond’s water falling. On the page, it sounds contrived, in reality it was peaceful, calming, more of what I needed. I became less concerned with I Like by Amanda Michalopoulou, even though it’s the best contemporary literature I have picked up in years. It was sad watching Muffy. I wondered if she was lonely, whether she thought her life had been good. Sure, there are plenty of people who will roll their eyes and say it’s just a dog. But I am talking about more than that. This is an issue about life; how every living thing is dying. Did she think Tigg was coming back? She had her face down on the stone, while keeping her eyes up. I had been doing my best to avoid the large lump her back leg had become. The doctors said it was incurable. Promised she wasn’t in pain, but then again had anyone asked her? At the clinic was there a dog translator on hand? I wondered whether she knew her time was soon.

This moment reminded me of a day last week. I was passing through revolving doors at Hearst for the sixth time this year. Nowadays I came as myself. Before, it was more of an event. My nails would be painted and I’d be wearing something new. But the artificialness never got me any closer. Some interviewers didn’t like my new perspective, which is to say how I costumed Chelsea Leigh Trescott. I could read their thoughts on their eyes. We all can be seen through. After a few months working at one Film Company, I got invited into the Human Resource office. Guilt immediately turned my body numb and my interior narrator went dead. Inside I heard static. Had I been stealing money? Claiming I worked more hours than I had? Should I not have charged that cab fare? Oh, I thought all sorts of things, but none carried any weight of truth. “Men are walking into walls.” Or that was the effect the Publicity department was excusing me of, but then again I think 90% of their salary comes from talking shit. I quit two days later. It wasn’t always this extreme though. Some interviewers called me interesting, which seemed like everything but resulted in nothing, too.

I waited on the second floor and tried to appear busy or absorbed. Is there a difference? I looked over my resume, then the questionnaire, tried to memorize my intention and then thought I was over-thinking it and began reading James Joyce’s “Dirty Letters” to Nora. “The last drop of seed has hardly been squirted up your cunt before it is over and my true love for you, the love of my verses, the love of my eyes for your strange luring eyes, comes blowing over my soul like a wind of spices.” Like anyone with half an ounce of sense of humor, I began laughing my ass off—to myself, no doubt—when I looked up and saw her, or who I assumed to be her, coming towards me. I stuffed the papers into my bag, as if I had—again—been guilty of some scandal.

She walked ahead, leading me to a meeting area, where I assume people ate lunch. But no one was eating. It was only us. This was the first time I hadn’t been invited up to the magazine’s floor. I thought this was smart, maybe pretentious. But Vogue had been worse. Much worse. And granted, some companies wanted to keep their distance, perpetuate the mystery, maintain their reputation. This was all fine and dandy. I wasn’t calling the shots, yet. She kept me around, talking for awhile. Definitely the best interviewer I have ever sat across from. Each statement became a question referring back to me. And for the first time, I didn’t feel like I had to fake an answer. However, I was noticing a trend. Interviewers were impressed I was applying for my MFA, but their reaction all ended with the same query. "Are you sure this is the department you are interested in and not editorial?" I wish I had a convincing four-worded answer. I thought the position was fitting and surprisingly better than I imagined. I wanted her to want me. But it would be January before I knew. We stood, shook hands again and she asked me about living in the East Village. I told her it was full of temptation and immediately, figured this wasn’t the right response. Is there a correct answer? I mentioned my twin sister before I took the escalator down. I have no idea why I imagined she would care. But I suppose she liked me, because she wrote me the next day, wanting to know more.

I jumped in a cab—trying not to acknowledge this would be a $30 trip for the second time in two days and more than likely was going to result in nothing. But I had to meet him in an hour and I didn’t want to waste my adrenaline in transit on a subway for 45 minutes. I called my mom to tell her the good news.

“Are you okay?” I took the phone from my ear and checked the time. “Or are you just sleeping? Sorry I just wanted to tell you how it went.”

“Yeah, everything is fine. Can we talk later? It’s just been an exhausting day.”

“Of course, of course. But everything really is okay right?”

“No, Chelsea.”

“What?”

“He died.”

“Who, What!”

“I had to put Tigg down today.”

“But.”

“He just, Chelsea I’m sorry, he just didn’t want to hang on anymore.”

I had no emotion. I felt worse for her than I did for myself or Tigg. She sounded so exhausted, which innately made me assume she was depressed. It was an analysis that my dad had instilled in me, "If you sleep during the day, then you're depressed." It is was simple, concise, true? It's all relative. But as a result, I don't sleep and it makes me uncomfortable when I see a friend or family member "napping" when the sun is still out. However, that's a whole separate story. The cab driver asked me which way I wanted to go. I have no idea. I don’t drive here. Do whatever you’d like.

And then I began crying, everything falling out from my inside and hung up, crying. I cried because I hadn’t said goodbye over Thanksgiving. Cried because when I left for the airport, I closed the garage door and only looked at Tigg waiting there. I hadn’t gone back inside. All I said was I would see him in a few days. I thought I could say goodbye to him then. In a matter of moments, I had made a mess of myself. I took the elevator up, walked into my sister’s room, only to hear, “I already knew.”

I had ten minutes until I had to begin walking to meet him. I wanted to see him. I didn’t know him, but I felt he knew me better than anyone in the city. I opened a bottle of wine. A good bottle. But it tasted carbonated. And I almost threw up.

“Do you have any pot left?”

“No. Why? You don’t want to be stoned when you see him.”

“I know, I don’t. But I just need something to motivate me.”

I left with nothing but music. The city provided the cold air. This turned out to be more than enough. When I walked in I thought I was early, but then I saw him in the back, again waiting for me. I felt like an asshole, but not for long. His reaction told me he thought I seemed unnatural. We all can be seen through. I stood outside, watching his hand shake, as he smoked the cigarette he had rolled. He was…no he is…the most striking man I have ever seen in New York City. This would usually make me a bit unlike myself, but with him, it was only the opposite. The first thing I said was my dog died. I told him why I felt it was more than that.

“He’s a Viscela. You know those silver dogs that pose for portraits? Yeah, well that but red and a bit smaller. He was a human being. No exaggeration. And over Thanksgiving the only thing he would do was stare into the pool. The doctors had to give him a B-12 shot, so he could have energy when the whole family came into town.”

I showed him a picture on my phone.

“It’s just strange thinking about it, and maybe better that I never had, but maybe you can learn a lot from animals. Maybe they can teach you what it’s like to go.”

I felt vulnerable saying this—to anyone, but especially to this inconceivable man I barely knew.

“You can. Trust me. They can teach you a lot.”

I believed him because I felt he was the type that had thought about it.

I watched Muffy while I lounged on the patio, achieving little sun. She had been following me everywhere. Was she trying to receive the attention I never gave her? I already have begun to miss her. She reminded me of Tigg—myself personified—and the love she has lost or rather, the love that has ended. And then, she reminded me of my Grandmother. Less than an hour before, I had been told the doctors had discovered cancer on her breast. Tomorrow she was going back to see if it had spread elsewhere. Her first husband died that way. She was only in her twenties when it happened. My father begged me during Thanksgiving to get the spot on my chest checked out. His brother pointed at it with his stitched hand. He had just had cancer removed. I was always telling everyone that it was just a nervous habit—something small that turned into something larger because I had been picking at it for the last two years. But then again, I am the type of person who avoids all confrontation because I fear the possibility that truth can devastate reality.

You can be anywhere and be thinking of some place else.

increments of ART BASEL.

Timely

Robert Frank discusses his book, "The Americans," with Philip Gefter from The New York Times. The book is an intimate visual chronicle of common people in ordinary situations drawn from several trips he made through his adopted country in the mid-1950s.

In retrospect I might say I was lonely, but I wasn't aware of it. 

I was consumed by my wish to make a document. 

Mr. Frank referred several times to the lessons he gained from just such opportune moments: 

“to find your way by intuition, not by intelligence, but intuition.”

*

Then this article. Here I have extracted certain quotes that speak toward what I have been writing about in my application. Look at the body then - even Cindy Crawford's body. I have every intention to reverse the gaze and draw it inward, but this is in a large part because of the ideal then versus the ideal or perhaps, sensationalized and commercialized image now. What has happened? Why in a culture where we want to have more and more power, be "bigger and better" are our bodies becoming smaller and smaller. This use to be a sign of weakness - and now what? - people attribute strength when they see another has been able to control their desires (to eat, to live normally and naturally).

"I was not trying to be shocking, or to be a pioneer. I wasn’t trying to change society, or to be ahead of my time. I didn’t think of myself as liberated, and I don’t believe that I did anything important. I was just myself. I didn’t know any other way to be, or any other way to live."

It was, more than anything, that sense of naturalness that made Ms. Page a star in this shadowy 1950s world...

To look at these photographs is to enter another world. I don’t think for a minute it was a more innocent world, but it was one in which sexualized images of women, even trussed up in rope, seemed somehow, well, charming. I’m sure there are plenty of women and some men who would disagree, saying that one generation’s erotica is another’s pornographic exploitation. But the sheer volume of images that wash over us now have blunted our sensibilities, I think, and made us less alive to the beauty, the poetry and the mysteries of the naked body. We are surrounded by visuals that are far more explicit than any Bettie Page pinup, images of oiled and sculptured flesh that promise the universe and deliver so little.

frankmusik - when you're around & in step

i'm so worn from applications. i haven't the brain left. and am slap happy/eating mint chocolate as a result.

if you like to dance, i mean get down:

There is/was always those situations when I felt the other got the intention all mixed up. I just wanted to enjoy the moment. It wasn't necessary for anything to be a big production. We didn't have to say anything at all. Maybe just some music. Some wine. Or not. Whatever it was. It will always be hard to feel like you aren't being mistaken; for me I always felt, and perhaps it is arrogant, that I was being judged on one pole or the other. I was either wild or seriously intense. I'm just committed to moments. I prefer my independence, but when in groups, I want the engagement (whether that be in the form of a dance, a conversation, etc, perception was necessary). I was there, as I thought we all were, to live/to be in the moment as best we could. But yes, I am all about sensation, adrenaline. But I wasn't asking for anyone to be serious with me, just to indulge themselves - genuinely - and have the appreciation come from that. I won't cling, I swear and if that wasn't assumed, I was always at odds at where the translation went wrong. People need to ask questions more than not. Curiosity can truly help resolve the ego, the mind's limitless ponderings. But I am sure I am just projecting my own concern, attempting to explicate myself, when really, what an impossible stop motion and yet circular feat!

I've been into Lykee Li for awhile now, granted I've been a terrible "fan" and missed every show of hers in NYC, but regardless, I think this may be my favourite performance of hers. Why? Because it is extremely breathy, and I think her voice reflects the action of the words - the story line (if you will). It is the most tantalizing.

Directing you to some good mixes:

Kayne West, Lykee Li, Santagold - Gifted

Ting Tings - Shut Up & Let Me Go CLASSIXX REMIX

Roots Manuva - Let The Spirit HOT CHIP REMIX

Heavy Feet - We Gettin Crunk

Tragic Magic - Tear Up London

Terry Lynn - Street Life WILD LIFE REMIX

Terry Lynn - Kocky/Kingston Logic

Meat Beat Manifesto - Radio Babylon Lee Coombs VIP Mix

Obviously, it is very important that I listen to this beat of music to let my mind not be consumed by thought always. My continual goal is to have a better balance, to not be such an extremist, I do think I have been getting better. Forgetting about my body and jumping in my heels is my favourite indulgence. It is a release and dancing is no time to take yourself seriously... it's really just not the time or place. TERRY LYNN is killin' me... watch out for this... I swear.

The Body Politic: Gorgeous and Grotesque

These are just extracts from the larger New York Times Article that can be found here:

Ms. Dumas’s work tends to aim for the solar plexus, as the show’s morbid title suggests. Fusing the political and the painterly, it grapples with the complexities of image making, the human soul, sexuality, the beauty of art, the masculinity of traditional painting, the ugliness of social oppression. How much it delivers on these scores is a question that this exhibition doesn’t quite answer.

The show suggests that while this amply talented artist has created some riveting images, her work becomes monotonous and obvious when seen in bulk.

Striking abbreviations and fuzzy blurs make us look twice. Is that woman asleep or dead? Has that naked child been playing with red paint or is that blood on its hands? In many instances such doubts keep you moving between the harsh, suggestive imagery and the brushwork and process, but after a while you may begin to feel a bit manipulated.

Close-ups of breasts and the female pudenda from 1972 bring to mind both Eva Hesse’s sexually charged abstractions and Joan Semmel’s monumental views of entwined naked couples. They could also be simply a young artist’s record of her changing body.

At times her career — including her work and her voluble persona — seems like an extended Conceptual Art project intended to turn painting and its maleness on its head. Yet it is framed in a familiar artistic ego and bluster.

Still, one viewer’s stasis could be another’s relentless perseverance. Ms. Dumas’s emphasis on the naked or otherwise vulnerable bodies of women can read as retribution for centuries of less attuned representations by men and also for the supposed neutrality of abstraction.

Some of her works protect women by making them disembodied, cloaking them in abstraction. The abject female of “Magdalena (Out of Eggs, Out of Business)” is little more than a few cursory features and two knee-length strands of hair enveloped in a Rothko-like field of dark red. Yet she doesn’t convince that this approach is all that different from that of Munch.

Ms. Dumas’s best work may lie ahead, and in the direction of greater variety. A model is Louise Bourgeois, whose recurring feminist themes have been presented in a succession of markedly different forms. There are hopeful signs in recent works like the “Moshekwa” portrait (2006); the frowsy, Nan Goldin-ish “Self-Portrait at Noon” from this year; and “Immaculate” (2003).

The question or rather larger issue that comes to my mind is how you extend your oeuvre, while remaining true to your theme and philosophy but making it appear less one-dimensional.

Up To Date: Heavens To Betsy

Three times I sat and wrote. This is what I have ended up with. A lot is missing. But that too was the point. The challenge was to produce a fragment. My constraint was time, mental focus and of course, my ability to feel. 

"Chelsea, why do you think people only tell us half of what they know?"

It's everything, they think.

"But why show us only half of what they feel?"

They feel they should be a mystery.

"Why, Chelsea, why be that?"

They think others will feel they mean more. 

"But they don't, do they?"

Gabe, why do you think I know?

projecting concern, displacement feared.

I am isolated, but not lonely. I am inside myself, but on the outside I am visibly touching you. I feel isolation in the instant of our touch. In each other’s eyes, we are not moving, but I come to mind elsewhere. At home, he lies on his back. A big body in a twin bed. His hands cradle his head. Against the pillow, his arms look like wings. They might be arrows. It’s just a vision and isn’t determined by what he thinks. He’s thinking I haven’t called. He cannot not remind himself of this as night fades to light. “She hasn’t called. She said she would. She didn’t call.” We are always far from where we expect ourselves to be. He’s looking for clarity, but hasn’t made a difference. I don’t feel bad. He isn’t even moving. He’s just lying there, waiting, rewinding, pausing, but never advancing. With others, I have the potential to be all around; even if at the moment, I am touched by you. I want to be committed, but I am always fleeing. They say shadows take to skin, I am afraid of becoming attached. On Friday, Gabe told me he had been alone all day. It was nighttime now. I asked him how it felt. “Not like anything. I was depressed. I am always depressed after snorting drugs. In the morning, I couldn’t move. I sat on my bed and didn’t have a thought. It was the first time I couldn’t think at all.” I asked him how it felt. 

“Not like anything. I may be addicted.” 

Already? 

“These things are immediate.” 

What things? 

“Chelsea, I’m desperate.”

*

They depended upon me. “We, the characters, came from her language.” My story depends upon them. Sure, I could make them up. But once they were dreamt, they were alive—always, somewhere—now. My life was at risk too. If they were to go, disappear, vanish, be forgotten I couldn’t prevent part of my being from dying also.

Was I, the authorial God hovering over the text, speaking through or for the characters? Did I need them to go further, before they needed me? Were they puppets? Could I make them dance? Storytelling is a projection. Few make this connection, because they are too seduced into listening or watching the mouth move and forget to listen entirely. I don’t know where anyone actually is, but I imagine they are not where they appear or how they seem. Here’s a secret: nothing in mind hasn’t been discovered in sense. I am not creative. I use what I have because what I have is all I can think to use. There are no stories that haven't been already thought in some form or another. Which is why I lick the backside of you, like a stamp, and see if I can deliver you to some place you never expected you’d be taken.

Within the instant, there is no linearity. Figures are non-narrative. As soon as the eye blinks, images become anew. The mind collapses these fragments, attempting to restore a scene and develop a memory. But as fragments, a figure is the closest it will ever be to truth. There are many in one and it’s the same situation for all; we are a bit broken up. They have no time. They are lovers. The instant is all they desire to keep. “Now, now, now” can be heard when the wrist is brought to the ear. Tongues pursuing you, you, you, me, my, us. We are engaged in the instant, denying and yet motivated by the reality: this moment is unmatchable. I told you, dare me to be committed to the moment. And look how I behave!—thinking I heard you say, “I dare you to tell me the truth.”

It is certainly difficult to judge, and almost impossible to escape so I can show you what I have in mind. Clarity doesn’t already cling to me as I make meaning. It only follows, which isn’t soon enough. Does that mean I can't be listened to? Tell me if my writing looks like scribbles—a child’s art project drawn with a black Crayola. As a kid I was very serious. I saw in contrast. People don’t change; they only become more of who they are. Have I told you that? I never look back at what I wrote. It was written, that is enough for me. At the time I am confident it is manic musings, genius if provided the chance to be read into. Do I and/or you care? About what? 

“I’m desperate.” 

Who? 

“All of us.”

*

I saw you (and by you I mean him, but you will feel more connected if you think this is all about you) for the first time outside the city. Greenpoint, I think it was. Six randoms sat in the backyard around a picnic table. Others grilled meat, drenched their hot dogs in relish, gargled with “mystery juice”. I was on the outside looking in. Talking but never connecting. Engaged, but that was only how I looked. Inside I was waiting for you. Waiting for someone to know me, to save me from myself. It was an eclectic mix of partygoers. I came to meet a friend’s boyfriend. Well, that’s what she thought. I had my own reason. I came to document moments I would otherwise not see. I had a strange sense we were always being framed and attached to us was a reflection people took us as. My lens cap was always off. Photography is a mirror facing time. People are projections. Eyes don’t speak, but they are the reason we have expectations. The other mediums of art are translations. Translations of time and the people breathing its air. It sounds profound, but it’s only things we are focused on. Things—it sounds superficial, when heard on its own.

Everyone was shit faced. And underneath the sound of their fists banging the wooden tabletop, wrists flinging sake bombs backwards down throats and bongs bubbling filthy water, I could hear myself more deeply. Who was this interior narrator? I always wanted to know. Something. Anything. Even just her name. She was talking to me always and I didn’t even have to answer back. It was a relationship where I didn’t have to be so involved. I liked her because of this.

On the opposite end of the bench, I could hear you talk about your writing. You sounded like you may match my intensity. My eyes couldn’t just pass over you. I stared, wanting you, wanting to know you. See if what you wrote was worth talking about while everyone was shit faced, laughing and looking to score. I took 23 pictures of people highfiving. What were you thinking? I never asked. Maybe you watched me when the camera was over my eye, and thought I’d be the perfect woman to lie down on the page. Maybe you chose me because your other character, the leading lady, turned out to be uninspiring halfway into the novel, and now you needed a quick replacement, a rush of sensations. Something to charge your writing. Make your fingers dance. We were the same, yet different. Like you, I am flooded by language. But as I watched you, listened as you tried to announce your future, I only had hope. Hoped if you would let me know you, you could change my life.

You had nothing to do with my writing.

*

A pleasure to meet you, Gabe. “The pleasure is all mine.” Ten days after, you called wanting coffee.

“Chelsea, it feels like it has taken forever to reach you.” But my voice is always just a phone call away. “What are you doing?”
When?
“Right now.”
Writing.
“A story?”
Fragments toward the whole.
“Come have coffee with me. I’ll give you a plot.”

But it is the climax I need.

What do you look like? I’ve forgotten and remember only what matters. I walk by the window, unaware you are watching through the glass. I am rushing to meet you. The coffee shop is almost empty, but it will fill and we will still find ourselves isolated, becoming closer to each other. From the corner, you look up at me framed inside the doorway. This will be the only instant you act during our entire engagement. 2 months and 17 days. For us it will have felt longer and the quantity of time will hold no meaning. Remember, you saw me in the third dimension, when I was on the outside. You knew we were almost together. But with your head down, for a moment you appeared like you had not been waiting or looking for me. I forgive you. We are all self-conscious.

*

Have you been here long?
“Yes, no.”
You have?
“No, no, not more than an instant.”
Oh god, I’m sorry. Recently, I’ve been behind on life. This was a fragment.
“Are you unfulfilled?”
Sorry, I practically ran here. Remind me, what are we talking about?
“Your writing. Your life.”
Oh, yes yes yes, of course. But they are both separate.
“Are they?”
They should be. But my answer is the same. If fulfilled means finished. Then yes, I am unfulfilled with my writing and my life.

Help me remember. How did you look? Blonde hair. More dark than light. But wouldn’t that be brown? I’ve never been attracted to blondes. So okay, you have brown hair. Green eyes matching my own. Did this help us see the same? Tall, yes you are tall. Taller than I was use to, but I can get use to it. I did get use to it. Now it's a preference. Your body just hung there, loose. And I remember seeing your chest. A sliver of it. Enough to make me wonder. Were you encouraging me to follow you home? I didn’t ask. I did so anyways—on my own accord.

I drank coffee. You had tea.

I thought you came for coffee.
“I came for you.”
Oh, okay.

You looked like you hadn’t expected me. Expected me to be like this. Candid. You are right. I didn’t expect myself to be this way either. But you did something to me. I changed around you. Immediately. Or rather, I was more myself, which was a change and an accomplishment from the usual circumstance. You helped me stay inside myself. Together we communicated that and from there.

I thought you would have charm.
“Chelsea, you have no qualms saying anything that is on your mind.”
Should I be careful?
“Not around me.”
Well, I just figured since you’re a man, you would use your charm. You know, to get me to like you, to keep me interested. But so far you are only a voice. Completely unaware of your body.
“What if that’s the charm?”
What if, Gabe. What if. 

Remind me of the outside. How you appeared. Your shirt, your skin tone, even the type of tea you drank. I can’t remember the truth or everything that is real. Tell me anything, so the story can be more colorful. See, I never thought visions. I thought words. My desire was to collapse time between myself and another. It was more exacting. More intensified. I wanted intimacy. I wanted it all around. I am a writer. I am a human being. I need to feel. Everything else is a projection, and that washed away, disappeared each time I closed my eyes. What is left is fragments, scars of stories stored in my mind, a memory bank of hot flashes. Anything outward had to come inside to last. I took in feelings. I translated the larger reality, and kept a more specific truth. Fragments, you may decide. But who were you to assume something was missing from my story? What I mention is what matters most to me. And really it is all I have. As I write this, I am letting myself give it away.

*

To get closer to another and have our skin touch, we could not let our flesh fool us. This required a risk of some sort on the other’s behalf. I couldn’t ask anyone to take this chance. It [simply] had to happen, against our will and yet as a result of our will, too. And when it did, I always reflected thoughtfully on who that person was to and for me. I thought of how we were together. In the coffee shop, we seemed like we had known each other always. But we knew nothing. We only felt we could, that we were learning, getting somewhere faster than usual.

You became more than memorable—now, to me, you are unforgettable. I wish I could let myself engage in judgment on the page. Then I could make a record of your appearance, your mannerisms, the exterior scene. I wish I could quote you accurately. But whenever someone captivates me, I don't have those things because instead, a feeling is effectuated. They existed in the moment and in the mind as an interior translation. A feeling, a sensation. They provided me with more sense, than accessory detail. How could I possibly show a feeling? How could you, from a feeling, read me and imagine a face—a face I am not even thinking of, for it isn’t how I remember you. It is your touch I return to every time. Remind me, what did you look like?

You are absolutely attractive, that much I know. But it isn’t a result of the visual. I saw the sense or rather felt your sense before I became visually aware. And at the point my sight became active, the two perceptions were already inextricably mingled. So is that what it is? You are unforgettable because I retained the feeling of you, which was immediately intriguing and made me forget to be impressed by your face.

I desperately want to see you as you touch me. But the lights are always off and you are half of what you could be. I am making out with a shadow.

*

“The thing about life is it’s all based on perception. You and I can sit here discussing thoughts until there are no more beans to brew, but we aren’t going to change the ways of the world.”
I don’t know what to do about it. I guess it’s why I’m stuck. Stuck in the middle of a world of words.
“All you can do is tell someone how you feel. Otherwise, you’ll remain the way they see you. Scary, huh?”
What if I feel I think too much?
"Chelsea, what if I told you I could talk to you forever?"

And I followed you home. Wanting to know you, discover us, in another place in time.

*

Once we reached your room, I felt I never left. My body was always there. Waiting while you spoke. Touching you in silence. In Manhattan, one of every two apartments has a tenant that lives alone. There are also bedrooms without windows. You can only see beyond what you imagine could be there. We never minded. It kept us out of time. And was a good reason to never leave. When I left, I never felt you were without me. For three weeks we kissed upside down. Mouth over mouth, passing breath from one body to another. It’s an unbelievable rush. And even more extraordinary was what we hadn’t fathomed: we could survive if were attached and breathing in the same air.

But still, there were things I didn’t know. Gaps I got lost in. Like what happened before me? Who was lying on your bed then? Why wouldn’t you tell me? I swore I wouldn’t mind, but you kept trying to teach me to care. I did care, but not about that.

Tell me who you were.
“But I’m not that way.”
You’re missing the point. You are this way because of then.
“Chelsea, I’ve told you everything. I guess it isn’t what you want to know.”

I just didn’t want summaries. And everything began to feel that way, like you were walking around the core when all I asked was for you to enter it. Was the truth that avoidable? I’d watch you write, and I’d come up with clever ideas. A few lines. How often you used the restroom. If you ate the moment you woke. Whether you napped on your side. Asked you how it felt sleeping on your stomach.

Are you able to breathe?
“Of course or I wouldn’t do it.”

I wrote that down too. Notes and notes. I was building character. One day, you said it made you nervous, that you were becoming too self-conscious. But I am harmless. I didn’t understand the conflict of interests.

I just want to do everything I can to make sure my memory is accurate.
“What memory? You always imply that one day you are going to be up and gone.”
Gabe, strange things happen all the time.
“Not to me.”

You became more involved with your novel. Never letting me read it because it wasn’t good enough yet. Remember that night, you read a passage from Chapter 13 aloud? I wrote it down. It was gorgeous and daring. So fleshed out, like poetry. Anyone could have mistaken it for reality.

Her mind was always a fixed condition
She controlled how often she smiled
How often you laughed.
She had the power to not let anyone just be.

Somehow I felt better because of her
My gestures and mind were separate no longer
They moved in a single wake.

Quantity was restricted,
But I sensed there was reason for everything
And held back because
Quality became something else
Ecstasy, maybe.

When we let ourselves go
We saw each other at our best.
It was then I felt
My body was outside control.

She’d let her hair fall over mirrors,
A curtain across her face
So I couldn’t see her double
She said I may fall in love.

Breathing everything in
Up she’d come, head high with something
Close to a smile.

Unguarded in her underwear,
I loved her most.
Calling—
“My gossamer girl”
I needed her closer.

You never call me your gossamer girl.
“That’s because you’re my nut muffin.”
Then, who is your gossamer girl?
“She isn’t mine. She’s a character. She’s the story’s.”

It was fiction right? Or maybe that one line, “My gossamer girl” was a fragment that bared no truth and the rest was really about me. Everything felt like a mystery. I felt I couldn’t access you, that your opacity was obscured. I went missing in the darkness. Silence suffocated me. Our relationship depended upon what we offered up. We were what we revealed, just as you had said at the coffee shop. And each time you left me curious, I felt you were depriving me of meaning, that you were holding me back from what mattered.

*

From then on when we kissed I couldn’t feel your lips. Your tongue was half awake. I couldn’t remember why I was there. What made me stay? Had we exposed our feelings too soon? And now we didn’t have any? Did we share all our thoughts and now we didn’t speak because we were insecure we’d sound repetitious? Seven times during one week, you entered me and I could tell we both knew you were feeling my inside, how warm I am there, while I was only experiencing your outer shell, your unbearable weight. Was it true, that the unsaid cheats one out of pleasure?

“Chelsea, will you miss me when you’re gone?”
I’m not leaving.
“That’s what they all say. You're already going.”
Whose they?
“All of us.”

*

The day before I left, you asked if I missed you. I said I am always nostalgic. And you asked me to come to bed.

I slept with you for the last time. The night kept me awake. It was too black. Powerful. Profound. I thought of what had happened. How we fell in and fell out. How love is a story I would never be able to tell. It rushes past you. It’s impossible to get it all down. I tried, but maybe I had written down too many thoughts. Maybe I had tried to remember the details and forgot to isolate the feelings. You breathed easily through your dreams. You thought of something better. In boredom, I drew an arrow from your navel down and wrote, “He helps me think.”

In the morning, I woke practically thrown from your bed.

“What’s this about?”
I couldn’t sleep. I was restless. I didn’t mean it.
“Of course you did or you wouldn’t have wrote it.”
Gabe, it’ll come right off. I promise.
“It’s permanent, Chelsea. This is all so goddamn permanent.”

And you threw the sharpie against the wall. I left, never really looking back. When I was on my way, I was going, going, gone. Two days went by. Ten days went by. I drank tea at the coffee shop. Wrote some lines. Fragments, which made it possible to forget the whole truth—to select my story—to reorganize the last 2 months and 17 days of my life and turn it into a memory that was bearable if I was ever tempted to remind myself.

On the 23rd day, you called.

“I told you you would leave.”
No, you told me to leave.
“I have to see you.”
When?
“Right now.”
I can’t, I’m writing.
“You always are, but you still haven’t started your story.”
It’s coming along.
“Barely. Chelsea, please see me. I’ll give you your story.”

*

This time you were waiting for me when I walked in. You were wearing all white with red high-tops. Two mugs of coffee were set on the table. I have no idea why you were behaving this way.

What’s going on?
“Can’t I get a hello first?”
Hi. What’s up?
“How are you? What have you been doing?”
Writing, sleeping around, writing. You know me, the usual. Why what’s up?
“You’ve slept with someone else?”
I’m allowed to aren’t I?
“How does it feel?”
Erotic. Distanced. Unattainable. Poorly evoked.
“Sounds terrible.”
Yeah, it’s not half bad. Now really, what’s this all about?
“I’ve just been alone all day. I was alone yesterday, too. And the day before that and the..well..ever since you left, I’ve just kind of being hanging out. Trying to finish my novel. I was so close to being done. But now all I can think about is how lonely I am.”
What does it feel like?
“Impossible to describe. Like nothing I have ever known.”
Maybe you should be seeing someone.
“I want you back.”
No, I mean, someone professional. Therapy. You even look different.
“Nah, it’s all artificial. Real egocentric. You know Chelsea, I’ve been doing a lot of drugs since you left. I never had before, but it helps. Not all the time. But it really makes a difference in the instant.”
That’s not good, Gabe. That’s not good at all.
“It is until the morning. But it doesn’t help that I have been all alone.”
What happened this morning?
“I couldn’t move. I sat on my bed and didn’t have a thought. It was the first time I couldn’t think at all.”
How did it feel?
“Not like anything. I may be addicted.”
Already?
“These things are immediate.”
What things?
“Chelsea, I’m desperate.”

(edit - Overslept. At times Manhattan barely makes a sound. You look out: there are buildings, an unmovable sky and time is still. You think, "But New York City is always supposed to be moving, making noise, never sleeping." But nothing is supposed to be anything. You determine what a place is - you can make it whatever you want. For me, Manhattan was not what I expected, which could possibly mean it was better. It was a relationship for sure. It had its upsides and downsides. But I needed it. And tried not to anticipate becoming distanced from it; for it was then, I knew, I would want it most. The Science Section is my favourite section of The New York Times. And low and beyond, today an article by NATALIE ANGIER on Touch being "The Indispensable Sense". My dream is to be reviewed for isolating such sensations - to write a novel where touch guided vision, determined relations and defined reality. I want meditation - lines that aren't perfected, edit after edit. I want "stories" to be an interior display. Since, it is those truths that distance us from our self and the other. And I want to start there first, so the intimate is not so unbearable and seeing out does not carry so much weight. Also, an article about Scorpios, which hands down is influencing my next work. I never have been one to follow astrology but read some of it, and you'll see, there are many stories just waiting to be written.)

i need more more more

DON RIMINI - OHOW? from Alex Nebout on Vimeo.
things are getting hot. music is always fresh in my head.

tragic magic - tear up london

A month without Manhattan. It will be missed.

I'm feeling that final song. Got these from a great advertising/digital blog: thelooploop.blogspot.com. I got on my six flight today within the last 3 weeks. I'm okay with finally staying somewhere awhile. Although, the adjustment to one city and the next is so immediate by now, I can barely feel my coming and going.

close your eyes, i have something i want to tell you.

“The thing about life is it’s all based on perception. You and I can sit here discussing thoughts until there are no more beans to brew, but we aren’t going to change the ways of the world.”
I don’t know what to do about it. I guess it’s why I’m stuck. Stuck in the middle of a world of words.
“All you can do is tell someone how you feel. Otherwise, you’ll remain the way they see you. Scary, huh?”
What if I feel I think too much?
"Chelsea, what if I told you I could talk to you forever?"

And I followed you home. Wanting to know you, discover us, in another place in time.

her obsession is passion, he said.

Chelsea:

Way more accessible, until the confusion with names, with Jade, and the falling out of the story with the extended dialogue. No resolution there. But so many gorgeous sentences, interesting captures.

The last chance I have to teach you something.

May if I say passion. I have heard you mention, seems an obsession of yours.

There is a connection between passion and seduction.

Seduction of the reader is what I have been trying to teach you. With no reader, everything you write falls on... unread pages.

You can write a stunning sentence (I mean you, Chelsea, can write a stunning sentence, I have read them), and you can evoke, and you have a singular sound, but, so far, you write with too much disregard for your reader. Not so much with Darkness story, but with the last story. 

I'd like to posit that the passion you are letting rule your (writing) life right now is the passion of the young, the passion for self. But, thank god, with this piece, until the dialogue, not so much.

Of course it is not anyone's fault they are young. They just are. And so they proceed with the sensibilities of the young.

If you read any of my notes you would know that I understand you because I was once you, caring little for my reader. And you would have read that my transgression was much worse than yours - I didn't just ask a workshop of 11 peers and a teacher to read a ten page something that was opaque, impenetrable, inaccessible. I read a 10,000 word story without an ending to a very large room full of people - I took bits and pieces of their lives from them without offering anything in return. Or, even worse, I asked them to commit to something, to open their hearts to something, and then I yanked it away.

Yes, I know that place you are working from.

So, of course, you should keep writing. You will keep writing. You have a singular voice, as I think I mentioned in my first notes to you. And one day, one day, if you stay with it, I think you will start to care about your reader more than you care about yourself. And it will be glory. 

Let's hope. Best.

-

prior letter linked

-

This was nothing I had expected from him. I read it and still don't know if what I am seeing is what it is. But I will keep it for as long as I can. If anyone follows what I write, you may have read a post including two letters (one addressed to me and another addressed to the class about me). He said I was senseless, self-indulgent and that I didn't know how to write. After that day I have felt defeated, more than I have with writing before. Maybe it wasn't defeat, because I only tried to come back harder. But I suppose I just felt the exhaustion I have been dealing with. And I felt very small, like I have been dedicated to reading and writing this past year and have ultimately, wasted time and avoided what meant something. This isn't to say that is the case. It was just what I felt. I didn't know whether I should be looking at myself differently. What I ultimately turned in and which is what the above is a response to, came about in the instant or rather two different sittings. I was tired, anxious, sober. But I also tried to have fun. I wrote as a man. And I tried to be judgmental. Somehow - and it blows my mind - the dialogue was still considered dense, lyrical, accurate, vapid, Joycelike - even though I used words like "pussy" "prick" and "Winehouse". Was letting myself have a bit of delirious fun what worked in my favour? Was inventing story rather than translating my story what was appreciated? I don't know. It did shock me when my professor had responded so harshly to me. Shocked because I felt like he was always looking at me a certain way from across the table - looking at me like he understood. I began reading his notes, for the first time, last weekend. I thought they were gorgeous and daring. I wanted to quote him. I wanted this to be who I heard speak in class. I felt we shared something similar, and it made me nostalgic about a correspondence we never had and an inspiration that I never received from him. It is a Graduate class I am taking and he had been a student at my dream school. I wanted to look up to him. But I felt like he hated what I did, what I thought, my sensibility. I would do anything to have him meet me half way, help me break through where I am getting held up. I wish I had been able to finish the piece that was work-shopped, but there will be time. And I hope I will always find pleasure in the text. His letter does something to me - each one of them has - but I am not sure what. I hope in some life I will be remembered for my words. I hope I can continue on, become healthy, gain freedom from my body, so my hands can help others and my words can sound like they are coming from another's mouth. I feel for others - the other has always been my deepest concern, fascination, mystificatio and deceivance - but I know I am still so far from understanding their patterns. All the same, I am trying more everyday and I am learning, that it is true, not everyone has the same wants as I do at my core. We don't even all have morales. I assumed as much as I feared others assumed qualities about me. But it was the other who motivated me to overcome my disorders. I knew if I could forget my fears, I could hear other people and listen to them. I wanted to be less of a hypocrite. I wanted others to trust my sincerity. In this life, I hope I can do what one day he thinks I can: be here entirely for you.

I've got a ticket to ride.

I'm behind on life. I can't remember the last time I was able to focus. But I have a mean adrenaline rush, which is to say, I haven't really slept in...hm?...The Student Health Center gave me a card for the "Insomnia Workshop". It is on my desk and has been there for a month or more.  2009 will be a good feeling. 

ppp art tea.

last night party picture 

last night party picture

This weekend I was around the infamous photographer from lastnightsparty who always captures/orchestrates the wildest shots. It was interesting to observe him in the context that I could. He seemed kinda floaty, almost gentle in away, not in your face. But it was funny watching him take pictures of two girls and then suddenly pop kiss one to almost tease the surprise/tension out of her and then from there, do it again, and gesture for the two girls to begin doing it. Also, was being photographed as he took the girl to my left and whispered into her ear that she wasn't doing things right. It's just silly for anyone to assume "reality" isn't just a product of a other design.

to find and find again.

I'm in Miami for Art Basel. It feels good to see how far the city has come in six years. Watched synchronized swimmers, art lazored on a side building, met a man with the most perfect teeth, pretended to talk art, talked about everything else instead, his having been a "Harvard nerd" appealed to me, he made it seem like it had conditioned him, I translated his labeling as innocence which - alas - is so difficult to find and/or keep, to my surprise Animal Collective was performing, went, felt like I was in an enormous tent in the black pitch of the night, bought a $15 Black Russian, watched video art explode in ecstasy across my eyes, talked drugs, living in the instant, my friend thought it was the worse music she had ever heard, I didn't think it was "depressing" I thought it was a climax, two men stopped me on the way out, talked astrology, tried to persuade me that Cancers and Geminis were made for each other, he kept folding his two hands together like flesh rubbing up against each other, I told him he didn't have to convince me, that I had experienced a Gemini and I would have the moments for life, saw more people, was put on video, whispered into my ear "Chelsea, I love your thoughts" I wondered whether he meant it to the extent it seemed, saw the Manhattan man now with a mustache, he messaged me and I saw he had wished me Thanksgiving which was neither here nor there, but I mentioned now was nice nonetheless, drove to the beach, saw another him outside the club, loved seeing him each time, knew I'd always think thoughtfully of him and remember how much my perception of him had been the opposite of who I experience him as, exemplifying why the exterior is no disclaimer, was led upstairs, I sat in the emerald chair in the office, was analyzed in a very provocative way, "Don't talk about what she looks like, her thoughts run deep," thought he was gorgeous, comforting but also the brother, I loved his height and his mannerisms, the confidence of his ease, his eye contact, the curiosity, the questions, the courage to know and ask, how when he spoke he didn't rush his words, said we had to find my friend, she was found, came upstairs, chewed me out, brought me downstairs, personally offended me and then the club which was also a stab to my friend's project, shouted this was who I was, who I had always been, it was always about me, pointed her down, backed into a corner, said she couldn't speak to me like this, couldn't say these things about my character now if she hadn't seen me since then, so many people watched, this had me feeling worse, petty, not who we are, the guys asked me if she was my girlfriend, that that was how it seemed, no she was projecting, wished she didn't feel alone, had silly string squirted at me and his brother, laughed saying these are the fun things which is why you've got to learn to let it go, finally got her on the dance floor and we were jumping in our heels till 4am, I wanted to see past it all, we had a thick history together and at the core I had brought her with me and bought her tickets for Saturday night's DJ because I wanted us to experience the moments that had always made us feel alive, said goodbye, he grabbed my neck, shouted how happy he was that I was staying till Monday, sounded like a kid, I thought I will always like you now, he messed up my hair, and I shouted this is what your club does to me, has me dancing hours and sweating every last drop, ate a brownie at a new corner joint with a guy I use to spend the "other" sort of time with, a girl he had showed up at my house with magically was sitting with her back turned to us, didn't recognize her, they both laughed like I was lying and concealing hidden remorse or envy, it wasn't that I just still couldn't get over how hard she seemed, I got to sit in the middle and listen to their back and forth, random lines back and forth like they had been in Kindergarten together, passing spoon fulls of brownie back and forth, thought how a year ago I'd be too bitter to be eating this but at this point in my life it was the third brownie I had eaten in 24 hours, which brought me back to the moment before I left the house and my father's friend sat with me on the couch and said he hadn't seen me happier, remembered me and my exboyfriend, how he saw what seemed like so much love, but thought I should be free, single, on my own, Yes yes I was happy I was, only stressed about work, he said I didn't know what stress is, I told him that was exactly what was stressing me out, back to the deli and the brownie and I am hearing his analysis of their entire engagement, and it sounds more egotistical then sentimental, tells me he has an affinity for her despite her being trash, it made me think of the guy I had seen before leaving Manhattan, who said he had an affinity for me, it was the first time I had heard the word used, I couldn't resist comparing the relations of these "affinities" and recognize their disparity, they said drastically different things about us, I sat there and thought three things: We all are contradictions, I'm confident with my instinct, and I'm so glad I'm over us.