I just want to sit in this life for a bit, but instead I am going to New York...
we threw a darty this weekend, then we went to the end up, I think coke makes me a bitch...I feel superior to everyone for no reason...
so emphatically nice to not have work today, I want to quit...maybe I'll just be a rich kid...
reading about Modigliani....the legacy of artist as fuckboy...École de Paris - Guillaume Apollinaire, Jean Cocteau, Max Jacob, André Salmon, Moise Kisling and Modigliani...being in community with a bunch of other creative bohemian people, art as a window to the self...
what are all the things I could do if only I had the time? watch documentaries, read books, get my nails done, clean my room...
this RISD class got me like O_O
Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts and Early Printed Illustrations
How an Illuminated Manuscript is made
The Liver is the Cock's Comb by Arshile Gorky (1944)
aw man, just too much going on...its like crashing from a sugar rush. I was buggin a little after claudia left on Tuesday - I felt bad not spending enough time with her. nothing unhealthy, though, I felt pretty confident there just wasn't really much I could have done about the matter - juggling so many things just is really tough. I've been thinking lately maybe I'm conditioned to be frantic - it's the path of least resistance, easiest, most familiar, to just be totally overbooked and stretched thin all the time. since I was 13 that's the way it's been, and there is only ever positive reinforcement for it. in high school we were constantly told that we weren't doing enough, that we had to be superhuman, and that was the only way we were going to get into harvard. (I mean, not wrong...) but I think I just got really good at juggling. now, in control of my own life, it's tough to forego that sense of urgency and really make my life into something that makes me happy. not to say I haven't been happy recently - I've been having a lot of fun. but I do think some of the facets of my life have been suffering, and especially throwing a burgeoning relationship in the mix has exacerbated that. dropping the ball doesn't feel good, even if it's just a work meeting I missed, or a text I forgot to respond to from a friend. wouldn't it be nicer if I could just actually complete and do everything really well? wouldn't it make me feel better about myself?
the things holding me back from that are just overcommitting, always saying yes, and feeling like there's a sense of urgency about everything. I have to continually remind myself that this isn't college anymore - there aren't artificial deadlines, like a paper being due or an action or me leaving Chicago for the summer, that would motivate me to cram a lot of stuff in at once, or justify it. my life is of my own design, and there's really no rush - if I don't get to something this summer, I can just do it next summer. maybe it's genetic, too, my mom is always in go-go-go mode...she can't even stop to meditate because she doesn't like to be unproductive and alone with her thoughts.
I think capitalism really reinforces this faux sense of urgency - trying to maximize the potential of every second, always multi-tasking, carpe diem. in some ways, I'm not totally against this - I get a lot of shit done, and I'm good at it. the question is less about what is the 'right' way to be, and more about how I want to be. I think I could afford to lean in a little more to being mindful, present, zoned in, focused. I feel bad that when I'm talking to my mom sometimes I drift away from the conversation and have to have her repeat what she was saying. I feel bad that when I have a lot going on I neglect my friendships to a certain degree. on the flip side, when I don't have enough to do, I feel lonely, bored, and bad about myself. I think it's about finding a healthy balance, and the only indicator of that is my mood, my spidey sense, I guess.
the last few weeks have been really really crazy. every second has been dedicated to at least two things: driving while on a call, hanging out with friends while working, building a community while trying to water this relationship. I think multitasking can be a really useful skill, not only in service of capitalism, but I think it's better to be intentional about it rather than have it be my default way of being in the world. I also think boredom, at least for me, can be really inspiring - pockets of empty time are when I research things I care about, practice skills that have fallen by the wayside, or do impromptu activities that add a lot to my life. to be booked up every second actually I think makes me less interesting of a person, and gives me less to talk about. wrapped into this also is the notion of spending time alone. I feel socially exhausted from the last few weeks, and feel myself slipping into the familiar pattern of defining myself by my social engagements and relationships rather than by some innate sense of worth and intrigue. I'm not particularly worried about it, because I feel secure in my personhood in a way I didn't before covid, but I do feel a desire to lean back into being more solitary and rogue, more self-involved and introspective. I haven't even wormed in so long - such a shame when I find myself so interesting ;)
when I was at the untz, I had a lot of time to think to myself, actually. in the crowd on drugs you spend a lot of time going places...figuring things out. on acid at supertask I felt myself getting anxious, but instead of running away from myself I had to sit there, I came up with a game where I imagined what the sounds I was hearing reminded me of visually, and immediately I felt gleeful and present, playing this game with myself and occupying my brain enough to distract from the anxious thoughts. having those small moments to yourself can be so rewarding - walking to the bathroom along the side of the crowd and just being whelmed with the visual stimuli, amused by the silly people I saw, entranced by the thumping bass. I felt like a magic elf, zach said I looked like a post-apocalyptic scavenger, in my element in a downtrodden but resilient world.
I dont love to be alone when it's not by choice, but I absolutely love to be alone by choice. from the festival I noted I wanted more rogue energy in my life. at the same time, I want to build the grateful dead house, which I really feel I have progressed leaps and bounds in doing, and others have taken notice and appreciated it, which makes me feel really good. I'm building a little life for myself, and it's really all I wanted before covid, which is why I can't exactly say I feel bad about the way things have been going. I'm finally making progress on everything I have ever wanted, ever since I was 15 and alienated from any sense of community, and all I had was my art and my music and my thoughts that I desperately wanted to share with people but had no one to share with. I'm glad I held on to life back then, with the glimmer of hope that it would, one day, get better, because for sure it has...
yesterday I drove back from fremont and everything made sense for a second. the 60s, the hippies, the tech boom, the hanging out with Aditi in suburban wasteland, the driving back from the mall watching the sunset, the jerry Garcia playing in the panhandle, the throwing parties in oakland, the working next to the tribune tower in college, the smoking weed every day after my internship when I was living alone in San Francisco. the tense family dinners in the city, the glitter of the water off the Richmond bridge driving to josh's in san geronimo in high school, the cold depraved winters in fremont, the getting up at 6am to drive to school in the chilly mornings. it occurred to me that the narrative thread that linked all these disparate things together was just my life, and maybe my project is even more navel-gazing than I initially thought it was - and that's OK, because what else would I care about anyway? the historical undercurrents that warp the Bay Area are what led me to be who I am, they are what gave me these strange experiences, and they ground me in an understanding of place that I am eternally grateful for. to be from nowhere - what a sad thing indeed...
I watched the lights on st. Ignatius church listening to the close of morning dew in my car and felt that there was no place I would rather be. despite running away every once in a while, when I get bored or restless, I really feel that an attachment to and an understanding of this place is integral to my identity. I've been thinking about the qualities I want to center in my life - grace, and gratitude. when I was angsty driving to oakland the other day, listening to pavement, I saw a dead license plate frame on the car in front of me that said, 'have a grateful day!'. I laughed to myself, and I thought about how gratitude is so important, like a life hack, and that to handle any difficulty with grace is all anyone could ever aspire towards. how ugly to feel sorry for yourself, or to be angry or upset at the things you cannot change - how much more mature and enlightened it would be to accept, without resent, that life is full of ups and downs, and nothing is ever perfect, despite what you see in the movies...
life is crraaaayyyzyyyyyy...
a lot going on in the next week, next couple weeks, next month, next couple months, but I'm chugging steadily along - gotta do my company retreat, pick up our sub, throw a darty, gotta finish reviewing these CAC grant applications, prep for my sabbatical, move joof along, get dinner in fremont, respond to Muriel and Louis, spend time with claudia before she leaves, dote on my new lover...(I jest – sort of...) some thoughts floating about on: to what degree should we write about art? what writing on art is useful? does making a living off your art provide a perverse incentive/make you make art that isn't true to yourself? what's the difference between calling yourself an artist or a painter, a musician or a guitarist/DJ/bedroom producer? should I get a masters degree...
a little worried the drugs are making me dumb...talked to Aditi, when you're not in school your critical thinking muscle isn't really being flexed, and so it's so easy to lapse into hedonism because there are no visible consequences...until im trying to grasp what Jon's experiment is about and I realize I can barely retain the last 10 seconds of what was said, like a goldfish... :/
thinking maybe I miss school...thinking maybe I look into graduate programs...I guess I'm not that old yet, I could afford to wait a little bit...
how to flex the muscle? don't particularly want to cut down on the drugs, or the partying, because isn't that what your 20s are about, and also I won't always be able to do this, not when I'm 40...maybe it's fine to be kind of dumb though too, and besides what does it even mean to be dumb? just because you can't put the thought/feeling into words, does that mean you're dumb....maybe it means you're not particularly eloquent, but maybe dumb is too strong a word...
it occurs to me these are the disparate tendrils of a conversation that has been happening in my head over the past couple weeks...what does it mean to be smart, to get 'it'? what am I missing in my life? I guess I could join a reading group, but nah, fuck that shit...
I should maybe go to more museums, read more. I got all this theory from verso that I don't pretend I could possibly have understood in its entirety in college, but I haven't even attempted it yet, whereas in college at least I would try, out of sheer necessity, maybe cuz of an assignment or maybe because I needed to figure out my life purpose...and I had some belief that Adorno or ranciere would help me get there...or maybe cuz I wanted to flex and felt competitive about being smart and well-read and able to grasp complex concepts, and that's honestly not all bad...
think museums are good, and art shows, and reading more, but not just passively consuming them - need to write, reflect, integrate, not just imbibe...I guess it's true with drugs too, or at least the way I like to use drugs - what do they teach you about yourself, what can you learn?
I learned that if I am prepared for a trip it lessens the chance that I will have a bad one, need to have - water, lip balm, a sippy drink, tiger balm, Advil, pocketknife (for utility or self defense), warm clothing, headband, eye drops(!), bandana, sunglasses, hair tie, pashmina, phone, money, keys...then I can fully vibe...the thought of having the things brings so much comfort, in the case that I might need any of them, and even the placebo effect of self-medication helps put me at ease, like maybe I have an anxious thought but then I use some lip balm, rub some menthol on my nose, and suddenly im like ok, its all good now, im chillin...im here...
anyway, the thoughts don't really cohere, I dont have a central thesis, maybe I'm being pulled in too many directions...finally sf design week is done, but now I just signed up for that Ableton course (im gonna DO it this time...oh fuck and my RISD course, which apparently starts on 6/21...)
im laughably over-burdened, in classic me fashion, but that's honestly maybe how I feel most comfortable, or at the very least its the most familiar...I wonder what it would be like to train myself to take on less, wonder if it would just be boring and less fun... =)
untz untz untz.... after raging to khiva in the crowd I came back to our chairs and zach was sitting there and he handed me a bowl of CBD to hit and I sat down and said to him - "this is the craziest dream ever"...I think im addicted to the bass, I could be a festival kid...the coffee I just got set me straight enough to worm, to crack the window remix taso vip.... how to explain what just happened? it wasn't even music anymore, just 7d experience...khiva was so nuts, sitting down there next to zach, rainbow tarps overhead, wind in pashmina, everyone looked absolutely crazy and fun, like a circus...I thought, this is how we party...so many drugs, can't get anything straight anymore...the energy was rogue, the whole festival was rogue, and it was fun to be rogue... I had everything I could need, different and so much better than liquid stranger, where I was dependent on others for water, etc....this time I was like, okay zach is going to sleep, darren god knows where he is, maybe he went back with zach, but like im chilling, I have literally everything I could possibly need here with me...I can go rogue...
the truth set made me lose my marbles....I truly thought I was experiencing a psychic break...like a fugue...but I was so chill with it, like I was in Alice in wonderland... truly the trippiest party ever... I had to remind myself - we are at a concert...this is entertainment... we are at a party.... this is supposed to be FUN...how is this legal...? truth was so nutty....also I was alone for it, except for Homie who just kept vibing next to me, like a reminder of all that is good in the world...that trip was a great reminder that im chilling by myself... can handle myself.... im good...
such rampant drug use.... totally fucking psychotic... have never seen that many people huffing nitrous in my life... ketamollicaine...and somehow this is a legal, sanctioned(?) event... just like a huge renegade... hahahahahaha.... this fest was so rogue...
how fucking sick to just spend a whole weekend listening to bass music, vibing, on a bender, with friends, sometimes rogue, dipping in the river, partying, camping, hanging out, meeting homies, dancing, eating good food...at the end I thought I might permanently conk off, like God was about to just hit the off button cuz I was going too hard.... I could barely walk... I slept for 20 hours when we got back monday morning... literally was on autopilot... I dont think ive ever gone so hard in my life... maybe senior week of college....
ketamine in the early hours of the morning on monday at the wormhole stage was a vibe... Darren and I kept switching off going into the crowd and hanging with the homies behind us.... at the end of it all I had lost all shame and ego, I was dancing then I would just zonk out on the ground wrapped in my Victoria's Secret fuzzy blanket for some indeterminate amount of time... then get up and dance again... and do more ketamine... and hit the bowl... and hit some tiger balm... im addicted to mate/sippy drink and tiger balm.... you literally turn into a baby...I thought - does this music make you stupid? lol.... like how adults used to talk about rock music in the 60s-80s.... like, honestly maybe.... but im here for it lol...
the sample - 'does anyone even like this music?' that was so funny haha.... is it even music? at the peak of my trip I was literally just like this is just sounds... or like, not even sounds, like some 6th sense... a totally incomprehensible language, devil worship... like zach said...
this was the fucking littest festival ever...it would have been nice if it weren't so hot so we could have slept during the day, but honestly I was vibing...thinking about lessons learned from tripping.... was so fun to be on the dirt with zach the first night trying to pack a bowl and taking foooorever....hahha.... and sticking our hands into the bag looking for the grinder and it was like the nether, like god knows where my arm has gone...not getting that back anytime soon...
acid is so fucking fun....glad liquid stranger didn't ruin it for me lol...but now im more prepared too, just gotta be rogue and have everything I need with me...no Jacob running off with the water, lol...and the confidence that I can handle myself...and that 'im on drugs...'
what did we do last week, before I forget? uhhh...highlights...
then we went fest mode....im kind of itching for another one already...is that crazy? that iced latte did me good, can't believe I was even able to write this worm...my brain is so fucked from all the partying...hedonism at its finest...its for sure a strenuous way to have fun, but the payoff is so rewarding...a dream, but I didn't wake up, it just kept going...
it occurs to me that untz was the start to the summer...maybe this summer will just continue to be totally insane...if anything, it taught me that sleep is great but not totally necessary...not a huge deal to not sleep for 1, 2 nights...can still have a sick time....but might need some drugs to get you through it...it was like Minecraft...being awake for so long and then the sun just rises.... and you see all of it... usually we are asleep for all that...
can't wait to throw parties with our new sound system...feeling a little crazy rogue and fun... no loyalties...a tender 23...
