Random notes from a trip to NYC / DC, February 2015

...except in a legible format. Words are unedited [save for clarity] but I did rearrange the order of things: 

Traveling alone. What a trip. Not literally. From everyone to no one to everyone again. 
I'm lost and not lost.

The parks here advertise wifi. Parks.

Everyone is talking. To each other. On the phone. To themselves. On the phone but looks like talking to themselves.

Seagulls dine on the garbage on 3rd avenue / sparrows dine on a fell pizza slice

Gay ketchup marriage.

I noticed your lipstick. You don't need lipstick.
 
I do feel less self-conscious here. Is it the city doing that? Is it me being a tourist anywhere? Is it a growing personality trait in general? Sorta sick of being alone and left to my own thoughts. At the same time, sick of talking about myself. I've never asked myself what am I doing here as much as when I'm in NYC.

Has being sarcastic fucked my life over? No, not being sarcastic has fucked other people over.

I'm way too aware of how I look for not caring how I look.

Whatever this state of mind is, I feel the opposite of present. I have to remind myself to exist. To be.


When you're this hungover the ground looks like water beneath your feet and you can drown by doing something as simple as just standing there. Being hungover and not remembering to breathe. Because breathing might mean you vomit. Or it might just be too much work. You hear high pitched signals and you're not sure if you're making it up inside your head or if it's an actual sound. You say words and just read the look in other peoples eyes you can read their mind actually that you know that they know that you have no idea what the fuck you're saying

I  just have this tremendous feeling that I'll be figured out for the fraud I am sometime soon. And there's no reason for it. Covering up the parts of ourselves that we didn't even know we're covering up is even scarier than being someone like Benny* and trying to cover up something we know we did wrong.

I remember feeling the blood in the capillaries in my nose. I remember the feeling of my feet swimming in the sweat accumulated in my socks. I remember the pops and hisses of Zeppelin III striking my ears like aural shrapnel. I remember how comfortable it was to relax on the couch while being too conscious of having to relax. Those of us that crave stress and are prone to anxiety shall stay away from any non-liquid social lubricants. Weed traps you in your own head, forcing your eyes closed like blinds at sunset of the bedroom of your mind.

What we write about when we talk about writing about drugs: You can't talk about writing about weed without writing about weed after smoking weed.

Buzzfeed is CDs. The old vanguard of journalism will return like vinyl. If books aren't going anywhere than neither is relevant journalism.

I should read more Jim Carroll.

Can't imagine how much better of a place this world would be if Joe Strummer was still alive.

Why do drum solos seem so much more compelling than other solos? Do drummers bleed the most? Can you bleed playing trumpet? 

What does it mean to create art about the urban experience in a time when more people now live in cities than rural environments?

Man Ray. Twelfth Night. 1948. The nature of relationships of objects should be complicated. Improbable connections. Overlapping relationships? Would you rather be accepted or understood? "The tricks of today will become the truths of tomorrow."

Is it better to know what you want or to appear to know what you want?

I'll miss going to bars alone and not miss going to bars alone. Where's the airport dive bar?

The world is so fucking rad. Who said it's good to be alive? Be alive. Is that a privileged p.o.v? Maybe. But when you recognize what is basic to culture, and derive meaning from its commonality, that's when you find true meaning. Fulfillment.

Let's try to figure it out. Jam Queens. Titus. Moon Furies. Some DJ @ Santos. Ed, Grooms, APTBS. Free Malort. Bach @ noon. Malort in DC. Comedy in a basement. Jazz @ a hookah bar. Punk stuff. Countless bars and restaurants. Dali. Matisse. Magritte. Van Gogh. Rothko. Johns. O'Keefe. Klimt. Hockney. Rauschenberg. Gauguin. People yelling on the streets. A diner w/Lauren. A bar w/Keith. Vomit in Bushwick. Lone Wolf. Lone Wolf again. And again. Talking too much. Not talking enough. Comparing cities that shouldn't be compared. Comparing things that shouldn't be compared.

It's ok to be different. It's alright the way that you live. It's alright the way that you live.

*I have no idea who this Benny is. I'm not even sure if that's what I wrote. I wrote this part in a state of delirieum on a Megabus, half-conscious / half-reading-Steppenwolf.