cold

Saturday I went to a party and talked with a guy for a really long time because he reminded me of adam driver’s character in girls. The resemblance startled me in a good way. He was an actor from texas. He worked at an equinox where he’d met Cary Elwes. I told him that I fell in love with Westley from The Princess Bride at a very early age. He told me that his dad’s favorite song is the one I’m named after.

Sunday I met a at mud but there was something going on. So we walked around the block and saw three people just like us sitting at a bar drinking coffee. This was all we wanted to do. We sat down next to them and looked at the menu and laughed at the prices we weren’t going to pay. We ordered a latte and an americano. Sure, some bread. We talked about our friends and how we felt about the people we are and aren’t sleeping with. We laughed so loudly that the restaurant manager came over and introduced himself. After passing back and forth a pleasant few sentences, he told us we were incredibly delightful, and then seemed to make the fact we stayed that way his personal business. He came back, gave us his card, told us to email him so we could set up a reservation. He came back again with two enormous warm cookies. We gushed over him, paid the bill, and drafted an email.

I bought mittens that were on sale because my hands hadn’t been warm in a week. I think they’re perfect. 

In winter you get creative because it’s very cold outside. Every walk between buildings is desperate. Every entrance a magnificent relief. 

I like being at the mercy of freezing temperatures. After work last week I sat outside and talked on the phone for ages. The night before I read outside of a bar until my friends met me there. I like the way cold clears my head. I like the way it makes me vulnerable in a very physical way. I like the way I can feel my body tighten. I like how my cheeks stiffen and flush and my nose runs. I imagine being poisoned feels this way.

I had never seen the city as beautiful as it was when a layer of ice coated it. It distilled every building, person, rat. All anyone thought to do was keep moving, though they needed to be slow because their limbs had hardened and they were in danger of slipping. I think this kind of distillation of purpose is beautiful. One must only perform their function when they are out in the cold. Every movement and layer and plan you make is in defense of your precious warmth. Humans so rarely possess such a gracefulness. Real grace only really exists outside, naturally, and in design. We are beings! Made of hot blood! chaos! That’s what makes us! but when submitted to a deep cold, the world and all it contains becomes lovely and still. My favorite color is always blue; right now it's the palest of them all. A breath of calm, cool air. As you wish, in a color.

Those who don't like winter, who think I’m false or brutal or whatever for my sentiment, I’m sorry you read this. I’m actually a cancer.

*A lot of this only applies to being cold in the city. Being cold in the country can be much more dire.

personality

I chatted forever with my hairdresser: He told me about the car accident he got into around when the time changed. One minute he was driving and the next he was being shaken awake by a good samaritan wearing thick glasses and chunks of his brain were on the side of the road. He was told that after he regained consciousness he was furiously walking around holding two cigarettes between consecutive fingers smoking them both at once. He acted this out for me. Now he can only hear vowels and gets tired easily and randomly. I like him because he says crazy things that are filled with truth and we often see eye to eye. He talks sporadically and nimbly leaps from one topic to the next. Sometimes when he notices himself in the mirror he stops talking altogether. He takes his hands off my hair to touch his own. He gingerly fluffs the curls of his perm.

He said that physical violence underpins all interactions between men and that is why they are simple, why the so-called patriarchy rules in terms of crime and violence and law and order and retribution. Women rule in much more powerful, covert ways that have to do with emotional manipulation and psychological warfare. A man’s dignity, too, comes from his restraint, how he knows he is capable of physical harm and chooses to mostly abstain. And how he can be counted on to dole out harm and favor when called upon. A woman’s, well, comes from a much darker and more magical place. 

We spoke of the power of personality, which is something that has personally interested me as of late. I told him that I recently watched iron claw, which charmed me despite how much it descended into melodrama. Zac Efron’s grotesque muscles and superhuman jaw, each of their hideous hairstyles and spandex suits, and the fraught psychological dynamic between father and sons made the cast of characters very visually appetizing and emotionally delicious, a freak show fit for Nightmare Alley, for which I’m a glutton. 

In it Zac explains to Lily James that though their fights are meticulously choreographed, those who win are deservéd because they proved their athleticism, agility, and strength of personality before, during, and after their matches. And we come to understand that the latter part is most important when a younger brother is deemed more fit for success than the stronger and more disciplined eldest because of his oratorical skill. He more skillfully crafted image, and so became more successful as a wrestler. After all a wrestler’s persona exists all the time in the ring right beside his powerbomb or jackknife. One makes the other more magnetic, more exciting, and ultimately more valuable in either case. And yes athleticism and agility are impressive, though charisma and magnetism is what makes one more, what makes one great.

I told my hairdresser that I think The crafting of a compelling or interesting or magnetic persona is much more socially valuable than what the person behind said persona actually creates or adds in any artistic or intellectual or even political capacity. He agreed: One goes to war for the sake of image, and people are executed in its preservation, ie. communism. This is why such figures like Marina Abromović, Rick Owens, Marc Jacobs, and Terry Richardson, who are true artists with true tastes and possess true senses of what makes one alluring, are kept close by those in power, celebrities and politicians alike, because they understand that their influence hinges on public perception, and such a thing is fickle unless you know how to command its sway and more so make it work in your favor. Image is paramount in any public arena, and its cultivation must be undertaken with great seriousness and with the help of great expertise. Such has always existed within royal courts, oracles, advisors, and first ladies; and within all of these official and unofficial groups of power players, the artist, who is schooled in the creation, composition, and manipulation of image, is always paramount.

I spent four hours in the salon chair and only got a partial. My hair is kind of brown now.

the year upcoming..

In: Publishing, 

revision,

idoling, explosivity, real fur, patent leather,
directing, personality,

flesh, blood, dignity, masculinity, the future, realism,

Motherhood,

Low glam, low lights,

Atheism and God,

lesbians, meat, America, belligerent laughter

Out: empaths,

sanitization, cleanliness, aesthetic scheming, fake fur, 

raves, acting,

the old, work from home, Europe,

online shopping, Amazon, Hello Fresh etc., plans, 
Brooklyn for young people, 

morality, modesty, feigned madness, apologies, fake lashes,

gen z haircuts, 
over-socializing, clout, family ties, 
cheetah print

winter!

I am so charmed by life! I eat little squares of chocolate in the middle of the day. 

I love the winter. That sounds like such a simple expression. I really am in love with the winter. It romances me! charms! dazzles! warms!. I feel warmth extra, warmth+. I bask in the strength of the light. The dark is rich like mousse. I scoop spoonfuls of it into my mouth! 

I love how the dark makes people small and scurry indoors where they're safe. I peer into their warm living rooms that are so warmly lit. So often they seek respite in each other. I love how the cold makes things taste sweeter, cheeks stiffer, kisses wetter. People walk closer in the streets and are bundled like children. This winter is an especially lovely one. My time is completely mine. I have beautiful people to warm me. I feel desired. I feel as though I am myself and possess enough power to exercise will over my own life—invigorating! I have made decisions! I am in very few ways at the mercy of or beholden to others. My relationships are secure. How boring! I am my only responsibility! What freedom!

On the third I woke up very happy. Someone very sweet had held me very tight all night long. I had drank in ridgewood the night before with people I love. I gushed that morning. It was disgusting, glutinous, hilarious just how content I was. I have since come back down, been grounded by guilt and shame and all those things that keep us human, but still I am charmed! still I eat chocolate in the middle of the day!

wishlist

the books I read from the library last month, blue and grey tapered candles, vacquera t-shirt (small), a gift card for a 50 dinners on the lower east side, for the industry I want to work in to have a future, for the industry I want to work in to want me, Mac lip liners, a big beautiful two-toned rug, Carels, driving loafers, free time I use wisely, an Hermes scarf, all the movies I want to watch: on Hulu, to be looked at lovingly, an oversized single-breasted coat, the Sopranos—every single one of them, a carton of cigarettes, a kiss from r, all my friends in a kitchen

just right

c and I went to a diner under an overpass in Greenpoint on thanksgiving. It was empty apart from the waitress, one guy behind the counter, and two other pairs of girls who looked a lot like us and left soon after we sat down. We ordered matzo ball soup, the turkey dinner, french toast, and a chocolate raspberry milkshake. Everything came at once. We took a few bites of the turkey that was smothered in gravy and then turned our attention to the french toast. We sucked down a few inches of our shake, and I topped it off with the peach vodka c had in her purse. 

The turkey grew cold and the gravy wrinkled. We drained the shake and got a little louder. 

The atmosphere was wildly depressing, but c and I being two romantics lapped it up. We paid the bill, went to two other bars where we talked about our taste in men, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, and our mothers. And then to house of yes. c charmed an older guy whose coattails we rode at the door. I spoke with a German boy for a while who called me an angel because I got him a glass of water. It was a nice thing to be called so I kissed him.

I am so full of cautionary tales. I was loaded up by literature and film. of women who get married and then are tortured by the role of wife they are then asked to play. Who give birth and go mad because everything they once were had to be handed over to their sweet sweet baby. And I am equally, perhaps more so full of tales of women who resisted or strayed from these paths and lived free of such great responsibilities. But they, too, lacked. Just like me who thinks she is empty of any real—I refuse to say purpose because I don’t believe in such a thing. Weight it is, I guess. Babies and husbands are attractive weights, easy answers to the question. But what if it is all too light. Many cautionary tales present such cases. Kundera, you are right: The lightness of being is unbearable, but so too is weight. I am scared of weight because I fear I cannot bear it. I am so used to floating. That is Sabina’s dilemma, huh.

Cautionary tales go in every direction—liberal/conservative, moderate/extreme—but they really mean nothing. Cannot truly be believed. One doesn’t know unless they try. And one doesn’t know what to try until their gut points them in one direction or another and grumbles when it gets close. Even then, who knows. Sureness is illusory. Conviction, temporary. Every person is an explorer fumbling in the dark, because everything in front of them they have yet to try (Kundera). Even when it is alleged to be the same thing, it is a new set of conditions. All I know is that My life lacks weight. It's very light in many ways. And so I float and have grown quite used to this vantage point. 

Weight has never agreed with me. It tends to pull me into a pit. It is not because I am weak but because I take it too seriously and feel better off without it. I like to be full, yes, as I did after sitting with c for hours in booths and on bar stools, kissing the German boy who called me an angel, and as I do tonight after cooking rigatoni and watching the sopranos, but weight affects me differently. Everyone must negotiate with the amount of weight in their life. Some people take to it, others are forced upon it, but I doubt that anyone is ever really satisfied with the amount of weight they bear. I think what people try to do in life is negotiate what kind of weight they can manage, what is not too much or too little but just right, though so often the mark is missed. Or the weight turns out to be heavier than they could have ever imagined, and they are stuck (oh, Carmela, Priscilla, etc.). This is a particular fear of mine, this trap, because I was ensnared so young.

I dreamt last night of pink roses. The pink was pale, the petals nearly transparent as petals tend to be, but these especially so because of the shade of pink. One large one laid across the small pot from which it grew. I admired it, imagined plucking it and putting its single stem in a tall, thin vase with cold water. I lifted it up and found below it five or so more just like it, though smaller and slightly crushed. The pot held them like a nest would a crop of baby birds chirping for mother. I fixed each one up, fluffed them like pillows and smoothed their petals like I would a child's hair.

After that I dreamt that I dropped a carton of eggs on the sidewalk. I had been expecting to drop them so I wasn't too upset. I walked away and before getting too far turned around in time to see a man scoop one up off the pavement and suck the goo out of its shell. He then walked away. I wondered if I had made a mistake not doing the same. Had I wasted the perfectly good goo of a dozen shells?

My skin is dry. Last night: I eat family meal and walk from midtown to williamsburg while intermittently crying. I walk past a store front that is only a room with exposed brick walls painted entirely white. The only thing it contains is a glossy black salon chair. The lighting is florescent and stark. It feels fitting for me to see. I know I have a lot in my life, really beautiful friends and beauty and promise, but things transpired so that I am alone in the city for no reason at all. And it is dreadfully depressing. I long for my dearest friends and feel bad for myself. I am not proud but honest.

In the morning I sit with my dreams because there’s nothing else I want to do besides lay on my side and open a book. I dreamt of meeting a boy in a very large, grand house. We liked each other very fast. My smile charmed him and so his quiet intellect did me. All in one day we shared everything about each other, slept together, and then ate dinner with his family in the house’s great ballroom. It was obvious that this is where we would get married and that made me nervous. The table on which we ate was enormous in diameter, which it had to be to accommodate the thirty, maybe forty people who were eating on it, though its center was completely cut out. Everyone ate in silence, so we joked quietly. I recognized his mother, who walked within the center of the table like a hawk. I noticed my own toplessness and shimmied on a sweater. He laughed at me. The next day he came to Veselka and waited in the line. As I chipped away at the line, it started to pour and the wind began to whip and a tempest formed on E 9th. My boss proposed we close the restaurant. I argued with him and ran out the door and up a hill, apparently no longer in New York. I quickly realized I had to return so I started running back. I ran down my hometown’s main street, passed Margarita’s and the old candy shop. I turned where I thought Veselka would be but it wasn’t there. I was hopeless and soaked. I found a room that was decorated but empty of a person. I dumped my bag on the floor and ducked under the covers. The TV turned on and on it a trans skeleton started masturbating. I realized that I had to leave there, too. I gathered up my things, changed my clothes, and ran. I finally found my way back and hugged the boy tight and desperately, grateful that he was still in line. I brought him inside after that.

Now that that's off my chest I will lay on my side and open a book.