unemployed, summer 2000

I had just moved out, if you want to call it that, of my relationship with this guy who took me to raves and was obsessed with porn, flat broke, working temp jobs, still smoking. I'd go the the World Trade Center for a cigarette break, poor, frustrated, and not knowing where I was going. And he was furious at me for not having a job; we fought pretty uglily. Finally, I reclaimed my strength and fought him back. He accused me of being "psycho" that being pretty much what I was called when I decided not to be a doormat.

I got out of this living situation in Washington Heights, although that place was a refuge. Then I wandered into Virgin Megastore where Sasha and Digweed were signing a new CD, ran into an acquaintance from a temp job who was talking to his friend about the recent assaults in Central Park. Some time around June 11? According to the Magi Astrologers, there was a Super Sexual Aspect in the air.

Then I started a job at Thomson, moved in with a friend on Chambers Street, and after a month and a half of waiting to get paid, barely able to pay rent, I got a decent chunk of cash. I actually had money in the bank.

Then I moved to Jersey City (ugh, ugh ugh) and about a year later the World Trade Center.....well, we know what happened. I was at my job which had moved to 32nd St (so weird how I could have been down there but for a series of last minute changes) and.....

So now, five years later, when I go to my mother's house, we are constantly approached by people asking in broken English "where is the Ground Zero." She lives down there.....

The Hamptons, one year later

Last year, I took the Jitney to Southhampton to see my mother and sister. There were these kids on the bus, about 18 years old or so, and this girl in a sweatshirt said in this really loud voice, "Oh, God, you know what's hilarious? [So-and-so] was telling us how he was going to take the bar test, and [so-and-so] thought it was a bartending test!"

At the time, I was annoyed and thought that was a rude thing to say in public: I mean, what's wrong with being a bartender.....but anyway, it's sort of ironic or else foreshadowing or something, that I'm involved with some people now getting ready to take the bar test. Some people, I think, are academically gifted.

radical cheerleaders in their day???? or the predecessors

"I really believe that sound reaches infinity, do you know what I mean. I think it goes on and on forever, and if that’s true and it was linked to the spiritual side of your lives, well, then sounds could
be alive. can you imagine the possibilities for the future ? linking the soul and the sound and then being able to make a giant spiritual musical machine, actually a part of us and not just
Thing you hear - it’s fantastic - it’s just fantastic "

----Written by ricky & marty wilde

more cheering pix

I found this on the Web too I just want to make this blog more colorful.





And one of my favorites; a radical feminist poster from the 70s.

And another:



See, who says I am not colorful?

BTW, I'm the cheerleader in a pink skirt. My technique has since improved.

back in the early 90s

Grunge was the thing in NYC and.....ugh. I couldn't stand it. So someone gave me a tape of the KLF and I must have listened to it thousands of times.

Yeah, there's only one place I'm living, man...I'm going into trancentral where I can,You understand, liberate and free the psyche.You know, banish my mind and my body'cause this way I don't know whether I'm in the future or the present...Is this the beginning or the ending? Although I know that things are incidentalThe landscape may have to be accidentalI'm still in a carriageOn the fast train,of the last train, to trancentralOver an out


I realized I kind of hate rock and roll, or most of it. Or any variations. "hard core" was the thing where I was but I couldn't tell you any of it except Corrosion of Conformity whom I met, and a few others. Oh, and SFA. There were many good bands. My friend was married to the lead singer of Warzone in a very bizarre and twisted setting.....we all lived up in Harlem that was when I first left the nest....on the West side. OK, I don't hate all of it, but I'm just not into.....I don't know, 85 percent of it. But still, so much of what was downtown was inspiring and there was such a strong energy to the whole scene. I feel like I work all the time and I need artistic input, or something.

vegetarianism?

It's fairly easy to give up meat in this town except for late at night when there's nothing open except bodegas and diners. Usually I settle for a cheese sandwich but that isn't healthy besides it's fattening. If you're lucky they'll have pea soup but usually not. When I was in Florida I ended up eating meat because it was just too difficult otherwise, because the only place open after 10PM was this Spanish bodega but they did have lots of wine, thank Heaven...... and in Indianapolis I think this menu I looked at did not have one meatless dish. I've been craving meat lately, though I try to avoid it. I love Greek food which is very meaty, but I ended up getting a falafel plate. Still, I love their fried bread and yogurt/cucumber sauce. I've been going to Curry in a Hurry every day and they all know me in there: and I get the same thing every time so they automatically give it to me now. Yesterday a bunch of them came up to me and said, "You know, you look like Chelsea." There's a picture of Bill Clinton on their wall and he allegedly went to eat at this place.

But anyway, it's becoming a struggle to avoid meat because I am somone who enjoys food. That's why I have flesh on me. At this place I was at today, this tall, very attractive woman got a sandwich for lunch and water. I saw someone else a while back getting sushi (ugh) from a deli and bottled water. I don't know how people can live on just that. Maybe it's that I have a constant hunger that I had read about.....the only solution is lots of coffee, but I hate skim milk, so at least 1 percent. My mother drinks only skim, but it makes me ill. When I was a kid my mother weighed about 107 pounds, and we never had candy in the house. Our dinner would be broiled chicken and steamed broccoli, but I was still chubby. Even this doctor I went to told me I was fat, in so many words. Then, some years later I lost weight and people were telling me I was too thin.

fuck security deposits

I don't believe in them. I know, people are going to be horror-struck. But I've already gone though the process of getting a place, paying a fee, and signing my life away to the Devil. The way I see it, I'm not responsible for someone else's property or financial obligations. I've had prospective people tell me, "Well I need a deposit because the last person ran off with my TV set" or "If someone ditches out on me I'm fucked because this place is expensive." I mean, it's not my fault that shady people exist nor that you signed this lease fully aware of the responsibility you're taking on. A deposit is only an added burden and stress to me and your lease is your problem, not mine. My only obligation is to pay for my stay, you know? I bought into the "system" of renting three years ago and it is one of the worst mistakes I ever made: being rented a place that is off the books and, in the eyes of the law, frauded out of thousands of dollars.

This is a rant and it sounds like I'm asking the world to pity me: I'm not. Maybe it's just frustration, that all my hard-earned money will be going to rent when a place to live should be guaranteed everyone. I also don't think all my money should go to rent just to live in a "good neighborhood...." i.e. one where I don't feel freaked out coming home at night. Where I can take the subway at any hour and not have to be accompanied by someone (preferably a guy), pay extra for a cab, or not go out at all.

more on the infiltration of email

So. Someone sent this to a guy who was going to direct my piece:

____I'll need a picute of you nude. aSthe next project will require that the entireproduction be done with everybody nake. Please forward me a nude photo of yourself(no erection please!!!!) ASAS. Thanks

with everyone "nake." At least this person could have learned to spell. This would-be director is probably ready to call the cops on me.

No, I didn't write this junk. I'm so embarrassed. I can't believe this happened. I learned my brutal and ugly lesson.

email infiltrated

Someone got into my account and sent this email out to everyone on my address book that I'm bi and like to "take it up the ASS" which, OK, I didn't think I'd have to say this, but I didn't write it. I mean, it's kind of funny in a way, but people are writing very nasty stuff to me, even after I've apologized. This one woman that I made the mistake of staying with a while ago sent me some email saying "I don't give a **** if you wrote it or not just take me off your list!" I will never get used to stuff like that. I've had to deal with several people in the past 24 hours being hostile to me, and I did nothing to them; not intentionally. Maybe there's something wrong in the air or.....I don't know, but I need to get away from it. Like last night I was buying something in a store and this guy started something with the cashier saying I stepped in front of him and when I tried to say that I didn't do that intentionally (as he was standing far away and looking the opposite way) and asked him if he wanted to go ahead, he just said, I'm not talking to you. And he's going on about how I'm "mad rude" and then Garrett wrote me this hostile email and, you know, I really am not going to take any more. I'm done with this. Seriously.

moon signs

Moon in Virgo: Talkative, expressive, literary/critical ability, overly self-critical, lack of confidence, shyness, diffidence and deference, emotional need to be of service.


Moon in 8th House: An eighth house moon shows an instinctive connection with the deeper mysteries of life. Psychic ability is common with this placement, as is extreme jealousy or suspicion.

http://www.elysian.co.uk/themoon.htm


The above two pretty much are on the nail in describing my emotional life. I'm not a happy person by nature: I am jealous, spiteful, self-critical and critical of others and situations, a perfectionist and psychic, to a degree. Probably because of this placement I can't really be laid back or happy, really. It's just not my nature. I always want more, I'm never satisfied. Even when I eventually get a guy I've been after, I usually get bored, and in bed too. What is it, hunger? One of the signs of vampirism....well I haven't thought about it, but maybe that is why I've always been chubby cause I do have constant cravings.

I've been thinking back, on like where I was a few years ago: how I was madly in love with this guy who I now see was a total jerk.....so this idiot I thought I couldn't live without, like I'd die if I didn't get him. It was true love, in a way: I think we were soul mates. But now? Blah, who cares. I've so moved on, and it is funny how suddenly you wake up and realize you wouldn't care if you never saw this person again. And over and over I meet Guy who I think is the one, the only one, and I can't stop thinking about him and I can't stand to be without him, and then suddenly I don't care. So no matter how much I'm in love now I guess wisdom comes with age, and I see I don't really want them that much. Also, though, I know the day will come when I'm no longer young and pretty, and when I'm suddenly wise and strong I'll no longer be desirable, be looked at or hit on or whatever. Intelligence in women is really not valued, by men. Even the guys who asked me to marry them wouldn't even wait for me to leave the room: they'd hit on my friends or my friends' friends; I dreaded going to parties because of that. I thought it was a reflection of me, that I had failed somehow. I also thought I was unique, the best, that I had an advantage over everyone in the universe, only to wake up one day and discover that I'm one of millions, type O positive, normal. My thyroid is normal. I have no real power; in most situations. Men see women as passive pawns; we're not encouraged to fight back or be aggressive, and that includes when we're the target of unwanted sexual attention. The best or most we can do is nothing. I used to think confrontations were the right solution, but that only escalates the problem and makes it worse. It's like you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. Is it a test, to see how much they can provoke somebody?

This article I read was on the psychology of eye contact, and how in the animal kingdom it's considered confrontational. It said in many cultures one makes eye contact with someone they consider inferior only. I have been wondering why I am bothered by it, why I don't feel happy when people smile at me on the train, people who are strangers; why I don't want to smile back and feel like it's an invasion. Then I'm thinking, I'm mean, or whatever. But somehow....maybe it's the way I grew up.....too much familiarity from someone I'm not related to, best friends with or having sex with.....well for anyone is interpreted as sexual or aggressive. I think barriers are necessary, but then people will say I'm cold. I don't know where I'm going with this........but I'm always being made to feel guilty when I don't open up to strangers. But I don't; or at least, well put it this way: only to certain people I do.

In all these discussions on street harassment, there's a lot said on how this may lead to assault and why this makes it wrong. But for me, it's not that I feel unsafe cause most of the time I don't: it's more the fact that it's an insult. I realized, part of the problem is that in male-dominated atmospheres I was always made to feel low, in a way. Being part of feminist groups felt like a way out of that; but it also feels like a constant uphill battle to get a grip on some of the power in the world, out there..... At some point I may be attracted to a female, but it's rare just as I'm not attracted to many men, but I'm not gay. Some people genuinely are....... But I'm not, I'm someone who does need a Boyfriend and worries about what panties to wear when I see him.......but I also know that there's always going to be another pretty girl every time you turn around so.....I feel like I have to keep up with that and I can't really: it's exhausting and daunting to be faced with that all the time. How can I really? So it's ironic that I'm the one living like I am, right?

another dream, more like nightmare

After a very difficult cheering night I went home, fell asleep after a few too many, and dreamt I was in school living in the dorm, but it wasn't the Hunter dorm; more like the one I was in at Pace. And I had a few sets of keys some of which I put away like in drawers or something. Suddenly, I don't remember how this happened, but I'm talking to some kind of counselor who tells me, the problem is, we can't let you leave here. So I realized, they're going to get me and take me away, but if I make a scene that'll only make it worse. I then realize I CAN leave as all the exits are open, downstairs, so I'm going around the hallways and I stop at a locker, look in there, for something, then keep going downstairs, and I'm thinking I only need to get to my room and get out of here. So I do manage to get out and go to the dorm, and I get into my room, but I still can't find my keys. And I'm terrified, thinking I'll be a prisoner, and I'd rather die, but I woke up and realized, that was just a dream, I'm awake and free, sort of.


So we cheered again for what was supposed to be a lesbian party, and I guess we were expecting a more "sex positive" type of crowd, but instead it was all these girls standing around in jeans and sweatshirts, not even dancing, even though there were good djs there. There was also a kissing booth, but people weren't even into that.....and I just felt turned off in general, just wishing a particular person were there with me instead. But he didn't call. So the hell with him, or at least I'm trying to say that. So this crowd was not into our raunchy cheers and I mean, what the hell do people expect? If someone isn't into the sexy stuff, I understand and respect that, but why ask us to cheer then? Do they not read our Web site and cheers: look: we're a political group and our cheers are sexy and dirty and offensive, but it is just fun, you know? It's not meant to be taken literally. I consider myself a feminist and am against sexist art and Lord knows there's plenty of that: but that doesn't mean you can't wear pink and shake your boobs. I don't see cheering as derogatory. But anyway.

I'm just stressed a little, well a lot, over $. Evil money. I owe for student loans (my dad was right and I didn't listen to him) and rip off credit card bullshit. Fortunately it's only a few thousand, but I have it. I just don't know how I'll afford it plus rent plus everything else. I'm making more money than I did at my last job but it's liquid, it comes and goes. Really pisses me off. I read about these "debt bondage" slaves trafficked in from other countries and then realize that could be me.

another cheering dream

You know how some dreams are stronger than others: well in this one I'm back in Miami with the cheerleaders and a few of us are going to this one girl's apartment that she shares with her boyfriend. But I think she or someone loses her keys and it turns out she's fighting with this guy all the time and.....?????

Also, I keep getting deja vu dreams like of the alleyway of this place I lived in when I was nine or so (we moved constantly) and I'm skating or biking; but there's a darker element like someone is chasing me.

So I come home to an empty apartment and it's nice, at times. But other times I just wish someone was there, like when there was a thunderstorm and the place was a little spooky. The person I thought was The One married someone else, and I don't know anyone else who I think is "right", except one other person now, but that's not working out either. I've been studying astrology and....I don't want to go into this here.....but all the planets are saying that this is not a time for relationships. But I don't want to be alone, either. I couldn't stand it today: I went into the city not cause I had to but because I realized I'm more social than I'd thought. I just can't stand to be isolated, not all the time. Even though people get on my nerves, I can't just shut myself in the woods like some can, you know? not yet anyway.

Bluestockings

cheering today

Today the cheerleaders and I performed at Bluestockings for the launch of a new feminist zine. It's good to know an event like this had a huge turnout but I can't help wondering: why aren't far more women involved in stuff like the Birth Control Project or the Social Wage Committee.....like why aren't hordes of women storming the streets every day demanding equal pay, universal child care, health care? Why is it only us five? That's been distressing. Still, it was a good experience except that were all over the place with our cheers and some of it was my fuck up: this is a lot harder even than it looks. I'm so worn out now I think I'm going to retire early with a glass of wine even though it's lonely being in that big house alone. I wish You Know Who would call or text or something, but on the other hand, it's nice to just have a little time for me.

dream

I am in Florida with friends and I'm in a squat-like place, on a single bed, something like that. I'm with this guy I know, R. Suddenly, these two girls show up who are attractive but not that great; however, they are skimpily dressed. R says, sorry she's so hot, and suddenly he's on the bed with her making out. I leave, but outside a storm is coming, like a waterfall almost, but a hurricane, or like one. It's cloudy in the sky. I go into a house, or a nearly empty restaurant, something like that, and I'm looking through the yellow pages I think, or trying to go online. I keep telling myself, I have to get out of here, but I can't, I can't just go out and walk around like in NYC. I'm trying to find a plane out. But night comes and the storm ends. That's the end of it.

searching for literature

I just checked out Virginia Woolf's The Waves which is brilliant and refreshing. There is great stuff out there but you have to search for it. Other than that, I'm feeling the effects of PMS and that's why I'm so cranky, probably. Intense creativity brings on my period, though it's at least back to a regular cycle.

For anyone interested in vampirism, here's a good article:

http://www.earthspirit.org/fireheart/fhvampire.html

Really brilliant. I understand a lot of what's in here and boy, do I identify with so many of these characteristics. I am sensitive to light, burn easily, am nocturnal in every way (my period usually starts at night....is that normal?) but anyway.....

This is from the piece I'm working on by Sylvia Plath:

I am simple. I believe in miracles. I do not believe in these terrible children, who injure my sleep with their wide eyes, their fingerless hands. They are not mine. They do not belong to me.

Pissiness

I've just had a particularly trying day and I finished with a few glasses of wine. I mean, some people are getting on my nerves but I won't go into it here.

The other side is, knock wood, my show may be going up.......(shhh, keep fingers crossed). Yippie!!!!

no one I think is in my tree

When I was in high school acid was the drug of choice. I did it about 10 times. I can say, from my experience......I didn't have a good experience. For 10 hours or so you have no control over your emotions and what you see. I don't like to not be in control and I guess I was never cut out for sitting in the park; it's not my nature, but I did. My family was really strict and believed in hard work so I have that guilt in me, like if I'm lazy, or not productive, or if I sleep too late, ect. Now, with my "freelance" schedule, I feel the guilt and lostness without a definite schedule. There's no easy solution. I'm going to create a schedule now and stick to it, strictly regimented; easier said than done, yeah.

Also punk was really big and it's still affected me; but also all this gave me the urge to put my own spin on things; tell my own story. hmmmm......


I'm all lost in the supermarket..... The Clash

There's no excuse for not wearing a condom

I wish I had this flyer, from Redstockings, about how getting guys to wear condoms is a political movement, not an individual, personal problem. It's draining me, really, to have to fight every time I'm about to have sex with a guy who argues with me, saying it's "not as intimate" or he can't stay hard or whatever. I've seen enough guys able to have sex with one to be able to guess that the pleasure is not really increased without one. Abortion and the abortion pill are painful and expensive, the morning after pill is difficult to get, not to mention that there's AIDS and a million other diseases, and going in for an HIV test is a very bad experience. As the flyer says, let there be no other women for them to turn to (with the idea in mind that he'll find some other woman who won't make him wear a condom). Period. Period.

more on "street harassment"

So like I said before....is it determined by appearance? Like I'll get comments no matter how I'm dressed and that kind of thing?

When did I first experience street harassment? I think it's when I was about 7 years old, maybe 8. It was these young boys, maybe 13 years old, who came up to me and told me they wanted to fuck me and stuff like that. I didn't know what "fuck" meant, and they said something like "your parents fucked." Then I remembered this book I had found in the library when I went in there alone at age 7: on how babies are made. I had seen another book like it in a store before that. So I had; I understood. To think of my parents doing that made me sick: but it also made me want it. So suddenly it registered what they meant, like when he said "stick it in me" I thought does he mean his finger, but I kind of knew. And I laughed. I was afraid, to be sure.....I didn't know what to feel. I was alone in a field outside summer camp waiting for my mother to pick me up. The boys left, I think.....don't remember. Now, they're grown up, probably married with children. Maybe this was just a phase for them, maybe not. If not, that's a scary thought.

Then later when I was eleven, my friend and I used to take the L in Evanston to school, and there was this guy at the booth who asked me if I wanted to meet him for coffee when I turned 16. It sounds harmless now, but my friend and I were terrified of him.

Then around age twelve, that's when it started. I think that the younger-looking women are the biggest targets: for them it's non stop. I think in my own experience I stopped wearing super short skirts, fixing my hair, wearing a lot of makeup.....all because I would be looked at in a way that felt sick to me, like dirty. Then came the guys who tried to seduce me, and I found out later they had wives or girlfriends....that tiny detail they forgot to tell me.

When I first really came into my own I was fourteen, and I went out in this red dress. My hair was lighter by that time, as it was summer. A guy yelled at me in the street, "I want to fuck you baby!" And why didn't that feel flattering, but rather dirty?

Also, ok, there was this whole debate in SHP about "ghetto" and street harassment which I don't want to get into, but basically this girl brought in a borderline racist agenda once. I know it's white guys in suits who harass women as well, I know, I know, it's all over. I think it is more common in some cultures than others but it's hard to say that without coming across as racist. I know it's white guys who do it, and I've been harassed by groups of frat boys, like recently. So.....well....I don't know. In Germany I think it's different but women from there have complained of it as well....but I still don't remember getting it as much there as, say, in Paris or London. Or maybe I'm wrong. I don't know.

I would be lying if I denied sometimes having darker thoughts about SH, women, society and even assault on women. I do feel envious of other women who get male attention, and angry...Sometimes I do think, well, maybe she's desperate/a tramp/was asking for it/didn't know how to say no/didn't stand up for herself; that kind of thing. And I'm feeling gross that I'm thinking that, cause, I know, it's supposed to be a random thing, and I don't know if it is or not. I really don't. I can't deny sometimes feeling jealous of other women who get harassed, but I also am disturbed when it happens to me. And I noticed that when I go out in my glasses and pants it's drastically reduced, but when I'm in a skirt even a long skirt it's far more prevalent. And it's not supposed to be some kind of measure of our attractiveness, but it is, sadly. It's not something we're really in control of. When guys do want me I'm always, I can never really relax with them, especially at first, because I'm thinking is he just using me, am I just the one girl who will give him whatever he wants? Even if I'm feeling pleasure another part of me is feeling lonely and frustrated, because it becomes like a game, a darker one.

road trip song

This keeps spinning in my head: the song Tom Green sang in Road Trip. It goes something like:


Tiny salmon swimming in the stream.........
......
The owl says "hooo" the monkey says "eeek"

but all the little fish can say is....


"blblblblblblfffff"

personal slave

A guy I know was telling me about this dominatrix friend of his who has her own "slave" who does errands for her and stuff like that. I need that. I think I'll advertise for one.

Other than that, let's see: I slept maybe three hours last night, or rather this morning. I'm surprisingly (did I spell that right?) not tired.