Stuff to cheer, or protest

Assaults on women and the queer community happening in this city
Gentrification, and how the punk haven is getting replaced with these stupid bridal boutiques everywhere (a la 9th street)
Situation of Middle Eastern and Muslim women
Evictions in the city
Closing of CBGBs
Racism, classism, sexism (will there ever be an end to it?)
The state of NYC radio

moods

I am not going to go into mysticism here because I learned my lesson before about taking this public: I only was misunderstood. But I seem to get into horrendous moods during the new moon. I was born on a new moon. And I tried and tried and tried for hours to contain myself but today I was once again provoked by these really annoying people G's roommate hangs around and I finally lost it. After dealing with one mess after another from the animals, a bad night before in which I missed seeing Felix da Housecat, no sleep because my cat kept me awake, finally L's brother said he was upset that I left and he needed a flyer that's when I snapped. I wasn't prepared for fifty people to come into the apartment and I was tired and stressed and A insisted on opening the curtain after I closed it and, Jesus, everything has to turn into a fucking argument! So I finally got pissed and when I'm provoked I can get hysterical, and I did. I went into the park and unraveled. I was crying hysterically, all from last night's fucked up-ness to this dancer saying to me, "Thank you so much for standing there with the flyers" like what am I, their servant? To people I want to see not being around to everything from not being able to charge my phone or send a text message or even talk on a phone because of the trees in the way to the monumental task of how the fuck do I do my taxes or apply for health insurance to fear, always always that. And wondering how I'll get to South Africa cause that's where I want to go but it's expensive and then I have to sign up for classes, buy a new passport, sign up for cable or wireless or fuck I don't know I just need to be able to use a computer cause that's life or death with me, to a DVD being late and I haven't even watched half of it, to not getting around to seeing a movie or seeing my friend like I'd planned and I SO wanted to just get out of town and I started sobbing, in the park, thinking, I have to get out of this place! I can't stand it! I can't stand living in this fascist country where we don't even have health care or child care or even birth control, if the arch conservatives get their way. In a place where we are not free to do what we choose with our own bodies and are considered criminals if we do certain things, to the fact that these universal entitlements are taken away from us here and anyhow.....to the fact that I went on this travel web site bootsnall, that I used to go on all the time, and it was a depressing experience. This girl wrote, something like, the worst film I ever saw was JFK and I'm just not into these political movies. Yeah, Jessica Simpson is your idol, I'll bet.....really living life on the edge here. This is why I stopped going on this site because it was such a discouragement, to see people talking about really pale stuff and always feeling, afterward, alienated and frustrated. I mean, how can anyone, if they're breathing, especially if they're female, NOT be political in this climate? I can't figure that out for the life of me, unless they are somehow benefitting from this administration. But I just have no comprehension of female conservatives, who don't think women should have rights. At the NOW conference they were handing out these buttons saying, If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention. Even among the so-called radical cheerleaders I remember one of them dismissing one of the others because "she's just so angry, it's too much." I mean, isn't that the point? There are many gradations of anger. There's mindless venting which, while it may be justified, is immature and there's a lot of that among many would be activists. But there' s "righteous anger" which is going under the layers and saying, things are bad, and that's not ok, and that's radical. It's getting late and I'm running out of steam to write this with but I have to unload this stuff. There'll be more later.

more pix

This spring, when we cheered outside Bluestockings, near where D is. That's all I kept thinking: we're in D's neighborhood, what if D sees us. But I never saw him. It was that awful cold-while-sun-is-shining spring weather. I was kind of peeved that I didn't see D.
I'm listening to Paris Hilton's CD right now. This is the only music I have at present.

"What would you do

if I tied you up with duct tape?" He asked. "Would you call the police?"

I saw someone who looked like him today on the train platform. He looked at me. It wasn't him. There was a street performer singing, "I'm in love with you...."


There was another one I visited. He had pictures facing down in his apartment; a dead giveaway that he was hiding something. By the time the night was winding down I was a little afraid to see what those pictures were. He began shutting doors....."I have OCD." He said, "I want to show you something." On his computer were pictures of him next to cardboard cutouts of various celebrities. "Now look at this," he said, lifting the pictures from face down on his desk. I was afraid now, my stomach nervous at what those pictures were. I was thinking of Rosemary's Baby, where she sees the marks from missing paintings. Or else he's hiding a woman from me. So he lifted up the picture....and it was of him standing next to a cardboard figure of George Bush. The other was of him and one of Bill Clinton.

Sometimes I worry

That things are getting worse, not better. I don't know who to trust anymore in the activist community. See link:


http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2004/02/11/cointelpro/index.html?pn=1

there's something dark in the air although it's lifted. It's Sept. 11 anniversary or else the "demotion" of Pluto or I don't know. But across the ocean in the Middle East, women are being assaulted, stripped of their rights and what is being done about it? Where is our free speech? Our right to criticize our government, our constitutional rights? The Bush Administration seems to believe it's a sin to distribute condoms in Africa, enforce sexual harassment protection laws, is harassing sex workers (so many of them poor women, or just period there's no alternative that earns a livable wage) and on and on. It's endless. And women like Ann Coulter, don't get me started.

today

It's my mother's birthday, who was at Ground Zero when the towers fell. She saw everything. Happy Birthday Mother! I think there's just so much negative energy associated with Sept. 11 it's still lingering. Today has been so fucking bad, for me. My cat made a mess in the bathroom and of course my roommate complained (she wrote a note she could have just called or knocked on the door but I know, it's my problem, my fault) and I had a nightmare last night. I dreamt I was in a cemetary and someone was telling me (a voice) your father looks like this now (a corpse) you want to see him? There was a corpse in a grave. I was elevated in the dream, looking down at the corpse. I was trying to look away but then it felt like it was right next to me, back on the bed. I woke up panting, as dawn was just starting to hit.

movies

I watched Dolores Claiborne last night that is such an awesome film! Everything from the direction, acting, script, style......brilliant. A woman's film, psychological thriller. I love these kinds of films.....wish I could find more. Especially I like watching "older" movies.

I'll never be cold again

I DON'T want to be here for another NYC winter. I hate winter, can't stand being cold. That's why going to Miami was such a relief. I told the person I was staying with I'm sick of being cold and he said that's exactly why he moved down there. Miami is expensive maybe if I go to the other side of the equator so it's their summer, and I've never been there anyhow. Like Thailand (though I think that's north but it's still hot) because they need the tourism. Or South Africa, back to Egypt, Argentina, just somewhere not cold. Cold makes me sick and depressed: I've lived though enough winters especially coming from Chicago. The summer was too short. I still want another beach day.

The street and barriers

I shouldn't, but the temptation is too great. I decided to take a walk from Brooklyn to Manhattan across the Brooklyn Bridge. Remind me never to walk across there again. I love walking across the bridge, walking period. When I was in Indiana I would run and walk for hours with my dad's dog, and it's a great place to do it cause there's the countryside with the train tracks and all this yellow, like corn and wheat fields, and the hot sun.

But here in NYC at the end of the summer, if that's what this is, there are NO New Yorkers in the street or on the bridge. The only ones who are are these macho guy bike riders who are the other side of the coin: not caring who they run over and speeding over the bridge when there are families with children and dogs around. But the people are also rude: they don't move out of the way for people who walk faster than them and take up the whole bridge, so that there's nowhere to move and you're forced to walk behind them and even then they don't make room. That's just rude, rude. My pet peeve is people who aren't considerate on the street. Maybe it's my own personal space issues which are very strong, and even more intensified, if that's possible, after my assault. Or maybe it's from elementary school when I was followed and assaulted by other kids, male female white and black, from school. But my heart starts beating really fast and I go into high adrenaline mode when people step into my bubble: you can call me neurotic or hysterical but that's how I am. And I just will never get used to people, honestly from different countries or cultures, who walk into others or don't make room for them on the street. Some people have said it's a political thing: like they walk into people who they don't respect or think are inferior, or like eye contact it's confrontational, or passive-aggressive or hostile; but more likely it's that they aren't conditioned or something to establish barriers or they don't have the same concept of them but call me prejudiced (though that's not my intention) well, what can I say? I am bothered by it. I just don't think it's right. I don't--I can't accept it. It's psychological I suppose, but I can't stop seeing this kind of intrusion as confrontational and threatening, because it so often is.
Like I was walking with someone last night, down a dark street in the Village, and she wondered why I have to cross the street when these two guys were walking very close behind me. As I said before, I will never get used to people who are stangers getting too close to me, especially if they're walking behind me, and I don't react well. Like I said, in the past that was how I got assaulted then and now. When guys are walking closely behind you, or women, or whoever, it's NOT ok or good. I know this. And especially I don't want to be on a dark street with guys walking closely behind me because that's exactly what happened when I was assaulted. I mean, women who aren't cautious about this stuff.....they wouldn't what? Even try to resist these guys or not even be alarmed when they're walking toward them? Fine, get raped then. I'm sorry, but please learn some street smarts. I don't know how, that night I was assaulted last week, I --no actually, I noticed guys walking closely behind me before and got away. Also, ten years ago when I was mugged, the guy snuck up from behind me. It's a survival instince and I would say pick up on it or face the consequences. I am being harsh here, but I happen to know I'm right.

I guess it's hard to deal with people who aren't used to New York living and it is just a drag, emotionally, to live with this as I found there's no changing people.

feeling better, somewhat

I've been in pain, physically and emotionally, for the past few days. First it's the injuries from the assault including muscle cramps which are excruciating. I've never felt pain like this. I took 4 advil at a time and that's the only thing that works when it flares up. I may have to go to the doctor.

Then, I ate some pasta and felt nauseous--don't know if I suffer from a food allergy or something. I went for a walk for like an hour or so.....just can't sleep. During the day I want to sleep and at night I can't sleep. That must be why I'm obsessed with nightlife because that's my instinct. When I was a little kid I watched the Amityville Horror at night and also, when I was really little, I saw things in my room. Maybe that's where my insomnia comes from: because I was always afraid something would get me, so I'd be up all night and all I could do was read. Then I'd have an hour's worth of sleep and have to get up and go to school and I guess I was pretty fazed out that explains why everyone thought I was spacey. I thought I had to arrange all my books exactly right or else "they" would come to get me. And the movie was just.....for two years I was terrified at night.....that blood would come out of the walls. And during those years I think I lived, in school, completely in my head, and had no idea what was going on around me. I would read a book and miss the bell, miss class. For long periods of time I don't think I spoke to anyone.

I'm guilty

Of course I live in me and I'm biased, I'd like to think I'm always right and blameless, but I know I can be a massive cunt on wheels. I sometimes think, I wasn't raised to be mean; I grew up reading Bible stories (NOT to be confused with the right wing Christianity which most people are familiar with) my mother taught Sunday school.....I've fallen out with most religion, if not all, but I still believe there's Something there. But I was raised on these ideas of selflessness and kindness but what happened? I've been angry, on a short fuse, and at times venomous. I guess I really don't enjoy hurting people; only some have done bad things to me so what choice do I have? Some people well I have to admit they have it coming to them; people who've done horrid things not just to me but to anyone who is innocent.....in some instances I believe, I know, it's necessary to use violence. I think maybe those people deserve to be hurt. But by and large, I don't want to hurt anyone, yet I do. I get into moods, and I was so stressed lately about everything but now that that's somewhat alleviated and I can breathe, for now, I am realizing I didn't really want to be mean, or hurt anyone.

That said, there are people who made such a fabulous contribution to my life and changed so many things for me who I don't see. Why is that? That eats away at me. It's hard not to feel a certain sadness in the midst of happiness that they're not here. But what can I do? Those people I never, ever intended to hurt or offend but it seems like I did, or else they're just flaky or that's just the way things have worked out or something.

But anyhow, I'm starting to feel the pull of travel. I just want to go....wherever, but some place warm. I need a getaway that is stress-free, relatively. I haven't had a real vacation. It is cloudy here and not warm and I'll miss summer, I still want to lie at the beach in a bikini; swim for hours then sleep on the beach. Summer is too short! Maybe I belong in California after all. It will be a tremendous load of work but I'm ready to take off again.

The stages of drinking

My mother was talking about her grandfather, Grandpa Michinsky, who is actually not really her grandfather. Her actual one divorced her grandmother to marry another woman.....but anyhow, Grandpa Michinsky is the one she grew up with in Alma, Michigan. He was a drinker as was her father. She described the first stage as one where he was dancing and singing, dancing with her and her brothers. The second was the "great guy" stage, where he would say things like, "So and so down at the plant....he's such a great guy; just a super person...[ect]", then third was, I think, the staggering around the house stage, and finally, the fourth, where he'd be yelling (or more like slurring-yelling), "Alfreda [my great grandmother] I'm going to divorce you!'


She said he'd be at the bar with his drinking buddies and Alfreda would go after him, saying, "You get out of there!" and trying to pull him out of the bar. Later on that night he'd start saying, dragging his words, "Alfreda I can't stand it anymore."

I don't know....where am I going with this? I guess cause Alma Michigan always seemed like the middle of nowhere to me, and I'd always feel lonely and creeped out in Michigan, like we were the only people there for miles and miles. It gets really remote there and whenever I was there I really couldn't wait to leave. For me, I was hardly ever around anyone under 50 except for my mother. Occasionally my then step siblings would go with me, so at least there was someone my age. As we drove through all the small towns we saw all these people who were overweight, and my mother would talk about "all the fat people."

So going back to Evanston and the beach was welcome at times.

But then now I met D in the Lower East Side, who's from Ann Arbor.....so the world is smaller than I thought.....and there actually is someone else besides us from there.

When you wonder, I should have or could have run right then but instead I stayed and this is what happened which wouldn't have if I'd ran

I was sweaty and panting and had walked from rehearsal at 23rd street I had the address but.....

It turned out to be the Trump Tower. I went in there in flip flops and a raggy skirt and everyone was in heels really dressed up I wanted to turn around was afraid to see him expecting someone stuffy to open the door and say, "Get out of here; you're a slob." I dress up occasionally but most of the time I don't like to.


As I was waiting for him to open the door that's when I had the urge to run.....but I didn't. I stayed. He opened the door and was......I was wondering if he'd tell me to leave.....but he was.....kind of goofy or something......and just stared at me for a few seconds....and then....I went in there.


So everything changed after that, sort of. But then I got the wrath of Mother and Sonny, assaulted on my block, terrible muscle pain, and, conversely, health insurance.

I'm tired. These past few days it felt like something really negative was in the air. I'm trying to be upbeat and optimistic; I am an optimist I hope. But I have come to accept that there's so much I can't control. But I worked myself last night to total fatigue as I so often do and mornings I can't get out of bed......though I did this morning, only to face another bad situation. Even the astrological chart says today is not good but what can I do? The rent won't pay itself and no one will get me out in the limelight if I don't.

But I'm still waiting for this to end. It's cloudy and I"m sick of the rain, sick of being wet and cold.

I see you everywhere see him everywhere

So D has been coming into conversation with me and my friend and I'm seeing clues of him everywhere and everywhere people who look like him. A few days I got this email with this message:

Whatever I do, forgive, and believethat I have loved you. The drawback to going away, murmured Adrian, is the having tocome back.


D is in Fiji and I don't know why I can't forget him or V. I can't get them out of my mind.

That email was part of this chain spam I don't know what emails I've been getting on my Yahoo account and I get more and more of them constantly. It's like this novella someone is writing that they're sending to strangers.....it's getting annoying. Yet, this isn't junk it's meaningful stuff.

I'm trying really hard to become enlightened now but there's so little that I'm inspired by, everything feels, this isn't a nice thing to say, almost God-less. I'm trying to put things back together. But I'm so uninspired by what is around me, with a few exceptions, like certain music videos. I guess I need artistic inspiration that's what is lacking now. A play a film a book something I have so little time just for myself. Or erotic literature. I'm debating whether or not to post my sexual fantasies....which could be comic in a way.

me and punzy!

That's my kitty who my mother got from the Southhampton shelter, Punzy. I think most of the time pets look like their owners but I'm not sure about me and her.....I guess.

how do you love someone whose great love affair is with themself?

Way back when, a few years ago, I hadn't done enough homework on psychological traits like narcissistic personality disorder or sociopathy and I believed that it was possible to change people. Like if I asked my roommate not to do something she would get the idea that it's wrong, it bothers people, and try to stop. Instead, we're talking about addicts here, the whole thing was turned on me, they made me out to be the wrong person, crazy, a jerk, a dangerous person......they don't see their own faults and attribute criticism to someone being out to get them, to harass them. In other words, they don't change no matter what. Psychology 101 should be a requisite for anyone in the work force. My life would be so different now if I knew then what I now know. A part of me sensed something wrong with them, but I also felt like I myself had failed, done something wrong. Someone who is shallow will not understand something like philosophy, or art film even; but instead become vindictive to others who see their game and call them out on it. OK.

It may seem to some people like I'm being negative or pessimistic. I see it as the opposite: by laying the bad stuff on the table, I'm creating the possibility of hope, of survival. But life is not all sugar and I'm not going to pretend everything and everyone is great. That said, this is last night's dream: This is a recurring one; the math class I'm about to flunk and my mother has the same dream.......


I'm in college and I've been taking three classes....one of them a math class that's required for graduation. It's near the end of the semester and I realize I completely forgot about any of these classes, particularly the math, and I'm thinking, how will I ever graduate much less go to grad school now? I'm ready to talk to someone and ask if there's any hope now of passing.

Then, another recurring dream, I'm on a plane, it takes off.....there's this girl, basically "dyky" who is the pilot; actually, she was this girl I saw on the train station earlier, to get the L. I think I'm moving through different parts of the plane but finally sit in front and I'm trying to figure out where we're going. Finally, we start to land, but she misses the landing spot in the airport, and lands against the wall. I'm thinking we're going to crash or at least get banged up.....but we land somewhat safely, unharmed.....



then I woke up.

my privacy stolen

That is my life, my privacy, and I'm a private person. I guard my personal stuff like I guard my body, and this invasion is as bad as a physical rape. I trusted the wrong people...is it their "narcisissim" or whatever it is but my life was stolen from me. And that really is unforgivable. I trusted the wrong people with secrets and the very wrong people got hold of what is most sacred and private and important to me.....in the hands of bad people. How did this happen? How could I have allowed it? How could I not have known? I'd like to think I'm blameless but I'm not yet I'll be made out to be the bad one, a person with no morals a lyer a cheat well guess it takes one to know one, n'est-ce pas? That's French.....
But there's a line in the film Choses Secretes that goes something like, "That's the tyranny of human nature. We want that which eludes us.......The femmes fatales of history were either narcisissts or lesbians." That's so often how love goes?

assaulted

So just after that last post I went home from the Village, getting off the train at Classon Ave, and long story short, walking down Skillman between Lafayette and DeKalb all of a sudden I saw these two guys walking closely behind me, and I walked faster, but then they jumped on me I started screaming my head off not knowing what they were going to do.....the guy put his hand over my mouth and I managed to scream anyhow.....somehow I stood up and he was holding the strap of my bag......still screaming I pulled away and the strap broke. I got out of my shoes somehow, and ran barefoot toward Dekalb. There was a cab there so I ran toward it.....a guy got out and said, what happened? A woman said, I'm calling the cops, are you hurt? Only scraped but fortunately I'm OK, OK. It could have been so much worse. I just went through a few hours of dealing with police, who were pretty decent, my roommate, as they took my bag which had my keys, my IDs, my cell phone, thank heaven Garrett was home and had an extra cell so I switched over the number, but these assholes, those guys, have all that personal information on my old phone who knows probably they won't use it but that's not public, that stuff.....I was lucky, lucky that people were around to help. I had thought this city safe but I guess it isn't. I don't know what to do really. I don't know what those guys wanted, to rape me rob me who knows. Two guys got assaulted where Garrett lives, and this is an expensive neighborhood. This is just one more headache I have to deal with but it's serious: no more games.

August 25 is the anniversary of Dad's death, also, and this just adds insult to injury. I am fearful of a "next time" and will it be worse? Is it just a random fucking thing or what? No, no no I won't wear heels walking home at night, I'm lucky I could get out of those shoes and run. They were those little slippers you buy on the street. It could have been so much worse. August 25 that's just a bad day, I'm looking forward to it ending.

obsession and fatigue

Endless wondering: will so and so call are they mad did I alienate them what are their reasons what motivates them waiting and waiting the curse of love. Easy to say: I'm not gonna wait anymore no matter how much I like someone, and no matter how I try to alleviate it I end up waiting again. ARRRRRGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!! Simone de Beauvoir wrote of love being potentially hell and I know what she means. I actually miss David was thinking of him but I'm also jealous that he's traveling. Now I'm looking at the food channel and shots of Paris an absolutely gorgeous, breathtakingly, city. And wanting to go back, to go somewhere, wherever! South Africa Colombia California back to Egypt.......

Always feeling tired like I'm going to faint when I'm outside and there's an endless laundry list of Stuff that needs to be done yesterday so badly wanting to connect with someone but also wanting NOT to. I'm eating chocolate which I shouldn't but I have endless cravings for it cravings period plus well periods of feeling like I'm going to pass out then suddenly not being able to sit still. The doctor told me I'm borderline anemic.

It was Tolstoy who wrote: all happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own unique way. The events of this past weekend are tragic but also absurd to the point of being almost comic. If everyone is famous for something I wonder if we'll be famous for being weird, and I ran into Sonny on the train....he just looked at me and didn't even say hi just really creepy, like foreshadowing. I am getting A LOT of foreshadowing plus seeing people who look like V and D plus .....I'm looking for clues but have none, for now.

the last post

Was melodramatic I know......but well I was upset. I don't have time to go into it now.....but I can't understand why my mother and Sonny don't want their kids to have full, rewarding and happy lives. Someone who is a total social misfit dominates Samantha's life and it's so sad for her, because she's a normal person and she said to him, "I don't want to be like you! I want to go out and have friends and have a normal life!" And what 19 year old wants to stay inside in the woods on a Saturday night and who in the Hamptons comes home at 2AM on Saturday? Mother herself was complaining to Donna last weekend that Sonny always goes out of his way to spoil anyone's good time, so why is she taking his side this time? Are they jealous? What is the point in being in the Hamptons if you're not part of the life? It's depressing going to Bridgehampton Polo and not being able to get into the VIP tent and finally I meet someone who I get along with and who CAN introduce us to the life and Mother and Sonny have to nearly permanently sabotage it and I can only pray, pray to whoever's out there who can help, that those people aren't alienated. Sonny is truly scary and he made a nasty scene showing up in the parking lot and yelling and them calling our phones Sam's only hope is to strike out on her own and sadly there are limited ways of doing that.

I really feel for Sam. They did this same thing to me when I was sixteen, expecting me to sit alone in that house with no friends in the woods.....no wonder I revolted,and was afraid of the country. Mother would flip out at me alone in that house and even attack me.....and it was all chalked up to her being distressed at recent bad events but the time has way passed and she hasn't changed. She talks about Grandpa having borderline personality disorder but I say she has the same, and I could have gone that way also.


That said,though,I beg whoever is out there for a second chance with V and these people because I believe wholeheartedly in the nightlife/club/techno scene and I believe it's right--I mean it's so hard to explain but I just know I'm doing the right thing here-- and I know bad stuff happens but I don't want to ever be told not to dance!

I believe,with no doubt whatsoever, that I did the right thing by befriending V and those people and that Sam did the right thing also and that Mother and Sonny are wrong. They get this way whenever we try to be social. They got mad at Al when he came out and my friend Jane.

It's a lost cause.....you can't be with certain people hoping for the best because it's not in them to be constructive: they won't change. From now on I'm on my own out there, and Sam too.