Losing control of the language.

El-P Drones Over Brooklyn

You know when you just realize that everything is wrong with you? Maybe it’s just because I’m stoned or because I ran out of my anti-depressants a few days ago and I’m getting side effects. I can never remember the difference between “affects” and “effects,” but I’m starting to figure out the passive tense.

My life doesn’t feel real very frequently and I’m not sure I have what it takes to do what I need to do to change that.

If my dad is right it’s ok that I’m trying. Maybe it’s the trying that makes things seem unreal – when you accept life the way it is it becomes an unquestionable reality. I feel guilty when I expose people to the turmoil constantly churning in my mind.

But I see other people’s weirdness as entertaining unless they effect (or affect?) me negatively. Everyone has their own shit. There’s no reason to feel bad about it unless you think it makes you immoral. And even then, what’s the point of hating yourself? Where did I get all this guilt?

I can feel the SSRIs leaving my system and it feels terrible. But it doesn’t feel particularly amazing to be on them either. It’s so strange to think about my mood last night versus today. Hyperactive optimism versus chemical depression.

I wish I could jump like my cats. I wish I could think like them.

I want to really see things. 

Robyn - Dancing On My Own

Somebody said you’ve got a new friend

Does she love you better than I can?

Big black sky over my town

I know where you at, I bet she’s around

In high school I was in love with a boy (or so I thought). He was in love with one of my best friends. She was in love with him, too, briefly. They dated for about a year, but she drifted away from him as their relationship became more stable and in her eyes, boring. Now I haven’t talked to her in years, and she lives somewhere with people I don’t know.

Yeah I know it’s stupid, but I’ve just gotta see it for myself

My psychiatrist says I have an unusually strong phobia of cliché. I want it to be ok for me to feel things that other people feel.

I’m giving it my all, but I’m not the girl you’re taking home

I’ll keep dancing on my own

I didn’t even listen to this song today. I only thought of it on the train home, so tired I was getting chills and almost collapsed as I fell asleep leaning against the door.

I’m just gonna dance all night

I’m all messed up, I’m so out of line

Stilettos and broken bottles, I’m spinning around in circles

I relate to the lyrics of this song pretty intensely. The combination of determined self-destruction and hopeless longing is something I’ve experienced many, many times. I think the line “spinning around in circles” is what brought it to my mind today. Sometimes here I feel like I’m spinning downwards towards something I can’t make out, but I know can’t be all that good. There aren’t many hands trying to pull me out.

I’m in the corner, watching you kiss her

Not trying to sound morose, but that’s what I feel right now. What’s the difference between writing and therapy? Is this too “public”? I can’t tell if I’m being an obnoxious over-sharer or “expressing myself” or making art. I’m not trying to come off a certain way, not on this blog. If anything, I’m trying to undermine any facade I’ve been able to piece together elsewhere.

I’m right over here, why can’t you see me

That boy, from high school, he’s not a bad guy. He led me on for awhile, but he didn’t intend to hurt me. Neither did my friend in college who did the same. All the others, the guys I’ve been friends with, who’ve flirted with me, or their idea of me, before going with whoever they’re really interested in, they didn’t mean to hurt me either. I’d probably do the same.

Yeah, I know that it’s stupid, but I’ve just gotta see it for myself

It’s one thing to survive being single, I’ve done that almost my whole life. I can’t survive without my friends. Even if I can, I don’t want to.

I’ll keep dancing on my own

The Mountain Goats - Source Decay

Flying To California

This morning I woke up like I was still dreaming. I was lying on a rotting couch with some kind of black curtain draped over me in place of a blanket. The couch was in a music venue I’ve been to many times, but I hadn’t seen a show there the night before. I got up, used the bathroom and took another bottle of water. I walked down the dark stairs to the street and into the bright Brooklyn morning, past kids going to school and people commuting to work. I half-heartedly attempted to hail a taxi, but ended up taking the train. The colors outside seemed both bright and soft. It was a Monday morning. I think I was still drunk.

where as indirectly as you can
you ask what i remember
i like these tourture devices
from my old best friend

Now I’m on an airplane headed to see my family in California. I’ve spent the last two days drinking with a band I love, and today I was again horribly hung over. I fell back asleep and woke up too late. My boss didn’t really care, but he doesn’t care about a lot of things. I’m reading a book by someone I met a few weeks ago at a bar at which I was certainly the youngest person.

well i’ll tell you what i know
like i swore i always would
i don’t think it’s going to do you
any good

Sometimes these days I can’t recognize myself. I decided to bleach my hair – something I’ve never done – in what was maybe an attempt to embrace the strange person I’m becoming. Or maybe it was to try to gain some semblance of control over what appears on the surface to be a lot of success in a short time, but has manifested itself as a downward-spiraling continually worse emotional breakdown. In any case, it isn’t working.

i remember 
the train headed south outta bangkok
down toward 
the water

Flying To New York

i wish the west texas highway 
was a mobius strip
i could ride it out forever
when i feel my heart break

Sometimes I think I might be a writer. Upon further consideration, it seems doubtful. At least, I know I’m not one right now. But really, what else would I be better at? I have an insane memory for details (the more centered on myself, the better). I can remember every outfit I wore on the first day of school from fifth through twelfth grades. 6^th grade – a purple skort and sparkly purple shirt, both from Limited Too. 9^th grade – a shirt from a small store in Quebec, a tan corduroy blazer from Macy’s, jeans and black and white converse. What else am I going to use these bits of information for, aside from impressing or creeping out my friends and family? I also think that, like my dad, I am at heart a sorty teller. I’ve even sometimes considered trying stand up, because it’s similar to what I do in conversation. I tell the same stories again and again, altering the delivery and details slightly, and wait for the laughs. I’ve worked out what to leave in or keep out, and I change the act depending on the audience. But I don’t know if I’ll ever be a comedian.

i fall out of the car
like a hostage from a plane
think of you a while
start wishing it would rain

It’s a pretty ok problem – being interested in too many things. My ambitions keep growing, proving limitless thus far. But I worry if I don’t eventually pick one thing I’ll never be amazing at or known for anything. My life, interests, and work will dissolve into a puddle of blog posts and half-knitted scarves.

when i come up empty handed
the feeling almost overwhelms me
i let a few of my 
defenses fall

I don’t know exactly what it was, but in the last year, something has definitely broken inside me. I used to write about my inability to stop self-editing, to the point that made it impossible for me to be creative. Now, I write about other things. Increased confidence and some success helped, but I think the real culprit is New York City. If living in this infinite circus of wonderful, terrible, constant overstimulation doesn’t bring out what you most love and hate in yourself, then maybe you shouldn’t be living here. New York is the inescapable lens through which I now view the world. I don’t think it can be undone. But that’s ok. I’ve always thought about things deeply, too deeply for my own good. It’s only been the solitude, depression, ecstasy, anger, glee, pain and joy that my life here brings me that has allowed me to make those dry analyses into something more interesting. It has destroyed the barriers that used to block my ideas before they could reach the world outside my head. I now want to tell people everything. I have so many stories to write. 

and i smile a bitter smile
not a pretty thing to see
think about a raileroad platform
back in nineteen eighty three

and i remember 
the train headed south outa bangkok
down 
down toward 
the water

Zola Jesus - Sea Talk

Way up high
When you tell me not to cry
Did you understand I can’t help it
Did you understand I don’t have a choice

The term “witch house,” is quickly growing as useless as “indie.” It’s nearly impossible to justify an argument about what is or isn’t witch house. Despite that confusion, I think a central attitude of the genre is a sense of nihilism and apathy so intense that it actually exudes darkness. And not because it’s trying to be dark, like black metal, but because the degree to which the artists don’t care is incredibly bleak (FYI: I like a lot of this music). I wouldn’t blame anyone who wanted to group the super-bleak Zola Jesus in that category, but there’s a dramatic difference between her and her witch house “contemporaries.” There is more emotion in twenty seconds of a Zola Jesus song than there is on some entire witch house albums. If she has given up, it’s not for not trying, and in her voice you hear the exertion she has to use just to get it OUT, both physically and emotionally, in a way that reminds me of Amy Winehouse. Her pain is palpable. I would never describe her as numb or apathetic. 

Do you wanna go
Do you really know
I don’t ever stay awake for you
Do you wanna go
Do you really know
That I can’t afford the truth

The cold, white sun was shining off the SoHo streets, reflecting off the ground, the cars, the sunglasses of people with too much money, and my cold, white hair. I was returning to work from therapy, starving, dazed, and drained, thinking about my parents and the things I do to cause myself pain, as I tried to navigate the crowds of shoppers, starting every time I caught a glimpse of myself in a store window. 

Sick
I’m sick honey
I don’t, I don’t got the money
Do you want a rain-check
‘Cause I can’t give you what you need
All by myself

Last week my friend told me that without her boyfriend she feels like half a person. I’ve only been in one relationship, and it only lasted a few months. Though I’ve felt pretty lonely since I was a young teenager, not only do I feel like a whole person, recently, I feel like too many people, all of whom are fighting for dominance in a psyche that is constantly pitching and shifting, upturning itself, depressing itself and restarting itself. I am bursting with possible selves. 

Do you wanna go
Do you really know
I don’t ever stay awake for you
Do you wanna go
Do you really know
That I can’t afford the truth

In the war of identity that has been fought in my consciousness for the last few months, the stakes keep getting higher. It’s been a mostly cold war, with few casualties, each side constantly appeasing the other. One thing is clear - I am not the person I was a year ago. It’s uncomfortable to contemplate, especially when I talk to friends and family who can’t see or understand it. I wanted to do something physically to represent this, but nothing that would trap me into any one identity. My new hair is not a white flag. It’s signaling a new era of my self, one where I can dress rockabilly one day, wear all black the next day, and when I feel like it, just wear an ill-fitting band t shirt, but, hopefully let that diversity strengthen me instead of drain me. 

Give me one more try
Before I fall apart, fall into the sky
I feel every inch, I feel it fold
Over myself, over you

As fun as apathy can be, I’m more cautious in experimenting with it than than I am with most drugs, lest it take over parts of myself that are too important to not be cared about. But I’m not afraid. The things I feel deeply will always win, even when I have to push hard to let them out. 

Do you wanna go
Do you really know
I don’t ever stay awake for you
Do you wanna go
Do you really know
That I can’t afford the truth

I am bored

Iron & Wine - Faded From The Winter

I decided this weekend that this might be my favorite album of all time. Listening to it feels like being in a womb. I’ve probably listened to it more than any other single album, when I can’t sleep, after crying, driving home early in the morning, shifting between states of consciousness, struggling to let go of something that’s been pulling me apart. These songs are a warm cup of tea with honey, a soft blanket, a friend holding your hand. It’s everything I could need. 

Daddy’s ghost behind you
Sleeping dog beside you
You’re a poem of mystery
You’re the prayer inside me

Lion’s Mane is the album’s opener, but this song is where I feel it really starts. Though it’s the most comforting collection of songs I know, this song starts off uneasy, almost ominous feeling. And then the first verse ends and it’s like coming over a hill as the sun rises, everything slowly growing brighter and turning gold, and you know you’re going to make it. 

Spoken words like moonlight
You’re the voice that i like

The songs on The Creek Drank The Cradle aren’t always happy. On the contrary, they’re full of pain and longing. But it isn’t an immediate, all-consuming pain, like the one overwhelming Bon Iver’s For Emma, another album for when I need music to wrap around myself and to protect me from whatever I’m trying to escape from. These songs are more distant, filtered through the lens of memory until their stories have been romanticized into something that probably never happened, but you’re willing to believe did. 

Needlework and seedlings
In the way you’re walking
To me from the timbers
Faded from the winter 

Elliott Smith - Alameda

You walk down Alameda 
Shuffling your deck of trick cards over everyone
Like some precious only son
Face down, bow to the champion

This wasn’t one of the first songs I latched on to when my friend gave me the two Elliott Smith mixed CDs in 10th grade, inscribed with blue and purple sharpie and the titles of the songs written out in her undecipherable handwriting. They lived for years, growing unlistenable, in CD cases and car seats. I could probably still find them in a crevice of a box in my garage holding what used to be in my room. 

You walk down Alameda 
Looking at the cracks in the sidewalk
Thinking about your friends
How you maintain all them in a constant state of suspense

It would be easy to go all Garden State right about now. Even when I was 15 and had never experienced the untethered feeling of homelessness that Zach Braff described, I still picked out that line from the movie as important, quoting it on my Livejournal or Myspace, somehow sensing it would factor in my future. And now my lack of a traditional home is more real than I could have imagined. But it doesn’t feel that way. My home is with my friends, wherever they are.

For your own protection over their affection
Nobody broke your heart
You broke your own because you can’t finish what you start

We create communities wherever we go. It’s one of the best parts of being human. Though I worry about lack of community around the things I love, the little there is seems to constantly struggle for survival. 

Walk down Alameda 
Brushing off the nightmare you wish
Could plague me when I’m awake
And now you see your first mistake 
Was thinking that you could relate
For one or two minutes she liked you

Elliott Smith’s voice alone makes me feel 15 again. 

But the fix is in
You’re all pretension
I never pay attention
Nobody broke your heart
You broke your own because you can’t finish what you start
Nobody broke your heart
You broke your own because you can’t finish what you start
Nobody broke your heart
You broke your own because you can’t finish what you start
Nobody broke your heart
If you’re alone it must be you that wants to be apart