muttring to myself

places i did not expect to be since i returned from latin america

• a warehouse full of “100% human hair” (and jkorean car smugglers)
  
• speaking to 500 high schoolers about my life
• the private upstate art gallery of a MoMA trustee
• talking to natalie portman on the set of her directorial debut
• dangling 30ft above 250,000 sq ft concrete floor
• starting a road trip to california just when gas hit the $4 national average

so thats where i am, and where ill be - somewhere in america. much better than taking breaks from here due to being heartbroken or technologically detached.

teh interwebz.

my computer is still busted, my internet is continuously down, and i hate technology now. the continuous and upward trend for everything in life, computers, cars, appliances - it pisses me off. i don’t ever want to download the new iTunes because the old one worked just fine, the new one is just bound to take more resources and have more bugs. this thought applies to everything in my life.

i still quickly browsed the internets. this is what i found: the AP finally agrees with me, and the end is nigh. because all of the food we eat in america is processed, it won’t rise sharply in price like it has been doing in the rest of the world. people have fun in public, and i wish i was there, for it being london and for it being fun. the CEO of BP had an op-ed in FT (wow, way too many letters), and it is full of the same smarmy nonsense im tired of hearing from them, and is easily analysed. the economist talks about it too. i hadnt realized, but ross perot still does stuff, but his website has a nice little intro to government money - revenues and expenses (via that jakob guy) cool stuff: a guy that is selling his life after it fell apart started the auction. totally something i would want to do. especially cool - an early-day noah kalina, a man took a polaroid every day for 18 years, until the day he died. at first cool, then interesting, then enrapturing, then haunting. fantastic, with information here. and, a food clock similar to the world clock i mentioned a couple months ago.

group identification? meh, rich people like perty stuff.

high times for self reflection, eh? not really reflection though - i already knew all of this. lately i’ve found myself verbalizing a lot of this stuff in the company of others, in their aid. i guess right now im just making sure i am getting my story straight. what to get my story straight about this time? in my quest to never leave my childhood, i have yet to come to terms with one of the problems with my childhood - that lack of a true group in my life. the past couple days i have found myself working somewhere i used to aspire to: the private art gallery of an unbelievably rich couple.

husband, director at a financial giant, wife, trustee at world-leading museum, massive apartment on the park, palatial estate in upstate new york. and i mean huge - they have more than 100 acres of mowed lawn, let alone the surrounding privacy woods. their gallery is on this estate, and i am helping set it up, along with more than two dozen other people. looking around, it just shocks me this is all private money - that these people i am talking to are in fact paying for this, all of this, out of pocket.

i can pass it off as vapid, fake, unbelievable, and even shameful. but it definitely is what i have wanted in the past. in fact, during university i would willfully miss meetings of a club with close friends just so i could walk around Chelsea galleries. i even took a fine arts minor to educate myself on that front. but what is this - its all just bling for really rich people, dropping the name of the latest indie band for the obscenely wealthy set. its one giant character flaw. i don’t want that group.

but i’ve never known which group i do want. when i was young, i was too smart for the jocks, too interested in the real world for the nerds, not lonely enough for the outcasts, not hardcore enough for the druggies… i got along with all of them, but never with one of them. i’ve felt for most all of my life that this was an advantage, but i’ve never been sure. i’ve probably lost my sense of humor without a “home” group of comfortable friends, but i’ve gained true independence of spirit. this has its drawbacks too, but i think i’ll take it as it has happened. i’m always down with the anthropic view.

being single, being a couple, being friends, being old

despite my best efforts, i don’t necessarily live to the ideals i wish. primarily, my deviations are female-related. i don’t like succumbing to “like.” i do it rarely, as every time i have it has ended badly - usually for the worse from where i started. this has made any argument for continuing to slog away hard to swallow, as, i think for me, the good times have yet to outweigh the bad times for the most part. as such, i usually just ignore my feelings, respectful of the fact that it sucks but consoled by the fact that they probably aren’t reciprocated anyway. problematically, when they are this strategy completely fails. i’ve yet to mesh my adequate single independent approach with a relationship view of proper, healthy, and caring dependence.

i also noticed that the ideals took a slight backset when i first got to new york city. new york has a strong effect on everyone, so it is weird to go back home. especially as i was a student, and would revisit friends from home, changes were obvious. there is a level of conceit and pomposity that is immediate and large, and grabbed me right quick. i’ve definitely noticed it in university friends when i see them back home - they are really different when out of the city, for it changes you. besides the conceit, i would say the biggest difference new york levied on me was the removal of my sense of humor. while at home i was sly, cynical, annoying, and generally could get a laugh when i wanted to. after new york, despite these being central city traits, i lost all of it. i turned serious and highminded. very unfortunate. i need my innocence and wisecracks back.

i am (hesitantly) confident that this will resolve itself in time, and i will be able to look back at these glorious indecisive, naive, fooldhardy years of youth. then again, i thought i would be able to do the same by now for middle and high schools, but that doesn’t work yet.

reflection and regret, anathema to my feelings, dominate my thoughts.

if i were rich, id want an apartment built with secrets, and art that makes me smile.