30 minutes until election day Or election week Or election month, year or who the whatever knows
I feel like this has been the prologue And tomorrow will be CHAPTER 1: VOTING Followed by CHAPTER 2: COUNTING CHAPTER 3: RECOUNT CHAPTER 4: CLAIMING A NARRATIVE 5: UPROAR 6: RESISTANCE and the rest of the hunger games series in however way you wanna frame it
I’ll be here in the (basically) capital not the capitol Far away from dc
Away from, where will he be, florida? I don’t even know where kamala is Probably DC I’d guess Should I know this, perhaps I should yes,
Tomorrow the other ones, not the 78% who’ve already voted, the rest will vote or they’ll choose to not or they wont care and it might just not happen Like my good friend It just didn’t happen and he’s very happy about that, That’ll be the people of this country I currently live in And we’ll see what kind of shit happens
But not tomorrow Tomorrow will be a prologue without a dedication, because dedications can only happen once you know what the story is actually about and we’re not even halfway there
Was there an orientation I didn’t attend? Did I not check my email and is that why I didn’t go? I feel like they would have sent me an invite but what the fuck do I know anymore
Stuck somewhere between a prodigy and someone who is chill about receiving a pay check Stuck between the kid who put up plays in 5th grade and the woman who sat on the stoop for 23 minutes before someone else arrived and had the guts to knock on the door Stuck between the girl who cold called politicians and pitched socio economical plays and the person who didn’t know she’d misread an entire relationship for 5 weeks
Maybe those two last ones align, actually Someone who doesn’t know that what she’s doing isn’t regular that what’s she’s doing is somehow not what other people secretly had in mind Someone who doesn’t have a clue that she doesn’t have a clue and it’s her greatest strength but how can she ever be sure that they aren’t contemplating firing her at the same time
Are grown ups not supposed to tell us, the smaller grown ups, if we’re doing something wrong? Are bosses not supposed to let employees know if we aren’t meeting their expectations? Are leaders not supposed to facilitate processes in which the individual workers can thrive and contribute according to ability and special skills? Are leaders not supposed to say anything but “I’m the one who makes the calls”,
like,
we know, that’s why we report to you, is that supposed to be a threat? Is that supposed to be new information? What are you really saying by that, do you want me to go sit in a corner or pitch a different idea, because I’ll fucking do it, I’ll do anything to not feel like a 15 year old who missed a curfew
I thought parents were grown ups and children were kids, But teenagers are women and women are childish And children are parents, And children are great All my favourite adults are really just children
But if we could please lose the superiority from grown ups and mentors and bosses and co-workers, If we could make childhood fun again Instead of making it the equivalent of uselessness, I’d go sit in a corner Or I’d run the meeting I’d sketch up a process design or I’d go on the coffee run
When a woman who’s a grown up child can lose the shame of failing?? Then I think we’re good to go? What the fuck is up with the shame of failing or with failures being fatal? How did anyone ever learn anything? Did I miss an e-mail stating that grown ups have never failed to get to where they are now??? Let’s flag as phishing then?!
its been a while since bon iver since “for emma, forever ago” it was around the same time that I didn’t know which of the roommates I was in love with and it turned out it was neither and the time I realized someone thought my clothes were ugly around the time that the only time I spent purposefully alone was five minutes on a table in the sunny courtyard, assuming rightly that somebody would join me it was efterskole, boarding school, end of childhood maybe
ive been here a while now longer than halfway there “there” being headed towards JFK returning to Europe perhaps Denmark that or Amsterdam both more like what I knew this is what I know right now: – my amc membership allows me to catch the late show, alone, on Sunday nights, probably only one in the cinema, bringing my own snacks and walking home from 68th to 74th as the fruit shop closes and the employees of Harvest are sat outside to hang out before heading home – alex left, is back in Tilburg, right now sleeping and soon getting up to go back to school – alex was here two nights ago and we rode the subway dressed as john lennon and caroline wozniacky/generic tennis player – I’ve had enough pizza for a week – this red candle was a perfect purchase – I almost jokingly described the two towers at 74th and 8th as lighthouses but it is not a joke – bon iver will make me feel like im traveling to a different time, a simpler time and maybe I’m right now longing for lack of nuances – I’m just here – nobody knows where I am right now, I could be back in redhook or at the Dakota bar or wandering the fence of fort greene – its all as it’s supposed to be but I need a good cry – I think I need to look at water soon – I know I need to start researching opera terms soon – 18 people are living in apartments underneath mine, and they’re kind and they’re smart and I’ve met them and I’ve spoken to all of them and I’ve had conversations with most of them and I’ve hugged some of them and I’ve cried in front of one of them – and everything is as it’s supposed to be, but I need another good cry soon
how can it be that the sky isn’t the same for him? how are the stars not the same, if he got out of bed and looked up he’d see anything else and how is he supposed to go to school when he was just here in my arms, how does everything go on when he got on the bus and left did time travel with him on the plane or did it stay with me? how can both be true at the same time how is he about to wake up as I’ll get ready for bed how is he right here with me at the same time how was his visit loving and frustrating how was is cute and annoying how was it productive and lazy how was it supporting and competitive how can we hug and fuck why can’t I cry right now he’d tell me I need to get my pulse up but I won’t go running right now maybe I’ll go running when I wake up when he calls me after school is over when all things are true at the same time and we’ll both say that we miss each other and that we’re glad he’s back how is it so sad and so completely important that he’s not here anymore that he’s back to his life and mine continues, a simple gear shift and it’s done I’ll need a good cry to believe them to be true all the things at the same time
“breakfast in America” is apparently the ultimate sound of home not this new home, though, but the one with the red brick walls and the window that was easily outcrawlable and the couches that hosted ticklefights by feet and the identical chairs by the dining room of which we would rotate one seat each quarter of the year
that’s the sound of home to be honest, my dads insane systems that I’ve been laughing at and desperately craving and definitely escaping for years my mom’s dancing to supertramp in the kitchen while I’d rather she didn’t my mom’s the absolute cutest, I see that now, luckily she’s been able to see it all the way through even when literally no one else in the household was my boyfriends is coming to visit me in this new home shortly and I want him to think im cute and hot and smart and sexy, and he will, and I might bring him to play chess with June over by Union Square and we’ll pay him $10 each and it’ll be nice, they kept saying “you’re really nice” like most people aren’t maybe they were just thrown off by my white rich looking coat that cost $10 in an outlet store in Bushwick but they didn’t know that maybe they thought I was “one of those rich white people who live in Denmark” which would be absolutely true but maybe they thought I wasn’t a nice one which id hope isn’t true my opponent was named June “how beautiful” I told him and he told me “i don’t gamble” as I sat down as if to justify his life to me I might have said “sure” as he moved his pawn to E4 and his friend was named “Brooklyn” and he works in the area
and I immediately liked them and wanted to join in on their vibe, wanted them to offer me a smoke as well, but maybe I should just be happy they were smoking near me, that I was enough of a human that they didn’t feel like they had to act otherwise? I have no idea what their lifes are like
but June grew up in the Bronx and I kind of felt like I shouldn’t ask him where he lives now and Brooklyn works in the area June is here most days but not when its raining I’ll bring my boyfriend next week and we’ll each play him and pay him I assume he’ll win again but that’s not what matters
completely fucked how bad i am at drumming the two rhythms from parks and rec simultaneously
hihi how cute am in Asils livingroom on the couch while they and Alex are upstairs in Philadelphia <3
in Stuyvesant square park at 4:40 pm the literal only difference between the squirrels and rats are what their tail look like??
the voices in my head are fucking tedious, often stressed and ready for conflict
Found somebody else’s cut off nail at the steps of the Washington square park fountain
i am pants size: waist 36, length 34/32(?)
I don’t have to wait till the people I pass on the street say good morning to me, I can say good morning first
The summer I started to flip the book lying on the stomach the other way around when picking it up for more reading
Negative polite (“sentimental garbage” + “men love to stand up for a symbol but they hate to stand up for a woman”)
Am stressed out in that way where I forget that I’ve got the accessibility feature turned on on Maps, walk out the door two hours early, change my mind three times in one minute and hit mcdonalds, m so impatient that i pay a fee of $37 because i can’t be bothred calculating how much money i actually should wire internationally and am making new plans at the same time
Bringing Headcounts to the concert to help you register to vote
“Come and get it”: no one knows where I am right now
the way we’re connected now? if I could apply that to 6 years ago and make us be known to each other to more than group friends
so that I would have known to be there for you
if I could know how important you’d become to me if I had known that I’d have gone to your fathers’ funeral and I’d have helped you move I’d have visited you in your new place even though it was inconveniently far away from a subway station
I’d have asked you the questions I’m trying to ask you now, but they would be present tense and not past I’d ask you how you’re feeling how you’re going to talk to your brothers now what you and your mom will be wearing when his urn is put into the ground I’d listen to your ideas of gravestone inscriptions and I’d suggest a comma or ask if you’d considered cursive I’d take you out if you wanted to forget and I’d keep you in if you wanted to remember I’d look at you and see your tears I’d listen to your sobs and not to you talk about how you used to cry your eyes are mostly dry now not thanks to me
I couldn’t have known how we’d become but I should have known to be there either way because it hadn’t got to do with me or me and you but you and your brothers and how you had to drive the car back and forth from hospitals and making sure your mother would eat
and a bond in loss needs all the strength it can get and I didn’t contribute anything nothing but a hug and a condolence nothing to secure your knots to each other not a dish less for you to clean not an outlet for you to rant before calling them back, frustrated that they aren’t talking to each other, nothing for you to lean on before stumbling into whatever mess you were in I left you on a tightrope for you to walk, alongside your broken family of other ballerinas how did you manage to land you all? how did you stay strong on your own? how were you strong for the others? I guess from resilience rather than choice and next time I’m faced with a choice of attending the funeral of a father of someone I’m slightly friends with next time,
do I work better with or without music do I work better with or without a busy schedule do I work better with or without feeling blue
am I better with obstacles to beat mountains to climb am I better at ease, accepting what might come
am I best solo or am I better as somebody’s someone?
am I at my best when I’m a girlfriend or when I’m just a girl who sometimes loves this one other person very much am I best on my own knowing that the ones I love are far away but definitely there or is it better when we’re all in a room, together, at the same table
is distance possibly the greatest way of loving?
many crushes and favourite songs ago I learned that the empty space of this one guy was way more meaningful to me than his actual company
is this still true? is it horrible? is it true though?
are things better when there are no conflicts? when we all just agree that we love each other, oceans away, no socks on the floor or insecurities to devastate us
am I even a good aunt? When I keep forgetting to tell my sister that she can send videos on Signal and haven’t even sent her one myself?
Are they better off without me at the moment? knowing I’ll return safely, probably, at some point in the future no one has time for all these people honestly I did them a favour by removing myself from their equations for a while, think of all those friends they haven’t seen in a while that’ll be me now, for a while, I haven’t seen them in ages, 8 weeks, and there’s no issue it’s honestly never been this easy
is this what safety feels like? Or am I lonely or bored or self indulgent? possibly all actually at the same time sitting at this desk in this office I’ve been given on the upper west side not really missing anyone mostly wanting to go to chinatown tomorrow to stock up on frozen dumplings knowing they’re all sleeping in beds across the globe can love feel this indifferent? can it still be love? when it’s this much of a given? at what point does it stop being love? will it ever? should I give them another call or is 5 months as much nothing to them as it is to me? if love is everything, can it also then be nothing?
2
from afar the one phrase I was certain I understood, deeply and profoundly and over the top dramatically, but at some point, I think recently, it changed Now it’s not longing for a love that will never happen, not a one-way affection deemed to never return, now it’s love happening abruptly, all at once, then not at all, from a great distance across the Atlantic perhaps apparent in phone calls and messages and the distinctly familiar shape of the water tanks that made me think of them, gone by the sound of the ambulance in passing, ready to revisit at some undecided point in the future
thank you to all of you back home thank you for loving me from afar I promise I’m doing the same thing I’ve got you on photos that I’ll be hanging on my new wall tomorrow I’ve got you when I look out the window and thinking how I’ll explain the view to you when I return I’ve got you when someone mentions Greenpoint and you’re the ones I want to talk about “girls” with and that one scene with the trash man (doctor) in the house with the fruit in the bowl I’ve got you sporadically, there will be days of podcasts of my favourite tv show and not a thread of you there will be songs that we’ve listened to, but this time I’ll only feel how much I love them, blissfully self indulgent, forgetting that you do as well, then there will be weeks where you’ll keep appearing, the same childhood friend appearing in four different conversations during seven days, and I haven’t thought of her in years, how I’d wait for her at the top of the tiny hill every morning before we’d ride to school together, tiny tall people on tiny teenage bikes, I’ve got you when I imagine how ridiculously theatrical you’ll find me when I’ll be running around central park, latte in hand, feeling like a new york mom without anyone else to care for but myself, I imagine you’ll laugh, be a tiny bit jealous, find it to be a little boring but probably, in the end, feel a slight sting of love towards me that’s what I imagine but please correct my daydream when I return, I love you and I can’t function without you in my life, apparently that can be paused, though, the physical aspect of it, I am functioning to an a++ level at the moment and I haven’t seen you since July, weeks and weeks of high quality functioning to say the least, (or a least that’s how i feel as I’m writing this) but it’s not that it’s not it’s really, really not that I can function without you in my life
it’s just that I don’t need you here, in this room, on the couch behind this desk, scrolling on your phone or sharing your thoughts of that article you just sent me, I don’t need your body I don’t need your company I need your love and I need to know your bodies will be available when I return so thank you for your availability thank you for your invisible long distance love I hope you feel it too, I hope you’re planning how to tell me things I hope you’ll keep calling me when you’re angry at somebody else I hope you’ll not call me because you don’t need me for this either I hope you’ll collect anecdotes and possibly send me one single meme when it fits too well to not, I know you’re spending these months with all your others, your other important ones, the ones that make your everyday safe and fun and extravagant and I hope you’re not talking about me, maybe you thought someone would mention me tonight because we’re all in the same friend group but then my name just never came up, and on your bike ride home you might think, huh, and then the light turns green and you’ll keep on biking and that “huh” is the dearest flicker of love and I promise you I can feel it from here, and I’ll “huh” you right back as I walk towards the C on 72nd and Amsterdam huh huh a precious group of people in the back of my mind, that’s you, and don’t mistake my silence for indifference don’t mistake my affection for solitariness as having grown tired of you you probably haven’t you’re not even reading this because you’ve got other things to do and how great is this? a paralell life and a pause in how we used to love each other, now we’re doing it differently from afar from time to time maybe 5 months is a blink to you and you thought you’d call but the time just passed and your whole life happened, and how great is this?
– childhood friend came to visit me, both slept in same “bed” and bought amazing jeans and other greatnesses – got new friend from Manchester through not as new friends from usa – moved to upper west side, returned to Brooklyn for the first 2 nights for various fun reasons – saw Sarah Jessica parker and the guy who’s Aiden recording a scene in West Village – hung all my scrapbook material up on the wall in my new office (I have an office now) – went to 6 bank meetings in 2 days (2 different banks) and finally managed to open an account – went to comedy club – spoke on the phone to my mom – spoke very little on the phone to my boyfriend, though he did rescue me from a slight stress/anxious incident telling me that ofc im overwhelmed, prepare yourself sweetie – went for a tiny run in central park – cried a couple times – watched an incredible show at an enormous theater on broadway – times square by night – started masterclasses – went to introduction meeting with all my new dorm-mates and had multiple beers and conversations – was offered and thankfully accepted a beer in a red cup from sweet trump supporters in the 4-hour line to enter stadium – stood about 100 meters from Donald trump, recording what was remarkably close to an iconic villain speech called “We Are The People” from a play I’ve been touring with for 3 years – saw a preview of an experimental play in a private townhouse in Clinton Hill directed by a brilliant genius – coincidentally saw one of those same actors from Clinton Hill-play in rehearsals of a completely different play in east village – took a bus in bed-stuy and swore in Danish trying to jaywalk to make it in time – recorded and interviewed people at DJ-live recording event in bushwick, had a popsicle – facetimed with other dear childhood friend – celebrated birthday of new friend (ate a certain type of fries + walked on Highline) – danced at The End and Nightmoves and Nowadays – went to the memorial site on september 11th – read 4 scenes in prep for upcoming masterclass – had inspiring meeting with the Cultural Attaché at the Consulate General of Denmark – got high and had a burrito – texted my boss that he’s inspiring and that I’m thankful to have met him all those years ago – made 4 illustrations – went to tax id-workshop – zoom meeting with my Danish theatre group back home – coffee and conversation with a director/actor/producer – bought multiple notebooks and pens but barely anything to put in the fridge
things that’ll have happened before the end of this week: – gone to Philadelphia to help rehearsals of a dance performance at Philadelphia Fringe Festival, spend the night and go back to manhattan – ferry ride to redhook with relatively new friend visiting nyc from England – masterclass – finished Mr. Robot season 4 for the 3rd time – perhaps meeting with masterclass-coach – hopefully solitary time on rooftop and, perhaps, with luck, visibility of 5-6 perfect stars just being right where they ought to be, living their best life
today was not a great day even though the content was mostly well meaning interactions with helpful people
but when the system doesn’t seem to want you be part of it all that the kind people can do is tell you what your problem is, not solve it for you – let you know the next step and wish you good luck on your journey towards the next gated stairway to a bank account a social security number a post paid cell phone plan
honestly, if my address on the top floor of the upper west side can’t get me there how the fuck do you expect the people on the streets to stand a chance
