10.3 – I know it has been too long. I am no longer practically unemployed and depressed. Being busy is a good thing, but it breaks my heart to be productive without any reward-outside getting paid, which is not really a reward.
9.4 – Theres this stuffed animal called petunia who is viral on instagram- though I’ve learned she was viral on tiktok months and months ago. Sorry I’m behind. I love Petunia- I think she is so funny and adorable and think its smart comedy.
9.2 – I finished my book on the Kennedys a few days after getting back from the cape. As I sat on their beaches reading, I could not believe that they had time to be skilled in all the things the were; boats, football, writing, politics, heroin addictions. I can appreciate that they didn’t do anything halfway.
8.21 – Went to Coney Island for Leo’s birthday. We wound up going on their equivalent of a water ride, and got unexpectedly soaked. I felt bad afterwards as the ride had been my idea, but any grudge held by the others went unsaid
8.16 – Finished reading A Smattering of Ignorance by Oscar Levant, a book gifted to me by Becca on my birthday. True stories written by Levant about the American music scene of the early 20th century. My favorite stories were A Cog in the Wheel which focussed on the endlessly frustrating business of film scores and My Life which was all about George Gershwin. He noted that the theme from American in Paris is always used in movies to note city life- both in Paris and in New York, but only on sunny days in London, and of course this is a rarity.
8.12 – Went to a yankees game. The view was so perfect that I felt like I was staring at a fake field. The players figments- their tiny movements so seemingly inconsequential that it could not be resulting in the roars from the crowd, the change on the scoreboard. I ate a hotdog and cheered along for the fake movements of the tiny men. On the train ride home, a woman complimented my tj-maxx ballet flats which I have had to sew together twice. Her boyfriend explained why the sushi she had bought for him for his lunch wasn’t that good and I felt super depressed.
8.11 – Birthdays are interesting because they force you to take stock. You realize who doesn’t really care all that much about you (humbling) and also understand that some people care a massive amount about you (lovely.) But the best part is there are always a few people who surprisingly show up in one of the categories. Your old coworker you haven’t spoken to in months who somehow knows your birthday reaches out, but your college best friend doesn’t.
As I get older the number of people who text happy birthday dwindles, the birthday text becoming increasingly obligational. What used to be a wish we bestow upon someone else to have a good year filled with blessings and joy, has now become an irritating errand.
This annoyance is funny to me because I think what makes the birthday text so wonderful is its neutrality. Of course it can serve many purposes, an olive branch, a reconnection, a vindication, but the means itself, unless confessed, is simply common decency. You are saying “Happy Birthday;” how can that be a crime? Once a year we get a free pass at communication with anyone we wish hidden under the guise of politeness, is that not amazing?
This is why I see not sending a birthday text as an act of malevolence. Of course people forget or they get wrapped up in their own anxieties- whatever who cares. We’ve all stopped having faith in the world and therefore won’t risk anything, which means wishing someone happy birthday can now be a terrifying act of self obsession, instead of just being the good thing to do. I always want to hear happy birthday, no matter who it is from, no matter what our last conversation was. I think inaction is typically the weaker choice, though it is more popular today. I don’t really care that much, only a leo would say something like this anyway.
8.10 – Songs sung at karaoke: Copacabana, Bags, Picture to Burn, Total Eclipse of the Heart, How to Disappear, Oops I Did it Again, Somebody to Love, Chandelier, Misery, Juna, All American Bitch
8.9 – Went out with friends to a bar, I was drinking only tequila sodas and wearing lace. I was talking to some guy who was a friend of a friend when he suddenly dropped an insane bomb on me: his favorite book was Anna Karenina and also he had a girlfriend. I mean you cannot make this stuff up.
8.6 – I hate getting pedicures because I have really ticklish feet. When they start scrubbing the dead skin off my feet I typically begin to thrash around in the massage chair as if I had been electrocuted. But– I was having a hard week and I wanted to have my toes done, so off I went. I sit down in this damn chair and the woman looks at my feet and then looks back at me. She says: “when was the last time you got a pedicure?” I said never and explained that I don’t like getting them, she nodded as if she could clearly tell that was true.
8.5 – Had a Slumber Party. Lane made us kale salad and I made root beer floats
8.4 – Finished Reading Brideshead Revisited. It was an entertaining read, though slightly indulgent. I can always appreciate a story about wealth and unspoken love- but the british aristocracy are just too much!
8.3 – My ex boyfriend texted me a week before my birthday, a move which should be studied. Doesn’t he know he has now potentially ruined the ex-boyfriend birthday text? The greatest gift a girl can receive?
8.1 – Please tell me: how many boys who I have been romantically involved with can I have at my birthday party? Having them there would not put me (or any of them) in an uncomfortable situation, but it is an interesting question- if there are more than 5 I feel like a whore. Unfortunately for me, that seems to be the number I’ve wound up with. What can I do. One of them is making the cake.
7.29 – I’ve been watching the summer I turned pretty. It’s an interesting show because I think that it serves as a true cultural touchstone for our time. One brother depressed, the other barely bisexual. A girl who probably just wants to have a threesome- not with the brothers don’t worry. All played against a ridiculous amount of taylor swift songs. Of course I’m Team Conrad
7.28 – Coming back from the ocean. New York is hot again. I do not have AC because I don’t like to pay for things that are stupid, and (I tell myself) it makes me feel alive. On the train I ended up finishing one of the books one of the 7.21 boys recommended, because I have forgiven him. It was a confusing book, which I appreciate in a recommendation. An abstract russian novel from the 1990s whose perplexing plot left me with a feeling of hopeful emptiness. Below is my favorite quote from it: “There are very few who are prepared to admit that they are exactly the same as everyone else. But is not this the usual condition of man – sitting in the darkness beside a camp-fire kindled through someone else’s compassion and waiting for help to arrive?”
I know I am not ready to admit I am the same as everyone else- I’m not sure if I ever will be.
7.23 – Reread Joan Didion’s essay on self respect twice before I went to bed last night, and then again this morning. One time on my instagram story I joked that my new morning routine was going to the gym, drinking a smoothie, re-reading the essay, and then taking a cold shower- as per her instruction.
The chunk below is my new iphone wallpaper:
“Like Jordan Baker, people with self-respect have the courage of their mistakes. They know the price of things. If they choose to commit adultery, they do not then go running, in an access of bad conscience, to receive absolution from the wronged parties; nor do they complain unduly of the unfairness, the undeserved embarrassment, of being named co-respondent. In brief, people with self-respect exhibit a certain tough-ness, a kind of moral nerve; they display what was once called character, a quality which, although approved in the abstract, sometimes loses ground to other, more instantly negotiable virtues. The measure of its slipping prestige is that one tends to think of it only in connection with homely children and United States senators who have been defeated, preferably in the primary, for reelection. Nonetheless, character-the willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life-is the source from which self-respect springs.”
I’ve been lazy in my life recently. Certainly it is time to take a cold shower.
7.21 – Had to stop reading two books in the past two weeks because the guys who recommended them to me decided they didn’t like me- every time a guy fucks me over my literacy rate plummets.
7.21 – Watched Rashomon at Film Forum with a boy who I’ve had sex with 4 times; he doesn’t want a relationship so we opted to go the movies and then have dinner. It is unclear if sex is still on the table. Rashomon was a wonderful film about the general dishonesty of Man Kind. Typically, love does not prevail, but sometimes a crying baby will show up and remind us how we are supposed to act. If you take a photo of the movie screen at the movies you should be killed probably.
7.15 – I went to the ballet and wore this pink dress. The last (and only) time I wore this dress was the night my ex asked me to be his girlfriend while I was throwing up in the toilet and he was pissing in the sink. Until the spring, the dress lay on the back of his couch waiting for him to take it to the dry cleaner like he promised, but never did. It has not been washed since. Side note: that was a really wonderful night, but so was going to the ballet. I wouldn’t have gotten the dress dry cleaned anyway, so whatever.
7.5 – In D.C. walking through some sort of public festival happening by the monuments. There was a tent reserved for “young artists” which was nothing more than a palatable sanitation of the ideas of artistic rebellion that used to be intrinsic to being young. The goal was clearly to prove a point about how the kids are doing; I was not convinced. Then I went to the modern art museum and felt depressed because the art was so removed from any clear emotion or narrative, there was no message to be received in the confusion. I was saddened by the lack of meaning. Then I walked around the monuments and listened to classical music feeling sorry for myself because the last fourth of July I got dumped, plus I was also on my period. Then I thought about Dan Egan from Veep and how badly I want to fuck him. Sorry Mum.
6.3 – I was sunburnt and going to the Met. I got chicken and rice and a Diet Coke from the halal truck by Lincoln center- I had dinner here too the last time I went to the Met. I wonder if doing something twice makes it a Tradition.
