to see it with my own eyes
I haven’t been writing much this week, despite an intense desire to do so.
I’ve been reading that wonderful book in literary criticism—just got to the really juicy bits on structuralism and post-structuralism.
Lévi-Strauss, Barthes, etc.
I was watching TV briefly when I was over at Jorge’s friend’s house in Hoboken, and it seemed like every commercial was trying to make some product appear “natural.”
This passage from Literary Criticism really resonated with me:
[S]igns which pass themselves off as natural, which offer themselves as the only conceivable way of viewing the world, are by that token authoritarian and ideological. It is one of the functions of ideology to “naturalize” social reality, to make it seem as innocent and unchangeable as Nature itself. Ideology seeks to convert culture into Nature, and the “natural” sign is one of its weapons. Saluting a flag, or agreeing that Western democracy represents the true meaning of the word “freedom,” become the most obvious, spontaneous responses in the world.
I felt like I had all this to write about—the last few weeks were a ton of stories flashing through my mind, but now as I sit here in front of the screen my mind is but ashes.
Perhaps it’s because I’m feeling a bit tired after the Kelis/Robyn show tonight. Kelis put on an odd act—it wasn’t as much a performance of her songs as it was just a big megamix with a bunch of songs obviously not by her mixed in.
Robyn, however, was an absolute powerhouse. The A/C at Webster Hall wasn’t working, so it was dripping hot in that room while she threw it down. Despite the fact she must have been burning up in there, she was dancing and singing like it was going out of style. Most of it was prerecorded, but she had so much stage presence it didn’t even matter. Unfortunately, due to the steaminess of the room, the fact of Matt and I being in the sixth or seventh row, and the fact that she kept moving around like mad, I didn’t get a single clear shot of her.
Matt and I are supposed to go to upstate New York for this wedding this morning (I get on the bus in an hour and a half and I haven’t even begun to pack). I’m dreading it. There’s no cell service, but apparently there is wi-fi? I think I’m just not relishing the idea of being surrounded by strangers in the middle of nowhere for two days. Also, I won’t get any work done. Also, staying up until 8am is going to fuck my sleep schedule up for at least a week.
I hate leaving New York. It gets harder every time. I’m going to miss the showing of Taxi Driver at the IFC Center. And the Yacht show. There’s always cultural events though. I still haven’t made it to the New Museum.
All the things I wanted to write about have vanished from my mind. I have such an awful memory.
I did finish the second volume of À la recherche this week. Before the show, I hopped over to St. Mark’s Books to pick up Volume III: The Guermantes Way.
I’m tempted to think I have a lot of time tonight, but I really don’t. I must catch the bus in 1.5 hours. Okay, just did most of my packing.
I’ve really been wanting to write these days, but anything I would write would make people angry. The only things I can write address uncomfortable truths in my life. Things that have to stay buried for everything to continue as it does.
This diary hasn’t had capital-”t” truth in a very long time.
One truth tonight: I got out my cutesy note cards and wanted to write someone—a long lost love, an old friend that I hadn’t spoken to in a long time, but there are no such people.
I don’t have anyone’s mailing address unless I specifically asked them for it. I miss sending letters to Taylor in Paris. I miss being in love with someone far away—the thrill of the air mail stamp, the joy of a long phone conversation (who has those any more?).
One of the things that Proust is supposed to comment on in the book is the proliferation of telephones, from interesting novelty to something people hardly take notice of. Proust wouldn’t be surprised by the phone’s death via texting.
There are no long-lost friends because of Facebook. Thanks to the wonders of the news feed, I nearly know when they all last took a dump. I miss letters.
I have exactly one hour until I board the bus.
I think I’m afraid of writing these days. I’m afraid of the truth. Did I mention I went to see the new Todd Solondz movie, Life During Wartime, with Yevgeny and Matt? The characters talk profusely about whether other characters are just pretending to be happy or not. It’s one of those questions that has no answer. As soon as you stop to examine the question, you are not happy. Or perhaps you are.
I know I’m a hundred times happier than when I lived in Sacramento, a thousand times happier than living in Crescent City.
I feel like I’m not as close with Sam as I once was. When you know you will only see a person for a few days a year, friendships enter this airless holding pattern that I am, sadly, all too accustomed to these days.
I sent Patrick a card a month or two ago, and it wasn’t until a month or two later when I texted him about something unrelated that he thanked me for the card. I miss when he and I were in love with each other. I miss how everyone I love is destined to this half-life in my mind. I don’t know any of my friends here enough to really consider them close (save for Yevgeny, of course). I get along quite well with Jove, but I feel awkward asking him to hang out. He’s in a capital-”r” relationship now, and it seems like the only activities I could do with Jove would be date-y things: going to museums, going for a walk in the park, going to the beach—things he should be doing with his boyfriend.
I may take the adorable wooden cat Mario gave me along as a good luck charm. I have grown to love that cat. The porcelain one Christen gave me last year watches over me as I sleep upstairs (in the room that, unforgettably, my late uncle occupied for a solid year). I can still picture his face, subtly receding hairline (despite the receipt we’d found when clearing his apartment out about his hair restoration surgery). When we’d go to the pool, he’d chat us up about who knows what—lies and half-truths (in his mind, could he even tell the difference?) about his girlfriend. What was her name? Gail. Gayle. Something like that. She came from money, a lineage my dear uncle was certainly envious of. He’d play pauper, damning her for her cultivation, then take on a conspiratorial air and seem to imply that they were still in (indirect?) contact.
I wonder if she knows he died.
I wonder if she shed a tear.
I never met her.
I need to read Virgil, but I think I’m going to make my first entrance into Roman literature through the back door (or, perhaps more appropriately, through the glory hole) with Petronius’ Satyricon. That’s next after the Search.
I need to open that tome that contains so much pain for me, The Mandarins. It’s the oldest thing sitting on my “to read” shelf. I need to just get back into it and not think about Keith (who, thanks to Facebook, I learned is singing the praises of a new beau). I wonder if he still reads me. Not think about Grammie.
Solondz is right. Sometimes it’s better to just forget and not have to deal with the pain of things.
Nobody wants Truth. They want truth.




