some sonic remembrances

tabs in my browser/songs to cry to from a couple years back/a crying timeline i guess?

absolutely started bawling
continued bawling, but was cut short lol (it’s a short cover)
carried on crying with this banger

yes we stay crying i guess ^

a little more lighter, transitioning to uh…back to reading time. Reading: The Lonely City by Olivia Laing, page 64 ish “a personality that both longs for and fears being subsumed into another ego”

noice

cry party officially over. here’s some rock:

can’t get over that that’s how he looks and sounds. i non-stopped listened to one of his early albums in high school. love how fast he puts out music. god i need headphones!

https://rubberbandgun.bandcamp.com/album/horror-sounds-in-stereo

hell yes this was the album ^^^ so long and so good. i injected those vibes straight into my bloodstream 24/7 during 11th grade. always too loud for my lossy earphones.

really fell in love with Lianna La Havas from live performance videos like this one. so jazzed i got to see her live at Afropunk in 2019. that day at Afropunk was her bday! there’s a recording of her set a couple years back that also took place on her bday.

music from my phone that I was listening to earlier, before the cry fest:

i re-downloaded the youtube music app which i used a lot freshman year of college. Listened to lots of SALES on there. and Spoon probably. just that one song Inside Out though. Also was listening earlier to Slowdive’s Blue Skied an’ Clear from Pygmalion which is so relaxing. i did the full on earphone while laying on my carpeted bedroom floor for the full effect in high school too.

Before that I was listening to Jessica Lea Mayfield and Seth Avett’s KEXP covers of Elliot Smith songs. Those are amazing. Their vocal tones just blend so beautifully, and it’s a great way to listen to the lyrics with smooth harmonies that really bring you into the layered richness of the songs easily and pleasurably. Still prefer these to the originals – probably b/c I heard Smith’s vocals after these covers. Smith’s voice is so distinctive, scratchy, sparse, vulnerable… so different from Mayfield and Avett’s folk country intonations. makes me appreciate both more by contrast.

I was actually going to listen to Valley Queen’s Tiny Desk afterwards I think – but didn’t get to it! totally worth checking out that Tiny Desk. I had that downloaded on the youtube music app in freshman year too. listened to it to calm me down as I long-boarded across the dorm commons to class

okay before that I was listening from Spotify on my phone in the shower: Just Like My by Homeshake, Negro Swan by Blood Orange, Hunnybee by Unknown Mortal Orchestra… all on the Just Like My radio. I overplayed Hunnybee so much on road trips a couple summers ago when I had my car on Long Island.

After the shower, I got to dance to lots of Little Dragon, they’re my all-time favs. Then I hopped into bed to read Laing’s book and listen to Kelsey Lu’s version of I’m Not In Love from her album Blood. I listened to that entire album next, and then I jumped over to This Time Around by Jessica Pratt – that song is amazing. so simple, so lush. Finally, still on Spotify, I jumped into Different This Time by Cornelia Murr for a second, but it was surprisingly not the vibe. Maybe it was too much going on after listening to This Time Around, but I remember kind of finding and loving these songs on Spotify around the same time…I remember sharing Murr’s song with a shot of the blue skies outside a parking garage when I was either just starting to work or..something. It’s a good song, it has a lot to keep itself in your head and rolling like a sonic vestige leftover from a deep dream.

Oh wait, finally finally, I was listening to How Deep Is Your Love by The Bee Gees.. for sure soothing. Hahah

I also had tabs open for Pinegrove, and listened to a whole EP of a band the lead singer recommended in a Reddit AMA, but I don’t feel like including those links/descriptions here. They’re in a column by themselves.

Other songs running around my mind: Aurora’s cover of Half the World Away at the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize Concert and versions of Pie Jesus which first came back into my head from a video of the Norwegian comedic duo Ylvis’ performance of the song that I had saved to my favorites playlist on YouTube. I’m obsessed!

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retention

I’m still reading random sections of Before Night Falls by Reinaldo Arenas. They have a heading like

Eroticism

and entries that vary from a paragraph to a couple pages. He tells stories of visits and encounters, the characters in his life, and the men he’s slept with. He recounts arduous travels as “odysseys” and makes moments of life into passages of literature.

So far I’ve heard of his enormous capacity to swim long distances, his many sexual encounters across several stages and places throughout his life, and the persecution he faced as a writer and homosexual.

Break break

I haven’t posted anything on this blog in so long! These days I’m working from home – thank god for the remote capabilities of digital marketing!

It’s odd to say, but I miss the office quite a bit. WFH has made me realize how easy it would be to just have the majority of work out of office…all I do is capable of being done from a laptop!

Some things I don’t miss are my near-hour commute time and spending $20~ on Midtown lunches. Getting off the J train after the sun had set also bummed me out most days. Then the days started getting longer, and I’d get home and still have a couple hours of sun left. It felt like a whole new life.

This first week of fully remote work has been a bit of a non-week. I don’t know what the phrase for the feeling of life becoming media is (like a reverse fourth-wall break), but I felt that walking back from the groceries today.

I’m starting to enjoy remote calls. I love that for lunch I can just walk over to the kitchen and make something new instead of microwaving a Tupperware of meal prep. There’s also an appreciation for your own bathroom that can only be grasped in contrast with public bathrooms. đźš˝

Might post some private reflections/misc. backlog l8r.

Summer 2019

Summer 2019 has, in unceremonious fashion, unofficially/officially ended for me. Near the mid-point of the twenty summers past, I usually forget my goals. Motivation phase-shifts into lethargy and even that soon fades – days drag by in a limbo state and I wait, meting out the possibility of less and less change.

At this point I usually ask myself what I did over the summer. I .. mostly chill. I apply to things without applying myself. I get lost a lot. I think of these words like a bad commercial. For a phone. Or unnecessary wearable tech gadget. That’s also edible. We work. We strive. We.. sit on the toilet.

10 Day Journaling Challenge: Day 10

Inspired by an accidental subscription to a Skillshare class taught by Emily Gould. Read her old blog here.


I’m thankful for this challenge. I’m thankful for limited prepositional use and Anne from parks and recreation. I’m thankful for newfound buddies, and I’m thankful for old moons. I’m thankful for forced hypocrisy and lewd truths. I’m thankful for reduction. I’m thankful for the long way to Mars. I’m thankful for long-living prawns, so they tell the earth. I’m thankful for folk with an “i” and violence with an “o.” I’m thankful for flying sticks and dripping boldness like lakes silvered till complete. I’m thankful for wounded bell noises and I’m thankful for the valleys in between consumption and the snow of the …. Adirondacks. 

Today I noticed the screwed concavity of a steel insert on a white microwave’s side. Today I noticed how the plates must be set together like something new and something old. Today I noticed the last day on belly up. Today I noticed the middle coming first, and the first coming now, in the temporally relative middle. Now. Today I noticed the end is something like noticing itself. Today I noticed the fault in our resumes Today I noticed wrung out necks today I noticed their glistening in the projected panes of superpsychedelia and childhood theater. Today I noticed lesbians. Today I noticed new mainstream desire principles hinged on the back of monsters known today, in the middle, as mothers.  


Each day I’ll upload a post from the challenge involving the prompt “I’m thankful” or “I’m grateful” and “Today I noticed.” If you take up the challenge yourself, please share them with me! I would love to read and write together.

End: Today ends the consecutive day challenge. The rest of the course asks us to read the entries again, or maybe for the first time, and find a passage – could be just a phrase, or a sentence, couple sentences, a paragraph or a whole entry – to appreciate. Feel good that you wrote that.

I’ve been doing this throughout the challenge. 10 Days is a long time, and I found myself going back through the entries as I wrote and read them. I almost wrote “read and wrote them” which could be all the same. Sometimes, if not all the time and surely in varying degrees, the reading is an almost generative process. The reading leads to writing that leads to more reading and then you have a sort of – loop.

The very last step of the 10 day journaling challenge is to take one entry and revise it, turning it into a whole piece. This could mean adding more, taking away, both or changing some element of the words.

My favorite part of the lesson by Gould was her suggestion on how you could change the entry by simply switching out pronouns. As she states, “congrats, now you’re working on fiction.” I love this approach to nonfiction/fiction. It reminds me of some of my favorite writers who draw on their lives in fiction that’s not autobiographical and autobiographical at the same time.

The next month I’ll be uploading once, twice or maybe even three times a day, so the blog will stay active. The challenge is done, but I’m working on three more Skillshare projects, I still have more than 8 months of subscription left. These are bigger ones that aren’t as easy to share daily however, and I’ll upload them when they’re done along with the revised entry from this challenge.

Thanks for following along and liking, and please, start your own and share it with me! Follow me on all my Instas lol: personal, music blog, art.

10 Day Journaling Challenge: Day 9

Inspired by an accidental subscription to a Skillshare class taught by Emily Gould. Read her old blog here.


I’m thankful for the end of Stranger Things. I’m thankful for the emotions it brought up. I’m thankful to Mike and Eleven. I’m thankful to this and that, here now and then gone when. I’m thankful to chicken breasts again. I’m thankful, but just a little less than before, to the dollar and something Prego “roasted parmesan alfredo” sauce that honestly came out way too liquidy. I’m thankful to the process of cellular degeneration, and I’m honestly a bit grossed out by it. I’m thankful to smooth skin, smooth desk chairs and smooth keys. I’m thankful for opportunities I’ve yet to apply to. I’m thankful to the opportunities that I have applied to and maybe didn’t get but were fun to go for at the time. I’m thankful for my heavy hands and busy mind, the way I can get preoccupied. I’m thankful preoccupation hasn’t been occupied..yet. By a job. Or something to do with money, the darnedest thing. 

Today I noticed the wifi is still out, same as yesterday and perhaps earlier this week. Today I noticed it’s Friday! and I haven’t had a very productive M-F. Today I noticed sighing really deeply after that last sentence, I also noticed sounds outside the door. Today I noticed I’m broke, which I tend to notice a lot. Today I noticed a lot, but I don’t have much need to write it all down.


Each day I’ll upload a post from the challenge involving the prompt “I’m thankful” or “I’m grateful” and “Today I noticed.” If you take up the challenge yourself, please share them with me! I would love to read and write together.

10 Day Journaling Challenge: Day 8

Inspired by an accidental subscription to a Skillshare class taught by Emily Gould. Read her old blog here.


I’m thankful for the reliable effects of chicken breast pan-fried in garlic and olive oil. I’m thankful for mushroom alfredo sauce bought for $2.12. I’m thankful for the mixing of butter, the sheen of boxed noodles from salted water, I’m thankful from the second floor corner office of The Hofstra Chronicle. I’m thankful to still nights and distant fireworks, to broad time, between stars and still air and places to rest. 

Today I noticed the square bases of new solo cups. “Up for anything” – squared based, less spills, more grip, less slip – the bullet points in the shape of a square and hand emoji. Today I noticed bonkers wildings, today I noticed a pile of written words. Today I noticed paralysis. Today I noticed things ignored. Today I noticed eating words eating words. Today I noticed a pierced veil. Today I noticed 3-D printing. Today I noticed staffs, the people and the fancy stick kind. Today I noticed gross relief. Today I noticed putting yourself first. Today I noticed the Christmas lights in my room. Today I noticed the curve of my eye. Today I noticed a couple things wrong with my teeth. Today I noticed a strange sticking sensation in between the molars. Today I noticed I thought maybe it was the chicken. Today I noticed chicken has hormones in it! Today I noticed perhaps I’m paranoid, but maybe it really does have effects on your body’s chemical composition. Today I noticed my housemate’s bottom right abdomen area. Today I noticed the area around my neck, beneath my chin – it’s been dry and flaky and like a leather chicken’s chin lately, I think I must have overwashed it. Today I noticed a pee-like smell from some of the clothes I left out too long, it must be a different sort of mildew – I put it back for another wash and two dries earlier today. Today I noticed the wifi was still out. Today I noticed I should probably just go to the office and apply to some things there. Today I noticed Parks and Rec is brilliant. Today I noticed Katie from CollegeHumor is brilliant. Today I noticed parts of my tongue and the taste of cold spit. Today I noticed features of my body. Today I noticed pains and aches that start in my brain and extend to the back of my head. Today I noticed sensations that blip in an out like missed signals. Today I noticed stretching is easy and easily the hardest thing you have to do to keep yourself okay and not dying from weird limb things. Today I noticed how many people had been in my car before.


Each day I’ll upload a post from the challenge involving the prompt “I’m thankful” or “I’m grateful” and “Today I noticed.” If you take up the challenge yourself, please share them with me! I would love to read and write together.

10 Day Journaling Challenge: Day 7

Inspired by an accidental subscription to a Skillshare class taught by Emily Gould. Read her old blog here.


I’m thankful to the sheets on my bed. I’m thankful for the challenge of being. I’m thankful for thanking and thankful for myself. I’m thankful for moving on. I’m thankful for clunky syntax and imperfect diction, I’m thankful for uncertain grammar and cracked punctuation. I’m thankful for art and I’m thankful I can see. I’m thankful it hurts to breathe from my body. I’m thankful from my skin, lost in its boundaries I’m thankful to the men on hills and the men in the valleys. “I’m thankful,” I said. I’m thankful I said.

Today I noticed pretty. Today I noticed stuck. Today I noticed cons and pros and lists on lists and the Whitney’s way of towering. Today I noticed anagrams in the canopies of trees, and I spelled it wrong. Today I noticed leaving and today I – screamed. 



Each day I’ll upload a post from the challenge involving the prompt “I’m thankful” or “I’m grateful” and “Today I noticed.” If you take up the challenge yourself, please share them with me! I would love to read and write together.

10 Day Journaling Challenge: Day 6

Inspired by an accidental subscription to a Skillshare class taught by Emily Gould. Read her old blog here.


I’m thankful to the WordPress customer service team. 

Today I noticed myself. 


Each day I’ll upload a post from the challenge involving the prompt “I’m thankful” or “I’m grateful” and “Today I noticed.” If you take up the challenge yourself, please share them with me! I would love to read and write together.