diary 43 (march 16)

The days are empty, I try to be good and whole but often it feels like i’m treading above some sort of endless and meaningless breakdown- it comes out a lot lately and i feel no good about it. Brendon takes me to the atlantic ocean this year for my birthday rather than the pacific. The trees on our street bloom with the white flowers that fall apart quickly and we buy a big sleeper truck to road trip in over the summer. I watch birds fly slowly and the buds on the trees of the cathedral on mott street early in the morning, warm and dark-cloudy, and think of how that’s how quiet i always want it to be.

diary 42 (february 16)

Brendon leaves for a long time, I'm occupied at my day job, wholly disconnected, I take a taxi home late every night and sit in my living room with the overhead lights on not sure what to do, can’t make it to the bed. It gets so cold everything goes numb, the streetlight changes from warm orange to cool blue though the bedroom curtains like moonlight. On Valentine's I find a 100 dollar bill on the ground and a white parakeet in a pasta tub in the basement. I leave the city for a weekend and stay in a log cabin, hike through the snow and can’t get over the little mountain towns. 

diary 41 (january 16)

Dry rose petals rustle over the floor as I throw blankets over the bed. I stay dormant, don’t have a curiosity for things outside my comfort zone and don’t mind, there’s not much to push it to that with someone always by your side. I think about what it would be like leaving the city often but can’t seem to get past the front door. There is no heaviness in me but I can’t remember what it feels like to feel lost and light either.

diary 40 (december 15)

Started the month out on a small roadtrip, went to Maine and drank big cups of wine in a restaurant that was like someone's living room decorated for Christmas, went to Acadia on the day it closed on accident. Skated on the slick ice on the road we were supposed to drive over late at night in front of the car headlights. Went to Canada and there was fog across the valleys in the rural parts. In the city the rain never turned to snow and the quiet subway cars have tires on them. I continue on not doing much of anything and it feels like winter never begins. Think I'm in a dream half conscious in the front seat of a cab going over the bridge to Brooklyn, the lights on either side of the water swim. I dream that I keep missing my subway stop because the flashing stations are out of order. Watch from my fire escape fire trucks sent out of the station over and over on the night of the 24th, at dawn on the 25th there’s an ambulance parked with its lights flashing outside of a home. On the 31st I pay 13 dollars for a pack of cigarettes and get a kiss a few minutes late.

diary 39 (november 15)

Watch teen couples sit close on the benches in the cold of Fermi park, roses are still blooming there and the lamps click on late. Men are still playing chess on the edge of Maria Hernandez park and loitering at the Newsstand. I boil water in a glass kettle for coffee as soon as i wake up and open the curtains for the plants- feels quiet. I live in a city of over 10 million but don’t feel it. My toothpaste turns to blue-grey from red wine at night. 

diary 38 (october 15)

Time has been passing quickly and I wonder where my spark went.

diary 37 (september 15)

I move to a big studio with Brendon and fill it with new white furniture, bird keepers let thousands of birds out to fly at dusk in my new neighborhood and the light comes in from one side to the other through the day in the nicest way. i paint the window frames white and get some on my clothes- think about my aunt who painted homes and always wore paint stained jeans. think about my father sending me snapchat videos of crickets and asking me if i can hear them too. i cry three or four times this month about nothing, the new french press breaks within a week and we buy jugs of expensive stupid cold latte drink at the corner store instead because we’re not poor anymore. I let three nuns into my cafe before it's open with wet rain ponchos over their habits they surround me and ask in their way if they can pray for anything for me, I think for a long time with them looking at me but just ended up saying ‘no’. They give me some virgin mary pendants. I feel content walking with a new bottle of wine or houseplant or my camera shooting pictures of pretty clouds or flowers or too many of those birds flying but there’s no content.

diary 36 (july 15)

Step outside on the fourth and listen to the rumbling, pretend i can see the sky past the cathedral trees. I try to soak in the city but most days feel like nothing days to me. The heat puts you in a daze.

diary 35 (june 15)

June was very nice, everything's working out just fine and I know I work for it to but I feel so lucky. Spent the first bit in Portland doing nothing much- even now it feels so far away. Went on a road trip to a clear and cold lake and to an abandoned town in the middle of nowhere midwest with my best friends. Camped in an unprepared way, stayed in a weird motel for a little, drove all night and for too long at once. The air smelled so nice at one point almost to the lake, the sunset light the night we arrived at the ghost town was something i had never seen light do before, got caught in a hail storm so bad i was sure the car windows would break. Packed everything I owned back up, moved home to New York City on a red eye flight with Brendon, across the country again for the second time. Our new room has big windows that face a lot of trees and I hear birds and the light comes in bright and hot in the morning. Walk in my neighborhood towards the sprinklers hanging under the fluorescents of a gas station that look like fly tape, walk down the streets I know so well in nolita again and feel comfortable. Parked Fire trucks' flashing lights illuminate people’s dinners sitting outside in alphabet city, there's a big cloud of smoke with the moon in the background in the sky beside, the temporary wall in front of it is spray painted with an arrow pointed up "not smoke or fire, only steam”. Feel exhausted again every day and excited most of the time. There are so many things happening to look at and every night I hear sirens, sometimes I hear them stop while they’re still loud.

diary 34 (may 15)

 rolling hills covered in pine trees way in the distance, white topped mountains, rows of houses tucked behind the buildings and construction cranes in the city, layers of bridges crossing the river. 

diary 33 (april 15)

I wake up early (for me) most days and dusk takes forever to get to. I don’t ever feel like going out during the day or night, sometimes I feel so underwhelmed. I work in a big blue house with flowers along the door and hanging down from the porch cover, walk 2 miles to drink a tall beer in the afternoon and watch the plants change day to day in the yards on the way. I miss taking intrusive street shots of strangers and drunk friends and styled models I’m not sure if I like what’s left if it’s all that i’m making and not having the drive to do more. I watch the kids on my street shoot a soccer ball at a basketball stand without a net or hoop and say hi back to the little girls playing along the fences. I don’t feel lonely like I used to but I miss a lot.

diary 32 (march 15)

Last month I lost all of the photos that I took and didn't feel close enough to anyone at the time to really want to photograph them or something or anything, February is always a bad month anyway. I read the temperature of my room displayed on my space heater 42, 44, 49. This month I moved to Oregon on the other side of the country for a while. Shifted back to all of my belongings being full suitcases, traded winter for blooming trees. Listened to rain tapping my plastic hood and frogs in the quarry next to the house at night. I lay in bed with nothing much to do and look at the distilled water jar on the windowsill for the plants and linoleum floor. I feel very calm and empty-minded which is nice for now. Every beautiful place I went to I enjoyed very much but it was kinda like that quote 'he was pointing at the moon but i was looking at his hand', haha. The morning is all red light.

diary 31 (january 15)

Didn't see daylight very much this month, kept to myself and tried not to be so worn out and down. Started crying for some reason as the man operating the train leans his head out as I'm standing outside the closed door and says four minutes. Waited patiently for it to be too cold to take walks and the sidewalk corners to become slush against the curbs. Brendon visited for a little while and it felt very nice. Kept having fever dreams where i'm telling people in my life inconsequential things etc and I have trouble figuring out if they actually happened. I don't remember but I feel alright.

diary 30 (december 14)

come home in the middle of the night alone and feel completely different now. a broken window in a boxing studio above the prada store on broadway and prince, read that one train line was flooded with 27 million gallons of water two winters ago, do the chalked math written on platform columns- 166+40, 166+30, 166+25, a ballon crawling up the underlit outer wall of a church, a man stealing a bike being pushed off of it and his screaming face covered in blood. feel heavy hearted when i'm with people, feel heavy hearted when i'm alone. modeled for a painter that's lived in the chelsea hotel for forty years, exchanged gifts with my roommates and friends and felt very warm about everything.

diary 29 (november 14)

I lost all of the things that I wrote this month which is fine because I guess I didn't take any photographs really either. Was mostly busy with real life and sad things rather than making things though I wish they were more connected maybe I'd rather keep the real world out of it for a while. The last time I remember crying myself to sleep was over a decade ago when I first tried to wrap my head around death, and this time I guess it was the opposite and the same thing at once.

diary 28 (october 14)

I went to eleven states this month. Stayed in a cabin at the base of mount rainier in Washington, had cold fingers and kept my camera in a plastic bag because of the rain. Spent a week in Portland falling asleep in the yard in the afternoon and feeling nice the days melted. I got used to really caring about another person. Drove through the desert most daylight hours for days- woke up in a tent each morning not sure what it would look like outside- a river, a canyon, a valley, a dusty expanse, a beach, a meadow, a forest. Spent time in Utah looking at religious stuff and saw snow for the first time this year and where the horizon looked like it did when i was a kid. Colorado and Arizona were quiet we hiked in the rocks and ruins under the sun, Nevada i got very drunk in Vegas and played in the expensive surroundings. California every day was different and went by very quickly. Swam in the ocean and slept on friends' floors and hung out with someone new everyday. Drove to the airport before sunrise crying while it was pouring rain and then again the next morning.

diary 27 (september 14)

Started the month camping on a private island in upstate new york- didn't see anyone at all for days. Spent days and days on end in the city purposefully wasting time in parks or shops or on my roof or at small art show things. Lost a lot of my quiet habits and it didn't end up making me feel better like I thought it would. Flew to Oregon and road tripped through Washington for the last two weeks of it- stole camp sites in Olympic national park and the Hoh rainforest. Being in an unfamiliar-surrounding mindset nonstop is where I thrive though I've never felt this at ease within it which is maybe better i can't tell. I keep having very haunting dreams.

diary 26 (august 14)

 The first week of August I was in Canada, woke up early and drank coffee in the garden for hours, Toronto's streets aren't numbered but I knew where I was going- North, South, East, West. Wrote my answer to the question 'what would you tell to a past you?' as 'don't be so dependent on being independent' sitting in the same living room that years ago in I needed it the most. In Montreal the hours melted away and I didn't pay attention to where I was or where I was going, and didn't have to, nothing was written in english anyway. Kept having dreams vaguely about the girls that I was staying with and they were of me too. The overnight buses that I took from place to place were the same as always- nothing for hours and hours but I know I book them on purpose. My home is very familiar and lonely- it really does feel like home to me fully now. Read books for most hours of the day/night. Watched one dawn as the streetlights clicked off down the street one by one, every minute. Covered the horizontal surfaces of my bedroom in mirrors and rectangles of glass. 

diary 25 (july 14)

I'm not sure of too much in july i tried to let myself be distracted and engaged (instead of running circles in my head and away from involvement) but i kept falling into accomplishing it in an unhealthy way. i drew rectangles next to each other in a notebook and tried to make them represent days and fill them with numbers that represent hours. i saw almost every dawn of every day. i went and visited my family and friends for the last week of the month and caught a big luna moth and braided my new little sisters' hair, rode bikes to the lake and passed fields and fields of queen anne's lace. someone told me i was a sapling in the forest fire of life, haha. 

diary 24 (june 14)

kept thinking about figuring out that thing i can't remember how it goes about how cold is only the absence of heat and about cold air coming through or leaving from an open window and how it's not cold air or something. summer in the city is as fun as it's always been. made constant sincere attempts to make my schedule and activities more sanity-inducing but never got very far. there was a man in the subway yelling and rattling for spare change with a sign that read "excuse me, i'm deaf" but i misread it as "excuse me, i'm dead".