#thedress

Our world is built on twigs, a little beach hut built on twigs, and it was shaken by the color of a dress yesterday, by the perceived color of a dress.

What we hold to be reality, things that we deem objective truths, that this color is blue, that that color is white, easy things that we can all agree on, came into question yesterday. Our reality, our idea of it, is build upon our flimsy perceptions of the world. Last night, we saw just what a rickety, what a fragile, foundation that is.

At first I saw the dress as white and gold, but then saw it as black and blue. Now it is all I can see and I have a hard time imagining how I saw it as white, and an even harder time understanding how that is what so many people still see when they look at the dress.

There are the internet voices mocking our interest in this dress, how this became a national topic of discussion, saying that it’s proof of the triviality of life in this year of 2015, of the inane things that we choose to focus our attention on. However, I think these commenters entirely miss the point, that this is not a small, inane thing, but instead that is actually one of the biggest things that has ever preoccupied the nation at once. People are dealing with some of the biggest questions, those concerning the nature of reality and how our idea of it is informed by something as imperfect as human perception, that some tiny cones and rods in our retinas create our conception of the world. There are worlds our eyes don’t see, that they are incapable of seeing.

It was a collective national acid trip last night as people questioned their vision and questioned what is real, what is not, and whether there is even such a thing as “real.”

It was a beautiful, beautiful moment.

Carry On, Charlie

I renewed my lease for another year this morning in this apartment I live in, this home of mine in Brooklyn.

I picked up my new glasses today with a stronger prescription so I can see the world with greater clarity.

I signed up for a gym membership again, signing a one-year contract. The gym is the one I used to belong to and it is a couple blocks from where I hope to be working soon (fingers and toes crossed!). Signing up here was an attempt to will this job into being.

I got an email from an eBay seller letting me know that I in fact could buy this gay pulp novel that I had really wanted, and that I had been outbid on, the title of which is, "Carry On, Charlie."

All of these are connected. All, signs of some sort. 

After work today, I stopped uptown, at this guy's house I see every now and then, this piss drinker. I saw myself in his mirror as I undressed and saw hard work unravelling. I saw a thin body without much definition and terrible posture. I saw the months and months I had spent in the gym shaping myself into what I wanted to look like, what I wanted to feel like, fading away. I haven't been to the gym in probably a month, haven't been regularly in months. I had let my gym membership lapse due to being a broke intern and also because I didn't know where I would be working soon, in what neighborhood, and thus was unwilling to commit to a place for a year. Today, though, seeing myself in that man's mirror was the motivation I needed to just say "Fuck it!" and sign back up at my old gym near Madison Square Park. 

Working out felt so great. Yes, there are the physical benefits, but just as important are the mental ones I get from moving my body around, from exhausting it, from working up a sweat like a human body is meant to do. The joy of motion. Sitting at a desk all day, I need this more than ever.

And tomorrow I am going to go into this job that feels like it's in its last days and I am going to hope for an email to appear that will make that true. And then I am going to go run and run and run.

The War on Drugs - "Under the Pressure"

It’s all about acknowledging the world you live in, submitting to it. In the past, I have raged against winter, fought it, wore clothing that was not weather-appropriate, jackets too light, and guess what? Winter won that fight. Nature is going to win any fight. So I have quit fighting. I have a proper winter jacket for the first time since I have lived in New York, one of those synthetic things filled with space technology and probably dangerous chemicals. But I have submitted, given myself to the tide, and I am enjoying this weather so much because of it. There is so much pleasure to be had in feeling that cold shrink your lungs in shock when you first breathe it in, so much pleasure to be had in seeing this city covered in winter as you walk around streets made emptier by the cold, more of the city for you.

I feel on the verge of something, on the verge of changes I have tried to will into being for months and months now.

That has something to do with it also. Every day is filled with anticipation of what might be and appreciation for what is, knowing that my circumstances might soon change. When you acknowledge the temporariness of everything, it becomes a lot easier to appreciate those things, to want to get the most from them while they are still there, while you still are.

Amazing Opening Lines

"On an April Monday in 2010, Patrick Mettes, a fifty-four-year-old television news director being treated for cancer of the bile ducts, read an article on the front page of the Times that would change his death."

-Michael Pollan, "The Trip Treatment," The New Yorker.

collapsing the distance

I am sitting in a high-rise midtown office building. I am watching thin pieces of ice falling slowly through the sky, melting off buildings, careening slowly through the air, turning and turning with each breeze, skiing slowly down some invisible slope. The sky is gray. I am thinking about fantasy. I am thinking about dreams. I am thinking about reality.

I am thinking about how to collapse those things, how to make dreams reality.

Today, I am in possession of the knowledge that that is indeed possible.

Last night, after texting with this porn star all weekend long, he finally texted to say that he was on his way, that he would be at my house in 40 minutes. It’s happening, I thought, as I ran around my house frantically cleaning, brushing my teeth, making sure my asshole was clean, packing my vaporizer.

We smoked some weed and then started to make out. This is happening, I thought as we kissed. I melted into his lips, head and any sense of self exploding all over the borough of Brooklyn.

I have fantasized about this particular person for years, watching his videos, constantly coming across photos of him on Tumblr, following his various social media outlets. He was someone out of reach, a presence on various screens - phone, laptop, tablet - as I jerked off to him, thinking about how fucking sexy he is. And so to see him in my bed, giving me head, that familiar tattoo on his back as I looked down, on that perfectly formed and arched back, that sexy ass. At moments, the entire thing took on elements of the surreal, a dream. And that is because this in fact had been my dream so many times over the past few years. So many late-night stoned masturbation sessions have starred this particular person, imagining what I would do to his body, how I would worship every part of it, run my fingers over his tight abs, hold his beautiful feet in my hands as I fucked him, lick his asshole, feel those defined arms, that gorgeous back, all of it.

And being stoned perhaps added to the dream-like feeling, that these were my dreams, and that here is the person in my bed, and these things are actually happening, that this isn’t a fantasy, that this person is really into this, into me also.

So the lesson kids is that dreams do indeed come true. Don’t be told otherwise. And so I am going for it. Going for everything. I am going to get a job. I am putting that into the universe. Willing it. Applying everywhere.

If this can happen, this thing that was one of my greatest fantasies that I never actually really thought would happen, then surely other things can, any thing can. No lines between dreams and the possible. It’s all fucking possible. Look the fuck out, world.