New York residents, when picking a dentist, do not, do not under any circumstances choose East Village Dental where Jeffrey Krantz works. I just got home from a mind-blowingly unprofessional visit to Dr. Krank. I arrive about a few minutes before three, my appointment time, fill out the requisite forms, and wait as patiently as one can wait in an office with the heat on even though it a gorgeous spring day. In the oppresive heat, I flipped through Prevention magazine, looking at ab exercises and vitamins that are supposed to be good for your skin. Dr. Krank keeps on leaving the patient he is working on to come out and yell at the receptionist about some company that is stiffing them money. He talks to these people on the phone in the reception area, berates them, they hang up on him, and he yells at the receptionist some more. I wonder if I can just run away at this point but notice the sign saying patients will be assesed additional fees for canceling prior to 24 hours notice. I want to avoid these fees. I sit nervously.

Another guy comes in to wait. He has headphones on and is singing way too loudly. He sits next to me, unembarrassed, as if he was unaware that anyone else was around and sang along loudly to whatever he was listening to, something with lines like: I want to get you naked, take your clothes off, throw you on the floor, naakkkeeed, naaakkkkeedd. I wanted to cry. Don't forget how hot it is in here and I have already been waiting about half an hour, and now I have to listen to someone that has no singing capabilities at all, sing these lewd lyrics. He flips through some magazine before tossing it back in the pile, saying, "Man, I should have brought my Playboy to read." I kid you not, folks. And all the while, Dr. Krank is still yelling at his receptionist. Could I run away? What would happen?

I sat still, and finally after waiting forty-five minutes was called in where his assitant started to do those things, alligator clip bib, x-rays, etc. Then he came in, put that spit-sucking tube in my mouth and was about to take a look at my mouth before the receptionist said something, yelled it across the office about whatever company, and he stormed off to go yell some more at this company, and then of course at the receptionist again. Meanwhile, the dental assistant kindly takes the spit-sucking thing out of my mouth before it totally dries my gums, and rolls her eyes, telling me this happens everyday, how there are three people in the waiting room and he can't be doing this. Dr. Krank finally comes back, but leaves shortly again to yell some more while I wait in the dental chair. At least I am away from that scary singing guy though. Finally he comes back exclaiming how everyone is an idiot and sends his assistant off to answer phones while the receptionist deals with this company. He then makes some joke to me about how everyone must be taking stupid pills or something today. This is the obnoxious uncle that always berates waitresses proudly. I hated him so much and could not wait to get out of there. I have one cavity that I have to go back to get taken care of, and after that I am getting a new dentist. It was such a painful experience, not the actual dentistry, just the office.

I came home and cracked a beer and now feel so much better.

So, I am running late for my dermatologist appointment this morning, leaving myself about fifteen mintues to make it into the city and uptown, which is really not enough time at all. I am hurried, literally throw my discman, phone, and wallet into my bag and start trucking towards the subway. On the way there, I take out my discman and press play, and If You're Feeling Sinister starts playing. So not what I thought was in there, so not what I want to hear first thing in the morning. I resign myself to it and run towards the subway. I get to the subway turnstiles and reach in my bag for my wallet. I am hurried and can't find it. It is not there. Great. It is not there! My wallet is not there! I must have dropped it on the street fiddling with my discman!

I run out of the station, a total mess, way late for this doctor appointment and now retracing my steps, scanning the sidewalk, looking for my wallet, looking at all the people walking past me, wondering if any of them have already picked it up. A wallet just sitting on the street. Who wouldn't take it? So I am hurrying back towards my house, nervous that all these people have already walked past it, wondering if it will still be there, thinking it won't, worrying about calling all those credit cards, my bank, being without my metro card, my money. Life seems like it will be way difficult for a while. And then right on the corner of Keap and Grand, sitting blatantly open in the middle of the sidewalk is my lovely wallet. I ran towards it, so happy it was still there. Checked and all of its contents were still there also. Elated and really late at this point, I hear a ringing coming from my bag. I have a message. The doctor's office says that my test turned out fine and that I need to schedule an appointment to come in and start Accutane.

I look in my wallet and find the appointment card with their number on it that also says I have an appoinment today at 10:30. I call them. They don't have me scheduled they say, which I am fine with me since I would not have ever made it on time by this point and instead schedule an appoinment for Monday. And now I want to go back to bed, but have a dentist's appointment at three, have to find these stupid state tax forms and fill them out, and I supposedly have a date tonight with Friendster boy. We'll see how today actually turns out.

My favorite band from when I was 17, Cake, is playing a show on the 24th with another one of my favorite bands, Mates of State. Is that going to be the most awesome show ever? Well, I just found out about it today and it is already sold out. I want to cry so bad. I have been wanting to see Cake play again so bad. I need to go to this show somehow. Who has connections at the Bowery Ballroom, huh?

And yeah, those of you real perceptive may be wondering how I am writing this if I am supposed to be at work. I called in sick today again, honestly not caring that I am only going to get paid about fifty dollars this week, because not eating seemed like a better option than going in to work today. So, I probably would not have had money to buy tickets anyways. Again, who has connections at Bowery? See you tonight at Hunter tonight?

"Some of the debate really centers around the fact that people don't believe Iraq can be free; that if you're Muslim, or perhaps brown-skinned, you can't be self-governing or free. I'd strongly disagree with that." -Our President, G.W. Bush, in his speech tonight.

In a gross attempt to evoke sympathy against racist sentiments when these sentiments don't really exist, or if so, not nearly as strongly as they do in the military actions the Bush administration is trying to evoke sympathy for, our president manages to conflate being Muslim with being brown-skinned. Who in this imagined debate argues that "brown-skinned" people "can't be self-governing"? It was at this point in the transcript that I stopped reading, slightly satisfied that Bush is getting put through the wringer finally, and more than a little disgusted that these are the times we live in. This is why I read the book reviews and art criticism in the paper. This is why I have retreated into my own world. Honestly, there is nothing wrong with it. I would in my earlier years get red with indignation whenever anyone uttered such things as I just uttered, lamenting how apathatic people were. But there are so many amazing things that this stuff distracts me from, and so I tune out. It has been rainy here the past couple days. For a while, this depressed me, but then I was comforted by it, knew that it was sign that green would soon be sprouting - that this water is necesary for my happiness, this constant dreariness will bring about a beautiful spring world in these next few weeks. There are little green buds forming on the ginkgo tree outside my window. I cannot wait, am honestly giddy about the days when those funky leaves will be outside my window, will be visible, part of this world again.

I called in sick to work today and spent the day playing around on Friendster, cleaning my kitchen, and reading Joan Didion's The White Album in one long sitting. It was really good, mildly depressing, and forced me to look up a couple words online. Some people groan when they come across words they don't know, exclaiming arrogance on the part of the writer or speaker, but I really get excited about it. Especially when they don't look garish in the context, when they seem like the best word choice, the only thing that could have possibly been used, and with Didion, those three words I looked up were so. Inchoate, somnolent, and analgesic. The essays are all elegies for sixties California life and are both beautiful and depressing. It was really nice to read this book also about California after finishing Fante, to read a writer who does not write short declarative sentance after short declarative sentance. Didion has a beautiful rhythm, and so I spent all day on the couch listening to her, soaking up her astute observations. I am reading another book about California now also: Rebecca Solnit's River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West. I got about ten pages into it last night before falling asleep. So far, I am not that taken with it, and may give it up - but it is about Muybridge, whose motion photos I am in love with, so I may try to love it. These three books in sequence are allowing me to see all these various mythologies about California, and how they all have their roots in the mythology surrounding manifest destiny.

But if you want actual gossip, here goes: I called Chris (Kevin's friendster friend) and left a message on his phone saying we should hang out.

Kevin and Matt are looking for roommates and since Niki is looking for a room, I told her to write Kevin. She did, and in the e-mail she joked how if she lived with them, she wouldn't make out with any dogs. Thank you so much, Niki.

Min, the third roommate who has not slept here since Christmas time, has announced her intentions to move out and Jillian will be moving into our house at the beginning of June.

I still have not filed my taxes. I need a NYC form before I can finish my state tax form, and I was way stressed about this a short hour ago.

What's new with you?

I do not have skin cancer. That is one thing I have going for me. I smell awful and I don't know why. That would most likely be a strike against me.

Yesterday, even though I took a shower, I could smell my b.o. very strongly on the bus ride back to New York. I wasn't sure if it was actually me or one of the items of my clothing. I smelled myself a little, arm to nose, but quit because the guy next to me was kind of cute and reading JT Leroy, which I thought might be evidence that he was a homo. This morning, I woke up naked and could still smell it, so I know that it is me and not some item of clothing. Today calls for some extra suds in the shower.

While at home, I did absoluely nothing. I watched the first two seasons of Sex and the City. That is probably about 15 hours worth of Sex and the City. It was so addictive. I could not, did not want to stop. And it made me feel so good, all the talk about boys and dating, and being dumped. It was such a guilty pleasure. On the bus, I finished Close to the Knives, and read through John Fante's The Road to Los Angeles, which I hated so much but read because it was a gift and was highly reccomended. I really wished I had JT Leroy on the bus. I sort of wanted to ask the possibly gay guy if he wanted to trade books. I didn't. I can't describe to you right now how beautfiul parts of the bus ride were, the streetlamps gliding past the fogged up windows, seeing New Jersey become filled with nothing but power plants, big hulking, steaming things, and knowing that you are almost home, almost back to New York. When I went home to Virginia, everything looks so alien, so ugly, so suburban. I am so happy to be back here. Riding through the Lincoln Tunnel, the tiles glittering as we sped past them, I was so happy, I wanted to cry.

Did I mention I don't have skin cancer? Hot.

So, you know how I predicted it was going to be a good day earlier this morning? Well, I am shelving books shortly after arriving at work, a big handful of these Marguerite Yourcenar memoirs, too big a handful to hold in my hand. The books drop to the floor. I pick them up and notice something has fallen out on to the floor. I start to ignore it, thinking that it was just dump crap, a bookmark or a postcard that had fallen out. But then I realize what I am glancing over. I spy a crisp twenty lying on the floor. The other man in the aisle is not paying attention at all and is absorbed in some book. I reach down and pick it up, and see that it is a few twenties. I count through them. One. Two. Three (outrageously excited at this point). Four (Shut the hell up - This stuff does not happen to me). And Five. One hundred dollars literally falls right at me, right during this time when I am wondering if I would be able to pay all my rent this week. I pocketed the money that some rich fan of Yourcenar left lying around in the books they sold to the Strand and was so happy. So many things aligned for that to happen. I am just imagining how had I not dropped that book, that money would just be sitting on the shelf forever, clamped in some book. What a struck of luck!

I found my nail clippers. I found money. And one of Kevin's homo friends wrote to me on Friendster. All in all, today has been a great day.

a sign portending good things

I found the nail clippers! Right in the medicine cabinet where I had looked ten hundred times before. They were just sitting right there. Today is going to be a good day. This must mean something.

Considering that we were not even together that long - a month, a month and a half? - it is funny how adapted I became to certain things, that it only took me a few weeks to get in the habit of doing something or expecting something, and now, I feel how my routine has been disrupted. Tonight, getting off the subway, walking up the stairs out of the station, I reached for my phone with thoughts of Matt.

I did the same thing the past couple nights and thought that it was funny, odd, but tonight, it happened yet again. In such a short amount of time, I developed this habit of talking to Matt as soon as I got off the subway coming home from work. Needless to say, I was sad at this moment. These moments, they are few, are when this situation strikes me as sad. Honestly, I don't really think about it except in these moments where something reminds me of time spent with Matt, but man, in those moments, like just a short while ago - I thought What the hell happened? How did that end so quickly?

Today, I went to the dermatologist and she looked at my back to see if I had any acne there, and while looking at my back, she asked in a concerned tone, "Have these moles gotten darker lately?" And well, basically, I may have skin cancer. I find out in 7-10 days. I am also going to go on the scary drug with eight million scary side effects and that you cannot even get at the pharmacy, that only the dermatologist can distribute, this after a few kids killed themselves while they were on Accutane. She is going to wait to start that to see if I need to be operated on for skin cancer beforehand. Doesn't my life sound great? Casually dumped, severe acne, possible skin cancer, will soon start taking a medication that will make my skin even dryer than it is now and occasionally causes severe depression. Let's see what else: I am still working at the Strand, making a shitty hourly wage. I am insanely broke this week and trying to put various puzzle pieces together to see how I can pay my rent (already late) and go home to Virginia for the weekend. I am going to be turning 23 in a couple months and that seems like the point where you should be doing something with your life. I doubt I will be. I have a scab on my ankle that has been there since the summer. It will not go away. I don't even remember how I got the scab. I don't know where our nail clipper is, I haven't for two weeks, and I refuse to buy another one. I chew my nails. I don't make good conversation. I have bad posture. Our apartment is infested with roaches. Roach motels seem like money I'd rather spend on other things. My bike still doesn't have a bike seat. I haven't danced since god knows when. I hate doing dishes and let them pile up. This probably contributes to the roach problem. I know this and I hate the roaches, but I still don't do the dishes often.

I am listening to Belle and Sebastin's If You're Feeling Sinsister, just in case you were wondering. Now what if I had put on Pizzicato 5 or Beyonce when I got home, what would this entry say instead? It's probably better this way.

an exercise in ethics i failed

Matt left a bag of tobacco here the last time he spent the night at my house. Friday night, when I was cleaning up, I thought about throwing the bag away, glanced into it, and saw a full bag of weed stashed in there. Now, was the ethical thing to do, to call Matt and let him know that he had forgotten that at my house and offer to return it, giving me a vaild reason to talk to Matt, in which I would have been making a kind gesture? Or, should I have instead got stoned off my ass with friends who did not dump me for kissing a dog?

Do I really need to tell you which one I did? That I spent Friday night getting fucking wasted with Peter and Joe? That yesterday, I woke up and got weak-in-the-knees stoned before I went into the Strand, and did the same thing when I got off work? And I do feel slightly guilty about it, that I have done something wrong, something unethical - maybe even mean-spirited. But he never called to ask about it, never in fact, called at all, so his loss.

thoughts on wojnarowicz, dogville, matt, site specific room installations, and you

Keeping some form of journal is important for both the practice of writing and the slow articulation of thoughts. You grow so much over a period of time in writing things down, you don't have to necessarily keep a daily journal, it can be composed of ideas, plans, future projects, emotions, things on the mind, places to visit for the purpose of photography, what in certain photography excites you (when you get into this it becomes very helpful for learning how to articualte your senses and also creates a definition of what you are trying to do or what inspires you and from there more ideas spring), what mannerisms and qualities people have that you respond to, why this kind of light as opposed to that kind of light is more appealing. Continually define for yourself what you sense. Most of us respond to or are struck by things first on an intense emotional level and though that is important still it is better if we try to define these senses, for then we learn what our critical outlook is composed of, why it responds to certain things rather than others. We in effect learn so much more about ourselves and also map our elusive selves . . . and a sense of groundlessness, of diverse chance. I try to accustom myself to this sense: trust it and accept it without resistance, as change keeps our senses alive, keeps us coasting and viable human beings...
-David Wojnarowicz, In The Shadow of the American Dream (70)

I just finished taking a long shower, am now drinking coffee for no real reason since I really don't have any plans for this evening and don't even know if I feel like leaving my house, but just like the alertness that I feel when I drink coffee, the engaged sense of living. Today, I finished reading the above book, could not stop to even eat or take a shower. Read it all and then did those things. Diaries are always so fascinating to read, to see people stript bare, and to see how other people encounter the world, how they think about things, what they consider beautiful, and by doing so, by reading their perceptions of the world, it allows us to perceive things a bit differently, to look at noses differently, at sexual encoutners differently -- that there are not only all these ways of seeing available to us, but all these things to see, things we never would notice about people's behaviour or streets, but which, we are made aware of by someone else's fascination with them.

Matt would constantly call things beautiful and try to feel them, to touch the texture of them. That habit of his made me notice a lot of things I otherwise would have just glanced over - it has also made me less hesitant about declaring things beautiful publicly. It was such a lovely habit of his, it was really perhaps my favorite quirk of his, seeing that sincere smile, wide eyes, and hearing the word beautiful intoned like a magic word. Right now, at this very moment, he is having a show opening at Cooper Union. I had been excited about this show of his, about seeing his work for the past couple weeks, and now, I am not there, I will not see these things. But Wojnarowicz says "change keeps our senses alive," and yes, it is true - my senses have been jolted in the past few days by this. I am made sad by the slightest things, I am elated by even slighter things. I am reexamining, perhaps thinking for the first time actually about what it is I want from another human being, what it is I would like to get out of a relationship, whether or not I want one, and how to go about getting it if I do, and from whom? What is happiness and what prevents me from realizing it (if indeed I am not living in that state all the time)?

And I know, I promised to myself and to you readers that I would not think bitter thoughts, and for the most part I have not, but I cannot lie to you and tell you that I have not had some wickedly acidic thoughts about Matt. But those have been counterbalanced by about two to one of pleasant thoughts about Matt. I have composed e-mails, cards, and letters to him in the shower, on the subway, in those late hours right before sleep. I have imagined kind things to say, knowing that perhaps I appear most charming on paper. I can say cute things and make you like me. But the letters not only never get sent, but never get put down on paper. I know that it is a bad idea, that cards and letters have never worked for me in the past, that they have been met with silence, and really, that would be too much. So maybe one day soon I will run into Matt at the Metropolitian, maybe by that day I will no longer want to talk to him, or maybe that'll be one of those bitter moments where I won't let myself, or maybe I won't run into him and we'll instead just drink and dance like I have done a million times before, like I do.

Last night, walking back from Peter's house where we watched Dogville (which is for rent at Kim's video!), I walked past Matt's house and could not help but look up towards his window as I was passing by, and his light was on. That made me sad knowing that he was in there, so close, doing things unkown to me. In Dogville, all the houses are just chalk outlines on a stage and you can see all these people so close to each other but acting as if there are house walls seperating each other, but all of this stuff occuring in such close vicinity and no one knowing. Him, not knowing I was probably within thirty feet of him. It is interesting.

Speaking of bitter though, Dogville is some acidic crap. I mean, I actually cannot lie and say that I did not enjoy the movie, nor can I say that it was not pretty amazing, but goddamn, if it did not make me annoyed with its ridiculous caricature of America. When I got home, I scrawled "Fuck you Lars von Trier! What do you know about my life?" before I passed out in my bed, and I really did intend on writing more on the subject. Now my anger has subsided and I don't have the energy despite the coffee. But honestly, Mr. von Trier, can you get a little more ham-fisted? The mammy portrayal of black women in the movie is particularly outrageous, and I am surprised that I have not heard anything concerning that yet. I was literally mouth open shocked when the mammy started talking at the town hall meeting, "Master, yes, Master this..."

There are some ugly truths in the movie about American behavior, but there are also some insane exaggerations also. "Young Americans" playing over the closing credit imagery of WPA photography and then later photos of the American poor is more than a little over the top. And the fact that its by a Danish dude who has never stepped foot in America perhaps should not be an issue, but for me it is, and again, What do you know about my life? About walking past houses, seeing a light on, and getting sad? About rock and roll and beer, Mr. von Trier? Go fuck yourself with your smug theories about film and about what you think I do here in this land! Okay, maybe my anger has not totally dwindled.

Prior to that, I saw three amazing art shows. Jim Lambie at Anton Kern! Wow, wow, wow! There seems to be a trend of site-specific room installations recently. Or perhaps I am just starting to take notice of them now and starting to think about what exactly they mean, and what the appeal of them to me is. But there is Yayoi Kusama, Assume Vivid Astro Focus, and Virgil Marti at the Whitney right now. There is Sabine Horning at Tanya Bonakdar, and also this trippy Jim Lambie show now. I have to think about these shows more. There is something going on with all of them, some one thing that strikes me as awesome. I have yet to figure out what this is.

There were also really lovely paintings by Joe Andoe at Feigen, and either heartbreaking or funny photos by Stuart Hawkins at LFL. The photos are all of Nepali citizens in grotesque parodies (are they though?) or commerical Western culture. There is one of a guy in some barren landscape sporting a Nelly band-aid and doing a thugish pose. Too many issues of globalization and colonialism to sort out what is being said by these photos. There were lots of cute boys at the LFL opening that Joe pointed out, but I was not feeling it, the desire for other boys. Being dumped has taken a toll on my self-esteem which in turn has had its effect of my sex drive. Right now, I don't have the confidence or the energy, and am realizing that the two are perhaps the same. Confidence and energy. Perhaps this is why when I was with Matt and confident, I was having so much luck talking to boys. It's so funny that when you are alone and lacking in confidence that that is when you are going to have the most trouble finding a person, when you probably most need it. Or maybe it's good that way, cause maybe that is when you least need it, that there are things you and I need to learn first before that can happen.