I used to be so good at titling ...
I've disovered that the certain something I possess that makes all kind of people talk to me, just want to talk to me and tell me their story is actually the key trait of a bartender. And Wednesday, despite the awful weather and a very broken down metro system in a very angry/tired/humid city, I managed to bring in some bucks, and my new boss was impressed. Wants me to be the Wednesday girl, so people have their regular. I can do that, I can be the regular, and it helps me feel like I belong to this city, that I don't sit on its edges.
RadioIOAcoustic is fantastic. It is rainy and I finally got some sleep, and am sitting in my cool living room, coffee and music and I think I'm ready to finish my thesis. I've had a writers block most of the summer, petrified, frozen. I know writer's block doesn't really exist, its everything else that stops us, never the writing. But I couldn't do it, have spent most of this summer feeling like I've regressed, spiraled down out of autonomy. Slowly though, the spiral is stopping, I'm looking up, forward, not down -- as seen in my habit-fixing ways of modeling (I'm learning to look straight-on, erect neck, no tilting, fully engaged) --
I am working with an amazing woman Jane, a painter, modeling for her for her next show (a split show, her and another painter) in November. Jane and I clicked instantly, as we met in Gramercy Park for coffee and chatted about life, art, the entaglements. We've forged a really beautiful relationship, with lots of trust, and it makes so much sense. I am finding a new comfort in my body, in myself, what I have to offer others, not just what I can generate. We started with a photoshoot in skirts and dresses, looking for good fabric lines/movement, and I'm just thrilled that she'll be .. painting me. Or some essence of me. Its an incredible thing, as a live artist, I am so intrigued by that which is imprinted, stays, will outlive me. I leave our sessions with a great groundedness in who I am, the body that carries me, the self I'm becoming. To see oneself, if only for an instant, through the lens of another, is a gift.
Healing my heart, finding strength and faith in my books, my work, and as per my usual, an incredibly packed schedule. I have three jobs on the horizon, finishing school, and trying to book work - and figure out where I belong in the dance world. A lot of mixed feelings, some bitterness towards the old ways, towards bias that says I am too young, too female, not enough .... but working past, realizing that once you start carving your own path, you have to finish it. Because theres no map. Carpe diem ...
Reading (finally) Lucia Joyce: Dancing in the Wake, the biography of Joyce's daughter. Carol Loeb Schloss is a Joyce/modernist specialist, and works to shed light on the daughter-father relationship that has baffled literary historians. Its ... interesting. A lot of big ideas in terms of art and relationships, questions of when/if do certain things become allowed because of art, are there permissions granted to some because of their gifts, what to do when life in this world doesn't equate with the life in your work ... The writing is alright, I feel the conflict Schloss faced, wanting not to portray Joyce as the typical-Irish father he may have been (with added genius), but also feeling a loyalty to the truth, to figuring out who Lucia was, not just to Joyce, but to the rest of the world, as she herself took part in the arts of the mid-century (she danced!). Makes me want to pick Ulysses again, read it with a different eye ..
Saw The Fountainhead outside down at Water Street the other night. It would take an Ayn Rand film for me to realize who I am -- I had gone in relating to Dominique, the woman who eventually finds the courage, the selishness (Rand's philosophy) to be with Howard Roark, the uncompromising individual. THEN I REALIZED. I am uncompromising, in the Rand-sense. My self, my creation, my life is my own and it's never stopped, it doesn't, and I refuse to accept an uncourageous partner. I AM HOWARD ROARK. It's almost a shame that Rand made a man the hero like that, but perhaps its context. Perhaps its also the fact that she was not very proud of her gender. Either way, she showed me the way ....
What's scarier than having Lisa Loeb lyrics make sense? Having Ayn Rand be your romantic enlightenment ....
Saw the B52s last night at Coney Island. For Free. Rock Lobster live = I am now a better person.
Highlights (and why they are one of the best bands ever):
"I don't know how many of you know this, but last week we were inducted into the LiteFM hall of fame ... "
"This is a song about America's great contribution to world culture and architecture, .... the enclosed shopping mall"
They are brilliant.
Needless to say, I am all over, on my rollercoaster, but getting as much as I can out of where I am. Learning to be grateful for the ocean, the city, the summer rain, and my addiction to perservering.
[Just don't mention his name, and I'm ... fine. ]
When you're not feeling holy, your loneliness says that you've sinned ... [Serena Ryder]