Dear Diary #18

Or Something

The great thing about getting support is that I Officially don’t have to move that fast. That’s a relief, because I was starting to get dizzy. Let me ground in this:

It’s the worst blizzard that New York has seen for God knows how long, there’s some sort of frozen bomb or something. The best part is the pretty blizzard and quiet, the worst part is the day after when we have to go back to doing things with ice packed into the fucking sidewalk by the air because, to be clear, Quarantine will never happen again, no matter the act of God.

I procrastinated (likely unconsciously on purpose) getting groceries for three days, the difference between when I first learned of the Blizzard and the moment I zipped up my coat to go out to the Super Foodtown on Fulton. I walk outside, thinking it’s going to be that dry airy snow like the storm we last had; Reader, no. This snow is thick and wet and Piscean, the mayor is warning those in basement apartments that they might flood and die in their homes.

He didn’t say that, but he did mention a risk of flooding for people living in basements, and I used to live in a basement not too far from here about five years ago, and every time there is a cold snap across the States, I think back to Texas in 2021¹ when people were dying in their homes because one rich man and his associates decided that infrastructure deserved to take a backseat. Feeling like you won the lotto ain’t always god.

Where I came from, Fulton was a county and the only “bank” that might be pissing me off is the Bank of America. How did a Southerner end up here? I know why I can’t go back. I don’t miss the heat and I wish I did.

Every year, I fear the Summer, because my Mania, although genius tbh, it is all-consuming, at times. It is usually in conversation with my Depression from the Winter prior, and this one was legitimately the best I have ever had. Have I hit every goal that I wanted to? Absolutely the fuck not, but I am a very demanding boss so I just have to forgive myself because what else is there to do.

It’s noon the next day since I started writing this and there’s still flurries indiscriminately peppering the Brooklyn air, so I am playing Thundercat’s Drunk to the snowflakes, because what else is there to do.

I recently bought black and white striped Betsey Johnson bedding because I will grow up, just on my own terms. I feel like she embodies that well, and I live for a Maxxanista-ass brand. Years of living out of a few bags and in the homes of abusers has made it second nature to make myself small to survive, and not I have the whiplash of being forced to do the opposite. Spread myself everywhere, but not thin, apply myself the way all my teachers wish I did when sitting in their classrooms.

Since coming back to New York, all I have done is apply myself, can’t you tell? Apply myself to everything but the pavement until society figures out how to treat me. Apply myself to the opportunities that make sense

This is about the work of an artist and the life I live, a life that is older than these email jobs that they teach us to strive for, this false stability of a bi-weekly check (Streamate pays me weekly, tyvm), of an assortment of credit cards and cereals to dream from. Not much.

We feel for those who can’t because the traditional arts education system fed them the poison that their entitlement is validated by pieces of paper and decrepit systems, and that every other artist is both a target and a predator, so, how could we not find ourselves in a cesspool?

To make matters worse, if you are, say, someone who wants to bring artists together with no institutional backing, liquid currency, or social currency to offer, your intentions are put into question or you’re seen as naive and unsmart.

There are way more people outside for this storm, it’s like they’re glad to have another chance to be in the middle of such a big storm. In a weird way, I consider myself lucky to learn the difference in snow, considering the Southern Forest Critter I am. If there’s anything I learn from my travels, it’s how to put an ear to the ground and feel it out with the Earth, at times, my only friend.

I am questioning how long my spirit can take a city as calloused as New York, a place I will always learn from, but is not big enough to hold my heart along with the misplaced anxieties of others. But, of my course, I learned something; I learned I’d rather be soft. I don’t want to fight. I’m down to the end of my rope, as Thundercat would say. I don’t want to write about how a lot of city-dwellers are socially inept, we knew that, honestly, and these are the type people that are energized by any mention, and I only have interest in energizing myself.

I’m not yet a butterfly, but we’re getting there.

-J

1. I used to have this theme of panic attacks around this phrase “it doesn’t even matter if you have a house” and it really used to rock me for a while, man