cry cry cry

so you know how i've wanted a red beret for a really long time? well in light of recent events, i think i'll have to waitlist that dream. the most recent: yesterday i was boarding the santa monica blvd bus (704 represent) and saw a the most pretentious girl wearing a red beret. she had a scarf and some stupid cropped jacket and was leafing through and old book (probably some old edition of a camus novel or something ugggg). what made it even worse is that she had this really self-conscious look on her face, sort of like she knew she looked like an asshole but had already walked out of her house and was late so she couldn't do anything about it. so after seeing and assessing all of this i was just like, "i do not want to be this girl." even though i won't go whole lame-hog with a scarf and shit i have a lot of old books! and a black turtleneck! what if i want to ride a bike? or pronounce something correctly in french? and i fucking love baguettes. it was then that i decided that this whole red beret thing would be too problematic. oh well.

lily comes home today around noon and HOLY SHIT Y'ALL i'm stoked.

I WAS SUCH A BITCH

apparently i told dmitry this in ninth grade. i have absolutely no recollection of it but he even remembers where we were and everything. i can't believe this shit:

"so the other day i was thinking and i decided that i didn't really want to be your friend anymore. but then i decided that i did."

daaaaaaamn. i know i'm still pretty bitchy now but you guys should take comfort in knowing that it used to be really bad and that i get less bitchy as i get older. just hang in there dudes. soon enough i'll be baking lemon bars for the homeless and healing small children by placing my hand on their foreheads and shit

i wake up too early

retail therapy: sadly, it works.

so you know how i wear my hair parted with a little clip on the side? i've discovered that if you push back that little hunk of hair there's like, a tiny curl grove just hangin' out under there. it's weird.

holy fucking shit - lily comes home in two days. i told her that it feels like she's been out to sea for five years. actually i haven't seen her since like, mid-january but to go from hanging out with someone all day everyday to not seeing them at all is pretty drastic.

i'm actually pretty excited for the first year show at calarts on thursday. it'll be good to see what everyone creates when they're not drunkenly stumbling through hallways or getting high on the hill.

so,

the production of die walküre last night was very unusual - lots of weird costumes and projections (and light sabers! the rumors were true!) that were kind of off-putting at first but the vocal performances were amazinggg. also can we just talk about how fucking long wagner operas are? goddamn. i remember a couple of years ago in orange county (?) there was a production of the entire ring cycle presented over the span of a few days and i remember thinking how overwhelming that would be. seriously - and especially after last night - i don't think i could handle three long ass nights of wagner, as much as i appreciate his music. then we went to a late, sleepy dinner and even after that i couldn't sleep. so at five i decide, fuck it, i'm gonna try, and then just when i was drifting off i get a phone call at five-thirty from lily, who landed in bawhstun yesterday and who will be home in five days. seriously if it was anyone aside from like, four other people i would have been so pissed but it was so good to hear her voice clearly after so many shitty skype calls. then i went to sleep. and then i woke up at 8:30. so if you see me later and i'm like, laughing and crying and rocking back and forth clutching a pillow or some shit, it's wagner's fault. but mostly lily's. but mostly the fault lies with how i somehow suck at sleeping.

TONIGHT, DIE WALKÜRE

...with club sauce

and by club sauce i mean light sabers

a cup of coffee with slightly sour cream in it

i have an interview at the hammer tomorrow and all i can think about is frank o'hara. wishful thinking, of course.

i finished what we talk about when we talked about love by raymond carver today. i liked it but i have the feeling that next week i'll have forgotten i read it. a couple of summers ago, after seeing a book i had read but forgotten about in a bookstore, i started to list all of the books i read and what i thought of them. it didn't last very long. maybe i should start again.

it's been disgustingly hot lately and i hate it. this winter was colder than it's been in a long time and i had completely forgotten what heat felt like. now it's back and i'm pissed.

this weekend i got ice cream in a small town. i drank beer on a hill above its lake. i felt awful. i felt great. i almost went to san francisco. i changed my opinion on damien hirst almost entirely. i wore all-black in 95 degree weather. i read raymond carver and milton friedman. i talked about race and my friends and history. i was at a loss for words. i "disappeared." i hogged the blankets. i wrote a cover letter. i slept too long for no reason. i ruined my silk shoes walking down a railroad track. i missed being alone. i missed people. i read poetry. i heard poetry. i found my favorite necklace. i left things behind. i don't know.

jake persian deaddad

last night was a good night. i went to see jake's band - maxim ludwig & the santa fe seven - at the mint. they were great - i've never seen or heard them play before so i was completely surprised by their sound. jake also looked cute as hell on stage. i was standing alone being creepy until patrick showed up, thereupon i met some people whose names i forgot and at least one of which were members of jake's old band, the 1921a. afterwards jake, patrick, ginni, nick and i went to patrick's, drank beer, played records and watched snl. i've come to the conclusion that i really don't like saturday night live. it's waaaaaaaaay more miss than hit with me and i end up sitting there wondering if the performers actually think what they're doing is funny. then jake and i had an "american picnic" with some taco bell (!) and he took me home. it sounds kind of dull but there were lots of little really nice moments - and really insightful ones - that made it a good night.

i've noticed that there's been a bit of a flip in the trend of people i've been hanging out with or meeting: few of them smoke weed. whereas a year ago i would have been hard-pressed to find someone that didn't smoke weed, now it seems that they're definitely the minority. i have my theories.

i want every robert frank book. so far i have one hour, pull my daisy, peru, and the americans. i have seven to go. i reallllllllly want storylines.

and, because i enjoy exploiting my friends, dmitry just sent me this text: "OH MY GOD IM IN SOME SUPER SECLUDED STUDY ROOM AT THE LIBRARY AND SOME HOMIE IS PRAYING TO ALLAH, RUG 'N ALL." hahahaha

a couple of other little things:
1. i handle compliments so poorly.
2. i should keep in mind that there are very few things in life that are actually a big deal, and i should act accordingly.

tomorrow

$ yoga
$ birth control refill
$ "joseph beuys and the german past" lecture at lacma
$ maxim ludwig & the santa fe seven at the mint

unrelated, but if there is one thing you should know about me, it is this: i never know what i want. and i hate that.

wah

last night i slept in a dorm room stuffed with six people. it was so hectic; jake snoring, colin threatening to teabag jake if he didn't stop snoring, some random kid from kansas waking up in the middle of the night screaming about his arm falling asleep (lol what), me sharing a bed with patrick and alternately getting grinded on and being deprived of blanket, waking up at eight in the morning. and now, even though i got almost no sleep last night, somehow sleep is proving impossible tonight, too. ug. i don't even know what a good night's rest is anymore; i haven't had one in a very long time.

take her gucci bag and her north face

so, milton friedman's capitalism and freedom - great. seriously, i miss him. and speaking of books i'm reading (the wealth of nations has been downgraded to morning and pre-sleep reading because it's too fucking heavy to carry anywhere), have you noticed that people rarely read in public? i'm always on the bus and you'd think there would be more people gettin' down with a novel but there really aren't many. even at coffee shops the literature of choice seems to be textbooks. it's kind of a bummer, honestly, but i'm not foolish enough to think that people ever read much "back then" either.

i really want a north face parka but mostly because whenever i wear one i want to have on the fanciest fucking outfit on underneath. so down.

c'est marveilleux

i had a really good weekend. basically i am completely fucking ruining my liver and hanging out with too many dudes that are perpetually playing guitar but i've been having an awesome time. i went to cal arts thursday night, had a bangin' shabbat dinner and weird/interesting/fun mexiparty experience on friday, went to a party in long beach on saturday, and had the most perfect sunday i've had in a very long time. seriously sunday was the epitome of lazy summer afternoon, aside from the fact that it isn't summer. the ~least chill~ part of it was jake and i having to drive ginni's car back to long beach to retrieve his vest and car keys that actually ended up being on a chair in his room, but i guess technically that was this morning, and it wasn't that bad.

now i'm sitting around listening to edith piaf and wondering what to eat. i'm so down for breakfasty stuff right now. yesterday nick - host of saturday's party and whose house we stayed at for most of sunday - made blueberry pancakes, bacon and eggs and it was bomb. he's seriously the best host ever.

edit at 4:33p: oh my god i just remembered: i smoked a cigarette in the nude on nick's back porch at four in the morning. wtf

ol' 55

so i saw splendor in the grass. natalie woods' acting was awful and because of this it was hard to sit through at times. somehow discounting a terrible lead acting job, i liked the movie overall. also it was chosen by artist charlie white, whose book american minor i recently purchased, whose works i recently saw at the hammer, and who was there, sitting in the row behind me. i really wanted to say something to him but by the time the film was over i had forgotten what he looked like and didn't want to just yell "WHICH OF YOU IS CHARLIE WHITE?" into a crowd of people and look foolish.

right now i'm sitting in mara's dorm, post-adult swim viewing of the room and chinese food and candy pig-out with mara and alex. it was censored as fuck but i think we're going to see it at the sunset five on the twenty-ninth. i went with ian last year and having experienced it both with and without a crowd, i'd have to say that the former is the better option.

so, it's three in the morning so i'm going to eat a few more chocolate coins and go to bed. oh man i can hear someone taking photobooth pictures. lol college.