Habit

I went again, Lara, and took this surreptitious photo.

I just wrote a long post and lost it!

I keep visiting Habit.

I'm fascinated that three actors are living in an alternative universe a stone's throw from my building. 

I love the way audience members anxiously circle the house, trying to angle themselves for the best views, trying to anticipate where the actors will go.

While I was there yesterday, an actor took a shower, and some of us watched the outline of his body moving.  A toilet flushed.  This same actor took a nap in the messy bed, waiting for his next line to come around.

I peered over the shoulder of another actor, as she stabbed a knife into a tray of cold brownies.  She spoke her lines--an explanation of semiotics--with her mouth full. 

Yesterday, I saw this character die in a different way than this character had died a day earlier.

The only requirement is that the actors stick to the script as written, but I'm fascinated by the ways this set script becomes malleable, and tweaked, the way our own scripts do.

I've visited Habit four times and will go back today.

Can you see why I'm addicted?  Read more about it here.

Howl Hole

Poetry reading in Tompkins Square Park:  4:30 pm

Free cultural events help me forget that I'm in a tight place for awhile, and this weekend is chockfull of them here in my little neck of the woods.  First off is Howl, a weekend-long celebration of the artistic history and spirit (what's left) of the East Village.  This annual and relatively newish festival is imbued with the ghost of Allen Ginsberg, of course, who was a long-time resident of our 'hood.  (I'm a mad at him now, after reading he never read and did not particularly like the work of women poets.)

Tonight, I attended a painfully hip art opening at The Hole.  Julian Schnabel's daughter recently exhibited there (with Courtney Love at the opening), but tonight the show, which is only up through this Saturday, was all Jim Joe, a quasi-mysterious trash and graffiti artist, whose tags you can see all over my neighborhood.  

This weekend is also open studios in Bushwick, and on Sunday is the first ever Daylife on Orchard Street.

It's easy to get very distracted and forget that I have an online class to teach for the next seven weeks.

I went to a library conference today and felt like I was the only adjunct there, but that's another story, and not as interesting to think about as everything else here.  

Looking forward to:  Not thinking about tight places this weekend.

Inspiration:  graffiti, trash art, the fact that Lara's in Seattle (sending her my best)

Legwear:  steel gray leggings, as there is a chill in the air

Art opening at the The Hole:  7:30 pm

liquefaction

this robert herrick poem never fails.

Upon Julia's Clothes

Whenas in silks my Julia goes,

Then, then (methinks) how sweetly flows

That liquefaction of her clothes.

Next, when I cast mine eyes, and see

That brave vibration each way free,

O how that glittering taketh me!

all through this middling week, poems have sustained me, and this day it was no different.

why is the word "liquefaction" so amazingly sexy?

why do i only want to eat avacados and fennel?

oh, yeah, and hostess snoballs (the white ones--definitely not the pink)?

and maybe some eggs benedict?

and listen to radiohead?

and read poetry &

watch modern family?

i'm counting the little tasty, sexy, free or cheap and tiny pleasantries of each day--working on making the middle more fun.

also, i'm feeling a great sense of relief today. a problem that plagued me all through the holidays got resolved yesterday. i hadn't realized how it was weighing me down until this morning.

legwear: grey leggings with charcoal knee patches from h&m amsterdam. definitely not age appropriate. student casey wore cute nordic sweater tights with grey knee socks and brown lace up ankle boots today. her clothes are always fun. one of the great things about my job is witnessing the wonderful, creative fashion the youth of today wear to school. i also love watching them make poems and art.

Sleep is Free

Oddly--and kind of thrillingly--I had a similar day to Lara's, which you can read about below.   It other words, it was a middle kind of day, too, the kind of day I was not imagining for myself when I was on in the throes of New Year's Eve high ten days ago, but days like this are inevitable, unavoidable.  Aren't they?

Three things that I did:

1.  I worked.
2.  I ran errands.
3.  I made some necessary phone calls.
4.  I listened to the NH primaries on headphones while quasi dozing in my kid's school lobby like an old man.
5.  I wore the same tights I've been wearing off and on since mid December.

Four things that kept this day from being completely middling:

1.  I read James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room on the subway.
2.  I went to Mast and read Jean Genet.
3.  I did some yoga after being freaked out by yoga.
4.  I thought about the things in my life that are free.