There are so many things I regret not being able to write about because I was either too lazy or too “in the moment”. So here’s a list of some 2016-2017 things I can write from memory, just to start this blog off:
- Sitting on the curb outside 7/11 with my sister Hanna after an outdoor movie (it was Matilda), listening to Crowded House’s Don’t Dream It’s Over on loudspeaker
- The electric feel of meeting Johnny for the first time after months of unbearable yearning, like the by way of the green line bus scene on the Royal Tenenbaums. How gawky it was. How unadulterated it was. Thinking about it today, from this gradual mediocrity, still makes me cry.
- Watching Gainsbourg: vie heroïque again after the last time (2011?) and regaining my fondness for Klimt, Baudelaire and Aznavour, knowing the difference between Rimbaud and Molière and how the scene with Yolande Moreau, underrated French actress btw, made me emotional. I paused the film, listened to Fréhel for a while, and tears started rolling down like end credits. The world, c’est si bon
- Reading Toast on the bus ride home one night and The Hottest State in a local cafe, looking up from time to time in hopes that someone would find me as interesting as Sarah. But there’s always no one there.
- I remember getting on a bus cos I was leaving for school in a town 7 hours away from my home. My dad just got off after helping me get settled and I started crying. A few seconds later, he climbed back up cos I left my hat and he sees me a wreck so he sat beside me for a few minutes, sharing a sad-comfortable silence.
- Discussing ideas and the future with my cousin Lowil over mac n cheese. I told him I just want to make art for a living but I seem to have forgotten how. That when I try to make something, it’s always crap and since I feel like I have a good critical eye and can easily tell good from bad, I figured my feelings about my own work must be true. He then replied that it’s just overwhelming feelings of self-doubt and that I just have to keep practicing and eventually the persistence will pay off.
- Breakfast with my family in our garden, feeling like a scene from Vicky Christina Barcelona or Tortilla Soup, that "what do you really wanna do right now?" scene from Le Rayon Vert or that life pondering conversation lunch scene from Before Midnight. Everything was fresh like a citrus fruit.
- My friendship with Aida leveled up when we started opening up to each other about our depression and finding peace in each other’s consolation
- Virtually watched the Gilmore Girls reboot with Aida and I remembered most of it was disappointment (what was up with that 20-minute musical scene that felt like 14 hours) and the next day, we watched the last episode, Fall, and Reflecting Light started playing and it’s as if Aida’s hand reached out of the screen, grabbing mine and things were better for a while. This is our life, and if everything else crumbles, at least we have this.
- Crying at a club whilst I was dancing with Rosie on her last night in the country because I don’t want this but I’ll miss her
- Dancing to Neil Young’s Harvest Moon with Johnny was bewitching. A lilting reminder that despite the persistent mediocrity, “I’m still in love with you, I wanna see you dance again.”
- My excitement on September and watching Practical Magic almost every day, to welcome October, made me feel immortal
- Going to Hongkong with my sister, Hanna, and all I can remember is catching our breath, sitting in an alley with our egg tarts in Central and laughing at our spontaneity and ludicrous travel decisions because it's so unlike us
- Sitting in history class and my instructor started to sound like the grownups in Charlie Brown, a lump in my throat and on the verge of crying because I know and I was certain that school isn’t for me and continues to be the bane of my existence
- Commemorating Robin William's life on the anniversary of his death by watching Jack with my sister and Johnny and ugly crying together
- A wave of depression so intense it made me sit on the floor of my balcony at 3am listening to Crash Into Me
- Throwing a bachelorette (party of four) for my sister, Inky. Her best friend posed as her stripper because we’re too much of a wimp to get a real one and I’ve never seen her laugh as much as she did before. We went out for drinks after and had an intense and honest conversation despite the godawful ambiance and waited for our friends to pick us up. All I remember about it now was the tumble and tangle of limbs but it was one of the best moments of my 2017 tbfh
- Growing closer to my sisters. I don’t know how, I don’t know when BUT HERE WE ARE
- Listening to the entire Dreamin’ Wild album by Donnie & Joe Emerson on vinyl. Johnny bought it for me as a Christmas present and I know it took him a while to save up for it and that makes my mouth quiver
- Welcoming 2017 with a studio 54, 70s roller disco party and I can never write about this because it was everything
- The first week of January, Johnny so openly talked to me about how much he hates his work and that he doesn’t know what to do with his life anymore and we just sat on the bed sharing an understanding and I played Billy Joel’s James and we started bawling like babies. A week after that, he finally left his job
- When I watched this conversation between RuPaul and Oprah that literally changed my life. It’s like they sat down and recorded a self-help audiobook
Oprah: What would you say defined you? RuPaul: The moon, the stars, the sun. I'm everything and nothing at all. So you don't put yourself in any kind of box, any kind of label? None of them felt comfortable, none of them felt like that was the right fit. Cos why do you have to define yourself? You don't have to.
RuPaul: You figure it out by hitting your head up against the wall really, really hard and you're thinking when you're sick and tired of being sick and tired, you really do find a solution. I realized early on I was a seeker, so I continue to seek.- Right now, listening to Paul Simon sing American Tune, muting the people around me, eating the last of my cake. I realize we’re nearing towards the end of February and I’m still not beginning
I promise to try to update this more, whether if it’s for a bad movie review, just a list of random things the way I used to do it, or a moodboard of inspiration. But I’d forgive myself if I didn’t.
