strength in singularity.

i need to sleep so i can finish building my truck-home and shoot tomorrow, but i'm too occupied dreaming with my eyes open. i am so utterly infatuated with the future right now it's absurd. and i have no idea what to expect, which is the most freeing feeling i've had in years.

i have places to land softly,

i have goals and deadlines,


and i will shortly be tied to no thing, no one, no place.
just responsibility for my job and well being,
and an overwhelming sense of connection to all.



i often wonder if i will all this irony into my existence,
because it makes me smile like a child.

all photos by the amazing jaret ferratusco

circle the spiral.

i am lucky to have wandered upon such true, but forgiving mirrors in the funhouse.

self destruction is an utter cop-out:
no more alcohol until the burn, and then i believe i'm sticking to wine.

now: a week of packing and building, preparation for life with no tethers.
and i'm excited to enter it with such clarity.

glisten from the daze.

i will miss philadelphia, and having a home. i am driven away from all comfort by a need to overcome my circumstances as autonomously and quickly as possible.

my birthday was on the 14th, and quite honestly, after my 21st, i'm not celebrating it anymore. it is without fail one of the more stressful days of the year, regardless of my lack of expectations.

i don't know if it's humanly possible to move forward in a situation without some sort of goal in mind. a plant will die no matter how much water you give it when planted in poor soil. it's been mumbled that i love without an "attachment to an outcome," and though i really do just want everyone i care about to flourish in whatever way they see fit, there are still basic foundations of conducive interaction that need to be nurtured.

dancing is still the most therapeutic thing gift in my life and it must happen more if i am to remain sane. last night was spend popping, locking, shuffling and swinging my heart out under the stars with thousands of other people in the mountains: every muscle aches in utter joy.


the proper world is based in certainties and i have none to offer or demand, a fleeting fire.




can one revert to any grounded path when it has been disregarded for the sky?

aneurysm.

slug, the main propoenent of musical collective atmosphere, puts my life to words in such an eerily accurate fashion i don't know if my writing can even hold a candle to it's clarity. i sort of feel that way about all of hiphop, it is, in it's finest moments, modern poetry.



And when the vein start to pop from the blood
Pushed away from the heart
Patience, I need more, as my temper becomes tempted
To up and down on this seesaw
I should escape, I should disappear
Its gettin clear, crystal clear
I'm in a bad position here
I gave you power, gave you control
But you had to play the role
Reckless with the treasure that you hold
There isn't much as unsatisfying
as the blind man listening
Believing in the one that's lying
Hide the crying, tears in the pocket
A fool for the interlude that introduced the moshpit
Exhausted by the storm, before the calm
Holding on to a memory, keeping it warm within my palm

friends and lovers lie (down).

so accurate is the time honored standard of loving yourself being integral to truly loving anything external. even truer is that if one hurts themselves they are causing collateral pain to those that care for them.


i don't know if my heart will break ever again but it is certainly sprained.

days like these i wish i was not such a goddamn romantic.

motivational objectification.

buy new car, drive until it's "outdated," trade in for newer car.
upgrade your flight, your housing, your look.
find new thing, abuse, grow tired, repeat.
the american way.

(i hope it's ultimately not the human way.)
did you think you'd be as much like your parents as you really are?
i sure as hell didn't.


i'm craving deep connections and fishing in fleeting seas.
but know that i sail towards something, now a little bit more tangible.

model's block.

(by frank petronio)

i repeat the same routine, just a series of posed emotions, cheapened beauty and deft hands.

(by jade noir)

i just want to be back in school.

i'm not feeling too awesome right now, in fact i've been eating lots of amazing gluten free baked goods the past week to try to distract myself from that fact. i want time to read and be curious and creative, but i don't even have time to get my work done properly. i can't even work right now because i'm too busy worrying about who will take care of the kitty love of my life while i live in my car to save up to go back to school. i hope to financially be halfway there after summer is said and done.


i fear i will never be content, and relish it at the same time.
progress is the child of discord.


(by my photographic muse: izzy, head piece by j. martin.)



disaster is an enticing thing, or maybe i'm just masochistic.

a soul transforms the pedestrian into prey or preadator.

(jewelry by jake martin)

It is easier to see
Evil as entity
Not as condition inside you and me
I did not invent it, I'm just in charge of it
Simple businessman with simple practical plan

So do you wanna be a model, yeah?
All you got to do is show up, wow!
We'll be leaving soon for the breaking ground
For there will forever be slavery
There forever be cruelty

There forever be wretched of Earth
Crawlin' up round driven by last semen drop
Factory that makes you, they say, it never stops
Factory that makes them, I know, it never stops...

So do you wanna be a model, yeah?
All you got to do is show up, wow!
We'll be leaving soon for the breaking ground
For there will forever be slavery
There forever be cruelty

(lyrics by gogol bordello.)






i'm bored with being driven.
and i'm pretty lonely due to it.
the road is full of short term people,
but i find myself letting less and less of them in.

is this bitterness on my tongue? i hope not. if there is one pointless experience on this earth that should be done away with, it is regret.

the fuel in my head from the flesh.

right now i wish i didn't need sleep, love, or all of the comforts of living.

i wish i could run on apples and ambition alone. that would mean i could save up enough money to go back to school in less than a year, i'm sure.


i have been surrounded by incredible, talented, and kind people for the greater part of the last year, with this trip throwing that into sharp focus. i've been working with an amazing team the past 2 days and having other inventive artists to collaborate with does SO much for my creative energy... i'm still buzzing.

texas is a sauna. but there's some really rad people here.

symmetriac.

when everything crumbles i'm no longer surprised.

sleepless nights, the road and the scale.

i'm back on track. which means days without sleeping, traveling like a madman, living on the internet and keeping myself so busy i can't think about the pit in my brain. the road has an interesting effect on people, emphasizing the individuals state of dependence and almost all other attributes with the stress of getting things done in an unfamiliar place.

i don't think i could live in a relaxed manner. i thrive on mania.

none of this is as pretty as i pretend to be.

(doesn't my phone takes damn fine pictures? it infrequently works as a phone, but the camera function is exceptional.)

public image.

it's sort of insane how some people live almost entirely in their head or on the internet. myself included. i like to think i have a grip on what being responsible and respectful despite emotions entails though. i like to think i've got goals and values and i actively work towards or for them.

sometimes i wish i was outspoken enough...


to even truly defend myself.

psy·cho·so·mat·ic

–adjective

1. of or pertaining to a physical disorder that is caused by or notably influenced by emotional factors.

2. pertaining to or involving both the mind and the body.

running uphill.

someone i worked with interrogated me as to why i am the way i am, why i look the way i do, essentially why i am myself.

they implied that my life seemed an uphill struggle and from our conversation said they could tell it had been mostly that. they also couldn't believe i was doing what i do at my age, so spontaneously and "recklessly."

i think i have an answer.


some people are born with a flat meadow laid out before them, to stroll.
some, small hills to mount and rejoice.
others are given a path of boulders to stumble upon.
still others awaken to life to find peaks the size of everest staring them in the face.

i do not claim to know which of these i am, hardly. feelings and personal vendettas leave me far too unbiased to make such an assertion.

what is clear to me, is that it is not the path laid before an individual that determines the outcome of their existence and the mettle of their being, rather the method in which they approach it. seeking true success and happiness makes any path a running course, and any life a marathon.

some just have to run uphill.

lewd sobriety, and the scales.

i have been escaping to alternate realities in my dreams: ones in which i am a male, ones in which i am invisible due to my plainness, ones in which i am nothing: just a presence, ones in which i am myself, just in a much easier situation, ones in which my skin is purple. waking up is sometimes violent, but normally just delayed and drawn out, as i try to grasp the last pieces of the alternate me and cram it into my brain, thinking it will give me more dimension of perception.

selfless kindness will generally do nothing but get you taken advantage of, when it it all breaks down. there is no tally system, there is no keeping track unless both parties are going at it for less soulful reasons.

but i'll keep wasting time, money, and effort on people who think of me only in passing, because i do love them despite whatever flaws they may exhibit. and i want them to be happy, more than anything.

even if that happiness doesn't involve me in the least.





i do really need to stop subconsciously thinking in terms of payback, it's simply a disease inflicted by growing up in america.

and the cause, i think, of the majority of bickering here.

waking up some more.

with kess and jackie by jon mmmayhem.

this is why i love my life.


big fat note to self:
set aside atleast 5 hours a week to create.
(sew, paint, take pictures)
and atleast 5 to read.


i feel brain dead. i haven't sewn anything, painted anything awesome, or made anything i'm truly proud of since i moved to philly. i haven't been thinking of concepts for shoots correctly even.

stimulation is necessary at this point. fitting it in admist the hustle is the trick.

the balance beam.

life is rather simple, no?
i know i feel simple for finding it so difficult.

sitting in front of a computer as much as i do is unnatural though.



next- lots of traveling. no end in sight until september. work, hustle, flow.
i think it's what i need. it's working towards something, at the least.

homes are developing everywhere.
i am comfortable on my feet.
this is how it should be.

absolutely wonderful new zivity set here.

willful suspension.

(preview of bladerunner set due to go live on zivity in 3 days)




life baffles me.

even more confounding is how very good i am at hiding it.

i am simultaneously in love with my existence and wishing for a different one.
nothing makes sense right now and i don't bring people close enough to be really touched.



i was supposed to see a very important person to me on this trip. two actually. neither happened, one denied me dramatically and the other faded with the ebb of distance and inconvenience. loving people through a computer is the most soul devouring habit of necessity this utopia of technology has caused to develop, and my lack of ability or will to participate in the binary orgy has left me without anyone to really lean on.

in a house full of wonderful people in a city full of opportunities i feel totally alone. at the same time i have felt my best on this trip while being completely lost and alone wandering around LA, or last weekend at coachella. the ability to make rapid, extreme decisions is important to me, perhaps i am made for nomadic hermitage.


i wish i could just be happy,
because i know i have plenty to be happy with.

styrofoam boots.

back on track....

i have two new sets up, one incredibly appropriate one on zivity:



and another appropriately bare boned one on foxblood by mojokiss:




at best i am an extreme idealist.
at worst a nihilistic fatalist.

"the great thing about being bipolar is every other day is the best day of your life."
- my good friend lithium picnic

there is no if, just this.

i have fallen. i have wholly despaired.

i hated myself and sought to rid the planet of it.

the hotel room was so sterile, comfortable, singular, and so removed. everything was so simple to execute that i came within a matter of turning a knob to erase the mark.

thoughts suddenly flooded my head of my kitten, my lovers, friends, family. especially crash, there is something undeniably vital about taking care of a helpless loving being. he needs me, anything that would remove me from his world entirely would be incredibly selfish. i can't hurt him, and i'm pretty sure even when i leave for a long time he loves me even more when i come home.



i have been helped, so much...
and am putting things back in their place.

i need to be much better than this.
the task at hand is to decipher how.

clean slate.

a realization upon finding my old blogs (of 5+ years ago) packed to the brim with entries...

i was more full of tenacity, life, articulation, despair, joy, expression and general pure emotion when i was 15 than i will ever be. i was determined as fuck, planning to graduate from an esteemed college by the age of 21 (basically within the next year).... existence is a series of events that either decays the soul or causes you to put up walls against said degradation.

(or i screw up a lot.)

also noted: how twisted and odd i've been from the beginning of my mental independence...

by michael magic

i just paid off thousands of dollars worth of student loans.
i am no longer in debt, semi-broke, and soon to be free (or close to free) of ties.

and then: assessment.




edit: wtf i want my brain back:

"i follow patterns and cycles. i am as predictable as spring coming every year. but spring is never really that predictable, all we know is when it comes and what it may bring.

i will always find ways to escape my ever persistent, cold, unfeeling, and logical mind. i will always divulge into chaos whenever i can. be it intoxication, beauty, art or the simple smile in my lover's eyes i will always try to run away from reality, and lose myself in the violet waves of mindless indulgence. but i will never be consistent in finding one escape, i will run from one to the other, escape even my releases.

the cycle of perceived intelligence and stupidity defines my life. it always has and always will. as i drift from logical control to chaotic escape, people will always see me as the intelligent idiot.

the shade of dusk's skies will always be to color of my soul. sometimes navy blue, sometimes vibrant hues of orange and purple. i will recede into myself and come out strong, similar to the oceans foam crested tides.

but you will never be able to predict everything about me, i am not an exact science. i am not an exact anything.

all i can tell you, is that i follow patterns and cycles, that have their own spontaneous aversions and patterns. and maybe, if you watch me closely, like an astrologist viewing the heavens, you might be able to have an idea of what i will be tomorrow.

but that's not a guarantee, i can guarantee you that."

-written causally at 15