maelstrom.

i have no time for decompression, and so i am trying to live every day just like i strove to on the playa, with an open heart and mind and more determination than usual.

i do not have a multitude of images to show for my adventure, nor would they depict anything about what this burn really consisted of for me. it was much less a party and much more a prayer.

the desert taught me some fucking important things this year.
and i learned them (mostly) alone.


there is great solidarity in singularity.

on with life, it's the most precious thing i own.

land ho!

there is magic on the horizon.

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coming home.

home is in the moments i feel safe, in his voice, her hips, his arms, her eyes. home is flying down the highway blasting music, i think my residence currently lies somewhere near 70 mph.

you told me it's ok to come home, so i might.

here is a brief summation of the past week or so, because i really don't have the will to formulate it into eloquent symbols and vague asides. it's been a fucking week though, and deserves summation:

detour to colorado-
a sharp jab in a tender spot-
a illuminatingly beautiful 3 day visit,
the motherboard on my laptop dies,
freakishly accurate chakra reading,
playing housewife,
shoot cancellations and flakes GALORE,
transmission scare,
truck hell,
stereo hell,
computer hell,
money hell.
lover's paradise.

i haven't drank in a month. and although i sometimes want to, i recognize that it's only when i'm upset, and that is definitely when my mouth should stay dry. when my head stays dry, i don't really ponder it.


i have 4 hours until i have to leave for a 13 hour drive and i don't think i'm going to sleep.
my path does not know the meaning of leveling off.

freezing temperature.

in the sweltering heat i feel my heart turn to fucking ice.


one day i hope i will be able to do as i say, not as i do.


when you are temporary, all forms of relationships are ultimately in vain.
there is plenty of room in my life for emotional ties, just no apparent tethers.

love me not.
(it will only fade with the miles.)

home sweet home.

it still needs some love and decor, but this is my new habitation. it travels with me, fits me perfect, and i built it with my own two hands.

sublime is not strong enough a word.

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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.