Hello everyone. Let's jump right into things
let's talk about what we could not do this year:
I could not Find a volunteering gig. I tried to volunteer at local hospice or some beach clean up crew. Tried to apply to so many jobs and was particularly fixated on the idea of working in death care. Kept harassing a few local cemeteries about hiring me, got rejected from a couple funeral homes. Was contemplating going to mortuary school.
I could not bring to life A music project called Victoria Road Music, about a famous street in Northwestern England
I could not Insist on a catalogue of music and an organization of my collections on my website before everything disappears again (a losing battle).
I did not complete my presentation on the Ephemera Society of America's Annual Conference. I made a 30 page slide show and recorded maybe an hour's worth of commentary about everything which was discussed at the conference in Greenwich, CT. I did this because I am resolutely concerned with the thoughts and intellectual impressions of an age. This year's conference theme was Invention and Innovation. Again, why? I think this activity bore relevance to a larger discourse (which I made up) regarding the Nouveaux Pensées, my belief that our collective populace has obtained permission to (a) name and describe our earthly experience along new parameters, (b) utilize new methods for allocating social memory vis-a-vis growing importance of technology to psychic health and (c) express our psycho-sensual culture through far grander signs....
What Actually Happened This Year
I started working at the central fine dining establishment nestled within a luxury department store called Printemps. The building site is shared by a duplex Whole Foods with its own cafe, Lifetime gym with its own bar/ cafe, plus private residences, and is bookended by the stock exchange and Trinity Church. The area itself is made busy by both classic working people and classic touring people. The building in which I work every day is a curious biosphere; a few seconds of thought has me to believe One Wall Street must often be filled by employees belonging to one business or another than it is of residents and paying clientele.
Within my job I could have worked at any number of the four food & beverage outlets which opened this year. But I entered a Maison Passerelle girl, and my path remains focused. I have met many people coming and going from MP. The security, the prep cooks, porters, dishwashers, maintenance crews, facilities team, the show kitchen cooks, the chefs themselves, servers, backwaiters, bartenders, barbacks, hosts, my management, their management... Plus all the funny connective people, Our shared locker space and break room with the Printemps Retail team and all their innumerable hierarchies, merchandisers, client specialists, loss prevention, so on and so forth. Everybody working for our food and beverage team shares this experience.
From the beginning, working in this kind of facility/factory environment reminded me of industrial sociality of 1950s. Suddenly there's a large building with loads of jobs and a small new world is born. But instead of manufacturing or marketing, the total purpose of the factory machine is to entertain. It's an incredible amount of human effort to make the thing go round.
I don't really have any beliefs or opinions about the moral implications of complex commercial ventures. The buildings in my city get bigger and more dynamic, every new building requires a municipal concept all its own in order to be profitable. What I do know is that it is a great education to experience social life on such a large scale.
I wrote and read some stuff. I turned 29 years old. My dog died. I mostly look at pictures and videos which I have taken or found, and look into buying old magazines, jewelry or clothes. Sometimes it's shocking how much mental effort I have made,. Weeks and months take hold of me where I'm very dedicated to an intangible force, something I want to study or learn or be close to, some vibe or style or expression. I Was told more than a few times not to do that. That my character will yearn for information of every kind, and to try to be discerning about making a real education for myself. Even that is a funny thing to say!
I went to Tampa, Los Angeles, Paris, London, and Palm Beach this year. I went to several other towns and cities in both France and England. I travel 25 miles each way from Long Island into my city. That's 50 miles a day, 5 or 6 days a week. I still don't watch any movies or tv shows, you see, I feel entertained enough.
What actually happened this year. I think 9 months is a cool break in writing nd drawing and everything. I'll tell you I had a look at my two cellphones, the pics and the obsessing is never enough. It does not stop, I am not going to stop. Maybe we could say that it becomes [better] [clearer] or [worse] [different]. I look back and worship my own cultivation. Although I am the fruit now, I miss those days too, not for quality of expression, because there is no change in intensity nor in faith, but I am jealous and nostalgic just that I had lived at all.
This morning was Christmas Day. Upon waking I heard a voice announcing in my dream "Give them a greeting to which they cannot respond". I went upstairs in my family home, I started to cry
So December ends. Ive ridden the trains so much, hundreds of thousands of times. In 2024 When I used to work the caffe at night I swear I was the only girl on the railroad coming home at 5am. Then more often than not I would walk 30 mins home from the train station. I wrote this down somewhere else but that type of neutral time passing alters you, in the moment and in the long run. It gives you just enough time to dream, to think, to think in an overly hopeful and expansive sort of way , like from a vantage point of thin and precious air. You look at the small and sleeping lights of each home, you think up pretty much anything, without limit. It makes you believe. For them maybe they check their ring cameras in the morning, they see me singing, or walking & talking to instagram. It’s not enough time to enact anything substantial, being a time that doesn’t really belong to anyone, except trains or birds
I did a lot of writing, planning, and research during those interim commuting moments. I’m doing it now. I went to talk about this at all because Now I wait for a train to roll in, with some Impatience and discomfort I think about waiting for trains in England and France, this year, and the other years. Just this summer I'd get a funny comfortability, cruising through London's metro to Western England's railway, all because of the time I put in riding the goddamn trains here. So when the big silver thing careens on into view, I might be in those places too. I always am, ready to refind or rewire some new importance onto a moment where I don’t particularly feel I belong
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