It has been a very long time since I have posted, but there has not actually been that much going on in my life. I have been sick. Sick, off and on, for six weeks which is far to long a time to be sick. Especially for someone like myself who has sworn off la vida loca for, like, la vida conventina and doesn't deserve to be sick. And there is something about illness that puts things into strange perspective and a false consciousness arises.
Being unemployed and unwell is not the best combination (though I did, during a brief lifting of the veil of utter exhaustion, manage to find myself a couple of jobs neither of which has started yet.) It brings out an amazing voluptuousness that sees nothing wrong with lying in bed all day long—though the final effect was marred by our rather conspicuous lack of servants. I thought about making a list of received Proustian revelations for the delectation of our readers, but upon actually getting out of bed these realizations fell off like crumbs and I now realize that being sick only makes me stupider and ornrier and more bourgeois. It exacerbates my fears of the outside world and makes me feel simultaneously pressed for time and completely unable to accomplish anything, indeed even to figure out what exactly it is that needs accomplishing. It is a kind of being drunk—one is able to postpone responsibility. This feels amazing for three of four days. After three or four weeks, however, it begins to burn. Bed sores, I suppose.
With the above preamble in mind, it is time for me to rethink my relationship to The Mildred. Madeleine has been on my case to post for some time (remember, dear readers, that our home does not have internet access which makes posting from bed impossible not to mention Netflix on demand) and it has become more and more apparent to me that this is, after all, her party. I have not smoked now for over four and a half months and though I do have the odd smoking dream, I haven't slipped even once since I quit. New York City's continued program of health fascism combined with my own stinginess means that $12 for a packet of cigarettes is probably enough to stop me late night at the bodega even at my most drunkest. I'm not out of the woods forever—I will always be addicted to cigarettes whether I am smoking them or not—but I've definitely reached a plateau plot-wise. There are things that I do want to write about, however, and it is important for me to focus on those things. I am certain that writing is going to play a larger part in my art practice than it has up to this point; I have always written but I have never published any writing relating to my own work.
As a present for my graduation Madeleine gave me a gift certificate for a psychic reading (the psychic was a recommendation of Our Dear Reader.) One of the things that she said to me was that I didn't like to talk about my own work. This is true. I hate talking about my own work. I get mealy mouthed and want to change the subject. This is a problem and she said to me “THAT IS A PROBLEM.” The point is that I don't think that I want to spend time writing for the Mildred anymore because I am not sure what exactly I should be writing about and I'm not sure exactly how I should be writing about whatever it is. It is clearly important to Madeleine that our identities be somewhat obscured here. I can understand that from her perspective, but I guess it leaves me wondering a little bit what exactly my “hidden perspective” is supposed to be. I started writing on this blog in a show of support to M and because I really was struggling with smoking. Ironically I think it made for a much better blog when I just kept falling off the wagon every other week. Now that I am doing better I feel very constrained by the format of The Mildred and by its low profile. Maybe Madeleine and I can have a come to Jesus session and figure out what the future holds—but until then I think that I will be on hiatus. I will still be around, just very, very quiet.
No comments:
Post a Comment