Connective Cube

I once wrote a long paper for graduate school about community garden movements in post-9/11 New York City. Brooklyn, specifically, where I lived at the time. The writing process made me fall out of love with living in New York City. I wanted to live somewhere cheap where I could organize my wobbly executive functioning and attempt to piece together 100 pages of coherent writing.

I left my home of nine years to complete this really long paper that required reading material that I can scarcely recall in detail right now. The book titles, and the general themes, sure. But could I quote a passage? Only if I practiced in my own head in front of a mirror for multiple hours. Staring at myself pretending to be someone else gets boring after awhile, especially when I already have an inborn proclivity to stare at my own image above anything else.

I wish I could quote Lacan right now. In order to do so, I pull up Lacan quotes on a search engine.

“What could be more convincing, moreover, than the gesture of laying one’s cards face up on the table?”

The alternate is face down, my default setting. No one besides me, my thesis advisor who I don’t speak with, and a department administrator who didn’t like my lack of formalism in writing, have read this paper. Most people have no idea I labored for a year of my life reading a stack of 100 books to write this paper. I refer to it often in my own head.

I didn’t write it with an audience in mind. It was a distillation in my own shift of political and personal consciousness, and it weaved through Jack Halberstam and belle hooks as much as highly designed books about the promise of community garden movements.

Is our new form of developing green space in urban environments a new form of colonization? I didn’t ask the question so neatly five years ago.

One of my extreme weaknesses about writing is my intense fear of reading my own writing. I glaze over it, treating revision as fixing items that a more detail oriented person would catch. I am also terrified that someone will secretly think I am a moron and tell other people how stupid I am because I make mistakes. It scares me that what I am writing is by no means original.

My feelings aren’t that extreme anymore. They persist. And everytime I take the Myers-Briggs, I land squarely as an INFP, even when major life shifts occur. This is natural, apparently, for my typology.

It still makes me cringe when people say that mostly abandoned blocks should be razed for greenspace. I think people don’t think too deeply about the history of marriage, a major organizational tool for social relations.

Is Manifest Destiny attempting to inward? In what name?

At this time, I have now lived five months in Baltimore. The last place I lived, in Philadelphia, truly brought out every living anxiety in me. Many like to say Baltimore and Philadelphia are similar cities. They are in terms of the depth of police brutality and the institutionalized segregation, and even in terms of the architecture of some of the row house style housing stock.

Philadelphia feels more like a college town, one that venerates youth and people involved in radical politics that judge quickly. Baltimore? Well, I am learning. I don’t feel like hiding under a rock anymore like I did in Philadelphia.

The long-timers in Philadelphia didn’t like the influx of out of towners coming into the city. Like New York, Philadelphia is a tale of many smaller cities, one where people feel an allegiance to their neighborhoods and ask – and judge a person – based on where he/she lives.  Baltimore is similar too, I guess. I haven’t exactly attempted to dive deeply into the social scene here upon arriving here. The people I do meet don’t ask me ‘what neighborhood do you live in’ right away. That is actually refreshing. I am not my neighborhood. Anyway, someone who judges you based on the neighborhood you live in is boring if they say something along the lines of ‘oh, too bad we can’t hang out.’ That happened more in Philadelphia than any other place I have lived.

The second neighborhood I moved to – West Philadelphia or Cedar Park – had university bike cops from nearby UPenn and Drexel patrolling the immediate area. Punk shows would happen up the road on spaces along Cedar Avenue and 51st Street, mostly white spaces. This was apparently a neighborhood of mostly wannabe punks with liberal arts educations that acted completely unaware of their own hubris living in a backdrop of a swiftly changing environment that erased the black people who lived there for years. All in the name of progress, and renewal. Or if they were aware, they could only talk about it on social media.

I left after six months and moved to a quieter neighborhood, one without any cool cache in Philadelphia, and I felt quite at home. One great organization in that neighborhood is Books Through Bars – support it.

Baltimore is not perfect. I moved here right before Freddie Gray was killed by police, and I have heard some viewpoints that are deeply rooted in ignorance about the larger history of segregation in this town. Many people want to heal though, and people are opening up about the micro and macro aggressions that happen. There are also more deaths and killings. There are far more abandoned properties in Baltimore, and far more mixed crowds in select public spaces. I guess it is better than Philadelphia – I feel like people are trying to open more conversations here. I am eager to read Ta-Nehisi Coates’ new book.

Sometimes I would bike from where I lived on the north side of town into Philadelphia for work. Garbage littered streets would transition quickly to well manicured avenues, and reams of condos crept out to what real estate types would call ‘transitional’ neighborhoods. The streets became smoother as I rode into Center City, and this type of transition isn’t limited to Philadelphia. It is in Baltimore, in Atlanta, and especially in New York City.

I don’t know where this post is going, or what the point is, really. The theme of my life since I moved here is to learn to open up again, learn to trust people again. I don’t know when all of that stopped – I pinpoint it to the advent of the smartphone, when people quit paying attention to things that aren’t fun and easy. Living in Philadelphia just deepened my mistrust, somehow.

I am intense, I like layered conversations, and I am a private person. Maybe I was born that way, yeah, uh-huh? It used to be acceptable to be like this and to not have people accuse me that ‘silence is not a possibility right now’ or ‘silence is complicity’. Well, I think that point of view lacks empathy, and there are people who survive in silence. Instead of silencing them more, how about meeting people where they are, and not expecting people to hold bullhorns or shout the loudest.

What good is someone having an anxiety attack because of the loudness of a bullhorn, or a siren, or the sounds of people screaming over each other?

Philadelphia is an extroverts city. It was hard to survive – and to even be there for communities – and always have to be in a position to articulate my thoughts and feelings on the spot. It was all about who could be the loudest, the coolest, the richest – no wonder people call it the sixth borough of New York. It was the lonliest place I have lived, and I was lucky to have a supportive partner through a lot of the negativity that I felt around me.

Yet the people in Baltimore seem friendlier, and more open to quiet people, those who may not scream their point of view the loudest. I met many critical and negative people in Philadelphia – women shamers, reverse racist claimers, body shamers, ableism all over the map, introvert shamers, and people who usually didn’t have kind words coming out of their mouth. And I balk at calling myself politically correct – sometimes it is best to know where someone stands – but my experience with people in Philadelphia was all about screaming they were politically correct without the empathy that comes from giving true and radical kindness to people who don’t hold the bullhorn.

It is lovely to be far away from all of that, and healing has happened thanks to yoga, partner, a job that allows me to project websites for some solid organizations. Also, disconnecting from Facebook, with all the reminders of parts of my life that I would rather forget, helps. I do miss many people, and hopefully I can reconnect in new ways that doesn’t involve that platform.

Now maybe I can connect with people who have lived in Baltimore for awhile who want to start conversations on a number of levels. I am even open to meeting the loud people, so long as they are willing to listen.

I did it. I wrote 1-5 posts a month every month over the past calendar year. Hardly prolific. Getting back on the saddle after a long hiatus from writing requires sticking to some form of routine. The routine over the past year helped me realize quite a few aspects about my approach to creating ideas.

– I tend to process more than I envision an end product. Which basically means I have a hard time finishing what I start. Part of writing requires engaging with an ability to edit, rephrase and tinker. I tend to let it all out, and fhen forget about it. Maybe that generates entertaining writing once in awhile, but the stories I read and enjoy are well crafted, or at least well executed.

– I am not fully engaging the benefits of writing interactively rather than flatly. Since I am not writing for a well defined audience, I can engage in play with displaying content.

– Part of editing my work may require finding a sustained group of writers that I can work with regularly. I am a self-conscious person with a restrained streak. Groups don’t become me. This didn’t work well with the ambitious people who were serious about building connections and engaging in writers circles. Maybe I need to become more serious.

– It is time to have visions and make decisions. Neither are quite my forte, but I have done it before.

1. Keep developing Lissa as a character and don’t worry so much about any intermingling between the reality/fiction binary.

2. Incorporate other writers, images and videos that pertain to the story. Maybe learn enough code to make the videos pop out on the page.

3. Learn how to build an interactive story map that requires 20 minutes of someone’s time and densely covers a mode of study or a short fiction piece.

4. Finalize two previous stories and submit them for publication.

5. Read more contemporary writers, and remember what they write. There is no shame in someone engaging with words.

6. Incorporate fan videos throughout surprise keywords in the post.

That is ambitious enough for now.

Right now my office is a cove in the dining room with a shelf directly behind me filled with animal food, paint, litter and mail. It is also next to this eight foot high window with no seals. The closest thing I have is a sheet that covers the bottom half of the window. The draft whistles on my left elbow, and I forgot to put on socks again.

Okay. Toes now don’t necessitate me to wiggle them every five seconds.

I am moving next week, and I am looking out for all the things I will miss about Philadelphia. I will miss this little cubby, and I will have more than a tiny cubby in my new home. It has helped me quite a bit with the keeping media – books included – out of my bed at night. The whole bed as office routine that I had fallen into needed to stop. Reading and sleeping should not be done at the same time! Bah! Well, my stubborn resistance did, indeed, prove that I need to embrace the concept of ‘Kill Your Darlings’ in any creative process. So that darling idea of sleeping and reading at the same time is SMASHED.

As I sit here typing at my desk, and not my bed, I started listening to the jondra I call ‘Icy Music.’ AKA, music I like to listen to while I imagine taking a long trek in the snow. Then sometimes I actually have to muck around the slush. Most of the time, it is when I feel downbeat, mellow and eager to focus on one thing at a time. Or when I feel numb and silent while my mind and heart pound.

1) Godspeed You! Black Emperor

There was this one very awkward time in my life, almost a decade ago, where I had a free pass at SXSW! Cool! Except I had no place to stay and no way of getting there. In order to get there, I found someone who needed a van mate drive music gear down at Austin. Even cooler! I had a driver’s license, and I wouldn’t have any problems pitching in with driving.

Except I got into this car with a bearded man with a lot of credibility in the independent music world, and I respected many of his projects. He shall remain nameless in this post.

In my year of maneuvering music as a publicist, I just felt like people were sizing each other up all the time. Who do you know, who do you work with, yada yada. I was supposed to go talk to people at shows, but most of the time I wanted to hide in the bathroom or ghost early. I had adopted the disaffected pout that no one finds attractive and mastered the art of critiquing everything around me. The parties were all sponsored by ridiculous rag mags with free booze, which I needed at the time. Let’s just say it wasn’t the lightest, sunshiny bright time in my life.

<It has also taught me that people with that sour look on their face likely need a hug and a genuine connection. It isn’t about killing people with kindness – it is understanding that some people need more reassurance than others to feel good.>

He asked me about the last time I drove. I let him know that it had been more than two years. He shielded his eyes down and away.

We talked for maybe 30 minutes total the entire trip. He had a great iPod, so we would alternate between songs.

Near Roanoake, we stopped to fill the gas at 11pm at night. The plan was to stop somewhere in Tennessee for a quick crash. This was my first time on I-81, and the Appalachian Mountains sloped up and down with the highway.

I picked Godspeed You! Back Emperor, not really thinking that it could very well be sleepy time music for a driver late at night. What I did was cry silently to rockets fall on Rocket Falls and place my jacket on my head. It was cold with the jacket off, but I needed something to soak the tears. I learned at a young age that people consider crying weak and feeble. It felt the opposite to me – isn’t it a kinder way to embody pain than screaming and fighting? The people I was surrounded by at that time didn’t ever show pain, except through some detached irony that was nowhere near as funny or charming as a Kids on the Hall sketch.

In terms of post-9/11 music, the diffuse structure and oscillation between explosive melodic guitars to downbeat thumps provided plenty of sonic space to expand on intense emotions. There are the choir moments, the cinematic swells and the twinge of industrial grinds. It goes through the sounds of a quiet town, and then the swift decline of silence.

I sat in the car that night, softly crying, grateful that I could at least blame the music if he saw me crying and asked.

JavaScript terrifies me. I don’t know if it is the formal use of language or the attention to detail required to get the .{}/() in all of the right places. I am reading Jon Duckett’s series on jQuery and JavaScript. My goal is to understand the language enough to build some applications and publish them on Github (I still need to fully understand the difference between Git and Github).