"I'm a creature of a culture that I create"

Title stolen shamelessly from "Swimming Pool" by The Front Bottoms

Hey… I haven't been around here in a while. Which is, of course, how my last post started too.

Last time we spoke, I was struggling. I was putting on a brave face and trying to spin things in a more positive light, but reading it back now it's plain to see: I was hurting. It's strange to look at that post – to think ouch. I want to take the person that wrote that post and give them a hug.

The other thing I noticed about that post is that I'm trying to be someone else. I'm trying to sound like a blogger who was their whole life figured out, someone who's done things I haven't. I'm parroting people I admire and look up to. I'm not being me.

I feel like these days, in the "internet age", it's expect of all young people to know exactly who they are and what they want to be immediately. You have people like Tavi Gevinson or Arabelle Sicardi – who I both admire fiercely and have enormous respect for – who have been blogging since they were in middle school/high school about more or less, the same or similar things they're talking about now. They've built careers off their teenage blogs and that's awesome. But more often than not I find myself comparing and beating myself up because I haven't got a clue about what I want.

I've been chasing popularity on the internet since I was 15 – doing certain things, posting with the right tone and content on the right social media sites. I have been mirroring and copy-catting other people for five years. I feel like I am a mode-podge, cobbled-together half-human. I am composed of other people's wants and desires. I don't know who I am.

I don't know what I'm doing here – on Earth or this blog. I know that I like fabric, dying it, embroidering it, sewing it together. I know I like bicycles. I like comic books and YA novels. I like camping and being outside as much as possible. I like the band PUP and seeing live music. I want to do something meaningful and to be remembered.

About a month or so back, I was still really struggling with being abused by a friend. I felt so betrayed by them and by the "community" we existed in. It really, really hurt me that it felt like no one was listening, that no one cared. And I realized that I don't actually have to engage with that community. I unfollowed a lot of people on Twitter/Instagram/Tumblr, retreated back from the internet. I felt better. Way better.

But then I started to slowly creep back online. And while maybe those feelings of hurt and betrayal are gone, the feelings of inadequacy and the struggle to be noticed, to be liked remains. When I log onto my Twitter, I'm faced with the reality of people I really, really admire following me and I feel like I have an obligation to post the kind of content they followed me for.

I've debated deleting my twitter and starting over. A fresh start where I can talk about whatever I want and be me – the bike-riding, sewing, book nerd, PUP fan. It seems like a good idea, but I still find my throat closing with the panic of losing certain followers.  It feels ridiculous. But it's true.

I want to find a way to exist and honest and true and do things with meaning. I don't want to stop being online. It's not practical and I like the friends I've made. But I also don't know how to do ~*this*~ without finding myself in the same rat race of "gotta be popular/gotta be like _____". I want to be real and true – I want to be myself. I want to figure out who that person is.

I don't really know what to do with any of this. If you're reading, maybe you have some thoughts? If you do, leave them at the bottom under the picture and lyrics.

- AR

Cy Twombly, "Fifty Days at Illiam", like a fire that consumes all before it.

I wanna contribute to the chaos.

I don’t wanna watch and then complain,

'Cause I am through finding blame

That is the decision that I have made.

- The Front Bottoms, "Twin Sized Mattress"

where i've been

Hello! It's been a long time.

I do this a lot - start a blog, think hey! this will be good! I've always wanted to do this! and then I'll forget and just let it sit. Usually I'll feel guilty about it too.

Last time we spoke, I was ending January and working on keeping up with my resolutions. I had just been laid off from a job I'd loved, let go of a friend that was hurting me and was beginning to the new semester at school. I was a couple weeks off from admitting (both to myself and the Internet) that maybe becoming a teacher wasn't the right fit for me. I was beginning a textile design class that would change my life. I didn't know that less than a month later, I would feel the lowest I had felt in years.

"at least i survived." march 10 2015. 

On the other side of the first third of the year, I feel really good. I'm in a more honest place. With the warmer weather, I've started to ride my bike again. I live near a local bike path that has become one of my favorite places in the last year (particularly in the last month). I've been taking my rides in the early morning, just before 11. It's right before the bike path becomes saturated with the weekend traffic of families and kids. The air has that crisp, dewy quality that only spring mornings have.
I'm taking the time to put myself in front of nature as often as possible.

Hidden off that path is a beach that makes me feel closer to nature than I've ever really felt before. I'm trying to get out there as often as possible.

"i want to breathe in the air of all those sprawling account space on earth." April 5 2015.

These rides have often been accompanied by listening to the music that bolsters me. Metric's Live It Out, the Paramore self-titled album. I know I've been sad, I know I've been struggling. The songs know it too. But they know (and maybe they help me believe) I will be happy again.

I feel closer to my own truth that I ever really have. For a long time I have felt listless - creative and desperate to create, but unsure and lacking the confidence. Picking up embroidery last December was the first step, taking a class with a professor whose art I adore and who is kind enough to encourage my growth as an artist was the crucial one.

I'm certainly nowhere past the novice stage in my stitching (or fabric dying, or sketching, or color understanding) but I'm getting there. I'll stitch myself back together.

april 2015.

JANUARY 2015: in review

January was both busy and not at all busy – I don't quite know how to describe it. Front-loaded, maybe. I raced into the month headlong and while I think that went well it also made me very, very tired by the time the 20th rolled around. Which was, of course, when I started classes again.

In the first week of the month I made some resolutions and went full vegan. While I haven't been exactly…… fantastic with keeping up with the specifics of my resolutions, I think I have been honoring them. No, I'm not drawing every day like I wanted to but I am making art every week. I haven't spent nearly enough time with family but I'm okay with that, I'm working on it. I think that's really the goal of resolutions, not to start with immediately meeting all of them from the get-go, but working for them, striving for them. I'd rather end the year meeting all my resolutions than start by doing all of them and tapering off over the course of the year.

I have done one resolution pretty successfully: reading. I've been reading a ton of books lately, mostly thanks to time off school and really generous gifts. So far I've read The Secret History which MESSED ME UP (I think that's kind of the point though). I'd been reading it since August of 2014 but had been struggling with the first hundred pages. I think I just had to be in the right mindset to read it. I've also read all of the published books in The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater after they had been recommend to me by several friends. There are currently three books in the series: The Raven Boys, The Dream Thieves, and Blue Lily, Lily Blue. They definitely fall under what I (lovingly) call "trashy YA" but they are SO GOOD. The characters are compelling and interesting – and there are even queer characters. So basically it was destined to be a favorite.

I'm currently nearly done with Wild (which I picked up after seeing the film – it was incredible) and am trudging my way through Homer for work. It's not a favorite of mine by any means but oh well.

I've also read some comics (because there will probably never be a time in my life when I'm not reading at least one run of comics). For Christmas Sam gave me two Captain America titles: Man Out of Time and The Winter Soldier. I definitely preferred Man Out of Time of the two, but I'm obsessed with the The Winter Soldier run because, you know, Bucky Barnes. I was also given the first volume of Saga – I know, I know I am sooooooo late to that party – and it was amazing, stunning, and wonderful. And of course, I'm reading The Wicked + Divine as it runs (as well as several others – Ody-c, Sex Criminals and Angela of Asgard are the most noteworthy).

And now to wrap up the post…

When I was a kid, I was really into photography but never had the guts to stick it out and deal with sucking at it before I got good at it. When I got an iPhone in 2013, I started getting back into it just because I always have my phone on me. What started with getting in a couple pictures at concerts has since grown into a bit of an obsession with iPhone photography. One of my goals for 2015 is documentation, so I've been trying to photograph everything. Here are some things I've been up to in January, curtsey of my crappy iPhone photography.

I'm currently listening to a lot of The Blood Brothers. Best new releases so far are definitely the new albums from Sleater-Kinney and The Decemberists. 

xxxxxxxxx

AR

Going full vegan

One of my commitments this year was a little haphazard. When Sam and I went to the grocery store to pick up some last-minute things for ourselves and prep for our tiny New Year's Eve party, we discovered the cheese we regularly buy (a Cabot 2 lbs block) wasn't available anymore. After a moment of oh my god, we made the executive decision to just give it up. Cheese was the only non-vegan product we used, so why keep buying it anyway?

So we went full vegan.

And thus began our new year. Biggest disappointment so far? My favorite veggie "chicken" nuggets are made with an egg wash. Biggest (also perhaps tastiest) victory? Gardein.

While the "chicken" nugget debacle was disappointing, it hasn't been necessarily hard. The hardest part of going vegan has been (of course) cheese.

Being Italian, cheese has always been a huge part of my life. My Nonno makes fresh cheese every spring, nearly every pasta dish has a healthy dose of pecorino romano – something I loved so much that when I was little, La Befana would bring me a block of it every year. Cheese is a Big Deal.

Upon research, suggestions from friends, and tips Sam picked up working in a vegan cafe we tried multiple styles and kinds of Daiya and Follow Your Heart. Nothing really worked for me. The flavors were okay but the texture was awful – almost tofu-ish (I struggle with tofu too, I'm more of a tempe/setian kind of person), weirdly chewy and then powdery.

I don't want to go back to being vegetarian. Vegetarianism isn't the solution to the animal husbandry industry's problems. Vegetarianism isn't the solution to the abuses and exploitations of capitalism.

So I'm saying goodbye to cheese. I used to really like meat, now I don't crave it or miss it at all. Cheese won't be that different, right? (And I don't want my vegan powers revoked.)

2015

A little less than a year ago, I started this blog to talk about music. I updated it semi-regularly for a bout a month an a half and then…… I let it sit. I have a bad habit of doing that. Continuity is something I struggle with and it's always been something I've tried to work on. As cliche as it is, I want this year to be different.

Although I love music and want to talk about it nearly 24/7, I think limiting myself to talking about music and only music is a mistake. I'm still going to try and talk about it here but, I want to talk about other things. This year I want to start making more art, reading more and hiking. While I'm planning on keeping a personal journal myself, I think it's important to try and keep this space active.

Here's the goal: one post a week about something or other.

Let's see if I can do it.