This looks kind of like one of my best friend’s houses. An old Victorian on Walnut Avenue. We went to school together from 7th grade until he dropped out in 11th. He still lives in Santa Cruz, makes short documentaries about our group of friends and the shit we get up to. Videos of us driving 19 hours from home to Portland up the Pacific Coast Highway (those cliffs made me believe in God). A video of us on a small boat under the Bay Bridge. One of us hiking Mt. Tamalpais. One from New Years Eve when we all got half naked and jumped in the Salkinds’ pool. The best one is of our trip to the Grand Canyon. We didn’t have a campsite, just pitched our tent somewhere along a maintenance road.

NOTES FROM HARRY DODGE TALK 1/5/17:

They are my parents, but idealized?

“metaphysical special sauce”

Future anterior conditional

Accident —> technology

Perverse instantiation

What happens when we misinterpret our own desires?

Error=subversion —>A.I.?

tattooed on his knuckles: FLOW FORM

YOU WILL HAVE BEEN FREE

I went to go see Harry Dodge talk in L.A. in January and he told us that COLLISIONS explain everything. And this is why location precedes content. In other words, the WHERE creates the WHAT. Where you are determines who you are. I collide with what makes me me. Namely, you.

So much of his theory goes over my head but I read it anyway. We emailed back and forth a few times last month.

Blah blah language blah words blah blah something about BOOKS

What do we give up upon entering the symbolic order of language? By turning our Mother into language we do the same to ourselves. And we know—says Lacan—that language is the fabric with which we clothe the emptiness of the Real. What exists there? Not negative space. Words? Emptiness is a purely intellectual concept existing only through language. The clay of the vase creates the emptiness inside of it. We mistake ourselves for the clay—the positive.

Every sentence drags with it the whole history of metaphysics and I am 19 and still trying to figure out the right Lexapro dose.

clean oatmeal bowl, do laundry, call dad, call dad, call dad. journal if you have time. remember keys. call dad. eat fruit.

Confusion of the imaginary and the symbolic

Yeah, I try not to let it bother me so much. Saying one thing when you mean another.

Trying to write less what I want and more what I MEAN

I want to write a book about this one day? Like Maggie Nelson but not always about words. Maybe.

Why do I always draw these empty fucking rooms? That lamp? I guess I should be getting tired of it by now.

You can (not?) grow grapes by light of the word SUN —> (son?)

Anyway, I’ve been thinking lately about Derrida’s concept of the supplement. Each person another link in a metonymous signifying chain trying to go back back back to whatever you think the Real Thing is.

Recognizing your truest, fullest self in the mirror. Perfect and whole and safe. What’s the difference between identity and identification? THIS IS YOUR REFLECTION. A category confusion between subject and object, “I” and “me.”

ANYWAY,,,,, my ex and I are fighting again, my friend and I started a band, and I always want to cry after Literary Theory class.

Anyway, these days the important people in my life have been blending together in my mind. A few are different iterations of the same beauty. I feel lucky for that.

Still trying to figure out how I learned to love the people I do

“YOU FOUND A WAY OUT OF NARRATIVE” <—beautiful love note! }still trying to figure this one out.

And HOW can I abandon words when they EXPRESS the INEXPRESSIBLE, INEXPRESSIBLY!

Writing, says Derrida, summons absent beauties —> youyouyouyouyouyouyouyou

Always worried I love people as signifiers for someone else. It goes on.

I have never been inside this room but I do feel held by it.

Spent all day in the MAB Lab (no windows) so when we stepped outside the rain took us by surprise. Took off our shoes and sloshed through the streets. Made it to the Crane Room to check out the Applejam show. It was a weird noise art band and there were only like 10 people there. We danced in the back of the room until our feet got tired. (wrote this down because I was so afraid to forget).

Wondering if words do more DOING or UNDOING and if they feel the same as holding

But what does it mean to be held by a place?