Clastrophobic

The train we were on got stuck today on the way to the city. It wasn't for too long, only a few minutes of standing, in a dark tunnel under the east river, waiting for a train ahead to move or something. After that it went on slower, until we were off the train.

I could feel myself not being able to breath, I know the air in the train would last a while, I know that really, the people stuck on the train aren't all going to suffocate and die, I know the train is just about to move, in a minute or two, but I just couldn't breath, I was sweating like crazy. Ned kept telling me that i'm allright and that we'll move in just a sec, and that I'm not alone. But non of it helped.

It's the book I'm reading now, in which a soldier get buried alive, it's Beau's funeral, viewing his body and knowing he can't breath, seeing the glistening glue the funeral home pasted his lips with, it's Gilad Shalit, in a smiling frame from that video tape from last week in the news sites, the tape I wouldn't watch cause the photo was bad enough. It's Ned's dad having to do more radiation because the tumor is not as dormant as the oncologist hoped. It's a phone call from my father telling me my sister's boyfriend is in the hospital.

Walking back home, from the city, still shaken, I'm looking at my owl tattoos, we got those in February, knowing that this year is going to be dark and difficult, and wanting a protective presence in our life. I'm thinking "the year of death is almost over" and I'm counting the months and trying to anticipate if by my langauge of symobls, it should end after a year from getting the tattoo, by new years or by Halloween.

Small and big reasons for pride

last July, when we were finally switching the winter cloths for the summer ones, I went over all my cloths and got rid of everything I no longer wear.

There were a pair of pants, a jeans, that I got after my first break up with Amichai, that month, being so sad an anxious, I barely eat and lost so much weight non of my pants fitted me anymore. I bought 3 pair of pants one evening after work at the mall, they were all size 26. After the second break up I lost more weight and those pants who were very tight to start became loose to the point I needed a belt for them.

After moving to NY, I could still wear them, I think I actually still needed a belt, but as time went by and I got used to feeling less anxious and being happy and as I got used to Ned's way of eating, at first I didn't need the belt, then I couldn't fit in. They were left handing on the wall as a reminder of times when I was less fat. I really hated not fitting into them, but couldn't let go for about a year and a half - there was always some hope I'll fit in someday.

So that day in July, together with one pair of jeans with holes in them and another pair that I never liked, I sadly packed those jeans in a bag and dropped them at the salvation army store.

Fast forward to about a months ago, I found myself in Forever 21 and knowing it won't fit I bought a pair of jeans that was again, size 26. I don't know why. I felt really silly about it, I already have 2 pairs of jeans from the past couple of month and I don't need another one. I guess it was just too hard to accept the fact that I will not fit in a size 26 anymore.

Around the same time I made another attempt at the old project of starting to eat healthier \ less. Somehow this time, unlike a whole bunch of other attempts, it worked. I didn't give up on it after 3 days of starving myself, I didn't make a million rules and got anxious when I couldn't live through. I did find myself thinking more about food, but not entirely freaking out when I'm either hungry or when I eat too much.

in the beginning of the week I tried those pair of size 26 jeans and they fit! they are tight, I think they arr supposed to be tight bot not as tight as that, but still I could wear them, and breath at the same time.

Being proud of myself for being able to fit a size 26 jeans feels like a very silly and small reason to be proud of myself. But knowing that it's the first time in my life I actually managed to loose weight in a healthy way that just had to do with eating differently and not because I was depressed or something horrible happened in my life, feels like a pretty big reason to be proud of myself.

Beau

, originally uploaded by The Arm.

I don't want to go down some memory lane and write down every single moment in which me and Beau met and interacted. Those casual moments, a random conversation in a random coffee shop or a car doesn't become suddenly meaningful just because that person is no longer alive.

I don't want to write about Beau's art, which I new a little bit or his music, of which I barely knew anything or about his friends and where he lived.

I don't want to start looking for signs in his art, or about a hidden meanings in lyrics or about how it's always the good people who die young and the unfairness of the world.

I was just wondering around flickr, and looking at a bunch of photos Dan, our downstairs neighbors just put up of his Friend Beau Velasco, an artist and a musicians that sometimes lived in the building and sometimes just hand out here. The photos looked sad to me, even though they were of fun moment, so I googled Beau's and learned that he just died.

I feel so sad and empty.

I haven't been especially close to Beau, but he was someone I was always happy to see, I liked how gentle he always seemed, and how cool it was to think of this quite awkward person on stage, or see both his very delicate airy painting and his old school style harsh tattoos as a part of one person's art work and personality.

I'll really miss seeing him around.

Pattern

Every night the soul shutter to a million pieces
In the morning we weave back the pattern
over and over again.

I will never be as cool as you

She's standing there, at the entry to the grocery store. One of those Williamsburg hipsters, with hair so blond in could be white and long bangs that hide her eyes. Wearing silver Doc Martin's and sheer pantyhose with holes in them, and a big dark gray hoodie that may, or may not have a skirt underneath.

I can't see her face, which makes me put the most beautiful face on her in my imagination. Or maybe, non at all, maybe just an idea of beauty, a promise of anonymous coolness that I can never hope to replicate.

It's not my skin, darker, more wrinkled, blemished, it's not my glasses, it's not those few extra pounds, or more then a few. It's not that I'm older, it's not the glasses, or maybe it's all of the above. Maybe it's that never in my life I felt like a cool person and that on me, pantyhose with holes in them would look like carelessness, while on her it looks stylish and cool.

I'm standing there, for a split second, looking at her. With my bag of tampons and yogurt and low fat icecream for Ned. In an H&M sweater that last year felt like a cood fashion choice and at that moment, feels like an old lady's cardigan. In my old sneakers, a pair of jeans that all of a sudden feels both too buggy and too revealing. Feeling that role of fat around my belly. my thighs.

It's strange to move from "I'm too old for THIS Shit" to "I AM too old for this shit".

blogging

Ned accidentally erased his blog yesterday. He's trying to get more organized and in his attempt to get used to google calendar and Gmail, he somehow deleted his old account and lost his blog.

We were talking about it this morning, about how the purpose of online interaction has changed for us lately, the way the work and life mix and the things we choose to share with the world as well as how we choose to spend our time.

A few weeks ago, in a blog entry by YanivG, I came to realize something I was feeling for a while but ignoring. Flickr isn't fun anymore. what's more I don't feel incline to share too much in it. A lot of times before, when I went to do something exciting or just wonder around I would take a photo and the purpose of it was to put it in flickr so that my friends will see it. Now, I don't feel like that anymore, which is a shame, both cause I miss the community, and because it makes me take a lot less photos.

I haven't been blogging for a while, I mean, not really, I put up photos and some short texts, but I haven't been writing or sharing anything meaningful in this format for a while. I read a lot more blogs then before and I read al ot more on other type of websites and social networks, but I produce a lot less content in those formats, I make art, I put it on Etsy to sell, I'm promoting the shop as much as I can and updating our websites, but somehow I feel like the sense of community is mostly gone. Some of it moved into facebook, some replaced by human interaction. Mostly I feel more content to spend time with myself and feel the need ot share diminish.

The thought of Ned not blogging really scared me, I'm not sure why, maybe because I like blogging and I like being a part of the online world when I was more into it, and his choice to maybe not blog anymore made me admit defeat as well. Maybe it's because our public display of affection, him writing about me, taking my photos and spending time on expressing his love in a public way was very affirming to me. It made me feel protected, as if by making it public, he's making it real. Maybe it's the fear of loosing this almost objectifying-kinky-wild part of our relationship.

Today at blackbird, a guy tapped Ned's shoulder and asked him a random question, it turned out he wrote us an e-mail a couple of days before. He knows us from flickr and were impressed with our lives and art and photography. We set and talked with him and his partner for a couple of hours, it was a really wonderful experience. getting to know someone new in a random and cool way, based on a pretty deep knowledge of us from online. It really reminded me of the importance of public sharing and public expression of feelings, thoughts and images.

I'm not sure what's going to happened next. If I can get myself motivated to express myself in this way again, if photos and words can become as important to me as they used to be, and if that's even something I should aspire to, and if "should" is a word that should be used in matter of aspirations.

Things I found today

Very odd day. A weird conversation, both honest and difficult with Ned this morning while waiting for food in Egg. Then hanging out drawing in Blackbird while Ned went home to make some work related phone calls. Then hanging out in Persiana and Ned at blackbird sharing geed news and passing time. Now at home.

I found a lot of cool things today in the vintage furniture store, on the street and in the hallway.



A very boring book without any photos or illustrations about birds. The paper however is beautiful. I think I'm going to use this in the next batch of prints.



A really sweet child portrait I found in the furniture store, it was 2$ but too cute and strange to leave in the store.



A set of 10 tiny photos meant as a tourist momentum from Frankfurt. I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with them, maybe use as a surface for small paintings. It was 3$, again at the furniture store.



A gift set including a book, a chart and a deck of what's called "The Universal Waite" tarot deck. The cards are basically a bad copy of the Rider-Waite Deck, that's render the colors in crayons and the figures with what's supposed to be a softer face, but actually just appear badly drawn to me. The back side, however is beautiful dark blue with gold stars. I really like that and might use it for small paintings as well.