the professor (stay away from marianne)

wrote me back! now i need to craft a reply that makes me sound much smarter than i actually am! how nice of him to challenge me, though!

Dear Andrea

The essay on The Semiotics of Hunger has I believe also appeared in the
hardcopy version of the journal, though I have not seen it. The
article only skims over the representation of the anorectic body, and
I myself would like to know more about the relationship of art and
design to how the starved body or thinness has become attractive and
culturally determined. Perhaps you can tell me more about this? What have
you been reading in Semiotics? How do you read Kafka's story? Do you know
Sander Gilman's book, Kafka: The Jewish Patient? I recommend it, though
it gives a different interpretation from mine.

With best wishes,
Sincerely,
Efraim

all it took

an im conversation. TAME. one friend, outside detroit. a goth puppet, skulls, undressed babydolls, a nerdtech, a locomotive mechanic, a man in a speedo on a snowmobile, anna nicole's screentests, ed asner stretching, a woman singing down a dimly light hallway with very tall ceilings, a lump of coal, two little frogs, one paper crane, a santa shaped butt plug, an effeminate black male startling me, then teasing him, pancheros at 2am, freaking a 130 pound dog out at 3am. machine gun dreams. I, know y'all niggaz ain't fuckin wit me cuz I cant fuck wit my damn self HERE I GO!!! sprinkle me, and what's on my mind. god love 95. now i miss top authority. and murderdog.

kafka's grand daughter

i read "A Hunger Artist" last night. talk about self-pity. is it self-righteous to compare yourself to a Kafka character, especially when so much has been written about the autobiographical slant of his fiction?

well. of what i have read (online,) it seems as though we are supposed to take this dying artist seriously. that we are meant to be affected by his ability to die for his art and empathize with the lack of fanfare for his genius or talent. part of me did, or wanted to. but in my state, part of me hated him, and was annoyed with him, for all the similarities between us.

for the everyday man, there are more important things to worry about. but which should i chose to let eat me alive? the bills or my lack of success as an artist?

i came across this while researching "A Hunger Artist". I just wrote to the editor and the author asking for a printed copy for purchase. as a new student of semantics it was very exciting to read a practical application for these new vocab words and it was also exciting to read an alternate take on the symbols in "A Hunger Artist". C'mon online world. Give Kafka a little more credit here. Forget about Gregor for a second.

***********
Speaking of, reading some history of "Metamorphosis", i remembered a cd demo that i got (took) from State Control (whatever, no one else was going to listen. no one else is crying about it) and i looked for it this morning. Gregor Samsa. (now i know how to pronounce it too!). i realized why i liked it so much, too. the first song has almost the exact same chord progression as a Cranberries song on No Need to Argue. or at least it does in my mind.

***********
what are the semantics of this entry?

dangerous neighborhood

i've left the house. although this doesn't seem martian, it is nervous.
if someone looks at me for too long, i am likely to burst into tears.
of course i upped the ante by leaving the house without medication.
and am gambling even further above my means by drinking coffee.
luckily, the last person to walk past did not so much as notice me.

thank fucking god. some days i would like to just be invisible.
if you have no idea what i am talking about, read John Berger.
my gospel. at least a few months out of the year.

a few things

have lifted the shroud.

i left bed three times today. first, to evacuate as they say. second, to eat. which i promptly regretted and then felt guilty for. third, to actually bathe. at about 7:00 p.m.

at about 8:30 my phone rang. i didn't recognize the number, so as usual, i handed the phone to Gabe. there is a reason why, which i relayed to the person on the phone. usually the numbers are just wrong. and then i have to have some sort of uncomfortable conversation about how young i sound.

the person calling has, i don't think, ever called me. so it was a complete surprise. and in my state, i probably shouldn't be on the phone. but gabe insisted the phone at me. i took it and immediately my mood lifted. i (and my last boyfriend) stayed with will in paris, my first time there. and just a few months before that, i had a crush on him when he was my music composition teacher. but it was unrequited (story of my former life) and i moved on (see boyfriend above). will and i were also in a vocal training class together and i guess that is what spurned the call.

he asked if i had been singing and then said a lot of very nice things about my voice. i (of course) accused him of a foggy memory. that chit chat really couldn't have come at a better time. he is someone i admire so much [he moved to detroit with a girl. was a mechanic. they broke up. he was i think 23 or so when he got into uofm. created his own curriculum and graduated from it, which has since been picked up as a degree offered there (non-violence studies). he lived in france for a year, is now fluent. moved to spain for a while. also fluent. graduated and moved to the west coast. is back on the east. i think we fixed an alternator together once. but it is my memory that is foggy.]

his pep talk has made me want to get into the soundproof room for one hour a day and practice. i am so horribly out of practice.

this other super smart dude is also making me feel brighter:

DAVE HICKEY: In my experience, you always think you know what you’re doing; you always think you can explain, but you always discover, years later, that you didn’t and you couldn’t. This leads me to suspect that the principal function of human reason is to rationalize what your lizard brain demands of you. That’s my idea. Art and writing come from somewhere down around the lizard brain. It’s a much more peculiar activity than we like to think it is. The problems arise when we try to domesticate the practice, to pretend that it’s a normal human activity and that “everybody’s creative.” They’re not.
interview in believer mag

and lastly, the first trans-gendered actor in a series, in a trans role:
dirty sexy money

a problem at the manufacturer

they no longer make midrin.

so long, miracle cure.

in other news, i was given a michigan tuition grant unexpectedly.
and i stand to make at least $4,000 in the next month.
and i saw the exhibitions i designed today, they don't look too bad.
i guess i am not completely wretched. but maybe i am better suited for
PRODUCTION DESIGN

where everyone else is right now,

i just couldn't be. so, i'll see you next year.
maybe all my hair will be gone by then.

its always a shock how quickly a clenched jaw can produce an unbearable headache.
and although the midrin helps dull the pain in my head,
and the xanax helps dull most of the world around me,
sometimes you still just can't bring yourself to put on the holiday cheer.

so i choose bed and animals over humans today.
fucking fallible humans.
where charity is considered, well,
there is something about how that can produce a clenched jaw.

i don't think i've felt so stupid in a very long time. being asked to read an artist statement, that talks only about a work that we have so duly noted everyone was finished considering, made me feel like a complete asshole. i had a very real anxiety attack in front of 20 something staring faces (so much for that social contract, where was david hilliard with his camera?), waiting for me to confirm or deny their suspicions about a piece that couldn't sustain their attention for a whole hour. so much for that social contract, too.

its time to retire. to matlock and purring pets and eighteen hours in bed, complete with self-pity masturbation (somehow, david lynch got that one just right) and weightloss. this time, with drugs.


this is melodramatic, but the short of it is: i am still upset and don't quite know how to deal with any of it. the timing is awful (or perfect) and who knows how i will feel in the am. november was a total bust, so i shudder to think that january will be too.