ALL OF THE LIGHTS (Drump erotica, 2)

iamilliterate:

(Trigger) Warnings: Pee (but not poo!), bondage, asphyxiation, humiliation, naked Drump, guest appearance (though absolutely no participation by) Barron.

All of the lights…

All of the lights…

The music could be heard wafting through the parlor at Penthouse 1A on 725 Fifth Avenue, muted, as if playing from another room…though Donald knew that would be impossible because he had the apartments totally soundproofed when they remodeled it a few years ago. He was assured it was the best soundproofing job ever.

All of the lights…

The familiar horn refrain began by the time Donald finally found his phone, buried under a box of used ties he was supposed to donate to Barron’s school for a Christmas fundraiser. As his ringtone continued to drone on, he looked at the screen and smirked asymmetrically when he confirmed what this contact-specific ringtone already told him. He dabbed at the green phone icon with a moist fingertip.

“K-Dawg,” Donald answered, identifying the caller with authority.

“Don’t ever call me that,” said the voice on the other line.

“Am I still expecting you over today?” Donald asked.

“I’m downstairs and your fucking minions won’t let me up without a clearance code, but they refuse to call you. Is this some new treehouse shit you have going on?”

“Oh yeah. My bad, Kanye.”

“Don’t talk like you’re a brother,” Kanye said. “It doesn’t suit you,” he added under his breath.

“MYYYYY BAAAD,” Donald said, sarcastically, waving his free hand in mock surrender even though no one was in the room. He swore he could hear Kanye purse his lips.

Downstairs in the lobby, Kanye glared at the security manager at the front desk with his phone still at his ear, listening to Donald ramble on about the new security clearances and how important they were.

He was certain he could break the security manager’s concentration with his stare, what with his silver contact lenses and all. Kanye imagined himself to be like Blade, but if Blade were written by like, a ninja manga writer.

“You see me? You think you see me? Well you don’t,” Kanye thought to himself.

The recent dye job on his hair was still fresh and left his scalp tingling. He was sure the flaming sensation translated to a level of intimidation the personnel had never experienced. If only they knew the full potential of his wrath for having him wait, as if he were staff himself. Didn’t they know who he was? How important this meeting was going to be? Don’t these fools read Twitter? Something Donald said was making him giggle. Kanye thumbed his phone and put it away in the iPhone6S-specific pocket of his Adidas tracksuit liner, then looked up at the security manager again.

“Sixty Nine Forever,” he said.

“Thank you, Mr. West. You can take the first elevator to your left at the top of the escalator, where my colleague Robert will meet to escort you to Mister President Trump’s residence.”

As Kanye entered the private elevator at the top of the escalator, the very escalotor Donald had descended so famously just over two short years ago his friend Donald made the fateful announcement that would change their lives forever, he made a mental note to himself to inquire about installing a people-mover at his recording studio. At the top of the building, Kanye stepped forward to the front door of Penthouse 1A and waited for Robert to ring the doorbell. He continued to wait for the sound of a doorbell, to no avail. He turned his head with deliberate slowness and made eye contact with Robert; piercing silver/blond eye contact. He looked at the doorbell, and back at Robert. He repeated this gesture a couple times before Robert finally jolted forward, suddenly remembering his place, and pressed the doorbell.

They both waited for a few moments before the door finally clicked open and they moved forward through the security foyer and approached the main front door just as Donald swung it open.

“Sir,” said Robert.

“I can take it from here,” said Donald, and shook Kanye’s hand. Kanye hesitated for a moment. He didn’t like touching Donald’s moist hand, but knew his hands were a sore point of self consciousness. One of the many.

As Kanye strided into the apartment, Donald fanned his arms out and said,

“So what do you think of the upgrades?” Meanwhile Robert backed out of the foyer and let the front door close.

Kanye looked around him, at the variously gilded trims of the gold and ivory room, at the media cabinet with a new sound system per his recommendation to Donald that he upgrade from the “punk ass Bose” system. He stopped his self-guided tour when the front door behind the two men clicked shut and Donald turned the dead bolt lock.

They looked deep in each others’ eyes from a short distance, the silence between them pregnant with the anticipation. It had been a while since their last fateful encounter. Donald made the first step forward, but Kanye immediately followed suit. They made loud bodily impact and their arms wrapped around each other like a slap on bracelet. Kanye breathed in Donald’s scent from behind his ear. Drakkar Noir.

“I missed you. I miss…this…” Kanye whispered. Their hands drifted down and touched briefly. Donald tried to braid his fingers through Kanye’s.

“Hi,” Donald said, and pecked Kanye on the lips, almost in a cute way. Kanye inadvertently pulled back his hand and wiped Donald’s sweat onto his Yeezy Adidas sweatpant.

“Are my palms sweaty again?” Donald asked.

“Yeah I’m sorry but you need to get that shit checked out. It’s a little creepy, man.” Kanye said and pulled back from Donald, pulled back from the moment.

“It only happens when you come over, because you’re so damn particular!” Donald retorted.

“Particular?! I’m the one who just had to go through fucking Gattica to get here, Deezy,” Kanye said.

Donald smirked.

“I guess we both have a lot to learn,” he said.

Kanye tilted his head and blushed.

“Yeah, you’re right. I’m sorry,” Kanye said.

“It’s my fault. We don’t see each other enough,” Donald said. “It makes me crazy.”

Kanye looked into Donald’s eyes and said slowly,

“Then let’s get crazy.”

—

The two men tumbled into Donald’s office, falling over each other kissing. Donald’s height and weight gave him the advantage in steering, but Kanye’s pulsing desire was insurmountable. He whipped around Donald and forced him over his bureau. He slid his hands up Donald’s back, under his Jos. A Banks dress shirt, and from under the shirt, tore it apart at the buttons and unwrapped Donald from the whole garment in one swift move. Kanye walked over to the front of Donald’s desk and said,

“Is the rope in the same place?”

Donald nodded.

Kanye drew open a drawer and saw inside a Zero Gauge rubber butt plug, a copy of “Art of the Deal” and a coil of hemp rope that had obviously been tethered a few times, frayed and soft all at once. Kanye pulled out the coil of rope and set it in front of Donald, then pushed Donald’s face into it.

“Smell!” Kanye leaned farther across the table to gain purchase on Donald’s hair and pulled him down into the rope.

“I said take a good fucking sniff.”

“Yeezy!” Donald shouted. “I have a weak neck. Don’t push my head that hard.”

“Well that just wouldn’t make me much of a master now would it, slave?” said Kanye.

“Just take it yeezy is all I’m saying,” said Donald. Kanye let his shoulders relax and came out of character momentarily.

“I know it hurts, Dee. I do take it easy. I never forget. Yeezy’s my middle name thanks to you,” Kanye said and kissed each of Donald’s eyelids for forgiveness. They leaned foreheads against each. Kanye exhaled with purpose.

“Let’s begin,” said Kanye.

They were silent for a long moment, as Donald took a solemn breath through the nose and smelled the rope.

“I can still smell the piss,” he said, wistfully.

“What’s that, now?!” Kanye said.

“I can still smell your urine, Yeezy,” Donald said.

“You like that, don’t you,” Kanye said as he walked back around the table.

“Yes, Yeezy.”

“You want this, don’t you.”

“Yes, Yeezy.”

“Take off all your clothes.”

“Yes, Yeezy.”

With his entire body exposed, Donald sheepishly leaned back against the edge of the table and waited for Kanye to bind him. Kanye threw the end of one rope over a large industrial meat hook in the ceiling, hidden behind an ornate chandelier. He tugged it taut and tied a loose knot to keep it steady near where the fulcrum of the suspension would begin, over the desk. He then took the rest of the rope and tied it to Donald’s feet, knotting an anchor around each of his ankles. He then carefully knotted the rope around the top of his calves and pinned the lower legs to his upper legs, forcing Donald to his back, upon the top of his desk, his entire groin and undercarriage exposed, his legs folded and tied to themselves like a trussed chicken. Kanye then rolled Trump over to his stomach and started a tight corset around his chest, with anchors lining up against his sternum and spine. Each time he yanked the rope Donald yelped a little.

“Are you gonna be a good little pig for me?” Kanye said, in the middle of tying down Donald’s right arm, pinning his hand flat against the taut and tied thigh.

Donald nodded vigorously.

Kanye made a monkey’s fist with an extra loop, and dropped it on the desk for effect so Donald could see it right under his nose. Kanye then climbed the table and looked down at Donald, trussed and exposed, spread his legs and lowered his Yeezy sweatpants. He pulled a half hard penis out of his underwear and pointed it at the monkey’s fist, then let urine come out. He urinated onto the knot, then slowly moved his aim to over Donald’s head, upper back, lower back, butt, letting the urine trickle down his divided butt cheeks.

He shook the excess piss off his dick and put it back in its garment, then knelt to pick up the gag and stuffed it into Donald’s mouth until he felt a gag reflex. He smiled. He jumped down from the desk and walked over to the corner of the room where he stepped on a hidden lever, which activated a hydraulic system that simultaneously pulled the meat hook up and pulled the desk under the floor, leaving Donald perfectly suspended and still, mid-air, at hip height.

“I’m going to get something to drink. I’m parched,” Kanye said.

MNNNGG GNNNN! Donald made noises as if to stop Kanye from leaving, but Kanye paid no notice.

“Oh one more thing before I go,” Kanye said as he picked up an old fashioned phone filigreed with gold on the handle of the receiver, standing on the phone table by the hydraulics system panel. He set the phone down under Donald and picked up the receiver, wiping the mouthpiece on his shirt. He then ran the phone down Donald’s back, to let him feel the cool solid structure, and then slowly started to insert it into Donald’s anus. After carefully fingering him to make way for the receiver, the entire mouthpiece was enveloped by his rectum.

“We don’t want anyone to disturb us, now do we?” Kanye said.

Donald shook his head.

Kanye left the office and headed to the kitchen. There he ran into Barron, who was watching Peppa Pig videos on an iPad on the bay window nook.

“Hey B, what’s good?” Kanye said.

“Hi Uncle Kanye,” Barron said. Kanye went to the refrigerator and looked for a Diet Coke. He took one out and started drinking. He really had been parched. It was probably all the vaping. He felt better than he had in ages, though, and nothing could beat that. Kanye watched Barron in his dazed state, and wondered what was on his mind. Did Barron see the world the way he did?

“Everything alright in Barronland?” Kanye said, a little embarrassed to be trying to sound like an uncle.

“Yeah, I guess,” said Barron.

“What’s the matter?” Kanye asked, sensing some distance.

“I dunno. I guess I just wish I saw more of Dad, you know…alone. Not with all the security guards.”

“Hey little man. He’s your dad. You know what that means?” Kanye said, as he walked over to Barron and sat down next to him.

“No, what?” said Barron.

“You get to see him whenever you cot dang please!” Kanye tussled Barron’s hair.

Barron smiled. “I guess you’re right. I should ask him to come hang out, huh?” he said.

“Yeah!” Kanye said. In fact, the thought of Barron running into the office to spend time with his father, only to discover him hanging like a Christmas ham from a window in a butcher shop, aroused an impossible erection in him. It wasn’t even the idea of Barron discovering the fine kinbaku the two of them were perfecting, but the thought of Donald’s complete and utter humiliation.

He took a long swig of the Diet Coke to calm down.

Barron also noticed the erection through his pants, and though unsure of what exactly he was looking at, realized right now he was sitting next to a very thirsty black man with a boner, giving him parenting advice and apparently excited by it. It scared him.

“I better go back to my room before I get in any trouble,” Barron said quickly, and ran out of the kitchen. Kanye realized what a faux pas he’d made. He didn’t want the young Barron to have any notion that his youth aroused the erection, and yet he was fairly confident that Barron was going to grow up to discover he was asexual. Something about it seemed just shy a proper set of sexual tools.

Kanye made his way back to the office. Donald had certainly been left for long enough. Upon the sight of Kanye, Donald became pert and lifted his head. Kanye came toward him and tickled his chin with the edge of his Diet Coke can.

“You ready to be a good boy?” he asked.

Donald nodded, then looked over at the open door.

“You want me to close that door?” Kanye asked.

Donald nodded vigorously.

“You worried Barron might walk in on Daddy and his Master?”

Donald’s face froze in terror. He’d just realized that of course Kanye knew Barron was also here, and that he wasn’t about to close the door.

“I guess we’ll just have to learn to be quiet, Donald,” said Kanye. He then walked over to Donald’s pile of clothing and extracted from it, a thick leather belt. Donald saw Kanye come back to him with the belt and closed his eyes. His penis visibly started to engorge. Kanye took notice and took a piece of slack rope and tied Donald’s erection to against his left thigh and pulled the ends so tight you could see the tip of his penis was starting to turn a shade darker. Donald let out a soft moan, careful not to call attention to Barron. Kanye then introduced the leather of the belt to Donald’s body, slowly, before snapping it back and whipping it against his flesh.

SLAP!

Donald roared through his gag.

Slap!

This time he managed to muffle his scream. Kanye focused the trajectory of his whip to Donald’s buttocks and whipped harder with each slap.

He looked at Donald’s erection and noticed it was leaking ejaculate, so he went behind him and unwrapped his dick. It stood up and resisted the weight of Donald’s lower abdomen. Kanye trussed Donald’s dick and balls with the rope and created tension through a keyhole knot. He yanked hard on the slack and saw Donald’s ass tighten. Kanye then wrapped the belt around Donald’s throat and looped it through the buckle. He set the rest of the belt on his back, still in suspension, then walked over to the hydraulics. He stepped on the switch and let the desk re-surface, the hook descend. Donald was still trussed but now safely lying on the table. Kanye then went to the door and closed it shut, locking it from inside.

He walked back to Donald and pulled the belt slowly but assuredly, until it was clearly choking Donald and his head could go back no further. Kanye then removed the monkey fist and heard Donald breathe almost in a panic.

“I’m not done with you,” Kanye said.

He pulled down his pants again and pulled out his erection. On the desk was a tube of tanning oil Donald always kept nearby, which Kanye now used to lubricate his hard on. He then thrust his erect penis without any warning, into Donald, forcing a scream out of him. Kanye simultaneously yanked on the belt to choke off the air so he couldn’t make any noise. He continued to thrust and yank the Rube Goldber machine he had improvised out of Donald’s body, until completion, and then unceremoniously pulled out of his body, pulled up his pants, and patted them down of any detritus he may have picked up from the rope, the room, or Donald himself.

Kanye looked at Donald’s penis and saw he had also come to completion. He untied Donald’s hands and walked away from the desk to look at the floor to ceiling windows. He withdrew a vape pen from the inside chest pocket of his jacket and took a long drag. There was something so peaceful about New York City in the morning. He wondered how many of these mornings he would get to enjoy before these visits ended for once and for all.

Just recalling that Yeezy Tower slash porn I wrote last year.

(Source: iamilliterate)

Florence

I’d wondered frequently about the circumstances under which my youngest sister had died, but didn’t know how to ask my mother, who was present and alone in the ordeal and then therefore suspected of having caused it, perhaps even deliberately. My mother, a gregarious type with cheerful if delusional aphorisms, who will stop at nothing to bring happiness, even to a fault, in my life, whom I couldn’t imagine subjecting to the remembering of this sad time.

She said she couldn’t speak when it happened; that she lost her voice. I’d overheard her telling a friend this on the phone when the friend lost her mother and didn’t know who else to call after being left alone by her husband. It seemed like A Thing Husbands Do. My father did likewise when my mother experienced her loss. She left the country for a period of time I can’t recall or quantify. A lost month or week or just a day, perhaps. I have no memory of a funeral or service or anything but a dressed up appearance in family court and interviews with a social case worker who asked about my relationship to my mother but never about my father. I remember saying I hated my parents because they wouldn’t let me go out with friends, but weird Asian American reasons why we couldn’t just have friends over all the time, were both quite ordinary and painfully alienating. My father did not approve of anyone who wasn’t either Japanese or fluent in it, in the home. As if our house was a sacred space for kin.

My mother does not identify herself as Japanese, but she also does not identify herself as Korean. I get mad whenever I think about people being mean to her, but most offensive to me were the insults from bretheren. Siblings who told her she wasn’t one of them; a husband who told her she was mentally retarded; Japanese who said she stank of garlic (tch…how quaint garlic rules); Koreans who wanted her to be more proud, put on something nice, join their ubiquitous uniform of tasteless luxuries. My uncle told me he was regularly punched in the face with pachinko beads in his mouth, by Japanese kids. My grandmother’s jaw was bandaged shut after her husband beat her when my uncle failed to win his fights in school.

I asked my mother what happened to Florence on a lunch time stroll around Marina Del Rey where my sister lives, where I was staying during a local business trip selling gay erotic manga. My mother frequently stops to point out what she thinks will be innuendo I’d appreciate—a store called Chin Chin (dick), or a particularly phallic palm tree. She sometimes texts me pictures of actual butts…of cats and dogs she encounters, or of the occasional gay human she wants to have known to me.

“I have gay friends if you want to meet any,” she says.

“No you don’t, mom.”

“Yeah I do!”

“Who?”

“Remember that nice lady from church? Her hairdresser.”

“That’s not a friend.”

“She would give me his phone number if I asked her.”

I imagine the investment it would take to befriend this gay hairdresser by way of a church acquaintance. Two haircuts before deciding if he’s worth befriending? Three?

The weather in Marina Del Rey is always nice, but I always dread feeling it.

That time I was Chinese.

That time someone told me they knew the translator of Bat-Manga and I said, “yes you’re right. We’ve met before.”

That time a Chinese woman said to me, “you look Asian to me.”

That time a Chinese woman said to me, “are you also Asian?”

That time someone asked if I was Chinese, because according to her, and I quote verbatim: We’re trying to have kids but I’m trying to convince my husband we should adopt a Chinese girl, and I wanted him to see what a Chinese girl would grow up to look like.

That time a white woman said, “your eyes aren’t very Asian,” as a compliment, and I said “yours are” also as a compliment.

That time a black woman yelled at me about how Trump is going to piss of “that crazy dictator in South Korea” and I was too scared to correct her.

That time a Chinese foot massage therapist said she couldn’t work on me because I was pregnant and I told her I was not pregnant and she laughed and said “OK” like NBD but kept talking to her colleague about it in Mandarin (I assume from body language).

That time I bought two lunches and hated both of them for not being Chinese food.

That time I borrowed a friend’s class pass to take yoga and had an instructor who insisted on learning my name and I was too afraid to be caught in the lie so I told her my name was my friend’s name but then the instructor was pro-actively egging me on using the wrong name and I had to pretend to be my friend for the rest of my life. 

That time a Chinese fruit vendor came to the yoga class and the studio manager asked if I knew her fruit stand but didn’t ask any one else.

I don’t feel good. I did feel good…but now I don’t.

I’ve just sort of given up on MSV because I feel resigned to the bullshit inherent to this part of the world I’ve carved out. I see the mainstream taking over its basic tenets, and even plagiarizing the brand Graham and I built from scratch. I see that it doesn’t matter anymore what I do, and that is ultimately a good thing–artists are the centerpiece of all creative enterprise and the age of middle people is hopefully over. But that also means I am over. 

I can’t be forced to care anymore.

Find yourself a translator.

*Lest this be confused for an active announcement of a formal resignation, please understand that my resignation is purely metaphorical. I actually cannot afford to give up my company because I would quite literally become homeless.

Did you know the working homeless population in New York City is greater than in any part of the country? That means more people here are homeless despite earning around or above the national poverty line. 

If you are flipping real estate, you can go to hell.

I’m someone who did everything right to mitigate the anxieties of being a sort of woman in a sort of professional class that might encounter a sort of antagonism. Instead of subjecting myself to the environments where men would opportune a fingerbang or ill-phrased pickup line, I fled to the safest places I knew–femme-positive gay environments; foreign language; contract work for hire free of internecine office politics and any need for HR. It has meant I’d be broke, but it has also meant I’d figure out how to reinvent myself.

Over.
And over.
And over.
And over.
Again.

In this year, I’ve been humiliated and dressed down by straight men of color to within an inch of my sanity, and lost very important gay white men whose impact on my company cannot be overstated, and there’s this part of me that is annoyed that there are political implications to the identities of both enemy and ally. Like a cottage industry zero sum game with an over-under that blisters out of context. So I was forced to wonder if I should find a new context. But I am too old for new scenes. And I am too old not to know that the reason I may be more vulnerable to the tragedies of losing significant business colleagues, and vulnerable to humiliation by those who had no stake whatsoever in my wellbeing in the first place, is because I am both politically and preternaturally vulnerable, period. As a woman, I am supposed to constantly be insulted and be in grief. More than my body, my persona, my sex appeal…my grief and my general sense of displeasure defines my womanhood.

Grief and insults, but not trauma.

Women shouldn’t be expected to endure trauma. Trauma is second nature once you’re insulted for this long. Somehow, coping with tragedy for so many years of one’s life–the tragedy of gender, the tragedy of minisculization, corruption, anti-intellectualism, jingoistic hypercatpitalism and the misconception of dichotomies or that there was any opportunity for a deconstruction of the dyads I resist–would inure one to the immediate stress syndromes of trauma. 

The body will decide in time to protest against you and the brain will play opposum to save that body’s integrity, but stress syndromes ought not to manifest. 

Did you know that to manifest in French means to protest?

It’s called a false friend when a word means different things in difference.

Difference.

I’ve only ever been sexually assaulted by people who had no power or stake in my life, whatsoever. Whatsoever. And that’s ironic to me. I have the power to pulverize men, but instead I am lead. Midas’ touch reversed. And instead of feeling this much regret, I want to feel my insides return to gold.

Some Real Names of Stores and Products in Japan.

Carnelian

Jusglitty

Jayro

Te chichi

As known as de base

L'est Rose Paris

11th ave and 21st

Cracie shampoo

Bershka

Asbee

Pou Dou Dou

Titty & co

Comfort Snacks

Shin Ramyun (1986)

Egg McMuffin with Sausage (1972)

Salt and Vinegar Potato Chips (1950s)

Hawaiian Bread (1950s)

sukombu (1918)

Momchester By The Sea

Christian suggested watching Manchester by the Sea with my mom recently, and I immediately shut it down. He asked if it was because she was opposed to Casey Affleck’s character and I guffawed. The thought that my mom would be up to speed on his controversies was preposterous. No, I said, it’s because a movie about losing children under one’s watch will be triggering for my mother who lost a daughter under her watch. I can’t believe she has suffered that kind of loss. Who the fuck is Casey Affleck.

Say My Name.

Sans serif email defaults made it so that in the early days of email, Art Spiegelman thought he was communicating with Al (as in Bundy, Gore), and not A(nne) I(shii). 

I, in turn, half-assumed that when he wrote to “Al” that he was repeating my sign-off syntax. “Heya, Aye Eye! It’s me, Aye Ess.” This was the time of not a few A.I.s.  Allen Iverson, and Stanphen Spielbrick’s Jude Law sci-fi vehicle “A.I.” to name a few.

When Art Spiegelman and I met for the first time, I think I said something like, “It’s so nice to finally meet you in person, I’m Anne from Vertical,” to which he replied:

AL! Nice to meet you, too!

I laughed awkwardly thinking this was still our play-acting, but also tried in vain to reiterate my real name. He was halfway out the door lighting a cigarette, and I might have even tried to join him out there as I used to smoke, but I was probably interrupted by Paul Pope or whoever it was at whatever book party we were both at. Certainly in the nascent days of my career in publicity I was fine with being Al to Art. 

In hindsight, I’m more intrigued by the fact that I, presenting clearly as a femthing, continued to be an “Al” in Art Spiegelman’s mind. Did I know any female Als? Is that the right question? Did he think Al was a non-genedered name? Could it be he thought that was an ethnic name? 

I like thinking that early in my life as a working adult, which coincided with the dawn of the email–before our signatures were glyphs, and avatars allowed us to present a pixelteen cue to our interlocutors–many of the people I communicated with thought I was a boy named Al. 

–

“Ishii?”

My gynecologist calls me by my last name like it’s my first. She’d called the two women preceding me by their first names, and I try not to read into it but wonder nonetheless, “why me?” and decide I appear older and perhaps command a kind of masculine authority like on a football field, battle training, or just Olde Asia, where a curt “Ishii!” would be a sign of respect. 

My gynecologist is an Indian woman with a subtle South Asian accent, rendering her English almost aristocratic. It is calming. She did what past gynecologists have all done, when explaining my irregular Pap Smear. Flipping my medical intake form, she drew an X-axis, and upside-down to her or right-side up to me, writes from left to right: N, A, L, H, and C. N stands for Normal and C stands for Cancer. I am L. 

The Pap in Pap Smear is short for Papanicolau, the doctor who invented this cervical test. I remind myself to refer to the test by its full name next time I am being examined.

A more apt metaphor for my life as a Japanist, there is not.

hamonikakoshoten:

デザイン批評　季刊第10号　エロスと創主体

Kauderwelsch

Twern: the slight adjustment you make in your posture when looking at your reflection in order to feel less like jumping out the window you’re so ugly.

Gink: the painful tingling sensation you get right in your tailbone when you step and kneel into a piping hot bath.

Humans: all the non-white people I’ve been with that no one uses to stereotype my dating profile.

Hermination: the point at which self-care looks and sounds exactly like masturbation, and yet without climax.

Page Rage: frustration dealt by discovery of a skipped blank page in one’s journal.

Potato Girls

Everything But the Potato

My Potato

Potato, Interrupted

Lost Potatoes

Potato Talk

Harajuku Potatoes

Potato Power

Jesse’s Potato

Brown Eyed Potato

Potato’s Generation

Powerpuff Potatoes

Potato From Ipanema

Gone Potato

Octopus Potato

Potato With the Dragon Tattoo

Potato With a Pearl Earring

Potatoes at the Piano

Potatoes Just Wanna Have Fun

Material Potato

Potatoes Gone Wild

Running Thoughts

I don’t run fast. I don’t run far. I tell people I run in the way that feels most powerful and productive, but sometimes I jog because it’s the nicest way to enjoy a scene in nature, and that feels productive in a way that walking doesn’t. Walking alone has too much purpose. My feet never feel right when I run. After counting in rudimentary order against the heartbeat, against my pace, I get to thinking about the world again. I eventually think about people who frustrate me, whom I want to yell at. I wonder if I’m running to or from those people, even if metaphorically. Each step I take pounding the ground with my broken feet, feels like I’m clapping the anger out of my system, like chalk dust from foam erasers that’ve been left out too long. And when I think of how much faster I have it in me to run if confronted by an angry predator, the answer is that I would try to reason with them to let me get all my demons out of my system first.

View high resolution

I’m obsessed with my mom. She is obsessed with me. Not like “David Maysles should do a documentary about us and the decrepit house we will die in,” obsessed, but we do share the bed when I visit her, when we travel, whenever we can. 

My dad used to say she was retarded, but he’s been to prison and I’m pretty sure has a boyfriend but won’t come out so basically all his insults are discredited. He has no idea how lucky he was to be allowed to go inside her. But he’s not the only one who’s said they think my mom is dumb. She herself says she has a small brain because she has a small head, and that’s why she’s not so smart, but she’s not dumb she is *silly* which is very different. Dumb people vote for idiots because their pastors told them to. My mom asked me to explain to her all the different voter initiatives because her pastor didn’t make a lot of sense when he did it. I think that makes her a genius. 

My mom is so silly, she once snuck up on a friend at a garden party and pushed her into the pool. Let me emphasize: my adult mother, dressed in Sunday best, pushed another adult woman, in her Sunday best, at catered adult garden party, into the pool… The trick backfired as the friend pulled my mom in with her, and even though she doesn’t know how to swim she laughed so hard she almost drowned (the friend pulled her to the shallow end of the pool). 

She collects anything she thinks is cute. It accumulates to what sometimes appears to be an annoying pile of anonymous detritus, so I was denuding the wet bar at her old house of this pearly junk when I found a pink press-on nail with small rhinestones. She said she’d seen it at the nail salon and took it back with her for reference. 

She found a small weed pipe on Waikiki once and spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning out all the resin stuck in it (which she believed to be oceanic tar residue) so she could make a clean necklace bead out of it. She didn’t know it was a pipe until I told her why she couldn’t wear the necklace at the airport. She tried bringing bananas from Hawai’i through that very same airport, but was stopped by a customs agent who said we couldn’t transport fruits from the island to mainland. My mom said, “not even one for the plane?” and the agent said no. She then proceeded to peel and eat four bananas at once while asking if the agent wanted one.

She threw me a surprise sixteenth birthday after I’d had a depressive meltdown. It was at Michael Martinez’s house and Bruce Watanabe spoiled the surprise by asking me as I walked to the front door if “this is where the surprise party is” not realizing it was for me. Bruce pushed me off a jungle gym when I was 5 or 6 and I lost a baby tooth. I hated him for that but my mom convinced me somehow that it was because Bruce was in love with me. 

The surprise birthday party was the happiest I’d ever been in my life (until I saw Tori Amos live maybe??). Mike Martinez’s house has a kidney-shaped pool, and Mike would sometimes dive into it from the patio roof seven or eight feet high and three feet away from the edge of the pool. That always made me nervous and exhilarated. That night I watched my mom offering wine to kids who thought she was crazy for doing so, and I thought of pushing her into the pool because I knew she’d think it was funny.

A rote daily entry cuz I promised myself I’d write every weekday.

Some things I wrote in my journal this week:

Top 40 tracks stuck in my head starting to all sound like ringtones. 

Are they Chomsky liberal or “Get Out” liberal?

In what other industry besides fashion would one possibly get away with making a consumer product that can’t possibly be consumed publicly. “I love that but obviously could never wear it on the street.” Is it art because magazines talk about it and because it gets walked down runways or because no one will dare wear a Margiela full-nude burqa or a CDG cabinet in public.

Idea for a Quebecois slogan: Yes oui Canada.

What the fuck is a toehold.