june 20

the nice thing about working from the midtown office is that midtown fucking sucks no matter where you're going home to. my bed left yesterday, with a big assist from mom and dad and the car, but the mattress is still here on the floor, like in the beginning - it's so fucking sad, but weirdly beautiful - I am so blindly in love with this place - to see the house kind of decay into the semi-feral state it was in when I moved in. we smashed a lot of stuff at band practice last night, or at least the other guys did. my fortune was pretty boring or irrelevant at least. there's really nothing left to do but grind it out from here. also, have the most epic party in house history this weekend, you know what it is, we're not going to get rained on 3 parties in a row, we are not that doomed, are we?

june 20th we had maybe the most 'mellow' or actually just weirdly under-attended party in 502 history. sean was in town!, but it rained again, there was a lot going on that night, people were saving themselves for this week? I dunno. once I got over my rain- and party-related anxieties and started drinking things got pretty nice though, with a zany kitchen set by Puttin on the Ritz, gratifyingly incorporating Caitlin's decoy pigeons, and transcendent, dimly-lit performances in Aron's bedroom (in the Casiotone for the Painfully Alone nook!) by Zeke Healy, shredding bluegrass at 502 for the third and final time - and, amazing dude that he is, he even figured out how to play Landslide, allowing me some deep and necessary musico-spiritual closure - and Julianna Barwick, who overcame the repeated ill intentions of the rain gods to play a gorgeous lullabye-set, maybe the coziest, dreamiest performance in 502 evar. I've got some camera-vids but I gotta figure out how to upload them

may 22

I just suddenly started getting my fucking young buck on over here, bawling my motherfucking eyes out in this dismembered, bleeding room, needing to work through the next 48 hours straight or so on doing impossible things for my job, this is really feeling like a fucking online diary right now and sorry etc but for the record I am pretty far past the breaking point already and I have a very long fucking way still to go, so I really do need everyone around rooting really, fucking, hard for me right now

I've been almost kind of keeping it together for more than a month now, the last time I really lost it like this was the last May 22, def maybe the most amazing, beautiful night ever at 502 when greg reynolds and mariko endo danced in the yard, and the dead science played covers of classic souls songs sampled by the wu-tang clan in the cabaret of my dreams, pictures below, seriously lynchian, sorcerous vibes, this has always been and always will be the house of my dreams etc

another day in paradise

in sharp contrast to the brutal stress of the actual work going on here, it's fucking beautiful out in the outdoor office today.  one of the infinite number of things I will never stop missing about this place is the awesomeness of being on the ground floor and having this nice ground level outdoor space.  no matter how shitty things are going, it's always kind of reassuring to be able to step outside your door and smell the dirt, hear the birds, see the bugs, etc.  we've got a pretty amazing roof on our new place, which I have not and am never going to talk about on this blog, but no first floor.  

Todd just stepped out looked around, saying "another day in paradise," "yeah we've still got a few left."  it's true.  I'm trying to enjoy listening to Mr. C's classic 2004 Bossa Nova Carnival episode, which I have enjoyed so many times out here throughout summers 05-07, but I'm having a hard time connecting to it

bad fortune

after keeping them at arm's length for most of the past month, all the heavy fucking emotions wrt the final extinguishing of my home here at 502 are predictably rising up again, and also predictably this is coming at an utterly hellish time work-wise, with all the lack of sleep and dark feelings that come with it.  I just ordered Thai food from Thai Sesame - two curries, one for dinner and one for breakfast - and got choked up telling them my address.  you can kind of put it out of your mind for awhile sometimes but basically things just get worse all the time

anyway, one of the posts I meant to do before I and this lodge and this blog disappear is to note, for posterity's sake, the uncanny relevance (time will tell wrt accuracy) of the fortunes I've gotten from Mr. Wonton over the past couple of months

"you will make many changes before settling satisfactorily" (back in March, just weeks before the news)

"don't fear!  every ending is a chance for a new beginning" (I was and am still maybe not ready for this one)

"through greater effort and hard work a precious dream comes true" (hah hah yeah right)

"everyone around you is rooting for you.  don't give up."  (this one really got my waterworks goin when I got it a couple weeks ago during a particularly dark moment and again now)

teh question

is 502:

a: The Island,

or b: the Red Room/Black Lodge?

i.e. will I lose this magical place and spend the rest of my life plagued by nightmares and obsessed with finding my way back? or does Jacob have a plan? will I flee as an empty-eyed, depraved doppelganger of my former self? or can I escape somehow to the White Lodge? where the fuck is Laura Palmer? etcc

the breakup

the coincidence of my Fleetwood Mac/TUSK obsession and the prolonged, bitter, crying-every-damned-day heartbreak I am feeling wrt the imminent loss of my home and my 502 fam and the lovingly textured life I've made for myself here is taking my experience of the album, and my situation here, to new and maybe kind of weird places. suddenly, I too am living with a doomed love, torn between the desire to solidify my memories, savor the remaining happy moments, to cling to a dream destined to be extinguished, and my anger at having all these positive things suddenly recast in shades of such negativity and sadness; the need to channel that anger outwards and, failing that, inwards; the obsessive need to revisit the scene of suffering, to repeatedly pick at the emotional scabs before they can heal.

I wanted to make a note of this up front to enhance the truth content of this ongoing bloshery for the close readers of this blosh, but also to kind of keep it out of the individual song posts, which deserve better.

that said, the synergy of the emotional content for me is intense and maybe a little embarassing - it's been a minute since I've gone through one of these heartbreakathons, I hope it isn't too fucked up of me to be experiencing these feelings over the loss of a relationship with like a "thing" instead of a person, but,

1- a home is not just a "thing," it's a locus and mediator of specific social as well as logistical and Chinese delivery-related relationships etc, all of which will be irrevocably altered and/or lost

2- as I remarked to Steve during one of the more somber minutes of the Timbaland power hour Friday, a big part of the sting of a romantic heartbreak is the sudden catastrophic loss of ego that comes from losing someone that was a major part of your identity, both your own self-conception as well as your social identity (and value!). as Chris noted at the same power hour - and I swear to G I am gonna put in more of an effort to not derail power hours or other festivities with my bummer burden in the weeks to come - he has never really known me other than when I was living at this house, which is definitely true for him - I remember vividly the crazy night we first bro'd down, when I had first moved in, on Lily's birthday in late May 2003 (I am so sorry Lily I can't remember if it's the 24th, 25th, or 26th), back when the walls were pale yellow and I just had a mattress in the corner, and Jeff, who has since become such an integral part of the house after an initial failed attempt (the universe has a way of course-correcting etc), came by with Chris and Jon Posen, 40s and late nite Morrissey riffs! - and is definitely true for so many other of my closest friends. 5 years is a long time, especially in New York. it's like when I busted up my face at that show a couple years ago and looked at the stitches under my lip and chin and realized that I'd never look quite the same, but while minor facial scars are kind of cool, this just totally fucking sucks

I'll probably have to get a new blosh, too. I am pretty sure it is going to be called The Blue Room