"IN THE WOODS, ALEX COLVILLE, 1976 acrylic polymer emulsion"
Not sure what I'm gonna call this journal yet so I just went with "???" for now. I've kind of thought about taking up journaling now and then, but I haven't really committed to it. I tried for a little while to write a dream journal when I was a freshman in college. For the dream journal, I used this Warner Bros. leather-bound notebook I got in Hollywood. Not sure how long I kept up with it for, not too long, maybe a few months or so? weeks? The only thing I really remember from that the journal (I'm too embarrassed to read it) wasn't even a dream. Just kind of a notes of what I was thinking (obsessing) over at the time. Definitely wrote/drew the thought of me having a brain injury, a horizontal cut across the top of my head or something. Then, if I remember correctly, a drawing of a suppressed revolver. I was pretty naive and childish and angry at the time, I fantasized a time or two about violence using this illustrated revolver. Sometimes, I still get intrusive thoughts about random acts of expressive violence when I'm depressed/anxious/nervous. Of course, I think these most of these thoughts are intrusive ones from undiagnosed OCD, but are still distressing nonetheless. I think some internal desire for acts of extreme random violence, i.e. the ending of Taxi Driver (1976) or pathetic mass shooters, comes from the struggle to look inward and properly express emotions. Y'know, why solve your own problems when you can take it out on others? That's not to say that these ugly people are off the hook just because they can't go to therapy, of course these things are largely their choices, grave ones. Masculinity is just so toxic nowadays that I don't want to spend anymore energy analyzing it.
"POSTER, JAMIE REID, 1978 screenprint on paper"
The third thing I want to address from that old journal, which is actually two things I'm linking together, are the above Sex Pistols poster and an idea my college freshman self dubbed "The Virus of Androgyny". The poster stuck with me, it was shown in a music history class I took, a design that later inspired and was incorporated by Vivienne Westwood for her clothes. (If you're curious, I prefer the Ramones on every level over Sex Pistols, as everyone should. (Public Image Ltd. is good though.)) The design of the mask, adorned with "rapist" by the Cambridge Rapist aforementioned on the poster, stuck with me for few weeks after the lecture. The "Virus of Androgyny" feels like me struggling with my actual gender, which took a few years for me to actually figure out, and was my old self just clinging to the mask of masculinity. I don't know, but these both kind of make me a little sick, I somehow internalized loving women and being one as the same as being some horrific rapist. It's kind of in the same vein as how misconstrued Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs (1991) becomes. She's almost something like a symbolical victim of hindsight. I mean she definitely engaged in fantasies of extreme violence.
It's been close to a month since I started injecting Valerie, and I'm going to be moving out on my own very soon. I'm nervous, excited, and so many things at once that I feel like if I tried to type out every single emotion I was feeling it would turn into a page of rambling vomit. I often think about other people's feelings more than I think about what I want. I mean my dad's being so negative and kind of guilt-tripping me about moving out, I kind of hate it and it just fills me with a lot of doubt. My mom keeps asking me if I'm sure about many things (especially my transition). I don't think she really understands what it's like, I know what I am and who I want to be. God, living back at home with your parents just really makes you feel like a teenager again, especially if you're taking a bunch of hormones. All this anxiety has taken up my focus, I want to be really excited for Chicago, but I'm just so down about other things going on. The area seems nice though and hopefully I'll get a job with an easy commute, though maybe a long walk wouldn't be bad for losing weight.
I guess when I'm back home, I feel like I'm hiding myself and also hiding from myself. If you get my meaning. I think the first time I understood "masking" was when I was little. I was doing something stupid, probably not that stupid, and my dad said something along the lines of "Stop acting like that, people will think you're mentally disabled". This is a pretty formative memory of my childhood and still hurts pretty bad to think about, but in my eyes most childhoods have these moments. Moments of discovering how garbage societal expectations are and just how policed people are by appearances. God, just writing about this is making me tear up. Whenever I see a little boy in public, I just feel this profound sadness. Like I'm fantasizing (fantasizing isn't the right word, longing?) about going back in time and protecting my younger self, being there for him, giving him someone to cry with.
Yeah, I'm crying now haha.
My parents/family just have lots of issues with their upbringings. I feel like I'm just sitting on a couch watching them and their relationships and their feelings through a little screen. I can't speak about it with them, I feel kind of alone within the family unit.
Work was very boring today, I started reading Don DeLillo's "Underworld". I typically start books, get to 120ish pages, then move on to something else. Maybe that's why I like movies so much? I was previously bouncing around "Infinite Jest", "Cat's Cradle", and thinking about reading Thomas Pynchon. (Not having actually read any Pynchon for a couple months.) I feel like I do "enjoy" postmodern literature, but my reading comprehension has tanked horrifically. I just need to read more though, and go back to "Infinite Jest" so I can catch up with Evan. We've been reading it together, which makes me super happy. I like talking with him and Dylan about postmodernism alot, even though we are about 50ish/40ish/30ish years past that literary movement now. I'm not sure what the contemporary literary movements are anymore. I try to do research and everything, but I haven't found anything promising yet. To me, literature isn't a "current" medium like film, music, or games. It can be much more timeless. Of course, literature is significantly older and more established as a medium than the other three. Film and popular music and video games have had at most about a hundred years of development. Movies still blow my mind now and then. (Dylan found this one guy who I can't remember the name of right now that makes very interesting ones that mess with the celluloid form.) I haven't been watching enough lately, but I hope that changes when I move back in with Caleb and his partner. We were on a beautiful streak when we lived together in college, we watched a TON.
I'm getting tired at this point and have many other things to do tonight, so I'm going to end this here. I'm not sure what this journal/diary/notebook/ramblings will turn into, but I'm hoping to atleast stay consistent this time.
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