I wonder if it would be different if I'd started doing this as an adult, not a teenager. or if I had entered the blogging world as it exists today, with feedreaders and social networks and corporate sponsorship. or if I hadn't been writing online for what I just realized has now become more than half my life.

maybe it would be different, but maybe it wouldn't be. maybe it is just the case that the internet is kind of grossing me out these days and it doesn't matter how it used to be. (I still like the internet, of course, and I find twitter exceptionally useful for following local organizations. I don't believe you can ruin the internet. it exists to evolve.) I think it's almost certain that I would still be as cautious about being overly candid. and aren't the best personal blogs the ones whose authors have no self-censorship buttons?

none of this is to say that I am quitting the internet, but it all adds up to a lot of silence and not as much to say. I'm okay with that mostly. sometimes I miss feeling like people really wanted to know what I had to say, which is even weirder when I think that back then, I was freaking nineteen years old.

I'm going to turn twenty-eight in a week. on the one hand, that's ridiculous; it sounds impossibly grown up. like I am old enough to own an ironing board (which I do not, although I do have an iron, apparently for no reason) and a car (I still don't have a license) and all these other vague signifiers of adulthood that elude me. or perhaps I am eluding them. or perhaps these are arbitrary things that have nothing to do with age or maturity; my single friends -- not that there are many of those left -- all have roommates, a condition I can no longer imagine living in. and on the other hand, all year I sort of thought I was twenty-eight already, so it's not like anything is changing except that reality is catching up with my internal calendar.

it's a good thing that this will be an unmomentous birthday because I won't even be here to celebrate. I'll be in michigan, working, which I am pleased about in theory. I was contemplating packing myself a cupcake, but I don't know how well the frosting would survive a plane ride plus two days in a hotel. perhaps birthday brownies would be a better bet.

I honestly don't know when the next time I'll decide to write something will be. could be tomorrow, could be next month. but by all means, if there's anything you want to talk to me about, let me know. (except my heart. that is off limits.)
[ 27 July 2009]  ·  [ ]



summer!

last night I was lying on the grass in prospect park thinking about how many layers of nature & construction there were on each (front/back) side of me. I was faceup and above me there were mosquitoes, gnats, frisbees, bats, branches, leaves, clouds, airplanes, satellites, stars. beneath me: grass, soil, rocks, electric cables, subway tracks, water mains, sewer lines. you could feel the little quakes from the F train making its right-angle turn between the 15th street and 7th avenue stations, the rippling soundwaves pushing through the air from the bandshell, and the restrained electricity charging the clouds overhead. all at once.

I completely get nature, I do, but the city is where I feel connected to the planet.
[ 02 July 2009]  ·  [ ]