THIS IS A STRESS ISH(UE) Dave and Sah are breathing down my neck about Vegas and I hate to break it to you, loves, but the way it's looking now with the moolah situation I'm thinking the next time I'll see you is OZ Reunion Summer '08. We're putting up at the Kimberly in NY, because honestly it's really The Only Place to stay if we're going to do Spring Break in The Big Apple right. And we must, otherwise I'll be kicking myself every seven minutes for not taking up Jake's offer for Cancun/Tijuana. I MISS YOU, JAKE ZIEN, I swear, packing up and shipping off to fucking RISD is feeling like you took the mojitos from a party and replaced them with piss beer (Miller Light, the faux pas of alcohol faux pas). And incidentally, there's no one to poke fun at the frat boy proponents of said piss beer (note, Yuds, this refers to you) since you went lickety-split. So this is a multiple "I'll see you when I see you (because it won't be over spring break)" to Sah, Dave, JakeJewishBoy and Bert. Lemons and shots, kids, lemon and shots, it's an international standard be it Cancun/Vegas/NY. I am with you in spirit, oh ho.

On other matters, I'm infinitely proud of myself because I delivered a stellar Las Super Madres presentation in Performance Studies aaaand dropped Kennedy's lousy MWMF class all in the past 24 hours. Go, me. Way to make a statement about what I want/don't. I think I'm figuring out this...option-narrowing thing. Baby steps, baby steps. Low note: since the start of the semester I've started to detest campus food again. The repulsion/nausea is back in full force, but I'm refusing to spend outside the Rip-off Meal Plans i.e. on off-campus cuisine. Which leaves me with pitiful food options. I'm back to a sub-26 and very, very displeased with myself. Timi bought me a pair of Cheap Mondays in a 28 for Christmas and they look tres un-chic on me. The skinny + high-waisted look does not fly when, well, the fucking things aren't skin tight and they just don't rest on my waist. Motherfucker. Who wears baggy Cheap Mondays? Anyhow, I'm working on it. I will load up on grilled cheese and chips from the Underground and get the junk in the trunk back, even if it kills me. 

It's going to be a Modest Mouse/Neutral Milk Hotel/Rabbids weekend. Watch out Jon/Chun, I'm coming to break in your soon-to-be-past/my future home. Exciting news, will share once it's finalized i.e. once I've found a way to wheedle these jokers into leaving their Wii/widescreen, putting a fresh coat of paint in Jon's/my future room and scrubbing those revolting stains off the kitchen stove-top. Those terms are non-negotiable, Dumb and Dumberer, just so you know. 

"Make it work!"

Sorry, I couldn't resist. Who else is on Team Christian? TEAM FIERCE, only way to go

xx

EH FUCKERNATHAN hahahahahaha hi Shaun hi Shaun

Whoops

The Sart. nearly gave me a massive coronary today; after weeks (WEEKS) filled with bell/cropped-sleeve-coats, he drops a nice little Carine Roitfeld bomb - streamlined, killer-sleek, murderously razor-sharp. Navy. Knee-length. Fitted. We're talking Helmut Lang circa 1998-esque, sealing any hints of vintage/boxy in a Ziploc and tossing it overboard into the Hudson. Minor sweating ensued; but comforting knowledge of A-lines and elbow-cuffs returned sanity and all was well.

Paradoxically, an overheard conversation at Ginger's this afternoon between two AKPsi girls (I think it was AKP; purple sweatshirts, no?) about prepping their appendages for The Big Spring Break Reveal had me and Yudi in spasms. Tears, even. Am thinking our brains sustained permanent damage (blown cells?) from holding it all in. Kim I swear to God, this conversation was made to be scoffed at by you. We are hypocrites, us all - bad, bad hypocrites.

Um, Yuds, where's my Vogue?

"Hawt, damn!"

Hi Kim(illionare) Hi Jon Hi Chuns Hi Dave

(No satisfactory responses at present, Gender Theory with Kennedy at 9am. I know you understand.)

"Where's my fucking - hey, hey, smartass, put that camera away."

"Look, Ma, no hands!"

This is a tribute, a fraction of a semester of jeep rides and hoodie-trying sprees.

If you were lost for a day, I'd be fractions of a second behind - but you aren't.

You're dream-chasing, and I am documenting small triumphs, big scrapes, egg-drops and head-spins from halfway 'round the continent.

This is but a side; we do not dramatize, because our connecting cables are intact and running.

Kill it, Kimillionaire. Make 'em drop dead.

Meet you on the other side

xxx

Loss erodes when your head is turned; finally alerted to it, you whip around to find a small crater on the cement step next to you, still warm. I feel the loss more keenly than anger at the act of leaving, and if anything, I understand uncontrollable circumstance and imperative; so call, Kim. Anger never walked the Neverland we constructed on Jeep weekends.

The snow is 5 inches thick. Someone's shaking the sheets in compensation, after nearly a week of mean, barren, piercing windy cold. Everyone is, at once, ambivalent; we curse at the salt that fucks up our shoes - and we grab garbage bags/lunch trays, go flying down Flagstaff Hill,landing in triumphant, red-cheeked heaps. It's that time again - Jackie stands outside Doherty Hall every lunchtime as people stream out of classes, shirtless as usual (by way of tradition), bullying people's wallets out of their pockets with a voice like a loud-hailer, man-handling men into buying..I forget, what it is, this time round. Valentine's Candygrams, I think. Just as the excitement of Andy McKee is fading, Paramore is coming to town, and there are conspirational whispers in the exclusivity of the CFA studios that Michaelson's doing another closed-door showcase, "by invite only, mind you," which leaves out the hapless engineering masses. Can you hear the sneer?

The breakers are going to class-hop and deliver ValenTunes on Thursday; just so you know, Kimillionaire, I'm picking up the slack for you. You never could sing in tune, anyhow. 

When the night falls on Metropolis
Neon dissonance, warm lipstick;
When the moon shines on the playground
I will find you in the tinsel town

Moving shadows in the shape of what you want to see
Painted fingers and the aromatic Jean Nate
And when they're spinning you can see them do the strangest things
Building bridges from the slivers of another's dream

Let's go raining on the sky

xxx

Inspiration is when: the trite cliche, the over-done, the commercialized-and-capitalized manages to make you feel like you really can create something brand new.

"I need to know why I love her, why she loves me, what makes her a genius, whether any of it can rub off on me,"

Logic, practicality, simplicity, nothing over two syllables. I am humbled.

Tomorrow Jia Min turns 24; a new friend turns irrevocably old (haha). Five days ago Bran turned 20 (one birthday I didn't count on missing); happy birthday, to an old friend still irresponsibly young.

I spent an hour or so at Wai Yong's place today, sexcapades and all things corrupt being the topic of choice, as it always is with twisted models of Freud's Oedipus like he. Am thinking that I may take over his apartment, after all; with Ji Soo and the Korean mafia inhabiting the building (and in close quarters, too) there's bound never to be a dull moment. God knows I could use that sort of levity, however constructed. For purposes of kitchen-trial, I'm planning a feast this weekend, a proper ode to J. Oliver, Brit style. Truth be told it's no more than an excuse to force myself into some semblance of Life When Poon Was Still Around, what with the weekly cookouts in a certain Italian-style kitchen Downtown. There, I spelled it out. It doesn't feel like time to dig out the kitchen equipment (which, incidentally, Auntie Poon gifted me despite my reluctance) but my hyper-consciousness says it is.

Sky-diving sounds...attractive at this juncture. (Bertotot, emailed you xx) From the money I saved from the Snowboarding Trip That Never Materialized last weekend, I think I can manage a ticket to So-Cal, if I dig deep and eat from the food trucks all next week. Free fallin', anyone?

How do you react when an acquaintance drops a miniature news bomb about a common someone much closer to heart, in a classic Freudian slip? There has been silence up till now. I'm waiting for someone, anyone, to crack and tell me. What can be worse, than silence? Last-ditch: Kimillionaire, where are you?

Today we sat outside, jackets rebelliously off, ate steadily while the wetness seeped steadily from the benches into the seats of our jeans. Again - I am never mellow, it is a relief, when my company does not require me to be.

The sky is nosebleed-red.

Messrs. Shaun & Dave:

Just for the record, I feel your absence acutely, constantly. The emails, multiple ones in fact, are all in my outbox, pending. Trust when I say I'm only procrastinating in trying to send the parks, the trees, the leaves, the cold vapor, the twilight to you in a more eloquent sign-off than "xoxo" or "much love". Also trust that while I am further than ever from fine, I am closer. 

The orbit of displacement always swings me by your way.

xx, all my love.

Briefly, 

I am never mellow - it is a relief when my company does not require me to be.

Slow motion is never low intensity;

Frame blurs into frame, so go slow motion with me.

Slow motion, see me let go

We tend to die young

Slow motion, see me let go

What a brother knows

Later bathing in the afterglow, 

Two lines of coke I'd cut with Draino

And her nose starts to bleed

A most beautiful ruby red

Take me out, why don't you