I’m sleeping in
just call me out
it’s the simplest kind of comfort
I do it for me
there’s a softness and care
my, that got so wholesome

I know, I should embrace hardship
adversity builds resilience
it’s darkness that reveals the stars
that last one sounds too good to be original
but I’m not researching it
haven’t you been reading?

I’m sleeping in fugaciously
and metaphorically.
If you’re in the water
it’s good to swim
otherwise
you could be writing.
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Songs for this:
Sleeping In by The Radio Dept.
Save the Phenomenon by Fievel Is Glauque

Why do the texts keep on coming?
Why does my phone have to chirp?
Don’t they know,
the election is over..
It ended when I cast my vote.
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Songs for this:
Bring Me to Silence by Fievel Is Glauque
The End Of The World by Skeeter Davis

We’re on October break, which is a 6-day weekend. For the last two weeks, everyone’s been making plans.
“What do you think of Cancún?” Sunny’d asked me.
“The only people going to Mexico are on the cheap or trapped in a trunk.” I’d answered.

After two weeks of weighing every conceivable terrestrial destination, amenities and available attractions, we (there’s six of us suitemates - Sunny, Lisa, Leong, Anna, Sophy and I) settled on good old Manhattan, where you’ll find us in adjoining-suites atop the Plaza hotel (thanks, Grandmère).

Things went CrA-CrA (crazy with a capital K) right off the bat. Sunny, as it turns out, KNOWS people here, and we decided to ‘walk on the wild side’ for one or two nights and check out a few fem-facing clubs. Now I know how sensitive we all are about pronouns, and what-not, but I’m going to try to simplify for a broad audience. These are lesbian clubs.

One thing I like about Music is sharing it with friends. Communities have always formed around art in whatever form. There are book clubs, film societies, Trekkies, Swifties and apparently, wild-*** lesbian dance clubs.

On our first night in Manhattan, the sun had barely set when Sunny said, “Ok then, let’s go!” And off we went to a “Femmquerade Ball”. I think that’s a combo of ‘feminine, queer and masquerade.’ She’d told us beforehand what to wear, “Take sweatshirts, those will come off - it gets hot in there - otherwise t-shirts, jeans and ballet flats - no purses.”

You know, I thought punk music was dead, ideating its death somewhere in the 90s. I was wrong, it’s ALIVE.
You know, when everyone’s feelin’ it, when two hundred people are rocking as one, club-life is transcendent. The club vibe was interesting too, there was a safety and freedom to it. You're in a crowded club, somehow without the limitations of the banal male gaze, with its sexist expectations. I don’t know how else to describe it.

I don’t think music has to have a message to earn its place as art. Folk romance music’s ok, jazz has its reach, opera is still happening and of course there’s regular dance music - cause sometimes, you’ve just gotta jiggle it.

That being said, there’s a saying that “Punk is truth” and that comes from its rawness and authenticity.
Punk has a ‘low barrier of entry’, as the academics say. It’s a game anyone can play. Punk isn’t autotuned, the bands use second-hand guitars, there are no synthesizers, the speaker stacks were shared, the vocalists lacked training, and I’d guess that none of the players were burdened with unpaid Juilliard tuition.

Punk’s always been outsider art, a scream along, you can’t go wrong, fire and every punk song is a garage invitation to joyously rage. As we drove to the club, Sunny had said, “Think of punk as dance music without inhibitions. It's straightforward and unapologetically for the people who can’t bother to keep to the dance steps and aren’t above getting in each other’s precious space.” Every word of that was true.

Punk lyrics are about the problems and issues of real-world people. It’s a roll call, a manifesto, implicit and explicit in stylish screaming. I’ve always called it scream-0. The point being, that while the rest of the world is restrained, heteronormative and reduced to a corporate gray backdrop, there’s still room for comradery, agency, outrage, pumpkin-Jello-shots (@ $16 each) and a bit of winking fun.

We DID have fun but I’ve been hoarse all day today. As we’d climbed into the car, last night, for the ride back to the Plaza, Mr. & Mrs Charles pointedly removed ear plugs from their ears - the kind they give to airport workers who work around jet engines all day. Charles laughed and said something, but I couldn’t hear him.
My ears were still ringing.
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Songs for this
Rebel Girl by Bikini ****
Hash Pipe by Weezer

I’m tired of influencers faking nervousness.
my generation wants to care less
these days.
it’s a counter-current hack.
we want to be less defined.
we can search and reflect for ourselves.
we’re sick of the emotion
that’s all over everyone’s faces,
the unsightly splotches of opinion.
the entire election machine,
the process of getting there, is smudged.
It’s a curated mess, an advising spin,
an incomprehensible hex:

“Oh profit pondering,
contradictory means to an end
- bless weave, and conceal,
bloodless dollar debt options,
painful penny pincher paradoxes,
and deadly debt bliss dilemmas..”

“Is this a witch or an arbitrager?” Lisa asked, after rudely leaning over and reading up to this point.
“I was shooting for a numinous type of beat,” I revealed.
“We’re supposed to be working on our thesis definitions,” she said accusingly.
“Are you not challenged, here, hour by hour?” I asked sarcastically.
“I need ideas - well - I have too many ideas, I need some focus, I wanted to see what you had.”
I deadpan looked at her, “Well, you broke the spell - I lost my train.” I complained dryly.
“Don’t put me in a situation.” she said, waving my gripe off as insignificant.
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Songs for this:
Easier Said Than Done by Thee Sacred Souls
drive ME crazy! by Lil Yachty
Melt by Nilüfer Yany

Vibe-check, it’s Friday. Yay! A delightfully cool Friday at that! I’d like to thank the democratic party (which I’ve heard controls the weather now). Has the heat finally surrendered to the inevitable freshness of fall?
Can we please proceed directly to a cruel winter?

“What are we doing tonight?” I asked Lisa as she sat on the edge of a chair to put on her Nine West tunic pointed-toe booties. She has class this morning and I don’t. I’m sipping coffee, curled up on our red-corduroy couch, under a school themed throw, trying to grasp the plot of a fascinating chemistry book.

“Something fun,” she said, verbatim, offering little concrete as she picked up her slouchy silhouette, hobo bag.
“See ya,” she said, shouldering the door open with her right arm and securing her coffee with her left.
She’s got one of those giant coffee cups that are so vogue. She gives herself 30 minutes, after our morning jog, to get ready for class and that whole time, she’s brewing cup after k-cup of Keurig coffee to fill that monster.
“Byeeeeee,” I responded, before the door clunked closed.

Sunny, came to the door of her room, “Do you separate your whites and darks?” She asked.
“Of course,” I said, not looking up, to save my page-place, “we’re not animals.”
“I never separate,” she confessed.
“That’s why your white socks are pink,” I updogged.
“They are pink,” she said, pulling up her pajama leg to expose her pink socks, “bright pink.”

The serious events have started. Parties thrown by groups, always to a theme, offering whimsical, rainbow palates of fun. We’re here for it, my room and suitemates, all of us. There’s no better way to spend a Friday or Saturday night, than dressing up as a Disney princess, jedi princess or streetwalking zombie princess.

Some nights, there’s more than one and we jump gatherings until we find the perfect one. We easily feed off of each another’s energy. We’re all 21-year-olds now and pushing past painfully obvious insecurities, legal restrictions and occasionally, moral boundaries.

Ok, let’s reach for some Friday night rhymes:

Fridays are reserved for revelry, for noise and crazy mirth,
you can find a rave or masquerade with very little research.

The venues are themed and adorned for festive cheer,
and the turned-up music ignites those dance-like atmospheres.

Picture tapestries of youthful fun and you’ve grasped the vibe of the night.
In fleeting moments, we reach for it - I hope you brought your invite.

There was a disappointing ‘jungle rave’ where people were smoking inside!
Are you a ‘master of the universe,’ if you can’t get air-quality right?

Way too soon the revels cease
and in the Saturday morning quiet, we search out tasty eats.
We did it for memories, to give our dull lives a makeover
and good news! I didn’t wake up with a hangover.
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Songs for this:
Nite Becomes Day by Citizen Cope
Breathe In by Frou Frou

J D Vance has such smoky, smoldering eyes, doesn’t he?
The way those baby blues coruscate, as if from the darkness.
Are those shadows natural? No, it’s eyeliner, of course, but on
a 40-year-old man it’s called guyliner.

Any teenage girl will tell you the kohl pencil is the gateway makeup tool for self-definition, if not exactly self-improvement.

As an ex-teenage girl, I can picture the hours senator Vance spent,
hunched over his laptop watching make-up tutorials on TikTok or
Instagram, analyzing eyeliner techniques in overwhelming detail.

TikTok clips are today’s replacement for the Teen Vogue magazine
product pages of back-in-the-day. I recall watching these videos,
at 14 and devolving into a fog of envy and inadequacy.

JD began wearing guyliner in 2016, so he probably watched those
at age 33 and by now, he’s certain to have upped his game by having them permanently, cosmetically tattooed on.

Of course, Trump himself has never been one to shy away from makeup.
His weird, orange, glazed-ham look comes from his preferred spray-on concealer, ‘Bronx Colors,’ a cruelty-free makeup manufacturer in Switzerland.

If this all sounds too judgy, I’d like to say, “JD, I’ve felt your clearly adolescent girl pain, and I get your desire to represent a softer and more romantic republican political aesthetic.”

And let’s not forget that Kamala’s been known to wear makeup herself.

Here are before and after JD Vance eyeliner pics - you decide: daweb.us/jdVance.png
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Songs for this:
It's All Over Now, Baby Blue by Falco
Gonna Get Along without you now by She and Him

Peter (my bf) flew away early this morning,
like Shakespeare’s eagle, “leaving no tracks.”
Now I lie here, as a leftover or Millais’ drowned ‘Ophelia’.

That’s an image ripped from adolescent, female visual culture.

Time‘s adversarial magic drags us ever future-wise,
eroding sweet moments we would cling to.

Shall we poetize?

I want a quiet afternoon,
on the bright side of the moon.

It’s an actual-factual place,
convenient, in close outer space,
like mythical Elysium, Shangri-La or Valhalla
where I’d still be intertwined with my fella,
like characters from literature or legend.

A place where “I’ll get to it tomorrow,”
is, alas, an everlasting pass,
because on the dusty, unreeling moon,
tomorrow never arrives,
our lovers never have to go,
and we can relax, ******* clothed,
simply enjoying the everlasting earthrise.
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Songs for this:
To The Moon by Meghan Trainor
Moon River by Frank Ocean