MANAGE STORAGE

My iphone storage is completely used up, but it wont let me delete anything. I am in a stalemate. I, too, have reached capacity with memories. No new memories can be stored at this time. I’m sorry. We don’t have to remember anymore. There is a lighten-ning occurring. I can’t seem to hold on to much. I called my cat “mom” the other day. In general, my brain is in a washing machine or a dryer or taking a bath or being thrown into a bonfire. Here is what I remember:

I recall a moment at LAX in 2002 where I watched Minnie Driver and Steve Guttenberg recognize each other in front of the ticket agent. They both gave each other warm hugs. I was obsessed with Minnie Driver from the film, BEAUTIFUL, which I just saw received a 17 % percent score on Rotten Tomatoes. It starred her and the little curly haired Pepsi girl who no one could get enough of until one day we all had had it and banished her to a castle in Transylvania. Guttenberg, I knew from IT TAKES TWO, the Olsen twins film, which gave me a mild crush on him because Kirstie Alley and his chemistry was hot as hell. I don’t know why that moment- watching Minnie and Steve felt significant, but it was glamorous and intimate to view from an eleven year old’s POV. Watching two calm mammals from different movie universes physically hug thrilled me.

Similarly, when I met Cameron Diaz and Matt Dillon, as a child, I felt like I was looking at God. Will they greet me when it’s’ my time? I often wonder. They were so beautiful and at the time in a relationship, hanging off of each other and smiling, introducing something transcendent to my mind. Love makes you beautiful? Or hot people are magical/ superior. I wish I could remember, but staring at them felt like a a big sweeping revelation of all the secrets of the universe, but like a DMT trip you can’t truly convey what any of the beauty meant only that you were transported and nothings the same. Years later in my twenties, Matt Dillon was in the lobby at Film Forum when I was an usher there. Instead of ripping his ticket that he was trying to hand me, I did some weird silent bow instead. It was a horrible moment that I’ve tormented myself a healthy amount for.

I had a date planned, and then was warned not to go out with that person for safety reasons. I forget that app dating besides being excruciating is also dangerous. I have been in hiding since. I also was informed someone is using my picture on Bumble, a website for no one I’ve ever met. But its not all doom and gloom sometimes the dates are going so poorly that the man is convinced otherwise, and begins to open up with harrowing details of their various traumas, before they do this though they subtly put down the work that you are doing that they are intimidated by, and quickly pivot to school you on the AI app they are designing so they feel dominance. Then they call you “cute” or something else vaguely diminutive to pat you on the head harder to make themselves feel taller.

It’s a fascinating ride to watch certain people cycle through- the second they feel themselves open, the knives come out, and then they change subjects and pretend they were in control of everything all along. I admire straight men for their transparent belief in the tiny Thomas the tank engine inside their foreheads that talks over their date whenever she opens her mouth. To watch eyes emptily scanning your face, while you attempt to seem like you’re opening up knowing it’s not actually safe to is a lonely, but wholly powerful experience. You can almost hear the confetti of thoughts erupting in their heads as you sit there and talk about nothing. POW! SHE LOOKS LIKE MOMMY! POW! It’s powerful though because your relationship to yourself becomes stronger since there is no one there to love besides you. Bad dates are very exposing too, in a way that I secretly enjoy from all angles. So besides them being a waste of time, they hold a damp, unsavory salty place in my heart.

I don’t really believe that men are incompetent or that there’s something inherently untrustworthy about them, well… I actually am not sure that’s true I might believe that at the moment. Maybe since culture is still bending over for straight white guys I sorta shrivel at that culture being accepted and praised. Like if your psychology leans into that instead of treading against it then what do we really have in common? What’s in your attraction to me besides some form of patriarchal capture and violence? Or do you want to punt me high into the air and pedestalize me until I inevitably land splat back on the ground and you groan horrified at my ability to break. Forgive the abstract contemplation, but I finally have emerged out of some “fair maiden” phase of life and into a wiser version that I’m sure will look stupid in time. I have had many conversations with myself about how I have snuck past my own truths to appeal to men or have taken on their desires in this perverse banana splitting I do to feel powerful, but really I am just pulling a prank on myself.

If you don’t really believe in your gender, all of this “complexity” becomes fun bathwater to splash around in, but if you are identified with it, it feels like prison bars that fall down between people, mainly straight couples I’m talking about. I know that not everyone thinks of binaries in an inhibiting way. Some people enjoy a flouncy big hat at the Kentucky Derby and there’s nothing more to be investigated there. But some of us surprise ourselves. For instance, I really like Clay Aiken’s new song and find him to be hot. Couldn’t make that up if I tried.

I don’t believe going to dinner with someone over and over and then sleeping with them means anything or indicates partnership. My track record shows me, however, that I love being in a relationship, but I am engineered to become a container as opposed to a participant and so I empty and have to leave to fill myself again. Studies on my life suggest that my life force thrives within community and close friendships that all align on a unified purpose-mainly to play. When play is really taken seriously I am in love no matter what the relationship is. But do I have permission to just follow that? I’m at the age my mom was when she gave birth to me. Motherhood, in this economy?? But I believe that’s the only desire I have that a male man could offer me. His smile and sperm. “Men should just smile and sperm me” - a shirt I’d like to sell. This is all I remember. No new memories can be stored.