‘when you give, when you receive, do it with both hands.’ it’s been both hectic and strained. fuck the diary entries because how does one ‘write down everything’ that happens to one. most days I feel like a dog walking on hind legs because people are still surprised that ‘your english is so good!’ and one isn’t supposed to be flamboyant or ostentatious with one’s command of one’s colonial tongue/stage presence/sex appeal/witchcraft/hosiery. I watched a terrible, self-involved movie last night and had trouble telling the leads apart. I have encountered a lot of self-involvement since I got here. a lot of preening, posturing. a lot of bad poetry. some good writing and some angry people. I went to a workshop and we were talking about how poetry is a perfect medium to write about the beginning of time, because, ‘after all, [we] weren’t there’. is that what you think? is it? I’ve been thinking a lot about the nature of time/space and predestination, about the cyclical quality of these temporal paths we’re all traversing, about how the idea of linear time has become so irrelevant. so reductive, and not at all satisfying. thinking about the fractal nature of our choices – each leading to a different multiverse – boggles the mind and fascinates. who would I have become? what have I already become. I’ve been spending time with a girl who offends and elicits the strangest of responses from strangers and I don’t think it’s her fault, not necessarily, but people seem both drawn to and repelled from her. they let her get away with so much and she says it’s the ‘belief in GOD!’ that does it, but I’m sure something else is at work. how many rules can you break? how do you convince someone to allow you to pay for a burrito for the price of a soda and throw in another soda into the bargain? to get tight-fisted minimart owners to give you things for free? how do you get away with insinuating that bank tellers are robbers, that rickshaw drivers are cunts, that that white woman touching your face and telling you you’re not attractive enough is a piece of mediocre shit, but do it in such a way that is both hilarious and spot-on? I think the magic is strong here.

I’ve been worrying a lot in recent days about how to get the wheel of dharma/destiny/fortune turning again. my magic friends say that my hand is on the wheel and I’m trying to steer it but MOVE YOUR HAND or it will be crushed. else, it stays the wheel. stop staying the wheel. stop telling yourself there is a place you have to get to when that place is Worry and you’re needlessly trying to follow a road you’re not even sure exists. I forgot how to dance in the very inside, where it’s hollow. I forgot you have to go lightly. I forgot about needing the chaos to propel you. I haven’t called my parents because I am afraid it will become apparent that we don’t know how to have conversations with one another. like anansi I am feeling myself again after the applause, after the wowed looks, after the indubitable thumbs-up and wonder that comes with performing. how like a god. how like a sinner. one needs to learn how to live with oneself without hankering after that validation. the most femme straight man I’ve ever seen (velvet shirt, brooch, bangles on both hands, feminine posture, softly spoken, crazy about ‘camp’ and ‘girlie’ bars called THE CUPCAKE CAFE) sat too close to me and spat on me with awful breath while speaking very gently. he gave me a plastic elastic pearl bracelet and told me my girlfriend was very lucky. I am still learning that my assumptions can be overturned. and I suppose he is, too, saying ‘I don’t want to stereotype, but I am surprised your poetry was so angry’. I am the angriest. I am the most confused I have been in a long while and that is beautiful. I don’t know what to do with the love and the tenderness when I am so far away and the only way I can give it to my loved ones back home is digital mastery. I had a powerful argument with the girl the other day and all I could think is Please Rate the Quality of Your Argument. give me feedback. show me I’m amazing at this communicative thing. how does one argue while feeling simultaneously like one wants to laugh because of how misunderstood one feels? I think I misunderstand myself too much. it was the full moon in aries a couple nights back. it’s a good time to change your life or punch someone in the face. I want to punch myself in the face. I want to not filter. I want to talk to strangers but I am afraid they will say they ‘have no money’ pre-emptively. talk to the tiny baby lesbians so earnest in their hoodies the buskers who sing like they’re pouring wine into the depths of your eyes the girl with the fat hair and gorgeous walk the hulking dyke who doesn’t smile the shivering one with the puppy who probably was a scammer.

what do I do with myself. letting the wheel turn seems to work. worry only stays your chariot. there have been so many projects in the making once I stopped beating myself up and being encumbered by my own paralysis. no one uses the chariot wheel to steer.