#marginal notes

#repost @schafferlibrary.  I am interested in this gathering of felines, as found in a letter contained in the John Bigelow (1817-1911) collection at the Special Collections Department of Schaffer Library, Union College (Schenectady, New York, USA).  The cats are named Mary Kemp, Minny, Black Kitten, Tortoiseshell, and Lucy, and were drawn by Poultney Bigelow, son of John and Jane Bigelow, included in a letter from March 15, 1875.

Maxim of Quantity: you say what you need and no more

Maxim of Quality: speak truth m’dude

Maxim of Relevance: say shit that’s relevant to the convo

Maxim of Manner: be clear and unambiguous”

01.24.2017 sketch

Perhaps it's time for another break.

And every time, somehow, you are miraculously spared. I crash down like a waterfall right in front of you, only a few steps away, covering you in spray, bending the light and creating brief rainbows here and there.

Help me.

That desperate need to grab your hands so I won’t fall. Fighting you and fighting myself at the same time, wanting to run away from those white sheets, away from my own passion. And every time, choosing to stay.

There is nothing more important than the right side of your neck and your chin. What a strange love.

In the first years, I would wrap my arms around myself and say, "This will pass."

Today I hold myself and say, "This will not pass. You will have to make a room for this feeling inside yourself and let it live there however it can."

Pablo immediately saw me as a resource, something that could be taken out of its natural habitat and used. For some reason, I gave him a few extra chances. Maybe I liked his sad eyes and the fact that he works as an ambulance driver. And he reads books. I love men with books in their hands so much. He arranged a date twice and failed to show up twice. I bought him a gift. He doesn’t like sweets, so I bought him Armenian cheese from a Russian store. He said he was busy and sent me a photo from the gym. They seem to have some kind of cult around gyms here. The previous one, the BMW owner who shot at cats with a rifle, also told me he skipped the gym for a date with me, and I failed to appreciate the sacrifice. I suppose every era has the heroism it deserves.

I stared thoughtfully at the gray sea and ate Armenian cheese. I remember Evgeny, whom I had loved so passionately, also never came. I stood in the autumn wind wearing a black coat while he kept calling and asking me to wait just a little longer. It went on for hours until I heard his friends laughing in the background. He was already in Yasenevo while I was still waiting for him at VDNKh. Animal cruelty. The first experiments with love. He once said about me, "It’s nice when you have a little dog running after you." My dog always walks ahead of me, pulling the leash tight, but that isn’t philosophy, it’s poor training in an animal that used to be beaten. My dog hurries through life wildly and recklessly. Dogs usually grow out of that with age.

My first passionate lover, Pavel, lured me onto a date under the pretense of needing to pick up a book from me. I resisted his charm for a year. He met me in the freezing cold at Turgenevskaya Station. I was wearing expensive high-heeled boots borrowed from my sister. Before leaving home, I told myself in the mirror that nothing would happen between us. Then I put on black stockings under a short skirt in the middle of a snowstorm.

I decided to run away on foot to Kurskaya Station, and he walked with me to see me off. Then we stood embracing each other at the station, letting train after train pass by. The air smelled of urine and cheap coffee. And we were happy. I stayed with him until I missed every train home. We lasted a year, tangled in sheets and mixing our breathing together in the dark. After that we silently suffered from each other for many years, keeping our distance. On that first night, his turtle died under the kitchen table. We drank sweet wine and sat hugging on the edge of the bed. I stroked his hair while holding his head against my chest. Pavel...

Carlos turned out to be braver, and he also spoke English fluently. He charmed me because he works with children and genuinely loves them. He didn’t come because of stomach pain, but he was telling the truth. Thin, handsome, carrying the faintest trace of bad breath, a traveler who probably really does have digestive issues. Kind, very deep eyes. Five languages. A difficult life. Moving from place to place. Self-sufficiency. Wild hair. A strong, expressive nose.

"I’m not ready for a relationship," he said an hour after the date began.

The trembling sunbeam went out instantly. No, I no longer judge people who refuse the main course and believe they can just take a small piece from someone else’s life. I do the same thing when I pick the prettiest fragments from broken tiles lying on the street. I also eat only dessert when I’m on my period. The difference is that periods last six days, not years. Eating only dessert is a bad habit. It can make your stomach hurt.

"Should we kiss?" "Of course."

My deliberate openness and calmness. Nothing at the touch of his lips. Completely extinguished. Maybe I don’t know what I want either. But I know exactly what I don’t want, and that is already a compass. I no longer want to feed people who do not like eating.

This week broke every record. A pack of croissants for a young man searching for food in dumpsters. Pastries for an acquaintance who is homeless and reads books. Rainbow ice cream for a hungry drunk. I send Katya over with the gifts. It’s impossible to refuse something handed to you by a child saying, "A present." There is neither superiority nor vanity in it. One of the miracles of children is that they are unclouded mirrors. You can really see yourself standing in front of a child.

Because they entered my life hand in hand, it was incredibly difficult to separate one from the other in my mind.

My family thought I would become a lesbian and hate men for the rest of my life. But the opposite happened. Little by little, I began to study myself and sexuality.

At first through self-portraits, taken secretly, hidden from everyone for years, existing only for me. There I was, naked. Look at me.

Then through observing my pregnant body and through giving birth to my daughter.

Then, unexpectedly, through extraordinary conversations about s*x with someone very close to me, and through therapy. Through learning my own body and my own sensations.

And now, through actively showing myself.

There is nothing dirty or vulgar in it. S*x is one of the most aesthetic and beautiful things in the world. Unfortunately, for many people it is not.

I remember my second husband, who cannot eat eggs because he was force-fed them as a child. I remember refusing to eat halva for years. Because I loved it so much and ate it greedily, I was once force-fed it while my head was held in place until I cried and choked.

The problem is never the halva. It is always the violence.

S*x is sold to the world like fast dopamine or drugstore hair dye. It is often reduced to mechanical movement at best, and at worst distorted through the same violence or through bad acting.

But s*x is sensuality and the suspension of rationality. It is a chance to glimpse a very deep layer of another person for a moment. It is intimacy, an experience some people never truly have even once in their lives.

It is the unfolding of individuality.

It is a flower blooming open: "There I am, completely before you."

It is the merging of two worlds for a brief moment.

That is the side of s*x that fascinates me most.

Maybe that is why d*ckpics have never meant anything to me, and why I always prefer the eyes of the person I’m speaking to.

Maybe that is why casual encounters do not interest me.

I need much more than another person’s body.

I want to dive into another person’s depth.