🫖 Hello! Admittedly, I’ve been off my game lately. My writing has been fits and starts, bits and pieces. I scrapped 3 versions of essay 30, feeling like each was bad and empty. At first, I tried to write about comfort but eventually settled on waste. A healthy reminder that even eight months into this project, I continue to have bouts of unshakable insecurity. I hope you enjoy, and fingers crossed I emerge from my rut soon. 🫖
One night, I had a dream that a person in my life needed help. I had to figure out how to save them. The next night, I dreamt that they were holding me hostage at gunpoint. I had to figure out how to escape from them.
My algorithmically-brewed horoscope informed me that my work this month is to understand the difference between chasing hard and holding back. Woof.
I. Of energy
Without fail, on any day of the week, at any time of day, you can find the most hungover and drugged-out Lower Manhattanites at C&B. I crunched on the end of an almond croissant, christening the folds of my scarf with a shower of crumbs and powdered sugar. Two sweatpants-clad Julia Foxes gobbled breakfast sandwiches and complained about how their pills hadn’t kicked in yet.
A man and his toddler peered through the café window. They’re all out of the good pastries, bud. Only croissants left. They moved on. I realized it was my third croissant day in a row. I attributed this to the unsatisfactory nature of each croissant previously purchased. Too soft. Too sweet. Yet, my dissatisfaction never stopped me from eating them tip-to-tip.
I remembered a chilling aphorism, often repeated by my father growing up: better to waste it in the landfill than waste it in your body. I thought about all of the last bites and half-drinks I’ve gulped without desire, rather than leaving them forlorn. I don’t know what’s better. To abandon or absorb that which does not serve you. I think about all I’ve absorbed in the last couple years. New habits that are bad for my health. New jokes and oaths that I’ve repeated for clouty shock value. I got in trouble recently. I wonder if my remorse was sincere or if I was just upset that I got caught. I wonder if the city is polluting my soul.
My phone shimmied and shook, telling me that it was time to return to the laundromat. I popped the last bite of pastry into my mouth, satisfied. Yes, at last, that would be the croissant to end my streak.
II. Of money
I sampled a sip of the Francis Ford Coppola Diamond Collection Red Blend (2019) that my sober friend won in a raffle and handed off to me. I raised an eyebrow. Not bad. Tasted like the type of wine I would have liked before New York made me insufferable. Drinkable, one might call it. What is the opposite of drinkable? Nonpotable? Edible? I’ve had my fair share of natural wines that tasted like poison or string cheese.
That night, I spurned the $65 I had already spent on concert tickets and stayed home. I watched an unwatchable rom-com and went to bed at an hour unreasonable for a Friday. I put Francis in the fridge to test the theory that any red can be better chilled.
On Monday, a friend and I spent $200 apiece on dinner for no reason whatsoever. We decided to cosplay immense wealth, despite our combined salaries reaching well below six figures. A bottle of wine, oysters, fries, halibut, pasta, spinach, dessert and amaro. The table was tiny, the plates were huge, and each serving was the size of a Hershey’s kiss (I credit my friend for this delightful metaphor). “Enjoy this feast,” the server said in a way that was possibly sincere but came across as the most condescending thing I’ve ever heard in my life. The second he walked away, we burst into laughter. Oink, oink, hungry little piggies! He could smell us from a mile away, lowly scrubs that we were.
III. Of hope
At Kiki’s, a friend asked me what—if anything—I found redeemable about Catholicism. I got a little worked up. I said that its essence is love and forgiveness, despite getting muddied up in practice. I complained that Americans are too quick to reject ritual, which leaves us feeling lonely and insane. I admitted to liking certain aesthetic qualities and I confessed that I pray most nights, even if I don’t identify as a believer. Why? another friend asked. I said that it’s a way to hope for good. A wish for the health and happiness of my friends and family. A way to reflect on my shortcomings and set intentions to do better. An attempt to manifest justice. A way to say I love you to the void and hope that it might love me back. I looked into everyone’s eyes to challenge me, to tell me that I was wasting my time. Everyone shrugged a milquetoast fair enough. I stepped down from my soapbox and refilled my half-empty glass of house white with house red. The blood of Christ, amen.
IV. Of life
After spending less than an hour in one of New York’s most spiritually empty museums, a friend and I decided to get a drink at the Chelsea. We talked about whether the pursuit of fun is selfish. Gusts of wind made us shiver as other patrons tumbled like dominos, fumbling for cigarettes.
Arthur Miller was one of the many artists in residence at the Chelsea. He wrote with intrigue and disgust about the shabby bohemia created on Twenty-Third in the Sixties:
It had always stuck me as odd, how glamorous a number of writers thought New York was. For me, born on 112th Street and Third Avenue, the city was certainly the world’s most interesting place but surely not a field of diamonds glittering under the moon, filled as it was with mere people rather than infinite possibilities. Behan seemed star-struck, putting in a lot of time in nightclubs wearing a proper suit and tie and uncorking Irish stories and one-liners that would be printed next morning in Leonard Lyons’s column, even as he was dancing as fast as he could toward his dying. I came on him one afternoon standing outside on the sidewalk in brilliant sunshine, happily talking to some woman while an unnoticed trickle of vomit dropped from the corner of his mouth on to his tie right through his speech.
“The Chelsea Affect,” Arthur Miller.
A heartbreaking portrait. Dancing toward death—beautiful and damned. If the rocks below are waiting for all of us, is it not better to approach the cliff carefree, jubilant—and, perhaps—sedated? But, I’ve never really believed that ignorance is bliss.
What a waste, it is said when someone dies young. It’s also considered a waste to grow old without ever having glittered under the moon. Nancy Spungen received her mortal wound at the Chelsea at twenty. I paid twenty-five dollars for a martini. Five more dollars than years she had to live. What was once shabby becomes inevitably chic. Today, a single night at the hotel will set you back anywhere between $325 and $1500, according to their immaculate website. It’s disgusting to die young, but it’s disgusting to be alive in the year 2023.
I encountered a tree with a leaf of a tear-away calendar, affixed with Scotch tape to its bark. It was dated Wednesday, June 15, 2022 with the following quotation: “The aim is to balance the terror of being alive with the wonder of being alive.” I did some sleuthing into my own life. What was I up to on June 15, 2022? My photo roll offered nothing. On June 14th, I stumbled across a marching band on the street. On June 16th, I snuck into Gramercy Park and got locked in. Terror and wonder aside, what about the nothingness? The days with no evidence of your existence.
I met a friend at a coffee house to write in solidarity before heading to Syndicated to see “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed.” The documentary’s emotional center was the relationship between the artist/activist Nan Goldin and her sister, Barbara, who died by suicide in 1965. At the time of her death, the following excerpt was found in her pocketbook:
Droll thing life is—that mysterious arrangement of merciless logic for a futile purpose. The most you can hope from it is some knowledge of yourself—that comes too late—a crop of unextinguishable regrets.
Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
This quotation strikes me as the epitome of despair. The outlook that results from the terror of life eclipsing any hope of its wonder. It’s a blameless perspective. Perhaps, even reasonable. But, it’s also a fucking waste.
5 songs for waste
“Blue World,” Mac Miller
“May This Be Love,” Jimi Hendrix
“And I Love Her,” Kurt Cobain
“You Send Me,” Otis Redding
“Love Is A Losing Game - Original Demo,” Amy Winehouse
🫖 Goodbye! Hoping to post something for paid subscribers mid-week. Stay tuned. 🫖
lovely, Charlotte! the croissant bit made me think that you should watch "daisies" if you haven't already