jiessicas

[jiessicas]

some notes on girlblogging

deep appreciation of bell hooks as a girlblogger [in piecing together her spiritual practice, she writes that she takes bits and pieces from different practices]

caroline busta’s piece in document magazine from 2021 lives in my head rent free [Instead of attempting to dismantle the master’s house using the master’s tools, it’s more something like: Let’s pool crypto to book the master’s Airbnb and use the tools we find there to forge a forest utopia that the master could never survive.]

ace sparkly kat's / adrienne maree brown's / alina stefanscu's / chia amisola's / olivia mckayla ross' prolific archival practices

substack scares me / i don’t know how to write on substack though i enjoy reading others’ (i mustered one post from fall 2022/winter 2023 & summer 2022)........ & this piece by terry nguyen on girlblogging is so good (its limits, its situatedness)

it’s mother’s day; continually thinking of EEAAO- that reconciliation after estrangement because of relational shifts made between the mother daughter; also thinking of discourse & how people were split on how realistic and/or insufferable this relationship was - it made me think of a real sort of an illusory learned helplessness that (not exclusively but whose experience i am familiar with) asian american daughters carry from growing up

in a generous reading/workshop, dana suggested the futurity of girlhood in a line i wrote; elsewhere, i wonder about how we give our childhoods futures, as we live with our child selves, how the ways we care for our children indicate how a society stewards its future

anything bell hooks has written about girlhood and children and the meditative distance between her self and ideas via the pen name she adopted

kaitlin m chan on the stakes - on a predecessor to girlblogging, collaging the overlaps between lived experiences, embodied reality, social/political/structural/institutional power - developing curiosity around others’ realities and interior worlds - locating oneself in this personal canon thru this process - how one’s personal canon becomes a chorus

the personal, circuitous routes we take in locating ourselves / desire paths / the sylvia plath quote i used for my senior quote - to speak deeply with anyone

spent the last year essay texting, and addressing public groups in in-person settings [facilitating workshops, readings, speaking] -- this was very Character Building For Me [i'm chasing the humanities based, discussion-based learning communities i didn't let myself have in undergrad]

there are so many different registers i want to speak in, simultaneously, on the internet; i want it to feel as seamless as i feel when i move between different social spaces in a given day and find myself naturally shifting with where i am

girlblogging as a practice in making the weather… the conditions for precipitating … girlcondensation as a practice in raining down, decisively

thank u to kazumi w whom i find lots of welcomed condensation <3

i forgot the tinyletter sunset date, sooooo i recompiled my subscriber list from old tinyletter notification emails, and sent out a lil email that was a precursor to the kernel launch 🫧

noticing the different kinds of centering that occur when i can take my time to speak (texting), and when i am placed in a time to speak (talking)

#girlblogging

[jiessicas]

unironically this was me on tuesday opening up my own google doc

in the bar passing the phone around saying “have you read this poem? have you read this poem?”

[jiessicas]

“The bottom line is this: You write in order to change the world, knowing perfectly well that you probably can’t, but also knowing that literature is indispensable to the world. The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way people look at reality, then you can change it…If there is no moral question, there is no reason to write. I’m an old-fashioned writer and, despite the odds, I want to change the world”

— James Baldwin

[jiessicas]

I started Djing because of my love for music and this desire to express the worlds I build within myself through music..somehow I've managed to forget that and got caught up trying to perfect it. I'm starting to practice again as a mediation for myself, I think in this way I'll find my true sound

[jiessicas]

01.10.24

i love you so much

[jiessicas]

01.07.24 it’s winter and the cold is hitting 😵‍💫

the nondeterminism of detritus; once-detritus, assemblages-to-be;

there are cathedrals fractaling everywhere for the mind to see (or something?)

(bottom row left to right: charles gadeken; patrick martinez; rupy c tut)

[jiessicas]

10.16.23 i think anything is possible / heaven is but a haven / a mythology of estrangement

#log

[jiessicas]

09.03.23 i am trying very hard to practice believing in the necessity of being me

(this week~ clocking in to my 12-8a, sometimes 1-9a, sometimes…… 🙈 & my 7p chia pudding… becoming through clockwork)

#hagsooo23 #s23

[jiessicas]

two renditions of my feelings about satellites and songs i like and being in/out of times/orbits (left, from august; right, from june; snippets written across winter 2022 - spring 2023)

#hagsooo23 #ty fi for getting me to print something :) #process

[jiessicas]

you can speak to anyone in a prayer

[jiessicas]

from the "slice of earth" workshop that fi & lil put on (08.18.23)

#hagsooo23

[jiessicas]

life has me feeling so 🥹💌❤️‍🩹🌙🐣 as of late. so much tenderness… so much necessary flintiness to protect that tenderness…

what a gift it is to be alive

[jiessicas]

june/july 2023 instagram story text-image collages 🪼🪼

#hagsooo23 #process

[jiessicas]

07.24.23 - 07.30.23

louise gluck: At the end of my suffering, there was a door

marcelo hernandez castillo: The lamps that wait inside me say come, the gift is the practice, the price is the door.

poets are such sweetly, necessarily, strategically useless beings; i like glancing at the menu even if i get an iced oat latte each time, the gesture of considering the other possibilities even if i may chose the same thing.

the spring that i unfolded back into its narration. i slipped in through the twist, look here, a mirror where i disappear.

me at grace cathedral: At the center of the labyrinth, there was a flower

??????????? ok wow this week was so intense but for the purposes of keeping up with some kind of update i'm uploading this lolol

things feel so full, and i feel myself really moved by each things that happened this week

i don't entirely know how i feel about all these things except that i'm wanting to pause to try to process all of these things - at the moment they feel like bits and pieces of images and feeling that each matter to me in different ways but i don't really know how they connect to one another (maybe they don't because time doesn't have to be teleological and it's fine) (i will note here i've been falling asleep on the couch most days...)

07.30.23 (sun)

pensive this morning but also happy cried - "i'm really happy you're in my life and through means that are of both of our accords / wishes" <3

picked up some pretty chairs (green, blue) from someone emptying their apartment near alamo square park

sat at automat for a lil w f & l then went to j's

saw t for the first time in a long moment and met v, set to a backdrop of jazz in a backyard, everyone was so familiar and comfortable w one another and it feels like a gift to get to step into a space like that

barted to east bay to catch a reading with marcelo hernandez castillo & ingrid rojas contreras that i'm still thinking about

late night shooting star cafe hangs with z, k, m 💭 many schemes underway

stayed up waaaay late w s, got crazy eyed because my working theory at the moment is that desire is at the core of Everything, it is Everywhere (My Obsessions Do Not Keep Me Up however i did stay up til 4 saying many many half sentences)

07.29.23 (sat)

so out of breath trying basketball this morning, "otherwise known as inequality ball" w v, d, s

"getting hit on and hit by a car - the two occupational hazards of running in san francisco"

getting crazy eyed talking about oppenheimer, as one does, it's funny to also remember that joyride is a piece of propaganda as well

wandered around destore, got hella sunburnt, etc

laid on j's couch to sift through all of my notes.....! from the last half year! j/me/s/n where sitting in different corners of the living room such that we saw each other through the frame of the window, or the bookshelf

carried a door home w s.. LOL

thai iced tea delivery to i

a devastating but necessary review of chen chen’s book, by angie sijun lou

07.28.23 (fri)

tab spacing has entered the chat... reading my own poems and wanting to hear the same cadences that i admire of others' poems

blick pickups; pier strolls with savory crepes; picked up "portrait of a ghost" to read on the pier for a little

theorizing interfaces with lil; "yeah my dad was a vc"

music and literature links ++ w f & c

powervixen afterwards; walked out at the end of the show to a misty lamplit stroll

07.27.23 (thurs)

spiraled w k at sfmoma….! don't even know where to begin here but fascinations w self help, sororities, appropriating vehicles towards others ends; turning over the model minority; bangh - speculative fictions, speculative instruments; native theories of mind +++++

undergrads from florida leaned over to tell us we should start that podcast we were talking about oh my gosh <3 it was so tender

we all went to a ksw reading and heard s read! z also came through, what a treat to sit in a room full of people at arc gallery

late night hangs w zzsskj hahaha at kowloon tong :) mango sagoooo +++

in a moment after the reading i thought, imagination and capacity are at stake

recognizing the mechanics of careerism, hope i can appropriate the structured choreography up until the point i dream of improv, remembering once again none of us are mere mechanism

07.26.23 (wed)

finished megan fernandes' "i do everything i'm told" -- "pound and brodsky in venice"; "phoenix"; "may to december"; "love poem"

re/read a.r. ammons' "modes against too much"

shuffled around my poetry books, and marveling at the books that have changed me, the poems in january of this year that have changed me & essays on poetry, like those in mary ruefle's "madness, rack, and honey," and "a poem as a machine?" by margaret rhee

texting lil plans for the thurs/fri/sat weekend! I Am A Social Creature

hung out at bpt and heard about a "political fellowship" started by a local entrepreneur / "you can tell irish people in new york because they're the ones just looking up and around" / bay area things: moving into an apartment complex and grilling together

suddenly blurting out: i don't want to do something stupid / there are plenty of things that are not stupid, like working at a bank, though they may be dry / i think i can stand drudgery, i can’t stand an apparatus that is doing something stupid

[redacted] is [redacted2]

stone fruit

07.25.23 (tues)

thinking about how experimental stories teach the reader how to read them as the story progresses, finds the form as it unfolds; wonder what it means to teach one another how to "read" or care for or love you as you begin to relate to one another

ran into s at the cafe, where i went to send a lil letter about rent raises (if you live in a rent-controlled unit in sf, check if your landlord has a license to raise your rent), thinking about butterflies and our friend whose name means butterfly

looping newjeans until it’s not longer possible to

read a bit of megan fernandes' "i do everything i'm told"

being a mild hater about [redacted] to c, who really liked it; appreciated the generosity of that convo which felt like an active practice in meeting someone in-our-differences (which has a slightly different feeling from Both Sidesism)

starting? continuing? what feels like a weird daunting process of decluttering; unearthed some corners of my room that may not have seen the light of day since i moved in ("i feel like i've been moving in for the last two years" between my own disorganization and rotating housemates) ~ it's finite but it's so long

i rotated my desk so that my back is to the wall, and cleared some floor space shuffling things into piles and filing away paraphernalia, and felt like i finally had a tenable workspace in my room (i'm going to look back on this whole house business and laugh at how deranged this all is...... but i'm currently In It)

sitting with the mild feeling of "i am drowning in books, i think" followed up with "i want to spend as much of my time catching up on them"

thinking about thich nhat hanh again and washing dishes; how ocean vuong said, "i spend more time washing dishes than i do writing poetry"

by eve i felt a natural close to the day, which i don't often feel -- it possible to do the little bits of work (breaking down boxes), however futile they feel, it feels like those little bits are, in that present, what is to be done (the usual worry about if i should be doing something else fades away, for a moment)

wellbutrin is working great <3 one step at a time

07.24.23 (mon) brain brrr like an overheating laptop fan; probiotics & pals

thinking about times people learn to drive from figures other than their parents, which for some reason makes me think of propagating plants; a propagation of drivers (l&f going to practice driving with f's sib!)

beginning living, or something which is to say, taking out the kitchen trash recycling compost, bathroom trash at the beginning of the week; sweeping up the fallen succulent; going mildly catatonic Thinking on the couch before managing to move to the bed to do the same

read alice sola kim's "now wait for this week" and in awe

a migraine set in (me, experiencing migraine & nausea - is my life falling apart / am i having an emotional breakdown)

my brain went brrr like an overheating laptop fan and then at the end of the day it was eased a bit with a voice hugs podcast / shuffling around my room to clean it / pickled goodies and probiotic drinks and a lil circle around the fire (coffee table candle) very thankful for my housemates ❤️‍🩹

#log #s23 #hagsooo23

[jiessicas]

07.24.23 notes on shame (or, on going through it then, going through it a little less so now)

i love to arrive, but hate to leave, which makes me late to things very often

because you and i are soft-bellied, porous (and so, permeable) beings, the feeling inevitably re/arrives through a new entry point, at which i always text you, "i feel like i've let myself down," it's the kind of feeling that magnifies the sense that everything i've done is "inadequate and embarrassing"

*haphazardly signs a cross over a former catholic.... to the beat of macarena*

i get a partiful invite to an event titled party(roommate lead gen event) and think, oh yeah, the city churns on, someone is leaving someone else, this is a thing that happens, though this time last year, leaving felt like a big deal

there's always someone moving out, someone new to the city, someone leaving their pristine furniture for recology or some other kind of reclamation

letting the words back in allows for more surgical operations, precise rewirings

being able to get out of my head when i dance is freeing, allows me to sidestep chronological time for a moment, is what allows me to continue on into the day

and i hope i can return to my words, my thoughts, without being subsumed by them, knowing there are other spaces i can depart for -- but i always want to come back

walking so i can arrive somewhere, even if it's home

an "ask polly" column's lines that have given me so much this year: "shame is the opposite of art" / “living in reality means becoming a scientist of shame…my shame makes my work possible” / “learn to treat yourself the way a loving older parent would”

louise gluck: at the end of my suffering / there was a door

marcelo hernandez castillo: the gift is the practice / the price is the door (my recording)

lucille clifton: and i taste in my natural appetite / the bond of live things everywhere (my recording)

morgan harper nichols: and you can still / find peace / and grow / in the wild / of changing things

in/consequential / as if there was a kind of retributive causality to live through

i feel psychologically, physically, unsettled from recent visits to the doctor, and a recognition of so many more things i want

in the past shame has felt like a punishment for joy -- shame freezes, makes every action tied to a deterministic reaction, casts the past as only a series of mistakes, casts X physical pain as not just a consequence, but a punishment, as if there was a kind of retributive causality to live through

it manifests in different ways; it seems, in what i've seen of you, the vulnerability is in disclosure, in giving a glimpse into the self; for me, the vulnerability is in receiving, in not turning away from others i hope to connect with, others who treat me with such kindness i don't intuitively believe i deserve

you text me lots of sweet, encouraging things, to which i reply - "the focus does feel like it’s more helpful when it’s on what it reflects of us and how we respond to adversity / the uncertainty is always daunting but that sense of dauntedness is a fear i won’t be able to figure it out [end up ok] just bc i can’t predict the future and that’s Fine"

there's another note on time i want to piece together, but for now:

july 2021 was heavy, july 2022 was heavy, july 2023 is steadier even if i don't know where we'll go from here -- <3

and left unsaid: there are many other things that happened between these julys that has made this current unfolding possible:

the homes that we made together, even if those homes no longer are the case, being carried and held by those homes into today

the unbelievable luck of something that feels like being thrown what seems like a life vest, out of nowhere

sometimes, in my not shutting up, bringing about pleasantly unexpected new paths / reaching toward, making my own luck in smaller ways

finding recommuning being with people who are grappling with similar things as me, having the great luck to grapple together

#journal #shame

[jiessicas]

07.17.23 -- 07.23.23

07.23.23 (sun) picnic @ little farm

picnic at little farm, the ride there and back with s&s <3

cannot escape cliche / that day is not this year

dreaming of small glowing object timer 

i think i better understand hinging and unhinging / realities are malleable etc etc 

i’m told i bring good vibes to the function

mathematical transformations; the object of study didn’t change but what you noticed did; was that a transformation or did you find a new point of entry?

gods favorite (kiosk order #1 at matcha cafe maiko, japantown edition)

looking for a new social media (listening to podcasts again)

learned of diplomatic immunity

07.22.23 (sat) japanese tea garden; prose & pals; n's bday <3

new newjeans ep in the car! i want to hear "super shy" in the club

remaining soft is how i get here / remaining flinty is how i preserve my softness, my ability to get there 

learned that the casio is the "terrorist watch"

i turned the corner and there you were; an altar, an arrow, a shrine in real-time, a monument for today;

remaining soft is how i get here; remaining flinty is how i preserve my softness, my ability to continue to get there

i am so happy for friends who are happier / so much i want to talk to p about

celebrating n's bday! he said "the future is short" and i felt the room tilt for a moment (and change color, as the lamps were set to due on a timed basis hehe)

07.21.23 (fri) picking poetry books; shuggie's

strategic scatterings, diligent dilettantes

trip to dogeared; saw a tiny puppy right next to a tiny baby in the bookstore

thinking about aunthood (buying a tiny bucket hat and the sundae school puppy fleece for someone else's dog)

the green light at shuggie's trash pies reminds me of the green in "all about lily chou chou"

asking people often "how did you feel about that" in part because of the lil kid in me that had to monitor the feelings of adults around me, but also because it seems really good for encouraging pause/listening to oneself in times we don't always remember to pause for

"we sound like war veterans"

07.20.23 (th) "all about lily chou chou" / jialing @ ugsf

athleisure (appropriating tennis aesthetics to sit in the sun outside to read "greek lessons")

knew today was the day to resume wellbutrin when i watched a video of a puppy eating an ice cream cone and felt compelled to eat an ice cream cone, just like that puppy

sometimes being dysregulated is so nice yknow 

i’m just trying to live my american dream (eat a little edamame potato croquette w chili crisp and wash it down with some ito en black milk tea in peace)

A Grand Unified Theory Of Dog/Daughterhood, Being Baby, But Also An Older Sister, Probably, Also, “I Bet On Losing Dogs” (2016) 

knew today was the day to resume wellbutrin when i watched a video of a puppy eating an ice cream cone and felt compelled to eat an ice cream cone, just like that puppy -- ie, going through a moment in which i see any pup and think "it seems like it would be nice to be you" (it's There Are More Dogs Than Children In San Francisco x I'm Baby syndrome)

thinking tenderly of student journalism in light of the student journalist who got someone to resign over their reporting

watched "all about lily chou chou" my god

saw jialing at undergroundsf, what a treat! i bring a sort of nonverbal athleisurely vibe to the club that my brain cells thank me for when i get home at the end of the night 

07.19.23 (w) ucsf visit; japantown loitering

times i feel like a surrogate or stand in / times i feel nonfungible 

thinking of my parents as poets; not redemption but remembrance; not transcendence but immanence 

finished reading mckenzie wark's "raving"

felt flowers in the vase

called c; thinking about different kinds of love; the loves that help me stay grounded in the present and the loves that help me embrace the future as it arrives. a kind of love wherein i learn the joy is rooted in peace, in building together; pleasure, a necessity, and one i want to nourish me

with c, I talked about feeling useless in contexts, feeling powerful when I am with people, feeling out power, not for anyone’s use but our own; he talks about feeling useless in one context, getting better so as to be useful in a diff context; feels like we are on opposite sides of the same plane;

there’s a mole on the back of my left ear, he says; we say i love you through subtitles when i'm on the bus; this call and the day before makes me miss him very very much

pop pop pop ice cream… not in the Bible

"that’s either drama or a jess instagram post"

i admire moments of surface disagreement to recognize the shared root that could be grasped together; i haven’t transcended but i found immanence; i don’t believe in redemptive arcs but i do believe in remembrance

i am so grateful for ucsf; i sip on a little juice box; i am instructed to wiggle my toes to distract myself; got a photo of an ultrasound of my uterus (beautiful, perfect lol); i stand in front of the poetry plant tablets and cry a lil bit;

the joy/power i reach for is to stave off my existential dread

i walk along sutter in the sun and wander into a grocery store that has piroshki, potato salad, and i sit at their counter to eat

groceries from nijiya, noncommittally wander through daiso, pick up an eraser for lil and finally get pen refills / a pencil sharpener and eraser for myself

then i sit on a bench outside of marufuku ramen & Free Associate to k!!!! Gosh; so many thoughts about lorde and gordan in thanks to them

07.18.23 (tu) bart movie screening; tender media primers

read alina stefanescu's piece on abortion: "the author of the abortion is 'I': against redemptive forms and genres"

intimacy doesn't need a reason / gray area / learning i am most generative and feel most powerful when i am useless in through the lens of instrumentality

the craven desire to be an “intern” again; to be a puppy (cute and clueless; bark bark arf arf woof woof; etc)

essay texting with k; concern with people's imagination, the foreclosure of it; a human/political concern

how was today? media consumption day--

a primer for tenderness via n - "throw someone a pep rally" ask polly (hard work becomes joyful when we make a connection to the hidden abilities and talents inside us...making that connection to our buried abilities, our muted imaginations, and our blocked desires becomes easier when we recognize that every living being is filled with just as much potential as we are) -> think being a teaching artist would be incredible for this reason

the club is bumping // the ladies look good // the alcohol i flowing // there is much tenderness in the world, and in this room

angie kang's comic, "desire paths"

read "what it was like" by natasha rao sent to me via c

ran into v: joshua tree was a midpoint between phoenix and california; consulted on a drink choice and got a drink as the consultant fee B)

maybe i read it yesterday but today it feels present - “‘What happens to me next is inscribed without causation… I will be passing into myself’” - from angie sijun lou's story, motorcycle factory

i walked out the door listening to linda diaz's music; feeling like i had a lot of time in the world, which i did!

gifts for people - earplugs; felt flowers; the burrito that d held, that looked like a bouquet also

check out "tunnel vision: an unauthorized BART ride" !!

Process notes from chatting with s

Times we have had solid working relationships?

When do we know it’s enough - having a story to tell, something to collapse the theory into 

Time is clear in the thread, what about the meta thread?

07.17.23 (mon) two wolves; parmesan soup; gathering; generative babies; southwest

sean (short for parmesan) would be a beautiful name for a baby girl ~ l made parmesan soup, and we added chicken sausage to it for the ultimate pizza soupppp

gathering deadlines; (categories here)

two wolves - raver that wants to be lightly eviscerated outside by some groovy tunes; writer that wants to cocoon inside under a bunch of blankies w a notebook

rhys - i had two longings & one was fighting the other. i wanted to be loved & i wanted to be always lone

i wish to indulge a little less so i can be a little more diligent !! or i wanna be more diligent about my indulgence

in what ways do i feel ready? in what ways do i wanna be able to choose something not as an escape? i wanna write and document today, then clean at home, want a functional workspace, less excess

readings: sour heart jenny zhang; closet space kming chang; obit victoria chang; franny choi

my lil sis' first day of work! she sent some generations of her as a baby via some app which kinda looked like me as a baby...

generative baby with fucked up hands but she's cute

i generated some of my own and sent to c; dislocation, seeing hugging face stuff, poorly rendered artifice, poorly utilized hyperrepresentation (dating apps, egg donations grotesque in their own way)

what is the feeling of dislocation? seeing yourself outside of yourself, any kind of familiarity that is defamiliarized is a dislocation, somthing you don't know how to place yet; the injury, when something is moved out of its usual or expected location

sat in the sun to journal

found a cool utility dress at o+f that makes me wanna sew

curled up in a corner at the commons to calendar; felt like calendar was in a good place in thanks to the franticness of last week // met v in passing who made me think of the southwest

technologies for the psyche, vs technologies for the ego

the fun of telling two people about one another

listened to music for 18 musicians

i’ve slept 7 + hours every day since wednesday and i’m reconfigured

i feel like i am on some hamster wheel hmm / or i feel scattered; it’s not bad i am just like “hm what shall propel me / what shall i propel myself with now”

from James Turrell - “Science strives for answers, but art is happy with a good question.”

i want to work on computation that brings us closer to our bodies / technologies that get us closer to our selves

Affirmations: My Obsessions Nourish Me . They Do Not Destroy Me 💯💯

Affirmations: I Refrain From Losing Sleep Over My Obsessions (happy to report a week straight of sleeping ? 7+ hours ? i truly cannot recount the last time i did that was)

why did this just flip a switch in my brain

every person is a puzzle i guess; "If you ask too many why's you end up like 250k years in the past at the dawn of man"

there’s a meme where people are now like “not in the [reference text]” and ap styleguide is hilarious /// In Praise Of An Expansive Usage of “Situationship”: A Treatise

times i used notes app as twitter before i caved in to use twitter as twitter

RIP Dead Inside, Who Once Walked Into The Club (He's Not Dead Dead He's Just Lightly Immobilized From Dancing) ~ can still barely walk from dancing

return window passed and check's already cashed 

#hagsooo23 #s23 #log

[jiessicas]

time to begin again