is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.

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Telling a Life. Privacy. Anarchy. Bow Wow Wow.

Telling a Life. Privacy. Anarchy. Bow Wow Wow.

This morning I got a letter from a diary reader asking for details about Mr. Perrone. Today�s topic of contemplation during the leg-shaving part of the shower, then, was �how strange is it that these diary entries form a narrative by which some form of a life story can be pieced together by people who don�t know me at all?� Of course, no piece of writing ever really captures a person. Evany and I were talking about this yesterday, how autobiographies sometimes lie, and biographies can pick and choose what parts of a person�s life to emphasize, and that can leave a person wondering what the truth is, or feeling let down by one version of a story and inspired by another. She is currently working on a bigger piece of writing that is about both the limits to the possibility of telling a person�s life and the ways in which we come to have unacknowledged ideas about what a good relationship is or ought to be. Or something like that. My continuing question along those lines is something like: how do people whose lives don�t fit readily into some template of how to be an adult� by what criteria do those people judge their own accomplishments? And how do they withstand the judgments of people who never wanted to question the assumptions or norms that living differently places in question?

In part my answer to such questions thus far has involved falling back on the public/private division I discussed when I was wondering whether an online diary is an oxymoron. No one on the outside of a life or a relationship will ever know what it is to be on the inside, though there will always be those who think they know, and there will also always be gifted observers and writers who do a good job of capturing some aspect of a life or a relationship. But the only two people who really know what matters about a relationship are the two people who share it. And that is how it should be. Love (and I�m not talking only about romantic love. this applies to friendships, and all relations that matter in some way that exceeds the surface-orientation of a public encounter) is unworldly. (And that is precisely why it is often ill-timed and disruptive, or at least indifferent to the plans we might like to make for ourselves.) And its privacy gives us a safe harbor away from all the glare of public light. Too much light will make anything wilt.

So an online diary is not an oxymoron. But no matter how much I chat on about my life, there is much that will never be said, and much that can�t be known. And there is much that I might attempt to convey that will be misconstrued, both because of my imperfect phrasings and because no two minds think alike on all subjects. A full life simply cannot--and should not--be told.

Last night I went to see Bow Wow Wow with Evany, Leah, Amy, Seth, Juliana, Jeff and Caroleen. It was a good show! After having dissed No Doubt just a few days ago, I should note that their drummer (who is playing with Bow Wow Wow) knows what he is doing. And he is doing it well, with or without his clothes on. It is of course fitting that Bow Wow Wow would play at a venue called The Pound. But whoa, The Pound illustrates for all of us why anarchy will never work. Picture the disaffected teen yelling �anarchy rules.� Dude. Anarchy is all about giving up the belief that anyone has the authority to rule over anyone else. This means that not even anarchy can rule. You either have to accept that and all the risks that go with it, or stop calling yourself an anarchist, punk motherfucker. Who is in charge of making these rules, and who are you to tell me where to stand or who can be on the patio? I felt like I was at The Warfield. Here you can see me, Amy, Seth and Juliana on the patio, wondering what we are not allowed to do.

At some point during the evening I unzipped my pants and showed my �happiness� underwear to Juliana. Perhaps this is another reason why I never wear pants? I doubt I would have pulled up my skirt to do such a thing! In any case, I am hoping that there are no causal links between that and the fact that Seth and Juliana disappeared 1/2way into the evening.

Another thing about pants: the world is so much hotter for the person wearing pants. And when I say �hotter� I do not mean �sexier.� I mean �uncomfortably warm in temperature.� My legs need to be freed of such fabric bondage. I HATE PANTS!

I do, however, love my silly Marshall Amplification girly T (which Evany has dubbed my "Marshall stack"), made by Jen Wang of NYC. I found it deep in one of my dresser drawers while I was figuring out which clothing to bring to Amherst and which to leave behind. I realize now that the tshirt looks like just another Urban Outfitters retro re-sewn tshirt. But I�ve had it forever, and it was sewn by one of the original hipster tshirt re-fabricators, back when I lived for a short time in a Bowery Street warehouse with a clothing designer named Jen and a photographer named Charlie, and I spent my days writing, while older Chinese women stitched clothing in the front room. I could tell that these women thought I was a lazy-ass who didn�t have to work for a living. And, given the comparison between the way I live and the way they live, I would probably never be able to convince them that they were wrong. Fair enough. (Case in point that we are never fully in control of how our lives will look to the outside world, no matter how much time or effort we put into telling our life stories. A full life simply can't be told, and it isn't fully up to us how the world will judge our choices and accomplishments.)

3:52 p.m. - August 07, 2004

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