thoughts on self-expression

 good afternoon, everyone. diving right into a thought process here

(soundtrack: depressive silence - depressive silence ii)

I've been lucky enough in my life to experience many beautiful moments, to ride the swells of beauty and pain in waves. the memories i hold dear are rich in sunshowers, lush trees and stained glass windows, beams of sunlight and midnight skinny dipping and racing bike rides down to the river on sweltering, humid days. laughing with people i love while listening to 10,000 Maniacs at sunset. 

romanticism, put sweetly. 

but as i've gotten older -- maybe -- i feel like it's harder and harder to be that way. sometimes i feel (probably incorrectly) that no one wants to hear my romantic fantasy anymore. it's sort of like playing pretend, except it's not really pretend, because the moment is present -- but the fantasy, the game is imagining the final credits rolling behind you at every moment, choosing the song playing in the movie soundtrack. my friends and i, we used to score everything. every midnight drive, every skyline view, every random hangout or walk for coffee had a soundtrack to it. 

i don't think i've lost that skill forever, but i've felt like it's fallen out of practice. when you make every moment special -- when you romanticize everything you can, even in the corny ways, the american beauty plastic bag in the wind -- everything becomes more special. at least to me. 

headphones are one good thing. everywhere with earbuds, resist taking both of them out. control your ambience at all times. choose the song that plays right as the airplane lifts off of the ground. listen to movie scores and classical music in the sunshine, listen to hard hitting music when you're angry. make playlists for the most mundane acts, the more quotidian the better. 

playing dress up with yourself is another, wearing an outfit that (even just for you) expresses some sort of character... i've held on to dresses and heels for so long waiting for the opportunity to go to some fancy jazz club and pretend to be some mysterious patron. new york is good for that, i think i haven't taken enough advantage of it yet. it's pretty easy to dress however you want and show up to some random manhattan bar where you know no one and pretend to be whoever you want. and if someone catches on, it doesn't even matter, because what do they care anyway?

but more than all of this -- i've been missing that feeling of "today's going to be something special", i've been caught up in a million ways moment to moment on paying bills and finishing projects owed and trying to get myself in some kind of emotional order -- 

realizing as i write all of this that the biggest problem is myself with this. the fantasy is my own, and it's mine to build. maybe i haven't been opening myself up in the same way. maybe it's time to rebuild my little castle in the sky lol 

anyways, list of what i'm into rn

• speed grapher (2005 gonzo anime)
• devil may cry 5 (i just finished it i'm obsessed w it)
• final fantasy vii (only on disc 1 tho)
• yakuza 0 
• his dark materials trilogy by philip pullman
• cargo shorts
• weed over alcohol
• cutting out alcohol for that matter (it's started making me anxious?)
• tempo changes in dj sets
• going to the beach
• smoothies