Naslov se mijenja

gentle blogging in 2019

Bir tejsting

četiri boce Božićnog piva od Medvedgrada

Došao je trenutak posezanja za zadnjim bocama alkohola u svom stanu od kojih su neke bile sa mnom od dvije i šesnaeste. Naime, htjela sam vidjeti kako će se okus istog piva (ali različitih godina 'berbe') razviti s vremenom. Budući da se radi o višegodišnjem procesu, kontinuirano sam oklijevala odlučiti da je baš ta godina u kojoj jesam zadnja godina skupljanja. No, u skladu s procesom puštanja u kojem sam trenutno (a i općenito), zaključila sam da je sada vrijeme da otvorim sve četiri boce i usporedim okuse.

Iako volim pivo i degustirati što više različitih, ne koristim terminologiju kojom se opisuju okusi piva u tim nekim pivo-recenzentskim krugovima. Umjesto toga, opisala sam kako sam znala i osjetila. Pijuckala sam u različitim redoslijedima, počevši od najnovije prema starijima, pa zatim na preskokce. Tako sam nadopisivala, stoga opisi koji se ponavljaju su očito najdominantnija karakteristika te boce. Valja također reći... Prva boca je iz dvije i šesnaeste i dugo vremena nije stajala u frižideru (ta je bila za nekoga kome nikada nije stigla... i ostala zaboravljena preko proljeća, ljeta i vjerojatno jeseni...). Druga je isto iz dvije i šesnaeste, ali je svoje vrijeme provela u frižideru. Treća je iz dvije i sedamnaeste i bila u frižideru. Četvrta od prošle godine isto je bila u frižideru. Pila sam ih hladne, ali i kada su se malo ugrijale. Jedino sam zadnje popila do kraja. Dojmovi su:

kiselo. gazirano. nije baš za piti.

gazirano. nije kiselkasto. nekako nabrijano. blago gorak aftertaste. samo je gazirano. bite. ali gazirano i dalje. gazirano, sa zagrizom.

slatko. pitko. kiselkastije. malo vuče na gose, a opet gorkasti aftertaste. možda malo razvodnjenije. flat, with a sweet aftertaste. flat. malo flat.

pitko. blago. voćno. karamela. najviše arome. gorkasto.

slika datuma otisnutih na bocama piva


Falit će mi pivo.

A! Da. Nisam ništa očekivala, ali zaista mi je najfinije bilo najnovije, tako da ovaj eksperiment vjerojatno neću uskoro ponoviti.

Patejtas patatas

I would like to continue exploring the topic of perception – how feelings affect it and how it affects decisions. I have no specific desire to document my current state, but for the sake of the exploration, I can say that I'm slightly tired, that the run I took didn't particularly lift my mood, that I ate enough to feel sluggish and that I am feeling fine. Today was a warm and sunny day, one worthy of spring. I like spring, because I get the impression I have more energy, more initiative and more opportunities to attend events that are popping up left and right. I'm also much better with warmer weather, although I've begun to make friends with the cold in preparation for disappearing into some far north European forest.

My current mood could be described as neutral. The day is slowly coming to an end, so the energy is low and calm. The only conflict I'm dealing with right now is how to play music and still hear the sound of my keyboard as I type. While the sun was still up, however, I felt playful. I cracked jokes about things that would have worried me yesterday. I felt possibilities in the air and a bold promise of good things to come. The two thousand and nineteen I had faith in ever since two thousand and eighteen was here. There were no problems, at least none that are a match for someone who is as cool as I could be. I had been dealing with personal limitations recently, but that had been flipped today. Today I remembered what lofty goals and discreet megalomania were. The thought that I'm entering one of my loops of jumping between extremes crossed my mind, but I figured, if the lows insist on happening and I cannot prevent them, I might as well not cripple the highs. The highs are not something I can maintain, but they might be something I can hit for a brief moment. I won't always be ready for everything, but there could exist a flash of a moment when I am ready and able for everything. The actual ability might not even matter as much as the feeling.

narcissus flowers more flowers received for being a woman and it being daffodil day. it also has to do with breast cancer, but it works as a metaphor for narcissism, too

I get frustrated when I cannot understand something. Or when I cannot connect to something, unless it's something I am not interested it. On Thursday I went to see Choreographic Fantasy No. 3 for the second time. I like revisiting content, especially performances, as they are variable, even when they try to be very precise and clean. I had no qualms with it and while I could understand it, I again couldn't connect with it, not knowing why beyond speculating it's simply not something that excites me. A flash of connection happened during the first time the dancers started expanding the space onto the stairwell, but otherwise I was watching and trying to let the performance enter me. Beside that flash it hadn't and instead, regardless of all the ways in which the space and the movements function as a single unity, the active work of the dancers, the interesting particularities of their bodies, relations and decisions, the invested time and effort from the whole team, the music and the changing compositions, I couldn't connect to anything except to how much psychological pain I was in. I saw their gazes, I saw their clothes, I saw their energies, my focus was decidedly on the performance, but all of it was nothing against an overwhelming need to cry. I fought it, leaving crying on people's events in two thousand and seventeen, but the overwhelming feeling of dread was still louder than anything else. One interesting tidbit is that during the first time I saw the performance last year I felt similarly, minus the crying. It begs the question, is it the piece? Is it how the audience is set up to sit? Is it what I'm carrying with me? Is it my cargo in interaction with the piece? I don't know.

white dance studio with a stairwell, lights and many lines lines lines lines

The only thing I knew in that moment was that I felt psychological pain on par with an untreated migraine or gallbladder attack and that I wanted to cut off the offending part. Ignore it. Talk to it. Not be distracted by it. Refocus on the performance in a different way. Trivialize it. Treat it. Embrace it. Taunt it. Rationalize. The only thing I consistently refuse to do is normalize it. And so, throughout a piece that I may even now say I enjoyed, I was in an unbearable state which remained unaffected by what I did, how I conceptualized it and where my attention was. I generally try not to entertain thoughts about death, because I want to die at an old age, but when all else fails, the fantasy of dying and the assumed relief it brings seems like the only exit. Even with the clear and available knowledge in my consciousness that the pain will pass on its own. Yes – a couple of hours later I was fine. Dazed and lost, a bit thrown back by the experience, but much better. The following day I was better a smidgen more, but still not well, until the evening after which I felt quite good.

How am I supposed to be able to have consistent opinions about things, see or understand anything with these large oscillations of state and/or perception? Because guess what. As much as I enjoy spring, last year I was dampening the painful states with a lot of alcohol and rage. It was fine because I hid the alcohol that exceeded social norm levels (might have been visible regardless) and because the rage was pointed towards people that were doing a really bad job, so it was 'justified'. And yet, great things managed to happen at the same time. Friendships, meetings, artistic accomplishments, experiments, activist gestures, new experiences. So do I enjoy spring because it's so full or do I feel overwhelmed and stressed because it's so full?

Offering one decision, one solution, one conclusion or one opinion about something is zeroing in on a specific aspect of a thing and not viewing it fully. That is not a bad thing, those kinds of reductions and simplifications serve a purpose, but then there's people like me, who want to understand and see things as fully as possible, while at the same time keeping the benefits that simplification brings. My motivation is clear – I don't want to make conclusions based on current states, in case that state is one that's arguing that the solution is to stop existing, but I also cannot stay in a perpetual 'it depends' or 'it's both' or even 'it's everything' because my physical and psychological human capacities can only handle so much content before they shut down. Plus, it halts decision-making. Sometimes I think I see people who can make meaningful decisions and keep things simple without making them superficial. Mirage, mistaken perception or actually real? I have no idea, but the myth is stimulating.

Post scriptum

The actual best strategy for living my life might be to completely focus on the enjoyable aspects of something that has a lot of it, while taking a bigger picture approach when I'm feeling an overwhelming amount of pain, because all states might not be created equal. That is as brazen (bezobrazno) as it is difficult to achieve, but it sounds very sexy.

Filin d misin parc

I disappeared from the landscape of this blog for several reasons. First, I continued to compromise on posting times. Being late one day led to a second day, then a third and now to almost a month since the last post. Second, I was switching PCs. It's not a real reason, because I still had a second PC to use, but it made the decision to take an unannounced writing break easier. The break also halted my Mastodon and Pixelfed posts. As I write this, Mastodon has been revisited with a couple of toots, while Pixelfed remains quiet until I manage to install a sensible Adobe Photoshop version. Although, I could prepare an image for it on my other PC, which I've used for this post's visuals.

the full moon above a cathedral after drinks on the 22nd of february my friend and me ran into the moon. it wasn't full, which is good, because that would have killed us

I am again in a state of unrest because I cannot grasp the vastness of the world. Except not even the world this time, but just the complexity of computer hardware, software, (in)compatibilities, bad code, bad design, bad functionality and so on. I may have to simply accept that even with the cleanest of installs and only the most necessary of software, the PC I'm using is something that I will never fully see or understand. That it's not simple or elegant. That it never will be those things, because my life doesn't have room for the meticulous study and setup of a Linux OS. Not to mention Windows-only (or Mac but that's beside the point) software that I need for 'professional purposes'.

There's a strategy I utilize when I'm at the gym... There are many people there, so there's a lot of energy in the space. They're varied and a lot of them operate on a frequency or quality that is incompatible with mine. So what do I do? Search for another place? Find a way to work out at home? Try to coexist in subtle communication and compromise? Not at all. I just ignore it. I don't look. I even push it away from me. Sometimes the energy is different, which changes the strategy, but overall this method is as elegant as all the computer parts trying to work together. In other words, all of these complex systems generally exist everywhere, but maybe it's not necessary for me to continuously try to understand and engage with them. Sometimes it's just about getting to where I want to go. Do I want a PC that will do what I need it to do with as little fuss and privacy invasion? Okay, this is what's available with the money, time and resources that I have. Want to be fit? This is the closest gym with a good price that has what I need. Want to have a blog without needing to do a lot of preparation? Here's messy Wordpress or a minimalist blogging platform with a fixed URL unless I pay for the feature to put my own. Didn't keep to the posting schedule? I can choose between posting after the gap, timestamping new entries with old dates (inaccuracy problem) and abandoning the endeavour entirely. It's not elegant, but it's what I can do right now. I am trying to accept that.

withered red flower give your life to be a gift on international women's day or not be planted at all because you're in an alternative dimension where there isn't a culture around giving short-lasting gifts (to clarify, i did enjoy receiving it, so thank you for your sacrifice, flower. you are appreciated)

To provide the missing parts of the previous post, I can no longer comment on the difference between two days that I'm not paying attention to anymore. Oh! I can mention that I decided to let go of the It Could Be a Community booklet. I hope it will turn up sometime again in the form of recycled paper or at least decompose quietly into the soil. The other items are still with me, but they're on a very dangerous maybe pile. The calmness I was feeling the second day is a gift from the heavens, variable and fleeting, spontaneous and elusive. The consistency I keep buying into must be about being able to feel calm again in some future moment rather than remaining calm as long as I've met certain criteria. Maybe I could discover what makes it easier for this calmness to visit me, but that's still no guarantee that it will. There are no guarantees. Things are complicated... and sometimes that's on me, because no matter how standard 'emojis' have become, I still insist on textually representing my moods with </3, :-), >_>, etc. Those are apparently called 'emoticons'. But how else would someone know what I'm feeling?! I never feel the way emojis look, so why lie? I'd rather people think I'm typing math. Less than three and colon asterisk!

Sorting the Accumulated

Just a quick update that ties in to the previous post. In other words, how are the mentioned things today?

Text conversations had. Messages answered. New messages answered. Legal document handed in. Surprise bank business done. Dishes washed, dirtied again and washed again. Crunches didn't happen, but machine rowing and running did (today). Weekend sort of scheduled. Still in crisis about living where I do, but not focused right now on that. Still protective. Not crying anymore, but I'm having big feelings about people important to me. Little art developments are important for overall living and being an artist.

There are two songs that I have on repeat right now. They are Ja sam lažljiva by Denis & Denis and Bless the Child by Nightwish. They're both trashy in their unique ways, but I'm playing them because they fit the current moment. Really good music is great, but it's not a factor for me when deciding what to play. Deciding on something with my internal gut feeling and reaction, instead of making an informed, thoroughly intellectualized decision is very important.

Yesterday, I wasn't feeling good about what I was writing (about), although outside of that my mood wasn't bad. Today, I feel fine about it. So while internal feelings, instinct and the moment are important, there's a negotiation around how to respond to it, because no single answer will work for every situation. Letting it wash over you and riding the wave is amazing when you're feeling good, stimulated and realized... and devastating when you're feeling endangered, trapped and uncertain. Some wisdom might say both should be allowed to pass through you – otherwise it will linger and transform into a bigger problem over time – but there's a lot of nuance in doing that, too. Yesterday I had decided to post both despite or because of it. I kept to a decision I made, because it's important to me, and left space for several outcomes. Seems to have worked out.

The public gaze is in formation, since there aren't a lot of people I've linked this blog to, so there's room for it develop, for me to get used to writing, to even start desiring more eyes. I really should keep to simpler sentences – I prefer them in several ways, but I am prone to the long ones. Embarrassing moments are water under the bridge and not just because there are so many new and exciting things to experience. Life can be positively exciting! Professionalism has its purpose and use, but I personally feel that I can't have it envelop a single thing fully. I need at least a different narrative under the surface, in a part of myself. I think. I'm still feeling it out. I like having things to reference and connect to, and I like feeling smart, but I need that to come from a place of wanting and ability rather that needing to. Being able to forget it great. It can be very liberating. Not being able to imagine is exhilarating, because it doesn't put a limit on what you've yet to experience but might/will.

And now I'm going out for a beer and I won't even proofread this until I get back! I feel it's missing a part that comments on the difference itself between yesterday and today, but I don't want to keep my friend waiting. Also, an image.

Accumulating and Struggling to Understand

As I sit in a room that managed to get messy in less than a day (that is the reality of my living space or is it me living in a space), my mind is jumping between at least ten things that are asking for my attention. Four different text conversations (I am most interested in Valencia's sea, weather, lemons and sitting on the grass... and that other thing). A telephone call about a legal document I need to take somewhere tomorrow (and make a copy if I only have the original). Dishes to wash after making lentils and amaranth yesterday and pouring technically expired but still good (I hope) cooking cream over it today. The crunches I hadn't done yet as part of today's workout. Scheduling the next couple of days. The living and financial prospects for artists (and others) in this cursed, nay, evil environment. A feeling of protectiveness. Crying a little. Maybe I can go for a run after this post. I want to keep the lucidity I am feeling somewhere in between all this and take it with me into all future moments. A like on Facebook from a former Person in my life? Now? Subconsciously comparing the past with former Person to the present with another Person. Work for money. The scribbling I've referred to in the last post and whether it's art, an artistic gesture, a beginning of future art pieces or time that should have been spent differently.

I refuse to believe that this is a way of living and perceiving that should be cultivated or encouraged. I like trying out different things and not locking myself into a single thread of interest or activity, but this is ridiculous. And destructive. And has been written about extensively already by others. Social media, multitasking, millenials, capitalism... We know the story.

And then...? And then I sift.

stock photo of flour being sifted and when searching for a precise definition of 'sifting', just to make sure i'm using the word correctly, this visual pops up which directly reminds me of the hours, a film adaptation of a book, and the woman who felt trapped in her domestic, us, post-ww2 life and after failing to make a cake, although she knows you have to sift the flour, checks into a hotel with the intention of killing herself and also she was pregnant at the time and had a living child that was traumatized by his abandoning mother. i don't know what to tell you. i just wanted to check 'sift' and actually sift rather that add more

drawings of a wolf, a bearded man and a dragon

poem written on a typewriter

These are three papers with drawings and text on them. I have two piles of blank papers of the same size. One is glossy on the back, while the other isn't. I had spontaneously drawn the wolf, worked on it again a day or two later and used the typewriter that lays mostly dormant next to my PC to write a poem on the glossy side. Then I made the other two. One uses markers that were rather pricey and I feel I should use as much as I can before they dry out, while the dude is coloured with pencils I've had since first grade of primary school. This is not the first time I'm doing an 'image on one side, text on the other' combination. I am not sure where it's going, but I want to let it lead me. I like how the drawings make me feel. That “I can draw” feeling.

drawing with a glittery orange thick line and black text

drawing with a green, yellow and unknown colour pen with text next to each

drawing consisting of lines and text

drawing of one of my dragon characters and half of a wolf head

two stacks of pens

A friend of mine that had lived in a part of my living space at some point left some items behind. One of them was a notebook which I've appropriated with her consent and turned it into a book of leftovers. Whichever materials, pencils, pens, cutouts, stickers and so on that I want to use but don't know where or how, I use in that notebook. The pens on the left still work and need to be used, while the ones on the right are ready to be recycled. I simply dislike things going to waste and since I can turn things into art pieces, I do. The images I've posted are the latest pages.

pages from a notebook

photo of notebook to better see its size which is small

This is not an art piece, I think, but it is a tiny notebook which I've almost entirely filled out. At one point, I had counted the remaining pages and it turned out to be the exact number of remaining days until 2019, which I took as a sign to write out a page of text for each day. I... kept to it for the first twenty days, which is pretty good, but I didn't do the remaining forty. So after buying a very specific pen that I use for it (the old one dried out), I've begun filling out the remaining pages.

a red page with black text in a notebook with red pages

I once bought a notebook with red pages and began writing artistic ideas and concepts into it. This started in two thousand and ten. Two days ago I decided to cross out some of them – because preserving everything isn't necessary – and continue writing into the mostly empty notebook with both a black and a white pen. I'm leaving the concept open enough for it to become a book of something else, because I don't have the need to put so much emphasis on concept nowadays. Although... It's still there. Everything I've described so far has an internal logic to it, but hopefully one that is gentle enough to allow the generating of content that isn't conceptual.

printed text and handwritten text in cursive next to it

Finally, this is a page out of a publication for someone else's work called It Could Be a Community (authorship details on the Facebook event linked on the page). I remember the event and publication well, because I had come to it drunk and deeply in crisis. I laid down in some dark corner and cried and slept for most of it. I took the booklet, there might have been an invitation to intervene into it (or not – I don't recall) and wrote out my not-that-substantial poetry. I left without the booklet that evening, but acquired it afterwards and kept it with the intention of either recycling it or finishing it. The blue text is from a day ago, the black is from two thousand and seventeen and the printed is Kristina Semenova's.


What I'm wondering right now is... What are all these things that I've described? What is the time I invested into it? What is the decision to share this with the public gaze? What do my current feelings have to do with how this is valued now or later? Can I offer a substantive thought without answering these questions?

Another stream of thought as a result of deciding to focus on this group of items I've worked on (why are my sentences like this?): Is this something I should share? I like the idea of showing works that are not finished or ready. I believe each of these could become interesting art pieces, but it's also likely that not all of them will. As an artist in this western capitalist system, how smart is it to write about failed drunken evenings and bad decisions? Is that unprofessional? If yes, is it a problem? If not, then I feel I'm missing something. I can't see the whole picture, if that's even possible beyond just feeling secure in your view. I have an idea within me that is telling me whimsical, but somewhat distanced and intellectual writing is the way to do it, but at the same time I continuously fail at doing that. There is a feeling within me saying I don't actually want that at all. That I am somewhere else. That I am someone else. Changing, but only so much. In two days I might know what it's about (or just think I do). In two years this post might be forgotten because there's something else to focus on. And every other version that I cannot imagine now or ever.

Delaying the Inevitable and Why

When I had made the decision to not squeeze out a quick post on Saturday evening around ten, I knew there was a chance that the post would get postponed by more than a day. Nonetheless, I had decided to take that risk and trust myself to write it at some point. That point is right now, on Tuesday, the other day in which I had decided to regularly post. So, technically, there should be two posts today, but instead I'll postpone Tuesday's post for some other day and post Saturday's today. Make sense? I hope so.

I will proceed to list some of the activities which had kept me busy and thus unable to post. Sort of.

Friday at two I went to see a showing at the Zagreb Dance Center. A work in development by Darío Bardam, Aleksandar Georgiev and Zhana Pencheva made me visit that controversial place. Balkan drag culture and cliché but fun song choices for solo dance choreographies made it a curious event, while the evening of the day was reserved for the race to meet a midnight deadline. My cousin, who is an actor and singer, had hired me to make her a showreel. We had met to look at the footage she had and choose the shots which best showcased her talents and skills. I was to edit it into a video and send it to her before midnight, while she rushed home to write herself an actor's curriculum vitae for an open call. Between all that, we also did a photo shoot with a table lamp in my hand as lighting, a Nikon camera on which I couldn't find the white balance and wall corners in photos that I had to edit out. In the end, she wrote her curriculum vitae and included a very nice headshot photo despite the amateur conditions it was taken in. The showreel, however, wasn't finished in time. There simply wasn't enough time and my computer wasn't happy about one of the clips being in 4k and about that other hour and forty minutes 1080p video.

I finished the preliminary showreel on Monday and am waiting for some footage in better quality. Once finished, it'll be a nice showreel. Also, my cousin heard back from the company that had the open call... They don't want her, apparently. Boo.

photo of a video editing software and a shot of my cousin within it my cousin and me are both hireable. please hire us for money (acting/singing; video editing/anything)

Saturday I had mostly spent in various pains of several origins... Whether gallbladder-related, menstrual or that part of my back I rarely exercise but kind of overworked when I did video yoga the previous day. Despite that, I managed to cycle all the way to KUC Travno to see the performance Opna (choreographer Irma Omerzo). I vaguely remembered being in that space once before, years ago... on the Festival novog cirkusa? It's possible.

The piece was... intriguing, but a bit uncomfortable. I don't have trouble with unconventional seating of the audience, in this case within a plastic balloon of sorts and on the floor, while the performers move around and on the balloon from the outside. However, I couldn't connect to the material and while an enclosed, warm space could remind of a womb or a cozy space, the plastic material and part of the performers' movements left me with an impression of something almost cyborg-like and a little anime dystopian. Overall I felt there could have been more, somehow.

Afterwards I ate hipster burgers with the person I went to see the performance with. A former professor of mine also had a cameo, as he came into the joint to pick up the takeout order he made an hour ago.

On Sunday I had been... tired. And outside for most of the day. I met up with a friend and we had coffee in a fancy, freshly renovated theater-themed café before going to Ni prijatelj ni brat (director Marina Petković Liker), a performance held in an apartment.

It was interesting to observe the rules and conventions that were build specifically for the space and circumstances (conventional theater rules about 'not seeing' some things or reading things in a specific way don't apply here). There were some clever solutions with lamps used to emphasize key spaces, items and actor actions. I was also quite pleased with the actors' techniques. I rarely watch performances that feature actors, but I'll admit they managed to seduce me and sell an iffy directorial decision or two. While the option to move around the space was there, I felt no need to get out of my seat. Whatever scenes I didn't get to see, I experienced them through other senses, since the heavy atmosphere bounced off the walls of the small, enclosed space. While I wasn't sold on all the creative decisions made in this piece, it's oriented in the right direction and I'm glad to have seen it. We didn't stay for drinks after the performance, but perhaps I could send a feedback e-mail or something.

On Monday I got to stay at home and wash my dishes. Although my flat is specific and barely a home, I could almost feel it wanting to spend some alone time with me. Having it tidy and cared for makes both of us feel better, so much so that I ended up pulling an all-nighter, working on some art pieces and overdue art gestures. I am still in that vibe today, even after reading a self-help book from start to finish that my mother recommended to me. It wasn't half bad, but absolving control is all fun and games until you get hurt or stuck in a situation you cannot escape from. Also, homosexuality is not a 'transitional' phase and Freud is a complete hack.

papers and materials organized in neat stacks nothing compares to organized piles of paper

So you see, I was very busy with living. A late post is vaguely understandable (not really). And I didn't even write about the art stuff I did! Am I leaving that for next time? Most likely Thursday? Maybe... Thank for your being a patient but interested readership (of one, two or three people that I've linked this blog to). A step at a time. A learning experience. And so on.

Half-arsing Is the Best

I write in jest as I return from a social gathering at a bar. It wasn't something I had planned, or even known about until ten minutes before arriving, but I decided crashing it was the thing to do. I had already tasted the flavour of crashing business meetings, so this was the next thing on the menu. I am particularly proud of successfully assuming at which bar was the socializing in question, because that info hadn't reached me. After an unsophisticated arrival, I settled in, listened and engaged as much as I currently know how to in groups.

Details that I want to share:

Being asked about what is it that I do, by the only unfamiliar person, got me to talk the most. Although it's such a tired question, it's one that I can go on about to persons who understand what my interests are about. In this context, it was also to check whether discussions about performance and contemporary dance were something within my realm, which is a level of care from a stranger that I appreciated.

Late birthday rakija.

A friend had a new coat. Something of a raincoat. A shade of blue, with a white fuzzy inner part. This morning I had been talking with another friend about fashion and clothing and about hiding behind clothes or finding the whole notion of clothes as communication as scary.

The concept of 'realness' within drag culture and the differences between USA and Balkan drag culture. My mind wanders to one of my pieces, Sve i ona, a performance in which, in some versions of it, I am sporting fake hair that could be understood as drag. Exaggeration as realness and my beautiful characters within the piece which are definitely not real then (and they're probably fine with that).

There is a dance scene in Barcelona? And someone can tell me about it? I consider it a personal cliché that a part of me is still able to perk up when this place gets mentioned in a non-touristy way, but while I enjoyed it passing through my being, I am allowing it to continue its journey outside of me.

If I snap a photo during the gathering, what are the assumptions about who am I sending that photo to? Or what I'll use it for? If I look at my phone and write something down, am I texting, documenting thoughts, composing Mastodon toots that I won't send or just bored? No one will ever know. Dun dun.

wooden ceiling with a chandelier guess the bar? i certainly wouldn't be able to since this is the first time i've noticed the decor

I went home in order to write this post before midnight. I had gotten to make two cakes and eat one of them, while the other one is displayed for the readers' consumption – you. And while the cosmically timed episode of Parks and Recreation that had been playing in the background today warns me I should whole-ass one thing instead, I'm glad to have been able to do both tonight.

On Writing This Post and Making Some Videos in the Past

Starting two hours before the self-imposed deadline is somehow not a sweet spot for generating content. Today I had slept, eaten, exercised, danced, socialized, expressed personal opinions, listened to music, eaten healthy food (for the most part) and felt unwell, so there is really nothing else left to do than write.

Starting two hours before the self-imposed deadline doesn't necessarily go against content creation. One look at the visible videos I have on my Vimeo account (hopefully replaced with a PeerTube account sometime in the future) can verify this. Eight videos of varying lengths, themes, intentions, contexts and probably quality, yet they are all distinctly me in various stages of my recent life. Sardonic humour. Literal toilet humour coupled with an ironically banal but still sincere message. Crafted out of available resources and time. Very tired and self-referencing. Simple, quick and confident solution. Nothing will happen if I don't do it but I'll do it for the sake of summarizing my experience at the end of a process. Sometimes I laugh at my own jokes. Sometimes I make stuff that doesn't work.

And they all had deadlines in different forms. And I did them all. And while I would rather look towards my new art projects than reflect on old ones, there's something beautiful to me about these pieces. They're not necessarily relevant or interesting anymore, but I appreciate that they happened and how they managed to happen. Out of the eight, only one video isn't tied to a memory of being in a bad place emotionally or mentally (I won't be making that distinction right now) and even that might be because I had forgotten the circumstances of the one video. Why is that the case isn't important right now as the notion that there's space to do art or things or art things even when you're not feeling particularly swell, which is not the same as fetishised artist's suffering or processing trauma and life experiences through artistic work. Instead, it is finding a way to do something when you assume you do not have the energy for it. It's doing when you don't feel like it. It's sneaking behind your perfectionism's back and doing things that would never meet its stamp of approval. It's deciding to do something and then doing it. It's finding out what would happen if you were to do something in that particular moment. It's about trusting yourself.

a photo of the sky and part of the main railroad station building in zagreb it's also accidentally getting a good crop because your current phone doesn't accurately preview what it's actually seeing

I find that exciting, not that I have much of a choice. Sure, there were a lot of choices on the fifth, right after I wrote my last post and had days to plan and write the next one, but in the last hour of the ninth? Not that many options. The eleventh hour is a wonderful tool for the indecisive person, because it narrows the choices to a manageable amount. There are a lot of different versions of this post that different versions of me are writing right now, but... this is the version that's available here. (I'm sure there's a version where I accidentally fell asleep on the bed.) And while I would still like to explore my capacity to finish things in advance, getting to greet deadlines and give them a kiss is fine, really. Maybe. Sometimes. Depends.

Personal Context









If I Were to Start a Blog in Two Thousand and Nineteen

it would look like this. A simple design on a minimalist platform with a witty URL.

Posegnula bih za time da pišem o pisanju (blog about blogging). I would write in the languages I know, as well as Sprache ich weiss nicht. Ok... Ein bisschen, aber schlecht. I would check whether my spelling and grammar is correct and change it accordingly. I would postpone starting into February and not worry about it. I would coyly mention it once to others, just to get a taste of local opinion and feign accountability. I would write several drafts, but in the end opt for what I wrote last from scratch. I would try to pass that as an artistic methodology.

a planner with notes all those unused notes...

In other words, here it is! A blog! A collection of words hosted on a server somewhere in the world, accessible to many others in whichever part of the world! In a language that is disgustingly widespread, but also convenient! Look at it! Look at these words! Look at this charming self-irony and how swiftly am I ready to mention how I'm not responsible for the contemporary western trends that love debilitating attitudes and meaning that goes as deep as 2D, unless the meaning is something manipulative and invasive! Look at me trying to say 'I know self-irony is basic, but by knowing and expressing that knowledge, I can flip it into something fresh and worth reading'! After all, blogging is in crisis! The web is in crisis! The world is in crisis! I am I crisis!

Please. Ever since the first online blogging platforms I used, LiveJournal and DeadJournal, beginning in two thousand and three (amazingly, both of those still exist – one is Russian-owned, while the other still has the same design it did sixteen years ago), I have been in crisis. Even before that, I had been in crisis. However, there is one thing I heard and one thing I said during the bus ride I took today, that I feel are useful to mention now. First is the question of why does a person expose themselves like that (by having your writing posted in a visible place where perhaps even two thousand people read it maybe). Second is the notion that continuously shuffling and developing things in your life instead of settling in and living could be tied or close to the creative urge.

old deadjournal posts from 2006 riveting high school experiences

So, I am in crisis because I am creative and I am exposing myself because I think I can simultaneously share my thoughts, keep my privacy and make it worth everyone's time.

With that thought, I leave you and myself until Tuesday (maybe the accountability is not feigned).