ex-tumblr girl
i started writing on tumblr again.
and i also cleansed my tumblr free of a bunch of bullshit spam from over the years, the calcification, the dumbass buildup.
but alas, it's not a pleasant experience writing there. i feel like at its very best, it's a place for pictures and some slice-of-life details. and do i value that a lot, i love going back there and seeing the juicy incriminating shit i've done, the pics i've taken. i love it. to a certain degree it makes me sad though, because everything i post now is like an attempt to compete with that level of excitement and honestly nothing i ever say will ever be at that level again. my life simply does not permit it anymore.
it's mostly about being gorgeous and being surrounded by gorgeous guys who say the most delightful things like "in my household, we call you 'stripper Polizei'" -- there's a morphine-like high from reliving those memories
i feel actually more beautiful now, i feel like i'm fitter and healthier, too. i'm more sophisticated, more emotionally intelligent, more elegant. i'm better in all ways. but i don't lead a ratchet sex-filled drug-laced rockstar life anymore, and nothing i say can compete with those days
i see that my interests/focus have basically stayed the same.
-languages
-health/athleticism
-art (fashion, food, literature, music)
-looking good
back then it was like i was just starting out with my languages and now the languages i really want to be good at (french, german and japanese) have solid enough foundations inside of me that i can just keep improving without having to feel like i'm doing reconstructive surgery. like i can just enjoy myself now. (ok this is not really fully true with japanese, and tbh i'm not really in the japanese world lately, but we are going to japan and so i started to a japanese podcast again and i understand it and i think if i just kept going i would just understand more and more...i have just one textbook left and i think afterwards, i can be free range, just out there, explorin', shooting my vectors out into the ever-increasing infinity)
but with french and german: i can just enjoy now, i can speak to people, listen to podcasts, watch shows, read books.
i feel like my life now in general is a flowering of the things i once loved and wanted. living in europe helps a lot because these things i like happen to be european ideals (i think i'm european in almost every way except i hate keeping up with politics)
in the US people want to learn languages but are so fucking incompetent that it's not even flattering to me when people are impressed by me (because i know they have no idea what it means to be good) and it's not impressive to me when people tell me they can "speak mandarin/french/whatever" because i hear them and i'm like mm no you don't (americans are this cringe mix of incompetent and confident when it comes to languages, it's really embarrassing)
and in the US people who think they're "fashionable" are really just wearing weird shit that nobody else would wear, but it doesn't look good -- in europe, street fashion has a certain standard of taste
anyway blahblahblah i just feel quite at home here, it's like i found a place that makes sense to me
maybe the world i once illuminated on my tumblr is now the world in which i truly live (tumblr was like this scrap board of all the things from my life which made me happy -- it wasn't this wishful reblogging mess of things i envied but rather original posts of things that already did exist in my life and that did make me happy ; it was a concentrated collection of that which gave me the spark of life and thinking back, it was useful to have this tool so that i could, even now, remind myself of who i am. it was an authentic collection of the bits of life that i liked, it was like a salad consisting of only my favorite toppings and it created a kind of person that was unlike anyone i had known from my surroundings, i was able to construct a person from only my favorite ingredients of life and as such, i did not become a clone of the existing types of people who happened to be around me. and thank god, because i do not belong with them, especially when there's an existing parallel universe out here that resembles me)
the trace minerals and gems which gave me the sparks of life are now the basic foundations of the life i live. all except that ratchet rockstar life -- that self has almost turned into a myth, an archetype i can channel. it was my whole life but it was a problematic aspect of life because it was downright intoxicating (so my whole life was effectively a problem, because it was hard to separate the problem from the healthy functioning bits)
i'm trying to pivot, i'm trying to take some of that and see what it looks like in current lighting
and what i'm finding is a desire for popularity.
the closest thing to rockstardom is popularity
in a more literal interpretation though, i'm finding it joyful to play music with people and in front of people. i find performing rather fun, because i love to sing, it's a hallucinatory experience, and i also like focusing on that feeling so much that "stage fright" feels far away from me. it's a mental exercise i enjoy, similar to surfing. every second feels simultaneously scary and blissful, the fear doesn't go away and all you can do is manage it and keep it muted by focusing (it's like trying to defuse a bomb with a monster smiling at you). oh and to hear other voices and instruments accompanying me (especially since i do the main melody, because i'm the diva with the clean sound that pierces through the other timbres, and because i like being the focal point) it's bliss (i'm wearing the word out, but what can i say?) it's pure visceral pleasure.
but this literal interpretation feels like a "missing the point" offshoot of the original bliss.
the main thing, of leading a "rockstar"-like life (with sex and drugs and fabulous outfits and outrageously beautiful makeup and the glamour of being loved and adored by fanboys who themselves were beautiful and glamorous) and is much closer to being popular amongst an outstanding crowd
maybe that's why popularity has been a big topic for me lately -- it flexes an analogous muscle (or maybe it's even using the same core muscle groups)
the energy i used to joyfully employ for flirting with and charming the opposite sex is now going into carrying myself like a "friend we'd like to show off"
sort of like a swann type, i suppose. but more lively, spontaneous and childlike (bubbly and excitable) -- cultured, considerate, elegant and well-mannered but not a bit jaded, still fully wanting to Just Live.
also i keep cultivating myself in ways that make me joyful
when, during an idle moment, i pick up a book to read, i get an instant and significant boost, like i'm taking a wheatgrass shot straight to my -- and this sounds vain and calculated but -- cultural cachet.
but, it's genuine: i really enjoy my readings. (i wouldn't be able to continuing doing something just for the looks of it, it would be too painful for me) and that's what makes me feel even more conceited, to be honest, that i genuinely enjoy myself. i know a girl who admitted that she had dante's inferno in her room and she's never read it but has hoped that someone would see it and think more highly of her. what an embarrassing thing to admit! her admission does not endear her to me but i'm glad she told me. it's like finding out that the guy from your couple friends has been having dirty thoughts about you: it's like "I KNEW IT!! but thanks for CONFIRMING!!"
that's not me. when i read a thing, i am really having a good time (because if i'm not, i don't force it) and i notice, even with the sophisticated people around me now (i know a professional violinist who is as sophisticated as they come) that there is an air of pretension regarding books and culture, as if they're striving for difficulty. i said "i'm so relieved you like nabokov. i love people who like nabokov" and she instinctually believed that i meant because nabokov is "difficult" but that's really not what i meant! because to me nabokov is not that difficult! and i said "well it's just that shallow people like to condemn nabokov because they think he's condoning a type of immoral behavior but that's not what he's saying at all!"
anyway, i just keep doing things which give me the sparks of life and some of it makes me feel conceited and those feelings add to the spark
i wonder what will happen with that rockstar archetype inside of me
it's like when an actress plays a role too well, when it slips onto them like their very own skin, then every subsequent movie, even if the setting and background are very different, will feature that same likeness (this is called "type casting") -- well, my rockstar archetype was dormant for a long time, i was undercover, like james franco pretending to be homeless, i was method acting, researching, getting to know the world, learning new perspectives. and now i feel my inner rockstar archetype awakening again and i wonder how It will continue playing out now, what it will look like.
and what will become of my tumblr?
i certainly don't write very well there. it just limits me, verbally. but what kinds of things (if any) can i put there now that will bring me joy later?