This is why you're leaving New York

I've been having more "I love New York" moments than not in recent weeks, largely due to the full knowledge of my leaving, and the electricity that has brought to my life. But suddenly the past 2 days have been more in the vein of "get out" than before. The clearest moment of this was Sunday night, at Miss Lez. Might I say that the performances were amazing and hysterical; it was spectacularly wonderful entertainment. But the evening's merits end there. There was something emblematic of the evening, the side of the city that you remember has been carving scars into you and those you love since the day you arrived. While the pageant was its own showcase of "lez" absurdity and hyper-sexuality in the city, there was a more tragic piece of the city on display, at least for me.

There's a lot of people's personal shit that is not my right to call out in any detailed form, but there were certain tension points in the evening that were undeniably harsh. The best way for me to speak of it in sum is to note that the night had a whole lot of gay scene, with almost no single strand of queer community (barring the crowd-sourced "it gets better" video murray hill solicited from the audience, will be looking forward to that one on youtube, as well as a couple shining moments from contestants). On the darker side of the evening though, there were instances of such serious sadness that I was fucking overwhelmed. For one, when the show was over, it was nowhere near over. There's something about the queer performance space that always jars me a bit, and maybe it's a little bit more like New York. I can get through movies without hating the actor that portrays the villain because in some way I have the hope or belief that in reality, they're a decent person who could probably level with you. To see the intense flocking post-show end of self-congratulating, perpetuated egoism and ass-kissing made my skin crawl. Too many people were not "turning it off" because this is what they've actually become in this city; there's a reason why queers have so many performance names, because social interactions have become a stage.

There was also dramatic tensions from bad blood. The implications of a masculine-presenting person threatening past violence putting others in very bad headspaces, the presence of past lovers, not just stressful due to awkward nearness, but outright directly impeding on people because some people thought this was the perfect night for confrontation. Nasty statements heard here and there, expectant glances from people who thought you owed them something, or looked at you with some great hope you had felt them place on you years before. Gossip, and worry, and vanity. Violence, and sexual baggage, and addiction.

And I think all the awkwardness, and the terribleness, and the sad angry tears that some were hiding would just be a proto-typical bad night, if it weren't for the remarkable reflection of what was happening on stage. There was a level of celebrating this terribly unhealthy way of being in the performances. Alcoholism was given a wink and nod by the host and part of performance pieces while people near you, touchable, were launching into deep dark drinking corners. Self-obsession was touted as a gimmick by multiple contestants while persons around launched into bouts of egoism and self-gain, conveying minimal warmth and love to those who supposedly "mattered." A worship of the masculine and the immense entitlement that goes with it crowned the winner, while certain butches and transguys hung around smirking with bravado and emboldened with entitled rage mistaken as power. Jokes about u-hauls, and co-dependency and body image issues and gender exploratory issues were dished out often without any self-aware tone, and after looking to those around you with those same struggles, I wondered who are these jokes for, who am I supposedly "laughing with?"

I cannot stress enough how important humor is to me, and that I really can't take people seriously who don't know how to laugh at themselves. But the premise behind that humor has been a lot of the times a means of stepping away and really having some better understanding of what the hell is going on, and why it may actually be fucked up, and hell, may even need to CHANGE. George Bush jokes are FUNNY because we needed that mother fucker OUT of the white house, not because we wanted him there forever to tickle our funny bone. And that's where I got kind of sad, because as entertaining as the night was, that's all it was. No real called out masculine entitlement, no real call for better lives without addiciton and co-dependency, no real warmth and connection once the curtain came down, just more show-stopping gimmick, and costume, and self-congratulation, and ego inflation and boozing and worry and avoidance and social climbing and lovers' guilt and desperate want and violence and dare I say, the theme of the evening, feminine objectification without enough analysis, ownership and politik?

I went home feeling that the fondest moment of the evening for me was the chicken and shrimp tacos I got from Yola's, real, warm, invigorating, feeding my stomache and soul. I went home saying to myself "this is why you're leaving New York" because sometimes, in the agonizing search for worth, in the desperate plea that was why so many of us "transplants" came here, so expectant of New York being this huge means to our new shiny happiness, we sold ourselves and our struggles and our pains, for farce.

The Return of Saturn, High School and Punk Rock

Sometimes you plan on being far more prolific than you actually manage to be. For this blog, I have way more drafts than posts. Oops. C'est la vie, my "final year" in New York turned into 3 months, I've flown to San Fran a ton and frankly, there's a lot to do to leave a city this way. I resigned myself to probably not posting any more, until last night.

I was planning on doing a huge horrah after my last day of work, possibly hitting up multiple queer parties and "living it up." Yet, when I got home, I started diving into my old pop punk to hopefully create some kind of mix for my going away party Thursday, and it was over from there. Perusing some of the awful pop punk I used to listen to was laughable, even embarrassing at times. There were some standard favorites, the sort I could still love now (and plan to include in my mix), but some were just abysmal. Awful songs, cliche and sometimes just shitty. I also started noting which were still the most tolerable to hear now, the faster ones, the ones most likely to talk about people and dancing and laughing. But it wasn't always like that, I was always that kid drawn even in the punk world to the cheesy ballad, the lower tempo drawn out emo whine, on repeat, until 2 in the morning. The ones that are the most painful to hear now were my favorites then.

And then by means of inertia, I was out of the punk world and back into my old pre-punk music. It wasn't necessarily chronologically directly before I started listening to punk, but just the music that was more in line with the aesthetic of that drab 90s rock. You know, the kind you play really loud locked up in your bedroom, sprawled on your bed waiting for the music to just swallow you. It was really fitting when I got into astrology to find how much water is in my chart and that I'm a Cancer, cause I used to always say my favorite music was like water, washing over me. And for years in middle and high school, I would lie in my room waiting for the music to wash me away. That, or for when college started.

And that was the shocking moment for me last night, beyond embarrassment, hearing a lot of this old music was in such stark contrast to the life I've built now. Less concerned that it would "taint" me or pull me "back down" to those places it was more of a window to a version of myself that I realize I was finally able to strip away when I came to New York. Who was that person?

Teenage depression in the 90s has become a cliche, you forget how much it really drove your life, if you can even call it driving. Swathed in white American privilege and damn lucky I was as smart as I was, I pulled off A's despite 3 hours sleep on most nights and a commitment to apathy regarding any studies; somehow I had a way out. But if you wanted to epitomize what I did in high school, I would never say "studied hard" or "got in trouble" or partied, nor would I say I was very social, and let's not even talk about dating. No, if I could epitomize what I did in high school it was "feeling" - stuck in my little bubble I consumed music in a way that I'm beyond ashamed to admit now. There's probably distinct parallels with others, but there's no knowing that when you're in it. In hindsight, probably had everything and anything to do with being queer, having an awkward relationship with my body, trans-masculine spectrum, hyper-privilege, the other spectrum, alcoholic household, parents, 90s cynicism, the economy, society, etc. But the realization of any of these determining factors is a paradox itself: if you knew, you had a foot out.

I didn't set out to talk about depression, and I'm going to try to say something very neat about it because I have other things to say. The current streak of suicides really stresses me, not just because it is terrible, but even moreso because there are ways in which I can't relate. My depression was never such a direct anxiety that I ever wanted to end myself; there was never a 1:1 correlation of, I am gay and that is bad so I am bad and must stop being. The only ending I was ready for was when it hit senior year that everything was about to change and I could go with it or insist on remaining the kid holed up in my room. I chose the former, and more than anything, knew it was a choice, and consider my 18th year to be the closest thing to rebirth I will ever taste.

I've "purged" a lot of my things recently, and the next week is going to really, really suck as I pack and mail everything. A big part of this process is deciding to get rid of the mass majority of my books. I realize the old ones choke me with obligation that intensely suppresses my drive to keep reading; they hold me back. Instead, the more books that find a welcome home, the better I feel; it was the right choice. But last night, going through my digital tome of music I realized the intense anxiety of losing this or that album, even if I could never ever listen to it again. My old bedroom is gone, as well as my belongings, but the music is still there. I don't have time for another "purge" as I need to deal with physical objects right now, but it is something I will have to consider when I get to the bay.

My return of Saturn is in theory right now, and I will never know if that is the "reason" or really just the conducive environment for all these shifts. This is the time people quit smoking, stop drinking, get married, have a kid...you know, those big life change things that were somehow not addressable until this moment. Yes, I do finally see myself as an adult, moving across the country, considering a car, a house, a life; but if anything truly cathartic about this experience is hitting me, it's losing that kid laid out sadly and without agency in that bedroom. I like to say quite often that "punk rock saved my life" because it's cheesy, and absurd, but because it also is in some way true. It pulled me out of that "feeling bubble" to a new relation to my body, and motion, and people and connection. And so, however cheesy and absurd it is at times, it's mostly the only older music of mine I can still listen to, being integral to this rebirth.

The main exception to this rule (regarding what I can still listen to) would be Third Eye Blind's self-titled; it always had an edge to it, a plea to get out; it was an intensely self-aware album that something is awry and there's better out there, but Jenkins is swimming in too much hurt to find a way. Which is what makes the album's crowning achievement "Motorcycle Drive By." I just might have listened to this gem several times last night; it's the moment you finally step away from it, and it hits you how that self-perpetuating shitstorm that was your mental state was toxic.

It's knowing that you're leaving New York, for real, and a lot of that baggage of status and image and family and the grips of the city can all be let go of, and it's triumphant. It's the ownership that you can find a better way of living, and you have to be your own determiner of that, like you've always ever been. It's breaking up with New York, dumping it, and changing your number so it doesn't call again, except maybe for a catch-up brunch in a few months after you've both moved on. It's the purge, it's the catharsis, it's the moment you realize you will never again be that kid because you've so definitively changed your life for it to be impossible. It's pandora's box, except for happiness and what you want and need and deserve and are within the right and ability to ask for, and get.