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How To Break Paralysis

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How To Break Paralysis

WHAT I DID Monday, January 5 Start the year at Cassandra’s apartment, and then a few days pass kind of breathless and stranded in this way. Her bedroom looks over St Vincent’s Ferrer, and it is light filled and sweet. Cards and paper star cut outs hung on red ribbon stream down the edges of the cream walls.

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WHAT I DID Monday, January 5 Start the year at Cassandra’s apartment, and then a few days pass kind of breathless and stranded in this way. Her bedroom looks over St Vincent’s Ferrer, and it is light filled and sweet. Cards and paper star cut outs hung on red ribbon stream down the edges of the cream walls. A seashell necklace, Mary Magdalene portrait, books of Adorno and Mary Gaitskill. The bible. When my friends leave for the day, I do not. Rush of opening doors and boots on wood and winter air, and then they are gone. Cassandra’s apartment is very clean. It strikes me, somewhat uneasily, that everything I touch appears slightly less precise when I’m the one returning it to its proper place. Face oil left off kilter and kind of dripping. A little bit bad at treading gently in this place where I am a guest and everything is delicate and gorgeous. Wearing my friend’s Adidas pajamas and drinking water and taking Advil in thick blue translucent pill form. Writing down the things I no longer care to reflect on. A lot can happen in a year, I tell Cassandra, but then again, a lot can happen in one day or one hour or one minute, even, so best to be kind of chill about it . We go to Heidelberg for herring and brown bread and hot raspberries in ice cream and apple strudel at night. We go to CVS for baby food and tooth brushes and nicotine gum. The evenings uptown are more sparkling and quiet. Back at the apartment, and I can’t stop talking about all the things I want to do or places I want to move. California, Switzerland, El Salvador. Uptown, to a four bedroom apartment with my four best friends. Lying on Cassandra’s couch wearing a blue sweater under a gray blanket and drinking flower power kombucha this morning. Cassandra gets ready for work and offers general hospitality. Eat any fruits and vegetables you want, Cassandra tells me. She lists them like a game. Ad libs. She was teaching me how to type cast a person as “Lego” or “Dust Bowl” or “Victorian Orphan,” last night. Blueberries, shallots, pickles, seeded mustard from the Amish farm stand. I tell Cassandra that she’ll come home to find I have devoured all of her arugula with my bare hands. Later, I wear Cassandra’s blue sweater and black ballet flats and take my own belongings clutched in my arms in a cab downtown. Am I crazy, or did you take my black ballet flats , Cassandra texts, that evening. We discuss an exchange. Tomorrow’s plans. My polyester black gown bartered for Cassandra’s blue sweater and black ballet flats. We’ll meet at mass, lunch, The Frick, The Met, the play, the party. The light is blue gray in my apartment, and all the windows steam over when the hot water is on. All the windows steam over because my apartment is very small, and because the bathroom has no doors. A New Year should feel psychedelic, not sluggish , one of my friends said, a few days back. Psychedelic ??? I said. What about crisp and clear ???? After my dream where there is No Air Left, I come to consciousness with concerns about redemption. Something about bad habits and something omnipresent left unsaid. Sun and light and real sort of detox incoming and yes this has all happened or is happening or needs to happen soon. Sirens outside the foggy window. Gentle winter sunrise. Watching Darling (1965) on my computer as it gets light outside. The Schlesinger film where Julie Christie whirls about all thrilled to find it’s not too late, even though, of course, it is. Back on my phone, I’m checking prediction markets and trackers and fortune tellers and all the things I’m trying to avoid for religious and also paranoid reasons. My fears are all confirmed. Reading the stars. That voice in your head telling you everything will work out fine is wrong , they say. Sound of shattering glass crystallizing outside my open window this morning. I can sense, therefore, more than see, bright morning light starting to seep through. Thank God. It was a few days of gluttony last week. Last days of bohemia, but it was different from the bohemia of before. Different from the times that we were all manic from the wind and cold and early January where everything or nothing happens all at once. Everything used to be reeling. I miss Butterfly Club. Ex-best friends are forever. I’ve been talking about being ascetic for reasons of necessity, and also because simulated intensity can only do so much when it comes to keeping a life pure. Morning, now, and I don’t remember my dreams but I jolted awake ready to chase the same thoughts in circles. Washington Square Park is bright and feeling like spring today, because the snow is melting and the trees and lights are coming down. Pine piles looking a little lonely under the park archway. Something a bit melancholy about it. Dead and gone. Nothing to overthink. Cassandra comes downtown for mass and black ballet flat retrieval, and then she goes uptown to clean her apartment and do good things so she can be a good person. Your apartment is already so clean , I want to tell Cassandra. Cassandra is telling me about the only girl in the world who are funny. I went to tell Cassandra about someone who said me and one other girl and one specific nun are only girls who are funny, but the conversation moves on before I can assert my piece. And I think I’m mostly funny when I’m being mimetic, anyway. Better at knowing funny than at being funny myself. Cassandra is telling me about childlike wonder. Washed my face with La Rouche Possay cleanser and Japanese milk toner and did Big 6 Lymphatic drainage which is supposed to do things like give you the whites of your eyes back and also cleanse your insides through and through, this morning. Procured a Celsius and cool minty zyn from the fridge. Procured green juice and cliff bar and sat in Prada boots, for a while, on the edge of my bed. I do feel confident things will work out in the end , Cassandra texts me. Only if no spiritual blockage with vice or isolation , I text her in response. What if we had seven more hours of daylight , my friend said tonight, but I like it when it is four pm and I’ve completed my day of obligations and the fading daylight matches a sense of completion. I wore a tan skirt with no tights because they all keep running and a black long sleeve tee and sneakers to do venue tours and other obligations. I thought you were coming from the gym when I saw you wearing shorts , my friend said, after I ran into him on the street. I’m not wearing shorts, but I am wearing sneakers because I keep on procuring mysterious injuries , I said in response. It was a strange December and then a good January, incoming. Good, because it is quiet. Good, because I think I sense things picking up. Can I see a menu , I asked the bartender, at a dive bar, later that night. There is no menu, because this is a dive bar, the bartender told me . Can I get something warm , I asked. The bartender fired up the kettle. Imagine seeking out attention to get only the negative aspects of fame like stalkers and rage, my friends were saying, at the dive bar. Imagine selling out your friends to cloy for low hanging fruit. Imagine turning twenty-six. Imagine playing pool. Imagine moving to Los Angeles, California, or San Salvador, El Salvador, or Geneva, or even Austin I would move anywhere, I was saying to my friends. I would move across the country or even the world and become very sweet or even very bored . My friends were talking about people for whom spectacle is just real life. You assume that everyone is excited to go back to real life, and then you realize that they have no real life. So these are the people that you’re supposed to avoid. And then after that, everyone was talking about religion again. Which is sort of crystallizing to be the topic these days, or even this year. WHAT YOU SHOULD DO Wednesday, January 14 - A few good downtown art openings tonight ( 6pm - 9pm ) — At 56 Henry ; works by Yifan Jiang and Sareh Imani . At Entrance; Seth Cameron’s first New York exhibition in six years. At Post Times ; Elberto Muller solo show. - From 7pm - 9pm at Beverly’s — D8 Time returns! Everyone meets everyone. - From 7pm (doors) at White Horse Tavern — The Drift hosts their Issue 16 Launch Party . Readings and a party. You know the drill. These are always fun. | Free for print subscribers, or $20 for admission + print issue - From 7pm at KGB Bar — Riley Mac & Montana Thomas James bring back Straight Girls , with readings from Anna Birch, Whitney Mallett, Bunny Rogers, Sam Anderson, and Tilghman Goldsborough. - From 7pm at Night Club 101 — It’s the first 99 Minutes of 2026; screening Suitcase of Love and Shame (2014) along with a bonus surprise super short film. This month, Nikoleta Vujnovic of Silver Hour NYC is guest programming. Opening remarks by filmmaker Heather Landsman . Afterparty to follow | Free! - From 7:30pm - 9pm at Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research — The Pilgrim opens; a new play written and directed by Luc d’Arcy . - “Naturalistic, funny, and painfully tender, The Pilgrim is about small talk that becomes big talk, & the strange ways we reach for love.” | tickets here . Additional performances Jan 15, 16, 17, and 18. Thursday, January 15 - From 6:30pm at P&T Knitwear — David Fishkind presents his debut novel Don’t Step Into My Office in conversation with Ross Barkan . - “security and HR have been told to stand down as readers breathlessly rush in.” After party to follow at Night Club 101. Cannot recommend this one enough. Very excited <3 | tickets here - From 7pm - 9pm at KGB Red Room — GirlPox presents Open Text Night. Like an open mic night but it’s your real unhinged text messages… Emceed by Marc Rebillet . | RSVP here Friday, January 16 - From 8pm - late at Lubov Gallery — Ada Donnelly presents OOMF: Boysturn. Readings on modern romance from Peter Vack, Billy Pedlow, Qingyuan Deng, Brett Fletcher Laur, Callum Murphy, Tyler Wolpert, Alex Barney, Drew Zeiba, Ryan D Petersen. - From 8:30 - 11pm in Bedstuy BK (RSVP for address) — Sophia Englesberg & Spokane Films present a fundraiser party for Thumper - a film by Cyprian Morona . I’ll be reading here, along with Sadie Parker, Bob Laine, Matthew Danger Lippman, and more! Saturday, January 17 - 169 Bar needs your help!! Get a pickle-tini. Get some questionable merch - From 6pm - 10pm at Studio 1609 — Bones Gilmore presents the opening of solo show RANDOM PRAYER GENERATOR - “a loosely medieval take on the casual brutality of modern life and spiritual living.” Flash tattoos and drinks. Works for sale. - From 10pm at Xanadu — Dirty Mag presents Jubilee and Donatella for a night of Latin-freestyle and cross-genre mix. - LOS ANGELES - From 7pm - 9pm — Club Chess presents an evening of chess, wine, and music. DJ sets by A.L. Bahta and friends. Sunday, January 18 - LOS ANGELES - From 7pm at The Earl — Matt Weinberger + Echoes + Le Keep present a night of DJ sets and performances: Chloe Cherry Blake The Man 1000 Drake Jazz Brown Emma Burney Le Keep Buff Pons Crooks etc.

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