Psych Ward Chic • 精神病房魅力

ናድያ நதியா приятел ナディア ناديه ਨਾਦੀਆ

Anaïs Nin, Mirages: The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin, 1939-1947

i don’t want to be sober but i feel morally obligated to be. ethically.

Casual reminder that you can choose to be sober regardless of if you have an addiction problem or not. Despite how prolific drinking is in many cultures, drinking is not necessary to be fun, to be sociable, to be vulnerable. You are not a downer for opting out of drug use (including alcohol). You are not on the side of weird, puritan drug programs and the cops for being sober, just like you're not a booster for alcohol company capitalists by enjoying a drink. Being sober should not be solely associated with purity and trauma.

my nero

we are misunderstood

lost in this maze

you were my hero

no one knows

the true depths of my despair

i thought since you related

you’d care

we can play the fiddle

while the city burns

hit the blunt first

then pass for my turn

what an artist dies in me

though you still helped me see

an objective observance

just one more dance

please

geez

i’m repeating a pattern

older by the day

my return of saturn

the future is unclear

are you listening, my dear

i love you all the same

my hairs wild and untame

are you really gone

or i’m just impatient

could we really be fated

to live apart, in adjacent

come back to me

or don’t. can’t be certain

your love is a burden

isn’t love always a burden

i’d throw it all away

just to lay by your side

destiny be damned

you’re my joy & pride

i don’t know why i’ve always had a fascination with nero.

i think i relate to him cuz he inherited a falling empire. and his life was so messed up i think it made him messed up.

学式 · some studyblr aesthetic

HILMA AF KLINT / "THE DOVE: XII" / 1915 [oil on canvas | U/D]

Oh, the 12th House.

Sometime between middle and high school, I had a dream. I was using Tumblr, logging on, and seeing what other people were saying. There had been some catastrophe, and not everyone had the internet. It wasn't guaranteed. But I somehow had access to the internet, and I logged onto Tumblr through my TV. People hadn't posted in weeks, months.

I thought it was weird that I was scrolling through Tumblr on my TV. This was 2010. It wasn't a flat screen. It was big and chunky and a box. These days, you can check Tumblr on a TV. Technology has come a long way. Airplay. Screensharing. Smartphones.

Could that dream have been a premonition? Of the decline in use of Tumblr over the years. I had just discovered Tumblr in the 8th grade. I was one of the first users, back when hipsters and mustache and converse pictures were just about to become the rage. Myspace was still around, though becoming a graveyard more and more by the month. Scene kids never die though. Rawr :]

~

What could the dream have meant? Perhaps that TV would be my own demise? My armageddon?

When I first read about the 12th house, I was a first-year at Centre College. The 'best' college in Kentucky. Private, small, liberal arts college with a hefty endowment. Most people have never heard of it. So much for the prestige and recognition.

I read Liz Green's article about the 12th house. I had just started getting into astrology. I'm smart. Was an IB / International Baccalaureate student at one of the best high school's in the city. But astrology gave my little 18 year old mind & heart some peace of mind. Homework and ambition can only do so much.

Harvard. Thanks to Gossip Girl, Brown University became my dream school. I applied Early Admission, seeing as the acceptance rate was slightly higher, and I thought my desire and longing to be upper class would carry the weight for my acceptance. AAAANNNHHHH!!!! Nope. Try again. You were just an above average student, thought not straight As or rich and well connected. Of course, this got my admittance to other good schools. Just not an Ivy. You probably would have hated it anyway, seeing as you had a nervous breakdown your second semester into college. And that was only two hours away from home! :) Rhode Island? not a chance.

My intuition told me not to go to Centre. But my ego persisted. I wanted to go to the best school in Kentucky, and I wouldn't settle for less.

I got so drunk the weekend I visited campus my senior year. The guy blamed himself for letting me get carried away. But I knew what I was doing. Granted I didn't mean to get that fucked up. But I wanted to get drunk. My bad homes.

-

So, I wanted the conventionally successful life. I did. Graduate college in four years, maybe be a banker or something. Make money. It really seemed so simple to me. Then my life became a living hell. Torture. I became so reclusive. Would walk around in the night, and miss my classes in the morning. I had no money. No car. Surrounded by strangers, rich strangers, in a small town two hours from home.

I fell apart.

I ended up in the Psych ward for a week. Took the rest of the semester off to join a new religion, the Mormons. Came back the next Fall only to be completely miserable again in a couple weeks time.

I guess I just thought I could handle it. I wasn't disciplined enough to stick it out. I was crazy enough that it became too difficult.

I was in fact crazy. I didn't realize it at the time. I do now. It's why I blacked out all those years.

Thanks, 12th house.

The 12th house in Astrology. The house of Psych wards, Prisons, Monestaries, Rehabs. A single drop of water in the vast vast ocean.

The unconscious. Spirituality. Bipolar disorder. Photography. Drugs. Weird religion. Gay.

Boy, I had it in for me. All things considered.

I realized though, my dad's Sun was also in the 12th house. Mine and his. So I guess we asked for this. We're in this together. Two wackos.

Great.... :(

I guess what they say is true.

The 12th house makes you crazy. I'm living proof. But it also gave me psychic powers. Gifts. The days you feel like you are completely drowning, though, are the worst.

Maurice Sapiro (American,b.1932)

Atlantic City, 2018

oil on canvas