n-poledancer's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- imposter syndrome I'm dropping this here because I can't call anyone to talk about it. They would try to fix it and it's not fixable. At least it's not for others to fix. My mother was reminiscing about when I was eighteen in college and would cut class to make costumes for whatever theatre production I was working on. There were many. Decades later I am calling in sick at the job Im leaving because that's the only way possible to get time off without everyone getting pissed at me and possibly retaliating on my paycheck... The reason is that I got a huge gig. Like NDA signing kind of project for the biggest gaming company in the world. Today is Sunday, we shoot tomorrow and I'm almost paralyzed with imposter syndrome. Can someone put self esteem and confidence in a syringe and shoot me up please? It's crazy to still be dealing with this at my age. Six years since I moved back home, I already had many connections and clout when I left for the US. Today I walk into the shops and they know me. They were in my class back when, or they acted with me, or I dressed them, or I partied with them. Or they know me through my current work with the board. And I still can't believe they want to work with me. I am acting nonchalant and I am avoiding any scrutiny of my choices because I know if I go there I won't come out of the rabbit hole. Everything will look bad to me. Back in art school in the US, my mentor once asked me "are you ever happy with your finished work?" To which I had to answer no, I just walk away from it and make sure to not look at it until enough time has passed that I'm no longer emotionally attached to it. Probably the biggest part of the problem for me is that I'm used to working as a team, at least as a duo. I can't reach the producer, they replaced my makeup artist friend with someone more experienced... I'm alone running around town picking up things and I won't get any feedback until we are on the set and then its kind of too late. I'm so afraid of dropping the ball and forgetting something. I think I need a list. And I need to offer three choices for every scene. Four would be too many and confusing. Remember triangulation and make that work for me. Not forget the small things. Shoes, bottoms... Don't forget the clothing bags. Prioritize. Remember tape (I shouldn't have unpacked my stylist bag this winter when there were no gigs). Remember what P at Otis said: Everything you need is here. There is no need to look beyond. Actually what she said was don't go out and buy things, everything you need to make something is inside this house. But that doesn't work well for stylists so let's make the house be this city. The next thing to remember is that you know how to tell a story with clothing. You know what looks good. You've been taught some tricks. You learned from masters. You've been in the right places at the right moments, but you also used to go sit next to the people you wanted to know and work with. That the magnet has two sides. That you have been doing this all your life and it's nature to you, no less so than making clothing from scratch. That you were born into this community and you are a part of it. That they could have easily picked someone else but they picked you. Now you pick you. Now breathe. Thank you. I needed this. 12:52 p.m. - 2024-04-14 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- perimeno is an afterlife When I was little my mother filled the windows in our basement apartment with cacti. Later that became symbolic to me. I fill my windows with very green leafed plants. But it's all from and because of her. Plus looks amazing. We all become what we fear the most. Our fears become our lives. Sometimes it's not even a bad thing. I am terrified to lose my mother. I have been very angry at her for getting older. I am beginning to comprehend that every moment might be the next to the next to the (almost) last but I also totally don't want to know and then tbh she really is my age but just dropped the ball on aging. Srsly! Newsflash: I gave notice at my job, signed up for Uni, and got a new job where I only have to work 15 days per month but still full time. I am also filing for a business license which is a much bigger deal, more expensive and complicated here than in the US. In the afterlife, when I'll be having that drink with Bowie, he will be asking me how I handled all the changes. And I'll say "David there were times during Perimenopause when I almost couldn't get up from my chair and I woke up weeping from pain, but then I thought of you and I knew you needed inspiration so I just smiled and beared it all". And he will say "talk to Iman she has a cream for that". Then she will be standing right next to us and handing me a sample of something and I will look in the mirror and discover I am a 25 year old black lady with a very long neck wearing all yellow. But yeah, Mom dropped the ball. 10:07 p.m. - 2024-04-03 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- n-poledancer, frecklewolf, sóldís lind and finn April 1st, 2004 was a Thursday. The place was called R23. My dating profile handle was Burleskimo and the fact that you found this diary based on that proves how smart you are. You kissed me outside the restaurant after dinner but we each went home. I'm pretty sure our next date was the following Saturday and I spent the night at your place which a few months later became ours. We went to a restaurant on Cahuenga either before or after the movie. I can't remember the food but the movie was Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. That my literary friend is an exemplary case of foreshadowing. I had a cough so bad it made me run to the bathroom to vomit. Little quirky stories like the vomit… The night we tried to make sushi, it tasted as good as it looked bad… When we brought an inflatable mattress to a van we rented to Coachella because all the hotels were booked and parked in a residential area in Indio, only to be woken up by the sprinkler system at 6 am after 3-4 hrs sleep. Those were wonderful moments for me. But they were not wonderful to you, at least not back then. I don't know how you feel about them today. I laughed so hard when we were trying to make the sushi and it hurt your feelings. I didn't understand it then but looking back I can see that you wanted everything to be perfect and that if we didn't get the sushi right it would mean it wasn't a good date. But to me it was perfect. Our love was the only one in my life that made me cry over Hallmark cards — both of us. Of course, we never gave each other hallmark cards, we were way too cool for that. We wrote them ourselves. I still have the ones you gave me. Sóldís Lind or Finn would have turned 19 last fall. She or he would have been born in September. They would be tall, probably dark-haired, and with gray, blue, or green eyes or a combination of all of those things. They would most likely have been avid readers like both of us and played video games to their mother's dismay. They would be smarter than both of us combined and super well-adjusted. We would have fought a lot during their first years but I think we would have stayed together. Eventually, we would have gone to family therapy and picked up better skills. Our mothers would have helped a lot and both of them would at points have been able to help us smooth out some disagreements. I would not have brought them with me to Iceland, I would not have taken them away from you. You would have been a great father to them though I think you doubted your abilities. You would have been a bit anxious and I would have been a bit strict in some ways but I would have turned the walls into one huge canvas and in that way I would have been more lax. One time you said to me that you believed I would never forgive you but at the time I already had. I just needed a long time to forgive myself and come to peace with it all. My biggest loss was you. I honestly believe they exist in another dimension. I'm not sure what happens to us when we perish, I think it might just be the great fade to black. But I would have loved to meet them. They exist in my head and my heart. My mother said that if I had asked you not to go to work that day I went to Planned Parenthood to get that pill, and if you had stayed home with me as you offered to, our grief would have been more in tune with each other and it might not have set us apart as much as it did. I think she was right. I didn't want you to see me go through what was to come; cramps that emptied my body through both channels, sweat pouring down my body, and finally the sound when the physical manifestation of us fell into the toilet bowl. Turning that flush handle was one of the worst moments of my life. You would have experienced many of the same feelings, but I didn't let you. Instead, you found me showered clean, on pain medication, and in bed about half an hour after the moment in the movie when Mrs Cole Porter bled through the theater chairs, and just as I had wiped off the last tear I would cry for much too long a time. I kept all of this from you and it was my mistake. I felt infinitely empty. Before that day you had said you would support me in my decision whatever it would be. It was probably a common, even natural reaction to be disappointed in the lack of the word “us”, but my reaction was much greater than disappointment. If you ever still think of this I want you to know that none of this was your fault. I don't ever want to experience or label myself as a victim in life. I don't know how to reconcile that with the fact that I, and several other people, were subjected to great injustice. I recently came across my college transcripts from Iceland before the US, and I compared them to my US college transcripts and the numbers speak for themselves how much my new life in the US was better for me. So I took out student loans and yes they were ill-advised and the amounts were unreasonably high for an undergrad. But I was finally enjoying being a student and flourishing. Between 1994 and 2002 I believe, or at least right between 1996-2000 when I was studying, Icelandic students abroad took out loans that are impossible to pay back because of the way they are tied to inflation. I defaulted, but my friends kept paying and their capital amount just kept growing. My generation will never finish paying, but thankfully today we have very manageable monthly payments. This wasn't the case back then when you and I made that decision to terminate what we had dreamt of together. I remember my monthly payments then were my entire monthly salary. I have been wanting to say to you for a very long time that I regard you as a victim of this as well. Maybe you don't need that from me, but in case it does I need you to know. I'm not sure I ever told you I was sorry. And when there is sorry, it should be said. I wish I had more wisdom back then, and skills to handle things better. I don't want to carry this around any longer without saying things. When I sat down to write this I didn't know what I was going to write. It just all poured out like this but I didnt have a plan and I dont have an agenda. I think this is enough for now but I have more to share and will be back. 3:28 p.m. - 2024-03-29 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- bad poetry and a countdown Wow! I almost kinda forgot this thing still existed. I thought it wouldn't work, like if I tried to post you would just see a string of 0's and 1's. So I thought I needed to go somewhere else. I always think I have to go somewhere else, but I am on some kind of path towards this not so celestial more mundane like the bulb over my stove kind of light. It's not like I hear any angel voices but there is some progress I guess. Also, it seems I exited with some really bad poetry about the moon. Can't believe I left that up there for so long, seems like a drive-by posting kind of situation. I think I'm better at ranting. I first wrote "probably" then I erased it as I am trying to Wow I even remember some basic html. Thats crazy. 8:26 a.m. - 2024-02-29 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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