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[jakobvongluten]

It’s selfish of me, but I’m planning to leave on the 21st.

Names

I guess I want to put Ellen’s picture in there because she’s beautiful. Was thinking: is that a good enough reason?  Well, I want our authors to be recognizable and attractive like pop stars from the 80’s. 

Is this rock beautiful, or just the photograph of it? Ellen sends photographs of a rock, trees, doors ajar, clipped roses. The rose is a ceramic among living plants. Centering, what do I have to say about it? 

Raighne does clinical trials,  as a symbol and as a business model. Previously it was Kickstarters. Credit cards, the work of constant e-mailing while on the clock as a security guard at the Minniapolis Insititue of Contemporary Art, with ex-wife and ex-2dcloud member Maggie Umber. It works out or it doesn’t. It was worth it or it wasn’t. Obviously success is preferable, but, its a risky business publishing, and publishing these kinds of books.  2d is what he’s doing with his life. It’s more than him. He always says ‘We’.  I design books, I run the instagram, we co-curate, with me doing more and more of it. I’m working on a book myself. 

This guy in line at the cafe looks like Stewart Lee. Short, in cargo shorts and a hawaiian shirt, militaristic haircut, mischievous grin. I was thinking maybe I’m finding it difficult to live with Blaise because we’re both mirrors — he’s just more explicit about it, or insistent on this role, adament. eye-for-an-eye, but anything could be made into an eye. Someone has to be a person. I’ve been staying at Sarah Cuje’s place. She just moved here from New Jersey, then a month in, heads back for a month. I’ve tied a piece of her olive fabric around my wrist which has attatched a pendant in the form of a bit of cotton sealed in a circle of soft plastic. She’s got a cotton ball phobia, which makes it more curious.

Other pendants -- a cicada husk on a delicate clasp left in my room

also in my room a sewing needle hanging on thread (perfect loop)

I've been thinking that I'm living on the head of a pin; and I didn't say as much in my last letter to Ellen but I was thinking it -- I mentioned that I was on the brink, but saved by the space Cuje's lending me. I'm saved by a number of things though. I'm where I should be, which includes the expression of my marriage proposal if not its acceptance. I'm married to something. Maybe a group of dispersed individuals. Anti-socialites.

I remember feeling like Tom Ripley when Matt Fishbeck gave me his place for a week, within a week of our meeting for the first time at a bar -- The Lucky Joy. And sometimes I feel like I’m doing a Matt Fishbeck impression for Blaise.  It’s less what you’re painting than looking like you know what you’re doing with your body. You can make an ok enough painting like you can a haircut if you do it confidently.

The only person I can think to look up to Hedi el Kholti. 

In Cuje’s 

I can’t hate Ellen, or be too angry with her, but I’ll dislike Caleb somewhat— crouched, grinning, cradling a bottle of Prosecco, captioned — I love Prosecco! He's not as interesting, but he comes with a garden.

I googled Prosecco, the future of the sparkling wine is in peril, news from two days ago— the grapes have been stricken with new diseases and further disadvantaged by climate change in the moutains of Northern Italy. Farmers are dubbing the season “anus horribilis”.

I can’t make a clear claim to God, I can’t tell you where God would figure in our hypothetical life. I’m G.W Chesterton's mystic, or I've been reading about Pragmatism (I'm American). She mentioned obedience, but in her diaries— obedience is ranked lower than beauty. Most people should be obedient, but some people can skip it by being beautiful. I'm beautiful to her. Well, what though? I’m just the opposite side of the spectrum in every way? In multiples we can fill the gaps? What do I have in common with Ellen? We look at ideas in the air. She thinks she's uncool and that I'm cool, citing the photograph of me giving a presentation in New York without shoes on.

Caleb comes with a garden. Am I more like Liza? Is Ellen more like Caleb? Is Liza like Ellen? Am I like Caleb? Ellen, well, what, we’re both sensualists— creature comforts. Delicate coffee drinks, flowers, drawing, books, walks. She said something similar about Caleb as me; that he’s not really a person, more like an animal wearing human clothing. I’m sure she might be embarassed by it now, though maybe not:  how she wanted to impress upon me how he seemed, more than anything else, like an elderly woman.

Well none of it is so clean — I was going to say, Ellen and Liza are both highly organized when it comes to space and things; and that’s something I thought would be good— because I’m so messy, and need to keep my drawings organized at least.  Liza could be even more organized than Ellen, I thought, though I haven’t seen Ellen’s place in person. I was going to say Liza is probably more attendant to organizing time, then remembered how each day Ellen writes the day’s name — eg ‘Thursday’. That’s something else though. Like paying her respect to the day and to the notion of names in general. Every day has a name. Holy names.

I’m infinitely stoned

What’s worse— being looked at or looking? Being a looker. 

Becoming annoyed by the whiny voices of people