lettucehouse

[lettucehouse]

Pms absolutely kicking my ass right now, brain is exiting the stratosphere

[lettucehouse]

Meditations on letting go

May 2025 month in review - these aren't going to make much sense to me in a year

A slight addendum to my “why write at all?” Clearly, I have troubles letting go. Sometimes writing is not necessarily about careful consideration at all. There are some days, words just pour out of me, days I feel so confused that I need to read them back to myself, and days when it’s just a torrent of waves where thoughts must become physical.

There’s motor in my head that drives my vision. In the first half of May, it felt like sentences were bursting at the seams of my consciousness. There’s an inability to stop and I needed to open the valve to release the pressure. My nose spontaneously bled. I can smell the pollen in the air.

There was so much grief spilling out of me. The demarcation between “self” and “ego” being wiped away. A sense of being untethered to anything in life. Not even staying anywhere long enough for those lines to be drawn again. Yet, events have drawn lines in my life anyways. Yet, I desire boxes.

There’s no real letting go, just moving forward. Suppression to frustration to gratitude.

Or regret. Either way it must lead to gratitude or I will not survive. The stepping stones still hiding in the brush.

The books in my windowsill being gently dyed yellow. My freckles starting to show again. A new box every month. A gentle reminder.

More fruits! More vegetables!

I’ve booked rental cars. I check tide charts.

Things I’ve been reading

The Crane Wife - CJ Hauser

What if I were both the crane wife and the husband?

I’m not a creature that has been the object of people’s study for years, so I don’t yet know the environment that I need to live.

Who Goes Nazi - Dorothy Thompson

Thompson paints incredibly rich images of different types of people. I can easily map traits she describes to people in the current day.

Unfortunately relevant today

Power, sense of self, lived experiences are all different factors that play into “who goes nazi”

Everyone is sexy but no one is erotic

Eroticism is vulnerability, being sexy is one sided. We’re not used to presenting for feedback anymore, just praise.

Eroticism requires focus

Being perceived

Your perception of me is based on you.

“She’s got a bud of weed hanging on her backpack”

The Irrevocable Fear of Being Perceived

The Fear of Being Perceived

Other

Knitting machines

Music

1937 State Park - Car Seat Headrest (indie rock)

carpe diem avem - key vs. locket (midwest emo)

Melodie is a Wound - Stereolab (indie pop? not sure on this one honestly)

Rilkean Heart - Cocteau Twins (dream pop)

bemused - double virgo (sort of post punky rock)

Amethyst - Deafheaven (black metal, shoe gaze ish)

Waxcap - DjRUM (IDM)

Art

@karinhosono - instagram, twitter

Mikal Bien-Aimé - www.ekoda.nyc

Charles Compo - www.ekoda.nyc

[lettucehouse]

I get incense now. The smell of smoke far outweighs the smell of decaying matter and piss

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Staring up into space on the subway instead of down. Maybe my prayers will be answered this way

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I move through the world as someone hotter than I really am

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why write at all?

I wish I didn't want to write well

Writing, to a certain extent, makes me pretend I have an audience at all times. Even if that audience is a future me.

Life is so filled with the eyes of others would it be better to not think like that? Yeah probably.

Do I even know how to exist not thinking about what others see? I have no idea.

Yet, there’s a utility in having an audience and equally so an imaginary audience. The thought that someone might read what I write, forces me to be deliberate about my thoughts. Writing forces process. I can’t give you a cheeky look and you can’t look back at me confused. I must stand on my words. It closes a gap in the kinds of conclusion I can jump to. Writing forces me to consider every thought, or at least it makes me try to see through the fog.

I have a desire for things to “feel” right and physical words allow me to hold every thought in the palm of my hand, turning, squishing, tasting every aspect of it. Prodding the thought until it forms to the shape of the feeling in my head. Looking at my new creation and having a sense I’ve immortalized an intangible current state.

@muffinwen

Writing can be both catharsis and rumination. Nothing I write has to even be true if it fits my blob of thought. It’s cathartic to imagine my shame as an omnipresent goblin with beaming red eyes or adding a rosy tint to my most joyous moments. I can prod a little too long though, warping the words with flowery, intricate language. Overindulging in the taste of my own prose until I’ve stretched the entire point thin. Nevertheless the words still create a projection from my brain, no matter how obfuscated.

@muffinwen

I wish I didn’t want to write well. If I can convince myself my words are clear, poetic, or insightful that means I have figured out something special. The time that I’ve spent looking has actually been fruitful. Part of me wishes I could feel this without needing to hold my thoughts outside myself. Experience life as is, without needing to examine every inch, but for now, this is how I feel connected.

This is a practice in exposure therapy and relinquishing control. I have a bad habit of trying to avoid the worst case scenario by maintaining a homeostasis that doesn’t really exist. Trying to learn with no feedback. Trying to grow, without myself or the world changing while I’m doing it. Obviously, with everything I create, I’m trying to convey something, but once it’s out in the world the interaction becomes one-sided. I can’t control how you interact because it’s yours now too.

P.S posted on substack also but it's not quite as personal feeling as Tumblr https://substack.com/@lettucehouse/note/p-163248999

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What can we do with our feelings of powerlessness?

Inspired by this wonderful video by Prince Shakur about misogyny, misogynoir, and examining a beloved iconoclast.

This video is way better written than my stream of consciousness right now, but it's got me thinking about catharsis.

Shakur states at 21:30 "so much of his (Baldwin's) work is about men exerting their rage onto women, and women being periphery characters..." made me think again about my interpretation of Giovanni's Room. Spoilers.

Intro

In Giovanni's Room, the protagonist David searches for an encounter with a woman named Sue. After pushing away Giovanni and choosing Hella, David prowls the streets for a woman he knows he finds unattractive. A means to reaffirm himself as a man. When they meet, Sue is suspicious, yet David pushes through. Lying to her face. Using her and ultimately leaving, knowing what he's just done.

There are parallels here to David's first experience with Joey in his childhood. Resorting to bullying and seclusion and using societal ideas of "masculinity" to distance himself from shame, from his true self.

Not only do these actions reveal David's character, it also informs the external forces and social hiercharies in society at the time. Women and people with darker skin having less power in the world.

Social Structures

First there is consistent disdain towards femininity. And a less overt but ever prominent understanding that darker skin was less desirable. There's disgust towards the effeminate gay men, derogatorily describing them as "fairy." And both Joey and Giovanni are described to have darker skin.

Although the protagonist, David is not likable to me. His actions are flawed and selfish feels like a realistic and almost relatable portrayal of a person struggling to find his place in the world. Giovanni's Room, is ultimately about characters who choose to align themselves with the hegemony. At least whatever they can. Queer men aligning themselves with masculinity. A bisexual man aligning himself with heteronormativity. And Hella, we see a woman exploring the feminism of the time, yet in the end seeking the power being under the protection that men can provide. It’s why we see Sue getting her hopes up again. Not only to be loved but the social capital that being with a man like David brings. Hella — can feel her power slipping away as David slips away. David also feels his, while he falls for Giovanni. The effects of social alienation are constantly shown through the other characters. The one character who tries to seek comfort in being his true self ends up dead at the hands of the state.

Needing power to feel whole

I think there is an ease to moving with the flow of society. There's comfort that this system works and there's nothing to examine. It's difficult to truly confront the pieces of you that can be hidden away yet even more difficult to confront the identities you are not. There's a reason this book is written from the perspective of a white American. And a white American that embodies the ideals of western masculinity at the time.

Although Baldwin says this story is not based of his time in Paris necessarily, there are so many parallels I read it as his own way of at least processing some of those experiences and views. There are frequent references to being “The American” in Giovanni’s room and that mirrors the experience of Baldwin. He felt like he was freed from being seen as a Black man first, yet he is still a man. Additionally, David's relationship with his father and the consistent struggle with masculinity.

Just as David is blind to the experiences of women or of a Black man. And he asserts his failings on women, those poorer or darker than him, doesn't mean someone like Giovanni doesn't have power to assert. And often those lower on the totem pole will try to find their power through subjugating those even less fitting of the current power dynamic. For example Giovanni’s misogynistic rant

Oh women! There is no need, thank heaven, to have an opinion about women. Women are like water. They are tempting like that, and they can be that treacherous, and they can seem to be that bottomless

they need to be beaten half to death so that they can find out who rules the world

To me is a man trying to convince himself he still has power and choice and that he is sane of mind. Not like the women around him. Putting down women to try to convince David he doesn’t need them, that Giovanni should be enough for him.

And to me the biggest example of this and the catalyst for David’s ponderings is Guillaume. Guillaume is rich. He knows where his powers lie. He is able to wield that power over a poor Giovanni. When Giovanni gets with David he stops humoring Guillaume’s advances and Guillaume fires him because he cannot get what he wants. Ultimately sending him down the spiral towards his death. I don’t believe Guillaume would treat David like he did Giovanni because David does have more social capital than him in a way just not monetarily. Guillaume eventually DOES get what he wants by telling Giovanni he will get his job back if he sleeps with him, which Giovanni agrees. But Guillaume lied. We see the aftermath this time. Giovanni asserts the only power he has left, taking Guillaume’s life. Obviously Guillaume’s power hold even after death. The government does not see the power dynamics at play to end up here and Giovanni is executed.

Every person is trying to be in control of their own lives. Unfortunately the more vulnerable you are the more control outside forces can have. I think it’s important to try to understand those forces.

Shakur's video does an incredible job seeing a man able to challenge the views of society from his own perspective can still have blindspots about experiences i.e Black women's experiences he's never lived.

There's power to be had with aligning with the current norms of the world. I think for me understanding how much power I truly have without that structure is important. Because as shown in Giovanni's room you are at the will of those more aligned and in danger of being erased.

Conclusion

This was meant to be my thoughts on catharsis and how people ultimately take out their own feelings of shame and powerlessness on people weaker than themselves but it turned into just me processing Giovanni's Room and the immense of amount of subtext and history behind it.

My thesis is falling apart anyways so maybe another day.

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What if I’m unemployed for the rest of my life

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My parents always tell me not to look at my phone at dinner in the meantime they have the news on full blast and everyone has to yell at each other to speak.

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Gojo at the Meg the stallion concert

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Watching live sports is my EDMR therapy

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Today I woke up as a bug. I may have been one yesterday and I might wake up tomorrow as one too. No one seems to say anything about it.

I didn’t sleep so well. My old mattress needs to be replaced, it’s bad for my back. I woke up hungry, so I have a nice bowl of cereal with dried fruit. I google what kind of fruit is good for a bug like me. It says blueberries are high in antioxidants. I add a couple more to my bowl.

It’d be good for me to see to sun I think. I put on a tshirt and some jeans, scrub the dark circles from my eyes and brush around my mandibles. I sigh and stare at my bugginess. “I need a coffee”

I scuttle outside to my local coffee shop and get my usual “traditional macchiato with oat milk for here please,” the lady next to the door gives me a strange look. Maybe she noticed I’m a bug today.

[lettucehouse]

Fancams and edits are truly the sign that intense feelings and a very specific goal bring out people’s talents.

Horniness is so powerful and can really be used for good.

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The Fame Monster - revisiting albums

There are times I can only listen to five old disjointed songs on repeat and others where I am thirsty for the unfamiliar. Revisiting The Fame Monster was a moment of wanting both.

I LOVE music videos and Bad Romance at age 11 was the beginning. This album is full of her biggest hits that are painted with nostalgia of the 2010s (Alejandro, Telephone, Just Dance etc.) and the melodies, rather than the stories, are deeply remembered by me.

I'm not about to say anything that hasn't been said before, after all this is an almost 15 year old album. I am only a casual listener of music.

The Fame Monster

The Fame Monster is a masterclass in injecting catchy electropop with authenticity and a dark gothic theme. This album is an addition to The Fame with the first “side” being eight new songs and the second being The Fame. It pulls back the curtain on the glitz and the glam and instead Gaga's struggles are on full display.

Mixed in with those, as you would expect, dance-y vocals and melodies, is Gaga singing about a boy who "ate my heart" and "I wanna just dance, but he took me home instead" on Monster. Not so subtly alluding to a man who has sexually assaulted her yet she wonders "Could I love him?" Gaga wanting to salvage relationships that may not be good for her seem to be a common theme in the first half of this album. Bad Romance, although a more dominant and in-control tone for Gaga, is still talking about an unstable relationship. Whereas in Speechless, there's a sense of hopelessness that the other person is giving up and Gaga is in disbelief.

Speechless sets up the tone for the next part of the album, as a power ballad. Extremely theatrical, emotional and is a refreshing display of Gaga's vocals.

The second half of the album starts with talking about Gaga's own “monsters.” In Dancing in the Dark, an almost somber song where she sings about a glamorous but insecure woman. She's afraid of showing her self in the light and wants to "dance in the dark."

So Happy I Could Die is a flowy and sweet pop song with a sexual overtones about how alcohol makes her feel "so happy I could die." I love the progression of giving into the starry eyed feelings of being at a club, but something's not quite right.

Finally, the album ends with Teeth a vampy, pounding, march about desire with clear references to BDSM.

I love the frequent references to literal monsters. I love the vivid stories she tells in the songs. They progress through a night out or as feeling change. She is able to sing about very personal and interesting topics with insanely fun production. The songs feel multidimensional and real.

The Fame

I'm not going to say much here except this is such a fun 2010s pop album. Boys, money, parties, music, sex, drugs, beauty wrapped together in varying fun production. It really never gets boring! AND it's very cohesive. Honestly, I can hear some 2nd Gen Kpop starting to get inspiration from this style. Also her sound has held up surprisingly well for how dated some 2010s music sounds now. I hear a lot of current girlypop and emopop referencing this style.

For some of the less listened to songs on this album1, I really enjoy Beautiful Dirty Rich, Disco Heaven and Boys Boys Boys.

Conclusion

Maybe people in their 20s get a calling to make art. This album feel inspired, someone bursting at the seams to express themselves and I love that I'm here in my 20s getting to consume it!

I think a lot of current pop stars could take note of how Gaga is able to write about herself with such vivid imagery and tight themes, without being overly corny. Not for Rina Sawayama to catch a stray here, but this but this was an issue I felt about her latest album Hold The Girl. Also a pop album about her struggles but so full of cliche, pandering platitudes and boring production like a diary entry or a therapist doing CBT rather than a song.

There's a hunger to Gaga at the time. When I experienced her rise to fame, this was the reality of stardom. Eye-catching costumes, meat dress shock, running towards the light. I think it made for an incredibly strong and sincere piece of mainstream work. Gaga's true feelings punctuated by theatrics, visuals, and imagery. And maybe this was just one of the ways she thought of to achieve fame but I truly believe the sincerity is still under all of that.

Although I think Gaga has lost some of her soul a bit in recent years, but it's understandable, your late 30s are not the same as your 20s.

Plus she's rich now.

Love that Spotify's UI has gotten so bad it's making only want to listen to albums.

P.S. maybe I was really meant to be 25 in 2011 because why am I making posts like this on tumblr in 2024

P.P.S It's harder to be hungry when you're rich - as in maybe this is her true self.

I mean her least listened to song (Disco Heaven) still has 14.8 million streams but still compared to Poker Face's 1.2 billion it's less listened to. 

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Why are so many people compelled to start food instagrams? Is it just for documentation? Or recommendations? I don’t really get it

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I’ve been feeling compelled to write lately. I think it’s because my opinions have gotten too convoluted for me to just say out loud to someone

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I’ve never questioned if I am Asian enough. And I’ve never questioned if I am American enough. But I have questioned if I am Asian-American enough