Picking up on Nuances.

Vanessa. 26. Theatre Artist. Veg-head. Queer. Ever-Evolving. Always confused.

[shymagnolia]

so I got into grad school today with my shitty 2.8 gpa and the moral of the story is reblog those good luck posts for the love of god

[shymagnolia]

okay so i just got my dream job??? a week after applying to it?? and now i’m thinking….maybe this is the good luck post

[flagellant]

…..not even six hours later i got an offer of a well paying full time long-term job with free room and board in queens in nyc, allowing me independence and a way to escape an abusive situation and an unhealthy environment

likes charge reblogs cast, folks, this is the good luck post

[gentlechamomile]

[nessysweet]

ADAPTED FOR 2019 GOALS

*Starting off the year with even more reflection, cuz my memory is shot, and I want to keep public records.

1. Am I happy?

Yes! I’m proud of the journey I’m on to become the artist I’ve always wanted to be. I chose a pricey, time-consuming route, but I’m very happy with my growth! I feel like I’m pursuing my dreams, and I have big plans for myself. I’m frustrated by my finances, my lack of discipline, and the state of my relationships, but I hope by this summer I’ll finally feel some relief. 

2. Passions?

I’m still figuring this one out! I’m passionate about creating & art, but I don’t know what really gets me going! I love glamour, humor, vaudeville, and existentialism, but I hope I can better articulate what my specific passions are by the end of the year. Marketing purposes, lol. Grad school is step 1 of many, but next, I want to reach out to people I admire, and ask them for advice, collaboration. POWER MOVES. A brief list:

- Find the ultimate day job. Flexible hours, not too stressful, but engaging and pays me $50k or more

- Find a space to incubate new work. Vanessa & Co. Hardwood floors, a kitchenette, great lighting. My studio.

- Go to 2 residencies & conferences to learn, work, and share. Also, go abroad for fun or work! Sweden, Montreal, Toronto, Lagos!

- Set up new website for my creative portfolio.

- Get credit out of red. 

- Learn to drive, and get a license!

- Devise a new show and/or write a new screenplay. One major work under my name! 

3. Who/ What is a weight on me?

My fears and being vulnerable are a huge weight. I’m scared of people and their judgements most of the time, but therapy helps. Maybe West Philly is starting to bore me, but there is a lot left to discover. I could use a change in environment though, I hate to feel stale. My lover is a weight, in the best way, but also the most challenging. We just have important questions to figure out, and I can’t lie, it’s rough. I need to get rid of my inhibitions and my casualness. I need a schedule, and a better will to stick to it.

4. Forgiveness?

I should forgive myself for my failings. There are so many, but beating myself up is not useful. Oh, and my family. I should forgive them for the rough legacy I come from. They don’t determine my future.

5. When did I feel alive?

Well...from a trip across the country, to an entire summer spent traveling and exploring, to my first Fringe Show, to a fall semester that ended with my best performance. These are times I feel alive. Loving my partner through our best and worst times, learning uncomfortable truths about myself (I don’t want babies! lol), accomplishing goals and leaving others behind. This is life!

6. Self love actions?

- Text my friends! Tell them I love them more often then not!

- Exercise! 30min to 1hr, 3 times a week! 

- Dress up once a week. Feel pretty.

- Wake up on time. No more snooze! Morning pages too. 

7. Let go of...?

Inhibitions, self-doubt, financial stress, arbitrary markers of success

8. Dedication?

2019 will be the year of POWER MOVES. Doing ballsy things I would never dare, until now! Faking confidence until it feels real and natural! Climbing the ladder of growth faster than I or others thought possible, in Jesus’ name! AMEN.

9. What did I learn?

I still have a lot of questions about who I am and what I want! I’m more interesting to people than I thought! I need more balance between chill mode and work mode; not as disciplined as I used to be! I try to please people, and it’s better to be upfront with my own needs. It may be painful, but dodging people’s disappointment is a surefire way to become resentful.

10. What did 2018 represent on my path?

- I am humbled by all the things I don’t know about the world! Its bigness, its complexity, its range! So much to explore! I am a changing and growing human being, and this year confirmed that complexity in myself. 2018 set the stage, and this is my time to step up to it!

[slatestarscratchpad]

Reasons I Would Give For Declining Your Social Event If I Were Honest

“It sounds fun, but I have an event the weekend before, and that would mean I have to go two weeks straight without having a weekend really free.”

“It sounds fun now, but if I say yes, then I’ll have to go, and what if I don’t want to at the time?“

“It sounds fun, but it’s on Saturday, and that’s the only day I can drink coffee without it either interfering with work or risking interfering with sleep on a worknight, and I really want to be able to enjoy my coffee-drinking in peace.”

“If I said yes, then all the time from now until then I’d be thinking ‘oh, got to go to that social event later’ and it would prevent me from really relaxing.”

“It’s pretty short, but what if it cuts my day into two pieces and neither piece is long enough for it to seem worth getting work done in it?”

“I only want to go because there will be attractive people there, and that seems like an unvirtuous reason to go to something.”

“If I went, that would make it seem like I’m the sort of person who usually goes to things, and it would be even harder to come up with a polite and plausible sounding excuse the next time.”

[nessysweet]

Slob life.

[owk]

bisexual culture is being very specific with the men you’re interested but having absolutely no type when it comes to girls because they’re all so beautiful

[praial]

Keanu Reeves - The Sound i-D Issue, No. 115, April 93

[nessysweet]

Now one of my favorite dancing spaces is ruined, thanks to some dude who wouldn’t get over his ego and stop talking to me, tryna tell me that “he’s not gonna self censor himself as a black man” and expect me to engage in this non-consensual solidarity building when all I wanted to do was just fucking dance. 

This is the kind of shit that fucks me up, because I think that at almost 25, I should be able to exert my boundaries better, and say “hey, I’m not really interested in conversation right now, especially if you’re high and can’t pick up on my wildly obvious social cues that I’m uncomfortable and/or bored.” 

But I don’t have the skills yet to do that, and it makes me feel inept. And ya’ll know Vanessa hates feeling inept. My new dancing friends all asked if I was okay, and I hurriedly replied “Yeah! Sure! Uh-huh! Totally!” hoping they would believe me. But I bet they saw the anxiety dripping from my face, and now they all know I’m a tiny baby. An inept tiny baby.

And now I’ll think about it for months. And I won’t look them in the face. 

[sunshien-deactivated20220126]

i never thought i would get into the bachelorette but this was the single best thing ive ever seen on television

[quinnathans]

I’m not exaggerating when I say that this is in my top ten all time TV moments.

[celestialafterhours]

@boombubblepop @somewhere-in-neverland14 @spicymeataballa did this really happen did I have a stroke

[nessysweet]

The meat of things, written in prose, on a Saturday in bed. Fuck it.

I lately haven’t been feeling like myself, or rather, I haven’t felt myself. I feel numb all over my body, in my head, and in my heart. 

I constantly feel like I’m living a huge lie, knowing I carry all of my life’s secrets in my bosom, hoping they don’t explode out of me in some embarrassing way.

I wake up and put on clothes I don’t like anymore, I brush my teeth to the same bands I listened to when I was 12, and nothing resonates with me. I go to finish off my face with red lipstick, my daily choice, and I realize I hate the look. 

All of these things, superficial changes to my appearance, can easily be fixed and altered, but which direction do I go? I have a world of options, a long a brillIant spectrum of bold to subtle, but I don’t know where my look fits. I don’t know where I fit. Or maybe I do know, but the alternative I imagine myself pursuing...is too scary. It’s too wild, too fabulous, too majestic, way too cute.

I remember how much of my childhood was spent being an outcast. I remember the constant bullying and mocking. That one kid who actually pulled a chair out from under me in school...where is he now I wonder? Fuck him. Being true to myself meant subjecting myself to a world of pain, and I couldn’t handle it anymore. 

“No Vanessa, you can’t wear your favorite collection of Homer Simpson tees. No, get rid of that Naruto shirt you saved up money for. Stop talking about anime, no one cares about your cherished collection of stories. No, the scene kids don’t want to discuss the ‘philosophy’ of punk and diy culture with you, why do you mistake them for comrades?”

So I stopped. I “grew out” of anime and manga, and the fantasy worlds that came from the depths of my rich imagination. I “grew out” of all my obsessions, everything that gave me purpose and joy and meaning. I “grew out” of the feeling that brazen, unabashed punk rock could change the world, and I opted to listen to my favorite bands out of irony because I was becoming so “mature” and “well-adjusted”. Soon enough, I wasn’t the daily target of bullies, because I became so bland and boring and unassuming. I blended into hallways, and fit into small corners, giving no one a reason to bother or look at me.

But I’m a wild one at heart, and I yearned for a little // color //. I knew a girl in high school who wore brilliant eyeshadow everyday. It was beautiful and bright, and I loved it. I begged her to give me the same look, and she place big, bold, shimmering layers of pink, gold, and green on my eyes. Probably a tacky look, but for a second, I felt like I had peeled myself off the wall and stepped into my personhood again. But it took 5 minutes before I had “hoar” whispered into my ear, and my ass grabbed by multiple boys, and panic set in. I ran to the bathroom, wiped it off (along with my tears), and looked sadly at the girl who tried to help me feel again.

So I did grow up into a relatively responsible, reasonable adult. An artist, but not obsessive over her work. Not full of fire, just simmering. Ambitious, but still reserved. I applaud vivacity in other people, but I continue to display a sense of control and stability, nothing too out of the box. Nothing that would make people notice me.

And it’s eating me. Invisibility is a superpower I never wanted. I want to shoot lasers out of my eyes, and for my voice to split mountains, but it feels like I’m stuck as this invisible mutant, and I want to crawl out of my skin into a new one. I want to wear my favorite honey blond wig outside my bedroom. I want to be the unadjusted rape survivor who doesn’t have to evade the question “so why are you in therapy?” I want to make art about Gundams, and cosplay every damn day. I want to yell into a microphone about pizza, and demand people pay me $$$ for it. I want to live in my queer body and begin to understand what that means for me. I want to laugh obnoxiously loud and chew with my mouth open because I’m having such a good time, and no one can stop me.

In my youth, I laid on my bed and dreamt about how adulthood would be so much better, so much freer. And now I sit here bemoaning my position as a dull, uninspired, anxious grown up, desperately searching for that boldness I had as a kid. I’m looking for my heart again. I dropped it somewhere along the way, and now I have to go back and find it. I can only hope it finds me first, because I don’t know where in the hell to start. 

I’m going to start my search... at the thrift store today.

[adz]

Autonomous Trap 001

“What you’re looking at is a salt circle, a traditional form of protection—from within or without—in magical practice. In this case it’s being used to arrest an autonomous vehicle—a self-driving car, which relies on machine vision and processing to guide it. By quickly deploying the expected form of road markings—in this case, a No Entry glyph—we can confuse the car’s vision system into believing it’s surrounded by no entry points, and entrap it.”

-James Bridle

[horsecrash]

using salt circle motor runes to trap driving AI is the most cyberpunk thing I’ve ever seen

[selenaslyrics]

lorde // perfect places

[nessysweet]

I tend to believe that because I’m a “good” person who follows all the rules, is nice to people, and responsible, I should get what I want all the time.

Because I deserve it. Because my actions should correlate to how far I get in life.

I’m a “good” girlfriend, so I shouldn’t be single right now.

I’m a “good” worker with a hard work ethic, so I should have a job by now.

I’m a “good” artist who applies herself, so I should be more prolific by now and have a bigger resume.

I treat life like a game I can win with strategy and diligence, but I keep forgetting that it doesn’t work like that, and few things are really in my control, and the phrase “good things happen to good people” isn’t always true. Shitty things happen to good and bad people. So do wonderful things. And mundane things. 

I woke up this morning feeling like my life isn’t mine, which probably means I need to head back to therapy, stop eating like shit, shower before noon, and find something to do with my time.

[bransonreese]

[tender-4u]

Photo 📓 Journal. 5.21.17

I moderated a Q&A with Dr. Willie Parker, my hero, and abortion provider in the South, I made some shortcake, I cried at work, and I’ve had iced coffees every day.

[nessysweet]

TINA IS MY HERO. Go grrrl, go!

[nessysweet]

Feeling:

Mostly pathetic.

Mostly uninspired.

Spoiled cuz I get mad when I don’t get what I want right away

Impatient cuz this job will kill me before I get to grad school.

Really untalented. I’m not special, I’m average, that that’s a reality I can’t sit with.

[nessysweet]

[nessysweet]

I didn’t stick with the plan, and now look at me. Stuck, and hating myself.

Super mad at myself because I’m not worth shit... I’m always at the edge of greatness and success, but I’m always too short to reach the ladder going up.

I’m not good enough at web development to get the interesting, high-paying gigs.

I’m not good enough at theatre to quit everything and land jobs that pay enough to live on. Nor do I have the talent to create my own compelling performances that people would pay to see.

I’m not fluent enough in Japanese to be a translator.

I’m not so clever of an entrepreneur that I can start a successful side hustle.

I feel like I’m forever plateauing. Like I’ll always remain “average”, and stuck in the same hamster wheel forever. 

I hate feeling like I have no control over my life. Ughhhh.