Hi all <3
I'm writing to you from my neighborhood restaurant. I used to come in here a couple of times a week. They noticed when I stopped drinking because I stopped coming in as often. But, in the spirit of Joan Didion, I picked the bottle back up and am writing with a bev.
I'm sitting at the bar. I love sitting at the bar, even if I'm not drinking. One of the owners just swung by. He is invested in Hot Literati even though he doesn't really understand what it is. I barely understand what we are at this point. What are we to you? (Earnest question).
He offered me a little smoked fish pâté, made with fish he caught on Fire Island. I'm not used to that, being from Kansas. Fish you caught yourself, served at your restaurant. Fresh.
"Fresh," the bartender said. The bartender is a friend of mine. He's making me a Bee's Knees right now. He learned how to make them just for me, I learned about Bee's Knees while researching the 1920s for my senior thesis. I fell in love with Gin when I was 20. I fell in love with the 20s when I read This Side of Paradise. Once, he printed my receipt with "Hailey's Honeybee" as the cocktail on the receipt.
I couldn't remember the drink's name at first. Honeybee is cuter than Bee's Knees. Let's call them Honeybees moving forward. He's never hit on me and I love him for that. The other bartender did on my birthday, the same day I met a painter that would make me fall in love with myself. Which brings me to the meat of this.
I went/am going on 5 dates this week. I didn't really plan it, I was just working on my calendar and burst out laughing, realizing that I had 5 dates this week!
The first was the finance man I met at Penn Station. This date was actually insane , but because it was insane, I will likely be writing about it and paywalling it as a meager attempt at privacy.
The second was a movie with someone I met at a show my band opened at. Someone who's really good for my soul and consequently, for my art. We saw Fallen Angels (1995) and afterwards, I wrote this song.
The third was a dinner. We got caught in the rain.
The fourth was an artist I've been really hot and cold with since last October. He feeds me. He draws me. We had sake at a hole in the wall bar with the same name of a Strokes song. He understands when I'm late. I love talking to him. He respects my opinion. He respects my art. He loves my mind.
My friend just had me smell the honey syrup for my drink.
We were talking last night. Me and the artist. I was talking about being a female artist and being afraid to be a wife, a mother. I think it's more of a fear of being indebted to anyone. Owing anyone anything. As I left his apartment, he asked what it was that I needed.
"I need you to be disgustingly in love with me," I said.
"Okay, I'm in love with you," he said.
We laughed. I put my shoes on.
"I think I'm the only person you could be with," he said.
He called me a car home. My street was still busy. At 3 am. I love Manhattan. I got home. Ate some crackers. Played guitar until I fell asleep.
My Honeybee has arrived. So. Good.
Didion was outside. All of the greats were. I think we've hit this weird point where we've forgotten that you have to be outside to make things. You have to have a life to make memories. You have to have memories to write about them. A media derivative world is a whole lot of nothing. No meat. No fun. No life. Go outside. Think for yourself. Go on a date with the man you meet in Penn Station. Start drinking. Stop. Dance, live, walk in the park.
This summer, we, Hot Literati, whatever the fuck we are, are celebrating (re)Cognition summer. this is the summer we learn how to think for ourselves. Again. The summer we learn how to be alive again. The summer we learn how to prioritize a life and relationships over dissociative media-oriented simulations of the same things.
We'll be doing this through book club, through how-tos, through diaries, through crazy (real) stories, through very philosophical and academic explorations of related research, and through a whole lot of life. We at Hot Literati are committed to the art of being alive. Of doing life first.
My fifth date is on Sunday. There is a man I met at Princeton Reunions. I don't remember meeting him. But he texted me days later and is coming to the city just to get to know me. He is a physicist. I love physics. I love physics. I'm also really into data lately and data fraud. I think the over-prioritization of STEM is one of the most fascinating and detrimental things to happen to society in the past decade and there's this book that supports this argument that I'll be discussing as a part of recognition summer.
But physics is sort of wonderful. It lies on the cusp of STEM and humanities. Physics let's itself have it's own sort of story between numbers and words. I'll report back.
I'm sipping my honeybee. I'm about to box up my pâté. There are so many things I want to discuss with you all. Like letting old versions of yourself die. Audience capture is crazy. Am I a writer? I love writing. I love writing music. I have early memories of trying to write songs. I hate the internet. I love the internet.
There is a world out there. Go outside. Be in it. The little memories are what give you giddiness. you can do it. You can do it. I believe in you. I want to hear about it.
The definition of cognition is: the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses.
Think. experience. feel.
Go outside. Close your laptop. Mine is at 2%. It is about to die. There is no outlet near my honeybee. We are going to die someday too. Live. Live. Live.
Fill up your memories while you still have time.
"while I still have being"
that is an excerpt from the Psalms
xo
hailo