Play Date

by Hot Literati & Princess Babygirl

HAILEY COGNETTI

It's July first when i am writing this, but it already feels like August. Where has the time gone? I have things i'm really looking forward to in August, like my 21st birthday! but i keep reminding myself to be patient. I don't want this summer to end, it's been one of the best and worst summers i've ever had. It's definitely been a time and i need more time. I am truly loving how alive Hot Literati is this summer, so many lovely connections, real connections have been made. I've realized this is how life should be: allowing people to understand me, getting to know someone new. Putting myself out there are all things i have longed for but been too afraid to act on -

I am a silent observer, a quiet soul by nature. Sitting beside you, a stranger, i find myself studying how our worlds might intertwine, how our spirits might connect through the nuances of our conversation

I’m reminded of being a little girl and observing life through the car windows, daydreaming about a good life

Through the gloss over my eyes

a desperate window to my thoughts

I watch, i listen, but i'm trapped by the gloss over my eyes

Trapped by the never ending thoughts of how you are perceiving me

It's like i am being pulled away, but my body is still here, sitting in the garden next to all of these wonderful new people I've just met

but I can feel when my pupils are large, i am exposed, open, dissociating, and i'm feeling it right now

I despise the feeling, the same way i often despise the feeling of being under the influence

I tell myself that my dilated pupils are me returning the love i am feeling from you

That i am secretly telling you how important you are to me, how passionate i am in this conversation even though i’m being quiet because i can't stop thinking of who i was

As a little girl, dreaming of adulthood because childhood was disappointing. There was freedom that came with adulting, all the alcohol i could drink, all the cigarettes i could smoke, anything to make the thought of being unloved go away

Aging only made me feel it more

and as i watched my parents drink i wished for that rite of passage, was jealous even

They could numb their emotions everyday, but i couldn’t

In truth, this wish was always a passive thought as i grew no real desire to do those things, i loathed it

I didn't want to be like them

I hated watching my parents drink, i hated seeing people smoke cigarettes, so much that i cried when they drank and coughed around adults who were smoking to make them feel bad and i realized i am always hiding the cigarette behind my back as i walk past young ones, i would have hated to discover i would someday indulge in these habits

That when i turned fourteen i would want it all

I wanted to make decisions

I wanted to affect the outcomes of my life

To deprive the right from my parents

To make something new from the byproduct of their mistakes

and now, i have certain luxuries, but they've lost their allure

and i realize i've never been happy with who i am at every point in life

and i have a love hate relationship with alcohol

I often dream of being a little girl again

Mostly so i could change things

A useless dream

because truly i did try. i tried to fix everyone around me, but a child can't fix an adult and that time isn’t coming back

i could return to my innocence that was only felt slightly

But that’ll never be and one moment you're six and another you're twenty and still feeling the same emotions, still holding onto the hope that things could be different

My presence in the moment is fleeting, as all things are

At some point I did start dreaming of becoming the person i am today, i can be proud of who i am

even though i’m a hoe for nostalgia and sentimental to california, life began when i left

Which reminds me of the event Hot Literati organized. I am not sorry that my writing is often sad, it's healing to discuss so openly, and it usually ends a bit happier so here is my delightful experience with what we call “PLAY DATE by Hot Literati x Princess baby girl.” A beautiful summery saturday. We invited friends and welcomed anyone to a garden where we could gather and reconnect to our childhood. The good parts of it, like our favorite childhood snack. People brought rice krispies, string cheese, sugary treats, capri suns, gushers, teddy grahams and so much more. We also brought our favorite childhood books to leave behind for a new owner. Here's our beautiful pile of books.

We started the event by joining ourselves into three big groups where we could connect with each other more intimately. Hailo led a group, Victoria led a group discussion that I was lucky to be a part of, and Princess baby girl led another. We talked about anything. I bonded with someone through my deep devotion to Clarice Lispector, someone brought up Maggie Nelson and my eyes lit up, a poet I also adore. I love meeting people who love the same authors as me. I have a feeling deep down that we are connected, that we are similar. I believe that if you've read a book by my favorite author then you already know me. As a group we all agreed that we can feel the emotions that our favorite authors were writing about, their experiences resonate. Each word read aloud is a feeling or thought we have all had. That's why we feel like writers are our friends, that we are on a first name basis with each other. To me, Clarice Lispector is Clarice. I am her, she is me, just like our younger self will always be us, just like we will always inhabit the memories of our childhood.

I loved every minute in the garden, being there with some of you. So many people I didn't introduce myself to, but to our small group, I felt connected to all of you, I heard and understood you. My body was there with you even when my mind left for a second.

The last activity of the event was to return to something we did in our childhood, to reenact, to play house or something, whatever we wanted. I was sitting criss-cross applesauce and looked up at two of the people near me and said, do you want to make a potion with me?

Of course we started making the anti-patriarchal potion.

I aligned sticks into a design and we talked over it.

We made a list of everything we were putting in this potion,

First we need a cauldron,

Then we need whiskers from a black cat,

Sea water, moon water,

Rose quartz, citrine, lapis lazuli,

Manifestations: take no bullshit, inhabit self-love…

Only a couple days have passed and my memory has disappointed me once again. I am forgetting what else is in our anti-patriarchal potion, but I know our potion could work.

Sometimes I have really bad memory, the forgetfulness is never ending but so is the love, so please forgive me. I do know that i could make a great potion, some good soup, a mean mud cake when i was little, and that's the little girl who was in my thoughts on saturday.

VICTORIA

I spent the afternoon with a group of creative people, mostly women and mostly Black, talking about childhood and process and media and community.

A poet from Portland pitched herself to us and I don’t know whether it was a conscious decision or not. Afterward Hailo wondered aloud, surprised by her self-promotional undertones, what is her idea of who we are?

I think it was less the idea of Hot Literati and more the idea of New York City that forced her so inside her head; a city of dreams, where every conversation is an opportunity.

This Saturday afternoon was less an opportunity to go pro and more an opportunity to eat sweets and commit to life in a metaphorical playpen.

By the end of the event we had half a heart-shaped cake left over. Naturally, we brought it to the Supreme store.

‘She’s back with your cake…’

The wide eyed security guard/ bouncer told his friend, the other guard at the door. Birthday boy was stunned. How dare the young woman who he lied to in passing about it being his birthday (because she’s young, pretty, and carrying a cake past the Supreme store in the middle of the day) return hours later with a half eaten chocolate cake with hot pink icing and two of her women friends.

She’s back with your cake.

This silly bit earned us skip-the-line access to the store and a conversation with the birthday boy. He went on about how much cake it was and how he couldn’t possibly finish it all. I assured him he would, because he had to, he asked for it.

No, no…you have to eat all of it, right now.

Of course he did not respond to my threatening joke (was it, though?) because he was only interested in Hailo’s incredibly attractive and unexpected nerve to follow through on a silly boyish joke.

We went inside. We did not shop but rather stayed in one spot of the store, by the mirror, and giggled about our interactions outside. On the projector there was a scene of a hot woman making out with a man while people were quietly shopping. In the center of the store was a distracting but cute sculpture.

We left and told the birthday boy we were going to write about him. He and his friends told us we could stop by anytime we want.

To recap, here were the events of my day:

Host an event that’s intended to be about Black Girlhood but ends up being about anything and everything

Deliver a messy cake to a faux birthday boy and woo our way into Supremity™

Head uptown to meet the Dyke March and begin a long night of gay pride and binge drinking.

One can conclude that girlhood is when a heart-shaped cake becomes the entry fee into a male streetwear dream where none of us girls will buy anything, the workers hope to sell their boyhood for attention, and it’s all a pregame to a night of rejecting men and loving women.

Am I being too harsh?

It was a fun playdate. Happy belated, birthday boy.

HAILO

Princess Babygirl says that Play Date felt like the opposite of a "Literary It Girl event." The Literary It Girl is so interesting to me as a concept. A few people sent me that one piece on the re-emergence of it last year, and to be completely honest, I didn't read it. Didn't even click on the link.

What does it mean to sell someone an archetype, an aspirational version of a self that leaves people feeling empty.

I am my happiest when I am not thinking of myself, as if a child would (or would not). Clear head, just senses, actions, and love. I know I love someone when I am not thinking at all. I know I am loving someone when I am studying, perceiving, memorizing to remember.

I walked back by the Supreme Store the other day. Birthday Boy waved at me from across Bowery. I waved back. Society is pretending. The older you get, the more boring people try to make the game. Life is pretend -- no -- life is play. The world is a garden, a playground, a place to romp and love and laugh.

Every morning, I wake up, I wave at God, and I ask "what's the game today?"

HAILO ADDENDUM

We will be listing the books collected at the event for sale on the site tomorrow, as a part of the Hot Literati Digital Bookstore.

I went back to the Supreme store today (3 hours before uploading this) and asked Birthday Boy to write down/draw his interpretation of the cake.

I handed him the little furry notebook I carry around sometimes and said "It's for my blog" with a shrug.

He took it and said, "I don't do this for anyone, I'm only doing this because you're sweet."

We will be making photocopies of his take on the cake (~3 ish weeks after eating it, mind you), and sending it to the mail mailing list.

YOU'RE READING HOT LITERATI DOT COM

GO OUTSIDE AND PLAY𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼𖤣𖥧𖡼𓋼𖤣𖥧𓋼𓍊