It is my BIRTHDAY! I love birthdays… both mine and celebrating other peoples. I used to kind of scoff at those who wrote long screeds about how much they’ve learned over the years etc etc etc. The thing is, I try not to be weighed down by all this EXPERIENCE I’ve had over the years, so I rarely carry it with me day to day.
As I’ve said in the past, I used to be a photographer… Starting very very young. I talked a little bit in this Guardian article1 about the fact I would take photos on a film camera for many years, but when I switched to an iPhone, I stopped bringing my camera out. Eventually, my urge to document slowly faded away. Now, when I’m anywhere I have to remind myself to take photos on my phone both for memories and also the prison that I have made for myself (posting to IG as some book people have called me an “influencer” (pejorative) ). Looking at these photos now, I do wish I continued to do it, just for myself. The fact that I grew up during the invention of the digital camera and its various pixel qualities makes photos from 8 years ago look more dated than film photos from 13 years ago (film photos look timeless, to me?).
I decided my birthday is a perfect time to unearth some old photos. I’ve pulled out the brick of an external hard drive that only has a plug for a UK outlet and am currently hoping nothing sets fire.
NEW YORK, SUMMER 2010
I had been living in London at that point for six months, I was eighteen. My mother was sick and I was losing my grip on reality (I only recognized that part years later). I was grasping at anything that could make life feel good, fun, worth it. I had this very loose idea that me and my old roommate from Toronto would write a script together. He would write from the boy’s perspective and I would write through the girl’s. My old roommate was charming and enthusiastic, and had inherited wealth. He was also VERY secretive and could go rogue at any time. I knew he had a drug habit, but he kept the extent of it hidden from me. I was not in the mindset to pick up on any clues, either. I just needed something to look forward to. We wrote some pages and I came back to Toronto in the summer. He promised me he would get funding, and I could go ahead to New York to cast for our little movie.
Writing this out now, I am laughing at how funny it is that I was so young and determined. Anyway, I arranged to catsit for a photographer I knew who lived in a tiny apartment in the Lower East Side.
