Jan 6th
A blue glow from the glass, sitting inside his car. Another post captioned “I need”. The lyrics are about regret, forgiveness, and hate, but here’s the part that has visual significance throughout 2023:
Disengaged
you’re with me, against me
but the only thing forever is hate
I forget what i saw
before and after that day
I’d trade all I was worth
to make myself into
the handsomest gun
and put the diamond bullet
into your
404 ERROR face
He consistently put 404 ERROR over his face while emulating me on the previous page.
His photograph of my bedroom in Ocean Grove.
He’s covered the word “wickedness”, the pinkie tattoo and trinity knot are visible, the symbol for Purify is repeating, just two diamonds (imagined love?). The song croons about love, the caption reads “It’s right thru this door.”
Jan 16th
Jan 20th
I am my own hat, my knee is my head, Miss Kitka’s ear head is giant ear.
Jan 21
Triangle of arm becomes hat.
Hearts leaping over Marilyn’s face.
Jan 22nd
Remembering. Recreating.
His caption reads: Much like my thoughts, this necklace gets tangled on the regular.
The MRI is the tree branch, the twig shapes, the owl patterns. Hair being cut is the texture of the feathers.
The pigtail shape from the canes in the background, the score ring is around her neck, her ringlets from the railing spokes.
Jan 27th
I couldn’t for the life of me figure this out, and then I realized I think this is stone, and he’s drawing on it in chalk? I’d been drawing comedians on the slate tables at the Comedy Cellar.
Photographs of the terrible state of my building while in a battle with my landlord. The exposed insulation on the ceiling looks like bats flying, so he drew bats roosting on branches that look of electric cable.
Lemmy is in the audience!
Bedridden days. The hoodie string emulating the eyepatch.
Feb 3rd
Holding the trinity knot against his shielded eyes.
2007 me vs 2021 me.
Fox Fest family mashup
Feb 5th
Dr. Freeze from my Batman themed nativity scene becomes merged with some random Virgil Finlay art I’d downloaded.
Feb 6th
Remembering. Captioned “Desperately Needing”
The pillow is there to mimic the double Stefan face in the original image. He’s even flattened his hair curl to concave to match the dark line of the pillow seam. Brilliant bastard.
Feb 10th
Feb 13th
A night at my Aunt’s garage.
Remembering, recreating. The trip to museum.
Feb 14th
Dead exboyfriend and his best friend becomes us.
Valentine’s Day.
He sees himself as a monster. That’s why these images are revisted so often, especially on days like Valentine’s Day.
Or there’s just the general heartbreaking song posts.
WHY DIDN’T YOU WRITE BACK?!
His self portrait during our split captioned:
This is a reasonable photographic facsimile of what it feels like to be me.
The song is “Lucretia My Reflection”.
Feb 15th
Remembering.
Lyrical reference to our early days when he and I snuck into a Christian rock concert.
Feb 17th
Remembering, recreating.
Remembering. Recreating.
Feb 20th
Remembering. Recreating.
A light for a moth.
Feb 21st
His new facebook profile picture:
Needs.
Photos from my bed-ridden days.
Feb 25th
Eyes closed. Remembering.
This photo he took one of his first times crashing with me. He thought the singles in the foreground was very funny. Now remembering, money in his hand, the trinity knot and chain is half transparent, faded away, listening to Mazzy Star’s Fade Into Dust.
Feb 27th
Remembering. Recreating.
Reasons indeed.
Feb 29th
Remembering. Recreating. From our painful year, a photograph from Stefan visiting me at my Aunt’s and taking us out to a diner.
I had captioned it with:
I prefer the neuropathic stings and stabs, the searing arthritic joints, the cramping and knotting of muscle, the gut wrenching of kidney stones, and the anguish of my twisted spine. Yes, I prefer all of those at their very worst, striking me in unison; would eagerly accept that crippling chorus of fleshy pain and bear it willingly, if it could lessen the agony I currently feel, the agony that dwarfs all else I’ve ever known.
Watching my everything as it slides away into blackness.
Christ, we’re dramatic.
March 3/4
A sad selfie when we were splitting. Hello trinity knot chain mimicking my hair.
March 8th
Maybe? My profile picture on myspace when we first met, right below this polaroid of Ocean Grove. One of my first presents to him was a polaroid of Ocean Grove.
March 10th
March 12th
March 13
March 15th
In response to my radio show playing a lot of WWII content juxtaposed with modern Palestine news.
March 16
Living in Queens in 2004
We saw The Jesus Lizard (that screaming song) play in Chicago.
March 19/30
Testing out my new point n click camera, Stefan’s hand looks like a claw, the negative space of house between head and shoulder makes the error square.
Eyes closed. Remembering.
A dot of red.
Eyes closed. Remembering. Reenacting. Red for a reason.
Basement photo shoot. Recreated.
One of the first thngs I ever drew for Stefan based on a weird dream he wrote about on Myspace about transforming into a beautiful woman with sharp-tipped wings who would soar above the smokestacks of the polluted city below. He plays it to the song to which I had my first kiss. (A story I explained in one of my first radio shows.)
That song is from the soundtrack to Dracula, and I’d posted this image. Clever boy. Clever use of those red bands with Marilyn.
Remembering.
Recreating. Remembering.
March 31
He is his own demon? hands bound.
in the hospital, getting a spinal tap.
Remembering. Recreating. A drive to the Passaic River.
the cuts are getting deep.
The shadow over the white and red in the background, his gloved hands over the white and red in the foreground mimics the shadows across my lipsticked face in the double photo below.
April 4th
his black fingerless glove making the speech bubble shape, and with something yellow and green in the background. a stripe of shadow for my eyepatch.
April 6th
What happens when you try photographing things for eBay with Stefan.
April 14th
Remembering. Reenacting. Stefan’s photo from the drive home from Chicago, being me in the passenger’s seat. The hoodie string as a tendril of my hair.
It is telling that during the Chicago trip and the ride home, I was often on the edge or cut out of frame of Stefan’s photos. A sign of what was coming.
Apr 15
Photos from 2004
April 17
The pool hall ceiling lamps make the mountains, the accidental elf ears, color of the TV glow, bugs bunny shirt and devil sticker make the centaur.
April 19th
oh you beautiful boy, you break my heart.
I wish you knew.
April 21st
April 27th
A mashup of the garage at my Aunt’s and 2004’s garage and other life in Bayside Queens.
April 28th
The background inspires the horns and ear and rope through composition.
April 30th
May 1st
Remembering. Recreating.
Lyrical reference to that time we were outside smoking and I had a fainting seizure and he caught me in his arms and brought me inside.
Remembering. Recreating. Haunted hayride.
this hurts to look at.
The hose makes the antennae, the styrofoam the pattern on it’s back, the mirror the snail eyes with a line of white.
we would have been so glorious
May 7th
“A sign of good fortune, the Ace of Diamonds is a very exciting card to pull. It represents your wants and wishes coming true on the earthly plane. A new opportunity may be coming your way”
May 8th
May 9th
May 13/14
He’s going to the very beginning of my flickr often at this point. Modeling after my old kitten photos from 2003?!?! He did all three.
“This is Ozzie the night I brought him home after surgery. I called the vet, alarmed at his breathing, practically panting, but with a closed mouth. It turns out that Ozzie was just SO FUCKING HIGH on opiates that the intensity of his purring was making him breathe heavy. 😸🥴”
May 15-17
The jaw shortening of the scarf.
Ocean Grove / Asbury Park canal.
The clouds part and make a path towards the bottom left of his photo.
Your mind amazes me.
May 22/24
The bench mimicking my bent arm, Marilyn clearly present, his mouth being weird.
Remembering. Recreating.
Blue door for water.
I post a rant while feeding my cats about the psychopathy of nations. Stefan posts flowers that match my lighting, then himself in an American flag with TOOL singing about the joy of armageddon.
May 27/31
Recreating. Remembering.
The way in the background is the same color and he frames the square in the background as visual reminder of the mirror.
I’d posted this as one of my all time favorite comic book panels. It’s the long awaited first kiss between two characters in the graphic novel Berlin. I love that it gives them modest privacy. In his photo, Stefan looks to be stepping up. If you slid the comic panel where the image is obscured, it would line up.
Stefan and I, we were very shy with each other. It sounds ridiculous, being that he and I were so often in front of a camera, so often naked, so often sexual in our art. And yet, we had never before kissed without already being in our pajamas and in bed. Only when we’d tired of watching nature documentaries or Columbo or whathaveyou and finally lay with limbs entwined, hiding from the dawn, pretending to wait for sleep to descend did we cautiously approach each other. But living with my Aunt, and times turbulent between us, we’d not spent a night together in many months. And as he was about to walk out the front door of my Aunt’s house one night…
“Wait, c’mere...”
I led him to the hallway stairs, stood up on one step (because I’m eight inches shorter than he), and pulled him near.
“Stand here.”
With a subtle hint of panic: “What are you doing?”
My shoulders square. “I’m going to kiss you. Standing up.”
He was visibly frightened. So was I.
It was an important kiss.
It was a fabulous kiss.
It was our last kiss.
Recreating. Remembering.
He took this one of me as well, tweaked it to hard contrast, and digitally added an extra hair swirl. So, that is what he did to himself in this selfie, even though his hair does that naturally. You obscure fuck.
June 5th
June 7th / 8th – Three weeks before the wedding.
The fellow who essentially banned me from Stefan’s house; instrumental in our end.
First times hanging out, when we pretended to raid the truffles?
June 19th/25th
eyes mostly shut and the hint of a white rectangular border around my head
Me on my roof explaining how I want to escape the city.
Me trying to dress patriotic for the 4th of July. He wears stars and places a border or either side.
June 27th – Two days before the wedding.
Remembering. Reenacting.
Outside, blownout, and blurry seemed a strange choice, but it now makes sense given the color and quality of the original he’s riffing on from 2007. He’s watching me move, as the lyrics suggest.
Sometimes I can see for miles
Through water and fire
From England to America
I feel life meet my eyes
And it's the best thing
It's the best thing
The best thing
Such a beautiful feeling
A smile from San Diego
He's still a boy
Two ends to every rainbow
And a train from Mexico
And he's the best thing
He is the best thing
The best thing
Such a beautiful feeling
Like when I watch you move
And I can't think straight
And I am silenced
And I can't think straight
And it's the best thing
It's the best thing
The best thing
Such a beautiful feeling
PJ Harvey – Beautiful Feeling
June 28th – after midnight the night before the wedding.
Holding up in Brooklyn tonight
During the wedding:
Again, a polaroid of Ocean Grove/Asbury Park was one of my first gifts to him. He’s making the Brooklyn colors match our early beginnings.
July 2nd
The unhinged part of me carries the broken parts.
When the unhinged part is the Captain of the ship,
…you know you have a healthy crew
July 6th
Christ, we’re dramatic.
COMING SOON:
A Sticky Friends Production