nail diary 4

i think part of me does want an audience for this blog, as much as i founded it with the idea of keeping it secret in mind. i thought that if i only linked to it on my website and had no direct link to it on my instagram, the people who found it would feel the thrill of discovery. i wanted to give them that feeling. i wanted to, as meetka wrote when describing her plan to blog about mahler's symphonies, "trust it will find its right audience the way most anything does." but also, i want people to engage with it. that's the difference between a blog and a pen-and-paper diary, which i also keep, and have kept for years. that is genuinely just for me. i think i will place the little advertisements i've been making for the blog on my instagram story into a highlight that will live on my profile. i think that is what i will do. i want to give it a chance to find that right audience.  

today was a saturday, sunny and warm. i'm writing to you from my bed, in a room that overlooks henry street in chinatown. i can hear the faint thrum of traffic from the manhattan bridge, some stoop-sitters chatting in chinese outside my window, and lu's favorite cat toy and the air conditioner whirring in the other room. now the train, thwacking over the track. i've always been sensitive to noise; i often wear noise-canceling headphones in here, though the apartment isn't new york loud. (in the same way it's not new york small, though it would likely be considered both 'cozy' and noisy anywhere else in the U.S. i have to smile, juxtaposing the memory of my mom offering me a wall decoration that read, 'though the home be but small, the welcome is big' with the memory of my friend remarking last night at little poland, beaming, 'your apartment is huge!')

i was going to meet ethan, riley, and coco at the mother cell and blix show at trans pecos, but riley and coco couldn't make it and when i stopped by home to drop something off after a day out in the east village, before heading to brooklyn, i stayed put. i'd already missed the mother cell set, and tomorrow is another day of activity, so i thought, best to spend the evening blogging, reading, going to sleep on the early side. [ed. note: i stayed up till 4... it's fine.]

i got my nails done today. i get them done about once a month. i skipped june; kept chipped silver from may on my nails throughout the month, through montana and colorado. when i got back, i went to 

Where: Sugar Nail & Spa downtown

When: 13 July 2024

Occasion: To make my nails look like the Montana sky

Manicure/pedicure color: "The King's Navy" ~ navy blue, frost finish

and then today, i went to 

Where: Breeze Nail & Spa in the East Village (this place was great, and it's the only nail spot with respectable hours below 14th)

When: 10 August 2024

Occasion: Last New York manicure before leaving the city for four months. Decided I wanted to have nice nails for what'll be my last few weeks here for a bit. Looking put-together is important to me.
Manicure color: A warm pink

Pedicure color: A buoyant yellow

~Optimistic colours~

afterward, i caught my friend lily's show at palo gallery, got a meal at caravan of dreams, and then saw taylor moderate a talk with the critic david rimanelli and the artist gb jones at 6bc garden. walked home afterward, no headphones for most of the way. watched the street, and recorded some of my watchings, like this one. i invited a new friend to follow an instagram account on which i regularly record watchings like this, and she did; i feel happy to have made this connection with her, because she uses social media in a similar way to me (diaristically, like a scrapbook) and i like the way she looks at the world. we are going to visit a friend of ours who's been staying uptown tomorrow.

currently listening to: "miss independent" by ne-yo (heard it playing from a car while walking down avenue a near third st) 

🎵 manicured nails to set the pedicure off 🎵