30 thoughts for 30
The suffocating weight of the self-imposed pressure to suddenly have new insights, or some shit.
Everyone keeps asking me how it feels to be 30 now, and I know it’s partially my fault for aggressively advertising my birthday and #comingofage, but I DON’T KNOW YET!
I’ve only been 30 for two weeks! Ask a two week old baby, “How does it feel to be here?” And they will look blankly at you like they don’t know they’re here yet. I actually know this because my boss was back to work with her fresh baby in tow within a week of it being out-of-womb. I was talking to her (the baby) and my boss was like “Non, she can’t really see or hear you yet.” I can’t see or hear being in my 30s yet.
However, I can tell that my stomach lining has yet to recover from the wedding I was at last week. So maybe that’s the first feeling!
Also I’m kind of upset that I’ve been at work with not one but TWO women who have been back at work WITHIN WEEKS of baby arrival this year.
If they can’t take a break, how can I?
My solar return happening on a Flower Moon, SCORPIO FULL MOON, was beautiful but also too much! Also having to gather the learnings from my Saturn return as we begin to exit Saturn in Pisces at the same time? TOO MUCH.
The cognitive dissonance of navigating difficult conversations about relationships and commitments weaving in and out of hyper social, hyper celebratory moments.
I feel like I could sleep for days!
Is THAT 30?
My Birthday Party Show was a success! I think. It was a successful gathering because so many people I love were there. And I had a lot of fun. And Zeév made me cry. Who’d’ve thunk?
Photo by Anna Jekel As a SHOW, I immediately had/have notes for myself.
I want to go hermit in nature to write. (But with one other person because I can’t sleep alone, especially not in the silence of nature at night.)
Which has certainly made me wonder if I’m simply not evolved enough. I worry my relationship to myself and my belief that humans are part of nature, and the only way we can save ourselves from this death march we’re being siphoned into is to reinvigorate this connection, are superficial at best.
But then again, I just did a PTSD assessment (another nod to full moon in scorpio!), and I am still scoring high enough (*high-five!*) to feel justified in acting EXTREMELY DEFENSIVE if anybody accused me of the above.
My therapist rocks because they gave me my brain report card noting, “This isn’t more or less useful or correct than your astrology chart or tarot pulls. This is just another way some group of people would describe you.”
I am toying with the idea of getting into crystals.
This was absolutely not something I saw in the cards for me. Famously, “one woo, not woo woo.”
But holy shit, my climate anxiety has been turned up from like “very strong bass line” to “they installed some subwoofers at this venue.” I’ve been flying regularly since I was a baby and I have only recently started having flight anxiety. The Rehearsal is not helping. Things happening in reality are certainly not helping. And of course, the inescapable deep deep spidey sense that a life-changing earthquake could happen any day now that probably tingles in every Japanese person is just… SO present!
Potentially the combination of a new relationship to my mortality and visceral need to grasp for anything at all… is exactly #feelingthirty.
I have yet to conclude whether I am entering spiritually-bypass-y arena, but communing with whatever energy or spirits or qi or frequencies that’s out there feels like an OKAY tool for resisting AI.
Photo by Julia Le People have entire conversations with Chat GPT! That’s TRIPLE WOO.
Side note: OUT gratitude journals, IN gripe journals.
I’ve been sitting in a deadlock with my self-improvement industrial complex demon and my raised by “二十四時間戦えますか？” (“Can you fight 24 hours?” - a popular 80s Japanese commercial jingle) era Japanese parents brain.
Like, is it my responsibility to be healthy and “elevate” my “being” in a world that’s actively trying to kill me every day?
Yes there are days when I can be shamed into believing anything.
i.e. I would be happier if I ate better, exercised more regularly, slept earlier!
Ergo, I would be a better person if I talked less shit, didn’t complain as much, and was seeing the good even in hard times.
But no, it seems like a waste of my precious limited bandwidth to self-gaslight into toxic positivity.
Gossip reminds me we’re intertwined in community. Annoyances clarify my actual wants. Most importantly being pissed has made me DO A LOT more things than when I’m like “La-di-da I love my friends” which is literally just a given, I don’t need to jot that down anywhere to remember.
I still think running off to woods (or beach!) would cure me though!
first president of japan stufffffff!!!
My aforementioned birthday show was, truly iconic.
So crazy grateful for everyone who came down and really impressed Rabbit Hole!!!
I am realizing that when venues and sound people are really into us… I feel like a proud parent? I guess it’s a product of a large chunk of my life having been on the venue/production side of things. When audience and other bands like us I’m like AW YAY! But when production people like us, I’m like heheheheh.
June is BUSY. YAY GAY!
We’re playing a Punk Island fundraiser on 6/6 at Purgatory. The lineup looks so good.
Then two days later on 6/8 Unplugged is BACK IN PHILLY <3333333 on a variety show at Franky Bradleys supporting The Noisy’s new music video release!!! Drag! Clown! Dance! Art! Just thinking about it makes me go eeeeeeee!
On 6/26 we’re playing our first Baby’s Alright show (!) - it’s a record release party for a cool compilation album we’re included in among very esteemed Weird NY Music People.
And then we’re playing Hart Bar (which was my COVID bar) on 6/30 with a bunch of Zeév’s friends’ bands so you know it’s gonna be CUTE.
See you at some, all, or none of the above!
BIG LOVE,
Non
