Wednesday, January 22, 2020

2020

It's been a little over three days sine I've showered... Since I've changed these clothes.. Since I have left the house.
No, I am not  having a nervous break down. It's called anxiety, a catatonic one, that only a schizo can enter after a weekend of serious bad luck. Then again, I was used, and now I may be entering a lawsuit, which was no where near my plan I had for the weekend, let alone the beginning to this year, albeit the longest month in history.
I've been thrown one of those, oh great here we go again, am I supposed to play wonder woman and save the world kind of situations..
and as I sit here in my three day old pink pajamas smelling as fresh as one would think.. I wonder how it is I end up in these kinds of messes over and over again.
So great, I've got to lead the whole entire Women's March organization into a lawsuit against these evil men who profit off tricking people into commiting felonies for them. Of course I'm the lucky one.. gotta contact the FBI... gotta file a restraining order.. people saying "Call the news!" AGAIN..
I swear I don't sign up for this shit.
it happens and I think- what am I supposed to do? pretend it isn't happening? allow these ass holes to get away with profiting thousands of dollars by abusing people who needs jobs on craigslist, gullible nobodies, like me!?
great.

Thursday, July 7, 2016

Is this insomnia?

Happy birthday Frida Khalo. What, genuine goddess, kind of weighted advice would you give to me in such little words. Your words you painted..The ones that revealed your heart, open and dangling; had them sown into fabrics generations later, had them resonate through time and space and still confronted with question as if language no longer existed, and only in them one finds the puzzles of the stars and death still.
Now they stream. How do you calculate the speed of the internet? How could I explain to you what powers we have now. You don't even know it, but your selfie is all over my and my closest friends' world, and I imagine you cringing, and drinking, and crying, and celebrating all at once the elaborate possibilities of the artist today.
I send you my sleepless questions through the air hoping that maybe what I have come to learn about thought, matter, and physics could be real. That maybe we'll be shaking together in this weird line of history from either fear, or shock, and still wanting yet another drink before another reach of a pencil.
Would you come marching with me? Would you tell me to turn back the 170 miles I have only a few hours ago driven and dreamed through, announced my biggest goals out loud to- felt my heart again in a flurry at the thought that, yes, it could all be possible if you actually believe in something outside of your self.
But somewhere in all that clear, innocent, prayer there comes an incoherence- so enveloping that one is stunned and left without the desire for dreams, the desire for rest, or sleep, or dare I even say peace.
Dear Frida- I would turn back to Oakland, but I haven't a degree for which to provide me a "proper" job. I would turn back to Oakland but I haven't the means to keep my own bed there, my own stove to share my food with others, my own easels or instruments for which to keep my wordless prayers amassed.
I would turn back to Oakland but every time I am near home I fall in love all over again and in me grows both courage and a deep, harrowing fear that I may go through everything I never thought I could again.
Can I be more honest and say that for so many reasons I retreat to nature so flexibly because in this current society, I trust nature and animals more than I do some of the people I share my blood with. More than I do some of the people I have exposed my heart to, more than those I have spent so many words on just to feel like the language we once shared is now obsolete.
In my head you are stern and lovely. Fierce but vulnerable always to your spirit and the parts of you that ache for a type of love that only you and them will ever know.
You are with your brushes and no bullets. No glass broken, only vases near you filled with flowers. Only fires atop white wax held by you hands, illuminating all of the fallen souls' and yours and mine and everyone's path.
In my head you are with them all marching. You are with the people in parade, in protest, in accordance with their thoughts which fueled their blood and limbs to gather and stand before the testament of so-called time, singing out one big idea in unison that for some reason, not all the earth can yet comprehend.
Would you call me a coward?
Should I paint?
Should I scream?
Should I try to sleep again?
I left befo re the news reached my mind. I checked out of the city before I knew.
Happy birthday, Frida Khalo.
Please, forgive me.




Sunday, July 3, 2016

In peace may they rest

May the strings of death tie life into the end of my skirt tails
may they rope together fragile necks,
tired from moping
hold them upright,
tease them with the thought that someone may feel their pain,
unnoose them
loose
and scare them back into themselves
into their muscles
to run forward
like new calves
into an empty field
this is an honest attempt at prayer
may the guild of abscenses
be filled with new flesh
may the flesh be wild
with hairs extended outward
still able to articulate
what it is
to feel new
and emotional
nostalgic
crying
and happy
like mad
at the same time
You sad songs, you will be written
like lost lovers
as they hang in the air
like clouds of smoke
may people inhale
what it is to be you
at  a time like this
and breathe out again
enough for you to keep on running
may your finger tips be kissed
by angels and aliens
singing every song
you ever ailed to
one after the other
letting you know
while you fly past the bodies of earth
that they were heard
by them and i

The lies it told

Many writers have stated that their first forms of writing came about through the lies they told as children either in letters to nobody, to their teachers, their friends, of some exaggerated feat or torture from home, or to their parents about how good they have been that day.

The first time I forged a letter was in second grade. I practiced my mother's signature over and over again and about once every other week I would get myself out of class to go climbing up trees down the street by exclaiming that again my awful teeth required another visit to the dentist or that the next day my actually damaged tonsils would be due for yet another examination, or that we would be leaving town that Friday for a family event- anything to get me out of class and into dirt. 

The short stories came about the next year. I'd read and collect inspiration from dirty comics in the book section at Tower Records, before it acquired an actual tower, was one low level, and classically video-rental-spot-periwinkle with carpet instead of wooden floors. I'd hide in a corner of the store and read them wide eyed learning about things most of the kids in my town wouldn't even know existed until they were about sixteen, maybe older. I met a guy recently who didn't know a cervix was smaller than the actual vaginal cavity until I just told him a few weeks back. To say I grew up fast would be an understatement.

Weird Aeon Flux influences musings and celebrities. The ones I thought I was supposed to look like when I was older. Of their cars, parties, strange affairs, missing pets, dysfunctional families that seemed normal but had hidden secrets like of the dentist who wore high heels behind his wife's back. A story that went missing from my collection when I was nine.

I wrote of lies at a very young age. 
Mostly I wrote depictions of what I was surrounded by.
Then they became me.

Eventually I would blame my pen. It would go scritching and scratching in front of my sleep deprived or pilled up young face for hours through the night dreaming up what could only be fantasy for all of these things I was supposed to have done by the time I was twenty-five. By now I should have shaved my head in Japan three years ago having spent a winter in the mountains living among monks. I would have started only one business and it would have gotten me all the successes I would have wanted to accomplish had I kept making clothes after sophomore year. I should be another three languages deep, including Mayan, and I would be living in a big loft in a brick building around Howard, downtown- tall ceilings, grey cement walls, baroque railings that didn't serve a purpose other than to distinguish what each part of the space was dedicated to. A big open shower with sheer curtains in order to never hide the body from sight, lots of plants, no tables, just shelves and books. I imagined the books would be stacked over  the shelves and be like shelves and tables themselves holding up my various cups of wine, tea, ashtrays, coke mirrors, make up holders, places for pens, ink, money and objects I would happen upon in the street or spend a couple dollars on.

The pen did it for me more than any friend.

That's probably how I've gotten so good at leaving all the time.

Those were lies that actually kept me going- the ones I would write in the rain, sick and sleepless not knowing if I could get another free train ride home. They weren't lies but attempts at making what I was doing bigger than it seemed. It made drawing, writing, playing music, hallucinating, and being awake for several days straight more bearable. To know that someone, somewhere lived like this and maybe one day I would too. 

This, now, is the part of my life that resulted from a lie I couldn't live out any longer. I couldn't lie about it now because it doesn't matter. Like the average citizen in the U.S. I am broke right now, a little bit depressed, still dashingly hopeful, and constantly searching, constantly looking for something that won't lie to me, tell me that I have to settle because it's more realistic, or easier to do.  Something raw, exposed, piercing, cracking a bit at the edges like a well used desk, and frank- hurt and all.

I've never liked it too easy. I've got to get bruised a little. I've got to feel like I am working for something other than just four more walls to contain me- like this shit wasn't handed to me because I was born into it or because somebody might get a good couple months of brass tacks fucking- but perhaps grinding still the potential of my ever-aching hands for a long letter I will write myself later about how actually surprising life has been without having gone through all the lies, with the ones I've felt like I have had to tell, or maybe the ones I fucked through, like the ones I am trying to shake off now. 

Still, I write made up lies. They are hidden in my work like clues kept in boxes, little words, or weird blogs. Mostly though, they are not my own. My own are less frequent, always adjusting, exposing themselves bit by bit,submission after submission, into something very open, very embarrassing, but completely myself. It will happen again. But it's okay, because at the very least, I am still writing like a writer. I'm lying like a liar and loving like a good little lover should. 




Thursday, March 24, 2016

Dream filled with stars



Hi darling
I am in Lima about to go to the mountains through the valley and into Chile.
I am well. I am a "normal" person now pertaining to my current mental state, if that may come into question I do wish to explain anyway- I just drink when I go out dancing all night into the morning (Lima has a thriving dance scene, it's very delicious!) , a drink at dinner to ease Ito my evening, and I smoke weed irregularly these days. The dark days of absolute indulgence are well behind me.
The recent news of ******'s death last week has brought about a looming shade of incongruence through this life that I can only describe as a beautiful, full, and bright one, We can only remember those we've lost as laughter in the wind and the back of our minds always and continue on in this strange, sometimes jaunting joke and epic that is the world in its current state.
I have nothing but love in the memories we have all shared as a group of people - no- grimy, wild, mother fucking SF punks - and it is a corner in time that I will remember as one that has shaped and influenced my life in so many ways. I can close my eyes, smell the burritos and whiskey, and hear the distortion right now.
I hope our paths will cross sooner than later although we should not forget that they were once the same from the ocean in San Diego to the rooftops of San Francisco.
With tears in my eyes but a hopeful smile -
With so much love from Lima
I miss you very much
May the fallen live long in this dream filled with stars and rest in a musical paradise.
Best-
Bianca Gonzalez

Sunday, January 17, 2016

Him

He spends his time getting paid to deliver flowers to all the women in san francisco who deserve these surprises.

He said he didn't want to spend christmas with me, although he said it's his favorite holiday.
I got him a plant, a mini mayan, calendar, and i made him a mini buddha shrine that took six hours to make.
He didn't give me anything.
He called me weak.

He wouldn't sleep over my house on my 25th birthday.

For my 26th birthday he traveled 239 miles, roughly, just to say we would never be.

He also gets paid for his art.
Everybody tells me how amazing he is because of course
He grew up in art schools
And is amazing at anything and everything else.
I watched him make his masterpiece. I let every insult he ever handed me slide so he could find peace in his work. 
And in the end, I wasn't there for the big unveiling, because he didn't want me to be. He said he didn't want the pressure of having to leave with me. Because I'm crazy, and it would ruin the piece.

He told me my photography irks him when I told him I was trying to get a photo show, and that he is never satisfied with me

I've written him at least a dozen love letters I've never sent.
There's one on my desk
 right now.
I've been crying since christmas, two years in a row.
He told me I forced him to tell me he loved me
For the last few
Weeks we were sleeping together.
He told me I'm unlovable.

He listened to me cry when my roommate lost his mind
The first time
When my roommate smashed me when no one was looking 
And I didn't know if I'd have a place to live
And told me to deal with it
And put a lease on his own studio.
I said, "i thought you wanted to sleep with me every night"
He said "I could never live with you, you would drive me insane."

The second time, in a new place,
I put a lease on an apartment instead of traveling so I could stay close to him,
Like he asked me to do.
my new roommate lost his mind, and put me out on the street,
He said 
I'm not that guy 
who will be there if you need me 
and I never will be.

So we departed and i let him go
Until he wrote to me in the streets
And i called him to ask him to leave me alone
And he insulted me 
And said he didn't have time to be my lover and my therapist.

So i forgave him.

He came back and fucked me twice.
I got all dressed up and ready to see him again,
And then he ignored my calls,
Stood me up,
And still again,
Im at it all night, pretending this pillow
Is his chest with no arms to put around me.

Nobody sees me, seeing him see everything and everyone else
 Like a worn out coat he's afraid to wear in public, but keeps him warm while he sleeps.

I told him i missed him
But i dont know who i miss anymore.
I guess i miss a liar,
When the liar said
If you come to me
He said
We will marry
He said
We will make art  
I will find a roof to put over our heads
We will travel the world
And i will be there whenever you need
Of course I love you, Baby.
You're the only one for me.

"Why would I ever want to date somebody who has problems with drugs?"
I tried to tell him he shouldn't, even though i stopped for him and i.
 "I don't know what love is."
It took him three years to figure that out.
I've been crying since christmas
And since the ball park, really.
And i can't get out
Of this city 
Even if i tried.

I've gone broke several times over
Just to get dinner with him
And pretend i've got my shit together.

And in the end
I am just like him.
I don't know what love is.
I thought it was a roof and a ring and a plan.
I thought it was a reason to wake up.
I thought it wad the scent he leaves in my room.
I thought it was him.

He gets paid to deliver flowers to all the women 
in san francisco who deserve these surprises, 
but I'm not one of them.

Sunday, December 20, 2015

A year ago at the Flowershop

Disclaimer-
Before you read this, there are a few things I would like to state. 
First off- this is what writers do naturally. We write. We take what we know and what we've seen and we give those experiences an extension so that we may feel complete.
It's who we are. It's how we deal. I often expect that nobody is interested, that the writing I put out won't be seen by anyone, and I've never expected anything to come of it other than my self. 
The written self, for me, is like a third person that exists almost as a voice of reason. I've had a log history of bi-polar disorder. It's like there are five of me. I have no idea how to explain the sensation of coming out of an episode and looking back and thinking- holy shit shit, who was I the past few days? My written self is often my resolve, my therapy, my voice of reason. It's why I've been writing since I was a kid. It's me here now without the shit show.

Second- if you're here for a reason to gossip, to judge me, to make me out to seem fucked up or crazy or filled with sob stories or sorry attempts at redemption or gain- then you can kindly fuck off now. Trust me- I've done enough bashing of my own self, damage, trashing and near death attempts at punishing myself, to be bothered by anyone's scrutiny of my honesty. And gladly even, am I to look upon others judgements and know that at least I am granted the freedom to write whatever the fuck when in other countries you can get killed for speaking about the wrong things. At any rate, I may be lonely and hundreds of miles from home, but at least I'm healthy, sober, and on my way to greater successes. That's a guarantee.

Everyone I have ever admired growing up fought for things they believe in, exposed themselves when it wasn't  fashionable, and went against every battle forced upon their lives. of themselves they beseeched forgiveness by being honest, yet sometimes explicit, provocative, and perhaps enticing a grave discomfort in anyone willing to acknowledge them.

This is the story that set the stage for my whole year. In sharing, I only hope to let go.

Thank you 

***********

December 18th 2015

A year ago today I was attacked in my studio by a strictly platonic co-tenant, friend, and band mate in the result of a hate crime and his views on my gender and sexuality.

Not a day has gone by that I don't think about the incident and the turmoil and attacks that followed, but I do believe that too will pass.

After being physically assaulted in my room and home, sexually harassed, told I was a sex
object, and then stalked.. After being accused of lying, being blacked out, and exaggerating the situation... After having my honesty about my mental health issues used against me...
After being threatened with the attackers suicide and chased by car on the bay bridge at 6am.. After being threatened and harassed with my eviction for demanding action.... After losing a lot of my resources, a lot of friends, a lot of important relationships, being driven homeless, driven to madness, and being forced to leave a whole life I worked restlessly for behind.. After all the nightmares, arguments, bouts of confusion, depression, and real life fear... And after parting with the love of my life, the golden gates of the nirvana I longed for as a child, the place I imagined I could finally call home, the grey, shitty, shiesty, grimy bum of a town in shiny new paint with a trick ups its sleeve or perhaps just a killer set in a dark venue, the place I thought I found a home in, San Francisco... all I can honestly say is thank you.

I'm not afraid anymore.

From the bottom of my heart, I am so grateful for these experiences and the lessons I've learned.

Thank you to San Francisco and the Flowershop for years of both good and bad memories. In chaos comes order. In tragedy comes beauty.

Thank you to the mystery people who left presents at my door after I fled- pieces of jewelry, a book on Frieda Khalo, a book on a child Native American cartoonist living in amongst a suburb with deep rooted prejudices, a book on Native American uprising in Central America, little toys, a necklace, and a sticker that says "We are all in this together" - you were my heroes that day and you have no idea how much you moved me, to elation and tears, and guided me through the motion of having to pick out as much of my stuff as I could to again flee my space in fear of my safety.

Thank you for these challenges- for helping me become a better person and reminding me the power in standing up for yourself and what you believe. In many ways I'm grateful that it was me going through this and not someone else. I've been conditioned to harassment and prejudices my whole life. Thank you Burlingame for prepping me.

I truly wish and hope good things for everyone.

I hope for that the Flowershop continues to stand as a sanctuary for the freaks, the punks, the outcasts, the vandals, the gross skaters, the sluts, the weirdos, these so-called street angels that inspired me to keep believing that the charmed artist, though definitely endangered, doesn't need to be shackled to conformity by fool's
Gold and chains but comfortably flows through the winds of hope with wings made of color and perhaps a skateboard.

I hope to find forgiveness from those affected by my state following the attack, and from myself.

If you find yourself surrounded by friends, family, the things you love, and most of all, love for yourself, I think maybe then you have found peace.

There's a four year collection of local art, zines, pieces, books I've grown up with, clothes, furniture, etc... It's for anyone's taking. Please come and take all of these things from me- so much work and love went into some of this pieces from artists I will admire for the rest of my life. I will post a date soon before. It will be sometime early mid January.

People- love your mother's, daughters, sisters, and lovers and always remind them that they're worthy of welcome, peace, and love. Even if they know it. these people who survive these types of attacks are all gems in the history of the pursuit of freedom. Your thoughts on people shape much more than conversation or a good thing to gossip over, they can cause earthquakes and shift people's lives in way you couldn't even imagine. In writing this I hope to inspire people to treat each other a little better, to recognize when there is somebody in need, and to view people who you may think of as a poor freak or drunken fuck up as someone who might be trying to survive something tough and scary.

To my friends and family- thank you so much for understanding when I needed you the most. I promise to treat myself better and others as I would like to be treated.

Mom- thank you for always being there. I love you so much.

We're all in this together.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.


Wednesday, November 4, 2015

One of many: Last breaths in San Francisco

This was written in response to the "black robot butler" marketing campaign earlier this year.
I was honored to have been given the unique opportunity to read this poem privately to a group of artists and poets in Tony Avala's office during the tenth annual Poems Under the Dome pre-party at City Hall. Amongst the party were Alex Nieto's parents. It's a moment I will certainly never forget in my writing "career".

Viva San Francisco...


*****************

You disgusting black butler robot marketing scheme
When will it stop
The shoving in our faces 
that you've enforced a reconciliation amongst our city's people XX 
that we have lost so many of our good 

That our walks home from work XXwe have to be reminded that something absolutely inhuman has taken over the steps of the library where I go to read about the world because school is too expensive

That this kind of reasoning for widening the gap between the rude greedy slobs and the ever hungry is a blasting cardboard sign of the 
Times
Insensitive to the displaced
You know!
the ill, poor, fucked up, unacceptable subhuman
Beautiful freaks
My friends
All the millions
That you claim to be cleaning up
Are still here
And you dont even care

But maybe one of your boxes will turn into a home for somebody in the L's

Tonight my cab driver told me about a shooting he witnessed around 14th 
In the mission
So recently.  
And not on the news because if you idiots XX 
from bumfuck wired hashtag no where USA knew about it you might not be as keen to take over somebody's home who lived there some twenty or thirty years before you 

And so many of those who step on the streets new to the places we worked hard to claim,
Just as we got comfortable,
Something you might translate as satanism XX
And I see
As many sins
Under a nation you claim to be under god

You became greedy of the pavement 
Greedy of the foundation
Turning our bones into useless garbage XX
turning our politicians and your  self righteous phone version of yourselves into perverted masturbations of a rectangle version dollar sign capable of obliterating a whole city's soul

Just so you could go to sleep at night 

Rest in peace
I wanted to say the other night drunk and tired from working hard 
During the Day of the Dead procession in the mission october soothing air
In a place i dont recognize anymore
To the businesses and people i have lost within the 49 squared 
and aching 
and nourishing 
miles
I have called my home 
But the peace wasn't reacher at the end of the night when I realized I looked around at the sloppiness of a drunk that can only come from Silicon Valley ignorance 

RIP
 To the ghosts inside walls that had the intentions of feeding our brains a piece of gorgeous life whether it be booze or a pair of ben davis

Rest in peace to my battles and rants against the techie convenience and all of its faux pride

Rest in peace the moments in time in which my family 
Had in a big blue house on harrison
And an apartment on Dolores where my mother had to move my then eight year old sister because of the color of their skin and its association to gangs
So that i could grow up in a racist republican town that bred kids who are probably just now moving back in

Did anyone know that Burlingame got sued for a billion or something dollars for dumping human shit into the bay illegally?

http://m.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Burlingame-being-sued-over-sewage-3295262.php

Rest in peace
The presence and dreams of the last 40,000 students who got pushed out of city college of san francisco since the last time I attended in 2010

Live in peace to the Flowershop.

Rest in paradise
Too many homies
Its usually
Drugs
The game
So called
Life and 
Maybe on some gang shit
Suicide or heroin
An d sometimes it freak
But what can we do but stay
Outcasts together
And keep on
Keeping on?

RIP

Mire
Jade
Artem
Vote
AKO
And my best friend, Regina. 
I miss you so much.

Rip to the nation's lonely children
Alex nieto
Taryvon martin
Oscar grant
Michael brown

To all the people the cops killed unjustly
Maybe I knew you in person or on some lonely yard or cracking jokes psycho and drunk

Maybe we slept and dreamt dreams that died along with the verdict meant for hanging on a tree.

Maybe we will grow past the walls set up for detaining into long vines of freakishly strong fruit to be rained on the growing number of people who move to this country in hopes of finding where to lie their heads a night

In peace

Maybe we will be remembered

In peace

Or there after.

When I was a kid my moms used to say
You have to love all people
I said
Moms if i married a woman would you still love me?
She said to me "Mija,
i'll love you no matter what"

Wednesday, September 30, 2015

For you the Him from Always

To you I wish you many gardens.
I am a writer and a reader
and I only wish good things for you
Like gardens filled with food for life.
Books with lessons.
Smiles and kisses from those who sleep
kind and simple dreams at night.
Only a writer and a reader,
are the things I have to offer.
A misguided
Underachiever

Friday, September 25, 2015

Goals



I would like to be up and fed by the time the sun is animating past Mount Diablo

There was once a time I saw the morning sun with no rays as a dark, blood red ball bulging, both dangling and floating in front of a soft lavender sky on the way to the emergency room with my drowsy, life saving mother.  I thought I might be dying. I contemplated Buddha- that he or something eone without reproductive organs or something without a face had sent me the most beautiful morning sun I had ever seen while I spit up blood from my throat into a vase filled with ice. That maybe this is what I would be gifted right before I died. A sun you could stare into without burning your eyeballs. Fifteen was such a curious age to be.

earlier in the navy blue night of morning, I woke up in my mother's bed bleeding in hot strings out of my mouth soon to find out that my wounds from surgery had opened and a main artery exposed. I began to choke on blood clots pushing out of the exposed vein in my throat where my tonsils used to be. They pushed like old chunks of turkey meat refrigerated in its own greasy goo trying to escape a skinny red coffee straw. I think I lost close to a pint and a half or so of blood that day.

The nightmares that followed were of bathroom sinks filled with red oceans that eventually turned into tidal waves. I was drowning in them. After watching six hours of footage of the tsunami in Thailand I dreamt of tsunamis until the present time. The dreams continue on in anxious episodes and creeps the feeling always so slightly that one day the ocean will eat me, unless it all ready has and I am still dreaming. 

I would like to touch my hand to ink or lead and then again to paper in this ménage a trois of instability and humor at least once a day.

That I haven't a single straight line in my career doesn't disrupt the fact that I have starved and starved again just to have time to sleep these weird figures into a childish hour and wake up with the desire to draw them for the next seven hours. I've always hated drafting. I would rather spend thirty sleepless hours hating myself for wanting to draw the messiest angel than spend the next year avoiding her wrinkled, incomplete song trapped underneath something molding in that damned hell of a closet that is the flower shop freezer pretending that one day she will be perfect. And after all this I've never blamed anyone for saying, "Bianca, you need to get a real job."

One day, I'd like to step on the balcony ledge at the Louvre again. 

The last time I did I had a crowd beneath me in the plaza pointing up, my aunt, drunk, next to me laughing wildly, and a black flowing dress on. The ushers in the museum rushed out to scold me but I wondered what was so wrong. Did they actually think I would jump? Next time I will take that picture and I still won't jump. It would be such a tacky way to go, like, "That crazy bat, did she have to do it in such a fine setting in front of such fine people in such a fine city? She hasn't even a fine art degree of any sort." 

Even still- it would look good.

"You need to relax"
"You need to stop talking"
"You need to watch the ways in which you are honest"
"You need to stop reading so much"
"You need to watch your back"
"You need sleep"
"You need to wear less black"
"You need to stop dressing like you belong on a corner"
"You need to learn how to speak to people without offending them"
"You need to be to on birth control"
"You need to stop taking any pills, ever"
"You need to get a real job"
"You need to know what you need to do and everyone else knows except for you"