#88
At baby Stanley's memorial, I did not give a speech or share any words. I could not stop crying. My brain could not understand how I was suppose to believe his body was now ashes inside an urn on a table in front of me. Nothing about that made any sense. I am not sure I even believed it happened still at that point. Writing some words down later and making a shrine of connections to this episode of The Muppet Show helped me (as backwards as it may seem) attempt to face reason, which Stanley was a stan of.
& Stanley has come back to me in strange ways, two of which are mentioned in the poem. Stanley became the first Ghost moment I truly felt. Once while Adventure Time was on the screen, and I was listening to Future Islands out of a boom box I received as a Christmas gift from a Dominican student of mine, as the road through 117th street was under construction, I felt his presence return.
& also, right after I found out he had taken his life, I received several phone calls from an unidentified number from Orlando, and the time I answered it, an Indian woman answered. Stanley was very interested in Hinduism. I recall one time, I just finished writing a pantoum, muppoem #118, when he buzzed my apartment to come up after celebrating Holi, the Hindu Festival of Colors.
& my first boyfriend was from Cape Verde and was born in '76, the year The Muppet Show premiered and also the year of the dragon. When I reunited with Stanley at Horse Meat Disco, he had the Mortal Kombat dragon on his shirt. He too was born in the year of the dragon, but '88.
& Dream Pop Press accepted my book, BLUE 4 U, for publication on November 7, 2021. It was not done on purpose... I was assured by Isobel.
& the day the book went up for pre-sale, I was back in Lisbon. Everywhere I looked that day, besides the Burger King Queen Cheese Chicken Sandwich ad, was a poster for a production of Orlando to play at the Dona Maria National Theatre. Unfortunately, I had to miss it to be back in NYC, writing this now, but the poster was enough.
& just as other numbers appear to me randomly, yet frequently, so too does 11/7. For instance, the other night, I was woken up by a car alarm. I grabbed my phone, and saw the time was 1:17. I said to myself hey baby, and then as I was about to go back to sleep, someone buzzed my apartment. It has been a long time since anyone has done that, never mind so late at night, so I just lay with it.
“To die will be an awfully big adventure.”
& I had liked the Gigamesh remix of this song better at the time.
He said RY X was superior as it was closer to the song.
He was correct.
& once, in a cab ride home, Stanley shared with me how he used to think about being a poet. He said he won an award for an ekphrastic piece he wrote when he was younger. He chuckled to him self saying it had all the old white women in tears. After he passed, I was set on trying to uncover that poem, and thanks to the thoughtful people at the Frick, I was able to be touched by it, as I imagine you will be too.
💧💧💧💧
💙💙💙💙
🩵🩵🩵🩵
I don't know if I believe in numbers, but when the numbers line up, I believe in some sort of math to love, for how ever long in time, I don't know the number or statistics.
2/25/23
So I've been bartending lately at this cult gay bar in NYC, and above the bar is this tiled mosaic piece of art that depicts a space alien, rainbow colored. People would come in to "flash" it with their phones for awhile now and I always just kind of smiled or huhhed at it until I looked up the street artist and decided to download his "Flash Invader" app and flash it my self and maybe I'd play too. I had been cooped up depressed in my house and thought maybe it would be good for me. During this sad month in which he passed, I flashed the space invader at the bar, and it turned out to be number "117" (his birthday) in the Invader's NY series. I thought maybe Stanley was trying to help me and decided to commit to playing the silly game.
10/24/23
I woke up and remembered a dream where I saw a beautiful sunset and huge whales flipping out the ocean so beautiful and then I took out my camera but as I tried to get the most beautiful shot the pink sunset disappeared and it became dark and I could still see the whales but not quite as beautiful now and I was disappointed and someone who I can't remember who it is someone said "don't even try it" as if to say I should have been grateful without a need for a picture and then the whales like did this thing where they were all on top of each other like in a stack like some sort of circus ladder and they turned into a Broadway sign and the lights turned out and the sign featured the faces of the cast of 7th Heaven and then I woke up!
I wondered what whales in a dream might symbolize and went to my phone to google it when I noticed I had an email that was an invitation for a signed vinyl for the first so many fans of Future Islands, which was out favorite, and I saw their new album was called "People Who Aren't Here," and then it said, I have until November 7th (Stan's birthday) to sign up and order it, and there was this song on the album that reminds me strangely of 11/7 "7 alligator 7" where the too Ls in alligator make an eleven, and I thought about the whales on top of each other and the song "The Tower" and about what might be a Heaven.
3/9/24
Stanley
and I had no connection with each other through Barbra Streisand, and
although he liked "Singing in the Rain," he didn't particularly like
musicals, but I did. Again depressed, I decided to download Streisand's
autobiography on Audible and gave it a listen and just absolutely fell
in love. I went online to learn more about her book, and I saw that it
was released on November 7th, and somehow this "thing" felt like it was a
gift to cheer me up. I went and took a bath and continued to listen,
and as I'm listening, Barbra starts to talk about numbers, and meaning,
and the significance of connections, and I just got chills in a hot tub
of water.
8/12/24
"Blue Light" by Prince came on my shuffle as I was cooking in the kitchen, maybe his favorite place in my apartment, and some parts reminded me of him, and then there was a specific line "I'll be 117..."
When I came to add this entry I noticed this page has had 87 views, making me the 88th, and Stanley was born in 1988, and this happens to be muppoem 88. After I finished, I shut my computer off to watch a movie called "Smiley Face" and noticed it was 10:28, my birthday.
10/7/24
Today was a weird one, not sure how to explain... Sometimes, every Thing does feel like some absurd simulation I'm living.
There was some sort of clerical error or fraudulent activity that occurred creating a lien against my name, and I've been trying to sort it out. Today I went to 88-11 Sutphin Blvd, Queens County Courthouse to ask for help Unfortunately, nothing was resolved, and I cried a bit so overwheled, and remember thinking, what if I end up on the streets?
Now, strangely, there has been a homeless guy who keeps entering my building, and has stolen packages from the hallway, and has even gotten inside and rang and knocked on my door, the one to my apartment inside my building. Also, one time, as I was entering, he ran behind me and tried to get inside as I was coming in, putting me in an awkward situation once again. After the Courthouse, as I'm walking home, I notice him in front of my building, acting a bit strung out, and I guess kind of fearful, I said to myself, "not today," so I pulled out my phone at the corner (yes that would be 117th street) to do look on the phone while I waited for him to leave my front entrance. As I did that, he noticed me and we made eye contact and I just crossed the street quickly. He starts yelling, "Hey! HEY! HEY!!!!!" I have headphones on, so he's like SCREAMING at me, and I just couldn't ignore him, he was so loud, so I confronted him and said "what?" He holds up my wallet, which I much dropped when I pulled out my phone trying to ignore him, and returns it to me saying "You dropped this. I wouldn't do you dirty like that, papi." I was kind of in shock, and I gave him five bucks. I came inside and started crying again, and then I thought, I need to go back and find out his name and buy him a meal or something. Unfortunately I walked up and down several streets, but I couldn't find him, so I guess he was clearly on the move and that was that.
Anyway, that's what happened today, and the weird thing, Stanley's number just came up again, and I feel like I should report it. I am a Batman fanatic, and although I enjoyed the last movie, and I wanted to like this new spin-off show, The Penguin, I'm a little turned off by why they made the character of Victor, the only Black character, subservient and with a stutter, finding it to be a bit racist and too close to the same Alien Romulus optics I found to be wrong in this day and age. Well, suddenly, during a long dialogue about drugs and escape, Victor, who happens to be Dominican as well, pulls out his phone in the show, and there it was, and here it is:
