On Terminal Uniqueness

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Tonight the movie being streamed illegally on my laptop is U.S. Marshals, which I would have been calling The Fugitive 2 had I not asked +#0*@$ for title clarification. It’s unexpected that the sequel to any action film with so many transportation-themed explosions (blown up cars, blown up trains, blown up buses) carves out a new and unrelated title for itself - as if individuating from its parental figure. I respect that. There was just a shoot-out between Wesley Snipes wearing a shiny black wig and Tommy Lee Jones in a cemetery which did grab a fraction of my attention for aesthetic reasons but otherwise I’ve been a bit distracted writing existential poetry. Anyway, after hitting the vape pen I started moving my hips around, thinking about how distant I feel from how I could be existing if my body didn’t feel like it was dying from the inside out. This is what I think about basically at all times every single day of my life (even in my dream the other night I was surrounded by four friends - none of whom I recognized - who were all in agreement, yes your body is ruined and it’s so sad, which is how I feel my real life friends have acted as well - not even in an offensive way but in a sympathetic, dumbfounded and overwhelmed way… I don’t hear from them anymore) which is why making music provide s some momentary relief via dissociation… especially when it’s a political commentary on a demographic that I have a lifetime of experience with. If you don’t have any of those monolingual ICE supporters in your life directly, you can readily find them on Facebook.

Anyway as I was saying… I started moving my hips around and contemplating whether or not all of this was actually meant to happen… As in, was I meant to forfeit my entire sense of comfort in my body and succumb to a destiny where I lose my health and sense of physical freedom after so much of my identity has been built upon it in a profoundly instrumental way that has allowed me to experience being a vessel for expression of the the human spirit through movement and material form? Am I supposed to deteriorate on this plane that I have been so gifted in and so grateful for so that I can discover what is more ineffable than a body? Couldn’t I have discovered all of it simultaneously? Wasn’t I supposed to to be able to go on a walk without being in constant nerve pain? Or at the very least, wasn’t I supposed to be a pop star making eclectic music with a spiritually resonant image ?

I know I could have done it. I know I was a great performer and I’m comfortable saying that now probably because I’ve lost so much of what would make people think I was being obnoxious by saying it (although not delusional because they would’ve known it was true) or unrelatable to the point of stirring resentment. It reminds me of that grandma meme now

Anyway it’s all incredibly disturbing but hey, at least it’s singular. That reminds me - I remember some friends of mine who are in AA (I wouldn’t dare share their identities… although one of them does look like Tommy Lee Jones who is currently on the screen here in U.S. Marshals) would accuse me of having “terminal uniqueness” when I was on the downward spiral (which, by the way, was a very formative album for me that initiated a sexual awakening. I should write about that someday… there’s a whole story related to it that regards an online romance I had with a boy in my seventh grade gym class who was completely mute other when he snarled at people. He’s the one who first showed me Closer by Nine Inch Nails). I remember feeling a lot of resentment toward that phrase “terminal uniqueness” and actually I still find it incredibly annoying. You see,

• I grew up in Texas and never misbehaved because to do so would have threatened my life in a literal sense

• who then became a very shy and existentially minded teenager. I had a Radiohead Bear sticker on my black 2003 Jetta and was in a a very codependent relationship with my very incredibly sweet and boyfriend who I was with for 4 years. I sat on the floor at the end of the cafeteria during lunch with the goth kids (and I use that term to employ linguistics to promote understanding through storytelling, not because I viewed them as some sort of organized alien group at the time. I’ve just see Mean Girls a lot so I know how to talk about cliques. Plus hindsight is 20/20) Anyways me and this girl Blair (rest in peace) would throw deli meat at the cafeteria windows and watch it slide down to pass the time. That reminds me of the video (performance art video, actually, although I didn’t know what one of those was back then) that I uploaded years ago called

• Ham Face 2013 in which the mediums used in the work are ham and whipped cream.

But back to the timeline

• won a highly publicized model search that was covered by the Dallas Morning News which both greatly confused and disturbed my suburban Texas high school classmates as they did not think I was hot or pretty. Age 15

• became one of the most successful models in the entire world at age 16

• was photographed topless for the New York Times adjacent fashion publication also at age 17 (trying to kind of go in chronological order here) which they had to issue an apology for in the newspaper due to public uproar. I’d already been photographed topless multiple times on shoots by then so my having my underage body being on display for others to consume was something I was generally completely dissociated from. In fact, once I was on set for a magazine editorial wearing a tissue thin tank top that was being blown by a wind machine in a way that kept exposing one of my nipples. I asked multiple times while standing there for the photographer to let me know if and when it happened again so that I could know to move the strap over to cover myself. However it continued to happen and photos continued to be taken and the photographer continued to not tell me. I gathered the strength of self-assuredness (something I really didn’t have much of at all at the time) to approach the photographer afterwards and ask to make sure that the final photograph please be one in which my chest is covered and I was assured emphatically that of course that be the case! The actual “of course” was of course the editorial came out and not only was the photo of my nipple included but she had also shot me lying down wearing a dress at an angle where my underwear was visible. In the upskirt photo I’m holding a rose and I’m 16 years old. Oh yeah and that wasn’t a typo, the photographer was a woman. You want names? More details? Pay me, bitch! That way I can get treatment for the brain damage that has destroyed my autonomic nervous system

• was one of three models on the first model cover (as opposed to celebrity cover) of Teen Vogue in many years, transforming me into a semi-recognizable public figure (at least to fashion-obsessed teenagers which was a very serious demographic in the old days of Italian Vogue’s Steven Meisel cover exclusive) as it was in every magazine aisle at every large grocery store chain in America

• was the subject of a huge controversy when I was surprised to find myself as the poster child for a Wall Street Journal article that was published by a reporter who sat next to my talkative Mother who was my chaperone at a runway show in Paris…. actually let me pause here for a moment. You see, despite being absolutely horrified about being a burden and a disappointment after having gained some weight since the previous show season due to beginning to work with a nutritionist due to severe anorexia, I did the shows in New York (New York comes before Paris in the show circuit if you’re not aware) but every time people did my makeup I felt pain in my mouth where I had just recently had a dental implant put in to replace a front tooth I had lost when I was

• trampled by my horse at age 12. I lost the tooth, fractured my nose, split my lip in half and knocked my jaw out of place. I woke up the following morning to find that the bridge of my nose was gone due to severe swelling. My gums and lip had been stitched, I had a metal brace around my mouth and two black eyes. Sadly there is no photographic evidence of this because my parents were too devastated to document me in a state that they assumed would require reconstructive plastic surgery… but it all just sort of normalized and I never ended up needing it. But I did have to get the implant replaced when I was 17 right before this show season so I flew home to get the tooth implant looked at and found out that it had in fact been placed too far up and fractured my facial plate. Oh, so that’s why it hurt when the makeup artists were aggressively applying lipstick backstage despite my asking them to please be gentle due to a recent surgical procedure and every time I said it I was treated as though I was being extraordinarily difficult….  They removed the implant and after about a week of healing I flew to Paris. After one day of castings

• I was told by my agent that I had gained too much weight to be seen and needed to get out of sight if I had any chance of maintaining a career in the future, which they were hopeful for since I had “dominated” during the previous season when I weighed 98 pounds. I would only be walking Yohji Yamamoto (best one anyway) which I had somehow been confirmed for despite my ghastly appearance - or perhaps monstrous is a more appropriate word, as ghastly was a compliment back then in the 2007 modeling circuit) before returning home to Texas to quote unquote “fix the things that needed to be fixed,” “learn how to control becoming a woman” and… - oh yeah, finish high school - when roughly a week later I woke up to find a photo of myself on the front page of a section of the internationally-distributed Wall Street Journal in an exposé about eating disorders in the fashion industry that included details of my experience being rejected due to weight gain. I’m not sure if I can convey how insane this was because… this was 2007. You couldn’t just go on Instagram, post a story about an abusive experience you had working with someone and expect there to be a collective uprising in the name of all that is good and righteous that would bring forth subsequent consequences for the inhumane party. Abuse of all kinds was everywhere and there wasn’t even anyone to talk to about it - and trust me, I’ve got a lot of stories I never told… some not until

• I had a manic episode during which I used the Instagram account that I made for

• the debut musical artist I was the face of in collaboration with a friend and producer we started alongside

• his album rollout project that we were co-creative directing. The project was unconventional in the sense that it appeared to have quite little to do with his album and was more used as an opportunity to generally world-build an alternative reality magical version of a deliberately referenced very well-known music journalism website. But don’t sick the lawyer on me - ours was totally different in the sense that it started with a W and not a P. For instance I,

• Victauria Meadow (RIP… first Ffrank, then her… it’s been a rough couple of years), was a centaur - and as I was saying before, I posted some previously untold stories on her Instagram (on the grid, no less) like for instance how

• when Terry Richardson asked me if my “pussy was shaved or not” while shooting me for the French Vogue Calendar (same month as

• Playboy - Miss July) at age 18. You’d have thought that kind of comment wouldn’t be said on such a high-profile set right? Ha ha, well back in my day I had to walk 12 miles to and from school in the snow uphill both ways…

Where was I? Oh yeah, I let loose on some stories of abuse on the Instagram because

• I fell off of a horse while doing the centaur photoshoot onto my tailbone, got a concussion due to the shock it sent up my spine to my brain and then months later I was unleashing a lifetime of repression on the internet and in my real life. If I still believe in the chakra system - which I’m not sure what I believe in anymore, but if I do - then it seems like it was most likely a combination of lower chakra kundalini energy and brain injury… which is a lethal combination.

The thing is though that this happened in conjunction with me

• discovering my creative power for the first time in a way that didn’t exclusively rely on my physicality (first through creative directing the Witchfork project and then through writing and singing). That was already blowing my mind because I felt like I had finally met myself in a deeper way that I both always felt a phantom of and never knew existed. So yeah… God I really

• have ADHD - the neurologist even told me recently it showed up on my comprehensive MRI scan, along with an impaired glymphatic system in the brain from the accident. Speaking of ADHD I forgot to mention about how I

• went on the Today Show with the editor in chief of Teen Vogue following the Wall Street Journal article to speak about my experience. She called me when it came out to offer her support and brought up the idea. I ordinarily would not have agreed but since all of the fashion blogs were accusing me of biting the hand that feeds due to their assumption that I had actively searched out the opportunity to share dark secrets about unwell teen girls in the modelling industry with a Wall Street Journal reporter despite the truth being that I had absolutely nothing to do with it, had never spoken to this reporter woman in my life and all of the intel she received was simply because she sat next to my Mom at this show who told her everything that she wrote about me, I decided my career was over anyways and so I might as well go out with a bang

Okay so I was talking about terminal uniqueness (!) and how it annoys me because if you ask me I have in fact had a pretty unique life… and I haven’t even gotten into

• Los Angeles (I mean the first time I moved there when I was 20 and my boyfriend - sorry I mean the guy I was dating - or, my friend - was 30, after quitting modeling for a while because I

• went through something exceptionally stressful (with another 30 year old man as a matter of fact but he was married). The last job I did before moving away was one before which

• my agent told me I needed to go on a week-long juice cleanse or else this repeat client of mine (and by repeat I mean that they hired me over years for multiple campaigns including a fragrance) was going to have to hire a body double and that I needed to show some gratitude to them for using me in such - here we go again - monstrous condition by trying to lose as much weight as possible before the photoshoot. I really hadn’t gained weight but I did look a bit inflamed because of how stressed I was about what a demoralizing secret I had to keep. They did hire a body double though - “just to be safe” is what they told me on set.

Shit. Distracted again… so yeah I also haven’t gotten to the

• physically abusive relationship,

• energetic orgasm discovery,

• The Fappening, which was a large scale celebrity iCloud leak that I was included presumably because I became internet famous on tumblr… And just wait til you hear how I found out. Plus I’d love to tell you about the media that was included - like the video where I’m wearing a hospital gown because I’m about to get cataract removal surgery (cerulean cataracts - they’re very rare) that ended up going horribly wrong by the way (but I can’t explain that or I’ll get off track again) or the nudes where I’m wearing a Thermacare patch because my stomach hurt. But that’s some paywall shit right there

• heart attack (not mine but it made me realize I couldn’t move to England to be with my boyfriend because it was too far from home. It’s interesting though because that home isn’t my home anymore at all. Isn’t it crazy how that can change?)

• long period of shame-induced celibacy,

• being cancelled during the Me Too movement,

• friend romance (my fiancé tried to be understanding since I intuitively knew some things about him the night I had the

• kundalini awakening)

God, I sound really crazy, huh? I guess it’s no surprise that

• I was handcuffed by four police officers and put in the psych ward for 72 hours after a friend called 911 to get me 5150’d because … well just listen to my cover of Chop Suey and pay attention to the lyrics

but that was so recent and I was trying to go in chronological order.

So I was saying something about god and how I don’t understand why this would all happen to me (it’s a big drop… a tilt-a-whirl) and how it’s been so much easier to believe in some divine Universal force under different circumstances… but maybe God’s plan was for me to plummet into such a deep pit of despair so that I can write this very essay on Substack right now. I mean after all, this platform technically falls under the umbrella of His Creation so He probably wants variable content on here.

Maybe I was destined to rattle my brain at 33 so that by 35 I would be living in between a truck, a garage and other people’s houses and have a constant burning sensation all over my entire body and lose all of my relationships and financial security and the privilege of being one of the most beautiful women in the world… only to then fall in love with someone who I wish desperately I felt and looked like my old self around because our experience would be completely and entirely different but instead I feel like I’m trapped inside of an hourglass that’s filling with sand - fast

So yeah about the terminal uniqueness… I understand that it can be problematic when people think that their problems are singular, and I certainly don’t think I’m the only person experiencing aspects of what I’m experiencing. But the grand total of what I’ve told you already plus everything left unsaid is admittedly specific…  one might even say… “But I am terminally unique!”

U.S. Marshals has been over for a while now and we even started and finished Double Jeopardy (the next sequel in the trilogy - another impressively distinguished title) but I’ve just been writing the whole time. +#0*@$ is very, very patient with me. Ok he just put on The Basketball Diaries and I want to pay attention. Chris from The Sopranos is in this movie and I need to watch him live for as long as I can. No spoilers please,

I’m afraid of how it might end