My self-summary
I am sort of a shadow behind the candlelight. I am finding lately my path coming in collaboration with grandiose artists. I am so close to the flame, I never have a dull moment coalescing with people that intrigue me. I feel like I should have been Patti Smith to Mapplethorpe, but I have found my Mapplethorpe but this is not the reason why I am un-single.
The laser portrait on the left was taken for my third-grade picture in 1991 at Rockaway Valley Elementary School in Boonton, New Jersey. My mom scolded me for not smiling after they paid the extra money for the laser portrait. I hate being told to smile.
I was born in 1983 in New York. I scored the highest IQ in elementary school. I was given a plaque by the mayor and photographed in front of a Christmas tree for the town paper. I learned the fastest. I was always the smartest. I was also tested several times for ADHD. I grew up. I was diagnosed as having bipolar disorder. I lost friends. I became straight edge. I became vegan. I made new friends. I was coerced into staying at a hospital for a week after I got snakebites (labret piercings) at 18 years old or be kicked out by my parents. I was thought to have Asperger Syndrome.
I had no diagnosable conditions, except for perhaps ‘Generalized Anxiety Disorder’, which most people suffer from, I wanted to see if I could get a disability bus pass from the disorder. And yes, I was able to get a year’s worth of reduced bus fare from ‘Generalized Anxiety Disorder.’ My psychologist at the time gave me this assessment after a year of counseling:
“Chris has been diagnosed with anxiety disorder with depressive features (f41.8). Client’s symptoms and precipitated and/or exacerbated by numerous symptoms classified under autism spectrum disorder. Due to his anxiety, social interaction difficulties, and communication challenges, he experiences difficulty regulating affect and negotiating conflict.”
Thus, in the end, it was anxiety. And I grew up some more.
I’m really good at
Commitment
Failing mensa
Bike rage
Getting a useless Ph.D.
Directing my intensity to one thing.
Working under stress
I am becoming a holistic sociopath – conquering my internal world through transcendental meditation and poem.
What I’m doing with my life
I work as a pretty boy web developer and I have written thousands of poems. My superpowers lie in web design. I sometimes write poetry more than five lines long. I am retired both in teaching and practicing Java. I am a retired pseudo-bouncer. I am a retired ESL teacher. I am a videographer.
Sometimes, I work as a bouncer videographer at a popular music venue and work as a freelance web designer, web developer, video editor and tutor.
I am an uncreative creative. I want to practice abstract, conceptual and surrealist photography and but I now primarily sell digital prints via the NINE NINETY-NINE ONLY STORE upstairs. Sometimes I immerse myself in the bizarre psychodynamics of social interaction. I am able to sort things out in my mind while seeing how intricate and alive everything is.
I am fascinated by the identities of poets who are dead, anti-social, or otherwise disconnected from life. I collage, write, film, and otherwise creates poetry installations that explore my interest in authorship. I am interested in the evolution of the poetic process that transforms into a poetic or conceptual/artistic language.
These are the statistics I received on OkCupid based on answering over 2,000 questions throughout the early 2010s. This screen capture is from 2016. I am way more outgoing than this indicates. But de todas maneras – anyways, I try to be someone who doesn’t let himself get in the way of doing what he wants to do. No inhibitions, no regrets – right? I’m very independent.
I have ridden a bike in ten different countries. I lived many lives and I have never lived in the same place for more than two years until I moved to Los Angeles. I have a symbolic relationship with Los Angeles as living here is like living on a bunch of cracks and fragments.
I think of the fragments from around these cracks are the tectonic plates that keep this city moving. There is a hazy cloud of Angelenos who literally live on separate tectonic plates and co-exist as a sub-community of the moving car. And I embrace the impulse to coexist on a tectonic plate, movement against movement, and I like the weather of Los Angeles.
I plan to be a supercentenarian cyborg via the replacement of the more intricate parts in the future.
On marriage
I have been gay married to an Italian since 12/14/16. I became an EU citizen by way of Spanish citizenship by way of Italian citizenship. I balked at the idea of heteronormative coupling or such that is otherwise known as “the confines of marriage” for years. I never thought I would do it. So I threw that theory out the door the day after Donald Trump was inaugurated. I got gay engaged a day after the inauguration, and gay married a month after that.
Christian Pelleschi and Chris Girard got married at the Beverly Hills courthouse on 12/14/16.
And this is with an Italian that I had been in a relationship with since 2011. So I am one of those people who has left the USA because of Trump. And then I became a hypocrite and came back. I hated being tethered to this organization called UCETAM. I left my pedagogy costume of glasses, parted brown hair, and a button-up shirt. I showed my piercings and tattoos and ran back to California. So now I am working on Italian now, via Spanish, on DuoLingo.
The reward of teaching English at a tiny Socialist cooperative school in Spain was not enough. And it’s likely that Mandarin Chinese will replace this universal language. And all of us native English speakers will be old hat. We’ll be pushing our really unmusical and ugly language like some ugly religion in an equally ugly church. But I turned this situation into something productive and made video stories with the kids. Find out more on the Chris Girard Patreon at patreon.com/chrisgirard.
Favorite things
I am active at Gold’s Gym and a Transcendental Meditation Center. I practice yoga. I ride a bicycle daily. I write and publish haiku poems. I have a certificate in massage.
And now I’ve been vegan for 20 years. I cannot be stronger than I currently am. The vegan body I have can sustain my daily bike riding and going to the gym almost every day. I feel like my body and diet mutually support each other, and that supports my lifestyle. And my body is something that gives me pleasure and gives others pleasure also. So eating a plant-based diet is something that, based on my person, others can thrive on as well.
Pseudopsychology
I have gotten a certificate in the enneagram, which is a type of assessment system that categorizes personalities into nine boxes and two sub-boxes within the nine boxes and three sub-sub-boxes within the two sub-boxes with a hope that all boxes, all personalities, are somehow self-contained. I can figure out your box.
My enneagram is 5w4 SX/SO and Myers Briggs is IXTP. In other words, I am the thinker with the romantic wing with a sexual instinct primary with a social instinct secondary. For the Myers Briggs, I am IXTP – introverted, between intuitive and sensing, thinking and perceiving.
Being a 5w4 IXTP, I am pretty straight forward but struggle with trying to sound tactful when I’m trying to be sincere. Thus, I usually stay quiet. People think I have Asperger’s.
I was obsessed with the Buddhist Bhavacakra (realms of existence) – if true, I am in the self-indulgent and larger-than-life god realm, which is a good and bad place for me. Since I am on the highest realm, I’ll be exhausting all of my good karma and not suffer enough to ascend to a higher level since I’m perpetually doomed to be at the highest one! I learned how to suffer.
BDSM Test
An accurate test taken from bdsmtest.org.
100% Non-monogamist
99% Exhibitionist
98% Voyeur
74% Vanilla
69% Experimentalist
49% Primal (Prey)
48% Masochist
47% Ageplayer
36% Switch
30% Slave
23% Degrader
16% Degradee
13% Submissive
13% Dominant
13% Primal (Hunter)
10% Rigger
4% Brat
2% Boy/Girl
2% Daddy/Mommy
1% Rope bunny
1% Sadist
0% Pet
0% Owner
0% Master/Mistress
I am NOT your Master/Mistress
I am NOT your owner
I am NOT your pet
I am NOT your sadist
I am NOT your “rope bunny”
I am NOT your Daddy/Mommy
I am NOT your Boy/Girl
I am NOT your brat.
Music
Genres: darkwave / synth
Joy Division, Pumarosa, Justice, Pink Floyd, Siouxsie, and the Banshees, Cocteau Twins, ionnalee, Black Marble, Ringo Deathstarr, The Jesus and Mary Chain, TR/ST, Drab Majesty, Tamaryn, My Bloody Valentine, Jawbreaker, Knapsack, Placebo, Marnie from Ladytron, IAMX, The Misfits
Authors
Sylvia Plath, Albert Camus, Slavoj Zizek, Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, Clark Coolidge, William Burroughs, Michael McClure, Ann Lauterbach
Movies
Captain Fantastic, Gone Girl, Goya’s Ghosts, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Gone with the Wind, Donnie Darko, The Shining, Inception, Inside Out, Mysterious Skin, Green Room, Her, Girl Interrupted, I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore, Before Sunset, Dogville, The Graduate, Lucky Number Slevin, The Battle of Algiers, Nightcrawler