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Tatiana Oliveira Simonian

@tatiana

36.8K

followers

1995

following

▪️ strictly personal
▪️ technologist / musician / writer
▪️ music @theblondenames
▪️ substack / line her notes
▪️🇺🇸🇧🇷🇦🇲 | 🦂
▪️lurk links for more

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Some folks requested a visual / accessible version of my poem. Here it is. I did my best, I’ve never used CapCut before. 🫶🏽

LA Por Vida 🖤 taken in Los Angeles, California by @tatiana

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2 years ago

it’s officially fall… but summer went hard in the paint. //

started recording a new album with my brilliant friend / occasional nemesis @joe_cardamone (who needs to record a new icarus line record but that’s a separate story) // hangs with the broke bestie aka the niece // celebrated 18 years of drinking sparkling water // watched brasil implode (with my brother who bet on norway) and celebrated everyone jumping on the “root for spain” bandwagon // found old magazines i wrote for like my michael stipe anthem cover // whimsy // saw old friends in @theblackheartprocession // documentaries // @peterhook_thelight show but couldn’t shoot @jackbates_music well bc everyone was tall and parked it in front of me //

corn dog supremacy // nephews turned 22 // bat glasses 🦇 with mi hermanita sofía

and started grad school // as well as a new tech job with old friends //

🌅 by @tatiana

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25 days ago

It always looked like I was having fun, but I was so deeply miserable. Loveless (great album) and lonely.

If you have a problem with drugs or alcohol and / or a deep affinity for bad coffee, metal chairs and dank church basements… my DMs are open.

I love you, thank you for my life.

(memes jacked from the homies @fucking_sober @theglumlots) by @tatiana

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4 months ago

lately ⚡️
amor fati by @tatiana

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a year ago

🖤 LA Por Vida 🖤

LA is polished and it is messy.

It is opulent mansions and it is candy-colored tiny houses along the side of the freeway in East LA.

It is generational wealth and it is immigrant families with 4 kids in two bedrooms.

It is Michelin meals and it is the best tacos from that guy with the cart on that one corner.

It is the place where your heart was broken beyond repair and it is the place where your dreams came true.

it is a place with some of the most beautiful, fake people you have ever seen (and the natives will *always* point out that they’re transplants) and it is also a place with some of the realest folks you’ll ever meet

it’s the place where you partied way more than you ever should have and it’s probably the place where you got sober also

it doesn’t care how you do things in New York, but it’s also not trying to drive to the Westside (or conversely, the Eastside)

it is the most congested areas with streets so narrow you wonder how a car can fit and it is the sprawling Eaton Canyon with mysterious, whimsical trees that look like Tim Burton dreamed them up himself 💔

it has a big heart, this city that is a litany of juxtapositions.

And it will rebuild.

Those of us who have not lost our homes will carry those of you who have

…and we will help the animals too.

Take heart LA, take heart.

🖤
——
Photo by @estevanoriol

(Hi friends, thanks for the calls. I’m safe and we are out of harm’s way. I’m just sad. I’m an LA native and this city is where my immigrant family found refuge in the 50s. It hurts to see so many hurt. But it will get better… ❤️‍🩹) by @tatiana

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2 years ago

🕊️ Iggy aka Iglet Tony Simonian Harvey 🕊️
Sept 13. 2013 - June 26, 2024

How do I tell you about the five pound love of my life? How he was a scholar and a gentleman. Very particular and a man of refined taste. (Don’t try to serve him a home cooked meal that includes peas. You’ll be left with peas.) How he hated my love of chihuahua outer wear but tolerated it. How he wagged his tail like a helicopter mid flight when dad would carry him across the road so he doesn’t get hurt. How we would often lose him in the house because he was so small and then a little head would inevitable pop out of a blanket or a pair of jeans or a sweatshirt or a pillow.

When I was sick, he would sleep on my chest… curling himself under the crook of my neck like a pillow for my tears. He was so empathetic. He cared so much and was so sad when his brother Eno passed.

Dogs are God’s love in action. Did you fail? They love you. Did you forget to walk them? They love you. Did you have a great day? They love you. Have a bad day? They love you. Give them treats? They love you. Unconditionally. They love you. They love you. They love you.

As I held his paw as he took his final breaths, I told him how much we loved him and how I hope we did enough.
I will never have another dog like him. I can’t believe he’s gone. I am so grateful he chose us almost eleven years ago… it was not long enough. 💔 by @tatiana

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2 years ago

On to the next one. ✌🏽

Alt caption: Nevertheless, she persisted. by @tatiana

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3 years ago

▪️▫️ home▫️▪️

I’m sitting by myself at Jack’s Diner in Whittier. It’s been open since 1933. We used to come here after church every Sunday. Each week, we would be greeted by the host, John. He had Ricky Ricardo energy and seemed like a celebrity to me at age seven.

I remember sliding around the booths like a feral animal in my church dress and tights. I always hated tights. My dad would chop it up and charm every geriatric waitress with his mega watt smile. Mom would look beautiful as always but ferociously swat our hands and tell my brother and I to stop fighting. Latina moms don’t play.

If you had told me at seven that I’d be sitting here again at 46 alone… no mom… no dad… well, first off, rude. Who tells a seven-year-old that?! But secondly, I’d feel sad yet, at home. This place takes me back to a million memories. A second after I write this, one of my brother’s childhood friends walks in. He’s sober now also. We catch up a bit and he picks up my tab.

Home is more than our house. It is people, places, familiar scents, foods and more. It can be revisited anytime. Home is ever changing.

If you feel sad around this time of year, I encourage you to find all the places that are home for you. Home evolves and is never one thing. Loved ones may be gone, but “home” is anywhere we remember them.

To me these days… home is….

* Always Whittier
* Any old diner with leather booths
* A strong cup of sencha tea
* My family
* Disneyland (it was my local job growing up…)
* The smell of chlorinated water at amusement parks
* Recovery rooms with ramshackle holiday decorations
* Being around music people
* Especially anyone who can deep dive on shoegaze and post punk genres
* Driving through the industrial part of Downtown LA with no GPS because I know it like the back of my hand
* The ocean
* The scent of old, favorite perfumes
* My keys 🎹
* A pen and journal
* God taken in Whittier, California by @tatiana

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3 years ago

▫️ 15 Years ▫️

My father Tony Simonian died 15 years ago today, one day after his 59th birthday, two days after their 32nd wedding anniversary. It took me 14 years to realize I never got to say goodbye. My mom’s passing was the long, torturous molasses of cancer, we had time. My father was a smiling, happy figure standing in a kitchen one night and then a vapor the next. Heart attack.

I spoke about this in my 2016 TedX talk. You can view it at the link in my bio.

Dad was born in Brazil, an Armenian refugee of WWII refugee camp in Germany (where he was conceived). He was raised in East LA, then Montebello. He spoke 5 languages. He was the most Latino (but really, Mexican) Armenian you’ve EVER met - loved cruising Whittier Blvd in car clubs, played semi pro soccer, bumped ranchero music and watched telenovelas. He taught auto shop at San Gabriel high. Got the “worst” students but made the most impact. He died before winter break. His funeral had over 500 people. He would have been buried in a Kirkland casket, if they had one. I get my hustle from him, my calves and my temper.

I wrote this poem about him in 2019. It’s about death days, they’ve shaped much of my adult life. I feel like a grief doula. “Now You’re Gone” by @thesecretmachines takes me right back to that time🖤

▪️Denouement▪️

There is a date

In the not-so-distant future

Where grief will meet you

Like a tsunami

A date that passes each year unnoticed

An idle date

A Monday in June

A Friday in December

Dates that mean nothing now

Dates that sit in traffic

That read bills

That gather dust like bookshelves

Dates that float by like the birthdays of strangers

But one day

This date will change everything

And you will be different

You will eat from the tree

Of sucker-punching grief

And suddenly understand

The pain of others

Who have had profound loss

And you’ll feel sorry for all the times you wondered

why they didn’t move on sooner

And you’ll feel the need for a vice
And you’ll feel the need for a friend
And you’ll feel the need for isolation
And you’ll wonder how all these years

You let this day pass

Without knowing it would be the day

That everything would change forever by @tatiana

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3 years ago

▫️Playing Small ▫️

It’s easy to play small when you’re five feet tall. I got bars. Anyhow… taken in The Theater at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas by @tatiana

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3 years ago

It’s been awhile since I’ve read a quote that hit me deeply. This one is it. by @tatiana

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3 years ago

15 years sober today. Last year was one of the top 3 worst of my life. I thought I was literally dying for 5 months. I learned that not being believed and misdiagnosis are not a fun experience. I got pretty isolated because it’s hard to explain, “Hey, I
think I’m dying, but maybe not?! Lol.”

I am infinitely grateful every damn day for my health and my sobriety… this one feels like a big deal. 🖤 by @tatiana

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3 years ago