Photo

I like working with black and white...
Lauryn is bringing her camera when she comes to see Hijinks on Saturday...
Man. I'm not going to study at all for finals; I'll be too busy sneaking into Mason Gross' darkroom to develop...
BWAHAHA.

Just Like We (Breakdown)

(An absolutely absurd rant at the peak of another anxiety attack. Enjoy.)

I have no idea what I want to do with my life. Absolutely none.
It's terrible; I know I have time before I graduate and everything, but I need a plan. I can't have no direction... it leaves me feeling anxious and nervous all the time, or it leaves me utterly empty and unable to get myself to do work.
I can't focus in class, I can't get motivated to do my work (or even go to class most of the time). The only thing motivating me is the fear of my parents murdering me when they see my grades... and even that isn't even enough to get my ass into gear.
I want to do something for me with my life.
I give a lot to others already... I drop everything I'm doing to go help my friends. I've gone without sleeping in order to help them. I've skipped tests in order to give them a shoulder to cry on. I'm not complaining about it... but I feel like I'm not good at school. It's not for me. I love learning, but I love doing it on my own, in my own way. Sitting in classes, writing papers, listening to lectures... it doesn't teach me anything at all. I can't concentrate.
I want to create. I want to do photography... something about being able to freeze a moment in time forever, on glossy paper in black and white shades makes me smile.

Can't I do something with my life that's just for me?
It's selfish, yes... but I don't know.
I already feel plagued with other peoples problems. Don't think I don't want to help anyone anymore... on the contrary, my friends are my life. Without them, I'm nothing. Worthless. Nonexistent.
But I feel like I need to spend my time focusing on something that makes me happy, that I enjoy... because all my free time otherwise is spent trying to appease others, be they friends, family, or complete strangers.

You only live once.

...okay, so I believe in reincarnation, but I believe each incarnation is it's own life. You learn things you need to in each life, and take those lessons onto all your others until you reach what I can only refer to as a zen state. However, each incarnation you have must be spent trying to learn all you can in that time. I don't mean material knowledge. I mean learning about yourself.
Sounds lame and cliche, but I don't really care. The soul is immortal and it essentially is you. The you of today is who you were yesterday and in all other lives; an accumulation of all life lessons and experiences.
Grades, test scores, classes... I really don't think they matter in the grand scheme of things. Your happiness does: and I loathe how society forces you to do things that inhibit that happiness from growing.
Jobs, taxes, insurance... it's absolutely absurd.
People wonder why depression rates are soaring, violence is rising, and the economy plummeting.
We poison life with worries, anxiety, stress... no one is ever able to be utterly and completely happy with their life, and so much negativity ruins the balance.
Sure, I believe their must be an equal balance of the bad with the good. But there is too much bad these days. Too much stress, worrying... no one is completely happy. Everyone constantly has something to worry about, something irking them, something holding them back from that much desired self-actualization. Maybe it's material, maybe it's psychology, maybe it's physical... but "it's" there.
And "it's" driving me insane!



I just want to be happy.
I want a simple life to live; a comfortable home, work I enjoy that let's me be artistic and gives me freedom, someone I love, a pet. That's it, really.
My parents won't support me. And I need their support. Nothing I ever do or say can get them to understand it, and it drives me insane.
Another instance of me having to please someone else.
I've led my entire life up to this point trying to make my parents happy... can't I live the rest of it in a way that makes me happy?

I suppose that's what this all boils down to.
My parents.
They're more supportive than some parents of me, but they still keep me back so much.
They've raised me to constantly worry, be paranoid, never fully trust anyone... to think that education is the most important thing in life, and without it you can't be successful; which is the only other thing more important.
They also raised me to help others, which I do.
They raised me to think for myself, which I do.
They raised me to constantly fear disappointing them, like all parents raise their children to do...

Which I do.



It's funny how they raised me to be both an individual and their puppet.
I wish they would let me cut the strings; I need to do what I want to do now, and not what they want me to...
But I just can't.

You keep asking...

So here is a direct copy + paste of my latest livejournal entry.

"The show is looking better now... it's a relief, I'll tell you.
I'm looking forward to a summer of working, weddings, Wildwood, and visiting Jon here in the Brunz.
It is now officially our one month anniversary! That's pretty much twice the length of any other relationship I've had...
Maybe it was good that I had such horrible luck until now. I appreciate him so much more than I may otherwise have.
And even then, I think I'd have still been utterly head-over-heels."



<3

Ominous Cards

I did a tarot reading for myself last night...
The ring, the coffin, the sun, the key, the book, the child, the road.
The ring means a relationship (friend or romantic). The coffin means illness. The sun mean positivity and optimism. The key means answers. The book means the unknown. The child means a child. The road means a trip or a metaphorical journey.
I put the reading to mean that trouble in a relationship will be overcome. The process of overcoming that trouble will answer some sort of question I have regarding a new journey I'm on (I think in the metaphorical sense rather than the literal sense).
There are several possibilities I foresee this involving; the most obvious being something going awry but then being fixed in my relationship. The slightly less obvious involves one of my closest friends in the history of my life and a lot of trouble they are going through, and how it will affect me...

Okay, it's not quite an ominous card reading, as it seems like things will turn out well. But whenever the ring and coffin are together, I get worried; I've had some very terrible experiences with that pairing.
I need to not focus on it, I think... which means it will be all I can think about now.

My Official Favorite Song of Spring 2008

"I don't want to wonder if this a blunder
I don't want to worry whether we're going to stay together till we die
I don't want to jump in unless this music's thumpin
All the dishes rattle in the cupboards when the elephants arrive

I want to love you madly
I want to love you now (I want to love you)
I want to love you madly (wait)
I want to love you love you love you madly

I don't want to fake it, I just want to make it
The ornaments look pretty but they're pulling down the branches of the tree
I don't want to think about it, I don't want to talk about it
When I kiss your lips I want to sink down to the bottom of the sea

I want to love you madly
I want to love you now (yeah)
I want to love you madly (wait)
I want to love you, love you, love you madly

I don't want to hold back, I don't want to slip down
I don't want to think back to the one thing that I know I should have done
I don't want to doubt you, know everything about you
I don't want to sit across the table from you wishing I could run

I want to love you madly
I want to love you now
I want to love you madly (oh wait)
I want to love you, love you, love you madly"

- Cake

Let Hell Week Commence!

Though only two people bother to read this, I figured I ought to throw the trailer for Wacky Hijinks 2008 up here on the off-chance someone else sees it.




Tech week has begun for Hijinks now, which means I have even less of a social life than I did before. Well, actually I had a fantastic social life-- it has just been cut down to only Hijinks people. Which I'm fine with; but I feel I've been neglecting my Leupp friends for the last two months or so... hopefully with the show coming to fruition now, I'll be able to spend some time with everyone I want to.
I had to memorize a monologue from Merchant of Venice and recite it to my professor for my Shakespeare class. It was Portia's "the quality of mercy is not strained, it droppeth as the gentle rain upon the place below..." speech. I really loved that play, and that's a beautiful passage so I didn't mind too much. It took me about 25 minutes to memorize.
I went to my professor's office hours to present it to him. I did and he told me I did a great job and said I was a model student and have nothing to worry about for tomorrow's midterm. I feel ashamed, like I was lying to him; I haven't studied at all for it, and I must commit 70 individual events with their year of occurrence to memory. By tomorrow. With rehearsal tonight until forever-o'clock.
I'm an awful student and I feel terrible that he was led to believe that I'm not.
Also, it appears a webcomic is in the works for me, Jon, Andy and Zach. It would be really great if we actually carried it out, though I worry I won't be able to contribute too much to it; I'm not great at drawing or writing comics... I just wish I was.
There are a lot of things I wish I was.
In cheerier news, I love Jon. Just throwing it up here in case he reads it; plus I wanted something happy to write after the above self-deprecation. :)

Down the Rabbit Hole...

Yesterday was probably one of the most important days in my life, and if I didn't post the typical, pretentious, I-know-so-much-about-the-world-and-myself posts that such substances are wont to induce then my experience would not have been complete.
However, I'm not going to go on and on about how I realized that yes, the religious beliefs I've had since the sixth grade that we are all "one" with the universe are in fact true. I am going to go on about the fact that I learned so much about myself that I already knew; I rediscovered myself, I suppose.
I've always known that I have severe anxiety problems, coupled with very strong bouts of depression on a relatively regular basis. A terrible self esteem. Family issues galore. Fear of abandonment. I always thought I was whiny, annoying, unwanted by everyone, unintelligent, and a pessimist.
One of the many things I scribbled in that cherry red notebook, which stood out like a beacon to me the entire day, was "I learned I am an optimist." I can't recapture that euphoric moment when I realized it, but I suppose I am.
There are so many things I want to do, so many things I wish I was.
I can't do any of them, and I can't be anything. But I keep trying and I think what I realized when I wrote that was that if I keep trying I must hold out some little hope that it's possible. And I think that's optimism; as small and pale as that hope is, it's there.
It was like a therapy session; I remember sitting in that lawn chair looking through the posts of the porch at the sun moving through the sky and the colors of everything changing with it's motion and so many thoughts rushed through my mind. I remember thinking something about Freud and the thought "Oh, so this is the unconscious being made conscious..." struck me. I kept thinking of the word "collective unconscious" and acknowledging that it was the wrong word, and that Jung talked about that and not Freud, but I didn't care because it was just a name, which is just letters and and pictures and ideas, and a word can mean anything you want it to as long as it contains the idea you want it to contain.
I realized how much I rely on other people and how self contained I am. Andy said "we're all containers" and it's absolutely true, as silly as it sounds post-experience. I think the silliest things are also the most profound... perhaps that the pretentious philosophy major in me, though.
I was so aware yet so unaware of myself. It was amazing. I was so self conscious about what might turn the experience wrong for me and was very careful to avoid it. I always thought such self consciousness was a bad thing... but it's not. It's limiting and reduces my experiences with communicating my thoughts to any one. As the day went on and the intensity shifted from both body and mind to mostly mind I was able to relax more and enjoy myself and the company I was in. When Jon returned to himself I was so happy; I'd spent a lot of time worrying that he wasn't okay and that he would forget himself and forget me and I'd have try and teach him to love me again.


Ah, time to go prop shopping for Hijinks...
That was the most profound peanut butter and jelly sandwich I ever had.

Hier kommt die Sonne.

The weather is gorgeous once more... I wish I could enjoy it more. I was very irresponsible last night and hung out with some friends rather than study for the exam I had at 8:10 this morning. I went home around 2:45 in the morning and studied... for about twenty minutes before falling asleep, only to awake to the clock reading 7:46.
Panic ensued.
There is no conceivable way I passed that exam, and since I'm already doing terribly in the class, that is very bad news.
Something I whined about in the previously mentioned depressing post I never posted was my constant fear that I simply don't belong in college.
I'm not particularly smart; I'm not an idiot, but I'm certainly no genius. I'm a horrible student. I never study, I constantly skip classes, when i do go to class I spend the time completely zoned out (I daydream almost constantly; think of JD from Scrubs to get a sense of the manner in which I do it). I want to be smart. I want the knowledge that college offers, and I genuinely enjoy learning... but I can't focus on it. If it's something I am obligated to do, I lose interest instantly.

It's so immature and irresponsible and I hate it.

I wish I had the self discipline to study, pay attention, go to class... go home early the night before an important exam. But I really don't. Since coming to college, I've lost the drive and ambition I had to succeed in high school; and even back then, with ambition, I never did any work. I am fairly certain I only passed high school because the teacher's there were lazy and never actually graded anything properly. I have the problem of wanting to reach my goal but not wanting to do the work involved. It's so childish but I just can't motivate myself to work harder.



I mean, Jesus. I'm writing this post when I ought to be writing the essay that's due in ten hours...
Fuck me.

Do it.

Sunshine. Belle & Sebastian. Go listen. Now.
Two out of three classes were canceled today... I got lunch with Darya and my old friend Minh, and ran into Jon, J Mike, and Kayla unexpectedly so I sat with them awhile...
It's been a perfect day!
I have a midterm at 8:10 tomorrow morning, a paper due by midnight tomorrow night, and Hijinks rehearsal till God knows when tonight... it's going to be an all nighter, people. Urgh.
I want it to be Friday already!

Meet you at the statue in an hour...

I just wrote an extremely long, self pitying and depressing post. I am embarrassed that I nearly actually posted it...
So instead, here's a poem which is, as usual, heavily inspired by e.e. cummings:



trusting clouds that smile
from lofty sky(way)ward beds.
veins flow green and red
with chlorophyll and wine--
dreaming away displeasure

thereisnone

for yewyouewe keep at bay
cold winter...
for now.

fickle skies!
clouds drift together
lofty perches meshing, smiles can
twist to gristly illuminated grimaces
lacking warning... eweyewyou can call them
to/get/her in
merely a word a cry a glance smiling trusting;
it all
rains down, earth drinking my distilled chlorophyll
spilled by accident
spilled by you

Sugaree

My dorm faces George Street, and in 60 degree weather with the heaters still running, my roommate and I keep the windows open to the fresh New Jersey air and sounds of traffic.
A car stopped at the light outside just now and was blasting the Grateful Dead.
I think it was the first time I've ever heard good music blasted from a cars speakers besides my own, or a friends.
It was an exciting moment and I just wanted to share it with you.

Springtime

When it's sunny outside, listen to some Belle & Sebastian and go for a walk... you will never feel happier, trust me. I have done extensive research.

Narration One

For her, sometimes words seem like they can describe what you see and feel better than anything else. Photographs capture single moments... if taken properly, they can freeze time to a glossy sheet of paper and can convey the emotions of the moment for the rest of time. But that's difficult to do.
Words are even more difficult... and she treasures them more than anything.
Letters, symbols... concepts strung together that can convey moments if properly assembled. It's a matching game, and if done right she has a work to be proud of.
For years now, she stares at a blank computer screen waiting for inspiration. It rarely comes to her anymore.
As a child, she wrote constantly. Straining her eyes for hours, from after school until it was so late at night it was actually early in the morning, focusing only on the dim, yellow tinted computer screen in the dark basement by herself. Sometimes the cat came to keep her company, but for the most part it was only the crickets that evaded that very same cat. She didn't need any company, though. She had her stories. She had her characters.
She had few friends... really, only one. They wrote all the time and told each other stories. But really, all that she wanted, all that she needed were her own stories.
She wrote what she wished. It made everything in life better...
Now, though, she cannot write. No cohesive stories, at least. Poems every now and then, but they can't hold a candle the satisfaction she got from completing a chapter or a character outline. She writes random narrations of her life; she illustrates moments in her life, obscure chains of thought, in hopes that they will spark some of that brilliant creativity she once prided her self upon. They leave her feeling empty, hollowed out like a shell of her former twelve-year-old novelist self.
She has no place to let out her thoughts like she once could, and now they build up in her mind. Her life is the greatest story she has ever written, and she seems to have written it all out too soon... nothing is left in her, and the life she'll never lead is lost to nothingness, gone with the files of all her stories on that ancient, jaundiced computer.

a bit of late night free association

Sometimes my stomach twists itself into knots over nothing. Nothing at all. Someone could greet me, wave, ignore me... I could remember an assignment I have due the next morning. Any small, insignificant thing can so easily trigger a horrible string of fear and anxiety.
I don't know what it's like not to worry about something. Even when I'm the happiest I've ever been, when all is going right in life, I worry. I fret. I fear it will end and I'll never reach that state of being ever again. It holds me back. I'm always terrified of making a fool of myself. I hate phones because I get myself very anxious when I call someone; what if they don't answer? What if I get their voicemail? Do I leave a message... what do I say? What if they answer?! What if they don't recognize my voice? What am I calling them for, again?
When I don't have a definite plan for something, I get very nervous. If I don't know exactly where I am going, when I'll be there, who else will be there and who is getting there when, I can't relax. And even when I've all that information, I worry that something will change last minute.
I'd like to spend some point in time in my life without worrying about anything at all... I want to be utterly carefree and happy with my life.
But I also want telekinesis; and I think that's far more likely to happen for me.

Sunlight

a liquid smile scrapes the
surface of my chest;
my buoyant heart floating just
above the crest of golden air...
leaden panic settles in the niche where kisses
brush past, each flutter of lips
wearing more of it
a way.

mine own smile freezes...
here to stay as long as you.



---
I do believe that this is the first cheerful poem I have ever written.

Paper Hearts

dream to dare.
dream to care.
and my smile lights
the stars ahead;
on sleepless nights
in shallow dreams i tread.
from the deep sky
paper hearts cut-out
scatter in the air of lies...
it's only myself i doubt.



---
A bit of an old poem... I think I wrote it sometime in February.
Okay, so it's not that old...
I've been playing around my poetry style lately. As always though, I try to use e.e. cummings as inspiration.