and now we're saying bye, bye, bye

so i'm taking a leave of absence from sarah lawrence. perhaps i just wasn't ready for it all. and by it all i, of course, mean the financial burden of graduate school as well as the mental toll that always occurs when i plunge headfirst into writing. i forgot how crazy it makes me just to put words on the page. how it makes me crave the past like a good song.

what's my problem with that anyway? 10 years ago, I looked forward. Now, I look backward. I can't understand it. It only makes me depressed and long for everything I'm going through now to have the same resonance as it will in a year. I view my life as this neverending slideshow of incoherent pictures. People become a fixture for a measure or two before ebbing away into their own adult life.

Yes. I am moving forward now, and trying to appreciate the present, but it's difficult. how can one appreciate what's happening now when everything around them could serve as a reminder? when a song you forgot existed suddenly leaps into the top rotation on your iTunes, forcing you to edit a mini-film together in your mind of all the mistakes you made.

Nothing makes sense. The only thing that does is the movie that forever burns behind my eyelids. The one that pushes and begs to be captured into word pictures. But I seem to be incapable of doing so beyond a single sentence.

All I'm left with are memories of:

concerts, when they were enough; audrey hepburn costumes; jack-o-lanterns burning through the rain; us trapsing through the muddy floodwaters, knowing this was the last time we'd hold one another close; ireland; the words, "your voice is important and necessary"; my incapability to stop the downfall; a close friend fading into the background of a scene, without so much as a word of thanks; my best friend and i unspeaking words in our very first cabride: the first taste of what we have now...complete independence.

and yet, these past couple months drunkenly blend together into a mess of craziness and tears even i cannot fathom to imagine witnessing. i'm better than that.

and here, my nose feels so cold, so red, so pretty pink in its gasping for warmth. i want to stay forever on the cusp of snow.

ohps

COMMENTS ARE NOW PUBLIC. FOR ALL Y'ALL THAT WERE COMPLAINING (*cough*AMBER*cough*). SO COMMENT TO YOUR HEART'S DESIRE. =)

LOVIES,
LENI

the wisdom of britney spears

'eat it. lick it. snort it. fuck it.'

those were the words of britney spears upon leaving a custody hearing for her two sons: sean preston and jayden james. never have i heard such wisdom. she's like, the epitome of real motherhood. i love it. if only my mom had advised me so clearly early on in life. in those four concise commands are a multitude of truths about life. oh britney, you are so deep. please, never fail to grace the cover of magazines with your lovely insights and beautiful (albeit slightly) photoshopped body.

p.s. love the new album. it's hot. hot like your grandmother's crotch on a tuesday.

hugs and kisses,
Leni

beauty in the breakdown?

so...pumpkinfest is beautiful. the fall in new england is generally beautiful. i long to stay, but must leave.

but not for long. my head is in all sorts. i'm ready to grow up and get a job, and i'm kind of done with everything else.

it's nice to know that you always have your best friends to count on. in spite of the fact that you may not have spoken for a few months.

that's nice.

what's not so nice is doubting everything else.

wanting to die just to forget the memories.

life is tough once you realize it's actual work

sometimes i wonder if i made the right decision about grad school. as i was leaving keene, i finally felt at home. i felt a presence in my life that was helping me work towards the better. and now, i question everything. i love writing. i love poetry. but it's clearly not as much as some of the other people in the program. why do i feel the need to have a degree by the time i'm 25? sure, that'd be great. i'd get to teach. my world of opportunities would open up. ...but maybe i don't want it to. maybe a BA is good for right now. maybe i wouldn't mind doing some hard labor in between the time.

because, in reality, if i had been thinking about my own personal development, i would've deferred from USC for a year rather than jumped into a more convenient, more available program.

i love SLC. it's great. the professors, the students, the feedback.

but maybe, just maybe, i'm not the right person. i'm not the right fit. at least not right now.

i miss being here too much. all my life i've searched for home, and then had to leave it once it was presented to me.

i'm tired of jumping around. here, i have friends, a boyfriend, an atmosphere i'm comfortable in. and, as my dad says, life is about happiness...there is no shame in working.

there isn't. and perhaps...i'm just not ready for this.

i need to think.

when i'm here, everything is right. and i'm tired of being dichotomized between the two. i can't handle it. my emotional state is too fragile right now.

i want this. my friends. my boyfriend. my apartment that feels like i've lived here my whole life.

yes. that and only that.

because that, unfortunately, is what makes me happy. and possibly suburban. but, hey, whatever...there's nothing wrong with being suburban and unsure.

smell of wine and cheap perfume

we all have those songs: the ones that, in the crescendo, remind us of who we were, of friends long gone, of a time that you didn't appreciate until it slipped away like the words that race through your brain. all these songs grip my memory, make me reach for a glass of wine. i wish for them to neverend: for those friendships that changed beyond repair to revert to their innocence.

as much as i hate to admit it, and i've always been this way, i'm completely incapable of letting go, moving on, getting over the past. I allow the nostalgia to gather inside my chest till it explodes in the middle of a journey song, and i want nothing but to capture those times that are completely incapable of being captured in words. i've tried so many times, but they just seem to be the experiences that deserve more than words or pictures.

i was looking at pictures from right before i studied abroad yesterday. fall '04. and i remember that feeling: coming off of the summer to end all summers, and looking towards an incredible journey that was to be filled with ups, downs, sideways, broken hearted moments that are inextricably tied into my brain as a dream too good to have ever happened to me. that year was the best year of my life. and has quickly been followed by the worst.

i'm not quite sure i understand why. a year of perfection followed by 2 years of unhappiness. and yet, things seem to be looking up now...but only after hitting the complete rock bottom.

my heart is always filled with this sap, i just want to tap into it and create something that means anything to anyone...

but the sac is just too strong, too closed, unready to open the vessel and release its memories into the wild. i somehow don't want to allow other people to navigate that jungle. the trees are too new, and just barely reach above the ground. mere seedlings.

but if i can only write after the experience is hard-wired, how can it ever be organic?

god i miss keene.

no.

god i miss the incredible freedom that was: college.

you ever lose a moment? a minute? perhaps even a second? have you ever lost and missed an entire month? a month worth saving? a month worth documenting?

I've lost that time. the one time i felt at ease: with me, my friends, alone. i miss them. alana, colleen, melissa, and me...a year ago today. we were the most perfect beings in the history of existence.

and it's gone. and i wonder: will we ever get it back...or must we continue growing, moving forward, forgetting our past in the hopes of some great future all of us are unsure of? whatever it is...it was there. we were there. and we were whole. is it possible to be there again?

naturally organically natural

god. sometimes it's so difficult being a graduate student. woe is me. pity the girl who's getting an MFA...i deserve it, i'm sure.

nah. though it is quite exhausting both emotionally and mentally. i rack my brain searching for words and images, and yet, nothing is ever enough. in conference today, my professor just kept telling me to "trust your own images. your natural ability." i don't really think i have a natural ability. and going off of these drugs has been a lot more trying than i thought.

i'm easily distracted by "rock of love" and friends' blogs and youtube and my roommate's dog and my own blog and my large movie collection with an array of movies boasting accents. this leaves me alone on a wednesday night watching "bend it like beckham" and wishing i were in trafalgar square just one more time: lost with megan on our way to orso with her grandfather's friends--both willing to treat us to fine dining, cigars, and cider.

god...keira knightley was so fucking hot in this movie. so is jonathan rhys meyers. and parminder nagra. it's fairly amazing. i wish i had an accent. i wish soccer was bigger in the U.S. i wish i was good at any sport. but mostly, i wish for more cameras.

i miss filming for third rail mice and the two PSAs. i miss acting. it was such a release of all things i keep too bottled up inside. and i'm good at it. strange. never thought i'd be good at something i enjoy so much. though i know there's no future. i don't really care for making a living at it: i just want to do it for fun. acting is usually something people do for fame, for money, for the prospect of something that will (most likely) never come to fruition. but i do it for another reason entirely: i do not expect anything to come of it, i just enjoy it...body and soul. i love inhabiting this other person: this person inside me, or beside me, that i didn't know within or couldn't imagine i could know. they are all there: around me, inside me...pushing, urging, throbbing.

and writing eases it. but acting releases.

*sigh* i can never make up my mind about anything. when i'm here, i want somewhere else. and when i'm somewhere else, i always want here.

ain't that the way of it.

--Leni