Bucket Lists, Or Why You Should Never Make Them

When I was sixteen, I made a bucket list. It was (get this), inspired by:

THIS movie.

I suppose when you're a teen in the early '00s there was nothing better than a Nicholas Sparks book-turned-movie.

While sorting through my old journals (which, yes, I keep all of them and they have perservered through the many moves I have gone through since leaving home), I found this list. The range of my teenage goals quickly goes from the attainable ("Live in a foreign country") to the ridiculous ("Win a Pulitzer, Academy Award, Tony Award & Nobel Prize").

At the time I composed the list, all the goals seemed unattainable. Being able to cross off a few felt good. But, I couldn't help but feel the silent judging of my teenage counterpart. Early on in the list are things like "Get married before twenty-six" or "Be your collegiate valedictorian." Really? Thanks, teenage Leni.

So, with the crushing humiliation of disappointing my former self, I made a new list--adjusting it to reflect current goals and past goals that I view attainable. And while I will continue to save the original bucket list (*fingers crossed for that Nobel Prize*), I feel that the current one is more realistic, and affords me to ability to cross more things off.

And in the end, is there anything more satisfying than scribbling out goals attained?

I think not.

Love and to-do-lists,

Unattainable Leni

Say No More, Mon Amour

Borders, Inc. has announced its demise. Complete liquidation. As a former employee of the chain, with many friends still employed by the company, the news was devestating. While I understand why physical book stores are on the verge of extinction, as a writing student and book-lover, it is terrifying.

Being a Borders bookseller wasn't just a "job." It was a community, a family, a passion. People bound together over their love of the arts. And the employees and artists at Borders believed in their work.

I changed positions & stores from supervisor to bookseller to barista back to supervisor again for almost four years. The company changed its internal structure frequently and sometimes drastically, but when times got tough, the employees of Borders held hands with change and skipped through the manga section...literally.

And it might be the sickening proclivity I have towards nostalgia, but I will always look back on my time at Borders and think: Man, I miss working there.

That job was the closest I ever got to being IN the movie Empire Records (best first job movie ever). And for fulfilling that fantasy, Borders, I bid you a sweet sweet adieu set to a soundtrack of the Gin Blossoms.

You will be missed.

XOXO,
Leni "Did You Find Everything Okay?" Bookseller

I Never Wanna See A Sponge Again

Tomorrow is my birthday. Was hoping to go out tonight with friends, but have yet to hear back from any of them. Aw, shucks. That's okay. I'm sure the gathering tomorrow will more than make up for it.

As for right now, I am sitting in my apartment mulling over all the tasks I need to complete prior to people coming over tomorrow (dishes, vacuuming, food, blah blah blah). Why is it that I only clean when I have people coming over? Or rather, I only do in-depth cleaning then. It is literally (and god I hate using that word, but it's apropos here) the only time I care about scrubbing down my light switch panels and floorboards.

I love that I assume people would be looking at these things. As though my close and personal friends would suddenly not become as such because I have a dirt smudge on the floor. Who knew that dirt accumulated where we walk? Huh...strange.

On the up side, I was able to reorganize all the writing that I rediscovered. All these poems from college. Funny how the inspirations seem forever lost, but I can still go back and cut, thrift away words from them. It almost feels like stealing from my twenty-year-old self. Perhaps it is. She probably wouldn't've taken my criticism very well.

Well, the sponges and vacuum have taken to name-calling so I must attend to that.

Peace, love, and birthday balloons,
Almost-27

Sneezing in Pittsburgh

Wow! It has been a gosh-darn while! Uncool, Leni, so uncool.

Since I've last posted, I have moved to Pittsburgh, started grad school, lost my job, been broken up with, started dating again, started writing two young adult novels, and played a heckload of darts.

Will be updating here more often as I am now on summer break (much to come on the passings of June in the next few days: recap of Bonnaroo '11, OBX, and the great karaoke revelation).

I live in Squirrel Hill: an adorable little neighborhood that begs for the use of the word "quaint." The variety of restaurants and local markets give me an opportunity to explore a variety of cuisines and cooking styles. One of my particular favorites is The Silk Elephant. Reasonably priced thai tapas and an excellent wine selection (though, the last time I went I ordered a cucumber martini that wasn't too shabby either!).

My lease is ending soon, and as much as I've grown to love my little Squirrel Hill haven, I will be moving out towards the Dormont area. The past few months, I've grown closer with people out in that direction, and it makes more sense to be out there rather than twenty minutes away. I am hoping to rent a full-blown house with two other people.

This, of course, gives me a false sense of grown-up-ness. As though renting a house is the same as owning one and therefore I have earned my almost-27-year-old status.

Blech. That reminds me that my birthday is this Friday. I love birthdays, and this year I am having a themed party, though I am not sure that anyone will be participating in my awesome idea--"Dress As Your Favorite Comic/Sci-Fi Character." Easy, right? Put on a pair of undies and call yourself Leni-Woman: Defender of Mispronounced Names or whatever. I'd accept it for creativity points.

Anyway, I can't believe that I'm almost thirty. Making more progress than I have in the past few years, but it's been slow at best. Stupid recession. Stupid collapsing retail empires. Stupid...stupidness.

Yep. That's maturity for ya.

Love,
Leni-I've-Had-Too-Many-Energy-Drinks-Cat

To Freeze Time

Cashback.  Rating: Pretty Good Flick.

How I enjoy a good normal everyday situation interspersed with sci-fi.  It's how I wish life could be: to stop life and re-start it with the crack of my knuckles, to revel in the space between atoms.  I've been writing a lot about quantum physics lately.  Not quite sure why.  And I aim to get an honorable mention, because winning is far too scary.  I don't want to succeed; to succeed means having expectations and expectations are slightly too scary for me to come to grips with.  I'd rather be second best sometimes. 

Perhaps this comes from the idea that I don't believe I can ever fulfill my parents' motto: "If you're going to do something, be the best at it."  Why even try if you're going to do less than superlative?  

I've tried for so long to be something exceptional, but I always fall short.  It's like aiming for an Academy Award and winning an AVN.  Sure, you are still the best, but for something far more crass, something that so few acknowledge at even being art.

Anyway, the point was that I watched this movie, Cashback.  And it was fabulous.  The plot points were predictable and the soundtrack was a low-rent American Beauty, but it was a great gen-forgotten story.  I wish that it didn't try to be so neat and tidy.  It always degrades the moviegoing experience when something aims to be realistic and decides halfway through that to tie it up in birthday packaging. 

But I recommend it, I give it a half line of gaffer's tape. 

And that's all there is.

Oh, and I'm a travel agent now.  Travel + work = envy.

--Leni

deep down, i know that it's not so much the time that i miss, but the simplicity of life.  it seems a year and a half ago, everything felt closer to my fingertips.  now, the world seems large and all-consuming.  not that's a bad thing.  but this world is a place that will eat you half-dreaming, and spit you out for the bad aftertaste.  i miss those friends, those late nights, those times when you didn't need to worry about anything: your body, your future, whatever.  the future seemed so vast.  now it sometimes seems a barren empty spot of nothing.  

the lunar eclipse is tonight.  it's beautiful.  it looks like a burnt penny.  sights like that make me wonder if recapturing that sense of the infinite is plausible.  i read all these books, talk to all these people, and they all tell me: yes, it is.  but in the end, sometimes i'm just a poet who doesn't want to believe the good in life.  i'm the one who reads robert frost as a suicide not e: he just couldn't muster the courage to say it aloud.

But aren't we all afraid of that?  I've been dating Tommy for a while now, and yet the other night I came out with one of  those deep thoughts that I usually confine to the privacy of my own brain: there it rollicks about to and fro lapping at my occipital lobe until I can't do anything but let the tears flow.  (oh jeez louise, sometimes i try way too hard to be poetic).  And yet, even though I know he'd be comfortable with my random moment of passion, I found myself retreating to a shell, blushing as though i had just told him 'i love you' for the first time."

Now, I can't wait for the Academy Awards.  I know it's cheesy, but it reminds me of the human spirit, the dreams we all once had, and it's pure, for me at least.

i'm so lame.  sometimes.

but others...i'm the baddest motherfucker who don't take no crap from nobody.

Random Meanderings

Europe glistens like your first buzz. Even in rain, in sun, in snow, in despair, there is still a great all-knowing something that promises to whisk one away on great adventures: the ones you dreamed about in your youth. The passion of travel has yet to rival anything else I've ever known. Because my passion for people survives everything. It's the only high that can rival true love.

clap clap shuffle shuffle twirl....

there are some songs that just allow you to dance through to your fingertips. i'm listening to one right now. and i just want to smile and be lost in between chords. because when you're caught there, it feels like you'll never leave. like those friends never left. those lovers never broke you.

like that time we all sang into the emptiness of the night. and i was sober, but nobody noticed because i nursed one glass of wine for a few hours. and they sang, sang, sang.

they probably don't remember it. it probably doesn't mean anything to anyone but me. because i'm too sensitive for my own good that even a burst of wind makes me believe in God again.

so a song, with all its multitudes, will inevitably become a pool of memories. and i just fish through them, like that children's game with the magnets, always just barely aligning the connection before they fall away.

...that was intended to sound deep, but wasn't.

it never is when i try.

god. being deep is too difficult.

all i know is i love rogue wave. and the sounds of k words in my mouth after eating some chocolate.

the difference between a little and a lot.

there's something oddly satisfying about lounging around in your underwear. especially when it's something you keep hidden to yourself. there's no pretentions, no need to hide belly rolls and cellulite...you are perfect exactly as you are, in your underwear, typing thoughts to the endless medium of the web.

just a thought.

change of subject.

thinking of re-applying to USC. everyone's friendlier on the west coast. i like sunshine and surfers.

quick stop, change of heart...

or perhaps i'll like melbourne, aus so much i'll just stay there. it seems feasible. i like that idea. again...sunshine and surfers. and since many close friends will probably be accompanying me on the long journey to the sunburnt country, perhaps they will want to stay too. or, better yet, perhaps they will want to obey every nomadic urge i have thereafter with me! that sounds fantastic.

existential crisis.

i used to want to be famous. to matter. to write important things. to change somebody's life. to inspire. now, i'm more interested in relaxation techniques.

alright...boyfriend wanting attention in between making his advanced art gallery models...shall go give him some.

lots of love,
Leni