i'm pretty sure my alter ego is a dandelion.

i'm pretty sure i need to stop knitting because it's becoming a dangerous exercise... my left ear has been clogged for the last two days and as i was knitting i picked up my needle and debated on whether or not to just end it all. who knew that a knitting needle had the potential to be a self-inflicting weapon?

my hamsters smell like fritos and my foot's asleep. i'm 21 in chatham and am too bored to buy beer, so i'm watching amelie with my back to the television and am aware of the scenes only by the score. next i shall learn french.


i spent a lot of time in the city this break wandering around by myself and developing crushes. i also took a sweet picture of this chick getting tattooed in the west village on new year's eve around two in the morning. it was the first new years i spent in the city. tim and i spent a lot of time walking around watching all the chaos. it was like everyone was a kid, even the authority. firemen were trading posts on their trucks in exchange for kisses from hot women. old people were making out with wagging tongues. when we got to the bar, everyone was smoking inside and nobody cared. tim bought me lots of colorful drinks and then puked in an ally. then we passed out on a floor in rob's apartment and in the morning the coked out kid next to me wouldn't shut up so i freaked out at him and left, and then forgot something in the apartment and had to swallow my pride long enough to go back. tim came with me to my aunt and uncle's and we talked about pottery and funny instruments. we drank sparkling wine and i got tipsy and stumbled out of their apartment.

then long island was predictable and stupid. jen came to visit and threw up the whole time. my dad got drunk and gave me money for no reason, and told me i was the major recipient of the will. it was weird. karen tip-toed around me and complained about me behind closed doors. i want to trip her and laugh when she falls.

tomorrow i go to albany and then in a week i move to pibly, upstairs. then i graduate and become a grown up or something. right now i have two symmetrical zits, and i'm pissed.

life is so futile these days. so few distractions. i'm abandoning logic so that i won't lose my shit.

dudes. i have to write a thesis.

that sound so grown up i might throw up.


also, someone put 700 mysterious dollars in the back account that i only have access to. i was scared of having that amount of money at my discretion and also worried for kharma so i left it there for a week. then i took out 200. then it was gone. my bank keeps sending me overdrawn notices, but every time i check my balance, there's money in my checking. something's going down, and i'mma sleuth it out. they don't call me nancy drew for nothing.

it is 5:09 and it is hot and humid and i am in a one bedroom apartment with the fan on high and the tv buzzing. i have not showered. i have not done my laundry. i am out of underwear. i am on long island, newly-returned from new york city where i witnessed an innane amount of gluttony and sloth and watched several good movies and drank cheap rum.

i start my senior year of college on monday. i'm going back saturday. i am excited and scared and hesitant and nervous and anxious and hurt and angry and regretful and surprised. mostly just nervous. my orchard is gone, it has been replaced by the Coote family. i am only comforted by the amount of insanity that went on in the bedrooms of his children just months ago. i hope he lives upstairs amidst our ex-erotic gallery. i will be living in a double single in hillhaus. i am not looking forward to this. the comforts of that dorm are entirely depleted and the only remaining factors are those mistakes i can't undo. i wonder what hall it will be this year.

i am broke and i hate my father. out of pride i will not ask for a loan. upon my return from the city, i called him for a ride from the train station and before i could ask i got "i'll leave the door open" in reply. after being stranded outside the LIRR in ronkonkoma i finally got back here where i was reminded that i am "a consistent inconvenience". nothing more. every time i think i will tell him everything i hate about him my lower lip trembles and i stare out the window, silently. maybe one day i will write it in a letter and mail it to him without a return address. so dramatic.

on sunday my great aunt bea died. i didn't attend the funeral. my grandmother thought it would ruin my vacation. so i got drunk instead and missed her by myself while some stranger gave her a half-hearted eulogy some place else. i don't remember much about her, but the one memory i've kept is of that toy dog that barked and did flips when you pressed a button. she always had that out at her house, new batteries. she told her doctor she didn't want to live anymore, so they gave her a high dose of morphine and atavand and she just went to sleep.

the boy who won't let me forget where i'm from called me last week and yelled in my ear. he told me to make sure i came by while i was here. he won't return my calls, or answer them. so many excuses. an old friend is secretly reading kant from a desk drawer in his cubicle. his boss told him he wasn't enough of a neandrathal and needs to focus on money the way a starving man centers on food. he says he might quit and get a one way ticket to europe. he asked me to come.

after trying to help a little girl who was being screamed at by her father while her arm was stuck in a subway railing, i felt semi-good about myself. somewhere inside me lives a good samaritan. two minutes later a man in the street called me ugly. go figure.

Lauren: 7:51 PM
what if god was one of us??
Alex:7:55 PM
she'd probably go to simons rock
Lauren: and wear bandanas..socks with flip-flops.
haha
Alex: and want a tattoo, but isn't old enough.
Lauren: shed probably hang around the veranda not smoking for the first two months or so of school, but her first mental breakdown of the year she'll bum like eight american spirits off the cracked out kid on speed and get addicted.
Alex: hahahaha
shed keep mental notes of everything that people break in the student union over the course of the year, because she'd be kinda weird.
8:00 PM
Lauren: hahaha.
and every so often in social settings, she'd get kind of awkward and start fidgeting, and if you didn't sort of involve her into the conversation she'd just start spinning around in circles until she was really dizzy... the rest of the onlookers would try not to laugh because they were pretty sure she cried a lot. but after she'd stop spinning she'd just act totally normal and continue laughing at all the right times.
hahahahaha!!!!!
Alex: sometimes when the world is too much for her (classes, social stresses, she ran out of cigarettes and no one seems to be around to bum them, it's wintertime and she hasn't seen the sun in 2 months, etc), she can't fall asleep or even stay in bed. It's only when she collapses on the pile of dirty clothes that has become the floor of her tridorm single that peace settles over her like a balm and she can drift off to sleep.
Lauren:(haha, sounds like me freshman year, and probably everyone else!....i knew YOU would give me an honest answer when i asked you such serious question.. hahaha.)
Alex: i was totally describing myself in that last one
on particularly stressful nights, somehow i could only manage to fall asleep if i was UNDER my bed
Lauren: she used to have a roommate, but it was speculated that she moved out because the girl was one of those new-age hippie dippie types who was always trying to get little miss God to go contra dancing and drum circling and whatnot.. this was fine up until the point where she found her roommate in the middle of the floor naked, sitting on her rug, with her finger up her nose. when she took her finger out she cried hail-mary's because her snot was blue. had she any sense she would have known it was only due to the amount of adderol she blew the previous night. the whole hair-mary thing made the girl uncomfortable.. so she moved out soon after.
Alex: God collects some sort of souvenir from every person she sleeps with on campus. A strand of hair, an empty bottle of Jolt, the word AHA! in ballpoint pen on her thigh which proves ephemeral. She wonders, if other people were like her and liked to keep souvenirs from sexual encounters, how many of her friends would she have to fight for ownership rights?
Lauren: once she slept with a quiet boy who favored minimalism. she knew she was in love because when they kissed she'd keep her eyes open the entire time, just to see the faces that he made. they were volatile from the start which only proved to heighten her need to always be around him, and when they made love she'd grab his shoulder blades and stare at his barren white white walls wondering what it was she could take. after they tired themselves out, he would usually fall asleep right away, but her mind continued racing well into the night as she listened to the systematic order of his breathing patterns. first deep smooth breaths, followed by choppy, sharp inhales, let out in soft little bursts which kept his mouth entirely agape throughout the night. it was then she knew that the only thing she could take to memorialize this boy who had caused her so much grief and joy, was his oxygen. the next time she lay next to him she brought with her a mason jar, the kind she used to catch lightning bugs when she was small, and put it under his lips until the glass fogged up and she closed the lid. later she would label it "breath" and she'd never tell anyone exactly what it was.
8:35 PM
Lauren: i think im going to keep this little exercise. haha




most people would just say, "just a slob like one of us". few will actually try to answer you.

i am a deranged thing.
fantasies and embellishments,
hallucinogen-frenzied wanderer.

up all night counting threads on the blanket
naming each one after a lover long-gone.

i, too, live for madness.

i studied the silouhette
of a man who took himself too seriously
and i weighed his humility
with how wide he smiled back.

it was rare and beautiful.

cheap whiskey shots
and hitched rides from sullen strangers
on new england back roads in the hot of summer,

i think that i am also a hungered bum
in search of something stellar and miraculous
underneath the dirt of this
whim-weary world.

i find myself lost in the lust
of the unplanned,
clinging to the
rawness of the insecure nude,
the angered, stifled fists,
and the straying eyes
of the adulterous.

i fear i will never be tame.

i want to know the blood inside
of every man,
read the words of every philosopher,
in the books or on the streets,
to guide back home every lost child
with accompanying directions
for losing his way again,

and perhaps most importantly,
i want to never lose the drive
to be wild

and unashamed.

because when i find myself apologizing
for ravenous, committed sins

i fear that i most certaintly
will have lived too long.

...................................................................................................................................................................




anyway, my summer has been weird, interesting, boring, amazing. lots of that, at different times. i spent most of my summer with rob allen, who upon knowing him has turned out to be one of the best people alive, ever. being that he was my only friend living in kendrick, we spent lots of quality time together getting addicted to horrible television, going on lots of random on-campus adventures, dressing as ridiculously as possible to attend hilarious festivities, and cooking concoctions of things. staying on campus has made me realize how fucking different everything is here in the summer, and the oddities of human socializations. people who normally never hung out cling to each other for fear of being left to their own devices.

a lot of random social strata has given me anxiety attacks lately, and i find the needed solace only in independence, which is kind of depressing. but taking long walks, reading, even while i'm working, i just lose the tension of feeling that "put-on" air that i sometimes get when i'm with people i can't relax with.
i've never really known the feeling, before these past few months of people having the tendency to make me completely panic. i've always valued the company of other people, but everyone is so hung up on menial bullshit all the time, i just can't deal. not to say that i haven't had a good time with people this summer... seeing all the kids that have come to visit, along with all the regulars, has been awesome. i've also sadly lost touch with some close friends this summer which was entirely unanticipated. but i have gotten close with others. i've spent a lot of my summer with hannah frequenting animal shelters and dog-sitting, with jamie drinking whiskey and going on trouble-making adventures, noah and spencer being their usual ridiculous selves, kelley and her slew of nick-named hippies, even tadd and his love of slushee-orgasms. it has been bizarre!! the most fun i've had in awhile involved elaine and i getting stoned beyond recognition, thinking it would be an amazing idea to drive to millerton (an hour a way, mind you) at three in the morning, to get all-night-diner love. turns out, it was. random and hilarious is how i wanna roll these days.

the green river is as amazing as ever, i've been taking advantage of that quite a lot, especially since this bullshit heat wave has been eating us alive. as i write this, the VERY MUCH ANTICIPATED storm has finally arrived and it is absolutely pouring, cooled down, and beautiful. thunder is a-rollin'. it is meditative weather, not so useless as that humidity. when i've been functional, i've been reading and writing a lot, and making art. this has been good. i can't believe that i only have two weeks to move out of kendrick and then after that, three weeks until school starts up again, where i will be writing my THESIS. freudmamaspank, what what?

i am debating on living in the orchards again, which will be obnoxious only because cooter-face is moving next door, into MY OLD ORCHARD, and i'm afraid of the bust-potential, also the ability to write a thesis amidst the chaos that orchards generally bring, orrrr, if i should move in with jamie which might prove to be really great, or really self-destructive seeing as we both have the tendency to get side-tracked. i think that apartment is pretty amazing however, and if i had the willpower to be on top of my shit, i'd love to live off-campus. i'll just have to pay someone to be my personal chauffeur until i have my car.

now that i have rambled on aimlessly this long, i think i'm going to go walk around in this rain and plan my long-awaited trip to the city which will be taking place in a couple weeks. hopefully it will not be occurring at the same time everyone else is visiting here, because that would surely suck. but i need to get out of the berkshires and see old friends, even though the last time i went home to Long Island i left early because i couldn't take how stupid people were. not my friends, but those that inhabit long island in general. the new word there is tanorexic. i had to get out.

well that's all for now, it appears the fucking rain is SUBSIDING, but i'm still going to go get wet. peace bros.

long islanding in two days. i am looking foward to going home, wasting some money on things i don't need, seeing the cool kids, getting myself into trouble, and pissing off the joel-inator.

i've been getting lots of online amazing feedback on my writing lately. someone told me they think it would be in my best interest to make chapbooks and leave them randomly around the east coast. maybe i will. it feels nice to be complimented on something that comes natural to me. however sometimes i look back on things i wrote just one or two years ago and i cringe because it's so fucking bad. i don't know.

anywho, i have a completely embarassing addiction these days. rob and i can't stop watching The O.C. i don't really know what to do about it anymore, it's like crack, and i honestly WANT to know what happens to these people. for this i know i'm damned to californian suburban hell. but i swear to God if rob wasn't here this summer i'd be crawling around in circles on the floors of kendrick and planting random booby traps.

also, someone keeps coming into my room while i'm asleep. it's always a habit of mine that i fall asleep while watching something, and now i just pass out to movies all the time. well someone has repeatedly come into my bedroom and turned the television and VCR off. totally fucking creepy dudes, i don't want anyone watching me sleep.. especially because i don't wear pants.

oh and the young writer's workshop is here, and the dining hall is open. rob woke me up yesterday morning ...er, afternoon... and told me we had a plan of attack on the dining hall, free lunches and the infingement of our ideals on those young minds. we ran in with disquises ready...sunglasss: check! hood: check! we were UNRECOGNIZEABLE. until kathy kicked us out and we had to take a walk of shame. pretty great though.

now i'm at work for the next five hours and i want to go back to bed and my stomach is queasy and theres nobody here and i'm drinking someone else's coffee (yeah. im fucking gross) so i wont pass out and lenny kravitz is playing on the satellite. ew.

butttt. at least i'm going to the beach this weekend.

-kendrick is terrifying.
-i hate ants. HATE em.
-kilpatrick athletic center is full of weird things, most emphatically, sweat-stained elderly men who grunt a lot.
-the elliptical is my newest addiction.
-housatonic never stays in the same place. it consistently continues to move around great barrington with the intentions of getting wayward drivers lost.
-i have terrible sleeping habits.
-pirate cannot be caged. [enjoy your freedom, friend.]
-i like really old commercials.
-SRC Administration is even more incompetant than i originally assumed.
-i am an official townie.
-GB locals are pretty amazing.
-i miss A LOT of people.

before the reign of myspace became prominent, before the allure of digital photography took presidence, before endearing DJs with funny names stole you away and loved you a lot, before you were famous...





we were just two girls with bitch drinks dancing in our underwear in the middle of the night to a mix playing all the wrong songs, and after we'd spin around and around and smoke too many cigarettes to breathe, we'd collapse in the middle of the floor and there would be a world of things to say and figure out and plan. and it was so easy because we never had to try.


everything revolved around you once. our vagabond-adventures, our teashop, our road trip across the country. and while they were immature dreams spawned from hopeful ignorants, i believed them. and even though i watched you leave old friends behind and stop returning phone calls and leave them to the past, somehow, i thought i was different. but you didn't even tell me you were leaving. i hope you're having a good time. i am. but, fish, nobody ever got me like you did.

summer has welcomed me. it is thursday, and i am in my new home... Kendrick. I moved in last Saturday and I have to say it's been a pretty positive experience thus far. not having a roommate has enable me to decorate as i choose and keep my room incredibly neat, yet at the same time it is kind of bizarre as hell to go to bed in a room by myself, i haven't had my own room in three years.

my jobs are relatively easy-going and enjoyable. i work as a weightroom manager in the athletics center and am also doing a garden internship. i fear i am a terrible gardener, i hate worms and i don't really know what you do with a hoe..but i'm getting the hang of it, and i do like it. i'm also cooking for myself a lot which is always a nice thing, and i'm reading a shitload. i've also made it a personal pursuit to spend some alone time walking around and taking lots and lots of pictures. the berkshires are so amazingly beautiful and GREEN in the summer. there are so many gorgeous places to explore. i loaded up on film and tomorrow, having the day off, i am setting out to find whatever i come across.

today i lolled around and watched movies, then gardened for a couple hours and went to the pool which i had to leave early because it started raining and thundering. it was temporarily refreshing, the days have been hot and humid.

i haven't been writing what i consider to be anything of quality lately. for this i worry because my thesis is closer and closer. i cannot believe i'm going to be a senior, but now that i have reaquainted myself with my love of SRC i don't feel that bad about it. also i spent an our on the phone with zachary binx mandell yesterday and it reinstilled my faith in humanity. i laughed loooong and haaard.

i've cut down drinking a lot as of late, because i had been doing too much of that all at once. i've cut everything out pretty much actually, in moderation at least. still smoking cigarettes like a chimney, but jah know. a lot of people are around which i'm glad about, saw nora and alix briefly yesterday, nikki came to visit for a few days, miles too, sid and dave were around, noah, spencer, lisa, rebecca and olivia are constants. had a blast when jackie and annakeara came, jamie and hannah are living in housie, ned's coming next week. also getting to know lots of other townies. weeeird.

kendrick is a trip. brings me back to freshman year, and a whoooole other road of "what the fuck was i thinking's". but it's a nice nostalgia for the most part.

on that note, i am going to call lisa and go do something somewhat productive.

peace and carrot sticks.

i am hung over. i am tired. i smell like whiskey and man. i don't really know how or why...

last night i went to wesleyan with lisa, rebecca, sid, and amelie. i met a bunch of chill kids, but as what tends to happen at parties, i got real wasted...real fast. i think i went to three different parties and did ridiculous things at each of them, i don't remember any of this. ode to joy. last night, after making sure there was no vomit in my sleeping quarters, i passed out with sid next to me. when i woke up, i was in bed with a naked man. be it as it may, i'm pretty sure nothing happened, i was fully clothed and lisa was on the other side of him. i do know that i called him sid and he looked at me funny. then i dragged my throbbing head and body to get a coffee, and we all sped home in a rainstorm back to great barrington to get me to work on time at 2. i was ten minutes late. no biggie.

now i'm sitting in the weightroom of the KAC weighting for my shift to be over so that i can shower and pass out somewhere. i'm still wasted. oh sundays.

good-bye all you beautiful people i had to say goodbye to this past weekend. i am truly a little heartbroken.

JEN.andru.nathan.ned.jessi.nora.matt.ajay.alix.alex.yesi. and the handful of other rockers that this school has allotted such short periods of time to allow you to fall in love with amazing people and then watch them leave. i am going to be a senior. i am writing a thesis. i am excited, and terrified. next year is going to be quite ridiculous.

after saying good-bye to jessi, nora, nathan, and andru at kate's party, i sat on mike muggrage's couch and sobbed for an hour before walking back. there were some i didnt have a chance to say good-bye to and i cried for them too.

jen. i fucking hate you, and i fucking love you. how can you possibly be leaving me? i am distraught.

also: i am officially a townie. i see familiar faces everywhere i go, faces of those that aren't rockers. in the bank. price chopper. outside on railroad. they know me. it's scurry.


so far...the summer= good. lisa's putting me up for two weeks and then off to kendrick i go. rob allen will be my new best friend. i am excited.

i keep avoiding things. feel very esranged from my orchard and its inhabitants as of late. i only come home to sleep, and i feel guilty/awkward all the time. insecurities surface and i assume theres some underlying resentment towards me. everyones gone today. there is a snoring girl beside me, every so often speaking in tongues. i'm going to clean the house, or try to. it's raining and i'm getting over my cold. tonight i'm crashing a classy party, with the intention of embarrassing myself. lisa takes me to the best places. my room is filthy. dancers make everything chaotic. people spoke so loud yesterday, my ears hurt. i woke up to ned needing advice about ties. i keep drawing silouhettes of women with guns, the guns gradually keep increasing in size. i also keep dreaming about finding money. i wonder if this means anything because i'm broke.

it's almost three o'clock and i have done nothing with my day. i havent talked to many of my friends lately because i keep finding reasons to avoid them. when i know people are leaving me i try to hate them before they go. i don't want to find myself longing for them later. i'm constantly afraid of being taken advantage of. i realize i'm mildly neurotic. i want my sunglasses back. i need to give spencer his discman back. balquiese took my shoe. i want that back too. have tons of work and no motivation to start. it's going to be a long week.

i've kind of lost my desire to try for anything anymore. my grades are good, but i'm unmotivated as hell. i haven't worked hard at anything for a long time, i get drunk too much, fall in love too easily, grow resentful soon after that. there is usually no in between. i realize that all of my relationships (sexual ones at least) are initiated originally by violence to a small degree. i don't know why i am turned on most by antagonistic bully on the playground bullshit. as soon as someone starts treating me like an equal person, caring about me and showing up on time or spontaneously , doing thoughtful things on a regular basis, i get bored. because i have nothing to work with, nothing to improve when there isn't this spacious arena of shit to mush around in my fingers. i like being backed up against the wall and wrestled to the floor, knocking over chairs and bottles and papers in the process. i hate that i lay in my bed while someone tenderly stroked my hair and said i was pretty, and when i looked over at him, thought it would be much more satisfying to be drunkenly clawing at each others faces or backs. but it really wasn't him i wanted at all. he kind of made me nauseous. now i'm treating him badly because i resent him, for no good reason except that he wasn't someone else. i am a fucking bitch, and i see myself acting this way and i don't change it because he's too nice to me, and i want him to see that he's wasting his time, i want him to get angry at me so i feel warranted for my awful tendencies to fuck around with undeserving heads.

but god damn, as soon as someone's willing to treat me like shit and get in my face and surface all of my insecurities and then take me off guard completely with a tongue in the mouth, i'm hooked. the only good thing about it is how much we've been resisting it. tension's no fucking joke. i feel guilty and stupid and young and tired all the time. i only lose these attributes when intoxicated, and i realize how self-destructive this is. i need to self-evaluate or something.

i realize how personal this is. but god damn, it's fucking with me.

i'm in long island. it's warm. i haven't gone to the beach yet, dad moved to the south shore, far from the best spots, where i grew up. the suckage. all my friends are fighting with each other. everyone on long island is named the same thing. they're all working 9-5's, preparing to "settle down". it makes me depressed. i'm somewhere in between precocious assholes who'll never grow up, and fake-tanned community college dropouts working in cubicles by day, bar-hopping by night. hey, it's tipsy tuesday, i'm supposed to "go out with the girls", if i'm lucky a sleazy guido might rub up against me and buy me a drink. awesome! i don't fit in anywhere.. whine whine whine.


i have not accomplished anything but late-night coffee drinking, old-movie watching, and sleeping. i have slept so much in the past three days it's disgusting. i have to read two books, revise a paper, and write a whooooole lot of "emotional journal entries" for philip. tomorrow i'm supposed to get wasted and stay in miller place where i will surely get myself in trouble with nostalgia trips.

all of my friends are recently agreeing on the same thing: had we the constant option of fucking any time we felt the need to, we would probably not be so frustrated with everything else so often. sex is the combination of so much, that when you're having it, and you're used to having it, the denial of it is fucking torturous. why can't we all just find one person who makes sex great and uncomplicated, and fuck said brains out anytime the world gets too heavy? the whole fucking world is revolved around the carnal desire to bodily bump bump. forced abstinance is the pits, having a conscience sucks.



time to go finish watching silence of the lambs and eat take out, "would you fuck me?? i'd fuck me!!" o, psychotic transvestites, i heart you.


(pray for me, long island is a terrifying place full of kitsch and suburban doom.)



oh its an easy cool
that rolling of long grass lawn tranquility
and long grass philosophy
sounds almost as absurd
as suburban hipsters
smoking long grass
like panama red while subtly discussing
plato ouspensky sartre or zen
putting it down
its easy
from the long grass lands &
from the long grass lands
"everything is good"
in the land of shady trees
"Everything is God"
"the universe is one"
walking in the long grass lands with flowers
within reach of quiet hands
"You bet motherfucker,
let me tell you about the satori i had last week!"
in the suburbs its easy to remember
golden rules & golden days
& god is good even tho non-existent
its a good world in the suburban long grass
you can watch the grass grow
& smell progress in the open sky





(oh, and chelsea, i love you and your tom waits references, your illusive british-boy entries.)

why am i still at this school? the people i love aren't here, the ones i do love that are here consistently disappoint me or isolate me or belittle me, sometimes even betray me. i am constantly toiling with the flaws of people, whether or not they are human and proof positives of arena for improvement, able to be seen in a more positive light. but when people are consistently making the same mistakes, losing all tinges of morality in the face of defending their precious intellects, wagging their tongues in need of a forum for proving their words are weighty and that ever-important omnipotence comes at simon's rock where we throw our childhoods to the wind and declare that we are smart enough to be over-achievers who can bullshit bullshit bullshit our ways out of every possible situation.

no, we cannot all fuck each other. it doesnt work, we run into problems, we get hurt. you betray your loyalties and people find out, and they resent you, they feel wronged, you feel justified. we can't run around like we're living on a fucking commune and embrace the fact that we're only going to be sixteen, seventeen, eighteen once and abandon all modes of morality, stomping the feelings of everyone in our paths because "the flesh is weak" and we "can't say no". get the fuck off it. if you're that weak in your sexual pursuits, you should be fucking a mattress. we can't all fuck our friends, when will we learn?

i feel too old here. every room i walk in is filled with sixteen year olds. thats fine, whatever, i love them, i do, but i'm tired of feeling like a fucking elder when i'm the normal college age. i get it guys, ypu're smart, but don't call me kiddo, don't act as though you're more lived than i am. i'm tired of this fucking place that swells with hope and brims with illusion, why the fuck didn't i transfer? i want to go to a real school where people don't second guess you about the merit of your education when you're busting your ass harder than you ever have, and getting mediocre grades handed back to you. this isn't fucking camp.

yes, i know, you're privileged, your parents pay over 40K annually to send you here. you're over-achievers who work hard and mommy and daddy are helping you out. that's great. i work hard to and i dont fucking get any help. i pay for this god-damned school by myself, i'm up to my ass in student loans and i work not for spending money, but for food and cigarettes. mommy and daddy don't buy my food, they don't buy my books, they don't buy my clothes, they don't give me loans. i do it all by my fucking self, and i am sick and tired of you assholes coming into my house with your thrift store clothes thinking that just because you live in a mansion you have depth and reality too. that's fine, it doesn't make you less of a person just because everything was handed to you your entire life, but stop eating my food, breaking my shit, and drinking my booze you assholes. and wash a dish, clean the counter, shut the fuck up, and when i ask you about it, don't give me some cowering puppy look like you didn't realize you were infringing. i'm sick of having to walk on eggshells, i want to fucking kick someone in the shin.

i juat want to go to home. i just want to find a home where i can feel comfortable in for more than a month. i just want to center myself around people i love AND respect, and i am tired of my warring feelings about everything, my over-analysis and self deprecation. i should have fucking left this place and now i see that. it's destroying me, there's a critical theory behind everything, and i don't fucking know how to be normal anymore. and i don't wanna come back, and i don't wanna dance, and i don't wanna fucking act like i'm fine anymore, because i'm not. everyone else can yell and rant and be frustrated, but as soon as i'm in a bad mood, you people are over me. well fuck you. i have a right not to be nice every day, i'm sick and tired of being walked on.














i know i sound like a huge bitch, but i have my reasons. i just dont wanna be here anymore, it's not the place it used to be. and i love all of my friends, i really do, i just hate who i am when i'm here sometimes. and i'm sorry that i sound so dramatic and ridiculous, but sometimes that's what it's like when it hits you, and i need to rant and rave sometimes too.

i need to find something to do this summer. someone give me an idea. i need to make money, i want to be creative. i want to stop giving people the means of their governmental addictions, i hate the pharmaceutical world and insurance companies, i hate being on hold, and i hate old men asking me to entertain their willies through the drive-thru. (willie was a dog, one can assume my confusion.)

i've also taken to speaking in gibberish. every time someone asserts themselves confidently with something completely idiotic, i am making it my effort to respond similarly in complete and total nonsense speak. it's the only thing i can find to make sanity of the precious pedantic falsely intellectual fools i keep accounting in this over-stuffed bubble.

spring break approaches.



lo frey gonovan shah ray ti labonotin kean fah roh simblosmiak foh shay laruden kabit ohsho. fah yey? buli fondole, yis mah hah!


and how!

for the first time in the history of my simon's rock career, i'm not at all looking foward to going back after break.

everything there is a hang-nail, fragile and on the verge of breaking.

-my hamsters are fucking adorable. all three of them sleep together with their little paws around each other. they cuddle and squeak and clean each other. i fucking adore them. i fear their murders when jen attacks while i sleep. pray for pirate, loki, and gus-gus.

-on break. while it's been nice to sleep a lot, i've had so much work to do it hardly feels as though i actually left academia. two papers, two books to read, two response journals, not to mention painting stuff. one paper, one half of one book, and the two response journals down, a paper a book and a half and a painting to go. ughhh.

-simon's rock is starting to cave in on me. i'm half tempted to run away this summer and become a vagabond in europe, to never go back. the rest of me is set on getting my bachelors and then making such decisions. i just need out. too much bullshit, too much of everyone knowing my business, too much drug-use and alcoholism as means of survival. us precious intellects don't know how to fuck and not analyze either. they also keep getting younger. i feel a decrepid sort.

-i'm gonna see molly! i fucking miss you bitch. you best show your pretty little face!!

-seeing lots of good locals. thus far i have seen anna, noah, spencer, steve, perry, sid, and mike muggrage. cigarette-escapism with anna, sausage festing with dem boys. today anna and i went to great barrington and got art supplies and film, ate cuban sandwiches, and DID not crash the car. luckily putting things in steve's ass acts as a cure-all for even the most disastrous conditions. i also bought a photo-album for one dollar, i'm going to make it into something creative. and noah wants to collaborate on an artist's book together, which means i have to start writing again, writing things that aren't shit.

-i have been having strange dreams lately. ones i'll never be able to understand by means of symbolism or whatever hodgepodge. for example, last night, i dreamt that ned rifled through a bag of my skittles and separated all the colors. then took all the red ones and sucked them until they were colorless. then stuck them in a jar. when i came in and caught him in the act, i asked him rather surprised, what in the hell he was doing, to which he responded, "Lauren, are you that stupid that you don't know to suck the pigment from the red ones, to prevent hepatitis C?! GOD!" then proceeded to finish. he kept referring to it as "the heps". i woke up confused, i remain so.


if anyone wants to run away and talk to old men on street corners and wear sandwich boards forever, and adopt hamsters and become vagrants in sweden or denmark or something, let me know. i might quit school to go crazy.

yesterday i was confronted with just how overwhelming humans can sometimes be. my head throbbed and my throat ached and i walked around in circles, feeling completely out of place in my own house, strangers playing ping-pong, kids laughing and listening to strange music, some dancing as though they were in a theatrical performance, sitting on my bed, telling jokes and making awkward small-talk, laughing at all the right times. i couldn't hang, i looked around and saw that i had much love for everyone in the room and simultaneously felt like a complete stranger, and in a completely different place, foreign and uncomfortable.

i kept walking out and circling the door. i stood in the bathroom for a long time and looked in the mirror amd watched all the ways my face could contort if i stared at it long enough. i tried to write something down and realized i couldn't even remember how to hold a pen and got humiliated. i felt as though i lost my mind, or that i was a child, or a completely instinctual animal, awkward and pensive.

and sometimes all you need is a walk in the woods to a desolate tennis court, surrounded by brush and a muddy path, running and making music on metal and concrete, bouncing on nets, and blowing bubbles to realize that humanity is just as confusing to you as it is to everyone else. what the fuck does it mean to be real or concrete, i don't have a god-damn clue and i don't know if i'm meant to figure such a thing out. i walked and walked and walked, with friends and by myself, i started at artificial clouds and blew cigarette smoke into the air, laughed at myself, and jumped in puddles without socks.

then i curled up in my bed and was glad that the only people i wanted to be in the room with me at that second were. and then i thought some more.