This is my best friend Jamie (left) and her younger sister Casey (right). It’s the first photo I’ve taken of them in a while, which is odd considering I photographed them for three straight years in high school, using them as models for every project I was ever assigned. I took this one at their dad’s house last night. It feels weird to call it that, because growing up–and I practically grew up in that house, rather than in my own–I always called it “Jamie’s house.” When we left for college, it became her parents’ house, and after the divorce, just Howie’s house. Of course, going back there it still felt a little bit like we were 7, and her mom came by to visit as though she still lives there, and a lot of things just haven’t changed. Some of the furniture is gone, there’s only one dog, and Kyle (Jamie’s youngest sibling) has morphed into a teenager with a deep voice that none of us recognize, but we also spent the day uncovering old notebooks, pictures, and maps from our witch-hunting days.

I don’t know if I’ve written about this yet, but Jamie and I once believed our third grade teacher was a witch, and so we spent the majority of the year whipping up potions made of bleach, coffee, and other such things in an attempt to melt her (we read too much of the Bailey School Kids books back then). We even wrote spells–none of which seem to make any sense, though we were pretty proud of them at the time. I won’t embarrass myself by reproducing any of them here, but I assure you, they’re rather unique.

After joking about what we might find yesterday, Jamie pulled out a vile-looking bottle of brown liquid and glitter that was sealed off with wax. I tried to convince her that it was a memory candle gone bad, but her mother just looked over at me and said: “Lauren, you know this is some shit the two of you concocted–you guys were fucked up.” No one but Jill could sum up our friendship quite so accurately…

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This photo was taken in the most sacred place in all of Demarest. It’s hard to explain this particular tradition to those who are unfamiliar with my dorm, and to avoid divulging too much information to those whose jobs are to keep this place so secure, I will leave it at this: we are the first generation of Demarites to reach this place in the past four years, and it probably will not be done again for quite some time. I have to avoid posting any of the (better) pictures that reveal what this place is and who is in it, but it was amazing to see some of the things that were written in this place, some of it dating back to the 1950′s. Unfortunately, days after this success, we learned of a tragedy in the dorm that affected our community in a way I’ve never seen before. On Thursday night, our friend and beloved Demarite took his own life.

I chose this particular photo for an entry about my friend because when we reached this sacred place, I noticed one psalm in particular that was written on the wall: “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.” (Psalms 30:5) My friends know that I’m not one to quote the Bible as anything that is meaningful to me, but that psalm has always struck me as particularly moving, and I know it is something that Onion wholeheartedly believed. In spite of everything, Onion was the most positive and outwardly optimistic person I’ve ever known — and when I say that Onion lived to cheer people up, it’s not just something to say. I remember distinctly the times we counted attendance sheets and request forms in e-board meetings and always stopped at his name to mention how wonderful, how involved, how dedicated, and how sweet he was. There was never anything Onion wasn’t willing to do for a friend or neighbor. It’s hard to think back now on how suffocating it must have been for him to live every single day for another person, because he never even let on about the difficulties going on in his life. The few personal struggles in his that we were privy to, he seemed to handle with ease. I know it’s pointless and vain to look for warning signs after the fact, but it’s so difficult to think back on every memory I have of him and realize that he was never as happy as he seemed, and that every smile and every hug he ever gave to me was for me, and not for him. We always question the people who look more upset and more depressed than usual, and never think to worry about the people who don’t seem capable of expressing any sort of negative emotion at all.

I don’t really know how to begin explaining what we’ve been going through these past few days or what our response has been. It’s just hard to believe that something like this could happen in our own home, and I don’t think I’ve ever lost someone in quite the same way before. When someone passes away in a place like Demarest, there’s hardly a single person in the entire community that isn’t affected. We all grieve together. We go to bed and wake up with a hundred people who are all crying with us. It wasn’t until hours later that I realized life was still going on outside of the dorm, and that it was a regular Thursday night of drinking and partying and everything else. It’s almost assaulting to finally walk out into that after an experience like we had. I can’t even write about how I found out because it was such a horrifying realization when it finally clicked for me, and all I could think about was finding Kayla… never mind trying to fathom how this could happen to someone like Onion. But returning to normalcy, I’m realizing, is even more frightening. I’ve slept in Kayla’s room for two nights, avoided the dining hall, avoided leaving Demarest at all, and cried with people I don’t think I’ve ever had close relationships with at all. I think we’re all getting over the initial shock of it together, and I’m amazed at how supportive our entire community has been, but it’s not easy to know how to grieve when someone passes away like this. I do know that we’re all lucky to have known Onion, and for now, that and the support of our Demarest family is what’s getting us by.

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I’m late with this post, and although I don’t seem to have much to do these days I haven’t slept since yesterday and I’m feeling anxious about nothing, as usual. I’ve managed to finally perfect my list of resolutions, though, and this photo is one of the 52 self-portraits I’m supposedly going to take this year (I once attempted the 365 project and made it to day 3, so we’ll see). The editing here was simple enough to do, and the main difficulty I had was actually posing for the shots – the last clone I added in was of me pulling my hair up, a last-minute decision that replaced another clone sitting on the left side of the couch. I shot this one by mistake, but I soon realized it was the only shot that added depth to the image. All the other clones are posed in alignment with the couch, as I was more focused on the actions of each clone, making them look in communication with one another, etc. than anything else. So, I went with the random back-turned, hair-fixing clone. Once I finally replace my ink cartrige, I’ll print this for one of my journals – I promised myself that by the end of the year, I’ll compile the entire 52 weeks project into a 2010 book (even though I have 2 unfinished journals still to work on from previous years).

And now for the resolutions in their entirety (well, minus some others that I’m not going to post):

1. Read 50 books – my standard challenge. I’m on my third book of the year, having just finished Wasted by Marya Hornbacher and The Freedom Writers Diaries with Erin Gruwell. The second I enjoyed (despite my concerns about its authenticity and racial implications), and the first I’m not sure I’d recommend (seems like she wrote the memoir prematurely), though the parts that irked me the most were admittedly due to personal bias.

Also, I’m going to figure out why my booklog isn’t working so the books I read will actually show up somewhere on this site…

2. The 52 weeks project – explained above (Flickr group: here).

3. Finish the journal I’ve been “working on” (read: watching collect dust) and start my 2010 book.

4. Work on some of my eating habits and remember to take my vitamins/calcium… doc says it builds strong bones, who knew?

5. Sleep.

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I feel much differently about holidays — it doesn’t count as a real Thanksgiving until folding chairs are brought out to fit everyone at the table, until at least 3 dishes break, or until at least one child throws a fit over being forced to eat vegetables. Kayla, knowing this, graciously offered to come fetch me on Thanksgiving day and bring me over to her house, where a real Thanksgiving dinner was being held. I ate far too much, engaged in a number of awkward conversations with a strange and non-related guest who apparently teaches photography, pretended to understand football, and became the newest crush of Kayla’s 5-year-old brother. So, all in all, it was the best holiday I’ve had in a long time.

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To understand my love for animals, you’d probably have to understand what my house looks like. By no means am I exaggerating when I say the vacuum is considered our house pet, which means animals are strictly forbidden. As a child I launched a number of unsuccessful campaigns for a house cat, dog, hamster, frog, and eventually a fish — but even that suggestion was shot down. I once managed to bring a plant home, but that only lasted an hour or so before my mom removed it from my room and exiled it to the kitchen counter, where she could be sure if its whereabouts. Why, who knows what kinds of messes that plant would have caused? If you think I’m exaggerating, just talk to anyone who has actually been inside of my house. It’s rare that one makes it through the door without already breaking a rule — there’s a very strict shoe removal policy that involves careful placement of the feet so as not to track dirt into the house. However, bare feet are also strictly forbidden. Socks are a must, as foot sweat poses a great threat to both tiled and hardwood floors. And heaven knows even after a thorough mopping session, my mother can tell where those bare feet have made their mark. OCD doesn’t even begin to cover it.

Growing up around that kind of obsessive behavior makes me constantly examine the level of stress in my life, and the extent to which my own behavioral patterns contribute to that stress. I’ve always seen my busy schedule and level of involvement as a positive thing, and I still do — but I’ve learned that certain things aren’t worth my time. I put too much work into meaningful organizations and people who appreciate that effort to worry about those that maybe aren’t so rewarding or useful. I’m proud of my involvement with various activities and I enjoy a lot of what I do, but from now on I’m resolving to cut out the things in my life that I spend more time complaining about than enjoying. It’s never too late in the year for a new resolution, right?

Oh, and number two: get a puppy.

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It’s interesting how we date photos when we’re unsure of when they were taken. There’s age estimation (if my little brother was just born, it was around 1993 or 1994); clothing style (as in what was my mother thinking when she put that on?); hairstyle (I haven’t cut my hair short in years); location (the Bahamas vacation was in 1997, the Virginia vacation a few years later…); and unfortunately, in my family, the most helpful of all is our timeline of family drama. The sudden absence of my mother’s side of the family occurs circa winter 1996, the reappearance of my grandma marks the year my grandpa died in 2001, and my aunt and cousins make their way into our lives in 2003, the year my uncle died. Shortly after that, another feud, and my grandma, aunts, uncle and cousins once again disappear from our photographs.

When my grandma died earlier this summer, my family made sure to include my brothers and me in the services, despite the tension with my mother that has caused us to remain estranged from the family for a number of years. I can’t even begin to express how grateful I am for that. Even so, the pictures at my grandma’s wake managed to tell the story well enough — there were pictures of our cousins at all ages up until now, but I cease to exist along with my brothers about eight years ago.

It’s more complicated than that, of course, and far too complex for anyone in my family to even understand well enough to explain, but the point is that we (my mother, my brothers and I) have been relatively close with certain family members at various points of our lives, and not on speaking terms at all at other points in our lives. To be honest, it’s probably not a great idea for me to even write about this online. I’ve gotten in trouble for things I’ve written about my family in the past — that is, during the times when we actually were speaking to them — but the truth is that I’m still dealing with a lot of complicated emotions when it comes to this. Anytime I ever said anything even remotely negative about my family, it was a cry for attention from people I was conditioned to hate — and though I never did hate them, I certainly had a lot of misplaced anger combined with feelings of abandonment and guilt over something that was never my fault.

That’s where my attachment to these pictures comes in. They’re not just about my memories; they’re about my idealizations, my long-standing desperation for a normal relationship with my family, my attachment issues in general, and my fear of being unstable. Growing up, I always clung to memories of old times in hopes that I had the power to fix my family and restore it to the way we were. You couldn’t call it perfection, obviously — years of silence don’t begin out of nowhere — but it certainly wasn’t anything like this. And it’s something I still remember fondly, in spite of everything.

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I could’ve done without the post-rain muddiness, but despite my hatred for squishy wet ground and getting wet outdoors in general, I wandered over to a little creek for some photographing. There’s something about fresh flowing water that always peaks my interest. It’s so pleasant I wish I could literally photograph the sound of it, but I suppose my camera would have to have some sort of neurological disorder for that to work. And last I checked, technology hadn’t advanced to the point of implanting brains in cameras, though I’m sure it’ll happen soon. In the meantime, regular old pictures will have to do.

After the bamboo forest, we decided to walk down one of the dirt paths and get a better look at the rest of Rutgers Gardens, which I took a few pictures of as well. There’s plenty to see, though, so we decided to leave the rest for another day…

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