Today I saw a student on College Ave. holding this sign that simply says “I’m sorry.” I was heading to work on another campus, but I had some time to quickly ask him what exactly he was sorry for. He explained that he was apologizing for the general hypocrisy of the Church and for those Christians who make it their business to tell others that our existence is wrong–that our homosexuality offends them, that our faith or lack thereof will damn us to hell, and that we have no place in the world.

So, to those students who spent today holding up these signs on College Avenue: I’m sorry, too. I’m sorry that when we, as queer and progressive students, lash out at Brother Greg and others, we often forget that they hurt the kind-hearted Christians out there as much as they hurt us. I’m sorry that when students bring ex-gay ministers and other such hateful events to campus, it alienates you–queers, allies, and progressives of the Christian faith–more than anyone. And I’m sorry that we all feel the need to apologize for things we shouldn’t accept fault for.

Bookmark to:

The photo above is from World Café Live on Saturday night, where I went to see Kina Grannis (who is somehow even more beautiful and endearing in person) perform.

From just about the second her first boot* peeked out from the lest stage, the whole audience erupted into shouts of “Kina! WHY ARE YOU SO CUTE?” and “we love you!” I think she was a bit overwhelmed when she first walked out – she nervously gave a quick “hi” to the audience before getting right to the first song (“World in Front of Me”). I couldn’t believe how beautiful she sounded in person – no backup vocals (with the exception of audience harmonizers!), no band, just Kina and her guitar – or, for one song, her ukulele. There was a really sweet backstory to the ukulele song: when her grandfather’s ukulele was stolen on her first tour of the East Coast, she tweeted about it to her followers and received a ton of support from her fans. Eventually, some of her fans surprised her with a ukulele they had made in a Hawaiian factory where her grandfather’s was from. All I could think of when she told this story was that only someone as sweet as Kina could have fans that thoughtful and dedicated – they even had her name carved into it. I’ve never seen someone so graciously thank their fans – sometimes you get the sense that performers are so used to the stage that shows don’t really phase them, but Kina appears so humble and thankful for every person in the room while managing to command the stage as though she was born on it.

The highlight (and cutest Kina moment ever) was definitely her performance of “Message from Your Heart.” (Video here!) She stepped away from the microphone, stood at the edge of the stage, and invited the audience to participate in the “bum bum bum” part of the chorus. A few fans offered to harmonize with her, and she ended up bringing them to the front of the room to sing with her. The photo above is of her ending number, standing at the edge of the stage with her harmonizers below her – even from upstairs in the Mezzanine section, the room felt as intimate as a small café rather than World Café Live. According to Rob, this is why Kina will one day rule the world as a peaceful domain…!

* In addition to somehow being even more beautiful in person, Kina has the most adorable outfit on – I was asked to tweet her asking where her boots were from. I got all giddy when she responded, because I can be a total 13-year-old girl sometimes…

And here we are!

(Thank you to Kim at Fans of Kina for re-posting this, and to both Kina and her sister Emi for tweeting about it!)

Bookmark to:

Yes, I’m starting off the new year with an old photo. In part, it’s because I left my camera at home and won’t have time to pick it up until later in the week. But I’m also choosing this particular self-portrait because it’s part of a resolution I never completed — like most resolutions, it was forgotten by February. Well, not forgotten–I felt terrible for not following through with it–but brushed aside. When I captioned this, I made note of the fact that it was a hectic week due to the beginning of the Spring 2010 semester and other beginning-of-the-year chores I needed to take care of, but hoped that the rest of the semester would run smoothly.

It didn’t.

After I took that photo, I threw myself full force into the six classes I was taking at the time while still trying to complete my duties as Outreach Coordinator of my dorm and officer of two student organizations. Then Onion died. Then a certain professor decided to make my life a living hell. Then a certain (wonderful) dean had to appeal for me to withdraw from said professor’s course in late April — a good two months after the add/drop period. Then I moved out of the dorm I called home for two years (devastated). Then I moved into the college house I’m currently living in, which was broken into after only a month, leaving me without my laptop, the class notes I had stored on it (and I was taking summer classes…), and thousands of pictures I never backed up. Already five months behind on my 52 weeks project, I accepted the fact that I probably wasn’t going to see through any of my resolutions for 2010.

And I’ve decided that’s okay. This year, I’m setting goals for myself, as always, but I’m not going to beat myself up for failing to complete them — or worse, try to do a half-assed job of completing them for the sake of completing them. There are a few things I actually need to do, of course–write my thesis, finish undergrad, find housing for next year–but aside from that, I’m going to write and take photos and update when I can and when I feel like it. I’m still working on starting various projects for 2011, mostly because I like planning and making lists, but for right now, it doesn’t matter where I go with them. I brought in the new year with someone I love, had an amazing night, and basically couldn’t be happier.

So, happy 2011! I hope you’re all starting off the new year feeling well and excited for whatever is coming your way…

Bookmark to:

Forgot to pack my camera, so I had to resort to documenting Christmas with fake polaroids courtesy of a 99 cent iPhone app, but it was still a wonderful holiday! Pinky got to spend time with her bearfriend, so she had a lovely holiday as well… and she got quite an impressive gift: The Smart [Bear's] Guide to Porn. I’ll borrow it when she’s finished and let you know how it is. Our Christmas tree is pretty great, too, and still all lit up next to the window. It’s nice to finally be excited about Christmas again, having not celebrated since I was much younger. In fact, the very name of the holiday is banned in my house, hence the title of this post. However, I got to spend Christmas somewhere new this year, with someone special, and with the most stylin’ Christmas tree you’ve ever seen… so Merry Christmas (one day late)!

Bookmark to:

Also, karma is a fucking joke. I mean, really. There are plenty of horrible people in the world. Why not break into their homes? Why not steal from other robbers? And racists? And sociopaths and sex offenders and people who throw bottles in the recycling bin without removing the fucking caps? BECAUSE PRETTY MUCH ANY OF THESE PEOPLE WOULD DESERVE THIS MORE THAN THE RESIDENTS OF FORT FUZZLEWORTH. Think I’m being unreasonable? Let’s consider all the things I’ve done in since moving into this house that contribute positively to the world:

1. I fed NinjaCat when she was trapped in our shed. Was it my food? Probably not. I think I stole it from one of my roommates. But really, I saved a life, so how relevant is that?

2. I also fed Taco C.C. Bear (my roommate’s hamster) and refilled her water when Morgan was gone for the night. I only really feed her because I think it’s funny when she spits out her food, but still, I basically saved her life. That’s life #2 since June, if you’re keeping track.

3. I wrote to Breyers about the fact that their ice cream melts in order to get a free container of it. This may not seem like a particularly honorable thing to do, but allow me to explain: their packaging was faulty, and caused the ice cream to melt all over my insulated Stop & Shop bag. By alerting them, I may have saved others from having this same dreadful experience. Also, Unilever is fucking evil, so anything they’re going to give me for free is well deserved.

I could go on, but I’m too busy fantasizing about all of the Home Alone style traps I’m going to set in this house until our guard dog arrives. The next person who tries to get into this house is going to find a fucking guillotine attached to our windows.

Joking aside, I’m glad that my housemates are all safe and that only two of us were in the house when this happened. It’s really scary to wake up to the unlocked doors and missing belongings and to just basically feel violated, but at least this will convince our landlady to let us set up some tighter security around this house. And I’m serious about the guard dog. She’d better change the fucking pet policy because my roommate’s hamster is just not cutting it. Taco witnessed everything and DID NOTHING. Never invest in a guard hamster. All they do is throw up their food and let robbers steal your shit.

Bookmark to:

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…

Bookmark to:

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.

Bookmark to:

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.

Bookmark to:

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.

Bookmark to:

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.

Bookmark to: