Val! is Rad! [entries|friends|calendar] Val! [ website | Val! is Rad [.com] ;) ] [ userinfo | livejournal userinfo ] [ calendar | livejournal calendar ]

Doing the Laundry [08 Jun 2009|04:46pm] [ mood | sad ] I don't write. I know that. Because I wind up writing about how I don't write. My friend John told me to write a list of 8 to 12 things that I would do/buy if I had no monetary concerns - things that would make me happy. I did enjoy traveling Europe, so one would put down travel, but that alone does not bring happiness. I would say getting a nice video camera, but that alone is not happiness. You need to know how to use it. You need a crew. You need connections. You need distribution. And then would you be happy? What about love? real love. The kind of love that inspires and you inspire and is all creative and motivating. I started writing a list. A list for discussion. A list for no real reason. Last night I wrote a different list - of things to do when I get back to NYC. Maybe kick boxing. Maybe hang out at Per Se and try and write. Maybe rollerblade more. Take a class. Start my 'Hobbies' project and other productions I'd like to do. Get someone to look at my Avid as it is wonky now. Lists. Today I thought I would submit head shots to extra casting agencies as maybe that is the only way to talk to anyone on Law And Order and maybe if I just tried  again  maybe once they would talk to me. But I dont know. What I know is that "Bad things happen to Good People" as my mom says. That Jared's suicide destroyed all of us.... His mom most of all, we presume. That she finally found love again. A boyfriend. They took trips. And he just died. That life spits in your face. And it hurts and is hard. And then what? good to have love. but the loss? sigh -Val! 4 comments|post comment

not that I have any true desire to write [03 May 2009|03:12am] [ mood | calm ] and should be really attempting sleep.  Back in New York - Queens. Soon back in New Jersey. Came back to go to a wedding with Alex H. Was great to spend the time beforehand with Ness - was really sisterly bonding and fun. The weather was damp  - and then a downpour! But the sister bonding was nice. Her covering my heels with bandaids which were already blistered from the shoes I'd worn on the plane. Me trying to make sure her hems were straight. Her putting my hair in a neat up-do. Me shoving everything and then some into a big bag I bought. Her walking with me to the subway saying she was really glad I was there - the moments I live for.  It seems I say it alot but it remains true - A Ness happy with me makes me feel so much happier with myself and life. She even gave me a card when she got me from the airport saying how proud she was of me for finishing my screenplay :) [For those of you who may not know - tho really I dont think too many ppl read this anymore - April was script frenzy challenge month and I finished my screenplay - it comes in at 199 pages so.. a wee bit long right now but just a first draft!:)] So we got to the city, waited for Alex H to find us - as I was to be his date (unbeknownest to Justin, though they work side by side at Jet Blue) so when I first saw him I was - perplexed and not too happy but happy in general. The weather as I mentioned was not nice, so we tried forever to get a cab. Midtown - cab - rainy weather - never happens. Bad call.  We took one of those rip-you-off town car cabs up to the park and thanks to Justin's navigating, found the "alternate if raining" spot - tho there was no wedding party there!   we commented on the annoyance of walking in heels (my new $90 satin cream colored heels in the rain, water, mud, thin heel jabbing into the mud between bricks on the ground) - Ness in hers that were already killing her, and just how slow you walk in them!  And commenting no the beauty of the park in the rain - by the boathouse, Bethesda fountain, the grey hues and still lovely. Justin found the wedding party at spot #1 so we arrived just as everyone was clapping, the wedding ending. We took some photos - Justin took IMO a great one - of the bride and her groom walking. We made our way through the park to 72nd street, giving up and walking right through rivulets, Alex's jacket back entirely soaked, not sure to whine or laugh, worried about being cold, Justin's velvet jacket not doing much better. Cab down to The Modern. Excellent service walking in the door - checking our things - being taken to the private room for the reception, seeing Ness so interested in this restaurant she'd not been to before (Thanks to Phil for taking me here a long time ago), grabbing a glass of champagne from a waiter as I walked into the room, Ness off to get her cosmo the way mom likes it, Alex off to get his... 7 & 7? I dont recall.  Scrumptious passed hors d'oeuvers while seated, macro photography and macro photography chatter, Alex's Manhattan and the story I have to recount about the time I ordered one a night out with Laura and not-so-successful dinner at Petrossian. Katie coming in radiant, people noticing Alex's tie matched my dress. Laughing. Ness being social, Ness getting the bouquet as  always, 'There's something about a Martini', dinner with white and red wine, amazing pork tenderloin, saying I wasn't fond of the red and having a special temperanillo brought just for me!, speeches, the cutting of the cake, meeting new friends, did I mention drinks? and laughter? and attempts at dancing, as the drinks blur the night and photos cease being taken, as Vanessa commences to convince Katie's parents to accompany us to a bar downtown suggested by others. Taxi rides and Ness falls down (who knew) getting out of the cab - thanks to the unaccounted for weight of the centerpiece she was carrying. Alex feeding a jukebox money, picking songs, dancing, did-we-really-need-more-drinks? rushing outside to talk, rushing back inside, who even knows, things that are dangerous when you are drunk and your date is drunker, falling into a table and breaking glasses, deciding it might be time to leave. The night is gone, and that is that, but it was fun in it's haziness.  Blur of existence, essence of haute cuisine and dive bar. When I wrote my last place-holder update, I wanted to write (had been moved to write, had been moved by tears and passions but something else (as is often the case) came up - I had wanted to write about closure. I had finally decided not to communicate with Joey anymore. I had received a text from him, which just spiraled into nothing save for me feeling shitty, crying, writing, and deciding I couldn't be his 'friend' or acquaintance any longer. The next evening he called - for no other reason than to ramble and say goodbye. So we did. We said "I love you" "I miss you" and "goodbye" with a promise from his lips to my ears that he won't try to contact me.  It was the way I felt. How can you move forward with your life when you are still holding onto this thread from you past - which is painful? I said "maybe we can be friends in a few years, you can call" he said "no no this is new york, it's not so small, we might run into each other." And well, it has been a fair amount of time hasn't it? I know it needs to be more, but I digress. Closure. Also as in the past 6 1/2 years I have wondered what-ever-became of James - my last college boyfriend - and now, thanks to facebook, I know!  He's working on Friday Night Lights (not sure doing what), is in a relationship with his longtime friend Lorena, and seems happy.  I havent talked to him, but she and I interact, and how I feel about it is - I dont think I could feel happier. I feel glad for him. I feel glad for me. I feel glad to KNOW. Closure. So closure is one step, to allow other doors to open.  My life right now is not so focused, and strange to say it has been such for half a year. And by choice, no less. I have turned down a few jobs now. I have wandered Europe. I have written a screenplay. I have played dress up with my friend in Chicago, I have dragged my Mom around on her birthday shopping for accessories for ME for a wedding to go to in NYC - which I woke up at 2:30AM to fly to - after taking her out for an expensive dinner b/c I whine and wanted to - and hope she enjoyed it (dad said she seemed to). My wonderful Mother, supporter of my life. Saw old friends, met new ones. Texas. And the wheel goes 'round - now back in the North East - plans to see new friends, and older ones. Hopes to start working more intensely on projects now.  Probably time to stop floating through life and start doing. Such a strange thing - life. And all its permutations. Variables. Variations. and unknowns. to the unknown. whatever it brings up. whatever it brings us. to excitement. to adventure. to life. and to love! -Val! 2 comments|post comment

i want to write on here [14 Apr 2009|01:59am] [ mood | exhausted ] I'll have to do that soon.                                                                                                                                                                                                                      <3 2 comments|post comment

So, it's April [01 Apr 2009|09:09pm] For many of you, April is your favorite month. Why? Because flowers finally start blooming again after a long winter. That is at least what I've heard so much of since I've recently returned to the tri-state area. "Thank god for warmer weather!" "Look! the trees have buds on them!!" "Look! There are crocus blossoms in your yard!" (ah the crocus... read on!) Springtime in New York. People just adore it. My sister notices it far more than I do. All my friends point it out to me on the ends of excited fingertips. I say, "Oh, yeah!" Because I don't notice. Because I have been gone and not enduring the specific weather *here*. But sure, I bought some new shorts so that'll be fun. And in the mean time I can wear jeans, cute longer shorts, baggy shorts with leg warmers, maybe. Another sweater or so. It's spring. Spring and April go hand in hand. They just do. And let me tell you this: April, more importantly than that it is Spring, it is national poetry month. I think it is somewhat funny, or we could say, ironic - as the two poetic quotes that come to the top of my head regarding April are in fact negative. First, from my much adored (and oh - after reading her biography, much maligned) Edna St. Vincent Millay: To what purpose, April, do you return again? Beauty is not enough. You can no longer quiet me with the redness Of little leaves opening stickily. I know what I know. The sun is hot on my neck as I observe The spikes of the crocus. The smell of the earth is good. It is apparent that there is no death. But what does that signify? Not only under ground are the brains of men Eaten by maggots. Life in itself Is nothing, An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs. It is not enough that yearly, down this hill, April Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers. Not the most chipper poem, oh poetry month! But since I'm at it, let me also mention T.S. Eliot:     April is the cruelest month, breeding     Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing     Memory and desire, stirring     Dull roots with spring rain. Alas!!! April!!! Why are you natural poetry month! - in any case, it is. And the past two (if not more) years I have said, "I will write a poem every single day in April to commemorate it" and I am sure I in fact did start out doing such - and should look for those, and that can be another post..   i haven't said such this April, and felt vaguely something but not much ealrier, and came up witha few lines. But really perhaps I should  -  though truly, truth be told - this April I want to focus more  about actually *getting out there* in the poetry community. Getting published. Getting seen. Getting heard. Existing. Having a presensce.  That is my hope. That is my goal. One of a few.  Because April is something else also.. It is 'Script Frenzy Challenge"  month!!  And damn me if I didnt even DO the NARRATIVE challenge (and I didnt!!!) http://www.scriptfrenzy.org/   - voila! Which I clearly need to read up on!! I also have a lot of other projs to do... like put my 101 Hobbies into order! Not to mention my taxes. yarg! indeed and clean up my pad.... hah.. my pad. yeah. -Val! ciao for now post comment

Sadness and Stupidity and Concepts of Love [26 Mar 2009|02:50pm] [ mood | mellow ] [ music | cars doppler effect as they drive by, the click of the electric heater ] There were so many times in my life that I have lost love. That love has seemed to exist in one of its so many million forms and then broken my heart. My grandma says she and I are alike and I smile - a smile that holds just as many meanings as 'love' - a smile that says I am so glad, so proud, so honored that she feels that way. A smile that says in general I love her and all her spunkiness and vigor and the way she lived her life. A smile that says she is so, so wrong. Because my grandmother says she never fell in love. She just couldn't fall in love. And I - I have fallen in love, or I have loved, or I have been so extremely attached - given my take on each relationship at any given time. And I am jumping over cross roads not knowing what to write about. Figuring down in my soul somewhere there is something that wants to come out. Wants to be written. At the same time that it doesn't matter because who wants to read my whining anyway? Because I was a girl reading poetry too fast on stage. I made some people clap, some people laugh, I was supported by wonderful friends and my amazing sister to be true - no doubt about it - no question - but I was still this nervous girl reading words that given the day mean something or nothing. And Joey wanted to see me but as he offers Sunday and I ask why Sunday - he says I only care about what I want and that is 'conducive to being alone' - that I always want *more and more* and that analogy of giving me apples (gives me 3, I want 4). The day outside is white and there is certainly a chill in the air. It is the perfect weather for me today - for sleeping late curled up in my bed, avoiding going through the vagueness of expenses for taxes. For coming down here and pitying myself and crying. It's not like I ever thought Joey was the love of my life. I just don't like being called out or called things like impossible to satisfy. Though of course I do think it has some merit but who wants to be told that? especially when you still have hope that another more correct love may come along. And Chet and I were talking at La Lanterna about love - past loves - what it is to love - true loves. I felt even at 21 that I at that moment was loving the love of my life. That it would end. That I would always be grateful for it. - Not the ending but the having. And I was. I was grateful - to be so beautifully in love with someone. He was by no means perfect. I remember him - as all memories go - in brief glimpses only. or when i see something that might stir something else up. As I was packing to leave Texas I was reading books of old poetry I'd written. One of the books happened to be a gift from him. Originally a hardback notebook with egyptian hieroglyphs and symbols on the outside, that he had covered much of with black marker, then scratched through with who knows what - leaving a texture and some color and the impression of art. I remember he did the same to... a Picasso (or perhaps a Dali) print he'd had in his apartment. I remember seeing it and thinking it was really amazing - what he'd done to it. I guess more things are new and amazing at 20-21 anyway, but true artistic passion, torment, suffering - that was entirely new to me. It wasn't someone creating art in the wretched indie film way I was so used to seeing. It wasn't the horrible goth poetry you might have then found on line. It was something he did for himself, did because he had to for some reason - take this painting and alter it so dramatically. But sure.... I remember the days that I was too clingy. That "nothing is enough" still hearkens back to. The day - a weekend day - he wanted to go see his friends and I'd planned to go see mine in San Antonio - and as is my way I had a hard time getting up. His car wouldn't start. How trapped he must have felt, just wanting to get away from me for a while. I was intense about things then like feminism, like objectification. He helped me get up and take photos early in the morning, except one morning where he was hungover from drinking some kind of whiskey - as we had had a truly small tiff and he'd run off. or walked off. i didn't doubt I'd see him again - but he never did come back. I had to go to his apartment to find him on the floor with this enormous bottle - and I at the time very unused to drinking - could not comprehend this at all. That next morning he stayed sleeping in my bed while i went to take photographs of random strangers for portraits. Always in the mornings, and the use of my sisters 35mm camera. And we worked on film projects together. And I was so glad at the times - the many times - we would take long distance car rides (1.5 - 5 hours) and not only not argue, but where nothing negative or suspicious would be attacking my brain (as so often or so constant was the case when I dated Allen). But there were times and there was drama on both ends. And there was the 16mm film we shot at the house about the little girl - that afterward we lay shocked and depressed that that whirlwind was over and that, believing ourselves to be future filmmakers, that that would be what our life entailed: Stress for weeks leading up to the event, so much planning, so much to take care of and consider, then the up and down immediacy of filming, then the crew gone, the actors gone, a dolly as a remnant, and the time between production and the slowness of post. In Austin in our apartments so close together. In Austin with hot tamale candy and love. In Austin with poems - the only true love poems I feel I've ever written. That of his own accord he'd printed and placed in his wallet to remember what I'd wanted him to be. Missing the point that he already *was* all those things. And instead of flowers, books and cds that were thoughtful were what he brought me when he felt he'd messed up. And coffee and donut holes were our special treats in the mornings. and of course youth. wanting to move with him to NY. Feeling that we could accomplish anything. That is the safety of college. And I know I could have played our last night out differently. I could have not been so dramatic - or just.. not so ...frustrated. I could have tried to be calmer. Knowing the tension of the last round of finals and editing and screenings were still weighing on us. Maybe I could have just said, "why dont you go to your apartment and I stay at mine, as Meg is coming up anyway, and we'll talk tomorrow" instead of getting up out of anger to go into the other room and him thinking I was going to hit him - which I'd never done!! And then hitting the wall and him pulling me to the floor then him saying he didnt know what to do, and leaving. And Meg arriving and midori drunk, and he returning - i dont know with what intention in mind - but then just calling me drunk. (hah) and walking away and me jumping on his back whining, "no dont go!" and him tossing me off and the air was out of my lungs and I lay stupid looking up at the stars in the sky in the wet grass. and he came back and held me in his car. and Meg eventually left - me never coming back. And we took over my apartment again and probably talked between sleeping. And I had already in my drunkenness said the words and weird logic that "I have put up with a lot more from people I loved a lot less - but I can't put up with this from you - I love you too much." Maybe I just knew it was over. And we said we'd each go home (when his home was Dallas and mine was San Antonio) and maybe come back to Austin the next day - and he'd call at 3. And I went back to Austin (Belinda with me) and it was 3:15 and he was having lunch in Dallas with his dad and couldnt talk. and that was the end of that. The end of the love of my life. The boy I loved so much, with his weird puffy chest, and strange gravelly voice, and hair he cut himself. This seems cheap and lame - and yes it seems immature - but we were in college and it was what it was and I hope it was love. I hope he loved me. I tried I remember once getting him to say I was cool. Not asking "do you think I'm cool" (I thought he was so cool) - - but sitting in the courtyard between the RTF bldgs I mentioned something in an offhand way about being cool, and he didnt say "heck yeah you are" or anything. But we would walk to or from class to his car holding hands. I was so excited to really have a boyfriend to go to school with. At any rate - ramble ramble - As Chet and I discussed this I realized it was 6 1/2 years ago. And feel lame as I think of James very often anyway - from time to time. But what can you do? You can't go back. And I let that one go - because I could tell he was being suffocated by me. That he wanted to be without me. That it wasn't going to be us in New York conquering the film industry, renting a small apartment, supporting his art and my poetry. So tears for a long time ago. And a girl who is sort of grown up now enough to worry about taxes. But not grown up at the same time to be volatile and needy. To be sometimes a shock of happiness in someone elses' life. To be someone to chat with who tells too many stories. To have still some dreams. To travel Europe and see so much beauty. I am flawed. I am beautiful and hideous. I am gorgeously ripped through with flaws - or I am dumbly bound and ugly with stupid flaws. I am a poet, I a writer, I am an artist, I love so many things. I always said - and wondered what it meant - that I am a Romantic in the truest sense of the word. This I said when I was very much younger. Show me a tumultuous but productive life. Take me for who I am. Love me when I need to be treated gently. Be brutally honest -- as you have been (my friends) - but always in that brutality keep a measure of the love you must have for me. In this all may well be just a way to avoid dealing with tax preparation anyway. The beauty of a city and years ago - and of projects years ago - that should not die. Things need to live, to breathe. I can't be a girl stuck alone forever waiting. And if nothing else should be working on a screenplay. Should be doing something productive with my time. Right? The Vanesssa Files Projects:) Nothing ever came to those who just sit around doing nothing. And why do I feel like I want love anyway? John suggested a lack of fulfillment in myself. Maybe. The older I get the less likely it is I will find that love and passion and naivety that love should be anyway. Previous post script here i am back in NJ. hard not to think about Joey. Tho I know times have changed. I am not his girlfriend. Not his caretaker. Not mother. Not his abuser. Not even his friend. but not free from the feelings that tether me. I no longer work at NBC. I have not been rushing around looking for any freelance gig like when I first moved up here. I am not laying out staring out the world wondering why the hell I am here and thinking that just physically *being* physically *hurts*. Time moves on. I just dont know where it goes to. I want it to go to our own thing - not someone else's editor. I Dont know. Something else. I just want it to go somewhere beautiful and truly creative. How do u get back into really believing in that? in things? in creationism you can complete? People say I am moody, volatile, kind, "free", artistic, 'discovering', impassioned, capricious, adventure, adventurous, complex/complicated, - and this is just from a silly facebook survey. Procrastinator also comes to mind. -Val! too much I know But, as one of my poems I did not read states: Whatever it is, it is and will be, and whatever I am, I am at least me. 1 comment|post comment

unfinished [20 Mar 2009|12:01am] you want to take me in your arms and forget that i am 28 going onto 29 at a most alarming rate? i ask because i just read many things journal entries, poetry, that I wrote when I was 21 and wanted to be treated delicately then came undone and abused love and my self i wanted to get away from me with drugs or sleep or running stories that never ended barely started had no clear direction and love - the one love - the love in my head and whose rejection i dismiss nothing really changes does it? - Just wrote this while packing to leave TX after depressing myself reading old poems, prose, journals. Nothing great but why not share. post comment

random poetry for random times [18 Mar 2009|09:01pm] squirrel away your talents deep down inside yourself inside your stomach keep them 'safe' so no one can see them in the morning bind your brain with drugs that have already had it bound since night time ensuring sleep. curl up as close as you can to your squirreled away dreams in the fetal position - as close as you can - and feed off the crumbs and stay dumb and stay damned. post comment

here i shall write this here [13 Jan 2009|05:49pm] and not on my blog for my trip where i shall only write things of beauty. insomnia was my fiend last night . no not friend. fiend. and overshadowed a bit of today - tho i was pleased even still at my stick-to-itiveness at getting to the town center, getting a new phone here, seeing the clock (tho i had wanted to come back here to sit, snack, write - time goes by too fast, esp when there is so little daylight) - saw the bridge (went up in the tower) - was more magical when vanessa and i were running through - but first times are just that way arent they? The gold gleaming in small adornments on the dark dark statues like a hair pin glittering on a child. and she was right - it was not popcorn - it was roasted nuts we had stopped to buy.. but i felt a sense of smugness or not that. perhaps - justification but thats not the right word - when i came from a big loop back to kampa park restaurant beneath charles bridge. and saw that there is - to my surprise, delight, - a small adorable playground in front of it on the edge of the Vlatva! what a great addition to my story - my characters go there - but i had no idea no real feel for the place. (tho i believe it to be the place vanessa and i saw years ago where rich ppl must have been dining). i walked down kampa 'island' taking photos, looking over at the 'new town' still so very ancient in comparison to today. i kicked snow. old ladies giggled like young girls as they fed ducks in the river. the sunshine was new and welcome. i was frusrtated at not finding the lennon wall. at not having had the chance to stop and eat. at the sun fading so swiftly. at being so tired from walking and from not sleeping. i got myself lost in stare mesto. danny and i went to eat where i wanted to go - despite the fact i felt fatigued already - and at dinner (he was chipper, jovial, a pleasure) - i felt i could pass out any moment. I let Vlad down. Danny put on DVDs. I vaguely existed. I finally slept. I woke with a sore throat and justification for my previous ill-tending mood. Sickness has gotten me. Either from travel, from a change in climate and allergins, from hanging out with Vlad who is still somewhat sick, from so much time out in the cold night air, from partying way too hard and not resting - from all of the above. Now I sit, thinking I would write, thinking I would be almost in tears. My back is sore and I feel I have to accomplish things, evne just being - even if what i want to accomplish is seeing more sites down in old town and feeling like I live - even if it is just drinking coffee and watching the world go by - watching people - trying to understand what it would be like to live here. Though I should relish or at least be pleased (and I am, I am) that being with Danny, with Vlad, I am learning what Czech life is truly about. What people really do here. What they think about. A lot of time spent drinking beer for less than or at a dollar a glass. listening to so much music. meeting each other. talking for hours in pubs. it is a far cry from the dining out culture of new york that where i have enmeshed myself for years. they accompany me to restaurants where we spend 700 koruna - so much more money than those years ago - and i feel pained by this expenditure, though it is in reality 35 dollars... i will know more when i look back at my photos. i will write more. i will think more. i will try against all odds to sleep now. i know i should be sleeping. i was trying to not fight myself - to go with the flow of things - invited to a pub, go. invite to a club, go. invited to melnik to wander around in the snow - (a moment i loved, probably nothing to Vlad or anyone else - was driving on the insanely snowy and small precipice where the rivers converge after looking up at the town as it sank in to night - stopping him as his lights glowed on the snow - and getting out of the left hand side of his car (oddd british hting), running around it, reaching up - climbing up - bending the thin limbs - to grab at a small strange fruit - success! that fruit, upon getting back in teh car - a czech apple - small, so small, and dark like a plum - and rock hard from the freezing temperatures - and the top speckled with snow - so looked to me beautiful like our old fashioned christmas ornaments. even him standing on a bridge he loves near a damn - the lighting there a strange and beautiful green - he lit a cigarrette - his face was warmed in the orange orb of fire light from matches. everywhere else was glittering snow and nighttime. beautiful. later, much later, after walking around his old school, after against his will having him walk through a cemetery with me, admiring with so much love the glowing red candles on the dark white graves - much later - parked at the docks where boats meet trains to load and unload freight bound for Germany, for Austria, for elsewhere - but now that water covered in chunks of ice - in slabs of it (the ice we could hear cracking earlier while on the vlatva - i have never heard this sound outside of movies) - we spoke of loves, past loves, lovers, and other loves. other tragedies. i said i talk too much about love. even my poetry. he said it is why we live. love. whatever form -- a relationship - family. we had coffee and the night curled up. i wanted to go back to prague. he wanted to watch a movie at his house but i felt i had to awaken here. not knowing i wouldnt not be able to sleep. but i am rambling. Vlad - what was your nickname as a child. something like Lad-ya. Something mellifluous and new. New. and yet I could be anywhere. Because I am interacting with people who speak english, but moreover - people who are real, who feel. but oh - i digress - people who have a very strong understanding of oppression, of history, of sacrifice. this they talk about alot. and what countries do and dont like each other (czechs dont like the poles but the poles love the czechs and the czechs should not dislike the poles bc the poles are brave and loving and passionate and crazy) and they hate hungary - how could they not? and russia - and hungary is ridiculous with its illogical language. but the love slovaks and slovaks love them. and here i am and here i try to sleep but then i did post it there as well post comment

i am not a manic person [06 Jan 2009|03:19pm] but i do work myself into strange frenzies and fits sometimes. frustrating. post comment

tired thoughts and sleepy time [06 Jan 2009|03:59am] [ mood | chipper ] [ music | infrequent raindrops on Dad's weird A/C ] Yes I should be in bed as nothing exceptionally revolutionary will come from typing in my livejournal at 4 in the morning (after spending the past hour looking again at my picasa albums). But I note - and I note this often (though at least it isn't among the many things that make me feel I am utterly repetitive and therefore prone to getting on my own nerves) that my/our ("our" being that majority that comprises the general 'we') world[s] seem so different from one moment to the next - that our world views shift by the week, if not by the day, if not by the moment . I note this readily about myself. Before leaving NJ for the brief visit to Chi then here to Texas - that I felt somehow strong - though there were moments of weakness, confusion, loneliness. That I felt I was in fact - not as some so frequently contend - negative - but a happy person. A person who truly enjoyed life and all its simple joys. That I enjoyed even the feelings of it - even the anger - even that - the feral silly feelings of strength and autonomy and jealousy and owning one's own self and one's own life. In chicago granted moments occurred where I was brought back into being tied to the nastiness of other things - of other people and other people's expectations - tho still interested, perplexed, amused at the vast variety of divergences in those interpretations. Then landing in SA and so much fog everywhere, and weather that was indecisive, and my stomach becoming upset, and my mood tired, and suddenly feeling lost and uncertain as to where I belonged and where I fit in. And this malaise (as it were) settling over - and a fight with my sister days later - which always (save one instance years ago that I still recall with wonder) put nails in my coffin faster than anything. But today (and in part Saturday - though i was bored and alone and whining-ly so - bored and alone also enjoyably so, if that makes any sense at all! and BITS of Sunday) - again made me reassess our views of the world - or our worlds which we view so FICKLE-Y. (Note more words in this language certainly need to end in LY). Because I was lucky enough to hang out with Belinda and Tim today - and enjoyed that - the dusty (hah) friendships of so many years - just riding in a car, getting dinner, sitting through a not-so-great movie ;) Nothing amazing or out of the ordinary - just a pleasant ordinary. And before that sitting in the kitchen talking with Mom and Aunt Sha Sha for a bit. These things. I will even say Sunday morning - Because I think it speaks volumes on our own interpretations of the world and reality - as Allen sat quietly in a chair near me as I read a bit of my book and thought of all the silly small things we could do. I somehow felt content. Something in a buried part of my mind must have lit and remembered the juvenile fun we used to sometimes have - simplicity of going to museums or painting our fingernails - because that is what I felt would be productive and amazingly fun and would happen. Of course that was all dashed in an instant when Allen informed me he was (despite us previously having planned to spend much of Sunday together) going to be far too busy doing.. laundry.. and that it wasn't his obligation to entertain me. (gee-thanks-ouch). But really - it was my mind creating this fun reality - that saw the world as this open coloring book (and a pop up one at that!) and his words (ah hearkening back years ago to when we dated - words ready and mean and hurtful if easy) - making the day not death but sickly and sad. So I had lunch with Chet and he said I am happy in all my pix on line - that I am therefore 3 different people. And on my LJ someone else entirely. and in person - well then that is the third. Though really I am curious how all these three 'me's' comprise the whole. And I dont mind. I know now that people and my family discuss me and form their opinions even when I am not there (shocking revelation right?) But either way - the world is the world - and I guess it is only to a certain extent. The minute you invite other people into even your smallest plans or nudge them into any slight expectation - you are creating a universe that might make you smile, but at any second might get all crumbled up by their own reality (which is to say the happiness, the solitude, the ugliness, with which they are painting). (to which immediately I can only say boo snubs and utterly SQUASH!) But realities. And the world. And to say that my sister who has not been the happiest little beauty of late (beauty yes, but not so very happy) has had her reality (tho she felt unsteady a bit as it were) shift entirely under her feet on this day. Her job (like so many of ours, my friends, my not-yet-friends) getting cut due to lack of funds and a failing market. A blessing, I think, I truly think. But she is worried and feels the need to scramble for another one. I know that feeling - working freelance for several years already. The need to scramble swiftly for a job, any ounce of 'safety' and validation. the self doubt. But werent u thinking of going back to school? Just today you told me that. And wouldnt you like to meet me in Europe? it would decidedly be 'a trip' ;) Back to realities and the people in our worlds - My sister who I love so much, and who loves me so much too - you can't (despite your sometimes desire to) - paint me in the image you want me to be - not as great or glorious as you might wish sometimes- but certainly not as ugly as other times - and I cant similarly paint you. But we can, if we try, and if we put our heads together, color in a world we might agree on, and might well enjoy. As many worlds and as many shifting realities as we inhabit in a year, a month, a DAY, a lifetime - in this time that is our lives, we only have one actual span to live it. Before Atropos grabs her shears - I would love for you to meet me in Europe, I would love for you to write your book, your bookS, to follow your dreams, to "follow your happiness", to find your bliss. Above all view this not as a scary precipice the edge of which you hesitate to look over, afraid - but as a mountain top from which you will undoubtedly soar once you leap with the belief you should always have in yourself. Just, make sure you fly by me on the way. Love, -Val! Delirium or something like it. (sorry not my best writing but you know, writing nonetheless:) 1 comment|post comment

[02 Jan 2009|02:09pm] Fog has taken up residence over our state. Though at times it gets dolled up for a night out on the town and leaves us only with a white sky and a bleak amount of sickly light. I remember being younger - let us say even I remember ten years ago - and headlights dipping into patches of thin spider-woven swaths of fog as my tires ran along the pavement - taking my first boyfriend home on school nights. Music was bubble gum rock and lonely through a fake happiness. Though I was happy to sing to it - my first boyfriend riding shotgun, patiently listening to me squeak out the lyrics to Eagle Eye Cherry as I took him home. Now I look out the dirty windows of this house to a sky without airplanes. My train pass is here but my trip is delayed - because I am charmed enough in my life with the ability to pay only a few hundred dollars for a trip to Europe - but chained by the same opportunity as I fly standby, and all the flights are full for the next several days. (I in fact see no green-light-go at all). It is a strange thing. So I got hugs from my parents and still do have errands to run. I suppose I could reorganize my room here. Why not - Mom and Dad both happily recount all I have accomplished since I've been here in the way of cleaning out my closet, buying these necessary things (this tiny laptop I am currently typing on), even bought a bathing suit to wear in the thermal baths of Romania... And clearly accomplished (if we can use that word) other things - Eurail pass bought and arrived - cell phone waiting to be picked up at Fedex (it should have been delivered today), other errands I'm sure, a hard drive to back up the laptop I will ship out to get fixed today. I had an enjoyable new year once I let myself - get out of the house, see fireworks - be around people. I suppose those errands should be run. Even though they feel far less important now. less imminent at any rate. I am not one for New Years resolutions or anything of the like - I gave up on those years ago - and kisses at midnight. But what do you guys think your 2009s will hold? what are you aspiring toward? I can easily say 'travel' because I have already put the limping ball (balls cant limp) into motion. Sisterhood of the traveling pants 1 and 2 guys - we grew up as creative and full of raw zest for creation as they have. It must - it simply must - be retapped. 3 comments|post comment

Valerie Rae Jupe Apologizes [02 Jan 2009|12:21pm] I am sorry that I so often view life as a tragedy. That I wake immobilized by anxiety and un-place-able, implacable fear of the world. That I view so many periods as things to 'get through' or that I let days and weeks pass trying to hide under the fabric of life and time. I apologize for even this - as I know it is my common way of negativity. I apologize. I know I am tiring, and I am sorry. post comment

my signs [09 Dec 2008|03:00am] Cancer 22 June - 22 July Cancerians need to learn how to keep themselves from being sucked into everyone's emotions. They have a natural empathy that causes them to worry too much about everyone else's problems and feelings. They are highly sensitive and tuned in to 'feeling' which is the making of a good psychic or medium. They are sentimental and thoughtful, and in regard to loved ones, highly protective. Their moodiness causes them to be on top of the world one moment and down in the pits the next. Leo 23 July - 23 August They are generous and warm-hearted and have a natural organizational ability which they tend to push on others whom they feel need some re-ordering in their lives. They feel they know best and when this is challenged, tend to take it personally. Their natural fun loving vitality is contagious and affects those around them. They have a tendency to be interfering and bossy, even pompous and need learn that others have valid opinions also. They are enthusiastic and have a creative ability which must be expressed. is yours accurate? http://www.newagedirectory.com/love/astrology.htm thats all tonight, ciao. 1 comment|post comment

My Life is too much an open book? [24 Nov 2008|01:40pm] [ mood | sad ] When I left Chicago, granted I left in a grumpy mood and left not wanting to leave, though not knowing what else to really do. Within a handful of days though, every new idea seemed motivational, possible, inspiring. This could have been for a number of reasons, but I felt also somewhat independent. Now, and again it could just be right now, this week, these past few days... but I know I get clingy. and that is how i Feel. clingy, scared, uncertain. while previously i didnt feel like my ideas of going to study language and poetry hermit-like in Princeton, or elsewhere, or travel a bit while preferably studying something in Europe, or renting a cheap place somewhere in the Catskills or even further north and potentially writing... nothing seemed like escape, only "different" life - different experience. Now that again this Stupid *fear* of life in general has scratched it's way in, I see all these things again but see them as escape. I also see myself applying for jobs and potentially taking jobs beneath my skill level... and why. and what. and what's next. Where the what's next a month ago didn't bother me - as something is always next - right now it is. Just because I am indecisive anyway. And just not that happy right now. Things are getting to me. Ness as she said in her past response "it is always the same" with me and my comments, my posts, and maybe it is, with my life. Making messes. But whatever. I worked at WNBC for a year - i did that. I went to Chicago alone, found a place, worked there double shifting. I did that. I lived in Austin alone for the most part. I lived in Rutherford NJ and survived NYC for 2 years. Something is next. Something new and next is coming. And I do love my family. And i do want more. From life than what I am getting and what I am putting in. I want to - as five years ago I wrote in a poem about chicago - experience life at a new pace. But you have to MAKE things for yourself DO them for yourself. not just wait. Chicago waited 5 years. My book is waiting. My book to screenplay to potential film... it is waiting. and only on me. my poetry also is waiting to be typed up. 2 comments|post comment

Just a Poem by Konstantin Pavlov [14 Nov 2008|12:27am] Paradox By Konstantin Pavolv The topic is the likes of us. If we didn't have the likes of us, we would have to create the likes of us. It's frightening. Every day, with tremendous effort, an amoeba, a giant amoeba, shortens the distance between us. She moves her little false feet, she waves her little false hands, she fixes her little false smile. Someday she will reach me. Frozen by her insistence, I will surely give myself to her. (The way we give ourselves while asleep or in a drunken stupor - in equal doses of lust and hate.) This conversation is not self-punishment. (I would kill myself, if I resembled the swine who washes herself in the puddle of her own tears and finds it a special pleasure.) The amoeba senses the difference between us. And my apartness will always be the measure of her loneliness. The moment she reaches me, she will turn into a perfect, meek, and tragic circle. Enclosed, I will twinkle a long time, a part of her own substance. And when the two of us begin to crawl again, perhaps I will be one of her little false feet, one of her little false hands, one of her little false smiles. post comment

[07 Nov 2008|07:19pm] [ mood | aggravated ] [ music | whatever mom is watchin on tv ] Sadness pervades me today and u and i may know it might just be that i am going to start my period. but today i did run to the bank for Ev (who is thankfully still away) and drove around trying to find a restaurant i've been interested in - as Ive for the past 2 yrs seen a sign while it resides almost entirely out of sight atop a hill. I did that. I took too many photos as always. Of roads, of trees, of the monastery next door that is nothing to write home about. (nothing to photo about). I stopped by Coco's because I Texted her when I got back but she didnt reply. as is her way the first words out of her mouth were to chide me - for ringing the bell multiple times because "She has clients" there now. I turned to leave. no not NOW but 10 minutes ago. I sat and had tea. Her apartment was peaceful as often it is - because she somehow weaves a peace into it. When Joey stayed there there was no peace at all. no peace. at all. I came home, I finished updating an album I uploaded months ago but never made public. - hadnt added comments yet. So its up. But there were moments today, several of them, were I felt I could easily devolve into crying. And as I grumpily made guacamole and ate a shitload of it - and heated up dinner - and tried to sit and enjoy it enough, I mentioned I wanted to feel magic in the world. Mom said its not the external but the internal that is lacking (in that way you know). And said something to the ends of - traveling Europe is expensive and would it make me happy. Clearly I was not capable of dealing with that (no traveling Europe would not make me happy) I started crying and have not stopped. Its just that. just one of those times. What is wrong with wanting something different with not know what it is u want just knowing it has to be out there and being grateful for the fucking love of god for feeling like its out there. it is so much worse to feel there is noting out there at all and there is not even the hope for magic i said i miss poetry and studying and learning and she says "teen angst?" i a sense of hope a sense of passion a desire to create a feeling that it matters (she asked me what i feel like is lacking in my life. "is it just a boyfriend?" oh yeah because that was so fulfilling) Run away run away or what this is just like those times in college i knew i was supposed to be somewhere social and couldnt go but then it was i was in my won apt and couldn't get myself up off hte floor this is ppl that i actually like - a friend - but am crying like a stupid baby bloating up my face. and it all seems so much but u know its nothing ultimately its nothing nothing nothing except a fucking bus ride into the city i didnt not wholly hate yesterday and did decidedly not wholly love You tell me what is missing Its just me I am just me i am just crying and its been so long since i've cried this way just crying and feeling bad for it - for mom being here seeing it i told her i would take her to the airport tomorrow but what do i do with my things what do i do what do i do what comes next what comes next?? "you liked james becomes he moped more than u" or whatever shed said . no duh but whatever Who needs teen angst when u can have angst at 28? I didnt say life was bad and i didnt say i wasnt thankful for having worked as luckily as I have since ive been here. but at the same time there is still the feelings of rejection. come on of course there are! 28 and almost 30 means nothing i am still just me the little crying thing, taking her mommy or daddy with her to screenings and readings and feeling - u know i wrote this - only sometimes like a shining star (star of the college bar - i wrote - that saturday in Chicago bc i had 'my friends' with me) girl with tears streaking her face and a new hair color for a strange old place 1 comment|post comment

A poem I just found, for now, that is all [07 Oct 2008|04:27pm] [ mood | cranky ] I am sure I have a lot to say and a lot I feel like I am under. Like a lot is piling on top of me and I haven't felt it yet but there it is. Like not only this gangland and wet weather and impossible [almost] parking, and strange [as usual anymore] living arrangements, and the desire to desire and follow my previous passions again, and double shifts [given another show to take over] instead of moving those double out into November - which would be better. so much better. and this project of mine, of ours, and not the time, nor collaboration I'd like to give it(you and I in coffee shops late into the night - couldn't we be coming up with something awesome? or some apt. with lights low and talking until things spring into being - bud and bloom and cute ideas and amazingly researched entirely?) But I am in Chicago - yes I am in Chicago. Some semi-north (but not far in Texas standards) Chicago. But You are not here, nor is actual freedom, nor is my clear vision of what comes next except life and another day and hoping not to fail or destroy myself. and strange things around me in other peoples lives. Deaths on the ragged burnt edges of my shirt sleeves. Other peoples' deaths. And I feel I haven't been eating healthy, nor sleeping enough, nor being good to my body with appropriate exercise. Though what did I eat when I was in college? Probably crazy things, and slept strangely, and my mind was always almost probably at it's end. So really, what's the difference? Except age and more alcohol and a jadedness that makes things ironic. - The irony in people saying I am so very three dimensional and complete and whatnot. These things. Oh I'm trying - but there are classes I would like to take (had I not decided to accept these double shifts - because I want to endear myself - I dont know? Because I can't turn down challenges like this - and the classes - would really be more challenging, because it would mean going somewhere and interacting with people... but the last time I Took a class (that Czech class back in that other empty awful paper life of mine) well that was a waste of time and completely passionless. Now we need to watch cameramen's reels and put this somewhere between a youtube video and a artfully done TV-friendly PILOT. That and working two jobs and living in two different cities and not feeling at home ever in so many years. 'Sister I see you' But pills in a bottle and not down my throat. And I have to go to the grocery store. and try to find some solace somewhere. I know ppl do double shifts all the time. And ppl do their own projects. Are they the soulless ones? Do I still have a soul? Is there magic in the world? Sometimes I find it, curled up on my bed here - that there may still be magic, and may be art. But there aren't building blocks to fall into place like you'd hope. And not every day is a sunny day where you are rollerblading and feeling like it makes any kind of sense. I wish I could steal away all the little shadowbox moments in my mind that never happened and have them. Like a flip book. Have them and have those lives. I am so scared. Of the 21st. Of what though? and why? I'm so sick and scared of things not being more. More or less. Ness - did I tell you the Newberry is a genealogy library? You've been into that recently, so I found it interesting, when I went. Also, the Chicago boat tours have a "Devil in the White City" tour... But will you get to come here? will we get to do that? Is it ALWAYS feast or famine? Ah but I was just going to put a poem I found. Charles Bukowski. the words have come and gone, I sit ill. the phone rings, the cats sleep. Linda vacuums. I am waiting to live, waiting to die. I wish I could ring in some bravery. it's a lousy fix but the tree outside doesn't know: I watch it moving with the wind in the late afternoon sun. there's nothing to declare here, just a waiting. each faces it alone. Oh, I was once young, Oh, I was once unbelievably young! (“Now What?”) Source: http://www.thesmartset.com/article/article10060801.aspx And I really want a book by this other poet but you cant find it anywhere, apparently DO have to order it, and I know things havent been getting here, so I hesitate to order it.... http://www.ivypressprinceton.com/book1.html Ah Princeton. -Val how many strange years but the 21st and not stopping, not stopping! post comment

Avid is rebuilding [30 Sep 2008|12:22pm] [ mood | sad ] And isn't that what we are all doing? or at least at some points in our lives? Just trying to 'rebuild'? to make sense of things? Sadness in great sheets has come over my brain oddly a couple times in the past handful of days. I can't say I mind that - I don't. I mind other things - like overwhelming anxiety, or feelings of utter hopelessness, or that numb apathy you sometimes feel which could be linked to boredom. Or the feeling that I still feel at times - that I am doing things - going through motions - to fill my life but not FILLING or sometimes even FEELing it. I did go see wicked.. But that wasnt much of anything but a rainy sunday my first weekend in this city. and me being alone. and not knowing what to do with myself. a self i wasnt liking so much at the moment. it comes and goes. as I said to mom the last time the tears came bubbling up out of a seeming no where (had woken feeling blah, then anxious, hopeless, procrastinating - it being sunday and I needing to go in to work) - in the car, I tried to call the 'eap' to see about counseling as my self-esteem was extremely low at this point... but the call didnt go well and i should really call during normal business hours. So tears came, and driving down cracked white streets, and a young black girl in a pack threw a rock at my roof and anger took over. Avid was scanning drives and I thought about going for a walk outside. Having received some semi(or more so)depressing news. But then thought about writing. I mean I had my notebook with me but why not type? Why not on here? But this is not a computer lab in the architecture building at UT. Though there are plenty of young people here, which I find kind of neat. Chicago. tears and payroll and not looking up at all for November. I guess I wont get to stay suctioned to you afterall. But go back to the tall grey buildings and cement and ...who knows. Up in the air. I am a girl with tears in her throat wild with a checkered scarf around her neck and a couple more hours of work and a phone call wishing she could slip into producer mode. wishing she could meet a sister for sushi one night at koi kawa because she was procrastinating on studying for a french test. wishing she could go on writing until something fleshed out. wishing there was poetry and poets and things we thought when younger. We never began dystopianism we never finished so many books Nor screenplays, Nor Films themselves. easily discouraged easily anything checking drives that were scanning now . back to work to do this job. i happily sat at the Avid this morning for this first time in a while thinking this is not just some crap job (feelingnotsomuchfuckedup) This is a CAREER Ah. Life open ends unraveled threads and fear. -Val! humbly, with sadness your soldier 2 comments|post comment

et moi? et moi aussi?? [15 Sep 2008|10:55pm] I wrote one last night but it was pointless. Maybe later on today. Pretty user pic tho. Dont so much feel like going to work but... here I go. 1 comment|post comment

Millay at Eros [07 Aug 2008|12:15am] VoicePost 98K 0:29 “There is candle light that flickers And a sun beneath the ground The sky a ghost cry of pale blue light That saturates the town. There is a very subtle breeze and head lights on the blackened street coffee cooling in its cup and life at once slow and abrupt. Here engines churn and betray themselves and sing like ocean waves a subtle doppler of a roar of foam and pebble spray. And there is a girl - her coffee cool A book open but unread - And power from a poet's lines resounding in her head.” Transcribed by: loupguru 3 comments|post comment

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