To all those fellow "bloggers" who insist on starting blogs and feel that the one time you posted way back in 2002 is sufficient: go to hell. For those of you "bloggers" who find it acceptable, and, for some reason, worth your time to execute the above stated annoyance with 9 different blogs: go to the only place worse than religion's fictionalized hell: Newark and/or Detroit.

Today I decided to browse the blog profiles of those who currently call Cinci their home sweet home. 40 profiles were found, and all either contained 1-4 posts total or were written by individuals who listen to Kenny G. Needless to say, Cincinnati is not the intellectual mecca of my faithless dreams.

Stupid lazy-ass Ohio-ites....

It's at times like these that I wish I had a god to pray to; pressure builds, opportunities become convoluted, and my future depends on something that depends on something that has something to do with Ohio residency. How nice it would be to fold my arms and bank it all on faith.

Unfortunately though, I've decided to believe that my future is built solely on the consequences of my actions. I've been scrambling around the UC all day to day, (by the way, PARKING IS A BITCH) and I left the crazy campus with less hope than I had entering earlier that day. Though crowded, the atmosphere of the UC is what I want and what I need; the design building was massive and complex, and thoroughly enjoyable. The industrial program in which I hope to enroll, however, is much more competitive than I originally thought, and even if I get accepted I have to find a way around the $21,000 a year out-of-state tuition (I have my wiles, mind you, so it's not as impossible as it might seem, but it's pretty damn close). I'll continue to accost those in charge of the program with emails and messages, but until then I suppose I'll just have to cross my fingers as opposed to folding my arms.

An interesting thing happened the other day, by the way: I received an email from Elisse and called her the following day. I'm afraid the incentive of my original post might be misinterpreted, therefore, for I was not attempting to be passive-aggressive and urge Elisse to strike up correspondence, but merely trying to address what had happened by writing about it. We had a pleasant conversation; things seemed back to normal for a bit, but when I called her back later that day everything seemed awkward. There are aspects of my life that will never be definite, it seems, that will never be simple, but rather will always be multi-faceted, two-faced, and will always leave me guessing. Nothing is easy, even the things that are intuitive.

The cursor of my text editor blinks inside the screen in front of me; comfortably it rocks steadily in and out of view, reminding me that the page is blank, that it hasn't moved since I sat down in front of my computer. I, for a mawkish moment, admire the endurance of this little bar and its insistence to blink. Black to white, there and back, in and out of existence as the metronome of my words.

This paper has nothing to do, nothing to do at all with leaves, or the silly way that they litter my life. I have nothing left to say and no more cunning ways to disguise the fact that I never had anything to say about leaves. The journey of a writer, however, inspires volumes in my mind and means everything to me. Without expression, after all, we have nothing. The thoughts we think often lead us to growing beyond those same thoughts, yet at times they lead us to contradiction; we run around in circles as we chase truth, beauty, pain, whatever it is we endeavor to wrestle to the floor and force onto paper. Thus is the crux of each writer's task: there are millions of words, thousands of styles and voices in which to speak, but developing the perfect way to articulate one's perception takes a lifetime. I don't understand what surrounds me, all I know is that it is beautiful. Greedily, quite greedily, I desire to capture it. Notes scribbled down on napkins, bits of writing on my hands, for some reason these scattered fragments lend me peace because they seem palpable. Words, however beautiful, will not define my reality- I wouldn't have it so, dear friend, for truth exists behind the thick fabric of our arrogant discernment- but they help me discover what I truly think and eventually help me to change my mind over and over again. A true irony, it is: writing about my exhausting confusion is what makes me happy.

I've probably started thirty journals in my lifetime. We're all guilty of this crime; we spend twenty dollars on a flashy product from Barnes and Noble, we justify the expense by reciting the importance of frequent writing in our minds as we finger the shiny cover, we promise to write. A week passes by and already the journal has joined the others, and it lives a nice, full life complacently collecting dust on the shelf as it wastes our space. I cannot express how tragic this is, I cannot impart how regretful we will find ourselves. Countless times I have looked back over my writing and found that my most trying times- those that would probably yield the most insight- have come and gone without a single snippet of thought. I let days, weeks, months pass by as I neglect the process that nourishes me. Let us be honest with ourselves: frequent writing is the only thing that separates a writer from an idiot holding a pen. Disciplining myself to write daily has proved to be excruciatingly difficult, and, during various spouts of time, completely hopeless. When I have succeeded in this arduous challenge, however, and have managed to write steadily for a certain period of time, I am always overwhelmed to remember that the raw process of writing never grows easy, and that the rabid slew of editing and revision that follows never grows thin. Our present ideas chase those of the previous sentence around, above and back again, and I hasten to paste them together and make sense of it all. I come to new conclusions and dismiss those of the past until it is time to rediscover the old and start the cycle over again.

The journey never feels like an ideal path that winds around green hills, but rather a high-school track with hurdles of steel and sharp drop offs that leave me thoroughly confounded. That's how it is meant to be, I suppose; that it is how it functions best. Our sentiments sit on the concrete floor in front of us like newspaper clippings, and I'm confident that a shard of rhyme and a sliver of reason will eventually float to the top.

I don't think I have demons, so to speak, that lurk in my past. No real secrets lie there anymore, forced into repression by external guilt and a lifestyle I never understood nor truly wanted. Things are just things, if I might be so brilliantly articulate to say; things that have happened. It would be foolish to once again embark on the bold pursuit of daily writing with a fresh update of where I work and what I've been doing, because that's not writing. None of that matters, and it certainly won't provide the necessary excitement or vigor required to invigorate my lazy writing habits. I dance around the things that plague me, these things that have happened, and I attempt to ignore them though I know how they affect me. Namely, August 12, 2005: my birthday, and, ironically, the last day I saw or spoke to Elisse.

The simple thought of the ordeal bears witness to the damage I have done; where are the dates, the times, the emotional upheaval and the heart-wrenching despair, why have I neglected to write about this? I now have nothing but a brief overview of the affair, an overview that has been knocked out of focus and robbed of detail by the months I've allowed to pass. What little I have now, however, shouldn't share the fate of the rest of the story; as lame as the saying is, "better late than never".

Elisse had come to visit. I remember, through all the uncertainty, that her flight was delayed and I fought back frustrated tears as I teetered on my high heels and rushed from terminal to terminal. I clutched a piece of paper upon which the words "PUDDIN HEAD" were printed in large, capital letters- I thought it charming to stand next to the chauffeurs and hold my sign proudly while boasting a serious, stern expression (needless to say I summoned many a curious expression from passersby) - but my plan was foiled, and when I finally found her the silly sign was crumpled and in my purse. She wore a black peasant skirt, and told me through her amusement of my frazzled condition about the man she had met on the plane. We climbed into daddy's convertible and sped towards the city.

Of the days that followed there is little to say, I suppose; we went out to eat plenty with my father and spent the rest of the time lounging about the house. We went one night to Eden Park, kicked off our shoes and sat on the edge of the gazebo while we chatted into the placid buzzing of the bushes around us. We discussed my father, my currently secret relationship with Bryan, her life and mine. Without her I wouldn’t of had the courage to tell my father about Bryan, and I will always feel rightly indebted to her. I miss the comfort of those particular nights, those particular conversations, and as fatiguing as tears are I long for the connection I could only ever establish with Elisse. This connection, however, was of the deepest kind, and shared between two very arrogant individuals, and it therefore produced endless spouts of bickering, tears that flowed angrily and generously, and, most unfortunately, a fallacious resentment for Elisse that I easily stuffed deep inside of me and never bothered to confront. It was she, after all, that exposed me to life outside of Utah, outside of the religion I was born into. It was she that provided the intellectual oasis for which I hungered, and naturally my life took a course that differed from the average Mormon high school student. I still don't know why I blamed her for the consequences these changes brought- the suffocating guilt I felt from the belief to which I had been espoused so long, harsh judgment and animosity from previous Mormon friends, though I had always despised them, and my mother, above all the complete chaos brought on by my mother- I blamed Elisse, be it secretly, unwillingly, or perhaps completely unconsciously.

The frustration always lingered, always loitered about when I was alone, always resurfaced, though it was never expressed and never approached. The disdain billowed freely inside of me yet didn’t appear to exist outside of my bitter thoughts. I’ll never forget the scorn with which my voice shook when I looked her in the eye, during one heated argument or another, and announced without flinching:

“I hate you. I will always hate you.”

I remember the silence that followed, I remember watching the blow as it was delivered and tragically received, I remember the look on Elisse’s face as her expression dropped and her mouth opened in pain. I remember half-assing an apology, still angry, still infuriated. I remember her saying that some things can not be excused or swept away, that some things cannot be retracted once said, that she couldn’t bear my malice and treat herself fairly simultaneously. I remember my father trying to mediate while we cried and accused each other with our jaws tightly clenched.

Above all, I remember standing on the porch before she climbed into Cindy’s car, and bitterly hugging in a weak attempt to lend poetry to the ordeal. There was nothing poetic about this moment, nothing at all. In a relationship so consumed with passion, companionship and extremes, this ending seemed so meaningless. There was no fire in our tears, they were merely tears that ran down our cheeks and bloated our faces. I didn’t cling to her as I watched her go; childish hostility pulled us away from each other regardless of how close our bodies were. We were through playing grown-up, we were done wearing our posh heels together and talking philosophy, tearing down others in our elitism; the haughtiness of our games had faded to reveal that we were children fighting over crayons, that I was too young, too foolish, too utterly consumed in my self-preservation to realize how fucking happy it made me to know that I had her. We were children.

At least I was. I went inside, and spent the next couple of days spewing insults and promises of hatred into the journal she had given me for my birthday. Twenty-eight pages passed, and once I had filled them with the dirtiest, rudest, most hostile words I could muster, I was fine.

Completely fine.

The resentment I had allowed to fester inside of me for years, literally years, melted, mysteriously, into that leather-bound journal. I was fine.

Completely fine.

Except for the fact that I was alone now and Elisse was gone. We had pushed each other away, and in the end I triumphed; it was my bitterness that ended our friendship. She’s in Salt Lake now, I assume, doing whatever it is that she does now, associating with those that surround her, filling her days with what she chooses to. I know nothing as to how Elisse has been, and it kills me. I hope to god that she’s in school, that she’s taken care of, that she’s still with Carter, that she’s happy. I hope she’s still a snob, I hope that she still laughs and that she still cries. She’s stopped writing in her blog, and I can’t help but think that her cessation acted as a final mean of finalizing the space that lies between us. She writes elsewhere now, in a place that can’t reassure me. My writing, though neglected, sits on the same page where it has always been, and I know, somehow I know, that she’s visited it at least once since she left, and if she hasn’t she will. I just know.

As to the journal in which I carved the murderous, enraged thoughts that released me, I haven’t opened it since.

I’m simply not brave enough to.

Perhaps I’ll sneak to the library during my break and type what I have written. Perhaps today is the only day of release in the midst of an impetuous stream of damp, thoughtless times. Perhaps I’ll return to you, perhaps I’ll sloppily continue to neglect you despite my new-years-resolution-esque promises to come back. Perhaps I’ll tell you what has happened, perhaps I’ll finally explain why I clumsily forced Elisse to leave me. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. Fuck fickleness.

Fuck the topic. Finally, paper lies before me and begs for my words, and finally I am forced to deliver. Yesterday, like every day of the past five months, I promised myself I’d write- about anything; the fierce sunset that captivated me during my drive home, the bland emptiness of the day, the depression of the rut I’ve slipped into- but like the months before, my day comes to an end without a word to show for it. Here I sit in this juvenile composition class, and I realize that I’ve denied myself what I need. I need to write, I need to express myself, I need to look over the pages I have written and therein explore. As I write I realize that I might ignore the necessity of expression, but it never fades, merely continues to burn hungrily in the unconscious. What is a life if it is undocumented? What is growth if it is ignored? Dearest reader, I have returned, and relief drops to my head and trickles down my body. I have so much to tell, sweet friend, and I’ve discovered so much! I beg you to listen and make me tell; drag me back to responsibility in my writing. Let me impart the tears and laughter of these past times. Sweet friend, my darling, my love, oh how I’ve missed you!