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Runaway_Josie
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Name: Helen [or Josie]
Birthday: 12/2/1986
Gender: Female
Interests: Sketching, Painting, Writing [words, words, words], Piano playing, Getting to California [somehow], Leopard print dresses. Taylor Hanson's face. New Jersey, and everyone I love who belongs there: you know who. you. are.
Expertise: Being discrete. [HA. Sometimes.]
Occupation: Artist
Industry: Nonprofit
Message: message meEmail: email me
AIM:  JosiEisAsTaR
Member Since:
3/21/2003
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So, it's been a very long time since I visited this, but I was reminded because I received two (yes, two) e-mails from two different Geneva personnel that if I began (or I suppose revisited) a blog (how weird is it to actually admit that's what this is. Kind of, anyway), that I should let them know so they could quote it on the school's website.
But I'm guessing they meant a blog about my LA endeavors, so. I guess I'll keep this one to myself. Or to you. Between the two or none of us.
Anyway, I am going to talk a little bit about LA, I guess, if that's alright. Just enough to say that I've been busy and not busy, all in good ways, the only bad part being that I'm missing my East coast side of home, meaning you and you and you. There are lots of things that happen and lots of things I see and hear that make me think, "Say, wouldn't so-and-so love that," and you would. So come here. Pretend airfare is cheap. Compared to driving, it almost is.
I must tell you, though, if you DO get the opportunity and the cash to swing by on a weekend getaway, it's so not the 90210 California-ness you would expect. Interesting that many people, (mind you, people who had never been here?), told me California is an other-worldly frontier, half of it full of self-absorbed, unemployed actors, wheat grass stands, and New Age hippies and the other half (the Beverly Hills side of town, I suppose) is too rich to notice anything except the fact that you aren't. Well? They weren't wrong. But they also weren't right. Yeah, sure, it's nerve-racking moving to a new place whether it's down the street or around the world. And though I would never claim to be an LA expert at this point, I can tell you that people, strangers, have smiled at me on the street. And that, sure, it's different, as in, we have palm trees instead of pine, The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf instead of Starbucks (well, not instead, but in these parts, Starbucks is oddly not king. Or queen.) and the taco stands outnumber the pedestrians. And I'm adjusting. And I like that. And I kind of ache for familiarity sometimes. But I stand it. And it's a chance I had to give myself, and I revel in that. Because it's the territory that comes with living your life. You just have to own up to it one day, hands in the air and say, "Okay. I'm ready to give in to following myself, even if I'm leaning towards the opposite of easy." It feels good to be uncomfortable, or confused, a little lost, to wonder what street you're on, if you're going to right direction, or if you should turn around. It's a sense of adventure, I say. Go out and feel that out for a minute. It's surprising, but it's good.
Also, another thing you should know about California, and I suppose Hollywood. The thirty-year-olds look thirty and the fifteen-year-olds look fifteen. If you learn anything from 90210, it will be that, and that will be all.
And if I could just keep my pinkie on this soapbox for five more seconds, it would just be to say, don't judge a place before you know it. Gosh, so many versions of beautiful exist. Make sure you're looking for any of them.
Oh, I also highly recommend this book. If you're looking to feel convicted or inspired about change, she will get you there without even trying. Seriously. Her words are water.
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Dear LA,
You have officially become real to me.
Is it too soon to be counting down the days?
Fondly,
Helen, who is sure to love you.
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i am idle with intention.
sometimes it takes me a second to catch up with myself.
i don't always recognize what the mirror lets me see.
funny feeling, this is.
also, it's been a long time since i looked xanga's way.
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For awhile, I thought I'd fully abandoned this space of my cyberized life, but. For a change, (which today certainly is, in big ways and not), I thought I'd revisit. For something of an 'old-time's-sake' type circumstance, for something of a recollection of nothing and everything and on and on and on.
And now that we've been reintroduced, hello.
I don't suppose there's a more proper beginning other than announcing that today, I am twenty-one years old (finally, or not so finally?), and I know nothing more than I did as my yesterday and twenty year old self, or even as far back as my ever self, from this original day, twenty-one years ago.
Is that fair? Maybe not. But when the realizations you have are just repeats of the previous realizations that have slapped you in the face and left you blinded, then I think it is just safe to say that my life is a constant reminder of progress, rather than a constant declaration of it. In other words, strain your ears and eyes, children. Look hard or you will miss it. I am not 100% changed and never will be, but I am different. Today, I am different.
It is not obvious to me or anyone how far I've come, because my steps have been miniscule---microscopically and dangerously small. Taking your time in front of a moving vehicle small. Pausing on the escalator unrecognizable.
But I feel my feet moving. ("I don't believe in it, but I feel it" never made more sense).
So anyway---what was that? What was I saying back there. I was saying that respecting change is a process. Engaging in it, another matter on the whole.
In other words, "I accept chaos; I'm not sure whether it accepts me." (Bob Dylan, who has joined me in some perfect nonsense that led to perfect sense).
In other words, "A kid from NYU walks by and he could be me" and I wonder about that for awhile. "He just has to turn and cross the street in a different direction" and then everything is what it isn't. "The guy in the photos holds out his arms. Black birds freeze in a blur of white wings. He could lower his arm and walk away and not be me. He doesn't, of course, and so he is.
"It's always the same. You could look at the pictures of your life and nothing ever changes or you could get up and cross the street and nothing will ever be the same again." (here and above, Adam Durtiz, on the recollection of where his choices have led him, and the phenomenon of shaping our own destiny).
In other words, "We do not grow absolutely, chronologically." (Do we?) "We grow sometimes in one dimension and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations." (Anais Nin)
In these words, that description is nearly flawless.
Nearly? Yes. Because today I'm in three places at once, and I recognize it, and I see it, and I feel it, and I know it.
For the current listeners of my currently playing, hallelujah, for a rerelease of old thoughts (that time will never change and honesty will never decrease); it sort of ties in well with what I'm saying.
So do you see what I'm saying.
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I am Joey Ramone.
Or, Rachel Green from every episode aired in 1994.
Or an eighties weatherwoman. Or something.
I don't feel like packinggggggggggggggggggggggg.
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