bebenodd - Tumblr blog

[bebenodd]

This is the last year I’ll have long hair

Getting sick of manning my mane. While earlier I lost my mind at the recent hair loss I’d been experiencing (stress, hormones, age), my hair stylist did not give me a fulfilling cut. She gave me a trim, my hair already long, it needed to be shortened. I’m getting tired of the weight of my hair, and I’m waiting to see how long it will take before I just lose my cool, my patience, and cut it all off myself. I have had the urge to just chop it off, a messy pixie cut, like when i was a child to see how my curls would play out. I am doing my best to restrain myself until next summer. 

We’ll see how long this lasts...  

[bebenodd]

Trying to get back into it

It was so nice to come back here and see how I had logged some moments of life. It’s just funny looking back on them and kind of recognizing how certain things just got worse until a diversion needed to be made for personal growth. 

I wish I logged more of my post-grad struggles, cause what I wrote here was just really the tip of the iceberg. There was so much more that happened in between that I never really digested and all the resentment just bubbled up until I decided to leave the film industry.

All this to say, I should have logged it, however poorly written, for no one’s eyes but my own. Something about typing things into an open forum feels far more freeing than staring at a blank word doc. 

Journaling, as a lot of therapists and self-help experts say, is helpful. And in a time, like a global pandemic, and a lot of free time on my hand, this is probably what I need the most. 

I have always felt most fulfilled when I write. It’s just personal satisfaction, I love it and the frustrations behind it and trying find the right words and the right way to express a certain feeling, emotion, or moment. 

I want to try and write freely here (mainly bc no one is really on here anyway so I know no one is judging, and most who are on here if anyone sees, are some of the closest friends I’ve had over the years and know that they would not look at me differently for having FEELINGS). 

I hope I stick to it, but my goal is to write here more and in Word more polished pieces, but to us this as a starting point to get my dead juices flowing again. It does feel good I can tell you that, after working job after job that does not quite require most of my brain. 

Currently I’m sitting in my backyard on LI and it is such an odd setting. It’s basically raining fruit flies. They’re blown from the left to the right every now and again sticking to my face (!) or my laptop screen. A large plant has started to brown next to me. And beyond that, in my peripheral vision, is my neighbor’s shed. The shed he hung himself in just two weeks prior. His cat in front of me, waiting at the door to go into our house. My father’s sneakers next to him. On the table, six bushels of impatients planted in large costco pots. To my right, a two pound candle. Underneath it all a global pandemic and a madman as president. This is really 2020? And that’s not even the half of it. 

More later. 

BNN

[bebenodd]

Post-Grad Mo. 6

It's really June...Can't accept it. It's really been 6 months at an unpaid internship. At least they pay for the LIRR .. saving those checks for rent money.

I think had I decided not to go to grad school they would've hired me by now and I don't know what's right to do ever. 

on top of that I decided to do a second internship that reaaally pushes the envelope for 21st century slave labor. why am i sitting in a lawn chair for over 8 hours getting paid $5 a day to do nothing but let my back wither away in pain. 

.. 

was hoping that two years from now I wouldn't end up in the same position I'm in now.. but 

i just 

don't

know

what will be. 

[bebenodd]

Post Grad - Month 4.5

i don't know why i've decided to chronicle my post grad mishaps and misery just now, but i guess it holds true to the ultimate feelings of uselessness one develops once the purpose of life is stripped from you. sure. i was waiting for this moment. every student begs for the moment they are no longer a student. then you have it. freedom. so much freedom. too much freedom. like a never-ending shelf of options after options after options your favorite flavors times ten. except. these flavors are god damn awful. they taste dull and you'd rather not even bother taking another bag off the shelf. so you just stand there. in the isle of options till your eyeballs eject themselves from looking at all the wretched options for so long. and there you are standing in a puddle of your melted eyeballs and quickly but surely, you are that long lost character from The Lawrence of Arabia being sucked into quick sand, the quick sand of your tears and melted eyeballs. Gone you are into the abyss of post grad hell. "aw man i can't wait to graduate.. i neeeed to graduate. I MUST GRADUATE" well. you were wrong self. this is why every older person at that family party was saying "what's the rush?" yeah. cause now, you dumbass, now you have ~**responsibility**~ get a damn paycheck with that BEAUTIFUL degree you've gotten yourself. one would think one would have a myriad of options to toss one's self into once one declares oneself a film major. ONE WOULD THINK. as in one person. one dumb person as in myself. oh i prided myself in exclaiming to people's remarks "so you're going to make movies?" NO dear lord the FILM industry is MORE than just production. please. *sits on high horse goes on about jobs in distribution and how one could WRITE about film. ah yes the desire to write and to renown for being so and so who is a scholar in such and such. ... well that dream is FAR far out of one's reach. never to aim. it is better to have never wasted THIS much money trying and failing. and as we talk about writing. i have lost all motivation to continue this rant such is definition of post grad. the loss of motivation to do ANYTHING at all. and there you lay one malady after another with some weight gain. great. times. post grad life. great times. -more on lack of motivation soon. ... lest i can't muster up the motivation to write more. ..

[bebenodd]

for the next few days (or weeks or whatever)...

if i actually decide to write something, it will be filed under 

'post grad ramblings' or the post grad journal

or post grad diaries something completely seeped in patheticness to elaborate more on my patheticness. 

[bebenodd]

12/26/12

It was the sound of a single ring that slowly turned into four consecutive beeps, "Hello?" The other end answered, in a voice so familiar I forgot  what it meant to talk again. It was an old friend. We had gone seeing each other five times a week to five times a year. I'm stubborn and not the best at keeping in touch with people lest they make the first approach, be it text, email, facebook message, whatever, to keep in contact with me. This particular friend was old school. She liked telephone calls. I liked telephone calls, but I was, still am, too full of myself to make the first call in what had been months. 

Time had finally opened up for me and it had been days on end of deliberation whether or not I should call her. When I did, my ears were taken aback. I felt as though I had never heard a dial tone before. Why did it sound so weird? Was it always this high pitched? The beeps have gotten shorter. Is this going to voicemail? "Hello?" The other end answered. 

I can't say we have much of the same interests. A biology degree is pretty far from a film degree, but I like telephone calls and so did Allison and we both had a lot to say. It felt reassuring and safe to me that no matter the different degrees, life choices, interests, etc, we were still stuck in the same boat: 20's, lost, but planning. We talked for an hour and a half, catching up, recollecting as per usual on past lives from high school and the like. 

Allison is the only friend who calls, who still knows what a telephone is. She doesn't have a facebook, not really into email, texts every now and then and doesn't really bother with shit blogs like this. There's something admirable about that. We all used to say, "She should just get a facebook. It's so much easier for us." And it is easier. But who likes people who always get the easy way out? I always used to think she should get a facebook, but I more and more respect her decision not to.

I still talk to some friends here and there on the phone, but most times we're desperately going through a rough patch or one has the urge to really hear that voice on the phone again, like the old days. It's never really followed up by a phone call in a week or a month, or whenever the next phone call will be because there's no need to when we're already saturated by each others' lives at a distance from facebook, twitter, tumblr, email, and text. We're already connected, caught up...I saw that photo you posted with you and your boyfriend, you and your college friends at that bar, at that place somewhere in that nowhere. You saw my status update, liked the video I linked and photo I posted on your wall.

There's really no need for a telephone call anymore. Granted, who has the time anymore? If it wasn't vacation how could anyone ever set aside an hour and a half to talk like old times, like when the phone was red, and attached by a chord in the kitchen and I had to stay in that one spot hoping my parents wouldn't hear our dorky conversations about nothing. 

It's 2012, I'm 21 and I lament the fact that friends have become so disjointed; that the cliched saying "I'm only a phone call away" has died completely. It's only through a phone call you can hear how old the person on the other end has become. We see the facebook facade of how they want the rest of the world to see them, and we read the private message of how they have these kind of stresses in their lives, and that kind of a job prospect ahead of them. But it's only after that dial tone can you hear how much they've really been through without them even having to say it all. 

[bebenodd]

The in Betweens.

I had seen this woman before. 

Many times before. 

& it was this time, last year...

she was always on my morning commute,

we'd wait for the E train together,

jam into the sardine can &

smile at one another knowingly.

we didn't mean to smush each other.

It was a typical NY morning

& after not seeing each other for several months...

here she was again. 

Same woman. 

I'd never forget.

She had those same red tinted glasses.

...we made no indication that we recognized 

each other from another time. 

I wondered if she remember me.

"This station is Westbury"

She got off.

We lived in teh same town.

We had seen each other many times before,

but we never spoke. 

...and this is living on the in betweens of New York and Long Island

[bebenodd]

you don't always need the comfort of the sun to know that it's there for you

[bebenodd]

I've been poisoned in the mind by thoughts of you. 

[bebenodd]

he left me to rot in the vile that is my heart

[bebenodd]

when are you going to write something else damnit. i need something to keep me going!!!

OH

[bebenodd]

i plan on doing nothing with no one

that's why i loved you.

[bebenodd]

dear bebe, why are you so awesome?

YES. thank you thank you, I will take this as a compliment (+ fan mail). Utter joy & happiness  :)

[bebenodd]

the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me

“The nicest thing anyone has ever done for me was draping a blanket over me when I was sleeping…” she said looking at the two eager faces peering above their coffee cups with such vicarious intent.

“Aww… which boyfriend was this Liz, you never told us!” said the blonde sitting on the left.

Her other friend sitting next to her rolled her eyes,“Boyfriend? It kind of sounds like something any dad would do…”

Liz stared at the floor and slowly unraveled the rest of her rather obvious anti-climactic love scene, “it was by a male flight attendant… I think I had asked him for a blanket but it took him so long to come back with it, I had just dozed off, then I remember him coming over and saying “Miss”, but I didn’t get up, so he opened the blanket and laid it on top of me. He didn’t know that I was actually kind of awake. I’m a light sleeper, you both know that.  I was impressed that someone who never knew me could do something so sweet for me.”

There was a brief pause, the blonde smiled at her while her other friend, Lily broke the silence “it’s his job.”

 Jen shook her head furiously, “No. He didn’t have to open it and lay it on top of her. He opened it, unfolded it and laid it on top of her. That’s sweet.” She rubbed Liz’s shoulder reassuringly.

Liz slumped over her coffee cup, slowly looked up and Lucy was sure that her longtime friend would at any moment now burst into tears with those big brown eyes of hers. But instead her ears met a long, monotonous sigh that turned out to be much more awkward than Liz probably intended it on being.

Lily broke out laughing.

“You suck. You’re right. The nicest thing anyone anyone has ever done for me was so that he could keep the money flowing into his pocket. Why have all the men in my life been so terrible to me?” Liz chugged the last bit of her coffee down like it was a shot of tequila.

“Oh stop brooding so much Liz I hate seeing you like this,” Jen brushed her blonde stringy hair into a ponytail and gave Lily a reprimanding glance.

 “Don’t look at me like that. I didn’t start this. I had nothing to do with this.” She turned to completely face Liz. “Two boyfriends can hardly count as all the men in your life… actually those two can barely even count as men. One of them was gay.”

“And he was the better of the two.”

Jen peeked at her watch, “At least you still go shopping with each other. Listen I’d love to stick around but I gotta start heading back now. Sorry guys. Same time next week?” 

--

don't really know where i'm headed with this.. if you have any advice on what i could do with it, or if it's even entertaining enough that would be of much help :)

[bebenodd]

this blog is awesome :D

YES! first positive feedback (from my best friend of course..still doesn't make it any less awesome) 

thanks youu :D

[bebenodd]

sneak peak inside my film moleskine :)

[bebenodd]

All the things, all the stuff, all the items we acquire in life ... we eventually end up having to throw away. It meant something to us at one point in our lives, but now, it's a new point, or .. just the point you realize you don't need it anymore. It's just taking up space. 

...

The same could be said about the people in our lives. We go through some, discard the ones that don't entertain us anymore and find new ones.