gratefulness

is the warm calming of restlessness that transpires
when you see a familiar face
at precisely the right moment
to keep you from breaking. And gratefulness is
in exchanges--languages--
that face---until time becomes
immeasurable again.

Alabama, Arkansas

I finally came home.

oh, brother! birthday!

(I am shocked and shocked again, by all the beautiful people in my life).

Gary is totally cheesing here. Love it. (Also, Gary! proof! You really love Frances!):
Tim monopolizing my sister :) (just kidding, Tim):
I am a whole awkward head above Ashley:
This photo sums up our relationship perfectly:

Oh, brother! birthday! (photos) by Leslie Albanese is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

on Libraries, Cayle Adams, and Neil Young.

One of These Days
from Neil Young's Harvest Moon.

One of these days,
I'm gonna sit down and write a long letter
To all the good friends I've known
And I'm gonna try
And thank them all for the good times together.
Though so apart we've grown.

One of these days,
I'm gonna sit down and write a long letter
To all the good friends I've known
One of these days, one of these days, one of these days,
And it won't be long, it won't be long.

And I'm gonna thank,
That old country fiddler
And all those rough boys
Who play that rock 'n' roll
I never tried to burn any bridges
Though I know I let some good things go.

One of these days,
I'm gonna sit down and write a long letter
To all the good friends I've known

One of these days, one of these days, one of these days,
And it won't be long, it won't be long.

From down in L.A.
All the way to Nashville,
From New York City
To my Canadian prairie home
My friends are scattered
Like leaves from an old maple.
Some are weak, some are strong.

One of these days,
I'm gonna sit down and write a long letter
To all the good friends I've known
One of these days, one of these days, one of these days,
And it won't be long, it won't be long.

One of these days, one of these days, one of these days,
And it won't be long, it won't be long.

flashes of a radiohead generation.

departure/suspension/missing.

Sometimes i look at old photographs, and swear I don't recognize my own face.
and I know my weight fluctuates and my hair is always different and lately I've been make-up free, but that's not it really--
it's the eyes.
the eyes are different.

and maybe all I've got is change and maybe we're all scattering and--
oh, safe travels.

Yeah, I'll dig a tunnel, from my window to yours.

A series of fairly unflattering photographs.

(proof that we really do love each other):

over a decade of brother/sister/sister/brother.

photos by Leslie Albanese is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Title from Arcade Fire's "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)"

new year.

new year. (photo series). by Leslie Albanese is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

"he was a good guy, but he had the laugh of a bad guy"

Cheese Manicotti, Stuffed Roasted Artichokes, and Fried Breaded Eggplant will be the most decadent, most artery-clogging Christmas Eve Feast. Ever. (Albanese style).

These past 3 days, I've enjoyed the likes of Ms. Molly Shea, Ms. Ericka Mobley, Mr. Gary Alan Bearden (+ Marina!!!), Mr. Alex Williams-Witzky, Mr. Shaun Thomas, and my newly engaged Canine Best Friends who are coming over tomorrow, too, for some Torres-inspired Pizza. Word on the street is: it's the kind of pizza that gets you free cab rides for life. Oh yes, and family. One could say I've been enjoying my family.

Here are some truisms:
1. my gas tank is low
2. my wallet is thin
3. my future is vague
4. but I'm surrounded by folks with captivating laughs.
5. and in a non-fatalist sort of way: I feel (more than a little) fortunate

Sometimes, I swear, it all comes down to mirrors and lenses.

crowded.

Thanks, Tim Xie, for sharing these photographs.

Drew is totally a creeper in this one:
This break is surely killing me. But only a little.

"sleeping with the enemy"

I couldn't sleep last night (a combination of the coffee-milkshake I drank with my Panera dinner--a bad idea that left me jived--, the looming "wherethehelldoIgofromhere" anxiety that I've been effectively--or maybe last night proved not-so-effectively--avoiding, and, at the risk of hyperbole, some "emotional turmoil" from supposedly caring too damn much). Is that even possible? To care too damn much, I mean? It's like being in some lonely camp all by myself: the caring corner. And it just feels like no one else gives a damn and they all just look at me and say, "give it up, Les," but how can I? Why are there not more people caring? And why are the apathetic always making me feel like an isolationist?

[I'm not usually this sinister, but being stuck in Central Ohio is making me go loony (no pun intended this time)]. And I don't want to live a mental separatism. So what do I do? I write about it. But inevitably my writing becomes all cryptic and abstract until it, too, becomes its own separatism--my own linguistic world that no one else can fully reside in, that no one can truly enter. A defense mechanism, maybe. And a subconscious one, at that. I'm not one for dishonesty. I couldn't live a double life if I tried (though I'd never try). And yet I feel torn between two wholly contrasting feelings separating my being. I love people. I do. I love them. And I love being with people. And I love serving people. And am shocked and shocked again by the number of people who have reciprocally blessed my life. It's humbling, really-- the number of people who care. (look how contradictory I'm being). But there's this side of me that feels totally alone, even when I'm in a room full of people who love me. Because my mind is somewhere else--some unreachable place--and because, despite my rationality, I'm ultimately moved by feeling over logic every time--and I cannot fully understand or articulate these feelings or the flashes in my mind (usually not even complete sentences) and consequently lose my ability to share (despite my hopeless earnestness) the fundamental-most part of me.

"I am the cat who walks by [her]self..."

My mind's been flashing with: gender binaries, and parasites, and lions, and "Eating from the Outside" vs "Eating from the Inside," and the social construction of "enemy camps", and how complicated they are, and Eichmann, and institutional compliance, which quickly becomes complacency, and the conjunctive relationship between interior and exterior threats-to-being, and rats, and bodies, and violence against said bodies--sometimes using rats, and bullying, and the way the new Sufjan song made me feel all angsty like the sleigh-bells were saying "consumerismconsumerismconsumerism," and my own inability to let go...

All-the-while flashing with: my parents' good natures, and The Christopher Spirit, and milk-crates, and this Pitchfork interview with Jeff Mangum, and the farm, and community, and collective identity, and the way it can be a positive thing with conscious participation, and Cornel West, and language, and what that really means, and whether or not art really can be the ultimate revolution, and knowing that love really does exist, and...

And this is all occurring while my white middle class privilege comfortably manifests: in my friend's apartment, eating chocolate chip cookies, drinking orange juice, and watching The Office (season 3). If this were satire, I could appreciate the irony like a good ugly sweater party. And maybe this is satire after all. Maybe I've got you (and myself) fooled, and I'm living "Behind Enemy Lines." Maybe I'm taking myself too seriously. And maybe I'm becoming an ego-maniac. Maybe I'm not.

"sleeping with the enemy" by Leslie Albanese is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.