a brief history of why i dropped out of college in 2017

ever since getting cut off from my bennington college email / library resources i have been doing some thinking. a few people have requested that i write something about my unique (short but sweet) stint at bennington college. my time at this school is hard to put into words, but i'm going to try and paint a picture of what it was like to be there in the best way i can.

it's mildly interesting, at the very least for people who have gone to this school, so i'll dig in.

i don't know anyone (so far) who has graduated from this school (without a medical leave of absence for mental health) who isn't crazy. i mean, to be fair, i don't know everyone who has graduated from this school. but my research shows that there are at least a lot of conditions and social/cultural norms on campus that would shape anyone into a bonafide freak after being there for four entire years of their young adulthood.

there are a lot of undeniable reasons as to why i would still be thinking about this place after leaving about two years ago. i'm friends on facebook with a good bit of alumni and/or people who also eventually dropped out and it seems like everyone is still hung up on this place.

first things first, there were approximately 800 students in total when i was there. my freshmen class was the largest they had ever introduced in the college's history, which is probably a big reason why i was accepted there in the first place. they're really trying to expand the school, which is odd considering the general selling points are the really tailored individual attention and small professor to student ratios.

now, let's get a little backstory on my personal experience applying and eventually, moving to vermont to attend this school. i applied to three or four schools in total - and surprisingly got into all of them. bennington was not my first choice school at all but the universe works in strange ways and i ended up there somehow. in high school, i knew a couple of people who were either attending bennington or had recently graduated — these people seemed deeply affected and generally deranged when talking about the school, both to me directly and publicly. this was definitely a red flag. nevertheless i drunkenly submitted a powerpoint about myself stating that i had written for 'rookie mag' as my application. i only applied to fancy art girl colleges because i never took the SAT lol. i went into the test and forgot my calculator. naturally i backed out because i knew my scores most likely would have been subpar for the math portion to begin with. i am so silly, but this is just how it played out. thankfully there were fancy art girl colleges to fall back on, as they did not require standardized test scores. this was a big win for gays everywhere.

obviously they loved the powerpoint about me and offered me a lot of money in scholarships, grants, and loans. financially this school made the most sense compared to moving to berlin, for example. (haha)

imagine every alt teenager in a wealthy or famous family in nyc and la. drop them off in rural vermont, and tell them to be artists. imagine them all wearing carhartt and blundstones with an ego. now imagine being a normal person living amongst that. i'm not making this post in order to talk pejoratively about bennington students, that's redundant and boring at this point. i met people at this institution that honestly changed my life in a lot of ways and will probably be friends with until the end of time. it's the general culture and intensity of the school itself that sped up such a strong bonding process with these people though, and that's what i'd like to write about. you're absolutely not the same person after going to and eventually leaving this school. i don't say this lightly, it really is a cult in a lot of ways. (i highly recommend reading the secret history by donna tartt if you haven't already, it's based on bennington.)

i'd like to divide this post up in a few different sections:

1. environment 
2. students and culture
3. supernatural occurrences 

1. environment

bennington was started up in 1932. it was originally a women's college but eventually became co-ed in 1969. and in 2010 they stopped allowing students to smoke inside of the large colonial houses we all shared. the school is still mostly women, and students still smoke inside of the houses quite often. as a freshmen you are placed into one of these large colonial houses based on your personality - yes, kind of like the sorting hat in harry potter. it is no surprise that i was placed into one of the most chaotic households available to live in on campus. the house was called "stokes" - it was originally called the stokes-sanford house, named by the socialist lesbian pioneer power couple (helen phelps stokes and mary sanford) who built the house in 1935. there's no 'real' evidence to support that they were in love but look at this photo of them: 

“Helen Stokes and Mary Sanford probably met sometime around 1905 and became lifetime companions, sharing homes, travel, and a strong commitment to socialist politics and improved pay and working conditions for women. They organized support for women on picket lines, and Stokes became known for going to court with women strikers who were arrested and paying their fines for them … A Stokes relative  … [said] that the two women ‘went everywhere together,’ and that Sanford showed up at all the Stokes family gatherings ‘whether she was invited or not.’ ” 

isn't that so cute? 

stokes house was not as cute more recently. i actually loved my housemates but the slogan that is still to this day associated with this house (and coined by this house) is just "a good place to sh*t and f*ck." the house has caught on fire multiple times from people trying to light cigarettes off of the stove. it's really hard for me to remember one person that didn't accumulate multiple bills due to destruction of the property each term too. there were a lot of dudes who chain smoked that lived there, and by proxy a lot of holes in the wall. these were not your typical 'pent up anger' types, these were emotionally liberated men who still didn't know how to channel their feelings in a healthy way. they sure did know how to justify punching holes in the wall and manipulate everyone into thinking it was radical expression/catharsis though.  

the house has had a reputation for being filled with crazy asses for a long time now. i think this alum who used to live there put it best, "i know nothing about the house anymore but have a feeling people aren’t literally ripping toilets out of walls and throwing them into hallways once a week. "

the environment is generally charming as far as architecture and history are concerned. actually living in it and breathing it in every day is a bit different though. the isolation of troy, new york being the nearest sign of cosmopolitan civilization off-campus was kind of grueling for most people, and as a result everyone was depressed. i did enjoy driving with friends to go buy poppers in troy, new york though. road trips were essential and thankfully my best friend at the time was the proud owner of a toyota rav-4, and a devout lesbian separatist who loved to drive. 

honestly, driving around with friends in upstate new york is what saved me from this institution. i am very thankful that i was able to sing carly rae jepsen and fiona apple at the top of my lungs in the mountains. 

so yeah, deep isolation, depression, and driving 4 hours to go to a waffle house. escapism... <3 

capiche? 

all of the classes were either held in this big red barn, a haunted mansion, or a three million dollar marble cube with japanese soaking tubs. the three million dollar marble cube is where the radio station was so i liked it there. the haunted mansion scared the sh*t out of me so i only went in there one time. and the big red barn caught on fire after i left the school. i think it's okay now though. 

at the time i thought i wanted to continue doing journalism, something i didn't feel immense attachment to, but had experience in. i think this paralleled with my relationship to men too.  

& because of the whole journalism thing (despite not having any majors, just a big paper you write at the end of your time there about your niche) i never had a single class in the arts building, but if i had to describe it in a similar way to the other buildings on campus i would say it's a big glass house. the best word i could use to describe the campus on a whole would be "panopticon" actually. 

all of the big colonial houses faced each other down the entire street. you could see into every house from yours. & all of the windows of each individual house point inwards towards each other. every day you could look outside of your window and see someone kicking around in their blundstones or danskos. and because there were only 800 people on campus more likely than not you'd had sex with them before. 

this brings us to the next chapter of this blog post.

2. students and culture

thankfully i never f*cked anyone while i was at bennington. (queen of long distance relationships.) 

i can only imagine what that must've been like to deal with on top of everything else. i do have a lot of commentary on the general 'hook-up' culture at bennington though as an outsider looking in. (panopticon... i had to grind for this view.) 

when i was initially looking into the school there were two things i knew about it:

1. it was ranked number 4 on a listicle of colleges with "pills everywhere." 

2. there were historically a lot of sex parties and mysterious orgies from what i gathered in my research. 

these two things turned out to be true to some extent. i'd have to say that the school could've been ranked #1 for "pills everywhere" if we were including SSRIs. other than that there was really only one or two drug dealers on campus. the one i knew better was named "nathan" and i think he was a townie who got things delivered from the dark web to sell to the elite drug crazed millennial transplants of southwestern vermont. when you're in the middle of nowhere it's easy to say yes to any drug. it was very clear that most of the first year students were already really into drugs and interested in trying anything too. one of my first nights there i ended up babysitting a guy from western massachusetts who did an eight ball of speed and got locked out of his room. we scrolled through etsy for a really long time, chain smoked, and debated politics despite it being 6am or something. i really didn't like that guy very much but as i got to know him better he turned out to actually just be an alcoholic who needed some help. regardless, his politics were whack... 

as i was saying though - nathan definitely had some drugs. i think i smoked a strain of weed called "blackberry train wreck" from him. this was back when my tolerance was incredibly low and i could make a gram last a month. i would roll a tiny amount of weed with mugwort and lavender before bed which would help with my nightmares, which i liked. nathan had more nefarious wares though, which thankfully i never got into. one of my closest friends bought what was supposed to be molly from him and ended up coming out of a khole in the middle of doing a poetry reading like a week after taking it. i can only imagine... 

my point is that everyone was doing drugs. a lot of them. it's vermont... live a little. 

everyone was sad, everyone was partying. and the school itself acknowledged this fact and embraced it. we had school sanctioned house parties every friday where a copious amount of breadsticks and water bottles were provided by administration for us to have - along with a huge sound system. this was called "the party pack." 

now, onto the next emotion. everyone was having sex with each other. to the point where it was borderline incestuous. it seemed like everyone just wanted to feel something, as goofy as that sounds. just the underlying sadness behind the party culture at this school really was something to behold, and hard not to absorb to some extent when you're there. and obviously as a result of that there was a lot of non-consensual and generally alarming sex happening. it was almost as if people were just taking out all of their pain on others, sexually. someone literally bit off someone else's tongue. that's not a story i can make up, ya know? 

so pair this behavior with the cancel culture etiquette and identity politics of 2017 at a school recognized for it's progressive views internationally (this is a period piece) - what you get is relentless obstruction. of every aspect of student life. everyone was kind of just stumbling around trying to learn what was right and wrong, and as a result were just getting hurt and traumatized by each other left and right. i think this was hard to watch for me personally because i've been involved in my city's diy music scene since i was in 7th grade and have witnessed many-a-cancellation. the difference between dealing with sexual assault at bennington (and what ultimately left me constantly feeling defeated about the climate surrounding it) vs. the diy scene was the environment. it's so f*cking isolated. there are only two classrooms in the three million dollar marble cube building - you're going to see your rapist on the way to class. you're going to see your friend's rapist on the way to class too. if that doesn't make you feel terrible every day then i don't know what would. in atlanta, you can at least avoid people. in addition to the campus being small and in the middle of nowhere bennington was undergoing renovations when i was going there. as a result, there was only one place to eat on campus so everyone was having to see their rapist as if it was government sanctioned trauma time. naturally, title ix violations were being called out and protested over. the administration was really touchy about the subject and wouldn't do very much to help because they wanted to keep appearances up for the potential incoming students. imagine a gaggle of lanky 17 year olds constantly touring campus amidst this chaos, starry eyed, thinking about becoming the next bret easton ellis. 

i'm not even going to attempt to unpack the mental health crisis at bennington college in this post, i'm sure you can imagine it's severity to some extent. 

i really think anyone who is able to stay at this school and make it work for them is extremely powerful. like i really do admire everyone's dedication to the hustle. at the heart of it i don't think it's a bad place. academically it was hot, the resources were incredible. i think the classes i had there were really interesting and special. i do wish i had taken advantage of the resources there when i was on campus though, there was so much creative equipment you could just rent and keep in your dorm for personal use. like a library but with musical equipment. there were both longstanding professors and visiting ones from better colleges. the professors were good overall, but i was not there for long, so i didn't get to know too many professors very well. but i did have a hot visiting professor from barnard. she taught a class called "kafka and beckett." that's all we read in this class. it was great, we put on an 'avant garde' production of 'waiting for godot.' & the professor loved my creative suggestion of having everyone recite their lines while playing twister. then she recorded it on her iphone and couldn't stop smiling about how great she thought the production came together. sadly she has still not accepted my facebook friend request. this does not sound like a real college class, i'm fully aware of this. 

also all of the professors lived on campus inside of the big colonial houses with the students so this was a really strange dynamic. the visiting professors from better colleges would stay in the big three million dollar marble cube with japanese soaking tubs. strange hierarchy. my house was too insane for any professor to want to live in. ("a bad place to sh*t and f*ck.") and as a result i ended up living in one of the huge professor 'apartments' built into the big colonials. there was a fireplace and so much natural light. it was really a beautiful room. every dorm at bennington was pretty ideal i think. each dorm came equipped with a perfect white wall and beautiful sunlight cascading down an angel olsen (or something similar) poster on that wall, really pretty. my issue with the dorms were that they were haunted.

3. supernatural occurrences 

ok, here's the fun part!
before i get into my personal experiences regarding the supernatural during my time at bennington it's important to get the rundown on the area, the campus, and the lore that existed long before my time.

first things first: the bennington triangle
scoot over bermuda triangle...
this triangle of land is centered around glastenbury mountain - a mountain indigenous people literally would not go to. after many hours of research on this subject in the crossett library late at night i can conclude that the people who lived in the area back then were all in agreement that the boulders on glastenbury mountain ate people - on god. apparently they used to just like dump bodies there too? did they think the rocks would just take care of the dirty work? i'm not really sure.
so glastenbury mountain is known to be freaky, historically speaking.
& the main towns surrounding glastenbury mountain that are considered to be within the bennington triangle are...

• bennington (duh)
• woodford 
• shaftbury 
• somerset

i put them in a bulletined list because these town names are so 'new england old money' and regal sounding.  

anyway, so within this triangle in southwestern vermont people just... vanished. between 1920 and 1950.  here's a really funny article outlining what went down. it's a really funny article because of the website it was published to, and because whoever wrote it was writing about these cases in such a way that is just... funny to me. i can't explain it. it's almost like a narrator on a haunted trolley tour or something.  

apparently the bennington triangle is also a hotbed for ufo and big foot sightings? i never really got into any of that and can't really give my opinion. what i'll say is this though. 

the energy of this location... is heavy yet ethereal. and stepping foot on campus was like having a grand piano dropped on my body from the top floor of a building, like in a cartoon. this is the best way i can describe it at the moment. allegedly the three points/'winds' of this triangle meet somewhere near this hill on bennington's campus, directly next to my house there. this hill is called "the end of the world" - i did not make that up, that's just what it's called and referred to as by the school. 

here is one of my favorite photos of this spot:

it's so pretty even though it's not in color.

"the end of the world" is named appropriately i think. most of the high level spiritual / supernatural occurrences that i know from my time there have been linked to this hill in some way.

before i get into the more serious things i experienced as a result of being here i'd like to give a quick play by play of some of my favorite, more lighthearted ghost moments while i was at bennington.

my favorite ghost on campus was definitely whatever was in emily's dorm room. she had a good rapport with this entity for the most part but it really was like... such a sneaky poltergeist. she had a funny name for it but i really can't remember what it was, i'll have to ask her and update this post.
this ghost straight up used to just throw dishes and knick knacks off of her shelves into the middle of the floor while she was just sitting in there. emily's response was just "stop..." like it was so normal and casual. another good story involving this particular ghost was when emily and i were both in her room vibing. i left the room for a minute to go down the hall and when i returned the door was locked. but not just locked, like jammed shut. emily had not gotten up since i left the room and could not open the door from inside. we basically had to kick down the door just to get her out. we tried to debunk it, but just couldn't. the houses are old obviously but the doors were sturdy and generally free of hardware related issues.
my main reason for speaking so nonchalantly about how haunted this school happens to be is to make the point that this was really kind of just part of the experience and you got used to it by being there everyday. i don't think most people can say that they had to actively keep the perimeter of their room salted and sealed in order to write a paper in peace without paranormal interference. i only ever had a few packages delivered to the school, a large shipment of sage, a stick of selenite, black celtic sea salt, and a vibrator.

so let's get into it.

my dorm in particular...
i mentioned before that it was a very beautiful room, and i still stand by that statement. it was incredibly picturesque and spacious, two things most people would not say about a dorm room. it was supposed to be a room for three people to live in together but it was just me and vale :) who i love.
the room had its own private entrance and mudroom area. one time some sort of repair guy came in through the door while vale and i were in bed in our damn pajamas and that was jarring but not supernatural.

while living in this room i had some of the worst nightmares, i can't even really begin to describe them. but i always woke up out of these hellish eyelid movies at 5am on the dot no matter what. to preface all of this i'd like to say that despite appearances i don't have any mental health issues and am a generally happy person. never had any issues with nightmares or even sleep paralysis really. i sleep like a little baby most nights, so this happening was really odd for me. & if i slept in anyone else's room i did not have these problems.
i'm going to copy & paste someone else's account of what they experienced in my dorm room when they lived there just to get you into the general headspace of where i'm about to go with this story.

"so yeah, beyond the broader fuckedupness of the school, i consistently had a feeling of some kind of malevolent being, that would sort of try to come to me in a countdown if that makes any sense? like i'd be lying in bed or walking across campus and i would start to get the impression of a countdown in my head "5...4...3...2..." and if i didn't like set up a pretty forceful block by the time i got to 1, i had the feeling it would be BAD. this sounds like mental illness / ocd certainly, and while i definitely have anxiety/depression stuff, it never manifested like that, and i have never experienced anything like it since, even though i often go into very sacred/"haunted"/thin places. the experiences i had there felt very different. it was a very certain thing, and i have an image in my head of what this entity looked like, though i never saw it. one time i had to run to my door, close my eyes and scream "GO AWAY" down the hall. it tended to happen most when i was closest to the end of the world. so when i lived in stokes, or was walking along the wall at night, or near that little bench near noyes. have you ever seen the film "picnic at hanging rock"? if not, i really suggest it. it really is the closest media i've ever seen that represents the feeling i had at bennington, specifically past the end of the world. i had a few encounters like where there was just this intangible pressure, like if the sound of cicadas was a feeling."

i had a lot of similar things happen to me, the counting down in the head specifically - i don't get angry very easily but as the counting down was happening i could feel myself getting... mad. at nothing! this was awful and not on brand. so keep this in mind while i tell you this story:

in september of 2017 (this was before i really knew what the f*ck was going on at this place as i had just moved there.) i booked my friend's band from atlanta to play at stokes while they were touring, generally it was a good time but one strange thing did happen that i took note of. after playing the show and spending the night in stokes we all took a walk to the end of the world to take pictures the next morning because it was so pretty, and one of the band members seemed kind of off in how she was acting. she was normally quite bubbly but in this moment she seemed quiet and introspective, not really present in the moment. without saying anything she darted over the hill at the end of the world and just ... ran up that hill. ran so far that we couldn't see her anymore. we were all confused/slightly concerned with what was happening. after some time she came back with a bunch of wildflowers in her hand and the same glazed over expression she had earlier, prior to her swift departure over a hill called "the end of the world." she seemed generally 'okay' so we just carried on and didn't think much of it.
little did i know that one day i would feel 'guided' to run up the damn hill in a very similar manner.

in october of 2017 i went bonkers, y'all!
what happens next will shock you!

pov: you're me in my dorm vibing with a very anxious dog named "bones" who you're dog sitting. it's definitely dark out, probably around 8:30 or 9pm. you're literally wearing like... slip on house shoes. there's no time like the present to just go out into the night without a jacket (i swear to god i think i was wearing my taz sweatshirt) and walk this dog? a calm dog that was in no need of a walk. i was having a little countdown moment and felt like i was supposed to just go over the hill, and over the hill i went. no flashlight, nothing. no offense to the nature of vermont but i was scared to be alone in it, it's really something that overtakes you. so i'm walking through the mud in my house shoes, picking flowers, talking to this dog like it's a person. i was not in the right headspace to receive any information other than whatever the malevolent forces of this psychic hellscape wanted me to. i met some old man who lived over the hill and his two identical dogs that had fur the same color as my hair. he was like "why are you out this late without a flashlight?" and i was like "i don't really know." this man, who sounds like a hallucination based off of how i described him was actually the reality check i needed to go the f*ck home. on my walk back i remember feeling really light and giddy for some reason, like almost skipping back home holding my flowers - eager to put them in a little vase.
that night i got a lot of reading done and felt pretty good.

no one really locked their doors because it was vermont and there were thirty of us to a house, but after getting ready to go to bed and turning off the lights and everything i felt this really strong intuitive knowing at around 2am that i needed to lock all of the doors that night. and thank god some angel whispered that idea into my ear because 5am struck and all hell broke loose in that dorm room.
this nightmare that i woke up from in a cold sweat involved me hearing incredibly aggressive knocking and banging on my doors and windows simultaneously. i felt really scared in the dream, petrified even. guess what the f*ck i woke up to at 5? absolutely relentless knocking and banging on every window in the room, every door. at once! the knocks were in threes which is apparently like, a demonic thing. very scary! the door handles were being jiggled as if someone was trying to get in at any cost. i saw the handles move with my own two eyes. vale was an incredibly heavy sleeper who didn't believe in ghosts. they didn't wake up until around 6:30 or so, kind of dismissed what was going on and then went back to bed because they were so tired. i have no idea how they were able to do this but i wish i could've been able to lol. (the knocking went on for at least three hours.) i looked out the windows to see if this was like... a prank or something? not a soul in sight! i mean it sounded like the FBI was trying to knock down the damn door. this was loud! about thirty minutes into this cacophony of noise the knocking is not only coming from the door that went directly outside but was now coming from inside of my mudroom. this is when i finally forced myself to move and attempt to call campus security. that's right — attempt. as soon as i got a hold of my phone it completely fried and would not even turn on. so i'm like okay, f*ck. let's email campus security on my laptop? got my laptop and opened it up. screen went completely black and just started making this god awful beeping / alarm noise that i had never heard it make before. by 8am i had tried to convince myself that i was actually just going insane / if vale was able to sleep through it then i should've been able to as well. i was so tired from being scared that i was able to sleep out of pure exhaustion. i woke up around 9am and the knocking had stopped (thank god) - my phone and laptop were still both out of commission but vale was able to contact campus security. and do you know what the f*ck they said to me when i told them what happened? "must've been the ghosts. this dorm has had issues in the past with them." like ...??? alright. thanks for letting me know kings <3
and then what? then i went to go and take a shower and i was covered in bruises!!!!!!!!!!!! bruises! my inner thighs were covered in bruises!
that day i posted something to the effect of "my dorm room is haunted" on facebook, which prompted the girl who had originally run up that hill / made a deal with god to reach out and tell me what she felt up there. everything tracked and was very similar, but i did not expect to receive photos of bruises on her inner thighs that looked nearly identical to mine.
this is always something that will freak me out.

i'm grateful for this happening because while i generally understood some concepts of 'otherworldly' occurrences i had never experienced anything so forward like that. it was scary as sh*t, don't get me wrong. especially because all of this happened soon after our house had a themed party that was blatantly satanic (we had 'hail satan' written on this huge antique mirror in our common room and i was dressed as a nun shooting liquor into people's mouths via ketchup and mustard squirt bottles.) i remember someone being like, "hey can we erase the big 'hail satan' in the common room i feel weird about it... the energy is off." but as soon as it was erased it got even worse and i think that's incredibly scary.

there are a lot of things i can't explain, and a lot of things i don't know! the unknown is freaky but this is my personal experience with it.


as you can tell this school is what really cemented my nicotine addiction


this is by far the most feral and insane blog post i've written to date so i'm sure there are some plot holes. wrote this at an ungodly hour.
so, if you have any questions i am happy to answer them in the comments section. xx :) peace n love

p.s
if anyone is craving more ghost stories here are some of lizzy's experiences, outlined in a google doc entitled "spectral ethnographies — a psycho-geographic handbook for the bennington eldritch"  i don't think she ever finished it but there are some good stories in there.

airing out my dirty laundry! < 3

two provocative sentences from my inner monologue today include...

"i wouldn't mind if jennifer from cadet kelly (2002) called me a maggot."
"my room smells like burning sage and hot wax. (this is not sexual.)"

i think a major part of lesbian culture might just be getting horned up over subtle and poetic things like... the wind. or maybe like the way some drapery looks. if you know, you know. this isn't an outwardly lesbian example but in the coming of age netflix original series "pen15", one of the main characters definitely flicks her bean to a photo of some volcano or a desert from her textbook. and didn't jenny slate say she jerked off to the moon? i wish people would be honest about these things publicly more often.

recently my camera roll has been mainly comprised of sexy paintings of women, and for some reason having these on my phone makes me feel kind of dirty. i don't, like, jerk off to them or anything generally sinful but i do admire them sometimes and i'll admit it, i am alone when i do this. maybe that is even worse than just jerking off to them. i don't really know or care to think about it too intensely because i will start feeling bad about 'objectifying' the women from 1876 or whenever these various paintings were conceived and birthed.

i think if i knew what everyone was turned on by i would have unstoppable power.

recently i charged a stranger on reddit seventy dollars for a tarot reading regarding fetishes and it made them cry. maybe i already know what everyone is turned on by and i just don't work on that ability as much as i could. untapped potential.

it's strange, i feel fairly in tune with my body. like i'll say it - i'm a very sensual person. i don't have issues with this. i think i'm more in alignment with the general energy of sex vs. the act itself in realtime, at least so far in my experience. when i was 17 the song "superstar" by the carpenters came on while i was having sex and i've never really been the same since. i was literally in a bathtub and had to get out to change the song. i've never even tried to f*ck to music since this happened - which is crazy because if you know me, you know i can't go one second of the day without having something on in the background. i open the window in my bedroom so i can listen to music while i smoke outside, i unplug my stereo and bring it into the bathroom while i shower. i think i've even worn headphones just to walk into the kitchen to make a snack before. i'll probably try it again at some point but i really don't want to think about karen carpenter's anorexia during sex accidentally.

the other day someone dm'd me on instagram to tell me that their tinder hookup had put on "floridada" by animal collective to f*ck to. i think that might be worse than "superstar" by the carpenters. that is the most jarring thing to have play in the background while someone is on top of you. like... pure chaos.
& i'm usually all about pure chaos, but not in this tableau.
i'm really glad that when things akin to that scenario happen to them, they immediately tell me. even if we're not that close. like, "oh, kaitlin will totally get a kick out of this." and they're right, i do.

anyway, i'm literally upset with myself for coming out as bi to my family. i'm such a coward for that. can you imagine me with... a husband? lol

here's a brief history of my more serious relationships with men:

my first long term relationship of any kind was this really controlling guy i met online who literally lived like... a mile from me in gwinnett county, georgia. i was 15 and he was 20 or 21 i think. it's weird to be the age now that he was when that started. i had no idea what he looked like because his profile photo was a painting of a young napoleon bonaparte, which for some reason, i thought was really hot. he wouldn't send me a photo of himself for a while and it turned out that was because he thought i wouldn't be interested in him if i knew he was korean, which was really sad. he then sent me a photo of him wearing like... a red leather motorcycle jacket. he thought the jacket had a kenneth anger lucifer rising sort of thing going on but it really didn't. what the f*ck was i thinking.
anyway, so we essentially had a very sexual and spiritual online relationship (on and off) for like 4 years. full on phone sex. he really thought we were going to get married, like he thought i was a twin flame/soulmate connection for him and would write me these long crazy things on facebook messenger about it. i only met him in person a couple of times and he was obsessed with trying to buy me things / show off with money. the funniest part is that we never had sex! we kissed maybe once and it was really weird. he did not pass his vibe check in person lol. he was really good at writing out his sexual fantasies though, talking to him for such a long time was kind of like reading an erotic novel. but obviously like any connection with an adult man and a girl in high school who is "mature for her age" and knows what the velvet underground is, things got weirder. let's just say i ended up stranded in athens, georgia for 14 hours high on shrooms, crying outside of a CVS, and listening to john maus.

next up? my first IRL boyfriend. he turned out to be gay, but i enjoyed 8 months of that relationship because it was long distance. he lived in vietnam and worked for the UN. i felt very interesting and very superior to the other girls in high school and used to skype him while i was in the lunch room. i'm sure this was very annoying. this was the guy who i was f*cking in a bathtub to "superstar" by the carpenters. i'm not really sure how he was working for the UN, he was really unstable. he had a laundry list of issues (alcoholism, heroin addiction, bipolar schizoaffective disorder to name a few.) i think he mostly survived on oreos and vodka while living in vietnam. it's absolutely ridiculous to me that i dated this guy for like 2 years or something. he used to talk to me in a baby voice which is really strange in retrospect. thankfully now i can laugh about it, like i've done so much work to be fine after this doozy of a connection. imagine being in high school and having to call the vietnamese coast guard to locate your freaky adult boyfriend. it turned out that he was just on a bender and spending christmas dinner with some russian expats he met while "knife fighting in a circle k." (phew!) this dude had like (minimum) fifteen stab marks all over his body and a bullet in his head from when he lived in iraq. his dad was a war criminal or something. i'm not really sure... and because he was so insane i don't even know to this day what was fabricated and what wasn't. either way, great writing material.

i'm very easygoing in relationships i think, and as you can tell, will put up with a lot - or at least used to. i feel like i was able to take the most chaotic crash course in emotional intelligence/romantic connections over the span of like 4 years, which i'm thankful for. most people go their whole lives without being involved with people that crazy, and anyone who has probably did not / will not bounce back from it as fast as i have. i literally holed up for months and just wrote down everything that had happened because i hadn't had a break from mothering men in my life since i was 15. now i am at peace and can laugh about all of these things. because at the root of it all... this is hilarious. like, on god? vodka and oreos are all this guy consumed for 8 months? a lactation fetish? spiritual warfare against me? like why on earth do these people exist?

my most recent relationship was honestly so normal in comparison to the things i experienced in my teens. and thanks to the wild previous connections i've had with people i am able to navigate most emotional situations pretty well - and as a result, we're still friends. the main weird thing about my last relationship were the parallels between me and his high school girlfriend, who i also knew. i actually met him through her. i was in eighth grade and she was a senior at my school. she came up to me at my locker and asked if i liked death grips, so we became friends.
long story short they dated when she went off to college where? you guessed it. bennington college. (this is the energetic sinkhole of america.) and i dated her ex when i went off to college where? bennington college. we both got haunted at school and now we're both lesbians. this life is crazy.

also: the guy who lives in vietnam (he's a noise musician there now lol) bought his car from my most recent ex-boyfriend in 2016. it's all connected. the car window was broken and when it rained i would get wet in the passenger seat.

all of these relationships have one thing in common: i'm mad at myself for showing them kate bush. phone sex guy literally used to play kate bush on the radio in hopes that i would hear it and reach out to him. he'd be like "if you're listening... please respond..." total bruh moment over at 95.5 WUOG.

okay story time is over. i showed you my trauma, do you still think i'm hot?

the blogger is present.

the images above are a pretty good representation of my inner monologue while writing these posts.

in this past week or so two of my close friends started blogs of their own. this makes me feel a certain kind of excitement i didn't know existed until i cared about blogging more recently. when i had a blog in 2011 i didn't have any friends that were sitting down to write anything online, let alone like... drawing the dude from toro y moi and tagging him on soundcloud trying to get him to see it like i was. so this makes my heart feel whole. i love to read what my friends have to say.

there's nothing quite like the epic highs and lows of being vulnerable online, is there? i'm glad we're blogging in 2020 together... i implore you all to blog.

here is the link to olive's blog: https://olive666.blogspot.com/ (the password is "beepbeep")
here is the link to lou's blog: https://wild-combinations.blogspot.com/ (there is no password)

& here are some of my favorite quotes without context from the few posts that do currently exist on these webpages:

"and i do things like crying and baking and stretching out forlornly yet erotically on my sheepskin rug and eating an edible and reading joan didion with incense burning." - olive 

"kale smoothies are good but so is mdma baby!!" - olive

"she started hovering over my shoulder and trying to tell me exactly how much hummus to put on each chickpea cracker on the hors d'oeuvres tray i was assigned to work on, and then she gave up in exasperation and insisted on doing it herself." - olive

"i have no great knowledge of medieval scholarship or the bible." - lou

"⚮ (this is the official emoji for divorce according to unicode)" - lou

"i don't have a gender but i've had lots of terrible sex." - lou 

i would also like to archive this screenshot of olive's blog post from 2008. the color combo is snatched to say the least.

unofficial animal collective music video

in 2009 i definitely recorded an "unofficial music video" for ke$ha's song 'TiK ToK' with my friends - i almost wish it was still on youtube.com just so i'd be able to watch it now. i'm sure it was f*cking insane but i really don't remember what the final result was like. i do remember putting on an egregious amount of eyeliner before recording it on a flip camcorder though.

this camera was everything to me. i liked my flip camcorder because when you stopped recording it would pause, kind of like recording a vine. and because it was pink.

i wish more people used flip camcorders and made unofficial music videos with their friends just because they simply like a song. maybe i'm a purist for valuing these videos more than tiktoks.
reject modernity, embrace tradition.

the rumors are true... tonight's internet relic is an unofficial animal collective music video from youtube.com. this is one of the first visual memories i have associated with their music, which is funny considering what it is.

for some reason i still think about this video a lot. it's just one of those things that stuck with me i guess. at the time i don't think there were many, if any, actual animal collective music videos available online. country girls made do and watched the unofficial ones though. 

here are some of my favorite comments on this video. 

i think it's important to also mention that the description of this video states that it was for a "school project." 

anyway, signing off for the night. 

- buka92  

grimes and elon go to eat at gordon ramsay’s restaurant

“Babe, I’m so hungry…” Elon whined. “What do you want to do for dinner?
I can order the UberEats drone to pick something up for us if you’re too tired to go out again.”
Claire responded. Elon had been a couch potato this week, he really wanted to continue binging anime with
his premium Crunchyroll subscription, but Claire’s tone was pointed.
He could immediately tell she seemed upset with merely resting, despite being pregnant. 

“I’m waiting…” Claire scoffed. “Okay, okay. What about one of Gordon’s restaurants, we can go and
get a nice table.” Elon responded. Claire smirked, “Aren’t you banned from all of his nearby restaurants
for cyber warfare…? That’s why we haven’t been to any of them together yet.”

She was right. Elon had hacked into the waitstaff’s POS system at one of Gordon’s Las Vegas eateries
in 2013. He was trying to change an embarrassing tip he left. He realized that when you’re a billionaire
it doesn’t look good to only leave a 20% tip - and got really self conscious about it. This stunt resulted in
Elon being banned from every restaurant owned and operated by Gordon Ramsay on the west coast.
Gordon was scared of what Elon was capable of technologically and decided to cut his losses, they’re
not on the best of terms now. “Let’s go to New York City, Claire.” Elon rebutted. “What? I thought you
were hungry… you want to travel now? That’s so much stress on me and the baby.” Claire responded.
Elon had recently won an eBay Motors auction for a high-speed (electronically powered) teleportation
device. According to the tracking chip he secretly implanted into the FedEx delivery guy, he would be
receiving the package any second now.

As if by magic - the doorbell rang. “Were we expecting anyone?” Claire said, surprised.
“Yes.” Elon responded as he sprung off the couch, littering fragments of tortilla chips everywhere.
He jogged half a mile to the foyer in order to give the doorman permission to allow the FedEx delivery
guy in. Claire waddled behind him, annoyed. “He’s so immature...” she thought to herself.

While signing for the package, giddy like a young boy ordering Dip’n’Dots at a public pool, he looked
over to Claire. “You’re not going to believe what I won on eBay Motors, babe!” he exclaimed.
Claire had had it. “It’s a teleportation device. We can be at Gordon’s restaurant by 8:00pm EST…
I’ll go ahead and make a reservation on OpenTable.” Elon said. “What?! I thought Tesla already had
plans for those - why did you order that thing?” Claire responded, in disgust. “Babe, I couldn’t wait to
build one that looked more sleek. I think this will really help with your tour, and I’m not sure when we
will have our version perfected.” Elon responded with a concerned tone. 

“Is it safe for the baby?” “Yes it is.” “Okay, let me get dressed.” 

Claire threw on a metal corset that was custom built for her belly size that week. She hadn’t had a
chance to wear it out yet, and was really excited. She paired the corset with a flowy blush pink chiffon
blouse from Jean Paul Gaultier. Elon paused Crunchyroll and quickly changed into a Gucci tracksuit,
now that Claire seemed almost ready to go. As Claire put the final touches on her psychedelic makeup
look, Elon rested on the chase lounge in their bedroom and laughed at Twitter videos to himself. His
volume was all the way up on his phone, which Claire seemed obviously annoyed with.
“Can you put your phone down, Elon? I’m ready. Did you get the table?” she nagged.
“Ugh. Yes babe, I got the table. Let’s go, I'm so hungry...” Elon whined in response.
They both walked down the hall into their 1 acre Tesla garage and activated the portable
teleportation device. Before they knew it they were standing outside of Gordon’s chic eaterie.
“Wow. That was so easy, I’m glad you got this thing on eBay Motors.” Claire said, with a lisp.
They strolled into the restaurant with confidence, Claire holding the door for Elon.
Claire immediately walked up to the hostess’ stand with power and said “Boucher-Musk, party of two.”
The couple was quickly seated at one of the best tables in the restaurant…
but not the table Elon had specifically requested through the OpenTable app.
This enraged him - he meekly asked Claire to get the attention of their server.
Their server, Natalia, picked up her pace and asked if everything was alright. “No.” Elon responded.
“There is a draft here, can we please be seated at the original table I requested through OpenTable?”
Natalia gasped, “Yes! Just a moment Mr. Musk, let me check with our hostess. There must’ve been a
mistake, thank you for being patient with us.” Elon grunted in response, which embarrassed Claire.
“I’m going to run to the ladies room - you’ll be fine handling this one yourself, right?” Claire said with
disdain. Elon continued to mumble to himself about the draft as he zipped up his Gucci tracksuit more.
Claire’s metal corset baby bump distracted patrons as she hastily waltzed towards the ladies room.
While powdering her nose, Claire looked behind her in the mirror…
“Wow, long time no see Claire - I see you’ve gained some weight.” Bella Hadid barked in a menacing tone.
“Um, Hi Bella - I heard you shitting in there.” Claire retorted, standing her ground.
Bella’s entire demeanor shifted instantly out of embarrassment. Bella exited the ladies room.
Meanwhile, in the main dining room Elon was being relocated to the table he originally asked for, sans draft.
“Anything else I can get for you Mr. Musk?” Natalia asked sincerely. “That’ll be all for right now…”
Elon mumbled bashfully. “Actually, I can hear Claire’s metallic banging from across the room.
Could you escort her to the table so she’s not confused?” He added with more confidence.
“Yes, right away sir.” Natalia responded before dashing across the dining room to retrieve Claire.
Eventually Claire plopped down into her seat across from Elon, sweating profusely.
“Elon… I need shellfish immediately.” She said quickly before snatching the menu from him.
“It looks like Gordon will be serving butter poached langoustine tonight as a special, sweetheart.
You should order that. I’m sure it’s delicious.” Elon said with a grin. Natalia returned to the table
with the bottle of 1947 Chateau Cheval Blanc Elon had ordered for himself while Claire was powdering
her nose. “Yummy!” He proclaimed. “Can I get the langoustine as quickly as possible?” Claire said,
interrupting Elon. “And some condiments?” She added. “Of course. Which condiments would you like?...”
As Natalia spouted off names of condiments “...a tamarind balsamic reduction, black garlic aioli,
or whipped sesame oil…” Claire couldn’t help but think about French’s classic yellow mustard.
She had a one track mind now. “Gordon doesn’t normally serve our langoustine dish with any
condiments as it’s such a delicate and luxurious protein - but I’m sure he would be happy to make an
exception for you, Miss Boucher...” Natalia continued. “French’s classic yellow mustard!” Claire exclaimed.
“Excuse me?” Natalia responded, confused. “I want French’s classic yellow mustard.” Claire repeated.
“I’m pregnant, please tell me you have this mustard.” She added, sounding slightly defeated - but
not embarrassed. “I’ll check with Gordon directly and ask if we have French’s classic yellow mustard.
In the meantime, I’ll get that langoustine started for you.” Natalia said, optimistically.
“Would you like to put in your order now Mr. Musk? So the dishes come out together?” She added.
“Yes. I’ll take the filet mignon. Well done.” Elon had been afraid to eat any semblance of raw meat after
his less than ideal experience in Japan with a faulty wagyu beef cut in 2008. He’d decided that his
stomach just couldn’t handle it anymore. Natalia nodded and went into the kitchen to ask Gordon about
the French’s classic yellow mustard. “Are you joking? These idiots are going to order one of the most
delicate and luxurious proteins available and then slather bloody mustard on the poor bloke?! That’s not
an honorable death for this langoustine. I simply won’t allow such behavior in my own establishment.”
Gordon ranted. “What should I tell them?” Natalia asked, feeling small. “Show me to their table.”
Gordon responded. Gordon rushed out of the kitchen and surveyed the room, looking for Elon. Spotted.
Elon was playing with the zipper on his Gucci tracksuit again and guzzling the expensive wine he ordered,
oblivious to the chaos that was about to unfold. Gordon rushed over, furious. Everyone in the restaurant
was staring. He arrived at the Boucher-Musk party of two’s table. “I thought I banned you!
And now you TRAVEL to insult my business and it’s fine cuisine?! Unbelievable!” Gordon shouted.
“But Gordon…” Elon interjected. “No. Let’s take this outside - I don’t want to disturb the customers who
respect my craft.” “Gordon… did you happen to have French’s classic yellow mustard back there?
I really want some for my langoustine.” Claire asked. “The reason you two are in this bloody mess in
the first place is because of that horrendous request, yeah?! So come on. We’re taking a stroll outside.”
Elon and Claire reluctantly stood up and slowly trail behind Gordon through the kitchen and eventually
out of the back door to the restaurant. Gordon makes them sit down on plastic crates where the staff sits
while on their smoke breaks. He goes on to lecture them about how delicate and luxurious the
langoustine is - Elon and Claire are getting increasingly more hungry and bored with Gordon’s TED Talk
on the perfect butter poached langoustine. They give each other a special look, signaling Elon to whip
out the teleportation device. They both disappear into thin air, leaving Gordon in complete shock.
This stunt really cemented the restraining order Gordon Ramsay was already considering against
both Elon and Claire. When they returned to their lavish LA homestead the couple ordered
drone UberEats from IHOP after the long night out.

Elon resumed his anime dub on Crunchyroll.

having a little 'frumpy' moment

i love this picture. not sure of her origin story, it's just been on my camera roll for a long time.

this morning my roommate texted me a video file of one of my old vines from 2015 or 2016. it was the "smack cam" audio and i had used some sort of face filter app to make it seem as if ho chi minh and stalin were 'smack camming' each other.
the video is mostly funny to me because i had an 'unknown mortal orchestra' poster visible in the background.
some of my closest friends today are ones who i originally met on vine or i was mutuals with on tumblr when i was fourteen.

recently i met up with someone from tumblr who i'd been mutuals with for a really long time. she lives in georgia - we're both gay, can't drive, and ended up watching russian lullaby videos together for like three hours.
sometimes the right people will just come into your life to joke around and tell you they think king princess is "frumpy."
she also left her copy of "creative loafing" at my house and i ended up annotating the entire thing for fun. i wrote out what i thought was/was not frumpy.
in conclusion, i had no idea just how frumpy creative loafing really was.


truth be told i have no qualms with this publication, 
i just think it's funny to call anything frumpy now. 

i guess when you're subjecting everyone you've ever known to your niche content, the right people just weasel their way into your world eventually. that's one way to look at it. but because the internet is so crazy, big, and incomprehensible you'd think it'd be even more difficult for people to come into your orbit, right? & it's not like anyone uses hashtags. (actually i take that back - i have completely met people through hashtags on instagram, which i know is crazy.)

most of the longest online friendships i've participated in have really strange origin stories as far as how we specifically ended up finding each other. i feel like we all got to witness each others coming of age stories publicly / have grown with each other over the years.
so yeah, i guess i'd venture to say that a lot of the bonds i've formed with people over the internet seem divinely orchestrated to a certain extent.

but i think tumblr is the only platform where you could potentially meet friends that are just as interested in russian lullabies as you are.

how many of your friends did you meet online?