Enjoy the Silence

Since getting back to Portland, I've been caught between polars, half of the time being chronically tearful and the other half relieved and ecstatic to finally be with my Reed friends and away from the psycho parents. As wonderful as it is to be here, I can't help but miss all that I left in LA. And even when I'm trying to be excited about Portland, I'm continually being brought down. I feel like there are very few people who enjoy, or even notice my presence. And surprisingly, these people aren't who I expected them to be. People change, I know, but I never thought it would be this drastic. The ones who I always took comfort in haven't been radiating the safe zone vibe- I feel like I can't talk to anyone. I don't even know how to act around them. I feel like my world is superficial, no one acting how they want to or saying what they really mean. The hugs seem rehearsed. I'm not writing this for pity, not at all. Maybe awareness. Maybe to get it out of my system. I don't know. But I feel pretty shitty and I have been feeling pretty shitty. Naive as I was, I thought going to Portland would erase all my problems and make me happy again. Now, without even Alex, I feel like nothing. The only thing that's been keeping me going is thinking of photographing for the Quest. I finally took some initiative, forcing myself to be ambitious Aline, and I wrote to the guy who runs the Quest. Apparently he'd love to have me photograph for them. I'm sure it helps that my photos were chosen for the front page of the Renn Fayre picture edition last year. Anyway, I'm uber pumped about this and I can't wait for the meeting Tuesday. Something to look forward to, thank god.

Something weird:
For some reason, I've taken to reciting what I'm going to write in my blog in my head before I write it. If I can't sleep in the middle of the night, I start thinking about what I'll blog about. My thoughts come out in blog form. Ironically, I almost NEVER actually write what I tell myself to write because I forget by the time I'm sitting down and writing. But it's so damn good when I think about it- I wish I just wrote it down when it popped in my head. For example, I had so many ideas what to write about my EuroTrip. Now, I'm not even sure there will be a EuroTrip blog. But one of my headings was "Firenze: not just a sandwich". No one told me that Firenze just means Florence in Italian, and I've been ignorantly eating Bon Apetit firenze sandwiches with no idea. Maybe it's not that clever, but it seemed so at the time of conception.

That's all for now.