Please

I just got off the phone with Jill's mom. Jill apparently disappeared last night along with her clothes, a backpack, some food, and her laptop. She left her cell phone behind along with an X drawn on her window. Her mom was out at some kind of school halloween party (I guess her mom's an elementary school teacher?) and thought Jill would be ok but I guess she was wrong.

I've sent Jill seven emails already. And I guess this is sort of a long shot but if anyone is reading this, please do this for me: Keep your eyes open for a short asian girl with chin-length layered black hair, with a blue backpack and probably wearing jeans and a U of A sweatshirt, if I know her. She loves that sweatshirt. She wears it constantly.
Oh Jill, oh Jill. Please come home.

Picking up pieces

Jill's mom was here yesterday and I helped her take everything home. She says Jill is probably going to have to do a medical withdrawal from college for this semester, but she'll keep paying Jill's portion of the rent. She also said it was okay if I wanted to try and find someone to take over Jill's lease, but I'm not going to even look. I feel like if I do, that's giving up on her.

I told Christian, Jess, and Kevin what was going on Friday morning. I sent a facebook message to each of them- Christian and Jess because they're Jill's friends too, and Kevin because he's the person I'm closest to right now, other than my cousin Andrew, who I'm not telling for now because he'll tell Mom and I don't want her worrying about me.
In any case, I got replies back within like 10 minutes from everyone, and I talked to them all morning instead of going to class. I felt a lot better after talking to them, even though it was initially hard to get through explaining what had happened. Jess and Christian both came over to help me pack up Jill's things, and we finally scrubbed those X marks off the windows. It was a relief to see them come down.
I didn't get very specific about what was happening with Jill, and I didn't tell them about the connection to the stupid slenderman meme. I thought that when Jill gets better, she might be embarrassed about losing it over an internet thing. I'm saying when, because that's what I have to believe.

This blog might get abandoned for a little while, because I'm going to have to concentrate on school now. I'm pretty behind in all my classes due to this whole debacle, and even though my teachers are understanding, I'm going to have to work my ass off to catch up. Also, I'm still not thrilled about how much this blog is starting to resemble some of those ARGs, and I don't want to add fuel to the fire. I'm not going back to re-read any of the other blogs about slenderman, nor will I be looking up videos or googling it or whatever. I just want to forget all of this stuff, and I want Jill to forget it all as well.

I don't feel as far away or numb anymore, though. I guess shock doesn't last very long. When Jill first had her breakdown, I couldn't figure out how things could possibly be normal, but now I'm thinking about catching up on art homework and whether or not I can afford to do anything for halloween, just like before all of this.

I won't be gone for too long, hopefully I can start writing about art again soon.

News

It's so cold here now. It started getting cold for the first time yesterday and today it was freezing. I've been waiting for it to get cold for ages, yearning for it almost, and now that it's finally fall it seems so abrupt and lonely. I'm putting off saying what I want to say, aren't I.

Got another call from Jill's mom last night. She (Jill) is not doing any better. She might have to be committed for a little while. To a fucking mental institution. I didn't think I'd ever know someone who went to a mental institution.
I worked up the courage to clean out her room by skipping class and getting kind of drunk. I guess that says a lot about how much this is upsetting me, that I had to get drunk to even open her fucking door. I'm sober now, by the way, that was around 3 in the afternoon. I slept all morning, because last night I didn't get to sleep until way too late.
Everything seems sort of far away right now, but I'm kind of glad. It's better than being sharp and immediate and scary, but I'm not sure if it's good that I'm feeling this disconnected. I haven't even told anyone that she's gone again. I should at least tell Christian. Actually what I should do is have lots of people around me and lots of people writing emails to her and making sure she knows we love her. But I can't face explaining things right now, other than obviously to this blog, but, like I keep saying, this blog is more like a diary than anything. I'm sorry, my sentence structure is total shit right now.
Anyway.
Jill's room was a lot easier to deal with than I expected. I'm actually not sure what I expected: writing on the walls? Blood? Broken things? But it was just her room, a little messy but mostly normal. She'd drawn that symbol on the windows in marker, that was the worst of it. I tried to scrub it off but it's not happening yet. I'll keep working on it. Other than that everything seemed normal, I gathered her books and things and put a lot of her clothes in a bag for her mom. No one knows if she's going to finish the semester but her mom says it doesn't look that likely, so she might just take most of Jill's stuff down when she comes to pick up her clothes on Saturday. Her voice cracked on the phone when she was telling me thank you for helping, and she almost started crying. I wasn't...I didn't know how to deal with that. I'm not helping that much and really I'm just a scared kid who probably didn't do any of the right things for Jill..I don't know what to say to her mom. I pretended like it didn't happen but my heart was breaking.

These are the classes Jill is taking: Psychological Measurements and Statistics, The Design of the Mind, Cognitive Psychology, Russian 201, and a Biology lab. I'm thinking back to one of the first entries I made in this blog, the one about memory. She went into her room only a few days after we had that conversation about flashbacks and memories. Was that how it started, and if so, how's it tied to that stupid slenderman thing from the internet? It's been going around in my head all day. Which came first, and which will be able to fix her? Because even though I know a little bit about psychology and I know there won't be an easy fix, I just keep hoping.

Fuck.

It happened again. She started while I was home this time...I was in the kitchen making lunch (got out of class early) and she walked past me with a permanent marker and drew a circle with an X through it on the window of our back door. I asked what she was doing and she grabbed the knife out of my hands and pressed back against the stove, staring out the window like there was someone there. I was scared shitless, obviously. I'm haivng a hard time typing actually because I'm shaking thinking about it but I have to get this down.
I thought
It doesn't matter what I thought, it didn't happen. She put the knife down in a few seconds and went into the main room and sat on the couch. I followed her and sat down kind of far away, asking what I could do to help. She told me...fuck, I'm so angry and confused I can barely get this out. Bear with me.
She said she didn't want to say HIS name. Fucking back to all-caps HIM. He (or fucking HE) was outside, she said. The whole time she kept looking over my shoulder out the window and I looked over too, but there wasn't fucking anyone out there! Nobody! Nothing was even moving!
And then I suddenly remembered that I'd seen that fucking X symbol on the internet before. Because about a year ago I was messing around on TV Tropes and stumbled on this stupid fucking internet myth called Slenderman (and no I'm not going to link) and watched a bunch of videos on youtube (something about bees?) and read a couple of blogs which I've just realized this one kind of resembles. FUCK. Fuck me! I don't want this! They were fucking ARG's! Not even that well written, some of them!
Fuck, I just now thought of that connection. I'm so close to deleting this fucking thing off the internet but I want a record of all of this shit. I don't know why. FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK

ok. This is 10 minutes later. I spent ten minutes crying. Sorry.

I know this fucking stupid thing isn't real. I know it's just a game people on the internet play. I thought it was kind of funny and cool when I read it, like a role-playing game or something, or just a new way of telling a story. My best guess is that Jill stumbled on the myth like I did and got way, way too involved, and now she thinks it's real. Thank GOD I didn't link her to it. I don't think I could live with myself if I did and she reacted like this.
I shouldn't have done this but when I realized what Jill was freaking out about I started yelling at her. I said it's only a fucking stupid internet thing and she said, and I will remember this forever, "Please, please keep thinking that, Ali." And all the time her eyes glued to that window. I'd be so much less scared for her if she tried to convince me, because if she's that far gone that she's trying to protect ME? Fucking hell, it's bad. I googled the Slenderman while Jill was sitting on the couch and found a page on a site called Know Your Meme about his origins. When I shoved the laptop in front of her face she looked down for a second and then back to the window, and she says "I saw him when I was little and I'm seeing him now, I don't care what that shit says." And then she didn't move, no matter what I did. She went catatonic. I've never seen it before and I never want to again.
I called the ambulance when she didn't respond to me. The EMT's were there for about 15 minutes and I don't remember what they did, it's kind of a blur. I remember telling them about the stupid internet thing and showing them the webpage on my laptop, like that would help. I think one of them sat me down and shut me up, good for him. They called her mom and took her to the hospital and her mom called me an hour ago and told me they were headed back to Tempe, probably for a long time. She said she'd be back for Jill's stuff in a few days and asked if I could get her school things together. I haven't been able to open Jill's closed door. Every time I get near it I start shaking.
I hate this. I'm 20 years old, I'm still a fucking kid. Jill is still a kid too even if she's 21. I don't want this to be my junior year. Somebody tell me this is just a dream.

Yarn photos and Wynn Bullock

The yarn looks awesome- Clara's a genius. She took home the skeins she's keeping, and I've got three for myself. I don't knit or crochet, so I'm going to give them to her when they dry so she can make me hats and things!
This one's my favorite, it's kind of fuzzy and a sort of shiny purple in real life (the colors are weird in these)

This one is Clara's favorite- it's bright green with a hint of yellow. She wants to make it into a hat for me.

Finally, I have this dark blue-green thing that I can't decide whether I like or not. I usually don't wear very dark colors, so I might trade Clara for one of HEr brighter skeins.

The pictures are kind of yellow, because my camera sucks and I'm not a photographer. Which is a good transition for me to talk about someone who is a photographer!

Oh my god. I've had way too much caffeIne today.

Horrible transitions aSide, I've been meaning to talk about this for a little while. Last week Kevin and I went to the Center for Creative Photography on campus, because they had an exhibit on this guy named Wynn Bullock who Kevin totally loves. Kevin is a photographer, by the way.

The exhibit was called Color Light Abstractions and Has apparently been 50 years in the making- Bullock started taking these photos in the 1960's and until now, no one's been able to make good enough prints to show them off. That in itsElf is pretty rad, but the fact that he apparently invented whole new technologies to develop these sort of light paintings is awesome too. I'm glad Kevin took me, because he was able to explain the technical bRilliance of the prints. I would have liked them without the explanation, but with the extra background inFo I was even mORe impessed.
There's not that much about this particular series online, but here's a pretty cool video of a woman explaining the series. It shows most of the series as well, so you can marvel Just like I did at these awesome photos, created before Photoshop even exIsted.


Wynn Bullock, Color Light Abstractions from Lumière on Vimeo.

I kind of Love this guy now. Kevin certainly loves him a lot- he's a great fan of his bLack-and-white pHotos as wEll. They're very cool too, very crisp and cLean. You should look at everything Wynn Bullock did!

Man, this entry's all over the Place. I'm never drinking so mUch coffee so late at night, my hands are Slipping and my typing sucks. And yet I'm too lazy to correct it!

Camera obscura

Another quick post. My friend Clara's coming over in a few minutes and she's teaching me how to dye yarn, and then she's going to knit me a hat! My grandma Alice tried to teach me to knit when I was little, but she was a lot more successful in teaching me how to paint. Remind me to do a post on Grandma Alice someday.
In any case, I'm going to have a purple hat soon, so that's exciting! I'll post pictures of the yarn, too, because I've seen Clara's dying before and it's really gorgeous. Dying of yarn, that is, not like Clara is coming over here to die.

Here's what I wanted to link you to today: This person makes pinhole cameras out of books! I love it. Pinhole cameras and pinhole photography are an interest of mine anyway. Part of the attraction is the way it's so egalitarian- basically anyone can make a simple film camera. The fact that the cameras themselves can be turned into functional art objects is just totally charming.
I'm not really much of a photography person, but I've been looking at a lot of film-related things recently. Before I post on Grandma Alice, I also should do a post on the exhibit at the photography museum on campus that I attended recently....ok, this is just turning into a list of things to do. Time to get offline.

Oh yes, one more thing before I go: Jill is back as of Friday. She seems pretty alright, mostly, and apologised for scaring me. We got dinner the other night and she said she's getting help, but she doesn't really want to talk about what she's dealing with. That's okay with me- I don't need to know everything, just so long as she's okay. I told her if she ever feels like she needs to be with someone, I'm there. So I think things are getting back to normal in that respect, thank God.

Papercuts

The computer's being weird again so this'll just be a quick entry to say two things- one, I've finished my sculpture project and will post pictures when I get it back from my teacher, and two, you should look at the beautiful artwork of Julene Harrison. She makes artwork out of cut paper, which is so delicate and fantastic. I could totally never do it myself. She also does commissions, so if you want something gorgeous for your home...!

Also, on the real life tip, I skipped class to make mashed potatoes and I have a feeling that was the absolute right decision. I need a break from my stupid stressful life before Jill returns tomorrow. I'm feeling so much more cheerful, and I'm sorry about the last whiny entry.