Honestly, I wish I was one of those cool punk rocker chicks who could go to all the shows and hang out with the bands and be so cool she doesn’t even realize the level of coolness she has attained.

I’m 24 years old. I shouldn’t be thinking I’m not “cool”. I’m cool. I’m awesome.

Anyway, I want to see Meg and Dia at the House of Blues next week. It’s a random want. I love their song “Monster” and have yet to discover much of the rest of their music, but I feel like you can’t go to concerts just to discover new music, and besides they’re only opening for Angels and Airways, who are okay, but I’d rather just see Mega and Dia. I feel like I’m also not cool enough to be part of their 109,000 member fanbase.

If Hanson came to town, whoaboy, I’d be there in a second, and I’d be MUCH cooler than everybody else, because I know all their songs and have liked them since I was 14. But the bands I like these days, like Fall Out Boy, Bright Eyes, Jimmy Eat World, and Meg and Dia… they’re just too cool for me, I think. It’s like I’m not supposed to belong to those groups.

*sigh* I am thinking of going to London for my sister’s graduation, but the following things are standing in my way:

• Money. Car stuff + new apartment + more car stuff + the money it would cost to fly to London = disastrous
• Time Off. If I do go to Europe, I’d like to go for 2 weeks and really enjoy myself. Right now, I don’t think that’s possible, and I don’t want to jeopardize my job. Even if the trip’s not till September, taking 2 full weeks off would be very, very hard.

We’ll see what happens. I miss updating my blog, so I’m going to try to do that more often now.

I have “Giants in the Sky” in my head. This morning I went on a Sondheim binge and downloaded a bunch of Into the Woods and Sweeney stuff. It makes me want to watch Into the Woods very, very, very badly, but 1) our VCR doesn’t quite work and 2) it’d be best to wait until after the guests leave since they might not fancy it. Though they like musicals, so who knows.

Things I’m worried about:

* car insurance - it’s so expensive…I’m so spoiled that I’ve never had to worry about it till now :(

* car repairs - they were far more expensive than I had anticipated (I wanted to pay $500…the total cost was over $1,000 for only half of what was needed), and Adriann’s grandma wrote out a check for everything so I can’t very well make minimum payments ;_; I appreciate her effort but it puts me in an awkward spot and makes me very, very anxious

* Adriann - I know she’ll be okay, but she has so much stress right now that I think it’s draining her

* credit card payments - I paid off my car so that my dad wouldn’t have control over it, but that was before I realized I’d have to deal with all the stuff above, so now I have that $2,000 to pay off

*siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh* I am just so ready for the world to end.

It was good.

Nuff said! It was super enjoyable, quirky, and really dark and morbid. So awesome. Final scene = phenomenal.

And  Tim Burton did amazing things with blood. I dislike gore really, and this wasn’t true gore I don’t think, but it was cool. I love the girl’s voice who played Johanna. She was like a little bird. ^^

Johnny Depp was also honestly VERY good as Sweeney. I was a little worried his singing would get in the way, but he did a great job. His voice was actually rather cool. I wouldn’t mind hearing him do more musicals, especially if he gets to slit people’s throats all the time. Heh. He made Sweeney pretty hot.

Emmy Rossum’s new single, Slow Me Down? FRIGGIN ROCKS. Holy crap I was expecting to laugh at her attempt at pop, but it’s so incredible. She sounds like Imogen Heap and is just exquisite to watch. I pretty much drooled all over myself while I watched, helpless to her voice. Maybe it’s studioized, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less beautiful. Ugh. Enjoy!!


Yes, Adriann and I are participating this year in Nano, and I’m dying to get Angel to as well! I’ll bug her until she does, anyway. Nobody has time for it, but everybody should give it a shot. I’ve decided that October will be my month of preparation. I will craft detailed character profiles and biographies, draw a plot outline, and come up with some general information about what needs to happen and when and how.

I am turning my old short story series American Boys into the novel, but in all fairness of the NaNo rules, I’ll be starting from scratch. When it’s over, I’ll consider adding the other parts I’ve previously written in, but to start, nothing. 50,000 words in one month. I know I can do it.

It is my birthday on Friday, by the way. It’s a little daunting to think of that, actually. I’ll be 24. To me…that’s so old. :( I think yesterday I was 19 and I know I still feel 19, so what makes years go by without us taking stock of them? I sometimes wonder if working 40 hours/week is a good thing, as it makes the time pass all-too quickly. I miss lazy, neverending school days, even if I hated them then.

Gay Day Disneyland is this weekend, which is great! Deana, Lauren, Kyle, and Kyle’s boy are spending the night on Friday and we’re all heading to Disney early to have a full day of Gay festifities . There’s even an indie movie playing that night, which I’d love to see.

In South Beach Diet news, I made cheesecake last night. Excuse me, Phase 1 Cheesecake! It was suuuuper yummy and we turned it into muffins and hate one apiece for breakfast. The only bad thing is that I’m tempted to have more than one and that’s definitely against the cream cheese count for the day. But one/day is perfect, so a little self-control is necessary.

It’s time for me to sign off. G’night kiddies.

=============================

With one hand high
you’ll show them your progress
you’ll take your time
but no one cares,
No one cares

I could be so much more than this.
I want to be so much more than this.

…Good good-bye,
I’ll be fine.
Good good-bye,
good good-night.
-Jimmy Eat World

I started writing a kickass song yesterday on piano. I love those moments when you’re so inspired that when you sit down, all you have to do is pluck out several notes and you know what your melody’s going to be. It’s been a long time since I’ve known what that’s like, probably since I wrote Short Goodbyes, which is still I think the best thing I’ve yet to write. It’s a very full song, and Adriann’s harmonies are better than I could have ever imagined.

So this new song is on piano, but I’ve also added drums and a 2nd piano harmony part. It’s a little indie, a little edgy, and very emo. I think it might be called Come As You Are, because that’s the first line.

Anyway, we’ve got 2 other songs (Lulaby and one untilted) that are completely-written, 1 song that has music but no lyrics or bridge, 1 song that’s got great potential but doesn’t know how to finish itself (CAYA), 2 songs that need to be re-recorded (Little Mermaid and Peter Pan, which kinds of needs finishing), and probably others I’m forgetting. I’d like to have an entire album up someday, start a website and sell the CDs there too.

In other news, I’ve decided I’d like to participate in NaNoWriMo this November — NaNo is National Novel Writing Month, where you basically write a 50,000 word novel within the month of November. I tried doing it about 3 years ago and failed a bit. This time, I’m going to start fresh and just do it. Even if it sucks, I think it’ll be a great achievment to say I’ve done it.

On Friday, Adriann and I went down to Disneyland to hang out with Deana, her cousin Chris and Chris’ boyfriend Daniel (the awesome HP “Ben”!), and Robert and Jessi. On the way there, I was contemplating how tired I was and how we should just not go or not stay long, but I’m SO glad we did because it was by far the best Disneyland trip yet. It was short, yeah — we only stayed from 7 to midnight — but it was just one of those weird, hysterical kinds of trips where you have the best time because 1) you’re incredibly tired and that makes funny things 50% funnier and 2) Disneyland magic tends to occur. ;)

For example, it’s hard to descibe how funny this is, but we were getting on the train to get to the new Finding Nemo ride that we have yet to go on (mostly because, as Robert put it, “Before you can experience the ride, you have to experience the line!”), and someone said, “Hey, let’s go in the caboose!” Most of us had already sat down, and I looked back at the caboose and was thinking it wasn’t even open to take passengers. It looked a bit ghetto to me. We were sitting on the train waiting for it to go when Adriann finally realized we wanted to go in the caboose, and she stood up and just went. >D It was funny.

So we get in the caboose, and it’s friggin AWESOME. Only way to travel, people. It had nice padded seats and some awesome acoustics. Ben kept repeating, “We’re in the CABOOSE” and it was hysterical. We were incredibly loud, laughing, and just having fun, and the people in the train in front of us were glaring, but it was worth it.

Then someone brought up the point, “What if the Caboose isn’t really part of the train and the train goes and leaves us behind.”

That was funny in itself and then someone else added, “Yeah, it’s not like they need any of us — we’ve got some queers, Mexicans, and a Jew.” And then Ben said, “Let’s put a sign on the door that says ‘minorities only’.” >DD That still cracks me up.

Then we attempted to take videos on our camera phones, and the funny part was not that none of us could get a clear picture for it but that EVERYONE took out their camera phones all at the same time and were holding them up, trying to videotape. And then Ben showed us a picture of a car he once saw that was pimped out like the Milenium Falcon.

Then we headed over to Rainforest Cafe and had a great dinner. The last time we ate their with Ben and the gang, the waitress neglected to bring him his Mr. Pibb for like 30 minutes, I kid you not. He was hysterical about it, and when we got there, he said, “As long as I don’t order a Pibb…”

When we were getting ready to leave, we noticed it was raining. Now, keep in mind, a normal “rain” in our part of California is a drizzle, and “Storm Watch 2007″ is usually for a couple drops and some dark clouds. But this was real rain, pouring down. Downtown Disney was flooded and it was cold, and it reminded me a lot of summer in Missouri. Poor Chris was sick, we were all cold and tired, and we had parked in the Disneyland parking instead of the Downtown Disney parking, so we had to walk in the rain all the way back to the tram. I didn’t have a jacket, so I got soaked, but…it was actually really awesome to experience that. Normally, I’m really not one to enjoy walking in the rain when I have long jeans on (I hate the wet bottoms of jeans), but I just made the most of the night and enjoyed the company and laughter.

That sounds cheesy. But I had a great time, and I’m glad I just took a moment to document that.

Last night, Adriann and I joined Deana and her gal Lauren and Ben and Deana’s cousin (a triple date!) down at the Grove to see Across the Universe. I had really been looking forward to it, even though we had to drive all the way into LA to find the right theatre. It was just…beyond worth it.

I know it’s getting horrible reviews (I just read one) and some of what’s said is definitely true. The review I read mentioned how the director was extremely literal (”Strawberry Fields” comes to mind, where Jude — yes, of “Hey, Jude” fame — pins strawberries to a wall) and sort of missed out on what could have been an awesome sentiment about the current state of the world. He said it was “far removed” from 2007 and very much stuck in its era, though I honestly don’t see what’s wrong with that. I know it’s fashionable to draw parallels between Vietnam and Bush’s stupid war, but at the same time, it was really moving to see a different time. It really just made me feel hopeless, watching the scenes of Vietnam, and I was smart enough to connect the dots by myself instead of having the director do it for me. So to me, it’s okay.

The lieralness did get to me a bit. Only when several lines from the movie were direct Beatles’ song quotes (i.e. Prudence crawled in through an open window and Jude said, “She Came in Through the Window”).

Overall though, it was just lovely. I really adored listening to the singing and the way each song had a new sound. For example, “I Want to Hold Your Hand” wasn’t an up-beat pop tune but was a girl’s angsty lament about her unrequited love for a cheerleader. It was dark and weird and I loved it.

And as I touched on above, some of it was really brutal and terrifying. Thinking of war always makes my stomach clench, but watching one of the main characters suffer through Vietnam, watching all of his friends die around him, was almost too much. He was so young, and it just hit me that you really didn’t have a choice back then. If you were drafted, you went to war or went to jail. I’d like to think I’d go to jail for my morals, but if faced with that decision, I don’t know what I’d do. I guess sometimes women really don’t think about those kinds of things, because it’s not likely we’ll ever be drafted. Men I would think still have the chance to worry. I don’t envy them.

Anyway, that’s off topic. Another scene that hit me was their Vietnam protest. It was…eerie, actually, how much it resembled my experiences in protests over the Iraq War. The same people, the same chants, the same desperation and pain, the same images of people in body bags with white faceless faces… It was horrid but wonderful at the same time.

Adriann and I bought the soundtrack and listened to it on the way home. We’re hopefully going up to San Francisco for Yaoi Con from October 25th-29th, and I’m going to make a bunch of Beatles’ CDs so Deana can become a fan. ^_^ One step closer to making her like emo!!!!!!!!!!! Okay, not really.

I think this entry is done. I’m glad I’ve started posted again — oh crap, don’t want to jinx it!

This is, in a word, mad! In a good way, though. I was surfing Amie Street to just kind of check out the charts and our positions on it. Well, we’re not really in a great position site-wide, but in their “Bargain” music section, we’re on the #1 page for…get this… ACOUSTIC and FOLK!!!!!

I was so excited I took a screencap. Enjoy. :D

This is the most amusing thing I’ve ever seen and everyone should check it out ASAP.

I haven’t written in forever. I pretty much haven’t even looked at a home computer in several weeks. I guess the problem with them is that I’m online 8 hours a day at work, and in fact, that kind of takes the charm out of mine here at home. I still get on occassionally to check myspace (hadn’t done that in about a month though), this journal, and greatestjournal because of Jackie, Vickie, and Jenn, but I just get bored easily with things online. I spend so much time at work browsing the net that it’s kind of meaningless when I get home. :\ Kind of sucks, but there you have it.

Adriann and I went to Vegas (again) for her birthday, and it was by far the best trip yet! Even though I had snot pouring out of my nose (literally) and couldn’t stop coughing long enough to eat breakfast, we saw the most amazing Cirque du Soleil show EVER. It’s called Ka, and we actually went to see it accidentally.

Long version: We wanted to see “O” and it was sold out for the entire weekend, so we made kind of a split-second, last-minute decision to see Ka, which we had also wanted to see anyway. We got up to the line to buy tickets and the lady was really nice and awesome. She told us each ticket would cost $137, so I shrugged and said, “Okay, that’s fine.” They were good seats, so no worries — we’d have paid the same for O, so we knew what was coming. Then, the lady gave me the receipt to sign, I signed, and she looked at me funny and said, “…Did you look at the receipt?” and I was like, “Oh no, I trust you! lol” thinking she was teasing that she could have charged us $500/ticket and we wouldn’t have noticed. She smiled and said, “No, take a look at the receipt” and passed it back to us.

The TOTAL price was $137. TOTAL!

I almost flipped out it was so awesome! Both tickets, about 10 rows from the front stage of Ka, and it cost us $70/ticket!! She said she gave us a “military discount” which was sooo friggin hysterical. Do we LOOK like we’re in the army? ~.^

The show itself was so incredible and would have been worth the $140 per ticket price. There were a couple things that stood out.

1. The entire show was about a twin prince and princess of this Japanese-style village. They were about 10 or so years old when a neighboring tribe executed their parents and city. They were separated. This guy who was I guess a servant to the boy prince went with him. They stopped because the boy injured himself and hurt his hand. As they stopped, this huge light cast a shadow on their forms against a cave wall. The servant took the boy’s hand and to make him stop crying he showed him how to make a shadow of a dog against the wall. I can’t even describe how amazingly romantic it was. Not sexually romantic, but just generally beautiful and fantastical. They made dogs, birds, and I can’t remember what else, but the whole thing was so fluid and exquisite. I couldn’t believe it was only made with their two pairs of hands!

2. The stage. I can’t describe it properly, enough to do it full justice, but it was on hydrolics I guess, so it could move up and down as needed but then also so it could raise 50 feet up and turn vertical. The performers used it as a flat stage, as a diagonal hill, and as a vertical mountain and cliff. They had a HUGE epic battle as it was raised veritically and that was perhaps the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. It looked like something out of an anime.

3. The romance. Now I mean it in the true sense of romance. ^^; The boy prince fell in love with the princess from the neighboring tribe (yeah, the one that tried to kill him!) and they ended up married. The evil dude who basically ran the neighboring tribe was in love with the princess and it was all so incredibly unrequited and ugh, just so sexy for lack of a better word. He had long black hair (looooong, down to his butt) and he was slender and really tall and lanky. uuuuuugh *_*. Anyway, the princess from the good tribe fell in love with a man she met in the Jungle; I think he was King/Prince there, but he saved her from dying so it was soooo sweet.

Okay, enough romancing. ^^;

Work is going extremely well. I’m a published author as of today. More of that to come!

High School Music 2? It was faaaaabulouuuuus (note: that is how it’s sung in the movie, heh) and Adriann and I bought the CD the next day after it came out and have been listening nonstop since. I just adore Troy/Gabriella now T__T; And Adriann and I both agree that the boy who plays Ryan and Zak Efron (?) are both incredible.

More later. The gf is here. =^___^=

So apparently the girl, Kristine, from the Hermione Crookshanks Experience is going to be at the very same Borders HP:DH release party Adriann and I are going to!! I’ve loved this girl’s music for a long time, and I’m glad I’m going to be all Snaped up and in costume so we can get some rockin’ pictures and hopefully meet her.

Adriann, Deana, and I drove up to Santa Monica for WhimsicAlley, a series of wizarding shops all under one roof, in the hopes of finding some school robes. Unfortunately, as we figured would be the case, they only had Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw robes in mine and Deana’s sizes, but Adriann managed to luck out with a Gryffindor robe! It looks so cute on her.

Adriann and I also lucked out in that they had… ugh, I’m not kidding… a replica of Snape’s wand…. *____* I about died, and now it is MINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Okay, so Adriann and I plan to share it but… ung…Snape’s wand! It’s great, kind of thick, and very long. Oh, and certainly BLACK. It’s very Snape. Adriann managed to get Sirius Black’s wand, not because it’s Sirius’ but because it was a cool looking wand. They also had wands that lit up at the tip, which were SO EFFING COOL, but those weren’t so great looking unfortunately.

Instead of a robe, I did get a sexy Slytherin sweater-vest. It was supposed to cost $35, but by some miracle of fate, the guy rang it up as a “scarf” for $15.95 instead! So I got everything for around $42. Sweeeeeet.

Adriann and I tried everything on when we got home…and it’s so perfect. Ugh, SO EXCITED.

I’m very scared about this last book, but all the fun leading up to it is just awesome. I hope that someday I find another book that can just completely capture my life the way Harry Potter has, though I’m doubtful.