I'm pretty good at writing one blog post a month, so here's to December.

I came on here to say I don't see myself in you anymore.
Remember to clean up after yourself boy. Things change so quickly.

Have I ever been in love?

Edit: NO

Mmmm....I could eat this boy alive

Staying up a little later than usual to catch Chromeo on Letterman.







Dave 1 just drives me crraaazzzzyyy. But for realz, if you haven't checked out this amazing duo definitely pick up their new album Business Casual ASAP. They prove the funk lives!

Hey You

I've been having this weird feeling lately... I keep asking myself, "How did I get here?" I watched Inception last night, and Leonardo DiCaprio said something about when you don't know how you got somewhere, you're probably dreaming. Sometimes I feel like that. Like I'm sleeping, like I'm dreaming... or actually more like I'm getting some kind of glimpse into the future. I'm a twelve year old, seeing myself for a second as a 21 year old. How did I get here? Is this my apartment? Why are there boxers hanging from my shower and who is that girl in the mirror? Who's heels are these in the closet? Who's dresses on these hangers? Is that really my body? Am I really in college? Less than a year away from getting my degree? What's happened in the past years? Did I really make it through all that? Have I really changed that much? Who is this boy I'm thinking about that makes me sick? And why don't I feel right at home anymore? Am I really going to work tomorrow at a job I've been at for two years? And how was I able to write such a good essay on social theory? Do I really know that? Can I really understand that? ...Did we really have all those late nights? So many dreamy late nights. Did we really?

This can't be the present or I must be dreaming, because I'm having trouble tracing things. This seems like the way it's always been, but just the other day it was so different... There had to have been so many things to separate it all, but it's happened so fast. I remember feeling scared and disconnected, but I'm happy here. Can I stay? I think I'm about to wake up...

The Devil Will Find Work For Idle Hands To Do

There's so many things I want to do, but I'm afraid I'll never do them. It's funny because I came here to complain about not having learned to make electronic beats already. My excuse has always been finances--I don't have the money to buy software, and it really is a legitimate excuse. I came here to complain about the fact that I'm sitting here watching Food Network and surfing the internet when I could be doing something worthwhile, but when I started to write I realized how idiotic I am about to sound. I woke up this morning and went to the Davis Farmers Market, came home and made a delicious veggie sandwiches with my sister, cleaned my refrigerator, went swimming with Jamie, wrote a short paper for my writing class, and then finally put up some magazine clippings I wanted to hang in my room. I did A LOT today, so how could I seriously complain about having idle hands? I have all these dreams of things I want to do, and I guess when I have nothing to do--like right now--I start to freak out because I haven't accomplished my dreams and I'm afraid I never will. There's only so much time, only so many days in my life to do what I want, and sometimes I feel like I'm wasting time. But I always need to remind myself that I AM accomplishing my dreams. A year from now I'll have graduated from a prestigious university making me the FIRST person on my Dad's side of the family to have graduated college...and I believe the second on my mother's side of the family. I'm planning on going to Ireland next summer. I'll go to grad school after that. I really am doing things in my life that I've always dreamed about. There really are no idle hands here, but ah..there is so much I want to do! I wish I had more time and energy to do it.

The Young

So I'm currently writing a paper and thought I'd take a break from writing to well...uh....write, since I haven't written a blog in a while. To long, TOO LONG! I usually have the best ideas about things to write about when I'm either taking a shower or getting ready. These are the two times throughout my day that I do the best thinking. There's nothing like putting on sparkly eye shadow that gets the blood in your brain flowing, I'd say.

Well I really have nothing much to say... oh except I just thought of something... Last week I read some of Rainer Maria Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet over again. Letter 7 has some truly amazing things to say about relationships. I'll give you some quotes:

Loving does not at first mean merging, surrendering, and uniting with another person (for what would a union be of two people who are unclarified, unfinished, and still incoherent?), it is a high inducement for the individual to ripen, to become something in himself, to become world, to become world in himself for the sake of another person; it is a great, demanding claim on him, something that chooses him and calls him to vast distances.


But this is what young people are so often and so disastrously wrong in doing: they (who by their very nature are impatient) fling themselves at each other when love takes hold of them, they scatter themselves, just as they are, in all their messiness, disorder, bewilderment. And what can happen then? What can life do with this heap of half-broken things that they call their communion and that they would like to call their happiness, if that were possible, and their future? And so each of them loses himself for the sake of the other person, and loses the other, and many others who still wanted to come. And loses the vast distances and possibilities, gives up the approaching and fleeing of gentle, prescient Things in exchange for an unfruitful confusion, out of which nothing more can come; nothing but a bit of disgust, disappointment, and poverty, and the escape into one of the many conventions that have been put up in great numbers like public shelters on this most dangerous road.

Ok I know that was a long quote, but really that doesn't even give the letter justice. You have to read the beautiful thing in it's entirety. These letters are a series of amazing advice about art and life, and I was thrilled to read this one because I felt like Rilke was getting at what I'd been trying to do all my life. I never wanted to get into a relationship in high school because relationships always felt immature to me...I felt immature. Even when I was with a guy I thought would be perfect for me, it never felt right. I always had this desire for freedom which I thought a relationship would rob me of, and without that freedom I wouldn't be able to properly develop as a strong individual. I'm about to turn 21 in two weeks, and at this point in my life I've often questioned if my decision to distant myself from most romantic relationships has be a good one, but after reading something written by a genius like Rilke that supports my decision, I feel confident in the path I've chosen. The poet that Rilke is writing to is about 19 and Rilke was about 27, so the two are right around my age and when Rilke goes on to say:

We are only just now beginning to consider the relation of one individual to a second individual objectively and without prejudice, and our attempts to live such relationships have no model before them.

this "we" he is talking about includes me. I am also at a time in my life where I'm now beginning to view this relation objectively, and I'm so happy to be here. I'm at the age where everyone around me is starting to talk about weddings. While most of my girlfriends are planning out what style dress they would like to wear at their weddings or what time of year they would want the ceremony, all I know is that I would love to read some of Rilke's words at my ceremony. Ah, now to only find another solitude so we can, "protect and border and greet each other."

Always the years between us, always the years. Always the love. Always the hours.

I watched The Hours again tonight for the first time in years (usage of the phrase "in years" really means I'm getting kind of old..hah). Anyways.. it is such an amazing movie! It's my mother's favorite film, but I don't think I totally understood why when I first saw it years ago. Now I entirely do. I can't really remember when I first saw the film... probably at least 5 years ago. Terrible I know, but I didn't know who Virginia Woolf was at the time. I remember reading Mrs Dalloway last year, and all of a sudden as I was reading it, it clicked that this was the book from The Hours.

Virginia Woolf's works are difficult, but they truly capture the depth of life far more beautifully than almost anything I've read, and I would easily say The Hours follows suit. After watching it again tonight I can say with out a doubt that it is one of the best movies I've seen. I could sit here and describe all the reason why this movie is a cut above the rest, but trying to describe art just diminishes it's worth (Ahh..we're getting at the title of my blog there a bit). So all I can say is if you haven't seen this movie, go watch it, and if you haven't read any of Virginia Woolf's works, go read one. You might have to push your way through it, but it's worth the fight, I promise.

Tipi? Teepe? Teepee?

I'm in a really weird mood right now... I think it's because I feel a little stressed about the new quarter. I know there is so much work ahead of me, but I only bought two books! So behind...ahhh....

There's so much fun stuff to look forward to in the next month! How can I even begin to focus on school? This weekend is Easter which means hanging with the family! Next weekend Nicole is coming up and Adam is having his birthday part-ay! The weekend after THAT is Picnic Day which means INSANITY. And then two weekends after that is Allie's birthday party! Ah life is good but responsibilities are bad.
Last spring quarter I slacked a bit and it's looking like history is going to repeat itself. My oh my...


Look at me and my roommates... We have too much fun together!

If only I could relive last night a thousand times

I really can't get over the feeling that last night was a dream. I was at an AFI show in San Francisco alone. I was surrounded by a bunch of Despair Faction members that I recognized from the message boards or twitter....People I had known about for years, but never seen before. I didn't talk to anyone...I get shy like that. I had a jacket on, sleeves rolled up, cut off jean shorts with ripped tights under them. I was wearing the Crash Love shirt I got at the Fresno show. I cut it up so the neckline was low, and the mixture of sweat and the pulling/pushing crowed stretched it out. I had to keep pulling it up to prevent my boobs from hanging out the whole night. I was standing at the center of the stage, one person from the gate... really the perfect spot. I felt like Davey Havok was singing right to me the whole night. When he crowd walked during Coin Return, I was there holding him up. Later he front flipped over my head...WHAT. I helped push a kid over the barrier, onto stage. At times the show felt like those old punk AFI videos from 1998 I've watched a thousand times. Other times it felt like dancey liberation..whatever that means... all I know is that I felt free. The set list of a lifetime:

Medicate
Girl's Not Grey
The Leaving Song Pt. II
I Am Trying Very Hard To Be Here
Kill Caustic
End Transmission
It Was Mine
Coin Return
Beautiful Thieves
Dancing Through Sunday
Too Shy To Scream
Theory of Revolution
On The Arrow
...But Home is Nowhere
The Interview
Miss Murder
Darling, I Want To Destroy You
Love Like Winter
Silver and Cold


How am I so lucky to have experienced last night? Because it did really happen...it wasn't a dream. I have to keep telling myself that. The AFI show of my dreams really happened. One of the greatest AFI shows of all time...I was there.

If only I could relive last night a thousand times. I don't want to ever forget it.





EDIT: (4/4/10) A few nights ago I had a dream that I was at this really amazing AFI show. Usually when I wake up from dreams like that I'm crushed that it wasn't real and long to return to the dream. This time I woke up and didn't care at all, because I ACTUALLY did experience one of the greatest AFI shows of all time. I'm starting to believe it, but I still can't believe it.

Those are the experiences we really live for. I'm so lucky to have that night. It's all mine. Besides DFers I kind of know through the internet, no one I know was there that night. As selfish as it is, because I experienced that night alone I don't have to share it with anyone. I think being there alone really adds to the dream-like feeling about that night that I can't get over. Even though there are videos all over YouTube of the show, David, Gabe, or Jamie weren't there to go over the events of the night a thousand times to prove they really happened. In my every day life, in my reality, I'm the only one that was there that night. It really could have been a dream, and I wouldn't know the better.

Well if anything here's one of the only remotely decent photos I took that night (unfortunately on my phone):


Really the only proof of the reality of my perspective.

But There's Bigger Bills Than This in New York City

I just read a few amazing blog posts by this guy on a message board I frequent, and regardless of the fact that I should be finishing up my 10 page sociology of gender paper, I felt inspired by this guy's amazing words to write something a little more creative myself. I've never written as well as I want to. I'm not bad at writing...I'm an English major which means I know how to get my ideas out somewhat clearly, but it also means I know what GOOD writing looks like, and this is not it.

One of my friends just posted this on Facebook:

"Writing about music is like dancing about architecture. It's really a stupid thing to want to do." - Elvis Costello

And with that, I will now write about music.

Ok, ok Elvis Costello we can compromise. How about I write about the immense anticipation I'm feeling right now about some upcoming music consumption? Ok? Ok.




Murder City Devils anyone? Anyone?? Do you see the date on the picture above? 1996-2001, but for the past couple years MCD has been playing shows again! Tomorrow morning at 10AM I will attempt to buy pre-sale tickets for their May 7th show in San Fransisco (if I can find the time at work to sneak away to my computer and buy them).
Ok, ok I have a confession to make. By acting all stoke and such about buying tickets to a Murder City Devils concert 9 years after they broke up, I'm kind of implying that I've been waiting all this time to see them. I haven't. The truth is, I just started listening to them a little over a year ago. But since then they've become one of my favorite bands and really mean a lot to me. Weird as it is to say, ever since I started listening to them, if you asked me, "Would you rather have tickets to your first AFI show or your first MCD show, what would you choose?" I would have said, "Give me Murder City." And if you know me, you know I have serious mad love ([obsession]... no it's not an obsession it's a passion) for AFI.

I mean come on, what better picture ignites a feeling of nostalgia for something you have never experienced than this one?



And there's nothing like good old horror and gore:




Oh and did I mention their music is mind blowing? If you don't believe me check them out for yourself: www.myspace.com/murdercitydevils
They may take a little acquiring, but once you catch the taste you'll be addicted.

Post Olympic Withdrawals

Ah, tomorrow marks a week since the 2010 Winter Olympics ended, and I'm still having withdrawals! How are you all doing? I still come home from school/work wondering what Olympic event will be on that night. Last night before I went to bed I thought to myself, "remember to set your alarm for 9AM so you can wake up and watch curling! Oh wait...".

Overall though I'd say this Olympics was kind of a drag for me....
USA curling (the sport I care about the most!) can be tagged with a big old



Then the whole hockey situation...You all know what happened...no need to repeat it... but here's my favorite quote in regards to that litter situation:

"Canada: 1 win USA: 1 win. When is the gold medal championship game now?" -Rainn Wilson


I guess I'd say the greatest thing to happen during the Olympics for me was when "Cheryl Bernard" was trending on twitter:



Not only was it great publicity for curling, and it meant people care about the sport! it was also exciting because it was trending due to the fact that she missed a shot for the gold medal. Sorry Cheryl you're simply amazing, but my country was put to too much shame in this sport and your country ridiculously dominated it ... you got to give me some room for evil satisfaction in your defeat. Ok ok I really wasn't that excited about Canada's loss Cheryl Bernard deserves an IMMENSE amount of credit ... and truthfully I was very happy to see the men win gold. Kevin Martin is amazing and deserves nothing less.

Ok well I completed this blog in less time then it's taken for my vegetarian chik'n nuggets to bake so boo ya! And with that I leave you with the number 1 most played song on my iTunes:

Kevin Martin Actually the Bald Guy From Princess Bride?

INCONCEIVABLE!





Gosh, I should just make this a curling blog.

Oh curling...........

Seems like everyone has been into curling this Winter Olympics, huh? I think it has to do with Team Fenson's Bronze metal win at the Torino Olympics 4 years ago.



Ah, well USA, we fell a little short of a metal this Olympics... and when I saw a little, I mean a lot. I AM DISAPPOINT. But what can ya do?

Both the USA men's and women's teams have been taking a lot of hits, props for staying positive. Truly, none of us can imagine the pressure you guys are under. I really hope curling gets bigger and bigger, and we can get some more support in the USA for our curling teams.



Ah well... it's been fun. The women's metal games are on Friday, and the men's metal games are on Saturday. With US out of it I need to decide who I'm going to root for. Right now I know on the men's side, I'll be pushing for Norway. No explanation needed.

CURLING!!!

AH! YOU DO NOT KNOW MY LOVE FOR THIS SPORT! 4 years ago I fell in love with curling after watching Pete Fenson's USA men's team win a bronze metal at the 2006 Winter Olympics. I was in high school back then and had the luxury of my parent's DVR, so I never missed a game.
Now in 2010, we have a different story. School and work leave me little time to actually watch TV, and even if I did have the time the networks that cover the Olympics of course give the worst time slots to curling. Luckily, I've been able to catch a few games on the internet. Hopefully I'll be able to watch some more because the opportunity to watch curling on TV really only comes once every 4 years. It's so weird how I get addicted to this game! After I starting watching it 4 years ago I couldn't stop thinking about it, and now 4 years later I'm back in the mindset. A local curling club is having an open house where they teach people to curl this Saturday and next Saturday for free. Maybe I'll push myself to go and learn to curl. Ah well, for now I'll just dream about going home tonight where I'll ignore my reading for my classes, maybe make Tofurky for dinner, and watch curling! Let's go team USA! Don't shame Pete Fenson's 2006 team! Let's win a metal!

AFI at the Rainbow Ballroom, Fresno, CA

Date: 27 January 2010
Place: Fresno, CA
Venue: Rainbow Ballroom
Band: Viva Hate, Ceremony, AFI






No words can explain this night.










Car got broken into, window smashed, purse stolen, but I didn't care.









There's nothing more real than this.