Let's Call It Love

Nearly there

2010-10-24T17:17:00.002-10:00

Everything is not okay, and it is only getting worse every day. We are so close to imploding, you have no idea. I am waiting nervously for the day when I won't know any of you anymore. It's so depressing to think we won't see each other again.

Reciprocity

2010-09-15T19:27:00.003-10:00

Remember the time you tried to kill yourself by swallowing a fist-full of Advil? We walked outside ten minutes later and you tried to vomit it out, but you couldn't. Instead, it came out slowly over the course of the next day. You were barfing every ten minutes. You were so determined to hide your attempt that you came to school with me, but you couldn't stay in class because of the vomit. I drove you home and you managed to hold it in for the ride.

I loved you so much, I was terrified. It was unfair what you did. You were so scared of being gay that for an instant you would have rather died than spend your life with me. Now you know how it feels to be abandoned. I don't wish you an unhappy life, but I hope you can appreciate what I went through for you.

I am scared of living here by myself.

Down

2010-05-24T19:33:00.002-10:00

I thought high school was the lowest point, but there are some nights when I come home from work and I feel like I'm falling deeper than ever. Time is the source of my sorrow and as more time passes, the more I realize how far away I am from the happiest days.

My happiest days were as a child, when there were no worries and just love. As a child I loved so much. The more I learn about the way things truly are, the more I hate this world. I see how other people hate and it takes away my enthusiasm. I used to have so much more excitement within me.

People, myself included, are becoming more disgusting every day. We are a disease on this earth. The worst part is that there are so many people who don't realize how destructive our species is. All they can think about is their own pathetic existence. This life is not about you or me. Why does everything feel so pointless?

I have always wanted to leave but I could never figure out how.

Nothing

2010-05-18T18:36:00.000-10:00

Getting over a sickness now that had me breathing like death rattles. Asleep is the best I ever felt. I cough up green gobs of something, but it doesn't taste metallic like it used to. As I first showed symptoms of sickness, people at work told me I must have bad allergies. They tell me this to make themselves feel better. They're stuck in an office all day with me walking around, carrying my germs so close to their precious sterilized cubicles. I am the living incubator.

A sticky note was posted next to one office door ordering me not to enter. It is okay with me. I can cough on my hands and touch the copier. Whatever it is, it will go around anyway. You will be exposed no matter how hard you try.

I'm pretty sure this was the illness of the bagless vacuum dust; most likely an infection from something evil I sucked from my carpets. As I emptied the canister the weekend I got sick, I marveled at the dust strata, the different shades of gray running parallel in lifts. I wiggled the dust cakes and they released puffs of white garbage, which proceeded promptly to my lungs.

There is a smell of dog that lingers in my bedroom, probably from the previous tenant who locked some poor poopy-pants in there all day, slobbering and scratching stink particles all over the room. I proceeded to attack the smell with my empty vacuum. Thinking clean thoughts, I willed it to go away. The vacuum would work, I knew it.

The smell is still there. I don't know what to do.

I had almost recovered from the illness when I decided to mix root beer with something awful. It made me so sick to my stomach that it felt like I was trying to digest knives for days.

Baby, yes, it's good to eat dinner. You're silly. Did you forget, or were you not hungry?

Blown Brains

2010-03-29T17:29:00.003-10:00

My job has taken me away from everything and everyone I love. Some days, I daydream about shooting myself in the head so that the mess of my brains cover the walls of that ego-infested place. Everyone will look at what's left of me and feel sick in the same way that I feel sick when I hear them talk about how awesome they are. At the end of the day, ignorant, racist homophobes suck the hopes and dreams out of me. It's so hard to stay motivated when you know that so many people would rather you be dead. At least this job has taught me one thing: a big mouth, a small brain, and a penis will take you far in life!

The coldest weather of my life

2009-12-14T16:11:00.010-10:00

Friday night was my first time playing on a real stage at a real venue. I drove to Eugene with Squirrel riding in the passenger seat. It was the night we were supposed to have the terrible snow and freezing rain in Portland, which never came. However, the drive to Eugene was not fun. I-5 in both directions slowed to 5 mph just south of Salem. People were scared and pulling over to the shoulder. I only noticed the ice when I would try to change lanes and the car would fishtail slightly. I thank the weight of my drums and hardware for keeping my car on the road. My dear instrument, I love you.

We arrived at Luckey's (after a four hour drive) the exact minute we were supposed to go on. The band that was supposed to play after us agreed to trade slots, so it worked out alright. We didn't fit in very well. The bands before and after us were jam bands, and we are definitely not. I felt really weird about it, but people were coming up to me afterwards saying that we sounded great, so that made everything worth it. I was worried all day Friday that it would be a bad idea to try to drive to Eugene because of the weather, but I'm glad we made it.

I was hiding in a corner watching the last band when an older guy came up to me and said he really loved my drumming. He might have been drunk.

Then it took another four hours to drive home and I was doing 25 mph on I-5 and struggling to stay awake. I would open my eyes with my heart beating so hard like it was trying to punch me awake. I imagined me and Squirrel flipped over in a ditch, to scare myself into trying harder. I imagined you waiting for me and I would start to drive faster to get to you, then the tires would slip, then I would slow down again, then I would fall asleep, then it started over again. I got home at 6:30 AM and you were there waiting. That's all I was hoping for. Thank you.

Hawthorne Theatre on January 22. I need to find 8 people to attend.

Changes

2009-12-03T17:40:00.003-10:00

On Monday night, I almost hit a deer with my car for the first time. It was standing at the entrance to my driveway. Later that night, I broke someone's heart. You can take this one instance of rejection for the countless times you did it to me.

I applied and was accepted for graduate school at the University of Hawaii, but I decided not to go. I was supposed to reply before Thanksgiving, but I had actually decided a few months ago that going back was the wrong decision. I was in a different state of mind when I applied. I thought I wanted to be respected, but I only did it because you kept getting angry at me for leaving. Now I know that you will be angry with me no matter what I do, so I am going to do what I want.

Today my boss offered to move me back to Hawaii. I told him I'd rather stay here. Let's see if I get fired.

I made a new friend. She is beautiful, nice, and likes what I like. I enjoy spending time with her. She is brave in ways that I wish I could be.

You're Gone Again

2009-11-29T09:24:00.002-10:00

Last night we went to see Explode Into Colors and you got upset that I was dancing. The only people who don't dance to Explode Into Colors are the dead, the deaf (even they might dance to the vibrations), and you, my dear. I don't mean to insult or offend, but there are times when people need to release themselves and move to the sound and pulse of unrestrained expression. You need to understand that just because people dance, it does not mean that they are carefree and drunken idiots. They might be drunk, but you must know that it is still possible to dance with pain in your heart. Sometimes music makes me feel pain by reminding me of my own problems, and sometimes it makes me feel pain just because it sounds painful. You can't judge people from how they appear to your eyes. There are so many layers underneath that you can't see, and this is where the real substance of a person is contained.

Anyway, I am by myself again. Do you wonder how long the good feelings will last this time? I believe that when you get home, you will start hating me again. Of course I don't want you to hate me, but I don't think this trip will change your mind about moving here. We are different people. I still love you to death, but that becomes irrelevant once you get on the plane.

Thanks for coming. Hope you had fun.

Engorged Rodents

2009-11-28T08:13:00.003-10:00

I just had to note that the squirrels outside my window are getting really fat and noticeably less agile. It must be that time of year again. This will be my first full winter in Vancouver/Portland.

Revisited

2009-11-27T21:58:00.003-10:00

I know this blog is really old and I haven't touched it for years, but I can't let it go because there is too much of my life here to leave it behind. This, in addition to xanga, myspace and facebook (to varying degrees) are the only outlets I have been able to trust consistently. I hoard these entries as a record of my life, to make up for all those friends I never made, pictures I never took and letters I never wrote.

It makes me sad when I revisit some of these entries, but there were hard lessons to learn and I need to remember each one to save myself from having to relearn them.

My former obsession with Sleater-Kinney (still love them, though) seems a bit alarming to me now, but in retrospect there were many things going on in the background of my life that drew me to them. Their music kept me grounded and breathing during a really bad time.

After a somewhat stable period of college life, things are getting complicated and messed up again. I am trying really hard to be a good person, a loving daughter/sister/girlfriend and a compassionate, honest human being.

It shouldn't be this hard and I know I have it pretty good in many areas of my life, but I still struggle with bad thoughts and some really hurtful actions. I'm sorry.

Holidays! New Year! :D

2006-12-27T22:30:00.000-10:00

My brother got Now 23, and I scanned it quickly out of curiosity. The only song I enjoy is track 2, Promiscuous (Nelly Furtado featuring Timbaland). I know, I should be hung for my crimes.

I've got a new amp - a Roland Micro Cube. The little box is a monster. It sings, it growls, it roars. It has built-in effects too. The tremolo gives a "Size Of Our Love" sound, and the flanger/phaser effects make me think of The Woods solos.

I've still got about a week and a half to waste.

Finally

2006-11-26T23:52:00.000-10:00

The living room floor is finished. The only thing left to do is nail the quarter rounds to the baseboards and paint them. It feels pretty good to look at it.

I saw the rug at Costco and thought it was interesting.

I remember the first evening I began laying the hardwood planks down. I hit my finger with the mallet and dripped blood on the concrete subfloor. Expletives rolled off my tongue as I nervously wiggled my hand in the air. I was afraid to look at it. I sat on the dusty old concrete for the rest of the night, wondering how I was ever going to finish. I cried my eyes out wondering how I could ever finish anything. Sometimes I use a physical injury as an excuse to release the frustrations associated with mental...things. My finger was in a strange condition for many weeks after that incident. Indeed, it took blood, sweat, and tears (I did have a cry or two out of frustration).

When I walk on the floor now, I feel every inconsistency, every flaw, bump, and gap. I know where each imperfection is because I put it there. That's a common problem I experience, having to live with my creations. I know every single little thing that's wrong with them, and that's all I'll focus on.

The total re-flooring project has taken longer than I expected, mostly because of a band and somewhat because of school. I can remember the timeline perfectly because it corresponded with the summer of Sleater-Kinney. A summer trip was looming, and the destination was still undecided. I wanted to cast my vote for a city (and corresponding date) that S-K would be stopping at on their east coast tour. All of my suggestions were vetoed, so I went on slowly with my flooring work, figuring I would wait until winter break to try see the ladies in action. How silly of me.

I woke up on June 27, the morning I was to begin installing baseboards upstairs in my parents' room, and read the e-mail from Andy. It was short, maybe two or three sentences. He said they've announced that they're done. He didn't know what to say and I didn't know what to think. I installed baseboards that day while blasting every single S-K song known to man through my crappy computer speakers. I was ripping the carpet off of the living room floor while listening to NPR's live stream of their (2nd attempt) performance at the 9:30 club in D.C. I was painting the living room walls while watching the (slightly delayed) stream of their performance at Lollapalooza. I was sweeping up the final bits of broken concrete from the living room floor just moments before packing for the Portland experience.

Everything comes back to them, no matter what I'm doing. When people talk, I hear lyrics, then I hear Corin's voice. When I hear or see the name "Carrie," I think "Brownstein." When I see someone setting up a drum set at Campus Center, I think of Janet. Corrienet is everywhere.

Random memories

2006-11-14T20:56:00.000-10:00

Reading Tim's blog today, I realized that I walked a ridiculous amount while in Portland. Yes, it's true, I did get lost every day. Luckily, the river always showed itself, and if I followed it long enough, I would come to a place I had already seen.

As soon as we stepped off the Light Rail MAX, tugging on our luggage leashes, we were already lost. I had been studying Google Maps to avoid this situation, but a city view from above is nothing like the view of the city from the street. I was a hopeless navigator. I guided my family down SW Broadway, but in the wrong direction. I finally realized it and turned everyone around. Luckily, the weather was wonderfully cool and dry, so none of us were sweating. I had never before been so excited to be lost.

The fountains, the river, the bookstore, Jackpot Records, the Light Rail, I miss them all.

I remember one night we started walking at the edge of town where the nice park/walkway along the Willamette River began. It was getting dark as we were walking. I took some pictures of each bridge as we walked past, but none of the photos came out well enough to tell exactly what they were supposed to be. As it got darker, the homeless people began to gather under the bridges so that when we walked beneath the overpasses, we did so without speaking and while staring at our feet. There really were a large number of homeless people. I could picture Carrie volunteering her time to feed them at the shelters.

I remember listening to Maraca while riding the Light Rail and realizing for the first time that this was where they wrote the song. The evergreen trees in the distance were so fitting. I used to find some of the transitions in S-K songs to be a little bit strange (actually, they're simply genius), but after riding the Light Rail to the Oregon Zoo and finding myself suddenly surrounded by wilderness so close to the busy city, it all made sense.

Okay. I might be a little crazy. I can't help it. Portland is exciting.

Eyes are hurtin'

2006-11-13T19:51:00.000-10:00

I've decided that reading the relative roughness value off of Moody's Diagram hurts my eyes even more than counting fecal coliform bacteria colonies on a 2-inch diameter plate. I counted up to 840 once. My eyes were nearly bleeding.

Engineering is fun sometimes, really.

He learns well

2006-10-23T20:01:00.000-10:00

I just set up a new desktop computer for my little brother. I downloaded iTunes for him and transferred all of my music onto his computer. Tonight he started up iTunes for the first time and guess which song he played first, out of ALL the songs...

All Hands On The Bad One

I heard the bass drum pounding through the floor and I ran upstairs just to see if it was true. It sure was.

Tastes

2006-10-19T00:48:00.000-10:00

I recently ate a peanut butter granola bar. I love peanut butter way too much. I have been known to eat it by the spoonful. Occasionally.

Just now, I burped and it tasted like Curry, which is what I had for dinner. Gyoza Curry, to be exact.

Of course, the reason why I'm writing such a retarded blog entry is because I have a midterm tomorrow and studying for Fluids always cooks my brain.

Also, my Geomath (differential equations) professor was on the news because she's a seismologist. Go Professor Wolfe.

Put him away.

Heart attack. Some idiot with a subwoofer in his (assumption...sorry guys) car just drove by and I thought the vibrating sounds were another earthquake. My goodness. I was almost running for the doorframe. Professor Wolfe told us today in class that in the next few weeks, it's very likely that we'll have a magnitude 5.something aftershock. I'm nervously waiting for it.

I like this article because she wrote it with someone whose last name is "Brownstein."

I've also taken two classes from Professor Robertson, who is quoted here along with Professor Wolfe. The part where Professor Robertson talks about the 15-20 minutes to get the hell out of the way of the tsunami scares me. Plus, now the world knows that significant earthquakes are to be expected here. What a way to ruin our tourism industry. This is yet another item on my rapidly growing list of reasons to leave Hawaii. I'll have to start writing it out soon.

HAHA watch "Daily Show pokes fun at KITV." Hilarious.

Midterms scare me almost more than earthquakes. I know what to do, but the pressure and time constraints make my brain stall. Excuses, excuses. Shame on you, C.S. I have one on Thurs., one on Fri., and one on Tues. I had one yesterday, but it was awful. My only hope now is that everyone else did equally as awful, or (better yet) even more awful than I did.

Milestones

2006-10-17T22:10:00.000-10:00

One Beat (the song) has been played 100 times according to my iTunes, and is the top played song out of all the songs on my computer.

Congratulations, One Beat. I haven't tired of hearing you yet, and I never will.

Other top tracks:

2. The Size Of Our Love 98 plays
3. Was It A Lie? 91 plays
4. You're No Rock 'n Roll Fun 89 plays
5. Oh! 88 plays

Interesting.

Celeste's first earthquake

2006-10-16T01:57:00.000-10:00

Okay, that's not entirely true. We had one a few weeks ago, or a few months ago...I can't remember...but it was MUCH smaller.

This morning I woke up to strange sounds. It sounded like an airplane, or maybe like the train that passed by us when we were sightseeing in Oregon. Anyway, I sat up in bed and suddenly my room was twisting and shaking. I ran out to the living room and all the walls were swaying. As soon as I gathered enough sense to stand in the doorway, the shaking stopped.

A few seconds later, it started up again, but this time it was STRONGER. I ran to the stairs and yelled, "Dad?! DAD!!!" because I was so scared that all I could do was yell. The walls were definitely moving dangerously and the ground under my feet was vibrating and sliding back and forth. I could hear the house straining to hold itself together. I thought the whole thing was going to fall down on top of me, so I started running back and forth between my room and the living room, trying to avoid whichever part was going to collapse first. Nothing collapsed, but I got the shit scared out of me.

A few minutes later, the noise came back and I got a sick feeling in my stomach. I yelled to my dad (who was upstairs with my brother) that it was coming back (can't mistake that noise now, and never will again) and we all took our places beneath our respective doorframes. The shaking was much more subtle, but I wasn't taking chances anymore (what I did earlier was idiotic).

My mom was at work at the gas station, and she described the liquor bottles clanging against each other, and how she shut off the power to her electric stove (she sells all kinds of food too!) before running outside with another employee.

I spent the whole day at work helping my parents sell gas. We had a backup generator and no one on the island had power. People told me that the radio stations were telling everyone to come to us for gas. That soon became obvious. The line to our station went down the street at least six blocks, so I've been told. Some people had to wait two to three hours to fill up. Eventually, they started getting angry and swearing at each other and us. Some resorted to childish insults. The police came and parked their cars in the middle of the street in front of our station. I was glad because I was starting to get really scared.

By 2 pm, all of our gas was gone and me and my brother created "NO GAS" signs that we wore on our chests (he wore "NO" and I wore "GAS"). The white bags over all of our nozzles still weren't enough to convince people that we were out of gas. They kept coming in and clogging our driveway, so we decided that body signs were necessary. People started getting it after a few minutes of us bouncing up and down and pointing to our signs. Some waved and smiled at us, which was like a pat on the back sent from heaven.

I tried siphoning by mouth-suction, and I think it's the closest I've ever come to committing suicide. After countless failed siphoning attempts, I created a shop-vac-siphon-machine out of...yep, a shop vac and a siphon. It worked beautifully.

We were trying to help people by staying open, even after all of the supermarkets had locked their doors, and some obviously appreciated it and thanked us excessively, but some were awful and treated us as if it was OUR fault that they had no ice, no batteries, and no gas.

I'm so tired of the bullshit. My mom is still working right now. She's been going for 24 hours and it makes me want to cry. I'm physically tired, my legs are really sore from standing and running all day, and my hands are sore from the gas and trying to help everyone with their car problems. I got gas in the openings on my knuckles. My clothes are covered with gas.

It was a day in hell. I feel dead.

On top of all that, my dad got into an accident in my car while driving through an intersection because the traffic lights were out. He's fine, thankfully, but I need a new front bumper and left fog light.

Acquired Taste

2006-10-14T22:03:00.000-10:00

I just found out today that Tower Records is closing. I saw the sign as I was driving past and my mom confirmed to me that they're all going to be gone soon. I'm sad to hear it. Tower is the best record store in these parts (it's time to move...). I've spent countless afternoons wandering the Tower aisles, searching for bands I stumbled across online (Sleater-Kinney included), or being adventurous and buying something completely random and unheard of. Now I'm stuck with Sam Goody, where I can never find what I'm looking for. They're not even cool enough to stock S-K. I almost have no reason to go on living now. Almost.

So, the Tower end-of-existence sale was going on and I took slight advantage of it. I finally got myself a hard copy of Dig Me Out (I had initially bought the tracks online at e-music because none of the stores had it). I also got some Pretty Girls Make Graves (Elan Vital) and a Sub Pop music video compilation DVD (Acquired Taste). I just watched a few, and was excited to see Entertain and Jumpers in full-screen mode. I skipped around and eventually got to The Thermals' video for How We Know.

Whoa. I've never listened to The Thermals except when they opened for S-K, but...

I recognized the bassline and drum beat immediately. They had played it in Portland. The studio version of the song sounded weak. I remembered getting into this song and I remembered the bassline sounding a lot more danceable.

In conclusion, The Thermals are a live band. Absolutely. If I hadn't been so anxious for S-K, and if I had listened to their albums before the PDX shows, I'm sure I would have been blown away by their performances. Stupid me.

More Battle Scars

2006-10-13T23:20:00.000-10:00

This is what you get when you don't know how to throw hook punches like me and your partner angles the glove so you can't hit it straight-on anyway.

I still can't take pictures. I'm beginning to think that it's the camera. It refuses to focus on anything these days. It's getting on in years now. It's definitely nearing the decrepit stage. Uh huh, right.

I'm going clothes shopping tomorrow for the piano recital on Sunday. I'm thinking of a collared blouse and blazer. A hat and scarf would be nice accessories, but I'm afraid it's still too hot here for that (and always will be, unfortunately).

I'll sport the Carrie look, but instead of a guitar, I'll shred a piano. Hahahaha.

Battle scars

2006-10-07T23:07:00.000-10:00

Today was knife self-defense. All day.

We did it all. It started off with fighting on our feet, then taking each other down, then fighting on the ground. By 4 pm, I was dead tired. I drove home and fell asleep for an hour until my dad came home and woke me up.

I got "cut." Many times. This one has been getting darker all night:

I still can't take a decent picture.

School days

2006-10-06T03:39:00.000-10:00

Today I brought my laptop to school to work on a lab report. A friend and I had a long break so I made her watch the performance of Modern Girl from BTS. Then, I showed her Jumpers on Henry Rollins. I was jumping around the whole time and she was nodding her head.

I think we have another convert.

THEN, a guy in our class came over to us while she was watching Jumpers and he asked me what Sleater-Kinney sounds like. I was a little embarassed that I couldn't describe them to him at all. There were just no words. I think he's curious now because he got a few glimpses of Carrie's jumps/kicks (which made my friend laugh in awe), Janet's robot arms, and Corin's intense singing face. He's going to convert soon, I just know it.

When it was time for class (a lab period that we spent making concrete), my friend and I were singing. I started singing parts of Entertain and Modern Girl while I was cleaning our concrete molds, making Carrie's hand gestures with a scraper in my hand. I think I'm probably a really irritating classmate.

On a completely unrelated note (my printer just ate a perfectly good piece of paper and I'm too irritated to go back to doing homework), I really really really miss this:

We went to Lake Tahoe this past winter. I hope we can go see snow again this winter. I don't like living in a place that doesn't have four seasons. It's no fun. No rock 'n roll fun.

LeTigre is telling me to get off the internet, so I guess I should.

Making a comeback

2006-10-03T01:45:00.000-10:00

I'm playing in a piano recital on Oct. 15. I haven't been in a recital since I was around 11 years old.

I'm the only "adult" playing. The rest are little kids (8-14??).

I've memorized two songs, but I know that once I sit down at the piano, I'm going to forget it all. Because of this, I've been trying to modify my memorizing style so that I can remember most of the individual notes instead of relying on muscle memory like I used to.

We'll see how it goes.

Burn To Shine: Portland

2006-09-30T21:24:00.000-10:00

I finally got one!!!

Thanks and forever-grateful-ness go to Bucky Done Gun at sleater-kinney.net. He/she sent me an original DVD (not a copy of one) with the fantastic Carrie cover. I got it Thursday and watched it several times throughout the night. I absolutely love it.

Bucky also included a copy of Swan Island's new album, The Centre Will Hold. Awesome. Thank you!!!

Speaking of burning...

Yesterday, we visited H-Power (a facility owned by the City & County of Honolulu), which is where they burn our trash. They currently burn about 60% (or 65% ??) of the daily trash. They're looking at adding another boiler so that they can handle 80-90% percent of the trash. We went on a tour of the processing area, where they smash the garbage into manageable pieces and use magnets to remove the ferrous metals. Some sort of electromagnetic field was used to separate non-ferrous metals.

On the island, we produce an average of seven pounds of trash per person per day. This is much higher than the national average of 4.4 pounds. The tour guide explained to us that the reason for this is the fact that EVERYTHING we buy on the island is packaged in some way because we're so isolated and helpless that we require EVERYTHING to be shipped to us from elsewhere. Therefore, it ends up coming to us in extravagant packaging that other places don't usually have to deal with. Lucky us.

Drill 'em!

2006-09-27T03:25:00.000-10:00

Professor Grace always used to tell me to find my weaknesses and then "drill 'em!!!"

Something about the way he said it always made me want to improve.

I've found my weakness. It's trigonometry. I understand it, but I just can't react to it as quickly as everyone else in my classes.

I didn't even know that e^xe^iy = e^x(cosy + isiny), but apparently everyone else did. I was taking notes in class and when the professor wrote that on the board, I stopped writing to stare at it. I had to ask the guy next to me what the deal was.

I have a hard time memorizing all of the rules and integrating tricks. My reluctance to memorize all these years (since high school) is really holding me back now. It's a cumulative weakness that isn't going to be fixed quickly.

*sighhh*

Self defense

2006-09-25T19:04:00.000-10:00

I've signed up for a gun and knife defense class. I had to pay $30 for a yellow rubber gun and a red plastic knife. The class itself was $150. I've already learned some gun and knife defense from the regular taekwondo classes, but this is a special class dedicated to learning as much as possible about defending against these weapons.

Someone once attempted to rob my mom with a knife at the gas station. She's a quick thinker though, so she sent him running. A wonderful bassist that I was fortunate enough to play with several times was shot in the head (his wife also).

I'm not going to pretend that these things will only happen to other people and never to me.

I know that if I'm ever faced with a situation where I have to fight someone who is holding a gun or knife, I'm not going to get away unhurt. Chances are I won't get away alive, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't try. I've been taught to expect to get cut and to expect the gun to go off. Right. Easier said than done. Alright, Celeste, expect shit like this to happen.

I just hope I never never NEVER freeze up and let people do as they please with me.

Yearbook fun

2006-09-25T15:09:00.000-10:00

Due to recent developments, I've dusted off my old eighth-grade yearbook and have taken a photo of my photo.

Carrie Brownstein, you are not alone.

My shirt was white with strange green splotches. Buttoning up all the way to the top was definitely the way to go. For some reason, I signed my picture.

Carrieisms, part 1

2006-09-23T22:47:00.000-10:00

I've scrapped "Carrie word of the week" because I've been too busy to keep up with the reading. Instead, I'll just do "Carrie words, part (#)" as I get the time.

Today, though, it's the debut of another periodical special, focusing on our favorite socio-linguist. That's right, we all love the Carrieisms. Look for "Corinisms" and "Janetisms" in the near future. I realize I have been focusing on Carrie more than Corin and Janet, but the three share equal places as my musical heroes. Carrie just seems to be the one who does the most talking/writing when it comes to interviews and articles.

This Carrieism isn't particularly witty or poetic, but is rather personal for me.

Devil In The Woods, May 2005

We were looking for ways to wake up the audience and the listener and try to be more interactive, because things have gotten less interactive than they were 8 or 10 years ago. More passive audiences, people used to watching music, people who aren't used to going to shows and freaking out - we wanted that.

-Carrie Brownstein

My response:

Dear Carrie,

I am pleased to share with you that am I exactly that person you are talking about. At your most recent Portland shows (8/11 & 8/12), I absolutely freaked out while watching S-K play. If it were possible for you to ask anyone who knows me whether or not this is my typical behavior, they will surely tell you, "No." Thank you for giving me a chance to experience interactive music for the first time in my life.

-Celeste

Hawaiian Cement

2006-09-18T21:42:00.000-10:00

The view from my parked car.

Here is the cool girl who is in all of my classes.

Rock crushers and sifting bins. By the way, we all had to wear hard hats.

Conveyor belts! The lights were not actually green. The light shades were green, which made for interesting effects in the photos.

We could see the conveyor belts beneath our feet.

More crushing and sifting.

More conveyor belts beneath our feet.

The dust from this bin blinded me and I pictured myself taking a wrong step and being crushed by the giant vibrating bin.

Here's the view from where we were. You can see the concrete ingredients in piles on the ground.

We walked from pile to pile to learn about the different sands and aggregates.

This is the building with the rock crushers that we had just toured.

Only in Hawaii will you find palm trees next to the rock crushers.

A loooooong conveyor belt.

The end!

PDX 3

2006-09-17T12:45:00.000-10:00

I dreamt last night that I was back in Portland. S-K was putting on a third show. The same people were back again and we were waiting outside the door. It opened and we all ran up to the third floor (not the balcony). We lined up along the stage and waited for the ladies to come out. For some reason, the dream only consisted of the waiting, the rush up the stairs, and the standing along the stage.

The anticipation, waiting outside all day, then the adrenaline rush of running upstairs is what I remember best from the actual Portland experience. The first moment I realized Janet had walked past me with her drum throne will go down as one of the greatest shocks of my life. Seeing Corin beaming at us, walking a few yards from her car to the CB's front door, left me speechless. The insanity continued until Carrie showed up, walking briskly and bouncily down the line as if she was walking down a wall with gravity pulling her forward. As she passed, her 27 looked back at our stupefied faces. Awww, I miss it. I can still see these images in my mind. What a great trip.

I can't believe I'll never be able to do it again. After over a month, I'm beginning to remember more of it. It's strange that the moment each show ended, I was so overwhelmed that I couldn't remember what had just happened. It seemed like I was experiencing the impossible.

Death By Homework

2006-09-14T01:21:00.000-10:00

Hot damn, giraffe! For the love of sugar-free Jello, I can't get this to work out:

Balance the chemical reaction:

FeSO₄ + K₂Cr₂O₇ + H₂SO₄ ---> Fe₂(SO₄)₃ + K₂SO₄ + H₂O

It's a little late to beg for help, so I'm just going to keep staring at it until it's time to go to school. I think I can smell my brain frying.

I do miss that beautiful thing called sleep.

Edit:
I was getting too frustrated to think so I ate some Jello. I came back and worked out an organized method for approaching the problem. Thirty minutes later, the solution showed itself. The feeling of getting a problem right after working on it for hours is like nothing else. Well...almost (S-K not included).

The magic answer:

6FeSO₄ + K₂Cr₂O₇ + 7H₂SO₄ ---> 3Fe₂(SO₄)₃ + K₂SO₄ + 7H₂O

It probably wasn't even supposed to be that hard. Brain decay. :(

Carrie-word of the week

2006-09-11T00:20:00.000-10:00

This is the first installment in a new weekly vocabulary adventure.

The lovely Sana has uploaded a pile of old articles to the sk.net site. I'm slowly reading through them. As always, Carrie Brownstein is using words that I have never seen before.

In the solemn spirit of the fifth anniversary of 9/11, today we will explore Carrie's commentary on President Bush.

Venus - April 2004
View Article

Obfuscation -

"Ob-fus-cate: verb [trans.] render obscure, unclear, or unintelligible; bewilder (someone)"
-Oxford American Dictionary

Carrie's context:
"How can people tolerate a president who uses obfuscation to gain support?"

The obligatory "visceral":
"I just want people to think about their quality of life and how it actually feels, on a visceral level, to be alive under this president."

Thank you, Carrie, for never ceasing to expand our minds.

Rambling

2006-09-10T12:40:00.000-10:00

I've been busy with school. Homework is insane. Some nights there is no such thing as sleep. On Thursday, we went to Hawaiian Cement and looked at the conveyor belts and sifting machines. We all wore hard hats. There were lots of rock piles, and the dust nearly blinded us as we walked up the inclined see-through floor. The sifting screens were in huge bins that rested on huge springs. They were constantly vibrating, and the bins were so massive that they vibrated the floor, which vibrated my legs, which made it difficult to walk straight. I took some pictures that'll show up here eventually.

Last night I had another weird dream. I was talking to this lady who resembled an older version Olivia Benson from Law & Order SVU. I kept calling her "Carrie." I knew Carrie didn't actually look like that, but it WAS her. She was playing a guitar and doing the Carrie jumps and kicks. Maybe it was the reunion tour. Judging from the physical appearance of "Carrie," my subconscious is not expecting this for quite some time.

Hawwwman, I'm already looking forward to it.

I don't buy clothes often, but when I do, I get most of it from American Eagle because their clothes actually fit me. Or, at least they used to. Last night I got a long sleeve shirt from AE, and it was late so they were trying to close. I just grabbed a medium because I usually fit into medium women's shirts.

Come home...try it on.

Whoaaaa, way too small. I remember the days when there used to be a noticeable size difference between small, medium, and large. I remember the days when I could grab anything medium and fit into it perfectly. :(

Was It A Lie??

2006-09-06T18:53:00.000-10:00

I had a dermatologist appointment today. It turns out I am not suffering from acne, but some other sort of skin condition with a really long name. She prescribed me a special kind of shampoo and told me to put it on my skin ("but it's a really good shampoo so you can use it in your hair also, if you want...").

I'm tired of this.

I made the doctor write down the name so that I could Google it when I got home.

Weirded me out

2006-09-04T23:00:00.000-10:00

Look at my e-mail inbox:

What's that?

*click e-mail*

HAHA. It's Sana telling me I'm in line for membership approval for the Carrie Brownstein fan club. I wonder how many people have already shit their pants after receiving the same e-mail from her.

Kalihi pumping station

2006-09-04T18:42:00.000-10:00

On Friday, our environmental engineering class took a field trip to the Kalihi pumping station. I've got to write a page on it for homework. We sat through a not-so-short lecture about water pumping. I know that the boy sitting next to me was falling asleep because I could see his head falling back. The resulting spasm would wake him up for a little while, and then he'd go back to sleep, then his head would almost fall off again... The speaker told us he usually gives his speech to a younger audience, explaining to them the importance of shutting off the water while brushing one's teeth. He told us that by our age, we ought to know that.

Instead, at this age, we should conserve water by sharing showers.

Ha ha ha. Fun ny. Of course, all the STD-filled kids got a kick out of that one.

Am I the only 19-going-on-20 college student not smiling everything in sight?

This is a good one

2006-09-02T09:19:00.000-10:00

This article has the best reporting I've read so far.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14612199/

Another article

2006-09-01T20:24:00.000-10:00

This today:

http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060901/NEWS13/609010323/1001/NEWS

This article is upsetting me even more because the police are covering their donkeys and trying to make it sound like they actually did something.

In fact, WE were the ones who yelled at the police the moment they approached us after the second fire, telling them that this is the same guy who set the fire on 7/22. The police never "ran a check" to find out about the first fire. They did not "determine" anything. We basically had to bash our story against their hollow heads to get our point across: HE SHOULD HAVE ALREADY BEEN ARRESTED.

Police Capt. Frank Fujii said Buckley was arrested for second-degree arson rather than first-degree arson because he "recklessly placed someone's life in danger." The more serious charge requires that someone "knowingly" endangers someone's life, he said.

Buckley left three matchbooks on the ground after the second fire. If he did not "knowingly" endanger the lives of everyone in the area, then could someone please explain to me what his bloody intentions were? How can you SET a fire at a gas station without KNOWINGLY endangering people??

Gas + fire = you die

Oh, please. Buckley must be either a friend of a police officer, or related to one of them. I'm sick of this biased crap.

Someone had conveniently lost the pictures that were taken immediately after the fire. Whatever damage these photos captured is nothing compared to the initial damage. These were taken after the melted hoses and nozzles had been replaced and the pump had been repaired as much as possible. The lower metal section of the pump had been cleaned and restored almost to its original condition. You can still see how some of the plastic melted off.

I'm angry if you haven't noticed

2006-08-31T15:40:00.000-10:00

This was in the paper today:

http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2006/Aug/31/ln/FP608310356.html

I'm thinking of writing a letter to the newspaper (maybe just copy and paste my blogs on this subject, heh) because this article is awful and misleading.

My letter:

"I am writing this letter in response to the article you published on Thursday, August 31, 2006, describing the arrest of a Windward Oahu man suspected of arson. My parents are the owners of the gas station mentioned in the article and in my opinion, they have been treated unfairly by HPD and HFD.

On July 22, 2006, the man you mentioned in your article started a fire at my parents' gas station. This is the fire you referred to in your article as having occured "last week." The suspect started the fire by holding a lit cigarette while pumping his gas. The pump caught fire on both sides and the suspect fled. A witness followed the suspect, took down his license plate number (which was given to the police when they arrived), and called the fire department. HFD never came to the scene. From what I have been told, HPD showed up around 30 minutes after the incident. I have a hard time understanding this, since the police station is only two blocks away from the gas station.

I wasn't there to see the fire, but was told by my mother that the flames reached as high as the top of the pump. My parents put out the fire by themselves with a fire extinguisher. This first fire was worse than the more recent fire you mentioned in your article. It caused more damage and threatened more lives because it occured on a busy Saturday morning.

What upsets me is the fact that no one seemed to take the situation seriously. A few days ago, my mother made a phone call to the detective who was handling the case. She asked him about the progress, emphasizing the fact that she wanted the suspect to be arrested. She also expressed her concern that he might come back and start another fire. This detective dismissed her worries and told her that he did not believe this suspect would make a repeat offense. Well, he did.

I would like to see this detective and HFD admit that they were wrong in how they handled this case. HPD had all the information they needed to make an arrest, but it was never done. My parents are hard-working taxpayers and they deserve to receive the services that their tax money supports."

Whew, finally got it all out.

The second time

2006-08-30T22:09:00.000-10:00

The first time:
Let's Call It Love: I might get dirty looks for this

Not long after I woke up from my homework-induced coma this evening, my mom received a phone call from the gas station. All I heard was "Fire?? You're kidding! You're not kidding!! Celeste!!! Go with your father!!!!"

I jumped out of my shorts and threw on a pair of jeans. I think that was the shortest amount of time I've ever taken to put on pants.

My dad and I ran to the car. He drove at 50 mph up our hill. For those who don't know our hill, it isn't easy to drive up at 50 mph. He must have been flooring the van's accelerator. We got to the intersection and the light was red. Dad didn't even hit the brakes. He flew through the red light, making a left turn and driving down the middle of the road. There were no such things as lanes tonight. For a few moments, I tried to accept the fact that I would die this night. Either I would blow up at the gas station, or dad would kill us in his car.

As soon as we got to the last intersection before the gas station, we saw all the cars being forced to turn around. The police had come quickly tonight and they had parked in the middle of the highway. Dad had to stop to wait for all the cars in front of him to turn around. I opened my door and ran towards the station as fast as my legs would carry me. I wasn't sure what to expect, but I as I got closer, I saw fire trucks, which made me feel a little better. At least this was an improvement from last time.

As I was sprinting, I looked over my shoulder to where dad was trying to drive past the police roadblock. An officer had drawn his gun and pointed it right at my dad as he tried to drive through. I heard yelling (something like, "I'm the owner! I need to make sure the gas is shut off!!"). Somehow, no one really noticed me racing towards the station on foot.

The cashier was standing in front of the door with the customers. One regular customer who was at the bar across the street ran over when he saw the flames and helped the attendant with the fire extinguisher. He was still holding on to it when I reached them. The cashier told me it was the same guy who set the pump on fire the last time. Our hero with the fire extinguisher (thank GOD for him!) pointed out to me that there were three matchbooks lying on the ground next to the charred pump. You don't need to be a detective to realize what this guy intended to do. He was hoping for fireworks tonight.

I wanted to yell at someone. Unfortunately, I started screaming at the firefighters: "WHY DIDN'T THE POLICE ARREST HIM AFTER THE FIRST TIME?? WE ALREADY MADE A REPORT!! WE KNOW HIS NAME! WE KNOW HIS LICENSE PLATE NUMBER! WE KNOW WHERE HE WORKS!! AASLKJ;ALKNASLEK!!!" I was so pissed off that I could hardly get the words out, plus I was nearly crying out of frustration. I'm sorry I ended up yelling at the firefighters. They were doing all they could.

I went inside to print out pictures of the suspect from our surveillance cameras. My mom arrived around 15 minutes later. She was understandably pissed off also. She said she had called the detective two days ago asking why the suspect still hadn't been arrested. She told the detective that she hoped this guy wouldn't come back and do it again. The detective dismissed her concern and stated that he was sure this guy wouldn't do it again. I've got something I'd like to say to this "detective" (honestly, you don't deserve the title), but for the sake of decency, I had better not say it here.

The suspect was arrested at his home while I was waiting with my mom for the evidence team to arrive.

Overall, I feel really let down by HPD. The officers who came to speak with us tonight were extremely nice and helpful (and they got the guy!), so I'm thankful to them, but this shouldn't have happened in the first place.

You can't go yet

2006-08-28T23:24:00.000-10:00

My dad has diabetes. He has lived with it for about 20 years now, give or take a few years.

He did something wrong tonight (too much of the wrong insulin) and his blood sugar went too low. When this happens, he acts like he's drunk, but tonight he was completely insane. My mom and I helped him downstairs to check his blood and give him food. We were giving him the glucose tablets but it wasn't helping. The whole time he was just yelling and screaming. My mom yelled at him to be quiet - the neighbors might call the police.

Mom was yelling at him, "What did you shoot?? Which insulin did you shoot??"

She was almost crying as she pleaded with him to tell her. "I'm going to call the ambulance!!" she threatened. She and I both knew it wouldn't do any good. All they could do for him was what we were already doing.

I've never seen my mom on the verge of tears when my dad was low. I knew it must have been bad if she was so upset. I knew he must have been dying and it scared me. I almost started crying as I dragged my brother out of bed and pulled him down the stairs to help us.

Dad started passing out in his chair and mom slapped him really hard on the arm to wake him up. It happened several times. He had a hand print on his shoulder for the rest of the night. He always said people die when they lose consciousness like that. "Don't let me pass out," he always said.

We got the blood meter working and poked his finger to get a blood sample. The meter gave us a blood sugar reading of 40 (don't know the units of measurement). He's supposed to be around 100. Take into consideration that we had already given him 5 glucose tablets, and the truth gets scary. He must have been around 20 when my mom first realized he was low.

We gave him more strawberries and finally mom resorted to pure sugar. She knew this could possibly make him go too high, but all that mattered at this moment was that it would keep him alive. The real sugar came through for us.

Now we have our dad back, but I'm still freaked out. I love my dad.

While we're at it:

I love my mom.

I love my brother.

I love you all.

If I somehow die suddenly, just know that I love, even though I might not say it (I know, I should).

The Grr Story

2006-08-25T23:32:00.000-10:00

There's a person (we'll call this individual "Grr," but I'm 99.99% sure this person will never read this anyway) who affects me in the worst ways.

Sometimes I really like Grr, but other times, Grr just frustrates me.

Sometimes Grr will talk to me in a very interested manner. Other times, Grr will completely ignore me.

I think I recognize a pattern. When Grr is "in a relationship," Grr tends to become very cold and generally unpleasant to be around (for me at least). When Grr is "single," Grr finds ways to talk to me and make me feel oh so important.

Grr is very nice to look at, but sometimes Grr gets a big head because of this. The big head irritates me and I end up not wanting to talk to Grr anyway.

Ugh. I need to program how I feel before I walk out the door, or else it all just gets too confusing.

Motivate me

2006-08-24T20:11:00.000-10:00

Everybody has a girl. Everybody has a boy. Except me, but oh well, that's life. Actually, I've got my guitar, so I guess we're all even.

We've got four people in our carpool gang now. We get along really well and sometimes I laugh so hard that I can't drive.

My friend gave me S-K buttons for buying her two S-K shirts (Janet horse and yellow/brown dog). I've got Carrie's face button and a group S-K button stuck on my backpack now.

Yeah, I'm obviously not obsessed.

I can play nothing in particular on the guitar for hours. I've got to finish The Bedroom Recordings II, so I'm going to try to put out a song a week. No guarantees on whether or not they'll be listenable. I owe Andy a lot for Portland, and he's requesting it, so he'll get it.

My button friend isn't dorming this semester, so hopefully we can finally revive our fake band and turn it into a real band. The Pears are gonna make their comeback.

There is so much I want to do! There is so much we need to do. All I need is someone to tell me I'm doing a good job, even if they're lying, and I'll keep going.

I only figured out how to add links to my sidebar just now. Trial and error never lets me down.

Let's hear three cheers for insanity!

TV On The Radio

2006-08-23T22:41:00.000-10:00

There's something about these guys (TV On The Radio) that gets in my head and refuses to leave. It seems like their vocals are the same for pretty much every song, but somehow I'm not getting tired of it.

Some of the songs have strange hooks and sometimes things that seem like they shouldn't fit actually work well together.

Perfect example:

Hah! A blog with no S-K reference? I don't think that's possible.

Here we go:

Much better. It's weird being able to finally post pictures of them that I've taken myself.

The end of the S-K summer

2006-08-21T14:20:00.000-10:00

I'm carpooling to school in an effort to make amends for driving an SUV (a small one - Ford Escape).

We got the 2005 model, right before they introduced the hybrid version. If they had put the hybrid out a few months earlier...man, regrets.

School started today. I had one class. I spent two hours waiting for my carpool partner to finish class. I spent the time checking Julia's S-K blog, reading S-K related messages on MySpace, posting S-K related messages on MySpace, looking for s-k.net, and wondering when the darn thing is going to come back. Please come back.

Today I wore the shirt my mom bought for me at the Oregon Zoo. It's bright blue with a monkey face on the front and a monkey tail on the back. It says "Oregon Zoo" above the monkey face. One of my professors - an environmental engineer - always used to tell us about the tall ponderosa pine trees in the Oregon Cascades. I told my fellow engineers that I went to Oregon to look at the ponderosa pine trees because I want to get into the environmental aspect of civil engineering.

One girl (who knows me relatively well) knew I was lying. "No...you went because..."

Honestly, I did want to see the pine trees. I do want to go into environmental engineering. That much is true. A trip with S-K and Northwestern nature! What a great summer!!

The sleeves today were long enough to cover up my tan. It's not going to go away easily. I don't mind. It's the best souvenir I've ever gotten.

At least it was just a dream

2006-08-20T08:31:00.000-10:00

I had a nightmare last night.

Here's what happened:

Carrie Brownstein married Matt Friedberger.

:O

That's pathetic

2006-08-14T19:00:00.000-10:00

I was surprised by how many Portlanders rolled down their car windows to ask us who was playing at the Crystal Ballroom. They did it both days!!!

WTFWTFWTF

They've got no idea that the three most rockin'est people in the world live in their city.

I've made a song about it and put it here.

Basically, everyone I was able to talk to at the shows did NOT live in Portland. I'm sure that there are plenty of S-K appreciators living in PDX, and I'm sure that they were there, but I just never got around to interacting with them. But STILL, it seemed so strange.

light rail 1

2006-08-08T19:15:00.000-10:00

light rail 1
Originally uploaded by iamnotapineapple.

flickr test

One Thing Before I Go

2006-08-06T18:29:00.000-10:00

I'll post pictures and stories on myspace blog.

Here

Refrigerated Excitement

2006-07-31T00:30:00.000-10:00

The excitement was provided this week by the arrival of a new refrigerator.

Mom: "Mmmmmmm...I love that new refrigerator smell."

Seriously, it smells nice.

We threw out a bunch of old bits and pieces of things that I suppose were food at one point.

Now we actually have enough room to store things that I'm willing to eat. :)

Portland is coming. We are going. I want to spend an entire day riding the light rail back, forth, up, down, and diagonally. I also want to find this bridge:

I want to see everything. I'll listen to and sing along with "Light Rail Coyote" the whole time.

I'm in a good deal of pain for a variety of reasons. Mostly, it's my muscles telling me that they're lazy and would rather be flabby sissies as opposed to toned warriors. Come on, guys. Let's go.

I'm good at obsession

2006-07-27T01:20:00.000-10:00

Just to clarify, Carrie isn't losing her spot as my guitar hero.

But, Sufjan is creeping up on the hotness scale. His music is growing on me. I looked at some pictures of the guy and he is hot. No doubt about it. This makes me sound really shallow, I know.

Maybe it's the cowboy hat.

No, even without the hat he's still a cutie.

WTF!

2006-07-25T00:13:00.000-10:00

I've got a weird cut on the top of my head and it won't stop bleeding. It's getting crazy. I have no idea. I took some kind of new prescription medication today and I think maybe that's the reason why. I don't even remember hitting it on anything. I don't care, as long as I don't die before Aug. 12. My body is going insane. Portland, rescue me!

My 8/12 tickets arrived in the mail today. Guess what...my mom almost threw them away!!! Shetttt, brah. That was a heart attack and a half.

The doctor looked at my acne today and then prescribed me birth control pills. It was awkward because my mom was in the room. The doctor told me, "since you're not using this for birth control, remember that if you do have sex, use backup protection." I was like, "uh huh." So now I have an excuse to run around being slutty. Yep, 'cos I'm a slutmeister. (That's sarcasm, for anyone who doesn't know me yet.)

Joel is hilarious. The bit at the end about signs and escalators cracked me up.

I've got three pages of potential lyrics sitting on my desk. I've got two guitar parts worked out. I've got a broken tape recorder. It makes me sound like a chipmunk. I'm thinking of using it to make some novelty songs. Problem is, I've got no time to record anything. I'm listening to "Hollaback Girl." Yes, I'm caught in a downward spiral. My head stopped bleeding since I first posted this post about two hours ago. Now it's just a really big scalp scab, which (if you have never had one) is gross to say the least. Honestly, I have no idea what the hell happened.

I might get dirty looks for this

2006-07-22T22:32:00.000-10:00

My parents almost blew up at work today and HPD doesn't really give a shit.

Police Officer: "Well, it looks like there wasn't much damage, so...blah blah blah I'm too lazy to go find the ass who's responsible."
Dad: "Hmm, yes, officer, you are definitely a lazy son of a bitch, but what about the fact that it's a federal crime to smoke within 50 feet of a gas dispenser?"
Police Officer: "Oh, yeah...um, I'm a jackass. You're right, but I'm cool, so I'm gonna go eat shit and be lazy."

The smoker drove away as soon as he saw the gas had caught. His truck was in flames.

If my parents didn't have lightning reflexes, or if they hadn't been watching when the pump caught on fire... damn it. I would have gone head hunting.

It seems like HPD is reluctant to help us whenever we call. It always takes at least half an hour for the cars to pull into our driveway, but the station is only two blocks down the street. Serve and protect my ass.

And now, I'm probably going to be labeled as some unappreciating wart of society who doesn't understand how much HPD contributes to the overall welfare of the citizens of Honolulu. Whatever, you jerks. Obviously, we're not important enough for you to help us, so why should you care if I complain?

Friday nights are for deconstructing Sufjan Stevens. Saturdays are for sleeping in.

2006-07-22T00:15:00.000-10:00

This is my 40th post on this blog. I surpassed my original "ethics" blog about 24 posts ago.

Tomorow is the first Saturday in three weeks where I won't have to wake up early worrying about Sleater-Kinney concert tickets. Wait a minute, they haven't added a third show, have they?!

*checks s-k.com*

Okay, we're safe.

third show = nervous breakdown

I'm going to start my vinyl collection when I get to Portland. Someday I'll buy a turntable. Backwards, I know.

I noticed that I'm getting better with the saws. I breathe in all the sawdust through my nose because I don't want to eat it, which means that I end up sneezing quite a bit. Why would anyone want to be a carpenter?? The particles in the air make my eyes hurt and sometimes it feels like I've dunked my head into a bucket of sand. The dust goes everywhere. Everywhere in the wuhhurld, baybeh. If you're tired of sawing there's something you should try! You said, "Halleluiah baybeh! Halleluiah child!"

Complain, complain, complain! I need to remember that there's a very good reason for me to do all of this. Actually, there are three very good reasons.
(CCJ)

Sufjan Stevens has his good moments. He seems to get carried away with his need for complexity sometimes, but there are some parts where everything seems to come together beautifully. His song structures are atypical. Take "Vito's Ordination Song" for example. He starts off by setting up a scene that makes your mind go into a mental-image-painting frenzy. You think it'll go somewhere, but instead he launches off into the most deliberate "broken record" segment ever. He and his supermodel backup singer repeat the same line for 4 minutes or so. You'd think it would get old, and maybe it does for some, but for me it's strangely beautiful. It breaks down around 3:38. From here, it gets interesting, if you haven't already fallen asleep. They take off into an impressive building sequence. Layer after layer, Stevens gets into your head. He's still singing the same line, but somehow, it seems alright, if not just downright perfect.

A letter

2006-07-20T02:14:00.000-10:00

I just wrote a letter to Corrienet. It's very sappy.

I left out a lot of things that I wanted to say because I wanted to write something that would make them smile, not something that would make them think, "Oh shit, this girl is creepy."

Amp innards and random truths from my life.

2006-07-18T11:51:00.000-10:00

The mysterious black box.

(No longer mysterious thanks to Allan...it's the reverb.)

Wires and circuits and...stuff.

P1

Tonight at taekwondo, the instructor talked about the recent triple murder. He talked about how a .45 handgun makes a hell of a hole. He talked about how terrifying it must have been for the married couple that was killed. He told us not to become one of the people who thinks "That'll never happen to me."

I was on the verge of crying when he asked me if I ever think about whether I'll need to defend myself when I work at night. I told him I think about it all the time. He asked me if I ever worry about something happening to myself or my family. I told him yes. He seemed satisfied with this. I know it could be my parents, my brother, or me.

I must have been my brother's age, or slightly younger, when I saw a guy punch my dad in the back of the head. I was so scared and angry that I just cried and cried, even though there really wasn't anything to cry about.

Last night I had a dream that S-K signed my 8/11 and 8/12 ticket stubs. I showed Janet my drum set, too (somehow they were in my house??). She smiled and said it was cool. I can't believe this dream streak. I blame it on too much S-K excitement during my waking hours.

Dreams, Part II

2006-07-17T10:21:00.000-10:00

Everyone is going to think I'm so creepy.

Last night, I dreamt again that Carrie Brownstein was no longer a rockstar.

Instead, she sold water guns in Waikiki.

I had a remote-controlled boat and we were riding on it along the Waikiki shoreline. We reached a ridiculously expensive hotel that looked fancier than anything I've ever seen. It had a narrow channel connecting a fish pond to the ocean. We drove through the channel and swam around with the giant fish that occupied the pond. Near the pond was your typical hotel shop. We went in and Carrie was there with her squirt guns. My brother wanted one and I recognized Carrie so we approached her to give her some business.

I could tell she was excited to have customers. She happily picked out a gun for my brother and then she started explaining how it worked. She gave him tips for getting the most out of his new gun. She took it apart and proceeded to give us a thorough explanation of each part. She was smiling the whole time and was talking as if she was running a race with her mouth.

This last part confused me:

As she was preparing the gun for my brother, she filled it with glue instead of water.

Now that I think about it, it was a caulking gun, not a water gun.

The two most important pieces of my summer are bleeding together.

Carrie + paintbrush = only in my dreams

2006-07-15T22:40:00.000-10:00

Last night I had a dream that Carrie Brownstein wasn't a rockstar.

Instead, she was a house painter.

She came to my house to paint our living room. She worked really hard and did a great job. I told her it was the nicest paint job I've ever seen. She gave me a huge smile and sincerely thanked me. She said it meant a lot that I appreciated her work so much.

I've got photos here.

No Sleep

2006-07-15T00:17:00.000-10:00

I can't sleep.

It's 12:23 AM.

Tickets go on sale at 10 AM.

For some reason, all I can think about right now is how I forgot what my parents and my brother looked like when I went away. I took two trips without them. Each was only for a week. They were taekwondo tournaments.

As each day passed, I slowly lost sight of them. The more I struggled to remember, the more I forgot. I tried to picture them in my head but it never seemed right. I would get scared and then almost start panicking when it got to the point where I couldn't see them at all.

How scary is it to be forgotten?

How scary is it to be shot in the head?
That's what happened to Jason and his wife. I can't help but wonder what that's like. Do you feel it, or is it an instant end? It's one of the worst ways to go. I would think the worst part would have been seeing the other get shot, and then to see the gun turn, the barrel pointed at your face, and then to hear the shot. That split second must have lasted forever.

How scary is it to be alive?
Today I was cutting a laminate plank and the table saw launched a small flake of wood at me. It hit my arm and buried itself there. It made a tiny hole and stuck out as if all it ever wanted was just to be seen. I was amazed just looking at it - how it had been moving so fast that it managed to attach itself to me. The last time a scrap of wood flew at me, it was much bigger and hit me square in the abdomen. It left a nice scrape and bruise. A few specks hit me really hard in the face today. I think the blade is too dull. Some came close to my eyes, so I started getting scared. I have my glasses, but I really want goggles. The flakes have really sharp edges and I don't want any accidents.

I really don't like this job. I never want to be a carpenter. I like my fingers, thank you.

Start together.

"Don't worry, you got it."

"There's a part of me that works just like a child."

The pictures are messed up but I have no idea how to fix it.

I'm too tired to figure it out. Blogger always has this effect on me. Good old Blogger. Good night.

Good? Bad? No, I'm so confused.

2006-07-12T14:27:00.000-10:00

I was blasting my iTunes on shuffle while gluing and hammering the laminates onto the stairs today. My mom came home to see the progress. She was walking into the house as Carrie was talking about registering to vote in a live recording of "I Don't Care." My mom obviously didn't hear the part, "So who's planning to vote Bush out of office?"

They started singing as my mom knelt down to look at the first step. She said, "Hmmm, who's singing?" I thought she knew the obvious answer but I waited a few seconds to see if she actually couldn't tell. She asked me again, "Who is this?" I said, "It's the band I'm going to see in Portland." I've given up saying "Sleater-Kinney" because no one understands what I'm saying.

Mom: "WOW! This sounds good! It's better than the other songs. Some of them are so weird."
Me: "..."
Mom: "Yeah, this is a good song..."

At this point, Carrie started screaming, "I DON'T CARE!!!"

Mom: "Except when they start screaming."
Me: *laughs*

Blah Blah Blog

2006-07-10T00:03:00.000-10:00

I've got so many different blogs going that I confuse myself.

Sometimes I see it as a safety mechanism. I'll never write about everything in a single blog. I have an idea of who reads what. I'll write about everything, but good luck trying to put it all together. No one will get the full story. (Okay, well, maybe ONE person.)

I got my tickets to the S-K farewell show in Portland. I'm flying over with my parents and my little brother. We're going to make a mini-vacation out of it. We booked flights and a hotel last night.

I'm installing laminate flooring on our stairs. I've been working on it for two days and so far I have half of one step covered. It's so ridiculous. Honestly, it's like a very slow and painful torture because the joints have to look perfect or else I'll keep going back to fix it.

I've got to learn how to play the samba with brushes and 16th notes on the bass drum. Harold asked me where I want to go with my drumming. I gave him a very vague answer. He told me to practice my latin beats because it will make me very valuable as a pro drummer. I played my samba for him and it sucked badly.

My mom asked him how I was doing and somehow we got to the subject of Portland. Harold asked what we were going to Portland for. My mom told him I needed to see a band. He asked what band. I said "Sleater-Kinney." He said, "What?" I said "Sleater-Kinney." I could tell from his face that he still had no idea what the hell I just said.

Harold: "A rock band, huh?"
Me: "Yes."
Harold: "So you want to be a rock drummer?" (Harold is a jazz drummer)
Me: "Yes."
Harold: *laughs*

I still love to play jazz, though.

Why do I want to be a rock drummer?

What a stupid question.

S-K message board peeps

2006-07-05T23:11:00.000-10:00

I have to admit that I'm a bit worried. I love everyone at the S-K message board and it makes me so happy to see everyone working together to make sure we all have tickets, but I'm still afraid that real fans who truly need tickets might have to face the scalpers.

There's so much to do!
There's so much to worry about!

Yet, it seems like I'm in this with some really great people. Just knowing that we're all going through the same thing at the same time makes me feel a whole lot better.

I'm gonna try to get up at 4am to help out with the DC ticket tracking. I don't know how much help I could possibly be, but I figured that with everyone scrambling to get their own tickets, it might help to have someone who can dedicate her complete attention to tracking the progress.

I apologize in advance if I sleep through the entire thing, which is a very real possibility.

I don't know what it is that's so great about this song, but it's got me hooked:

Just when I thought I couldn't possibly lose more weight, I went and did just that. My mom has me on a new diet that has no sugar and virtually no fat. It's mostly fruit, bread, and veggies. Every morning I take around 10 vitamin supplements. I'm drinking nothing but water. I'm averaging around 1.5 liters a day. My skin is improving, but I liked how my body looked filled-in and not grossly thin like I used to be. I liked how my neck was starting to look like a neck rather than a twig. Now all that progress is gone and I'm back to having my shorts falling off.

Chauvinist Pig

2006-07-05T00:21:00.000-10:00

Dear ____ _____,

I need you to please leave me and my thoughts alone. You are so tall. You are so skinny. You are so goofy and nerdy. I thought you were perfect. You thought I was beneath you.

You always laughed at me as if I were a corny joke. Maybe I was slightly amusing, but I probably wasn't worth your time, right?

I remember when you took me hiking and I couldn't see in the dark. We laid on our backs to look at the sky and I noticed all of the stars that I couldn't see at home. You asked me if I wanted a pillow. A pillow would have been nice, but I knew you didn't have one, and I knew what you were hoping I would say, and I knew what you where hoping I would do, so I said no.

On the way down I stepped in all the holes and fell all over the place. You said, "Here, hold my hand." I said no. I am fine. I tripped some more and this time you didn't bother asking. Your thick hand engulfed mine. Then, you stepped in a hole and this time it was me holding you up.

I remember the time we were watching a movie on the couch and eating some kind of nuts covered in chocolate. I was eating mine slowly and it bothered you. Yes, it bothered you so much that you took a handful of that crap and stuffed it into my face. Then you told me a scary part was coming up and asked me if I was scared. I thought it was an absurd thing to ask, but maybe my irritation showed on my face as fear, because you told me not to worry, you'd protect me.

Oh, thank goodness, I have someone to protect me from this movie! Oh, whatever would I do without someone to protect me from the scary part of the movie?! What would I do without someone to shove candy in my face when I'm not eating it fast enough? What would I do without someone to hold my hand and walk me down the hill?? Surely, I would never be able to survive on my own!

I remember the time we went walking along the lava rock by the ocean. We went all the way to the end and you thought it would be clever if you pretended to attack me and I pretended to defend myself. I don't pretend to defend myself. Either I do or I don't. There is no halfway. When it comes out, I want it to hurt. You thought I might fall into the ocean on the way back so you held my hand to climb up and down all the rocks. I was doing fine by myself.

You see, the thing is, I thought it was nice of you to offer your help, but forcing it on me was not nice at all. It was patronizing. Some girls might like that stuff. You should go find them.

Go away,
Me

Portland

2006-07-03T10:34:00.000-10:00

Me to my parents:
"PLEASE, I NEED TO GO TO PORTLAND TO SEE S-K'S LAST SHOW. PLEASE, I'LL SLAVE MYSELF OUT TO YOU. I'LL DO ANYTHING PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE! THIS IS MY FAVORITE BAND AND THEY HAVE BROKEN UP, IT'S MY LAST CHANCE!"

My dad to my mom:
"I think she really wants to go."

My mom to me:
"We're going to Portland."

Me to me:
"#*$&!))!#)*&@&^!@$#*&%"

This is going to be surreal. I know that the whole thing is just going to seem like a dream afterwards.

Sooner Than I Expected

2006-06-27T21:59:00.000-10:00

I was hoping they would survive at least another album.

Sleater-Kinney is the best therapy I have ever found. They inspired me. They made me feel good when there was nothing to feel good about. They gave me something to look forward to.

I thank them from the bottom of my heart. They were truly unique. Never before and never again.

Listening to their songs now, it all has new meaning for me. Each song says goodbye.

I do hope that they are all well, and that Marshall is the reason for this, because he is a damn good reason for an "indefinite hiatus." That is completely understandable.

Goodbye, Sleater-Kinney. I love you, Janet Weiss, Corin Tucker, and Carrie Brownstein. You'll always be the queens of rock and roll in my heart.

Pride Day

2006-06-25T12:02:00.000-10:00

Happy Pride Day.

I support love.

This Old House

2006-06-23T14:10:00.000-10:00

I am listening to the tile installers talking about the awful state of the concrete underneath our carpeting:

"Eh, dis concrete stay all funny kine, eh? Like it wen rain or someteen wen dey wen poa em."
("Doesn't this concrete look funny? It seems like it rained when they poured it.")

"Ho, look like dakine, eh?"
(I'm guessing this is the "bad" dakine.)

Our house is in bad shape, but we're working on it.

My mom says that after my skin is fixed (the herbal stuff is working), I have to fix my teeth (wisdom removal), and then she added, "and your hair." Haha, I guess my hair really does look strange now that it's getting long. She said something about a watermelon while she was describing the style I should have. I'm a little worried now.

The Bedroom Recordings

2006-06-21T23:25:00.000-10:00

I just realized that I am blogging at a very alarming rate here. Don't I have a life?? Yes, I do, but I also have a few awkward hours after the sun goes down when I don't really feel tired, but it's too late to do anything else.

I've been dreaming about making a CD. I've been thinking about all of the usual things like album art and lyrics. For the liner notes, I would probably just take digital pictures of my original handwritten lyrics and shrink them down to CD case size. Actually, I wrote my first "real" song on xanga as a blog post. Weird. I left that song on my old computer.

As for album art, I would want my best friend to paint pictures for me. She is a great artist, although she'll be the last one to admit it. At this point, I don't see myself ever doing it, though. If I do give out CD's (keyword: GIVE - I don't think anyone would waste money on them anyway), I'd definitely want to know the people who are getting them. I'd write little notes on each one to make it interesting.

I remember reading an interview where Janet said that she's glad that S-K doesn't have a huge crapload of fans (of course they do have a lot, but I think she meant relative to mainstream bands) because it would bother her to know that so many people were listening to them. I think I'm beginning to understand what made her say that.

I'm listening to stuff I did two years ago and I noticed:

1. Too many cliches in my lyrics. Agh, gotta stop that.
2. Really bad singing. Dang, I think it's still like that these days, too.
3. Really bad playing. Hey kid, ever heard of a metronome? Or at least keeping time in your head?
4. Emphasized "r" sounds. I must have been aiming for a career in Country music.
5. Awkward lyrical rhythm. I knew what I wanted to say, but the words came out sounding very unsure because I didn't know how to sing melodies.

Oh well, you'll see.

"The Bedroom Recordings" is coming out soon. It will contain previously unreleased tracks (a designation of "released" means that it has been featured on my music MySpace and a human being besides myself has listened to it) My friend Andy will get the only known copy in existence. Poor guy.

My mom gave me one of these today:

Hers looks just like that one, except it's black. Her dad bought it for her when she was 18. It still looks brand new. I was so excited when she handed it to me. I couldn't believe it was so nice. My old capo is a cheap but trusty Dunlop with the nylon strap. This new (or...um...old) one is built like a tank!

Car Singers

2006-06-20T20:45:00.000-10:00

Whenever I see other car singers, it makes me smile really big.

I've gotten to the point where I don't even care anymore if people see me screaming my face off in the car. I can have the worst day of my life, but once I get in the car and put on one of my CD's, it turns into the best day of my life. No kidding. Car singing is the best therapy.

Exam today? Car singing.

Failed the exam? Car singing.

Date tonight? Car singing.

Crappy guy? Car singing.

It fixes everything.

Me looking at the snow during our "drive around the entire lake" drive at Lake Tahoe.

I've realized that I don't even need a boyfriend. I just need my music and I will be happy until the day I die.

[begin sarcasm]

Wow, I've done some very stupid things in my time and the irritating thing about it is that I've only got myself to blame for it. Where are the scapegoats?? I need someone to be angry at because I am always right. You made me do bad things so I will hate you for it and curse you for it because you are always wrong. I had no say in what went on, so naturally nothing could ever be my fault.

[end sarcasm]

The Lake House (PRO and cons of seeing it)

2006-06-19T22:15:00.000-10:00

(This post is being written to the sounds of "Mix 1")

I'll leave out plot details for anyone who actually wants to see it.

My family wanted to see a movie tonight, so someone picked The Lake House and we watched it. It was not a great choice for many reasons (and some big ones that were completely unrelated to the film.)

Cons:

-First of all, the audience was horrible. My own brother kept asking questions in an unnecessarily loud voice. The kids - okay, I'll be fair, they were teenagers - in the row behind us kept talking during the quiet parts of the movie, especially during the emotionally important parts.

-Another letdown was Keanu Reeve's performance. Sandra Bullock did a decent job with a fairly crappy script.

-The layout/order of the story seemed okay to me, but my parents were still really confused by it. It didn't seem to flow well enough to keep the attention of people who don't notice all the small details.

-Let's face it...predictable. If you're actually paying attention to what's going on, you'll be ten steps ahead of the characters. Well, considering the (Andy, hahaha, you put Mystery Girl! So, you must have gotten my photo caption earlier.) whole hook of the movie, it's kind of hard to have any sort of surprises.

-No character development. They try, but it comes across as cheesy.

PRO:

-Sandra Bullock's hair totally reminded me of Carrie Brownstein. At random points in the movie, the camera would show SB from a certain angle and all I could think of was CB. The plot went completely out the window.

Music Video #2: Modern Girl Cover

2006-06-19T01:24:00.000-10:00

Another one! This is a video for a cover of S-K's "Modern Girl."

Contest: Find all of the S-K references.

The lucky winner gets absolutely nothing.

Maybe you'll get a virtual high-five. We'll see.

click here to download

Guitar Neglect

2006-06-17T10:28:00.000-10:00

I play my guitar late at night (unplugged) a lot now because I don't have time during the day. As a result, I usually start falling asleep as I'm playing without even realizing it. A few nights ago I woke up with my guitar at my feet, on the edge of the bed, and I was so scared and angry at myself for being so careless. So...if you know what I named my guitar, you would understand how I would feel if it had been pushed off by my feet onto the floor.

This morning I woke up with my guitar right next to me. I'm so stupid. I keep thinking, what if I had rolled over and smashed the poor thing? Worse is the fact that it has been out of its case for a while, which is really really bad for it since there is salt water right outside.

I've had it for a year and a half and so far, it still looks new because I've been so careful with it and always kept it in the case to prevent rust.

I'm becoming a bad guitar owner.

Beautiful SG! I would love to able to afford one someday...

Last night I had another weird dream. A couple of friends and I were at the record store and I was looking for the new Erase Errata CD. Someone saw it and then my best friend in the whole world screamed, "I LOVE ERASE ERRATAAAA!!!" The thing is, I've never talked to her about EE because I figured she wouldn't like them.

Anyway, I grabbed a copy, and somehow I had lots of money in my pocket, so that should have been a sign right away that I was dreaming (a few times I have become aware that I'm dreaming and started doing some crazy things because...well...it's just a dream). There was a guy cashier who was this monster of a person. Everyone told me about how mean he was and how he would rip up your CDs with his bare hands after you paid for it.

Wanting to spare EE the pain of being torn apart, I tried to get away from him but he saw me. I hid EE in the shelves and then fought the monster guy. I got him good in the face a few times but I don't know who won because then I switched to another dream that I have since forgotten. Weird weird weird.

Music Video #1: Get Yours

2006-06-16T01:43:00.000-10:00

I'm doing a little music video experiment. This is the first one. Let me know if it's not working. I have no idea what I'm doing.

I hope my entire school doesn't mind being in my video.
:P

If you look closely, the subject of the song makes a quick close-up appearance. It's fast, so don't blink.

click here to download

I uploaded it to ourmedia.org, and it takes a while to load since it's around 12mb. You can actually just click on the picture and a pop-up player will open. You don't have to click the "click here to download."

My camera skills are not so good, sorry.

(ourmedia.org is a VERY cool site, by the way)

This is basically the "I hated high school" song.

Lyrics (so you can understand what the heck I'm singing about):

I saw your car. It's expensive. I thought about all of the things you and your friends did. You had it all. I was disgusted by how you wasted everything I'd ever wanted.

You're gonna get yours. We're all waiting for it. You're gonna get yours. You won't be ready for it. We're gonna watch you squirm. We're gonna watch you burn.

You've got something coming. I've got this feeling that this one is gonna be big. Shut your mouth. You're just a pig. You're gonna find out how it feels to be the ugly kid.

"Gay" is the new "loser"... and Cookie's a bruiser.

2006-06-14T23:16:00.001-10:00

I've got some real things I want to talk about in this post.

A blog with a purpose? Yes, insane, I know.

The reason is that I need to write it down, but if I put it anywhere else, people I actually know (face to face) might see it.

My brother colored (or bleached?) his hair so that it's all blonde now. He used to have dark brown hair like mine. He went to taekwondo class today and two older black belt boys scolded him for it. They continued by making him an example in front of the entire class and telling them that they weren't allowed to color their hair.

I can only imagine the embarrassment and awkwardness he must have felt.

I don't agree with this at all. FIRST, taekwondo class is an extracurricular activity that we pay for. It's not private school. It's not the army. SECOND, they told him that they had announced the no-hair-coloring policy, but we had never heard of it until today. Obviously, if he had known about the rule, he wouldn't have done it, duh. THIRD, if they had a problem with it, they should have brought it up with his parents instead of scolding him and making him feel horrible in front of the whole class for breaking a rule he didn't even know existed.

While he was being scolded by the older boys, another boy told him that he looked "gay." This particular boy is always calling him "gay." I never thought much of it before because nowadays it seems like the cool thing to do is to call other kids "gay." My parents, however, have been slowly building up dislike for this boy and the "gay" remarks. I have to e-mail a letter to the instructor that my parents wrote to him. The boy is his son.

I'm bothered by how many kids I hear calling each other "gay." It's the new put-down. I don't recall ever using the word against someone when I was in school. These days, if you don't like something (or someone), just call it "gay" and your point will be made. Everyone will know that you despise it. They'll look down on it.

Such wonderful progress we're making, isn't it?

These kids are going to grow up with negative connotations of this word engraved in their minds. It might not seem like a big deal now, but I have a feeling it's going to only get worse. Hopefully, I'm wrong, though.

CHANGE OF SUBJECT

Here's our dog. She looks cute but she can be a real meanie. The neighbors have called the humane society on us many times. Don't interpret that the wrong way - we don't hurt her! She's just...noisy...which is exactly what we want for reasons that will soon be revealed. She barks at certain new neighbors (who come and go without warning so we have no way of preparing her for the strange new people) but they refuse to meet her so that she can get used to them. She guards my room.

We got her after I left my sliding door open one night (it was so hot!) and people came in, stole stuff, and grabbed a pair of my pants. In the morning, the pants were laying about 15 feet outside of my room and there was a cigarette butt on the ground. My dad thought I had gone crazy after a wild night with my imaginary boyfriend, but after I woke up, everyone realized it wasn't me. I had the worst headache and felt really dizzy throughout the entire day. My mom has some theories about this but I'd rather not think about it. A week or so later, people came into our house again and stole even more stuff. This time they broke a window on a door and stuck their arm through the hole. I had learned to close my door at night but they still found a way in.

Did I mention that we were all in the house, asleep, both times?

Our dog, Cookie, came to the rescue. Neighbors get grouchy about her barking and all they do is complain when they could be making friends with her. My dad and brother took her over to their house one night so that they could be introduced, but the neighbors just turned their backs and ignored them. I don't think our neighbors understand what we've been through. They don't know that horrible feeling of vulnerability. I like the feeling of having a grouchy (but loveable!) dog outside of my room at night, so to hell with whatever they say.

Leeds looked so good.

2006-06-12T23:10:00.000-10:00

I just got a copy of the Leeds footage shot by "lost" (from sk.net). It's beautiful! After watching the last clip, I had a mini seizure because I was so overwhelmed by how great they were. Seriously, each song was more powerful than the last, if that's even possible. Carrie and Corin did the most amazing (drumless) version of Good Things. It was slow and emotional. I want to say that it's actually better than the studio version. Those ladies keep topping themselves. You can't decide what's better or worse when comparing S-K songs to S-K songs. They're all incredible.

Oh dear, what is the postmark date on that package? (click on it) *gasp*

My dad took us for a drive last week to go buy a new refrigerator. I forgot my iPod at home (a pitiful teenager am I) so I resorted to taking pictures.

I hate my holy pants. I never wanted to wear holy pants in the first place. Now the holes are huge because I keep accidentally sticking my toes through them. See a previous post for the angry rant.

We're going to town.

Along the way, we saw trees and mountains.

And more mountains.

And...you guessed it...mountains.

Did I mention that we saw trees?

Somewhere along the way, a shopping cart stole the show and my arm made an appearance.

We also saw boats.

I apologize for being redundant. The only decent pictures I took turned out to be of mountains, trees, and boats.

I do like the look of that blue sky, though. Compare it to the earlier non-town pictures of mountains and trees. It's always sunny downtown.

A fireboat!

I leave you with one final picture of trees (and a beautiful blue sky!). I'll try to improve my camera skills so that next time I'll actually have a nice variety to share.

E N D

"Darling, don't you go and cut your hair."

2006-06-12T00:03:00.000-10:00

Oh, Pavement, such wise words, but I'm afraid I must.

I'll cut my hair. It'll cover up my face. I'm going to cut my bangs so that they stop being awkward layers and start being bangs again. Maybe I'll have the Karen O look. Or maybe I'll have the Carrie look. I never know until the ladies cut me up. I explain what I want exactly the same way, but each time I end up looking different.

Last time, I left the haircut place looking like I had stepped right out of the 80's. It was bad bad bad.

Haircuts for me are like gambling. Every now and then I'll hit the jackpot and look quite decent for a few months. Most of the time, I get screwed over and try to go out in public as little as possible until some of it grows back.

My dad really doesn't like my current hair. It's so long now that the layers look weird. A couple months ago, I had the Carrie look going on, with my layers sticking out in the front and my bangs doing that cool draping thing across my face.

Carrie has the coolest hair. Period. I like all of the hairstyles I've seen on her. I thought the super-short boy cut she had a while back looked especially cute.

My hair looked something like this about two months ago (the wildness was an automatic thing for a while with all the humidity):

Who wouldn't want to have this hair? I wish I could get mine to look like that, but it usually doesn't work.

Ultra-cute boy cut (See also - One Beat album photos):

"The Hungry Planet"

2006-06-11T00:35:00.000-10:00

I get the National Geographic Magazine every month. This is the only magazine I actually read. This month (June 2006) they had a page about world hunger. The causes are different depending on where you are. Some people starve due to drought or other natural disasters. Others starve simply because people don't get along with each other.

Here are the first two sentences of "The Hungry Planet":

"More than 850 million people around the world - one in nearly seven - don't have enough to eat. Although current global food production is sufficient to feed everyone, the number eating less than the minimum the human body needs - an average 2,100 calories a day for adults - now grows by more than ten million a year, mostly in the poorest nations."

What is wrong with us? I wish so badly that I was in a position to do something about it. I have no money and I have no influence. I see other girls shopping for designer handbags. I see people buying overpriced designer clothes and those damned Hummers. Celebrities can spend thousands of dollars on a shopping spree and to them it's like dropping a few pennies on the ground. Now, what if we all got over ourselves and realized that many people are hurting much more than we are?

Sure, you want nice things and you want to live in comfort. Okay, I get that and I know most of us have worked hard to be able to afford the luxury we surround ourselves with. But it's still so heartbreaking. Don't you feel bad about it?

Every Saturday we stop at an intersection to turn left onto the Pali Highway. Homeless people sell newspapers on that corner and hold signs asking for work. They say they will work for food. They ask God to bless you. They say they are hungry. If you have eyes, you know they are desperate. We give them money. Sometimes I have nothing to give, and I look around the car for food to hand to them, but it's too late, I've been a pig and eaten it all. I tell myself to remember them.

How can you buy a Mercedes SUV (that you won't even drive through the mud), an ugly Burberry hat/umbrella/wallet, or spend $300 on sunglasses? It's unnecessary and it's gross. It's disgusting that you would be so wasteful.

Obviously, I feel strongly about this. I'll say it to anyone. I have said it before and I will continue to say it. I don't apologize if anyone is upset about me not understanding their hard work and how much they deserve what they have. I've been working since I was two years old. I would help wash cars by wiping anything I could reach. I started off doing wheels and gradually moved upward over the years. If I want to buy something, I spend less on lunch. It's that simple. Don't tell me I don't understand.

I own one pair of slippers (or flip-flops, depending on where you live), one bag ($20 or so at American Eagle), and three pairs of shoes, one of which has recently been retired due to its holiness, so I suppose that leaves two official pairs of working shoes. I shop for clothes twice a year, before the start of each semester. I just buy a couple of new shirts so that people don't think I'm living out of my backpack. You can laugh and call me a poor excuse for a girl, but I like what I've got and it's all that I need.

I'm not saying that people should just buy the bare necessities and deprive themselves of all happiness. I'm just trying to point out how so many people spend extra for things they don't need simply because they want to look impressive.

I tend to spend large sums of money on music, instruments, and other guitar/drum/recording accessories because that is my hobby. That is my outlet. I know other people have their own interests that they save their money for. I say go for it if that's what makes you happy, but don't waste money on trying to look fancy. That pisses me off so much, you have no idea. Neiman Marcus is my mortal enemy.

The Graveyard Shift

2006-06-08T03:13:00.000-10:00

I can't even begin to describe the effect that late-night working has on me. It's empty, quiet, and lonely, which is the perfect combination to encourage philosophical thinking. I'll be sweeping up cigarette butts and mopping up icee drips while thinking about what I'm doing here. How long should I stay in this place? Will I ever get out? How do I know if I'm being too nice? Is it possible to be too nice? Will people appreciate it or take advantage of it? How do I know when to stop being nice and to start being assertive?

And then there are the more realistic questions, such as:

Should I let this person use the bathroom? Will they do drugs in there or make a big mess?
Should I card this person for cigarettes/alcohol?
Is this person trying to steal from me?

Every now and then some creepy older guy will hit on me. They're usually either drunk or stoned, or both. I hate these moments the most because it just isn't a nice feeling at all, no matter how flattering some people might think it would be. Some of them remember me from my younger days and that is creepy also, but I know they just mention it to seem nice and they are so out of their minds at the time that they don't know any better.

Sometimes I think about the customers. I think about what it would be like to have what they have. Some of them come in looking so down and lonely that it breaks my heart. What would it be like to only know this place, and to only know a life of welfare, where the money you spend isn't your own? What would it be like for this little town to be my whole world, the only place I will ever know in my entire life? It makes me feel thankful for every single thing in my life. I take so much for granted and it takes a night alone at work for me to realize it.

Tonight a lady asked me, "Eh, sistah, you don't get sked workeen dis kine houwas?"

I don't get scared, I just start thinking too much and sometimes that gets depressing. At the same time, it makes me feel like I've got the whole world to myself. Driving home with no other cars in sight, all green lights, and the S-K ladies playing me a song, I feel content to simply exist.

Adventures with the jazz band.

2006-06-05T22:48:00.000-10:00

Okay, so it wasn't really an adventure. I played with the "Monday Night Jazz Band" tonight because my drum teacher plays with them and every now and then they let the students play a few songs. They're incredibly nice people for putting up with all of our awful playing. I pretended that I was Janet Weiss and it was exciting because the kit I was playing on sounded just like hers. I played two songs and thankfully I didn't mess up. The last time I went, I was so nervous that I screwed up the song even though I had practiced it countless times.

My teacher has the most amazing maple kit. He said it cost $4,000 and was made by a company called Ayotte. The head of the company, Mr. Ayotte, somehow lost his position and went on to start another drum company called Taye. The Taye drums use the Ayotte designs, but are about half the price. I need to start saving right now. We're looking at $2,000 for a high-quality maple kit that sounds INCREDIBLE. That's a bargain compared to $4,000. Go Taye. My Tama kit is made of mahogany, which sounds like nothing special, and my cymbals sound like trash can lids, even though I just bought a new set. When it comes to drums, you won't get anywhere cheaply, unfortunately.

From my brother's new phone (same as mine):

By the way, I'm wearing an S-K shirt, but you can't tell because the quality is horrible.
:)

I still haven't got my hearing fully back yet. I hit the crash cymbal so hard tonight that it actually hurt. I know I've got at least some permanent damage already because I have to turn the TV up super loud (according to my family) to hear what the people are saying. I only wear the carpenter-style earmuffs sometimes when I practice because I'm an idiot. I need to start being more careful.

Blue guitar, blue pedal, blue jeans, and now a blue phone.

2006-06-04T23:13:00.000-10:00

My parents got me a new cell phone. I did NOT want a new phone, and I made this very clear, but we had to sign up for a new plan and for some reason we all had to get new phones. I don't know the specifics, but I was told there was no choice.

My old phone was one of the trusty-old-indestructable-terminator-non-flip-non-camera-non-video-NOKIA phones. I loved it dearly. My ringtone was "Disco" and there was no possibility of ever using a real song as my ringtone because it simply wasn't possible. No wallpaper. No pictures. Just a phone for talking and only talking. I didn't even have text messaging because my parents had it disabled. Not that I wanted to text message anyone, anyway.

My new phone is dark blue and silver with a matte finish. I'm sure it's nowhere near as durable as my old NOKIA, which had the looks of a tank, the kind you see at war, rolling in and out of ditches, crashing through walls and living to tell the story. The new phone has a sleek shape, which reminds me of a sports car. It boasts, "Look at me, pitiful NOKIA, look at my cool beauty." Its ego is so large it almost makes me sick. It flips open to reveal a ridiculously-power-wastingly-bright color display capable of changing wallpapers at the push of a button. It has a camera that can also record 30-second video clips. It has Bluetooth and infrared whatever. It has everything. I'm overwhelmed and slightly frightened by its complexity. I admitted this to my parents and they laughed the laugh of people who have just received a major shock and don't know of any other way to react to it. My world is unraveling through this technology that is supposed to make our lives so much better. We're supposed to take pictures of each other, smile, and know that everything will be okay because our phones are fancy. We're supposed to download new ringtones whenever another cookie cutter band craps out another incarnation of a song that has been sung countless times.

This isn't art, this is, "Hey loser, I am so much cooler than you are."

I've never had any interest in phone wars. Sometimes, I think the kids in class left their phones un-silenced so that they could show off their new ringtones. I don't want to be a part of it. I want to talk to you, but whether or not I am impressive while talking to you doesn't matter. Please, people, tell me you don't think it matters. If you do, I fear for this world.

I don't know if this can be considered as fighting back, or as disgracing my favorite band, but I've S-K-ized my new phone. I used the Bluetooth connectivity to send S-K pictures to the phone. I've got them as my wallpaper on the inside and the outside. I also sent Modern Girl and am currently using it as my ringtone (I couldn't stand any of the factory ringtones). What have I done?!?! Am I degrading them? Am I minimizing their art to mindless media in a little yellow folder? Of course I know it's not mindless, but I know this isn't what they wanted at all. I have become part of the problem. I want my NOKIA tankphone back. Give me my simplicity before I ruin something real.

:(

"Slayer-Kittie?" Part II

2006-06-04T00:27:00.000-10:00

I was driving a friend home tonight after our jam session. We started talking about how much Jewish people can rock. I got really excited and started trying to explain how two women in my favorite band are Jewish and how hard they rock. I put on The Woods and exclaimed, "This is Sleater-Kinney, my favorite band!!!"

Him: "What??"
Me: "Sleater-Kinney!!"
Him: "...what...?..."
Me: "Slayyyyterrr Kinnnneeeeeee!!!!!!!"
Him: "Oh, I thought you said 'kitty.'"

Yeah, so neither of the two guys who I played with today knew about S-K, so none of the stuff I was playing made them really excited. Plus, since I tuned my guitar to match Carrie's, it got confusing. I tried tuning it up to match the other guitar but I had put on thicker strings earlier and the tension was too much for my tremolo bridge. It refused to be tuned up.

Where are all the S-K lovers?! Play covers with me, pleeeeeeeaaaaaaaaase.

Oh, and I probably heard one of the worst pickup lines ever.

"Do you sing? Sing a song!"
"I only sing in the shower. Would you like to join me?"

Hahahaha, bad one. I don't know, maybe the slutty girls would like that one. It caught me off guard so I just smiled awkwardly and wished that I was somewhere far, far away.

It looks like I won't be able to make any of the east coast S-K shows after all. :(
Yep, I'm only missing my one opportunity to see the greatest band in the world, playing songs from their entire career at a non-festival show. This depresses me more than stupid boys. It's that bad. I think I'll go play some more S-K covers by myself now.
(insert emo face here)

That'll be $500. Oh, that's right, I live here.

2006-06-03T00:00:00.000-10:00

The painting is done! I'm excited to get to work on the floor on Sunday. Tomorrow has been designated an official day off. I'm going to take my drum lesson and then maybe go over to a guy's house to jam. He asked me tonight and it was probably the best thing anyone has said to me for a long time. I've been wanting to "jam" with anyone for the longest time. This is if he calls me, of course. No guarantees.

I love this song.

Pictures:

The old carpet and padding -

The bare floor -

The painted walls.

"Mystery girl, mystery girl, keep on faking your mystery world..."

Ohhh, this hot hot heat is killing me!

...and then the paint fumes went to my head.

I'll find any excuse to sing.

The end.

Kill me now, please.

2006-05-31T11:07:00.000-10:00

I noticed the color difference right away when I switched to my second can of paint, but the numbers were exactly the same, so I figured the difference was because this paint was wet and the paint on the wall was somewhat dry. This morning I checked on it and I wanted to shoot myself in the face.

F*@% !

I asked my dad if the paint guys shook it up real good when he bought it. He said they did. Uh huh, so someone really screwed up, and it wasn't me. I was busting my butt trying to get the room done in a single day and then some paint guys had to mess it up. THANKS.

My dad has returned with a new can of paint. The paint guy said they must have left something out of the second can. Oh, wonderful! He should go work at some place like McDonald's where his irresponsibility will only cost people a few minutes to realize their order is wrong.

I am NOT in the mood to fix this today. But I must. Damn you.

Go Google Yourself

2006-05-28T00:00:00.000-10:00

My friend and I were Googling ourselves last night to see what the internet thought of us. It was fun, interesting, scary, and somewhat surprising. She got a decent first result (a newspaper article she wrote), but the second result was her MySpace, which didn't make her too happy. I Googled myself and found that the first result was the most recent assignment I had done from learningtoloveyoumore.com. It made me a little uneasy to know that if anyone ever wanted to find me, the first thing they would see (or hear, rather) is some crappy acoustic number that's supposed to be "the saddest song." I shouldn't say that I didn't see it coming, since the website does warn that their assignments show up high in Google search results. Just how high, I didn't fully realize.

The next result was another assignment from learning to love you more. I was relieved to see that it was the picture of the sun. I had done another assignment that was slightly more revealing than a sad song or a simple picture. That assignment didn't show up in the search, thankfully. The next two results were two separate newspaper articles that my name appeared in. The first one was something about sports. The second one was written by a guy who came to our gas station and basically put us under a microscope to make a point about the gas cap. It was incredibly well-written, but still a little embarrassing.

The next few results had absolutely nothing to do with me, but the very last result on that first page was a Spanish blog. My full name appeared in it (I don't think there are many, if any, others with my name), so I was naturally curious to find out what was going on. It was written in Spanish so I used an online translator. Most of the translation was rough and needed some imagination to be understood, but I was able to learn that it was a blog about the "saddest song" assignment from learning to love you more. This person had listened to all of the songs and then commented on the different levels and interpretations of sadness. I have no idea how he was able to come up with his deep reviews, but it seemed really insightful from what I imagined he was trying to say.

"Another sadness is accepted to itself, and the acceptance is beautiful. Like the subject of [my name here]."

Incredible! He hit it right on the head. The song actually was about accepting my sadness. I wrote it at a time when I was realizing how fragile people are and how sad it is that we have to lose each other. Many of the people around me had lost loved ones recently and I was trying to deal with the reality of it. I can't believe he figured it out, and IN SPANISH. Props to this guy. And, oh my, is that a compliment?? :)

I'd like to thank a complete stranger for making me feel a little less lame about writing another "sad song."

No, I'm not a model.

Blahhhhgerrrrr

2006-05-26T22:52:00.000-10:00

I don't know much about Blogger. I started using it for school a few years ago but now I just see it as a place where I can write random and stupid things, never knowing if anyone will ever read it. After I wasn't required to blog anymore for school, I stopped using it and only came back recently to find that it's completely different. Something I do like is Xanga. It's got some interesting things like blogrings and something new called footprints, which lets you see who visited your page. I don't make much use of the blogrings, but it's interesting sometimes to check out the Xangas of people who have similar interests. I'm in a blogring called "Obsessed with Sleater-Kinney" but there are only three other people in it. I think they're mostly young kids (13-17 probably).

I'm trying to figure out why there aren't more people in this blogring. Right now I suspect that maybe it's because the older S-K fans are on Blogger instead of Xanga, but I could be completely wrong on this.

A good friend from high school just sent me a song by a band called Guster. The song is called "Barrel Of A Gun" and every time I listen to it I think about all of the people who are obsessed with Carrie Brownstein.

The lyrics (copied and pasted from letssingit.com):

i know a movie star, i've got her plastered to my wall
just like we're dear old friends, like she already knows me
she's perfect as she seems, lifts me right out the Mezanine
i finally fell in love, i've been waiting forever
4 3 2 1 went out the barrel of the gun
keep my head way down
stay out or stay in
half dead and half numb
she's enough to make me warm
it's all so safe and sound
lie back and fast asleep, if you could see what i could see,
drip, drop a lovely dream,
God damn you movie star, can't you just play a minute more
we'd be the best of friends, you could stay here forever
4 3 2 1 went out the barrel of a gun
keep my head way down
stay out or stay in
half dead and half numb
she's enough to make me warm
it's all so safe and sound
she will be sweet on me, just like a mystery
its not so hard to see, if im not mistaken
she comes from far away(far away), and gets closer every day(every day)
and all that i can say is that she's all i want and all that i live for
4 3 2 1 went out the barrel of a gun
keep my head way down
stay out or stay in
half dead and half numb
she's enough to make me warm
it's all so safe and sound

Okay, so she's not a movie star (if you don't count Fan Mail), but it's close enough. Some parts of this song seem quite creepy in the "Carrie" context, but the part that made me think of it that way was the line, "i've got her plastered to my wall just like we're dear old friends, like she already knows me." I've got S-K pictures and posters in my room and I can somewhat relate to the feeling that it seems like they know me because heck, they're always staring right at me. I know that's a stupid way to think, but you can't really help it if you've got their posters all over the place. Of course I realize that it's all in my head and I'm not obsessed to the point where they're all that I live for, but I could really relate to that one line.

When I say "obsessed," I mean that I listen to their music every day and read up on them because they inspire me and make me want to do something great in the world, just like how they have done. If I was ever in Portland I wouldn't "st@lk" them (you know what I mean...I hope I don't get in trouble for using the word!). It's not that kind of "obsession."

Anyway, I thought the song had an interesting sound to it and I liked how they incorporated some Latin percussion. The chorus is pretty catchy too.

Yearbook Troubles

2006-05-24T02:06:00.000-10:00

My little brother got his yearbook today. He's in fifth grade and my mom really threw a fit when she saw what the kids had written in his autograph section. Here's a sample:

-"U are sexy!"
-"Ur a pimp!"

Needless to say, no one ever made such comments in any of my yearbooks. We're so different, my brother and I. Apparently I got the brains and he got the looks.

Shut up, I'm not a stalker.

2006-05-21T23:05:00.000-10:00

I think we all (or most of us at least) understand the difference between a joke and a serious statement. I also believe that words are constantly being taken out of our mouths and turned around until someone has changed their meaning into something we never intended to convey. You can't help that, but you need to realize it happens and be responsible enough to not do it yourself.

Don't assume someone doesn't understand something, and if they take it lightly, don't bash them over the head with your argument in an effort to convert them to your views. Yes, you're passionate, and yes, you care, but you need to know when and where to pick your fights. Kill them with kindness. The more hostile you seem, the more they'll want to fight you. Listening is most important. Maybe pay a little bit of attention before you jump in with bullets flying.

The final final.

2006-05-11T15:57:00.000-10:00

I killed my GPA on my final final exam today. It was Calculus IV. It was bad.

Usually I do really well in math. It's actually my best subject. I just didn't spend enough time going through the textbook this semester. I spent most of my time studying for dynamics, statistics, and mechanics of materials. I'm going to do fine in those classes, but math, oh math, whyyyyy??

Last night I spent 30 minutes rotating a pack of ice over the three main regions of my face. My mom read an acne book that recommended the ice-pack technique after a healthy helping of benzoyl peroxide. Amazingly, I think it worked. She's been telling me how great my skin looks all day today. It kinda cheered me up after my calc exam dragged my battered body through the mine field of college. Okay, it probably wasn't that bad, but it sure felt awful.

About a week ago, a girl in my class asked me, "Do you know that your pants have holes in them? What happened?!?! Did you fall down... a lot?" I responded by explaining to her that the system does not wish for me to wear unholy pants. My response to her:

"I tried my best to buy an intact pair of jeans, but I was unsuccessful in my search. Honestly, I could not find a decent pair of jeans that fit me that did NOT already have holes, before I even had the chance to fall down in them or to climb over fences and get them caught on rusty metal protrusions. No, they forced me into their mindless stupidity by not allowing me a choice. One of the holes was unintentionally made by me while actually wearing them, but the other two and a half were there since the beginning, sitting in the store for me, watching my desperate and pointless search, waiting for me to cave in and grudgingly purchase them."

I'm not a huge fan of MySpace, but...

2006-05-02T22:35:00.000-10:00

I'm making a music MySpace. In addition to my "normal" MySpace (which turned out to be a huge waste of time), I'm now going to have a "band" MySpace (which will probably turn out to be an even bigger waste of time). I've decided to make it because:

1. It seems like it could be a fun way to express myself, which is exactly the reason why I want to play music.
2. Friends have stressed the need for me to put my music online.
3. I have no money to pay for a real website.
4. I can keep it as anonymous as I want. I can get input/reactions from complete strangers, which makes me feel less vulnerable than if I were to share my songs with people who actually know me. If no one likes it, I can live with that, but I'd be eternally embarassed to have to face classmates/friends who have heard my efforts and think that I absolutely suck.
5. Maybe I can find someone to play with. I'm running out of loops in GarageBand to back me up.

MySpace

I'm still having background difficulties. It was a really nice picture of Janet, Corin, and Carrie. I have no idea what's wrong, but it works when I preview the blog from the template editing page. It just doesn't work for normal blog viewing.

"Slayer-Kittie?" No, you just don't get it.

2006-04-30T23:03:00.000-10:00

Dang, I'm bad with internet things. I tried to put up a new background on this thing and now it's just white.

I ordered a Hot Rock shirt and an All Hands On The Bad One poster from KRS. Exciting. All my friends already know how much I love Sleater-Kinney, so I can wear the shirt without having to explain to everyone what a "Sleater-Kinney" is. I'm still trying to figure out a way to get to Lollapalooza. I wish I could see SK at a smaller venue, but I guess beggars can't be choosers. I really like the Vegoose DVD that I got off of the SK torrents site. I love how energetic they are on stage. Janet showed unbelievable coordination when she played harmonica and drums AT THE SAME TIME. That blows my mind.

My little brother seems to be getting into them now. He sings along with Modern Girl and The Size Of Our Love. We've played the songs a few times with him on drums and me on guitar. Our versions are nowhere near as good as the real thing, but it's lots of fun to play. I try to do leg kicks sometimes and he just laughs at my pathetic un-Carrie-ness.

Mysterious Ways

2006-04-21T22:34:00.000-10:00

I've spent the last couple weeks playing guitar and not doing much of anything else, which includes studying. Now, you can imagine my amazement when I realized that I just had the best round of midterms so far this semester. The first round was the worst, but I had spent the most time on homework/studying during that time. After Dynamics class, I talked with some of my classmates about smart people. We each had a story about a smart kid in high school who was always stoned/drunk. Somehow they still managed to either get a perfect score on the SAT or become the valedictorian, or both. I guess sometimes in order to do well, you just have to lighten up.

The last few weeks of after-school action have been like the scene in Fan Mail where Carrie's character is dancing around like a maniac in her bedroom. Just like that, except I do it for hours at a time.

Exam Tomorrow = BLOG

2006-04-18T23:55:00.000-10:00

Why is it so hard to find people to play music with? I'll play guitar or drums, but no one will seriously accept my invitation to jam. We'll talk and I'll make a suggestion and people will just laugh and think that I'm a silly girl who's just trying to be cute by pretending to play instruments. I came close with one guy, at least he seemed to believe that I was serious, but I don't think he shared my enthusiasm. His "friend" is still "borrowing" his bass. Yeah, right.

I'm eating leftover Easter candy. It's always so fancy. They have to make huge chocolate bars in the shapes of eggs, rabbits, and crucifixes. THEN, they fill the chocolate with all kinds fatty, creamy fillings. I'll eat one and then feel so sick that I'll nearly be ready to never eat chocolate again. Then five minutes later I'll start eating another one, which leaves me feeling more sick than the first one. But it's so good. What a vicious cycle.

I'm finally getting that Boss Blues Driver that I've wanted forever. Thanks to grandma and grandpa for the birthday check. I put it to good use with some more musical junk. How predictable.

Blogspot Revisited

2006-04-17T22:45:00.000-10:00

It all started, um, let's see, one...more than TWO years ago. I was a senior in high school taking an ethics class. Our teacher made us sign up for blogger accounts. I made mine, posted some journals about our case studies, and then forgot about it. Fast forward two years and three months. I'm back. Blogger has changed dramatically. This is probably better than Xanga.