i miss you

today's title comes from blink-182 and my state of mind. more the latter than the former, but i wanted an excuse to post the song:

so i'm sitting in my basement, relishing the return of fox soccer channel to my life and waiting for today's yesterday's real madrid champion's league match replay to come on since the game was hilarious and i want to rewatch it. it doesn't come on for another hour and is scheduled to end at five, so it's going to be a long night. it's a good thing that college has pretty much cemented my nocturnal state.

you all probably know this, thanks to the wonders of facebook (or, you know, you were there with me), but i went to see harry potter again with jenibean and s-la. it was great. this might change with the final movie, but right now deathly hallows part one is my favorite of all the films - it stayed mostly true to the books, and the few changes are actually for the better. the score was kind of an iffy thing with me. i've loved the music in all of the films, and i stayed with that opinion for most of this one, too. there were a few places where i thought it went a little wrong (the trio's reunion scene and dobby's funeral both come to mind), but when it went right - wow. the ending could not have been better (musically, anyway - it still made me want part two, like, now).

surprisingly, harry potter is not the focus of this post. the title is.

it's funny (or horrible, depending on who you are and how you look at it), but i don't miss most of you/my high school friends very often. when i do miss people, it's usually someone i wasn't that close to. if anything, i miss inanimate objects more than i miss people. my bed and i? yeah, we've never been closer because i'm sleeping my life away and am insanely grateful to come home to a pillow-topped queen size bed which i can flop face down on and sleep for hours, maybe days. maybe it's because i'm so used to being separated from the munchkins - i haven't gone to school with bean in three years, and i've had a grand total of two classes with s-la ever - but when i do think of them, i usually just text or call or facebook or oovoo and move on with my day. so it came as kind of a surprise to realize today that i've actually really missed them. for one thing, it's good to be around someone who hates pants even more than i do. also, it was nice to realize that s-la and i are still fairly good at either saying the same thing or the same time or finishing each other's sentences (and, really, it was just good to be with someone who shares my appreciation of silly grocery store romance novels). i guess it's just good to know that some things don't change.

and now i'm going to go reread harry potter and the deathly hallows. why isn't part two out now?

sit and contemplate your day

today's title comes from brand new colony by the postal service, also known as one of the ten songs guaranteed to turn me into a gibbering pile of mush. congratulations, ben gibbard.

i'm just playing on the computer until glee starts. american idol is on mute in the background so sometimes i look up and catch the top three making funny faces. i started my reflective essays for lit, too. and by "started" i mean that i haven't actually written anything yet - but i reflected! oh, yes, i reflected my butt off but not really, i'm still doing yoga and squats for that and now i can't feel my legs and discovered that i don't actually know how to reflect. at first i thought it would be a little like meditation, so i waited until no one was home, put some music on and plopped on the couch, waiting for thinky thoughts to come to me. unfortunately the only things that arrived on the thinky thought train were song lyrics and random things like "gee, all the toes on my right foot look bigger than the ones on my left foot if i turn my head just so and squint a little."

i could have put that in my essay, but i've got a feeling that tonight's gonna be a good oh dear god i'm quoting the black eyed peas, where did my life go wrong? that my teacher would have been all:

so i decided to cut the music and actually use my brain...it was hard. i think it might have atrophied from disuse since i've been afflicted with senioritis for several months. hopefully i reached some conclusions that'll make for a halfway decent essay. and if i haven't, well...at least i have videos of cute kittens to keep my company. like this one:

See more funny videos and Cute Animals Videos at Today's Big Thing.

while i was wasting my life doing homework and looking up cat videos and waiting for glee (which just started - neil patrick harris is singing on my television screen!) a trailer for freaky friday came on. i'm not actually sure why, since lindsay lohan is about as relevant as swiss cheese at this point in her coked up career, but it was still there. somehow or another it got me thinking about th-- oh my god. neil patrick harris and shue are singing dream on! 

...okay, it's done. i just lost my train of thought, but i'll leave that paragraph as is so that you can all appreciate my difficulties in focusing long enough to do anything productive. aren't you all amazed that i've almost successfully graduated from high school? 

here's another random thought: if you switched bodies with someone like in freaky friday, would you think of the mouth on that body as yours? i know that i would, but that one scene from the movie (also known as the only scene that i remember, since the rest was a horrible mess of lindsay lohan - who can't act - and chad michael murray - who's like 30 - pretending to be high school students) where the mom-character and the daughter (who were otherwise so forgettable that i don't actually know their names) are driving somewhere and the mom-in-daughter's-body says something about not letting the daughter-as-jamie-lee-curtis eat french fries since they'll go from her mouth to jamie lee's thighs. 

that whole paragraph was one rambly stream-of-consciousness way of giving you all homework. someone tell me if the fact that disney and i agree that even if you were magically transported to a new body, your mouth is still, well, yours makes sense. i got into an argument over the phone with a non-blogger-who-shall-not-be-named about this, and i want it settled. 

so i just looked away from the television screen for like three seconds to finish that sentence and the momster walked in and turned it off. apparently she thought i wasn't watching it. can you believe that? it's glee. and she turned it off right in the middle of a neil patrick harris scene! 

i'm going to stop blogging and protect my right to the remote now. wish me luck, kids.

you think it's endless, endless, endless

today's title comes from sleigh bells' crown on the ground. i can't find a decent version on youtube so you're just going to have to look it up yourself.

my econ exams went well. kind of. the macroeconomics exam was fine, since that's the unit we just finished learning. microeconomics wasn't that bad, either...not until the free responses, anyway. even after travis and i murdered a tree printing off past free responses to study, this year's was still a mystery. i put down a few nonsensical terms and busied myself drawing pictures. lots and lots of pictures. my personal favorite was a goldfish rendering of the high school cafeteria map in mean girls - i made the asians sushi rolls.

at least our teacher fed us. it figures that my worst exam(s) would have the best food. my favorite parts were the costco box of twizzlers (i still have a bunch in my bag), peanut m&ms, and buffalo chicken kickers for lunch. food just makes everything better, you know? in the mean girls cafeteria hierarchy i think i might be one of the girls who eat their feelings. oh no.

blossom is my favorite. who's yours? also, do any of you even read the captions? can i just start saying strange things in these or trying to brainwash you via subliminal messages embedded in the photo/gif captions or... i'm feeling kind of pinky and the brain today. don't judge.

oh, look, jon stewart has a teddy bear. that's nice. watching the daily show is a horrible distraction when one is trying to complete homework. blogging and watching the daily show, on the other hand, makes any hopes of finishing homework nonexistent, so...at least i can accept my fate? which will probably include staying up to an unhealthy hour finishing it or waking up really early and finishing it or taking it to lit and finishing it?

i don't know, don't expect anything sensible from me tonight. all i've done today is binge on sugary snacks, take two giant tests, and nap. my brain is still warming up. or shutting down. i'm not entirely sure.

in case you hadn't noticed already, my preferred exam time music tends to have a lot of the same songs/genres as my nighttime playlists: quiet or acoustic or old. makes sense, right? who wants to sleep or study or slit their wrists shrieking "why me?" and cursing college board and everyone who runs it to, i don't know, rap or death metal or club remixes? not me. (well except for the title song. but that was part of my special New Music exception). so if today's songs seem sort of familiar in tone, there's a reason...i'm a creature of extreme predictability (or not. i'm not entirely sure about that, actually. the momster says i am, but most other people say i'm not. what do you think?) and i listen to the same playlists while i blog or put of doing homework or pretend to study or attempt to sleep. in this case, the playlist features a lot of someone s-la likes to call "ray lamontage". for future reference, his name is ray lamontagne. you've all probably heard of him since he's awesome and coffeehouse loves him. in case you haven't heard the correct way to say his name, it's ray la-mon-tane.

my favorite:

a cover! we all know my weakness for those (in case you're wondering, the cover songs smart playlist is at 989 songs). the original is (unfortunately) one of the momster's favorite songs, but we've managed to compromise on this version for the car (usually):

and another cover!

give them to the night

today's title comes from sunflower by low. i've been listening to it (and the rest of the album it's from) constantly this week. it makes for good "gee, i should probably study for APs, but i won't, so i guess i'll just listen to relaxing music and not panic instead" listening.

it gets bonus points for having the first youtube result for the song be a skins video, but since e4 (the channel skins is on in the uk) disabled embedding on any video featuring its content, you'll have to make do with the boring one instead.

i've decided that i approve of the alien rat dog haircuts after all, even if they did make cookie and lulu are extra-shivery in the cold. now i have an excuse to dress them up in cute little sweaters! also their neverending search for heat has made them even more cuddly than usual (as i type this lulu is curled on top of both my feet), which is always good. best of all, it's made the daily check for ticks that much easier; i took them for a run in the rain to the canoe launch and was able to pry one off cookie in seconds. shrieky, flaily seconds, but seconds nevertheless.

besides, lulu (the one that looks like a mixture of pinky and the brain) is actually looking sort of cute with her giant head and paws and floppy ears. i'd snap a picture of her, but...well, i already mentioned the sleeping on my feet, right? because she is. and my toes are extremely toasty and reluctant to return to their normal unheated state, so you'll just have to make due with a puppy from cuteoverload.

i don't think you're complaining too much about the lack of lulu. that little dude is adorable.

other than my acceptance of hairless rat dogs my beloved pets, nothing much happened today. i went to school, got tacos and starbucks, came home, read, wrote, and blogged. i'm so interesting, i know. i guess being boring is better than having something horrible happen, though, so there's that.

besides, the national's new album high violet was officially released yesterday. and we all know what that means: i had to go on a mass deletion spree from my iTunes to make room for all the glee songs and an official studio release of high violet there are finally high quality versions of their songs on youtube (and in my iTunes library). this is one of my favorites (and is probably going to be the first single from the album, so i guess it's their favorite, too)

here's little faith, too:

i'd post another one of my favorite songs from this album, but it's not available on youtube yet. it's called england, though, if you want to get it.

anyway, it's getting late and i have to be a good little girl and actually make it to an AP exam on time for once (this is my last shot! ever!), so i guess this is where i'm going to leave off. expect lots of depression and whining about hand cramps tomorrow.

i'm on top of the world, i can see it all around me

today's title comes from hills and valleys by the rocket summer, also known as the reason i didn't blog yesterday.

well, actually, that wasn't completely true. this is the reason i didn't blog yesterday:

i spent yesterday running errands for the momster (did you know that cookie is officially an Old Dog? he can't learn new tricks anymore. but he never learned any tricks to begin with, so does that mean he'll finally start learning tricks?) and struggling through heart of darkness for a second time (this time with audiobook accompaniment). so naturally i rewarded myself at the end of the day by catching up on (and hunting down) new music. let's just take a moment to appreciate this lovely sight, since my iTunes library has been looking a little bare of late:

conclusions reached? jimi hendrix is awesome even when he's dead. the gorillaz are awesome and alive. laura marling isn't exciting enough to be awesome but she's got a pretty voice and prettier songs. the sandinista project is a free compilation of the clash cover songs - in other words, it would've been the best thing on this list (since i had to pay for valleys of neptune) but mgmt was nice enough to release two new songs this week. i'm so excited for their new album that it's beginning to get embarrassing. i even replaced all my ringtones with kids, time to pretend, and electric feel. that's a whole lot of excitement.

oh, and to make up for starting off on music for the hundredth time in a row (also, did anyone else just find out that hundredth has a d in it? just me? well then. thanks for catching my mistake Angry Little Red Line on Safari), here's something for you s-la:

although i really don't know why i'm rewarding you when your demonic blog playlist nearly shattered my eardrum today. there i was, innocently listening to my happy new music and trying to see your prom dress and then - wham. bam. kapow. insert other comic book onomatopoeias here. how do you live with yourself? it was horrible. i had to go soothe my shattered eardrums with mumford and sons' cover of cousins (by some band called vampy saturdays or non-twilight vampires on weekends or something like that) and brownies. i hope you're happy with yourself.

walked and crawled on six crooked highways

today's title is adapted from a hard rain's a-gonna fall by bob dylan. i've been loving my classic rock playlist today.

so day one of operation:read instead has been allowed me to realize that gandalf was right:

in other words, i've been attempting to study calculus and/or write my yearbook story for the last four hours. see gina's post for details.

don't worry, though, i've given up on my oh-so-brief attempt to be a decent student. i've more or less resigned myself to failing calculus - my highest calculus-related aspirations at the moment are to get a c and pass so i don't have to take the exam.

while i was in the library today, attempting to figure out my lit homework with helena and alina (oh, the rhymes), i realized something sort of disappointing - most people my age have vocabularies gleaned directly from the thesaurus app on their iphones. now, that's not to say that my vocabulary is Too Cool For School (and, yes, that phrase needs to be capitalized, it's just that awesome), but at least i make an effort. for example, i actually read the books we're assigned in english and i do not complain about the instructions on our homework assignments including too many 'big words' (the 'big word' in question was incredulity. as in: imagine my incredulity when i realized people that stupid actually exist)

(now playing: icky thump by the white stripes)

this blog has been pretty picture-heavy lately. now, part of the reason for that is that i had lots of time to stock up on amusing pictures during the snow week, but there's another reason: tumblr.

in case you missed the news, i started using my tumblr during winter break 2.0. and that's great - i have actual followers and everything (i'm one away from fifty followers; someone sign up and follow me, geez oh man) and i've missed how much easier it is to share things that i like (and god knows there's a lot of them) but i feel like this blog has been suffering as a result.

like, we all know that i have this tendency to obsess over things. i mean, there's a reason that ashlee simpson's song little miss obsessive is the twenty-first most played song in my itunes library. i can't help it if the lyrics speak to me! (okay, i've just been dying to write/say a sentence that pretentious - it's been a life-long goal) i've also got a healthy appreciation of good pop music, so that didn't hurt my love of the song one little bit.

(neon bible - arcade fire)

the song changing gave me time to realize that i'd started veering off onto a tangent. good work, arcade fire. 

anyway, what i'd been getting at (before ashlee simpson took over this post) was this: should i confine my obsessing to tumblr? should i go back to letting a little of it trickle over here? because my life, it's not even a little bit interesting except for the next thing that i'm about to post because it is hilarious

(time has come today - the chambers brothers)

today i'm bringing a new feature to this blog. it'll (hopefully) be a one-time only type of deal. let's just call it Texts You Don't Want To Get From A Friend While Standing Near A Family of Four In An Elevator:

friend: omg, i took a nap before going to work and i had a dream that i was having a threesome with freddie mercury and johnny weir.

me: wtf?

friend: brb, bleaching my brain out. it was so weird. johnny weir was straight.

 yeah, my reaction went a little like this:

and, oh hell, we'll throw in another picture or two just for kicks (after all, i need to free up hard drive space).

change (i wanna live forever)

so, you may have noticed that something is missing from this page.

that's right - the bloglist? it's gone.

i've decided to resurrect my tumblr, so if you want to hear the songs i'm currently in love with, go check it out. i've got a song a day policy going on there, so the rest of it is just books and pictures and links and videos that have caught my eye. it's stream of consciousness at its finest. besides, i've been getting really irritated with blogger's posting format lately - it's awful to try and post from my phone, even with the new app - so i've decided to switch back to tumblr for a lot of things. it's so much more convenient.

yes i am talking this site up because i am expecting you to join it. duh.

(four winds - the killers)

this little guy (snagged from cuteoverload, of course) and i were both fully prepared to weather the snowstorm...from the safety of our own warm houses. that's right, i spent this lovely day off from school sitting around my house, running, snacking, and watching tv.

well, except for the nine hours i was on the phone.

thankfully those nine hours were neither consecutive nor with the same person. i don't normally use my phone for actual conversations (i don't care if you think that sounds silly - texting is easier), and when i do it's usually with the same small circle of people. today i made an exception, though, since i was just so damn bored.

god, remember the days when a sudden snowfall was such a happy occasion? like, for purpose other than ensuring school cancellations? because i remember being a kid and spending all day happily sledding or throwing snowballs or just watching my dogs sink in the snow and disappear and not wanting to do anything but be outside for hours.

obviously i don't feel like that anymore. also, that last paragraph was an utter mess of run-on sentences and fragments, but i'm feeling to lethargic to clean it up. it's times like these that i can understand why sloth is a sin.

i actually think i'm going to sleep now. it's pretty early for me, but for some reason i'm more tired now than i normally am after having done actual work.

i'm sure you've been waiting for this (with bated breath and quivering lips)

(can you guess why i used this picture?)

today's post is going to be a little different. instead of throwing in a paragraph about what i'm listening to and why i'm listening to it at the end of the post, i put my itunes on shuffle and am going to include whatever comes on during this post. i think it'd be pretty interesting if you could figure out why i like certain songs or artists. even if you know me, i think there'll be a few surprises.

(shoot your gun - the 20-20s)

so remember when i was excited about finishing the yearbook spreads due before break? or how i thought that meeting this deadline would be easy to meet because cory, gina, and i only had one spread due?

yeah, i was wrong.

(shadowfeet - brooke fraser)

it turns out that when you have a spread on activities that happen before school, getting pictures and interviews for said activities has to happen...before school. that time when you have to wake up early. and not forget your homework in the kitchen and turn around on three minutes from hay road to go back and get it. and remember to check out cameras the day before you show up at 8:30 to take pictures.

now, i know what you're all thinking. it probably goes something like this:

but gina and i honestly didn't think it would be this hard to coordinate everything. so far this one spread has required more crazed text messages, preplanning, and actual effort than the last four did. combined. (i do believe in italics! i do, i do!)

our infographic ideas for it are pretty awesome, though, so hopefully the result will be proportional to the effort placed in it. and even if it isn't, gina's layout design for the spread is one of my favorites, so maybe people will just be happy with that and not bother reading/looking at the infographics.

(bottle it up - sara bareilles)

oh, and i'm thinking it's time gina got her own label. i don't know what yet, though. it took me forever to find the post i linked to at the beginning because it didn't have a yearbook label, so i went through and labelled everything properly. i'd be kind of sad to have to go through and label all the gina posts, but i suppose one must suffer in the name of organization. besides, i've actually finished my homework before midnight - how better to celebrate than by blogging and catching up on all my recorded shows and movies?

yeah, i know. my life: it's boring.

(when doves cry (cover) - damien rice)

speaking of shows i've recorded, the new episode of make it or break it on abc family is at the head of the queue. go ahead and judge me, since i freely admit that my favorite television shows are the most ridiculous. proof? i watch jersey shore. apparently the rolling stone staff does, too, which is the justification i use whenever someone tries to call me on it. however, i will never, ever (and you can quote me on that, mr. frost) watch the secret life of the american teenager. just hearing people try to describe the plot to me makes me want to wash my brain out.

(amon hen - howard shore)

i did record last night's premiere of chuck, though. i've heard enough people tell me about how wonderful it's supposed to be that i couldn't resist.

of course, now that i've said that, i'm going to watch it and be hopelessly disappointed. such is life, right? although i'm thinking it's a good sign that the cast is so pretty and the episode opened with a flashback. it makes things easier to underst- holy james bond briefcase, batman. the scene with the television started out funny and has turned interesting. although i would really hate to have scenes relating to george bush flash through my mind every time i turned on the news.

(better off dancing - the donnas)

(kerosene - miranda lambert)

i'd blog more but my day was pretty boring. school. learning (of a sort). homework. as per usual, i felt like the AP government vocabulary was a slight to the collective intelligence of the senior class. half of the terms overlapped with terms from the last quarter of apush - do teacher's really assume our attention spans are that short? are our brains supposed to auto-erase knowledge after a span of six months? i just set my email account to do that - yay auto-emptying trash and spam boxes! - but i don't think it's possible to recreate the effect in my mind. oh, and the other half of the terms could be defined using common sense and a basic knowledge of current events (CIA? cold war? gee, what's next, "define: president"?)

(slow dance - senses fail)

okay, this post has dragged on forever. i'd like to say this is proof of my ability to write about any topic however uninteresting (in other words, my 'blogging is an academic exercise' essay for random scholarships fastweb likes to email me), but we all know that it really just shows how much i excel at bullshitting.

i'm going to drag this on just a little bit longer to impart one last bit of news. i hit the ten thousand mark on itunes today. actually, that was a lie. i bought my ten thousandth song last night but then i had to go through my library and cull the songs i no longer like/see myself listening to. i thought i'd pass my excitement on to you: if you guess what songs 10,000 - 10,009 were (well, the album or artist, anyway) you get to pick the topic of my next post. i'll even pull a j. k. rowling (oh, how i miss her, i wish she'd write something new) and give you a hint: RDJ.

(sons & daughters - the decemberists)

oh, and excluding the length of this post, how do we feel about the new format? keep the shuffle songs or go back to the original here's-your-giant-run-on-sentence-of-music-go-ahead-and-skip-it-steffi paragraphs?

(dramamine - modest mouse)

this is the last thing. really: the cast of chuck has its own car commercial! with ipods! and they're adorable! i need to download seasons 1 & 2.

well, personality isn't everything

so, you know that thing where you really like a song or a movie or a book until you find out that the person behind it - singer, actor, author, magical puppet master, etc. - is sort of awful?

well, don't let that happen right now.

there's this song - i just added it to the blog playlist (which really needs a nickname - maybe the bloglist?) so see if you can find it - which i'm kind of addicted to. it's a free download from the record label right now (the password is gossip) here, so go get your own copy before the promotion ends. i really didn't want to like this song, either, since the girl who sings it (taylor momsen, she's jenny on gossip girl) seems to be...well, she doesn't seem like someone i would like. for one thing, i don't even watch gossip girl, and for another she wears things like this:

but it's so hard when her music is actually...good. like that song i just linked you to? in itunes i made its genre cabaret rock. what's not to love about something that can be called cabaret rock? she's got a bunch of demos out if you hunt around the internet and she's working on her album now - in all likelihood she's going to blow up just like leighton meester (undeservedly) did just because she's on gossip girl, so start listening now before there's actual press about her that'll put you off her music.

oh, and since this is a middle of the night post (caused by late night writing, sadly, and not late night homework completion) i feel fully justified in making this all about music (and parentheses...take that grammar gods) and will link you my current writing song/other new addition to the bloglist:

isn't it pretty? also, in case you didn't notice, that's z berg from the like, so double win.

stay tuned for another post...in the actual daylight hours (ha, see what i did there? with the punning and the song title and...yeah, i know. things are only funny in my head)

also this blog has become oddly full of parentheses. blame the late hour.

avec ou sans moi (i put my itunes on shuffle and got a title)

so i'm sitting on meggo's floor. she's right next to me. i'm trying to inspire her to blog (and have her blogging inspire me to continue blogging...it's a complicated circle). she says, "my butt hurts." i agree, meg, i agree. your floor is hard.

our computers don't like each other. i have a macbook and she has a pc. we're having a music day ("do you think if my butt were bigger it'd have better padding?" also known as an interlude from meg). actually, it's more of a music night because we've only been doing this for a little while (since we got back from dinner, actually), so music night would be more appropriate, but it doesn't have the right feel to it, you know?

oh, so we went to dinner at cheng's and now have enough leftovers to feed a small country. looking for free food? go out to dinner with a homecoming group and don't go to the dance. being the only people actually going home, all the leftovers are automatically yours. win!

speaking of win, meg is blogging! i call this a victory (i've been winning a lot lately. see: my fight against capital letters. they tricked me into using them in the last two posts -- the hazards of posting from my phone with its dastardly autocorrect -- but i've got the best of them now)

listening to: taper jean girl - kings of leon. oh, haircut followill, why'd you start enunciating? i miss the good old days of slurry songs and crazy guitar riffs. patrick stump managed to keep his songs impossible to understand.

hmm, so i took a lot of pictures today (woo hoo for the birthday camera) and we're going to take more once pantsless is done being pantsless on the dance floor (and has delivered our dessert...HIGHce cream ftw), so i'm gonna cut this post short (like kanye west on tay tay. what? what? too soon? yeah, i thought so too).

alternate title for this post: it's late and i'm feeling parenthetical