ahahahaha

i'm getting to all of you. this is a quick post to share the good news: i've got another convert. that's right: the soulless ginger has a blog! go follow him. hopefully we can peer pressure him and sarah with an umlaut into consistent blogging.

...which also means he needs a tag. damn it.

oh well, here's my nocturnal song of the night. it used to be on the bloglist (you know, way back when there was one), so it should be familiar (i'm looking at you s-la), but just in case you haven't heard it:

also, i just want it on record that i object to this whole "rachel is snarky" thing you all seem to have agreed on. i am so not snarky. trust me, i know snarky people and i'm definitely not one of them. mildly sarcastic, yes. full blown snark? not there yet. but, oh, do i have goals.

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.

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.

derailment

i had all these plans for a really great post about the thinky thoughts jeni's post on high school inspired me to have. and by "really great" i mean "general bitchery about how i'm just ready to graduate and doing something i'm actually interested in". it would have been a masterpiece - i'm 99% certain that i would've managed to shoehorn in an overblown metaphor or eight. in the words of rory gilmore - alas, alack. i was distracted by the complete perfection that is proenza schouler's pre-fall collection. i want it all. i mean, it's a snow day in the middle of february and it has me wishing for the good ol' september august back-to-school frenzy.

really, though, i just want this entire outfit:

(come on get higher - matt nathanson)

oh, why must it be so crazyexpensive? i suppose i'll just have to pull on a lady gaga mask and go knock over some banks. 

i'm drinking another peppermint mocha frapp right now and feeling very lovely and dissipated for doing so. it's sort of sad that my idea of luxury is having the guys at starbucks know you well enough to reopen and make you a drink even after they've closed. then again, my idea of a glamorous late night involves sipping said drink and putting itunes on shuffle while i play on the internet, so i guess it makes sense. 

(between - vienna teng)

i just updated the bloglist to include some of the songs that i've kept on loop these past few days. i've pretty much given up on making it any sort of actual playlist - now it's more of a 'here's what i want to listen to when i post things' type of deal.

today's link roundup is mostly positive. sure, there's the stray rumor that beyonce might be collaborating with kings of leon (please, god, no), but there was also news of the strokes' new album, a collaboration i actually like in the form of gerard way on amanda palmer's next album, hilarious rock star spending stories, a free (and legal) kid cudi download on kanye west's blog. the best of all these, though?

(jolene - ray lamontagne)

j. k. rowling is now a barbie doll. no, really. where was this when i was a kid? 

and now i'll step away from the linkage to fill you in on my fun-filled snow day. hooray for emergency babysitting for the neighbors - i love that employers won't let parents off of work when their kids don't have school. now i've got shopping money (not proenza schouler shopping money, but still). i did a lot little light reading today, too. the list? the golden compass and subtle knife by philip pullman, followed by the communist book club-approved looking glass wars. i figure that i'll finish that and the sequel and then reward myself by rereading the amber spyglass. and then stealing the third looking glass book from s-la. 

(exitlude - the killers)

"stay yet, illusion, stay a while"

i reread marmion today. i did a few other things, too, homework being chief among them, but this was easily my favorite activity. oh, i can't reread it without being warmed by the names of 'the mightiest chiefs of british song'. i will confess to being unimpressed by ivanhoe - hey, i'm a child of the 90s, okay? i expect my medieval stories to have a little more action and a little less 'rebecca the jewess' - but marmion never fails to make me thrill all over, as anne shirley might have said.

in case you couldn't tell, i'm in a distinctly literary sort of mood. blame my lit homework. i've been rereading the book of genesis in poisonwood for references to colonialism. you're all highly imaginative, i'm sure you can figure out how fun that must have been.

never mind. i just got linked to this in my email and my literary frame of mind has been entirely dispelled. look at the seal's little face! and the happy frolicking penguins! it's like happy feet came to life and this is the post-production cast party. all the pretentious lead actor/director/executive producer penguins are out of frame, though - they didn't want to be caught on film drinking champagne and consorting with that ridiculous seal.

so i'm watching harry potter and the goblet of fire right now (although 'watching' is a rather loose term for it - one could just as easily argue that the tv is on in the background and i'm paying attention to every sixteenth scene which plays) and have reached two conclusions:

1. rita skeeter is one fierce bitch. she and lady gaga would probably get along famously. also, her glasses make my day and i want a pair just like them. 
2. robert pattinson was actually mildly attractive at one point in his life. i suppose all the blame for his subsequent uglification rests directly on the shoulders of stephenie meyer. i wonder how she sleeps at night. oh, right - by having creepy dreams about sparkly teenagers getting it on in a meadow.

in music news, i'm currently listening to mowgli's road by mariana and the diamonds. it, like everything else she does, is fabulous. i finally listened through nme's radar 2010 mixtape (it's available for free download here), paying especial attention to obsession by mariana and the diamonds since i already liked her music and it'd just been posted on another blog i follow as part of a playlist. in other words, i had high expectations of the song and wouldn't have been all that surprised if it failed to live up to them.

it just cracked my top fifty on itunes with 96 plays. in other words, go listen to it. i've even put it on the bloglist just so it'd be easier to find, so no excuses, okay?

to round up all mentions of anything remotely music-related (you can come out now, s-la) this makes me both sad and gleeful. sad for the obvious reasons of "ew, plagiarism", and gleeful because now i have a comeback for when people go 'you don't like owl city? wtf is wrong with you?'. oh, and i've been looking for a reason to use the word gleeful today.

i still have homework to finish up, so i think this post is going to be a little shorter than normal. i was going to blog about this, but i think i'll just let you read the book for yourself and draw your own conclusions. i found it pretty interesting.

let's just begin this post on a happy note

because you know that a first-monday-back-at-school-in-over-sixteen-days post will not be filled with many happymaking facts.

so, fact #1: i am actually ridiculously, unironically happy about the fact that i managed to discover - and fill my itunes top 25 - with bat for lashes and phoenix and the dirty projectors (although this one's only because of mark hoppus's music blog) long before pretentious indie music blogs started featuring them on their year-end roundups.

fact #2: the new blogger dashboard draft thing? is awesome. if i'd had my way if s-la hadn't made me get one of these things i'd still be on livejournal or tumblr, which are both much easier to use (and have communities for basically everything) so it's nice to see google catching up. you go blogger, coco.

fact #3: i've officially completed my reread of the poisonwood bible, just in time for class tomorrow. that makes the fourth time i've read it. the multiple points of view are still so well done as to make you feel you fail at life and/or writing. rachel is sadly still a moron. i foresee this being a fun unit in lit.

oh, and the best news of all? i've got a full scholarship to my preferred tiny safety school. which is, you know, exciting. at the very least i'm no longer feeling super-stressed, so hopefully i'll actually be able to keep my new year's resolution of zen this year.

and now for the bad news:

this writing-a-story thing is highly complicated. i'm afraid i'm going to have to chop a good chunk of what i wrote during my all-night writing binge. i adore some bits of it but it just isn't doing anything to further the plot and if i keep it the pace will drag. oh well. i'm hoping after about fifteen years and compulsive rewriting this might actually turn out decently. like let-people-read-this decent, even. one can only hope.

i've updated the bloglist, too. it's tiny right now - a few of the most recent adds to the old one and two new songs. well, i'm not sure if they count as two separate songs since kid cudi's the prayer samples the funeral by band of horses. i love the original and the not-quite-a-remix, though, so they both went it. also - and you'll probably be able to tell this by the lyrics - both of those songs have been my theme for what little of The Book With No Name that i've written so far. oh and right now i'm listening to holdin' on together by phoenix.

ugh, i have to go back to my homework now. i'd rant about that, too, but gina and jenibean have both done a better job of that, so just read their posts instead.

here, i'll leave you with something vaguely inspirational. or i assume it's inspirational since when i look at it now i mostly just laugh uncontrollably, since when i was a tiny wee widdle emo rachel and had a myspace and a xanga and still had an aim screenname to post away messages to (oh, the bad old days) this was one of my deep and insightful posts. it's good to know that, no matter how old and grown up you may feel, some things never change:

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.

forget what you know

so you might've noticed that the playlist changed again. and it might seem a little different than my former blogging music of choice. i mean, it's no secret that i love my wee little indie darlings. but now that cobra starship has finally made it big i feel like the time is right to try to force one of my greatest musical loves down your collective throats.

this is midtown. you might recognize that dorky one in the middle (you know, the one pulling the...actually, i'm not sure you could call that a face). he's gabe saporta, currently of cobra starship. but before he started singing about making them good girls go bad he was in this little band that started in rutgers, just a few minutes away from where i lived as a tiny tot just starting kindergarten. basically, they were what the 'cool kids' - and in a tiny private school where all the grades were houses in the same not-so-tiny building, the 'cool kids' were anyone above sixth grade. no, really - listened to, and, as a result, what us younger kids copied. except in copying the older kids by listening to them i actually started to like them. i'm guessing it's a little bit like s-la liking blink as a wee little 2nd grader. looking back on it now i can realize that i didn't understand any of what they were singing about, but i could sing along anyway. mostly, they were my introduction into music that wasn't britney spears and the backstreet boys or owned by my parents (because no childhood is complete without the beatles). without this band i never would've started listening to blink or the pixies or taking back sunday and saves the day or anything besides aaron carter and justin timberlake (my poor, poor misguided third and fourth grade classmates). who knows, without their music to counteract the bubblegum pop of my formative years i might not even have the wee little indie darlings on my itunes. so do yourself a favor and start listening to some midtown. and here's a heads-up: if you say you don't like them, i'll say i'm not judging you. (but i am, i so totally am).