So much...

... homework.
So many rehearsals.
So many college essays to write.
So very much to do.

On the bright side, I get to go see Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band live! REALLY soon!
I would marry Conor Oberst, I think. Cause he's brilliant. But then I would also marry Neil Patrick Harris (Dr. Horrible), who is gay. And Harold (from Harold and Maude), who is a fictional character. And Gene Kelly, who is dead.

It seems that all of the people whom I would quite happily marry are in some way or another quite unavailable.

So, you know.

That is all.

Busy, contemplating marriage and yours...

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow...

Did you know that the English word "essay" stems from the French verb "essayer", which means "to try"?
Yep.
The "most brilliant essay of [my] high school career thus far" is due at midnight.
But no pressure.

Right?

Oh wait. Wrong.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
gggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg
hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Full of sound and fury, but still yours...

Roar.

Is how I feel right now.
Stupid everything.

Book Banning

It's just something that I cannot comprehend.
Books are important. They're up there with water and oxygen and love. But people are so afraid. They're afraid of war and sex and witchcraft and religion and death. So they try to hide it all behind government regulations, because they don't want their children exposed to "that kind of thing". But why? After all, life is "that kind of thing". Censorship is unhealthy. It's just another form of repression that contributes to building messed-up adults who are not comfortable enough with themselves and their world to be happy.

In related news... did you know that Where's Waldo was the 88th most frequently challenged book from 1990 to 2000?
I think that I speak for most everybody when I say WTF?! (Apparently there's a topless woman in the beach scene... or so says my trusty informer)

Anyhow.
Vive le livre!














Just a few of the at-one-time-or-another challenged/banned books that reside so happily in my home.(from top to bottom: The Giver by Lois Lowry; A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess; Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein; Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J. K. Rowling; The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler; The Witches by Roald Dahl; To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee; A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle; Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll; The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket; and [on the right, obscuring my face] The Arabian Nights)

Reading no matter what they say and yours...

Must be the sign on my head that says oh... love me dead!

So here I am burning my tongue on Dr. McDougall's vegan minestrone soup. And I think to myself: I think I just my be skilled enough to blog whilst burning my tongue.
And so I shall. About what, you ask? Music. Why? Because I love it/can/wantosothere.
What follows is a review. Yep. They may just pop up once in a while.


Band: Ludo
Album: You're Awful, I Love You
Ludo sounds a bit like some atypical frat boys discovered pop rock of the likes of Panic! At The Disco, Fall Out Boy, and My Chemical Romance. They liked it well enough, but thought: we can do better.
So they learned to play instruments and sing and do all those things that bands seem to do. This led to the creation of a sound that is bouncy and energetic, with some roughness around the edges. Which makes it a perfect soundtrack for room cleaning/staying awake while walking to school/dancing instead of studying/being a badass.*

The lead singer and primary songwriter, Andrew Volpe has that slightly-whiny-yet-endearing-and-somehow-not-really-annoying tone to his voice that seems to be a staple in the world of cool male bands. A few of their songs (namely Please and Such as it Ends) dabble primarily in the realm of typical pop-rock. Most other tracks, however, carry the quirkycreepyodd gene that makes their music so ridiculously appealing. Such deviations from the norm include (radio hit) Love Me Dead, Go Getter Greg, The Horror of Our Love, and Drunken Lament (all of which will likely appear on my Top 25 Most Played list relatively soon). Ultimately, their lyrics are made of a lot of awesome... because quirkycreepyodd is definitely one of my favorite flavors.

Top of the figurative pile!

* but that could just be because I like having as many opportunities as I possibly can to use the word "badass"

Breaking Dawn. A Conversation. With Myself.

So. I got Breaking Dawn around the time it came out and read a large portion of it in a pretty short period of time. But when I got to the "simple" necklace with the diamond the size of a golf ball on page 532, I put the book down and didn't pick it up again for a solid two months. (Not that the necklace was by any means the most frustrating thing. Not by a half. In fact, I have a fairly hefty rant stored in my mental files. But we'll get to that later.) I picked it up this morning in an attempt to delay the inevitable studying, and ended up finishing it. At that point I thought: Man. I can't review this book. It's just too ridiculous.

But I can record the conversation that took place between pre- and post-Breaking Dawn me. Here goes...

Pre-Breaking Dawn Rae: Edward or Jacob?
Post-Breaking Dawn Rae: Garrett. Fo' shiz.

Pre: Werewolves are awesome.
Post: Werewolves aren't werewolves... WTF?!

Pre: It's kinda stupid that Jacob is in love with Bella.
Post: OH MY GOD. MEYER YOU LOSE. OF ALL THE COP-OUTS IN ALL THE WORLD...

Pre: Bella Swan is kind of a boring name.
Post: Renesmee? Really?

Pre: Bella should get a personality.
Post: Never mind. If personality means "masochistic, sex-crazed maniac".*

Pre: Oatmeal-coloured turtleneck sweaters (or whatever) are not attractive on anybody. Not even Edward Cullen.
Post: Did he just say that denim has its own scent? Oi.

Pre: I wonder how Bella will be as a vampire...
Post: Oh. Okay. It's Bella. But h4wtt3r.

Pre: Epic battle?
Post: Nope.

Pre: Please?
Post: Nope.

Pre: Why?
Post: I haven't the foggiest notion. Maybe Stephanie Meyer just couldn't bear to pull a Rowling. So instead of a bunch of important characters dying... none. of. them. did. And they all lived HAPPILY EVER AFTER.

Huzzah.

Anyway.

I was never a fangirl. I sported no t-shirts. I stalked no forums. I never had a screen name along the lines of mrsedwardcullen447, nor did I ever write any such thing on my binder and encircle it with a heart drawn in my own blood in hopes that Edward--fictional character though he is--would be tantalized by the scent(Oh god... can you imagine?).

But I liked the series, in my own way. Had sort of a love-hate relationship with it, I guess. So I was never a Twilight Saga cynic, either. Until I read Breaking Dawn and came to the depressing realization that the books were a best-selling tribute to many things that I am heartily against.

That's all for now. Sleep beckons.

Conversationally yours...

*rant to follow within the general realm of someday

Fire within me! Water around me! Air above me! Earth below me! Forest before me!

So. I've pretty much always been a nerd. Even when I was say, eight, and watched bad television, it was nerdy bad television. Recently, one particular show has been haunting me. I could remember the general premise, some of the characters, and the fact that it was a lot like Mighty Morphin Power Rangers except even more on crack plus in Ireland (sort of) and with faeries; but I couldn't remember what it was called.
Thanks to the wonders of Wikipedia, though, I was able to find out its name:The Mystic Knights of Tir Na Nog. Behold the glory...


Classy, no?
Indeed. I had very good taste.
I remember thinking that Deirdre was made of uberawesome and being totally frustrated that her element wasn't water.

Another example of my impeccable taste... When I was in kindergarten, I was absolutely infatuated with a series of books called The Jewel Kingdom.

Classic literature. No doubt about it.

I think I wanted to be the emerald princess. Or maybe the ruby one. Possibly both. But not the diamond one or the sapphire one. They were the boring ones, as far as I can remember. Whereas Roxanne the Ruby Princess and Emily the Emerald Princess were TOTALLY BADASS!


So basically, in case you had any doubt whatsoever, I always was and continue to be ridiculously, utterly and inescapably cool.
Period. The end.

Self-deprecating humor-having-ly, nerdily, nostalgically yours...