So I made another mix that I posted tonight at pretty_music. I got the idea for it shortly after I made I'd Rather Be Dancing and Pretty Is... about a year ago and never finished this one. Whoops. Well here it is now :)

My favorite thing to do with themes is to use songs that you wouldn't necessarily expect would fit in with the title. Thus, a lot of these "life" songs are slow and beautiful, and a lot of the "death" songs are upbeat and happy sounding. Let me know what you think!



( Life )


( Death )

Box.net folder with everything
(sorry no zip, I am currently without reliable internet, I tried to upload a zip file but it failed at about 20%)

Please let me know if you take any! Enjoy!

( Hi, my name's Amanda... )

Okay, so to recap: Amanda Palmer is amazing. And I am tired. Goodnight.

Plus I'm only twenty-six years old. My grandma died at eighty-three. That's lots of time if I don't smoke. I think I'll wait another year.

So I'm sleepy and the Ladytron concert actually wound up being a little costly, but I think it was worth it.

I worked until noon and then ate lunch quick and hit the road. Picked up Carl at the Greyhound bus station in Milwaukee, which he took from Madison so I wouldn't have to drive that additional distance/time. We met my mom in Glenview for a nice little dinner near her work, and then headed to the concert. The opener started about 15 minutes early, so when we arrived at 7:20 we were kinda confused while we were missing stuff...but it was no big loss because I didn't like them much anyhow. Then we wound our way down by the time Ladytron started. It was a good show. Different than any other shows I've been to. I'm used to the artists being very personable, smiling, interacting with the audience, etc. They have this aloof image going on, and it was a little weird, almost off-putting. They were excellent, they played well, they had fancy lights...but they seemed almost devoid of personality. I'm sure, had we gotten a chance to meet them, they would feel more like actual people rather than performers on stage, but that's the way they presented themselves. Every musician does it different I guess, I've just never seen a band play that had this particular...vibe I guess. But yeah, it was a good show, they played most of my favorite songs, it was a decent crowd. This one guy pushed me up in front so I was behind only two people and completely centered, it as pretty awesome. Then I made another girl who was originally standing near me and that guy switch with me, because she was even shorter than me! So we each had a handful of songs up front and center. Yay for people being nice to us shorties!

The one thing that really irked me...no cameras!! :( So I made such a huge point of remembering my damn camera this time, after forgetting it at The Dollyrots, and then we had to put it back in the car!! Bastards. So I took more on my cell phone...now I've reeeeally gotta figure out how to get them off there.

So then we left, I grabbed their new CD but the venue said they weren't going to come up and sign stuff (though some people most likely caught them on the way to their tour bus) but we decided that rather than waiting, we'd check out the "official" afterparty that some people were handing out fliers for, at this random bar. We eventually found said random bar (or more accurately, we eventually found parking near said random bar), stayed for about an hour, I danced to a couple songs. They played Client! And Metric! And Ladytron of course! I only danced to Metric and Destroy Everything You Touch because there weren't too many people dancing. Maybe it would have picked up more but at 11:30 when we still had a 30-40 minute drive back to my mom's place, we decided we better leave so as not to disturb her any later. So then we slept, got up, went home, and I was back at work for the afternoon.

So much driving in such a short time! Thanks to general traffic, construction, detours, trying to find parking, and getting lost a few times, I spent more than 10 hours hours driving. Yikes! But at least now I've seen Ladytron live, and they're one of my favorite bands so I think it's worth it.

Now I might curl up with a book because I'm pretty physically drained and simply tired of being in a seated position.

And on my neck, the bite you left has started bruising.

Keeping up-to-date on my MySpace blogs and bulletins really pays off. Last night I read:

"Hey So...Do ya live near Green Bay, WI?"

WHY YES I DO! THANK YOU FOR ASKING, THE DOLLYROTS.

They have a show here tonight at BayFest, which Nate and I are now going to, and then we're hitting up the Green Bay gay clubs like we've said we're going to forfuckingever.

Hooray! I love The Dollyrots!! They're one of my biggest current obsessions. And I just happen to be in Appleton this weekend. I'm SUPER excited.

In other news, last night I went to see Kung Fu Panda with Felicia, and then watched the mid-season finale of Battlestar Galactica when I got home. That's about the extent of my excitement since I last wrote. Which means I did absolutely nothing all week... Sounds about right.

I got the Ladytron tickets and Madeline's not going :( So just Carl and I are going, but it'll still be fun. With the Dollyrots tonight and Ladytron in just 3 days! What an amazing week for music!

Lots of driving though. Every week from last weekend through the weekend of July 4th, I'll be driving 2+ hours. Oh well, just means there's lots of fun stuff to look forward to!

I wrote a pretty good "about me" on Facebook. I don't think I ever really had an about me on Facebook. I either left it blank or used one sentence, or a song lyric, or something. But I guess I decided that this is who I am:

I am a music addict. I am a college graduate. I am an interior designer. I am an extremely liberal bisexual Christian. I am fiercely independent but when I form attachments, they are strong ones. I will do anything for the ones I love, but if you're not one of those people, I don't give a shit what you think of me. I like to be different and I seek out individuality in others. I love tattoos and piercings. Mainstream society, music, and all that bores me to tears. I want to do more with my life than get married and have 2.5 children. I want to explore things. I need excitement, variety, and change in my life. Sitting around doing nothing makes me antsy. Silence freaks me out. But that's pretty much it...except maybe bugs. I'm not too terribly concerned with my death, heights, or public speaking. I worry more about things not going as planned. Which obviously means I should just stop planning things. But then I end up bored and boredom is pretty much the worst fate there is. Other than being locked in a room with a sexist, racist, homophobic, conservative hick who's blasting country music and talking about his shotgun collection, pickup truck, and how great George Bush is. *shudder*

That was pretty much the only thing I accomplished all week. Work was slow and very unproductive. And ... yeah. I'm gonna go fix my hair, we might be going to BayFest pretty soon.

YAY DOLLYROTS!!! :D

So won't you stay and love me, I'll make you so proud of me, we'll make them turn their heads, every place we go.

Stolen!




I've fallen completely in love with The Vincent Black Shadow. On top of really liking the music and her voice, I think she's gorgeous. ( See? )

I've been boring the past couple days. I voted, sent Shannon's package, and went to the library on Tuesday evening, so that was rather productive. Last night I didn't do ANYTHING. I updated my MySpace for no real reason. I was changing my top friends and decided I'd have somewhat of a real profile instead of the "fuck off and leave me alone" that I had. Not much of a real profile, I basically just copied and pasted things from Facebook.

But, I found out one neat thing while I was there. Freezepop posted a new bulletin, and they're changing the venue of the March 28th show. To Madison! Yay! (Well except for candyfishjunkie, who would now have to drive in from Milwaukee, but that might be awesome too, we can hang out with Madison people and it'll be even more fun! Say you'll still come? I think you have to, for missing this weekend's party hehe) And it's free now, because it's at the union. Some place I've never heard of called Club 770, inside the Union South (which is odd, usually bands play at the Memorial Union). But yeah, I'm excited for that, I sent Madeline a FB message and told her she has to go now (her initial response to the show was meh, I like them but I'm broke as fuck right now). So yes, that's something exciting to look forward to!

With that show, and if Madeline actually confirms for Leather & Lace in April, and my birthday is the weekend after that...looks like I'll be coming to Madison a lot in the next couple months. Since I haven't been in 4 months, I told everyone I was for sure going to do Leather & Lace in March, which would be in a week. Then I'd be coming two weekends after that probably, for my mom's birthday, and I guess that would also be the closest weekend to St. Patty's Day. Then the Freezepop show two weeks later, April L&L the following weekend, and then my birthday April 11th (still need to talk to Rob about throwing a party at the LCC), that would be 3 weekends in a row. Yay Madison :)

Alright I think that's about all the randomness I have in me at the moment. But never fear, I always come up with more!

Stolen!



Of course I am.

I don't have anything to post about, since I got it all out last night, and nothing's happened since then. I think I'm going to go home sick at lunch and rest up before going to Milwaukee. Everyone at works knows I'm sick, so it's not a lame excuse. Don't worry, candyfishjunkie, I won't be too unpleasant when I'm dosed up on dayquil and doing something much more fun than working! And there's no way I'm contagious anymore, so we should be good :)

Happy birthday to my dad, he's an old man, I've lost track lol, I think he's 51 today? Yep, he is.

ritzgrrl, you'll find this amusing. I was looking at your Facebook (to see if you posted your address which I still need fyi!) and I saw Pale Young Gentlemen in your music, and I clicked it. Two of my newer Facebook friends list it in their music too. So I sent them messages because it was exciting. They're both people I met at Alex's birthday. Morgan and Hannah, not sure if Morgan was in any pictures, I know Hannah was. So they both replied and said we should go to their next show, but unfortunately that's tonight and I won't be in Madison. They don't have any others listed yet. Ah well, next one, whenever that may be...

Alright, I'm going to pretend to work for a bit. Here I go!

Okay, LAST bout of negativity and anger, and I'll go back to being happy again, I promise. At least I hope so, if he takes me off like I'm telling him to. Otherwise I will just have to try to find out how to ban him, that's the only way to get yourself taken off someone else's LJ, right? (ETA: no worries, he took me off a half hour later)

A portion of his entry, entitled OI!

On top of that tonight somehow turned into "meet the parents" night.

"Again, with the 'oi'!"


My reply:

Oi indeed.

You do realize I can still read this?

You are well aware that I get bored at work. I was wondering why you didn't take me off here, when you did your music journal, so I went to see if you've logged in and posted here today.

...

Have fun meeting her parents! I'm sure it'll be wonderful! Be sure to tell them how you guys started dating two days after you dumped your last girlfriend! Or even how your first kiss was two days prior to dumping your last girlfriend! How romantic!

...

Please fucking take me off here. I don't know why you didn't. I just want this over with. I'm sick of trying to end things on a mature note. Have a nice life, Matt, please get out of mine.


That was really hard to post, knowing it might be the last thing I ever say to him. But if anger is what he wants, if it will make him stop fucking around, fine, on with it. Anger fades so much faster, like the anger from earlier this week. I was doing awesome for the past couple days! This too will fade to nothing.

Alright, back to happiness, sunshine, optimism, and lingerie ;)

So you all know how excited I am for the Dresden Dolls concert! You guys should go too. They're not going to be touring for a while after this, and they put on an absolutely amazing show. I'll even tell you if they're coming near you :)

( And yes, you could even get free tickets if you promote it like I'm doing right now, I can tell you about that too if you want )

Additionally, Wisconsin, you suck. This morning when I left the house, not only could I see my breath, but I also had to scrape a thin layer of ice off my windows. Wasn't it summer less than a week ago?? What the fuck??

So the point of this entry is really just to make a list for myself. This is my current Pandora-played list that I have written down at work and want to keep a record of it online as well. ( For my information. )

I got the job!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I got the message just a bit ago, for some reason I didn't hear it ring even though I was just sitting in Madeline's house watching Madagascar on TV and totally could have answered it, but noooo stupid phone. But this time he left the news on my voicemail so I know I got it, it's 27 starting and $500 moving bonus. And that's pretty much all he said, and he didn't answer this time when I called him back. He said he wanted to make sure to get the positions filled/accepted by the weekend, so I just told him I'd be accepting it and I would make sure and keep my phone next to me.

So I'm moving to Appleton. I have a real job, a challenging job, I'm going to be the only designer there, and it's going to be scary and hard but I think I can do it. Eee! I'm so excited/nervous/hyper/etc I can't even think of words!

Yes, I am now getting annoying, 3rd post today...I could have combined this with the meme earlier had I realized I was going to do this today. But I didn't, it's something I've been thinking of for a while but chose now for no apparent reason.

I just did my first ever friends cut. I feel bad now, I hate them, so I've never done one. Therefore, it was a lot building up, almost 30 to be precise. Mostly it's because VM is over. Pretty much if you were solely a Veronica Mars friend and we never really talked much. Also a couple non-VM folks who I also don't talk to much either. I'm really sorry if I hurt anyone's feelings, but I really need to clean this out so checking LJ isn't a long process.

I also need to turn auto-flocking on because I talk about a lot of really personal things, everything I'm possibly feeling or thinking goes in here, and a fair amount of people in real life are finding out I have an LJ. And despite the fact that I don't have my real name on here and it's much harder to find someone on LJ without being told the username, if they know my AIM name or email or anything else where I use the same one, I'm really rather easily found here.

So yes, friends cut, journal locking, and all that...I don't like any of it, but it's necessary.

Meme time!

1. Leave me a comment saying anything random, like your favorite lyric to your current favorite song. Or your favorite kind of sandwich. Something random. Whatever you like.
2. I respond by asking you five personal questions so I can get to know you better.
3. You WILL update your LJ with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and offer to ask someone else in the post.
5. When others comment asking to be asked, you will ask them five questions.

Questions from candyfishjunkie ( cut. )

Your turn!

So this weekend was fun. Friday I didn't do anything, but it was probably best I saved my energy for the rest. Saturday was the Leather and Lace Night, I believe I drunkenly posted some ramblings about that already. So I will have pictures from that under the cut. We might be going to Fetish night, which looks to be similar, at another club tomorrow night. I wish their fetish night was next week or something, more spread out, but hopefully I'll be up for it tomorrow. I'm just super tired today from coming home so late (3am) from Rasputina.

Rasputina was a lot of fun, a lot of driving, but it was fun. The driving and wayfinding and all that went amazingly smoothly. We didn't get lost, we didn't get stuck in traffic too bad, though it was busy with people coming home from a holiday weekend. We got a 5 minute head start leaving Madison, we arrived with perfect timing to meet candyfishjunkie in Milwaukee, we made it to Chicago in decent time, we found our way well, nobody tried to merge into us and nearly kill us (like the last trip to Chicago for the HUMANWINE concert), my car held together. It was really pretty lovely.

So when we got to Chicago, we found the venue, and it happened to have a restaurant in it, so we parked and ate there. candyfishjunkie and I split a BBQ chicken pizza. A few pictures were taken, and then we went over to the band side of the venue. We were in the middle, not too far back, pretty decent except for the stupid smoking couple in front of us. Plus the guy was just insane and way too bouncy and made it difficult to see, but calmed down during Rasputina's new songs that he, like most everyone else, didn't know. They started off with a lot of familiar songs, but most of the middle and end of the show were all new songs. Then they ended the encore with two familiar ones again. It was a good show, really interesting to see and hear, with the cellos and everything. Sometimes between songs they'd have to tune their cellos which was just surreal because it was like, hey weren't we at a rock concert? Now we're at a classical recital. It was pretty nifty.

And then they ended, Melora didn't come out, Jonathan went past us but I didn't realize it was him till after, and then Sarah came up but we didn't get to talk to her or get a picture with her or anything because the venue kicked us out. I got Melora's solo album (newish, last December) and the brand new Rasputina album. I'm listening to them now. Umm what else of interest was there? I can't think of anything right now, so onto the pictures!

( Leather + Lace Night Pictures )

( Rasputina Pictures! )

Alright, so that's all I have to post I think. If I remember any other funny anecdotes, I'll be sure to post them later. Hope everyone else had a good weekend, and are having a good Monday! :)

So my interview went well. Maybe a little too well. He was really impressed with my portfolio, but I think I'm too design-oriented for the position. It's kind of graphic design, he said you learn a lot about design, but you don't do a lot of original design. Basically, they're a translation company, and they work with, it seems like a lot of owner's manuals and whatnot, and they take the translated text into whatever languages and the desktop publishers arrange it to look like the English version. *shrug* It's a job I guess, I don't know how excited I am about it. It seems like a really nice place though. They're doing their 2nd interviews in a week or two, he said.

In other news, I ordered a bunch of exciting stuff on Amazon last night. The new Dresden Dolls DVD comes out Tuesday, and then the Tuesday after that, there's the Absolute Garbage CD and DVD. So I bought them all, I splurged. Well it's free shipping at $25 and the two Garbage items were 24.98 together, what was I supposed to do but order the Dolls DVD too? :P I'm super exited for those now, more for the Garbage stuff, I can't wait to hear the remixes, I love electronic music so I bet they'll be amazing.

I bought a whip today. Tomorrow we're going to Leather + Lace Night, and it's going to be fun, I didn't end up getting any clothes that will work, so I'm going to wear what I already have. But my outfit will be made by the whip. I went shopping with MJ and she got a whip too. It's going to be fun, if we can figure out how to keep them from dragging on the ground while we're dancing (they have a loop that fits just right on your wrist, but the whip is pretty long, just gotta keep it wrapped up a couple times). But yeah. Tomorrow's gonna be fun. We've maybe got 7 people going. Paula and her boyfriend, MJ, me, and Caroline for sure, hopefully Laura and Sarah as well. And then we'll be seeing Matt and his crew there, as he told me they almost always go. It's going to be fun :)

Poll time!

[Poll #1016805]

candyfishjunkie, I'm going to order the Rasputina tickets tomorrow or maybe Sunday morning, just in case we don't get there soon enough after the doors open that we don't get in, and that would blow after going all the way to Chicago. So we should discuss how/when we're going to meet and all that...

Hope everyone's having a fun Friday! I'm sitting around after shopping, but I don't mind, I'm sleepy. I'm going to go read now :)

I wish I could remember who recommended Jakalope. candyfishjunkie, was it you? thespianoge? Was it even here on LJ or was it on last.fm? I just don't know!

Whoever it was, I LOVE YOU. They're amazing! I'm only halfway through listening to what I downloaded too. Fucking instant love. Should have checked them out right away instead of just adding them on myspace a couple weeks ago and then when I was changing my top friends today I saw them, and was already using limewire and just added them to the queue. I also was giving be your own PET a try (don't really like them, upon first listen anyway, only liked a handful their songs), The Grates (I do like them quite a lot), and more Scarling. (which I knew I'd love of course)...big exciting new music day :)

In less exciting music news, I read tonight that the singer of Victory at Sea has breast cancer. Very, very sad, I do hope the treatment works, poor Mona. So, if you've dl'ed any of the Victory at Sea songs I've shared with any of my music communities, you should consider buying an album (especially Memories Fade, it's amazing, and then All Your Things Are Gone) just because it would be a nice thing to do.

So fireworks will be starting soon, but I won't be going to see any because I'm a loser with no friends. No friends who are both free and in town, anyway. I'll have friends this weekend though, it should be fun. Saturday night we're going dancing, to Leather + Lace Night. Should be very fun and interesting, I'm excited. Even if all my coworkers bail and none of my friends come, Matt, Brendan, Erin, and their crew usually go, and I'll be able to meet up with them. But I'm relatively certain I'll have at least one coworker/ex-coworker (either Paula or Laura, hopefully both, and with Paula would come her boyfriend), and probably MJ, who's more of a friend of a friend but I like her and we're going to go shopping together too Friday so maybe we'll bond or some sappy shit like that.

In the news of sappy shit, I went to a parade with Madeline in her neighborhood this morning, and she introduced me to a neighbor as her best friend. That made me more happy than it probably should. I know her old best friend (Allison's older sister) is being insane since she's been home from Canada for the summer and Madeline doesn't enjoy hanging out with her anymore, so I guess that means I got a promotion. I don't know why I care about that girl so much, I really shouldn't rely on her so much as my closest friend. It's not really healthy. But I love her so what can be done? Do people who regularly have best friends feel this way? Maybe I'm just not used to having a best friend, not since high school. *shrug*

Anyway. So Saturday night is dancing, that'll be fun, then Sunday is the Rasputina concert, yay! Very excited, should be a really unique and fun show :) I'm really excited candyfishjunkie is coming, it'll be a lot of fun, plus otherwise it'd just be me and Carl which could get potentially awkward since I'm told he likes me or whatever. I was hoping another couple people would come but we'll still have fun without them!

So I still need people's opinions on which graphics to bring to my interview. Click here to look if you haven't already. Please and thank you :)

I'm bored. I think I'm going to try and read a bit more. I have to finish Son of a Witch, I've already had it out for a month and I've only gotten 200 out of 330 pages read. I just never get around to reading anymore. I for sure need to get it done by the time Harry Potter comes out cuz I'll only get that for 2 weeks and there'll be tons of holds and it'll likely be very fat. So yeah I'm gonna go do that while I'm listening to my brand spankin' new music. Jakalope still rocks my socks by the way, and I'm now on the last song I've got. Yay instant music love affair!

Happy 4th, hope you all did more fun and exciting stuff!

Hey, happy 4th of July everyone!

In the spirit of the holiday, could I get you all to take a moment to look at some graphics I've done and give me your opinions? I want to maybe print these off, or at least show them online, at my interview and I'd like to know if any are too hideous and I should get rid of them, which ones are the best and should be first and last (as I'm sure you all know, good first and last impressions are more important than everything in between)

So if you could please take a moment to click the cut and give me your opinions, I'll love you forever! Thanks so much!!

( Photoshop-manipulated pictures of fire, clothing, a poster, and other random shit... )

So yesterday, I was watching Numbers on dvd from the library and an episode opened with my favorite song by Flunk. It was quite a powerful, sad scene, and it was exciting hearing one of my favorite trip hop songs. It also happens to be the only Flunk song I have uploaded to my box.net account at the moment, something I decided to rectify since thespianoge has been perusing my account. But in the meantime, here's the song, and I shall make another trip hop post to pretty_music for you soon...

Flunk - Spring to Kingdom Come

Also, tonight I watched the Zach Braff movie, The Last Kiss, also from the library. That movie totally takes place in Madison, and it was freaky to see scenes at the Terrace and I was like, hey I was just there yesterday! How weird! It was pretty neat.

What else do I have to update about? Not much I guess. I should be making some graphic art type stuff for my interview Friday. Oh yeah, I have an interview Friday. It's for a graphic design job with a company in Madison that does translation services. I think it'd be really neat because I've always really been interested in language and stuff. I had 4 semesters of Italian, I almost considered majoring in it, and then I seriously thought about linguistics. But I figured maybe I should add a bit to my portfolio that was actually graphic design instead of interior design, and not stuff related to fandom cuz that's kinda dorky, but all I have in the way of examples of graphic design. So I took a few pictures over the weekend of things that looked cool, and I'm going to play with them in photoshop. It sounds fun and I'm looking forward to it, but it's also like, something that has to get done by Friday so it's almost like homework. I'm sure once I get started on it, it'll be fun.

So, it's late and I'm tired, and I don't know if I'll do this weekend justice. But I'm going to try, I can always update more later, especially since June is over and the integrity of my Sunday-Wednesday-only posting is no longer in jeopardy. Gotta do something to keep myself amused, don't I, and creating patterns amuses me.

So Friday was the kick-off of the LCC Centennial Celebration. We had the BBQ and that was pretty fun. I didn't really mingle with any of the alums or anything, I just wasn't up to hearing about how things were around the LCC back in their days. I was a little stressed with everything up through Saturday night. After the cookout, we went to Christine and Megan's house for a fire, and then I went to bed.

I had to get up at 7:20 on Saturday morning, that pretty much sucked. I stayed up for 24 hours, it was a very long, tiring day. In the morning, I had to help register people and stuff, and for some reason, choir rehearsal drove me insane. Our choir director's voice is less than good, it got this very annoying warble to it, not like opera singers have a vibrato, but like she can't fucking hold a solid note. She's an amazing pianist, and even composes some of her own music, but her voice just sucks, and everyone agrees. There was nothing that actually happened in rehearsal that should have upset me, except that she ran a little bit late as always and I was tired as fuck. But I just went upstairs and tried to decompress for the hour I had before the church service, which is what the choir rehearsal was for, the alumni choir sang 2 songs at the church service. But I still wasn't in a good mood and almost didn't go to church, I didn't feel like sitting through it or singing, but I ended up going anyway. It was fine. I was tired. Then I had about another hour to get ready before I had to go register people before dinner. The registration was hell, it didn't go smoothly at all, name tags were lost and there was so much chaos, but it was over and then my stress lifted and I was finally able to have fun.

My mom came to the banquet portion, the fancy dinner and dance, and that was fun. I have a cool mom. The dinner was good, the speakers were long-winded. The dance finally started and that was fun, but we only had the place until midnight, so we planned to continue the party at the LCC. But in the meantime, had a couple drinks there, I took a shot from Madeline's flask (it has shot glasses under the cap) in front of my mom and danced pretty crazy, pretty much my mom got to see just how I act with Madeline normally. And like I said, I have a cool mom, but it's still a little weird. I got my mom to dance to a couple songs though, she didn't like most of the songs, but you get used to just dancing to them anyway when you're my age and we have banquets and dances and parties and whatnot. I actually forced her to come out and dance to Hey Ya, it was great fun. So then my mom went home at midnight, and the young generation came back to the LCC and we finished up the keg from Friday night's tailgate. I drank my own wine since I hate beer, but the rest of them finished the Spotted Cow but there was just too much and couldn't finish much of the Leines.

So we drank a TON and talked and danced and it was fun, took lots of pictures, some are so hilarious, I love drunk pictures. About 5am, we decided to go walk down to the Terrace and watch the sun rise. It was really pretty, and everyone else thought we were crazy and passed out instead. Those that weren't already passed out or home by then. When we got back I picked up a bit downstairs, showered and went to bed, about 7. Crazy night. But tons of fun! A bunch of pictures...( under here! )

And now I'm going to bed. Goodnight!

So I guess it's time for my bi-weekly entry. It hasn't been a particularly crazy weekend or anything, though last night was fun, there was a Flyleaf concert. I went with Karl and the LCC choir director, Sherri. We had a good time, Karl especially I think really enjoyed the music, though we got pushed and shoved a lot in the mosh pit. Yeah, Flyleaf is kind of a Christian rock band, but it was quite a loud rock concert, it was fun.

Except for the really annoying drunk guy. There was a group of short girls, and they were all really nice, and this stupid tall, loud, falling-over, horribly obnoxious drunk jerk stood right in our one little viewpoint between tall people. He was really stupid and saying how he was just trying to get to the front and there were 14 year olds up there. He asked how old I was, I said 24, and he said yeah, they're 14, as if that mattered, I'm like screw you, they have just as much right to be here as anyone else you stupid ass. We finally made him get out of our way, but he ended up near me again 2 or 3 other times, and he was just the most annoying thing. He pointed at me once and was like, you're that girl and I turned away and flipped him off, and he started fucking POKING me in the EAR and on the side of the head. What a stupid annoying drunk ass.

But other than that, the concert was fun. However, they played their last song, and left the stage IMMEDIATELY, and didn't say goodnight or anything, and didn't come back for an encore. It was very, very strange.

But anyway. Friday, Megan and I went to see 1408, I liked it quite a bit, even though it didn't really have a concrete answer. I also went shopping, got some shoes, 4 pairs actually, it was buy one get one half off at Payless, and I found 3 I really liked so I had to find a 4th. Oops.

The rest of my week and weekend was uneventful. My parents came into Madison today and we went out to lunch. They were out of town last weekend so I'd missed father's day, I made him oatmeal raisin cookies cuz that's his favorite. And yep, that's about all. I'm feeling very lazy and tired today. Maybe it's because it's so warm in here, but I can't open the window and let cool air in until there's actually cool air outside. So yeah, maybe I'll go read on my bed for a while, till the 4400 is on anyway :) Hope you're all having a good weekend!

So I find it amusing that this entire month I have posted only on all the Sundays and Wednesdays. I think one of them was technically after midnight on a Tuesday but still, according to LJ, I've got a pattern going and I suppose I should keep it. Which means I have an hour to update about this weekend :P

It was a lot of fun. Friday night we had our "We Don't Need No Education" party (subtitled, "Hey, Teacher, Leave Those Kids Alone") in honor of Allison being done with school for the summer. It wasn't a huge party, but it was a lot of fun. I got pretty drunk, but then I stopped drinking at like 1 when I spilled red wine on my skirt and got mad at alcohol. Not really, I just didn't ever fill up a new glass after I spilled it all.

The skirt is a whole story in itself. Madeline and I went Friday morning to Goodwill and St. Vinnie's. I was going to get just a tie, and wear a "close enough" schoolgirl outfit. But I ended up finding the perfect stuff, the shirt at Goodwill and the skirt at St. Vinnie's...both places, get this, in the children's section. Madeline is tiny as all fuck, so she always checks out the children's section, I've never thought to do so before, but I was looking with her for her outfit, and I was like, hey this isn't that tiny! It looks like it'd fit! The skirt was doubtful, and while it was tight and omg SHORT, it fit and was perfect for the outfit. The shirt is apparently a size Large, but I think that could have been a juniors shirt accidentally put in the children's section. The skirt is a size 14 kids though, fucking crazy that I can fit into that. But yeah, good thing it had shorts built in because it was slutty enough even with those. Apparently I looked hot though, unfortunately that compliment came Saturday night from a sober Carl, and I don't really want him to think I'm hot, since everyone says he likes me. Sorry Carl, you're a very nice guy, but just not for me. But I'll take the compliment :)

Okay, so the minister here at the church was in her office working until 10:15. The party was scheduled to start at 10!! Luckily everyone but Carl was late, and I had mentioned to him at about 9 that Laurie was here working. I was really nervous, and also didn't get a chance to set up (music, get all the alcohol downstairs, etc) so we got kind of a late start. It was really hot too, and we all had to stay in the multipurpose room (no drinks on the new carpet!) so we didn't dance as much as we would have. We had a fair amount of people who would like to dance, but it was just too warm so the dancing didn't last long. A big group of people played Catch Phrase. Some played cards. There was always a game of boxed wine pong going on. Mostly we just sat around and talked and took awful drunk pictures of ourselves lol, it was great, I love drunk pictures! We took 74 pictures, apparently. So why don't we get on with them, there's a bunch under the cut, and then continued commentary about the evening, mostly about my flirtiness/inappropriateness. ( I want a lover I don't have to love, I want a boy so drunk he doesn't talk. )

So that's enough pictures. Saturday was fun too, it was a wedding of some people from church. There are fun dancing pictures, but nothing exciting enough to talk a lot about or post pictures. Everything was nice, there was an open bar so we got to drink but we think the liquor was watered down. We danced a lot and had fun, and everyone went home by like 11. And today I just tried to be productive, mostly sat around in my incredibly hot apartment. And I like heat, but it's way too stuffy, stupid air conditioning doesn't work in the rest of the building yet, I don't mind not having air conditioning in my room, but I wish the rest of the building were cooler so my room wasn't so suffocating.

But anywho. Welcome thespianoge to an example of my rambly and drunk-picture-full posts :) Well, I'm going to go to bed now. Goodnight!

( Stolen Meme Goodness )

Thank you LJ for restoring from draft when my computer shut down, again. I'm so tired of it overheating and shutting down on me. So very tired. At least I only got interrupted playing DDR once tonight (well twice, but the second time I was really ready to be done).

I actually don't have anything to update about for a change. I didn't do anything since the last time I updated. It actually feels kind of good, why does life always have to be so hectic? I like having a couple days where all I do is work, do laundry, watch TV on DVD, listen to music, DDR, and just chill. Plus I worked with Paula today so that automatically makes the work part a lot more fun, even though we didn't get to chat as much as normal because she was off-desk shelving holds for the first half of the shift, then it was my turn to shelve holds. There are three areas, registration (shelving holds, once in a while called back to do a reg), checkout, and returns. If you're together on checkout and returns, you get to chat, reg is a lonely place, and rotation had us split apart today. Ah well, she's still my favorite person to work with, and I'm getting her into all kinds of awesome music too, she especially likes Rasputina (requested more of them, actually) and I'm going to try to convince her to come to the concert in 3 weeks. And then I'll get to meet up with candyfishjunkie too and it'll be tons of fun!

This weekend is going to be tons of fun too. Throwing a party on Friday entitled: We Don't Need No Education; subtitled: Hey, Teacher, Leave Those Kids Alone. Basically an excuse to dress up in schoolgirl uniform costumes, but also because Allison finishes with her finals this week. I love theme parties. Then Saturday is Steve and Kat's wedding and we are partying after that too (the reception ends at 10:30 so we're coming here after). Should be fun. But what do you guys think, should I invite Adan to the party Friday?

I'm leaning towards no right now, since he's older and will likely feel out of place. But, I feel bad because I haven't talked to him since Sunday when I saw him. He hasn't been obsessively calling me which has been nice. But tomorrow would be a good time to touch base with him again so I'm not a bitch and completely blowing him off, but tomorrow we've got worship and a baseball game, Thursday night I work, Friday's the party, Saturday's the wedding, Sunday I'm going to try to get my parents to come into town since they'll be out of town for father's day weekend...just crazy busy. So I am being forced to blow him off, and I'm still not sure I want to do that. Maybe he realizes that it's not going to work, since he didn't call me yesterday or today, after all. It might be nice to hang out with him at the party, he can meet everyone, we can see if we work in a social environment, and it'll probably be decided that we don't, and that's fine. But it could also just be really awkward. Not sure...

Well anyway, I'm going to go to bed. Goodnight!

candyfishjunkie has bestowed upon me the letter D for a 10 favorite songs meme...

1. Destroy Everything You Touch, Ladytron
2. Drive You Home, Garbage
3. Doctor Blind, Emily Haines & the Soft Skeleton
4. Daniel Cowman, Regina Spektor
5. Delilah, The Dresden Dolls
6. Detective Daughter, Emily Haines & the Soft Skeleton
7. Didn't Have a Choice (D&B Version), Baxter
8. Drugs or Me, Jimmy Eat World
9. Did I Imagine You?, Dot Allison
10. Don't Speak, No Doubt

I feel like I don't update my LJ as often as I used to. Yep, I haven't updated since Wednesday. Lots of things seem to happen, I just never update about things right away like I used to. It's hard keeping up when you actually have somewhat of a life...

Nothing of particular interest happened till Friday, we went and saw The Hostel II. It was just as gruesome as we'd expected, since Megan and I had seen the first one together in the theaters as well. It was good for what it was though, I enjoyed it.

Saturday was interesting...Paul G was supposed to get a boat and we were going to drink and sail. But it didn't happen, he forgot until it was too late to reserve a boat. So Madeline and I decided we'd simply drink all day and walk around town instead. That didn't really happen either, but we did do our fair share of drinking and walking around.

She was hungover from Friday night, so "all day" didn't end up starting till 4ish, and we decided to paint our nails for some reason, oh she wanted to repaint hers because they got smudged, so she wanted nail polish remover, and I found these nail decals I used to use all the time in high school. So we painted our nails and put on decals. It was so girly and fun. Then we started drinking, and we packed a picnic and ended up only going across the street to the park because anywhere else was at least a half hour walk. It was a lot of fun. And then we walked down to State Street holding hands and being cutesy and girly and tipsy. It was a lot of fun hanging out with her one-on-one, we hadn't done that lately. Then other people came, her anime friends, who I like quite a bit, but Matt (most recently with blue hair. there'll be pictures below) brought his ex Jenny, who was...a problem. Drama drama drama. It's quite ridiculous, even amusing except for the fact that poor Matt had to deal with it. ( I will put it under a cut though. )

But enough about drama. Aside from the bits of drama, it was still a fun evening. I was pretty hungover though. Madeline and I finished off a bottle of wine on our own. Then I had two wine coolers in addition, and played a game of boxed wine pong. Which added up to about 3-4 more glasses of wine. Regardless, we did start about 5:30 or 6 and continued until 2:30ish. Hopefully we'll get to picnic more, I think that was the most fun part, and Madeline says she wants to do it weekly. That's probably unrealistic, but at least every couple weeks would be fun.

Today I saw Adan again. I still haven't decided what I'm going to do with that. We didn't seem to have much left to talk about in the way of getting-to-know-you. We've covered most of the bases already. We re-covered some in more depth. He actually moved to Wisconsin because of his band, with the ex girlfriend of 6 years in it. They, and the band, broke up about 2 years ago, and yes, he doesn't really have friends in the area, he's been antisocial since everything went down. Figured as much. We went out to eat on State Street, and then walked around the lakeshore trail, came back here and watched Donnie Darko. I'd only seen it once, so I've been really interested in watching it again. Since I own it, you'd think I could have gotten around to it sooner. But yeah, I really like it, and I'd be glad to watch it even again, I still don't have quite everything straightened out in my head. But I adore movies like that. Fuck-with-your-head movies. Totally my favorite kind.

Anyway, I'm going to call it a night. ( Here's some pictures! )

I'm officially really freaked out by today's Facebook horoscope. Yes, I have added all kinds of little junk to my facebook, they have all these new applications and whatnot. I've got my profile littered with them, my favorite being my last.fm one, and the little grafitti thing that people can draw something on if anyone wanted to draw on my profile, which nobody has. But still. I also have a horroscope on there, and todays is:

Aries: Be wary of a new person who has entered your life. It's not that they can't be trusted - it's you who might not be able to trust yourself around them.

Well we all know who the only new person who's entered my life. And that's official, I am not to be trusted and I'm going to hurt him. Even my stupid random horroscope knows it. How weird, huh?

Anyway, I was supposed to go do stuff with Madeline last night but she was tired and had to help Allison with her homework or something. So I called Adan and he came over and watched a movie, and then we talked (yes really, just talked) for a while, he only even kissed me when he was leaving for a little bit. Which is good, I didn't really feel like, well anyway, he had to leave by about 10:30 anyway since he had to work early today. So yeah, I was really tired too, because Madeline, Jeremiah, Madeline's friend Carmen, and I watched Pirates 2 the night before, and drank quite a bit. The movie took us over 4 hours to finish, even though the movie's 2 1/2 hrs. We kept pausing for various reasons, and then we'd end up not turning it back on till after a half hour of chatting or whatever. Then when we finally decided to shut up and watch it, it was near the end, and we all fell asleep. It was 3am and we went home. And I got up at 9 because I thought they were going to carpet my room that morning, but they didn't actually get to it till the afternoon, which I wasn't that pleased with since I was at work at the library then. I wanted to be there to move my desk and whatnot back since the building would be empty for at least the last hour of the day and I didn't want all my stuff sitting out. But Maureen and Rob and whoever else was around still moved my computer, TV, and bed back in for me after they were done, and I left her my key to lock it up after. So that was good. The point of this ramble was that I was tired, and fell asleep a bit during the movie Adan and I watched as well. Mostly I just stopped paying attention, I didn't actually fall asleep. But I was frickin tired.

But we talked quite a bit, I of course was an open book, told him everything and anything that came up, even about the early college sex stuff. He was a little less so, I don't know if it's because he just didn't really have as much to tell, or what. He had a serious relationship of 6 years that must have just ended about 2 years ago, probably right before he came to Wisconsin. His parents were teachers or something, he didn't finish med school because he wasn't dedicated enough to it at that time in his life. He plays guitar and was in a band, and wants to get back into music again. It's pretty much his only hobby, I think. He was raised Catholic and then had a bit of a religious reawakening in college, but then lost it after and is now atheist/agnostic. It seemed to be something that coincided with depression. This is what scares me, if he's prone to depression, I really don't want to fuck him up more. Hell I'm prone to depression, but I don't let guys fuck me up, I don't need them, I've never really been hurt, well once but it wasn't that bad. I'm much less invested in all this, and even my horroscope knows, I'm the one not to be trusted in this situation. Eeeks.

Okay but that's about all I can think of that was revealed last night. I have church tonight, and then work tomorrow night, then a movie with a friend Friday night, so I told him maybe Saturday night would be the earliest we could hang out again, and I would call him. I don't know. What do you guys think? Should I just get out before I do too much damage? Am I being ridiculous just because that horroscope freaked me out because it's such weird timing and exactly all the things I'm worried about? Dating is so damn ridiculous. Now I know why I never do it. *insert big dramatic sigh*

Stolen from specialagent23 and wildanni7...

You Are 57% Pure

You're not so innocent... in fact, you're quite unpure. You have seen and experienced a lot. And you're no worse for the wear!

I have had a bad cold since Monday, and this weekend has really fucking drained me. I'm finally starting to recover now and feeling vaguely human now. I've been sleeping a LOT the last couple days, so that helps.

I don't know when I last wrote. VM thoughts. Wow that's almost a week ago. Let's see...it was finals week last week, so people were all over the LCC studying, which was nice, much better than the completely silent ghost town it is now. It's a very social place to study, probably more socializing got done than studying. Everyone like pretty much moved in, stuff everywhere, slept on the couches, it was a disaster area. But it was fun and active, and now I'm bored and lonely. But I've got lots of things to catch up on, without LCC events I will have a lot more free time.

Moving on. Friday was a ton of fun. ( But it was also long, so I'm going to cut the Friday portion of our programming. )

So Saturday, Madeline's friend Linda had a birthday party, but Madeline and I didn't make it till almost 1:00 I think. I didn't really care, I wouldn't have minded not going, I spent all Saturday just recovering, I was sick, no sleep, a little hungover, but mostly just the no sleep and sick thing, I felt like absolute hell. I even left work halfway into my shift, after 2 hours, because I couldn't function. Not like I was very productive, having to leave desk every 10 minutes to blow my stupid nose again. It sucked. But I bought some sudaphed (sp?--I got the cheap version) after work and that helped me feel a bit better for Linda's party. We talked to some guys Madeline kind of knew about how we throw parties at our church and how our church is awesome and fun. And then we made quesadillas when we got back here, and went to bed.

Yesterday afternoon we went to Brendan's graduation party and hung out with them for quite a while after the grad party was supposed to end. Listening to Tori Amos, Fiona Apple, and Poe, and just chatting, this group of Madeline's friends are her anime geek friends, they're super nice though, even though I don't get into anime. We're supposed to be having DDR parties over the summer, Erin and I are the same level of DDR ability, she was a little better than me on Friday but I wasn't doing so great cuz of the alcohol and all. But yeah, they are going to have anime nights and so Madeline said they have to get me into anime, we'll see, I've watched a very little bit of anime in my life and it wasn't really my thing but I will give it a try because these people are really nice and I like hanging out with them. At the graduation party, we also got to be amused by Adelaide, a relative of Brendan's. She was such a cute kid. She was 4 1/4 or some fraction, and will be starting kindergarten in the fall. I don't know how I had the energy for that, or maybe it's because of that and the couple glasses of wine at the grad party, because I was just exhausted when I got home, I fell into bed and failed miserably at reading, then I got up and played Donkey Kong on N64, newly acquired from ebay. Fun times. And today I slept really late and haven't done anything yet really, but I'm feeling a lot healthier. So yeah, that was my extremely exhausting weekend. Picture time!

( Pictures from Games Night, under here! )

So yeah, that's all I've got for this weekend, sorry this is so long but hey, you guys must be used to it by now. If not...what are you doing here? :P I'm not going to change, this is my rambly nature, get over it! Alright, I'm sure I've got something productive I should be doing. Adios!

( VM thoughts )

In real life news, there's not much. I don't think I've updated for quite a while. Maybe because I had no drunk weekend pictures or anything. Madeline had an anime convention and everyone else was studying this weekend, so I didn't do much. I see everyone all the time, but I haven't really had people to go out with. Friday I saw Christine, we went to Jo's to visit and so she could meet baby Silas. It was nice, low-key. Saturday night my parents came and we went out to eat. Sunday I organized my closets, I love it, the messiness was driving me crazy. Other than that, I haven't done much of anything but work. And get sick. I got a sore throat yesterday, and today I'm full-out sick. All congested and weak and yeah, it's not cool. It better go away by Friday.

Friday will be so much fun, hella packed though. I will be working a bit at the LCC (10-1 is my normal schedule) but then I got off from the library, so I'll be able to get ready for the party in the afternoon, and then like 4 probably I have to take Alicia to get alcohol, she wants some to take home for the summer, and I'll probably need more party liquor anyway, and then 5:00 is karaoke and BBQ with the LCC choir and praise band people at the choir director's house. So we were planning to just do that, and then come back and go straight into the Games Night party, which I put on Facebook as starting at 9, but now there's another thing squeezed in between, but I might not do it. Paul K's little sister (the one who had cancer and everything) is a senior in high school and she's going to school in Madison next year, and we've hung out with her a couple times, and she and their parents came to worship last week, so I added her as a friend on Facebook, so she must have gotten my email from there because her dad included me in an invite for a graduation party for her at Paul's house. Me and Madeline are the only names I recognize.

The problem? Besides the fact that I'd only be able to stop by for less than half an hour, because I have to get back and change and get ready for the party? Well, Madeline and Paul are officially off now, and Paul does indeed like Katy. Big drama, and Paul's pretty much an ass for leading Madeline on all this time and making out with her and stuff, and saying he's not interested in dating anyone, and lying straight up and saying he doesn't have any interest in Katy, which he definitely does. So they've had a lot of talks and it's been an issue, and I'm not sure if he's really invited to Games Night, and I don't know if it'd be weird to show up to Anni's party at Paul's apartment. I think I'll probably go for a bit though, Anni's super sweet, and I would even like her to come after to Games Night (the grad party goes from 7-10) but that would mean Paul coming and I don't know if we want that drama. We shall see.

It's going to be fun though, I'm excited. If Allison decides that's what she wants to do for sure, we might be the hookers from Grand Theft Auto (she really wants to wear this black lingerie thing she wore to the Mardi Gras party) and otherwise I may still wear that black laced top and just be the Sims maid without an apron, or I'll wear pink and my tiara and be an anti-poofy version of Princess Peach.

Okay I might DDR a bit but I'm tired and sick and might just go to bed. G'night!

I need help brainstorming!

We're having a party a week from tomorrow, and it's a game night. So we're playing Apples to Apples, Telephone Pictionary, [Naughty] Catch Phrase, N64, DDR, and whatever else. We also really like having people dress up for parties, it's just that much more fun. So we said: "Character Costumes are requested! It doesn't matter what kind of character--from a game, movie, cartoon, book, whatever. Just dress up as someone or something!"

Which means...I have no frakkin idea what to wear! And I wrote the costume request. Sheesh. So please help me think of something cute to dress up as, that's easy to do. I don't play a lot of video games (just the Sims and N64) and can't think of any game characters, but maybe cartoon or movie characters. I'm also considering a DDR character of some kind, but I can't find too many images of them on google images. I have a really cute black tank top with white laces up the front that kind of looks like a maid top, I could wear that with a black skirt but I can't think of any characters that look like maids (except in the Sims but her outfit is different) and I also do not have an apron.

So yeah, got any ideas? Thanks for your help!

So I feel really terrible today for saying bad things about Madeline in yesterday's entry. True as some of it may be, she's just a 20 year old kid who hasn't quite matured. My mood was a lot of a reflection of her current mood. She was really stressed at the possibility that Paul and Katy might like each other, and she's since talked to Paul, and he says there was nothing to their flirting, but he also still won't commit to her, so she's finally going to call it quits on that. Thankfully. So now we're both free to openly go back to loving Katy, and we can just forget about Paul for a while, he doesn't want a girlfriend or whatever, fuck him. Despite Madeline's flaws, she does deserve better, and I do still love her and think highly of her, she is my closest friend. But it's good for me to recognize she has flaws, and I shouldn't try to be her, or to please her too much. But I'm happy with being happy, so if she's a major reason I came to be the way I am now, I'll just accept that and be content.

And on that note, I spent the last 20 minutes of work flirting with a customer. I was checking his library materials out, and there was kind of a line, but he kept talking to me and then there wasn't a line anymore, so I pretended to multi-task but really didn't get any work done at all. And then someone came up a couple minutes before 5:00 to return some late books that I needed to check in so she could pay the fines, so then he left. Which is really too bad, because who knows, if I was just getting off, maybe we could have ended up getting a drink or something. Sigh. Oh well maybe next time. We have chatted before, not at the length we did today, but he is a regular. I hope I see him again soon, I didn't scroll up on the computer and check what his name was (it was really chaotic at the shift change).

He's really cute, he's got kind of shaggy, slightly curly black hair and glasses, kind of an indie kid look, I suppose, but he's really sweet-looking and adorable. And he's very nice, he's semi-recently from New Mexico, and I don't know too much about him, other than he prefers the dry heat to the humid heat, so he's not such a fan of summer or winter in Wisconsin, but he likes spring and fall. I told him I'll take the heat however I can get it, even if it's humid, and am probably more comfortable in heat than most because I have poor circulation, and I touched his hand to prove that mine were cold, even though the library was not, and I wasn't cold, just my hands always are. So that was about the most flirty it got. He was asking me about areas around town to live next year, a lot of college students will be getting their living situations figured out in January or February, but if you haven't, you should wait till closer to August and the landlords will be cutting the rent at the places they haven't gotten rented (everyone moves on August 15th)...what else? Just small talk stuff, but somehow we just kept talking for a long time about nothing. I remember him seeming to linger and keep me talking at least one other time, so maybe he likes me too, I don't know, I hope he comes back soon! But yeah, that was exciting for me. I was really bouncy and excited after work because of that.

And then, to make things even more exciting, it's VM night! Yay! I'm going to rewatch it right now and do a little commentary since I've forgotten it all now. ( VM talk time! )

Anyway, I'm going to go finish up Wicked now. Adios!

Apparently I have a great capacity to change. Madeline has told me this several times lately, and she means it as a compliment but it's kind of bugging me now. She said I've changed so much since she met me, I'm willing to do things I haven't done before, changing based on the people around me, I've done a 180 in this regard, because I remember distinctly her telling me last fall sometime that I wasn't open to trying new things. I didn't agree with her back then, I thought I was pretty open to change, and clearly now I have proved that. I have changed a lot, changed for the better, I think. I'm happier, healthier, friendlier, more outgoing, I'm just a lot more pleased with who I am. But did I change myself because I didn't like who I was, or because of other people? I've always been paranoid about people not liking me, so maybe I have changed only because of others, and I should reevaluate.

Because, this of course makes me question: who am I? Who was I? Why did I change? Why do I let people shape who I am? Is it really a bad thing? I didn't like who I was, I've been surrounded by really lovely people the past year, and I've wanted to be happy and cheery like them. But am I really happy, or am I faking it? Do I really even like these people? Do I like Madeline? I was talking to her sister (her actual sister) today for a while, and found out some things that are like...yeah...Madeline's not really all that amazing. She's confident and pretty and makes you like her, but do I really like who she is as a person? She's very self-centered and egotistical, always wanting attention, especially from guys, she just does a lot of things to make things easier or better for her, it's always about her. Anna and I talked for quite a bit actually, about how Anna actually has learning disabilities too, Madeline has ADHD, but Anna just has ADD so without the hyperactivity so it wasn't as obvious and it wasn't diagnosed until she was 18 or 19. So she just grew up thinking she was stupid, and never using learning disabilities as an excuse for anything, she basically just ignores it as much as she can. But Madeline's been diagnosed since she was like 5, and uses the extra help she's offered, which is not a bad thing, if she needs longer test times to finish because reading is hard, that's fine, she should be able to have that. But she does default to it as an excuse a lot, I think she plays it up to get more sympathy from people. It's also similar to the way she has her scholarship too, she gets school paid for because she's almost 1/4 Native American. But so is Anna (obviously) and she refused to apply for the scholarship. The tribe says they have to be 1/4 to be let in, and since they are 1/32nd short from being 1/4, the tribe won't let them in, so Anna doesn't think she should use that for school either, she just took out loans like the rest of us, so did their older brother. They all look white, and especially Madeline, being blond (a recessive trait in the family, she and their brother are both blondes, though Anna isn't), and Anna doesn't really believe in affirmative action, being based on skin color rather than socio-economic background. There are plenty of poor white people who can't go to school, and then there are rich black people that get a free ride. It's an imperfect system, and Madeline is somewhere in the middle, really they are just middle class and she could just take loans like the rest of us middle class people. I don't know, I can totally see both sides but it's a little dose of reality that I'm not used to. And thinking about one of the conversations Madeline and I had over the weekend, about Paul not being good enough for her and she's like a princess and he's a warrior or something, on the same level as Katy which is why she's worried about Paul and Katy flirting and stuff. But it's really egotistical to think she's above anyone else, and obviously if she likes him this much, she can't really be that far above him. I don't know.

I just feel like, I've kind of idolized her too much, and now I've changed myself to be more fun, happy, outgoing. I really like who I am a lot better, so I guess all's well that ends well? Does it really matter why or how I got here, as long as I'm happy with who I am now? But am I even me? How do I know if being happier and more cheerful is an act that I'm trying to force myself to do, or if I'm just actually happier to be me? Am I a bitter, sarcastic, bitch? Am I still me if I change that? Someone at work told me Saturday, "you know, I don't remember you being this...cheerful. I think of you as sarcastic and jaded." I'm like, oh since Lent you mean? And she's like yeah. Giving up negativity for Lent, it actually did stick. But was any of this for the right reasons?

Is it extremely ironic to be negative about my new positivity?

I have been partying pretty much nonstop for 3 days now. Drink, sleep, eat, work. That's all I've been doing. I taped Grey's Anatomy (sadly, not the full 2nd half, which I had to then watch online) and I was just now able to get to it. Holy fuck, this has been an eventful few days, so I guess I'd better cut this, it's getting long...( movie night...the Dalai Lama, wine, margaritas, and pina coladas, all in one day...the Mifflin Street Block Party (where people start drinking at 7am and don't stop all day), more wine, a really fun game, and some boy drama thrown in for good measure...and even a few pictures. )

Alright well that's all I'll bore you with for now! What an insanely drama-filled weekend! But fun too, for the most part, since I'm not directly related to the drama, and none of the drama was really exploding or anything, though I'm sure it will soon...well, we'll see, school's out in 2 weeks and then Paul is leaving the state for a summer internship and Katy's going away to be a camp counselor, so it may only be the Rachael-Allison drama left for the whole summer. Drama drama drama. Well I gotta go to a church cookout thing now! Adios!

So I just wasted a couple hours making a new header for my layout, using the same idea and color scheme as it already was because I loved it so much. But I added a textured background, changed the text a bit, and the main purpose of course was to add some new addictions. Battlestar Galactica, HUMANWINE, and Jaggery. The rest I mostly swapped for fresh pictures. I'm very pleased with the end result...mandee_jayne :)

But now it's 2:30am and I must head to sleepy land. Nothing to update about anyway. Laid out in the sun and read Wicked (I'm getting really into it now that I'm halfway in), got a bit sunburnt. Worked a little at the LCC, then there was church, which is always nice, I like seeing everyone. Wednesdays are generally my most social day, though I have been a lot more social on other days too as of late.

When I went home to my parents' last weekend for my brother's birthday, I got my mail as I always do, I still get a lot of stuff sent there. I got my diploma like a month ago but this weekend I also received a fancy little certificate thingy that says I am recognized as having Graduated with Distinction. I remember I had a little asterisk next to my name in the program about that, but I didn't know I'd get a certificate. It must be just a gpa minimum and you automatically get it. But yeah, if only it'd get me a job now.

Well anyway, I'm off, g'night all!

It's been so long since we've had VM, I almost forgot what it was like( ...... )

So I wore a skirt today I hadn't worn in a long time. It was always a little tight but wearable when I pulled it up pretty high, which is fine since I'm so short, didn't trip over it as much. But now it won't stay pulled up if I wanted it too, and it fits very comfortably, not tight at all anymore. And it's a size 6 so that makes me happy, even though I'm sure it's big for a size 6 or it never would have fit me, even uncomfortably, in the first place. But yeah, and yesterday Annie and Alicia brought up my weight again, asked how much I've lost doing DDR and that it looks like a lot, and on Sunday my parents brought it up and my dad said I look better than I have in years. I don't think I've actually lost very much, maybe like 10 pounds, but I've toned a lot too so I feel a lot better about my body than I have in a long, long time.

I had an interview last Friday with a job placement company, but the job they called "entry-level interior design" was actually sprinkler system layout for commercial buildings, CAD grunt work. Not really interested, so I wouldn't mind if the company didn't call me for an interview. Maybe the job placement place will find me something else, maybe not, who knows. I've still got 3 months before I'll be freaking out, and it's not like I don't have jobs, I just need to figure out where I'm going to live, here or another state entirely.

It's getting harder to think about actually leaving. I love everyone at the LCC about as much as I hate Wisconsin winters and cold. Madeline obviously (if anyone was wondering, I'm over the whole spring break incident, especially since Savhanna isn't dead after all and I see Madeline so much, we're back to being comfortable and intimate friends again, at least on my part, I'm not sure she really knew I was guarded for a while), and Katy and Alicia are the main ones. Everyone else is a lot of fun, but I really like those girls a lot. Katy told me about her senior year of high school, that it was really shitty, and then she came to Madison and really didn't want to be here, and didn't really get involved and didn't really have a good time until this year, and hanging out with everyone at the LCC has made this year the best of her life. And Madeline was saying a similar thing Friday night, that last year was the worst, and looking back and comparing it with this year, she's happy to have really amazing people in her life. She pretty much only hangs out with LCC people anymore too, and everyone around here just has so much fun with each other. It's really an amazing bunch of people, and they actually don't hate me. I'm part of it, people like me too, I'm not an outcast in the LCC circles, I'm kind of a very central part of it, living here and planning things and whatnot. I just feel really blessed to know these people, and can hardly see myself leaving until they've all dispersed as well.

Okay so those are the main things on my mind at the moment. How's that for a real entry? I haven't had one of those in a while. So there you are. 'Night!

Happy Veronica Mars day everyone!!

It's fitting: I'm wearing my Dresden Dolls shirt ritzgrrl got me for my birthday today. The Dolls are my VM of music. Equal obsessions. As HUMANWINE and Battlestar Galactica are equal to each other, and almost equal to DD and VM obsession-levels. Therefore, behold: my new icon. I made it last night. I haven't made a new icon in a long time. Been meaning to make one with BSG in it. And Kara is hot, but I am really shallow because of all the pictures I collected last night, I had to go with the one where she's prettied up. I don't care, she looks beautiful in that picture.

So I feel like I haven't had a real update in a while. Only party pics. There are some interesting things I'd like to talk about, but I have to leave for work soon so I will have to hold off. Nothing super pressing anyway, just commentary on life and friends mostly.

I hope I get specialagent23 back tonight! I miss you dearly, and I miss our after-VM chats. I can't wait for tonight even more if you are going to be online!

Alright, well, I'm off to work. Ciao!

So Friday night was a ton of fun. It was the LCC spring banquet, this year was a Greek theme, with the possibility of wearing togas (though most people didn't). Started off with appetizers and socializing, then dinner (Greek food obviously), entertainment, and dancing. This year we had a lot of entertainment, songs, skits, etc, including Madeline and I singing Good Day by the Dresden Dolls. It was kind of more memorable than just doing a good job (though it was going very well, Madeline said it was the best she's heard me do it before, at least) because we had a little malfunction. The mic stand needed to be tightened I suppose, but we didn't really realize that, we kept just adjusting it back up, until near the end where we took it off. There was a bit of an instrumental when we pushed it aside because, I said, it was useless...just like men. Which of course threw us into a laughing fit (not that we weren't already laughing at just the obnoxiousness of the mic stand) because it was also sort of an inside joke some LCC members who were at Relay for Life and played Apples to Apples. But yeah, we had a really hard time with the end, giggling too much to finish it properly, in fact Madeline missed an entire "I'm on fire." Not that it matters, since there's like 8 of them. I managed to pull it together for the last line though. And I think the memory is more entertaining anyway.

Then came the dancing (and drinking). I live upstairs, so of course we could pop up to grab a wine cooler, drink half of it or so, then go back down, but after a little while, we brought our goblets of boxed wine downstairs with us, and especially after Brent and Laurie (and any other adults) all left, everyone else brought their drinks out of hiding heh. I need some alcohol to dance, so I was definitely doing a lot of dancing. It was a lot of fun, me and Madeline especially like dancing together. As much as I hate Britney Spears, the song Toxic is a ton of fun to dance to, and she and I had the most perfectly in-sync little grind thing going on during the "but you know that you're toxic" parts. And even when we made a specific point of doing it again, we still got it just perfect for the other three or four times that were left during the song. And twirling in my skirt was a lot of fun too, it was the perfect twirling dress. And dancing with all the other LCC people who I love, everyone is so amazing and no one that I really, really like was missing...though some left earlier than others...the others being everyone who crashed on LCC couches, which were probably like 10 people. I passed out about 3:30, no sickness or breaking things so that was good. I heard some people stayed up till 6am. Crazy fun times.

I also took 134 pictures. But I have only posted a handful of them here. ( Click me! Click me! )

So yeah, that was Friday night, it was a lot of fun, more fun than any other banquet I've ever been to. I just love all the people here so much, I hate Wisconsin and I hate cold winters, but every day I'm finding it harder to think about actually leaving. Well, anyway, that's a ramble for another day. Now, I must sleep. Goodnight!

I actually like all the classifications it gave me, though I'm not sure how much of a thrill-seeking sophisticate I am, but yeah.

I went shopping today, it was fun. I got a dress for the banquet. It's a Greek theme, supposedly you can wear a fancy toga if you want. Well, I don't want. But I got a really pretty white dress that's flowy and yeah anyway, you'll all see banquet pictures next weekend, you know me. I tried on 15 dresses, and that was just at Gordmans, where I got it, I tried on a few at Goodwill first too, didn't find any. Not to mention having to try on 3 sizes of the one I finally got. I tried a 9 first, cuz, well I am definitely chubbier these days. Always was a 7 but now I'm definitely an 8-9. But yeah, it was huge, especially in the boobs. It's empire waist and flowy, so I didn't have to worry about it being tight anywhere else, it just basically had to fit on the top. So I tried the 7, still too big. Finally ended up with the 5! I can't remember the last time I bought a 5 in anything.

But yeah, that was my big excitement for the day. Sleep, shop, had Sunday night supper with church people...now it sounds like it's raining (which from the hourly forecast didn't really seem like it was going to start till 9 but whatever) so I guess we won't be walking down to get ice cream. I have my birthday coupon from Coldstone that expires Wednesday, and it's going to get colder out. Tomorrow won't be so bad, we'll get it then. I should have just gotten it last night when I walked right by it on my way home from work, but I told Madeline she should come with me and we can split it (it's for a medium size one, which I can eat by myself, if I want to be hugely full, I don't know how anyone can eat the large ones, Coldstone is so filling) and so now I have to try to work the ice-cream-getting around her schedule, which is always a pain. If she can't go tomorrow afternoon, I'm going by myself because Tuesday and Wednesday are going to be even crappier out. Today was beautiful, and we could have gone at 4, it was sunny and hot and wonderful out, but she had to study, blah.

But anywho. I'm going to go read or watch some of the huge stack of library DVDs I still have out...which I've made absolutely no progress on this weekend. Some are already overdue too. Whoops. Well hope everyone else had a good weekend!

So last night was...interesting. Katy got her braces off yesterday, and had a party to celebrate. A nice-dressing cocktail party, not a crazy wild party. But someone in the building called the cops, luckily they didn't come in and check IDs, but they gave them a noise violation. Madeline and Jeremiah literally went out the window, and into the window of a neighbor in the building. Not even kidding. The were just chillin in the random neighbor's place waiting for the cops to leave. Other than that, it was fun. There are some pictures. Afterwards, we went to Paul's neighbor's house and played some beer pong. That was about the extent of it. I passed out on my bed, fully clothed, contacts in, it was pretty bad. But I didn't get sick or break anything, so I consider it a win.

Tonight I went bowling with Jo, her husband Ben, and Carl. More people were supposed to come but it didn't work out for anyone else. We had fun, we picked a bunch of crazy bowling names for everyone. We ended, somehow, with all of us having living room seating nicknames. Mine was the first, we had some other random names, and somehow Ben came up with Doom Sofa for me. Carl was then Space Loveseat. Ben was Squirly Papasan, and Jo was Ottomon Vampire, which was a double-joke, rhyming with Empire. So that was amusing. Then Carl and I came back here and played some N64 and then I watched some Big Love. An enjoyable and much less crazy-alcoholic-drama-y night than last night, but the drama has its charms too, just not too much in one weekend.

What else? I don't think anything of particular interest happened the rest of the week. I haven't posted in a while, but nothing worth posting about has happened. I'm gonna go to sleep now. ( Here are the pictures from Friday night. )

The people at the LCC are officially the sweetest people ever. For some reason, when I walked into choir practice, it was compliment Mandy day. How cute my skirt was, my whole outfit was, my hair was, Alicia said that when she saw me Saturday she was like awww she looks so beautiful, and Annie said how she's noticed that I've lost weight since she met me, because of the DDR playing. They're just the sweetest people on the entire planet. Madeline also said I looked cute today first thing when she walked into work. I love skirt weather. I love looking nice and feeling pretty. Not anymore since I played DDR and I'm still gross and sweaty but anyway.

I was assigned the letter H from the lovely animate_clay, so I bring you 10 things I like starting with the letter H, ( under the cut )

The Virginia Tech shooting was really sad, why is the world so evil?