Monday, June 30, 2014

at first, when i see you cry, yeah it makes me smile

a few weeks ago i watched the fault in our stars with a friend. it was... an experience. it was the first time i had ever been in a situation with so many teen fangirls in one place without being a teen fangirl myself. (because, yes, we went to a ya book's movie adaptation on the saturday night of its opening weekend and were then surprised that we were outsiders in the theater.) i can only assume that it was the feeling you would have gotten going to a harry potter midnight book release if you liked the books, sure, but were the type of fan that did not have every character and their house and patronus memorized. the type of fan that didn't own nor particularly care to own any potter-world merchandise outside of the books. it was awful because at the point where the plot turns sad and the tears started building up, the entire theater burst into sobs, and my friend and i completely lost it. it was hilarious. and also completely distracting. the girl sitting in front of us had a little bun on the top of her head that bobbed up and down as she sniffled non-stop through half of the movie. the girls to the left had a frantic passing out of tissues moment when the lights went down. a girl behind us got up, said "i can't stay here," and ran out of the theater crying. one of the boys in her group, after asking the rest of the group if she was okay, went out to bring her back in and she spent the last ten minutes or so of the movie just sobbing. loudly. heart-wrenching-i-just-saw-my-entire-family-murdered-in-front-of-me sobs. it was completely over the top. (oh, and they clapped after every. single. scene.) i was biting my lip so hard to keep from laughing out loud that i'm surprised i didn't go right through it. my friend and i were shaking with silent laughter, because obviously we couldn't risk being killed by a theater full of over-emotional fangirls for having the wrong emotions. it was bad. 

but we made it through, and after leaving the theater and laughing for fifteen minutes straight, we started to discuss the movie. my friend, who hadn't read the book, thought the plot was pretty predictable. if you haven't read/watched it, you may want to just skip down to the next paragraph. you know it's a sad movie so you're expecting something bad to happen. the movie starts with hazel "dying" and then things just continue to get worse for her so you kind of assume that she's going to make it out okay, because there's no way it could be that obvious. gus, on the other hand, seems to have everything going for him, so you figure that he's screwed. it's just the way of books and movies and whatever. so when he dies, it's really sad, but it was also a bit expected.

anyway, i told her that it was less obvious in the book. but something i just read online made me realize that i was wrong. it wasn't just about reading the book vs watching the movie, it was more about when you read the book. i read the book before it exploded into something popular enough to warrant a movie. and i think that made all the difference in the world. because now, everyone knows that the book, and by extension the movie, is Sad with a capital s. you're in that mindset from the beginning, subconsciously preparing yourself for grief from the minute you start it. and when i read it, i had no idea that it was a Sad book. i knew it was about cancer kids, so i kind of thought that it would have a sad ending, but it was touted so much as Not a Cancer Book that i wasn't entirely sure. there was still that little thought that, "this might actually turn out good. there may be a happy ending after all of this." when you know that a book is Sad, there is no hope of a happy ending which makes it less sad then when that hope is crushed and spit on and then run over by a car. twice. 

and that's why i like to read books before the hype. that's what gets me. it's not about that weird hipster-real-fan mentality that is running rampant around the internet. (if i hear one more person tell me that they're a real fan of whatever book because they liked it before the movie, i will scream.) it's about the expecting. and i'm not talking about expectations not being met because it was overhyped or whatever, i'm talking about going into it with a particular mindset. i'd rather someone tell me that something was good/bad than sad/scary/happy. when you go in with a clean slate, everything is sharper. i like to have my feelings crushed and spit on and then run over by a car. twice. i like the feeling of realizing something is laugh out loud funny when i had no idea it would be. it's always funnier than when you expect it to be funny. i like that feeling when you have to pause reading to take a deep breath because this is totally not what you expected. i think that's why i'm having so much trouble getting myself to read any of the books that are becoming movies soon, despite actually wanting to read them. (well, that and the fact that i am in a serious reading slump still and oh my gosh i can't read anything these days.) 

*Smile - Lily Allen

Friday, June 27, 2014

i've been doing just fine

i am awful at telephones, let's just get that out there. i take time to mentally prepare myself before i have to make phone calls. this could be anywhere from ten minutes to two days depending on the nature of the call. (i don't think i have ever said "nature of the call" before in my life, and i feel like an idiot typing it, but there it is.) there are some days, though, that telephones do not bother me in the slightest. i will make a hundred and five calls and be ready to make twelve more. (i think a hundred and seventeen is pretty much my limit, though.) yesterday was a phone call day. which was awesome for the reasons that i will now tell you.

two years ago (or something like that), i was buying a ticket for an event and if i signed up for a trial month of one of those coupon-smart-shopper-whatever programs, i would get forty percent off the ticket. forty percent is kind of a lot, so i signed up. before my trial month was over, i called them up (horror of all horrors) and cancelled my subscription. the following month, however, i had a charge on my credit card for seventeen dollars. for the subscription that i cancelled. i kept planning on calling them to tell them that i should not have been charged, but a part of me kind of hoped it would just go away on its own. the following month, though, i was charged again. so i heaved a big sigh and called up the program people. after a long phone call during which i was passed off to several different people, i was finally told that my subscription was cancelled and i would be credited back the two charges within the next few days. only, i wasn't credited back anything. and the following month, i was charged again. 

i kept pushing off calling them again, and then kind of forgot, and only remembered at bad times, and then two years passed with me being charged seventeen dollars a month. every month. for two years. maybe a little more. and then finally, yesterday happened. and i called and cancelled my credit card. that i didn't use really ever and was only there to be charged seventeen dollars a month. and it feels awesome. i also made a whole bunch of other calls that i have been putting off for forever. and did all of those i-don't-want-to-but-need-to things. it was productive.

while i was feeling extremely gloaty and productive, though, the universe decided to knock me down a few pegs and i ate lunch twice. because i forgot that i had already eaten it. i remember thinking, "oh i forgot to have lunch. i'm not even hungry but people who are on top of things do not skip meals." and then after i finished i saw my plate from my first lunch sitting by the sink and i was like, "oh yeah. that's why i wasn't hungry." 

*Mr. Brightside - The Killers

Wednesday, June 25, 2014

if you're not here when i break in, i'm gonna go to your closet just so i can smell your skin

i spent most of my life without watching a single reality tv dating show. no bachelor. no bachelorette. no roses or rings or tears. i never even wanted to watch them. not in a i'm-better-than-that way, but in a never-grabbed-my-interest way. i would sometimes hear a recap on the radio the morning after it aired, and i would think... nothing. so i was surprised when commercials for i wanna marry harry aired on fox a few months ago and i thought, yes. i would like to watch that. (for those of you that don't know, twelve american girls went to england where they were competing - for lack of a better word - for a guy they all thought was prince harry but was really just a guy that looked a lot like prince harry. then at the very end he revealed his true identity to the girl he chose in hopes that she would still choose him back. spoiler: she did. and they won a quarter of a million dollars for not being shallow losers.) when the first episode aired i watched it on demand, as i do, and i thought, this is a show that i cannot watch an episode at a time. (i find that reality tv needs to be marathoned for maximum enjoyment.) so i waited. (and forgot about it.) the other day i went to fox on demand and found that all of the episodes were up. (i thought that they had all aired, but really the show was cancelled due to absolutely no one watching it and they just threw the episodes up because there was no point holding on to them.) the point of this story is, after watching eight episodes of a reality tv dating show, i have learned that people can be psychotic. one contestant (what the heck am i supposed to call them?) was straight up terrifyingly crazy and jealous and i was half expecting her to shank the other girls in their sleep the entire time. she was like text book crazy jealous girlfriend. it was both entertaining and horrifying. but mostly horrifying.

you would think that watching eight straight hours of reality tv would mean that i am not being productive, but you would be wrong. (yay insomnia caused by my body being stupid and not knowing how to deal with completely normal hormone fluctuations. still. nothing makes me not wanna get pregnant more than thinking about how my body is obnoxious with every day hormones and how it will go completely haywire with pregnancy hormones. was that tmi?) i have been doing some serious cleaning and reorganizing of my apartment. it looks roomier already. (i also finished crocheting forty plus turtles for my sister's scarf. i hate turtles.) 

*(One Of Those) Crazy Girls - Paramore

Saturday, June 21, 2014

i know it's hard

back in high school, there was a running joke of sorts about my girl-scout-ness for lack of a better word. you know, because i did things like bake brownies from scratch and we had a craft room (slash box after we moved) in my house. they would make comments about how i probably made my skirt and my tights and my bag and... you get the idea. a friend wrote in my end of the year notebook thingie:
"I'll remember your craftiness/girl scoutness and how you practically made everything you own... I can imagine you probably made this notebook yourself you liar... that man didn't give it to you."
(those ellipses are not me editing the quote. we were all really big on ellipses back then....) she then wrote that if i was a shape i would be a rectangle, but that is neither here nor there.

anyway. it has been eight years since i graduated high school, and i feel like i am becoming the person that they said i was back then. i just want to make everything. i want to spend hundreds of thousands of hours knitting and only stop when my hands are so cramped that i can barely hold the needles. and even then, i'll just switch to crocheting. (who woulda thought? me, crocheting.)  i want every blanket in my house to be made by me. i want to knit all my clothes. (i'm not even joking, i had the strongest urge to knit myself an entire outfit the other day but i refrained because although i'm fine with being the person who wants to knit their entire wardrobe, i don't think i'm ready to become the person that actually knits her own clothes.) once i finish this turtle scarf for my sister, i plan on crocheting a teddy bear. because why not. i want everyone i know to have babies so that i can make them blankets and hats and sweaters and toys. i want to have made every pot, plate, and mug i own. every vase and box and bowl. i want to make my own notebooks. (i've only done paper-making once outside of science class in sixth grade, but i loved it.)

my most recent crafty urge is to take up weaving. my mom has this huge loom (that i totally plan on stealing someday) that we were kind of obsessed with growing up. so she bought a table loom (that i plan to take a lot sooner than someday) and taught us to weave. we made blankets for our dolls, but then moved on, like kids do. recently, though, i have seen a bunch of woven tapestries and cannot shake the feeling of i need to do that. summers are kind of crazy, so i asked my mom to reteach me to weave in the fall, which she said she'd do. but i still want to weave right now. i am trying really, really hard not to buy myself a lap loom which pretty much needs no teaching because that is fifty dollars that could be used on so many other things. but good god is it hard. if i make it to the end of the summer without writing about my new woven artwork for my walls, i think i deserve a prize.

*Keep Your Head Up - Andy Grammer

Thursday, June 19, 2014

exciting things that are going on this july:

  • july 1st: camp nanowrimo starts
  • july 4th: freworks probably
  • july 8th: summer session of pottery starts
  • july 8th: rainbow rowell's new book, landline, comes out
  • july 8th: the new part of the wizarding world in florida opens
  • july 30th: leakycon starts
  • normal summer fun things that are fun and summery 


things that i will be doing this july:

  • not those things

ugh. 

Monday, June 16, 2014

outside the sun is shining, seems like heaven ain't far away

the thing about marrying a crazy sports fan is that sometimes, your plans to visit hershey, pa, home of chocolate and all things awesome, get delayed a couple of weeks due to sickness and stuff and then happen to fall on the first weekend of the world cup. and then suddenly your crazy sports fan husband decides that driving two hours there and back is much too long of a drive for a day trip, despite not having any problem with this a few weeks earlier. and you're a bit confused until the day is instead spent watching an endless stream of soccer games and how are there so many games played in one day?

have you been watching the world cup? is it just me or are there more players scoring on themselves than there probably should be? and did you see that player from uruguay that looked like his jersey had shrunk in the wash and he didn't have time to get a new one before the game?

i can't really complain, though, because in all honesty i do not mind watching sports games. and also the lazy days spent sprawled on the couch while he watches soccer and i read books are probably some of my favorites. plus, i figure that we should savor these types of days while we get them. i can only postpone growing up for so long. one day i will have a stressful career and/or a family (with real live kids) and i will look back on these early years of marriage with nostalgic longing. 

speaking of growing up, i've been doing some research for my dissertation. (sort of. like background information for background information. but hey, it's something.) research makes my brain fuzzy even though i'm pretty sure it's supposed to be making me smarter. that's the whole point of research, isn't it? i have also been burning a lilac candle and my apartment smells heavenly, and i'm just feeling really good about today. you know those days? that are nothing special at all, that are not memorable in the least bit, but that are still really good days? yeah. (i was at walmart this morning and candles were on sale and i've had lilacs on my mind (refer to previous post) and so i obviously bought one. i want to go back and buy five more. usually the candles that are on sale smell like crap, but this one is so pretty. i forgot everything i actually needed to get today, though. oops. i also got a really good smoothie. not from walmart.)

i'm thinking of making brussel sprouts for dinner. you can have a side for a meal, right? i just really don't want anything else. you probably don't care what i eat for dinner anyway. this post has gotten wildly off topic.

you know, maybe it's this candle that's giving me floaty brain syndrome. there's like half an inch or so of liquid wax that just looks so pretty i kind of want to jump into it. candles are so distracting. anyway, i should probably get back to research before i completely lose the ability to be smartish. 

*Exitlude - The Killers

Saturday, June 14, 2014

all i could think about

[one] so i've been stuck on this level in candy crush for months. this is not an exaggeration. i think i got to it in january or february. maaaybe early march. and i cannot for the life of me get past it. i think they should have an option available after you try a level a few hundred times (i usually go through all my lives around twice a day, which means i try the level ten times a day on average, which means i have tried way more than a few hundred times, which means i am pathetic.) that says, "you suck and we feel sorry for you. pay ninety-nine cents to move on." i would totally pay. anyway, this morning i was playing and doing awesomely. like, i really thought i was going to win. i still had twelve moves left and was close to clearing all the jelly and then my phone up and dies on me. out of nowhere. despite being fully charged. and of course when i turned him back on, candy crush just figured i had rage quit or something and counted it as another loss. ugh. way to ruin my life, jasper.

[two] i really like rainbow rowell. the author? i've read everything she's written multiple times despite just discovering her late last year. shortly after i discovered her, her newest book (due out this summer) became available for pre-order. which i obviously did. i have been waiting all year for this book. i really have been. for some reason, though, i have thought it comes out july first. and i planned my summer travels around that, as stupid as that sounds. well, okay, so i didn't really plan it around it but i did happily think for the past three months that the timing was so perfect because her book would come out on the first and i would leave on the third and is there a better way to spend your last days before leaving the country than lost in a book you have looked forward to all year? i think not. but i just found out yesterday that i am an idiot and the book doesn't come out until july eighth and i am so disappointed. it's obviously not the end of the world and my husband can easily just bring the book when he joins me later (because he is not leaving the country with me because he went and grew up and got a job and now has to worry about things like vacation days), but still. i won't properly be able to read it because i will be doing the visiting family thing and then i will come back and do more of the visiting family thing and taking a day to devour a book will probably not be appropriate. gah.

[three] sometimes i think about the way we actually are and the way that we are remembered and the gap between those two people and if it matters at all and which one is more important. (i once started a short story that kind of touched on this that i constantly think about and say i will finish, but three years later and most of it is still in my head. which i guess is better than forgetting about it completely, but still. get your act together, sarah.) anyway, what brought on this latest round of pondering things which probably don't matter much at all in any scheme of things, grand or ungrand, was lilacs. i love lilacs in the way that i love navy blue and the number seven, in a nostalgic eye-rolly phantom limb sort of way. they were my favorite for a long while (all three of those things) because they were my mom's favorites, and growing up i really had no personality. (it was also a case of crippling insecurity and self-doubt and liking things that were valid to like, and who was a better judge of worthiness than my mom, right? sometimes i want to go back to little me and just shake her.) anyway, lilacs are no longer my favorite (they are second, though. and i'm pretty sure it's because i really like them and not just because i used to like them. my favorite flower is sunflowers and daisies because they can both share the number one spot if i say they can), and every time i see them i think of my mom. but, as it turns out, lilacs are not my mom's favorite flower. oops. i found this out last year (possibly the year before) and yet in my head, even though i know they aren't, they are. because they are what i associated with my mom for so long. i don't think i'm making sense anymore, but you get what i'm saying, right? lilacs are not my mom's favorite flower, but i will always remember my mom loving lilacs the most: my mom vs how i remember my mom.

*Landing in London - 3 Doors Down

Thursday, June 12, 2014

don't matter if it's sooner or later, i know that it's gonna be alright

sometimes i think about when i am rich and famous and a published novelist and what people will think when they read my blog: the early years (of which this year will definitely be part of) and see just how whiny and lazy i really am. or, was at this point in my life. and how i would go days and weeks without writing anything despite claiming that i want to write forever. i have these grand ideas that i'll have grown out of this all by then and i will have amazing work ethic and will never procrastinate and will write for at least two hours every day and not just in november. and i will balance school and writing and family and friends just as easily as i know they can be balanced. and future readers will say to themselves, "wow, if she can do it then i definitely can," and i will become an inspiration for people everywhere.

other times i think that i may be too old to still be dreaming the same dream i have dreamed since i can remember dreaming, but then i remind myself that there are people waiting for me to become an inspiration and really, i owe it to them to become rich and famous one day. and a published novelist. also, i dunno if it's the reading or what, but despite not being a generally optimistic person, i am stupidly idealistic about certain things. one of them is me becoming a published author. it will happen. i can feel it. i just need to sit down and write until my dream comes true. and when i'm not writing, i assure myself that it's okay because one day i will start again and maybe that will be the time that i don't stop.

until then, though, i will continue to do whatever it is i am doing now. a lot of little things that sometimes feel like they're adding up to something big and sometimes feel like they're cancelling each other out to make nothing. sometimes i feel like i am in a lifelong existential crisis. sometimes i think that's just what life is. 

oh, and i think i may have to pause the already paused crafty posts because taking pictures is just way too much work. and it's summer. 

on another note, there is a little over half a month left until camp nanowrimo starts and i don't know whether to sign up or not. i didn't sign up in april so that i would feel more obligated to do it in july. i had hopes to dissertation write a few thousand words and possibly novel write a few thousand, too. but now it's extremely likely that my july will include travel and the idea of signing up and failing is unacceptable to me. (which is probably why i should just register already. jump-start this stupid research.) regardless, you should all sign up and write. i mean, it's summer. what else do you have to do?

*Days of Summer - AVPS