some people say it's been too long. that's why i'm here, to prove them all wrong

i'm going to tell you a story. a story that spans decades (well, one). a story of my younger sister and craig david's second album, slicker than your average. let's head back to high school again, shall we? but we're not going to stop at my senior year this time. no, we're going back to the days before the ipod: the days of the CD player. (if i remember correctly, i got my first ipod for my birthday in tenth grade. it was a green ipod mini and i loved it dearly. for the first month, it only had twenty-eight songs on it. but that's neither here nor there. the point of this aside is to show that this story starts somewhere in the beginning of tenth grade, or the year 2003 if that's a better reference point for you.)

my sister and i, like most kids our age with an hour and a half long bus ride to and from school every day, each had a CD player. my last CD player, and the one that i had during this story, was red and beautiful and didn't skip every time the bus drove over bumpy road which was kind of a big deal at the time. along with the CD players, we took turns carrying a small CD case that held about ten CDs, although we stuffed it with almost twenty. (we would periodically switch out these CDs with the ones in our collection so the choices never got stale.) and while other kids on the bus would ask to borrow our CD players from time to time, it was this CD case that was really the star. because who just wanted to listen to the same twelve songs day in and day out? and our music taste was (and still is) very eclectic so we had everything from maroon 5 to papa roach to jessica simpson to sheryl crow to ludacris. whatever you liked, we probably had it. and you can bet that people asked to borrow CDs all the time.

most of the time, people returned the CDs before they or we got off the bus. occasionally, though, people would forget and we would get it the next morning. this wasn't a big deal. especially since a lot of the times the people borrowing the CD would leave one of theirs in our case as they swapped out. one day, a kid forgot to give us back a CD before he got off the bus. that CD was craig david's slicker than your average. he didn't just leave it in his CD player overnight, though, and the next morning he forgot to bring it back. the morning after that was the same. and the one after that. aaand the one after that. eventually, he said that he had lost it. his younger sister was at that age, though, where she didn't know when you were supposed to shut up about things and loudly said, "you didn't lose it. you listen to it in your room all the time." my sister said that she could burn him a copy of it if he wanted (yeah, morals and ethics were a little foggy at that time), but he insisted that it was lost and refused to give it back.

over the years, we'd joke about the stolen CD, and every time i was near a place that sold CDs i would find myself absently looking for it. i never saw it. we never bought another copy.

fast forward to last week. my sister was graduating with her master's degree, and i thought that the time was now right to replace the stolen CD. i mean, a ten year mourning period is beyond sufficient, don't you think? so i went on amazon and ordered it. it was delivered saturday morning. (i was not home.) BUT sometime between ten:thirty-six, when the fedex guy says he dropped it off, and around six, when i came home, the package disappeared. "it may have been stolen by a neighbor," amazon told me. stolen. again.

and that is when i realized that the reason we had never replaced the CD was not because we were in mourning, but because it was not meant to be. somewhere deep inside of us, we must have known this. it was time to accept it. (except i didn't, of course, and amazon is going to replace it.)

*Slicker Than Your Average - Craig David

we get too old

i mention the fact that i'm old a lot. probably more than i should and probably more than it really bothers me. but today i was hit in the face with the realization that i really am old and completely out of the loop with the "young people" and it was sad. early this morning my husband and i were walking around the mall window shopping at stores that would not be open for hours, and we noticed a really long line leading to what looked like absolutely nothing. a security rolled by on his little segway and i asked him what they were all waiting for. his answer, "some singer is coming and they're waiting to see him. *tries to think of name* i dunno who, some pop star that the girls all seem to like." i thank him and afterwards comment on the fact that nothing marks you as old quite as much as not knowing who "the kids like" while going through my list of young singers for possibilities.

and then i see it. a sign telling people to come get their pictures and autographs with cody simpson. i saw the picture of the blond kid and read the name again, but i had never, ever heard of this person before. ever. so i google him, see that he's actually pretty famous and start to feel super old for "not knowing who the kids like." i comforted myself with the thought that he was a new face and suddenly found himself with enough popularity to do a mall tour and put it out of my head.

later we went to toys r us with my nephews to buy eid toys (happy eid by the way) and do you know what i saw there? t-shirts and backpacks and lunch boxes with cody simpson and his face plastered all over them. which made me come to terms with the fact that i am completely alienated from all the young people and what they like. so thank you, fifteen year old kid that i had never heard of, for making me feel so old on eid.

*Chasing Cars - Snow Patrol

do you still remember how we used to be?

i am wearing gummy bear earrings and my tongue is burned. i am also wishing i had gotten myself a mango pepsi from the kitchen when i was in there getting two hershey kisses for breakfast. but i think soda exacerbates a burnt tongue, so actually i'm glad i didn't. i burned my tongue while cooking yesterday and forgetting that when you put something on the stove it gets hot. sometimes i do things like that, and it makes me wonder how people could possibly think i'm smart enough to get a phd. i'm having a problem with my "o". i think junior is starting to get old and his keyboard is getting a little hard of hearing. this makes me sad because i remember when i first got him the day i finished my last undergrad class, and it seems like just yesterday but also a million years ago. i also remember that the very next day my capstone professor gave me a C. i'd like to say i've gotten over that, but to be honest i'm still a little bitter. i don't think i'll ever fully recover.

last night i ate a caffeinated brownie, and then i fell asleep fifteen minutes later so i don't think caffeine does much for me.

i don't think i ever mentioned on here how upset i was that the spice girls didn't perform in the olympics opening ceremony. i mean, i didn't give it much (read: any) thought beforehand, but while watching the thing and seeing harry potter and mary poppins and a bunch of bands that i didn't really know, i kept waiting for them to come out. and then they didn't. the spice girls were huge in the nineties. i don't understand why they weren't there. my cousin (who we made get us the spice girls movie way back when) had to listen to me whine abut it for a while. i mean, there were other people there too (my husband and cousins' children) but i think he was the only one that truly got it because he was the only one that knew me back when i was a big fan. (i still have some of their songs on my ipod. should i be confessing that?)

i'm trying to decide whether to make peanut butter cookies or tiramisu cheesecake, and the fact that i can sit here in a quiet apartment, listening to the lawn mowers outside (and a few floors down) my window, and have that be my biggest concern makes me feel incredibly grateful.

*Viva Forever - Spice Girls

'cause you're amazing

you know what's really amazing? pringles. like, the way the flavors of their chips taste exactly like whatever they're supposed to taste like. it really is the greatest achievement of the universe. i mean, i'm eating the mexican seven layered dip pringles, and my mouth thinks it's eating some kind of seven-layer nachos and my brain is telling it that it's just pringles because it can read the box (tube?) and my mouth is telling my brain to just shut up because it knows what it's eating and it is freaking nachos. i was obsessed with the cheeseburger pringles for a while, too. i never see them in stores anymore, though. do they still make them? also the honey mustard and the dill pickle ones. i mean, all the original flavors are awesome, but these crazy ones are just crazy with how perfect they are.

on another note, the weather today is gorgeous. so obviously i spent all morning at chuck e cheese's with my husband, sister, and nephews. because there is no better way to enjoy beautiful weather than to be cooped up in a dark little building filled with beeping games and shouting kids and tickets and pizza. i mean, duh. and then after that we spent an hour in petland fawning over the bunnies. (i think that i really decided to fulfill my inner fourth-grader's dream of having a pet rabbit. i mean, after i check if they're allowed in my apartment and after we come back from our maybe-overseas-travels in the summer of course. because this seems to be the year to resurrect my fourth grade self, relive obsessions, fulfill dreams, and then finally put her away and grow up. or something.)

oh, and i'm kind of in love with that song from the brave trailer. you should probably listen to it.

*Just the Way You Are - Bruno Mars

i find it kind of sad

to start with, if you guys haven't seen this cover of lmfao's "i'm sexy and i know it" then you should watch it right now because it is awesome, and i am in love with it, and his voice is amazing, and it's better than the original in my opinion, and you know all this is true because it's making me write run-on sentences. that's serious. in case you don't like clicking links (sometimes i don't either), i'll embed the video for you right here:



in other news, i went on my end of semester amazon book spree a bit early this year and conveniently forgot that i said i would wait to read them until i finished the semester until i got through two of them. and i don't actually end the semester until ten o'clock tuesday night when i finish my last final. even though i sort of feel like i already finished school. but ew i told myself that i would stop talking about school because it is taking over my life. like some crazy future dystopian dictator that wants to control everything i say, do, and think. mind control is bad. even when seemingly good things (like education) are the ones doing it.

um... i'm graduating on thursday? i dunno if that is school related or not, but there it is.

okay, so this is really pathetic. i literally can't think of anything to write about that is not in someway related to school. i need summer. actually, what i need is to be done with school. gah.

*Mad World - Gary Jules

dressed up like a princess

[one] considering the facts that the majority of what i wear consists of jeans and hoodies and my go to shoes are flip flops, you may be surprised to learn that if i could, i would wear evening gowns all day every day. (more princessy than slinky because to be quite frank, i don't have the body for the latter.) i would get dressed up to fill my car up with gas. i would wear a full length ball gown to get taco bell and another one to go to the park with my brothers and nephews. i would wear pretty dresses to school, to hang out at a friend's house, and to pick up eggs and butter. i love them that much. (i guess because when i was four i never truly appreciated them and lost the only chance i had at this being acceptable?)

[two] i read this article yesterday entitled "the problem is not the books." it's countering a new york times article that, as is so often done, complains about how there are no books out there for boys which explains why there are fewer boy readers. this article puts the blame back on society which belittles boys who like "girl things" and consider books written by or about girls as "girl things" that a boy couldn't possibly relate to. as the article pointed out, in our society male is neutral and female is specific. i agree with the article. if i could get my brothers into books like ella enchanted and the secret garden then it just goes to show you that raising a reader is one thing, and raising someone who likes to read boy books is something entirely different. anyway, the article was interesting - nothing too earth-shatteringly ground-breaking, but still worth a read.

[three] last night my husband and i went to watch the three stooges. i wasn't one of the people super excited to watch the movie, but i also wasn't one of the people adamantly refusing to ever see it. i thought it was okay, not bad but not one of the best movies i've seen. pretty much what i expected going in. what was awesome about it was the soundtrack. they had some really good songs playing in it that i would not have expected to hear in a three stooges movie. oh, and a lot of the kids were really cute.

*Something in your Mouth - Nickelback (i mist confess that i've never heard this song before)

with all this fever in my mind, i could drown in your kerosene eyes

blogging is momentarily really hard. that is all the time i am going to waste talking about my current inability to blog regularly. the following were originally going to be posts by themselves, but i keep starting one and never finishing it. this way's better.

[one] i would like to be annoyed that the movie industry has completely given up on even pretending to put out new movies. remakes are one thing, but it seems like just bringing an old movie back to the big screen is getting more and more popular. the thing is, i completely get it. when times are tough, no one wants to risk spending fifty plus dollars to take their family to a movie which might very well completely suck. bringing back the classics is a way to guarantee an audience. bringing back the classics in 3d is a way to guarantee an audience to shell out an extra five bucks or so per ticket for nothing special. and the thing is, most of the movies i am excited for this year are either ones i've already seen or remakes of ones i've already seen. with movies like the lion king (which held two top spots at the box office when it was out for both the 2d and 3d versions), beauty and the beast, titanic (the preview for which kills me because it says from the director of avatar), finding nemo, and star wars all coming back with virtually no changes to them, you have to wonder if they'll just stop making new movies altogether. and you know, maybe they should. 

[two] last friday i had written, "it is friday the thirteenth, and i have nothing to say." not sure if i was going anywhere with that, but there it is. 

[three] in the days where all the energy i could afford to use was spent turning on my ipod, i was listening to a lot of bob dylan and bruce springsteen, because why the hell not, right? and then a friend posted a video of a song by the tallest man on earth, and i fell in love. you should go check out some of his music. you know when you like a singer and think that you're the only one who knows him and one day you realize that they're really super famous and you're just completely out of the loop? it was one of those kind of feelings with him. you see, i had a song of his on my ipod, but it was a cover and i always thought that he was just one of those random people that put out a good cover and disappeared. you know the type? it was awesome finding he had his own stuff, too. 

[four] i feel like i should mention the sopa and pipa bills, though i'm sure most of you already know about them since the internet is on strike today. (you may have noticed that a bunch of sites are blacked out today.) you know, the bills that want to be laws that will basically destroy the funness of the internet in an attempt to stop piracy? yeah, those. you can go here to sign petitions and send emails to congress and stuff to let them know that you think the bills suck. 

[five] i have friends who work at hospitals and are constantly posting pictures of children that they particularly like who are treated at their hospital. this could just be me, but it makes me extremely uncomfortable. i mean, it's one thing plastering pictures of your own children hooked up to tubes and sitting on hospital beds all over the internet, but another thing entirely to post pictures of other people's children. i mean, doesn't that go against some code of ethics or something? or am i just overreacting here?

[six] i feel like my blog needs a makeover. finding the motivation, time, and energy to give it said makeover is at the top of my to-do list. it's really too bad that i suck at keeping to to-do lists. 

*Where Do My Bluebird Fly - The Tallest Man on Earth

Sometimes a hurt is so deep, deep, deep

You think that you're gonna drown.

Sometimes all I can do is weep, weep, weep

With all this rain falling down.

~Rain, Patty Griffin

Deep within my soul, I feel

Nothing's like it used to be.

Sometimes I wish I could turn back time,

Impossible as it may seem,

But I wish I could so bad baby.

~Quit Playing Games With My Heart, Backstreet Boys

If you need to fall apart,

I can mend a broken heart.

If you need to crash, then crash and burn.

~Crash and Burn, Savage Garden

There are those who think that I'm strange,

They would box me up and tell me to change.

~Anchor, Mindy Geldhill

sail away, kill off the hours, you belong somewhere you feel free

i really want to write. or bake. or paint. or cook. or basically do anything that can be considered even slightly creative. i have that itch that makes me not want to turn into a fat blob of boringness. unfortunately, my body decided to have a civil war and there's a battle raging in my throat at the moment and someone's cannon keeps misfiring and sending shots to my head. also, my apartment has taken the change of weather as inspiration to start a new career. he's trying his luck as a refrigerator right now. i'm not sure if the chills and goosebumps are because of the war or the refusal to warm up, but any longer like this and i might as well give up my human card and turn into a full fledged bird. hey, at least they get to leave when it gets cold. (though chilly fall days and cold winter ones are usually some of my favorite days of the year.)

i think baking chocolate chip cookies would help the soldiers agree on a peace treaty and the apartment realize that refrigerators never get to smell like fresh baked cookies and pretty much make the world a better place, but i can't drag myself off this couch and out from under this blanket, and it's very sad. especially because i've been wanting to bake cookies for a very long time, and there's always something that comes up to stop me.

i also woke up to find that snow white was not keeping a very good eye on her dwarfs and that grumpy (who was always my favorite) has decided to possess me. yup, he's living inside my head at this very moment. he'd say hi, but he doesn't really like you all that much. and grumpy people just do not go around baking cookies and whistling while they work. (do any of you remember what book it was that had snow white really fat and evil and the dwarfs were pretty much her slaves? was that the book of lost things? does anyone know? i'm usually the person people come to with these kinds of questions. it's annoying me that i don't know.)

anyway, i'm going to continue listlessly flipping through web pages and hoping that i suddenly decide to get up and bake.

oh, and as for the title, tom petty's widlflowers has been stuck in my head lately. i have no idea why since i really haven't listened to it since the summer.

*Wildflowers - Tom Petty

you're faking a smile with the coffee to go

you know those dreams that feel really real and tire you out so much that you wake up feeling less rested than you did before you went to sleep though you were pretty exhausted then? and you know how irritating it is when you just open your eyes on a morning like this and you are suddenly bombarded with prices for different electronics and links to each one and claims that you are liar and aren't really going to buy [him] anything [he] just knows it? and then to go out to sit by the router where the internet is not clinging to life by its fingertips and realize that for some reason the air conditioning is not on and you can feel the sweat beginning to bead on your forehead and upper lip but just don't feel like getting up to turn it on? and to top it all off, you know when you realize that though all you really want is to crawl back into bed but you can't because you have lunch plans and t-shirt making plans and plans after dark for wedding music meetings and the next best thing would just be to sit on the couch and cry because you're just. so. tired. but you can't because you have to be happy and bubbly all day? and then to have the stupidity and incompetence level of everyone around suddenly spike to all-time high when you just don't have the patience or energy to deal with it? yeah, it's one of those days.

on another note, though i was a harry potter fan for as long as i can remember, i never really listened to any of the music that popped up about the series. this song popped up on a blog i follow, though, and i felt it was fitting for the time:



speaking of music, here are a few songs from my summer playlist that i think are pretty awesome. you know, just in case you felt like adding a few songs to your music library. they're mostly slow-paced/accoustic/indie rock/slightly folky/whatever else songs so if you're more into pop/hip hoppy/rap stuff than you probably shouldn't click the links. (i was originally going to embed all the youtube videos but it made the post too long, so i'm just going to link to them instead. widflowers by tom petty. changing by the airborne toxic event. apples and tangerines by the phoenix foundation. corinne by metronomy. land of the bloody unknown by the middle east. sweet talk, sweet talk by the new pornographers. there are also a bunch of bob dylan covers that i downloaded when i realized that i couldn't steal my mom's cds because of joe's old age. i think jason mraz has a pretty decent one.

*Bad Day - Daniel Powter

we were young and stupid. do you remember that?

i think my generation is mostly stupid. i can say this because i belong to their group. looking past their general lack of what used to be common sense only is not so common anymore, their inability to have any perspective on anything, their big dreams and little action, and their general destruction of the english language, i'm going to talk about the fact that a lot of them tend to be pretentious hypocrites. while this may be true in many areas of life, let's talk about the most superficial, shall we? justin bieber. (wow, i feel kind of stupid because i had to google how to spell his last name. i keep spelling it ei instead of ie)

anyway, the people of my generation are so loud about how much they hate everything, namely justin bieber. (this post could really be about a million other things. we have some obnoxious people in this generation of ours. yeah yeah i can be pretty loud too, i know. add my name to list of obnoxiousness.) he's an awful singer, he's overrated, and he's destroying music.  okay, you're all entitled to your opinion and everything, but shut up already, won't you? no, i'm not saying this because i'm a huge fan of his. i honestly have no real opinion on him. while i never seek out any of his songs, hearing them does not put me in a homicidal rage. you know why? cause i have this little thing called dignity. (haha for the purpose of this post let's just pretend.)

remember a few years back what we were obsessing over with all of the fanaticism kids now devote to bieber? *nsync and backstreet boys. people were divided into one of three groups: nsync groupies, bsb groupies, or the people who pretended to hate them both because they thought it made them look cool but were really huge fans of both. (i mean come on, you know all the lyrics to all the songs and you want me to believe you don't like them? even if you do recite them mockingly, i'm just not buying it.) you would fight to the death for whatever group you belonged in. while i liked both bands (and still do), i was a bsb girl myself.

anyway, with the generation ahead of ours listening to music like the violent femmes, the smiths, and depeche mode (all great bands by the way) do you think they were very psyched to suddenly have pop boy bands take over the world? no, probably not. but do you remember them spending hours bashing them online (ignore the fact that "online" didn't exist the way it does now)? did they ever get into arguments with people ten years younger than them over taste in music (i've seen this a lot)? did they spend so much time obsessing over something that they claimed they hated? no. because it's just a waste of time and a sign that you are in desperate need of a life.

if you want to take part in bieber bashing, find a fanatic fan your age and have at it because arguing with a kid you could babysit just makes you look pathetic. better yet, get a map to the high road and try taking a walk down it. along the way, you may find a stand or two selling lives. feel free to pick one up. you don't like justin beiber? great, don't listen to him. but let the people who enjoy him enjoy him without your long-winded rants about "good music" and how kids these days are stupid and deaf.

*I Still - Backstreet Boys

you finally know what was wrong: you are not young anymore

a few weeks ago (or possibly longer) while discussing music with my mom (who actually has pretty awesome taste in music) and how i couldn't find a song online to listen to before i bought it, we came to the brilliant realization that i could use my mom's CD collection which conveniently has the very songs i wanted. it was a great moment. really. this idea hung over my head in the following weeks when i couldn't remember to take said collection from the middle of a pile of tornado-esque debris and/or when i was too busy to worry about adding music to my iPod. finally this morning i brought the CDs up to my room. they have sat here all day next to my computer, just waiting for my parents and brothers to go to sleep. by the time they did, i was pretty excited because it's been a while since i did a major music add to my ipod.

so i put the CD into joe and waited. and waited and waited and waited. and then i remembered that joe's optical drive only reads DVDs now because he is getting old and going senile and has forgotten how to read CD. and i tried a bunch of different things to try and rekindle his memory because he used to have a lot of fun with CDs, but nothing worked. when you're old, you're old. i was quite disappointed. and of course junior doesn't even have an optical drive so he's no help either.

i was really looking forward to a bunch of new songs to listen to on the drive up to yorktown/jamestown tomorrow and now i'll have nothing new until i get the chance to steal someone else's computer for an hour or so (or, you know, until i download something). i'm thinking it's about time to actually get junior an external optical drive. or... could it possibly be time to retire joe? nah.

*You Are Not Young Anymore - Raining Pleasure (i changed the punctuation for the lyric to make it fit.)

ahh makes no sense at all

there's this thing where you take a song and write a short story using the words from it. you can only use the words from the song however many times they were said. (some people say you can use other words but every word from the song has to be incorporated in the story. i didn't do it that way.) it's really hard. plus, i only started doing it in an attempt to keep myself awake for my sister, and being half asleep makes it harder. anyway, here are the two that i did tonight. they don't make sense. at all. and are more like a choppy collection of random sentences than any short story, but whatever. (kinda like this post i'm noticing.) despite not making sense, they were pretty fun to do. i'll probably try it again when my brain is functioning, and maybe not limit myself to just the words of the song. maybe.

(High of 75 - Relient K)

So the weather forecast said that it is sunny with a high of 75, but now there is a cold frost outside and the temperature is freezing. And since I know tomorrow will have rainy clouds in the sky, and because the weather has not been sunny, I don't know whether I'll catch sight of the sun light. What's with you? Be. I'm just sad and depressed, on and off. I'm bi-polar at best and hoping I wake up to the sun. I know that I'll be funny and enjoy life if I find a light. And after the dark, when you're happy to be alive, my heavy heart might break of my own volition. I just got control over how you fought, and consequently we don't find it funny how you enjoy your heavy heart. And lately you're missing life together, or talking, or the sun, and it's when you're made up. If their heart took you up high, then I'll wait with you. This was the sweeping over of my light. It's how you made and took my 75. Since we were so happy to have made it and be alive.

---

(Read My Mind - The Killers)

I got in a blazing fight trying to move on on the corner of main street, mind. Well, the good old days break down and the honest man gave up, I got a broken wrist cause I pull up to the front of your driveway on a green light. You're a line falling back and behind, waiting on some sign. Just turn around. I'm gonna keep this thing on me. Oh, I don't mind your southern drawl if you don't mind the restless loaded gun. You wanna jump on a trampoline out of this little two-star town, the promised land that no one sees? Well I don't. I don't mind if you drop dead, breaking your spine slipping on a big trapeze. You say you mind cause you can read my mind. The city don't mind if you don't shine. Before you go, can you let it sting? Before you fall out of the world, can you say I'm it? It's funny how I just don't shine if you cut my rebel heart with the diamonds, I don't mind if you wanna read the fire soaking my dream. Can the teenage queen, the chosen one, breathe magic? I don't really read what you find in a subtle kiss. Tell me you never returned that call. Put back the stars. Put back the sun. Oh, and if you open that unseen door again, woman, don't read my mind. I never shine when you read my mind. Can you? Can you read a wall? Read my mind? Me? Cause when I put my faith I shine. She said don't shine. Don't shine. You never read my mind until you read my mind. Don't you like me? Can you read my mind? My mind?

*Makes No Sense at All - Outkast

i've got nothing to say

i turn on joe this morning and decide that i will write a blog post before i get caught up in the nothingness that i do all day and miss the opportunity. i click on the new post button, stare at the cursor blinking in the empty box they give me, and... nothing. i can't think of a single thing to write. i check all the drafts i have piling up, but i don't feel like writing about/continuing any of them. i check my email. i check my other email. i check a third email. i come back to blogger and stare at the cursor. i read other people's blogs. i check formspring. i check blackboard. i watch the rain fall lightly outside of my window for a while. i stare at the blinking cursor. i check facebook. i check the weather. (you know, in case nbc wants to tell me that the rain outside my window is an illusion and we're really going to have a bright and sunny day.) i think that maybe i should start working on making a dent in the mountain of homework and assignments i have pushed under my rug. i hurry back to blogger to stare at the blinking cursor. writing about my inability to write seemed more productive than homework. especially when spring break is next week.

i used a lotion this morning that my sister left at our house before she abandoned the western hemisphere. i now understand why she left it. it smelled awful - like cough medicine mixed with ew. my hands were dry again ten minutes later. i used a different lotion that was definitely not unscented, despite statements on the bottle claiming otherwise. now my hands smell like cough medicine, ew, and new car. soap hasn't really helped.

also, i am on the hunt for music to really fall in love with. it has been a while since i found a song to listen to on repeat for hours. i have found some good music, yes, but nothing that i really fell in love with deep down in my soul. suggestions of your all-time favorite songs are welcome. and your current favorite songs. and that song that might become a favorite if you just listen to it one more time. help me out, people.

*Ask Me Anything - The Strokes

i'm a waste of breath, of space, of time

"Shall I tell you a story? A new and terrible one? A ghost story? Are you ready? Shall I begin? Once upon a time there were four girls. One was pretty. One was clever. One charming, and another one was mysterious. But they were all damaged, you see. Something not right about the lot of them. Bad blood. Big dreams. Oh, I left that part out. Sorry, that should have come before. They were all dreamers, these girls.

One by one, night after night, the girls came together. And they sinned. Do you know what that sin was? Their sin was that they believed. Believed they could be different. Special. They believed they could change what they were - damaged, unloved. Cast-off things. They would be alive, adored, needed. Necessary. But it wasn't true. This is a ghost story, remember? A tragedy.

They were misled. Betrayed by their own stupid hopes. Things couldn't be different for them, because they weren't special after all. So life took them, led them, and they went along, you see? They faded before their own eyes, till they were nothing more than living ghosts, haunting each other with what could be. What can't be.

There, now. Isn't that the scariest story you've ever heard?"

~Felicity's scary story, A Great and Terrible Beauty, pg 313-15, Libba Bray

i was reading this book (i could have sworn that i read it before from the title but couldn't remember it and while reading it again there are a few points that jog my memory but enough that doesn't to make it feel like i'm reading it for the first time) and this part jumped out at me, so obviously i copied it into my blog. i took out all the interruptions and stuff so it's not exactly how it was written, but whatever. the last paragraph is one of my greatest fears i think. 

it also brings to mind this part of bright eyes' song, waste of paint:

I just sit and watch the people there. 

And they remind me of wind up cars in motion.

The way they spin and turn and jockey for positions.

And I want to scream out that it all is nonsense.

All your life's one track, can't you see it's pointless?

But then, my knees give under me. 

My head feels weak 

and suddenly 

it is clear to see that it is not them but me, 

who has lost my self-identity.

As I hide behind these books I read, 

while scribbling my poetry,

like art could save a wretch like me, 

with some ideal ideology 

that no one can hope to achieve.

And I am never real; it's just a sketch of me.

And everything I made is trite and cheap and a waste 

of paint, of tape, of time.

*Waste of Paint - Bright Eyes

it's so beautiful, our lunacy

have you ever watched iCarly? if you have, you might know that one of the segments on their show is random dancing where, yes, they randomly dance. we (my siblings still living in the house) and i remind me of them because we will have random dance parties. like tonight. all four of us were sitting on computers in my room doing our own stuff (or i was doing my own stuff and they were all playing club penguin. yes, you can mock them or at least my sister) and being complete lazy bums when my sister suddenly says "dance party!" so of course we turn off three of the computers and all the lights, close the curtains and door, turn on our disco ball thing (one of those spinning lights with all the colors), blast the music, and have a dance party.

one of the best things about our dance parties are the things my brothers do later. for example, ali (the one obsessed with parsley) comes home after school the day after one of our previous dance parties and tells me, "i almost got in trouble today."

me: uh oh. what did you do now?

him: i told the teacher *attitudey voice* we are not what you think we are. *face lights up with a cheesy smile and draws a rainbow in the air with his hands* we are golden. we. are. golden.

me: *laughs* what did she say?

him: there was nothing she could say. she just stared at me then laughed and told me not to interrupt.

*Disconnect the Dots - Of Montreal

i don't wanna be friends

okay, so though i know that a lot of your probably like her, i just have to say that i cannot stand lady gaga. i hate her. when she first came out and everyone started obsessing over her i was very meh about her: didnt like her, didnt hate her. as time went on, she began to grate on my nerves more and more. and now, now i would like nothing more than to just erase her from the book of my life. most of her songs are obnoxious and stick in your head for days after you hear them. and not in a good way either. i went into that a bit in this old post. i just realized, though, a couple days ago that all of her songs may actually not be that bad when i heard a cover of one and actually liked it. so i guess she's just my biggest problem.

and i am sorry, her style is not creative or expressive or genius. it is slutty and ridiculous. i mean ninety percent of the time she's not even wearing pants! it's like she sits in her room and tries to think up the most ridiculous, stupidest thing she can, and then wears it. i am so sick of hearing how putting soda cans in her hair was genius and legendary and whatnot. it wasnt. at all.

what brought on this wave of gaga hate? i try not to listen to her if i can avoid it, because i mean, why torture myself, right? yesterday when i was driving home, four out of the six radio stations i have saved were playing her songs. the other two were giving traffic reports or talking about something or other that i wasnt interested in. but yeah, she is taking over my radio and i dont like it. i cannot wait for her fifteen minutes of fame to finish already.

*Bad Romance - Lady Gaga

you tryin' to be cool. you look like a fool to me

i was listening to my ipod the other day and a song came up that i havent heard in a few years because i usually skip it. so i listen to it and suddenly realize that the lyrics are so bad it makes me want to go to the singer and punch her in the face. this got me thinking about a bunch of other songs that have lyrics in them that make me cringe. (mind you, i like some of these songs, but that doesnt change anything.) so without further ado, here are some of my most hated lyrics from my itunes, radio, or family member's songs.

She gets the top bunk, I'm sleeping on the floor.

Girl Next Door - Saving Jane

okay, this one has always killed me. the whole point of bunk beds is that there are two beds: one on the top and one on the bottom. so if she takes the top bunk why the hell don't you sleep on the bottom one? why would you sleep on the floor? that doesnt even make any sense. you know, maybe the reason people like her more than you isnt because she's a pretty, popular cheerleader. maybe it's because you are a moron.

Cause I'm gonna shout it out to everyone I meet.

If You See Kay - The Script

i love to meet new people. what i love even more is when i first meet someone for them to start droning on about their ex who i have most likely never met. i mean, really, could you think of any better way to start a friendship? the very best though is when they move on from just talking about said ex to shouting about her to me. shouts that you won't take her leaving you as a defeat will definitely make me wanna stick around and talk to you more... uh, i think i might know why she left you.

I just wanna write you in a song/ Put your smile on paper so you can sing along/ I just wanna bottle the sun/ Keep your light a secret I can find when you are gone

You in a Song - Jason Reeves

this entire song is just one bad lyric after another. none of it makes sense, meanings seem to be contradicting, and it's just overall awful. (i happen to like this song for some reason, though.) first of all, "so" typically means then, for that reason, subsequently. i, for one, see no connection between putting my smile on paper and my ability to sing along. I have successfully managed to sing along to tons of songs that had nothing to do with me or my smile. and then, you said you wanted to bottle the sun. what does that have to do with keeping her light a secret? unless she is the sun, in which case i dont think she's had a smile since we graduated from third grade. if it were me, i'd be gone as soon as you started spewing this nonsense.

you taste like honey, honey. tell me can i be your honey?

Disease - Matchbox 20

whenever my sister listens to this song, i feel the need to go back in time with my red pen and scribble out all of those honey's when rob thomas first thought up those genius lyrics. and then fail him for being stupid and the rest of the band for going along with it. repeating the same word three times in two sentences does not make you cool or witty. it just emphasizes the fact that you have the vocabulary of a mime.

I'll never let your head hit the bed without my hand behind it

Your Body is a Wonderland - John Mayer

ignoring the fact that earlier in this song he says "bubblegum tongue," i think this is the worst line in this song. i'm sorry, do i look like i can't freaking lay down by myself? will i hurt myself as i fall onto a pillow? or do you think i'll get lost and your hand is there to guide me? do you know how uncomfortable it is to sleep on someone's hand? every. single. time. gah.

There were plants and birds and rocks and things.

A Horse with No Name - America

my cousin who was obsessed with this song for a while doesnt have the best english, so he's excused. but for the rest of the world, how could you listen to a song where the songwriter got bored halfway through a sentence and ended it with "and things." i mean, you are talking about a desert. go to any first grader off the street and they'll be able to give you ten more things besides plants and birds and rocks that you could have seen. i mean, go with the obvious. how about sand? but i mean, the have a lot of la la las in the song, too, so maybe they should just go hang out with matchbox 20 and pretend to be trapped in a box. or better yet, really get trapped in a box.

Coast to coast, L.A. to Chicago

Smooth Operator - Sade

okay, sade. go to a map. look for chicago. you see all that land on the other side of it? yeah, that means that it is not on the coast. oh, and i hate your name, too.

I drew a line for you/ Oh, what a thing to do/ And it was all yellow.

Yellow - Coldplay

um, this may just be me, but if someone is trying to do something for me, it better be more than drawing a stupid line. i dont care what color it is. if by "oh what a thing to do" you mean, "what an idiotic thing to do," then i think we are on the same page here.

Sadness is beautiful loneliness that's tragical.

Shape of my Heart - Backstreet Boys

you know those people who speak just to hear themselves talk? and the worst type of those people - the ones that string a bunch of big words together to try and sound smart? yeah, the backstreet boys must have hired a dumbed down version of him to write their lyrics. forced poetical crap does not sound smart. and tragical is not a word, as chrome is nice enough to point out.

okay, so i am now tired of this, but if you have any lyrics you love to hate, then put them in the comments.

*Complicated - Avril Lavigne

whatever will be will be

i am usually like this. the future will come and i have no idea what it will bring, probably a lot more of the same, so i go with the flow. there's no reason to worry about anything because there are so many outside factors that affect every little thing that your worrying/caring/planning/whatever does little to the overall outcome. to quote eloise hawkings, "whatever happens, happens." i have little control over what will happen in the grand scheme of things and that was always okay. i'm starting to want some control though. or at least an illusion of control i can pretend with. hmm maybe i'm going to start my quarter life crisis a little early.

*Que Sera Sera - Doris Day

i just wanna write you in a song

i dont know what exactly it is about this song (lyrics are a little too much like one of those poems being forced to rhyme to be my normal style), but it's been on repeat all morning. it reminds me of living in santa cruz for some strange reason. i think the weather and birds outside my window add to the feeling.

*You in a Song - Jason Reeves