Merry Almost Christmas

So, I'm sitting here in my basement. In about 40 minutes, it will be Christmas and I will be 17 years old. Every year, what a strange feeling. The feeling that I should feel different, but I really don't. Like, I'm thoughtful about it, and I'm aware of it, but I'm just sitting here in my basement, like any other night, listening to my brand new Arcade Fire CD, and if I just didn't think about it, nothing would be different. I've felt 17 for a few weeks. That's really how it always is, especially because 17 isn't any big landmark. I can go to R rated movies by myself. Yippee! Christmas was much more exciting when I was little, and it was all about the presents, and that was okay, because I was little. Now I am older, so I am not allowed to be as focused on presents, which is fine, because the presents aren't as exciting now that I am older and also now that my grandparents aren't able to do as much shopping. Present wise, nothing will ever top the year when my grandparents stood in line to get my brother and me a Wii, and we both got DSs and that might have also been the year I got a digital camera for my birthday... Or was that the portable DVD player with the awful battery life? But this Christmas has been really great. I don't know. I'm still too young to only be about family and stuff. In 35 minutes it will be Christmas and my birthday. I will wake up, it will be exciting, and before I know it, it will be over. That's the way it always is. No, that's depressing. What am I even trying to say here? I like Christmas. I like the feeling driving home from my grandparent's house, listening to the Current play the biggest variety of Christmas music I've ever heard, looking at lights. I don't know...

I'm sitting here in my basement.  Soon it will be Christmas, and soon it will be my birthday, and that is exactly how I feel. 

Christmas Eve always makes me think of the song from A Year with Frog and Toad: "Merry Almost Christmas, Happy Almost New Year" There are a lot of other really nice lyrics too, but that pretty much sums it up.   

Here I am. 11:30 on Christmas Eve.  I should go to bed before too long, or else Santa won't come, and I won't want to wake up in the morning. (yeah... right...) But not before midnight. I'll sit here, staring at this screen, and ponder. But probably not. I'll probably just listen to more Arcade Fire, maybe watch some youtube videos, but mostly just wait. I don't know. When I started typing this I expected it to be shorter and less rambly... How silly of me. 

Well, here I am. Now what?

I am confused. also fangirly.

What's this?! Another blog post? Unheard of!

So, it has come to my attention, (due to my new found frequent use and refreshing of my gmail) that I have 6 subscribers on youtube. Only 2 of them are people I know. I don't understand.

But the main purpose if this post is for me to puzzle out my feelings about becoming a fan of things. (Not just the obsolete facebook version, but like real life interests.) When I become fans of things I usually start after the thing has started. Like for a TV Show, I'll start watching from the beginning when it's a few seasons in. Or like I started watching a lot of youtubers a few months ago, and they had all had communities around them for years. And that makes me feel like if I consier myself a fan of the thing, I'm in some weird way cheating the people who have been fans from the beginning. Especially because if I like something, I am HARDCORE about it. I can make references out of nowhere, and I'm currently doing quite well on my quest to watch all vlogbrothers videos. I can comb the internet for info and interviews and articles on things. When I got caught up on Doctor Who I was excited that I could now freely browse the internet searching for DW things. 

I'm trying to determine why I feel this way. Most times my interests are such that previous fans of the show are completely unaware of my existence just as they were before. And when I start something that a friend had been interested in previously, they usually seem fine with it, sometimes happy to have someone to talk to about it and make references. I know I like having to talk to people about things, and I sure like to make references. When I discovered that Elizabeth (hi) watched White Collar, I didn't think that she was infringing on my fan-ness, I was excited to have someone to talk to about it. I tried to get someone to watch Burn Notice so I could talk to them about it. 

However, there are times when I feel like I will feel like someone is infringing on my fan-ness, or stealing my "thing" although thinking about it, it is generally limited to one person and I think I might have some idea why, but I'm not going to talk about it here on the off chance that she reads this. I made this post to talk about it and try to figure it out, but then I got here and realized that there's really nothing stopping the person from reading this one day, so I guess I'll just leave it as it is. Sorry. I think I was able to still say some things in the top part. If you have any kind of burning curiosity just talk to me and I can tell you about it.

Song of the Moment: Exploding People, by Cloud Cult

Quote of the moment: "You can't feel alone if it's all you've ever known."

-Hank Green, A Song about Anglerfish.

Not Whining: Cloud Cult and HP7

So, I haven't written a blog in a while, because I haven't really had anything to say, and I'm sure Elizabeth is the only one who reads these (Hi), and if there was something I wanted to talk about it I figured I should save it for a vlog. But I don't feel like doing that tonight, and I was looking over all my old posts and for the msot part they are all very whiny, so I wanted to have some sort of update on my life that wasn't whiny and annoying. So I'm going to talk about my amazing night last night when I went to a Cloud Cult concert and then the midnight showing of Harry Potter 7. 

The Cloud Cult concert was AMAZING. I had forgotten how much I liked them, and they have an awesome, spectacular live show. Not only was the music amazing, they had people on stage painting on these big spinning canvases during the show and the music was amazing. I bought two of their albums, because they were a decent deal, and I would have bought at least one anyway and now I don't have to pay shipping. I had one of their albums already, but I stole it from my brother, and I think it was one of their older ones, because when they played songs from it I got really excited but not as many people seemed to know them. But it was great.

Harry Potter 7 was also great. It wasn't amazingly perfect, but as the movies go, it was good. For the most part it was quite true to the book. It moved fast, but there is an outrageous amount of stuff that happens in that book, it was kind of neccesary. I can't imagine what it would have been like in a single movie. I also noticed many parts where they didn't really explain things, or they just briefly mentioned them. It seemed much more dependent on people having read the books than the previous movies. (I look forward to seeing it again with my brother, who never made it past book 4) I also kept pointing out little inconsistencies in my head. (Technically, she modifies her parent's memories, she doesn't erase them. Actually, they apparate back to Grimmauld Place. etc...) But I also got nice little moments like haha, Scrimgeour, you're about to get dead. But along with that I knew exactly what was going to happen to Hedwig and Dobby. :'( The other really annoying thing is that they didn't really have full consistency between night and day. Like, there's the whole Silver Doe scene, at night, Ron returns, they destroy the Horcrux, but then when they get back to the tent to meet Hermione, it's daytime. um.... Yeah. So I wished they could have spent more time on pretty much everything, although I realize that not everyone would sit with me through a 5 hour movie. A lot of people would, but not everyone. However, I probably would have fallen asleep, seeing as came a little close as it was during a few parts. But as a whole, it was good and true to the books, assuming you've read them, and are still fairly familiar with the plot. And one other little thing that bothered me is the great line Kingsley's patronus says (at least they had something) in the book it is: THE MINISTRY HAS FALLEN. SCRIMGEOUR IS DEAD. THEY ARE COMING. in the movie they say THE MINISTER OF MAGIC IS DEAD. or it might have just been "the minister". either way it doesn't sound as good. I realize that not everyone knows who Scrimgeour is, but still. this is really long and I'm sure I could say more, but I am going to summarize and be done: It was a good movie, faithful to the books and it probably would have been even more amazing to someone who is a little more casual of a HP fan than me. But not too casual, because then they wouldn't follow what's going on.

Rambles about Music

So, it seems like everyone has at least one thing that's like their interest. And for a while I was hardcore into film and TV, and I'm still kind of, but less so. And I've realized that I'm really into music. I love to listen to music and to play music and to sing. I love the way music can make you feel, happy, sad, excited. I love music in cinematic settings and just as music. It can set the mood for anything. There are so many times when my life story can be told through song lyrics. 

The only problem is, I don't know how to be into music. I like to listen to it, and a lot of times I will characterize it by what it would look like in a cinematic setting, like what kind of scene this song would be in if it were in a movie. (I sometimes do this with places, too. Does everything lead back to film? maybe I should have joined yfp...) I've been compiling a mental list of albums that I want to buy and there are so many great bands in the world. (Why does pop music suck so much?) But what else does a person do? As much as I love music, and as much as I would love to be good at it, I am TERRIBLE at performing. I can't sing, I'm bad at guitar and piano and drums and all the other instruments. As much as I'd love to, I really can't see myself as a performer. Well, that's a lie. I can see myself, but I don't know how realistic it is. Sometimes I can sing average, sometimes it's terrible. I wonder, if I keep doing the youtube thing, if I would ever have the courage to upload a song. I wish Central had more periods in a day and I could take choir, just to see what happened, even though women's choir already has SO many people in it. I wish there was someone who I trusted enough to the point where, if I wrote a song or wanted to sing a song or something, I could do it for them and know that they would be completely honest and tell me if I was terrible (which I think would be the most likely outcome) or if I tried to write a song, they could help me figure out any music I stole from somewhere, because it seems almost guaranteed that if I (or most people for that matter) tried to write a song, some of it would be ripped off from somewhere because so much music is loaded into our subconscious. 

I'm basically a musician without the talent. Music inspires me and I'd really love to write songs and play music. I've already got a tentative title for my debut album, The Other Side of Town, and now Elizabeth and I have our band name, Reckless Abandon. :) I like it. 

This has been another really long post, but I think this time it was a little more cohesive and I feel like I might have actually got some coherent thoughts across. 

Bye

Songs of the Moment:

"Creep" and "Believe in Yourself" as performed by Sons of Admirals

"Don't Look Back" and "I Hate Mario Kart Wii" by Alex Day

like I said, I like music.

Quote of the Moment:

The entire lyrics of all 4 songs of the moment.

*cough* http://www.youtube.com/user/aburger9009 *cough*

The epic adventure of how I hopped a barbed wire fence while being chased by a mountain lion

So, today I'm going to take a break from all that teenage angst crap and tell you a story. But first, a teensy bit of background: I noticed the other day that the scar on my hand was almost completely faded. This made me sad, because I like my scars. When I was younger I always wished I had some scars and I was happy when I finally got a couple, even though the process of getting them was very unpleasant. But those aren't the scars I'm going to talk about today, and that's not even really the reason I'm a bit sad about the fading of this one. It's because the scar is a reminder of how I got the scar, and that is a story. It's not a particularly special or exciting story, but it's still a story. When I noticed I could barely see the scar, it occurred to me that the story could soon be forgotten. How horrible, I thought, I should write it down. -And then do what with it. -*gasp* I should blog about it. And that brings me to where we are now. This looks like it might get to be another really long post, sorry. Maybe I'll make the font smaller. So here is my story:

I went to a family camp in the black hills last summer called Outlaw Ranch. One of the things my age group did one morning was hike to Outlaw Mountain. Not everyone in my group went, but most or all of the guys did. and I did. I was the only girl from the age group, but this doesn't seem to be overly unusual in my life. I wanted to hike up a mountain. And it was a tough hike, it was really steep and pretty long and there were tree branches literally everywhere. EVERYWHERE all over the ground. My legs got all scratched up. Sometime on the way to the top, I noticed that there was a nice red scratch on my hand. It didn't really hurt and it wasn't really bleeding, so I didn't realize until I glanced down at my hand. I figured I had scratched it on a tree branch, but later, I decided that I had probably scratched myself hopping over the short little barbed wire fence on the way. 

We were a little late coming back for lunch, so we decided to make up a story about how we got attacked by a mountain lion, and it scratched me, but then this kid in my group named Jay knocked it out with his water bottle and we ran off before it woke up. That was the story that I was going to tell people if they asked about the scar, until I realized that hopping a barbed wire fence sounded almost as badass as fighting off a mountain lion, and it was more realistic, because it actually happened. Then I decided I should say I hopped a barbed wire fence while being chased by a mountain lion. 

That's really all I have to say. It was pretty long. sorry.

Quote of the moment: "Are you a battlement?" -some really dumb chick on amazing race

"Hi, I'm Tom from Australia" -Tom from Australia aka frezned

Life Issues and TV News

So, today I was at callbacks for my schools musical, and of course, everyone there was really talented and confident and have things they're proud of and stuff, and I am NOT those things so naturally I became a bit depressed so I went and took a walk. It was raining out, which probably didn't help my mood, but it was still a really nice walk. I came back a while later and I was all wet and thinking about stuff, and a couple people asked me if I was okay, and I said I was, even though I wasn't really sure. So, basically it's like the terrible pointless feeling that I talked about in the previous post, except loads worse, because now I have the stress and so much less free time from school, and I was surrounded by all these people and I am a co stage-manager, which really isn't important, at least not for a couple months, and I interviewed to be assistant director, which was fairly disappointing for me last spring, along with the fact that I didn't get back on drama board, which really isn't that big of a deal, but it bothered me, and it still bothers me from time to time, but that's just because I'm a freak who can't let anything go, but anyway, I'm mostly over all of that, but not completely. Basically, my life is pointless and I don't have any talents or things like that and a lot of times I feel like I don't have people who I can talk to, because out of my friend group, there are two people who I would say I am the closest too, and they are best friends with each other, which makes things awkward for me.

ANYWAYS, yeah, sort of also in line with what I was talking about last post, I kind of want to start a vlog, and I tried to film one once, but it was dumb, so I stopped. I'm also thinking about doing nanowrimomo, if I find myself any spare time...

So, in TV News... (contains very minor spoilers regarding Chuck and Psych, mostly contained in the little blurb where I talk about Psych)

The new season of Chuck looks really good. I was geeking out all over the premiere episode. Also, next weeks episode has a Jeremy Messersmith song in it, which is exciting, because there are few things that I love more than when spy action comedies mix with good local music.

Survivor is on Wednesday, which annoys me immensly, and also means that I haven't been able to watch the first two episodes. 

The White Collar finale was mindblowing to anyone who had been watching the series for more than two weeks.

I finally got around to watching the mid-season finale of Psych, which was good, though as great as the developing relationship between Shawn and Jules is, I wonder how it is going to work out in terms of plot. I think thay should just hurry up and make babies, like Chuck's sister. 

I haven't seen the new Glee. I have a kind of like - hate relationship with Glee. On the one hand, it's cute and funny and has catchy music. On the other hand, it's really stupid and horribly unrealistic. And the expository style with the people's voice over bothers me. Get some real story-telling and character development, stupid writers. 

30 Rock and Community were both really funny. The Office was so-so again.

So, this post is really really really long and I don't feel like I've said very much so I should probably stop.  This post is a little bit weird, because Elizabeth is probably the only one who will ever read this, so Elizabeth, just know that when I was writing this I wasn't thinking about that, I was just writing stuff, and you happen to be the only person subscribed to my blog at this time. Also, hello. 

Bye

Song of the Moment: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzR-qAEtAyU

Youtube Video of Forever: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aD6edNdwWgU

Quote of the Moment: "If someone says, "...that's what she said." I respond, "...to her friend, who was also a slut."" -Nathan Fillion

Looking for Something

Hello, my non-existent blog readers!   

For the past week or so, I've been trying to think of something to do. Not just on a day to day, hour to hour basis. What I really need is some kind of project that I can do so I feel like I'm accomplishing something with my life.

I realize that I'm just a high school student and no one expects any thing from me, and in a week, I'll be back at school and the void will probably be filled or at least pushed aside by homework and everything that comes with that.  

I still wish I had something that I could at least imagine that I would do. Last year, I really wanted to produce a web series or at least a video or something, but that didn't happen, because I didn't have the time, inspiration or resources. I still don't.  

I suppose I still need to try something. Come up with some story idea that is simple enough that I can film it and edit it together and see what happens. Maybe I need to just start writing. writing anything. I've been watching a lot of youtube and it's making me want to start a vlog, but no one would watch it, and I would probably have nothing to say.  

I guess I just really need to try things and see if anything fits. Find something that I enjoy, I care about, I'm good at, because there isn't really anything right now. What I need to do is just do stuff, instead of writing rambly, not overly coherent blog posts that no one will read. 

But I needed to get my thoughts organized, or at least have them out there in the world.   

Before I can do anything I need to go buy an external hard drive, because my computer's memory has been nearly full all summer. I wish I had a laptop, but that won't happen anytime soon... sigh.    

Well, non existent blog readers, until next time!   

Quote(s) of the Moment:  

"Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!" -Wash, Firefly 

"Nothing ever doesn't change, but nothing changes much." -OK Go, White Knuckles

Blog...

So, several months ago, I decided I wanted to create a blog. Today, I decided to actually post something. I don't know what, and I doubt many people if anyone will actually read it, but I don't know, I want a place to write about stuff and maybe my friends or anyone internet creeping on me will read it.

But anyway, this is a blog, where I shall talk about my life and probably comment on TV shows that I watch if they are interesting and I need to share something with the imaginary people reading this blog (I'll try to post spoiler warnings where appropriate) then I'll write stuff. 

So, essentially the point of this first blog post is: I'm writing a blog about stuff. And I ramble a lot. 

There will be a lot of nerdy stuff and a lot of incoherence, and a lot of I don't even know what. It's possible that I'll never actually post again, or I'll post very occasionally and then forget about it for extended periods of time. 

This post is already exceedingly long and rather pointless, so I think I'll just stop now, and try to create better, more coherent blog posts in the future.