Favorite song of the day: New Order "Brutal"
Eating: Arby's
Watching: Reno 911



A while back, I finally bought Stephen King's Desperation and The Regulators(technically by Richard Bachman, but that's just King's alt.). Remembering all the things that affected me so powerfully about this book, most of all, King's language that really sweeps you up in the action. And the characters are all so multi-dimensional and real, I don't doubt for a second that I'm reading the thoughts of real people - yes, I know it's fiction. My favorite character in both books would have to be Tak, which is odd to say because he's the bad guy in both of them, but by "favorite" I don't mean that he's admirable or anything. He's just so engaging and completely eerie the things he does and the way he affects people - it's very powerful and I can't help being struck with fear while reading. Then again, I'm a big wuss, so...

I actually checked both Desperation and The Regulators out of the library several years ago and read them and loved them then but I never bought them. Then I got a gift card for Barnes & Noble for my birthday and then had Rudy reference the movie in the role-play(it just sorta happened; I wanted to give him a pop culture reference at that part in the role-play and Desperation was what came to mind, lol) and it made me remember the books. So, I finally ended up getting them. ^^

I watched The Beach recently. I saw it a long time ago but had forgotten a lot about it. I'm not/wasn't too fond of Leonardo DiCaprio - my aunt, Emily, who is two years older than me, used to be in love with him back around Titanic and stuff and I always hated it. Hated his haircut in that movie and thought Titanic itself was retarded(still do), and I've always thought Leo has a very smooshed and ugly face. Anyways, that was yeeeeaaars ago and I think she was actually the one who showed me The Beach the first time and I was unimpressed.

TOTALLY changed my view upon rewatching it just a few days ago. OMG! Leonardo DiCaprio is frigging hawt! D8 Especially running around in the jungle all crazy...and shirtless, lol. Gotta love the mentally unbalanced ones, right? His character wasn't particularly likable in that one but that's kinda what I like about him, if that makes any sense.

Then I've gotten into Reno 911 lately and I like it pretty okay. Makes me chuckle a bit and the episodes are short so that's pretty nice. My favorite character is the gay guy with roller skates, Terry. XD He's so cute! And I mean that in the non-physically attractive way, heh. Always gettin' in trouble for whorin' on that one corner. So silly...

I just can't seem to get into the holidays. ANY holidays. This year is probably the first year where I've been completely "meh" about everything. It's been something that has slowly grown ever since I got married - last year, we got a bunch of candy for Halloween at least, visited my in-laws for Thanksgiving and visited in-laws for Christmas dinner. This year, I didn't even get excited about the Halloween store and everytime someone was like "Oooohhh! Let's go there!" I dragged my feet and felt the desire to let my body weight crumple to the ground until they agreed to go back to the car and take me home. Which, if you know me, is EXTREMELY odd. I'm well-known in my family for my extreme love of Halloween and the personification of Death. I just can't get into it anymore.

This year, we didn't even buy candy on the day AFTER Halloween. No candy, no costumes, no Halloween store. No Thanksgiving dinner - we tried to go to Subway that night, but the bastards were closed! Can you believe that??? Psht! And I have no desire to put up a tree, lights or do anything even remotely Christmasy. People keep asking me what I want for Christmas and I just want to punch them all in the face or slap their hand and say, "No!" and shake my finger in their face. Seriously, I don't freaking want anything, okay? I'm not being modest or annoying about it. I really am that simple and I honestly don't care about the whole damn mess.

I'm beginning to form the opinion that holidays - ALL of them - are mostly for children, because that was the only time I ever enjoyed celebrating them. Now I just don't have the patience to deal with that anymore and it all feels very put on and fake. Whenever I see people putting up lights or hear Christmas songs on the radio - I know it's silly - but I groan and think, "Gawd, didn't we do all of this last year?" I do not feel affected by the "meaning" of the holidays either. I cannot get excited about the joy of candy or desire to let loose and dress up as someone else on Halloween anymore. I can't get into being thankful for every godammed thing - including breathing--THANK YOU, JESUS! - and eating boring staples on Thanksgiving. I can't even get excited about the Lord's birthday/Santa Claus and getting/giving presents and spending time with family on Christmas. I simply don't care any more. Not really sure what happened and I'm not even sure if I should be worried or not. Kinda feel lazy about that too - ehhhhh, I'll be worried about it later. *makes a wishy-washy hand movement and sticks my tongue out*

Also, it's been freaking cold and I dislike that. Been trying to work on the TOKoR wiki and it's torture, 1. because that jenk is boring and puts me to sleep and 2. because sitting here scrolling with my mouse and making copy pasta freezes my fingers off. I can't even draw anything lately because I can't feel my hands unless they're plunged within the warmth of my own shirt. One good thing about it, is even though it has snowed, I have not needed to shovel the driveway! I loathe shoveling the driveway in the cold. There has been snow on the ground for almost 2 weeks now - replenishing itself every 2-3 days - and by mid-afternoon, the driveway melts clear all on it's own, while the rest of the snow remains! Woohoo!

Also, I've been smelling smoke/something burning a lot lately. Like, it's a constant odor tucked up in my nostrils and on the roof of my mouth. Sometimes, I'm lying in bed, either in the morning or in the evening and I'll have trouble breathing, like I'm sucking in air through a cloud of smoke so thick I can taste it. I dunno. It's weird.

That's all that's going on lately.

Favorite song: "Hannah Jane" Hootie & the Blowfish
Eating: rice crispie treat
Watching: Reno 911



Tonight was a lot of fun with hubby. Lying in bed talking together, I tried to tell him about the newest Jim Carrey movie "I Love You, Philip Morris". First, I tried to explain Carrey's awful, awful haircut in the trailer - I hate when men have that page-boy slicked back thing; I think it's absolutely hideous. Anyways, Nicholas Cage did it with his hair in Knowing and Next and when I brought up Knowing, Abram thought I was talking about The Happening. Then he cuts in - because he obviously didn't remember Nick Cage's hair or the movie even though we saw it in theaters - and goes off on a tangent about how the next M. Night Shamalamading-dong's movie will be about hair and he'll call it The Curlening. I think we also threw something in there how he, my husband, needs a hair cut but I told him to get a perm and it came out that a perm is when they curl your hair not straighten it - he thought perm was straightening.

Anyways, we said that the movie would star Jim Carrey and in trying to think of someone I like, just to tease me, he added Christian Bale to the cast list. Then later on, we tried to figure out a female lead and we came up with the old woman/witch from Bed Knobs and Broomsticks, lol!

Then, in further trying to explain Philip Morris - after we got all that hair silliness out of the way - I accidentally said Backbroke Mountain as a reference, instead of Brokeback Mountain and we went off on another tangent where we'd make a movie about paraplegics living in a rehab center on the top of a mountain on a cliff face, always in danger of rolling out the doors and falling - resulting in further back injuries. It's gonna be a comedy starring Harrison Ford and Jack Black. XD

Then we had a little contention about the "rehab" part of the rehab center and apparently they're all only staying there until they can walk again. And I was like, "Um, honey, I don't think spinal injuries are things that you can "heal" from. You don't just wait a certain amount of time and then 'get better'" I forget what he said in response to that, but it had me laughing so hard. Then, we tied it all together by making the twist ending in The Curlening would be that everything happening in it was actually happening on Jack Black's head while he's in Backbroke Mountain.

Later on, while we were calming down, we both revealed that every time we said The Curlening, a specific plot did not come to mind. The only thing we both thought of was a still shot of someone's hair with menacing lighting. X3 We're so silly and I love that man. He laughed so hard he actually started making squeaking noises with his mouth and my heart flies. I know it's kinda crazy or weird to get romantic feelings about THAT kinda noise, but it's more the absolute boyish joy and freedom, and passion that is released that I adore. I dunno, it's kinda hard to explain, but I love seeing him smile and I love hearing him laugh.

Earlier tonight, I saw the trailer for Black Swan. Looks like an intense ride and I definitely want to see it. The last part of the trailer where Natalie Portman pulls this little black thing out of her back and looks at it with red, blood shot eyes has me kinda creeped out in that alluring way, you know? Like I want to see it even MORE now after seeing that even though it freaks me out; I like, HAVE to know what it's about.

And it turns out last night was just a miscommunication. My husband explained further that what his dad ACTUALLY said was that he "didn't want to force us to go to church or whatever but that he wished his kids would at least go on Christmas and Easter Sunday." That's all. Still, I'm a little scared that my mother-in-law will come over and bitch slap me and stuff. =/ Beat the Christmas spirit into me... *lamenting wail* No, Jesus! No!

Feeling cagey lately and a mixture of depressed. Not anything to do with the holiday season. Just kinda bored. Not bored enough to wanna do anything with ritualistic Christmas stuff - that's even MORE boring to me. And every time I try and work on the wiki, I only get through a few sentences before I put the thing away and do something else. I need to like, tie myself down to get it done and just finish it. Maybe one of these nights, I'll get some Mt. Dew and take a Vivarin and just shoot through the darn thing. Because it does. It puts me to sleep. Very boring work poring over every post, every sentence and taking out all the pertinent information bit by bit.

I think I'll just take a small break and draw for a little bit. Get my mind off of it and relax and then come back to it ready to tackle the boring. I've got a new idea for a Christmas picture I wanna do. Agency Christmas Party. I'll have on one side, Stephanie trying to kiss a very unwilling Jason under the mistletoe. Then on the other side, I'll have Eric with his arm crushing around Benoit in a "buddy hug" drinking eggnog or something silly. and then Rudy somewhere in there singing Christmas songs - or possibly even singing Adam Sandler's Chanukah song, lol. 'Cause at the Christmas party, he'd totally do that, even though he's not Jewish or anything, lol. Maybe have Gary opening presents or something, heh.

Favorite song: "Funny" by Treble Charger
Eating: instant rice "Herb and Butter" flavor
Watching: Psych



I've been feeling really upset and sad lately. First, there's this whole holiday mess which I'm still fine not getting excited about. But it's the family aspect... For years, they've been such a big part of me and who I am. In highschool I never went anywhere because socially, I dislike being around people a lot. So, I was most of the time handed the job of babysitter being the eldest of 4 - the next eldest is 8 years younger than me and the youngest is 17 years younger than me.

I loved my job as big sister and after I graduated, I was kinda assaulted by a firmer version of "senioritis" where the apathy extended past graduation. So...I stuck around and didn't do anything for a while. Played with the idea of going to school, but after just finishing that and realizing that in order to get where/what I wanted I'd have to put up with a lot of unspecialized crap, it just felt like "meh" whatever. Besides that, I wasn't/am not even sure what the hell I wanna do with my art anyways.

Comics. Maybe - I'll have to find a good story that I don't burn out on halfway through. Animation. Sure - but it seems a dying form and most is that awful crap you see on TV nowadays; I'd hate to be apart of something that propagates reused cliches and dated stereotypes with nothing really new to the stories because, "hey, the kids can't tell the difference and they liked these jokes the first time around". Annnnnd, I'm not really certain what else is out there that I'd want to do. I do traditional art pretty well, and I do enjoy it...but my first and greatest love is anime and cartoons and comic books.

Anyways, so I just kinda gave up before I got started and "planned" to stay with my parents until they kicked me out or forced me to get serious. So, being an older sister was my job for a while because it was convenient and we lived in the country and it wasn't easy to find a job period, so they didn't push it for a while.

I'll tell you right now, I love those kids something fierce. Each one of them is absolutely beautiful and unique and I adore them to pieces. So much in fact that I kinda took my "job" a bit seriously and obsessed. Going out in public with them, I could not handle it the way my mother could, just roll it off her shoulders and very coolly keep an eye on them all. My anxiety shot through the roof and I was constantly counting heads, frantic to keep the stragglers and ones with short attention spans all together. Out in public without them was worse, hearing them and seeing them out of the corner of my eyes in the faces of stranger's children. I devoted a very large amount of energy and time to thinking of all the terrible things that could happen and it was something that kept me up at night.

Got married and moved out and it's like I never see any of them ever anymore. Even though we live semi-close, it's still quite a ways to make the trip just for a day and I dislike staying overnight - That's not my bed! Where the hell are my things??? I wanna go home--waaaaahhhh!!!

Sometimes, just sitting here doing the same things day in and day out, developing my own routines and whatnot, I can forget what it was like. I become something other than an older sister. But returning and meeting up with them again - like we did this Christmas Day - I can feel myself struggle to fit back into the mold, practically yearning for it and realizing I no longer fit. They're so big now... little adult people... moving and talking in different ways that are kinda the same but so new and exciting and growing!!! And they're strangers and I love them and it's very upsetting...

Especially when I realize all the things I'd been "protecting" them from before, scared to let them go out on their own without me there to watch over them and to realize that they never really needed me at all... Maybe in the earlier times, sure, but my sticking around had always been for my benefit, to give me something to do, to give MY life purpose rather than being conductive to any development they'd go through. Because it'd happen if I was there, regardless.

Seems kinda selfish to think of it that way, but it's not just that I wasn't actually God of their lives, but that I wanted to be a witness to everything - something I enjoyed being a part of every day when we lived together. So, driving away last night feels a bit like I'm leaving a lot behind, like I'm abandoning them all over again, like I'm losing that part of myself too...

I'm probably being really exaggeratedly emo right now just because I really miss them and stuff, but whatever, it's how I feel at this moment and I need to get it out and down and let it go.

And then there's the fact that I can't sleep for some reason, lately. Ever since Wednesday, my nights and naps have been punctuated by a constant tossing and turning, my mind flowing and busy, unable to let me fade into restfulness. Might have to do with sugar consumption, but I haven't been eating a lot so I don't think that's it. Had to take a sleep aid the other night, just to get myself tied down to the bed and I dreamt of Eric from the role-play. I was locked inside a stasis tank and I forget exactly what the situation was but he was going to put me inside of someone else's head - not sure if I was an Agent or if that person had powers or what, but he seemed really happy and excited about the situation.

Then I've been trying to find some art groups on Fetlife to join - something other than Erotic Art because I don't draw a lot of erotica. And looking around the big groups with lots of members and reading the threads that other people have started - thinking of starting my own like "Hey gaiz! Lookit what I drawed! =D" - and it all makes me feel incredibly small. Here are people who do this kind of thing professionally and who are actively involved in the artist community and have been for a while. They know the language, they know the business, they know the worth of their talent and they use it as a job, standing up and making a name for themselves. It only emphasizes 1. my own shiftlessness and lack of desire in being involved in appreciating other people's work because I'm narcissistic and selfish like a child but also 2. the shortcomings of my own technique and talent. I feel like a kid sitting in the corner playing with crayons and calling myself an "artist" or saying "I wanna be an artist when I grows up! =D"

So, I'm just all around feeling depressed, cranky and emo today, rolled in a big ball of self-pity. I will probably take a sleep aid and lay down force-feeding myself sleep because after going to bed at 9:30 last night, and getting up at 11:30 this morning, I've probably gotten 3 full hours at most. The rest of that was spent wandering in my mind, listening to music on and off, and laying this way and then that way and then this way again, etc.

Self-censoring again. I hate getting the urge to post stupid crap and then leaving it up where other people can read it.

Adventures with Pasta!

Alright, so the following is the result of a compromise reached between Abram and I when trying to decide what to have for dinner. He's on a "pasta" kick right now and I've been sick of the stuff for about 6 months and refuse to do the "sauce in a pan, add sausage, add tomato, add peppers" thing. It HAS to involve something new and flavoricious for me to even wanna do it. So, since eggplant is simply not an acknowledgable option for him - something I've been wanting to try for about a year now - we started to try and come up with stuff we could add to make us both happy. This is what we came up with - totally just driving in the car one day throwing out ideas and working it out between us.

Ingredients

3 jars of alfredo sauce(the type that we used had a "roasted red pepper" flavoring)
1 small carton of heavy cream
2 fist sized tomatoes
2 packages of microwaveable bacon
1 package of fettuccine

And basically, it's just an alteration of your regular "add stuff to the normal store-bought pasta sauce" recipe. Meaning, I diced the tomatoes, and cut the bacon strips into chunks before microwaving them(we woulda made fresh but this was quicker) and then stick all of it and the heavy cream into the sauce pan with the sauce, right in the beginning. And then cook it normally. Pretty simple with lots of nice chunks of stuff and flavors but still pretty liquidy so it covers all the pasta(which is how I personally prefer my sauce). We made it with a side of grilled chicken as well.

Anyway, neat little hashed together thing we did and it turned out really well.

I have an odd way of listening to music where I'll "discover" a song(usually by looking up movie soundtracks, seeing what other people have posted online, or clicking "similar" links to videos I watch on Youtube) and then I'll listen to nothing but that song(s) for a week or so, over and over. I'll even sometimes use YouTube repeater and put the song on repeat while I draw or read or do other stuff. And then I'll stop listening to it usually after a week if I haven't discovered something new by then.

Currently, I am in a music cycle that I've been stuck in for almost 2 months. This last Christmas, we got some money and I was tired of listening to a few of my favorite songs online and wanted to have them here at home with me; so I bought some CDs. 4 to be exact. 2 from the band Eisley, Room Noises and Combinations, Harvey Danger's Where Have All The MerryMakers Gone?, and Treble Charger's Wide Awake Bored. This is another thing that I do, because I have not digitalized myself yet and I still buy CDs, but I'll often buy albums by bands where I only like one song on the whole track. Usually, though, I like the song and the band enough, that I'll pop the CD in and I'll let it run while I'm reading and drawing and I'll find other songs of theirs that I like. Usually. Sometimes it doesn't work and that one song becomes the only thing I like by them.

So, the specific songs that I liked were "Brightly Wound" and "Invasion" by Eisley, "Flagpole Sitta" by Harvey Danger and "Brand New Low" by Treble Charger. When I first popped the CDs in, it was while drawing and I HATED almost everything else by Harvey Danger and Treble Charger on the first listen-through. Then I tried again while reading - which, ends up putting a CD through a few rounds, for a few hours of reading - and discovered that I actually DO like other songs by both bands on those two CDs by them. Also, around this time, I did the same thing with Chumbawamba's Un CD and found I liked a lot of their songs on it but "Everything You Know Is Wrong" became my ultimate favorite/obsession.

Like I said, I got these CDs and started listening to and liking them back in December of this last year. And I haven't moved on. I can't move on. It's an odd thing having more than one song/group on the playlist, because any time I get tired of the kind of soft punk and male voices of either Harvey Danger or Treble Charger, I get the yearning for the slow moving, folksy angelic female voices of Eisley. And then repeat when I get tired of them, back into the arms of the other two boy/male-centric bands. And amidst ALL of them is Chumbawamba's song "Everything You Know Is Wrong" which gets a listen in between cycles through the other groups, at least a dozen times in one sitting.

It's gotten to the point where I'm no longer worried of whether I'll get tired of these or not and have fully given in to the music. Eisley's CD Room Noises is a favorite while drawing and reading and I love EVERY song on that CD. Combinations and Where Have All The MerryMakers Gone? I only like "Invasion", "Taking Control", "Go Away"(for Eisley) and "Flagpole Sitta", "Jack the Lion" and "Old Hat"(for Harvey Danger). Treble Charger's Wide Awake Bored is my ultimate favorite. I not only love every song on that CD and love just sitting and listening through it, but it's also my chore music; I cannot listen to anything else while I'm washing dishes or cleaning the house. It HAS to be that CD.

I love all the songs on that CD, not only for the beat and the vocals(which is about 70-80% for me when it comes to music; I can put up with the most awful lyrics if the beat and vocals are aesthetically pleasing enough) but I adore the lyrics to all of the songs on this album. I've been able to somewhat reason out that the tone/focus of the album is a relationship either several that they(one or more of the band members) has had or just one girl in particular(I'm not certain who writes the songs and what the history behind the songs are). But I'm particularly moved by the lyrics and overall tone of their songs and for clarity, I'll give a brief analysis of a couple of their songs, so you can understand what I'm talking about(for anyone else who may be reading me talking to myself).

First, from the song "Wear Me Down":

I'm not here to save you
Watch your back
Or rearrange you
And nothing ever changes
You're still cynical and dangerous
I don't know
Even so
I wouldn't take on you
Oh no

And I don't know how
You can wear me down
In the blink of an eye
If I could just hold my ground
Even half of the time

There's just something completely honest and sensitive about this section of lyrics that touches my heart. Like the guy is confused by this girl, what she wants and the turmoils of their relationship and is completely exhausted in trying to figure her out. There's a humility in admitting that, and a certain degree of sympathy and strength of character that he's not willing to lose himself completely to whatever game she's trying to play with him - he's fully acknowledged his weakness in not understanding her, but realizes that there's only so much he can do and she's a puzzle he can't deal with. Maybe it's not what it really means, but it's what I, personally, hear and I'm fond of the man-boy honesty of it - scared and wary, but knowing when to step back despite whatever emotional attachments he may have to her.

In this way, the whole album seems to me, to be a soundtrack for Stephanie and Jason's relationship in TOKoR. Again, I might be making incorrect assumptions based on how I read/interpret not only the lyrics of these songs, but also of the relationship between the two role-play characters. It's understandable that I would have some blindspots because I cannot see fully into Tartra's head and thus Jason's and can only base my opinions on what I see of his behavior in the role-play.

Songs that in particular remind me of them:

"Business"

Someone tell me what went wrong
Am I still getting dragged along
I've got the scars to prove it
You say you're happy and content
But every fight's the main event
And now I'm in the corner spitting blood and spent

But everytime I listen
I get your words stuck in my head
And I don't think I see things
Quite the same as you would want me to
Cause I can't be that cruel

This one reminds me of the scene from the role-play where they're in the jet bathroom together - even without the J&S meaning attached, my favorite lyrics are "I'm in the corner spitting blood and spent" just purely for the visuals <3 - particularly for the violence of the encounter and the way she just sort of leaves him in there afterward. And the last lyrics where he says he can't see the things the same way because he's not as cruel as she is.

"Funny":

Take your time to figure out
It's not that plain to see
And if you need
Someone to blame
Then you can blame it all on me
It's not the time you picked to tell me
It's more the way you want to show me
And that's all fine

It's not funny
We're not laughing like we did before
And it's not funny
It's just hurting
More and more

This one reminds me of when they're arriving to the Charlton base and Jason is about to officially lose his suit and he panics. He's fine with her blaming him for the failures of their case and describing the particular timing of the "relationship" that she's thrust upon him. At first, he was also tolerating being the brunt of everyone's joke when it came to her attentions, but now that it's actually ruining his life, he's not willing to put up with it anymore - it's actually hurting him now.

"Favorite Worst Enemy"

Senses over blowin'
You're never coming, you're going
It's driving me crazy
Knowing what's good for you
And i'm longing for the lazy days
But those were never good enough, never good enough

'Cause there's something about you
But I can't put my finger on it
So hard to forget you
You're my favorite worst enemy

And this one reminds me of how he's given her advice at different points during the role-play - about the drugs at the airport, in the car at Charlton base, and other times where he's stepped in and shown concern for her. And yet she and everyone around him seems intent on ignoring what she's emotionally going through, blindly pushing through to the end goal of capturing and transferring into Gwendolyn Stewart despite how she's falling apart in the process. He wishes the case were easy, the way it was supposed to be in the beginning, but now he's more emotionally involved with her welfare than he wanted to be.

I dunno. Just my thoughts about it. ^^