Pool party

It was a surprise birthday party for two family members: my Tia Cecilia and my cousin Francisco. The pool is pretty but very cold, so I decided to not go in.

And like every family function I find my self inside, alone, and reading. There really isn't much I to talk to my family about so conversations end quickly and I'm left sitting and eating chips with nothing else to do. And that's usually when I end up opening my book, or in this case, turning on my nook.

And of course, the longer I stay in here, the more awkward it will be when I finally emerge and the entire family will spend, quite literally, hours exclaiming about where I've been, and how come I'm not in the pool, and have I eaten yet...

And that's why I'm blogging in the living room instead of out by the freezing cold pool.

Great Rewatches

Hey guys!

So I've been going back and forth with the idea of a rewatch. I did quite a bit of Doctor Who but as soon as I got to season 4 it got hard. The next episode is Turn Left and I can't get myself to press play. I love Donna and I love The Doctor, but I especially love them together and I absolutely believe that their friendship is the reason the ten became my Doctor despite meeting nine first.

So not ready to say goodbye again I turned to the other 2 fandoms I wanted to rewatch: Harry Potter and Smallville. I have the same problem with both that I did with Doctor Who: I'm not ready to say goodbye. Despite the fact that I had 10 wonderful years with both I still didn't want either of them to leave. I've only seen HP 7 1+2 only once each: midnight showings opening day, and Smallville Seasons 8,9, and 10 have been bought but still unwatched. I mean, I saw the episodes weekly but when the seasons were released on DVD I usually automatically do a rewatch but I hadn't for those seasons despite being absolutely fantastic. But since I had already marathoned How I Met Your Mother I needed to suck it up and watch something. So I ended up with smallville. Since I've rewatched season 1 so many times and my firend Ashlyn has my season 2 (also rewatched countless times) I decided to start on Season 3. It's fun to see Lex again, and the Magnificent Bastard the Lionel Luthor was back then. Lana isn't nearly as annoying as she later became, and seeing Pete "The Boss" Ross was just weird. And, of course, I love, absolutely Love Chloe, and seeing Jonathan and Martha again just brings a smile to my face even though I keep flashing forward to season 5, especially after Jonathan's heart attack.

I know eventually I'll have to suck it up and say goodbye to 10 and deal with all those deaths in Harry Potter. But right now, I'm just happy seeing Clark Kent, little by little, adventure after adventure, become the Man of Tomorrow again.

Postcrossing Update

So I've been doing this postcard thing. Its from this site http://www.postcrossing.com where the idea is you send postcards to random people from around the world and in return you receive postcards from other randome people from different places around the world. I like this site cause, as readers of this blog know, I'm not a constant enough person to penpal back and forth to a single person for very long. With postcrossong, I say a little with words, but more with pictures. I love seeing the different postcards from around the world, all these places I will never see.

Anyways I let it fall by the wayside a bit since November with the holidays and such so today I decided to get caught up. I registered the cards I had receive but hadn't yet listed, and then I used my remaining 6 international stamps to get more addresses to send to. This time around I got people in Australia, Finland, Russia, The Netherlands, Austria, and The Republic of Belarus. Tomorrow I need to stop by the post office and pick up more stamps for international postcards. I have stamps for US shipping and Mexico/Canada but I have yet to get an address from anywhere in Mexico or Canada. But I'm so looking forward to the day when I do! I'll have a little party in my head!

DFTBA

Happy New Years

Ooh look at all the dust here! Excuse me please...

Okay, I'm back. Whew those spaces between posts get so dusty, huh?

Well Happy New Years guys! I can't believe its 2012 already, its a little insane. But I am looking forward to this year. Getting further in my classes now that I'm actually taking them seriously. Getting better at my job (I'm a good server, but I'd like to be one of the awesome ones... probably cause I was one of the "awesome ones" as a Host, at Take-out, and as a Food Runner, its a pride thing, you know?) I can't wait to enjoy a long weekend of Young Adult fiction and Harry Potter at this year's LeakyCon in Chicago- especially since I already payed for the tickets to the event, got my room and roommates all situated, and have my plane ticket bought (it'll be my first time flying Virgin America, I'm so excited). I even have a ball gown in mind in case I don't buy and dark green one that I want to find. All thats left is to pay for the hotel room itself and wait for August.

Thankfully theres stuff I do to pass the time, like swing dancing at Disneyland which I plan on doing almost every Saturday as long as there aren't pressing matters, but as far as anyone else is concerned I'm busy Sat nights :) Plus I'm gonna be reading a lot. And I do mean A Lot. I don't read nearly as much as I used to and that depresses me a bit. But I'm 2/3s of the way through one of the books my friend lent me ages ago. Its a rather good vampire story called Sunshine that also has quite a number of other supernatural creatures. It's quite good and for once the human boy is not automatically upstaged by hot vampire boy...

Anyways, I only had like 4 hours of sleep, so I'm turning in for the night. I'll be back as soon as I have a story to tell. And hopefully thats sooner rather then later.

DFTBA

A Few of My Favorite Things II

Some more things that I enjoy, again, in no particular order

How I Met Your Mother
BBC's Sherlock
Downton Abbey
Blankets
Hats
Libraries
Pens
Blank Sheets of Papers
Journals
Apple Products
Deserts
Disneyland
Driving
Cats
Dogs
Plaza Garden on Saturday nights
Musicals
Hard wood floors
Jack Vettriano

A Few of My Favorite Things

(in no particular order)

Wizard Rock
Books
Harry Potter
Doctor Who
Beaches
Camping
Sunlight
Hiking
Jackets
Red Lipstick
Scarves
Dancing
Frank Sinatra
Boots
The Muppets
PB&J Sandwiches
Cute Boys
Art Museums
Sunlight
Mountains

Barstow

I'm at in n out. They're calling number 39 and I'm 47. There's about 3 hours left of driving when I finally get on the road, but for now I'm just waiting for my burger.
The drive so far is going well. My car, Elvie, isn't protesting at all and it's not too hit out so she's not over heating. There wasn't much traffic out in the first leg, which thankfully meant that a few of us cars were able to spend the time trying to outdrive the rest of us. There were a pair if motorcycles, that anytime I'd outstrip I'd be driving on my way and then I'd look back and they would once again have snuck up on me...

Ooh foods ready!

We're gonna rock around the clock

I'm heading to Vegas tomorrow. Driving 5 hours from LA to visit my BFF Cassandra! The interesting part for me will be the fact that I'll be making this trip solo, and to date, it'll be my longest solo trip yet. So I have my iPhone up to date with music and podcasts to keep me occupied. My parents are worried of course. They seem to imagine everything that can go wrong will go wrong, nevermind my oil was recently changed, dads gonna check the water and tires tonight, I'm driving in the day time, AND i have AAA. Honestly I'm excited about this, but I love road trips so I'm treating this like an adventure.

I'm not entirely sure whats the whole plan while I'm there, but we are going to go to a My Chemical Romance/Blink 182 concert Friday night, and most likely go dancing Saturday night. And I'm very excited about both of them! Outside of Wizard Rock shows, this will be my first concert since Green Day did their American Idiot tour. And it'll be my first time going dancing since LeakyCon and I'm so looking forward to that. And I already know I'll be drinking so there's that to look forward to. I probably shouldn't be so excited about getting drunk, but I am. No idea how I should feel about that...

But thats all tomorrow; today I'm finishing packing and cleaning, going to Robin's to watch some Doctor Who (she's just started season 6 so we're almost finished), and reading some Frankenstein critiques so I can pull some quotes for my essay. The essay which is due on Monday, which means I want to be back home Sunday night by 8 so I have time to write it. Normally I'd think "No problem" but its been so long since I've written a proper essay that I'm just a bit hesitant. But then, my best essays are usually the ones I do in the middle of the night, so the time crunch should be inspiration enough to get through it. I suppose my biggest worry is how to organize my essay, because I already know I'm going to be writing a Disability Studies Critical Essay and I know what questions I want to answer and I know what quotes I'll be using from the book, I just have no idea how my intro and thesis will look and so I don't know how the rest of my paper will follow.

I also got my hair cut today, and while lately, my hair has always been kept short, I finally went for an honest-to-God pixie cut, which I've always wanted, but never quite managed, so little by little I've been telling my... hair cutter? beautician? stylist? the same girl I go to everytime I want my hair cut, to go shorter and shorter, and now its all pixie-ed! Thankfully I can still pull off Fedoras so that a complete win! Headbands, on the other hand, are more of a case by case basis. But at least theres a few that i can still use.

Actually I've been listening to podcasts all day so I may just have good music on my drive to Vegas... oops.

DFTBA!

So here's something I learned today

That really made me stop and go "wait what?"

So we're in History class moving through the 1890's depression (which really sounds like our time right now: high unemployment, everyone watching the extravagances of the rich, wishing the government would do something, the government NOT doing something...) And we were talking about how the rich was still rich. Then the prof moves onto this ridiculous party the Vanderbilts had where their party favors were rubies, emeralds, and diamonds, and the prof just adds in "the Vanderbilts, who owned the titanic"

That completely blew my mind. I mean obviously someone had to be responsible for the ship and foot the bills but I always assumed it was a company who did that, like the White Star Line or something. But a freaking FAMILY owned that ship? I mean, if it hadn't sunk would it have been like their personal cruise ship or something? I know the Vanderbilts were ridiculously wealthy, but holy shit, thats insane!

Car Troubles and Comics

It's all grey and cold (for me) right now, so I've brought out my Slytherin scarf which makes me happy. Which is nice cause apparently locking my keys in the car is the new leaving my headlights on... This is the second time in 2 weeks. In fact it happened exactly last week. Comic Book Day us apparently not a good day for my car and I... :-/ The really sucky part is that I have no clue where my spare keys have gone so, again, I have to call AAA unless Campus Police can do something about it...

In other news some more of DC's new 52 are out today. I'm picking up Batman, Nightwing, Catwoman, Supergirl, and from not DC I'm getting TMNT. Unlike last week, I'm very excited about all the comics I'm picking up today and I've already read a good review for Batman #1 so, yay! I really hope they don't screw up Catwoman though. That line about how she's "obsessed" with Batman still pisses me off a bit. If she's obsessed with him then he's equally obsessed with her. They act like it's just CW who can't stop thinking about it... Ok, so more then just "a bit" pissed off...

Work tonight. I'm food running which is a pretty easy shift. I just hope the new manager isn't there. He annoys me. Although I admit new managers always annoy me, I don't like having to impress them from scratch, and he does things differently, and he hovers, and if I hear "in my old restaurant we..." one more time I will scream.

Although he does remind me of Hank Green which makes me feel guilty for not liking him...

Professor is late, and the more time goes by with him not showing up, the more I hope he doesn't show and we can leave early.

AAA

So it's been awhile since I posted anything. Even with the new Blogger app (finally) I just don't know what to say. The problem us that my life lately has been so pathetically mundane I haven't really had anything to talk about. If course, when I do have something I want to share I always have these grand plans about how I'm going to phrase things. Then I get to my computer and I can't make myself say more then "omg so awesome"

Like on Sunday. I went to Long Beach with friends and got to rent a Segway to explore the area with. It was my first time on a Segway and it was a lot of fun. They went faster then I expected, but in a way it's also a bit sad to be excited to be traveling at 12 MPH too... But it was a lot of fun, if I had the cash, I admit I would totally like to have one. I don't know where I would use it, cause I feel like, if I used it at malls where typically only security uses them, I'd come off like a giant douche...
Anyways after 2 hours on those suckers (I only tripped like 3 times and didn't eat it at all!), We got some Coldstones Ice Crem, mine was insane: cheesecake ice cream, oreo cookies, white chocolate chips, and caramel, we headed to a used bookstore. The Building they were using was an old Borders, till, you know, they went out of business... So that part was just a tiny bit "awww" inducing, but the best part was that everybook was selling for just a dollar. Paperback, Hardback, textbooks, bestsellers, Everything! I am so happy that that I didn't bring my wallet while Segway-ing, because that way I could only spend the small amount of many I had in my pocket, instead of, you know, my entire paycheck. And Since I had just bought some Coldstone Ice Cream that meant I had $12 in my pocket. So after spending a good 2 hours wandering the aisles I walked out with 11 books:

• The Great Gatsby
• To Kill a Mockingbird
• The Thirteenth Tale
• Every Boy's Got One
• Catalyst
• The Name of this Book is Secret
• MLA Handbook 6th Ed
• The Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne
• Killing me Softly
• Anne of Green Gables
• Rosemary and Rue

So I'm very excited about reading those, as soon as I find the time while reading Frankenstein for English class.

See? thats actually a pretty good day that I can make into a blog post. But for some reason when I tried writing it the first time it was no where near this long...

Sadly, I'm still at the phase where I have to force myself into blogging properly and not just thinking of doing it later.

Oh and as for the title today. I went to pick up my comics today; Batwoman, Superboy, and Batman and Robin, and when I purchased them and left I realized I didn't have my keys. When I walked into the Comic Book Shop I only had my wallet and my phone. I had stupidly left my keys in the car. D'oh!
Thankfully AAA has an iphone app that I could use to request service. And while I was waiting for someone to show up I ended up seeing it as a perfect excuse to actually blog. Of course, right when I started getting into it, AAA shows up and opens my car door for me. But I suppose the app served its purpose cause here I am on my laptop, Charlie, typing away...

Read this quote and I quite liked it...

"Envy is the religion of the mediocre. It comforts them, it soothes their worries, and finally it rots their souls, allowing them to justify their meanness and their greed until they believe these to be Virtues."

From The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

LeakyCon 2011

In 30 hours I will be heading to LAX. In 30 hours and 40 minutes I will be boarding a plane. In 42* hours I will be in Orlando. After that the math just gets too crazy but still! It's so close but it feels like I'll never leave LA. The worst part is I still have all of tomorrow to wait.

Although, its just as well, because I'm still not ready! So today, after I finish this blog, I will clean my room, go to Robin's to watch the latest episode of True Blood**, then come home and do more cleaning, cause knowing me it'll take more then 3 hours once you factor in my procrastinating. Then tomorrow I have a short 2 hour book keeping shift at work at 8. then I'll go home and properly pack, since, you know, I haven't really done more then just pile everything together. My dad can't find our suitcase, who knows who we loaned it to last, so he needs to pick up a new one. 

My emotions keep flip-flopping back and forth between utter joy and utter panic. I can't believe the end is in sight. And while I know that it won't mean the end of the Harry Potter Fandom*** I know I'll still be quite dejected when its over. Especially since we just found out that Alex Carpenter's last show as The Remus Lupins will take place during LeakyCon. He was my first WRock band, my first wrock CD, my first live show... I knew it had to happen, all the wrockers are slowly moving on to other fandoms and projects. We'll still have Alex, of course, he's still gonna be working hard at his craft... but theres a whisper in the back of my head that say, oh so mockingly, "they're growing up."

Ah well, there will be time enough later for tears. And I'm gonna try my best to spend the week at LeakyCon living in the moment and not time travelling to the end.

DFTBA!****

*heh

** spoiler from last week: Eric finally lost his memory! I can't wait for he and Sookie to get it on!! 

***Star Wars is proof enough of that 

**** 29 hours

Found a new blog...

Its called hitting on girls in bookstores and it is just fabulous :) sadly it looks like he revamped so all his old posts are gone, but thankfully, when I subscribed via google reader it had all his old posts. The one that cinched it for me was one he wrote on April 1, 2008.  I think this screen cap should work:

"A romantic pick-up line to use on a bookish girl.

 - "Will you be my Elizabeth Bennett?" Simple. Clean. And utterly dorky. Use it on the wrong type, though, and you'll find yourself with an odd look and not a sly smile.

A romantic pick-up line to use on a bookish girl.

by Adam

1 person liked this - you

"Will you be my Elizabeth Bennett?"




Simple. Clean. And utterly dorky. Use it on the wrong type, though, and you'll find yourself with an odd look and not a sly smile."

How brilliant is that? I would love for a boy to say that one day to me!

Squee

DFTBA

Dear Clara

I've been thinking about you a lot lately, I kept looking at the date as today got closer and closer. Its your birthday today. Your 31st birthday. I posted happy birthday messages on twitter and on facebook. The same way I do for everyone when I can remember their birthdays (I'm bad at remembering, you know). But you're not here. And I had to go onto facebook, back through your timeline because I've completely forgotten the day you passed. I didn't forget that it happened, it would be impossible to forget you, but the day itself, the actual date, I forgot.

Its been less then a year since you've been gone. In some ways it feels like its only just happened, the same disbelief that I felt when I first heard the news... How can you be gone? In other ways it feels like a lifetime ago that I got see your beautiful face, hear your wonderful laugh, or get to hug you because its been so long since I last saw you... It was always like that. Every time I saw you, there was this feeling of Why don't I see her more? But thats how you were, you were a magnet to everyone who was fortunate enough to call you a friend. I can picture you in my mind, and you're always happy. You're smiling, you're laughing, even that memory of you and Kenny at Denny's where you walloped him, and he fell to the ground, I'm pretty sure you were a bit pissed at that moment, but I remember you laughing right along with the rest of us. You never had a cross word for anyone, you were gracious and charming and so so kind. I'm sad that we weren't close enough where I thought I could call you if I were sad, but that was stupid of me. You would have listened. You would have cared.

Work was hard today. I kept thinking about you. I kept hoping someone from the Noble Crew would show up at my restaurant. I wanted to be with someone who knew you, I wanted to be able to tell some one, out loud, "I miss Clara so much today" and have the person I was saying that to reply, "me too." I wanted even the breifest hug from someone who would understand: the world is just that much less joyful because you're not in it. And then, I took a spill. Tripped on lettuce in the kitchen in front of 10 other co-workers, and went down like a leaded weight. They asked if I was alright and helped me up. Later I was thinking about how if you had been there I would have laughed at myself for being a spaz, and you would have joined me. Not because you delight in the pain of others, but because you knew that laughing at yourself is the best way of getting over things. After that I felt a bit better, thinking of how much joy you got out of life.

After work today, I had a drink in your honor. I sat in a bar nursing a beer thinking of how full of life and love you were. Remembering your face, your smile, the sound of your voice. As I remembered, as I looked back on pictures, as I facebook stalked you, I wanted to laugh and I wanted to cry.

Clara Crawford, I miss you so much. I wish you could still be with us, I wish your Birthday could have been a day of joy (your Bday party would have been AMAZING, I would have spent the afternoon laughing with you and the rest of the Noble crew, never wanting it to end), I wish I could hear your laugh, just one more time.

Happy 31st Birthday

All my love, from your friend,
 Dulce