Last night, Jeremy was working on his top ten albums of 2008 for that paper and I decided to make my own. It's not in any order, it's just a list of albums and movies I enjoyed in 2008. *Not everything on my favorites of 2008 came out in 2008.
Janelle Monae - This bitch is awesome. Janelle Monae is like a female Andre 3000.
Jeremy describes her music as Prog-R&B. I knew I loved me some Prog, but I had no idea it could be like this. Her album (more of and EP, really) is called "Metropolis: The Chase Suite" and listening to it really is like listening to a symphony (the first five songs anyway). Her myspace page (http://www.myspace.com/janellemonae) has a six minute "short film" for the song "Many Moons." It's all about a robot who falls in love with a human and so must be destroyed. The entire album flows seamlessly through the movements and the theme (yes of robots in love in the future) is carried well throughout. There is an ARIA! Monae's amazing, soul-insprir(ing)ed voice floats for the most beautiful 1:35 of 2008, this is one case where I'm ok with an auto-tuner. I know it sounds super geeky and lame, but it truly is an amazing, fun album.
Katy Perry - I know I already wrote about her, but I really, really like this album.
MGMT- Their album "Oracular Spectacular" was a good friend this summer. I really like their blend of like the Scissor Sisters and freak-folk. (this is based on my limited understanding of that term) It's great pool-side mp3 player material and not bad make out music either (more m.o.m. later). I like the spaceyness of it, it's just great to relax to, and maybe a little dancing to "Electric Feel."
Okkerville River - Thier 2008 album "The Stand Ins" is a companion to last year's "The Stage Names" and I've decided that 2007's album was better. When Jeremy first introduced me to Okkerville, I wasn't really feeling it, you know? But over the years I've gotten to really like Will Sheff's voice. The songs on "The Stage Names" sound so happy and fun, but if you listen to the lyrics, they're absolutely heartbreaking.
Black Mountain- As I said in "Reasons I will always be my 14-year-old self," I love really great classic rock. Black Mountain's "In The Future" is more like a worm hole to the past. The album came out early last year but I really got in to it after we moved to San Antonio. The very first song "Stormy High," makes me think of Janis Joplin and sex. This is grade A make out music. 100% Approved for foreplay.
The Dodos! - That's my !, not theirs, thier name is just The Dodos. Their album "Visiter" from this year is really great reading or bubble bath music. Kind-of folky, kind of like Animal Collective but less with fewer personalities, though no less character.
Department of Eagles - "In Ear Park" This trippy '60s throw-back album feels like that time I was sitting in the grass across the street from the entrance to Niagara Falls in Toronto when I was a freshman in high school. It was in May so it was warm but it's way up north so it was more like spring than summer, just humid enough, clear and sunny with a light breeze. I think colors are brighter in Canada, that's how I remember it anyway.
M83 - "Saturdays = Youth" This album came out right at the beginning of the summer I think. This is more of 2008's great make out music. I reccomend it for pool-side reading.
Human Highway - "Moody Motorcycle" This is my token "indie" album.
So here are other albums/artists I liked, but can't think of anything to say about them:
Vampire Weekend
Can
True Stories by the Talking Heads (the movie and the album)
Fleet Foxes
First Aid Kit (get ready for them in 2009)
MOVIES!
Some of the movies I liked in 2008 (short list, I can't think of a lot right now)
Synecdoche, NY - Absolutely brilliant, but as Jeremy pointed out, it may not have great rewatchability.
Pineapple Express - Of course :)
Space Chimps - Monkeys in Space!
HellBoy 2 - Seriously, I watched this every day for a week.
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince - Oh yeah, Warner Brothers made enough money off of The Dark Knight to postpone the release of HP5. Thanks a lot, Batman.
So I know this kind of petered out here at the end. I lost the steam and never really got it back. Hopefully when school starts back I'll get a surge of creativity. Have a great 2009!
Love,
Lauren
Friday, December 12, 2008
Friday, December 5, 2008
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
I think I love Katy Perry
I need to be getting ready to go to Lubbock right now and I was I swear, but I was "borrowing" music for our trip tonight and I thought to myself, "i'm gonna get the cd by the girl that does i kissed a girl." I was pretty sure her name is Katy Perry so I googled and found a torrent and bingo-bango, we have the CD 'One of the Boys.' You guys...I think I love this CD. The first and title song talks about how she's a tomboy at heart but doesn't want to be, she wants to be just one of the pretty girls, it's so good. Then of course there's "I kissed a girl" which is always bi-curious fun, then "Waking up in Vegas" comes on. I keep feeling like the whole cd is going to be all super poppy and glittery but it makes me think more of like if Jagged Little Pill mated with Regina Spektor and the spawn read my diary from junior high.
The line "you're not a man, you're a mannequin" is awesome.
I'm listening to the CD right now and I'm on Hot n Cold. It's the second single off this CD so you might have heard it. It's a jammin' song, I love things I can dance to. I feel like there's something Brit-poppy in her music and we all know the size of my boner for the Beatles. I was thinking about just putting those two songs that I knew on our playlist but now i'm going to put the whole thing on there (sorry, baby).
There is at least one song that isn't as good as the others. The song that's on now "if you can afford me" kinda blows. I've never really liked stuff that's super-shallow - Clueless doesn't count since it's just a retelling of Jane Austen's Emma.
Oh! This album is so good!
Upon further listening of "if you can afford me" i understand it better and like it. so really i like all the songs, some more than others, but i won't skip any of the tracks.
The line "you're not a man, you're a mannequin" is awesome.
I'm listening to the CD right now and I'm on Hot n Cold. It's the second single off this CD so you might have heard it. It's a jammin' song, I love things I can dance to. I feel like there's something Brit-poppy in her music and we all know the size of my boner for the Beatles. I was thinking about just putting those two songs that I knew on our playlist but now i'm going to put the whole thing on there (sorry, baby).
There is at least one song that isn't as good as the others. The song that's on now "if you can afford me" kinda blows. I've never really liked stuff that's super-shallow - Clueless doesn't count since it's just a retelling of Jane Austen's Emma.
Oh! This album is so good!
Upon further listening of "if you can afford me" i understand it better and like it. so really i like all the songs, some more than others, but i won't skip any of the tracks.
Friday, November 21, 2008
Night of a thousand fucktards.
First off: Don't go see Transporter 3 if it can be helped at all.
Last night my husband and I went to an advance movie screening (as we do several times a month) and saw Transporter 3. Yes Jason Statham is ridiculously hot, but not even his perfect abs and sexy voice could save that movie. But my poor opinion of this movie may have been influenced by the assholes that ended up sitting next to me. We were sitting in the Press row and there were three empty seats beside me, the theatre was getting so packed that they let common folk sit in our row and they took those seats. Now, normally I wouldn't have given two shits about sitting by someone I didn't know, but the people who sat next to me - a mom, and what i'm guessing were her two sons- were the kind of people comics make shitty routines about. -Except they were white The guy who sat next to me was obviously drunk and carrying a beer (they sell alcohol at the theatre) there was another guy, and then, "Momma."
The guy and Momma were talking at the same volume you'd expect if they were in the trailor watching rasslin' with a bucket of beer and tater chips about something, I wasn't really paying attention since everyone was still talking, people were settling in and the lights hadn't gone down so I expected them to talk. When the lights did go down, however, they kept talking REALLY loud. Transporter 3's beginning is a lot like a music video, lots of flashing and slow-mo, so already it was cheezy, so I could tell it was going to be kind of sucky and the people next to me were the kind of people who yell shit at the movie, saying things like "Oh Shit!" and "Momma, you wan' somma m'beer?" and even a wretched-smelling beer belch. At one point, about 20 minutes in, the guy next to me starts getting really restless. Here's the conversation that followed:
Guy: I'm bored, Momma, this movie's boring.
Momma: Well do you wanna leave?
Guy: I want another beer, give me five dollars.
Momma: I don't know if I have five dollars, let me look...No, baby, I'm sorry.
Guy: PSSSHH, Man! I wanna go to a bar!
Momma: Well, I think there's some bars around here
Guy: Yeah but y'all'll leave me here
Momma: You wanna go to Fast Eddie's? [Other kid's name] will walk in and get you when we're done.
Guy: Yeah, ok.
::Guy Leaves::
Momma: (I think she was talking to someone else in the theatre) My son's only 24. We were all like that.
At this point I'm assuming the worst is over and there will be relative quiet for the rest of the movie. Oh, poor naive child I am...Momma starts talking to the screen again and I'm about to lose my shit. Just then I remember that I keep ear plugs in my purse in case we're at a concert that gets too loud. I got my ear plugs out and put one in my left ear to try to block that see you next tuesday out. For the rest of the movie she is mostly inaudiable (by me and my plugged ear), though not silent by any means. After the movie was over, Jeremy informed me of what I had been suspicious: Even after an announcement by the theatre to turn off all cell phones, after the woman was SPECIFICALLY asked to turn her phone off, this woman had a conversation on her cell phone with the son that had already left the theatre. As you can imagine, I sat in angered silence, saying nothing because i'm a huge pussy. Anyway the movie sucked and the girl in it has a freckle on her lip that looks like a huge cold sore so don't go see it. and if you do go see it and end up next to some assholes, don't be a pussy like me.
Ahh...you're probably thinking to yourself, "Lauren, you said "night of a thousand fucktards, not the fucktards go to a movie!" You're thinking, "what other senario of the evening could possibly have matched this level of stupidity?" I'll tell you.
Jeremy and I had decided before we watched Transporter 3 to get WALL-E on BluRay for me on the way home, so we stopped at Blockbuster but they didn't have any in stock. So we didn't get it but we did go home with a rented copy of Guitar Hero World Tour (the assholes that make the game were supposed to send us a copy but never did). So we end up playing until almost 1 in the morning and realize we haven't eaten yet and now I'm starving. So we go to Taco Cabana. Next is the conversation that transpired via the drive-through:
Taco Cabana Person: thanyoumemnajTaco Cabana, may I take your order?
Jeremy: Yeah, I'd like the 2 enchilada plate with sour cream chicken, a personal super nachos and a barbacoa taco. [the barbacoa taco is a breakfast item that is served from midnight to 11am]
TCP: Uh, it's not twelve yet so we aren't serving breakfast.
::Jeremy and I pause long enough to look at the car's clock and our phones (which all read between 12:55 and 12:58 AM) and look at eachother incredulously::
Jeremy: It's almost one o'clock in the morning.
TCP: Uh...no it's not.
This is where I start laughing and tell jeremy just to order something else, he does and we pull forward.
So sitting in line, waiting for our food, jeremy and I are just completely awed by the level of idiocy that went in to that conversation. I was laughing, but it was mostly because I was mad that they were too fucking lazy to have made the barbacoa when they were supposed to so they just lied to us. If they had just said that there wasn't any barbacoa right then, we would have just ordered something else, what the fuck man?
So I think the moral of this story is something like: Don't go to Taco C at one o'clock thursday night/friday morning, they don't put out their A Game. or Don't go see movies that are made for people with IQs of less than 100.
Last night my husband and I went to an advance movie screening (as we do several times a month) and saw Transporter 3. Yes Jason Statham is ridiculously hot, but not even his perfect abs and sexy voice could save that movie. But my poor opinion of this movie may have been influenced by the assholes that ended up sitting next to me. We were sitting in the Press row and there were three empty seats beside me, the theatre was getting so packed that they let common folk sit in our row and they took those seats. Now, normally I wouldn't have given two shits about sitting by someone I didn't know, but the people who sat next to me - a mom, and what i'm guessing were her two sons- were the kind of people comics make shitty routines about. -Except they were white The guy who sat next to me was obviously drunk and carrying a beer (they sell alcohol at the theatre) there was another guy, and then, "Momma."
The guy and Momma were talking at the same volume you'd expect if they were in the trailor watching rasslin' with a bucket of beer and tater chips about something, I wasn't really paying attention since everyone was still talking, people were settling in and the lights hadn't gone down so I expected them to talk. When the lights did go down, however, they kept talking REALLY loud. Transporter 3's beginning is a lot like a music video, lots of flashing and slow-mo, so already it was cheezy, so I could tell it was going to be kind of sucky and the people next to me were the kind of people who yell shit at the movie, saying things like "Oh Shit!" and "Momma, you wan' somma m'beer?" and even a wretched-smelling beer belch. At one point, about 20 minutes in, the guy next to me starts getting really restless. Here's the conversation that followed:
Guy: I'm bored, Momma, this movie's boring.
Momma: Well do you wanna leave?
Guy: I want another beer, give me five dollars.
Momma: I don't know if I have five dollars, let me look...No, baby, I'm sorry.
Guy: PSSSHH, Man! I wanna go to a bar!
Momma: Well, I think there's some bars around here
Guy: Yeah but y'all'll leave me here
Momma: You wanna go to Fast Eddie's? [Other kid's name] will walk in and get you when we're done.
Guy: Yeah, ok.
::Guy Leaves::
Momma: (I think she was talking to someone else in the theatre) My son's only 24. We were all like that.
At this point I'm assuming the worst is over and there will be relative quiet for the rest of the movie. Oh, poor naive child I am...Momma starts talking to the screen again and I'm about to lose my shit. Just then I remember that I keep ear plugs in my purse in case we're at a concert that gets too loud. I got my ear plugs out and put one in my left ear to try to block that see you next tuesday out. For the rest of the movie she is mostly inaudiable (by me and my plugged ear), though not silent by any means. After the movie was over, Jeremy informed me of what I had been suspicious: Even after an announcement by the theatre to turn off all cell phones, after the woman was SPECIFICALLY asked to turn her phone off, this woman had a conversation on her cell phone with the son that had already left the theatre. As you can imagine, I sat in angered silence, saying nothing because i'm a huge pussy. Anyway the movie sucked and the girl in it has a freckle on her lip that looks like a huge cold sore so don't go see it. and if you do go see it and end up next to some assholes, don't be a pussy like me.
Ahh...you're probably thinking to yourself, "Lauren, you said "night of a thousand fucktards, not the fucktards go to a movie!" You're thinking, "what other senario of the evening could possibly have matched this level of stupidity?" I'll tell you.
Jeremy and I had decided before we watched Transporter 3 to get WALL-E on BluRay for me on the way home, so we stopped at Blockbuster but they didn't have any in stock. So we didn't get it but we did go home with a rented copy of Guitar Hero World Tour (the assholes that make the game were supposed to send us a copy but never did). So we end up playing until almost 1 in the morning and realize we haven't eaten yet and now I'm starving. So we go to Taco Cabana. Next is the conversation that transpired via the drive-through:
Taco Cabana Person: thanyoumemnajTaco Cabana, may I take your order?
Jeremy: Yeah, I'd like the 2 enchilada plate with sour cream chicken, a personal super nachos and a barbacoa taco. [the barbacoa taco is a breakfast item that is served from midnight to 11am]
TCP: Uh, it's not twelve yet so we aren't serving breakfast.
::Jeremy and I pause long enough to look at the car's clock and our phones (which all read between 12:55 and 12:58 AM) and look at eachother incredulously::
Jeremy: It's almost one o'clock in the morning.
TCP: Uh...no it's not.
This is where I start laughing and tell jeremy just to order something else, he does and we pull forward.
So sitting in line, waiting for our food, jeremy and I are just completely awed by the level of idiocy that went in to that conversation. I was laughing, but it was mostly because I was mad that they were too fucking lazy to have made the barbacoa when they were supposed to so they just lied to us. If they had just said that there wasn't any barbacoa right then, we would have just ordered something else, what the fuck man?
So I think the moral of this story is something like: Don't go to Taco C at one o'clock thursday night/friday morning, they don't put out their A Game. or Don't go see movies that are made for people with IQs of less than 100.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Reasons I will always be my fourteen-year-old self
In no particular order are a few of the reasons I will always be deep down, me at 14.
Hanson
Since 1997 (ok so I was 12 then, but still) I have been a HUGE fan of the band Hanson. Yes, MMMBop Hanson. Done laughing? I'll give you a minute... Ok, I can take the teasing, but I want to know why no one (besides Jeremy) every asked me why I really like them.
When I first heard Middle of Nowhere (hanson's first major label record) I was just about to start eighth grade. I didn't have a lot of friends and I was really self conscious. I was visiting my family in Oklahoma and my cousin Amber was really in to them and her being a cheerleader, thin and pretty made me want to like them too because then i could be pretty and thin and popular. (it made sense in my 12 year old mind) So over the summer, I spent a lot of time with Amber and a lot of time listening to Middle of Nowhere and watching MTV waiting on hanson videos to come on so we could squeal in excitement and hit record on the VCR. Amber didn't eat much, so I didn't either, we spent a lot of time at the municipal pool in Shawnee, OK (yea they did find a homeless guy floating dead in it one time...i think that was there), jumping on Am's trampoline and hanging out with people she was friends with. I felt amazing all summer, i think Amber and I volunteered at the YMCA day camp as junior counselors and i'm pretty sure i had a crush on one of the guys that was a counselor in training with me. The kids loved me and always wanted to sit with me because i was the nice counselor. Lost track..Hanson. When I got back home to Tennessee, I had lost a little weight, my mom got me contacts and one of the few friends i did have there was also obsessed with hanson and so that helped me be more confident (I didn't care what people thought about my obsession, I think that's the only thing I've never been ashamed of) So, see, hanson helped me be okay with myself, I may not always be 100% happy with myself, but I'm alright.
Crafts!
As most of you know I'm crafty. No, not Beastie Boys crafty, the regular crafty. I love to make things. I like to bake, sew, color (yeah i'm a little kid), crochet (yeah i'm an old lady), make cards, paint, use glitter, you know, crafty. My Grandma on my mom's side got me an art set for christmas almost every year when i was little and i wore those oil pastels out. I got one with chalk one year and thought i was going to crap my pants."Chalk can be used for real art? Fuck YEAH!" -not a direct quote, but my interpretation of the feeling- I wish I had those now and could actually put them to use. I could have been an artistic genius, you know. When I was about 3 (i don't remember it but my grandma has told me this story a few times) I painted a picture with orange, red and yellow on the page, no real shapes just the colors. My grandma asked me what it was a picture of and i told her "It's Bambi's forest fire."
Goddammit!
BAND
Three words: I. LOVE. BAND. Not A band, not THE Band, I'm talking about goofy uniforms, ass-crack of dawn practice, marching-ass fools BAND. Not a lot of people can say they had a fun high school experience, but I loved high school. I basically remember it as band for 4 years with some classes thrown in. My best friends were always in band (of course since that's the only people i ever saw) and I had so much fun. Yeah the 6:30am practices sucked, but it's the closest I ever came to being on a team. I felt like I was part of something and it never occurred to me that people weren't watching the half-time show. We got to go on some pretty bad-ass trips, too. My freshman year we went to Toronto Canada. I saw Phantom of the Opera at the Pantages Theatre, I got to see Niagara Falls, and I found out they call the bathroom the water closet. I went on my first and only drop-type roller coaster, you know the one like the Superman ride at six flags a girl lost her foot on. It was an 800 foot drop and as I was standing in line for it I noticed it was staying at the top way too long at one point and nearly had a panic attack thinking about getting stuck up there. My sophomore year I got to got to Denver, I remember mostly the water in the shower made my hair feel like silk, we went on a train ride through the mountains, and at lot of people got detention when we got back for stealing blankets from the hotel. My junior and senior years we went to California (LA and San Diego respectively) Both of those trips smush together. Anyway, Band also got me in to every football game so that was a plus. If I hadn't been in band, my high school years would have totally sucked, but besides a social club, band also introduced me to some amazing music.I had dreamed of having the second movement from Dvorak's New World Symphony in my wedding since the first time i heard it my sophomore year of high school.(I was 14 then) It has has since become my favorite song of all time and has been played at two very significant events in my life. As any of you that are reading this know, it was played at my wedding to my amazing husband, Jeremy, as I was walking up the aisle with my dad. That was the second major event. The first was during my sophomore year and a boy that was a freshman and played french horn died after being in a wreck on his dirt bike. His parents asked the band to play that song at his funeral and being who I am, of course I went. It was the first and only funeral I've attended. Most of the kids (including me) in band who didn't know Scott didn't cry the whole time during the eulogy and what not, but when we got up to play emotion took over all of us. I have always wondered what it sounded like to the other people at the funeral, if there were obvious breaks in the music from people having to stop playing to sob for a second or if we were able to time them so that it sounded normal.
Cartoons/kid's movies
I will always love cartoons. I'll watch the same cartoon movie 3 times in a week. I know it's not as bad as a small child but it's pretty bad for a 24-year-old, there's just something so calming and reassuring about a kid's movie. I have this theory that the reason I watch the same feel-good, fluffy kind of movies is because I crave stability. My parents divorced when I was 4 so I was old enough to remember what it was like having both parents in the house, but not old enough to think it was my fault. Within just a few years a lot changed, my dad moved in to an apartment and dated a few women, my mom had a few boyfriends (i found out later one was married but she didn't know- oops!) my big sister left for college, my dad remarried and my brother moved in with him, then I was seven. We (mom and me) always had a good collection of the Disney movies on tape. I know we didn't have everything, but we had a respectable repertoire. Being a latch-key kid and basically an only child, i didn't have much to do in the afternoons waiting on mom to get home so i watched Disney movies. I learned every line and every song to almost every movie. They were my friends and they never changed, I always knew what was going to happen and i didn't have to worry about something bad happening. So kid's movies make me feel happy, help me not worry for a 90 minutes or so.
Stairway to Heaven
I first heard Stairway to Heaven before I was 14, even pre-hanson, but it was about 14 that i started listening to it again. There was something so strange, foreign to me in that song. I had never heard anything like it before and I didn't even listen to any other Led Zeppelin songs at the time. That song opened up my musical mind and got me listening to 70's rock. DISCLAIMER: No, I do not know what year that song came out, but in my head, it was from the 70's so i looked for stuff from the 70's. I find something SO sexy about classic rock. I don't know if it's the loud guitars or the weird effects they used on things, but my ultimate fantasy is set in a candle-lit basement and soundtracked by Houses of the Holy and IV.
That's all I got for now. As I was re-reading this, I realized not all of these fit neatly in to the "why i'm 14" category, but it makes sense to me. I've only touched the tip of these huge-ass psychological icebergs but I'll try to leave it be for the time being.
Hanson
Since 1997 (ok so I was 12 then, but still) I have been a HUGE fan of the band Hanson. Yes, MMMBop Hanson. Done laughing? I'll give you a minute... Ok, I can take the teasing, but I want to know why no one (besides Jeremy) every asked me why I really like them.
When I first heard Middle of Nowhere (hanson's first major label record) I was just about to start eighth grade. I didn't have a lot of friends and I was really self conscious. I was visiting my family in Oklahoma and my cousin Amber was really in to them and her being a cheerleader, thin and pretty made me want to like them too because then i could be pretty and thin and popular. (it made sense in my 12 year old mind) So over the summer, I spent a lot of time with Amber and a lot of time listening to Middle of Nowhere and watching MTV waiting on hanson videos to come on so we could squeal in excitement and hit record on the VCR. Amber didn't eat much, so I didn't either, we spent a lot of time at the municipal pool in Shawnee, OK (yea they did find a homeless guy floating dead in it one time...i think that was there), jumping on Am's trampoline and hanging out with people she was friends with. I felt amazing all summer, i think Amber and I volunteered at the YMCA day camp as junior counselors and i'm pretty sure i had a crush on one of the guys that was a counselor in training with me. The kids loved me and always wanted to sit with me because i was the nice counselor. Lost track..Hanson. When I got back home to Tennessee, I had lost a little weight, my mom got me contacts and one of the few friends i did have there was also obsessed with hanson and so that helped me be more confident (I didn't care what people thought about my obsession, I think that's the only thing I've never been ashamed of) So, see, hanson helped me be okay with myself, I may not always be 100% happy with myself, but I'm alright.
Crafts!
As most of you know I'm crafty. No, not Beastie Boys crafty, the regular crafty. I love to make things. I like to bake, sew, color (yeah i'm a little kid), crochet (yeah i'm an old lady), make cards, paint, use glitter, you know, crafty. My Grandma on my mom's side got me an art set for christmas almost every year when i was little and i wore those oil pastels out. I got one with chalk one year and thought i was going to crap my pants."Chalk can be used for real art? Fuck YEAH!" -not a direct quote, but my interpretation of the feeling- I wish I had those now and could actually put them to use. I could have been an artistic genius, you know. When I was about 3 (i don't remember it but my grandma has told me this story a few times) I painted a picture with orange, red and yellow on the page, no real shapes just the colors. My grandma asked me what it was a picture of and i told her "It's Bambi's forest fire."
Goddammit!
BAND
Three words: I. LOVE. BAND. Not A band, not THE Band, I'm talking about goofy uniforms, ass-crack of dawn practice, marching-ass fools BAND. Not a lot of people can say they had a fun high school experience, but I loved high school. I basically remember it as band for 4 years with some classes thrown in. My best friends were always in band (of course since that's the only people i ever saw) and I had so much fun. Yeah the 6:30am practices sucked, but it's the closest I ever came to being on a team. I felt like I was part of something and it never occurred to me that people weren't watching the half-time show. We got to go on some pretty bad-ass trips, too. My freshman year we went to Toronto Canada. I saw Phantom of the Opera at the Pantages Theatre, I got to see Niagara Falls, and I found out they call the bathroom the water closet. I went on my first and only drop-type roller coaster, you know the one like the Superman ride at six flags a girl lost her foot on. It was an 800 foot drop and as I was standing in line for it I noticed it was staying at the top way too long at one point and nearly had a panic attack thinking about getting stuck up there. My sophomore year I got to got to Denver, I remember mostly the water in the shower made my hair feel like silk, we went on a train ride through the mountains, and at lot of people got detention when we got back for stealing blankets from the hotel. My junior and senior years we went to California (LA and San Diego respectively) Both of those trips smush together. Anyway, Band also got me in to every football game so that was a plus. If I hadn't been in band, my high school years would have totally sucked, but besides a social club, band also introduced me to some amazing music.I had dreamed of having the second movement from Dvorak's New World Symphony in my wedding since the first time i heard it my sophomore year of high school.(I was 14 then) It has has since become my favorite song of all time and has been played at two very significant events in my life. As any of you that are reading this know, it was played at my wedding to my amazing husband, Jeremy, as I was walking up the aisle with my dad. That was the second major event. The first was during my sophomore year and a boy that was a freshman and played french horn died after being in a wreck on his dirt bike. His parents asked the band to play that song at his funeral and being who I am, of course I went. It was the first and only funeral I've attended. Most of the kids (including me) in band who didn't know Scott didn't cry the whole time during the eulogy and what not, but when we got up to play emotion took over all of us. I have always wondered what it sounded like to the other people at the funeral, if there were obvious breaks in the music from people having to stop playing to sob for a second or if we were able to time them so that it sounded normal.
Cartoons/kid's movies
I will always love cartoons. I'll watch the same cartoon movie 3 times in a week. I know it's not as bad as a small child but it's pretty bad for a 24-year-old, there's just something so calming and reassuring about a kid's movie. I have this theory that the reason I watch the same feel-good, fluffy kind of movies is because I crave stability. My parents divorced when I was 4 so I was old enough to remember what it was like having both parents in the house, but not old enough to think it was my fault. Within just a few years a lot changed, my dad moved in to an apartment and dated a few women, my mom had a few boyfriends (i found out later one was married but she didn't know- oops!) my big sister left for college, my dad remarried and my brother moved in with him, then I was seven. We (mom and me) always had a good collection of the Disney movies on tape. I know we didn't have everything, but we had a respectable repertoire. Being a latch-key kid and basically an only child, i didn't have much to do in the afternoons waiting on mom to get home so i watched Disney movies. I learned every line and every song to almost every movie. They were my friends and they never changed, I always knew what was going to happen and i didn't have to worry about something bad happening. So kid's movies make me feel happy, help me not worry for a 90 minutes or so.
Stairway to Heaven
I first heard Stairway to Heaven before I was 14, even pre-hanson, but it was about 14 that i started listening to it again. There was something so strange, foreign to me in that song. I had never heard anything like it before and I didn't even listen to any other Led Zeppelin songs at the time. That song opened up my musical mind and got me listening to 70's rock. DISCLAIMER: No, I do not know what year that song came out, but in my head, it was from the 70's so i looked for stuff from the 70's. I find something SO sexy about classic rock. I don't know if it's the loud guitars or the weird effects they used on things, but my ultimate fantasy is set in a candle-lit basement and soundtracked by Houses of the Holy and IV.
That's all I got for now. As I was re-reading this, I realized not all of these fit neatly in to the "why i'm 14" category, but it makes sense to me. I've only touched the tip of these huge-ass psychological icebergs but I'll try to leave it be for the time being.
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