Haven't posted on here in a while.
Not since August, which was probably the last time I could take a breath and relax.
I just can't get back into the blog thing. I much prefer my handy dandy little moleskine for a journal.
It's always right there when I need it.
And lately I've needed it.
Looking at the grand cosmos and the overall (image) schema of life, I just need to be patient. Not everything will come at me at once. God knows that I have been unsuccessful in the dating world and that's just fine.  There will come a day, sometime soon, sometime later, when it will all make sense. And I will meet a guy that is worth my time and effort.
This past time I played my hand and showed what I was dealt, and he just couldn't see it. And that happens. I will deal. I will pick up my cards, put them back in the deck, shuffle up, and deal. 
I feel like this next hand will be a good one. A great one even. It may not end with another confession of an obvious feeling and it will (hopefully) not be like high school when I suffered in silence for two years. But I will play this hand much more wisely and with much more knowledge of the game. I still don't know all the tips and tricks on how to win but hopefully I will be playing with a guy who does like me for the way I play, evne if it isn't perfect.
No matter how much shit happens, I can't be sad about this past failure. I learned from it and it could always be worse. I may lose him as a friend but there is a whole department full that can easily take his place.  And there will be more coming with my new jobs this summer and new class this fall.
Don't get me wrong, I still feel like shit. I feel like a damned fool. I put so much effort and time and worry into his sorry ass. I kind of wish I had said something ages ago since my prediction of how he would respond was spot on.

Let's just get on and finish the semester. I am too busy and too happy with life to bother with keeping him around right now.

But I really like it. And I can't pick just one song to talk about the past few days since I moved back in.

Total number of tracks: 371 (I know it's paltry compared to some other libraries.)
Total Length of Music: 22.2 hours

Sort by Song Title:
-First Song: "Act Nice and Gentle" The Black Keys
-Last Song: "3AM" Matchbox 20

Sort by Time:
-Shortest Song: "Hello" 0:44 Junior Senior
-Longest Song: "Sweet Bonnie Brown" 7:58 The Velvet Underground

Sort by Album:
-First Song: "Advice from the Happy Hippopotamus" Cloud Cult
-Last Song: "69 Love Songs" The Magnetic Fields

Sort By Artist:
-First Song: "Sink, Florida, Sink" Against Me!
-Last Song: "Unforgivable-Old Greg Remix" from YouTube

Sort By Genre:
-First Song: "Past All Concerns" Acoustic Barzin
-Last Song: "Maps" No Genre The Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Top 10 Most Played Songs:
"Everything Will Be Alright" The Killers
"Falling In" Ha Ha Tonka
"See That Building" from Working
"Elanor Put Your Boots On" Franz Ferdinand
"O Valencia!" The Decemberists
"Holland, 1945" Neutral Milk Hotel
"Change Your Mind" The Killers
"Pale Blue Eyes" Barzin
"Stargazing for Ice Cream" The Furze
"The Way I Am" Ingrid Michaelson

First five songs that comes up on Shuffle:
"Most Days" Mojave 3
"I'm Set Free"  The Velvet Underground
"She's My Best Friend" The Velvet Undergrounf
"I'm Glad I Hitched My Apple Wagon to your Star" The Boy Least Likely To
"The Early 80s" Times New Viking

Search ....
(this searches both song & album title with mine..)
"sex", how many songs come up? 0
"love", how many songs come up? 18
"you", how many songs come up? 66
"death", how many songs come up? 1
"hate", how many songs come up? 1
"wish" how many songs come up? 1
"monkey", how many songs come up? 0

I was at a leadership retreat this weekend. I learned a lot. I learned that you know what? it's ok that i failed as a leader this past semester. That stuff happens when you are put in a bigger position than you wanted. But now I know that I actually do have the tools to succeed. I have my own unique way of thinking, planning, communicaiton, and I am just unique in an all around way. But I can play up these strengths to do the best that I can do. God knows that the people I will be closely working with are "special" too and that they are more than happy to talk about themselves and what they do. So I will just work hard at achieving the dream that I was required to draw a picture of and discuss in a group setting.

"Do You Realize??" by The Flaming Lips
This has got to be the most gorgeous song EVER.  The music itself is beautiful. This is one of the few songs that I am aware of that has strings, timpani, AND bells. Awesome sauce. The lyrics are amazing as well. "Do you realize that you have the most beautiful face? Do you realize we're floating is space?" Very trascendental, reminding us that we all die but that "the sun don't go down. It's just an illusion caused by the world spinning round." Just wrap your head around that. It's so hippie-like and makes you feel like you're standing with someone you love in the warm sunshine of a fall day. I love The Flaming Lips.

Wow. Last night was just nostalgia at its finest. Thanks to Facebook (which I now blame for many of my problems) I found out about kids I went to gradeschool with. It is just crazy to see where these kids are now. It runs from full ride at Notre Dame all the way to working a full time job with a 3 year old child. Yeah. I know. I went to school for nine years with these people! NINE YEARS! And look how well we've kept in touch. Well, going to Catholic high school didn't help. I spent the most formative years of my life with these kids and it honestly blows me away to think that. The same kids for nine years, same uniforms, same teachers, same tragedies, same celebrations, and look where we went. All over the map.
Since the school shut down, I thought a lot about them. The physical building is there but now its a combination of our school and another one from the area. But no one is left. I would have to say that only three of the dozens on teachers I had are still at that building. Which just makes me sad. And then all if my favorite high school teachers are leaving too. There's nothing to go back to. The thin roots I built in grade school with the teachers and a select few people have snapped. Even my best friend has just cut off all ties that would keep her here back home with me and everyone else that we grew up with.
And high school! Oh man don't even get me started. It was the best four years of my life. THEY were my family, not those people from grade school. Only four short years and look what we created. We created a home out of an asbestos filled building and a failing arts program. They are the people I want to keep around. To think of all the friendships that only lasted for the time we were there is heart breaking. The girl who helped me through SO MANY problems I had has just completely thrust herself into studying and tests and labs. It makes me sad. She never called anyone this entire summer. No one knows what happened to her.
In keeping with the nostalgia, I want to write about a song that just screams "life is short and transient"

"Travelling On" from 'The Portable Pioneer and Prarie Show'
This is nostalgic because it was from the first musical theatre camp I did at my high school. The show goes like this: Swedish immigrants realize that the can live a better life in America, so they pack up and move to the MIssissippi River area. The sing and dance and travel around with other artists in a show. However, the show is performed by the kids of the immigrants and they follow their parents lives all the way up to their death on a train. To start Act II, they talk about the many cities they sang in. "And the people rise before us, then they fade and are gone. But I know we'll remember them as we keep travelling on." I remembered all the nervous first days of school, the recess that I fell on my face, the kids that made me laugh day after lonely day in grade school. The memories of band camp, formal dances and cafeteria lunches flooded my mind. People come and go and all we have of them are the memories. But "time is a mocking bird, flying too fast" to quote those singing Swedes. "Even the best of our memories can't last forever." And that's what makes me sad.

I'm really glad I hung out with friends today. Because God knows that a weekend with your family in a shitty hotel room is bad. But being home gives me the freedom of A) a car and B) to leave when I feel the need to. And it happens. A lot.
Seriously, I do love my family.
Today's thoughts are about:

"Stephen, Stephen" by the Apples in Stereo
This song is just brilliant. This band (from what I heard) was on the soundtrack for 'The Adventures of Pete & Pete' which is one of the best shows ever produced on Nickelodeon. And the Stephen in this song is none other than Mr. Truthiness himself, Stephen Colbert. Set to a rockin cool guitar, with the best wah-wah sound ever, it says how handsome and dashing he is. The song also details his triumph against bears and his Green Screen Contest versus the Decemberists. I play this song whenever I do donuts in the library parking lot. It just works.

Thank God this isn't my job or I would be fired. No posts since new year's. And it's August. Well school was bad. Just bad. I took some classes that were juuuuust out of my intellectual reach. And I was the ASM for a show and was in another show at the end of the year. And summer has just been so great, working once a week and not doing ANYTHING productive (other than greatly improving my kniting and crocheting skills.)

So this post is to turn it all around. Enough with the excuses. I'd like write more. I get ideas, then write them, and then look back and go "Ohmygod i am an idiot. How did i make it this far in life without choking on my own insanity?" I was inspired by a blog at the blog.case.edu site. Someone posts about living in an iPod world without and iPod. I now have the idea to post about my iTunes (not that anyone really gives a shit anways.) But it's what I know. I love music to begin with. That happens when you spend the majority of the past 9 years playing in bands, and orchestras, and concerts, and god knows what else I have done. It fuels life I think. I kind of wish that life had a soundtrack running underneath it. You know, for those moments when you know exactly what song would be playing in the background. So to start this off, I hit the "shuffle" button and came up with...

"Funny Little Frog" by Belle and Sebastian.
First off, I haven't been listening to this group for very long. But DAMN are they good. I feel like I have been listening to them forever because they just hit every single human emotion you can possibly feel. I can't even begin to list the songs of theirs that I like because they are all so good. And it doesn't hurt that they have beautiful music arrangements.
This song is upbeat for having a kind of sad and lonely ending. It's bright and jangly, with piano and horns and all the stuff music dorks like me enjoy. It reminds me of an old school kind of  motown-ish love song. The lyrics describe how much he loves his girlfriend. Then he slowly reveals that it's really an obsession; he doesn't actually know her. He even calls her his "magazine cover,"  he looks and talks to her, but she doesn't respond. But haven't we all encountered this feeling? Longing for the guy/girl that's so far away but right there in front of you? And you fantasize about  how amazing it would be to finally hook up with him/her. The allure is all in the fantasy though, since sometimes, the person turns out to be a disappointment compared to our imagination.

I love Belle and Sebastian. :)

list of resolutions for 2008:

1. survive. just making through to december 31, 2008 would be great.
2. design the novelty new years glasses for the years 2010-2012.
3. get into as many shows as possible. i dont care what it is, any production will keep me happy. i'll have to work this summer too, but that wont keep me from acting. and then in the fall i will work as hard as i can for the eldred auditions.
4. improve my drawing skills and singing skills. stil not really sure how to go about doing this.
5. appreciate every day. find something beautiful in everyday life no matter how bad the day actually is.
6. spend as much time as possible with friends. we'll only be together for one more semester so i want to make it rock.
7. learn more about myself and how i function in relationships. this discovery will hopefully lead to me figuring out why it is that i am such a failure in the dating arena.
8. pass all my classes. i will kick GEOL 115 in the ass.
9. try not to be such a bitch to some people. it just so happens that everytime s/he saw me, s/he said something that caused me to react in that way. i will try to be nicer to him/her.
10. explore anything and everything. whether it's a new philosophy on life or a new cake recipe, i want to experience as much as i possibly can in life.

thanks for reading. felice anno nuovo a tutti.

isnt that exciting?
i like people. i just dont always like what they turn out to be.
i feel like i'm at a really good place now. i had a conflcit this weekend with someone. i said how i didnt really care what he did but the things he said were offensive. so i wrote about it and now i am less mad. now i am just slightly annoyed with him. but i still gave him a christmas card. it's a time of family and friends, and loving and forgivenss. i dont think that it would do any good to hold a severe grudge against him.
remember: not everyone has someone to be with for the holiday season. so just keep in mind that even if you dont like someone, they're still someone. and thats a lot to be thankful for.

happy holidays.

nostalgia.
amazing isn't it?
so many fun times.
i'm glad that i hung out with friends. like we used to do.
some people just don't change. and i'm glad.
some people did. and that happens.
i like the number seven. so to sum up how this weekend went: i love my friends and their insanity.

enjoy your last few weeks of the semester.

I work now. So now I have money.
There's fuck loads of homework to do, mostly group work with people who are uncooperative, but I will deal.
It's kind of snowing. I like fluffy snow.
The people here are amazing. Such a diverse group of characters in Smith (and Taft. and Case in general.)
I still miss everyone. Let's have a potluck dinner for Thanksgiving. It would be an incredible event.
There's some new people I've met. And that's nice. It helps me to forget some people that weren't so kind to me in the past.
I'm hosting a prosepctive student this weekend. Let the fun begin.
Just take everything one day at a time. It makes every day so much more fun and worthwhile. Don't worry so much. To quote the ever so wise Rob Schnieder III, seize every moment.

Take care.

i throughly enjoyed this weekend. it was great. not much else to say.

so much work to do. speeches, finals, essays, and then a show this weekend just to make it even more stressful.

life is stressful at the moment. in more ways than one.

it's getting colder. just wait til it snows.

yes. i just titled this entry with an emoticon. and a damn funny one at that.

there have been some fun times lately. i have bonded with smith 2. i am so glad i'm on this floor. there is seriously no other way that i could be having this much fun on another floor. there are so many horror stories. like about naked roommates and cardboard box forts in the hallway. yeah i know. it's case.

today was fun. i let my arts-y side go wild up in coventry. and OMG as soon as i have money, i shopping at big fun's. thank you again kristen for taking me there. mac's books rocks as well. i am just senza soldi at the moment.

shows are coming up. like "god". what a fun time that will be. it has been just so enthralling to read 5 different parts at rehearsals. wtf everyone else? some people are using lame ass excuses so they don't have to show up. i agree that the director is crazy. but just suck it up. take it like a bitch and come down to the common room to read the damn script. it's not intolerable.

btw, if anyone knows the proper use of china markers, please tell me. soon.

i'm glad i found another O_O at case. it felt like something was misisng from my life after high school. and i discovered it was someone who makes intensely creepy eye contact with people. we have found that person. life is complete.

RHPS is coming soon to strosacker. i am JAZZED. so excited. everything is already planned out and will be awesome.

FALL BREAK NEXT WEEKEND.

i win at life.

things have gotten better. no more dating drama on my floor. mainly because everyone is fully participaing in the dormcest that is CRC.  "what the butler saw" opens this coming weekend and that's pretty awesome. i met a guy that's pretty cool. but whatever happens, happens.  the office is back and that is UBER awesome.  i just hope i don't catch the water-fearing disease, rabies.  there is however a huge SAGES paper i need to do by thursday that needs so much research. i think i'll do all homework except SAGES tonight so i can use the next three nights completely for SAGES.  fuckin a fred. choose better paper topics. i finally habe chorus rehearsal tonight for "god". please try to come and see it on family weekend. especially all you closeted KKK members.

have a badass week everyone. remember: sorride. Dio ti ama. :)

oh em jim. this past week has been insane. i can't even really describe it all. not just because i'm typing on some imternet blog but because it would be impossible to articulate and still retain its original absurdity, sadness, awkwardness, guilt, and pain.

my great-grandma passed away last monday morning. i had decided on this day to leave my phone off in order to finish all my work. tunrs out that my mom called me 17 times that day and sent me three emails to call home. i didnt get any of these messages until monday night. she almost drove up with my grandma to make sure i wasnt lost or missing.
 
tuesday was the most excrutiating day ever. i had to sit through econ, a math test, and SAGES before i could go home. i knew what would be there when i arrived. my immediate family would be trying to ignore what had happened as i am the only one who seems to grieve.  that night at the wake, i sat as the dutiful great-grandchild as people expressed sympathy and sorrow over the loss. like with my  great-grandpa's wake, i was dragged around by my grandma and introduced to every person who came into the room. instead of "yes she'll be in the band at holy name this fall" it was "kelly used to play all kinds of instruments. she doesn't do that now at case." thanks gram.

wednesday was the mass. it was early and few people actually came to it. only 30 of us were in the church, including a few of the women from WRQA who knew my great-grandma and grandma. they recognized me too from the years i spent helping at one meeting a year.

thursday was spent making up the notes i missed and the dance routines i didn't learn yet.

friday was probably the best day i've had in a long time. not only is that the day i have the fewest classes, it was also the day i went back home for the weekend. i miss my family so much that the four hours i spent there on friday were worth the time i could have been studying for my math midterm. it's all about opportunity costs.
i had my hair re-dyed by my best friend in the world. it was extremely awkward to be sitting on the floor of a laundry room at 8:30 on a friday night. a towel was wrapped around my eyes as a precautionary measure against blindness. i wore a tank top since it was nearly 80 zillion degrees in there. i then stood in a shower wearing all my clothes as eileen assisted in washing the dye out. i was wet, smelled like chemicals, was tired as hell, and succeeded in teaching eileen how to use the washing machines and dryer. it was a great night.

saturday was homecoming. i got all dressed up and ready to go. the night went great. dinner was awesome, the dancing ok (but then again it's a catholic school) and i got to see the strangest teacher i've ever had. but as the night wore on, i became more and more tired. it wasnt the dancing but the whole stress of the week finally caught up with me. and to top the evening off, something happened that is sort of unexplainable. a moment when all the odd occurrences during the week suddenly fit together, like a puzzle that had one piece missing until you realized it had been uner the couch the entire time.  mixed feelings of guilt and pity flooded me. i couldnt stay at the after party, for fear i might break down. i confess that i still dont really understand how and why this happened but i do know that it's something temporary and wasn't well thought out fromt he beginning.

sunday was recovery. i spent it dancing the afternoon away at practice and hanging out with the awesome new friends i have made here. and i am so thankful for all of my friends. not just the ones form before, but the new people who have made an impression on me.

that is all. sorry if it's brutaully honest or just plain whiny. but i needed to say it. somewhere.

so when i should have been typing my paper about design, i found some dead baby jokes. enjoy

What's funnier than a dead baby?
A dead baby sitting next to a kid with down syndrome.

What's the difference between a dead baby and a felt tip marker?
You don't get second looks when you're writing with a felt tip marker

and this post wouldnt be complete without some helen keller jokes

Why didn't anyone hear Helen Keller when she fell off a cliff?
She was wearing mittens

Define true love.
Helen Keller and Stevie Wonder playing tennis.

Why can't Hellen Keller drive?
She's a woman.

and maybe some irish jokes, just to even things out.

What do Irishmen and Jesus Christ have in common?
Both never had a job and lived with their mothers til they weere 33.

Why did God invent whiskey?
So the Irish would never rule the worl.

later.

So I wake up at 10:00 today. My roomie is still asleep (which is no shock b/c she came in at 3AM) so I move quietly around the room. I come to the door to see a sheet of paper with a little rectangle pass attached. It had been slipped under our door. I read the sheet and discover that it was an invite to Cedar Values. I didn't know i signed up for this.

After breakfast, I further investigate.  Cedar Values is for our residential college and is group that promotes tolerance and including everyone in the community, reagardless of race, geneder, religion. OK. I like it so far. It meets in the Spot, Wednesday night. I can handle that. It was the next part that got me.

We strive to.....interupt offensive jokes.

......yeah. I know. Do I seriously sign up for this group? I must have been high or blind at the time. "interrupt" offensive jokes? I'm usually the one starting them. I agree for equality and tolerance but when you try to come between me and humor, you need to back the shit off. I don't need some upperclassmen telling me that crap. 


IT"S A JOKE.


FOR A REASON.


It's not serious.  If I were serious about my discrimination, I sure as hell would not use a joke to hurt you. If jokes hurt you, you are way too sensitive.  Words are powerful yes i understand. They are powerful enough to cause wars and battles and changes in society. But words can also heal and make you laugh and solve problems.  If everyone weren't so damn serious about this topic, I dont think there would be a need for this Cedar Values group. So if you don't like hearing me talk about dead babies in clown suits, save your spiel and go sit at another table.

... the "no-spin zone". Because I hate roller coasters.

This is really just a way for me to complain and not get punched in the face for things I say. Because I ramble. A lot. And I rarely make sense.
I hope to express myself better. Be a more effecive communicator. And most of all, not go insane during my freshmen year at college. People here are just like the ones I knew in high school.  There's drama already and politics involved with the theatre department. Fuck trying to understand them anymore. If I learned anything in high school, it's that there are some idiots out there who do things they shouldnt do. I also learned that if you can't beat them, then sucker punch them in the ego.  Works like a charm.

I'm going to the Indians game tonight. Who are we playing?