barbed_whispers

sooooo. my (favorite) cousin called me today. and asked me to be her new baby's godmother. UM. WHAT. so i'm going home for valentine's day weekend for the christening. do you know what this means, though? i pretty much have permission to buy stupid baby gifts now. weeeeeeeeeeeee! i am going to start shopping for a christening present asap, and my cousin has promised to fatten him up in the next month so that i will actually hold him. (TINY BABIES FRIGHTEN ME, OKAY?)

more on unquantifiable goals: i am going to eat better, buy local, craft more, write, be less unhappy about things i can't control, travel, not take my life for granted, be a better friend, be a better sister, be a better person, donate blood, volunteer, save money for my move to chicago, go on an adventure, follow through on at least one of my ridiculous plans, stop giving my time and money to things/people that don't deserve it, get my inbox under control, cook more & eat out less, build a website, learn something new, & have fun.

.....

also, i am stealing this from notemily and turning it into a music meme. with downloads! it is, after all, friday. ( most listened to bands/songs of 2009! )

we are getting ready to head out for a new year's game night, but i still have some time to kill. so! here are all the books i read, movies i watched, and shows i attended in 2009.

i mentioned the books i really liked in my last post, so go there for recs (or just ask). i'm still annoyed with myself for not meeting my goal (81/100, dammit), but some of those books took me a while to read (our band could be your life springs to mind) and i started a few that i never finished and i got internet on my phone, which put a serious dent in my reading time. damn you twitter! but i think i'll do better next year, and i'm dropping it down to 75 books / 50 new anyway.

i don't really have anything to say about the movies. i didn't fall completely in love with any of them (hbp was really good, and i enjoyed sherlock holmes a LOT) but i don't really regret watching them? idk. the more movies i watch, the more i see that movies are not an ideal medium for me. they're good for vegging out with though, so i'll keep this goal the same.

the shows were...god. so many of the shows were so amazing. the wrock show at the holiday inn was a ludicrously fun night. both amanda palmer shows were great, but the first one, with the crazy roadtrip and the bonding with new friends and the going in blind, was just amazing. driving up to atlanta to see bess, allie, and allison weiss was a really good weekend for me, and the fall out boy show that month was just. the build up was insane- i listened to an fob mix cd for MONTHS, i bought two tickets, i was just. so. excited. and the show was perfect. the roadtrip to memphis for the jenny & jukebox show was stupid and exhausting and worth it. last year at this time i was incredibly sad about the prospect of going another year without seeing that girl live, so i'm glad i've scratched that itch and i'm glad i met another super-fan there and i'm glad i went someplace i had never been just for this. the gasoline heart show made me realize how much local music i'm missing out on. the manchester orchestra show was an incredible amount of fun. the cobra starship show was probably the most fun i had at a show all year. all of the shows at dragon*con were amazing, but hellblinki performing "you are my sunshine" is still my favorite thing ever. the whomp the house show was great, for the music and the friends. the say anything show was incredible. the our lady peace shows were everything i'd dreamt they'd be.

same amount of show next year, but three new venues, more local music, and more taking chances.

i don't even think i realized just how blessed i was this year until i made this list. 2009 was truly fantastic to me, and i have no idea if 2010 can or will live up to it. but i'm diving in headfirst and hoping for the best.

heads up- i did a small flist cut today and i might do another tomorrow. it's nothing personal, i just don't have as much time for lollygagging on the interwebs as i used to! as always, feel free to stop reading me at any time.

(this may happen on tumblr and twitter too, fyi.)

(this is just like being back in college! wee!)

i bought everything i need to bake cookies (three kinds of chocolate chip instead of a bunch of fancy new recipes- i am tired and sickish and done caring) today, but i do not feel like starting them now. we're going to see the nutcracker tonight, so i would only have time for maybe one batch, and meh. i will probably regret this decision tomorrow.

i am almost done shopping though. i think i know what i'm getting for three of the four unfinished people on my list, and the fourth one is a pain in my ass and might just get an amazon gift certificate. i'm going to see if anything jumps out at me at the bigger-than-usual community market tomorrow, and if not, i'll go to borders and get the other things.

now i am planning for 2010, because that is easier than dealing with all of my stress right now. vacations (nyc sometime in march, d*c in september, gonna try to go home for christmas, maybe a trip to chicago since i've never been, and jenny is going to announce a show in atlanta soonish so i might try to go up for it if it's convenient), goals (the books one is getting cut down because not meeting it really stressed me out, the movies one is getting cut down because i don't really care about watching movies, and the shows one is getting some added challenges (like new venues) because i went to a ton of shows this year but moving the number up sounds ludicrous), projects (absolute wrock is gonna get built, more writing, more crafting, more day trips, less being unhappy about things i can't control), and idek. i feel like i've actually accomplished a lot this year while flying by the seat of my pants, so i don't want to limit myself too much. mehhhhhh

if you haven't told me that you want a holiday card + a mix cd, you can still do that here. i will be taking care of them once nunshavingfun goes home and i have no hands to hold :(

momebie and i went to see our lady peace tonight. those of you who have been with me from the start (back on open diary) may recall how much i lived and died by our lady peace shows. how every time there was a near miss i sat in my room and cried all night, and how that one time i got to see them it was the best fucking moment my 18 year old self had ever had.

i used to have shirts and stickers and pins and bags and bootlegs of their shows and bootlegs of their videos and singles and canadian releases and radio edits and and and and and. i still have a lot of that stuff, but i miss that fucking bootleg dvd of their videos like burning.

(also, i think this might be the first icon i ever made for myself. i reuploaded it because it is important.)

i could sit here and talk about how much their music means to me. how they were the first band i ever fell completely in love with. how they are still the only band i can comfortably discuss the discography and progression of. how listening to happiness... gives me flashbacks to that bus i practically lived on when i was 16 because i listened to it constantly. how they helped me make my first friend in college. how they introduced me to the canadian music scene. how they are one of the very few things that all of randy shares a love of. how i still think spiritual machines is a perfect album. how their music made me feel like i wasn't alone.

but it's already 1am, and, as much as i love it, i do not want to sing "4 am" at 4am today. but this band did and does and probably always will mean the world to me.

so anyway: the show. the openers, skindred, were wretched. well no. that doesn't cover it. they weren't a terrible band, if you are into generic angry men and loud guitars. i mean, they could play their instruments decently enough, and the singer wasn't horrible when he actually sang. but it's been so long since i've paid any attention to a band that had no respect for their fans that i was kind of shocked when he told the ladies in the crowd to "shake their double d's!" i mean, really? REALLY? it was a pretty sausage heavy show at that point, but there were a fair amount of women out their thrashing along to the music, and they threw their arms up and cheered. i am so fucking baffled by this.

but then we wormed our way up front and ended up behind some very nice people and in front of some drunk dumbasses, which was at least entertaining while we waited for olp. (their tech looked like luigi. when the drunks finally noticed, they started shouting "IT'SA ME, MARIO!" at him and asking where yoshi was. wee!) and then they came out.

steve can fucking rip it up, let me tell you. and he was wearing suspenders! and they REALLY know how to light that boy. duncan is adorable and always manages to look like he loves what he's doing, which always makes me happy. jeremy can rock a ponytail like no other man on earth, but the boy needs to smile more. and raine. oh raine. he called tiger woods a dumb motherfucker. i will love him forever.

and it was such an awesome, unexpected setlist. raine said, "we just put a new album out, and we are going to play you some songs from it!" and i turned to kl and said, "what are the odds of them playing 'paper moon'? slim to none, right?" AND THEN THEY PLAYED IT. LIKE, IMMEDIATELY. kl and i high-fived. then later when i was thinking, "play something from spiritual machines, i neeeeeed it!" they launched into "in repair". they played "automatic flowers" (SO RANDOM, SO WONDERFUL) and "bring back the sun" (dedicated to everyone's favorite dumb motherfucker) and just. so much. i called katia when they played "4 am", because how could i not? ♥

i don't know if i ever posted this here, but i said a while ago that covering MGMT's "kids" was the surest way to get your band on my shit list. i have to take that back now. fuckers.

the show was fantastic. the boys are so gracious, and the majority of the fans were wonderful. (the girls in front of us were very sweet when i gave them duncan's pick, which landed on my shoe. aw.) there is a reason i have been in love with these guys for the past however many years, and there is a reason i will stick by them even when they make questionable albums. this whole thing was made of win.

kl and i are now trying to figure out how 2010 could possibly top 2009 musically. it would have to involve mcr playing the social and jenny owen youngs coming to town and like, julia nunes playing a set from our couch. idek.

we are seeing these guys again on fucking saturday though. with say anything and panic! at the disco and everyone else on earth. i. cannot. wait.

i solemnly swear to read anything tammypierce tells me to ASAFP from now on. for serious. the woman has never steered me wrong, and the last two books i read that came from her rec list were fucking A+ amazing.

so now i'm reading graceling by kristin cashore, which i think she told us to read at d*c. in 2008. I SUCK, OKAY? it is so effing good, though. i read a lot of mediocre ya fantasy that i think is good until i read something like this and remember how rich and well-written ya fantasy can be. and katsa is such a bad-ass. i spent a good hour at work today thinking about katsa, katniss (from the hunger games by suzanne collins), alanna and kel (from the tortal books by tamora pierce), and the girl from those hilari bell books that i adored having a tea party. and then locke (from the lies of locke lamora by scott lynch- not actually YA, but whatever) would try to sneak in and maybe GEORGE (tortall) would catch him and talk shop with him instead. and then locke would meet katsa and drive her up a fucking wall, but po would really like him. and then all the ladies would get together and stab bella swan in the fucking FACE.

and giddon and motherfucking jon could trade tips about being hateful misogynists to the women they allegedly love! maybe they can invite some of the boys from forks! weeeeeee!

and cos simplykatie wanted to know what else i got from the library:

• revealers by amanda marrone
  
• the last knight by hilari bell
  
• life as we knew it by susan beth pfeffer
  
• skate by michael b. harmon
  
• cybele's secret by juliet marillier
  
• gingerbread by rachel cohn
  
• thirteen reasons why by jay asher

um. so. i won nanowrimo? i know many of you are probably checking the username again, thinking that you read that wrong. but nope! i, barbed_whispers, wrote a 51,980 word novel over the month of november. CUH. RAZY.

i think (and you can correct me if i'm wrong) that this is the first time, in my entire life, that i have begun a large project and actually finished it. like, no joke. i usually get about 1/3 of the way into a project and then i get bored. that's when it gets hard, or, usually, tedious. or that's about how long it is until my brain jumps to something new. it's why i started writing out short summaries of stories and emailing them to getaway_machine instead of pretending i would ever write anything. it's why i know how to knit and make things out of clay and edit and design websites and take photos and and and, but i don't actually DO any of thse things. learning how? fun! doing it? boring!

but i did this! i fucking FINISHED this! it is one long, mostly logical, linear story. and it is fucking done. some of it might end up online, but most of it never ever will.

idk. i am pretty proud of myself for actually FINISHING something. and also weirded out.

i wanted to do a post about things i am thankful for, but then i came home and got distracted by the tv. fuck. this is a large large part of why i never want to have cable again. (owning a tv isn't the problem- cable tv is the problem. i have spent too much of this vacation parked on the couch with my laptop and a blanket. in all fairness though, i was kind of sick yesterday, due to the insanity of my parents and the temperature of this house.)

anyway. last year at this time, life was not exactly great. i was on the verge of making what would have been a terrible decision (moving back to new jersey) even though i knew it was a terrible decision (if i come back here, i will never be able to leave again), but i made it through and ended up having an amazing year and making some amazing new friends. and now life is as close to perfect as it ever has been.

i am so thankful for all of you, but em, jess, and kl especially. and i am thankful for all stupid boys in stupid bands, but pete wentz more than any others. and i am thankful for all the crazy people on twitter, but maureen johnson and misha collins the most. i am thankful for the job i don't like, because it is a job, and it gives me health insurance and enough money to live my life the way i want to live it. i am thankful for my new apartment, because it has a chalkboard wall and it felt like home from the day i moved in. i am thankful for orlando, because it is the perfect amount of city for me right now, and it has a little bit of everything if you know where to look. i am thankful for all of the bands who have toured there this year, and a couple of the ones who haven't. i am thankful for generous bartenders at the social. i am thankful for my family, who do not pressure me about moving back to new jersey or going back to college or getting married or getting a real job nearly as much as i expect them to. i am thankful for all of the books i have read this year, and everything they have taught me. i am thankful for the internet, and everything it has given me. i am thankful for taco tuesdays and friday nights at starbucks and wizard rock shows and moving parties and dinosaurs and write-ins and every time i have laughed this year. i am thankful for being able to live the life i have always dreamed of.

Poll #1488463 eight fucking weeks?!
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 16

if it was your last night on earth, which would you choose?

i didn't meet my nano goal while we were at barnies tonight, so i did not get my delicious reward :(

but i met my goal (AND THEN SOME!) after coming home, so i am doing this meme, which i stole from everyone, instead! ( MEME. )

( tl;dr about my mix cds. )

HOKAY, SO. holiday card + a mix cd. i do not care if we are friends. (srsly- complete strangers who are willing to give me an address can have a cd. tell your friends!) i do not want you to send me something in return. (i would not say no to a mix cd, but you are not obligated at all.) it does not matter where you live. if you cannot fill out the poll, you can leave a comment (they are screened) or fill out my formspring. please just take these damn cds off my hands.

Poll #1486050 holiday card + a mix cd!
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: None, participants: 11

what's your address?

anything else?

this week has been so effing crazy, you guys. i am finally all moved in to the new apartment (HUZZAH) and i am going to spend this weekend unpacking and getting settled in. and writing. i am so far behind on nanowrimo. SUCK. there will be chinese food tomorrow though. i have been dreaming about it all week but i have been cruelly denied lo mein time and time again. I SHALL PREVAIL!

anyway. the say anything show on wednesday? was so fucking good. one of the best this year, definitely. i enjoyed the miniature tigers, and i was not crazy about the second band, and i would have liked eisley more had the lead singer not been the lead singer (she was pretty boring. i really liked the songs where sherri sang though), but say anything were just outstanding. outstanding boys, outstanding setlist, outstanding crowd... "ahhhhh... men" is going to stick with me for a long time, is the thing. it was so good that i seriously considered trying to get a ticket to the thursday night show even though i obviously had to finish cleaning and packing thursday night. SO GOOD.

and it was national unicorn appreciation day! i usually do a lot more, but i was obviously way busy and unable to bake or cut up the children's unicorn halloween costume i bought or do anything else exciting. i need to start putting together a plan for 2011 though, for serious.

(oh man. epic discussion on twitter right now because a lot of us listen to "crappy" pop music and bunny is pained by this. weeeeeeeeeeeeeee.)

i took tonight off to watch castle and eat too much pasta and now argue about music, but i am going to unpack everything this weekend, write at least 12,000 words, and set up the holiday card thing. and if i have time left over, i am going to paint 400 pete wentzes in momebie's room while she's away. :D

UGHHHHH why can't i be a normal member of my generation and prefer digital music to cds? i have too many cds. i can't really enjoy an album if i don't get the physical cd, because i play all my music on shuffle because it's mostly background noise. but actual cds get played and played and played and i fall head over heels in love. (for instance: i downloaded the bell horses album the day it dropped on amie street, listened to it once, really liked it, and didn't listen to it again until i bought the actual cd, which has not left my car's cd player since i got it.) (that album is really fucking good, check it out. it sounds like music that would have played at the bronze ♥)

while packing, i put all of the random cds that were floating around my apartment into the gigantic cd case i have and it was full. completely full, with a lot of mix cds double and triple stacked. and some cds in my car. and some cds hanging out elsewhere. and i said "SELF! you cannot buy ANY MORE CDS until you fix this problem!" except then i went to park ave last week and bought, uh, four new cds. (new albums from pearl jam, olp, say anything, and mike doughty, with a bonus free say anything lp and free mike doughty album that i already have and therefore gave to momebie.) fuck. fuck fuck fuck.

i feel bad throwing out cds (although i threw out a stack of cds yesterday- trust me, they were crap), and i could just get rid of all the old mixes i made in college, but...so wasteful. does anybody want some old mix cds? i never did tracklistings, just dates or sometimes themes. so surprise mix cds! maybe i should do a holiday card + a mix cd. hmmm. let's figure this out WITH SCIENCE!

Poll #1482722 yet another thing i can procrastinate nanowrimo with!
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 11

would you be interested in getting some sort of holiday card from me?

i had several awesome plan offers for friday night, but then my boss came in and gave me free tickets to halloween horror nights so...i cancelled other plans and did that. i had never been to universal, you guys! i will see damion suomi again eventually, i promise. anyway, lots of fun was had that night with kl and john.

yesterday i slept forever and then started the epic painting of the wall. (kl and i made one of the walls in our living room into a giant chalkboard, with lots of help from tall people.) after that, we went to em's for movies & soup. i have truly terrible taste in movies, so i was really enjoying redneck vampires from space (or whatever it's called) until we turned it off. i have finally seen nightmare before christmas though! and also my friends are WAY CREEPY, what with the watching children in california trick or treat via the internet thing.

today i slept a lot more and got really confused about what time it was. then i went to target for discounted halloween stuff (it was a bust) and ended up with some stalkers. i think i shall move in with one of them next week. anyway, we finished painting the wall after some outrageous issues taping up the border. i have it on good authority that it looks fab though, so hooray!

oh also i wrote over 2000 words for nano. !!!! that is more than i have written in the last five attempts. combined. WHAT IS THIS BULLSHIT? oh btw, my story involves a long roadtrip across the country, so if you know of anything stupid my characters should do or see, let me know! i will probably start making up attractions soon since i have never been further west than pa.

i feel like i should put a disclaimer on my lj about how wretched i am at responding to comments. or posting comments in general. if i don't respond as soon as i read the email notification, i tend to forget all about it until the next time i clean out my inbox. and my inbox has been very uncharacteristically (are there too many letters in that word?) messy lately, so...even worse than usual at responding. *sucks* I AM JUST A NATURAL LURKER, OK?

in news that is less about how useless i am: OLP! TWICE! DECEMBER! EEEEE! tickets have been purchased! and possibly third eye blind again, cos they are coming back the day between those two shows. and i keep stealing momebie's awesome friends, so it will be an even MORE exciting weekend!

hm, what else? kl and i got the sexiest effing calendar for the living room tonight. no, not the rpattz one. or the high school musical one. it's old pulp art. hotttt. and the second volume of the umbrella academy got released early, so i picked that up! no sign of rachelcaine's new one, sadly. it officially comes out next week though, so i'll survive.

oh, and the TAI show last night was aweeesome. except for the part where the opening bands were 100% horrible. but then we had bill and bill's suspenders and bill's adorable need to act out each song as he sings it. and the rest of the band! woo! heh. such fun. i have to cut down on the all ages shows though, because i really cannot handle these kids who wear cardigans as dresses. BUY SOME PANTS. (i can't stop talking about this either.)

( tl;dr blah blah about why i don't hang out on lj much anymore. )

unrelatedly, there is no way i am going to complete my book goal for the year. 100 books was way too ambitious (although, to be fair, work was so slow that i hardly had any reading time this summer) and i feel like crap knowing i won't get there. i really dislike not meeting my goals, urgh. i read a decent amount of stuff that was both time-consuming and outside my comfort zone (several non-fiction books, for starters), and i should be able to hit at least 75, but still. unhappy. need to decide if i want to set a smaller goal next year or work harder.

i blew my shows goal (15) out of the water though. 22 so far, not including all the random sets i've caught at the community market. and i'm going to at least 4 more this year. (TAI, say anything, olp, the olp/patd/say anything/every other band ever show, and then maybe the mountain goats, maybe joshua radin, almost definitely damion suomi next week, and i might check out the anti*pop festival even though there aren't really any bands listed that i care that much about. and i'm still considering the cobras show haha. AND there's still a lot of unclaimed dates on the calendar. so at least i can feel good about this one.)

so, i think i am doing nano. i mean, i am signed up. but i've signed up before. november is just historically a bad month for me to do something like nano! but i've signed up and bought a new moleskin and have a tentative plot and plan and if i succeed, there shall be prizes. for me. the prize for the rest of you will be 50,000 cracktastic words from my brain to your internet, which is not really a good prize, unless you are a fan of my brain's special brand of crack. (which, let's face it- if you are reading this, you probably are.)

in less stupid plans news, supernatural is on fire and i love it a whole lot. i have been thinking about it almost as much as i have been thinking about pete wentz & co. (which is a sickening amount, to be honest.)

in music news, i just bought a hard copy of the bell horses album! YAY. i still haven't bought mike doughty's album because i'm still annoyed at how terribly it was marketed and also the fact that he is not touring down here. and also that there are tracks i cannot buy because of my raging hate for itunes. and i mean, i have so many cds here that i haven't listened to yet, so whatever mike doughty. i am on your mailing list and i read your blog and your twitter and your new album still took me by surprise. THAT IS NOT OKAY.

in conclusion, i think the orlando and boston fangirl brigades should rumble. or be penpals. like when you were in elementary school and you became penpals with kids at a school far away? actually, i need to send a care package up that way. it will happen while i pack next weekend, aren. (MOVING IN LIKE, 3 WEEKS OMG WHAT.)