One week without you, thought I'd forget

1) My blog's ugly, and it makes me sad.  I wish web design were more my forte.
2) I kind of want a tumblr, but I think it would be narcissistic, even for me. Maybe I'll make a FuckYeah*InsertPersonHere* page, though I don't know what I'd make since this site (most useful web resource ever) told me that FuckYeahJodieFoster already existed. Ideas?
3) Rue McClanahan died? Sad...now Betty White's the only living Golden Girl. (I don't know if I mentioned how much I love Betty White here yet, but I do...Lately both she and Fannie Flagg have surpassed Charles Nelson Reilly in my ranking of favorite Match Game contestants. I know, unheard of.)

Anyways...

I used to love "Vacation" by the Go-Gos because it was in the Rugrats vacation special (where they go to Las Vegas and rescue the white "kitties" in the show...that must've been Harsher in Hindsight, post Roy Horn's tiger attack). The original played in the beginning and then Angelica butchered it later on:



(Sadly I couldn't find a video but here's the audio)

But now I like it because, well, I love the Go-Gos. If I could join any band, it would be them. Perfect balance of mall brat and rebel. And right about now the song says a lot. Gotta love Lyrical Dissonance (sorry for the second TV Tropes link...I should make a rule to only direct you all to that time sucker once per post...or just TropesRoll you without announcing it):

The counselors at the Girl Scout Camp, they say they're mighty fine, but when you go to meet them, they look like Frankenstein!

Hello, readers! To all my STL readers, I miss you like whoa and you all should come to Pennsylvania and play Yeah Dude with me right now.

So thus far, epic RENT night aside, my summer’s consisted of looking up animal hybrids on Wikipedia (check out the puma/leopard mix, the dwarf pumapard), checking my FormSpring which you all should ask me questions on, playing Treasure Isle on Facebook extensively and listening to more 4 Non Blondes than anyone should in a lifetime (Seriously, the “What’s Up” video is on demand and I’ve listened to it more than is healthy…it’s probably a good thing that I wasn’t the age I am now in the 90s, cause I’d be trying to emulate them like whoa.)

Anyways…it’s hard to believe I used to value sitting at home alone and learning about phantom big cats and whatnot more than anything in the world, cause I really can’t take much more of it right about now. Sure one day I’ll be able to wow someone with my knowledge of ligers and beefalo (which have apparently stunted buffalo conservation efforts like whoa), but it’s really not productive at all, and loses the fun value quite quickly.

But, yeah, even when I did genuinely enjoy sitting around doing nothing all the time, the highlight of the summer months was still the few weeks I'd go away to Girl Scout camp. For a total couch potato/only child, it was great to be around a big group of really awesome people spending time outside and doing really fun things...like the time I was in the travelers group (probably the best week at camp I had) when we went to the Delaware Water Gap (and they talked about the Shawnee tribe until shawnee didn't sound like a word anymore) and to Camelback Beach (I'm not a big water slide person, but I sure love wave pools...it's like being at the beach without the jellyfish and with a shitton of chemicals) on the 4th of July and spent the entire day imitating our British counselor's accents, because we thought they were the coolest ever (and we all felt really bad when we made "Ringo" (a girl scout camp counselor never reveals her real name...unless she does or you force it out of her...I got in trouble for telling people a counselor's name once) lost her belly button ring because we begged her to take it out and show us how it worked). (I'm on a roll with the run-ons and parentheticals today)...and the next year with my "Theater of the Mountains" group we went to see 42nd Street in town and it was...well, obviously a small town theater production (but hey, I just went and saw RENT at the Media theater and it was surprisingly awesome), but pretty fun.

I just tried to write a paragraph about how great camp was and ended up writing about how great not being at camp was. I promise we had fun on the campgrounds, too...we canoed (I was never a big canoing fan; your shoes got too muddy...I could deal with being grimy and having dirty clothes, but wet shoes are the one thing I really can't put up with for some reason), and funyaked (it's a little yellow floaty thing that you sat in the middle of, fwiw) (you could step into the funyak without getting completely soaked and for some reason the kayaking motion is much more fun than the canoeing one and you don't have to deal with sharing a boat with a slow paddler (though this one time I had to deal with a clingy campmate who made it her goal to link our funyaks together)).

And if you were willing to hike up a humungo hill you'd get to ride horses, which was really fun even though everyone there knew way more about horses than I did and this one time I steered the horse too hard and the scary barn leader yelled at me...and then the horse tried to buck me off and she ran over and was like "Wow, you handle that horse so well!" and affirmed that statement after the thing decided to step on my foot as I was demounting it. 


Speaking of crazy animal experiences, there was the summer when the bears ran rampant. Over the counselors' radios, we'd hear them talk about "Code B's" all over camp, but they wouldn't tell us what a Code B was...we quickly hypothesized that we were dealing with a Code B(ear), and everyone got really excited, though I was a bit skeptic. This next story starts with something totally out of character for me...I'd joined Roadrunners, and we woke up at ungodly hours to go for runs (yeah, I know...I was with the lagging group in the back in case you hadn't assumed that). I was walking back to my tent with someone else in my unit when I stopped dead in my tracks...there was nobody else around...except for a baby bear eating a big rubber band. I calmly tapped my friend on the shoulder and was like, "Hey, what's that?". "What's what?" "The bear!" and she looked up and freaked...quietly freaked, since being loud around a baby bear...I mean the baby prolly couldn't do much, but where there's a baby animal there's a crazy mother (I got attacked by a mother goose last year, so I know). So we stood there until it ran away and then went to our counselor who reported it and everyone in the camp found out and there was a hoopla and everyone thought I was really cool. It was a triumph of sorts, I suppose. And then one time was one either inside or just outside the mess hall and they had to chase it away and we all watched from a distance and by then they couldn't pretend there weren't bear around it was really exciting. Who needs danger perception, anyway?

And all the nights we'd stay up singing (This one time a counselor came to our tent to give us our nightly option of a "handshake, hug, or ET touch" [we always took all 3] and we ended up singing "Thank You" by Dido with her so now that song reminds me of camp) and playing truth or dare and the "nervous game" (and somehow I got the repuation of being the prudish one...in a group of 12 year olds, mind you) and gossiping about other campers (During the travelers unit we ended up splitting up into 2 cliques...which were like the city people and the surburban ones, which seems really awful now, but at the time it was fun...I mean, everyone was in one and it's not like we were outright excluding everyone and the cool, urban kids liked me just fine even though I was from suburbia (which was good because I was with most of them in Theater of the Mountains so it would've been bad if they had recognized me as that girl from the rival clique) so its okay...right? Okay, fine...but I'm sure you weren't a nice person when you were 12, either)

But my favorite part of camp was also my least favorite, because it was the last night of each session, when we would have a campfire/singalong/talent show. We'd do the same skits every year (except when I was in the acting one, when we decided we needed a good skit so we did a good one, though I forget what it was...we also did a modern version of Cinderella which I narrated and when we raised/took down the flag some of the girls did a step routine...I meanwhile stood by the flag lamely and gave all the orders). But anyways...usually the skits were the Magic Blanket skit (in which people would through things over a blanket and they'd come back double in size until a skeptic spit on it and then got hit with a bucket of water) and the "and then I heard a knock, a knock, a knock, and I thought it was Cecilia, Cecilia, Cecilia!" one and "If I were not a camper, I wonder what I'd be, If I were not a camper, *insert counselors name here* is what I'd be! *Insert something the counselor said here*"...or, conversely, "A birdwatcher's what I'd be! Hark, a lark, sitting in the park! *Crack an egg over head, pretend it's bird shit, hilarity ensues*"

So we'd sing some silly songs...they were the songs that I'd sing all through the school years to get funny looks from people, so it was pretty sweet to go to camp and burst out in a silly song and simply have those around me join in ("Baby shark, do do do do do do do"..."There's a hole in the bucket, dear Eliza, dear Eliza!"..."Oh I had a little chickie and it wouldn't lay an egg so I rubbed hot water up and down its legs! Oh, the little chickie hollered and the little chickie begged...and the little Chickie laid a hard-boiled egg!" and the "Just a boy and a girl in a little canoe..." song which ended with a girl paddling a canoe and the boy that she kicked out of the boat swimming all around...in the same misandric vein, the song that started with a girl sitting 'neath the lilacs and playing a guitar and then she meets a guy smoking a cigar and she dies and he becomes a douchebag and then he is killed by her tombstone and the moral of this song, according to the counselors, was "never tell lies", but we always sang "never trust guys!" 


Oh, girl scout camp...

If you're still with me after that last paragraph, then thanks for putting up with my ramblings...so after alternating between silly skits and silly songs we'd calm down and sing some more solemn songs, like "On My Honor" which was full of sappy, heartwarming Girl Scout-y values, "Red Balloon" and "Spider's Web", which was one of my favorites:





My other favorite was "Linger", which IIRC I got up and attempted to sing at my high school's last meeting for worship before graduation and prolly embarrassed myself like whoa...but anyways, there are lots of versions of it, I believe, but ours went:


I want to linger
A little longer
A little longer here with you
it's such a perfect night, 
it doesn't seem quite right
that it should be my last with you
and come September
we'll all remember
and as the years go by
I'll think of you and sigh
this is goodnight and not goodbye

And everyone would get all sappy and sentimental and give big hugs and we'd link hands and sing Taps and there would be a phantom trumpet playing it from the activities lodge (I don't know who the player was, still) And then the next day would be come, and it would be over...until the next year.


The last year I went things sort of fell apart, at least with my group of friends...drama, people getting in trouble for cigarettes and stuff, a giant foodfight, and then I didn't go back because everyone decided not to go back, either...Sad, sad...but at least it was fun for the time being! And it's so aweosme to meet someone else who went to Girl Scout camp and to compare experiences and campfire songs. So...if you're reading this and went to camp...what songs did you sing?

P.S. Go here for lots of great camp songs!

P.P.S. Sorry for the wonky fonts...I don't know what happened.

Sparkle, Neely, Sparkle!

I'm sure there are intelligent things I could be doing-like studying, and if I'm going to instead waste time on this blog I could be writing about something intelligent, but I just feel like doing something fun (okay, I ended up analyzing everything below, albeit not very well). I was going to write about Girl Scout Camp back in the day and how much I miss it, but (a) that has potential to be sappy sappy, and (b) Carrie Brownstein (of Sleater-Kinney) just beat me to it in writing a blog post about her favorite summer camp songs and I could take it as coincidence, or as a sign that I should or should not write my post, but for the time being I'm going to not be a copy cat. Not that Carrie and I have overlapping readership or anything...I'm sure that post will come soon enough.

Anyways, hmm...pure, unadulterated fun...I know! I present to you...

Sienna's Guiltiest Pleasures

Actually, I'm sure I'll forget some of the guilty ones. And I already established that I'm bad at Top 5/Top 10 Lists (Yeah, I'm still not a together person...but I guess Rob Fleming wasn't, either...) I'm not even sure I'm going to feel like writing explanations for each one...I guess it's not really necessary. I mean, if you like something, you like something. Actually, I'm not sure how guilty/embarrassed I feel about any of these. I kind of want to re-name this "Things Sienna Likes That Other People Judge Her For, Yet She Goes On Liking Them", but that doesn't flow nicely.

I mean, sure, when other people are discussing great American literature that they're fond of and then I really want to chime in with how I *love* Valley of the Dolls I usually hold back...there are some things that truly are in bad taste for me to like. But for a lot of these I don't know why they're considered bad/tacky/low-class/whatver. As long as something's not outright offensive, what's wrong with liking it? I think the fact that we consider some things to be in bad taste when there's no real reason for it is pretty pretentious. There are plenty of things that I like for irony's sake, but lately I've been feeling bad about that. The whole irony thing is often a bunch of privileged and/or "in-crowd" people deciding to deride something that someone else either genuinely likes or, in other cases, has to purchase/wear out of necessity. I should probably cut that out.

(I still want a Three Wolf Moon shirt)

So I guess I'll start with the aforementioned Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann...I think I've read this book, with its adorable pink cover with the pill cut-outs, like 5 times. Long story short: A young woman leaves her New England hometown to go to New York City and make a name for herself, gets caught up in showbiz and becomes a drug addict. I knew I was going to love it when I read the godawful poem (Poem? I think that's what Susann was going for) in the front of the book...I like it because it sounds an awful lot like any poetry I've ever tried to write. Then..."...New York was steaming-an angry concrete animal caught unawares in an unreasonable hot spell"...and you're off! This is the book that started my trashy novel phase in high school, from Jackie Collins to such gems as Wanton Slave (which floated around my school's hallways, for some reason) and I Shocked the Sheriff. The story just sucks you in...and you read, and you read, and you read, and in the end you don't feel like you've gained anything at all, except a chance to escape and to realize that your life isn't that bad. There was also a movie made of it, which is now a camp classic (Susann allegedly walked out of the screening in disgust), but the book's the best. Reading is always more intelligent than watching a movie, right? (Go here if you want to read some of it...or just ask to borrow my copy..I'm glad to spread the love)

Next, a few musical guilty pleasures for you...I think I posted some of these on Facebook a while back so bear with me if you're a true cyber-stalker who's seen these already.

Vixen: Edge of  a Broken Heart

I really don't know why I like some 80s Hair Metal. I guess  I'm just a sucker for a good guitar riff. And female rock musicians are my favorite thing ever, hence the Vixen love, ... I mean, yeah, they're all wearing tight clothing (though I guess male Hair metal musicians dressed exactly the same...equal opportunity works in weird ways) and whining about heartbreak in most of their songs, but if you get past that they're just as talented as any 80s metal band (not saying much?) And the big hair and flashy clothes are just too awesome to pass up.

Vixen - Cryin @ Yahoo! Video

Dixie Chicks: Goodbye Earl

This was my favorite song in the 4th or 5th grade. I remember my best friend and I had learned the lyrics to like every song on MTV or VH1 (they played music? whoa) and would sing them at our school's after school program, and this was one of them. I don't know how I feel about the fact that little 10 year old me was running around singing about battling domestic violence with domestic violence. Actually, I know exactly how I feel about that, so if anything, that's why this song is a guilty pleasure. (No guilt about liking the Dixie Chicks...In fact, after sitting through Robert Altman's Nashville I sort of have a soft spot for country music...Okay, maybe not a soft spot as much as an infatuation with an element of Americana to which I've never felt much of an affinity)



Wilson Phillips: The Dream is Still Alive

I love, love, loooooove Wilson Phillips. I grew up listening to Carnie and Wendy Wilson's Christmas album every December, which I'm sure has a lot to with it (I'm planning a really aweosme post for July 25, FWIW...My Christmas Songs post was going to be for December but I don't think I can wait that long). And music from the 90s makes me very happy, as a reminder of my childhood-they were like the cool big kids that I wanted to be when I grew up (Yeah, I still want to dress like them). Plus, if you're the child of hippies you're like automatically aweosme until proven otherwise in my book (I chose this song becasue it reflects that...whee, being nostalgic for/trying to live the life of your parent's generation!). And depsite the fact that, "Hold On" aside, they're mainly known for Carnie's size (I mean, really?) (Also, I can't believe how far behind I am on her reality show...unheard of!) and for having batshit families (Carnie and Wendy Wilson are the daughters of a Beach Boy, and Chynna Phillips the daughter of a Mama & a Papa and there was weird stuff with her dad and her half sister and blah blah), they're actually quite talented...I wish I had people I could harmonize like that with!



Grateful Dead: Casey Jones
Indigo Girls: Uncle John's Band
Okay, so I actually really like the Indigo Girls, and I really like the Grateful Dead. And I really really like the Indigo Girls covering the Grateful Dead. But I don't like fitting stereotypes, and I feel like the fact that I really like the aforementioned groups show how I fit various labels to a tee, and that makes me uncomfortable. So sometimes I pretend to like things ironically so I'm not some type of sterotype, but self-derision isn't any better than deriding someone else's taste (and if I ever get that Jeep Wrangler I was eying this morning...I wouldn't know how to pass such a big purchase off as ironic; I'd just have to go with it. Same with a hippie van or some little eco-friendly car...which I guess Jeeps aren't.). Really, going out of your way to reject stereotypes is as bad a going out of your way to propogate them or push them on others; you're still affirming the existence of the stereotype.



The best part of the Indigo Girls covering "Uncle John's Band" is the "Sister, well i declare..." line and "Ain't no time to hate, sister, barely time to wait" thing they added. I was like "They would..."

The best part of "Casey Jones" is...the whole thing! After "Touch of Grey", I think this was the first Dead song I heard and after bursting out in laughter on, the "high on cocaine" line I had another "They Would" moment...So why can't I have "I would" moments in my own life?




Speaking of stereotypes, let's move on to movies. Something I am actually reluctant to say that I like, something I've never liked ironically; I've tried to dislike it but I seriously can't look away, it's like a car crash (which I think ties into the movie somehow): Basic Instinct. I mean, gay rights groups picketed the movie with signs spoling the ending : [highlight for spoiler] She's the killer [highlight for spoiler] because of its portrayal of queer women as hypersexual psychos/killers/psycho-killers. And that hasn't really changed in time (Ohai, Jenny Schecter, and...whoever the fuck actually killed her). Judging by the length of the "Psycho Lesbian" and "Depraved Bisexual" pages on TV Tropes (I advise waiting until after exams are over before you explore TV Tropes...it can take up your entire day/week/life), it's quite a problem. Yet I don't think therein lies my specific problem with this movie; I think my problem with it is just with the over-the-top sex and violence (often conflated) in general. Let's compare it with Mulholland Drive, one of my favorite movies and far, far, from a guilty pleasure: because I feel no guilt about liking it, and instead of bringing me pleasure it actually makes me really sad. But anyways...Mulholland Drive has lots of sex and violence, and I've seen it like 10 times and still don't really understand the plot, but from what I gather [highlight for spoiler] The female protagonist's girlfriend leaves her for a man. so the protagonist goes crazy, hires a hitman to kill the GF and then kills herself [highlight for spoiler] (I'm sure that spoiler's tempting you sorely...and even if you're planning on watching the film but have yet to see it I might acutally advise reading a few spoilers first or you'll have no clue what's going on). On paper its plot doesn't the sound much better than Basic Instinct's. But the sex and violence is much more tasteful (there's the concept of "taste" again...anyone want to delve deeper into that for me?) in Mulholland Drive, and the film's widely known as a masterpiece; the narrative and cinematography are works of art; David Lynch doesn't make exploitation films (can't really quantify what he makes, though). I think the reason I feel guilty about liking Basic Instinct is that it doesn't have artistic mertit to fall back on so it relies solely on gratuitous sex and hacking away at people with ice picks. Plus, usually I think it's a good thing when characters in movies and such just happen to be LGBT without it having to do with the overarching themes of the work, but in this case there's no real reason for Catherine Tramell to be bisexual other than to tantalize and in the context of a movie about a murderer it's kind of an awful idea. The relationship between the women in Mulholland Drive contributes to the plot and even though Diane's actions are questionable, I always want to give her a hug. But, yeah, my issue with Basic Instinct is still mainly that it's a bad movie (but it's so enthralling, still!) (and apparently better than the sequel)





(I bet this is gonna be the day that my entire family reads my blog...just as I'm leaving to go home for the summer...SWEET timing)

I really didn't want to deconstruct all my favorite things, but I'm doing just that...Hm...what's something I like, and my guilt about it comes from an obvious place...*clap*clap* Xanadu!

Starring Gene Kelly and Olivia Newton-John (and some guy who couldn't sing yet got cast in a musical and probably never made another movie). It's about this guy who paints replicas of album covers and hates his job...and then this muse visits him and he is inspired to open up a roller disco that combines elements from the dying days of disco with elements from the 1940s. And they sing about it. And there's this random Disney-esque animated sequence in the middle that makes no sense. And the special effects make me thing of We Have Lasers. I'm not making any of this up. Actually, the music is pretty awesome-Gene Kelly and ONJ are musical staples and there's tons of Electric Light Orchestra. That's the only real redeeming quality to this movie, yet I don't think that's why I really like it; I think it's just so rediculous that it's amazing.

Here's the trailer, which makes it seem like an updated Footlight Parade or some grand musical spectacle of that sort:






Expect a pt. 2 to this sometime, but for now I need to actually get stuff done today. Oh, reading week...where have you gone? What have I accomplished? LeSigh.

If anyone feels like commenting, leave some of your guilty pleasures! Analysis optional.

I don't want to change your life so please hold me tight tonight

I'm getting way too cerebral with these things (cerebral's a very cerebral word, isn't it?)

So, just for fun...

You touched my hand, I played it cool...

Hmmm, classes are over; I don't know how I feel about it. In every one we rushed through the last few weeks of the syllabus and then the professors were like "kthxbai" and now everything seems so incomplete, inside and out of class.

It's not an end, because I'll come back to school and things won't necessarily be the way they are now (and I hate it when things change while you're away and you're not around to contribute/control it/watch it happen…gah, I’m like the only one not sticking around. I wish I were around for all the group bonding that's going to be happening), but likely they will be very similar (except for people going abroad and graduating, which makes me sad).

It's not a beginning of something new, because I'll go home and things will be exactly how I left them, which is partly comforting and partly confining.

Just a disruption from what's been the norm, and I'm sure going back to school after the summer will be equally as disruptive, just like it was last summer. I feel like I have 2 very separate lives, and whenever I have to switch from one to the other, it’s so jarring, even if I wouldn’t trade either life for anything.


Ends of summers, ends of semesters, ends of everything...they always seem so rushed/sudden, which sucks because I look at beginnings of these things as infinite, like I have all the time in the world, and then all of a sudden it's like "nope, sorry". And then I turn into this sappy sad-sack. Like at the end of each semester I start to miss not only the beginning of the semester when everything was new and excitng, but the ends of semesters past, for some reason. And since nobody wants to hang around with a blubbering sentimentalist I guess I’ll save all that for here, when people can click the little X on the top of their browser at any time if I get obnoxious.


Last Spring, I spent reading week...lo and behold, reading! But I wasn't reading for, say, my optional Psych final (which I only really took because I was sticking around for a Fleetwood Mac concert anyway)...I think I was scrambling to finish as many books in the Tales of the City series (one of the things that got me excited for going back to school last fall was being able to finish the series. STFU) and this book from Nylon on female musicians and their style. And a few days I wandered around campus by myself and climbed/sat in/under trees and listened to cheesy 70s pop music (I don't know why I associate springtime with the songs from VH1's 40 Most Sensational Soft Rock Songs...I think that song about there being a warm wind blowing and stars out and really wanting to see someone tonight has something to do with it. Oh, and that "Summer Breeze" song...I think the artists behind those 2 songs were related, actually...ANYWAYS)

If you'd like to humor me, or need new fodder for making fun of me, here you go:

I'd Really Love to See You Tonight by England Dan & John Ford Coley @ Yahoo! Video

What was I talking about before I revealed my awful taste in music? Oh, right...I'd love to repeat the whole wandering by myself and listening to England Dan and John Ford Coley, except (a) I kind of don't appreciate solitude the way I did a year ago, and (b) (more importantly) I think my iPod, Angel, is lost forever. Maybe next year, with a new iPod (I hate how every Birthday/Christmas present I’ve gotten recently has been a replacement for something I’ve lost or broken…this is why I shouldn’t have nice things), I can finally try to relive it, but it'll be with a different iPod (and not my beloved Angel the 30 GB video model), and probably a new musical guilty pleasure.


Just goes to show that you can never really recreate a moment. Which sometimes is great, when you're back in a place/situation/what have you and you'd love to start over there, and recreate yourself and your life in that setting, but other times sucks, when dealing with a perfect moment that you'd love to get back. How sad is it that listening to bad music while sitting in a tree is considered one of the more perfect moments of my life?


Anyways, now I'm thinking of yet another Fleetwood Mac song...I first heard "Seven Wonders" about this time last year...I'd just gotten back home for summer break, and the night before I'd seen FM in St. Louis, as referenced above. I was on a Stevie kick and was wishing that I could've stayed in that concert venue forever and ever with the diehard classic rock fans and the middle-aged ladies in lacy black dresses carrying tambourines. I went to my room and unpacked my bags and looked around my room and had no idea what to do with myself, so I put the Stevie channel of Last.FM radio on and this came on. I'd heard of the song, but had never actually heard it. I thought it was a gorgeous song, and even though it wasn't written by Stevie (she got songwriting credit just because she changed a line from “You touched my hand, all the way down the line” down to “all the way down to Emmeline” after mishearing it. Wut.) it had "her" written all over it:



Fleetwood Mac - Seven Wonders @ Yahoo! Video

Summer 2009 has been the best summer of my life so far (whenever I get sad about leaving school now I think back to how much fun it was), and that song makes me think of it. I listened to the song on the flight to Italy (along with “Babooshka” by Kate Bush…but I don’t think that song was at all indicative of my life then or now. And the video’s just plain creepy)

Kate Bush - Babooshka @ Yahoo! Video

But, yeah, "Seven Wonders" sort of captured what I thought of Capri as I ran down a steep and winding path to get as close to the clear-blue water as possible. I remember thinking that there couldn’t possibly be a place prettier than this, and I have yet to find one. So now the song makes me think of lots of near-perfect moments of the past year, in all sorts of contexts, moments I’ve yet to top, moments I’d love to get back, but if I don’t, at least I have the memories of those certain places at certain times and under certain circumstances. And if I never live to match the beauty of any given situation again (which I probably will…I mean I really do have all the time in the world as far as I’m concerned), at least I’ll know that such moments are possible, and I guess that’s comforting.


Oh, and I like how when I tag/label these posts I can use the same tags for pretty much every one. Sort of defeats the purpose of the labels, and shows how damn repetitive I am.

When you build your house, call me home

Remember how I was gonna inflict lots of Stevie Nicks on you? Yeah, I checked and it's been like 3 months since I last did that...I've always had mixed feelings about this song; it's beautiful and haunting, but maybe too haunting and sad (especially if Don Henley's right in saying that it was about Stevie aborting their child).

But it's kind of gorgeous and sometimes you need to listen to something that chilling...the sense of loss in the song is so powerful, regardless of what one interprets it to be about losing:




The extended ("Cleaning Lady") version is all the better; brings a really strong sense of yearning to the song. And one of my favorite things about Stevie are the rambling lines towards the ends of her songs that. It takes forever to pick up on all of them, but by the time you do, you're officially in love with the song.

"I wanna be a star...I don't wanna be a cleaning lady"

Wait a minute baby
Stay with me a while
Said you'd give me light
But you never told me about the fire

Ooooh...
Ooh hoo...
Ooh hoo...

Drowning in the sea of love
Where everyone would love to drown
But now it's gone
It doesn't matter what for
When you build your house
Then call me home...

Ooh hoo...
Hoo hoo...
Ooh hoo...

And he was just like a great dark wing
Within the wings of a storm
I think I had met my match
He was singing
And undoing...And undoing...the laces
Undoing the laces...

Drowing in the sea of love
It's where everyone would love to drown
And now its gone
It doesn't matter what for
No sorrow for sorrow
You can have no more

Said Sara, you're the poet in my heart
Never change...never stop
But now it's gone
It doen't matter what for
But when you build your house
Oh then, call me home...

Hold on
The night is coming
And the starling flew for days
I'd stay home at night...all the time
I'd go anywhere...anywhere...anywhere
Ask me and (undoing) I'm there...yeah
Ask me and (undoing) I'm there...'cause I care
(The laces....the laces)
I care...

...In the sea of love
Where everyone would love to drown
But now it's gone
They say it doesn't matter anymore
If you build your house
Then please call me...home

Sara...you're the poet in my heart
Never change...and don't you ever stop
Now it's gone
No..it doesn't matter anymore
When you build your house
I'll come by...

Oh, dreaming...
And the wind became...crazy
And he reached her gently
Dreaming and the wind became....crazy
And there the heartbeat...
When it never really died

Dreaming (Ooh)...never really died (Ooh why)
Would you swallow all your pride (Ooh)
Could you speak a little louder (Ooh why)
Dreaming (Ooh)...
All I ever wanted (Ooh why)
Was to know that you are(Ooh) dreaming (Ooh why)
But there's a heartbeat and it never really dies (Ooh)
Never really died (Ooh why)
No, it never really died (Ooh why)
Never really died (Ooh why)
Could you speak a little louder (Ooh)
Swallow all your pride (Ooh why)
...(Ooh why)
Never change (Ooh why)..never change (Ooh)
And the wind (Ooh why) became...
It became (Ooh why) crazy...(Ooh why)
(Ooh why) And listen for that (Ooh why) crazy wind
Because it will make you (Ooh why) dream a while
And (Ooh why) there's a heartbeat
(Smile for my darling)
Well it never really died
Dreaming...and the wind became (Ooh why)
(Smile for my Sara)
Became crazy...(Ooh why)
(Smile for my Sara).......

Remember me to the one who lives there...

Random thoughts before I doze off:
  

• I hope my bulletpoints aren't pink when I publish this...in the textbox they've chosen to take the shade of fuschia I set as my default text color and I can't change them back. I kind of want to just change the default back to black or something. I already have a pink computer to make me feel sillily girly. Since the drag show I went to on Saturday night, where I dressed up as a(n emo) guy and had the look down but couldn't get the mannerisms for the like of me, I've been really conscious of how gender-typed  I am (maybe the color pink shouldn't be considered girly, though...it's a color. I find it pretty. Why are colors gendered?). I don't think being one of those people who constantly deconstructs the gender of everything would be very becoming on me (and constantly intellectualizing everything is an awful way to live), but sometimes I want to do exactly that.Even if I've been known to snark on people that look at things that way. I mean, I'd love to just "be" and not have to worry about social constructs and blah blah, but once you're conscious of that sort of thing it's hard. Reason why ignorance might be bliss #34628
• Is it possible for things to happen at the wrong time? Like, does "too little too late" (or, conversely [and I'm finding equally as problematic] "too much too soon") hold any real weight? I've started wondering if there's actually something to the notion of destiny, but I tend to apply it only when a positive force enters my life, but then I turn around and respond to bad things with "whatthefuckpeopleareintrinsciallystupidandmakebadchoicesontheirowngrumblegrumble". If I'm going to start believing in something as implausable as fate, I'd better start believing in it fully. And I guess you do learn important lessons from bad stuff...though I wish I could learn those lessons and apply them now, in a current (or past) situation instead of for later, in some undeterminable time and place with who knows who or what.
• In high school I thought the notion of "community" was utter BS (mainly because I didn't feel fully a part of the community there...probably because of my own social ineptitude), but now that I'm in college I'm a part of so many great communities and it's super! Every time I go to Quaker meeting or have a rehearsal for my kids theater group or sing Disney and 80s songs all the way back to my dorm from a party with my lovely queer family, I just love the idea of a close-knit community more and more! The only problem lies in them being horribly exclusionary, and I know being outgoing and welcoming people in isn't my strong suit.
• I can't belive I hadn't seen The Graduate before tonight...I mean, I love the 60s and 60s music and everything that went into that movie. Everything about it was so disorienting...the soundtrack, the way it was filmed with shaky camera work and weird tracking shots...the way the narrative arc was totally weird. I mean, he started his affair with Mrs. Robinson like 10 minutes into the movie with no real set-up to it. (Oh, sorry if I spoiled the movie there for you, y'know?) And by "disorienting", I mean "awesome!"

Once you kill a cow, you gotta make a burger

Surely you've all seen it already, but...it's awesome and all. Remember when I was in high school and wouldn't touch pop music (or really...anything current) with a ten foot pole? That's because there was no Gaga...

It's the end of all strain, It's the joy in your heart

I really didn't want to clog my blog up with song lyrics, but in this case I think they'd be beneficial, so see below. I woke up this morning and looked outside and something about the sky just screamed out "March"...I really don't think any other month has such a specific aesthetic to it. Overcast and cold...but the birds are singing and there's just something that seems to tell you that all the yuckiness won't last long. And immediately I thought "the promise of spring" and realized I was quoting that Antonio Carlos Jobim song "The Waters of March/Águas de Março". I think Art Garfunkel did one of the more popular English versions of the song, and I think the Basia version is the first one I heard, but I like this one, partly because David Byrne and Marisa Monte are awesome, but mostly because it has both English and Portuguese lyrics. Wikipedia points out that instead of being translations of eachother, the Portuguese one is from a Southern Hemisphere perspective, the start of the Brazillian fall, while the English one is the start of Spring in the north. Totally blew my mind. And one version just seems happier than the other in comparison, you know? I guess which one depends on which season you like better.

A stick, a stone, it's the end of the road
É um resto de toco, it's a little alone
It's a sliver of glass, it's life, it's the sun
It is night, it is death, it's a trap it's a gun

É peroba no campo, é um nó na madeira
Cangá, candeia, é Matita Pereira
É madeira de vento, tombo na ribanceira
É um mistério profundo, é um queria ou não queira

É um vento ventando, é o fim da ladeira
É a vida, é o vão, festa da cumeeira
É a chuva chovendo, é conversa ribeira
Das águas de março, é o fim da canseira

The foot, the ground, the flesh and the bone
Passarinho na mão, pedra de atiradeira
É uma ave no céu, é uma ave no chão
É o regato, é uma fonte, é um pedaço de pão

É o fundo do poço, é o fim do caminho
No rosto o desgosto, é um pouco sozinho
A spear, a spike, a point, a nail
A drip, a drop, the end of the tale

É um peixe, é um gesto, é uma prata brilhando
É a luz da manhã, é o tijolo chegando
A mile, o dia, a thrust, a bump
It's a girl, it's a rhyme, it's a cold, it's a cold, it's the mumps

É o projeto da casa, é o corpo na cama
É o carro enguiçado, é a lama, é a lama
A drift, ponte, flight, rã, resto, quail
The promise of spring

And the river bank talks (São as águas de março)
Of the waters of march, (Fechando o verão)
It's the promise of life (É promessa de vida,)
It's the joy in your heart (No meu coração)

A stick, a stone,
It's the end of the road
É um resto de toco,
é um pouco sozinho

It's a sliver of glass,
It’s a life, it's the sun,
É a noite, é a morte,
é o laço, é o anzol

It’s the plan of the house,
It’s the body in bed,
It’s the car that got stuck,
It's the mud, it's the mud

É o projeto da casa,
é o corpo na cama
É o carro enguiçado,
é a lama, é a lama

São as águas de março fechando o verão
É a promessa de vida no meu coração

And the riverbanks talk
of the waters of March,
It's the end of all strain,
It's the joy in your heart.


I mean, I've been making a conscious effort to make sense of a lot of things in my life, which has made me feel a lot...more content, if not happier, lately, but I think the fact that we're out of the dead of winter (if February is the shortest month, why does it seem like the longest?) is helping a ton, too. Though I still don't understand why the fuck winter break is still in the winter, when I'll be returning to Pennsylvania and the snowpocalypse. I guess it makes it all the more special for those running off to Cancun. Part of me wishes I were, say, running off to Havana again...but I don't think I fully appreciated my time at home over winter break so I guess it's a good thing to return to the land of ice and snow (from the midnight sun where the hot springs blow? Somewhere like that seems like a much better setting for a snowpocalypse, no?)

Still the wanting comes in waves...

WANT. I shall wear with my snuggie, and when I get them, Necky and Tiddy Bear

Anyways, some random things that annoy me in life:

-Having no idea who you are, yet every idea of what you want...it's very problematic. Like, you think that you'll be able to figure out yourself by getting what you want but you can't get what you want unless you have some sense of self. Whatev. I'm sure it's the struggle of every 19 year old.

-When the book you want to check out of the library is checked out and won't be returned for a month (FWIW, it's No One Belongs Here More Than You by Miranda July). Then realizing what a hypocrite you are for thinking that when you've had the same books out since September. It's really the last part that bothers me. But I still want the book and all...

-Power outages when you're about to write a paper that's due in like 2 hours so that you have to trek to the other side of campus before you can write it. Still, better than power outages when you're in the process of writing a paper. And if I hadn't spilled my latte this morning so that I had to go back and get a new one, that's what would've happened. Maybe someone is watching out for me somewhere.

-Speaking of both ordering food and getting library books...this one is taken from High Fidelity, which I just finished reading...Okay I was going to quote it but I can't find the right page and eventually I'll need to get off and do my enviro reading...anyways, when you see something appetizing in a bakery display case and you don't know what it is and it's called an "ooey gooey square" and you want one but you don't want to request it by such a stupid name. Hornby used a different (and more humorous) example in the book, but that's been my predicament through my whole college career. I guess one day I'll just go in and ask to try "one of those things".

-Trying to intellectualize things that can't be intellectualized in my mind, like love and happiness and the meaning of life. Though thinking would likely provide some good solutions, some things just require feeling and not thinking. Even if I once got a fortune cookie that read "Life is a tragedy for those who feel and a comedy for those who think". That was the worst fortune ever, worse than the one I got (and gave to one of my dolls cause I was eating chinese with them like a good only child does in her free time) that said I'd encounter a strange party sometime soon. And not funny like any one of gotten that sounds great with "in bed" added to the end.

(But really, I can't wait til the world can stop thinking and just be.)

-Nostalgia (I like the Portuguese term "saudades" more, really). Part of me loves being disgustingly sappy and sentimental (Reason why I'm a perfect Cancerian #639), but really...Ow ow owwww. This is why feeling insted of thinking is sometimes bad.

-Otherism, or rather, the "other" accepting/embracing it. I mean, nobody should be expected to assimilate to the mainstream, but there's a point where way too many divisions are created. And building communities based off of a division that the core has made to describe the periphery seems off. And were I to completely embrace all of the ways in which I'm "other" I'd end up closing myself off from society completely in a little community of one. Though I do appreciate community building, so this could just be an ephemeral "it bothers me".

-Lighter note? It bothers me when I'm accessing the shared music folder of someone else on my school's wifi network and the songs are all mistagged and there's nothing you can do about it. But I should just count my blessings that I can listen to Avril Lavigne and Sum 41 without having to contaminate my own iTunes library (sorry if I'm blatantly referring to your library and you're reading this)

-Oh, and the fact that no matter what I do, the above video remains big enough to cover the sidebar of my blog. Gah.

Okay, that's all for now, folks.