Psycho Leopard Cocaine Party!

So... it's my birthday. I am officially twenty years old and all wrinkly. Ew. Omg, Botox party at my house guys! You bring the needles, I'll bring the plastic surgeon!

Anyway, beside having the extreme weight of no longer being a teenager on my shoulders (I have responsibilities- ew!), and constantly defending my stance on still being nineteen (but I'm not, sadface), I had a pretty decent birthday. Last night I had to stay up and type up a paper for my Chicano Literature class so I had the change to celebrate my birthday while writing about the Chicano movement and spamming Lady Gaga on twitter to tweet me happy birthday. Yes. You read that right. Don't hate. #hardcoremonster

Well, while finishing that paper and preparing my extra credit presentation for art history, I was attacked by all of these well-wishers and happy messages, which was pretty nice. Generally, when people attack me, they're mad 'cause I told them the truth and they didn't like it. Haters.

So I went to sleep and I slept. I had a great birthday sleep, thank-you-very-much.

Then I was woken up by my overzealous mother giving me birthday-hugs and presents; honestly, I could get used to that. Presents when you wake up? Sheer awesomeness. Then throughout the day, I was spammed by everyone I ever met wishing me happy stuff and fun stuff, and hoping I had a great day. It was great! Thanks, you guys! :D My phone kept vibrating and it was so awesome, because I kept checking it during class, and I expected stuff to happen. It was great.

After that, Vicki and I went to go eat, where we stuffed our faces and planned for my bday celebration on Saturday, just me and my hoodrats, and what exactly we were going to do and such. She didn't get to buy me cheesecake, but it's okay; the opportunity will present itself once more. Cheesecake!

However, I still cannot believe that fact that I'm old. I'm expecting to shrivel up like a prune and have to wear glasses and start making racist comments, 'cause I'm old and senile. I'm like twenty. That's like sixty! Woe is me! My childhood is over! *insert dramatic pose here*

I expected to end the day unwinding, binging on Cherry Garcia whilst watching "American Horror Story" with Coug over skype, but she has to study and shit, so I guess I'll watch Grimm, eat popcorn and read Andy Warhol's philosophy. We are currently discussing alternative timings in which to do this during the weekend. : )

And thus, ends a birthday in the life of moi.

P.S. Happy. Strangely enough.

Nothing Special!

There isn't much to say today, other that I'm writing this instead of working on my three essays, while the deadline creeps closer and closer and closer. If fact, one is practically nipping on my heels.

Well, 'wrimo was a total bust. I was good up until the second-ish week, where I decided to focus a bit on my schoolwork. What a fucking mistake. Not only did I get nothing done on my novel, I had to do homework! Bleh! I did get farther than I usually do; 23,000 words. It gives me confidence to keep writing and that yes, I can write decently and my dream is not a total waste of time.

In other news, I was a poet for a whole three weeks. I am currently pursuing this, and I shall update on how well this goes.

While procrastinating on my Art History essay on Pop Art, I am, ironically (or coincidentally?) reading "The Philosophy of Andy Warhol," by Andy Warhol. It's pretty interesting and I love it! I also bought "The Andy Warhol Diaries" which chronicles about a decade in Warhol's life. For those of you who do not know who he is, it is called Google. Please use it.

Note: It's this guy:

I love this picture, by the way. The world does fascinate me; what with its sheer stupidity and hatred for anyone who doesn't fit a certain image. Oh wait. Sorry, my misanthropic leanings are showing.

Anyway, today I also went to Walmart. That was a bad idea. Despite dealing with a bunch of annoying people who apparently do not know how to drive a shopping cart, I was also afraid I'd run into a whole bunch of booty-bouncing women, with questionable hygiene, bouncing around randomly through Walmart, with a guy behind them, reading a shopping list. If you do not know what I am talking about, consider yourselves lucky and please for the love of a possibly non-existent god, leave it at that. For those of you who are so morbidly curious, please go to YouTube and search "Mr. Ghetto" and "Walmart."

Prepare to be traumatized.

In other news, I have learned more about the city I live in. I went to this secondhand bookstore in Downtown Los Angeles, and oh my fucking god. It's called "The Last Bookstore" and it's like the Holy Grail of bookstores. If Jesus was real and read books, he'd go to that bookstore. Just... if you don't live in LA, and are ever there, you must go. If I had my way, that place would be a national landmark.

Betty and I went there on Friday after class, and yeah... I spent like fifteen on three books. Just adding to my ever-expanding library, that if it gets any bigger, I will have a fire hazard up in this bitch. Seriously; my poor bookcase cannot handle any more books! Not only is it collapsible, it's also strained to it's limits! If there was a fire, I'd be trapped by a burning wall of fire. Insert fire-y metaphor here. It's bad. I don't even have any more space to put in a new bookshelf, damn it!

Speaking of Betty, she's part of a group that runs Future Retro Gamer, a website run by gamers, that reviews games and well, they review games in very humorous ways. They're hilarious! Check them out here! And here's their Facebook Page. They're great!

I also decided that on random occasions, I will start posting some poetry on here, so you guys could give me a review, and stuff. Assuming that my readers actually exist and aren't just a fiction of my imagination. That, and possibly comments, comics and random pictures I take on other people's cameras, because mine sucks now that it refuses to work.

Maybe I should buy a new one?

I must also buy a new bookshelf and shove it into my already-crowded room. How do I do this? I need a carpenter, quick! Fuck. I suck at anything handyman-ish. It's times like these where I wish I was all rustic America and wrestled bears and killed moose and wolves with my bare hands like Sarah Palin. Then I realize what I just thought/wished, slap myself, and go watch American Horror Story.

P.S. A "q" is not a "g." Sorry to burst your bubble.

P.S.S. I want ice cream.

P.S.S.S. Be my friend, damn it! I'm like the nicest person, like, ever. : )

'WriMo, Day Eleven

Sorry I haven't been blogging recently. I have just been sooooooooo busy!

Oh, about eleven days ago, I started NaNoWriMo on a whim. While completely insane (some would argue, idiotic) I have begun to enjoy it. I started crafting my plot during a dark and stormy night, Halloween night, to be exact, and have enjoyed it so much! I try to craft some of it during the day before sitting down and writing, but some of it had been total improv.

However, the lack of pre-planning has affected me in ways I did not imagine; that and the Statewide meeting, and the Yardhouse in Pasadena. It's been crazy. I'm already like 9,000ishwords behind and I need to start soon!

So, random update, and leaving.

Also: It's 11/11/11.

...Cool.

: )

How Mainstream are YOU?

"Non-Mainstream" had become the new mainstream.

It's true. And it's just not the hipsters, although they are a large number of it. It's all of those people who shun anything "mainstream" because they're special or too "smart" to fall into the stupidity of the mainstream culture.

(Notice that I did not put stupidity in quotation marks; mainstream culture is dumb, but that's not my point. Just wanted to point it out.)

Most of these people feel like they're special because they dislike Lady Gaga or LMFAO and are into the music of this random, unknown, indie band from Bumtowm, Nowheresville. Do you want a cookie?

To be honest, I'm sure it has always started as a true movement to shun the usual stupidity prevalent in the mainstream culture. But then you get all of these little tag-alongs that just ruin everything, like the bratty kid brother that you're forced to bring along with you while hanging with your friends.

Exhibit A: Plugs and Gauges.

I assume that this plug/gauge thing started out with some sort of cultural significance. If it didn't than it makes it even more stupid.

Well, regardless of how it started, these things have taken over. People have them all over the place because they are unique, special little snowflakes.

People seem to think that if you have your ears stretched to the point of insanity that it makes them unique and different from anyone else, when in fact, they're just like everyone else. It's a fucking trend and some refuse to acknowledge this, thinking that it does make them different.

Newsflash: It does not.

Plugs/gauges are tacky and once you're actually done with them you end up with a nasty side effect, something that was recently coined as "Earlabia." (By Dan Savage, I believe.) Ears stretched to the point where they look like stretched out rubber-bands that just flop around doing absolutely nothing and looking totally gross. And when they have the little plastic stretch-thing on, they look like fucking cock-rings on your damn ears, bro.

If you have an real, culturally significant reason to have them, that they're respectable. It's all good. But if you're doing it because you want to be "different from the crowd" slap yourself.

Imagine if you will, two lines inside a circle. You have the mainstream, a red line, and you have the non-mainstream, a blue line. You want to be unique and non-mainstream, feel free to leave the red line and join the blue line. You are not a special little snowflake. You may not pass go and you sure as hell cannot have two-hundred dollars. You are just like every other person who is trying to be "cool" and go against "the mainstream." A dime a dozen.

If you truly want to be yourself in a society where being "yourself" is mainstream (or rather non-mainstream, since the two have now become synonymous) then don't follow the mainstream culture to know what you should shun or not. That's just lame.

Exhibit B: I remember that various people would tell me a different times that they dislike something because people all of sudden like it. This included various things: music, books, colors, clothes, ideas, shoes, television, facial expressions. (This is how the "Duck Face" happened), or my personal favorite, that idiotic way of texting. (Wiith extrah i's and h's and where g's become q's, iin thiis land thah qrammar forqott.)

If you're actively living to contradict the mainstream, then what the fuck are you doing? It's just a counter-culture that does the exact opposite from the other, no diversity. The only difference is that the "non-mainstreams" are more irritating about it, proclaiming that they're "different" and "unique," doing things their own way, when in fact, they're not.

Imagine the lines again, if you will. The red and blue line are totally different; one is the complete opposite from the other. (Rather like a mirror image.) They even move in separate directions! But they're still lines and move all the same.

If you truly want to be unique nowadays, you have to get away from the circle that moves around those two lines. Like what you like because you like it, regardless of who else likes it. Dress how you dress because you want to, not because people are dressing a certain way. Don't large pieces of plastic in your ear because everyone else is supposedly "not doing" it, and don't style your hair a certain way because everyone else is doing it.

In the case of the "non-mainstreams," stop trying to be the trendsetter and you will cease to be the trend.

Bite Much?

So I've been in a vampire-y mood recently.

I'm not sure exactly why, or how, it happened, all I know is that I've been watching episodes of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer over and over. Shit, I have probably watched "The Gift" like five times already. (You know, that episode where Buffy dies, the second time?)

Also, the number of Curses toward Stephanie Meyer has gone up.

It's very disconcerting, because once my interest in fictional vampire rises, my overwhelming hatred for Twilight rises as well. Not that this post will be about Twilight, because I don't feel up to it. I just wanted to point out that they're like connected, and my obsession on the paranormal had gotten to the point where I'm comparing everything. I think I reached the point where I could literally write essays on Pop Culture and vampires.

Like for example, The Vampire Diaries. Coug made me watch the pilot episode, which, shockingly, actually piqued my interest. So now, in the space of two days, I have watched about 8ish episodes. Honestly, it's not that bad of a show, if you like the drama. I dislike that the drama takes priority over the whole vampire thing, but since Meyer ruined vampires, it's the only thing that takes off.

Well, anyway, I've been watching that show, and it's not too shabby. I mean the writing sucks, and plot can be a bit campy, but otherwise, it's pretty entertaining. I guess my main problem with the show is that it feels like it's trying too hard to be Buffy. Bonnie, for example, is a werewolf (later, lesbian-witch) and red hair away from being Willow, and Jeremy's character is giving off a Xander-ish vibe, while his role is more Dawn-ish. Vicki is reminiscent of Faith, the "dark" Slayer, despite the fact that Vicki dies pretty quickly. And Caroline. *Sigh* Caroline, while being the stereotypical high-school-bitch character, is coming off very Cordelia-like, and is very bad at it. She's like Cordy-wannabe, and frankly it's annoying. Their roles are pretty much the same- the vapid bitchy girl who is always the victim, she goes after the main girl's vamp boyfriend, tactless, a cheerleader. She's pretty much a stock character, and although that's probably why the characters are so similar, Cordelia was so much better at it. I will say this, though: Damon, the second vampire, is awesome. He just is. The Mayor of Mystic Falls, Richard Lockwood, is too much like the Mayor of Sunnydale, Richard Wilkins, for my taste. Remember him? He turned into a pure demon at graduation. So I was kind of glad when Lockwood died.

And the whole Lapis Lazuli ring thing just screams Spike-With-The-Gem-of-Amara. That aspect of it is apparently of L.J Smith's creation, so I guess it's up to interpretation. The writing sucks, btw. I mean, some parts are pretty good, but others need some serious tightening up, if we're going to be honest. Also, Nina Dobrev sucks at playing a 1860's lady. It comes out fake, forced and slightly annoying.

I looked up the books. And just let me say, if the writers go with the original plot line, and Elena dies and comes back, they will kill the show. I do not care who came up with the resurrection thing first: Joss Whedon or L.J. Smith. Resurrecting the main female in a vampire/paranormal television show just screams "Buffy!" and the critics will probably eviscerate it. Violently.

However, despite my misgivings, the show is entertaining. Regardless of similarities, the show is no BtVS, but it is fun and entertaining nonetheless. Maybe later on it'll get better? Truly I don't know, but I look forward to finding out. : )

The Devil's Boots

Today is kind of a pointless post, but whatever.

I haven't worn my precious Dr. Marten boots since the hiking trip I went on with MEChA, since they were so dirty and scuffed. This hiking trip happened in the beginning of July, before the Anime Expo and after June.

+Yes, I went hiking. There were trees, and rocks, and dirt and nature in general. Apparently when they said hiking, they meant hiking. Haha! It wasn't all bad except for you know, the actual hiking, but overall it was entertaining, and will forever remain a fond and happy memory. I still hate that river/stream/moving-body -of-water, however. (We had to cross a stream-like-thing a number of times- I dislike it. It's existence pissed me off.) But I'll post more on that later.+

Back to my boots. So my previously shiny, black leather boots are now caked with dirt and mud and pebbles and they're scuffed everywhere. I couldn't look at them for the week after due to the shame I felt for putting my boots (whom I love as my children) through such hardship. However, I rationalized, that these boots were the best thing to take hiking, seeing that my other shoes consist of two pairs of converse (one cloth, one not), which are slippery as fuck when on a wet surface*, a pair of American Rag shoes, which are basically cloth, cardboard ad a thin strip of rubber, and my now terminally ill Polo shoes, which I was not going to take hiking.

So, when I returned home, tired, sweaty, and still in shock that I hiked (like through dirt and nature and stuff), I took notice of my boots. My poor, poor boots, who were struck over and over by rocks and dirt and submerged in water when I kept falling into the water. At that point, I just mentally cried and buried them under a pile of clothes in my room, saying a brief prayer for them and sacrificing a baby goat in their honor.

Flash-forward to maybe four weeks later. I do not wear my boots, since they have been attacked by nature, and I stumble across them** when searching for a book. I had been ready to leave to go visit a friend of mine (for the first time in weeks!) and I was looking for the book, so I could read it when I came back.

I saw my poor boots, and in a moment of love, I decided to wear them. I shook them a bit, chasing away potential spiders or rocks, and put them on.

Strangely, the dust and irreversible scuff marks gave them a sort of... look. Kind of vintage, but that's not exactly it. It just gave them a sense of personality- and I loved it. I had never been so conscious of my boots existence before whilst walking.

It made them feel like my boots. My boots in which I bought for myself as an eighteenth birthday present.

It was awesome.

*Funny Story. When I was in Seventh grade, I had just gotten a pair of teal blue converse for my birthday. I didn't wear them constantly till March, since it was cold. Then April came, and I wore them- once. That same day, it rained, and the bell had just rung. Those of you who attended public school know that when it rains, the fucking bathroom floors get soaked, for some obscure reason. I ran in there to wash my hands- and I did a motherfucking split. My knee bent and I totally ate it. (Well, not technically, since I didn't fall on my face...)

It was funny.

**Quite literally. I almost fell.

(What does it say, that both those anecdotes are about falling?)

No Sir, No Dancing Today!

I have found the perfect book.

I'm not even kidding. And NO, it isn't the Bible. Loaned to me by a close friend of mine, "The Witching Hour" is the perfect book. It has everything. It's like if Anne Rice and V.C. Andrews had a love child. The plot is intriguing; combining a familial history darkened by death and incest with an interrupted ritual and of course, magic and witches, the plot is a total fucking trip.

The book itself reads like a mixture of Charmed and Flowers in the Attic. Of course this book was in existence before Charmed, although I'm not sure about Flowers in the Attic. Regardless, It had grabbed my attention. The main character, Rowan Mayfair, has absolutely no knowledge of her familial history and does not know a thing about her heritage; no idea why she has the power to kill or save, why her mother gave her up at birth, why her adoptive mother wanted her to have absolutely no association to the other Mayfairs in New Orleans. The other main character, Michael Curry, had an accident and came back from the dead with a psychometric power and has his world inadvertently tied together with Rowan's.

I'm part way through the family history (the second part: "The Mayfair Witches") and already I'm so into it, that it's not even funny. I haven't been this much into a book since I was reading "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" and "The Harlequin" simultaneously because I couldn't choose which to read first. (Let me tell you, that was a fucking mission.) Regardless, I cannot put the book down (except for now) and it is thoroughly entertaining.

How have I not read this book before? It came out in 1990, I should have heard of this. Really, I'm surprised at myself. I still have like five-hundred pages to go, but I know it will be epic.

I have also started watching a lot of Dexter. I haven't watched Dexter since the first season came out, due to my lack of cable TV and lack of Internet or computer, so getting into the second season again was great! I had no idea I had been missing so much! I am currently part way through the third, and although it's a bit of a let down, it's keeping me thoroughly entertained.

This summer has kept me very entertained, on the entertainment front. (Does that make sense?) I have also become a bit of a hermit, but that's okay- a withdrawal from the world is expected following my disillusionment with society. It's a yearly occurrence. It just sucks that it happened during summer, 'cause it's hot!

I have also read Stardust by Neil Gaiman, re-read American Gods, started Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice (also borrowed from Angie), started various online manga, watched almost all of Charmed, several anime series (Fairy Tail, Sekirei), went half-way through the first book of "The Sword of Truth," bemoaned not owning the seventh Harry Potter book, or the last two Anita Blake books and learning how to make pancakes and french toast.

I also was able to register early for Pottermore, by finding the quill. Which is ironic, because originally, I had no knowledge of the quill-clue thing until Vicki informed me. I also got to register the same night. For once my habit of knocking out at 4am came in handy.

Sadly, I have not been to the beach once this summer. I hope to have this rectified by next week. That, or Little Tokyo. I want some dango.

I've also been going through some kind of social withdrawal, since my friends all left me. Well not left me, like we don't talk anymore, but left me as in physically left, since I have not seen many of them for like years. (I exaggerate; a month.) Regardless, I've gotten a bit clingy with the ones that are here, since Cherry leaving to Arizona has me feeling all abandoned and shit. That's one of the reasons for my hermit-tude I guess. *Sigh* Me and my issues.

My hatred for Twilight has reared it's head once again, along with my distaste for Nicki Minaj and a burgeoning dislike for Katy Perry and her fireworking tendencies. I not really sure why my criticism for pop culture is so strong all of a sudden. Strange.

Oh, and I'm broke. : (

Okay, that's it for my update.

I want apple cider, for some obscure, unknown, reason.

P.S Why do I have a habit of using archaic words?