He said you be Debbie Harry, I'll be Joey Ramone.

So apparently the last time I posted I was in the middle of working behind curtains of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. Those days ended quite some weeks ago. Taking a rest has been nice, but I miss going every day and feeling useful and having the awesome feeling of knowing I'm working towards my future and dream job <3

LUCKILY, I'll be back to doing just that on the 10th of this month, and this time tackling a new task - stage lighting! I can't wait. It's gonna be hard in the beginning...I don't have the slightest idea on how working in the lighting booth goes. There's lots and lots of buttons, so uh...it'll be confusing. My partner in lighting and friend Dante takes a lighting class, though. So that should help a bit, haha. The play this time is The Music Man. A show I don't even like, but of well. My friend Adam is acting in it and has one of the leading roles. He also sings the only memorable song, being "Shipoopie" (with a title like that, how can it NOT be memorable?).



I finished all the books mentioned in the previous post, and am now on to others. As usual, I'm working on a few at a time.
Fun Home; A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel
The Predators by I can't remember
and I was about to say Paper Towns by John Green, but I remembered I finished it the other night. So I guess I'm not really reading many books this time. Paper Towns was good, though. When I need a break from things John Green books are great. He tells great stories with a serious tone but can always add laughs.



Last weekend my mom and I went all the way to Napa to see a high school production of "Les Miserables," one of my favorite musicals...even though I had never seen it live until that day. But I assure you, my soundtrack of it is quite worn out and begs for a vacation every week. Seeing the whole thing acted out rather that just listening to it made me understand the story a lot more. It was amazing considering that it was a high school done play. Mom thought so even more. She was crying in the end. A lot. And then she called her friend Margy and cried some more! So it was a fun day (:



And the greatest news, I'm going to Texas to visit my greatest and bestest friend in the whole universe in July! Brittany, here I come! We're both super excited. We haven't seen each other at all since she moved - almost three years ago. We're making a list of things to do and everything. Her uncle is also going to take us to a Jack's Mannequin/The Fray concert.

I AM SO SO SO SO SO EXCITED!!!

Hey, Mr. Curiosity, is it true what they've been saying about you?

*sigh*

For those of you that don't know, I've been extremely busy as of late. I'm working on the tech crew at Solano College for a musical called "How to Succeed in Business, Without Really Trying." Couldn't stand hearing the songs in it three times a day at class, but they grow on you. My favorite numbers are "Long Day," and "Brotherhood of Man" (which me and the tech dudes I work with have a ritual of dancing and singing to when it comes on, because it means, "Yay! The show's almost over!").

Basically what I do while I'm there is move sets on and off stage during blackouts and scene changes during the show, make sure the backstage (stage left, for I am in charge of stage left everything) area does not get over crowded with the freakishly huge number of furniture they use for this show, and make sure props are where they need to be when they need to be there. Oh, and to go find Scott when he's not there and needs to work the fly rail and he's wandered off...again -_- If you don't know what a fly rail is, it's this thing backstage with all these ropes you pull that bring sets up or down and pretty much makes things fly. And since the fly rail is on my side, stage left, that is why I'm usually the one tracking down butthead Scott when he's not there to work it.

I'm usually running back and forth from stage right and left and one hallway or another, so I don't have much down time once the show starts. My absolute least favorite part of this all is that STUPID WOODEN PALM TREE. WHY DOES A MUSICAL TAKING PART IN AN OFFICE BUILDING NEED A PALM TREE ANYWAYS?! This palm tree is evil. It's huge. Left a scar on my right shin, and has given me the equivalent to a massive rug burn on my hands. Only a few more weeks with the palm tree left.

Another good thing, I've made a new friend. We read a lot of the same books, and the ones the other hasn't read, we semi dangerously threaten the other to read it or else. Listen to classic rock and listen to Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now" when we need a little pick me up. The only soda we like is Mountain Dew. We don't care when people give strange looks when we burst out in sudden dance moves. And, of course, we share a love for theater; musicals in particular.

I work lots of hours, but once I got the hang of everything, it became so worth it. I'm glad I didn't quit in the beginning when I was having trouble and hated it.




I'm reading a massive amount of books right now. I just can't find one good enough to totally dedicate my time to. My current reading list is as follows, starting with the first I started from the latest I've started:

-The Heroin Diaries: A Year in the Life of a Shattered Rock Star by Nikki Sixx (interesting)
-Youth in Revolt by C.D. Payne (which is being made into a movie starring Michael Cera!) (quite funny)
-Atonement by Ian McEwan (boring, but trying to plow through anyway)
-American Gods by Neil Gaiman (weird)

And Jesse wants me to read the book he just finished and really liked, Hate that Cat by Sharron Creech. I'll get around to it eventually, because I love Sharron Creech and the book that comes before it, Love that Dog, was great.

Oh, and who saw Watchmen?! I was soooo looking for it, but it was a total letdown. SO SAD. I was bored half the time :( The amount of blood was GREAT, but other than that all we saw was Silk II being a little skank and Doctor Manhattan's man parts. Just because you're blue and glow-y, is NOT an excuse to go around naked all the time.

3:10 to Zuma

First of all, I'm aware that I totally screwed up the movie title.
Second, I didn't see 3:10 to Yuma, either.
Ahahaha. I made a funny =D

I am here today to encourage you to try out Zumbox (http://beta.zumbox.com/).
Think of all the unnessacary paper, gas, energy and man power we use every single day (except Sunday) to transport mail. I say it's time for that to end.

I learned about this here (http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/2549/72/) and I found it very interesting. So you should click the link.

I AM THE LORAX!

Life is froughtless, when you're thoughtless.

I haven't finished many books lately. I'm extremely ashamed of myself. BUT this afternoon I DID finish my bookclub book (!!!) for tomorrow. It's a graphic novel called "Road to Perdition," by Max Allen Collins. The movie with Tom Hanks in it is based on it. I haven't seen the movie, but since I read it, I probably will for comparison. The book got a little dull, but I think I would like the movie more. The storyline was good, but when it comes to killing people (which there's a lot of) and such, I prefer to watch it rather than read. More epic impact B)


Oh yeah ;D

I don't really know what else to write about, now...

I've been bored, lately.
I go to doctor appointments, like, all the time = Ugh.
I work at the library = Ugh.
I'm back at karate again = Ugh.
It's cold = Ugh.
My room smells = Ugh.
I see Eric = Well, that's not ugh.

I DO like my new school schedule though. Because of it I finished my bookclub book for once (!!!) (and because it was a great deal shorter than the past books, but shhhh).

I also wanted to post the picture from when I mummified Eric Saturday night (yes, I did), but I need to get ready for the library, and have no time to upload the pictures :(

And Joseph's brother sold him down the river for a song.

Long time no bloggg D:

Before I go into rants about other things, books will come first, I guess. (and I have my spell check back this time. Woo!)

So when finding out my love of reading, Eric insisted that I read a couple of his books so we could see if our taste in books relate. He gave me a copy of The Hammer of Eden by Ken Follett (who I only recently learned that he is a famous and well known author thats written like, a billion books), and London Bridges by James Patterson. I actually haven't gotten around to reading the James Patterson yet, but I DID read the Ken Follett and....uh, wow. He writes an intriguing story line, but his writing itself is nothing to applaud. I can see him doing better as a filmwriter...that'd actually be pretty cool, I think o_o.
The Hammer of Eden was told from two different point of views. First, we have Priest. Leader of a commune of hippies. Priest and a few followers decide to place a threat to the government that they will cause earthquakes unless they stop building power plants...which they can really do, thanks to seismologist-turned-hippie, Melanie. Then we have Judy Maddox, FBI agent placed in charge of tracking down the group before an earthquake strikes. Ok, sounds stupid. In a way, it kinda was. But I'm not saying it's the great American novel. But when I took the time to read it, it was better than I thought it'd be. So, Follett gets credit for that. Nevertheless, I saw Follett's book The Man From St. Petersburg at the Friends of the Library and bought it for a quarter in preparation for the next rainy day.



I also read Love, Rosie (Previously published as Rosie Dunne) by Ceceila Ahern, same lady who wrote book-into-movie, PS, I Love You. I'm not gonna bother to elaborate. Chick lit that you could finish over a boring rainy weekend. Not a waste of time, but I'd only read it if you have time to waste...that didn't make much sense...nevermind.



And now, I'm reading two different books (...yeah >_>):

The Color Purple, by Alice Walker. Brittany has always been telling me I need to watch the movie, and since I had the book sitting around, I thought I'd give it a try. Should be finished with it any day now, if I'd just sit down and finish it already. It's not bad, and I like how it's written in letters to both God and Nettie but at the same time a journal. I was thinking Celie was a lesbien at first, but then I decided that she wasn't. Kinda crazy how in the whole book guys keep cheating on their wives and no one really cares...haha...haaa...ha?
Im also interested to see what the musical's like. I'm sure it's good, but I can't really picture it as a musical, so it's something I'll need to check out. When I get around to it.



Finally, we have The Green Mile! Yeah...I had never planned to read a Stephen King book, but here I am. I bought two copies of it at the Benecia Friends of the Library after Eric and I watched the movie the night before and decided that we needed to read it. Then we're gonna discuss if the book was as awesome as the movie. So far I like it, but I'm only on chapter six. For some reason I thought it would be one of those hard reads, but it's actually pretty simple...aside from the few names I can't really pronounce. Better review when I finish it.



Travis had his 21st birthday this weekend. And now he is old. Muahaha. But happy birthday (again) to Tavi :) Lots and lots of people came, and Eric surprised me by showing up even though he was supposed to be gone the whole weekend doing manly army training junk on Mair (Mayer? Mare? Don't care.) Island. And I got to meet Tavi's new special lady friend ;D Tehehehehe.

Getting my wisdom (teeth) taken out this Friday. Yay, druuuugs! I hope I don't turn into a chipmunk, but with my luck, I probably will.

Recent peeeectures just for the heck of it that will cause your interweb to lag because I didn't resize them!:

At Tavi's birthday (sorry, tilt your head) In order, top row- Mom, Paul, Eric, Adam, Katie, Kon, Thai. Front- Me/Natalie, Rachel, Marcus, Curtis, Henry, and Jesse:


Dad and I aren't very fond of cameras (from our recent camping trip, a few weeks ago)


What Katie, Rachel and I did on Halloween =P


And look, it's Raptor Jesus!

Although we can't jitterbug as we did then

The title has nothing to do with this post. It's just a line from this song I've been listening to nonstop. I've been listening to a lot of Yellowcard lately. Probably one of the only awesome rock bands that uses a violin.
I should also mention that I'm on a different computer today. A computer that doesn't use Firefox. This means my spelling probably won't be as good, since Internet Explorer is stupid and doesn't have one of those built in spell-check thingies.

I have two books, an Andy Warhol art exhibit, and a Journey, Heart and Cheap Trick concert to talk about today. It's 11:58, and I need to be at the library by 3:30. I think I can get it all out in time :P

Books first, I guess.

If you remember, in my last post I wrote about a book called A Million Little Pieces. It wasn't a bad book, but his constant throwing up did get annoying. (Speaking of throwing up, I threw up my breakfast this morning. Not fun.) Recently, I read James Frey's second book that follows along after A Million Little Pieces. It is called My Friend Leonard, and it was a billion gajillion times better than it's older brother. There was no throwing up, and there was more about someone I had been wating to learn more about - Leonard.
Instead of reading about James trying to clean himself up, we read about his life after jail as he tries to start over.
Spoiler: I really, really hate it when someone doesn't read the first book in a series, and then makes stupid comments about the second or third or whatever book, jut making themselves look stupid. The other day, I was looking at some discussions online about My Friend Leonard, and there's this chick, going "OMG IT WAS SOOO STUPID TO START THE BOOK WITH A FREAKIN DEAD GIRLFRIEND! WE DIDN'T EVEN GET TO KNOW HER OR ANYTHING!!!!111!!111!!!!" Said dead girlfriend, is Lilly. And you know, Stupid Person Making Stupid Comments, if you read the first book, you would have known quite a lot about Lilly, and you would have known even before starting the second book, that Lilly was going to be dead the day James got out of jail. So for us smarty pants that read them in order, we may have gotten a bit teary-eyed, but we didn't go off on stupid rants about something we already knew was going to happen :)




The next book is called A Long Way Down, by one of my favorite authors, Nick Hornby. To sum this book up in one sentance, you could say it's the funniest book about suicide you'll ever find. I cheered and rooted for the characters along the way, and had to laugh at how they couldn't stand each other, but somehow could never manage to stay apart. It has four protagonists and told from four different point of views; Martin, a well known TV talk show host, Jess, an angsty teenage girl, Maureen, mother of a "vegetable," and JJ, a musician. All four meet on New Year's Eve at Toppers House, which is really a well known rooftop in London for people ready to end their lives.
It sounds like a sad story, but really, it's anything but. I was in a bit of a slump myself when I started reading it, but I loved it and couldn't be in bad mood while reading :)




Andy Warhol can be next.
Andy Warhol is one of my favorite artists, so I was pretty excited when I found out we were going to be seeing a mini-exhibit of his at The Crocker Art Museum. There was ten silk screened paintings (so by the end my feet weren't dying). All the pieces went together, and were part of Andy Warhol's Athletes Series. Each painting had a different athlete. Altogether, we saw paintings of Dorothy Hamill, Muhammad Ali, Pele, Jack Nicklaus, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Chris Evert, Willie Shoemaker, Tom Seaver, OJ Simpson and Rod Gilbert.

And now, the Journey concert!
In case you didn't know, I lovelovelovelovelove Journey. When a friend asked if I wanted to go with him to a Journey, Heart, and Cheap Trick concert, I was pretty excited. Jumping up and down excited. The concert, itself, was amazing. At first I was a little scared that Arnel Pineda wouldn't live up to the awesomeness that is Steve Perry, but after the first song, my worries were completely gone. It was more crowded than any place I'd ever been, so that was annoying. Our seats were far, but we could stil hear perfectly. Drunk people stumbled around me, but I came out safe. Oh, and then there was the issue with the person that I went along with, but I won't get into that. But anyways, Journey now replaces any band I've seen as the greatest band to see live.

I had to cut everything short today. I still need time to eat lunch and watch a Discovery Project Earth thingy.

Bye bye :)

Because my Mommy told me to write something.

*Bleeeeep* The following post is experiencing a few technical difficulties. Because of this, I am unable to take italicized lettering OFF for more than one letter. I am sorry for this mishap and hope you enjoy it nonetheless. *Bleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep*

Soundtrack to this post is Stomp. As in the one with trash cans and broomsticks. The version I have on now is Stomp Out Loud, on DVD. Listening to it has no effect whatsoever on the way this post is read, but it might be fun :)

Because I was reminded a few days ago that this was initially a book blog, I'll go ahead and list all the books I've read since last bloggage post.

Because the awfulness of it still saddens me and has yet to leave my mind, we'll start with the recently released fourth book in the bestselling Twilight series, Breaking Dawn.
The first thing that comes to mind, as I reminisce the last book in the Bella's an Annoying Brat/Edward Should Just Eat Her/Jacob Deserves to Like Someone Better Saga, is that I wasted my time reading a seven hundred and fifty page book that was even WORSE than the books before it. I mean, woahhh. And I thought Eclipse (book three) was horrible! I really didn't think it was even possible for Stephenie Meyer to write the final book in the series and have it WORSE than Eclipse. The storyline I'm not going to even bother writing about, because...
A) No one that reads this stupid blog cares a butt about Twilight, and
B) None of it is worth remembering. Just that it shouldn't be read.
Plus, some awful brainwashed Twilight fan is going to go and name their baby girl Renesmee now, I just know it.

Moving on to a few books that I actually enjoyed.

A Million Little Pieces, by James Frey.
A Million Little Pieces is about a twenty-three year old man and his strange and vomit filled path to being free of his alcohol and drug addiction. He's wanted in a number of states and ran away from each one without bail. The book begins as he wakes up on an airplane. He doesn't know why he's on it, where he's going, or how he got there. What he does know is that he's covered in blood, vomit, spit, snot, and lots of other icky substances that no one really wants to be covered in. His face is mangled and he's missing four front teeth. And no, he doesn't know how any of that happened, either.
As he lands and leaves the plane, he finds his parents waiting for him. (Uh oh.) Shortly after, he's checked into a famous Minnesota drug treatment center where the doctors tell him with one more drink or drug usage, he'll be dead in just a few days.
This is his memoir of the whole thing. It wasn't a bad book, I finished it quick enough, and I didn't regret my time doing so once finished [coughBREAKINGDAWNcough]. Parts of it do get redundant, and I admit to skimming over a few of the one million vomiting scenes. Big events in the book take forever to go over, so I kinda skimmed those too. To fix those four missing front teeth he lost, he gets a root canal surgery without the assistance of painkillers or anesthesia. The fact that it hurt (a lot) gets through our midns quite clearly, as he spends ten pages describing the mind-blowing waves of "bayonet" pain by digging his fingers into two old tennis balls until his nails crack. [After this point is when the spoiler alert alarm goes off in warning. Be awares!]
Another thing I didn't especially like, is that even though he spends half the book vomiting and craving and being angry; he actually makes the whole "getting better" process seem...easy. Easy, she says?! That's insane! Well, he did. He's at the most famous get-better-center, where even then the success rate was lower than twenty percent (I think it was fourteen...or seven...only thing I remember for sure is that it was under twenty), he won't listen to a single thing anyone tells him to do, and what? He gets better! He won't follow the program, he won't always take his pills, bla bla bla. In the end, he gets better because he "wanted to." Which, doesn't make sense. To me, at least. He had WANTED to get better multiple times before that, and obviously, he hadn't. Loads of peoples have WANTED to get better, but did they? Nosireee. So why, this one time, for this one man, does simply WANTING something make it happen? Oh well.
Oh, and heard about the whole faking the whole story controversy? Click me!
It's a six page long article, though. I personally skimmed most of it :P (You'll realize I do a lot of skimming.)
If the whole book is a lie or not, I don't really care. He lied, which I kinda care about, but we all lie. The book probably would have sold even if it was published as fiction (Although Oprah helped a lot in the book sales for it, hahaha). In the end, I had a not half book to read, fiction or not.


And now, another book! :O
The Memory of Running, by Ron McLarty.
A book that sat, dusty and lonely, as it waited on my bookshelf for me to pick up and read. I finally did. Begining was slow, but a fourth of the way though I got into it.
Our hero is Smity Ide; forty-three year old, two hundred seventy-nine pound, smoking and drinking, self proclaimed "loser."
The book flips from past to present. While narrating the past, we learn about Smithy's sister, Bethany. Beautiful, throws off her clothes at random, hold impossible poses for long periods of time as if she were a statue, runs away frequenly to who knows where, and responds to the command of a voice in her head, be it to make a salad or murder a dog.
Back in the present, Bethany had ran away for the umpteenth time, and this time couldn't be found, and never came home. By the time she's fifty one, the Ide family gets a letter that she's now in the LA Morgue West.
On a half drunken whim, Smithy hops onto his old Raleigh bycicle and rides, eventually, accross America, all the way to Bethany. Along the road he meets a number of people of all sorts and see's the world and the people in it in a way he never had before.
I don't have much to say about this book, because I didn't exactly love it, but I don't have much to complain or rant about either.
The only thing that bugged me was that I wanted to know exactly what was up with Bethany that made her do the things she did...as in a classified name for it? They never tell us, and it seems as if they don't know, either. She'd see a doctor frequently, but they never told me the reader what exactly was going on. I'm probably the only one that bothered to overthink that part, but whatever.


I'm pretty sure I've read more books than that, but I don't really feel like writing about them. So I won't :D

Currently I'm readind About a Boy by Nick Hornby. I'll tell about it once finished. Just by hearing the storlines of the books he writes, I wouldn't usually be interested. But I really like Nick Hornby as an author, so he makes them worth it.

In other news that has nothing to do with the books I read, I got new glasses. They are huge and purple. See below. I lowered the picture size so my face wouldn't kill your computer moniter. Hopefully.


In more news that has nothing to do with books, I went to another concert this month. Wooooo. And, I didn't even have to get to Sacramento or somewhere further than I'd like to go. It was in FAIRFIELD! I saw the flyer, and was like, WOAH! Three awesomtastic bands that I love and in most cases would have to travel at least an hour to see, are playing together in FAIRFIELD! Ahhhh!
Bands being, Hazel and Vine, Daphne Loves Derby, and BIDWELL :D Two other bands were there, too...Fight Fair and Hannah something or other, but yeah. Took lotsa picturesss.
I found it awkward/weird/really cool that the guys in Bidwell still remembered me, when they saw me after the concert. I mean of course it was fun, they're really awesome and nice guys; but at the same time I wasn't sure how I should behave or whatever, seeing as I met them through getting in their show for free with You-Know-Who. But it went totally fine, and they gave me a t-shirt because I went ahead and bought their CD once they told me they needed gas money,. and had to push their van a bit of the way there (it's happened before, so I believed it, haha).

In one more thing that has nothing to do with books, we went to a Frida Kahlo art exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco. It was crowded with annoying people that made really stupid comments, but it wasn't too bad. We took the BART because my mommy hates driving and trying to park in San Francisco. Parts of our day shown below -

(We became fast friends with the smiling dudes. It was hard not to when they were so happy to see us.)






And we also found these little guys.


The End.