the happiest halloween

i know, i know.

we said we'd post exciting october things but here it is, the last day of october, and we've barely posted all month. SOOOORRRY.

also happy halloween!!

i was considering making a halloweenier post, but lately i've been listening to this song on repeat, and it's hardly halloweeny. it's more like...Stuff You Listen To When You're In Love.

maybe you're in love with a person or a dog or maybe the world or yourself or a book or a movie. but me, i'm in love with the world today, and that makes me that annoying, giddy girl that walks around singing to herself and eating chocolate cake. but i love it! (duh. i love everything.)

no more sulking about in my cut-off wedding dress quoting the virgin suicides! only yellow dresses and candy corn and dancing around and tasty coffee all day looong!

here's some happy things [that i will try desperately to relate to halloween]:

movies:
-penelope
a fairy tale--that's halloweeny right?--about a girl born with a pig face. (not to be confused with this girl with a pig face.) christina ricci, james mcavoy, really cute clothes, magical sets, and some reese witherspoon-ing. (something about reese witherspoon makes me love everything! she's so happy and blonde and wholesome or something.) one of the final scenes is even at a halloween party!!

-she's the man
the poster movie of my generation? don't tell me you don't love this movie. amanda bynes, channing lots-of-abs-or-something, that really funny guy who plays the principal, and the plot of twelfth night! this was the first movie i was allowed to watch in a theater with no chaperones, and for me it will always be full of decent jokes that i will never not laugh over. plus, shakespeare is all about crossdressing. you know what else is all about crossdressing? HALLOWEEN. bam.

(a quick list of my fave nineties/00s teen flicks: she's the man, 10 things i hate about you, john tucker must die, easy a)

coffees:
-quick, capitalize on starbucks' pumpkin spice latte opportunities! you've got nine hours[ish] till the pumpkiniest holiday ends. also, sometimes on halloween they give out free cookies and stuff. run, run and give the corporate machine your cash!

tv:
-what's creepier than the trope's fave tv show TWIN PEAKS? (answer: nothing. nothing is creepier.) halloween it up and laugh with dale cooper and the gang. just try not to, in your lovey state, focus too much on the whole dead people/double lives aspect. (extra points to anyone in a twin peaks costume. double triple extra points to anyone dressed as audrey horne because i love her.)

books:

-today is not a day for books! i can't sit down and focus. today is a day for archie comics! read about the trials of archie, betty, and veronica. dress up as jughead. laugh with moose and reggie or one of the other characters whose names escape me because it's been ten years (a lie: it's been like two) since i've read an archie comic.

-or read the article in usa today about THE HAPPIEST WOMAN IN AMERICA! (it's me!) (no it's not!) (but i feel that way!) (the point is the happy!)

so go, tropers, and curl up with a slice of fallin' in love pie (waitress reference, anyone?) or do as i do and dance around the room to "stars" on repeat then hide in the closet and wait for your roommate to come home.

OCTOBER!

Nerdy, Weird, and Eerie.

Hiya,
I've been sick and busy and mainly sick and so I haven't posted in a while, but YEAH post now. First, a few cool nerdy things:

*For Nintendo 64 people: A Mario Kart love song. Just about one of the cutest things ever.
*For anime/Naruto people: ohmygah; ohmygah! If you watch Naruto Shippuden then I'm sure you've already seen this since it's one of the ending credits.. but it still makes me laugh every.single.time.
*For anyone: funnyy clip from Flight of the Conchords. Song? "I'm Not Crying"
*For geeks/nerds/anyone: Want to get cool shirts and lament the loss (or lack of acquisition) of other cool shirts? Check outtt teefury.com.

I could probably go on, but I'll save some cool things for later. I'm supah excited about my really low-key plans for tomorrow: reading The Hunger Games and having a Twin Peaks marathon. I'm reading hunger games for the first time. I actually wasn't expecting to get into it but I'm so into it. And I also feel kind of awful because I'm acting like the Capitol and those awful viewers of the hunger games that enjoy watching these awful games. BUTTT they're not real. And I know they're not real people getting killed by other kids. SO. I'm not a horrible person. Speaking of the hunger games, you should go to panemoctober.com right now. It's an alternative reality game starting real soon! The website's pretty confusing right now, but stick with it; it should be pretty cool once it really starts up. So I'll probably do some of that tomorrow, too. For now, though, it's Mario Party time.

october

i'm four days late, but HAPPY OCTOBER. october is a well-loved month here at the trope, and in honor of that, i plan to be way more celebratory in this month's posts. SO GET READY!!!!!!! FOR EXCLAMATIONS!!!!!!! AND ALL CAPS, ALL THE TIME!!!!!!!

ok maybz later.

but for now, a "pretty chill" [my stoner neighbor] song my brother played for me in the car last week. it's not too celebratory, and the video is definitely a bit of mindfuck sadness. but it is from a pretty rad album about divorce. have fun thinking about that for the rest of this happy tuesday.

[reading over my vocabulary in the last paragraph leaves me thinking i should perhaps spend less time with my stoner neighbor.]

and on a happier note: i recently saw tUnE-yArDs liiiiiiive!!! and can assure you that merrill garbus is just as cool performing as she is recorded. [her fans on the other hand, with their copycat assymetrical haircuts, are not my favorite.]

herez some szongs:
(turn your volume up now plz.)
-gangsta
-bizness
-lions (aka the song that originally made me love her)



have the best october 4th ever, world!

fifth grade yeeeah

my latest amazon haul included only books that are approximately fifth grade level (ok ok--and one issue of lula). heck yes.

of course no spontaneous purchase of fifth grade books that shaped your perception of the world would be complete without sharon creech. and my favorite (growing up) was always walk two moons. mmmhm.

walk two moons is named for the adage, "don't judge a man until you've walked two moons in his moccasins." it follows the main character salamanca on the search for her mother, supplemented along the way with the story (as told by salamanca to her grandparents) of her friend phoebe. through this story, sal figures out her own, etc, etc, i'm making it sound cheesy and it's totally not just buy it 'cause it's definitely worth the the two dollars i paid for a used copy on amazon.

also purchased was the boxes, a novel i remember reading, but not necessarily liking. it just stuck with me. [basic plot: annie--your average girl--inherits two boxes from her exotic uncle--you know that one uncle that never got married. for a long looong time she does not open the boxes. but they call to her (or something???) and she does and the little crazy metal alien stinkbugs that live inside build a city and have class issues (!!!).]

i don't really know why something in my head told me to read the boxes, but i started having dreams about it last week. so i bought it. i believe in dreams. but i haven't reread it yet BECAUSE

during a conversation with a friend about buying fifth grade books, he brought up sharon creech. and when my amazon package arrived (bundled shipping!), i couldn't resist starting with walk two moons.

other purchases:
- from the mixed up files of mrs. basil e. frankweiler by e.l. konigsburg and
-maniac magee by jerry spinelli and
-absolutely normal chaos by sharon creech

but i think my actual favorite book from childhood is the westing game by ellen raskin. i've owned it since sixth grade and read it about once a year every year since then. incomparable.

it's amazing to look back at these things that i loved then and see what that says about me now. sort of like salamanca--telling one story told another. that's how i feel about the books i loved growing up.

moral of this story: read them.

Singing, Nathan Fillion, and Escapism

There are plenty of ways to cope. Honestly, I think it's crucial to find at least one way to cope--something that can distract you from what's been worrying you, a bad time you're going through, or just a generally crappy day.  A musician might get lost in playing his instrument, some people might like to go for a drive, and others might read a novel.  [Personally I think it's important to note that it should be things like that rather than drugs, drinking, or smoking, since then you just have a self-destructive dependency on your hands. But I don't want to sound too didactic.]
My escape usually involves a movie or tv show. It has to be something engrossing and not all that close to real life.

1. Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland musicals- I know that as a film student I should say that it was a classic like Casablanca that got me to appreciate old movies, but that would be a lie. One day I was flipping through the channels and as I passed TCM Mickey Rooney's exhilirating face caught my attention, and I watched all of "Strike Up the Band" with the remote still pointed towards the tv. Mickey Rooney is just a blast to watch. He always looks like he's having the time of his life, and you can't help but share his enthusiasm. And of course, Judy Garland is a singing goddess. As soon as the movie ended, I rushed to my computer and ordered a set of musicals with the both of them (my second favorite: Girl Crazy). Strike Up the Band also threw me into this musical phase in general, and so for a long time I would pick myself up from a bad day by watching a musical. And I started tuning into TCM more and more often, and I discovered a world of good old movies. Strike Up the Band is a B-movie in formula, but it's a great way to realize that black and white sure doesn't need color to be lively.

2. Imogen Heap- Yeah, that's a music artist and not a movie or tv show at all, but her music is my ultimate method of escape. I feel like her albums and songs mark different periods of my life, depending on what they've helped me through.  I'm just hypnotized by her music.

3. And most recently.... Nathan Fillion- Can I just say that Nathan Fillion makes everything better?
It all started (for me) with Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, which = the meaning of awesomeness in 45 minutes. Then I watched Firefly and decided that Nathan Fillion is the greatest guy in the 'verse. So now I'm on a Fillion binge: Castle episodes (fun), Waitress (adorable), and extra Firefly and Dr. Horrible (ohmygodd.)