Such a long span of time, so little to really say...

So I guess I haven't written in here since September. I've been busy and braindead, but working all the same. Blogging didn't seem like it mattered too much, since there aren't a lot of people who even look at this. I post links sometimes, on Facebook and whatnot, and no one seems to acknowledge. I don't know if they don't want to read stuff, they forget to comment or they just genuinely do not care... I'm not sure I'm really offended either. I'm just ambivalent. Sometimes it's nice not to share your life and everything you do with people. I think after a while the world at large will remember this. Sometimes privacy is a wonderful thing, especially when you're creating and trying to build a life for yourself. That's another blog though, some other time when I'm feeling ardently wistful.

It's kind of weird, perhaps I'm just becoming really 'busy' and involved, for the first time in a long time. It's a good thing I think, in some ways. In others, it's kind of sad. I forget a lot about documenting the daily routines or my ideas or thoughts, but at the same time my energy level has been either very high or very low, or some weird combination. It's kind of like sleepwalking and still getting a normal day's worth of work done.



I took some pics back at the Valient Thorr show at the beginning of October (I think). It went pretty well and they did a fun show. I hadn't listened to them much before, but I have some friends who are ginormous fans, and I'm really glad I got to be a part of it :)
The pictures are here: Valient Thorr - Kansas City, MO

I also have been working on grant writing, and it's pretty involved. Now we'll see if my labors paid off. Of course, I will work hard to make them pay off. If not, my graduate work will have to make big adjustments and that would really suck.


I did get my wish finally and they announced GR dates. I'm going to the February 3 show in Chicago, and will be taking pics there. I don't know if I'll get a 'photo pass', but I've heard the venue is nice about letting people take them anyway. Hopefully that will all work out all right. I just hope I can grab some posters for friends who collect them.

I'm looking forward to winter break. Hopefully I will get my website up (yeah it's still not up, but I made some url and other suchness changes), volunteer at a local animal shelter and help them to get some babies new homes, and possibly get another of my teeth pulled. I'm not looking forward to that last one, but I don't think the majority of human beings really enjoy that sort of stuff.

I guess the only thing to leave with is this, just because... yeah, ahahaha.

Inventory of life...

Saturday was my big birthday party. 30 years on this planet... wow. It was a good night. I saw a lot of good friends, both old and new, but I definitely would have made some changes, and I think the next time I have a get together, it will be a lot smaller.

As I'm getting older, it makes me think about how life was before I 'got a life' in Kansas City. I did spend as much time on my computer, but the people I spent time with were a much more varied group, and it felt very different. I always wished there was a metal 'scene', and upon finding one, I was thrilled to be able to go to shows a lot and make friends who like sort of what I like, but in the end, I'm still back at square one thinking about what I really do want.

Seeing old friends, friends who have been through all sorts of crazy experiences with me, made me really miss that connection. I don't feel like I have that with people I see on a regular basis now, except maybe my parents, and it makes it sort of hard. I love metal, it's a huge part of my life, but there are a lot of other things I care about too. I want to be able to expand again, and do different things, with people who know me well, basically my extended family. Sadly, those are the people who live just far enough away that we can't hang out more, and it sucks.

I'm also exceedingly tired of beer. I think from now on, the closest I get to beer will be cider, and I feel like having a sign that says DON'T BUY ME BEER. Ugh. It makes me feel sick, tastes horrible, and well, sorry. I'm a hard liquor girl. I like sweet drinks, not drinks that rot my mouth from the inside. That's just my life.

I'm tired of the metal scene here. I'm tired of listening to crap I really do NOT care about, and I know I sound elitist, but after the last bullcrap experience seeing Destroyer666 and Enthroned, I just have stopped caring. Sure, I'll go to shows with bands of friends and things, but don't expect to see me doing much else. I kind of miss the days when big shows were events. I planned for months, bought tickets for a plane or train ride, coordinated with friends from other places, and we had fun doing things in other cities. Now, the only traveling and coordination is fighting for a parking spot in Westport that is remotely close to the venue.

Call me ungrateful, or old. I don't really care. All I know is, this is my life, and I'm doing things my way. If I don't, then what right do I even have to be alive?

Oh blimey

This has been an interesting week. It started basically last week when I started packing the last of my boxes, then my parents came up on Friday to help me get situated for the big move. That was a good day, we IHOPped it up, then got the keys to the new place. Unfortunately, we didn't check them both and one was messed up, along with the mail key, but that's being fixed. Yeehaw.

So far things are pretty settled. I haven't unpacked much and my extra room is in a shambles. Sometimes I wish I didn't have so much stuff, because it's a little bit ridiculous. It would be nice to get a smaller place and think wow, I can save some money, but that's the price of doing art and being a packrat.

It has been hideously hot the majority of the move, but I managed to survive. Marek is doing well too, and is being a slug under a chair somewhere right now.


Ooh my god, I think I'm going to watch another Mummy trainwreck, so I'll write more later...

What is my reality?

So I'm pretty sure I grew up in the 70s, but 20 years too late, if that's even possible.

I think I probably have KISS to thank for that, and a very acute awareness of how much of a weirdo I was.

It's ok though, it put me in the right place at the wrong time, and apparently now I'm reaping the benefits, or something.

Either way though, I guess that's life now. A digital age with an analog me. I'm just glad my tape doesn't get flipped over when the stereo freaks out anymore. I just wonder how much I'll have to fight to keep them from putting an implant in me. It's years away, I'm sure of it!!

Sigh

Well this week has gotten off to a weird start.

Sunday Tim and Jodi came kind of at different times and helped me pack. We got a lot done, Bruce provided entertainment, and Marek sat in the bedroom and extra room being generally crabby. My apartment is a maze of boxes and junk, and all the things I haven't decided on packing yet. It's kind of irritating, and I shouldn't be ungrateful for having so much stuff. At the same time, it's an overwhelming mess to sort it all, categorize it and HOPE I don't run out of boxes. That said, I'm getting very very close.

Some time last week my dishwasher got clogged, and is now holding water in the bottom of it. I believe I ran it on Wednesday before I went to class, and when I got home I thought hmm, this is strange, but chalked it up to my dishwasher being old. I didn't notice the smell until Saturday, and it's still in the same state, since the apartment complex I presently live in can't seem to ever have enough maintenance people on staff to actually help their tenants out. I'm very relieved that I only have until Friday to actually reside here.

Marek had his annual vet visit today and ended up getting scared so much that he had an accident on the way to the car. I felt horrible, and got him a bath when we got home. He still smells funny, so he might end up taking another dip. He's going to hate me, but he can't be all smelly. Nope nope nope. Poor baby bear. I feel terrible, but there was hardly any parking and we parked right by some guys doing yardwork. Baaad idea. Ugh.

Oh well. I'm exhausted and today's been crazy. It's barely 11 am and I'm ready for a very very long nap.

Nonsensical Blithering...

Today has been interesting. I came to the realization that if my brain were wired into Twitter, the entire world would probably hate me. It's a good thing it isn't then.

I made a lot of interesting observations though...

Andrew WK's long lost brother was driving in front of me on a motorcycle with KC Chiefs stickers plastered on it and a BMW helmet. That's something you don't see every day. He was also chunky. Sadly I didn't get a photo because the light turned green.

It was also apparently bring your idiot to Sonic and get half price happy hour drinks. I almost got crunched into by some stupid woman on her cell phone, basically blocking the entrance, then when I cleared that obstacle, there was an SUV just sitting out in the middle of the drive area turned on with no one in it. I'll be avoiding that Sonic for a while...

That's really all I can think of right now. It's been a long long day, and I'm ready to go home and sleep for about a month. I haven't worked this long of a shift basically anywhere since February. Luckily this one is basically babysitting a photo lab, at least today, and I can relax and listen to good music. Nothing wrong with that.

I went to a show last night, it was pretty good, what I was able to see of it. I had to leave before the last band, which was a shame, but I listened to them on Myspace and it was ok, but nothing special. It seems like it's that way a lot around here. Maybe I just have extreme expectations, I really don't know. It's nice to see talented bands, and sometimes talented people in so so bands... that's usually the gist of it. One or two people play their hearts out, the others spend too much time on drama and need to grow up. I guess that's just how it is. I mean, look at Pink Floyd... same thing. And hell, Roger Waters is still taking The Wall on tour... ugh.

Speaking of The Wall, I did actually try to watch it a few months ago. I got to 'One of My Turns', said screw it and went to HyVee for lemon cake. I mean, I do enjoy the album, but the movie was just terribly depressing, plus Bob Geldof is creepy.

I think I'm becoming grizzled, at least at some aspects of life here. The whole KC metal scene thing really bugs me, hopefully some changes will come about in the next few months. I just wonder how much I'll have to do with it. After the other crap involving metal that happened earlier this year, I'm hesitant to take part in projects, other than the Dio tribute, especially if the whole money and power and status things come into play. That's not worth it, and I'd rather be a speck of dirt than a clump of angry mud. That isn't the best analogy but whatever. At least I try, sometimes.

I've been trying to work on my website and WordPress is a pain. I did finally figure out how to fix some things, then I screwed my account up, so I'm trying to wait for it to update and work the bugs out. I did find a nice tutorial, so perhaps I can actually get my photo albums up. I'm still kind of confused as to how everything is going to be organized, but we'll see. Part of me is angry I didn't just use older coding, but that's the nature of technology. The minute you get good at something, the rules change and you are made obsolete. Technological Decay I suppose is a good way to put it... Survival of the brainiest at least in some terms.

I dunno, I guess I can go ahead and hit publish post and be done, hopefully I will be able to go home soon and get some quiet time and rest.

And just for the record, I really can't stand Savatage.

Thank you and goodnight.

I'm basically a slug...

So, I have 11 days left until class is over. I've managed to secure a domain for a photography website, and that's about it. I did mess with it some on Friday but my brain's just not wanted to wrap around doing a bunch of stuff. I probably will just lug all my stuff to class tomorrow and work without distractions like sleep and food and Mr. Babypants.

I've been listening to 'After' a lot, and it's just amazing. The depth of it is mind boggling, and well, I love it, that's really all I feel like saying right now. It's so nice to find something new and exciting that can almost replace several different bands that I forgot about in the past. It's interesting how it reminds me of Mr. Bungle and Alice in Chains (Emperor goes without saying), yet Ihsahn was more influenced by stuff like radiohead. I think it just shows that you can get cool and workable ideas from many sources. I will say that he has one of the most beautiful singing voices I've heard in quite a while. Plus, he knows how to use it, he doesn't jack around with stupid stuff, and I appreciate that.

Anyway though, I dunno. Other than that, I spent most of my day sleeping because it's basically miserable out. Maybe the rain will settle things down for a bit. Maybe not, I dunno...