somelaurachick

Lately, it seems like all you need to have a reasonable income level is one big idea. These ideas often manifest as websites, the concepts for which are SO SIMPLE that you want to kill yourself for not thinking of them first. Some examples:

-A website where you write a text message about what you're doing and send it to the whole internet (Twitter)

-"Like Twitter" but with replies and a visual timeline (Plurk)

-A website where people can make their own journal online and other people can read/comment on that journal (Livejournal, Blogger, Diaryland, Wordpress, etc etc.)

-A website where people can add funny captions to pictures of cats (Cheezburger)

-A website where people take pictures of the boxes for microwave food and then show how much the final result matches what it's supposed to (FoodIRL)

None of these ideas are particularly sophisticated. Why didn't I come up with them? Why didn't you? Why is it that no matter how hard I think, I can't come up with something like this, but every single day a new site of this nature is launched, it seems so SIMPLE? XD

Edit: Does anyone else think that the concept for Twitter totally sounds like it was generated on drugs of some sort? "Man, I want to like, text message the internet..."

The movie based on New Moon just came out, so everyone is talking about Twilight again. It's almost impossible to avoid seeing it mentioned on TV and via Facebook. One of the main concerns I've heard iterated again and again is the oh-so-offensive possibility that Twilight might be sexist. A quick Google search for "Is Twilight sexist?" brings up hundreds of hits from angry bloggers discussing the blatant sexism in the Twilight universe.

The main reason that people have to believe that Twilight is anti-Feminist is that the female protagonist is "weak" and underdeveloped. She is domestic and falls in love way too fast and gives up her whole life to be with a sparkly vampire. Apparently, having a female who fits traditional gender roles is sexist. But I have to ask - what about all the females who don't? Isn't it more sexist to assume that one character is meant to represent a whole gender than to accept the fact that some females, fictional or not, enjoy being domestic and silly? Besides that, with the "author" of these books being Mormon, of course it's going to contain traditional gender roles. Mormonism isn't known for its liberalism.

Secondly, I'm a little bit disturbed to see how many adults are taking a teenage vampire romance novel seriously. I mean, one of the arguments the "this book is sexist and must be stopped" camp puts out there is that Edward, the male protagonist, is pushy and/or controlling. Well shit, really? He's a fucking vampire. To assume that these books are even remotely trying to represent reality is ridiculous. They're not, and even if the intent was to be some kind of social commentary, which I highly doubt, they're so poorly executed that it's just not there.

The Twilight Saga is bad. The books are poorly written and paced. But come on, haven't you ever enjoyed something bad before? I may not like Twilight, but I definitely watched "Gigli" and "Wicker Man" and had a hell of a time doing it. Let people have their guilty pleasures without making them feel like they're an affront to their gender.

In a word: no. I am completely against censorship of any form. I do, however, think that we need to stop using the "it has literary merit" argument when it comes to books that are just terrible. Books should not be banned because of the free press, not because if it's offensive enough it just HAS to be meaningful in some way.

I've often thought about trying to publish a short story that consists of increasingly morbid themes and eventually murder and necrophilia and trying to pass it off as "literature" just to see if anyone would believe that. I mean, if Story of O is considered LITERARY...

I recently had to fill out a health questionnaire for a doctor's appointment that I have tomorrow. There were lots of questions about things like drug use, and then it asked if I drink.

I often get asked if I drink, and I don't really know how to answer that question. Yes, I consume alcoholic beverages. I drink wine with dinner about twice a month, and I drink a martini a few times a year. On very random, rare occasions, I'll have some other kind of cocktail when I'm out with friends. The most alcoholic beverages I'll ever consume in one sitting is two.

Whenever people ask if I drink, I often pick up on a bit of judgment in their voices. On questionnaires, they often follow up with more questions, such as "how many alcoholic beverages do you consume daily?" that add an implication of addiction, or at least recreational use. I drink wine because it's tasty and makes my food tasty. I drink dirty martinis because I think olive brine is tasty, but it needs something else to not just be gross. I don't even drink beer/cider anymore because whenever I do drink, even if it's just one drink, I inevitably get buzzed and hate that the next day.

I guess what I'm asking is, as a legal adult who sporadically consumes alcoholic beverages because she likes the way they taste, when someone asks me if I drink, what should I say?

Not much went on today, so for my public facing entry, I'm just going to rant about music. ;) Lately I've been listening to a lot of country pop - this is because it seems that being a good singer isn't a prerequisite for any other type of popular music anymore. The problem with country pop is that it's bad.

Take for example this song, "Best Days Of Your Life," performed by the oh so cute yet completely brainless Kelli Pickler:


CHORUS:
'Cus I'll be there, in the back of your mind
From the day we met to the very last night
And it's just too bad, you've already had the best days
The best days of you life

And does she know?
Know about the times you used to hold me
Wrapped me in your arms and how you told me
I'm the... the only one

I heard about
Yeah, someone told me once, when you were out
She went a little crazy ran her mouth about me
Ain't jealousy funny?


I'll spare you the rest. Needless to say, neither "mind," "night," or "life" rhyme with any of the others. "Hold me" and "told me" kind of works, but also kind of not, given that technically she's rhyming "me" with "me." Of course the same word rhymes with itself!

This is almost as bad as that Kid Rock song "All Summer Long" that I keep hearing on the radio, with the lyric "We were trying different things, and we were smoking funny things." Arrrggghhh. :P

Tony and I finished watching Boston Legal today, so we decided to move onto Densha Otoko. We'd both intended on watching this for years and had just never gotten around to it.

I can't help but want to make my own parody series, in which the setup for the story is virtually the same, only it occurs in America. The protagonist would proceed to solicit advice from 4chan and end up attempting date rape and similar antics. I think it'd be pretty awesome.

First of all, I understand that North Bend is at a different elevation than where I live, but seriously, there was snow everywhere. How is it possible for there to be that much of a temperature difference between here and there?!

That aside - the concert was both awesome and extremely disconcerting (get it lol). The Gin Blossoms themselves were the awesome part. They are excellent live. They played some new material, and during one of their songs, they had a pretty epic guitar showdown between their lead guitarist and their backup guitarist. I loved watching them play Follow You Down, especially, because harmonicas at rock concerts are never anything other than rad.

All that said... I never thought of the Gin Blossoms as an "old people" band. I guess their music is technically part of the "Adult Alternative" genre, but I'm not kidding when I say that Tony and I were the only people there who have 2s in their age that aren't proceeded by a 4. And we're not just talking about middle aged people, we're talking about drunk, white middle aged people making the "rock steady" hand and jumping up and down in front of the stage. There was one Asian guy (no, literally, there was only one) who was getting up behind people and grinding.

Do I really just like old people music? XD

I used to take great pride in the fact that I had studied the English language in depth, and that, as a result, I was a pretty strong writer. Around the time of my sophomore year of college, it dawned on me that this was quite silly - the vast majority of my friends were very strong writers as well, despite the fact that they had never emphasized English or writing as part of their education.

Now, at the age of 21, I'm meeting more and more people who have Bachelor's Degrees and still can't string a sentence together to save their lives. I may use a lot of commas, but I always put them in a place that makes sense. The same thing goes for any punctuation, really. Sure, I punctuate "stylistically" sometimes, but even when what I do isn't necessarily "correct," it always makes sense - I write the way I speak.

I think the thing that I find most disturbing is the fact that the vast majority of my friends, who I all consider to be excellent writers, either studied hard Sciences or didn't go to college at all. Meanwhile, if I fire up my Facebook page, all of the people I used to know years ago who are now studying Liberal Arts of some kind can barely write well enough to get a passing grade on a High School essay.

Is grammar more of a left-brained thing?

Big news guys: I'm officially a musician. ;)

About a year ago, Pete approached me about doing the vocals for a song for Diskowarp. So I did. It's track one on the new "Diskowarp Presents: Speedisko" CD that just hit iTunes and a couple of other online retailers, as well as, I'm sure, the Diskowarp Website. The title is "One, Two, Three" and the stage name I was given is "Lydia Nurbs." I don't want to just pimp myself out and tell you to buy it, but it's a pretty catchy, awesome Eurobeat song, and I had a lot of fun singing it.

Last night, Tony and I ventured to Capital Hill for dinner and cupcakes - we had a coupon for Cupcake Royale and absolutely nothing else to do. I had delicious Yakisoba and Miso Soup and then we got 6 cupcakes for the price of 4. I also got a Mocha - I'd never had coffee from Cupcake Royale before, but it was surprisingly good!

I've been drinking a lot more coffee lately, actually. By that I don't mean that I'm chugging down 8 shots of espresso a day or anything like that, just that I used to only have actual coffee a few times a year, choosing instead to consume 2-3 Red Bulls a day. I've been having actual coffee a few days a week now, and overall, my Red Bull consumption has been dramatically reduced, which is awesome because Red Bull is expensive (although not *that* expensive - I buy in bulk from Costco!)

But I digress. We ended up at Jon's place in Seattle and played board games until about 1 AM. I think that it's a sign of a pretty good life when you can be out in the middle of the night on Sundays. As for today, I have more board games in my future. I'm also thinking that sometime soon I need to make a Costco trip and scout out a fake Christmas tree. I've been living on my own for four Holiday seasons now and I still don't have a tree, and that's just a shame. I love Christmas lights, even though I actually rather dislike the actual day of Christmas.

Anyway, I suppose I'll get back to that super important nothing I was doing! :D

I think a large part of my problem lately has been that my allergies keep me awake. Without proper rest, how can I really recover? I made a vow to stay in bed for as long as it took for me to not feel tired today. I ended up crawling out of bed right around 2 pm, as did Tony. We are also very deliberately without plans for the day - a board game or two later might be fun, but for now, just lounging is awesome.

We made zepples for breakfast (I know, I'm so healthy.) My mom always used to make them for me, and that's where I learned, so I never really knew much about their history, where in Italy the recipe came from, and how many variants there are. Apparently, the way she makes them is actually a more "unusual" variant: whereas she taught me the "fry the dough and soak it in salt" variety, it's apparently more common to sugar them and fill the center with some kind of cream. Tony likes the idea of that variety more, so we're going to try that next time.

We're halfway through Season 4 of Boston Legal, and I really don't know what I'm going to watch/get massively into next. Any suggestions for good, underrated TV shows? I prefer things that have already ended, so that I can marathon all the episodes and not wait for the new one every week. I'm super impatient - speaking of which, I'm getting bored, so off to accomplish some things.

The cold weather and fall allergens do not agree with me - I've basically been "sick" for the last two months, and I'm freaking tired of it. I know that nothing is so wrong with me that I shouldn't be able to function/get on with my life, but it really feels that way sometimes. I can't breathe quite right because of the congestion, so I can't play dance games, walking outside gives me the chills, and I just generally feel weak. I haven't worked out in a couple of weeks because I seriously haven't felt well enough to once. I also can barely bring myself to eat.

This needs to be over. Seriously. I don't want to be forced to sit around feeling sorry for myself anymore. :/ Even Sudafed isn't doing its job so well anymore.

Edit: On the upside, I just played Dominion with Tada, Ray, and Tony for a couple of hours and that was a blast. <3

I have been in love more times than I would care to admit. I don't like to be alone, and as a result, I think I become attached to my significant others with greater speed and ease than most people. New relationships are, to some extent, exhilarating. It's that "can't eat, can't sleep" crazy feeling - some call it limerence, where others choose to simply say that they are in love.

Lately, I have been wondering about a facet of the experience of being "in love" that often goes undiscussed: the concept of originality. Often times, I've been in bed, laying next to my husband, engaging in conversation, and it occurs to me that I've had the exact same conversation before with somebody else - a past lover.

As much as everybody wants to feel that their current relationship is completely unique compared to every other relationship that they've had, I can't help but wonder how many of the things that my exes have said to me have been used in their past and future discussions with women. Tony had never been in a relationship prior to ours, but I wonder, similarly, if he would find himself quoting the same lines to me as he did to the women of his past if they had existed.

Human beings also have this strange tendency to believe that their current relationship is the best relationship they've ever been in. Looking back on my life, over the last seven years of Livejournal entries, this has most certainly rang true for me. Every time I was in a new relationship, I'd say how that man was different and special and the best I'd ever been with - and, to be honest, I'm willing to admit, retrospectively, that my "type" was very obvious and my lovers were probably not all that different from one another.

Is my relationship with Tony the best relationship I've ever been in? I can say with confidence that yes, it is, but only because the empirical evidence is there. What evidence, you ask? This post is that evidence - before I ever made it, he and I had this discussion. All of my hopes and fears and dreams and brain droppings run by him before they turn up anywhere else. He gets the play-by-play of everything. In addition to my husband, he's my best friend, my confidant, my therapist, and a whole lot of other things that I probably don't want to list in a journal entry that others can read. ;) But the thing is, I don't know how much of that is due to the fact that Tony and I are just innately better for one another than I have been with previous significant others. I think the real difference is that both Tony and I are willing to do the work to become perfect for one another. In my past relationships, neither party has been willing to do the work.

Even though I know that this is a new (though that's a relative term at this point; we're coming up on three years) love, I still have a difficult time living with myself sometimes. It is hard to find yourself regurgitating romantic gestures or unusual sexual experiences with your new lover without feeling rather, well, douchy. And although I can simply talk with my husband when such a situation arises, it's still better to avoid it all together - but at what cost?

Sometimes I think I should have waited longer to have relationships*. Not sex, just relationships.


*Except for Robby. You were awesome and this post has nothing to do with you. Seriously, best ex boyfriend ever. Come do some standup comedy for me.

I need to write every day. I don't just mean 100 character status updates, I mean that I need to sit down at my laptop and juice my brain, then save it somewhere so I can drink it later. I need to keep my life very well documented. Without this, I very easily forget everything I've learned.

I read some Livejournal entries from 2006 today, and realized that back then, I learned things about myself that I thought I'd only recently come to discover. I am actually years behind myself. This is not good.

I think I may embark on some sort of project, wherein I make one public facing "this is what I did today" type entry, and then a friends only or private "this is what I thought, reflected on, and discovered today" entry. It's better than those stupid writers block prompts, and will be more helpful for me in the future. LJ has the added benefit now of being read only occasionally, such that I don't feel like I'm whoring myself out to the public - the incentive that somebody could be following what I say helps me keep this up, but I ultimately write for the purpose of reflecting on myself later. It's the same reason that I don't delete anything, even if it paints me in an unflattering light, and I never "take back" anything I've said or done.

That said, there will undoubtedly be more updates today, since I've hardly done anything yet. Even with my sleeping pills, I've had great difficulty falling asleep lately due to persistent, obnoxious lower back pain - the last two nights I've gone to bed around 1 and fallen asleep around 4. Then I wake up at 1 pm, which further exacerbates this problem. On the upside, I've rediscovered BioFreeze and started taking over the counter painkillers, so hopefully between those two, I should feel well enough to do some lower back exercises tonight, which should ultimately correct the problem.

Well, off to watch Boston Legal.

I used to read terrible magazines on planes, but that was because I used to be a total space case and forget to bring legitimate reading material. Now, I usually just bring three or four books from my queue - usually of different genres, so I have options. I try to bring one literary classic/fictional book, one work of satire/something written by a humorist, and one nonfiction book of the informative variety, like something about psychology or history or whatnot.

...Yeah, I'm a nerd.

If DaVinci's Notebook ever did a reunion tour, I'd travel anywhere within the continental US or Canada to see them. They're just that good. No disrespect to Paul and Storm; I love their thing! But to hear Title of the Song *live* would just be too incredible.

I am more or less the most useless sick person who ever lived. As you can imagine, "going it alone" isn't really an option for me. Luckily, I am married now, so I have someone to help me. In the past, when I have felt something coming on, I have bribed family or friends to come stay with me. :P

My oldest friend is easily Kate. We've known each other since first grade in Rochester, New York. She's still living out that way, so we don't see each other terribly often; typically something along the lines of once every few years. We read each others' Livejournals and Twitters and whatnot though, and once every few months we talk on AIM.

I tend to get really close to somebody for a few years, then they get tired of my psychotic behaviour and leave. True story. It's kind of a delicate balance between feeling comfortable around people and not feeling too comfortable, such that I go all crazy around them.

I can usually only watch TV in the most literal sense for a few hours at a time, but I have marathoned entire TV shows in one sitting when I had access to DVD boxed sets. I think winner is the time that I marathoned the entire first season of Slayers over the course of about two days - I basically just slept and watched Slayers. (To be fair, this was immediately following what was, essentially, a nervous breakdown, and all the benzos they had me on kept me from being functional in any other capacity.) In this instance, I was alone.

As for my normal DVD watching habits, I would say 6 hours isn't entirely unreasonable or uncommon. I typically only do this with Tony; I don't really like watching anything alone anymore, since if Tony misses something, I have to quote it back to him anyway. :P

I don't typically dress up for Halloween. I think that's mostly because I never have a place to go. If I do need a costume, I'll just put on my husband's clothes and tell people that I'm "dressing up as Tony." It gets a few chuckles sometimes.