My Room Likes to Eat Things...

So I have a feeling that you all believe that I am completely insane, reading that title.

But I swear... It seems like my room eats things.

Not just random things, no... the important things.

Let me just reiterate... THE IMPORTANT THINGS.

Anyways "It" has eaten my camera charger, my tablet pen, my notebook for my stories, my drawing pad, my favorite book, a whole SERIES of books, an old t-shirt that I found a while ago and then re-lost (if that is even a word...), my crochet hooks, my knitting needles, countless SEWING needles (which slightly frightens me...) and several other random objects to say a few.

So "It" never gets full.

Which is interesting, because my brother is moving out of his room soonish and I am moving into his.

So what will become of "It"?

I believe I should feed "It". And perhaps give "It" a name.

I will give "It" all the random useless objects lying around my room. I will hide them in "It"'s belly (my closet) and then "It" shall be appeased enough that "It" shall not eat my parents' stuff... which will be going into "It" when first my brother leaves his room and I clean out mine. "It" will probably feel lonely... But I shall come and give "It" some time... as "It" is my cave.

"It" has no windows and only one door. "It" is dark and the lights turn on very slowly and that annoys me. "It" also has a slanted ceiling and is very skinny, though it is much bigger than it actually appears.

Anyways...

I believe that I have become something of a NEET... I have stayed at home most of my break since... well... crap happened with my one relationship... and yeah.

But I'm dropping by Cat's house today and might be going to Zu's tomorrow... or she's coming here. Not sure.

What matters is I am slowly getting back into the school mindset of my life.

Hopefully I can see "Der Boifriend" there... I haven't seen him for a week...

Singing and Showers and... Cheese Crackers?

Have you ever noticed that it's SO MUCH FUN to sing in the shower? I think it's cause it echos. Everywhere. And perhaps you sound more like yourself when you sing in the shower. Though... I haven't tested that yet... I should.

Anyways I broke out into song since both of my parents are JUST NOW watching the Hobbit at the cinemas. And they left an hour early. In all seriousness, it's been playing in about twenty bigillion theaters down by us, AND it's been about a month since it's been out. Why in the world do they have to be so weird and leave so early? I don't understand them sometimes.

Anyways so I was singing a song my friend and I were TRYING to sing together, but the problem was I'M NOT A SOPRANO. And in fact I'm very proud of it. I have a very weak head-voice, so it's pretty difficult for me to float on the high notes. Mine sound like they take too much effort. If I move my hands, close my eyes and direct myself, I can make the notes float. But once I leave that little bit of solitude and my meditative state I just fail. Dismally.

And four years of critically acclaimed choruses have forced me to succeed my failure. And I mean, being a soprano isn't fun anyways. It's all melody and no harmony. A pretty melody is fine for five-year-olds, but I like the meat and potatoes of a song. Give me the juice. Dissonant chords, suspended cadences... the works. It's like a pizza. Cheese pizza is your favorite as a kid, but once you're an adult you want something with more variety in it.

I can't believe I just associated pizza with singing.

Anyways I was belting out "The Last Rose of Summer", which was the song I was trying to get. It's mostly difficult because it starts in my mid-range, then goes to the EXTREME high end of my voice. It's basically the highest notes that I can sing nicely on a good day. And my good days entail not having a cold, (which I might have right now,) being perfectly in practice with the song (which I haven't practiced let alone sung for nearly two months,) having an awesome warm-up (which never happens in my house since I don't have a piano or keyboard...)

Anyways I was actually getting it. The last little bit my voice got a bit tired and I 'squeaked' on the high notes. By squeaking I mean your voice takes some effort (that you feel and sometimes hear) switching from chest or mixed voice to head voice. I don't notice it when you go down... only up.

So then I changed into an improvizational version of one of my favorite riffs... "It Don't Mean a Thing". There are tons of versions of this but the one that I did I was acting as an alto. So it was chest voice all the way. And this song's my favorite 'cause if you know the key and can syncopate (when notes and rhythms aren't on the beat) you can make it jump and feel alive and it just... flows.

I guess this makes sense 'cause I love swing music and this is a good example of one of my favorites...

Then I just sat there and wondered... What'd happen if I practiced a song that I did in my chorus in senior year? So I sung a French song that we did for our Christmas concert about a year ago.

It's weird. Most people think that practicing in head voice for a long time is the only way to get it right. I felt like it was better for me to belt it and sing the lower notes more... and then sing high. Usually it's the opposite way. Perhaps that's why I could never sing high in class...

I hit a b natural a couple times... the high b kind.

Anyways now I'm just sitting and staring at my old Christmas tree that hasn't been watered in about a week or two... smelling the pine. It's nice.

Next year we should do a tree with all orbs. We have a ton since I work at a store that sells them. I can get the best price on the things 'cause I know how to abuse the coupon codes without disobeying the rules. Yay.

Uh... Happy New Year... Continue with your resolutions... and DON'T PANIC.

We survived the Avian Flu, the Swine Flu, the year 2000, the Great Recession (kind of), possibly annihilation from the North Koreans, 11-11-11, and the end of the Mayan calendar. Whatever you have to deal with now sounds less daunting... no?

The Sixth Writer

She stood, jacketed in gray.
A pen in her hand.
Journal in fist.

She usually hides away,
Going to the south end
Of the dark dist.

But her writing was a ray
Of sun on the bend,
Light on the twist.

But she stood strong and tall-
Upon an invisible pedestal
Of higher learning.

And we saw her behind a wall,
Her words were sensible,
Beautiful and charming.

Her elegance, all in all
She became indispensable.
She's in, darling.

(In Congratulations to my friend Ash, who we've added to our little writing group~)

Quiet and Relaxation and... Tin Cans?

Work was the quietest it's EVER been while I was working there. Which isn't saying much since I've only experienced the Christmas rush and a tad bit before it. We finished work, and I mean EVERYTHING we could do 15 minutes before work actually was scheduled to end. Which is nice since we got off early but it's not for most people 'cause they didn't get their breaks. I actually didn't... but I got paid actually 15 minutes more than I should so I'm happy~

So I'm going to have a very relaxing New Years... NOT.







Anyways nothing much to post.

I just wanted to add tin cans 'cause I was bored.

Losing Things, Drawing Tablets and... Collars?

So my brother's girlfriend was at the house today. I might as well say fiancee... but I shouldn't jinx it. They'll be going out for four years as of the ninth of next month. Anyways she was sitting on his bed telling him where everything should go in his room and reprimanding him for keeping the bits and pieces of his models when he didn't really need them.

It made me laugh to see him getting made fun of. I'm a sadistic little sister.

Anyways while she was in his room a button on her shirt popped off. I said I'd sew it back for her. And so I did. Then when she put it on, she put it on so it made her (already naturally over-sized) breasts look EVEN larger. If that's even possible.

So she basically finished cleaning his room for him. Then I got amused 'cause she sounded like she wanted to try cleaning MY room.

And I finally realized that I kind of did need to clean it.

So I walked down the ten foot hall, yelled at them not to invade my room (which my brother usually likes to do anyways without asking) and got to work. For five minutes.

Until I remembered I needed to install my Bamboo Pen and Touch software onto my computer. I got a new one for graduation... nearly 6 months ago... and I have yet to do anything with it up until today.

So I broke that out of its drawer, plopped in the installation software and sat down. I didn't know it wanted the tablet attached during the installation... so I let it run for twenty minutes before I realized that I had to do stuff. So then I dug the actual tablet out of its drawer of crap and plugged that in then ignored it for another twenty minutes, then realized I had to manually click buttons first.

Then calibrate the thing to make sure the tablet has an accurate reading.

So I did that and was playing around on facebook, scrolling with it when I realized that maybe I should do some tracing practices to get my handling down with the pen.

So I looked in my pencil cup on my desk, which I usually keep my most often used utensils, and it wasn't there.

My room likes to eat things. It so far has eaten and spat back my friends' Christmas presents' finishing touches, my camera charger/computer cable, and now the pen. So I went looking for it. That took me a while.

All in all if I were a more organized person I'd have gotten my tablet setup in twenty minutes... but I didn't so it took me an hour. Huzzah!

Anyways I reprimanded my closet and then sat down... and suddenly lost the desire to do any drawing tonight. Which is a horrible thing... 'cause it's much easier to use a tablet then it is to draw things on paper, scan it to the computer, then edit things with a mouse.

And I've used a mouse to edit things quite often. In my High School's CG class we weren't allowed to use tablets until the NEXT level up... which I should've been in but they didn't let me skip. All we did was use photoshop... and I can do that ASLEEP and HIGH and still make things that are better than most of that class's. (Though I've never tried to use my tablet either high or asleep... perhaps I should try the latter...)

So that was my afternoon. Also I acted super pissy to my boyfriend's sister... I sniped at her since I'm on my monthlies without noticing. I'm a horrible person when I'm on my monthlies... Sorry Ro...

I got another collared, black, longsleeved shirt from the thrift store. But this time it has gold piping... so it doesn't look exactly like the others.

And I've realized that I really like wearing collared shirts. Which I hated with a burning PASSION when I was a kid. I even hated ones that were crew-necked. They just felt tight; like they were strangling me. But now I like having that feeling like my shirt is giving me a hug.

Christmas, Ornaments and... Coffee?

Merry Christmas everybody! I hope you got what you were asking for.

It's funny. None of my family woke up today until like, 10 in the morning. My mom was planning to make coffee cake, which is my FAVORITE and ONLY beloved breakfast food (I do not count crepes... they're more of a snack food...) that I will actually eat DURING the morning hours.

I don't like all the sugar. I LOVE sweet things. As in, I will drown coffee in sugar because it's not sweet enough. That's how much I love sweets. But breakfast foods have just too much sugar in them.

Anyways there's an ornament on our Christmas tree that my mom got back in the day. I guess it was one of those short-run, one-year-only types of ornaments, 'cause I can't find ANY MORE of them online.

I've tried etsy, E-bay and I will try Amazon next. I hope Amazon has it. It's a cute little Victorian house that's a brown ceramic with some white ceramic on top to make it look like snow's fallen. The only problem with it is the fact that it's REALLY heavy. I think it's about half a pound or so. Which, for an ornament, is just a bit ridiculous.

But my mom loves it and so for her birthday (which is in June) or mothers' day, or some other random holiday I thought I'd get a couple more for her since she loves them so much.

But nope. They're nowhere to be found. I'm going to try Amazon once and see but so far NOTHING looks even remotely similar.

Nope.

Anyways my brother's girlfriend "Coraline" got an espresso maker from us this year as her Christmas present. So we decided to whip it out and try making something with it.

The first cup we used decaf coffee grounds, non-fat milk and tried it. The milk was cold and the espresso was really weak.

The second cup we tried non-decaf coffee which we ground extra fine in a little grinder, the non-fat milk and whipped it up again. It was better but the milk was weak.

Third time's the charm.

Anyways that's all we've done this morning and afternoon. Coraline's taking a nap, Alejandro is playing on his computer.... some game or whatever, and based on what I can hear, my mom's cleaning something in the Kitchen and my dad's playing his tank game.

All in all... Our Christmas festivities were all pretty limited to yesterday... When we opened our presents. But it was fun to hang out and fail at making coffee. Now we just need to play Eurorails and Jenga and then we're all good.

OOooooh. I found the ornaments. They're here... Gingerbread House Ornaments. I think they look adorable. Heee hee. The one we have is the "Townhouse" version. I think I like the Queen Anne Revival one best.

Mysteries and Books and... Psychics?

So Der Boifriend, his older sister Ro and I were walking around later tonight, just chilling and we decided we should go to B&N. So we did and we were walking around looking at journals for Rubles, my badminton buddy, some Star Wars books, I pointed out the fact that Battle Royale is the ORIGINAL Hunger Games, and is better written, pointed out a book for UP (which is in my top 10 of movies, along with The Hobbit, Bed-knobs and Broomsticks, and many classics from my childhood~).

Apparently, Ro loves amigurumi, which is new to me. I know she crochets and is learning how to knit, but I didn't know she liked something so Japanese. She's very stoically Irish and American (I blame homeschooling for all of her life), but I was pleasantly surprised. BIRTHDAY PRESENT IDEA~

So we were looking around and I found a plushie version of Bilbo Baggins. Complete with fuzzy feet, his red coat and a little scarf. And Sting. Which is a necessity. But no Gandalf, which made me sad on many levels (I was planning to buy him for Der Boifriend, but since there was none and they probably won't get a shipment before Christmas I decided against waiting and bought him something else. HAHAHA I'm not telling my love~) (<= He reads all of my posts.)

Anyways so we were bored and were walking around and Ro and I decided to go to the mystery section of the store and flip all the books around so you saw the pages and not the spines.

And I got a picture!

Sorry Barnes and Noble clerks!

It took us about five minutes of furiously turning them around, one by one so that they were still in order. It was really fun actually. Now I know why being a deviant is so desirable... it's quite thrilling doing things you're not allowed to do normally.

Anyways that's basically all I did today. I slept in until noon, watched TV while I was painting my mom's Christmas presents, and then played Battleship over facebook chat with Der Boifriend.

And it was really funny too. We wrote the 10 by 10 grid on a piece of paper, one for each of us, and began to play. I beat the crap out of him. It wasn't really a competition. I hit 17 of my 27 tries. And most of my tries were next to the ships. He hit 10 of 27.

This just adds to the fact that he thinks that I'm psychic.

I finish everybody's sentences, I know exactly what they're thinking and say it out loud, I tend to be very lucky with games like this (card and board games), I have dreams where the dream comes true and so on and so forth. So once I was bored and chatting with him and Bean online and took a psychic test.

My result was (while I was actually trying) was usually somewhere close to 65%. And the probability of it was close to 30%. That added it on to. Bean was thoroughly convinced that I'm psychic. I tell him there are none but whatever.

Speaking of which, Bean's a funny nickname isn't it? He wanted to be Bane... like the character from The Dark Knight. So while he, Der Boifriend and I were chatting online (which we do quite often until the wee hours of the morning and I fall asleep) he told us that. So Der Boifriend, being the weird Celtic boy he is spelled it Baen 'cause it looked cooler and you pronounce it the same.

And so me, who was very tired and didn't read it right decided to call him Bean.

Poor poor Bean... He doesn't even like the name... Oh well whatever. He's used to being the verbal punching bag of the group. For some reason he just sets himself up like that ALL THE TIME. Der Boifriend and I think that perhaps he does it on purpose...