Project Ehmkay Ultra

Playlists for days!

2016-12-09T22:43:00.000-08:00

Nothing like a writer friend mentioning you in her blog to remind you "omg seriously bitch update your blog what is WRONG with you?"

In my defense, I haven't completely neglected blogging; I've just been doing it elsewhere.

Also on literally the last day of Nanowrimo, my laptop committed seppuku, juuust as I was less than 1k or so from finishing. So that was fun. (I mean, I totally copypasta'd a bunch of stuff I already had. I knew I was going to win, so I dont feel bad about using a different 50k to win than the 50k I'd actually written than month. Fite me.)

Anyway, back to the whole being-blog-shamed-into-posting by my friend Becky. She's an author and a member of my local writer's group, and in her most recent post, (along with admitting I was right about Spotify) she talked about the glory that is my personal favorite form of "I'm totally writing even though I'm not actually typing any words, sssshhhh.:" The playlist.

I freakin' love playlists. Some of mine include:

Dancing Around the House in My Underwear
Dramatic Curtains
Singing to My Steering Wheel
The Soundtrack to My Existential Crisis
WannaBeInNerdfighterLikeWithMe?
WhatTheFolk?
Wrock, Trock, and Barrel

Music is a huuuge component in my Major WIP, and I'm even beginning to build a playlist for my vampire/lawyer WIP. It's also a huge part of my writing process in general.

Sometimes it's a pretty obvious connection, like "Heroin" by The Velvet Underground or "White Rabbit" by Jefferson Airplane, or "Semi-Charmed Life" by Third Eye Blind, since one of my MC's is a drug addict. Or "More Than a Feeling" by Boston because I have a character named Boston.

Other times, I can't tell you exactly why the song fits, other than it just does, man. Like "Teenage Anarchist" by Against Me!: I don't know which character that applies to, but I know it's one of them! Or "Mr. Brightside" by The Killers, it doesn't really have anything to do with the story other than the story starts in 2004 and Mr. Brightside was all the hell over the place in '03 and '04.

Sometimes when I'm stuck in a rut, I put on the playlist for my WIP and it gets the creative juices flowing. Other times, what I need is *new* music and then I hop over to one of Spotify's curated lists like Discover Weekly, or I check out the US or Worldwide Top 50 charts.

I also love other people's playlists. Musician George Ezra has a great ongoing playlist called "Sunday Sessions". Sarah J. Maas has a playlist she made for her Court of Thorns and Roses series, and there's a second playlist with fan recommendations. Also, Cracked keeps an ongoing playlist of songs that have been featured in their podcast.

Are you a playlist fiend?

Twenty-Eight.

2016-05-23T20:06:00.001-07:00

So, my birthday happened recently, on the 11th. As far as weekday birthdays go, it was pretty darn delightful. Seeing Fight Club with my friends at Film Club, then immediately running to see Captain America: Civil War made for an excellent night.

My age, however... I'm feeling much less excellent about that. I'm 28 now. I'm staring down the barrel at 30 and my life doesn't look even a little bit like I wanted to by now. Still broke, still single, college drop-out, and I still havent managed to write anything with a goddamn ending.

I'm not saying everything sucks, I'm just being forced to deal with the fact that all my plans for my life went up in flames and I'm faced with a blank chalkboard, and it's just a little terrifying.

On the bright side, of course, I've been much happier in the last year or so. I cut a lot of really toxic people out of my life, which left me pretty heartbroken. It was really hard for a really long time, but eventually the sucky feelings of losing them were replaced by the blissful realization that I was actually much better off without all the drama and headache and heartache they were causing me.

ProTip: If some one (or a group of someones) makes you feel like shit more often than they don't, they're probaby not your friends.

So, while I'm not where I want to be, I'm still in a pretty good place.

In other news, for the three of you still reading this, you may or may not notice that about half my posts have been deleted or hidden. I don't know what exactly it was but there was something in the air around here that I needed to get rid of. Some of these posts, I'll rewrite and post, and some are just gone forever now.

Not that things are going to be much different around here; I still don't have any real direction for this thing, and that's fine with me. My life has no focus, why should my blog?

So. No focus, but some goals:
1. Consistency. I am, once again, making a post frequency goal. I've always failed at that before, because I've never felt like I really had anything to say that was worth reading, but fuck it, I'm going to post once a week even if it's just a round-up of that week's instagramming.

2. Prettyfication. If I manage to post consistently for three months, the I'm allowed to buy myself a pretty layout for my blog. That's only 12 posts; if i can't do that, I just suck.

That's it. That's the goal for now. Baby steps and shit.

The Things I'll Do for Free Booze: A review-ish thing of Name of the Wind

2014-08-15T21:07:00.000-07:00

So one day on Facebook, this happened:

And I'll do a lot of things for free booze, so I bought the book on Sunday and finished somewhere between Thursday night and Friday morning.

I drafted this review about 15 times and it just kept devolving into a crappy play-by-play plot synopsis.

So here's the blurb, as found on Goodreads:

Told in Kvothe's own voice, this is the tale of the magically gifted young man who grows to be the most notorious wizard his world has ever seen. The intimate narrative of his childhood in a troupe of traveling players, his years spent as a near-feral orphan in a crime-ridden city, his daringly brazen yet successful bid to enter a legendary school of magic, and his life as a fugitive after the murder of a king form a gripping coming-of-age story unrivaled in recent literature. A high-action story written with a poet's hand, The Name of the Wind is a masterpiece that will transport readers into the body and mind of a wizard.

Sounds cool, right?

That's cause it totally is.

When I was standing in the Wife's kitchen browning hamburger for tacos, our friend Aaron said: "You know how they say there are boy movies and girl movies? I kinda feel like this is a boy book." And really, the only people I'd ever heard talk about it have been dudes. So far, I know two other girls that have read it, compared to at least a dozen dudes.. but that's kind of typical of the fantasy genre for me anyway.

I mean, it's a book by a man, and about a man being all manly and awesome and shit, so if that's your criteria, then yeah, it's kind of a boy book.

But it's a boy book that my delicate feminine sensibilities thought was pretty awesome. It took a bit of a chunk for things to really get rolling, so the beginning was just a bit of a chore to get through. - But like, a laundry type chore, not a cleaning the grout of the shower tiles with a toothbrush type of chore. - And while the prose occasionally got a shade purple, the writing was generally pretty fantastic, which was a pleasant deviation from the "great writing but terrible story / great story but awful writing" problem I've run into with a few other fantasy novels. No I'm going to name them right now, fuck off.

Incomplete Thoughts: That girl you wish you hadn't started a conversation with and other things from the bar.

2014-01-15T00:10:00.001-08:00

I know that on the Facebook Page (GO LIKE IT GO GO GO) I said my newest post was inspired by a cracked article, but I got some news this week that ruined my whole day, and the next several days after, so I just do not have the mental or emotional capacity to finish that post right now, which more or less means that post may never actually see the light of day.

So instead, I'm gonna talk about one of my favorite things: ~~getting white girl wasted at~~ the bar. Specifically, some thoughts I had while visiting said establishment.

- - -

You know what I'm a fan of? Stupid people. And by that I mean I'm a fan of being reminded that I am in fact not one of them. And the bar is an excellent place to be reminded of such. On Friday, I gave my friend a ride to campus so he could do his radio show, and went to kill time at the bar while I waited for him. This was something of an experiment, because as I may or may not have mentioned before, I kinda really hate doing things by myself. (Like, so much, that I am officially marking "going to the bar alone" as the first of the five things that scare me for the 101 things list.) But, I had some cigarettes (I know, I know, go on and yell at me) and I had my phone. I wielded these things like a damn sword and shield as I alternated between awkwardly standing there, leaning against the wall (it was busy so all the tables were taken) and hanging out in the back where only the smokers go this time of year.

"Now the problem is, when you can't smoke, if you stand and stare out of the window on your own, you're an antisocial, friendless idiot. If you stand and stare out of the window on your own with a cigarette, you're a fucking philosopher." - Rory Sutherland

And a fucking philosopher I was, as I just kind of.. watched people. When regular people do that, it's creepy. When writers do it... okay it's still creepy, but we're researching, man! So there I was, sitting on a bench with a cigarette and catching up on my bloglovin' feed when I happened to overhear a group of friends (that all seemed to hate each other) talking.

If you don't know what the water situation is click here.

It just amazes me that people can, apparently, have such strong opinions about a subject without knowing a damn thing about it. or without actually saying anything about it either. That's even more amazing.I swear, in the whole 5 or so minutes I was listening to these uninformed hipster chicks, none of them actually said anything, I'm assuming, and hoping, that they were bothered by the whole chemicals-fucking-shit-up thing, but if you'd read a transcript, you'd be damn confused, too. Like Seth here:

Also, I had one of those "you know it's a small town" moments when one of the funniest things that happened that night was when I realized how long it had been since I'd noticed someone surprised by the fact that there was a cat just hangin' out in the bar. This group of bros freaked out when they saw him and I about died laughing. And you know, there's nothing weird about someone laughing hysterically. Alone.

His name is BK and he's basically a local celebrity.

The most belated reveal everrr.

2014-01-10T00:48:00.002-08:00

I am nothing if not well-timed.

...I'm sorry I can't even type that with a straight face.

First thing's first: let's talk about Secret Santa, and how I'm the worst one ever because I got so wrapped up in nonsense this holiday season (more on that later, maybe) that I totally missed the reveal, and then my "Oops I missed the reveal" post got lost in the mire of more nonsense, so here we are, well on our way into friggin January, and here I am finally getting around to showing off my Secret Santa gift.

The gift I sent, went to Jamie of The Growing Up Diaries. I'm sorry that your gift didn't show up until after the reveal. There was some stupid post office nonsense that got in the way. I was so glad to hear you liked it though, and I'm glad you got it in time to check out of adulthood for a minute after your own stack of nonsense happened.

Snagged from Jamie's reveal post.

The gift I received came from Emily of Be Blessed Y'all. (Most precious blog name ever? Yes.) And I freaking love it. You can't quite tell in the picture, but there's two pair of amazing fuzzy socks there - the others are white with red toes and heels. I've been trying really hard to keep from straight devouring that box of Swiss Miss, and the candy canes were all fashioned into perfect minty death spikes as they should be. I still haven't tried on that nail polish yet; gonna have to do that soon!

And yes, Emily, I love the journal!

Now that that's done, I can tell you guys how freaking excited I am for a project I've just started. It's not an original idea or anything, but I'm doing the 101 things in 1001 days project. You can view the list breakdown here in my previous post. That's all I'm really gonna say about it for now. It's a long-term project, so I'll explain bits of it further as I get to them.

And now that all THAT is done, I can't wait to write a real, actual friggin blog post.
...which theoretically will be up this weekend. I hope.

Bikers, Timelords and Footballers, Oh My!: A Fan Friday Link-Up...

2013-12-08T20:09:00.000-08:00

...on Sunday night.

I had originally planned on something of a follow-up to my last post, but I've been so deep in the feels lately that I need to come up for air for a minute.

So instead of further musings on things that hurt but are good things, I'm gonna link up with Sarah for Fan Friday. I'm a fan of a lot of things, so this'll be E-Z-peasy, assuming I don't get too wine drunk to finish this post. Here's what I've been consuming lately.

Pretty much the whole show, right there.

Sons of Anarchy: I remember watching the first handful of episodes with my dad when it first aired, but I soon wound up with some thing or other taking up all my time, so the show fell off my radar. One day, the Chef was talking about Sons and I thought 'hey, I think I recall liking that show!"

The first 4 seasons were on Netflix, and I located the rest of it online. Because the Chef and his wife both watch Sons, they understood when at work, I would randomly laugh out loud, or whimper, yell or cry when I'm watching in the office and doing paperwork. Jesus that show stresses me out.

Not as much as Doctor Who, though - but that's not so much about plot and story things as from being really frakking frustrated with the way the show is being run. I'll explain that mess one day...

Double the Doctor!

I'm still not 100% on how I feel about the big 50th anniversary special, but I don't hate it. It was a good story, full of feels and giggles and the way it incorporated ALL THE DOCTORS was pretty darn awesome... But a certain major plot point did kind of feel like a giant middle finger to the entire fandom. If you've seen it, you know what I'm talking about.

Again, that's the show, right there.

Then there's Downton Abbey, or as I like to call it "No One's Allowed To Be Happy" might possibly be even more emotionally taxing than Doctor Who. That show is a big fan of the Break the Cutie and Break the Haughty tropes. Especially with Mary. Good greif. I didn't really like her all tha tmuch but now I just want to hold her and tell her everything is going to be okay. I hope.

Also, how fabulous was Shirley McClain as Cora's mother?

I need season 4. Neeeeeeeeeddd.

And finally, there's the AFC Wimbly Womblies!

I'm gonna leave it there, because I'm getting dangerously close to weepy drunk. Later, ya'll.

"About Face"

2013-11-20T22:34:00.000-08:00

Pic semi-related.

I've been way busy lately, and therefore got a bit behind on my bloglovin feed, so this post is a rather late response to a post from Sarah over at Venus Trapped In Mars.

As part of the continuous string of Serendipitous Bullshit that is my life, I keep running into blog posts that happen to address an issue/topic/idea I'd been thinking about and/or planning to write about.

Sarah mentioned that she feels like every post needs to be something grand and and really clever, a problem I'm running into a lot of. (Hence my recently having only two posts in as many months. Oops.) I feel like I should have some point to make, that just relaying a story wouldn't be interesting enough.

But then I realized, one of my favorite things about reading "lifestyle" blogs is learning about the people behind them. That's why even though I frequently feel like I have so little in common with most of these people, especially the girls I read (which I confess, usually boils down to 'she's pretty and thin and I'm so not') I become fascinated with them, invested in what's going on with them.

I'm all about stories.
Everyone has stories, and I want to hear all of them.

...and who the hell knows, maybe someone wants to hear mine.

Falling Into Fall Swap!

2013-10-17T11:13:00.001-07:00

Okay, so clearly I suck at doing things on time. Apparently I was supposed to have to this swap reveal post up on the 15th and just completely lost track of what the hell day it was.

I've never done a swap before and thought it would be fun to connect with someone else out here in Blogland. The swap was organized by Allison and I was paired with the lovely Nicole.

Someday I'll take really nice pictures for this blog...

My gift from Nicole was amazing. Even the packaging was amazing. If I could re-create the way things were wrapped inside the box, I would, but I can't. Way to make me feel inadequate :P

...today is not that day.

These knee socks are so cute and will look awesome with boots. The pumpkin candle smells so good, burning or not burning. Shiny silver nail polish, Dr. Seuss quote sticky notes, and "I Can't Sleep" Journal. I've seen this journal in bookstores and always thought it was right up my alley, haha. My favorite piece is this scarf, though. I may or may not have have already planned several outfits around this thing.

So now that something finally FORCED me to post for the first time in over a month, maybe I'll actually get around to finishing a couple of the ones I've had in the works for weeks now...

...like the Bar Guy story that I've been promising everyone.

It's not all crap all the time.

2013-08-20T19:36:00.001-07:00

I realized my last several posts have all been pretty... down.

And yeah, that's because I'm a few weeks into a pretty significant mental Down, but if there's any misconception about Depression that bugs the shit out of me more than any of them, it's " How can you be Depressed? You're laughing and having fun!"

That kind of shit makes me want to claw my eyes out.
...or you know... the eyes of whatever asshat said it.

Also found $5 in the pocket. W00t!

For the record, Depression doesn't necessarily mean that I have to be crying all day every day. It is possible to laugh at things and have fun, even when you're in the middle of a big ol' pile of crap.

So, even though I'm in the middle of a great big crap pile, it hasn't all been mental anguish and bullshit. Some good things have happened lately too.

1. The weight loss thing is still happening. Like, holy crap, things are still working. Slow as hell, but still happening.

As you can see in Exhibit A, these 22's, which were a little bit too big for a while are now WAY too big. Like, take a step and they start falling off too big. In fact, right now, I'm wearing a pair of 18's from the same brand. So I think I've reached the point where my 22's are officially retired and the 20's get to move up to the "Reserve Fat Pants" status.

2. The school year has started again (for public schools, not for me yet) which means I have a job again. 2 weeks straight of not working between summer camp and the start of the school year actually kind of sucked. Mostly because money. But also because bored. Sure it was great for the first day or two of "LOL I'd be at work right now, but instead I'm sitting on my butt blogging and marathoning Drop Dead Diva" but then it was more like "Ugh. I'm tired of just sitting here not writing anything and watching Netflix all day." So, yay job! I'm going to try to remember that I actually really like my job - most of the time - I'm gonna need to remind myself of that from time to time. Working with kids can be... challenging, to say the least.

3. I went shopping yesterday with some of The Family. We were on a mission to find some clothes for the boys. Ellie and I talked the older one into two pairs of nice jeans and three shirts that weren't black and/or band t-shirts. (Today he wore the purple one that I fought valiantly for!) We even talked him into a vneck after he swore up and down about much he hates vnecks. Didn't have as much luck with the younger boy, because he's got some weird sizing going on right now. Mom has decided we have to go along every time the boys need clothes now. Challenge accepted yo.

Ellie and #puggacrowley

4. After shopping, Ellie, Raif and I went over to the Crowley Compound where the Chef made THE BEST PORK LOIN AND GLAZE EVER OH MY SWEET BABY JESUS.

Many shenanigans were had and among them was my inability to stop taking instagram photos of #puggacrowley. That's right people, we made this bitch a hashtag.

5. Slowly (okay very slowly) but surely, I'm working on the whole de-cluttering my life thing. For clothes and shoes, if it doesn't fit, it goes. Goodwill, Salvation Army, whatever, it doesn't matter, it just has to get out of the house. If it's a book or movie that I don't want anymore, it goes to 2nd & Charles (and then I use the store credit to buy vynil that I really want). Unless it's a textbook; those go on Amazon. And then there's all the other... stuff. That's probably the hardest part of the whole effort is all the other, assorted clutter. The 'well, it's still a usable thing' stuff and the 'kinda-sorta-sentimental in a I've had this forever kind of way' stuff, and the 'I don't know if I still want this or not so I'll hold on to it until I decide,' stuff. Just... stuff. And things.

6. I've actually compiled a list of 5 things that I'm happy about, and didn't have to go back several weeks to do it.

Diana and I

2013-08-16T19:55:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, as I was more or less putting off finishing my last post, I had a sudden, desperate need to get the hell out of my house. I had no idea where I wanted to go or what I wanted to do, I just knew that I needed to be somewhere that wasn't my house. I needed to see something that wasn't my computer screen, or my TV screen or my walls or my ceiling.

So I got in the car, and after stopping at Sheetz to grab a Mountain Dew, I went North and found myself wandering around Hagerstown. (This is about 15-30 minutes’ drive from my house, depending which part of the city we’re talking about.)

Now, usually when I need to get away for a few hours, I wind up by the Potomac River, either at the C&O canal in Williamsport, or down in Shepherdstown, or occasionally in Harper's Ferry. Those places are all pretty good for spending time alone with the voices in my head. This time, though I found myself at the city park in Hagerstown. I hadn't been planning on going there, but I was glad I did.

I did some wandering around the park, mostly around the lake because I always find the ducks, geese and swans pretty friggin entertaining. As I wandered, I listened to my Existential Crisis playlist (I really have one of those. Srsly.) and thought lots of thinky thoughts.

But the best part was the art. Within the park is a little building called The Washington County Museum of Fine Arts. And in that museum is one of my favorite pieces of art ever.

This beautiful lady here is Diana of the Chase. She was sculpted in 1922 (lookin' pretty damn fine for a woman 91 years young, yeah?) and was a gift from the artist, Anna Hyatt Huntington to the museum in 1941, for their 10th anniversary.

I fell in love with this piece a few years ago when I was taking that general ed Art Appreciation class, and we had to visit a gallery and pick a piece of art to write about. I can't remember what the hell the details of the assignment were or what exactly I had to say about her, but I know that it took me a while to write something that wasn't just gushing about how amazing she is.

Now, there are a lot of things I love that I can't quite explain why, other than just you know, it appeals to me, but this thing, this I know why.

I’ve always loved Diana. Or Artemis. Whichever you want to call her. I’m not saying I identify with her, or anything. I wish I identified with her, even a little bit. I wish I could be more like her - this amazing, strong woman who is totally contented with her dogs, her bow, and the hunt. She is perfectly happy on her own.

So what does it say about me, then, that my favorite version of her story is the one where she falls in love with Orion? I mean, the thing I admire most is that she’s happy on her own, but my favorite story is the one where she isn’t on her own. (Well, until until her d-bag brother tricks her killing him and all...)

She found this person, a fellow hunter, perfectly suited to her, and she loved him. Wanted to marry him. She was willing to redefine herself - virgin goddess of the hunt, of women and childbirth - to be with him.

..I’m not sure where I’m going with this.

Maybe I’ve just been spending too much time thinking about Love and shit. Partly because it seems in the last few months I get asked about my love life much more frequently than usual. And partly because I’m going to a wedding tomorrow and I’m wrestling with conflicting feelings of “OMG IM SO HAPPY FOR YOU” and “your happiness offends me.”

...or maybe I’ve just had too much to drink tonight.

Shopping... and stuff.

2013-08-13T17:34:00.001-07:00

Boat Shoes: $13. Toe Socks: $5. Lesbian Plaid: $10
Canvas Dr. Marten's: $40!

I am not a Fashion blog, and I don't really have any plans to become one but I went shopping yesterday, and had kind of a crisis about it, so I decided to share.

Also I figured I should put something up here to keep this place active until I finish this mega-post of doom I've been working on.

I can't say I love shopping. But I can't say I hate it either.

I mean, yeah, I like getting shiny new things as much as the next girl, and oh my God do I love new shoes, but shopping is typically kind of an ordeal for me.

There's a lot of reasons, all complicated and tangled around each other, of course, like every other problem I have, but the two main reasons are money and my weight.

The money bit is actually pretty easy. I just have this weird guilt about spending money because it's not something I have ever had very much of. And it also rarely feels like things are worth what you pay for them. In that regard, I actually got lucky, because this week the state of Maryland is doing a back-to-school tax-free shopping week, so everyone had sales going on top of that to draw people in. Lots of BOGO deals, like the boat shoes I got at Rue21 (BOGO $1!) I also got some Lesbian Plaid from American Eagle for $10. The 2nd most exciting to me though was the $40 canvas Dr. Marten's because, oh my gosh look at them. They were originally $80!

I dropped the most money at Lane Bryant. I have such a love/hate relationship with places like Lane Bryant and Torrid. That's where both the money and the weight issues run wild.

See, for me to dress with any shred of fashionability, I have to pay twice as much because plus-sized clothes are a fucking racket. Well, the Clearance rack was my friend yesterday and I got three sweaters for $7 each because they were 50% off the lowest ticket price, and they'd already been marked down a time or two. And I do love me some over-sized sweaters.

Actually, the most expensive thing I bought yesterday was a bra, for $42. Bras were technically on sale, BOGO 50% off., so I got a second, less expensive one for about $15. (Can we just take a moment to appreciate how awesome the 't-shirt' bra is? Seriously, I'm wearing one right now it's the greatest thing my boobs have ever known. Except that corset that one time that made me all BA-BAM, but I digress...) So, one pretty one and one plain old heather-grey one.

Okay, so it did in fact cause physical pain to know that I spent so much money on only two bras, but at the same time it was also really exciting because I did go down a bra size. Like a whole actual size. Which means I'm one step closer to being able to find bras more easily. Clothing manufacturers have a really weird idea about how boobs works in relation to the rest of your body. Stores that carry "regular" sizes are FULL of B-cup bras, but it's damn near impossible to find a 40B let alone a 44 like I had been. (Hell, I remember 38B being pretty hard to find too.) On the other hand, places that carry fat people sizes assume that if you're fat, you simply must have huge tits, so yeah, sure, 40's everywhere, but good luck finding a B.

You can find me as @heyehmkay
on the hipstergram.

But look how freakin' cute this thing is! Look! Also, it makes my boobs look awesome. They had matching panties, but they were like, $15. I might go back for them later, though, cause I've never had a matching set before, and I can't resist houndstooth. (Shit, if they'd been argyle or plaid I definitely would have bought the set. lol)

No, there's no one to see the matchyness and there won't be any time soon (well, okay, there's my theatre troupe.. we get naked a lot.) but you know, it's nice to feel cute, especially when it's something you don't get to feel very often.

So really, this was one of the most successful shopping trips ever because for once, I feel like I actually got my money's worth, and I didn't have to try on anything that didn't fit and made me feel bad about myself, but I still felt bad about myself just from being in the mall, and at the outlet stores, surrounded by people who don't have to have some kind of mental break every time.

...But I guess it could have been a lot worse?

A glass of wine and an epiphany.

2013-08-06T20:52:00.001-07:00

So I've had a headache all day, am possibly a bit dehydrated, and have generally felt like crap, most likely due to a minor case of altitude sickness, yet I still let my cousin talk me into a glass of wine. Which I don't regret because it was the first red wine I've ever enjoyed and it was delicious. But as I was sipping that glass, I was looking through my facebook feed, and then I had an epiphany. The hit-you-in-the-face holy fuck kind of epiphany.

When you've spent more than a decade actively fighting the effects of your Broken Brain, epiphanies are something that actually happen pretty often. Some stick a little better than others, others disappear almost as quickly as they appeared.

And then sometimes you're pretty sure you've just fixed your life.

The most amazing part is that the ones that you're pretty sure just fixed your life are usually the simplest ones.

And this one is simple. Just a quote a friend posted in his status.

"Against my better judgment I feel certain that somewhere very near here—the first house down the road, maybe—there's a good poet dying, but also somewhere very near here somebody's having a hilarious pint of pus taken from her lovely young body, and I can't be running back and forth forever between grief and high delight.”
― J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

And holy shit, that's it, isn't it? In my head there will always be the terrible shit - the capital-D Depression, the self loathing, the Anxiety - and there will always be the hilarious shit too. I will always have the grief and the high delight... but I don't have to run back and forth between them.

But wait, Mk, isn't that how the cycling works?

Yes, Imaginary Blog Reader, technically that is how the cycling works, but let me explain. I will always feel the highs and the lows, but I don't have to let myself get lost in them. That's what I tend to do, let myself become totally consumed by the feelings. There's having Depression, and then there's letting Depression have you. There's having Mania, and then there's letting Mania have you.

And yes, this is absolutely something that is easier said than done, but I can talk myself into all kinds of shit.

Tapetenwechsel: Aurora, CO

2013-08-06T08:07:00.001-07:00

I learned this word a few years ago to mean "a change of scenery." I hope it's right, because it's a good sounding word, and I like having a singular word to describe things. (Probably my favorite thing about German, really. They have a single noun for everything. Even if it is 18 letters long.)

Needless to say, Tapetenwechsel is something I have needed desperately for a really long time now.

While technically, I got it back in May when my theatre troupe performed in Santa Barbara, we were only there for a few days and it was a school-related trip, so while I was in a new place, it felt less like a vacation and more like the same old same old. Santa Barbara was lovely though.

It was during a late-night chat with 63 that I decided I really wanted to go out to Nebraska to see some family that I haven't seen since my dad's funeral, almost three years ago. And some that I haven't seen since before that, even.

Originally, the plan was to road trip it, with 63, but that plan fell through for a lot of reasons. Most of them to do with Bad Timing in every possible fucking direction, like accidentally making confessions that weren't ever supposed to be confessed...

But I wanted to make the drive, to see road behind me, watch the odometer show me how many miles I'd gone, but Nano didn't want to do it that way, and I've been trying to extend olive branch after olive branch because I don't like that my sister and I can never get along for more than a few hours at a time, so I compromised, and we flew out. To make our schedules match, I ended up cutting my originally planned time frame nearly in half, so Nano's insistence that, in the middle of our trip, we drive to Colorado to see our cousin kind of irked me. Don't get me wrong, I'm more than happy to see this cousin and her family, because they are some of the family that I'm much closer to, but the point was to see people I don't get to see very often, and this group is one that flies out to West Virginia fairly regularly, so it's time that we could have spent with other people.

So yesterday we drove the 5ish hours from Lexington, Nebraska to Aurora, Colorado, and now I'm sitting on the floor of my cousin's living room waiting for my sister to be done with the bathroom so I can finally shower.

On top of sister-struggles, this hasn't felt much like a vacation yet because until last night, I was finishing up some papers for a class I had this summer. I hope now that I've gotten the last of it turned in that I can relax a little bit. It's also been kind of rough on the Broken Brain front, what with randomly crying from time to time for no good reason.

Here's to hoping the other half of the trip is better.

Quarterlife Crisis Mode, Engaged!

2013-07-31T09:22:00.001-07:00

I... don't know what I'm doing anymore.

And I don't just mean here on my blog, though I have definitely lost sight of that. I call myself a blogger and vlogger, but I haven't made a video in literally years, and I don't do much blogging these days. ...Except on tumblr. But that's a whole other animal.

No, I'm talking the big picture. I don't know what I'm doing anywhere. I don't don't know what I'm doing with my life, because I don't seem to be doing much of anything. I'm trying really hard not to be as hard on myself about this as I really want to be because I know a significant factor in this is the whole Broken Brain thing, but it's really difficult not to blame yourself for fucking up your own life - if it's no one else's fault, it has to be my own, right?

This is the sixth or seventh 'I'm Back!' post I've drafted in at least as many weeks; a few of them happy and excited, a few of them... not so much. I also spent a really long time writing a long, detailed explanation of the recent Great Big Heartbreak that so many different people heard bits and pieces of but rarely the whole story, but by the time I got around to finding the point of the whole thing, I just got tired of talking about it. I'm sure the subject will come up again at some point, anyway, but for now all you need to know about that is: it's a foreign situation for me for a few reasons, but I'm slowly navigating my way through.

Also, for the record: we don't have to hate this one, okay? Not yet, anyway. If he fails to learn from this mistake, then that's another story.

At this moment, I'm alone on the second floor of my college's library, trying to finish revising an essay to turn in, but I have so much other crap bangin' around my brain pan that I can't concentrate on this silly 4 page little paper that ordinarily should take me less than an hour to pound out. (Not that I'm entirely sure how to articulate any of it anyway.)

In two hours, I have an appointment with a counselor I've been seeing. We're exploring the possibility of meds, and to be perfectly honest that scares the shit out of me. It was realizing this that made me realize how much I have let the Broken Brain define me; I don't know who I am without this. I hear so many horror stories about medications changing a person, and not for the better. I keep hearing people talk about how the meds stole their personality. My personality is volatile, unpredictable, and even I'll admit, sometimes down right insufferable. But at least I have one, right?

...or do I? Do I actually have a personality, or am I just a product of my own chemical imbalances?

I don't know. I feel like I don't know much about anything anymore, but I know talking about it and writing about it has always been the only way I know how to deal with anything. I'm not saying I'm back. I'm not going to start another grand project to keep me blogging or whatever. But here's this one. Maybe I have more in me; maybe I won't touch this again for another year or so.

I don't know.

The Hornet.

2010-10-23T22:07:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, I am just utterly blown away by the world. And usually it's something small like this. There's so many things I want to say about this video, but I can't seem to really find the words to do so. So I'm just going to leave this video here, and hope that you enjoy it as much as I did.

Movie Review: Ten Inch Hero

2010-04-30T08:56:00.000-07:00

Contrary to what the title of this film may suggest, Ten Inch Hero is not a porno. It is in fact one of the best movies you've never heard of.

"Sex, love and laughs are part of the everyday life in this hip little sub shop in Santa Cruz. For the group of friends who work there, it's an oasis on the complex journey through relationships, a place where they have each other to lean on as they find their way...

The sign out front says it all: 'Help Wanted: normal people need not apply.'"

It's not a secret that I have a pretty intense girl crush on Elisabeth Harnois, who although beautiful and talented is a pretty inconvenient actress on whom to have said girl crush as she suffers from Melissa Joan Hart syndrome (pushing 30 and playing mostly high-school students) and isn't as famous as most targets of girl crushes. (Although you can now find her in the new CBS series Miami Medical on Friday nights at 10.... along with Mike Vogel *drool*)

Anyway, the point of that confession: Because one of my favorite actresses is one who isn't terribly well-known, I was excited to see Ten Inch Hero when I first heard about it in 2007 - from a movieweb article, I believe. Unfortunately, because it was such an indie movie, it was shown exclusively at several film festivals, and never had a theatrical release. It wasn't until February 2009 that it made it to DVD, but the release was exclusive to Blockbuster Video, so I had completely missed that memo.

Finally a couple of weeks ago, to my great surprise and excitement, The Emmy had a copy! Needless to say, I borrowed it happily.

Set in a sandwich shop in Santa Cruz, the movie is a bit of a 'slice of life' romantic comedy about a group of people all dealing with the same issue of dishonesty, although manifested in many different ways. There's the owner of the shop, Trucker (played by rock legend John Doe) who's a hippie-surfer-all-around-awesome guy, who is hiding a painful past. There's Piper (Elisabeth Harnois), a talented and successful artist that comes to Santa Cruz in search of the daughter that she gave up for adoption. Jen, (Clea DuVall) is a painfully shy and insecure, but wonderful girl who has an internet romance with a stranger that she's terrified to meet. Tish (Daneel Harris) is a knock-out and she knows it. Lastly, there's Preistly, (played by Jensen Ackles) the mohawked punk-rocker funny guy, uncomfortable in his own skin.

Oh and of course, there's the hot dad ~~Connor MacManus~~ Noah, (Sean Patrick Flannery,) father of Julia, the little girl that Piper has come to town looking for. (I seriously spent about half an hour trying to get used to him speaking with an American accent instead of an Irish one. (Yes I am aware he is in fact American, I'd just never seen him in anything besides Boondockk Saints before, so give me a break.)

Although there are a few spots in the film that are a little slow and a bit dry, on the whole Ten Inch Hero is a fantastic movie filled with hilarious and heart warming moments, as well as some real insights disguised as wit and snark. The characters are real and connected, and their relationships are what make this movie so enjoyable. The plot is great, but the plot is entirely dependent on the character relationships. Some things in the movie end exactly as you hope they will, and other parts end in unexpected but wholly satisfying ways.

I strongly recommend you check out this movie. Fans of the actors will not be disappointed with the character portrayals; fans of Jensen Ackles especially will love his character Preistly, who is entirely endearing and memorable.

On that note, I leave you with one of Preistly's best scenes:

Nerdfighter Barbie in Wheeling, WV

2008-11-28T19:50:00.000-08:00

Barbie has been chilling in Wheeling, West Virginia with her new friend, Rachael. She sent pictures today!

Me with my new friends (L-R) Grace, Rachael, and Jordan.

I love the Nicholas Sparks Cheese Wheel. A: It cracks me up. B: It makes me look so TAN!
I also love Peeps!

Hangin' out in the car!

Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog! I LOVE IT!

*sigh* Unfortunately, this is the closest I'll ever get to NPH

I used this for my picture on Twitter. It's out of focus but I like it that way!