I went to where the people were on a Saturday night...

Today is Halloween! I'm much more excited about it this year than I usually am. I grew up in a home where Halloween was not really celebrated. I wasn't allowed to Trick-or-Treat, but my brother and I were allowed to get dressed up and go to the church Harvest Festival and get giant hand fulls of candy out of a treasure chest. There was a bonfire and roasted marshmallows. One year my brother got hit in the face with a flaming marshmallow. In any case, it was really fun, and though we never had Halloween decorations or the whole door-to-door thing, I never really missed Halloween. As I got older I regarded Halloween decorations as tacky and never really got the hubbub. Like the past few years, I have to work this evening. This year though, my work is requiring us to dress up. I was a little annoyed at the forced gaiety at first, but now I'm feeling pretty into it. I'm dressing up as an elf. I got pointy ears at Party City, I'm making ghost and pumpkin shaped cookies to take into work, and earlier in the week I spent an evening watching the scary movies I wasn't allowed to watch when I was a kid. And now I'm sort of getting it. Halloween is fun. I'll be doggoned. One of my favorite shows is Ace of Cakes, the Food Network show that follows the folks at Charm City Cakes in Baltimore. Here's what they made to celebrate the holiday.

Cute Overload

I got a kitten. I've never really had a pet besides fish, so I don't really know what to do with her. I'm not really an animal person, but lately kittens have just really been getting to me. Their faces crack me up. Also, I think the idea behind being a single woman living alone with a cat is that the cat is there because the woman is lonely. And while I may get lonely at times, it is almost never ever because I live alone. I cherish my alone time, and it's a little weird to have another living being around all the time. But who could resist this face?



So, I'll learn to share my space. As long as she stops pouncing on my face at 3am.

Like Gavin Degraw, I don't wanna be anything other than what I been tryin' to be lately.

Today I ventured out to Wal-mart. As I was browsing through the Health and Beauty aisles, I was approached by a woman who asked if she could take a minute of my time. I probably grimaced as I politely said yes. The first thing she asked me was what I did for a living. After telling her I was a waitress, she explained that she was with the Mary Kay Leadership Program and would like to give me her card. Remember Mary Kay? The gaudy makeup, the pink cars, and every aunt and cousin and friend from church peddling that crap and trying to give you make overs. I'm sure they must have tried to update their image for the twenty-first century sometime in the last few years, but still, eww no. She continued that most people only think of the sales side of Mary Kay and don't really think of the leadership side. I am of the opinion that one shouldn't try to lead something that they've never even done themselves. In other words, I want absolutely nothing to do with what this lady's saying. However, I'm being polite and it can't hurt to take her card. But instead of handing me a card, she pulls out some paper and asks for my phone number so she can call me and talk all about Mary Kay leadership to me. At this point, I politely apologized and explained that I didn't want to give my phone number out. Her response? "Well, have fun being a waitress." And then she took her cart and huffed off. Out of the Wal-mart makeup aisle. All I could think was, "Wow. I just got passive aggressively dissed by the Mary Kay lady." So this is what it's come to.

I love my mom...

Lately I've been a little bummed. At times, more than a little bummed. Today was my first do absolutely nothing day off in a while. I've been in my house most of the day, but for the bit of time that I was out, I noted that it's absolutely gorgeous outside in that warm but crisp almost autumn way. Also, I started working on the crust for my Pushing Daisies inspired Pear with Gruyere pie, and that's got me super excited to see the outcome. Also, the measuring and mixing relaxes me. However, the absolute best part of my day came in the mail. As I mentioned I've been a little sad and discouraged lately. When I went to the mailbox this afternoon there was a letter from my mom, which is nice to see anytime. Even better than a normal old letter though, it turns out it was one of those musical greeting cards, which btw, I think are the most hysterical things on the planet. The one my mom picked out for me had a little aerobics girl on the front and it said, "You've got the will. You've got the skill." On the inside it said, "All you need now are some leg warmers. Go!" AND IT PLAYED "WHAT A FEELING" FROM FLASHDANCE!!!!!! A more perfect card could not exist. And then there was a little note telling me that I'm a great person and that things will be okay and she loves me. And that's one of the many reasons I love my mom. Tonight's karaoke night, so I'm pretty sure the day will remain awesome.

Dear Catastrophe Waitress

Over the past two weeks I quit one crappy restaurant job and started another. The new job seems a little more laid back, but since I overlapped my training for the new job with my last two weeks at the old job, I've just worked, worked, worked at things I don't care about, and I am tired. I feel all out of whack. I haven't really read any books or baked anything or really done any hanging out with anyone. These are things I need to feel sane. Oh well, who's ever really completely sane? Here's an article that speaks to my heart.

Blaaaahhhhh....

I watched the VMAs on MTV last night. It was the twenty-fifth anniversary and was supposed to pay tribute to past winners and landmark performances and honor future landmark videos. That whole idea may have worked better if there were actually any videos on MTV anymore. Just sayin. Anyway, here are my thoughts after actually sitting through most of the show.

1. I am very old. I don't think Katy Perry or her Girls Gone Wild lesbian antics are the least bit relevant or interesting. Also, her rendition of Like a Virgin sucked. Hard.

2. The Jonas Brothers are total dreamboats.

3. Lil' Wayne and T-Pain?!!!! Yes, please.

4. I am so very happy that Britney Spears looks like she's on the path to not crazy anymore. She looked like she was on her very best behavior, and with three wins, it's obvious that everyone just wants her to be okay. Crazy Britney is fun to read about, but not so fun to actually think about.

The show was for the most part pretty boring and kind of weird. Russell Brand and Jordin Sparks arguing about purity rings anyone?? Also, inexplicably, I kept wanting Miley Cyrus to perform and was disappointed when she didn't. Maybe I'm not old, maybe I'm thirteen.

In the words of my friend Lee, "Tusken Raiders need love too."

This weekend was Dragon Con, which is arguably, my favorite weekend of the year. While this giant gathering of any and all things sci-fi, fantasy, and pop culture is too expensive for me to actually buy tickets to, it's still super fun to go and see everyone dressed up in their costumes. It makes me so happy to see everyone so excited and so decked out and devoted to their favorite characters. I'm pretty sure my face is gonna be sore from smiling so much. I think over the next year I should donate a percentage of each of my paychecks to a special savings account that is devoted to Dragon Con tickets and costume expenses, so that next year I can participate. There were celebrities from my favorite shows that I didn't see, and Dr. Horrible and Buffy sing-a-longs that I didn't get to attend. Speaking of celebrities, I kept seeing girls last night dressed up as Kaylee from Firefly, one of my favorite characters from one of my favorite shows. I was pretty unimpressed with their costumes. Anyway, as I was standing around people watching, I saw this girl standing about five feet from me. I was admiring her dress and shoes to myself when she turned around to walk inside. To my complete shock, it was Jewel Staite, the actress that played Kaylee. She was so close and I wanted to say something or ask for a picture. However, I got completely starstruck and just stood there slack-jawed as some official looking guy ushered her away really quickly. Oh well, there was my brush with fame. Here are some of my favorite moments from the weekend.




Me and Dr. Horrible!!!

Two Things That Made Me Laugh Today

For some reason I couldn't sleep last night. I went to bed around two and probably didn't actually fall asleep until around five. Not being able to sleep is strange for me, I can usually fall asleep within five to ten minutes of my head hitting the pillow. So, I was tired today, which makes me a weepy, moody little baby. However, two things made me laugh today and forget about my weepiness.

First off, Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion was playing on TBS, and I loooooved that movie when I was in high school (ten years ago). I forgot what a hilarious scene it is when Romy and Michelle are reunited with the nerd who had a crush on Michelle in high school, who has since become fabulously rich. Played by Alan Cumming, Sandy Frink tells Michelle that as successful as he is, he is empty without her. He asks her to dance, and she agrees as long as Romy can join them. This scene made me laugh out loud while I was sitting by myself on the couch.



Later in the day, a friend sent me this bit from Mindy Kaling, who plays my favorite character on The Office, Kelly Kapoor. Youtube won't let me embed the video, but you should go here to laugh.

Rain

It's raining right now. Really hard. And it's wonderful, because I don't have anywhere to be except right inside my house, in bed, watching TV on the internet and reading. A perfect end to an otherwise blah day that included laundry and work. However, while work was slow and boring, it gave me a chance to browse through the pastry chef's cookbooks and I found a recipe for these little miniature chocolate ganache pies with coconut crusts, which was exciting and made the boredom kind of worth it. Summer is ending and fall is coming. Summer is my favorite time of the year and I thought that I wouldn't want it to ever end. I'll miss the sunshine but I feel excited about the possibilities of fall. Living in a place where seasons actually happen means that the leaves will change and the air will get crisp and I'll make pumpkin bliss cupcakes and continue to teach myself how to layer my clothes. I think fall will be pretty nice. Color Club had an Ice Cream Social yesterday, which in my head officially signals the end of summer. My sunday was pink.

Oh baby baby it's a wild world...

Today I had a musical epiphany, in the kitchen at my restaurant job of all places. Every day when I come in to prepare for the night's work, the kitchen guys are listening to music as they set up. When I first started my job, all we ever listened to was Sublime and Tenacious D. The kitchen is a high stress, testosterone fueled place, and as crappy as I thought the music was, songs about sticking the barrel of your shotgun down some guy's throat kind of fit. Today though, someone put on a Cat Stevens CD. As "Wild World" played, I looked around and pretty much everyone was singing along, and without even a flicker of irony on their faces. That song is such a lovely, upbeat song about how hard the world can be. I went upstairs to our stockroom where the chef's wife, who is all perfume and gigantic diamond rings, was singing along to the strains of "Moonshadow" floating up through the kitchen ceiling. As I made my way back into the kitchen, I ran into one of the chefs from another of our owner's restaurants, who had stopped in to borrow some supplies. When I asked him how he was, he answered, "Eh... but this Cat Stephens is making it better." What I realized then, was that pretty much no one can resist the sweet lull of Cat Stephens. Even when he's singing to you that world is messed up, you still feel like things will be okay. As for me, I was waiting to hear "Morning Has Broken."

Turn that frown upside down!

Though watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer has taught me the dangers of making wishes offhandedly (a vengeance demon could just take you up on that wish!), I sort of wish I could just blot this week off the records. It was terrible. For the first half of the week, I had an extended meltdown at work, and for the second half, I was sick. I've determined that I might be allergic to Atlanta. I've been sick like six different times this year. My head feels like it's gonna break in half. But, it's Sunday, a new week...

Songs that make my heart beat faster.

I noticed semi-recently that when I hear a song that I absolutely love, I inevitably exclaim, "Oh my God, that's my FAVORITE song!" I've said it about a zillion different songs, which made me question whether the song was really my favorite. While I realize there are more important things in the world to spend time thinking about than whether or not a song is REALLY my favorite, I decided to ignore those things and make a list. After much thought, I know that the songs on this list are all my favorite song, and for different reasons. When I was a kid, my parents gave me two musical choices, Christian and oldies. Though I loved some Amy Grant, I think I also sensed on some level that the oldies were innately more cool than the Christian rock. A lot of these songs are from then, and remind me of the excitement of hearing one of my favorite oldies from the back seat of my parents' car. Some of the songs have just been with me through happy and sad times. Some I just think are the most perfect love/heartbreak songs. Most of the songs are embarrassingly poppy, but I don't care. Whenever I hear them, I'm a little bit happier. So, hear they are, if you care to know, my favorite songs ever!

1. The State I am In - Belle and Sebastian
2. Waterloo - ABBA
3. Raspberry Beret - Prince
4. Stay Awhile - Dusty Springfield
5. Wedding Bell Blues - The 5th Dimension
6. You are the Light (By Which I Travel Into This and That) - Jens Lekman
7. Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes
8. Twelve Thirty (Young Girls are Coming to the Canyon) - The Mamas and the Papas
9. Band of Gold - Freda Payne
10. Get Me Away From Here, I'm Dying - Belle and Sebastian
11. Don't Go Breaking My Heart - Elton John and Kiki Dee
12. Red Right Ankle - The Decemberists
13. Somebody's Baby - Jackson Browne
14. Late At Night - Buffalo Tom
15. Golden Slumbers - The Beatles

Hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

Sam's Faves

Hit or Miss

The concept of Color Club is somewhat difficult to explain, in light of the fact that one sounds really dorky while explaining it. Color Club is a group of people who get together to do fun things- bowling, laser show, karaoke, etc.- while all wearing the same color. It all started on Tornado night. JTrav, Lee, Berly, and I were going to dinner and a movie and we all decided to wear basically the same outfit. It was a light blue shirt, denim bottoms, and a navy blue jacket, in case you were wondering. Erica came along too, acting as our Color Club bodyguard. We sat together in a Chinese Restaurant laughing about how silly we looked all dressed alike. We talked about forming a club devoted to color and we listed off about a million fun things that we could do as a club, all the movies we could watch and all the events we could go to dressed in one unifying color. We hadn't really had so much fun in a group since high school. Then we went to the movie and when we came out we realized a tornado had torn through our city, knocking down trees and windows and tearing roofs off of houses. We walked around through the torn up neighborhoods and it was so eerie, everything ripped apart like that. I don't know if the tornado is what makes us remember the night, or if it was the silliness of the invention of a club when most of us are in our mid to late twenties. In any case we've continued doing things together, wearing a new color each time and bringing new people to each event.

Last night was Orange night and we did karaoke. I was having a crappy day, and kind of didn't feel like singing, which almost never happens in my day to day existence. I mean the not singing part, I'm kind of like a broken record. But then I got there, and there was so much orange and everybody just kept singing along to everyone else's songs. It was magical. I think my favorite performances of the night were when Mary Beth and Erica sang Cryin' by Aerosmith, because Aerosmith is one Mary Beth's all time favorite bands and you could absolutely tell. As well, I was amazed by Lee and Stephanie's rendition of New Found Glory's Hit or Miss, because it was incredibly enthusiastic and it made me feel like I was nineteen and driving around to shows all over South Florida. I think I might be three years old because bright colors and singing make me really happy.

Pie, Oh my!

This is what I was busy doing while I should have been job hunting today.



This was my inspiration.



Besides being a simply wonderful show, watching Pushing Daisies has put me in the pie-making mood. The main character is a pie maker and every episode has all these beautiful pies, in every imaginable flavor, like pear with gruyere baked into the crust. My pie is just plain old blueberry, but a girl's gotta start somewhere. And this was my first attempt at making a pie crust from scratch, so we'll see how that turns out. I managed to get the dough everywhere. I found it on my phone and my computer, and I found a little in my ear. The pie's still cooling, but I've been sticking my fingers in the blueberry part, and I must say, it's pretty delightful.

In other news, they're doing road work outside my house. So, what has always been a busy, fairly noisy street corner has turned into the sort of street corner where there's a policeman with a whistle that sounds every three seconds, and you can hear people yell the F-word from their cars. Oh well, I've got blueberry pie.

Ghosts

I just woke up from a dream in which both my parents were ghosts. I inadvertently discovered it when my dad popped up in a room out of nowhere and frightened me. He then flew to reach something above my head and I started freaking out and asking if he was a ghost. He denied it for a little while and then my mom came around, and somehow I discovered that they were both ghosts. It turns out that they both died about ten years ago when they were shot and killed on a family trip to Long Beach, CA to visit my aunt. I started sobbing uncontrollably because my parents were dead, but mostly because they stuck around for ten years to take care of my brother and me instead of going on to heaven. I woke up sad.

Job Hunting Blues

So I've become a bit desperate. I've been trying to find a "real" job all summer, as I am graduating with my MA next month, and am expected to make some use of myself. Also, my part-time restaurant job cannot provide me with the hours to pay my rent. So, in the meantime, I've decided to try and find another part-time job to supplement my income. I just applied for a job at Borders, which I think would be a nice place to work, but is in fact depressing for a couple of reasons. First, both my best friend and my college roommate worked at Borders when we were nineteen. They both have respectable post-graduate jobs/endeavors that they're working on, and I'm trying to get the job they did when they were nineteen. Secondly, the freakin' application took me about 45 minutes to fill out and asked for all but my mom's favorite color when she was ten. All of this, and there's the possibility that they're not even hiring. Thank you war-time economy.

I guess I'm just being a little bit of a baby about things, but this whole job hunting process has been a shot to my self-esteem. In any case, I don't even know if anyone reads this thing, but if you're reading this now and know of good company that is looking for a bright, friendly, hard-working girl to work for them, hit me up. Gotta pay them bills!

Sweet Darlin'

Just got back from seeing She & Him and it was such a wonderful show. There were, of course, some setbacks. Mary Beth and I were standing near the trash cans and either they, or the girl in front of us, smelled really bad. All I can say is, in the words of my favorite college professor, "Thank the Lord for olfactory fatigue." Also, standing just to my left, wasThe Most Ridiculous Couple in the World. The girl kept screaming "Owwwweeewwwweeee!!!!" in my ear, which is kind of funny in hindsight, because who does that? And her boyfriend was That Guy who yells things really loudly during quiet moments so that every one will listen to him. And everyone does, but they think he's ridiculous. However, his girlfriend didn't think he was ridiculous, she thought he was just great. Every time he yelled something stupid, she giggled and looked adoringly up at him. I can almost guarantee you that he has yelled "Freebird!" at some point in his concert going career.

Barring these minor setbacks* the actual show was so lovely. Zooey Deschanel is possibly the cutest girl on the planet, and M. Ward is just so effortlessly cool. She and Becky Stark of Lavender Diamond both wore peach dresses in honor of the fact that they were in Georgia, and Zooey wore this humongous flower attached to head. On anyone else, I'm pretty sure the giant head flower would make me gag, but on her it was just adorable. And the music was good, and her voice sounded just like the album, so you know she isn't some crazy actress that gets someone to make her sound presentable on an album, but can't back it up live. Also, I'm pretty sure her bass player was pregnant, which made me happy that her unborn baby gets to listen to such pretty songs. All in all, I was enchanted. It was the perfect summer show.

*I laugh on the inside every time I hear or use the term minor setback because my little brother's very first band was called Minor Setback. He was thirteen and had bleached hair and patches all over his clothes, and was basically trying to be MxPx. It was AWESOME!

This entry sponsored by Chik-Fil-A.

Last night color club attended Stone Mountain Park's Laser Show Spectacular. It was indeed spectacular, and as a club devoted to loving all the colors of the rainbow and then some, I don't know why we didn't make it to the laser show sooner. I had never been to the show before, and didn't really know what to expect besides lasers and extreme patriotism. Here are the top five reasons why the laser show is awesome:

1. Lasers. Like the kind that make you feel like you're living in the future.
2. There is a vignette dedicated to the heroes of our country accompanied by Mariah Carey's song "Hero," which then transitions into a vignette advertising Chik-Fil-A, in which cows act out the premise of various movies like Indiana Jones, Star Wars, and High School Musical (Moosicow).
3. Stone Mountain has Robert E. Lee and some other guys carved into the side of it. During the show, the stone men come to life through the power of lasers and come charging at the audience. It's terrifying.
4. Also terrifying is the fact that the lasers lead you to believe that the end of the Civil War was a mutual break-up. The lasers tell you that Robert E. Lee broke his sword over his knee and the Union was born.
5. Dippin' Dots. I haven't had them in a long time.

While these are reasons why everyone should go to see the Laser Show Spectacular, I think my personal favorite moment of the night was when they played The Devil Went Down to Georgia. I don't want to ever hear that song again without lasers and fireballs shooting into the summer sky.

I just finished watching that show Pushing Daisies for the first time. It is one of the most visually stunning shows I've seen in I don't know how long. Even though the show is about death, everything is so bright and whimsical and fantastic. I'm excited to have those pictures in my head as I go to sleep.

After a short hiatus, I'm back...

And by short I mean seven years. That's how long it's been since I've had a blog. I had a Diaryland page waaaayy back in the day, but I quit because I was having a blogger's version of performance anxiety. Does anyone even remember Diaryland?

This week has been a movie week for me. Here's what I watched:

-Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry, a car chase movie from the 70s starring Peter Fonda and reckless driving. I watched it in preparation for a paper I was writing about Grindhouse.
-Hellboy II: The Golden Army. I might have been the only girl in the theater.
-Step Up 2: The Streets. Please don't judge the fact that I now own this on DVD. Dance battles + Missy Elliot songs every five minutes = a movie I need to own.
-The Rocker. I went to a free screening. The movie was okay, a few too many pratfalls for my taste. However, Rainn Wilson was there to do a Q & A, and while most of the questions were really dumb, he was genuinely entertaining. Also, he referred to Matthew McCoughnahey (sp?) as Matthew McKindagay.
-Batman Begins, to prepare for...
-The Dark Knight!!! So good, and so intense! And as Berly says, Christian Bale is a babe. Although I promise I liked it for more reasons than that.
-In the midst of all that, I've been watching Joss Whedon's new internet series Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. It's both funny and sad, and has a villain named Moist. And musical numbers. I loved it!

Since I officially finished all my graduation requirements and never have to go to school ever again, I've been completely happy to bury myself in movies and music and books. Next week comes less Christian Bale and more job hunting. And a visit from my parents.