This update is going to be ridiculous and completely bereft of rl content. First off, I managed to avoid helping a friend move today because I have a lymph infection in my hip, and can’t move my leg well at all. So instead I’ve been sitting around doing nothing all day. I got the new St. Vincent cd yesterday, and it’s been on repeat for the past 24 hours. She’s sounds sort of like a cross between Tori Amos and Inara George from the Bird and the Bee. I keep seeing her reccommended in magazines that cater to the young and hip posers of the world (aka me), but I picked it up anyways. It took a few listens to get into it (and the first song on the cd, which I’m not fond of at all), but now I’m really enjoying it. She was playing in San Diego tonight, actually, but I didn’t feel like standing around all night when my leg is sore. Now I’m wishing I had just gone. Have some downloads…they’re my favorite songs on the album.

All My Stars Aligned
Apocalypse Song

Instead of going to see St. Vincent, I went to the movies. I saw Becoming Jane, which was pretty good. I cried and the two lead guys were pretty hot, so thumbs up all around. Also, I’ve never been able to resist Anne Hathaway and her disgustingly perfect skin. My only problem came with believing she was actually Jane Austen…I just kept thinking how much she was NOT Jane Austen, but I can’t exactly put my finger on why. If you see it, just pretend she’s another Austen heroine, not Austen herself. It’s more believable. Anyways, I ended up going to the bookstore afterwards and buying both Emma (book) and Pride and Prejudice (DVD, Kiera Knightley version). I couldn’t help thinking as I walked back to my car that the corporate capitalism machine had gotten to me once again. As was their plan.

My bird is flapping his wings in his cage, and he sounds like a tiny helicopter trying to take off.

I got a hair cut! I would make a longer post, but this is pretty much all that is new with me.

OH PS. HAVE TICKETS FOR RILO KILEY IN OCTOBER. LIFE WONDERFUL.

I just finished reading Deathly Hallows for the second time. I still feel overwhelmed. I started reading Harry Potter when I was 16, and it’s not really accurate to say I started reading it then, because in actuality I listened to my mother read Goblet of Fire to my brothers every night for a month before I even picked up one of the books. I would sit on the stairs next to their bedroom and listen and they never knew I was there. Soon after that I started reading Philosopher’s Stone. My parents were just starting their divorce and things were horrible but I had a wealth of books stacked up around my room and Harry Potter quickly became as precious to me as Anne Shirley. A kindred spirit. In a way, I grew up with Harry. I’m 23 now, an adult. I feel as though my journey away from childhood and away from my distressing teenage years has been cemented with the end of this series, as silly as that may sound. For a while I dreaded it, but now I feel relieved. It’s not so frightening as I thought it would be. And, like Anne, Harry will be with me forever; a good friend I can turn to in times of need. I love you Harry Potter. I always will.

Lately I’ve been spending a lot of time away from home. I bought a new bike; it’s magenta. I named it Purple Mountain Majesty (amazing), and I’ve been riding some trails by my house. Over on Lake Blvd, there’s a park I used to smoke pot in at 2 o’clock in the morning, and imagine my surprise when I discovered that there are miles of trails behind the trees I used to hide in to smoke out. There’s a lake, even. I expressed my surprise to Fred, and he turned to me in disbelief and said “Valerie, why do you think they call it LAKE Boulevard?” In my defense, there are plenty of streets named Washington and Jefferson, and the only dead presidents I see on those streets are in the hands of desperate people at yard sales. There’s also a dormant volcano behind Lake Blvd, or so Fred says. I’m reserving judgement on its volcano status until I read it on a sign from some ecological preserve people or see some lava flowing. In any case, we climbed to the top (it’s a tiny dormant volcano) the other day, and it has a spectacular view. There’s an ocean on one side, and a sea of aluminum siding on another. It’s pretty, despite the suburbia.

I’ve also been spending a lot of time with my friend Fred, which is going to become increasingly apparent as I continue this entry. I have this terrible habit of hanging out with a person almost exclusively for months on end, then randomly deciding not to talk to them for more months on end. Addictive personality, recovering recoverer. He asked me to marry him. Not for love, but so that he could get health insurance and so I could get financial aid. He’s says we could get it annulled after we’re done exploiting the Man. I’m sadly inclined to agree. I’m becoming this bitter old woman who doesn’t think she’ll ever find good strong love. At least not marriage-able love. So maybe the next time I talk to you, I’ll be a wife. Or maybe I’ll come to my senses, and get out of this ridiculous co-dependent friendship.

My new favorite pasttime is going on Google maps and exploring the world. I’ve been to Africa, Japan, I’ve seen the Eiffel Tower. It’s like playing Katamari without rolling anything up. I keep finding new roads to go down when I’m out driving, and the sun is amazing right now. I’m actually starting to get a tan. There’s a tiny town tucked away behind a freeway that I like to go to, it’s called Elfin Forest. They have a nature preserve and an egg farm and one lonely gas station. It’s on the way to eight more important tiny towns, ones that actually have grocery stores. I like to sit in the parking lot of the nature preserve and eat nectarines and write. A few weeks ago, a guy I work with asked me to come over and record some music with him, because he was desperate for a singer. It was a lot of fun, even though the song wasn’t one I would normally listen to. He and his friends get together every month or so and unveil the songs they’ve been working on, it’s sort of a competition. I really enjoyed the whole thing, so I started teaching myself guitar and I’ve been writing lyrics for songs. I sort of doubt that these songs will ever be heard by anyone other than myself and my bedroom walls, but I’m having a good time doing it.

Fred has a new girlfriend, and so has a whole new group of friends. Every time he gets a new girlfriend, I get to hang out with a whole bunch of people that I’ll probably never see again after he breaks up with said girlfriend. This new group has been affectionately dubbed “the little druggies”. These kids do more drugs than anyone I’ve ever known. I just sit around with them and get drunk. Last weekend we crashed the bar mitzvah of a family friend of Fred’s gf, and then went back to some guy’s house and got trashed. I woke up in the middle of the night and some girl was throwing up on a computer, and the guy was going nuts and yelling at his girlfriend for not wanting to get up and help clean up the other girls’ puke. She ran out of the house crying, and I was sent after her to get her to come back inside. She was hiding half naked under a trailer in the yard. I sat in the dirt with her and hugged her until she was ready to go back to the house. The whole situation was bizarre and disorienting (we were all still drunk) and terrible. After I got her to calm down and come back inside, I somehow became the nursemaid to puking girl, forcing water down her throat and sitting with her while she puked it back up again. Over and over again for over an hour. I’m not sure how she drank enough to get alcohol poisoning, because I was with her most of the night, and she only had a few shots. In any case, the next morning I was ready to go first thing, but Fred was still too drunk/hung over/dead to the world, so I took his car and drove around for a while. I saw a car run a red light and almost hit this biker dude, and the biker started screaming at him, flipped a u-turn in the middle of the street and sped off after the other driver. I drove past just as he forced the other driver to stop and was trying to drag the other guy out of his car. I got far enough out of the way so the guy could drive off, but the biker hopped on his bike and followed him again. People are idiots.

I found a new record store not far from my house that I really like, and I’ve been spending a lot of money there recently. The staff actually talks to me about music, which is especially nice, because the other little indie record store in the area that I was going to before is full of pretentious assholes. I think I’m going to go there this afternoon and buy some music. Then I’m going to go to 7-11, buy some peach iced tea and go for a drive and find some new roads. Sounds like a plan.

P.S. Is anyone else as excited as I am about the new Rilo Kiley album coming out? Probably not!

P.S.S. Thank you for the letter, Mem. The picture of Jellyfish has a place of honor on my refrigerator.

What a weekend. Friday afternoon I went to a big graduation ceremony at my school for my friend Jen, which lasted for what seemed like forever. I met up with a bunch of my friends, but we ended up walking around the campus for most of the ceremony, until Jen’s name was called. Graduations, weddings, and funerals are like torture for me. Everything is a big huge production, and it always takes forever until you can get to the part where you eat and get drunk afterwards. I left with Fred after saying hello to Jen and congratulating her… it’s depressing to go to other people’s graduations right now. I’m always wondering if I’m actually going to get to graduate before I’m 30. Fred and I went to this bar/pizza place afterwards, and met up with his uncle, who I work with. It’s incredibly awkward to eat casually with a coworker that you barely know that also happens to be related to your best friend. He paid for our food, though, which was pretty cool of him. Basil and tomato pizza, yum.

But then the weekend got better! I went to a rave in Tijuana that night, with a bunch of other people. It was one of the best shows I’ve ever been to, and being in Mexico wasn’t as horrific as it could have been. That sounds pretty terrible to say, but Tijuana is gross. I mean. Really gross. We crossed the border around 11pm, and walked a mile or so to the venue, which was this giant old theatre that had at some point had the roof taken off. It had been converted into a giant concrete ampitheatre, and there were hundreds of people lined up and crowded around outside of the entrance. So we sort of dive-bombed the crowd to get tickets, and then pushed our way through. At one point I got shoved against this metal railing and thought I was about to be crushed to death. Personal space = violated! We squeezed our way in eventually, and then spent the rest of the night dancing. There were 4 opening acts, but I have no idea who they were…we were there to see Infected Mushroom, who I saw at Coachella. Really great. I only really like dance/trance music when it’s live, but I really really enjoy dancing to it. The concert ended around 3am, and we dragged ourselves back over the border and ate Mexican food. 3am tacos *__*

Yesterday, I drove through the countryside for a few hours, listening to music and drinking peach tea. It was gorgeous out and very relaxing. I wish I could take everyone I know on a drive through the country. I think it’s the best thing you can do for yourself to calm yourself. Fred came over around midnight and we went to the movies and saw 28 Weeks Later. I. Love. Zombie movies. rgegserghe if you liked the first one, you should see the sequel. It was great. SO MUCH BLOOD, THOUGH. Afterwards, Fred and I were driving around, and there weren’t any cars on the road…. I kept on babbling about how we were about to get eaten by zombies, and he kept telling me to shut the fuck up, the zombies can hear fear in your voice. Then he dropped me off and I had awesome dreams about fighting zombies. And by awesome, I mean terrfiying.

Today I woke up late, and went for another drive, and took Fred with me. We went to my Super Sekrit Mexican food place out in the middle of nowhere…they have the most amazing hot sauce. I was going to go to a barbeque/party for Memorial Day, but decided to beg off. Fred just got a 500gb harddrive, so he gave me his old 120gb….which was still full of music. Life amazing. I’ve spent the entire evening going through it and silently rejoicing in my good luck. How was your weekend!

I’m going to Coachella tomorrow…I’m very excited. Apparently it’s going to be 100° F out in the desert this weekend, though, so I’m mildly afraid I’m about to go to my death. I don’t deal with heat well. I melt. Some bands/artists I will be seeing:

FRIDAY
♫ Björk
♫ Interpol
♫ Sonic Youth
♫ Arctic Monkeys
♫ Peaches
♫ Rufus Wainwright
♫ Circa Survive
♫ Tilly and the Wall
♫ Brazilian Girls

SATURDAY
♫ Red Hot Chili Peppers
♫ ARCADE FIRE ♥♥♥
♫ Blonde Redhead
♫ The Decemberists
♫ Regina Spektor
♫ New Pornographers
♫ The Frames
♫ MSTRKRFT
♫ !!!
♫ Girl Talk
♫ CocoRosie
♫ Andrew Bird

SUNDAY
♫ Rage Against the Machine (not interested, but I’ll be dragged to see them, I’m sure)
♫ Willie Nelson
♫ The Roots
♫ Explosions in the Sky!
♫ Damien Rice
♫ Air
♫ Placebo
♫ Kaiser Chiefs
♫ Against Me!
♫ Paul van Dyk
♫ Ratatat
♫ Lily Allen
♫ CSS

The only thing that could make this more amazing is if Rilo Kiley was playing. T__T It’s 9 pm, and I haven’t packed yet… should probably get on that, since I’m supposed to leave early in the morning. Instead, I have spent the entire evening watching Arashi clips on youtube. I hate myself a little. But Nino was so good in Letters From Iwo Jima, guys :( I mean, really, really good.

I’d like to be able to say that other exciting things have been happening to me in the past few weeks, but sadly, it wouldn’t be true. I had my wisdom teeth out a few weeks ago, which was horrible. My mouth still hurts, and nothing is the same in there anymore. Everything’s been put back together wrong. My bite is strange, and food keeps getting stuck in the holes where my teeth used to be. SO GROSS. And I still can’t feel my bottom lip or my chin. The dentist says I’ll either get feeling back in a few months, or I never will. In the meantime, I keep biting myself because I can’t feel where my lip is.

What else. Nothing, I guess. I’m massively in debt, because I’ve lost weight and I keep buying clothes. It’s like, suddenly I can feel pretty again! So I should buy things! And then my credit card statement comes, and I want to cry. But my wardrobe has never been more amazing, so I suppose everything in life is a compromise. This one just involves nice shoes.

Remioromen ~ 3月9日 if you don’t have it. I keep playing it over and over.

♣ Work Sucks ♣
♣ Went To Big Bear With Matt ♣
♣ Wisdom Teeth Come Out On Monday ♣
♣ Coachella Is On My Birthday ♣
♣ Getting Old; Gonna Die Soon ♣

First you cry, then you
SUPER-CRY. You provide me
with much amusement.

I imagine you
as a dinosaur –a small,
ferocious girl-beast.

I am so sorry
if we have grown apart. You
are precious to me :(

Why you encourage
my creepiness, I do not
know. Never stop, please.

L-O-L, L-O-
L, L-O-L, LOL
I-L-U, you freak.

Lately I’ve been thinking about the past and how I wish I could go back and change a lot of the things that I did while I was growing up. This of course devolves into elaborate fantasies about building a time machine, going back in time, and living out my teenage years all over again, but better. I have a lot of regrets. I regret being so depressed in high school, because I missed out on a million things. I regret finishing early and spending my last year in independent study, especially. I feel like I skipped out on all of my friendships. Which I suppose is just as well because I ended up moving an hour away. I regret being an asshole to people while I was depressed, and avoiding romantic relationships. Which is a nice segue to Matt. I had a chance two years ago to be with him, but at the time I thought he was a creep, just because he liked me. I ended up losing contact with him when I had mono, because I was lying on the floor of my apartment, unable to move, for 3 months. By the time I had recovered, so much time had passed that I felt awkward contacting him again. So I didn’t. It’s all just as well; I don’t like the person I was two years ago. I don’t think I would have been comfortable enough with myself to be in a relationship. That’s the thing about being depressed – you’re constantly sad and lonely, but you can’t be around other people without wanting to crawl out of your skin. I’m really glad that we met again, and that we’re in a relationship now, as opposed to a few years ago. I like myself now. I feel like I can concentrate on other things, other people beyond myself. So I guess I don’t actually wish I could go back in time and have a do-over on high school. I mean, that would be pretty miserable, being thrown back into that. Still. It’s a daydream I like to visit when I’m bored at work. Like the one where I imagine what my ideal house or apartment would look like. T__T So much fun T__T

Anyways, in more exciting news: I had my first Japanese class last night. It was pretty great, but I can already tell that if I don’t stay one step ahead, I’m going to get very overwhelmed, very quickly. The best part was when my professor (she’s so tiny T__T) demonstrated introducing yourself while showing us how to bow properly. She used her hands as little people-puppets, and kept making them talk to each other in this cute, squeaky voice. VERY ENTHUSIASTICALLY. I really wish I could have recorded it, her little hands bowing to each other and squeaking out “Doooooozoo YoroSHIKUUUU!!!!!!” while she grinned at us. It was magical. I’m kind of terrified of having to learn katakana and hirigana. PLUS Chinese characters. And romanji on top of it? Seriously makes me appreciate the fact that English only has 26 letters. I’m taking Japanese and Algebra this semester. I haven’t taken math in 3 years. I’m so screwed. My mom asked me the other day what requirement Japanese was fulfilling for my degree. “None…” I said. “:| :| :|” was her response.

Hey, has anyone ever read a romance novel by Jude Deveraux called River Lady… damn you, Courtney.