80's

In case you wanted to know what I would look like if it was the 80's...


The sad thing is that I didn't even touch my hair. I just have permanent 80's hair all the fucking time which is only a good thing when I'm going to some ridiculous concert. These pictures don't really do my makeup justice. The lighting must tone it down a lot because I look obnoxious in the mirror.


After the show: okay, so KISS was awesome. Opening bands sucked, which is to be expected, I guess, but Kiss made me happy. They waited to play all of the songs I like until the encore, but it was still awesome, way better than I expected. We had lawn seats, but I got four pavilion seats for free from some worker that was handing them out. I found Paul Stanley strangely attractive which is odd because hairy men usually make me want to die. I think it's my lead singer complex. I didn't even have to kill my annoying-as-shit stepbrother because I remembered to bring my noise-canceling headphones so I was basically deaf for the whole ride there and back. I want to go see Motley Crue at Ozzfest, but idk if it's going to happen. They're the only band I care about on the tour this year. I just wanna see Tommy Lee and Nikki Sixx, super gorgeous forty and fifty-somethings. I know it's alarming that I like men older than my parents, but well, they're rock stars and therefore some conventional rules go out the window. I know they're man-whores whose band tends to exploit women, but I'm allowed to have a couple contradictions, right? I grew up with Motley Crue and all that 70's and 80's music. I loved and sang Girls Girls Girls not knowing it was about strippers, and not knowing Dr. Feelgood is about a heroin dealer. I liked all of that before lyrics mattered, and so be it.

I have to go the doctors tomorrow morning, and I'm going to have to try not to hyperventilate. AHHHHHHHHH. Time for sleep.

The Big Question

What the hell am I going to do with my life?

I really, really don't know. I like learning, reading and writing I enjoy poking fun of politics. I like making things and listening to music. I like doctor shows and the history channel. I am a zombie enthusiast, a feminist and a moralist. I like history and English. I hate math and chemistry. I like volunteering and I wish I did more of it. I want to travel to other countries, especially India for some reason. I often read books featuring drugs and crazy people, though I don't do drugs and I'm not that crazy. I try to live what I preach. I've been a vegetarian for somewhere like 7 years. I spend too much time on the internet. I try to make people believe what I believe. I have a lot of disdain for America and American life; I don't hate the country, I hate the people that are fucking it up. I'm addicted to caffeine. Geographically, I don't feel like I could be that far from my family because my mom would go insane. I hate asking for help. I'm an introvert. In my heart I'm an idealist, but in my head, I'm more of a realist. I'm into existentialism and self-exploration. I don't subscribe to any certain subculture. I'm not ever one thing, I'm a mess of a thousand different things coming together with a force that could ignite, but somehow doesn't.

If I didn't hate math so much, I could be a doctor. That's a pretty fulfilling career. But I hate math. Hate is probably not the right word, I am confounded by math. Math looks like indecipherable hieroglyphics to me, especially trigonometry. I just can't do it. I would probably die in organic chemistry. It's interesting, no doubt, but the math would bury me. I probably get too anxious to be a doctor. I would probably kill myself if I seriously fucked something up. My parents always told me growing up that I'd make a good doctor, but I think it may have been because neither of them went to college.

So what then?

I'd like to work in something relating to social justice, but what? I chose to major in English and Journalism because it's something I'm good at, something I'd really like to improve upon. But what am I going to do with it? I would not be content sitting behind a desk from 9-5 doing mindless work. I need something that produces results, something challenging, something that can help people that I think really need and deserve it. I can't be a run-of-the-mill newspaper reporter. If I have a strong opinion about something, or if someone I'm interviewing is being a douchebag, I want to call them a douchebag. I need to put my opinion in my work. I don't think my writing's good enough for me to be an author that makes any discernible amount of money. I want to be able to pay off my loans, eventually get a house, adopt a few kids and help my mom out. I need something at least relatively stable. I need something fulfilling. I feel like I don't have the patience or the public speaking skills to be a teacher. I'm not that great of a photographer, so photojournalism's out.

I just don't know what to do with myself. I don't have the master plan that a lot of kids have. I've wanted to be everything from a judge, to a firefighter, to a pro wrestler growing up. Nothing's really stuck.

If someone would just pay me to go to college for the rest of my life and pay for me to travel around the world, that would be awesome.

I really wish I was good at math.

Summer Concerts

Kiss is still on for Thursday. On August 8th, I'm going to Mayhem Festival. I have to admit I'm pretty damn excited to see Korn. I normally resist nu-metal, but Korn is the exception, and Rage Against the Machine, if they count as nu-metal. Seriously, I would give a few fingers or toes to see Rage live. Maybe even my left arm. But anyway, back to Mayhem.

It totally sucked last year. I was so pumped to see Marilyn Manson, who has long since been my go-to musician to frighten my mom with. I sat through the Slayer's never-ending set to see him, and that asshole gets on stage and plays like six songs, all from his shitty new album, then gets pissed and walks off. I was so pissed. I don't think I've listened to Manson since then. The only band worth mentioning from last year's tour was Mushroomhead, who I didn't like before, but after their amazing live show I went and downloaded everything they've ever done. All That Remains is also a pretty good live band. Killswitch Engage is great live, but I can't stand their music. Whitechapel was tolerable. Job For a Cowboy was obnoxious. I didn't care about Cannibal Corpse, God Forbid, Trivium, Behemoth or any other of the shitty metal bands on the tour. I like metal in small doses, and only the really good stuff, preferably stuff with a message, not just dragons and wizards and fireballs.

That said, this year's tour is a little better. I love Korn. I've always loved Korn, I just never got around to seeing them because something always came up. It sucks that their awesome lead guitarist bailed because he had to go find god or some shit. I guess these things happen. I remember I started listening to them because someone spray painted "korn" with the backwards "k" on an abandoned house near where I used to live. Lamb of God is also playing, and they always play their old good songs, and they're a legit live band. They were the only band worth seeing on Ozzfest 08.

On secondary stages, a bunch of bands that I liked before 12th grade are playing, lol. Atreyu, whose FIRST album, not The Curse, but Suicide Notes and Butterfly Kisses, I absolutely loved. All subsequent albums were shit. But, it'll be fun to see them again, provided they play their old songs and their scene douchebag fans aren't too annoying. I feel the same way about Norma Jean. I liked Bless the Martyr and Kiss the Child. I saw them like 4ish years ago (I took Tina for her birthday) and they played really well, but, like Atreyu, they've started to suck. It'll still be interesting to see them again. Hatebreed is playing too. They're okay, but their redneck angsty shit gets old pretty fast and their fans are all angry drunken male idiots. I like their hits, Defeatist and To the Threshold, but that's about it. Shadows Fall are pretty good, and I hear they're good live. I dig the singer's super-long dreads, it doesn't hurt that I think he's gorgeous too :D

And then there's fucking Rob Zombie. I think I probably hate everything about him. His horror movies are stupid. He tries to be innovative but it just ends up cheesy and stupid, The Devil's Rejects, for example. I will never forgive him for trying to remake Halloween. Why do people try to fix something that isn't broken? The original Halloween is amazing. Just like the first Nightmare on Elm Street, and the first Friday the 13th, and for the love of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, stop remaking all of the original Romero Of the Dead's. You can't touch Romero. Stop messing with my horror movies. But anyway, back to Zombie. His music is catchy, but generally really stupid and degrading. He is just a generally disgusting person. I can't stand his girlfriend, or wife or whatever the hell she is. Her name is Sheri Moon Zombie. She's in all of his movies, always playing some kind of deranged whore, and she's super goddamn annoying. Oh well, my guess is that he'll go on last, and maybe I can try to block him out.

I babysat my one-and-a-half-year-old nephew this morning and I have an uber headache. Necesito cafe. Mucho.

Spiteful Things

There are some things in the world that exist only to spite me. I'm sure of it. Mosquitoes, Sid the hamster, for example.

I read outside sometimes when the sun starts going down. It's not as hot, the sky turns colors that don't seem to have any other place in nature, and, unless one of the drunks has friends over, it's relatively quiet and as serene as a view of a pool can be. But then the mosquitoes come, as unwelcome as rain on a wedding day, and they bring their ugly prehistoric-looking friends. Something about me makes them want to suck every last drop of my blood. And then there's the bugs that bite for no good reason. I sit there, on the deck, just reading my book and those little bastards just come and feast like it's Thanksgiving every fucking night. Why can't these bugs grow a conscience and feast on monsters like Glenn Beck, instead of me? I douse myself in bug spray that smells like lighter fluid, and still they bite, then I can't sleep because I'm seconds away from lighting myself on fire to make the goddamn itching stop. I'm sick of it. What purpose can they possible serve? They don't turn CO2 in to oxygen. They don't help things to grow. They are not beautiful or even particularly interesting. I gauge an insect or animal based on whether I would feel bad if I killed a baby version of it. Would I be devastated if I killed a baby polar bear? Yes. Even one of those evil black crows? Yes. A baby mosquito? Not at all. Living to cause my incessant itching is not a good reason to live. I think all mosquitoes should make a suicide pact just for sheer lack of meaning in life.

I must mention that at this exact moment my Saint Bernard, Harley, is trying to tunnel into my leg and my poor mutt, Bruno, is trying to shrink himself to the size of a dime because my dumbass neighbors are lighting fireworks and the dogs are walking around like death might sneak up on them at any moment. Bruno gets so scared his hair starts falling out. Harley tries to burrow into the space under tables less than half her size. I hope one of the neighbors lights himself on fire. Not enough to get burned too badly, just enough to say, "Wow, this is stupid. Maybe I should take up a hobby that doesn't involve using my money to buy shit to light on fire for aesthetic purposes." I hate fireworks. No purpose whatsoever. Much like domestic animals smaller than a cat.

That said, it is time to discuss Sid the hamster. He is an evil conniving thing. I bought him because I missed the giant furry creatures I had at home and hoped to be content with an animal that is not capable of anything except eating, running, sleeping, making noise, and shitting. I bought him because my roommate got a hamster and it was cute and furry, and was easily hidden from the CA that lived a couple doors down the hall. It was fun watching it run into walls in one of those plastic balls. Maybe it was all of the papers that I had due, but nothing in the world seemed more important than getting a pet hamster.

So I did. I christened him Sid, because Sid Vicious got his stage name when he was bitten by Johnny Rotten's hamster, named Sid, who was vicious. This should have been foreshadowing. Sid was a good hamster the first couple nights. Then he started chewing on his cage. Then his wheel started squeaking. Then he was up the entire night chewing and squeaking and I got no sleep whatsoever because this stupid fuzzy mass was not grateful that I had rescued him from a weird smelly pet store whose owner looked like he should have been named Herman or Gweedo or something. The cage he was in held 9 other hamsters. The cage I gave him was a penthouse suite in New York City compared to that place. I couldn't take him anymore. I took him home, rigged his cage to sit on top of my makeshift book case, and had my mom feed him while I was at school.

One thing they don't tell you when you get a hamster is how much you have to take them out and play with them in order to make sure they don't turn into psychokiller escape artists. Sid now tries to escape every time I open the hatch to give him food. He walks over to my fingers and looks like he would like nothing more than to draw blood. I was told he'd live for two years. My roommate's hamster died more than a year ago, and she treated that thing like it was her child. I hate Sid, but he's still alive and keeping me up at night. Maybe that's the key to living forever...make someone hate your existence and you'll never die.

I've thought about letting Sid go outside to fare with the squirrels chipmunks and other rodent-things. I've come close to it a couple times because he's just so damn loud at night, but my mother is strangely attached to him. Even though I hate him, I would feel a twinge of guilt because I let my pet turtle die when I was younger by forgetting to feed it. I still feel like a bad person because of it, and so Sid will have to live in a cage on top of my bookcase.

Now Harley and Bruno are sleeping on my floor, Harley is snoring like a bear with her head snug between her front two paws. I'm going to finish my book that the mosquitoes forced me inside with.

Okay, so...

I just wrote the longest blog entry ever, but it's really personal. I don't know if I'll have the guts to post it anytime soon. It's about my dad, my brother, my fear of the gym, and some other things..I don't know. I almost just lost it when I re-read my post about cancer and my dog because she died a few weeks ago and I still feel terrible about it. I need to go to sleep.