Oof, I've been away for a while, between being sick and away and off the grid. It was kind of nice, to be honest. I love my internet communities, but sometimes they become a chore, when there are so many places to check in with and catch up on.

I went to my aunt's in Bridgehampton, Long Island for the 4th of July and it was so fucking fabulous. I finally made headway with my Weird Cousin, who is just a little bit weird, but pretty cool. He's never going to react the way I want him to, but I'm learning to read him a little bit better. He brought his very cool girlfriend who none of us had ever met even though they've been dating for like 10 years. We went out for a drive somewhere and he cranked up MGMT and "Time to Pretend" came on and it was just so, so perfect.

I saw this in the John Varvatos store, freaked out, and promptly returned to NY and ordered it for myself:


I started reading the Sookie Stackhouse novels, which are fun and good summer reads. I'll have to re-read "Half Blood Prince" in time for that spectacle next week. I'm heavily into "True Blood" right now, and I re-watched S1 and it's so much creepier re-watching and knowing who the killer is because it's barely obvious and it's just like...oof, I know in real life, it can be exactly like that. A killer right under your nose and no one suspects a thing. I'm still very much in the tank for Sam/Sookie, and Eric is even better this go-round. I'm so glad I have a fun summer show to freak out about.

I swear I have the weirdest dreams. The first one took place in a classroom and it was some math class that I was taking, and I hadn't done the homework b/c I hadn't gotten the worksheets and I was freaking out, and I'm pretty sure that Jack O'Connell from SKINS was in my class. Alllright.

The second one: I was with LH riding the 6 train downtown, and Kelly Clarkson got on at one of the stops. She had no makeup on and this crazy hairdo with all sorts of dyed pieces, and she was with her assistant. So I said, "psst. pssst. Hey Kelly, is Charlotte Hatherly on your tour yet?" and she said yes, and I confirmed that Charlotte was currently rocking orange hair. And then she got off at the same stop that we did, but I realized I left my sneakers on the train (which- why would I even take them off?) and ran back down the stairs to get them and the train was still there, which never happens in real life. Of course the bizarre part is that Charlotte Hatherly (ex-bassist for Ash, this Irish band I used to love) is not playing with Kelly at all, but with Bat For Lashes, and I saw what I think is Charlotte and her orange hair play with Natasha on Jimmy Kimmel. I did try to tell Kelly to make sure she hit up NYC on her tour.

I had some other weird dream but I can't remember the details. The good news is that the sun is out and it looks to be a good day. I'm probably off to hang out with my cadre of boys.

Sometimes it's funny to look back on what music you were listening to at a certain point in your life. I always think about the summer before my senior year of college when I was interning at MSNBC and commuting about 20 minutes each way, every day. I was listening to this crazy combination of Annie, Belle & Sebastian, and Jason Mraz. I remember thinking that the drive wasn't nearly long enough. I remember sitting at my desk, thinking about how I couldn't wait to get back into the car so I could listen to Annie's "Heartbeat" again.

Some people say that they were raised around music. I really wasn't, but some of the stuff my parents introduced me to has had a lasting impression, witness:
-Phil Spector/Wall of Sound stuff
-Donna Summer
-Natalie Cole
-Frank Sinatra
-the Gypsy soundtrack
-Paul Simon's Graceland and Rhythm of the Saints
-this random Elton John greatest hits tape, I think it's #3

( Meme, via [info]inlipstickred )

I was curious to see if any of my more recent downloads made it on to this list. Not so much:

this part always jumps out at me:

I was such a good panda this morning- I got up and out and to the courthouse on time. I got a sweet seat and set up my computer and I was happily browsing away until HORROR my name got called. So they put us all in a room with the lawyers and they explained the case and whatnot and then interviewed the first 16 (I was 8) about impartiality and whatever, and I tried to weasel out of it while still being honest when they questioned me, but I biffed my answer, as I am prone to doing when under pressure. So I was pretty sure that I'd get picked, because some of the other potential jurors had real conflicts and were not shy about articulating said conflicts. The lawyers continued to interview people and the more I thought about my position on the basic facts of the case, I realized that I'd be going in there with a bias, and that's not right, right? So I told the lawyers that, and yeah, they totally had my name on the selection board. I don't know if I was picked for sure, but I was on my way there. I think my boss would have been pissed if I'd gotten picked. He's such an ass sometimes, he would have been like, "Did you have to?" Sorry dude, they called my name.

So I've served my time. They can't call me for another 6 years. I'm glad I got it over with. It's so comical. When you get to the courthouse, they give you this whole song and dance about what an honor it is to serve on a jury and how you shouldn't feel badly if you're not picked and blahblah and of course, everyone sitting there is like, "Please get me out of here soon! I have work! I have a life!" Obviously, I would prefer to be tried by a jury of my peers. I just wish that you could tell them your availability or whatever. 

I will say that the entire operation is very well-organized, as it should be, but sometimes you can't be too sure.

Lost 2 lbs- on the right track!

Today was a big pile of suck. I woke up after a fitful night's sleep, already running late for jury duty and whatever was going to happen there. I turned on my computer to print out some crossword puzzles to take with me, and it's a damn good thing I did because I saw some messages from Bank of America about "suspicious charges" which I investigated right away, which were indeed suspicious. Some person tried to buy anti-virus software on my debit card like 6 times, and I received the confirmation email to my GMAIL with my NAME on it in GERMAN so how the fuck did that happen? Everything's okay now but I had to cancel my bank card and I'm probably never using it for anything except withdrawing money as of now!

So I was late for jury duty, went the wrong way when I got out of the subway station, got in there like 45 minutes late, hungry and tired. And there were people in there with laptops, and it would have been nice if the jury information website told jurors that the court has wifi, so bring 'em in! I'll bring mine tomorrow. The good news is that we got out at 12:30 but we might not be so lucky tomorrow because we were informed that late June and early July are busy months, as a lot of cases are being crammed in in preparation for when a lot of the judges go away in August. Swell! Tomorow I will have computer, approved food, and a good night's sleep. I just hope I don't get called to serve.

I wound up going into the office anyway because I would have felt guilty otherwise, and I made it through the day and through my class at night, which was pretty fun. My finished project definitely wasn't as bad as some others, so that's always comforting. I had the advantage of using a background that took up a lot of space and was a really defining feature of the piece.

Tomorrow I'll find out if I lost any weight, and Wednesday I'll finally get my hair cut, I hope. I still wish it was football season, but you can't always get what you want, huh?

Re-watcing SKINS series 1. This is, in part, why Cassie Ainsworth is awesome.

The girl wears a monkey around her neck to a party and it just IS.

A shiny, shiny Barnes & Noble opened around the block from me today. It smells like rubber and chemicals and NEW. They have one of those computerized monitor checkout lines like Whole Foods has. Let's see if they still have all registers manned in 6 months. I'm watching you, B&N. I will also probably be spending too much money on foreign fashion magazines. So now I'm around the corner from a B&N and an H&M. Sephora was rumored to be taking one of the other spaces in the building, but I guess that didn't pan out. Otherwise, I'd really have a spending problem.

There's this show airing on one of the big networks this summer or fall called "Flash Forward," and every time I see it mentioned, I think people are talking about the other "Flash Forward," this Canadian show starring Jewel Staite and Ben Foster from the mid-late '90s that the Disney Channel picked up. And then I get upset when I realize that no one is reviving THAT FF. It was a totally cute, wholesome show, and I think it aired for only 2 or 3 seasons. Jewel went to Firefly/Serenity and Ben went to be a creeper on Six Feet Under and I had to keep telling my mother that he didn't usually play such horrible characters. This new FF is a scifi show which is weird, because the Canadian counterpart was certainly nothing weird. I guess it was called FF b/c the characters used to stop camera a-la Zack Morris from time to time? Whatever, the series ended with the two main characters having to kiss for a play and realizing that -gasp- there might be some chemistry there! I wish I could find episodes somewhere; that would be awesome.

Ryan Gosling guest-starred on a couple of FF episodes, so in his honor, and b/c this is hilarious:

I'm having a little bit of a hard time getting into "So You Think You Can Dance." I want to love it b/c so many people do, but I have no idea what I'm watching. I know nothing about dancing, and it's not as easy to judge as singing, so I'll think something looks good and then Mary Murphy will be like, "Eh, just okay for me." I can't tell the difference between "Oh yeah, that looks hard to you, but it's nothing if you know how to really dance" and "OMG Hot Tamale Train!" To me, it's like watching gymnastics or ice skating- I'm always afraid that the dancers won't "stick" their flips or landings. I do hold my breath a little when they do some of the tougher moves. I'm hoping I get into it more as the season progresses.

I'm officially fatter than I've ever been in my life. Hooray! Seeing the number on my little Weight Watchers card was quite a wake-up call, so I have a ton of motivation to lose this weight and more. I'm not sure how much I could lose, but if I could maintain at 130, I'd be thrilled, bmi index be damned.

Also, YAY "True Blood." I'll be honest, I kind of want Sam and Sookie to hook up at some point. I think Sam Tramell is foxier than Stephen Moyer, for sure.

 So I'm trying out Safari for a few days. It definitely seems faster than Firefox, but I miss the add-ons, esp. the LJ one and I miss that you can save your tabs when you close Firefox. I'm sure Safari has something of an equivalent but it's not readily apparent. 

My digital design class is full of such creative, awesome people. I'm like, mentally creative, not so much visually, which is why I'm in the class. I already learned some very basic things which I might be able to put to use tomorrow and edit this scan for website publishment, which would be cool. Anyway, there's this one guy with a total, textbook "emo" haircut, worse than Milo in S1 of "Heroes" and the thing is that this guy doesn't even seem that emo, but the haircut is bringing him down. And he likes classic painting and metal and of course, he has a girlfriend. And of course, the weird guy who reminds me of this total headcase that I went to college with has a girlfriend. Lately I feel like everyone is matched up...

I left class feeling very inspired, which is good. I'm going to start the tumblr up again as a depository for my media-related rants and raves, and at least I'll have something recent that I can show an employer or something if I ever throw myself back into the job market. 

I've been listening to Robyn lately and she's pretty awesome. I'm into female dance-y music all of a sudden. 

Can I run The Sims 3 and Photoshop on my year-old MacBook? I haven't a clue. I worry about it. I already have to clean out the fan b/c it's been getting mighty hot lately. I'm loath to do it myself for fear of damaging the computer, but how hard can it be, right? 

You know what I'm NOT doing? Looking at MD's facebook. It'll make me too upset. I'm doing really well, staying away from it. Maybe he'll marry this girl or maybe he won't. Maybe he'll come back into my life, maybe he won't. I'm always going to be a little bit sad about how that whole thing disintegrated, but I'm mostly over it.

Hey, I like these pictures of Adele in NYLON; sort of retro.

I think my mother told me that I have to lose weight, subtly. Awesome. It's totally true, but I wish she had just said, "You really need to do something" instead of being like, "what if you went to a spa for a week?" Come on now, I'm not that overweight. But I can't wear skirts right now and it's kind of embarrassing. Such is life, as they say.

Oof, this is kinda long; but I'm bored. Also, NBC, shell out for more music for your White House specials, or don't shell out at all, mkay?

( survey via Michele )

So today was kind of a failure on my part. I woke up at close to 10 to hear the jackhammering at wherever across the street, which happens a lot. But I couldn't go back to sleep so I woke up and did whatever on the computer and ate a veggie burger for breakfast, went back to sleep, sorted my recipes, and toyed with the idea of doing my laundry, which did not happen. And of course I geeked out at ontd_ai  a bunch, like always.

I did manage to make it to the supermarket, and I saw this, which made me giggle:


I did some cooking and managed to spill barley all over the stove and then my vacuum died when I tried to sweep it up; fabulous. My mother warned me about that stupid ass vacuum. And it's like, what am I supposed to do now? The thing is over a year old. I guess I have to get a new one but pay extra to have it delivered and...boo, you whores. Sometimes living without a car is annoying.

Tomorrow my digital design class starts and I'm excited and nervous and I have Billy Madison's "Back to school...back to school..." in my head.

Let's please discuss how fierce and batshit crazy Florence Welch is:


Special shout-out to NYLON for putting her in their music issue.

Also this cracks me up:


( other fierce bitches [picspam] )

GChat from my mom today:

 

 

Another night, another stifling gay bar...alas. DK came to visit and we went to bed at 4am this morning and then went up and went to Shake Shack and I know I keep ripping on it, but it is rather tasty. And the burgers are deceptively filling! It's just...I guess there's no real definition of what a "real" burger is. Like, there's the big pink and juicy kind like my dad makes, and then there's the smaller, browner, Shack burger which is also delicious. So I should stop being a partial hater and just enjoy the fact that it's tasty and relateively cheap.

So, folks, what's better- Pandora or Last fm? Or is each one good for something different? Inquiring minds want to know.

Disappointing trip to Target. Hot day. Headache... but I discovered that HBO on Demand has "Band of Brothers." Fuck and YES. Unfortunately, they've got half the series up now and then they'll put the other half up sometime next month, but I'm watching it and it's making my day. I'd forgotten how awesome it was and how much I loved it. I put the book on my Amazon wishlist, for pete's sake.

The casting is like a random OMG-that guy! Aside from the awesomeness of Damian Lewis and Ron Livingston as Winters and Nixon (best TV boyfriends ever, says tellcincinnati and she is correct), we have:

-Donnie Wahlberg
-David Schwimmer (who is still totally miscast)
-Matthew Settle (aka Rufus Humphrey) (HOT)
-Scott Grimes (last seen on "ER")
-Neal McDonough (who pops up a lot more now)
-the dude who played Tommy in "Snatch" (as an American)
-Simon Pegg!!!! (as an American)
-Michael Cudlitz (currently on "Southland")
-Rick Gomez (aka Endless Mike from "Pete & Pete")
-Jason O'Mara (who was just on the US remake of "Life on Mars")
-Jamie Bamber
-James (fucking) McAvoy (looking foxy as usual)..... and probably more random awesome pop-ins


Also, my mom is totally in love with Kris Allen, and it's real cute.