life is a single skip for joy

 So what do you get for a 10 year old girl who has gotten bit by the theater bug?

Here's just one article that's reporting on this.

Seeing that this morning brought tears to my eyes.

→ So apparently!! Tyler Shields has collected (is collecting?) the actual blood of 'around 20' celebrities to be displayed as the center piece for an upcoming gallery opening. He's painting with it and maybe something else. Not sure how to react to that, but I do think it's a great metaphor for celebrity culture. Generally I'm a fan of Tyler's work, which you can see examples of below (unaltered aside from resizing, click the image for a bigger version). I think my choices don't really give you an accurate idea of his obesession with white, black, and red, sex, violence, sex&violence, and the truly bizarre, but you get the idea. See his site for more, which at times can be NSFW so I'd wait until I got home to click. I'd especially check out his portfolio (his blog has ADD) and his video portraits you can find there. He definitely has a knack for capturing celebrities in a way that they generally aren't captured.



→ So yesterday I stopped off after work to get some sushi (cause clearly I'm addicted) and this adorable server caught me making a horrified expression when I first read the news above. I explained to him what I was doing (reading tweets!) and why I was making that expression. Then later when I was checking out, he starts gushing, total fanboy mode, about how his favorite celebrity is Zooey Deschanel and how he follows her on twitter but she's never tweeted him back, and how he thinks she's the perfect woman ever. It was really cute. (Not in a stalkery way.)

→ Have I mentioned how Panera Bread has the best mac & cheese in the known universe?

Cause they do.

→ FIC REC: ozmissage, light of my light, apple of my eye, etc. etc. wrote me Caroline/Stefan/Tyler which is to-die-for. Suspenseful and really does a good job of bringing them together in a believable compelling way. Whereas I like to subscribe to the Caroline Forbes way of thinking: just add sex. Which, don't get me wrong, has its merits. But it is not this, which is just gorgeous and so in-character and perfect! Go read it!

Title: it seems that all of my bridges have been burned
Pairing: Stefan/Tyler/Caroline
Rating: PG-13 (violent imagery, character death)
Words: 2,716
Summary: It would be funny if he wasn’t one of the monsters. Spoilers through 2x17.

→ ETA: The Vampire Diaries was renewed! Yay! (Not that I was worried.)

→ I am sick. I am sick and I am irritated at certain people who happen to live here. So I am going to reject them in about 5 minutes and go get something to eat. Which really, I've been meaning to spend this 30 dollars that's been sitting here all week anyway. So *sticks out tongue* enjoy your spinach! I'm having sushi!

→ Except I need to be back in 45 minutes for The Vampire Diaries, so it will have to be sushi-to-go. And speaking of, words cannot express how nervous I am for all the eps leading up to the finale. So nervous! <-- Not adequate! Also? I miss Tyler. It's weird how attached to that storyline I had become. I have missed it. It's been like 5 episodes right? Or will be if you count tonight? That is too long!

→ As I'm sick I'm taking tomorrow off to "rest up." And basically just not being at work and dealing with the public when you're sick? = A good thing. So there's that. Also? If you cannot breathe and sound like your face is shoved into a pillow when you're talking? You should not have to go back to the car where your poor dog is waiting for you (in relatively cool weather, but still!) just to get ID to buy a 24 pack of decongestant. It's just cruel. I swear, I'm not going to cook up any crystal meth anytime soon. First of all, I'm too sick! Second of all, do I look like Walter White? I don't know shit about chemistry. Or cooking, for that matter.

→ Okay I'm running out of time to get sustenance before my show! Take it easy, folks!

Randomly found Leonard Nemoy's twitter account and the above pic. Very cute.

→ I have decided that my hiatus is officially broken and not just so I can participate in five things. Things have been going on and I am not really feeling myself but, I guess I shouldn't punish myself any more than I already have been. So I'm back. In an official non-temporary capacity.

→ So I was thinking the other day that this year will mark six years since Brokeback Mountain. It kind of makes me wonder why we haven't seen too much else like this in the mainstream. Haven't really put much thought into it, but it did cross my mind.

→ I got off to a good start with five acts but then ended up totally crashing because I had to "cram" to finish up my festivids vid. Whoops.

→ I've been getting headaches at work almost predictably. They last almost my entire shift and when I come home I am totally exhausted. Sometimes the headaches persist but often they go away. I've never been prone to headaches, but I am thinking it could have something to do with not getting enough sleep? These headaches are not aided by pills at all it seems. (And yet I keep taking them, in vain.) I will try to adjust my sleep schedule and see what happens. If it goes on much longer I might have to break down and see a doctor.

→ It is slick and icy outside tonight and I was completely petrified when walking over to the neighbors house earlier. I feared for my life, not going to lie. I would much rather have snow. This winter is not as happy-making as it could be. And when I got home from this perilous journey, I promptly punched myself in the face. (Accidentally!)

→ I would really like to discuss this article: Generation Why? by Zadie Smith. It's in part a review of The Social Network and in part a really great examination of "facebook" itself and the culture of social media. Really thought-provoking. [I am not sure why I put "facebook" in quotes. It just felt right, I guess.]

→ I'm currently reading The Magicians by Lev Grossman. Not entirely sure how I feel about it. I'm halfway through. But it's entertaining enough anyway:

Janet was about as annoying as a person could be and still be your friend, but Quentin was never bored around her. She was passionately loyal, and if she was obnoxious it was only because she was so deeply tender-hearted. It made her easily wounded, and when she was wounded she lashed out. She tortured everybody around her, but only because she was more tortured than anyone. - The Magicians, Lev Grossman

Oh my gosh I want to make this recipe. Sounds really good.

Does anybody have any thoughts on my paining question from earlier?

→ Jesus how did I loose track of my flist? Probably those two (three?) days I took to finish up The West Wing, Season 2. (LOVE IT.) Anyway, you guys do not even want to know how many tabs I have open right now. Shoot!

→ QUESTION: What is a reasonable price to pay someone to paint a small to medium size bedroom? I want to say it's 10x11 or 12x11 or something? One wall has two fairly large windows on either side, and another wall has an entrance door and a closet double-door. So not a ton of wall space on either of those. Only two "full" walls. The guy who did our tile says he'll do it for 100 bucks but he hasn't actually seen the room and my dad says it's too much. But I'm not sure. My dad would probably think five dollars was too much, haha. I'm not sure if he's providing all his own tools either. He did for the tiling so I presume he would. Aside from paint and anything else that's 'one use only'. (This is only a presumption.) To me it sounds reasonable but I don't know.

→ I took an in-design class yesterday for work. I may actually be able to fix up The Shephards fanzine so that it can be printed. I never did get to do that. So we'll see!

→ Off to read your posts, pumpkin butts. (That's a term of endearment.)

→ I'm currently chilling at Panera Bread because the damn power in my house went out again. I swear, every time there is a storm, even if it's not raining at our place at that particular moment in time, our power goes out. And it's only a particular 50% of the neighborhood that goes out. Not a "geographical" half, but the same 50% of houses each time in random fashion. N&A who live halfway across the neighborhood from us always lose power too, but the guy across the street and four houses down from us never does [and neither do the whole row of houses past him]. Like clockwork. We seriously need to deal with these power company guys. This is no mere coincidence. Obviously something is very wrong.

→ I bought this let's call it "experimental" sandwich for dinner when I got here. I didn't want to pay that much for a full size so I bought the soup and sandwich combo where you get a half sandwich and a bowl of soup, but they charge you twice as much because of this particular sandwich. The sandwich was good, but the soup sucked. I should have just gotten the whole sandwich. At least I still have my apple to munch. I wish I didn't have to use the word "sandwich" so much in this paragraph but I've tried and there's really no way around it. Haha.

→ SONG SUGGESTIONS
Okay flist, I need your help. Give me suggestions for fun, fast-paced, upbeat songs. Also, fun/funny rap songs. Hopefully some with good beats and nice cinematic changes in pace, lol. Or not, whatever. I'm so much at a loss when it comes to music these days because I really haven't even come close to rebuilding my collection, which I lost a while back.

→ You know what I don't understand? Fandom. I may or may not be talking about something specific here. [Hmm.] I just feel a lot of posturing and pretense going on in a lot of places. You know when you were a kid and you wanted to be the first one on the block to have the newest Nickelodeon toy [or whatever]? It's kind of like that. Only now, in fandom, we want to be the most enlightened, the most forward-thinking, the one who really "gets it" -- etc. But you know? I don't know if people actually get it. Something about the way fandom behaves at times like this, and yes, individuals within fandom, just seems so fake to me. When there are canned phrases that everybody seems to be repeating ad nauseum, it makes me question the authenticity of those spouting them. It all just feels so rehearsed and because of it, what they're really telling me is, "this is what I'm supposed to say, so I'm saying it." I'm not sure that people are as enlightened as they pretend to be. Or maybe they are, but their reactions don't really reflect how they feel or what they really would like to say. [Nevermind what they understand.] Maybe the sentiment is somewhat authentic, but the handling of it, the wording, whatever, just feels so formulaic and disingenuous. And okay, well what's new? These are human beings we're talking about. But still. Fandom? Why so serious?

→ An ETA: to the above. I understand that there are important discussions to be had and serious issues to deal with, but let's leave a little room for, I don't know, humanness and compassion and for people to make mistakes without having to adopt some false Stepford personality after the fact.

Sorry all of this is so vague.

→ I also don't get when people don't e-mail you back. I mean just in general. Not even related to anybody or anything specific. My e-mails are not forwards. Why do my friends sometimes treat them like ignorable garbage? I would really like to know what causes this type of behavior. That's like saying hello to a close friend in the hall as you pass by and they don't even wave back. Come on, folks. Give me a wave!

[I won't say I've never forgotten to respond to an e-mail or taken too long, but at least I try not to make a habit out of it. What gives?]

→ Keep calm and carry on. ← That? Right there? That's a period. As in "the end." As in "STOP." Don't make me hate this phrase, people. Resist the urge. I beg of you.

→ I'm sure I'll have a more cheerful post later.