The Beatles -- I'd be squealing along with all the other girls like a perfectly good teenybopper groupie...especially if I was in my teens again...

Billie Holiday -- I think watching her live would give me goosebumps like I never had before. Listening to her voice alone brings about this eerie feeling of depression, but one that's okay to have...it's like her voice digs deep in you and pulls out feelings you'd rather not feel, but that are okay to feel once in a while, because they let know you're not dead inside...I don't know. I saw a few clips of her on youtube and they were positively entrancing.

Michael Jackson -- Come on? Do I even need to explain?? It really tears me up that I even have to add him to this list now...

Is any one else sick of vampires yet?

I went browsing through the new Young Adult novels at goodreads.com and it seems the only thing available at the moment is vampire novels. Not just Twilight -- millions of other novels all revolving around or having to do with vampires. I've read only the twilight series, but even on TV the vampires are taking over and it's all just a little exhausting.

Can we move on to the next fad please?? I'll take anything at this point. We've covered sparkling vampires, now let's move on to Crayola colored demons that are colored outside the lines, or centaurs who fall in love with Rainbow Brite ponies (she had ponies right? or am I mixing up two different cartoons?)

Yeah - whatever little enthusiasm I ever had over Twilight is officially over.

In other news, I'm almost near the end of part five of Anna Karenina (aka past the middle of the book) and I'm finally loving it! As soon as Tolstoy quit droning on about Levin and his grass mowing it got more interesting. The whole time it's been interesting, the affair between Anna and Vronsky, and all the other characters, even Kitty going to Germany and meeting that girl etc. But Levin was killing it for me. I hope I'm not jinxing it but I'm really really liking this book now :)

On my death bed I'd like to say "Stop the noodle scooz!" to my sister because she would be the only one to understand (I think) and then we'd crack up and I'd die laughing :P

Or how about "No will to live!" Haha, get it, Ana? That'd be HILARIOUS!! The dead horse lives on!! :P

So I think we've already covered the fact that when I was younger I wasn't exactly a normal kid. My favorite thing to do was stay locked up in my room all day with my little white, red and blue tape player and listen to music - preferably the Grease Soundtrack. My favorite thing to do was sit with a notebook and a pen on my bed. My dad even walked in one day and laughed about my choice of "toys". When i was even younger than that, I used to wrap bed sheets around my legs, tie up my pleated school skirt around my feet and pretend for hours on end that I was The Little Mermaid. I begged my mom to change my name to Ariel. I wrote it all over the cover of my first reading book "My Name is Ariel". When I was just a little younger than that, I used to play with these little two plastic dolls less than two inches high, and my little Mickey and Minnie miniature dolls (which by the way came in a big fancy Mickey and Minnie dollhouse) and an egg carton. Yes, an EGG CARTON. It was their school bus, so obviously it was the coolest shit ever.

But probably the oddest thing about me wasn't staying in the shower for about an hour hoping I'd sprout fins. Or singing along to "Hopelessly Devoted" and knowing all the lyrics to songs in a movie my mom went to see at the drive-in as a kid. Not even the egg carton for a bus, when I had a big fancy pink and white plastic dollhouse to play with. The oddest thing about me was that, around the age of five, instead of wanting my very own pony like every other kid in the world, I wanted an elephant. Yes, an elephant.

I can still remember it so clearly, asking my mom if I could have an elephant. To which of course, she'd reply by asking, "Where are you going to put an elephant?". Well, duh, mother. There was no hesitation in my reply, "In my room of course!". My mom thought she was so wise when she said, "But it's not going to fit; elephants are really big you know." Tuh. "I know that! But I want a BABY elephant!"

And I can assure you this wasn't a passing phase. To this day my mom remembers me constantly asking for an elephant.

Some weeks ago I was over at her house, and while watching a documentary on the discovery channel about elephants, as my mom passed by I yelled out, "Hey, mom! You never got me that elephant!" To which she replied, "I didn't, did I? Well, we'll see what we can do."

Well, she finally, twenty years later, got me my elephant.

Yup, yesterday on my twenty-fifth birthday, I received an elephant charm for my Pandora bracelet from my mom. As I opened  the little box, it barely took a nanosecond for me to catch on. As my eyes fell on the tiny silver elephant, I screamed, "SHE GOT ME MY ELEPHANT!!!" And then I wiggled around a little bit, chanting "SHE GOT ME MY ELEPHANT!!!" while my sister and husband cracked up. 

And the best part? I don't have to keep it locked up in my room, it's small enough that I can carry it with me everywhere :3

So yeah, the birthday went well. Last Sunday mom threw me and Hubby a small BBQ get together party thing (Hubby's Birthday is on the 27th and we did it on the 25th because I thought I was going to have to work on the 1st.). I really didn't want to do much but my mom really wanted to have at least a small celebration, so I didn't fight it and let her have her way. Plus, it was small enough that I didn't feel uncomfortable around the couple of her friends that she invited. 

I got Hubby a headset so he can play his online games (and feel a little more like Captain Spock or whoever it is he pretends to be) and a flash drive. Which I think are totally boring gifts, but it's stuff he asked for, so yeah. Hubby got me two awesome blouses and three books from my list, which he thought were totally boring gifts, but they're not, they're AWESOME!! lol

He got me The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte, Daisy Miller by Henry James, and North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell. It also seems that he passed on my wishlist to his mom, so I may be receiving more books from the M-I-L. And I'm still stuck on Anna Karenina. I swear that whenever I see a chapter with Levin in it I start to groan. I get that he's trying to make him into a simple guy, and I admire simplicity in people, whether they're real or not, but after reading five paragraphs about mowing grass I just feel like screaming, "OKAY, ENOUGH ALREADY!! GET ON WITH IT!!" Gah. Is it just me? Am I being daft? I don't want to skip any chapters. I never do that with a first reading, but heaven knows Tolstoy is tempting me to break that rule. (The only other book I ever skip a chapter in is OOTP and the chapter I skip is "Hagrid's Tale". I'm sorry, I dealt with it the first time and as I finished reading it made up my mind to skip that chapter in future rereads.)

And after Anna Karenina I still have two books left that I got from Barnes and Noble. Hubby says I better find something else that I want for Christmas because he's not getting me books until I'm nearly done all the ones I have now :/

Tomorrow we're going to our very first Halloween Party. Or MY first I should say. The island seems to be getting more into the spirit of celebrating Halloween, arranging contests and stuff for the best costumes. And you know, seeing as I'm still a kid inside (don't be fooled by the quarter of a century on my back -- I'd still rock that egg carton if the possibility of being locked away in an asylum didn't increase with age) I am PSYCHED to dress up for Halloween. I'm going as a 1920's flapper girl. And Hubby's going as Peter Griffin. The Burger King and Wendy concept fell through when we realized we only had one week to prepare. Besides I get to revisit one of my favorite eras for one night, woohoo! I'm going all out, so far that I've done my nails in total 20's fashion, with the cuticles left bare, and I've learned to do pin curls and finger waves (though the latter is much too difficult for me) through Youtube. Go, 21st century technology!

As for Hubby - it was almost written that he should go as Peter Griffin. Kinda looks like him a little, and can do the laugh exactly the same. Not to mention he's too lazy to actually work on a costume and he didn't want to go as a 1920's gangster like I suggested. His first option was to go as Jesus Christ (a gory version -- think Passion of the Christ)...but for obvious reasons, he decided not to. Although, I'm pretty sure that if we find an affordable purple jacket tomorrow when we go shopping, he'll want to go as the Joker. And there's talk that next year we may attempt going as Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett!! :D

So I'll take lots of pictures and will definitely post soon as soon as I can.

This entry is officially too long :P

Happy Halloween!! :D

I think it's a sign of how good I've gotten at solving Monk mysteries that I actually predicted what the next episode of Monk would be. Just last Saturday, after Hubby and I had finished watching that week's episode of Monk, I said to him, "You know what'd be really cool? If they would bring back Sharona for just one more episode, since it's the last season and all. Then she and Natalie could have it out over who's the better assistant for Monk and Monk could be on top of the world for a bit."

This week's episode was entitled "Mr. Monk and Sharona". Yup! They brought her back! And she and Natalie did have it out but Monk was more frustrated and going insane with all the bickering that was going on to feel like he was on top of the world, so I was wrong about that bit. It was awesome; I'd been hoping to see Sharona again for a long time. 

I never talk about Monk, but it really has been one of my top favorite shows from since the very beginning. There was even a time, during the first season, that Ex-Best Friend and I would actually sit on the phone on Friday nights and watch it together (I've always been intrigued by psychology and Ex-Best Friend went on to get a psychology degree in spite of the fact that she needs to see a psychologist herself and the whole OCD thing hooked us from the first time the show was even announced.)

I even know all the lyrics to the opening credits' song "It's A Jungle Out There". In fact, I often go as far as to call it the theme song of my very own life, lol.

I'm going to miss Monk when it's over :( 

So about a couple of weeks ago I went to one of our local hardware/deco store because I've felt like finally putting some pizazz into the apartment. I was looking at this particular fake plant that would go perfectly in one corner of the house. Unfortunately it had no price tag, so I went and I asked the woman behind the counter for the price. She said it was $135 and I kindly and very composedly told her, "Oh okay, thanks" while inside my head I was going "WTF?!?!?!". I don't know if she was able to read this on my face but she then added, in a very stuck-up manner "You can go look around, there are cheaper plants."

Now, okay, I'm not trying to pretend like I'm super rich and I can afford a FAKE plant for $135. Maybe I could, but I think it's RIDICULOUS to price a FAKE plant that high! I mean, what the hell is it made from, pieces from the Shroud of Turin maybe?? There is no way I would ever pay anything more than $30 for -- again, I repeat -- A FAKE PLANT!! But that's not what put me over the top. First you overprice your shit that I could probably find for ten times cheaper at a Chinese store (you know the ones that are crammed with all kinds stuff from floor to ceiling) but then you go and give me a snobby attitude because I won't buy your overpriced FAKE plant that I didn't even like that much??

Nothing pisses me off more than having someone working in a store just assume that I can't afford what they're selling just because in the end I decide to be reasonable and not buy it. I would NEVER forgive myself for spending $135 on a FAKE plant. Not when there are children in the world starving. 

One time, a long time ago, I walked into this store and asked for the price for these cute jeans hanging on the rack and the store attendant, before saying anything else to me said, "They're too expensive."

Really? Seriously? Do I look like I'm starved that you need to tell me right off the bat that it's too expensive?? 

Maybe I'm overreacting. Maybe these people, even though they work in the store, feel as though the stuff is overpriced and no one should spend any money on it. But I can't help, every time something like this happens to me, recalling that scene in Selena when she and her friend go shopping for a dress for the Grammys and the stuck-up store attendant takes one look at them and says, "That dress is too expensive." Of course Selena shows her in the end when people end up mobbing her in the store for autographs, the store attendant finally understands she's someone famous, and then Selena tells her they don't want the dress after all. Of course if I did that it wouldn't make a difference...lol

So Hubby and I decided today that if we were going to a Halloween party this Saturday (which I think we would totally go if I didn't have to work the whole day on Sunday) that he would go as The Burger King and I would go as Wendy (as in the red-headed girl from Wendy's). It would be pretty funny I think. Maybe next year.

I wonder what would happen if The Burger King and Wendy had babies. When she's old enough to of course, I don't mean to turn The Burger King into a pedophile. And would Ronald McDonald be jealous that he didn't get a girl? Would he want Wendy for himself? Maybe the Subway guy can be his friend. Maybe Mrs. Butterworth can go on a date with him. You never know, McDonald's does serve breakfast, but only until 10:30 am (Is it weird that the only way I ever learned to tell the difference between the ending breakfast time for Burger King and McDonald's is because in "Big Daddy" Adam Sandler goes to get McDonald's breakfast and they tell him they stop serving breakfast at 10:30 when he though it was 11? -- Don't ever sit and watch this movie with me; I know ALL the lines!!)

OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I FINISHED CHAPTER 20!!!!!!!!!!!!!

FIVE MONTHS LATER!!!

AND I HATE EVERY BIT OF IT!!!

BUT I FINALLY FINISHED CHAPTER 20!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I really wish Leo Tolstoy would stop describing Anna Karenina's hands as small. Here I am reading, picturing a perfectly proportioned beautiful and elegant looking lady, when all of a sudden he'll say something like: "She opened her pocketbook with her small hands..." (or something to that effect) and then I go picturing a perfectly proportioned, elegant lady...with midget-like hands, too small for her body. Then circus themed music begins to play in the back of my mind...

Seriously, Leo, stop it. I don't care about the size of her hands anymore.

It's been cloudy and raining all day...

Need I say more? :)

I spent most of the day with Best Friend, my sister and one of her friends today and it was fun. Best Friend called and told me yesterday that she's leaving for England on the 5th of October so it was a given that we'd have to hang out. And although most of the time I dread spending anytime with her because I'm afraid we'll be uncomfortable or run out of things to say, at which point she'll decide that I'm utterly boring and not worth wasting time on, it was actually very nice to spend time with her like that. We joked around and talked about travelling, about hopefully going to England one day to visit her, old high school mates we commonly dislike, Twilight and all the things that are wrong with it, to many other things inbetween. And as bonus I got to spend some time with my sister which we also haven't done in a while, so all in all it was a really good day.

Then I came home, and since Hubby was working late shift today, I decided to curl up on the couch and watch Pride and Prejudice. I'm starting to really look forward to these "Me time" solitary Friday afternoons. They're very refreshing...I think I'm going to make a tradition of it as much as I can. I will, however, need to find more girly movies that people don't usually want to watch with me, or I will soon be out...and I'm not about to risk becoming bored with the few movies I do have now.

Now I'm eating some noodles and I hope to finish off this awesome Friday by finally finishing off chapter 20, which has taken me four months to write.

Ugh...today's tougher than the past few days. Nothing out of the ordinary happened...

Well, my favorite manager came back to work today from her vacation, so I don't have to deal with Bitchy Manager only.

And, I'm off Friday and Saturday, so tonight rocks because I can stay up late and sleep in tomorrow!! Woot!!

Yeah, today sucks...lol...as far as this entry goes, I suppose. I should really just be glad I had a smooth day, no matter how uneventful :)

I'm pretty sure that somewhere in the course of the year that I've had this journal I might've mentioned something about my cooking skills -- or lack thereof. Tonight, my happy thing is all about my finally satiated craving for shrimp that I cooked. I haven't had any since July 26th which was my anniversary and the last time when I had wonderful garlic shrimp. I've spent the last month and a half quite at ease, but the craving has been creeping up on me again, and for the last two weeks I was planning ways on how to bring it up to my mom that I wanted shrimp for lunch. (Yes, my mom still cooks for me most of the time. She drops lunch off for me at work. And no I'm not ashamed. If you tried my cooking you'd understand. Besides, I cook for my husband. Never mind that he's easy too cook for because mostly what he eats is pasta  -- that's beside the point). The point is I've wanted shrimp, but I also know it's quite a bit of work and shrimp is expensive, two reasons why my mom doesn't make them often (but when she does, omg, they're so good! I always have seconds!)

Today, however, hubby had to stop at the supermarket after work for bread, cheese and coke (the three basic things that keep him going. Some people have coffee. Others have cigarettes. Hubby has cheese sandwiches and coke) and as I'm passing one of the refrigerators, I see it...shrimp...garlic shrimp...in a big bright yellow box -- which to me always implies: "Microwaveable!" or "Just Add Water!"; in other words: "So Easy, Even You Can't Mess This Up, Maria!".

Bought one box, just to try it, Gorton's Shrimp Scampi in a garlic butter sauce. Cooked it. Realized all I was going to have for dinner was shrimp because I don't keep things like rice and vegetables around the house since I don't cook. So I made some pasta and mixed it in.

Today I had garlic shrimp with linguine in a garlic butter sauce. It took me ten minutes to make. No sweat, no fuss. I didn't even microwave it; I stove-topped it. And it was AWESOME!!!

Takerlove used peer pressure to make me do this. (In other words, I was tagged :P)


1. Post about something that made you happy today even if it's just a small thing.
2. Do this everyday for eight days without fail.
3. Tag eight of your friends to do the same.

Hmm...*does mental breakdown of day trying to think of something that made me happy.* *Thinks Really Hard* *Really Really Hard*

Well, I started reading Anna Karenina today. I guess that made me happy. It's a brand new book and five chapters in I already like it. Sound lame? Well, I did nothing out of the ordinary today and then Patrick Swayze passed away. I'm also really ready to get started on that book blog as soon as I decide on a new name (found out yesterday the one I wanted was taken and the dude who took it never even made one single entry in his blog....grr) But okay, happy things! happy things!

I don't have eight friends, so there goes that idea. I'm not tagging anyone, if anyone comes across this journal and feels like doing this then by all means...

I'm off to go look up youtube videos of Dirty Dancing, the best dance movie ever.

I just finished reading My Sister's Keeper and I can't stop crying...

An air-conditioned movie theater. But then you get there and only find out after you've paid your ticket that the electricity is off and their generator only has enough gas in it to power the seven different movies they're playing, not the airco. So you end up sitting there, about $20 later, in a crowded movie theater, watching a shitty movie (Max Payne) and sweating through the nice purple sweater you chose to wear (because your usual fear is  that the movie airco will give you frostbite) wishing you could just rip it off, drinking down your husband's large Pepsi, and praying that you don't have a heat stroke.

Finally! An interesting Writer's Block question I want to and can answer!!

Well, no I take that back, because I'm looking at my music library right now and out of 806 songs I can't decide which one I play most. It changes every month or week, whenever I hear something good on the radio, or it depends on what I'm writing, what song is helping me pull the scene together...and sometimes I have a total brain fart and go for something that I totally wouldn't listen to generally but my brain is just craving it (take for example two nights ago, when i suddenly had the burning desire to listen to Ace Of Base's "Don't Turn Around") but I guess I have a list of songs that I listen to more often than the rest...

Well, this month it's been all about Ella Fitzgerald and "I Can't Get Started". Heard it on Gilmore Girls a couple of weeks ago and I decided it was a suitable song for my fic. So I made Hubby go and download all of Ella's "Sweet and Hot" album for me :) and I've been listening to all the songs instead of just keeping "I Can't Get Started" on repeat because then I'll wear it out and by the time I have to write the particular scene for which I find that song to be so fitting, I won't want to hear it again. That happens with me a lot too, I find a song I like and wear it out until I can't listen to it again for years.

Anyway, rambling...so here's a list of songs that have more of gravitational pull than others do in my very own music library:

Amy Winehouse - Valerie (it's just so catchy! and peppy, not the norm for Ms. Trainwreck Winehouse, if I do say so myself)

The Beatles - If I Fell (My favourite Beatles song ever)

Billie Holiday - I'll Be Seeing You (her voice is so eerie, but yet so poignant...it really pulls you in)

Christina Aguilera - Save Me From Myself (nice mellow, deep song...a nice change from her obnoxious belting balads)

Coldplay - The Scientist and Violet Hill (both have helped a lot with my writing - I think Coldplay holds top place for most songs in my music library)

Damien Rice - 9 Crimes, Grey Room, Rootless Tree, Elephant....well, I think I'll stop listing and I'll just say that I have 13 songs in my library by Damien Rice and usually when I start playing him, I just let the playlist go with it. I never stop to change songs or artist. Damien Rice is the coolest song writer Evur.

Guns N Roses - November Rain (fits my story like a glove and sometimes when i feel like all writing hope is lost, this song helps me find it again) and Sweet Child O' Mine because it's the best rock love song ever...

Hinder - Better Than Me (powerful vocals and lyrics...much better than Lips Of An Angel)

Iron & Wine - All 8 songs that I have in my music library (because to me, he's like Damien Rice's really good faux copy)

Janis Joplin - Me and Bobby McGee (because Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose)

Lenny Kravitz - if I'm writing, the slower stuff, if I'm not, the harder stuff

Lifehouse - Broken and Everything (both which have done wonders for my writing, the latter is my official song for catharsis)

Norah Jones - All 9 songs on my playlist ("The Nearness of You" probably tallies higher than the other 8)

OAR - Shattered (amazingly the one song I've played beyond exhaustion and to which I still enjoy belting every single note to. Let's see how much longer this can last)

Oasis - Wonderwall (a 90's classic)

And yeah I think we can leave it off there for now...

And also, just for the sake of juxtaposing...a song I love but hardly ever listen to because it's a song that brings back a lot of memories of being 16 and in love, etc. so distinctly when I listen to it that I'm afraid listening to it will make that feeling wear off...

Aerosmith - Jaded

Is that totally weird? I know that everytime it plays I'm back in the school yard of my old Alma Matter wondering what Hubby (who was the crush of the moment back then) was doing at that moment, was he thinking about me and would he talk to me later on that day online. The feeling is so precise when that song plays, it's almost like when your new baby (or baby sister in my case) outgrows her baby clothes, so you put them away and then pull them back out three years later and it still smells exactly like she did three years ago ...you know what I mean? So I guess, I put "Jaded" away, and only pull it out when I'm feeling particularly melancholic.

Now might be such a time :)

I found this on mugglenet:



Some (mostly Harry Potter fans, I'm sure) say it looks like Hedwig and that the aliens have made it as a tribute to him. An expert on crop circles says that given that the owl is an ancient symbol of wisdom, that the aliens are trying to tell us to be wiser about the things we do, so as to pull through the global situation, learn from our mistakes, blah blah blah...

Has anyone stopped to think that maybe aliens just want more Hooters in the world?

I for one wouldn't be surprised.