It Feels so Good to Burn

This:

That is me. Doing a piece for forensics right now. So, you can check it out if you want, not the best performance, but when is it ever? A work in progress. it was written by Aliza Goldstein, check her out by clicking her name, and she has a post about it. Also, if you want to do the piece at some point in the future (but please, I beg you, not for the 2011 Forensics season) she has it posted up there, as well. And she's clever and funny, so read her blog. 

Does this love of the arts make me look hipster?

Squawk

This is my summary of Black Swan in one picture:

Craswalet?

This is my summary of Black Swan in one sentence:

Lesbians are weird.

I went and saw it with a lesbian but she doesn't count.

So. Yeah. If you don't already want to see it just based on that, there's something wrong with you.

Does this love of the bizarre make me look hipster?

My blog wanted me to title this post "JAKE SHEARS"

Me: "I want to be famous. It's kind of a problem."

A.L.: "DREAMS ARE NOT PROBLEMS!"

Me: "They are if you have to deal with Freddy. Or Jason. Whichever one, you know, did the stuff with the dreams."

A.L.: "OR IF IT'S FUCKING INCEPTION!"

I think I'm just going to start putting quotes of silly conversations I have with my friends at the start of my posts now. This post will not have an overall point unless I find it somewhere in the mess.

I'm a senior, and it's sort of crazy to be in my last semester of grade school...ever. I guess, theoretically, I could still fail every class and not be able to graduate and go to college, but that is highly unlikely. 

I would like to apologize for writing so well for like two weeks and then totally stopping. I didn't want to write the second half of the interpol post because I was afraid it wouldn't stand up to the first one, and now I'm at the point where it is probably never going to be written. I promise that from this moment forward, I will look for interesting things to blog about and story arcs to pursue, and hopefully writing at all will reinspire my creativity, and get me out of this silly funk I've been in for a few months.

I have some intense forensics competitions coming up, one of the most important of which being state, as it is my last chance to get a state ring. I don't even care about the honor, the glory, or the fame, I just want a state ring. And this year, I will get one, even if I have to compete in every single debate event to get it. At least, I hope so. 

I swear I will fine things to talk about. I swear.

Does this lack of interesting subjects make me look hipster?

No. No it doesn't.

Being boring is totally un-hipster.

Literature

I'm really good at literary BS. I took a literature test a few weeks ago, I had read maybe half of the short stories, and I got a hundred. I should probably get a phD in Literature Analysis.

I'd write my dissertation on 'How to BS Literary Knowledge'.

It would say:

"Like this."

And then spend the other four minutes drawing the cover art.

Why yes, I do have a zillion assignments due tomorrow and finals this week, thank you for asking. Does this procrastination make me look hipster?

Edit:: I forgot his mane a little. Also he's a pygmy unicorn.

Edit:: My friend B.O. (Haha, his initials) said he was lacking sparkles. I told him not to make fun of my unicorn, he's disabled, and he should be jealous because my sparkle-deficient pygmy unicorn gets better parking spaces than he does.

WonderTwin Bloggers, Activate! Form of: Part One of a Story Arc!

Warning: This post is going to be a little different. Erica and I are combining our powers to form a super-post. Erica's pictures. My writing. These are the ingredients chosen to create the perfect little girl an awesome blog post! Let us know what you think about this method. Also, this post is enormous and will be two different posts, spread out over a day or two.

BEGIN PART ONE: THE SETUP

Sunday night, I slept for maybe three hours. I couldn't sleep, tried for a very long time, then got on the computer and did nothing until 3:00, at which point I laid back down and couldn't sleep for at least another half hour before I woke up, angrily, at 6:30. I dragged myself out of the shower and got ready for school, quietly promising myself that as soon as I got home I would take a nap. My parents had designated me to babysit that night, which pretty much meant I could sleep. They're self-sufficient, and only play with knives like once every three hours, when they get really bored with the power tools I give them to entertain themselves with.

Unfortunately, the world had other plans. During fourth block I got a text message from my father, explaining that I may, in fact, not be babysitting, but would instead be accompanying him to an Interpol concert, because my stepmother was terribly sick and therefore could not enjoy herself on such a long outing to Atlanta, that could possibly last until the wee hours of the morning. I'm like 95% sure she had typhoid, which totally sucked because Interpol is apparently one of her favorite bands.

"We have two hundred couches where you can--hackcoughwheezeneighcough!."

I knew we wouldn't be leaving until my father got home, so I rushed to my bed and began napping. Unfortunately, he got home maybe ten minutes later, telling me that I would most definitely would be going to the concert, and that I also needed to take out the trash and clean the kitchen.

Totally unfair.

When that was done, I laid back down, but the minute my head hit the pillow he yelled that we were leaving in five minutes, and I wasn't even dressed yet. I stumbled around until I had clothes on and then stumbled into the car. My Jason recognized that I was ridiculously tired, and decided to remedy the situation by taking me to a QuikTrip and getting me a giant PIBB XTRA: THE ARTIFICIALLY FLAVORED CHERRY SODA!

Or else.

This was a great idea, except for the fact that anyone who knows me know that being tired already makes me loopy, and throwing caffeine on top of that sort of makes me ridiculous. Luckily, it took a while to sink in and I wasn't too obnoxious on the car ride, but we got to the concert and I really needed to use the restroom. The concert was at a gutted out old church called the Tabernacle, which I'm pretty sure is sacrilegious or something but Jesus would totally have loved Rock n' Roll. 

"Stairway to Heaven! Freebird!"

Anyway, we got settled in to our seats, but when we walked in and tried to sit down the first time, this really chill usher was like "Hey, guys, the first five rows on this side are taken, and the first three are taken on that side." We nodded, and sat in our places. As my Jason went to get me another soda, though, I slowly watched him become less chill as people tried to sit in those seats, over and over. It was like the newcomers thought we were all, of course, way too stupid to sit directly in front because we were imbeciles compared to them. 

Usher: "Guys, first five rows on this side and first three on that side are taken."

Everyone, the first time he says this: "Huh? What'd you say?"

Usher: "You can't sit there."

Everyone: "Can't sit where?"

Usher: "First three rows on this side, first five on that side."

Everyone: "Oh, okay."

After this cycle repeated about twelve times, though, he became very terse.

A group of three guys sat next to my Jason and me, and I was on their side. There was a tall and skinny dude with his hat on backwards who didn't dance, but just kind of pelvic thrusted vigorously to the beat the whole time: 

...According to Erica he was Caramelldansen.

Then a larger guy who basically just texted and sat in his chair and didn't really look like he was enjoying himself:

A portrait of the modern age.

And then a bald guy in his twenties, who sat next to me and who was pretty cool and kind of muscular, and though he claimed to be the most awkward, he was actually pretty cool even if he did like to randomly climb things in order to not have to walk through the crowds of people:

Or at least the most normal.

I never learned any of their names, so lets call them Cory, Rod, and Jimmy.

Jimmy saw my Dragon*con watch, which is basically intense, and was like "Whoa, what a classy watch you have there!" and I was like "Yeah, I got it at Dragon*con!" And he was like "Bahahaha. Wow. You're totally a loser. You don't play dungeons and dragons, do you?"

"I used to."

"What about World of Warcraft?"

"God no. It feels like work."

And thus, we began talking throughout the whole concert. 

It started on a little bit of an awkward note, because the guy asked if I was here with my dad. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, except my Jason thinks it's hilarious if he points out that he is, in fact, the one into good music, and he dragged me here because he is way more awesome than I am and isn't it weird that he has a son who isn't into rock concerts because he totally is and you're jealous you don't have a dad just like him.

...Maybe my Real Dad was Pibb Xtra.

Afterwards, Jimmy asked me how old I was. I said 17, and there was a brief awkward pause. And then he said "You aren't turning 18 tomorrow or anything, are you?"

Which I immediately interpreted as:

You wanna go out sometime?

But what of course really meant:

Go Vote!

There was an inevitable awkward silence after that, as well, as I tried to figure out how to respond, but then he clarified by saying something about voting and I breathed a sigh of relief. I mean, we had just established that I was here with my dad. He was drinking, but not that much.

I'm basically just a failure at communicating with real people and understanding delicate things like social cues.

Luckily the opening band, The White Rabbits, came on about then.

But you don't get to hear about it yet! Ha-ha.

TO BE CONTINUED!

Next time, on Does This Make Me Look Hipster, there will be mystery! Intrigue! Primates! And a little bit of Interpol.

Oh God, Clay Aiken is My Real Dad

So I saw an Interpol concert last night, and I'll have a big long post about that later, but I think it requires Erica's drawings to do it justice, so it's being postponed as awesomeness takes some time to create. So, I'll move on to other news.

My mouth, which was previously approximately 25% foreign material, is now probably more like 50% foreign material, which I think probably qualifies it for healthcare benefits and a scholarship, because it's legally a cyborg.

Can I get racial scholarships, too?

So, I spent today briefly having a panic attack/meltdown because I had a mild lisp and then I got angry about it and it became more than mild because of my panic and eventually I was a quivering mass of tearth.

My tearth are a thad thubthitute for the mithery in my thoul.

I have a show tomorrow and a competition in three days, so I was freaking out about my inability to talk when it was my job to talk. I didn't want to be another excuse for the show to stink. I immediately called my Dad and demanded the intruder be kicked out of my oral castle immediately, but he called the dentist's receptionist and she said they would charge me like $300, and since I just got it in today, that wasn't going to happen. Enter Aliza:

The 'A' is for 'Advice'.

I texted Aliza complaining about it, and she told me to man up and work on making the lisp disappear, so I'd stop sounding like Clay Aiken. But I was having no luck! I couldn't make it go away. Thankfully, a Publix lady saw me crying and handed me a free cookie. I'm pretty sure she was fate in disguise, because she gave me one with sprinkles and it concealed the solution to my problem.

I bit into the cookie and said something to my father. And while all the words were garbled messes of cookie, the "S" sounds came out clearly. I tried a couple times, and discovered that if I kept my teeth separated just the right amount (about enough for a bite of cookie) I could say words without slurring them.

Made of Sprinkles and Magic

Somewhere in this, K.M. posted on my Facebook status about it that I looked kind of like Clay Aiken. He was joking (I hope) but I searched Clay Aiken's pictures and I found this picture of me from ninth grade celebrity day (I was the Flying Spaghetti Monster) and one of Clay Aiken's pictures.

The resemblance is (unfortunately) uncanny.

Aliza came to the only logical conclusion: Clay Aiken is my Real Dad. No, that's not the name of a terrible reality T.V. show, (though that gives me some ideas) it's a serious problem, with some serious genetic implications. Guys, this means you do pass the gay.

The more you know.  Oh well, maybe I can collect some serious child support, though me and my mother are going to have to have a talk about her Gaydar. As Aliza and I said when he came out, "I thought he already was? What is this madness." I have to go practice tongue twisters.

She sells sea shells by the sea shore. She sells thea shells-- NO!


Does this speech impediment make me look hipster?

Who Are You And What Are You Doing To My Holidays?

So, someone decided Halloween was Saturday, in the south.

I'm serious. Apparently Jesus is too good for Halloween.

Well, I have news for you, The South:

His insides were pie'd for your sins.

Jesus loves Halloween.

 It's religious, anyway! You dressed in costumes to scare away the devils, demons, goblins and ghouls. What could be more holy than scaring away everything that is, by definition, unholy? Is it okay to scare away those you see as evil with your shotguns and your vicious treatment, but not with costumes?

My Jason mentioned something about a parish nearby that made it illegal for people to trick-or-treat on Sunday. That you could be fined, or thrown in jail. What makes that okay?

Holidays have dates! We've celebrated them on those dates for years! It's ridiculous to just randomly decide to change it for reasons you don't really understand. I guess I kind of want to hear comments on this one, you guys. What makes Halloween unholy? It's original meaning has been so butchered anyway it's not like it means anything but 'give us candy, we're wearing costumes'. It shouldn't be a problem, unless God hates costumes and candy, in which case I'm doomed, being an actor with a sweet tooth.