Yes, today I went to Barnes and Noble and purchased my Harry Potter 2003-2004 Homework Planner. Think I've sunk to new lows? Blame Ashleigh: she put the idea in my head. Anyway, I got the one with the picture of Hogwarts on the cover--because, c'mon, the one with Harry on the cover just looked dorky. Mine is significantly cooler. And I'm still baffled as to how Kelly already has her AP scores up on her blog. Am I missing something? In any case, I'm really tempted to call tomorrow and [make my parents] pay extra to get my scores early. I mean, I'm really anxious to know what three dashes actually sound like. Maybe they'll just hang up on me.

You know what happens in roughly six days? Yeah. My birthday. Carve that into your arms if you have to, or at least put a sticky-note up by your computer. Yep. July 6th. Hell yes.

I'm Not That Chained-Up Little Person Still In Love With You

I saw the strangest thing today: someone appears to be running a Hummer dealership in the Milton parking lot! Of course, logic tells me that it is unlikely that some individual is actually selling Hummers in front of the local high school, however, it was a little odd to see one of the new lots (the one closest to the road) with what looked like a brand new Hummer parked in every single space. If you're looking for a new Hummer, they had a wide variety of colors to choose from. Stop by!
Additionally, there was almost a mishap today in Linens 'N' Things involving Britney Spears music, dancing in the aisle, and a hot boy. Fortunately, I was distracted by a hanging laundry basket in the nick of time, so said hot guy wasn't witness to my killer dancing skills. Fortunately for him, of course, I mean.
I'm going through a slight crisis with the internet, in which I'd really like to cut off all ties with it in a wild, "This friendship is OVER!" style fight. A very small part of me continues to read blogs, check email, and generally stay in touch with the masses and civilization on a daily basis, but that part of me is shrinking every day, and soon I fear I'll regress from partial-geek to not-geeky-at-all.
Well, no, there's no danger of that. Once a geek, always a geek, I suppose. Although I do dislike the word "geek." All I think of is circus geeks, biting the heads off of chickens and such, when it's mentioned, not kids who like computers a lot. I hate the word "geek" almost as much as I hate the word "awesome." You know, I think I'll permanently eliminate both words from my vocabulary. If you ever hear me call anything "awesome" or "geeky" again, you know what to do.

I spent a portion of my evening rediscovering Ewan McGregor via listening to music from "Moulin Rouge," and I just have to say, God, whichever one of you it was who said he couldn't sing well--and I know it was one of you, don't bother denying it now, or pretending to have seen the error of your ways--must be either:

A. Tone deaf, in which case it's almost excusable because you don't know what you're hearing,
B. Stupid, which is probably not the case, as I tend to disassociate myself with stupidity, or
C. Just saying it to spite me. More than likely the case.

Alright, alright, whine whine whine, I've posted the ever-so-obscure answers to the lyrics thing on the previous post.

Boys and girls, it's that time again...yes, you're in for another installment of The Lyrics Game, although it was never that fun to begin with and nobody particularly loves it. If you've guessed that I only do this when I've nothing to blog about but still feel obligated to make an entry, then good call. You get a cookie.
The point is, it's not the most fun game in the world, but we're going to play anyway, so play nicely. Here goes:

1. "A little voice inside my head said, 'Don't look back; you can never look back.'"
--Don Henley, "The Boys Of Summer"

2. "It's far beyond the stars, it's near beyond the moon; I know beyond a doubt my heart will lead me there soon."
--Bobby Darin, "Beyond The Sea"

3. "Could I cut out my liver, make a special potion to close my flat? Three parts my heart, yeah you know that I would do it in a second."
--Saves The Day, "A Drag In D Flat"

4. "I know bridges and houses are learning to fly, only secretly so we won't know why."
--The Promise Ring, "The Deep South"

5. "Can't we give ourselves one more chance? Why can't we give love that one more chance?"
--Queen, "Under Pressure"

6. "Icarus is not a t-shirt or a swan song, no, he is born again."
--Third Eye Blind, "Blinded (When I See You)"

7. "Mommy told me, yes she told me, I'd meet girls like you. She also told me, 'Stay away, you never know what you'll catch.'"
--Cheap Trick, "Surrender"

8. "I'm dressed all in white and I'm remembering the night you came onto me and opened up my heart. I was hollow then 'til you filled me in, now I'm empty again, I should have never let it start."
--Rhett Miller, "Come Around"

9. "Don't wish it away, don't look at it like it's forever. Between you and me I could honestly say that things can only get better."
--Elton John, "I Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues"

10. "We can keep chillin' like ice cream filling, or we can cool in the gang, if you'd rather hang."
--Jason Mraz, "I'll Do Anything"

That's it I suppose. Commence guessing.

I've been out of circulation all weekend because of my desire to finish the new Harry Potter book as quickly as possible, and it was well worth the lack of sleep. But while I thought it was a great book, and a great addition to the series, there was a lot about it that sort of disappointed me. As I said on someone's comments, killing off my second favorite character may have had something to do with my disappointment, but there was more. I can't really explain it, though. I don't know. I liked the book, and I definitely am eager to read it again, because I know there was stuff I missed or didn't pick up on the first time through. But it is definitely not the best in the series, as some are touting it to be. The third book'll always hold that position in my eyes.
In other news--wait--there is no other news. That's essentially all I've been doing since I blogged last. Except tonight, when Brynnlee and Sara and I ate Chinese food and watched "Dawson's Creek" in hopes of clearing our Harry Potter-addled minds (it only partially worked). And now, I don't know. No real plans to speak of. Oh well, I suppose, I should look forward to the remainder of my summer of complete laziness and freedom. No plans, no obligations--it's nice.

"Is the word 'corollary' somehow related to the word 'Corolla'? Like, the car?" --Spelling Bee Contestant

So Laura and I saw "Spellbound" this afternoon. I don't know why everyone was so against seeing it--I thought it was great. More suspenseful than any summer blockbuster or movie of the week, I'd say. I was on the edge of my seat wondering if the kids were going to know how to spell words like "cephalalgia" and "lycanthrope." And there were parts of the movie that the six or seven of us sitting in the theater found hysterically funny, like the kid interviewed who kept talking to the camera like a "musical robot," or the girl who told the interviewer in front of her parents that her parents reminded her of "Archie and Edith Bunker" because "Archie was always calling Edith dumb." I'm sure most of you don't think that a documentary about the National Spelling Bee could possibly be entertaining, but it really was.
The difficulty, though, was actually getting to the movie. It wasn't at Tara anymore--it was at the Madstone Theatre Parkside, which I'd never heard of--so we got Mapquest directions and set out to find it. Basically, the address numbers were out of order and confusing, the traffic made everything even more confusing, and the theater was hidden behind a strip mall. We finally found it, and went inside to buy tickets. We were in line when an elderly man walks up the counter in the middle of my asking for a ticket and starts trying to buy his own tickets. It took awhile for the clerk to explain to him that there was a line. The theater, though, is pretty nice--it's the kind where they sell real food in addition to popcorn and candy (like pastries and sandwiches). We should go sometime, if we can find it again.
So that was fun, and pretty soon I get to go to Barnes and Noble to pick up my pre-ordered copy of Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix, so I'm excited! Yay for good days.

Okay, c'mon--can I really be the only one, the only one, out of five hundred and ninety three graduates, to find herself smack in the middle of summer vacation and really, really missing high school?

On a slightly similar, but unrelated, note, anybody wanna go see "Spellbound" with me at Tara? Anybody?

_MY RO_KS

If I only learned one thing about myself during my four years of high school, it's that I have mad Hangman skills. Seriously. Challenge me to a game of Hangman sometime. Trust me, you won't come out unscathed.

Time Keeps Rolling By

I have four bug-bites on my arm that I suggested to my mother were monkeypox. Her face darkened, and she muttered, "That's not very funny at all." My dad just asked which of my friends had a prairie dog as a pet. I've since determined that I do not, in fact, have monkeypox. Whew.
Evidently, at Abercrombie & Fitch, an "End-of-Summer Clearance Sale" means "Let's Mark Down Our Ugliest Clothing By About $4, And Make Sure Not To Stock Anything Above An Extra-Small or Double-Zero." It was awfully nice of them to have a sale like that. We've decided that Abercrombie caters not only to the small, but to the tall smalls. It wouldn't be so bad if we were both tall and small, but sadly...
I would very much like to finish the 3rd and 4th Harry Potter books before book five comes out Friday night, so I might be going UG for a few days (that's "underground," dawg: and anyone who can tell me what I'm alluding to by saying that gets a cookie), as I've got about seven hundred pages remaining. It'll be well worth it, though. Most definitely.
I'm feeling very mellow lately, which is nice, but which means that I need to change out the music in my car, because most of what I have is less-mellow-more-angry-and-upbeat. Now if I could just get my Bain Mattox cd in the mail, that would be some great mellow music. Well...well.
I'm tediously boring these days, but I like it. The less I have to say on this tends to indicate that I've actually gone and found myself a life outside the blogosphere. Then again, it could just indicate that I spend my evenings sitting up in my room watching Dawson's Creek with Ashleigh and Brynnlee, or rereading Harry Potter. Eh, same difference, really.

"Mine eyes have seen the nighted ceiling
Maybe tonight I'll dream
And window-wipe my eyelids from the pouring rain
Damned in my face
Controlled by the ache of someone I'm not too familiar with.
Stemming from this juncture the simplicity of puncturing this
Rice Paper Heart
Rhythms have been beating a staccato marching feeling on my
Rice Paper Heart." --Bain Mattox

Yay For BloggerNew!

My blog is finally cute! The publishing part of it, that is. Although I rather think my actual blog isn't too bad to look at, either. Well, I'm appreciating the nice blue-orange color scheme...and the light blue rings in the background on top make for lovely accessories.
So how can I ever get annoyed with people for not updating when I myself haven't updated in ages? Well, I suppose I can't. You see, I've become kind of disillusioned with the blogging world, and I guess sort of...illusioned...with the real world. Not even that, it's just...well, when blogging becomes more of a chore than fun, it's time for a break. And that's not to say that I've come back refreshed and ready to entertain--this is more along the lines of an excuse. Because it's probably going to be awhile before I get back into the blogging groove.
So what have I been up to lately? Let's see...fun-filled evenings of cooking other peoples' food and watching "Degrassi," stealthy late-night excursions to Webb Bridge Park, Dawson's Creek parties, and outings to the Mall of Georgia to see "The Matrix Reloaded" on IMAX, to name a few. The first is detailed (and I mean detailed) on Kelly's blog, the second ended in a very intense fear of being brutally raped and murdered, the third we do all the time now (just finished the first season!), and the fourth was today. I have to say, Matrix 2? Not so impressive. And as we discussed in the car on the way home, God, you could fit a full-grown man into one of Lawrence Fishburne's facial pores! They're enormous!
There's not much else to tell. I got my laptop, although I can't really get much use of it without internet access until I get to college. I'm still objecting to living in Brumby. Trivia next week is All 80's Trivia. The fifth Harry Potter book comes out soon. I turn eighteen soon. We're trying to organize a trip to Athens for a Bain Mattox concert in July. Boys still suck ass and are confusing. My doctor informed me that no, I do not have tuberculosis (really, I could have told her that before she stuck the needle in me--there was never any fear about my having TB on my part). I guess that's it. Eventful, no? Yeah, you're right. No.
It's exhaustingly hot in this room, so I think I'll abandon the internet for the evening, go upstairs, and watch the second Harry Potter movie. Then sleep. Ah, sweet sleep: I've seen far too much of you this summer. It's getting tedious.

"I can move you like an earthquake..."

There's no way I can accurately put into words how amazing the concert was last night, and I don't really think I need to. All of you either fully understand how amazing it must have been, or don't care. If I had been at home last night I might have raved on and on about the set list and the "special guests" and the crowd and the music, et cetera, but now that I've had a full day or so to recover, I'm not as much in the sharing mood as in the reflecting mood.
Nevertheless, I'm going to share with you a few of the pictures I took at the show. There's no way I could or would post all sixty-three, so I'm just posting a few. I apologize in advance for the quality of the photos--we weren't allowed to use flash, not to mention the fact that since digital cameras take a few seconds to actually take a picture, it's hard to capture moving objects, so a lot of my pictures came out blurry or out of focus. The ones I'm posting aren't so bad.


The stage was set up like Butch's living room. Very intimate. Very nice.


And of course, it was an acoustic show. The first acoustic Butch show I'd ever seen.


That's not to say he didn't rock out on the piano from time to time. "I've never seen a grand piano look so fuckin' small..."


The super-secret special guests? As a guy in the crowd next to me before the show, who had been told who they were, announced, "It's your first guess." Jayce, who was right in front of me...


...and Slug, who was too far on the other side of the stage for me to get a good picture.


For the encore of "Take Tomorrow," Butch unplugged his guitar and climbed down into the crowd. He just walked around and sang while everyone stood silently. In this picture, he's standing on a stool in the middle of the venue. All you could hear throughout the entire venue was his voice. It was very emotional.


After the encore, he climbed back onstage, waved goodbye, and left. We waited after hoping to talk to him, and while I heard he did come out to chat with fans, I think it was just a case of us being in the wrong place at the wrong time, because we never got to see him.

Since I'm not wanting to give a full-blown review of the show, I'll just make a list of the more memorable parts of the evening:

Seeing Bain Mattox perform (I'm going to be thanked in the liner notes of their next cd. You can, too. Just click where it says "Click here for information regarding pre-ordering the new album!")

Surviving the second opener.

Butch starting to sing Track 14.

The covers of "Close To You" (both versions), "The Joker," and "Ignition (Remix)"

My view being obscured by a giant fat person in one direction and a giant frizzball in the other.

Knowing all the words to all the new songs.

The video I took of "Best Thing You Never Had" with my digital camera. I wish I knew how to upload it so you could download it and watch it, but alas...

Jayce and Slug coming out for "Every Monday" and "Freak Of The Week"

Finally getting to see JT Money.

Running into Mickey Rourke.

The crowd singing "Grant Park" while Butch took a break.

Changing my camera batteries in the middle of "Over Your Head"

Butch's pinky motion at the line in "Racecars and Cockrock" that goes "That's probably one of many things that's small about him too..." (I'll bet you can guess it).

Butch's amazing performance of "Take Tomorrow."

That's about all I'm going to say for the time being. Most of you probably only skimmed it, anyway, so it doesn't matter.
Oh, and if you're at all interested in Butch Walker, go to the official site and read the latest Diary entry. It's all about the DVD and acoustic CD and new studio album that've been talked about for over a year, so if you've been wondering about that, go and check it out.

"There's a lot I could say,
There's a lot I could do
If I had it my way,
But I don't and you do."

Six Flags today was just the kind of escape I needed from all this craziness. Rollercoasters scare the hell out of me! But I had to overcome it for the greater good. All the ones we did were quite fun! Except maybe the rickety ones I thought were about to fall apart underneath me, but they were over soon enough. The best was every time we saw a car come back with an empty row or seat, we'd joke that the seat had originally been occupied, but that the person had fallen out. This was especially amusing on the Monster Plantation ride, where we assumed that entire rows had been consumed by the monsters. What was even more amusing on Monster Plantation was the intercom voice after Ashleigh and I stood up in the boat, "Sit down right now!!!" I guess getting out and playing with the monsters really was out of the question.
And now, I need sleep! To prepare for tomorrow--Butch Walker Day! I'm infinitely excited. I hope all of you will be having even half the amount of fun I'll be having tomorrow night between nine and...well, whenever the concert ends--but it's unlikely. Maybe you'll run into me after. I'll be the one that's glowing.
G'night!

So I was perusing my old blogs, as I sometimes do when I'm bored, and as I'm sure most of you know, when you change commenting services all of your old comments are gone, and therefore it's all "0 Comments" in all the posts before you changed. So suffice it to say, I was surprised when I came across a post back in December about Raven Symone marked "1 Comment." So I had to see. This is the comment I had received (on May 24th of this year--did this person expect me to go combing through my archives for their comment? Nevermind that I did...), from a person calling themself "don't qorry about it":
"::meanface:: What the fuck do you have to ponder about Raven Symone being a celebrity because she is!I'm tired of you jealous ass people hating on this girl!DECEMBER 10 a special day ALWAYS REMEMBER THATT BITCH ::meanface::"
Well I don't know whether or not Raven Symone is a celebrity, but this comment kind of made me laugh, so I figure it's all okay.

So here's to you...

I'm feeling a little bit like an embarrassed Mrs. Robinson right now. So here I am, I've been cleaning all day (my mom decided that I needed something productive to do with my time and put me to work on the dreaded closet), I haven't showered, no make-up, my hair is half up in a messy ponytail, and I'm wearing Soffe's and a big t-shirt (looking positively ravishing, I'm sure) and I go outside to throw something away in the big trashcan, when who should be playing frisbee out in the cul-de-sac than a pair of rather cute, shirtless boys. Cursing my luck for making me look relatively hideous in front of said boys, I obscure my face from them with the trash, throw it away, and turn around to go into the house before they can get a good look at me. It's only as I'm entering the house again when I realize that said boys are next-door-neighbor and next-door-neighbor's friend, and cannot be older than 14. Let's just pretend they were older, shall we?
And yes, this is who moved into the Sleeper's house when they moved! Ultra-hot next-door-neighbor Ben Sleeper was replaced by middle-schoolers! I was, of course, very disappointed.

So I got my housing information from UGA today, and my summer just went from great to really shitty. Or my day, at the very least. So I requested Myers, Boggs, or Mary Lyndon, and was assigned to Brumby. Brumby! For those of who aren't knowledgable on the UGA housing system, Brumby is an all girls dorm that Lindsey says is full of sorority types, and is aptly nicknamed throughout campus as "Nine Floors Of Whores." This is horrible! I can't live like this! It's enough to make me want to drop out of college and join a freaking circus somewhere! I was actually excited that I would get to live in the Honors dorm and live with kids who actually had brain cells, but instead I'm stuck with nine floors of whores? Am I really this unlucky? So I'm sending my thing in for reassignment, but that's unlikely. I wish there was a box to check on the reassignment form that said something like "Reassign me absolutely anywhere else on campus, even to a cardboard box outside the dining hall." This blows.
And on top of that, I went shopping to cheer myself up and discovered that there doesn't exist a cute shirt to be worn to the Butch Walker show in all of Alpharetta. Additionally, when I went to get a smoothie, figuring if shopping can't cheer me up then at least Planet Smoothie can, they were out of yogurt. How does a smoothie place run out of yogurt? Isn't there yogurt in, like, all of their recipes? So the guy put orange sherbet in my strawberry-and-banana smoothie in place of yogurt, which didn't taste horrible, but when you're expecting strawberry-and-banana and you get strawberry-and-banana-and-orange, it's a little disappointing.
So. Not so great day so far. Trivia tonight, but we'll just have to wait and see how that goes.
And please, spare me the "boo hoo, woe is Amy" and "do you want cheese with your whine" sarcastic comments. It's so not necessary. (I'm looking at you, insensitive boys.)

I've promised and promised that I'd make a middle school mix and never delivered, so tonight I have. The Middle School Mix. View with caution, because I am not responsible for the cheesiness or nostalgic quality of the songs on the mix. (Additionally, if you'd like a copy and don't want to burn it yourself, give me a blank CD and I'll make you one. I know several people mentioned wanting to get a copy once I finally made the CD.)

Desperate Times...

Okay, I need a road trip. And fast. Can we pleeeease start planning one for serious this time?

I'm too tired to write anything substantial, but for the sake of productivity I'll let you know what I did today:

• Went to the bank with my mom to open a checking account for college. Put all my graduation money in. Horribly boring, and I'm a little bit freaked at the prospect of actually having to write real checks, because the only time I've ever written a check was in I believe 5th grade when the Gifted program hosted this thing called Enterprise City where they bused a bunch of kids over to this field trip thing for a day, where you pretended to be an adult and you had fake money and worked a fake job and couldn't walk on the grass in the town square lest you get a ticket. I was the radio reporter. I wanted to be the newspaper reporter.
  
  
• Received Butch Walker concert tickets in the mail. Evidently, there was a fiasco where my dad almost threw them away because they weren't marked "Tickets To A Butch Walker Concert For Amy" on the envelope. Apparently the "Ticketmaster" logo didn't tip him off. Either way, I have the tickets in my possession and am quite excited for the show. It's going to be an experience.
  
  
• Received my new digital camera via the UPS man that practically threw the box on my doorstep, rang the doorbell, and ran away. The box was no longer square. In any case, the camera works well, and I've already learned how to use mine more skillfully than Ashleigh knows how to use hers. I'll take some pictures in the coming weeks and post them on this site.
  
  
• Brynnlee, Pennington, Ashleigh, and Kelly (who brought the fixings to make Orange Shakes--quite tasty) came over for some serious "Dawson's Creek" viewage. Ashleigh has never watched the show, and as I have every single episode on either tape or DVD (ah, the perks of being a total "Dawson's Creek" nerd), we're introducing her to the series, one drama-filled episode at a time. I told her she'd get sucked in and she didn't believe me.
  
  
• Developed sudden craving for Chik-Fil-A, so convinced everyone to come along. Ate ultra-hot chicken and cheesecake (although the cheesecake was significantly less hot), sat in the restaurant for about an hour after finishing eating, and laughed as Pennington ran out to put the top back on her convertible when it began to rain. Of course, the minute she came back inside the sun came out and the clouds disappeared. Ah, karma.
  
  
• Sat around my house, watched "Unwrapped" on the Food Network (I love that show!), figured out how to upload pictures from my camera to my computer, ordered my laptop and accessories for college (5-7 business days), sat around my house some more, got both bored and tired, decided to blog before going to bed, and I think now we're up to speed.
  

G'night!

Oh, and I got lost in Cherokee County today. Twice. Don't ask me why I was in Cherokee County to begin with--I will not be able to give you any sort of logical answer. But I would just like to issue a big "Fuck You" to Cherokee County, for being so damn easy to get lost in. I mean, have you ever been there? It's all trees with no street signs. None. Not a single one in the whole county, it seems.

So I'm stuck deciding between which will work out better in the long run: adopting the complacent attitude of "Hey, que sera, sera. Let's sit back and see what happens," or the attitude of New-And-Improved ProActiveAmy, taking matters into my own hands and actually taking action, for once. But I don't know which is going to help me and which is going to ruin everything that's almost working just right, and I don't want to make the wrong decision and watch the proverbial window of opportunity slam shut. And right now, I'm really, really tempted to just give up for the night, go watch When Harry Met Sally and eat some ice cream. Yes, it's stereotypical and girly, but then, so am I.