New Tricks

I did something! I did. And even if nothing comes of it, even if it just fades into the past, it's still some pretty damn impressive personal growth, in my opinion. Say what you will, but I'm improving.
Meet the new Pro-active!Amy.
Well, maybe I wouldn't go that far. But I'm getting there.

SNOWday

Silly Georgia. Doesn't it know that a mere five days ago, it was in the sixties? Clearly not. Though it's been determined through several scientific processes that Athens is a big gaping hellhole in which the rules of weather do not apply. I suppose I should be grateful, however, because I really wasn't interested in going to class today. Not at all.
I think this might even make up for that time over Winter Break that it snowed on Old Milton for about three minutes and very, very few of you believed me.
But now I stand at my closet's open door, staring at hanger after hanger of t-shirts, and I'm faced with a dilemma: What in the world should I wear?

Here Comes The [Artificial] Sun

Ah, summertime is upon us. Or at least, so you would think if you looked around at the female population of UGA. Either the girls of Georgia have started taking weekly trips to the Caribbean, or in actuality, tanning bed season is upon us. Seriously, I see girls walking around all bundled up in sweatshirts or jackets, looking cold, but with dark brown tan skin. I mean, I understand that it's desirable to be tan, but girls, it's February. I also understand that spring break is in less than two weeks, but...girls, it's February. You aren't fooling anybody into thinking that that color is natural. It's not so pretty to look orange in the dead of winter.
Or maybe I'm just pale as death and bitter about it. That's probably more like it.

Don't Let It Get Away

Today was such a beautiful day. I always love the first few warm days of spring, when it's been pretty cold but then there are those few unseasonably warm days when everybody breaks out the Birkenstock sandals and t-shirts and plays outside. Today was a great sit-on-Brumby-Beach-and-watch-boys-play-guitar day, although that's not what I did--instead, I sat by the open window in David's room, where we set up his amp to face the window so he could play guitar and have people down below wondering, "Hey, where's that coming from?" It was fun to watch. I said it in my Away message, and I'll say it again: it's wonderful for your mental health to sit and watch a boy play guitar for at least an hour a day. Especially on pretty days like this, and especially with mellow acoustic music (more specifically, Jason Mraz's "Sleep All Day").
If things weren't so complicated, I would be terribly happy today. Just terribly.
About the concert last night: it was great! I had a lot of fun, actually. I'd never seen Jump live before, and they put on a really good show, even though I knew very few of their songs, having never heard anything beyond "Magazines." Those of you who've never heard any JLC should really remedy that, though, as they're quite good. And the opener, Michael Flynn? I loved it. The lead singer, who I can only assume is named Michael Flynn, played keyboard and was really cute (he likes movies, and I like movies, so...) and I wanted to proposition him at the merch booth after the show, but couldn't find him. Alas.
You know, I think riding off into the sunset is overrated. C'mon, you've driven towards the west at sunset before. It's terrible--the light gets in your eyes, and it's near impossible to see. It's not something desirable at all. What's that mean?

"I basically wanna die on stage, you know, I wanna go that far."
-Bain Mattox

So after last night, I'm well on my way to becoming the female Chuck Klosterman like I plan to. In case you weren't one of the lucky ones to be barraged with requests for suggestions for questions in the past few days, and don't know about it, I interviewed Bain Mattox yesterday for an article I'm writing for UGAzine, the magazine UGA publishes once a semester. I was quite nervous, having never interviewed anyone before, but I think it went rather well. We met at Blue Sky, and sat on a bench downtown and I interviewed him for about forty-five minutes, and I got a good deal of information that I didn't know, and now I just have to figure out how to write a magazine article.
Next stop, SPIN.
And all of a sudden tonight I'm going to the Jump Little Children show--I'd wanted to but nobody else did. And now it turns out, someone does. So I'm going.
And Beth is coming to visit. So tomorrow night will be enjoyable.
And there are only two full weeks left until Spring Break! Even though I may end up spending a good deal of my break in Atlanta (not Alpharetta, mind you), it still means two weeks until no classes! Good times, good times.

Life Is One Big End-Of-The-World

Boys suck. All boys are confusing and annoying and emotionally retarded. Every last one of you. Even you. Especially you. Don't deny it; I have witnesses and support and quite a few other people who agree with me. It's the truth. End of story.

Come Back Sunday

Last week during Sunday School on 99X, Jay played "#1 Summer Jam," a song off the new Butch Walker cd ("new" meaning "won't come out til late spring or summer") and I missed hearing it. So tonight I decide to listen to all two hours of the show just in case he plays it again, and I email him a request for it just in case it helps.
So around nine, I'm driving back from Wendy's with Michael, and I hear Jay say something like, "Here's an email request I got, just to prove to you that your requests do make a difference: 'If you play the new Butch Walker song, I'll love you forever. Love, Amy.'"
That's me. I wrote that.
And then he played the song, which is great by the way, and so different. And I haven't been able to get a goofy grin off my face for the past fifteen minutes.
This totally makes up for all the shit 99X plays the other 99% of the time.

Yesterday

"I could be serious, but I am just kidding around.
I could be anything, anything but sticking around.
Love is hell."
--Ryan Adams, "Love Is Hell"

New rule: If you make something happen to you, don't pretend it happened by accident. If it was your choice to be that way, don't pretend you just ended up that way against your will. You did it. Not me.

Pushing Forward And Arching Back

Today is such a sleepy day. As in, not only am I sleepy, and not only have I been sleepy all day, but I chose sleep over going to Italian this morning, and I will in fact be going to sleep some more pretty soon. I think maybe I'm getting sick or something.
Yesterday I went shopping with Nick for you-know-what (y'know, I think Saturday is actually considered a holiday in some cultures), and I wound up buying myself the new Dexter Freebish CD out of self-pity and this impulse-buying disease I have. I had reasons, however, like that I'll be seeing them tomorrow night. They're playing at Vinyl with Bain. The new CD, Tripped Into Divine, I hate to say is only "eh." It's generic pop. If you ever bought or listened to their old CD, Life Of Saturdays, just think of all the songs on that one that weren't "Leaving Town" or the title track, and you have this new CD. It's not bad, but...it's just dull.
I got a Valentine's package from my parents in the mail today. Three parts candy, one part the Maroon 5 CD. This was expected, as my mother called me the other night while I was studying for Sociology. The conversation went something like this:

ME: Hello?
MOM: Do you have the new Maroon 5 CD?
ME: No.
MOM: Bye. Click.

So I kind of knew it was coming, but it was nice nonetheless. I remember ages ago when I first heard of Maroon 5, before "Harder To Breathe" was getting radio play or anything, I downloaded a couple of songs by them and just hated them. I don't know what's changed but now I love them. I can't listen to this CD without being cheered up. It's good. Speaking of Maroon 5, they're coming here--March 3rd, I believe, at the Theater. It's $15 so everybody's reluctant to go, but I'm thinking it'd be worth it. Any takers?
Soooo tired. Think I'm giving up and going to bed. G'night.

Edited to add: I'm utterly appalled at the lack of response to my "Needed" post. Is there something I should be working on here?

Happy Birthday, Nick!

Needed:

One (1) boyfriend.
Deadline: This Saturday (I think you can guess why).
Now accepting applications.
Inquire inside.

Negative Aspect of College, #378

No Disney Channel. I know that Kelly would tend to disagree, after being forced to watch rerun upon rerun of Sister, Sister all last semester, but over here in Athens, we're deprived. There's something very comforting about being able to, after a bad day or a bad week or a bad mood, curl up in bed, switch on the TV, and watch an episode of Boy Meets World that you've seen eighty-five times before. There's nothing comforting like that here at all.
I know, I'm in college, I should be concentrating on bigger and better things. But really, I'd just like to know how Cory and Topanga are doing.

Ambition

I've figured out my game plan.
All I need to do is become a celebrity in some field--entertainment, whatever, it's not important. What's important is that once I'm a celebrity, I will have fulfilled the requirements to be a contestant on Celebrity Jeopardy (the real one, obviously, not the Will Ferrell version that is no more). It's so easy! Alex lets them cheat!
And after a year or so of kicking ass at Speed Trivia back in the day, I think it's clear that I can cheat with the best of 'em.

She's Still Too Young To Treat

Aw, I'm going to miss Friends when it's gone. Tonight's episode was great! Is it very pathetic that I get a little choked up every time I watch a new episode of it and remember that it won't be around for much longer?
So for the past couple of weeks I've been taking my Discman to classes with me so that I can listen to music on the bus and walking to class, because I've become one of those people who constantly has to be listening to music (there's something to that, but it's another issue for another entry, or for none at all). It's pretty much been just Damien Rice's "O" on repeat, but the other morning I got the urge to pop in some Dashboard Confessional. I don't know why. I don't even like Dashboard Confessional; it's whiny and lyrically irritating. Maybe it says something about me; maybe I'm whiny and lyrically irritating, but it suits my mood of late. Strangely.
Speaking of lyrics, I really wish I could write songs. Certainly I could--pen to paper, and the words just come out. I could write lyrics, but I'm no songwriter, and it wouldn't be the same. It's just that I love lyrics so much, and I let myself and my feelings be expressed through song lyrics so often, whether in my Away messages or my AIM profile or this blog or the margins of my Philosophy notes, that I begin to wish that I could just write my own. Wouldn't be the same.
If they make Catcher into a movie, I won't go see it. I'm torn, really torn, but it's just not a good idea. I don't even want to see the trailers for it, or know who they cast in it, assuming they make it (which I'm doubting, as I Google'd it and found several sites that claimed it was nothing more than an unsubstantiated rumor). It just wouldn't be right for me.

"Like time, there's always time
On my mind
So pass me by, I'll be fine
Just give me time."
--Damien Rice, "Older Chests"

Brrrr.

I think the term "wintry mix" is misleading, because it makes me think of "Chex Mix," and Chex Mix is good, whereas wintry mix is very, very bad. In a related note, I've always known that Georgia weather was crazy but this is taking it to the extreme. It's supposed to be in the sixties this weekend! It was in the twenties this morning! How does that work?
It's looking like I'll be living in Rutheford next year, as the room sign-ups are in an hour and a half, and that's not quite enough time to decide to move into Lindsey's apartment (unfortunately, because that'd be fun!). Well, Michelle and others are living there, too, so that will likely be fun. We'll see.
Also, I failed my Economics test this morning (quite literally). Yeah. Quitting school in favor of Alcoholism is looking better and better every day.

PS All you Athens kids, David's a big flake and decided not to play the open mic tomorrow night, so don't go. I mean, go if you want to, but don't expect David to be there. He says he's "not ready for downtown quite yet," so we'll see.

The Emotion Of The Moment

Well, today was a day. Woke up from relatively unpleasant dreams at my home-away-from-home-away-from-home, the GSU Village (more specifically, Pennington's incredibly "comfortable" couch) and made the trip back to the Ath because while I'd much rather have stuck around in Atlanta today, I'd left quite a lot of homework unattended all weekend. So back to Brumby it was, and I've had my Economics materials open around me all day, although I've never quite focused on them. It's enough to make me miss good old Mrs. Angel.
The Bain Mattox show last night, by the way, was quite good. They just keep getting better and better. Bain broke practically every string he had, which ended up making the show even more energetic and unpredictable. The openers were dull and there was a good deal of emotional craziness going on, but hey, that's not my fault. What am I supposed to do?
I feel very listless lately, like I have nothing to look forward to, and I'm not enjoying it. It's just a feeling I can't shake. And it doesn't make sense, because I do have things to look forward to: Bain at Vinyl on the 13th...Jump Little Children at the Theater on the 20th...the one and only Sara Beverly possibly coming back to visit...and yet, still everything feels this way. So far the only thing that's been able to lift the feeling is talking to friends, so I plan to do more of that. Expect to hear from me.
Oh, and PS: for all of you Athenians, David Maddox is playing the Open Mic downtown at DT's on Tuesday night, so I expect to see all of you there. No excuses this time.

"When I touch your hands, feels like I'm so confused
I do not understand where I'm going or what I'm going to do."
--Bain Mattox, "You Try"