// nineteen

Week 21: Favorite songs - Moorea Seal's 52 Lists project

I haven't been keeping up with this project at all, but I couldn't resist making this list. Most songs are songs I've loved for a very long time, and a few are current favorites. My dad used to quiz my brother and I on music when we were kids: a song would come on the radio and he'd say: 'QUICK who is this?' So the majority of the older songs are favorites because of Dad (except Kansas, they were a fave of my mom's!). Dad likes to put an album on and blare it throughout the house while cleaning, so we heard a lot of albums on repeat. The first cd I ever got of my own was the Swing Kids soundtrack which I used to take to school with me so I could play it in the band room after school (I was a cool little drummer girl from 4th grade until 7th). I tried not to make this list go on forever, I really did.

• Hey Jude - The Beatles
• Eleanor Rigby - The Beatles
• Blackbird - The Beatles
• Come Pick Me Up - Ryan Adams
• Desire - Ryan Adams
• What A Wonderful World - Louis Armstrong
• At Last - Etta James
• Shout & Feel It - Count Basie
• It Don't Mean A Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing) - Billy Banks
• Sing, Sing, Sing (With A Swing) - The Benny Goodman Orchestra
• Happy Together - The Turtles
• Fly Me To The Moon- Frank Sinatra
• Come Fly With Me - Frank Sinatra
• Let's Stay Together - Al Green
• Paint It Black - The Rolling Stones
• You Can't Always Get What You Want - The Rolling Stones
• Kashmir - Led Zeppelin
• Ramble On - Led Zeppelin
• Tommy - The Who
• My Generation - The Who
• Baba O'Riley - The Who
• Carry On My Wayward Son - Kansas
• Dust In The Wind - Kansas
• Point Of Know Return - Kansas
• Hush - Deep Purple
• Simple Man - Lynyrd Skynyrd
• Don't Fear (The Reaper) - Blue Oyster Cult
• Saturday In The Park - Chicago
• Hotel California - Eagles
• Dream On - Aerosmith
• Heroes - David Bowie
• Your Song - Elton John
• Go Your Own Way - Fleetwood Mac
• Layla - Eric Clapton
• For The Longest Time - Billy Joel
• We Didn't Start The Fire - Billy Joel
• Uptown Girl - Billy Joel
• Jump - Van Halen (This was my first favorite song, ever. I used to dance around to it in my diapers when it came on MTV)
• Come On Eileen - Dexy's Midnight Runners
• Radioactive - Imagine Dragons
• Bleeding Out - Imagine Dragons
• A Praise Chorus - Jimmy Eat World
• Polaris - Jimmy Eat World
• Give Me Love - Ed Sheeran
• Marchin' On - OneRepublic
• Stop & Stare - OneRepublic
• 3 x 5 - John Mayer
• Be Still - The Fray
• Look After You - The Fray
• Set Fire To The Third Bar - Snow Patrol & Martha Wainwright
• Bittersweet Symphony - The Verve
• Bleeding Out - The Lone Bellow
• Fix Me - 10 Years
• White Blank Page - Mumford & Sons
• After The Storm - Mumford & Sons
• The Freshmen - The Verve Pipe
• Hero - The Verve Pipe
• Wreck Of The Day - Anna Nalick
• Paperweight - Joshua Radin & Schuyler Fisk
• This Year's Love - David Gray
• Still Into You - Paramore
• Fix You - Coldplay
• To Build A Home - The Cinematic Orchestra
• I'm Movin' On - Rascal Flatts
• Skinny Love - Birdy
• Hymn - Jars of Clay
• Cheers Darlin' - Damien Rice
• The Blower's Daughter - Damien Rice
• Holding On & Letting Go - Ross Copperman
• Your Love Is My Turning Page - Sleeping At Last
• Poison & Wine - The Civil Wars
• Titanium - David Guetta & Sia
• Santa Monica - Everclear
• Brown Eyed Girl - Everclear
• Bittersweet - Ellie Goulding
• Acoustic #3 - Goo Goo Dolls
• This Boy - James Morrison
• Home -Michael Buble
• I Won't Give Up - Jason Mraz
• I Will Follow You Into The Dark - Death Cab For Cutie
• Someday - Death Cab For Cutie
• Mexico - Jump, Little Children
• Use Somebody - Kings of Leon
• Born To Die - Lana Del Ray
• Bleed It Out - Linkin Park
• Turn The Page - Metallica
• Nothing Else Matters - Metallica
• Miss You Love - Silverchair
• Uprising - Muse

// eighteen

Living in a foreign country, there are some things you could easily get to, or things you could do, in the United States that aren't available to you anymore. I've been living in Ecuador for nearly 16 months, and there are some things I miss about the US.

• Driving. Windows down, music up, going nowhere specific.
• Cranberry-orange slushies at Sonic (fast food joint). Best summertime drink, hands down.
• Shopping. I never thought I would say it, but I miss shopping! Being able to buy a new pair of jeans would be nice. I own one pair of pants that fit, and every single one of my tees have holes! And I really need some new shoes (I miss my Converse!); all this walking wears your shoes down quickly. (Clothes are one: too expensive here, and two: mostly too small. I've lost a lot of weight, but I'm still a lot taller than the average female here!)
• Hanging out. Two moves ago, I had friends to hang out with at a moments notice. Heading out to Friday's for drinks after work, or meeting at Starbucks to chat for hours, or Happy Hour margaritas or taking a short road trip down to San Marcos for some shopping.
• Friends. My best friends whom I haven't seen in 4+ years, my good friends in San Antonio, friends from here who have moved back to the States... I hope to be able to head back to the states (not sure if just to visit or another move?) and plan a road trip to visit everyone I can. We're all just so spread out now!
• Food. Pop-tarts and Reese's and Chik Fil A (fast food) and Dr. Pepper and snack cakes and Cheerios and breakfast tacos... Ok, most of that is total shit, but my favorite food group is sugar. There's just so much we don't get here.

I'm sure, given time, I could think of more...

// seventeen

I've heard this poem before, and didn't think much of it, but it popped up on my tumblr dash recently, and I sort of fell in love with it.

Ode
Arthur O'Shaughnessy

We are the music makers,
  And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
  And sitting by desolate streams;—
World-losers and world-forsakers,  
  On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
  Of the world for ever, it seems.

With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the world's great cities,    
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion an empire's glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
  Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song's measure    
  Can trample a kingdom down.

We, in the ages lying
  In the buried past of the earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
  And Babel itself in our mirth;    
And o'erthrew them with prophesying
  To the old of the new world's worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
  Or one that is coming to birth.

A breath of our inspiration    
Is the life of each generation;
A wondrous thing of our dreaming
Unearthly, impossible seeming—
The soldier, the king, and the peasant
  Are working together in one,    
Till our dream shall become their present,
  And their work in the world be done.

They had no vision amazing
Of the goodly house they are raising;
They had no divine foreshowing    
Of the land to which they are going:
But on one man's soul it hath broken,
  A light that doth not depart;
And his look, or a word he hath spoken,
  Wrought flame in another man's heart.     

And therefore to-day is thrilling
With a past day's late fulfilling;
And the multitudes are enlisted
In the faith that their fathers resisted,
And, scorning the dream of to-morrow,    
  Are bringing to pass, as they may,
In the world, for its joy or its sorrow,
  The dream that was scorned yesterday.

But we, with our dreaming and singing,
  Ceaseless and sorrowless we!    
The glory about us clinging
  Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing:
  O men! it must ever be
That we dwell, in our dreaming and singing,    
  A little apart from ye.

For we are afar with the dawning
  And the suns that are not yet high,
And out of the infinite morning
  Intrepid you hear us cry—    
How, spite of your human scorning,
  Once more God's future draws nigh,
And already goes forth the warning
  That ye of the past must die.

Great hail! we cry to the comers    
  From the dazzling unknown shore;
Bring us hither your sun and your summers;
  And renew our world as of yore;
You shall teach us your song's new numbers,
  And things that we dreamed not before:    
Yea, in spite of a dreamer who slumbers,
  And a singer who sings no more.

// sixteen

My wonderful clumsiness kicked in on a very rainy Monday last week. I was meeting my dad and brother to get some paperwork done for residency stuff, and slipped on some tile stairs in my non-grip, keds-style shoes and landed on my backside while managing to smack my elbow. It didn't feel good, but I was fine, though I was sure to have bruises later. We get to the lawyer's office and I think to check out my throbbing elbow - turns out I'd been bleeding pretty badly for 5 minutes. Now, I have no problem with blood, so I was just like, oh, well, oopsie. But bleeding that much combined with not having eaten in 15 hours made me pass out and it freaked out some people, so an ambulance was called. My blood pressure can get wonky when I'm ill, and apparently it chose then to go all crazy so I had to have a shot to stabilize it. At least the doc was nice about my ridiculous, anxious dislike of needles (yes, an actual doctor came with the ambulance, that's pretty cool), and not bad to look at, to boot. Anyway, I ended up having to get a couple of stitches (I've never had stitches before!), and bruises showed up by the next morning, so I basically spent a couple days being a lump in pain. My elbow still gets a little stiff using it too much, it takes forever to get comfortable, but I get the stitches out in a few days. I think I'll have a nice little scar.

So that was my adventure.

// fifteen

Things I would like to do at some point in my life:

• punch someone in the face because they deserve it
• get tattooed
• try out kickboxing
• two words: masquerade ball
• step foot onto every continent
• splash in every sea
• go to all 50 states
• visit as many countries on my ridiculously long list as possible
• fall in love as an adult
• learn to surf
• learn to snowboard
• live somewhere where it really snows
• go ice skating
• go to at least one san diego comic con & asylum uk
• run in a 'color me rad' race
• have a house with a huge two-story library
• properly learn (basic) ballroom dance - like a simple waltz, or a foxtrot
• own an old Jeep and learn how to properly fix it up - only knowing how to check the oil/transmission fluid and change a bloody tire is not enough. I want to be able to change my own oil and replace the fucking radiator if I have to, dammit.

I've been slowly adding to this over the past couple of weeks and I just can't think of anything new to add anymore. I'm sure I'll add to it again.

// fourteen

Do you ever have an overwhelming urge to change everything you are?
Your name, your attitude, the way you hold yourself, how you treat other people. As if you could suddenly flick a switch and become the villainous (or heroic) version of yourself. Just move somewhere new, change your name, start all over. It would be a nice change of pace.

Not sure where I would go, it doesn't really matter. The name would be easier: since I was little (when my dad used it), I've liked my middle name over my first, so getting used to being called Sam wouldn't be difficult. Not to mention being able to pass for much younger than I truly am. I'm tired of worrying what thoughts will make it passed my lips in conversation, so it would be nice not having a second thought to hurting feelings with a well-placed phrase here or there. Hell, it'd be nice to be a little bad-ass once in awhile. Well-placed snark is entertaining. Speaking of bad-ass, I really wish it was easier to turn off fear and pain tolerance. I can be a bit of a chicken-shit, and my pain tolerance level is simply pathetic. I'd really like a tattoo or few. While we're at it, I could use some motivation as well, perhaps a bit of ambition. Mind over matter, yeah? Hmm.

Yeah, this is all some crazy fantasy, because really, how much can one person change? Not just at once, but even over a long period of time? It's just exhausting being the quiet, too bloody nice girl all the fucking time.

// thirteen

I've been alone for a long time. Being alone isn't the equivalent of being lonely, but occasionally the two overlap. (I'm going to ramble a bit, you've been warned).

Looking back at the guys I've dated, I realize I have no idea why I was with some of them. Sure, I was friends with them all first, but at some point they expressed interest in me, and I just sort of...went with it; I convinced myself that I liked them back. Now that I'm older, I realize I was young and did what stupid young people do and fell in like over and over again, sometimes convincing myself there was more when there wasn't.

JK was my best friend when I was too young and still scared of boys in that way. He liked me, and when I couldn't admit I liked him back, he decided hating me was easier. That one hurt.
D was that high school love we all have. He moved away, came back for a couple visits, phone calls, emails... Hard to let go when you can't have a definite ending.
C was one of my closest friends, and I loved him, but we were just the wrong people for each other.
A was fun and different, and I was happy, but distracted.
H was the younger guy who had a crush on me, but I felt awkward about the age difference.
JP had that smirk and sly way of flirting, and not to mention the prettiest blue eyes, but he was an ass.
K sort of sneaked up from the past and I liked the attention, but I knew it wasn't right in the end.
JD was sort of my first boyfriend, but we were kids and innocent and remained close friends. Later, I was convinced he was for me, but he had already found someone right for him, and it made me jealous and angry. (the best hugger, though)

Not to mention the ones who were just there, and weren't important, and were just me being a teenager. I was unsure of myself, and ridiculously shy, and any interest a guy showed me made me feel special, and I just didn't know enough to tell if something was unhealthy or to ask myself  'is this guy right for me?' Not that anything bad has ever happened to me, just fixating on the wrong people.

I tell myself I have an obsessive personality - whether it be fandoms or famous people or friends or guys, I just seem to narrow my focus to one thing so hard my vision blurs and I can't think about much else. I've been fine for years, being alone, but now it's sort of hitting me - most of my friends are married, with kids (which I do not want) and are going about their adult lives (even my little sister!). Here I am still feeling like I'm stuck, not growing, with no one there to lean on or talk to besides my family. It's a bit depressing. And I'm not saying I need a relationship in my life to be happy, it would just be a nice perk, ya know? I have plenty of friends, not that I'm very good at keeping in touch with them since they live all over the place and visiting isn't possible at the moment. Some of these friends are people I've known for half my life, and some only a few years, but I hope to still be friends with them when we're old and boring. And I am (and will be) happy for them when something amazing comes into their lives (a graduation, a new love, a marriage, a baby), but I want some of those things for myself, too, dammit. Is that too much to ask?

// twelve

A few shots recently.

// eleven

Another week, another list for Moorea Seal's 52 Lists project. This week is all about books! Yay! I can't even remember not reading when I was a kid. There are non-readers in my family and I just don't understand them. How can you not love to read? How can you not want to explore new worlds and meet new people, all through the words on a page? Insanity, I tell you. Because I have trouble choosing favorites (these are only the ones I can remember), I've categorized my list to make it easier.

Kid Favorites (the books I devoured when I was little that I would re-read now in a heartbeat)
The Boxcar Children series - Gertrude Chandler Warner
The Babysitter's Club series - Ann M. Martin
Encyclopedia Brown series - Donald J. Sobol
Thoroughbred series - Joanna Campbell
Sweet Valley everything - Francine Pascal
The China Garden - Liz Berry
The Chronicles of Narnia - C.S. Lewis

Series
The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien
The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins
His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Girl's Guide to Witchcraft - Mindy Klasky
The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants - Ann Brashares
The Inheritance Cycle - Christopher Paolini
Harry Potter - J.K. Rowling
Percy Jackson & the Olympians - Rick Riordan
The Eve Duncan novels - Iris Johansen
Uglies - Scott Westerfeld
Sloppy Firsts - Megan McCafferty
Thursday Next - Jasper Fforde
Maximum Ride - James Patterson

Nonfiction
The Diary of Anne Frank
The Happiness Project - Gretchen Rubin

Fiction
Paper Towns - John Green
The Perks of Being a Wallflower - Stephen Chbosky
There's No Place Like Here - Cecelia Ahern
The Secret of Lost Things - Sheridan Hay
Austenland - Shannon Hale
Alice in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass - Lewis Carroll
Her Fearful Symmetry - Audrey Niffenegger
The Thirteenth Tale - Diane Setterfield
The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett
The Historian - Elizabeth Kostova
Timeline - Michael Crichton
The Terror - Dan Simmons
The Stand - Stephen King
Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Pride & Prejudice - Jane Austen
Pride & Prejudice & Zombies - Jane Austen & Seth Grahame-Smith
A Walk to Remember - Nicholas Sparks
My Name is Memory - Ann Brashares
Stay - Allie Larkin

// ten

This week was inspired by Moorea Seal's 52 Lists project. Week 15 was to list your favorite quotes. To finish the week, here are a few of my favorites.

Stuff your eyes with wonder...live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories. 

Ray Bradbury, Farenheit 451

The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.

Dorothy Parker

There's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes!

Tom Baker, Doctor Who

The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.

St. Augustine