The Music, a blog post

I love music, just like the next guy that you'll meet on the street. I listen to pretty much any kind of music, although I have to say that I don't listen to new popular music very often, only at clubs and in my friends cars; because of this I tend to find out about bands that have existed for years when they have five albums and I think that I've discovered this totally awesome new band and all my friends have already heard them, loved them, and moved on.

This blog, however, isn't about my awkardly random music collection, but the music that touches our lives. I have many a song that I can't listen to anymore because they bring up deep emotions that I don't want to think about, like Aerosmith's "I don't want to miss a thing."

This particular song sums up my entire middle school and high school life. Everytime I heard the opening notes of that song I see my 8th grade graduation dance everyone in my class crowded in a tight circle, while the 6th and 7th graders paired up to awkwardly slow dance or stared at us as we screamed the words at the top of our lungs. I also see my junior prom, the silver balloons, the streamers, doing that same middle school slow dance with one of my best friends. It's one of those songs that I just love, but the people and places it put in my head I don't want to see anymore. It's not that I don't want to remember high school or middle school, I just don't want to see that kid sitting on a bar stool across a resturant from me, who smiles and waves before I hide my face behind my menu so this random kid I knew in middle school doesn't come over and say hi, I don't want to think that less than four months later he was dead and I could have said "hi," and maybe I wouldn't feel so horrible now.

Most of the songs I can't listen to are songs that remind me of middle school, "I Hope You Dance," by Leanne Wolmack, that song that Faith Hill sings in Pearl Harbor, the song from Titanic. Late ninities power ballads mostly.

I have a lot of songs that in my Itunes that I recieved via a person that I'm no longer friends with, and I've thought about erasing them, because I don't want to think about the first time I ever heard a song, or a band or whatever. Most of this music is weird indie bands, so the "where did you find this?!?" conversation happens pretty often when listening to my music collection.

The song in this collection that means the most and sparks the most memories is "Screaming Infidelites" by Dashboard Confessional. I clearly remember driving up I 95 with the top down cranking this song and screaming at the top of lungs. I love this memory, and I'm not sure where it will end up in the "cherished memories" when I'm old, but now, at 23, being 19 and screaming emo songs as I rode in the passangers seat of my friends car, is pretty high up on that list.

I guess the point of this is to find out how music affects you. Are there songs you can't listen to? Are there songs you just LOVE? Do you always feel the need to get up and dance across a pretend stage when you hear "Johnny B Goode" (okay, that might be because of my love for Marty McFly, and not so much about the song, but the song strikes the memory)?

Let me know reader. (I want to come up with a name for my "readers." I feel weird saying readers when I know that two people actually read this.) Tell me about your life in music.

AND THAT IS THE END OF THE STORY
today is awesome because I went for a walk with my roommate.

Books read: 14
Currently reading: Good In Bed by Jennifer Weiner

Fictional Boyfriends

For some reason, the topic of fictional crushes has been coming up a lot lately. I do not know if this is because I spent a good 45 minutes talking to a figment of Maureen Johnson's imagination the other day (on twitter, not, like, in my room talking to myself, because that is a sign of mental illness), or because I've been talking about how fictional people are better than real life people on the ning.

I tend to get uncontrollable, long lasting crushes on completely inappropriate fictional characters Like Lennie Brisco from Law and Order; you may remember him as the old, sarcastic guy. He was also Baby's dad in Dirty Dancing, and the voice of the candlestick in Beauty and the Beast. I legitimately love this guy, and he died in 2004. I won't watch Lennie-less episodes of L&O, that's just unnatural.

Going along with the dead people crushes; when I was 11, I had a rather ridiculous crush on Chris Chambers from Stand by Me. I saw this movie on TV and just loved him. I then proceeded to rent River Phoenix movies, being 11 and 12 this was fairly difficult, since I didn't have a car, and most of those movies are not for 11 and 12 year old girls, and I mostly convinced my friends mom's to rent these movies when I was at sleepovers and the like. I'm sure you can see how this ends, since this particular actor died when I was seven. I did, however get a pretty awesome fictional character out of it.

My most well known and slightly ridiculous crush is on Marty McFly from Back to the Future, and to a slighter extent, Michael J Fox himself. Marty McFly was my one true love in 6th grade, before Zac Hanson, and before Fred Weasley. I would like to take the time now to point out that I was born over a year after the first Back to the Future movie hit theaters. I used to have a little picture cut out of Marty in my locker, it was behind my GIANT Zac Hanson poster, but I had one. I guess even then I was knew there was something a little bit off about my love for a person that only existed in the movies.

I have no idea what my issue with this is. I grow very attached to characters in books, movies, and the occasional TV show. It's weird I guess. But I've discovered a whole nerdfighters ning forum dedicated to peoples crushes on fictional characters that made me feel less like a complete loser. I just feel like I have BIG and CRAZY crushes on not real people. I guess I would feel better if I had an equal number of inappropriate crushes on real people.

I don't know why I never seemed to get crushes on real life people; I've had two real life people crushes that come close to my love for Marty McFly and Lennie Brisco. Real life people are just so different, and imperfect. While every other girl is waiting for Prince Charming, I'm waiting for my Marty McFly to appear in his DeLorean (this can never happen, since the DeLorean was destroyed at the end of the 3rd movie).

But you, yes you (reference to another fictional crush, just saying) blog reader, I want to know about your fictional crushes. Tell me about the not-real people that you can't get out of your head. Please :)


AND THAT IS THE END OF THE STORY

Today is awesome because, maybe, finally, I might have a job, but I'm not getting my hopes up too high.
Books read: 14
Currently reading: Good in Bed by Jennifer Weiner

MusicZ

In my latest Nerdstothepowerof5 video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRHZcxwo37o), I made a music lyric collage. I said I would post the lyrics and the song they came from in this blog. So, here it goes:


Motion City Soundtrack:
L.G. FauD: I’m riding hard on the last lines of every lie.
Antonia: I float til I sink, I’m swallowed up
Everything is Alright: Let’s not get carried away with the process of elimination, I don’t want to waste your time.

Alex Day:
No More: There were so many things I have to say, so I wrote til I just couldn’t write no more.

Taylor Swift:
Fifteen: In your life you’ll do far better things than dating a boy on the football team.
I’d Lie: If you ask me if I loved him, I’d lie

David Cook:
Lie: Lie to me and tell me that it’s gonna be okay.

Hedley:
Old School: Don’t believe everything happiness says
Hanson:
Blue Sky: I’m blind with eyes wide open
Strong enough to break: I don’t feel myself today, just a figure in a big Monopoly game.
Weird: When you live in a cookie cutter world, being different is a sin

The Who:
My Generation: I hope I die before I get old
Behind Blue eyes: No one knows what it’s like

Jack’s Mannaquin:
Dark Blue: Have you ever been alone in a crowded room

Hank Green:
Looking for Alaska: I hope you escape this labyrinth of suffering wherever you are

Stepanian:
Call me when you’re famous: Call me when you’re famous, don’t forget to write.

A Very Potter Musical
Gotta get back to Hogwarts: It’s like we’re sitting in the lost and found
Blue Skies:
10 Things: Name 10, 000 reasons why it’s good to be alive, go and tell someone who may have forgotten

Moutian Goats:
Games Shows that Touch our lives: People say friends don’t destroy one another, what do they know about friends .

Stellastarr*
Sweet trouble soul: I want to see your face reflected in my bedroom stereo.

This comes across really emo, but that's just the music that I listen to.
 
AND THAT IS THE END OF THE STORY

Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher

Last night, I was lying in bed, thinking about what I would do when I got internet this morning, and I thought, "I'll write a blog about the first time I had the internet in my house," because I'm lame. But while waiting for the cable guy to get to the Apartment I finished reading a book, and book that I struggled to read, not because it was a bad book, or a poorly written book, in fact exactly the opposite.


There is a decent chance that anyone reading this knows my story. They know who I am, and whom I was when I was 17, or at least they've heard me talk about it. If you don't you'll figure a lot out by the end of this blog post.

Today, while waiting to get the Internet, something that we here have been anxiously waiting a week for, I read Thirteen Reasons Why, by Jay Asher while my roommate watched the second Jurassic Park movie, and eventually fell asleep.

I started reading it a little over a week ago, and from the opening page, I knew it would be a hard read. It's a book a suicide, the reasons why this 17-year-old girl, who was outwardly popular and beautiful, killed herself. It's told through the boy that had a crush on her, a boy that one day, two weeks after she died, received a package filled with seven Cassette tapes. Each side of each tape has a different story, 13 in total.
The story itself is heart breaking because from the beginning you know how it ends, you know that when the tapes are over, the girl will be dead, she's already dead, and in listening to these tapes the boy, one of the narrators of the story is trying to save her. I felt myself, hoping that in the end, he would save her.

This book is her suicide note.

This book is one of if not the best book I've ever read. At 23, I'm a far different person than I was when I was 17, the age that this girl, Hannah, committed suicide, but it could have been me. One different step in the life of this fictional character and her life would be different. If she had that one person that stopped her on the way out of school and said, "See you tomorrow."

This is one of those books that reading it, it becomes you. It is me, if I'd gone out the back way instead of out the side doors of the school that Wednesday. If Hannah had opened her mouth.

I highly recommend this book, and since I probably know you, blog reader, I'll be glad to lone you my copy. (As long as you don't mess it up, like what happened with my Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, we'll be fine.) It's one of those books that looking back, someone, maybe even me, will say, "I read that book and it changed my life."


AND THAT IS THE END OF THE STORY

Today is awesome, because I took the side door, and someone did stop me and say, "Hey, Deanna, I'll see you tomorrow."

Books read: 12 Last book finished: Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher