Sunday, May 25, 2008

You Live Like a Movie, but a Movie's my Life

My brain hurts. Starbucks didn't help my drowsiness this morning. I have a questionable bruise on my back. Konrad's kitchen and bathroom floors were FILTHY by the end of the night. In conclusion, Konrad's party last night was awesome.

I'm not in any mental-state to try and write about it so the pictures will. Thanks to everyone for passing around my digital camera all night, taking random shots and not thiefing it.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Running on the Same Track...30 years later

Remember that episode of Friends where Monica and Rachel's neighbour, Mr. Heckles, dies and they are left to clean out his worldly possessions as his last dying wish? Chandler goes through Mr. Heckles' yearbook and belongings and realizes a pattern to his life and Mr. Heckle's lonely, depressing life.

CHANDLER: Wow, Heckles was voted class clown, and so was I. [talking and walking can be heard from the floor above] He was right. Would you listen to that?

PHOEBE: I'd call that excessive [noise].

CHANDLER: Whoa! [reads the yearbook]

JOEY: What?

CHANDLER: Heckles played clarinet in band, and I played clarinet. And he was in the scale modeler's club, and I was, well, there was no club, but I sure thought they were cool.

JOEY: So, you were both dorks. Big deal.

CHANDLER: I just think it's weird, you know? Heckles and me, Heckles, and me, me and Heckles...

CHANDLER: Look at this. Pictures of all the women that Heckles went out with. Look what he wrote on them. Vivian, too tall. Madge, big gums. Too loud, too smart, makes noise when she eats. This is, this is me. This is what I do. I'm gonna end up alone, just like he did.

JOEY: Chandler, Heckles was a nut case.

CHANDLER: Our trains are on the same track, ok? Yeah, sure, I'm coming up 30 years behind him, but the stops are all the same. Bitter Town. Aloneville. Hermit Junction.

I just had the same horrifying experience. And it all happened so innocently, too.

I was idly just reading about a woman in Croatia who has been dead for 30 some odd years and no one realized she was dead in her apartment because her neighbours assumed she left the country and no one reported her missing. I wanted to read more and somehow it led me to a Wikipedia page on 'unusual deaths'.

I skimmed most of it and one of them caught my eye. In 1974, a news anchor named Christine Chubbuck, committed suicide live on-air. The story was intriguing and I had to look her up to find out why she did it. She was apparently (obviously) very depressed and there was also a political agenda behind her intent to off herself on live television, but what struck me the most was her life storyand the events leading to her [un]timely death (as much as I hate using Wikipedia as a reference, it's just easier for me to summarize what I've already read from many other sources)...

Her focus on her lack of relationships was generally considered to be the impetus for her depression; her mother later summarized that "her suicide was simply because her personal life was not enough". She lamented to co-workers that her 30th birthday was approaching and she was still a virgin who had never been on more than two dates with a man... [Her brother, Greg] believed that her constant self-deprecation for being "dateless" contributed to her ongoing depression...

Apparently, she had an unrequited crush on co-worker George Peter Ryan. She baked him a cake for his birthday and sought his romantic attention, only to find out that he was already involved with sports reporter, Andrea Kirby. Kirby had been the co-worker closest to Chubbuck, but was offered a new job in Baltimore, which had further depressed Chubbuck...

She was self-deprecating, criticizing herself constantly and rejecting any compliments she was given. She was fond of word play and puns.

'Stunned' does not even begin to describe how I was feeling. I felt like my life literally flashed before me and realizing what my life was possibly coming to. The similarities between Christine and I are way too coincidental: she was a journalist, and I want to be a journalist; my dating pattern is almost identical to hers; I self-deprecate myself (to myself); I'm definitely no stranger to unrequited love and love triangles; I've become more active just to get a better body because my self-esteem is almost non-existent, even though I do hear the compliments; and above all, I love word games. I even baked cupcakes for a guy of whom I had a major crush.

I don't even know what scares the 'bejeezus' out of me more: dying alone and no one realizing for more than 30 years or feeling like committing suicide. I had to stop reading about Christine and the Croatian woman because I honestly felt a little sick. And I still do just writing about it.

I really need to do something.

Monday, May 19, 2008

Do Scientists Have Good Sex?

Yuri sent me this interesting link awhile ago. An excerpt from the study goes like this:

Does the female orgasm serve a biological purpose?

A few years back, a biologist at Indiana University, Elisabeth Lloyd, devoted an entire book to this question called The Case of the Female Orgasm. She evaluated ten theories purporting to explain the evolutionary function of female orgasm, and found all of them lacking. Her conclusion: female orgasm belongs in the same file with male nipples. Male and female embryos start out with the same equipment, and then part ways. Men are left with nonfunctioning breasts; women are left with nonfunctioning penises. Not everyone agrees with her, however.

The comments for the article are hilarious but here is the intellectual discussion that ensued between Yuri and I:

Yuri: Female orgasms are apparently vestigal.

Me: What's 'vestigal'?

Yuri: Kind of like male nipples; they are 'evolutionary leftovers'. They serve no evolutionary purpose.

Me: So female orgasms don't matter?

Yuri: Apparently so.

Me: Did a man write this?

Yuri: NOPE!

Me: I don't think this woman's actually experienced an orgasm or good sex. Her next scientific study should be: Can Scientists Have Good Sex?

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Not 13

So guess what I did on Friday night? I'll give you a hint, I saw them in February, the lead singer has unfathomable hair and they're German.

Whit and I went to see Tokio Hotel at The Sound Academy. I swear, celebrity is a funny thing. These 13-17-year old girls come to these concerts thinking they will meet the band. They think that during the concert the lead singer will notice them, and only them, in the throng of screaming teenage girls. They will go backstage to meet the band. And possibly back to their [Tokio] hotel. That is if their accompanying parent will let them.

How do I know? Because I used to be 13 and stupid naïve. There were girls there who brought gifts for the band, like teddy bears (c'monnnnnnnnnnn) and wearing skirts shorter than I would wear in public. Don't get me started on the screaming. Oh boy.

But Whit and I are too cool for the yuppy stuff. We knew we could be more mature and devise a plan to get backstage, and not like a screaming lunatic. And we did. We met the band after the concert and we went back to their hotel room. The next morning I was really tired.

Haha, just kidding. With Whit's lack of knowledge about the band's comings and goings and my lack of experience with trying to get backstage to anything, we failed. Or perhaps gave up too easily. After the concert, there were girls waiting around after the concert, waiting outside the venue and even some girls were waiting by the 'secret' driveway the band would be coming out of. There were girls trying to get to them from the back, the front and the sides. The only place that wasn't covered was the top but my stealth isn't that great.

Speaking of stealth, I have to pay homage to the kick-boxing and and wall-climbing training I've been doing the past months. The concert was absolutely rammed. Whit and I were too cool for the line up outside, so we waited till everyone got in and then we pushed and kicked our way to the front. Unfortunately, I ended up wedged between screaming girls and their moms (I realized later that obviously the crazier girls are at the front, duh). UGH. This one mom next to me began to scream and jump uncontrollably when the band came out. So weird. Some girls even had to be literally plucked from the crowd when the band started because they were too hysterical or fainted.

During the concert I managed to wedge myself between a mom and one of those metal stands they use for crowd control. The stand goes up to about my arm pits. When I got fed up with not being able to see the band because of all the arms and cameras, I stealthily hoisted myself up on the gate with just my arms and immediately I had the best seat ever. I could see everything, and not to mention I got great shots (when I could, before I was kicked off by security).

How was the concert? It was great. I wasn't really expecting them to play anything 'new' since the last time I saw them was in February and they played mostly their English songs and a couple German ones, to my disappointment. I don't mean to sound like a teenager, so I will just say it was a delight to see them live -- when I could.

I decided after the concert that if they ever came back and the venue of the concert was bigger, I would not go because their fans annoy me and I'm sure I annoyed them.. My requisites for seeing them again are:

1. The next venue they played was as small as a hotel room or something.

2. There were seats.

3. Everyone applauded, instead of screamed.

4. Age restriction to 19 and over only.

5. Mandatory deodorant on everyone.

Can you tell I'm 24, and not 13? That's my idea of an ideal concert. Ha.

Oh. Funny story: after the band finished, they threw their towels in to the crowd (remember what happened at the last concert with the towel?) and I was perched on my perfect fence-seat. I saw a towel go flying toward me and I immediately jumped off to avoid the insinuating mob of arms. The mother in front of me caught it and immediately arms from every direction came at her and grabbed the towel, even from behind me! I was trapped! This mother and about a dozen other girls were literally in a tug-of-war over this towel and I was stuck in the middle. When the crowd moved, I moved. "Jesse! Don't let go!" "I got it! I soooo got it!" "It's mine, it's mine, it's mine!" "IT'S JUST A FUCKING TOWEL, LET GO!" That last one was me. This tug-of-war over a used towel went on for about 15 minutes before security had to come. Pretty soon me and the security guard were both yelling, "It's just a towel!". Some let go and I made my escape and tried to find Whitney because I lost her during the Towel Surge. No one ended up with the towel as I found out, as I later asked the security guard. I hate Tokio Hotel fans.

^The line up ^Me and Whit are too cool for lines ^The Crowd ^Ugh, I hate TH fans ^I got a lot of pics of him for some reason. Too many went crazy when Bill came to this side of the stage

Here's one of a few vids I tried to catch of the concert. Unfortunately I caught them at bad times when Bill let the crowd sing. AHHHHH.