Game of Thrones and The Book of Mormon and Ice Cream Trucks
Hey everyone.
So I did that thing again where I don't update in weeks and then I come on here and dump my brain so vigorously that the plumbing of the internet takes hours to unclog.
Anyway, a lot has happened recently. I went home for a week. I moved. I made a new ringtone. Exciting, life-altering stuff. Let's start at the beginning I guess.
About a week and a half ago, I went home for a while. The real reason was because I was going to be homeless for three days (and now, in hindsight, I'm realizing that I probably would have been fine if I'd just squatted in my apartment and been a whiny little brat to my landlord, but leaving details like that to the fates is just one of life's little idiosyncrasies I won't stand for), but it kind of served a practical purpose too. Another self-evaluation period, shall we say.
I didn't want to come back this time.
I don't know that it means anything other than that I'm supremely lazy and I like air conditioning and big-screen TVs AND MY CAT, but it has definitely changed since the last time I was home. It was really probably just that I was all anxious about moving--I packed all of my shit before I left, but I left it in my old apartment, and moving is one of the 10 worst first-world human experiences--but it still left me a little...unsettled.
But it was nice to be home. The cat kind of hated me this time, and I realized on the very last day it was because I was doing to her what my old roommate did to me. Anytime she'd slink off for one of her seven daily cat naps I would hunt her down and wake her up, and then she'd mrowl in my face from 6:00 in the morning until whatever time I decided to let her out. We were both being selfish, or I guess a less blametastic way to look at it is that our sleeping schedules were askew. If I'd stayed longer, they probably would have straightened out :(
idk, I am homesick, but I was kind of relieved when I got back to LA too. Go see the cathedrals in New York and Rome, get the feeling you should just go home, and spend the rest of your life trying to figure out where that is I guess.
ANYWAY, on a happier note, I am in my own room now :) this is such a college apartment, which is something I know how to deal with, so obviously I like it better. I have a WINDOW:
(which just looks out onto another window)
and an AIR CONDITIONER, and you better believe the first thing I did when I stepped into the room, even before I put down my suitcase, was CRANK THAT THING TO THE MAX FLOUROCARBON EMITTANCE LEVEL.
Anyway, it's not much, yet so much more than what I had. Is that the secret to happiness? Withhold things from yourself artificially so every rung you climb, no matter how insignificant, feels like summiting Everest? Would I have ever guessed 10 years ago that, 10 years from now, my biggest accomplishment would be procuring a private room with a window and air conditioner on a two-month sublease?
nah, shit, even back then I was like "I don't really care what I'm doing as long as I'm happy." AND NOW I'M CLOSER TO THAT.
So anyway, that's my boring life update for you all. But, as per usual, that's only a small portion of where my focus subsists.
Can we talk about Game of Thrones for a second? I don't know what it is about this...show, or property, or whatever. I've been aware of the story for a while. I remember hearing they were making a TV show of it like a year ago, and having that pervasive and 99%-of-the-time-ignored thought: "Oh, I should get around to reading X before Xadaptation comes out." It was tentative, though, because high fantasy is one of those things that, done wrong, is awful, but that tiny percentage of the time it's done right, is 18-hours-of-LOTR gloriousness. So I was skeptical, but hopeful, like I am about most things. A little more hopeful than skeptical, since it was HBO, and the most wrong they've ever done is season 3 of True Blood. And I guess the second Sex and the City movie.
As it got closer to the release date, though, it became clearer and clearer that it was going to land closer to that small percentage of awesomeness than the large percentage of suck. So I bought the book. And I started reading.
And I'll admit that the first couple hundred pages were fueled more by a desire to outpace the show than true adoration or interest. I mean, it can't just be me, right? Whenever I try to read the book of something AFTER I've seen the movie, I'm never enjoying the story, I'm comparing the book to the movie. But if I watch the movie after I read the book, at least I get to see the people/settings/events I only got to imagine before. That kind of enjoyment is a one-way street, at least for me. I can't read something I've just seen, but I love seeing things I've just read.
And I'll also admit that I watched past where I'd read on the second episode. Whoever thought scandal and politics over household pets could be so enthralling! That's when I was sold. That's when I WANTED to keep reading. And that is a feeling that is becoming rarer and more treasurable the older I get.
I finished the first book at home, and I'm 100 pages into the second. This is my new THING. I love having a thing. It gives me direction and purpose.
Lucky for me, I have TWO things right now.
The Book of Mormon soundtrack FINALLY GOT RELEASED LIKE TWO WEEKS AGO!
Broadway musicals are another subset of "thing" that I like to obsess over. I like them mostly because they're the perfect size. Each musical is what, like 15 or 20 songs, each song is three or four minutes, each taking maybe a couple of days to memorize? You can internalize that whole thing in the exact amount of time it takes to start getting sick of it. So much of my mental songbook is full of complete Broadway musicals, and always the stupid kiddy overbudgeted ones because fuck you, you know? Wicked, Beauty and the Beast, Avenue Q, Rent. I pretty much know all the words to all the songs.
The Book of Mormon was written by the South Park guys and one of the Avenue Q guys. And even before I knew what musical they'd written, I was sold. Stephen Soundheim himself said the best musical in the last ten years was the South Park movie (which I also have on iTunes), and any stupid little song they have to write for a random episode of the show is always catchy. So I had no idea what this musical was going to be about besides the title, and I bought the CD and listened to it compulsively.
It's amazing. This is my favorite song, just for a nibble:
IT'S EMOTIONAL, SATIRICAL, AND TRIUMPHANT ALL AT THE SAME TIME. HOW DO THEY DO IT?
Plus it's got this guy:
in it, and I used to think he was just a Jack Black wannabe but he says "I'M INTERESTED" in this way on one of the songs that makes me crack up every time I hear it. TWO WORDS AND I CRACK UP. The only other person who can do that to me is Katie and that's just because we've got 24 years of shared inside jokes.
ANYHOO, the final thing that happened to me just happened today! The day before I left to Wisconsin, I was in Glendale for some thing for Kaplan. They were giving free promotional tutoring sessions and WHATEVER IT'S NOT IMPORTANT, but I was walking around the school trying to figure out how to get to the cafeteria when an ice cream truck drives by and plays the most heart-wrenching song I'd ever heard. I am like, legit getting EMOTIONAL over this ice cream truck song.
And I had one of the saddest thoughts I'd ever had. "I'll probably never find out what song that is, because I bet I will never hear it again."
I think I was just angsty/nervous about the tutoring thing and my red eye flight (which was awful btw) I had after work the next day, but it felt so profound and necessarily TRUE when I thought it. Some beauty in the world is fleeting, and you have no choice but to enjoy it while it lasts and let it go once it's over.
Then I did laundry today (and there are only two washers/dryers for this entire apartment complex TWENTY APARTMENTS WTF) and I heard the same ice cream truck song.
"Okay," I thought. Obviously this song is common enough now that I can at least google it.
And google it I did.
And it took like, four minutes this time. I think I had to click on three different web pages.
But I found it:
I zamzared it, and then I bought it on Amazon mp3 too because I felt bad and the recording sounded better (even though it just turned out I haven't quite figured out my new speaker set up yet)
and I've been listening to it the entire time I've been writing this.
And the funniest/most ironic/depressing thing?
I made a ringtone of it, and when you do that, you actually have to delve into the bowels of your iTunes folder, which organizes your library by Artist. Which I do not do. And when I clicked on Frank Mills, there were three folders. One for "A," which is just my random album I dump any good-but-otherwise-homeless music, The Music Box, which was the one I bought from Amazon, and Billboard 1979.
I already had the damn song in my iTunes, before I heard it in Glendale, before I heard it doing my laundry.
Beauty is not fleeting. It's already sitting on your damn hard drive, waiting to be discovered.
WHATEVER! I'm happy and my new ringtone is awesome, as is my apartment, The Book of Mormon, and Game of Thrones, so for this particular fleeting moment in time? I'm pretty happy, you guys :)
So I did that thing again where I don't update in weeks and then I come on here and dump my brain so vigorously that the plumbing of the internet takes hours to unclog.
Anyway, a lot has happened recently. I went home for a week. I moved. I made a new ringtone. Exciting, life-altering stuff. Let's start at the beginning I guess.
About a week and a half ago, I went home for a while. The real reason was because I was going to be homeless for three days (and now, in hindsight, I'm realizing that I probably would have been fine if I'd just squatted in my apartment and been a whiny little brat to my landlord, but leaving details like that to the fates is just one of life's little idiosyncrasies I won't stand for), but it kind of served a practical purpose too. Another self-evaluation period, shall we say.
I didn't want to come back this time.
I don't know that it means anything other than that I'm supremely lazy and I like air conditioning and big-screen TVs AND MY CAT, but it has definitely changed since the last time I was home. It was really probably just that I was all anxious about moving--I packed all of my shit before I left, but I left it in my old apartment, and moving is one of the 10 worst first-world human experiences--but it still left me a little...unsettled.
But it was nice to be home. The cat kind of hated me this time, and I realized on the very last day it was because I was doing to her what my old roommate did to me. Anytime she'd slink off for one of her seven daily cat naps I would hunt her down and wake her up, and then she'd mrowl in my face from 6:00 in the morning until whatever time I decided to let her out. We were both being selfish, or I guess a less blametastic way to look at it is that our sleeping schedules were askew. If I'd stayed longer, they probably would have straightened out :(
idk, I am homesick, but I was kind of relieved when I got back to LA too. Go see the cathedrals in New York and Rome, get the feeling you should just go home, and spend the rest of your life trying to figure out where that is I guess.
ANYWAY, on a happier note, I am in my own room now :) this is such a college apartment, which is something I know how to deal with, so obviously I like it better. I have a WINDOW:
(which just looks out onto another window)
and an AIR CONDITIONER, and you better believe the first thing I did when I stepped into the room, even before I put down my suitcase, was CRANK THAT THING TO THE MAX FLOUROCARBON EMITTANCE LEVEL.
Anyway, it's not much, yet so much more than what I had. Is that the secret to happiness? Withhold things from yourself artificially so every rung you climb, no matter how insignificant, feels like summiting Everest? Would I have ever guessed 10 years ago that, 10 years from now, my biggest accomplishment would be procuring a private room with a window and air conditioner on a two-month sublease?
nah, shit, even back then I was like "I don't really care what I'm doing as long as I'm happy." AND NOW I'M CLOSER TO THAT.
So anyway, that's my boring life update for you all. But, as per usual, that's only a small portion of where my focus subsists.
Can we talk about Game of Thrones for a second? I don't know what it is about this...show, or property, or whatever. I've been aware of the story for a while. I remember hearing they were making a TV show of it like a year ago, and having that pervasive and 99%-of-the-time-ignored thought: "Oh, I should get around to reading X before Xadaptation comes out." It was tentative, though, because high fantasy is one of those things that, done wrong, is awful, but that tiny percentage of the time it's done right, is 18-hours-of-LOTR gloriousness. So I was skeptical, but hopeful, like I am about most things. A little more hopeful than skeptical, since it was HBO, and the most wrong they've ever done is season 3 of True Blood. And I guess the second Sex and the City movie.
As it got closer to the release date, though, it became clearer and clearer that it was going to land closer to that small percentage of awesomeness than the large percentage of suck. So I bought the book. And I started reading.
And I'll admit that the first couple hundred pages were fueled more by a desire to outpace the show than true adoration or interest. I mean, it can't just be me, right? Whenever I try to read the book of something AFTER I've seen the movie, I'm never enjoying the story, I'm comparing the book to the movie. But if I watch the movie after I read the book, at least I get to see the people/settings/events I only got to imagine before. That kind of enjoyment is a one-way street, at least for me. I can't read something I've just seen, but I love seeing things I've just read.
And I'll also admit that I watched past where I'd read on the second episode. Whoever thought scandal and politics over household pets could be so enthralling! That's when I was sold. That's when I WANTED to keep reading. And that is a feeling that is becoming rarer and more treasurable the older I get.
I finished the first book at home, and I'm 100 pages into the second. This is my new THING. I love having a thing. It gives me direction and purpose.
Lucky for me, I have TWO things right now.
The Book of Mormon soundtrack FINALLY GOT RELEASED LIKE TWO WEEKS AGO!
Broadway musicals are another subset of "thing" that I like to obsess over. I like them mostly because they're the perfect size. Each musical is what, like 15 or 20 songs, each song is three or four minutes, each taking maybe a couple of days to memorize? You can internalize that whole thing in the exact amount of time it takes to start getting sick of it. So much of my mental songbook is full of complete Broadway musicals, and always the stupid kiddy overbudgeted ones because fuck you, you know? Wicked, Beauty and the Beast, Avenue Q, Rent. I pretty much know all the words to all the songs.
The Book of Mormon was written by the South Park guys and one of the Avenue Q guys. And even before I knew what musical they'd written, I was sold. Stephen Soundheim himself said the best musical in the last ten years was the South Park movie (which I also have on iTunes), and any stupid little song they have to write for a random episode of the show is always catchy. So I had no idea what this musical was going to be about besides the title, and I bought the CD and listened to it compulsively.
It's amazing. This is my favorite song, just for a nibble:
Click to viewIT'S EMOTIONAL, SATIRICAL, AND TRIUMPHANT ALL AT THE SAME TIME. HOW DO THEY DO IT?
Plus it's got this guy:
in it, and I used to think he was just a Jack Black wannabe but he says "I'M INTERESTED" in this way on one of the songs that makes me crack up every time I hear it. TWO WORDS AND I CRACK UP. The only other person who can do that to me is Katie and that's just because we've got 24 years of shared inside jokes.
ANYHOO, the final thing that happened to me just happened today! The day before I left to Wisconsin, I was in Glendale for some thing for Kaplan. They were giving free promotional tutoring sessions and WHATEVER IT'S NOT IMPORTANT, but I was walking around the school trying to figure out how to get to the cafeteria when an ice cream truck drives by and plays the most heart-wrenching song I'd ever heard. I am like, legit getting EMOTIONAL over this ice cream truck song.
And I had one of the saddest thoughts I'd ever had. "I'll probably never find out what song that is, because I bet I will never hear it again."
I think I was just angsty/nervous about the tutoring thing and my red eye flight (which was awful btw) I had after work the next day, but it felt so profound and necessarily TRUE when I thought it. Some beauty in the world is fleeting, and you have no choice but to enjoy it while it lasts and let it go once it's over.
Then I did laundry today (and there are only two washers/dryers for this entire apartment complex TWENTY APARTMENTS WTF) and I heard the same ice cream truck song.
"Okay," I thought. Obviously this song is common enough now that I can at least google it.
And google it I did.
And it took like, four minutes this time. I think I had to click on three different web pages.
But I found it:
I zamzared it, and then I bought it on Amazon mp3 too because I felt bad and the recording sounded better (even though it just turned out I haven't quite figured out my new speaker set up yet)
and I've been listening to it the entire time I've been writing this.
And the funniest/most ironic/depressing thing?
I made a ringtone of it, and when you do that, you actually have to delve into the bowels of your iTunes folder, which organizes your library by Artist. Which I do not do. And when I clicked on Frank Mills, there were three folders. One for "A," which is just my random album I dump any good-but-otherwise-homeless music, The Music Box, which was the one I bought from Amazon, and Billboard 1979.
I already had the damn song in my iTunes, before I heard it in Glendale, before I heard it doing my laundry.
Beauty is not fleeting. It's already sitting on your damn hard drive, waiting to be discovered.
WHATEVER! I'm happy and my new ringtone is awesome, as is my apartment, The Book of Mormon, and Game of Thrones, so for this particular fleeting moment in time? I'm pretty happy, you guys :)