Like some kind of weird fanfic (My friends are the best.)

So last night I finally sent my friend Caleb (who writes an amazing blog called Does This Make Me Look Hipster?) a copy of Like a Dog In Space since he's been begging to read the whole thing for literally forever. And he read it and loved it and raved about it, and then he was like, "I've had Katy Perry's song Firework stuck in my head this whole time."

Five minutes later, he was adjusting the song lyrics to vaguely summarize the plot of the play, and it was quite honestly the most awesome thing I've ever received.

With his permission, I'm reposting it here. (The first stanza is in capslock for some odd reason.)

DO YOU EVER FEEEEEL LIKE A DOG IN SPACE
DRIFTING, THE RUSSIANS LOSE THE RACE
DO YOU EVER FEEEEEL LIKE YOU'RE INANIMATE
HAVE NO WAY TO TALK, YOUR BEST FRIEND IS A ROCK
YOU HAVE TO FIIIILE THE PAPERWOOOORK GET MISTER PAPPEEEERS TO SIIIIIGN
JUST WEEEEEAR THE ROOOOOCK AND TRY NOT TO DIE
CAUSE BABY YOU'RE A MAAAAAAANEQUIN
FOR DECADES YOU WILL TRYYYYY TO WIN
MAKE US GO AW, AW, AW
CAUSE YOU'RE STILL NOT A COSMO NAW, NAW, NAW-UT
Do you ever feel like a dog in space,
Drifting past the moon,
No way to come back home?
Do you ever feel, feel inanimate,
Unimportant,
Like an old Maket?
Do you ever feel you’ve been decided for?
Your time’s already up and you have just barely begun.
Do you know that there’s
That there’s a guy for you
And he’ll help see you through
You’ve just gotta create
Your fate
And take
The bait
He’ll give
You life
Just open your eyes
‘Cause baby you’re a Mannequin!
Doomed from the start, never to win.
Show them all the mi- i- ight
The might that you personify-y-y.
Baby you’re a Mannequin!
Prove to them that you can win!
Make them go ah-ah-ah!
As you become a cosmona-a-aut!
You don’t have to feel like a dog in space.
‘Cause now you have a place
To help in the space race.
If you only knew
The possibilities
The opportunities
Borne from necessity
Could be they’d help you find
The place that you could go
A man whose sure to know a way to keep you comin’ home
Bring him a meteor
He’ll open up a door
It won’t be long before
He will help you create
Your fate
So don’t
Be late
He’ll set
A date
There’ll be no more dummy crates!
‘Cause baby you’re a Mannequin!
Doomed from the start, never to win.
Show them all the mi- i- ight
The might that you personify-y-y.
Baby you’re a Mannequin!
Prove to them that you can win!
Make them go ah-ah-ah!
As you become a cosmona-a-aut!
[This part didn’t need to be changed:]
Boom, boom, boom
Even brighter than the moon, moon, moon.
It’s always been inside of you
And now it’s time to let it through
‘Cause baby you’re a Human!
And now you have a chance to start again.
Leave them all behind in fli-igh-ight
And redefine what’s wrong and ri-igh-ight.
Baby you’re a Human!
Papers let you start again!
Be what they all said you’re no-no-not!
You will become a cosmonau-nau-naut!
Boom, boom, boom
Even brighter than the moon, moon, moon!
Boom, boom, boom,
Even brighter than the moon, moon, moon!

I am thankful for (one day late)

1) I am thankful for parents who love me. When I was younger, I used to bemoan that they weren't cool enough, and then I grew up and realized that even though my parents aren't "cool," they're happy and smart and successful and have the best intentions for me.

2) I am thankful for everyone else's parents who love me - the people who even though they don't have any obligation to, make sure that I'm doing okay/let me crash at their house/have had some hand in my growth into the person I am today.

3) I am thankful that in the last year I have had so many learning opportunities and have come out of them a stronger, smarter, more mature person.

4) I am thankful for the "Still stuffed the next morning" feeling I have because it means that my family has enough food to keep stuffing it down my throat until I feel sick.

5) I am thankful for the shitty fold out couch I slept on last night because freezing my ass off in a hotel room sure beats spending thanksgiving on the streets like the homeless people I pass on my way to class.

6) I am thankful for my friends who love and support me, who are always good for a joke or something to do. Whether I met you last week or last month or five years ago, thank you for being a friend. :)

And thank you, reader, for reading my blog. I wish you a happy and healthy new year, and hopefully I'll see you right back here next November.

Gratefully yours,

Leez.

What is there to say?

A girl I went to high school with died today of natural causes. She wasn't sick and she wasn't in an accident. She had a brain hemorrhage and then four days later she died and it came out of nowhere. I've had a friend my age die before, but it never gets easier to hear someone you know has died, and so suddenly as well.

Really, that's all I have to say.

Verbal sketching

I imagined I became a mole person

And strung up my hammock

between pylons

In an old abandoned subway station.

And every night, the other runaway kids

and me

lie awake and listen

to the sound of

sewer rats mating.

I imagined I rode the trains

all night long

right down to the place where

they turn around

in that old abandoned station

with the jewel-tone tiles

in the roof.

And it's all so pretty,

so pretty,

so pretty,

And it's all so clean,

so clean,

so clean,

because

they never let anyone in.

Sun I am disappoint.

I was really, really excited for the new Golden Sun game. Like, I don't buy video games often, but I would have bought this one. But then I went on the website and read the character summaries and... ugh! They're so derivative of the last generation of games! I know that generation Xerox is a trope, but we've even got villains pushing the protagonists to accomplish their mission and a mysterious masked man. I don't know much about the plot yet, but for a game set 30 years after the original pair and released some ten years later, this is upsetting.

The original Golden Sun games were hailed for their originality in story, setting, and gameplay. While the battles are nothing new if you've ever played any incarnation of Final Fantasy ever, they were pretty fun, and there were a lot of good/nerve wracking puzzles to figure out. The new game looks like it's sticking too closely to the original, and it worries me.

At any rate, the game doesn't hit North America until November 29th, so I'll wait for some American reviews before I decide whether or not to get it. At any rate, playing it would be good for nostalgia, and I am a bit eager to return to that exciting, imaginative world the first games took me to. :)

So today was interesting.

Today, I:

1) Went to an AUSA (Anthropology Undergraduate Student Association) movie night and watched a documentary about the Amish.

2) Made new friends.

3) Played old school Super Smash Brothers

4) Went to a fucking awesome poetry smash.

5) Finally saw my amazing friend Chris perform (he's a hip-hop/rap artist and poetry slammer)

6) Was told by a random person in an elevator that they loved me.

7) Came home and finally watched the movie Moon.

8) Which is a fucking amazing movie. HERE'S A TRAILER, ADD IT TO YOUR NETFLIX QUEUE, IT IS AWESOME. Seriously, I think it's the only movie I've seen that actually manages to match the mood and style of 2001: A Space Odyssey and do a good job of it. I'm easily fascinated by speculative/realistic Sci Fi, but this was seriously amazing. Also I really like the theme music and I need it for my writing playlist.

Hey Sarah Palin,

Leave my first lady alone.

You, Sarah, are a washed up hack hanging onto her fifteen minutes of fame, who can't even raise her own children to understand that calling people faggots on facebook isn't socially acceptable behavior, let alone possibly be qualified to run a country. Your own relatives on the record saying you dropped out of U. Hawaii because there were "too many Asians" and you're currently in a fight with Alaskan Fish and Wildlife over getting too close to a family of bears, on national television. Your political track record consists of making embarrassing social gaffs, pandering to your competition ("Can I call you Joe?"), exposing yourself as an inarticulate ass on national television, and quitting halfway through your term as governor of the least densely populated state in the union. You advocate fear and misinformation.

The list goes on.

Michelle Obama, on the other hand, is classy, intelligent, well-spoken, educated about her causes, and stylish as all get out. You quoted her out of context and frankly your remarks about her hating white people only make you sound like an ignoramus. You didn't even actually say half the one-liners people attribute to you - Tina Fey did. You aren't even half as witty as she is.

In short, Michelle Obama is a better mother, politician, and all around human being than you could ever hope to be.

So shut up.

"It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt."

-Abraham Lincoln