It seems I've come to a point where I have a bit more time and patience to do things. Like blogging! Maybe it's time for me to stop harassing my Facebook friends with a bazillion posts about things I care about (like how alcohol effects weight loss...) and simply blog them, instead. One big thing to read instead of a bunch of little things!
Yeah, we'll see how long that lasts.
Here's an update for you. I'm currently working in a lovely office building in DC that I really really love. Unfortunately, I don't really have anything to do during my lunch break besides eat and read. So, I go for walks, which sucks in a skirt in the heat, but I do it anyway. What I'd love is a friend nearby to go for walks with me or something, but meh. I guess it's not so bad being that weird girl walking down the street with a book in my face.
I just finished A Feast For Crows and I think it was my favorite book in the series, so far. I'm not a big fan of how Martin likes to stretch everything thin by adding a bazillion characters at once, and he even said that he kept it mostly to King's Landing during this book. I appreciated that. #1, Circe is one of my favorite characters (love to hate!) and #2, so is Brienne. And Arya. And Jaime. Okay, I pretty much love everyone except whats-his-face Barathion and his stupid red sorceress bitch. I'm pretty much done with their story and would like for them to die, soon. I don't know why, but I always feel tempted to skip the parts with them. Booooring. Give me what's going on with Sansa anyday. The Stark girls are so much more interesting to me then the other guys I keep having to read about. Like.. the Greyjoys. I'm done with them, too. Maybe I just don't like reading about men? I don't know. I do like reading about Sam, and Jon, and Dani bores me sometimes too. Hope I like the next book, since it's all I'll have until Martin gets off his ass (or back on it?) and finishes the next one!
In other news, I'm once again trying to lose the 10lbs that has been plaguing me for the past two years. It seems that every so often I think, "Oh, I'm okay.. I'm (insert number here) and I can lose that!" Well, nuts to that. I'm up to 130, which is where I was when I first moved out of my parents house. For the longest time, I was around 122 and that made me SO HAPPY. I can't believe how much 8lbs will do to my self esteem. I'm not working out as much as I was then, if only because I have to drive to my gym instead of just walk to it (there used to be one in my apartment complex), and I don't get home until maybe 7PM every night. That leaves me 3 hours to do whatever I gotta do before I go to bed, and sometimes I'm just so tired by 7PM all I want to do is eat and watch cartoons. At the very least, I'm able to crank out some reps with my kettle bells while I'm at home being lazy. I'm noticing some more strength in my legs, where doing 3 reps of 10 squats might have KILLED me, it's now a breeze. But the weight isn't coming off, and to that, I can only imagine it's because of my nightly martini. So, goodbye to vodka (for now...) because I need to burn this weight before I hit the road in August!
Speaking of hitting the road... yeah, we're doing more of that. I love travelling, and travelling with the band is even better than I expected. So, this August we'll be going to New York to play with Huntress and my buddy Joe in Brohammer. I'm ULTRA excited about that show, because not only do I get to see my college friend (who is now a big-time inking artist for DC, ooh la la!), but I get to go to NYC! I haven't been there since I went to see X Japan about a year ago.. where I ran into Joe, last time! It's destiny that we see eachother in the Big Apple, I know it.
The next out of town gig will be in West VA. I'm looking forward to that one too, if only because for some reason, we tend to have THE BEST TIME EVER when we play in WV. I don't know what's in the water, but their metal fans are f'ing great. Well, maybe it was the Four Loko we had last time, but MAN what a time we had in Bluefield (both times!). We met some great people and Josh won me a pink teddy bear from the crane game. He was drunk off his balls but he won that f'ing bear, whom we now call "Thunder Bear", and force to watch over Chris' drum kit. After those, we'll have some big gigs in September! One of them will be opening for Kamelot, followed by my brainchild, Metal Quest. Metal Quest went from an idea I had to bring nerd metal bands together, to an actual show, to a show with a purpose. Now we're trying to raise money for the Hero Initiative, a cause that all nerds should be aware of. The Hero Initiative is around to help donate money to comic book creators in need. Some of them are pretty old and are in need of care. Some of them have been injured due to the strenuous nature of looking at paper so close for so long. Well, these guys gave us our heroes, so I see no reason not to try and give them something back. Where would I be without comic books? Probably somewhere boring. We're taking donations to fund the show before it happens, so we can give more profits to the charity. If we can make our goal, we'll be able to actually be able to give money to the Hero Initiative without losing our asses! That's always a good thing. I'm really looking forward to this show. Costumes, raffles and everything!
All this, and we're currently recording our new album. I'm excited about this one, even more then the last one. I wrote a bunch of the lyrics on this one, and I'm especially proud of them. Thank goodness for such a good creative team to work with. I'm expecting a few raised eyebrows, but nothing to the extent of "Kill That Bitch", which took some flack for being:
Well, what can I say? I have a knack for these things. Making controversy, that is. I don't think this album will have quite so much, but it will have some different styles that may surprise you. My goal in this album was to make people hear everything my voice can do. So, if you know me, you know I do a lot of different things. This album will highlight NEARLY all of them, or at least the ones I haven't used as much in the past. We've got some guest vocalists I'll be singing with, too. We've already announced that Blaze Bayley is one of them, but the other one shall be revealed a bit later.
I think that's it, for now. Most likely, I'll come up with something else to talk about in a few hours... if so, I'll save it. Can't write too much, can I? Yes, I can...
Mother of fuck! If there's one thing that pisses me off, it's when something I was looking forward to doesn't go my way. Like the film adaptation to one of my favorite books, Water For Elephants. This is a beautiful story about love, hardship, and the circus. I kept telling Willy, "Man, this would make a great movie!"
Now, lo and behold, they're making a movie. Starring she-of-the-mighty-chin, Reese Whitherspoon, and... oh my shit.. Robert-I-look-like-I'm-sucking-dick-all-day-Patterson.
So it's winter. I've travelled through DC during the winter, before. During my college years, I took Metro to school every day. It was cold back then, sure. But damned if I remember being THIS COLD every single day. I don't know if it's me, or if Metro just isn't turning on their heat anymore. I don't recall ever getting on the train and going, "Wow, it feels just like I'm still standing outside." This morning, it was too cold for me to even read.
I'm working on this book right now called "The Naked and the Dead". It's a gritty World War II novel, written from the POV of soldiers in the Pacific. It's definitely a man's book, written by a man for men, and hoo boy, is it hillarious. From the constant dialogue that involves getting pussy, having pussy and wanting pussy, to the deep and meaningful conversations where two soldiers come to the realization that women just aren't interested in sex. Not like men, anyway.
HOLY SHEET. I love reading this old-timey shit, because it's so funny how men used to think. How some of them STILL think.
Lemme clear some things up for ya, soldier boys. It's not that women aren't interested in having sex. It's that they're not interested in having sex with YOU. Now, if she were propositioned by a good looking man, with a job, and a personality, well, she'd probably become a horned-out super slut. All depending on if he's her type, of course.
I also read "Push", which is what Precious is based on. It's a great book, but my GOD was it visceral. So much horror, blood, and sadness. It had the sort of ending that you can expect, one that isn't happy but has a sort of growth. Throughout the book, you're actually reading through the eyes of Precious, and you can see her world unfold from one of terror and mysery to hope and renewal. So, in a way, it's actually quite beautiful. I started crying after the first page, big baby that I am, and my guitarist asks what I'm reading. I explain what it is, and he's fairly shocked that I, being such a normally happy person, am reading something so depressing. So I explain that I read a lot of depressing shit, which is why I am generally so happy.
People, it's easy to be happy when you're reading about opressed women in China having their feet broken, bound, and scraped clean of rotting dying flesh. Shit, at least I've got my gaddamn FEET.
That doesn't make being cold any easier to live through, but it does give me some perspective. That's what I love about books. They take me to places I couldn't otherwise travel to, and allow me to live the life of someone who might never have existed. They let me go out of myself and look back at my position with envy. I mean shit, Precious Jones would KILL to be me! So I should be grateful for the crap I've got, right? Right.
Willy says I'm one book short of getting a Kindle. BUT I DON'T WANNA.
Been doing pretty good on the diet front, except I didn't get to drink much water today. We were out of bottled water at the nursery, so all I had to drink was the Diet Rock Star that I brought with me. I had a nice chicken salad for lunch, then beef and broccoli for dinner. All of it homemade, no artificial bad crap, ect. All of it was good stuff! Hopefully we'll have water, tomorrow.
I managed to read another Lisa See novel, today. Peony In Love is an awesome and kinda depressing book. I've got this thing for books about oppressed Chinese women, and I think this is the worst one. It's freaking DEPRESSING to see just how men thought of women back in the day, and, I'll be honest, in their religion, the afterlife really really sucks. Sucks hard. I won't go too much into it, but if you like depressing love stories and oppressed Chinese women, this one is for you!
You know I've gotta have a lot of time on my hands at the rate I go through these books...
So I read today that J.K. Rowling has announced that Dumbledore was actually gay with his friend, the wizard he defeated named Gellert Grindelwald.
For those of you who aren't Potter fans, Gellert was a wizard that Dumbledore knew in his boyhood. They became best friends, but later, Dumbeldore became dissapointed in Gellert's interest in the dark arts, and his attitude towards muggles.
Now, I honestly don't know how to take this. On the one hand, yay for having a gay character who is also respected and loved. On the other hand... why the hell couldn't she have just written that in the book? I got so sick of Rowling's cryptic bullshit, after the 6th book. The 5th was great. The 6th left me so goshdamn angry. Really. If you want your character to be gay, don't beat around the bush and reveal it later. Come out and say it. You don't have to mention their sexual activity or anything like that, but giving your reader enough information to know what type of relationship your characters have is what makes a good writer. Leaving readers in the dark and then going, "a HA! I fooled you all!" is not the mark of a good writer.
I'm really dissapointed in Rowling, now. I think the last Potter movie is probably my favorite, of them all, and I am really afraid of how the last two will go.
Here's an update for you. I'm currently working in a lovely office building in DC that I really really love. Unfortunately, I don't really have anything to do during my lunch break besides eat and read. So, I go for walks, which sucks in a skirt in the heat, but I do it anyway. What I'd love is a friend nearby to go for walks with me or something, but meh. I guess it's not so bad being that weird girl walking down the street with a book in my face. 
After those, we'll have some big gigs in September! One of them will be opening for Kamelot, followed by my brainchild, Metal Quest. Metal Quest went from an idea I had to bring nerd metal bands together, to an actual show, to a show with a purpose. Now we're trying to raise money for the Hero Initiative, a cause that all nerds should be aware of. The Hero Initiative is around to help donate money to comic book creators in need. Some of them are pretty old and are in need of care. Some of them have been injured due to the strenuous nature of looking at paper so close for so long. Well, these guys gave us our heroes, so I see no reason not to try and give them something back. Where would I be without comic books? Probably somewhere boring. We're taking donations to fund the show before it happens, so we can give more profits to the charity. If we can make our goal, we'll be able to actually be able to give money to the Hero Initiative without losing our asses! That's always a good thing. I'm really looking forward to this show. Costumes, raffles and everything!
