I am obviously bored right now

Hello world. You probably haven't missed me much. In fact, I'm not entirely sure anyone reads this anymore as I update it infrequently and have fallen out of touch with my blog reading friends. But I digress. The semester is over! I finally have free time. For those of you out there who I was ditching, I'm sorry! I was stressed, and crazy busy, and I miss you. I'm still stressed, but for different reasons now. After spending a semester driving into the city for school, work and to see my friends, I have decided enough is enough. I spend all my time with you Philadelphia, why don't we make it official. That's right Philly, I want you to move in with you. Let's do it. It might not be easy, it might not always be fun, but I'm ready to make the jump. But seriously, I am moving to west Philly in January. I'll be close to my favorite bars and close to my favorite people. I can walk to work and school and everything will be roses. The thorn is that I'm terrified to be on my own, paying my own rent, budgeting my own budget, cooking my own meals every night. It will be a close budget, but it's possible and I think it's time to grow up. Time to live without a safety net. or something. I don't know. In other news, today I found a note I wrote myself so long ago that I no longer where, when or why. It's a list of bands I really don't listen to and songs I've never heard of. This is the list 1. Beatbeatbeat- we are waves 2. miike snow- silvia 3. the pains of being pure at heart-this love is f*ing right 4. bombay bicycle club- evening morning 5. White Rabbits- the plot 6. Gin wigmore- dying day 7. Destroyer- Chinatown 1. Is simultaneously chill and upbeat. It is lovely sentimental nonsense. Tada 2. This Band... man. A bunch of people kept saying "you gotta hear miike snow!" but i generally don't listen to anyone ever. So I miss out. But I really like this song 3. I already knew about this band, but I had only really listened to one of their songs. Their name seems kinda melodramatic, but i wanted to name my band compassionate assassin so what do i know? Turns out they have another good song! 4. Two guys chase a guy in a panda suit for about half of this video. What? Oddly enough this is exactly the kind of music I listen to while running. Also, the lead singer needs to be wearing anything but those white shorts. gross. 5. I really get sick of people referencing Jefferson Airplane. They were good, and I have a soft spot in my heart that can only be filled by White Rabbit and Kevin Devine's Carnival Because both songs are so damn weird. But I think JA is put on this pedestal that they don't really deserve. But, despite the band that this band either stole their name from that song title or a children's book, they really are pretty okay. Nothing stellar, but solid indie rock music, and that's okay. 6. Those Kiwis really know whats up. First Kate-Miller Heidke, then Kimbra and now this. They just breed pretty girls with pretty voices down there. I'm jealous 7. Destroyer should be the name of a metal band. I see big guys with bigger hair and this is so the opposite of that. Listening to it right now I want to have a nap. And during that nap I will dream about going on a trip to china, running into the doctor, and seeing all of space and time. And then getting really homesick. I don't know what I was on when I wrote this list (I'm never ON anything), But it is everything I wanted. My musc has been boring me lately and I have been a bit too busy to find new things. But somehow, sleepy cynthia (who i am convinced is actually a separate entity) managed to make a whole lists of things awake cynthia would like. Good work past self. I wonder what else I have blacked out of my memory? How many wonderful things have I missed out on because I am so forgetful? I'm betting lots. If you aren't sick of videos, this wasn't on the magical list, but is my favorite. Anyways. That was all I really had to say. I can't wait to finally get to catch up with people. My classmates are cool, but I miss spending time with people who like me and don't just tolerate my dorkiness because they are in all my classes. I'm gonna go write or draw or something now. cynthia

season's greetings

So... Studying for the GRE's and missing my boyfriend person are combining to make me an insomniac/crazy person. I've decided to use this blog as a way to vent all the crazy thoughts in my head and maybe once i've done that I'll be able to go to sleep instead of watching five episodes of (insert sci-fi show here) and then collapsing into a bizarre trance. The odd waking-dreams about robot monster attacks really make me see why tyler durden went nuts and started punching himself in the face.

Also, there is one more thing that is making it hard to sleep. fear. fear of the gift-ocalypse. This is what i've decided to rename christmas as since my fellow employees have instilled in me a terror of the mania and mayhem that will consume us the moment the christmas season begins.

Now, for those of you who don't own a calender we are quickly approaching the holiday season. I'm sure most of you have dreams of sugar plums dancing in your head (whatever that means), But I for one am terrified. The sheer volume of books we received today is daunting to say the least. I ran around for 8 hours today with purpose. Lately I sort of skip about with a vague idea of my responsibilities and machinations about how I can avoid performing said duties while still looking like i'm doing something. But today, looking at the absurd number of things that were supposed to be finished yesterday I thought to myself "dammit cynthia, you're gonna get shit done." And then, nothing happened. I ran around organizing, straightening, putting up signs where no signs had been before. I was taking things off of shelves and putting things on shelves as if my very life depended on it and at the end of the day it looked as though there were just as many items on the list as there had been at 9:45 am. Keep in mind, this is just the beginning. More stuff will be delivered on thursday. Not just books either. A cornucopia of items will be dragged in on pallets three times my size twice a week, and then five times a week as we near the gift-ocalypse you call christmas. There will be cd's, movies, games, puzzles novelty items, and things that are so crappy that they are only called "gift ideas." lame. All of this stuff will be purchased by the frazzled wives and mothers of the mainline. Hundreds of children will be dragged screaming through the store, knocking things off shelves as their parents pick out novelty gifts for friends, family, mailmen, neighbor's dogs, and probably a few gifts for people they don't even really like. All this to satisfy the pagan god of shopping (kidding). Christmas spirit will be trampled under the weight bills, gift receipts, planning, and overly high expectations.

Christmas reminds me of the trips to the theme park that my family used to take. Everyone woke up at 6 am intoxicated with ideas of the unbelievable times that were to be had. then you pile into the car for three hours while one brother is going "i'm not touching you, can't get mad" and the other one is saying "guys. hey guys. listen. guys. yo. hey. guess what." This goes on for three hours until the inevitable fighting ensues. Right when your parents threaten to "turn this car around" you pull into the parking lot and tumble out . Then, the day has finally arrived. You waltz in, expecting icecream, fireworks and roller coasters that reach the fricken moon. What you find instead are lines longer than the car ride it took to get there, water that costs five hundred dollars because the vendors know that it's 98 degrees outside, and rides that seem just a little bit smaller than you remember them.

This is what christmas, with its stupid materialistic traditions, feels like to me. I remember my childhood ones as being amazing but it won't be like that anymore. I won't be able to afford presents for all my relatives, and I probably won't be able to think of anything good enough for the people I really like. I will go into my yearly panic where I realize I really know nothing about the people I supposedly care about because if I did I would be able to think of an epic and awesome present. I will go shopping no less than six times and not find anything. I will cry. Then I will buy something at the last minute, (insert family member or friend here) will say "I love it" and I will not believe them. Here's the thing though. I can actually be a really great gift-giver, just not at holiday times. I am fantastic at buying a present on a completely random day in march because it seemed so perfect. But instead of holding onto that gift until said person's birthday or christmas I give it to them right away. Why would I hold on to something that they will enjoy? I bought it because I love them and was thinking "hey this will be great for__." I was not thinking "i should hold onto this until the opportune moment." Presents, especially little notes, or candies, should be given at completely random times. Once, someone got really excited about buying me an icecream maker then realized they didn't really know me that well because I don't like icecream. I mean, I'm not saying it's the reason we broke up, but i'm sure my fake enthusiasm and later unwillingness to make icecream probably didn't help the relationship.


And now I get to help hundreds attempt to attain their goal of the perfect christmas. I really hope they beat the odds. While I'm wishing for things, I also hope I don't get tackled by crazy grandma's the day after thanksgiving.

cheers

cool music alert!

How can I describe the constellations? I've seen them described as "ghettotech," which i'm pretty sure is a term their public relations guy made up. The thing about this band is that their songs defy genre trends really. Trashy funk-ified techno is the phrase that comes to mind when thinking about the songs felicia or or step right up. In "Step right up" the words alone (written by the illustrious tom waits) put your head smack dab in the kind of dive that leaves you smelling like cigarettes for days. Felicia has you imagining the Venus of the 21st century, who is naturally pretty trashy. Love is a murder and setback seem more indie electro-rock to me. They've got a bit of angst, anger and a lot of wit. They've got a rotating set of singers and rappers filling in on different songs, including someone who does a freaking fantastic tom waits impression if it isn't the man himself. I haven't gotten to all the songs on the album because there are five that i'm solidly addicted to (four of which i've mentioned here. But it was worth buying the album even if i only listen to those five songs. I mean, i'm sure i'll get to the rest eventually.

A change of pace?

Hellooo, invisible blog readers!

So as some of you may or may know, I have been talking about starting a "band" for well, forever. But, as of late I actually managed to wrangle a guitarist into writing songs with me (thanks dan!). Now I just need a bassist. Maybe a drummer as well since I can't drum and sing at the same time. But I digress. So lately I've been working on songs, and they are okay, but I've noticed my writing has become a little stagnant now that I'm not engrossed in creative writing and poetry classes. So, I picked up a songwriting book at borders today (yayyyy discount.)It's got a number of exercises in it but I thought I would do the first one here.

Exercise One: pick an object in your room and write about it using the senses of sight, smell, taste, touch, hearing, organic, and kinesthetic. Keep in mind this is free verse, full sentences not necessary.also keep in mind i haven't been writing a lot lately so this is probably going to be terrible.

The drum set in the corner of my room

When I fell in love with a drummer I fell in love with drumming itself. On our third or fourth date we went to a block party, with a rotating set of local musicians. Most of them were professors or worked for the college or municipality to some extent. They all had graying hair and hidden tattoos. Aging rockers of small town america. And there was (name redacted), black hair a tousled, fluffy mess, eyes closed, biting his lip and banging on the drums in frenetic, overexcited abandoned. My very own, much more adorable keith moon. I sipped his mother's tart sangria and snacked on their vegetarian picnic foods. It was the first time that I had drank in front of and with what I thought of as "adults," and I fell in love that day. Later, I would ask him to teach me how to play. It was only partially a ploy to spend more time with him. While the veggie filled meal of the day would cook in the kitchen,in the living room the smells would fill me with hunger as I dutifully practiced the rudimentary rhythms and fills that make up basic rock songs. He didn't want to disturb the neighbors with the deep boom of the bass drum or the crashing cymbal, so instead we practiced on an 8 piece electric drum set, hard black plastic drums with giant headphones that refused to rest comfortably on my tiny ears. When I was cooking and he was playing, I could hear the click of his sticks on the plastic. it was mesmerizing in it's intricacy. when I had the headphones on myself and the worn, splintering sticks in my hands, the clicking disappeared. Instead, I could hear the blasting beats of traditional drums. If I wanted I could have connected any odd effect to the sensors on the toms, but I wanted it to sound as realistic as possible. I wanted to be prepared in the event that I one day played a set of "true" drums. On my own, I started paying more attention when listening to music. I found that if it was loud enough, if it was good enough I could feel it in my stomach. with a band like rush it would almost feel as if your pulse was syncing to the music, though i knew that wasn't really possible.with my headphones on, walking down the street, the world around me would disappear though my eyes were still open. I was obsessed with the beats behind every song I loved. Long after our relationship imploded, he gave me the electric drum set as a favor. At first it was a loan, but we both kept forgetting to arrange a return so I suppose it's now one of my possessions. I don't feel like I've gotten much better. Unlike when I am tap dancing, singing, or drawing, I am a hesitant drummer. I am a timid. While i can relax into beats I am comfortable with, I tense up and blank out when unsure of myself. This feeling, where everything from my thoughts to my fingertips just stops, is uncomfortable. But I keep trying. Even though I'm no longer in love with the drummer, I'm still in love with the drums.




For Reference

organic sense: awareness of inner body functions (muscles, heartbeat, etc)
kinesthetic sense: sense of relationship to world around you (like when you spin in a chair and even when you stop it still feels like it's spinning)

It's been almost a year since my last update.

Did you miss me? I missed you, though not in an aching, insistent "why am I not telling my three readers what I'm doing with my life?!?!!" sort of way. Rather, it would float in from the back of my head where the things I forget about like to dwell. "Hey haven't done that in awhile" I'd think to myself, then continue on with my day.

Have you changed, three readers? I think I have, but then again maybe I haven't. From the outset many things seem the same. I still eat, sleep, work and daydream. I still learn new things, though in this case it's karate instead of college classes. I still wish I exercised more, even when I was exercising an hour a day six days a week. I still draw, sing, and joke my way through daily life. But I think, having graduated, things that seemed desperately important at the time no longer do. I think I'm learning to accept life and the people in my world as they are and not as I wish they were. Though I worry about complacency. If I don't pick a direction I might just stay in one spot forever and that isn't exactly optimal. But I have friends, so that's something.


I haven't been writing too much in all honesty. Well, I've been writing down my dreams, when they happen, and writing down ideas for comics. But the poetry, and stories, and snippets of characterization and dialogue that used to fill up my overly-pretentious moleskin notebook? those have sadly dwindled to a halt.

I'm almost halfway to my black-belt, which is cool! I only need to learn sword-fighting and stunt-driving and then I swear I'm gonna move to California and fulfill my life-long goal of being a stunt double. Or maybe not, you know how I am.

Hope You're Well!
Cynthia

In case you needed more proof of my craziness.

I don't know about the rest of the world, but i tend to have rather bizarre dreams. They seem to come in cycles. I won't dream at all for months and then all of a sudden for nights in a row i will have epic dreams that seem like Stan Lee and George Lucas got together and dropped acid. This is what i dreamt last night:

I lived in a world that mostly mirrored our own. I went to classes, i went to work (at a toy store, not a the restaurant i currently work at, but whatever). Each person I knew in my dream was reminiscent of someone i know in real life but with just one or two traits that were off.

The only difference was that everyone had a power. Mine was reading minds. Erin could create endless duplicates of herself or anyone else that would move around, talk and generally just be really good faux targets when we were playing dodgeball.

One small bratty child had the power to make inanimate objects come to life. and that kid just had to make some trouble.

You see, small child wanted a toy (i'm not sure what kind) but his mother refused to buy it. As I turned the corner with my little price tag gun i see the kid yelling. All of a sudden his entire body glows and a pulse goes out of him. Then i hear screams. Three rows over a giant T-rex made entirely of legos is stomping all over the place as people scream, scatter, and cower in terror.

As the pulse continues across the land, for miles this starts happening all over the place. Some of the monsters are smaller ( one is just a mean little lawn gnome looking thing that pops out of the bushes and scratches the hell out of us). Others, depending on the amount of legos, were gigantic. One actually looked like optimus prime, though i doubt optimus would approve of picking up a bus and chucking it across the highway so it bounces like an oddly shaped superball.

The only way to stop someone else from using their power was to find one of a very few bonsai trees. Unlike regular bonsai trees these trees were magical and the energy in one branch, if willingly given, could give the wielder the power to stop someone else's powers from working. Unfortunately said trees couldn't exactly be picked up in the garden section at wallmart and often masqueraded as people, so finding one wasn't the easiest of tasks.

Our first task was to find a monastery where we could get someone to tell us more about these mysterious plants. However, in addition to fighting the lego monsters where ever they were, we had two more problems. The first problem was fighting off the opportunists, the people who thrived in the anarchy that a world in chaos provided them with and were not keen on us setting the world in order. They popped up in every city we ventured to, trying to foil our plans.

when we got to the marshlands we had to deal with the bug. Upon biting you you would be temporarily unable to use your powers. Furthermore, if it bit another person shortly thereafter that person would discover, upon recovery to have gained your powers in addition to their own. It would actually be really cool if it wasn't excruciatingly painful. In the end i learned how to duplicate myself and others and also gained telekinesis. However, I quickly learned that just because you had a power didn't mean you could use it affectively. When i duplicated my self the copies just stood there like zombies, making it painfully easy to pick out the real me. Furthermore, when i tried to levitate a chair it merely hovered feebly before clattering to the ground.

Anyway... after navigating our way through the now apocalyptic cities and towns, trudging through the forest and then the marshlands we finally gained our instructions from the monks. What followed was more trudging through forests, and the eventual climbing of a sacred mountain. The tree was not by the sacred pool. bummer.

So we gave up, and started back down the mountain to go home. on our way back we found a bunch of looters pillaging a pristine, though simple cabin on the edge of the forest. Inside, there were two children in white cowering in the corner while one of the men doused the entire place in gasoline. My ability made it easy to predict punches before they were thrown, while one friend summoned a few duplicates to aid her in her fight, and a second friend just levitated one jerk and threw him out the window. We kicked butt.

When we helped the children up they held their hands out to us, palms facing upward and their eyes started glowing. They produced two sticks. when grasped, one glowed a pale purple and the other a bluish-green. we had what we had been looking for.

I woke up at this point. But I can only assume I went back, smacked that bratty kid in the face with the treebranch, and turned all the legos back into plain old toys. And then frolicked around the globe solving the world's woes wherever i went. Or maybe i turned into the villain since i was now only one of two people with the all-powerful stick thingy.

Fool me once.

There was a time when I thought that con-men only existed in old movies.

Then a few years ago I was conned.


There I was, walking along in the springfield mall (don't worry, the grifters have moved on) When some kid, slightly older than I, and quite adorable came up to me with a clipboard and started talking. He talked alot, threw in a number of compliments to my looks and character. He told me that he was participating in a DJ contest and that in order to win he needed to get votes. How could one vote for him? by signing up for these "totally legitimate" magazine subscriptions, of course! He was very charming and there were a number of competitors in the mall at the time, so i believed him, of course. He told me all about how the company he was working for was backed by the better business bureau and how if he won he'd get to be a dj on some show or another. The paper i filled out seemed very official.

It was, of course, a lie.

In reality, some twenty-two year old fast talker made thirty bucks and a very naive nineteen year old learned a valuable lesson.

A few weeks later i told someone the story and they informed me that i was never getting said magazine. They were correct. I'm pretty sure this once happened to my mom as well, since she told me a very similar story and that magazine also somehow never made it to my door.

So today when two good-looking, friendly, and very talkative girls knocked on my door, I was a bit more guarded about the whole thing. They gave me, almost word for word, the same spiel i heard two years prior at my hometown mall. When I told them I had been scammed before, they told me they were backed by the better business bureau. I didn't tell them that Mr. DJ had said those exact words as well. After dragging it out for a few minutes I politely declined their offer.

Then I called the cops. They were gone already, but at least this time without my money.

Magazine scams, perpetrated most famously by the Universal Subscription Agency, are a very lucrative business. But not for those kids who knock on your door. Those kids are trained to remain almost eerily up-beat at all times, and to talk their way out of any situation. They are brainwashed into not asking where the money they make is going or whether the customers get what they pay for. They work 10 or more hours a day and are often given less than $15 in food money. Many are runaways. All are lured in with the promise of money and the ability to travel. But somehow, most likely because of the fines that managers place upon them, these kids never actually get their money.

So I guess the point of this post is that con-men still exist. And don't ever buy things from door to door salesmen. It is really easy to photoshop official looking documents if you are only showing them to people who don't know what to look for in official documents. And anyone can say that their company is legit.


Or, in the words of mad-eye moody:
Constant Vigilance!