Some things never die...

I live in this weird sub-universe where the 80's a la Madonna never went out of style. In fact, they made friends with 70's London Punk and 90's Seattle Grunge and spawned the outfit I'm wearing today. And I'm okay with that. On what other planet could I layer lace with a Warped Tour/The Pretty Reckless concert tee, skinny jeans, Doc Martens and my favorite blue plaid flannel? 


All while listening to Florence & The Machine?


I'm really hooked on the Drumming Song right now, but I think that's because it is - after Kiss With A Fist, Howl and I'm Not Calling You A Liar - one of the easiest songs for me to sing while getting dressed. 


Work today then perhaps a visit to my former high school to see a certain English teacher. 


Not sure, so no promises. 


Anyways, I've got work. This sub-universe has to support commerce some how.


XO Freak

One of THOSE lists...

I've been working on a "bucket list" post for here for a few months. Weird, huh? Months spent on a list. I almost no longer want to post it because everyone I know has recently started to create and post theirs online. 

But I refuse to be shut down. So the list now has a preamble because I refuse to be just one of a slew of people and not pretend to be oh so cool and at least kind of on top of what else has been happening on the world wide web. 

This list doesn't include things from my previous list(s) that I've already accomplished, such as "saying I love you and meaning it" (Kevin) and "meeting someone you look up to"(Taylor Momsen)and "seeing an overwhelmingly amazing concert" (Green Day, July 3 2009). Others, like "make my father proud of me" have been proven impossible, and as such removed from the list.

Regardless, the things on this list are 100% true and honest wants of mine. Even ones that seem a bit silly.

So, preamble over, I'm going to get down to the list. 

MY BUCKET LIST:

1) Learn French, completely, so that I can think in French if I want to.

2) Learn Italian, but mostly just conversational Italian. 

3) Re-learn Latin because I hate loosing information that was once upon a time in my head, and because once you know Latin so many other languages aren't that far out of reach.

4) Take a philosophy course at a foreign University.

5) Take at least a semester off and go urban backpacking in Europe, mainly in France, England, Ireland and Scotland. 

6) Go to a foreign University for at least one semester. Goldsmiths of London or Central Saint Martins, perhaps?

7) Spend a week in a youth hostel.

8) See the Eiffel Tower lit up at night, preferably with the love of my life.

9) Go to England with my mother and see the town she lived in when she was living there with her family as a kid.

10) Visit the part of Scotland that my mothers mothers parents came from and see if I can find any relatives.

11) Spend a summer at the beach in the South of France. 

12) Become an expatriate and live somewhere exciting. 

13) Vacation abroad without seeing any touristy things, just going to the "real" parts of town - like little markets and family owned businesses.

14) Got to the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland, and meet as many street performers as possible. 

15) See at least one musical written by Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber.

16) Meet Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber and tell him how much his work has inspired me. 

17) See a play/musical on Broadway that can rival the impact of seeing RENT live on Broadway a few years ago with my family.

18) See a play/musical on The West End that can rival the impact of seeing RENT live on Broadway a few years ago with my family.

19) Go to at least one open casting call for a movie or television program, regardless of nerves or what I consider my ability to be hired.

20) Join a paranormal investigation group for at least one investigation, even though I'm afraid of the dark.

21) Live in a flat in New York and spend all of my free time doing artistic things like painting, photography, music, etc. 

22) Own a classic car collection that would make the mostly manly of men drown in their own drool - vintage Mustangs and Mercury Comets and Chevy Impalas... all the good ones. 

23) Get a vintage convertible Slug Bug and paint in robins egg blue. 

24) Do a road trip across America, visiting all sorts of interesting places. 

25) Spend a summer doing nothing but going to concerts. 

25) Have a band and perform songs I've written in front of a rapt audience.

26) Exhibit my art in an art show that people actually come and see.

27) Sell a piece of art to someone who will really enjoy it.

28) Be involved in Doctor Who, be it as an extra or a walk on role or whatever it may be. 

29) Write a screen play.

30) Be a staff writer on Skins, even if it's just for one episode. If Skins is no longer being produced and I still haven't accomplished this, then I'll write for another show. But Skins would be best. Skins will always be the best.

31) Get a reading done by a psychic I don't know. (I've had one done by a psychic who's known me all my life, but somehow that seems less legitimate...)

32) Meet my birth father. And don't let the things my birth mother has said about him color my opinion of him.

33) Have a conversation with my birth mother. We met and things didn't go as well as I'd hoped, and I think we both walked away from our time together let down. I'd like to have a conversation with her and have her respect me as a woman, as an artist and as a politically minded young person, among other things. 

34) Reconnect with my friend Claire. We had a falling out over things she never really understood (I was trying to protect her from things that I had suffered but wasn't at a place to tell her what had happened to me so she just got angry) and I wish it hadn't happened that way.

35) Become friends with (or at least connect with) my half-siblings (my birthmothers children, and any kids my birthfather might have) and expand my "family" to include all these people, in some way or another.

36) Either work with children or be a foster parent, try to make the same impact on their lives that people (my mother, my high school English teacher Mrs. Hillman, my former therapist, among others) made on mine. 

37) Work with a group that helps victims (of abuse, of rape, etc) deal with what happened to them. 

38) Do everything I can to help legalize gay marriage. 

39) Go to a movie premier. 

40) Attend an awards show.

41) Go to all of the Carnival celebrations: New Orleans, Quebec City, Rio de Janeiro...

42) Cook a full Thanksgiving dinner for my (extended) family. From scratch. Pie included, no skimping and using store bought crust.

43) Buy my mother a house on the beach somewhere, paying her back for all of the things she's given me over the years. Not that a house can pay back "love" but you know what I mean. She deserves a nice view and no house payment.

44) Get married in whatever I consider a dream wedding at the time. Currently, that would be "in a rose garden" but things change. It used to be "on the beach" and before that was "completely traditional". 

45) Meet and have a conversation with Joan Jett. She's always been an influence for me and a real inspiration as an artist. 

46) Go to a Joan Jett and the Blackhearts concert and know the lyrics to every song. I don't know all of the lyrics of everything yet, but I've been working on it since I was... really, really little. 

47) Meet the members of Green Day. This has been on my "list" since I was seven and heard their music for the first time. 

48) Go to Burning Man. More specifically, road trip to Burning Man. 

49) Attend ALL of Coachella and camp out between days instead of staying in a hotel. 

50) Follow Warped Tour through several states, if not the entire tour. Punk Rock Summer Camp!

51) Go to T4 On The Beach and spend at least part of the day at the T4 Sessions Stage seeing up and coming bands, even if I'd rather be at the main stage. 

52) Over the course of two years, attend both the Leeds and Reading Festivals, and camp for the weekend. 

53) Go to Viretta Park on the anniversary of Kurt Cobains death to celebrate his life with other diehard fans. Born and raised in Seattle, Nirvana and Kurt are part of my cultural DNA, and even though I was barely two years old (literally two years, three weeks and five days) I'm proud to say that I lived in the same universe as him, however briefly it may have been. RIP baby boy... 

54) Learn how to ride a motorcycle. 

55) Go to the World Cup and remind any American's I meet that it's football not soccer. I think I'm the only kid in my town who by habit calls it football, and the amount of confused looks I've gotten is VERY telling. 

56) Spend the World Cup in a British Pub. 

57) Pick a foreign football club to support. Currently, I support Seattle Sounders FC but that's a little too local. 

58) Visit Australia and document the whole thing with both a video camera and a still camera.  

59) Have kids. At least two, though possibly three. Unless I really don't like pregnancy... but I can always adopt. Still, having kids is a MUST. 

60) Get my kids names tattooed on me. I got my mothers name on my ankle on my 18th birthday, so maybe they'll return the favor some day. 

61) Get something I've drawn as a tattoo.

62) Get my drivers license. I know, I'm 18, I should have this covered already... but I'm terrified of driving. Don't know why, just am. I'm working on it, though.

63) Attend at least five different kinds of religious services and challenge my own views (however warped they may be) on religion and it's role in the world. 

64) Own a beach cruiser (bike) and ride along the bike path at Venice Beach, California. 

65) Write a tell-all autobiography because my life is actually a lot more interesting than I give it credit for being. It doesn't have to get published, just written.

66) Write and publish a book that I'm proud of. 

67) Be in a band and do a cover of The Beatles "Revolution" at least once. 

68) Be part of a real protest. I was part of one sophomore year of high school (it was anti-censorship, which I totally believe in) but it was sort of a flop because a) teenagers don't have rights and b) it was at a high school, where even our opinions don't matter. I want to really stand up for something next time.

69) Learn to play the guitar. I can sort of play at the moment but want to be able to write my own songs some day. Or at least play songs other people have written. I'm more of a lyrics girl, myself.

70) Go to New York Fashion Week and see at least one big-name show, but definitely see the up and coming designers who are showing.

71) Go to Paris Fashion Week and revel in the beauty. Take my mother, who used to be the most fashionable woman I've ever seen (then she met my father), with me. 

72) Go to Venice and walk EVERYWHERE. The occasional boat is of course allowed, since there are some places that it's hard to get to on foot when you're on a collection of over 100 islands...

73) Drink champagne straight from the bottle while lounging on a couch at a swanky club in France. Straight out of a movie, no?

74) Watch all of the Harry Potter movies (once both parts of the seventh come out) back-to-back. 

75) Read a book of poetry written by someone I'd never heard of until I found it. Once finished, give the book to someone else to enjoy.

76) Decorate an entire house to the best of my ability, from wall color and flooring to furniture and what gets hung on the walls, and don't let anyone tell me that it isn't "right" or "good enough". 

77) Make a life-long friend in an unlikely/awkward situation. 

78) Loose weight. I want to do this not just so I'm skinny but because I want to be healthy, and not end up with health problems like most of my genetic family. 

79) Direct a short film. 

80) Sit down and talk fashion with Rachel Zoe. And examine her collection of Chanel. Oh. My. God. Jealous doesn't cover it. 

81) Learn how to shoot a gun, but not one that's for hunting. Hunting still bothers me on a lot of levels.

82) Get back to my natural hair color. I'm working on this right now, but I had black hair then red hair and I'm naturally blond... this might take a bit of work.

83) Actually attend my high school reunion. Even though I don't like most of the people I went to high school with.

84) Throw a raging party for all the people I actually want to have around.

85) Kick people out of a party because I don't need them around me then or ever.

86) Say something meaningful (or spontaneous) that people will then quote of their own volition. Like the lyric "everyone will quote me on this line" from the song Say by Girl In A Coma. There's some things that just WANT to be quoted, and I'd like to give at least one to the world.

87) Paint over a canvas. That's hard for me because I have trouble letting go. But I'll do it some day. Take a painting I don't like and just... go over it.

88) Attend the Sundance Film Festival in Salt Lake City, and see a film that at first glance doesn't appeal to me. 

89) Send someone a dozen red roses. There doesn't have to be a reason, but it just has to happen.

90) Receive a dozen red roses. Whatever the reason is, it'll be a magical thing. A dozen red roses... what's more touching?

91) Join a Roller Derby league. Learn not to have "crying" be my natural reaction to startled pain. 

92) Help at least ten people cross something off their bucket list.

93) Jump, of my own volition, into a pool while fully clothed.

94) Jump into a pool while fully clothed and take someone with me.

95) Learn how to fold origami cranes.

96) Get a group of friends together and fold 1,000 origami cranes, then give them as gifts to strangers. 

97) Take time off school to be a Roadie with Invisible Children, a group I've been helping/following/speaking about on my own for years. 

98) Learn to play pool. My boyfriend has been trying (and failing) to teach me since the first day we met, and I'd like to actually sort it out so that we can play pool together.

99) Visit the Hollywood sign and have a drink to the memory of all of the stars that didn't quite make it and all of the stars who died too young.

100) Expand my bucket list to 200.

I can't keep on track... why do I try?

As happens, I've been off-line a lot lately. Sorting out college, looking into getting a flat with the boyfriend, coming to the realization that I need a second job (what fun) and applying for a handful, re-learning how to drive (still hate it), painting, babysitting, and researching.


Researching, you ask?


I've been researching a lot lately. Anything that catches my fancy, I'll get online and follow links until I know more than you do. 


Most recently it was Earnest Hemingway. Did you know that he met Pablo Picasso in Paris? Or that he underwent electro-shock therapy because of paranoia, likely caused by a handful of mental disorders that were in turn likely caused by an iron build up, theorized because his father suffered from the same? They both killed themselves, too. 


I like Hemingway, he's an interesting writer. I had to read A Farewell To Arms in English class and must say I prefer For Whom the Bell Tolls. My mother hates both, says they're far to violent. 


Now I'm watching No Reservations and am having to come to grips with the fact that I'm about to watch a REALLY adorable lamb turn into a dinner option. 


But it's SOOO CUTE, how could you eat it? Poor baby had it's legs all tied up together so it couldn't get all muscular and ruin the flavor, too... poor little thing.


I'm seeming a lot less badass with every post, huh? Oh well. It's true - I spent years as a vegetarian because I felt bad eating arguably adorable animals, and I only went back to eating meat (chicken and fish, the occasional cheese burger or piece of bacon) because I'm able to get sustainable meats, from no-suffering farms. 


Weird concept, huh? Well, for those of you who know about places like Whole Foods (note, I really mean "rarely" with food because I live in a town without a reliable source for good products) this isn't news, but for those who are used to Burger King you may find it shocking that there are two kinds of producers of food products: those who do it with a standard of ethics and those who do it to make money. Also known as "those who make sure the animals suffer the least amount possible between birth and death" and "those who tie legs together to make sure there's no muscle in with the fat everyone says is so yummy". 


I eat with ethics (weird, I know) and even make friends with local chefs to double-check quality. There are places I avoid like the plague because of the way animals that go to them are treated, and there are places I return to because I trust them. 


Then there are places I end up at because I end up there - like a random Chinese place in New York on Christmas a few years back - where I have to make a choice. 


I hate those situations...


Anyways, this post got REALLY off topic REALLY fast, so I'm going to try to reign it back in. 


Right. Apartments. THAT was where I was going. 


I've come to a point at which living in one town, working in another and going to school in another is inconvenient, even in the Rogue Valley where it's not that far from town to town. 


So I'm faced with getting my butt closer to School, and hopefully getting work to happen on days when classes... aren't. 


Now that means finding a flat, and since I'm 18 and have a boyfriend who's stuck it out for eight and a half months (oh my god, just realized how long that actually is in my world of 3 week boyfriends...) I'm taking him with me.


The reality that we found a place we like near his parents house is really quite handy, supposing we get it. 


It's just going to take some time to get in, because I'm 18 and work a part time job for minimum wage at a company my family owns and am getting set up to go full-time to the local community college and my boyfriend is getting set up to go to the local community college and trying to find a job of the preferably full-time variety...


Money's tight. Give me a few months of saving what I can (my car's falling apart and I'm an artist, my money is blown on keeping the Volvo running and a healthy stash of canvas and paint in my closet) and I'll have my foot in the door.


Or maybe my furniture, and then I'll be able to get to college in ten minutes instead of going into work with my mom at eight, getting a ride to the college at whenever classes start and then having to hang out at a cafe or in the library between courses because I have nowhere else to go. 


Plus, when we get a place... I was promised a kitten.


Yes, a Kitten.


A cute, fuzzy, snuggly kitten. I get a kitten because the cat my mother said I could take has recently become not an option.


No, she's not dead. She's my mothers last attempt to hold on to me and the fact that I am her child. The cat is mine, and by keeping it, she's keeping part of me.


Or something like that. I'm trying to work out the thinkings of a fifty something with three cats and a house where the walls and carpets are white and her best friend is the Real Housewives because they (well, them or one of her other shows) are reliably on the telly every night. Except Wednesdays. Wednesdays are just... depressing, for my mother. 


So she's keeping my cat, and I get a new kitten to make up for it. 


YAY kittens... 


I think I want a little grey one this time. The only grey kitten I ever had stopped being grey when it was a few weeks old and the orange-brown patches spread. 


That'd be Tucker, our only boy cat, who hates me because he's asthmatic and I have to medicate him on a nightly basis. 


I want a little grey kitten that will actually love me like kittens are supposed to. But the important part for me is that it's a rescue, go down to the shelter (we have several) and pick up a vet-certified healthy kitten to bring home and love to death. That's also going to have to wait until I get money, since there's mandatory vet visits and food and all sorts of little things like that.


Like catnip. I'm a huge fan of fresh catnip plans for the kittens to play with. Probably more of a sadistic joy relating to using a laser pointer to torment them after they're three leaves deep into a kitty-high, but...


That's unrelated to why I'm getting a kitten. I'm getting one cuz they're cute and (unless they're being medicated by you night after night) they love you unconditionally. 


The other bonus that comes from living with boyfriend on a more permanent basis than I do right now (really, I do weekends at his house, he does one or two week days at mine) is the fact that his clothes will be readily available.


This means two things: I have a new source of clothing and will be rocking the "boyfriend" look, and I'll be able to politely bring about the demise of some of his well-trashed pieces of clothing. Oh, and I forgot, I'll also be able to add a few pieces of joy to his wardrobe, much like the plaid shorts I facilitated (gifts from my fathers closet, readily given since he's gotten roundy and they don't fit anymore). 


AAAAAAND I'll get to decorate an apartment. Decorating is my specialty, and I've plenty of art to put on the walls. We have a bit of furniture put together form his house and mine - two beds (helpful in a one bedroom, I'm aware), one bedside table (also helpful, I know), a handful of book shelves, a TV stand with shelving, two (maybe more, one of which - mine - is the size of a post card) TV's, a PS3, a game cube, 2 broken PS2's that only play PS1 games, two laptops, a lamp, a CD player, and some stack-shelving units that currently hold space in my closet. Oh, and maybe a huge green chair that belonged to my great grandfather and I haven't let out of my sight since I had it re-covered when I was twelve. I love that chair - even if it's shredded from cats and needs to once again be re-covered. Oh, and my art table. Forgot that... we only unearthed it from the garage this week, so I'm not used to it being around. It's a full on drafting table, and once I get it put together it'll do all sorts of neat tricks. 


Like probably be my desk for all homework related things. Such a shame to wreck such a pretty piece of furniture that way. 


Anyways... off to day dream about my new apartment and my amazing boyfriend and my adorable kitten. Thankfully I've got one of the three on hand already, and he doesn't exist solely if I have money. He exists just because he's fantastic and I'm against the concept of letting him go. Ever. 


So, I'm going to go. 


XO


FREAK aka


PS: Some more photos.

LIA: my little baby girl, she's 8 (?!) this year. How old is that in cat years?

Lia asleep with her catnip filled, bright pink, leopard print kitten body pillow. Which may end up going with me, since she only uses it when it just so happens to be where she's sleeping anyways.

Anyone else kind of sad for me that I'm not able to take her with me? 

XOxoXOxoXO

The Lost Days...

Somewhere between Orcas Island and Portland, there was Seattle. And I'm not just talking geographically. I spent a week with my father, and these are the pictures from that time, that didn't make it onto the blog when they should have because I got a little Pretty Reckless crazy. 


Here you go:

At Johnny Rockets, chocolate coke and cherry coke. That was our first night back in Seattle.

Biking down at Alki beach. By "Seattle" I mostly mean "West Seattle"

More Alki Beach. I miss the ocean...

Not my best work. Also not my worst.

Hey look, tis ME

The look of intense concentration makes him bike better. I think.

Loads of people gathered around looking at this fluffy little baby harbor seal that was chillin on the beach.

You'll notice that most of my pictures of Kevin involve his bike...

Oh god I'm pale... but, those are my brand new Vans which I adore.

Not a very good picture, but shows just how stupidly small his bike is. 

Lincoln Park. Just past that ferry dock is where I used to live. That's a distant memory now.

More at Lincoln Park.

My father. He's arabic. I'm adopted. Yeah...

There's this face that every boy can make, and only boys can make. Kevin's managed it here. Most famously seen on Twilight star Rob Pattinson (who is so much better in everything else, such as his tiny role in Vanity Fair, or his role in How To Be, or Little Ashes, or a million other things... but it's hard to be worse than body glitter and lipstick...)

Easy Street Records. My home away from home as a kid.

My dads neighbors cat. He's abnormally fuzzy with abnormally short legs and an abnormally short tail, a strangely long body and a face like he ran into a frying pan as a kid...

Leaving Seattle for Portland and The Pretty Reckless

There you go. The lost days of film. I'm going to get back to the painting I was working on and then probably go to sleep, because I can now officially only sleep during they day unless I'm at my boyfriends house. 

What fun... insomnia, a girls best friend.

XO

FREAK

Apparently I look like a total troll in the mornings...

Apparently, through my mothers eyes, this is what I look like at the ungodly hour that is 7:05 AM after two hours of sleep:

Yep.


How's that make you feel, boys and girls?


So she told me to go to bed, then proceeded to wake me up again because she wanted me to go to the grocery real quick so I'd have food for today, then she lost her debit card, then we went to the local Co-op and I got a breakfast burrito that has FAR to many potatoes of a not-quite-potato-like consistency and eggs with cheese of a not-quite-eggy consistency, all wrapped up in a kind of funny tasting tortilla. Reason ten million and one I miss the big city: places with REAL FOOD for breakfast. Like Whole Foods, which is a fucking god-send if you live anywhere near one. And they're all over...


Someone go and get a GOOD breakfast for me, would you? And savor it because I can't? 


Anyways, on that note, I'm going to finish breakfast and go back to bed - yeah, I'm so cool that I do things BACKWARDS - and maybe get on here later because I really want to blog about my opinions of Gwen Stefani, Kelly Osbourne and Taylor Momsen <--- that's going to be very indulgent, as I happen to think they're all style icons, gorgeous and part of me can't decide if I want to be them or marry them. 


So that's it. 


XO


FREAK