Emotionally drained.

Wow. The past two days have been nothing but ups and downs.

Last night I went to Amy's house and we had an accidental party. I got to see Amy, KTG$, Girl!Taylor, Tyler, Keith, Chris Crownover, and Andrew. It was really great, we watched Scott Pilgrim and cuddled and took lots of ridiculous pictures.


I also made Amy a hipster cake.


And Andrew had gone to Taco Bell to get a chalupa, but when he got it, it had lettuce and he hates lettuce so he gave it to me.


There's a much more flattering picture of me with the chalupa but it's way too pornographic for me to put up here so you can just use your imagination.

But yes, it was fun.

I spent the night at Girl!Taylor's house. This morning we got up early and went thrifting! We found this really cool vintage shop near where Amy lives, and we bought Amy's birthday present, which I think she'll love. I also bought myself a new pretty floral top, and an extremely awesome new tee shirt!


You can't really see because of my obnoxious hair/stupid thumbs/crappy Macbook iSight quality, but it says "NIAGARA FALLS CANADA", and has a picture of Niagara Falls. Badass, I know.

After we did our thrifting, we went to the dollar store to get presents and cake stuff for our friend Chase's birthday. We got him an airhorn, silly string, a balloon, and a Buzz Lightyear watch from the dollar store, and then we went to Goodwill and bought him a bunch of t-shirts that we thought were funny.

When we got back to Girl!Taylor's house we got ready and made him this really awesome, three layered, heart shaped cake. It was vanilla cake with chocolate chips, and each layer was a different color. The bottom layer was blue, the middle was yellow, and the top was orange. We put marshmallow fluff between the layers and covered it in purple frosting. Then the cake split in half. So we wrote "epic" on one side and "fail" on the other. It was great.

We actually had the "party" at Chelsea's house. It was a small thing with just me, Girl!Taylor, Posh Spice, Chase (the birthday boy), and Chelsea's parents and brother. It was the first time I'd been in her house since the accident, and the first time I'd seen her family since the memorial service.

Chelsea's parents made us homemade tacos (her dad is Mexican so it was completely legit), and while they were cooking we went in Chelsea's room. It was so bittersweet and strange.

Everything was exactly as she'd left it, except for her mom had washed and folded her dirty clothes, and there was an urn containing her ashes, engraved with her name, on the shelf above her bed.

We took our time, examining each part of the room. Every now and then, one of us would pick something up and we'd talk about the memories attached to that particular something, or we'd laugh about one of Chelsea's Hansen posters or her weird CD collection. We also said hello to her snake, Circa.

We all broke down at least once.

When dinner was ready we said "see you later" to Chels, and went to go eat. We laughed and talked and opened Chase's presents and ate our fail-cake.

Then Chase played a song that he had written for Chelsea on the guitar and we talked about how much we miss her.

I came home and cried and listened to all her songs on repeat.


Recently, Chelsea's demos were compiled into an EP that is available for free download through BandCamp. You can go listen/download here. I promise you, all the tracks are beautiful and she has an amazing voice. I know I linked to her music MySpace in a previous blog entry (when she was still alive), so some of you guys might recognize the song "With Ears to See and Eyes to Hear". Please, if you do go listen or download, leave a comment letting me know.

I just miss her so much.

Thanksgiving, the best night of my life, and several revelations.

Wow. I feel like all of my blogs lately have been in bullet point form. But my life has been so all over the place it's impossible to have it all down otherwise!

I guess I should go chronologically here.

This past week I've had three major revelations dealing with the romantic (?) interests in my life.

The first of which, involved Posh Spice and was already discussed in this blog entry.

Then, there was my revelation involving Michael Cera. In the aforementioned blog post, I was having doubts about Michael Cera and my ability to commit. I actually got around to telling him about these doubts, and breaking things off. At first it seemed like he took it well, but everyone in our mutual group of friends thinks of me as the Wicked Witch of the West now. Which is awesome. But honestly? It doesn't bother me because I know I did the right thing. So that's how that goes.

The third and final revelation, involved Vanilla Ice. I hung out with him on Sunday. We held hands during Harry Potter (which I was watching for the second time) and then hung out at his house afterward. Things got too... romantic? and reached their breaking point, which resulted in us having this big discussion about what exactly is going on between us. I confessed to him how I've had a crush on him for a really long time and have never known how to approach it or him because he's such an enigma and I was always so intimidated. He confessed to me that he like(d/s) me too, but things can't really go anywhere because of some of his own personal reasons, which I was able to fully understand because I'm in sort of the same boat. And we didn't really come to any conclusion or ultimatum or decide if we were going to be "just friends" or what, but we aired all of our dirty laundry and that felt extremely nice. I feel like I bridged this great big gap between the two of us, and all the things I couldn't talk about with him before, we can talk about now. It's really lovely.

Tuesday night, I got to see my favorite band of all time since middle school- Meg & Dia, play live at The Social. It was legitimately the best night of my life so far. Amy's dad got us on the guest list so we didn't have to pay. When we first got into the venue, we actually saw Meg and Dia Frampton in the back, near the merch tables doing signings and such. By the time we got there though, Meg had disappeared so it was just Dia. But she signed my iPod, told me I was cute and she liked my vest, and we had some random stranger take a photo of me and Amy with her, which you can see below. I look terrible and was unprepared, but I don't care- it's Dia Frampton.


After that, we headed back to the floor so we could secure our spot right up on the stage.

The first opener was a guy who went by the stage name "The Whale and the Wave". I highly recommend you go search for him because it was very adorable, heartfelt, acoustic stuff by an adorable boy. I appreciated him.

Then there was another solo act that went by "Solaseria". He's actually local, apparently, and I thought he was really good. His music reminded me of Middle Earth.

Then The Spring Standards played! If you have any sort of musical taste at all, you'll go look them up and buy all their songs right now- because they are wonderful. They're a three piece folksy act, made up of a ginger bearded man, a brunette bearded man, and a ginger woman. They all sing and play multiple instruments, and their music is fun and beautiful, and, in general everything I look for in a band.

Finally, it was Meg & Dia's turn. I squealed so much as they were up on the stage, getting ready for their set. Nick, the drummer, was adorable as always. Jonathan, the bassist, had a particularly fluffilicious beard. And of course the sisters looked gorgeous. Carlo, the second guitarist, was literally right in front of us. When he was bending down to plug in all of his stuff, his face was seriously inches from mine. And all of the sudden, he was like, "Hey, how are you doing?" And I told him I was doing great, and probably squealed. "Remix to Ignition" by Nelly was actually playing via the PA system at the time, so I took the moment to tell him that I liked Meg & Dia's version (which you can experience here) way better. He laughed, told me I was "fucking awesome" and gave me a high five. I thought I was going to die.

They played every song off of the new EP, a couple songs from Something Real and Here, Here and Here, and CARDIGAN WEATHER! They also covered Tom Petty's "American Girl" and Blind Melon's "No Rain". All of it was perfect, and when they played "The One" I cried.

In their song "Dreams Like Oceans" there is this brilliant drum break where they basically bring out all sort of drums and bang on them and it's wonderful and beautiful. Well, they preformed this, and in the middle of that drum part, Carlo comes over to where Amy and I are, and hands us each a drum stick. I died. It was all chipped and battered and beautiful from use- and he handed to us. It wasn't like he just flung it into the crowd for someone to catch. He GAVE THEM TO US. I seriously died.

Then at the end of their set he gave us his guitar pick.

Carlo Gimenez is my favorite person.

After the show was over, we made our way back over to the merch area. We saw Meg and Dia and Meg signed the other half of my iPod, and they commented on the Snow White sticker. I told them how she's my favorite princess and Dia was like, "Mine too!" and then she did the little singing thing that Snow White does, and I died. I told them how they'd been my favorite band since I was like, 13, and we had a big group hug with Meg and Dia and Amy and I and it was brilliant.

We then managed to find Carlo and give him a big hug and a thank you for everything. He was wonderful and nice. Nick and Jonathan were missing though, and that was sad.

We then saw that The Spring Standards were working the merch table, so we went over and were like "we came to inquire about the hugs!" and they literally dropped what they were doing, came out from behind the table, and hugged us. The ginger bearded man spun me around, and the brunette bearded man told me I was awesome. The ginger woman and I shared a moment because we were wearing the same skirt. She also told me she coveted my vest. It was a really lovely moment.

Afterwards, Amy and I got pizza from the second sketchiest pizza place in downtown Orlando, Planet Pizza, and cried all the way home. It was brilliant. The whole night was just absolutely perfect. I now have a small Meg & Dia shrine that is slowly growing on the shelf above my desk.


Today was Thanksgiving and I don't have much to say about it, other than that I hate Thanksgiving. I always feel so tired and full afterwards, my relatives are annoying, and my little sister throws a tantrum EVERY YEAR.

I did get to see Tangled though, and it was really, really good. I highly recommend it.


OH OH OH OH OH OH OH OH OH OHOH OH OH OH AND HOW DID I NOT TALK ABOUT DEATHLY HALLOWS


I went to the midnight premier of Deathly Hallows Part One, dressed up of course, and it was absolutely perfect. I laughed, I cried, and I made a vlog about it, which has yet to be edited. Like I really cannot stand the fact that I have to wait until July for the next one.

It's just really kind of heartbreaking for me, because I first read Sorcerer's Stone when I was only six or seven years old. That's ten years Harry's been in my life, and it was basically my entire childhood. I just hate that it's all ending. Really.

On the bright side, I reapplied for Harry Potter World yesterday, this time with good word from my friend Brittany, who works at the Three Broomsticks. So hopefully that works out. If I got a job at Harry Potter World, I would probably ditch college altogether and just retire as a wizard.

RIP, Beautiful Shoes.

On Wednesday night, Girl!Taylor and I discovered that we wear the same size shoe. Which is surprising, considering I don't meet a lot of girls who wear a size 9 shoe. Girl!Taylor and I also happen to have identical taste in shoes (and fashion in general- too bad we're different sizes in clothing). So Wednesday, I traded a pair of cloth, floral Mary Jane flats that I bought at Urban Outfitters several months ago that I never wear (I have another pair that's very similar and more versatile) for a gorgeous pair of patent leather high heeled Mary Janes.

The following day, my dog chewed them up.

Awesome.

R.I.P., beautiful shoes.

This past week in summary:

• Last Friday was Chelsea's memorial service. It was extremely difficult for me, and everyone else involved. It was amazing to see how many lives she touched... The funeral home was so packed, even the aisles and the back of the room was filled to capacity with standing people. It was an open mic sort of thing, and several people went up and said a few things about Chelsea, told their stories. I cried more than I've cried in a long, long time. But I was surrounded with friends- Amy, Chris, Ian, KTG$, and so many others. And while it was so painful, I realized why it happened. This entire expanded community of people and friends, my peer group, has, up until this point, been completely disconnected from one another. There's been drama, there's been cruelty and backstabbing, there's been self centered-ness and we've all taken each other for granted. We were brought back together by this tragedy, and were forced to lean on each other. Chelsea was teaching us a lesson. Ever since this happened, everyone's just been so much better to each other. Let's hope it stays that way.
• Beyond that, the loss of Chelsea has been difficult. Most days I cry about it. Sometimes I'll hear a song, or someone will mention her, or I just won't have a "good morning" text from her in my phone, and it'll set me off. A couple days I've done okay though.
  
• Last Saturday Amy and I had a childhood movie marathon to distract ourselves. We watched The Thief and the Cobbler, Balto, Mary Kate & Ashley's Sleepover Party, and like seven others. It was great. Then we walked around Downtown Disney for a while. It was nice. I love her.
• I had a date with Michael Cera on Tuesday. It went really well and we get along perfectly fine and there's absolutely nothing wrong with him... But honestly? I don't feel anything. Or I don't know. I just woke up on Wednesday morning and had a mini panic attack about it. I started freaking out over the fact that I might have to commit. And when Josh and I first got together, we had this weird, instant, soul-connection. And even though I was really shy and guarded when Josh and I met, it still felt like we'd known each other our whole lives. With Michael Cera, it's not like that at all. Josh set the bar, I guess? I don't know. I'm having all these second thoughts and I realize I'm gonna have to let the poor guy down eventually. And I hate that I have to do that. I don't want to hurt him, or be the cold hearted bitch I know he's going to perceive me as. Gotta do what I gotta do though.
• Wednesday I spent most of the day with Josh (surprise, I know). We made my FTFK video and played Super Smash Brothers at his house for the first time since we were dating. It was... weirdly comforting and familiar. Like it was like nothing had changed, we were just picking up where we'd left off. Without all the couple-y stuff, obviously. But the way we get along is exactly as it's always been. It's weird. I'm telling you, our souls are like, connected or some crazy crap like that. Don't go interpreting this wrong! I promise you we're not getting back together or anything like that. We came to the conclusion that, no matter what, we're always going to be a part of each other's lives. Always. And there's so much more to this. So much happened as was said on Wednesday night but I can't put it here.
• That night we went and watched Zombieland with Chase and Girl!Taylor at Girl!Taylor's house. It was fun.
• TONIGHT I SAW HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PART ONE AT MIDNIGHT AND OH MY GOD I STILL CAN'T BELIEVE WHAT I SAW AND OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD IT WAS PERFECT. I WILL WRITE A LONGER REVIEW. PROMISE. BUT RIGHT NOW I AM STILL OH MY GOD.
• Amy got her heart broken. Again. I feel awful.
• Vanilla Ice and I are hanging out next Friday..........................
• I'm listening to the Donnie Darko soundtrack and somehow it makes everything better.
• I left so much out of this but honestly there's no way to tell you all right now.....
  

I don't know where to start.

This is one of those rare opportunities where I come to this blog feeling like I have too much to say.

I guess I'll go in chronological order.

I gave up Nanowrimo. Not because of my story or of being tired of it, but because of a crazy series of events which I'm about to describe to you.

Friday night at six o'clock, I entered into a three day intensive therapy workshop recommended to me by my therapist.

While it may sound corny, I can honestly say it was one of the greatest things that has ever happened to me.

Friday night I entered the workshop, surrounded by 60 complete strangers. 20 of them were students, like me. The rest were "angels", who were there to assist us on our journey. Most of the angels were former students who'd gone through the seminar, with a few therapists. The whole shindig was led by two therapists, one of them being my personal therapist, Vicki, and the other being this man named Bert.

I was so nervous before I went. I wanted to die. Everyone knows I am a painfully shy person, so on the first night, being in that room full of strangers and getting in front of them and telling everyone what I wanted to get out of the weekend, was a terrifying experience for me. I wanted to run away.

Our Saturday session was from 8 AM to 11 PM. I honestly did not want to go back, at all. But, since my parents were paying for it I knew I had too. Saturday was where everything changed.

I don't want to tell you too much about the workshop, but it was brilliant. There was so much love, so much closeness and nurturing, and we did exercises and things to release all the negative shit everyone had been carrying around. By the end of it, my fellow students and all the angels were collectively my family. I met beautiful, wonderful people, and I'm closer to them than I am with anyone else. Everyone came from all walks of life. There were different genders, races, ages, sizes, shapes, sexualities, stories. I'd tell you everything I could about these beautiful, wonderful people but I don't know where to start. Everyone was just lovely.

By the end of it on Sunday night at 8 o'clock, I was a completely changed person. I was able to get in front of everyone for my "graduation" and give a improvised speech, while wearing bunny ears, completely confident and comfortable. I was happy, I was at peace, I was relieved. Everyone in the room was the same exact way.

I watched a 200 pound bald black man dance around the room with a green feathered hat and a pair of granny panties pulled on over his jeans while singing "Bootylicious" with his tongue out. I cuddled on some beanbags with a 70 year old woman and a man with waist length dreadlocks. I said "fuck" a lot. I fell in love with everyone. I gave a speech with bunny ears on my head.

It was so sad having to say goodbye to everybody. But the good news is, I can go back and be an angel now, and see some of them again.

I went to bed Sunday night completely drained, in a good way.

This morning, I woke up to 20+ texts and calls from my friends. The first person I called back was Amy. And she informed me that my good friend Chelsea Rodriguez was killed in a car accident last night.

I couldn't believe it. I still don't. I cannot possibly wrap my head around the fact that someone so beautiful, so perfect, so happy, so strong, could be dead. I can't. Logically, in my brain I know that she's gone. I won't receive one of her good morning text messages ever again. But in my heart, I still feel like they've made a mistake. They've got the wrong girl. Clearly they are wrong.

But I know when I go to her memorial service on Friday, it'll hit me. Then I'll be a wreck. But right now, I don't feel anything but shock and disbelief.

Because of this, I didn't change my plans for tonight. I figured it would be better for me to get off Facebook- where my news feed is covered with pictures of her and statuses about her and wall posts written to her, messages and prayers she'll never read- and go be with friends.

It may sound selfish, but honestly, I don't think Chelsea would've expected any different. She wouldn't have wanted us to sit at home and mope over her death, she would want us to be out living life to the maximum capacity, just like she did. And if there was anything I learned from her loss, it was to make every second count, and to cherish every possible moment with friends, because life is too fragile.

So, in the evening I went over to JP's, where I hung out with him, Chris, Ryan, and Tuene for a little while. We hung out in JP's garage, talked about Chelsea and listened to JP play the guitar.

Later, Bradley, Heather, and Michael Cera joined us and we went off to GameStop, to prepare for the midnight release of a video game called Black Ops?

Brad, Chris, and JP went and got their ticket with their number on it for line at midnight, and we all ate at Panda Express. Heather and Ryan left early because they're still in high school (haha). The rest of us killed the time by wandering around Wal Mart and eating at Steak and Shake, and generally goofing off. I got to know Michael Cera more, which was lovely. He is really sweet and laughs at my corniness, and gets even more adorable the more I get to know him.

And we may or may not have cuddled/held hands.

Honestly right now, everything has been timed so perfectly. I needed this weekend. If I hadn't have had the experience I had, I wouldn't know how to handle the loss of Chelsea. Of course, I haven't handled it yet, because it hasn't sunk in, but when it does, I'll know how to let it all out. If I hadn't taken the workshop, I would take it in stride like I normally would, and let it eat me up inside forever.

I also came to a realization this weekend, that I am a person, a living miracle. I am a body, a heart, a brain, a soul. And that, in itself, means that I am worthy of love. This has affected me in so, so, so, so many ways. And that includes the way I view relationships and romance.

I now know that I pick out the guys that reject me, neglect me, and don't treat me like I deserve. I choose guys that leave me hanging, that don't make me a priority. Posh Spice and Vanilla Ice are prime examples of this. Taking the workshop has made me want to give this bad habit up, and accept what I deserve, which is someone who is sweet, caring, and wants me as much as I want them. And while it's much, much too early to predict or call anything, I know that Michael Cera couldn't have entered my life at a better time. He is sweet, caring, and wants to know me as much as I want to know him.

I spent a short amount of time tonight feeling guilty for feeling all these good things while this tragedy has happened. I should be miserable, I should be mourning for Chelsea. But honestly, I will cross that bridge when I get to it, and Chelsea would have expected me to love and live my life. Even in the midst of shittiness.

Because of Chelsea, I'm going to make all of this count. I'm going to be the positive, loving person I've always wanted to be. I'm going to send out good morning texts, just like she did. I'm going to love everyone like I should. I'm going to live my life to it's fullest potential and appreciate every single person involved.

This one's for you, Chels.

If I want to blog, I'll blog.

Guess who just ate at this fancy-shmancy dessert cafe with her grandparents who are wonderful and perfect in every way?

Guess who went on a three hour long walk with Posh Spice two nights ago?

Guess who stayed up until three in the morning on Oovoo with the Michael Cera lookalike* from JP's birthday cookout?

Guess who was asked by Vanilla Ice to have a movie day in the near future?

Guess who doesn't know how she feels about the last three statements?

Guess who hasn't worked on her NaNoWriMo novel at all today, and won't be able to this entire weekend?

Guess who got a signed copy of Meg & Dia's new EP in the mail yesterday?

Guess who has listened to Ke$ha's "Sleazy" 41 times, according to iTunes?

Guess whose dad jabbed her in the eye with an umbrella today?

Just guess.




To answer commenter questions from last entry-

• NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing month, where a group of individuals from all over the world decide to write a 50,000 word novel during the month of November. If you complete this task, you get your name on a list.
• Kyle and I aren't dating. I still got my single gurl swag~
  
• My novel for NaNoWriMo is a coming of age tale about a teenage girl who, through a series of crazy antics and events, learns to think for herself and finds her place. That's all I'm gonna reveal. Ahaha.

*From now on, in this blog, he will simply be referred to as Michael Cera.

Procrastinating NaNoWriMo + My Weekend.

Wow. So it's been a crazy weekend for me.

Friday was possibly the best day I've had in a long time.

I went on a road trip with the boys of Bring Forth the Attack, plus Heather and Justine, to Melbourne to see the beach and to watch them play a show at a venue called The Harbor. It was so much fun, we stopped at McDonalds three times and I ate so many cookies and I felt like death afterwards. We didn't get home until one in the morning, and I turned Kyle into a human pillow on the way home so...

Saturday I woke up feeling terrible about a certain situation... I just didn't want to talk to anybody and I thought it was all in my head. I decided to go to Posh Spice, for advice, for some reason... and he told me something that made me sure of what I had to do. So that was nice, and I'm really grateful to him for that, even though when he first told me I got really upset.

It's weird being friends with him now.

But I like it.

That night I went to my nana's birthday party and gorged myself on Olive Garden.

Yesterday I went to my friend JP's birthday barbecue, which was a really good decision. I got to see so many people that I love... JP, Kayla, Michael, Bradley, Heather, Justine, Taylor, Ryan... As well as some other really awesome people. Sharrell and Cameron were there too, and I found out that Cameron has been shot in the face (not kidding).

I met a guy named Joel who was really nice and chill, and reminded me of Michael Cera. In a good way. He looked just like Michael Cera, only with a nicer nose. I kind of regret not talking to him more, but he inspired me to borrow Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist from Amy for my viewing pleasure tonight. I love that movie, but I don't own it.

Then that night I went trick or treating with Amy, KTG$, Chris, and Tyler. I got a ton of candy and ate way too much of it and now I feel like death, but it was worth it. I spent the night at Amy's, but she had school this morning so I spent the whole day in her house with just her dad. Which was actually pretty relaxing. I read a book and used her shampoo.

I had a therapy appointment today, so JJ came and picked me up to take me around 2:20. Therapy went well, my stepmom came and got me and now I am home, ready to take on NaNoWriMo.