Tonight in the lot between A and B--party at Life Cafe to follow!

You know, I love RENT, and I don't think that I'll ever stop loving RENT.

BUT I'm proud of myself. Today, I stepped outside of my musical theatre box for the first time in at least a year.

I must admit--I'm not listening to anything super classy. It's some random electronic music, but I really enjoy it. It makes me smile and dance a little bit, and I really like that.

It all started with this band called "Owl City."

Healy was showing me this random music playlist made by youtube's livelavalive and his friend Kyle. The songs were good and everything, but then this one stuck out to me. I looked on the songlist to find it was Owl City. I've never heard of them prior to this, and, frankly, I'm shocked. I love owls, I love music--how'd I miss two of my favourite things squished into one?!

Once again, it's not like they're the best things I've ever heard; Rent still owns anyone as far as talent is concerned. Still, I'm enjoying my new Owl City pandora station, and it's pretty lightweight.

Thus far it's played:

1. "West Coast Friendship" by Owl City
2. "Even Fairy Tale Characters Would Be Jealous" by Playradioplay!
3. "Title and Registration" by Death Cab for a Cutie
4. "Brand New Colony" by Postal Service

and I'm very happy with that.

UPDATE: Owl City is a Christian band. I'm avoiding all of the Jesus songs (not that I have anything against Jesus--he's a nice guy. I just don't like the awkward insertion of Jesus into popular music).

Lovely Things

Things I Like:
1. Attractive and intelligent boys

2. Boys who can sing
3. Music with words
4. Music without words
5. Words without music
6. Peace and its various symbols
7. Musicals
8. Operas
9. French

10. Singing
11. Books
12. The smell of rain
13, The silence of snow
14. Kissing
15. Good movies
16. The Gays
17. The Physical Act of Typing
18. The Physical Act of Writing
19. Running (short distances)
20. Understanding
21. Light bulbs
22. Animals
23. Staying Awake Too Long
24. Adventures
25. Noticing Something for the First Time
26. Charlie Brown
27. Puppies
28. Bohemian America
33. Talking to Someone Important
34. Dancing

Grammar Interlude #1

I hate Oxford commas with a fiery passion, and I couldn't begin to tell you why.

Generally, I'm a liberal user of punctuation. I'd usually rather have too many commas than not enough. Still, something about the Oxford comma bothers me. I think it's so ugly, so unnecessary.

Some of you probably haven't the slightest clue as to what I'm talking about. I'll explain. In the following italicized sentence includes a series of three, and, as much as it's going to hurt, I will use an Oxford comma:

I like apples, bananas, and oranges.

The second comma, the one after bananas, is an Oxford comma. I have literally come to blows with someone based on its usage rules.

See, the thing is that the Oxford comma is totally optional. Technically, there's nothing wrong with using it, but there's also nothing wrong with leaving it out.

Let's think about this for a moment.... The word "and," as a conjunction, provides the pause needed in the aforementioned series. Why, then, should we double the pause? It's completely unnecessary to define that understood pause.

Now, let's look at a time when both a conjunction and a comma are used:

I love singing, and I couldn't live without it.

Is it not true that in the absence of the second "I" in that sentence, the comma would be incorrect? When joining an independent clause and a dependent one, a comma isn't needed if you have a conjunction. If you are given two independent clauses, like in the example above, you need more than a comma can provide. You can either add a conjunction or use a semicolon or dash instead.

What does all of this have to do with my hatred of the Oxford comma? Plenty, I've noticed. You see, in the first example above, all of the items in that series are entirely dependent. Without the rest of the sentence, "banana" means nothing. Therefore, since "and" is being used as a conjunction, the Oxford comma is obsolete.

Damn, it feels good to be a gangsta.

Creative Piece #1

I'd like to know when she puts on her nail polish. Every time I see her, she has perfectly chipped nails. Not once have I passed her on campus or in the library and seen her with freshly painted nails. They're never unpolished, either--always that right in the middle, chipped and honest, like the person who has just the right amount of fun.

Somehow, we manage to see each other all the time without a persistent time or place. I'll pass her one Tuesday on the way to class at 11, but never again. I'll see her studying in the quad at 3:30 on a Thursday, but never again. It's almost like she has no schedule; this is the time and place and person she chooses to be, and the world can bend to fit her.

Though I try to understand, I can never quite put my finger on why she's so intriguing.

I think it's those nails.

I wrote this piece in BKG's class yesterday during a "free write." I like it enough--I always like my characters, though. The problem is that I can't ever think of something for them to DO. I can't ever think of a plot or a storyline to save my life. That's why I've always been a poetry person. I don't really like poetry in the traditional sense, but I can't seem to stop writing the damn stuff.
Why? Because I can describe ANYTHING for any length of time. I hate Hawthorne and Hemingway for their overly-descriptive pieces of crap, but I write in the same way.


Any constructive criticism and/or advice is welcome.