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la_belle_laideThis was written during five minute intervals over the last two days, so forgive me if it's disjointed and about eighteen different things at once.
Xin nian kuai le! I wish I was in Chinatown instaad of going ot say goodbye to my dolphin today, but hey. Happy Year of the Boar. :D I'm a water rat, born in the hour of the rat, to boot. What's everyone else?
Moving on. Okay, so first I want to talk about Turandot last night. My friend Nancy and her husband Dan, and Dan's sister Gale, took me out to the opera. (Do I have cool friends, or what?) But first we went to a Turkish restaurant. Holy crap, can I just take a moment to say that Turkish food has a new fan? It's a little like Greek food what-with pita bread and hummus and feta cheese, that kind of thing, but a different selection. The littlest bit was filling. Everything was spicy and weird. I drank a peach drink that was like eating a real peach. And the dessert was like WHOA. This thing called baklava, with the sweet green stuff on it? (Currants or something?) Oh, YUM. Moving on.
So then we went to the opera and didn't have too long to wait before it began. Okay, first of all, realize that Turandot is my favorite commitment-phobe, and even though I'd never seen the opera before, I was familiar with it and with its story. (I've used the Turandot icon for over a year I think.) The company was the Bulgarian Opera, so, the real deal, not a bunch of students or anything. :) So anyway, I went in there knowing I was going to like it, although I hadn't heard much of the music from it. Of course everyone and their sister knows Nessun Dorma, so one would expect all of the music to be similar to that. It wasn't. Actually, the rest of the music almost sounded to me like an entirely different style; some of it sounded soundtrack-ish instead or Italian opera-ish. Which is not to say I didn't like it, just that it was different, and different from what I had expected.
The set was beautiful. It was simple, unobtrusively Chinese, and I sort of wanted to live there. The only thing I didn't love about it was that they were using a fog machine, and that was a little bit cheesy. The fog made me start to cough at one point; I could only wonder how good that could be for the people who have to use their lungs and throat to make a living. Also the costumes were pretty cool. They were shiny and metallic, which I thought they didn't have to be, but the designs were really ornate and pretty. There was some interpretive dancing going on now and then, and two women with shiny, floaty long sleeves that they flung around randomly. It was pretty, but I wasn't sure what they symbolized--maybe if I saw it twice I could figure it out, but in the meantime, it was, "Huh?" It was all very Yimou Zhang, and if you haven't seen any of those movies, this would have been new and different, I guess. But if you've seen this group of Chinese movies with the long sleeve obsession, then you've seen this before and you know where it came from. (Incidentally, I do get the symbolism of sleeves, at least in Japanese culture: the old poetic phrases about sleeves being wet from tears or sleeves being dragged through the mud, signifying shame and sorrow. I also remember a phrase from I-Ching--which is Chinese--about when your sleeves are "not thus fine", also signifying shame, gossip and sorrow, IIRC. I could be wrong. But that's what it got me thinking of.)
As far as the pacing, well, some parts of it were a little bit slow, which has little to do with the opera company but rather with the story itself. The only time I found it really draggy was when Ping, Pang and Pong spent about fifteen minutes singing about their little houses by blue ponds surrounded by bamboo. I was like, "Okay, that sounds nice. Now can we please move on?" While they did this they were surrounded by these two interpretive dancers who kept rolling and unrolling some scrolls across the floor. Uh huh, real nice. Now let's get to the blood and stuff.
Never having seen an opera before, I wasn't sure how much emphasis was to be put on the actual acting of the thing. I've seen operas on TV and I've seen them satirized in cartoons and stuff, where the acting is very visual, over the top, done through movement etc, while the real focus is obviously the music. Well, this was exactly like that. There was a lot of clutching and throwing themselves to the ground and that kind of slow, meaningful walking while looking all about at things that weren't there, you know? With that distant look of "By the way, parts of this are TRAGIC", if you get what I'm saying. The girl who played Liu (the tragic slave girl,) had a gorgeous voice, but spent most of her time with her hands clasped over her chest in the classic Opera Soprano pose, you know the one, they used to do it on Bugs Bunny all the time. I get that she was the tragic ingenue, but it was overplayed. Again, not having seen opera before, I can only guess that it's tradition to overplay that. Calaf, the hero, did a lot of cliche opera gesturing as well. I suppose that's the point though, right?
The singing itself was for the most part totally awesome. Well, the chorus was a little soft once in a while, by soft I don't necessarily mean sotto voce, but rather that their voices occasionally sounded a little faint where maybe they shouldn't have. There was one soprano in there, though, who had a really loud voice and sometimes she carried them, and sometimes she sounded a little screamy. I liked her, though; she had guts. Again, Liu was sweet and had a gorgeous voice, but it didn't really compel me. Then again, the character of Liu never really compelled me. I don't have too much respect for that sort of sacrifice, fiction or non. ;D (And Calaf was such a selfish jerk! My god, Liu, grow a spine! Side note on the story: Towards the end, Calaf confronts Turandot over Liu's death, and I wanted to rattle his teeth. Dude, you were just as responsible, if not moreso! God!) Calaf's voice was sometimes a little reedy, but when he did Nessun Dorma, he really did bring it home. ("It started out shaky, but you brought it home, dawg, you made it your own!" :P ) And he knew he brought it home, too, because the audience went wild and the guy's face was like, "That's right biznitches! I did Nessun Dorma and I banged it out!" (The funny aspect of that is that right after Nessun Dorma it all kind of goes to hell, storywise, and the chorus comes out basically telling him "STFU, damn you, we're being killed here!") The other singers were, well, of course professional opera singers and therefore awesome, but interesting as well. The Emperor sounded imperial, and Calaf's Dad sounded old and Dad-like.
OMG Turandot. There is a reason she was cast in the lead, and that's because her voice hit the back of the room, holy crap. Most people disagreed with me (more later,) but I thought she fully frigging owned. The best part was when she was giving Calaf the riddles. Well, her voice was something to behold, but her presence was pretty impressive, too. I found her both subtle and emphatic at the same time; her style of acting really rang a bell with me, especially the part with the riddles. She was supposed to be reading them from a scroll, but she was actually looking at Calaf, and her whole attitude was a challenge. She'd end the phrase with a small, jerky motion and look at him like, "Take that, N00B." And then he'd answer the riddle and she'd have a moment of indignant, "WTF?!" about her. She'd hand the scroll over to Ping (or Pang, or Pong?) all while still looking at Calaf with a challenge. She was just too awesome. And then she'd sing the lines "No man will ever own me" and I was like, "Yeah, dude!" OMG I want to be her when I grow up.
One weird thing was that, while the lyrics suggest that Calaf kisses her and changes her life and the entire world etc, they never did actually kiss. There and they were singing about kissing and macking and all of this, yet they were on opposite sides of the stage. I was like, "WTF, did I miss it?" In one weirdly directed moment, Calaf rips her veil off and then backs away covering his face like "OMGWTF." It actually got an inappropriate laugh out of the less polite (more drunk?) audience members. (That always makes things awkward, doesn't it? Why can't people have decorum?) I thought that was an odd choice. Also, it looked like Turandot had blue hair. I guess it was supposed to be grey, but it looked really, really blue. That threw me for a minute.
And then the curtain call was weird, too. First thing that made me go "huh?" was that when Liu came out, everyone went totally nuts, whistling and screaming and whatnot. Even she seemed surprised by it. I was like, "Okay, well she had a beautiful voice ... but when Turandot comes out, surely there's going to be a standing ovation." But she actually got less of a reaction than Liu! I mean, holy crap, her voice blew my hair back, how could that be? And then they had some problems with the curtain call, too. They started to drop the curtain while the singers were still taking their bows, and then stopped the curtain halfway down. The lead group started to come out from under the curtain, I guess thinking they were supposed to go in front of it? And then they continued to drop the curtain and almost hit them with it! It could have been planned way better. >_>
But technical things like that aside it was truly awesome, and a great experience. I'm glad that Turandot was my first opera and I'm glad that I can finally pronounce it with confidence. ;) Oh, one more thing: I'm going to have to look up when Puccini died. I know it was after Nessun Dorma but before the finale and that someone else finished it, but I'm curious as to where it was. If I had to venture a guess, I'd say it was right after Liu's death, because then the poetry seemed to change. It got more florid, I guess. In college I rightly guessed exactly where in the Requiem Mozart had left off, so I wonder if I still have that touch. I'll have to check. ^_^
This is a huge entry, because I'm not nearly done yet. I have some pics to upload and share, too.
Pictures:
YAY, ME!
Finally, huh? And I am just about to finish Twilight Princess on GC tonight after I come home from my last day of dolphin-sitting. Then, just as soon as I desire, I can hook up Ye Olde Wii and play it again--mirrored. Yes, I am that much of a fangirl! (But I go to the opera. I'm at least a cultured fangirl. ;D ) Two things you can also see in this pic: that I've got a beeotch of a headcold and my eyes are all puffy, and that Sano is pawing at me and trying to bite the Gamecube. LOL Sano.
Ice storm for the win!
That first one is the front yard leading to my door. If you look at the garden light, you can get an idea of how thick the ice is. The garden light is about six or seven inches high. That's about 4 inches of ice right there. The second one is the backyard, with my door. The entire yard is like that. It starts to melt around 1-4ish, then as soon as the sun goes down it re-freezes. The dogs aren't liking it too much. Yesterday, Trisky did a Bambi move with all her legs splayed. Sano tried to run, and skidded out for about five feet, taking a header right into the fence. Actually, that was pretty funny. Haku is generally okay on it, with some skidding, but he hasn't done his laps around the yard in about a week. I won't let him, either. That's a busted leg waiting to happen.
Oh, you thought I was done? Hells, no! I have LISTS! Gacked from lovely Sooz, lists! (And, like Sooz, I'll probably add to these daily, too, as I remember more things.) And I tag all of you guys on my f-list, too. All of these are in no particular order.
Stuff I love,: Dinner with family, shopping with Mom and Gran, yardwork with Da, having a movie/video game weekend with SB and Jo-chan (I miss the crap outta you guys, come by, 'kay?!) chatting with cousin Chrissie in the middle of the street, playing with my dogs, watching my dogs sleep, going to Disney with my family who crack me up, the smell of baby birds, living by the ocean, the way the smell of ocean air mingles with flowers, my ever-blooming jasmine, my entire garden, my new living room, slippersocks, green tea, Balsam fur trees, giant hawk feathers, giant hawks!, the sunset out my window, sunrise over rte 105, ocean beaches, Ponquogue Bridge, a movie and a pint of Ben and Jerry's, working with funny, witty, snarky and perverted people, being kama 'aina to ka Mokupuni Lo'ihi nani, being hanai haumana, writing the perfect scene, long talks with my friend Kim, Edge of the Earth, The Mission, The Kill (best music video EVAR!!!11), meeting friends after concerts, the concerts themselves!, the broadsword form, hardcore Kung Fu drills, doing Small Wheel right, bluejays and other corvids, O Keahi A Lonomakua, fire goddess Pele and Kilauea, firedancers, Michael Palin, Monty Python marathons, Cloud Strife, my favorite jeans, listening to Bob Marley by the pool in July, coconut Malibu rum, Disney's Polynesian resort, all my Hula brothers and sisters, my Kung Fu family, tiki torches, summer parties, Makaha Sons, the smell of chlorine, pea soup, smoked Tofurkey sandwiches, pomegranate juice, Legend of Zelda, going to fancy places with my friends, going out dancing, chocolate soy milk, dying my hair, the first time of the year you feel the sun, the first time of the year you feel the chill, my bed, laughing at work on a Friday, Non-Creepy Backrub Day, making videos, Stephen King (Roland of Gilead!), my car (or, ku'u lovely ka'a!), the necklace Kim made me, the sound Gamecube makes when it starts, orchids, "That Place Where We Love Flowers" (:D Jo-chan!), garlic string beans, Hula seminars, my iPod, surfing, hot baths in the winter surrounded by candles with some music playing, Leonard Cohen (the voice, the words, the poetry, the man himself,) my Kung Fu Assassin jacket, Jared's red and black coat that matches his hair (Hello, Lovely Silly!), Engrish.com, OpenCanvas Plus, Tuesday nights, Beatrice the rooster, Fifty Cent the pidge, Ewan McGregor, JOAQUIIIIIN!, Captain Hook, Captain Jack Sparrow, Ariel the dolphin, Chinatown, Alex Krycek, when the sun sets at 3:45, when the sun sets at 9, birds that everyone else hates, Mitsukoshi and all of Epcot Center, hilarious typos, tomb warriors, the perfect witty phrase (especially if I said it :P ,) Quantum phyics, string theory, JW Waterhouse, honey graham crackers...
Stuff I miss: Grampa, Pendragon and everything involved in his life, hanging out regularly with Tricia, when SB and Jo-chan were always over here, when they were small, Cassidy, video games with Jeremy, AIM chats with Min, my Hula love Hini, upstate NY, days off, Gundam Wing, college theater, being a pirate, being 12 years old with The Rockin' Five, waiting for the ice cream man, playing pretend with my cousins until way past bed time, nightswimming, the way things looked when I was small, when fandom was new and exciting to me, writing for days on end and loving every second, Kung Fu with Lao Shir, doing a spell and believing it enough to make it work, Ariel...
Stuff I hate: Cigarette smoke, the aviary on a hot day, mites on birds, ticks, laggy internet sites, the current administration, racism, homophobia, xenophobia, sexism, animal cruelty, the neighbors behind me (rednecks in general,) when people I love move away, when I'm driving and some schmuck cuts me off and then drives really slowly to make it worse, whitefly on my houseplants, having to go somewhere when I'd rather stay home and veg, the fact that I can never get an orange tree to grow in the sunroom, when people think they're funny and they're just stupid (though the same could be said of me some of the time, at least,) when people think they're funny and they're just cruel, real person fanfiction, wasps and yellowjackets, people who leave their dogs outside, SUVs and Hummers, Drunken Stupid Fratboys, my own neurotic worry, finding out a product I like is from a company that tests on animals, Alice in Chains without Layne Staley (FAIL!), football, bars, people who drive drunk or even buzzed, that no one can accomodate me with the tattoos I want...
And because I've been reading a book that says you should acknowledge your desires and list them, because you never know what good might come of it, an added section--Stuff I want: To get a magazine interested in an interview with 30 Seconds to Mars, and then get that interview for myself! (no one knows of any good music webzines that might be interested by any chance, do they?), a bigger aviary (perhaps that I could use in the winter), a book deal, for talented people to sketch my characters, a job teaching Hula, a baby (eventually), a baby for Chris and Tim (NOW!), my car reupholstered (the seats are the only thing in my life that are leather, since I bought the car before I went all anti), another Zelda game soon (no one said it had to be realistic!), to go to Chinatown again soon, more time with SB and Jo-chan, some days when I don't have anywhere to be...
I have to leave those off where they are with ellipses, because I can go on forever, especially with stuff I love. I'll probably just keep adding to it.
Currently it is snowing in the backyard--though the sun is out--and not the front. But I'm writing this before I go say goodbye (for three hours) to Ariel, and will probably post this after, so take "currently" to mean "a good number of hours ago."
Xin nian kuai le! I wish I was in Chinatown instaad of going ot say goodbye to my dolphin today, but hey. Happy Year of the Boar. :D I'm a water rat, born in the hour of the rat, to boot. What's everyone else?
Moving on. Okay, so first I want to talk about Turandot last night. My friend Nancy and her husband Dan, and Dan's sister Gale, took me out to the opera. (Do I have cool friends, or what?) But first we went to a Turkish restaurant. Holy crap, can I just take a moment to say that Turkish food has a new fan? It's a little like Greek food what-with pita bread and hummus and feta cheese, that kind of thing, but a different selection. The littlest bit was filling. Everything was spicy and weird. I drank a peach drink that was like eating a real peach. And the dessert was like WHOA. This thing called baklava, with the sweet green stuff on it? (Currants or something?) Oh, YUM. Moving on.
So then we went to the opera and didn't have too long to wait before it began. Okay, first of all, realize that Turandot is my favorite commitment-phobe, and even though I'd never seen the opera before, I was familiar with it and with its story. (I've used the Turandot icon for over a year I think.) The company was the Bulgarian Opera, so, the real deal, not a bunch of students or anything. :) So anyway, I went in there knowing I was going to like it, although I hadn't heard much of the music from it. Of course everyone and their sister knows Nessun Dorma, so one would expect all of the music to be similar to that. It wasn't. Actually, the rest of the music almost sounded to me like an entirely different style; some of it sounded soundtrack-ish instead or Italian opera-ish. Which is not to say I didn't like it, just that it was different, and different from what I had expected.
The set was beautiful. It was simple, unobtrusively Chinese, and I sort of wanted to live there. The only thing I didn't love about it was that they were using a fog machine, and that was a little bit cheesy. The fog made me start to cough at one point; I could only wonder how good that could be for the people who have to use their lungs and throat to make a living. Also the costumes were pretty cool. They were shiny and metallic, which I thought they didn't have to be, but the designs were really ornate and pretty. There was some interpretive dancing going on now and then, and two women with shiny, floaty long sleeves that they flung around randomly. It was pretty, but I wasn't sure what they symbolized--maybe if I saw it twice I could figure it out, but in the meantime, it was, "Huh?" It was all very Yimou Zhang, and if you haven't seen any of those movies, this would have been new and different, I guess. But if you've seen this group of Chinese movies with the long sleeve obsession, then you've seen this before and you know where it came from. (Incidentally, I do get the symbolism of sleeves, at least in Japanese culture: the old poetic phrases about sleeves being wet from tears or sleeves being dragged through the mud, signifying shame and sorrow. I also remember a phrase from I-Ching--which is Chinese--about when your sleeves are "not thus fine", also signifying shame, gossip and sorrow, IIRC. I could be wrong. But that's what it got me thinking of.)
As far as the pacing, well, some parts of it were a little bit slow, which has little to do with the opera company but rather with the story itself. The only time I found it really draggy was when Ping, Pang and Pong spent about fifteen minutes singing about their little houses by blue ponds surrounded by bamboo. I was like, "Okay, that sounds nice. Now can we please move on?" While they did this they were surrounded by these two interpretive dancers who kept rolling and unrolling some scrolls across the floor. Uh huh, real nice. Now let's get to the blood and stuff.
Never having seen an opera before, I wasn't sure how much emphasis was to be put on the actual acting of the thing. I've seen operas on TV and I've seen them satirized in cartoons and stuff, where the acting is very visual, over the top, done through movement etc, while the real focus is obviously the music. Well, this was exactly like that. There was a lot of clutching and throwing themselves to the ground and that kind of slow, meaningful walking while looking all about at things that weren't there, you know? With that distant look of "By the way, parts of this are TRAGIC", if you get what I'm saying. The girl who played Liu (the tragic slave girl,) had a gorgeous voice, but spent most of her time with her hands clasped over her chest in the classic Opera Soprano pose, you know the one, they used to do it on Bugs Bunny all the time. I get that she was the tragic ingenue, but it was overplayed. Again, not having seen opera before, I can only guess that it's tradition to overplay that. Calaf, the hero, did a lot of cliche opera gesturing as well. I suppose that's the point though, right?
The singing itself was for the most part totally awesome. Well, the chorus was a little soft once in a while, by soft I don't necessarily mean sotto voce, but rather that their voices occasionally sounded a little faint where maybe they shouldn't have. There was one soprano in there, though, who had a really loud voice and sometimes she carried them, and sometimes she sounded a little screamy. I liked her, though; she had guts. Again, Liu was sweet and had a gorgeous voice, but it didn't really compel me. Then again, the character of Liu never really compelled me. I don't have too much respect for that sort of sacrifice, fiction or non. ;D (And Calaf was such a selfish jerk! My god, Liu, grow a spine! Side note on the story: Towards the end, Calaf confronts Turandot over Liu's death, and I wanted to rattle his teeth. Dude, you were just as responsible, if not moreso! God!) Calaf's voice was sometimes a little reedy, but when he did Nessun Dorma, he really did bring it home. ("It started out shaky, but you brought it home, dawg, you made it your own!" :P ) And he knew he brought it home, too, because the audience went wild and the guy's face was like, "That's right biznitches! I did Nessun Dorma and I banged it out!" (The funny aspect of that is that right after Nessun Dorma it all kind of goes to hell, storywise, and the chorus comes out basically telling him "STFU, damn you, we're being killed here!") The other singers were, well, of course professional opera singers and therefore awesome, but interesting as well. The Emperor sounded imperial, and Calaf's Dad sounded old and Dad-like.
OMG Turandot. There is a reason she was cast in the lead, and that's because her voice hit the back of the room, holy crap. Most people disagreed with me (more later,) but I thought she fully frigging owned. The best part was when she was giving Calaf the riddles. Well, her voice was something to behold, but her presence was pretty impressive, too. I found her both subtle and emphatic at the same time; her style of acting really rang a bell with me, especially the part with the riddles. She was supposed to be reading them from a scroll, but she was actually looking at Calaf, and her whole attitude was a challenge. She'd end the phrase with a small, jerky motion and look at him like, "Take that, N00B." And then he'd answer the riddle and she'd have a moment of indignant, "WTF?!" about her. She'd hand the scroll over to Ping (or Pang, or Pong?) all while still looking at Calaf with a challenge. She was just too awesome. And then she'd sing the lines "No man will ever own me" and I was like, "Yeah, dude!" OMG I want to be her when I grow up.
One weird thing was that, while the lyrics suggest that Calaf kisses her and changes her life and the entire world etc, they never did actually kiss. There and they were singing about kissing and macking and all of this, yet they were on opposite sides of the stage. I was like, "WTF, did I miss it?" In one weirdly directed moment, Calaf rips her veil off and then backs away covering his face like "OMGWTF." It actually got an inappropriate laugh out of the less polite (more drunk?) audience members. (That always makes things awkward, doesn't it? Why can't people have decorum?) I thought that was an odd choice. Also, it looked like Turandot had blue hair. I guess it was supposed to be grey, but it looked really, really blue. That threw me for a minute.
And then the curtain call was weird, too. First thing that made me go "huh?" was that when Liu came out, everyone went totally nuts, whistling and screaming and whatnot. Even she seemed surprised by it. I was like, "Okay, well she had a beautiful voice ... but when Turandot comes out, surely there's going to be a standing ovation." But she actually got less of a reaction than Liu! I mean, holy crap, her voice blew my hair back, how could that be? And then they had some problems with the curtain call, too. They started to drop the curtain while the singers were still taking their bows, and then stopped the curtain halfway down. The lead group started to come out from under the curtain, I guess thinking they were supposed to go in front of it? And then they continued to drop the curtain and almost hit them with it! It could have been planned way better. >_>
But technical things like that aside it was truly awesome, and a great experience. I'm glad that Turandot was my first opera and I'm glad that I can finally pronounce it with confidence. ;) Oh, one more thing: I'm going to have to look up when Puccini died. I know it was after Nessun Dorma but before the finale and that someone else finished it, but I'm curious as to where it was. If I had to venture a guess, I'd say it was right after Liu's death, because then the poetry seemed to change. It got more florid, I guess. In college I rightly guessed exactly where in the Requiem Mozart had left off, so I wonder if I still have that touch. I'll have to check. ^_^
This is a huge entry, because I'm not nearly done yet. I have some pics to upload and share, too.
Pictures:
YAY, ME!
Finally, huh? And I am just about to finish Twilight Princess on GC tonight after I come home from my last day of dolphin-sitting. Then, just as soon as I desire, I can hook up Ye Olde Wii and play it again--mirrored. Yes, I am that much of a fangirl! (But I go to the opera. I'm at least a cultured fangirl. ;D ) Two things you can also see in this pic: that I've got a beeotch of a headcold and my eyes are all puffy, and that Sano is pawing at me and trying to bite the Gamecube. LOL Sano.
Ice storm for the win!
That first one is the front yard leading to my door. If you look at the garden light, you can get an idea of how thick the ice is. The garden light is about six or seven inches high. That's about 4 inches of ice right there. The second one is the backyard, with my door. The entire yard is like that. It starts to melt around 1-4ish, then as soon as the sun goes down it re-freezes. The dogs aren't liking it too much. Yesterday, Trisky did a Bambi move with all her legs splayed. Sano tried to run, and skidded out for about five feet, taking a header right into the fence. Actually, that was pretty funny. Haku is generally okay on it, with some skidding, but he hasn't done his laps around the yard in about a week. I won't let him, either. That's a busted leg waiting to happen.
Oh, you thought I was done? Hells, no! I have LISTS! Gacked from lovely Sooz, lists! (And, like Sooz, I'll probably add to these daily, too, as I remember more things.) And I tag all of you guys on my f-list, too. All of these are in no particular order.
Stuff I love,: Dinner with family, shopping with Mom and Gran, yardwork with Da, having a movie/video game weekend with SB and Jo-chan (I miss the crap outta you guys, come by, 'kay?!) chatting with cousin Chrissie in the middle of the street, playing with my dogs, watching my dogs sleep, going to Disney with my family who crack me up, the smell of baby birds, living by the ocean, the way the smell of ocean air mingles with flowers, my ever-blooming jasmine, my entire garden, my new living room, slippersocks, green tea, Balsam fur trees, giant hawk feathers, giant hawks!, the sunset out my window, sunrise over rte 105, ocean beaches, Ponquogue Bridge, a movie and a pint of Ben and Jerry's, working with funny, witty, snarky and perverted people, being kama 'aina to ka Mokupuni Lo'ihi nani, being hanai haumana, writing the perfect scene, long talks with my friend Kim, Edge of the Earth, The Mission, The Kill (best music video EVAR!!!11), meeting friends after concerts, the concerts themselves!, the broadsword form, hardcore Kung Fu drills, doing Small Wheel right, bluejays and other corvids, O Keahi A Lonomakua, fire goddess Pele and Kilauea, firedancers, Michael Palin, Monty Python marathons, Cloud Strife, my favorite jeans, listening to Bob Marley by the pool in July, coconut Malibu rum, Disney's Polynesian resort, all my Hula brothers and sisters, my Kung Fu family, tiki torches, summer parties, Makaha Sons, the smell of chlorine, pea soup, smoked Tofurkey sandwiches, pomegranate juice, Legend of Zelda, going to fancy places with my friends, going out dancing, chocolate soy milk, dying my hair, the first time of the year you feel the sun, the first time of the year you feel the chill, my bed, laughing at work on a Friday, Non-Creepy Backrub Day, making videos, Stephen King (Roland of Gilead!), my car (or, ku'u lovely ka'a!), the necklace Kim made me, the sound Gamecube makes when it starts, orchids, "That Place Where We Love Flowers" (:D Jo-chan!), garlic string beans, Hula seminars, my iPod, surfing, hot baths in the winter surrounded by candles with some music playing, Leonard Cohen (the voice, the words, the poetry, the man himself,) my Kung Fu Assassin jacket, Jared's red and black coat that matches his hair (Hello, Lovely Silly!), Engrish.com, OpenCanvas Plus, Tuesday nights, Beatrice the rooster, Fifty Cent the pidge, Ewan McGregor, JOAQUIIIIIN!, Captain Hook, Captain Jack Sparrow, Ariel the dolphin, Chinatown, Alex Krycek, when the sun sets at 3:45, when the sun sets at 9, birds that everyone else hates, Mitsukoshi and all of Epcot Center, hilarious typos, tomb warriors, the perfect witty phrase (especially if I said it :P ,) Quantum phyics, string theory, JW Waterhouse, honey graham crackers...
Stuff I miss: Grampa, Pendragon and everything involved in his life, hanging out regularly with Tricia, when SB and Jo-chan were always over here, when they were small, Cassidy, video games with Jeremy, AIM chats with Min, my Hula love Hini, upstate NY, days off, Gundam Wing, college theater, being a pirate, being 12 years old with The Rockin' Five, waiting for the ice cream man, playing pretend with my cousins until way past bed time, nightswimming, the way things looked when I was small, when fandom was new and exciting to me, writing for days on end and loving every second, Kung Fu with Lao Shir, doing a spell and believing it enough to make it work, Ariel...
Stuff I hate: Cigarette smoke, the aviary on a hot day, mites on birds, ticks, laggy internet sites, the current administration, racism, homophobia, xenophobia, sexism, animal cruelty, the neighbors behind me (rednecks in general,) when people I love move away, when I'm driving and some schmuck cuts me off and then drives really slowly to make it worse, whitefly on my houseplants, having to go somewhere when I'd rather stay home and veg, the fact that I can never get an orange tree to grow in the sunroom, when people think they're funny and they're just stupid (though the same could be said of me some of the time, at least,) when people think they're funny and they're just cruel, real person fanfiction, wasps and yellowjackets, people who leave their dogs outside, SUVs and Hummers, Drunken Stupid Fratboys, my own neurotic worry, finding out a product I like is from a company that tests on animals, Alice in Chains without Layne Staley (FAIL!), football, bars, people who drive drunk or even buzzed, that no one can accomodate me with the tattoos I want...
And because I've been reading a book that says you should acknowledge your desires and list them, because you never know what good might come of it, an added section--Stuff I want: To get a magazine interested in an interview with 30 Seconds to Mars, and then get that interview for myself! (no one knows of any good music webzines that might be interested by any chance, do they?), a bigger aviary (perhaps that I could use in the winter), a book deal, for talented people to sketch my characters, a job teaching Hula, a baby (eventually), a baby for Chris and Tim (NOW!), my car reupholstered (the seats are the only thing in my life that are leather, since I bought the car before I went all anti), another Zelda game soon (no one said it had to be realistic!), to go to Chinatown again soon, more time with SB and Jo-chan, some days when I don't have anywhere to be...
I have to leave those off where they are with ellipses, because I can go on forever, especially with stuff I love. I'll probably just keep adding to it.
Currently it is snowing in the backyard--though the sun is out--and not the front. But I'm writing this before I go say goodbye (for three hours) to Ariel, and will probably post this after, so take "currently" to mean "a good number of hours ago."
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Date: 2007-02-19 01:07 am (UTC)Anywho, insert jealousy over Wii goodness, and that your backyard is an ice-skating rink. Thas a lotta' frozen water.
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Date: 2007-02-19 01:09 am (UTC)I'll be Wii-ing tomorrow! TOnight is my big night to finish Twilight Princess. *trembles*
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Date: 2007-02-19 01:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-19 02:46 am (UTC)thanks!
Date: 2007-02-19 03:16 am (UTC)this is the FIRST TIME you ever had Baklava??? wellshit, better now than never right?.. Oh and Nessun Dorma makes me friggin cry every time..the ore we trade messages, the more we have in common I'm thinkin!
Re: thanks!
Date: 2007-02-19 04:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-19 04:01 am (UTC)I wish I looked as pretty as you do with a damned head cold and puffy eyes... >_
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Date: 2007-02-19 04:52 am (UTC)I'll be sure to post how the Wii works out. ^_^