Five Things

I stole this from Ashley. Couldn't resist.

Five Things You Are Addicted To-
One: Art
Two: My phone
Three: Ankhs
Four: Typography
Five: V8 Fusion

Five Places You Want To Visit Before You Die-
One: Chernobyl
Two: Auschwitz/Dakau
Three: Portland, Oregon
Four: St. Petersburg, Russia (again)
Five: Aswan, Egypt (again)

Five Random Things Around You-
One: Chung Mung cup
Two: Frankenstein painting
Three: A post-it reading "Dear Kate, I want to have your babies. Love, Anonymous"
Four: Tupperware container full of Smart Start cereal
Five: Dark purple nail polish.

Five Random Things That Start With The Same Letter As Your First Name-
One: kaleidoscope
Two: kismet
Three: knee
Four: kilt
Five: kangaroo

Five Things That Always Cheer You Up-
One: Swinging
Two: Printmaking
Three: Cuddling
Four: Watching Psych
Five: Watching You've Got Mail

Five Animals You’d Want As Pets, But Can’t Have-
One: Panda
Two: Wolf
Three: Alligator
Four: Great white shark
Five: Koala

Five Things You Would Do If Fiction Were Real-
One: Have magic powers, Harry Potter style
Two: Fly
Three: Have extra appendages
Four: Never have to sleep again
Five: The power to will my hair to do what I want it to.

Quick'n

Last night made me realize just how amazing it is to have Jenn going to school only 15 minutes away. She came over for a party last night and we were able to dance like idiots like we were at TSI or something, but we were at Sweet Briar, with all of my other friends with us. It was a very good night... For the most part... Anyways. Pictures that Jenn took: (Btw, the theme was "Would you be my friend IF..." so that is why we all look ridiculous. And why Ingrid is dressed as Hitler...)

My iPod, As of Late

For the majority of people, their favorite song changes from day to day, but I feel like I have a solid list of songs that consider to be my favorite songs. This is going to be an odd list of some of my favorite songs, as well as songs that I have been listening to lately.

The first is Nursery Rhyme by Unkle, which has been on my Art Barn playlist since freshman year when I first heard it while sitting in John's studio class. Recently I was driving around the Town Center with Jenn, and this song came on my iPod and she asked if we could change it. I replied that it was one of my favorite songs and I wanted to listen to it at least a bit, and she said, "no it's not!" I still laugh at that, since for the most part I don't share my favorite songs with people. Some on this list are obvious since I go on and on about then, yet some, like this song by Unkle, I keep to myself for the most part.



Second on this list is Black Panther by Crystal Castles, which is one of the more obvious ones. This is one of those songs that is perfect to drive to late at night, preferably going very fast over a bridge, with the volume all the way up and the windows down. It makes the whole experience very surreal. One night over Thanksgiving break Rob and I were driving while listening to this song. He opened his sun roof, turned it up all the way, and I reclined my seat and watched the moon as he drove. As I said: surreal. Amazing song by an amazing band.



Next comes The Police and the Private by Metric. Metric has been receving a lot of attention recently for the latest album, Fantasies, although this is song is from an older album, Live it Out. If you know me, you are well aware that I have serious issues with learning the lyrics to songs. I think it is the same mental block that keeps me from understanding multi-color relief printmaking, which is a story for another post. Although somehow I know this entire song, which I think is just a testament to the amount that I listen to it.



Whenever I describe by love for the song the only thing I can say is that when I listen to it, all is right in the world. M&Ms by Blink-182 just makes me happy. There is no other way to put it.



Now for the songs I have been listening to a lot lately. Modern Science by Joseph Birdsong was just released, and it is actually really good. I bought his first EP just to support him because I have watched his videos and been a DK1/5AG fan for a long time. The EP is good, but in the short time between the Phase 3 EP and Modern Science he obviously learned a lot about creating music, and the reult is really good. I am anxious to hear the rest of the new songs, one of which he will be releasing every month this year. (2:30 in this video cracks me up. A true Joe moment emerging.)



(My Firefox just crashed while loading this next video and I had a mini freak out, thinking that everything I just typed was lost. But all is well.) So Bored by WaVVes has been appearing on a lot of playlists I have been making lately. It makes me want to go to the beach so badly, and in this unusually cold Florida weather it makes me feel like it is summer. I was listening to this in the car with Emily the other day and she asked, "is it supposed to sound like this?!" "Erm..... Yes."



Ready for the Floor by Hot Chip is next on this list, although I am in love with the cover by Lissy Trullie. The Hot Chip version cannot be embedded, but you can watch the Matthew Barney-esque video here. The Lissy Trullie version is so catchy. I love it. You may have to sit through an advertisement at the beginning of this video, though...



This next one is not very Kate-like at all, but I cannot stop listening to it. It is oh so very catchy. Quiet Dog by Mos Def.



The Afterlife by YACHT is last on this list, although one of my favorites. Last night I was listening to this with my younger brother and his friend in my car, and listening to their commentary was hilarious. "It sounds like... not a song." "Yeah its like mind voodoo." "They are trying to control you!" "Oh no don't listen!!"



I lied. That was not the last one. Aye Julian by Meriwether is another song that I am constantly listening to. Jenn and I met this band at Warped Tour in 2006 or 2005 or something. We bought all their CDs for $5 and to be honest I have never listened to them, except this one song. For some reason only this song made its way into my iTunes library, the rest were lost and forgotten. This is also not very Kate-like, but it is always appearing on playlists. Side note: when I listened to this version in all the videos I found, I was shocked. It is a newer, rerecorded version and it is ten times better than the older version I keep listening to... I am shocked.

Things I Enjoy, Part One

1) Brushing my teeth and oral hygiene Recently my mother staged a silent intervention, if such a thing is possible, by laying out all of my oral care products on my bathroom counter. It was quite a sight. There were five tubes of toothpaste (Crest Vivid White, Crest Weekly Clean, Arm and Hammer Total Care, Sensodyne, and Aquafresh Iso-Active), all of which are used on a daily basis. Next to that were various kinds of floss, ranging from the little octagonal floss you receive from the dentist, to bags of the mint flossers with handles. There were bottles upon bottles of mouth wash, including an industrial sized bottle of the purple Listerine, the one that makes most people tear up when they use it. I end up using this every time I wash my hands, which is another issue altogether. To accompany all of these accessories is the best part of oral hygiene: toothbrushes. I have three here at home, and more at school. One is a mountain range of bristles with the nifty tongue scraper on the back. One is flat and has the color changing bristles so that you can tell when to change your toothbrush. The last is a portable one which lives in my purse with a mini tube of toothpaste and bottle of mouth wash. Every time I go to WalMart with Lauren or Sarah they don't let me wander towards the oral care aisle, knowing that I can spend too much time and money as a result if entering that glorious place. I have a problem and I feel that I may be doing more damage to my teeth with the frequent brushing and flossing. I think my obsession with brushing my teeth comes from wearing braces for nine years and never feeling clean.

2) Washing my hands. As a child I would never wash my hands, and I have no idea how I am still living. "Wash your hands before dinner!" Uhhhh... I'll just get them wet, thanks. After running about outside all day and touching god knows what I would touch my face, have my fingers in my mouth, touch my eyes, eat, etc. All with hands that had been everywhere. That makes me cringe to think about now. My obsession with washing my hands came about in 2005 when I was in Russia. Being my first foreign experience, I felt as if everything was dirty and I was going to get some weird Russian disease. While there I started carrying little bottles of hand sanitizer in my purse along with Lysol wipes. I would wash my hands every single change I got, and this has stuck with me. It is not as if I am a germaphobe or anything, I just feel dirty very fast. Especially out in public, and when shopping. When I am shopping I am touching a lot of things and I just start to feel off, and I NEED to wash my hands. I think I am OCD, but washing my hands and brushing my teeth are activities that unfortunately make me very happy.

3) Typography. Typography is something that is overlooked by pretty much everyone and their mother. You open Word and begin to type, not thinking about the font face that is the default (Times New Roman or Calibri, depending on the year of your version of Office) and the history behind it. Most people don't think that someone actually sat down and thought about the curve of the "e," and where the tail of the "e" should end. Should it end parallel to the straight line, as it does in Helvetica? Or end right after the curve like in Calibri? One of my favorite films of all time is Helvetica. Directed by Gary Hustwit, the film goes back through the history of Helvetica and how it is used in marketing and advertising today. Definitely a must see for those interested in typeface, although if you are interested, you have most likely seen it.



Mant companies have embraced Helvetica as "their" font, making it a trademark of their brand. These companies include Target, Southwest Airlines, and most apparent: American Apparel. American Apparel is known for their use of the font face, and have even created a shirt dedicated to it. Sadly enough, I am wearing this one right now:



I can't wear it out of the house since the one time I did, a black women accused me of wearing a KKK shirt and yelled at me for being racist... So if you buy the shirt here, and your name starts with a "K," be careful.

Going along with typography comes 4) Ampersands. I rarely use ampersands and when I do, I almost squeal with excitement.... in my head. You don't see them used very often, and when most people try to name it, they cannot. "Exclamation point, question mark, curly 'and' sign thing...." The ampersand was originally used to shorten "and per say - and" which is where the name comes from. It is also used in place of "et" which is "and in many languages, and when you break down the shape, it is an "E" and "T" put together. I am not sure why I find them so fascinating and amazing, but they just are.

&.

This is the first of many "Things I Enjoy." I talked about doing an A-Z of things I like a while back, but that idea sort of fizzled. Instead I will blog about things as I think of them. And now, I must go brush my teeth and wash my hands....

Domestic?

I have been feeling quite domestic lately. I said this to Corbett earlier and he just laughed at me. My mom is out of town for teacher conferences and has left me in charge to man the fort. It is only 3:10 today and already I have taken Liam to school, had my car serviced (hoorah for operational windshield wipers), and picked up Emily from Episcopal. I am sitting at her orthodontist office waiting for her right now and people watching.

In the next few days I will be packing lunches, carpooling, watching basketball practices, cleaning, doing dishes and leading sleepovers. This will be entertaining. My mom thinks that Liam and I hate each other, but we are actually quite civil when left alone. Whenever I watch him or we do something together we get along great and we actually have interesting conversations. Well, as interesting as it can be with a nine year old. On the other hand, when we are with my mom we bicker and argue, leading our mother to believe we hate each other. I think that in actuality it's just a problem of age difference. I was raised as an only child and even after nine years I have not been able to adjust to sharing my mother. And he is basically an only child eight months out of the year, which leads to us competing for attention when I am home. It makes me feel like I am also nine years old, but it is not intentional. It's just how we are.

So the next few days should be fun, spending a good amount of time with Liam. I am saying this after only 8 hours of being temporary head of the house. We will see how I feel on Saturday.

I Hate Television

(I posted this from my phone and I don't know why it formatted like this. I have no Internet here so I will fix it tomorrow when I am home. So. Lo siento.)

I don't fully understand my aversion to television. I think it's just the act of sitting down and mindlessly staring at a screen. Although I have no ppoblem with sitting down and staring at my computer screen for hours. Watching YouTube videos, episodes of Psych and renting movies is fine in my book. So why not TV? At least when I'm on the computer I'm reading and learning something, or talking and
socializing. Sort of.

I am in Fort Lauderdale right now and I have had an incredibly lazy day. I have sat in front of the TV since 6:30, and I am ready to pull out my hair. I am just waiting until I am tired enough to sleep, but that isn't going to happen any time soon. I have watched some movie with Marsha, then Harry Potter, the Soup, and now Chelsea Lately. Even though it is hilarious i hate sitting here. Most people have no problem with sitting down and watching a thirty minute or hour long show but I cannot do it. I fidget and look for something else to do the entire time. Even a half hour drives me out of my mind, and now I have watched five hours of nothing.

I don't understand this strong aversion to television. When I was younger I watched way too much TV. Up until 9th grade I had a TV in my room so it was constantly on. Freshman and sophomore year I had a TV in my dorm but never turned it on. This year I just gave my TV to Lauren to have for the year. I won't use it and it is a waste of space.

There are shows I will drop everything to watch, although they are few and far between. Right now: Jersey Shore. It's hilarious and terrible and painful to watch, but that is the charm. Freshman year it was Shot at Love, which says a lot about the types of shows I watch. Horrible ones. (I feel like this is a good transition into discussing Tila Tequila. I have been in love with her since I was in 10th grade, and this is basically common knowledge. Although lately I cannot stand her. Between her naked UStream rants that last 4 hours and how she has acted since Casey Johnson died, I have decided that she is bat shit crazy.)

Back to my TV watching. Please god let me get tired and go to sleep. I don't want to sit here much longer.

Sent from my iPhone

"Some People"

This is amazing. It is a comic of short stories focusing on the relationships between people and first impressions. I love how it comes in a full circle, and nothing is what you expect it to be. If you can't see the whole image, or if you want more info about the artist, click here