Human Noise

" I could hear my heart beating. I could hear everyone's heart. I could hear the human noise we sat there making, not one of us moving, not even when the room went dark."
-- Stuck in Love (2012)

Two things I've learned this past week:
- Ben & Jerry's Half Baked ice cream is a beautiful, beautiful thing
- Nights out with friends is always a good idea


Despite the cold and wetness that coated downtown last night, my friends were determined to have a night out. Which was fair, since we hadn't had one in forever. I wasn't entirely up for it since I had just come from my boyfriends house. The two of us were supposed to be celebrating his birthday but instead I ended up watching Fight Club while he slept in my lap. But as I stated above, nights out with friends is always a good idea.

Taken by my friend Hunter from the top of an empty parking deck. The mural behind me in the first one is actually a maze. Only one of us was eventually able to solve it. 

There's the most gorgeous employee at the pizza place we went to. He had short dreads, tiny shell earrings, and a facial structure to die for. In my head I described his skin tone as 'milk cholocatey' but that sounds so cheesy to me. I just wanted to draw him really badly. 

I wanted to go ice skating so badly but due to lack of money we just watched cute couples instead.

There's a tiny 80's themed bar downtown that Ellie had been in before so we decided to pay it a visit. The photo booth was broken, the game room wasn't open on Monday nights, and the only people in there besides us were the bartenders friends. The aesthetic was nice though. 

Despite the fact I don't really celebrate Christmas, I love the feel of it all. To see streets and houses decorated in lights just makes me all warm and fuzzy inside. I hope the lights stay up for a bit even when the holiday is over. 

Merry almost Christmas everyone ~

Woman taken by the Wind

I don't know if it's the amount of AHS: Coven I've been watching or just my love for Fleetwood Mac, but Rhiannon has been my anthem lately.

December has been a dead month for me. A constant state of wanting to do something creative or exciting, but not having the means to do it. My friends have been overly indecisive about plans which has resulted in nobody doing anything and so I've been spending all my time with my boyfriend and his family. I'm not complaining about that though. If anything those days have been the highlights. But now school is officially out for winter break and I'm looking forward to all the holiday shenanigans. I also have a ton of cute pictures I've taken sporadically throughout the last half of November that I'd like to dump in this post.

These are from a trip to one of the art museums in the area. I love art museums.

These are from a walk I took with my friend Maggie. We walked from our school to the heart of downtown on a whim one Monday. It was a lot more fun than the two of us expected.

My friends and I went out to dinner one night. Once everyone else had left, four of us took a trip to our local gay bar and I got some pictures of them under the pretty lights that decorate the building. Along with pictures of my friend Hunter's gorgeous pink fur coat. (the last one was taken at a police memorial statue I believe)

Rhiannon // Fleetwood Mac

She had a pretty sweet 16

For some reason it always comes as a weird shock to me that my friends are all turning 16. In the books and movies it's the age where things all start happening. It when you start developing weird powers, find out some dark secret about your family's past, find teenage romance, or at the very least start driving. I don't get that until March, but recently so many friends have been hitting that age and it's very surreal to me to watch people I've known since the 6th grade turn 16.

Saturday was my friend Skylar's 'sweet 16' and of course I went. She held the party in the club room of her apartment building. It was such a nice event. Her parents hired a catering service and and our friend Ryan DJ'ed. There were two places that everyone could hang out. Either inside, which entailed dancing, food, and couches, or outside on the terrace, which entailed huddling around the fire wrapped in blankets. People spent most of the party switching between the two areas.

The party started out with everyone inside dancing like crazy to whatever good music Ryan decided to play and grabbing some food in between songs. Since mostly everyone were friends, or at least knew each other, nobody was afraid to hold back on the sweet dance moves. After a bit of dancing, Ryan stopped the music and called Skylar up to sing a duet with her. Skylar is easily one of the most talented musical theater kids at school, so everyone was glad to stop a listen to her angelic voice. Then we all sang her a very off-key 'happy birthday' and returned to dancing. Later on at the party we also got to hear a boy rap to "Mercy" by Jay Z and then he and Ryan had a beatboxing battle. Which Ryan won, but his was still really impressive. Then our friends Ocean and Lexi sang a duet and Skylar and Ryan returned to the mic with a rendition of "Happy Little Pill" by Troye Sivan. Being friends with/a part of the school arts department certainly makes for interesting parties.

After four hours of dancing, everyone started to get a bit tired so over half the people there retreated to the fire pit outside. I decided to stay in the heated club room a little longer and I got the beautiful privilege of seeing a boy named Tex twerk like I have never seen before. The fact that it was to Anaconda made it that much better too. After that experience, I gave in and joined the others by the fire. It was probably around 30 degrees outside (fahrenheit) or less. I cuddled under a blanket with my friend Sam and talked to him and Raney and Maggie until he decided to go inside.

Once 11:30 hit, the catering people packed up their stuff and everyone started heading home. Some final group pictures were taken and there were many hugs and "thank you for coming!"s.
Before I left, Skylar gave me a big hug and I rested my head on hers because I could do that in my new heels. She told me thank you for making her party great and I said thank you for being great and I walked with Raney, Maggie, and Hunter to the elevator.

Numbness and late night IHOP stops

Friday night my friends and I were invited to go to a gig for our friends' band. The band is made of of five guys, two from our high school and three from a local private school. We each knew them through mutual friends for the most part and decided that it would be a fun time. I went to their first ever gig back in August and it was really something.

This time, they had it on the front lawn of a girlfriend's house. When I say house, it was more of a mansion. I'm talking giant glass front doors, a fountain out front, a balcony on the second level, etc. It was absolutely gorgeous and I can understand why they didn't let any of us inside. The band played for almost an hour, since they only have seven songs written and then one cover prepared. They're a really talented group of guys though. I'll link their bandcamp at the end of this post.

After the band was done, the parents ordered about 20 pizza's for everyone and brought out cake as well. By that time though, everyone was feeling the effects of the late November night. Even though I was wearing my thickest socks and combat boots, my toes had gone completely numb. So everyone milled about socializing, eating, and watching my friend Logan and one of his friends have a rap battle until one of the band members announced that they were going to IHOP if anyone would like to join. It was a unanimous decision among my group that IHOP was an awesome idea and so that's where we went. It took about half an hour to find a ride and two of my friends almost got in a fight with another girl.

By the time we got there, the band guys and all of their friends had already grabbed a table and the half of our group that found a ride before us had as well. Coffee was ordered and the cold melted away thanks to the heating that was on blast.  Shoutout to our lovely waiter David who stayed patient with us even though it took us over an hour to pool enough money together to actually order food.

As the night dragged on, the band guys all left with their friends and we stayed longer and ended up having a really nice time. The band's lead singer, Walker, and the band's drummer/Walker's brother, Grey, had been ditched by the others so Walker came and sat with us. Grey joined us a bit later because he was chatting up some girls. I knew Walker previously through one of my best friends, who was also there, so it wasn't awkward. This was my first time actually getting to hang out with him though. We all sat and talked until around 11 and then it was time for all of us to head out. I felt bad because the car we were taking home was full, so Walker and Grey took a taxi home. I was really glad I got to officially meet them though. Walker is a really nice guy. Raney thought he looked like Alex Turner when he was performing.

Please give their EP a listen, it's actually quite good:

qualian.bandcamp.com

Come on, be a No-One

This weekend none of my friends made plans, I cancelled last minute on a guy who asked me out, and I proceeded to bury my face in a book.

Last week my friend wrote my name in Chinese down my arm and it hasn't come off yet. I'm not actually sure if it is my name, but it looks cool anyways. I'm very happy with it. 

As I said previously, my face has been buried in a book as of late. I already bought a book a week or so ago but apparently my brain was not satisfied, so I took a trip to the library and checked out three more books. Then I topped it off with a purchase of the latest Entertainment Weekly issue. 

The first book was Pattie Boyd's autobiography which is excellent so far. I'm a mere four chapters in but I love it so much. Her life sounds so exciting I can't help but be a little jealous. 

The second and third books I checked out were biographies on Jim Henson and Andy Warhol. However I can't really give my opinions on those since my mother took the Jim Henson one to read for herself and I'm waiting until I finish up Pattie Boyd to start on Andy Warhol. 

Those pictures were taken on my drive home from the library. 

I apologize for the random post, I'll probably have more interesting things to say later on. I just really liked these pictures. 

Come on, Be a No-One // The Cribs

Sunshine on my Window

Friday was a half day at school. I had no set plans so, as I usually do, I tagged along with the the first group of friends I could find. Which happened to be my friends Raney and Rachel this time. The three of us walked to the chik-fil-a next door to try their new iced lemonade drinks. They did not disappoint. 

After a little while we packed up our stuff and headed out to one of my favorite places in the city, the rose garden. We picked up two bags of candy and our friend Alisa on the way there. The walk there seemed to take forever, but it was so nice once we got there that the complaining didn't mean anything anymore. Rachel set up her hammock and she, Raney and I climbed in. Alisa went to go smoke. We sat there for hours just munching on the candy we had gotten and talking about who knows what. 

Eventually we all walked back to the Chik-fil-a to meet up with some guy friends and spent the rest of our time out with them. 9/10 day. I enjoyed myself and the endlessly sunny weather.