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. 

Weekend Story 2//3 : Halloween

Halloween is without a doubt my favorite holiday. I love dressing up, I love candy, and I love getting up to random shenanigans at night.

This year I dressed up as Penny Lane from the movie Almost Famous. I didn't get a picture of it sadly, but I will eventually. It's not really my favorite costume I've ever done, but it came out nicely.

Once night fell we all gathered at a friends house and snacked on bagel bites and gave out candy. My favorite kid we gave candy to was this kind of awkward boy that looked to be about eight or nine. We asked him what he was and he said he was a "pirate-robot-fox" which was super cool. 10 points for creativity. We gave him his candy and I was about to close the door when he turned around and said "oh one more thing!.......I also suck people's souls." With the most deadpan expression. Then he turned and left. 

Once everyone had arrived, we all set out to go trick or treating. All of the houses we stopped at were really chill and gave us a good amount of candy, except for the very first one. The lady took one look at us and said "Aren't you a little old?" I told her we were young at heart. She shrugged and gave each of us a gross looking "organic" lollypop. I bet she's fun at parties. 

After we hit up a few houses a bunch of us wanted to try and sneak into the graveyard. The graveyard in the neighborhood was the biggest one in the city so I got really excited. We managed to find a break in the chain-link fence and proceeded to climb in. Not even 2 minutes in some of my friends thought they saw something and ran screaming back into the street. One of them even ran smack into a giant plastic traffic thing. None of us could stop laughing for a good solid 10 minutes.

After that mis-adventure we agreed to go to the woods next to the dog park instead. Still creepy, but more manageable. Once we got there we all sat in circle and played truth or dare. That resulted in an innocent pedestrian getting mooned for a few seconds.

The rest of our night out included painting ourselves with glow stick fluid, lighting a glow stick on

fire, and playing spin the bottle with just about every object possible that wasn't actually a bottle.

 

When we got back to the house we all made some amazingly delicious s'mores and just messed around. There was an attempt made to make friends with a cat, but it was not having it and just glared at us from the shed roof instead. 

Six of us ended up sleeping over. We all huddled onto the couch and watched Carrie until 1 am. Apparently I was the only one who was actually enjoying Carrie so it got switched to GBF instead. We all ignored the overall stupidity of the movie and slowly drifted off to sleep. 

Halloween concluded with the greeting of chocolate chip pancakes the next morning and still groggy reflections of how the night went. I couldn't have asked for a better way to spend my favorite holiday.

Weekend Story 1//3 : Paul

On the 30th of October, I got to see Sir Paul McCartney in concert.

It never really hit me, and it still hasn't I think, that I got to see a living Beatle. The Beatles are the one band I've been listening to basically since I left the womb. To see Paul serenade me (and thousands of others) with Beatles songs in real life was just a surreal experience.

 ~~~~~

I'm pretty sure I was one of very few people there who were under 50. During the concert it was very obvious who had been a hippie back in the day. One couple I spotted down on the floor seats were probably in their 60's and both of them were getting so into it and dancing their butts off. It made me really happy. Then there was the guy a section over from me who completely lost in when Back in the USSR came on. I'm surprised he didn't hit the people sitting next to him. I ended up watching him dance more than what was going on on stage.

But anyways, onto Paul. He was such a wonderful live performer. With all those years of concert experience I would expect him to be, but it was really lovely. He brought such a unique energy to all of his songs, whether they be Beatles, Wings, or his solo album songs. Between every few songs he would also tell the audience a story about something that happened in his life. He talked about his first time meeting Jimi Hendrix, his relationships with John and George, the time he met the Defense Minister of Russia, and he read all the signs that the people in the floor seats had brought.
One sign said "trick or treat, sign my feet." and at the end of the concert he actually brought the lady up on stage and signed her feet for her. He said that was the first time he'd done that (and the last). He also did these adorable little dance moves which made me laugh.

Another thing I want to comment on about the performance, is the animations that played on the screen behind him during the songs. They were absolutely stunning. I was annoyed because they were so cool and interesting to watch that I was getting distracted from watching Paul. I really want to know who made them so I can tell them how good of a job they did.
The guitarist, bassist, and drummer that were on stage with Paul also did a really awesome job. They brought an awesome energy to the whole thing.

Some really great moments during the concert for me was Paul's tributes to John and George and Hey Jude.
For John's tribute, he sang 'Here Today Gone Tomorrow' and between the song and what he said about John beforehand, I admit I teared up quite a bit. It was all just really moving. For George, he started off singing 'Something' with just a ukulele and then went into the full accompaniment. It sounded even more beautiful because you could hear the audience singing along.
Hey Jude was the first song where they stopped playing halfway through and the audience kept going. Seeing everyone with lighters and flashlights singing the "na na na" part of the song was so incredibly beautiful. I felt so privileged to be a part of it.

McCartney came out for TWO encores as well. He finally finished the whole thing off with the Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/In The End medley.

Honestly I could write so much more about this concert, but I think I'll leave it at that. In summery, it was one of the best concerts of my life and there's no way I could ever forget it (not just because I filmed basically the entire thing on my phone). Getting home and 1:30 in the morning after a thing like that was just to awesome for words.