Features Week!

Hey guys!

One of my resolutions this year was to be a better blogger. I want to take more pictures, post more, and do more interesting stuff on my blog. I'm planning a giveaway later on in the spring, and I have some more tricks up my sleeve.

I've decided to have a guest post/feature week thingy! I'll write up an interview of sorts and for a whole week in February, I'll have a post a day featuring some awesome blogs.

Which blogs? That's totally up to you! The first five commenters will be featured, no ifs, ands or buts! (heh heh, I said butts.)

I'm really hoping this works out and I think it'll be a fun experience for everyone involved. Comment away!

Oscar Noms and other Ramblings

Of the ten movies nominated for best picture, I've seen:
Black Swan, Inception, The Social Network, Toy Story 3, True Grit.

I haven't seen:
The Fighter, The Kids are All Right, The King's Speech, 127 Hours, Winter's Bone.

Matt saw The Fighter and The Kids are All Right and said they were excellent. I sooooooo completely want to see The King's Speech! It looks incredible!

Luckily, a theater near us has "Oscar Days" where you pay like $30 and there's a marathon of the nominated movies. I think Matt and I are going to do it. Except, since there's ten movies this year, there are two oscar days with five movies on each day, and $60 is kind of expensive. Even if we do get to see ten movies.

In other news, I'm halfway through my second day of classes. I already have a ton of work!

I'm off to eat lunch and read some literary criticism about theories of the novel. boooooring.

Oh, and something else interesting: One of the guys in Matt's apartment moved out last semester, so they have someone new this year and he's this guy from Brussels named Loic. He's really nice! I'm excited to get to know him!

Okay. Last thing. Last night I watched this documentary called Jesus Camp that was amazing. It's about this summer camp for evangelical Christians, and it was so fascinating, and somewhat appalling how these kids are brainwashed into "soldiers in God's army." They literally speak in tongues. I didn't know people actually did that.

All right, enough rambling. I'm going to go make a sandwich and eat some coffee yogurt. And then I have more class.

ttfn

Sailing Alone Around the Room

That's the title of a book of poems by one of my favorite poets, Billy Collens. You should check it out.

I just got back to my room at school, and instead of unpacking I'm browsing the internets. I snapped a couple pictures of my room as it is right now to share with you. Once I get everything all put away you can see my room as it should be!

My desk!

The view from the doorway.

Pretty much my half of the room. Towards the bottom of the picture you can see my MANY unpacked bags!

The artses on my wallses. I painted the splatter paintings myself, the Hello Kitty poster came with some valentines, and the collage-ish thing to the right is all taken out of an art magazine I found.

This is Wolfie. He's my bestest friend. :)

I like movies that are a bit out there.

I love watching movies. This is no secret. Some of my favorite movies, though, I make my friends watch with me and they're all like Lauren. What is wrong with you?

Machete 
 I freaking love this movie! Danny Trejo is a BAMF who goes around chopping peoples heads off with, you guessed it, a machete. In fact, his nickname is Machete!

Best line of the movie:
(They're all so incredibly quotable, it's hard to pick just one!)
Machete Don't Text

The Chumscrubber
I watched this one at a friend's house. She had checked it out from the library, and by the time the movie was over, everyone was sick of it but me.

By far the best part of this movie is the adults. There's the main plot with some teenagers, but what really kills me is the supreme neurosis of their parents. Ralph Fiennes thinks he's a dolphin, for example.
Best In Show
I watched this movie yesterday while I was eating lunch. It's an incredibly hilarious mockumentary about a dog show. The dog owners are all insane. Absolutely insane.

Wristcutters: A Love Story
A friend of mine recommened this movie to me by saying, "It's one of those crappy movies you like." And it's true. It's set in the afterlife at a way station for those who have committed suicide. Bonus: The music is all by Gogol Bordello!

Eagle vs Shark
This is like the New Zealand version of Napoleon Dynamite, except it's actually good. These two people are cripplingly nerdy. Jarrod (the dude) hosts a party where everyone is supposed to come dressed as their favorite animal. When Lily comes as a shark, he tells her "I almost came as a shark actually. But then I realized eagles are slightly better." The whole movie is full of little tiny things that made me giggle. Plus, I'm a huge fan of Flight of the Conchords!

American Splendor
This movie was sooooo good! It's about this guy, Harvey Pekar, who wrote a series of comic books called American Splendor. What's really great about this movie is that it plays with form a lot. The credits look like a comic book, kind of, with characters breaking out of the panels to talk to you. And Harvey Pekar is actually in the movie. He's kind of a narrator, but he interacts with you sometimes. It's just so cool!

So there you are: some of my favorite movies. They're all terrific for different reasons, and I highly recommend you watch every single one of them.

Love,
Lauren

I've got the winter blues.

I feel unmotivated, uninspired, uninterested. All I do is sit around on the internet, or sit around watching movies, or sit around reading. I haven't even been reading much.

I have to have surgery. I found this out recently. I'm having an excisional biopsy: I have a "benign breast mass" that needs to be removed. Dunno what it is, just that it's not cancer. Which is great! But I've been kind of up and down with moods lately. Plus my boyfriend is at the beach for the weekend, so I'm feeling especially crappy.

I've just been trying to keep busy. Yesterday I baked cookies, and today I watched Best in Show (hilarious movie!) and the Best of Jimmy Fallon on SNL. And I read the BUST magazine I got in the mail the other day.

So I guess, please be patient with me if my blogging is lackluster.

Super-Awesome Deal! $20 Amazon Gift Card for $10

I don't know if you've heard of this website, livingsocial, but they have great deals every day on stuff! Usually it's something like a restaurant or something where I don't think the deal is really worth going there, but today you can buy a $20 Amazon Gift Card for only $10. How cool is that?

Just sharing. Here's the link to buy it. (Plus, it's my referral link, and if three people buy one using my link, I get another gift card, free!)

I mean, who doesn't shop at amazon?

my day thus far in a series of haiku

crap, my clock is slow
thought i still had time to snooze
oops, gotta get up

service engine soon
guess i should get that checked out
light's been on for months

i like my spaghetti-
o's like i like my women
boiling lava hot

i like this movie:
eight and a half. italian.
but i can't focus

time for a snack?
chips and salsa, my favorite
yum yum yum yum yum

Is it Tuesday already? Chunesy Chunes.

Good luck getting this song out of your head. I recently saw a play where the characters all sang this song, and it's been stuck in my head for the past week.

The Vagina Monologues

I finally realized the kind of book I'm in the mood for right now. I want something comfortable, familiar and beloved. With school starting back up in a week, I don't want to be reading something that's as literature-y as the books I have to read for my lit classes.

So last night as I was going to bed I settled in to read some monologues. It's perfect because I know some of them by heart, but others I've never seen before. That's because I've so far only come in contact with the Monologues as a theatrical entity. Turns out, not all of what's in the book is in the play.

The Vagina Monologues are near and dear to my heart. This is my second year being involved in the production at my school. Last year I produced the show, and this year I'm acting in it. And next year I have the honor of directing it along with one of my best friends.

The Vagina Monologues is not a man-hating show. A lot of people believe this. And it's true that Eve Ensler kind of (or at least seems to) hates men. I don't know, in her writing it just seems like she belittles men. She's totally against the "patriarchal culture," but to me it kind of seems like she takes it too far. But maybe that's just me.

Anyway, where I'm going with all this is that being in The Vagina Monologues is one of the best things I've ever done for myself. It makes me feel powerful. I've become very close to a lot of wonderful women who are also in the show. At the risk of sounding too out there, I feel at one with all women all over the world. And I get to moan on stage. Come on, who doesn't want that? (Okay, I realize a lot of people don't want that...)

So please, if you ever get a chance, go see the show. Or even better, be in it. It's really easy, all you have to do is read from a script and you don't even have to memorize your lines! There are sad monologues and happy monologues and everything in between.

I leave you with two fun pictures. The first is me with my former roommate and great friend, Cathy. True story: she was eight months pregnant at last year's show. She actually missed the last performance because of a labor scare! And the second is the super-awesome vagina cake we ate at the cast party!

I can't decide what book to read.

I finished Anna Karenina a couple days ago, and it was really, really good! Then I started this book by Italo Calvino called Numbers in the Dark, and I'm not exactly loving it. I just can't seem to stay interested and I feel like I'm making myself read it.

So, back to the shelves it goes!

My options for books are:

• One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
• Black Boy by Richard Wright
• Native Son by Richard Wright
• Mad, Bad and Sad by Lisa Appignanesi (It's about how women's creativity often leads to mental illness... I think.)

Or I could be responsible and start reading Moll Flanders. It's the first of the nine novels I have to read for British Novel next semester.

What do you guys think?

A Project 365 Blog: My Mom's

She told me not to blog about it yet because "It's not a finished project! I need a banner!" but I don't care. She can go ahead and be mad at me.

If you're looking for a new blog to follow, check out A Strong Cup of Tea, my mom's project 365 blog. She's new to this whole blogging thing, so cut her some slack. I had to force her to make one in the first place! :)

And if you're not already persuaded to go check it out, there are embarrassing pictures of me!

Pea Ess. I made a tumblr today. (Actually, I made two, but one of them is for a top-secret project!) If you have a tumblr, leave a comment so I can follow you!

Pea Ess Ess. I find this whole "reblogging" thing weird. I'm still getting used to it.

Today was a sad, sad day.

The Ravens lost. :'(

Not only did they lose, but they lost to the Steelers (devil team), and they crapped themselves in the second half.

Now understand me: I am not a football fan. But when you're watching the big rivalry game, and a playoff game no less, it's impossible not to get into it. I spent the day with my boyfriend's family, watching the game and then eating KFC and wallowing in despair.

For any Ravens fans who need cheering up, here are some pictures of my cat. If you're a Steeler's fan, you can leave. Go be awful somewhere else.

Sprawled on the arm of the chair like that is his favorite place to lay. I will never understand.

Spring Cleaning: Shop My Closet!

In an effort to thin out my bulging closet/dresser, I've pulled out a couple pieces and listed them on this website Kendi posted yesterday called Smashion.com. Some graphic tees, plain tees, tank tops and sweaters. Have a look!

 Click here to go to my shop!

Personal Pan Pizzas!

This has been a tradition since my sister and I were wee little ones. We each get a cake pan and get to make our own pizzas, from smooshing out the dough for the crust to choosing the toppings and how much cheese you want.

Seriously, it's a million times more exciting than just eating normal pizza, or even eating a couple slices of a normal-sized homemade pizza. You get a whole pizza all to yourself! Thick crust, thin crust, however you want it!

Tonight I did green peppers, pepperoni and ham. I love all of these toppings individually, but I'm not sure how big a fan of them I was all together.

And my sister's onion/olive/mushroom/pepper monstrosity:

She skimped on the cheese, in my opinion, but then she's lactose intolerant, so you can't really blame her.

This is how she opted to eat her pizza:

So there you have it! For dinner today I ate a whole pizza! (But it was only a foot across...)

PS. My sister is one of those people pretentious enough to wear fake eyeglasses. Feel free to mock her.

Chunesy Chuesdays

Confession time:

I'm a sucker for covers. Also bluegrass.

Sex and Candy–Keller and the Keels



I also recommend their cover of Rehab. I wanted to post that one, but I couldn't find it on youtube.

Red Statement Necklace!

I followed this tutorial to make a necklace out of an old t-shirt. It turned out a bit longer than I would ideally like it, but if you double it over it makes a nice scarf/neckwarmer type thing!

Do the truffle shuffle!

I experiment with rearranging my blog every so often, but I never seem to end up with anything I like. I didn't do much, just put a lot of the stuff in my sidebar into various pages, but I think it looks a lot cleaner, and I'm a fan so far.

It's definitely still a work in progress!

What I've Been Up To

Somewhat of a photodump (only 3 pictures) of what I've been doing the past couple days.

I made a plush for my shop, which you can see in the early stages below. It's nothing special, but at least it's something! I have been Miss Crafty Lazypants lately. It's not listed yet, but I'll probably get around to it in the next couple days.

 My grandmother got me this storage bin, so of course my sister and I had a photoshoot with it. I mean, what else were we supposed to do? It was perfectly people-sized!

 And I got my first Netflix DVD earlier this week. As you can see, it was Once, which I loved. Today I got my second DVD in the mail (Deliverance) and I'm pumped to watch it later tonight.

Stay tuned for an update on my Red Statement Necklace! Hint: It does not resemble any of the ones I posted.

Sweet, Sweet Temptation

I got this book for Christmas:

It's the graphic novel version (sort of: some stuff is different) of the first book in my favorite series, Outlander. If you haven't read Outlander, you absolutely must. Right now. Time travel + Romance + Scotland = ABSOLUTE WIN. You shouldn't need any more convincing. Everyone I've ever known who's read Outlander (with the exception of my boyfriend, but he doesn't count. he's a dude.) is absolutely in LOVE with it. I cannot use caps lock enough to describe my enthusiasm for these books.

So, as you may have surmised, I am WAY SUPER EXCITED about this graphic novel. The trouble is, it's way short and I want to savor it. So I'm forcing myself to read a single chapter every couple days. It's absolutely excruciating, but such bliss. The art is beautiful! It's such a torment to force myself to put the book back on the shelf after only a few short pages, but I must be strong!

Inspiration: Red Statement Necklaces

I need to acquire some type of red accessory to wear with my Vagina Monologues outfit (black sweaterdress and heels). I'm thinking what would really be lovely is an outrageous statement necklace. Browsing around etsy, I've seen tons I love. What I'd really like to do is make one myself, but I'm nervous about it looking dumb/weird.

My inspirations:
(Click the picture to go to the listing)

I'm in love with the first one, but it's well over $100 and there's no way I could make anything that even somewhat resembles it. I think I might be able to whip up something like the third and fourth ones, though. Or even the fifth one... not sure. What do you guys think?

An Awesome Package in the Mail Today!

I got my handwarmers I got from Sonya of Fishnets and Hip Checks! They're supah-warm and supah-sweet!

In other news, today while I was eating lunch I watched Cry-Baby and it was splendorous. With a panini and a campy movie, how could a girl ask for more?

Watch This Movie: The Secret of Kells

A friend of mine got me 2 free months of Netflix for Christmas and I am loving it! Seriously, I've watched three movies in two days. My first DVD (Once) should be coming in the mail today and I am sooooo pumped!

Last night I watched this adorable animated movie that came out in 2009 called The Secret of Kells. It's really short, only about an hour and fifteen minutes long, and I was delighted by every part of it!

It tells the story of a young boy living in the abbey at Kells while the Book of Kells is being completed. Although forbidden to travel outside the walls of the abbey, he ventures out into the forest (inhabited by terrifying wolves) and meets Aisling, a forest spirit. The two become friends and face evil spirits and scary vikings.

By far the best part about this movie is its stunning animation. It stays true to the spirit of Celtic art: everything is incredibly detailed and beautiful. If you ever get a chance, watch this movie!

(All movie stills from Google Images)

Chunesy Chuesdays

Whip My Hair, as covered by Neil Young (Jimmy Fallon) and Bruce Springsteen. Absolute gold.

New Years Eve Shenanigans

Hey guys! I hope your holiday was swell, I know mine sure was! I went down to my grandparents' house to spend some time with family. Matt came too, and it was the first time he met most of my family! Exciting!

On New Years Eve we went to this new restaurant in town called Abuelo's for Mexican. It was quite yummy. I got enchiladas (as usual), my sister got fajitas (as usual), but my dad went for something daring and got the grande. To say it's big would be an understatement:

And after:

Quite the feat, I'm sure you will agree. The food was quite delicious! If there's an Abuelo's near you, I highly recommend it!

After we ate, something magical happened. Allow me to paint a word picture.

We're all stuffed. After we're done eating we decide to walk around the mall for a bit. It's an outdoor mall. After we walk a long a little bit we hear some music. Oh cool! Live music! It's a Rush song. As we're jamming out to Tom Sawyer, another Rush song comes on. Is this a Rush cover band?! Does such a thing exist? We reach where the music is being played. Get this: the band is made of children. They are, no joke, all between the ages of 14 and 16. And they can shred. It turned out that it wasn't a Rush cover band, just a classic rock cover band. But still, it was a pretty cool night. We hung out for about an hour watching the band, Carbon Jam, then saw some fireworks and went home.

Not what anyone expected to do on New Year's Eve, but it was a night heavily infused with awesomeness.