my favorite nightmare

anyone who's known me for any period of time can guess what this post is going to be about based solely on the title. i thought it a fitting topic, considering today is halloween!

the rest of you can stay in the dark for a tiny bit longer, yes? yes. here's a little scene setting for you:

it's 1993. i'm 10ish. i see previews for a movie that i want to see so badly, i can hardly see straight.

but movies were never really an option for me as a kid, so i never got to see it.

i am either 10 or 11, and it's early 1994. i'm with my dad at a store, and he's buying a big screen television. i'm wandering the store while he haggles with the guy over price, and lo and behold, the movie is playing on one of their TVs, with audio and everything.

i plop down on a couch (convenient, those living room mock ups are!) and watch half an hour of it, completely enraptured. i am a very unhappy camper when dad makes me leave the store before the movie is over.

the movie i'm talking about, of course, is The Nightmare Before Christmas.

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still, to this day, i love everything about it. i love the soundtrack, i love the creepy aesthetic, and i love the stop-motion claymation business. (the aesthetic - goth-lite, perhaps? - has always been something i love, though i've never made myself up as such). i love the covers the soundtrack has garnered (especially the Vitamin String Quartet one), and i love the implications of the story for real life.

for me, The Nightmare Before Christmas represents the very best of my childhood; it makes me nostalgic, it makes me happy, and it has always, always spoken to some part of my psyche that it continues to assuage today. in fact, i love almost everything tim burton has ever produced (save for one thing in particular) - edward scissorhands, corpse bride, 9, james and the giant peach ... but Nightmare is my favorite.

and, as proof that the apple often doesn't fall far from the tree? my daughter adores it, too.

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HAPPY HALLOWEEN, EVERYBODY! <3

book nerd 101

i read a lot.

this is evidenced by my goodreads lists.

also, i'm 11 books away from hitting my goal of reading 100 books in 2012. #exciting

so, anyway, i wanted to list a few books i'm excited about that will be released soon or will be delivered to my house soon:

DAYS OF BLOOD AND STARLIGHT by Laini Taylor

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laini has this amazing way with words. her prose is beautiful, never purple, and always impacting. also, the world she crafted here, one that aligns right alongside the one we actually live in, is compelling and terrible and feels very complete, even after just one book (her first in this trilogy, Daughter of Smoke and Bone). her characters are real, her conflicts are real, and the backstories she gives everyone within the pages of her books are heavy and gritty and intense. i simply cannot wait for this, the second installment of Karou's story.

really, it's probably an accurate statement to say that this book belongs at the top of my "books i'm impatiently waiting on" list.

~*~*~

THE EVOLUTION OF MARA DYER by Michelle Hodkin

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reviews among my friends (and friends of friends) for hodkin's first book (The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer) were mixed. me, personally? i found it intriguing, to say the least. the mix of psychosis and mystery left me definitely interested to see what book 2 would hold within it's pages, and this book is on its way to my house as i type this, scheduled for delivery on monday. 

can't wait to see what happens in this one. (p.s. the cover art for this and The Unbecoming is stunning. love it.) 

~*~*~

The Caster Chronicles by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

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so, here's the deal with me and the beautiful creatures books: i have been interested since day one, but never actually picked them up because... well, i don't actually know. i was definitely interested in the fact that a boy narrates (i am penning a male-narrated novel for this year's NaNoWriMo), the premise surrounding a variant of witches, and the fact that a few of my nearest and dearest devoured the books. but my to be read list is insane, and when i realized that there were going to be four books... i decided to wait. 

well, my pre-order of the box set of the caster chronicles is on its way to me, and i can't wait!

~*~*~

there are more books i'm looking forward to, but i'll save those for another post.

which books are you not-so-patiently waiting on?

the color run: nashville

i did this.

*i* did this!

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before august 2012, i couldn't run for a minute straight without feeling winded. and i just ran a 5K. 

before august 2012, i had been avoiding my 2012 goal to become a runner, certain it was an impossible thing to aspire to. and i just ran a 5K. 

before october 21st, 2012, i was confident that i would never be a "real" runner. and i just ran a 5K. 

i am a runner. 

i had moments of doubt, and concerns about whether i'd be able to run the whole thing. i knew i'd have to walk a portion of it at least, and i wondered if walking part of it was cheating. but in the end, i realized that none of that really matters. this was one of the most inspiring, worthwhile things i've ever pushed myself into doing. 

the end.

TGFB (thank god for books)

first: a video -

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did you read this book?

i read this book. when i was about 11 or so, and i loved it. and when this movie was released about a year or two later, i saw it, and loved it. harriet m. welsch, as a character, spoke to me. she was different, smart and quirky, and she was obsessive about observing life as she saw it. she wrote constantly.

basically, she was me.

i can say that harriet m. welsch was probably the first MG/YA heroine that i truly identified with, that i can remember. by the time i met harriet, i had already read a wrinkle in time, which stars my beloved meg murry, and roald dahl had already introduced me to matilda & charlie, but harriet was my girl.

here's why i'm bringing this up.

i watched this movie this evening with my daughter, and not only is it still a poignant reference to life as a middling adolescent (and in general), but it still made me cry. i remember crying so hard when ole golly had to leave harriet, and when sport and janie wouldn't initially forgive her. but that was a million years ago, right? when i was 13!

and yet: the tears still came. and yet, i still melt when sport rushes out of the store, embarrassed because his friend had to help him so that he could afford groceries for the week. and yet i still hate marion hawthorne just a tad.

harriet the spy is one of very few books i remember falling in love with in my early adolescence. sure, i read all  the time, but there are probably five books at most that i remember reading until my eyes couldn't take it anymore and i finally succumbed to sleep. there are few books that, with a mere mention, shove me all the way back, back, back to twelve or thirteen year old me, holed up in my room with my nose in a book, wishing life was a bit more like the world i found between those beloved pages.


that's the beauty of books, though, isn't it?

they grab you and then they begin to live under your skin, and they speak to some internal part of you that never forgets their message.

and so when you're twenty-nine and have a child of your own, those memories can still grab hold of you and overwhelm you a bit.

thank god for books is all i can say.

dear 16-year-old me

inspiration post 1 - inspiration post 2

*~*~*

today is spirit day. though I am not LGBT (lesbian, gay,. bisexual, transgendered) myself, i support their rights, and the rash of suicides the world has seen in the last few years, on top of things like Matthew Shepard's story simply break my heart. to be honest, there are not many social issues that i care more about than equal marriage and adoption rights for the LGBT community. i read a lovely friend's post today, in which she shares some very personal information, and it was the catalyst to my sharing this letter, which i've been holding on to since reading inspiration post #2 last week.

onward and upward, my friends.

 *~*~*

dear sixteen-year-old angela,

believe it or not, one day, you'll go by ang. and you'll sort of prefer it. don't give me that face, girl. i know you better than you do.

at this point, you've only been in austin for a few months, but you love it. you've started over. you're going to church now, for the first time in your life. it's giving you a new sense of purpose, a new set of friends, and a new outlook on life. you're happy at your new high school. soon, you're going to meet the boy that will be your high school sweetheart, and in the next few months, you'll meet a handful of people who are still in your life today, nearly 14 years later.

but i gotta tell you: some things that are going to be pretty terrible are on their way.

one day, the church family you are beginning to love right now will rip you apart. be strong. believe me when i say that this tearing apart of your soul will make you that much more of a fighter. you will make it through.

one day, (as a result of that last item) you'll lose sight of that new focus that you've been able to gain through a relationship with God. your relationship with Christianity will be tenuous at best for a long while.

one day, you're going to experience the pain that comes with the loss of your first love. you'll spend three days in a cloudy haze, and the residual pain from that loss will stick with you for years. it will suck; there's no way around it. (side note? not the aforementioned high school romance.)

one day, you'll get a phone call in which you find out that your stepmother has OD'd and your brother needs brain surgery for the most severe form of epilepsy known to man. the phone call will come from your mostly estranged father. when you feel a strange pull to be there for him, you won't say no. go with it.

life will be hard. you'll be falling apart on the inside. but you won't admit that to anyone. ever.

but one day?

one day, you'll have coffee with a girl from your past, and in that conversation, you'll get to realize that you're really over the heartache caused by that church family. it will be wonderful.

one day, you'll be content with where you and God are. believe that.

one day, you'll meet a man who is nothing you were looking for and everything you need. he'll come into your life after a short string of painful relationships. and he'll be the breath of fresh air you've always been in need of.

side note: one day, you'll get married to that man. and it will be awesome.

one day, you'll have a little girl. she'll be amazing and hilarious and sassy and smart, and you'll wonder how you ever lived without her around. (the answer: life was a lot less wonderful then.)

one day, the relationship you have with your father will make sense. it won't be perfect, but it will be what you've always needed it to be. and you'll lose other key family relationships because toxic is as toxic does. i know you can't fathom that. but once again, i know better than you, girlie. shhh.

one day, you'll realize that those three girls you met when you were sixteen will still be around when you're twenty-nine (and virtually everyone else will have fallen away). they're your rock. don't doubt them - though it will be hard sometimes, because life is never perfect, and neither are people. things happen. those girls? they'll make you realize that family has nothing to do with genetics and everything to do with everything else. also, you'll meet people in the loveliest of strange ways (in line & online, to name a few), and those people will hold you up when you can hardly stand to crawl. and because you'll have been through so much and come out on top, when you're in your early 20s, you'll be able to be that strength for another girl (who will become your "little sister"). life is a reciprocal thing sometimes. paying it forward is amazing every time. true story.

you are strong.

you are smart.

you are talented.

you are beautiful.

don't forget any of this. because by the time you're me?

life is pretty damn sweet.

keep your head up, doll. it's all going to be great.


xoxo,
twenty-nine-year-old ang

p.s. music, books, and writing will only become more and more important to you as you grow older. crazy, right?

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thanks to one of my 3 girls for posting her letter last week and for being there when i was 16 and searching. so much love, J, so much love.

what would you say to your sixteen-year-old self?

music & me: zz ward

here's a thing you should know about me: i'm a bit of a music snob.

not in the conventionalway, though. what i mean is that it's highly unlikely that i'll label any singer that can't *actually* sing as someone whom i either take seriously or call my favorite. that said, we all know britney spears couldnt sing her way out of a bucket, BUT the girl makes some killer tunes, so i like her, because if you tell me that you can't enjoy a well-crafted pop song, well, maybe i worry for your humanity.

here's another thing you should know about me: it's rare for me to love something immediately. usually, it takes some time for things to grow on me. i might like it a lot, but usually, it takes a few listens. there are exceptions (which i'll probably ramble about in another blog post), but... yeah.

so anyway. yesterday, my friend patrick linked me to this video.

and i loved it.

so here's my recommendation for ZZ WARD:

this girl can blow, she's pretty, and (according to her bio in various places), she plays a handful of instruments. i personally love the attitude she brings to her songs. "put the gun down" is like a sassier version of "jolene," "til the casket drops" is an crazy intense song of devotion, and she sounds great live (which is a big test for me, as a fellow singer). also, her stuff translates to acoustic wonderfully. I kind of think anybody who wishes adele wasn't such a classy broad, lyrically, will fall in love with ms. ward, because this girl lays it all out there.

sounds like: Adele meets hip hop and a little grit

video for "put the gun down"

 

 

acoustic version, "til the casket drops"

 

i can't lie: i snagged this album on itunes last night as soon as i heard a couple more of her tracks on spotify. and, i learned that she's playing here in nashville in a couple weeks, and i've snagged a couple tickets, so i will be in attendance. super excited.

i love her sound, i love her aesthetic, and i am thoroughly impressed with this debut (!!).

new tunes ftw!

#loveit: Houndstooth

one of my favorite prints is houndstooth. i've been coveting a houndstooth dress for ages, since my birthday a few years ago when a friend wore her jacket of the same print, and i fell in love with it. i love that it's classic and modern all at once.

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LOVE this chair. i want it in my living room.

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this dress is amazing and such a throwback. i feel like i'd fit right in on mad men if i wore this, which is awesome.

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these are some pretty hot shoes, yo. loves it.

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not even gonna lie. i just bought this dress. on sale. 

i can't WAIT to wear it. 

what's your favorite print? are you known to rock some houndstooth? ;) 

music & me: runaways

the killers and i have had a strange little relationship.

i avoided them purposefully when "somebody told me" was released, based solely on the fact that sometimes, i avoid mainstream music, and OY, they were everywhere.

but then, "mr. brightside" was released.

and i loved it.
[sidenote: i find brandon flowers absurdly attractive, eyeliner or not, dandy or not, hipster-wear or not.]

then there was "when you were young," which, i will admit, is probably one of my favorite songs of the last decade.

however: the songs that followed up "when you were young" lost me. they weren't my cup of tea, and i sort of stopped following the killers for a few years.

i am happy to say that, with their most recent single, they've won me back over, and i've enjoyed the few tracks i've listened to from their new album, battle born.

here's the video for "runaways":

i love the simple treatment of the song, and i'm looking forward to their next single.

writing: nanowrimo 2012

i'll be participating in national novel writing month (NaNoWriMo) again this november. this will be the second one in a row for me. last year, i NaNo'd in 2 weeks, because i ignored my need for sleep and also ended up getting a sinus infection that knocked me out of commission regarding work attendance for 2 days, so i wrote 10k in a single day.

i am lucky that i have the ability to write quickly, but also pretty cleanly, so it wasn't a total mess when i was done, but i made one rather massive mistake last year:

i wrote out of order.

i'm a chronological writer. it's how i work. i always have an ending point in mind, and usually a few major plot points determined; i let the more minor details work themselves out (and am usually pleased to find that because i let the characters boss me around a bit, the story has more depth and detail that i would initially have thought).

so, all my 8000 docs with various scenes written on them from last year?

yep, they are still all disjointed and sitting in a folder on my hard drive. i simply don't have the patience to fix/connect/adjust everything that it needs, so until i really have the time, that story will sit there, unworked. (boo, hiss.)

[side note: i have scrivener now, so organization is much easier.]

i am planning on continuing a project that i've already started for nano this year, which is technically against the rules, but i only have about 6-8k written of it, and that's a far cry from complete, so it is what it is. it's my goal to hit the nano goal of 50K written in november by about 3-4 days before the end of the month so that perhaps i'll be closer to 60K written for the month when everything is said and done.

what is this project, you ask?

it's a pretty angsty, dark and twisty little thing. nothing supernatural, no fantasy elements like the project i'll be querying soon. it's my (rather emotional) take on a classic boy-meets-girl story, and i really love the characters.

the protagonist is a boy.

this makes me happy-happy-happy.

that said, the playlist that helps me write the story? is primarily girl singers.

here's the song that inspired the whole shebang, performed live by the girl who wrote it:

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i think i love you like a car crash, dear

i don't want your wreckage, but i find i cannot steer

my eyes away now

in fact, miss nalick's entire second album has been vastly impacting regarding the story, the characters, and their development.

i'll link my nano profile in the right column over there,  but for now:

which songs inspire you?

fast 5: countries i'd like to visit

i love to travel. whether that means a weekend getaway or a quick road trip to the next town over, i don't care - i just love it.

at this point, there are only a handful of cities in the US that my family and i haven't been able to visit together, but once we've hit those up, i have a short list of countries that are top priority once we are able to "see the world."

5 countries i want to visit

 

1. England

i'm a total anglophile, so i'm pretty sure i'd lose my fangirly mind wandering london. the beatles, fish and chips, the Queen, and reminders of Harry Potter & Doctor Who everywhere! SQUEEEEEE!

 

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2. Spain

this is the country of my familial origins, i love the cuisine, and i love the architecture. 

 

Barcelona

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3. Italy

all of it. honestly, i wish there was more italian lineage in my bloodlines. also, why are most from-italy italian men so attractive? jeez.

 

The Colosseum, Rome

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4. Australia

i realize the place is huge, but i'd take a tour of melbourne and/or sydney. :)

 

P. Sherman, 42 Wallaby Way

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5. Greece

specifically athens and santorini. the history & culture would make it a perfect place for my family to visit.

 

Santorini

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i'd also like to go to Paris and Prague, as well as Sweden and Japan, and my husband would probably like to visit Germany. also! o canada, we have not forgotten you - Vancouver, specifically. we're trying to plan a european trip for 2013 or 2014, but i'm not sure whether that's going to happen. crossing my fingers, though!

where do you want to visit?

fast 5: please go away

fast 5 will be a thing where i just blog a random list. i don't know how often i'll make said lists, but this one's been in my brains for the last few days, so here we go:

 

 

5 bands or songs i would like a reprieve from:

after living in austin: anything by nirvana

after living in nashville: anything by pearl jam
(apparently every major city's radio staff has a favorite grunge band)

young the giant, "cough syrup"

cage the elephant, "shake me down"

fun., "we are young"

dear every djs everywhere:

these songs are dead. after all, the youngest of these is from what, 2010? ok, maybe early, early 2011. why-oh-why are these still on heavy rotation?

i'm not saying to never play these songs/bands again. but my ears would appreciate a reprieve so that maybe, just maybe, i can start to like these songs and bands again. even six months would suffice. until this happens, please trust that i will either change the station or, if that is not an option, i will roll my eyes for the entirety of any of the aforementioned (with rare exception).

respectfully, a fan of a lot of current music,
b helm

p.s. bands with punctuation in their names are ridiculous, though (for right now), i'm ok with "some nights."
p.s.s. i do love me some dave grohl, and his attachment to nirvana is not lost on me, but really, enough with "smells like teen spirit," guys. really.


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which songs do you wish radio would forget about, temporarily or not?

4 Simple Goals

a friend of mine follows the blog A Beautiful Mess, which i, myself, have recently started following as well. in a post there, they spoke of coming up with four action-oriented goals for the remainder of the year - they should be things you actively do regularly before 2013 is upon us.

as i read my friend's goals, as well as those listed on A Beautiful Mess, i was struck with the simplicity of them, and how ingenious it is to think of 4 items that are easy to do but also improve your quality of life with minimal effort.

and how that minimal required effort is often why those things get pushed to the side or even off the to-do list entirely.

life's about to change in a big way for my family and me, and after spending the afternoon thinking about this simple idea, i've come up with my own four simple goals. (i'm a bit wordy here. sorry.)

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one: go outside. 

on november 17th, we're moving back to texas. this isn't news, not really, and we're excited about it, but here's the deal: tennessee is gorgeous. i mean, like, jaw-droppingly gorgeous, and in a way that texas is not. texas is all rolling hills and pale green and brown with lovely blue skies. tennessee is mountains topped with treelines and deep greens and grays. 

i need to get out in it more while it's available to me. and so i shall. perhaps i'll snap some photos to blog as documentation of said gorgeousness.

two: spend my morning commute in quiet. 

several years ago, i was an active churchgoer. for reasons i won't list out here, i am not any longer. but at one point in my history, a leader challenged me to spend time in what he called silence and solitude, and the mental clarity that i was able to garner as a result of spending intentional time alone and in my own kind of quiet was impressive.

my morning commute isn't terribly long, but it is arguably the only me-time i get every day where i am absolutely alone; therefore, it will do. so now, more often than not, i hope my mornings are just me, some good tunes, and perhaps a bit more mental clarity.

three: have quality time with both my husband and daughter every day. 

i know that this seems like a no brainer, but frankly, life is busy and it's easy to let this slide.

but i shouldn't.

so, let me clarify a couple things, because for me, there are two different meanings at play here:

for time spent with my daughter, quality time means letting go of being mama for a minute and playing and engaging her without any real direction. just be with her, love on her, and enjoy every second, because she's growing up too damn fast. for my husband, it means actively devoting time to him. whether that's reading together or watching some documentary with him because it's suddenly struck his interest, or debating (ok, usually agreeing 100%) about politics, i don't care, i just don't want us to be in our own little worlds every night after spending all day apart, and it's easy to let that happen. after all, he's incredibly intelligent and i think he's pretty cute. time spent in his company is never wasted.

quality time. the end.

four: watch doctor who. 

i am sure someone somewhere is laughing at me for this, but the thing is? the happiness that doctor who brings me is deliciously nerdy and i've never experienced such deep-seated love for a fictional character as i have for the doctor. so, despite the fact that the show has also (recently) proven that it can rip my heart into shreds, i adore it.

i really do.

and i have 4 seasons left, and a pretty epic crush on david tennant. so, yay for nerdy british television. best.

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i'm hoping that next time i blog about this subject, i've actually acted on this list. outlook is good, i'd say. :)

do you have any simple goals you'd like to reach by year end?

#loveit: scarves

so, i have to say: i'm a texas girl.

ah, texas: where it's hotter than hell at least 8 months a year, where you can't really buy a decent coat, and where you learn to layer even in the spring because the weather is schizophrenic.

side note: because it's so dang hot outside, often i find myself carrying a jacket in the heat of summer, because folks can be a little overly excited with the air conditioning.

anyway.

maybe that absurd level of heat is why i adore winter clothes so much - pea coats and boots and sweaters... i love it all. perhaps this is because i rarely got to utilize them as a kid. who knows? however, i wanted to take a moment and discuss one of my most favorite cool-weather accessories.

the scarf.

le sigh.

i love them all. i love that you can dress them up or down, and that they come in so many varied patterns and materials. i love that there are about 10000 ways to wear them (though my favorite is what i call the "alfie" style - more on that in a bit).

i only own a handful of scarves, because... well, it's hot in texas, yo. but i was thrilled beyond belief to be able to make use of my paltry collection last winter here in nashville.

here are a few scarves that i really love, all courtesy of pinterest. :)

this one happens to include one of my favorite colors - teal.

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 i love the bright colors of this one, and the flower is a great addition. 

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and now, for something completely different: 

i love the muted tones of this one: 

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and for those of you who are not familiar, here's alfie (and an example of my favorite way to wear a scarf): 

(the 2004 incarnation, anyway.)

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what's your favorite cool-weather accessory?