Rock operas and new glasses.

Oh my god Protomen why have I been ignoring the links and recommendations until now.

This music is just so epic. It is like original-Pokemon-theme-song plus every-dramatic-song-from-a-musical plus the-friggin-opera plus magic. That kind of epic. I want to conquer the world in a montage with this as my soundtrack. (Also, robots.)

Okay, I have always been enamored with musicals, since as far back as I can remember. I'm pretty sure it started because my parents had a copy of the Phantom of the Opera original cast soundtrack and it was one of the only things I listened to when I was young. (This also explains my deep-set nostalgia for certain U2, Phil Collins, Bryan Adams, and Simon and Garfunkel albums. I listened to my dad's music a lot. Also a whole bunch of classical stuff we had around. Four Seasons, anyone?) There's just something really alluring about a collection of music that tells a story. Sure, normal songs are great. Normal songs can tell stories too, in themselves. But god, there's just something beautiful about musicals, and also these albums presented as rock operas, etc.

So this afternoon, when I finally clicked a link to the Protomen site that I've passed by at least three times, I ended up listening to the songs on loop while making my alpha channels and animating for several hours, and then deciding that I needed to acquire the entire story. This..this is pretty cool. I've had the two albums on repeat four times around already. Something that has always interested me: different methods of storytelling. So yes, I love reading books and short stories and poems, but lately I've been extremely attracted to graphic novels and webcomics because of the highly visual element, and also I guess I want to be an animator, so there's another method in animated movies. And I used to be very interested in plays, and that came back into the picture with last year's acting class. (One reason why I enjoy MSPA and Homestuck so much is that I am very impressed by the new medium Andrew Hussie has created. It's part comic, part video game, part animated series, part who-even-knows-anymore, and totally engaging.) So I've been sitting around imagining the events of the Protomen songs, visualizing them behind my eyes, and it's awesome. (Strangely, all the robots look rather like The One Electronic from Rice Boy, which, incidentally, is also a fantastic webcomic-thing.) I can't decide whether I would like it if it were made into a film, or whether I prefer it as only an audible story. What interests me about receiving a story purely in song is that music is extremely effective in helping to conjure visuals. You can see the setting with barely any words, sometimes, based on the contour given by the instruments.

Guess basically what I am trying to say is that this is a Pretty Cool Band with a couple of Pretty Cool Albums and some Pretty Cool Stories and I hope they make more.

...

I went home for the weekend; got back Sunday night. Refilled some medicine prescriptions, got my eyes checked. So I got new glasses! I have always liked getting new glasses; there's just something refreshing about it, and the fact that it only happens every few years makes it a novelty. These are kind of a new style for me; they make my face look different. Maybe it's just more obvious to me because I'm used to seeing my face, but..it's interesting. Whenever I get new glasses, mirrors become distracting for a few days. I just can't help staring at the new thing. I guess it's a good thing I'm not planning on getting any drastic haircuts or strange facial piercings, or I would startle myself every time I'm in the bathroom.

But mainly I went home to see my cat. God I missed her so much.

...

Ughhhh it is almost five in the morning ughhhh I am such an idiot ughhhh I have so much work to do tomorrow ughhhh okay goodnight.

Olivia

PS. Oh, last weekend I finally (finally ughhhh) got through The Last Airbender. Only took me what, three months? The verdict is here, if you want. Next movie I talk about will be an enjoyable one, I think. I just got around to reading the first volume of Scott Pilgrim, so maybe that'll be it.

Old shit.

Periodically I look back at myself and cringe. I'm skimming my old Livejournal account for kicks, and holy fuck I was so obnoxious four years ago. I talked like any other kid on the internet, minus the chatspeak abbreviations. So fucking annoying.

Some things, like the insistence that art will only ever be a hobby, have changed. And then there are some things that have stayed constant, which I find interesting. Here is an entry from about two and a half years ago.

...

[

The things that bother me, all my problems and worries, seem so trivial and immature when I think them through and write them down. Here they come, in no particular order. Close your eyes.

I don't want to have a purpose in life. I don't want to know what I want to be when I grow up. I don't want to grow up, period. Can you see me being an adult? I can't.

I no longer love to write, because I can't seem to put anything onto paper that's worthwhile in any way. I don't think I've written anything considered good since fifth grade.

Art is only my hobby, and will never be a profession. But it's the only thing I want to focus on, ever. An hour not spent at my little table in the corner sculpting or painting is an hour wasted. It seems to be the only thing that ever makes me happy at the moment.

I don't want to go to college, but it will be embarrassing if I don't. This is probably just my stubborn mind being resistant, but as it is, I just don't want to go.

I've found the college version of CTY, and it's amazing, and it will do absolutely nothing for my future.

Although it doesn't show on the outside, I've been thinking some very violent thoughts lately, and it's unnerving.

Despite evidence to the contrary, I honestly don't think anyone cares about me, not even my best friend. Don't you dare call that emo, because my head will probably implode.

I really don't like when people say I'm good at something, because all I see is hopeless, endless mediocrity. This is the obsessive compulsive perfectionist coming out in me, and I hate her, but she won't stop.

I am wholly uninteresting. And my GPA sucks. So why would a college accept me anyways?

I can't lose weight, and I want to scream whenever anyone talks about it. Especially if it's my mother, or my doctor.

When I get my third term report card (should be any day now), I will have to sit through a very familiar lecture. Or perhaps several.

I blame Barney for making me feel like I was unique way back then. Stupid Barney. I want to kick him.

I don't know why you guys are my friends. Why do you like me? I'm really not that great.

I hate allergies. I've been sneezing all week, and I can't get another pet. I miss my rabbits like hell, and it's almost been a year now.

Sometimes I wish I wasn't atheist, so I could have someone to blame. But most of the times, I'm glad I don't believe in a god; nobody's there to witness my emotions, unless I choose to let them out.

If anyone tells me to go to an adult with my problems, I will break something. Telling an adult will do nothing; it might make my life worse. I'm not depressed, nor am I suicidal. I'm just angry at life. I'll probably stop being angry in a couple of days, or at least stop acting like I'm angry.

I don't even know why I'm telling you guys all this. You probably think I'm nuts.

And gods damn it, I just put my red paintbrush into my blue paint.

Well, how was /that/ for catharsis?

In good news, I just burned up several perfectly good studying hours making a lump of clay look like a pie. I'm out of red paint, I've ruined a couple of my paintbrushes, and I'll probably fail my driver's ed final exam tomorrow (which I should have taken back in February), but hey! It looks like a /pie/!

Hahah, grammar sucks at eleven thirty.

]

...

Hm I wrote this a couple days ago and now it is Thursday. I guess I'll post it anyways. I'm really bad with that; I write so many posts and forget about them or don't feel like posting them anymore.

I don't even know.

Olivia

Pretty mediocre day, but I have come out of it pretty happy. Sometimes late night makes a good day horrible, and sometimes it makes everything better.

Why don't I ever want to sleep? Lately at least. I find myself sitting around wide-eyed and half-delirious and I just don't want to go to bed but I know I should because I don't want to get up late the next morning but there is just so much pointless shit with which to waste my time but I'm not even doing pointless shit, I'm just sitting around thinking about doing pointless shit. Last night I was reading a book and then I put it down to get some water and when I came back I just couldn't pick up the book again. I sat there staring at it for ten minutes, trying to decide whether or not I wanted to keep reading it. This was at maybe four in the morning.

What do I have against sleep?

Tomorrow I am going to GO OUTSIDE like a NORMAL PERSON.

I have a problem.

My problem is that I rarely go out alone. I emerge from my bedroom for food and supplies and classes, and that's it unless I have someone to give me purpose. My weekends drag on and on and I spend the whole time loitering inside on the computer, working and killing time and trying to convince myself to go do something instead of wasting my life away in front of a screen or in bed. I can't even talk myself into heading over to work in the labs most of the time. Why should I go anywhere ever again when I can operate from inside my safe zone?

Eventually all my books will be reread, all my movies rewatched, all my homework finished and touched up, and I'll just be sitting here not even able to draw because I am wholly uninspired and for someone who is trying to enter a creative field, I'm just not that goddamned creative. I think I've lost it. I think I lost it at least a year ago. I can't make anything I like anymore. All I can make are faces and sandwiches and stupid blog posts. I can hope that something will inspire me to actually do something, but lately I have been inflicted with a strange hopeless lethargy, and at the same time I chastise myself for flopping like this again. It's starting to fall into a pattern. And it really shouldn't, because like I've said before, how fucking young am I going through these crises? I really shouldn't be. It's ridiculous; it doesn't make any sense. I'm being stupid.

So then I reach out to the few people I can contact without feeling awkward, because they may be just about as socially impaired as I am making myself out to be. (One of them has agoraphobia. Fuck, that's kind of a big problem.) We help each other by forcing ourselves to emerge onto the outside world, and things are good until we part ways for the day. I realize that it is very difficult for me to be with almost anybody without feeling like a fat loser by comparison, or second-guessing everything I say or do as not up to par with my companions. (Not to say that the people around whom I am comfortable are losers, just that..I'm not sure. Maybe that they are more..reachable? I am not sure. And there are people I like to be around, but who unintentionally make me feel insignificant and boring.) I think I have managed to convince myself that everybody is too good for me; whether or not it is true, I cannot say.



You know what I need? I need to stop talking to myself, because when I talk to myself I just end up beating myself up about something or other, and that is kind of a jerkish move. It just makes things worse.

My problem is that I think too much.

I'm an idiot. Fuck.

NYCC and also I am sick so I'll bitch about that for a while.

So I attended NYCC over the weekend and now I am sick out of my mind.

It was pretty cool though. First real con I've ever been to, I guess; MoCCA is really small. I went with a friend and her friend on Saturday, and friend's-friend ended up giving me her weekend pass so I could go on Sunday as well, with a different friend, because different-friend waited way too long to get a ticket for Saturday, and friend's-friend is a bumpkin who cannot survive more than a day in the city, all walking around and being jostled and standing near people who are smoking. Oh Long Islanders.

Things about MSPA. We found a good amount of people cosplaying as trolls, which was amusing. Hung out with them for a while. Talked to Hussie. Got pictures drawn by Hussie. Bought a book from Hussie. Gave a little troll-sculpt to Hussie. Also got several un-Hussie-related prints, and a cold.

Sunday-friend and I spent most of our time looking for The Internet. Webcomics people are pretty cool I think.

I have decided that steampunk is the coolest weird-geek-fashion. If I were someone who was not me, I would be a steampunk. (That did not make sense, but it did in my head.)

On Saturday was dragged through NYAF as well, or at least the artist alley. It is astounding, the difference in average quality of work between the comic-con artists and the anime..people. I mean some of them were good or decent but a good number of them were just..not so much. Also on Saturday I learned way more about Hetalia than I ever needed to know. Although it's still very difficult for me to discern between some of the different countries, because for some reason they are all blond.



I hate when my sinuses get this way. I cannot breathe lying down, so I guess I'll sleep sitting up tonight. And when I swallow, my ears pop. Why does everything on the face have to be connected, whyyyy. And my head hurts like fuck but Advil isn't working and Sudafed isn't working and UGH WHAT USE ARE DRUGS IF THEY DON'T WORK ah well. And this whole thing was written in a daze so it's probably kind of strange and I just can't tell because my eyes feel like they're glued open.

Uh.

Yeah.

Hmm.

Now that I think about it, the only real problem I've ever had with a dude friend getting a girlfriend is that I feel like I am not allowed to talk to him anymore, at least not like I could before.  I guess this is kind of silly, especially since it's not like I..well I don't know what I was going to say but it shouldn't be an issue..but it has been an issue.

...

Sometimes I think I start mourning friendships before they end.  It's wrong to feel so jaded; I'm only fucking eighteen years old.  Stop thinking about these things; you do not know the world, you only know what you have fucked up so far, and hopefully you have learned from them enough to not keep fucking things up.  But god, now I'm just treading as lightly as possible and hoping that my past is not my future.  I just want people to be able to tolerate me and be nice sometimes and not find me overbearing and ughhhh I don't even know.  I guess I want to be liked.  That would be pretty cool.  I am too insecure to genuinely think that people like me, most of the time.  Why is that.

...

I have been better today, emotionally.  It was actually pretty good.  The key to my contentment, it seems, is solitude.  Do not talk to anyone and you will be fine.  This is pretty amusing, actually, considering most of my issues from last night were centered around loneliness.  Obviously, I can't make up my mind.

...

TL;DR Olivia is having emotional theatrics.  She will be okay.  She should just shut up and grow a pair and be happy with her fucking awesome life.

Now that I think about it, or have been thinking about it most of the evening anyways, I rather like living in my own head. Screaming at myself while I calmly go about my business. It is the easiest way to live, I think.

I apologize. This is the third entry today; I should have just kept them all in one. But it is easier for me to think about things.

I go through these stages like clockwork. I wonder if there is something wrong with me. I melt down for a few hours and then I am blank, good as new. I wonder if there is something wrong with me.

If there is, I am doing it to myself. It's okay.

Fuck. But..in a good way, I guess. I mean in a pretty shitty way too, but I think mostly in a good way.

THIS IS A GOOD THING. If I tell myself enough, I will start to believe it. It has worked for most of the things I didn't want to think about, at any rate.








(I guess the difficult thing is that I was having such a great day and I was finally adjusting to the semester - a process that has taken too long as it is - and now I am doing that thing where I second-guess myself and screw with my own head and just kind of pick around in my emotions until I start to fall apart again. And it usually doesn't have a particular starting point but I guess today it did.)