I know, I know, I'm like two weeks behind. Like anyone actually cares.
This prompt is actually kind of hard because I, like my mother before me, don't really like being in pictures. That said, I just graduated, so tradition dictated that I take a few pictures with the parental units. Separately, of course, because that's how we bounce in this family. Also noticeably lacking are any and all siblings. But here are pictures of me with the various sets
I think I have the same face-shape as my dad. Also, in comparison to both him and Cristy...I have a gigantic noggin'!
apparently my mother was not even a little excited about my graduation because this is her expression in literally every picture. Sort of a "meh" kind of look...
This is a really hard question because I have many celebrity crushes and they change often. For instance, today I put on Law and Order: SVU to play in the background whilst I was at work and, as always happens when I watch that show, I fell deeply in love with the magnificent Elliot Stabler aka Christopher Meloni
look at these babies...so silly
I'll be honest, I don't think you could find a more viscerally attractive man to me than Elliot Stabler. He's big and strong and about as protective as it gets and I am a total sucker for that.
Then again, as I admitted in an earlier post, I absolutely have a thing for Chris Thile
I find him nerdy and adorable and I have this weird dream of us singing together cause I think our voices would match really well. And, I'll point out that he's about as opposite Chris Meloni as you can get.
Before I started watching L&O:SVU, however, I was watching Elementary. In my defense, I fell in love with Jonny Lee Miller several years ago when I saw him in...Emma and Mansfield Park and Eli Stone. But this show has not helped with the obsession. Because tattoos! And scruff!
But I originally fell in love with him for his eyes. I mean...look at them (cause those pictures up there are useless except for the tattoos)
Of course, if we're gonna talk about kind of goofy looking British men who I love passionately, you know who must be included
Objectively I can understand that he's not actually an especially handsome man, but that doesn't change the fact that I absolutely love his face and his all of him and would definitely make out with him at a party and try to convince him that we should go out for dinner.
Interestingly, as I'm thinking about all of these, most of these guys, with the marked exception of Meloni, are guys that I find adorable rather than "sexy" (so to speak). Thus, this next guy fits right in
You literally cannot get more adorable than Lee Pace. Like...it's physically impossible. With his sweet grin and gigantic eyebrows and his chucks....he is truly the pinnacle of adorable man-person.
But let's get crazy, cause you know I have some random people on this list...
but only young Gene Wilder...he got scary in his old age
I honestly believe that young Tim Robbins is my celebrity soulmate
this guy won me over when he played young Captain Picard and
if he were taller I would be hopeless
Anyway, I can't think of any more legitimate crushes off the top of my head. That is, I could come up with an endless stream of guys I think are attractive, but these are the guys I fantasize about meeting by chance and the two of us fall madly in love and get married and defy Hollywood pressures to remain happily married for forever. Which is not to say that this list is complete. If I think of any more I'll be sure to come update it. And I haven't even touched the topic of lady crushes, which is a whole other thing...
next up: Post 17: a photo of me and my family
ATTENTION!
not long after I wrote this I cam across this picture
I feel that it is important to include Fass here because, setting aside the issue of height, because I think he's a bit compact....he is kind of a perfect looking man. I mean. Really. Look at his face. Look at it. and his shoulders. and his hands. and his all of him. That man is the essence of masculine beauty right there.
To be completely honest probably the only things that I definitely never leave my house without would be some form of corrective eye-wear and clothing. Literally everything else you can think of to take with you out of the house I have forgotten at some point or another. And if I wasn't utterly blind without them I probably would forget my glasses/contacts too.
I have discovered a very odd tendency lately in my TV viewing. I have this habit of getting into a show and then just suddenly I stop watching. I think it started with Being Human (the BBC version). I watched the entire first season of that show in one sad and unproductive day and I was totally involved. And then season two started and my dear sweet Russell Tovey suddenly started behaving like an absolute dick. Pardon my vulgar language, but that is really the only way to describe it. I stopped watching right there. One episode in to the second season. Since then I have stopped watching quite a few shows. I've started and stopped watching Buffy quite a few times, I've stopped watching Supernatural, I stopped watching Bones, and I stopped watching Luther.
This is not the same thing as just sort of phasing out with the knowledge you'll come back and finish eventually. That is what has happened with House and with Star Trek: TNG. I know I'll come back to TNG eventually, when I'm in the mood for it again. And admittedly, I suspect I'll come back to the others too. I imagine that one day I'll come back to Supernatural and get beyond season 5. In fact, right this very moment I'm trying to come back to Once Upon A Time, a show that Matt and I watched together during its first season and absolutely adored. Then season 2 happened and I made it about half way through before I stopped.
There are two sides to this, I think. The first is something I've talked about before a couple times, and that is my inability to maintain healthy levels of attachment to fictional characters. I get way too involved and I've found that the only way to deal with that is to just cut myself off from the show. When I start to care too much about Spike or the Doctor or Sherlock I simply stop watching as a sort of splash of cold water to the face: these people and these stories aren't real and you need to stop caring. It is how I deal with the betrayals that come with network TV where plotlines and character developments happen that only make sense if your decisions are entirely built around gaining and keeping viewers rather than writing and maintaining a good story. Hence my decision to stop watching Being Human when George completely breaks from character. It's how I deal with extreme tension (*spoiler*Luther getting framed for the murder of his ex wife falls into this category) that I don't want to have in my life. This, btw, is part of why I'm immune to spoilers. Fun fact about me: I frequently go onto wikipedia/IMDb and read the synopsis of whatever show that I'm watching so that I know what is coming and I don't have to have anxiety about it. This is the only way I can make it through stressful stories fairly often, and even then it sometimes isn't enough. Especially when the stressful story starts verging onto the mangling of the story/character for the sake of drama.
And the other part is my simple desire for stories to have ends. One of my favorite aspects of British television is that they do not sacrifice story arcs on the altar of numbers. Which is to say that if a show was written to have three seasons and then end, it ends after three seasons no matter how many people were watching it. There are, of course exceptions to this *cough*doctorwho*cough*, but in general, they allow good things to end whilst they're good rather than flogging them along far beyond endurance simply to make as much money as possible. A good example of this being the US and British versions of the Office. This is why I stopped watching Supernatural at the end of season 5. It was such a solid end to the story. I'm sure that the rest of the seasons have plenty of amusing parts, but I wanted to respect that ending. Of course, rarely do I have such a solid and clearly final ending to latch on to. But even so, there are times when I feel like that story has ended and I have neither the desire nor the energy to carry on (see Doctor Who, the David Tenant years).
All of this is to say that it is hard for me to give you a show I'm currently addicted to because the shows which best seem to fulfill that criteria are also the shows I am most likely to stop watching, often right at the climactic moments. If you follow me on facebook at all you know that I have cherished a deep love of Fox's The Blacklist (James Spader!!!!!) all winter. I thought that it had ended for the summer several weeks ago, but when Matt just told me that there were actually 3 or 4 more episodes for me to watch I was not excited. I had been ready to stop and now you want me to go back and reinvest before next winter? Ugh! I know they're gonna do something awful to me... You could not get more obsessed with Doctor Who than I was (that's a lie, you totally could...) but it has literally been years and I still have no desire to dive into the Matt Smith years. I was literally on my bed screaming (which, if you know me, is not how I react to movies and TV at all) and yet I probably won't watch the third episode of Sherlock till season 4 comes out...if then.
So I guess in the end, the only real answer to this question has to be Gilmore Girls. The show of my heart. The show that will never get old, no matter how many times I watch it. The show that always soothes my anxieties and is always the right thing to watch no matter the mood. Gilmore Girls is the show I will always be addicted to, no matter what other shows come and go from moment to moment. And I think that is the best possible end to this long and rambly post.
Next up is prompt 15: Something I Don't Leave The House Without
This is pretty much of the worst genre of question. "Your favorite" questions are evil because how many people are there out there who are so resolved and passionate and sure that they have one single favorite anything? So I refuse. And this is my blog, so I can do whatever I want. So I'll give you a selection of artists that I like
I'll begin with the first musician I have any memory of loving...
Yes, when I was about 8 I was completely obsessed with Michael Crawford. Specifically the soundtrack to Phantom of the Opera, but it wasn't limited to that. I had these two CDs of him singing various famous Broadway hits and I loved them. I listened to them all the time and could probably still sing them for you today. And before you mock me, because I know you will, I just want to make it known that it was none other than my incredibly music-snobby uncle Jesse who introduced me to Crawford. It was his enthusiastic teenage praise of those two high notes in this very song which converted me to my adoring status. So Jesse, if you read this, feel free to judge, but know that you must also judge yourself.
Next is the second musician I feel in love with. I believe I was 9 or 10. And truly I still love her today. She holds a place in my heart no one else could fill
I must begin with this song because it was my first love. This is the song which converted me to Celine. Also the song which granted her precedence over Michael, as he, too, sings a cover and I infinitely prefer Celine's version to his. But I also must include two others. When I asked Kara what song I should post of hers she said "'I Love You,' obviously." And while I do adore that song, I instantly realized that, while I did always listen to that particular song, it was always on the way to the song that came right after. So, just as it was on my CD so long ago I first give you "I Love You"
And then
No one can belt out love song like Celine. And in case you don't believe me when I say that I still love her, this was a large part of the drive up to Union a few weeks back with Kara
Now, after Celine it gets a bit harder to pick my favorite musicians...I've typically tended more to specific songs than to all of any given musician's entire body of work. I think that, post Celine, the first actual artist I really fell in love with was this guy...
It was the summer I worked at the Boise Cascade Particle Board plant. I would have been around 19/20. I was working graveyard and that song came on the radio in one of the operator's shacks. I fell head over heels in love with that voice (how can you not?) and as soon as my shift was over I headed straight over to Wal-Mart to buy the CD. They weren't open yet (our Wal-Mart was not yet 24/7) so I actually sat in the parking lot and waited for thirty minutes for them to open so I could buy it. And I have bought every CD since (though I think I've fallen behind and there's one I need to pick up). Last summer I scored two free tickets; I took Kara and we listened to this song sung live
After my freshman year of college I went on a study abroad to London. It was there that I met one of the greatest musical loves of my life. I am speaking, of course, of none other than the legendary Mr. Freddy Mercury. Broadly, I fell in love with the whole band (Roger Taylor, Brian May, and John Deacon) but most of all did I love Freddy. It started with a show. Before I saw We Will Rock You I was about as little familiar with Queen as it is possible to be in this day and age. That is to say...I knew "We Will Rock You" and "Another One Bites the Dust" and had a vague familiarity with "Bohemian Rhapsody" but I didn't even realize that all those songs were by the same band. After We Will Rock You I came home and stayed up all night reading every Queen related wikipedia page I could find. I discovered that somehow I owned to CDs of Queen's greatest hits (up till that point completely unappreciated and unlistened to). For the rest of my study abroad and, indeed, the rest of that year I entered what can only be called a Queen coma. I listened to nothing but Queen. There was never a time when Queen wasn't playing in my head. I remember I actually started getting worried about the length and intensity of my obsession. Then I realized that there was a queen song called "I'm Going Slightly Mad" and just embraced the inevitable. I eventually surfaced from complete immersion, but to this day they remain a true love. If Queen comes on you sing. At the top of your lungs. Till your vocal chords give out.
This will forever be the anthem of my study abroad and my favorite Queen song.
This post has turned ridiculously long. If you're looking for a light at the end of the tunnel, there's only three more to go...that I'm aware of...
So the Queen mania lasted for over a year. But all things must come to an end, even your obsessive repeat listening to your favorite band. So eventually I began listening to other music. I believe it was during my time in Glenwood that I discovered Mika. Aside from my general love of him music, Mika holds special value to me because it was a long night of singing his music together driving back from Logan to Provo that Taka, aka my surrogate Japanese brother, and I became friends. Mika writes the happiest, silliest, most brilliant music and I have loved all three of his albums. This, however, is my absolute favorite of his songs. It is literally impossible for me to listen to this song without feeling happier. Ironically. Because it's actually kind of sad lyrics.
About the same time I also discovered a completely different sounding band called Punch Brothers.
Now, specifically the artist in question here is Chris Thile. It is possible that I have the kind of crush on him that it's only possible to get on famous people you know you'll never meet--you know, they're the perfect mixture of hopelessness and passion and conviction that if you were somehow ever to meet you would absolutely hit it off. I have that kind of crush on Chris Thile. And I love him in every different endeavor he has been involved with. From his years with Nickel Creek to his absolutely phenomenal collaborations with people like Yo-Yo Ma and Edgar Meyer, to his recent covers of Bach on his mandolin. But above all of those things I love Punch Brothers best. I love them because every member of the band is just as talented as Thile, but they also haven't quite reached the level of someone like Yo-Yo Ma so they're interested in making music that sells. The combination of those two factors means that you have absolutely majestic, sweeping pieces like the "Another New World" above or "The Blind Leaving the Blind" (a damn bluegrass concerto Thile wrote after his divorce...go find the 3rd movement and listen to it because it's amazing) and then you have songs like Alex
I've been listening to that song for six years now and I love it every bit as much as I did the first time I heard it. Also, this is the video that made me fall in love with him. He's so adorably nerdy!
And at last we make it to the final and most recent of my "favorite" musicians. And if you've known me for the last several years then you know who I'm talking about and how much I love these guys...
And because they're probably the best contender for my current true favorite musicians, I'm just going to give you lots and lots of songs to listen to because there's no way I can just pick one
there are literally no words for how beautiful I find this song...
Just listen to their voices!!!!!!
Please forgive the ridiculousness of the video and just enjoy this song. It's from their new album under their new name and it is just the best!
As many videos as I have posted they have so many more wonderful songs. Go get on Spotify and look them up (Guggenheim Grotto and Storyman). Listen to every single one of their songs. They have the most beautiful voices and their songs are catchy and gorgeous and sometimes funny ("Her Beautiful Ideas" will make you laugh if you have any sense of humor at all). Seriously, buy all their albums and listen to all of their music because it is so so good.
Next up for tomorrow we have: A TV Show You're Currently Addicted To
It's late and I need to go to bed, but since this is the last post I need to get caught up and it is super lame, I figured I'd knock it out real quick. Here is a photo of Provo:
or, more accurately, a picture of BYU campus.... :-/
The thing is, that isn't very representative of where I live. So here are a few pictures that feel more accurate...
That's a bit of a glimpse at what my town looks like from inside. It's pretty nice.
tomorrow we have "your favorite musician and why?"
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