Sneezonaut

this just isn’t in my control.

So then what?

But I’ve got a fair enough handle on the instrument. I feel comfortable enough to tell people I play trumpet, or at least as comfortable as anyone would be saying that, really.

It wasn’t anything romantic like I’d hoped, but it was a good experience?

Right up front
and center
every bass hit going up my legs and into my coronary
I may die as a result, but this would be a good way to go out.

My school is sponsoring a trip, but the timing is atrocious. It’s right after my brother’s wedding, right before a mission trip to Mexico, and I already have to fly out for my college orientation and so forth this summer.
The good thing about that timing is that it’s sandwiched between; it’s not overlapping any of that important stuff.

But I don’t know if this is how I’d want to go to Québec, doing all these touristy things.
Technically I can afford it out of my own money, though I should probably save some of that for college.

Is this the opportunity I want to take?

I thought about going for my eighteenth birthday, which is March next year. But odds are I’d have to miss finals, which I don’t want to do my first year of college. Plus, I’m assuming most venues are 21+, I may have to spend my life savings to get to enough of the shows I want, and from what I hear the atmosphere is not really going to be my thing.

Depending on where I am maybe I’ll go back to Monolith or try Bumbershoot.

Actually, I’m not really a big festival person, so I don’t even know what I’m doing.

I need to make more tangible goals. As for this one, I’ve been playing trumpet in public for over a year now. There are kids in the school band who don’t even know I played anything else before. I want to check this off. I don’t know when I will. Maybe when I can play a cover of “Black Magic Woman.”

Ooh. I think I’ve got it.

2008 March and April US tour. Denver’s is rumored to be on March 26th. I’m going to SQUEAL.

!!!!!!

Aaaaaahhhhh!!!!!!

I don’t know when they’ve ever been to Denver. When they come, I think I’ll cry tears of joy, and sneak in if necessary.

There’s only one other band that I swear I’ll have to see before I die. I won’t let anything get in the way of Explosions.

The frustration first began on a fall retreat with my youth group, freshman year. I went outside to stargaze alone, because I didn’t know anybody yet. Nobody came out for at least twenty or thirty minutes. When the first person lied down, she instantly saw a shooting star. Then more people came out, and it was one after another. And every time I tried to jerk my head in the right direction, I missed every single one.

Each retreat, I’ve sat outside for at least an hour to stargaze, and every retreat, I leave without having seen a shooting star. All I know is that they’re “faster than planes and slower than lightning.”

My/our theory has become this: Perhaps the first time I see a shooting star, it’ll be some sort of crazy special, sentimental moment, like my last church retreat of high school (this spring!) or my first kiss or the night of my engagement or something.

blaaaahhh

Couldn’t do it for the talent show as originally planned because it was difficult to find and coordinate people when we weren’t really sure who to expect…

And now I’m realizing that nobody would even get it.
That’s another travesty altogether. We need to make people more aware of the greatness that is the “A Million Ways” music video.

I attended the second day of Monolith Festival and it was a dream come true. Flaming Lips, Spoon, Art Brut…and just as good was seeing bands I’ve never heard of take a legendary stage and echo in beautiful acoustics.

Even away from the mainstage, it was mind-blowing to explore the whole area, to take in the scenery, to watch the city lights flick on from afar…and absorb some amazing indie music above it all.

And tonight is proof!

Maybe I’m still awkward, maybe I still don’t say too much, but I have felt so loved lately that it has empowered me.

Tonight I hung out with a LOT of kids from camp, and friends from camp are the hardest to get in touch with because they live all over the place and have completely different lives and we’re mostly used to just walking down a hallway to see each other. For two weeks out of the year, we don’t even have to go home at the end of the day, and then after those two weeks we’re just ripped apart from each other. I am always at a loss of what to do.
Seeing them was so…mind-blowing, even in the moments when we were just trying to find each other, or just calling our parents, or just standing around not really sure what to do with ourselves.
I didn’t organize it, but I still felt like a valuable part of it. And I’m genuinely convinced that this time will last at least a little longer.

I’m not even up to the words yet.
Granted, I mastered this first chunk and then took, like, a week off. But still.

We’re also still in need of two more people.

At least one of us has to master this in a week, well enough to teach or assist.

But I BELIEVE!

Which was legendary from my perspective (and they were one of my fa-vo-rites), but seeing as nobody’s really heard of them, I think I’ll leave this up anyway.

:-\

long live the music of tt Lester.

Sitting in our dining room has been this bizarre plastic dinosaur skeleton. It’s about the length of my hand, perhaps, plus the tail, and it looks like when you see dino bones at the museum, only in an off-white plastic. It’s been there for awhile, and it just recently occurred to me how bizarre this is. Why is there a plastic fossil in my dining room? Where did it come from?

I decided I would at least show the dino around town, take him with me on a few adventures, and then we’d share some loving snapshots. Twenty-two was a random number, but it sounds good, doesn’t it?

I thought it’d be most amusing to carry him around in my hand instead of my bag, just clutching him like when people go on walks and take weights.

I’m such a creeper…

Except I still have to buy a needle.
And I have no idea where I can find one.
It’ll be an adventure!

I got this stereo for $10 at my church garage sale, with the speakers and everything. There’s a record player on top. Now that I think about it, I really hope it works. Everything else worked, but since there’s no needle, we couldn’t really test it, haha.

Anyways,
yeah!!!

I kinda don’t want to learn to play classical piano. Or even try. And I don’t want to play that saccharine Jim Brickman crap either.

I want to learn to rock out like Jerry Lee Lewis.
Period.

But I haven’t even started thinking about this goal much more than this entry, so it doesn’t really matter, haha.

I’ve been doing well, but I definitely said something yesterday. It wasn’t even out of anger. It was just a way to emphasize, and surely there’s a better way to handle that.

The anger ones are easy, because then I just use retro slang (e.g., “aaah golly!”), which is quirkier and funny, and then I end up smiling. Nobody seriously thinks that I’m that cheesy. And sometimes, per the entry title, I just talk like a pirate. It has the same effect.

I can remember most of what’s going on on my own, sans preparation. And the words, definitely. But I don’t actually see the other three people for a few weeks, and we’d be on quite a limited time frame.

How long would it take to learn the dance together? How much time would we each need to put in individually?

Is it really really hard? haha