Happy Festivus!

For the first time in the four years I've worked for this stupid (Christian) college, I actually get vacation for Christmas! I'm not going anywhere, but it will be nice to not have to work for a week. I think I might just sleep until New Year's!

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, etc.

Winter Wonderland

The first snow of the season and it's a winter storm. I like snow, but I prefer it when I don't have theater tickets in Cincinnati. I was going to see Jacob Marley's Christmas Carol at Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival starring Giles Davies of The National Trust (formerly Muncie's own Freaks of Nature). With 6 inches on the ground and more coming, I don't think I'm making the trek to Cincy tonite. I was really looking forward to seeing Giles on stage again. *sigh*

I guess it's a good night for reading. I'll be Slipping into Paradise with Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson.
Enjoy the snow!

Happy Solstice!

"I want some wills, the won'ts can go to hell" - Shrug

I've been down most of the week, then I got the following email from my best friend. It's one of those silly surveys about yourself, except your friends fill it out about you. It made me smile, so I thought I'd share it.

Where did we meet: Middle school, gym or hallway
How long have you known me: Since 7th grade, which makes it more years than I care to count.
What's one of my favorite things to do: Work in a library (hehe). Okay, sing and read crazy fantasy like books and look for gems and write innermost thoughts on your blog and write poetry.
Do you remember one of the first things I said to you: I'm going to take a stab at "Hi. I'm Erin."
What's my favorite type of music: Weirdo bands that no one's heard of, which I too would have liked at one time (before I lost the COOL). Oh, and bands put together by guys you knew at Ball State.
What is the best feature about me: Personality: sense of spirituality and ability to remain friends with someone who isn't good enough for you; Physically: green eyes and red hair, you bitch
Am I shy or outgoing: neither
Am I a rebel or do I follow the rules: both
What's your favorite memory of me: Too many. Going to pick out Heather's on a whim and eating Killer Brownies. Drive from the Def Leppard concert. Not so favorite memory: you driving me back to Yellow Springs while tailgating a semi. Oh, the question didn't ask that. Other memories: staying over at your house most of our junior year and getting candy cigarettes and watching for the Rejects. Singing in the car. Not so favorite memory: railroad signs coming straight at us. Oh, the question didn't ask that. Another favorite memory: when we laugh at that time when we were 33 and I made you mad making cracks about your driving in an email and you didn't talk to me for weeks but I finally called you up and sang Poison's "I Won't Forget You" into the telephone and you totally forgot why you were mad.--I'm still waiting for this!
Any special talents: Singing, writing, librarying, being patient and understanding and forgiving, driving (haha)

I know all of this means nothing to those of you who don't know me, but I wanted some reassurance that when the world is not kind (and trust me, the world has not been kind to me this week) that my friends still love me. Even if my driving leaves something to be desired.

And, Mr. Critic, can we not tell your wife I posted her email?

"I'll see what you're made of by what you make of me" - Ani DiFranco

I went to a cheerleading competition Saturday afternoon. I know what you're thinking, "what's a rational adult doing at a cheerleading competition?" Trust me, I asked myself that very question several times throughout the afternoon, but I was there to see two of my student workers who were competing in an open collegiate squad. It was actually pretty cool once I got over the cheerleading aspect of it. Some of those squads were amazing! And of course my boys did a great job. I was very impressed!

Saturday night saw me at another Shrug show. Actually it was a release party for the Dayton After Dark compilation CD. There were 4 bands there with very distinct sounds: Sleepybird,
Days without End, Shrug, and My Latex Brain (the website wasn't working). It was an interesting show. I arrived towards the end of Sleepybird's set, but I was impressed with what little I saw, especially the theremin. I've never seen one played live before. It was f*&king cool! Days without End was pretty good. They had a substitute singer who did a phenomenal job. Then it was Shrug's turn. They were great as usual. And finally My Latex Brain played, and they kicked ass! It was all metal, angry, bass-driven, head-bangin' rock-n-roll. It was the kind of band I would've followed around when I was 18. Now, I'm following around Shrug. Well, for the last three weeks anyway. It's amazing how much I've mellowed out, but at least I still have decent taste in music!

I've added a few new links. My friend resident jason's band is working on their first indie label CD, so I thought I'd post a link to their site. Mona is the band that opened for Shrug the first of the three weekends I went to see them play. They are this year's winner of the Dayton battle of the bands, and they are awesome! Finally, because I'm in need of a little feminist perspective and she helped out today, I added a link to Ani DiFranco. I also added Neil Gaiman's main webpage under authors, although you can get to it from his journal. I just thought Sherman was getting lonely there all by himself. I really need to do something with the authors, but I don't read mainstream kind of stuff and I don't think Rumi needs a website.

This is longer than it needs to be. I'll shut up now.

***I should've posted this sooner, but I would like to publicly thank Shrug for posting a link to this blog from their website. I think my exact words were, "that's so cool", which it is. Thank you.

I changed the comments field so you no longer have to have a blogger account to leave a comment, but in the process it deleted the comments that were already there. Sorry guys! I hope this works.

There are more updates on the way.

Happy Chanukah!

And now this little Jewish girl is off to the college Christmas party...

Won't you be my neighbor?

I am a very bad dorm supervisor. The boys were having a popcorn fight that escalated to putting shaving cream on each other's doors to a water fight, and all I did was watch and laugh. Now, purely out of guilt for not stopping them, I feel the need to make them clean up the mess. We'll see what happens. They're all playing innocent now. Boys!

Last night I went to see "an evening with Shrug". Shrug has been around Dayton for a long time, but I'm relatively new to the fold. I've known about the band for a couple years, but due to work, life or whatever excuse I could think up at the time, I haven't been to a show until recently. I'll be completely honest, the band has had to grow on me. The first time I saw them play I thought they were decent, but wasn't incredibly impressed. However, after seeing them 2 weekends in a row, I am now in awe! This band is amazing! As a fan of the pop-punk genre where musical talent isn't always required, it's refreshing to see a band with actual ability. Last night they played 3 sets, the first of which was acoustic. I very much enjoyed the acoustic set, although at one point I was feeling covetous of the stand up bass (it's my favorite instrument. After years of playing violin and cello, I tried to get my orchestra teacher to let me play bass, but he didn't believe in girls playing bass. anyway...) The second and third set brought the electric instruments back and the music was played as it was intended. I sat in my corner and watched as the crowd started to get into the show. By the third set, everyone was up dancing and singing along. Even I was doing a little chair dancing. I couldn't help it, the energy was contagious. It's amazing how much difference the crowd makes for a performance!

The boys have all sequestered themselves in their respective rooms pretending to be studying. I should probably go encourage them to clean the popcorn out of the carpet before they get too comfortable.