Packers Won!

For the record, I don't actually follow sports.  I've been known to on occasion, but it's not a serious thing.

Until tonight.

The Superbowl was freaking amazing.  I couldn't stop watching the game even though I really only wanted to watch for the commercials.  I was the only one in my family pulling for the Packers - my mom was very for the Stealers, my dad and sister were just along for the game.

It was a great game.

The commercials were ok too.  I can't really remember what the products were that were being advertised for, but they were good.  There was one with Adrien Brody in it.  That was an interesting and pleasant surprise; he was selling some kind of beer and looking super cute while doing so.  I mean, seriously.  His hair was almost just like in "Love the Hard Way" and he was singing.  Too cute.  Or hot.  Not sure which.

(Ok, fangirl moment over.)

For the rest of my evening, I plan on finishing this blog and then possibly going to bed.  For some reason I'm exhausted.  I think it may be the snow.  It seems to be taking things out of me: I'm tired, I don't care about most things, I don't feel social, etc.  I blame winter.

I think spring is around the corner, though.  It better be.

And that is where this blog is going to end for the night.

Until we meet again,

~Meaghan

Heart Burn and Nerves and Sleep Deprevation...

...Oh My!
Hello again, dear readers.  Yet another blog update.  Aren't you proud of me for not keeping you in the lurch for long, gapping periods of time like I did last year?

(No, you don't have to answer that if you don't want to.  It's perfectly ok.  I promise.)

Anyway.

So I have to be honest for a moment (but really, when am I ever not?): I am exhausted.  I think I got a total of like five hours of sleep last night. 

And before you ask, no, I wasn't writing my awesome story.  I wish I had been. 

Instead, it was my heart burn kicking into over drive.

You see, dear readers, I am the kind of person who takes a lot of stress onto themselves.  I've heard it called the "oldest child syndrom", but really, I just want to take care of everyone.  I want to support my parents and protect my sister and be there when friends need me.  Plus, I have a tendency to stress needlessly about things I really don't have any control over, like final grades in school.  School, as much as I love it, is a huge point of stress for me.  I get nervous before class, especially when a new semester is about to start and I'm not sure I'll know anyone. 

I range from introverted to extroverted, and both come out when I'm at school.  It can be a blessing and a curse, let me tell ya.

I realize that a lot of what I worry about is senseless, and that it's out of my hands most of the time, but I still get anxious.  Granted, I'm getting better about it, but it appears that the damage has already been done.

I get heart burn now on a regular basis; so far, I've had it almost every day for nearly five weeks.  Sometimes it's really mild and I'm able to just drink some water to get it to leave.  Other days, it's much worse and nothing works - not water, not dairy, not Tums.  I've tried vinegar water; I've tried sleeping elevated and on my left side.  It's really bad.  I am actually getting to a point where I can't drink Coke because it causes it to flair up.

It woke me up this morning at about 2 am thinking I was dying.  I was unable to go back to sleep until close to 5 am, only to get up again about 8 am to do laundry. Not okay with me.  Not okay at all.

I'm actually going to start researching tea for this very problem.  I want to see if there is anything I can drink to ail my problems, such as the heart burn and the trouble sleeping; I like tea, so it shouldn't be a hardship.  So far I know that peppermint is good for the stomach.  I just need to know if there are any others that could help.  Then I need to test them.  I promise to report back with any important findings.

(I'm also calling the doctor on Monday.  I kept pushing it off because I hate going to the doctor.  But I don't think I can push it off any longer; my mom and sister both think I've developed an ulcer.  I really hope they're wrong.  I'll keep you guys posted.  And please, don't worry, ok?  I think I may just have acid reflux or something...)

So anyway, I'm kind of tired today.  It leaves me prone to things, like thinking too much about my story.  I can't write if I think too hard about it.  That's not the way I function.  Blah.

On a happy note, I am at over 1300 words now on this new story project.  That's pretty good.  I really want to see it through to the end.  I hardly ever finish any stories; I write them in spurts and leave them to rot.  Or ripen, depending on how you want to look at it.  This one is different; I feel potential.  I feel like it is going to be a good story, and that it will also make a good movie script.

Not to be overly ambitious or anything, but it never hurts to aim high.  I'd rather aim high and fail than not aim at all.

But we shall see.  My goal is to have it done by the end of the summer.  I think I can pull it off.  I really do.

On an entirely different note, I have seven movies to watch before Friday.  That's when they are due to their respective libraries.  I finished one yesterday.  It's called "the Jacket" and was fantastic.  I wasn't really sure I was going to like it, but I loved it.  It's about a war vetern from the gulf war who gets put into this center for delusional criminals for a crime he didn't commit but can't remember.  Through the experimental treatment they perform on him (they basically bind him in a straight jacket, load him with drugs, and then put him in a body drawer - I know, I cringed too...) he discovers he can time travel from the now (it's nearly 1993 at the beginning of the movie) to the future (2007). 

It was amazingly well done.  The script was fantastic;  I am a fan of books and scripts with well written plots and rounded, developed characters who you can watch grow.  The one thing that I thought was going to turn me off of it was the fact that Keira Knightley is in it.  Nothing against her, but the only other thing I had seen her in was "Pirates of the Carribean", and I felt she kind of fell short there. 

Here was a different story.  I felt her acting was spot on and I could really sympathize with her character even though I had mixed feelings about her.  Adrien Brody was also in it as the main character, Jack, as was Kris Kristofferson. (I love pronouncing his name; it almost jingles...)

 I did feel extrememly uncomfortable the first time Jack got shoved in the body drawer, but I'm pretty sure that was what they wanted.  All in all, it was the kind of movie that I could not stop watching and that I would totally watch again.

Which means I have six more movies to watch before Friday.  I want to try to get through all of them before Tuesday, just because I have school on Tuesday.  And no, I probably will not be doing movie reviews of any more of them unless they are over-the-top amazing.

Did this blog make sense?  I'm so tired I don't even remember what we started with.

Time to go look up tea.

~Meaghan

Rick Astley...

...is never gonna give me up.

Or get out of my head, apparently.

Yeah, I have Rick Astley stuck in my head.  You know, I really don't have a lot against the 1980's.  After all, it made tacky clothing acceptable.  It was the era of punk/goth music, bringing one of my favorite groups - the Cure - into existance.  It gave us Blondie and U2 and the Go-Go's and Tom Petty. 

The '80's brought around Pac-Man and Predators, for crying out loud.  MTV.  White-Out.  That song "Tainted Love", which I love.

But I am not sure I can ever forgive the '80's for giving us Rick Astley.

I have been "Rick Rolled" so many times it's not even funny anymore.  The song "Never Gonna Give You Up" is such a freaking earworm.  I even remotely think about it and it gets stuck in my head.

It is a change of pace from what I did have stuck in my head for two days straight this week: "Claire de Lune".

Don't get me wrong, I love Debussy.  I think he was a great composer; I find his music relaxing, and I love "The Girl with the Flaxen Hair".  But having "Claire de Lune" stuck in my head for two days straight was starting to get on my nerves. 

I love classical music, but after a while you just need space from it.

I would listen to Ben Folds; five minutes after the last line of "Late" and the moonlight (that's what it translates into) would be back.  I tried singing with Pink's "Glitter in the Air" multiple times; as soon as my mind drifted, it was back.

I watched the 'Darjeeling Limited' yesterday, and ended up pausing it so I could get up to get something.  As soon as I came back and pushed play, a scene where Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, and Jason whatshisname (I can't pronounce nor spell it - I apologize if I offend) are sitting around a campfire in the middle of India.  What's playing in the background?

"Claire de Lune".

I can't escape it.

Speaking of the 'Darjeeling Limited', it was ok.  I loved the trailer.  It looked like it had such potential, it really did.  And Wes Anderson, the guy who wrote and directed it, is a pretty good director.  (He did the 'Fantastic Mr. Fox', which I just put on hold at the library.  I haven't seen it, but I've heard massively good things about it...)

I felt the film fell flat.  It didn't have the movement that I was expecting, and the ending felt unresolved to me.  Owen Wilson's character (Francis) bothered me throughout because of how he kept trying to play the parent (maybe because I could almost-not-quite-relate as I too have the older child syndrom, as I've heard it called), Adrien Brody's character (Peter) annoyed me towards the beginning because he left his pregnant wife to go on this trip, and Jason Whatshisname's character (Jack, I think?) bothered me because he was such a freaking indecisive push over.  Granted, I eventually became ok with both Peter and Jack; I never really warmed up to Francis.

I will give the film some credit.  It had it's moments where it was very good.  I liked when they are at the Indian village after saving two of three children in the nearby river.  (Peter's didn't make it; I cried.)  I felt like it was a turning point in the movie where the characters were finally starting to come into their own.  I like where they met up with their mom and realized that nothing was going to change; you could see the characters grow in themselves, which is exciting to me (because I'm a writer).  Also, they are always running to catch a train.  I feel like this is a great metaphor for life and for the characters, whether Anderson meant it that way or not.

So all in all, it was ok.  I wouldn't pay money to see it.  I probably won't buy a copy of it to watch over and over again (unlike the 'Pianist' or 'Whip It', which are movies I feel like I'll never get tired of), and I may or may not watch it again before I return it to the library. 

But for a film that didn't cost me a dime to watch, it was pretty good.  I haven't been able to stop thinking about it, so that could be either a good thing or a bad thing.  Maybe I should watch it again; it could be one of those movies that grows on me.  I don't know.

Or maybe I just don't get it.  That's been known to happen to me.  Everyone said the 'Hangover' was brilliant, but when one of my friends made me watch it, I was bored out of my skull. 

In other words, don't listen to my movie reviews, dear readers.  I have no idea what I'm talking about 90% of the time.

I put 'Splice' on hold at the library.  I'm not exactly sure why I did it.  It was one of those films that I saw the trailer when I went to see a movie last year (I don't remember which movie I was seeing, which is kind of sad) and got so freaked out that I had my eyes closed through a good chunk of it.  I like horror films, I like films about experiments gone wrong (the whole principle behind zombie films, which I love), and I like sci-fi to a degree.  But I'm not sure about this one.

I've heard weird reviews about it.  Roeper gave it a D+, but he's been known to miss from time to time.  I think I may be influenced by Jimmy Kimmel on this.  (Long story there best for another blog.)

Oh well.  I'm in postion like 85 for it at the library, so I have time to think about it.  That's what happened with 'Dorien Gray' when it came in.  I just decided I didn't want to see it anymore and cancelled the hold.

That may be how this goes.  We shall see.

School starts in less than a week.  Last night I had this nightmare about forgetting my backpack and not having notebooks (I still need to buy them).  It was awful.  I think it's my equivalent of having dreams where you appear someplace without clothes; I've never had one of those but I have these kind of dreams all the time when I'm anxious, stressed, or nervous.  Go figure.

Man, I've got "Claire de Lune" back in my head.  I need to go get that out.

Until we meet again, dear readers.

~Meaghan

It Smells like Apples in Here...

..because I found my apple candle.

So today, dear readers, I decided it was time to clean.  I have like five or six boxes that I have yet to go through from when we moved to Colorado over five years ago.  I never wanted to deal with them or see what was inside them.

As far as I was concerned, I could burn them and be totally happy.

But then I got motivated today. 

I brought my violin into the bedroom and organized my music.  Then I decided to organize some boxes while I was at it.  The result?  I found a ton of candles, cleaned off my desk, recovered my incense sticks that I've had for forever, and made a comfier home for my instrument.

And now it smells like apples cause I'm burning my newly found apple candle.  It's a Wal-Mart candle (the front says 'MainStays' which is a Wal-Mart brand) called Warm Apple Pie.

It reminds me how much I love apple candles.  And really, just candles in general.

Mmmm.  I wish you could smell it.

I played my violin today for the first time in over five months.  I will never stop playing again.  As I played, I felt as if my soul were leaving through the notes.  I felt like I was truly breathing for the first time in years.  Even now, I feel great.

I will never be a professional, but I love it.  I forgot how much I love it, how much I need it.  It totally renewed me.

At this point, I feel I must offer you guys an apology for the abrupt blog last night.  I was doing fine until I wasn't, and at that point I was exhausted.  I swear, as soon as I left you guys I went to bed. 

Well, after I placed some movies on hold at the library.

But that's not the point.  The point is that I'm sorry for leaving you hanging.  I will do better in the future.  I promise it.

I'm really excited about the movies I put on hold.  All of them have Adrien Brody in them; he's my current favorite actor.  I had never heard about him until I saw "Predators" last summer (great movie, btw, I highly recommend it) and learned that he was in it. 

I watched "the Pianist" this weekend and it made me love him more as an actor.  The movie was brilliant.  It's about the Holocaust and is based on a real man's fight to survive in the face of opposition.  Another movie I completely recommend.  It was beautifully done.

So I put the new King Kong on hold, a movie called "the Singing Detective" which has a great cast including Robert Downy, Jr. and Katie Holmes and is about a novelist who writes detective novels, a war movie called "the Thin Red Line" which is about WWII from the American Army perspective, a film called "Hollywoodland" which is about the murder/ death of George Reeves, and a comdey with Owen Wilson called "the Darjeeling Limited" which is just going to be good. 

BTW, you should go watch the trailers for all of these or go see them.  They look great.

And that's my day thus far.  Oh, and I broke one of my mom's new mugs she bought before Christmas.  I felt bad about it, but she kind of laughed it off.  So I guess it's ok.

Until the next time, dear readers.

~Meaghan