random truths, third edition

Welcome!  If this is your first time to one of the "Random Truths" blogs, I extend my most heartfelt apologies.  I mean welcomes.

Yes... welcomes.

I pop these puppies out every few months or so as "random" things occur to me.  If you feel so inclined, you can read part one here and part two here.  I thought for round three it'd be fun to label it as the "video edition."  And of course, I apologize if you're on your cell phone and this is taking forever to load.  These aren't as particularly random as the items in the other blogs, but again it's just to break with tradition and try something new.  Calm down.

1.) Obviously I'm gonna have to kick this off with some shameless self-promotion.  That should just be a given at this point ::tosses hair::  I actually wanted to post the entire "26 Golden Things" video but at some point in time Youtube decided to mute the audio.

Something about music copyrights.  I don't know.

I spent a year writing about "26 Golden Things" and if you're interested in the detailed account you are free to read about it here.  And if you are interested in watching it then just get a hold of me, I still have a few copies on DVD lying around.  As more time passes from not only starting that project but from finishing it as well, it now begins to feel like it happened to someone else.  Sure, I can still remember doing all of the things in the video, but that doesn't override the fact that it's mostly a series of fun snapshots of a person's life.  Re: my life.

You only put the good things out there, we all know this.  You don't take five pictures and then choose the semi-decent one to frame.  You choose the best one.  So the video is full of the best moments and the happiest times and the biggest laughs, and in a way it gives me a false portrayal of what 2012 was like.  But in the end it was still good.  And it's great to be able to look back on it with pure content.  Smiley face, exclamation point.

2.) When I was still working for Express I worked with @corkalynn in Green Bay at the Bay Park Square mall.  We did a lot of talking when we worked together and she encouraged me to do a lot of voices (because I can) and recite lines from movies (because I do) to make the hours go by quicker.  One day she posted a link on my Facebook wall and it was of the latest person to jump on the "Shit Girls Say" bandwagon.  Admittedly I was apprehensive because a lot of these things failed to inspire but I was wrong in this instance.

"Let's go to Miami!" 

I pull this video out way too often and laugh my ass off each time.  The second video is good but the "Fashion Week" entry is my favorite.  I know you're not for one second supposed to believe he's really a woman, but the fact that people actually would say the shit coming out of his mouth coupled with that beard caps off the hilariousness.  P'Trique and I could be best friends.

I'm also delusional.  There was a brief moment in time after this where we were going to make our own video, "Shit Retail Girls Say," but it never came to light.

3.) When I watch this, I can't stop my ass from moving in my seat.  I just can't.

Everyone loves a good 80's tune and "Kickstart my Heart" by Motley Crue is riiiiiiight up there for me.  This video has two things going for it: an awesome song and a MONTAGE!  We should all know by now that I am always always always down for a movie montage, particularly when it is well made.

In the summer when the air is warm and it's night time, I like to go driving.  Usually it's dusk and not totally dark but let's not be too picky.  I go driving with a big drink from the gas station or a milkshake to appease my inner fatty; it's a great time to just think about life and deep stuff like that with no one to bother you.  After this video came out I downloaded the song and went driving and found that as it started ramping up I had to roll the windows down and fuckin' floor it.  I had to!  Because of how the song is used in this video I start imagining all of the action scenes in my books, the show stoppers if you will, and I choreograph them in my mind as to how they would look in a film.  Call it a good imagination (or a bad one if you don't like the fight scenes in my books, natch) but it's what I do.

How many movies could you name from what was shown?

4.) Movie montages, while we're on the subject, are my favorite thing ever.  I could write a book about them.  I don't know why I've always responded so strongly to them but I guess it boils down to my love of movies and getting excited by someone else having the same level of interest.  Take the guy who made the one below as an example.

For five years he did these "End of Year" montages.  To be able to take a couple hundred movies that came out over the course of a fiscal year and combine the clips of them into a cohesive story is something I wish I had the time and patience to do.  It just flabbergasts me how he does this so perfectly.  The video above in particular is bittersweet for me because it was for 2012 (we know why I loved that year) and because it was the last time he made one of these.

His name is Kees Van Dijkhuizen Jr and I think he's nothing short of amazing.  He started making these things when he was 14 years old and achieved some pretty high praise in doing so.  He's 21 now and lives in Amsterdam, and I'd love to just pick his brain about how he did these.  He also has a great series called "Films Of" that chronicles the works of several big directors and all of the movies they have released (the Tim Burton and Christopher Nolan ones are quite good) and a few other passion projects intermixed (including a Harry potter Retrospective worth checking out if you're a fan of the series).

I look somewhat frequently at his personal website to see if he has come out with anything new but to no avail, he seems to be focusing solely on college work at the moment.  I think more than anything I just want more suggestions for music from him because I have downloaded each and every song he has used in all of his videos and have listened to them countless times.

K.  I'll stop fangirling.

5.) There will be a whole blog about Jurassic Park in about two months, don't you fret.  Otherwise JP is like the montages and I could ramble about it forever.  But this trailer in particular has gotten me more excited for a movie than anything in the last decade.  For reals.

Let's just say I have been waiting a very very long time for this movie to come along in the manner that it is.  Not necessarily a fourth installment to the franchise, but more accurately a look at what the park itself was supposed to be.  I read Jurassic Park when I was 10 and fell in love with the book as much if not more than the movie I'd already seen close to 200 times.  It was the very idea behind it that got me going (I was a dinosaur kid, not into space or cars or any of that stuff) and had my brain running too.

What would have happened if that fat ass Dennis Nedry hadn't ruined everything?  Would the park have actually worked?  Yes?  No?  We finally get a chance to find out this summer and that is what I've been waiting what feels like an eternity for.  And allegedly we get to see the old park and that has me pooping my pants in excitement.  I liked the teaser trailer for Jurassic World but the Superbowl spot they showed had me tearing up and getting all emotional because it looks like they finally did a good job with a sequel.  Time will tell on June 12th!

6.) The first R rated movie I ever saw in the theater was Scream, and my mom took my sister and I to see it for my 11th birthday (albeit in January of 1997, a few weeks late).  We were at Edwards Cinemas (not sure why I remember that) and I think there were only a couple other people in the theatre because it was during the day and in the middle of the week.  Thanks Year-round schooling with a long winter break!

The lights dimmed and we saw a few trailers and then the screen was black and you could hear wind rustling in the trees.  I remember thinking "It'd be so cool if they made a sequel to Jurassic Park."  Keep in mind this was before we had access to the internet, the gossip sites, the plethora of movie themed magazines, all that.  Really, my only sources would have been something like Entertainment Weekly and my parents didn't subscribe to that.  We had TV Guide, whoop-dee-doo.

Then I realized it was a sequel and practically leapt out of my seat in shock.  I feel this is still one of the best teasers for a sequel I've ever seen.  Shows you nothing really, save for a somewhat badly rendered t-rex, and gives you a date.  But with how huge of a movie Jruassic Park was in 1993, that teaser alone gave you something to look forward to.  The hope you could be wowed again.

The Lost World didn't really wow me like the original movie but it's still a fun ride.  Damn teaser trailers, sometimes they are fulllllll of trickery.

7.) A lot of times when hanging out with random friends at their houses, gradually we turn to watching videos on Youtube.  I then feel obligated to ask "Have you seen that video, blueberries?"  Usually people say "no."  Then I show them the magic.

The first time I saw it I screamed in laughter.  Then I kept rewinding it and laughing and screaming louder and harder.  Then I ran into my mom's room with my laptop and showed her, and she barked in laughter as well and kept having me rewind it just the same way as our eyes welled up with tears of joy.  It has turned into an easily quotable clip "Yumma!" between my mom and I and something she will regularly repeat even now.  Hope you enjoyed it too (c;

8.) I love movie scores.  I have more songs in my "Instrumental" playlist in iTunes than I do in all of of the other playlists combined and I pride myself on my collection.  I turn to certain albums when it is time to write books or blogs and chief among them is the score for Inception by Hans Zimmer.

"Time" is my favorite track on the album.  I don't really have much to say about it other than I find it hauntingly beautiful and sad.  To me Inception is a really sad movie and one that stays with you after you've watched it.  I love it, I love the song, and what surprises me the most is that it was this score that got me to change my mind about Hans Zimmer (never a fan before).

9.) Superman has been my favorite comic hero for a long time, but up until 2013's Man of Steel he'd always been kinda "one note" to me.  Sure he was fun to watch in the old movies, on Smallville, and that slightly lackluster 2006 entry, but when the trailer arrived for the newest version I was immediately hooked.  It even got me to dress up as him for Halloween that year (read about it here) and buck the trend of drag I had been embracing for the seven years prior.

And so much of it is the music!  There is so much heart in this trailer that it was impossible for me to not be counting the days for the movie to come out.  It's not often that trailers come around that have me rewatching them every few days because I love them so much.  I guess the big hope with a trailer like this is that the movie is going to make you feel the same way by the time it is finished.

It was great to be able to say that the movie did invoke the same feeling.

And Henry Cavill?  Yes please.

10.) TI can't explain this final video very well, other than to say Derek showed it to me after we had been dating for a couple weeks and there was something about it that stuck with me.

It's of course silly and a little odd, but I find it charming and heartwarming and so entirely innocent.  There's something a little more introspective about these videos than you would think at first and each one is pretty great.  And that final line?  Melt me.

"Guess why I smile a lot?"

"Why?

"Uh... cuz it's worth it."

That's all I've got for this video edition... maybe I'll do another one in a year.  And maybe another normal version of the random truths in a few months.  Until then, I hope you're all smiling.  As Marcel says, it's worth it.

Toodles gang (c:

the march update: third edition

What a busy month.  And you'd think I would have cataloged it appropriately so as to give an accurate and detailed account of what went on, but after writing this blog for nearly four years you should know me well enough by now.  And I didn't catalog it.

Whoops!  Here's a picture of a flower I took from the dentist to help you get over it.

I think as more time passes and I keep up with writing these updates (or kind of keep up with writing them), the format continues to change.  I used to give a detailed account of what I did throughout the month, maybe bookending it with major events and a few thoughts scattered in between.  But as of late I've really just felt like writing more about my mindset and less about the things that occurred.  I s'pose I decide the format so what I say goes, but I just felt like looping you in on that.

Geeze, don't jump down my throat!

The thing that struck me the most in March was the passing of time.  You can look at that in a whole manner of ways but the one that it boils down to is that I've lived in Wisconsin for 18 years as of March 15th.  That's a long time.  Probably not a long time if it's where you're going to spend the rest of forever, but from the day we moved here in 1997 I thought about moving away.  Initially it was back to Southern California, then for a long long time it was Chicago, but since 2009 it has been Austin.  When I set my mind on things I have a hard time letting go of them.  You know this.

So that being said, since I met Derek I've been thinking more and more about leaving Appleton.  More and more about getting on with things, with life and my book and work and all that jazz.  So, in order to get one with the easiest of those things, I reached out to the powers that be and scheduled everyone to come and shoot the final pieces of my book covers.  We had some re-shoots to take care of as well as a new character to figure out (ears, I tell ya, make things difficult).  As happened last summer, I had some booze and snacks and it was really just a couple of hours spent with really great people having a really great time.  Sadly @klreynol could not be present but she was there in spirit!

Saphrinity Nargos

And also as happened last summer, I got a little emotional seeing these characters come to life once more.  It's an interesting thing to write so much about people that are not real, in places that certainly are not real, and then see "them" standing in front of you.  I love the silhouettes so much because they allow me to imagine these characters exactly as they are in my mind.  It wasn't a ground-breaking idea but it was a good one and I'll never re-think that decision.  You get an outline of a person and then you can fill in the rest of the details yourself.

To me, the worst thing about books being made into movies is that you have to let your own vision of that world die.  Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, The Hunger Games, etc; they are all great movies in their own right but they are not necessarily accurate to the books.  They aren't what I thought they would be.

I know the cheese doesn't stand alone.

The Onyxus Chronicles: Episode II main characters:

Saphrinity Nargos, Aurora Genesis, Banning Sol and Tristan Nargos

But we did get the shoot done that night, I put on the mantle of "Banning" one last time (yes, I'll reveal officially that I am him (like you hadn't figured it out (surprise if not!))), and then that was a wrap.  I spent the morning of the next day photoshopping to get everything ready to send off to my brother for "assembly" of the cover, and then it was time to hitch up my suitcase and climb aboard a plane to finish the biggest part of the month.

I'd been planning since @klreynol left town in October to visit her in Arizona, and decided in January that I would actually do it and then slingshot over to Austin to visit my brother.  It was early February when Derek decided he'd go to Austin with me to explore and see if it could be a potential place for him to live, as I so often mentioned it was for me.  I would fly to Mesa on Monday the 16th, then to Austin on Thursday the 19th to meet Derek, and then we'd fly back home on Monday the 23rd.

The best

The weird thing about @klreynol and I is that for as hard as it was to say goodbye six months ago, we not once spoke on the phone between then and now.  We texted fairly frequently, had long conversations online, but never chatted with our voices.  I suppose that harkens back to how our relationship really began?  Rambling on AIM and whittling away the hours of the night because we had nothing else to do.  Of course I missed her (and she me I assume), but that's not something that can be cured by hearing a voice.  If it is, then that part of me is broken.  A text message does just as much for me as a quick phone call would.  More, actually, because I can just walk away at a certain point and not have to do the awkward dance of trying to hang up.

The BEST thing about @klreynol is that no matter how much time passes between seeing each other, there is no awkwardness at all upon reconnecting.  We slip into our old groove as if no time at all has passed... we just have a shit ton more to talk about.  And that's how the visit went.  Very smoothly, nice and warm weather, and plenty of conversation to fill a book.  I got to see her husband, her adorable little boys, and of course her immediate family that moved down as well.  It was a great trip and one I will make again sometime in the near future, after I get all of my other little duckies in a row of course.

It's a lot cheaper to fly to Arizona direct from a larger airport anyway (c;

Atop Mt. Bonnell

Now I hate to disappoint anybody that was potentially looking for a full detailed account of exactly what Derek and I got up to while we were in Austin, but I'm not going to rehash it here.  90% of the trip was spent doing things I'd already done down there.  I just wanted to share them with him so he could experience them and hopefully be as wowed and impressed as I was.  And he was.

I suppose the biggest take away is that we went down there together to see if it was somewhere Derek wanted to live, and the answer is yes.  And we will.  The current plan is to get down by August/September, which is kind of scary to think about when you realize it is only 4 or 5 months away.  It's something that has been building for a long time and I am just lucky to have someone to do it with me when I was so afraid to do it alone.  @klreynol and I always bonded over the fact that we hated going to new places alone for the first time (i.e. experiencing new things alone) and that was a big inhibitor for me going into this.

But then someone like Derek comes along and everything feels like it is just going to work.  Effortlessly, simply, and finitely.

A kiss that launches my heart (c:

Y'know, the other day I told him to meet me at the mall after work so we could go pick out some clothes for a special event coming up.  Derek doesn't normally meet me at work, there isn't any reason to, so it's not a place I ever actually see him.  I was standing around talking to my co-workers and saw him walking in and my heart jumped up in my throat.

I didn't tell him at the time because I didn't want to give him a big head (kidding), but I went into the backroom to get my things and told a co-worker about it because I was all flustered.  I think with this officially being my second-longest relationship, it's a good sign I can still get nervous and excited and sweaty when I see him.  The trip went better than I ever anticipated it would.  We had a blast on our own and with my brother, his kids, and my former sister-in-law.  I'm so excited to start planning for my future and I'm so excited that it is finally time to do so.

When we got back to Appleton, Derek officially moved in.  And in the words of Carrie Bradshaw, that's just fabulous.

So what else happened in March?  I started physical therapy for my constantly sore back, finished Episode II of my book, wrote the outline for Episode IV, and successfully visited the dentist and left without any problems.  Downsized my movie collection by about 500 movies, decided I hate Frontier Airlines, and started to love my job once more.  Celebrated a few birthdays, let go of a few insecurites, and in the end got back on track to living my life the way I had gotten used to after four years on my own.  The only difference is that I share it with someone else now.

Toodles gang (c: