• Saturday
  tweege and I went all the way out to Nuevo (about 60 miles) to see our friend Darin. LJ friends from circa 2004 may recall I got to know a guy in a local band whose day job is owning a dairy farm. It's been five years since I got to know this guy and Teege and I have always seen him when we all go to the same shows. We've never really just "hung out" with the exception of the time we met him to see V for Vendetta when it was in theaters.
  
  Anyway, midterms are over and the final crunch of "oh crap the semester is over in just four weeks!" is still about a week away, so I decided a trip out to Darin's farm was a great way to waste time.
  
  We arrived, and Teege's first statement was "How do you live out here? Where are your neighbors?!" Darin looked to me for the same reaction, but I grew up in small suburbs and have spent time in Wyoming with my grandparents (ain't no place as sparse and desolate as that there Wyomin', folks, and don't never let no one tell you differ'nt), so I was totally unfazed.
  
  We started the day with a tour of his house (which looks small from the outside, but is actually fucking huge from the inside), then a tour of the farm (me riding on the back of a quad, Teege riding on the front, sometimes there was also a dog or two).
  
  There are 2,000 cows, and on this day, two calves. Four cows were sick and we got to meet the veterinarian when he came to check them out. The milking shed is mindblowing. Two guys (on this day only one) basically cycle the cows through thirty-two stalls, hooking each one up to the sucker-thingies, which go to town on these cows' teets. I'm not kidding.
  
  At one point Darin showed Teege and me how to milk a cow by hand. It was weird!
  
  From there we went back to the house and had some dinner and talked for a few hours and then watched Once, which all of you need to watch right this minute. Don't question me on this, okay?
  
  When the movie was over, we had to leave, because it was Darin's bedtime and besides Teege and I had a nice, long drive ahead of us. Jim, Darin's bassist, popped by at the last minute and said something that we misheard. As he was driving away, he called something from his car that was probably "See y'all!" but sounded a lot like "Skeeballs!" We decided to keep it. XD
  
  So Saturday was amazing and Teege and I decided we need to visit Darin on his farm more often. :]
  
  
• Sunday
  On this day, I went to the Orange Quilt Bee with my mom to spend some much-needed crafty time with my crafty friends. I managed to finish cutting the tiny pieces for a quilt I began in January 2008, so let's all cross our fingers I can get it finished (all the way up to the binding) by the end of 2010. LOL
  
  After the OQB, my parents and I went to El Torito with my sister and her boyfriend. The occassion was technically his birthday, but apparently my parents would like to take them out now and then as opposed to having them over for dinner because - let's face it - sometimes it's just really nice to go out and eat food you don't normally cook and let someone else deal with the cleaning. *beams at logic*
  
  After dinner, I went to Fullerton to pick up P&T (read: Pat and Teege, aka BFF and her BF who is pretty much my brother without the blood relation), and also their dog, Pocket, and head down the street to a park to see our friend's softball game. I don't know what the final score was, but from what I could tell, our friend's team lost rather spectacularly. Pocket was so well-behaved! He even sat on the bleachers the whole time. Good dog!
  
  After the game, we went to the Slidebar in downtown Fullerton (DTF), the only place that was open after 10:00pm on a Sunday night. We put some money in the jukebox, played some awesome music, and enjoyed some french fries and conversation.
  
  All in all, the best way to end an awesome weekend. :)
  
  
• Today
  I was boring. I was supposed to have a study group, but no one from school bothered to tell me that they all met yesterday and therefore didn't feel like meeting today. I didn't learn about this until well into the afternoon. Apparently they each thought one of the others would let me know. LOL. It happens!
  
  I did homework, played The Sims 3, did some more homework, organized my notes in all four classes, read my TESOL chapter, did some more homework, played some more Sims, read some fanfic,

1. HALLOWEEN!
   It happened. It was fabulous. I have the pictures to prove it.
   <-- is link
   Hell yeah. :)
   
   
2. Let's talk for a moment about how absulutely amazing the Dallas Cowboys are.
   Last night, one of my friends, while in the company of more than one Dallas fan (he was drunk, and that's why we didn't beat him up), said, "A little bird just came to me and told me Seattle's gonna whip Dallas tomorrow." We told him he was wrong, and Dallas hasn't made liars of us yet! Miles Austin's touchdown with 2:44 left in the 3rd followed by Patrick Crayton's 82-yard return on a punt AKA TOUCHDOWN just over a minute later? THAT'S MY TEAM! :D
   
   Sadly, the game isn't aired on tv in my area, so I have to resort to eyeballing the details on nfl.com/...seahawks@cowboys, which is actually not that bad.
   
   
3. Can someone tell me where I can find a NEWS Live Diamond torrent? I can't find one anywhere and I'd rather not have all those separate files from the Hachi uploads if I can avoid it. If I had the money, I'd be buying the dvd. :(

1. Obviously, I'm lacking in spare time. The fall drama season is in full swing, and I'm watching (the operative phrase is actually "downloading to watch at a later date") My Girl, ROMES, Ohitorisama, Tokyo Dogs, Bocho Mania, and 0 Goshitsu no Kyaku. It remains to be seen which I will decide to watch to the end. Last season I started out with four on my list and after the second week had narrowed it down to only two.
   
   
2. Okcupid Boy text messaged me a few more times after that last fiasco (of which all journal evidence has been deleted, thanks) and I responded in the interest of politeness. I keep meaning to get onto okcupid and send him a proper message about "you're busy and I'm busy and it's not fair to either of us to keep trying to make this work," but I haven't found the time to do that.
   
   Another boy that I was texting for a couple of weeks has dropped off the radar. I responded to all of his text messages, but haven't found time to reply to his last message on okcupid, and I think he took that to mean I wasn't interested any longer. That sucks cos he lives just a few miles away and goes to the same school as me, so while I'm busy, meeting him would not have been inconvenient.
   
   A third boy, who I had been talking to about the same time I met the first one, keeps sending me little messages on okcupid, even though he knows fully well I'm busy, and even though I haven't had time to reply to the last two he sent. I think that's adorable, because they're just little one-liners like "I hope school hasn't eaten you alive." and "Hey, how are you? I hope your week went well. Have a good weekend!" The crappy part is that he lives in Hollywood which is just too far away. I can't maintain a friendship beyond Fullerton (where I go to school) these days, so Hollywood is definitely out of the question.
   
   In addition to all of this, I'm actually getting really sick of men. I've never dated a girl before, even though I came close last Spring. I think I'd like to. I live in one of the gayest cities in the world. I've obviously got some soul-searching to do so I can figure out what I want.
   
   So basically, I'm calling it quits on the dating game, again.
   
   
3. There's not going to be a Christmas this year. My parents and I have agreed upon the following thing: Santa Claus will not spend more than $25 on any single person this season. I basically told my mom I wanted my Pearl Jam shirt, the one with the stick figure on it, replaced. The one I have is fifteen years old and needs to be retired, and Hot Topic just started carrying the design. It's a $20 shirtIt's on clearance, and that's all I want for Christmas.
   
   (actually, my list is much longer, but the other items are either beyond Santa's budget or small enough I can manage them for myself.)
   
   
4. My life is so boring. I only get out of the house to go to school, go to a study group, and nanny. I swear, if my best friend didn't live like two blocks from school, and if she weren't my nanny-charge's mom, I'd never be able to see her. It's so great, too, when she says, "come over!" and I'm just at school in the library and so desperate for some fresh air.
   
   tweege, I love you. Thanks for being my BFF! <3
   
   
5. The Angels beat the Yankees tonight! Now the series is 3-2 with the Yankees ahead, but all the Angels need to do is win the next two games to get to the World Series. I believe they can do it. The next game is Saturday. If they win that, the deciding game is on Sunday, and whoever wins that game goes to play the Phillies in the Series.
   
   
6. Coffee is, like, the most amazing thing ever.
   
   
7. I double-booked myself for Halloween. :( I never double-book myself! I'm so disappointed in me!

"I lost my microphone.

It's an Audix OM7. Nothing special, but it's a pretty good mic. It's Absolut, but not quite Belvedere. Pippen, but not quite Jordan. Dog, but not quite cat. Nonetheless, it's my mic, and I love the way it sounds.

I lost it at a festival in Portland ten days ago. Taken by another band? Perhaps. Why a singer would would want to make out with a black piece of
man-plastic that has been all up on another dude's lips is beyond me. To me, my microphone is like my earwax: meant for my mouth, and my mouth only.

Just for the record, I don't actually eat my earwax. I broke that habit six weeks ago.

In any case, I've been forced to use my backup EV microphone at my last three shows. Making the switch has been like switching from wearing underwear to wearing bubble wrap: it still works, but it's kind of noisy at inopportune times.

I've sent out emails to every staff member at the festival, every sound person, every other band. I've even put up "Missing" signs on area telephone poles, and I roam the streets at night calling its name.

I have a sinking feeling it's not coming home.

My devastating loss, coupled with some other pressing matters involving aspects of my career that are beyond my control, was weighing on my mind as I checked my email yesterday afternoon. I was bombarded with the news of a second, 6.8 magnitude earthquake that had just occurred in Padang, in the wake of yesterday's first quake. 467 people are dead, and thousands are trapped beyond fallen buildings. Come on, world, I'm trying to have a pity party here. Who invited Indonesia?

I have to be honest: nothing puts a missing microphone on the back burner like the tale of a mother desperately searching for her missing 12-year-old daughter, using her bare hands to pull apart the wreckage. The woman told TVOne that her daughter's face and voice kept appearing in her mind constantly throughout the night.

A couple months ago, I wrote a song called "Sound Of Your Voice" for my next album. I've lost way too many people that I love, including an uncle to cancer a couple years ago and a college friend to suicide last year. My fondest memories of the loved ones I've lost often involve the sound of their voices: they way they laughed, the way they said their trademark jokes and phrases.

A line from the song's first verse: "Silence is waiting, reiterating that life and loss are one."

Somewhere in between the story of the earthquakes and that of Tuesday's killer tsunami, I stopped thinking about my microphone. Sure, I'm bummed about it. But in the grand scheme, it's a pretty nominal thing to lose.

It's as if the server forgot the artichokes on my pizza. Do I love artichokes? You bet. Will I stand up on a table in the middle of the restaurant, rip my shirt, and fling soup spoons at the server? Definitely. Will I drench a hapless onlooker at a nearby table with Cabernet because THEY got artichokes? Of course!

Did that really happen? I probably shouldn't say.

But in the end, artichokes or no artichokes, I can still sleep at night. Even if it's in jail.

Everyone I know has misplaced something at least once. I have a friend who lost a shoe in Vegas somehow, and another who to this day doesn't know where two of her teeth are. I realized recently that I've been keeping the spare set of keys for my car in my car. Not my best work.

And let's not even get into those parents who keep their otherwise healthy children on leashes.

It's tempting to regard trivial loss as more than it is. Microphones can be replaced. Children cannot.

Some questions don't have easy answers.

Reach out to someone who has lost someone or something important. Spend some time with them. Say a prayer, give a hug. Ask them what you can do to help them make it through.

In the midst of loss, help someone gain a lasting friendship."

• Feeling better today! I have a cough and my voice is going in and out, but the hed-asplode feeling is mostly gone and breathing through my nose isn't very challenging.
  
  
• Tomorrow is Day One of The Fabulous Bachelorette Party! We leave at 8am to drive to Temecula for a weekend of relaxation and friendship. I CAN'T WAIT. :D
  
  
• Went shopping at Torrid the other day to get my outfit for the wedding next weekend. I settled on this top with this belt and this skirt. I feel like a sexy librarian when I wear them all together!
  
  
• While I was in the store, I grabbed this jacket, because it's PLAID and has A HOOD and sdjlfgsd I'm sorry... GENERATION X FORVER! I don't even care that it cost me nearly $70. IT WAS WORTH IT. (and now I'm broke D:)
  
  
• I'm listening to a lot of Japanese music this week. Like, to the exclusion of the rest of my library. I made a "japanese" filter and let my iTunes DJ do all the work. I also just added a bunch of jpop and jrock songs to my phone as potential ringers. ^_^
  
  
• Lastly, I will throw a shameless shout out to my icon, which is completely unrelated to anything in this entry. I LOVE ZIVA A LOT. She is a fierce woman and adorable to boot. <3 <3 <3