for the most sensitive among us the noise can be too much.

This is the tough part about blogging daily. I've had a headache all day. The day hasn't gone as planned. I've been miserable and I've been feeling down and no amount of retail therapy (literally, no amount -- I did some damage on one of my cards today) is making me feel any better. So, I don't really have anything to say other than this. I dislike talking when I feel this way. I'm not much of a talker when it comes to this kind of stuff. I don't really confide in anyone about anything. I try not, anyway. It's the way I am and just the way I've been. It's part of only child syndrome. Which, you know, is bullshit. There are plenty of only children without intimacy or isolation problems. I'm just not one of them.

I always have a smile on my face and sometimes I know I'm a phony -- I'm a pessimist parading around as an optimist. I haven't really figured out who I am yet. Part of me feels like I am changing into that happier, content person. Then there's that other side that thinks it knows better and knows what's really there and who I really am. I'll figure it out one day but in the meantime, I'm just this.

Went to see the Lion King last night with one of my best friends who has never seen the show before. I told her that she and her new roommate should sit toward the center and I chose my usual seat over to the left side. It was a little cheaper. Theaters really like to gouge people when the big hits come to town. I usually pay $30-$50 on that seat depending on the production but for The Lion King, it was over $100. The seats toward the center were going for $180. I mean, good lord. Other shows that don't receive as much acclaim or attention are usually discounted but something like a Lion King or a Book of Mormon rarely go down in price especially touring productions. Here in Los Angeles, the Pantages and our theater downtown, the Ahmanson, are mostly touring production houses and cater to productions that tour every year. Those two theaters battle it out and some go to one and some go to the other.

But it was a really great production of the show. I've seen The Lion King in Orange County and also the Las Vegas production at Mandalay Bay. What I love about seeing different shows in different cities is really experiencing it in several different ways. I have a really addictive and repetitive personality. That's just how I've always been ever since I was a kid. I can't just see something once if I really like it. I need to see it over and over again. The Lion King is one of my favorite shows and my favorite Disney production. Beauty and the Beast is a close second but The Lion King is tops.

It really does a great job of combining the joy and the content of the film and translating it to the stage. But the stage production adds so much to the story. They do a great job of really taking you to another place, making the animals come to life, giving the show more depth by adding incredible dancers in incredible costumes. If the show ever comes rolling into your town, go check it out! You won't regret it.

I now have this Tuesday-Saturday schedule at work so while everyone is enjoying their Friday being a Friday, I have to wait until tomorrow to enjoy. I also have something to do next Saturday so I go back to Monday - Friday this week. Therefore, I get one day off this weekend and I will enjoy it at home, thank you. That said, I'm tired and I'd like to read some Buzzfeed before bed so today's entry will be a photo post.

( Concerts, concerts galore. )

So that's what I'm going to do.

I don't know when my obsession with food began. I was a pretty skinny kid who got eaten by the person I am today. But food and television always went hand in hand. The episodes I remember or television specials I remember the most are always food-themed. I'll give you a few examples.

I'm a huge I Love Lucy fan. I've been watching the show since I was a kid and three of my favorite episodes were Pioneer Women, The Million-Dollar Idea, and The Freezer. These are just three examples and I'll show you why.

Pioneer Women

Food: This giant loaf of bread.
Most Memorable Scene: The last scene is Lucy taking this giant piece of bread slathered with homemade butter that they churned themselves and Fred, Ricky, Lucy, and Ethel take a giant bite out of it. Never fails to make me want a really great piece of bread.

The Million-Dollar Idea

Food: Salad dressing.
Most Memorable Scene: This scene where they sell the dressing on television never fails to make me want a really, really big salad filled with romaine and croutons and good stuff. I'm not even paying attention to the actual ingredients in this episode. I'm only thinking about my favorite salad dressing and devouring a ton of greens with it.

The Freezer

Food: All. That. Meat.
Most Memorable Scene: It's one line for me. It's one line that does it in this entire episode. At the end, she stuffs all the meat in the furnace to hide it from Ricky. Fred lights it. And Lucy says to bring a big bottle of ketchup down to the basement where they're going to have BBQ. And there's me on my couch imagining the smell of delicious, delicious BBQ.

And moving on from Lucy...

Food: Chocolate.
Most Memorable Scene: ALL OF IT. LOOK AT ALL THAT CHOCOLATE.

And it goes on and on and on. I can do this all day long but I won't because I'm going to get even hungrier than I am right now. Does food trigger television memories for you, too?

It's hard for me to pick favorites. I like a lot of things. That's part of my problem. When I obsess or really, really like something, I go all the way with it. This applies to music, theater, television, etc. I always need to go see this show or that concert. It's one thing after another. So, picking favorites is difficult. But I do have favorite bands, bands I see over and over again. As long as they're within a... 100 mile radius, I'm usually there. Well, 100's probably my minimum. I fly across the country to see bands I like. When they're within a 20-50 mile radius, I definitely go see them.

Our Lady Peace is one of those bands. Our Lady Peace is a band from Canada and in 1999 they released their third album called Happiness... Is Not A Fish That You Can Catch. Since that was during my very strong international music phase, I got addicted to Much Music, a Canadian music channel that actually aired in the States for a couple of years through one of our cable providers. I heard the song "Is Anybody Home?" and I was hooked. The video was beautiful, the music just hit my eardrums in a way that made me feel so connected to what I heard. Single after single came out and I liked every single one of them.

I saw them for the first time in 2002 at the House of Blues on Sunset Blvd in Hollywood. They had just released their album Gravity. I was 17 years old and moved down to L.A. for the summer to take an internship at a talent agency. Our Lady Peace played in July and a couple of really great bands opened for them: Audiovent and Greenwheel.

You might recognize Greenwheel's song as the theme show to a show on the WB called Black Sash. Or... you may not recognize it because I'm convinced the only people who actually watched that show were me and my friends Emily and Sarah. But the two openers put on a great show and it only made that night's concert experience even better. It was my first time seeing Our Lady Peace and you can just tell from the atmosphere in the room that the fans of the band are hardcore. The minute they started the opening chords of any song, the crowd went absolutely nuts. It was all fist pumps and singing along loudly (which the band encourages) and this vibe that can't be explained. It's peaceful. It's relaxed. You know you're there for the music.

I'll never forget they ended with 4 A.M., one of their signature songs. It was an encore song. They came out on stage together with Raine in front of the microphone. He starts singing but the crowd overpowers him. He takes a step back and we go through the first verse, chorus, second verse when he says, "You guys don't even need us here." That statement is met with jeers, of course. If only they'd stayed on that stage forever. Canadian flags waved in the air, people cheered loudly as they took their final bow.

I've gone to a lot of shows, a lot of concerts but when I left that show, I felt changed. My heart felt fuller. It was like the music sunk deep into me and it hasn't let go yet. I've gone to other life-changing shows of theirs -- The Troubadour show a few years ago, The Viper Room, another Troubadour show. But there's always something special about the first show, isn't there? From the two opening acts I loved, to hearing songs I loved from the new album, the older albums, the sing-along -- it was perfect.

Sasha Allen sang I'll Be There on Good Morning America. Now that was painful to watch.

Also, is anyone else watching the music video tribute on MTV? Is that the way that they label music videos now? With a giant font across the screen at the beginning of the video? MTV forgot how to play music videos in general so they've reverted to making it look like a production video from 1982. You make me want to slap you MTV.

Another WTF is that both KIIS FM and 93.1 said yesterday, "We're going to play Michael Jackson music all day!" All day lasted about 3 hours. At least the cool jazz station held up their promise and played him until midnight and all different songs. Not just Billie Jean, Thriller, and Beat It. ... not that I don't love those songs because I do.

They just played some more obscure music. God, they played Gone Too Soon twice which was a song dedicated to Ryan White but it's fitting today for him. That's always been one of my favorite songs. Like I can pick a favorite? Psh.

This is also the first time that I've ever seen the Liberian Girl video and it's a very big WTF? of celebrities in it. I mean Debbie Gibson, BLOSSOM, Malcolm Jamal Warner, Whoopi Goldberg, Jasmin Guy, Rosanna Arquette, Spielberg, Lou Diamond Philips, Amy Irving (??), and just a cluster of celebrities. Kind of a big question mark but interesting.

They still haven't played that live concert video of Man in the Mirror. That's the one I remember.

Sorry, didn't think that this was going to be so long.

I was just thinking that in episode 403 in that scene. You know, that scene with the chair and all that. How do you think the conversation went where Gale and Randy discussed Gale practically sticking his finger in Randy's ass?

Production Guy: *shows storyboard*
Gale: Is that my finger up his ass?
Production Guy: *takes close look* Yeah, I guess so. Is that cool?
Gale & Randy: Yes.

It's those RPS fics. They're getting to me again.

I changed the title of the story since it makes a little more sense than the previous title. Who knows, this may change. It's been so long since I've written a new chapter for this story but I'm feeling extra motivated lately. I had r_me_time look this over but any other errors and bad plot elements are mine. :|

In case you don't remember the first chapter then it's over here.

Last time you saw our heroes they were having hot sex in the loft bed. Justin fell asleep and when he woke up he found that he, Brian and Gus were not in Pittsburgh anymore. So, where are they?

Title: Faerie Tales
Pairing: Brian/Justin, 10th Kingdom crossover.
Rating: Adult content, that enough?
Warnings: There's man-on-man love but that shouldn't be a warning.
Disclaimers: I own nothing.

( The green, almost cartoon-like grass is blinding. )

For starters today, birthday question. Is it lennongirl's birthday? Ani, if it's your birthday today or tomorrow or yesterday, happy birthday! I'm sure that you're doing something awesome over there at home. Hee.

Now in relation to Six Feet Under, as you know or don't know, I had a Six Feet Under marathon recently. I watched the series over a week and will probably be rewatching the episodes in the next few weeks to be able to digest more of it. It really is so poignant and so incredibly well-written and it probably has the best series finale that I've seen, ever. No weird fade to blacks, no last happy scene without knowing about what happened to them in the future. Charmed came close to this but of course not as powerful or insightful.

That said, there are a lot of issues brought up throughout the series but one in particular stood out to me. Lost recaps constantly observe that any time anyone on that show has an issue, it's usually a "Daddy Issue". Six Feet Under wasn't an exception. There was Keith's feelings toward his father. Nathaniel Sr. popped up throughout the entire series and the children analyzed their relationship with him. In Queer as Folk, Brian's father beat him and Michael never knew his father and Justin's dad disowned him.

Why do you think that television shows explore the father dynamic more than the mother dynamic? Is it more powerful to explore the more masculine dynamic? Is it just because fathers do often abandon their children or cause some kind of traumatic experience in childhood that continues to affect that child as an adult?

I'm always thinking about the parental dynamic in Disney movies because the fathers are almost always around and they kill the mothers. In movies that aren't animated, the girl raised by her father (without any siblings or female siblings) always appears as a tomboy because she hasn't had that female exposure. Disney female characters (princesses) seen so in touch with their femininity.

So, why is the paternal dynamic more prevalent in television?

Well, it's the final day of nablopomo and it's definitely been fun. I think that it's a challenge to try to write something every day but it did motivate me to write right away instead of waiting several days to say one little thing. I'll probably end up going back to that. I just like to think about what I'm going to say, compile, and then post it. That's just my way. It'd be neat to do something like this again though.

All of my November entries have been public and that's left me feeling very exposed. At the same time, I know that it's opened my journal to comments that I normally wouldn't receive, people that I don't often communicate with, and that's been really great. Maybe I'll keep it up and just lock the entries that really need to be locked. That's the plan, folks. That's the plan.

So, what did I do for the majority of my Thanksgiving break? I've been pretty consumed by Luke and Noah. I had plans to watch a couple of movies today but instead I decided that it's time to toss my old hard drives that I've literally been lagging around since 2003. Those are a lot of moves to be carrying around a couple of old towers.

There are a lot of old goodies that I found in the drives including some recordings of me on the radio. Yeah, I'll probably end up sharing those because they're embarrassing. They're a reminder that I was also like those crazy Jonas Brothers fans and said things that make me cringe today.

I'm also finally getting through the 5,000 questions survey that I started ages ago. Here are my answers for 301-400.

( 301-400 Questions. )

( Toy Gun. No, I won't add 'Shiny'. That's a band. )

So, that's the finale of my November posts. If you like what you've read, feel free to stick around.