Ode to Rainymood.com (also, hot men in wet shirts)

It's raining pretty hard over here. Honestly, I've been hesitant to be outside, it's that bad. There is a puddle by the yurt that's got to be at least three feet deep. So it can be chalked up to incredibly perfect timing that I've discovered Rainymood.com now.

The concept of this site is way too simple, really. It's a thirty minute loop of rainstorm sounds. Kind of like those sound soothers people pay mad money for at Sharper Image when they're not too busy mooching free massages from the chairs (I used to do that before the local Sharper Image became an American Apparel. So no judgments here.) But anyway, what I've found is that this ingenious little thing is perfect for giving my favorite songs a little extra something.
My younger sister has this theory that whenever it rains in a movie, it means there's about to be a new beginning, or some sort of big change in the characters' lives. I can't say I disagree with her, but I will add that sometimes celluloid rain is just really conducive to a couple of hot actors getting it on.
So rain is an important storytelling device. This kind of goes back to a post I wrote earlier about the hypothetical soundtrack to my biopic. Not gonna lie, it's kind of fun to sync up some truly dramatic songs with the sound of falling rain, just to imagine some kind of sappy, melodramatic scene play out on the movie screen inside my head, just behind my eyes. I made a whole playlist of them on my iTunes. I don't think I've loved listening to Dashboard Confessional this much since tenth grade. Seriously, hearing those screaming, angsty ballads against the thunder and patter makes me want to run after someone in an airport or something. Preferably on a rainy night. Playing Iron and Wine with Rainymood, on the other hand, makes me want a pillow and some Earl Grey tea. But Prince's "Purple Rain" and Guns N Roses' "November Rain" make me want a lighter and a packed stadium. "Chocolate Rain," however, is hopeless even with Rainymood's magical powers.

A friend of mine told me today that she put her music on shuffle with Rainymood playing in the background. "'Champagne Supernova' came up on shuffle, and it reminded me of that scene in 'The OC' when Summer went back for Seth in the rain! So I spent like an hour watching OC clips on Youtube."

Hey, I'm listening to "Champagne Supernova" plus Rainymood right now, and kissing some pseudo-nerdy boy (I say that only because if Seth Cohen went to Hampshire, he would be The Big Man on Campus with a revolving door on his bed) upside down in a Spiderman mask is pretty much all it makes me want to do. Either that or stay up ridiculously late watching OC clips on Youtube. But "November Rain" just came up on my Rainymood playlist, so I think I'll just take that in for a bit. I almost got chills when the thunder kicked in during the intro. Good thing it's not really raining inside, otherwise my lighter would go out.

Peace, Love, and Semicolons,
Lisa

Sunday musings in a sweater.

It's a Sunday afternoon in the Airport Lounge. Otherwise known as homework central. It's a bit of a Hampshire institution, spending the weekend here, making up for the lack of productivity over the previous few days we all thought we'd spend working. I'm so tired. Sleep was not something that happened in large quantities this weekend. I've been lucky enough to spend at least part of every day this weekend with friends though, and that makes me so happy. I also may have a living arrangement for the fall, and even though it will likely involve me having a roommate, I'm going to go with it. Maybe having a roommate would be fun. We can stay up late having heart-to-hearts in our beds, clear out the room and have intimate-but-rocking parties, and write on each others' Facebook walls when we're both in our room.

I've been doing a lot of thinking about next year. I'm meeting with my advisor next week to talk about what I want my concentration to be. But it's more complicated than that too. I was all ready to go into her office, and proudly declare that I wanted to study "Writing About Trauma" and then talk about it and have her tell me what professors to talk to. But Nell (my advisor) has bigger plans for me. She sent me an email of an intense questionnaire, asking what sorts of questions I wanted to spend the next three years answering, what I was interested in but haven't studies yet, what world problem I most want to solve, etc. Here I was thinking simplifying my interests was doing me a favor. I have so much more to think about, and I'm no longer so sure of myself. Did I overlook things, or am I just one step ahead of the system?

Peace, Love, and Semicolons,
Lisa

Hello old friend.

Wow, if this blog was a person, it would be pissed that I didn't call and worry that I had joined a cult or something. Wait...that doesn't make much sense, but you get it. Do you?

Anyway, I've been a little lax on the blogging because I've been really busy. I also fail at thinking of a more interesting way to put that. The week before Spring Break I was up to my corneas in my paper on East Central European identities, which turned out alright I think. The footnotes and such added to the length, and so did the block quotes. I've always liked writing papers with footnotes, they feel so scholarly. Like it doesn't matter what kind of bullshit I'm spitting out onto my blank document, as long as there's a footnote it's fucking insightful. Seriously, I'm getting warm fuzzies just thinking about it and looking at that picture of the footnote prompt.

So once I stopped all that, I went home and after making some minor adjustments to my suitcase I was on a plane to Miami with the mother for the week. We had a day of total air travel hell. The plane was delayed five times without warning, when other planes were taking off just fine. Then we had to wait on the tarmac for an hour and everyone was tired and cranky. Some lady in front of us took the overhead space of some guy further up, and he confronted her about it. I'm wicked uncomfortable with confrontation, but when his last words to her were "I bet you have foot fungus" I could have passed out from trying not to laugh. Seriously, third grade insults are the bestest.

Once we got to Miami, everything was good except for a few spats brought on by too much togetherness and my mother's contradicting desires to feed me and to tell me to lose weight. But we did bond a lot over the week. We went shopping, went to the spa, ate together every night, and talked a whole lot. Now that we're both single we can even check out men on the beach together. But we'll never go clubbing together. That's just creepy. PS Miami does not look like that picture. Although the whole time I was here I felt a Herculean urge to start singing that Will Smith song, and I felt I could tell who the locals were based on who had the most tattoos and fakest hair. So maybe some of my preconceptions were accurate? Who knows.

Either way, I have to go back up north tomorrow, and even further north on Sunday. School calls, and I have to answer with a 5-10 page paper on various perspectives on the emotion of disgust. But for now, I'm making the most of this complimentary hotel bathrobe and trying not to think about school. That paper will get at least partially done on the plane tomorrow. I promise not to buy any tabloids at the airport. Or get lost in the Skymall catalog. That shit is a black hole of awesome things I don't need yet can't live without. Like this gem I'll leave you with:












Peace, Love, and Semicolons,
Lisa

Hypothetical Soundtrack to my Biopic

When I was about fourteen, I took a Myspace survey about the theoretical soundtrack to my life. Most of the tracks I chose were of the classic rock genre, because I was hopelessly in love with a young music fiend, and I thought maybe he would be impressed by my incongruous music taste (I was otherwise a typical, giggly freshman girl) and fall in love with me. That didn't happen, but even if it had my music tastes still would have expanded all the same. So tonight I am retaking that survey. I've kind of got movies on the brain since coming off of Oscar weekend, and while I really hope no one makes a movie about my life, at least not while I'm alive to see it, the concept is pretty fun to think about. A little narcissistic, perhaps, but still fun.

Last semester, my creative writing professor suggested that when someone feels unsure about whether or not to do a certain thing, they should pretend their life is a movie. People in movies, she said, do things that people in real life don't always do, but sometimes should do for the sake of moving their lives along. And since every movie should have a soundtrack, here we go.

Opening credits	Vagabond-Wolfmother
Waking up	Rebel Rebel-David Bowie
Average day	Fake Empire-The National
First date	I Don't Know-Lisa Hannigan
Falling in love	Orange Sky-Alexi Murdoch
Love scene	Such Great Heights-Iron & Wine
Fight scene	Glory Box-Portishead
Breaking up	First Love-Adele
Getting back together	Slow Show-The National
Secret love	Sex and Candy-Marcy Playground
Mental Breakdown	Cold Water-Damien Rice
Life's Okay	Rebellion (Lies)-Arcade Fire
Driving	Que' Onda Guero-Beck
Learning a lesson	Sometimes you Can't Make it On Your Own-U2
Deep thought	Nude-Radiohead
Flashback	Glosoli-Sigur Ros
Partying	Dance Wiv Me-Calvin Harris & Dizzee Rascal
Happy dance	Sleepyhead-Passion Pit
Regretting	Re: Stacks-Bon Iver
Long night alone	Wish you Were Here-Pink Floyd
Death scene	Ruby Tuesday-The Rolling Stones
Closing credits	Wake Up-Arcade Fire

Well there you have it. The soundtrack to my life. Way more fun than homework, and now you can do one too! (Click that text, there's a link to the survey I did.) I know no one ever comments on this, but I'm really curious to see what you all would put on the soundtracks to the movies about your lives.

Peace, Love, and Semicolons,
Lisa

Inked.

I got my first tattoo on Saturday night when I was visiting some friends in New York. Here's how it went down.

I had wanted a tattoo for a while, but I hadn't known what to get. I was waiting for when I felt attached enough to something, and knew of the right place to put it. Spoiler alert: I found that something. I decided on the semicolon because it's my favorite punctuation mark, as you may have gathered from my sign-off line. It's just so...sexy and original, the way it links separate clauses but still somehow unites them. I try to use semicolons in my writing as much as I can because they're so much more original than commas and periods. I love them so much, I decided to get one inked onto my skin permanently. As for the positioning, it's behind my right ear. I've always had a particularly strong right brain, which is known as being the "literal" side. I wanted my tattoo to honor that. A more lyrical way to justify the placement of my newest addition would be "Something by my brain, because I am a writer at heart."

So I had known that I wanted this for a while. There are a ton of tattoo places in Amherst and Northampton, but something about going to New York for a night of spontaneous shenanigans made me feel like I should get it done on St. Marks Place. St. Marks is somewhat of a mecca for impulse decisions regarding bodily modifications; I had gotten my nose pierced there, bought hair dye there, and gotten my second ear piercings there. Now I can say I got my first tattoo there.

I was really, really nervous beforehand. The long-ish wait for an available artist dragged it out sufficiently. By the time I was in the guy's studio, my heart was pounding and I was nearly hyperventilating. He seemed to take forever to assemble the needle. I was thankfully sitting down, resting my upper body on the table. Otherwise I may have fainted. I probably looked pretty pathetic, getting so freaked out about a tiny tattoo behind my ear when the artist had one on his penis.

*Sidenote* I didn't see that tattoo. My friend asked which one of his tats hurt the most and that was his answer.

When he was ready to begin the job, he neared the buzzing needle to my ear, and I stiffened. It was a horrible, horrible sound. Like a drill that the dentist only uses when you're nearly asleep with Novocaine. I told him to wait, that I was really freaked out. I honestly give the guy credit for not laughing at me when he asked why. After I nearly cried in his studio, he rubbed some numbing gel behind my ear, and after insisting it wasn't a placebo (I asked multiple times) he went to work.

Maybe that's an overstatement. The tattoo took maybe 30 seconds to complete. But I knew it wasn't much of a job. What did surprise me was the lack of pain. It felt maybe like a needle being dragged across my skin. Just dragged, with maybe a few pricks here and there. It hurt far, far less than any of my piercings. After a little bit, I didn't even need Ali to hold my hand anymore. The combination of the relief and the satisfaction with the finished product left me positively giddy as we walked out of the tattoo parlor.

In celebration, we opted to smoke some cigars. As we stood on a street corner and tried to get them to stay lit amidst the late February wind, we quipped that we looked like a bunch of new fathers. We were, in a way. To the little drops of ink forever embedded into my skin.

Peace, Love, and Semicolons (!!!)
Lisa