Sunday, September 25, 2011

Old Memories Don't Go Away by *Young Lupe* - Uploaded by: Young Lupe*2RawENt.* - @iAmYoungLupe

http://tweetmysong.com/44i6504#.ToAavXbDXss.blogger
music from my little brother. who knew that i would tie his shoes and brush his hair and wind up listening to him on the radio one day? I love that kid.

Singing in the Rain

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/mFab_wUHKcU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

It's just me singing my little heart out. ::::GASP::::: wouldn't it be cool as shit if Joshua Homme ever laid eyes on this? swoon.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

40 DD

I don't know about you but boobs are pretty important to me.
And not just me. Americans all love big, perky, slouchy, jiggly, small, amazing boobs.
In case you're wondering, yes, this is a blog about boobs.

I got my boobs early. I was in the second grade. My mom came into my room with this white stringy thing with two patches on the front and told me to put it on.

"Um. Where? Better yet, how?"

Forget the why part. Every little girl knows there will come a time in her life when she will be handed her first bra. Every little girl has seen her Barbie naked, rubbed her thumbs across the hard, protruding knobs and wished and wished that someday they'll have boobs, too.
I remember being this geeky with Barbies, don't you?

It was weird having this little secret garment in the second grade. And I could tell that I was the only other little girl wearing this special garment because, heh heh, I was the only one with boobs. You never really notice boobs until you can compare them to your own. For a second grader, I had a pretty nice rack.
Pedobear would've approved.

When a little girl grows up, she's bombarded with this knowledge that she's different. She's got these knobby little things on her chest that give her away when the temperature drops outside. Or if she's jogging in her P.E class and all the boys are staring at her and the jiggling notion that's bouncing on her chest.
Click here to see said jiggling breasts. You're welcome.

Sometimes having boobs can be a pain in the ass. When I was in the fifth grade, I couldn't wear those V-neck shirts, lest I gave every one in my class a peek at my polka dotted bra. I remember paying attention to the women on TV and watched how they flaunted their cleavage like a banner of honour. Some boobs were smaller than mine and they still got rave attention because those girls with small breasts could come to school with no bra. I wondered what that felt like, not having to tie down my size 34C first thing in the morning, just letting them hang out without a thought in mind.

Boobs can be used as a weapon. A girl can harness this weapon when she enters high school. I looked like a flaming lesbian my sophomore year, not wanting to flash my cleavage everywhere because I didn't want to be one of those girls. You know, those girls who wears short skirts and see-through blouses and doesn't do any work in her spanish teacher's class except laugh at the teacher's lame jokes and write on his chalk board? (sorry, I was having a flash back.) I kept my chest covered, afraid to harness the power of my boobs.
High school was so un-damn-fair.

 How silly I was. One should never be afraid of the wonders of the female body. I think girls get too caught up in the progress that their bodies are going through and they become too afraid, covering themselves in black clothing, hiding their bodies under huge sweat shirts and baggy jeans.
Like this, without the hog.

 We are girls! We are women! We are special! We should embrace these changes, flaunt these changes, but not abuse these changes. Why, just think of how a boy feels when his balls drop for the first time, and his voice deepens. He thinks he's a man and can do just about anything, confident in his actions, and unapologetic to whatever plight may storm his way. We should adopt this attitude from the boys, and make good of it.
Still waiting for Justin Bieber's balls to drop...

Another thing I'd like to talk about is bras. Sometimes.....oh, Lord, sometimes, I see a woman with an ill-equpped bra walking around Wal Mart and I just want to punch her in the face. Who cares if your boobs sag. The right kind of bra can whip them right into shape! Who cares if one boob is bigger than the other, you're not the only one! Who cares if your boobs are considered mosquito bites, they're so small! There's a push up bra with your name on it!
Any of these look familiar?

Take care of your boobs by getting yourself sized every six months. Your bra size can fluctuate just like your waist line. Get a bra that fits, not just because you admire the colour and design. I love underwire, and I love push up bras because they make my boobs defy gravity, and that's a great thing. If your straps across the shoulders and back are restrictive and cutting off circulation, it's not a good fit, and it's gonna make you uncomfortable in whatever beautiful garment you've got and that, ladies and gentlemen, is a faux pas. You may not want to be a 40DD anymore, you may be a 40FFF, and you know what, it's time you come to terms with that. (Note to self, I really need to just accept the fact that I have huge boobs).

So in closing, I just want to let everyone know that it's okay to love boobs, too. Once you embrace your rack, hell you might even embrace the rest of you, abnormal curves and all.

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Music to My Earholes

I was going to write a piece on how music was slowly, if not already, deteriorating as 2011 begins to simmer down to its end. But that topic could go on forever, and I'm not nearly in the mood to sit here and go through that depressing subject. I will write about how music is important, however. Why just this week, I can't stumble out of bed without first hearing Dance Gavin Dance's "Uneasy Hearts Weigh the Most." Normally, screamo rock frightens my poor little earholes, but this song is catchy because of its guitar riffs, and the two guys screaming on the other end are actually carrying a tune. Not bad.
If I sit down in front of my lap top and I know I'm going to be beating myself all day to complete at least (AT LEAST!) three chapters in my novel, I'm going to need at least four hours of music. On repeat. Currently I have a playlist entitled "Writing Music, Fool" on my Windows Media Player, and it's got all kinds of peanut butter deliciousness for my jelly-fied ears.
Mostly, I'm a rock junkie. Ask anyone and they'll tell you: "I'm the whitest black girl you'll ever know." I'm gonna stop using that saying after awhile for reasons I will express in another blog for another time. I only listen to a certain type of rock, however. If I can sing along to it, oh baby, I need it on my headphones. Now. Growing up, my uncle (who just so happens to be white, but listens to every kind of music that there is) slapped a Guns n' Roses disc under my nose, and I've been gone ever since. Before, I had gotten into Blondie per my mother, and would play "Call Me" and "One Way or Another" at all hours of the day, driving everyone in my house mad. I dabbled into a little Metallica, but quickly dumped it when I couldn't sing along to James Hetfield's gutteral pass for singing. Ew, no thanks. I stumbled across the rock stations on the radio and found even more bands that I could bob my head to. Thus, a rock goddess was born.
My favourite band of all time is Queens of the Stone Age. Mostly, all the lead singer, Josh Homme, sings about is rough sex, drugs, depression, partying, sex, and sex, a life I could never lead, but love to listen to either way. At my wedding, instead of playing boring ass "Canon in D" as I paraded down the aisle, I begged my husband to let me walk down the aisle to Queens of the Stone Age's "I Wanna Make It Wit Chu." It's a beautiful slow song with a dash of seventies innocent set for a beautiful ceremony. I can remember my dad slow dancing with me in the living room to this song, and he wasn't even drunk. Ahem. However, it does pay to read and understand the lyrics of a song before you dedicate it to someone. My wedding song? According to Josh Homme, the writer, in an interview with some cool ass people, he said that the song was indeed "about fucking." Whoops.
People will throw music at me that I've never heard before. My brother let me sample an idiot rapper, Gucci Mane, and I turned my nose up at him. "What the fuck is he saying?" My brother, bobbing his head to the thunderous bass coming from his headphones, shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know, but it's swag."
Swag? What the fuck is swag?
Doesn't matter, because even though I can't understand hardly a damn thing that's coming out of this man's mouth, the instrumental pouring out of the speakers and the bass buzzing out of the wires is good enough to write a dialouge or two.
Movies make music better. Or music makes movies better. Imagine that one scene from some bad ass action flick where the good guy is walking away from the building as it blows up behind him. Think of how whack that scene would be if it didn't have that awesome song playing in the background. Sometimes I wish my life had theme music. I can think of the song I would use right now: Mario's Theme. Grocery shopping? Getting my truck washed? Mario's Theme. Brushing my teeth? Eating a bowl of cereal? Mario's Theme. It's fucking perfect.
Whenever I get pregnant, and I'm in the room getting ready to push my baby's gigantic melon head through my precious vagina, I will demand music playing in the room. Loudly. I don't want to focus on the pain surging through my body or my vagina being ripped to shreds. Instead, I think I will focus on Lil Wayne's "Lollipop", Rihanna's "Disturbia", The Strokes' "Razorblade"....whoa. Wait. Maybe not that one. That title alone made me double over in pain. I don't want my kid coming into the world with his mom bellowing like a banshee escaping hell. I want the yelling to be droned out with good music, that way he'll grow up and know that music is good and can be used to soothe.
I'll probably use the Mario Theme at my funeral, I'm just saying. Lowering the casket? Children crying? Mario Theme.
So. When I get home and turn on my lap top and the next fifty pages of my novel are waiting to be written, I will search through my huge collection of music and put together the most bad ass of all music playlists. It will include a little bit of rock, a little bit of rap, a smidget of coutry, a dash of dance, a splash of r n' b, and a whole lot of rhythm.

Monday, August 29, 2011

Queens Of The Stone Age : News

Queens Of The Stone Age : News Bourdain and Homme in Palm Desert eating everything in sight. I'm pretty sure there was a lot more drinking and shenanigans going on when the cameras weren't rolling :D

In five, four, three, two, one...

Action!

Hi! My name is Moni, or Tammy if you really want to be nosy. I haven't written a blog since my junior year in high school. Back then I was drooling over the wide shoulders of a metal mouthed, tight T-shirt wearing maniac and all of the sheninagians we pulled at our first job together. This blog will be a little less about coveting, and a little more about writing.

When I tell people that I'm in the midst of writing a novel, they get this look on their face that kind of wants to say "Please don't ask me to read your stuff. I have a very busy life and I don't want to read about you wallowing in vodka and bunny slippers." I have to warm them up to the idea that I'm, ahem, actually a pretty good writer (whilst hiding my first draft in a box under the sofa.) I've been writing seriously since the end of fourth grade. I was scared of telling my family. At the time, I really didn't think that it was a real job, something that someone would actually do from nine-to five and get paid. But I was always nose deep in a Stephen King novel and would think to myself, this lazy bastard doesn't do anything all day except sit at his typewriter while drinking warm beer and wracking his brain for scary monsters, and he's getting paid to do it. Ding ding ding ding ding! I can do that no problem! I told my dad after he was picking me up from school one day, nervousness fumbling through my fingertips. I remember being so small and him being so tall and large, like a giant tree I was too afraid to climb. Would this big dude laugh at me? I wondered. "I want to be a writer when I grow up," I said as he turned the car onto our tree lined street. I remember him shrugging his shoulders, the traces of a small smile on his face as he considered the idea. "Go for it," he said. So I did.
Writing was easiest when I was in class. It didn't matter what school I was at, what grade I was in, what class I was pretending to take notes from, I always had a notebook open on my desk, and I was always writing down a scene. I finished a whole story in a 200-paged college ruled notebook write at the end of a science test in the sixth grade. During an assembly about drunk driving my freshman year, when they dimmed the lights for the stage while everyone was huddled into the small cafeteria, I was haunched over on the lunch table, my pen wisping away at a new dialogue. That was my thing. I was a writer. I was always writing. People would stop me at the end of class, the time dwindling down before the last bell of the day. They would stretch their necks over my desk, my pen writing fire across the pale blue lines of my latest work. They would ask, "So...whatcha writing?"
"A book," I would say.
Surprised: "A book? Like a real book?"
"Yup."
And always the biggest question: "How many pages is it?"
If I said anything higher than sixty pages, they would gasp. "Oh my God. I wanna read it when you're finished." And I would smile, proud, happy, eager to finish.
I started an idea about high school friends shifting through the times and changes of their high school career while I was a sixth grader in Virginia. I had no idea about high school, but I watched a lot of people, and I watched a lot of TV. There are four of these stories, and I finished them all my junior year. I started a book about a space cowboy, catching bad guys, and saving damsels in distress all while saving the universe in his tight leather pants. I finished this the summer before I moved to Florida, before my sophomore year. I started a book about my first job working at a pizza buffet and all the crazy characters that worked there with me. The idea from the story came from a simple question: wouldn't it be cool if the pizza place acted as a cover for drug distribution? I finished this story my senior year. I started a love story about a boy and a girl at the end of the seventh grade. The boy would come to represent every son of a bitch that I ever fell in love with and the girl would represent me. I've revised this story at least four times, and this year I intend to get it published.
Published! That was the word that I wanted most of all in my vocabulary. My dream was to become the youngest author on the New York Best Sellers List...at twelve. My craft just wasn't up to par then, but damn could a little girl dream. I sent in a few ideas to Scholastic when I was fifteen. I got rejected because I didn't have a literary agent. While reading the rejection letter, I wondered out loud what the hell a literary agent was? I kept writing. Once I graduated high school without a clue in the world as to what I wanted to do to, you know...earn money, it began to dawn on me that maybe being a writer full time was a bad idea after all. I mean, all I did was sit at my desk and live my life vicariously through my characters. My parents were breathing down my throat. My hair was nappy. My car was giving me problems. I had to do something with my life. Expeditiously.
I thought out the idea to be a nurse, like my mother. I didn't really want to spoon food people all day. I really didn't want to smell old people fart all day. I knew that I didn't want to be someone's only care. What if someone died on me? Holy Christ, I couldn't take that kind of pressure. I thought about going to college, about getting my associate's degree in English, but the year was 2007 and the gas prices were ridiculous. The pay to live was ridiculous and I didn't want to have to make the decision one day of eating dinner or paying for an atrociously priced English book. I even thought about film school. I love movies. I love bossing people around... Bingo! I'll be a film director! I'll be the black female version of Stephen Spielberg! But film school was too far away from home. Film school cost $75,000...a year. And even if I did finish school and got a degree, there was no guaranteed openings for a job. After awhile, I got married and toyed with the idea of being a dental assistant. They made awesome money. I needed awesome money. But life happened and I had to quit school. I stared longingly at my computer screen one lonely afternoon, and dusted off an old manuscript. Oh, well. Back to page one, I guess.
So this year, I've published some work on a website called Smashwords.com. People come across my crazy titles and they become interested. They download my work for free, sometimes for a fee, and they leave a review. It's a good feeling knowing that over 900 people have read one short story from me. It let's me know that I'm getting closer and closer to my dream...