Best Death Cab for Cutie songs

In the interest of being a hipster, I decided this was necessary.

1. Marching Bands of Manhattan (Plans). I've been in love with this song since like 2006 (it came out in 2005 nbd). Its message changed over time to me but the beautiful repetition only got more intense. Words cannot express my love of it.
2. Title and Registration (Transatlanticism). I don't know when I discovered this but it was a revelation to me and again it got better with time. I don't know anything about music if you couldn't guess this already but it's like gahhhhhhhhmazing.
3. Brothers on a Hotel Bed (Plans). I just recently discovered how much I love this song. It's like one of the songs that was always playing in the background and I always found it pleasant but I never really listened to it. There's so much about growing up/old and hopes and dreams and it just applies to so many kinds of change. Love.
4. Grapevine Fires (Narrow Stairs). Ok, I was one of those people slightly disappointed in this album but not entirely imbued with hate toward it. Basically the first song I took away from it was this one, and recently the whole thing's been growing on me but this is still a standout. It's haunting and beautiful and about something that actually happened, so kind of a departure from all of the failed relationship songs.
5. I Will Follow You into the Dark (Plans). Well obviously I am in love with this song. But it's one of those loves where I'm comfortable with it and not seriously engaged by it anymore, so while it's still stellar, it doesn't affect me the same as it used to because I've loved it for so long. Whereas some of the other songs grow like crazy, this one has stayed solid for me. Maybe that's because I've become more interested in the poppy ones, like number 6!
6. No Sunlight (Narrow Stairs). I can't get enough of this song. It's super cute. Like I said I've been developing a major crush on this album.
7. The New Year (Transatlanticism). I feel the need to hear this every New Year's day. And also every time I want to just jump into an awesome song. Bladjfkangiag awesomeness.
8. Someday You Will be Loved (Plans). I have mixed feelings toward this song...both awesomeness and sadness I suppose, but anyway, I really like it and it makes me feel like Ben Gibbard's a jerk, which I don't think he really is but I like letting myself think it. At least he cares enough to sing this song?
9. The Sound of Settling (Plans). Not going to lie, numbering gets more difficult here, so I'm going to stop trying to justify how I quantify my love of the rest of these songs. But this one's a classic, and it's so lovely and carefree while about such a seemingly awful thing. Maybe I like it more than a number 9 spot, but it is one of those that's easy to pass by because it's so classic.
10. A Lack of Color (Transatlanticism). I really just love the lyrics of this song but I mean the instrumentals aren't bad either. It's grown on me.

OTHER AWESOME ONES:

• Tiny Vessels + Transatlanticism (you shouldn't listen to these apart from one another)
• What Sarah Said
• Different Names for the Same Thing
• Death of an Interior Decorator
• I Will Possess Your Heart
• Crooked Teeth
• Your New Twin Sized Bed
• I Was a Kaleidescope
• Pictures in an Exhibition
• Army Corps of Architects

In the interest of full disclosure, I believe "best" comes about in your mind as a function of both which album you listened to first and which album you listen to most (which is not independent, since it's based on your previously established "likes"). I heard Plans first so it's become my favorite for sentimental reasons and because I've heard it so many times since those sentimental times. And also this doesn't include the first two albums because I lost them when I transferred my music to my laptop, but they're a distinctly different sound and like I said my first exposure was Plans so it became my baseline of Death Cab's sound. Nbd.

So excited for Codes and Keys!

Things I don't understand

• tumblrs all about fashion. how many jean shorts, ripped leggings and pictures of people in them smoking can there be? and how is that fashion? and how is that relevant to life?
• how to write those brackets in math. like I understand how, I'm just no good at them.

...except it totally wasn't the end

Things that aren't awesome but should be:

• Popular blogs. People start writing things in all the same way and it makes me feel like I'm suffocating. There's just a jbalinbiajfaness about it when people think they have actual readers. Good thing that's not me.
• The Titanic. This goes both ways. The cruise kind of sucked halfway through. And the movie was way too long. Now it has a certain allure and I have seen it a few times, but I still have to say that it's not awesome. Just depressing. Not in the love lost sense, but in the why did she waste her life pining away for him sense. EVERY NIGHT IN MY DREAMS? That would be creepy.
• Baby animals. They're cute in picture form. But in real life they take a lot of care, and then they grow up and that're not that cute and you still have to clean up after them.
• Leaves. They should be totally fun to play in, but not if you're afraid of caterpillars and worms and fungus. Like, if you get a big enough pile it should be awesome, but for it to get that big either you have to do a lot of work (and then a lot of cleanup work afterwards) or let it grow on its own and also grow questionable smells. Just saying. Not that awesome.
• Winter break being longer in college than in high school. Yay, high school graduates say, a longer break from school! No. Not if you are a twamp. School cannot resume fast enough. Break is approximately three weeks too long. Not awesome.
• Amusement parks. THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO AMUSE YOU. And then you spend half the time in line, and it's too hot or it's too cold and everything's overpriced and no one wants to do the same things. No thank you.
• Dinosaurs. Don't get me wrong, I think dinosaurs as an idea are really baller, they like terrorize the earth and they're all scary and green and mythic and whatnot. But awesome? I don't know. They kind of died off. Like, all of them, not just some of the species. And if they did still live, we probably wouldn't have survived, and we definitely wouldn't have all of this technology because we'd spend our resources on trying to kill the dinosaurs.

My next post will be way more interesting than either of these because it will contain both awesome and supposed-to-be awesome items, and it'll be like a quiz! But more awesome than sporcle.

Things that are awesome

• Mean Girls - it never gets old!
• Neil Patrick Harris
• Bacon
• Peppermint and chocolate perfectly combined (like in a Thin Mint or a Peppermint Mocha!)
• Exclamation points!!
• Harry Potter
• Penguins
• Pokemon Red
• Lord of the Rings - seriously never gets old unless you watch it five times in a row...it's happened
• Mulan
• Striped long sleeve shirts from Old Navy
• Toe socks
• Star Wars
• Newspapers
• Scarves
• Monopoly
• LOST - you can seriously watch them all five times it's not too much
• Gmail
• Homestar Runner
• Vanilla Coke
• Leaving people videos on Facebook
• Journals from before you could spell normal words
• Wikipedia! Hours of entertainment!
• Night Marisa!!!!!!!!

If anyone wants to know how to make me smile, reference anything from this list. Or just show me a picture of a meerkat. THE END.

2010 in review

SPRING:

New Years day at Grandma's & seeing Avatar and getting a headache at it & FINALLY seeing Muna & seeing Fantastic Mr. Fox & visiting old friends and going into school & watching the Golden Globes & the new Project Runway & watching Lost with Megan & my first real dance party & the Olympics (and that hockey final and dinner afterwards) & Monroe lunches & getting IHOP with small group and going ice skating with IV & making cupcakes for Monroe & campus golf & squircle dinners & DC with Jamie Andrea Jessica and Samatar & Shutter Island & meeting Dani & becoming friends with Kelliann and Emily & Dance Marathon (VELOCIRAPTORS) and how we slept in except for Diana and how I had to go to dinner when I woke up & being pretty with Danyah & getting overrides & the awesomeness that is adventuring with Marynn & Wren 10s & lunch bunch & changing into my King and Queen's dress like five times & Pancake House & Sleeperstar and cupcakes and movies & finals and tooooo muchhhh mountain dew

SUMMER:

ROCKBRIDGE and becoming retreat friends with Jenn and actual friends with Katie & the LOST FINALE with people who knew it and people who didn't & getting dinner with the Zingers (they have a BABY) then moving into Jamestown with Jamie and watching Whip It which is not a game & becoming friends with Taylor and hanging with the summer gang & trashy playlists and so many adventures in cars (me calling shotgun) & Cake Boss and Toddlers&Tiaras with Taylor and Will & cup wars!!! & trying to do research and going to the beach instead & pretending to follow the world cup & free cheese shop & going to the zoo and getting cupcakes with Kaveh & shopping for Shevy's father's day present & making goat soap & seeing Inception and the Mets beating the Nats and so many fireworks with Chelsea & changing three times in one day with Katie & summer small group & CHICAGO and Jamie and Julia & Langton and the Cardinals and coffee and more Project Runway & Ethan and pizza & taking Mom to Georgetown & seeing Something Corporate with Ross and Megan and then the second half of the event & actually getting Chipotle with Czaplyski & catching up with Mrudula & seeing Maroon 5/Owl City at Jiffy Lube Live lolol Leah & finally getting a cheesecake dinner with our group

FALL:

moving in and skyping Abby and rearranging the room with Katie and bringing the ginge some food from the cookout & screen on the green & DOUBLE DOWNS & starting out small group with Maggie and apples to apples & the one time Jessie and I actually watched Veronica Mars & the bacon party & the pasta party & meals with Medina & rush week and pledge meetings & meeting the geology department and stargazing with Jamie and Night Marisa & Kaila's birthday & NEW STUDENT RETREAT and meeting so many new kids & testing out fed challenge & Kennis's baptism and bacon yummies with Emily and Jamie & a-fam dinners and bowling & green&gold & adopting Marigene and Kris & learning about rocks with Diana & chick flick sundays & doing Diana's clue with Jamie & lunches with Maggie & Jamie's birthday & working on my monroe project with Julia and Megan & coming up with halloween costume ideas with LJ (and our later contemplation) & Fiona's homebrew and being late & trick or treating & hanging with Carolyn and doodling with LJ & quitting NaNo & having four halloween costumes & the cider run with Chelsea & our Monroe reunion dinner & Expressions and formal & Melanie visiting (sarcasm) & skyping Lisa and Muna and Chelsey & M&M DD which happened like twice & Fakesgiving and the epic group chat & the special social & meeting with Sarah Parks & fall conference & seeing Deathly Hallows & a blue clue week and a lulzy revelation and a-big points and escort & eating pie and looking at Walex's pictures with Natalie & Krismas with a K & West Wing Wednesdays & exam craziness with Abby & our suite Christmas & ChrisDao's profile pictures & my small groupies :)

WINTER:

as in the last week...making Megan's mix cd & getting lunch with Ashley & making fudge & shopping with Chelsea & setting up the tree & LJ's phone call :)

My novel lolol

So...I've decided to let people read my most recent novel. And by most recent, I mean the one from 2009. I started a novel this year and it turned into a lengthened short story and it never really went anywhere so I quit at around 11,000 words (which is granted a huuuuuuge short story). So I have a few things to say about it (if you recall this is the one about space/time travel).

If you want to read it, I'll email it to anyone over winter break. Just ask! The only thing that I ask is that you let me know what you thought about it! Writing is about a) expressing something inside of you and b) stirring up emotions and thoughts in your reader. I know I succeeded at a), but I'd like to know what kinds of things people get from reading it.

So with that in mind, here are a few of my thoughts on it. First of all, I started re-reading it and I actually don't mind most of it. Usually I hate reading my old writing because I'm like WHY AM I SO STUPID THAT'S NOT A THING. But in this case I was like, huh, that's kind of cool. I mean some of it is stupid because I started out thinking that I was writing one kind of novel and then it turned into another kind of novel. By which I mean that the journalist subplot at the end was entirely made up at the end to fill up some space and give some semblance of a resolution. I think it works okay and it also explains the random poems and introduction as some upstarty journalist who thinks that she can write prose, and in that way it's self-mocking and I kind of like that about it. Slash really like that about it. It's kind of a good out for bad writing.

Also, I intended on doing something with an event horizon and them literally getting caught on like a black hole or whatever and then having the question of whether they're in a reality or whether they can contact the outside world or not. I mean, you can still take that as a possible outcome of it I guess but I never emphasized that because I'm so passive in my writing style and it's all in them recounting the story so they're all biased narrators. I really wanted to play with that and have one of them outright lying about a lot of things but I kind of got lazy and that takes a lot of planning.

Also I am obviously in love with Alexandre. He's clearly my favorite and I always wanted to switch over to him but I forced myself to write from the other's view points as much as possible so I didn't run out of his parts. I mean, he's a dreamboat, everyone's in love with him, and he's such an intellectual and romantic and perfect. I tried to not make him too perfect but come on. He's fantastic. Andy's cool and all but I pictured this really pompous guy in my head for him (like Jeremy Renner with a bad attitude and obviously no mustache as that would be gross). Also kind of Woody from Toy Story. Speaking of which, the pilot (this is terrible I don't remember my character's name) looks like Kenneth from 30 Rock in my head. I don't know how other people pictured him...oh yeah and David (yeah? is that his name?) is like the cover of Richard Rodriguez's Hunger of Memory with a smaller nose. I don't even know what I had in mind for old guy. Oh man. I actually really like this novel as a whole which is strange because I hate a lot of it too, but that's just me fishing for compliments so pay me no mind.

Being twenty

So now that I'm pretty old, I think I'm pretty responsible too. I just came up with a list of twenty things to be responsible for over the next 364 days, and this blog post is now timestamped evidence of the fact that I at one point thought that this would be a manageable goal. It's certainly a good plan. We'll see where it goes.