spinninghead

What my subject line says. Yeah. I'm pretty damn happy as of late. My job rocks, my boyfriend rocks, dancing rocks, teaching lindy rocks, and I actually have free time now that I'm not a student. I have time to read for pleasure! And draw! And listen to music and get all fangirl-y over a band again!

I was thinking to myself last week, "I'm going to miss this place," while walking around in SF. Then I thought to myself, I'm probably going to be thinking the same exact thing in a year about Shanghai. I hope so. And then I'll come back to SF and be happy to be back because I will have missed it.

I just had a really nice weekend. Rudy came and spent most of it with me here in SF, and we spent most of yesterday just relaxing. Went and saw Captain America (cheesy, but not as bad as Green Lantern), napped, went dancing for a bit, and then today we slept in, went to Farmer's Market, and went out for coffee. He had to be back down in Palo Alto to return his co-worker's rats to him this afternoon (he had been taking care of the rats while the co-worker was out of the country), so I've spent the rest of today chilling, listening to music, drawing, and getting more and more into Company of Thieves, my current favorite band.

Yes, I said "favorite band." That's the first time I've said this about any band since The Benjamin Gate. Well, basically Genevieve sounds almost exactly like Adie, but Company of Thieves plays really good rock music, while Adie went the boring route and started making music that sounds exactly like her husband, Jeremy Camp's music. It's sad... she's really not challenging herself as a singer. Oh, well, I guess she's happy at least, and I found a replacement. :P I'm going to see Company of Thieves this month on the 28th and I'm super excited. I just hope I find someone else to go with, cos I feel awkward going to concerts by myself. I bought an extra ticket, and now I'm looking for someone to give it to.

BTW, here's a video of them in case you're interested:


I am planning on visiting my parents in a couple of weeks, basically right before the Company of Thieves concert. I am going to go down there on Thursday, August 25th, and return on Sunday the 28th to go see Company of Thieves. I'm also going to see my friend Mariel get married on the 27th in Creston, so that'll be awesome. I haven't seen her in a long time, and hopefully I will see some of my other old high school friends there. :)

Gonna go back to drawing now... hoping to finish this drawing finally that I started ages ago!

Day 15: my favorite American Idol winner.

My favorite American Idol winner is Kris Allen, hands down. I do not listen to his music now, but he was definitely great to watch and listen to when he was on the show, and he was my favorite all the way back from the top 20, and then he won the show. :)



Day 1: a picture of the city I was born in.
Day 2: a picture of my favorite animal.
Day 3: a YouTube video.
Day 4: a song I want played at my wedding.
Day 5: my ideal future career.
Day 6: my favorite quote.
Day 7: my favorite recipe.
Day 8: a picture of the last place I visited.
Day 9: a photo I took.
Day 10: a silly photo of me.
Day 11: the name of my elementary school.
Day 12: a photo of me taken recently.
Day 13: a list of all the places I’ve lived.
Day 14: my day, in great detail.
Day 15: my favorite American Idol winner.
Day 16: my best friend.
Day 17: a hobby of mine.
Day 18: a place I’ve never visited but want to.
Day 19: the first wedding/funeral I've been to.
Day 20: someone who shares the same birthday as me.
Day 21: a place I see myself in 5 years.
Day 22: my favorite website.
Day 23: my favorite boy name.
Day 24: my favorite athlete from my favorite sport.
Day 25: my guilty food pleasure.
Day 26: my favorite form of exercise.
Day 27: my favorite television program.
Day 28: a picture of what I wore today.
Day 29: something that inspires me.
Day 30: a song I wish I knew the words to.

Rudy and I went to see a fellow blues dancer perform her music last night, and I really loved her show! Her name is Carsie Blanton. I had heard some of her music before, and I was interested to hear more, and I'm glad I got to! Unfortunately, she was just the opening act of the concert, so she didn't do a very long set, but it was awesome to see her. I got to meet her and Rudy and I bought all 3 of her CDs. :) You guys should check out her music. It's playful and cute and kind of folk, kind of I don't know... but just listen for yourself!

Check out my friend Jessie's band, Musical Charis! I really like their music and am hoping to see them live this Saturday. :)

The Life - musical charis from Musical Charis on Vimeo.

1) Reply to this post and I'll assign you a letter.
2) List (and upload, if you feel like it) 5 songs that start with that letter.
3) Post them to your journal with these instructions

bojojoti gave me the letter M:

1. "Mary" by Sarah McLachlan
2. "Moondance" by Michael Bublé or Lyambiko
3. "Move to Bremerton" by MxPx
4. "Make You Dance" by Squad Five-0
5. "My Girl" by The Temptations

That was harder than I expected!

I'm finally selling another piece of my art! So excited about it. My friend Scott is going to buy the portrait of Sandra Bullock that won me $45 in the Mid-State Fair:

and he's paying me $30 for it, which is actually a tad more than I asked him for it. He also really wants to buy the one of my feet in pointe shoes:

but doesn't quite have the money yet, so I'm setting it aside for him for whenever he does. :D

I can really use the money, and it excites me that these pieces of art will finally find a home. They have just been sitting in a folder, not being seen for a long time. I hope his interest in my art might also spark other people's interest in it... my friend Jocelyn who was over tonight along with him was looking at my art as well. :)

Blues dancing tonight was great, and I had a big group of them come over afterwards for ice cream and tea. Everyone just stayed for a few hours talking and having good conversation, so it was awesome, and just what I needed after a day of missing Aaron a lot. I feel like I'm missing him even more now than I normally do after visits... maybe because this last visit was a particularly good one? I think it has been our best visit so far. :) Anywho, he has a friend visiting this weekend so we'll get to talk whenever he's not busy entertaining her. He at least got to see the Seattle Symphony with her, which is cool.

Tomorrow I'm getting my brake pads changed, and then probably going rock climbing... and hopefully selling the portrait of Sandra to Scott... he's supposed to meet up with me tomorrow and give me the money for it. :) Yay!

I'm almost done with my pair of socks! I think I will finish today, and I will be sure to post photos soon. :)

Today I will also be going to campus to print my poetry manuscript to enter the Sacramento Poetry Center's Book Contest, so that's exciting. :D I'm totally going to win and send copies of my book to you guys (autographed of course :P).

Other than that, I was thinking of going to a dance workshop in Roseville this evening before going to Midtown Stomp, but I'm kind of not feeling like going at this point, partially since I want to have energy for dancing at Midtown and then there's an after-party at my friend Amanda's house for her birthday, where there will be more dancing. Not only that but the workshop was going to be hip-hop and contemporary style dancing... and while I'd like to try more of that stuff and give hip-hop a fresh try, I'm not sure this workshop is the best place to do it since it said it is intermediate level. Lastly, it costs $30, which is more than I'd like to pay for dancing when I've already spent $60 today registering for the Dave and Haley Workshop in SLO. So, I think I shall skip this workshop and keep an eye out for the next one CORE offers.

Yesterday was fun as well. I went to Emeritus at Citrus Heights, where my friend Carly works, cos she had invited me and several other swing dancers to come dance at their renaming ceremony, at which there was a live band. The band was just okay... but at least they did play a few faster than slow-dance songs that we could swing to. I was really happy my friend Rocindo showed up cos he's a LOT of fun to dance with. He and I did a really exhausting but fun dance to a Cherry Poppin' Daddies song that I actually dislike... but the dance was so much fun and he led me in some jumps and such, so it was impressive to those around us and they were all entertained. :) It was great to be there entertaining the elderly. They need some liveliness in their lives and something to keep their minds off their Alzheimer's.

After that Carly was going to join me in going to Tupelo for a "stitch 'n' bitch" group I had found out about through facebook. She was following me there, and then she somehow ended up following the wrong car, so I lost her and she just went home. :/ At least my friend Cortney still joined me, and I taught her how to knit! It was exciting and she did a REALLY good job for a new learner. The group itself was pretty large, with probably about 15 people in total (although some people left early and some showed up late), and everyone was nice and friendly. I will definitely be going back... I won't have much else to do on a Thursday night unless I have homework.

That's all for now. I'm off to knit more and finish these socks!

So, purekatherine was over at my place last night and she told me she was going to see this band called "She and Him"... I had never heard of them, and just kind of shrugged it off. Later on though, I found out that this is the music project of Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward... I have always LOVED Zooey's voice, and I am thrilled to find out she is pursuing music as a career right now. :)

Check them out, it's pretty kickin' music:
http://www.sheandhim.com

I just got their music downloaded and I'm excited to hear all of it. Yay! Thanks, Katherine, for telling me about them! I hope you had an awesome time tonight at their show... I kinda wish I had been there even though I had a great time at blues dancing tonight... :)

Oh my gosh, this weekend is going to rock! Tonight already did, just by default since I went to Midtown Stomp as usual... but there I got a comp ticket to the Sacramento Jazz Jubilee! I wasn't going to go cos it's all expensive and stuff, but Ron gave me a ticket so I could go and give out flyers for Midtown Stomp! YAY! This weekend will consist of awesome jazz music and hopefully some good dancing! Perfect punctuation for a week of final exams!

Oh and I bought some fabric today at Beverly's and I'm going to make some stuff! I already got started on what's going to be a cute cami/tank top type thing, and I have some more cute fabric I can use for things like that, and specifically, I'm going to make a skirt with one of the fabrics I bought... it's like this middle-eastern looking stuff that's green and awesome. YAY! I'm so excited to have time on my hands to create things now! Summer rocks. :)

Aaron is back at home now and went to work for the first day again today aince his eye surgery. :) He wasn't all that thrilled to be going back to work already, I don't think, but at the same time I'm sure he was less thrilled to be falling behind at work. Must have been frustrating to not be able to do anything for about a week due to lack of eyesight. :/ At least he has been recovering nicely. :)

I think that's all for now. I should probably sleep.

It's pouring outside. This doesn't make me feel like doing anything again today. Hmm.

Yesterday Aaron flew to Japan with his family, and he should have arrived at around 4 this morning. I texted him when I got up, asking if he made it there okay, but he hasn't responded. :/ I'm sure he's fine, but it sucks having our communication so limited because of the fact that he's so far away. He'll be there for two weeks.

Last night I went to Harlow's for swing dancing with my friend Cannic, and I had a good time. The Harley White Jr. Orchestra was playing again, and I really like them. I met some nice people, and had some good conversation with a couple ladies. The band stopped playing at 10, so we left shortly after that. It was a nice early time to leave.

I should probably get some reading done today, since I only have so many days left before school starts and I'll have to do all kinds of reading out of books that are forced upon me, rather than for enjoyment. Hopefully I enjoy those some as well, but let's face it, my teachers aren't gonna have me reading Harry Potter. Anyway, I hope you all have a great Tuesday!