You are a dinosaur!

As my friend and ex-roommate PJ has moved out of our place to live with her boyfriend, we've spent the last few weeks showing the empty room to potential new tenants. It's always a strange experience, when you're the one who happens to be home when the doorbell rings, because while you're showing the empty room and answering questions about the house, the neighborhood and the experience of living here, what you're really doing is sizing each other up. Imagining a future in which you live together and deciding whether or not that image is working in your mind.

Anyway, after showing the room to a whole plethora of different personality types, a boy named Johnny has decided to move in. When he came by to look at the room, both Justin and I were home, and while we only spoke for a few minutes, he seemed generally agreeable, fun, but not too needy or expectant of partying and/or roommate bonding time. We do spend a lot of time together in our house (hanging out in the living room, going out together for drinks), but we're still all the sort of people who need our down time, without other people bringing their friends and their kegs into the living room and demanding you do as many shots as you can while standing on your head in the time it takes everyone else to sing the national anthem.

I have no idea if that's what people actually do at keg parties, haha, I've never been to one. Basically Johnny seems like a solid dude, but you never know about new roommates. So we'll see how things go, as he moves in just over a week from now.


I asked people on twitter today for blogging topic suggestions, so I am going to hit a few of those right now.

@jrg1990 asked me about the Hunger Games. As the newest (and final) book in the saga comes out this evening at midnight, I suppose I can talk about it. It's funny, because people always tell me they read Harry Potter or found 5AG or the vlogbrothers or my videos at a hard time in their lives and it helped them get through it -- I never fully appreciated that experience until it happened to me. Last summer, as those of you who've been reading my blog that long know, was kind of a tough one for me. I was a girl with starry-eyed dreams of the future, and when things didn't turn out the way I expected them to, I spent a very long time feeling trapped and alone in a foreign place, cut off from the people I know could have made that experience easier for me.

Ever the bookworm, I instead turned to "Waterstone's" for support. It was in the UK where I first read the Hunger Games, and reading about Katniss' terrible fortune, her struggle in the arena, her mishaps with the Capitol; all of those things were so much worse than my predicament that I was completely able to lose myself in the story. The books are so enthralling that they made a lot of my hurt go away, and replaced it with a burning appreciation for how affecting literature can be.

Anyway, the point is I have been waiting a long time for this book, and I am so, so excited to read it. I haven't felt this way about a book since Harry Potter, and the added thrill of knowing I am going to a midnight release party brings back some of that excitement from my HP book release days. And that is a feeling I never thought I would get back, after Deathly Hallows. The whole experience of Mockingjay coming out is such a mix of excitement, nostalgia, gratitude and sentimentality. I can't wait.

@JustinTime6323 asked me about music. For someone who is in more than one band, I realized I don't actually talk about music or my favorite bands very often.

I have had a lot of people in my life (friends, exboyfriends, people online) that influenced my music tastes, and I have never been one to say "that band isn't cool anymore" or "I'm so sick of that band". I hold most of my favorites dear, even if I discovered them years ago.

Bands that have been with me for a while but are still among my favorites are Rilo Kiley, Eisley, Muse, Sondre Lerche, Kings of Convenience, Sigur Ros, Paramore, No Doubt, Regina Spektor, Tilly and the Wall, Muse, Metric, Owl City, The Blow, Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly., The Shins, the Postal Service, Feist, the Hush Sound and the Format.

As for music I have been listening to and/or discovered more recently (like in the last year), I would say Ingrid Michaelson (I have been listening to song from her album "Everybody" pretty much every morning while I get ready for the day), the Tings Tings, Kate Nash, Lily Allen, Greg Holden, Imogen Heap, Jason Mraz, Hey Monday, and La Roux.

And I'm going to go ahead and throw Ke$ha in here, because even though most people hate her, I think her songs are (mostly) hilarious. She has a whole song about accusing someone of being a dinosaur, guys. I'm aware she means an old man hitting on her, but I prefer to imagine she means the literal definition.

I also really like soundtracks. I love the Across the Universe soundtrack probably more than any other soundtrack in existence, but other favorites include Prince Caspian, A Series of Unfortunate Events, Juno, Josie and the Pussycats, and nothing could ever really top my age-old love affair with the A Walk to Remember soundtrack. Or the music from Pokémon. And a lot of my favorite musicals.

I'll save the rest of your blogging suggestions for tomorrow, because I need to go meet my friend Karly for Thai food right now! Let me know if we like any of the same bands, or if you know of any I might enjoy based on my collection of favorites. :)

Last google search: "ruffled ascot"
Chipotle burritos: 17