Category: Thoughts & Words

Jumbles of words that I felt necessary to release from my brain and put out there…

IT’S HOLIDAY MUSIC TIME

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YES. Time to play holiday music WITHOUT fear of judgement or hatorade from grinches all around. I won’t say this video describes me, but I also won’t say that it does not.

Here we go, the Spotify playlists from the song lists I provided last year, slightly modified. Essentially, I chose the versions of songs that are/came closest to what I hear in my head when I think of these songs. That means either the classic version (often a popularized one) or one that is stripped down to the essentials. (I get a bit annoyed when artists take too many liberties with their vocal add-ons to these songs. Not a fan of super jazzed up holiday songs.) I also tried to keep some variety with the performing artists in these playlists.

ALSO, I will admit this now: I prefer a rich baritone voice for my holiday songs. I know that most of my choices are men and not women, but I think that’s because yes, I grew up listening to Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra singing these songs so that’s how I have internalized them.

I had a hard time with many of these. Sometimes, I just couldn’t find THE perfect version. (Spotify also doesn’t have everything. Where’s the Bing Crosby+Davie Bowie doozy, Spotify?!) Maybe next year, I’ll make sure to have all the mp3s I want and put up an 8tracks list, as requested. Next week, I’ll recommend some of my favorite Christmas albums if you would prefer the homogenized listening experience of one artist. (I own a few of them, so I definitely understand if you want to wrap yourself up and listen to one voice serenade you.)

I also made several concessions to my cousin, with whom I share a love of holiday music (you should see us racing to name the artists’ rendition on the radio) but who loves Taylor Swift way more than I do so NO TAYLOR SWIFT ON THIS LIST SORRY CUZ.

Anyway, here’s the Spotify playlists:

“Snow & Bells”

Happy, cheerful holiday music that makes you smile and want to sing along to, these songs have a  bright tone that evokes the image of falling snow and jingling bells, going ice skating and sleigh rides. Includes most classic carols.

“Fireplaces & Cocoa”

Feel that? That’s these songs tugging at your heartstrings, making you tear up. But it feels like sipping a mug of hot cocoa while sitting in front of a fireplace while wrapped in a cozy blanket.

“Wordless Wonderland”

Wintry, holiday pieces that are a little tricky to sing along to, due to there being no lyrics, but somehow I still manage. These are good if you can’t help singing along but it is not convenient to do so, e.g. at work, etc. (Mostly Nutcracker, not gonna lie.)

“First Christmas”

These are the more religious songs. While I am not personally a Christian, I appreciate these songs that celebrate what the first Christmas was originally about. It wouldn’t quite be Christmas without these songs.

“Christmas is for Children”

This is a collection of songs that are really more geared for kids. I have a lot of fond memories singing these songs with my middle school choir for roaring audiences of elementary school kids. I didn’t want them in that first playlist because they’re a little TOO chipper.

Songs that I have purposefully excluded are:

  • “Feliz Navidad” – Got cut this year because the song is really repetitive and gets old after you hear the verse 3 times. Which is fewer times than you hear it in one playing of the song. Sorry!
  • “Happy Christmas (War is Over)” – Still doesn’t do it or me
  • “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” – Ugh.
  • “Grown-Up Christmas List” – SUPER UGH.
  • “Christmas Shoes” – As someone who enjoys crying to holiday music, this one makes me angry. UGH TO THE MAX.
  • “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas” – Annoying.
  • “All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth” – Also annoying.
  • “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” – I actually kind of like this but it’s pretty condescending towards Africa as a continent and the new Bandaid30 version is not really any better.

But hey, “Santa Baby” got promoted so there ya go. “Seven Feet of Snow” should be on my list but Spotify doesn’t have it so. 😦

Lemme have it, what did I miss? What did I get totally wrong? (If you’re my cousin, you’re not allowed to tell me Taylor Swift.)

Halloween 2014 Costume Reveal!

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Happy Halloween!!!

As I’ve mentioned before, most of why I love Halloween as a holiday so much — despite how much I hate being scared — is that I love dressing up! I think that might even be why I have always been so drawn to acting and, in a past life, modeling. Getting into character is a lot of fun.

For those of you who don’t know, I work with Yelp, and one of my favorite things to do for my job is to dress up for themed events.

At DC’s recent Jet Set Fete, I was a flight attendant / stewardess / air hostess / what have you:

Ready for takeoff!
Ready for takeoff!

It was an easy look to put together once I had the dress and my manager provided the hat. The neckerchief is from my cousin, who works for Princess Cruises, and I thought that the travel-themed silk scarf was perfect.

Last weekend, we had our regional Halloween party. My actual Halloween outfit wasn’t quite ready yet, so I took some inspiration from Britney Spears and was a ringmaster:

Britney Spears inspires many of my life choices
Britney Spears inspires many of my life choices

I saw a ringmaster costume on my roommate’s Pinterest as she was looking for costumes of her own. I knew that I had a red blazer and that all I needed was a hat. I found the perfect one at Party City and it stays on my head via the headband it’s attached to. Perfect.

Now it took me some time to arrive on my Halloween costume. As I told you all before, I had to give up on some costume ideas that I was really set on this year. Since I have been doing Disney outfits the past 2 years, I thought it only right to do another one. After all, who doesn’t love a good Disneybound? This time around, I decided to go for a villain rather than a princess:

Complete Ursula Disneybound

I went with this Ursula look and I’m so pleased with how it came out, especially given how I felt like I did this all at the last minute! (I like to start planning in July, so relatively speaking, it was very rushed.) Excuse the hair chalk that got on my dress; it is really unwieldy and mostly just makes me look old. XD

Anyhow, that’s how I will be showing my face in public today! The makeup scares me quite a lot so I’m just avoiding mirrors for a bit. ^^;

What’s your Halloween costume this year?

Quick schedule change

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I’ve been keeping up with this Tuesday/Friday scheduling a lot longer than I thought I could and that makes me so happy!

BUT today I must delay a proper post to tomorrow (will probably delete this post after posting tomorrow) because I’m potentially doing fun things today that I’d love to share with you all. 😀

I do get conflicted about waiting until Tuesday or Friday to share things if they happen on a Sunday or a Wednesday or something. But if I deviate from my schedule, I will still try to have at least 2 posts every week up here 😀

Costume Wishlist

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With 10 days left until Halloween, I find myself really wishing that I could sew or drop mad cash for the costumes of my dreams. I always start thinking about my costume in July because, as I’ve said before, I love dressing up. It’s so much fun for me to be someone else for just a short while. (This is probably why I’ve always been so drawn to theater and acting.)

Here are some ideas I toyed with but, ultimately, decided not to do this year (rediscovering Etsy made it difficult to say no, but re-examining myCostume Wishlist3  budget made it even more difficult to say yes):

Sailor Mars, Sailor Moon


This has been a dream costume for years now. I’ve always wanted to be Sailor Mars for Halloween, ever since I was given VHS tapes of Sailor Moon back in elementary school. I came really close to purchasing this costume, but I got scared off by:

  1. Having to measure myself for a custom-fitted costume, and
  2. The cost of the costume, custom fitting, and shipping

I’m really hoping I can buckle down and get this for next year though, especially considering I’d like to at some point attend a convention in costume. This has been my DREAM Halloween outfit for a long, long time.

Elizabeth, Bioshock Infinite

New Bioshock Infinite Elizabeth Cosplay Dress Costume

I recently finished Bioshock Infinite (yes, very late) and I really enjoyed the game. Of course, I had already started thinking about an Elizabeth cosplay, especially given that her look from the beginning of the game is very Belle-esque (from Beauty and the Beast) and could be adapted that way if I wanted to be lazier/more casual with the costume.

I wasn’t really considering the other outfit, despite my love of corsets, but I don’t think it’s as suited for me. People have amazing cosplays of that Elizabeth, but I really thought the first outfit was more charming.

Ultimately, it was proving really difficult for me to piece together the costume (getting a long enough blue skirt was basically the main struggle) and I decided not this year. Maybe next year, I’ll become better at thrifting or dropping a lot of money on a costume.

(I might still buy myself a bird/cage necklace or choker for funsies. I have a few options sitting in my Etsy favorites and wishlists.)

Ariel’s “Kiss the Girl”/sightseeing dress, The Little Mermaid

You may recall that I absolutely love The Little Mermaid. 2 years ago, I was Hipster Ariel for Halloween.

With a last-minute and unwilling (on both our parts, really) Eric

This year, I played with the idea of doing Ariel’s blue dress, because it’s actually my favorite of her outfits (I don’t like green) and I really wanted to dye my hair red again.

There is no reason her costume should cost so much more than any of the other ones I’ve been looking at?? And yet I could not find this for less than $100 without getting a really cheap fabric. It looks really easy to construct on my own, but again, I ran into problems finding the pieces I wanted, namely a plain black (read: not sexed up) corset and the dang long blue skirt that was vexing me with the Elizabeth outfit!

Simple, adorable, and iconic.

Also, not only were the costumes I found online expensive, but they were also just… I don’t know, they didn’t look very nice! I was really hoping I could pull this one together on my own, but the skirt and corset issues are still plaguing me. I’ll keep looking.

Alas, none of these visions will be coming true this Halloween. I’m left trying to piece together something that will still get me really excited to dress up but I don’t know if I will be excited, having hinged my Halloween dreams on these 3 costumes all year long. Giving up on dreams is hard, ya know?

I did have a successful run as a flight attendant for a Yelp event recently, but I don’t know if I want to do that for Halloween. I am playing with some Disney villain looks, so we’ll see if any of those pan out.

What are you being for Halloween?
Do you have any dream costumes that you might one day put in the time/effort to get?

Grammatical Pet Peeves

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Okay, I just needed to get this off my chest, but there are some grammatical errors that grind my gears:

  • On accident — by accident
  • Chalk full of — chock full of 
  • Bear necessities — bare necessities (I know it’s confusing because the Disney song is sung by a bear but stop)
  • Bare with me — bear with me
  • Peaked her interest — piqued her interest
  • For all intensive purposes — for all intents and purposes
  • Reek the benefits — reap the benefits (What would “reek” the benefits even mean???)
  • Sneak peak — sneak peek
  • Doesn’t phase me — doesn’t faze me
  • Should of – should’ve/should have (applies to the entire “-ould” coven)
  • Wheelbarrel — wheelbarrow (I know, this one blew my mind but ’tis true; trust your spellchecker here)
  • Pour over a book — pore over a book

These are the ones I could think of for now. I know that sometimes meanings change with how the language is used, but sometimes that’s ridiculous, isn’t it? (See: “literally”) These are little things that are common mistakes, many that are very easy to make and maybe difficult or even unreasonable to change. But oh well!

Are there any grammatical mistakes that drive you a little crazy?