I'm Back!

I have been gone for SO long and missed so much here on Blogger. I am sorry and I will not neglect again, at least I will try not to neglect. So much has happened but nothing has happened all at the same time. Lets talk about upcoming things, my schedule is as follows for the next few weeks:

Thursday June 26th- Go to San Francisco for a mini weekend vacation with Heather
Tuesday June 30th- Start new school classes (one of which is Into to Literature!!)
Friday July 3rd- Pick up stranger Webley fan to stay at our house for the weekend, also,attend awesome Webley Extravaganza
Friday July 5th- CAMP TOMATO
Friday July 10th- Leave for San Diego and a day with my brother, Victor
Saturday July 11th-16th- Mexican Cruise with the Long/Sanchez Clan
Friday July 17th- Decemberists/Andrew Bird at Marymoor Amphitheater
Saturday July 18th- Death Cab for Cutie/New Pornographers at Marymoor Amphitheater
Sunday July 19th- Fighting between Lacuna Coil and Neumos or No Doubt (which I have tickets to)

Times are lovely and I feel like I am actually doing things, enjoying life, living. I haven't begun to plan August yet but we have birthday's coming up, maybe new housing to look into, wonderful shows I'm sure are coming. It's going to be fantastic and I promise to be more frequent to update so everyone who can't enjoy it with me can enjoy it through me.

In better news I also purchased a little digital camera so that I can now better document the happenings of life around me. I'm glad to share it. Good day

Bye-Bye

I'm leaving New Mexico today to go back home. It was a nice visit while it lasted. I really enjoyed seeing my friends and family, making plans, going to parties, and hanging out but thankfully it's time to get back to my big, beautiful and very comfortable bed with my larger than life housemates and my slut of a cat. Once I get home my nose will stop bleeding (high altitudes do that), my mouth wont be swollen (dryness issue) and I'll get a good nights sleep (hospital beds=not comfortable). Sorry I was away while I was...well away but I should be back with pictures and poetry for you shortly. Thanks for your patience.

Home Sweet Home

I arrived at the Albuquerque airport at about 11pm last night to 70 degree weather with twelve mile an hour winds. Meanwhile my housemate is freezing in our 50 degree house back in Seattle. Gosh, it's good to be home! Getting home, however, was quite the ordeal. I got my new (and vegan) shoes, had all my bags packed and was ready to go. As I am walking up our hill towards the bus I hear this loud roaring, its awfully familiar but I can't seem to place it until I look up and see my very mode of transportation flying past me. I think, "Well, its only twenty minutes till the next bus. I'll just camp out and listen to my iPod." Wrong. I put headphones and get silence. Wait for it.....silence. I look down to see my iPod listing "no music". check artist "no artist" just nothing at all. Trying not to panic I grabbed my bags and rush back home to load music on to my iPod before the next bus arrives. It's just my luck the itunes decides to crap out on me at exactly the same time and wont load music to my ipod without freezing. I've now missed the second bus and have to call a cab to take me to the airport. The cab shows up within five minutes and I'm left to six hours of travel time with zero music. In addition, I'm trapped on vacation for SIX days without my drug. I just spent 20 minutes listening to Lil' Wayne rap about toilet bowls...it's going to be a long six days....

What I Should Be Doing

Yet again I am twittering, blogging, myspacing, facebooking, all when I should be working. I am going to the great Southwest in two days and haven't done laundry, packed, cleaned my room, finished my three mid-term papers, or secured a ride to the airport. Talk about procrastination. Instead of taking care of business today I worked out (which felt so good, I have to start again), dyed my hair (purple, but it looks black), I went shopping and got a great new skirt (not like me AT ALL), adored various female artists via Rhapsody and Youtube (Tori Amos, Bjork, Jesca Hoop, PJ Harvey, Bat for Lashes) and read some Chuck P. 'Pygmy,' his new book, is taking me much longer than I expected but I just haven't had a whole lot of time to read, as sad as that is. So far though it's good. It's written in a broken thought dialect though so it takes some getting used to. I also haven't had time to blog, which is sad but I will quickly catch you up on the events of my life to this point.

May 2nd- I saw the Shins and this lovely band that opened called Delta Spirit (visit various myspace/websites) They were both really good. It was at Western Washington University up in Bellingham and rained almost the entire time. It was beautiful and cold.

May 4th- I saw my beloved Iron and Wine and Sam Beam will always impress. He was charming and very funny and played very beautifully. It was at Vera Seattle. No suprises there. He gave out free CD's which was totally cool and Yogoman Burning Band (from Bellingham) opened and were AMAZING. I totally suggest checking them out. They will rock your world.

May 8th- Saw Star Trek with Mimi and did enjoy. I totally have a crush on Spock, but only as Spock....is that really weird?

May 10th- Finally got to blog, is thinking about writing music again, and has a new housemate named. JD. These things all make me happyish.

Snail March

So, there's a march for snails rights and I am pretty sure the snails know I love them and would never want to hurt them so they are holding it on my walk way. I know this because it honestly took me 6 minutes to walk up to my door. We have 27 little camouflaged snails in various places along our walk way, its like walking through landmines or laser fields to avoid stepping on them! I am really scared to come back tonight in the dark and might just have to go through the back door because if I hear that little 'crunch' under my feet I will probably start crying and Heather won't be here to comfort me. Snail death is everywhere, people, be cautious!

Take it Slow

So right now I am sitting at my computer my hair conditioning in a towel. I am totally comfortable in my pj pants and my Rush Snakes and Arrows Tour shirt and also so totally grossed out. Don't you hate that feeling when you take a shower and you're covered in pureness only to step into a bedroom drenched in filth? Yuck, I have some cleaning to do. The shower wasn't really all that good at the begining either. I put on some Ani DiFranco and hopped in wanting to scream, cry and drown all at the same time. But I forced myself to sing instead. Amazed at the acoustics in the bathroom and the wonderful way they made me sound 100% in tune with Ms. DiFranco I started to sing much louder and that help me blow off some steam. (Although looking back it may have sounded like a nervous breakdown). Once I was a little more relaxed I started thinking about how to calm myself and how we don't live these very short lives to always want to cry, scream, and drown unless its because we are so happy, excited, in love, loved ect. The joy in life is the little things. Like Tuesday I was so frustrated and short fused and was running late to work, this seemed to bother more than it does every other day of the week that I run late, and I stomped out of the house hardly saying bye to my housemate but somehow this small snail (Above) caught my attention mid attitude stride. I stopped and watch it ignoring the time and even snapped a few pictures. As my pace slowed I noticed the other six or seven snails linning out my walk way. As I got in my car and slowly began to pull away I looked in my rearview mirror and there was this stumpy little dog chasing his heart out after my car having the time of his life. I couln't help but smile. These are small things that we forget and shouldn't. Then theres the other bigger things like how my housemate/very good friend is super nice to be even when I have been a complete jerk lately and is totally trustworthy, or how even though I could have lost my job today by being a meany, at least i have a job to lose and I am not one of the people who I talk to everyday out of work. I am making friends like freaky Walter, or Aaron who I am going to Chicago with, or even Lewis who me and Heather have the pleasure of housing for Jason Webley and Tomato Camp. (http://www.jasonwebley.com/) and I get to see both the Shins and Iron and Wine (check out respective websites/myspaces) within the next five days. I have so much good around me that I can focus on. So, anyway, today I think my sick day was very successful in being a healer and I am writing, working on papers, cleaing being productive and doing everything to not be angry.

Concerts and Writing

Hey people of the world. I hope you all are well. I am working on my shorts today. Also, I plan to work on some poems and uploading/revamping my website valerielongwriting.com. I haven’t been able to work on it in so long, so today I am going to get some new stuff up there and make sure that its running again. I will probably post some poetry up here as well. Wednesday night I went to Cold War Kids. The show was really great. It started with Crystal Antlers, a band from California that reminded me oddly of some Mars Volta with an emo twist. I’m not really sure why though….They were good nonetheless and had great on stage presence. They had a lot of instrumental breaks so I enjoyed that greatly. Then Cold War Kids came on and stole the night like I knew they would. They are all so energetic its tiring just to watch them play! Speaking of concerts, I am going to Lollapalooza in August and am beyond excited. I have been planning and researching places to stay, planes, trains, automobiles
:) its going to be a short but joyous vacation and I get to see Animal Collective, Tool, Decemberists, Coheed and Cambria, Builders and Butchers, Jane’s Addiction, Cold War Kids and more for a multiple time and Depeche Mode, Bat for Lashes, Ben Harper, Atmosphere and so many more for the first time. Plus, I get to visit Chicago :) Aw, so many things, so little time and money for that fact but where there’s a will there’s a way. Anyway I better get back to cleaning my house, doing my laundry and putting pretty words on computer paper.