My sister and I are making a new blog. This is just a prototype, but we think it has potential. We'd love your input. Your pet peeves are probably our pet peeves. Like for instance, the word pet peeves.

On Goings and Goings On

Long time no blog; the summer's been busier than I had initially planned on. I have yet to determine if this this a good thing or a bad thing. Looking at my bank account, I'm gonna take the high road and say it's a good thing.

For those of you who don't know, my [basically full-time] job is making soap. Yes. I make soap. Before you read any further, get the whole Fight Club notion out of your head because it's not that glorious. There's a scientific method to it, but it does not involve rendering fat. It's much simpler and I'm planning on making more entries about it. My experiences at work that is, not the whole soap-making process, that's actually kind of boring. The store I work at is located at The Factory in Franklin, an old warehouse that's been converted into a hoity-toity shopping center. This building also serves as a venue for weddings, corporate conventions and other frivolous events. One in particular involved Gary Allan performing an exclusive pre-CMA Fest show. The crowd, which consisted mostly of 40-something-year-old women wearing low-cut band T-shirts and cowboy boots, only further reminded me that I live in the South.

I'm still recovering for Bonnaroo. It was an experience to say the least. When you get a chance, read this to get a taste for some of the acts I saw. For more on what I couldn't publish on the site, continue reading.

It was unorganized chaos littered with thousands of unbathed hippies, overpriced food, all in the sweltering heat....and yet I can't really think of a time when I've had more fun. Yes I complained a hell of a lot and yes Quinton and I bickered like a married couple, but thinking back on it now I wouldn't change a thing other than bringing, oh...ya know...an air conditioned tour bus. Seriously though, the music made it all worth it. Sitting with Quinton one night just soaking it all in, it was an indescribable high (pun intended).

Dan Deacon was playing directly in front of us, Kaskade was spinning to the right of us. Dead Mouse fans sat on our other side, their masks attracting curios passersby. It's crazy to think we literally just saw Jay-Z perform a couple hundred feet away. Bonnaroo is a like a small city. And just like New York, it NEVER sleeps. Nothings out of the ordinary here and anything goes. [The boob count was around 14 if you were wondering]. Everywhere I looked, all I saw were grins. Either these kids were high as a kite or just literally in their element. I'm assuming it was both.

Standing in the press area (hot damn did I feel legit) watching Regina tinker on the piano, nodding to Wayne Coyne as he walked by, followed closely by writers of NPR, Esquire and numerous other publications, it made me realize how much I love my job sometimes. Taking shelter from the heat in the almost-unbearibly air conditioned press tent, people were hunched over computers, writing, editing, emailing, tweeting...

The mass of cellphones in the corner vibrated and rang like a nest of baby birds, their cords fighting for outlet space. A journalist was passed out on the now grimy couch, a copy of the daily printed Bonnaroo newspaper covering his face. John Fogerty might have been doing soundcheck at that moment, but this nap was way more important.

World News

I have enough money for a plane ticket. I'm buying one and going somewhere far away. Alone.

The question is...

to where?

"Why are we so full of restraint? Why do we not give in all directions? Is it fear of losing ourselves? Until we do lose ourselves there is no hope of finding ourselves." - Henry Miller

narcissist

I wish you would just swallow your pride.

Because I miss you too.

Jack of all trades, master of none

I was sitting watching Henry play guitar today and it kind of got me down. Not his playing; he's awesome at it. I just came to the realization that I'm not particularly good at anything, and come to think of it, I never really have been. My parents never coerced me into playing sports, but even if they had I'm pretty sure the other kids would have gotten injured due to my lack of hand-eye coordination. I did ballet for about 9 years, but 5 of those years I was forced to do so and I was the class clown and never took anything seriously. Not to mention, pointe is the most excruciating thing to endure, I like being able to walk thank you very much. They never forced me to play an instrument (I only played the clarinet in 8th grade so that I could go on the Disney trip).

I look at my friends and I see that some are exceptional photographers. Others are awesome at rock climbing. A few are out of this world musicians. Everyone has their forte. What's mine? I like writing, but it's just something I'm always doing, not necessarily excelling at. Sometimes I'm scared I only picked my major because if I wasn't doing journalism...I don't know what the hell I'd be doing. Does everyone have unnerving thoughts like this? Or is everyone in this mindset of "well thank God I'm freakishly good at circular breathing, I have no doubts about my oboe playing abilities"?

I'm tired of being a generalist, at best. I'm relatively competent at a lot of things but not outstanding at anything. I want an awesome talent. Something that makes me distinguishable.

"Oh that's Emma. She is INSANE at (water polo/tightrope walking/neurosurgery)."

Gotta love GQ magazine.

Dear (Possibly Doomed) Class of 2010:

Well, you finally made it. You graduated! You spent four years (or eight, or ten–no judgments!) and eleventy billion dollars of your parents’ money, and now you’re a bunch of learned-ass adults.

Now for the bad news. You’re joining the workforce in the middle of a jobless recovery, which is basically the O’Doul’s of economic rallies. It’s no picnic out here. Or, okay, it’s a picnic, but it’s a Cormac McCarthy The Road type of picnic, there’s not enough canned peaches in the shopping cart, and everybody’s calling dibs on the one bullet. And also there are fire ants.

Mighty institutions people once took for granted–banks, newspapers, American Idol–are crumbling, and while most of them deserve to, the problem with a world without mighty institutions is that mighty institutions used to employ a lot of people. You could always get The Man to finance your lifestyle. No more. That unpaid internship you’ve got your eye on? Be prepared to flight somebody for it. Possibly your dad.

You’ve never known hardship. You’ve also never lived in a world without Intenet, which means you’ve grown up with an exaggerated sense of your own self-importance. You posted ‘response’ videos on YouTube; poured out your every typeable thought on a glittering, blinking MySpace page.

You had access to all the machinery of self-promotion before you really had a self. You thought of fame as a birthright. And now you’ve been booted into a world that will LOL at your sense of awesome-life-entitlement, then offer to ‘hire’ you to blog for free.

Having a thousand Facebook friends means about as much in 2010 as a personalized-license-plate key chain meant in 1990. We live in a moment when anybody can make a name for themselves; the game you’re suiting up for is about making that name matter.

- GQ

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So who's excited about graduating???!!!!????

Wide Eyes

"All the men of faith and men of science had their questions.

Could it ever be on earth as it is in heaven?"