Cuz hugs are overrated just FYI

Joe at the time I jumped on the JoBro train. 

I used to tie my entire identity with  a band. In middle school, I wore my Jonas Brothers t-shirt every Friday like a badge of honor. I would post stupid Facebook updates, make posters to hang up on my walls, I even spent the majority of my free time writing thinly veiled Mary-Sue fan fiction about dating Joe Jonas.

And me at the time, a real dweeb. 

The day I fell in love with Joe Jonas (and the other two, mostly because I sort of had to) is still one of the best memories I'll ever keep. I remember the moment he walked out on stage and I felt my insides burst into a white hot flame at this ridiculous 18 year old boy. 

That was nine years ago, which has me feeling all sorts of weird feelings. I have this tendency to compare myself and the stages I'm in within my life to where Joe was when he was my age. It makes my head spin to think about my 13-year-old self idolizing a 20-year-old dude and thinking he was a full fledged grown up. He was a pop star at 18 while I was an obsessive high school newspaper editor. When he was 20, he was working on his not so great solo album. I'm drowning in stats homework.

October always makes me wax nostalgic about life when I was a weird little dweeb whose biggest concern was making it home from school in time to catch the boys on Ellen.

I'm still a dweeb. Just less obvious.

Growing up is weird, but it's been strange comforting to grow up alongside a band that still holds a special place in my heart. My celebrity crush has also been an older brother to me. He has no clue who I am, but we've grown up together. He was there for me every good time and every bad one. I don't know the "real" him, but his persona has always been so open and honest that I feel like I do. When girlfriends broke his heart, I felt for him. When boys broke mine his music was there as a comfort. It's a beautiful thing that I will always been so grateful for.

This guy's still a dweeb too. I swear.

I look back fondly on all the nerdy things I did. Fanfiction gave me a community and gave me the confidence to pursue writing. I decorated posters and created an identity for myself during a time when identity feels so crucial. I'll listen to those Jonas Brothers albums when I need a good dose of nostalgia or a good laugh.

Even now, I support Joe's new stuff. DNCE is a great band and every time I hear them on the radio my heart swells up with pride. I'm hearing him be himself for the first time in 10 years of fame and I feel like maybe someday I'll find my niche like he has. I guess I'll have to compare myself at 27 to where he is now when the time comes.

True love never dies. It's been an honor growing up with you dude. 

You're not the only one

I've never listened to an album that let me sink inside of it. My life has been musical introductory by other people, showing me music that means something to them that eventually means something to me too. I've spent an entire year reading and meditating upon Carrie Brownstein's book, "Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl". (A review will be up on my other blog in a few weeks.) To celebrate the fact that I finally finished the book this afternoon, I listened to Sleater-Kinney's album The Woods and just lost the air from my lungs. 

Carrie Brownstein has been a hero of mine since I started watching Portlandia, and I had never heard of Sleater-Kinney until their reunion a couple of years ago. I didn't even know what riot grrrl music was. I tried the music, but felt a disconnect from it. The guitars were angry and disjointed, the lyrics fuzzy and angry. It wasn't my style. At least, not in that point in my life. I was 17 and my fixation was on the silly and lighthearted. I wanted music and culture to distract me, not fire me up. 

Fast-forward a couple of years, and I am angry. It's bubbling under the surface at all times, exploding in a fiery mess every few weeks. Sleater-Kinney (and more specifically, The Woods) found their place. Corin's angry wailing feels like its coming from that fire under the surface. Carrie's gentle, lyrical rage sounds the same as the way I carry myself from the day-today. (Above my bedroom mirror I have a picture of her with "Get Angry" written in bold Sharpie as a daily reminder.)

I drove through Provo with the windows rolled down, autumn air leaking into my car and filling my lungs. The radio was blasting, and I wailed alongside Corin and felt like someone truly understood my heart for the first time in years. It was beautiful. It was transformative. 

Scream when you need to. You'll feel lighter in places you didn't know were even heavy. 

Embracing Myself by Embarrassing Myself

Ever since I was seven-years-old, I have known that the way I view the world has been "other" when you compare it to that of my peers. My 2nd grade class was holding a mock 2004 election, and I was so incredibly excited to cast my vote. After my teacher counted up the votes, I realized I was the only person in my class who voted for John Kerry. I usually tell this story as the set up for a joke about how I've always been a democrat, even before I even understood politics completely. But something else was happening. All the other kids were just voting how they figured their parents were, which is totally normal. We were only in the 2nd grade! I wasn't doing that. My parents hate politics. I honestly don't think they even voted that year. I voted for John Kerry because I thought George. W Bush had his turn, but now it was time for a change. (Oh, the sweet innocence of 7.)

The point is, I've always been a little different in the realm of opinion whether it's controversial or not.What I wish more than anything is that I still had that innocent pride in my "otherness" that I had when I was 7. After another mock election in 2008 (I was in middle school at the time) I learned that my single vote for Barack Obama branded me as Different from the rest of my social studies class.  Now, I don't dare speak up for fear of being branded as "weird" or "LEFTEST-TUMBLR-BRAT". It's not just in politics where I feel afraid to speak my mind, it's in my classes at school too. 

Yesterday my English 2010 class had a simple discussion about higher education and the pros-and cons of easily accessible education. I figured it would be fairly simple and I'd be able to contribute to the conversation quite a bit since I have a pretty strong opinion on the topic, and we were all honor students. Education is important to us, right? I barely said a word. I was overwhelmed by every one's passionate opinions and the constant use of "I disagree, so-and-so. I totally respect you and all but I DISAGREE." For some reason everyone else's passion made me feel gross and wrong about all the things I wanted to say. I was afraid if I opened my mouth I would sound stupid or spoiled or uneducated. So I said nothing, and received a C for the discussion because of a lack of participation. I wanted to scream. I wanted to tell my classmates that education is a right, not a privilege. I wanted to fight and argue and participate. But I held back entirely. 

The fact that I didn't speak up has been weighing heavily on me since the moment class ended. I was crying on my walk home from school because I was so angry with myself for not speaking up. My lack of self-confidence made me look like a moron who didn't do their homework before class. The whole discussion I felt my professor's eyes on me as it became increasingly more obvious that I hadn't taken my turn. I left quickly and felt stupid. Why can't I just be myself around these people? Who cares what they think of me? I ask myself that all the time but I never have an answer. 

I've always felt "other". In every setting I've ever been in, and maybe that's totally normal and this is just some self-indulgent rant that everyone can role their eyes at. But I feel other in my own family. I'm far more politically charged than my parents, who will often argue with me because to them, the thing I believe are extreme. I'm too far left for most of my extended family for the most part. My friends are closer to my views, but every time we talk about the election I feel a flash of shame because I'm proud of the fact that I'm voting for Hillary Clinton. I'm ashamed that I know what I believe and it doesn't fit the mold of anyone around me. I hate that about myself. I hate that the idea of posting this is making me sick to my stomach thinking about all of the things people will say about me after they read that sentence. 

I'm posting this because I'm sick of being ashamed of myself for caring about stuff. I'm sick of being scared that someone will look at me differently because of what I believe in. I just want to bee okay with who I am for once. I'm really sick of hating myself.

I Cried Watching Ghostbusters and You Will Too

I promise you will cry tears of joy. At least, I most certainly did. I've seen the movie twice now and the same scene keeps getting me all choked up.

The female led reboot of the beloved "Ghostbusters" franchise has recieved ridiculous amounts of scorn and criticism since the day it was announced. The film's trailer is the most "disliked" video in Youtube history, with a comments section so vile it will make you lose your faith in humanity. This sexist backlash was a complete surprise to me, to be honest. As a feminist in the year 2016, I didn't think that a silly remake of an already silly movie would cause such a stir. But here we are, everyone. For as many men claiming that their "childhoods are ruined", I am happy to say that there are a lot of kids whose childhoods will be MADE by this reboot.

I am a 19 year old girl, and "Ghostbusters" changed my life. I sat in a movie theater and watched four intelligent, bad ass women fight ghosts and be funny as hell. If I had seen this movie when I was a little girl, I would have been sucked in. I'd be playing Ghostbusters all day every day, feeling strong and awesome. This Halloween, I hope your neighborhood is filled with little girls wielding proton packs and wild hairdo's. Kate McKinnon steals the show with every scene she's in as the ecentric engineer, Holtzman. Every smirk, every adjustment of her goggles is pure joy to witness. Her character is the reason I cried in the middle of an ACTION COMEDY. There is a scene where Holtzman is blasting ghosts with the Ghostbusters theme playing in the background. The bad assery of this sequence left me a puddle of tears. Girls can do anything. Girls can love science. They can star in action movies and completely kill it.

Ps. It's way funnier and scarier than the original, so that's pretty cool.

Go Ahead and Cry Little Girl, Nobody Does it Like You Do

Long time, no blog. I suppose I'm way past due for an update, so here goes nothing.

I've tried to wrote a new post for this blog so many times. My drafts are filled with abanoned rambles, rants, depressing blurbs. But nothing has felt right. It's all been me trying to hard. Often times, I think I use writing as a way to either exagerate my problems or erase them completely. That's not who I am, though, In life am hinest to a fault. blunt to the point of cruelty. (Freinds who know me well, you can confirm.)

I'm still super lost, and stuck in my head most of the time. I let myself spiral out of control and I focus too much on the terrible things in this world. With the news like it is tonight it's easy for me to hate the world. I hate that a man was murdered in front of his daughter for no reason. I hate that Utah's suicide rate is so high, I hate that Donald Trump is running for president and mass murders are happening all around us. That's what I've been doing most of the summer. Hating. Feeling bleak and lonely. I'm disapointed in the world and I am so angry at it. I'm angry at myself for things I can't control. I've been blaming myself for things that are my fault. This week, I've just reached the end. I am going to be honest and say that there has not been a day in the past two weeks that hasn't both started and ended with me in tears.

I don't want to be angry anymore. I'm sick of crying all the time. It's exhausting, I want to be as optimistic as I used to be. As fufilled as I used to be. I thought I'd use this post to talk about some of the good things going for me in my life. Even if they're petty and the world is a mess, I ned to talk about them. For the sake of my sanity.

PIERCEE
My little sister is my hero, guys. Being away from her has been so hard for me but every time I see her, I am amazed. This kid works her ass off. She is wicked smart, wicked sharp, and so brave. That girl knows what she wants. She knows what she doesn't want too, and that's even more important. Piercee has worked so hard and come so far over this last year. I am in awe of her. Her strength makes me proud. It motivates me to be better every day. I look up to her so much. I wish I had her passion, her wit, her bravery. She does things I could never do, and she's so funny. She tells this story about me that is seriously the most embarassing thing I've ever done to her. I HATE it. But when she tells the story, I still laugh every time. (Ask her about it sometime. It involves me trying to fight her, and losing in a humilating display of rage.) I am seriously so proud of Piercee and everything that she does with her life. P, you are so clever and wonderful. You keep me going.

MUSIC
I've just found a lot of great music lately, and that's really helped a ridiculous amount. Part of this is thanks to Piercee, she shows me knew bands all the time that I go crazy for. I've been listening to a lot of PWR BTTM, The Neighbourhood, The Avett Brothers, even the new Nick Jonas album, which is pretty decent despite my recent distaste for him. (Some things never change.) I've also gotten into the habit of listening to my old Jonas Brothers CDs when I'm feeling sad. It makes it easy to pretend I'm a kid again. It helps.

BOOKS
I have been in almost a year long reading slump but I'm slowly digging my way out. I just finished "The Trials of Apollo: The Hidden Oracle" by Rick Riordan, and I feel good. Itt was a light, simple, and easy read. But it was something. Enough to get me kick started. Currently, I am listening to "Glass Sword" by Victoria Aveyard, and reading "Sweetbitter" by Stephanie Danler. A guilty pleasure fantasy love triangle mess, and a very literary "beach read" that has me drawn in.

FRIENDS
You lovely humans, you know who you are. Whether it's a Pokemon Go scavenger hunt in our pajamas, a lunch date at our favorite Mexican place, running errands together, sleepovers, tarot readings, just all of it. I love you all so much and I couldn't do this without you.

MY PARENTS
I've always been super close with my parents. But moving has made us even closer, I feel. I tell them everything. They're my two best friends in the world. I call them late at night seeking advice and they always answer. They always listen. They always take me seriously even when whatever I'm upset about is actually really stupid. I'm lucky to be their kid. I don't always give them enough credit, but they are the most amazing people ever. Without them, I wouldn't be me.

So I'm gonna try my hand at optimism and see how the rest of my summer goes. (I can't guarentee I'll stop being an angry cry baby though. It's kinda become my thing.)

Maybe I've always been more comfortable in chaos?

My freshman year of college is complete, and I am shocked by the person it has turned me into. This morning I looked in the mirror and I saw a stranger staring back at me. It was both terrifying and thrilling. The person I was a year ago is nothing like the person I am now and with that come a sense of liberation but also a sense of loss. I am so very lost.

I have grown and changed so much. I am sharp and clever, much more quick to be cruel than I used to be. I haven't finished a book in six months and that has left a gaping hole in my chest that this summer is going to repair. I'm more vapid than I used to be. More vain. Chubbier too. Thanks to a broken hand during a spring break hiking disaster, my right pinky will forever be a little bit shorter. But I've changed in good ways. I'm independent. I'm driven. I have a group of friends that have quickly become a second family. I'm slowly making my new life mine and not just a series of events that keep happening to me.

School was hard on me this semester, and I'm oddly grateful. I had to fight hard for my good grades, and in my math class I totally worked my ass off and I didn't even get a good grade. For so much of my life I've been so competitive about my grades. I wanted to get the best score on the test so I could brag about it. I wanted to pass APUSH with flying colors because everyone acted like it was an impossible death sentence. My competitive edge has always been my motivator but in college that doesn't work. My professors don't know me. I didn't know any of my classmates. There was no competition, just me and the work I had to do. That was a huge reality check for me because for the first time in my life, I had to work for the good grade simply because I wanted it.

I've got one year down, and three more to go. I'm excited for the adventures this summer. Hopefully I'll be writing and posting more. I'm reading again, so I think my next post might just be a review. Some things will never change, and I;m thankful for that.

Sundance 2016: The Best and Most Stressful Week of My Life

I'm a movie nerd and that's a fact. I get way too involved in awards season, and every year I tear through the Sundance film reviews and make a list of the movies I have to see once they come out. I made a pretty decent dent in last year's list, but this year was amazing.

As a member of my school's honors program I get to do a lot of fun things. One of those opportunities was the chance to attend Sundance last week. I ended up attending four films, and had an incredibly exhausting week that changed me forever.

My first film was a dramedy called Other People and it was written and directed by Chris Kelly, who is both funny and adorable. It's a personal story about his mother's last year of life and it was honestly life changing. It was too real, too honest, and so heartbreaking. There was a trueness to the grief, as scenes were both so sad and hilarious at the same time. The scene that stuck out most to me was when the main character, David (Jesse Plemmons, whose performance is so heartbreaking) had just thrown up on a date and had to run to the grocery store to pick up laxative for his dying mother (Molly Shannon, who shines in one of her best roles ever). He cannot find them anywhere and gets increasingly upset and eventually collapses on the ground hugging a bundle of toilet paper weeping "Where are the fucking laxatives?" only to find out they were right in front of him the whole time. My heart broke but I was laughing because I recognized that sort of anguish. I have felt it and I was finally seeing someone else feel it too. Hands down, this was my favorite film I saw at Sundance this year, and it might even be one of my all time favorites.

The next night I saw Goat; a gritty drama about hazing that starred Nick Jonas (my mortal enemy) and Ben Schnetzer. Both of their performances were surprisingly poignant with Jonas as the protective older brother and Schnetzer as the broken boy determined to prove he isn't a "pussy" after being jumped by a couple of local hicks. The movie follow's Schnetzer's character Brad as he rushes his older brother Brett's fraternity and is introduced to the horrific torture culture that is the Greek system. I liked the movie okay, but I struggled because it was heavy on shock value and low on plot. I suppose that was the point though. It was a story about two brothers, but it was mostly about masculinity and the dark groupthink that fraternities create. For me, the most moving scene was when Nick Jonas' Brett gives a speech to the frat about how "None of this even matters!" It was a surprisingly subtle and well done performance from Jonas, who I've devoted the last two years of my life despising. I was pleasantly surprised.

A few days later, I saw The Lobster. It was a surreal dystopian comedy about a man (Colin Farrell) who must enter a hotel and find an appropriate mate in 45 days or he will be turned into the animal of his choice. The satire was thick and heavy, almost too much so at some points. The message of the film was obvious, dating culture is so ridiculously trivialized and over emphasized to a point of insanity in our society. The characters bonded and fell in love over trivial physical ailments such as nosebleeds and near-sightedness. I adored the cringe-worthy deadpan, but I will admit, it wasn't fr everybody.

My last film was The Hollars which was written, directed, and starred John Krasinski (Jim from The Office, of course!) I was excited about this one, but I ended up being very disappointed. The plot was similar to that of Other People but the realness was stripped away and replaced with slapstick humor. It was cute and sweet, and I think Krasinski's performance was wonderful as a terrified son who was losing his mother and a terrified father-to-be, afraid of disappointing his child. But the dialogue was cheesy and didn't make any sense. There were too many half fleshed out subplots that took away from the best parts of the story. It was very much a B- movie for me. Not the best way to end the festival, but it was fantastic all the same. 

Hopefully I'll be coming back year after exhausting year with a press pass in hand.