I went to the mall today to buy pants for my upcoming ten-minute play. This is a noteworthy event for a couple of reasons. One, I think it means that I've officially spent more time willingly going to the mall in this semester than I ever have before. (My Formal-wear search + randomly hanging out at Bridgestreet even though I can't afford anything there + pants-finding mission = more time heading to the mall of my own free will than ever before in my life.)

BUT THAT'S NOT THE REALLY NOTEWORTHY PART.

The noteworthy part is that the pants I bought were a size 10. TEN. OMGOMGOMGOMGOMG. I can wear SIZE TEN PANTS. *fallover* The last pants I bought were size 14. And my drawers are full of 36x32 jeans because I used to wear men's jeans/pants all the time. AND NOW THEY'RE TOO BIG. Freaking EVERYTHING is too big! Shirts, pants, underthings (except, strangely, bras...) coats--all TOO BIG. This is AMAZING. Almost everything in my wardrobe is too big. Which means I kinda need new clothes now, but hey. I'm OK with that. And what's really weird is it's TWO DAYS after Thanksgiving! How the heck? Wait, don't answer that. I might be suspicious of inexplicable weight loss, but I'm not going to argue with it!

I still feel like a linebacker when standing next to size 0 friends like Katrina and Krista, but I DON'T CARE. I could punt them if I felt like it. SO THERE. I'm a TEN. C^:

Can you tell I'm just a wee little bit excited about this? It almost makes up for Notre Dame losing to Stanford. Which, speaking of football, I had a good weekend--Notre Dame's loss notwithstanding. Miss. State whupped Ole Miss, Alabama beat Auburn, Florida crushed FSU, Georgia beat Georgia Tech... It was a good weekend all around for the SEC, methinks. I expect sports pundits to beat into the ground the fact that mediocre SEC teams beat the ACC division champions.

AND, OH YEAH, DID YOU HEAR I CAN WEAR A SIZE 10??

Well, another Thanksgiving in the books. It wasn't so bad. Mostly boring, really. I've been really... domestic... today, oddly. Cooking, washing dishes, and watching really bad football. (Whose idea was it to have the Raiders and the Lions play today? They should have scheduled the Browns too and had a trifecta of suck.)

A few days ago, I suggested having a ham and that's what we ended up having. We actually had a turkey in the freezer, but neither my mother nor my dad ever got around to actually taking it out of the freezer to thaw, which is mostly why we ended up having a ham. Which is fine with me. I don't really like poultry that much, except for the dark meat. What tends to happen is all the dark meat will get eaten and then the turkey will languish in the refrigerator until it gets dumped or something. :^/ I think that's actually what happened to the last turkey we made...

Anyway. I did all the cooking today, so we didn't end up with much. *slaps on a chef's hat anyway* Just the ham and some mashed potatoes and some deviled eggs. All of which are on my favorite foods list. Mom said she was going to make pumpkin pie, but she didn't. I think the last time she cooked anything was in September, honestly. Whatevs. I really liked the mashed potatoes. I had the bright idea of sauteing an onion and some garlic and putting that into the potatoes. It was pretty yummy. If I'd known that I was going to end up being the only one cooking, I might have made some more stuff, but it's OK. There's only three of us and we're going to be hammed out over the next few days anyway, so... Yeah. I'm gonna see if I can find a head of cabbage and make ham and cabbage soup with it. C^: That's one of my favorites.

I did all the dishes this morning (our dishwasher is out of commission) and I cooked, so hopefully I won't have to do the dishes tonight. There isn't an enormous amount, but still. I'm really sleepy now. I think I'll finish my tea and head to bed.

Happy thanksgiving!

Exhibit #312 in why Clay Aiken and Adam Lambert really shouldn't be compared because they have nothing in common (other than being American Idol runners-up)... Clay's AMA performance six years ago!



Clay Aiken sings songs like "Jesus Is Love". Adam Lambert imitates having fellatio performed on him. They really can't be compared. And I say this to both Clay Aiken fans who hate Glambo and Glamazon fans who hate Clay Aiken--seriously? It's like comparing apples to... Dachshunds. It doesn't really make any sense, does it?

Much as I would like to see Clay drag a hot chick around by her ankle (yeah, I'll admit I thought it was sexy) and try to suck someone's face off... Yeah. No.

So. After this little performance:



I think it's safe to say Adam Lambert is going to continue to make Kris Allen a non-entity.

I must say, I'm not looking forward to the explosion of media coverage and blogging that is sure to follow. Although, I do find myself wondering if ABC is going to get hit with fines, in addition to red-faced yelping from "family values" organizations.

EDIT: Total lulz at 3:40 or so... it looks like he's about to rip that keyboardist's face off with his teeth. And, damn! What was he grabbing when he was in the chair?

Facebook, LJ, Yahoo! Sports, Finding Clay Aiken Fan Forum. And then probably Yahoo! homepage. If I have time.

Yep. Friends, blog, football, Clay. That's pretty much it with me. I'm a very simple person.

You know those paycheck problems I was complaining about earlier? Well, the paycheck I received last Friday, which was for $100, just got knocked down to $50 on my online pay documentation. What does this mean? I've already picked up the paycheck, which had the $99.92 printed on it, but I haven't had a chance to cash it yet. Is this new development going to invalidate that check? If I try to cash it, am I going to get pinned for trying to pass a bad check? Seriously... WHAT THE SAM HELL IS GOING ON???

I'm a sociology major. When I tell people this, the common response is something along the lines of : "Oh, really? That's interesting. So... what do you plan to do with [a degree in] that?"

I didn't used to know. In a particular sense, I still don't.

But I know I want to make a difference in this world. If there's one thing that makes me angry (other than my mother, ha ha) it's looking at all the injustice in this world. That probably makes me idealistic, but you know what? I don't care. I really don't. I hope I can keep saying this when it comes time for me to be employed, but I want to spend my life tilting at windmills. Even if I don't make a difference, I want to at least try.

This isn't entirely altruistic. One of my biggest fears is being forgotten. One of the reasons I wanted a high school class ring despite having been homeschooled was that it was a symbol that I had accomplished something in my life. I hated high school--but I had also gotten out. I was a graduate of something. I think that's (at least partly) what drives my want to make a difference. A difference in the world, if I want to be grand about it, but also to just make a difference to someone. The world's a big place. I know that. There's a lot that's wrong with it. I know that too. But even if my actions don't have a big impact, a small impact is better than none at all.

So, I'm pretty pissed off with the administrative side of my university. First, I had major registration issues. Now I'm having paycheck problems. OK, OK, to be fair, door number two may not entirely be the university's fault. Their pay system is so confusing! I've finally figured out how to figure out the pay system and I just figured out that I'm out $150!

To explain.

I work for the school newspaper as "circulation manager" AKA paper deliverer. I'm supposed to be paid $50 a week for this. That's $50 every week. And I've just realized that I've been skipped for about 3 weeks worth of paychecks. The first $50 increment, I should have realized a lot earlier, but this is my first job and I wasn't sure how to use the pay system. (OK, and I'm stupid, shuddup.) But, looking back on that pay period now that I do know how to use the system, I realized that for a 2 week pay period, I was only paid $50. The other $100 I'm lacking is for the last pay period... where I didn't get paid at all. I was concerned about this, but the business manager for the paper sent a message around saying that he had sent in the payroll stuff at the last minute, but under the deadline, so if there were any paycheck problems they were Payroll's fault. I figured I'd wait for the next pay period to see if that skipped paycheck would be added to my next paycheck. No such luck.

RAWR.

So, I'm probably going to have to go fight with Payroll or my idiot newspaper bosses for the $150 I'm owed. IF I can even get that first $50 since it's been so long since I got that paycheck. I'm probably just out on that money... and yes I do, in fact, realize that that was my own stupid fault.

It's boggling to think of all the labels there are in this world. (And, no, I don't mean on canned vegetables.) People get labeled. You can say it like it's a bad thing, but that's just the way it is. I found myself thinking about that today on my drive home. (Long drive--and I think about weird stuff anyway.)

How many labels do I have? Asian. Female. Southerner. Teenager. Student. Smart-aleck. Joker. Reader. Writer. Consumer. Voter. Listener. Viewer. Claymate/Claysian (lol).

And here I am wondering if another label can be applied: Lesbian.

It's kind of funny, actually. I've never really thought about my sexuality before. I've always assumed that I am straight. (I've never understood straight vs. gay, just for the record. Are gays "bent" in some way?) As I've gotten older... I've just started to wonder. I don't know. I know it sounds a little stupid to say I don't know, but I don't. I can find guys cute or attractive, but I've never really met any that I'm actually attracted to. Does that have to do with the guys or with me? Am I simply not attracted to the ones I have met? Will there be one in the future? You'd think, at 18, if I was going to feel the swoonage over a guy (Clay Aiken aside... I think he's cute, but I'm not necessarily... You know... Dreaming of sleeping with him. Which is pretty much a good thing all around, really. Doomed to disappointment there.) I would have already felt the swoonage.

But then... I've never really found myself getting the swoon on over other women either. It's the same kind of thing, I can recognize when I woman is pretty while not necessarily wanting to... I don't know... get smoochie or whatever.

*sigh* It's all very baffling. Maybe I'm asexual.

Goodness! It's been much too long since my last post!

Waaaayyy too much homework. Not that I've been very good today, what with getting it on with my Clack instead of doing the homework... :D Clack is yummer than icky, nasty homework.

Still dealing with the homophobic "friend". So, here's the thing, she loaned me some CDs once that I needed for a class and would have cost me a lot of money to buy on my own, so I keep feeling like I should keep calling her a friend--but she doesn't act like a friend. I mean, look, I can understand believing that homosexuality is wrong. I don't like it and I think that kind of thinking is wrong, but I can understand and (a few snarky comments aside) even respect it... Well, at least to someone's face.

It's like Clay said about not wanting people to judge him and he, in turn, would not judge them. I realize that this is a very levelheaded point of view and thus not shared with a sadly large portion of the population, but I think they make a good point.

Anyway, my point is, she objects to Clay to the point that she tells me if I want to listen to a "twerp and a fag" who isn't good-looking, then more power to me. OK, fine. Yes, I think my life is better for listening to this particular "fag", because the "fag" is a better person than most famous (or even not-famous) people out there.

I guess what's got me going is the fact that I quoted her on Facebook for something she said about how a teacher must be looking at porn and she sends me a message asking me to remove her name from the quote... I wonder if she'd send something similar if I quoted her nasty, homophobic comment... Maybe I should try to find out.

Let's start with some more lighthearted stuff, shall we? Yaaay! My quote "That's not just any man... That's OUR man. You're a good man, Clay Aiken!" is the new thread title over at FCA. I'm probably a touch too happy, but I've been up twice before, finishing tied for third once and, like, sixth out of nine the other time. Not even close. Besides, I rarely win things, so this makes me a happeh. (And yes, I meant to spell it that way.)

Now for the bitchings. It's OK if you scroll away now. I won't mind. Heck, I won't know!

--I don't mind getting teased for having a Clay Aiken obsession. Because it is pretty out there and I don't think it is very "cool" for an 18 y/o to have an obsession with a 30 y/o singer whose fanbase is mostly made up of people old enough to be my mother. (No offense, really. Just pointing it out.) Where was I? Oh, I don't mind being teased about it by my friends, because I know they are never doing it in a mean way. A baffled way, sure. It's when the teasing turns kind of mean that I'm bothered. Look, yes, I made a background for my computer using Clay Aiken pictures. No, I don't think that's creepy. And yes, I do know he's gay. More, I don't find it creepy to look at the pictures of Clay and Reed getting their silly on in one of those photo booths. If it was a heterosexual couple, I don't think my friend would have any problem.

This is how the conversations went. Conversation 1 (about the background):
The Friend: That is so creepy!
Me: Well, I had some free time and I was experimenting with Paint, so I decided to use Clay's picture.
Friend: But still... You do know he's gay, right?
Me: ... Yessss... But I don't have to be able to sleep with the guy in order to be a fan of him. He's unattainable to me whether he's gay or not.
Other Friend: Yeah, I doubt he'd be all like, "Ooh, marry me!" if he wasn't gay.
Me: Exactly.

That's not so bad, I guess. But we did establish that I'm a fan whether he's gay, straight, or you know, swings both ways. So that's why I'm a little mer over this second conversation that happened today over the (adorabubble) Clay/Reed pictures.
Friend (same as above): *sees me looking at the snuggling Clay/Reed pictures* That's so creepy!
Me: What???
Friend: You're looking at pictures of gay men!!
Me: You make it sound so bad! You wouldn't say that if one of them was a girl and go, "Oh my God, you're looking at pictures of straight people!!! Ewww!"
Friend: Ooookay... have fun looking at your pictures of Clay Aiken...
Me: ... I will.

Look, I get it, OK? You think looking at pictures, no matter how benign, of gay people is "creepy". That's great. But, please, I'm a fan. I'm going to stay a fan no matter how "creepy" you think it is. And since you know this can you please just "suffer" in silence if you (horror of horrors!!!) see me reading something/looking at pictures of Clay Aiken? I think he's cute and talented and I'm a fan.

--Bitchfest 2. I like the Clay Aiken fandom. Really, I do. There are some nice, funny, generous people on there. What I don't like are the protracted arguments. It's a bow tie paired with a cardigan, people! It's not really that important! It's some makeup--maybe a little too much, I'll agree--but really? Why are we fighting about this? More importantly, when it comes to this image stuff, I think the only people who are going to see Clay looking "stuffy" or too old or whatever in his cardigan and bow tie (which I found adorabubble, but whadda I know?) are us. It's not going to harm his image, because nobody else is going to see it. I hate to say it, but it's true. Clay Aiken doesn't hit the radar for a lot of people... which is of course a crying shame and those people are leading sad, unfulfilled lives, but still. ;^)

--Bitchfest 3 (not Clay related, so if you happen to still be reading, you really can stop now hee... also, I just realized that there's gonna be some foul language, so if you disapprove you should really stop now). I might have mentioned this before, so, you know, bear with me. Last semester (would have been late in the summer or early in the fall) I bought a laptop with wireless capabilities. I went, "Yippee! When school starts, I can study in my room!" Uh, no. My mother, who is pissed at my brother, wouldn't let me use the wireless router we had because he bought it, set it up, et cetera. So, if I wanted to use the wireless, I had to buy a router myself. I didn't want to blow the $$ so I didn't buy one. (Yeah, still not allowed to get a job while I pay for my tuition, books, and fuel, so the router was not going to happen.) Now that my mother has bought my other brother (the one she's not mad at) a brand-fucking-new top-of-the-fucking-line laptop and has taken his old one, she wants a wireless router. The computer she uses for the internet now is, to be frank, a cantankerous piece of shit, that doesn't need wireless.

Guess whose fault it is we don't have a wireless router. If you said mine, you'd be right. If you didn't, you might be going (as I was) WHAT THE FUCK??? How is it my fault we don't have a wireless router? I'm sorry, mom, I'm fucking poor seeing as how SOMEBODY will not allow me to get a job and SOMEBODY is making me pay for my own gas, textbooks, and university tuition! What the FUCK do you want me to do, pull big wads of cash outta my ass to spend on this shit?

Christ!!!!!

I sometimes hate my fucking life.

So, you know how the basic tenet of music anymore seems to be that what you sing is much better than how you sing it? It doesn't matter if you can't sing worth crap as long as what you're singing is catchy. And it doesn't even matter if what you're singing is crap as long as it's catchy crap.

What about the reverse? What about all the good songs in the world that are hidden beneath crummy talent? Take "Fancy", for example. When Bobbie Gentry sang it, not much attention paid. When Reba McEntire got her hands on it, however, BOOM did it take off. In the age of American Idol, it's mostly popular songs that get redone ("Solitaire" notwithstanding...) making it easy to forget that songs like "Without You" and "I Will Always Love You" weren't big hits until they were covered. (Perhaps "I Will Always Love You" doesn't belong since it did well on country charts, but still.)

So anyway, this is YACAP, remember? This is all coming around to Clay Aiken. I was listening to Nick Carter's "Who Needs the World", and couldn't stop wondering how Clay might do the song. I think the song itself is decent and has all the necessary pieces to be a really good one (nice lyrics, nice tune, etc.) but Carter's singing of it is simply... ordinary. His voice sounds too young or too whiny for the song, which needs a smoother, more somber voice to reach its full potential.

Can't think of any more off the top of my head, other than perhaps David Archuleta's "Barriers" or "Desperate"... Maybe someone else could think of a few songs that weren't popular but would sound great covered by someone else.

How have I become so attached to Clay Aiken and his fanbase in the few short months that I've been a fan? Just reading the reports about his final Spamalot appearance had me wibbly--and I've never seen Spamalot, never met Clay Aiken, never nuffink. I know it's (more than) a little obsessive, but, ah... It makes me happy.

I find it really touching that they worked his songs into the performance. I would have really liked to have seen that. Also read that Reed Kelly (the possible boyfriend) was there, so that's interesting. He was sitting next to Brett--haven't heard about Clay's mother, but I think she was there earlier in the week.

*sigh*

I'm a little depressed because this mean an end to my dream of seeing Clay Aiken in a Broadway show. Maybe he'll do another. I've always wanted to see a Broadway show (it's on the list of top ten things to do before I die that I made... before I was a Clay fan!) and after I became a fan, that just added fuel to the fire.

Still, it also makes me hope that he's successful in his future endeavors. I know most of the reasons why his fans like Clay Aiken (he doesn't smoke, drink, do drugs, get caught without underwear in public, deck paparazzi, doesn't sing about doing any of the above...) also happen to be reasons why you don't hear about him much, but I still have hope that a great voice and good songs still count for something in the music business. A small, slightly battered hope, but hope nonetheless.

Just heard Kenny Rogers' version on the radio for the first time. I know they were crediting the song wrong earlier. I hope my emailing them didn't have the wrong reaction. I wanted them to keep playing Clay Aiken's MDYK, but now I think they're just playing Kenny's instead.

*SIGH*

Littlest things... complicated... augh... stupid...

I think I'm going to request Clay's MDYK tomorrow, see if they play it and credit it correctly

The other day, I started listening to the only local radio station that's playing Christmas music--mostly in the hopes of hearing some Clay Aiken, since I figured there's a more limited pool of music and even my seemingly Clay-phobic stations would eventually play one of his songs. I was right. I heard "Mary, Did You Know" which I took notice of because, as I just said, my radio stations hardly ever never play any Clay. Later, I was online checking out their website for the song list and noticed that the only MDYK they have listed was Kenny Rogers' version. So, I sent an email off to feedback for the little Yes.com widget thing that was running the list telling them about the error and bopped off, not expecting much. I got an email back informing me that my email had been forwarded on, so I assumed that the song credit would be changed.

Well, I got an email today telling me that the song I was hearing was actually Kenny Rogers' MDYK.

OK, I might not be as big of a Claymate as some out there, but trust me, I don't mix Clay's voice up with anyone else's. So I sent them an email back telling them as much. Don't know what they're going to say. Maybe they have been playing Kenny Rogers--but I know that I've been hearing Clay's version. (And, actually, the only version of MDYK I've heard on that station has been Clay's version.) On the widget thing, yeah, it is Kenny's. But over the air, it's been Clay.

Gah. This was supposed to be simple, but now it's turning into a whole big thing.

Don't worry, this is going to be behind a cut. Just a list of songs I'd like Clay to sing, Christmas version! I post them here because I don't want to put them on my computer. :D

( The List--Christmas Style )

*WARNING*
A philosophical/political/2AM-induced post is going to follow. Read at your own risk. :^|

( Prop 8 Rant )

But it's short today. I read that Clay's alma mater, the University of North Carolina-Charlotte is starting a football program, projected to field a in 2013. Think they'll ask their Hall-of-Fame quarterback Clay "Troy" Aiken to make an appearance at a game? BWAH!

I realized today that I haven't blogged in a while.

So... how better to get back into the blog-rhythm than doing YACAP?

:^D

I've been wanting to listen to Christmas carols for a little while now and finally started on Clay's Merry Christmas With Love and All Is Well. Made me wish for more Christmas!Clay albums.

I like standards for Christmas--classics sung by good singers. I don't like crazy-ass new-style carols or funky remakes of classics. When it comes to Christmas songs, don't fix what ain't broke. I'm looking for some Christmas CDs now, because I hate radio. Heard that Josh Groban's Noel is pretty good, so I guess I'll check that out... Hm.

Let's ask the question first, shall we? What's the etiquette on commenting? Is one supposed to, or at least encouraged to, comment on other people's journals at least X number of times a week/month? I was curious about that because I'm really mostly a lurker. I've probably read your blog, but didn't have anything in particular to say on it. Should I, to at least let you know I'm reading it? Also, if it's a deeply personal post, I often feel uncomfortable posting, since I don't know you personally.

I'm listening to "Forget I Ever Knew You" by the Clayman and, wow! I haven't listened to On My Way Here in a while and I forgot just how much I LOVE that song! (Mostly, I've been listening to concert Clack and pre-Idol stuff... My concert Clack is mostly Jukebox Tour-centric,, so I guess I need to get on the ball and download some more... Aww, what a hardship... lol.)

I've designated Clay's version of "Because You Loved Me" as my father's and my song (was that grammatically correct?) since I don't know what I'd be like without him. I was talking to my brother yesterday and he commented on how our family is (borderline?) dysfunctional and how depressing it is because you always want to think you're normal. I guess that's what made me think about BYLM so much lately...

Christmas this year is going to be music-centric for me, I think. I'm not sure what to get my brothers yet... We're poor college students so we all pretty much just want money. I always want expensive gifts... this year it's an iPod nano. Price tag: $150 + tax. My iPod is a shuffle my brothers bought for me on my... sixteenth? birthday. It's getting a little crazy these days and won't shuffle songs properly. Really, I only have a couple of GBs of music, so I could just get another shuffle, which would be cheaper, but I'd really like to have the music organized and I'd like to download some of the Clack videos that are iPod-compatible. I was looking at getting a new phone, but really, I don't need a fancy phone. The only thing I want in a phone that mine doesn't have is the ability to download ringtones and since I use a Tracfone the cheapest phones that do that are in the $70-$90 range and come with a bunch of features I don't give a flip about.

Finally, to the American Idol stuff. I'm considering (if I get money for Christmas) buying Brooke White's indie album off of iTunes. I didn't watch Idol much last time, but when I did, she was the only one I really liked. I'm also trying to decide between David Cook or David Archuleta's albums, because I happen to like their singles--especially David Cook's. Also considering buying Kimberly Locke's album and maybe some assorted singles from former contestants. Decisions, decisions...

Ahhh, it's nice to be blogging about random things again--no politics or family angst. :-)