Ludo Takes Manhattan

After a lot of pleading and a lot of smoothing over of the details, Neil and I got to go to the Ludo Takes Manhattan show yesterday at the Highline Ballroom. We took a bus there and a train back. It was an amazing experience, even better than the last Ludo concert I went to. It was just... it was amazing. 

When we got to New York, I was nervous. I have never been in NYC before, let alone without an adult or a clear plan. We walked the nineteen or so blocks from the bus station to the ballroom and then walked an extra block not realizing that we had passed it. It was pretty bad, because we passed this line of people and I thought "Hmm. Wonder what's going on?" and we got to the front of the line and someone called out "I like your shirt!" and I said thanks and we kept walking and then all of a sudden we realized we just passed the venue. 

I was wearing this shirt. Should've realized it was a Ludo concert-goer when he recognized it.

So we walked back to the back of the line and then decided to go get something to eat. We ran to Subway, got food, and then ran back to get in line. The whole standing-in-line thing lasted about an hour, but it wasn't too bad. We made jokes and had short conversations with the people ahead of us in line who happened to be nerdfighters and, oh yeah, got passed by Andrew Volpe. I kinda stood there going "Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit." for a couple minutes afterwards. Eventually the doors opened and we were the third group let in. We bought our tickets and headed into the ballroom where we stood and waited for yet another hour. 

The last Ludo concert I went to, there was a guy there with a Pizza John shirt (vlogbrothers reference). I wanted to say something to him, but the time it took me to work up my nerve by staring at his shirt was the same amount of time it took his girlfriend to decide I was checking him out and get all territorial and shoot me death glares, so I was too scared to go say something (thank you social anxiety). This time there was a girl there wearing a Pizza John shirt who happened to pass Neil and I in the ballroom. I tapped her on the shoulder and told her I liked her shirt ^-^

Also, everytime I have typed "shirt" so far in this post, I've missed the "r" key at first. Good times.

The opening acts were all right. The first was Electric Sun, which was a band that played music. I can never properly genre-lize music. The guy had an interesting haircut, that's for sure. I don't think he was used to the type of mic that the Highline Ballroom had. It was a unidirectional mic, and he kept going off to the side and the sound was really unclear. The second act was PDA, which was a rap group. That struck me as a little odd. I don't go to Ludo concerts to hear rap music... They did know how to work their audience, though, and his shirt said "The cake is a lie," so I didn't hate him. 

And then Ludo came on. They were, of course, fantastic. 

I spent a lot of time last night thinking about why I go to Ludo concerts. I can listen to their music anytime I want. I have all their albums. I can watch videos on YouTube of their banter between songs. There's just something about their concerts... Not many people have heard of Ludo, and then to be in one room with 600+ people who are fans... it's something special. Plus, there's something about a concert, and I'm not sure if it's just Ludo or concerts in general because I've only been to two concerts in my life and they were both Ludo, but something about it makes me feel great. I'm more confident, happier, even more sexual (AKA I'm almost able to pass as sexual :P). Normally I get antsy around crowds, but I'm perfectly fine with the rule of no personal space at a concert. I do a lot of jumping and screaming at concerts, whereas normally I don't show much excitement unless I'm around certain people. I just feel like a totally different person at concerts.

I sang and shouted along to every song they did. A lot of the time, though, I was just mouthing the words. Not because I was afraid of being heard and judged which is my reason at birthday parties, but because I just couldn't sing. It was hard to find enough breath to make noise. I actually started crying a little during "The Horror of Our Love" when it was just Andrew Volpe on stage and it was beautiful. It was just a really good experience, and I can't wait to do it again. 

Inventory: Voice: gone. Hearing in right ear: slowly coming back. Ringing in both ears: still here. Legs: sore. Mood: through the roof and probably not coming back down anytime soon. 

Wajas

*glares at self* 

Ever since I was little, I've really been into genetics/breeding whether I knew it or not. My favorite game when I was ten and everyone else was playing Pokemon but I had the super-protective mother who wouldn't let me was this game called Fish Tycoon on Yahoo Games. You had these fish, and you bred them and made different combinations and you sold them to buy enhancements and stuff. The purpose of the game overall was to breed these seven Magic Fish. I was obsessed. I played it constantly. Every now and then I'd forget to take the game off high-speed and I'd end up killing all my fish and having to start over, but one run went really well and I actually bred all seven Magic Fish. 

Now, Moxi has gotten me into this site called Wajas that's pretty much just a breeding simulator. If you look over to the right in my link box you should see a link to my page on Wajas. Feel free to check it out. The first Wajas I bred were... Yuck. They eventually grew on me, but... yuck. 

The second batch was much better. 

But the third batch. Oh, Lord. I fell in love with one of the pups, as shown by the fact that I'm spoiling her rotten. 

My current goal is to make a Pikachu Waja. I will do it eventually. It might take a while, and it might take a lot of breeding, but I will make one. 

I think I might be a little obsessed with this. I've already played it for four hours today, just searching for the perfect Pikachu Waja pair and organizing my store and selling stuff and catching things for cheap and researching and... it's starting to get a little out of hand. But on the bright side, at least it's legal and safe. 

Dog Park

Molly's ex Jason and I took Galahad and his dog, Sweetie, to the dog park yesterday. It was the first time Galahad had been allowed to run around in an area that was not closed off around people and dogs he didn't know. At first, he just stuck around me. Other dogs would come over and sniff him, and he would run over to Jason or I and hide by us. 

Eventually he started learning the "sniff butts" social practices and started returning them instead of running away with his tail literally between his legs.

He really liked running over to people and hearing "Oh, you're such a sweet puppy" and getting petted. I followed him, far enough that he got his independence but close enough to step in if needed. I answered the questions: "About five months old, Australian Shepherd mixed with Norwegian Elkhound, Galahad as in the son of Lancelot." He also really liked chasing the other dogs, but didn't approve when the game turned around and he was the one being chased. 

Eventually we went down by the water where he befriended a three month old German Shepherd puppy named Princess. 

They'd chase each other around until Princess went into the water, and then he'd stop short and wait for her to come back. 

Eventually Princess went home. I stepped into the water with my rainboots and did my best convincing to get Galahad to join me. He got hot and thirsty enough to come over enough to drink from it, but he refused to actually step into the water until Jason reached into the water and showed him it was okay. 

We hung out by the water for another ten minutes or so with Galahad perfectly content until one of the other owners started throwing a ball into the lake for her dog to get. Every time the dog would come out of the water, Galahad would freak out until she was on dry land. He would bark and growl and prance back and forth. It was really quite amusing to watch him so terrified and angry about something rising out of the water. He reacted the same the first time he saw a basketball. 

Eventually we went home as well, and he took pride in drooling all over the back seat. 

Friend Feature #2: Paul

I met Paul on the first day of my sophomore year. I was in the cafeteria with Adam and George, and Adam saw Paul and yelled "Paul! I thought you were dead!" Because obviously if you go a year without seeing someone, that means they're dead -.- Paul sat next to me at the lunch table. I didn't actually didn't hear him talk for a couple of months. He usually played with his DS or slept or just sat there quietly listening to the rest of us talk. 

I don't remember how or when we became friends. It had to have been November at the latest, because of Bun Bun. Paul never ate lunch, so when I got Bun Bun and started bringing him to school, Paul "babysat" while I stood in the lunch line. Paul is Bun Bun's official nanny, which just goes to show the type of person he is for me. 

I call Paul my big brother. I've called a lot of people my big brother, but I think this one's going to stick. I've been calling him my brother since January of '11, but it was only official a couple of months ago. 

(By the way, the "drugs" was Benadryl) He doesn't like me cursing around him, not because he doesn't like curse words he just doesn't like innocent little me saying them. He yells at me for staying up too late, and for not eating properly (c'mon, it's the week after Easter, who needs "real food" when chocolate's on sale?!)

Paul indulges my childishness like no one else does (I mean, besides Neil :P). In fact, he encourages it a lot. He plays along with the "Bun Bun is my and Selby's child and you are the nanny." He teases me when I get playful, but not so much that it upsets me. I've noticed that I become more playful and childish around certain people, and he's definitely one of them. I used to go over to his house a lot because his brother did a podcast with my ex and some other people. I'd sit on the floor of his basement and be quiet (although I did speak up in one podcast when they started talking about WoW because I was the only one in the room who'd actually really played it and knew about it, and I had an audible coughing fit another time when I was sick), and Paul would make faces at me and hand me cats and stuff. 

I can talk to him about things I don't talk about with most people. I feel like he knows me better than anyone except probably Mary. He knows why I'm so attached to Bun Bun and why I get so clingy with some people. He pats me on the head when I do something right because he knows it makes me feel appreciated. He knows what happened last summer with Jason (he got REALLY angry with him. Like, scary angry.), and he knows how I feel about pretty much every person we know. 

We cheer each other up a lot. I'm going to run away with Vader and live at his house if things here don't get better soon. Our usual way of cheering up is drawing each other pictures. I make him stuff like this and he draws me stuff like this which I steal from him and put in protective sleeves and keep in my binder and stare at in the middle of class to keep me happy. 

We have loving conversations like this:

Also, he drew all of my best friends for me :D 

He's the T-Rex, Selby's the bunny, Moxi Matt and Alex are the dogs, Joey's the sheep dog, Mary's the flamingo, Neil is the penguin, and I'm the duck ^-^ I played around with it a little in gimp and made it the blog's background, and it's also my timeline cover on Facebook. I love this drawing so much. 

I love my brother <3

Happy Thoughts

"Why...are...you...never...just....completely.................fine. :|"
                                      -Paul

I've been pretty bad lately. Still in the depression that started a couple weeks after my birthday >.< Mainly it's because my mom and I keep arguing, because Molly is perfect and I am not. But that's not what I want to talk about right now. I want to talk about how I am happy right now.  

Tomorrow is Moxi's birthday. She had her first birthday party in years. It was just me, Neil, her, and her boyfriends. And even though I have fought with my mother every day for the past week and so I've been in a horrible mood, it left me in a great mood. Moxi lives with her godmother/-father/-sister now. Her godsister, Avalon, is adorable. She's a freshman this year and she talks in this baby voice that should be annoying but somehow isn't and she's hilarious and innocent and it's great and I love her, so that in and of itself put me in a good mood. Also, being around Moxi and Matt and Alex and especially Neil makes me happy. Moxi hated one of her presents from me, so I took it home. It's this cute little monster that speaks gibberish when you press its button. 

It was just really nice to be with everybody when I could cuddle with Neil. Because we're all together a lot, but it's always during school when we're not allowed to "PDA" and apparently us sitting on the floor with his arm around me is PDA u.u 

I like being around Alex and Matt because they're kind of like brothers to me. Matt's that annoying older brother that you fight with all the time, and Alex is the one that teases you lightly but takes your feelings into account and also helps you out a lot. Like when I started making my displeased noises about having chocolate from the brownies all over my hands and he nonchalantly placed the napkins in front of me and took one for himself. It's just that quiet help that just makes me feel accepted. And I love that they've accepted me like that, because they're Moxi's and I want to be able to hang out with her and them without it being awkward. I was scared they were going to take her away from me, but they haven't and they won't because they like me. 

I got bored while there was a lot of cuddling going on late into the party, so Moxi set me up with the first Assassin's Creed game. I enjoyed myself. I've realized I have two choices when it comes to video games that I'm not good at (which is pretty much all Xbox games). Either I can care about what I'm doing and get totally stressed out when it doesn't work right, or I can choose not to give a crap and just entertain myself and those watching me. I chose the second one today ^-^ At one point I was clinging to the side of the building and noticed that one of my options for button pushing was "Assassinate." I said "Assassinate? I CAN KILL THE BUILDING?!" and pushed it. My person thingy let go of the building and stabbed the nearest civilian. I took off running from the guards and ended up falling off a cliff and dying anyway. I also spent a full minute jumping in a puddle because it made a splashing noise. Moxi et al partially stopped what they were doing to watch and tease me ^-^ 

I really like entertaining people. (Neil and I were talking about how we both think too much, and here's an example of that. Just warning you) I think it might actually be part of the DPD. Most people wouldn't leave someone who is entertaining. And if I'm entertaining by being easily amused and sucking at stuff, then so be it. It works to my advantage. I swear that it's not fake, it's not a show I put on to get attention. It's who I am, and who I enjoy being. I don't know where I'd be without the DPD and the depression. They're not just disorders, they're who I am. I am morbid and innocent and doubtful and questioning and childish and scared and me. 

And god dammit I love Neil. I love that he can make me laugh. I love that he's interested in learning my limits. I love that I can talk to him about anything, and when he doesn't know the right thing to say, he just listens instead of saying the wrong thing. I love that he gets scared when I start talking about my suicide attempts because he doesn't want to lose me. I love that he opens the car door for me and then closes it really slowly so there's no chance of him closing the door on me. I love that he still loves me after I told him I was raped. I love his family. I love that he's okay just chilling at my house. I just... I don't know what to do sometimes because I'm so full of love for him that I feel like I'm going to burst. But shh, I haven't told him yet ^-^

Speaking of Neil, we're going to prom >.< I feel like such a girl because I can't stop thinking about it. AND MARY'S SENDING ME HER DRESS. It is beautiful. I'm so excited. Prom will be so wonderful because I will be wearing the same dress she did to her graduation. It's purple and sparkly. And I need to get new shoes. I'm excited about that, too. It's just... I think I'm actually slightly more excited about wearing her dress than about prom itself... It's hard to explain. I'm not looking forward to the dancing. I think Neil and I might end up being one of those disgusting couples who dance every song like it's a slow dance because I don't want to do anything else. I like slow dancing. God I'm so excited to go with him. We can PDA all we want and there's nothing anyone can do about it because neither of us see the point in doing real PDA and so it's all G-rated ^-^

So yeah. I'm happy tonight.