I've never been an extrovert, but I'm still breathing
Hii. So I'm here, in the sense that I have a new laptop that, like, connects to the internets, and I'm typing on it. And that's exciting! But I'm also not really here, in the sense that I didn't even finish my first round of trying to catch up before falling into another swamp of a lapse, and I'm about to go stay with my parents to help them out for a couple of weeks, so I'm probably not going to be around much on LJ even with the new machine. (as if you didn't know that, as if you didn't know your own beds.) uh, yeah. Hi!
Nevertheless, I want to make waving motions at being a member of fandom and a user of LJ, because, yes. Like so:
1) Happy late, late, late birthday to eleanor_lavish, trixiesfic, stargems, claire, strippedhalo, stomach, thedith, amatia, and joyfulseeker ZOMG. And happy birthday today to nyn! Bonne anniversaire! Herzlichen Glueckwunsch zum Geburtstag! Feliz cumpleanos! Zhu ni sheng ri kuai le!
2) I had the pleasure a little while back of, well, beta is probably too strong a word for what I did, but of reading and cheerleading and just generally squeeing over early drafts of some really awesome stories: afterthefair's Act As If, in which Ryan and Spencer get a clue, and joyfulseeker's But I Get Up Again, in which Pete and Patrick get a clue. Oh how that I love best friend pairings! All y'all who are into bandom have probably read these already, but dude, go read them again. They're that good.
3) During my last, ultimately failed attempt at delurking a few weeks ago, I wrote a tiny wee bit of Pete/Mikey for turps33: kick out the blues
4) It takes five freeways to get from where I live to where silveryscrape is living these days, and every single one of them is entirely worth it. So far we've watched Life on the Murder Scene (she agrees the boys are precious although the music doesn't speak to her), Rising (John is far snarkier than I had gathered from fanon in which snark seems like Rodney's sole province, and I was getting really sleepy by the end of the episode so I didn't quite grasp how the rising actually happened, but thassa lotta hotness in that cast there), and Prince Caspian (I was seized with a brief urge for Peter/Caspian, however ill-advised). One of these days Mary and I will totally watch some footage in that fandom we both currently share. With the sparkles and the vocal harmonies and the dancing in a synchronized fashion. You know the one.
Also, I met Mal and Munch and they are FUZZY and adorable. I believe this is the first time I've ever met cats in person whom I had initially met on the internet. Hello, kittehs!
5) A few weeks back I went up to the city and had lunch with lovelypoet and clumsygyrl and then we went back to Katie's place and watched Asylum and Dr. Longball and it was so fabulous. Oh I love Ray and Fraser! A man with style is a man who can smile! We've got the makings of a bonspiel! Katie's living room is such a center of good company and joy, I tell you.
6) I also did something else a few weeks ago that I have never done before, and that is watch an episode of Battlestar Galactica in real time on TV. It was an exciting thing for me, seriously, which I guess is a silver lining of not having had internet access for so long, which opened up time for watching the rest of S3 and as many S4 episodes as I'd managed to record and not tape over. Of course I'm behind again now already, but it was a shining moment. I am kind of torn between being desperately intrigued about how it will all play out, and seriously unimpressed by the character assassinations they seem to feel were necessary to wrench everyone into place for whatever they've got planned. The entire Adama family makes me want to roll my eyes and say, "Oh my heart, what pepperpots!" Otoh, I appreciate that the writers pointed out how life is more interesting and meaningful when you know it's got an end, here in this last season where they can finally spend all the narrative currency they've been saving. Whatever else it is or isn't, at least I can be sure the end of the show won't be boring.
7) We all love to laugh about the bizarre shit Google ads pull up in connection with various keywords. However, I left a feedback comment some months back that contained the names "Brendon" and "Ryan", but no other proper nouns and nothing about music or the band or anything; yet when I opened up the comment in Gmail, the top ad gave me a link to the HCT site and urged me to buy a ticket. Now as it happens I had already bought all the HCT tickets I intended to, but nevertheless I was like, A+, GOOGLE ADS. DIRECT HIT. GOLD STAR.
So I'm sure I have nothing to say about the Anaheim show that hasn't alreay been said by seven thousand other people, but for my own records: last Friday I got on a plane with afterthefair, wearing matching The Black Parade is Dead hoodies completely without prior planning, and flew southwards. The driver who took us to our hotel was super chatty and gave us lots of good advice, most saliently that although I really should ought to get a boyfriend, Cristen should not set me up with Mike Carden unless we can first find out whether he gets along with his mother. Presently I will make a post on bandfandom_ref inquiring about the Carden family dynamics.
lovelypoet arrived later that evening, and clumsygyrl the next morning, and then it was all awesome. Katie had picked the hotel that is directly across the street from the Honda Center, such that we were able to make a few leisurely exploratory strolls around the building and then return for more lounging in the hotel and lunch at a restaurant next door before we really settled into waiting in line. In fact Katie and Fi got Zack to decide where the early entry line would be, next to the decorated car, which apparently he had not decided until they asked him the question.
bexone joined us there and showed me photos from the Vegas show which caused me to squee very loudly. And I also got to meet shutyourface who kindly came around to find us when she arrived - Lesas of the world unite! Next time we absolutely need to get more time to chat, bella. The radio station booth played Helena for our entertainment in the heat, which was fun but could not top the time the Crazy Horse Gentleman's Club did the same thing for us before MCR at the Warfield. I don't know if anything ever can top that, honestly.
Finally Zack led us off into the venue, all in a single file line like so many children of Hamelin, and there was some extremely inefficient fucking around with wristbands at the doors, but thanks to Fi's awesomeness we still all made it into the first or second row at the barrier. This was the first time I had ever been at the barrier for a show, and what an experience that was! At first it was just nice to have a solid thing to lean on, then I started thinking, "huh, did it just shift under us? Whoa, it definitely shifted. Hm, I wonder what angle we're at now?" At one point the security guys pushed the barrier back a bit and I barely got my toes out from under in time. But then it started leaning again even worse, until I was seriously worried about that the thing would just fold down flat, with us prone on top of it and the rest of the pit on top of us. This went on through all three of the openers, until finally after MCS the security folks began looking in earnest and discovered some of the pins needed to lock the barrier upright were missing. And even then they kept telling us "oh, it'll be fine, just don't lean on it." riiight. Finally, finally someone managed to locate the pins and put them in place, and then things were fine during Panic's set, which, thank God, because it would have sucked to be distracted during that like we were all through the rest of it.
Anyway! To backtrack for a moment - I realized that I hadn't really heard much of Phantom Planet at the Warfield show I went to, due to arriving late and being jetlagged to hell and all that, but this time I did hear them and enjoyed their set a lot. Thumbs up, Phantom Planet! Bob and Greta came onstage as mummies to prank them and it seemed like a good time was being had by all.
Now Greta was wearing a shirtdress under her mummy wrappings at that point, but when the Hush Sound came out for their own set she had TAKEN HER DRESS OFF and played the whole time in just a black nylon full slip. With her pretty shoulders and amazing rack and charming belly and legs zomg her legs. I like Greta! And I liked their songs a lot. I was hoping for The Boys Are Too Refined which is my favorite off Goodbye Blues, and they didn't play that one, but apart from that it was all fabulous. PP came out shirtless and in monster masks to mess with them and that was more good times. Oh, and before the Hushies got started a tech was kneeling in front of Bob trying to fix something, and Bob stuck his hand in the guy's hair and cracked some blowjob jokes, which caused me to think warm thoughts towards Bob even though we, as an SF contingent, are mostly not that interested in his sex life.
Motion City Soundtrack was a little meh from my point of view - their music doesn't grab me as much, and it was clear that they weren't so much buddies with the rest of the tour, no one pranked them and they didn't prank anyone else. And Justin didn't even use the word "people" to describe his band which had charmed me so much at the Warfield. And it was during their set that the barrier shenanigans were at their most frightening. Sorry, MCS.
Then then then then PANIC! We were standing JWalk-side and Jon stepped out of his flipflops and played barefoot and you guys, Jon has nice feet. Cristen and I agree that our kink is okay. And like last time he was still doing these lightfooted little dancing steps, like, normally in still photographs Jon comes across as #4 in the group in terms of feyness, but the way he held his body, the way he put his feet down, he really looked elegant and delicate. Jon went to visit Eric a lot and sometimes Spencer, and sometimes Ryan would come over and visit him.
Spencer's kit blocked him from my view pretty thoroughly, so I didn't even really try to watch him, but all three of the others went to go play to him quite often, so there was plenty of love for him nevertheless.
Brendon was not quite as whirly as he was in April, but no less hyped. And Ryan talked a lot, and came to share Brendon's mic a LOT, and - okay, here's the thing.
RYAN ROSS: If you like dancing here's a song for you, it's called Camisado.
LESA: ...
RYAN ROSS: How many of you are single? All of you? This song is for you, it's called LyingITMFAGCHWTHCO.
LESA: ...
RYAN ROSS: We're so excited to have you all here for the last night of our tour. Let's just all have a really good time now.
LESA: ...
So, I dunno. Whatever, I don't need Ryan Ross's approval to scream at his show! And I did a lot of that, btw. I screamed my little heart out. Bless me. And I lifted my hands in childlike wonder when the bubble machines came on. There is just something magical about hundreds of soap bubbles floating through the air around you, and I mean that totally unironically. And Jon did a cartwheel coming back on stage for the encores! He was a tiny cartwheeling hippie right in front of our eyes! And barefoot! That was a total highlight.
Also Ryan seems firmly convinced that the canonical length of all songs is exactly three minutes. When he and Jon changed sides while Brendon was playing Folkin' Around, Ryan announced quite verbosely that he would switch and come over to our side for three minutes. And then during the encores when he was announcing that they were adding in their The Weight cover, he asked if we'd be willing to stay for an additional song and calculated that that would mean six more minutes instead of three. Oh, Ryan.
And Phantom Planet and the Hushies came rushing out for Mad as Rabbits, and the highlights of that were 1) Greta coming to play next to Jon, immediately giving me insane wishes for Greta/Jon fic, and 2) Alex G. lifting Ryan up bodily to sit on his shoulders and Ryan simply continuing to play uninterrupted while Alex carried him around the stage. Oh, it was awesome!
Cristen and I stood in the merch clusterfuck for a little while but then we lost heart and bailed, and all of us went back to the hotel which was of course only a beautifully short walk away. And we bought liquids and sugar at the snack nook, and got into our pajamas in the room and collapsed. And some popslash friends of Cristen's came by to visit and extend the squee, and we yakked with them about fandom and about the show for a good while, although I admit I was nodding off before too long. And the next day we all had to catch our various planes home and that was that. But when I finally got to talk to my mom on the phone she said, "Well, was it worth the trip?" and I said, "YES."
Nevertheless, I want to make waving motions at being a member of fandom and a user of LJ, because, yes. Like so:
1) Happy late, late, late birthday to eleanor_lavish, trixiesfic, stargems, claire, strippedhalo, stomach, thedith, amatia, and joyfulseeker ZOMG. And happy birthday today to nyn! Bonne anniversaire! Herzlichen Glueckwunsch zum Geburtstag! Feliz cumpleanos! Zhu ni sheng ri kuai le!
2) I had the pleasure a little while back of, well, beta is probably too strong a word for what I did, but of reading and cheerleading and just generally squeeing over early drafts of some really awesome stories: afterthefair's Act As If, in which Ryan and Spencer get a clue, and joyfulseeker's But I Get Up Again, in which Pete and Patrick get a clue. Oh how that I love best friend pairings! All y'all who are into bandom have probably read these already, but dude, go read them again. They're that good.
3) During my last, ultimately failed attempt at delurking a few weeks ago, I wrote a tiny wee bit of Pete/Mikey for turps33: kick out the blues
4) It takes five freeways to get from where I live to where silveryscrape is living these days, and every single one of them is entirely worth it. So far we've watched Life on the Murder Scene (she agrees the boys are precious although the music doesn't speak to her), Rising (John is far snarkier than I had gathered from fanon in which snark seems like Rodney's sole province, and I was getting really sleepy by the end of the episode so I didn't quite grasp how the rising actually happened, but thassa lotta hotness in that cast there), and Prince Caspian (I was seized with a brief urge for Peter/Caspian, however ill-advised). One of these days Mary and I will totally watch some footage in that fandom we both currently share. With the sparkles and the vocal harmonies and the dancing in a synchronized fashion. You know the one.
Also, I met Mal and Munch and they are FUZZY and adorable. I believe this is the first time I've ever met cats in person whom I had initially met on the internet. Hello, kittehs!
5) A few weeks back I went up to the city and had lunch with lovelypoet and clumsygyrl and then we went back to Katie's place and watched Asylum and Dr. Longball and it was so fabulous. Oh I love Ray and Fraser! A man with style is a man who can smile! We've got the makings of a bonspiel! Katie's living room is such a center of good company and joy, I tell you.
6) I also did something else a few weeks ago that I have never done before, and that is watch an episode of Battlestar Galactica in real time on TV. It was an exciting thing for me, seriously, which I guess is a silver lining of not having had internet access for so long, which opened up time for watching the rest of S3 and as many S4 episodes as I'd managed to record and not tape over. Of course I'm behind again now already, but it was a shining moment. I am kind of torn between being desperately intrigued about how it will all play out, and seriously unimpressed by the character assassinations they seem to feel were necessary to wrench everyone into place for whatever they've got planned. The entire Adama family makes me want to roll my eyes and say, "Oh my heart, what pepperpots!" Otoh, I appreciate that the writers pointed out how life is more interesting and meaningful when you know it's got an end, here in this last season where they can finally spend all the narrative currency they've been saving. Whatever else it is or isn't, at least I can be sure the end of the show won't be boring.
7) We all love to laugh about the bizarre shit Google ads pull up in connection with various keywords. However, I left a feedback comment some months back that contained the names "Brendon" and "Ryan", but no other proper nouns and nothing about music or the band or anything; yet when I opened up the comment in Gmail, the top ad gave me a link to the HCT site and urged me to buy a ticket. Now as it happens I had already bought all the HCT tickets I intended to, but nevertheless I was like, A+, GOOGLE ADS. DIRECT HIT. GOLD STAR.
So I'm sure I have nothing to say about the Anaheim show that hasn't alreay been said by seven thousand other people, but for my own records: last Friday I got on a plane with afterthefair, wearing matching The Black Parade is Dead hoodies completely without prior planning, and flew southwards. The driver who took us to our hotel was super chatty and gave us lots of good advice, most saliently that although I really should ought to get a boyfriend, Cristen should not set me up with Mike Carden unless we can first find out whether he gets along with his mother. Presently I will make a post on bandfandom_ref inquiring about the Carden family dynamics.
lovelypoet arrived later that evening, and clumsygyrl the next morning, and then it was all awesome. Katie had picked the hotel that is directly across the street from the Honda Center, such that we were able to make a few leisurely exploratory strolls around the building and then return for more lounging in the hotel and lunch at a restaurant next door before we really settled into waiting in line. In fact Katie and Fi got Zack to decide where the early entry line would be, next to the decorated car, which apparently he had not decided until they asked him the question.
bexone joined us there and showed me photos from the Vegas show which caused me to squee very loudly. And I also got to meet shutyourface who kindly came around to find us when she arrived - Lesas of the world unite! Next time we absolutely need to get more time to chat, bella. The radio station booth played Helena for our entertainment in the heat, which was fun but could not top the time the Crazy Horse Gentleman's Club did the same thing for us before MCR at the Warfield. I don't know if anything ever can top that, honestly.
Finally Zack led us off into the venue, all in a single file line like so many children of Hamelin, and there was some extremely inefficient fucking around with wristbands at the doors, but thanks to Fi's awesomeness we still all made it into the first or second row at the barrier. This was the first time I had ever been at the barrier for a show, and what an experience that was! At first it was just nice to have a solid thing to lean on, then I started thinking, "huh, did it just shift under us? Whoa, it definitely shifted. Hm, I wonder what angle we're at now?" At one point the security guys pushed the barrier back a bit and I barely got my toes out from under in time. But then it started leaning again even worse, until I was seriously worried about that the thing would just fold down flat, with us prone on top of it and the rest of the pit on top of us. This went on through all three of the openers, until finally after MCS the security folks began looking in earnest and discovered some of the pins needed to lock the barrier upright were missing. And even then they kept telling us "oh, it'll be fine, just don't lean on it." riiight. Finally, finally someone managed to locate the pins and put them in place, and then things were fine during Panic's set, which, thank God, because it would have sucked to be distracted during that like we were all through the rest of it.
Anyway! To backtrack for a moment - I realized that I hadn't really heard much of Phantom Planet at the Warfield show I went to, due to arriving late and being jetlagged to hell and all that, but this time I did hear them and enjoyed their set a lot. Thumbs up, Phantom Planet! Bob and Greta came onstage as mummies to prank them and it seemed like a good time was being had by all.
Now Greta was wearing a shirtdress under her mummy wrappings at that point, but when the Hush Sound came out for their own set she had TAKEN HER DRESS OFF and played the whole time in just a black nylon full slip. With her pretty shoulders and amazing rack and charming belly and legs zomg her legs. I like Greta! And I liked their songs a lot. I was hoping for The Boys Are Too Refined which is my favorite off Goodbye Blues, and they didn't play that one, but apart from that it was all fabulous. PP came out shirtless and in monster masks to mess with them and that was more good times. Oh, and before the Hushies got started a tech was kneeling in front of Bob trying to fix something, and Bob stuck his hand in the guy's hair and cracked some blowjob jokes, which caused me to think warm thoughts towards Bob even though we, as an SF contingent, are mostly not that interested in his sex life.
Motion City Soundtrack was a little meh from my point of view - their music doesn't grab me as much, and it was clear that they weren't so much buddies with the rest of the tour, no one pranked them and they didn't prank anyone else. And Justin didn't even use the word "people" to describe his band which had charmed me so much at the Warfield. And it was during their set that the barrier shenanigans were at their most frightening. Sorry, MCS.
Then then then then PANIC! We were standing JWalk-side and Jon stepped out of his flipflops and played barefoot and you guys, Jon has nice feet. Cristen and I agree that our kink is okay. And like last time he was still doing these lightfooted little dancing steps, like, normally in still photographs Jon comes across as #4 in the group in terms of feyness, but the way he held his body, the way he put his feet down, he really looked elegant and delicate. Jon went to visit Eric a lot and sometimes Spencer, and sometimes Ryan would come over and visit him.
Spencer's kit blocked him from my view pretty thoroughly, so I didn't even really try to watch him, but all three of the others went to go play to him quite often, so there was plenty of love for him nevertheless.
Brendon was not quite as whirly as he was in April, but no less hyped. And Ryan talked a lot, and came to share Brendon's mic a LOT, and - okay, here's the thing.
RYAN ROSS: If you like dancing here's a song for you, it's called Camisado.
LESA: ...
RYAN ROSS: How many of you are single? All of you? This song is for you, it's called LyingITMFAGCHWTHCO.
LESA: ...
RYAN ROSS: We're so excited to have you all here for the last night of our tour. Let's just all have a really good time now.
LESA: ...
So, I dunno. Whatever, I don't need Ryan Ross's approval to scream at his show! And I did a lot of that, btw. I screamed my little heart out. Bless me. And I lifted my hands in childlike wonder when the bubble machines came on. There is just something magical about hundreds of soap bubbles floating through the air around you, and I mean that totally unironically. And Jon did a cartwheel coming back on stage for the encores! He was a tiny cartwheeling hippie right in front of our eyes! And barefoot! That was a total highlight.
Also Ryan seems firmly convinced that the canonical length of all songs is exactly three minutes. When he and Jon changed sides while Brendon was playing Folkin' Around, Ryan announced quite verbosely that he would switch and come over to our side for three minutes. And then during the encores when he was announcing that they were adding in their The Weight cover, he asked if we'd be willing to stay for an additional song and calculated that that would mean six more minutes instead of three. Oh, Ryan.
And Phantom Planet and the Hushies came rushing out for Mad as Rabbits, and the highlights of that were 1) Greta coming to play next to Jon, immediately giving me insane wishes for Greta/Jon fic, and 2) Alex G. lifting Ryan up bodily to sit on his shoulders and Ryan simply continuing to play uninterrupted while Alex carried him around the stage. Oh, it was awesome!
Cristen and I stood in the merch clusterfuck for a little while but then we lost heart and bailed, and all of us went back to the hotel which was of course only a beautifully short walk away. And we bought liquids and sugar at the snack nook, and got into our pajamas in the room and collapsed. And some popslash friends of Cristen's came by to visit and extend the squee, and we yakked with them about fandom and about the show for a good while, although I admit I was nodding off before too long. And the next day we all had to catch our various planes home and that was that. But when I finally got to talk to my mom on the phone she said, "Well, was it worth the trip?" and I said, "YES."