Groovy~

Image via Google

I love 60's music. Very much. I started out listening to a lot of ye-ye ,which is 60s French pop, and it is incredibly addictive! I guess the fascination with this music started a few years ago, maybe in 07-08ish time period. I was really interested in the French language and as I delved more and more into it I started to wonder what French music sounded like so I went ahead and started researching popular French acts. I came across many, many mainstream current acts and I was pretty impressed I suppose since I continued listening to these singers. I remember Alizee and Emilie Simon were on heavy rotation. Then one day, I stumbled upon ye-ye and it was love at first listen. I went mad on a ye-ye downloading spree! I remember downloading a crap load of Sylvie Vartan, Francoise Hardy, and countless ye-ye acts! Francoise Hardy is now, of course, one of my favorite singer of all time. So after that I began listening to more 60s pop acts such as the famous Girl Groups of the 60s, which I still love of course! Then of course the Beatles came into play :)
So since then, I every so often go on 60s downloading sprees and discover more great acts to love!

Most recently I downloaded an album called "Nippon Girls" which is a compilation of Japanese 60s pop acts and I am really in love with it! I especially love foreign 60s acts so discovering this album was a special treat! I also discovered some Thai 60s and I finally found it!! So I'm excited to actually own it as I've only heard samples of it on Amazon! (I use the 2nd volumes cover because I love it hehe)

Along with loving these 60s acts comes my love for 60s fashion. Mini skirts and go-go boots? LOVE! Plus I love big hair and loads of eyeliner so this is also a plus! I really need to re-vamp my style because I've been in such a slump over the past few years and I think I found a style I can really relate to! I guess we'll see what happens. I know it sounds incredibly pretentious but I really believe I should have been my age now in the 60s!

Amazing album!

Home Sweet Home!

San Antonio via Google

So here I am! Back in San Antonio, Texas. I'll relay my trip play by play as follows:
-My parents arrived on July 7th to Pittsburgh and we stayed there for 5 days which means we left on Sunday July 11th.
-My Dad drove for 27 HOURS STRAIGHT!! I am so beyond proud of him and so unbelievably thankful to him and my mother for doing what they did for me and also for spending so much on me. I have a whole new appreciation for them or rather I think I finally grasp the enormity with which they love me.
-We arrive Monday afternoon and we are all exhausted but I had one more thing to do before I could finally get into bed and rest! Go pick up my dogs!! Gitsie and Ringo my little dachshunds! So finally we go and get some food and pick up the dogs and arrive home and pretty much pass out!
-Later that night my friend Jacob (different Jacob than my roommate Jacob) and we go to his house to hang out. I eventually come home and pass out again.

Throughout the next couple of days my friend Kristina comes over and helps me unload the moving truck so my parents could take back to the truck company.
My crap is still pretty much stacked up in the front living room because I'm trying to clean out and re paint my room. I've finished priming my walls and now I'm going to paint them gray.

So being home has been pretty great I suppose. I mean I love being with my family but I am sort of missing my freedom but I missed my home and family much more than I'll ever miss Pittsburgh. I need to get back to work as soon as possible because I've been relying way too much on my parents and it's driving me crazy!
Well I guess I'll update later~

In the end...

Walking the streets of downtown Pittsburgh.

In approximately 9 days I will be on my way home to Texas! I am so excited! Every time I think about it I just get more and more anxious. I feel horrible making or actually asking my parents to help me move but I don't want to be here anymore. I feel myself getting more and more depressed each day. I miss my family and I miss my friends. My plan, once I get home, is as follows:
- Get a job! I have Disney all lined up to go back to but the pay is shit so I need to get a new job ASAP!
- Get my ass back into school! I really am interested in the Computer Forensics program over at one of the local JC's back home.
-Pay off my debts! (which kind of goes hand in hand with getting a job)

So hopefully things can work out as planned this time around!

Artwork done in my honor by my co-worker :P (This was in the stock room so ignore the ugly walls!)

My last day at work is on Sunday and I am so sad about leaving this job. I work with awesome people and I get pretty decent pay and that's all I'm asking for in back in Texas.



I am still completely obsessed with the Beatles. I don't know when or if it'll ever end! I kind of hope it doesn't because their music has meant so much to me this past few months.

well until I have more to say....

je suis seule.

I went to visit Andy Warhol's grave yesterday :)

So it is approximately ONE MONTH UNTIL I GO HOME!!!!!! I am sooooo excited!! Sorry for the overuse of the exclamations but they are indeed necessary! I am so psyched to see everyone and get back into somewhat my old routine. I will change some things in my life because I don't want to be a complete loser.
Right now my roommate, Jacob, is off from school so we've been going around town doing things together before we each go off on our own thing. He will remain here in Pittsburgh for another year but of course I am leaving. I'm kind of sad about this situation because we've been through so much together this past year and to leave will be bittersweet. I kind of feel like a failure in some ways because when I started this blog I intended it to be a sort of outlet on my new and wonderful life. In the end it's just a record of how horrible this whole year has been. Well, I won't say it was entirely bad because it did have it's moments. I'm happy I moved out here so that I could experience what I experienced. I feel like it made me grow up in ways I hadn't yet. So in some sick way thank you Pittsburgh!

So my obsession with the Beatles it's getting worse and worse as the days go on! I can't stop listening to them!! Pittsburgh announced recently that Paul Mccartney will be doing a concert here in August but I'll be gone! How awesome would it be to see at least one of the 2 remaining Beatles? Oh well :( I've had a love for the Beatles for years now but recently it's just gotten pretty intense. I feel peaceful and happy when I hear their music. Through all the chaos that's happened in my life in the past year I feel like their music has helped me get on with it. I know that sounds completely dumb? I just know that's what I feel.

Well until we meet again!
Jenn

ch-ch-ch-changes...

We all inevitably go through changes throughout our lives. You aren't the same person at 26 that you were at 6. Your tastes and hobbies change (drastically!) and you've just basically matured. Sure, you can still like that certain cartoon you got up to watch every Saturday, but mostly it's for nostalgia purposes. The point of the matter is that I want to discuss, for my own sick pleasure (and maybe yours?) the changes that have occurred in my life as I have aged.

Let's begin with my "tween" years as they call them now.
I had unruly, frizzy hair and dressed horribly. I really didn't care how I looked and to me now that seems wonderful. What I wouldn't give today to just not care about my appearance. I loved boy bands and just bubblegum pop in general. My favorite band was the Backstreet Boys and my heart belonged to Nick Carter.

Life was simple back then.

Late tween-early teen years:
Hmm the most awkward of all my phases and probably the one I'm most embarrassed by! So, this would be around the time where I began to like a certain genre of music. I was in 7th grade and I thought listening to bands like Korn was cool. I'd walk around in black t-shirts and my hair all in my face. I can recall this one day while at my grandmothers house my sister said "Geez, Jenn you look Gothic" I laugh at that now seeing as that's clearly not gothic but just plain...stupid! (the way I looked not my sister. How is she to know what "gothic" is.) Anyways, so my favorite bands were Korn, Slipknot, Coal Chamber, Orgy, among countless other horrendous (to me now anyway) musical acts. I met my best friend in Freshman year of high school and we both liked this horrid music. I went to my first concerts with him. By the middle of my freshman year I began dabbling in real heavy metal music, which would soon take over my life.

Teen Years 14-15:
Heavy metal was my life now. I listened to Black metal and Death metal, etc ,etc. I wore band t-shirts and wore lots of black eyeliner. We'd go to metal concerts all the time. I really look back on this time of my life fondly. My favorite band ever during this period was Cradle of Filth. I just couldn't get enough of them! This was before they started touring on Ozzfest and all that bullshit. They were like true black metal. I also liked bands like Emperor, Mayhem, Nile, Cannibal Corpse, and countless others! I saw so many concerts and the funniest one that I'll never forget was when we saw Mortician. So this band has some insane fans and said fans were going crazy moshing at the show. It's me and I believe 2 other friends and this guy hits us and we all fall down! It was too funny! I still love some Black metal acts to this day. I'll pop in a CD or download an album whenever the mood arises.


Teen Years 16-18
Ok, so now we get into the "goth" years hah! With listening to Black metal and really any dark genre of metal comes Gothic music. I don't really no why. I guess you could say these Gothic artists are influential to these Black metal artists. For example, Cradle of Filth covered some Sisters of Mercy songs. Sisters of Mercy (whether they like it or not!) are a staple gothic rock band. So, I discover the wonders of gothic rock and ethereal music (ethereal wasn't that big a deal to me but some bands were decent) I like to think I dressed great during this time! I know it sounds egotistical but I believe it's true! I despised the whole "mall goth" and Manson goth types so I did my best to stear clear. My main inspiration came from the 80's goth look. I'm talking lace and velvet type stuff here. I also start listening to a lot of 80s new wave music which also influences my style greatly! I mostly shop at thrift stores at this point and wear nothing but platform shoes (I miss platforms!). Then I get introduced to the electronic side of gothic music. This is when the whole "cyber goth" thing got really, really popular, you know the beginning of the "dread falls" thing and stuff like that. Well, it'd been around before but it was probably at it's peak then. So I of course began making my own hair falls out of things, mostly yarn. I started wearing PVC clothes like pants and skirts and my platform boots got bigger and PVC. I start going to more shows. My favorite electronic bands were (and in some cases still are) VNV Nation, Assemblage 23, Hocico, Apoptygma Berserk, Pride and Fall, etc etc basically anything on Metropolis Records. I still stay in with my gothic rocks roots and also begin to listen to a lot of deathrock bands. Some gothic rock/ death rock bands I love are: Corpus Delicti, Sisters of Mercy, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Alien Sex Fiend, The Cramps (considered psychobilly in some circles), Christian Death, Bauhaus, Red Lorry Yellow Lorry, etc etc. I tease my hair and wear black lipstick and also stick to the motto of "if it's not Aquanet holding up your teased hair then it aint deathrock" hah I stick with this styles until the end of high school. High school for me and for many people was like a freakin' cat walk. I wore things that I loved. I really miss doing that. When I was about lets say 16-17 I was introduced to Visual Kei by my best friend. We started listening to bands like Dir en Grey and Malice Mizer. I remember being in computer class looking up Mana after I'd finished with my assignment :)


18-21:
So for those about 4 years Visual Kei is a big part of me. I listen to it, I travel (in 2007 my best friend and I drove from TX to CA to see Ayabie) for it, I dress for it. Not too much to say here besides having Japanese popular culture take over my life. I still love it to this day but I think the passion was the most intense in the beginning.

21-today (I'm 22 btw and will be 23 in August)
I love every kind of music I've listened to (aside from 14-15 yrs hah!) I probably won't ever stop.
As far as the way I dress...well I've toned it down A LOT. I'm really sad that I have because I just loved the way I dressed before. I feel like I'm not myself sometimes but I guess that's what happens when you get older. Especially, if you are part of a subculture. You get older and you have to dress a certain ways in order to be accepted into society. I still don't dress "normal" enough to most people. I wear a lot of black now but I have my own "thing" I guess you could say. I still love Japanese street fashion, especially gothic lolita. I guess at this point in my life I don't have the money it takes to look how I'd really like to. Once I get my life on track and figure out what I'm going to do with the rest of my life I'm sure my sense of style will again kick in and I'll be happy with how I dress.

Musically, at this time, I am completely obsessed with the 60s namely the Beatles. I have probably had "across the universe" and "Norwegian wood" on repeat for the past week or so. But, of course I still hear my old faithfuls. Just check out my lastfm to see what I'm hearing.


So, I believe everyone goes through lots of changes. I went through a few but in the end I think I know who I am. I love morbid things and I probably always will. I'll always love the dark side of things and thats just who I am and I'm happy with that. I wouldn't change anything in my past (aside from some financial decisions!)
So I leave you with...

A photo I took last month of the first rays of sunlight of spring!

I really should be asleep by now but lately I just can't sleep at night. Well, it's not such a strange thing for me because I'm a night owl but it's making tired while I'm at work during the day.
All day today I could not stop hearing "Across the Universe" by The Beatles! It's just such a beautiful song! Right now though, I'm hearing Dead Souls by Joy Division.
I don't know what on earth I would do without music in my life. Everything I've been listening to lately has just helped me so much lately. Helped me with coping with the fact that in some ways my freedom was taken away when my car broke down. Helped me feel not so lonely in a city where I have no one to turn to. I just feel so thankful to these artists for doing what they do because without their music I would be doomed.

I'm so excited I'm going to make a counter and come back here every now and then to see how much time is left until I get to go home!!



I want to go shopping so badly! I might buy myself a little something tomorrow :)
Yesterday, I had some time to kill so I went into forever21 thinking I was just going to be buying a black beret and I walked out with the beret and a pair of skinny black jeans and I also stopped by H&M and got myself some sunglasses because my poor eyes can't stand the sun!
Well I'm off to attempt sleep!

I'm in such a good mood right now. Do you know why? Because of this woman ..

Françoise Hardy.

She is one of my absolute favorite singers of all time. I'm happy because after searching and searching I FINALLY got a hold of her English album! YAY!
I always tell everyone that I want to name my daughter (if I ever have one)Françoise, after her because she is that much of an influence on my life. I love her style, her music and just everything she's about. Also, I demanded that they play "Mon amie la rose" at my funeral!

So I've been on this 60s music kick for the past let's say three or so weeks. I'm finally filling the gaps in my Beatles collection. I've also been hearing a bunch of Psychedelic rock music. I just love the 60s era so much and I feel as though in another life I was a total hippie or maybe a mod, hip kind of Beatnik :P
I'm just going to dedicate the rest of this post to women and men of the 60s that I adore....













ahh 60s John Waters! I love him :)

*All images were found throughout the internet. If you're the owner of the photo and would like credit. Let me know!