To Vote or Not To Vote

The fact that voter records are public is one of the main reasons I don't like to vote.

I don't like the phone calls, the mail, and all the crap that the greedy people who get my public information do with it.

It's my right to vote, but it's also my right not to be pestered. 

During Woodrow Wilson's term hundreds of women fought for my right to vote. They were beaten, arrested, and publicly humiliated. And here I am complaining about some extra mail.

 For the most part I've kept my opinions to myself. But I live in a battleground state here in Nevada and this is the first time that I feel like vote might actually matter.  So I am voting today for the first time.

And even though I don't care much for Lena Dunham, I did like her commercial and thought it was ridiculous that there was a controversy over it.

Halloween 2012

Last night was an unusually quiet Halloween for us. We usually have a house full but last night we only had a few guests. It was nice though.
Hayden had talked about his costume for a couple months. He had originally wanted to be either an Angry Bird or a Ninja. When we went costume shopping two weeks ago we were browsing through some ninja costumes and Hayden was disappointed "These ninja's look cheap!"  He was right.
When we went to the party store he saw lots of costumes that he liked that were just too expensive. Then he found THE ONE.
It was perfect.

He found a Star Wars character: Savage Opress. They only had two sizes and one was his.

We had decorated way more than ever before this year. A lot of the smaller kids didn't want to walk up at all. One little girl was crying the whole time she walked up to our door, took the candy and ran!
Hayden really had a blast handing out candy, scaring the kids with our smoke machine, and the mustache I had found while we were trick-or-treating.
Our neighbors also decorated pretty well. Our two houses were the best in the whole housing complex.
We had a blast!

Friday we're hosting a Zombie Party for our Cd Release show. I'm getting some great ideas for makeup and an outfit!

On How I Cheated on Opera with Metal and my annoying coworker

There's this one lady who I work with. She's a lady that watches Dances with the Stars, American Idol, and wants to talk about it ALL. THE. TIME.
She knows I am in a band and starts conversations with me about the most random things.
Today it was a singer that she had heard of and she asked me if I liked her. The conversation quickly took a left turn into "If you studied Opera in high school how could you switch to Metal?"  That last word she said with a menacing grimace like I had switched from Dr. Pepper to Mr. Pibb and liked it.
I gave her the best rushed answer I could since I feel like if she stands near me too long I might say things that will make her ears bleed.

The real answer is this:
While in high school I may have been going to class to learn opera, concert choir, and Italian arias, but at home, in the shower and on Fridays in front of my class I was singing lots of Sublime, Bloodhound Gang, and Pearl Jam.
I was mostly into punk when Brian and I met in 1999. He was into metal. He had a drum set in his closet collecting dust and awesome stories of all the bands he had been in.
I had a zine and a drive to learn how to write music.
I had been driving him to jam with his bass player friend for a few months by the time we moved into our first apartment together in Sacramento. I had asked Brian and his friend if they would consider trying me out as a singer once they found a guitar player.
That apparently fell on deaf ears. A month later he answered an ad for a guitar player and a singer looking for a drummer and bass player. I was really hurt and he acted like he had totally forgotten that I had asked.
Brian told me that I couldn't be a singer without my own p.a. So being the determined person I am, I went to Skips music and bought an entire p.a. setup. Don't dare tell me I can't do something especially when it only requires a purchase. I am a woman who shops.
I set it up in our extra room and told him that if he didn't want to try me out, I would get good and find a band who did.
Brian went and played with them and I didn't care much for any of it. A lot of things upset me about the situation but mostly I came to the conclusion that I couldn't be the drummers girlfriend. I'm just not capable of it.
At this point we had been together for 6 months and was ready to call it quits.
Then about a few weeks later after a few practices where their singer didn't show up and I made up shit on his microphone the guitar player Steve called Brian. He told him he couldn't play with the singer anymore and he really wanted to give me a shot. Brian talked to me about it and we figured we'd give it a chance even though we knew we'd hear No Doubt jokes for days.
So that's how I became a metal singer.
Well there was a lot of bad ad-libbed punk lyrics over metal guitar riffs and double bass drums that slowly evolved into metal. Then lots of drunk shows, practicing in a steel storage unit in the really cold winters, having to use the same microphone after another female singer masturbated on stage with it, puking into velvet curtains on stage after being stuck in the xtracab of a truck for 4 hours in traffic, practicing in the same hall from one of my favorite bands ever, and a bunch of other stuff I won't bore you with now at least.

Weekend Redux: October-ness

We had a pretty awesome weekend. Friday our good friend Dave invited us to a burrito party he had won at a local restaurant. He got a 4 foot burrito for six friends. We had berry mojitos, coconut margaritas and a bunch of fun.

Saturday we visited the Springs Preserve. I don't know why we didn't go there sooner. It was so beautiful and a lot of fun for the three of us. The preserve features history of the Las Vegas Valley, the animals that currently and formerly lived here, as well as great information about plants that do well here.
They had the grounds decorated for Halloween even though we were too early for the Haunted Harvest.

 Hayden was exhausted from the three hours of walking and learning so after the preserve we hung out at home watching Halloween movies.

Sunday we made our pumpkins. Hayden had picked out a small pumpkin and decided he wanted to make it a pig from Angry Birds. He of course didn't want to do the work, so mom and dad created it for him.
Then  I murdered a pumpkin with my bare hands and ripped out his guts while Brian and Hayden watched in disgust. Neither one of my boys likes to get their hands dirty, ridiculous I know. But I love it and he came out pretty cool.

Teacher Conference

There's lots of things people don't share with you while you're pregnant like hemorrhoids, costs of daycare, temper tantrums in public places, and first grade homework.
There's a part of me that wanted to write that in all caps FIRST GRADE HOMEWORK so you will all understand my need to yell it.
I don't remember a lot of first grade other than getting my mouth washed out with soap for telling the teacher "my mom says to fuck off" or something of that nature when I was asked to turn in a homework project that required my parent's participation.

Now, my first grader who hasn't come to enjoy reading or writing very much yet has at least an hour or so of homework four nights a week and is required to read twenty minutes a day right now.
I don't disagree with this at all. I am glad he's being challenged and I am glad the homework needs us parents to be involved.
I am however at my wits end with this child who says "I DON'T WANNA!!!", cries a lot and then makes his body go limp and lies in the middle of the living room floor at the sight of a book or flash cards.

We had a teacher conference Monday evening. She reported on his progress; needs work on writing, and reading, is great at math. We talked about his behavior in class and participation which was good, but then she showed us some of his work that just wasn't done. Apparently the not wanting to do stuff attitude happens in class as well. She made a deal with him like we have at home and starting today we will see if it works.

He's really the opposite of me when it comes to school work, reading and writing. I loved it and revelled in the escape of filling notebooks with stories alone in my room. He'd rather do anything else.

I tried explaining that in life you can't just give up and say "I don't wanna." If I did that I wouldn't have a career and we'd probably live on the street. He answered with "As long as we can plug in our tv and the Playstation."

Weekend Redux: Random Fall Stuff

We've been busy with wrapping up the packaging and mix for our new cd. I designed up a quick website for the band here: www.bipolarmetal.com and Brian's been working a lot. But we still have time to enjoy the little things of early fall.

The little ghost is a candle my grandma gave me about 6 years ago. It reminds me of when her house was decorated to the extreme for every holiday. I've tried my best to keep her tradition going in my house.
The skull and book cookie jar I found at World Market and will be a year round addition to my kitchen.
The fourth picture is of the movie poster for the 1979 edition of Nosferatu which is one of my favorite posters and old scary movies.

We have some fun Halloween and fall stuff planned for this week if work and other stuff don't get in the way.

FALL Wishlist

It's getting chilly, and a little rainy here in Vegas. Since I had to do a whole wardrobe overhaul before Summer most of my Fall clothing is outdated as well. I've been window internet wishlist shopping for weeks and actually bought a few things last payday, but now I need to stock up on warmer wear before it's too late and I'm wearing blankets all the time.

1. Grey Faux Leather Boots. 2. Brown knit scarf. 3. Black Bootines 4. Double Breasted Jacket  5. Leaf necklace. 6. Grey Skinnies. 7. Cream Swing Dress 8. Flutter Skirt. 9. Long Marled Cardigan 10. Studded Tote.