Hey, Soul Sister

If my life was a movie (which I'm pretty sure it could be), this would be a snippet from it:



No seriously, this has actually happened to me. Okay, you know that song by Train called HEY SOUL SISTER?? My friend Kelley recommended it to me, and at the time, I watched the music video and I was like, "I really don't like it. It's not my style. blah. blah. blah." I seriously thought it was one of the most annoying songs. Almost as annoying as that FIREFLIES song . . .

(Side note: GO READ THIS BLOG POST BY THE JIGGLES PUFF about Adam Young from Owl City. It's legit stuff)

. . . I just could not get into that song. It was too much of a "kill-me-with-kindness-and-lovely-dovey-bubbles-while-hugging-a-kitten" pop song. But in the end, the song won me over and it was added to my iTunes in a few short clicks. And then I started recommending it to others. I dunno. Maybe that song is infused with the same sauce they put in Jack In The Box tacos to make them so ridiculously addicting. Or maybe I am finally embracing the fact that as indie-punk-rock as I try to be, I cannot escape the grasp of a truly good song with a pretty great hook.

So day in and day out you can find me blasting HEY, SOUL SISTER on my iPod and bobbing my head along to the sweet beat . . . much like the chick from the upcoming movie, EASY A, in the video above.

PS: When that movie comes out, I'm TOTALLY gonna be there! I may even pull a midnight showing. I don't think I've ever seen a snippet from a movie and felt such a connection to a character before! Well, I mean, unless you count the snippet from The Lord Of The Rings: Return Of The King when Sam Wise Gamgee carries Frodo on his back to take the ring back to Mordor. But other than that, nothing's come so close. . . . Okay okay, so maybe I could include that scene from The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe: Prince Caspian when Susan kisses Prince Caspian even though she's like 1300 years older than him—that happens to me ALL THE TIME! :|

PPS: As if I needed an EXTRA reason to watch EASY A—Stanley Tucci is going to be in it. For the longest time, my FAVORITE ACTOR has been Tom Hanks, but for a while now, it's been a steady tie between Tom and Stanley Tucci. Both stellar actors, in my opinion.

PPPS: Here's the music video for HEY, SOUL SISTER. When you get addicted, don't say I didn't warn you.

Said The Sun To The Shine

For the record, I TOTALLY meant to write a post yesterday about my first day at softball practice. However, I had pulled an all-nighter on Saturday and so when I got back from practice, I decided I would take a 2 hour nap and would set my alarm accordingly. However . . . not only did i NOT fully wake up from the alarm sounding, but apparently I subconsciously put my laptop speakers on mute (I use an alarm clock program on my mac cause it's louder than my phone's alarm) and apparently dismissed the alarm that sounded on my phone. I don't remember doing either of those things . . . and I woke up 15 hours later. :O

Anyway, all in all, softball practice was great! I only sustained minor injuries . . . when I put up my glove to catch a pop-fly, but just missed it, which led to said pop-fly making it's mark . . . on my chest. Right here>



I know I know . . . i gotta work on my catching skills. I've never been good at catching pop-flies, so it's not like I was incredibly surprised. I just now have a strong reminder that I need to work on those skills more.

Moving on . . .

On Saturday, I got to do one of my favorite things ever: MAKE A MIX-TAPE!

I seriously LOVE making Mix-Tapes! So one of my friends asked me to make some for him because he hadn't been able to keep up with recent music and wanted to try out some different styles and sounds, so I jumped at the opportunity—it's so fun and creative and allows me to share music I love with my friends. Here are the ones I made for him:








It made me sooooo excited to hand them over to him! Also, one of the funniest things about the process of making the mix was my iChat conversation with Kelley while I was picking the initial song lists:

Me: I want Paramore on there. The question is, THE ONLY EXCEPTION or FEELING SORRY?
Kelley: I dunno Paramore really . . .
Me: It's okay. Hayley forgives you. ;)
Kelley: I used to like WE ARE BROKEN a lot but even that one has kind of fallen off with me . . .
Me: Ah. I like MY HEART
Kelley: Me too. Also my lungs.
Me: HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHA!

This is just further proof that iChatting with Kelley while making a Mix-Tape is NEVER a bad idea. :D

Talk To Me

Hello Class!

Today we have a guest speaker: iChat!!

This is one of my favorite tools for communication. The ability to share files, and to chat with my friends makes me smile soooooo big!! Like this:

Exhibit A: Ridiculous Smile While Crossing Eyes From Excitement

Okay maybe not quite like that . . . but you kinda get the point ;)

But i really DO like to chat with friends. Amazingly enough, one of the people I talk to most on there is my friend Kelley.

Exhibit B: Kelley, Friend Extraordinaire

When I lived in Austin, Kelley was the person who would always hang out with me when I wanted to do stupid stuff. She'd also willingly hang out with me in the print room while waiting for 5,000 brochures to print out on the (handcrafted by Satan) Bizhub printer at 4 a.m. while we guzzled down primo octane espresso courtesy of the 24 hour Starbucks down the road. If I was going somewhere, Kelley was riding shotgun. We shared so many inside jokes and she has become one of my most near and dear best friends. Last Thanksgiving, she was able to come up to Seattle and visit me and we didn't miss a beat! I loved it!

Now that she's back at school in Texas, we use iChat to keep up with funny, sad, tough, liberating moments each day. We talk about EVERYTHING. And because we are able to play off of each other's humor (trust me, she is like 10,000,000,000 times funnier and quick witted than me!) Here are some of my favorite recent chats with Kelley:

Exhibit C: We were having a discussion and for some reason, a conversation she had had with her dorm-mate who was telling her about placenta-based shampoos came up. Please note: we are completely random people & we talk about all sorts of stuff—but it always ends in good laughs.

(click to enlarge)

Exhibit D: We were talking about how I really wanted to watch a show on TV but I had a prior engagement. The prior engagement was pretty important, but the pop-culture junkie in me really wanted to be able to watch the episode.

(click to enlarge)

Exhibit E: We had found a picture of a friend of a friend online and she made a reference back to a moment from her visit to Seattle. We had gone to see Parachute play and they were opening for Kelly Clarkson. The ENTIRE night, Kelley kept referring to Kelly Clarkson as though she were Carrie Underwood. I still get good laughs from that. PS: I have WAY too many friends and friends of friends who look like Elijah Wood.

(click to enlarge)

I'm telling you, it's never a dull moment on my iChat! I love it! PS: that picture of Andrew McMahon doing the "Haters Gonna Hate" is like . . . the best thing on the planet. It comes up constantly throughout my chats with Kelley. I'll send it to her randomly in response, and as you can see, she reciprocates the favor ;) In fact, if you ever get bored, go to my Tumblr and search back through my posts to find the chat posts. They are mainly banter between me and Kel. We are quite the duo . . . one day we will learn to fight crime together. We will be armed with wit and this:


Extra Extra PPPPPS: If you have an Instant Messenger Screen name, email me, DM me, FB Message me, or leave me a comment and I will add you and share in the shenanigans! ;) I heart my iChat! :D