a list of stuff I like today

These are things that have made me smile in recent days.

• Raven Used Books, my favorite used book store, and the place where I have spent an unacceptable amount of money in the three weeks I've been home.
• United States of Tara! Quite possibly my favorite show on TV right now. Right up there with with 30 Rock, Community, Parenthood and Friday Night Lights. (I excluded Glee from the favorite TV shows because Glee is more just an explosion of joy than a television show for me. Also excluded are LOST, because I mostly watch it on hulu anyway, and because no show can really be compared the the Olympics of craziness that is Lost. Also didn't include Real Housewives of NYC because seriously... just seriously...) But yeah, US of Tara is AWESOME and I highly recommend it to anyone who feels compelled to invest more of their time in watching serialized dramedys. The writing & acting are superb and it's just all around fantasmic. Plus Marshall is one of the cutest characters ever.
• this shirt
• THE PERSON THAT BUYS ME THE SAVED BY THE BELL BOARD GAME!!!
• "If I Had You" - Adam Lambert. It's a jam, goddamnit.
• tumblr. I'm obsessed. Check mine out if you'd like.
• The colored Christmas lights that I still have strung up on the wall above my bed.
  
• Crybaby Slushies. So sour, so delicioso.
• laying facedown across my bed with the shades up and the windows open so that the hot sun and the slightest, most perfectly pleasant breeze hit the sensitive back of my thighs. It feels fantastic.
• My new nail polish: We'll Always Have Paris by OPI. It's purple and gorgeous.
• This video- so so so so precious!
• Just generally the fact that the Glee kids love eachother so much :) it makes me foolishly happy.
• Zadie Smith and every word that she has ever written.
• piscesinpurple She kind of epitomizes awesome.

that's about all I got for ya at the moment. we'll chat again soon.

listfully yours,
xoxo tess

a list of my favorite Glee performances (as of yet!)

I'm a Gleek. Here we go, my favorite performances, in no particular order because, trust me, compiling this list was difficult enough.

• I Dreamed A Dream. I can't even put into words how perfect and beautiful this was. Vocally flawless, visually gorgeous. And it was friggen IDINA MENZEL! SINGING ON NATIONAL TELEVISION! with her second coming, Lea Michele at her side. Nothing compares to that. Nothing. Lea and Idina doing Les Miz...nope, I'm still not over it.
  
• Run Joey Run. Quite possibly the campiest shit I have ever seen in my life and, dear god, did I eat it right up. (tip: It really gets better and better with each subsequent viewing.) Also, Lea was hysterical in this sequence, bbygurrl wants that Emmy nomination! (I hope she gets it.)
• Don't Rain On My Parade. Breathtaking. Can we just consider this Lea's audition to play my beloved Fanny Brice in a Funny Girl revival? And can we agree that she's got it locked up?
• Don't Stand So Close to Me/Young Girl. Ohhhh Matt Morrison. Emma and Rachel's giddy, girly reactions to Mr. Shue's performance pretty much mimicked the one I was having as I watched at home. He's so dreamy.
• Somebody to Love. This was just a glorious direction. I really love the group numbers because I'm just a big sap and I think all the kids singing together is super cute. Plus Finn's falsetto on the opening. Ahhhhhh
• Keep Holding On. The group banding together to support Quinn. It's just really sweet. Also I never liked the original version of this song (avril!) yet this one is still on heavy rotation on my ipod. The power of Glee.
• And I am Telling You I'm not Going. It was inevitable that they would have Mercedes sing this, but Amber completely killed it, so who cares if it's cliche.
  
• Rose's Turn. Oh. My. God. I very nearly peed my pants when this started. Gypsy is part of my heart and soul and Kurt is perfect and Chris's voice has never sounded stronger or better, and everything about this performance was outstanding. Oh, the high kicks!!
• My Life Would Suck Without You. Vocally, this was actually one of their worst performances. The voices sound very canned and almost kidz bop-y, but the sheer adorableness and camaraderie of the performance made it one of my favorites. I mean come on guys, they prepared that song just for Mr. Shue! That's all kinds of precious. Plus the revisiting of all their best past dance moves was excellent.
• Gives You Hell. Rachel's complete lack of subtlety is delicious. Plus my sister and I have rewound this performance about a hundred times just to watch this priceless little stomp dance thing that Lea does at one point, and I seriously suggest that you do the same.
  
• TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE HEART. This one gets capitalized because it will be on repeat (with visuals) in my mind for probably the entire rest of my existence. Jon and Lea doing ballet on TV. I don't even know how to explain how perfect that is.
• Hello. Groff is perfect. He and Lea should always sing together, forever. The end.
• Maybe This Time. Simply beautiful, everything about it. Even Cheno's show off note at the end.
• Defying Gravity. Not only did this one sound gorgeous, but the meaning that this song has for both characters is obvious and heartbreaking, and I think Lea and Chris both brought that through beautifully.
• Jump. Basically, it just made me happy.
• Don't Stop Believin'. Of course not list of best Glee performances would be complete without including this one. I still vidivdly recall how blown away and excited I was after seeing this in the pilot that aired last May, and how many times I listened to it over the summer in eager anticipation of the episodes to come, and, proving how great it is, it has yet to get old. This is just a really heart warmer. Glee is so cheesy and campy but there is such a sweetness and pure joy and positivity radiating throughout it. Ugh. Love!
  

honorable mentions: Kurt's audition Mr. Cellophane, Puck's rendition of Sweet Caroline, Rachel's On My Own which would be on the list except that I've heard Lea sing it much better (which is really saying somethiing because the Glee recording is beautiful. God is that girl talented,) and the entire Madonna episode because the whole thing just felt like one big cone bra-ed, faux British accented, Madge-ified performance, and I loved it all.

listfully yours,
xoxo tess

a list of adorable

I like things that are adorable.
Here is a list of things that are adorable.

• THESE! ahhh, get me these! these are spectacular.
• In the Heights. Just the show in it's entirety. It's beautiful and sweet and it warms my heart. If you're unfamiliar with it...you really shouldn't be.
• Dads carrying children on their shoulders.
• The infamous You Belong With Me video that got Kanye in all that trouble. Adorbz
• Beanies.
• The natural (white) colored Chucks. Adorable and very quintessentially American.
• Penny candy stores.
• Toddlers that wear glasses.
• Boys that don't know how to knot their tie.
• The Odyssey, an independent bookstore in South Hadley with a gloriously decorated children's section that makes me wish I was six again so I could appreciate it properly.
• Hand-holding.
• Nerdfighterlike.
• Polka dot bikinis.
• My cat.
• Selena Gomez. I'm sorry, but she's my favorite Disney kid and I think she is all kinds of cute (although her music career...really shouldn't exist...). Plus she's hilarious on Wizards of Waverly Place.
• Rain boots.
• Humility.
• These pillowcases
• Those contraptions that cut your sandwich into cool shapes! I saw one at Target that would cut your sandwich into two dolphins and a little heart all in one slice. Ingenious AND adorable! *
• And, ummm Zac Efron. The boy epitomizes adorable.

Also, am I the only one who sees pictures of Zac Efron and feels like a pedophile? I know that he's like 5 years older than me but there is just like this Disney-fied aura of cuteness and innocence surrounding him for me, which makes his hottness kind of problematic.
I hope I just made someone feel like a creep.
listfully yours,
xoxo tess

*I'm not even exaggerating my enthusiasm. I want one of those really badly.

a list about how I have no time to make any lists

I hate that I haven't blogged in so long but I've just been having a bit of a nervous breakdown this week...no big deal. Ha ha. It's the last week of classes and I am basically doing poorly in almost everything, which is completely embarrassing. I did this to myself, and yet I'm sitting here acting like it is some kind of unexplainable tragedy. Basically I'm just in a little bit of dark mode this week. I don't know what I'm going to do with myself and that terrifies me. I need to figure a lot of stuff out and I can't seem to get down to the figuring, I just sit and obsess until I my breathing speeds up and I need to find some kind of distraction just to get my anxiety down to a manageable level. Everything's kinda fucked. None of that is really a reason that I couldn't blog, but I have just been feeling too overwhelmed lately to do anything productive. I'm hoping that I'll turn it around this summer. I just need to get out of here. I'm sitting in the library trying to write essays and revise projects and it's all important but I just can't wrap my mind around any of it enough to get anything done. I feel nauseous. Ugh. I don't know I don't know I don't know.

• I made a tumblr because I really needed one more way to waste time.
• I have never been so goddamn excited to leave somewhere as I am to leave school right now, and I feel sort of bad about it. All of my friends are sad about packing up their rooms and saying tearful goodbyes, but me, the one who is never coming back here again? I could have my stuff thrown together and be out the door in a heartbeat without any inclination to look back.
• Ummmm, I met Megan McCafferty last week. (!!!) I keep kind of forgetting that that happened. But it definitely did. And it was definitely awesome. She sang Barryoke and read us a story from her first grade notebook about dancing vegetables and it's one of the most purely happy experiences in my recent memory.
• My Adam Lambert obsession is beginning to border on truly inappropriate.
• THERE IS NO FUTURE, THERE IS NO PAST, THANKS GOD THIS MOMENT'S NOT THE LAST! THERE'S ONLY US, THERE'S ONLY THIS! FORGET REGRET, OR LIFE IS YOURS TO MISS! NO OTHER ROAD! NO OTHER WAY! NO DAY BUT TODAY!
• ...yeah, I don't know why that just happened either....
• It was lines from Rent, just to clear that up. Doesn't explain why it was included though, because there isn't a way for me to do that.
• And speaking of Rent, I just recently introduced my friends from school to the Rent Filmed Live on Broadway DVD (which everyone should check out if they have not already. It's wonderful) and I was reminded once again of how disappointing Roger's song is. I mean, the guy spent a YEAR of his life working on his "one great song" and guess what? It kinda sucks.
  
• I want a new coral-y nail polish. The one I loved last summer seems a little too orangey for my taste now.
  
• I DIEEEEEEEEEE WITHOUT YOUUUUUUUUU
• bahahaha what is my life
• Oh, speaking of the ridiculous extended practical joke that is my life, a girl vomited on the floor in my school's student lounge yesterday. Yes. Really. She literally just stood up, puked, and then, with a understandably mortified expression on her face, grabbed all her crap and peaced out of there. WHAT?! WHAT?! Sometimes I am simply dumbfounded by the things that I witness. Like when I saw someone clipping their nails in public TWICE in one week. God.
• I must do some work now. Goodbye, darlings.

listfully yours,
xoxo tess

oh and p.s: THIS IS AWESOME


all credit for this masterpiece goes to the sensational Hayley G Hoover.

a list about Glee!!

OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD!!!

I have no words for how much I loved tonight's episode of Glee. * It was so absolutely wonderful that I am still walking on a high from it's fabulousity, I thought I'd jot down a list of reasons this particular episode was so great.

• Any episode that opens with Sue's journaling is bound for greatness. "Madonna. Just saying the world makes me feel powerful." Perfect, setting the tone for a top notch episode.
• I am eating up the Jesse St. James storyline with a spoon, and not just because I went into it predisposed to loving everything that Jonathan Groff does. He is doing such a fantastic job with this character so far, and his natural sweetness and charisma really shine through, because otherwise, Jesse would be a total skeez. With adorable Groffy at the reins, you can't help but find him dreamy, even as he's screwing over our darling Rachel.
• There is literally no critique of Glee that you could throw at me that I'll find any merit in. I'm not saying it's perfect, but I just think it's such a precious little show, such a fun, campy, joyful creation, that little writing problems or various nitpicking issues that I would normally have with any show I watch just don't apply here for me. I think Glee is best when you just enjoy it, accept the campiness and just let it all wash over you. That's the way I like to watch, and the way I will continue to watch. Glee makes me really happy and I'm done trying to justify that to people. (aaaand that concludes this mini rant)
• Because I'm starting to pretty seriously ship Jesse/Rachel, if only to keep Jon around longer.
• Kurt's portion of "Like A Prayer" was one of the most wonderful things I have ever heard in my life.
• Brittany continues to be given the absolute best lines I have ever heard. And she kills it every single time. Love that girl. On a show where I could complain about the writing QUITE A BIT, whoever is writing for Brittany is a true stand out. (actually, all the dialogue is pretty great, the story lines could just use some tightening)
• "Mercedes is black. I'm gay. We make a culture." YES YES YES
  
• I thought the Borderline/Open Your Heart mashup was a little forced and corny (but still cute) and I found myself paying more attention to the various Madonna costume clad students that were hanging around in the halls than to Rachel and Finn as they did their signature skip around while singing inches from eachother's faces. They kind of bore me. They're adorable and I guess I want them together but I don't know...I really really love Rachel (a rare opinion, I know) and I just think she can do better than that dumb, though darling, lug.
• Because I was fangirling over Groff and Lea during "Like a Virgin." Embarrassing? Yup. Do I care? Not at all.
• LEA'S VOCALS AT THE OPENING OF LIKE A PRAYER!!! Oh my lord. This girl never ceases to amaze me. Her voice is always frighteningly close to perfection but this first verse was sinfully beautiful.
• My crush on Artie is ridiculous.
• This episode was way too showy and flashy for my personal taste, not enough heart, and not my favorite episode by any means, but it was still kind of wonderful in it's own ways, and SO much better than last week's atrocity. Mr. Shue was way less of a douche this week.
  
• This show just warms my little theatre nerd heart, okay?! JUST LET ME HAVE THIS.
  

listfully yours,
xoxo tess


*lies, clearly all lies.

a list of zero importance to anyone

I am currently sporting blue leopard print leggings (very Mimi Marquez!), a giant bruins hoodie, and pig tails. Lookin' goooood. It's been a long, lazy sort of day, just hanging around my house not doing much of anything other than attacking the massive mound of laundry I brought home from school and continuing to work on arranging all of the books, dvds, and the like that I packed up and moved out of my dorm room on friday into their proper position in my room. I'm way too excited to have my room back the way I like it, without having all of my things in all different places. I have to say, I am beyond thrilled at the prospect of leaving and not going back (except to visit my lovelies!!!) I'm not going to miss anything other than the awesome friends I've made, and since I plan on seeing them so often they're sick of looking at my face, that won't be a problem. I don't know exactly what the next phase of my life is going to be, but I am excited for it. Part of me wishes I didn't have to go back to school tomorrow, or at all, but I'll get to have lots of play time with my girlies before what I know will be a melodramatic goodbye, so it's worth waiting a few more weeks to be done there for good.

The following is just, I don't know...some stuff:

• I bought a new nail polish* yesterday which I am IN LOVE with. It's called Jade is the New Black by OPI and it's rad. it's a massively pretty sort of soft, creamy green that I am enjoying very much. I painted my nails with it last night and used two coats, and I think tomorrow I'm probably take it off and repaint with just one coat (plus top coat) to see what it looks like.
  
• I've spent the last two hours sitting on a yoga ball in front of this computer watching The Battery's Down. It is an amazingly funny webshow about trying to make it as an actor in New York that everyone, but especially musical theatre geeks like myself, should check out. Jake Wilson is a genius. These are my people. It's glorious. Go watch right now.
• also, please google Very Mary-Kate. another fantastic web series. The episodes are super short, but amazingly jampacked with hilariousness.
  
• I want to grow my hair over the summer so that I can hack it all off right before school starts and feel like a whole new woman.
• I think that my obsession with David Foster Wallace has taken a turn towards the creepy and inappropriate end of the spectrum. You know...because he killed himself. And I love everything about him, particularly how completely unhappy he was. His unhappiness was such a part of his genius!
• I want to be a youtube star. I may start a vlog/webseries? Hahah...probably not.
• I invested like a half of an hour of my life today to finding the right image of a NYC subway map to use as my twitter background. I'm really doing a lot with myself...
• I watched two episodes of US of Tara this morning. What the EFF is going on? I am really unhappy about the Buck storyline right now. (p.s: when did Joey Lauren Adams get so, well to be frank, old and haggard looking? She's been one of Hollywood's go to best friends for years, but with a face like that she won't be. Where did the cute girl from Big Daddy go?) I already love Shoshanna, though. Any Tara fans?
• I visited Alyssa at Smith last night which was lovely. I've missed that little lady, even though she did dare to state, in the presence of the world's biggest (only) Lindsay Lohan fan, that she thinks my girl LiLo will be dead by the end of the year. Rude.
• We're going to dye Kelly's hair with blue koolaid at school this week, because that is the kind of serious intellectual pursuits we dedicate our time to. I'm pumped.
• I'm ready for school to be overoverover.
• I have decided to make an active effort to be more outgoing, more of a go getter, and more of a people person.
• I also decided to make an active effort to watch all six Saw films in a row.
  
• Recently I have been listening to only the Rent songs that mainly center around and feature Angel and Collins. Like, I've probably listened to You Okay, Honey? , I'll Cover You, Santa Fe, I'll Cover You (reprise), and Halloween liiiiike, 100 times today. problems.
• I applied for a job at Cumberland Farms today. Hah.

you're lovely. but not as lovely as this.

listfully yours,
xoxo tess


*shocking, I know.

a list of reasons I want to have Adam Lambert's babies

This post is going to be pointless and incoherent ( I love how I always preface my blogs with an apology for their low quality, as if anyone is going to expect any better from me.) I just spent the night with Katie and Sara eating our friend Kelly's food while she was off at the library being a good student, and waiting impatiently for Ryan Seacrest to finally shut up and bring out Adam Lambert to perform so I could basically orgasm all over the place. Too much? Sorry. I am obsessed, though. I don't really like American Idol, and until last year I had never followed a season loyally, but that all changed when I happened to pause on Fox during the early audition rounds of the show long enough to see one Mr. Lambert. I was immediately intrigued by his guyliner, immaculately coiffed hair, and awe inspiring vocals. (THOSE SCREAMS. oh my god.) I can't explain this fascination at all, because it is so NOT ME, but I was completely taken with him from that moment on, and my devotion hasn't waned at all since. I think I nearly blew out a pupil in fit of rage when he was somehow beaten by Kris Allen in the finale (Seriously, America?) but really, my man doesn't need to win AI...he's perfect already :) I'm tired, but slightly giddy from a) Adam's performance b) the fun of vehemently defending everything about Glammy to as less than convinced Sara.

HERE'S A QUICK LIST OF WHY I WANT TO BEAR ADAM'S CHILDREN:

• He's dreamy.
  
• He's confident.
• He swivels those hips onstage in a way only Elvis could have rivaled.
• THAT SCREAM
• because he is who he is, no pulled punches, no false pretenses. love it.
• He can genuinely sing. REALLY sing.
• He's really sweet and adorable in interviews.
• He was chubby in high school.
• Because (no offense to any lovely redheads out there!) he is a ginger boy who was smart enough to start dyeing his hair.
• He looks better in makeup than I do.
• Cuz boy is fiiiieeerce.
  
• Because I always have crushes on gay guys. Ugh.
• His album is outstandingly good, a perfect example of what pop music should be (If I had you, Fever, Sleepwalker, and Whataya Want from me are my very favorites!)
• He is awesome live, and I can't wait to see him on tour this summer!!!
• He is insanely sexy. I know I am not the only one (male or female!) who feels this way.

I dunno. I may write a blog about Glee soon, or maybe save it til after the Madonna episode, because quite frankly I was disappointed by this last episode. Jonathan Groff was every bit as superb as I knew he would be, but a lot of the plot felt contrived and boring, and I didn't even love the performances (Groff and Lea's "Hello" was beautiful, and I liked "gives you hell" but "hello, goodbye" at the end was god awful) Pick it up next week, kids. Groffykins, stay perfect.

listfully yours,
xoxo tess