Randomest Blog Ever: Contest Winners, Weather, Fall TV, Weed, and Cecil Castellucci

So as I mentioned in my last blog, I chose the winners of my "Tour Contest." I'd collected the following signed books on my West Coast Tour:
From L.A.: Alexa Young's Frenemies
From Rock 'n' Read: Kim Culbertson's Songs for a Teenage Nomad
From Monterey: An ARC of Kelly Parra's
From San Francisco: Frank Portman's King Dork
From Seattle: Corrina Wycoff's O Street
And to enter the contest I just asked people to send in a creative photo showing IWBYJR as part of their life or world. I got a bunch of creative entries and spent a couple days mulling over which were the cream of the crop. I finally settled on these as my top 5:

My grand prize winner (who got the signed ARC of Invisible Touch) was Lucile showed me a slice of her life in Florida this summer by placing IWBYJR in front of weather report tracking Hurricane Fay:
And I'm not sure if she knew what a sucker I am for adorable kids and pets, but Breanna put IWBYJR in with her adorable twin girls who are destined to be big readers like their mom:

And since IWBYJR is a music book, I was also a sucker for music related shots. Here's the book at John's band practice:
With George's drums:
And chillin' with Ritsuka and her guitar:
Again, thank you to everyone who entered and congrats to my winners! I'll come up with a new contest soon for you all. I'm brainstorming...

Speaking of storms, yesterday it rained all day, which I mostly enjoyed. I'm a water sign and I love the rain, especially since my garden really needed it. Also the rain came with cooler weather, hoodie weather as I like to call it and hoodie weather is my favorite kind of weather. I'm not one for extremes in temperature. I don't like it too hot or too cold. Fall is my favorite season. So the drop in temperature, the rain, I was fine for it except for two things. Apparently it made people less inclined to go to the bar. Wednesday night was completely dead. Completely. I literally hung out with my best friend for two hours without any real customers. It was cool, but um, not so good for bill-paying. So people, I just gotta remind you, drinking is not just a summer thing. It's fun in all seasons! Please come and visit me. I need the money because the other problem I have with rain is that it does not like to stay outside of my house where it belongs. First it was the flooding basement, then the leaking window and now... Now I wake up this morning glance up at the ceiling above my dresser and see that bubble in the paint that means water underneath. Yep, the roof is leaking. I don't know how bad the damage is yet or how much it's going to cost me, but I haven't had a very nice day because of it. It's hard to concentrate on things when I'm worried about something as huge as this. *Sigh*

Okay changing the subject to something a wee bit lighter to get my mind of the spot on the ceiling a few feet away... 90210. Did anybody watch it? I taped it (yes, taped, I'm lame and have no DVR, but I'm considering getting one) and watched it last night. I was pretty into the original 90210 which came out when I was in 6th grade or so I think. I mean, it wasn't Degrassi, it wasn't My So-Called Life, both of which I love way more, but I do love me some soap operas. It was probably because of 90210 that I fell so easily into the pattern of watching One Life To Live the summer before high school and I've been addicted to that ever since. Yeah, it's totally not punk rock to like these shows, but I really don't care. TV is my escape. It was nice to come home from working back to back shifts (I now work Weds night and Thursday afternoon at the Beacon, which is cool cause it gets it all out of the way, but it's tiring) and watch 90210. Apparently the demographic for the show is older this time around (ie my age, Gen Xers/older Gen Yers) and they did a damn good job roping me in by throwing in some old 90210 cast people (dude, who is the dad of Kelly's kid??? Brandon? Dylan? Steve???) and people related to old 90210 folks (Kelly and David's sister is totally my favorite character and did you notice the reference to Andrea's kid?), which is how I got roped into Degrassi the Next Generation and I thought it was a good touch to give both the teens and the parents plotlines like they did on My So-Called Life. I certainly don't think the show is as deep as a show like My So-Called Life (which sadly I don't think we'll ever have again) or even as the new Degrassi, and there were some things that made go uh really? (Like it sounded like Silver and Naomi got those tattoos in 8th grade. Maybe it's a California thing, but that seemed really young. I knew people getting tattoos at 15 and 16, and that was a pretty impressive feat.) But I'll keep watching the show for now because it's the perfect kind of melodrama that helps me unwind.

Also on my TV docket for fall is Grey's Anatomy (which I adore and don't think is cheesy) and Dirty Sexy Money, which I saw a couple of episodes of last fall and enjoyed. I may check out Gossip Girl, too and Weeds is on my Netflix. I never used to be such a big TV person, but I'm trying to make a conscious effort to spend more time relaxing... Not that it is working out well so far because I still seem sooooooo behind. But maybe I'll finally catch up this weekend? Sigh. We'll see.

Oh and since this is a totally random blog, here's a random thing that happened to me today: A guy on the train offered me pot. I was going downtown for lunch with a Columbia person, totally minding my own business with my iPod on and reading email on my BlackBerry and this guy sits down kitty corner from me and I notice that something about him smells skunky. I figure out exactly what it is when he taps me on the arm and thrusts an extremely tiny jewelry bag of weed at me. Yes, the source of the skunky smell. He asks, "Do you smoke?" And I said no and put my headphones back in, thinking, "Umm even if I did why would I buy such a tiny amount of rank-ass shit off a complete stranger right in public on the train???" Then I also thought, "Do I look like a pot smoker? Is it the pink bangs? Does he know Weeds is on my Netflix?" but then the guy proceeded to try to hawk his stuff to the preppy girl across from him and the dude with the suitcase likely on his way to the airport behind him. Yeah, clearly drugs have just fried his brain.

Okay, I'll try for a more cohesive and meaningful blog soon, but in the meantime, indulge me with your random moments this week or tell me about your cheesy (or totally cooler than mine) TV viewing habits, maybe you'll inspire me to watch even more quality programming (or fun trash!) this fall. Like I have time...

Oh one last thing. I'm probably jumping on this bandwagon late as usual (I am always either far ahead of the trend or sadly way way behind), but Cecil Castellucci is my new writing hero. I finished Beige yesterday and I just wish I'd written that book. If only I could be half as brilliant and cool as she is... I feel like she has really set the bar when it comes to creating real misfit girl characters in YA and I promise you I will write my ass off to try to meet that challenge because what she has done is amazing and that, my friends, is what I want to be when I grow up :) It is my mission to write the best damn real misfit girl characters out there because I was a real misfit girl and proud of it, dammit and I wanted to read about girls like me and my friends. Lake and Katy from Beige are those kinds of girls. Thanks for inspiring me, Cecil!