Quadriforce, A Poem

I wrote this while in Shakespeare class, utterly bored out of my mind may I add, in 2009 at the Ithaca College London Center in London.

The class must think we’re crazy

Must think us all insane

            But it’s ok-

                                               We’re all mad here

                                                And I still think you’re a pigeon. 










♥ Rachel

Dear Amy Lee

Dear Amy Lee, 

I weep angst ridden emo 13 year old tears. 

For you.

At You.

I fucking loved you- Fallen was the soundtrack to my life. 

Literally. 

Middle school: trying to figure out who I was, trying not to have my face shoved into the blood stained floor by angry gang members, avoiding the drug deals that went on near the German room, and proving to the girls with switch blades hidden in their styled hair, that I too, could cut a bitch. 

• Bring Me To Life + The Lord Of The Rings Films = A montage in my mind of my real life and what I believe my life should be. 
• Taking Over Me + The Boy With the Wheely Shoes = how I felt daily.
• My Immortal + My new BFF's Torch, Willow, & Cyclone = I believed we were something greater than human. And that we could rise about the gang wars, the drugs, the corruption in our school system, and our creepy child molester science teacher. 
• Tourniquet inspired me to write my very first draft of a vampire novel because in my mind, the song was about a vampire. (Spoilers: The vampire dies at the end, like a REAL vampire story.)  

And later on - The Open Door producing the same thing, montages of how my life would be, should be, and helping me rise above to become a better person. One who moved out of Elgin, explored the world free of petty high school issues and dead end jobs: Next Stop- Everywhere. 

So 13 year old, 17 year old, and 23 year old me screamed with excitement when I saw a new album by Evanescence on itunes.

Amy, you are the only member of the original band and your flair and style isn't the same. Dare I compare your new songs to Coldplay? 

I dare. 

Your songs don't invoke the same images in my mind, the passion, the heart isn't there. I was a fan Amy, I really was. 

You are Amy, becoming (Dare I make the pun) evanescent. Which is maybe what you want to achieve. But couldn't you have vanished silently into the night, with a whisper, rather than making hearts break with a whimper? 

XOXO Rachel

Magic Carpet

New Video from the Quad and our friend Brendan!

Dear Coffee Shop

Dear Seattle local, neighborhood coffee shop,

You’re so perfect. You’re slightly hidden, just expensive enough for me to feel like I’m supporting local business, and the barista is super nice and makes excellent waffles. You make me wanna care more about where my food comes from, and why my espresso here is so much better than at Harbucks. 

You provide the perfect walk/workout in the summer, and the perfect warm, cozy space during the snowfall (too bad everyone in the neighborhood feels the need to come up here as well. My usual table is taken over by a hipster/skater-oxymoron with a Seattle beanie and a computer with a Session Beer sticker on it). 

You always bring in the best people and provide hours of people watching entertainment  (You also always have the local, free papers (I like The Stranger best.) 

I just wanted to thank you for always being there for me, Coffee Shop. And know that even though I have punch cards at the coffee shop one block up, and the other two blocks over, I’ll love you the most.

Sincerely,

Melissa Slaughter

Dear Seattle

Dear Seattle, and you so-called Snowpocalypse 2012,


You're letting me down, son. I get the driving up the hills on ice sucks. Which is why my car has been parked 12 blocks away for the past day and a half. But the snow is slush now. The roads are basically clear. It's barely snowing. It's not even that pretty anymore!  By the way people shut down their lives, I expected this to be Chicago-style snow. Ok, it was for about 18 hours, I'll give you that. But, Seattle, you better impress me tonight. I want a fucking snow day and I want it now! 


Love,


Melissa 


*Update: Seattle, you've done good! Snow Day Pictures! 

Dear Seattle, 
I love that the snow is pretty and that you've let Melissa and I openly geek out in the snow. (Melissa building the Snow Dalek and I humming the Ice Dance song from Edward Scissorhands all day at work.) BUT although I get that the buses cannot make it up the hills I really really don't want to walk my  ass two miles to go to Harbucks both ways, every time I have to work. 


Some advice Seattle: Learn how to fucking clear the streets. This means proper plows. Also, people of Seattle, ever heard of a shovel? They come in handy for these things called sidewalks. It's your own damn fault you're slipping and sliding to work while I glide seamlessly past your falling asses like Legolas in the pass of Caradhras. 

One more thing Seattle, 'black ice' is ice you cannot see. It's invisible. The stuff on the ground right now is just called ice. 

Love,

Rachel

. 

Assets

Sometimes I’m a sexist pig. And by sometimes, I secretly mean all the time. I’ll stare at you if you’re super hawt. I gawk and drool openly at Benedict Cumberbatch and Michael Vartan. Melissa, Harmony, BurgerMouth and myself even have a game called Ass Factor. (Recent runner-ups include Alexander Skarsgard, that one God-of-a-waiter from Florence, and Jason Stackhouse.)

Lets not even get into the attractiveness of Mark Wahlberg or Murphy and Connor from Boondock Saints. (BOONDOCK SAINTS!!!)

It was on the 6:33 a.m. bus that I was watching this super cute guy text on his phone. (Creepy? Not really, I was half asleep and he happened to be in my drowsy eye line.) The cutie drops his phone while getting off the bus and all of a sudden his HUGE ass crack is LOOMING out at me.

And I throw up.

Not really. Two thoughts zip through my mind. One is ‘Pull up your fucking pants you retard we’re in Seattle not Detroit’ and the other is ‘OMG. His ass crack goes up to his fucking waist!’

(No joke, it really did.)

Which got me thinking about ass cracks. (This will all make sense in a second I promise.) There was this girl in high school named Christine (that wasn’t really her name but for the sake of protecting her image lets call her Christine.) who bent over once and her low-rise jeans slipped halfway down her ass. And she didn’t have one. An ass crack I mean. I witnessed this with another close friend and we gawked. Not a crack to be seen. I didn’t get along with Christine so this led me to believe she really was a mindless cyborg sent to destroy my life.

Although now that I’m further educated I realize that she’s not a cyborg (Sorry Christine!) but part of the Cybermen.

Which got me thinking about how weird our body is. Toes for example. How you ever really looked at your toes? Flex them. Crunch them in. They move SO strangely. They look aquatic and alien. Extend your middle toe. Doesn’t that just freak you out a little bit? It looks like it has a life of its own.

Knees too (any joints really) are weird as all hell. The way the skin stretches across the bone when you extend your leg. The way it looks like a huge bump when it’s bent and you can fell each knob and crevice when you put your leg straight. Knees are so strange.

And don’t even get me started on boobs.

Humans are like aliens. Which got me thinking that to animals and other life forms in different planetary universes, we, humans, are the aliens. Which is a fucking freaky thought to have at 7:15 a.m. in the morning while attempting to serve people overpriced coffee. 

This rant was brought to you by HarkHucks causing Rachel’s brain to rant more than normal in the a.m. since September 2011.

House Meeting!

Video Number 2, Y'all!! There's more where this came from! 

Happy New Year's!

Melissa: 
Holy Hell we are behind! Well, let's count it as a much needed New Year's Break.

Happy New Year's! 

And yes, that is my bra. Whatevers. So for New Year's the PNW girls went and watched fireworks at the Space Needle. 

Yes, that is a tiny Christmas Tree on top

We then spend the evening at our friend's apartment downtown. Continuing on.

For those who don't know, I'm Japanese (Holy Shit, Wha!?) Actually I'm half-Japanese, and fourth generation (yonsei). In Japanese we call this "Fucking American" because it doesn't count for much. Nonetheless, I still celebrate New Year's every year with my family. 

In Japan, New Year's or Oshogatsu is a big deal. Maybe bigger than Christmas (obviously we're heathens). But you're supposed to cook all day on New Year's Eve, having toshi koshi soba that night (you have noodles that represent long life, then some sort of green veg to represent wealth), and you drink like all good Japanese should. The next day you wake up bright and early, like all good Japanese do after drinking, and spend the day with the family. My family switches it up, and we cook all day on New Year's Day, and eat around 4 and pass out around 6. Nonetheless, it's my favorite holiday! 

For Harmony

Every year we make all Kappa Maki, Futo Maki, Inari Zushi, some sort of Teriyaki, and tempura. (Look this up yourself, you lazy person). Tempura is what I'm making in that picture. That has been my job since I was 9 years old. Standing in front of a hot pot of oil and frying shit. And by god, I'm good. 

So hopefully you had a good New Year's, and hopeful, we all have a good year! It's Year of the Dragon, bitches, so only good things will come to the Quad this year! So be it! 

Akemashite omedetou!