Why I Haven't Been Here

Is because I'm here http://mygirlfriday.wordpress.com/

And what I'm blogging about there has really taken up all my free time lately. Not the writing, just all the other stuff. I may still use this site from time to time but I'll mostly be at Wordpress now.

Either Way

Maybe the sun will shine today
The clouds will blow away
Maybe I won’t feel so afraid
I will try to understand
Either way.

-Wilco, "Either Way"

I listen to NPR. I recycle religiously. I buy organic food. I feed the birds and squirrels in my backyard. I never kill spiders that are outside because that is their home. I believe in the freedom of speech and the freedom of the press. I listen to indie music. I am a vocal supporter of universal health care. I believe in public schools and taxes. I am tired of politicians and the media treating the word liberal like it's something bad. I believe that marriage should be for everyone but that too many people get married when they shouldn't. I don't believe in divorce. I believe that people, for the most part, are good. I think that there is a terrible movement towards dumbing down American culture. I think that America has embraced hatred towards gays and illegal immigrants as the new "acceptable" racism. I think bio-diesel is good.
In short, I am a liberal.
My sisters refer to my by less kind names.

So here we are on the verge of another election year and faced with a growing tangle of issues which candidates would have us choose by. But I have questions.

Why can't you oppose war without being labeled "unpatriotic"?
Why is terrorism more important than education?
Why can't you be liberal and faithful at the same time?
Why do I have to balance my checkbook is the government doesn't?
Why do we talk more about illegal immigrants than we do about foster children or hurricane and natural disaster victims?
Why don't we have a policy for confronting global warming?
Why can't the elderly and disabled afford medication still despite Medicare D?
Why aren't our children more important than oil?
Why do all the issues that make up the major party platforms seem disconnected with the things average communities are concerned about?

There may not be answers to any of these questions but I think it's time for us to start asking. I I think that it's time to look at where we live and wonder why we don't have better schools, better infrastructure, cleaner air and water, and better health care. I'm starting now. "Yes, a penguin taught me French back in Antarctica" had now become Election '08 Headquarters.

So Come Back, I Am Waiting

So, I've been gone for a really long time....

Since I blogged last I've:

-Watched my little sister in her first boxing match (brutal, I like to say that I want to punch her in the face sometimes but after actually SEEING it I take it all back...she won by the way and was pretty kick-ass)

-Mourned the end of this year's season of "The Deadliest Catch"

-Found I liked "Ice Road Truckers" almost as much.

-Decided that "Sky Blue Sky", while no "Summerteeth", is classic Wilco perfection.

-Painted two bedrooms and a bathroom in my house, moved furniture four weekends in a row, and realized that I'd rather have my fingers broken that move any more furniture.

-Developed a tremor in my right hand. This may not sound like much to some people but considering that Parkinson's Disease runs in my family it's a bit disconcerting.

-Got sunburned (this weekend at the lake).



and some other stuff.

Maybe tomorrow I'll talk about real stuff.

I Was Chewing Gum for Something to Do.

"A headache is to a migraine like a bruised thigh is to a compound fracture of the femur."
-Me, talking to my mom.

I have been reluctant to discuss the migraine issue on my blog. There are several reasons for this, not the least of which is that I work in a medical office and grow weary of discussing anything medical in nature. Added to that was my mostly insane idea that I was so tough that I could ignore them and they would go away. They didn't.

Once, my senior year of high school I had a single migraine that ended with me in the emergency room and lots of Demerol. After that incident I went over a decade without another, in fact I only very rarely had any headaches at all even the more benign versions. Then a year ago I had another. The migraines came sporadically at first then with alarming regularity. Then came what what diagnosed as "cluster migraines", meaning for a week I'd have them every day at the same time of day.

I saw my doctor and we set out a plan. I've been taking an old anti-depressant, amitriptyline, for six weeks now to combat "neurological pain". It works. I've had a couple very minor migraines but none of the debilitating, nausea inducing ones. I've become cautiously optimistic. I feel like a normal person again.

Well...as normal as I've ever been.

Teeth? Who needs teeth?

"Ice hockey is a form of disorderly conduct in which the score is kept."
-Doug Larson

I have, for the last two years, become engrossed in the NHL play-offs. Perhaps the same blood-lust that makes me a football fan is probably what makes watching enormous men slam each other into plexi-glass wall fun.

"A puck is a hard rubber disk that hockey players strike when they can't hit one another."
-Jimmy Cannon

NHL hockey is shown only on a little know sports channel called Versus...they also show the Americas Cup and PBR bull riding. To be fair, I believe they also show Saturday afternoon games on NBC, but the point is it's not easily accessible to someone living in Arkansas. As much as I'd like to pick a team and follow it throughout the regular season, the irregular broadcasts seem to prohibit this. So I root for the Canadians in the play-offs.

"Hockey is figure skating in a war zone."
-unknown

This year, I am firmly for the Ottawa Senators. Why Canada? Because, I'm boycotting being an American until the socio-political atmosphere finds a way to end it's steady and demoralizing decay into greed and church-run stupidity.

"High sticking, tripping, slashing, spearing, charging, hooking, fighting, unsportsmanlike conduct, interference, roughing...everything else is just figure skating."
-unknown

In the case (as happened last year) that my Canadians don't make it to the Stanley Cup finals, then I'm for Buffalo. Don't ask why, that pick is arbitrary.

Love at first site...

I believe in love at first sight. My great aunt and great uncle married only a month after they met, forty years later when she died he was adrift and never remarried. My dad proposed to my mom on their first date. Despite my hesitant nature when it comes to my heart, I too have found the dizzying bliss of love at first site...that's right not sight but site as in web site.

Friends, meet IKEA. See the beauty of the clean lines and perfect design of the chair above? Simple, chic furniture at prices that allow me to change my mind and redecorate whenever the whim hits me.

Believe me when I say that Murray is NOT going to be excited about this. Credit card, meet IKEA catalogue.

Reconstruction Site

"Buy me a shiny new machine,
that runs on lies and gasoline
and all those batteries we stole from smoke alarms;
it disassembles my despair
it never took me anywhere
it never once bought me a drink."
-The Weakerthans, "Reconstruction Site"

25 Favorites

25. Favorite Holiday-
Halloween, because when else is it okay to wear fairy wings or a pointy hat in public?
24. Favorite Season-
Autumn, my birthday, Halloween, pretty leaves, cooler weather, FOOTBALL!
23. Favorite Color-
Green, every shade from spring leaves to olive.
22. Favorite Hobby-
Reading, anything from classic novels to romance to the back of a cereal box.
21. Favorite Sport-
To play, badminton. To watch, baseball.
20. Favorite Game-
Scattagories.
21. Favorite Place-
Baum Stadium on a sunny spring day when the baseball hogs are winning.
20.Favorite Restaurant-
Mike's Place on the patio.
19. Favorite Food-
Sourdough Bread.
18. Favorite Ice Cream-
Vanilla
17. Favorite Drink-
A nice pinot noir.
16. Favorite Gadget-
ipod, of course.
15. Favorite Smell-
Baking bread.
14. Favorite Shoes-
Blue plaid Converse I had in college.
13. Favorite Clothing-
Jeans and a tee shirt.
12. Favorite Pet-
Cats, of course.
11. Favorite Movie-
"Twister"
10. Favorite TV Show-
"How It's Made"
09. Favorite Radio Station-
NPR
08. Favorite Band-
Wilco
07. Favorite Song-
"Plea From A Cat Named Virtue", the Weakerthans
06. Favorite Book-
"The Heart is a Lonely Hunter", Carson McCullars
05. Favorite Quote-
"Theology is never any help; it is searching in a dark cellar at midnight for a black cat that isn't there. Theologians can persuade themselves of anything."-Robert L. Heinlein
04. Favorite Song Lyric
"No love's as random as God's love."-Wilco, "Can't Stand It"
03. Favorite Poem-
Kidnap Poem, Nikki Giovanni
02. Favorite Candy-
Chocolate.
01. Favorite Person-
Murray.

Hear All the Bombs Fade Away

Sons and Daughters
by The Decemberists

When we arrive
Sons and daughters
We'll make our homes on the water
We'll build our walls aluminum
We'll fill our mouths with cinnamon, now.

These currents pull us across the border
Steady you boats
Arms to shoulder
Till tides are pulled
Hold our ground
Making this cold harbor now home

Take up your arms
Sons and daughters
We will arise from the bunkers
By land, by sea, by dirigible
We'll leave our tracks untraceable, now.

When we arrive
Sons and daughters
We'll make our lives on the water
We'll build our wall with aluminum
We'll fill our mouths with cinnamon.

Hear all the bombs fade away
Hear all the bombs fade away
Hear all the bombs fade away
Hear all the bombs fade away...

I don't feel like rehashing the last twenty-four hours but I will say one thing; officials at Virginia Tech keep referring to yesterday's events as "a tragedy" but tragedy simply isn't a word strong enough to convey the horror of what happened.
I received this email written by someone who was at The Decemberists show last night, I thought that perhaps it is more fitting than anything I could say:

"Near the end of the show, the played "Sons and Daughters." Near the end of the song, Collin (Malloy the lead singer and songwriter) stopped and said he wanted the entire audience to sing the ending line over and over again. Then he said that they would be remiss if they didn't mention the shootings in Virginia. He said that The Decemberists use violent imagery in their songs, but they don't want anyone to think that they are glorifying violence. Then he talked about how violence belongs in fiction only and how we should all hope for and work towards a less violent society. He asked us to think of the students and families in Virginia as we sang, "Hear all the bombs fade away."
This doesn't seen to translate to email well, but I thought it was a really great way of using music to deal with the tragedy."

I think so too.
-Becky

Blogging about blogging, or not much at all in my head...

I read several other blogs with some regularity (or as much as my easily distracted hamster brain allows) and I am always amazed what interesting lives other people lead. Maybe I'm just uninteresting or maybe I have some sort of verbal constipation that prevents me from being able to describe the events in my life in an extraordinary manner. Either way, I'm terrible about blogging regularly.
Strange, rambling point made, I set off here to blog about the inaccuracies of perception. For example, sometimes our brains misconstrue what our eyes tell us. Once, while riding in the car with Murray I spotted a large dead animal by the side of the road. Despite the fact that it was clearly a deer, my brain issued this question: "Kangaroo?" Some people would keep such a bizarre thought to themselves, but being me I immediately shared it with Murray. He, being kind and loving and supportive, looked at me like he was relieved I had finally realized how completely insane I really am and hoped I would now seek immediate help.
There are, of course, more serious form of false-perception. Eye-witnesses in court are often unreliable as two people witnessing the same event can take away two completely different sets of memories from that event. In college psychology I learned that this is because our precept ions are colored by a set of pre-conceptions. Apparently my personal set of pre-conceptions include the habitation of kangaroos in central Arkansas.
The thing about all this perception and misconception is, often we don't really SEE the events happening around us. Not to get on my oft-used soap box, but whether or not global warming exists was a terrific example. On one side you had scientists, Al Gore, environmentalists, and the dwindling snow pack on Mt. Kilimanjaro and on the other side you had the Bush administration, big oil, and the U.S. auto industry. Sure, it seems like Bush and the auto makers have come around but there are still people who think that pollution isn't harmful to the environment. Crazy...at least from my perception.

No Love's As Random As God's Love

Last Sunday evening Megan and I settled down to watch a two hour documentary on the Discovery Channel. This action is not unusual in our house where The History Channel, The National Geographic Channel, and the Discovery Channel are by far the most watched channels on our cable system. We love historic shows and will be guaranteed to be glued to anything about natural disasters and the weather.
This being stated, we were not watching our usual fare of tornado and civil war shows. Instead we were watching a documentary that claimed to have found the tomb of Jesus and his immediate family. The show describes a tomb unearthed in the early 1980's during construction of an apartment complex that contained ossuaries with inscriptions that at least statistically speaking, would have to have been of Jesus, the virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene, and some others. Much explanation and linking the names scratched into the limestone ossuaries with various Biblical texts and forgotten gospels.
So here is where I stir the pot. Say it's true. Say that this really was the final resting place of Jesus and much of his nuclear family. As a Christian/Jew/Agnostic/Hindu/Muslim what does this do? I refuse to accept that this would not realign your faith at all, but I am willing to believe that there are those who would emerge unshaken. The question is why? Why would this cause you to question your faith or not question your faith?
I'll go first. I'm not a particularly religious person although I do think of myself as a person of certain unshakable beliefs. I was raised in the church, was baptised (twice), have taken college courses on Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, and have read the Bible. That being said, I have a basic mistrust of organized religion that is deeply embedded in my psyche and rarely ever attend church services.
I am intrigued by this "discovery" and highly skeptical, but for argument sake we are saying it's true. My first reaction was that it would prove the Jews and Muslims right, that the body of Jesus would prove that he was, at best, a prophet of God and not the Messiah. The idea appeals to me as I've always felt that my personal beliefs are much closer to Judaism than conventional Christianity. Then I thought that perhaps instead the discovery of Jesus' tomb proves the Christians right...well, to some extent anyway. See, it's the whole ascension to Heaven thing that I had a hard time with at first but why would Jesus need his physical body in Heaven? Wouldn't he shed it as he would all other Earth-bound possessions to join his father? Perhaps what we have here instead is the key to what Christianity really is.
Of course the documentary also claimed to hold the ossuaries for Mary Magdalene and what was theorized to be the child of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. The debate grows restless and quickly ugly from here, I'm afraid. The mention of it makes me feel like I'm stirring a pot of boiling oil, it could flash over any minute and ignite.
I'll have more thoughts on this...

Let's Pretend We Don't Exsist, Let's Pretend We're in Antarctica

Have I mentioned having the flu despite getting my annual flu shot? This is the world I live in, where I am inoculated for the wrong strain of the flu and get a bonus never ending cough as a parting gift. I also bruised my thigh on my file cabinet. Yep, it's self-pity at its finest.
Looking up, it's Friday and we are scheduled to have storms tomorrow morning. There is nothing I love quite as much as a thunderstorm.
I've been thinking a lot lately about how often as adults we have to edit ourselves. People have opinions, sharp black and white opinions that they hide away like secrets lest they offend others. Even people without political or religious leanings have, somewhere, issues they believe strongly in.
I am highly opinionated, too highly sometimes. I find it torturous to hold my tongue sometimes. Yet on my blog I am careful to steer clear of my more controversial beliefs. I wonder if this is because I fear the feedback they would inspire or because I'm afraid of scaring off the few readers I have. Maybe both.
Maybe the idea thing to do is to write about the issues I believe in but give equal time and thought into both sides. Play the devil's advocate with myself. I wonder if I could write evenly, open-mindedly enough that it would prove hard for other's to pick my stand. Maybe I'm that ambitious. Maybe not.

A New Name For Everything!

"Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
-Lewis Carroll

I had the flu for the last six days but I'm better now.
It has become, suddenly, warm and breezy...like false hope of spring.
I have officially worked at UAMS 5 years this week.
I bought a bathing suit this weekend that is two sizes too small, it's either optimism or wistful thinking.
Nutrigrain yogert bars and Sam's Choice flavored sparkling water are tasty treats for those of us hoping to get into bathing suits two sizes too small.
The Hogs made a step forward, but there are two more to go.
The Diamond Hogs are the one shining light in that program, out scoring their opponent this weekend 44-6.
I'm thinking about opening the windows when I get home tonight, see how fresh air smells.
I am NOT cooking tonight. My family can starve.
I have a skirt to wear over above mentioned bathing suit should more of me hang out of is socially acceptable.
I have to have three cavities filled next Monday.
Filling cavities is definately preferable to another root canal.

Chicago Seemed Wired Last Night

I went to Wal-Mart early Saturday morning to grocery shop. I try and go as early as possible to avoid other people. Around eight, as I was leaving the store I stepped outside and was met by viciously cold and fierce winds. Another shopper, leaving the store behind me looked over and said:
"When I woke up this morning I had no idea that I'd moved to Chicago."
She had something there.

We Were Having a Ball...

"I felt the worst for the little kids, their eyes filled with innocent wonder as they waited happily in line for autographs and photo ops with their favorite players. You wanted to pull them aside and gently explain that there are less painful hobbies than following the Cubs, such as plunging knitting needles into your inner ear canal."
-ESPN columnist Gene Wojciechowski

February is a wasteland. College and NFL football are over, March Madness hasn't begun, the opening of the baseball season is two long cold months away. All is not dark and dreary, there are small points of life, the beginning of the college baseball season in which the Hogs have been ranked in pre-season polls as high as #8 in the country. There's also college basketball, but for Hog fans this seems to be more a study in the inability to maintain consistency than an enjoyable sporting event.

What stated this post was the article from which the above quote originates. I love baseball, every tiny intricacy of it is fascinating and exciting to me. I have learned to recognize that a triple is infinitely more exciting than a home run, that a 3-2 count sets off an infinite number of reactions that a 1-2 count never can. I love how a baseball field looks at night when lit up so the green surface and crisp white lines juxtapose with the fathomless darkness beyond the lights. This being said, baseball season is agonizing.

Cubs fans are the butt of jokes, the perpetual underdogs, the luckless losers from the Friendly Confines. Next year will mark 100 years without a World Series win. We, as Cubs fans, set ourselves up every year for what seems to be an inevitable fall. Oh, we tell ourselves "this year will be different" or "if Boston could do it maybe it's our turn" and by the All-Star break we're counting down the days until the football season starts.

Why do we do this to ourselves, you ask. I really don't know. I try to hold myself back, to keep from being swept up in the surges of optimism that accompany every off-season trade. I tell myself, "I'll get excited in June if they've earned my excitement" but in reality the long days of cold and dreary February work their way into my head every year. This morning, driving to work in freezing rain before the sun began to even consider rising I felt the beginnings of it. The little pang of longing for symmetrically placed perfectly white bases and knee socks. Slowly over the next month my stoic "wait and see" attitude with turn to cautious optimism. In March I'll be caught up in the excitement of the NCAA basketball playoffs and the caution will begin to waver. By April I'll be sitting at the edge of my seat, chewing my fingernails muttering the Cubs fan mantra...

This is the year.
This is the year.
This is the year....

Dry skin and cheesburgers...

I work in a physicians office doing work too boring to possibly explain without falling asleep in the midst of posting. The one thing that working in a hospital/doctor's office has taught me is that it is vitally important to wash your hands with the regularity of an obsessive/compulsive on crack. It turns out the number one way we spread germs is by not washing our hands, say three hundred times per day.
Here at UAMS we are encouraged to wash our hands with a soap that is something like 30% alcohol based and then, when we aren't around running water and the hideously skin-drying soap, to use an alcohol hand rub. The hand rub has the magical ability to point out every tiny paper cut you have ever had on your hands with stinging pain and much eye-watering.
Needless to say, I use a ton of lotion. Right now I'm using slightly old-lady smelling jasmine tuberose lotion that I absolutely adore because it even works on my crackly elbow skin. Sure it smells slightly loud, but that fades and my elbows don't bleed when I bend them.
I can remember when I was younger I never used lotion. I'm assuming it's an ageing process thing, but now I could bathe in bear grease and still have dry skin. To top it off, my skin LOOKS older if I don't moisturize now. That's right, I have several grey hairs and my skin is becoming more like my Nana's everyday. Next I'll be buying Depends and a Medic-Alert bracelet.
I've also begun walking in the VA bridge on my lunch hour with all the old ladies who need exercise but don't want to go outside. This is probably similar to those mall walkers you always see at Park Plaza only these old ladies happen to volunteer at the hospital. For the record, however, the walking is actually going well and it's incredibly easy to make it a part of my daily schedule since I rarely ever take a lunch anyway. So, does it ruin the exercise if I go eat a cheeseburger for lunch?

How a Resurrection Really Feels

"She crashed into the Easter Mass with her hair done up in broken glass. She was limping left on broken heels. When she said, Father can I tell your congregation how a resurrection really feels?"
-The Hold Steady, "Separation Sunday"

Megan (my youngest sister) saved my ipod. In what I can only call a miracle, she revived it from the dead and has it working good as new. She is, without a doubt, my favorite person in the universe right now.

I know, you are thinking to yourself "it's just an ipod". In my head I understand this, it's an electronic device, a toy really. This being said, however, I can no more live without an ipod than I could live without water or air. Terrible to be so attached and dependant upon a possession, but at least I'm willing to admit it.

For those of you, like myself, with ipods you have babied and protected from any bump or fall or jostle let me explain the exact magic Megan performed on my ipod to bring it back from the dead. She hit it. Yep, smacked it twice with the heel of her hand. Just like that, the "sad ipod" face disappeared and I had the joy of seeing the menu screen reappear. I guess we'll refer to it as tough love.

I'm pretty sure that I will need to begin planning to buy a new ipod anyway. Once the hard drive begins to have issues it's pretty much just a sign of the end to come, but at least I've bought a few more months to save and plan which new ipod I want.

And so, after it's miraculous rebirth "ipod named virtue" will now be renamed "how a resurrection really feels", thank you Craig Finn for the lyrics I'm stealing.

Dead, Drunk, and Naked...

My ipod is dead.

There should be a national day of mourning or something.

When it rains sometimes it snows.

This is the current Doppler radar. See the white? Ordinarily I'd be thrilled, ecstatic even at the prospect of snow but today is not my day for it . Mostly because all that pretty white is forecast to turn ugly pink over night.

This brings every Arkansas to a single question, "Where were you during the 1999 Christmas ice storm?"

I was at my parent's house watching Katie repeatedly fall down in the middle of our street while we were watching the tree branches begin to break in our neighborhood. My dad lives in old Conway, otherwise known as the land of the killer trees (see http://musicfangirl.blogspot.com/2006/08/killer-trees.html), so the destruction was terrible and total. We had no power for ten days, it took three just to remove enough trees from a yard that we could get out of our driveway. It was cold and dark and I learned that I really depend on cable television and the Internet. I also learned that when you HAVE to shower by candle light it quickly loses all of it's charm.

So here we are again. The Weather Channel is calling for a 70% chance of freezing rain/rain over night and into tomorrow. I'm not excited. I don't mind cold, I don't mind snow. In fact, I LOVE snow, it reminds me of being a kid growing up in Littleton Colorado. This crap with the ice...not so fun.

I'm back to watching the local weather. Good luck all, I hope none of you lose power, that none of you have to drive, and that none of you have any need to go to Wal-Mart tonight as we all know it will be packed with panicked people buying up all the bread and milk.

Good News for People Who Love Bad News

I am trying to be good.

This is a general, all-purpose statement that easily covers any number of areas in my life. For example I am trying to be good with the money I earn. I am trying to be a good daughter/sister/girlfriend/friend. I am trying to be a good writer. I am trying to become a good cook (this is sporadic as I will cook for a week then revert back to Lean Cuisine for a month or so).

But today this about eating. I am trying to be good. I am trying to resist the temptation of delicious catered lunches provided by generous and kind drug reps who really WANT to feed me fajitas and lasagna. I am trying to avoid walking across the long bridge to the VA where I can buy soda and popcorn and candy and other things that are NOT GOOD.

Seriously though, I'm willing to lay it all out here. I have no will-power. None, nil, zero. In my head I know that I will be happier, healthier, thinner, more energetic if I eat my Kashi Go-Lean cereal for lunch every day and walk on my breaks. I am an intelligent person, I know that toffee bars and anything dripping in cheese is not good for me but that does not seem to change the fact that what I want most in the world is chocolate and fresh tortilla chips from Los Amigos.

Today, however, I am trying to be good. If that works out I'll try again tomorrow. I am done being on a diet. Whenever I decide that I am on a diet I inevitably fall off my diet. Instead I'm just going to try one day at a time to be a little better.

Friday.

"In the beginning the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move."
-Douglas Adams

I wonder if other bloggers ever have a hard time deciding what to actually blog about. I don't have kids and my family might murder me in my sleep if I wrote about them. Actually, come to think of it they might anyway.

I think the thing that is difficult is I try to stay away from three things;
1. Blogging about things that annoy me, I don't want to spend all my time bitching.
2. Politics and religion. These are things I feel are intensely personal, not something I want to offer for public commentary.
3. Work. I'm here enough already, why spend more time talking about it.

The problem with this is it takes about 85% of normal topics out of play. I suppose I could talk more about my cats, but I don't want to become the crazy cat lady.

So, instead of wasting time I suppose I'll get back to work. Sigh.

we started recreational. it ended kinda medical.

Last night I watched American Idol while I wrote. I don't usually watch it, in fact other than a few episodes of the "audition" stage I've never actually seen the show. There are reasons, mainly I hate "reality" tv and add that to the fact that I listen to almost no mainstream music anymore I'm just not all that interested. Last night, however, I was too lazy to untangle the wires to my earphones so I could listen to my ipod and I was waiting for the Australian Open to come on.

I also did such exciting things as fold laundry and iron clothing so Chris and I didn't have to come to work naked. It really makes me wonder when I settled into being so old. I'm pretty sure there was a time when I was fun and had endless amounts of energy that I squandered away. Most nights I look back on my "wild" years and wonder if what I remember of them is true or if it's all an alcohol-laden hallucination. Seems like I danced a lot and mostly had fun.

Now going out for the evening with girlfriends takes weeks of careful planning and juggling schedules. We never just call each other on a Saturday afternoon and set vague plans such as, "Hey, let's go out somewhere. Pick me up around nine."

Nine? That's when I'm ENDING my nights out now.

So, I'm trying to remind myself why it's good that I'm older. Stable job, decent income, terrific boyfriend, a nice car, a nice house, money to go out when I want....oh damn. Maybe it's time to save up and travel, go overseas, get a terrible photo to use for a passport. Maybe I'll go visit Dan (who lives in the Philippines now).

Hmm...maybe I'll finish my book first.

Maybe.

What you once were isn't what you want to be anymore.

"Sometimes the mind, for reasons we don't necessarily understand, just decides to go to the store for a quart of milk."
-'Northern Exposure'

I'll preface this post with this statement, it was not a good weekend. I'll continue the preface with another statement, the weekend is over.

Chris finally got his Christmas present Sunday (see picture). I won't go on and on about how fun it is or how even a hand-eye coordination deprived person such as myself can play it. Instead, can I mention how cute it is. The packaging and the tiny console and sleek modern styling reminds me very much of an ipod. For once we have an electronic device I don't mind sitting in my living room. Anyway, it's arrival Sunday was a small gift of sanity in an otherwise insane weekend.

I've gotten past my mood on Friday, thankfully. Maybe sometimes you need something truly bad to happen so you remember to appreciate the good things even when they are small. For example the Decemberists announced a show in Memphis in April. This works out so perfectly for me as I can go see a band I love and it will also work as Megan's 21st birthday gift. We'll take her to her first real show, stay at a nice hotel downtown Memphis and take her out to a few bars so she can buy drinks. Ah, to be 21 again...or maybe not.

I'm planning to buy some film and try my hand at some more photos this week. I'll let everyone know so they can go and visit my flickr.

Sorrow Drips Into Your Heart Through A Pinhole.

I am in rare form today, a nice mixture of irritable and sad and bored and anxious. This may, in fact, be what it feels like to be crazy. I have days like this, days when my mind won't land on any one thing. There are reasons, probably many.

I'll start with the funeral. Saturday I'll attend the funeral of one of my favorite patients. The thing here is, everyone KNEW this would eventually happen. He was terminally ill from the time he was born with Cystic Fibrosis and yet he managed to live an amazingly long thirty-six years. He was funny and moody and sarcastic, we loved him in our clinic. For the past five years I've looked forward to seeing him once a week. It's difficult to find words to express what I feel, how terrible this sadness is and how unfair that someone so wonderful would have to die. I have no answer to this, nothing in my life holds answers or comfort.

There are other things, most incredibly less important that are also on my mind. There are things I read every day that terrify and sadden me, that make me question the kindness and decency and intelligence of people. I am loathe to mention specifics as I fear that there would be a depressing amount of backlash from people with small, dark minds. Let me say this though, it amazes me the things people will do under the guise of being a "good" person. I don't think most people have any idea what that is anymore or where to find it.

Lastly, let me say this. It has not snowed. It won't snow this weekend. I'm beginning to believe it will never snow again. By the time I have children and they are my age Arkansas will be a tropical rain forest and they will have to travel to Antarctica to ever see real snow. How sad.

I'll come back on Monday in a better mood.

It's Only Rock and Roll but I Like It.

"Rock and roll means well, but it can't help tellin' young boys lies."
-"Marry Me", Drive-By Truckers

I am not a video game player. I have no hand-eye coordination and tend to panic when something unexpected pops up on the screen. Despite being born smack in the midst of the video game generation I'm pretty much a failure at actually playing them.

That is, until now. Meet "Guitar Hero II". It is played with a real faux-guitar (see photo above), sort of an interactive game where you score extra points for doing "rock star" moved with your faux-guitar. It is seriously fun. I have played until my finger on my left hand has literally gone numb...which is a problem I plan of consulting my physician about.

I'm not saying I'm gifted at this game, I'm just saying it's fun. You stand up and follow the "notes" on the tv screen and its work, you will actually sweat playing this. Other people actually enjoy watching you play, unlike all those mindless first person shooter games. It's just fun.

Even more excited than I am about "Guitar Hero" is how excited I am about the Wii. Hopefully we will have one this weekend and it is so similarly interactive I know I will enjoy playing it. Sure, I'll never be good at "Super Mario Brothers", but I can play the guitar so who cares.

Take a Break Driver 8

"The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status, or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside we ALL believe that we are above average drivers."
-Dave Barry

I am a commuter, driving from Conway to Little Rock and back again daily. Along the route there have recently been planted a series of electronic highway signs designed to alert drivers to changing road and traffic conditions. You know, something like "Yes you are driving a four-wheel drive pickup but it is clearly snowing and you are rapidly approaching an extremely icy bridge. Slow your stupid ass down before you skid and take out the nice people in the minivan next to you."
Okay, they actually say things like "Warning, traffic slowing ahead" and "Drive Safely: Buckle UP!" Still, the general intent is there. Slowly there is also an approaching construction project which will widen interstate 40 to three lanes each direction. This gives me migraine headaches just thinking about it. I can only imagine the utter chaos that will ensue for the duration of said construction.
Anyway, new snazzy high-tech signs. Look for them, but please only if you are in the passenger seat.

Bright Copper Kettles

We had a kettle; we let it leak:
Our not repairing made it worse.
We haven't had any tea for a week...
The bottom is out of the Universe.
-Rudyard Kipling

We do things for comfort. Seek the arms of a loved one, call a friend or sibling, shed our clothing for the solace of a bathtub full of bubbles, and drink. I suppose I do a little of all of these things, but my emotional crutch is a cup of hot tea.
I moved from coffee to tea due to health reasons originally, in a foot-dragging self-pitying sort of way. I would walk by a co worker's desk and smell their coffee and fall into a bout of longing and sorrow for my missed caffeine and rich coffee goodness. I would walk by the Starbucks in Target and sigh, thinking of the Pumpkin Spice Latte I so badly wanted.
Then, I got onto my organic kick. I told myself that recycling everything in my house wasn't ecological friendly enough, that there had to be more. While wandering the isles of my local Wal-Mart looking for the little green "organic!" tags I found tea. I bought it, brought it home and brewed a cup for work the next morning.
Now I use tea for a little boost in the morning, as a soother in the evening, as a source of warmth (should we ever experience cold weather). I've found my favorite is traditional black tea blends, the herbals and green tea not particularly to my liking. My current favorite is Tazo Awake!
Now, if I can only stick for a few days to my diet...

The Words I Write Own Me

"Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way."
-E.L. Doctorow

I am mostly an aspiring or failed writer, depending on how you look at it. I start writing, fall in love with an idea, begin to question it, learn to hate it, and discard it half started or half finished. Somehow, I always assumed that real writers knew the progression of a book before they sat down to write, that the ending was a clear as the first sentence, neatly filled in with the events between.
Perhaps this misconception stems from writing papers in college. You are taught to outline your ideas, create a thesis statement and arrange the entire paper to fall nicely into that single thought. No matter how I tried, I could not outline fiction. I would try, then somewhere in the process of writing out the words my characters would mutiny, taking over the story and leading it into directions I never intended.
My most recent endeavor, I've given total control to the story. I planned carefully for the first sentence then released the creative process. Strange and unexpected events have occurred, the characters look nothing like I imagined with strong personalities I don't always like. It's working out amazingly well. Words flow onto paper (yes, I'm hand writing it first...my brain works better that way), and although I've had to have a long, stern talk with myself about work ethic and putting in appropriate hours, there's beginning to be hope.
I have no real thought beyond finishing the book. I'm assuming there is a long and complicated process to finding an agent and a publisher...if you've written something worth publishing in the first case.
Now, off to write.

The Winter of Our Discontent

"People ask me what I do in winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring."
-Rogers Hornsby, major league baseball player from 1915 to 1937.

In the winter there should be snow. This is a fact, in Colorado no respectable winter would drift through January with 50 degree tempatures and only occasional rain and thunderstorms to break the monotony. Without snow, January is merely a prelude to spring, which leads my mind to crisp green fields and pristine white bases placed symetrically 90 feet apart.

I did not grow up a baseball fan. Perhaps because Colorado did not have a major league baseball team until after I moved away, perhaps because my father was a football fan deep in his soul. In my twenties I was introduced and immediately hated the game. Slow, boring, complicated. Baseball was to football like watching a sink drip was to standing at the ocean shore.

Obviously, I've since changed my mind. Slowly I learned the intricacies of the game, the difference between a curve ball and a slider, the heart-stopping excitement of a runner making the turn to third on a line drive. Pedestrian baseball fans, those at a game more for the beer and hot dogs than the game, over-rate the home run ball, overlook the quiet thrill of a pitcher's duel.

This winter, I read Moneyball by Michael Lewis. I could go on and on, rising my fists in disgust towards the owners of my beloved and pathetic Cubs. I could sing the praises of Billy Beene, his willingness to buck the old system and look for something more scientific in the approach to selecting players. I could, but I won't. Instead I'll offer this, learn the game. Buy Baseball for Idiots and sit through your nephew's little league games. Buy scorecards and keep score, learning the measure of an out and a walk. Study it like a philosophy and a science. I promise, if you understand it you'll be hooked. Then, when you make that fall choose a team worthy of your love, choose the Oakland Athletics. I wish someone had told me too.

So This is the New Year

That's right, I'm back. My new year's resolutions, while many and complicated, include blogging regularly. So we'll start out with a recap of last year.

2006

I didn't travel unless Memphis counts.

I wrecked my truck at 4:30 in the morning by hitting a deer, am no longer a big fan of deer.

I saw four great bands, Wilco, Okkerville River, The Hold Steady (twice!), and The Drive-By Truckers.

I took an entire week of vacation for the first time in five years, didn't do anything but hit a deer on my way home from the Hold Steady show in Memphis.

Began writing a book.

Decided the book was absolute crap.

Started another book...may finish it as it is less crap.

Finally hung pictures in my bedroom and bought a rug (it's green and cream argyle!) after two years in our house.

Started a blog and a myspace page...have been spotty with both.

Voted. Felt good about it, am thinking about getting back into political work for the next elections.

Learned to love a good red wine, gave up beer entirely.

And to end up, a little narcissism.

Best ten new albums of 2006:

10. Robbers & Cowards-by the Cold War Kids
09. Okonokos-by My Morning Jacket
08. Putting the Days to Bed-by the Long Winters
07. Black Sheep Boy-by Okkerville River
06. A Blessing and a Curse-by the Drive-By Truckers
05. Old 97's Live-by the Old 97's
04. Everything All the Time-by Band of Horses
03. Fox Confessor Brings the Flood-by Neko Case
02. Boys and Girls in America-by The Hold Steady
01. The Crane Wife-by the Decemberists

Happy New Year!