TangledWings

Reflections on the Dallas trip...in list format

• the Foo Fighters concert was most excellent.  if you ever have the opportunity to see them perform do it.  you won't be disappointed.  they put on an amazing show.
• it was like getting 2 concerts in one--there was the loud rockin' grunge portion you'd expect and then they lowered another stage at the other end of the runway where they performed an acoustic portion...both equally fabulous
• our seats were so close that with my binoculars i could tell you what color boxers Mr. Grohl was wearing that evening...when he lifted his guitar up in the air at one point they were peaking out from his pants
• Dave Grohl has got to be one of the most likable people in rock & roll.  how can you not like Dave Grohl? 
• that being said I was a little worried about the young children (11-14 years old) attending the concert with their parents.  i hoped their parents had seen Dave perform and knew beforehand that he likes to use a lot of what we like to call in our home 'grown up words'...if not they were in for a big surprise.
• that little Chris Shifflet has got to be one of the cutest things I've ever seen...he was sportin' the scruffy look...I liked it.
• Pat Smear was there performing with them and that was an exciting treat
• performing before the Foo Fighters were both Against Me (never heard of them before that night) and Jimmy Eat World
• i'm about to seriously date myself with this next comment--i thought against me had a very 80's hair band sound (Ratt, Cinderella, Poison, the Scorpions)...i half expected them bust into Round and Round at any moment
• T knows a guy who used to play with Jimmy Eat World before they became famous
• the B-Dog didn't like the Foo Fighter wrist band i bought him at the concert...damn it...i told him he could just give it back then but he won't
• we meet up with some co-workers of T's from the Dallas branch for happy hour before the concert...i was dreading it but it turned out to be a lot of fun
• i heart IKEA...this was my first trip to an IKEA and I fell in love immediately
• i heart Forever 21...man, what excellent prices
• i bought 2 hats at Forever 21...one of them is a fedora...not sure when and with what I'm going to wear it but it was calling to me
• P.F. Chang's rocks...and their Great Wall of Chocolate cake is to die for
• my mom and I went to our first dinner/movie theater...how cool is it to go to a theater with a full menu...including a bar...and sit there watching the movie while eating your meal...does life get any better than that
• i saw both Juno and Michael Clayton while in Dallas
• i heart Juno
• Anthropologie had both it's highs and it's lows:  highs--adorable clothes that i fell in love with, so many cute skirts that i wish i could have purchased, a few shirts that i really, really wanted too, wonderful service from women who knew their stuff.  lows--good god those prices, YIKES, i can't wear their dresses, i had to go up 1-2 sizes in their dresses to accommodate the fact that i actually have boobs, going up that many sizes meant the bottom portion of the dress looked like a tent that swallowed me right up...it just didn't work, i can't wear their pants...i'm WAY to short, i noticed a petite line at the web site but not at the store
• we found a bakery in the Highland Park area that I swear makes the best cookies I've tasted in a long, long time
• we also found a flower shop i fell in love with...but whose prices were just as bad as anthropologie's
• i heart World Market and can't wait until the one they're currently building here is complete
• P.F. Chang's is even better as left overs...and how can you not love the cute little take home containers they put your food in
• the Traders Village was a let down...not the kind of flea market I was hoping for
• but while there I collected a zip lock baggie full of smashed bottle caps (see last Monday's random post)...and i could have found more had i had time to scour the rest of the massive parking lot
• shopping in Granbury was probably my favorite portion of the trip...other than the concert of course...and maybe P.F. Chang's
• i think i may have gained 10 pounds while i was gone...i ate entirely too much
• i didn't write a single poem while i was away...but i did take tons of pics
• and finally, i did come home with a new member of the family...check in tomorrow...

the year that was;the year that will be

T, the B-Dog, and I celebrated the new year in a pretty low key fashion.  T made homemade mac & cheese (the beautiful Giada's version--love her) and homemade pizza (which he didn't drop on the floor when he tried to toss it by hand--yeah!).  We invited a good friend over for dinner, ate until we about popped, and sat around the table talking and drinking wine.  During dinner I decided we would play a little game.  One of us would pick a subject/topic that had something to do with 2007 or the upcoming 2008 then we would go around in a circle each giving our answer.  Then the next person in the circle would choose a subject/topic and we'd go around again and so on and so forth.  What was supposed to be dinner conversation turned into a game we played from the time we started dinner (around 8:30/9-ish) until midnight.  It was a great way to celebrate the year that was and look forward to the upcoming new year as well as a great way to learn a little about what the year was like for each other and what we all hope for/dream about for the new year.  The subjects ranged from the surface to the deep.  I can't remember all the topics we covered but here are just a few of my answers:

Favorite Movie Released in 2007:

I'm a big movie fan so I can't just choose one.  Mine was a tie between The Waitress (if you haven't seen it please do) and the latest collaboration between the always fascinating Tim Burton and the genius that is Johnny Depp, Sweeney Todd...but I'm a little bit partial to the Burton/Depp combo.  I mean this was their 6th collaboration and of the five before this I own, mmmmm, yeah, that would be all five...and I'll own this one too.

Favorite TV show of 2007:

my family and I are in love with Chuck, all week we look forward to Chuck night

Favorite cd of 2007 (the cd listened to the most--didn't have to be released in 2007):

hands down Skin & Bones by the Foo Fighters

Proudest moment of 2007:

Being published twice--once in Artful Blogging and once in Life Images

Greatest memory of 2007:

walking into B&N and seeing my image on the cover of a magazine...and then propping the magazine up beside other magazines and taking my picture with other celebrities like Oprah, the oh-so yummy Christian Bale, and the equally yummy Orlando Bloom

Five songs listened to the most over 2007 (don't have the be released in 2007):

in no particular order--

1. Green Eyes by Cold Play (wonderful, sexy love song)
2. Live Forever by Oasis (my favorite walking song, I can play this one song over and over and walk for over an hour)
3. Black by Pearl Jam (mmmmm....Eddie Veder)
4. Another Round by the Foo Fighters (from the fabulous Skin & Bones)
5. Four White Horses by Counting Crows (on their live in New Amsterdam album)

Saddest Moment of the Year:

the death of my uncle

Greatest Regret/Disappointment of 2007:

not getting to have one last time to tell my uncle I loved him...even though I know he knew I still would have liked to tell him

Best Choice of 2007:

putting the B-Dog in pre-school, his intellect is growing by leaps and bounds

Two People (one 'real life', one famous) that you're glad came into your life in 2007:

1. my co-worker--when you work as closely as the two of us you really need someone you enjoy, get along with, can talk to, and who makes you laugh
2. Sharon Olds--although I've read Sharon Olds' work for more than the past year she truly was my poet laureate of the year

One person who's work influenced 2007:

for me it was William Stafford, his discipline of writing a poem every morning inspired me, and continues to inspire me, to do the same

Another Celebration of 2007:

getting a raise!

Favorite Scientific/Technological change/advancement of 2007:

this category was the toughest one for me.  T is a computer genius and our friend is a scientist with his PhD...and then there's me...the more artistic of the group.  The other two had to skip me, give their answer, and then come back to me.  And I still couldn't come up with anything.  Then later in the night I finally thought of something--Radiohead releasing their latest album on-line and letting buyers set their own price.  At first I thought why in the world would you let buyers set their own price?  And then I realized they really might be on to something.  I mean if you cut out the middle man, cut out shipping and packaging costs, then even after letting buyers set their own price Radiohead will probably make more money off the album than they would have otherwise.   

Surprise of the year:

Al Gore winning the Noble Peach Prize, I'm happy for him...but it was a surprise

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One of the things looking forward to the most in 2008:

ArtFest baby!

A fun 'resolution' for the year:

In 2008 I'm going to travel the world without ever leaving my couch by reading one travel memoir/essay each month.  I've started the year off by traveling to 1920's Paris with Ernest Hemingway by reading The Movable Feast.

A discipline to incorporate into 2008:

I'm following in William Stafford's shoes by writing a poem a day

Mondo Beyondo for 2008:

I've mentioned this to a few friends and I'm still tossing it around...but...I'd really like to start my own zine (we'll talk about this more in a later post)

My Letter to Santa

Dear Santa,

This year I have been a very, very good girl.  In light of how good I've been could you please see fit to give me the following:

• 1 day from work to do nothing but read and reply to e-mails that have backed up since September
• 1 day from work to finish my Christmas shopping/crafting
• 1 day from work to decorate for the holidays and then later an additional day to un-decorate
• 1 day from work to read blogs and catch up on the lives of my blogging friends
• 1 day from work to edit the images from my latest photo shoot and the pictures I took at Sunday's Christmas party
• 1 day from work to clean the house from top to bottom, including the closets
• 1 day from work to organize the garage
• 1 day from work to do all my favorite things--reading in bed, soaking in the tub, watching Chocolat (and while you're at it you can bring me a DVD of that movie because my VHS just broke), morning tea at Sugar Brown's, lunch at Stein's, and a matinee of a recently released movie, preferably Sweeney Todd, and enjoying my favorite key lime pie from Zookini's
• 1 day from work to do all the little things I need to do like mailing Liz the package I have for her which includes her Foo Fighters cd I promised, writing a Thank You note to Stacey for her generous gift, taking the recycling to the recycling center, folding and putting up the clean laundry that has built up in both the laundry room and my bedroom before T decides to kick me out of the house and I would really prefer not to be homeless right now
• 1 day from work to spend with the B-Dog doing all his favorite things because it seems every time we plan some time together my agenda always gets in the way
• 1 day from work to be totally and completely alone
• 1 day from work to do nothing but sleep for as long as I want
• 1 day from work to recover from all this doing

That's a grand total of 13 days from work just to get caught up on life and do a little enjoying of life.  If you'd like to make it a nice round number you could give me 15 days (a totaly of 3 weeks) and I could spend the additional two days hanging out with my bestest friend because she deserves a couple days from work as well.  Surely you can manage this Santa.  And I promise I'd be ever so grateful.

Love,

me

10 days

It's been ten days since my last post.  I just haven't felt much like blogging.  I just haven't felt like much of anything.  With my time I have been making choices, choices I hope will refresh and renew. Instead of blogging I have been crawling into bed a few minutes earlier than normal.  Instead of writing I have been curling up with a good book, something I haven't done in a long while.  Instead of reading blog posts and e-mails I have been reading the work of Sharon Olds.  Instead of using my creativity here in the blog world I've been using it out in the 'real' world.  I've been making these choices in an attempt to nurture myself because I've been feeling...well, I'm not exactly sure how to describe it.  I'm not really under the weather up I do feel freakin' exhausted by all of life.  And then I realized something--I felt this way this time last year, and the year before that.  And then I realized something else--I think I hate Christmas.  This came as quite a surprise to me because I've always loved Christmas.  When did this happen?  When did I become the girl who hates Christmas?  It's not really Christmas itself that I hate.  I don't really hate the meaning of Christmas or what Christmas is supposed to be.  I hate everything surrounding Christmas.  I hate the stress of gift buying not because I don't like giving but because I hate the financial strain and trying to figure out what people who have so much really need anyway.  I hate playing Santa not because I don't want my son to experience the joy and wonder of Christmas morning but because I hate fighting crowds of people at every store in town (which is why I did a good portion of my shopping at Amazon.com.)  And I think what I hate most is the decorating.  I love the pretty decorations, the lights, the ornaments, the stockings.  I just hate the time and energy that goes into getting these things out and up.  And the only thing I might hate more than decorating is un-decorating.  All this time and energy spent only to turn around a few days later and do it all over again, this time to get everything put away until next year when I get to do it all over again...sigh. 

I made this surprising discovery about my feelings towards Christmas this weekend while trying to complete my Christmas shopping.  While at Toys R Us searching for a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Van (one of two items requested from Santa), having already searched 3 Wal-Marts, a Target, and K&B Toys, with no success, I wanted to sit in the middle of the floor and cry.  I didn't care about the other stressed-out and frantic parents.  I didn't care who stepped on me, stumbled over me, or had to go out of their way to get around me.  I just wanted to sit there and cry.  That's when I realized how much I hate all of this, how at one point it may have been fun, even thrilling, but not any more.  Now it's just a huge pain in the ass, not to mention a total joy killer.  Then I realized it again later in the day when I fought my way to the local shopping mall to find a snow globe (Santa always brings a snow globe because I thought that one day, when the B-Dog is grown and on his own, that it might be fun for him to have an entire collection of snow globes to display at Christmas).  As I exited JC Penny's and entered the main corridor of the mall I heard the tinkling of bells being played by a hand-bell choir.  Again I wanted to sit on the floor and cry, not because I hated the moment but because I realized that I wasn't enjoying any of this, that while others were stopping to enjoy the music, huge smiles on their faces, the tinkling bells causing them to momentarily forget about the stress and commercialism of Christmas, all the ding-a-linging was doing for me was making me see just how far from enjoying Christmas I have actually come...and that made me really, really sad, sad because I don't know when or how this happened, sad because I can't believe it happened to me, sad because, well, what is more depressing than hating Christmas.  Isn't it supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year?

There's this wise and compassionate part of me that knows I don't have to do any of these traditional Christmas things...or at least not to the extent I have done them all in the past.  And then there's this other part of me that feels obligated to do it all and to do it to the best of my ability not just because I'm a mother and I have a child counting on me to create Christmas memories but because I owe it to myself, because if I don't do at least some of the traditional Christmas things then it feels like the Christmas stress, the Christmas blues, the Christmas commercialism have won, and I'm not ready to surrender, not ready to call it quits.  As much as Christmas currently feels like a huge pain in the ass I'm still not ready to not have Christmas.  I'm still not ready to forget about decorating the Christmas tree, buying gifts, driving around looking at sparkly colored lights, or hanging the stockings by the chimney with care.  I'm not quite to the point where I'm ready to tell Santa to beat it.  There is still enough Christmas spirit left in me to keep me going, to keep me from becoming the Grinch, or Ebenezer Scrooge.  There's still just enough to possibly save me, and Christmas at our abode...I just might not have my decorations up until the day before Christmas...and they might not come down until Valentines Day.

Happy Firecraker Day!

wishing you a sparkler-burnin', watermelon-eatin', parade-enjoyin', sunshine-lovin', picture-takin', memory-makin' 4th of July!