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Sunday, November 29, 2009

Poetry Girl Sunday #5

A few songs on my playlist come from the "Bridget Jones's Diary" soundtrack I bought after I first saw "Bridget Jones's Diary" shortly after I read "Bridget Jones's Diary" (!!!)

Listening to them has made me realize I hadn't seen it for a long time, so last night Thing Two & I watched "Bridget Jones's Diary".

Thing Two--my almost sixteen year-old headbanger--remember?  The one who listens to his iPod in the car with ear-pieces firmly-in-ears because he can't stand the music I listen to ....in all fairness I'm not keen on whatever-metal-band-with-some-word-referring-to-death-in-its-name that he's listening to either.

So he shocked me by asking if he could watch it with me.  During the movie we both laughed our heads off.  BOTH of us, not just me.  I've always related to Bridget.  What woman doesn't?  But I realized, watching my too-cool-for-school teenager as he laughed at Bridget in her ridiculous moments and quietly felt for her in her painful ones, that we ALL relate to her. 

Doesn't it always come to this?  Don't we all just want to hear that people, in particular that certain "top person" ..............that they like us "just as we are"??  In all our ugliness & shortcomings & failures???  That they see also our beauty & our strengths & our moments of grace?

Van Morrison, Someone Like You
Mark Darcy: I like you, very much.
Bridget: Ah, apart from the smoking and the drinking, the vulgar mother and... ah, the verbal diarrhea.
Mark Darcy: No, I like you very much. Just as you are.
Mark Darcy: I don't think you're an idiot at all. I mean, there are elements of the ridiculous about you. Your mother's pretty interesting. And you really are an appallingly bad public speaker. And, um, you tend to let whatever's in your head come out of your mouth without much consideration of the consequences... But the thing is, um, what I'm trying to say, very inarticulately, is that, um, in fact, perhaps despite appearances, I like you, very much. Just as you are.

We all crave that kind of love.  Don't we?

*****

No Amount Of Money

would I take 
to sell away
the bowl of peach
blossoms, the snowy-
owl feather, the strands of hair you
tucked behind my ear,
the blunt stare
when I looked
which unnerved me but
sent small aches
to my toes and my fingers
and the tops of my ears--
the brush-moment 
your rough hand cupped 
my rib cage,

or the first kiss.
                         --LGW

Saturday, November 28, 2009

Cartoon Saturday #3

On my hour-long "over the river and through the woods" drive to my parents house for Thanksgiving, I turned on the radio and happened upon this show, "The Gathering: A Modern Day Thanksgiving Story" hosted by Blair Brown on National Public Radio.  Here's a link if you'd like to check it out:  http://www.peacetalksonline.org/thegathering.htm

I wasn't sure if I was in the mood for a talk show ...I'm more inclined to listen to music in the car ....but on this day, Thanksgiving, the subject matter of the show became more interesting than any music I might listen to.  In a nutshell, The Gathering is about the glaring disconnect between the traditional ideals for which Thanksgiving was established and the way we continue to conduct our society in the face of many of those ideals.  Specifically, how we have treated and continue to treat the Native Americans who are a vital part of the Thanksgiving tapestry not to mention the Humanity tapestry.

The Gathering however is very constructive and very uplifting.  It is an enlightened, civilized endeavor.  I went back to find how Blair Brown closed the show because my mind keeps wanting to remember it:

"As we gather this Thanksgiving with family, neighbors, & friends, we should acknowledge that we've fallen short of the ideals we celebrate of tolerance, diversity, and community." ....

(those three words)(slay me)

 ...."The work of The Gathering should inspire us to recognize, however, that they are the right ideals and that we must work toward their fulfillment.  Not just every fourth Thursday in November, but every day of the year."

*****

Oh yeah, but this is Cartoon Saturday!  So ta-da!  ......I also "happened" across a couple of perfectly perfect cartoons for the occasion!





And same song, different verse ......




Thursday, November 26, 2009

Happy Thanksgiving .....where's the cake?


Monica's Burnt Sugar Cake


“Ok, here's the Thanksgiving menu so far: apple pie, pumpkin pie, blueberry tart, and ice-cream roll. What am I missing?... Cake. We need cake.”  Grace Adler, Will & Grace

Somewhere in blogland, I read that one blogger channels Lucy & Ethel. (Pioneer Woman, I think?)  This is how well I set priorities; ever since, I've been devoting more brain power than I care to admit to wondering who in TV land I channel so that I can report it to all of you in blogland. 

I wish I channeled Lucy & Ethel.  I would love to be so ditzy and adorable.  Except me-Lucy & Ethel would be spending every show plotting ways to kill all Ricky Ricardo male chauvinist pig-types who cross our paths (which is a lot, if you recall); not cramming our faces with chocolate at the candy factory or stalking innocent washing machine repairmen in our Sherlock Holmes get-ups just to get them to come to our apartments to fix our washing machines first. 

My friends would say I channel Phoebe from Friends but even they--on second thought--know that despite the fact they can totally see me strumming "Smelly Cat" in the coffee shop, I'm just plain bitchier (but only rarely and only at extremely provoked, very understandable moments).

No, I'm Grace.  Slightly bitchy now & then, almost always overwhelmed, overly sensitive, brain-addled Grace Adler--that's me.

And my wonderful parents have underscored that new epiphany by requiring that all I need to provide for Thanksgiving dinner at their house today, is dessert.  And yet I'm still overwhelmed ....sigh.  Oh, not really.  Well slightly .... 

Write back and tell me who YOU channel!  I want to hear!!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  Don't be overwhelmed!  Don't be bitchy!  Just eat!!

Love you, Grace

PS--The beautiful cake above was baked and photographed and blogged about by the exremely talented Monica over at Lick The Bowl Good. Take a moment to check-out her delicious food blog and her darling pets Autumn (doggie) & August (bunny) at: http://lickthebowlgood.blogspot.com/ 
Thanks Monica for letting me use your pic!

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Post-It Note Tuesday #2

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Poetry Girl Sunday #4

I have lost two dear family members this year.   I am 48.  Although it is not the sole domain of my age group--it is a fact of life that the older we get the more people who have mattered in our lives will die.

We humans have a hard time completely grasping death.  In my uncle's case, I hadn't seen him for years.  Yet his death affected me greatly.  I found myself wondering if he had any idea what he really meant to me?  He was an engineer who helped develop the tiles that kept the Apollo capsules from becoming fireballs as they reentered the Earth's atmosphere.  He was a curious-minded inventor.  He was a fun uncle.  He always got down on our level, literally.  There's a picture of my sister & I, we look like we're four & five at the time, on the floor with Omar.  He's showing us something--one of us is pointing excitedly.  We're all three enraptured by the excitment of it all. 

When my boys were approximately the same ages as Lisa & I had been, Mil & Omar came for a visit.  At one point I couldn't find anyone.  Finally I heard noises in the downstairs coat closet.  Omar had the boys in there showing them something you could see only in the dark.  Now, I ask you, if you heard a story about a woman's uncle who had her two little boys in the closet with him, what would you think?  But now that you know Omar, you know.  The piece of titanium alloy that he brought all the way from Los Angeles, just to show the boys, still sits in a place of honor on Thing One's dresser.

Omar was married to my mom's sister.  We all knew that Omar was the most brilliant member of the family--the family he married in to.  In a cruel twist, Omar spent the last ten years of his life losing his mind to something like Alzheimer's.  I never knew exactly what it was.  It didn't matter.  When he died in June on Father's Day, I hadn't seen him for nearly six years.  My every day existence was not going to miss him.  But did he know how much I loved him?  Why didn't I just tell him that, emphatically if necessary, before the end?

Death is so strange.  One second you're there like you've always been.  The next you're not

Speaking for myself, I'm not very good at remembering this as I'm caught up in the throes of regular day-to-day living.  I take for granted that you are always going to be a breathing, heart-beating influence in my life. Plus I tend to dwell, stew, on the things and the people and the things about the people that bother me--and often, I have no doubt, I am quite right to be bothered by them.  But when you're gone and it's all over, what is left has little to do with those things I spent so much time stewing on.

I'm going to leave you with two poems today that may seem a little disparate, but if you give them time to simmer together perhaps they will become good food for thought as we gather with our loved ones for Thanksgiving this week.

Those Winter Sundays

Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze.  No one ever thanked him.

I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?
                                  --Robert Hayden


from To Lou Andreas-Salome

.....For I don't think back; all that I am
stirs me because of you.  I don't invent you
at sadly cooled-off places from which
you've gone away; even your not being there
is warm with you and more real and more
than a privation.  Longing leads out too often
into vagueness.  Why should I cast myself,
when, for all I know, your influence falls on me,
gently, like moonlight on a window seat.
                                   Duino, late autumn 1911
                                   --Rainier Maria Rilke

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Cartoon Saturday #2

Picking on Sarah Palin today! .......OH SO EASY ........

As Mr. Darcy inquired of Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Predjudice,  "Are you so severe upon your own sex as to doubt the possibility of all this?"  I shall delicately twist dear Lizzy's retort and say this, "I never saw such a woman. I never saw such (in)capacity, and (bad) taste, and (poor) application, and (in)elegance, as you describe united."

This post is dedicated to my Mr. Darcy friends (you know who you are) who love to taunt me about that thing from Alaska.


















I once heard a commentator refer to her speech pattern as a "Word Salad" .....I thought, now that is an analogy worthy of the analogy-academy-awards!  Perfect.  And this cartoon perfectly captures the tossed salad.










































































THE END

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Golden Blogroll

Yay!  I've been blogging a month now (almost).  Day after tomorrow. 

I think this is gonna stick!  I'm not always the best at sticking with things .....but some things I stick to like super-glue!  I think blogging might be super-glue for me!! 

I never read a blog before I started writing a blog so I was clueless about blogging when I started.  In the meantime I've come across lots & lots of blogs.  Let me say this: there are an incredible number of extremely talented people out there in Blog Land.  It's intimidating.

The business at hand: for the one-month anniversary of this blog, I'm launching my Golden Blogroll.  It's gonna reside in the Right Side-Bar (it's there now ....go check it out!) and it's going to showcase my, so far, all-time super-favorite blogs.  These are the blogs that intimidate me the most.  That said, if you're on my Golden Blogroll, don't get a big head because that's something else I love about each and every one of you--your total humbleness.

Dear readers, I encourage you to check these blogs out .....and when you do ......please leave them a comment that I love them.  Maybe, then, they will be my friend??  hee hee I'm really not that pathetic.  Yes she is.  No I'm not!!  Yes you are .........

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Post-It Note Tuesday

Monday, November 16, 2009

"Lindsay's Waxy"

You know when you leave a comment on some blogs, or if you're ordering concert tickets, or other computer situations I can't think of at the moment--and you have to re-type the crazy made-up word or phrase they've left for you or else you can't proceed because you might be some evil computer trying to leave an evil comment or evilly purchase a ticket???

I know, it's a SPAM buster.  But lately I've noticed some of those made-up words are a riot.  (see title--yep! I got that one yesterday!)

Have decided am starting list of the best one's I get and will use them as character's names, or character's foibles, or character's sexually transmitted diseases in future as yet unwritten, not-thought-about-much-yet novel.

And, in addition, will create occasional blog feature called "Lindsay's Waxy" in honor of the first evil-computer-made-up-word-thingy that gave me the idea ....

I have already rejected several plain, dumb, or boring words or phrases.  My list will be comprised of only the most startling, odd words that possess a certain aplomb which enables them to roll off the tongue like they're totally legitimate words that have been pillars in Mr. Webster's dictionary since the first edition.

And then, too, it will be fun to comment (your job) on how best, in your opinion, it would be to use that word or phrase.  For example:

Lindsay's Waxy --could be "the name of Lindsay's new hairless lip" (vs. Lindsay's Whisker) or --"the dog breed that Lindsay created with two superb water dogs" or --maybe "The Town of Lindsay's do-it-yourself car wash"?

See?  Fun!

For this publication, I am also including a few other worthy Lindsay's Waxy "words":

Squite (a proper noun/name I presume?)

ington' klimpt (notice apostrophe!)

Leave funny comments and/or leave me some of your own favorite Lindsay's Waxy words ...we can laugh ourselves sliptVulv out of our wywoos!!!

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Postscript

Between the big picture at the top of my blog, and the picture in Sandbridge I posted earlier today in Poetry Girl #3--is simply 15 miles and 1 month & 2 days.  That's all.

Cool huh?  Scary and comforting at once.  Whatever higher power there is, it is awsome.

Poetry Girl Sunday #3


Heavy surf from the nor'easter makes its way up the beach access steps late in the afternoon in Sandbridge, Nov. 12, 2009. (L. Todd Spencer|The Virginian-Pilot)

O it has been a week--yesterday's paper screamed "NOR'BEASTER", today it bleats "It's Intense".  As I write this morning, it is sunny ...the not-proverbial "calm after the storm".  My little southeastern corner of Virginia has been battered by a sneak-attack Nor'easter now dubbed by our dazed commentators as The November Nor'easter.  "...Of ALL Time!" it seems like they want to add but they don't in case it comes off as too dramatic.  Even though it was dramatic.

I drove north to Washington D.C. in the midst of it.  A three to four hour drive. 

This part of Virginia is home to the cities/towns of Chesapeake/Virginia Beach/Norfolk/Portsmouth/Suffolk--all crowded together into an area we commonly refer to as "Tidewater" or "Hampton Roads".  Some of us know the origins of these two toponyms, most of us don't.  In fact ever since I've lived here for the past twenty-five years, a slow-burning controversy that flares up now & then simmers about what to call this place.

The point is that this part of Virginia was getting clobbered by the storm and, as life goes, something else was going on too--my aunt was being laid to rest in Washington D.C.  Despite the storm, I had to get myself and Thing 2 up there.  So we went.  We drove on through slanting rain and wind gusts up to 60 mph.  There was debris flying through the air, littering the road, battering my poor, but stalwart Honda Odyssey.  Mostly by pure luck, partly by good reflexes I narrowly missed a large tree that suddenly appeared out of the chaos, lying across the interstate.

Odyssey n., pl. -seys 1. A long adventurous voyage or trip. 2. An intellectual or spiritual quest. [After the ODYSSEY.]

How appropriate.

I had relatives flying and driving to DC for Meme's service and my mom & dad drove the same path I did from Williamsburg, Virginia (an hour NW of Tidewater).  But it was that hour that made all the difference.  The whole eastern seaboard had rain and wind but it was Tidewater that got the Nor'easter's particular wrath and I had to get out of Tidewater.  Hence they all looked at me rather flabbergasted when I arrived, appearing wide-eyed and announcing that my "odyssey" had been "brutal".  (I didn't really use the word "odyssey" but I did use the word "brutal")  Even Thing 2 looked at me askance because despite the buffeting rage of that first hour, he had slept through most of it.

I realized I had to put my white-knuckled, heart-hammering trip behind me and get down to the business of grieving for my dear aunt, and comforting, and being comforted by, dear relatives and friends.  It may in fact happen in the brain but this shift of emotions feels like it happens in the heart.  It is the heart that is confused and it is the brain telling the heart to get on with it.  It is now.  And now I find myself in the quiet bowels of an appropriately somber administrative building at Arlington National Cemetery refereeing this internal wrestling match as we gather and prepare to say good-bye to a life that has been a part of our lives.

It occurs to me that whether we care to admit it or not, life is dramatic and can be likened certainly to a long, adventurous voyage or trip that is certainly an intellectual, spiritual quest.

And my heart is saying, "Back off brain!  Leave me alone and let me feel for a little while".  Just let me feel it all ....

The Lives Of The Heart

Are ligneous, muscular, chemical.
Wear birch-colored feathers,
green tunnels of horse-tail reed.
Wear calcified spirals, Fibonaccian spheres.
Are edible; are glassy; are clay; blue schist.
Can be burned as tallow, as coal,
can be skinned for garnets, for shoes.
Cast shadows or light;
shuffle; snort; cry out in passion.
Are salt, are bitter,
tear sweet grass with their teeth.
Step silently into blue needle-fall at dawn.
Thrash in the net until hit.
Rise up as cities, as serpentined magma, as maples,
hiss lava-red into the sea.
Leave the strange kiss of their bodies
in Burgess Shale.  Can be found, can be lost,
can be carried, broken, sung.
Lie dormant until they are opened by ice,
by drought.  Go blind in the service of lace.
Are starving, are sated, indifferent, curious, mad.
Are stamped out in plastic, in tin.
Are stubborn, are careful, are slipshod,
are strung on the blue backs of flies
on the black backs of cows.
Wander the vacant whale-roads, the white thickets
heavy with slaughter.
Wander the fragrant carpets of alpine flowers.
Not one is not held in the arms of the rest, to blossom.
Not one is not given to ecstasy's lions.
Not one does not grieve.
Each of them opens and closes, closes and opens
the heavy gate--violent, serene, consenting, suffering it all.
                                                                 --Jane Hirshfield

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Meme's Hollywood Rain

It's a furious day on the eastern seaboard.  Nor'easters usually barrel through mid-winter, not mid-November.  Today, if you must venture out, you physically wince and utter an oath when you open the front door.  I had to pay for this morning's appointment even if I didn't go, so quickly I decided to go before I changed my mind.  I threw on my coat and winced and oathed into the driving rain.

My umbrella turned inside-out five seconds after I stepped outside and three more times before I gave up and just allowed myself to get drenched.  On a day like this, getting from point A to point B requires you to lean forward at a 45 degree angle while, if you forgot to button up, your coat snaps behind you at a 90 degree angle flapping insanely like a flag in a hurricane.  This, I thought in the maelstrom, is Meme's "Hollywood rain". 

Meme (say Me-Me) is my mom's oldest sister.  And Meme has lived only twenty-five minutes away from me for the past twenty-five years.  Meme was also the first relative (besides my parents) on the scene when I was born.  I was born in Hawaii and my New England maternal grandparents sent Meme out as the Hendry family embassador, and helper, for Mom & Dad.  This of course I don't remember but I've seen pictures and heard the stories. 

Our relationship is as comfortable as an old chair.  Sometimes it's easier to get along with your aunt than with your own mom simply because it's a less complicated relationship.  Don't get me wrong.  I'm glad I got my mom.  Meme's demons made life difficult for her own children.  But Meme has mellowed with age and I'm her niece.  All she has to worry about with me is to save her old People magazines, meet me occasionally to hand over the pile of People's over a pleasant chit-chat lunch, and wait patiently for me since I'm almost always late to pick her up.  Meme is always patient with me.

Meme's Hollywood rain is any sort of drenching downpour that lasts for hours and hours that almost never happens in real life but always happens when it rains in the movies.  Think about it.  It never rains lightly or "sprinkles" in Hollywood productions.  In Hollywood, it's either a mean, mad rain, or an unrelenting, unsympathetic dousing.  Meme casually commented on this phenomenon once a number of years ago and it rang so true the minute she said it, I've never forgotten.

I found the perfect video on YouTube to illustrate (hope you like Ronnie Milsap): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0yIVZFv0aM

Oh, this too from Son of Flubber--it's too cute to pass up:
http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/index.jsp?cid=216570

I suppose then, it's appropriate that a Nor'easter will be wailing around us on Friday when we gather to say good-bye to Meme at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington D.C.

Today, after being splashed relentlessly by passing cars while I struggled with my umbrella at the curb, I ducked, finally, into my car and happened to catch my reflection in the rearview mirror--my hair is plastered to my dripping face, the car is fogging up, and I'm smiling.  This almost never happens in real life.

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Poetry Girl Sunday #2

"On our earth, before writing was invented, before
the printing press was invented, poetry flourished.  That
is why we know that poetry is like bread; it should be
shared by all, by scholars and by peasants, by all our vast,
incredible, extraordinary family of humanity."
                                                       --Pablo Neruda

My beloved Pablo Neruda.  You will see more of his poems in Poetry Girl in the months ahead.  Born in 1904 in southern Chile he is often considered the 20th Century's best poet if you can say such a thing.  It goes against my grain to call any, single poet "the best" ...there are so many.  I'll have you consider that we are all poets and that poetry can "speak" to and from all of us.  I know it is a part of our DNA.  And it is Neruda who is "the best" at reminding us of this ...

This poem titled "Poetry" is from Memorial de Isla Negra/Isla Negra (1962 -64), from the chapter "Where The Rain Is Born".  As with much of Neruda's work, it simply speaks for itself. 

Click here to listen:

Click here to see:
http://www.poemhunter.com/best-poems/pablo-neruda/poetry-2/

" ...felt myself a pure part
of the abyss.
I wheeled with the stars.
My heart broke loose on the wind." 
                              --Pablo Neruda

Saturday, November 7, 2009

Cartoon Saturdays

But not the kind of cartoons you're thinking of .....Political Cartoons!! I love them. They're SO double-edged! What else can get the corners of your mouth to turn up while skewering the very society/world we're all a part of?

They can teach you things ....you often see yourself in them.  They call attention in a very friendly format to things that need attention no matter which side you're on or how you feel about it.  "Hey," they say, "think about me!".

So I'm setting aside Saturday's for the week's best cartoons.

For now I'm sticking with Tom Toles, political cartoonist extraordinaire, who makes us laugh & think while we're reading the Washington Post:



Toles, Washington Post, 10/23/09



Toles, Washington Post,10/29/09



Toles, Washington Post,10/30/09



Toles, Washington Post, 11/4/09



Toles, Washington Post, 11/8/09


Happy it's-almost-over Saturday! (Hey, I just thought of this idea ten minutes ago ....)

Wah!!

I got so excited about adding a music element to my blog that I decided to add a favorite songs playlist over there in the left side bar! Good idea huh?

No!! Bad idea! It took nearly two whole hours to add all those nice little audio links you see under Playlist and, now, somewhere along the way, NONE of it works! Now even Joni won't play! Wah!!

**mopping up tears right now**

Ok, well please be patient. I'm working on it. I will get the music working again, hopefully sooner than later!

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Gorgeous Things

OMG!!!!!!  It's taken me three friggin' days to figure out how to put an audio link (music link) into my blog!  C'mon Blogger!  You could totally make it easier.  (It's super easy on WordPress .....hello?  hello???) 

But I am here to say that I have learned HTML and CSS, and how to imbed & re-write code.  And fifty-thousand other things I had to figure out, but so "just barely" that I can't express the rest intelligently.  Clearly I'm flying by the seat of my pants here.

But sit back. Click below, on Ms. Joni Mitchell's link, "Both Sides Now", while I extol on gorgeous things ....

Joni Mitchell, Both Sides Now

Music.  It's a huge part of my life.  I have very eclectic musical tastes--the most recent concerts I've attended have been Mark Cohn (in May), Elvin Bishop (in June), Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, & John Mellencamp (in July),  The Psychodelic Furs and Thievery Corporation (both in October).  That covers blues, folk, pop, rock, punk, & world, socially-conscious music.  Every concert has "done" something good to me--and I am grateful.

Gorgeous Thing #1 - this song.  Don't ask me why I picked it out of all the songs I could have picked for my first official blog song.  Except that it is just plain gorgeous.  It is at once ......sad & wise .......hopeful & unhopeful. Deep and fresh and measured. Introspective and naive.

Maybe "gorgeous" means emotions and memories thrust upon you in all kinds of unexpected combinations?  Emotions that despite their oddball combos, you can relate to .....maybe because of their oddball combinations?  Maybe life is just odd?  Maybe life is always gorgeous if you know which side to be on .....

Gorgeous Thing #2 - dear Steve is playing at Yoshi's--world -class musician boyfriend is playing at the incomparable "Yoshi's" in Oakland, CA  tonight.  http://www.yoshis.com/oakland  His idols have played there.  He's taken me to experience his (mostly jazz) idols playing there.  It ain't easy to get booked at Yoshi's.  And for the first time in his already amazing professional career, he's playing bass like a mad-man, as I write, at Yoshi's.  I'm so proud of him ....

Gorgeous Thing #3  - I'm breathing in & out. I'm not in pain.  I have amazing people surrounding me.  And everything I love is sleeping peacefully or playing bad-ass bass tonight!

The complete truth is that I'm pretty stresssed-out these days.  But what, really, do I have to complain about? 

It will be all right ........

I figured out how to put music on my blog.

*****

"Well, something's lost, but something's gained,
 ....in living every day ...."


Tuesday, November 3, 2009

A Face With A Name


I have a new look!  That is ...my BLOG has a new look!  I like it.  I hope you do too!

This pic, plus the big-blog-title picture at the top, were taken on a beautiful day in October at the beach in Virginia Beach, VA.  Yep, that's the Atlantic!!  I live in Chesapeake which is only a hop, skip, & a jump (and a 20 minute car ride) away!  I feel very, very lucky to live near the ocean ...

Monday, November 2, 2009

The Gift Of An Hour


Ok this is not me, but it might as well be.  This is what I look like in the morning.  It does not matter when I went to bed.  It does not matter how long I slept, nor how well I slept.  NO MATTER WHAT this is what I look like.

I recently became a fan of the Hate Waking Up Early page on Facebook.  (On the same day I became a fan of the Laughing When You Shouldn't page too, but that's for another post) 

[Credit Pause: this picture features the mascot of FB's Hate Waking Up Early page]

Now yes, the hair is bad here, but here's a tip: I notice the longer my hair gets, the less bad-ish it looks upon waking.  But even more important than the bad hair, what I relate to the most in this picture, the thing I really recognize in the picture is the eyes.  O yes, every morning when I stumble out of bed, if I unfortunately happen to catch a glimpse of my morning-self in the bathroom mirror, it's THOSE eyes glaring back at me.

My freshman year in college, unbeknownst to me until sometime during the second semester my dorm neighbor, who later became my roomate, who later became my life-long friend, informed me that everybody thought I was mad at them every morning!  I was shocked!!  "They do?" I asked incredulously???  I couldn't believe it.  If you'd asked me, I would have told you I was just being "neutral". 

"Francophile", my friend, apparently had it figured out that I was only catatonic the first two hours of every day, not angry, and had apparently taken it upon herself to explain that to all dorm friends who had taken offense from my "angry eyes".  From that point on, I made a point to all subsequent roomates and neighbors to explain my morning "state" and to not take offense--just give me two hours to wake up.

To undscore the point, no matter how well rested I am or not, it takes me a solid two hours to completely wake-up.  Those first two hours you might seriously wonder, just how low is her IQ?  At this point, my brain is the total opposite of quick--my brain is operating at slo-mo.  Those of you who know me, know this.  You know that blank stare I give you when you pause in what seems to me your blazing-speed dialogue.  (Btw, I'm not trying to "give you a message".  Oh no, I'm definitely not up to that level of brain activity when I'm blank-staring.  I'm just trying to fathom what you just inundated me with.)  Your reactions vary from simply ignoring my blankness and forging on at lightening speed, to invisibly shrugging your shoulders and waiting an hour or two for me to emerge from my catatonic state.

So it must be obvious to all of you by now that I LOVE this time-change in the fall!  I love "falling-back"!!!  I can really tell a difference and it feels like a total gift!  All day long.  The effect lasts about four or five days until my not-a-morning-person body clock once again takes over and I'm back to looking like Hate Waking Up Early FB boy.  Hey it just occured to me that I would have used a picture of myself for this post, I'm not vain.  But now I'm sure you understand I would be incapable of operating my Canon at the time of day needed for this shot.

Finally, you must be wondering how I've managed to author such a clever post so early in the morning?  Well, my night-owl self actually wrote this last night and set-up the post to post at a shockingly early hour by just the push of one button.  Yep, even I can manage a one-button-push in the morning!

PS--Stay tuned for future posts expanding on this theme--starting with the self-infatuated early-bird-gets-the-worm people and culminating in The Theft Of An Hour this spring ....

Sunday, November 1, 2009

Poetry Girl Sunday

One of my best friends--an amazing, amazing published poet who's taught college-level writing for twenty years--upon hearing about my newborn blog asked the most obvious glaring question, a question I hadn't dared ask myself yet ....."Are you going to put some of your poems in your blog?"

My answer was, (blank moment), then Uhh .....

I haven't mentioned it specifically, well there is a vague reference in my profile to being an aspiring writer, that whether you think I'm a good one or a bad one, whether you love, are neutral to, or can't stand poets, I am a poet. An aspiring one.

So "Poet Boy's" comment ......(I wanted to refer to him as Poet Man cause he is "da Man!" but he humbly requested Poet Boy, so Poet Boy it is) ......made me realize that an obvious point of my blogging would be to include poetry, even mine. Especially mine.

While perusing the internet last week, I stumbled upon this video on Poetryfoundation.com.  Check it out if you have 1:50 min's: Sarah and Heather

I guess it's just a little video-slice-of-most-people-aren't-into-poetry .....?  I'm not completely sure.  But ever since I happened to watch it last week, it keeps popping into my head at regular intervels.  One of those popping-into-head moments happened when Poet Boy asked me about poetry on my blog.

So I am very familiar with the immediate-glazed-over-eyes look whenever I mention poetry or whenever I mention writing it.  In all fairness, I treat people to that same immediate-glazed look whenever they mention an intricate football play (or just any football play), or anything that has the word "budget" in it.

But I've decided poetry is an important part of "finding my bliss" which is an important part of this blog.  So, ta-da!  I introduce you to Poetry Girl Sundays, in which I am Poetry Girl for the day, and I publish some kind of a poetry-themed post every (or most every) Sunday.  Fun!

Today, since I've taken up so much of your time already, I'm keeping it short and sweet.  If you read my post from Friday night called My Mom Suit, you would surely have detected sadness, wistfulness, & melancholy.  It was a post full of those things.  I wanted to wrap it up with a "But don't worry!  It will be fine!!"-type finale but this blog is not about shying away from feelings.  It's about staring them down--good & bad, happy & sad.  (See what I mean about being a poet?)

Anyway, I'm trying to adjust to changes in my life and Friday night I wasn't adjusting too well.  A big thank-you goes out to Cecilia (real name--hope you don't mind Cecilia!) for sending my a "strong heart" on Facebook yesterday because she read my post and 1) knew I felt bad and 2) said she could relate which helped more than she can imagine.

Yesterday, I bought a box of Celestial Seasonings Sleepytime Tea.  Another friend Don (real name too!) was recently raving ridiculously about it's amazing qualities so I thought I'd better get me some.  Right there on the box it says:

"Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each." -Henry David Thoreau

Now how about that?  Just the perfect seed to plant in my heart this weekend.  Don't you just love poetry?